The Ravagers - SP campaign for Wesnoth 1.16 [Feedback and development]

[Duncan_Shriek]

Recovery from strikes of death is not working. There's a section in the WEAPON_SPECIAL_STRIKE_OF_DEATH macro which is commented out. I'm wondering weather this is work in progress?

[WhiteWolf]

Recovery from strikes of death is not working. There's a section in the WEAPON_SPECIAL_STRIKE_OF_DEATH macro which is commented out. I'm wondering weather this is work in progress?

I tested it and it works fine here. The lost max HP is only recovered at the end of the scenario. After the gold carryover message, when all units are full healed and the screen turns to grey, it should already show the "old" max HP. The commented section is leftover garbage from the old implementation which I did not delete yet, just in case.
If the issue persists, can you please attach the following two saved games / replays: the scenario where your unit was hit by strike of death (replay of this scenario), and the next one, where it should have healed up, but did not (scenario start save of this scenario). Screenshots of these states will also do. I am asking because it's highly possible the case is scenario specific.

[EarthCake]

(16) When attacking Addicus: challange -> challenge

Retalitator ability on orc hero doesn't work.

(17) Mountain People : killing south-eastern leader: terrotiry -> territory.

(18) Vartug's statistics, Hate of the Undead: becames -> becomes

[WhiteWolf]

Retalitator ability on orc hero doesn't work.

I know, it's one of those few abilities that were left on the to-do list despite publishing the campaign, but I've quite forgotten about it. Thanks for the reminder

(17) Mountain People : killing south-eastern leader: terrotiry -> territory.

"terrotiry", lol

[EarthCake]

(18) Killing south-eastern leader: do'n't -> doesn't

(17) Mountain People : killing south-eastern leader: terrotiry -> territory.

"terrotiry", lol

xDDDDD

(18) It doesn't make sense that green side has villages with red flag, does it?

Spoiler:

I would suggest adding an option to scenario (19), where instead of ambushing Skun, you give the player opportunity to fight orcs in open battle. Like in EI. You can fight Mal Ravanal in duel, or you can fight his undead army.

The Strike of Death healing after scenario indeed doesn't work (I mean, my unit has the same amount of HP like after being hit by Strike of Death one scenario later). Here is replay of the scenario where I got hitten by Strike of Death:

TRS-(18) The True North replay.gz

(274.94 KiB) Downloaded 210 times

And here is position in next scenario where I noticed that:

TRS-(19) The Warchief-Auto-Save14.gz

(602.14 KiB) Downloaded 240 times

[WhiteWolf]

(18) It doesn't make sense that green side has villages with red flag, does it?

It's not a red flag, it's... an orcish flag. I know, I know, but the problem is that the actual image has actual red background, and not the recolorable magenta (or whatever is should be.) I tried recoloring it, but with little success, I don't know exactly what shade of that recolorable stuff to go for. Help would be appreciated

Spoiler:

I would suggest adding an option to scenario (19), where instead of ambushing Skun, you give the player opportunity to fight orcs in open battle. Like in EI. You can fight Mal Ravanal in duel, or you can fight his undead army.

That's a nice idea Definitely not in 1.3.0, but after that sure, I'll make a note.

The Strike of Death healing after scenario indeed doesn't work (I mean, my unit has the same amount of HP like after being hit by Strike of Death one scenario later). Here is replay of the scenario where I got hitten by Strike of Death:

TRS-(18) The True North replay.gz

And here is position in next scenario where I noticed that:

TRS-(19) The Warchief-Auto-Save14.gz

Oh, that scenario. So the reason is the little scene at the end of it - because of that, units are not recalculated by wesnoth but instead by [put_to_recall_list], which apparently doesn't recalculate scenario duration objects, so those will have to be recalculated by hand. It'll be fixed in the next version.
For now, the HP should be recalculated then at the end of this scenario. (19).

[King_Of_Sloths]

In Scenario 7, at the start it says Khaso hides his weakness, but hovering over his character on the map reveals his

Spoiler:

fear of betrayal

on turn one.

[WhiteWolf]

In Scenario 7, at the start it says Khaso hides his weakness, but hovering over his character on the map reveals his

Spoiler:

fear of betrayal

on turn one.

This had been discussed before, and for some reason (mainly for technical ones) I "swept it under the rug" with the argument that this is simply what "look out for clues" means. But looking back at it now, I agree it's hardly hidden and this is a very stupid clue-finding aspect. It'll be changed in the next version so that it is properly hidden, and only exposed when killing the enemy officer. Thanks for pointing this out

[King_Of_Sloths]

In S20, the lever is only visible after moving onto that spot

Spoiler:

Before

Spoiler:

After

Also, female Elvish Master Archers are still called Elvish Marksmen.

[WhiteWolf]

In S20, the lever is only visible after moving onto that spot

Spoiler:

Screen Shot 2019-11-29 at 2.44.21 AM.png

Spoiler:

Screen Shot 2019-11-29 at 2.49.32 AM.png

Hmm, so the lever (in off position) should be visible from the start, until you move onto it and then it changes to the image in the on position. The lever is definitely there at the start of the scenario, I just checked that. So I think in your case a rogue event from an graphical effect or something must have accidentally removed the image at some point. Could you please attach a replay of this map? It'd help a lot to identify the point when it disappeared and see what processes fired then, and see which is guilty.

Also, female Elvish Master Archers are still called Elvish Marksmen.

Fixed that

[denispir]

Hello WhiteWolf and thank you very much for your hard work. I would like to play the whole campaign and enjoy it. But I very probably won't: I quickly reached my maximum level of annoyment and frustration. [About below text: (1) Sorry I have a very bad memory and cannot remmember names. (2) I use spoiler frames both because there are spoiling words inside, and to hide longuish text on screen.]

I have played (on regular, second difficulty level) until the end of the scenario where we fight against the orcish general of the Silent Woods. Then, I found myself unable to win. I tried all what passed by my head, including surrounding the general with up to 6 (!) units and attacking or killing him with different heroes, among which the young elven lady (who jumped to level 3 a few turns earlier). I must say that I did not read your explanations carefully, about terror or whatnot, because all those special features already annoyed me enough.

Globally: in my view, we should not be forced to bear with your additions or changes just to play your game. Instead, we should be able to play it simply, fairly, and pleasantly, and those features should be "mods" turned on explicitely as a choice. (Just like your special effects.)

More comments below, split between "story" and "gameplay".

*** story ***
I like the overall story up to where I played. It is fairly rich, diverse, and coherent. As usual, characters instead are hollow and shallow at best (but it is worse in mainline! especially the main heroes ). This, despite the fact that they have a dramatic personal history, which we learn, esp. the ranger and the elf. Actually the other two heroes simply don't exist...

about story and characters:

I have no more tips or tricks to offer about making a character lively, than anyone else: mysteries of imagination and inspiration... The web is full of vain attempts at that, by people who obviously either are no better than others or do not understand their own creative process (I am or rather was a stage artist). I would only say the well-known advice of letting one's mind run free without censure, especially in dawn or instead late night daydreaming (moment) and/or while walking in nature (place). I thus only can signal the problem, sorry.

The young (female) elven is no more than a foil presence (I don't know how to say that in english) used to highlight and "lick" in contrast the real (male) hero and how strong, noble, and brave he is: just as usual, usual s*x*sm!!! (and i am a man writing that) She has no real presence nore personality, except maybe that she is slightly stronger in temperament than the usual puppet. I would love that, as the story progresses, she becomes the real heroin and leader, instead of the man. Who by the way does not have more personality, or not much. (Is it just me? Are you aware of all that?)

The tavern is in my view problematic storywise. First, it is too light and shallow an atmosphere. You can change that. But the relation and conversation around the table(s) also are pretty just "funny" or "pleasant" and superficial, while the story instead is... what it is. This also makes the ranger character poor and superficial in my sense, I mean even more in the tavern. This just doesn't fit the story and other story telling.

Also, the tavern telling occasionnally pops back and intrudes the story and gameplay (annoying me again). Even inconsistently, both with us thrown back to Weldyn and with messages that you say come from the tavern.

I don't understand why they call themselves the ravagers: this does not seem to match the story as announced, nore what I have read so far. Why not the avengers instead?

Finally, a very good point is the diversity of additional music, and your choice of it. For any reason I found them fitting and pleasant in reading & playing. There was even some dance music: I love that! I may steal you some music for a game of mine (unfinished and unpublished). (It must be free licence for Wesnoth, certainly, like graphic art?)

Other special effects I immediately turned off. Please, the default should be off, not on! This was the start of my feeling annoyed by you forcing things on me. Yuck!, I have had to bear with the very same effects or similar ones (bleeding and blood trails, units' special sound effects) in another game and disliked them, or rather I was only disgusted.

*** gameplay ***

I liked so far the diversity of maps, situations, and missions. Very good. No more comment, except that together with the good story, it is the reason why I would like to (be able to) go on playing --without being constantly frustrated by special things that only complicate playing.

As said I played on regular difficulty level. I am not a very skilled player, my experience of tactical turn-based games is nearly Wesnoth only, and while I have played for years, I only do now and then. Thus, I usually play intermediate level campaigns on medium difficulty, when there are 3 levels. I found your game rather easy, which is fully correct since I played on the 2nd of 4 levels. Also, the difficulty seemed rather constant, except for points below. So, mostly just keep it as is. If I replayed your game, after having played the whole campaign, I would switch to 3rd diff level.

about Greenwood Castle defence:

The Greenwood Castle defence (1st?) scenario was unexpectedly easy, until the very last turns: then things started to be very serious, but only on the left wing of our defence. At the turn when you announce "only 3 turns left" or so, I lost the unnamed general, which surprised me quite much; then at the last turn the ranger died, which surprised me even more. After some thinking, I realised this came from a combination of Wesnoth rule elements:

1. random hits indeed
2. ennemies attack from water
3. ennemies can die in one turn
4. more than two units can attack one of ours
5. random ennemies attack our units (AI stupidity)

Points 1 & 2 lead to points 3 & 4: provided there are other ennemies around, they will attack my unit from the tile left free by a death. The ranger can even more easily kill in 1 turn due to this special attack (see more below). Finally, point 5, if more than 2 deadly enough attackers hit, even a strong unit of ours can die in one turn, even undamaged. I guess it happened only at the end and on left flank, because then and there was a mass of fresh attackers. Since it's not the player's fault, it is a gameplay issue, but I don't know how to repair it (without changing unit/type trait data).

However as said this only happened on the left flank, and some other deaths in my ranks also mostly happened there. I don't know if there is some random about that in your code, but really in my play there were bigger waves of attackers on the western side all along the scenario. (Reason why I quickly had the ranger, the general, even the king and the high elven magician, all defending there.) Is this intended?
In any case, I would suggest making instead stronger waves of attack from different directions, on different parts of our wall, each lasting say 3 turns. This could either hard-coded or random. It may make the gameplay more interesting, requiring better attention as well (which newer players would quickly learn). It would also lower the risk of strong/hero being killed in one turn.

at the forest edge:

The (2nd?) scenario where we fight a dark elven troop at the forest edge was, for me, far too easy. I was not even prudent, and had about no other tactic than sending a rider NE to pretend grabbing villages and lure ennemies (3 units came). I would suggest the following (indeed you may know better than me AI parameters, and these may apply to any battle scenario):

• Prevent the AI from spreading out its forces by rushing toward villages, which anyway totally contradicts the story; there is an AI parameter for that.
• There is also a nice AI setting about defensive grouping or so.
• Set the AI caution higher and aggressivity lower.
• Give it say, 2 startup units, one of which level 2 (this may also allow improving startup dialogue on their side).
• An ennemy commando turns around the landscape, pretending to grab villages, & in fact targets the "warcart" (I like this idea).
• For a mildly interesting end-of-scenario, give the leader, say 3 bodyguards, all level 2.
• An event, matching the storyline, when half of ennemies are dead?

To be tested..

Similarly, the battle against the "favorite" of the Silent Wood general was too easy. I just headed south so that the mermen just helped me, I did not even fight a single one. Maybe make 2 troops of them, one directed toward us and ignoring orcs.

about the "eagle eye":

The new ability is "eagle eye" for the bow: While used in offense, it always has at least 65% chance to hit, and has a 30% chance to deal 40% extra damage, by hitting a vital organ.

I chose the longbowman and found that special weapon problematic, I mean the bit about "30% chance to deal 40% extra damage":

• I guess the "earth shake" visual effect is related to that? It does not fit in my view.
• 40% may be too much.
• It contradicts the data shown on the right panal of the UI.
• Ennemies thus unexpectedly die: I took me a while to get why an Orcish warrior with about 40 HP died from a 3x11 attack!
• It prevented me to offer the final blow to a unit I wanted to advance !!!

Too bad, because it's an original feature, for once, but I guess it may not fit Wesnoth well.

About your other special gameplay features:
First, I find them unneeded, and they bring nothing good in my view (it's only me). I definitely hated that they are forcibly imposed on me. I deeply disliked the special forces and weaknesses of ennemy leaders: ggrrrrr !!! What is this good for? And as said I could not deal with them...

Thank you again anyway, and please do not take my critics heartedly, it's just me...

[white_haired_uncle]

(18) It doesn't make sense that green side has villages with red flag, does it?

It's not a red flag, it's... an orcish flag. I know, I know, but the problem is that the actual image has actual red background, and not the recolorable magenta (or whatever is should be.) I tried recoloring it, but with little success, I don't know exactly what shade of that recolorable stuff to go for. Help would be appreciated

That sounds not entirely unlike another discussion...

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29809&start=45


[

[WhiteWolf]

@white_haired_uncle

(18) It doesn't make sense that green side has villages with red flag, does it?

It's not a red flag, it's... an orcish flag. I know, I know, but the problem is that the actual image has actual red background, and not the recolorable magenta (or whatever is should be.) I tried recoloring it, but with little success, I don't know exactly what shade of that recolorable stuff to go for. Help would be appreciated

That sounds not entirely unlike another discussion...

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29809&start=45

No, it's completely different There, if I read correctly, the issue was that two sides had the same color, that is, for units and everything. Here the issue is that two sides of different color have the same flag icon at their villages. That is because of the used image is not recolourable for sides, the shade is fixed for the image. It is an orcish flag, and my reasoning was that because both sides are orcs, it doesn't matter that much. Solutions would be to just use a built-in flag animation, try to make the orcish flag recolourable (it's what I've been trying to do), or leave it as it is (it's what I've done )

@denispir

Hello WhiteWolf and thank you very much for your hard work. I would like to play the whole campaign and enjoy it. But I very probably won't: I quickly reached my maximum level of annoyment and frustration.

I'm sad to hear that. I hope some of my tips might be of help though

I have played (on regular, second difficulty level) until the end of the scenario where we fight against the orcish general of the Silent Woods. Then, I found myself unable to win. I tried all what passed by my head, including surrounding the general with up to 6 (!) units and attacking or killing him with different heroes, among which the young elven lady (who jumped to level 3 a few turns earlier). I must say that I did not read your explanations carefully, about terror or whatnot, because all those special features already annoyed me enough.

You do realize that you may switch difficulties between scenarios, right? So you don't have to start all over if you want to continue on easy. It's there because it's easier.
Also, that scenario is the last time your hand is being tied by the tutorial. From then on, nothing blocks you from playing the game as any regular Wesnoth match.
Here's some tips: All you need to do is surround the enemy with 4 units and then strike him with a hero. That's all there is to it. And this is the last time you had to pay attention to this.

Globally: in my view, we should not be forced to bear with your additions or changes just to play your game. Instead, we should be able to play it simply, fairly, and pleasantly, and those features should be "mods" turned on explicitely as a choice. (Just like your special effects.)

I understand your idea, but my answer is an unmovable no. Gameplay mechanics don't work like special effects. As long as its visual and doesn't have an effect on actual gameplay, sure it can be turned off and many games, including this, work that way. However, turning on and off gameplay mechanics is very very rarely implemented for various, mostly balance and worktime reasons. If a gameplay restriction can be removed it's usually called a "creative" or "sandbox" mode. Tone doesn't translate well in writing so please don't misjudge my analogy, I am just trying to give some perspective: would Age of Empires be better if a setting was available for everyone to be able to eliminate wood from the game, and you could pay with food instead for anything that needs wood? This would impact the flavor of the game, not to mention gameplay balance. The case is similar here: these game mechanics are there to be used or ignored, but not removed at the toggle of an option. It would be tedious to implement and simply not worth the ton of work.

As stated above, the Silent Woods scenario is the last time you are forced to actually follow rules. Here I might make the change so that you can choose not to have to follow the tutorial, that is possible

*** story ***
I like the overall story up to where I played. It is fairly rich, diverse, and coherent. As usual, characters instead are hollow and shallow at best (but it is worse in mainline! especially the main heroes ). This, despite the fact that they have a dramatic personal history, which we learn, esp. the ranger and the elf. Actually the other two heroes simply don't exist...

If you are 4 scenarios deep into the 26 scenario long campaign, I'd say give some more time for those characters to develop
Now I'm having a hard time commenting on your spoiler as I do not like being called sexist. This is a high-fantasy game written by a guy whose profession is not writing, therefore stereotypes and cliches can happen in my stories, but I wouldn't use this concept to describe Elvyndiel's character. I'm repeating myself: continue with the story, it is slow-paced, the character arcs are stretched.

The tavern is in my view problematic storywise. First, it is too light and shallow an atmosphere. You can change that. But the relation and conversation around the table(s) also are pretty just "funny" or "pleasant" and superficial, while the story instead is... what it is. This also makes the ranger character poor and superficial in my sense, I mean even more in the tavern. This just doesn't fit the story and other story telling.

Get to the point where you can move around and start sidequests.

Also, the tavern telling occasionnally pops back and intrudes the story and gameplay (annoying me again). Even inconsistently, both with us thrown back to Weldyn and with messages that you say come from the tavern.

The number 1 feature on the front page says "story told in a flashback style", I won't change that.

I don't understand why they call themselves the ravagers: this does not seem to match the story as announced, nore what I have read so far. Why not the avengers instead?

That name might be pretty much under copyright, or at least it would come down as a cheap steal, wouldn't you think? They are called Ravagers because that's what I came up with. It's just a "bandit group" name.

Finally, a very good point is the diversity of additional music, and your choice of it. For any reason I found them fitting and pleasant in reading & playing. There was even some dance music: I love that! I may steal you some music for a game of mine (unfinished and unpublished). (It must be free licence for Wesnoth, certainly, like graphic art?)

It must be specificly GPL because all of them are under GPL and you cannot relicense them. It's also a courtesy to list the authors, or at least the source

Other special effects I immediately turned off. Please, the default should be off, not on! This was the start of my feeling annoyed by you forcing things on me. Yuck!, I have had to bear with the very same effects or similar ones (bleeding and blood trails, units' special sound effects) in another game and disliked them, or rather I was only disgusted.

No. Again, sorry for the analogy, but which would you prefer when you start up a freshly acquired game: if you manually had to tick in every existing feature before you could even start a casual match, or if you just had to tick out the ones you don't like, as you play?
If you can turn them off, then that by definition means that nobody is forcing anything on you. They are optional.

As said I played on regular difficulty level. I am not a very skilled player, my experience of tactical turn-based games is nearly Wesnoth only, and while I have played for years, I only do now and then. Thus, I usually play intermediate level campaigns on medium difficulty, when there are 3 levels. I found your game rather easy, which is fully correct since I played on the 2nd of 4 levels. Also, the difficulty seemed rather constant, except for points below. So, mostly just keep it as is. If I replayed your game, after having played the whole campaign, I would switch to 3rd diff level.

I'm confused. Previously you said you couldn't win no matter what you tried. Come again?

For the spoiler in general: the AI is only getting better if someone writes a better one.

In any case, I would suggest making instead stronger waves of attack from different directions, on different parts of our wall, each lasting say 3 turns. This could either hard-coded or random. It may make the gameplay more interesting, requiring better attention as well (which newer players would quickly learn). It would also lower the risk of strong/hero being killed in one turn.

I disagree. Changing the strength of the waves between left and right back and forth - now that would be frustrating, at least for me. If it was random, that's even worse! I think that scenario is fine as it is, the AI can be a little silly at times, but you work with that you have, I am not an AI coder.

at the forest edge:

The (2nd?) scenario where we fight a dark elven troop at the forest edge was, for me, far too easy. I was not even prudent, and had about no other tactic than sending a rider NE to pretend grabbing villages and lure ennemies (3 units came). I would suggest the following (indeed you may know better than me AI parameters, and these may apply to any battle scenario):

• Prevent the AI from spreading out its forces by rushing toward villages, which anyway totally contradicts the story; there is an AI parameter for that.
• There is also a nice AI setting about defensive grouping or so.
• Set the AI caution higher and aggressivity lower.
• Give it say, 2 startup units, one of which level 2 (this may also allow improving startup dialogue on their side).
• An ennemy commando turns around the landscape, pretending to grab villages, & in fact targets the "warcart" (I like this idea).
• For a mildly interesting end-of-scenario, give the leader, say 3 bodyguards, all level 2.
• An event, matching the storyline, when half of ennemies are dead?

To be tested..

This could be tested when I find the time

The new ability is "eagle eye" for the bow: While used in offense, it always has at least 65% chance to hit, and has a 30% chance to deal 40% extra damage, by hitting a vital organ.

I chose the longbowman and found that special weapon problematic, I mean the bit about "30% chance to deal 40% extra damage":

Quoting ages old posts is not really up to date. It says 40%, 40% everywhere in the game. The cth used to be 30%, it was buffed to 40% some updates after the start of this project.

• I guess the "earth shake" visual effect is related to that? It does not fit in my view.

I don't know what you mean. What is the earth shake visual effect? When eagle eye hits it just displays an orange damage as well.

• Ennemies thus unexpectedly die: I took me a while to get why an Orcish warrior with about 40 HP died from a 3x11 attack!
• It prevented me to offer the final blow to a unit I wanted to advance !!!

At one point in the game you will be granted the Trainkill mechanics. You can use that to order any unit to spare enemies the killing blow. But then again, this might happen in any regular Wesnoth match, no? You never know the exact damage before the clash plays out. You only know the maximum, which you know here as well. I fail to see how this is a problem.

• 40% may be too much.

Too bad, because it's an original feature, for once, but I guess it may not fit Wesnoth well.

Really what can I say to this, then choose the Captain tech-tree.

About your other special gameplay features:
First, I find them unneeded, and they bring nothing good in my view (it's only me). I definitely hated that they are forcibly imposed on me. I deeply disliked the special forces and weaknesses of ennemy leaders: ggrrrrr !!! What is this good for? And as said I could not deal with them...

I hope I reflected on all these aspects in the comments What is it good for? Because I didn't want to make a generic mainline-content only campaign, but something special, dare I say unique. That's all there is to it.

[King_Of_Sloths]

I attached a save for the last bug I reported. I was playing the Bloodbeard treasure sidequest and Gallien died, but i didn't lose, so I attached a save file for that. Also in that save is something I've noticed a lot throughout the campaign, units that don't have firststrike attacking first on defense (turn 7, palldry attacking the wraith). Is this supposed to happen or is it a bug?

TRS-(20) The Black Sword replay.gz

Here's the replay for the old bug. Maybe it's because I used a few debug commands?

(277.96 KiB) Downloaded 198 times

TRS-(CT 1) The Curse of the Map replay 1.gz

Here's Gallien dying. I didn't use any debug commands in this one

(269.9 KiB) Downloaded 190 times

Also, imo the quenoth taurochs are op, especially stalwarts. They're basically an elvish version of dwarvish stalwarts but better in almost every way. The elvish version has the same hp, but is faster, levels up quicker, has a stronger melee (24 max damage vs 21), a stronger ranged (30 vs 8 ), better resistance in all categories except fire and pierce, which is the same as the stalwart. The dwarf has better move costs (which sort of equals out the fact that the elf is faster) and better defense on some terrain (but worse on others). My suggested solution is to drop their flat defense to 30% (in line with other riders). Other than that, the Quenoth are really cool!

[Konrad2]

Also, imo the quenoth taurochs are op, especially stalwarts. They're basically an elvish version of dwarvish stalwarts but better in almost every way. The elvish version has the same hp, but is faster, levels up quicker, has a stronger melee (24 max damage vs 21), a stronger ranged (30 vs 8 ), better resistance in all categories except fire and pierce, which is the same as the stalwart. The dwarf has better move costs (which sort of equals out the fact that the elf is faster) and better defense on some terrain (but worse on others). My suggested solution is to drop their flat defense to 30% (in line with other riders). Other than that, the Quenoth are really cool!

For the record, the Quenoth are a mainline thing.