Scenario Review: SoF 9 - Caverns of Flame

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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santosis
Posts: 74
Joined: October 11th, 2010, 12:04 am

Re: Scenario Review: SoF 9 - Caverns of Flame

Post by santosis »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Challenging, 1.8.5

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Perfectly (un)clear, as they should be. The ambiguity of what to do speaks to the impossible situation the dwarves face.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Here's my problem--how does an Orc manage to find a scepter in a sunken volcanic mess. Does this ever get explained?

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
At first, I wasn't sure what to do. I lost a few units to rushing down the east/west passages. I was able to hold the southern pass. The scenario ended just in time--the trolls would have destroyed me the next turn.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
Hmm, not sure what to say here. It is a fitting end, I guess... its not supposed to be a happy ending.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Probably good as is--it might be nice to further torture the player by showing them an exit (only to have them die before they get there).

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Nope, I did it on the first try.
torgo
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Joined: February 7th, 2011, 6:20 am

Re: Scenario Review: SoF 9 - Caverns of Flame

Post by torgo »

I ran into two quirks while playing this scenario in v1.8.5.



First, I recruited lots of new "arrow fodder" units along the way while playing this campaign. If they weren't close to promoting by the end of a scenario, I didn't recall them from the next scenario or dismiss them from the recall list. So when my army materialized in Caverns Of Flame, it was so big that it filled up that starting area. A bunch of units materialized in the void around the edges or between the starting room and the troll rooms on either side.

I decided to have fun with it... I moved just enough other units southward into the corridor so that every unit could fit in the starting space. I stacked up decent fighting units near the corridor and around the edges, mixed in with a few "expendable" units as the ones farthest south in the corridor. It was like a sliding number puzzle since everyone was packed in with no place to go, but it was workable.

So with my units filling up the entire room and spilling out well into the hallway, the elves had no place to materialize. All of their units popped up in the void, which made for some interesting results. It turns out that when you're fighting a unit standing in lava or in a void space, they have a 0% defense rating and your units have a 100% chance of hitting them with every blow - except for magical attacks, which still have a 70% chance regardless.

Some of the elves moved into the left room with the trolls, as there was nowhere else to go. The ones bordering the start room were easy to wipe out since every attack was a hit. The ones more than one space away from any room were simply stuck in limbo and never did anything for the entire game.




Second, the "remember what Khakrah said about this being a volcano" thing didn't apply. Those berserk dwarves were bad news, so I made haste down the corridor to try to outrun them. I ran around/through the bats, with only the units who ended up right next to them even bothering to fight them.

I was well past that one big opening by the time the dragon showed up, and he fought the elves instead. He took out several of those berserkers for me, so I was quite grateful. I might not have survived the scenario without his help. But since I didn't fight him and wasn't even in the neighborhood, he never talked to me. That "remember what Khakrah said" line in this scenario didn't fit.
Cel
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Joined: October 5th, 2011, 5:48 pm
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 9 - Caverns of Flame

Post by Cel »

1.) 1.8.6 normal

2.) 8

3.) Well, I think it shouldn't be clear... ;)

4.) very interesting

5.) I lost a lot of units, but as it is the last scenario, this was no problem.

6.) 8

7.) nothing

8.) no


In the scenario itself everything was okay, but there happened some strange things in the epilogue (I write this here, because there is no topic for this...)

The guardians of Haldric were standing in a circle, but not around Haldric but somewhere else (some of them were even standing in the deep water). And at the top of the map stood a little dwarf (dwarvish fighter level 1). I couldn't see what name he had. But in the dialogue he wasn't mentioned.
sorry for my English...
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taptap
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 9 - Caverns of Flame

Post by taptap »

please remove, double posting
Last edited by taptap on October 25th, 2011, 9:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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taptap
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Joined: October 6th, 2011, 5:42 pm

Re: Scenario Review: SoF 9 - Caverns of Flame

Post by taptap »

Seriously? Huge disappointment. It is not the end in itself that kills the fun, but what could be heroic looks pointless and suicidal with the dialogs sported in this campaign.

Questions:

How did the sceptre survive this? Why is everyone so suicidal? Couldn't this be omitted?

Why didn't the griffon riders escape as well? They were flying over the lava easy enough and were in fact nearer to the escape hole.

I didn't see the dragon, does he care at all about being buried under lava?

Game play:

Quite easy (if you had enough units left in the last scenario).

Again a scenario where you don't have to do the fighting. Just maneuver and watch and defend - this would be good, if it were not for this end. The level 2 orc guards are easy enough with your runesmith power other than that I did 95% defense.

Improvements:

Make a visible escape. (You don't know how long I spent looking for sth. like this in vain before triggering the glyph.)

Make you try to go there and likely fail, while allowing you to preserve the sceptre on a place the lava can't reach (for a win or the sceptre to be destroyed in the lava for a loss).

Alternatively, omit the scenario and add another explanation.

Let all griffons near enough escape.
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Pewskeepski
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 9 - Caverns of Flame

Post by Pewskeepski »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Steelclad (Challenging), 1.10.0 - 0 Starting Gold.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
3. Hardly fought at all in this one, and I was not concerned about losing units 'cause I knew they'd all die anyway.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
"Explore as much of the cave as possible" is ridiculous. "Find a safe place from the lava" would be better.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Poor as usual. You don't set a volcano off by sitting on a magical object.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
And then there were none.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
I give it a 7 only because it's fun to watch an army of trolls swoop over the elves, like a deadly plague :twisted:

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Less trolls? Maybe if you had to kill the elves it'd be better. It would also be nice if the purple and green teams had more unit variety like Warlords, and Slurbows.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Nope. But in this scenario, why should the death of a hero be a lose?

(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?
Okay.
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WanderingHero
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 9 - Caverns of Flame

Post by WanderingHero »

The dialogue was silly. Perhaps if they all accepted they were in a no win situation and the only thing they could do is sacrifice their lives to stop the elves getting the scepter then this might make sense, but "lets trigger and active volcano while we're inside it and try to find a way out! is pretty silly.

Also Lava is hot, Krawg would be burnt alive flying that close to it.

Scenario was ok gameplaywise, but a bit easy. Still beat my first Mainline Expert campaign, do I get a merit badge?
podbelski
Posts: 151
Joined: June 7th, 2011, 8:35 pm

Re: Scenario Review: SoF 9 - Caverns of Flame

Post by podbelski »

Played this campaign with 1.11.15, one level less than top difficulty

Overall impressions for the _whole campaign_:
+ interesting plot
+ very good maps
+ adequate difficulty
- way too much talks for may taste, and a lot of them feel silly TBH

Thanks!
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D-Wade
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 9 - Caverns of Flame

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)
6 - I just ran straight down the middle, expecting the trigger to be there. After that, I retreated and let the trolls and elves handle themselves.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Explore the cave? That is not even the objective! It should be more like "Find the hidden trigger to activate the volcano." and not something vague like it is right now.

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The major challenge was to get down to the trigger quickly and securing my path with some cannon fodder. After that, the trolls and elves battled each other and mainly ignored me.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8 - A nice final mission. And also different to the usual "Kill all enemy leaders"-objectives.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Perhaps tweak the dialogue. The dwarves might have some hope, but also let them talk about their likely death and maybe have them reflect on their lives/the path that lead up to this.

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

Final Note: The campaign was nice and introduced quite some different objectives. Also the missions weren't repetitive and every single one of them had some nice touch.
But the dialogue needs some tweaking. Give it more reasoning, make it more profound and detailed.
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Inky
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 9 - Caverns of Flame

Post by Inky »

(1) Level and version? Hard (Lord), 1.12.4
(2) Difficult? (1-10) 2. Extremely trivial to beat.
(3) Objectives? Clear.
(4) Dialog? Fine.
(5) Challenges? This scenario's pretty impossible to lose.
(6) Fun? (1-10) 3 - would be much more fun if you actually had to do something besides step on the glyph.
(7) Changes? I think it would be much more interesting for the player if the scenario was redesigned so you actually have to help kill the elves. At the moment the orcs/trolls kill most of the elves and the rest just automatically die after the volcano erupts.
(8) Restarts? None.

Nothing really to see in the replay, I just run south with everyone, hit the glyph and press end turn until the volcano erupts.
SoF-Caverns_of_Flame_replay.gz
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General comments on the campaign:

-Baglur is missing the loyal overlay

-I feel like the last 4 scenarios (toward the caves, outriding the outriders, the dragon, caverns of flame) are all "non-scenarios" where all you have to do is run. I think it would be nice if the last scenario at least required more combat, instead of just moving to the glyph and waiting enough turns.

-In general the difficulty is a nice challenge. Scenario 1 might be too hard - at the moment it's just barely doable as long as you don't have bad luck. In my opinion the final scenario is much too easy.

-If I'm willing to believe gryphons can talk, I am also willing to believe they can talk normally. I did not bother trying to decipher Krawg's dialogue. Furthermore he is a real liability in the cave scenarios. I heard people were thinking of changing Krawg into a wraith; this would be an extremely welcome change. (The rest of the campaign's dialogue is very well written though.)

-------
A nice and challenging campaign. I felt like there were too many running scenarios but I really enjoyed the combat scenarios near the beginning. Thanks to everyone who worked on this campaign!
sine_nomine
Posts: 39
Joined: April 30th, 2016, 11:34 pm

Re: Scenario Review: SoF 9 - Caverns of Flame

Post by sine_nomine »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Difficult (Lord), Wesnoth 1.12.4

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
2 to use the volcano
5 to fight it out

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
I could nitpick technicalities but it's pretty clear what to do.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Really dumb. They claim to want to use the volcano to kill the elves and escape, but they refuse to leave once the elves are dead! Even ignoring that part, the storyline doesn't make sense. Why exactly does thursagan know that there will be a glyph to make the volcano erupt? Why don't the other gryphon riders escape to the surface (presumably the "lit" tiles are an escape route for flying units)? Why doesn't the annoying gryphon take the sceptre? Why isn't the sceptre destroyed in the lava? etc.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Normal way: Nothing, just go down, hit the glyph, and wait for it to be over.
Fighting: Go south, then loop around southwest to take over the western troll's keep. That way the trolls will wear down the elves' troops before you need to fight them. Kill the elves using your terrain advantage, then go around the map cleaning things up.
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to kill the orc leaders.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
2 to use the volcano
6 to fight it out

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

(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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Samonella
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 9 - Caverns of Flame

Post by Samonella »

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

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
3 (Though that's with the low difficulty)

(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 enough. As others have pointed out, it seems silly that Thursagan knows there's a glyph to trigger an eruption.

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

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is?
7

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
At the end of the scenario, watching 50 troll warriors die in lava wasn't great. It would be good to kill half the orcs/trolls or so without animating it.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Nope
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revolting_peasant
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Joined: May 29th, 2012, 5:45 pm

Re: Scenario Review: SoF 9 - Caverns of Flame

Post by revolting_peasant »

I can't finish this level! It wasn't hard or anything, but I'm experiencing some kind of glitch, or bug or something - see this post of mine. Either I have nobody left to kill, or all of my units get eaten up by lava.
Kal
Posts: 2
Joined: December 7th, 2010, 1:14 am

Re: Scenario Review: SoF 9 - Caverns of Flame

Post by Kal »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
The middle difficulty, 1.14.1

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

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear enough. I got the text mentioning the glyph and the updated objectives before I really had the opportunity to send any units down the side paths (during enemy turn 2), so it was pretty clearly just a straight run down the middle. It *did* mention "those orcs are defending something" when I hadn't actually seen any orcs (a troll wandered up from that path).

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
None. It was just a straight run down the middle while the orcs from the side paths kept the elves off my back. The token orcs around the glyph stood no chance at all.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
3 - For a strategy game, I didn't really have to make any decisions at all. Just moved all my units the direction the game told me to as much as I could each turn, kill 4 level 2 orcs with overwhelming force then sort of just pass for a whole bunch of turns. It was just all a bit underwhelming for the finale. At least it knew it wasn't an engaging scenario and kept it short.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I dunno. Maybe make it so that the volcano erupting while elves are still alive counts as a failure for some reason, so there's actually reason to do more than pass until time's up once you've activated the glyph and holed up in the middle.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Other than a since-fixed bug, no.
Konrad2
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Re: Scenario Review: SoF 9 - Caverns of Flame

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. Except that above mentioned thing with 'the orcs over there are pretocting something', because I was only seeing trolls.

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

It was okay.

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

None. I did a good job at leveling my units beforehand.

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

3-6. No challenge from the gameplay, but quite engaging for the story.

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

Add some lines for my dwarves to say as they die. :(

(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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