Add a grind zone or sidequest to HttT?

[Chiyoung]

Hey, I'm a guy who played heir to the throne, and a couple of years later, I came back to Wesnoth. The thing about Heir to the Throne is that it constantly forces you to play until you drop. There isn't a way to relax in the game, most of the campaign missions go from good to crazy hard in a flash, and it's easy to get burned out. I know that HttT is a finished campaign, but is there anyway to add like sidequests or a grinding zone to it? I'd love to work on something like that.

It might take some tinkering. HttT is pretty linear, but it's definitely possible with the dialogue options, from what I've seen so far. The quests would be relatively easy compared to the main campaign missions: The whole point is to give a bit of breathing space to the player. You could level up your units while not having to worry about getting them killed, and practice your tactics while you work on the technical aspects of the game ("What does a silver mage do...?").

*Spoilers*
It also give the opportunity to expand upon story elements of the game that were unsatisfying in the campaign. Anyone think there could have been a much better romantic plotline between Konrad and the Princess? What about how Konrad deals with the fact that he isn't of royal blood? What happened to the elves at the beginning of the game?!?!?
*Spoilers end*

You wouldn't be able to grind or do a sidequest if you were in the middle of a mission sequence, of course, but it would definitely add to the level of depth that HttT has, making HttT more fun to play and beat.

[fabi]

Technically this isn't a big problem.
You are welcomed to produce and offer your modified version of HttT to the community.
I am sure you will get every support you need from the wml reference wiki and the wml workshop forum section.

From a campaign maintainers point of view things are more complicated.
A player who leveled her units in a grind zone will break the current balancing of the campaign horribly.
The difficulty of the mainline campaigns only depends on the chosen level,
the current strength of the player is not considered.

Thus you will not only need to code the sidequests and/or the grind zone but also some sort of
dynamic difficulty adjusting similar how the game "Homeworld" did.

[Elvish_Conquerer]

The part about tactics (what does a silver mage do/how do they work) is a very interesting idea. Perhaps in your version, one or two scenarios would have you take control of an army (not you and your veterans) with its own leader that's allied to your cause, or you can use your own leader with a different army. You could experiment with different factions; rebel loyalists, rebel/mercenary orcs, etc. Code it so that that the player has an advantage over the AI (like more gold or 2 level 2s in beginning roster, etc) making a new experience, told from a different angle, that doesn't unbalance the campaign.

A few places in the campaign to do this would be

When Delfador leaves in the BoP
Before Kalenz arrives/his own scenario
Moriemmuru on his way towards Konrad in VoD (although it would spoil the surprise)
Moriemmuru before Konrad gets to the IOTD, or before Mor's tale of getting there.
1 band of orcs tries to follow Konrad somewhere (I would suggest Besieged but that's too early), they have a fight about leadership, and they fight.
Independent scenarios about small groups facing raiding parties, or scouting parties.

There are lots of places to do this and it seems like a really good idea. Perhaps it could be a patch, downloadable in the Add on Server. I seem to remember this was done with the Valley of Statues scenario along with a few others that were taken out of HTTT in later versions. Anyways, best of luck.

[Jabie]

Personally I'd like the Tutorial to segue into HttT. It wouldn't be too hard and starting the first mission with a partially levelled Konrad and a couple of recalls is hardly going to upset the game balance given the length of the campaign.

What was the Valley of Statues scenario?

[Chiyoung]

What if you couldn't grind levels, but one of the rewards for a sidequest was turning units loyal?

[Dugi]

I have an idea how could be the issue with balance with additional grinding areas be solved. I was facing this problem in my campaign, that was initially divided into three independent chapters, and then I made it possible to continue from one into another. I just used a few #ifdefs that causes that if the player did not start with that part of the campaign, enemies got extra gold (or additional enemy spawns appeared, or enemies with more hp).

For this case, I would make each additional scenario increase the value of a certain variable, and in all scenarios, there would be a macro containing a recruit event (similar to the recruit unit variations one), that would increase the hp of enemy units according to the number of extra scenarios played (not too much, just a little; increasing hp is imo better than increasing damage, increasing damage would lead to getting loyals killed more easily and that is frustrating).

[maredi316]

It sounds nice, but I personally think it should be all together a different campaign.
It can have many side stories, but the HttT is really easy enough for me, and personally, it should add more challenging scenarios-having easier levels in between makes it less challenging.
I think it would be just more simple to add an easier level(because it is the first campaign most people play), and also add a harder level as well. I also feel more scenarios where people must actually kill the leader should be added, as half the scenarios have to do with running away.