Giant Rat movetype

[Velensk]

I've been looking at the giant rat and it's movetype felt a little too... human. I think that it would be more thematically fitting for giant rats to get either their own moveype or a different movetype and considering how weak they are already I don't think making them slightly more elusive/terrain-mobile will be too much of a problem. That said, I'm not sure which campaigns use them so it's hard for me to say if this'll make them require rebalancing (they are a relatively recent addition to core so I'd suspect not many). I have taken the liberty of writing up a proposed movetype for them though I have little problem with others tweaking it.

As a minor side note, they seemed rather weak for their cost. 13 gold for a level 0 with 15 hitpoints, 4 mp, a 2-4 attack, and smallfoot movetype with a lack of traits seems a bit much. They are not commonly recruitable but even if someone decides to add them to an enemy recruit list, they will either skew the gold amount that side requires or be considered useless by the AI. Even with my significantly stronger movetype I doubt they'd be cost efficient.

Code: Select all

    [movetype]
        name=rodentfoot
        [movement_costs]
            shallow_water=2
            reef=2
            swamp_water=2
            flat=1
            sand=2
            forest=1
            hills=2
            mountains=3
            village=1
            castle=1
            cave=1
            frozen=2
            fungus=2
        [/movement_costs]

        [defense]
            shallow_water=70
            reef=60
            swamp_water=50
            flat=50
            sand=60
            forest=40
            hills=40
            mountains=40
            village=50
            castle=50
            cave=40
            frozen=60
            fungus=40
        [/defense]

        [resistance]
            blade=100
            pierce=100
            impact=100
            fire=100
            cold=90       #I'm not sure how warranted this is, but I grew up in a rather cold area and the rats seemed to prosper there. I figure a bigger rat would do even better.
            arcane=80
        [/resistance]
    [/movetype]

[Deusite]

They're used in Descent into Darkness, during a cave scenario after

Spoiler:

Malin reaches lichhood.

[Velensk]

If that is the case then the fact that I have them 1 mp through caves might be a problem but I don't remember that level well enough to say for sure.

[hhyloc]

IMO, the changes in it's movetype won't affect the balance of the Descent into Darkness scenario since there're only three Giant Rats IIRC, and the Giant Rat too weak to withstand Mal Keshar's attacks even with it new 10% resistance against Cold.
But it's new defence is another story, the new 60% and 50% defence on cave and flat will make it more risky for Mal Keshar to attack given that Mal Keshar has only 1 HP at the start of the scenario, other defence stats seems ok to me.

[Alarantalara]

Actually, the defence values won't really affect the balance of the Descent into Darkness scenario at all. He has already been given a 100% chance to hit everything for the first 5 turns of the scenario, which is when the rats are present, so they could have perfect defence and still not affect the scenario balance.

[monochromatic]

Perhaps we also should reduce their cost to 6 gold or something..

[hhyloc]

Actually, the defence values won't really affect the balance of the Descent into Darkness scenario at all. He has already been given a 100% chance to hit everything for the first 5 turns of the scenario, which is when the rats are present, so they could have perfect defence and still not affect the scenario balance.

I dont know what are you saying at first, but after I checked the scenario cfg file I thick I get it now.
However, there is still 1 Giant Rat that Mal Keshar will encounter before going to his keep, by the time he reach that rat, the 5 turns of invulnerability has already over so the balance of the scenario will still be affected at any rates.
The third rat of the scenario is too far to the North that it's unlikely that Mal Keshar will see it.

[boru]

Last year there was some discussion in my UMC campaign thread regarding the giant rat movetype. http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 90#p455290

In Swamplings, there is a scenario with a giant rat battle. I retained most of the smallfoot movetype, with the following changes:

Code: Select all

    [movement_costs]
        shallow_water=2
        swamp_water=2
        forest=1
        cave=1
    [/movement_costs]
    [defense]
        swamp_water=50
        shallow_water=40
        cave=50
        village=30
        hills=60
        mountains=50
    [/defense]

The rats can also level up to a skirmishing unit

[SigurdFireDragon]

As a minor side note, they seemed rather weak for their cost. 13 gold for a level 0 with 15 hitpoints, 4 mp, a 2-4 attack, and smallfoot movetype with a lack of traits seems a bit much. They are not commonly recruitable but even if someone decides to add them to an enemy recruit list, they will either skew the gold amount that side requires or be considered useless by the AI. Even with my significantly stronger movetype I doubt they'd be cost efficient.

I agree with this. I would recommend 5g (without movetype enhancement) or 6g (with new movetype), based on how they compare to the other Level 0's in mainline.

Also, the Giant Rat has a usage=scout, which is a poor fit for a 4mp unit, and would hamper authors making a recruitment_pattern for a side using the Giant Rat with other units. usage=fighter makes the most sense.

As the Giant Rat stands right now, because of it's high cost and current usage, it's likely that UMC authors who want to make use of it for factions or campaigns won't be able to use it very effectively with other units, unless they made changes to it.

Thus, to make the Giant Rat better fit into the mainline unit list, I think it would be good to change the cost and usage, with one/a mix of the proposed movetypes.

[Lord-Knightmare]

As a minor side note, they seemed rather weak for their cost. 13 gold for a level 0 with 15 hitpoints, 4 mp, a 2-4 attack, and smallfoot movetype with a lack of traits seems a bit much. They are not commonly recruitable but even if someone decides to add them to an enemy recruit list, they will either skew the gold amount that side requires or be considered useless by the AI. Even with my significantly stronger movetype I doubt they'd be cost efficient.

I agree with this. I would recommend 5g (without movetype enhancement) or 6g (with new movetype), based on how they compare to the other Level 0's in mainline.

Also, the Giant Rat has a usage=scout, which is a poor fit for a 4mp unit, and would hamper authors making a recruitment_pattern for a side using the Giant Rat with other units. usage=fighter makes the most sense.

As the Giant Rat stands right now, because of it's high cost and current usage, it's likely that UMC authors who want to make use of it for factions or campaigns won't be able to use it very effectively with other units, unless they made changes to it.

Thus, to make the Giant Rat better fit into the mainline unit list, I think it would be good to change the cost and usage, with one/a mix of the proposed movetypes.

I like Velensk's movetype for the Giant Rat. Its cost should be about 6g to 7g. I agree with SigurdTheDragon's usage for the Giant rat. I also think the damage should be increased to 3-4 to make the unit cost-effective.

[zookeeper]

I think bumping the defense to 60% in forest and hills for example is a bit much and I'd rather keep their water movement at 3, but some/most of these changes should certainly be applied; I'll look into it.

[zookeeper]

Committed. Changed usage to fighter, dropped cost to 6g, didn't touch attacks. However, I took quite a few liberties with the movetype, here's what it looks like now:

Code: Select all

    [movetype]
        name=rodentfoot
        [movement_costs]
            shallow_water=3
            reef=2
            swamp_water=2
            flat=1
            sand=2
            forest=1
            hills=2
            mountains=3
            village=1
            castle=1
            cave=1
            frozen=2
            fungus=2
        [/movement_costs]

        [defense]
            shallow_water=80
            reef=70
            swamp_water=60
            flat=50
            sand=50
            forest=50
            hills=50
            mountains=40
            village=50
            castle=50
            cave=40
            frozen=50
            fungus=50
        [/defense]

        [resistance]
            blade=100
            pierce=100
            impact=100
            fire=100
            cold=90
            arcane=80
        [/resistance]
    [/movetype]

These don't have to be final, so feel free to discuss them further.

[Velensk]

I don't see whats wrong with the 60% defenses, particularly those in forests as I'd always imagined that one of their favored homes (though this may be due to association with the Princess Bride) but I'm not too inclined to get overly worked up one way or the other. They'll be pretty weak monsters either way (which is fine, that is a part of their purpose).