Scenario 17: The Sceptre of Fire

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silent
Posts: 244
Joined: February 20th, 2009, 5:53 am

Re: Scenario Review: (HttT) The Sceptre of Fire

Post by silent »

(1) Medium - 1.4.7
(2) 4. The only difficulty was avoiding troll warriors killing a unit in one round
(3) Clear
(4) Clear and interesting. The walls begin to shake, the earth opens and there are all these stupid orcs around, but they aren't mentioned whatsoever.
(5) Lava opening up and swallowing units. This greatly annoyed me
(6) 6. It was fairly fun but the enemies could've been more numerous. Goblin leader is a joke
(7) Yes. I lost a red mage to the lava, so I restarted then
(8) 450. The new gold system is pretty good. I prefer to finish with units intact and avoid suicidal finishes
(9) Level 3 - about 15, level 2 - about 15
dELFador
Posts: 32
Joined: May 20th, 2009, 4:40 am

Re: Scenario Review: (HttT) The Sceptre of Fire

Post by dELFador »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
medium. 1.7
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
very clear.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
very interesting.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
none.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
10.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
none.

My strategy was to recall 1 elf shyde, then surround her with the essential people and some elites, then use massive amounts of dwarves to take out some enemy leaders and scout ahead. (the previous scenarios made me rich :wink: )
BigCheese
Posts: 27
Joined: August 20th, 2009, 7:05 pm

Re: Scenario Review: (HttT) The Sceptre of Fire

Post by BigCheese »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
medium, 1.7.2 => updated to 1.7.3, because I was stuck with Bug#14016 Unable to Recruit/Recall on HttT Scepter of Fire

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
2, AI had not enough money

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
clear

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
ok

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
not getting bored by walking around a large host of units on a huge empty map with few encounters;

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
2; huge map, villages all clustered in the southern part. AI had not enough gold/income to recruit more then a few units. 2 leaders had to share one keep. the expanding lava is nice, but had no effect on strategy. perhaps I had just (good or bad) luck with the random map script.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
spread the villages evenly north and south

(8 ) How much gold did you have at the start of the scenario?
222 + 500 from Li'sar

(9) About how many higher level units did you have in your recall list? Don't list them out.
19 lvl3 (including Konrad); 21 lvl2 (including Li'sar)
Attachments
HttT-The_Scepter_of_Fire_replay.gz
(60.36 KiB) Downloaded 999 times
t0mppa
Posts: 2
Joined: September 1st, 2009, 11:41 pm

Re: Scenario Review: (HttT) The Sceptre of Fire

Post by t0mppa »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Medium on 1.6.0 earlier and now on 1.7.4.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
1, if starting with a keep nearby, 6 if not. AI castles were poorly shaped and they had pretty much no villages to use.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
clear

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Wasn't too bad.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Finding a castle with a keep, the initial is missing one and thus no recruiting/recalling available until one is found. Had to reload the scenario a few times to confirm that one can spawn nearby, so you're not always forced to defeat the early goblin waves with the four starting characters.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
2, too much running around and no real opposition besides the early goblins, if no castle with a keep is found. And the lava didn't expand nearly as much as on 1.6.0, so it didn't pose any problems either.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Way too many villages in all and they're all near the start location. Getting a keep with the starting castle would be a nice addition or then alternatively don't give a castle at all. And the scepter shouldn't spawn right next to the enemy castle, since if it does, there's no explanation why they're not making good use of it.

(8 ) How much gold did you have at the start of the scenario?
762 + 300 from Li'sar

(9) About how many higher level units did you have in your recall list? Don't list them out.
3 x level 4, 12 x level 3 and 15 x level 2
Attachments
HttT-The_Scepter_of_Fire_replay.gz
(53.23 KiB) Downloaded 995 times
evoke
Posts: 2
Joined: October 31st, 2009, 4:22 pm

Re: Scenario Review: (HttT) The Sceptre of Fire

Post by evoke »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
1.7.4, Medium

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
2, which was rather anti-climatic.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear enough. I certainly didn't mind the scepter being in an unknown location.
Sword of Fargoal on the Commodore-64 sprang immediately to mind in a very nice way.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
A bit forgettable, in candor. I would suggest adding some Li'sar vs Konrad elements
suggesting a genuine threat of civil war / dueling, as the inexperienced player,
often playing this as the first campaign, is likely far from sure that konrad and lisar or
the player minions might not have to battle it out mid-way through the match.
Leveraging suspense is all to the good, imho.

If you actually could make player minions civil war in the middle, that would be superb.


(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
A) Not understanding that surprise lava would kill multiple units suddenly,
which was vexing enough that I reloaded, which I very rarely do.

B) Summoning way too many units for max-min efficiency, expecting a stellar difficulty,
only to find the board was not particularly difficult at all.

C) Moving kalenz. I should have just left him where he started and saved myself the grind.
He does not belong in a cave scenario.


(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4, it's a weak difficulty board, but hey, you get the scepter of fire...
And the lava was neat.


(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
A) Lose kalenz
B) Make the lava fully block passageways behind the party, clipping how many units can
initially be deploying and requiring support to be brought in via recall from captured enemy base(s).
C) Make something scary guard the scepter. I was expecting, my naively inexperienced first-time through,
some 4-hex large multi-tile-range attack fire-breathing dragon or something. And I got...a scepter lying
unguarded on the ground, with the enemy long slaughtered and the last couple AI leaders no longer
summoning much of anything. Weirdly anti-climatic.
D) Some kind of threat and-or actual civil war within the party, preferably while the AI is also attacking.

(8 ) How much gold did you have at the start of the scenario?
Don't remember. A boatload, not that it mattered. I max-min and don't usual summon/recall
nearly to the limit I could, maxing gold gain for subsequent levels as a matter of course.

(9) About how many higher level units did you have in your recall list? Don't list them out.
Lots, most of which, the first time through, I summoned, expecting a huge battle. Oh well.

* * *

Board has lots of potential.
Felt way too easy though.
Could up it multiple notches, or use lava to sharply limit the opening champ set brought to bear.

-evoke
Cornuthaum
Posts: 13
Joined: February 16th, 2010, 9:34 am

Re: Scenario Review: (HttT) The Sceptre of Fire

Post by Cornuthaum »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Medium, 1.6.5

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
3 - Much too easy. The enemy factions need a ton more gold, since after I killed their initial wave of troops, they didn'T rebuy anything other than the occasional wolf rider.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear enough.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Every time Delfador snarks at Li'sar, I grin. I liked it :D

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Not frustrationquitting from another cave level >>

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
3 - It's a cave level (terribly slow movement) and it's not particularly challenging either.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Shorter level, far more intense combat with foes from both sides, marking the location of the scepter from the start so there is a clear goal where I'm supposed to go (had to wait 10 turns for Li'sar to get from the right side of the map to the left - yaa-aaa-aawn)

(8 ) How much gold did you have at the start of the scenario?
667

(9) About how many higher level units did you have in your recall list? Don't list them out.
Lvl 4: 1
Lvl 3: 17
Lvl 2: 16 (though half of those were mermen)
BubbleScreen
Posts: 43
Joined: January 24th, 2010, 6:19 pm

Re: Scenario Review: (HttT) The Sceptre of Fire

Post by BubbleScreen »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Medium, 1.6

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario?
3 - Deceptively easy. Just a little anticlimactic for finding the Scepter.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Fine.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Not that great what with it being the Scepter and all. The worst part was Li'Sar not being remotely bothered by Konrad picking up the Scepter. Shouldn't she be all sorts of ticked off? People should talk more about the lava as it advances.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Avoiding lava. In retrospect, not over-recruiting- I went way negative, expecting more villages and more epic combat.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is?
3.5 - could have been more, so much more. As it is, I dispensed with the enemies handily then Konrad waltzed up to the Scepter. Lava was fun.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Have something or someone guarding the Scepter. For instance, Konrad picks up the Scepter and suddenly a couple Draugs pick themselves up out of the ground. Plus that would let you toast things with the Scepter. Make the board a little smaller.

(8 ) How much gold did you have at the start of the scenario?
Far more than enough.

(9) About how many higher level units did you have in your recall list? Don't list them out.
An excessive amount for this level. You could win this comfortably with all level ones.
roman_sharp
Posts: 22
Joined: July 11th, 2010, 8:01 am

Re: Scenario Review: (HttT) The Sceptre of Fire

Post by roman_sharp »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?

Normal, 1.8.3

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

7, challenging

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

Clear

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

Good.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

Cave terrain hard to pass, hardly usable to normal units, lava traps.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

7

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

None
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GagarinGambit
Posts: 51
Joined: February 2nd, 2011, 12:36 pm

Re: Scenario 17: The Sceptre of Fire

Post by GagarinGambit »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Hard, 1.8.4

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6, but that's only because I used much less troops than I could. Otherwise, it should be 3-4.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear enough

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
It could be much better, considering you're about to get the thing both Konrad and Lisar are looking for so long, but it's OK.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Well... these expanding lava pits were annoying, especially when Konrad was standing next to one... Splitting your forces thin can also be challenging, you may suddenly find an opening where you're outnumbered.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
6

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
There should be a warning about avoiding the lava pits or the characters commenting on it, at least.

(8 ) How much gold did you have at the start of the scenario?
I think 500-600, but I recruited only two turns worth of troops before moving north (which made an otherwise easy scenario challenging).

(9) About how many higher level units did you have in your recall list? Don't list them out.
Well, for the purpose of an underground scenario, that's only 3-4 level 2 dwarves, plus a couple of healers (the loyal white mage & and a shyde) and the loyal great mage. No point in recalling cavalry or elves, of course.
Linux. Space technology.
allanate
Posts: 16
Joined: November 16th, 2010, 3:31 pm

Re: Scenario 17: The Sceptre of Fire

Post by allanate »

GagarinGambit wrote:(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Hard, 1.8.4

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6, but that's only because I used much less troops than I could. Otherwise, it should be 3-4.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear enough

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
It could be much better, considering you're about to get the thing both Konrad and Lisar are looking for so long, but it's OK.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Well... these expanding lava pits were annoying, especially when Konrad was standing next to one... Splitting your forces thin can also be challenging, you may suddenly find an opening where you're outnumbered.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
6

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
There should be a warning about avoiding the lava pits or the characters commenting on it, at least.

(8 ) How much gold did you have at the start of the scenario?
I think 500-600, but I recruited only two turns worth of troops before moving north (which made an otherwise easy scenario challenging).

(9) About how many higher level units did you have in your recall list? Don't list them out.
Well, for the purpose of an underground scenario, that's only 3-4 level 2 dwarves, plus a couple of healers (the loyal white mage & and a shyde) and the loyal great mage. No point in recalling cavalry or elves, of course.
this exactly. like you read my mind
shadowblack
Posts: 368
Joined: April 15th, 2010, 3:03 pm

Re: Scenario 17: The Sceptre of Fire

Post by shadowblack »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.9.4, Normal

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
1 – never had any real trouble

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear enough

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Fine

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
None, really

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
5 – nothing special but not too boring either

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
For starters, give some warning about the expanding lava pools. I lost a Guardsman to one in order to save Kalenz.

Also, give some more gold to the enemies. I almost never had to fight more than 2 at once, making things awfully boring.

Rather than placing the scepter at a random map location why not place it in the hands of a random enemy leader that has to be killed to get it? Just make sure it’s not in the hands of that level 1 goblin.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Kalenz was standing next to a lava pool just as it expanded.

(9) How much gold did you have at the start of the scenario?
553, thanks to the bonus from Li’sar

(10) About how many higher level units did you have in your recall list? Don't list them out.
A lot. Most of them were humans and elves, but I had a few level 2 dwarves too, as seen in the replay and the attached save game.


Thoughts:
This was kind of anti-climatic. All that time spent searching for the scepter, and when I finally get to where it is there’s hardly any resistance. The previous level was much harder.
Attachments
1_HttT-The_Scepter_of_Fire_Turn_1.gz
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HttT-The_Scepter_of_Fire_replay.gz
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Faello
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Re: Scenario 17: The Sceptre of Fire

Post by Faello »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?

Challenging (Champion), 1.9.6, no saves/reloads, 615 starting gold

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

2.

Another scenario, that doesn't really require going into details. It's a randomized scenario with 5 opponents at this difficulty level, recruiting various set of lvl1 & lvl2 units. AI doesn't really have a lot of gold (30 to 70 per AI player), so player needs to recall his trusted veterans & support them with highly mobile dwarfs and go at full speed in every direction to locate the Scepter. Defeating AI is optional, but it's good to kill some AI leaders for xp'ing purposes - still Scepter should be player's no.1 target. Since there's an early finish bonus (gold) it wasn't worth it to prolong the battle, especially that I'm going to choose some difficult path after the next scenario, that will require every gold piece I can get. It's best to give the Scepter of Fire to Li'sar since she is another crucial character that joins the party, and she has no ranged attack.

Finished this one in turn 17/35.

2 losses, 37 kills.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

Crystal clear.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?


Ok, nothing exceptional.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

Creating an independent & capable groups of units to search the Scepter & kill opponents simultaneusly.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

4.

Truth to be told, I find it dull and boring, random map doesn't really help its quality.

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

Any scenario created with a fixed map > any random map scenario.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

No.

Replay attached:
Attachments
HttT-The_Sceptre_of_Fire_replay.gz
The Scepter of Fire replay, Challenging (Champion) difficulty level, 1.9.6, no saves/reloads
(68.68 KiB) Downloaded 868 times
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Skaithe
Posts: 25
Joined: July 13th, 2011, 8:41 am

Re: Scenario 17: The Sceptre of Fire

Post by Skaithe »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.9.7 Champion - Challenging

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Very clear.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Pretty cool that you could choose to give the scepter to Li'sar. I still don't know if it affects the overall story line. I gave her the scepter for practicality's sake, her having no ranged weapon and all.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Resolving to give Li'sar the scepter was the hardest part for me. Especially after reading her reaction when she got her grubby little paws on it. >_>

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8 - I really enjoyed exploring the entire cavern before grabbing the scepter. Also, the lava pits expanding were a nice touch. Didn't notice if people could fall in them though.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Definitely make units able to fall in expanding lava pits if not already implemented. If it happens though, there needs to be a dialogue notification. A scream or something.
None.
Attachments
HttT-The_Sceptre_of_Fire_replay.gz
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Maiklas3000
Posts: 532
Joined: June 23rd, 2010, 10:43 am

Re: Scenario 17: The Sceptre of Fire

Post by Maiklas3000 »

(1) Difficulty and version? Hardest; 1.9.7
(2) How difficult? (1-10) Highly variable, from 2 to 8, depending on setup.
(3) How clear? Clear.
(4) Dialog? Good.
(5) Challenges? Once I lost when I didn't recruit enough, and so I ran out of time before I could explore the whole map. Once I lost on about turn 2 when I put Li'sar in a line of troops facing a nearby enemy stronghold, only to have every single one of the goblins suicidally attack her (walking corpse style), with the last one finally killing her.
(6) How fun? (1-10) 8, the random map is great
(7) Changes? None.
(8) Starting gold? 473 (after the 300 bonus)
(9) Higher level units? I recalled four level 3's and one or two level 2's, plus loyals.

Screenshot and replay attached. I split my forces split in two, only to have the tunnels recombine in the chamber of the first enemy leader. The screenshot is after the recombined force killed the leader there and now are splitting in two again. Each of the halves later split off a smaller scouting party. The scouting parties got into tense skirmishes.

Image

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Danthar
Posts: 10
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Re: Scenario 17: The Sceptre of Fire

Post by Danthar »

(1) Difficulty and version? Medium; 1.10.1
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 3.
(3) How clear? Clear.
(4) Dialog? Really liked the Dialogue, together with the dialogue in the beginning of the next scenario. Although I must note that (I tried both) the dialogue when Li'Sar gets the Sceptre is a lot better and it makes more sense (How would Li'Sar suddenly know where the exit is if Konrad takes the Sceptre?)
(5) Challenges? Not really, I had no clue what to expect, the Dwarven Doors being the furthest I had gotten previously (1.3.4) on this campaign, so I did come across level 3 trolls as a surprise (I assumed based on earlier experience in the scenario the one I had slain would be all), which had me reloading 2 times as Deflador was in a bad position. I have not noticed any expanding lava like I read earlier. The cave shook, but was that a sign of expanding lava? Didn't notice anything like that.
(6) How fun? (1-10) 8, I really liked it. I love the fact that there's a lighter scenario in between sometimes. Fighting the same kind of battles gets old if it happens too often.
(7) Changes? Change the dialogue when Konrad takes the Sceptre. Make it more interesting.
(8) Starting gold? 663 (after the 300 bonus)
(9) Higher level units? I had choice out of 18 level 3, and 1 level 4 (Great Mage). And 14 level 2's.

Replay if you want:
Attachments
HttT-The_Sceptre_of_Fire_replay.gz
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