Return from the Abyss [SP campaign for 1.12/1.14]

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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ploxis
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Re: Return from the Abyss [SP campaign for 1.12]

Post by ploxis »

Sadly, but i found another bug (or two) in this scenario.

1. Potion for submerging... i cant take em from ground.

2. Not sure it is bug. But it is possible to recall orc wolfriders with goblin leader (those who were in scenario At war on my side)

Check save.
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skeptical_troll
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Re: Return from the Abyss [SP campaign for 1.12]

Post by skeptical_troll »

They are two bugs indeed, thanks for spotting them. The goblin is not supposed to recall anything, just to recruit other goblins, and apparently I broke the lotion code in a recent modification I did. Both are fixed now.

You'd need to restart the scenario if you want to get the lotions, but they are actually not very important for the rest of the campaign.
ploxis
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Re: Return from the Abyss [SP campaign for 1.12]

Post by ploxis »

Thank you for work!

Btw, can you reccomend any other good, interesting campaigns?
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skeptical_troll
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Re: Return from the Abyss [SP campaign for 1.12]

Post by skeptical_troll »

ploxis wrote:Btw, can you reccomend any other good, interesting campaigns?
there are lots of excellent UMCs! Rather than making a list myself, I'd suggest you to have a look in the 'user' forum section, you'll find this is discussed pretty often. Here are some relevant threads (but there are many others):
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=43239
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=44112
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=28728
daud2001
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Joined: January 19th, 2015, 9:20 am

Re: Return from the Abyss [SP campaign for 1.12]

Post by daud2001 »

I have just finished it on Wednesday. Liked it very much. Especially Begol and Bragor.

I tend to have problem with wounded units. With only one healer or none most of the time and villages tend to be too far or not enough, I end up appreciating healers more (didn't stop me from getting them killed as a distraction though). I also liked that Tabib regenerates, which removes the "who heal the healer" problem.

A little problem:
In The Academy, I sent Ahlir to the militia, get told that I have to kill the remaining leader, kill said leader while Ahlir was out of the militia, sent Ahlir back, kill a green unit and only then I won. I'm sure I'm supposed to win when I sent Ahlir back.
A fan and a player since kindergarten.
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skeptical_troll
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Re: Return from the Abyss [SP campaign for 1.12]

Post by skeptical_troll »

I somehow find that having little access to healing requires more variety of solutions, so I tend to purposely limit healers in my scenarios/campaigns.
daud2001 wrote:A little problem:
In The Academy, I sent Ahlir to the militia, get told that I have to kill the remaining leader, kill said leader while Ahlir was out of the militia, sent Ahlir back, kill a green unit and only then I won. I'm sure I'm supposed to win when I sent Ahlir back.
Thanks for pointing this out, it's fixed now! :)
ploxis
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Re: Return from the Abyss [SP campaign for 1.12]

Post by ploxis »

Hello again :)

I'm completed this great campaing. And found some minor bug on last map.

Look at the queue to the Armory. I dont think it is nice.
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skeptical_troll
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Re: Return from the Abyss [SP campaign for 1.12]

Post by skeptical_troll »

ploxis wrote:Look at the queue to the Armory. I dont think it is nice.
Ah, that must have been peak time, but such an orderly line it's certainly too polite for the fanatics, I fixed their AI now.
Thanks again!
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skeptical_troll
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Re: Return from the Abyss [SP campaign for 1.12/1.13]

Post by skeptical_troll »

Published a new version after another play-through on hard, with several tweaks to a few scenarios. Most importantly, I now ported this to 1.13, so if you use the dev version and you find bugs I overlooked please tell me. :)

All the khalifate units/race names have changed, so I'm interested also in possible inconsistencies and incompatibility between different versions.
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Inky
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Re: Return from the Abyss [SP campaign for 1.12/1.13]

Post by Inky »

Great to see this campaign on 1.13! 8)

A couple issues:
- The campaign icons don't display for 1.13.11 - it seems you forgot to change "khalifate" to "dunefolk" (same for the music addon)
- I had a problem with the super large text in the story screen so the campaign wouldn't load for me. I think it's a Wesnoth bug so I filed a report on Github: https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/issues/2616
In the meantime decreasing the font size of the two initial story screens (100 > 80 and 50> 20) fixed it for me
- Maybe this is a wesnoth bug too but the text when you recruit that says "x recruits remaining" disappears way too quickly to read
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skeptical_troll
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Re: Return from the Abyss [SP campaign for 1.12/1.13]

Post by skeptical_troll »

Hi Inky, thanks for keep testing this campaign, you're the best! :D :)
Inky wrote: March 8th, 2018, 11:44 pm The campaign icons don't display for 1.13.11 - it seems you forgot to change "khalifate" to "dunefolk" (same for the music addon)
Hmm, at the moment I'm not sure how to fix this, I still have a dev version with the old khalifate names, and I'm not sure how to make that line version-dependent (preprocessor command are not accepted in the pbl..) . Ideas, anyone?
Inky wrote: March 8th, 2018, 11:44 pm I had a problem with the super large text in the story screen so the campaign wouldn't load for me. I think it's a Wesnoth bug so I filed a report on Github: https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/issues/2616
NOoooooo, I was so proud of my super-uber blue title screen :( :augh: :doh: I reduced the font size to the values that worked for you, but my pride is deeply hurt.
Inky wrote: March 8th, 2018, 11:44 pm - Maybe this is a wesnoth bug too but the text when you recruit that says "x recruits remaining" disappears way too quickly to read
This is probably because this new version has more frames per second, and the duration of such messages is fixed by default to 50 frames. I changed that to 150, hopefully now it's better.
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Inky
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Re: Return from the Abyss [SP campaign for 1.12/1.13]

Post by Inky »

Glad to help, this campaign is awesome!

-Ah, I don't think the add-on server icon is that important anyway. Changing the "khalifate" to "dunefolk" in line 33 of main.cfg will make the icon show up in the player's campaign menu though.

-I am sorry to say that I have more bad news for your super uber blue title screen :augh: - it turns out those values work when wesnoth is fullscreen but give an error when in windowed mode. And making the font even smaller makes the second story screen barely readable. It might be best to just comment out those story screens until the bug is fixed :(
EDIT: found a better solution - if you delete most of the blank lines (all except like 2 or 3) above the large storytext it will display even with the fonts at their original sizes!

-The good news is, the text for recruiting displays for a good length of time now :)
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Samonella
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Re: Return from the Abyss [SP campaign for 1.12/1.13]

Post by Samonella »

skeptical_troll wrote: March 9th, 2018, 12:10 amHmm, at the moment I'm not sure how to fix this, I still have a dev version with the old khalifate names, and I'm not sure how to make that line version-dependent (preprocessor command are not accepted in the pbl..) . Ideas, anyone?
I haven't tested this, but i'm about 85% sure it will work:
BLIT both versions of the image onto the blank hex image - in my experience, missing images in the add-on server don't do the ugly 'image not found' image, they just don't do anything.
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skeptical_troll
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Re: Return from the Abyss [SP campaign for 1.12/1.13]

Post by skeptical_troll »

Inky wrote: March 9th, 2018, 2:28 am Ah, I don't think the add-on server icon is that important anyway. Changing the "khalifate" to "dunefolk" in line 33 of main.cfg will make the icon show up in the player's campaign menu though.
Ahh, now I see, I missed that!
Samonella wrote: March 9th, 2018, 4:27 am BLIT both versions of the image onto the blank hex image - in my experience, missing images in the add-on server don't do the ugly 'image not found' image, they just don't do anything.
That was smart, it worked perfectly. Thanks! :)
Inky wrote: March 9th, 2018, 2:28 am EDIT: found a better solution - if you delete most of the blank lines (all except like 2 or 3) above the large storytext it will display even with the fonts at their original sizes!
Alright, I did so, let's hope it fixes it for everyone. That's probably the right punishment for my ugly use of blank lines, but I couldn't find other ways of putting the title in the center (vertically), and creating an image for it felt over-killing :hmm:
Thanks again! :)
keeet
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Re: Return from the Abyss [SP campaign for 1.12/1.13]

Post by keeet »

At first I was sceptical about a spelunking campaign with a desert faction, but I wanted to test dunefolks. And I'm glad I did as I had great time.

Main part that made the campaign fun for me (in addition to the great scenarios) was the changes to recruitment. I usually get frustrated when losing experiences units in middle of campaigns, because I can't know if I would have needed them later. The recruitment of dunefolk units being discouraged by the limited pool, while having a known time limit for the use of ally troops, made it easier to use, risk and "spend" even leveled units as long as they were from the allies. (This made it feel that the allies were risking their hides to keep Khafir's troops safe and, in a weird sense, made them very relatable). Lack of healing also somewhat paradoxically made spending units easier, as there just wasn't enough healing to keep everyone alive.

I heavily relied on the allies, so in the end I had several dozen left in both dunefolk recruitment pools, but even then I did in no way lack experienced units in the last scenarios.

The dunefolk unit options felt limited. There was only three units available for most of the campaign and I never found the Dune Soldiers to be particularly good choice for recruitment because the allies were already melee heavy factions and the Rovers were versatile, and the Burners were just cool. Going through most of the scenarios with mostly leveled up Rovers and allies diminished the scenario variety, I think.

Scenarios

Hardest scenario for me was The Old Castle (I think I screwed up something bad). In the end I had been pushed out of the main castle and was about to lose, so it was pretty weird when Orthondor implied the worm attack had been pushed back.

It was rather tedious to trying to arrange an effective defense in The Forest of the Crossing Paths because of the player units being divided to two sides. Also, the forest was too full of constantly respawning critters to make it particularly useful to explore it for the few boons. By the time I got anything out of it, I had already nearly won on the main front.

In The Sewer of Uqraba I had to go back to reselect my units, as I had picked slow moving melee units (I guess I assumed I'd need bulky bodyguards for Khafir), while there was already too much basysitting in the two melee only slow moving Militia units. After I took three quick Rangers, one quick Firetrooper and heavy mounted archer, the scenario became a breeze. Defending the bridges to the last area was almost too easy.

In the last scenario, the sluices were just too far away to make capturing both ends seem any way possible especially when the northern ones were protected by the endless streams of reinforcements. It was much easier to confuse the defending AI into packing at one bridge while slipping in from another, and then make a breach with skirmisher units.

There was some problems with the ai scripts. In The Orcs Strike Back, I moved the allied orcs over the western mountains straight into the elven camp, and the elven troops manning the wall couldn't be bothered to defend their leader. In the last scenario the Ahlir's would-be-assassins dispersed ineffectively all over the western mountains (I guess) because they couldn't get past my accidently made but sparse line spanning between the outern enemy camps. Though when their AI worked again, they were really threatening especially when the main distinction between endings was whether Ahlir lived.

Writing

The story was nice. In the beginning it was somewhat hard to get invested, because the battle with elves that started the series of mishaps was, as far as I got it, some inconsequential trade related skirmish. It was also hard to relate with Khafir's brief revenge on the elves later, as the uncle had died as an unjustified invader. People do feel the need to get revenge even if the perceived crime was result of the victim's own actions, but it didn't make Khafir more relatable. Still, it was easy to get invested in the attempt to get home, so it wasn't really a problem that most fights were just accidently getting mixed up in the wars of others. In fact that emphasized the undercurrent that Khafir's misadventures were just a part of a larger whole, even though the deeds very mostly heroic.

Even if the story wasn't anything too special, the setting and world building compensated well. The different cultures were presented in an interesting manner without going overboard with being different for the sake of being different. The dwarven culture deviated interestingly from the surface dwellers without making the dwarves too weird and alien. I found the sidestory about the subterranean trade route particularly fascinating. The orcs remained brutal savages, but their society appeared to have a reason for the way it was, even though the shaman wasn't particularly fluent at explaining it. The story of Wesnoth Empire and the cult made the world seem like a large place spanning beyond the immediate concerns of the player faction. There was plenty of (effective) comedic relief, but nothing too wacky to deviate from the overall serious tone. Well, the lizards commenting the horrible lisp of their fellow was pushing it, but that still got a smirk out of me and wasn't too out of palce.

I generally liked the characters. Khafir was a bit "nondescript young commander who learns the ropes of leadership", but that is understandable for a main player character. The dwarf expedition team was great, but I'd wish they had been introduced as playable units earlier, for example in The Old Castle. I think Hekmal should have been introduced better, but I can't come up with any way how. Orthondor, Ahlir, the shaman, the lizard leaders, all were memorable and enjoyable to witness. The cultists seemed a bit too crazy sometimes to make it believable that they'd be able to infiltrate several different societies so well. Maybe there could have been a wellspoken rabble-rouser character to counterbalance the directly violent fanaticism.

Other

I think it was rather pointless that Begol had to be recalled in the last scenario. There doesn't seem to be any reason for him to need extra incentive to accompany his partner. Also, the peasant Yold introduced in The Plague scenario could have had something more going on with him later. I noticed him lingering in the recall list at the last scenario, so I renamed him Yold the Bold and managed to feed him enough dying high level units to turn him in to a Royal Guard. Funny, but also strange that nobody ever commented anything related to his continued presence. Why didn't he remain with the Wesnothian outpost?


Overall, a very enjoyable experience. Thank you.
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