Do the Elvish Shyde/Sylph fly, or not?

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kurt751
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Do the Elvish Shyde/Sylph fly, or not?

Post by kurt751 »

Well, they have wings, and their movement is described as "woodlandfloat", which evokes some kind of airborne (or at least not ground-based) movement.

But then again they can't move over chasms, and seem to be slowed down by deep water, so I'm a little confused. :?:
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zookeeper
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Re: Do the Elvish Shyde/Sylph fly, or not?

Post by zookeeper »

Their ability to fly is partly magical and only partly accomplished by the actual physical lift they can generate with their wings, so the height at which they fly is limited. So, they float, but cannot cross chasms, and are slowed over deep water because floating above liquid is trickier than above solid ground.
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Re: Do the Elvish Shyde/Sylph fly, or not?

Post by kurt751 »

I see.
Okay, I can understand the reasoning about chasms, but I fail to see why there should be a difference between different types of water... I mean, for flying over it, I don't see what difference it could make how deep the water is. :shock:
(Well of course there is the open sea, huge waves, strong winds and all that, but most "deep water" you meet in BfW is just rivers and lakes.)

So there isn't any recruitable flying unit in the "good" camp, is there?
(I mean, unless you add to your rooster falcons and griffons, which have the inconvenience of changing the gameplay. I was just looking for a line-of-sight improving unit, not for an aerial fighting unit.)

My problem is the (IMHO not well thought out) feature of BfW which says that you can't see further away than you can move. Which means that shroud never gets removed over "unwalkable" terrain like deep water or chasms (unless you have a flying/swimming creature)... I personally think all units should be able to see as far as they can move, on all types of terrain, except for mountains, hills and forests, since those three indeed block sight. But especially there is definitely no rational reason a unit shouldn't be able to look over a chasm... :mrgreen:
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Ravana
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Re: Do the Elvish Shyde/Sylph fly, or not?

Post by Ravana »

My problem is the (IMHO not well thought out) feature of BfW which says that you can't see further away than you can move.
It has not been the rule for some time, I know of one unit that makes use of this, https://github.com/ProditorMagnus/Agele ... fg#L13-L14
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Re: Do the Elvish Shyde/Sylph fly, or not?

Post by kurt751 »

Ravana wrote:It has not been the rule for some time, I know of one unit that makes use of this, https://github.com/ProditorMagnus/Agele ... fg#L13-L14
Still, this might need to be fixed.
Speaking of custom units, where does one get them? I've read about other epochs with other units which sounded interesting. Are they tied to a specific campaign, or are those other epochs just generic add-ons?
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Re: Do the Elvish Shyde/Sylph fly, or not?

Post by Ravana »

There are some campaign-only units, but most are in eras.
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Re: Do the Elvish Shyde/Sylph fly, or not?

Post by kurt751 »

Yes, eras, not epochs, sorry. How do you get those "eras"? Are they add-ons?
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Re: Do the Elvish Shyde/Sylph fly, or not?

Post by Ravana »

Normal addons yes.
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Re: Do the Elvish Shyde/Sylph fly, or not?

Post by kurt751 »

Okay, thanks. Will look into those once I've finished all the official campaigns.
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Re: Do the Elvish Shyde/Sylph fly, or not?

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

kurt751 wrote:So there isn't any recruitable flying unit in the "good" camp, is there?
A bit late here, but... I object to this question.. There are no "good camps" or "evil camps" in Wesnoth, and even if you feel that some factions may tend away from "good", I don't see drakes as bad guys in a general sense.
kurt751 wrote:Which means that shroud never gets removed over "unwalkable" terrain like deep water or chasms (unless you have a flying/swimming creature)...
Actually, "unwalkable" is a term specifically used by the game to cover chasms, lava, and similar terrains. It explicitly excludes deep water, which is its own category.
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kurt751
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Re: Do the Elvish Shyde/Sylph fly, or not?

Post by kurt751 »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote:I object to this question.. There are no "good camps" or "evil camps" in Wesnoth
Objection sustained. I just took a shortcut relying on well-established stereotypes. That's why I put the word "good" in quotes, to indicate I'm not using that word as a moral judgment, but rather as a stereotype. Compare 'in the "good" camp' with 'in the good camp'.

Celtic_Minstrel wrote:Actually, "unwalkable" is a term specifically used by the game to cover chasms, lava, and similar terrains. It explicitly excludes deep water, which is its own category.
Another shortcut. I'm lazy, and "unwalkable" is definitely shorter to type than "terrain hexes a standard walking unit can't possibly enter". :mrgreen:
That been said, you're nitpicking on definitions, but what about my actual point?
What about the problem that shroud doesn't get removed over "terrain hexes a standard walking unit can't possibly enter"? You discover a deep water pond and lo and behold, an island of shroud will remain on that pond, even if it's just 4 hexes across. IMHO this looks unnatural.
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Re: Do the Elvish Shyde/Sylph fly, or not?

Post by zookeeper »

There's no one right answer to the problem of vision across deep water and chasm. On one hand, sure, you (usually) should be able to see over them even if you can't move there, but on the other hand, introducing an exception like that brings its own problems and it's not quite obvious how exactly it should work in the first place.
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Re: Do the Elvish Shyde/Sylph fly, or not?

Post by gfgtdf »

The game engine aleady seperates vision cost from movement costs. So it could be rather simple to make units see over water.
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Re: Do the Elvish Shyde/Sylph fly, or not?

Post by kurt751 »

I think it's worth changing that.
The current way to do it hasn't been well thought out I think.
The fact you can't see your hand in front of your nose looks silly, and does make the use of shroud problematic for the scenario creator.
I'm making a campaign right now, where the player starts in familiar terrain (fog, but no shroud), and leaves to explore new terrain (shroud and fog). Now, isn't it a little silly if the player can't spot an enemy/village/whatever only 3 hexes from him, just because there is a "terrain hex a standard walking unit can't possibly enter" between them? I've solved the problem by giving my leader a pet falcon, but that's an ugly crutch which brings other map design problems with it (I don't want for instance the player to be able to send that falcon village hunting or enemy baiting).

I don't see what problems it would bring if vision was fixed distance, please explain to me.
I think vision should only be impeded by some specific terrains as I said above, terrains which indeed limit view, like mountains and woods).
I think vision distance should be a free value (like hit points), specific to each unit type. Falcons for instance should have a keen sight, mages on the other hand are very short-sighted (too much reading in candlelight), elves see further than humans (keen senses), undead have very bad eyesight due to death-induced eye damage, and so on.
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zookeeper
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Re: Do the Elvish Shyde/Sylph fly, or not?

Post by zookeeper »

kurt751 wrote:I don't see what problems it would bring if vision was fixed distance, please explain to me.
I think vision should only be impeded by some specific terrains as I said above, terrains which indeed limit view, like mountains and woods).
I think vision distance should be a free value (like hit points), specific to each unit type.
That's too big of a change to happen anyway, so I don't really want to spend a lot of time on discussing its problems. What I was talking about was keeping the current vision rules, but having some kind of exception for vision across terrains like water and chasms. Which I think in principle sounds like a nice idea, but someone would have to come up with a convincing plan of how exactly it should work.
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