Burning Souls

Review and rate user-made single and multiplayer campaigns and scenarios.

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Pewskeepski
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Burning Souls

Post by Pewskeepski »

Burning Souls

Related threads:
Development thread

When posting feedback, please answer these questions:

Because there are branches though out this campaign, please state what branch(es) you've taken.

(1) What difficulty level did you play the campaign on?

(2) How difficult did you find the campaign? (1-10)

(3) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the campaign?

(4) What were your major challenges in beating the campaign?

(5) How fun do you think the campaign is? (1-10)

(6) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the campaign to make it more fun?

(7) How well done did you find the maps for the campaign?

(8) Any bugs, errors, or spelling mistakes?
Last edited by Pewskeepski on October 6th, 2011, 9:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Creator of Burning Souls, The Fall of Wesnoth (abandoned) and Adventures of Knighthood (now available on BfW 1.15!)
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Kymille
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by Kymille »

I have a question
Spoiler:
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Pewskeepski
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by Pewskeepski »

Heh heh, You're not suppose to kill him. I guess I should make that actually impossible. I'll work on it, but in the meantime, you can just let him get away.

Sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you for reporting :)
"Everything is better with penguins."
Creator of Burning Souls, The Fall of Wesnoth (abandoned) and Adventures of Knighthood (now available on BfW 1.15!)
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Kymille
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by Kymille »

Thanks. I suspected that but it's good to know for sure.
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taptap
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by taptap »

I would take the story from Dead Water as intro... Kai Krellis and his mermen slaughtered the drakes there (I can't recall the reason Dead Water gives, but I wanted to use all my spearman units :) - the drakes didn't let the merfolk pass?). A son of a Kai, avenged by the Kai himself this is a complicated storyline just to make the drakes look as somehow victorious when the story starts with a decimated population. If Dead Water doesn't suit the timeline, make it a predecessor of the Kai.

The AI recruitment in the first scenario is a little odd - all mages and heavy infantry - I mean it might be good against the 3rd level opponents but red mages against drakes is a real misinvestment. Another oddity is that the drakes never talk with or listen to the humans in the first scenario, but then in the second you can decide to go basically as a mercenary for them.
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Pewskeepski
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by Pewskeepski »

taptap wrote:I would take the story from Dead Water as intro... Kai Krellis and his mermen slaughtered the drakes there (I can't recall the reason Dead Water gives, but I wanted to use all my spearman units :) - the drakes didn't let the merfolk pass?). A son of a Kai, avenged by the Kai himself this is a complicated storyline just to make the drakes look as somehow victorious when the story starts with a decimated population. If Dead Water doesn't suit the timeline, make it a predecessor of the Kai.
I actually always had it in mind that Fagriz is a descendent of Krellis, but it doesn't really show itself in the story. This is a good idea, but it would require changing the later scenarios of this campaign. Currently, it takes place several years after Son of the Black Eye.
taptap wrote:The AI recruitment in the first scenario is a little odd - all mages and heavy infantry - I mean it might be good against the 3rd level opponents but red mages against drakes is a real misinvestment.
The humans think the island is overrun by undead. So at first they come prepared to fight skeletons and spirits.
taptap wrote:Another oddity is that the drakes never talk with or listen to the humans in the first scenario, but then in the second you can decide to go basically as a mercenary for them.
Good point. The dialog in the first scenario could use a fix so I will look into it.
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Zolk
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by Zolk »

A beautiful campaign worth becoming offical.

1) What difficulty level did you play the campaign on?
easiest (normal, burner)

(2) How difficult did you find the campaign? (1-10)
7 (for normal)

(3) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the campaign?
Quite compelling

(4) What were your major challenges in beating the campaign?
That you, with the mission to give the ankh and find and bring eggs, and later to flee, have to recruit troop to have a chance to win the scenario (and that kerek doesn't have the ankh).
Knowing what to do, the scenario against the dwarves was most difficult, especially as a fire dragon has a real chance to die against a dwarvish lord, especially if the dwarvish lord seeks good defensive territory.

(5) How fun do you think the campaign is? (1-10)
9

(6) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the campaign to make it more fun?
A chance to take some saurians (Healers) with you, may be?

(7) How well done did you find the maps for the campaign?
Well designed. I would have expected drakes to dwell in hilly or mountain terrain, but it is ok as it is.

(8) Any bugs, errors, or spelling mistakes?
I didn't find any

Zolk
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taptap
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by taptap »

I really wonder about the choice offered in scenario 2/3. Is it really a choice after all? You have to go underground and fight the humans either way, but if you go underground first you have to fight the humans later with only 50 gold as opposed to up to 300 if you fight them first. It btw. feels odd if you end the underground scenario with 700 gold and then your gold is suddenly removed (well I should read the objectives better), but to rub it in the next scenario even starts with "all the gold was spent" (no, it wasn't, the guys were just too lazy to carry it out of the volcano).

Underground)
I would prefer to have a shorter initial time limit underground - if you need the special effects upon taking the ankh (imo the scenario could as well end there) you can add sufficient time when the player takes it (adding new objectives -> adding more turns). Otherwise it is a complete "surprise: you have to walk back 10 turns and you probably didn't know so you don't have enough time now"-special effect. Which basically is a mandatory restart in the second/third scenario and a big downer - especially given that you have to play drakes in caves already.

For a drake-in-cave scenario I am grateful for the amount of illuminating and flying-friendly lava on offer.

Story)
I meant in the intro you have 1) weak merfolk army destroyed, 2) strong merfolk army defeats drakes. As the story only requires the drake defeat not the initial victory, you might drop the initial victory. If you don't have an initial drake victory, nothing prevents you from identifying the merfolk victory with the one known merfolk victory, i.e. that one from Dead Water (if that works with the timing of your campaign). Suddenly the story - while essentially the same - is much better comprehensible and better linked to mainline. In fact many players will remember how they reluctantly (but the drakes wouldn't let them pass otherwise) slaughtered the drake colony in Dead Water. But even if you don't do all that, I would drop the initial drake victory as it serves no purpose afaik.
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SFault
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by SFault »

taptap wrote:It btw. feels odd if you end the underground scenario with 700 gold and then your gold is suddenly removed (well I should read the objectives better), but to rub it in the next scenario even starts with "all the gold was spent" (no, it wasn't, the guys were just too lazy to carry it out of the volcano).
I had like 1300 gold at the end of that scenario and I was rather pissed when noticing that it was all gone. Also, none of my units died in that scenario.

The runners scenario seems quite ill balanced. My leader is on second level and it's pure luck if the nagas don't manage to slay both of my units in 3-6 turns. I move them south to the village but still number of attacks vs. my 20% defense gives rather poor chances of winning.

Finally, there are quite many spelling errors. Mostly "too" is written as "to".

ps. I played at the easiest level. Still in mid of the campaign but so far pretty nice one overall.
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shadow12
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by shadow12 »

1) What difficulty level did you play the campaign on? Easy.

(2) How difficult did you find the campaign? (1-10)
8. The scenarios range from a 6 (Fallen) to a 9.5 (Burning Souls).

I decided to take the 500 gold and went into the caves to bring back the ankh for the humans. There were a lot of enemies in the caves, so I advanced a lot of troops (plus got a Holy Ring and loyal Fire Guardian). The Drakes Return scenario started with only 50 gold (no carry over), but it worked out ok. It took 3 turns to get to the keep, so I had 104 gold by the time I got there. The 2 human armies spent all their gold right away, quickly went into the red and didn't have many villages. As long as I defended the middle area with all the villages, I could slowly build up a strong team. Ended on turn 26/35 with 475 gold and lots of leveled troops.

I gave the Holy Ring to Garish. Scenario 5 is the last I saw of him. I recommend that someone else take it.

I killed Qwunvon (for good) in Close to Kill. I am not positive, but I think that was a branch to the Burning Souls scenario.

(3) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the campaign?
Excellent job describing the scenes, such as the Drakes flying over the dark sea in the moonlight. Nice imagery!

The characters were interesting. I learned more about the Drakes. They are intelligent and fiercely loyal, and jump into battle rather quickly. I like them.

I was pleasantly surprised when the little Fire Guardian advanced to a level 3.

(4) What were your major challenges in beating the campaign?
I'm now on the Burning Souls scenario, I believe it's scenario #12. So far it is very challenging. I started with about 1000 gold and a pretty good recall list. I sent a large army up the east coast, they did well, but many were wounded. Then I saw the lich's Special Op Forces (Undead Dragon,Spectre, Banebow, Deathblade) baring down on me from the west. I had no gold to recruit. I sent out a few sacrificial lambs from my army. They didn't last long, the poor (undead) souls. Those that could fly took to the sea. The lich kept calling up new undead from the ground. Plan B is to restart, go up the west coast instead of the east coast, and take out the lich first. Let the armies in the east duke it out amongst themselves.
Edit: Happy to say I finished without restarting.
Spoiler:
I felt a little bit sad when this campaign was over, because I really enjoyed it and didn't want it to end.

(5) How fun do you think the campaign is? (1-10)
9. Very fun! Drakes are one of my favorites - I love their ability to fly long distances and breath fire.
There was a lot to like about this campaign: the awesome pet Fire Dragon, a spooky-looking Undead Dragon, the Fire Guardian, the caves with a labyrinth of lava, Drake eggs that must be rescued for the clan's survival, learning about the Drake's history on the island.

(6) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the campaign to make it more fun?
Really good as is!

This is the first add-on I have played. It's weird not having the wiki to rely on for gameplay hints. It is definitely more of a challenge, but very rewarding to complete it without help.

I liked having the Augurs as healers, it would have been great if we could have kept some. Dwarves can ride Griffons, it's too bad that Saurians cannot hitch a ride across the sea on the Drakes. The Saurians can't weigh more than a few poundsesss.

(7) How well done did you find the maps for the campaign?
I thought the maps were really well done and very creative. It was fun traveling to different places and then returning to reconquer the Drake's home. My favorites were the fast-paced running maps and the island-hopping maps.

(8) Any bugs, errors, or spelling mistakes?
. The parchment map didn't show up between scenarios. I just saw the little tracking dashes and the X that marks the spot.

. There was a message on the upper left part of the screen that started in the Risen scenario and went away in the Dwarves of Dorth. The game played fine, though, no problems whatsoever.
<Invalid WML found> [player] not supported at scenario toplevel.

. In the Dwarves of Dorth there was a Hurricane Drake still clutching some eggs from the previous scenario. I guess the poor girl was having a hard time letting go. She and the eggs got smashed by the Abominable Snowman. The Yeti must have been in the mood for a 3 egg omelette. Eww! :shock:

Excellent campaign!!!
Sometimes life unexpectedly throws a Troll or a nasty Queen Naga in your path.
lostintime
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by lostintime »

(1) What difficulty level did you play the campaign on?
I played version 1.4.8 of Burning Souls on medium difficulty (Roaster in the menu) in Battle for Wesnoth version 1.10.7.
Branches: I opted to fight the humans in The Humans Return and I killed Qwunvon in Close To Kill.

(2) How difficult did you find the campaign? (1-10)
6
I completed most scenarios on the first attempt. All the scenarios were hard enough to be interesting but only Reinforcements Needed and Dwarves of Dorth gave me problems.

(3) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the campaign?
The storyline was good but the dialog was let down by the number of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.

(4) What were your major challenges in beating the campaign?
The surprise Yeti on turn 3 in Dwarves of Dorth. It took a few attempts before I managed to prevent both the dwarves and the yeti from killing my allied leader, Elik Dohlem.

(5) How fun do you think the campaign is? (1-10)
7
Overall I enjoyed playing the campaign but there are several places it could be improved.

(6) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the campaign to make it more fun?
The scenario most in need of changes is Reinforcements Needed. I'll post some ideas in the development thread.

(7) How well done did you find the maps for the campaign?
The maps are good.

(8) Any bugs, errors, or spelling mistakes?
There are lots of spelling mistakes and typos, starting with "ruler ship" instead of "rulership" in the very first of line of Prologue.

Bugs:
If Kai Fagriz is killed in Fallen he still appears in Burning Souls. Looking through the WML I see you've allowed for the possibility of the mermen leaders dying in Reinforcements Needed so only a small change is required in Fallen.

In Fallen the scenario objectives screen states 20% of gold carried over but when the level is completed gold carry over is actually 80% old style not 20% new style.

In Fallen if the undead kill the human leader, Vushyan, the drakes get Vushyan's gold.

In Bilhelds Secret the scenario objectives screen at the beginning states 40% of gold carried over but when the objective changes the gold carryover drops to zero while still saying that there is an early finish bonus. It's iritating to have the carryover percentage change and misleading to say there is an early finish bonus when in fact none of the bonus will be carried over.

In Burning Souls the scenario objectives gives "Turns run out" as a defeat condition but there isn't a turn limit.

In Dwarves of Dorth the village at 28,20 doesn't render properly.

In Dwarves of Dorth it is possible for a fast unit, such as the dragon Rushevik, to move across Gomduring's trap with out triggering it.
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