Re: Oly: changes in G2- generalship skill

From: weimin@noel.cs.rice.edu (Weimin Yu)

Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 00:00:00 +0000

In article <45kt0d$lvm@runner.ccr-p.ida.org>, desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins) writes:
|> Bill Viggers <bill@rses.vuw.ac.nz> writes:
|> >	Of course now it begins to get a little complicated :-)
|>
|> I would say more like a lot complicated.  I've seen this "design cycle"
|> before, many times.  Someone proposes what they think is a great idea:
|> "Let's give a character which wins a battle increased experience."  Then
|> you point out that intelligent players will just stage hundreds of
|> battles against a cooperative ally to increase their experience much
|> faster than those who are playing "as intended."  Then the optimistic
|> designer says, "No problem," and patches it somehow: "Don't award
|> experience if the loser is outnumbered by more than 2:1."  Then you
|> point out that it's easy to set up "2:1" battles where the attacker
|> still always wins.  Then they patch it some more, fiddling with the
|> formulas.  Eventually the system gets more and more complicated and you
|> get bored of pointing out loopholes.  But that doesn't mean that the
|> system is any better balanced.

Actually I believe this problem (staged practice battles) is not
too hard to solve. Correct me if I'm wrong:

1. Make it easier for healthy nobles of the losing side to get lightly wounded,
	especially when they are outnumbered or the troop quality
	differs a lot.

2. If a noble was already wounded when he came into battle, he should
	be likely to suffer more serious wound.

3. Seriously wounded nobles ( say with 60% or lower health) lose
	their health very fast if they do any meaningful
	work (i.e. all but move give and get).

4. Limit the effect of the heal spell, or even do away with it.

5. Resurrected noble retain the health he had when he died, or 10%,
	whichever the higher.

This way if you stage lots of battles in a short period, you
will have a bunch of half-dead nobles who cannot do anything
for a while.

The only drawback I can think if is this may discourage real battles
as well. This can be solved by give the attacker some bonus in healing.

|>
|> My fundamental argument that systems like this don't work well is that
|> no one has designed and implemented one that does.  That's not an
|> argument that you can refute by answering all of my consecutive
|> objections in turn until I get bored and give up.  You have to explain
|> why it has never worked before.
|>
|> Anyway, I don't mind if you continue to believe that you can implement
|> it and it will be easy and work great.  Just understand that I continue
|> to disagree.
|>
|>                                         David desJardins
|> --
|> Copyright 1995 David desJardins.  Unlimited permission is granted to quote
|> from this posting for non-commercial use as long as attribution is given.

--
Weimin Yu
--
Weimin Yu

References

Re: Oly: changes in G2
srt@sun-dimas.aero.org (Scott Turner)
Wed, 04 Oct 1995 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Oly: changes in G2- generalship skill
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Thu, 12 Oct 1995 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Oly: changes in G2- generalship skill
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Fri, 13 Oct 1995 00:00:00 +0000