The high elves

[Jetrel]

These are looking great, now that you've said that you are going to redraw the horse units (personally i feel is not nessecary, can only see them getting some brighter highlights like the other high elves.) i can't wait to see them when they are done.

A funny thing you'll notice if you look at the human horseman - the units, especially the horses they ride on, generally get bigger as they level up. The knight and paladin are the same size, and are bigger than the horseman (the lancer is smaller than the knight is). The grand knight is much bigger than the horseman.

Funny thing is, though this is in line with intuitive psychological cues, this does actually mirror the real world quite well. The knights in later medieval times bred these great draft horses - what would later become things like the clydesdales, and these were bred for power, not speed. With the humans, the bigger horses go on the heavy-but-powerful horseman, and the small horses go on the lighter fellows.

The high elves are going to receive this same treatment. Regardless of what we do with game stats, it looks good.

[turin]

Glad I'm not the only one! I wouldn't like to fight in it - looks like a peripheral vision nightmare

But great for guarding the sides of the face when you're in a shield-line, which is precisely what those fellows are for. These are the only units "in" the game that would do what the Lavinian Legionaries do, better than the Lavinian Legionaries do.

And more expensively... right? Or else they'd be overpowered.

When a group of high elves form a shield line on open ground, they are comparable in power to a line of dwarven sentinels (though with their power spread more evenly between offense and defense; hence leaving the dwarves better at defense). They are one of the elder races, and the constituent troops are bloody expensive, but a group of these in full formation should be something that forces any player to take notice.

These would be candidates for any *grouping* effects, just like the Lavinians.

It would be cool if we could think of and code a "formation" specialty that would benefit people like this unit and the Legionnaire, who should get boni from being next to each other.

[whisper]Jetryl - I know you liked the sleep idea propsed the other day - can you use your influence to get it code and give it to your sorceress line? Or maybe even the Shydes rather than slow?[/whisper]

Said influence would now be "coding the thing myself". I need to get some practice. Frankly, it ain't gonna be easy, and the units themselves will likely be in the game before I add that in, but hey - it'd be good for me.

Keep in mind that this is entirely subject to a veto from Dave.

Adding these units to a user-made era is always an option.... [/shamelessly_plugging_Imperial_Era]

[Dave]

What exactly is the 'sleep' proposal? I missed it.

I've had an idea for a 'freeze' ability for a while, which may be similiar.

I don't like the idea of 'sleep' that much because, well, usually if a unit falls asleep on the battlefield they are as good as dead. (Of course, if the gameplay worked well and there was no better name/concept for it, we could still include it).

David

[nonobots]

What exactly is the 'sleep' proposal? I missed it.

I've had an idea for a 'freeze' ability for a while, which may be similiar.

I don't like the idea of 'sleep' that much because, well, usually if a unit falls asleep on the battlefield they are as good as dead. (Of course, if the gameplay worked well and there was no better name/concept for it, we could still include it).

I proposed a new kind of magic, with stronger effects, but with a low chance to hit. Sleep was part of it.

Sleep could be toned down by having the units easily wake up in all kind of situations.

Freeze is part of it too.

[Jetrel]

What exactly is the 'sleep' proposal? I missed it.

I've had an idea for a 'freeze' ability for a while, which may be similiar.

I don't like the idea of 'sleep' that much because, well, usually if a unit falls asleep on the battlefield they are as good as dead. (Of course, if the gameplay worked well and there was no better name/concept for it, we could still include it).

It's kinda loose - basically in my current conception, it would last as long as "slow"; possibly twice as long. The unit would just sit there until either the effect wore off, or the unit got attacked.

The trick is, unlike slow, the unit would perform at full strength as soon as it got attacked; the power of the ability lies in the capability to stun units by choice - the ability to delay combat with a powerful enemy unit until it is convenient for you.

Some of the specifics are a tough decision - should other specials like first strike on the defender be neutralized? Should this affect undead? With the name (see below) "daze" or "mesmerize", I think we could say *no* and *yes* respectively.

Other potential names include:
daze
mesmerize
stun
freeze

The name "daze" I think works quite nice, because the idea is not that the unit is asleep or something, but rather that, under a spell as they are, they've kinda forgotten that they're in battle - they're just sitting there staring at the clouds. As soon as someone runs up swinging a sword at them they snap out of it and the spell is broken.

[Dave]

My idea for 'freeze' was that the unit is frozen for a turn -- essentially placed behind walls of ice. The effect of this is that the unit cannot attack for a turn, but no-one can attack it, either.

Functionally, it's exactly like stone, except it only lasts for one turn. It's chosen this way because we already have the code for it.

An alternative would be that the first attack 'unfreezes' the unit.

I'm not sure adding more magical attack abilities like this is a good idea or not. One downside is many are too powerful since a 1st level unit can do it to a 3rd level unit too effectively. On the other hand, one could argue that this would be A Good Thing.

An idea I've had which could be used if we do decide we want to add more such abilities is to introduce a concept of 'saving throws' which would be based on level.

I am rather reserved about such an addition though.

David

[dtw]

As I said in the other thread I have always found in the past that any sleep-releated spell rarely works - maybe Wesnoth could enforce a similar thing by having an effect inverse to magical - i.e. it ALWAYS has 20% chance to hit - and is always only a single attack. Paired with another ranged attack in levels 2 and up an attacking unit would never run the risk of being "sleeped" by a defending uint.

Also, in terms of game mechanics as Dave has just stated, sleep could use identical code to petrify, except it only lasts one turn, as you said, and is removed if the unit is attacked - units with first strike should def. lose that abilty as they will not be awake until they are hit.

So sleep/freeze are just as easy to do I would think - sleep makes a good breath attack, with the obligatory zzzz coming from the unit

[Temuchin Khan]

As I said in the other thread I have always found in the past that any sleep-releated spell rarely works

Which always meant that it was an utterly worthless ability that should never have been included in the game in the first place. Why should an ability which, if included, would be nerfed so badly as to rarely work even be considered for inclusion?

[dtw]

As I said in the other thread I have always found in the past that any sleep-releated spell rarely works

Which always meant that it was an utterly worthless ability that should never have been included in the game in the first place. Why should an ability which, if included, would be nerfed so badly as to rarely work even be considered for inclusion?

That's a pathetic arguement, TK, way below your usual high standard. I strongly doubt it will be included anyway so you can detangle your Calvin's.

[Dave]

Which always meant that it was an utterly worthless ability that should never have been included in the game in the first place. Why should an ability which, if included, would be nerfed so badly as to rarely work even be considered for inclusion?

That's a pathetic arguement, TK, way below your usual high standard. I strongly doubt it will be included anyway so you can detangle your Calvin's.

Personally I agree with Temuchin. I think it would only frustrate the player incredibly to have an ability which is very powerful but only works 20% of the time.

I can just hear people whining about it now: whenever I use sleep I miss, but whenever the AI uses it on me it puts my units to sleep!!! This is so unfair!!!

David

[Neoriceisgood]

Well; I still think people complain about everything possible; even if we added an abillity without chance people'd complain.

[Temuchin Khan]

Glad I'm not the only one! I wouldn't like to fight in it - looks like a peripheral vision nightmare :)

But great for guarding the sides of the face when you're in a shield-line, which is precisely what those fellows are for. These are the only units "in" the game that would do what the Lavinian Legionaries do, better than the Lavinian Legionaries do.

When a group of high elves form a shield line on open ground, they are comparable in power to a line of dwarven sentinels (though with their power spread more evenly between offense and defense; hence leaving the dwarves better at defense). They are one of the elder races, and the constituent troops are bloody expensive, but a group of these in full formation should be something that forces any player to take notice.

These would be candidates for any *grouping* effects, just like the Lavinians.

Well, if the hoplite units I suggested back in August are ever completed, they would also have to have a grouping bonus.

However, it would be interesting if units with a grouping bonus were more vulnerable than normal units when ambushed or when attacked at night by a unit with "nightstalk".

Grouping would then be a trade-off -- most of the time a unit receiving a grouping bonus would have better defenses than it otherwise would, but when ambushed it would actually suffer a defensive penalty.

This would reflect the fact that hoplite-type formations are most useful when you are facing the enemy straight-up and not when you are taken in the flank or from the rear, and it would keep the grouping bonus balanced.

[Cuyo Quiz]

IIRC the concept of "facing" does not exist on Wesnoth.

I guess it could work like backstab, in the way that having two units allied to you at opposite sides gives you "something". This would make the center of the line be stronger than the flanks.

I wonder if the "something" could be steadfast or a steadfast-like bonus (something that applies to resistances to show how a formation makes a difference in those guys).

[Temuchin Khan]

IIRC the concept of "facing" does not exist on Wesnoth.

I guess it could work like backstab, in the way that having two units allied to you at opposite sides gives you "something". This would make the center of the line be stronger than the flanks.

I wonder if the "something" could be steadfast or a steadfast-like bonus (something that applies to resistances to show how a formation makes a difference in those guys).

But the beauty of this latest idea for a grouping bonus is that it does not require the units to be "facing" in any particular direction -- just for them to be adjacent, which is easy to determine. And even the associated penalty does not require us to determine which way the units are "facing" anymore -- it is determined on the basis of whether the attacking unit is ambushing it, and "ambush" is already in the game, albeit for only a limited number of units.

Although come to think of it, units with "grouping" should also suffer a penalty when attacked at night by a unit that has "nightstalk".

EDIT: Edited previous post to include "nightstalk" as an ability that would penalize a unit with a grouping bonus.

[Lord_Aether]

You could basically have it as a permanent backstab for grouped units. The downside to this would be that you could nullify this by having a block of units, rather then a line.

I think that not enough units have nightstalk or ambush to make it a good counter for grouping.