Agility- and Mass-Factor

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Krolan
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Joined: November 23rd, 2014, 7:12 pm

Agility- and Mass-Factor

Post by Krolan »

Again, because it will never be done or if it will, then certainly not by me, here's another Idea I've been having that might interest... ummm.. somebody, but I'll post in off-topic.

You know what always annoyed me? My Archer shooting at a BIG FRIGGIN Ogre and missing over and over, just because the Ogre happens to be on a Mountain tile. Well if the friggin Ogre is able to melee attack me, then he certainly shouldn't be a hard to hit target, ESPECIALLY to the more advanced elven archers (not counting sharpshooter here, which has its own share of issues).

I never understood why my probability to hit only factors in the terrain my enemy is standing on and his own base defense-percentage on that tile. What about being keen-eyed? (ok, so sharpshooters have something similar, but again, later). What about Day/Night effect for Night-affine and Day-affine unit individually? What about the simple fact that if my (trained friggin) bowman cannot hit an ogre standing DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF HIM I should certainly fire him, especially because the probability to hit for a MASTER BOWMEN is the same as for a peasant clumsily throwing his pitchfork at the same target. But this post is not about the effects which should be taken into account for the attackers own skills and traits. This is about the Mass and the Agility of any given creature.

So imagine, if you will, that the best Terrain Factor for the attacker is the worst for the defender. I will call it T-Factor. In the following examples a T-Factor of 1,00 is a bad thing, it means that based only on that, the attacker has a 100% chance to hit. I will also define the A-Factor for Agility and the M-Factor for Mass. With those 1,00 is also the worst possible, it means that, individually, an attack based on those will also have a 100% hit rate. Because I like extreme examples, here's your picture for this kind of Situation.

You got an Ogre floating in Outer Space, no defense, no terrain, no nothing (T-Factor = 1,00)
This ogre is so insanely gigantic and fat that he actually developed a gravitational field, pulling everything, including arrows, towards him (M-Factor = 1,00)
The ogre is also sound asleep and not even attempting to move, despite the fact that moving in outer space is difficult in itself (A-Factor = 1,00)

Lets calculate. The calculation goes: ( ( T + M + A )/3 )*100 - In this Example: ( ( 1,00 + 1,00 + 1,00)/3 )*100 = 100% probability to hit. Thats the worst example and as such deals the worst result. Or Best.... depends on angle.

The Counter-Example would be a fly in a tight thorny forest (T=0) equipped with the silver-mages teleport spell (A=0) after drinking a shrink potion (M=0). You won't hit it. 0%. And yes, i think abilities like being able to teleport should be taken into account for silver mages, if only when they are attacked in a city.

So yeah, I propose that these stats are implemented for every single unit. This reduces feelings of unfair illogic and resulting frustration as well as it increases immersion. Following are a few pointers:

1.) Don't assume that this is already implemented. Yes, a Lizard is insanely hard to hit for its agility, I guess, but a Lizard will, on some tiles, be as helpless as anyone else, so it is a fixed Terrain-effect, which just went a little specific for some kinds of units.

2.) Please also don't assume that you could argue that "Trolls have hard skins, thats why your allow simly glanced off". Nope. The fact that Trolls are thickskinned is already implemented through their incresed resistance against physical weapons, their massive lifepoints and their ability to regenerate. None of this has anything to do with probability to hit. Here there is also only Terrain-Factor.

3.) I don't take Issue with the Terrain Factor in itself. It could stay the way it is while Agility and Mass-Factor are included (see calculation above).

So what would I do? Ok, I would assume that an average Human has a Mass Factor of 0,5 and an Agility Factor of 0,6. Shocktroopers would have a Mass Factor of 0,65 and Agility Factor of 0,8. It basically means that whereever the unit is, the circumstances of the being itself are taken into account.

So if a Mage (70% chance to hit on account of Terrain, because Magic-dont-care) attacks the giant fat ogre sleeping on a Mountain-tile he would have ((0,7+1+1)/3)*100 = 90% Chance to hit. If he attacks an average human he got ((0,7+0,5+0,6)/3)*100 = 60% chance of hitting. If he attacks a Shock-trooper he has ((0,7+0,65+0,8)/3)*100 = 72% Chance to hit. And so on.

This calculus would work with anything. Lizards would get 0,4 A-Factor and 0,4 Mass Factor (aint sooo small), and further reduce the mages chances of hit (and all others) but would also better the chances slightly, if the lizard is in swampy terrain (because T-Factor 0,3 + A-Factor 0,4 + M-Facotor 0,4 /3 = 36% Chance to hit instead of 30%). Ghosts on the other hand would have sucky agility but beneficial mass. Something like 0,75 A-Factor, 0,2 M-Factor (dont forget that higher factors mean worse evade, lower factors mean better evade) Ghosts usually have always the same terrain bonus, so this would be mostly a nobrainer.

I hope the concept is clear here. I could list a ton of examples, but I'm interested in everybody elses thoughts on this, if it catches any interest at all.

Other than that: Greetings :)
Krolan

EDIT:
Lets abuse the edit feature to note further Ideas:
1.) The Stun-ability which some units have could get an adittional function, mainly that of increasing the A-Factor to 1,00 giving purpose to its name.
2.) Poisen could increase the A-Factor by some amount.
3.) The tentacle-monster (yes, I'm calling it that) could redurce its mass-factor for every "Arm" it looses, an "Arm" being it loosing one of it swarm-attacks. It should start out with quite a mass though and probably shouldn't fall under 0,6 (for its hugeness)
4.) Flying Monsters should have an A-Factor which increases as they're damaged.
I do GPE(Genuine Playing Experience), Screenshot-reinforced and detailed Bug-Reports for Campaigns. If you want me to check yours, be it Pre-Alpha, Alpha, Beta or finished, let me know. Since I don't know anything about coding, I'll be unable to tell you why something bad happens though. PM me.
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Midnight_Carnival
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Re: Agility- and Mass-Factor

Post by Midnight_Carnival »

:cry: :augh:
No, stop it, go away.
:mrgreen:
...apparenly we can't go with it or something.
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Yomar
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Re: Agility- and Mass-Factor

Post by Yomar »

I find the idea intriguing, but i find it a bit difficult to implement, but then again I'm not a WML expert.
I have also some doubts, for example, lizards would be hard to hit even for mages ? I find them already difficult to stop, cause the 60% def on most terrains and the skirmish ability, if even mages will not be efficientely able to hit them, how do you counter them ?
Last edited by Yomar on October 9th, 2015, 1:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Krolan
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Joined: November 23rd, 2014, 7:12 pm

Re: Agility- and Mass-Factor

Post by Krolan »

Yomar wrote:I find the idea intriguing, but i find it a bit difficult to implement, but then again I'm not a WML expert.
I have also some doubts, for example, lizard would be hard to hit even for mages ? I find them already difficult to stop, cause the 60% def on most terrains and the skirmish ability, if even mages will not be efficientely able to hit them, how do you counter them ?
Mh. Good point right there. I guess my Will to "not break the balance/logic" isn't doing any goody here. Though I must say, they are generally difficult to counter if you play a faction with no mages. Their main Weakness was alwasy their rather fragile Lifepoints. If I remember correctly (need to check) they were Vulnerable to smash-weapons.

I guess I have to come up with something else for it to make sense. Maybe I need to factor in "traits and abilitys", which I plan to figure out something for. Here I basically tried to let the attacked unit itself have an impact depending on its general appearance and such.

Now it gets insane, but I could imagine a thunder-spell having the additional effect, that cast on water the Mass and Agility Factor are cancelled out (1,0 and 1,0) making the mage in this scenario even more likely to hit. On Wet Terrain it should have a similar effect, just not as strong (maybe 0,8 and 0,8). Mages with Thunderspells seem to be rare in this game, that shouldn't be hard to change though. Same could be done with fire-mages attacking forest-tiles and any "earth-based" magic if attacking a mountain (imagine Earthquake).

The paradigms for this are unclear still, I need to think about that. Thanks for the Input =)
I do GPE(Genuine Playing Experience), Screenshot-reinforced and detailed Bug-Reports for Campaigns. If you want me to check yours, be it Pre-Alpha, Alpha, Beta or finished, let me know. Since I don't know anything about coding, I'll be unable to tell you why something bad happens though. PM me.
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Yomar
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Re: Agility- and Mass-Factor

Post by Yomar »

Ok, just to be more exact, yes saurians are weak to smash attacks, its called impact to be precise, they are also weak to blade, fire, cold and arcane.
I said mages, because every faction as a counter for them, Elves have many blade attack units, wooses that are resitent to cold and pierce, Undeads are resistant to cold and pierce (saurians attacks), and they have adepts with magic cold attacks, Orcks have blades, trolls with impact and assasins that can poion them, Drakes, well they have fire. Loyals have mages, horses, Hi and Fencers (but on day cause their weakness to pierce or cold), Dwarves are resistant to almost everything, have impact, griffins with blade attack, and cheap footpats (chaotic like saurians) with impact attack and high def to counter.
I think that It would be a bit difficult to keep this ballance by adding your system.

As for Thunderspells, they are not different from fire attacks, because they are actually based on fire dammage, so you would need to create a new attack mode based on electricity for example, anyway the best way is to create a add-on mod and put in all the needed features.

I like your idea, but to be honest, I don't have the ability to realize it, I created some simple add-ons, but nothing of so complicated (at least for my actual cababilities).
Anyway as a said the idea is nice.
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