Fungus terrain bug

[gaojicainiao]

Is this a bug?

There is no highest defence limit on the mushroom grove for orcs!

[EarthCake]

Yes, there is.

It is 8. from the top.

[octalot]

I'd vote for considering it a bug.

The issue is the terrain's properties, not the unit's properties. For forest-on-hills terrains, such as Hh^Fms, the forest overlay ^Fms takes the best defence of (forest or the underlying terrain), but the similar concept of fungus-on-hills using ^Uf takes a fungus-only property, ignoring the base terrain.

[gaojicainiao]

Yes, there is.
Orcs defense on fungus
It is 8. from the top.

No,not that.I mean "Defence Cap"

For example,Cavalrymans have the Defence Cap in forest,their defence can only be 30% in forest,but orcs have no Defence Cap in mushroom grove!

defence cap.png (81.41 KiB) Viewed 4068 times

So orcs should have 50% defence on that mixed terrain type.Don't you think so?

[josteph]

It is not a mixed terrain. That terrain is fungus, not mix-of-fungus-and-hills, and orcs get 40% defense on fungus. There is no bug in the computation of terrain defense there. The bug here is that the terrain sprite implies it's a mixed terrain, even though it's equivalent to regular fungus.

I guess we should make that terrain a mixed terrain to match the sprite, and then go through mainline and replace instances of that terrain with regular fungus (to avoid breaking balance).

[sergey]

It is not a mixed terrain. That terrain is fungus, not mix-of-fungus-and-hills, and orcs get 40% defense on fungus. There is no bug in the computation of terrain defense there. The bug here is that the terrain sprite implies it's a mixed terrain, even though it's equivalent to regular fungus.

I guess we should make that terrain a mixed terrain to match the sprite, and then go through mainline and replace instances of that terrain with regular fungus (to avoid breaking balance).

I think it should be considered as a mixed fungus terrain bug, since the hex code is Hh^Uf. It was fixed and then reverted. The issue is still opened #1388

[octalot]

I guess we should make that terrain a mixed terrain to match the sprite, and then go through mainline and replace instances of that terrain with regular fungus (to avoid breaking balance).

It would need one new sprite, but how about:

• change the sprite for the ^Uf and ^Ufi overlay to have a graphic that completely fills the hex without showing any of the base terrain, so that it doesn't look like a mixed terrain. Old maps look a bit different, but the stats are the same.
• add new overlay codes that use the current sprite, and are mixed terrains

[sergey]

I think we should read this topic before moving forward viewtopic.php?f=15&t=40753

It would need one new sprite, but how about:

• change the sprite for the ^Uf and ^Ufi overlay to have a graphic that completely fills the hex without showing any of the base terrain, so that it doesn't look like a mixed terrain. Old maps look a bit different, but the stats are the same.
• add new overlay codes that use the current sprite, and are mixed terrains

That is backward compatible, but it will be confusing IMO. I think we should make fungus similar to forest:
- worse movement, best defense
- change all maps, replace any terrain + fungus to flat + fungus
- almost all units have flat movement cost equal or lower than fungus movement cost, movement balance won't be affected. there are only several exceptions, I think their fungus movement should be set to flat movement.
- units that have flat defense higher than fungus defense must get defense cap similar to cavalry forest cap
- notify UMC authors about the change. propose them to make the same changes as for mainline (update maps and units) and verify that their custom code is not broken because of the map and units changes.

All mainline units with fungus movement costs lower than flat:

Cuttle Fish
Sea Serpent
Kraken (Dead Water)

All mainline units with flat defense higher than fungus:

1.14:
Cavalryman and all its advancements
Horseman and all its advancements
Dune Rider and all its advancements
Dune Piercer and all its advancements
Sky Drake and its advancement
Gryphon Rider and its advancement
Falcon and its advancement
Gryphon
Cuttle Fish
Sea Serpent
All merfolk, including the Dead Water campaign
Kraken (Dead Water)
Sea Orc (Heir to the Throne)
Sleeping Gryphon (Heir to the Throne)
Crab Man (Under the Burning Suns)
Quenoth Scout and all its advancements (Under the Burning Suns)
Tauroch Rider and all its advancements (Under the Burning Suns)
Quenoth Dustbok (Under the Burning Suns)

+ 1.15:
Young Roc and its advancement
Wild Wyvern
Wyvern Rider

Hidden:
Fog Clearer
Dark Shape (Dead Water)

Also:
A lot of campaign specific mounted units (though, it will be automatically changed with the other mounted units).

Pros:
- mainline balance is not affected
- intuitive logic - fungus works similarly to forest
Cons:
- potential regression in UMC
- right after the changes all maps will have flat+fungus, other terrain+fungus is not used. however, the new functionality could be used for future map updates

P.S. For swimming units I think it makes sense to increase fungus defense from 20% to 30% instead of fungus defense cap (all merfolk, Cuttle Fish, Sea Serpent, Kraken (Dead Water), Sea Orc (Heir to the Throne), Crab Man (Under the Burning Suns)). We could analyze impact on the mainline campaigns before making this change. We could also ask community if they see any problems this change may cause in campaigns and multiplayer. For the default era multiplayer I think such minor merfolk buff will be a good change.

[sergey]

@josteph @octalot
I would like to work on the issue with the approach I described if you don't mind. Post any objections or suggestions please.

[josteph]

@sergey I haven't had time to review your proposal carefully, but it sounds like you're proposing a major change: change the stats of the existing terrain code, change all maps in mainline, ask all UMC authors to change their maps, change some unit stats... on the face of it I would prefer a backward compatible solution, keep the stats of the current terrain code unmodified and add a new terrain code with new new stats (that's what octalot suggested, right?), and then map authors can go through their maps at leisure and start switching over to the mixed-terrain flavor of fungus. Also, this is the Users' Forum, try asking on github or on one of the development forums, otherwise some devs might miss your question.

[sergey]

@josteph yes, my approach requires much more research and coding comparing to what @octalot suggested. However, it seems confusing to me if at the end there will be both single fungus terrain and mixed fungus terrain. I posted my idea to discord development chat.

[josteph]

However, it seems confusing to me if at the end there will be both single fungus terrain and mixed fungus terrain.

I'm not sure it's a problem, but even if it is, we could first of all do octalot's suggestion and then deprecate the single fungus terrain, so we'll be moving gradually in the right direction, and not break backward compatibility.

[sergey]

You will either drop the single fungus terrain at some point (break compatibility) or preserve both single and mixed fungus (which is not user friendly imo). Or you could leave it as is, this option was supported by several people from the old discussion thread by the way.

In my opinion, fungus should be always mixed type of terrain because it looks like a second layer on top of the base terrain. Similarly to the forest terrain which is always mixed. I understand that there are different point of views. There is even an opinion that mixed terrains are worse than single (all terrains were single in the old versions of the game).

Giant fungus is something like a tree for me. That makes me think that fungus and forest should follow the same rules. The only reason why I didn't know that fungus ignores base terrains is my lack of gaming experience. There is another extreme - people who know the game very well and get used to the single fungus terrain, so they don't pay attention to the forest vs fungus contradiction.

I performed some investigation and as I understand forest was gradually moved from single terrain to always mixed terrain. I think developers forgot to make the same transition for the fungus terrain. Fun fact - fungus images are located in the forest directory https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/blob ... hrooms.png.

[josteph]

You will either drop the single fungus terrain at some point (break compatibility) or preserve both single and mixed fungus (which is not user friendly imo).

The purpose of deprecation is to make incompatible changes in the least disruptive way possible. If you think the existing terrain code should be removed or changed, the least disruptive way to do this is first to deprecate it for one release cycle and then to remove or change it at some point afterwards. As to me, like I said, I'm with octalot: keep the existing terrain code and its stats unchanged, add a new terrain code with a new sprite and new stats. We could even remove the existing terrain code from the map editor so people wouldn't create new maps with the non-mixed terrain fungus, if we like, but frankly I see no reason to remove the existing terrain code completely, that would just break old maps for no good reason.

Or you could leave it as is, this option was supported by several people from the old discussion thread by the way.

For this we'll still need a new sprite.

[sergey]

The purpose of deprecation is to make incompatible changes in the least disruptive way possible.

I understand the purpose of deprecation. My point is that changing single fungus to always mixed fungus would be much more user friendly than keeping both of the types.

frankly I see no reason to remove the existing terrain code completely, that would just break old maps for no good reason.

The reason is to keep the game user friendly. If you will keep old maps with old codes and create new codes that will make both single fungus and mixed fungus present in the game.

At this point we already repeated our arguments several times. I understand your point of view and you arguments make sense. Let's wait for other people to join the discussion and share their opinions.