Descent into Darkness

[Baufo]

This has already been fixed and will be in the next release.

When will the next release be? I've run into this at the end and am rather frustrated with it....

It should already be in 1.3.6

[Erk]

That was a fun campaign, but it needs work to really shine

I just finished playing on Easy skill. I had no problem with play balance, but then it was Easy. I might give it a shot on Normal soon; I would hope that on Normal more of the factions are encouraged to fight back - eg. the town holding the manor recruiting mages rather than semi-useless dragoons. All in all though, I didn't find play balance to be a big thing anywhere.

My biggest complaint was the story presentation, as has been mentioned before. The story is good but it is given in such a way that there is really no character at all to it. My suggestions:

1) Like WizardMagus said, a "prologue" mission that covered Malin's return from school and his father's death (and introduced his sister) would be very good. I'd set it up so that you played a faction in the river fort, defending it against orcs, where Malin's father was the recruiter and Malin and his sister were hero units under his command. Have it run for 15 turns and then have an orcish assassin bust out and stab Malin's dad in the back. That gives plenty of time for scripted conversations between the characters to establish who they are and how they feel about Malin's expulsion.

2) A few of the places with "months pass. Malin and Darken fight a bunch of orcs" in exposition could really use a scenario in them, just to give a chance to play with the units a little.

3) A bit of plot branching related to the sister would really make this shine. For example, in the mission where you lead orcs to Hal'al and have to kill the human leader without killing any other hal'al humans, I managed to kill the human leader and all the orcs and not kill a single human soldier, just to see if I could. I would like to see a small branching plot option - probably not leading to different scenarios, but to different reactions from the sister - related to something like this. If he kills all the orcs and doesn't hurt any townspeople why do they later claim he "abandoned them to the orcs"?

Ideally it would be a great easter egg if Dela could be convinced to support Malin, either leading him away from his licheness or joining him in his descent as a dark cohort (possibly both options depending on how the game is played), and if she doesn't join Malin she should be one of the Foolish Heros - have Mal barely notice this, but give it brief recognition.

More dialogue between Malin and Dela would help a lot to make Malin more than a wooden, Anakin Skywalker-type fallen hero, too. And finally, as a small aside, if Dela dies she needs a quick "Oh noes I am escaping" line. There are two or three points in the game where you can kill her, without reaction from Malin or from herself.



Those are my major suggestions. I have minor ones too (like, it would be nice if Forever and Ever, Amen would spawn different maps, such as killing orc raids and elven patrols, just for variety). I'd be willing to help out a little if anyone is interested in implementing them

[shadowsnipes]

I really enjoyed this campaign, particularly being able to use the Night Gaunts to assassinate the enemy. I played 1.2.5 on Medium and had no technical problems.

I do agree that the storyline needs to be filled out a little (It WAS strange how there was no reaction to the sister dying...).

My biggest disappointment, however, is that I never got to fight any orcs as the Lich. After so much dialog about hating the orcs you would think there would be a climatic battle with them near the end.

I was a little frustrated when, after becoming the Lich, that Malin was not as powerful. I had thought that after becoming the Lich that I would either have increased stats or at least be able to recruit some sort of new creature. Instead, my stats went down (I was level 3 before lichdom), I become more vulnerable to certain attacks, and I had no extra recruiting abilities. I'm fine if it is going to stay that way, but personally if I were Malin I would feel like I got a raw deal. He should feel even more betrayed, and even angrier than he was before. Perhaps that can be worked into the story.

Speaking of the last scenerio - it is way to easy. Perhaps somewhere along the lines a bunch of white mages and loyalist/outlaws should come in from the forest and help the foolish hero. You could possible have an army come from just west of Malin's camp and try to take him out. This could be an army of Trolls trying to reclaim their home or a bunch of angry dwarves.

Please reconsider adding another scenario where you get to fight the orcs again.

Thanks again for the great scenario!

[mpolo]

3) A bit of plot branching related to the sister would really make this shine. For example, in the mission where you lead orcs to Hal'al and have to kill the human leader without killing any other hal'al humans, I managed to kill the human leader and all the orcs and not kill a single human soldier, just to see if I could. I would like to see a small branching plot option - probably not leading to different scenarios, but to different reactions from the sister - related to something like this. If he kills all the orcs and doesn't hurt any townspeople why do they later claim he "abandoned them to the orcs"?

That one was for me the weirdest part -- I killed the human leader, ran up and killed all the orcs, and then I was accused of leaving the humans to deal with my "orcish pets". So unjust.

[clodoveo]

Hello,
I am stuck in "a small favor -part 2": after killing all mages and the great mage, I am told to
"move through the passageway in the northwest leading to the great hall".

I moved the heroes to the northwest, first I tried NNW, then WNW but I do not trigger anything, and the turns just pass by.
What am I supposed to do to go on?

There seems to be an area of about 5x5 unexplored in the NW corner, but I cannot access it in any way.
Is it a bug?
I am playing the version of the map shipped with 1.3.7.

[Baufo]

Hello,
I am stuck in "a small favor -part 2": after killing all mages and the great mage, I am told to
"move through the passageway in the northwest leading to the great hall".

I moved the heroes to the northwest, first I tried NNW, then WNW but I do not trigger anything, and the turns just pass by.
What am I supposed to do to go on?

There seems to be an area of about 5x5 unexplored in the NW corner, but I cannot access it in any way.
Is it a bug?
I am playing the version of the map shipped with 1.3.7.

Well, you have to move to the hex 1,1 (the very top left). There are three possible passages to that hex and one of them is supposed to be opened randomly at the start of the scenario. Have you tried it without shroud (if you know how to hack the scenario file)?

[gabe]

can you fix the Growth ability?
should be able to be easily done by moving the event code from ghast.cfg to a macro in Descent_macros.cfg and then putting it into the various scenario files

otherwise the campaign is cool
i like to use undead
its fun to be evil

[zookeeper]

can you fix the Growth ability?
should be able to be easily done by moving the event code from ghast.cfg to a macro in Descent_macros.cfg and then putting it into the various scenario files:

Already done, will be in 1.3.8. The original code bug should be fixed too, so we'll probably make it work via a unit event again later.

[joshudson]

changelog:
* added a magical ranged 7-2 arcane attack to the Dark Adept
* added a magical ranged 9-2 arcane attack to the Dark Sorcerer
* added a magical ranged 12-2 arcane attack to the Necromancer
* added a magical ranged 9-3 arcane attack to the Lich

This gives a potential way of dealing with the RIPLIB violation of when Malin Keshar levels up as follows:

1. Change L1 damage type to arcane (no effect on first scenario, check resistances!)
2. Give his L2 unit 10-2 arcane as well
3. Give his L3 unit 12-2 arcane to match stock Necromancer

Now this is perfectly bad timing for 1.3.8. Oh well.

[Noyga]

AFAIK 2) & 3) is alredy done.

[Orobanch]

Just downloaded Wesnoth 1.3.7 today and was playing DiD when I ran into a problem with crashing if I tried to recruit. Took a look at the the WML for the scenario and at the end of the player's side canrecruit line after the last unit there were a bunch of spaces and then the characters "DiD"

canrecruit=............,Dark Adept DiD

Removed the DiD from the scenario file and now it seems to work fine.
not sure if that's a WML typo or if it was supposed to do something.

Note, was using Windows XP.

Update: having trouble with some of the later scenarios too, but it's not doing it reliably, might not be a WML issue after all. Need to play more and maybe try some other campaigns to figure this out.

[Angry Andersen]

I just finished this campaign on development version (1.3.8/1.3.9) and really enjoyed it! The story is great and having an undead mainline-campaign is really cool. The ending is very fitting.

Some suggestions/bugs/etc.:
- I think the campaign is slightly too easy on hard mode
- Killing Malin's sister the first time you meet her has no effect, i.e. she still turns up later on when you fight Darken. Maybe she should have more forces, so that the player really has to run instead of crushing both her and the orcs. Maybe this scenario has too many parallels to the Ford of Abez in HttT.
- The lvl3 ghoul needs reworking: The resistances and graphics are incompatible with the changes to lvl1&2. The lvl2 version should require more than 40 exp to get to lvl3.
- Assassinating the Troll leader in the scenario where Malin becomes a lich is much too easy (I sent 3 lvl2 or lvl3 ghosts) up there and finished very early.
- lvl2 versions of bats and walking corpses would be great, as these units are not worth recalling for 20gp most of the time! I guess this hasn't had much of an effect until now, as there were no mainline undead campaigns before this one. With 2 units that can't get beyond lvl1 and one unit that can't get further than lvl2, the undead faction is somewhat limited for campaigns. Adding the ghast was already a step in the right direction! Allowing Malin to eventually become a lvl4 ancient lich would also be a reward for people who can't get enough of the last scenario!
- Malin could get some traits, it seems slightly odd that he is actually weaker than other dark adepts of same level which he is leading...

[Lied]

Just finished this campaign...it was pretty interesting to play as the "bad guys."

One interesting thing that happend was the one where you have to get the book from the necromancer (Alone at Last?). I had messed up and had no units above level 1 going into the mission except a level 3 archer, and i did not have a lot of money. Eventually, I used all my money and decided to just run my guy up to fight since my units were getting destroyed by the necromancer's advanced units. Since it was my first time playing the map, I didn't know the sister comes in and she ended up setting up her base right next to where my main guy and remaining troops were, so I was able to kill her and take over her keep before she could recruit more than 2 units. Then, the paladin and light mage charged into the necromancer, killing him, and then got killed next turn by the necromancers remaining troops. So I ended up playing the mission with all of the leaders dead with almost no effort on my part .

[chino2468]

The campaign is great so far, I guess I'm on scenario 6, I didn't count them. It's the one with having to enter the manor stealthily. So far, I think that level is impossible, but I know it's jsut that I need a different approach to it.

I disagree with some of the comments about the goblin level, it's way too easy! I just weakened the poor things (especially the riders) with the 2 mages and then killed them off with the swarm of WCs I had =D

You've done a great job with this one, it's interesting, clear and good. I'd change the graphs for the Ghast, I sort of expected a bigger, nastier Necro XD

Just a question: I continued playing and reached the "Foolish Hero" level, and I already killed the Assassin and 2 Elvish Marshalls, will this continue until I lose or what?? =P

Cheers

[Sly]

Just a question: I continued playing and reached the "Foolish Hero" level, and I already killed the Assassin and 2 Elvish Marshalls, will this continue until I lose or what?? =P

You got it right