The Dwarvish Treasure - Version 0.5

Post by **turin** » December 9th, 2006, 4:57 pm

Two comments and a suggestion.

1) Why would a necromancer summon demons? And besides, what you are describing doesn't sound like something a demon would do. I think the term you want is... uhh... I can't remember at the moment

, but it starts with an "s" and it is the name of a Magic the Gathering card. (the card retroactively applies all damage dealt to the player that turn to a creature the player controls)... anyone know what I'm talking about?

[edit]Simulacrum! that's the word I was looking for. It has many meanings, but at least one of them, in fantasy literature at least, is "a magically summoned being that is harmed instead of the magician when the magician is attacked". (Sort of like the opposite of a voodoo doll.)[/edit]

2) "Shot Firer" sounds lame. And it's special sounds like something an alchemist would get. What about combining Alchemist and Shot Firer, under the name Alchemist?

Suggestion) An Illusionist! I have no idea how it would work, but you have to have one.

Post by **Baufo** » December 9th, 2006, 5:12 pm

turin wrote:1) Why would a necromancer summon demons? And besides, what you are describing doesn't sound like something a demon would do. I think the term you want is... uhh... I can't remember at the moment , but it starts with an "s" and it is the name of a Magic the Gathering card. (the card retroactively applies all damage dealt to the player that turn to a creature the player controls)... anyone know what I'm talking about?

[edit]Simulacrum! that's the word I was looking for. It has many meanings, but at least one of them, in fantasy literature at least, is "a magically summoned being that is harmed instead of the magician when the magician is attacked". (Sort of like the opposite of a voodoo doll.)[/edit]

Sounds good. What do you suggest for the character?

turin wrote:Two comments and a suggestion.

2) "Shot Firer" sounds lame. And it's special sounds like something an alchemist would get. What about combining Alchemist and Shot Firer, under the name Alchemist?

Good idea! The Alchemist sounded underpowered anyway.

turin wrote:Suggestion) An Illusionist! I have no idea how it would work, but you have to have one.

You are right, I definitely need one! I could try to give him the ability to make himself invisible but that might be semi-useless because the scenario is only a very little about playing against your rivals but mostly about playing against the creeps.

Website · Post by **Sapient** » December 9th, 2006, 6:46 pm

Baufo wrote:
Sapient wrote: You can tell it is the AI turn using the event "ai turn". However, this method only works on the localhost, so it would cause OOS in MP unless you think of a clever workaround.
Thank you very much! Who needs a workaround? Since this problem is only concerning the host it should not cause OOS in the way I want to use it. The other clients would think the host has got the dialog and done nothing while the host does not even see the dialog. I think this should work, I have not tested it in practise yet however.

Yes, it will cause OOS. Try my MP Select demo in the Coder's Corner. Hopefully, we can correct this behavior in 1.3.

Post by **Baufo** » December 9th, 2006, 9:48 pm

Sapient wrote:
Baufo wrote: Thank you very much! Who needs a workaround? Since this problem is only concerning the host it should not cause OOS in the way I want to use it. The other clients would think the host has got the dialog and done nothing while the host does not even see the dialog. I think this should work, I have not tested it in practise yet however.
Yes, it will cause OOS. Try my MP Select demo in the Coder's Corner. Hopefully, we can correct this behavior in 1.3.

I am going to try to find a solution for it once I have implemented the new character system. (I have the "body" of it done, now I need the details (special abilities).)

Since balance between heros turned out to be quite difficult here I think it might be necessary to limit the unit types a bit. You can chose your unit after chosing what character type it should become.

What do you think about if the alchemist could either get explosive or a philosopher's stone which earn him like 10 gold per turn.

Multiplayer Scenarios / Campaigns · Post by **Rhuvaen** » December 9th, 2006, 11:03 pm

Baufo wrote:Playing without fog: You know that there is a "skip AI moves" button, don't you?

Yes. Do all players have it enabled though? I don't think so...

Here's an alternative idea: have all players on the same team, and have a moveto event on adjacent hexes to each player that switches the moving unit to a different team. That would allow players to bypass each other, or attack. And it would also let them share their views, even though the rest of the map was in fog.

Baufo wrote:In general I don't like the scenario just as it plays now. It should not be about killing lots of weak creeps like it is now but killing very few strong creeps.
Also I am missing additional, more complex gameplay elements. At the moment there is just one strategie to follow: kill everything and upgrade.
I want more features! The problem is that I don't know what kind of features. Giving you possibilities to summon demons that take damage insteed of youself or taming yourself a pet dragon? Enable you to speak "spells"? It's just boring how it is now.

The kind of features you mention now - more customisation options for the killing machine - might not add that much to the gameplay apart from making it more complicated and harder to balance.

I could imagine that adding more quest-like hurdles on the path to gaining the treasure would be perfect. Such as having to unlock the inner regions by solving a puzzle: having to guess a certain combination of elements (as the game "mastermind"). There could be different clues hidden in locations on the map, and areas where one could make a guess (each wrong guess giving a power boost to creeps...). It could also be interesting to have moving walls / opening doors / chasms that open new pathways or block old ones that are operable by levers.

I think it would become more interesting with some goals that are different from killing / getting the upgrade to give players more gameplay choices (do I build my power or am I ready to tackle goal X?).

DraconicBlessing · December 10th, 2006, 6:38 am

I particularly like Rhuvaen's idea of tweaking the terrain. Switches which open new passageways/close existing ones would be cool.

The character class system sounds qiute cool, and I'll be happy to do any strings you want for them.

Post by **Maeglin Dubh** » December 10th, 2006, 7:11 am

Just checking in to make sure you got the new descriptions I put up in the thread shown here.....

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13811

Post by **Baufo** » December 10th, 2006, 7:24 am

Maeglin Dubh wrote:Just checking in to make sure you got the new descriptions I put up in the thread shown here.....

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13811

Cool, thanks!

Fiach Dubh · Post by **Fiach Dubh** » December 11th, 2006, 12:51 am

Is there an off-server download anywhere, for the current version of this?

DraconicBlessing · December 12th, 2006, 8:58 pm

No that I know of. Baufo, when you get a chance, would you mind posting it here?

Post by **Baufo** » December 12th, 2006, 9:36 pm

The new features I am working on are unfinished and unplayable so I could not use "working copy". You were lucky that I have kept a copy of the (I hope) latest campaign server upload

Post by **Baufo** » December 21st, 2006, 1:49 pm

Rhuvaen wrote: I could imagine that adding more quest-like hurdles on the path to gaining the treasure would be perfect. Such as having to unlock the inner regions by solving a puzzle: having to guess a certain combination of elements (as the game "mastermind"). There could be different clues hidden in locations on the map, and areas where one could make a guess (each wrong guess giving a power boost to creeps...). It could also be interesting to have moving walls / opening doors / chasms that open new pathways or block old ones that are operable by levers.

I think it would become more interesting with some goals that are different from killing / getting the upgrade to give players more gameplay choices (do I build my power or am I ready to tackle goal X?).

Do you have some concrete ideas about this? I think the yetis/elementals are quite a bad solution for unlocking but all the other ideas I have got are not really good I think. And how would you solve the problem that the treasure might be unlocked before everybody has completed all quests? - Or should the scenario switch to a cooperative concept at all?

Fiach Dubh · Post by **Fiach Dubh** » December 21st, 2006, 10:14 pm

How about this:

Whenever an elemental dies, a riddle is randomly selected from a list and the elemental-killer is asked to choose the right answer from a menu. If you answer right, 1 point is added to a hidden variable. But if you answer wrong the defeated elemental respawns.

When six riddles have been correctly answered (by all players combined), the guardians are unstoned.

You can rig this not to use riddles that have already been asked, or to allow repeats as long as the first answer was wrong. This could potentially increase playing-time quite a lot, so you might want to consider making the elementals weaker to compensate.

Post by **Baufo** » December 22nd, 2006, 6:33 pm

Somehow I like riddles like those that Bilbo and Gollum ask each other in Lord of the Rings. The problem with such riddles is that in Wesnoth you can only have predefined answers at the moment and this kind of riddles is quite easy to solve if you have multiple choices.

Post by **turin** » December 22nd, 2006, 7:26 pm

And once the scenario has been played a couple times, everyone will know all (or at least most) of the riddles, meaning the riddles serve merely as timewasters. That is, unless you feel like writing several hundred riddles...

[edit]
Maybe it could give you a calculus problem you have to solve correctly?