Scenario Review: THoT 9 - Forbidden Forest

Feedback for the mainline campaign The Hammer of Thursagan.

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LordWolfDan
Posts: 216
Joined: September 30th, 2018, 7:31 am

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 9 - Forbidden Forest

Post by LordWolfDan »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?

- 1.14.5, Easy

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

- 5

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

- Clear

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

- Very interesting. I could have expected a scenario with elves being the enemies as dwarves and elves don't get along. Plus it seemed like the elves got pummeled by masked dwarves that they go attack every dwarf they see! Plus it's odd to come from Aiglondur how he doesn't want to fight elves.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

- What can I say? Woses, elves, more elves and MORE WOSES! God, this scenario didn't give me a break

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

- 6

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

- If you defeat the elvish high lord, there should be a dialogue where he reveals some info about these masked dwarves, and then, a masked dwarf could show up and attack the dwarves.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

- None
Konrad2
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 6 - Forbidden Forest

Post by Konrad2 »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?

1.15.1, Challenging (Lord)

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

8

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

Clear.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

Interesting and clear.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

Figuring out how to get through all this. You really don't get a break in this scenario.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

7

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

-

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

Yes. Elves. More Elves. Woses. Ambush. Riders.
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supperman
Posts: 18
Joined: February 5th, 2020, 2:43 pm

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 9 - Forbidden Forest

Post by supperman »

Content Feedback wrote: March 10th, 2008, 11:14 pm (1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Challenging 1.12.5

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6. I think I beat it on the first try, but it wouldn't have been possible without my veterans: 3 lords, 2 dragonguards, lvl3 angarthing and a white mage.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Crystal.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
It's fine.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Ambushing woses. Luckily there wasn't any in the beginning. I defeated the two southern leaders on the way, and found the sceptre because some elf stopped next to it.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
9, because of the challenge and seeing enemies fall before my small war party. Dragonguards kill most elves from full health with the boost from Angarthing.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Can't think of anything. Maybe more lvl 1 elves? Now it seems that only the SW leader hires mostly them. From the north come only scouts and lvl2 lords, which are easily taken 1 by 1.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Nope. It's hard to believe that I didn't lose any units to ambushes. Maybe I just got lucky.
JTamas
Posts: 4
Joined: July 29th, 2021, 5:41 pm

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 9 - Forbidden Forest

Post by JTamas »

I think this whole campaign has been substantially reworked (this scenario is way earlier in the campaign).

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?

Medium, 1.15.15.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)


10.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

Clear.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

I didn't like it. Walking into a forest populated by hostile elves as a dwarf is insane, doesn't make sense in the story (the dwarves should try to find some other way instead of crossing the forest).


(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

Keeping my leaders alive.

Figthing the elves is impossible, so you have to make a run. But that is also difficult. The elves attack fast, have fast moving units while yours are very slow.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

1. This is my fourth campaign in the game, and this might be the least fun scenario I have come accross.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

I think some more 'space' between the road in the middle and the starting locations of the elves would make this scenario more bearable (and easier).

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

I had to reload numerous times to find the positions that would make the AI not attack my leaders/units I had to get to the other side of the map.
JoelPera
Posts: 26
Joined: June 9th, 2015, 7:29 am

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 9 - Forbidden Forest

Post by JoelPera »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?

Challenging, 1.16.0!

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

8

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

Clear.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

Okayish and kind of normal.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

Keeping everyone alive, especially my high-tier units. Maintaining an income and hiring lvl1 units to soak damage while moving towards the east.
Healing was hard, made even worse with the redo of the campaign, so no potential white mage. Just the villages and minor healing from my Loremaster.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

7 since I had to rethink my strategy, plan another route and then it was a piece of cake. The only casualties were my tier 1 units.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

While I had fun, it was too difficult for a campaign designated as "intermediate" level. This scenario was a huge difficulty spike compared to the previous scenarios in this campaign and I wouldn't complain if this were an "Expert" level scenario. I thought 1.16 redoing THoT would apply here but this scenario looks relatively unchanged. Maybe add more hills/mountains? Decrease the number of enemies?

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

Yes, once as mentioned above. I first chose to defeat the AI south and continue marching via that area. Couldn't hold for long due to continuous Woses and Rangers/Riders from the north. I reloaded, re-planned my route and this time, after killing the south AI, we fell back to the upper region and rushed towards the blue AI. The slow Woses were easier to evade then and the Signpost was also way closer to reach.
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Toranks
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 9 - Forbidden Forest

Post by Toranks »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Challenging (Lord); 1.7.9; 210 starting gold

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
10

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
The elves' refusal to cross their forest is too abrupt and senseless. A more convincing explanation would be nice.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
I had to repeat the scenario from the previous one because I ran out of gold thinking that orcs would appear automatically and in bigger numbers, but it is possible to do it with few units directly to the the westernmost house saving money. (Very easy scenario by the way, a 2 on difficulty, I did not expect such a radical change at all). But still is little money and we only have 1 loyal unit (the gryphon).
The first time I recruited 6 extra units and took the southern route, quickly killing the elf leader, but when the northern elf units arrived along with the woses they began to massacre me even in the mountains. The second attempt I was able to save more money from "Fear" and recruit 10. 13 total for the second attempt. With only 13 units it was still impossible for me to cross without huge casualties and great risk to the protagonists, so I run to the northern mountains, bigger than on the south, and we stayed almost 20 turns besieged by incessant waves of enemies taking advantage of the terrain of the mountain and still the attrition took its toll. With only 4 turns left to finish, and 5 turns away at full sprint from the destination point, I decided to edit the savegame to give myself 1 more extra turn and finally win. Total of 55 kills, almost 1:5 ratio! Angarthing was an absolute must-have, healing 6 units EVERY turn and barely getting into fights. I was only able to kill the northern elf boss, at the same turn the protagonists arrived at the signal.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
9

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
It's pretty cool, but removing 3 stages that existed in the old version of the campaign makes me get to this part with very few good units and almost impossible to get through in time on max difficulty. It should have a little more starting gold or the enemies less gold so it doesn't feel as overwhelming. Alternatively, give more turns to the player to allow to endure a longer siege in the mountains against 3 simultaneous enemies. I suggest {GOLD 220 200 180} or {TURNS 50 42 38} (but not both)

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
See #5, taking the south route with 9 dwarfs is almost impossible even killing the south elf boss fast.

(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
It's okay
mal_shubertal
Posts: 93
Joined: December 1st, 2018, 6:58 pm

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 9 - Forbidden Forest

Post by mal_shubertal »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
1.16.6 Lord Challenging
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
10. Very very tough.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
very
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
clear, straightforward. Reasonable connection with the rest of the campaign, showing that the masked dwarves have alienated everyone including the elves.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Everything? lol. The huge number of lvl 2 enemies, the ambushes from woses and rangers, the huge mobility and defense advantages of the elves in the massively forested map, the relatively low starting gold, the lack of mages since the campaign was updated.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
10. This is an intense challenge, a real puzzle. SO frustrating if you can't figure it out, but so rewarding when you do. The map is very open ended, with many possible paths and strategies and no obvious 'right' decision, so the player has to try it several times and think hard about all of their options.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
This is a tough scenario to balance. On the one hand, it's an 'intermediate' level campaign, and this scenario is PUNISHINGLY difficult, as hard as some of the hardest scenarios in 'expert' campaigns. On the other hand, I'm playing on the maximum difficulty, and I like the idea that the maximum difficulty of every campaign should be hard enough to provide challenge and replay value for even very experienced players and not just be boringly easy for them. Maybe renaming the difficulty levels so the top difficulty of this campaign is called 'Nightmare' or something, to let players know what they're in for, and making sure that at the lower difficulties the number of enemies is SIGNIFICANTLY toned down, because I could see newer players getting VERY VERY frustrated and just quitting this scenario, after thinking they were doing well in the campaign so far.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
I restarted MANY times. I tried various versions of just running straight down the middle with different combinations of units as distractions/fodder, but the elves' 60-70% defense in forests made me easily get bogged down and ZOC locked before I could make it to the end. I tried rushing the southern leader and then trying various ways of fighting/sneaking my way to signpost from there, but the northern leader tagged ALL the villages and recruited such an unending stream of units that I always ran out of steam somewhere in the south or central portions of the map and couldn't push through without getting very lucky. Finally, I realized that I just didn't have the right units. I was coming into this scenario with minimum starting gold and with Angarthing only level 2, and not that many level 3 units, due to playing pretty sloppy in some early scenarios due to underestimating the campaign's difficulty. So I restarted all the way back on Strange Allies, prioritized farming xp for Angarthing and collecting as many Dwarf Lords as I could, and then tried this again with all my loyal units at max level and 4 other level 3 dwarves, and I figured out a winning strategy of pushing across the northernmost bridge and doing most of my fighting in the forested hills on the northeast bank of the river, where most of the southern enemies helpfully jumped into the water to attack me and I could chew through them with Dwarf Lords. It was a lot of work, but I felt very accomplished once I did it. This scenario is a lot like Siege of Elensefar in Heir to the Throne, where new players will almost certainly show up unprepared and overconfident, get repeatedly crushed, then need to replay the last couple scenarios and try again. This is an aspect of Wesnoth's campaigns that I find really interesting and compelling because I like very demanding strategy games, but I know there are lots of players who don't want to suffer so much for their fun, so I do think the difficulty levels should be relabeled to minimize the number of mid-level players who think they're only signing up for a 'moderately challenging' experience, invest several hours in the earlier fairly easy scenarios, run face first into this brick wall of elves, and then quit in frustration.
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Alex_Stargazer
Posts: 7
Joined: December 19th, 2022, 8:42 pm

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 9 - Forbidden Forest

Post by Alex_Stargazer »

Screw this. This scenario was already one of the hardest in the campaign, if not the hardest, and changing the campaign so that it arrives earlier makes it even more difficult. With no mages, there are no healers aside from Angarthing’s paltry +4 (if he’s even L3). And what happened to Troll Bridge, Drakes and Mages, and Invaders? Troll Bridge was a fun scenario and Invaders was one of the most tactically challenging. Fear also doesn’t have the charm of trying to protect your mages from beserkers. This whole campaign has been butchered.
JL42
Posts: 66
Joined: December 9th, 2023, 11:19 am

Re: Scenario Review: THoT 9 - Forbidden Forest

Post by JL42 »

What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
v. 1.16.10
Lord / Challenging
How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
10
How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Very clear.
How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
The only thing that is confusing in this one is why the dwarves had to go through the forest in the first place. It says this forest is the only pass through the mountains, but they're *dwarves* – shouldn't they prefer to just go over the mountains anyway?

I also feel that Aiglondur and Angarthing might try to be a bit more persuasive toward the elves before jumping into battle unprovoked. That conversation was too brief. It would feel more in character if they were like, we have to come through here but we won't harm anything unless you force us to defend ourselves.
What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
OK, this scenario is stupid-hard. In the sense that most of the challenges are things you can't really control, like four-Wose ambushes suddenly popping up out of nowhere and the enemies having ten times more units than you. The terrain vastly favors the enemy, and the enemy is faster and has endless troops. There are some sections of the map that are more defensible than others, but you have to move off them fairly quickly to reach the objective. The only thing that makes this doable at all is that the enemy leaders never seem to personally attack (making them easy to kill), and sometimes they aren't very smart with their troop movements (in other words, mostly just luck). With the enemies being able to ambush you across nearly every tile of the map, the ability to prepare and organize your troops is very limited – so a lot of it simply depends on what units the AI decides to recruit and how it moves them.
How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4 – It makes you pay attention, that's for sure. But the ambush factor and the total lack of good options to meet what the random AI decisions dish at you was a bit too irritating for me to call it fun.
What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
This scenario needs to be toned down some. It was already kind of crazy in the previous version (especially for an "intermediate" campaign), and now you don't have the mages, you may not have sufficient time to prepare lots of level 3 units, you can't save up gold because the previous scenario only has 5 villages, etc. I would suggest improving or reverting those issues with the previous scenarios, but in addition there are some good fixes to this one that could help. A big one would simply be to give the enemies less starting gold, and the player more starting gold. Reducing the availability of ambush units for the enemies would help too. Removing the fog of war would help the player to see what is coming.

---------------
About the Overall Campaign:

This campaign has deteriorated a bit since the last time I played. Which sucks, because it used to be one of the absolute best. There are still some very strong points – particularly in the last few scenarios (I'm agnostic about the changes to the final map; both versions of that one are good) – and the core strength of the writing continues to carry it. I love how the story develops the heathen culture of the dwarves and their sense of honor etc. However, it desperately needs some work, or restoration, around the middle of the campaign to resolve the confusing events, logical lapses, and frustrating gameplay that have been introduced. I really dislike the addition of the character Movrur, who is not as strong in the writing and kind of ruins the mystery and sense of exploration and adventure that drove the original campaign. In addition to having less mystery and tension, the story is now very confusing and illogical in places, and the maps around scenarios 3–5 are much less enjoyable than previous versions. This used to be one of my favorite campaigns in Wesnoth, five out of five, full marks, but I can't really say that anymore. I'll give it 3 out of 5 stars for the current version, and that is generous based on the lingering writing strength and still having a few solid maps. Would really, really love to see this campaign developed or restored a bit to bring it back to where it could be.
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