What is Arcane? - Suggestions by matto

[momom2]

I basically agree with everything sine_nomine said. I don't know about balance, but lorewise it only makes sense that units of a same species should have same arcane res except if they're arcane-related mages, and undead should have higher vul, -20% just doesn't feel the same.

[Mechanical]

I think the old kind of arcane fit the “not great against the living, great against the dead and magical” theme quite well. While going through SP content, I always enjoyed properly utilizing units with arcane to do collosal damage against, for example, undead. Doing a lot of damage in special situations depending on your skill is generally speaking an objectively fun thing to do in PC games, so in shooters one of the most fun part is headshots, and in mobas it's vanishing the enemy with one ability/1 procast.

I'm in favor of bringing back the arcane look from 1.16 and thus bringing that element of fun back into the game.

[KameRamen]

Goblins: Change +10% or [1.18-1.16] Keep 0%

This is a smaller detail compared to the suggestion to the undead, but I disagree with this change to +10%. It makes no sense at all lore-wise. Orcs and goblins are essentially the same race, and I think it is undesirable for their stats to change with respect to arcane. Besides, in this rework, goblins have better resistance than orcs, which is a bad change, because it overturns the previous concept of the races.

And as gameplay-wise, I cannot deny that there is a risk, albeit a small one compared to the others. On both of those sides, I would support keeping 0%.

[matto]

Thanks for the feedback! I will share new options and start to formulate a reply to comments (considering github's too) in this days

[Sire]

I've been asked to share my thoughts on the matter from Discord, so here they are for what they are worth.
-- I haven't read over the entire thread, so it's just my thoughts on Arcane in general (mostly focusing on the current version vs ye olde 1.16).

I've been out of the loop for a while (basically since May/June of this year), and mostly stick to single-player instead of multiplayer. I still have so much work I have yet to do...

That said, a part of me enjoyed the old Arcane resistances since I'm "old school," and because it showed the effectiveness of Paladins and White Mages against the undead. The new resistances might work from a balancing standpoint, but it seems to lose the flavor of undead being weak to arcane.

Overall, I'm indifferent to the Arcane Resistance changes and can adapt, although if I had to choose I rather have the old resistances instead of the new one.
-- Hope this helps!

[Rears]

As others already said, the 1.4-1.16 arcane was better, it should be properly reverted to those values. People supported forming a balance team with the expectation that they will actually listen to the community instead of trying to force their own vision onto the game.

[Lexa04]

Well, as an add-on creator, I decided to write something here to express my opinion as well.
I'll start with the most important thing — I don't care about changes to monsters, elementals, knalga, drakes and orcs.
But what I do care about are mages and undead. Since I'm currently creating a big campaign about wesfolks and mages, any changes to how arcane works will have a huge impact on my balance, which is already barely working.

From my subjective and logical point of view, I see that undead, as creatures that have been animated by magic and whose entire existence is supported only by the magic of a necromancer, should suffer greatly from the opposite type of magic. That is, if the necromancer uses black magic for his rituals, then light or elemental magic should deal incredible damage, as it was in 1.16.

At the same time, I also understand that in Wesnoth there is a flaw that the attacks of black mages(necro or shadow) are either cold or arcane, so it seems a bit strange that the magic that created undead and keeps them alive is capable of dealing huge damage to them. But this is a question to the original developers who implemented the damage types in the game.

As for mages, everything is simpler — mages who attack with light or elemental magic should have increased protection against arcane, and those who use dark magic should have reduced protection or none at all.

And, I'm not an expert in elves, but as for woses, I support the current resistance value, because to me they are still magical and not 'evil' creatures.

In general, I will support a partial rollback of the stats to 1.16(as long as undead have 1.16 arcane resistances or something similar), where it makes sense according to the principles I mentioned above

[gnombat]

At the same time, I also understand that in Wesnoth there is a flaw that the attacks of black mages(necro or shadow) are either cold or arcane, so it seems a bit strange that the magic that created undead and keeps them alive is capable of dealing huge damage to them. But this is a question to the original developers who implemented the damage types in the game.

There is a rule when you're dabbling in dark magic - "doe not call up Any that you can not put downe". I think it makes sense for necromancers to have a good way of killing undead (it could be very dangerous if they did not).

[Lexa04]

There is a rule when you're dabbling in dark magic - "doe not call up Any that you can not put downe". I think it makes sense for necromancers to have a good way of killing undead (it could be very dangerous if they did not).

Well, I guess that makes sense, but it still seems to me that necromancers should use techniques different from their normal magic to destroy their undead. Maybe, some kind of counterspell or energy drain.

[Dalas120]

I've always viewed arcane magic as interacting directly with a creature's magical "essence", "life force", "soul", etc.

Mundane creatures like humans rely on physical, biological processes, so they're less vulnerable to having their "essence" or w/e disrupted. Creatures like Drakes or Undead rely on magic to function, and are thus very vulnerable. Mechanical objects like ships have no "essence" at all, and are thus very resistant.

White Mages wield arcane because it's similar to healing; interacting with a creature's vital forces. Necromancers wield arcane for the same reason - it's very similar to how they create undead in the first place.

[DuncanDill]

Im no mod but... please... stop advertising ur add-on everwhere

Whats your problem bro?

Its quite annoying, though I can tell you are the sort of person to ignore this sort of thing, so I wont really have much effort in this... Also please don't call me bro. On a lighter note, merry christmas

Bro you know nothing of me and what sort of person Im. Ive my own addons and Ill introduce others to them. This topic about undeads to high resistances for me its a good moment to speak about more damage types addon. You dont like that unit is too op so give them other resistance types which can be low instead of high (everything is random in my addon).

Alr, just please dont call me bro

[KameRamen]

Thanks for the feedback! I will share new options and start to formulate a reply to comments (considering github's too) in this days

Hello, on december 17th you mentioned that you would provide a reply to people's feedback about arcane resistances, but when should we expect to receive it?

I would appreciate it if you could share your specific reply, hopefully this week. Regards.

[Lexa04]

Yeah, it would be nice to hear some new replies/suggestions, including from the people responsible for wesnoth's balance, because the way new arcane works is just bad and it needs to be changed somehow

[Dalas120]

Personally? The things I care about with arcane are:
1) arcane damage should be especially good against undead, and should be consistent within and across most races
2) arcane-dealing units should be fine but not great against many *common* situations/factions/etc; enough to balance out their extra power vs undead.
3) arcane resistances should be at least somewhat backwards-compatible with UMC/campaigns designed around 1.16 and prior

A full revert to 1.16 would achieve #1 and #3, but not #2. To achieve #2 I'd prefer for orcs and humans/saurians/etc to have the same arcane resist (whether that be 0%, 10%, or 20%), with undead at -50% or -40%, and with -1 damage on the White Mage/MoL/Enchantress/Shyde/Paladin, but I recognize that's not a popular proposal and probably won't happen.

Practically? The balance team hasn't talked about arcane in a while. So far no specific proposal that any of us have brought up has been popular enough to have a chance at passing a vote.

[KameRamen]

Personally? The things I care about with arcane are:
1) arcane damage should be especially good against undead, and should be consistent within and across most races
2) arcane-dealing units should be fine but not great against many *common* situations/factions/etc; enough to balance out their extra power vs undead.
3) arcane resistances should be at least somewhat backwards-compatible with UMC/campaigns designed around 1.16 and prior

A full revert to 1.16 would achieve #1 and #3, but not #2. To achieve #2 I'd prefer for orcs and humans/saurians/etc to have the same arcane resist (whether that be 0%, 10%, or 20%), with undead at -50% or -40%, and with -1 damage on the White Mage/MoL/Enchantress/Shyde/Paladin, but I recognize that's not a popular proposal and probably won't happen.

Practically? The balance team hasn't talked about arcane in a while. So far no specific proposal that any of us have brought up has been popular enough to have a chance at passing a vote.

I agree with you that it would be best if humans and saurians both have 20% arcane resistance, and I agree with you that undead should have high weakness to arcane, however I disagree with the idea of increasing the orcs' resistance to arcane.

It seems like your main problem with old arcane is that there weren't enough arcane resistant units, correct? If so, I think the best solution is the one proposed by Jonathan Kelly on github - "I may have a solution for you that will not upset the community while making campaigns generally more interesting - significant new race=mechanical units with very high arcane resistance.".

A good example of this approach is the new ships, which makes high arcane resistance noticeably more common than before (and in the case of the new Ghost Ship, it looks like it might be better against mermaid priestesses than the undead's existing water units, helping compensate the arcane weakness of skeletons and walking corpses.)

If orcs are struggling against arcane too much, giving them new arcane-resistant units (like battering rams) would be less destructive to the game than adding even more drastic changes to old units on top of the ones added in 1.18.