Removing scenario turn limits

[Dave]

One of the biggest complaints about Wesnoth is the frustration of feeling 'rushed' in a scenario by the turn limit. Some scenarios have a very good storyline reason for the turn limit, but many don't. It is contended that it would open up a new line of strategies, and make feel less 'pressured' if there was no time limit.

I have had an idea for removing the turn limit and yet retaining balance for some time: quite simply, in scenarios where there is no compelling reason for the turn limit, the limit would still exist, but would be a 'soft' limit. Once the limit expires, the game would go on, but villages would simply cease producing income, for all sides involved. This would put a firm upper limit on the number of units that could be recruited, and both the gold and the experience a player could use by playing for a large number of turns.

Thoughts?

David

[Samantha]

Turn limits are there for a reason, they prevent the user from hoarding gold or sieging out the enemy. Nearly any scenario is winnable by sitting by defensively except for the fact that there is a turn limit.

The whole idea of the turn limit is to provide a challenge to the scenarios, if there wasn't the challenge the game wouldn't be fun for more than a couple hours at most.

[Blueblaze]

Turn limits are there for a reason, they prevent the user from hoarding gold or sieging out the enemy. Nearly any scenario is winnable by sitting by defensively except for the fact that there is a turn limit.

Dave did say that the limits would remain, except they wouldn't end scenario, but rather prevent villages from producing gold.

I think this idea is a great for any campaign where rushing or not makes no difference storywise. If the story doesn't require you to speed things along, you should be allowed to take as much time as needed to get the job done to the best.

[Clonkinator]

Hmmm. I actually don't like this idea very much. Turn limits count to the things I really like about Wesnoth, what makes them different from many other strategy games. And, as already stated, if we weakened the limit's threat you could then just sit there until the enemy suicides all his units on you. I think that would be rather boring. Turn limits mean a challenge (in most cases), yeah, and I like challenges.

Anyway, I think this idea would have great potential if we made it possible to set it for certain scenarios via WML. It's basically already possible (correct me if I'm wrong), but a simple tag in [scenario] would just be better then. And now that I think about it... Why do I care about it at all? I don't ever exceed the turn limit anyway. So, well, do what you think you need to do.

[Chris NS]

The way I normally address this in campaign design is to set the turn limit a fair bit above what you'd reasonably need to complete the scenario. That way, losing by turns running out is a rarity (i.e. if turns run out, I'm surprised you're not dead already, and you really ought to go back and rethink your strategy anyway to be in a better state for the next scenario).

However, I can see the case for an optional "soft" turn limit if it's impossible to profit by deliberately going over the limit. As a possible nasty extra, you could have a penalty to gold carry-over, increasing with the number of turns you are over the limit, to stop anyone going for XP milking.

[Samantha]

Oops, sorry I probably should have read your post a little bit more carefully.

But my point still stands, the challenge of the campaigns requires strict turn limits. Remember, the AI for Wesnoth is quite week, a half decent player will never loose to the AI in a fair fight. Even against an AI that has a major economic and unit advantage over the player a half decent player could take it on as long as the player played defensively without a problem. Turn limits force the player to play offensively, allowing the AI to exploit its advantages.

[zookeeper]

Sounds like a decent idea for most scenarios.

Alternative: have each village only produce income for x turns (x set on a per-scenario basis and would only decrease when the village is owned by someone). Although this would mean adding a graphical counter of some kind for each village, which would be less KISS and all.

EDIT: Oh, and CABD too, I think. Probably the C++ code changes required would be simple enough to do, but just in case someone wants a WML solution, I could probably make one.

[JW]

Possible ways to punish for going over the scenario's time limits:

1) remove gold from the player
-set value
-income (village or per turn)
-loss of turn bonus (or add turn detriment)

2) make scenario much harder after the limit
-add enemy income
-add enemy units
-REMOVE KEEPS (along with spawning enemies/giving enemy gold)
-otherwise alter terrain in a way that hurts the player
-kill player's units with events
-go to a different scenario on completion

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I introduced this game to my father, but he doesn't like any game that has a turn limit. He feels like that forces him to play in a certain style rather than to play in his own style.

As I am sure he is not the only one, I think the soft limit idea will solve that problem excellently.

[Samantha]

Well, one of the big reasons for the turn limits is to prevent players from power-leveling their units early in the campaign.

[Clonkinator]

One could even remove the 100-gold-minimum for the next scenario if the player exceeds the turn limit.
For the display: I'd still display it as before, but with the current turn number being coloured red (as a warning sign that you've exceeded the limit).

[JW]

I think the real solution to this problem is creating an intelligent AI. Even then though, a player could sit back with an economic advantage and just kill the units that he wants as they spawn.....

Perhaps a smart AI wouldn't actually help the situation that much.....

I'm kinda thinking turn limits are a necessity now...whether they are hard or soft.

[Samantha]

A way to enforce the turn limit would be to skew the random number generator. But then, why not just end the match?

[allefant]

To prevent the experience gain, maybe villages not only should stop producing gold, but also stop producing health (especially also for the enemy)? I.e. after the turn limit, all villages simply are gone.

But, on the other hand, I think it's hard enough as is for scenario designers to anticipate all the possibilities how a player will play a scenario (and make them all fun). If it will be possible for a player to just sit out the turn limit in a defensive position and wait until the last AI unit has died, this adds a very different strategy to each scenario - and to make the game as a whole fun for players who happen to play that (now perfectly valid) way, a lot of re-designing of all scenarios will be necessary..

[Aethaeryn]

One of the only scenarios I lost via running out of turns (I didn't know about turn limits at the time, maybe the tutorial should be clearer) was when I was a newbie - I played Under the Burning Suns and was destroying the enemy with a very slow-moving defensive formation in the first scenario. That's the problem, if there's no limits you can play really slowly and on scenarios like scenario one of UtBS where you don't even recruit, most of these penalties wouldn't even matter. Also, this means people of any skill level could play the really advanced campaigns with bad tactics and maybe even win. Similarly, you could probably go around and kill everyone in the first scenario of HttT, getting XP that makes future levels easy.

And if you made the turn limit a soft limit, what would happen to those scenarios where it makes sense to have a limit?

Then again, it is frustrating when I've run out of time but almost won and have to go back about 5-10 turns to see if I can play faster.