Re: Re[2]: [Wesnoth-dev] Drake Additions

[Richard Kettering]

On May 27, 2005, at 2:13 PM, Nils Kneuper wrote:
> I also do speak in favour of leaving the drakes like they were in
> 0.9.1. Somebalancing in the direction of resistances / defense might
> be good, but adding new units is not a good idea if we really want to
> get closer to 1.0. Though I like the fraction of the drakes and some
> more levels would be cool for them, they are not really needed. I'd
> propose to revert the changes and go more into the direction of
> balancing.

The #1 reason the drakes did not have level-3 units is because the 
graphics were not done.
Many times in the history of this game, people have tried to canonize 
the existing state of the game.  People opposed adding a third level to 
units like the elvish druid, and skeleton archer, and elvish rider, yet 
strangely those units have not done much damage.

Level-3 units are not inherently unbalancing, in fact they are rather 
difficult to get and it is often more practical to spend all that 
experience on a lower-level troop.  However, a *few* of them are vital 
in many situations - if a wesnoth army is a house, they are the support 
beams.  They provide better leadership than level-2's, illumination, 
and other abilities, but more importantly offer concentrated combat 
capability when needed.  Certain level-3's can either inflict great 
amounts of damage, or absorb it.  They form the head of a charge, or 
the centerguard of a flank.

A lack of level-3 units cripples a faction when they fight on equal 
terms with a faction that has level-3 units.  This happens in both age 
of heroes, and single-player.  A group of low-level elves charging 
around with a marshal, a shyde, and a sharpshooter in tow can lay waste 
even to equally-sized armies of level-2 units.


The changes to the saurian were intended to balance a rather volatile 
unit - the unit was crippled in many respects to make up for a vicious 
attack that was originally given to the unit at its creation so that 
the unit would mimic the human mage.  The relative damage of the unit 
was set at 5 rather than 7 to keep it from becoming too powerful, 
however the creator failed to anticipate the power that the unit's 
movetype enabled.  Unlike the human mage, this unit had very good 
movement, and also had above-average defense.  Thus, they gutted the 
hitpoints of the unit, and stripped the skirmisher ability - while the 
real problem with the unit was always the mage-imitating ranged attack, 
not to mention the much cheaper cost of the unit.

> The same counts for me in the case of the "high elves". This could
> really destroy balancing.

The high elves were never intended to be on the rebel faction, ever.
I was willing to let someone else put them on there if it kept them 
happy, but I'd rather they either have their own faction, or none.

> In 0.9.1 Kalenz had fire damage which is
> good against undead. He was a really good help against them. Now he is
> rather worthless, because they are resistant to cold damage.

Yet suddenly, he is very useful against anything vulnerable to cold, 
such as the human generals with armoredfoot, or higher-level human 
mages, who typically possess resistances to fire.  There are no drakes 
in HttT right now, however the unit used by Kalenz is not a 
character-specific unit, but a general elven leader unit type, which 
can and has been used for several elvish lords in several scenarios.

Besides, a single mage can do as much damage as kalenz could.  A white 
mage, especially one like moremirmu, can make Kalenz useless on an 
undead map.

> All in all I would say that we should try to keep the unit tree like
> it was in 0.9.1. There already were really many units and fractions.
> More can be done via User Addition and we could provide these on the
> campaign server, but please not for the mainline.

The unit tree in 9.1 was incomplete - the only reason I didn't add 
these units months ago was because I was busy spending all my time 
revising bad graphics and finishing up many sets of incomplete or 
unfinished graphics.  Not to mention my many responsibilities in the 
real world.

Some of our races, like the loyalists and the wood elves, are basically 
finished, however, other races like the drakes, the saurians, the 
dwarves, and the naga, are a half finished mess.  I'm tempted to simply 
add all of the units I had been meaning to add in one fell swoop and 
just get it done with so people will stop complaining when things 
change under their feet, or when they fail to read what I'm doing when 
I post about it.

Obviously unfinished units and bad graphics are some of the things that 
really mar wesnoth's "professional" polish.


Wesnoth is a work in progress - some things are finished, some things 
are barely started.  It always struck me as strange when people in the 
0.6 era would post wondering why the game wasn't 1.0, and it still 
strikes me as strange right now - indeed I worry that some will try to 
artificially add the 1.0 title to something that is far from ready for 
release.

> I'd say that it would be good to do some balancing. For this we should
> somehow listen to the experienced MP-Players a bit more, because they
> normally know quite well, what is not good against humans. What is
> imba against humans is not best against ai. So if MP was more balanced
> (though it is quite well in default era ATM, i think) it would also be
> good for normal campaigns.

Balancing would be good - meaningful balancing of a full and finished 
set of units would be a whole lot better.