Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit

Feedback for the mainline campaign Northern Rebirth.

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Ceres
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Re: Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit

Post by Ceres »

1) Level, Version? Normal, 1.9.4
2) Difficulty? 9.
3) Clear? Very.
4) Dialogue? Nice.
5) Challenges? White Mages losing all their XP when respawning. And Draugs.
6) Fun? 5. Mostly because of the bottleneck corridors.
7) Changes? Nice as it is.
8) Restarts? No. But I admit, I save-loaded a couple of times.
9) WML? Good.
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taptap
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Re: Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit

Post by taptap »

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

Swordsman (Difficult), 1.9.9 and Royal Guard (Nightmare), 1.10.3 - the comments are from the first playthrough, but most still stand.

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

6 - It is not so hard, if you know the map from previous tries and with spoilers. Without them it is nearly impossible. (Spiders, enemy leaders room with 4 liches etc.?) Interestingly even level 2 skeletons fear dwarves after you whittled them down, so it is relatively easy to block the corridors.

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

Reading the spoilers and getting knowledge by trying out. Levelling level1 units all the way to level3.

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

2 - It is just a pain. Takes ages, if you don't have preknowledge of the map and have to run someone through the caves to reinforce at the other end. Immortal white mages are ridiculous. I loved scenarios 1, 2 and 4, this one was just a pain. It needed just 4 levels from an all peasant, woodsmen army to a bunch of bored dwarf lords and ironclads (I killed all the ghouls in level 4 for tons of experience, which was surprisingly easy) fighting through dozens of level 2 and 3 skeletons. The amount of enemies doesn't add fun, it just guarantees that you get most of your units at level 3 during this scenario even the level 1 loyals.

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

Take away the immortality of the White mages (that would be a much bigger challenge than all the other "challenges" people manage by abusing the mages) and change the rest of this and later scenarios accordingly, say only some level3 skeletons and maybe one other lich as bodyguard in the study room.

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

Reading spoilers that I really need to go to the spiders - can't there be one case were being cautious would be the right choice? (Killing them in the bottleneck isn't so hard once you are convinced by their amount that you have to defend there.)

Storming the study room with plenty of arcane damage dwarf lords just to face tons of liches (I did save-load that time and went for a leader kill with the White mages instead).
Last edited by taptap on July 27th, 2012, 12:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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alluton
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Re: Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit

Post by alluton »

Seriously what are you supposed to do in this scenario?(i know to find and kill him) But i just see 20 level 2 skeletons and some level 3. And more keeps coming. I startedthis scenario whit 2k gold but im gonna kick those skeletons ass there wount be any gold left.... So how to do this?
"This game cured me of my real life addiction."
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MerlinCross
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Re: Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit

Post by MerlinCross »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on? Easy, 1.12
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10) 8+
(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? Decent
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario? The Spider Trap. It's BS that all your units in there are forever trapped
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10) 2. Interesting dungeon crawl, turns into a slog. Save often.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun? Lower the amount of gold certain armies get. Especially with the Southwest army. He'll just spam units against you till you've ground yourself down, and that's before you get the healers
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?The BS spider trap. I survived it pretty well but one of the immortal mages was forever trapped back there. I couldn't put enough units down the flooded path to kill the lich guards after that. Maybe make the cave in go away after you kill all the spiders?
(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better? Didn't look
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shadow12
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Re: Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit

Post by shadow12 »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Challenging, 1.0.4

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10) 8

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
The objective should really should say "Kill Malifor with Father Mage or Sister Mage." After I killed Malifor the first time, he reappeared in the northern chamber. Unfortunately, the only one there was Tallin. So I had to move some reinforcements to him. The next time I killed him the dialog said I have to kill Malifor with Sister mage or Father mage. It took awhile to get a mage there on such a big map. I didn't finish until turn 96 due to all this messing around.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
The dialog between Sister Mage and Father Mage' was silly - giggling, pouty faces, winking, eye rolling, and so on. Each time they are revived, its repeated all over again.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Boredom moving units through long, narrow tunnels that went up the entire length of the map. Frustration having to move units back and forth. Spending resources to get to the holy water, only to find it was only temporary and it wouldn't be any benefit to me. Having to listen to those two ridiculous mages!

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10) 2.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun? See #5 rant.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No restarts. Some reloads to save key players and not have to restart.

The wiki has great info and really helped. I usually try a scenario on my own first before reading the wiki or forums, but not this one.
In the SW tunnel, you get a Drake named Krash, 2 white mages and a Druid. I sent a quick footpad farther up the long tunnel to get 3 dwarves. It eventually opened to the treasury. You can then attack the treasury from 2 sides.

Your units won't get permanently stuck in the spider chamber. This chamber gets blocked off, but a secret passage opens up east into Malifor's chamber.

I sent a White mage with Tallin and 5 strong units north to the spiders, plus a footpad as Spider bait. I sent the footpad in the room to rile up the spiders. The doorway to the spider chamber is the perfect spot to attack. Started with 10 spiders. It took about 20 turns to kill them all because I didn't want to lose any of those units, except the footpad. The spider chamber has a passage off to the right opening into Malifor's chamber. The rod of Justice Is off to the left. I gave it to Tallin.

The treasury in the northwest adds up to about 14,000 gold. Why so much, I do not know.
i sent the quick white Mage down the SE tunnel with 2 other quick, strong units. She finds a Wraith (ghost) along the way. It is a long, grueling trek up the entire length of the map to Melfor's chamber. The tunnel is frustratingly narrow.

The 6 bottles of holy water last only to the end of the scenario. It took me until turn 80 to work my way east through hordes of skeletons to get the holy water. Turns out I didn't need the darn holy water so late in the game and it will not carry over to the next scenario. It was a waste of time. I would suggest to set up a choke point in the eastern tunnel and just forget about it.
Sometimes life unexpectedly throws a Troll or a nasty Queen Naga in your path.
BillytheBabyGoat
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Re: Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit

Post by BillytheBabyGoat »

Content Feedback wrote:(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
1. Nightmare.

2. 8

3. Very.

4. Very, nice to find all the extra loyal units.

5. Surviving until I found the healers was pretty painful; fortunately I put an outlaw down the southwest corridor pretty quickly and his vision range showed the first one in the cell so I knew to head down that way. Lost 90% of my first recruited/recalled units stoppering up the other tunnels, but once I had the healers made it much simpler. Surviving in the northern chamber with the spider swarm was also very difficult (Tallin went in with only two Dwarven Lords as guards, who both died holding off the spiders while Tallin got to recruiting thugs) but manageable. Leveled both white mages to light mages before realizing they can die, after that it was fairly simple to send them down passages and wipe things out. Had very little casualties after doing this, but also made out with only about 10,000 gold at the end of the scenario. I also didn't end up clearing anything but the prison, the north, the water passage, and the treasury as I didn't have the manpower to
push through tiny hallways without losing way too many units.

6. 10. Finding all the loyal units is nice, and the multiple front fighting is fun in a controlled fashion like this. Lost many leveled footpads and thugs to lucky hits by Draugr and many many thugs to Malifors honor guard (I popped the door in the north after clearing the spiders hoping to find an exit; I did not, and spent quite a while throwing thugs against the lich defenders).

7. None really; it's a long scenario, but fairly fun. The water passage was a little boring, but since I was doing it while clearing other areas it didn't go so bad.

8. None, surprisingly. Could definitely have restarted after the finish to have a more effective win, but overall didn't go too bad. RNG was pretty nice to me as well, so no loyal units got massacred (Although I didn't level any either save the white mages)
Thrash
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Re: Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit

Post by Thrash »

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

1.12.6, Normal. So much gold it has ceased to be an concern.

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

7. Until you free the prisoners, you are without healing and villages, which is tough. Then there is the trap of the spider chamber to content with, and really tough lich leader.

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

Clear. The path to achieving them isn't obvious.

(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?

The spider chamber. The first time I played (before reading the wiki) I just wandered in and got cut off and slaughtered. I don't know how I supposed to realize I would get cut off and needed an elite force in the room. Especially since a lot of the other tunnels involve triggering recruitment and letting them come to you.

BUG: If you have units where the walls appear to seal off the spider chamber, those units are alive in the wall and can move either way. I backed up a turn and re-loaded when this happened this since I was worried my game would be in some unstable state.

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

7. Some good novelty but a lot of slogging.

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

The dwarves behind the treasury really are too weak to do much. With some risk they can take out the first guard, but then they are too wounded to do anything else without risk of dying. So I'm not sure what the point is of having them there.

When a mage is resurrected they can move/attack again right away, which seems unnatural. At the end of my second play, my mage kept getting killed by the lich, but being resurrected within striking range, so the mage attacked 3-4 times in the same turn, killing the lich a little too easily and quickly.

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

After finishing the first time and reading the wiki and learning of the Rod of Justice I figured I had to replay to get the rod as my experience is without it I'd be seriously hampered latter. Will see if that's true, but if so, the player really needs more guidance on both the importance and tactics required for the spider room.
Attachments
NR-The_Pursuit_replay-1.gz
First time I played.
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Second time I played.
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octalot
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Re: Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit

Post by octalot »

Feedback on 1.14. I've played this campaign before, at the moment I'm looking at reusing the map for a UMC scenario, so this feedback is from looking at it without playing

Konrad22 has posted several bugs about this scenario: #3114, #3116, #3117

The death-by-spiders chamber now allows at most (even if you know exactly where the triggers are, and put units in the cave-in-walls) at most 4 units to get in, to face 7 or more level 3 spiders. By contrast, the 1.12.6 version of the map has a 15-hex antechamber with a defensible choke-point, and even with that the feedback directly above noted it as the main challenge of the map. The main reason for going in there (the Rod of Justice) is now in the treasury, so there's no reason to take on the spiders, but that just makes it a pointless deathtrap.
NeoNoir
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Re: Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit

Post by NeoNoir »

Hi dev team we got some problems on this mission:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... nknown.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... nknown.png

This one singular hex is a heavily flawed design. It allows AI to defend the entry very firmly and produce faster than you can kill their units so they can always keep the path stuck with skeletons. It is literally impossible to beat into this part of the map without some extreme luck.

A suggested fix for this map is this:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... nknown.png

These three hexes should be changed to cave or flat terrain so you wont have to grind RNG all day to get into this one

Thanks for the maintenance and update on this campaign
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octalot
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Re: Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit

Post by octalot »

Hi NeoNoir,

There's already a fix prepared for Wesnoth 1.14.2, but it would be great if you would download and test the new revision.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wesno ... ursuit.map
Konrad2
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Re: Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit

Post by Konrad2 »

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

1.14.2, Nightmare

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

9. If you accidentally trigger any enemy outside of the prison, you are pretty much screwed. No healer, no insane amount of gold make for a quite though start.

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

Clear. While some parts of this map are not necessary for winning the scenario, you are supposed to explore, which helps finding those parts.

(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?

Freeing the prisoners without losing units.

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

6. Almost no villages = high negative income.

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

Make the map smaller.

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

Sometimes it was too hard to figure out the necessary balance of using units as meatshields and having them survive still.
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MrTic
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Re: Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit

Post by MrTic »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Easy.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8. Quite hard.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Main objective is clear but the things you do on the side.. not much..

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
All the stuff you can do here isn't very easy and difficult to do if you don't know what's going to happen.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7, fun when you've go a plan.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
More dialogue to instruct on the many dangers ahead, maybe revealing the spiders area before you fully commint to it.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Oh yes. A lot of saving and loading, not because of the fights, but to re-think and adjust tactics for individual bunus stuff.
LordWolfDan
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Re: Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit

Post by LordWolfDan »

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

- 1.14.5, Challenging

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

- 10

(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?

- Impressive! Meeting new allies, such as more dwarves, two invincible white mages. the drake and elvish druid was very welcome! Not to mentiom, PLENTY of gold! When Malifor "killed" Morvin, I found out how to get rid of Malifor so that wasn't hard! Plus Tallin has the Rod of Justice!

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

- Swarmed by undead, but for more undead coming, more of my units showed up LOL

(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?

- Nothing to change here

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

- No
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Tom_Of_Wesnoth
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Re: Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit

Post by Tom_Of_Wesnoth »

Content Feedback wrote: March 12th, 2008, 11:49 am (1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Normal, 1.15.2
Content Feedback wrote: March 12th, 2008, 11:49 am (2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5/6.
Content Feedback wrote: March 12th, 2008, 11:49 am (3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Fairly clear.
Content Feedback wrote: March 12th, 2008, 11:49 am (4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
You're chasing the lich, and he's run into this massive complex. Got it.

The white mages are insufferable. I forget her name, but the female white mage seems to do nothing but giggle, which is quite annoying. Kresh the drake is better, but says next to nothing. The elvish druid - her secret identity isn't foreshadowed at all, she just talks about how she was eye-candy (or possibly a concubine) for the... skeleton? Why does a skeleton find anything attractive, let alone a flesh and blood creature?

A lot of the down the eastern passage - where you get the ghost - assumes that you haven't found the lich yet. I had, by the time I got through the bottleneck there, so it didn't really make any sense.
Content Feedback wrote: March 12th, 2008, 11:49 am (5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Bottlenecks, particularly in the aforementioned eastern passage. I could only fit two fighters on the frontline there, against a constant swarm of skeletons. Lesser bottlenecks elsewhere.

The room that closes off and swarms you with spiders - unforeshadowed and a complete tomato surprise that dooms whoever you send in there.
Content Feedback wrote: March 12th, 2008, 11:49 am (6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4. It's a lot of repetitive slogging through passages against yet more skeletons, which we've already had two scenarios of, with only a brief break for some orcs. The new characters are poorly done. And there's a tomato surprise.
Content Feedback wrote: March 12th, 2008, 11:49 am (7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Get rid of the spider room. Just... Get rid of it. Or at least give some hints that it's a spidery place. Have a dwarf comment on the unstable architecture, and add some cobwebs in the area.
Content Feedback wrote: March 12th, 2008, 11:49 am (8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
I reloaded the turn after getting caught in the spider room.
If presented with the opportunity, I would take great pleasure in becoming a world ruler.
Konrad2
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Re: Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit

Post by Konrad2 »

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

1.15.7, Royal Guard (Nightmare)

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

5-10, depending on how many enemies you decide to trigger at once.

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

Clear. Destroy Malifor somehow.

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

Okayish.

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

Removing green and then purple fast enough before the other enemies trigger.

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

5

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

-

Scenario stats:
First attempt:
Spoiler:
Second attempt:
Spoiler:
Success:
Spoiler:
Attachments
NR-The Pursuit replay 20201209-190819.gz
First attempt
(55.69 KiB) Downloaded 287 times
NR-The Pursuit replay 20201209-194117.gz
Second attempt
(65.19 KiB) Downloaded 268 times
NR-The Pursuit replay 20201209-211122.gz
Success
(88.9 KiB) Downloaded 261 times
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