Return to Noelren 0.7.6

[Sneezy]

Hi-- I posted a note back in Oct, and I've lately completed several more scenarios, so it seems a good time to provide a bit more feedback. Recently, I've been using BfW 1.10.0 and RtN 0.2.1 on Windows XP with SP3.

I upgraded to BfW 1.10.0 & RtN 0.2.1 a month or so ago, and I was able to continue the campaign that I'd started last Fall by picking up at the start of To_Elensefar. The problem that I'd hit back then, units not advancing, had been resolved.

I've reached the Siege_of_Fremagel, and it appears to be a really big battle, so this seems like a good time to upgrade to 0.5.1 and restart the whole campaign. But I'd like to pass along a few observations while they're fresh in my mind.

First of all, kudos for producing a really interesting campaign! I echo Jim G's comments earlier: this campaign won't be everyone's cup of tea, but it's fresh and different and memorable. Three of the scenarios so far really stick in my mind:

Spoiler:

I really liked "To Elensefar." The additional factor of the tides is *very* important, and one has to pay very close attention to time. You still need to think about time-of-day, and its effects on the chaotic orcs & undead, but this is an even more important effect. I found that I had to keep notes as I went along(!).

"Errands" was probably the biggest surprise. A good surprise, not a tomato, and a very well-executed idea. I completed several worlds before I realized how to use the right-click to move back & forth between worlds, and move more than one unit across per turn. Duh! Somehow, early on in the proceedings, I'd concluded that I could only get one unit across per turn. That made it a *very* long episode, but even so, I think I'd keep it this way. I don't think I'd shorten it. Now that I understand how to move multiple units across in a single turn, I don't think it would seem so long.

"To Fremagel" was another memorable one. Sort of like herding cats. And, of course, a couple of them ran out and got into trouble.

Now for a few observations. These apply to RtN 0.2.1, so they may no longer be valid, but I'll pass 'em along anyway.

In "To Elensefar" I worked to advance the water elements, and did improve several of them, and then they went away. Might be good to mention in the hints that the fire & water things are temporary, and won't stay with Tiomen's force.

It took me quite a while to figure out how to get the "crush the petrified unit" thing to work.

And it took a while to figure out how to execute the dwarf's "dig here" capability.

Tiomen advanced in "Alnoth Island," to max HP=60, max XP=118. And then, at the start of "Anoth Caves," Tiomen had regressed to max HP=52, and max XP=90.

At the beginning of "Errands," something similar happened. He regressed *again*.

Also at the beginning of "Errands," he didn't seem to have the special hammer with him. When we finally began some combat, he was okay, and had it, but it confused me that it was missing at the very beginning.

In "Errands," huts didn't stay flagged. In fact, sometimes a hut became unflagged even while a friendly unit was standing *in* the village(!). Things always worked okay after all the enemy units had been destroyed.

In many of the worlds in "Errands," the healers didn't seem to be healing (e.g., a druid and 2 priestesses); but huts always healed properly.

In many of the worlds in "Errands," units often healed to > max HP.

In many of the worlds in "Errands," units like Othra & Tiomen were often able to attack twice in one turn; or attack and then move.

You may have corrected these in the recent upload of 0.5.1. I look forward to upgrading and trying the "new, improved" RtN! Keep up the good work.
--sneezy

EDIT: possible bug in On_The_Road:

Spoiler:

upgraded to RtN 0.5.1; am playing On_The_Road; when standing next to a regular forest hex or an impenetrable forest hex, when I right-click, the menu shows only MAKE_A_BOMB; Tiomen can't light a fire. I think you intended for him to be able to burn the forest. Can make & drop bombs okay, but can't light a fire. Even standing next to the wagon, Tiomen still can't light a fire. Right-clicking on Tiomen, or on the forest hex: the menu does not show "light a fire." Am I doing something wrong perhaps?

[pyrophorus]

Thanks for your feedback. I really appreciate it !

Then to the problems: I know there are many inconsistancies, particularly in units and their advances. It's really difficult to maintain consistency across so long a campaign, and I've planned a full review to get rid of them. Same for the right-click menus. I have a lot of them, and it is a problem.

In the scenario "Errands", healing and villages owning don't work as expected, because I have to do "by hand" things the game engine is in charge of. I'll try to improve that, but, maybe it shall prove impossible to reproduce all normal behaviors. Wesnoth engine is not designed to handle more than one map at the same time.

So far, I understand you reported a lack of information on particular features. Did you use the right-click menu "Hints & help" ? Do you think explanations here are not sufficient ?
About units having more than one attack per turn:

Spoiler:

It is not a bug, but a feature !
Actually, Tiomen can attack three time per turn, Boney twice and both can move after that if they didn't use all their moves ! It's a normal feature in unit definition, not a hack, but it's clearly quite never used. Of course, this results in overpowered units (and you shall discover another one even more powerful in the second part). I know this can please some players because it's funny, and rebuke others, because it makes things too easy. So I plan to tune these units according to difficulty levels: in HARD, they shall be regular units, but in EASY I'll leave them quite like they are.

Thanks again for playing the campaign. I will update ASAP something more correct. Stay tuned to this topic.

Friendly,

[Sneezy]

Hi-- thanks for the reply. I suspected those behaviors were more like "features" than bugs. You ccould also say, you're in an alternate world, and the rules are somewhat different in that universe. That's the rationale that I used on myself(!). And earning gold isn't much of a problem in "Errands."

Any thoughts about why I can't start a fire in "On the Road" in RtN 0.5.1 ? (the issue in the final spoiler)
The hint says you can use fire or the bomb. Is the bomb the only alternative that works?
Thanks again,
--sneezy

EDIT:
I really wanted to move forward on this campaign, so I took a look at the WML. I suspect that bomb-operations & fire-lighting were being put in the same menu-slot. So I edited 018-OnTheRoad.cfg:

Changed: {LSB_LIGHTFIRE id=Tiomen *^Fdfz Gll^Fdw 4}

to be: {LSB_LIGHTFIRE id=Tiomen *^Fdfz Gll^Fdw 5}

i.e., moved the fire-lighting to slot 5, which seemed consistent with some of the other scenarios. Cleared the cache, restarted at the beginning of the scenario, and it worked as one would expect. This lack-of-fire issue may have frustrated a lot of players. Regards, --sneezy

[pyrophorus]

Changed: {LSB_LIGHTFIRE id=Tiomen *^Fdfz Gll^Fdw 4}

to be: {LSB_LIGHTFIRE id=Tiomen *^Fdfz Gll^Fdw 5}

i.e., moved the fire-lighting to slot 5, which seemed consistent with some of the other scenarios. Cleared the cache, restarted at the beginning of the scenario, and it worked as one would expect. This lack-of-fire issue may have frustrated a lot of players. Regards, --sneezy

You're right, it can be very frustrating. I will update this week-end. Just the time to verify the change doesn't mess things later !

EDIT: You're right, the correction will work. Update is done.

[Sneezy]

Hi-- still playing RtN using BfW 1.10.0 and RtN "0.5.0 beta" on Windows XP with SP3.

I've gotten as far as "The Siege of Fremagel." But hit a pretty serious bug in scenario 080_To_Fremagel. The map for that scenario changed from RtN 0.2.1 to RtN 0.5.0 beta. In the 0.5.0 version of 080_To_Fremagel.cfg, the victory condition is tied to map hex (60,10), but the 0.5.0 map is only 40 hexes wide(!). As written, the player cannot win. I had to tweak a save file: changed the trigger hex to be (40,6), and changed the count-the-horses code to compute distances from (40,6). The road is actually 2 hexes wide, and leaves the map at 40,6 and 40,7. I'm not sure how you want to handle the victory condition ultimately, but it clearly needs some kind of fix.
Regards,
--sneezy

[pyrophorus]

Oh my !
Stupid mistake: I linked here a map belonging to another scenario ! And of course, it's a mess !
(I hope there are no more bugs like this one !)
I'll update today with the correction.
Many thanks for this report and all your feedback !

Friendly,

EDIT: update 0.5.1 is on the server.

[Sneezy]

Hi-- glad to help. I'm several scenarios further along now.

Small Bug: in 120-BlackSwamps.cfg the objectives say: "...to the river's edge in the east"

actually, it should be "west."
--sneezy

[pyrophorus]

actually, it should be "west."

Fixed, thank you...

By the way, it would be really invaluable to me if you could tell me when you complete the campaign(or if you don't). Of course, more comprehensive feedback would be welcomed, but I don't want to ask too much.

Friendly,

[Sneezy]

Hi-- just reached 170-Morwyn_Castle; hit a pretty serious problem.

Spoiler:

Tiomen & friends appeared just S of a large castle; there was a conversation; Patti tried some magic on the castle inhabitants; then she tried some magic on the heroes; heroes all turned into rats; they ran into a nearby tunnel.

<Invalid WML found> Missing required starting_x in [nearest_hex]

and up popped a "You are defeated!" message. (The error msg and the "You are defeated" happen almost simultaneously.)

This is pretty serious; a player can't go any further.

By the way, it would be really invaluable to me if you could tell me when you complete the campaign(or if you don't). Of course, more comprehensive feedback would be welcomed, but I don't want to ask too much.

I do intend to finish, and I do intend to provide some feedback on my playing experience. I'll do that a little later, though, when I have a better understanding of where events are headed.
The story is interesting, and it's really holding my attention.
--sneezy

[pyrophorus]

Hi !

Hi-- just reached 170-Morwyn_Castle; hit a pretty serious problem.

Spoiler:

This is pretty serious; a player can't go any further.

Thanks for the report. The bad new is I can't reproduce the bug. It's not difficult to locate where the problem rises: the macro RTN_HIDEINHOLES fails and the [endlevel] instruction is never executed. This results in defeat because you have no more leader on the map. I have no reason to suspect the macro which works very well in other places.
Then what could be these invalid coordinates ? Maybe it's because the filter (side=1) catches some units in the recall list too. So maybe you could try this patch: in the macro parameter, replace (side=1) with:

Code: Select all

(side=1
[not]
     x,y=recall,recall
[/not])

If this don't work or any other reason, could you post a savegame of the scenario or the end of the previous one ?

I do intend to finish, and I do intend to provide some feedback on my playing experience. I'll do that a little later, though, when I have a better understanding of where events are headed.
The story is interesting, and it's really holding my attention.

Thanks ! I really appreciate your support and your help.

Friendly,

[Sneezy]

Hi-- I applied your suggested fix, and that cleared the problem! Nice work! Thanks for the quick response.

That allowed me to move on to the next step; the heroes are in a cavern; there is some conversation; Patti turns herself into a horror; and we get the start-of-scenario objectives; at the same time, this error msg pops up:

<WML> Error: empty side= and no [filter_side] is deprecated, use either side=1 or [filter_side]

I cleared the msg, was able to move units, and move to turn 2, etc. The error msg has not re-appeared; seems to have been a one-time thing. Seems like I have all the necessary heroes, so I'll continue on, and see what else I find.
--sneezy


EDIT-1 (15 min later):
Moving on, I notice that Tio is a very healthy rat(!): his HP=33/33; Patti HP=17/37; Boney HP=87/19; Lestiviel HP=44/14; Desfir HP=59/14; Anuviel HP=51/25; Ecken HP=66/14; Alfir HP=17/17; Wulfie HP=23/23; Elyanor HP=17/17. Not sure if these are correct or not, but thought I'd mention it.


EDIT-2 (1 hour later):
The heroes killed the boss of the rats (and I now see the usefulness of the HP situation); Patti found the dwarf; there was a conversation.

As the party started to move, one of the heroes smacked a nearby (blue faction) rat & destroyed him; the entire conversation then happened a second time(!); it might be better if it didn't.

They met a prisoner who ran away; heroes talked like they were addressing Othra, but there was no Othra dialogue visible; I suspect that the WML error msg (above) was due to problems recalling Othra. (I can't find where she ever got saved.)

[pyrophorus]

Hi-- I applied your suggested fix, and that cleared the problem! Nice work!

Nice to learn that. I will update ASAP.

<WML> Error: empty side= and no [filter_side] is deprecated, use either side=1 or [filter_side]

Yes, I saw it too this morning. It comes from the start event, so it don't prevent you to proceed normally. I will fix it too, but this [censored] WML parser don't tell us which is the offending tag.

EDIT (15 min later):
Moving on, I notice that Tio is a very healthy rat(!): his HP=33/33; Patti HP=17/37; Boney HP=87/19; Lestiviel HP=44/14; Desfir HP=59/14; Anuviel HP=51/25; Ecken HP=66/14; Alfir HP=17/17; Wulfie HP=23/23; Elyanor HP=17/17. Not sure if these are correct or not, but thought I'd mention it.

That's right...

Spoiler:

It's a WML feature: when transforming an unit, it keeps its original hitpoints. Of course, it would be easy to adjust this to the new unit maximum hitpoints, but here, you'll have a struggle to fight with no healer, no village to recover, no cannon fodder to recruit. To me, it's quite impossible to win the scenario with so weak units. Maybe I'm wrong because I'm not a top player at all. Maybe, the rats may be weakened in HARD level or something like that. If you have an opinion, you're welcome
BTW, your report is not useless, because it seems these units are not fully healed from previous scenario (GryphonMountains) as they should. I must investigate this.

Thanks for the report !

[Sneezy]

Hi-- I might be able to suggest where to look for the WML error.

EDIT-2 (1 hour later):
The heroes killed the boss of the rats (and I now see the usefulness of the HP situation); Patti found the dwarf; there was a conversation.

As the party started to move, one of the heroes smacked a nearby (blue faction) rat & destroyed him; the entire conversation then happened a second time(!); it might be better if it didn't.

Much more important, though: they met a prisoner who ran away; heroes talked like they were addressing Othra, but there was no Othra dialogue visible; I suspect that the WML error msg (above) was due to problems recalling Othra.

I've looked, and can't find where she ever got saved. Possibly that's the cause of the problem.

I went ahead (without Othra), and made it into 180_Aethen_Woods. That was a pretty interesting problem to work on, and the tides play a part again. I like that.

(1) it looks like Tolivia is supposed to get some mermen to help her; none showed up for me.

(2) a water element & Tolivia were **destroyed** by the tide!! Holy cow!

I looked in a save file, and her race is:
race=""
And a water-elemental has the same thing for his/her race.
That's why they got "glouped."

I suspect there are two problems: no Othra; and Tolivia's race is not being stored as you intended.
I'm still curious to see how this adventure turns out! Thanks for all the work you've put into it.
--sneezy

[pyrophorus]

I've looked, and can't find where she ever got saved. Possibly that's the cause of the problem.

Normally; Othra have been saved much more earlier, at the end of first part. I will verify all is OK and put some "rescue" code in there, just in case other people are, like you, rather far away from the wrong point. The problem is I fear the last scenarios will not work without Othra. "Taking Soradoc" will be OK, but no further. I will update ASAP.

I went ahead (without Othra), and made it into 180_Aethen_Woods. That was a pretty interesting problem to work on, and the tides play a part again. I like that.

(1) it looks like Tolivia is supposed to get some mermen to help her; none showed up for me.

(2) a water element & Tolivia were **destroyed** by the tide!! Holy cow!

I looked in a save file, and her race is:
race=""
And a water-elemental has the same thing for his/her race.
That's why they got "glouped."

I suspect there are two problems: no Othra; and Tolivia's race is not being stored as you intended.
I'm still curious to see how this adventure turns out! Thanks for all the work you've put into it.
--sneezy

Point 1: I'll work again on this. I have hard time with recall lists manipulations. It seems to work on turn 1 and not later.
Point 2: Rats ! I thought I had fixed definitely the problem ! Obviously, elementals water *shouldn't* sink in water !

Many thanks for the report. It's a pleasure to work with you !

Friendly,

[Sneezy]

Hi--

Sneezy wrote:
I've looked, and can't find where she ever got saved. Possibly that's the cause of the problem.

Normally; Othra have been saved much more earlier, at the end of first part. I will verify all is OK and put some "rescue" code in there, just in case other people are, like you, rather far away from the wrong point. The problem is I fear the last scenarios will not work without Othra. "Taking Soradoc" will be OK, but no further. I will update ASAP.

I went to the save file for the start of scenario Morwyn Castle; did a search for "Othra"
Nothing found. So it looks like she wasn't saved. Or she got lost. Or went out for coffee(!).

I went back to the last time I had Othra, and looked there, but I didn't see her being saved. I couldn't be sure, though, because it might have been down in a macro somewhere. You'll probably know right where to look. I know I'm going to have to back up quite a ways; my notes say the last time I had her was at the Siege of Fremagel. I'll probably have to back up quite a distance to pick up the Tolivia fix also.
Thanks for the quick replies.
--sneezy