The Deep Elves

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christucker
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Re: The Deep Elves

Post by christucker »

Huge fan of the aesthetic&designs. I came across the deep elves via the ageless era add-on, which I tend to use a lot just out of convenience of having every option available at the same time. I instantly fell in love with them but they gave off a diamond in the rough- vibe with some units only leveling up to 2, not many animations(although the hover animation of the Matriarch alone is enough reason to play this faction lol), trample not giving exp for kills etc. so I thought I'd come here to beg you to expand on your awesome faction... But it looks like the problem is that the ageless era simply has an outdated version of Deep elves, judging by this thread. Any chance you could hit them up and get the current version for that as well? I play Wesnoth mostly with my friends and we always use the Ageless and play survivals and stuff so it'd be really great to be able to have the newest version to play with. Glancing over the new units and expanded unit trees I wet my pants, they all look so awesome.

That aside, playing the Deep Elves, albeit an obviously outdated version, alongside other factions from Ageless era showcased a slight lack of variety or flexibilty - for example nightmaiden and bloodmaiden felt extremely similar, there isn't really any impact damage and just an overall lack of tools for different enemies and situations became apparent especially with regards to sustainability, or lack thereof. Initially I figured this faction probably relies on drains or something - their design aesthetic somewhat alludes to blood - or other offense-related sustainability to go with the theme of picking your shots, hitting and fading and thriving in skirmish combat, but found no ways to outtrade factions with heals or better defenses. Although, I suspect some of these shortages may have been remedied already.
Really loved the distinct animations and overall uniform style of the units, though. Would love to see even more lv3's and lv4's; what makes the hugely popular era of magic so exhilirating, aside from the beautiful animations and designs, is that those factions tend to have multiple lv4 unit lines and it just makes playing with them super exciting.

This came out super rambly, sorry about that. But I'm a huge fan of your work and looking forwards to playing with Deep elves with my friends if you can get it included in the ageless era.
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Ravana
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Re: The Deep Elves

Post by Ravana »

Deep elves dont use unique prefixes, so updating it for ageless is lots of manual work. (Compared to Era of Magic where I run one script and then apply list of changes that ageless will have differently)
shevegen
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Re: The Deep Elves

Post by shevegen »

> nightmaiden and bloodmaiden felt extremely similar, there isn't really any impact damage

I guess it may always be possible to distinguish different units more.

Could be through simple differences, like time-modifiers or some semi-new abilities such as
becoming temporarily stronger after killing a unit e. g. for the next few rounds or something
like that.

I found that it always works best when the lore is done first, though. The lore then explains
differences that may become manifest through the abilities etc...
christucker
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Re: The Deep Elves

Post by christucker »

Ravana wrote: April 13th, 2019, 8:53 am Deep elves dont use unique prefixes, so updating it for ageless is lots of manual work. (Compared to Era of Magic where I run one script and then apply list of changes that ageless will have differently)
Aww, that's a damn shame. What a bummer. Suppose I'll have to vent my excitement for the faction in solo. This really is one of the best looking factions overall alongside stuff like the Aragwaiths and deserves to be among the rest...
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Atreides
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Typo

Post by Atreides »

Really neat faction. Been playing them on one of the huge Dominus maps in order to get a good feel and perhaps see all the levels. I've gotten a Baroness of the Night and see she has a typo.

Relentless Aussault obviously was supposed to be Relentless Assault. Easy mistake to make, heh.

The ability itself seems like a weaker charge. Not quite as exciting as other abilities such as Lithic Idol, Knockback and Trample. : )
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Atreides
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Re: The Deep Elves

Post by Atreides »

Kwandulin wrote: May 21st, 2017, 7:35 am [*]changed the halo of the Irr
[*]the Irr has now the illuminate ability (don't put her next to Night Stalkers!)[/list]
Just advanced a Irr and noticed the desc. of illumination but the unit does not have it. Bug or was it removed on porpoise?

Another query... the Whisp Mother (I note that the spelling is the old one) has no AMLA. Intentional or bug?
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Kwandulin
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Re: The Deep Elves

Post by Kwandulin »

The Deep Elves are now on the 1.15 servers. Enjoy!
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AOW
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Re: The Deep Elves

Post by AOW »

I've published modify portrait about Deep Elves creatures here, but I don't know how to directly @ the original author, so... ;)
https://wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php ... 28#p656028

and... one question...
https://wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php ... 78#p647278

In any case, I always ask my friends to load it alone so that I can choose. Cheers mate!
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Atreides
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Re: The Deep Elves

Post by Atreides »

Bug report.

Whisp Mother's +25% damage for adj. Whisps is broken.

Simple fix replace Whisp with Wisp and whisp with wisp (this one obv. slipped by the change).

addendum:
also rename the whispmother*.png files in halo directory
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hermestrismi
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Re: The Deep Elves

Post by hermestrismi »

From long time, Wood-Elves are considered the only race of Elves of humans and other races on Wesnoth and beyond, while the truth is that Elves' high adaptation made them evolve quickly, physically and culturally, regarding the nature of the place they live in.
Deep -Elves notably are an Elvish race living originally east of Lintanir inside these darkest depths of mountains. Sometime around 500 YW (equals to 1089 After the Great Cry, called 'Nijiltim', on their calendar), a huge army of them leaded by one of their two Ensi is traveled underground to the far north in Mountains of Haag for an unknown reason.
<header>text='Society'</header>
The titles of nobility are earned through personal achievement. Nevertheless, the term 'civilian' doesn't really exist as all members of the tribes are considered soldiers at the time of need. Also, they don't 'recruit' soldiers but they 'summon' them to the battlefield.
Deep-Elves' politic system is typically a theocratic system. Leaders (honored with prefix 'Ensi-' before their names) are generally proficient on dark arts and believed to be the 'parole of Shassagoth'. Those leaders have the absolute authority over the community which make internal conflict very rarest and the transmission of the power only happen after the death of a leader (the death of an Ensi believed to be just a transcendence to a higher plane, this transendence is called 'Dorkh' and the ceremony of the transmission is called 'Ensaltarr'mi' which means literally 'no objection for the new Ensi' since any objection regarded as a heresy 'Talarr').
In this Elves' society, Elvish female are considered as equal to males and they are trained in combat and on the magic skills they bequest over the ages.
Also, all kinds of love and emotions regarded as a distraction, especially for the leaders. Being in love is a shame and even a Talarr since only Shassagoth deserve to be really respected, feared and to sacrifice the one's life for it.
<header>text='Geography'</header>
Because they live underground as a secret religious society, almost no cities are known for the outsiders.
But, indeed, they have a big sacred city of The Underearth called 'Tirih'kam' and surrended by two big cities.
On Mountains of Haag, they found a city-state.
Some other ruined small cities built ages ago before them can be found, but they are inhabited and used by researchers and occasionally some deserted and Talarrmi.
<header>text='Relations with other Races'</header>
Little races, even know the existence of the Deep-Elves and they are often considered as fairytales even by historians and geographic but they are well known by the Wood-Elves of the north although the little to no interactions between them.
The Deep-Elves themselves didn't have particular emotion to other races except for considering them inferior and ignorant but they hate other Elvish races and they consider them Talarrmi
<header>text=_'History'</header>
<b>Eons ago</b>
A cataclysmic war between two powerful entities Yachngoth and Shassagoth from unknown origins. While Yachngoth had the upper hand, Shassagoth had a devastating attacks and threatened the whole Irdya as he believed that the life itself must be destroyed in order to be recreated.
Yachngoth called for all races to join her and most of them did but a factionof them, mostly elves from Lintanir, joined Shassagoth some out of fear and other by temptation to his ideas.
For the Deep Elves, Shassagoth would never lose if not by ruse and betrayal.
After the war, Lintanir's elves chased Shassagoth's believers and so those ones who survived took refuge at the mountains east of Lintanir where they found ruined ancient developed cities...
<b>A millennia ago </b>
At some point, their historian recorded what they believe a small portal to another world where a great cry was heard even from outside the Underearth before the portal was closed. The voice was believed to be the voice of Shassagoth himself and the few presented close to the portal reported to had acquired a huge power. They called the Blessed Ones ' Dingir' and they are almost immortals but they never considered Ensi but a separated honorable group waiting to be sacrificed when the other conditions to open the portal and resurrect Shassagoth will be met. The Ensi have the authorities to ask the Dingir' to join a battle if it's necessary but that never happen and remain an abandoned law.
The day of the cry became a new calendar named 'Nijiltim'.
<b>Around 500 YW / 1089 Nijiltim</b>
For unknown reasons, the two Ensi took the decision to lead a huge army of Deep-Elves to Mountains of Haag and when they built a city there, an Ensi joined them.
At the recorded history of the far north, some Deep-Elves attacked the borders of the forests of Lintanir and even Thelien.
The existence of deep-elves' close to the forest is a more alarming situation for the Wood-Elves than the existence of orcs at the same perimeter but their existence remind secret from the majority of the population and the occasional wars with other races became the told reason to fortifier the outposts and even to expand their territories to be more prepared the hypothetical invasion.
my description for the deep elves
what do you think?
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IPS
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Re: The Deep Elves

Post by IPS »

shevegen wrote: April 13th, 2019, 2:30 pm > nightmaiden and bloodmaiden felt extremely similar, there isn't really any impact damage

I guess it may always be possible to distinguish different units more.

Could be through simple differences, like time-modifiers or some semi-new abilities such as
becoming temporarily stronger after killing a unit e. g. for the next few rounds or something
like that.

I found that it always works best when the lore is done first, though. The lore then explains
differences that may become manifest through the abilities etc...
Also lv1 vault priestess are actually impact ranged attack , but their lv2 is being arcane magical ranged, which is weaker or equivalent when facing units like loyalists, I've never been agree with any advancement that forces an unit to change its damage type as only advancement as in most cases someone levels an unit precisely to have a stronger version of the wanted unit. For this type of cases it would be much better instead giving an OPTIONAL advancament that changes the ranged attack type but its mandatory that the canonic lv2 has to be the same damage type than their lv1.

Aswell, the faction faces another problem and it's that there is poor resistance and defense variation between units, all the same resistances and many units have too similar roles. Minotaurs are quite underpowered as poison can troll their petrify healing.

I would even mention that I personally consider that lv1 night maidens should of have a basic crossbow ranged in order to differenciate more to Blood Maidens, as well of some resistances variations. In Lv3 seeker there is just a defense variation, but from infantry switches to ghostly which it even impairs the unit when it has to defend in tiles like castle or villages even if in almost all the other tiles the change is favorable.
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Re: The Deep Elves

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

Also lv1 vault priestess are actually impact ranged attack , but their lv2 is being arcane magical ranged, which is weaker or equivalent when facing units like loyalists, I've never been agree with any advancement that forces an unit to change its damage type as only advancement as in most cases someone levels an unit precisely to have a stronger version of the wanted unit. For this type of cases it would be much better instead giving an OPTIONAL advancament that changes the ranged attack type but its mandatory that the canonic lv2 has to be the same damage type than their lv1.

Aswell, the faction faces another problem and it's that there is poor resistance and defense variation between units, all the same resistances and many units have too similar roles. Minotaurs are quite underpowered as poison can troll their petrify healing.

I would even mention that I personally consider that lv1 night maidens should of have a basic crossbow ranged in order to differenciate more to Blood Maidens, as well of some resistances variations. In Lv3 seeker there is just a defense variation, but from infantry switches to ghostly which it even impairs the unit when it has to defend in tiles like castle or villages even if in almost all the other tiles the change is favorable.
One weird thing I have noticed is that both Ageless and Deep Elves standalone faction have different stats for some unit lines.
Vault priestess has arcane ranged in the standalone while having impact ranged in ageless...oddly...ageless has a bug in that the level 4 of that line is still arcane ranged.
Other units have stat variations such as the Minotaur, Night Maiden-line. There is also 1 missing unit line in Ageless as well.
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IPS
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Re: The Deep Elves

Post by IPS »

Lord-Knightmare wrote: June 14th, 2022, 8:26 am
Also lv1 vault priestess are actually impact ranged attack , but their lv2 is being arcane magical ranged, which is weaker or equivalent when facing units like loyalists, I've never been agree with any advancement that forces an unit to change its damage type as only advancement as in most cases someone levels an unit precisely to have a stronger version of the wanted unit. For this type of cases it would be much better instead giving an OPTIONAL advancament that changes the ranged attack type but its mandatory that the canonic lv2 has to be the same damage type than their lv1.

Aswell, the faction faces another problem and it's that there is poor resistance and defense variation between units, all the same resistances and many units have too similar roles. Minotaurs are quite underpowered as poison can troll their petrify healing.

I would even mention that I personally consider that lv1 night maidens should of have a basic crossbow ranged in order to differenciate more to Blood Maidens, as well of some resistances variations. In Lv3 seeker there is just a defense variation, but from infantry switches to ghostly which it even impairs the unit when it has to defend in tiles like castle or villages even if in almost all the other tiles the change is favorable.
One weird thing I have noticed is that both Ageless and Deep Elves standalone faction have different stats for some unit lines.
Vault priestess has arcane ranged in the standalone while having impact ranged in ageless...oddly...ageless has a bug in that the level 4 of that line is still arcane ranged.
Other units have stat variations such as the Minotaur, Night Maiden-line. There is also 1 missing unit line in Ageless as well.
I modified ageless version to suit better, in year 2021, I was the balance dev (Well still right now I'm lol) of ageless era and as readaptation for ageless made some changes (both older versions of deep elves) as well of some readjustments. The idea is making each unit having a different purpose even if having the same attack type (in case of night and blood maidens). In ageless, Lv4 was meant to be readjusted to impact in next release what was meant to be 1 year ago.... but I broke up and therefore I wasn't even capable to port to git even if it was already coded as well with a tons of ageless balance rebalances.

But in general, ageless in various cases have different versions of units compared to original add-ons, as ageless is a huge compilation of factions and everything has to be in a minimal margin of viability againist a tons of random foes.

Just mentioning, after I modified in AE the deep elves of that time, they regained more popularity and people started to use them more often in AE.

Talking about AE deep elves, there are unit resistances variations between the elves, even considering if they're lawful, neutral or chaotic they have some different values of arcane resistances :P , as well of some different terrain defenses and movement costs for blood maiden to make them more mobile but even more fragible.

But in overall things, any faction needs units having different resistnaces properties like:
- Loyalists having calvarymen, heavy infantry, fencers and normal infantry
- Rebels having Elves, Wose, Mermen (yeah, mermen are 20% cold resistance)

But these are examples of factions how manage to make units not only having different attack types but also different resistances and defense properties.
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Atreides
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Re: The Deep Elves

Post by Atreides »

I've ported and upped it for 1.16. Kwandulin, if you return let me know!

I used the latest 1.15 version. I changed nothing but fixed all the bugs I reported and a few more I found. It is slightly different from the WoL version which seems to have dropped the Wisp Mother. I haven't compared to the Ageless version yet.
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Re: The Deep Elves

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

It is slightly different from the WoL version which seems to have dropped the Wisp Mother.
Can you stop making False claims? The Wisp Mother wasn't dropped. Rather patched since the wisp leadership ability was broken when first imported.
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