multiplayer vs single player
Moderator: Forum Moderators
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arael
what is the point?multiplayer is played with races/factions built for single-player
no; I think in the future every race will have diffrent tactics, diffrent gameplay style etc. and players will be selecting race that best suite them; it's obvious that in diffrent locations and with diffrent opponents play style needs changes but this forces player to choose diffrent tactic not diffrent race especialy playing on random map or on map that everybody plays for a first time; just look how it was in Starcraft (i know that this is diffrent kind of game, but every multiplayer in every game should be compared to SC) - people loved their favorite race, and were spending weeks on showing what race is the best in discusion and in battle (anyway I know personaly that Protoss are the bestyou should select best race for given map, starting location
)every game is made to give joy to players; kicking someons ass too easy isn't fun game; get kicked by someone without chance to win isn't fun game too; so in multiplayer such game make no sens ...[/quote]in real life: Iraq was not equal to "allied" forces
The point here is that we are focusing on single player gaming, multiplayer is add-on. That is until we reach 1.0.
In single player game you are already choosing units from different races based on what are the enemies and what kind of map are you playing.
Races/factions do not need to be equal:
* some factions might totally lack fast units
* some factions might not have elusive units at all
* some factions might not have flying units at all
* etc
- Miyo
In single player game you are already choosing units from different races based on what are the enemies and what kind of map are you playing.
Races/factions do not need to be equal:
* some factions might totally lack fast units
* some factions might not have elusive units at all
* some factions might not have flying units at all
* etc
- Miyo
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arael
I see great potential for this game in multiplayer 
. I said more - Wesnoth is created to be the best multiplayer game ever. If it have to be so we all gonna wait for 1.0, but simple changes could make multiplayer game fun right now.
I know that some factions may lack something but this is a whole fun! If somer faction doesn't have flying units let it have some cool antiflying ones. If some faction fave poor ones let's make it cheep etc. Every race should be diffrent but not worse from others.
. I said more - Wesnoth is created to be the best multiplayer game ever. If it have to be so we all gonna wait for 1.0, but simple changes could make multiplayer game fun right now.I know that some factions may lack something but this is a whole fun! If somer faction doesn't have flying units let it have some cool antiflying ones. If some faction fave poor ones let's make it cheep etc. Every race should be diffrent but not worse from others.
I do agree that our eventual aim will be for the skills of different factions to be 'balanced'. I want it so that no-one can agree on which race is 'best' in multiplayer on a 'typical' map. (If the map is all forest, for instance, naturally Elves will rule).
I want it so that even very good players disagree about which faction is best, and so that sometimes one faction will win, and sometimes the other will.
At the moment though, I'm not sure that we have problems with one particular faction dominating. Which faction is best? I think each of them is fairly powerful in their own ways.
If someone can point me to a particular balance issue, we will look to correct it, but I don't know of any serious ones at the moment.
David
I want it so that even very good players disagree about which faction is best, and so that sometimes one faction will win, and sometimes the other will.
At the moment though, I'm not sure that we have problems with one particular faction dominating. Which faction is best? I think each of them is fairly powerful in their own ways.
If someone can point me to a particular balance issue, we will look to correct it, but I don't know of any serious ones at the moment.
David
“At Gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.” -- Ian Fleming
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starbane
Multiplayer XP Armies
Just a throw-out,
why not take a page from Warhammer and give units a point-value?
In Multiplayer games, the host sets the point value (i.e. gold?) and armies are limited to that cost.
Recalling a Mage of Light should cost more than an Elven Fighter with 14xp, in any case - single or multiplayer.
why not take a page from Warhammer and give units a point-value?
In Multiplayer games, the host sets the point value (i.e. gold?) and armies are limited to that cost.
Recalling a Mage of Light should cost more than an Elven Fighter with 14xp, in any case - single or multiplayer.
Re: Multiplayer XP Armies
Errr and then why bother conquering villages? not a good idea...starbane wrote:Just a throw-out,
why not take a page from Warhammer and give units a point-value?
In Multiplayer games, the host sets the point value (i.e. gold?) and armies are limited to that cost.
KISS, all units recalled just cost the same, easy, no extrange formulas... not using xp and type of unit and phase of the moon and age of your cat to baffle players...starbane wrote: Recalling a Mage of Light should cost more than an Elven Fighter with 14xp, in any case - single or multiplayer.
Re: Multiplayer XP Armies
Why? If you've already paid for your mage, and managed to protect him, nurture him, and develop him into a Mage of Light, why should you then have to pay the additional cost of it costing more to recall him? Especially considering that he will already have a higher upkeep cost once recalled than the fighter will.starbane wrote: Recalling a Mage of Light should cost more than an Elven Fighter with 14xp, in any case - single or multiplayer.
David
“At Gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.” -- Ian Fleming
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starbane
multiplayer
I'm a big fan of keeping things simple, so I can see the advtanage in that.
As for the rationale that "you've already paid for the experienced unit" I suppose there's some logic to that, but the way multiplayer has been designed every scenario is in a vacuum, so it doesn't hold water, there.
I've very much enjoyed Wesnoth. It is the most attractive, fun and playable GPL game in the universe (and I've tried happypenguin's top 40, at least).
However, I'm done with the single-player campaign (so far), and basically bored now, waiting for the rest.
I've looked into adding campaigns that other people have built, or building my own, and after a while - I just don't have the heart to play the same game over and over again. I'll wait for the rest of the official campaign, because I'm somewhat hooked on the story, and want to see how it ends <grin> - but real longevity in most games is dictated by multiplayer - so I'd like to see Wesnoth have a multiplayer experience as fabulous as the single-player is!
Persistant armies are a great idea for multiplayer - but the whole issue of 'balance' is certainly problematic. This is generally solved by limiting or setting the scope of the engangment (something like how the AI calculates its gold in the single player game?). If recalling more powerful units cost more, then it would be a simple matter of setting gold limits.
Since that seems to be a dead horse ( judging from the response) how else can limits be set on players with more powerful armies? Or advantages given to players with no experienced units to recall?
Simply giving the newbie experienced units won't work. Defeats the purpose. Same story with removing the more experienced units.
Perhaps, when a unit above level 1 is recalled, all opponents gain bonus gold?
Hurm.... the whole multiplayer thing bears thinking about, anyway. I can definitely say that advancing my army, and advancing the storyline were the most fun parts of single player, and I think at least one of those things could benefit the multiplayer Wesnoth experience.
As for the rationale that "you've already paid for the experienced unit" I suppose there's some logic to that, but the way multiplayer has been designed every scenario is in a vacuum, so it doesn't hold water, there.
I've very much enjoyed Wesnoth. It is the most attractive, fun and playable GPL game in the universe (and I've tried happypenguin's top 40, at least).
However, I'm done with the single-player campaign (so far), and basically bored now, waiting for the rest.
I've looked into adding campaigns that other people have built, or building my own, and after a while - I just don't have the heart to play the same game over and over again. I'll wait for the rest of the official campaign, because I'm somewhat hooked on the story, and want to see how it ends <grin> - but real longevity in most games is dictated by multiplayer - so I'd like to see Wesnoth have a multiplayer experience as fabulous as the single-player is!
Persistant armies are a great idea for multiplayer - but the whole issue of 'balance' is certainly problematic. This is generally solved by limiting or setting the scope of the engangment (something like how the AI calculates its gold in the single player game?). If recalling more powerful units cost more, then it would be a simple matter of setting gold limits.
Since that seems to be a dead horse ( judging from the response) how else can limits be set on players with more powerful armies? Or advantages given to players with no experienced units to recall?
Simply giving the newbie experienced units won't work. Defeats the purpose. Same story with removing the more experienced units.
Perhaps, when a unit above level 1 is recalled, all opponents gain bonus gold?
Hurm.... the whole multiplayer thing bears thinking about, anyway. I can definitely say that advancing my army, and advancing the storyline were the most fun parts of single player, and I think at least one of those things could benefit the multiplayer Wesnoth experience.
Hi Starbane,
Thank you for your kind words.
I must confess that I never intended Wesnoth to be a multiplayer game originally, only single player. I thought that without the continuity of playing from one scenario to the next, However since implementing multiplayer support, I have found that it is lots of fun as a multiplayer game too. Even without units advancing levels featuring prominently.
The campaign is still the focal point, and is intended to be the most enjoyable part of the game, but multiplayer can be lots of fun too.
Something that I have been trying with some of the other developers (miyo, ziberpunk) lately has been unexpected fun too - playing multiplayer, as allies with the other humans, using shroud and fog of war on a random map, against three AIs who have twice the gold of us. It's exciting, fun, and requires lots of teamwork.
I would like to invite you to drop by in IRC - #wesnoth at irc.freenode.net and perhaps we could set up a game with each other [1]. I'm not sure from your post how much you've played multiplayer already - perhaps you were turned off by the idea of having no recalling - but in my opinion, even without the recalling, it's lots of fun.
I agree with you that having a system of 'recalling' units in multiplayer would be nice, but I am yet to hear a compelling way to do it. Simply making higher level units cost more doesn't impress me as being a good solution, because that removes the crucial fun factor of advancing your army.
Having persistent armies, but making them cost more to recall powerful units doesn't strike me as a good solution, because having a large powerful persistent army will either be an advantage (because you have so many powerful units), or no advantage (because the units cost so much to recall).
If it is an advantage, then there are unfairness/balance problems. If it is no advantage, then it seems to me rather pointless to have your persistent army. There is no joy in raising the levels of so many units if you know it is going to be no advantage to you. [2]
So what does this leave us with? A few ideas that I have had:
- players could each play a campaign vs the AI. Once they are done with the campaign, they take their army they had at the end of it, and fight another player who also did the same campaign.
- a tournament where e.g. player 1 plays player 2, player 3 plays player 4. Winner of 1 vs 2 takes their army and plays against winner of 3 vs 4 who has their army.
- a server where armies are persistent, but where if you have played for a long time/have a high 'ranking', you get much less experience in games against players with a low ranking. (and maybe villages give more gold to the lower ranked player, too)
Another idea, which doesn't involve multiplayer as such, but which could improve longevity a little is the idea of 'auto generated campaigns'. The map generator is pretty good now. With a little work, it'd be possible to create a 'randomly generated campaign' feature, where the player chooses some basic settings, such as difficulty, the side they are, and the length, and the game would automatically create a new campaign for them.
Not as interesting as a hand crafted campaign, with a storyline, certainly, but it could be a feature worth having nonetheless.
David
[1] This will require ability to compile CVS, as we always play on the very latest CVS snapshot. It's both fun and testing of the current code. My username there is 'Sirp'.
[2] Yes, one could argue that it is only a 'small advantage', offset by the cost, but if it is a only small advantage, then spending so much effort raising the levels of soldiers will still be pointless and frustrating.
Thank you for your kind words.
I must confess that I never intended Wesnoth to be a multiplayer game originally, only single player. I thought that without the continuity of playing from one scenario to the next, However since implementing multiplayer support, I have found that it is lots of fun as a multiplayer game too. Even without units advancing levels featuring prominently.
The campaign is still the focal point, and is intended to be the most enjoyable part of the game, but multiplayer can be lots of fun too.
Something that I have been trying with some of the other developers (miyo, ziberpunk) lately has been unexpected fun too - playing multiplayer, as allies with the other humans, using shroud and fog of war on a random map, against three AIs who have twice the gold of us. It's exciting, fun, and requires lots of teamwork.
I would like to invite you to drop by in IRC - #wesnoth at irc.freenode.net and perhaps we could set up a game with each other [1]. I'm not sure from your post how much you've played multiplayer already - perhaps you were turned off by the idea of having no recalling - but in my opinion, even without the recalling, it's lots of fun.
I agree with you that having a system of 'recalling' units in multiplayer would be nice, but I am yet to hear a compelling way to do it. Simply making higher level units cost more doesn't impress me as being a good solution, because that removes the crucial fun factor of advancing your army.
Having persistent armies, but making them cost more to recall powerful units doesn't strike me as a good solution, because having a large powerful persistent army will either be an advantage (because you have so many powerful units), or no advantage (because the units cost so much to recall).
If it is an advantage, then there are unfairness/balance problems. If it is no advantage, then it seems to me rather pointless to have your persistent army. There is no joy in raising the levels of so many units if you know it is going to be no advantage to you. [2]
So what does this leave us with? A few ideas that I have had:
- players could each play a campaign vs the AI. Once they are done with the campaign, they take their army they had at the end of it, and fight another player who also did the same campaign.
- a tournament where e.g. player 1 plays player 2, player 3 plays player 4. Winner of 1 vs 2 takes their army and plays against winner of 3 vs 4 who has their army.
- a server where armies are persistent, but where if you have played for a long time/have a high 'ranking', you get much less experience in games against players with a low ranking. (and maybe villages give more gold to the lower ranked player, too)
Another idea, which doesn't involve multiplayer as such, but which could improve longevity a little is the idea of 'auto generated campaigns'. The map generator is pretty good now. With a little work, it'd be possible to create a 'randomly generated campaign' feature, where the player chooses some basic settings, such as difficulty, the side they are, and the length, and the game would automatically create a new campaign for them.
Not as interesting as a hand crafted campaign, with a storyline, certainly, but it could be a feature worth having nonetheless.
David
[1] This will require ability to compile CVS, as we always play on the very latest CVS snapshot. It's both fun and testing of the current code. My username there is 'Sirp'.
[2] Yes, one could argue that it is only a 'small advantage', offset by the cost, but if it is a only small advantage, then spending so much effort raising the levels of soldiers will still be pointless and frustrating.
“At Gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.” -- Ian Fleming
You know, if you wanted to be really adventurous, you could, post 1.0 of course, work towards something like Cavedog's boneyards. You set-up online multiplayer campaigns, where you have a large meta-map that contains a set of scenarios. Players can then meet up online and play one of these scenarios. The outcome is then saved on the server and the broad campaign continues. You then get players coming back online to fight for their team either towards a specific goal (e.g. "capture" 2/3 of scenarios) or to annihilate another team.
This would solve the problems of not being able to recall units (and thus having less incentive to build a well balanced army through a campaign), of not having really good maps, and of losing that sense of continuity that you get in a single player campaign. It also wouldn't take all that much coding, purely from playing the game, since it only requires campaigns to run remotely and wait for players to connect to scenarios, and to manage players and victories over time.
I think at the time Boneyards was supposed to be a long term strategy to get rid of the need to even make single player campaigns in Cavedog's Total Annihilation series, but alas they went out of business almost as soon as they launched the service
This would solve the problems of not being able to recall units (and thus having less incentive to build a well balanced army through a campaign), of not having really good maps, and of losing that sense of continuity that you get in a single player campaign. It also wouldn't take all that much coding, purely from playing the game, since it only requires campaigns to run remotely and wait for players to connect to scenarios, and to manage players and victories over time.
I think at the time Boneyards was supposed to be a long term strategy to get rid of the need to even make single player campaigns in Cavedog's Total Annihilation series, but alas they went out of business almost as soon as they launched the service
We can release 1.0 and then start working for this. That is, if we choose to do it.telex4 wrote:You know, if you wanted to be really adventurous, you could, post 1.0 of course, work towards something like Cavedog's boneyards.
Exactly what we are trying to prevent.telex4 wrote:but alas they went out of business almost as soon as they launched the service :(
- Miyo
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Rage420
yawningdog wrote:russ_allegro: What I believe should be done in multiplayer (post 1.0) is the same we have in single player: persistent armies (on a per server basis). I want to build my army game after game, and match it against those of other players. Now that would put the f in fun.
This is EXACTLY what needs to be done..
also, there should be an equal # of unit types for all the sides
the rebels have such an advantage in a diverse army its re-[censored]-u-lous.
[/i]
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lala
Just dropping some idea's
From what I've read, I'll have to go with the opinion of persistent armies rated on (something like) the 15 best soldiers. Start with equal amount of money and recruit/recall cost, but make the xp gain variable to the players rating. example: the game internals make a unit of player A gaining only a half or a third in xp compared to the same unit of player B, because of the mismatch between the recallable units in both armies (again: top 15 units??)
It should also be possible that players know about the strength of the opposer: number of trained soldiers in each level, global percentages of, for example, different races or fighter/scout/bowman/mages. Just to have an global idea of the opponents army, before challeging him/her, or accepting the challenge.
Of course players could agree only to recall up to a certain level /use a particular subset of the army/anything and the ultimate KISS implementation is the gentleman's agreement: just stick to what you promised. So if you are no. 1, and nobody wants to challenge you with your whole army, you still can play, but you'll have to take into account that your opponent's xp gain will lead to quicker upgrades (making it even more interesting for you ! )
Just an idea is that you have to go with the race of the first recalled/recruited soldier. This way you can study the map first, you'll play with one race each time, but your whole army in not limitted to just one race.
Hopefully this helps the discussion
From what I've read, I'll have to go with the opinion of persistent armies rated on (something like) the 15 best soldiers. Start with equal amount of money and recruit/recall cost, but make the xp gain variable to the players rating. example: the game internals make a unit of player A gaining only a half or a third in xp compared to the same unit of player B, because of the mismatch between the recallable units in both armies (again: top 15 units??)
It should also be possible that players know about the strength of the opposer: number of trained soldiers in each level, global percentages of, for example, different races or fighter/scout/bowman/mages. Just to have an global idea of the opponents army, before challeging him/her, or accepting the challenge.
Of course players could agree only to recall up to a certain level /use a particular subset of the army/anything and the ultimate KISS implementation is the gentleman's agreement: just stick to what you promised. So if you are no. 1, and nobody wants to challenge you with your whole army, you still can play, but you'll have to take into account that your opponent's xp gain will lead to quicker upgrades (making it even more interesting for you
! )Just an idea is that you have to go with the race of the first recalled/recruited soldier. This way you can study the map first, you'll play with one race each time, but your whole army in not limitted to just one race.
Hopefully this helps the discussion