Free Goblins (Dev Stage: Statting, Coding-then Animating)

[pauxlo]

Hmm, shouldn't the shieldbearer line have steadfast (or something similar)?

[irrevenant]

Hmm, shouldn't the shieldbearer line have steadfast (or something similar)?

Good point. Added.

The draft stats are in for the Forester, Shieldbearer, Spearchucker & Staffman lines.

That just leaves the Ponderer and Healer lines to do (mind you, they contain over half the units in the faction between them...).

[EDIT] +Kemmist art for wiki.

[irrevenant]

Couple of things:
(1) I appear to have reinvented the Steppe Orc Barrier unit line. Yet the Goblin Shieldbearer is so cute I'd prefer not to get rid of him. And he does round out the faction. Ugh.

(2) One thing that's going to need serious playtesting is that the Free Goblins lack a base-level unit with high move. That means they're always going to start off on the back foot in village-grabbing and have to regain lost ground. I imagine making the units slightly better value than average will be necessary to balance this.

[Blarumyrran]

suddenly i remembered theres an old sprite of mine i never posted. maybe youll find some use (perhaps as a a leader choice).

[irrevenant]

Couple of things:
(1) I appear to have reinvented the Steppe Orc Barrier unit line. Yet the Goblin Shieldbearer is so cute I'd prefer not to get rid of him. And he does round out the faction. Ugh.

One possible solution: amalgamate the Shieldbearer and Spearchucker lines.

Code: Select all

Goblin Spearshield -> Goblin Bastion(?)
            -> Goblin Spearflinger

This has a certain elegance, but I get something a bit too much like the Dwarvish Guardsman line for my liking (the main differences being it's primarily ranged, and it branches to a specialist javeliner).

P.S. Thanks SynErr. The Free Goblins aren't big whippers, but that head is awesome. Maybe even the whole body sans whip will be useful for something (the 'psychologist' line, maybe).

[EDIT] Revised Siegetower. Ugh - not convinced, but will do for now. I like the way the tweaks to the logs went though - they look more round now...

[EDIT2] The little guys look better on the building site than the siegetower...

[mr_svperstar]

Looking good!

Sorry I've been gone for a week, had the worst flu ever!

I do have one question tho... where did the super miniature goblins come from?

And what was wrong with the shield goblins as they were? I thought it was cool!

It's not like that other idea was the first time anyone ever thought of putting up a big shield, ancient civilisations had devoted guards on the front lines for thousands of years.

It could be just me but I think the potioner looks cooler than the kemmist, maybe the level 2 could just have a better uniform and a bigger bottle rather than two small ones? Or maybe his arms are out to far, might need bigger shoulders or something. I dunno, just think it looks wrong somehow.

About the low level scout, what if the skypillow was its own path or if they were just recruitable from the start as a level 1 unit?

[thespaceinvader]

One question: does the Building Site have any moves? If not, how do you get it off your Keep so you can recruit something else...? Particularly if you want to make it a Guard Tower...

[irrevenant]

Please note that art development for this faction is now taking place in this thread in the Art Workshop forum (where it probably always should have been).

One question: does the Building Site have any moves? If not, how do you get it off your Keep so you can recruit something else...? Particularly if you want to make it a Guard Tower...

The Ponderer has an ability (called "Student of Life" until I come up with something better) where he earns 1 xp per turn just for existing. If he wants to level up into a guard tower, he has to get in position before he levels up.

[EDIT] Clarification: I just realised you may not know that Free Goblins recruit at the L0 level, not the L1. So it's impossible to directly recruit a Building Site.

Looking good!
Sorry I've been gone for a week, had the worst flu ever!

That's cool, welcome back. Glad you're feeling better.

I do have one question tho... where did the super miniature goblins come from?

I drew them. I'm not entirely happy with them - they look better on the buildsite than on the Siege Tower. But something around that size is necessary to avoid the Siege Tower looking like it's 4ft tall.

And what was wrong with the shield goblins as they were? I thought it was cool!
It's not like that other idea was the first time anyone ever thought of putting up a big shield, ancient civilisations had devoted guards on the front lines for thousands of years.

True. I flip-flopped on that one endlessly (especially since the new version bears at least a passing resemblance to the Dwarven Guardsman). In the end what swayed me was the spearman line. It was just too generic, and it didn't fit the flavour that the Free Goblin faction was taking - an essentially peaceful culture that had to go to war. A specialised L0 military unit just didn't make sense. (I'll have a think about the Staffman too, though that's more a case of tweaking the description than changing the unit).

What I ended up with (a hunter unit that levels into a specialised Guardian or a Master hunter that has spears that slow) fits the factions flavour and is unique AFAIK.

It could be just me but I think the potioner looks cooler than the kemmist, maybe the level 2 could just have a better uniform and a bigger bottle rather than two small ones? Or maybe his arms are out to far, might need bigger shoulders or something. I dunno, just think it looks wrong somehow.

Huh. To me the Kemmist with his funky goggles looks considerably cooler than the Potioner. His arms are bodgy though - that's one of my earliest works and it could use some revision.

[EDIT] Okay, I've had a play with the arms and am just about to post the revised version here.

About the low level scout, what if the skypillow was its own path or if they were just recruitable from the start as a level 1 unit?

I considered that. It doesn't really make sense to have such an advanced contraption so early. Besides, I like the Free Goblins not having an early scout. It's a balancing challenge, but it makes them more unique.

[mr_svperstar]

The Ponderer has an ability (called "Student of Life" until I come up with something better) where he earns 1 xp per turn just for existing. If he wants to level up into a guard tower, he has to get in position before he levels up.

Would it be better to use an ability like the 2HP healing?
ie. if you leave him stationary then he gets XP, otherwise you could find yourself upgrading somewhere you don't want to be.

But something around that size is necessary to avoid the Siege Tower looking like it's 4ft tall.

Would being 4ft tall be that bad? Could just call it a battle platform instead. I mean it's not going to be used like a traditional tower where its wheeled up to a castle and allows the army to climb over the walls, it is just a stand alone unit. It just needs to give the occupant some high ground/protection. To me it seems weird to have a whole game to scale then make 1 unit with tiny people so a structure looks big. It would make more sense for the structure to be the thing that isn't to scale, rather than the goblins.

To me the Kemmist with his funky goggles looks considerably cooler than the Potioner.

The goggles are funky, maybe he needs some wild hair and a white coat like any true mad scientist!

How does the "coach" ability work?

When you have a fight, you get 1XP. If you recieve 125% of that wouldn't the game round it back from 1.25XP to 1XP anyway? Seems like the only thing it would do is add a couple of XP to a kill shot, which may be quite rare due to the weak and numerous nature of the L0 goblin army.

What if it was 1XP per turn regardless of whether it was a kill or not, that would give a midway point between what could in practice make no difference to the XP, and the leadership ability which doubles the XP.

If you never make a kill shot then the 125% would achieve nothing and only be 100%, and the +1XP would be 200%

If you make a kill every turn then 125% gets the full 125% where as +1XP only gets 112.5%

So the ranges are:
125% gives 100%-125% (probably usually around 115%)
+1XP gives 112.5% to 200% (probably usually around 140%)

ie. fight, fight, fight, kill
normal mode... 1,1,1,8 = 11
using 125%...1,1,1,10 = 13 (gives 118% - decreases if more rounds)
using +1XP... 2,2,2,9 = 15 (gives 136% - increases if more rounds)

Also, this places the focus more on the fight than the kill. As the +1XP has more of an effect the less kills there are, but 125% has more off an effect the more kills there are. When you are being taught to fight you don't actually kill your sparing partner!

Everything I've just said might be completely irrelevant if the game can remember stats in greater detail than the whole numbers it displays them in. In which case you should probably just ignore me!

[irrevenant]

The Ponderer has an ability (called "Student of Life" until I come up with something better) where he earns 1 xp per turn just for existing. If he wants to level up into a guard tower, he has to get in position before he levels up.

Would it be better to use an ability like the 2HP healing?
ie. if you leave him stationary then he gets XP, otherwise you could find yourself upgrading somewhere you don't want to be.

I wouldn't want them to have to sit around stationary for most of the battle (though that would suit the name). What if we split the difference and say that they have to be stationary to get that last point of XP?

But something around that size is necessary to avoid the Siege Tower looking like it's 4ft tall.

Would being 4ft tall be that bad? Could just call it a battle platform instead. I mean it's not going to be used like a traditional tower where its wheeled up to a castle and allows the army to climb over the walls, it is just a stand alone unit.

I've statted it out like a traditional tower (complete with improved effectiveness vs castle hexes). It's basically the Free Goblins' only seriously heavy-hitting unit.

To me it seems weird to have a whole game to scale then make 1 unit with tiny people so a structure looks big.

It's a bit weird, but Wesnoth's scale is flexible anyway (1 hex = 1 spearman = 1 village = 1 mountain).

How does the "coach" ability work?
When you have a fight, you get 1XP. If you recieve 125% of that wouldn't the game round it back from 1.25XP to 1XP anyway? Seems like the only thing it would do is add a couple of XP to a kill shot, which may be quite rare due to the weak and numerous nature of the L0 goblin army.

True. Okay, +1 it is.

[EDIT] +Current Sneak for Wiki.

[mr_svperstar]

It's a bit weird, but Wesnoth's scale is flexible anyway (1 hex = 1 spearman = 1 village = 1 mountain)

I see your point.

There appears to be two scales. One for the game board and one for the units. The background has to be squished into one tile for different terrains etc. thus making things not to scale is just something that has to be done for the game to function.

As for the units, each character is roughly the same size, but there is still scale, ie an orc or a human is bigger than a goblin, and the monsters are bigger than them all.

So which side of the equation does a tower fit? I'd suggest the tower is like the background and doesn't have to be to scale, whereas the goblin should still be a goblin.

[thespaceinvader]

Take a look at the ships and watchtowers in one of the scenarios in SotBE. They are a clear example of this scaling difference - fighting units which in real life would be many times the size of a man which are about the same size as a Troll Warrior.

[irrevenant]

Take a look at the ships and watchtowers in one of the scenarios in SotBE. They are a clear example of this scaling difference - fighting units which in real life would be many times the size of a man which are about the same size as a Troll Warrior.

Good point. I was familiar with the Orcish Watchtower and actually used the platform idea for the Free Goblin Guard Tower (ignore the little guys on the tower - they look crap and will be removed or replaced).

[EDIT] I'd forgotten SotBE was in mainline these days.

But I'd forgotten about the ships (which are probably a better example since they've been accepted into mainline). They'd easily be the size of a siege tower.

[thespaceinvader]

The Watchtower's mainline too - they're both in...about the 6th or 7th scenario of Son of the Black Eye.

[mr_svperstar]

Everyone keeps talking about SotBE, so I'm gonna have to go play it, then I'll know what you're all talking about.

I've only done HttT and multiplayer.

Back in a couple of weeks!