Ladder Council

Discussion of all aspects of multiplayer development: unit balancing, map development, server development, and so forth.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

User avatar
Horus2
Posts: 407
Joined: September 26th, 2010, 1:05 pm

Re: Ladder Council

Post by Horus2 »

Gnombat: Thank you for the calculation, looks like not all hope is lost yet. :mrgreen:

Velensk, ForPeace: There are many reasons why this can be considered a good knalga map. One of the great factors is how it caters toward 4 mp dwarves. P1 can fortify the solf villages (19,14 and 23,16) with dwarves in turn 3, and later making it nigh impenetrable with a third dwarf sitting on the forested hill. P2 can reach soft villages in a similar pace. While the defense line is less sturdy, they have a similar key importance forested hill to almost completely block traffic from the middle. P1 can also attack 9,20 village with a fresh recruit in 2 turns. Let us take a look how knalga rotates.
knalgacurrents.PNG
A characteristic trait of Ruphus Isle which i mention many times is the constant migration of units from the defense of the soft flank to the attack of the opponent's soft flank. Usually factions have to achieve this by moving in the cover, behind the impassable mountains. Obviously it is a detour that temporarily forces your units out of play and consumes their movement points. Meanwhile knalga has the option to cross safely via the shortest route. The image above shows the "dwarf currents". P1 upon the end of the opponents powerphase can use the red lines to move the dwarves from right to left. P2 takes advantage of the blue routes. Purple stops are mutually used. The middle purple dot with the hill, let us call it the the launch pad, is especially interesting. It allows P1 to migrate agressively and allows P2 to attack the soft flank directly.
The image could not take quick dwarves into account without getting inextricable. As a rule of thumb, P1 has somewhat better routes for 4 mp dwarves, but P2 offers a broad range of extra possiblitites for 5 mp dwarves.
User avatar
Horus2
Posts: 407
Joined: September 26th, 2010, 1:05 pm

Re: Ladder Council

Post by Horus2 »

Public Service Announcement

Big changes are coming to the Sandbox Map Picker. The most important is that the conservative pack will be replaced by a new pack, where maps are judged and included for their quality and balancedness, not because they are present since the prehistory of Wesnoth. Some old concepts aged badly for competitive use, and we want to get rid of those. Similarly, we will do a spring cleaning in the adventurous category. While the purpose of the adventurous pack would be to test the exciting new maps, it has been hindered by the poor, unmaintained maps that reside there since 5 years, unchanged.
The decision on what goes where is ultimately the task of the Ladder Council. But at the same time, i am curious about how would you rank the 1v1 maps. Maybe you can even persuade some of us when we are undecided on a rating. Thus, i publish the rules of the voting:
Read the rules carefully!:
Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
User avatar
ForPeace
Posts: 164
Joined: December 12th, 2015, 3:09 pm
Location: Kraków, Poland

Re: Ladder Council

Post by ForPeace »

These are my humble thoughts :) Hope you'll consider them :)
Spoiler:
Why is this list missing Grand Horde Mountain? :shock: I don't have much experience with this one, but as far as I know, there were a few things that made it truly unique, especially the uneven number of villages and 3 big fronts. What is the reason of this map not being in the list?
Polish BfW fansite | Polish BfW translation | My Ladder profile

"When I say I've been playing for 10 years people come saying they've played for 15 years and that I know nothing about this game because I didn't use to play when the TRUE pros were playing xD" ~Hejnewar
Dreadnough
Posts: 63
Joined: March 7th, 2010, 1:01 pm

Re: Ladder Council

Post by Dreadnough »

Here are my thoughts, please keep in mind that it is my personal opinion based on my experience.
If you have any questions for clarification, do not hestitate to ask me.
Spoiler:
User avatar
Krogen
Posts: 310
Joined: January 1st, 2013, 3:43 pm

Re: Ladder Council

Post by Krogen »

Since im a Ladder Council member and my votes actually counts, i think my responsibility is also bigger. So i decided i'll make them public.
Spoiler:
"A lion doesn't concern himself with the opinions of the sheep." - Tywin Lannister
User avatar
Elder2
Posts: 405
Joined: July 11th, 2015, 2:13 pm

Re: Ladder Council

Post by Elder2 »

Horus2 wrote:Public Service Announcement

Big changes are coming to the Sandbox Map Picker. The most important is that the conservative pack will be replaced by a new pack, where maps are judged and included for their quality and balancedness, not because they are present since the prehistory of Wesnoth. Some old concepts aged badly for competitive use, and we want to get rid of those. Similarly, we will do a spring cleaning in the adventurous category. While the purpose of the adventurous pack would be to test the exciting new maps, it has been hindered by the poor, unmaintained maps that reside there since 5 years, unchanged.
The decision on what goes where is ultimately the task of the Ladder Council. But at the same time, i am curious about how would you rank the 1v1 maps. Maybe you can even persuade some of us when we are undecided on a rating. Thus, i publish the rules of the voting:
Read the rules carefully!:
Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
So ultimately I decided I can give my opinion on that bunch of maps, I guess it can not be too hard.
Spoiler:
Btw am I the only one who read the rules? xD
User avatar
Ammazzalepri
Posts: 41
Joined: February 13th, 2010, 8:31 pm

Re: Ladder Council

Post by Ammazzalepri »

I'm not very able in judging about balance, but these are my feels
Spoiler:
User avatar
Horus2
Posts: 407
Joined: September 26th, 2010, 1:05 pm

Re: Ladder Council

Post by Horus2 »

ElderofZion wrote:Btw am I the only one who read the rules? xD
I see what you mean. You were more generous with the points than anyone else. Some harsh scores were given by others, and i am unsure if they would indeed refuse to play any ladder match on it, since 6 already stands for a "meh" ladder map and 5 is the "no thank you". For example Ammazzalepri above claimed that Arcanclave Citadel belongs to the Adventurous, and gave it a 5, which is already sub-adventurous quality. :hmm: Although i can confirm that Krogen was aware of the rules, because it was the two of us who founded them. ;)

As a conversation starter, this just makes the contrast more striking when you gave Rime Groto a 2. Looks like you are amongst the few who already has a clue about it; even i was Undecided. I wanted to get the creative control from Bonobo, but maybe there is no point of it. Can you elaborate how incredibly bad it is when compared to other bad maps, and do you think it can be fixed?
Dreadnough
Posts: 63
Joined: March 7th, 2010, 1:01 pm

Re: Ladder Council

Post by Dreadnough »

Hey,

actually I read the rules and did my votes accordingly.
To clarify this I will give an example:

If the Ladder Council decides that "Den of Onis" should be included in a map pack and I get the map by random, I do not see any right to refuse it. It is just bad luck on my part. I might politely ask for a regame but if refused, I will play.
But, if someone asks me to play a game on specifically this map, I will refuse and ask for another map.

And this counts for all the other maps with a vote < 6 as well.
So, yes, while it might occure that I play a game on those maps, I would rather not like to do so.
User avatar
Elder2
Posts: 405
Joined: July 11th, 2015, 2:13 pm

Re: Ladder Council

Post by Elder2 »

Horus2 wrote:
ElderofZion wrote:Btw am I the only one who read the rules? xD
I see what you mean. You were more generous with the points than anyone else. Some harsh scores were given by others, and i am unsure if they would indeed refuse to play any ladder match on it, since 6 already stands for a "meh" ladder map and 5 is the "no thank you". For example Ammazzalepri above claimed that Arcanclave Citadel belongs to the Adventurous, and gave it a 5, which is already sub-adventurous quality. :hmm: Although i can confirm that Krogen was aware of the rules, because it was the two of us who founded them. ;)

As a conversation starter, this just makes the contrast more striking when you gave Rime Groto a 2. Looks like you are amongst the few who already has a clue about it; even i was Undecided. I wanted to get the creative control from Bonobo, but maybe there is no point of it. Can you elaborate how incredibly bad it is when compared to other bad maps, and do you think it can be fixed?
Yeah, so in practice for most maps I had a range of possible score from 10 to 6, that limited the precission of my evaluation but i think its not too bad. Krogen eg rated Hamlets for 5/10 and I don't see anybody ever refuse to play on Hamlets, maybe Den of Onis sometimes (still I don't think many ppl would agree for that), but Hamlets? That is insane xD That is a bit confusing to me considering that you said that you found the rules in cooperation with him. Edit: Well, since he confirmed that now I know he was serious.

I am pretty sure Rime Grotto was the most annoying map I have ever played on, well, ok, maybe Cansuan was more annoying when I was certain factions, but it wasn't really annoying when I was some quick faction. I think 2/10 is pretty accurate, maybe 3/10 would be more fair though but I don't care, I hated the low income on that map and I remember the map design wasn't very pleasant either, basically on that map villages meant almost nothing. Overall I haven't played that many matches on it but the ones I did were usually terrible, maybe except that one match I played drakes vs Khalifate vs CP I think, still I remember it to be pretty bad. How can it be fixed? Well for starters I would like to try it with standard gold per village.
User avatar
Ammazzalepri
Posts: 41
Joined: February 13th, 2010, 8:31 pm

Re: Ladder Council

Post by Ammazzalepri »

Horus2 wrote:
ElderofZion wrote:Btw am I the only one who read the rules? xD
I see what you mean. You were more generous with the points than anyone else. Some harsh scores were given by others, and i am unsure if they would indeed refuse to play any ladder match on it, since 6 already stands for a "meh" ladder map and 5 is the "no thank you". For example Ammazzalepri above claimed that Arcanclave Citadel belongs to the Adventurous, and gave it a 5, which is already sub-adventurous quality.
I thought 6-10 was for okay let's play, and the rest okay put this in the museum pack or in the adventurous one or in the thrash can. I explicited my unnsufficient votes for which I think should be the destination of the map: aethermaw museum or something similar, fallenstar a "classics" mappapck, hamlets too, and aranclave in adventurous for more experimentations.
I was sure the pourpose of the survey was to find what players like to play in a "perfect" map pack, considering the balancing and the enjoy, so my votes were in that direction.

If the survey was just about the balancing I misunderstood; so in my opinion the only unplayable map is aethermaw here^^
User avatar
Krogen
Posts: 310
Joined: January 1st, 2013, 3:43 pm

Re: Ladder Council

Post by Krogen »

Tbh, i don't want to give a higher score to a map just because it's old or nobody ever refused to play on it. Same goes for new maps, just because they are new, im not going to say it's not good for the pack if i think the opposite. I was asked to be a member of the Council, trust was placed in me, and i feel i would betray that, if i vote otherwise. :) My view on the maps changed a lot recently, so that explains the radical scores. TImes change, the maps should too.
Btw, i think "i don't like it" is an acceptable argument against a map from Ladder players, but not from players who are Council members. Members should judge if it's balanced or not. For example "i don't like" Tombs, but still gave it a high score.
"A lion doesn't concern himself with the opinions of the sheep." - Tywin Lannister
User avatar
Horus2
Posts: 407
Joined: September 26th, 2010, 1:05 pm

Re: Ladder Council

Post by Horus2 »

Ammazzalepri wrote:I thought 6-10 was for okay let's play, and the rest okay put this in the museum pack or in the adventurous one or in the thrash can. I explicited my unnsufficient votes for which I think should be the destination of the map: aethermaw museum or something similar, fallenstar a "classics" mappapck, hamlets too, and aranclave in adventurous for more experimentations.
I was sure the pourpose of the survey was to find what players like to play in a "perfect" map pack, considering the balancing and the enjoy, so my votes were in that direction.

If the survey was just about the balancing I misunderstood; so in my opinion the only unplayable map is aethermaw here^^
Thank you for putting in the extra effort to revisit your vote. :)
Decisions by council members are strictly based on the balance factor. I did not defined it explicitly for the public, because i both expected and wanted them to be emotional about their rating.
ElderofZion wrote:I am pretty sure Rime Grotto was the most annoying map I have ever played on, well, ok, maybe Cansuan was more annoying when I was certain factions, but it wasn't really annoying when I was some quick faction. I think 2/10 is pretty accurate, maybe 3/10 would be more fair though but I don't care, I hated the low income on that map and I remember the map design wasn't very pleasant either, basically on that map villages meant almost nothing. Overall I haven't played that many matches on it but the ones I did were usually terrible, maybe except that one match I played drakes vs Khalifate vs CP I think, still I remember it to be pretty bad. How can it be fixed? Well for starters I would like to try it with standard gold per village.
Makes sense. Never understood why is he so fond of that mechanic. Even when he gave me the permission for maintenance, he asked to keep it at all costs... If this gimmick is only present to make it more special, then i think it has been slapped on the wrong map. :hmm:
User avatar
Elder2
Posts: 405
Joined: July 11th, 2015, 2:13 pm

Re: Ladder Council

Post by Elder2 »

Horus2 wrote:
Ammazzalepri wrote:I thought 6-10 was for okay let's play, and the rest okay put this in the museum pack or in the adventurous one or in the thrash can. I explicited my unnsufficient votes for which I think should be the destination of the map: aethermaw museum or something similar, fallenstar a "classics" mappapck, hamlets too, and aranclave in adventurous for more experimentations.
I was sure the pourpose of the survey was to find what players like to play in a "perfect" map pack, considering the balancing and the enjoy, so my votes were in that direction.

If the survey was just about the balancing I misunderstood; so in my opinion the only unplayable map is aethermaw here^^
Thank you for putting in the extra effort to revisit your vote. :)
Decisions by council members are strictly based on the balance factor. I did not defined it explicitly for the public, because i both expected and wanted them to be emotional about their rating.
ElderofZion wrote:I am pretty sure Rime Grotto was the most annoying map I have ever played on, well, ok, maybe Cansuan was more annoying when I was certain factions, but it wasn't really annoying when I was some quick faction. I think 2/10 is pretty accurate, maybe 3/10 would be more fair though but I don't care, I hated the low income on that map and I remember the map design wasn't very pleasant either, basically on that map villages meant almost nothing. Overall I haven't played that many matches on it but the ones I did were usually terrible, maybe except that one match I played drakes vs Khalifate vs CP I think, still I remember it to be pretty bad. How can it be fixed? Well for starters I would like to try it with standard gold per village.
Makes sense. Never understood why is he so fond of that mechanic. Even when he gave me the permission for maintenance, he asked to keep it at all costs... If this gimmick is only present to make it more special, then i think it has been slapped on the wrong map. :hmm:
Hm then maybe if you have to keep it then you could try to change the map in some other way, a rather simple way to increase income would be adding more villages but i dont think that would really help since the villages would stay as valueless as before. Maybe you could try increasing or decreasing the amount of starting gold? Maybe try to increasee it, though I really don't know if it would help I am not even sure what exact effect it would have besides larger armies xD To me it seems that decreasing the starting gold would be worse than increasing it but really idk, i am really not sure what arcane effects the changes in starting gold would have on such a weird map with 1g village income, this map defies the laws of Wesnoth since every other pvp multiplayer map has 2g income, its like the event horizon of Wesnoth.

But its just an idea I have thrown, honestly I don't think any changes would be able to fix the village gold problem, i think the 2g 1 village upkeep are essential parts of wesnoth pvp mechanics since changes even by 1 gold have HUGE effects not only on your economy but even more importantly on the value of villages, this changes gameplay drastically, i think if i was to play serious on this map i would try to camp or something and wait till my enemy makes a mistake since units are so valuable and the villages are not, and I think attacking can be a huge risk on such a low income map, the defending side would probably be able to force the engangement and the additional income from villages wouldnt be enough to compensate for the loses you would take fighting, because if the defender manages to force the engangement on favorable terms after some turns of your initial bonus you will start taking massive casualties when the defender starts getting his lawful or chaotic bonus. And if you cant get a good engangement the first time you give up village i guess you can just wait for the next time the opponent attacks since you lose so little giving up villages.
Alternatively if you despise the back and forth gameplay and you just try to always avoid it at all cost by eg rushing hard here is a surprise for you, not only I think the rush is slow on this map because of the poor movement but also you can't trade units for villages even close to efficiently like it is possible on normal maps with orc or even hodor since there is just 1 gold per village here.

Besides I also think the map had some terrain issues and such, I think the snow really made the movement awkward or something.
User avatar
Mint
Posts: 159
Joined: January 22nd, 2011, 9:29 am
Location: Location Location Location

Re: Ladder Council

Post by Mint »

So basically, Rime Grotto started as a revival of Blacksmoke Crater, and is still very much incomplete. The process I was following was basically to chuck stuff in that was somewhat unique to the map. If it worked, it was kept and if not, it was dropped. That's how the ice and controversial village income came about.
I personally would like to see the village income thing work but that would take a lot of effort to get it balanced. If it does get dropped as an idea by whoever maintains it then so be it, but I would like it to stay.

The starting gold is currently set to 90 (or at least, it's meant to be) using some wml as I felt 75g was too little and 100g was too much, but again this isn't really very tested.
Post Reply