Battle for Westnoth

[PorkaMorka]

Some of the stories were slightly less painful. But yea, wesnoth has a lot of graphics/sound/code people and not very many writers.

I'm not sure what the hell you've been smoking to diss the art though. It's clean, consistent, colourful, functional and easy on the eyes.

Some horrible placeholder art that looked like Dungeons of Dredmor was used in between missions in certain campaigns (such as "The Rise of Wesnoth") up until very recently. They may have gotten rid of it by now.

Not a big deal, but that may be what he is referring to.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

I was perfectly fine with sprites and such. It was the hero portraits when characters talk to each other during the campaign (that looked like really bad attempts at drawing "manga" style) that I was referring to. I'm not against "manga" style as such, it's just the execution itself that was sucky AFAIR. That was like 1-1.5 years ago. Maybe they've changed it by now, I don't know.

 

[Dim]

Back when i played this game the dragon race was OP in multiplayer.

 

[Excommunicator]

The only real problem with this game is the extreme randomness which consistently invalidates good strategy, so it is a definite game-breaker. Enough to make me never want to go back to it. They have mods to make it more deterministic but it doesn't sort the game out as much as I'd have hoped since the game is balanced around the randomness.

There is some nice music in there, though.

 

[felicity]

Randomness doesn't give you that 'one wrong move and I am screwed' thrill. When any unit can be lost to randomness, a bad move is not necessarily bad if luck favors you this time. It blurs the line of good moves and bad moves and consequently the line of skilled players and poor players which is counter productive for a tactical game that aim to be competitive.

 

[Ulminati]

felicity
I'm fairly certain Wesnoth aims to be fun, not competitive


Whether or not the randomness is a good thing is a matter of taste. It'll rub some people the wrong way because good/bad luck blurs the line between good and bad tactics. OTOH it also means no plan survives contact with the enemy, and a string of bad luck can force a player to think on his feet.

 

[felicity]

felicity
I'm fairly certain Wesnoth aims to be fun, not competitive

Fun and competitive are not mutually exclusive. If it has a multiplayer mode then competitiveness should be a concern. One of the inspirations of Battle for Wesnoth is Master of Monsters, which emphasizes competitiveness. Another game inspired by Master of Monsters, Vantage Master, also emphasizes competitiveness. The whole concept of using generic units instead of unique units like most tactical games is a setup for competitive MP. I check out their forums now there are 32774 posts in the multiplayer section compared to 39947 posts under campaign and scenario development. I would say their focus is pretty evenly distributed between MP and SP.

Whether or not the randomness is a good thing is a matter of taste. It'll rub some people the wrong way because good/bad luck blurs the line between good and bad tactics. OTOH it also means no plan survives contact with the enemy, and a string of bad luck can force a player to think on his feet.

Yes I guess my preference is a turned-based tactical game that rewards good moves. I don't see what else is left in a tactical game if planning and making a good move is rendered meaningless. It is not like grand strategy games where you have other strategic layers you can control so losing a battle may yet win you a war, or in FPS and RTS where it is supposed to test your reaction and split-second thinking. I don't mind large amount of randomness in other genres but not in my tactical games. I guess "no plan survives contact with the enemy" in true to some extend but in tactical games aren't you constantly in contact with the enemy? Should we make no plan then? Besides it is not like emergent plays don't exist in a more deterministic system unless you are a super computer that have the game solved in your head and can play all the best moves in any given situation effortlessly. Needlessly to say human opponent will surprise you. But even playing against AI you might be careless and might miscalculate due to lack of concentration or inexperience. You still need to be flexible and adjust your plan according to situation and "think on your feet" whatever that implies in turn-based game.

 

[DakaSha]

When I played it was extremly competitive.

 

[Ulminati]

I am very butthurt about a free game.

Perhaps you'd like starcraft 2

 

[felicity]

I am very butthurt about a free game.

Perhaps you'd like starcraft 2

Apparently opinion about a game mechanic = butthurt.

 

[Ulminati]

You do come across as incredibly butthurt. The gist of your posts seems to be that the random nature of attacks ruins your immershuns, as you're LARPing the ultimate commander shepherd whose psychic powers allows him to perfectly predict the outcome of every action. FWIW, I think an entirely nonrandom version of BFW would be incredibly boring. The game was always about playing the odds. In an average game there are enough attacks made that you'll get roughly the same # of misses-that-should-have-been-hits as hits-that-should-have-been-misses.

But again. I can see how your grandmaster tactician mind might take offense to the thought that 4 attacks with 50% chance to hit might all hit and your pixels died. I bet you really hate Blood Bowl too.

 

[Damned Registrations]

It is admittedly rather annoying in that the harder campaigns basically depend upon you using experienced units, and a bad string of luck can deny those to you pretty easily. But if I have to pick between having to reload for extraordinarily shitty luck, or reloading because every ounce of difficulty is loaded into knowing when and where the enemy will appear with what stats, I prefer the former. I hate playing games that could be played with a well timed macro with no ability to sense the game.

 

[felicity]

You do come across as incredibly butthurt.

Are you sure this is not projection on your part? Because it seems like I have touched a nerve somewhere.

The gist of your posts seems to be that the random nature of attacks ruins your immershuns, as you're LARPing the ultimate commander shepherd whose psychic powers allows him to perfectly predict the outcome of every action. FWIW, I think an entirely nonrandom version of BFW would be incredibly boring. The game was always about playing the odds. In an average game there are enough attacks made that you'll get roughly the same # of misses-that-should-have-been-hits as hits-that-should-have-been-misses.

But again. I can see how your grandmaster tactician mind might take offense to the thought that 4 attacks with 50% chance to hit might all hit and your pixels died. I bet you really hate Blood Bowl too.

Are you retarded or do you just like masturbating to strawman? Nowhere did I even mention immersion or anything remotely like that.

 

[felicity]

It is admittedly rather annoying in that the harder campaigns basically depend upon you using experienced units, and a bad string of luck can deny those to you pretty easily. But if I have to pick between having to reload for extraordinarily shitty luck, or reloading because every ounce of difficulty is loaded into knowing when and where the enemy will appear with what stats, I prefer the former. I hate playing games that could be played with a well timed macro with no ability to sense the game.

I think this is more a problem of level design than randomness in a battle system. I agree with you that level design that requires nothing more than memorizing enemy positions and stats is bad design, but it is not limited to deterministic battle system. I think the real problem of deterministic battle system is that it often leads to feeling that you are playing a puzzle. Open ended level design as well as unit customizations can improve this. Better AI is the best solution but a good AI definitely is very difficult. One reason I like Vantage Master is its very strong AI which makes every new game plays differently than the last.

 

[Harpsichord]

When I played it was extremly competitive.

This, to the point that people spectating games would start pulling their own hair out and cursing you if you didn't perform textbook openers and play the game in a highly-formulaic chess-like manner.

 

[Waterd]

Great game for a free game. Sadly most of the devs aren't really interested in the competitive part. They just let it flow, but they don't even add a ranking because "they don't want to make the game more competitive" as they think it ultimately makes a negative experience. I don't know if that's the reason, but i find competitive wesnoth pretty boring, I ended top 5 in one point in the unofficial ladder. And games become very long and tedious with both sides moving back and forth trying(or hoping) for the other to make a mistake, sometimes it can go 20 turns with nothing happening until one side does "one extra" step that it should with a unit and battle ensues. (and sometimes the player that did the mistake wins because the out of place unit dodges everthing on grass while it highly damages the ones that attacked from the forest).
I think the multiplayer part would highly benefit of a less exploitable Fog of war (one trick people do is like say with a 6 movement unit, they do 3 steps and move to safe position) that would allow people to make ambushes, surprise attacks etc. There is little surprise in wesnoth though. It's just a complete information game for the most part where ability to do calculations fast and control spacing are the main skills required. And to see the result one needs to be involved in a long process of back and forth.

 

[felicity]

And games become very long and tedious with both sides moving back and forth trying(or hoping) for the other to make a mistake, sometimes it can go 20 turns with nothing happening until one side does "one extra" step that it should with a unit and battle ensues.

That does sound boring. Do you think players "move back and forth and hope for something happens" because there is a lack of means to break stalemate?

The first thing I notice in Wesnoth is the units are incredibly expensive in relative to income and upkeep. This seems to me encourage conservative play style since you can't as easily sacrifice a unit for strategic purpose. Another thing that stands out to me is there is a lack of shock units - fast units that can also take a beating and also limited selection of units that can bypass ZoC. There are fast units but they are relatively fragile. The lack of means to break formation and wall of ZoC probably contributes to the no surprise strategy aspect. Thirdly is the lack of victory objective. In chess if you kill your opponent's king you win the game even if you have sacrificed all your other pieces in order to do so. In Wesnoth you have to win by attrition which again encourages conservative strategy.

The fourth aspect I find is the central issue as well as a very complex problem - turn order. One side moves all their units in one turn, then another side do theirs. It can be extremely punishing for the side that's waiting for their turn because the other side can chain their moves together to exploit a weakness, so everyone just bunkers down and plays very conservatively. I have been looking for a good solution for this problem but I haven't found one yet. The usual method is dynamic turn system where unit's speed/initiative/action point stat determines the turn order but it comes at a price of intransparency that precise turn order is difficult to decipher, predict, and keep track of, especially when there are multiple units on the field. It is functional for competitive game purpose with a little bit memorizing and tables referencing on the player's part but it is still less than ideal.

 

[Archibald]

When i played it(5 years ago) whole point of high level play(or how you should play it in general) was to adjust enough resources(units) to every task so that even if you are unlucky you still get results that you needed. Obviously due to limited number of units it was hard to put just enough of them(or to know in general what is "just enough") in every front and thats what consistent top tier players always managed to do. Game might look too random when you play for shits and giggles but at top tier play it was always rather predictable when people knew what they were doing. Of course shit like making a mistake, dodging multiple attacks and then somehow winning would happen from time to time but they were rare cases and in the long run you wouldn't win many games due to this.

The fourth aspect I find is the central issue as well as a very complex problem - turn order. One side moves all their units in one turn, then another side do theirs. It can be extremely punishing for the side that's waiting for their turn because the other side can chain their moves together to exploit a weakness, so everyone just bunkers down and plays very conservatively. I have been looking for a good solution for this problem but I haven't found one yet. The usual method is dynamic turn system where unit's speed/initiative/action point stat determines the turn order but it comes at a price of intransparency that precise turn order is difficult to decipher, predict, and keep track of, especially when there are multiple units on the field. It is functional for competitive game purpose with a little bit memorizing and tables referencing on the player's part but it is still less than ideal.

At the core i believe there is nothing wrong with one player moving all his units in one turn, it encourages board control and good unit positioning while speed/initiative/ap systems promote more action packed game. Different directions.

 

[Brayko]

I played it a few years ago. It was ok but quickly forgotten. I remember it having way too strong counter units, which is lazy design imo.

 

[felicity]

When i played it(5 years ago) whole point of high level play(or how you should play it in general) was to adjust enough resources(units) to every task so that even if you are unlucky you still get results that you needed. Obviously due to limited number of units it was hard to put just enough of them(or to know in general what is "just enough") in every front and thats what consistent top tier players always managed to do. Game might look too random when you play for shits and giggles but at top tier play it was always rather predictable when people knew what they were doing. Of course shit like making a mistake, dodging multiple attacks and then somehow winning would happen from time to time but they were rare cases and in the long run you wouldn't win many games due to this.

The problem is the randomness invalidates good moves in a game where losing a unit would cost you a game. What you said about skilled players can always juggle enough resources to accomplish their objectives even unlucky is only true against someone who is less skilled than him or against AI. This won't happen if his opponent is equally skilled unless he's already winning anyway.

At the core i believe there is nothing wrong with one player moving all his units in one turn, it encourages board control and good unit positioning while speed/initiative/ap systems promote more action packed game. Different directions.

Hm a speed system would mean that the game flow is more dynamic (or action packed if you prefer) in that units positions, formation and board control are changing more frequently thus more opportunities for offensive plays, but I don't see how it would not be as effective in emphasizing board control and unit positioning. It seems to be rather two different kind of positioning and board control, one is more static while another is more dynamic. The move-all-units-at-once system is the temporal equivalence of stack of doom. It is very difficult to separate enemy units apart from the other units - the basic divide and conquer strategy - under such a system, when they can all move at the same time. It tends to lead to stalemate where nothing ever happens.

I played it a few years ago. It was ok but quickly forgotten. I remember it having way too strong counter units, which is lazy design imo.

Strong counter units is not necessarily lazy design imo. It's not particularly innovative but it works well for balance. It really depends on how it is implemented. Specific counter units to specific units but useless otherwise = bad.

 

[Waterd]

Do you think players "move back and forth and hope for something happens" because there is a lack of means to break stalemate?

I think the game doesn't provide dynamics way to change the board once every side got a lot of unit. No side can really buy a significant % more of units (since the income goes lower). And it's impossible to surprise (with enough huge movement units and the scouting trick). So you don't have a way to change to change what's going in a drastical way. Any change of strat or tactic, involves several turns.
Sometimes the variance affects. How is that? well sometimes you have a chance to get a lead that have 55% chances of succeed. But you won't push it because you don't want to be involved in a flip coin, and just wait for a better opportunity. (sometimes if you feel you are against a better opponent in the long run, you can even accept a 45% chance of succeed move , just because that's as good as you are gonna get).

On the other hand sometimes the huge number of units slows the game down.

 

[felicity]

I think the game doesn't provide dynamics way to change the board once every side got a lot of unit.

This is the main drawback of the move-everything-in-your-turn system. When the number of units grow to a certain point they become a temporal stack of doom that is very difficult to break apart. Outside of drastic changes, perhaps smaller map and cheaper units will make the game faster paced thus circumventing the late game stalemate problem.

 

[Archibald]

The problem is the randomness invalidates good moves in a game where losing a unit would cost you a game. What you said about skilled players can always juggle enough resources to accomplish their objectives even unlucky is only true against someone who is less skilled than him or against AI. This won't happen if his opponent is equally skilled unless he's already winning anyway.

What you consider good move and what is a good move in Wesnoth seems to be very different things. Problem is that you try to approach Wesnoth with your generic views on how turn based combat should be played instead of trying to understand what is and what is not Wesnoth. Also, mindgames.

Hm a speed system would mean that the game flow is more dynamic (or action packed if you prefer) in that units positions, formation and board control are changing more frequently thus more opportunities for offensive plays, but I don't see how it would not be as effective in emphasizing board control and unit positioning.

Lets say with speed system turn order would go something like this where A is one player, B another and numbers indicate different units: A1, A2, B1, B2, A3, B3, B4, A4, repeat. I can place A1 or A2 units in idiotic positions and they won't be killed because B1 and B2 can't do enough damage while my A3 will be able to heal my units or stun/block/blind/whatever B3 or B4. Next turn i can retreat with them and further heal up with potions or spells. Sure in the long run player A will start losing due to badly used resources on healing/potions/spell cooldowns/mana but what happens when you make such mistake in game where move order is A, B? Your badly placed unit gets killed and you are at huge disadvantage. So in one case bad move gets punished slightly while in another very harshly therefore positioning is more important in second case.

I think the game doesn't provide dynamics way to change the board once every side got a lot of unit.

Pretty much this. In other game that has same turn order there are spells/relics/equipments in a form of runes that you can use when you have enough resources and they allow to change board positions(or give enough additional damage) or perform power turns.

 

[felicity]

What you consider good move and what is a good move in Wesnoth seems to be very different things. Problem is that you try to approach Wesnoth with your generic views on how turn based combat should be played instead of trying to understand what is and what is not Wesnoth. Also, mindgames.

That's not a matter of generic opinion but whether it is logical. How could two equally skilled players with competing goals get whatever they want to get if they want? That's essentially what you were saying. And that's not my sole opinion, even Waterd, who said he was on top 5 at one time, stated that it is not unusual a match is decided by glorified coin flip.

Lets say with speed system turn order would go something like this where A is one player, B another and numbers indicate different units: A1, A2, B1, B2, A3, B3, B4, A4, repeat. I can place A1 or A2 units in idiotic positions and they won't be killed because B1 and B2 can't do enough damage while my A3 will be able to heal my units or stun/block/blind/whatever B3 or B4. Next turn i can retreat with them and further heal up with potions or spells. Sure in the long run player A will start losing due to badly used resources on healing/potions/spell cooldowns/mana but what happens when you make such mistake in game where move order is A, B? Your badly placed unit gets killed and you are at huge disadvantage. So in one case bad move gets punished slightly while in another very harshly therefore positioning is more important in second case.

What you described is not a problem. There are often means to change speed stat and its relatives under those systems so that turn orders constantly changing.

Pretty much this. In other game that has same turn order there are spells/relics/equipments in a form of runes that you can use when you have enough resources and they allow to change board positions(or give enough additional damage) or perform power turns.

And those spells/relics/equipments often have nothing to do with formation and board control, and very often tend to be so powerful that they become the focal point of the game. I'm not arguing which approach is superior. I actually like BOTH. But they are better suited in games with stronger RPG elements i.e. most SRPG. It is not suitable for games that strife for a more chess-like gameplay that emphasize movement and positioning.

 

[Archibald]

And those spells/relics/equipments often have nothing to do with formation and board control, and very often tend to be so powerful that they become the focal point of the game.

I didn't even write the name of the game in my post, do you know what game i'm talking about that you are making such brave statement? I'm talking about PoxNora and idea that any of these three have nothing to do with formation or board control is laughable.

What you described is not a problem. There are often means to change speed stat and its relatives under those systems so that turn orders constantly changing.

I didn't say its problem, i just gave simple example of why importance of board control is lower with such system. Changing turn order doesn't change core principles of the system.

That's not a matter of generic opinion but whether it is logical. How could two equally skilled players with competing goals get whatever they want to get if they want? That's essentially what you were saying. And that's not my sole opinion, even Waterd, who said he was on top 5 at one time, stated that it is not unusual a match is decided by glorified coin flip.

And i said myself that games sometimes end due to luck and game doesn't provide enough means to change board once there are lots of units out. Whatever, haven't played this game for years so don't remember details well(and they might have changed) to further discuss this.