BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

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Caladbolg
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by Caladbolg »

Aldarisvet wrote: April 10th, 2019, 4:25 pm It is positive despite of RNG. Or, to say accurate, the RNG is not a problem for most players because they always can reload an excessive unluck. And they gladly use this possibility. They do it, almost everyone do, I myself did it a lot when I just started playing Wesnoth. Let us stop denying obvious.
Repeating the same sentence a bunch of times doesn't make it any more true. Googling X and finding lots of results for it is cherry picking. I'd have no issue with the premise that people mostly dislike Wesnoth's rng if you backed it up by something more than "I assure you..." in every other post. At least that poll will hopefully yield some results, though I think it'll still be inconclusive due to small sample size.

And even if I granted you that a significant majority of players dislike Wesnoth's rng, changing it would still be hugely impractical for little to no gain. Currently, we have rng by default, and there are many non-random mods. If you changed it so that non-random is default, people who liked the rng would make mods with rng. So in both cases we have available both the rng and non-random. The only difference is that sticking with rng requires no work, while making non-random the new default would require a lot of rebalancing. In short, that change wouldn't happen even if there was significant support from players and the active community. I'm pretty sure the developers have more pressing issues in regards to improving the game than rebalancing the whole thing to achieve nothing in particular.
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sergey
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by sergey »

I found something interesting. A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating from Dave. Currently it works only for singleplayer campaigns. How to enable it:
- Go to Preferences ->Advanced
- Enable "Use experimental PRNG combat"
- When starting a campaign, enable "Save random seed"

Enjoy and post feedback to A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating :)
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Aldarisvet
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by Aldarisvet »

Caladbolg wrote: April 10th, 2019, 10:29 pm Repeating the same sentence a bunch of times doesn't make it any more true. Googling X and finding lots of results for it is cherry picking. I'd have no issue with the premise that people mostly dislike Wesnoth's rng if you backed it up by something more than "I assure you..." in every other post. At least that poll will hopefully yield some results, though I think it'll still be inconclusive due to small sample size.
I cannot help but to notice that the poll which is created by sergey has almost nothing with what we are arguing about.
So I created my own poll.
So welcome anyone to vote and to see how many "RNG saints" we really do have:
Do you reload usually if you lost your valuable high-level unit because of a strike of unluck?
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by Tad_Carlucci »

Google may be great but it's not the final authority. Searching for "Wesnoth RNG" and saying, "See! Lots of hits!" means nothing. Of course you don't see the complaints about other games. Quite simply, nobody on those other games mentions Wesnoth. The fact you didn't ask to see them, does not mean they do not exist.

As to the proposal of using the average of a number of samples: I don't have a problem with that system. It works fine. What I have a problem with is that we have a lot of content designed for the current system. Dropping in a replacement means all of that content will need to be redesigned. And all those UMC authors will need to be trained on how to use the new system.

I work with several games. Trust me, this is not a Wesnoth-only issue. The best characterization is that this is a human issue. People just don't understand randomness. Not only is this not a Wesnoth-only issue, the arguments are exactly the same and the exact same solutions are proposed.

I've seen is that complaints die down on the other games because people realize that the randomness is an essential part of the game, and that they can plan for it and, in many cases, completely eliminate its effects. The big difference between those games and Wesnoth is that the schemes needed are much simpler to understand, learn, and tech to others.

The better choice, instead of perpetually having people railing against the system, would learn to work with the system, and show others how to deal with it. The information IS here, in these Forums. It's just not organized and explained clearly.
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Aldarisvet
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by Aldarisvet »

Tad_Carlucci wrote: April 11th, 2019, 12:35 pm Google may be great but it's not the final authority. Searching for "Wesnoth RNG" and saying, "See! Lots of hits!" means nothing. Of course you don't see the complaints about other games. Quite simply, nobody on those other games mentions Wesnoth. The fact you didn't ask to see them, does not mean they do not exist.

As to the proposal of using the average of a number of samples: I don't have a problem with that system. It works fine. What I have a problem with is that we have a lot of content designed for the current system. Dropping in a replacement means all of that content will need to be redesigned. And all those UMC authors will need to be trained on how to use the new system.

I work with several games. Trust me, this is not a Wesnoth-only issue. The best characterization is that this is a human issue. People just don't understand randomness. Not only is this not a Wesnoth-only issue, the arguments are exactly the same and the exact same solutions are proposed.

I've seen is that complaints die down on the other games because people realize that the randomness is an essential part of the game, and that they can plan for it and, in many cases, completely eliminate its effects. The big difference between those games and Wesnoth is that the schemes needed are much simpler to understand, learn, and tech to others.

The better choice, instead of perpetually having people railing against the system, would learn to work with the system, and show others how to deal with it. The information IS here, in these Forums. It's just not organized and explained clearly.
Look, I had exactly the same position just recently. You can see my posts just in this thread saying things defending current RNG.
Yet I changed my mind. And that is not because I do not understand randomness.

Earlier I thought, why they complain about randomness, they simply do not know how to play carefully. Randomness is fair by the default, I thought.
But now I think that:
1. Too much randomness is bad.
2. Wesnoth has too much randomness (compared other games for example).

Yet it is still unclear what I mean and also I must show how I measure that "randomness".
I can give a good example. In a game called Civilization when two units fight in melee combat, they fight till one of them dead. Usually when two identical units fights on plain without defence bonuses, two warriors for example, one of them die of course, and another is left wounded, often close to death. But also it can happen that a winning unit could be not damaged at all. But this is very rare case. So, I say, that excessive randomness in civ would be if in all cases a winning unit would be unharmed. I could call it "all or nothing". That would easely create a situation In which a single warrior could kill several another warriors (50%-50%) before finally being killed. Still it is fair randomness. But in current civ this case is extremely rare because a winning unit is always left quite harmed after the fight.

A Dragonguard is a perfect example of "all or nothing" too. Mathematically Dragonguard is a unit who's deviation of attack results from average is 100%. Average is 20, but Dragonguard damage outcomes is either 0 or 40. Units with 2 or 3 attacks are less "all or nothing" units but still quite a lot. Their attacks results deviations from the average are too high. As I remember the thing I speak about called "dispersion" although it is counted differently a bit. I am not going to go far into maths, I just want to state that Wesnoth is too much of "all or nothing" game and my multiplayer experience only prove it. If a player failed to kill a near-death unit sitting on a key position with a good defence with a mage by missing 3 times in a row, he almost lost his game. He cannot cover a mage, by taking that position and with high probability his mage and probably another unit wounded during that operation would be killed a the next turn. Whenever a player did absolutely right by attacking that near to death unit with a mage.

So for me now it is absolutely clear that Wesnoth has broken RNG and it is in a high degree "all or nothing" game.
Last edited by Aldarisvet on April 12th, 2019, 10:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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sergey
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by sergey »

sergey wrote: April 11th, 2019, 12:49 am I found something interesting. A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating from Dave. Currently it works only for singleplayer campaigns. How to enable it:
- Go to Preferences ->Advanced
- Enable "Use experimental PRNG combat"
- When starting a campaign, enable "Save random seed"
Aldarisvet, have you read that post? There are already several options to solve what you don't like.
1) Try what I described in the quote.
2) Try "Less Random" add-on. It multiplies the number of strikes, HP, healing, poisoning, etc. And the multiplier is configurable.
3) Try "No Randomness Mod" add-on. It uses defense as damage multiplier instead of chance to hit.

Your complaints motivated me to investigate the issue. I tried all of those options. They all are playable and I will use them time after time to have a different Wesnoth experience. In this topic A mod to make Wesnoth's RNG a little less frustrating Dave clearly mentioned that current RNG combat system is a core aspect of the game. However, there are multiple options to modify the combat system. I think it is counter-productive to complain about it and the best you can do is to try what I described earlier and provide your feedback.

It seems to me like you want to stop playing Wesnoth, but not yet realized that. And you are convincing yourself to do that. Otherwise, what is the outcome of this discussion? You don't like that RNG plays a very significant role in the game (units have low amount of strikes). But that will not result in any changes if developers and majority of the community don't agree with you.
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Aldarisvet
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by Aldarisvet »

2 sergey

What I am doing is not complaining but publishing my thoughts while trying to understand an essence of the problem. I like thinking. I personally do not have problems with Wesnoth RNG and can easely play it with current system without frustration. Yet I changed my mind and think now that people who find Wesnoth RNG broken simply right.

Also I clearly remembered that Dave's post (at the moment I saw it I thought - why he is wasting time on this) and suspected that some complete solution must be built-in in the game already but really surprised that no one mentioned it before you. Thanks for you post however, "No Randmness" mod looks worth trying.
Last edited by Aldarisvet on April 12th, 2019, 11:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by sergey »

Do you think that solutions I mentioned don't solve the problem?
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by Aldarisvet »

sergey wrote: April 12th, 2019, 11:25 am Do you think that solutions I mentioned don't solve the problem?
As I understood, "No randomness mod" is the only case which is not shifts the balance. No randomness at all still seems a bit to much to me however.
The problem is not solved at least until players get directly informed in the game that they can avoid excessive RNG with some user-friendly way.
Almost no one knows now about that PRNG possibility.
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by sergey »

Aldarisvet wrote: April 12th, 2019, 11:39 am The problem is not solved at least until players get directly informed in the game that they can avoid excessive RNG with some user-friendly way.
Almost no one knows now about that PRNG possibility.
That's why I opened "Improve UI for enabling experimental PRNG combat" issue #4021

Aldarisvet wrote: April 12th, 2019, 11:39 am As I understood, "No randomness mod" is the only case which is not shifts the balance. No randomness at all still seems a bit to much to me however.
I think that all of those add-ons impact the balance, but I am not sure if the impact is significant.
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by Armagedonus »

I PROPOSE A SOLUTION FOR THIS PROBLEM:

How about instead trying to change rng, devs could od simpler solution?
I propose "wound system".
Simply speaking, when unit reaches 0hp instead of dying, it goes into separated unit pool called "wounded units".
And when scenario ends the units from "wounded" pool go INTO "recall" pool for next mission!

That way we could make rng MUCH less punishing (thus reducing need for save scumming) while still being not too lenient (loosing unit still stings because you loose opportunity to level up them)
AT THE SAME TIME it would give players actual reason to hate necromancy!
After all in such system, when you fight against orc, even if you "loose" units, you can still recall them next mission.
But when you loose them against necromancers? Then they turn into walking dead and you loose them forever! (giving actual reason to hate necromancers)

Seriously, I see no other solution to loosing your own units too easly.
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by sergey »

Armagedonus, that sounds intresting. However, I don't think it would be added to the core since it has several problems:
- Player will level up units faster / will have many high level units, as a result all campaigns will become unbalanced.
- Some events may be triggered by units death, which will be broken.
- Sometimes units must die story-wise.

Maybe someone will implement it as an add-on. I have one improvement to your idea. Not all units will survive. When unit reaches 0 HP there will be a dialog box asking if you want to save this unit. And there will be a configurable limit of units you can save per scenario, for example 10.

Have you tried "XP Bank" add-on? It allows you to transfer experience of your units, so it helps with advancement.
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by Armagedonus »

sergey wrote: April 13th, 2019, 9:16 am - Player will level up units faster / will have many high level units, as a result all campaigns will become unbalanced.
People are already doing this with save-scumming and debug mode.
Some people simply hate the idea of loosing veterans to rng, so my idea was for them. Such people WILL break balance of these campaigns, that rely on player loosing his forces from time to time. (and I don't think there is a way make everyone happy)
sergey wrote: April 13th, 2019, 9:16 am - Some events may be triggered by units death, which will be broken.
I already said that earlier with the whole "necromancy".
sergey wrote: April 13th, 2019, 9:16 am - Sometimes units must die story-wise.
You can easly adjust my system with flags.
For example you can create "pearmadeath flag" which will make unit die pernamently. (when said unit reaches 0hp, it will be moved to "dead units" list instead of moving to "wounded unit" list)
sergey wrote: April 13th, 2019, 9:16 am I have one improvement to your idea. Not all units will survive. When unit reaches 0 HP there will be a dialog box asking if you want to save this unit. And there will be a configurable limit of units you can save per scenario, for example 10.
I love it! There should be more ways to balance my idea, like putting XP penalty for letting your unit be "wounded" (like "unit looses 50% exp")
sergey wrote: April 13th, 2019, 9:16 am Have you tried "XP Bank" add-on? It allows you to transfer experience of your units, so it helps with advancement.
...what's the point of using it when you could use debug mode for it?
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by shevegen »

> People are already doing this with save-scumming and debug mode.

What is save-"scumming"? Do you refer to the save functionality that
allows people to save a game they are playing on the computer/device?
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Re: BfW is a game that relies on save-scumming too much

Post by Pentarctagon »

shevegen wrote: April 13th, 2019, 2:28 pm > People are already doing this with save-scumming and debug mode.

What is save-"scumming"? Do you refer to the save functionality that
allows people to save a game they are playing on the computer/device?
It means reloading a to a previous turn after losing a unit due to bad luck (real or perceived).
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