BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

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octalot
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by octalot »

Armagedonus wrote: April 12th, 2019, 7:06 pm I propose "wound system".
Simply speaking, when unit reaches 0hp instead of dying, it goes into separated unit pool called "wounded units".
And when scenario ends the units from "wounded" pool go INTO "recall" pool for next mission!
I've just uploaded this as the "Non-Fatal Wound" add-on. Just experimental at the moment, only played a couple of scenarios for testing.

I like the ideas about limiting which units should be saved, but haven't implemented that yet. I'm unsure about the necromancy part, as it makes sense for the lore but I'm not sure it makes sense for the gameplay.
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sergey
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by sergey »

octalot wrote: April 13th, 2019, 6:39 pm I've just uploaded this as the "Non-Fatal Wound" add-on. Just experimental at the moment, only played a couple of scenarios for testing.
Cool! I will try it.
octalot wrote: April 13th, 2019, 6:39 pm I like the ideas about limiting which units should be saved, but haven't implemented that yet. I'm unsure about the necromancy part, as it makes sense for the lore but I'm not sure it makes sense for the gameplay.
I think if player decides to save a unit, then the unit shouldn't be turned into a walking corpse. If player don't want to save the unit it will become a walking corpse.
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by Spirit_of_Currents »

For balance reasons, I think that wounded units should have much higher recall cost.

Edit: and don't limit how many units can become wounded.
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Ruvaak
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by Ruvaak »

If you don't like save-scumming, for campaign you can use Experimental RNG (don't forget to enable "keep seed", like almost people), give a try on Advanced Wesnoth Wars mod. The first feature is about that. The chances to hit become 100%, and a temporal damage multiplier is created for each attack, using real change to hit (terrain, special weapon effects) as damage ratio.

And damage estimation are real-time displayed on units. The mode works for campaigns & MP.
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sergey
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by sergey »

I wanted to say that I tested your add-ons and found no issues. I tried octalot's "Non-Fatal Wound" with "The Altaz Mariners" campaign and Ruvaak's "Advanced Wesnoth Wars" with multiplayer.
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octalot
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by octalot »

Thanks for the feedback, Sergey. I've pushed a new version (0.2.0) of the Non-Fatal Wounds mod, with campaign-specific code to work with the respawning characters in Northern Rebirth and SotA.

Having played through Antar with this mod, I'm not sure that it's worth adding a limit to the number of characters saved. Just knowing that one unit could be saved gives a huge difference to the feel of the game, and I think the big difference is between (zero and one), rather than (one and infinity). Having said that, I was playing on too easy a difficulty and was averaging only 2 losses per scenario (except the last scenario).

Edit: Ah, I see why a limit is needed. There's another way to play with this mod, by completely accepting risks to your veterans because they'll reappear anyway. Yes, now I agree that a limit needs to go in, I'm wondering whether to make it a gold-based somehow.
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by Aldarisvet »

sergey wrote: April 12th, 2019, 10:56 am Aldarisvet, have you read that post? There are already several options to solve what you don't like.
1) Try what I described in the quote.
2) Try "Less Random" add-on. It multiplies the number of strikes, HP, healing, poisoning, etc. And the multiplier is configurable.
3) Try "No Randomness Mod" add-on. It uses defense as damage multiplier instead of chance to hit.
The more I think about it, the more I am sure that deterministic approach would be the best for Wesnoth.
I tried "No Randomness Mod" add-on by Dugi some months ago. I even wanted to implement it in my campaigns. But this mode has a huge disadvantage.
The problem is that: when terrain defense is used as multiplier (which I think is really the best thing can be done with Wesnoth) it creates uneven numbers. For example, 0.7*5=3.5. In this case Dugi's mod just round it to 3 because uneven numbers is not allowed in Wesnoth's engine. But this totally disbalances all the thing.

The way to avoid the problem (of uneven numbers) would to multiply all HP and damages of units by 10. For now I do not see that such solution is implemented. I tried "Less Random" mod but this funny mod have nothing to do with terrain defence multiplier. It multiplies HP and number of stikes but it should multiply HP and damage per strike. However I got an idea, that mixing this 2 modes together we can get that balanced deterministic solution.

Why I am returning to this now?
I have a hero unit used in both of my campaigns that has 'magical' plague attacks. It attacks twice with 70% probability (8*2 impact to be precise). In some cases you can kill your enemy and get a zombie. Or you can miss both times with unluck and probably be killed next turn, so the stakes are high, frustratingly high. The hero has low HP at the beginning, so you must always play extremely carefully. Recently I decided that I will give that hero a 100% probability of success of his attacks. Also I even gave a drain ability to the hero (just testing this changes for now). This seems like a great bonus. With all these a hero coudnt be killed just because of unluck. But in fact it is not so much from the whole picture (I can make scenarios harder again just by adding more gold to the enemy). If you play bad, a hero still can be easely killed. But from the other side, playing that version of campaign is MUCH more pleasant. You can concentrate on macro aspects of the game instead of always thinking about narrow chances of you hero can be killed because of stike of unluck.

Thats is all for now. I am just sharing my experience here.

EDIT:
It was said here that with this average damage deterministic mode there would be no difference between a dragonguard who attacks 40*1 and someone who attacks 8*5. But it could be a difference! If we imply that a unit who engaged combat and killed his enemy with only part of it's attack, can be allowed to move futher (if he has free movement points and the unit he killed was the only one whom he engaged) and engage another one battle after moving with the rest attacks. Or, even if he engaged two units at once and cannot move because of another blocking unit he can attack another unit with the rest attacks after he killed the first one. So imagine a unit that have 10 attacks with 50 damage, and some MP (not necessarily 10), it can really kill 10 units per turn! This would be fun.
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by Toranks »

Armagedonus wrote: April 12th, 2019, 7:06 pm I PROPOSE A SOLUTION FOR THIS PROBLEM:

How about instead trying to change rng, devs could od simpler solution?
I propose "wound system".
Simply speaking, when unit reaches 0hp instead of dying, it goes into separated unit pool called "wounded units".
And when scenario ends the units from "wounded" pool go INTO "recall" pool for next mission!

That way we could make rng MUCH less punishing (thus reducing need for save scumming) while still being not too lenient (loosing unit still stings because you loose opportunity to level up them)
AT THE SAME TIME it would give players actual reason to hate necromancy!
After all in such system, when you fight against orc, even if you "loose" units, you can still recall them next mission.
But when you loose them against necromancers? Then they turn into walking dead and you loose them forever! (giving actual reason to hate necromancers)

Seriously, I see no other solution to loosing your own units too easly.
I rescue this old comment from Armagedonus because it mentions an interesting topic that is already solved.
He was saying that units lost to plague should be lost forever, since they are converted by the enemy. (In practice, that would "duplicate" the unit xD)
Well, I've been practicing the system well for several versions on my fork of Non Fatal Wounds, and it already works in a very stable and precise way, even in DiD and SotA campaign events, and in RoW events with Lord Jevyan and Lord Lenvan, where all the units that they die while the Liches are still alive, they become undead. An optional event will be triggered if you wish to lose all converted units.

Non Fatal Wounds Extended actually has a very comprehensive wound system, including definitive deaths and transformations to ghost, undead, and elemental, but the basic behavior of Non Fatal Wounds with or without plague losses is one of the possible options to choose with a comfortable menu, very complete and easy to understand.
Search Non Fatal Wounds Extended on 1.16 and 1.17 addons servers or download from here the most recent development version, I need people to test all the combinations, since they are virtually infinite, to get some feedback that allows me to correct any bug or strange situation.
https://github.com/Toranks/Non_Fatal_Wounds_Extended/
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