[Idea] Customize campaigns on an ad-hoc basis

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shevegen
Posts: 497
Joined: June 3rd, 2004, 4:35 pm

[Idea] Customize campaigns on an ad-hoc basis

Post by shevegen »

I have not been active here for a few months due to various issues unrelated to wesnoth,
in particular due to reallife. This will continue for some time. I started a campaign but it
is hugely beta-ish, vaporware right now. But, I have not abandoned it; I just had to
postpone it. I will finish the sketch for it, including content and details, at the least from
my side, and then eventually will ask for some support by other people, and then adjust
and customize this based on this in a group effort (but I wanted to finish the sketch
first, to lay down a base) - but right now, reallife comes first, sorry. I have an
elderly relative who needs almost daily attention, so game-related stuff comes secondary
for now. I mention this just as a disclaimer here because I was inactive for some months.

Now to the suggestion here:

- I actually am playing some old campaigns again. Many campaigns have nice ideas. I
like the idea that we can use and craft items, for instance. Some of these are overpowered
but the basic idea is fine.

- There are other campaigns with unique heros and nice abilities and I like that as well.

So my idea was ... what if we could "spice up" EVERY campaign like this, in a
GENERIC manner? For instance, "add unique abilities". And we can perhaps predefine
what abilities and how. This should be possible from within wesnoth itself,
e. g. preferences, like an "advanced tab". And then we can toggle this on or off at will.

That way we all start with the basic default, but if we would like to, we extend it via
new abilities and stuff. The definitions of these abilities can be done by the wesnoth
devs, so users may not necessarily HAVE to define them as-is. Just that they can
select what is popular there, and perhaps one day see some of them be integrated
into the main gameplay. BUT this is optional; you can easily retain the main campaigns
and main gameplay simple. My point of view here is that many players may want
more customization, without necessarily HAVING to play a specific campaign. So
we would like to have the option to customize the gameplay at will in flexible
ways.

As this is not for new users, I suggest a sepearate tab under "Preferences" such
as for gameplay related entries. Then we can have settings that we can select
like in a radio button. By default all of this is off, but the user can set it to on,
and there should be a short description what this does.

To simplify it, perhaps allow this only for the start of a campaign, so that people
are forced to decide beforehand, rather during during the campaign. But you
could view this differently too. The important part is that we can decide on
more FLEXIBILITY. Tweaking of balance may have to be done by the
wesnoth devs prior to that, so this could be done on the webforum or via
github issue tracker. The important thing is that this feature could be implemented.

What would be your thoughts about being able to customize campaigns on
an "ad-hoc basis"? Pros? Cons? Tweaks? Suggestions?

I was thinking of doing a poll, but perhaps before that is done there should be
a discussion. Anyone else wanting to do a poll is of course welcome to do
so - it is not "my" idea per se, it is just an idea and a suggestion as such.

Thanks for reading!
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octalot
General Code Maintainer
Posts: 777
Joined: July 17th, 2010, 7:40 pm
Location: Austria

Re: [Idea] Customize campaigns on an ad-hoc basis

Post by octalot »

I think all of this is already possible via add-ons, for example the XP Modification. Add-ons can also have code that only affects specific scenarios of specific campaigns, for example the Non Fatal Wounds add-on knows which mainline characters' deaths are required for plot reasons.
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revolting_peasant
Posts: 229
Joined: May 29th, 2012, 5:45 pm

Re: [Idea] Customize campaigns on an ad-hoc basis

Post by revolting_peasant »

I assume this would mostly disrupt the balance the campaign author intended. The choice of units and their abilities - and more than that, the balance between different units in the same faction and in rival factions - is critical for controlling how a scenario will unfold.

Of course - I could be wrong, since I haven't written my own campaigns.
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