The Orcish Assassin is Orcish, right?

AT · Post by AT » August 5th, 2004, 5:32 pm

What's that about grasslands?

Assasins have improved defense in grasslands, and better movment in swamp and such. But, they are slower on hills/mountains.
That is what this whole thread is about, is it not?

You (EP) think they should be faster in mountains, for consistancy of race.

I think they shouldn't change, as I don't find diversity of orcs illogical, and think they are already one of the very few units that is balanced.

Unless I've been posting in the wrong thread, that is.

Dacyn · Post by **Dacyn** » August 5th, 2004, 5:38 pm

I wrote:the grunt's movement cost in hills is not a result of training for war, IMO. Why would the orcs expect battles to take place on hills? The movement cost is a result of the grunt's location. Besides, if not this, what does make the Orcish Assassin orcish? If you want to make a non-Orcish assassin, don't call it Orcish. If you want to make an Orcish assassin, at least give it some small property to make it be orcish.

However, it is more important to have the Orcish Assassin be balanced than logical, since Wesnoth is about gameplay not realism. If they are balanced now...

Elvish_Pillager · Post by **Elvish_Pillager** » August 5th, 2004, 6:22 pm

Dacyn wrote:If they are balanced now...

I have no evidence that they are...

Post by **turin** » August 5th, 2004, 6:52 pm

Elvish Pillager wrote:
Dacyn wrote:If they are balanced now...
I have no evidence that they are...

The person who wants the change has to provide reasons for it, not the other way 'round.*

*:which would be people against the change providing reasons against it.

Elvish_Pillager · Post by **Elvish_Pillager** » August 5th, 2004, 7:00 pm

turin wrote:The person who wants the change has to provide reasons for it, not the other way 'round.

Um, see the topic title?

Post by **turin** » August 5th, 2004, 10:35 pm

Elvish Pillager wrote:
turin wrote:The person who wants the change has to provide reasons for it, not the other way 'round.
Um, see the topic title?

thats not a good reason to change the movement costs. actually, its rather irrelevant.

TuxVader · Post by **TuxVader** » August 5th, 2004, 11:06 pm

[rant]
Will this make the game more fun?
NO.
This is just nitpicking. I think sometimes you should realize that this is a GAME. It's about FUN.
IMHO the only time something should be changed is when the change will make it more fun/improve the players general gameplay experience.
I don't care if "orcs live in hills and all of them should move quickly in hills" , it seems pointless to change the orcish assasin because of this.
If Elvish Pillager can prove that this will improve the gameplay experience than that's fine. But so far all he's been saying is: "all the other orcs move like this! Why doesn't the assasin?".

[/rant ]

Post by **Dave** » August 5th, 2004, 11:33 pm

Thieves are humans right? That means they get the same movement as other humans, yeah?

Dacyn · Post by **Dacyn** » August 6th, 2004, 1:27 am

Dave wrote:Thieves are humans right? That means they get the same movement as other humans, yeah?

well, humans is supposed to be a more generic group... it doesn't give its units adjectives. So why should it give them movement costs?
Anyway, the suggestion was not to make the Orcish Assassin be orcishfoot, IIRC. And thieves do move 1 on grassland, same as all the other humans.

Post by **Dave** » August 6th, 2004, 1:37 am

Dacyn wrote:
Dave wrote:Thieves are humans right? That means they get the same movement as other humans, yeah?
well, humans is supposed to be a more generic group...

Not really. Humans are just humans. There are more humans than other races, sure. I don't know if that makes them 'more generic'.

Dacyn wrote: it doesn't give its units adjectives.

This is because it's written from a human perspective, and so 'human' is assumed for any unit that race is not explicitly stated.

Dacyn wrote: Anyway, the suggestion was not to make the Orcish Assassin be orcishfoot, IIRC.

Well, it was to give them the same/similiar movement costs as other orcs. The implementation details were not discussed.

IMO this, especially combined with EP's suggestions to make factions entirely composed of one race each, will lead to an incredibly boring game, always decided entirely by terrain. I would like to push for much more terrain diversity within factions, rather than less.

Dacyn wrote: And thieves do move 1 on grassland, same as all the other humans.

I'm afraid I don't see the relevance of this. In fact, almost all units have 1 movement cost on grassland.

David

AT · Post by AT » August 6th, 2004, 1:53 am

Dave wrote: IMO this, especially combined with EP's suggestions to make factions entirely composed of one race each, will lead to an incredibly boring game, always decided entirely by terrain. I would like to push for much more terrain diversity within factions, rather than less.

Exactly; changing sides to favor a certain terrain alone is the precurser of total catyclysmic balance disaster.

Dacyn · Post by **Dacyn** » August 6th, 2004, 1:57 am

Dave wrote:Not really. Humans are just humans. There are more humans than other races, sure. I don't know if that makes them 'more generic'.

um, if a unit is not intended for a particular race, for example the Thief, then it ends up human. That's what I meant by 'generic'.

Dave wrote:Well, it was to give them the same/similiar movement costs as other orcs. The implementation details were not discussed.

Elvish Pillager wrote:Therefore, it should take 1 move in hills and 2 in mountains.

That's what I would call 'discussing implementation details'.

Dave wrote:IMO this, especially combined with EP's suggestions to make factions entirely composed of one race each, will lead to an incredibly boring game, always decided entirely by terrain. I would like to push for much more terrain diversity within factions, rather than less.

I agree, but still think that it doesn't make as much sense logically as EP's suggestion does. Also, I think it might be a good idea to rename the Orcish Assassin. I would suggest just 'Assassin', if that name hadn't already been taken...

Dave wrote:I'm afraid I don't see the relevance of this. In fact, almost all units have 1 movement cost on grassland.

I know. My point is that humans don't have a particular terrain that they move quickly on, which is another reason I consider them generic.

Post by **Dave** » August 6th, 2004, 2:04 am

Dacyn wrote:
Dave wrote:Not really. Humans are just humans. There are more humans than other races, sure. I don't know if that makes them 'more generic'.
um, if a unit is not intended for a particular race, for example the Thief, then it ends up human. That's what I meant by 'generic'.

That's one way of looking at it.

Another way of looking at it is that each and every unit has a race chosen for it, and humans are just another race that can be chosen.

I think either way is equally legitimate, and this is just semantics, anyhow.

Dacyn wrote:
Dave wrote:Well, it was to give them the same/similiar movement costs as other orcs. The implementation details were not discussed.

Elvish Pillager wrote:Therefore, it should take 1 move in hills and 2 in mountains.
That's what I would call 'discussing implementation details'.

No, that's discussing specific user-visible changes. Discussing implementation details would be discussing precisely how the change is achieved: through using a terrain movement override in the Orcish Assassin's unit definition vs changing the movement type to orcishfoot vs creating a new movement type for the Orcish Assassin.

Dacyn wrote:
Dave wrote:I'm afraid I don't see the relevance of this. In fact, almost all units have 1 movement cost on grassland.
I know. My point is that humans don't have a particular terrain that they move quickly on, which is another reason I consider them generic.

To me, this just means that humans are not good on moving in rough terrain.

The undead also don't have a particular terrain that they move quickly on, and drakes move equally fast on almost all terrain.

David

Elvish_Pillager · Post by **Elvish_Pillager** » August 6th, 2004, 9:25 am

Dave wrote:The implementation details were not discussed.

I discussed them at least twice! Do I have to tell you for a third time?!?

I'll get to refuting your other points later, but right now I'm so ****ed off at your inattentiveness that my post would be needlessly nasty.

Invisible Philosopher · August 6th, 2004, 10:08 am

autolycus wrote:Then again, AT might be right in principle. Orcish assassins, it may be presumed, are trained to move stealthily, taking their time to set up a kill. Most assassins do, regardless of race.

1) Such a thing is not possible in Wesnoth. More speed is the only way to reliably get the first strike, basically (besides the first strike ability, now

). Or if they had ambush for hills... but they don't, and shouldn't.

2) What about getting away after assassinating their target and being found out? They should run as fast as possible (This doesn't have as much to do with Wesnoth, but still...)

3) An argument the other way. This is an Orcish assassin. Orcs are disposable. Therefore, it doesn't need to get away. (unlike the level 3 human assassin, who you want to keep)

4) Maybe they're being slow and careful in hills, in order to get 70% defense. Just like in most other terrains they get 70% defense in. To me, this is the most convincing of all my arguments.

5) Orcs get a movement bonus in hills and mountains. Most units with a favored terrain also get better than normal-for-most-units defense there. Orcs don't - they just use hills to charge at their enemies across. Orcish assassins aren't quite the type for charging. Anyway, not all orcs live in hills, so that's not a good reason for all orcs being able to move quickly in them.

I don't think they should be changed.