What to do about level 3 units

[Dave]

In Master of Monsters, after max-level, units would get better with experience. They did so rather more dramatically than most people have proposed here, as well.

I think that the net effect was that it made the game more fun....

David

[Dacyn]

2. 2nd level units with no further advancement (and 1st level such ones, I think there should be more of them) are more appealing with AMLA, so they will be used more often.

that makes no sense; it is not an advantage that 2nd lvl units will gain over 3rd lvls. It affects them both the same, so why would it encourage using one over the other?

[Bandobras]

2. 2nd level units with no further advancement (and 1st level such ones, I think there should be more of them) are more appealing with AMLA, so they will be used more often.

that makes no sense; it is not an advantage that 2nd lvl units will gain over 3rd lvls. It affects them both the same, so why would it encourage using one over the other?

Marketing speak usually makes no sense, so...

But seriously, I remeber how I was considering using Lancers on some early scenario of a long campaign. I thought they are interesting, but they hit strong and if they survive they usually kill a unit, and this XP is wasted. Since this was an early scenario, I needed to level units a lot, so this implied I have to choose Knights over Lancers, because Knights have some more experience gaining potential. The poll showed that some people shared the same sentiment about Lancers (though not as many people, as I expected). Concluding, ALMA is a better boon for max-level-2 units, than for the normal units, especially at the beggining of a campaign, when you cannot afford to loose experience (and when few of your units are level 3). Even if ALMA is weak, this works psychologically.

[Dacyn]

ALMA is a better boon for max-level-2 units, than for the normal units

I see what you mean now... but I don't think it has much to do with encouraging using lower-level units, which is what you were talking about.

[Togakure]

I think (maybe its a radical change) the levels must be parallel to the "unit type"...

I mean, when a mage reach the needed xp to advance, you choose to transform him in a red mage, a white mage, or a 2nd lvl mage... weird? an additional level can be just a bonus on damage, defenses and hp, while a new unit type grant new skills and attack types.

So, for example, a mage during a very long campaign:

1. reach first time the needed xp: you choose to get a 2nd lvl mage...

2. the 2nd lvl mage reach the needed xp again, you choose to transform him in a red mage; he's now a 2nd level redmage (if you had chosen this the first time, he was transformed in a 1st lvl red mage that time).

3. the 2nd lvl red mage reach the needed xp again; you choose to get a level and he is now a 3rd lvl red mage.

4. the 3rd lvl red mage reach again the needed xp. Your only choice now its to transform him in a 3rd lvl archmage or a 3rd lvl silver mage.

this way, units have 5 levels to advance. i hope you understand me (my english really suck). And you still can extend the level limit to more than 3.

the problem with this is, i think, some units transform it self simply in units who improves his numbers when reach a level (bowman-longbowman-masterbowman, trollwheep-troll-trollwarrior, etc). So, if you take this idea, need to make new choices to this units.


Maybe a little ambitious, but i really like this idea.

[Bandobras]

I see what you mean now... but I don't think it has much to do with encouraging using lower-level units, which is what you were talking about.

With ALMA I am more likely to choose, say, Lancers or Outlaws over Knights and Elves. Then after after several scenarios I end up with 2nd Level Lancers and Outlaws, instead of 3rd Level Paladins and Elves. Right? If there were nice max-level-1 units then with ALMA I could go with lots of 1st level units and no risk of advancing them, ever. The marketspeak on my part is that these are, in fact, 1st or 2nd level units (heavily) upgraded with ALMA, and not the fresh recruits, the opponents of ALMA were concerened about.

Re:Togakure.
I remeber someone (Dave?) suggested that ALMA could apply also in between normal advancement. So you could choose your fresh mage to gain his first ALMA 5HP+1 damage, or to become red/white mage, then again to gain his second ALMA improvment, or level to red/white this time, etc. This could be applied to Trolls and archers, as well. This is nice in that you could retain the army of 1st level archers (easy to apply leadership to) forever, only slightly improving their stats as they gain XP. Again these are not fresh recruits, but still they are 1st level units used a lot, indead of boring armies of exclusively 3rd level elite.

[turin]

Togakure:
Um... no. That is indeed a radical change, and one that will (hopefully) not happen this far into the development. As dave has said before, we are not really interested in moving sideways, only forward.

[autolycus]

In Master of Monsters, after max-level, units would get better with experience. They did so rather more dramatically than most people have proposed here, as well.

I think that the net effect was that it made the game more fun....

I think it would be good if we applied something simple as a reward - something easy to see, with few unpredictable effects.

Adding 1 pt of damage per attack is more unpredictable, for example, than adding 1 hp. This is because for units with more than one attack, their ability to affect outcomes increases faster than the equivalent in hp. Adding a whole new quality is worse. But reducing the upkeep cost by 10% while unpredictable in long-term effect is less unpredictable on the battlefield.

So you have a choice: the dramatic improvements (keep the simple things constant - hp, upkeep etc - but add traits or whatever) or the mundane improvements (don't add new properties but boost the simple things - add hp etc). I favour the latter since Wesnoth is more a wargame; I would favour the former if it was more a RPG. It's a close call though.

[Bandobras]

An idea: let the ALMA bonus multiply the effect of one of the two unit's traits (chosen at random). A "x2" icon could then be placed close to the "resilient" or "strong" icon. The "quick", "loyal" and "intelligent" should probably start at "x10" so that you get another MP after 10 ALMA levels, zero upkeep after 10 ALMA levels (and after 20 levels positive income --- some units actually are so loyal they invest their personal income in the army ), and you get XP requirement lowered by 2% each ALMA level that improves the "intelligent" trait.

This is both random and predictable. And quite weak IMO. And I'm not sure, I like it , but it seems KISS and interesting at the same time.

[LordTobias]

Here's an idea for ya, folks. Simple, and it works. (I think Dave is going on the right track with his ideas here)

After every 50 (yes, 50) points of experience, said units gain 1 bonus point to damage, and 3 Hit points. I don't think that's too drastic, either. And, to note, this is after maximum level is attained. As mentioned, this would make those units that max out at level 2 a little more appealing.

Or, perhaps even more interesting, things could vary from unit to unit, or faction to faction, albeit at the cost of simplicity (trying to keep KISS in mind, here). Just an idea that certain units would get more damage and less HP, or vice versa. Maybe a unit can gain a little more range after a while. I'm doing a campaign now and have 2 Iron Maulers who both have around 300 exp. (They are fantastic for holding towns ) To me, though, it's a waste. I try to keep the enemy alive long enough to send in a lower level unit to get that exp. Normally this fails, though.

But it sure as hell would be nice if they could get some kind of extra movement. Ohhh, idea!

Instead of all that...let the player decide what he gets. Pick from 2 things: improve movement, Hps, damage, defense, or some resistance. That leaves players with the opportunity to choose how their units that are at max level would advance.

Although, as good an idea as that sounds (to me, at least), it seems like it may be difficult to code bug-free. But, I have no knowledge of coding. ::grumbles::

Whichever way this is implemented (on the basis that it is implemented), I think it's only an improvement to the game.

[muxec]

People please discuss it in my customization thread. Also all coders that are not official developers would be welcome there too.

[silene]

Advancement for max-level units is not a a bad idea per se, but I don't think it should be applied to Wesnoth. Or rather, not to all units. I like the idea of having disposable units, and alma would only encourage save-load cheating. Then noobs would become even worse at playing the game correctly, and they would complain on the forums and propose ideas that have already been proposed ten times; what a nightmare...

My point is: only units that can't be lost under no circumstances should benefit from advancement. So it involves the main characters of the campaigns: Konrad, Lady Jessica, and so on... It could also involve the secondary ones that are allowed to die, but who play a role in the campaign by speaking (Burin in TROW for example). So for each campaign there would be something like 5 characters with advancement.

As for the implementation, it is only a matter of adding a WML tag to these characters. And unless I'm mistaken (quite possible since until now my commits only involve non WML part of the code), a single WML macro would allow it. No need to modify the core code, and it would be at the discretion of the campaign developers to chose which character would benefit from it.

[muxec]

The WML way to do so is by cloning each oof maxlvl files.

[silene]

The WML way to do so is by cloning each oof maxlvl files.

Please stop saying crap and look a bit at the forum before speaking. Do you really think we were waiting for your messianic arrival before thinking about alma?

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2053

[autolycus]

I don't know, but on reflection, this whole level3 topic is becoming a bit like early D&D - if you had a paladin, he got all the way up to 9 hit dice and then got a constant +3 hp for each level. Mages had +1. And so on. That's OK for a long-running RPG, but for Wesnoth, which started out as a pretty straightforward game with campaign characteristics more like Panzer General, it seems a bit iffy. Do-able for longer campaigns, but iffy.

Maybe you could have a growth limit tied to the number of scenarios a unit had survived. For example, in every scenario in a campaign, increment a variable for each surviving unit on the board. When that unit 'levels up' beyond 3, use the variable to improve it. So if a unit survived 10 scenarios in a campaign, it might be given a maximum hp improvement of +10 if the variable was +1 per scenario.

This would allow crude but easy customization for scenario developers who wanted to give simple rewards. A scenario developer in a brutal campaign might increment the scenario variable by +2 or more to vary the reward for surviving specific scenarios.

This would also keep simple Wesnoth battles or campaigns simple. Just don't put the scenario variable in, or set it to 0, and there'd be no advancement beyond 3.