Why are the campaigns designed to be so hard?

[Orcish Shyde]

We're more in the school of thought done by bungie and id - easy is actually meant to be played, hard is actually really hard.

Reminds me of I Wanna Be The Guy - for all the things that intentionally made that game a torturous nightmare as opposed to a decent game, it did at least avoid making anyone too chicken to play on its easiest setting... by calling it "Medium". There was no difficulty called "Easy".

Also, not all campaigns are equal; IIRC, I just about survived Tale of Two Brothers and An Orcish Incursion on Normal, before I even realised why orcs were using fire arrows on me.

[zookeeper]

Another one of those surprises appears in the second mission of Flight to Freedom (I know it's not mainline, but it's relevant to the discussion), where, to the best of my knowledge, any of your units moved into a certain segment of the map switch sides to an enemy faction. No warning given, and it's also not immediately clear what triggers it.

Generally, I like some triggered surprises, because they require the player to play cautiously, rather than calculate just what they need to win, which I feel provides a better strategy experience overall (dealing with the unknown is important!), but this particular example of your own units switching sides I found particularly frustrating, because you could easily lose units you had been grooming for higher levels.

Just for the record, I don't think anyone really disagrees with the notion that having some unknown factors can really make a scenario more interesting to play and especially replay. There's just such a huge difference in how it can be done.

For example, you can have a scenario where there's one village on the map which sprouts up a bandit ambush once you capture it, without warning. Not a lot of surprises in that scenario, but one very annoying and unfair one - not your fault if you lose because of it. But you could also have a scenario where half of the villages, randomly selected, sprout up bandit ambushes as you capture them and you're told that "some of these villages have bandits in them, let's be prepared when we visit them". A heck of a lot more dealing with the unknown required, except that this time you know that's what you need to do and it will be your fault if you run into an ambush carelessly since you know it might happen. Also, the replay value doesn't suffer and players who have played the scenario before don't much of an advantage.

Having random unknown elements in scenarios is fine and usually makes the scenario more interesting too, but if they're detrimental to the player (as opposed to positive surprises), then they should almost always be "known unknowns".

[Wintermute]

Many of the scenarios include 'surprises' that make it very difficult to make it through at the first attempt, and appear to be designed to put players off rather than encouraging them to play further.

Yes, Yes, YES! This is the worst thing about any of the campaigns. There's no excuse for this. It actually comes in many forms.

I really agree that it *can* be frustrating to feel like you have been surprised, and due to factors you feel are beyond your control you lose a game that you could have easily won if you "had just moved that one guy over there two turns earlier..."

However, if surprises are well designed, to minimize the risk of such scenarios, then they can create a very exciting and unexpected game. Adapting to challenges and just *barely* being able to win a scenario is, IMHO, as rewarding to the player as anything else in the game. I agree with Jetryl about choosing the correct difficulty. The higher levels on harder campaigns are there to add replay value for players who already have honed their strategy, but want to play through it again. Players playing through on the first time should expect not to win them all on the first time on an 'impossible' setting. As zookeeper points out, surprises need to be carefully thought out, and correctly designed, but they can really add a lot to the game when used correctly.

[Gwilendiel]

I think it's just made to be a 'serious' game...

You have to really think and use tactics and -real- strategy, where the enemy is often equal or even has a serious advantage over you... unlike games that are actually designed for more relaxed play, like the original Front Mission which had plenty of units, weapons, tactics to use... but you can actually beat the game using the main character by himself, everything else is there just to give you an easier time pretty much, making it an easy game in reality.

You have to learn strategies because the enemies will do to you the same you can do to them, and some times worse. So you need to be able to see what and when to do, think ahead slightly, know how to use scouting and diversion tactics, mobility, elastic defense, defeat in detail, defense in depth... in some ways you want to be like Hannibal at Cannae.

[Gankenstein]

The campaigns are IMO not so hard as to be unplayable. So far I played Heir to the Throne, South Guard, Rise of Wesnoth and am currentlly doing Legend of Wesmere. All of which had easier diffuculty settings than those I used. As for 'cheating', I did a lot of save-reloading especially in the beginning but as I learn I cut down on that and learn to deal with taking losses instead. Sometimes I go back a few turns or restart a scenario due to bad decisions on my part.

OTOH I'm not exactly new to turn-based wargaming and have e.g. played a lot of the Panzer General series (though never Fantasy General) so I have an advantage compared to a complete newbie. A newbie can offset this by playing on the least difficult setting I think.

I believe the campaigns ought to be playable after skimming the manual and doing the tutorial. If that is not the case for you it means you have to spend some time grokking this type of game, and THAT means you will need several attempts at scenarios a lot in the beginning.

Regarding surprises I think it's a letdown if I have to restart a scenario due to surprises. I'm wondering if this becomes necessary due bad generalship on my part, in which case it's OK with me, I can then simply go improve my skills. If it is not, then the way surprises work could perhaps be improved, though I've no idea how ATM, there are several opposing forces here and surprises certainly reduces predictability, which is fine by me.

[Gwilendiel]

Regarding surprises I think it's a letdown if I have to restart a scenario due to surprises. I'm wondering if this becomes necessary due bad generalship on my part, in which case it's OK with me, I can then simply go improve my skills. If it is not, then the way surprises work could perhaps be improved, though I've no idea how ATM, there are several opposing forces here and surprises certainly reduces predictability, which is fine by me.

Well, there's different kinds of surprises, really.

Like in HttT on Crossroads, you are warned to stay away from the hills due to possible ambushes... so if you go there unprepared and get ambushed, it's your own fault.

Some surprises you get no warning, like in Elensefar when you go to enter the cave, you get an event (without warning) where some skeletons pop up out of nowhere, but you still have some time to change plans accordingly.

Other surprises can be just plain unfair (the worst kind) like if there were randomly placed tiles on a map and you have no way to know where they are, and you put a unit on that tile and it gets auto killed with no chance to avoid it, then that is totally unfair (and also not fun, at least as far as Wesnoth goes)