SX RPG ADD ON 4.9.10 - now on 1.10.x Server.

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Mabuse
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Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SX RPG ADD ON 4.1.0d - now on 1.10.0 Server.

Post by Mabuse »

Hmm, in the thread is mentioned that liminal units have a slightly higher base damage, and they get 0% bonus at dawn and dusk, and recieve a -25% bonus at night and day.

that way, liminal would be a bad choice in SX.


the way what espreon and vultraz THINK it works, would be ok. +25% at dawn and dusk, -25% at day and 0% at night.

the way it is shortly described in the HELP, daytime information, it just mention that liminal units get a bonus at dusk and dawn, but no penalty.

so atm, i really dont know how liminal works - so i dont know how to estimate it.

Griffith wrote: I would like to see the poison back, AI uses it too.
btw, forgot to answer on this request.

atm, it works that poison is deleted from default weapons and these weapon get magical-special AND a damage bonus instead of it (this makes the default weapons with poison quite useful). poision is also not available in the shop.

basically i could give poison anytime back. but it would be just a waste of money. default weapons with poison would be weak and if you put other specials on it it would disappear anyways. poision special in shop would be just a waste of mones and useless -

the only useage of poison is to stop certain big bosses from regenerating, which is a good idea in genral, but most high-level bosses are undead or demons, and the mid level bosses can be very well killed without poison. so its rather useless, and in order to prevent players from wasting their money i cut it out and granted default weapons even a bonus for it - which would have been otherwise sold in shop anyway
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
JaMiT
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Joined: January 22nd, 2012, 12:38 am

Re: SX RPG ADD ON 4.3.5h - now on 1.10.x Server.

Post by JaMiT »

Mabuse wrote:how does lininal work exactly? do units just get an attack bonus, but no penalty?
During the day, -25% damage (negative lawful bonus). During the night, -25% damage (lawful penalty). During dawn and dusk, +0% damage (same as lawful).

If a unit converts from another alignment to liminal, its base damage would need to be increased 20% in order to maintain the same average damage over all times of day. If a unit converts from liminal to another alignment, its base damage would need to be reduced to 5/6 in order to maintain the same average damage over all times of day.
JoshT
Posts: 6
Joined: January 1st, 2013, 10:23 pm

Re: SX RPG ADD ON 4.3.5h - now on 1.10.x Server.

Post by JoshT »

Great scenarios; I enjoy these quite a bit more than the standard SX.

I ran into a couple of interesting bugs and oddities:
  • Shop items that don't cost a slot, such as cancelling out negative armor or purchasing magic healing, nonetheless don't work unless you have a slot available. For instance, try spending all your armor slots and then trying to cancel out some negative armor, or filling all your ability slots and then trying to buy magic healing.
  • As a warrior, right after purchasing a net, the prices of melee weapons doubled; exiting and re-entering the weapon and item menu returns the prices to normal.
  • Killing an enemy with magic doesn't give you extra movement and a new attack. If you weaken an enemy with magic and then finish it off with an attack, you get to move and attack again; however, if you attack it first, and then finish it off with magic, you remain stuck.
  • The description of the yellow potion says "your max HP will be increased by 8 and your current HP will be doubled". However, that doesn't match the actual behavior if you currently have more than max HP; instead, your max HP goes up by 8 and your current HP just becomes double your current max.
  • Units that start out with "feeding" have it removed, but don't get anything to compensate for it. Shouldn't they? (Also, out of curiosity, when did you start removing feeding, and changing soulstealer to give money rather than max HP? The changelog doesn't say.)
  • Some units in other eras use AMLA for something other than advancing to a new unt type (for instance, changing the weapon type of their primary weapon); those units have "advancement" tags but have advances_to=null. These units always get treated as not maximum level yet, so they can't buy non-potion items, sell weapons, or buy much armor. Could you check for advances_to=null, rather than checking for amla_default?
  • As a solo player, if you pick up a +25% attack item, and try to pick up another one, the message you get suggests that you've already got an item of that type so you'll leave it for another player. What other player? :) (Ideally I'd suggest that both items should work together, since that would only really apply to solo players, but if you don't want to allow that, then please consider updating the message to make more sense when no other players exist to pick up the item.)
Also, a feature request: could you add a right-click menu item to pick up an item from the current hex? It seems unfortunate that when standing on a potion you can't pick it up without moving away and back again.
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SX RPG ADD ON 4.3.5h - now on 1.10.x Server.

Post by Mabuse »

JaMiT wrote:
Mabuse wrote:how does lininal work exactly? do units just get an attack bonus, but no penalty?
During the day, -25% damage (negative lawful bonus). During the night, -25% damage (lawful penalty). During dawn and dusk, +0% damage (same as lawful).

If a unit converts from another alignment to liminal, its base damage would need to be increased 20% in order to maintain the same average damage over all times of day. If a unit converts from liminal to another alignment, its base damage would need to be reduced to 5/6 in order to maintain the same average damage over all times of day.
ok. thx for answer. in this case liminal cannot be included in SXRPG, since it is incompatible with the standard alignments.
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SX RPG ADD ON 4.3.5h - now on 1.10.x Server.

Post by Mabuse »

JoshT wrote:Great scenarios; I enjoy these quite a bit more than the standard SX.
im happy that you enjoy them. of course this is thee reason why i make these scn. they are not only for me, but also for people who like them :)
JoshT wrote: [*] Shop items that don't cost a slot, such as cancelling out negative armor or purchasing magic healing, nonetheless don't work unless you have a slot available. For instance, try spending all your armor slots and then trying to cancel out some negative armor, or filling all your ability slots and then trying to buy magic healing.
wow - this is almost to be considered as abug and have to be fixed asap :)
thx for report.

i wonder why i never recognzed that before. probably because i always nullify my negative armor before spending all other slots
JoshT wrote: [*] As a warrior, right after purchasing a net, the prices of melee weapons doubled; exiting and re-entering the weapon and item menu returns the prices to normal.
ok, i know that double price bug. I hoped i erased that thing sompletely, but now it seems i must do some more work :)
JoshT wrote: [*] Killing an enemy with magic doesn't give you extra movement and a new attack. If you weaken an enemy with magic and then finish it off with an attack, you get to move and attack again; however, if you attack it first, and then finish it off with magic, you remain stuck.
ok. i know this. initially this was a design decision. it ccan be changed, no question.
after all the only thing which held me back so far was that this probably means additional work ;)
JoshT wrote: [*] The description of the yellow potion says "your max HP will be increased by 8 and your current HP will be doubled". However, that doesn't match the actual behavior if you currently have more than max HP; instead, your max HP goes up by 8 and your current HP just becomes double your current max.
well yes, in this case the description have to be changed.

the yellow potion will give you +8 Hp and then set your HP to the double of your current maximum
JoshT wrote: [*] Units that start out with "feeding" have it removed, but don't get anything to compensate for it. Shouldn't they? (Also, out of curiosity, when did you start removing feeding, and changing soulstealer to give money rather than max HP? The changelog doesn't say.)
took a whie to figure it out for myself:
version 3.4.3

with the port to wesnoth1.8 i introduced a NEW sx system, with reduced stats.
formerly (and the old sx also uses the old stats) the stats in sx were much higher, and stats of players also increased much faster.

the endboss in wowII has now 1875 HP - in its original version in wesnoth1.6 it had 6000 HP ;)
same goes for the damage/strikes vlaues - they were all higher. but unfortuanately .. unplayable ;)

so i didnt want to accept that SX is limited to short-on-turn/small-map games, i really needed to develope a system with reduced stats, but the same gameplay and balance - and also do this in a way to be also able to convert all the previous maps quite fast ;)

well, and in the original version for every killed enemy SOULSTEALER ability gave you +1HP
(+50HP cost 100 gold). so 1 HP was bascially worth 2gold.

when the system changed that +15HP cost 100 gold, its that 1 additonal HP is worth 6.666 gold.
in this case feeding is comepletely overpowered.

soulstealer was reduced to +2 gold, later tio +1gold - esspecially because single hero games were possible, and in single-hero games soulstealer is more valueful than in a 5 player game.

why no replacement?
well, since only the ghoul has feeding (in the default era), and the ghoul is anyway one of the better units, there was no reason to give a replacement.

you are right tough, maybe there should be a replacement.
soulstealer would be the replacement then.

noted.
JoshT wrote: [*] Some units in other eras use AMLA for something other than advancing to a new unt type (for instance, changing the weapon type of their primary weapon); those units have "advancement" tags but have advances_to=null. These units always get treated as not maximum level yet, so they can't buy non-potion items, sell weapons, or buy much armor. Could you check for advances_to=null, rather than checking for amla_default?
good suggestion.
JoshT wrote: [*] As a solo player, if you pick up a +25% attack item, and try to pick up another one, the message you get suggests that you've already got an item of that type so you'll leave it for another player. What other player? :) (Ideally I'd suggest that both items should work together, since that would only really apply to solo players, but if you don't want to allow that, then please consider updating the message to make more sense when no other players exist to pick up the item.)
noted.
JoshT wrote: Also, a feature request: could you add a right-click menu item to pick up an item from the current hex? It seems unfortunate that when standing on a potion you can't pick it up without moving away and back again.
well, yes, your are right. would mean a reasonable amount of work though.



however, this is a great feedback, and im sure that all or allmost all of your points will go into the next realease of SXRPG. this surely helps to improve sxrpg.
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
JoshT
Posts: 6
Joined: January 1st, 2013, 10:23 pm

Re: SX RPG ADD ON 4.3.5h - now on 1.10.x Server.

Post by JoshT »

Mabuse wrote:
JoshT wrote:Great scenarios; I enjoy these quite a bit more than the standard SX.
im happy that you enjoy them. of course this is thee reason why i make these scn. they are not only for me, but also for people who like them :)
Thank you very much for your efforts, and your quick response.
Mabuse wrote:
JoshT wrote: [*] Shop items that don't cost a slot, such as cancelling out negative armor or purchasing magic healing, nonetheless don't work unless you have a slot available. For instance, try spending all your armor slots and then trying to cancel out some negative armor, or filling all your ability slots and then trying to buy magic healing.
wow - this is almost to be considered as abug and have to be fixed asap :)
thx for report.

i wonder why i never recognzed that before. probably because i always nullify my negative armor before spending all other slots
I do too; I noticed when I went to buy spells, because I'd already used all my ability slots and then couldn't buy magic healing. When I realized the cause, I guessed that it would also occur with armor, and checked that.

On a related note, would you consider modifying the terrain system a bit? I remember that some versions of SurvivalX used to require one purchase per point of movement cost to reduce, so you could reduce a 3 to a 2 or a 4 to a 3 without having to reduce it all the way to 1; using a system like that, and then allowing a higher number of modifications, seems more useful for classes that start out with movement penalties on a large number of terrains. Some units start out with substantial movement penalties on the majority of terrain types, and I'd rather reduce more of them slightly (to 3 or 2) rather than reducing only 4 of them to 1. I'd love to see something more like the armor system, where going from 4+ to 3 or 10% to 20% costs much less than going from 2 to 1, and a slightly higher limit (6 or 7), with major deficits not counting towards the limit.
Mabuse wrote:
JoshT wrote: [*] As a warrior, right after purchasing a net, the prices of melee weapons doubled; exiting and re-entering the weapon and item menu returns the prices to normal.
ok, i know that double price bug. I hoped i erased that thing sompletely, but now it seems i must do some more work :)
Very curious to hear what actually caused that one. I'd guess it has something to do with the multiplier normally applied to the weapons that don't match your class (melee for a ranged class, or vice versa).
Mabuse wrote:
JoshT wrote: [*] Killing an enemy with magic doesn't give you extra movement and a new attack. If you weaken an enemy with magic and then finish it off with an attack, you get to move and attack again; however, if you attack it first, and then finish it off with magic, you remain stuck.
ok. i know this. initially this was a design decision. it ccan be changed, no question.
after all the only thing which held me back so far was that this probably means additional work ;)
Hopefully this just needs a different choice of trigger.

That situation came up many times the first time I tried to play as a mage; I kept wanting to use a damage spell as an "oops, I missed too much and didn't quite kill it" finisher, but ended up having to always use it in advance instead.
Mabuse wrote:
JoshT wrote: [*] The description of the yellow potion says "your max HP will be increased by 8 and your current HP will be doubled". However, that doesn't match the actual behavior if you currently have more than max HP; instead, your max HP goes up by 8 and your current HP just becomes double your current max.
well yes, in this case the description have to be changed.

the yellow potion will give you +8 Hp and then set your HP to the double of your current maximum
On a related note, I discovered, painfully, that you can't drop red potions, and using them to make space for blue potions will clamp your HP to your current max. That seems wrong.
Mabuse wrote:
JoshT wrote: [*] Units that start out with "feeding" have it removed, but don't get anything to compensate for it. Shouldn't they? (Also, out of curiosity, when did you start removing feeding, and changing soulstealer to give money rather than max HP? The changelog doesn't say.)
took a whie to figure it out for myself:
version 3.4.3

with the port to wesnoth1.8 i introduced a NEW sx system, with reduced stats.
formerly (and the old sx also uses the old stats) the stats in sx were much higher, and stats of players also increased much faster.

the endboss in wowII has now 1875 HP - in its original version in wesnoth1.6 it had 6000 HP ;)
same goes for the damage/strikes vlaues - they were all higher. but unfortuanately .. unplayable ;)

so i didnt want to accept that SX is limited to short-on-turn/small-map games, i really needed to develope a system with reduced stats, but the same gameplay and balance - and also do this in a way to be also able to convert all the previous maps quite fast ;)

well, and in the original version for every killed enemy SOULSTEALER ability gave you +1HP
(+50HP cost 100 gold). so 1 HP was bascially worth 2gold.

when the system changed that +15HP cost 100 gold, its that 1 additonal HP is worth 6.666 gold.
in this case feeding is comepletely overpowered.

soulstealer was reduced to +2 gold, later tio +1gold - esspecially because single hero games were possible, and in single-hero games soulstealer is more valueful than in a 5 player game.
Yeah, that seems like the main source of new difficulty in these maps: lack of HP. The amount of HP required to survive enemies, especially mobile bosses (or at least those in Temple of Bones), seems to cost a lot more than it used to; it doesn't seem like the values shrunk anywhere near in proportion.
Mabuse wrote: why no replacement?
well, since only the ghoul has feeding (in the default era), and the ghoul is anyway one of the better units, there was no reason to give a replacement.

you are right tough, maybe there should be a replacement.
soulstealer would be the replacement then.

noted.
I'd suggest soulstealer and a small max HP bonus, similar to the way poison becomes magical and +2; perhaps soulstealer and +15?
Mabuse wrote:
JoshT wrote: [*] Some units in other eras use AMLA for something other than advancing to a new unt type (for instance, changing the weapon type of their primary weapon); those units have "advancement" tags but have advances_to=null. These units always get treated as not maximum level yet, so they can't buy non-potion items, sell weapons, or buy much armor. Could you check for advances_to=null, rather than checking for amla_default?
good suggestion.
Thanks. I ran across this one while digging through other areas to find units that made for a novel experience in SXRPG. Found one entertaining one: Mystical Jinn, https://wesnoth.org/units/1.10/Era_of_M ... ystic.html .
Mabuse wrote:
JoshT wrote: [*] As a solo player, if you pick up a +25% attack item, and try to pick up another one, the message you get suggests that you've already got an item of that type so you'll leave it for another player. What other player? :) (Ideally I'd suggest that both items should work together, since that would only really apply to solo players, but if you don't want to allow that, then please consider updating the message to make more sense when no other players exist to pick up the item.)
noted.
I assume you plan to fix the message here, rather than allowing the bonuses to stack?
Mabuse wrote:
JoshT wrote: Also, a feature request: could you add a right-click menu item to pick up an item from the current hex? It seems unfortunate that when standing on a potion you can't pick it up without moving away and back again.
well, yes, your are right. would mean a reasonable amount of work though.
Yeah, I can imagine.
Mabuse wrote: however, this is a great feedback, and im sure that all or allmost all of your points will go into the next realease of SXRPG. this surely helps to improve sxrpg.
Thank you very much! I look forward to it.
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SX RPG ADD ON 4.3.5h - now on 1.10.x Server.

Post by Mabuse »

Hello,
JoshT wrote: On a related note, would you consider modifying the terrain system a bit? I remember that some versions of SurvivalX used to require one purchase per point of movement cost to reduce, so you could reduce a 3 to a 2 or a 4 to a 3 without having to reduce it all the way to 1; using a system like that, and then allowing a higher number of modifications, seems more useful for classes that start out with movement penalties on a large number of terrains. Some units start out with substantial movement penalties on the majority of terrain types, and I'd rather reduce more of them slightly (to 3 or 2) rather than reducing only 4 of them to 1. I'd love to see something more like the armor system, where going from 4+ to 3 or 10% to 20% costs much less than going from 2 to 1, and a slightly higher limit (6 or 7), with major deficits not counting towards the limit.
No, such a change will not happen.
Since EVERYTHING that is not 1 is basically "useless".

reducing MountainMovement from 4 to 3 will have exactly what benefit? Not really much.
if you are a slow slug or a fast slug dosent make the difference.

also: effectively EVERY hero have 6 Terrain slots.
If you chose the CAVE-EXPLORER trait, then you have CAVE+HILLS already trained and set to 50% defense.
The other 4 can be spend on other purposes, it is usually enough.

Another Point is that MOVEMENT is actually one of the things where base-unit attributes have a strong influence. i would like to keep that base-unit influence instead of overequalize everything.

as a compromise and imo good addition:
-----------------------------------------

i may simply set the number of terrain slots to 5 if the actual mobility is weak.

mobility will be sum of all movement-rates of the shop-terrains. if the mobility exceeds a certsin value the hero is granted +1 terrain-slot to compensate its bad mobility.
non reachable, basic terrains will als go into the calculation.
JoshT wrote: [*] As a warrior, right after purchasing a net, the prices of melee weapons doubled; exiting and re-entering the weapon and item menu returns the prices to normal.
...........
Very curious to hear what actually caused that one. I'd guess it has something to do with the multiplier normally applied to the weapons that don't match your class (melee for a ranged class, or vice versa).
hm. of course i have the source of the bug in my head - then i looked intot the actual code -- and coudnt find a source for that report..

then i tried first to reproduce your bug and i couldnt reproduce what you described.

i took a warrior and bought a net. the shop-prices for the weapons didnt double.
i tried different heros, different combinations. the prices didnt double up.

pls try again to reproduce your bug and tell me what you did.
in any case it is not what i actually had in mind
JoshT wrote: [*] Killing an enemy with magic doesn't give you extra movement and a new attack. If you weaken an enemy with magic and then finish it off with an attack, you get to move and attack again; however, if you attack it first, and then finish it off with magic, you remain stuck.

....
Hopefully this just needs a different choice of trigger.
well, this is basically no big deal.
and i think this should be changed. units killed by spells should give at least XP/mony.
(the money part gets added, XP are already distributed)

im not sure wether they should be rewared with an aditional attack and moves. i think rather not.
a damage spell is no 2nd, 3rd or 4th attack, and using it will not result in an additional main attack.
that would be OP.
JoshT wrote: On a related note, I discovered, painfully, that you can't drop red potions, and using them to make space for blue potions will clamp your HP to your current max. That seems wrong.
red potions will not boost your hp above max HP. this is intended and right.
else red pots would be overpowered.

yellow pots cannot be carried, they must be used where they are found or left there.
and cannot be bought in shop

this is a great difference. if you want to get rid of potions, use them, or give them to a nearby hero, by rightclicking on an adjacent allied hero (and chose the menu item that reads like "give red potion".)

ideally you would als be able to drop them, thats something that would be worth of some kind of work in the future :)
JoshT wrote: Yeah, that seems like the main source of new difficulty in these maps: lack of HP. The amount of HP required to survive enemies, especially mobile bosses (or at least those in Temple of Bones), seems to cost a lot more than it used to; it doesn't seem like the values shrunk anywhere near in proportion.
not at all.

you underestimate if you think i just reduced the HP (or better just increased the price of HP for players (as well as for enemies)).

the price of damage and strikes doubled. that means additional damage shrunk to a fourth (1/4) of the old, "original" damage.

so the values of HP, DAMAGE and STRIKES changed.
(and ALL related values, shop-weapons, values of potions, etc..)

enemies got of course also lower damage, hp and strike values.
while maintaining (almost) the same balance.

"almost" means that on low HP/low strike numbers "bad luck" or a "bad streak" can have more influence and be recognized as "harder". in sxrpg there is a lot of combat, many units "die" in an sx-game for example, much more than in a usual wesnoth map - so there wil be always bad moments that can have a bigger impact.

for that reason, to get 5-strikes for starting weapons is a musthave.


the source of the difficulty is simply the map/enemy-design/balance for itself.
may maps werent easier in the original-format.

instead: i think with magic, magic movement, tons of pots and damage-items - things actually got a tad easier.

but then again, i always think about ways to challenge the players, so the enemies get also a bit trickier.

also, my very first maps were surly easier than the new maps and everything what will come in the future.
this is because i also learn more about sxrpg and how to design a playable but challenging level.
and tricky enemies that disturb and pose a threat to players.

nah, i want the level to be playable, but also constantly challenging and interesting. or at least challenging enough so that the players must use the resources they have in order to complete the level.


but the change to the reduced HP/DAMAGE/STRIKE format has nothing to do with DIFFICULTY.
this was just a nessessity in order to keep SX (RPG) playable at all. The wesnoth engine simply doesnt support too high numbers.
JoshT wrote: I'd suggest soulstealer and a small max HP bonus, similar to the way poison becomes magical and +2; perhaps soulstealer and +15?
hmm, its not even said that the ghoul will get soulstealer for free.
its likely that feeding will remain restricted without any bonus granted for it.

the ghoul with free frearless is already a top unit.

so your request is about to make an already good unit a slight tad batter, and maybe another tad ;)
Mabuse wrote: I assume you plan to fix the message here, rather than allowing the bonuses to stack?
of course they will not stack. ;)
thats OP.
JoshT wrote: Thank you very much! I look forward to it.
be sure that quite a lot you mentioned will have influence and be included in the one or other way.
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
JoshT
Posts: 6
Joined: January 1st, 2013, 10:23 pm

Re: SX RPG ADD ON 4.3.5h - now on 1.10.x Server.

Post by JoshT »

Mabuse wrote:Hello,
JoshT wrote: On a related note, would you consider modifying the terrain system a bit? I remember that some versions of SurvivalX used to require one purchase per point of movement cost to reduce, so you could reduce a 3 to a 2 or a 4 to a 3 without having to reduce it all the way to 1; using a system like that, and then allowing a higher number of modifications, seems more useful for classes that start out with movement penalties on a large number of terrains. Some units start out with substantial movement penalties on the majority of terrain types, and I'd rather reduce more of them slightly (to 3 or 2) rather than reducing only 4 of them to 1. I'd love to see something more like the armor system, where going from 4+ to 3 or 10% to 20% costs much less than going from 2 to 1, and a slightly higher limit (6 or 7), with major deficits not counting towards the limit.
No, such a change will not happen.
Since EVERYTHING that is not 1 is basically "useless".

reducing MountainMovement from 4 to 3 will have exactly what benefit? Not really much.
if you are a slow slug or a fast slug dosent make the difference.
It makes a big difference, because of the 4-6 (depending on class and Lightfoot) movement points after an attack. Dropping a relatively uncommon terrain to 3 or 2 makes it possible to move through that hex and another hex, which frequently makes the difference in managing to reach the next unit and keep a spree going.
Mabuse wrote: also: effectively EVERY hero have 6 Terrain slots.
If you chose the CAVE-EXPLORER trait, then you have CAVE+HILLS already trained and set to 50% defense.
The other 4 can be spend on other purposes, it is usually enough.
If you don't mind spending your trait on terrain, yeah; usually I'd rather have that trait for Intelligent.
Mabuse wrote: Another Point is that MOVEMENT is actually one of the things where base-unit attributes have a strong influence. i would like to keep that base-unit influence instead of overequalize everything.

as a compromise and imo good addition:
-----------------------------------------

i may simply set the number of terrain slots to 5 if the actual mobility is weak.

mobility will be sum of all movement-rates of the shop-terrains. if the mobility exceeds a certsin value the hero is granted +1 terrain-slot to compensate its bad mobility.
non reachable, basic terrains will als go into the calculation.
That would work as well. I just figured that having the ability to reduce a terrain's cost but not to 1 would offer a bit more nuance.
Mabuse wrote:
JoshT wrote: [*] As a warrior, right after purchasing a net, the prices of melee weapons doubled; exiting and re-entering the weapon and item menu returns the prices to normal.
...........
Very curious to hear what actually caused that one. I'd guess it has something to do with the multiplier normally applied to the weapons that don't match your class (melee for a ranged class, or vice versa).
hm. of course i have the source of the bug in my head - then i looked intot the actual code -- and coudnt find a source for that report..

then i tried first to reproduce your bug and i couldnt reproduce what you described.

i took a warrior and bought a net. the shop-prices for the weapons didnt double.
i tried different heros, different combinations. the prices didnt double up.

pls try again to reproduce your bug and tell me what you did.
in any case it is not what i actually had in mind
I've only seen it once, and it occurred very late in a game. If I manage to reproduce it, I'll report back.
Mabuse wrote:
JoshT wrote: [*] Killing an enemy with magic doesn't give you extra movement and a new attack. If you weaken an enemy with magic and then finish it off with an attack, you get to move and attack again; however, if you attack it first, and then finish it off with magic, you remain stuck.

....
Hopefully this just needs a different choice of trigger.
well, this is basically no big deal.
and i think this should be changed. units killed by spells should give at least XP/mony.
(the money part gets added, XP are already distributed)

im not sure wether they should be rewared with an aditional attack and moves. i think rather not.
a damage spell is no 2nd, 3rd or 4th attack, and using it will not result in an additional main attack.
that would be OP.
Hmmm, I think I see the case you had in mind. I ran into this issue against random mooks, where I happened to get unlucky with attacks and left an enemy with a dozen HP, and couldn't finish them off with a spell to keep going; in that situation, allowing the spell-kill to give moves and an attack doesn't seem overpowered at all. I figured, if you use a spell and then attack to kill, you get movement and an attack back, so the reverse ought to work too. However, it sounds like you have a different case in mind: running up to a boss, whaling on it, then killing a nearby mook with a spell and getting another attack on the boss; that *does* seem overpowered.

Do you see any obvious way to allow one of those cases but not the other?
Mabuse wrote:
JoshT wrote: On a related note, I discovered, painfully, that you can't drop red potions, and using them to make space for blue potions will clamp your HP to your current max. That seems wrong.
red potions will not boost your hp above max HP. this is intended and right.
else red pots would be overpowered.
Of course! I didn't suggest otherwise. I'd just argue that a red potion should never *decrease* your HP. Using a red potion should set your HP to maximum if and only if currently *less* than maximum. You could even modify the menu item in that case, from "Use red potion" to "Throw away red potion".
Mabuse wrote: yellow pots cannot be carried, they must be used where they are found or left there.
and cannot be bought in shop

this is a great difference. if you want to get rid of potions, use them, or give them to a nearby hero, by rightclicking on an adjacent allied hero (and chose the menu item that reads like "give red potion".)
Doesn't help when playing solo.
JoshT wrote: ideally you would als be able to drop them, thats something that would be worth of some kind of work in the future :)
If you mean drop in the "throw away" sense, I think that only makes sense for red potions; for every other kind, you can just use them.

If you mean drop in the "put them in the current hex" sense, you shouldn't add that; that would allow stockpiling potions near a boss, to bypass the backpack size. Many bosses would become way too easy if you could first ferry a couple backpack-loads of red and blue pations nearby. :)
JoshT wrote: I'd suggest soulstealer and a small max HP bonus, similar to the way poison becomes magical and +2; perhaps soulstealer and +15?
hmm, its not even said that the ghoul will get soulstealer for free.
its likely that feeding will remain restricted without any bonus granted for it.
[/quote]

Soulstealer only costs 50 gold. Units with steadfast, dauntless, and regenerates get the significantly more powerful SX abilities for free, and those are worth 100, 150, and 150 gold. Giving the much *less* powerful soulstealer for free to units with feeding seems pretty reasonable by the same standard, and arguably seems like woeful compensation for taking away the much more powerful feeding ability.
Mabuse wrote:
JoshT wrote: Thank you very much! I look forward to it.
be sure that quite a lot you mentioned will have influence and be included in the one or other way.
Thanks!
JoshT
Posts: 6
Joined: January 1st, 2013, 10:23 pm

Re: SX RPG ADD ON 4.3.5h - now on 1.10.x Server.

Post by JoshT »

I just ran into another interesting shopping bug. In the attached save and replay, I managed to get enough experience to advance on turn 1 and then reach another shop. I went to the "weapon specials" menu, and it still shows my weapons from the previous unit ("jinn circle") rather than what they changed to in the current unit ("dimensional vortex").
Attachments
SXRPG_WizardOfWar2_Turn_1_-_shop_bug.gz
(393.71 KiB) Downloaded 151 times
SXRPG_WizardOfWar2_replay_-_shop_bug.gz
(199.39 KiB) Downloaded 158 times
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SX RPG ADD ON 4.3.5h - now on 1.10.x Server.

Post by Mabuse »

hello,
JoshT wrote: It makes a big difference, because of the 4-6 (depending on class and Lightfoot) movement points after an attack. Dropping a relatively uncommon terrain to 3 or 2 makes it possible to move through that hex and another hex, which frequently makes the difference in managing to reach the next unit and keep a spree going.

If you don't mind spending your trait on terrain, yeah; usually I'd rather have that trait for Intelligent.

That would work as well. I just figured that having the ability to reduce a terrain's cost but not to 1 would offer a bit more nuance.
but having movement at 1 would be even a lot better than having it at 2 or 3 ;)

terrain training is basically meant as the unit is used to move through that terrain like darves can move through mountains (well dwarves can move through most terrains well), elves through forests etc.

a slight defense bonus is also given in case the base defense for that terrain is lower than 40%. in this case the terrain defense is set to 40%.

hehe, you can even train FLAT Ground just for the sake to raise the defnse there. on flat ground there is one exception: if the defense is at 40%, and flat ground is trained, then the defense is raised to 50%.
this is good for unnits that have overall solid defenses (like smallfoot = normal humans), on hills, forests, mountains - but flaz ground is 40%. in order to raise flatground to 50% humans might just train flat ground instead of buying the (more expensive) agility ability.

standard human terrain training is (for me): flat, cave, hills, and one special (like mountain, sand, snow, swamp - depends on map)

allowing movement of certain terrains to 1 actually makes units PLAYABLE at all.
movement is one of the most important factors. if the movement wouldnt be reduced to 1 for the trained terrains, then you would use anyways only units with a superior movement.

i agree though that there might be use for even more terrain training - and in this case i thought to implement probably the following:

after all the regular terrain training is done, there may be again 4 slots that reduce the movement costs of a particular terrain by 1 (for the same cost of 25 gold) to a lower limit of 2. so that you can spend some points of reducing movement costs.

(but then again this is also kinda UNKISS, since two systems are mixed up, i may also give in some rare cases of very low overall mobility +1 terrain training)
JoshT wrote: Hmmm, I think I see the case you had in mind. I ran into this issue against random mooks, where I happened to get unlucky with attacks and left an enemy with a dozen HP, and couldn't finish them off with a spell to keep going; in that situation, allowing the spell-kill to give moves and an attack doesn't seem overpowered at all. I figured, if you use a spell and then attack to kill, you get movement and an attack back, so the reverse ought to work too. However, it sounds like you have a different case in mind: running up to a boss, whaling on it, then killing a nearby mook with a spell and getting another attack on the boss; that *does* seem overpowered.

Do you see any obvious way to allow one of those cases but not the other?
well, even in the case of the "random mook" you still just wanna abuse the damage spells for a "bad luck" ensurance. but thats still OP in comparison to the classes that dont have a bad luck ensurance.

thats a huge difference between the examples you mentioned. in the first exampe where you used the spell beforehand, you played carefully maybe because of not to high killing chances. in the second example you just want the spell as a bad luck ensurance. but such an ensurance willnever be given. (or you play no-luck-mode)

bad luck can always occur. in this case you probably want to use your mana for magic movement to ensure your safety. or, in case the killing chances are not too high (so we cannot speak about "bad luck") you might consider using the damage spell first.

in any way using spells and getting a second attack are in no relation to each other.


!!! BUT, the final word on this issue has not been spoken. i will carefully think yout it - since, a dmage spell costs 1 ability point - and the summon spell is already very powerful.
so using the damage spell as an bad-luck ensurance is after all probably a possibilty to increase its value. there is no possibility to make a differece between the 2 cases you mentioned above, also it woulnt be understandable why a spell grants a bonus in one case and gives no bonus in the other case. !!!

in any way, right now my vote goes to "no", and there are many other things that have a higher priority.

for example i plan a new map, and maybe i make a few short maps also.
JoshT wrote: Of course! I didn't suggest otherwise. I'd just argue that a red potion should never *decrease* your HP. Using a red potion should set your HP to maximum if and only if currently *less* than maximum. You could even modify the menu item in that case, from "Use red potion" to "Throw away red potion".
well, now i understand. you are very right. this has also to be fixed asap.
JoshT wrote: If you mean drop in the "throw away" sense, I think that only makes sense for red potions; for every other kind, you can just use them.

If you mean drop in the "put them in the current hex" sense, you shouldn't add that; that would allow stockpiling potions near a boss, to bypass the backpack size. Many bosses would become way too easy if you could first ferry a couple backpack-loads of red and blue pations nearby. :)
again you are very right. initially this was also the reason why i never implemented a drop-potion, drop-item system.

in case of potions i feared that also CAULDRONS will be abused to fill the whole map with cyan potions.

in case of armor/damage items i want to restrict abusive behavious where heroes excahnges their armor/damage-items just for single purposes.

thx for reminding me why something like that will never be implmented in sxrpg.
i really forgot about that.

so i think we can go with the trow-away"-option.
will be accessible from the inventory-menu.
JoshT wrote: I'd suggest soulstealer and a small max HP bonus, similar to the way poison becomes magical and +2; perhaps soulstealer and +15?

Soulstealer only costs 50 gold. Units with steadfast, dauntless, and regenerates get the significantly more powerful SX abilities for free, and those are worth 100, 150, and 150 gold. Giving the much *less* powerful soulstealer for free to units with feeding seems pretty reasonable by the same standard, and arguably seems like woeful compensation for taking away the much more powerful feeding ability.
but there is no intention that every unit gain the same advantage if it has an ability that gets replaced.

what about the units that dont even have abilities that get replaced? do these get also a gold-bonus for not having something like that at all? its not about being fair or soemthing.

its about to give small bonus to make units more attractive.

no. so all you get is the current equivalent. feeding itself is no powerful ability. in standard wesnoth it isnt powerful. its a nice gimmick. in sxc feeding isnt OP. but in SXRPG it is, since there are so many units to kill and HP cost 3.33 times the money as in normal sx.

however, feeding-ability will not be replayed by soulstealer for this reason:
getting additional money from kills is too beneficial. units that want to have this advantage have to spend an ability point for it.

also, SXRPG balance is only done via MAIN_LINE units. in mainline, only the ghoul has feeding.
but the ghoul has also free frearless, good basic resistances and cannot be drained.
so all in all one of the top-notch units. no reason for an additonal buff.

all balance for other eras is limited to find OP specials and abilities that destroy the gameplay in SXRPG and restrict them. no bonus-compensation is granted for it. just restriction.
UMC units and eras include often plenty of OP units, so it doesnt harm if they lose one of the OP abilities.

"always-hit" special will be also resticted in the next version. :)
no compensation will be granted for it.

the reason behind this restriction is not that i hate players or umc eras. instead i want to add more variety since an OP-unit can detroy all the fun for the other players.
restriction of OP specials and abilities actually keeps the fun and makes certain eras playable at all.
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SX RPG ADD ON 4.3.5h - now on 1.10.x Server.

Post by Mabuse »

currently im fixing the most urgent issues.

as a sidenote:
---------------
i also have no problems buying magic healing when i am out of ability points.
can you reproduce that bug?

also nothing in the code indicates that buying magic-healing is in any way depending on ability-points ;)

upon testing everything worked as intended. version 4.3.5h
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
MCP
Posts: 518
Joined: May 23rd, 2005, 5:23 pm
Location: California

Re: SX RPG ADD ON 4.3.5h - now on 1.10.x Server.

Post by MCP »

Hey Mabuse,
I just wanted to check in and let you know Zeus and I were/are playing a game with the two units:
Drake Burner Warrior
Ghoul Warrior

We wanted to try out hit and run with warrior armor bonuses.

Drake Burner:
80% fire, 60% cold, 70% arcane, 25% pierce/blade/impact (dauntless)
Expect to get cold armor
Berserk slow sword
Berserk slow torch
Magic charge slow cold blade
Magic charge slow arcane blade
Sold default blade weapon, but I think I should have kept it and made it something like magic slow.

Ghoul:
10% fire, 70% cold, 80% arcane, 75% pierce, 25% blade/impact (dauntless)
Expect to get fire armor for 30% fire and dauntless bonus.
Get all dodge rings (if multiple dodge rings allowed)
Torch (berserk slow maybe, but nothing at the current turn iirc)
Magic charge slow cold blade
Magic charge slow arcane blade
Magic slow bite blade (default weapon)
Pierce (forgot if it is berserk slow or magic charge slow, probably zerk)
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SX RPG ADD ON 4.3.5h - now on 1.10.x Server.

Post by Mabuse »

I never play pure melee team, so i cannot give you any hints for that.
multiple dodge rings are ofc allowed, the max you can get is +15% terrain defnse, since i never place more than 2 dodge rings on a map, and in shop is another dodge ring.

for me the combination of ranged and melee works best, ranged units can sometimes (with the right weapon) kill a boss in one blast or serious wound and slow it. also one zerker in the team is enough, imo
(i would also always go for a 4/5-player team, since its more fun, and also 5 player team is IN THE END always stronger than less players. at start some 800 gold may matter, later 800 gold is like one weapon upgrade or something. but 5 players can summon more demons, produce more mana, deal more damage, take more damage, are more versatile)

choice of weapons depends on map,
for ToB i would recommend at least:

fire (and/or arcane): fully upgraded (rage/slow for melee, precision focus/slow/blessed for ranged)
cold: fully upgraded
blade/pierce/impact: fully upgraded
if berserk: maybe impact
sidearm: net (if melees based) or basic melee weapon (if range based)

i learned in the last game to fully upgrade all weapons, nothing you invest here is wasted.


hit-and-run was a good idea from you, im very happy to have it implemented, its of course a lot weaker than magic movement.


actually i plan to randomize the items a bit, also adding slight variations of items, maybe even some slight loot-drop from bosses.
maybe even implement weapons as items.

bosses could drop minor items (5% - 15% leadership items, cyan pots, there even place for additional +10% on blade, pierce and impact resistance items, so bosses could drop gauntlets, helmets, whatever that gives 5% armor, some coins maybe, weapons (which are pretty valueful since a weapon can be sold in shop for 30 gold)

and so on :)

lets see what i come up with. sooner or later.


another problem imo are the combat calculation times.
later in game the calcs get long and annoying, also the new system starts to LAG as soon you move the mouse over an enemy which is seriously annoying. you can learn to avoid it but imo its kind of a step back.

so there may be need for an artificial-limit perhaps on strikes in the shop.
never wanted something like that, but it seems its nessesary to think about stat reduction again.
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
JoshT
Posts: 6
Joined: January 1st, 2013, 10:23 pm

Re: SX RPG ADD ON 4.3.5h - now on 1.10.x Server.

Post by JoshT »

Mabuse wrote: "always-hit" special will be also resticted in the next version. :)
no compensation will be granted for it.
Having tested it on several maps, always-hit actually feels *under*powered, given that you have to choose between 100% hit and no focus or 80% hit and focus (by adding the Precision Focus special and overwriting always-hit); the latter deals more damage but takes more in retaliation, while the former deals *less* damage but works more reliably. On top of that, the couple of units that have that special have poor armor and quite a few terrains to train.

If that isn't enough to convince you, would you consider at least replacing it with precision, given that you already replace poison and drains with magical and a damage bonus? Replacing it with precision would make the unit still usable and let it play more or less like the original unit.
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SX RPG ADD ON 4.3.5h - now on 1.10.x Server.

Post by Mabuse »

JoshT wrote: If that isn't enough to convince you, would you consider at least replacing it with precision, given that you already replace poison and drains with magical and a damage bonus? Replacing it with precision would make the unit still usable and let it play more or less like the original unit.
hello josh, ok you convinced me. ;)


after all there are other things that annoy me -
for example the lag in later stages of the game seriously annoys me.

as a first compensation i think i will limit the number of strikes that can be bought in shop to 12.
to compensate the overall loss of damage (80-20 does more damage (1600) than 99-15 (1485)),
the price-inflation of damage will be reduced by 50%. price inflation of strikes increased by 50%.
so if we take inflation of strike-cost into account: 80-20 (1600), 104-15 (1560). (values are estimated)
we are almost on the same level.


there may be slight changes to ToB-Map, WoWII-Map affecting the late game
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
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