Game feedback

[Doomgiver]

Hello,

I played the latest Windows bits quite a bit this weekend. I was pretty impressed by the game overall, but there was one major issue that finally killed my interest.

I set the difficulty to Easy and played through the first couple of scenarios without too much trouble. Then I tried the Aisle of Anduin scenario and I was getting beat everytime. So, I re-played the previous scenario and now I was almost able to beat AoA, but not quite. Then I thought to myself, I have this set on "Easy". Why should I have to replay previous scenarios to finish them perfectly just to have a chance in the next one? This utterly rediculous. Also, I would expect a much more natural progression of difficulty. Not simple, simple, INCREDIBLY HARD.

Also, has anyone mentioned that this game looks a lot like Warlords III? I'm just curious if this has been acknowledged or not.

Thanks, and good luck with the game. It looks to be off to a very solid start.

Doomgiver

[miyo]

Code already supports fallback scenarios... so in future situation should get better.

- Miyo

[Guest]

Yes, I utterly agree with you.

After a fair amount of playing with it I've gotten to where I can usually beat Anduin on easy but it's tricky and I have to use Delfador a lot.

However, even more telling about the imbalance of this level is that the succeeding levels are cake walks. They are nowhere near as hard and can be won in a number of ways without concern for how you finish this level (as long as you finish it).

One simple fix I considered is reducing the amount of money the Orc leader spends, he seems to spend easily twice what I have available even with a well played blackwater port in the first couple turns.

[Dave]

Thanks for the feedback.

As of version 0.4.8, the Isle of Anduin was considered one of the easiest scenarios. It was scenario 2 back then, but in version 0.5 Blackwater Port was added as scenario 2, and so IoA became scenario 3.

Since IoA was already considered easy, we decided we better pump its difficulty level up a bit, and so the gold the orc has at his disposal was increased, I am sorry to say with fairly little testing. Apparently we need to take it down a little.

If you edit the file data/scenarios/Isle_of_Anduin.cfg in your distribution, I suggest you edit the line which says,

Code: Select all

gold=280

to,

Code: Select all

gold=180

If you could test it on this setting, and let us know what you think of the new difficulty level, it would be much appreciated.

With limited development resources, we have insufficient time to playtest the game on all difficulty levels. We rely on users such as yourself to provide feedback on the appropriateness of the difficulty (and other gameplay factors). So thanks for your feedback

As for later scenarios being less difficult....the Bay of Pearls has long been regarded as probably the easiest scenario in the game. Scenarios 5, 6, and 7 are relatively easy, but scenario 8 and on are pretty difficult. We will try to review the difficulty of scenarios 5-7, although part of the intent of the difficulty of scenarios is to give players a 'breather' after finishing a hard scenario - not just to have the difficulty level increasing always.

Also, has anyone mentioned that this game looks a lot like Warlords III? I'm just curious if this has been acknowledged or not.

Nope it hasn't: we mostly get compared to games from about ten years ago, it's good to be compared with a modern game

I have never played Warlords III, or any other game in the Warlords series, and I designed most of the major gameplay features of Wesnoth. I never even knew Warlords III existed until after development of Wesnoth began and most major gameplay features were hammered out.

So I guess this means that rather than us copying anything from them, both games have plagiarised from common sources equally badly *grin*

David

[Doomgiver]

Thanks for the advice. I'll edit the file and let you know how it goes this weekend (my earliest chance to play).

Doomgiver

[KK_r]

I think the princess revenge is harder then any other, got stuck for hours. The only thing that kept me failing was the wraiths. I was playing on easy so maybe the revenge should be soften up a bit?

Otherwise I think the difficulty level is all right.

[Dave]

I think the princess revenge is harder then any other, got stuck for hours. The only thing that kept me failing was the wraiths. I was playing on easy so maybe the revenge should be soften up a bit?

Well, I do think that some levels should get the player stuck for hours. We don't want people breezing through the game.

But on the other hand, if you're playing on easy, I guess it shouldn't be too challenging. We'll look at easing it up. Maybe on easy there should be ghosts, not wraiths, on that scenario.

David

[Circon]

Sort of the same general problem for me- playing on easy, and being stuck for hours.
Easy should be mostly a breeze. But I got stomped on several scenarios, notably Dwarven Doors, Ford of Ebez, and Gryphon Mountain. Easy seems to swing between Easy and Medium feelings- but yes, levels should have you stuck until you figure out the puzzle. Princess Revenge became easy once (spoilers) I recalled 2 Outrider, grabbed the Holy Waters, and 2-hit killed the 2 bosses. The Princess's mages did in the last one. (end spoilers)

Another irritating unbalance is: Game swing! If you hold off the initial AI assault that always comes early, then poof, game's nearly won. Hold more villages --> more units , plus better strategy ==> Dead AI.
This is irritating in the same way as one-shot-kills on SC RPG games.

[Dave]

Another irritating unbalance is: Game swing! If you hold off the initial AI assault that always comes early, then poof, game's nearly won. Hold more villages --> more units , plus better strategy ==> Dead AI.

This is a problem -- that the game tends to rely too heavily on the amount of gold you start with, and too little on what you can get from villages.

I have implemented a feature that will allow us to give the AI a constant income. For instance they could receive 10 gold per turn, plus what they get from villages.

This would mean that even after they have used up their initial gold, they can still hire more troops.

(To do this, just put income=n inside a [side] tag in the scenario definition file).

David

[jzaun]

I have implemented a feature that will allow us to give the AI a constant income. For instance they could receive 10 gold per turn, plus what they get from villages.

This would mean that even after they have used up their initial gold, they can still hire more troops.

(To do this, just put income=n inside a [side] tag in the scenario definition file).

David

We can nolonger claim that our AI doesn't cheat.

[Dave]

We can nolonger claim that our AI doesn't cheat.

Well, I really don't see how having 100 gold + 10 gold per turn in a 18 turn scenario is any different to having 280 gold to start with, with the AI programmed to only spend its gold at a certain rate.

David

[miyo]

Konrad is on the run for his life so it is reasonable he does not have high base income. On the other hand dark forces can be assumed to be working under their master which is sending them resources - this is simulated with higher base income.

- Miyo

[lywellyn]

If you edit the file data/scenarios/Isle_of_Anduin.cfg in your distribution

I'm using the OS X version, where can I find this file since I must agree that Isle of Anduin is next to impossible since the AI starts with double the units. Is the file even available to editing in the OS X version?

[yawningdog]

It's strange. I am not a great player (ask Dave and Skovbaer about that ) an I made it through the Isle of Anduin at first atempt, playing with medium difficulty; I found it a bit more tricky than the previous version (before the Blackwater port scenario was added), but pretty ok overall. I could even promote 3 freshly recruited horsemen.

[Sithrandel]

To edit the data files in the Mac OS X, opposite click on the application, then choose "Show Package Contents" then look inside there (contents -> data).