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Topic: Removing the variability of soldier properties

ixprefect

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Posted at: 2010-05-08, 19:55

As probably not too many people know, freshly minted, entirely untrained soldiers are not created equal. When a soldier is created, their maximum hitpoints are in fact determined randomly. This difference cannot be seen in-game, besides from the fact that soldiers with randomly higher HP obviously do better in battle.

This just complicates things, is rather surprising (considering that the difference cannot actually be seen in the game), and seems to be good for pretty much nothing at all.

I'm working on a branch to remove this, and let all soldiers be created equal (of course, differences between soldiers among tribes, and differences depending on the training that a soldier gets will remain).

Are there any serious objections to a removal?


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ixprefect

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Posted at: 2010-05-08, 21:51

See this merge proposal: https://code.launchpad.net/~nha/widelands/soldier-cleanup/+merge/24946


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SirVer

Joined: 2009-02-19, 15:18
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Posted at: 2010-05-08, 21:57

nicolai, let me suggest to also remove the randomness in worker experience. When we decided for it it seemed like a good idea, but seeing as very good games remove randomness entirely from their rule sets (for example Starcraft 2 has no randomness in it, all is deterministics), I think we should go the same root to make balancing possible.

Granted, the randomness in widelands is not really that pronounced.


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ixprefect

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Posted at: 2010-05-09, 13:26

Done. Removed all these cases of randomness from trunk.


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SirVer

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Posted at: 2010-05-09, 17:35

very good. thanks


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Astuur
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Joined: 2009-02-28, 10:08
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Posted at: 2010-05-10, 08:11

How about the different initial attack values? They also have a small range. Probably random, too. See /soldier/conf


Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino).

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ixprefect

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Posted at: 2010-05-10, 11:30

The attack values are a different issue. All soldiers at the same level of the same tribe have the same min-max attack value. Then when a soldier hits his opponent, the amount of damage dealt is a random value between this min and max.

So all soldiers have the same min-max attack values, but they cause a random amount of damage, thus causing a random outcome of battles. Completely deterministic outcome of battles is not something I'd like to see personally. It would destroy the thrill of fingernail biting while hoping your soldiers win a fight.

Right now, there are two places of randomness in battle: (a) whether a soldier hits his opponent and (b) the amount of damage dealt when he does hit. It doesn't necessarily have to be like this, but it seems to be a good system, considering that most (all?) pen&paper RPGs use something like it.


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Astuur
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Posted at: 2010-05-10, 15:21

Very well -- thanks for explaining the details!


Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino).

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