A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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GL_Network
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by GL_Network »

I let you see my replays so you can see the difference in balance between scenarios. All replays are at hard difficulty.

The Berserkers Frenzy replay will go out-of-synch at one point unless you add 1 to Karna's movement points maximum in debug mode or by modifying the file. That's because I moved her by 1 case in debug mode (so she could reach a village at the end of a turn). I cannot provide a functional replay for later scenarios.

As you can see, scenario 1 is okay-ish but very hard, scenario 2 is much harder (I save-scummed a lot in that one) and scenario 3 is practically impossible no matter what (I lost all my heroes except Tormir at least once, though it doesn't show in the replay). Scenario 4 is a cakewalk (horsemen are far superior to bats), scenario 5 can be done in only a couple turns (yes, I used debug mode in scenario 5 and that's why it goes out of synch, though it was mostly because of a mistake I made and because I didn't feel like restarting the whole scenario for literally one hex).

Does this gives you enough information to fix the problem? Also, I'm pretty sure that Ret-ard-ed One (a goblin in scenario 1; sorry, the name gets censored) was supposed to have the dim trait, not the weak trait.
Attachments
AWOF-Berserkers_Frenzy_revoir_la_partie.gz
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AWOF-Winged_plains_revoir_la_partie.gz
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AWOF-Steady_dwarves_revoir_la_partie.gz
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AWOF-Useless_poison_revoir_la_partie.gz
(64.82 KiB) Downloaded 468 times
AWOF-Poor_goblins_revoir_la_partie.gz
(30.17 KiB) Downloaded 483 times
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Aldarisvet
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Aldarisvet »

Thank much for your replays!

Now after I watch it I have to critisize the way you played it, I hope you would be ok with it.

1 scenario. I am quite surprised you did not guess to wait at 1 turn and move to north-east forest and see how goblins will fight without you and harm each other before risking to intervene. It is risky, really, what you made. Actually the only reason to giving Velendar that ambush ability was because of that 1 turn. Further step was even more risky, you went alone to the east, in the thick of battle, leaving your zombies far behind. And furthermore, after that you moved to the north and somehow alone!!! was able to kill north goblin leader. Obviously you used lot of save&loads.

2 scenario. Here you used lot of save&loads too, but I am ok with you style of playing. You used Velendars undead leadership/heal and Solaevin stop poison ability. This scenario have no special ideas under it except using these special abilities.

3 scenario. I can understand here why you said that it is insane. You was using save&loads in enourmous scale. Yea, no fun from such playing you got probably. The problem you did not listened Gorandor's command. As I designed, player should retreat with dwarwres to crossroad and defend there. You will see in my replays, what should have been done. Overrally this level is not very hard, if you know how to play, just need to keep concentration for a long time, rotating units, and this actually is exhausting. Also read a spoiler from one of my previous posts in this thread about this scenario.

4 scenario. Overally this was not supposed to be hard scenario, as first secenario of chapter. Moreover, this level is not hard to play vs save&loads tactics, still you could lose your heroes many times. In this scenario the main idea to guess is to recruit peasants only at first stages to take and control as much villages as posssible. Just look. Peasants have 60% defence in villages and horsemans have just 40%. Horseman costs 23 gold, 3 peasants costs 24 gold, almost the same. 3 peasants have 18*3=54 hp, and 1 horseman only 38. Then, 3 peasants can control 3 villages, and 1 horseman can only control 1. Also level0 peasants do not cost support, and level1 horsemans do (however there is no difference because you have 3 villages at start). The only minus in this is scheme that horsemans have 20% defence versus bats claws while peasants have none. Obiously this is not enough to compensate other minuses of recruiting horsemans. But as I see (another one person who played this scenario did the same) that to the player is easier just to recruit horsemans and use save&loads to save them versus bats. I think that I should punish player more distinctly for recruiting horsemans. May be I should let necromancers to recruit undead skeletons also (horsemans usless versus them and vulnerable to arrows) and ruffians to the player (to use impact bonus versus both skeletons and bats). But this would be against plotline a little, that necromancers were bat-masters, not skeleton-raisers. Whoouh!!!! I forget that ruffian cost just 6 gold whenever peasant cost 8. Even despite peasants have 18 hp versus 16 of ruffian that means that you can recruit 4 ruffians for just 1 horsemans. I will just add ruffians to recruit list, that is the solution. Also I will remove that 3 villages from inner court of castle, so it would be costly to recruit horsemans at start and will stimulate player to more agressively occupy villages. The second idea of level was to use Karna as support unit to teleport to the places where peasants have problems. You also almost did not use her for this, that is not your fault I just need to make distinct necessity of it.

5 scenario. Yea, you just simply go and kill gryphon leader. That partly because AI too stupid to protect his own leader by default. I already added AI instructions for this. But possibly i have to make the way to the gryphon leader just almost impassible for horsemans. I will cover the east passage with mountains fully. I myself suggested that it would be easier to kill east leader, because lancers are really vulnerable to grypnos at hills, just 30% defence. Well, still they have 20% defence versus blade attacks of claws.

So thank you again, you gave me food for thought to improve my scenarios.

Now, my replays of chapter 1 scenario. I was not using save&loads much except some moments at second scenario and at the final stages of third scenario, that was because I just got tired and lost attention. Anycase I was never using save&loads just to get better chances, upgrade of unit with successful attack and whatever, hmm except may be 1 moment in third scenario. Mostly I used reloads to fix mistakes, as you can do it in chess giving turn back.
Attachments
AWOF-Steady_dwarves_replay.gz
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AWOF-Useless_poison_replay.gz
(47.47 KiB) Downloaded 535 times
AWOF-Poor_goblins_replay.gz
(36.42 KiB) Downloaded 453 times
Last edited by Aldarisvet on December 8th, 2015, 10:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Aldarisvet »

GL_Network wrote: Chapter II:
-Scenario 4 is insanely easy compared to the scenarios of chapter I. Every horseman can defend a village indefinitely unless outnumbered, and after the spawning of bats has started to decline, they can be sent toward the enemy leaders and kill them in record time. At the beginning you can recruit an horseman every two turns, but by the middle of the time limit, gold is no longer a problem.
...
Scenario 4 is a cakewalk (horsemen are far superior to bats)
Now I can answer you about 4 scenario.
The story is that. Initally it had 8 less villages than it has now. I myself before today tested only that version. Also one person played this scenario before I added villages. He did same thing that you- recruited horsemans only. Just defended, not trying to get villages, got upgrades on his units, got some spearmens and lancers, and after that he went and killed necromancers one after another. When I saw that, I came to conclusion that scenario must be hardened, so player could not afford himself sitting in the camp and just defending. Then I added 8 more villages, the map you played.

Today I made some adjustments to scenario. First of all, I added ability to recruit ruffians. Then, I changed enemy leaders, it was a mistake, they should be not Dark Sorcerers, but Necromancers. Also instead passive leader AI command I just made 0 turns to all necromancers. The problem is that - if you do not make passive leader, often leader tend to suicide, leaving his camp. If you make him passive leader, he just stupidly stands not attacking, even he can attack without any retaliate. For example, Necromancer can attack Horseman with ranged magic attack, and Horsman will not retaliate. But stupid passive AI do nothing. So for me making 0 turns to ememy leaders is best choice. He will not do stupid sucide attacks, leaving camp, but he will attack if he see sense, if enemy is just close to leader.

Now with this little changes, but with no changes to the map, I played this scenario today. Well, you said it was easy? I cannot agree with that totally. May be you inertially was playing it with the same style as scenario 3, using mass-scale save&loads. But well, today I played one of the hardest scenario I ever played. You cannot say it is easy when you have to fight all time against kinda 40 bats, which control all the map. Hosesmen can be easely killed at night, especially if he missed his сharge attack. And well, bats have 60% defence so you can easely miss even twice and get 20 damage from defending bat. For me it is obvious that there is no way you can afford recruiting horsemans at early stages. Only ruffians, and try to control with them just some of villages to accumulate more gold. Also I used Silver mage to support ruffians, teleporting from one side of map to another fighting for the villages whenever main forces where defending in the camp, being totally overrun by the bats. I played it the way I designed it should be played, and I see no other way for it, if you play fairly, without save and loads. Well, I reloaded myself too, but not more then 5 times, just to correct grave mistakes. Still I was not able to win or even to kill any enemy leader or get even 1 lancer in 45 turns, but to that moment the winning is obvious. Heh, 167 bats killed, 30 units lost, almost all of them are ruffians.

Here is replay, campaign need to be reloaded to apply changes.
Now I really dont know what to do. In fact I should add more turns. But was it already easy scenario for other players??? :hmm:

P.S. I found a solution. Instead of horsemans, player would be able to create level0 mounted peasants. The sprite already in Art Workshop, I will duplicate it here.
mounted_peasant.png
mounted_peasant.png (2.5 KiB) Viewed 6589 times
7-2 melee, 7 mp, 20 hp, cost 12, 25 xp
Scenario goal would be not to get lancers, but to get horsemans. But obviously in early stages that mounted peasant would be not very useful unit vs bats, recruiting 2 ruffians instead of it would be much preferable.
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Last edited by Aldarisvet on February 24th, 2016, 9:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Aldarisvet »

Version 8.1.0 just has been uploaded.
Changes from 8.0.0:

1. In scenario 4 you can recruit Mounted Peasants! With additional attack and defend sprites! You can recruit them instead of Horsemans. That will make scenario more challenging, Horsemans were too strong versus bats.
2. Added new plotline dialog in scenario 4, explanation of how Ruffians appears amongst peasants. Also two loyal units appears in this scenario on you side, some compensation for losing horsemans.
3. Some tweaks with maps. Reduced number of villages in scenario 4 and added some in scenario 5. Circled a river fully around the monastery in scenario 5. Also added gold to AI for scenario 5 to make it harder.
4. All Battlemages and Shadow Battlemages, including Velendar, have been recolored to make them not so similar to mainline Mages and Silver mages. Totally new look! Also made some tweaks with animations for them.

If anyone care to help me with feedback and want to try Mounted Peasants in-game, please play scenario 4 (further would be great too). You can go stright to scenario 4, skipping Chapter I from start. Chapter I is well tested by now, I badly need help with Chapter II. Replays needed. All scenarios are playable, no bugs expected at all, I just need to know how others will cope with tactical challenges.
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Aldarisvet »

Version 8.2.0 just has been uploaded.
Changes from 8.1.0:

1. Healer Mages (level1 White mages) sprites have books in their hands same way as level1 ordinary mages have.
2. I tweaked scenario 6, scenario with Woses to make it easier. Before the change 2 enemy leaders were recruiting level1 Woses, and main enemy leader was recruiting level2 Wose Druids. Well, 2 woses attacking same mage could kill him with luck, that was not good. Now 2 enemy leaders can recruit Wose Saplings (level0 Woses) and Wose Shamans (level1 Druids with same slow ability), and the main enemy leader can recruit level1 Woses. So it would be much easier to defend with holding the line, because Saplings and Shamans have twice weaker attacks than ordinary Woses have.
I am happy with this change because it is funny to see more and more level0 units in my campaign, and Wose Sapling is level0 (I've taken him from Era of More Units).
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Aldarisvet »

Version 8.3.0 just has been uploaded.
Changes from 8.2.0:

1. In Chapter I Velendar can now advance to level3, his staff can now grow 3 times, from level0 Nightmare staff to level3 Terror staff. So he can get level3 'undead leadership' ability. Advancement of 'heals undead' ability was changed. Heals +3 at level1, heals +6 at level2 and heals +9 at level3.
2. New, better animations was added for all 4 levels, see there: http://forum.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php? ... 62#p592562
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UK1
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by UK1 »

"What you will not find here: artifacts and tree-like upgrades for heroes' abilities and other RPG-style things. There is no need in these at all."

You, sir, just earned a standing ovation from me.
"Hey you, bats should be nerfed."
"Why?"
"Because I lost a game to bat swarm and I'm bitterUhm... clarity... and... consistency? Yeah yeah that sounds good. Clarity and consistency."
Do not. Nerf. The bat.
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Aldarisvet »

UK1 wrote:"What you will not find here: artifacts and tree-like upgrades for heroes' abilities and other RPG-style things. There is no need in these at all."

You, sir, just earned a standing ovation from me.
I am not sure how seriously you wrote this. Actually I was thinking a lot about how to make a campaign orignal, to envent something new for it (because tactically most campaigns, especially mainline ones, are quite similar, just hold a line and rotate wounded units and support frontline units with healers). Obviously there is the way to bring RPG-system to Wesnoth. It is a proven way in million games. Well, Dugi made all this way in his LotI and its very popular. I myself like AD&D system much, all this experience-harvesting and things-gathering. A player likes to gather artifacts, combine and recombine it and so on. I would say that this system uses some deep people instincts, people like to accumulate and distribute, people like making choices. But I have a feeling that Wesnoth is not about such things. You main choice is the tactic you use in the game. For me Wesnoth is something that is much closer to Starcraft than to Fallout/Baldur's Gate.
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UK1
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by UK1 »

Aldarisvet wrote:
UK1 wrote:"What you will not find here: artifacts and tree-like upgrades for heroes' abilities and other RPG-style things. There is no need in these at all."

You, sir, just earned a standing ovation from me.
I am not sure how seriously you wrote this. Actually I was thinking a lot about how to make a campaign orignal, to envent something new for it (because tactically most campaigns, especially mainline ones, are quite similar, just hold a line and rotate wounded units and support frontline units with healers). Obviously there is the way to bring RPG-system to Wesnoth. It is a proven way in million games. Well, Dugi made all this way in his LotI and its very popular. I myself like AD&D system much, all this experience-harvesting and things-gathering. A player likes to gather artifacts, combine and recombine it and so on. I would say that this system uses some deep people instincts, people like to accumulate and distribute, people like making choices. But I have a feeling that Wesnoth is not about such things. You main choice is the tactic you use in the game. For me Wesnoth is something that is much closer to Starcraft than to Fallout/Baldur's Gate.
Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm completely, 100% serious. I'm a Wesnoth purist/curmudgeon.
"Hey you, bats should be nerfed."
"Why?"
"Because I lost a game to bat swarm and I'm bitterUhm... clarity... and... consistency? Yeah yeah that sounds good. Clarity and consistency."
Do not. Nerf. The bat.
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Sudipta »

As promised here is my feedback - I played A whim of Fate latest version on BfW1.12.2 on Hard difficulty.
This certainly is an interesting campaign with primary focus put in tactical gameplay which really separates it from most other campaigns out there which are mostly story driven. I completed part one today and enjoyed it though it was no so enjoyable at scnario 3. :| More on that below.

First thing i noticed is that there are lots of spelling, grammatical and vocabulary mistakes in the story text and character dialogues. I understand you are not a native speaker and English can be difficult to master, but in some places it seems like a translator program was used. Maybe u should get someone to rewrite the story text to make it clearer. But it's not much of an issue tbh.

Scenario 1 – Interesting scenario idea. I would say that it’s a very easy scenario if u play calmly and patiently.( which seems to be partially true for your entire campaign ^_^ ) First I waited for the two armies to exhaust each other, while turning the nearly dead ones to my side. Then I slowly went over to the southern leader. After killing him, I took a few more turns to get to the northern leader. One problem is that I got pinned between the two armies in the center of the map for a couple turns. :( And the fact that each goblin is stronger(more damaging ) than the corpses is a pain. Leveling up corpses requires a lot of caution and planning. I finished in 34 turns and managed to get 4 Soulless.Maybe you could reduce the number of turns to 45 ? So many turns is not really necessary.

After reaching level 2 velandar has two undead leadership abilities with the same description in his unit file. After reaching level 3 velandar has three undead leadership abilities with the same description in his unit file. This isn’t really a bug, but it looks really awkward. I don’t know how you programmed the ability since I haven’t looked in your code but I am guessing that u did it by having the 3 leadership abilities having different level checks. Maybe u could use some cleaner code sequence to achieve the same effect ? Also, in the Terror Staff Wielder unit description, the healing amount is given as 6, but it will be 9. How about giving velandar a ranged attack on level 3 ? His melee only fighting style reduces his usefulness against trolls in scenario 3 because it’s too risky using him to attack trolls in melee.

Scenario 2 – This is tougher than the first scenario but after surviving the first enemy attack at night, it becomes a slow cleanup mission where u just have to kill the 1-2 assassins the enemy sends per turn and advance slowly. I leveled up the healer into a white mage as fast as possible for the cures and heal +8 abilities and then it became a piece of cake. It took me around 22 turns to get to the enemy leader and then I spent the next 10 – 12 turns advancing my corpses by farming the assassins the enemy leader produced each turn. :D Maybe u should lower the number of turns to 30- 35. I finished with around 9 soulless.

Scenario 3 – IMO This scenario needs some serious balancing since it was honestly a nightmare. I feel that it’s impossible to win without save loading at least a few times. I confess, i had to reload a couple times for this fight. I did not reload to improve my attack chances, but to ensure the survival of my defending heroes. Each L2 troll can kill my full hp soulless units and the white mage in a single engagement. I just don’t see how this scenario can be won by playing fairly with no cheating. I set up a defense at the bottleneck beside the 3 castle hex in the centre, by placing units in the castle and hills, but all it takes is a troll to hit 2 out of 2 times with an attack to kill the defenders and then occupy that hex, forcing me to retreat. We don’t even have much starting gold to recruit some decent dwarven units. It is incredibly difficult to hold out for the first 10 - 20 turns. After my heroes became level 3, it became slightly easier( but still tough). Maybe if u increase the starting gold, players can recruit a bunch of scouts and hold them off. Or you could lower the enemy income so that they can recruit trolls once every 2 or 3 turns. But as it is, it is incredibly vexing and will require an enormous amount of luck.
One suggestion - You could put a village or two in the centre of the map, where the path splits into two corridors. Since we have just one white mage, rotating and healing becomes troublesome, because we have to split the army into two fronts but can send the healer on one front only. I used the mage, runemastr and khalifate on the defense squad and i sent velandar and the elf on the attacking squad.
Moreover, none of the characters have that gold crown overlay which is used to denote the MC. Perhaps u could give the runesmith the gold crown overlay in this scenario to show that he is the only one who can recruit dwarves. Since the other heroes can’t recruit, it would distinguish him from them.

For part 2, the conversation between Volgast and Karna feels a little…off somehow to me. Maybe its due to the mistaken English used but I am not sure. Perhaps u could go through their conversation again and see what I mean. Another point that seems strange to me is how Karna directly provides tactical advice to Solaevin and Valender at the start of the scenario. I get what u are doing(trying to help the player and all but it just feels awkward. Furthermore its very very unusual for Three Necromancers to attack a town out of the blue. Are you relating this to Easter Invasion somehow? That’s the only place where I saw Three L3 undead bosses attack suddenly with no warning. :mrgreen: What grudge do they have against Volgast that they would team up to destroy his town? :hmm:

I haven't started playing the scenario yet. since I feel really tired today. It took around 5 hours to complete part One and my head hurts! I am gonna continue this tomorrow. I hope this helps you.
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Sudipta »

Forgot to attach the replays :doh: Here you go :
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AWOF-Steady_dwarves_replay.gz
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AWOF-Useless_poison_replay.gz
(68.32 KiB) Downloaded 420 times
AWOF-Poor_goblins_replay.gz
(29.24 KiB) Downloaded 434 times
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Aldarisvet »

Thank much for your time!
Before I will answer to you in general, fast reply about Scenario3, tactics and your replay.
I am sorry, but this scenario have a tricky element in it and you made a very big mistake in the very beginning.
The scenario is called 'Steady dwarves' for a reason.
You know, some dwarves called Guardsmans have steadfast ability, that doubles resistance rate. With 20% resistance rate to impact it is 40% resistance rate while defending. That means that even trolls with strong trait with 19-2 will attack only 11-2. Ordinary trolls will attack with 10-2. If you blocking eastern passage, only one, southern unit, would be at risk to be attacked by 2 trolls, so his risk is 4*11 if both are strong. Ordinary Guardsmans have 44 HP. So theoretically, if both attacking trolls are strong, they can kill Guardsman (but often AI prefer to attack a middle unit with the front troll because that unit standing on the road with less defence rate, so risk of losing southern blocking unit is almost a zero). Also that Guardsman that gifted you as loyal is resilient, 47 hp, he cant be killed even with strong trolls. So you should recruit 2 guardsmans in the very beginning, and with 3 of them to block the eastern passage. Some other units (not in the southern position) can be used for blocking too. Blocking eastern passage becoming absolutely safe thing, just needed some attention not to sleep out that one of your blocking unit is badly wounded. But you recruited Fighters and all went wrong, of course. You can look how to block the eastern passage with right way by downloading my replay from one of the posts above.

I hope you will not be upset for you was not able to guess this and needlessly wasted so much efforts. You are not the first person who get into that trap and it is really a pity to see what is going later. But even with all that I can agee, that this scenario is quite exhausting, you need to be vigilant all the time and the moment when nothern troll starts sending support to south can be hard a bit. But in general - you need to be careful and thats all. What I am thinking now is to directly advice to the player to recruit guardsmans. Instead I even put a false trail with berserkers mentioned in dialogs. Of course berserkers are almost useless here.

And zombies is not very useful in this third scenario except Mounted ones because that ones have resistance to crush.
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Sudipta »

Thank you for your feedback on my play. There's nothing to be upset about. Everybody can use a little feedback every now and then. ;) Actually, at the start i was thinking of recruiting 2 guardsmen and doing exactly what u said. But here's the thing, i just couldn't see how to kill the trolls on attack, if i just defended at the corridors. The thing about your campaign is that it requires a tremendous amount of time and patience, and i admit after playing 5 hours straight, i was not in peak condition :roll: I was wondering whether i should take a defensive approach with two guardsmen or take an aggresive approach by recruiting dwarvish fighters and then leveling them up somehow. I chose fighters because, without them and their advancements, it would have taken me 30 more turns to finish the scenario. The problem is that there is no one who can fight a troll one on one in melee underground except Dwarvish Lords This scenario tests your endurance and patience, but really it's just a matter of time before the player snaps and goes F**k this . :lol: I mean seriously, the fighting gets incredibly boring and repetitive, especially the eastern corridor, because there is zero progress on that front. Another point is that creating new corpses via plague is useless in this scenario because they are instantly taken down by whelps and trolls. But, when u finally get to the great troll boss and take him down, there's a great feeling of accomplishment.... and relief :mrgreen: I am gonna start part 2 now. I admit, it does not look easy. 8)
What about the other points i mentioned in my feedback? Let me know what u think on those.
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Aldarisvet »

Sudipta wrote:I chose fighters because, without them and their advancements, it would have taken me 30 more turns to finish the scenario. The problem is that there is no one who can fight a troll one on one in melee underground except Dwarvish Lords This scenario tests your endurance and patience, but really it's just a matter of time before the player snaps and goes F**k this . :lol: I mean seriously, the fighting gets incredibly boring and repetitive, especially the eastern corridor, because there is zero progress on that front.
But at the beginning I do not imply the progress on the Eastern front at all! You just stand there with Guardsmans and get experience while defending and also while you throw javelins with Gurdsmans (that is a way to get XP totally without a risk). So normally you will get 4 XP per turn for 2 defending&attacking Guardsmans and 2 XP for 1 only attacking. Well, 4 XP per turn is quite much, after 12 turns of such standing that almost do not require any effort/thinking/clicking mouse your Guardsmans would become Stalwarts, and this without killing any troll, you cant and neednt doing it (trolls cant do nothing to you but you get XP from them, actually for AI would be better not to attack you at all). More 16 turns - they all would become Sentinels. And Sentinels easely kill Trolls, harming them mostly by defending and then finishing them with ranged attacks. That was the main scenario idea - to get XP without fight while defending, and this scenario is devoted to steadfast ability, I think Guardmans are underestimated in campaigns. In fact with that strategy you can kill Nothern troll faster then western group will kill southern troll (again, look my replay).

Western group at first glance have an easier task. Troll Whelps are much easier to kill. Also woudnt you lose 2 dwarvish units in the very beginning for nothing (Gorandor clearly commanded to retreat), you would have more firepower. West group can move forward, using zombies under Velendar's command and healing abilities, however this demans some efforts and unit control. The problem is that you do not have something that can significantly level up there, zombies you obtain almost immedeately die in the fight. So the moment when nothern Troll sends support to south can be problematic, but this happens only when you come close to the southern trolls leader (in fact at that moment I had to retreat and run away by the western group, while eastern was victorious).

Now to your feedback post.
Sudipta wrote: First thing i noticed is that there are lots of spelling, grammatical and vocabulary mistakes in the story text and character dialogues. I understand you are not a native speaker and English can be difficult to master, but in some places it seems like a translator program was used. Maybe u should get someone to rewrite the story text to make it clearer. But it's not much of an issue tbh.
Yea, I know, I was told about it several times already. Something needs to be done, I have some plans. Partly that is because Chapter I was written when I just appeared in the forum and at that moment I had no practice in writing on English for years (hope I am in better form now).
Sudipta wrote: Scenario 1 – Interesting scenario idea. I would say that it’s a very easy scenario if u play calmly and patiently.( which seems to be partially true for your entire campaign ^_^ ) First I waited for the two armies to exhaust each other, while turning the nearly dead ones to my side. Then I slowly went over to the southern leader. After killing him, I took a few more turns to get to the northern leader. One problem is that I got pinned between the two armies in the center of the map for a couple turns. :( And the fact that each goblin is stronger(more damaging ) than the corpses is a pain. Leveling up corpses requires a lot of caution and planning. I finished in 34 turns and managed to get 4 Soulless.Maybe you could reduce the number of turns to 45 ? So many turns is not really necessary.
In general you played as it supposed. But the length of fight depends on luck much. There is some critical moment you have to pass with the number of zombies, to get enough to break to the east and occupy the village there. With unluck you may not pass this threshold for some time or fail your attempt to break and hence have to start from the beginning retreating to the initial village, and this can happen more then once. It took me more turns while playing carefully, thats why I left plenty of turns.
Sudipta wrote: After reaching level 2 velandar has two undead leadership abilities with the same description in his unit file. After reaching level 3 velandar has three undead leadership abilities with the same description in his unit file. This isn’t really a bug, but it looks really awkward. I don’t know how you programmed the ability since I haven’t looked in your code but I am guessing that u did it by having the 3 leadership abilities having different level checks. Maybe u could use some cleaner code sequence to achieve the same effect ?
I know about this bug and as I remember I was not able to fix that mistake despite I was trying to do it absolutely like in mainline code.
Sudipta wrote: Also, in the Terror Staff Wielder unit description, the healing amount is given as 6, but it will be 9.
Thank you, I will fix it.
Sudipta wrote: How about giving velandar a ranged attack on level 3 ? His melee only fighting style reduces his usefulness against trolls in scenario 3 because it’s too risky using him to attack trolls in melee.
From my point of view Velendar is overpowered unit for Level3 (well, for all levels actually). Not only he have magical 2-11 attacks but also heals undead +9 and level3 leadership. He is not supposed to be used as fighter at scenario3, only as zombie healer and leader or as a zombifier of already wounded troll whelps. With his 48 HP he is safe enough to attack wounded troll whelps. So nope, I am not going to give him any more bonuses.
Sudipta wrote: Scenario 2 – This is tougher than the first scenario but after surviving the first enemy attack at night, it becomes a slow cleanup mission where u just have to kill the 1-2 assassins the enemy sends per turn and advance slowly. I leveled up the healer into a white mage as fast as possible for the cures and heal +8 abilities and then it became a piece of cake. It took me around 22 turns to get to the enemy leader and then I spent the next 10 – 12 turns advancing my corpses by farming the assassins the enemy leader produced each turn. :D Maybe u should lower the number of turns to 30- 35. I finished with around 9 soulless.
It took more turns for me to pass it and actually I suspect that this scenario is unbalanced a bit on hard, because at the very beginning you really standing on the brink of survival. As I understand that scenario demands very-very careful moves while you defending against first AI's waves. Also I saw that you didnt get any advanced mounted zombies, but that is the miss, because they have more turns, HP vs ordinary human zombies and also have 30% impact resistance, what is quite important at scenario 3.
Sudipta wrote: Scenario 3 – IMO This scenario needs some serious balancing since it was honestly a nightmare.
As I wrote you already it is a cakewalk scenario if you know how to play. I admit it is somehow overlonged and monotonous. But it is a final scenario of the chapter, it must be of that sort. At least it is for sure thrice less masochistic than the last scenario of mainline campaign The Hammer of Thursagan.
Sudipta wrote: For part 2, the conversation between Volgast and Karna feels a little…off somehow to me. Maybe its due to the mistaken English used but I am not sure. Perhaps u could go through their conversation again and see what I mean.
Well, I am trying to develop Volgast's character there and his attention to Karna, you will see later in the campaign.
Sudipta wrote: Another point that seems strange to me is how Karna directly provides tactical advice to Solaevin and Valender at the start of the scenario. I get what u are doing(trying to help the player and all but it just feels awkward.
Nope, this in not for the player mainly, it is a part of the storyline. I am trying to show that despite all that happened in Chapter I, for Karna they are no more than children, apprentices in the magic school. Indeed they are (despite Solaevin can level up to Mage of Light in Chapter I).
Sudipta wrote: Furthermore its very very unusual for Three Necromancers to attack a town out of the blue. Are you relating this to Easter Invasion somehow? That’s the only place where I saw Three L3 undead bosses attack suddenly with no warning. :mrgreen: What grudge do they have against Volgast that they would team up to destroy his town? :hmm:
Actually I would prefer them to be just Dark Sorceres, or even Adepts (they are not serious characters in the plotline but funny ones), but for tactical reasons I need them to have maximum HP and I even gave them both resilient and strong traits. Otherwise they can be easely killed by Volgast's charge attacks, especially by persons who abuse save&load. However I do not think that appearing of 3 necromancers is something extraordinary. They attacked not the town but tried to assassinate Velendar actually.
Sudipta wrote: I haven't started playing the scenario yet. since I feel really tired today. It took around 5 hours to complete part One and my head hurts! I am gonna continue this tomorrow. I hope this helps you.
As I told you, I mostly in need for the feedback for Chapter II, so I am looking forward to it!
I am happy that after months I have someone to discuss my campaign with :)
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Sudipta
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Sudipta »

Continuing where i left off :
Scenario 4 – I love the concept of this scenario. I had to play this one twice because in my first attempt, I tried attacking the southern necro but got surrounded by huge swarms of bats from all sides resulting in Solaevin dying. Got a lot of bad luck as well. In my second attempt I recruited a few mounted peasants and then went after the northern one. Speed is essential in this scenario, and TOD too. Fighting the bats in melee is only safe during the day, and I mostly used the mages and the lancer to kill the bats. There is no point in trying to hold the villages because the enemies have much greater numbers and speed. Karna is easily the queen of this scenario. Teleporting her around was really fun and I planned to use her to kill the necromancer, but volgast got lucky. After killing the northern necro, I used his keep to recruit reinforcements and fought the majority of the enemy army there. After defeating most of the bats, I started moving south, capturing villages on the way to reduce their income. This is a really well done scenario. Oh and one other thing- Sadly I could not use the loyal prisoners u gave. Since I recruited my first ruffian after defeating the northern boss, by that time the city was swarming with bats and the loyal thug and footpad appeared right in the middle of them. Poor prisoners. They did not really get a chance to restore their honor. :P

Scenario 5 – The objectives say that there is no early finish bonus for this one and no gold carryover. However there is an early finish bonus and gold carryover as well. I had to play this one twice because, first time I played slowly and finished around 18 turns, then saw that there was a early finish bonus and it was huge – 32 gold per turn. As the next scenario looks like I will need all the gold I can possibly get, so I replayed this scenario and finished as fast as I could. You should fix the scenario objectives.
As for my playstyle, I decide that instead of defending at my castle, it would be much simpler if I just attacked the gryphon boss. Since the berserking dwarves are quite far away, it’s possible to finish this scenario without fighting them at all. Still I set up a defense at the river bank in the middle because I did not want the scenario to be too boring. :D Since the horsemen and knights are disposable, I used charge as often as I could. I got great luck in this scenario with my horseman and was surprised that so many of the charges were successful. But even if they failed, it would not have mattered much. At one part, I made the mistake of putting velandor in range of an ulf, and he almost died! That ulf had some great dodging skills considering he was in 20% defense shallow water. And to protect my battlemages, I hardly used them at all. I don’t think this is what u had in mind when u designed the scenario, but against an army of berserkers, defending at the castle is really risky because they can easily kill any unit by chain attacking it. Maybe u could do something to force the player to defend the castle. Perhaps something like adding a defeat condition – If any enemies reach the centre keep or the surrounding areas, you lose. You could justify this condition by having Ladiletta saying something like “We must protect our wounded brethren as well as the precious scrolls and artifacts in our libraries. Don’t let a single dwarf reach the keep.” Or something along those lines. Of course this is only if u want to force the player to defend the monastery. If not, then don’t bother.

Scenario 6 - This one looks incredibly tough :cry: I am trying to gather my courage to start this one. I have 178 starting gold, but still it's scary. This one is probably gonna be a graveyard for my mages. :augh: I predict that I will have a series of heart attacks while playing this one, since woses will come out of nowhere.
Aldarisvet wrote:But at the beginning I do not imply the progress on the Eastern front at all! You just stand there with Guardsmans and get experience while defending and also while you throw javelins with Gurdsmans (that is a way to get XP totally without a risk). So normally you will get 4 XP per turn for 2 defending&attacking Guardsmans and 2 XP for 1 only attacking. Well, 4 XP per turn is quite much, after 12 turns of such standing that almost do not require any effort/thinking/clicking mouse your Guardsmans would become Stalwarts, and this without killing any troll, you cant and neednt doing it (trolls cant do nothing to you but you get XP from them, actually for AI would be better not to attack you at all). More 16 turns - they all would become Sentinels. And Sentinels easely kill Trolls, harming them mostly by defending and then finishing them with ranged attacks. That was the main scenario idea - to get XP without fight while defending, and this scenario is devoted to steadfast ability, I think Guardmans are underestimated in campaigns. In fact with that strategy you can kill Nothern troll faster then western group will kill southern troll (again, look my replay).

That is definitely a better idea than what i did. So, defending with guardsmen was actually much safer than it seemed. :hmm: Well, i did not do the calculations so i did not realize this. You are correct in saying that guardsmen are widely underestimated. Their advancements are more than capable of holding their own against trolls.

Aldarisvet wrote:
Sudipta wrote: How about giving velandar a ranged attack on level 3 ? His melee only fighting style reduces his usefulness against trolls in scenario 3 because it’s too risky using him to attack trolls in melee.
From my point of view Velendar is overpowered unit for Level3 (well, for all levels actually). Not only he have magical 2-11 attacks but also heals undead +9 and level3 leadership. He is not supposed to be used as fighter at scenario3, only as zombie healer and leader or as a zombifier of already wounded troll whelps. With his 48 HP he is safe enough to attack wounded troll whelps. So nope, I am not going to give him any more bonuses.

Your call chief. I just suggested it so that it would speed up the player's progress. Having a ranged attack would allow the player to finish slightly faster. But, it's fine as it is. This way, it increases the tactical challenge of the scenario, and that's the point of this campaign- testing the players tactical skills.
Aldarisvet wrote:It took more turns for me to pass it and actually I suspect that this scenario is unbalanced a bit on hard, because at the very beginning you really standing on the brink of survival. As I understand that scenario demands very-very careful moves while you defending against first AI's waves. Also I saw that you didnt get any advanced mounted zombies, but that is the miss, because they have more turns, HP vs ordinary human zombies and also have 30% impact resistance, what is quite important at scenario 3.
I did not know that mounted coprses would be so important in the next part, that's why i didn't make any. Maybe you could drop a suggestion to the player about making some wolf zombies?
Aldarisvet wrote:
Sudipta wrote: For part 2, the conversation between Volgast and Karna feels a little…off somehow to me. Maybe its due to the mistaken English used but I am not sure. Perhaps u could go through their conversation again and see what I mean.
Well, I am trying to develop Volgast's character there and his attention to Karna, you will see later in the campaign.
After finishing scenario 5, i see you what did. However,
Spoiler:
Aldarisvet wrote:
Sudipta wrote: Another point that seems strange to me is how Karna directly provides tactical advice to Solaevin and Valender at the start of the scenario. I get what u are doing(trying to help the player and all but it just feels awkward.
Nope, this in not for the player mainly, it is a part of the storyline. I am trying to show that despite all that happened in Chapter I, for Karna they are no more than children, apprentices in the magic school. Indeed they are (despite Solaevin can level up to Mage of Light in Chapter I).
Well, then it's all right. I thought she was talking to the player. :doh:
Aldarisvet wrote:Actually I would prefer them to be just Dark Sorceres, or even Adepts (they are not serious characters in the plotline but funny ones), but for tactical reasons I need them to have maximum HP and I even gave them both resilient and strong traits. Otherwise they can be easely killed by Volgast's charge attacks, especially by persons who abuse save&load. However I do not think that appearing of 3 necromancers is something extraordinary. They attacked not the town but tried to assassinate Velendar actually.
Is that so? That's not mentioned in the text. Karna says "Your lordship, that draug was talking something about trap. No doubt that appearing of this skeleton here was a means to attract us here. We, mages, were main goal, and you and your people, were just accompanying the victim." The player does not know that they were specifically targeting velandar.
Aldarisvet wrote:As I told you, I mostly in need for the feedback for Chapter II, so I am looking forward to it!
I am happy that after months I have someone to discuss my campaign with :)

Haha, well these days its hard to find players willing to test out WIP addon's. I planned to make my own campaign a few years back. It was gonna be a small campaign set after the fall and centered around the rise of the aragwaithi. However i later abandoned it because i saw that the number of wesnoth players had decreased dramatically and i feared all the work would probably be wasted. :whistle:
EDIT: Attached replays.
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AWOF-Winged_plains_replay.gz
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AWOF-Berserkers_Frenzy_replay.gz
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Playing Wesnoth since 2010, still there is so much left to play
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