Re: [Wesnoth-dev] Changing 'Loyal'

[James Barton]

This is (obviously) the simplest suggestion for 'Loyal' yet. I'm 
inclined to agree with it, for two reasons:

1) It does solve the problem of Loyal being overpowering in campaigns, 
near-useless in Multiplayer.
2) It will provide a clear marking for units which do not cost upkeep. 
Currently, this is a "hidden" functionality, which is irritating.

As a matter of interest - can units have more than two traits, if 
assigned more than two traits by a scenario designer? Or is two traits 
the maximum?

One final point: I believe HttT and other mainline campaigns should be 
modified so all volunteer units have Loyal + One More Trait. Haldiel 
the Horseman could be Loyal and Strong, Elrian could be Loyal and 
Resilient [explaining his surviving the invasion], etc. This would add 
a little flavour to units one user recently described as "generics".

James
a.k.a. Sangel

PS: Sorry for the multiple copies Dave, I hit the wrong reply button.


On 18/02/2005, at 21:04, David White wrote:

Personally I don't like the way 'loyal' currently works. I think it 
forces players to take note of traits far more than was originally 
intended. Traits are meant to provide some variety to units, and make 
some tactical and strategic difference, they are not meant to be so 
dominating that players start developing strategies to only level up 
units that have a certain trait. Loyal is also almost useless in 
multiplayer games, and is just an annoyance there.

I propose that we change it so that loyal units cost 0 upkeep, 
regardless of level. Then we remove loyal as a trait that units can be 
assigned randomly: it can only be assigned explicitly to a unit created 
by a scenario designer. Then all units that automatically join the 
player in various scenarios be made loyal.

Another way of looking at this change is that it's basically removing 
loyal from the game, but making units that voluntarily join the player 
marked as 'loyal'.

I think that the trait is one that was contrived just because people 
like adding traits, and it doesn't work well. There have been many 
trait suggestions which I haven't been overly keen on, but which I 
believe would be less detrimental to the game than loyal is. Also none 
of the suggestions to change loyal have really impressed me very much.

Any thoughts on this?

David


_______________________________________________
Wesnoth-dev mailing list
address@hidden
http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/wesnoth-dev