Scenario Review: SoF 2 - Closing the Gates

Feedback for the mainline campaign Sceptre of Fire (not to be confused with the Heir to the Throne scenario of the same name.)

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rmj
Posts: 281
Joined: July 4th, 2010, 5:21 am

Re: Scenario Review: SoF 2 - Closing the Gates

Post by rmj »

Version 1.11 Medium difficulty.

I like this battle. It looks like your doomed with attacks by elves as well as trolls, but things work out. And they work out to easily. I could have sent the dwarves out to annihilate the elves if there were enough turns left. I think that it might be more challenging if you gave the elves a gold bonus around turn 6 or 7, so a full keep of elves would join the attack..
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Ranger
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 2 - Closing the Gates

Post by Ranger »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.11.5, Challenging
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4
(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?
Seems allright.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Killing trolls before elves would fight through the gate defences. No that it matters to win the scenario, but still.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8, excellent
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I could suggest to reduce stats of old dwarf Baglur with a trait "aged"(-hp/-dmg/-movement) to better reflect that he is an old retired warrior and you shouldnt be using him in the first line.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
First time I played the scenario I put Baglur to defend the gates and he was lost when they closed. :(
(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?
Calling a spear a spoon and then saying "our spoons are different, WINR," is kind of unsatisfying, isn't it?
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D-Wade
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 2 - Closing the Gates

Post by D-Wade »

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

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5 - The elves were kind of pressuring and four or five slipped into the caves before I shut the door. But in the end it wasn't really difficult to take care of them and allowed me to level a couple of units.

(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?
Interesting. Rugnur's insecurities and the way he behaves during the dialogues let you take a nice look at his character.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The major challenge was to reach the runes as quickly as possible in order to prevent too many elves from breaking through.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8 - Nice and quick.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
It's fine as it is.


(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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doofus-01
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 2 - Closing the Gates

Post by doofus-01 »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
normal, 1.13.1+dev

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
3

(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?
It was OK. I really liked the big gate terrain.

(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)
8

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

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
no

(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?
It looked OK to me.
BfW 1.12 supported, but active development only for BfW 1.13/1.14: Bad Moon Rising | Trinity | Archaic Era |
| Abandoned: Tales of the Setting Sun
GitHub link for these projects
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Inky
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 2 - Closing the Gates

Post by Inky »

(1) Level and version? Hard (Lord), 1.12.4, 278 starting gold
(2) Difficult? (1-10) 4, pretty easy.
(3) Objectives? Clear.
(4) Dialog? Fine.
(5) Challenges? Leveling Rugnur
(6) Fun? (1-10) 9, very fun.
(7) Changes? Fine as is.
(8) Restarts? None.

Finished turn 12/15
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shadow12
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 2 - Closing the Gates

Post by shadow12 »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Challenging, 1.0.4
Started with 200 gold. Ended turn 13/15 with 73 gold.
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10) 3.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives? Very clear. Move units to the tiles and the big gate closes.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario? Interesting story. It made sense that everyone should be inside when the gate closes.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario? making sure to move slowed units off the front line.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10) 8, I enjoyed it. I was able to level some units. No elves made it in.

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

(Would be even more fun if some big trolls rushed us after the gate closes, with more tunnels that we have to pass through!)

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario? nope
Sometimes life unexpectedly throws a Troll or a nasty Queen Naga in your path.
sine_nomine
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 2 - Closing the Gates

Post by sine_nomine »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Difficult (Lord), Wesnoth 1.12.4
277 starting gold
(plenty to spare)

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
2 to close the gates
3 to kill the elves

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear, but again, there's no need for glyphs when you can just kill the elves

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The best place to hold the line is just within the gate (so that the elves can only attack with three units and two need to stand on the cave, while you can attack with four) but that's not really necessary since you can just overwhelm them and have plenty of villages to rotate your units to. It's not worth closing the gates since you can just kill the elf.
I guess the real challenge here is to distribute exp as best as possible and to avoid overrecruiting.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
5, the idea of capturing glyphs to close the gates is cool. Although it doesn't play out as intended, killing elves isn't so bad.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
To make the scenario work as it appears to be intended, give the elves a massive amount of income and have them pump out units. You would then need to hold the line with guardsmen (without attacking) and closing the gates would actually matter. However I don't know if that would be any more fun, especially if the only thing guarding the glyphs are the same boring troll whelps. You would have to set it up in a way that involves fighting some of the elf force within the cave, perhaps some could enter the cave through the side entrances before you can reach the glyphs but then you might have to move the glyphs away from the entrance (if the elves are strong you won't be able to make it to the glyphs if they advance that far).

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No, but I replayed for better gold/exp.
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lujo
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 2 - Closing the Gates

Post by lujo »

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

Highest, 1.12.?

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

1

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

Clear but somewhat misleading as the elves are less numerous than in the first scenario and can be fought off.

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

The writing in this campaign is visibly the best I've seen.

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

The challenge is that the scenario is actually tough enough to play that it makes abusing the reload function to get more efficiency out of your Thunderers way too appealing. This seems to be a problem specific to dwarves because of the Thunderers, the harder you push the Dwarves the bigger the difference between a succesful thunderer hit and a missed one. Ironically, this gives the level some replay value because after the first level where you can't really level units up, this level gives you incentive to try to really cheeze as much xp out of it as possible.

(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?

Well, the problem isn't (just) in this map, it's more about the whole campaign enticing cheezy gameplay. The first level in the campaign is difficult to complete with unit variety (due to the distance your troops need to cover) and leveled up units. And the next level really throws powerfull stuff at you and seems to require you to have cheezed this level. So you're kind of pushed to replay it for the xp on your troops, and if something pushes you to cheeze Dwarfs it tends to backfire on the difficulty and challenge part as cheezing Thunderers just makes enemy dissaper from the map. And then beating the elves becomes trivial and the whole scenario falls appart. So I'd make the first level less restrictive, and probably make the next level less difficult too.

Also, I'd make "killing the elves" have an unlisted effect of giving extra turns to close the gate, for sure. See below.

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

Yes. When I was replaying for xp, my troops wiped the elves off the map, but since they also killed the trolls this took enough turns that the time ran out just as I was retreating back into the cave (I could close it but my main character was outside). And if I've killed the elves -- where's the rush to close the gate?
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revolting_peasant
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 2 - Closing the Gates

Post by revolting_peasant »

On Medium difficulty, with version 1.13.10, and having carried out a successful assassination of the Elf Lord in Scenario 1, I recruited two keep-fulls - 54 Thunderers, 7 Fighters and one recalled Scout.

I was able to defeat all the Trolls by turn 8 or 9, but more surprisingly, by turn 10 the Elvish attack had waned and 2 Elvish Shamans were critically injured. At that point I gambled on going on the offensive, even though most of my units were far from full health: I sent out a Thunderer and a Fighter beyond the fortification line and killed the Shamans. I also sent a spare Guard to hopefully catch other Elves' attention, which it did (it shouldn't have though). So, on Turn 11, I had no new casualties, and I just wiped out the remaining attackers with my units from the back, and moved Rugnur, a Fighter and a Thunderer down towards the Elvish keep. Rugnur was by now leveled, so I wasn't worried about last-minute recruiting by the Elvish leader. He did recruit a Hero, but on Turn 13 I was able to kill the Elvish leader, the Hero, and the remaining Elvish scout near one of the minor entrances.

Meaning... this level can be completed by killing all enemies, despite this not being mentioned as a potential Scenario Objective. Also - perhaps it's a bit too easy on Medium?
Konrad2
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 2 - Closing the Gates

Post by Konrad2 »

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

1.14.4, Hard

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

1

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

Clear but I was expecting way more elvish pressure. I guess they'd get reinforcements if I tried to defeat them?

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

Like +1.

(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)

4. More fun than the last scenario, but again, not living up to the expert rating.

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

Give the elves more gold and make them play more aggressive (e.g. let them make use of gaps in my formation). Maybe remove Shamans from their recruit list, because they don't deal much dmg and slowing your enemy is not that good if you are trying to siege.
Make the trolls be more defensive/passive. They pretty much rushed up to me (which does not make much sense) so I could take care of them way faster than otherwise.

(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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LordWolfDan
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 2 - Closing the Gates

Post by LordWolfDan »

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

- 1.14.5, Normal

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

- 7

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

- Either of them were clear, ended up killing the enemy leader to harvest some XP (three steelclads and one thunderguard 8))

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

- Seems good. Fitting the story we are in, though it could be less dragging here...

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

- Wasting trolls

(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?

- Except for the dialogue, I like it in general

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

- No
devavrata
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 2 - Closing the Gates

Post by devavrata »

Content Feedback wrote: March 11th, 2008, 11:06 pm(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Battle for Wesnoth 1.8.3, Easy, Battle for Wesnoth 1.10.7 Medium, Battle for Wesnoth 1.12.5 Hard
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
3
(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?
Generally speaking, the dialogues in this campaign are off-character. I don't know why -maybe they are intended to be funny, but I see no fun in them.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Getting to fight the trolls in narrow corridors can be quite slowing, but it is fine as a challenge to do it against the clock.
(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?
More pressure from the trolls... what about one or two troll kings with their keeps?
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No
Konrad2
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 2 - Closing the Gates

Post by Konrad2 »

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

1.15.8, Lord (Difficult)

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

9, I failed a lot.

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

Crystal.

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

Clear.

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

Getting to the runes protected by the trolls before the Elves get in.

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

4, it's hard. D:

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

-

Scenario stats:
Attempt 1:
Spoiler:
Attempt 2:
Spoiler:
Attempt 3:
Spoiler:
Attempt 4:
Spoiler:
Success:
Spoiler:
Attachments
SoF-Closing the Gates replay 20201228-174459.gz
Attempt 1
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SoF-Closing the Gates replay 20201229-155807.gz
Attempt 2
(34.96 KiB) Downloaded 189 times
SoF-Closing the Gates replay 20210103-155959.gz
Attempt 3
(28.34 KiB) Downloaded 193 times
SoF-Closing the Gates replay 20210103-161721.gz
Attempt 4
(32.58 KiB) Downloaded 197 times
SoF-Closing the Gates replay 20210103-163809.gz
Success
(33.26 KiB) Downloaded 208 times
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