downgrading elves in forest

[turin]

and making elvish scout better elsewhere.

This is not likely to be well recieved, but too bad.

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Here are the proposals:
a) give the elvish fighter and elvish scout (and upgrades) 60% defense in forest.
b) give the elvish scout (and upgrades) 2 movement in forest. to balance this downgrade, give them a 5-3 melee attack instead of a 4-3. Make them cost 16 not 18.

reasons:
a) elves are IMHO too powerful in forest. if you get in a battle in forest, it is almost assured they will win. I think elves should be good in forest; i don't think they should be so powerful in forest it unbalances any maps with significant amounts of forest on them. This will make them less powerful, but they will still be very good in forest. they still have two units with 70% defence in forest, and the others have 60%, not like most units, which have 50%, 40%, oor even (horsemen) 30%.
b) realism reason: how can a horse run at top speed through a forest without knocking the rider off? gameplay reason: the elvish scout is too expensive and too good in forest/not good enough other places. This will increase his chances of surviving a battle, make him more worth it for scouting purposes, and make him less powerful in forest (thus making elves in general less powerful in forest).

opinions:
{voice opinions here}

[Shadowfury333]

I see your point—and, to a moderate extent, agree—but what are your reasons for downgrading the fighter. The fighter would be more agile in the forest than the scout.

[joshbosh321]

I disagree 100%

If you don't want elves to win by default on your map, make the area around the non-elf's keep, and add large patches of grassland and/or hills.

Dwarves and elves are specialty races, they make the game rather interesting, IMO.

[turin]

I disagree 100%

If you don't want elves to win by default on your map,

are you saying random maps should never be balanced?

make the area around the non-elf's keep, and add large patches of grassland and/or hills.

let me explain this: if there are ANY large clumps of forest on a map, elves can take some shamans, fighters, and their leader, go there, and basically never lose. (well, having them lose take a LONG time).

Dwarves and elves are specialty races, they make the game rather interesting, IMO.

does this mean we should give dwarves 70% on mountains?

the changes i am proposing are not drastic. they will still leave elves undisputed lords of forest. All it will do is make them not automatically win on all map with signicant amounts of forest.

[joshbosh321]

I disagree 100%

If you don't want elves to win by default on your map,

are you saying random maps should never be balanced?

No. Part of the fun of a random map is that there is a chance you'll be forced to fight in crappy terrain and lose. Also a chance that you'll get perfect terrain and kill your opponent/

make the area around the non-elf's keep, and add large patches of grassland and/or hills.

let me explain this: if there are ANY large clumps of forest on a map, elves can take some shamans, fighters, and their leader, go there, and basically never lose. (well, having them lose take a LONG time).

One thing I learned from playing wesnoth - if you have a static force, and your opponent has a growing force of about eaqual size, then you will almost always lose.

Dwarves and elves are specialty races, they make the game rather interesting, IMO.

does this mean we should give dwarves 70% on mountains?

I thought they already had it. If they don't then yes I think we should.

the changes i am proposing are not drastic. they will still leave elves undisputed lords of forest. All it will do is make them not automatically win on all map with signicant amounts of forest.

I disagree. Look at the Elves Besieged - the elves lose. With your changes, they will lose so quickly that Konrad won't be able to escape. Every campaign with elves in it would have massive balance issues.

Besides, why increase Elvish movement in forests? Orcs have one movement in hills, and they aren't supposed to be the best race for rocky terrain...

[turin]

are you saying random maps should never be balanced?

No. Part of the fun of a random map is that there is a chance you'll be forced to fight in crappy terrain and lose. Also a chance that you'll get perfect terrain and kill your opponent/

i disagree, but there's no point in arguing about it...

let me explain this: if there are ANY large clumps of forest on a map, elves can take some shamans, fighters, and their leader, go there, and basically never lose. (well, having them lose take a LONG time).

One thing I learned from playing wesnoth - if you have a static force, and your opponent has a growing force of about eaqual size, then you will almost always lose.

but it takes a long time and makes the game less fun.

does this mean we should give dwarves 70% on mountains?

I thought they already had it. If they don't then yes I think we should.

OK, yeah, they do.

However, mountains are less common than forest (and rightly so), so that makes less of a difference; the elves having 60 is more unbalancing.

the changes i am proposing are not drastic. they will still leave elves undisputed lords of forest. All it will do is make them not automatically win on all map with signicant amounts of forest.

I disagree. Look at the Elves Besieged - the elves lose.

Not in my experience. The elves usually do very well, and sometimes with help they can kill one, if not two, enemy leaders.

With your changes, they will lose so quickly that Konrad won't be able to escape. Every campaign with elves in it would have massive balance issues.

True. But does that mean we can't balance any units for multiplayer because it messes with single player? I think that if a change makes sense, balances multiplayer, and does not require too much work to balance in single player compared to a great balancing improvement in multiplayer, it should be done.

Besides, why increase Elvish movement in forests? Orcs have one movement in hills, and they aren't supposed to be the best race for rocky terrain...

I'm increasing the movement of one unit, the scout, and i'm fine with that not being implemented. It was a secondary suggestion, thus the b).

[Jetrel]

One idea: give the rangers slightly worse stats, but something like 80% defense in forest. Then, give the rest of the gang 60%.

And I agree that the scout is basically orc-food.



My experience with "Elves besieged" is usually rather interesting.

The ai does some pretty stupid [censored], really - it is excellent on the tactical level, but on the strategic level it just grinds bottom.

Poor Chantal almost always falls prey to even a single orc unit, and Galdrad usually suffers the same fate at the hands of a few. This is because they don't hold back a few units to defend themselves with. They pour out a darn good number of troops, but then they send all of them up north to fight. This happens on "easy" mode, btw.

Usually, what I do is send Konrad and Delfador towards the sign, alone, and send the rest of the gang south. Crazily enough, they usually do ok, and it keeps the allies from dying, allowing them to continue to fight the orcs. They usually annihlate the orcs to the north, so long as the purple dude takes a good swing at the guys to the northeast.


A mark of *fun* campaign design would involve some changes in the later scenarios depending on the survival of the ally heroes/leaders.

[pg]

No. Part of the fun of a random map is that there is a chance you'll be forced to fight in crappy terrain and lose. Also a chance that you'll get perfect terrain and kill your opponent

This is why I don't play random maps anymore. They aren't usually balanced and the game is usually heavily skewed one way before it even started.

I think elves work good now and don't see much reason to change them. I think the problem is that some maps have too much forest and many times huge clumps of it. I personally put about 1:1:1 ratio of hills, forest and mountain in my maps. I think this is a map issue not an elf issue.

[Sithrandel]

I believe core Wesnoth should be the single player campaigns. Races have variety which can be explored in carefully crafted terrains. Trying to overbalance for random maps dulls some of the flavour.

[Star Gazer]

Yep, I'm with Sith on this one, I think having the variations is part of the game. Mind you, I'm biased, because I only ever play single player, so rebalancing for random maps just doesn't mean anything to me.

Is there no way to implement the game engine such that multiplayer mode has its own characters' statistics? That would surely make more sense than just reducing the fun of single player games.

[Dacyn]

does this mean we should give dwarves 70% on mountains?

Smallfoot: .5 on forest, .6 on mountain
.6+.1=.7
.5+.1=.6
Of course, that is assuming that all factions should be the same

[turin]

If people don't like the suggestion, fine, but consider this:

dwarves have 70% in mountains which is a 10% increase over other units. Also, they move 1 in mountains and normal units move 3.

Elves have 70% in forest which is a 20% increase over other units, and they move 1 not 2.

It seems to me the ration 7/5 > 7/6, however the ratio 3/1 > 2/1. This means dwarves don't have nearly as much of a defensive advantage in mountain, but they have a larger movement advantage. But if no other units can move through mountains very well, what is the purpose of having good defense on it? no one will go next to it. but with forest, enemies can, and often have to go through it, and it is there where elves can use their greater defensive bonus...


And another thing; i don't think a 1:1:1 forest-hills-mountains ratio looks good on a map. Having that much mountain basically makes it ugly.

[blackjack]

I must agree with Sith - Wesnoth was built for single player.

Multiplayer balancing is a secondary objective. And multiplayer balancing for random maps... is even less so.

A drastic change like this would mean that HttT needs to be rebalanced all over again.

[Na'enthos]

Well.. if you think they're overpowered in forest, go ahead. But then I don't see why regular elves have a lower defence than special units available to other sides (assassin, for example).

Point I want to make is that I think that although elves may be the best in forest, I am not sure they are overpowered since forest is hardly the most used terrain. Sure you can't get to them as easily, but I am guessing that on a random multiplayer map forest is probably 15% of the map or less.. (correct me if I'm wrong) an opponent controlling the rest can wear them down anyway. IMHO all-round non terrain specialised units are better in the long run (undead are a good example).

Although I haven't played multiplayer games yet I am guessing that elves will have plenty of effort fighting factions such as undead, northeners and the humans. But, again, I may be wrong.

[turin]

IF people don't like it, fine. "I'm Not Offended, I Just Think You're Stupid (tm)".

A drastic change like this would mean that HttT needs to be rebalanced all over again.

are you saying you think HttT is balanced as it is? i would have to disagree...