Allow Undo when recruiting

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Easuth
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Allow Undo when recruiting

Post by Easuth »

It seems that character attributes are quite important, especially when it comes to Quick. So, in the campaigns, I've taken to treating unit recruitment like the character dice roll in Wizardry type games, and save/loading like crazy. This is annoying just to get the exact troops I want, but less annoying than fighting entire battles and leveling up troops I can't use later because they're too slow. It would be easier if I could simply undo my recruitment and try again. I realize this has not been implemented because something random takes place, but it makes sense to me gamewise. ("You... no. You... learn how to draw a bowstring. You... this resumé has spelling errors...") Save/loading all the time feels like cheating, even though I don't think it should be considered such in this case. Is there any chance that this could be changed?
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Post by Dave »

It should be considered cheating because it is. You get to choose most of the stats of a unit by choosing which unit to recruit. Then there's a small random factor thrown in. If we didn't want there to be a random factor, we wouldn't have traits and just put all stats in the stats of the unit.

David
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scott
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Post by scott »

It would be easier to just change your attitude towards recruiting than expect the hundreds of other players to change to suit you.

Remember that your quick units can die faster. You need tanks to absorb damage, you need heavy hitters, and you need fast units to engage at a time and place of your choosing. Sometimes it's really nice to have units level faster. I admit I require any shaman I level up to be quick if I can help it, but I'll take a slow druid over no druid.

The save-load mechanism exists for people who want to use it, but it's not part of the game. You may as well ask for a way to redo battles without saveloading.
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Easuth
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Post by Easuth »

Dave wrote:It should be considered cheating because it is.
Cheating is when you break the rules to gain an unfair advantage. I'm not trying to gain an advantage over anyone, just to make a slight adjustment to the game so it conforms to my expectations of how things would work. If someone wants to join my army, and I don't want his skills, I don't think I should be forced to take him. But that's just me. If you're telling me that forcing less than desirable characters on me is a balancing force, fine. But I think it detracts from the overall enjoyableness of the game a little, and thought an adjustment would be nice, perhaps with different balancing elsewhere as necessary.
scott wrote:It would be easier to just change your attitude towards recruiting than expect the hundreds of other players to change to suit you.
Man, it wouldn't require anybody else to change anything. It's just an option you could use or not. Anyway, I'm guessing from the responses that it's a "no". Oh, well. :(
ryn
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Post by ryn »

One of the problems with this (in my opinion, but I firmly believe that it was the reason your idea was rejected) is that even if you don't believe that this is cheating (which it is, I'll get to that in a moment), options are bad.
If only a few players use this option (most will probably agree with the other posts), then it is simply another feature that has to be maintained. This is part of the reason for Wesnoth being open-source: you can make a patch to give you this ability, and simply apply it to every version before it is compiled. Unfortunately, if you have no idea what I just said, it will almost certainly take you a few years to do so. (I started learning C++ when I was 7, and now, at 14, I still am no great expert. However, I don't use C++ very often at all, so perhaps this doesn't count :)).
So, onto the reason that this is considered cheating: the AI is restricted in the same manner, by design. Therefore, you would have an advantage over the AI. Also, the commander of a real army does not look at resumes: in Israel, at least, everyone is drafted either after highschool or University, and only a tiny minority is given the role of army engineer, musician, cook, whatever. The rest are soldiers, and the government does not often choose them for their talents (unless in commando units and the like). What this means is that being a soldier isn't a 'job' - you aren't truly hand picked. That is exactly why people choose to level up units with good abilities - those are (mostly) hand picked, and are the commandos of your army. Also, while Wesnoth may be unrealistic, it is based on real life, and options which are unrealistic do not generally get added in unless they make a significant change for the better (in the developers minds).
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freim
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Post by freim »

ryn wrote:One of the problems with this (in my opinion, but I firmly believe that it was the reason your idea was rejected) is that even if you don't believe that this is cheating (which it is, I'll get to that in a moment), options are bad.
If only a few players use this option (most will probably agree with the other posts), then it is simply another feature that has to be maintained.
I fully agree. In fact, there is no such thing as "it's just an option". If every little request where added as an option it would clutter up the interface of the game drowning the important bits with stuff only a minority use and make the code a terrible mess. Thus making it harder to both play and maintain.

Make sane defaults and only have options for what really matters. Sure not everyone will be happy with that, but you can't please everyone anyway and they are free to modify the game themselves if they want to.

Easuth: this probably sounded a bit harsh, but you need to see this from the point of view that there are hundreds if not thousands of similar request just on this forum alone, not just thinking about your own pet option :)
Ardos
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Post by Ardos »

I wouldn't want this feature, especially in multiplayer. The random traits are a nuance of BfW that I enjoy.
However, if you want to play the saving & loading game for your campaign games it's completely your right. Second, I think it's pretty awesome that you got such a quick response from the lead developers of BfW. Not something you'd get if you asked Blizzard to tweak the price of an Orc Grunt in WC III.
Easuth
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Post by Easuth »

ryn wrote: Also, the commander of a real army does not look at resumes: in Israel, at least, everyone is drafted either after highschool or University, and only a tiny minority is given the role of army engineer, musician, cook, whatever. The rest are soldiers, and the government does not often choose them for their talents (unless in commando units and the like). What this means is that being a soldier isn't a 'job' - you aren't truly hand picked.
Yes! This is what I was looking for: a discussion or refutation of my idea. Thank you. :)
Ardos wrote:I think it's pretty awesome that you got such a quick response from the lead developers of BfW. Not something you'd get if you asked Blizzard to tweak the price of an Orc Grunt in WC III.
I agree, and don't think I'm not grateful. But I think Dave and Scott misunderstood the intent of my original post, and that seems in hindsight to be more my fault than theirs. I should have just said, "Here's an idea I have for undoing recruiting, here's why I think it makes sense, and here's why I think it would be fun", and left out any mention of save/load. I guess I made it sound like I was using save/load as a crutch, rather than a playtesting device. I'm not married to this idea, and in fact the experiment has already been discontinued, due to negative feedback.

Thanks to everyone for their feedback. Hopefully, I will shortly develop another idea for a (minor, I hope) tweak to the game. Someday. Maybe. :idea:
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drachefly
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Post by drachefly »

Perhaps a middle course would be to let the player dismiss a new recruit, getting a partial refund. The unit only disappears at the end of the turn, though, so you can't use their hex to try another recruit.

That way, when you're just trying to get units out the door, you can't be picky; but if you're just trying to fill a specific gap, and you're money limited, you can.

What is this thread doing outside the Ideas forum, anyway?
Easuth
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Post by Easuth »

drachefly wrote:Perhaps a middle course would be to let the player dismiss a new recruit, getting a partial refund. The unit only disappears at the end of the turn, though, so you can't use their hex to try another recruit.

That way, when you're just trying to get units out the door, you can't be picky; but if you're just trying to fill a specific gap, and you're money limited, you can.

What is this thread doing outside the Ideas forum, anyway?
Sorry, since I wasn't introducing anything substantially new, I thought it belonged in the "feedback about the game" category, but maybe not.

I suspect, if my version of the idea is challenging to maintain as a feature, that yours would be even more so.
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Post by Dave »

Easuth wrote:
ryn wrote: Also, the commander of a real army does not look at resumes: in Israel, at least, everyone is drafted either after highschool or University, and only a tiny minority is given the role of army engineer, musician, cook, whatever. The rest are soldiers, and the government does not often choose them for their talents (unless in commando units and the like). What this means is that being a soldier isn't a 'job' - you aren't truly hand picked.
Yes! This is what I was looking for: a discussion or refutation of my idea. Thank you. :)
However, a logical reason why an idea is 'realistic' or not is secondary to other concerns. That's why I didn't give one.

But, it is easily done: I've interviewed people for jobs before, and most of the time you can screen out candidates that are unsuitable. However it's definitely impossible to tell everything about a candidate when you are interviewing them. There are many skills and shortcomings that will only appear once they have worked for you for some time.

This is the same with recruiting in Wesnoth: you want a fighter unit, someone who is good in melee combat, nice and strong. You recruit and train someone who seems appropriate. However, there is no way you can tell exactly what all their strengths and weaknesses are. That's why we add a little chance in with the traits system.

Also do remember that in a campaign you do get to choose who to recall. Many players only recall units that have desirable traits. So a unit with traits you don't like only has to be with you for one battle.

David
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unsung
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Post by unsung »

I actually hav ebeen able to undo recruitng before in campaigns.
Oh no look out its a ray gun.
You should move to avoid the rays
the rays are coming out of the gun
if you are hit by the rays
you will be shot by the rays
the rays are fast so you should be fast to
can you win against the fast rays from the gun?
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turin
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Post by turin »

unsung wrote:I actually hav ebeen able to undo recruitng before in campaigns.
You can undo the recruiting of undead, IIRC, because they don't have randomly assigned traits.
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unsung
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Post by unsung »

uh, it wasn't undead. I don't remembe the campaign but I think it was loyalist. I think.
Oh no look out its a ray gun.
You should move to avoid the rays
the rays are coming out of the gun
if you are hit by the rays
you will be shot by the rays
the rays are fast so you should be fast to
can you win against the fast rays from the gun?
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drachefly
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Post by drachefly »

Are you sure it wasn't recalling that you were able to undo?
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