SX RPG ADD ON 4.9.10 - now on 1.10.x Server.

[Mabuse]

Well, maybe it is jut me, but i find the game pretty hard
I keep on dying in early game
(could well be that i am too rusty though)

thx for the bug-report jb. the problem was fixed.
(problem didnt occur when you give some bombs at start, since these wont influence the potion-storage)


ok, version 4.8.60 is out, it gives a slight reduction in difficulty:
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4.8.60:
- early difficulty slightly reduced: level1 + level2 creeps give +1 gold when killed
(so basically they give the same gold as before the gold was reduced by 1)
this is to make the start a bit easier

- fixed bug that reduced potion-storage permanently when a BOMB was used

- changed creep level progression for evil-dead, castle-of-cantar
higher level creeps will come later, so difficulty is reduced


so in summary, the low-level creeps give more gold when killed (+1), and the strong creeps will come later (for evil dead and cantar, wowII and ToB have already delayed strong creeps).
result is a bit more gold in early game. lets say we speak about 300 gold total.
(depends on how many lvl1+lvl2 creeps you kill until turn 50/60 (then only lvl 3+ creeps will spawn))

also the bug reported by jb was fixed. the new version is just on the way to the server


hope nobody is disappointed if the game is too easy now . i will see what nasty surprises i can implement in the new map.

[Warfall]

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[Warfall]

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[Warfall]

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[Mabuse]

Hey Warfall, glad to read something from you.
Seems you have some grudge about the new version.

First i want to give a comment to some points

Hi Mabuse,

No, it's not 'too much difficult', the two 'little' maps, Cantar and EvilDead were done for 4.8.40 release and expert level / 5 units.

Simply, it is too much boring, for sample: you must carefully buy one slot armor, of one precise type, at turn ~10, and not at turn ~5, and not at turn ~15 and so on, and of course, if you missed the good type: game over. This is a matter of taste, some seem to like this setting.

One important thing is that the '5 units run' seems now to be mandatory, fewer units being even more boring (and yes, you're right, chances are high of dying at the beginning of the game). So thanks a lot, i'm not a fan of the 5 units run, it is too long to manage them, and finding only one other good player, i mean _really_ good, is very simple: this is _impossible_, period.

ok, cool. i hope you liked the maps and the changes a bit.
but unfortuanately, or fortuanately, you had some grudges about the new balance.

i guess you refer not to the latest release, when i put the lvl1+lvl2 creeps again to the old kill-income. so this may be woth another try, hope the balance is better and a bit more forgiving now.

the items should always be some nice extra-bonus, ot game-breakers.
it seems you have discovered some game and balance breaking issues, and im glad you tell me about that. sicne i also thought about that.

The various 'stuff' may look 'funny', but they only favor on kind of strategy (guess which one...), in particular the question is not the equivalent in money (while this is impressive *), but in abilities, previously you can't reach the current allowed level of various bonus (the two "lawfull + fearless" and "chaotic + fearless" are also completely destroying every setting: 75 gold (fearless) + 150 gold (extra ablity slot) are not that much in money, but regarding abilities...).

ok, sure, the items may favor a certain kind of strategy i also thought about that.
this would make the game poorer instead of richer in the last consequence.

(*) speaking about money and 'stuffs found': the "simple" fire sword (five strikes!) is = 40 gold (the weapon) + 275 gold (slow) + ~100 gold (the extra strike for melee when running ranger / mage), while the founded ranged net is still 3 strikes (who cares with the +2 damages?)

the equivalent to the "net" is the improved shield, which is exactly the shield but with a +2 damage bonus.

the torch has another equivalent.

In fact, to win, you must understand that: the game is now to wait (so: how not to die when facing various bosses without the correct level of equipment) to have the good stuff, according to my taste this is not funny at all, and for sure impossible / nearly impossible for 2~3 units.

ok, this shouldnt be like that. the old 4.8.50 version was probably too hard - so items were absolutely nessessary.

After my previous discovery that 5 units have now (and this is still the case!) +50 extra golds at start, i was also chocked to see the new 'full move points restored' for only ten gold! especially without requiring at last one empty potion slot or one cyan potion already in slot. The real value is approximative: 10 moves subtracted from 20 (so 10*~90 golds, for low moving units this is rather 10*~120 golds) + 1.5 cyan + extra potion slot (40 or 50 golds, i don't remember exactly at this point) = 900+30+40 or 1200+30+40 depending on the unit. All of that for 10 golds! what a bargain! and thank a lot from previous players who spent money in move points rather than strikes / damages. Looks like some strategies are not welcome )). But obviously, those player's adaptation to new setting is already done... while those receiving either gold, or stuffs or various things to help them, continue to split on anybody not playing like them...

ok, so are complaining about the FULL MOVES option in shop for 10 gold.
tbh, i didnt know you estimate this as so much powerful, and i think it isnt.

so your proposal is to delete the option?
i just thought its probably convenient to have.

Simply because those maps introduce (at very low, and very simple level) real strategy decisions. Quite probably this had never been intended as it, but modifying a fragile equilibrium to comply with the request of the same band that had never understood anything to what is really involved, can only lead to destroy this equilibrium. SXRPG is not a "game", it have only two state: already loosed or already won. What was interesting was the already won state, because reaching it was not that obvious (please note that using a spreadsheet, OpenOffice or Excel, is still the best way to find the solution, the funny look of various units is not really mandatory, nor is the soundtrack ).

i also use spreadsheets about the balance. the new version was a balance-change and i see you are not happy with it.

maybe the items are too powerful (and biased toward a certain strategy) and to compensate that the difficulty was increased.

Sorry Mabuse, but this new release is no more fun, i'm hearing from here the next "new" complain of every 'noob': i hadn't chance to the magic stuff delivered )) When i want to see chance involved in a game, i'm playing poker, at last this is fun. But i'm not the creator/maintainer of SXRPG, and everybody is free to act as he feels.

well, you can easily be a co-maintainer of sxrpg. i can hand you over a list of actual items, and you can tell me what needs to be changed,which items shall be deleted and probably even offer new ideas.

in fact i take your critique seriously. the item-drop stuff should be some additional fun, not game breaker.

i have forget:

one thing that can improve the gameplay is to make the 'coins' automatically accepted, i understand this will avoid leaving some money to other unit / player, but this is no fun at all to have to answer 'yes' nearly 2 or 3 times per turn.

Of course, the same is not true for 'stuff', this time it is nearly mandatory to allow another unit to gain a stuff more adapted to its setting.

of course you are right and i have also thought about that.
i think this will be included in the next realease, on the other hand, you will then not have to option NOT to take the coins (and leave them to another player)



so now in fact we must come to some concrete steps:

the goal is still to keep the item-drops (this wil always include some elements of randomness) while keeping the old game-play and fun.

- so i guess you think i overdid it with the ability-point-saving item stuff?
these items shall vanish or replaced with something similar .. for example .. not a "full" HEAL-abilty, but perhaps a "MINOR HEAL"

- fullmoves option in shop is OP?
(complete delete (i have no proplems with this), or better make it an instant cyan pot, which just gove +9 moves (for 10 gold)?


as said, critique is most important, and always welcome, i open for suggestions, you can have a full overview about the items and give me suggestions and if you like become a co-maintainer of sxrpg



EDIT:

in any case i will overwork all the items and probably think about better ones in critical cases.

full moves option will become an instant cyan potion that gives +9 moves? or full delete.
OR combine it with FULL HEAL for 20 gold. so only FULL HEAL will give also FULL MOVES for 20 gold then.

[vultraz]

Glancing through Warfall's critique quickly, and I noticed his remark about SXRPG "not being a game". I'm not exactly seeing how that's the case. Is not the point of it to build up your characters as you face ever-more powerful waves of enemies and you try to clear the map? How is that not a game?

[Warfall]

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[Warfall]

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[Mabuse]

Glancing through Warfall's critique quickly, and I noticed his remark about SXRPG "not being a game". I'm not exactly seeing how that's the case. Is not the point of it to build up your characters as you face ever-more powerful waves of enemies and you try to clear the map? How is that not a game?

well, of course its a game but it is no gambling
(thats how i understand the statement - and i hope nobody feels offended by it - im sure it wasnt meant as an offense)

i understand warfalls statement relating to the amount of randomness rather than strategic decisions that decides wether you can be successful or not.

so if randomness decides wether you win or not then it is gambling, the other case is winning by making the right strategic and tactical decisions.

and of course i have to agree with this.



what will change:

the items may indeed favor certain build-ups instead of other ones, and are probably overall too powerful. will think again about that, since i also had some doubts at some points, so i see here the need to be more careful.

the critique about the full-moves option was unexpected, but in the end it is very true. So im open for a complete drop. it may really destroy balance of some maps. there may be an instant cyan option in shop bound to a free storage slot or a cyan in storage.

about the coins: the coins dropped by scanvenger ability will be made instantly picked up if moved on.

so thx for feedback, i will try my best to take care about it

[Warfall]

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[iceiceice]

FWIW: (I'm only talking about the "harder" maps, Wizard of War and Temple of Bones)

As far as difficulty I preferred the way it was about a year ago, where it was borderline infeasible unless you thought very carefully about all / most of the decisions that you made.

The way I see it, SXRPG is pretty different from wesnoth in that if you are playing well, chance is not supposed to be much of a factor. It plays a role but its pretty obvious that you think about it differently, because if you only have one unit, and you take even a 1% death risk every turn, in a game that may go for 100 turns... then you probably aren't going to win. Dave made some comments about a game Fire Emblem here: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?t=21317

Obviously in the first few turns if you don't buy many strikes then you are really rolling the dice. But especially at the end you might as well put on no luck mode anyways. So in lots of ways SXRPG is a "puzzle game" as well. The fun is in figuring it out -- if you can't really lose then for me there's no interest.

One thing which sylph said to me not long ago in the server, apparently after playing a game with Warfall, is that actually in SXRPG, at some point the enemies stop getting dramatically harder in the very late game. And so somehow it is a viable strategy to just play ultra conservatively and only shoot to win at turn 170 or so. I never realized this, I always assumed that if you waited too long you would get crushed, similar to how it works in creep war. I don't know if it's actually true, I never played a game that went this long, and I haven't examined your code.

If you strongly feel that the game should actually be much easier than it used to be, maybe you could make a 5th difficulty level "Nightmare" or something, for players that expect that they will die unless they have a very good strategy. Or just make the new map much much harder than the others.

But anyways I think that if you put the "sweet spot" between "too easy" and "boring", you may lose the interest of many long time players. IMO The sweet spot should be just south of infeasible.

[Warfall]

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[Warfall]

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[iceiceice]

You can currently do that, and since the very beginning of sxrpg: you have a slider on the first map, nothing prevent anybody to start with less gold that it was initially set, you can even start with 0 gold ))

Warfall, that has nothing to do with what I said. I'm not suggesting to adjust the initial gold, rather the other parameters in the game, especially which affect late game difficulty... Had you read my post carefully you would have understood this.

Regarding the "strategy", the last time we spoke together it was clear that you have some difficulties to understand simple subtractions, you're free to do as you feel, but beginning by "strategy" would not be my first advise in this very particular case ))

Actually Warfall, the last time we spoke I was spectating a game of yourself and Jb, and you muted me without warning for apparently no reason. Now my role in this thread is as a user and a participant and not as a developer or a moderator. And I consider you welcome to ask observers to leave in your games, although obviously it's much better if you do it politely. But if you make childish and needless insults in this forum it will not serve you well. Please review the forum guidelines.

Each time the setting being set on the 'hard line', the maps are not played by anyone.

That's obviously not the case. Since we seem to each want a slightly different game, that's why I suggested forking it using the difficulty level or some other mechanism. After all the users should be free to select the settings that will give the game that they want -- that's why we have multiple difficulty levels in the first place. Adjusting the gold level to 0 as you suggest is an obvious red herring.

There's no reason these things can't coexist. If you unfortunately didn't see it that way, and became the maintainer of the add-on, then I would hope that someone else would fork the entire add-on. But we certainly aren't there yet, so why don't we try to be civil and work out a reasonable compromise.

[Mabuse]

I'm [...] suggesting to adjust [...] other parameters in the game, especially which affect late game difficulty...

i also think this is a good idea for a nightmare-mode to give very expierienced players something to chew on. i also thought about that.

the parameter which gets to be changed is the creep-strengh increase-rate, which could be increased by a certain percentage. right now it is a plain "10" per turn. every full 100 (so every 10th turn) theres an increase in strengh. nightmare mode could increase this rate by 25% for example.

One thing which sylph said to me not long ago in the server, apparently after playing a game with Warfall, is that actually in SXRPG, at some point the enemies stop getting dramatically harder in the very late game. And so somehow it is a viable strategy to just play ultra conservatively and only shoot to win at turn 170 or so. I never realized this, I always assumed that if you waited too long you would get crushed, similar to how it works in creep war. I don't know if it's actually true, I never played a game that went this long, and I haven't examined your code.

ok, will be taken into consideration. very late game creeps will be adjusted.
actually, all maps should be able to be won before turn 170 - so putting more pressure in late game is a good idea to make the game more interesting.

For sample, the main difference between 4.8.40 and 4.8.60 is not really the difficulty at the very beginning, but the fact that after the first shop your units do not have any chance to die in 4.8.60. After second shop, the incoming money of 4.8.60 then allow much more thing than with 4.8.40, quite probably you're right here Mabuse, this will be too much easy, but i want to be sure that it is understood that there is something to be tweaked regarding the very beginning and relying on chance and the difficulty (i'm pretty confident this is not an easy tweak).

first: for me it is ok that there is no chance to die in early game as long you play "correctly".
so early game shouldnt be too frustrating. right now, the income in early game is just the same as before version 4.8.xx, late game income is reduced.

for me it is more important to make mid and late game more of a challenge, and that can be always tweaked by reducing income of players in mid/late game, and also adjusting creep strengh in very late game. i think these are good suggestions.

late game income could be reduced even further. jb wrote that difficulty decrease from turn 40 on. this can be fixed by lvl3 and lvl 4 creeps give another -1 more less gold income.



items or rely on chance:
more minor items will be added, the truly powerful ones may probably be kept, but their drop chance will be reduced significantly (1% drop chance). however, it will be overthought if it makes sense to keep them or not. ideas and suggestions are always welcome

but there will be in any case more minor items that will be interesting and fun to find.

a list of items will be published later, and everybody is willing to contribute ideas how to tweak them.



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regarding difficulty

right now (4.8.60) only the kill-income of lvl3/lvl4 creeps and bosses changed and of course that we have items now. and scavenger ability was added. i could make it that scavenger exclude gettig soulstealer and vice versa for example.

since the very powerful items will be deleted or be very rare, this will be also a change




i think i will first try an overwork of the items, and adjustment of very late game creeps.
and of course the previously mentioned points, like FULL MOVE will be dropped and replaced by INSTANT CYAN POTION, coins from scavenger will be taken automatically.

nightmare-difficulty will be addded for testing purposes.




EDIT:
another point is that i want to have another weapon-special for melee units in shop.
i thought about adding some kind of blessing for melee too (probably OP). or another MAIN ability (more likely).