SXC Development

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pkz
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SXC Development

Post by pkz »

I Figured a new post dedicated to this topic would make things easier to follow.

I have a few issues with the direction SXC is moving in.

The new armor system is deeply flawed and need to be changed. It allows all units to get 240% armor. This greatly unbalances units. Why take a dwarf for a berserker when a Fencer or Footpad is far better?

Equalizing units unbalances them. Unless you equalize *everything*. And if you do that, might as well eliminate unit selection since it doesnt matter anyways. This needs to stop. The previous armor system worked well when playing. it had a couple of limitations that could be easily fixed, but it worked well. The new system does not work at all. It not only unbalances units, it also allows far too much armor. The system Lester proposed also seems to have some merit. Bottom line is, units should not be capible of all getting same armor. A Dwarf should always be able to get more than a Footpad. And 240% is way too high for 0 armor units to be getting. We need to scale back on armor, in order to keep bosses reasonable, not increase it.

I would suggest either, Lesters idea, or the system i implemented, but with the change that all res > 50% are set to %50. This would allow units like the drake to be able to spread out armor better. also, adding a cap to picks at total_positive+picks =< 230%, would reign in the ghost and other era units with too much armor.

-stf- you have a choice you need to make. One Are all units going to be equalized or balanced?

If balanced (the right answer) then armor system must be changed.and also the terrain shop must change either back to what it was which worked well, or to something else that doesnt break the balance as current one does. Pretty much any unit can buy the equivalent to flight for around 35 gold. This is very unbalancing. Makes a horseman have better move than a glider? 10 picks way too many, and 5 gold way too cheap. Either a limit at 3 or 4 types, or a stacking cost that makes buying more than 3 very expensive. Or anything else that doesnt equalize the units.
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Re: SXC Development

Post by -stf- »

It's not as simple as you can think. There is one problem, that is specific for Survival Extreme (SX).

In normal maps and campaigns, where are units recruited by players, are units relatively balanced by their resistances, terrain defense, hit points, abilities, damage, strikes and specials on weapons, experience needed to reach higher level or AMLA and overall also by price that you must pay for recruiting them.

In SX, you can only control 1 unit for your side and many weapon specials and abilities are either too powerful (drain), slowing on calculations (normal berserk), unusable (default heal or regenerate, summon) or also annoying for other players (plague, petrify - causing army of units blocking movement for other players) so the only possible solution is to remove these specials and abilities or replace them with corresponding SX abilities and weapon specials. That is first thing that unbalances the unit.
Second thing is damage and strikes for all weapons, either default weapons that are defined for unit or weapons that can be bought in shop. At start it can give some advantage to units with high base damage or strikes but after about 30 or 40 turns there is not big difference between total damage caused by weapons without specials.
Example:
Let's have weapons with following values for damage-strikes: 50-1, 20-2, 17-3, 11-5
after 100 damage and 10 strikes upgrade you will get: 150-11, 120-12, 117-13, 111-15
that is total damage:1650, 1440, 1521, 1665
as you can see, only about 15% maximum difference (possibly up to 20%).
What more? Unit cost says nothing about the unit strength after all these changes and hit points are after applying 500HP upgrades also maximally about 12% difference (516 against 572 or so).

So there are only 2 factors left - resistances (armor) and terrain defenses. Because some units have too high or too low default armor but not corresponding terrain defenses (all previous changes cause unbalancing for units that are balanced for normal maps or campaigns), there must be implemented some mechanism to achieve balance for units based on terrain defense and armor.
Here begins another problem. Some units have too low or too high terrain defense (and we cannot disallow people to pay with them). So we must reach the point, where all units will have similar chances to win the game at approximately same turn at corresponding difficulty.
First part of this is to get all terrain defenses to usable value. This is currently done by limiting the base value between 40 and 80 and fixing the value for undefined terrain, which was 0 in 1.6 and now in 1.8 it is 100%. But still there are many units with both too high or too low resistances and terrain defense, which is very far from balance. So the only possible way to balance the differences between units is to achieve balance between resistances and terrain defense.
The first step is lowering differences between units with too high and too low and too high armor by dividing the default armor by some value against free upgrades level and reach the maximum armor value about 40% which is good starting point for further balancing.
Current calculation is done only about one half:
new_armor = (base_armor - 10) / 3 + 10
This improves armor for units with very bad armors but also decreases armor for units with overpowered armors while still keeps unit's characteristics
Last step is not yet done - determining how much upgrades will be unit able to buy to achieve the balance against the terrain defense. Currently the maximum total armor after upgrades is set as 240, but that is only half way to the balance. This value must be adjusted according to the terrain defenses to reach the real balance. It's also possible that this value will need to be adjusted according to map data. Now I need to get informations about used terrains from all maps and determine the ratio for all terrains accessible by players to get the proper formula for calculation. This will, of course, take some time. So, please, be patient.
Unfortunately here is not big chance to achieve the balance with simple calculation based only on the default armor. That is completely wrong. There are units with both armor over 50% and most terrain defenses also over 50% but also many units with armor around 0% and terrain defenses under 40% (now adjusted to 40%). That perfectly works with conjunction with other factors as default hit points, abilities and weapon specials but after eliminating them we must get the balance by adjustable factors for SX. First option is to completely balance units in calculation by dividing (or limiting, which is not keeping unit characteristics too well) and shifting the armor to balanced value and leave fixed number of armor upgrades (without free upgrades), second option is to not shift the armor (current calculation) and determine the total maximum upgrades over free upgrades (which is not yet done and will take some time to do it properly).
Your system, pkz, was very far from balancing because it allowed about same upgrades for both fencer and merfolk (way different terrain defenses) while overpowered units (as ghosts) with very high armor was still able to gain more upgrades making them nearly undefeatable.
Current system needs only the calculation for determining the maximum possible upgrades based on terrain defenses (while still allowing at least 70% armor for 2 armor types for battle against bosses who use magical attacks, not taking terrain defenses in calculation), because at least 80% units recruited by enemy don't have magical attacks.

About terrain shop, maybe the number of trainable terrains is really high, but when it will not be high enough, then some units will have big problem to even move (merfolk in example - they need much more picks to make them usable). Again, current version is mainly for debugging and needs to be adjusted properly. Price is going up with more training but bad terrain movement should not be handicap and should allow cheaper upgrades for units with most normal terrains nearly unmovable. Current maximum is determined as 2 untrainable terrains for all units, but it will need to be properly reconsidered (problem is i.e. with elvish sylph not set as flying and unable to get over chasms or deep water even with wings - maybe it's now different, I didn't tested). 3 or 4 upgrades is too low number for merfolk while even 2 are too high for i.e. bat. It will need also proper formula for price calculation, current is just base concept for better one.
Last edited by -stf- on August 17th, 2010, 8:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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SpoOkyMagician
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Re: SXC Development

Post by SpoOkyMagician »

I don't know if you may like this idea or not but, it should make balancing the game much easier. (but, it could make it less entertaining...) Make a single custom/generic hero. (or if you think it should have a few more, make a single generic race unit.) and make the defense/damage/attacks/etc balanced from there. (players can still customize the character from the shop.) Again, this would eliminate arguing back and forth about what works and what won't work. So you could have something like this...

Elf
Human
Dwarf
Troll
Merman
Drake
Undead

Something like that... Again, it's just an idea. It would be an interesting way to balance everything but, just a thought.

~SpoOkyMagician

edit: the only downfall to this is that it will become a required download add-on.

edit: I need to go to bed now... 4 am... goodnight.
"You don't have to understand me, I'm just there!" ~ SpoOkyMagician
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-stf-
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Re: SXC Development

Post by -stf- »

spookymagician wrote:Make a single custom/generic hero.
Well, it could work but only in case people will choose default era for this. And you know reality. People like to play with any era they like, not with what you expect. Additionally, it would need hero adjusting based on menus which is like creating new shop.
pkz
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Re: SXC Development

Post by pkz »

-stf- wrote:
So there are only 2 factors left - resistances (armor) and terrain defenses.
There are more than two factors left. MV, terrain, res, evade, weapon specials, abilities, strikes, alma, are all active factors. at this point the only ones lost due to SXC are HP dmg, and cost. The HP leads to some unbalance and is an undealt with issue. but cost/dmg seem to make little difference. By equalizing two of these but leaving the rest just causes further imbalance.

As i said before, in order to retain balance, you must either equalize everything (and spookys idea would do that). Or balance it.
-stf- wrote: Last step is not yet done - determining how much upgrades will be unit able to buy to achieve the balance against the terrain defense. Currently the maximum total armor after upgrades is set as 240, but that is only half way to the balance. This value must be adjusted according to the terrain defenses to reach the real balance. It's also possible that this value will need to be adjusted according to map data. Now I need to get informations about used terrains from all maps and determine the ratio for all terrains accessible by players to get the proper formula for calculation. This will, of course, take some time. So, please, be patient.
This is not balancing. this is equalizing. call it what it is. If you want to equalize, then you must equalise all. currently you have introduced an imbalance that makes many units useless. You must finish what you started and equalize all or set it back on the path the game was traveling (balance).
-stf- wrote: Unfortunately here is not big chance to achieve the balance with simple calculation based only on the default armor. That is completely wrong.
That is *RIGHT* not wrong for balance, it is wrong for equalizing. basing armor upgrades off of current armor is the proper way to maintain balance. High armor units like dwarf get higher armor than 0-armor units like fencer. this is as it should be. it is assumed that when a unit is made its strong areas are balanced with low areas. looking at one area at a time and and basing upgrades on its strength is the way to achive this.
-stf- wrote: Your system, pkz, was very far from balancing because it allowed about same upgrades for both fencer and merfolk (way different terrain defenses) while overpowered units (as ghosts) with very high armor was still able to gain more upgrades making them nearly undefeatable.
My system was good at maintaining balance, much much more so that what you implemented. it was not perfect. it didnt handle ghost well. but the problem with ghost is caused by HP and cost, not armor. You are real quick to say how my system didnt work. But it did. you never tried it. We tested it, and it did well unit were in balance for the most part. a Fencer became a worthy pick again, but dwarf was still good. with exception of ghost, and a problem with a few drakes, it worked very well.

Say what you want about it, but your opinion on it is worthless until you actually try it. It worked, and thats a fact. yours currently does not.
-stf- wrote: About terrain shop, maybe the number of trainable terrains is really high, but when it will not be high enough, then some units will have big problem to even move (merfolk in example - they need much more picks to make them usable). Again, current version is mainly for debugging and needs to be adjusted properly. Price is going up with more training but bad terrain movement should not be handicap and should allow cheaper upgrades for units with most normal terrains nearly unmovable. Current maximum is determined as 2 untrainable terrains for all units, but it will need to be properly reconsidered (problem is i.e. with elvish sylph not set as flying and unable to get over chasms or deep water even with wings - maybe it's now different, I didn't tested). 3 or 4 upgrades is too low number for merfolk while even 2 are too high for i.e. bat. It will need also proper formula for price calculation, current is just base concept for better one.
So you think the solution for merfolk is to unbalance all other units? a Horseman that outflies a glider for $35? a merfolk is a water unit. to make it a good land unit is a major change to unit. major change should not come easy. If you want to change the merfolk, then change that unit. it is not a 'lanf-folk'. Equalizing all units to account for a type that was not meant for land does not make sense.

Evade does not need to be changed at this point. with balanced armor and terrain it has worked well as it is. it is only a problem for equalizing. It does a good job of balancing.eg. fencer gets high evade to make up for low armor. etc. It only becomes a problem when you equalize armor. the solution is not to also break evade.

You must decide. Equalize ALL, or balance it. you current ideas are very flawed for balance, unless you apply them to all factors and equalize across the board. this hybrid system does not work.

If thats what you want to do fine, it may be the only way to make all units perfectly equal. But call it what it is. and if that is the way you want to go maybe spookys idea (and i think i heard Lester say something similar) might be a good way to have equal units but still create some variety. It is not "too much work" i could do it in a few hours easy enough if you cant. And i could make it apply no matter what era you chose.
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Re: SXC Development

Post by -stf- »

pkz wrote: There are more than two factors left. MV, terrain, res, evade, weapon specials, abilities, strikes, alma, are all active factors. at this point the only ones lost due to SXC are HP dmg, and cost.
I think we are not understanding each other what is balancing and we can both have different meaning about it. But you can't tell that strikes are active and damage lost, both damage and strikes are changed by shop system but are balanced (or call it equalized) after buying some amount of upgrades, so these don't need balancing, same for HP, becoming nearly equal after some time. Most weapon specials and abilities conflict with SX system so they are removed or replaced by not conflicting types or improved to SXC abilities. But most of them can be bought in shop or sold and replaced with different special and that clears the differences too. Abilities can be little problem but it can be compensated by allowing exact amount of maximum total abilities for unit including default ability. Call it equalizing if you want. AMLA is little different problem but until it's too low or high it causes only little difference and it's very hard to control, unless it will be replaced with standard AMLA even for units from other eras. So the only factors left from your list are movement, terrain movement, resistances and terrain defense.
Here is little problem with terrain movement - when we don't want to disable other eras with hundreds of unknown units, we need either to enable buying terrain training for all most used terrains in main corridor where the unit must go on the used map and some extra terrains or leave more terrain training for all units. Movement upgrades (both terrain cost and moves) can be counted in the balancing process too. Basically this adds 2 more factors into the calculation, but when you don't want it to be done immediately, it can be done over time.
pkz wrote:
-stf- wrote: Unfortunately here is not big chance to achieve the balance with simple calculation based only on the default armor. That is completely wrong.
That is *RIGHT* not wrong for balance, it is wrong for equalizing. basing armor upgrades off of current armor is the proper way to maintain balance. High armor units like dwarf get higher armor than 0-armor units like fencer. this is as it should be. it is assumed that when a unit is made its strong areas are balanced with low areas. looking at one area at a time and and basing upgrades on its strength is the way to achive this.
As long, as you only change the armor based on armor only, you will not achieve balance, while you will not affect also terrain defense and possibly other factors that work in the opposite direction in battle. After all possible upgrades (strikes, damage, abilities, specials) these are the only 2 other factors that are active in battle, movement is not much effective when you attack (except that you can attack from longer distance or run away faster).
pkz wrote:
-stf- wrote: Your system, pkz, was very far from balancing because it allowed about same upgrades for both fencer and merfolk (way different terrain defenses) while overpowered units (as ghosts) with very high armor was still able to gain more upgrades making them nearly undefeatable.
My system was good at maintaining balance, much much more so that what you implemented. it was not perfect. it didnt handle ghost well. but the problem with ghost is caused by HP and cost, not armor. You are real quick to say how my system didnt work. But it did. you never tried it. We tested it, and it did well unit were in balance for the most part. a Fencer became a worthy pick again, but dwarf was still good. with exception of ghost, and a problem with a few drakes, it worked very well.
Say what you want about it, but your opinion on it is worthless until you actually try it. It worked, and thats a fact. yours currently does not.
Yes, I want to achieve the same but making it only based on armor is wrong, because units with normal stats will fit well but units as i.e. ghosts (there are many other units, not only drakes) don't.
Using terrain defense as the opposite factor to armor should work well for determining maximum armor upgrades, my calculation should work close to your for elves, fencer, dwarfs and many other unit but also for ghosts and overpowered units. Give me time to analyze data and I will be able to show you real numbers.
pkz wrote:
-stf- wrote: About terrain shop...
So you think the solution for merfolk is to unbalance all other units? a Horseman that outflies a glider for $35? a merfolk is a water unit. to make it a good land unit is a major change to unit. major change should not come easy. If you want to change the merfolk, then change that unit. it is not a 'lanf-folk'. Equalizing all units to account for a type that was not meant for land does not make sense.
This is not final solution, it just helps with debugging other areas and will be changed too. I.e. this helped to find the 100% terrain defense bug caused by engine for undefined terrains.
pkz wrote: Evade does not need to be changed at this point. with balanced armor and terrain it has worked well as it is. it is only a problem for equalizing. It does a good job of balancing.eg. fencer gets high evade to make up for low armor. etc. It only becomes a problem when you equalize armor. the solution is not to also break evade.
So you think that 0 - 20% terrain defense (hopefully it's what you call evade) on most "normal" terrains is playable? By the way, Lester brought idea about boosting all units with lower armor to 50%. I did it 40% and it can be always changed (I thought about 30% but it was too low for him, so I did 40% as compromise, but maybe he changed his mind, I don't know and I am not against discussion about it) but try to fight bosses with 10% defense and without armor and no suitable terrain around. What I did additionally is automatic lowering of all terrain defenses over 80% because rings can add +20% and boost over 100% always caused problems with engine (99% units are not affected by this limit).
pkz wrote: You must decide. Equalize ALL, or balance it. you current ideas are very flawed for balance, unless you apply them to all factors and equalize across the board. this hybrid system does not work.
I think we need really tell what you exactly call balance (examples for all factors please with exact numbers for at least ghost, dwarf, fencer, horseman, elf, corpse and drake, when you don't want combined factors, one by one, how do you want to achieve it and then compare all of them as result). Examples are better than only polemizing about what is and what is not balancing. It can be also language problem, because my native language is not english and we have also different culture so it can be another problem.
I don't want to make equal units, but what really balances SX is the ratio between damage caused and damage taken in battle which should not be too different and the win for all possible units should be possible to reach in range about +-10 turns at same difficulty for the map normal. So to say truth about what I wish to achieve are balanced maps and still keep characteristics of the units reflect original unit's values before applying upgrades and at the same time allow upgrades that will allow finishing one map in about the same time at the same difficulty with all sorts of the units.
pkz wrote: If thats what you want to do fine, it may be the only way to make all units perfectly equal. But call it what it is. and if that is the way you want to go maybe spookys idea (and i think i heard Lester say something similar) might be a good way to have equal units but still create some variety. It is not "too much work" i could do it in a few hours easy enough if you cant. And i could make it apply no matter what era you chose.
When you can do it not depending on the used era, i would like to see this solution, I can't say it's good or bad when I will not see it. It can be even used as selectable option for 2 shop systems.
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Golbeeze
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Re: SXC Development

Post by Golbeeze »

I just downloaded SXC again and it gave me the following stderr errors:
Spoiler:
Through trial and error (by removing all the add-ons from the folder and adding them back one-by-one) I have discovered that the following add-ons being in the Add-Ons folder at the same time as SXC cause this error:
Golbeezes_RPG
mercenaries
Era_of_Magic

I have no idea WHY this is the case, but it happens...
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-stf-
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Re: SXC Development

Post by -stf- »

I have no idea, I have all of these in Wesnoth 1.8.4 and no problem occured here (always updated from add-ons server to be sure all is ok, I am uploading from different directory, so it should cause error on cache rebuilding after update).
Try to delete all these add-ons and redownload them and also erase files in cache directory, old files in it can cause problems too. I am always deleting the cache files when I am upgrading Wesnoth for this reason.
Also delete SXCollective add-on, it is older version of current SXCollection and uses same macro names. This can be possible source of the problem too.
Last edited by -stf- on August 18th, 2010, 4:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Lester
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Re: SXC Development

Post by Lester »

Yesterday i made a new port of scenario SXC_Adventure for version 1.8.x

Today player wu, has defeated the map @ madmode, a great victory!
I want to share this with other members. Map used SXC-version 0.2.10

93 turns full of action, see attachment... :wink:
Attachments
SXC_Adventure_replay.gz
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Araja
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Re: SXC Development

Post by Araja »

Odd...The previous version worked fine with mercenaries; I played two matches with a friend of mine. Some recent change?

Anyway, it's great to see SurvivalXtreme getting back into the picture, even though the errors are making me hesitant everytime I click update add-ons :P . I look forward to seeing where this goes, and I would offer balance suggestions if I could just stop playing it with UMC eras.
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Re: SXC Development

Post by SpoOkyMagician »

Let me just put it this way (with my suggestion.) You have to do either the following or this argument will just continue on... (or so it seems to me)

1: Use the custom/generic era/units but allow for other eras to be used. (seriously, who cares if they use other eras. it may be balanced for the sxc era but, it's not balanced for other eras. only level 0 and level 1 eras that are fair/default units/etc... If players want to play at a noob-ish higher level unit, then I say, let them... But, I won't consider it a victory if they won on it without using a low level era or a fair era...)

or...

2: force SXC to use specifically use the custom/generic era/units. (I don't exactly like this idea for sxc but, if you *really* want it to be balanced, this is the only way I can see it be done... This is very easy to do. I got one wrote for UGS myself. I forced specific units for the game or the game automatically ends. Again, this prevents you from playing other eras but still... It will prevent higher level units or overpowered units...)

again, just my suggestion... If you don't use a custom era/units soon, I really don't see the end of this conversation above. There will always be flaws/issues/etc. if you used custom units/era(s), you could balance them right within the units and you should be done. I see very minimal problems with this route... (It will only take a few tries to balance all the units. that's all I see that will take some time...)

Golbeeze: Ironically enough, I had this happen to be before. However, I just re-downloaded/updated and it worked fine afterwords. It may just of been something out of data. also, make sure you remove the old/renamed sxc directory... (I wasn't aware it was renamed either until -stf- told me and it did cause some problems...)

Lester: good job. I will have to watch this. *downloads*
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pkz
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Re: SXC Development

Post by pkz »

-stf- :

first let me say thanks for the tone of your last message. You took the time to actually listen to what i said and respond with logical opinions instead of just responding with personal attacks when questioned. This is how collaboration should work.

you are right that we are not understanding each other properly. Maybe being ESL is the problem. allow me to expand on the differences between the meaning of 'balance' and "equalize'. Balance means unit would have different stats/abilities, but in the end be roughly the same level of power (over all). Units that have the same level of stats and abilities are not 'balance' they are 'equal'. This may have been cause of some confusion.

you also said that you thought strikes were lost the same way damage was. they are not. with a static limit on them it still allows units with a high number of attacks to gain more attacks then a unit with low number. this makes a big difference when strikes are capped. so they contribute to balance, but are not equal.

I'm not gonna bother going point by point through the rest. Spookymagician does a great job of summing up my opinion. You seem to feel that making all units equal (after upgrades) is a good idea. I would rather see units (after upgrades) still significantly different from each other (but balanced). While i would prefer the style we have been using up till now, if you are determined to equalize all units you must go all the way. equalizing some strengths, but not other leaves whole system greatly unbalanced.

Your point about needing to examine evade to figure out armor has missed its mark, probably due to your confusion over the words balance and equal. you are right that one must consider evade and other factors to equalize a unit. but to balance, it would have to be looked at alone. And i am just fine with a dwarf or treant having 0% evade in deep water. or 20% in swamp. changing this may equalize units, but it unbalances them unless you go all the way with equalization.

as for terrain. i am glad to hear you know it is bugged, and it is just a temp trial/test.

As for me telling you exactly what balance is with all the stats from a half dozen units. i'm not gonna do that, i dont need to. i explained above well enough that you can understand (i believe). Balance is not a pure numbers game. it is more of an art than a science. one unit has great attack, but weak defense, while other has great defense but weak attack, while a third has good in both. all 3 units are balanced, but not equal. if all three have same capabilities in attack and defence, then they are equal.

and for implementing something like spookys idea, i also dont know if it would be good. since i personaly prefer balanced but different units over equal units, i'm not a big fan of the idea. My point was only that it is simple to implement. Make a macro called by the player_side macro that changes all units stats/abilities /etc to the same template, then ask the user a few questions and change the units stats acordinly. eg "do you want to be a warrior?" if yes, add some HPs a little armor and maybe a strike or two. you get the idea? This is a much simpler method to create equal units than what you are doing.

Finally, and MOST IMPORTANT, the error sounds like it may be the same problem we had before, the one i already tried to tell you about. if it is the same, then it only happens on some systems, seems to be only windows, and only when certain combinations of add-ons are installed. SXC has probably been bugged (for some) since you put it up.
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Re: SXC Development

Post by Mabuse »

-stf- wrote: In normal maps and campaigns, where are units recruited by players, are units relatively balanced by their resistances, terrain defense, hit points, abilities, damage, strikes and specials on weapons, experience needed to reach higher level or AMLA and overall also by price that you must pay for recruiting them.
no. mainline units arent balanced in itself, factions are balanced versus each other.
so in essence, units arent balanced anyway. the stats are kept within certain boundaries depending on level.
-stf- wrote: So we must reach the point, where all units will have similar chances to win the game at approximately same turn at corresponding difficulty.
just my two cents:
no, you must not. ;)

one fun point of sx is also that you have to think which heroes may be good to use.
(on a certain map)

if all are equal or have same efficiency then its not good, since it takes away another element of strategy (the same thing happened with your weapon system - see below)). instead it makes it all more flat. perhaps this is intended though.

its also fun to think about which hero is good to fullfill certain tasks.
team play.

also the game will not get more interesting if you make it playable with all heroes. try other things





just as a side note:
i know you guys went your own way with SXC. Since SXC is mainly designed from the point of a player and not the point of a map designer (players want it easy, while map designers want to give a challenge).
of course i think its ok, but there are reasons why we dont get to a conclusion over certain points


for example i dislike the fact that you can buy all significant damage types (each weapon costs just 40 gold) for one hero for cheap money.

this gets basically to the point where weaknesses of bosses and units simply dont matter since the heros wil anyway have all damage types. so it doesnt matter if a boss is weak to cold, fire or arcane, since the players will simply get all these damages types.
its no problem for a hero to get fire, cold, arcane, and whatnot for 120 or 160 bucks. (in SXC)

and it also doesnt matter if a sword has 7-4 or 10-4 at start (using your "i counted all resistances from all known units" system) since it will equalize itself anyway, once the heroes reach 100 - 25 dmage/strikes. (see your won calc at your first post). also its pointless (imo) since it doesnt matter what resistances are used by whatever units, it always depend on the units that are used on a CERTAIN map.

so the only REAL limitation is the availability of damage-types a hero can get.
(in SX RPG arcane and cold (both magical) are more expensive, so its unlikely that someone wil have arcane AND cold.) also the fact that some wepans with weapon specials are available increases the strategies you can chose from.



also you think in my maps dwarfes "are the best" since they have so much high armor, but thats of yourse not right. there are also other (if not better) very capable melee units
the simple reason why you want to have a dwarf (for example) in the team is that he is good in caves. and the reason why i usually select a dwarf is that nobody else does so.


the downfall of a dwarf fighter is for example, that he is a classcal "blade, pierce, impact"-resistant fighter. dwaf can get high resists in all these 3 categories, but will fail in getting high arcane, cold, fire or fire, impact, balde





anyway, that was just a comment (form my point of view and maybe a little explanation why i keep with my system - also i keep with my system since it uses decreased stats ;)), i wish yu all the best (seriously) and im glad that you keep the SX(C) flag high.
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
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Golbeeze
Posts: 441
Joined: November 13th, 2007, 3:18 am

Re: SXC Development

Post by Golbeeze »

The first thing I did when I got the error was look in my add-ons and I found the old SXC folder. I got rid of it and tried again, same error. Then I did the trial-and-error approach to figuring out which addons it didn't work with. I suppose I will try redownloading it to see if it helps at all. At the moment I don't have access to my computer so it will be a couple days before I can, hopefully, fix it. Thanks :)
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pkz
Posts: 30
Joined: April 14th, 2009, 1:11 am

Re: SXC Development

Post by pkz »

Golbeeze :

try deleting 2 of the map cfg files from each of the 3 senario dirs (scen_def, scen_def, scen_new). doesnt matter which ones. then try loading game.

That might sound strange, but if its same problem as before that might make it work. If it does we know how to (temporarily) stop it.
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