Keeping fallen units on campaings

[romnajin]

Do selected units with multiple kills also recieve distinguished medals for their valor in battle?

Sort of like a "Medal of Honor" or "Hero of the Soviet Union" kind of deal?

Nope, they simply level up...

How would they do that if they were dead?

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

He didn't say anything about them being dead. He said they were doing the killing.

[Karo]

One way of alleviating the sentimental value is by playing multiplayer. There is no restart scenario and there is no "Back to turn X." Units must be live or die on the caprice of the RNG.

I, too, was guilty of building elite forces that were always well-supported with healers (Tactical RPG Syndrome). I became frustrated with some campaigns because I'd spent all my money recalling my angels of death, only to have them succumb to swarms of lesser units, without lesser units of my own to use as a sacrificial front line. I kept saving and loading, bludgeoning the RNG so that my mighty warriors could enact my will with impunity.

But eventually some scenarios became (for my inept self) undoable in this manner. So I decided to buck my dependence on the file reload by going to multiplayer.

Now I mark the places where especially brave (and lucky) warriors have fallen with a "Here lies [name]" label (In the case of undead, "Here lie bits and pieces of [Matrix-reference character], the [unit type]").

The graveyard would make a nice, more permanent version of this.

[Velensk]

I like the Graveyard though I think that to implement it the way I would would probably slow down the game a little. My personal veiw of it would be that for each unit a record of enemys slain (by quantity of type) and the map it died in are recorded. After the campain the option of veiwing the graveyard is available before credits. Graveyard organised into lvl of unit lost (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5+)
Each tombstone would be

Here lies (unit name) the unit type
He slew list number of kills by unit type (IE: He slew 6 orc grunts 2 troll welps 2 swordsmen and 1 orc warrier) Before falling at the name of the battle./ or say He died a nameless warrior in (name of lvl) if he died without killing anyone.

I am sure other things could be added to the tombstone, possibly items picked up if he slew an enemy leader during a battle or other minor things. Possibly have honorary mention if the unit had the loyal trait.

On the flip side of the gravyard you could also take a look at all the warriors that survived as well.

[Ratha]

This graveyard idea sounds like it would make for an interesting piece of flavor. Could be displayed in a similar way to that which the unit descriptions are. Show a picture of the unit, maybe some artwork/background of some sort of tombstone dependant on faction/race.

Keeping track of how many units, types, even names of those the warrior had slain sounds promising. I dont know if it would be terribly popular, but at the end of a scenario it might be neat to see how many (and what) units you lost, versus which new ones you gained/still have. Call it whatever you like, Graveyard, Wall of Heroes, Wall of Shame.

I believe wesnoth keeps track of all that data in the first place for replays anyway, so writing a script to gather and sort all this information wouldnt be too challenging (im guessing.)

It would sure beat 'You won!' or 'You lose!' at the end of a scenario (or campaign) and give you something to do while you are still winding down from the game you just played.. thumbing through your units instead of clicking on the 'Okay' button so that you can go right back to the title screen.

[BlackOpsElf]

I wish more people did what I'm trying to do with my campaign: actually have a character's death effect the other characters. I'm gradually working towards completely scripting death events for each of the major characters, which vary depending on which characters are still alive.

For example, the dwarf character and the troll character in my campaign have a years-old rivalry going, over a supposed theft of a magical item. If the character who is the thief dies before the other character, he apologizes for stealing the item, and gives it to the other character, who gains a powerful magical attack as a result of having the item. If the other character dies first, the thief confesses to the crime, and the character, with his dying breath, forgives him. The thief then vows to avenge his comrade's death by using the magical item to vanquish the enemy. There are also events set up if the second character dies.

There is every motivation to keep all of the characters alive; certain cutscenes are skipped if certain characters are dead, and one of your characters is able to recruit a team of soldiers of his race if he is still alive during a certain scenario. However, if the characters don't die, you don't get to see the cool death scenes. In this way, it doesn't seem like anyone's death was a waste, and the presence of that magical item in the possession of one of your characters reminds you of the valiant sacrifice of your dead character.

Obviously, it requires a bunch of additional coding, which, combined with real life stuff, is why it is taking me so long to get the next chapter out. Still, I think it's worth it, story-wise.

[Ratha]

Doing that with important characters is quite a thing. I believe those efforts are well done. It can be hard to balance that sort of thing though. The one thing you dont want to end up doing is making people reload their game every time one of those characters dies.

A bit of change to the story, some items shifting around, possible dialogue change in the future of the campaign if that character has died, or loss of the ability to recruit some units. (some units disband when their leader is killed?) All those are great ideas, but if the player feels that he has lost too much by losing a character he will reload the game instead of continuing to play the modified version.. therefore most of that work will just go to waste.

A great idea, but balancing it might be difficult. Personally, id love to see more campaigns do that.. the story gets deeper.. banter between characters while they are alive, or comments by the survivors about how they miss the character that isnt perhaps.

I would like to even someday see random recruited units have a battlecry before attacking sometimes, or after attacking possibly, telling you how he fought in your name, or failed you by being too wounded to continue. Depending on how well (or what) they did against their enemy. I believe its possible, but would require a lot of work. Though ive not played enough campaigns to notice if this can/has been done yet.

So far ive not seen many limitations to what Battle for Wesnoth can do, but only heard of the many great things that it can do.

[turin]

It's a nice idea, but how often is the work put into that ever going to matter? Unless you have a whole bunch of special characters, most players won't ever let any of them die. It isn't that hard to stop 5-6 units from being killed, unless the scenario is a real [censored]. And you're not ever going to autorecall more than 5 or 6 units...


Basically, I think it does mildly improve the quality of a campaign, but it isn't really worth doing most of the time. And most players will never even notice it.

[BlackOpsElf]

It's a nice idea, but how often is the work put into that ever going to matter? Unless you have a whole bunch of special characters, most players won't ever let any of them die. It isn't that hard to stop 5-6 units from being killed, unless the scenario is a real [censored]. And you're not ever going to autorecall more than 5 or 6 units...


Basically, I think it does mildly improve the quality of a campaign, but it isn't really worth doing most of the time. And most players will never even notice it.

It is true that it isn't worth doing in most campaigns. Still, I think it makes a big difference for a select few campaigns. One of the most interesting things about playing RPGs like D&D (at least in my experience) is how the characters react to deaths of party members, and there is some satisfaction to writing a campaign where the characters imitate this.

(I am going to defer to your opinion on how to write campaigns in general though, Turin, mostly because I think The Sceptre of Fire is good enough to be packaged into the core release.)

[zookeeper]

Personally, I think it's a really good thing to do and might add a lot if done well.

[Ken_Oh]

If anyone was wondering what gameplay would be like if you could recall fallen units:

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15200

This thread inspired me to WML just that. No units stay dead, including your leader unit, who if "knocked out" will take you to an easier scenario rather than ending the game.

There's plenty of work to be done with it, especially on the aesthetic side of things, but it's currently quite playable. The hardest setting is probably best.