experience for using units the way they were intended

[neil]

I think that you should be able to level up a unit by using it the way it was intended to be used. For example, a scout to capturing lots of villages or a healer that heals your units should both level up eventually. Of course, they won't level up unless you send them into combat.

I think they should get a small amount of experience for these tasks. For example, for every 8 HP healed, award 1XP is not too much, but now you don't have to do weird things like swing healers them around your forces to deliver death blows so that they have any chance of levelling up -- and all you want is a better healer, not a better a fighter, yet they need to fight in order to become this.

Ditto for scouts -- you want faster scouts, but you end up having to send them into battle. You could instead award 1XP for every 4 neutral or allied villages captured (or 2 stolen from an opponent).

Someone is going to shout KISS at me, but honestly, the game is simpler if you just play normally: attack with attacking units, defend with defending units, heal with healing units, scout with scouting units, than if you play in such a way to save death blows for the healing units or scouts in the neighborhood-- that's weird and not simple and takes time to learn to do right.

Cheers,

Neil

[Na'enthos]

My question is this: why penalise a player who uses unorthodox (albeit possibly less effective) strategies successfully?

The fun thing about Wesnoth is (in my opinion) that you can decide what you think is best to survive and make it through the scenarios.

[turin]

please read the FAQ (stickied to the top of this page) before posting! this has to be the most proposed (and rejected) suggestion ever.

[neil]

please read the FAQ (stickied to the top of this page) before posting! this has to be the most proposed (and rejected) suggestion ever.

hyperbole aside....


I am offerring a new reason to justify this. I did read the FAQ, it says that offerring experience without putting your units in battle makes their upgrade "inevitable". Which doesn't mean anything really.... if you play long enough some units will inevitably survive and upgrade. If you think they will upgrade too quickly, offer 1 XP for many HP healed or many villages captured. The FAQ doesn't deal with this reasoning, just the suggestion itself.

Not trying to argue....

Neil

[turin]

in general, advancing (what XP helps you do) does not make you a better scout or healer, it makes you a better fighter. so why should scouting or healing make you a better fighter?

(yes, shaman -> druid gives you better healing, but it also gives you much better fighting, and i don't think you should be able to get better at fighting by healing.)

[neil]

in general, advancing (what XP helps you do) does not make you a better scout or healer, it makes you a better fighter. so why should scouting or healing make you a better fighter?

(yes, shaman -> druid gives you better healing, but it also gives you much better fighting, and i don't think you should be able to get better at fighting by healing.)

yeah, we're on to the same thing now! My point is that the reason that I want to upgrade my shaman is so that he becomes a better healer, and the reason I want to upgrade my scout is so that he becomes faster. The better fighting is incidental.

In an ideal and complicated world they would become better healers for healing and better runners for running between towns, but there is only one experience bar and the upgrade upgrades everything. My preference is to sit on the side that says they should upgrade eventually (even if it's slower than fighting) for doing what they do normally. 1 XP for 8 HP healed is much slower than a fighting unit will upgrade. a fighting unit that attacks and defends every turn will get 1XP for attacking 1 XP for defending and 8XP every now and then for killing plus more if it is attack or defending from multiple attackers and even more if they are levelled. 1 XP for 8 HP healed is the maximum a shaman can heal in one turn. It is a slow crawl compared to sending them into battle -- but still, I think it will have a positive, simplifying effect on gamplay since you will not constantly risk them in battle just to try to upgrade them... you can just let them get there.

Neil

[turin]

but scouts when they advance don't get better at scouting, they get better at fighting. same with healers. plus, since fighting is the main part of the game, i think it is better for you to be able to gain healing by fighting than fighting by healing.

you say in an ideal world, i say in a stupid, pointless, RPGish world. And yet we are talking about the same thing.

[Stosswelle]

this is a good idea
the argument that they shouldnt get better at fighting by not fighting actually proves the point
it shows that scouts and healers are encouraged to fight, which is wrong
more core things may need to be changed here

[MadMax]

What if it is a gryphon rider or a drake beak, which can scout and fight? What if it is a White Mage, which can heal and fight?

[Dave]

I don't see how the "It makes their upgrading inevitable" thing doesn't apply here.

If you make scouts get xp from scouting and healers from healing, then all you have to do is recall those units scenario after scenario, and soon enough, they'll advance.

I don't see how this makes for a very interesting game.

Furthermore, in a campaign your healers might take, say, 5 scenarios to advance. This will mean that in multiplayer it will be almost impossible for them to advance at all.

IMO all units in Wesnoth should be fighting units [1]. They may heal, or scout, but they also fight. Wesnoth is a game about fighting.

David

[1] Except for specially designated units that you have to protect or interact in some way in a scenario with special objectives.

[Dacyn]

I don't see how the "It makes their upgrading inevitable" thing doesn't apply here.

If you make scouts get xp from scouting and healers from healing, then all you have to do is recall those units scenario after scenario, and soon enough, they'll advance.

And the important thing is that this isn't true for fighting XP, since the unit has a chance of dying whenever you send it into battle.
(at least this is the logic I picked up on while reading the original thread on this topic, which BTW IMO should be linked to in the FPI)

[turin]

the most important thing, IMHO, is that there is only one kind of XP, and it can only be gotten by fighting. Nice, simple rules.

As for people who are saying the reasoning against this idea is actually for it... what you want is a game completely different from wesnoth.

[MadMax]

the most important thing, IMHO, is that there is only one kind of XP, and it can only be gotten by fighting. Nice, simple rules.

As for people who are saying the reasoning against this idea is actually for it... what you want is a game completely different from wesnoth.

Well spoken. I agree.

[neil]

I don't see how the "It makes their upgrading inevitable" thing doesn't apply here.

If you make scouts get xp from scouting and healers from healing, then all you have to do is recall those units scenario after scenario, and soon enough, they'll advance.

I don't see how this makes for a very interesting game.

Furthermore, in a campaign your healers might take, say, 5 scenarios to advance. This will mean that in multiplayer it will be almost impossible for them to advance at all.

IMO all units in Wesnoth should be fighting units [1]. They may heal, or scout, but they also fight. Wesnoth is a game about fighting.

David

[1] Except for specially designated units that you have to protect or interact in some way in a scenario with special objectives.

All upgrading is inevitable if you play long enough, since statistically, some units will survive and some of those will survive long enough to upgrade. Kind of like Le Chatelier's principle: each particle has some chance of crossing a barrier, so some particles will inevitably do it. Which means that sooner or later all units will inevitably advance.

I am not suggesting that healers stop getting XP from fighting, I am suggesting that they get it from healing as well.

Neil

[neil]

What if it is a gryphon rider or a drake beak, which can scout and fight? What if it is a White Mage, which can heal and fight?

They can still get experience from fighting as well as experience from healing. That way if you use them to fight they will probably advance faster and if you use them to heal they will eventually level.