Scenario Review: NR 6 - Old Friend

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Scenario Review: NR 6 - Old Friend

Post by Content Feedback »

(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?
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sabalzen
Posts: 25
Joined: April 1st, 2009, 12:50 pm

Re: Scenario Review: NR 6 - Old Friend

Post by sabalzen »

1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Easy, 1.6
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
Depends what you mean by difficult... I don't think it's difficult to beat the scenario, but it is difficult to keep all your units alive.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Ambiguous. Holding the fort or sallying forth to slay the enemy leader(s) are two very different things.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
A big let-down after the intricate and thrillingly original previous scenarios.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Keeping high-level units alive, particularly after the enemy reinforcements arrive.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
3. Unlike the previous scenarios, there were no alternative routes to take and no interesting strategies to think about (that I could see, anyway). Worse still, once the worg riders turn up, each enemy turn took ten to fifteen minutes or more. I eventually quit without finishing.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Clarify the objectives, even if they are to change during the scenario. Start with the sole aim of slaying the head orc, then alter it to resisting the onslaught once its obvious you have no chance of succeeding. Give the player warning about the enemy reinforcements (as was done with the necrophages in the previous scenario), so that you have time to pull back and redeploy from offence to defence. As it is, the player is likely to lose a large fraction of their best units to a deus ex machina stunt that lacks any storyline or realism. I can't imagine anyone will enjoy this. Most of all, don't use so many enemy units that slow the AI to a crawl, it's honestly unplayable as is, and a long way from fun.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Worg riders. OK, technically I'm not forced to reload, but it will probably be quicker for me to play the whole scenario again avoiding triggering them than it will be to wait out the turns remaining with them around.
bluwater94
Posts: 8
Joined: July 12th, 2009, 10:18 pm

Re: Scenario Review: NR 6 - Old Friend

Post by bluwater94 »

i thought the game was awesomely hard i mean im thier cheating :P i only killed the two other generals.. then i recruited a hole army of out laws and put the xp at 150.. ;) so i send a fugative up the mountain and i see the army of goblin knights i freaked out inside.. i think the goblins came at the wronge time cz i was in the middle of finishing of the remaining troops of the generals.. also when i say the size of the keep of the leader i was like wow he wont even be able to fill the whole thing.. unfortunatly i was wronge.. :P
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alda
Posts: 49
Joined: December 2nd, 2009, 4:06 pm

Re: Scenario Review: NR 6 - Old Friend

Post by alda »

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

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
0
I mean, you've got freakin' regenerating white mages and a two hexes wide corridor to protect... You don't even have to recruit or recall to finish the level, and I even was able to lvl up some of my (many) main characters. So that's what I did, since there was no real incentive to go kill the orc leader : normally at this level of the campaign, you should have a solid recall list so you don't really need xp and theres no point in wasting gold (well actually if I knew I wouldnt keep my gold for next level I maybe would have tried to really fight just for fun, but even it would have been useless). So it's cool to have a level where you basically just have to click on "end my turn" eighteen times, but what's the point ?

I'll maybe wait till I've finished the campaign to have a definite judgement on this but I just want to emphasize the fact that the couple of regenerating mages seems way too powerful.
EZE
Posts: 17
Joined: March 21st, 2009, 4:10 am

Re: Scenario Review: NR 6 - Old Friend

Post by EZE »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Easy (1.4.7)

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Poor. Their king came out on turn 16 and I killed him (but he 'ran away'). According to the objectives it should have been over, but there was no change and I had to play the last 2 turns anyway. They should either update, or be modified and just say survive until end of turns. If it was 25 instead of 18 I could have cleared the board of all enemies.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
The goblin knights appearing in the hills was alright. I didn't enjoy the rest of it.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Knowing what the objective was.

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

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

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Losing lvl3 troops after killing the king.
shadowblack
Posts: 368
Joined: April 15th, 2010, 3:03 pm

Re: Scenario Review: NR 6 - Old Friend

Post by shadowblack »

1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
1.8.3, Spearman (Challenging), i.e. Normal difficulty

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
1 if you hole up and defend until the end of turns; 11+ if you try killing Rakshas

(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?
Fine

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
I sent a few units out to capture some of the villages near the entrance. Getting all of my units back without losing anyone was my main challenge. Once inside I had no problems.

(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?
No changes

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No
You are a Dark Adept: You immerse yourself in the dark arts... potentially with great rewards...
Vigilant
Posts: 3
Joined: December 12th, 2010, 3:01 am

Re: Scenario Review: NR 6 - Old Friend

Post by Vigilant »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Normal (1.8.5), earlier play of Challenging (I forget version)

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
2 to survive, 10 to defeat enemy leader
Defeating Rak without suffering massive causalities requires either outright cheating, or abuse of meta-knowledge (reloading to position several units just before spots where the goblin knight charge triggers) and strategic reloading.

(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 clear.

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

Attempting to preserve important units.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
1. Whether you choose to survive or hold out, the play is frustrating and tedious. Surviving either relies on abusing the auto-res magi, or forming a line in the cave, switching out as necessary. Either way, there's not much happening other than time passing.

When changed to attack, it becomes a grind fest of managing a massive swath of units, desperately hoping not too many die in the process. Like many levels in this campaign, the extra enemy units only prolong the inevitable. The feeling that you know you'll win eventually, but it will take 16 very long turns to do so, is horribly frustrating.

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

Reduce the scale. The level is a very simple concept... currently played out by probably over 100 units.
After doing that, reduce the number of the goblin knights in that event. My first reaction when i saw it was "seriously? nearly every tile?" That is an army. It's beyond suspension of belief that all of those would have gone unnoticed.

Also, the reward for going through all that effort of attacking is non-existent. Your gold is left behind in the next level and won't be seen for a long while. There needs to be some more tangible reward for defeating all enemies, especially considering you have to nearly cheat or have absurd luck to do that!

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

Goblin knight event.
hopstodge
Posts: 1
Joined: October 13th, 2010, 11:51 am

Re: Scenario Review: NR 6 - Old Friend

Post by hopstodge »

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

Spearman/challenging (1.8.5)

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

3

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

Fairly, though the objective daring you to try to defeat the Big Bad or hold out for 18 turns seems a bit mysterious. The 18 turns becomes clear at the end, but it seems very arbitrary at the start. Maybe some plot device can be used in advance to indicate what is coming and suggest the turn limit.

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

Fairly. The intro dialogue (the big council scene) was interesting, but the scenario itself wasn't as interesting as previous ones.

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

Deciding on a good strategy: I went for a short sally, then fall back to the caves and trying to level up as many spearmen and bowmen (and loyal units) as possible. Leveling a decent number of units was tricky.

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

6 - I found the grind uninteresting but it was satisfying to end up with a good result.

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

It'd be nice to have a slightly wider cave entrance -- it would be harder to block off, but give more opportunity to give experience to troops.

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

I didn't hit any of the big events, but I misjudged the scale of the assault first time out, so overextended with troops that weren't tough enough, so had to restart to rethink.

(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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Maiklas3000
Posts: 532
Joined: June 23rd, 2010, 10:43 am

Re: Scenario Review: NR 6 - Old Friend

Post by Maiklas3000 »

(1) Difficulty? Nightmare; 1.9.4
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 2 to survive
(3) How clear? Clear.
(4) Dialog? Meh. It's a bit cruel for the leader to egg the player on to leave the cave.
(5) Challenges? None.
(6) How fun? (1-10) 3
(7) Changes? More entrances. Wider entrances.
(8) Restarts? Restarted from start when my loyal wraith got killed in one round by an enemy crossbowman.
(9) WML? Very good, but one comment refers to version 1.5.
(10) Replay? Too boring to attach.
Ceres
Forum Regular
Posts: 620
Joined: September 18th, 2010, 7:56 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Scenario Review: NR 6 - Old Friend

Post by Ceres »

1) Level, Version? Normal, 1.9.4
2) Difficulty? 1.
3) Clear? Yes.
4) Dialogue? Tallinn tells me to go out when there are 40 units blocking the way, which was a little weird. For the reason see (7).
5) Challenges? Challenges??
6) Fun? 4.
7) Changes? Bigger cave entrance. That weird dialogue from (4) happened because the store_location (line 382-395) fails, since there's "range" instead of "radius", twice. It'd be nice if that could be fixed.
8) Restarts? No.
9) WML? Bug. See (4) and (7).
Benefuchs
Posts: 54
Joined: February 24th, 2009, 9:40 pm

Re: Scenario Review: NR 6 - Old Friend

Post by Benefuchs »

1) challenging, 1.8.5
(2) 1
(3) From what Tallin says it is clear: Attack! From the number of enemies and the short time it is clear that defending the cave is the thing to do.
(4) The council, explaining Tallins development to a leader, is really good!
(5) Playing defensive, only the collection of XP.
(6) 2 if playing defensive (Can't use my gold and my great army!); Not much more, if played offensive.
(7) more entrance hexes would make it more fun.
(8) attempt to attack
(9) n/a
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taptap
Posts: 980
Joined: October 6th, 2011, 5:42 pm

Re: Scenario Review: NR 6 - Old Friend

Post by taptap »

Amazing to have a scenario where you would be easily able to recruit an army big enough to kill everything (though maybe not in 18 turns) but you are limited by the slow and small cave entrance so you can't bring them out. Other than previous players I believe the small entrance is pretty much necessary to stop players from killing Rakshas (much more effective and a much better way to do it than the tomato surprise protection also featured in this scenario, and surely it would be triggered far more often with a larger entrance). Given the amount of gold there was no point in trying to save gold and the best thing I could do was a half-hearted attack to level some lawful forces, the bowmen kept dying though.

If anyone manages to kill Rakshas I would offer him an epilogue and a campaign win and make the scenario harder afterwards.
I am a Saurian Skirmisher: I'm a real pest, especially at night.
Churchie
Posts: 1
Joined: October 10th, 2012, 4:05 am

Re: Scenario Review: NR 6 - Old Friend

Post by Churchie »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Difficult, 1.8.5 (...a little dated by now)
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
1 if defending, 10 if going for Rakshas
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Quite clear -- the objective gives the impression that attacking Rakshas is supposed to be *very* difficult
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Rather clear, but a little frustrating. Tallin urging an attack is misguided, but makes sense in terms of character development. The most frustrating part was managing to kill Rakshas and finding that he simply escapes with little or no consequence.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Killing Rakshas was difficult to achieve: the ambush and 300+ units clogged up the screen a lot (as they were supposed to, I assume), but I was still able to use the undying mages to leap-frog to his fort. The greatest difficulty came from trying to manage their suicides to teleport toward him and not away, though they ended up back-tracking a couple times from bad luck.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8 for trying to manipulate the leapfrogging mages, 2 for sitting around defending
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Perhaps make a more tangible reward for anyone who does manage to slay Rakshas? Otherwise, it's a pretty straight-forward siege.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
I had to reload a couple times early on to figure out how to get the mages moving in the right direction without losing too much ground.
BillytheBabyGoat
Posts: 20
Joined: December 21st, 2016, 12:39 am

Re: Scenario Review: NR 6 - Old Friend

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. 4.

3. Clear, although I decided to hide from the get-go.

4. It was fine.

5. Had to reload once or twice to level units; could have easily survived without doing so, but wanted to get more heavy tanking units as well as leveling all the loyal units. I ended up leveling multiple peasants up to spearman/swordsmen, with the end goal of a royal guard host. Also leveled Krash to 3rd level, white mages were already 3rd level, leveled druid to third level, several bandits to 3rd, Tallin to 4th, and Abhai to 3rd. I ended up parking Abhai in the village in the mountains outside; he was capable of surviving there against a single unit basically indefinitely (I didn't have terrible RNG with him which helped) so got to specter and a half. I ended up putting four units on the keep edge to fight enemies with mage of lights/druid arranged to healer all four of them, while keeping one tile unilluminated (Where I was leveling bandits). The 3 illuminated tiles I placed Krash, Tallin, and many peasants and spearman rotating them out when hurt to prevent deaths. I lost only a few peasants with 60% defense, especially since I tended to keep spearman/swordsmen on the walls during the nighttime. Tallin next to peasants in the daytime or dawn/dusk while illuminated gave them +125% damage after he hit level 4, which wiped out enemies well enough to level them pretty easy.

6. 7. Not particularly difficult to just hide in the cave, but it was fun cycling units and working up towards a host of spearmen. I imagine attacking out of the cave would be basically impossible without severe casualties, and I had decided from the start to fall back into the cavern and level units with minimal risk.

7. Not really, it was fine.

8. Restarted a few times just to avoid poor RNG, such as a peasant with some xp taking 3 crossbow hits or Krash taking 6 sword strokes.
Thrash
Posts: 223
Joined: June 25th, 2010, 1:54 pm

Re: Scenario Review: NR 6 - Old Friend

Post by Thrash »

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

1.12.6, Normal, about 9000 gold.

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

1 to just survive. The cave entrance makes this easy, even without bringing the immortal mages into play. The only risk is the occasional time you will kill enemies on defense allowing them to get multiple attacks.

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

BUG: When you finish the level it calculates carry over at 80%, but then you really don't get gold carry over.

(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?

None.

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

As a survival scenario, it's a 3, no real challenge.

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

Wider cave mouth.

I'm puzzled why I built up all this gold over the past few scenarios just to have it disappear for no reason. It would have made sense for me to give it to the dwarves. Or just have the treasury in the last scenario not so over the top.

It was really tempting to start spamming L1s on this level to try and win, especially with no gold carry over, but honestly the thought of pushing around 50-100 units and risking my primaries to a L1 line collapsing didn't excite me for no real gain.

Maybe revamp this scenario to be a big, tough winnable battle and then when you win have a massive orc army show up that spurs your retreat back into the cave. The objectives would shift from a required beating of the enemy leaders to then running for it.

(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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