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The Battle for Wesnoth https://www.wesnoth.org/ https://www.wesnoth.org/ > The Battle for Wesnoth is an open source, turn-based strategy game with a high fant

The Battle for Wesnoth https://www.wesnoth.org/ https://www.wesnoth.org/ > The Battle for Wesnoth is an open source, turn-based strategy game with a high fantasy theme. It features both singleplayer and online/hotseat multiplayer combat. > Explore the world of Wesnoth and take part in its many adventures! Embark on a desperate quest to reclaim your rightful throne... Flee the Lich Lords to a new home across the sea... Delve into the darkest depths of the earth to craft a jewel of fire itself... Defend your kingdom against the ravaging hordes of a foul necromancer... Or lead a straggly band of survivors across the blazing sands to confront an unseen evil. > The choice is up to you...

HideousKojima 5y ago
Wesnoth is too heavily based on RNG for me (and apparently a lot of others who have tried it). Different terrain tiles changing your chance of getting hit is a cool idea in theory, but in practice it makes strategy less important and lucky dice rolls more important, especially when some tiles can give you a 70% or 80% chance to dodge. Increasing defense based on the tile you're on (and maybe a small dodge chance boost like +5% or +10%) would make it much more about strategy.
- Cyphase 5y ago
  Both exist; see this for more details: https://wiki.wesnoth.org/Defense_and_resistance https://wiki.wesnoth.org/Defense_and_resistance
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  Wesnoth is great and nicely balanced. Complaining about Wesnoth RNG is for losers. Wesnoth gives you an estimate of how much damage did you do against the expected. In long games, luck always evens out. In short games, it evens out across other games. Just accept it as a stroke of fate, and to your best with what you get.
  - chongli 5y ago
    That hasn't been my experience. From what I've dealt with, a run of bad luck early will leave your army perpetually behind the curve. Since units need to survive battles to level up you can be totally destroyed by some bad luck. Sure, your dice rolls will even out over the long run but the effects of early bad luck will compound throughout the game.
    - Cyphase 5y ago
      How would you improve Wesnoth?
      - chongli 5y ago
        It’s hard to say. The combat variance is pretty fundamental to the game design. If you took it away the battles would be pretty routine. Other games manage to incorporate a lot of randomness while keeping the basic interactions (combat etc) deterministic and predictable. For an example of this, see Slay the Spire. In that game the cards all have completely predictable effects. The randomness comes from the cards you’re dealt. Furthermore, you can control the randomness of card draw in numerous ways, potentially making your deck very reliable, possibly at the expense of full potential.
    - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
      One game you are unlucky, another one you are lucky. I've played hundereds of BW 2p matches, and lost/won only due to extreme run of good or bad luck maybe in 3% of games. Just move on and play the next game. Or play chess.
      - chongli 5y ago
        That’s called metagaming. In NetHack you would see people drinking from fountains all the time in the early game. Occasionally you’d get a wish which you could spend on some powerful artifact or silver dragon scale mail (SDSM) and win the game. Most of the time you’d unleash a bunch of water moccasins or a water demon and die immediately. Needless to say you could win games of NetHack by doing the metagaming strategy. The problem is that it wasn’t going to help you win the current game in front of you, the one you’re playing right now. And that’s where some players (like myself) part ways with metagaming. We are interested in winning the current game. That is, taking every game as a unique puzzle to solve and attempting to win. So a game that randomly decides “haha you lose” is unsatisfying.
- einpoklum 5y ago
  If you know exactly, in advance, with certainty, how a battle between two units is going to end up, that means your strategy is much shallower. You are much less likely to need backup plans for anything. But it's even more than that. Some units cause the same amount of _mean_ damage, but one may do so in fewer shots. And on the defense side, two units may take the same mean damage on a hex, but one unit has a higher dodge percentage, while the other has damage resistance. That makes for a much richer variety of units: Reliable hitters vs opportunistic shot-takers; tanks which will are sure to survive an attack, and pestering nuisances which, once swatted, will go away for good. You can't have that without the randomness.

HideousKojima 5y ago

Wesnoth is too heavily based on RNG for me (and apparently a lot of others who have tried it). Different terrain tiles changing your chance of getting hit is a cool idea in theory, but in practice it makes strategy less important and lucky dice rolls more important, especially when some tiles can give you a 70% or 80% chance to dodge. Increasing defense based on the tile you're on (and maybe a small dodge chance boost like +5% or +10%) would make it much more about strategy.

Cyphase 5y ago
Both exist; see this for more details: https://wiki.wesnoth.org/Defense_and_resistance https://wiki.wesnoth.org/Defense_and_resistance
Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
Wesnoth is great and nicely balanced. Complaining about Wesnoth RNG is for losers. Wesnoth gives you an estimate of how much damage did you do against the expected. In long games, luck always evens out. In short games, it evens out across other games. Just accept it as a stroke of fate, and to your best with what you get.
- chongli 5y ago
  That hasn't been my experience. From what I've dealt with, a run of bad luck early will leave your army perpetually behind the curve. Since units need to survive battles to level up you can be totally destroyed by some bad luck. Sure, your dice rolls will even out over the long run but the effects of early bad luck will compound throughout the game.
  - Cyphase 5y ago
    How would you improve Wesnoth?
    - chongli 5y ago
      It’s hard to say. The combat variance is pretty fundamental to the game design. If you took it away the battles would be pretty routine. Other games manage to incorporate a lot of randomness while keeping the basic interactions (combat etc) deterministic and predictable. For an example of this, see Slay the Spire. In that game the cards all have completely predictable effects. The randomness comes from the cards you’re dealt. Furthermore, you can control the randomness of card draw in numerous ways, potentially making your deck very reliable, possibly at the expense of full potential.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    One game you are unlucky, another one you are lucky. I've played hundereds of BW 2p matches, and lost/won only due to extreme run of good or bad luck maybe in 3% of games. Just move on and play the next game. Or play chess.
    - chongli 5y ago
      That’s called metagaming. In NetHack you would see people drinking from fountains all the time in the early game. Occasionally you’d get a wish which you could spend on some powerful artifact or silver dragon scale mail (SDSM) and win the game. Most of the time you’d unleash a bunch of water moccasins or a water demon and die immediately. Needless to say you could win games of NetHack by doing the metagaming strategy. The problem is that it wasn’t going to help you win the current game in front of you, the one you’re playing right now. And that’s where some players (like myself) part ways with metagaming. We are interested in winning the current game. That is, taking every game as a unique puzzle to solve and attempting to win. So a game that randomly decides “haha you lose” is unsatisfying.
einpoklum 5y ago
If you know exactly, in advance, with certainty, how a battle between two units is going to end up, that means your strategy is much shallower. You are much less likely to need backup plans for anything. But it's even more than that. Some units cause the same amount of _mean_ damage, but one may do so in fewer shots. And on the defense side, two units may take the same mean damage on a hex, but one unit has a higher dodge percentage, while the other has damage resistance. That makes for a much richer variety of units: Reliable hitters vs opportunistic shot-takers; tanks which will are sure to survive an attack, and pestering nuisances which, once swatted, will go away for good. You can't have that without the randomness.