Idea: War of the Ancients
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Idea: War of the Ancients
Wesnoth was originally designed to be a single player game. Its combat system and units were designed with single player campaigns in mind.
This is reflected in the design of many units and their abilities: abilities useful for humans were given to the 'good' guys (Elves, some humans), and abilities the AI could wield easily were given to the 'bad' guys (undead, orcs, some humans).
Moreover, the grouping of units, having lots of units of similiar ability on one side -- such as Elves, Orcs, etc, works well when scenario designers have strict control over the maps and the order in which they appear. It doesn't work so well in multiplayer, where a map may grossly favor one side or the other.
More and more, players have asked for factions to be 'pure'. To have an all-Elvish faction, an all-Dwarvish faction, and so forth. IMHO, moves toward this kill the fun of multiplayer. It makes multiplayer all about who is fighting in more favorable terrain. If you are Elves, and you get a map with lots of forest, you have a huge advantage. If there is little forest, you are at a huge disadvantage.
We can fix this problem to some degree by mixing races into factions, at the chagrin of many players. However I think it is difficult to fix the problem completely with the current set of units. One faction is still going to have a monopoly on Elves, and thus a huge advantage in forest. Another a monopoly on Orcs and a huge advantage on mountains. And so on, and so forth.
Wesnoth is still fun in multiplayer. But I think it could be more fun. Perhaps even alot more fun.
How do we achieve this? My idea is to step back a little. To make a 'mod' of Wesnoth that is specifically designed for multiplayer. That has factions that are much more diverse, and make multiplayer much more interesting.
As I have said many times, Wesnoth borrows many ideas from a Genesis game called Master of Monsters. MoM had, imo, more enjoyable multiplayer than Wesnoth due to its increased factional variety. Each player controlled a 'master' who could summon forth monsters. You could choose your master, and each master could summon different monsters -- a diverse set of monsters; not just a selection of monsters that were all good in the same terrain.
I propose we make a mod of Wesnoth that is like this. It could be called 'War of the Ancients', and chronicle an ancient war in Wesnoth, before it was largely inhabited, between powerful wizards who created monsters to fight for them.
It would allow our skilled artists who want to draw new units a place to contribute in a new and fresh area, and refine their skills.
It could be developed as a seperate mod, and so wouldn't have to affect Wesnoth's versions and so forth. It could also re-use some of Wesnoth's existing units. For instance, an 'Elf' in this mod would be like an 'Elvish Archer' in the main version. But of course, most of its units would be new monsters we would create.
If anyone is interested in the units and game rules of Master of Monsters, there is an excellent reference here: https://wolff.to/bruno/mom.html
What do people think of this idea? I'm looking in particular for people who play lots of multiplayer to give feedback.
Would anyone be interested in doing work on this? Doing art? Coming up with lists of units and statistics? Playtesting? Co-ordinating the effort?
Everyone remember this is very much just an idea, far from any kind of commitment to do anything
David
This is reflected in the design of many units and their abilities: abilities useful for humans were given to the 'good' guys (Elves, some humans), and abilities the AI could wield easily were given to the 'bad' guys (undead, orcs, some humans).
Moreover, the grouping of units, having lots of units of similiar ability on one side -- such as Elves, Orcs, etc, works well when scenario designers have strict control over the maps and the order in which they appear. It doesn't work so well in multiplayer, where a map may grossly favor one side or the other.
More and more, players have asked for factions to be 'pure'. To have an all-Elvish faction, an all-Dwarvish faction, and so forth. IMHO, moves toward this kill the fun of multiplayer. It makes multiplayer all about who is fighting in more favorable terrain. If you are Elves, and you get a map with lots of forest, you have a huge advantage. If there is little forest, you are at a huge disadvantage.
We can fix this problem to some degree by mixing races into factions, at the chagrin of many players. However I think it is difficult to fix the problem completely with the current set of units. One faction is still going to have a monopoly on Elves, and thus a huge advantage in forest. Another a monopoly on Orcs and a huge advantage on mountains. And so on, and so forth.
Wesnoth is still fun in multiplayer. But I think it could be more fun. Perhaps even alot more fun.
How do we achieve this? My idea is to step back a little. To make a 'mod' of Wesnoth that is specifically designed for multiplayer. That has factions that are much more diverse, and make multiplayer much more interesting.
As I have said many times, Wesnoth borrows many ideas from a Genesis game called Master of Monsters. MoM had, imo, more enjoyable multiplayer than Wesnoth due to its increased factional variety. Each player controlled a 'master' who could summon forth monsters. You could choose your master, and each master could summon different monsters -- a diverse set of monsters; not just a selection of monsters that were all good in the same terrain.
I propose we make a mod of Wesnoth that is like this. It could be called 'War of the Ancients', and chronicle an ancient war in Wesnoth, before it was largely inhabited, between powerful wizards who created monsters to fight for them.
It would allow our skilled artists who want to draw new units a place to contribute in a new and fresh area, and refine their skills.
It could be developed as a seperate mod, and so wouldn't have to affect Wesnoth's versions and so forth. It could also re-use some of Wesnoth's existing units. For instance, an 'Elf' in this mod would be like an 'Elvish Archer' in the main version. But of course, most of its units would be new monsters we would create.
If anyone is interested in the units and game rules of Master of Monsters, there is an excellent reference here: https://wolff.to/bruno/mom.html
What do people think of this idea? I'm looking in particular for people who play lots of multiplayer to give feedback.
Would anyone be interested in doing work on this? Doing art? Coming up with lists of units and statistics? Playtesting? Co-ordinating the effort?
Everyone remember this is very much just an idea, far from any kind of commitment to do anything
David
“At Gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.” -- Ian Fleming
IMHO this would make multiplayer more boring. having factions all the same has been one of the things avoided as much as possible so far... and it seems like exactly what this would do.
For I am Turin Turambar - Master of Doom, by doom mastered. On permanent Wesbreak. Will not respond to private messages. Sorry!
And I hate stupid people.
The World of Orbivm
And I hate stupid people.
The World of Orbivm
It is an interesting idea but I think factions that are balanced yet different would be better, even if they have some disadvantages on certain maps. Wesnoth multiplayer is already quite good! Currently I feel Elves, Loyalists, and Orcs can compete very well on balanced maps(read: maps with balanced and various terrain) versus any faction. Undead seem to have a very hard time vs Drakes, and Knalgans can have some problems on water/swamp maps. I am by no means a multiplayer expert but those are my observations. A few things that I'm afraid would happen with such an effort would be...
1) It would end up just like playing the same faction vs the same faction in Wesnoth now. I am sure there will be very different tactics and strategy but if you are given the same type units as your competitor it immediately seems more likely variation would be less. In Wesnoth now you are forced to have variety as long as you have different factions. I think there is a reason RTS and many TBS use faction systems. Just think how boring and different Warcraft 3, Starcraft or Heroes of Might and Magic would be if you weren't limited in regards to your unit choices.
2) If it's a mod and not included in the official release it's likely going to take a lot of work and have to be very well done to build up a multiplayer following. The most popular multiplayer games need a single player component to build a player base. Many very well done FPS mods never achieve a following because they are only multiplayer.
I like that Dwarves are good on mountains, Elves in forest, etc. That is why when I make multiplayer maps I use various terrain. If I make a clump of forest I make sure I also have a clump of mountain somewhere as those seem to be the most important two terrains. Ideally it should be possible to make a balanced map for all factions if you don't go over board on one terrain or another. I think such maps are the best because every faction has a good chance as long as they use good tactics which can be hard versus a human opponent. You have to choose your place of fighting wisely. This is part of the reason why I think Blitz is so popular among multiplayer players because it is well balanced. In many factional matchups either has a competitive chance at winning.
1) It would end up just like playing the same faction vs the same faction in Wesnoth now. I am sure there will be very different tactics and strategy but if you are given the same type units as your competitor it immediately seems more likely variation would be less. In Wesnoth now you are forced to have variety as long as you have different factions. I think there is a reason RTS and many TBS use faction systems. Just think how boring and different Warcraft 3, Starcraft or Heroes of Might and Magic would be if you weren't limited in regards to your unit choices.
2) If it's a mod and not included in the official release it's likely going to take a lot of work and have to be very well done to build up a multiplayer following. The most popular multiplayer games need a single player component to build a player base. Many very well done FPS mods never achieve a following because they are only multiplayer.
I like that Dwarves are good on mountains, Elves in forest, etc. That is why when I make multiplayer maps I use various terrain. If I make a clump of forest I make sure I also have a clump of mountain somewhere as those seem to be the most important two terrains. Ideally it should be possible to make a balanced map for all factions if you don't go over board on one terrain or another. I think such maps are the best because every faction has a good chance as long as they use good tactics which can be hard versus a human opponent. You have to choose your place of fighting wisely. This is part of the reason why I think Blitz is so popular among multiplayer players because it is well balanced. In many factional matchups either has a competitive chance at winning.
Sure it would be balanced. If you want a perfectly balanced game now play as the same faction as your opponents on a perfectly symmetrical map. Perfectly balanced.Roel wrote:Make a multiplayer mode where you can recruit units from all races, you just pick if your leader is human, orc or whatever and you can recruit dragons, skelletons, elves and all others in you army.
It doesn't get anymore balanced than that
I like variety even at the expense of imperfect balance.That's not true. For example:pg wrote:If you want a perfectly balanced game now play as the same faction as your opponents on a perfectly symmetrical map. Perfectly balanced.
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all maps have this problem. it is just accentuated in that map.pg wrote:I think those maps are a little bit extreme. Don't you?Dacyn wrote:That's not true. For example:
For I am Turin Turambar - Master of Doom, by doom mastered. On permanent Wesbreak. Will not respond to private messages. Sorry!
And I hate stupid people.
The World of Orbivm
And I hate stupid people.
The World of Orbivm
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Blackbeard
- Posts: 87
- Joined: January 23rd, 2004, 9:30 pm
Terrain and movement tables are related to maps. In Single Player, campaigns are hand-crafted to maintain this balance. To achieve the same effect in auto-gen maps, changing one imples changing the others. In other words, make the terrain mods relative to maps in Multiplayer.David wrote: More and more, players have asked for factions to be 'pure'. To have an all-Elvish faction, an all-Dwarvish faction, and so forth. IMHO, moves toward this kill the fun of multiplayer. It makes multiplayer all about who is fighting in more favorable terrain. If you are Elves, and you get a map with lots of forest, you have a huge advantage. If there is little forest, you are at a huge disadvantage.
Basically this means generating and/or modifying the tables according to the map. Although not mentioned, it is possible to modify movement tables for 'fast' and 'slow' maps, too.
There are many automatic and manual ways to do this, but perhaps an important question is whether multiplayers prefer certain units/factions to always favour certain terrain types, or adjust themselves to the current map. Dave's example is a typical case. If this is not a problem, then modifying terrain tables can proceed and pure factions will play well on any map.
I am not suggesting that all units have the same terrain mods (although possible), but that they are adjusted to minimise the 'map favours one faction' effect.
The 'War of the Ancients' can check how practical it is?
Diversity in multiplayer? mmm days ago I proposed this -> http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3368
It gives lot of diversity as you customize your army. It could be implemented as a mod because dave said it will not be implemented in oficial release. Also, new units can be specially added to this type of game proposed.
It gives lot of diversity as you customize your army. It could be implemented as a mod because dave said it will not be implemented in oficial release. Also, new units can be specially added to this type of game proposed.
- yes this mod could simply be a new era.
- it wouldn't require any modification of the engine.
Wrt discussion about variety: firstly I don't think that variety between factions is actually that necessary to make multiplayer fun. There are things far more important than factions having variety from each other. IMHO you could make a multiplayer mode that was more fun than the current one, with only one faction to choose from.
Many strategy games have had little or no variety games between sides and I have still found lots of fun: Civilization, Warrior of Rome II, Herzog Zwei, and....Chess. Warcraft II was pretty close to being like this.
However there would still be plenty of variety between sides, just as their was in master of monsters. For instance, in MoM, every side could recruit one of the two types of scouts: roc and pegasus. Rocs could move 10, pegasi just 7. This gave sides that could recruit rocs a substantial, but not overwhelming, advantage in the scouting department.
One master, the Wizard, could recruit pegasi, but was also the only master who could recruit gryphons. Gryphons could fly 6 hexes, but were substantially more powerful than either pegasi or rocs in combat. This made them an interesting side to play, because they had units which could out-maneuver fighting units, and hit hard, but still weren't as fast as scouts.
Also, there still were terrain differences, they just weren't as obvious as the Wesnothian 'we have Rebels, we're going to rule in forest!!'. The differences were far more subtle, and this subtlety made it interesting.
Interestingly, looking at Master of Monsters again, its two campaigns had just eight scenarios each. It takes more experience to advance in Wesnoth, so we could probably have stretched it to a dozen, but the 20+ scenario campaigns are very long. These were based more off Warsong, which had a single 24-scenario campaign. But, Warsong had a totally different experience system which could handle it much better. Anyhow, I digress.
Personally, I don't think that Wesnoth multiplayer has that much longevity at the moment. Lots of people seem to like it, but personally I think there is far too little variety in sides.
David
- it wouldn't require any modification of the engine.
Wrt discussion about variety: firstly I don't think that variety between factions is actually that necessary to make multiplayer fun. There are things far more important than factions having variety from each other. IMHO you could make a multiplayer mode that was more fun than the current one, with only one faction to choose from.
Many strategy games have had little or no variety games between sides and I have still found lots of fun: Civilization, Warrior of Rome II, Herzog Zwei, and....Chess. Warcraft II was pretty close to being like this.
However there would still be plenty of variety between sides, just as their was in master of monsters. For instance, in MoM, every side could recruit one of the two types of scouts: roc and pegasus. Rocs could move 10, pegasi just 7. This gave sides that could recruit rocs a substantial, but not overwhelming, advantage in the scouting department.
One master, the Wizard, could recruit pegasi, but was also the only master who could recruit gryphons. Gryphons could fly 6 hexes, but were substantially more powerful than either pegasi or rocs in combat. This made them an interesting side to play, because they had units which could out-maneuver fighting units, and hit hard, but still weren't as fast as scouts.
Also, there still were terrain differences, they just weren't as obvious as the Wesnothian 'we have Rebels, we're going to rule in forest!!'. The differences were far more subtle, and this subtlety made it interesting.
Interestingly, looking at Master of Monsters again, its two campaigns had just eight scenarios each. It takes more experience to advance in Wesnoth, so we could probably have stretched it to a dozen, but the 20+ scenario campaigns are very long. These were based more off Warsong, which had a single 24-scenario campaign. But, Warsong had a totally different experience system which could handle it much better. Anyhow, I digress.
Personally, I don't think that Wesnoth multiplayer has that much longevity at the moment. Lots of people seem to like it, but personally I think there is far too little variety in sides.
David
“At Gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.” -- Ian Fleming
This statement fits my idea of having any type of scout unit in wesnoth starting at 17 gold so you can't do a scout flood -> http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... highlight=Dave wrote:However there would still be plenty of variety between sides, just as their was in master of monsters. For instance, in MoM, every side could recruit one of the two types of scouts: roc and pegasus. Rocs could move 10, pegasi just 7. This gave sides that could recruit rocs a substantial, but not overwhelming, advantage in the scouting department.
In the other hand, i've understood that your idea is the creation of multiplayer only factions, isn't it?. I agree with it
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Blackbeard
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