Arcane vulnerability of elves: why?

qweo · Post by **qweo** » October 11th, 2007, 5:02 pm

Can somebody (of developers that made this decision, if possible) explain, why elves in the development branch of wesnoth got 10% vulnerability to arcane?

IMHO if wesnothian elves is magic creatures like sidhe or faerie, they should have resistance for arcane, that part of their nature, or, if they more like the elves of Professor, they should resist arcane for 20% like other non-undead creatures.

Post by **Noy** » October 11th, 2007, 5:08 pm

No, even if they are adept at using magic it does not change their own constitution which is partially sustained by magic. Therefore they are weak to attacks that disrupt their magical state, no matter how much they can use magic. Here is the original email that explains it, just substitute arcane for white damage when reading.

http://www.mail-archive.com/wesnoth-dev ... 01641.html

Edit: if the sidhe and the faeries have magical resist, it does not go along with the canon established with wesnoth factions. Thats not really my problem since they are not part of mainline.

Post by **Iris** » October 11th, 2007, 5:21 pm

That's a rather excellent argument pointed there, and has beaten my annoyance to dust. I tried to read the devs forum thread on the matter, but I got tired because there was nothing clearly explanatory and concise. I think this means a major overhaul of magical creatures in IftU and some UMC stuff. And yes, I read the entire message.

Post by **Blarumyrran** » October 11th, 2007, 5:49 pm

well, there are still the trolls who probably need the arcane weakness for balancing, but without any logical Ã¨xplanation lore-wise :/ i mean, humans&saurians are _less_ magical than trolls?

Post by **zookeeper** » October 11th, 2007, 5:55 pm

Syntax_Error wrote:well, there are still the trolls who probably need the arcane weakness for balancing, but without any logical Ã¨xplanation lore-wise :/ i mean, humans&saurians are _less_ magical than trolls?

Humans and saurians aren't magical creatures at all (actually I'm not yet sure about saurians though), but trolls are. The regeneration is one rather clear indication of this. We are working on more elaborate race descriptions that should alleviate the lack of explanations/lore like this, but as usual, progress is a bit slow.

qweo · Post by **qweo** » October 11th, 2007, 5:56 pm

Purely magical constructs would have a strong weakness, 50-60%:
Undead, (Golem-esque monsters)
Rather magical creatures get a slight weakness; 10-20% :
Drakes, Trolls, Woses
Semi-magical/faerie creatures get 0%:
Elves, Mermen, Naga, Orcs
Mundane/non-magical creatures get a resistance of 20-30%:
Humans, Dwarves, Saurians

Good concept, and what we can see in practice? Some races kept untouched, some (elves, drakes...) got less power and some (undead) got more. Old wesnoth unit tree has been quite balanced, and what the reason to change the balance for the (changed) concept? How about to compensate the changes, for ex. a bit increase hp for the "bad-touched" ones and a bit discrease for "good-touched", or, if "touched" ones is way too magical, may be they should have the resistance for other magical damage types, or may be they should get less damage for the other (non-arcane) attacks with "magical" special?
Of course that is just suggestions, i think that developers knows the better way to keep the balance.

Post by **Noy** » October 11th, 2007, 6:47 pm

qweo wrote:
Purely magical constructs would have a strong weakness, 50-60%:
Undead, (Golem-esque monsters)
Rather magical creatures get a slight weakness; 10-20% :
Drakes, Trolls, Woses
Semi-magical/faerie creatures get 0%:
Elves, Mermen, Naga, Orcs
Mundane/non-magical creatures get a resistance of 20-30%:
Humans, Dwarves, Saurians
Good concept, and what we can see in practice? Some races kept untouched, some (elves, drakes...) got less power and some (undead) got more. Old wesnoth unit tree has been quite balanced, and what the reason to change the balance for the (changed) concept? How about to compensate the changes, for ex. a bit increase hp for the "bad-touched" ones and a bit discrease for "good-touched", or, if "touched" ones is way too magical, may be they should have the resistance for other magical damage types, or may be they should get less damage for the other (non-arcane) attacks with "magical" special?
Of course that is just suggestions, i think that developers knows the better way to keep the balance.

Umm are they unbalanced?

qweo · Post by **qweo** » October 11th, 2007, 7:02 pm

Hm, i mean that they're looks unbalanced if compare with the old wesnoth unit tree.

Caeb · Post by **Caeb** » October 11th, 2007, 7:05 pm

unless you have substantial non-theoretical evidence of unbalance, qweo, I would run from this thread before the multiplayer devs can sink their claws into you... leave that Reply button be...

edit: TOO LATE, oh well, RUN, MAN, RUN...!

Truper · Post by **Truper** » October 11th, 2007, 8:56 pm

Well, we can say with certainty that game balance is quite different in 1.3 than it was in 1.2, and that most of this difference has to do with the switch from Holy to Arcane. If we start from the premise that 1.2 game balance was excellent, there is an inference that can be drawn...

Shiver · Post by **Shiver** » October 11th, 2007, 9:51 pm

The arcane weakness sounds like it would make Loyalist vs Elf and Elf vs Elf less of defensive turtling war, so that must be a good thing. But why make trolls weak against mages? A huge part of the Northerner game depends on trolls being able to hold hills and mountains. Now that a mage can blow them right off a hill top during noon, are trolls still any good against Elves and Loyalists?

Post by **Velensk** » October 11th, 2007, 10:12 pm

What are you talking about? Mages use fire damage. Very few units do arcane damage at lvl 1 (I think olny ghosts and dark adepts) Consitering that adepts have a much more powerful cold attack and ghosts do pracicaly nill damage anyway, I don't see how this changes the balance of any match except undead vs undead.

EDIT: Also loyalist vs rebles is one of the match ups I don't find lible to turn into a turtle war.

Post by **zookeeper** » October 11th, 2007, 10:13 pm

Shiver wrote:The arcane weakness sounds like it would make Loyalist vs Elf and Elf vs Elf less of defensive turtling war, so that must be a good thing. But why make trolls weak against mages? A huge part of the Northerner game depends on trolls being able to hold hills and mountains. Now that a mage can blow them right off a hill top during noon, are trolls still any good against Elves and Loyalists?

Yes, because no recruitable rebel or loyalist unit deals arcane damage. Only Elvish Sorceresses and White Mages do.

Post by **turin** » October 12th, 2007, 2:32 am

Noy wrote:Edit: if the sidhe and the faeries have magical resist, it does not go along with the canon established with wesnoth factions. Thats not really my problem since they are not part of mainline.

Note that "the Sidhe" as in the Wild Elf faction don't. I think he was referring to just "sidhe" and "faerie" in general...

Post by **irrevenant** » October 12th, 2007, 7:34 am

Question asked and answered (yay!).

As such this thread is resolved: Locked.