Hello Devolopers,
this is an issue that is on my mind since long but I didn't dare to talk
about loudly because It concerns an old but unlisted FPI.
The FPI in question is:
Different recall costs depending on the level of the recalled unit.
Most proposers go with the proposal for 20 gold per level.
I want to present a discussion about that topic but let me introduce a
vocab to argument with first.
The "Downwards Spiral"
I call a phenomena that can easily be experienced when playing Wesnoth,
in fact most or even all Players will have encountered it at least once,
the "Downwards Spiral".
Consider you enter a scenario with a critical amount of gold.
Very soon you discover that you need to spend all your gold to win the
scenario and even worse
that spending all gold with a balanced set of recruits/recall isn't working.
Let's go in detail what a balanced recruit/recall set is and why it is
not working.
A set of units can be called balanced when it consists of more first and
not maxleveled units than
maxleveled ones.
You need the first level (or zero level) ones to be sacrificed in place
of high level ones in critical situations.
The not maxleveled units are needed to suck up the experience points and
the maxleveled to solve some situations where
the enemy isn't listening to lesser arguments.
The obvious problem with such a set is the lack of firepower.
Compared to a maxlevel only recall you get much less bang for your bugs.
Thus the level is still completable if you recall unbalanced but not if
it is done right.
So, what are the consequences of such a situation?
It depends on how the player acts in the scenario.
I think there are basically two ways to handle the problem:
1) You try to rush and finish the scenario early to gain a better
financial situation,
but that will lead to the loss of some or even many of your high level
units.
The fact that your maxlevel veterans afford a huge amount of upkeep to
maintain can stand in the
way with taking this solution, since you may end with not much benefit
gold wise.
2) The player plays very cautious to prevent the loss of the maxleveled
units.
Retreading units often and taking no great risks will certainly work
when done well but that takes time and
there is no improvement of the financial situation to expect.
Thus the next scenario is entered either with a insignificant amount of
gold again or with a thinned out army to rely on or even both.
One can guess that this may get worse from scenario to scenario.
Finally the player realises that he has lost the game, not in the
present scenario but some time ago in the past.
He/she needs to restart an earlier scenario that maybe 2, 3 or even more
scenarios ago.
This is the point where many people quit playing the campaign or Wesnoth
at all.
Some of them complain that Wesnoth is to hard and totally unbalanced but
their voice isn't recognised much.
They are told that Wesnoth is designed like it is for a good reason and
to learn how to prevent the mess early on.
But I call that a design an epic fail (sorry, Dave).
A good design is to let the player recognise the failure early on to
keep him motivated.
Now, let's talk about balancing.
Balancing a campaign is hard because when you change something in
scenario 3 you need to play all your way through 17 scenarios to
playtest the 20th.
This is not only an issue of gold but more of that there is no suitable
recall list available.
The current gold carryover system can be used in a way to give the
player at least enough gold to win the scenario even with no carryover.
And it is also a balancing paradigm that a scenario should be winnable
by a good player in easy mode without a recall list with just the
minimum amount of gold the scenario guarantees.
Still this way of balancing does not lift the need to play through the
campaign at all difficult levels.
Let's assume that the "Age of Heroes" would be balanced as good as
"Default" or that it is accomplishable in a reasonable amount of time
and effort,
considering that the proposal will bring in more feedback about the matter.
Second, recall costs are set to the same amount as recruiting the unit
would cost.
Of course the player still can recruit only lvl0 and lvl1 units, so that
is just a theoretical matter.
This changes the situation in several aspects.
1) The amount of gold between the different sides/teams is much better
comparable.
Currently the power the AI can buy with it's gold is a static value
since it relies on recruits only.
It has to be compared to the player's forces which heavily depends on
the recall list.
Both issues would be eliminated.
While the recall list grants the player the access to some special
features the bare power of the force isn't depending on the available
recalls any more.
Secondly, the amounts of gold are directly comparable between the sides.
As a result the playtester is able to select a single scenario and test
it at any difficult level without the need to rely on a valid savegame
with recalls.
2) This will change the character of Wesnoth.
Gathering a strong army will get less important in favour of a proper
gold management during the campaign.
3) This will certainly unbalance all current campaigns. This point might
not that important since the actual system of recall costs can be
customisable thus only converted campaigns will use a "repaired" system.
4) Last but not least this prevents the downwards spiral from showing
its ugly head that often.
5) This will most likely lead to a better balanced "Age of Heroes".
A reasonable implementation could work like "recall_costs=20", which
reflects the current behaviour and be the default at first.
"recall_costs=70%" would be an example for a less radical approach that
lessens the effects of all mentioned aspects to some degree.
"recall_costs=100%" means that recall costs equal the recruit costs and
reflects the assumption made above.
I plan to implement the feature during the next cycle and convert at
least LoW to the new system, most likely going with recall_costs between
60 and 80 % of the recruit costs.
Regards,
Fabian Müller aka Fendrin
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