[engine/mainline?] Change steadfast

[Spirit_of_Currents]

The current way steadfast works makes no sense in my opinion. I think it should be changed to following: damage done to defending unit is reduced by 20 %. If that would overpower Dwarvish Guardsmen, then do something, for example reduce their fire, cold and arcane resistance to 0 %.

[ChaosRider]

You said so much about own view point, like a total 0 information... You just said that you dont understand steadfast and how as for you this should works.
I think steadfast works fine. Its multiply defending unit resistances (max to 50%). So its not that you dont like steadfast but you dont like dwarves fire and cold resist.
Mainline Wesnoth Era is created by authors of Wesnoth, so if you want to make your idea for change added by them you have to have a good (even better than good) explanation for your idea (which here is lackluster). You can allways create own era :].

[Spirit_of_Currents]

Hmm, a good explanation... OK, let's try.

The current problem is that steadfast ability can't be given to most units because they have little or no resistances for steadfast to double (elves, orcs and most humans). In other words, if people want to make new steadfast units, the units must have certain resistances and no much weaknesses.

How to solve the problem: all damage done to a defending steadfast unit is multiplied by 0.8. This is the way I think steadfast should work.

Additional argument explaining why my idea is good: it follows KISS more precisely. In my idea, the +50% limit to resistances is unnecessary so it's not coded. Plus, if I recall correctly, the game actually handles 0% resistance as 100, -20% resistance as 120 and so on. If unit's resistance was, for example, 80 (+20%), the steadfast modification would make it 0.8*80 (in my idea) instead of 100-2*(100-80) (currently). As you can see, the first calculation is simplier.

[iceiceice]

There is no limit on how many abilities there can be, if you don't like steadfast, why don't you just code up the ability you described and use that for your units?

Calculation simplicity isn't too compelling... these are all trivial for the computer, and the engine has been specially coded so that you can see offensive / defensive resistance separately.

If it isn't broken then why fix it?

[zookeeper]

Well I think it'd be nice if steadfast was an ability that any unit could benefit from regardless of their base resistances, but for balance reasons, the change would need to be something that'd closely approximate Dwarvish Guardsman's current defensive damage intake. You'd probably need to convince everyone that that'd be the case in your suggestion, for example with a basic comparison table.

I can't say what other developers feel about it, but personally I've always felt steadfast to be a little bit on the complicated side and would be one of the few core abilities that might warrant a change if a close enough replacement could be found.

[Velensk]

Really you think steadfast is complicated? I think doubling your positive resistances with a cap is a pretty simple concept.

@Spirit of the Currents: I think that if you want to create a tough defender there are plenty of options even if you ignore steadfast completely. I never design a unit saying "I want a unit with steadfast", I say that I want a unit that does X. Steadfast as it is, has allowed me to create units that fill the role I want. In cases where steadfast isn't what I need, I just create what I do need. To be honest, I generally don't even really think of steadfast as a special ability so much as an extension of a units resistances.

[Spirit_of_Currents]

I wrote a lot of text, clicked Submit and was told to log in. After it I noticed that I have to start from beginning . Anyway, I did some scrutiny and the result is following: assuming that Dwarvish Guardsman's fire and cold resistances are reduced to 0%, my idea doesn't make any difference to Dwarvish Guardsman's defensive damage intake from a ranged attack by a unit recruitable in Defaul Era. My idea does make a small difference (1 damage per strike) when some Drakes, Loyalists or Northerners recruitable in Defaul Era engage that Guardsman in melee, but it will unlikely happen often in real fight as Guardsman's melee attack isn't very weak.

[Velensk]

If what I'm hearing is correct, you're suggesting that steadfast be just a strait +20% resistance on defense with some modifications to the base resistances and thus make a guardsmans defenses 0%/20% (as opposed to 10/20) for fire/cold and 20%/40% for everything else (identical to how it is now). That should make no difference at all, unless the guardsman is making a ranged attack against an enemy retaliating with cold/fire (a very unlikely situation). On one hand, I don't see any purpose to this change to mainline on the other I don't see how it'd hurt anything. Generally when faced with that situation I'm not inclined to change anything

As a side note: In one of my eras, I actually exploit the nuances of steadfast for one match-up. One faction has a steadfast berserker with a ranged attack and the other faction has a lot of ranged units and few strong melee units. It does however, have a unit which decreases the resistances of adjacent enemies by 20%. This gives the second faction a strong counter because when the base resistances are dropped by 20% the berserker has no resistances to be doubled and, since it normally relies on that heavily, it can be taken down efficiently by even the weak melee power the second faction can bring to bear. That said, this is a match-up entirely in the extended version of the era which hasn't been extensively balanced and the match-up probably needs to be altered anyway.

[zookeeper]

It's up to the MP folks to decide whether the small changes to damage intake are a concern in any given matchup or not, but personally I think that if the ability could be simplified to "+20% resistance on defense" then it's certainly worth considering. It's not like the current ability is conceptually hard to understand, it's just that the actual effects depend on the base resistances being doubled so you have to know/check those before you can tell whether the ability will give you anything in a given fight or not, so the ability is not "self-contained".

[Spirit_of_Currents]

In my real idea, the resistance increment actually depends on the unit's base resistance. If we, say, made Drake Warden steadfast, its cold resistance would increase by 30% and fire resistance by 10% when defending. And Dwarvish Guardsman would have 36% resistance to blade, impact and pierce.

[tekelili]

I am not oposed to change steadfast. It always looked to me a weird ability in its mechanics: A lot of conditions (in defense/cap/unit base res) for very little outcomes +10 or +20.

[iceiceice]

It still sounds to me like the new ability might actually be more complicated, esp. if it is based on this

How to solve the problem: all damage done to a defending steadfast unit is multiplied by 0.8. This is the way I think steadfast should work.

Additional argument explaining why my idea is good: it follows KISS more precisely. In my idea, the +50% limit to resistances is unnecessary so it's not coded. Plus, if I recall correctly, the game actually handles 0% resistance as 100, -20% resistance as 120 and so on. If unit's resistance was, for example, 80 (+20%), the steadfast modification would make it 0.8*80 (in my idea) instead of 100-2*(100-80) (currently). As you can see, the first calculation is simplier.

What's actually happening here is you are creating a second "resistance" phase in the damage calculations, where rounding may occur again (or not?) presumably. So I'm not so sure it's a step towards KISS.

If this actually builds support towards mainline, then I would still suggest creating a new ability with a new name, and switching over mainline to use that, rather than break compatibility with UMC unnecessarily. Steadfast may have been used in ways and circumstances we don't know about.

[tekelili]

What's actually happening here is you are creating a second "resistance" phase in the damage calculations, where rounding may occur again (or not?) presumably. So I'm not so sure it's a step towards KISS.

Well, in the case of buffs like leadership and time of day "2nd phases" are already applied. iirc BfW applies rounding just once, when all buffs/debuffs have been applied.

[iceiceice]

Yeah, I guess you are right. Tbh that kind of stuff has always something that has confused me more than anything else, rather than the mechanics of steadfast.

[tekelili]

Dont embarrase iceiceice

It was very confussing issue for me for years, and even today I am not sure if that applies to slow debuff