The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

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Re: The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

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Thanks again! Your fixes have been applied.

Also thanks for pointing out the impressive Tunnel feature on IRC. This may solve one of the two biggest usability problems, which is getting crew in and out of the ship quickly and easily.
Atreides wrote: July 31st, 2022, 5:29 pm I dunno maybe 4,5,6% might be better? One plus of lower rates is that it makes the harder to reach banks more appealing. Ramar would be 1.5 times better than Ganton. Ramar is deep inland in the southern desert and you have pass through drakes and then scorpions to reach it.
Makes sense to me.

The other idea I had was to make it so when a player robs a bank, they get everything other players had invested there. For consistency, there may also need to be a full gold loot drop when a player captain is killed.
Atreides wrote: July 31st, 2022, 5:29 pm I tried going to the github link but it is 404.
Oops, looks like github sets new repositories private by default. Made it public, you should be able to access it now.
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Re: The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

Some starter feedback:
  • The scenario took eons to load on start and actually froze the client for like 60 seconds. There are too many start events firing in sequence.
  • Tavern recruitment UI things:
    1. TC blue and the navy blue background give off an unpleasant eye strain. Switch blue to either grey or bold white.
    2. Is it fixed for just outlaw units? Why cannot there be more faction-wise variations?
  • The constant right-clicking to board ship and get things done is horribly inefficient and time-wasting.
  • The player galleons being limited to just 1 MP while the enemy ones get 7/8 MP is just silly. This is a horrible experience. Maybe set them to 4 MP a minimum or 6 maximum? otherwise, it's like 48 hour game...which I am not at all inclined to do.
  • There is no option to board enemy ships while engaged in naval skirmishes. Feels lacking. I even tried disembarking a thug on water and next to enemy pirate ship but no boarding option given.
  • I find it double-standards that enemy ships can board mine while I cannot do the same.
  • this add-on is 100% incompatible with the core "Plan Unit Advance" modification. as for some very weird reason the advancement UI triggered for every Ruffian unit I had, and my leader as well (has 2 possible advancement choices)
  • I am not able to even do much here as the Galleons out run my super slow vessel and reduce it to a ship-wreck easily.
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Re: The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

Post by Atreides »

Lord-Knightmare wrote: August 3rd, 2022, 3:43 pm Some starter feedback:
  • The scenario took eons to load on start and actually froze the client for like 60 seconds. There are too many start events firing in sequence.
It is noticeably slow, I agree.
[*] Tavern recruitment UI things:
  1. TC blue and the navy blue background give off an unpleasant eye strain. Switch blue to either grey or bold white.
  2. Is it fixed for just outlaw units? Why cannot there be more faction-wise variations?
If you mean using other eras it is free choice. I didn't even know there was an era just for this when I first tried it.
[*] The constant right-clicking to board ship and get things done is horribly inefficient and time-wasting.
Horrible indeed. I'd say this is the #1 thing that could be upgraded.
[*] The player galleons being limited to just 1 MP while the enemy ones get 7/8 MP is just silly. This is a horrible experience. Maybe set them to 4 MP a minimum or 6 maximum? otherwise, it's like 48 hour game...which I am not at all inclined to do.
Are you using the crew to man the rigging? That gives your ship +3 per mast. The captain navigating gives +2. If the captain buys naval charts for 40 gp it's another +2. At the least the ship should be doing 10 MP (1+3+3+3) using 3 of the 4 free crew you start with. 14 MP is the maximum. 12 is usually what one has.
[*] There is no option to board enemy ships while engaged in naval skirmishes. Feels lacking. I even tried disembarking a thug on water and next to enemy pirate ship but no boarding option given.
[*] I find it double-standards that enemy ships can board mine while I cannot do the same.
I agree, I posted the same earlier. Turns out that you can only board other player ships because the AI ships don't have decks or crews for you to fight on/with! But that could be fixed without much trouble. There's enough blank map space for a AI ship deck or two (hmmm might need one deck for each possible target ship which is 3 MoW + 3 PirGal).
[*] this add-on is 100% incompatible with the core "Plan Unit Advance" modification. as for some very weird reason the advancement UI triggered for every Ruffian unit I had, and my leader as well (has 2 possible advancement choices)
[*] I am not able to even do much here as the Galleons out run my super slow vessel and reduce it to a ship-wreck easily.
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Re: The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

Post by Atreides »

name wrote: August 3rd, 2022, 2:14 pm Thanks again! Your fixes have been applied.

Also thanks for pointing out the impressive Tunnel feature on IRC. This may solve one of the two biggest usability problems, which is getting crew in and out of the ship quickly and easily.
Atreides wrote: July 31st, 2022, 5:29 pm I dunno maybe 4,5,6% might be better? One plus of lower rates is that it makes the harder to reach banks more appealing. Ramar would be 1.5 times better than Ganton. Ramar is deep inland in the southern desert and you have pass through drakes and then scorpions to reach it.
Makes sense to me.

The other idea I had was to make it so when a player robs a bank, they get everything other players had invested there. For consistency, there may also need to be a full gold loot drop when a player captain is killed.
Atreides wrote: July 31st, 2022, 5:29 pm I tried going to the github link but it is 404.
Oops, looks like github sets new repositories private by default. Made it public, you should be able to access it now.
I don't know who that might be on IRC. I tried IRC back in the 80's (or was it the early 90's?) and never went back! : ) But whomever that mysterious benefactor may be I was actually thinking that due to the age of this thing it is very likely that the new teleport features could greatly improve things. I've seen some ancient addons where teleport was practically implemented as a custom feature. : )

I like that, stealing other pirates gold. : )

Oh glad to hear the gith is setup.
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Re: The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

Are you using the crew to man the rigging? That gives your ship +3 per mast. The captain navigating gives +2. If the captain buys naval charts for 40 gp it's another +2. At the least the ship should be doing 10 MP (1+3+3+3) using 3 of the 4 free crew you start with. 14 MP is the maximum. 12 is usually what one has.
Huh...where was this stated?
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Re: The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

Post by Atreides »

Lord-Knightmare wrote: August 3rd, 2022, 4:29 pm
Are you using the crew to man the rigging? That gives your ship +3 per mast. The captain navigating gives +2. If the captain buys naval charts for 40 gp it's another +2. At the least the ship should be doing 10 MP (1+3+3+3) using 3 of the 4 free crew you start with. 14 MP is the maximum. 12 is usually what one has.
Huh...where was this stated?
Oh post #1 here. The other thing the addon really needs badly is inline documentation. First few games I played were completely messed up since I didn't know any of these things either.

p.s.
I just tried the planned advancement (I don't play with it) and whoa! Something is very broken here.
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Re: The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

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Bob_The_Mighty wrote: June 28th, 2011, 7:22 pm If anyone wants to take over the High Seas, get in touch.
@ Bob_The_Mighty
We have updated your classic scenario to run on wesnoth 1.16 and fixed all the bugs we found, while keeping your game play the same.
If you wish, you could make this The High Seas 0.4.9:
The_High_Seas Classic.zip
(49.74 KiB) Downloaded 42 times

From here on I will focus on making alphas that update game play based on continued player feedback, to try and revive the scenario for modern audiences.
The first of these is Alpha-2:
The_High_Seas Alpha-2.zip
(50.28 KiB) Downloaded 37 times
Changes:
Many fixes by Atreides
Stop crew from accessing bank accounts (by Atreides)
Fix overly dark text
Move setup events to prestart
Improve ship battle animations
Improve starting crew
Simplify manning of crew stations
Simplify moving between maps (special thanks to aeth on IRC)
Add how-to-play to objectives

The focus of this alpha is to reduce micromanagement.

Lord-Knightmare wrote: August 3rd, 2022, 3:43 pm The scenario took eons to load on start and actually froze the client for like 60 seconds.
Moved the setup events to prestart, which seems to help performance.

It takes 5 seconds to load on my ten year old refurbished Optiplex 3010 (a lower end machine even in 2012). When I would run this scenario back in 2007 (using hardware from 2002) it could take 5-10 minutes to load. :augh:
Lord-Knightmare wrote: August 3rd, 2022, 3:43 pm TC blue and the navy blue background give off an unpleasant eye strain. Switch blue to either grey or bold white.
Changed them to cyan (and red in a few other places).
Lord-Knightmare wrote: August 3rd, 2022, 3:43 pm Is it fixed for just outlaw units? Why cannot there be more faction-wise variations?
Presently, you can hire some outlaws at taverns and some loyalists at barracks. And magic casters at temples. There are exotic units for you to rescue from the gaol (if you have amassed the forces to do so). I would like to add weirder hirelings at some point, like woses, drakes and saurians, plus perhaps mermish and naga.
Lord-Knightmare wrote: August 3rd, 2022, 3:43 pm The constant right-clicking to board ship and get things done is horribly inefficient and time-wasting.
Now you can just click to tell your units where to move, from the world to the ship's deck and vice versa. No more right clicking. And they will automatically man any station you put them on (sails and cannons). Your leader/captain will automatically man the helm if you move him/her there.
Lord-Knightmare wrote: August 3rd, 2022, 3:43 pm There is no option to board enemy ships while engaged in naval skirmishes. Feels lacking. I even tried disembarking a thug on water and next to enemy pirate ship but no boarding option given. I find it double-standards that enemy ships can board mine while I cannot do the same.
Atreides wrote: August 3rd, 2022, 4:21 pm I agree, I posted the same earlier. Turns out that you can only board other player ships because the AI ships don't have decks or crews for you to fight on/with! But that could be fixed without much trouble. There's enough blank map space for a AI ship deck or two (hmmm might need one deck for each possible target ship which is 3 MoW + 3 PirGal).
I will make improving boarding the focus of the next alpha. It would take some work to do the right way, wherein computer controlled ships have similar crew dependency (and limited number of marines) as player ships. There should be plenty of space though, as you said. Particularly after the unused lifeboat decks are removed.
Lord-Knightmare wrote: August 3rd, 2022, 3:43 pm this add-on is 100% incompatible with the core "Plan Unit Advance" modification. as for some very weird reason the advancement UI triggered for every Ruffian unit I had, and my leader as well (has 2 possible advancement choices)
I was not able to reproduce this in alpha-2. I have to right click a unit to get the plan advancement menu.
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Re: The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

Post by Atreides »

Nice upgrade! Lots of new stuff, you been a busy bee. <grin>

I can confirm that the Plan Advance no longer causes any problems.

I tried to raid the gaol this time and I thought I found a bug but when I checked the code I realized to free a prisoner requires the leader to be adjacent not any old crew. Guess that makes sense. Dagburnitt, I quit that game for no good reason, hehe.

I do miss though the tactical choice one had to make with the captain either navigating for +2 mp or piloting for skirmisher. Now you get both automatically : ( OTOH I suspect the old system may have been flawed. I believe you could switch between the two as often as you wanted at no cost. Perhaps it makes no difference.

I did note a missing sound effect on the raming attack by the flagship though. I spotted that was deleted in the code. What was the reason? Silent attacks are a pet peeve of mine I guess. ;)

Oh and a teeny tiny nitpick: When a unit passes over a cannon/mast it pops up that text. BTW nice change to the mast graphic! Hmmm also the terrain went from flat to castle, not sure that's ideal since the old way it seemed to represent the difficulty of fighting from a mast.

Oh almost forgot, did you remove the flying boarders?
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Re: The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

Atreides sort of reported most of the bugs I was going to report so I will be skipping that section.
Anyways, it has improved quite a bit.

Further suggestions: Add dunefolk trading port or convert one of the sand ones to one.
Introduce 1.16.x fauna and 1.17.x fauna into the map. It feels old fashioned to me without the new units getting used here. I feel like nobody seems to appreciate new units when they get added to core.
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Re: The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

Post by Atreides »

Lord-Knightmare wrote: August 10th, 2022, 11:32 pm Further suggestions: Add dunefolk trading port or convert one of the sand ones to one.
I'm all for the Dunefolk (must be the alias I'm using... ; ) but I'm puzzled. What _is_ a dunefolk trading port supposed to be? It should buy/sell spice? No wait, already got those, hehe. Umm or oh I got it, some place to buy dunefolk recruit types? That'd be cool. A desert tent out south. I guess we ought not to call it a "Sietch". Oh maybe no not Oasis, that's taken. Let's see mages/adepts are recruited at a "Temple". Hmmm that's actually not the best name for it come to think of it. Could be changed to Magic College or such.

Idea: place to recruit naga/mermaids. Unless that alters the naval balance too much. Yeah, it might.

Another thing to consider is extending the spawning of estibanian ships as well as the monsters. The ships are preset to replace sunk ones up until turn 30 only. The monsters once killed off are never replaced.
Now I've given this some thought before and the current way may have some merit as it allows more of a clear field for player vs player combat later on when the ships are all upgraded and crewed, etc. So I'm just wondering if it is fine as is or if perhaps it could use more.
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Re: The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

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Atreides wrote: August 10th, 2022, 5:26 pm I tried to raid the gaol this time and I thought I found a bug but when I checked the code I realized to free a prisoner requires the leader to be adjacent not any old crew.
Yeah, that seems counter intuitive. I will have to change that.
Atreides wrote: August 10th, 2022, 5:26 pm I do miss though the tactical choice one had to make with the captain either navigating for +2 mp or piloting for skirmisher. Now you get both automatically : ( OTOH I suspect the old system may have been flawed. I believe you could switch between the two as often as you wanted at no cost. Perhaps it makes no difference.
That was basically my thinking as well.

A possible solution is to expand the deck enough to have a rudder station in the back of the ship, so your captain has to run between the navigation station at the bow and the rudder station at the stern, to receive either the extra moves or the skirmisher (and also the marksman) ability. This might seem a little weird though.
Atreides wrote: August 10th, 2022, 5:26 pm I did note a missing sound effect on the raming attack by the flagship though. I spotted that was deleted in the code. What was the reason?
The preexisting code seems to block the melee animation from playing, so that the ram attack amounted to the ship just sitting there and making a "woosh" sound. It seems to be a bug that stems partly from the fact that the codes tries to override the existing ship units with new statistics and animations.

The real solution is to overhaul ships.cfg so that it just creates new ship units from scratch using the same graphics. I may use this opportunity to add in some additional ship types with sprites that have the same style.
Atreides wrote: August 10th, 2022, 5:26 pm Oh and a teeny tiny nitpick: When a unit passes over a cannon/mast it pops up that text.
The wesnoth engine really needs a "movefrom" event (that fires before the "moveto" event). Without that, I am not sure if there is a good solution besides removing the floating text. And the texts are helpful for improving the discoverability of the crew stations mechanic for new players. :hmm:
Atreides wrote: August 10th, 2022, 5:26 pm Hmmm also the terrain went from flat to castle, not sure that's ideal since the old way it seemed to represent the difficulty of fighting from a mast.
Plus, in general, having such a high defense rating for all parts of the ship might make the future boarding feature less interesting. Optimally, I would like only the ship's fore and after castles being made of high defense tiles (castle) and the mid ship main deck being composed of low defense tiles (flat).
Atreides wrote: August 10th, 2022, 5:26 pm Oh almost forgot, did you remove the flying boarders?
It is still there, but now the AI decides when it wants to board (versus when it wants to attack the ship from the outside). It tends to board when you have weak-but-valuable crew onboard for it to pick off.

Changing some of the deck tiles to lower the defense ratings of your crew would likely make flying boarders more willing to board. As well as adding more gangplanks from which they may do so.
Atreides wrote: August 11th, 2022, 3:22 pm What _is_ a dunefolk trading port supposed to be? It should buy/sell spice?
^_^
Atreides wrote: August 11th, 2022, 3:22 pm Idea: place to recruit naga/mermaids. Unless that alters the naval balance too much. Yeah, it might.
Definitely a good idea. I feel sure that there are ways to balance them.
Atreides wrote: August 11th, 2022, 3:22 pm Another thing to consider is extending the spawning of estibanian ships as well as the monsters. The ships are preset to replace sunk ones up until turn 30 only. The monsters once killed off are never replaced.
For the next version (alpha 3) I want to tackle boarding. But then for the next-next version (alpha 4) my plan is to focus on respawning computer controlled units under multiple opposing factions (as things are now, even the estabanians and monsters are on the same side!)
Lord-Knightmare wrote: August 10th, 2022, 11:32 pm Further suggestions: Add dunefolk trading port or convert one of the sand ones to one.
I kind of want to offload humans in favor of more of the visually and conceptually interesting zoomorphic races. Like make the distilleries populated by saurians instead of outlaws and the desert region run by drakes (with saurian and drake hirelings at these places). Also woses available at temples or plantations (run by elves?) Plus naga and mermish.
Lord-Knightmare wrote: August 10th, 2022, 11:32 pm Introduce 1.16.x fauna and 1.17.x fauna into the map. It feels old fashioned to me without the new units getting used here. I feel like nobody seems to appreciate new units when they get added to core.
Wholeheartedly agree. Ironically, it may take longer for me to get around to doing this for THS because I am currently working on doing it for some of the (less competition oriented) mainline multiplayer scenarios, starting with The_Wilderlands (which is most in need of the fauna update).
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Re: The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

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Ironically, it may take longer for me to get around to doing this for THS because I am currently working on doing it for some of the (less competition oriented) mainline multiplayer scenarios, starting with The_Wilderlands (which is most in need of the fauna update).
Hmm, give me something new. Something which makes PvPvAI actually worth participating in. Something that just isn't kill everything which is very dull.
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Re: The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

Post by Pentarctagon »

The wesnoth engine really needs a "movefrom" event (that fires before the "moveto" event). Without that, I am not sure if there is a good solution besides removing the floating text. And the texts are helpful for improving the discoverability of the crew stations mechanic for new players. :hmm:
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Re: The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

Post by Atreides »

Enter/exit hex should work indeed. I used that for the one addon I actually created. (Road Movement Bonus)

Alternatively an easy fix might be to use first time only? That would satisfy the new player education requirement.

BTW I really like the idea to change the decks to having castle hexes only near bow and stern. I did think that most of the deck being high def was odd.
The only downside is that it makes boarding via the gangplank easier. But that too needs revision since not only fliers should board anywhere. A tactic I was using (exploitive) was to always man the gangplank so that when the Pirate Galeons boarded the enemy was forced off into the void and had 0% vs 40% of the unit on the plank! Oh and 60% for the unit on the deck at the cannon.
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Re: The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

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Pentarctagon wrote: August 13th, 2022, 2:25 pm enter_hex/exit_hex?
Those are the ones used currently. The trouble is they fire even when a unit is just passing through a hex. Whereas moveto and a potential movefrom fire only when a unit settles down on one.
Lord-Knightmare wrote: August 13th, 2022, 7:41 am Hmm, give me something new. Something which makes PvPvAI actually worth participating in. Something that just isn't kill everything which is very dull.
Well the goal is to make The_Wilderlands play more like an adventure-survival scenario. You rove around the map looking for magical artifacts and allies while avoiding or fighting monsters.
Atreides wrote: August 13th, 2022, 3:58 pm Alternatively an easy fix might be to use first time only? That would satisfy the new player education requirement.
In my limited experience it seems to take average players a few repeated lessons before they remember a thing.
Atreides wrote: August 13th, 2022, 3:58 pm not only fliers should board anywhere.
Hmm, enabling boarding anywhere or most anywhere on the deck is an excellent idea. I was just going to add more gangplanks but that would probably not be enough to avoid them being camped also.
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