3 ms·

My only gripe with the game is that healing doesn't give XP to the healing units. This means you need to place them in combat to level up instead of placing the

by rhdunn 6mo ago

My only gripe with the game is that healing doesn't give XP to the healing units. This means you need to place them in combat to level up instead of placing them behind the fighters like they are intended to be, and with them initially having low health they are very squishy. I know you can kinda cheese it by reducing a monster to 1-2 HP and then getting them to attack, but it feels like going against their role.

marknutter 6mo ago
It's OSS, no?
- tmtvl 6mo ago
  It is, but making a change that doesn't mess up the balance of the game can be tricky.
jjmarr 6mo ago
I've enjoyed this, honestly. There's a whole short-term pain/long-term gain tradeoff to risking healers that adds more strategy to the campaign. > I know you can kinda cheese it by reducing a monster to 1-2 HP In practice, I've found it difficult to get monsters to 1-2 HP since it often means not using your most powerful attacks. On harder difficulties I usually can't afford the opportunity cost.
- gwerbin 6mo ago
  Yeah I personally found this to be a big part of the tactical and strategic challenge. It reminded me a lot of Pokemon where you have a similar challenge, of slotting "exposure to fighting" into a limited action and HP budget. Edit: Now that I think about it, most turn-based games have this mechanic. It's almost an idiomatic balance/design decision in gaming. Compare to Dota where support heroes have acquired more and more opportunities for assist gold/XP, it does in some sense make the game "easier" for the support players, but then the game is harder in other ways because now the supports are all way more farmed and dangerous than in older versions. It's the difference between controlling an army of many units and having to manage them all, versus controlling one unit and needing to work together within a team.
  - vkou 6mo ago
    Dota/League does this because each hero is controlled by a human, and humans don't like playing low-impact, low-wealth, low-exp supports.
    - lotrjohn 6mo ago
      20 year Dota player here. I always play support and I’m ok with low wealth/ low xp. High impact tho! Only thing I’m good at carrying is wards.
- 8note 6mo ago
  gloomhaven has a reasonable solution to this - some heals give experience, others dont, and often times gaining experience comes with giving up other resources
thih9 6mo ago
> Frequently Proposed Ideas (FPIs) > 7. Healing/leadership should give experience > It is felt that allowing units to gain experience without risk would make leveling-up of such units inevitable. Further, one of the motivating examples of this is so that units such as shaman can have a hope to level up in multiplayer. It is pointed out that if the experience gains were high enough to allow shaman to level up in a single multiplayer game, then it would be trivial to gain the best type of healing unit in a campaign very quickly. https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=34904#w0fpi7 https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=34904#w0fpi7 (2011)
- a_t48 6mo ago
  There's various ways around this (like capping amount of experience per level by source), but ain't game design fun?
  - shevy-java 6mo ago
    It depends. Personally I think they should make alternatives more easy. For instance, under Options, for people to pick other ways to level up. Does not have to be 1000000 ways, just, say 3-5 ways in total, first one being the main default and only the main default is kept balanced, the rest can be unbalanced, just allowed per option as-is.
- SubiculumCode 6mo ago
  Other aspects of the game or mod-able, but such things as this I guess is against the grain enough to probably be difficult.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
otikik 6mo ago
Isn't the strategy then to keep them behind the fighter units, wait until an enemy is 1 HP away from death, make the healer advance and make a kill, then put a fighter in front of them again?
- bluGill 6mo ago
  Yes, but people don't like that because everyonce in a while a unit misses completely and then it will be targeted and die the next turn.
  - otikik 6mo ago
    No risk, no gain
    - bluGill 6mo ago
      At the more difficult levels it is really easy to get to a point where your strategy relies on a high probability event (a healer landing just one hit on a low HP unit) and then losing because it went against you. Which is frustrating, even if completely expected.
shevy-java 6mo ago
An indirect compensation is that these units require less XP to advance, but I understand your concern too. > I know you can kinda cheese it by reducing a monster to 1-2 HP and then getting them to attack, but it feels like going against their role. This is a problem with the XP-per-kill system. Wesnoth could use a variant instead. I use the above strategy all the time to level the healers up. Note that elven units have slow (their healers), which is very powerful in its own right for getting a kill on a unit. First slow, then deal damage with other units.
MarsIronPI 6mo ago
There's actually an add-on for this (and a bunch of other things too): Advance Wesnoth Wars. It adds options for XP-for-healing but also for making terrain affect damage taken rather than chance to hit (which is fun when you get tired of the randomness). This fork[0] of a fork of the original allegedly works with 1.18. I haven't tested it, because these days I play with the built-in predictable RNG and it suffices for me. https://github.com/ilya-ilya/Advance_Wesnoth_Wars https://github.com/ilya-ilya/Advance_Wesnoth_Wars
- tasuki 6mo ago
  > built-in predictable RNG What's that?
  - MarsIronPI 6mo ago
    Essentially it makes it so that if your attack is 4 swings attacking a unit on 50% defense territory, it will hit twice and miss twice every time. Any remainders are dealt with randomly, but the seed is based on the save, so it removes save-scumming (which has always tempted me, and I don't like).
graemep 6mo ago
My big gripe is that ranged weapons are not ranged. It just feels wrong and stops you trying some interesting tactics.

by rhdunn 6mo ago

marknutter 6mo ago

It's OSS, no?

tmtvl 6mo ago
It is, but making a change that doesn't mess up the balance of the game can be tricky.

jjmarr 6mo ago

I've enjoyed this, honestly. There's a whole short-term pain/long-term gain tradeoff to risking healers that adds more strategy to the campaign. > I know you can kinda cheese it by reducing a monster to 1-2 HP In practice, I've found it difficult to get monsters to 1-2 HP since it often means not using your most powerful attacks. On harder difficulties I usually can't afford the opportunity cost.

gwerbin 6mo ago
Yeah I personally found this to be a big part of the tactical and strategic challenge. It reminded me a lot of Pokemon where you have a similar challenge, of slotting "exposure to fighting" into a limited action and HP budget. Edit: Now that I think about it, most turn-based games have this mechanic. It's almost an idiomatic balance/design decision in gaming. Compare to Dota where support heroes have acquired more and more opportunities for assist gold/XP, it does in some sense make the game "easier" for the support players, but then the game is harder in other ways because now the supports are all way more farmed and dangerous than in older versions. It's the difference between controlling an army of many units and having to manage them all, versus controlling one unit and needing to work together within a team.
- vkou 6mo ago
  Dota/League does this because each hero is controlled by a human, and humans don't like playing low-impact, low-wealth, low-exp supports.
  - lotrjohn 6mo ago
    20 year Dota player here. I always play support and I’m ok with low wealth/ low xp. High impact tho! Only thing I’m good at carrying is wards.
8note 6mo ago
gloomhaven has a reasonable solution to this - some heals give experience, others dont, and often times gaining experience comes with giving up other resources

thih9 6mo ago

> Frequently Proposed Ideas (FPIs) > 7. Healing/leadership should give experience > It is felt that allowing units to gain experience without risk would make leveling-up of such units inevitable. Further, one of the motivating examples of this is so that units such as shaman can have a hope to level up in multiplayer. It is pointed out that if the experience gains were high enough to allow shaman to level up in a single multiplayer game, then it would be trivial to gain the best type of healing unit in a campaign very quickly. https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=34904#w0fpi7 https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=34904#w0fpi7 (2011)

a_t48 6mo ago
There's various ways around this (like capping amount of experience per level by source), but ain't game design fun?
- shevy-java 6mo ago
  It depends. Personally I think they should make alternatives more easy. For instance, under Options, for people to pick other ways to level up. Does not have to be 1000000 ways, just, say 3-5 ways in total, first one being the main default and only the main default is kept balanced, the rest can be unbalanced, just allowed per option as-is.
SubiculumCode 6mo ago
Other aspects of the game or mod-able, but such things as this I guess is against the grain enough to probably be difficult.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]

otikik 6mo ago

Isn't the strategy then to keep them behind the fighter units, wait until an enemy is 1 HP away from death, make the healer advance and make a kill, then put a fighter in front of them again?

bluGill 6mo ago
Yes, but people don't like that because everyonce in a while a unit misses completely and then it will be targeted and die the next turn.
- otikik 6mo ago
  No risk, no gain
  - bluGill 6mo ago
    At the more difficult levels it is really easy to get to a point where your strategy relies on a high probability event (a healer landing just one hit on a low HP unit) and then losing because it went against you. Which is frustrating, even if completely expected.

shevy-java 6mo ago

An indirect compensation is that these units require less XP to advance, but I understand your concern too. > I know you can kinda cheese it by reducing a monster to 1-2 HP and then getting them to attack, but it feels like going against their role. This is a problem with the XP-per-kill system. Wesnoth could use a variant instead. I use the above strategy all the time to level the healers up. Note that elven units have slow (their healers), which is very powerful in its own right for getting a kill on a unit. First slow, then deal damage with other units.

MarsIronPI 6mo ago

There's actually an add-on for this (and a bunch of other things too): Advance Wesnoth Wars. It adds options for XP-for-healing but also for making terrain affect damage taken rather than chance to hit (which is fun when you get tired of the randomness). This fork[0] of a fork of the original allegedly works with 1.18. I haven't tested it, because these days I play with the built-in predictable RNG and it suffices for me. https://github.com/ilya-ilya/Advance_Wesnoth_Wars https://github.com/ilya-ilya/Advance_Wesnoth_Wars

tasuki 6mo ago
> built-in predictable RNG What's that?
- MarsIronPI 6mo ago
  Essentially it makes it so that if your attack is 4 swings attacking a unit on 50% defense territory, it will hit twice and miss twice every time. Any remainders are dealt with randomly, but the seed is based on the save, so it removes save-scumming (which has always tempted me, and I don't like).

graemep 6mo ago

My big gripe is that ranged weapons are not ranged. It just feels wrong and stops you trying some interesting tactics.