who can tell me the principal of wesnoth balancing?

[alexanderthegre]

Ehm, HI are not useless in MP... Knalgans have almost no decent counter for a HI+Horseman charge.

[AxalaraFlame]

He! Who the heck said they are useless in MP? l said they are lame in network 1v1, 2v2 or other team duels(when playing ladder they are extremely useless, because they are slow~).
And for knalgans, they dont fear Horseman a little bit. For dealing loyalists, swarm fighters and footpads is just enough, with a few ulfs and guards. l dont even really use other things. If you have lots of dwarves annoy HIs on hilly areas, with only few footpads as auxliaries, how can loyalists take them? Swarm HIs??

[AlaskanAvenger]

well, your point on heavy infantry's impact resistances is plausible. l do know how powerful it is(acroding to my experience of working in my dad's workshop) to simply smash something which seems to be heavy and hard to break, because they are brittle on the other hand, like ceramics. But how will you explain swordsman's 20% resistances against impact weapons? If the portraits are professional, we can readily recognize that their armor are made of plate too, though a little bit lighter than shock trooper's.

A well trained soldier with a sword and buckler is able to at least partially block most close melee weapons, namely blade and impact attacks. Standard armor pretty much just increases hp and brings resists up to 0. Pierce attacks on the other hand usually denote long thrusting weapons or missiles, both of which are much more difficult to block and put an extreme amount of pressure on one point. Of course this leaves out sling attacks of the footpad, but that is a minor detail, and in my opinion, it would make more sense in most cases just to have the footpad dealing pierce at range, although that would throw the whole balance of the game out of whack. As for the fencer, he has no armor or shield and thus must rely almost solely on staying out of reach of blows, thus his high terrain defense.

So l think, they can't undertake imapct weapons well is not of the reason that "heavier things are easier to break by heavy force". They are weak against hammars, l think, is because that their armor is too heavy, so when a great force smashed on HIs(remember they are still human, not trolls), they can't even keep balance or stand firm. Awkwardness finally ends up their future. While the same time, light armored swordsman are more dextrous, thus resist hammar based weapons better.

Not to be rude, but this statement is just ridiculous and just goes to show how little you actually know about armor and fighting in general. Heavy armor does not make you very clumsy. Sure, it slows you down (thus the 4 base mp) and can make it harder to get up if you actually fall down, but you can do pretty much the same things you can with heavy armor as you can with out. You can get down on the ground, do push-ups, sit-ups, whatever and you will not be very hindered by it. In addition, mace and club heads are, in reality, quite small (http://www.kultofathena.com/maces.asp), meant to be swung very fast, dealing a huge amount of impact on a very small point, making them the ideal weapon for harming heavily armed troops. Also due to their poor balancing (more of the weight on the head for a stronger hit), maces are very difficult to block or parry with, thus forcing their users to rely more on their shield and armor to stop blows. As for the person being a man and not a troll, the description states very plainly that these fighters are men of extraordinary size and strength, making the idea of them being knocked over laughable.

Another problem is elf fighter. Well l would not agree with your "rather shot faster than shot stronger" theory. Horse based elves can only shot 2 arrows; don't explain some reasons like riding horses may not be easy to traget to me. After all, as you said, they are elves. If that would be an answer l beg you please explain the principle of their greet velocity of riding in forests (and hills and mountains). l think elves are not warlike. They hate wars. Shoting 3 arrows can not suit their inhenrencies. Futhermore, elf fighters are noobs in using bows. They can shot 4*2 without disgracing their kins, because they will finally level up and get stronger and more strikes.

Have you even been reading what I am saying? An unskilled archer with a weaker bow shoots weak inaccurate shots almost as fast as a standard archer. That is just how a bow works, we are not talking about crossbows. If you doubt what I say, go buy yourself a cheap bow or even make one and try shooting a little. You will quickly see what I am talking about. As for shooting from horse back, I have never had the chance, although I have done some horseback riding and I can assure you that it would be much more difficult with the movement of the horse and all to get your shots off, and thus it would make much more sense to use a stronger bow and try to get a couple good shots off before running away again. When it comes to riding rapidly through the forest, they are obviously smaller nimbler horses similar to mountain mustangs, who instead of being excellent at climbing mountains, are adept at moving rapidly through the trees. After all, this is Wesnoth and they are elves.

P.S. Heavy Infantries are lame on network games. Another question that both of us may get no answer is: HI can't withstand some weaker impact weapons, like fists(any fists) and footpad's clubs. After all these weapons are NOT like hammar.

To try to be this nit-picky is just silly. First, there is no default unit that has a fist attack. Second, a footpad's club would still deal far more damage then a weapon of different class with similar damage capabilities. Just go back out to your old car. Try slashing with with a dagger or small knife. not gonna do anything. Try stabbing it. Maybe a few minor dents. Get a chunk of wood and smash it a few times and that will deal by FAR the most damage. Even if the armor is strong enough to avoid denting, it will still deal the most damage to the person inside the armor.


Please go do some serious research about arms and armor, even make some and practice with them, before making any more ridiculous claims that such and such is not realistic, when you in reality have no idea what "realistic" even is.

On a related note:

Spoiler:

I really get annoyed by people claiming the Khalifate weakness to impact makes no sense... after all it is easy to see that are wearing chain mail, and I would think that even someone who has never seen chain-mail would be able to figure out that it would do almost nothing to protect from impact, while on the other hand, even the poorest chain-mail available would provide some protection to blade. In addition, the idea that the Jundi should not be able to move as fast as the heavy horse is poorly reasoned. A well conditioned lightly armed man can in general travel faster then a horse, especially across rough terrain... and the horse in question is carrying both the weight of its own armor as well as a heavily armored man...

[AxalaraFlame]

khalifates wear chain mails??? l dont know it

[ivanovic]

Wow, this thread seems to really be going down some absurd road. Please keep one important thing in mind:

Wesnoth is not real!

Yes, the very initial balancing was done based on some "what might make sense from a logical viewpoint" but later on it was adjusted to fit well in the context of the game (meaning: balancing against other factions). You should *never* assume any correlation between images (portraits and unit sprites) and unit stats. There is no such correlation. For example the portraits just show how our (great!) artists imagine the units *might* look.

Yes, Wesnoth balancing is based on careful observations of how things match during games of "very good players" against each other. They are not just based on "okay, this dude wears an armor of type ABC which has to have the following features changing the units balancing to XYZ". Yes, some of those thoughts were used at the very initial balancing many years ago though those were adjusted to work better in real matches.

[AxalaraFlame]

Wow, this thread seems to really be going down some absurd road. Please keep one important thing in mind:

Wesnoth is not real!

Yes, the very initial balancing was done based on some "what might make sense from a logical viewpoint" but later on it was adjusted to fit well in the context of the game (meaning: balancing against other factions). You should *never* assume any correlation between images (portraits and unit sprites) and unit stats. There is no such correlation. For example the portraits just show how our (great!) artists imagine the units *might* look.

Yes, Wesnoth balancing is based on careful observations of how things match during games of "very good players" against each other. They are not just based on "okay, this dude wears an armor of type ABC which has to have the following features changing the units balancing to XYZ". Yes, some of those thoughts were used at the very initial balancing many years ago though those were adjusted to work better in real matches.

yeah, pretty. l think l really digress much. Since you are someone posts 1000+, you should be some of those "seasoned players". Do you have any ideas about balancing? l think common sense still stands in front of balance.

some problem to slove:(regardless of elv fighter and HI)
1. Lv3 mage of light, who uses "morning star" flail. Acording to many fictions and fairy tales, l think it shall be a magical attack
2. Lv3 paladin. Their holy sword, you know. But bitter, if they have magical holy sword, Grand Knight will just seem to be comparatively weak...
3. Lv3 Death Knight does not has good resistances against physical attack, compare to his same kinds.
4. Lv3 Lich, same problem; though they may "have not died long". Then what about ancient lich? lol~

l fixed these my own, because l think Lv3s are mostly designed for fun, but rarely offense the balance of NetBattles

These things opposes common sense, and are lv1s. So l hope we can find a better way to change them and do some improvements. But some causes great variables, that is no normal balance works. So l think if there were no principles or a sure average price and attack for a certain race, this may be hard to change, and rarely have chances to get real combat experiences(manipulated with human intelligence).

1. Orcish Assasin. Two problems:
First, for such a race of generally known dim wits, they can throw poisoned knifes extrondinarily accurate, while human rogues can't, nor do they do better damage. l understand that orcs really need something to reach an effect that can suppress (living) enemies with high-efficiency, but it just sounds bizzare.
Second, they are armored exclusively, but as orcs, at least they shall move little bit faster on mountains and move swiftly on hills, right? This means, as a comparatively fast unit in orcish family, they can't even outrun their bros on hilly areas!

2.Ulfserker.
They are vindictive fighters, despise defenses. But does that really mean they should have 20% lower defense ability on hills, mountains and castles?? On hilly areas, they dodge even more disappointing than other race's fighters, which elves may rolling on the floor laughing their asses off

[Elvish_Hunter]

AxalaraFlame: I just merged two of your posts that were only seventeen minutes apart. Next time, please use the edit button instead of double posting again, otherwise it'll be a violation of Point 1f of Posting Guidelines.

[AxalaraFlame]

sorry, but l think this is annoying: each time when l was gonna to reach the bottom, the wesnopth page gets shake every word when l type. Do you guys of keepers have any way to solve this?

[AlaskanAvenger]

Wow, this thread seems to really be going down some absurd road. Please keep one important thing in mind:

Wesnoth is not real!

Yes, the very initial balancing was done based on some "what might make sense from a logical viewpoint" but later on it was adjusted to fit well in the context of the game (meaning: balancing against other factions). You should *never* assume any correlation between images (portraits and unit sprites) and unit stats. There is no such correlation. For example the portraits just show how our (great!) artists imagine the units *might* look.

Yes, Wesnoth balancing is based on careful observations of how things match during games of "very good players" against each other. They are not just based on "okay, this dude wears an armor of type ABC which has to have the following features changing the units balancing to XYZ". Yes, some of those thoughts were used at the very initial balancing many years ago though those were adjusted to work better in real matches.

Yes, I am well aware of this but most of the stats are still surprisingly close to what they should be and all of what have been mentioned so far can be easily explained by common sense.

[AxalaraFlame]

Wow, this thread seems to really be going down some absurd road. Please keep one important thing in mind:

Wesnoth is not real!

Yes, the very initial balancing was done based on some "what might make sense from a logical viewpoint" but later on it was adjusted to fit well in the context of the game (meaning: balancing against other factions). You should *never* assume any correlation between images (portraits and unit sprites) and unit stats. There is no such correlation. For example the portraits just show how our (great!) artists imagine the units *might* look.

Yes, Wesnoth balancing is based on careful observations of how things match during games of "very good players" against each other. They are not just based on "okay, this dude wears an armor of type ABC which has to have the following features changing the units balancing to XYZ". Yes, some of those thoughts were used at the very initial balancing many years ago though those were adjusted to work better in real matches.

Yes, I am well aware of this but most of the stats are still surprisingly close to what they should be and all of what have been mentioned so far can be easily explained by common sense.

all right. then what is your idea about game balance? l think we must adjust it with a simple and functional formula, to define every kinds of attacks' value, to define each piece of armor of a certain race's value. Or, wesnoth would be only a game building upon experiences but not science

[Elvish_Hunter]

sorry, but l think this is annoying: each time when l was gonna to reach the bottom, the wesnopth page gets shake every word when l type. Do you guys of keepers have any way to solve this?

Never heard of that problem; anyway, I usually post from Firefox or Opera, and everything works fine, so perhaps you should let us know what browser are you using.

[AxalaraFlame]

IE for sure. Firefox sucks

[Dixie]

all right. then what is your idea about game balance? l think we must adjust it with a simple and functional formula, to define every kinds of attacks' value, to define each piece of armor of a certain race's value. Or, wesnoth would be only a game building upon experiences but not science

I personnally dont see a problem with trial and error balancing. Say what you will, but at the end of the day, the person who says "Unit Z's attack should be X because of my awesome formula!" will never have priority over the one who says "Out of 50 top ladder game, this faction consistently loses because of unit Z, hence its attack should be Y".

And by the way, the way I see it, science kinda is experience (trial and error). Basically, it's observing the results of experiments and formulating them into rules. It's not making rules and forcing the results into it... So if you want science balancing: observe what the stats actually are, and start isolating general trends/rules.

Besides, none of what you have said so far is particalarly convincing or makes sense whatsoever, and unless you start accumulating solid proof your changes are for the better, I don't really see them happening (although I am not the final authority on this). But feel free to make an add-on era with your scientific balancing, and maybe you can use it you accumulate replays showing your way is better (or at the very least doesn't impair balance).

[ivanovic]

all right. then what is your idea about game balance? l think we must adjust it with a simple and functional formula, to define every kinds of attacks' value, to define each piece of armor of a certain race's value. Or, wesnoth would be only a game building upon experiences but not science

Please listen to this talk held by Boucman during FOSDEM2012 (or read the linked slides): http://fosdem.org/2012/schedule/event/game_balancing

There he describes how balancing a game can/does work, especially in the context of open source software. Yeah, this is all based on Wesnoth experience and actually the way which is used for Wesnoth, too.

[AxalaraFlame]

Besides, none of what you have said so far is particalarly convincing or makes sense whatsoever, and unless you start accumulating solid proof your changes are for the better, I don't really see them happening (although I am not the final authority on this). But feel free to make an add-on era with your scientific balancing, and maybe you can use it you accumulate replays showing your way is better (or at the very least doesn't impair balance).[/quote]


Ha! l knew it. As l presumed, there were no formulasand constants in wesnoth.

Yet my idea does not sound convincing (or make you think it make sense), but they are my ideas come in all of a sudden. Actually l could give you solid proof, but it takes time, a lot of time, and this so called "scientific version of wesnoth" still needs vast tests to rectify my currnet formula.

If you would prefer a wesnoth's balance building upon top players' experience, then l would prefer to define every parameters in a certain way, due to these reasons below:

1. a game's balance based on experiences. This may be fair for RTS game, because how fast a player can manipulate his army, how acute a player is, makes great differences. Those games' current AIs are highly developed and can tear down new players with ease, for example Starcraft2, Warcraft3, RedAlert3... feedback-balance works may be the only way to detect the very little differences about strategy.

Wesnoth's multiplayer model balance seems to have flourished with the help of top players' feedback, but something cardinal and essencial is a constant: WESNOTH IS A BATTTLE CHESS. Its basic design philosophy is KISS. As we know, all unit's attack damage, hp and resistances use the same unit of measurement. And what's more, the velocity and accuracy which a player can manipulate does not cause great variables, most times make haste even make them worse! So actually, making a formula, defines different races' basic price(up to their special resistances) and define a ascending price ladder of each movement's price, is doable! Since we can make it perfect, simply by doing maths works(though vast), why dont give a try?

l gave a try. In fact three or four in the last two years, since l first get to know the game, testing only with single player(yet, who the hell can help me). l'd even tried to make an all-integer wesnoth version, thus everything became so simply and clear, say, a 2.4 damage wont be debuffed and become 2. But this is already proved to be impossible, since strong, dextrous and charege ability will all intervene the brittle balance, not to mention the former wesnoth is disfigured with mass chaotic parameters. For instance, an Iron Mauler get 45*2 attack, all other units and himself get enhanced hp in proportion, which costs me three months to make it while it finally turned out to be vain.

But l will give more try, Ha!

2. wesnoth's fundamental rule: KISS.
All things are just so perfect suit the rule. Simple resistances, simple damage, simple hp...but only the multiplayer mode balance, which builds on empiricism, while we don't really have a SIMPLE way to calculate a unit's extrinsic and intrinsic value. A formula, maybe a series of very complex formulas, which a player does not know or have to know when playing a game. But when l made it, or someone made it, wesnoth will be revolutionized: Compltely Simple and Calculateble, Totally Changeble and can be Fairly Changed by any single players. Futher, no longer will us be bothered with vast feedback collection works. With a calculator a pen few puieces of paper and few hours' counting, a new race can be introduced, vast new changes can be made, while the same time the balances stands still FIRM!

Think about how glorious this day would be. A entirely scientifically balanced and adjusted wesnoth!!