How much for a healer?

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How much would you be willing to pay?

All of your gold
2
29%
Half your gold
1
14%
50 gold
1
14%
38 gold (cost of a White Mage)
1
14%
20 gold
2
29%
I do not want the mage.
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 7

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lhybrideur
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How much for a healer?

Post by lhybrideur »

I am currently writing a campaign and I need your opinion to get something right. Here is the pitch.

Consider that you are playing a scenario with low gold (enough to recruit/recall 10 units maximum) but 100% carryover. Your income can never be negative and you will find gold during the scenario.
Enemy unit have a melee attack with poison.
You cannot recruit nor recall healers or units advancing to healers.
You can add a White Mage that can only retaliate to your recall list, but, after the scenarios with the poisonous units, it will leave with an amount of gold.
How much would you be willing to pay?

Here is also the answer to the other questions:
white_haired_uncle wrote: September 27th, 2022, 2:51 pmHow many villages, how accessible, etc?

What is the % to hit for the poison attack against my units?

What are my units (does poison affect them, can I recruit cheap L0 units to waste)?

Do I have plague attack(s) (to build up fodder that can't be poisoned)?

How powerful/accurate are my ranged attacks (to kill the poisoners without getting infected)?

What happens if I don't have enough gold to pay the WM at the end of the scenario?
ArthurMitchell wrote: September 27th, 2022, 11:12 pmWe don't know how many poisoners the enemy has, how many close to lvl-up units you have on your recall list, how many villages are on the map, what's the terrain type vs unit movements, or how long the scenario is i.e can you rush through it without a healer?
As far as you know, there might be no village in the scenario. You are inside so the terrain will probably be mostly flat.

You might have Peasant, Woodsman, Archer, Sergeant, Mage, so no unit with plague attacks, and you probably leveled up some of them up to LVL3.

If you do not have enough gold, it will still take its due (but this is something that I should take into account).

You do not know how many poisonous units the enemy has because of the shroud and fog.

The scenario is long (100 turns limit).
Last edited by lhybrideur on September 29th, 2022, 1:24 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Lord-Knightmare
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Re: How much for a healer?

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

lhybrideur wrote: September 27th, 2022, 11:30 am I am currently writing a campaign and I need your opinion to get something right. Here is the pitch.

Consider that you are playing a scenario with low gold (enough to recruit/recall 10 units maximum).
Enemy unit have a melee attack with poison.
You cannot recruit nor recall healers or units advancing to healers.
You can add a White Mage that can only retaliate to your recall list, but, after the scenarios with the poisonous units, it will leave with an amount of gold.
How much would you be willing to pay?
Why did you post math problems here? :lol:

Maybe this function?

Code: Select all

def unit_payment(cost: int, turns: int, difficulty: str):
    # Just start with a third of the unit cost
    fixed = round(cost/3)
    if difficulty == "EASY": a = 2
    elif difficulty == "NORMAL": a = 3
    elif difficulty == "HARD": a = 4
    else: a = 5
    variable = round(turns/2 * a)
    pay_to_hireling = fixed + variable
    if pay_to_hireling >= 2*cost:
        # do not allow excessive payment
        pay_to_hireling = 2*cost
    return print(pay_to_hireling)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    unit_payment(38,23,"NORMAL") # gives 47 for this difficulty
The non-math person approach:
40 for Easy, 50 for normal and 60 for beyond. The healer won't stay, so why we should I pay over 100 to this unit?
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white_haired_uncle
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Re: How much for a healer?

Post by white_haired_uncle »

How many villages, how accessible, etc?

What is the % to hit for the poison attack against my units?

What are my units (does poison affect them, can I recruit cheap L0 units to waste)?

Do I have plague attack(s) (to build up fodder that can't be poisoned)?

How powerful/accurate are my ranged attacks (to kill the poisoners without getting infected)?

What happens if I don't have enough gold to pay the WM at the end of the scenario?
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ArthurMitchell
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Re: How much for a healer?

Post by ArthurMitchell »

I picked 20g for the reason that this healer is a 1-map investment only - he can't benefit from giving him kills/xp and he can't come with you on later maps. We don't know how many poisoners the enemy has, how many close to lvl-up units you have on your recall list, how many villages are on the map, what's the terrain type vs unit movements, or how long the scenario is i.e can you rush through it without a healer? A lot of unknown factors. Given that the other vote is for 50g and that this is a White Mage after all, a middle ground of 38g sounds fair enough. If the scenario is longer and you absolutely need him, then even 50g is reasonable. But if it's shorter and there's enough villages, I might try to save my money and do without a healer at all - just bring 2-3 units close to lvl-up and negate the poison downside like that. It all depends.
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lhybrideur
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Re: How much for a healer?

Post by lhybrideur »

Thanks you for participating to the discussion.
I updated the first post with the answer to your question.
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Re: How much for a healer?

Post by white_haired_uncle »

Based on what I know from the above, I voted 38.

"low gold (enough to recruit/recall 10 units maximum)" - given the unit mix (recalls @20 gold, plus some cheap recruits), I'm guessing this means ~150 starting gold. I know (somehow) I'm up against poison, and if I don't know about villages, I want a healer (okay, I really want two), but I have to save some gold for other units to cover him so he doesn't get poisoned. Woodsmen sound good here for their no upkeep and benefit from leadership, but no ZoC means I'll need some more senior units to keep my WM from getting poisoned. Mage(s) for magical attacks, in case you're sending assassins through the woods at me.

I supposed income will have a good bit of influence on my recruits/recalls. Either way, I can't see spending much more than 38, unless maybe there's a lot of 1x1 corridors to fight through.

Hmm, just noticed you said the WM will leave "after the scenarios" (not scenario). That might influence my decision, for example I'll pay more if he's a free recall after the first scenario, and it could mean I have more gold to play with in the first scenario.

I wonder what happens if I let him die just to avoid paying him off in the end.
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ArthurMitchell
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Re: How much for a healer?

Post by ArthurMitchell »

Seeing the updated information (long map, no villages, lots of poisoners likely), I'm thinking 38g or 50g is appropriate for the healer. You can playtest and see what number in-between is the best. Also you should simply pay the gold ammount at the start of the map before you recall, no? Otherwise you're either (A) punishing next scenario's starting minimum gold or (B) you just get a free healer at the end, making the whole question irrelevant. And if you do have some gold left at the end of the map (via chests or villages), remember only 20% gets carried over anyway - so paying 40g at the end means you're losing effectively just 8g from the next scenario - a meager price for a lvl2 healer.
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lhybrideur
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Re: How much for a healer?

Post by lhybrideur »

I added more information in the first post.
ArthurMitchell wrote: September 28th, 2022, 2:26 pm Also you should simply pay the gold ammount at the start of the map before you recall, no?
Yes I was also wondering. But then you also have to pay to recall it so it is double the pain for this scenario.
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Re: How much for a healer?

Post by beetlenaut »

You have to realize that we can't really answer this question in a meaningful way. You are the one who has to decide how important to make the healer. Then, you need to tell us how much it he is worth! Obviously, this is going to take a lot of playtesting, with and without him, but that's how you've set it up. However, keep in mind that if the player actually needs the healer to get through the scenario, it shouldn't be a choice in the first place.

I bet you are doing this poll to try to avoid some of that playtesting. If so, what you should do instead is try to recruit a few players to help you with it. But you're the author, so it's your responsibility in the end. (This is probably one reason why 100-turn scenarios are uncommon.)
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lhybrideur
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Re: How much for a healer?

Post by lhybrideur »

It is indeed not a choice.
If they do not have a healer, they will get this one. I am trying to find out what should be the cost of getting this healer so that they are not frustrated but also not giving them a free healer (because who would arrive at scenario 7 without a healer when you can recruit mages from scenario 5 ;-) ).

I would love to have more players to play-test that. This is actually a suggestion that I received from a player. I am currently implementing it and will put it on the github of the campaign for beta-test before publishing the modifications on the official server.
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Re: How much for a healer?

Post by beetlenaut »

lhybrideur wrote: October 3rd, 2022, 2:04 pm because who would arrive at scenario 7 without a healer when you can recruit mages from scenario 5?
I certainly wouldn't. As soon as magi were available, I would recruit as many as I could protect. After two scenarios I would probably have (or be close to having) two whites and a red--assuming I didn't have healers already.

I think any experienced player would do something similar. So, why don't you just make this pacifist mage a function of difficulty, rather than the player's recall list? For example, on Easy, you get a loyal one; on Normal, it's free but still costs almost 200 in upkeep; and on Hard, it's just not available at all.

You could also have a [message] on scenario 5 where the leader gets excited about the possibility of healers, to make it clear that they should be on the recall list ASAP. If the player has been fairly warned, you don't need to fix up their recall list later. It will be their problem to go back and replay a scenario if they ignored your advice. It's reasonable to make it easier for players who play at low difficulty levels though.
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lhybrideur
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Re: How much for a healer?

Post by lhybrideur »

Yes I was thinking about have a different cost for each difficulty level or having it only for EASY.
Telling the player to get a healer is already there in the walk-through though, so as you say, they cannot really say that they were not warned.
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Re: How much for a healer?

Post by beetlenaut »

lhybrideur wrote: October 4th, 2022, 11:44 am Telling the player to get a healer is already there in the walk-through
That's not the same thing as putting it in the campaign. Many people, probably most, don't want to read a walk-through or hints before trying out a campaign on their own. If the player should know something, tell them inside the campaign. That's why I was saying to put it in a [message] like, "We should train some of these scholars in the healing arts to support our troops." Then you could consider the player warned.
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Re: How much for a healer?

Post by tr0ll »

a white mage that couldnt attack or level up or shine a light isnt worth as much as a regular one so i picked both 50% and 20 gold, depending if it is a regular one or a nerfed one
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lhybrideur
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Re: How much for a healer?

Post by lhybrideur »

Thanks to all of you for contributing to this post.
I now have settled for the implementation.
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