Re: Swamplings - v1.1.7 - for 1.8 and 1.9

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boru
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Re: Swamplings - v1.1.5 - for 1.8 and 1.9

Post by boru »

As Alarantalara states, this will not affect on your gameplay. A bunch of macros were removed from Wesnoth for various reasons. Expect to see these kinds of messages when playing UMC in the development branch.

Insinuator, I won't be surprised if you encounter other bugs along the way, and I'd appreciate it if you'll report them here. Thanks.
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My campaign: Swamplings - Four centuries before the founding of Wesnoth, the first wolf rider emerges from a tribe of lowly swamp goblins.
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Re: Swamplings - v1.1.5 - for 1.8 and 1.9

Post by Insinuator »

I finished this campaign yesterday and I must say I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the variety of maps and the varied gameplay methods in numerous scenarios. I thought the limitation on upgrading was a logical choice which fit the plot nicely. I liked the plot, too. It gave an interesting and in-depth back story to why the goblins came to be as they are. I look forward to this being included with the main scenarios. The dialog was a bit scattered, but at times was clever and even witty.

There were some aspects I didn't like. Some scenarios were annoying, particularly the scenario where you "tamed" the bats. They were far too easy to kill accidentally. In addition, the scenario where you are poisoned and then attacked by mosquitos had the potential to be frustrating. Fortunately for me, I killed the first one and ran away before the others could attack. The third part I found frustrating was killing the Assassin. I was able to do it on my second try, but it was a very close thing which could have gone either way. It seemed to me to be depending on chance more than skill.

In my opinion, there are some balancing issues in most of the scenarios. I think the best balanced scenario of all is the scenario called "Hammerheads". I found this scenario challenging but doable. Unlike most of the standard "brawl" scenarios, I was not faced by a sudden rush of enemies followed by a draught which left me with tons of units milling about and getting in each other's way. Hammerheads balanced this by including level 2 units in the mix and fighting on a homogenous terrain suited to the AI. Most of my units were severly wounded by the time I beat the scenario and I think this is a good sign. "Selling Bats to Merfolk" was also well balanced.

I did run into at least one other notice about a Macro that was scheduled to be removed. But, as noted above, that's not a problem yet. It is rather distracting at the top of the screen, though.

One further tiny note: I was amused by the "Loot" ability of one unit. I got several of these and although they worked as advertised, I found "Looting" to be next to useless. A few gold coins one way or the other hardly made the difference in any of my battles.
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Re: Swamplings - v1.1.5 - for 1.8 and 1.9

Post by Atz »

I've started playing this and I'm up to Rogue's Reward. Thoughts so far:

- Dialogue and general storyline is good.

- Immediate response on playing first scenario: I'm playing as a tribe of goblins which have apparently lived in swamps their entire life, and yet they can only move a single hex a turn through it? Clearly it's true that goblins are bad learners. I know, I know, it's unlikely that this will be changed now since the scenarios are designed around it, but I'm mentioning it because it struck me as odd. Plus it felt like 50% of most scenarios was just waiting for my goblin horde to march ever-so-slowly towards the enemy.

- I think this has already been mentioned, but Moonbeam -> Nocturne violates RIPLIB due to the loss of the hatchet attack. Can be particularly annoying when fighting saurians, since the hatchets are a good way to finish them off.

- The limited recruit list combined with the "here's a big swamp with one or two extremely narrow paths" scenario design is beginning to irritate me a little. I feel like I don't really have any options - it's just a matter of marching all my goblins down the path while supporting with bats. It was okay for the first couple of scenarios but it's wearing thin, so I hope it changes soon.

- I found it unclear what I was supposed to be doing in "The Healer and the Slayer", when I was told to go grab the healing potion. I looked in a couple of villages and that canvas thing standing in the swamp, and nothing happened. There was no indication of whether this was what I was supposed to be doing or which one the "shed" was. It'd be nice if a message like "There's no cabinet here, it must be in one of the other buildings" popped up when you searched one.

- I had problems with quick guards and non-quick Kennison in the assassination scenario. Because I couldn't run as fast as the guards, I was constantly getting worn down, to the point where I spent most of the scenario in red health and had to reload several times because some idiot spearman got lucky and hit three times in a row on a castle tile. I can't see how I would have gotten through if Clammie hadn't been level 3, I just wouldn't have had the health. I think you need to either disallow the "quick" trait on the guards, or make sure than Kennison always has six move.
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Re: Swamplings - v1.1.5 - for 1.8 and 1.9

Post by Insinuator »

Atz wrote:I had problems with quick guards and non-quick Kennison in the assassination scenario. Because I couldn't run as fast as the guards, I was constantly getting worn down, to the point where I spent most of the scenario in red health and had to reload several times because some idiot spearman got lucky and hit three times in a row on a castle tile. I can't see how I would have gotten through if Clammie hadn't been level 3, I just wouldn't have had the health. I think you need to either disallow the "quick" trait on the guards, or make sure than Kennison always has six move.
I'd like to respond to this point. I played that scenario with a level 2 Clammie and was only twice reached by the guards. Rotating Clammie and Kennison helped me to hold them off until the cut off passage. Were you playing on Hard?
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Re: Swamplings - v1.1.5 - for 1.8 and 1.9

Post by Atz »

No, on normal. I was rotating Clammie and Kennison, too; they were both in the red before I threw the guards off. Maybe the guard recruited closest to me got quick, whereas it was one further back for you? Since they catch up by one hex a turn (6 move vs 5) a couple of hexes could make quite a difference.

Anyway, I finished Rogue's Reward and now I'm fighting merfolk. I'm liking the merfolk scenario so far, it's a bit of a change of pace since you can stay in the middle and defend.



Also, reading earlier in the thread, I noticed someone saying they had problems with saurians (possibly in Exodus). I found that scenario wasn't too difficult if you spammed bats like crazy. Bats have blade damage, which saurians are weak against; goblins have pierce, which they are resistant to. Also, bats have 60% defence everywhere, drain, and are fast enough to make it feasible to fly back to a village to heal.
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Re: Swamplings - v1.1.5 - for 1.8 and 1.9

Post by boru »

Insinuator wrote:Some scenarios were annoying, particularly the scenario where you "tamed" the bats. They were far too easy to kill accidentally. In addition, the scenario where you are poisoned and then attacked by mosquitos had the potential to be frustrating. Fortunately for me, I killed the first one and ran away before the others could attack. The third part I found frustrating was killing the Assassin. I was able to do it on my second try, but it was a very close thing which could have gone either way. It seemed to me to be depending on chance more than skill.
Taming the bats is one of those things that people either enjoy or are really annoyed by. Since that scenaro is early in the campaign, I'm going to keep tweaking it but I don't know if it'll ever get to the point of being a real crowd pleaser. The mosquito one (At Death's Door) is a lot less annoying than it was in earlier versions. Okay, maybe a little less. The "skill" part of killing Rashki would come from using your bats to shield Clammie if he's badly injured, then bringing Clammie in to deal the killing blow for a nice xp boost. With the potion, Clammie can regenerate like a troll so you just need to slow that assassin down for a round or two. Luck helps too, admittedly.
Insinuator wrote:In my opinion, there are some balancing issues in most of the scenarios. I think the best balanced scenario of all is the scenario called "Hammerheads". I found this scenario challenging but doable. Unlike most of the standard "brawl" scenarios, I was not faced by a sudden rush of enemies followed by a draught which left me with tons of units milling about and getting in each other's way. Hammerheads balanced this by including level 2 units in the mix and fighting on a homogenous terrain suited to the AI. Most of my units were severly wounded by the time I beat the scenario and I think this is a good sign. "Selling Bats to Merfolk" was also well balanced.
I agree there are balancing issues. I'm a little surprised that you mention Hammerheads as an exception to this. I'm still trying but so far it's amazing how a few small changes to terrain can affect the final battle.
Insinuator wrote:I did run into at least one other notice about a Macro that was scheduled to be removed. But, as noted above, that's not a problem yet. It is rather distracting at the top of the screen, though.
You'll be pleased (or bored) to know I've replaced the following macros in the next update: {AMLA_TOUGH}, {ITM_GLOWING_BRAZIER}, and {RECALL_OR_CREATE_UNIT}.
Insinuator wrote:One further tiny note: I was amused by the "Loot" ability of one unit. I got several of these and although they worked as advertised, I found "Looting" to be next to useless. A few gold coins one way or the other hardly made the difference in any of my battles.
Loot also takes coins from the opposing side, preventing the AI from recruiting more units against you. So it's not next to useless, it's at least a centimeter away from useless.
======
Atz wrote:- Immediate response on playing first scenario: I'm playing as a tribe of goblins which have apparently lived in swamps their entire life, and yet they can only move a single hex a turn through it? Clearly it's true that goblins are bad learners. I know, I know, it's unlikely that this will be changed now since the scenarios are designed around it, but I'm mentioning it because it struck me as odd. Plus it felt like 50% of most scenarios was just waiting for my goblin horde to march ever-so-slowly towards the enemy.
Once they get to level one, they gain the swamp savvy trait, which gives them better defense and movement in swamp. Also your three heroes and wolves don't have this problem. But yeah, at the risk of starting an internet meme, slow goblins are slow.
Atz wrote:- I think this has already been mentioned, but Moonbeam -> Nocturne violates RIPLIB due to the loss of the hatchet attack. Can be particularly annoying when fighting saurians, since the hatchets are a good way to finish them off.
This is fixed in the next update. Noctures will keep the hatchets in addition to club and bolo attacks.
Atz wrote:- The limited recruit list combined with the "here's a big swamp with one or two extremely narrow paths" scenario design is beginning to irritate me a little. I feel like I don't really have any options - it's just a matter of marching all my goblins down the path while supporting with bats. It was okay for the first couple of scenarios but it's wearing thin, so I hope it changes soon.
Hmm, this would help if I knew exactly which scenarios you mean. I'll take a guess that you mean Shining, Exodus, and At Death's Door. The second and third in that list have a signpost goal, so adding more paths may not solve the problem. Although I've revised these maps several times, they still need work, especially the one for Exodus.
Atz wrote:- I found it unclear what I was supposed to be doing in "The Healer and the Slayer", when I was told to go grab the healing potion. I looked in a couple of villages and that canvas thing standing in the swamp, and nothing happened. There was no indication of whether this was what I was supposed to be doing or which one the "shed" was. It'd be nice if a message like "There's no cabinet here, it must be in one of the other buildings" popped up when you searched one.
I'll think this one over, although I'm not sure it's necessary.
Atz wrote:- I had problems with quick guards and non-quick Kennison in the assassination scenario. Because I couldn't run as fast as the guards, I was constantly getting worn down, to the point where I spent most of the scenario in red health and had to reload several times because some idiot spearman got lucky and hit three times in a row on a castle tile. I can't see how I would have gotten through if Clammie hadn't been level 3, I just wouldn't have had the health. I think you need to either disallow the "quick" trait on the guards, or make sure than Kennison always has six move.
There is an intermittent bug in this one that makes it a lot harder than it's supposed to be. (This would explain why Insinuator got thru with relative ease and you didn't.) I fixed it a while ago but I still need to post the update, hopefully I'll be able to do that this weekend.

Thanks to both of you for your helpful comments!
“It is written in my life-blood, such as that is, thick or thin; and I can no other.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

My campaign: Swamplings - Four centuries before the founding of Wesnoth, the first wolf rider emerges from a tribe of lowly swamp goblins.
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Re: Swamplings - v1.1.5 - for 1.8 and 1.9

Post by Atz »

boru wrote:
Atz wrote:- The limited recruit list combined with the "here's a big swamp with one or two extremely narrow paths" scenario design is beginning to irritate me a little. I feel like I don't really have any options - it's just a matter of marching all my goblins down the path while supporting with bats. It was okay for the first couple of scenarios but it's wearing thin, so I hope it changes soon.
Hmm, this would help if I knew exactly which scenarios you mean. I'll take a guess that you mean Shining, Exodus, and At Death's Door. The second and third in that list have a signpost goal, so adding more paths may not solve the problem. Although I've revised these maps several times, they still need work, especially the one for Exodus.
Those three, and to a lesser extent, Rogue's Reward. I mean, it's not a gigantic problem or anything. It's perfectly fine to have it like that for a couple of scenarios, and you do have other scenarios like the bat-taming one and the assassination to break it up a bit. It'd just get monotonous if there were too many like that, you know?

I've finished off the merfolk - did I mention that I liked that scenario? "Selling Bats to Merfolk", I believe it was called - and I can recruit wolves now, so I might be at a point where the recruit list expands a bit.
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Re: Swamplings - v1.1.5 - for 1.8 and 1.9

Post by Avdpos »

I noticed a inlogical thing in the conversations between scenario 1 and 2.
When you kill your first knight the goblin says something like "they are red inside, ugly!"
But when you shall pick the bottle with antidote in scenario 2 you get to know that no goblins can see a colour.

don´t know how to solve the problem and keep all dialog.

/Avdpos
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Re: Swamplings - v1.1.5 - for 1.8 and 1.9

Post by boru »

:doh:
I hate being consistent ...

EDIT:
I suppose I'll change that first line to: "Only one heart inside, no wonder they're so rude!"
“It is written in my life-blood, such as that is, thick or thin; and I can no other.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

My campaign: Swamplings - Four centuries before the founding of Wesnoth, the first wolf rider emerges from a tribe of lowly swamp goblins.
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Re: Swamplings - v1.1.5 - for 1.8 and 1.9

Post by Rugrast »

Hi there. :D
This is my first add-on, and I'm proud to say the dialog is hilarious at times and the story is compelling. The unique components are also very gratifying.

Unfortunately, I've either stumbled upon a glitch or I'm an idiot. On the assassination level, the trap door won't work. I headed south and entered the hallways and found the village and the trapdoor, only the trapdoor does nothing. What am I doing wrong?
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Re: Re: Swamplings - v1.1.5 - for 1.8 and 1.9

Post by Rowanthepreacher »

1. It's not a glitch, neither are you an idiot.
2. This is the least well explained scenario.
3. The trap door is for later.
4. Not everyone in the scenario is faithful to the duke. It may be unorthodox, but try giving them a hearty back-slap, or straight stabbing them if you have no "hearty back-slap" option.
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Re: Swamplings - v1.1.5 - for 1.8 and 1.9

Post by boru »

Rugrast wrote:Hi there. :D
This is my first add-on, and I'm proud to say the dialog is hilarious at times and the story is compelling. The unique components are also very gratifying.

Unfortunately, I've either stumbled upon a glitch or I'm an idiot. On the assassination level, the trap door won't work. I headed south and entered the hallways and found the village and the trapdoor, only the trapdoor does nothing. What am I doing wrong?
Hi Rugrast, thanks for your post. You should get a bit of dialog between Clammie and Kennison when you first move there, telling you the trapdoor is locked. Later in the scenario, other things happen and it all should work out fine, at least no one else has experienced a bug with it.
“It is written in my life-blood, such as that is, thick or thin; and I can no other.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

My campaign: Swamplings - Four centuries before the founding of Wesnoth, the first wolf rider emerges from a tribe of lowly swamp goblins.
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Re: Swamplings - v1.1.5 - for 1.8 and 1.9

Post by nuclear216 »

Just tried out the campaign on 1.8 stable, seems tremendously interesting and varied, a bit too much for me since I'm stuck at the 5th scenario trying to escape, first I couldn't work out who the duke was, because of the plot the name of the unit is not archduke but kennison it causes tremendous confusion and you loose turns and since you have only 15 you reload, than I was always being circled by the enemy and died, and when I did managed to flee south and spotted/reached the trapdoor nothing happens, that's the only direction I can escape to without being trap and there's NOTHING there, not a message, not a clue to where to escape other than south? south there's a trapdoor, once I spot it THAT HAS to be the objective or at least you have to tell me where it is, not telling me south and than there's nothing there.

I was also force to reload because of the campaign design when I couldn't find the shed of the healer, I mean there's a white shed that is campaign cuastom that is surrounded by other custom villages and that's not the shed? instead it's a water village part of the standard wesnoth graphics? how was I supposed to guess that was the shed and not any other standard village? I had been unlucky enough to try that village for last, right after I had to reload again because of some lucky throws by the slayer.
this all got me so frustrated that I left the campaign and deleted the save game and the addon :evil:

I will play it again once it's refined, the dialogue is VERY strong, the story might be good but in the scenario I plaid so far all required a bit of refining and balancing, level 0 goblin trait should'nt be carried over when they level, it's very strange having some loyal goblin that are so much stronger than the other one with those bad traits (slow, dark etc.), nevertheless it was fun, it looks to me that if you require this level of "micromanaging" of your hero in those scenario (mosquito when you go back for the green flask, assassination of the duke, etc.) you have to provide a clear path for the player to follow, thru dialogue, messages and level design, at least that's my 2 cent.

Anyway I share into the sensation that this might be mainstream material, it's so peculiar that it's worth refining it till it get balanced and "debugged"
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Re: Re: Swamplings - v1.1.5 - for 1.8 and 1.9

Post by Wendek »

Hello there ! I had tried this a long time ago, but stopped playing it around the beginning. Probably coincided with one of my numerous Wesbreaks.
I like the campaign itself : the storyline, the characters, the concept. It has to be one of the best ones I've seen concerning that part. And since it's something that I find very important in a campaign (which is why I never played any mainline campaign except DiD and SotBE, screw elves and loyalists), I'm immediately interested in knowing what will happen next. ;)

However, I have to second the previous poster about the "technical" details that kinda lower the fun of playing the campaign. Scenario 5 is particularly frustrating because yeah, if I see a trap door I'd think it's where I should go, but no it's the torch. I only discovered it because I searched the forum and people mentioned a torch, so I tried it... losing something like 15-20 minutes in the process.
The scenario itself is quite annoying, to be honest. First, you have to outrun units who move faster than you if you're unlucky (I saw someone mentioning that units recruited by Philips shouldn't be able to have the "quick" trait... I agree with this at 150%, however I'm not sure if this is possible, and even if it is it might require too much work for a "detail"). Getting to the trap door is actually quite hard because if you're unlucky, by the time you kill the unit blocking your way, there's another one with full health, while your heroes are getting low on life.
There's also the columns part that I didn't get. What's the point of this ? Following the archer isn't easy unless you slow down the game and/or take a pen. Which is a bit tedious for a 2-turns long scene...

Long story short : excellent campaign concept, and I'm also happy that so far most of the scenarios were something else than "Kill a number of enemy leaders who all have insane income and can recruit lvl 2 units and are all allied because the world hates you" like most of the campaigns I've seen. Those scenarios are the ones that bore me to death and I'm glad there aren't so many of them in Swamplings.

Also, indeed the goblin traits become annoying, especially because no other trait can spawn. Was it the case before ? Don't remember exactly, but couldn't it be possible to add the "weakening" traits in the pool, while keeping some of the others ? (intelligent might not make much sense for instance, but "quick" or "resilient" should be possible). Also if it was me I'd remove the "weak" trait altogether, because -1 damage is way too much on units that already have low damage compensated by average/high number of attacks. "dim" can be compensated (a lvl max dim unit is around the same as a lvl max intelligent one, except it gets its AMLA slightly less often... but a lot of the time, max level units don't even get AMLAs, amirite ?) and "slow" gives somewhat of an advantage, but "weak" can't be helped and those units' only usefulness is to be cannon fodder... which kinda blows.

I'll post again after doing a bit more scenarios.

P.S. Yes this should definitely go into mainline at some point, to show that you have an original and still good campaign.

P.P.S. Got a UML warning also, while playing with 1.9.5.
http://i52.tinypic.com/33zfe61.jpg
Just a warning, didn't seem to impact the game at all. I got another one of the same kind (about the brasier in scenario 5) a bit later.
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Re: Re: Swamplings - v1.1.5 - for 1.8 and 1.9

Post by boru »

nuclear216,

Sorry you had so much trouble with part 5. You're not the only one, so I guess it is back to the drawing board on that one. Since Kennison is the only guy there (except for the guards who vanish when you approach), I expect you'd move your character toward him, and this initiates dialog. Maybe I ought to give more than 15 turns to work this out.

You definitely should be getting a dialog when you reach the trapdoor. There seems to be a problem with it in this version, which I will correct next time.

The "shed" in Healer & Slayer is randomly selected from the five locations nearby, including the tent, water villages, and regular villages. It is different each time you play the scenario but you have enough turns to get to all 5 before Ronry dies. So there ought to be no need to reload.

You are correct that the campaign needs refining. I don't consider it finished.

I have played around a bit with the mainline goblin unit, adding in some unexpected units, but like all Wesnoth units, they do keep the original traits they start with. The "swamp savvy" trait is a custom trait for this campaign, it appears when they level, but it's not designed to boost them too much. They are going from level zero to level one, after all. Goblins' power is in their numbers, and remember level zeros require no upkeep.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions.

==========

Wendek,

I looked into the possibility of somehow restricting the quick units, but there doesn't seem to be an easy and apparent way to do this with wml. (Can you tell that I'm better at storytelling than coding?)

The point of the columns is this: no point, really. Just a slightly different kind of thing. It might cause your guys to lose a small number of hitpoints, but there are dozens of ways to go through this area and not get hit at all. At worst, Clammie would lose maybe 5 or 6 points but it shouldn't be worse than that.

See my comments above on goblin traits. I don't know if early versions of Wesnoth handled the goblin traits differently, but for a long time now, if you have a weak goblin, he is going to stay a weak goblin even if he gets to level one. Unlike most campaigns, this one probably will require most players to rely on a large army of mostly level zeros instead of a smaller army of 1s, 2s & 3s.

It's tricky to answer your AMLA question, it really depends on choices you make as they level up. But you ought to be getting some nice choices with my goblins.

Thanks for taking the time to post your comments.
“It is written in my life-blood, such as that is, thick or thin; and I can no other.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

My campaign: Swamplings - Four centuries before the founding of Wesnoth, the first wolf rider emerges from a tribe of lowly swamp goblins.
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