LIFE Realm

[Nelphine]

Actually, Lord Soth isn't a hero; he's actually a completely stereotyped paladin (or black guard). So, he's actually precisely what you would expect an undead elite paladin in this game to become. And in the media where that kind of undead is portrayed, normally all the undead act that way, not just the one's who happen to be named in the story. So I disagree that it has anything to do with hero vs non hero.

[Nelphine]

You may also note, we've both agreed with you on shatter. Seravy has simply pointed out numerous mechanical reasons in the code why it is difficult. He's also specified that he considers the balance to make more sense as is, and that (whether you or I agree) he believes players would find it counter-intuitive to make the change.

As for possession vs confusion, that's the way the spells have been since the beginning; and during this entire conversation, you've never tried to compare those 2. You've always compared possession vs experience, which I have tried to point out is a faulty comparison.

Whether possession and confusion should act the same, that is a completely separate topic; and I don't think it's one you would win, since that's a balance issue from VERY early on, far before this change, and one that both spells are completely designed around (as well as all other spells that are influenced by them, such as many other sorcery and death spells, and balance of units that are affected by one or the other or both, which includes almost all the units in the game.)

[Seravy]

On topic of shatter, Seravy, I would set that at the spell.

Set what? Spell Type? Does that make a difference if none of the types are "curse that targets normal enemy units based on unit base type"?
For obvious reasons I can't set it to Holy Weapons 15 "buff that targets friendly normal unit".

Group 14 is "unit curse without a save roll", 13 is "unit curse with a save roll" and 16 is "unit curse with a save roll that targets normal unit."

(other existing combat spell types are 4 "direct damage", 12 "resistance based KO spell",  18 "Dispel Magic", 19 "Disenchant",  0 "summoning", 5  "Special", these are handled on a case by case basis everywhere, 10 "Global enchantment", 1 "Buff for friendly unit". Unlisted numbers are overland spell types.)

Not that it matters as the suggestion was already rejected, just wanted to point it out that I can't set an unimplemented spell type and then say "forward it to the coding department please", as I am the coding department 

I believe the only reasonable conclusion we can have here is "makes sense" is subjective and different for each person and viewpoint. For me "undead = death creatures, death creatures = bypass weapon immunity, thus undead = bypass weapon immunity" is perfectly rational while obviously the undead is still holding the same normal weapon it did before it died and those weapons aren't magical. But these two contradict so we need to choose one. I prefer the game logic here instead of the real world logic, and we did the same for many other things, for example Fire Immunity not blocking the ranged attacks from magicians, or, an example from the early days of MoM, the original developers making it so that Magic Immunity no longer blocks all damage from all fantastic units in one of the updates.
If that helps, you can consider the equipment of the units part of their bodies, so when the swordsmen are raised as undead, their weapons also transform into "Death Realm" objects and stop being physical matter, along with the rest of the body.

btw, not that it matters, but a well trained unit with stronger muscles would retain that as an undead, even if it has no brainpower so at best losing a portion of its fighting capability makes sense. (and honestly, not feeling pain and being able to fight after receiving otherwise lethal wounds makes up for it...)

[Nelphine]

Sometimes they way they code this game astounds me- meaning i forget how old it is and the space limits. Yup, I assumed it was actually something you could set as a spell specific attribute, and if you only wanted to change one spell, that would be reasonable. Groups would exist, but a spell wouldn't have to be part of one. But yeah, if there isn't such a group, and all spells are part of a group, then it certainly won't work. Now I understand the explanation behind rejecting shatter only.

[Bahgtru]

On topic of shatter, Seravy, I would set that at the spell.

Set what? Spell Type? Does that make a difference if none of the types are "curse that targets normal enemy units based on unit base type"?
For obvious reasons I can't set it to Holy Weapons 15 "buff that targets friendly normal unit".

Group 14 is "unit curse without a save roll", 13 is "unit curse with a save roll" and 16 is "unit curse with a save roll that targets normal unit."

(other existing combat spell types are 4 "direct damage", 12 "resistance based KO spell",  18 "Dispel Magic", 19 "Disenchant",  0 "summoning", 5  "Special", these are handled on a case by case basis everywhere, 10 "Global enchantment", 1 "Buff for friendly unit". Unlisted numbers are overland spell types.)

Not that it matters as the suggestion was already rejected, just wanted to point it out that I can't set an unimplemented spell type and then say "forward it to the coding department please", as I am the coding department 

I believe the only reasonable conclusion we can have here is "makes sense" is subjective and different for each person and viewpoint. For me "undead = death creatures, death creatures = bypass weapon immunity, thus undead = bypass weapon immunity" is perfectly rational while obviously the undead is still holding the same normal weapon it did before it died and those weapons aren't magical. But these two contradict so we need to choose one. I prefer the game logic here instead of the real world logic, and we did the same for many other things, for example Fire Immunity not blocking the ranged attacks from magicians, or, an example from the early days of MoM, the original developers making it so that Magic Immunity no longer blocks all damage from all fantastic units in one of the updates.

You're so deep in the game logic that you "prefer it to the real world's" - to the point of considering what you called "global rule" the cases you listed here, while for me until now we were speaking about human conventions of understanding of how a fantasy mechanic should work. Way to go, language!

So you should trust the judgement of your users more than yours. So in this discussion there are 3v0 on undead weapons and 2v1 on undead experience. But, I understand that this approach would be considered "one's opinion not counting" and impossible to adopt.

[teelaurila]

First of all, claiming someone's intuition as worse than yours due to better experience with the game comes across as just unnecessarily ad hominem to promote your opinion above others, and borders on acting entitled as if you've paid for the service.

The only clear issue, and everyone agreed, is the heroism bonus not going away when the spell does. Bahgtru's observation on purposefully casting tactical heroism to use this was clearly a valuable piece. Seravy already said to take the best shot possible to fix it, too.

Everything else is more or less opinion on "logical fantasy" and "fair and balanced game". Including the enemy-side buff spells remaining on undead, which I do agree makes for some "interesting" game occurences.

[Bahgtru]

Is that directed at me? I didn't claim that, I claim that any developer's opinion on their game is always going to be biased, it's a bit different. No offense meant. I see how that can be hard to take in any case.

[Nelphine]

Actually, you specifically said 'So you should trust the judgement of your users more than yours'.

Not particularly humble. Especially when Seravy has got other users backing him up.

You also stated 3v0 on weapons - except it's 2v2 on that topic. And you said 2v1 on experience, when again it's 2v2.

And really, claiming teelaurila is on your side on weapons or experience, when they haven't posted on topic for several pages, and when they did post they said 'could go either way', is a little extreme.

So I'll say it's actually 1 (you) vs 2 (seravy and myself) on experience, and 2 (you and teelaurila, maybe, although they may have been convinced by later comments and just not stated it) vs 2 (seravy and myself) on weapons.

[Bahgtru]

What you quote me is exactly the consequence of what I said in my last post, not a change. Like this: given the normal bias of anyone who's deep into the mechanics of a game, I think that Seravy should count himself out when gathering opinions, especially on what "makes sense" and so the xVy without his opinions. It would all be clearer if he made polls, and wouldn't vote or indicate a preference, so that any bias would disappear. But again, I understand that it's a difficult approach to take for anyone invested in a project.

On shatter, you said yourself that everybody agreed? And on what teela said, I was not basing myself on what he hadn't yet written. Surprise!

This is all feeling rather pointless. I hope I've made it clear that no offense was intended.

[Nelphine]

Seravy regularly does do polls.

We all agreed on shatter. Seravy explained why from a coding point of view, shatter must have the same targetting as possession. He went further to explain that chaos channels and undead have the same effect on targetting. Therefore, if shatter WORKS on undead, then possession will also work on a chaos channelled unit.

The interaction between possession and chaos channels is far more common, and therefore more important, than shatter and undead. Similarly, the balance of possession and chaos channels is more important than the intuitive gameplay of shatter and undead.

Thus, regardless of my (and even seravy!) preference for the gameplay, I have been convinced by seravy that 'fixing' shatter with undead, causes too many problems elsewhere, that are far more important.