Fwd: Re: [Wesnoth-dev] Aiming for 1.0

[Nils Kneuper]

FORWARDED THIS MAIL TO THE ML, BECAUSE ONLY I GOT IT:

I do think we should head towards 1.0 pretty soon. A definite date would
be helpful, athough I realize it would be hard to get one.


>1) CAMPAIGNS:
>Some of the campaigns do not fit into mainline at the moment.
>Either we should work on them, or we should kick them out. I am
>speaking of SotBE and TdH. These are incomplete and do not really fit
>to the rest.
>We should also consider getting them completely out of the game and
>maybe getting one or two good and complete user campaigns into it
>instead.
>Also it would be nice if at least one campaign was designed for
>beginners that do not have much experience in playing TBS games. They
>maybe only played the tutorial and find httt very hard afterwards. At
>least one campaign should be winnable by an unexpierienced user even
>on medium.
>  
>
I would agree. So, what suggestions do people have? I nominate Liberty
and South Guard. South Guard would be the easy campaign, and new players
would play it right after the tutorial.

>2) UNITS:
>Is it really needed to get in more units? The units in 0.9.1 were
>looking quite complete. Should we really add more units to the game?
>There are already very many units. This makes it hard for beginners
>and even harder to balance.
>We should leave the units (and their attacks) like they were. We
>should only change it, when balancing (next point) needs it.
>I really like the idea of having more drakes personally, but I do not
>think it is good for the game. This will make our progress into the
>direction of 1.0 by far harder. I do think they should stay like they
>are now.
>I also do strongly speak against adding the high elves. This will
>destroy several stuff again. Changing Kalenz to have a "cold" attack,
>makes httt somehow imba, because you have to fight undead in some
>missions in which Kalenz already joind you. And cold is really not
>good against undead. Maybe httt has completele be revised now. Because
>of this I speak for reverting the changes to Kalenz.
>The high-elves may be added as "unofficial-unit-pack". I do not think
>we do really need them for mainline, though they are a nice idea after
>all. But not for mainline ATM.
>  
>
I do think new 1st level units are a bad idea. And definitely no new
factions - those might be added after 1.0, but not before. HOWEVER, I
feel pretty strongly that several more 2nd and 3rd level units are
needed before the game is really 1.0-caliber. Branching, I think, is one
of the most interesting parts of the game, and it is the most enjoyable
part of campaigns - finding all the different types of units you can
get. Right now, the Rebels, Loyalists, and, I think you could say,
Undead have good advanced-unit diversity. None of the other factions do.
I think that we should really focus on getting more advanced level units
for the next could of months. We have several artists who are basically
working on new factions as their pet projects. Perhaps we could post a
list of wanted unit graphics and see what turns up?

If nothing turns for a while, I'm fine with us saying that we should
leave off adding new units until after 1.0, but that really is not my
preferred solution.

As for your points about the unbalancing effects of adding units - I
don't think they really apply. In official campaigns, you don't ever
control drakes , the only one where you control orcs is SOTBE, which
will probably be removed (and is so unbalanced no changes could hurt it
more), and the only time you control dwarves is the latter stages of
HTTT. I don't think any of the advanced units that should be added could
possibly unbalance MP either, because they are almost all 3rd level
units, except for some branches of the dwarves, which would be initially
added as very weak units.

>3) BALANCING:
>This one is the hardest points. All the unit additions and changes of
>the last days, like changing the saurian, are not best for the game I
>think. The drakes were playable because of this unit that easyly died
>if you are not carefull enough. Witout a magic attack, they will only
>be like the rest. The drakes will be weak and not really usable at
>all.
>I think we should have the units features like in 0.9.1. Some changes
>for balancing are needed, yes. But I think multiplayermode in 0.9.1
>was not too bad. Some tweaking to resistances and defnces or costs,
>yes. But NO big changes like complete new skills to some units (cf
>Tribalist and Sky Drake).
>For these balancing issues we should listen to the experienced
>MP-Players a lot more. If we get MP really balanced, single player
>will be rather balanced, too. The last balancing on singleplayer can
>be done by (very little) adjustments at the design of some maps. We
>got some good players, who know the best tactics, that are even willing
>to help us, why not listen to them?
>  
>
I would agree unit stat changes of the type you describe should be avoided.

>4) MORE EXTRA FEATURES:
>Are there more extra features for 1.0 needed? The game looks somehow
>feature complete to me. There may be stuff that could be adjusted and
>improved (modularisation) but these things could also break a lot. I
>do speak in favour of letting the game like it is now, concentrate
>(mainly) on fixing bugs and get it really stable so that 1.0 can be
>realsed. If you know any knew features that really do need to make it
>in, feel free to mail.
>  
>
A very important feature, to me at least, is the campaign server. I
think improvements to it should continue to be made until it at least
has decent organization. Other than that, I think mostly bugfixes should
be implemented.

-- 
Joseph Simmons

Turin Turambar - Master of Fate, by Fate Mastered