> > Frankly you've failed to convince me with this. The error in your logic > stems from the premise you outline right at the start. "I start a campaign > at a difficulty level that is challenging to me." Guess what? That means you > might actually lose (GASP!) The remedy for this? Try again, or play at a > lesser difficulty level. You said it yourself, its supposed to be > challenging, not a cake walk. >
hmm, I would side with Fendrin on this one, I agree that when you choose the correct difficulty level it should be challanging, and you might loose, however I think that the game needs to be fun, and that loosing from time to time is part of the fun. When you loose you are punished by having to retry what you did wrong, and do it better. That's a general gaming principle and we all agree on that. The problem with the downward spiral is that it forces you by having to go back in time much more than what is fun. Instead of replaying a scenario (~1h) you have to replay two or three, that's tedious, especially when you think you did well what turns people off the game is the thought that they will have to replay stuff they considered to have won before re-reaching the fun part. It's long and boring, and I think it's a problem. The "go back in time" due to the downward slope is too long. > I personally believe and enjoy the fact that Wesnoth was a game that treated > players seriously. That didn't mean it was going to let the player win every > time. Rather you might lose, or not win well enough. What you've described > is a player that does not have the requisite skill to beat the game at that > level. I agree with that, we should be hard with our players, and every scenario should be a challange. I would insist (and agree with you) that if a player is not good enough he should not be able to pass a given scenario. Again the problem is not the difficulty we target, the problem is how late we punish our player for not being good enough. > Sounds harsh, well it is... I can't recommend diluting the challenge > of the game for a highly skilled player because someone can't beat it at > high difficulty level and feels bad. > I don't want that either. but even good players can do strategic mistakes and find themselves punished way later. > I find it disconcerting that your "solution" to what many consider good game > design is to completely alter the game recall dynamics, break almost every > campaign scenario made and add a massive burden maintainers because they > have to rebalance. OK, that's a completely different question. The problem Fendrin in is pointing is general. It's part of wesnoth's current design, so it seems logical to fix it at the core-rule level. There are many way to fix them through WML and/or scenario design (optional scenarios giving more xp/gold for example) but that means working it in all campaigns and rebalancing all campaigns too (unless some campaigns deal already with the problem) I agree that rebalancing all campaigns is a big undertaking but I can't see how to fix this general campaign without either * rebalancing individually every campaign via WML * rebalancing individually every campaign after a core change so, if we agree there is a problem, I don't see how we can fix it without touching everything. I don't rule out that there is a solution, I just don't see it > Furthermore I actually doubt it would have any effect you > think it would. Campaign maintainers will just rebalance it in a way that > makes high difficulty, very challenging: low gold carryover or whatever. > Then people with lesser skill will again feel bad because they lost. What > then? Another system? > no, at that point we have short time punitions. People which are not good enough will still stop that campaign, people that are good enough will still win, but people that are border-line will continue playing the scenario they fail instead of dropping the campaing when they realize they have two scenarios to replay before they get back to interesting part replaying is never fun, even when you need to do better than the first time > If there is a problem with the game dynamics for beginners, then I suggest > there needs to be better scenario design, and maybe implementing some of the > suggestions made by other developers for beginner players (ie end of > scenario reinforcements.) However if you'er on an advanced difficulty level > and you can't beat it at that level, tough luck. My suggestion is try again > or decrease the difficulty level. > again, this is not about making the game easier. Fendrin never mentionned it and if he did I wouldn't side with him. I really like that we play it rough with our player. It's about fun vs tedious you can disagree that the down slope is a problem, but we don't want to change the difficulty, just push people that fail on a scenario to retry it some more hope this clears it a little and we can continue discussing. _______________________________________________ Wesnoth-dev mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/wesnoth-dev
