[interface] Average defense rating across terrains when buyi

[Ninjuri]

When i was starting out, i thought that all units of a certain race got the same defense ratings on the same terrain. This is (obviously) not the case, so this thinking stunted me for a while. For example, when playing as elves, it is a given that the rider, the fighter, and the archer all have good defense in forest, but what one such as myself might not know is that the archer has 10% more than the other two. I refrained from buying too many archers, thinking they had comparatively too little health compared to the other two. BUT; the extra defense in forests balances out this health disparity. There was no way i could have known that, unless i actually went into the unit descriptions page and specifically compared all the terrain defense ratings of the units before going into the buying screen. I also notice that the dwarf scout has about 10% more defense on just about every terrain than most of the other dwarves. There should be some way that i can get a quick reference of this in the recruit screen along side the health and damage, so i'm not spending more time in the unit descriptions menu than in the game.

There are three ways i think this can be done:

One, we could take a units average defense of all terrains it could be on, and just put the percentage right there to give us a general feel of it's defense. This way, one may observe that while a human spear man may have more health than a thief, the thief is a lot more evasive. There is a flaw with this, which i'll talk about in the next point.

Two, display the top defense a unit can get. This might work, because units with higher defense as their maxmum, usually have a higher average defense across all terrains, and likewise units with a low maximum, usually have low averages (Example: Comparing a theif's 70% maximum with the iron mauler's 50% maximum will give you a good idea about the difference across most terrains). Because it is the max defense, it takes into account where the unit would most likely be, and does not get skewed by multiple low defense terrains where you would not put that unit. For example, when comparing an elfish archer to a human spearman, if you used max possible defense, (archer 70% with spearman 60%) we see that the archer is slightly more evasive, but if we used average defense, (archer 43% and spearman 41%) They might not look like much different. This is caused by the fact that spearman have more defense in terrains that you probably would not even find either of them in, like a cave.

Three, we could just go through the units and get a general feel of how evasive they are, then subjectively put a tag on the recruit screen for each one. (Ex. Very unevasive, slightly unevasive, average, slightly evasive, Very evasive; Or perhaps Evasiveness: #, ranging from 1-10)

[Max]

this information is available if you click on profile.

defense ratings and movement costs are defined by the units movement type. 80% of all units share ~10 different move types like e.g. smallfoot, elusivefoot or mounted. it would certainly help if the movements name would be displayed somewhere.

[Ninjuri]

Great! I'll take that as a +1

Also, where is "profile?"

[Crendgrim]

If you select a unit in the "Recruit" dialogue, you will see a bar on he left, containing the unit's sprite, some basic information about it – and a button to open its help page, where you will find all additional information. Given that Wesnoth is a turn based game, and given that looking at the defense ratings is nothing which has to be done over and over again, I think the current design is good.

[Swiss_Army_Cheese]

this information is available if you click on profile.

defense ratings and movement costs are defined by the units movement type. 80% of all units share ~10 different move types like e.g. smallfoot, elusivefoot or mounted. it would certainly help if the movements name would be displayed somewhere.

Interesting, although I have never scene any of these movement types that you have spoken of anywhere in this game. Tell me where I may find them.

[fabi]

Interesting, although I have never scene any of these movement types that you have spoken of anywhere in this game. Tell me where I may find them.

They are defined in data/core/units.cfg .

But the idea of displaying them to the player is somehow difficult.
For example does the elfish fighter rely on the movetype "woodland" but it is modified to give the only 60% defense in forests by the macro "LESS_NIMBLE_ELF" which is defined in the same file.

Thus, just displaying the basic movetype is misleading in all cases where the basic movetype is modified.

[Insinuator]

Plus, displaying the movetype is not very useful unless you also list all the terrain defense modifications with it. You'd then have to memorize those to anticipate a new unit's defense. The current system is not at all difficult to learn. As has already been mentioned, unit defense is listed in their profile. Plus, all you have to do is mouse over the terrain with your unit, and poof! Defense rating.

Average defense rating is mildly interesting, but not really practical and nowhere near necessary. Not good to clutter an interface with data that is merely for curiosity.

[Ninjuri]

I guess i can see how the counter-arguments have merit, so i'm not pursuing this any further. It was an interesting idea to talk about though, and a legitimate suggestion at the start. Therefore, i am declaring this a good thread, that is now ended. One two three, it is so.