Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Feedback for the mainline campaign The Hammer of Thursagan.

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Giraffemonster
Posts: 37
Joined: January 7th, 2011, 9:41 pm
Location: Ontario, Canada

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by Giraffemonster »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Steelclad on 1.10.3

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

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Find and kill Karrag.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
It felt very lacking. As others have mentioned, there's tons of stuff that could be expanded on. I'd also add that the teleportation message feels a bit OOC for a dwarves to speak. The whole "It feels like I'm being pulled by an equally powerful force" is just a bit too much. There could be more dialogue along the way to help keep you awake during the long sessions of dwarves slugging each other to death.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Dealing with the undead. Those chaotic attacks are scary, plus wraiths. Spiders too.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
2. You get a bit of satisfaction for every leader you kill, but it's really not much compared to how long this takes. The eastern tunnels are really too much. Usually, it's just a deal of making a huge line of Dwarf Lords and White Mages while the bad guys waste themselves on it.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
It'd feel much less broken if it were split up, like with a crawl-ish scenario for the first, and a direct confrontation for the second. Other than that, I'd suggest making the map kind of smaller, more wide spaces, a bit more roads for the mages, less tunnels, less gold for the enemy, and a lot more dialogue. Dialogue's probably what this could use the most.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Finding out that Thunderers pack a really hard punch.

(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?
N/A
tuggyne
Posts: 76
Joined: May 22nd, 2011, 5:52 am

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by tuggyne »

So, I've played this twice, once about a year ago (I wanna say 1.9.3?) and again about two weeks ago (1.10.3); I would have expected the second run to be quite smooth, but I'd forgotten a surprising amount by that point.

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

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
Maybe a 5; there was a fair chunk of tactical concentration required, but little that was unique, with the exception of the undead.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Vastly so. Basically, search and destroy, how could it be simpler?
Unlike some others, I had no trouble recognizing the various doors, although I initially forgot how to open the southern doors (this didn't delay me much, though).


(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Most of the dialog made sense, although it wasn't as complete as I could wish, and the repetitive "I feel pulled" spam got annoying — though certainly not as bad as the "wrongness" stuff that used to come up.

I do agree that adding more dialog at interesting points would improve it; in particular, the mechanism of the gates and runes caused me to waste 5-10 turns moving units back and forth.


(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Not losing units to random attacks or carelessness; not becoming absurdly bored after shoving units from one end of the map to the other.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4. I don't mind the tactical grind as much as some, but the tedious forced marches really grate. I spent half my time (~30 turns out of 70 or so) doing nothing but maneuvering through tight corridors. IIRC, my first time through I sent a white mage or so on the long cavern path through the spiders, which I would not recommend by any means; the second time I remembered not to do that.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I would split it in two at approximately the rune unlock scroll. The spiders make for a good transition from uniform dwarfiness to undead, and the rune/door mechanism can be reworked to greatly reduce the amount of pointless marching around and around. (Presumably, the new last scenario would auto-recall all the units you had when you got there.)

Some additional dialog, especially from the liches (what are they even doing here, anyway? are they dwarves? if so, why are they just normal liches?) and something to mark the different enemy defense sections.


(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Not really. I have a bad habit of saveloading to preserve units, but I think I could have easily beat the scenario even with much heavier losses. I don't remember losing a hero unit at all.

(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?
The liches depend on their side numbers remaining the same; none of Karrag's units are loyal even though that would save thousands of gold; Karrag can never effectively recruit despite the WML apparently believing he'll be able to (largely because of the previous problem); there's a whole slew of repetitive unit/JAIL_SAGA definitions that should definitely be wrapped in their own macro; the (dialog) events aren't always written down in the order they'll fire.
golemsci
Posts: 9
Joined: September 4th, 2012, 3:38 am

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by golemsci »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Normal 1.10

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

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
OK, but it's frustrating sitting in front of locked doors not knowing when/how they might be opened.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Not bad, but too sparse for such a long scenario.

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

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
1 - This is my least favourite scenario of all the campaigns. I actually really enjoyed this campaign in general, but almost gave up because of this last level. I don't see the point in requiring you to break through into four identical dwarven caverns. This level could have been much shorter without any loss to story or gameplay.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
It should be much shorter. I would have been happy with just breaking into one dwarven cavern, followed by spiders in a side cavern, then on into Karrag's undead force.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
devavrata
Posts: 119
Joined: August 30th, 2012, 8:59 pm

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by devavrata »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on? Battle for Wesnoth 1.8.3, Easy/Medium/Hard
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10) 9. It is possible to finish in 68 turns.
(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? Clear, somewhat lacking. What is the blood ritual about?
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario? Taking the gold from the secret corridors at the start is quite a challenge. Should you recruit lightly or heavyly? You've got no villages, so every turn drains your treasure - recruiting lightly would mean a small gold drain, but then more turns would be needed to get to the gold. I chose to recruit heavy, so by the time I got the gold I was into negative gold, but with the found gold I moved into positive again and could recruit some more.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10) 9. A lot of fun because is huge and kind of convoluted. Nearly perfect, but having to move lots of units from one side of the scenario to the other is an annoyance.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun? The windy passageway to the second lich slows you a lot, specially the mages. A suggestion: put something for the gryphon to find.
(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? -
DOA-Paperwork
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Joined: January 29th, 2014, 6:52 am

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by DOA-Paperwork »

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

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

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
7. While clear the three wide "door" seemed like an obvious trap. Unfortunately I did open it while I was trying to use the long back passage that seemed likely to take me right to the necromancers lair. I decided to barricade the west (and eventually the sound) entrances to the spider's lair with a healer and about half my forces. In the future if I ever feel like having my time wasted I will see if the relentless assault of ghosts is any easier if attempted from the one person wide secret path out of the spider lair.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
It could have been better. With how long the the three fort battles are anything to break up the tedium would have been welcome.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Uhm. After opening the three wide door I doubt anyone could beet this.

(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?
I'd probably get rid of the middle fort. While challenging, I had a large enough force to split up at the fork. I can't imagine that anyone was able to finish those forts fast enough to stay in "the red" even with the extra chests of gold. Perhaps fill each of hose side rooms with four chests of gold.

Get ride of the specters/shadows. New recruits are slaughtered. The wraiths were challenging.

I had three healers by the time I got the spider pit. But maybe if you had some more diverse units in the jail cells. White mages or their level 3 incarnation. Drakes. Orcs. Trolls. Griffins. Artifacts? Things you had encountered previously but now you get to use. Even if they aren't particularly effective it'd be a nice diversion.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
I was pretty pleased with myself. I got the AI tricked and had about fifteen skeletons, ten wraiths, and who knows how many invisible creatures to head towards the spider lair and just filled the various hallways. But the wraiths and the ghosts are so fast that the stragglers on the back path or even the high level individuals couldn't make any progress.

Basically that three wide door. It made for an interesting and obvious trap but as far as I can tell the door being at the bottom and the wideness of the room the door is guaranteed to over rune your army and slaughter it.

The scope of the map felt very much like a last level. Very slow measured progression. It reminded me of Warcraft (1) and I enjoyed parts of it, but largely it felt monotonous. I'm not sure I'm going to restart the mission.

(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?

I couldn't say.
gotnosylphs
Posts: 2
Joined: August 30th, 2014, 4:41 pm

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by gotnosylphs »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Normal, version 1.10

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
2, rotating formation of level 3 dwarves supported by white mages could kill an endless ammount of enemies in these tight corridors (and at times it feels like they might have to.) There was only one point where I was at risk of losing a level 3 unit, when attacking that area with the prisoners. If I hadn't split my forces in two groups I could have propably rolled through the mission without any risk to my troops at any time.

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

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
It was quite good (I'd say the writing in this campaign is the best out of the ones I've player so far), but there could be more dialogue considering how long the mission is. Maybe a coversation between the critical units every 10 or 20 turns or so would make pushing through the mass of enemies a bit less boring.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
No challenges really, as long as you have plenty of level 3 dwarves and a couple of healers you can just advance in formations the enemy has no chance of breaking.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
5. It is quite unique among the ones I've played so far and there is some satisfaction in beating a much larger enemy force thanks to the tight corridors, but it feels too long and the gameplay gets repetitive. Those ghosts attacking from the tunnel were a nice variation to the gameplay.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Adding more dialogue would give the player something to look forward to while grinding through the masses of enemies.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No, which is a good thing since it took me 150 turns to finish. I would have rather resorted to save loading than play through that again.
Violet-n-red
Posts: 49
Joined: June 27th, 2015, 2:38 pm

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by Violet-n-red »

i did not complete the scenario, but i'll give some feedback anyway.
(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
normal, 1.12.2, enough gold to hire two dozens of veterans.
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
2 with my current army so far.
(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 was fine.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
actually playing the scenario. overwhelmed with the amount of space i have to traverse.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
no idea.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
no. for now, my dwarves are simply too good for this scenario.

so, i'm in second room, i have fully occupied it, eliminated on enemy commander and none of my warriors ever had a chance to be killed (excluding few berserker attacks, but they had super low chance of success, less than 1%). i'll attach my army composition screenshot in this post(one Mage is a suicide bomber with the Staff), i consider it being good enough. at least so far, we were able to steadily push forward with every turn by switching sentinels with damagers(mages and dragonguards). not going to continue that because i got bored: i took a few days break from Wesnoth and when i returned i found out i had no fish to continue that specific scenario. looking at it through map editor, i can tell more of the same thing is awaiting me there and it looks like my forces are well prepared to face those challenges.

//ediiit: was an absolutely perfect campaign before this point.
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Carnildo
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by Carnildo »

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

Easy

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

Gameplay-wise? About a 2.

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

The written objectives were clear. The unwritten ones (specifically, how to open the three-space door), not so much.

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

Clear and well-written.

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

Dealing with boredom. On the plus side, a map full of chokepoints means I can take on huge forces with little risk: I had a 27-to-1 kill-to-loss ratio. On the minus side, a map full of chokepoints means I can rarely bring my full force to bear: slogging through the battles took 236 turns.

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

3.

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

Linearize the map and eliminate one or two of the enemy groups. The twenty turns spent moving from the north fork to the south fork and re-grouping to fight was a tedious period of doing nothing but watch units move; barricading a chokepoint and butchering everything that approaches doesn't get more difficult if you have to do it seven times rather than five.

(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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Inky
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by Inky »

(1) Level and version? Hard (Lord), 1.12.4, 426 starting gold
(2) Difficult? (1-10) 4, not hard, just tedious.
(3) Objectives? Clear.
(4) Dialog? Fine.
(5) Challenges? I hate to say this, but not quitting out of boredom. There's not much challenge in just blocking up bottlenecks with dwarvish lords.
(6) Fun? (1-10) 2
(7) Changes?
I find excessive bottlenecks in Wesnoth to be very frustrating. There is no strategy involved in putting your strongest units in front, attacking what you can and rotating them when they get too wounded. This is all you ever do in this (extremely long) level and it's rather mindless.

The way the map is designed (the northern fork is a much larger distance than the southern fork) means that your southern units will spend a huge amount of turns waiting at the gate doing nothing. It would make a lot more sense to me to make the north fork shorter as you have to complete it first.
(8) Restarts? None.

Finished turn 102.
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General Comments on the campaign:
-I think the map design needs more variety. In every single scenario (there is not a single exception) you start at the left of the map and travel in a straight line to the enemy's keep on the right (although sometimes there are multiple enemies, which makes it slightly less monotonous). The repetitiveness is very noticeable.

-The last level's map design makes it 100+ turns of blocking bottlenecks, not my idea of fun. It's also very linear. Reading previous feedback posts for the last level, it seems I am not the only one who listed "boredom" as the main challenge for this scenario.

-I found the difficulty in general to be very low (played on hard) - even novice level campaigns on hard have given me more trouble. In several scenarios I (or I and the ally combined) had more gold than the enemy. Mages and Drakes was a major example of this, where I had 177 gold, the ally had 100, and the enemy only had 160. It does not take an expert to beat the Wesnoth AI given more gold.

-----------

Still, it's nice to play a dwarven campaign and there were several very interesting and fun scenarios (Invasion being my favorite). Thanks to everyone who worked on this campaign!
roidanton
Posts: 90
Joined: September 7th, 2012, 10:41 pm

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by roidanton »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Lord on 1.12
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
2
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
The objective was crystal clear, but it was very confusing how to get there in terms of which path to take.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Really liked the dialog and storyline, but the scenario was still very boring due to all these choke points.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
None really and it felt a lot easier than all the previous scenarios.
(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?

Well, this was about one the most boring scenarios because it was such a long and tedious grind. There are several improvements that could be made to make it more fun.

First of all, the first southern enemy - if you split your army into two equal parts as it's suggested in the walkthrough, then half of your army will essentially sit there for like 30+ turns doing absolutely nothing. Then you get all these captured units, but they were pretty much just standing in the way for me and I even wished I had not freed them, so I moved them all into some corner and never moved them again. The eastern Lich - pretty much optional and does not need to be killed to win - I was able to easily hold his forces behind some choke point with a few L3 units and a Mage of Light while pushing the rest of my army onwards.

Considering that quite a decent number of my units were just standing as a reserve behind that choke point - assuming I had to eventually push forward with them to kill that Lich - I think a nice way of making it less boring would be to add an additional boss somewhere north-east (so you could leave some part of your force, for instance together with the freed units, there) and make the south-eastern Lich attack as soon as the first southern boss is down. This way, the southern part of your army would have something to fight against while the other half moves north - and once you got the key, it'd make sense to keep some of your troops in the north and also move a smaller force down south to join with the rest of the army.

Also, I felt like the final Boss went down way too easily considering all the effort that you spent to get to him and that he's the last thing to kill in the entire campaign. I think it should be changed in the way that you need to actually kill the south-eastern Lich and have your entire army join forces before you could engage and end-game boss.

Overall, I really loved this campaign, this was the second time after coming back from a long break.
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shadow12
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by shadow12 »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on? Medium
Started with 460 gold. Finished with +1,452 gold and 18 units.
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10) 10 for the first chamber, 3 for the rest

Edit: A few things that might be helpful (Soilers?):
. There is a book in the spider den which does 2 things: works as a "key-spell" to unlock the 3 gates in the big southern chamber and opens the teleporting stations.
. In the northern chamber (where you free the prisoners) are purple colored symbols that are teleporting tiles."When I step on this ruin...I feel like I am being pulled somewhere else." Teleportation will move the units back south, skipping the long return trek.
. There are 2 tunnels running directly south of the spider den that are frustratingly narrow. I recommend skipping these tunnels all together. Instead move the units from the spider den back into the northern chamber and teleport south.

(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?
. The story is interesting. Most of the dialog was clear. Some dialog (like the part about the ritual) could be clarified. A ritual sacrifice could have been an interesting side-story.
. Some dialog would have been helpful to hint at what was ahead.
Maybe an escaped prisoner could show up and tell you what is ahead.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
. The very first chamber was challenging. A lot of enemy units coming in from the sides and front.
. Not knowing which way to go or what units to send.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7. Overall I liked it. The big battles were fun. The small fights in the tunnels got tedious. I liked the book of incantations, the hidden rooms, the spider den. I do not mind some repetitive fighting in the tunnels, but there was too much of it. The scenario needs some serious shortening up.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
. Add additional teleportation tiles around the map. This in itself would have shortened the scenario. Add a teleport in the spider den going to the far south, and completely block off the spider den after the incantation is read so everyone uses the teleport. Add another teleportation tile in the eastern liche's chamber so you don't have to go back through the tunnel.
. Increase the width of all tunnels.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Yes, reloaded to avoid that long tunnel going south. Went back and used teleportation.

Down the Rabbit Hole
Spoiler:
This was a long scenario, but overall I enjoyed playing this campaign.
Dwarves are a favorite of mine.
Last edited by shadow12 on January 11th, 2016, 6:37 am, edited 21 times in total.
Sometimes life unexpectedly throws a Troll or a nasty Queen Naga in your path.
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Gyra_Solune
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by Gyra_Solune »

(1) Easy
(2) 4
(3) Simple enough, though I had no idea about the southern gate thing - having diverted all my army to the north and suddenly having to spend dozens of turns bringing them all the way back
(4) There isn't that much dialog, to be honest.
(5) Actually completing it.
(6) 1
(7) Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh boy.

This map is just...I cannot. It's too much. Very very little about this is enjoyable at all. It is turn after turn after turn after turn of endless tedium. Something needs to be done about this - it needs to be cut in half, the passages need to be widened so there's an actual sense of getting something done, the thing needs to be redesigned, something, anything. I am not having fun slowly plinking away at three enemies per turn largely in mutually dodgy terrain for hours upon hours on end in a bland and repetitive map. Nor am I having fun having one third of the campaign being a pleasant and characterful journey with lots of nice setpieces that came together perfectly, and the last two thirds of it being a single map with nothing interesting going on in it, with nobody talking and no objectives changing. It's trudging through an endless mire of the same thing over and over for altogether too long.

Cave scenarios on the whole just aren't very fun to be honest - all they mean is that the majority of your forces are bundled behind all the rest, doing nothing except waiting their turn, and this is the one to end all other cave maps. It is endlessly frustrating spending four hours grinding away at enemies, with little interesting happening because /extremely/ early on I had already gotten the entirety of my force as complete and high-leveled as it is ever going to get. I understand what the intent was, but it's just not any fun. The most interesting parts of the game, to me, are when you can step in, make your big sweeping clash that turns the tide of the whole thing, and capitalize on that. This could so easily be awesome, as you're running around with a giant mass of extremely powerful units cutting down anything in your way, but it doesn't end up like that, because everything is so narrow and cramped that none of them can do anything special or interesting besides sitting there being a slowly advancing wall. It's a ridiculous end to what was until then a very pleasant and to the point campaign and it could be done so much better.

I look to Descent into Darkness, which had a big dungeon-crawly part in much the same way: but that one was very enjoyable, because it was split up into several different scenarios giving concrete beginnings and ends and a much more comfortable point to collect oneself and refocus, the enemies were more isolated but potentially dangerous, the maps were more like several large rooms with slight chokepoints, which combined with the former and the lack of reliable healing meant you had to think carefully, but the right strategy meant decisive success in a brief instant, and it was placed at the exact right time to make it so that was the part of the game you started getting your big exciting level 3 guys online, especially the Nightgaunts who were a joy to run around assassinating people with, giving a continuous goal and providing an actual reason to want to track down all the enemies and take them out. Something like that would be a lot nicer. An initial scenario, maybe just an expanded version of that gallery hall (which had an interesting setup) where you deal with the enemy dwarves - but set up the terrain so that things are more open but you can still create defensive points to cut them down. Then maybe a wilder and more difficult to navigate section where the spiders start coming in, but it's essential this one be short and the spiders be infrequent. Then finally the last big place, with the lich in a big open sanctum where your goal is to charge in with all your shiny elite soldiers and settle things.

Apologies for ranting but this is just...an over the top map to deal with, that rapidly wears out its welcome and then some. I simply cannot imagine the average player, who probably prefers scenarios on the shorter and punchier side, to really enjoy this much.
(8) Not any particular one.
Hat_City
Posts: 1
Joined: December 9th, 2016, 12:03 am

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by Hat_City »

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

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8 in the beginning, sharply falling to a 1 as soon as I got past the main room and got into the narrow passageways. It was actually mind-numbingly easy. Just put a line of dwarvish lords in a bottleneck with white mages behind them, and let the dumb-as-bricks AI come plodding towards you.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Super clear. Wander around, kill everyone, find the lich, kill it.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
I think the campaign in general has a good amount of dialog, but the final battle with the lich and the ending dialog were both pretty disappointing. Considering the epic proportions of the last scenario, there should have been a longer sequence at the end of the campaign.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The first room of the scenario was a major challenge. The terrain was almost nonexistent, and the enemies were endless. But after that first room, it got really easy. To be honest, the most major challenge I faced in this scenario was boredom. The AI was almost comatose. The narrow passageways clogged with ridiculous quantities of enemies left very little room for strategy. The cave terrain meant we moved very slow. I mean, like walking for 30 turns over rough terrain just to get to where we were supposed to be.

(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?
- I really didn't like how huge the scenario was. It loaded very slowly, and took forever to complete a turn. I think it took me like 400 turns to finish. After the first 100 turns or so, my units were all maxed out at their highest level. My gold was in the thousands. The AI had broken down and just sat there while I slowly walked through those loooong tunnels. In a nutshell, I would have broken this scenario up into 2 scenarios: one where you're fighting the masked dwarves, and another where you're fighting the undead.
- The cramped tunnels were extremely linear. I would open the map up so there's room for maneuvering, and shrink the map so it doesn't take 30 turns to walk somewhere.
- The triggers (or whatever they're called in Wesnoth) didn't really work very well. I would be within sight of an enemy base, and the boss is just standing there. I would get my forces organized, and then step forward into the predictable trigger region and a million enemies would suddenly appear and be given the "attack" command. It just seemed really clumsy. Once the initial wave of enemies was defeated, the boss would still just be standing there.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
The level 2 thunderguards jumping out of the closets in the first room definitely caught me by surprise.
JMichael
Posts: 39
Joined: February 19th, 2013, 4:25 am

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by JMichael »

Change "...keep you, a dwarf captive." to "...keep you, a dwarf, captive."
SanDonk
Posts: 32
Joined: June 26th, 2017, 8:58 pm

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by SanDonk »

1. Easy
2. 8.5/10 (it took me almost two-times more time than the 1-10 scenarios combined, i saw them mainly as sources of experiences for this final battle; definitely harder than majority of the scenarios of expert level campaigns such as Son of Black Eye or the Rise of Wesnoth, however still not as difficult as the Northern Rebirth´s ones)
3. Hm, not much. I completely didn´t know where to go in the caves, which way I should choose and where I advance to the damned leader, few times I had to completely regroup and chance direction. It took me 4 incredible hours and 122 turns. It was fun however and I found, that I love this complexity and uncertainity, so no need to worry :)
4. Good, good for the purpose of story. However I found a bit dissapointing, there is no mention, what happen with the Hammer after the defeat of dwarfen lich.
5. I started normal difficulty and had no problem with previous scenarios, however I was not so experienced, lost many units, had almost no gold and this scenario was literally incredible to win. So I restarted this campaign completely after about two years (and finishing of Son of Black Eye and the Rise of Wesnoth, which gave me much experience), rather on easy, because I was afraid of the last scenario and really curious. On my second attempt, I had not much problems. Won the first time I tried, however with massive looses. My biggest problem was constant loosing of white mages (lost 3 white mages and 1 mage of light) - sometimes i got overrun and the mage get killed by one single unit after killing the frontline unit (Lord usually) in front of him. Started the scenarion with 2 white mages, finished with no one surviving (and would not probably finish, if i had not leveled two more). Also I had trouble with the giant spiders, i didn´t expect their ambush and my Angarthing got killed by them, so I had to reload and regroup one time.
6. 9.5/10 Amazing, I really appreciated such a challenging scenario
7. Maybe make more powerful the final rune crafting lich, he was really weak and his army wasn´t that big match after all the heavy fighting - during four turns I finished all the draugs expect four and managed to kill the leader. Quite a dissapointing given the fact, killing for example the first leaders after the gallery was about 10-15 turns struggle.
8. One time I reloaded due to ambush of the spiders on my scout Angarthing. However I had to completely restart whole campaing and prepare for final battle during previous scenarios also (see 5.)
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