Wesband, MP dungeon-crawler (now for Wesnoth 1.9.14+ !)

[fgcc]

In addition to selecting the Wesband map, are you also selecting the Modular RPG Era?

That was it... I missed that setting (this is the first addon I've tried, even though I've played Wesnoth for years).

Sorry for the noise, keep up the good work!

[MCP]

Make sure to use the Modular RPG era. I have OSX same as you and it works 'fine'.


So last night in a local game Zeus and I had another level 1 reset, back to 1mp, base hp, and 1-1 melee attack.

I don't know what you are doing, but I am going to really try to understand how you are handling unit stats.

In Defense of the Goblin and Survival Xtreme we always have to keep track of every units' stats manually. It's just the way it is because relying on wesnoth's unit never fails to produce some kind of bug.

[Ken_Oh]

So last night in a local game Zeus and I had another level 1 reset, back to 1mp, base hp, and 1-1 melee attack.

I don't know what you are doing, but I am going to really try to understand how you are handling unit stats.

Wow, that sucks. I hoped we were done with that.

Well, here's what happens. You have the displayed unit and then you have a set of values from which this unit is occasionally built. Sometimes the displayed unit is all that is altered, like, for example, if it gets hit or moves. But, during special events, the a player unit is reconstructed. That happens in the {CONSTRUCT_UNIT} macro which holds a user-made event. This stores certain parts of the unit (the hitpoints, current moves left, etc.) but destroys most everything else and then builds it back up again based on that set of values mentioned above. That is, what armor it's wearing, what weapons it has equipped, etc.

What I think is happening is the that those values somehow aren't getting called, but instead it's taking the unit's base [unit_type] stats (1-1 fist, 1 move, etc.).

I don't really know what's happening then. Maybe Exasperation will figure it out before I do.

[Darkmage]

I'm playing this new version, and is great the armor not costing 0 gp or selling with a price, the mages now work perfectly to me, and i really wanted that xD so that's great and for me enought...

Difficulty has increased... NICE ... and still two things happen to me, tecnically talking, when leveling up when upgrading the weapons apear something like:

On the ability description:

Project id version es
report msdig bugs (wesnoth bug report url)
Creation date (many numbers looking like a date and hour)
Revision date (other date)
Last translator (someone and it's direction)
Language team: spanish "[any idea of where i do come from]"[obiously this comment doesn't appear] (and it's direction)
MIME version 1.0
Content type text

On the tp cost:
UTF-8

(some lines i won't write for its "complexity")

The description of the ability and required body 5=5(obiously depending on the ability)

I can manage playing with this but estetically...


And this is perhaps problem of my computer but in the city if i enter on any shop most of the times it goes well but sometimes when pushing the arrow up/down continiusly it apears to me... C++ runtime error, then some type of text i can't understand, refering to a problem on wesnoth, then it gives me three options and if i click one of those wesnoth closes.

If needed, i use windows(yea, i do know) XP SP3(service pack) i run firefox(i don't think it has any relationship but stills being data) i do play Wesnoth 1.6.1 and rhe last wesband version.

Also about potions, but i've read that's already fixed.

Keep on, the game is wining more features...

[Ken_Oh]

Darkmage: Wow. That is a mess. Some of that is Wesnoth errors (try to not use arrow keys within the menus). I don't know about most of it though. Anyone else getting anything similar?

Bugfix version of era/campaign (0.X.Xa) released with the critical bug fixes.
-mobs were being capped a certain level (half of the list), fixed taht
-changed the mob_level calc, should ramp up faster now
-no "planar" mobs before dungeon level 5
-no water on dungeon level 1, water won't appear 2 dungeon levels in a row
-+1 level clears poison/slow fix
-fix for hasten undead
-toned down NPC stats a little
-bug fix for stores

Unless there are any big bugs, I'm going to be taking a while to rewrite code so it isn't a friggin' mess. Exasperation is doing awesome work helping with that.

[Golbeeze]

I was looking at the list of things to do and I realized that you don't have anything listed about the characters. Do you plan on balancing them some more? I'd like to see more troll classes for one thing (mage, lobber) and maybe an orc line, too. It seems like you already have a lot to work on though.

[Ken_Oh]

I was looking at the list of things to do and I realized that you don't have anything listed about the characters. Do you plan on balancing them some more? I'd like to see more troll classes for one thing (mage, lobber) and maybe an orc line, too. It seems like you already have a lot to work on though.

Well, I talked about it a little before. Orcs would be nice, but that'll take time because of the art more than anything.

I don't know about Troll starting classes. The starting Troll is kind of halfway between vanilla Troll and Lobber. Troll Shaman is basically a level 2 unit, as it has the same magical attack values as a level 1 mage.

Any further suggestions for balance I'll take. I think Dwarves are too strong, so I'm working on that. I think I'm going to make more strikes ramp up, so you won't see 20-6 attacks from Dwarves as much. But, the weapon specials system is the next thing on the list after the rewrite of code and other loose ends get tied up.

[Taimat]

Started playing this and its basically one of my favourite addons now.

I do have some things ive thought of while playing, though.

First and foremost, the freezes after every move/at the start of every attack/huge one when switching levels. Though you menioned a code rewrite, so that will probably help, it got a bit annoying

Second, on dwarves being too strong - I can agree with that. I made ten people and never got past the second floor (Only about two or three got that far, and the huge mob and enemies stood right next to the staircase on the 2nd floor didnt help ). I made a dwarf and im now on level 7. Was using the starting weapons until floor five when I found a new axe on the floor. Unless you count the throwing knives from the second floor that are doing about 3-1. I really should throw some deft on. Oh, and the only time I bought a henchman was at the start of level 7 because I needed the ranger page added to my help thing. Dismissed him afterwards since he was hogging xp.

I think half the problem is how armour stacks. With humans and elves, that's offset somewhat by the negative resistances, but dwarves start with +10% in a few. I dont think I've spent more than a hundred or so on a helmet and some cheap boots, but Im up to 60-80% in blade, pierce and impact. Coupled with the huge hp they start getting and the massive damage, they end up being more of a midget tank with a beard than a dwarf.
Im gonna get off this now because you can probably come up with something much better than anything I could.

Third nitpick: difficulty. Level one and two seem a fair bit too difficult, but after that a lucky drop or two makes the next few levels a breeze. Few less level 1 units on floor 1/2 and a couple more level 2s on the floors after, perhaps?

Last one isnt a complaint so much as a bug report. If you leave the dungeon and reenter after resting for a turn topside to get your health back, the enemies do nothing at all on the first turn you go down. This doesnt seem to happen with all of them though. Goblins/ogres attacked me right off the bat, but outlaws always did nothing on that first turn.
Like I said, this wasnt a complaint - only thing that let me survive the dozen or so footpads/thugs/brutes/ruffians crowded around the stairs on the first floor

[Thrawn]

I was looking at the list of things to do and I realized that you don't have anything listed about the characters. Do you plan on balancing them some more? I'd like to see more troll classes for one thing (mage, lobber) and maybe an orc line, too. It seems like you already have a lot to work on though.

Well, I talked about it a little before. Orcs would be nice, but that'll take time because of the art more than anything.

I don't know about Troll starting classes. The starting Troll is kind of halfway between vanilla Troll and Lobber. Troll Shaman is basically a level 2 unit, as it has the same magical attack values as a level 1 mage.

Any further suggestions for balance I'll take. I think Dwarves are too strong, so I'm working on that. I think I'm going to make more strikes ramp up, so you won't see 20-6 attacks from Dwarves as much. But, the weapon specials system is the next thing on the list after the rewrite of code and other loose ends get tied up.

I agree that trolls should stay limited, specailly as if you want, you *can* give them magic, so yeah...

Too weaken dwarves some, please fix the fact that tinkers that focus only on mind can easily get really crazy thundersticks by always halving damage, doubling shots, as 0 damage can't exist, it will end up each shot always doing one, with hundreds/thousands of shots. perhaps not letting it go below .5 damage per shot?

[Exasperation]

Maybe add a damage threshold (for the sake of argument let's say 10) such that you can only double the number of shots if the damage is at least equal to the threshold beforehand?

[Ken_Oh]

Too weaken dwarves some, please fix the fact that tinkers that focus only on mind can easily get really crazy thundersticks by always halving damage, doubling shots, as 0 damage can't exist, it will end up each shot always doing one, with hundreds/thousands of shots. perhaps not letting it go below .5 damage per shot?

Sure, good idea. How about if you get a message if you try to double when it's already 1, it'll say "you can't double unless it's more than 1".

Hmmm, I wonder if you choose increase damage if it's only 1 if it actually increases any? I'll have to check it out. As the damage increase is 1.25, maybe I need to minimum it at 2 or 3.

EDIT: Or 10 might be a better idea. Heh, whatever you guys think.

EDIT#2: 10 is probably best, because negative ranged modifiers are taken into account. That and there's code to degrade thunderstick damage if you're not qualified to upkeep them which would be useless if it's 1 damage.

[Golbeeze]

Was the level-down-to-1 bug ever fixed? It just happened to a friend of mine again (he was not using the latest version though).

[Ken_Oh]

Was the level-down-to-1 bug ever fixed? It just happened to a friend of mine again (he was not using the latest version though).

No, apparently not.

I'm just finishing up a bunch of weapon specials. After that, this will be priority 1.

[Lucifuge]

Hi
I've been playing Wesnoth on and off for a while, but this is one of the most interesting developments I've seen. I have some questions and also some comments/suggestions about the way Wesband is working at the moment.

First, a few questions:
Is it possible to get back items that you have given to your henchmen, or make them change one weapon for another?

A related question: are there items that you can give to mage henchmen that increase their magic abilities? I've was trying to give a mage staff to my white mage henchman, but he is already holding a faerie staff and 'does not want to hold that item' when I try to give him the mage staff.

Is there any limit to the number of items you can carry, and do items that are carried but not worn affect your movement/evasion at all?

Some comments, mostly on the balance thing that I am sure you are already aware of; this is just my view so feel free to ignore it.

Firstly, the game seems to start hard but get easier as you get further into the dungeon. I find levels 1 and 2 can be quite challenging (unless I'm playing a troll) but it rapidly gets easier after that. I'm currently on level 12 and have been totally ignoring caution and tactical gameplay, and haven't even needed to use a healing potion in the last 5-6 levels. It would seem that this is because character power scales up more quickly than monster power, so possibly a short term fix would be to make the character advances get more expensive more quickly so advanced characters are weaker.

It also seems too easy to power up henchmen to huge damage/attacks by giving them weapons. For example, I gave my Dwarven Lord henchman a fairly standard light axe with a base damage of 9-2, and he does 13-12 with it, which seems excessive. Even my white mage does 25-3 melee, which is far more than he can do with magic. Maybe a solution to this would be to assume that that the base stats of henchmen already take into account the fact that they are armed with an average weapon of the appropriate type, so to make them more powerful you would have to give them some kind of superior/exceptional weapon.

Also, while I haven't tried every race and template it would seem that the regeneration ability makes trolls too easy on the first few levels; there are very few monsters that damage you faster than you can regenerate. Maybe trolls should only start with a limited regeneration ability of 2 HP per turn and need to spend some advances to get the full 8-point regeneration.

[Ken_Oh]

Hi

Hey

Is it possible to get back items that you have given to your henchmen, or make them change one weapon for another?

Yeah, you can let them die. But, then you have to kill whatever kill your henchman.

Seriously, I haven't come up with a good way to manage NPC inventory like that. All that happens currently is that if you give your henchman a better weapon or piece of armor of of the same type, then your hench will take that and drop the old one. For example, if you gave one hench a javelin and then you give him a bow that results in better total damage, he'll drop the javelin, since it is also pierce. He'll take on another weapon with a different damage type, like a mace, but try to give him the javelin back and he'll refuse it.

Armor can be a little different, since there are more dimension to it. If you have boots that give high bonuses to impact and boots that give high bonuses to pierce, you can keep on giving them to your henchman and he'll drop the other, since they are better than each other depending on the type of damage.

I'm always open to better ways to do this.

A related question: are there items that you can give to mage henchmen that increase their magic abilities? I've was trying to give a mage staff to my white mage henchman, but he is already holding a faerie staff and 'does not want to hold that item' when I try to give him the mage staff.

Not yet. That'll be soon on the table.

Is there any limit to the number of items you can carry, and do items that are carried but not worn affect your movement/evasion at all?

No limit currently. That's something we could look into way down the line.

Firstly, the game seems to start hard but get easier as you get further into the dungeon. (also regen note you mentioned)

It's kind of supposed to be like this, but the rest of the parts of the game aren't in yet. Trolls are going to have a real hard time figuring out traps, using magic items, etc. that become really important in later levels. Enemies are going to start to be able to use spells and summon creatures too. Still, there will never be much substitute for dealing out massive damage.

It also seems too easy to power up henchmen to huge damage/attacks by giving them weapons.

Working on it.

I always appreciate the thoughts. I'll try to have much of what you talked about cleared up in next release.

For anyone that's keeping score, I've got a bunch of new weapon specials and abilities that I'm finishing up today (technically 45 new ones, but you'll have to see what that means). After that, I'm going to look further into that level 1 reset bug. Then, I'm going to try to open up the undead lines and see how Exasperation has done with the NPC WML he's working on and include that.