Racial trait diversity

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DavidByron
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Racial trait diversity

Post by DavidByron »

There are a ton of ideas for new abilities or traits. I can see that you could easily have too many. Three or four is a nice number because you need a balance between too few - not interesting - and too many - little chance of being able to get what you want; too random.

However I think there's room to add new traits and still limit their number to three or four by giving each race their own unique trait in the same way the Elves have agile and the undead have immunity to poison. This might help give the races their own particular feel. For example do Dwarves need a +1 speed trait? Not very Dwarvish compared to, say, a "toughness" trait whereby every attack roll does 1 pt less damage.

I think the problem with a lot of the suggestions in these 27 pages is that they decrease racial diversity by increasing the number and type of units, abilities, races, traits etc etc. Yeah Undead can't heal. That makes them different so don't ask for an undead healer. And so on. Often an increase in the number of these types ends up with all races a bit samey. Dwarves aren't meant to be fast magic users. But it's possible to add to the diversity of traits and so on while at the same time increasing racial diversity if the new powers keep in line with the character of the race.
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Post by Elvish_Pillager »

Dwarves do need a speed trait. A toughness trait, on the other hand, runs the risk of being overpowered. (imagine Orcish Grunts doing 4-2...)
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Post by DavidByron »

When you say Dwarves "need speed" aren't you saying that speed is overpowered for them? What I meant by "don't need speed" is that it is not in character.

At any rate I'm not suggesting specific traits here, because there's a ton of them, and I haven't even read most of them there are so many. Although many did seem overpowered. I don't think my example of -1 per hit is overpowered. Sure against a crowd of bats you'd rule, but against cavalry it might as well not be there.

But this is more of a META suggestion for traits. The issue is:

(1) people LOVE more traits
(2) too many traits are bad

My suggestion is that a way to have your cake and eat it is to have more traits that are racially specific. To go even further you could make them gender/race specific. That gives you more "space" for the variety people want without overwhelming the game with them or making there be so many traits that you can't get the one you want.

In addition another issue with increasing the number of any new kind of ability, unit, race, trait etc etc is that if everything has everything the racial identity is weakened. Different traits could help racial identity rather than hinder it..

For example you mention speed. I think +1 speed on a Dwarf is overpowered and out of character. But how about a trait that lets you take one last MP with a dwarf as long as it is to charge into battle? (ie a ZOC hex is 1 less MP for that unit) That is like a nerfed +1 speed and it enhances the character of the race rather than diminishing it. If you think the +1 speed isn't overpowered you could make the cost of the ZOC hex 0 even if it would have been 2+ which would make them quite spritely even in slow terrain as long as they're hitting people. Or forget about the 10% HP penalty that comes with the normal +1 speed trait. Again this is just an example, not a particular trait idea, of which there are many already out there.

The point is the downside of too many traits can be diminished by keying them to the racial identity.
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Post by Darth Fool »

I would say the problem with traits is not that having a lot is bad, the problem is that most traits are hard to balance. Race specific traits are already implimented.
A set of rules of thumb that I have for traits has been posted before,
Well, the real constraint on traits is three fold:
1) game mechanics dictate what it can effect. There are only so many stats.
2) simple means that it shouldn't have lots of conditionals
3) it must be relatively weak. In other words, the unit must still act recognizably like a unit of the original type,
4) balanced. it can't be a trait which you would always want over other traits. Loyal was like that in campaigns.
An additional rule is (5)that the trait must have only non-negative effects. Quick violates the rule slightly, but that is grandfathered in part because most devs like it but think it is overpowered otherwise. The realism idea is that for a unit to qualify as a unit of that type it has to meet certain minimum standards, army recruits must pass basic training. Undead corpses must be in a certain minimum condition, etc...The gameplay reason is that as a player when you recruit a unit, you want to know that you are recruiting something that will be able to do what you want it to do. An additional comment that effects both 3&5 is that novices ought to be able to effectively play without worrying about the individual unit traits. Only when you are an expert and need to absolutely maximize the effects of your units should you need to concern yourself with the traits that they have.
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Post by Elvish_Pillager »

DavidByron wrote:When you say Dwarves "need speed" aren't you saying that speed is overpowered for them? What I meant by "don't need speed" is that it is not in character.
That's why they have only 4 moves. If hey didn't have a quick trait, then they would all go the same speed. Do you think it's in Dwarves character that they all go at the same speed?
DavidByron wrote:I don't think my example of -1 per hit is overpowered. Sure against a crowd of bats you'd rule, but against cavalry it might as well not be there.
Well, it is not well defined either, but as I see it, a normal Horseman deals: (day-twilight-night)
22-18-13 damage to a generic unit;
18-14-11 damage to a generic Dwarf;
16-13-9 damage to a heavily armored Dwarf;
16-13-10 damage to a Tough Dwarf;
14-11-8 damage to a heavily armored Tough Dwarf.

If you take 11-2 and your normal counterpart takes 18-2, you are very powerful.

Against a Cavalryman, in case you actually did mean that:
7-6-5 to a generic unit;
5-4-3 to a generic Dwarf;
4-4-3 damage to a heavily armored Dwarf;
4-3-3 damage to a Tough Dwarf;
4-3-2 damage to a heavily armored Tough Dwarf.

So, Toughness would be basically as good as a Steelclad's resistances over a normal Dwarf's. Not to mention that they can be combined...
DavidByron wrote:But this is more of a META suggestion for traits. The issue is:
Meta suggestions for traits are no use, because there are no reasonable and balanced new traits.
DavidByron wrote:My suggestion is that a way to have your cake and eat it is to have more traits that are racially specific. To go even further you could make them gender/race specific. That gives you more "space" for the variety people want without overwhelming the game with them or making there be so many traits that you can't get the one you want.
I think that most people around here agree that it would be nice to have more *balanced new racial traits*... the issue is that no one can come up with any.
DavidByron wrote:For example you mention speed. I think +1 speed on a Dwarf is overpowered and out of character.
1) It's not +1 speed, it's +1 speed and -10% HP in a package.
2) It is more out of character for Dwarves to always go at the same speed than it is for them to be even slower than they are now.
DavidByron wrote:But how about a trait that lets you take one last MP with a dwarf as long as it is to charge into battle? (ie a ZOC hex is 1 less MP for that unit) That is like a nerfed +1 speed and it enhances the character of the race rather than diminishing it.
It's also like a complex new trait that would require a feature to be coded to support it that would not likely be used anywhere else.
DavidByron wrote:Again this is just an example, not a particular trait idea, of which there are many already out there.
It's true that there are many unbalanced and/or nigh-unimplementable trait ideas already.
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Post by DavidByron »

Here's why I think too many traits is a problem:

Say I want a particular trait. Fast to cover the ground, or intelligent to level up quick. Currently all I have to do is recruit 2-3 new guys and odds are good I'll have one with the desired trait. So I can plan on it more or less. it's tactical.

If there were 10 traits I'd have to recruit more like 5 units to have a good chance (unless the other traits basically overlapped so that eg. 2 were XP bonuses). Now it's all just luck. I can't plan.

For the same reason I'd prefer all races to have the same number of traits to choose from ideally.
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Post by Disto »

If it would be totally out of place in Wesnoth i'd give the dwarfs a random trait of berserk. But yeh.

I do think we should have a racial trait for each race. Like trolls can be like super-regenitive, or Orcs having fearsome so... he'd get like say an extra melee attack. But i think there should only be 1-2 traits only for each race, and keep having only 5? traits for everyone.
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Post by Cuyo Quiz »

The original idea for fearsome affects damage by 25%. Is it low enough to be considered a trait?, i think it would be better as an ability for an undead unit.
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Post by DavidByron »

I'm seeing the balance thing as a non-issue. For one thing I don't think the current traits are balanced. Secondly to the extent that they are, it seems to have been achieved by simply adding or subtracting a few extra HPs to balance whatever else the trait does. I mean how hard is that? Or you could add or subtract a few XP for balance. Thirdly the traits frankly don't need to be super-balanced relative to each other. It's not like you get to pick them.

You could even randomize some of the traits. By definition that would be unbalanced if the +HP trait varied from +5 to +9 then +9 is better. So that's something to note. Maybe mark that guy for promotion. Maybe just use him as a shield. Anyway randomization would be yet another easy way to balance a trait's power. Can't decide if +X or +Y is best? Make it random between the two. Think it should be more towards +X than +Y? Just rig the probability distribution 2 for 1.

There are so many ideas out there I find it hard to believe that the issue is a lack of ideas. Ok I can see that usually when someone submits their idea be it for a race, a unit, an attribute or a trait, there seems to be a tendency to make them grossly overpowered. So keep the concept and fix the balance. This is an IDEAS forum after all.

I mean the two examples I used above I just made up on the spot. Maybe someone already suggested something similar.

So for those reasons I don't see any issue with getting good trait ideas if there is a game benefit to it. I see the problem as that even with terrific traits too many is a bad thing.

But to go back to the Dwarves and +1 speed, yeah I do think they should be stuck at 4 (or 5 for beserkers) all the time. Elves are not all 5. Some are 6, some are 8. Humans vary quite a bit too. And Orcs / Goblins. And Undead. Slow speed is a characteristic of Dwarves. There are no Dwarf cavalry. No Dwarf scouts. Sucks to be Dwarves if you're in a big hurry.

Obviously +1 makes more difference the slower you were before the +1 and it's already a very good trait, but the main point is that it's out of character not that it's overpowered, which I guess we'll just have to disagree about. You say that everyone gets the +1 sometimes but that's what I'm saying shouldn't be the case. Everyone ELSE should get it. Dwarves should get something more "Dwarvish" EVEN if it ends up mirroring some of the benefits of increased speed in a more "Dwarvish" way.
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Post by Darth Fool »

DavidByron wrote:I'm seeing the balance thing as a non-issue. For one thing I don't think the current traits are balanced. Secondly to the extent that they are, it seems to have been achieved by simply adding or subtracting a few extra HPs to balance whatever else the trait does. I mean how hard is that? Or you could add or subtract a few XP for balance. Thirdly the traits frankly don't need to be super-balanced relative to each other. It's not like you get to pick them.
I strongly disagree. Balance is very important. If all players are disappointed any time they don't get a unit with the foobar trait, this is a problem. The randomness of the traits is a good thing, but it makes it all the more important for the traits to be balanced. If you got to choose them, then an imbalance would be less important becuase people would be free to choose the uber-traits and avoid the nerf'd ones. In as much as the traits are all weak, it makes it easier to balance them, but not unimportant.
You could even randomize some of the traits. By definition that would be unbalanced if the +HP trait varied from +5 to +9 then +9 is better. So that's something to note. Maybe mark that guy for promotion. Maybe just use him as a shield. Anyway randomization would be yet another easy way to balance a trait's power. Can't decide if +X or +Y is best? Make it random between the two. Think it should be more towards +X than +Y? Just rig the probability distribution 2 for 1.

There are so many ideas out there I find it hard to believe that the issue is a lack of ideas. Ok I can see that usually when someone submits their idea be it for a race, a unit, an attribute or a trait, there seems to be a tendency to make them grossly overpowered. So keep the concept and fix the balance. This is an IDEAS forum after all.

I mean the two examples I used above I just made up on the spot. Maybe someone already suggested something similar.

So for those reasons I don't see any issue with getting good trait ideas if there is a game benefit to it. I see the problem as that even with terrific traits too many is a bad thing.
Well, experience speaks otherwise. getting lots of trait ideas is not hard. Heck, you just generated a bunch. Many other trait ideas have been proposed. Getting good trait ideas is hard. I have set out rules of thumb about what makes a good trait. The rules of thumb are not iron-clad laws of wesnothian physics, but they are good indicators. If one rule is violated but all the others are followed, a trait might get accepted (this is a prediction, not a statement of policy) If it violates more than one, I doubt that it will be accepted.
But to go back to the Dwarves and +1 speed, yeah I do think they should be stuck at 4 (or 5 for beserkers) all the time. Elves are not all 5. Some are 6, some are 8. Humans vary quite a bit too. And Orcs / Goblins. And Undead. Slow speed is a characteristic of Dwarves. There are no Dwarf cavalry. No Dwarf scouts. Sucks to be Dwarves if you're in a big hurry.
All dwarves are slow. It is a characteristics of them. Some are just less slow than others.
Obviously +1 makes more difference the slower you were before the +1 and it's already a very good trait, but the main point is that it's out of character not that it's overpowered, which I guess we'll just have to disagree about. You say that everyone gets the +1 sometimes but that's what I'm saying shouldn't be the case. Everyone ELSE should get it. Dwarves should get something more "Dwarvish" EVEN if it ends up mirroring some of the benefits of increased speed in a more "Dwarvish" way.
And maybe they will get a more "dwarvish" trait, but that doesn't mean that they should not get the quick trait (at least some of the time).
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Post by Elvish_Pillager »

Balance is ALWAYS an issue. Battle for Wesnoth is a game in which balance has been made an extremely important factor, and it WILL stay that way. If an idea is unbalanced, it is not implemented.
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Post by DavidByron »

What I meant by "balance is not an issue" is that it's not at all hard to balance a trait idea by the various means I mentioned. Consequently it seems odd to dismiss so many of the ideas out there as overpowered in their raw first mentioned state when they could easily be tailored to a perfect state of balance - just as soon as anyone can figure out what that is. I also stand by what I said about balance between different traits (as opposed to balancing the trait system as a whole with other effects) not being necessary.
If all players are disappointed any time they don't get a unit with the foobar trait, this is a problem.


Randomness is a big factor in the game. Hey I'm disappointed every time my wizard doesn't kill the enemy unit but if I'm that upset about it I can re-load the game. If HPs were randomized entirely by +/- 15% to base HP that would be in keeping with the game. Sucks to get a weakling. Nice to get a tough guy. It's just luck. You think such an effect would be bad? Maybe you'd prefer a system where you choose the trait(s) you want and pay different gold costs? Or a system where the damage was less random? It seems to me that random is they way the Wesnoth philosophy leans. Also if the number of traits is small you can effectively buy that super-power trait you always wanted. Just keep recruiting.

But I'm not advocating deliberately imbalanced traits.... Hmm.... although actually it might be kind of cool. In campaigns not multiplayer. A rare trait that is only 2% likely.... but that's another idea thread...

All I'm saying is there's much less need to balance traits than to balance units, races, campaigns, difficulty levels and scenarios.
Getting good trait ideas is hard. I have set out rules of thumb about what makes a good trait.
Do you mean that balancing ideas is hard or getting raw ideas in the first place is hard? Neither seem that hard to me. Your rules for traits seem ok but I would simplify it to chuck out (1), (2), (4) and (5). I agree with (3). You want beginners to be able to ignore traits and expect that if they buy an X it should be able to perform its duty as an X. Period. No exceptions to that or beginners are screwed.

(5) seems a corollary of (3) but doesn't follow IMO. Some penalties won't prevent the unit doing it's job. Some will. If the unit functions then the trait is ok. Less HP is ok (within reason). More XP needed is fine. Penalties to defence or resistances would be ok. As would very slight changes to decrease damage. As you say one of the accepted traits violates (5) already.

(4) we've just discussed. As you say one of the accepted traits already violates (4).

(1) and (2) are the same and are points that apply to any proposed feature not just traits. With any feature at all you want it simple for the programmer of course, because code that gets messy is code that can break. But in the end it's about writing a cool game not writing clean code. Naturally as with any feature a trait that involves a lot of new code or code changes in multiple areas is unlikely to be implemented especially if it's competing with a trait that is just as cool but doesn't require much code.

For example a trait that says the first time you kill an enemy unit you get double XP from the kill. This would require a little extra to implement I beleive. Not very much to be sure but more than +1 to damage or +7 to HP. But I like it. It's kind of cool. Represents a unit on a sort of "rite of passage" first kill thing. Young gun out to prove himself maybe. I guess it might be possible to implement this in the current WML even -- as is true with a lot of the ideas put forward.

Would you say this, or the example above about Dwarves being able to move an extra one square into combat, is too much to implement code-wise? They are simple and clean ideas. If this sort of thing is rejected out of hand then in effect there's a freeze on new traits. The problem then isn't a lack of trait ideas, nor is it a lack of balance. It's simply a decision to not implement more traits.

I'm not talking about the current feature freeze as 1.0 is approached.

My impression was that more traits were opposed for other reasons than lack of ideas or balance or coding. Are you saying you'd love to have 20 traits to pick from if they were easy to code?
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Post by Darth Fool »

DavidByron wrote:What I meant by "balance is not an issue" is that it's not at all hard to balance a trait idea by the various means I mentioned. Consequently it seems odd to dismiss so many of the ideas out there as overpowered in their raw first mentioned state when they could easily be tailored to a perfect state of balance - just as soon as anyone can figure out what that is. I also stand by what I said about balance between different traits (as opposed to balancing the trait system as a whole with other effects) not being necessary.
Well, if an idea is overpowered in its raw form, the only way that it gets balanced is by adding negative traits, see rule 5 (which I recognize that you don't agree with, but we will get to that) or it will require lots of conditionals which violates rule 2.
If all players are disappointed any time they don't get a unit with the foobar trait, this is a problem.


Randomness is a big factor in the game. Hey I'm disappointed every time my wizard doesn't kill the enemy unit but if I'm that upset about it I can re-load the game. If HPs were randomized entirely by +/- 15% to base HP that would be in keeping with the game. Sucks to get a weakling. Nice to get a tough guy. It's just luck. You think such an effect would be bad? Maybe you'd prefer a system where you choose the trait(s) you want and pay different gold costs? Or a system where the damage was less random? It seems to me that random is they way the Wesnoth philosophy leans. Also if the number of traits is small you can effectively buy that super-power trait you always wanted. Just keep recruiting.

But I'm not advocating deliberately imbalanced traits.... Hmm.... although actually it might be kind of cool. In campaigns not multiplayer. A rare trait that is only 2% likely.... but that's another idea thread...

All I'm saying is there's much less need to balance traits than to balance units, races, campaigns, difficulty levels and scenarios.
Well, as long as 3 is followed, this is true, but if a trait is inherently overpowered, then this is not true.
Getting good trait ideas is hard. I have set out rules of thumb about what makes a good trait.
Do you mean that balancing ideas is hard or getting raw ideas in the first place is hard? Neither seem that hard to me. Your rules for traits seem ok but I would simplify it to chuck out (1), (2), (4) and (5). I agree with (3). You want beginners to be able to ignore traits and expect that if they buy an X it should be able to perform its duty as an X. Period. No exceptions to that or beginners are screwed.

(5) seems a corollary of (3) but doesn't follow IMO. Some penalties won't prevent the unit doing it's job. Some will. If the unit functions then the trait is ok. Less HP is ok (within reason). More XP needed is fine. Penalties to defence or resistances would be ok. As would very slight changes to decrease damage. As you say one of the accepted traits violates (5) already.
And as I said, that is an exception and it was grand-fathered in.
(4) we've just discussed. As you say one of the accepted traits already violates (4).
The point of the pointing at loyal was not that it violates 4, but that since it violated 4 it was removed as a trait that units can get upon recruitment. The only way loyal is gotten now is if a scenario designer gives it to a unit.

(1) and (2) are the same and are points that apply to any proposed feature not just traits. With any feature at all you want it simple for the programmer of course, because code that gets messy is code that can break. But in the end it's about writing a cool game not writing clean code. Naturally as with any feature a trait that involves a lot of new code or code changes in multiple areas is unlikely to be implemented especially if it's competing with a trait that is just as cool but doesn't require much code.

For example a trait that says the first time you kill an enemy unit you get double XP from the kill. This would require a little extra to implement I beleive. Not very much to be sure but more than +1 to damage or +7 to HP. But I like it. It's kind of cool. Represents a unit on a sort of "rite of passage" first kill thing. Young gun out to prove himself maybe. I guess it might be possible to implement this in the current WML even -- as is true with a lot of the ideas put forward.

Would you say this, or the example above about Dwarves being able to move an extra one square into combat, is too much to implement code-wise? They are simple and clean ideas. If this sort of thing is rejected out of hand then in effect there's a freeze on new traits. The problem then isn't a lack of trait ideas, nor is it a lack of balance. It's simply a decision to not implement more traits.

I'm not talking about the current feature freeze as 1.0 is approached.
neither am I. The examples you give are indeed verging on being a violation of rule 2. Perhaps 1&2 can be combined. Or maybe all of them. 'There are only so many traits that are simple enough to be accepted within the limits of the game mechanics, etc...'. Simplicity is important both for the code maintenance and for gameplay. If a trait is too complex, it will be annoying: "This unit does 1 extra point of damage, on defense, in the middle of the night, during a new moon, when there is more than one enemy unit that has no ranged attack within 1 turn's movement of the unit."
My impression was that more traits were opposed for other reasons than lack of ideas or balance or coding. Are you saying you'd love to have 20 traits to pick from if they were easy to code?
I am saying that I would be happy to have 20 traits per race (perhaps some specific to each race for reason of flavor) if they fit the above rules of thumb. This would reduce the ability of players to depend on getting units that have any particular trait, which would perhaps expose those that are overpowered and everone wants. I am also saying that I don't think 20 such traits exist. Consider the following trait (proposed and even written as a patch by myself, long ago).

Wise: unit gains 1 experience from kills made by allied units adjacent to it.

so this clearly works within the game mechanics (I have a patch that impliments it). It is relatively simple (only 1 maybe 2 conditionals.) It is arguably weak in that it only gives 1 experience point with a caveat. Is it balanced? The problem is, it is relatively weak, say compared to intelligent for most units. For some units, however, it is considered unbalanced. For example, you would almost always want a wise shaman over a strong one. So for certain units (those that are bad at combat) wise is not weak at all. This is a problem. Not insurmountable, perhaps, in that you could restrict wisdom only to combat heavy units, but it would seem wierd to have wise elven fighters, but not have any wise shamans. Balancing this trait by adding penalties would also be difficult to do, since it is really only overpowered for certain types of units, so essentially the penalties would become pure negative traits for other units. Eventually, I may convince myself that I have a way around this, but for now, it still violates the RoT's that I have listed.

And this brings us to the question of negative traits. Here is one way to think about it. Negative traits already exist. You construct negative traits by taking all the traits that the unit could have but doesn't. You define the unit as having the statistics of the unit type with all positive traits, and then you have a number of negative traits randomly selected for the unit equivalent to the Max number of traits minus the normal number of traits that the unit has. Now, this is all currently doable, but it points out that having negative traits really doesn't add anything to gameplay, but it does add to complexity, because now I have to think about the effect of traits in both the positive and negative ways. You might think at first blush that composite traits(those that have both positive and negative results) violate this, but with a little thought I think you will see that this is not the case, they only make it more difficult to think about. As an excercise for the interested reader (hah!) you can go figure out how to rewrite the current units and traits so that the statistics of all units are the identical, but quick has only a positive effect.

So in conclusion, I am in favor of more good traits as defined by my Rules of Thumb. I think using some of these traits as race specific traits to add flavor (and perhaps for reasons of balance) is a good idea. I would like to encourage the proposing of new traits (I hope my arguing has not been too discouraging). I present the rules of thumb as guidance, so when new trait ideas are proposed, the originators can try and address them in advance if possible, not as a means of censoring ideas that do not pass these criteria. Ideas that violate them are still welcome, but I would not be optomistic at their chances of acceptance. They might, however, spawn new derivative ideas that do pass the rules of thumb, which is why brainstorming is a good thing, and people should NOT just say to themselves "this trait is really cool but it violates Darth's Rot, so I won't post it." but rather say to themselves "this trait is really cool but it violates that fools silly rules, so I will post it and address how it violates them in advance. Maybe someone will be inspired by how cool it is."
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Post by DavidByron »

The Fool's Rules (if I can say that? :) ) if they are flexible enough to support the "Wise" trait, seem pretty open to new traits to me. I'm surprised the game isn't knee deep in traits.

BTW it was some other guy who first suggested "Wise" it's on page 26 (of this forum), the second to last (first posted) page I think. His name began with an "S". You replied to the thread he posted in and said you thought it was a great idea I think. You modified the concept to include both enemy and allied deaths. Ah here it is. Sangel. Does he still post? He proposed a bunch of trait ideas. In fact he also proposed traits for races before.

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1095

So... the WML is flexible enough to implement "Wise" without any core coding change at all? That's pretty cool. You can create an event off a death and check for nearby units with the "Wise" trait and increment their XP all using the WML??? Wow. So you just went off and added it with a mod?

Maybe there should be a recap thread on suggested traits.
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Post by Darth Fool »

DavidByron wrote:The Fool's Rules (if I can say that? :) ) if they are flexible enough to support the "Wise" trait, seem pretty open to new traits to me. I'm surprised the game isn't knee deep in traits.
Well, no, they are not quite flexible enough to support wise, at least not as currently proposed. It doesn't quite pass my own Rules of Thumb. Of course, it was proposed long before I developed the rules of thumb to describe what makes a trait acceptable, so its rejection has, in part, been encoded into the rules.
BTW it was some other guy who first suggested "Wise" it's on page 26 (of this forum), the second to last (first posted) page I think. His name began with an "S". You replied to the thread he posted in and said you thought it was a great idea I think. You modified the concept to include both enemy and allied deaths. Ah here it is. Sangel. Does he still post? He proposed a bunch of trait ideas. In fact he also proposed traits for races before.

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1095
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=987&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45 wrote: As this is my first post, let me first say, I really have enjoyed the game so far. As this is the place to post ideas for new features, I thought I'd suggest the following unit traits and abilities, recognizing, of course, that you are free to do or not-do what you like with them:

Wisdom(trait): Unit learns vicariously from units in its ZOC.
the date on mine is Mon Mar 22, 2004 8:29 pm, the date on the one you mention is: Fri Apr 02, 2004 5:46 pm, so I beat him by a bit :) In fact, Dave's response to him is making reference to my first post :)
So... the WML is flexible enough to implement "Wise" without any core coding change at all? That's pretty cool. You can create an event off a death and check for nearby units with the "Wise" trait and increment their XP all using the WML??? Wow. So you just went off and added it with a mod?
not quite. Well, maybe. A wise like trait might be possible to do by the WML wizards who really know how to use events, but I am pretty sure that it would have to be included in all scenarios in which it was used, and not just as part of the unit definition. My patch was an actual change to the C++ code. By saying that the game mechanics limit what traits can do, I mean that there are only a limited number of stats that can be effected, not that the code has been written to impliment the necessary effects.
Maybe there should be a recap thread on suggested traits.
Or a wiki page. Hmm... I think there is one. ...ok, only sort of: http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/NewUnits mixed in with unit proposals, and it isn't a complete list. no Wise :( ;)
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