non luck mod in the binary

[Fosprey]

Here is the problem.
thanks to zookeeper and others i don't remember their names now, i have teh non luck mod i want
What i do is replace the Evasion with damage reduction in the following way

Evasion 0%=+70 Damage recieved increase
E 10%=+50 DRI
E 20%=+35% DRI
E 30%=+20 DRI
E 40%= 0
E 50%= -20 DRI
E 60%= -35 DRI
E 70%= -50 DRI
E 80%= - 70 DRI

I choose this system because i wanted to avoid changing the binary as much as possible because i had a stupid idea, that the less i touch it , for the better.
With this system all i have to do was to make a binary where the numberes displayed were changed.
But now i realize that no matter how small the change if i need to change something in the binaries it means that whoever wants to play it needs the binary.
Chances for people to try my mod if they need to download a binary are slim.

I don't see how implement this system in anyway wihtout changing the binaries. So my best bet is to ask devs to allow me to have changes i need on the binaries they release to the public.
So what i'm asking what would be the best option if i can do it.

a) Make all the non-luck mod c++ based and add an option in the menu to activiate this mode
b) Make all the non-luck mod c++ based and make it so it can be activiate via WML code
c) Keep the system i'm using based on wml and be able to change the number display via WML code or via an option in the menu
d) Another option i didn't think off.

I have the same problem for vision, i don't see how i can make the changes i need on wml, so i probably need them in the binary, can we arrange something so it can be activated via a menu option or a wml trigger?

I would like for devs to tell me if i can be allowed to have those features in the binaries released to the public and what are the requirements.

[Jozrael]

I don't think the devs are going to package it with the main wesnoth releases unless it's shown that it is popular enough to warrant that. So far, I've seen like...2 people actively working on a no-luck mod?

[Girgistian]

Oo, I think this is a great idea. It's a good alternative. If this'll end up being voted for, you've got my vote.

[Max]

a) Make all the non-luck mod c++ based and add an option in the menu to activiate this mode
b) Make all the non-luck mod c++ based and make it so it can be activiate via WML code
c) Keep the system i'm using based on wml and be able to change the number display via WML code or via an option in the menu
d) Another option i didn't think off.

an option in the menu is the worst solution. no one will want a setting that virtually breaks existing stuff.
only way i can think of is directly via wml.

to get such a patch included i guess it would be a good idea to do it in a way where other non no-luck stuff would also benefit from. maybe something similar like new ai interface? i doubt that the developers would reject a patch, that offers real value for bfw just because it would also enable non-luck style games. but that's just my opinion^^

[Wintermute]

I don't see how implement this system in anyway wihtout changing the binaries. So my best bet is to ask devs to allow me to have changes i need on the binaries they release to the public.
So what i'm asking what would be the best option if i can do it.

I have the same problem for vision, i don't see how i can make the changes i need on wml, so i probably need them in the binary, can we arrange something so it can be activated via a menu option or a wml trigger?

I would like for devs to tell me if i can be allowed to have those features in the binaries released to the public and what are the requirements.

First off, you should consider a feature request for each of your wishes.

I would like to respond to this without really even addressing the feasibility of changing binaries. Some of you may be familiar with TripleA, an open source Axis and Allies clone. They have implemented a "low luck" mod that can be selected for any game by checking a box. What does this mean in terms of the community? IMHO, the community is split: some players only play low-luck games, some only play "original" games, and a few people crossover. But basically, there are two different games being played on the TripleA server. This is different than hosting scenarios (UMC) in my mind, because anyone playing Wesnoth can download the needed files and play them. Introducing a situation where player A and player B cannot play together because they are playing different games strikes me as overwhelmingly bad for the Wesnoth community. Not to mention, why should Wesnoth resources (some donated by players who love playing Wesnoth!) be used for a server that will be hosting a different game? I can't imagine that any steps down that path would be supported by the development team.

Now all that said, I think that more options in what players can do with the Fog of War would be great. I think that there is relative openness to allowing players experiment with different settings including so-called 'lower luck' settings, and even adding functionality to do so - for example: Dave's accuracy era.

Good "luck" with your efforts.

[Gambit]

you can either have random odds to hit and set amount of damage

or hit every time and varrying damage.

if your 100% chance to hit and do max damage every time its just a slaughter (wesnoth has chosen to do set amounts of damage and therefore must have varrying hit odds). theres no chance of units surviving. it just totally throws wesnoth out of whack. theres no surprise and no fun. plus its pretty funny to watch your 4hp peasant get attacked by a grand marshal and dodge every attack


i for one like things the way they are.


p.s. most game go with the second one with the occasional MISS

[Fosprey]

First off, you should consider a feature request for each of your wishes.

Big no, devs already state they don;t want to work on any feature that reduce randomness. In this case i'm not asking devs to do a thing, i will do it, what i'm asking is them to allow those changes in the binaries they offer to the public, so anybody , if want this feature activated in his era, can do it so via WML or a menu option. I'm not asking devs to work in ANYTHING, only allow me to have this feature in the binaries that I will put there. So i'm asking what are the requirments to have this changes in the binaries offered to public, of course make sure they don't affect everthing else, but what else?

I would like to respond to this without really even addressing the feasibility of changing binaries. Some of you may be familiar with TripleA, an open source Axis and Allies clone. They have implemented a "low luck" mod that can be selected for any game by checking a box. What does this mean in terms of the community? IMHO, the community is split: some players only play low-luck games, some only play "original" games, and a few people crossover. But basically, there are two different games being played on the TripleA server. This is different than hosting scenarios (UMC) in my mind, because anyone playing Wesnoth can download the needed files and play them. Introducing a situation where player A and player B cannot play together because they are playing different games strikes me as overwhelmingly bad for the Wesnoth community. Not to mention, why should Wesnoth resources (some donated by players who love playing Wesnoth!) be used for a server that will be hosting a different game? I can't imagine that any steps down that path would be supported by the development team.

I don't see how a non-luck mod is any less wesnoth than Survival maps that are played more than default games, or even rpg maps, and game changing maps like the ones TL does.

[Jozrael]

Just as a note, unless you personally make the binaries, the devs are going to have to do quite a bit of work to get yours included. I'd recommend including them in a separate binary and submitting it to the devs to be hosted on http://www.wesnoth.org as an alternative package.

[ADmiral-N]

Introducing a situation where player A and player B cannot play together because they are playing different games strikes me as overwhelmingly bad for the Wesnoth community. Not to mention, why should Wesnoth resources (some donated by players who love playing Wesnoth!) be used for a server that will be hosting a different game? I can't imagine that any steps down that path would be supported by the development team.

You're too late.

Survivals have "split" the Wesnoth community.
The ladder has "split" the Wesnoth community.
Some UMC do "split" the Wesnoth community.

Although I wouldn't use the word "split" because it makes out things to be much worse than they really are.
I'm mainly a ladder player, but I have tried a few survivals and I've seen one or two UMC.
Any no-luck mods wouldn't fragment the Wesnoth community any more than it already is. Some people will always stick to their favorite survival and others are always open to try new stuff. But the point remains that people on the Wesnoth server are in fact already playing lots of different games which are basically incompatible with each other, and imo that's a good thing since it actually brings the community together instead of promoting one small elitist group of players who like to play the core game.

[zookeeper]

I'm sure I've said it before several times that the way to do this are the kind of small features that will be useful elsewhere but which will also allow one to make their noluck eras in WML. A separate binary will fail, as will a request to put some hardcoded noluck switch into the core game.

[Fosprey]

Why that switch request will fail? they don't have to do anything, and they can even put as an almost stealth change only for era and campaigns developers as wml code.

[zookeeper]

Why that switch request will fail? they don't have to do anything, and they can even put as an almost stealth change only for era and campaigns developers as wml code.

Mostly because it'd be a maintenance burden, for a feature which wouldn't be officially endorsed anyway. Depending on what you'd actually want the switch to do, it might not even be possible to contain it cleanly in any single place, but it might need to touch several places in the codebase instead.

Also, I doubt you can just say that you'll do all the work and the devs just need to put it in, because you might not be around later on, when some other changes break your feature. Then what do we do? Remove it, and break the mods relying on it? Or would we need to start fixing it ourselves after all? If we'd be fixing some general-purpose WML feature which your mod depends on, then no problem, since it'd probably be used elsewhere too.

[Fosprey]

i understand.
What about enanching the wml code, so you are allowed to change the numbers that display in terrain. Yeah, it's a little vague, but for example.
Make it so that you can choose the Themewml that goes for an era. (In my opinion the themewml is one of the less powerfull ones.)
And a functionality in the themewml that allows you to affect the display numbers, what do you think?
that feature can be used for several things

[Yogibear]

i understand.
What about enanching the wml code, so you are allowed to change the numbers that display in terrain. Yeah, it's a little vague, but for example.
Make it so that you can choose the Themewml that goes for an era. (In my opinion the themewml is one of the less powerfull ones.)
And a functionality in the themewml that allows you to affect the display numbers, what do you think?
that feature can be used for several things

Through all my coding experience, especially in my current project (real life, not wesnoth ), i learned this the hard way several times: Don't code any workarounds. If you need it, make it good and smooth and simple and nice. Whenever i did a workaround, it fell back on me sooner or later and in the end did cost me more time than necessary.

Without being an expert for the WML processing code in the source, this very much sounds like a workaround for me: You use WML, that is not meant to do this display job, to modify numbers after they have been calculated. And you do it, just because you don't want to touch the binary.

This feels completely wrong to me. Let's face it: If we introduce new WML, we also need new code within the binary. New code that needs to be written, fixed, maintained...

For me the question is a different one: Do we want to support a non-luck mode or not? If we do, let's make it right: Add support for it into the binary, make a switch or slider to adjust the "luck-level" when creating the game. We had all this before, already. Sauron did it with his mod. While it wasn't a one-hour-fix, it was well doable for him and he wasn't as comfortable with the code as many of us.

I suggest to make a corresponding feature request, just like Wintermute said. If you want to really impress the devs, ask sauron what he needed to do to make his code work and try to do the same within the current dev branch. Submit a patch and ask to get it incorporated into the binary.

And here is my very personal opinion (which means i can't speak for the dev team because this has already become a political issue and i therefore won't go for a lonely-cowboy-mission without having a considerable backup within the dev team):

We let people play rumbles. We let them play with 30% xp. We let them play with 5 gpv. We let them play with 30 seconds time limit per turn. And we let them play without fog.
All of this is considered pretty stupid by "serious" players, but we let everyone decide by themselves what they want to do. And many appreciate that.

So what in the world is such a drama to let them pick the luck level? There will be a standard level, which corresponds to the current algorithm, so everyone who wants can keep playing as he does now.
Some will use it, some won't. Just like with any other setting for creating games.

If there is a broad support for this kind of change (yes, i am talking about you guys, the players ), i can offer to make this a subject of discussion within the dev team. I can't promise that it will be done, and it won't be unless there is a clear majority supporting such a change. I say this not because i believe so much in democracy. Instead i say this out of respect for the tremendous efforts that every one of them put into wesnoth.

On the other hand, it is not like the devs don't have an ear for the needs of the community, if (and only if) there are good arguments for them and they are presented in a helpful way. If the devs would only make "the game of their own", there wouldn't be official rumble and survival maps, for example. Those came up, because there is a considerable amount of players who like to play them and the dev team felt that they should respect and support that in some way.
And if we find a way to add a luck-adjustment with keeping the original functionality, like i suggested, and if the community shows that it is wanted, and if there are good arguments for it, and if players like Fosprey offer to help with it: Well, i think chances are not so grim, then .

Your call .

[Fosprey]

Thanks yogi.

I;m not sure if you understand this right, i already have the mod done, AND IS Working properly in my test.
The problem is the following when you have a unit that have +50 defense on my system, (those that have +50 in my system, get 70% evasion in the standard mode), and you move the cursor over, say the forest, it display 70% , of course. But i need for the sake of the players, to display +50.
Pretty simple, but it can;'t be done via wml unlike the rest of the mod, i already did this changing the binary. But i want people be able to download the add-on , and not need to download the binary i have prepared, especially when it's not a mechanic that i need, but just the display, in fact it can be played without any change on the binaries, but it would look weird (you must know that 70% = +50 defense).
Since i would like peopel to have access easily to my mod i want someway to be able to change the terrain numbers display via WML, only that.