[In-depth Feedback]The Hammer of Thursagan
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[In-depth Feedback]The Hammer of Thursagan
Introduction
6 - High Pass
9 - Forbidden Forest
10 - The Siege of Kal'Kartha
12 - The Underlevels
Epilogue
- Attachments
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- THoT replays.zip
- (430.8 KiB) Downloaded 337 times
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- THoT-The Siege of Kal Kartha Turn 11.gz
- The save file to confirm the siege "true turn limit"
- (56.98 KiB) Downloaded 377 times
Last edited by Balroth on October 3rd, 2018, 3:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: [In-depth Feedback]The Hammer of Thursagan
Thanks for all the good suggestions! I just want to point out that S12 is being reworked at viewtopic.php?f=8&t=48200 (https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/pull/3126 ).
Re: [In-depth Feedback]The Hammer of Thursagan
Wow! Great news!
I'm so glad that this is already on the works
Even if the above feedback is on improving the current scenario, hence the suggestions/analysis are more or less rendered useless, I'm so very happy it is recognized that it is ultimately unsalvageable even if improved, and hence, an entire remake will be made to make it a proper final scenario
When I find a little more free time in these days, I will definitely play through it to provide feedback!
Cheers!
I'm so glad that this is already on the works
Even if the above feedback is on improving the current scenario, hence the suggestions/analysis are more or less rendered useless, I'm so very happy it is recognized that it is ultimately unsalvageable even if improved, and hence, an entire remake will be made to make it a proper final scenario
When I find a little more free time in these days, I will definitely play through it to provide feedback!
Cheers!
Re: [In-depth Feedback]The Hammer of Thursagan
I'm glad to hear that; playtesting is a great help!
About your other feedback:
S6: i agree that the "spawn" mechanic is odd. It's nice to have a change from the usual AI rush pattern, but units spawning without explanation or any rule gives the player nothing to work with or plan for. Maybe that's intended?
Forbidden Forest (it's S9, not S8): I agree that saying "adjacent" is better than "nearby". As to the rest of your change, I think it would be good if the player was prompted "Should this mage pick up the staff?", as done for the storm trident in HttT. Currently the staff is picked up by the first mage that enters the altar, and if that's the behaviour the message can easily use the mage's name. Would you like to send a pull request for this? The message is at https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/blob ... os.cfg#L72
S10: This scenario is a bit funny, really, since the three AI leaders leave themselves unprotected in their keeps. Maybe they should be made smarter? For example, they could attack both the eastern and western dwarves or leave their keeps rather than wait there to be picked off. The 35 turn limit makes for a huge amount of carryover gold.
Another thing about this campaign is how effective thunderers are in it. In S4 (Troll Bridge) and S6 (High Pass) there is _one_ unit with ranged attacks between them. This hurts replay value, a player who knows this can just spam thunderers and win with little resistance.
About your other feedback:
S6: i agree that the "spawn" mechanic is odd. It's nice to have a change from the usual AI rush pattern, but units spawning without explanation or any rule gives the player nothing to work with or plan for. Maybe that's intended?
Forbidden Forest (it's S9, not S8): I agree that saying "adjacent" is better than "nearby". As to the rest of your change, I think it would be good if the player was prompted "Should this mage pick up the staff?", as done for the storm trident in HttT. Currently the staff is picked up by the first mage that enters the altar, and if that's the behaviour the message can easily use the mage's name. Would you like to send a pull request for this? The message is at https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/blob ... os.cfg#L72
S10: This scenario is a bit funny, really, since the three AI leaders leave themselves unprotected in their keeps. Maybe they should be made smarter? For example, they could attack both the eastern and western dwarves or leave their keeps rather than wait there to be picked off. The 35 turn limit makes for a huge amount of carryover gold.
Another thing about this campaign is how effective thunderers are in it. In S4 (Troll Bridge) and S6 (High Pass) there is _one_ unit with ranged attacks between them. This hurts replay value, a player who knows this can just spam thunderers and win with little resistance.
Re: [In-depth Feedback]The Hammer of Thursagan
I'm neutral on it, and I had no problem killing the enemies the same turn they spawned, and I do like the "random" nature of it. Hence the suggestion is minor, more of a nitpick because these enemies everywhere else, don't spawn out of nowherejosteph wrote: S6: i agree that the "spawn" mechanic is odd. It's nice to have a change from the usual AI rush pattern, but units spawning without explanation or any rule gives the player nothing to work with or plan for. Maybe that's intended?
Editted, thanks for the correctionjosteph wrote: Forbidden Forest (it's S9, not S8)
This feedback of yours reminds me of the fact that the feedback depends on the playthrough, since I had only 1 mage, and to me, I didn't seem to even notice this (since pretty much everywhere else, you are asked if you want to pick it up)josteph wrote: As to the rest of your change, I think it would be good if the player was prompted "Should this mage pick up the staff?", as done for the storm trident in HttT. Currently the staff is picked up by the first mage that enters the altar, and if that's the behaviour the message can easily use the mage's name.
What you suggested is valid though, for armies with more than 1 mage
It feels kinda embarassing being a programmer for 2 years now, and still not using github, so I don't know about how to use version control with it, or other important stuff like pull requests. I plan to look into github when I have a little more time to implement/fork suggestions like the ones in SoF so as to contribute to this wonderful gamejosteph wrote: Would you like to send a pull request for this? The message is at https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/blob ... os.cfg#L72
Wow. Had no idea that's the reason of 35 turn limits. Interesting, although still deceiving.josteph wrote: S10: This scenario is a bit funny, really, since the three AI leaders leave themselves unprotected in their keeps. Maybe they should be made smarter? For example, they could attack both the eastern and western dwarves or leave their keeps rather than wait there to be picked off. The 35 turn limit makes for a huge amount of carryover gold.
Knowing that is the true reason of 35 turns, perhaps get the turn limit up to 15~17, then by WML, when you finish the scenario, give enough "early finish" gold with same formula, so as the balance stays the same? After all, the long turn limit implies/suggests that this will be a long siege scenario
Also yes, A.I. leaders can be sniped so easy in this, but the player will usually go for the long game. With the dialogue fix (and perhaps the turn limit suggestion above?) it should be proper and have no issues. I mean, the "smarter A.I."/split up, will mean balancing issues and a lot more effort
Well, I found out about this too late, but its definitely interesting. While it means that the overall balancing is flawed because it doesn't "help" all the unit types, I would say it increases the replay value, because by spamming the thunderers you experience the campaign a lot differently, meta-gaming has its ups and downs (although, personally I don't see me replaying any campaign)josteph wrote: Another thing about this campaign is how effective thunderers are in it. In S4 (Troll Bridge) and S6 (High Pass) there is _one_ unit with ranged attacks between them. This hurts replay value, a player who knows this can just spam thunderers and win with little resistance.
On the feedback on the new "12 - The Underlevels", I have no idea when, but I want to have a full day to play + provide valid feedback, mostly because I am borderline traumatised by the last time I played that horrible scenario xD
Re: [In-depth Feedback]The Hammer of Thursagan
About github, for small text changes like this you can use the web interface. Sign up to github, open the link I gave, click the pencil icon, make your changes and click through to create a pull request. This way is good enough for small changes but for larger ones you'll want to use a proper git client.
About 35 turns, I didn't say that carryover gold was the reason for the turn limit. Just that if the turn limit is reduced then the carryover gold will be affected, so maybe the starting gold of the next scenario should be increased to compensate, for example. (I'm not an expert on balancing)
About replay value, I wonder if the campaign can be won by playing only with thunderers (+ loyals). Or for that matter, only Drake Burners. (I like replaying campaigns with a different faction than intended. HttT plays entirely differently with dwarves)
About 35 turns, I didn't say that carryover gold was the reason for the turn limit. Just that if the turn limit is reduced then the carryover gold will be affected, so maybe the starting gold of the next scenario should be increased to compensate, for example. (I'm not an expert on balancing)
About replay value, I wonder if the campaign can be won by playing only with thunderers (+ loyals). Or for that matter, only Drake Burners. (I like replaying campaigns with a different faction than intended. HttT plays entirely differently with dwarves)
Re: [In-depth Feedback]The Hammer of Thursagan
Oops, I misunderstood thinking it was the main reason. Well, the suggestion to reduce the turn limit "smartly" still appliesjosteph wrote: About 35 turns, I didn't say that carryover gold was the reason for the turn limit. Just that if the turn limit is reduced then the carryover gold will be affected, so maybe the starting gold of the next scenario should be increased to compensate, for example. (I'm not an expert on balancing)
Interesting idea, since with meta knowledge, you can experience pretty much a lot of scenarios differently. Someone will definitely try it out in the future, but it should be possible to do so without much challengejosteph wrote: About replay value, I wonder if the campaign can be won by playing only with thunderers (+ loyals). Or for that matter, only Drake Burners. (I like replaying campaigns with a different faction than intended. HttT plays entirely differently with dwarves)
Pming you for details since I don't want to post 2~3 times on technical topics However, thanks for helping me! <3josteph wrote: About github, for small text changes like this you can use the web interface. Sign up to github, open the link I gave, click the pencil icon, make your changes and click through to create a pull request. This way is good enough for small changes but for larger ones you'll want to use a proper git client.
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Re: [In-depth Feedback]The Hammer of Thursagan
Some (strange) people like long dungeon crawls like the underlevels, and it's not necessarily a bad scenario, it just doesn't fit this campaign at all. (It was written by a different author, in fact.) If a better ending scenario is made, the original underlevels could be brought back as a single-scenario campaign--like Forward They Cried. There was talk of making a pack of single scenarios campaigns once, but there weren't enough of them. This dungeon crawl would help the cause.
Campaigns: Dead Water,
The Founding of Borstep,
Secrets of the Ancients,
and WML Guide
The Founding of Borstep,
Secrets of the Ancients,
and WML Guide
Re: [In-depth Feedback]The Hammer of Thursagan
I totally agree. Also, the different author = different scenario "feel", makes sense now An unexpected fun fact for sure, thanks for sharing itbeetlenaut wrote: Some (strange) people like long dungeon crawls like the underlevels, and it's not necessarily a bad scenario, it just doesn't fit this campaign at all. (It was written by a different author, in fact.)
Having the final scenario be a campaign of its own is definitely interesting. After all, it could easily work like that, and it would instantly cater to the fans of this type of scenario, which currently is horrible because it does injustice to both the "long dungeon crawler" fans and haters, catering fully to no one, since this scenario is at the end of a campaign, unrelated to such a gameplay style. I would perhaps try out single-scenario campaigns, they can be unique for sure. This, and (add-on campaign) ooze-mini campaign final scenario really fit this "pack"/category, but I got so much more to play/learn.beetlenaut wrote: If a better ending scenario is made, the original underlevels could be brought back as a single-scenario campaign--like Forward They Cried. There was talk of making a pack of single scenarios campaigns once, but there weren't enough of them. This dungeon crawl would help the cause.
I will play Forward They Cried when I have plenty of time (I tried it after my first 3 campaigns and utterly failed) but I really lack time lately
When I do find time, I will play through and drop feedback on the new Underlevels scenario linked above. After all, it's still kinda hard to grasp that this scenario is the ending/climax of an official campaign.
Aside of the above, thanks for the feedback (also, that feel when a campaign-wide feedback is 99% the final scenario)