Khalifate gameplay thread (feedback on balance and bugs)

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Temuchin Khan
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Re: Khalifate feedback thread

Post by Temuchin Khan »

I realize that this thread is now intended mainly for balancing and bug reporting, but I wasn't sure where else to post this, given that I'm responding to previous posts in this thread.
Groggy_Dice wrote:...I'm not in favor of any origin story linking them to the Wesnothian people. I understand that Irdyan humans are not an exact match for our Earth cultures. But I just don't think there's enough time to evolve from the Celtic-like names of the Wesnothians to the Arabic-flavored names of the Khalifate. I'd prefer them to be another branch of Irdyan humans, isolated from the Wesnothians long before they fled to the Great Continent. That seems more in keeping with the language divergence.
Actually, there is a genuine point here. Perhaps the Khalifate history could be modified a bit. Here's one idea of how it could be done:

Around the time that Haldric's people colonized the Green Isle, the humans who remained on the Old Continent became divided into two bands. One of them remained in the Eastern part of the Old Continent, delved into magic and necromancy to defend themselves from the Orcs, and became the Wesfolk. The other rejected magic and migrated to the Western coast of the Old Continent to try to escape the Orcs.

For a time, this second band succeeded in finding refuge. In fact, for some centuries they made a living fishing the Western coasts of the Old Continent. However, the Orcs caught up with them and chased them from their new homes.

But their years as fisherman had made them great sailors, so this time they simply sailed westward and eventually reached the eastern coast of the Great Continent. They were able to settle their comfortably for a time, again living as fishermen, until a large force of nagas attacked them. Their ships having been designed for fishing and not for war, the nagas easily overcame them at sea and drove them inland - across a vast mountain range and deep into a desert on the other side.

Finally, having escaped the nagas, the colonists began quarreling among themselves and became divided into many small tribes.

From here on out, the history of the Khalifate could be pretty similar to what has already been written
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Mint
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Re: Khalifate gameplay thread (feedback on balance and bugs)

Post by Mint »

Are the falcons meant to have 0% defense on unwalkable terrains? They are flying units after all, so 0% makes 0 sense.
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Re: Khalifate gameplay thread (feedback on balance and bugs)

Post by jonadab »

They were saved by ancient wells and oasis that existed in the desert.
The plural of oasis is oases. HTH.HAND.

(Update: if you intended singular, there probably should be an article.)
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Re: Khalifate gameplay thread (feedback on balance and bugs)

Post by Wintermute »

Mint wrote:Are the falcons meant to have 0% defense on unwalkable terrains? They are flying units after all, so 0% makes 0 sense.
Yes it's a bug. I'll put out a bugfix version sometime next weekend, or this week if I get to it.
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Re: Khalifate gameplay thread (feedback on balance and bugs)

Post by Mint »

The levelled up horse, the Qanas, has a different movetype and different resistances to its level 3, the Hadaf
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Re: Khalifate gameplay thread (feedback on balance and bugs)

Post by william150 »

I agree with mint, Do not know much about it, but it does not violate the RIPLIB? and another opinion and that Mudafi is useless compared to the ghazi (both advances Arif) possibly I'm wrong, possibly it is a question of balance, but it is my opinion.and finally the Shuja -> khalid advance does not violate the RIPLIB with his long sword attack?.
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Superking
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Re: Khalifate gameplay thread (feedback on balance and bugs)

Post by Superking »

hey guys, I just watched most the replays in this thread so I would know vaugly what I'm talking about, hope I can give some useful feedback.

Without impuning the effort that has gone into this faction- I appreciate how much work it takes- I feel like in avoiding the noobtrap common to faction creation (KRAAAZY OP UNITS!!) you've gone too far the other way and made somthing fairly bland, that as mentioned elsewhere, isn't very thematic with the fantasy setting. Ofc, that is the best kind of fault since should ye feel inclined, its quick and fun to fix- add in some fantasy elements (giant scorpions, krazy elephants!) and interesting unique attacks (wizard magic, scarab beetles!) and it'll fit much easier.
Thats just my oppinion ofc, but it seems to me that every other faction is straight outta fantasy 101 while this one is.. straight outta medieval turkey?

The resistances on most the Khalifate units arent very intuitive (ie, you can guess Heavy Infantry will resist blade and peirce. A man in a skirt with a round wooden shield being blade resistant is less obvious). In general, the impact vunerability is pretty puzzling- fast, nimble desert types vunerable to.. slow, blunt heavy attacks? the other impact vunerable units in wesnoth are more obviously brittle- skeletons, for example.

The arif shuts down the use of elusive foot types pretty hard- much less vunerable to counterattack than mage types, able to retaliate in melee very effectively, resilient enough to escape and heal afterward. Using less skirmishers means more difficulty in finishing wounded units, and the Khalifate have the best healer in the game for when they need to pull back units- seems like it might encourage an unfun, porcy playstyle. It also seems like the Arif is going to stick it to elves with their low HP archer types relying on 70% forest defence, and orcy assasians with their low HP, low melee and terrible blade resistance.

The Jundi are strange, with dwarf-equivalent defence in hills (but not mountains?) and regular foot performance elsewhere- with 6 move and multirole capacity similar to the footpad. The resulting unit feels very strange and jack of all trades- no match for dwarves on the hills, no match for footpads on the plains but hugely superior to almost every factions archer, with acceptable damage and decent melee retaliation. As the Khalifate standard infantry unit, they dont really encourage a particularly characterful playstyle.

the unit graphics are very nice (with the exception of the falcon, which needs more texture).

The falcon seems kind of like the odd unit out with the otherwise historical tone, and somewhat out of scale- maybe it should be the Giant Falcon 8)

Personally I would welcome the addition of more balanced factions to the default era, because over the years the standard factions are becoming overfamiliar (yet the default era is the only one that feels sufficently balanced to dedicate time to). Keep up the good work!
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Re: Khalifate gameplay thread (feedback on balance and bugs)

Post by death160 »

Superking wrote:The falcon seems kind of like the odd unit out with the otherwise historical tone, and somewhat out of scale- maybe it should be the Giant Falcon 8)
LOL. :lol2:
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Great_Mage_Atari
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Re: Khalifate gameplay thread (feedback on balance and bugs)

Post by Great_Mage_Atari »

Well, falcons have been tamed and used for hunting since ancient times. It seems relevant that desert dwellers would train them to kill enemies.
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Temuchin Khan
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Re: Khalifate gameplay thread (feedback on balance and bugs)

Post by Temuchin Khan »

I'm not one of those who made the Khalifate, but I did help make Wesnoth's first Middle Eastern faction, the Kedari, and some of the same ideas are found in the Khalifate. So here are my comments:
Superking wrote:Without impuning the effort that has gone into this faction- I appreciate how much work it takes- I feel like in avoiding the noobtrap common to faction creation (KRAAAZY OP UNITS!!) you've gone too far the other way and made somthing fairly bland, that as mentioned elsewhere, isn't very thematic with the fantasy setting. Ofc, that is the best kind of fault since should ye feel inclined, its quick and fun to fix- add in some fantasy elements (giant scorpions, krazy elephants!) and interesting unique attacks (wizard magic, scarab beetles!) and it'll fit much easier.
Thats just my oppinion ofc, but it seems to me that every other faction is straight outta fantasy 101 while this one is.. straight outta medieval turkey?
On the other hand, a world with multiple human cultures seems more like a real world than one that has only a Late Medieval European-type culture. The inclusion of the Khalifate makes the world of Wesnoth seem like the world of Wesnoth, and not just the (world of) Wesnoth.

Still, when Turin and I, along with Cuyo Quiz and someone else whose online name I forget, made the Kedari, we did include Djinn. However, I remember someone at the time commenting that the Djinn made the faction over-powered, and that having a falcon instead would be better. That's probably part of why the Khalifate has a falcon.

EDIT: The other guy, who really only provided the idea that got us started but couldn't do any other work on it at the time for various reasons, was Azhur.
The resistances on most the Khalifate units arent very intuitive (ie, you can guess Heavy Infantry will resist blade and peirce. A man in a skirt with a round wooden shield being blade resistant is less obvious). In general, the impact vunerability is pretty puzzling- fast, nimble desert types vunerable to.. slow, blunt heavy attacks? the other impact vunerable units in wesnoth are more obviously brittle- skeletons, for example.
You may have a point there.

EDIT: On the other hand, shouldn't "fast, nimble desert types" have low resistances and high defense?
The arif shuts down the use of elusive foot types pretty hard- much less vunerable to counterattack than mage types, able to retaliate in melee very effectively, resilient enough to escape and heal afterward. Using less skirmishers means more difficulty in finishing wounded units, and the Khalifate have the best healer in the game for when they need to pull back units- seems like it might encourage an unfun, porcy playstyle. It also seems like the Arif is going to stick it to elves with their low HP archer types relying on 70% forest defence, and orcy assasians with their low HP, low melee and terrible blade resistance.
Swordsmanship, in many cultures, was an art, and so it doesn't make sense for high accuracy to only be available to archers and not also to swordsman. That's what gave me the idea of giving marksman to a melee unit when we made the Kedari, and that idea has apparently been carried over to the Khalifate.
The Jundi are strange, with dwarf-equivalent defence in hills (but not mountains?) and regular foot performance elsewhere- with 6 move and multirole capacity similar to the footpad. The resulting unit feels very strange and jack of all trades- no match for dwarves on the hills, no match for footpads on the plains but hugely superior to almost every factions archer, with acceptable damage and decent melee retaliation. As the Khalifate standard infantry unit, they dont really encourage a particularly characterful playstyle.
This, I suppose, is probably is derived from one of the other units we had in the Kedari - a camel rider, who was good in sand and hills, since the camel's feet effectively help him walk on sand dunes, but not in mountains, since the camel lives in the desert and not the mountains, and since being able to walk on sand dunes won't necessarily help you walk in the mountains.

Now, the Jundi isn't a camel rider, but it is supposed to represent a member of a clan of hillmen, hence their ability in the hills. But perhaps the mountains are at such a high elevation that they simply can't breath properly way up there, unlike the dwarves who are used to high altitudes.

As for the unit having a strange feel, maybe that's a good thing. A faction like this should feel different from all the rest!
Last edited by Temuchin Khan on October 21st, 2011, 8:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Khalifate gameplay thread (feedback on balance and bugs)

Post by csarmi »

Hi all,

I don't know if it has come up, but if not, something to consider.
Under the current circumstances Mudafi looks like a bad unit AND a bad leader to me. If you compare it to Ghazi, it becomes apparent.

Same movement. Same hp. Same resistances. Same defenses.
It has a 12-2 pierce firststrike attack instead of the 12-2 marksman blade AND the shield bash.

I understand that the pierce may come in handy, especially vs horses, but it still looks weak to me somehow.

Some little improvement, something that gives and edge would be welcome.

Give an extra movement? Or a spear throw attack? A ranged slow spear maybe? (that might be going too far, but with 1 strike it might be okay) Just some extra hp?

Something that wouldn't make me feel sorry when drawing that leader.

Currently, that marksman blade is so much more useful on defense.
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Re: Khalifate gameplay thread (feedback on balance and bugs)

Post by Dixie »

I didn't try the faction so I can't say much about balance, but:
On defense? You realise that Marksman is only active on offense, right?
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Re: Khalifate gameplay thread (feedback on balance and bugs)

Post by csarmi »

When you are defending, teh front is close to you, so your leader is more likely to play an active role. Now one of the crucial things while defending is to be able to take back villages.

The 12-2 marksman blade is much better for that than the 12-2 firststrike spear.

White Mage, Red Mage and Marksman are great defensive leaders for the same reason.
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Re: Khalifate gameplay thread (feedback on balance and bugs)

Post by The Black Sword »

The current level 2s(and 3s) are just placeholder units. You'll notice that most of them are weaker than their counterparts in other default factions. I've previously suggested some increased stats for them but I think the developers are just focusing on the lvl1s for the minute.
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Re: Khalifate gameplay thread (feedback on balance and bugs)

Post by csarmi »

I've got a few replays to upload.

Two games I've played vs peace on 1.9.9. He was Khalifate both times and I had random. Loyalists on Den of Onis and Rebels on CoTB.

I think both games were a good experience and we have discussed the games afterwards.

Enjoy :)
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