Remove new mushrooms terrain and remove composite terrain properties from the old mushrooms

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Remove new mushrooms terrain and remove composite terrain properties from the old mushrooms

Post by Elder2 »

This will be a sort of a rant about why the mushrooms change was a bad idea.

As far as I know the main argument for implementing the change to how mushrooms terrain works and adding new terrain that retained the old mushroom terrain properties (Tb^Tf), was that it looked like a composite terrain, but it wasn’t and it always behaved just like mushrooms, therefore it should be changed to have composite properties. Another argument I once heard is that it is confusing to the new players. I don’t know if there are other arguments, these are the ones I have heard but if there is more I would be happy to hear them.
Before I talk about the terrain change itself, there was a thread on forum that suggested adding mushroom defense cap to the new mushroom terrain (Tb^Tf), so that loyalist horse units would get their old mushroom defense on shrooms (20%).
viewtopic.php?p=647751

It does fix the problem with loyalist horse units, but still there are units like orcs or dwarves in default that would have different defense on certain mushroom composite terrains that are seen on mainline Wesnoth maps, like mushrooms/hills, and there are many units that would have different movement on mushrooms/cave or mushrooms/snow, im sure mushrooms/cave exists but mushrooms/snow, im not sure but it might exist on some mainline campaign map.
Not to mention all add on units and maps that can have wild mushrooms terrain combinations.
There was new mushrooms terrain added that retains the properties of old mushrooms (^Uf), and it is supposed to substitute the old mushrooms on maps, but there are issues with this solution.

To clarify, there are 3 mushroom terrains, not 2, ^Uf is old mushrooms and is deprecated, Tb^Tf is new mushrooms with mycelium base terrain (referred to as new mushrooms) and ^Tf is new mushrooms with composite properties. I focused mostly on mainline in this post. Existence of a third terrain, ie old deprecated ^Uf that looks exactly like ^Tf but doesn't have composite properties like Tb^Tf, mostly doesn't affect the arguments against the new mushroom terrains, but it does add to the confusion factor, because there will be 3 mushrooms.

So back to the point, here are the arguments against the mushrooms change, they are based on a discussion in #balancing discord channel.
  • Having the sergey’s thread in mind, what is the point of giving loyalists mounted units defense cap, if the whole point of the mushrooms terrain change is to give the mushrooms composite terrain properties, and this change breaks the composite terrain properties for some units? And assuming that not all maps including the add on ones would have all mushrooms terrain changed (which would be very hard to do as there are dozens add on maps, and even more including the campaigns), if not all mushrooms on all maps are changed, there will be many ageless horse units that will benefit from the composite terrain properties, and so it will seem to make no sense compared to the mainline loyalists horses, that would have their defense reduced. So many of these units would have way higher defense on mushrooms, 40% or more, compared to loyalists horses 20%.
    One could argue that the devs shouldn’t care about add ons, just the mainline, but isn’t this against the very premise of the change? It does make it just as inconsistent, just as or even more confusing as the old mushrooms. So mushrooms get composite terrain properties except not really because we will break the rules anyway.
  • Since the new mushrooms terrain would need to substitute the old mushrooms that now have the composite terrain properties, dozens of maps would need to be changed, maybe even over a hundred in mainline alone, there are many campaign maps that have mushrooms, now arguably mushrooms balance doesn’t matter that much in mainline campaigns, not as much as in pvp maps, but even then there are over a dozen mainline pvp maps. And if the change is going to mess up the balance of some campaigns, even slightly change it by some miniscule amount, that is still an argument to change all mushrooms into new mushrooms, or not implement the mushroom changes at all. And add ons do matter after all, without add ons Wesnoth wouldn’t be such a good game as it is now and the add ons community is big. Therefore ideally all mushrooms on all pvp maps would need to be changed, including survivals, RPGs, whatever, even if one said that campaign balance doesn’t matter and we can leave the old mushrooms in campaigns because it won’t change much, the changes in pvp or pve MP maps might very well be significant so the maps would need to be changed, that might be hundreds of maps.

    And this too leads to confusion. If the only arguments for a change are that it looks weird and it confuses people, isn’t it confusing that some maps will be changed and many other maps won’t be? Especially to the old players. Doesn’t this look bad too? Some people ask “Why mushrooms don’t have composite properties?” after the change many others might as well ask “Why some maps have new mushrooms and others don’t?”. It’s just counterproductive.

    When it comes to balance, it just seems too hard to change all the mp maps for the change to make sense.
  • 2 Kinds of mushrooms is confusing in itself, and this too looks bad, just like some say lack of composite properties for mushrooms looks bad. If the 2 kinds of terrains were listed in the help menu, it would be very confusing for new players to find that there are 2 mushrooms terrains listed, and the unit has the same defense on both of them. I talked about it and apparently the composite mushrooms would be an overlay that is not listed in the help menu, still, seeing 2 kinds of mushrooms on maps must be confusing for new players, and the “hidden” terrain with somewhat unexpected properties is also confusing. One of the reasons for the change is to make it more clear for people, but its way more easily noticeable for an average player that there are 2 kinds of mushrooms, than that mushrooms lack composite properties, that is if players even know the composite terrain is supposed to have some kind of properties, as the terrain “rules” in Wesnoth seem unclear, I will talk about it later. Besides when hovering over the mushrooms terrain in previous versions, it is clear it lacks composite properties, so the confusion mostly arises from how it looks, because it’s pretty clear how it works, actually way more clear than terrains like forest, or ford. Wesnoth has many abilities with special properties like for example berserk, one time I played against a new player, I killed his dark sorcerer leader with an ulf and he was confused how come a 4-4 attack killed him from almost full hp, I explained to him that berserk means a unit fights to the death. I don’t think situations like these are that rare. Its far easier to blunder and be confused for a new player because how an ability or special works, these have a way bigger impact on the game than some relatively obscure property of mushrooms, and after all the game will tell the player what defense a unit will have on mushrooms anyway, so most aren’t even going to realise that mushrooms have some special properties. I have seen people be confused by how damage bonuses work, after all it’s not obvious that time of day and leadership stacks but resistances are a separate bonus, rather than they all stack or each one is a separate bonus. Or that the rounding when the decimal 0.5 appears depends on whether the damage at the end is higher or lower than the base value. There are many examples of confusion like these, and from my experience this happens far more often than somebody mentioning mushrooms. Over the thousands of games I have played I have met people who got confused by mushrooms about as often as I did people confused by ford looking similar to shallow water, it was maybe about 3 times. I would argue that Wesnoth has many elements that could be a source of confusion, and mushrooms aren’t at the top of confusion-inducing things hierarchy. Many things aren’t as clear as the description that says “Mushrooms” which makes it clear they aren’t a composite terrain, but its no argument to change the mechanics, if somebody wants to learn about the not-so-important nuances of Wesnoth mechanics, its very easy to notice that mushrooms behave as they do.

    At the time of writing this I didn't include old deprecated mushrooms, ie ^Uf. So there will be actually 3 mushrooms not 2. The point about confusion is the same except that is even more confusing than 2 mushrooms, especially since they will look exactly like ^Tf but have properties of Tb^Tf. 3 types of mushrooms that 2 of them look the same but work very differently is needless to say a terrible design and incredibly confusing to everyone, especially new players.
  • Other terrains aren’t less confusing or unclear than mushrooms. Many terrains follow “special” rules just like mushrooms, but the rules are different. Yet only mushrooms get the flak. Wesnoth terrains actually don’t seem to follow any single set of rules, I will explain why.
    Lets first consider forest. In theory forest does have composite terrain properties, but in practice, at least as far as mainline is concerned, it actually behaves almost exactly like old mushrooms. In mainline campaign maps, we usually see forests on grass, there are also forests on snow but these are far less common. There is no unit in mainline that has better defense on grass than in forest except the loyalist horse units, and these have special defense cap, which already breaks forest’s composite properties. Since every other unit in mainline has better or equal defense on forest compared to grass, in every single case the unit will have forest defense when standing on forest, the exception is loyalist horses that break the composite properties and have forest defense anyway. So there is not a single unit in mainline that has grass defense when standing on forest/grassland, what about movement? There is not a single unit that would have higher grassland movement than forest movement either. The conclusion from this is that forest/grassland behaves EXACTLY like mushrooms in every situation in mainline. What about forest/snow? Here there are 2 kinds of exceptions. There are some units that have worse snow movement than forest movement so they will move slower on the terrain, not quite like mushrooms but the movement properties aren’t as noticeable as defense. The only defense exception would be the yeti, in mainline you will almost never see yeti on a snow forest, and you cant have one in your army either, so for all intents and purposes we can ignore this exception.

    So the “mainline” version of forest mostly behaves like it has no composite properties, but for example forests on hills do have composite properties.

    To conclude, the forest/grassland which is vast majority of forest terrains in mainline behaves exactly like old mushrooms in every situation, even if the terrain looks like composite terrain and is even labeled like composite terrain, unlike mushrooms. Forest/snow in practice when it comes to defense almost behaves the same way, the exception is movement cost for some units that is higher than if they would have moved through forest/grassland. Once could argue the forest mechanics are even more confusing than mushrooms mechanics since mushrooms actually make it clear to the player how they behave.

    Besides, forests have different types like autumn/winter/normal that look differently graphically, one could argue it would suggest they work differently, but they don’t, mushrooms are always mushrooms except the terrain underneath them, seems similar to the types of forest.

    Ford - normal composite terrain takes the higher terrain defense and worse terrain movement out of the two, ford takes higher defense and better movement. Should we change how ford works and make 2 kinds of fords?

    Bridge – same as ford. Except that if its over deep water skeletons can submerge if they stand over it, looks like another special rule to me.

    Bats and villages – It is explained in the description of their trait that they have 50%, but the argument is the same as with mushrooms, its explained but it would look like they should have 60% village right? They break the composite properties of villages except if its water villages, its not consistent.

    Water villages in general – They give no village defense bonus, in fact they lack any defensive properties at all, the only thing they provide is income and healing, no matter the terrain they are placed on, a unit standing on one will have the defense of that terrain. So composite, but not really, at least mushrooms don’t lie to you.

    To recap, here is the list:
    • Mushrooms – mushrooms defense and movement everywhere, no composite properties.
    • “Standard” composite terrain – takes highest terrain defense and worst terrain movement.
    • Forest/Grassland – in mainline forest defense and movement everywhere, no composite properties. There may be one example of a special campaign unit in add ons that breaks this rule, but that is it. There is another unit that has flat defense, but has no movement on forest, so can’t enter the hex anyway.
    • Forest/snow – in mainline forest defense everywhere, except for yeti, snow movement for some units, it has some composite properties for some units
    • Ford – outright breaks composite terrain rules, takes highest defense and best movement.
    • Bridge – defense and movement like ford. Also allows submerge if on deep water.
    • Land village – composite terrain properties, I think it sometimes appears on hills or mountains in mainline, except for bats that break composite terrain rules and have 50%
    • Water village – no defense or movement properties, even for bats, just gives standard village benefits.
    And lets consider this, even if Wesnoth wasn’t full of terrains with “special rules”, and only mushrooms were special, would changing them really be desirable? It somewhat limits artistic freedom when it comes to map design, the fact that mushrooms are always mushrooms no matter on top of what they are allows for creating maps that just look more interesting, and the nuances of balance when it comes to certain factions are irrelevant. The less complex the terrain behaves the easier it is to consider all possibilities and balance the map accordingly.
  • New mushrooms are ugly. This is the last point and the most subjective. I compared the look of mycelium with the look of dirt from Wesnoth 0.8 and the terrains share similiarities. The mycelium seems to have about just as low quality look as dirt, of course the color is different, but it seems to follow similar low quality design, chunks blend poorly with the rest of the terrain. Dirt probably actually looks better because it can blend with adjacent hexes properly, unlike mushrooms that barely blend and seem to cover the surrounding hexes. The mycelium base terrain just looks terrible, blends poorly, and is by no standards even close to the quality of any other terrain from modern Wesnoth, its like we went back to pre 1.0. Its not just my opinion, some people agreed with me.
Last edited by Elder2 on March 9th, 2020, 5:46 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Remove new mushrooms terrain and remove composite terrain properties from the old mushrooms

Post by octalot »

There's 3 terrains, not 2.
  • ^Uf, old mushroom grove, doesn't change although it is deprecated and no longer available in the editor palette. Existing maps behave as they did in 1.14.
  • ^Tf, new mushroom grove, looks like ^Uf but creates a composite terrain.
  • Tb, new mushroom base terrain, has the new graphics but the statistics of ^Uf. It can be a composite terrain if an overlay is added.
  • The composite Tb^Tf is mushroom/mushroom, so has the same stats as ^Uf.
Edit after more time to think about the post:

Most of the post seems to be based on an false assumption that ^Uf is going to change. It's going to be deprecated, but that doesn't mean that existing maps need to change before 1.17 comes along.
Elder2 wrote: February 28th, 2020, 11:05 pm there are units like orcs or dwarves in default that would have different defense on certain mushroom composite terrains that are seen on mainline Wesnoth maps, like mushrooms/hills
Yes, but this is desirable. The orc on mushroom/hills was what started the ball rolling again for this change, in thread https://r.wesnoth.org/t49996
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Re: Remove new mushrooms terrain and remove composite terrain properties from the old mushrooms

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

That mostly sums up my objection to any balance-based argument here. Even if ^Uf is removed, there's no balance changes to existing MP maps if you just replace all instances of *^Uf with Tb^Tf, so it could be handled by wmllint. It'll change the appearance of the maps, mind you, and for cases where precise balance is less important (campaigns), it might be better to manually replace the old with the new with some different touches.

Removing the mycelium terrain because it's ugly is also a terrible argument. If it's ugly, it can be redrawn. That's not in itself a reason to remove it.

As to your argument about inconsistency of other terrains…
ElderOfCheese wrote: February 28th, 2020, 11:05 pm Ford - normal composite terrain takes the higher terrain defense and worse terrain movement out of the two, ford takes higher defense and better movement. Should we change how ford works and make 2 kinds of fords?
Ford isn't an overlay, so it's not really relevant to the discussion. I'll note that the exception for ford does make logical sense, though. A ford is supposed to be easy to move across.
ElderOfCheese wrote: February 28th, 2020, 11:05 pm Bridge – same as ford. Except that if its over deep water skeletons can submerge if they stand over it, looks like another special rule to me.
Again, this exception makes logical sense. The whole point of a bridge is to make it easy to cross water, and a skeleton can just hide underneath the bridge.
ElderOfCheese wrote: February 28th, 2020, 11:05 pm Bats and villages – It is explained in the description of their trait that they have 50%, but the argument is the same as with mushrooms, its explained but it would look like they should have 60% village right? They break the composite properties of villages except if its water villages, its not consistent.
Other than the case of water villages, this is pretty much explained by the trait description, so I don't see why it's a problem. I guess it can be confusing though, sure.
ElderOfCheese wrote: February 28th, 2020, 11:05 pm Water villages in general – They give no village defense bonus, in fact they lack any defensive properties at all, the only thing they provide is income and healing, no matter the terrain they are placed on, a unit standing on one will have the defense of that terrain. So composite, but not really, at least mushrooms don’t lie to you.
Well, this one I kinda agree on. If it were up to me, I'd probably change water villages.
ElderOfCheese wrote: February 28th, 2020, 11:05 pm It somewhat limits artistic freedom when it comes to map design, the fact that mushrooms are always mushrooms no matter on top of what they are allows for creating maps that just look more interesting, and the nuances of balance when it comes to certain factions are irrelevant. The less complex the terrain behaves the easier it is to consider all possibilities and balance the map accordingly.[/list]
Well, this is the one valid argument you've made for keeping old-style mushrooms, I suppose. The question is whether it overwhelms the argument of mushrooms being confusing, which led to the change being made. Personally, I don't think it does.

Also, the new mushrooms still have some artistic freedom (at minimum, a choice between Tb and Tb^Tf), and opens up additional things that couldn't be done before (various other terrains placed on Tb).
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Re: Remove new mushrooms terrain and remove composite terrain properties from the old mushrooms

Post by doofus-01 »

Elder2 wrote: February 28th, 2020, 11:05 pm New mushrooms are ugly.
Speaking as the bozo who drew this terrible crap, that not only Elder2 hates but also "some people agreed", I can say this: It wasn't originally meant to be standalone, but was a patch for 1.14 (and not my own whim). That patch got reverted in a way that sucked, but if I had a thin skin I wouldn't still be here. Then the graphics from that got applied to the new terrains in 1.15, and as the original overlay issue still made sense to me, I tried to patch up the glitches. If you have something constructive to say, not just expounding how much you and "some people" think it sucks, I might listen. But it looks OK to me as is.
(And for context, I've contributed a lot of the "modern Wesnoth" terrain.)
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Re: Remove new mushrooms terrain and remove composite terrain properties from the old mushrooms

Post by Elder2 »

octalot wrote: February 29th, 2020, 6:21 am Most of the post seems to be based on an false assumption that ^Uf is going to change. It's going to be deprecated, but that doesn't mean that existing maps need to change before 1.17 comes along.
Elder2 wrote: February 28th, 2020, 11:05 pm there are units like orcs or dwarves in default that would have different defense on certain mushroom composite terrains that are seen on mainline Wesnoth maps, like mushrooms/hills
Yes, but this is desirable. The orc on mushroom/hills was what started the ball rolling again for this change, in thread https://r.wesnoth.org/t49996
"Most of the post seems to be based on an false assumption that ^Uf is going to change. It's going to be deprecated, but that doesn't mean that existing maps need to change before 1.17 comes along."

At best it barely invalidates only one point.

So what, are we going to leave old mushroom with no composite properties or not? Even if one of my points was based on a false assumption it doesn't actually matter?
octalot wrote: February 29th, 2020, 6:21 am
Elder2 wrote: February 28th, 2020, 11:05 pm there are units like orcs or dwarves in default that would have different defense on certain mushroom composite terrains that are seen on mainline Wesnoth maps, like mushrooms/hills
Yes, but this is desirable. The orc on mushroom/hills was what started the ball rolling again for this change, in thread https://r.wesnoth.org/t49996
Does anybody argue that this change is desirable for map balance? Who makes such an argument? We can talk about balance of that change, but first of all only good player in the thread you linked is Soliton, and it didn't seem like he was supporting the idea.
Last edited by Elder2 on March 1st, 2020, 10:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Remove new mushrooms terrain and remove composite terrain properties from the old mushrooms

Post by Elder2 »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: March 1st, 2020, 1:52 am That mostly sums up my objection to any balance-based argument here. Even if ^Uf is removed, there's no balance changes to existing MP maps if you just replace all instances of *^Uf with Tb^Tf, so it could be handled by wmllint. It'll change the appearance of the maps, mind you, and for cases where precise balance is less important (campaigns), it might be better to manually replace the old with the new with some different touches.
But ironically it makes all my other arguments about inconsistency and confusion much, much stronger. So This argument doesn't help at all.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: March 1st, 2020, 1:52 am Removing the mycelium terrain because it's ugly is also a terrible argument. If it's ugly, it can be redrawn. That's not in itself a reason to remove it.
Until it is redrawn it's absolutely is a reason to remove it since it is a change that was just recently proposed and implemented, it cannot be compared with old sprites or terrain graphics that stayed in the game. One could make a similiar argument about mainline campaigns, I could just as well say "It's a terrible argument that some of them are bad. If they are bad they can be rewritten. Its not in itself a reason to remove them" Yet AOI is going to be removed basically because it was bad, other campaigns are going to be completely rewritten to the point that they are going to be different campaigns.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: March 1st, 2020, 1:52 am
ElderOfCheese wrote: February 28th, 2020, 11:05 pm Ford - normal composite terrain takes the higher terrain defense and worse terrain movement out of the two, ford takes higher defense and better movement. Should we change how ford works and make 2 kinds of fords?
Ford isn't an overlay, so it's not really relevant to the discussion. I'll note that the exception for ford does make logical sense, though. A ford is supposed to be easy to move across.
Why it isn't relevant? It is relevant, because many people made an argument that mushrooms aren't consistent overall, not that mushrooms aren't consistent compared to other overlays like for example forest. I never claimed I was talking only about overlays. I could just as well say that mushrooms always having mushrooms defense properties makes logical sense too if you want to make this argument, its actually more logical than forest having composite properties because it doesn't matter if you are on hill or on grassland, you are still in forest environment. But nobody was talking about real life logic, but rather about consistency.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: March 1st, 2020, 1:52 am
ElderOfCheese wrote: February 28th, 2020, 11:05 pm Bridge – same as ford. Except that if its over deep water skeletons can submerge if they stand over it, looks like another special rule to me.
Again, this exception makes logical sense. The whole point of a bridge is to make it easy to cross water, and a skeleton can just hide underneath the bridge.
Who was talking about real life logic? I never argued from this position nor did I hear anybody use this argument against mushrooms. Probably because it could be argued it actually supports mushrooms properties.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: March 1st, 2020, 1:52 am
ElderOfCheese wrote: February 28th, 2020, 11:05 pm Bats and villages – It is explained in the description of their trait that they have 50%, but the argument is the same as with mushrooms, its explained but it would look like they should have 60% village right? They break the composite properties of villages except if its water villages, its not consistent.
Other than the case of water villages, this is pretty much explained by the trait description, so I don't see why it's a problem. I guess it can be confusing though, sure.
I didn't claim it is a problem, my argument is that since these terrains have inconsistent properties, there is nothing wrong about mushrooms having inconsistent properties, at the beginning of my post I mentioned that one of the 2 arguments against mushrooms is lack of consistency. Likewise it is explained how mushrooms work, and I talked about it in one of my other points.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: March 1st, 2020, 1:52 am
ElderOfCheese wrote: February 28th, 2020, 11:05 pm Water villages in general – They give no village defense bonus, in fact they lack any defensive properties at all, the only thing they provide is income and healing, no matter the terrain they are placed on, a unit standing on one will have the defense of that terrain. So composite, but not really, at least mushrooms don’t lie to you.
Well, this one I kinda agree on. If it were up to me, I'd probably change water villages.
Changing one or all of the terrains I mentioned is a whole different issue, my arguments were mostly about consistency and confusion factor.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: March 1st, 2020, 1:52 am
ElderOfCheese wrote: February 28th, 2020, 11:05 pm It somewhat limits artistic freedom when it comes to map design, the fact that mushrooms are always mushrooms no matter on top of what they are allows for creating maps that just look more interesting, and the nuances of balance when it comes to certain factions are irrelevant. The less complex the terrain behaves the easier it is to consider all possibilities and balance the map accordingly.[/list]
Well, this is the one valid argument you've made for keeping old-style mushrooms, I suppose. The question is whether it overwhelms the argument of mushrooms being confusing, which led to the change being made. Personally, I don't think it does.
Im not sure if you read my entire post, to me it seems like you probably didn't since I also made a rather long argument about why having 2 types of mushrooms is confusing too. This one argument about artistic freedom is not the only argument and I never claimed it was.
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Re: Remove new mushrooms terrain and remove composite terrain properties from the old mushrooms

Post by Elder2 »

doofus-01 wrote: March 1st, 2020, 4:23 am ...
Fine, im not an artist and it is just my opinion, I said it is rather subjective, please don't take it personally.
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Re: Remove new mushrooms terrain and remove composite terrain properties from the old mushrooms

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

ElderOfCheese wrote: March 1st, 2020, 9:26 pm Does anybody argue that this change is desirable for map balance?
For me at least the change has nothing whatsoever to do with map balance.
ElderOfCheese wrote: March 1st, 2020, 9:58 pm Until it is redrawn it's absolutely is a reason to remove it since it is a change that was just recently proposed and implemented, it cannot be compared with old sprites or terrain graphics that stayed in the game. One could make a similiar argument about mainline campaigns, I could just as well say "It's a terrible argument that some of them are bad. If they are bad they can be rewritten. Its not in itself a reason to remove them" Yet AOI is going to be removed basically because it was bad, other campaigns are going to be completely rewritten to the point that they are going to be different campaigns.
No. That something is currently ugly is no reason to remove it, unless of course the next stable version were due to come out tomorrow and there were no time left to fix it. There's plenty of time to make it look better, if it's really that ugly.
ElderOfCheese wrote: March 1st, 2020, 9:58 pm Why it isn't relevant? It is relevant, because many people made an argument that mushrooms aren't consistent overall, not that mushrooms aren't consistent compared to other overlays like for example forest. I never claimed I was talking only about overlays. I could just as well say that mushrooms always having mushrooms defense properties makes logical sense too if you want to make this argument, its actually more logical than forest having composite properties because it doesn't matter if you are on hill or on grassland, you are still in forest environment. But nobody was talking about real life logic, but rather about consistency.
Maybe I'm unaware of every argument people made for the change, but my impression was that the main argument was based on the inconsistency specifically between mushrooms and forests (and to a lesser extent between mushrooms and other overlays). So, bringing ford up does nothing to that argument. Perhaps it's relevant to other arguments that I forgot or never heard.
ElderOfCheese wrote: March 1st, 2020, 9:58 pm Who was talking about real life logic?
Real life logic is one of the best arguments to use in favour of inconsistent mechanics. The bridge and ford exceptions probably exist for this reason already.
ElderOfCheese wrote: March 1st, 2020, 9:58 pm Probably because it could be argued it actually supports mushrooms properties.
Well, I think it's a little harder to use real life logic for something that doesn't actually occur in real life. Arguments about mushroom properties based on real life hold less weight for this reason.
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Re: Remove new mushrooms terrain and remove composite terrain properties from the old mushrooms

Post by Elder2 »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: March 2nd, 2020, 12:46 am
ElderOfCheese wrote: March 1st, 2020, 9:26 pm Does anybody argue that this change is desirable for map balance?
For me at least the change has nothing whatsoever to do with map balance.

"there are units like orcs or dwarves in default that would have different defense on certain mushroom composite terrains that are seen on mainline Wesnoth maps, like mushrooms/hills " This is what I said.
Octalot's response was: "Yes, but this is desirable."

As I understand it, Octalot argues that the change in defense some units would get on some mushrooms terrains like mushrooms/hills would be a desirable change, how come this has nothing to do with balance? I don't think you understand. And besides this wasn't even a response to your post.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: March 2nd, 2020, 12:46 am
ElderOfCheese wrote: March 1st, 2020, 9:58 pm Until it is redrawn it's absolutely is a reason to remove it since it is a change that was just recently proposed and implemented, it cannot be compared with old sprites or terrain graphics that stayed in the game. One could make a similiar argument about mainline campaigns, I could just as well say "It's a terrible argument that some of them are bad. If they are bad they can be rewritten. Its not in itself a reason to remove them" Yet AOI is going to be removed basically because it was bad, other campaigns are going to be completely rewritten to the point that they are going to be different campaigns.
No. That something is currently ugly is no reason to remove it, unless of course the next stable version were due to come out tomorrow and there were no time left to fix it. There's plenty of time to make it look better, if it's really that ugly.
You said earlier "If it's ugly, it can be redrawn", now you say that there is plenty of time to make it look better. You are unwilling to accept that "mushrooms are ugly" could be valid argument, but you do seem to think that if something is ugly it should be improved. So would you agree that assuming mushrooms are ugly, they shouldn't be in the game until the looks of the terrain is improved? Of course the argument is subjective, but it could be valid for people who agree with my assessment. If it really was such a terrible argument, why say that it can be redrawn and that it should be removed if the version was due to come out tomorrow and there was no time to fix it? If it is so terrible, then it shouldn't matter how mushrooms look right? Guess its not so terrible afterall.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: March 2nd, 2020, 12:46 am
ElderOfCheese wrote: March 1st, 2020, 9:58 pm Why it isn't relevant? It is relevant, because many people made an argument that mushrooms aren't consistent overall, not that mushrooms aren't consistent compared to other overlays like for example forest. I never claimed I was talking only about overlays. I could just as well say that mushrooms always having mushrooms defense properties makes logical sense too if you want to make this argument, its actually more logical than forest having composite properties because it doesn't matter if you are on hill or on grassland, you are still in forest environment. But nobody was talking about real life logic, but rather about consistency.
Maybe I'm unaware of every argument people made for the change, but my impression was that the main argument was based on the inconsistency specifically between mushrooms and forests (and to a lesser extent between mushrooms and other overlays). So, bringing ford up does nothing to that argument. Perhaps it's relevant to other arguments that I forgot or never heard.
From what I remember I have heard people argue that mushrooms are inconsistent in general. But it is kinda unclear, on discord I actually suggested to make a "mushroom thread" on forum to let people voice their opinions about mushrooms and why they think they should be changed.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter, bringing up ford doesn't hurt, and even if somebody argued that mushrooms should work more like forest does, I would still point out that terrains in general don't work in a consistent way, and if mushrooms should work more like forest, why water village shouldn't work more like land village, why ford shouldn't work like any other composite terrain, its not an overlay, or why units have defense cap on forest if they don't have on other composite terrains like say village/hill.

On top of that I did point out in my post that forest/grassland in mainline behaves EXACTLY like mushrooms in every situation, add ons are a different story. So forest and mushrooms aren't so different afterall.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: March 2nd, 2020, 12:46 am
ElderOfCheese wrote: March 1st, 2020, 9:58 pm Who was talking about real life logic?
Real life logic is one of the best arguments to use in favour of inconsistent mechanics. The bridge and ford exceptions probably exist for this reason already.
If you insist I could make an argument that forest should work like mushrooms because what it is on doesn't really have any significant influence on its defensive properties, just makes it harder/easier to traverse. If you insist on following real life logic then refute this argument.

Likewise I could make an argument that hills shouldn't give any defense bonus, just be harder to climb because hills is just grassland that is harder to climb. I could probably come up with more arguments like these, but its kinda pointless as I think you are alone in thinking that we should apply real life logic to wesnoth terrains and use it to justify terrains' properties. I think most people rather than try to figure out what game mechanics should be like by following real life logic, accept certain mechanics as axioms and then want the other mechanics to be consistent. This is the argument from consistency. You can base a game or mechanics on real life logic and then start from that, but really, how many of wesnoth mechanics follow real life logic?

Another thing, if we base terrains' properties on real life logic, why we don't use it when it comes to units? Make heavy infantry cost like 3 times more than spearman and give it 90% blade and pierce resistance and 50% impact because in real life full plate armor was almost invulnerable to weapons except blunt weapons, and even then it provided significant protection. Also knights would almost always win vs unarmored opponents 1 on 1 unless they were overwhelmed, one could make such an argument for changing heavy infantry.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: March 2nd, 2020, 12:46 am
ElderOfCheese wrote: March 1st, 2020, 9:58 pm Probably because it could be argued it actually supports mushrooms properties.
Well, I think it's a little harder to use real life logic for something that doesn't actually occur in real life. Arguments about mushroom properties based on real life hold less weight for this reason.
We could approximate giant mushrooms as forest.
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Re: Remove new mushrooms terrain and remove composite terrain properties from the old mushrooms

Post by octalot »

Elder2 wrote: March 1st, 2020, 9:26 pm "Most of the post seems to be based on an false assumption that ^Uf is going to change. It's going to be deprecated, but that doesn't mean that existing maps need to change before 1.17 comes along."

At best it barely invalidates only one point.
Try rewriting your "Since the new mushrooms terrain would need to substitute the old mushrooms that now have the composite terrain properties" paragraph using the terrain codes for clarity, and taking account that there's three rather than two. It's a lot more significant that "barely invalidates only one point", and that's not the only paragraph affected.
Elder2 wrote: March 2nd, 2020, 5:39 am As I understand it, Octalot argues that the change in defense some units would get on some mushrooms terrains like mushrooms/hills would be a desirable change, how come this has nothing to do with balance?
So if this particular example is updated, the old Hh^Uf could be changed to Tb^Tf instead of Hh^Tf. Then there's no balance change at all.
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Re: Remove new mushrooms terrain and remove composite terrain properties from the old mushrooms

Post by Elder2 »

octalot wrote: March 2nd, 2020, 7:30 am Try rewriting your "Since the new mushrooms terrain would need to substitute the old mushrooms that now have the composite terrain properties" paragraph using the terrain codes for clarity, and taking account that there's three rather than two. It's a lot more significant that "barely invalidates only one point", and that's not the only paragraph affected.
I could but I don't know terrain codes, so I don't want to get something wrong accidentally, even though I think I understand your post. But I hope I understand it right, so we would have 3 types of mushrooms and not 2, I mentioned in other post that it makes the arguments about confusion and lack of consistency much stronger. 3 types is a ridiculous amount, this itself should be enough of a reason to give up on the change, if that is what needs to be done to make it work.
octalot wrote: March 2nd, 2020, 7:30 am
Elder2 wrote: March 2nd, 2020, 5:39 am As I understand it, Octalot argues that the change in defense some units would get on some mushrooms terrains like mushrooms/hills would be a desirable change, how come this has nothing to do with balance?
So if this particular example is updated, the old Hh^Uf could be changed to Tb^Tf instead of Hh^Tf. Then there's no balance change at all.
Wouldn't it need enormous amount of work? Maybe it could be done scripted but still, some add ons will retain old code.
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Re: Remove new mushrooms terrain and remove composite terrain properties from the old mushrooms

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

Elder2 wrote: March 2nd, 2020, 5:39 amhow come this has nothing to do with balance?
Because you can easily replace all *^Uf with Tb^Tf without affecting any stats.
Elder2 wrote: March 2nd, 2020, 5:39 am You said earlier "If it's ugly, it can be redrawn", now you say that there is plenty of time to make it look better. You are unwilling to accept that "mushrooms are ugly" could be valid argument, but you do seem to think that if something is ugly it should be improved. So would you agree that assuming mushrooms are ugly, they shouldn't be in the game until the looks of the terrain is improved? Of course the argument is subjective, but it could be valid for people who agree with my assessment. If it really was such a terrible argument, why say that it can be redrawn and that it should be removed if the version was due to come out tomorrow and there was no time to fix it? If it is so terrible, then it shouldn't matter how mushrooms look right? Guess its not so terrible afterall.
It's on the master branch, not in a stable release. There's no reason to keep something out of the development branch just because the art for it is somewhat stand-in.
Elder2 wrote: March 2nd, 2020, 7:02 pm But I hope I understand it right, so we would have 3 types of mushrooms and not 2, I mentioned in other post that it makes the arguments about confusion and lack of consistency much stronger. 3 types is a ridiculous amount, this itself should be enough of a reason to give up on the change, if that is what needs to be done to make it work.
I'm not sure what octalot is talking about but there's definitely only two new mushroom terrains (plus an illuminated version of the overlay mushroom grove). Maybe he means the deprecated version as the third terrain?
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Re: Remove new mushrooms terrain and remove composite terrain properties from the old mushrooms

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3 including the deprecated version. In the original post in this thread, although it talks about "old" and "new", there are 3 terrains referred to by the 2 words "old" and "new" - if Elder tries to clarify the text, I think he/she will find that there's already something wrong in the argument.
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Re: Remove new mushrooms terrain and remove composite terrain properties from the old mushrooms

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

Okay, yeah, so basically "old" is one terrain while "new" is two terrains, and one of the two "new" terrains is mechanically identical to the "old" terrain.
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Re: Remove new mushrooms terrain and remove composite terrain properties from the old mushrooms

Post by Elder2 »

octalot wrote: March 4th, 2020, 3:59 am 3 including the deprecated version. In the original post in this thread, although it talks about "old" and "new", there are 3 terrains referred to by the 2 words "old" and "new" - if Elder tries to clarify the text, I think he/she will find that there's already something wrong in the argument.
Alright, if you really insist I can change the text and I will add all the terrain codes. Just please don't try to dismiss the arguments because I didn't want to use terrain codes. Also at the time of writing it I wasn't aware that technically there will be 3 mushrooms terrains, including the deprecated one, not 2 (^Tf and Tb^Tf), But I clarified what I think about the deprecated one.
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