Free Goblins (Dev Stage: Statting, Coding-then Animating)

[irrevenant]

(2) One thing that's going to need serious playtesting is that the Free Goblins lack a base-level unit with high move. That means they're always going to start off on the back foot in village-grabbing and have to regain lost ground. I imagine making the units slightly better value than average will be necessary to balance this.

New thought: Actually, the fact that Free Goblin base units are all Level 0 should offset this - their upkeep costs will be tiny.

Status report:
The vast bulk of the base frames are done now (21 out of 24). I'm not 100% happy with all of them, but once they're all done, I'll move onto the statting and coding. The necessary base frames can be redone when we start doing the animation frames...

[EDIT] UPDATE@7-Oct-07: All the base frames are usable (if lacking polish) and I have implemented the Forager line, with the exception of the Trapper's trap ability.

[irrevenant]

I'm up to the coding stage, but I've done as much as I can and I've hit a bit of a wall. If any WML gurus out there want to wade in, it would be reallyappreciated. The era's available for download at http://irrevenant.customer.netspace.net ... %20Era.zip

Once the "Contemplative" and "Battle Tutor" abilities are done, I think I can muddle through the rest[1]. I've already implemented the abilities that are variants of existing abilities.

Thanks.

[1] Except the 'traps' ability - it looks like that's going to be a real nightmare, but first things first...

[pauxlo]

The Complentative-pseudo-ability is working now, see other thread. (Maybe use the tip from Noyga about how to allow using it within an abilities-tag.)

So I'm now playtesting them ... I'm listing here the things that I think should work, but don't.

• I have some apprentice healers, which don't heal at all. Looking in the save file, there is an empty abilities tag.
  
  ... OK, I found the reason: the defined macro is ABILITY_FG_HEALING2, while you use this one:

  Code: Select all

  	[abilities]
  		{ABILITY_FG_HEALS2}
  	[/abilities]
  

  No comment ;-)
• The semi-skirmish-ability of the skypillow also seems not to work, but I didn't look for the reason yet.
• My build site wanted to upgrade to "fg_siegetower", which failed, since in "Free Goblin Siege Tower.cfg" the id is "fg_guardtower". (Copy'n'paste error, I think ...)

[Edit: adding more problems, to avoid cluttering this thread with multiple posts ...]

[irrevenant]

Thanks. I've fixed 1&3. #2 is going to take a bit more time and effort...

[irrevenant]

I won't have a chance to get to this for a little while, but I'm posting this so I (and everyone else) remember where we're up to:

I've decided that, not only is giving the Trapper actual traps impossible with the current engine, it would probably be pretty annoying in practice. So the new premise will be that he "bunkers down" and lays defensive traps at the end of his turn. If anyone else attacks him on their turn they suffer a nasty (say, 12-1 pierce (slow)?) trap attack. This attack is not available offensively.

AFAICT, this faction is 95% towards playable, but my WML brain has rusted and I'm flat out with study at the moment anyway.

I think that all that's left to do is:
* The "Trapper" weapon special.
* The "Corrosive" weapon special
* The "Volatile" weapon special works, but needs to affect enemies before they level.
* The "Persuader" needs special abilities and I'm not 100% sure what to do with them. "Taunt" is a bit meh. (I'm actually half tempted to nuke the Encourager and replace it with a bard/folk psychologist unit line).
* Pauxlo reckons the aircraft ability isn't working properly either.

Once it's playable, the next steps are attack animations and faction balancing.

[Devling Fan]

What factions are you planning on balancing them with? Default?

[irrevenant]

What factions are you planning on balancing them with? Default?

Yes. There's a playable Alpha version of the faction at http://irrevenant.customer.netspace.net ... %20Era.zip if you want to try them out. The era includes all the default factions.

[WYRMY]

Looks good.

Some spelling things:
Machete is spelt machete.
Capital letters don't look good in the game. Maybe you wan't to change thing like Darts -> darts.

WYRMY.

[Mica]

Once you finish coding, I think that people would be pleased to play this, without animations, to help you balance. Also, maybe sometime you should try to get this in some kind of era?

[Max]

someone posted in the user forum that the free goblins wiki page has been lost during the server crash.
if someone likes to fix that - it's still in googles cache (looks complete to me)

[AI]

It's also still in the wiki, see the edit page. The wiki fails to render it though, someone should look into that.

[AI]

I won't have a chance to get to this for a little while, but I'm posting this so I (and everyone else) remember where we're up to:

I've decided that, not only is giving the Trapper actual traps impossible with the current engine, it would probably be pretty annoying in practice. So the new premise will be that he "bunkers down" and lays defensive traps at the end of his turn. If anyone else attacks him on their turn they suffer a nasty (say, 12-1 pierce (slow)?) trap attack. This attack is not available offensively.

AFAICT, this faction is 95% towards playable, but my WML brain has rusted and I'm flat out with study at the moment anyway.

I think that all that's left to do is:
* The "Trapper" weapon special.
* The "Corrosive" weapon special
* The "Volatile" weapon special works, but needs to affect enemies before they level.
* The "Persuader" needs special abilities and I'm not 100% sure what to do with them. "Taunt" is a bit meh. (I'm actually half tempted to nuke the Encourager and replace it with a bard/folk psychologist unit line).
* Pauxlo reckons the aircraft ability isn't working properly either.

Once it's playable, the next steps are attack animations and faction balancing.

A pierce trap? How do you envision that? Stuff like bear traps are more of the blade/impact type.
Anyway, it would be pretty easy to give them an attack with attack_weight=0 and an explanatory DEFENSE_ONLY special

As for volatile, you're currently using the die event. I suggest you switch to either last breat or attack_end (and check if his hitpoints are less_than_or_equal 0)

My idea for 'enrage' is giving the unit a temporary weapon special on all his melee weapons, which is either a form of charge or berserk, allowing both sides to do more damage.

Coding it would be something along the lines of: http://wesnoth.pastebin.com/f3b2cef1c

[Migrant]

Hey guys!

this era looks pretty cool, just had a browse through.

I've started working on a small Goblins campaign myself and someone drew my attention to this topic.
I'm sort of going in a slightly different direction (mad, pillaging goblins and a Goblin King, rather than orgaised, democratic and just a bit crazy goblins), but it could be cool to exchange some ideas.
Have a look at the topic I've created in the camaigns forum "The Thunderhead Raider - Goblins Campaign". I'll put up the first scenario as soon as i finish some final touches on it.

Also I was hoping I could use some of the awesome sprites you guys have made?
I'm really only looking into making 2 or at the most 3 new units, though.

Cheers,
Migrant