Comments and questions

[Aidoneus]

Elvish_Hunter: Presumably, anyone who knows that or could use that already knows the unit progressions, but thank you for the information. I still fail to see why they are hidden, though. To clarify, I believe that most, if not all, who play this game would like to see the user base expand. To that end, hiding this seems counter productive to me. On a related note, I used to play Myth before so many players moved on and servers began to shut down, I hope that this does not happen to BfW.

[averyimaginativename]

For what it's worth (which isn't very much), I like unit progression being hidden.

It adds a new dimension to non-character units. It makes you want to keep non-loyal, non-essential units alive without losing/sacrificing them just to find out what happens to them. I enjoyed it as a newbie, and I still like it when playing new (to me) eras.

[Aidoneus]

De gustibus non est disputandum.

[em3]

Would adding a button for this in preferences or help system be a far fetched feature request?
I know that typing these two commands is not difficult, but some beginners do not know about the debug console, and, frankly, should not care about it.

[Sapient]

No one bothered searching for the previous discussions? Try looking for "unit discovery aspect." If you want to know the reasons behind it, that would be a logical place to start. You'll find most of my posts about it, anyways.


FYI, the :discover command does not require debug mode.

[hhyloc]

Why hide the unit progression?

I'll just quote Sapient here, I strongly support this argument:

The goal is to preserve (for the new player) the thrill of discovering something new and the anticipation that leads up to it.

When I first play this game, I was very excited when a unit level into something new. The joy of discovering new units is what keep me playing and playing

[Insinuator]

I concur with Hhyloc, Sapient, and Averyimaginativename. Not knowing what my units would level into is fun! It adds a little mystery. Especially is this true when I play a new campaign with perhaps a new faction or added units. I don't just level my units to be the best they can be, I do it because it is exciting!

To clarify, I believe that most, if not all, who play this game would like to see the user base expand. To that end, hiding this seems counter productive to me. On a related note, I used to play Myth before so many players moved on and servers began to shut down, I hope that this does not happen to BfW.

That almost seems like a threat. :p

[Gambit]

I've never been in favor of the pokedex. Wesnoth is a strategy game with role playing elements. The strategy game's need for knowledge should override the RPG's fun of discovery. Especially with multiplayer. Knowledge is power and all that...

But with the ease of removing it, it doesn't really matter.

[Caphriel]

If a player doesn't want to know what your units level into, there's nothing forcing him or her to explore the unit descriptions in the help pages. However, if you are new and want to make informed decisions about what units to feed experience to, the help pages are useless, and you probably won't know about debug mode and units.wesnoth.org. I know one player whose solution to this was to play multiplayer games against himself in hotseat with the experience set to 30% in order to systematically level every unit in default to max level. Perhaps something could be added to the help page for undiscovered units about the discover command?

[powershot]

Actually, I used to lay against myself a lot to find all of the units, I remember going through the factions one by one, and I do that to this day with new eras.

[Iris]

I imagine it could be a problem for MP players to not know the whole advancement tree, though I don’t see why they shouldn’t be able to visit units.wesnoth.org to learn more if they are already required to read the Code of Conduct online anyway.

One problem with both is translations, of course.

Maybe changing the help section’s behavior in MP games to ignoring the discovery list (though still expanding it as new units appear in a match) could be one way to satisfy both us singleplayer enthusiasts and the crazy MP people MP players. Were that done, though, a proper explanation would need to be added to the help as well to prevent spurious bug reports.

[em3]

Maybe changing the help section’s behavior in MP games to ignoring the discovery list (though still expanding it as new units appear in a match) could be one way to satisfy both us singleplayer enthusiasts and the crazy MP people MP players. Were that done, though, a proper explanation would need to be added to the help as well to prevent spurious bug reports.

That, dear sir, is a good idea.
Although there's no stopping spurious bug reports for functionality like this...