The Barbaric North - 0.7.2

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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monochromatic
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The Barbaric North - 0.7.2

Post by monochromatic »

The Barbaric North
https://github.com/monochromatic/The-Barbaric-North

If you would like to give feedback, please fill for each scenario

1. Version of campaign and Wesnoth
2. Name of the scenario
3. Difficulty played and how difficult did you find it? [1-10]
4. How fun was it? [1-10]
5. Was the dialogue/storyline convincing?
6. Bugs?

-----

Latest release notes

Code: Select all

[4.10.2011] The Barbaric North 0.7.2 has been released. This release is another release in the 0.7.x development branch. It contains huge, groundbreaking changes including a complete internal rewrite and Lua utils. Also, the code is now hosted at github! As always, the full changelog can be viewed at https://github.com/monochromatic/The-Barbaric-North/blob/master/CHANGELOG.
Last edited by monochromatic on April 13th, 2011, 3:03 am, edited 5 times in total.
Tet
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Re: The Barbaric North - 0.7.0

Post by Tet »

I give you the benefit of the doubt and have a look. Will you finish the campaign?

edit: I can not do the first szenario on medium.
My Temple Project: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=29800
This is "must-play" campaign! Don´t read the thread, unless you need help. http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31895
shalky
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Re: The Barbaric North - 0.7.0

Post by shalky »

I was able to get to the second map and there I am just crushed by the elves.
I find it impossible to survive long enough. There is simply to many of them.
monochromatic
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Re: The Barbaric North - 0.7.0

Post by monochromatic »

As I've said, the balance is probably off the charts right now. Use debug for now to get through the scenarios if you want, I won't be fiddling with the balance until I'm done writing the campaign itself (another scenario coming soon!).
shalky
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Re: The Barbaric North - 0.7.0

Post by shalky »

After a little cheating I did it.

So I think the story seems to be good.
Maps are interesting, but very hard
I would cut the computer money half at least in the second scenario.
Also I would disable some units, because you just don't have counter to them.

Anyway I am looking forward next version.
monochromatic
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Re: The Barbaric North - 0.7.0

Post by monochromatic »

shalky wrote:After a little cheating I did it.

So I think the story seems to be good.
Maps are interesting, but very hard
I would cut the computer money half at least in the second scenario.
Also I would disable some units, because you just don't have counter to them.

Anyway I am looking forward next version.
Will keep in mind :)
Velensk
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Re: The Barbaric North - 0.7.0

Post by Velensk »

I played the first three scenarios and this is what I have to say so far. EDIT: Medium difficulty, Wesnoth 1.9.3

1st scenario: Minor minor note, but I think it would look better to use the green-grey hills on the main piece of ground.

I did not find this scenario very fun as I feel that it is overly reliant on knowing the exact nature of the ambush. If you do not prepare for it properly you won’t get a chance to use all that gold you’re given and it becomes almost easy to get out if you prepare to ambush the ambush. Admittedly it was obvious there would be an ambush but still without knowing the exact nature of the ambush it is very difficult to prepare in such a way where you won’t end up pinned into the castle.

2nd Scenario: Seems a bit low having a scenario designed to wipe out the leveled units you earn before you’ve had a chance to build up reserves. In fact, this entire scenario feels like it was designed to be faced by a more experienced army zombie raising is a minor note when most of your units are elite but it is murder on weaker forces (especially combined with perma-night). This scenario would be plenty difficult without shadows, chocobones, and zombie raising. I managed to get to a position on turn 12 without save-loading or debugging where I was still alive and could plausible survive but I would have needed extreme luck to do so (and didn’t get it, so I reloaded the last round till the dice decided to favor me). I suspect that if you simply removed the level 2s and zombie raising the scenario would be within my reach if only barely. The way I was able to do it was by not staying in the camp (which is certain death). I did not find my method of winning particularly fun to implement in as much as I could and it was annoying to lose my leveled units.

3rd Scenario: I got a message about the orcs/undead fighting each other after one of my own units died. Easily the best scenario so far in terms of fun. Although surviving and subduing both armies was achieved I found it impossible to do that and finish off both enemy leaders in under the time limit. It may have been possible to do so if one of them had finished the other off but it was not to be. The undead attacked the orcs with a significant force however due to continual reinforcement and terrain the orcs pushed them back.

I am going to cease playing at this point because there’s no point in testing a campaign for balance if you’re just going to debug/save-load your way through it.

Overall: I did not enjoy myself all that much and it felt inadequately pre-tested. As far as writing I didn’t notice anything particularly bad about it other than the note in the third scenario (and the fact that when the loyal unit dies they say greatest archer when I suspect I’m going to make him into a ranger and have other units for huntsmen which will defy the text but this is a really minor issue). As far as story there didn’t really seem to be much of one so far, you try to make a raid, it was a trap, you run away but you get in more fights anyway. About the only thing I can say here is that nothing about the protagonist really made me care whether or not he survived or not. Playing as a neutral side I’d just as soon see him die as any of the orcs. This is not game killing for me but it doesn’t really give me any incentive to play the campaign for the story.

I liked the third scenario’s design. I thought the second scenario had potential but might be better at a different point in the campaign. The first scenario seemed just a touch too dependent on having played it before to really impress me.
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tr0ll
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Re: The Barbaric North - 0.7.0

Post by tr0ll »

Velensk wrote:I did not find this scenario very fun as I feel that it is overly reliant on knowing the exact nature of the ambush. If you do not prepare for it properly you won’t get a chance to use all that gold you’re given and it becomes almost easy to get out if you prepare to ambush the ambush. Admittedly it was obvious there would be an ambush but still without knowing the exact nature of the ambush it is very difficult to prepare in such a way where you won’t end up pinned into the castle.
...
The first scenario seemed just a touch too dependent on having played it before to really impress me.
suggestion: maybe tell the player what the enemy is planning via a spy unit that you encounter in the game or at start of scenario dialogue, and then the player can prepare.
monochromatic
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Re: The Barbaric North - 0.7.0

Post by monochromatic »

Velensk wrote:I played the first three scenarios and this is what I have to say so far. EDIT: Medium difficulty, Wesnoth 1.9.3

1st scenario: Minor minor note, but I think it would look better to use the green-grey hills on the main piece of ground.

I did not find this scenario very fun as I feel that it is overly reliant on knowing the exact nature of the ambush. If you do not prepare for it properly you won’t get a chance to use all that gold you’re given and it becomes almost easy to get out if you prepare to ambush the ambush. Admittedly it was obvious there would be an ambush but still without knowing the exact nature of the ambush it is very difficult to prepare in such a way where you won’t end up pinned into the castle.
I guess... any thoughts on making it better?
EDIT: Ninja'd. I guess, but I'm looking for other ways, since it IS supposed to be a surprise, in a weird way. Maybe complete randomization of the starting hexes of the ambushers?
Velensk wrote:2nd Scenario: Seems a bit low having a scenario designed to wipe out the leveled units you earn before you’ve had a chance to build up reserves. In fact, this entire scenario feels like it was designed to be faced by a more experienced army zombie raising is a minor note when most of your units are elite but it is murder on weaker forces (especially combined with perma-night). This scenario would be plenty difficult without shadows, chocobones, and zombie raising. I managed to get to a position on turn 12 without save-loading or debugging where I was still alive and could plausible survive but I would have needed extreme luck to do so (and didn’t get it, so I reloaded the last round till the dice decided to favor me). I suspect that if you simply removed the level 2s and zombie raising the scenario would be within my reach if only barely. The way I was able to do it was by not staying in the camp (which is certain death). I did not find my method of winning particularly fun to implement in as much as I could and it was annoying to lose my leveled units.
I also figured this playing it through again (admittedly, on easy). I'll move it to later and think of something different. I was needing this kind of scenario anyways.
Velensk wrote:3rd Scenario: I got a message about the orcs/undead fighting each other after one of my own units died. Easily the best scenario so far in terms of fun. Although surviving and subduing both armies was achieved I found it impossible to do that and finish off both enemy leaders in under the time limit. It may have been possible to do so if one of them had finished the other off but it was not to be. The undead attacked the orcs with a significant force however due to continual reinforcement and terrain the orcs pushed them back.
Duly noted. Will up the turn limit.
Velensk wrote:I am going to cease playing at this point because there’s no point in testing a campaign for balance if you’re just going to debug/save-load your way through it.

Overall: I did not enjoy myself all that much and it felt inadequately pre-tested. As far as writing I didn’t notice anything particularly bad about it other than the note in the third scenario (and the fact that when the loyal unit dies they say greatest archer when I suspect I’m going to make him into a ranger and have other units for huntsmen which will defy the text but this is a really minor issue). As far as story there didn’t really seem to be much of one so far, you try to make a raid, it was a trap, you run away but you get in more fights anyway. About the only thing I can say here is that nothing about the protagonist really made me care whether or not he survived or not. Playing as a neutral side I’d just as soon see him die as any of the orcs. This is not game killing for me but it doesn’t really give me any incentive to play the campaign for the story.

I liked the third scenario’s design. I thought the second scenario had potential but might be better at a different point in the campaign. The first scenario seemed just a touch too dependent on having played it before to really impress me.
Thank you for your detailed comments. I'll keep them in mind. The inadequately pre-tested is true, since I spent most of my time on TWFF.

As for the story, it's not very full-fleshed at the moment. I intend for him eventually to have a confrontation with the mages he fought with and the Wesnothians. I'll need to go back after I finish (since if I go back now, I'll never finish the campaign) and flesh out all the details and story. By then hopefully I'll have a decent and convincing story.
Last edited by monochromatic on December 20th, 2010, 9:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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artisticdude
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Re: The Barbaric North - 0.7.0

Post by artisticdude »

I think you succeeded in creating a campaign that will challenge even the experts. :lol2: I'm living by debug right now, but the campaign itself seems to be well thought out, and the story's interesting.

Although I'm afraid that hobbyist players like me, who aren't into competitive playing and have only an average grasp on the skills involved in serious Wesnoth playing, will be restricted to the easiest difficulty setting only. :P
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monochromatic
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Re: The Barbaric North - 0.7.1

Post by monochromatic »

The Barbaric North Version 0.7.1 was released to the 1.9 add-on server. Addresses most of the issues listed above, but not all solutions are final. Also updated some things with the 4th scenario.
monochromatic
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Re: The Barbaric North - 0.7.1

Post by monochromatic »

Sorry for halting development for so long. Blame school. But I very recently completed a rewrite of the syntax, introducing a new coding style and Lua implementation. And while I was at it, I also rewrote some of the dialogue. Of course, the dialogue is by no means final.

Expect new scenarios soon. I'm getting back to working on this and TWFF. :D
monochromatic
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Re: The Barbaric North - 0.7.2

Post by monochromatic »

The Barbaric North 0.7.2 was released to the 1.9 add-on server.

Code: Select all

[4.10.2011] The Barbaric North 0.7.2 has been released. This release is another release in the 0.7.x development branch. It contains huge, groundbreaking changes including a complete internal rewrite and Lua utils. Also, the code is now hosted at github! As always, the full changelog can be viewed at https://github.com/monochromatic/The-Barbaric-North/blob/master/CHANGELOG.
Last edited by monochromatic on April 13th, 2011, 3:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
sneef
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Re: The Barbaric North - 0.7.2

Post by sneef »

I was playing the previous version and was going to post that "Dire Situations" scenario was too hard, actually impossible (300gp start, only one lvl2 unit available to recall, intermediate difficulty). I see now with the new version that it is even harder (units flee if 10hp or less)??? :shock: Maybe other things changed to compensate? However, it looks from the status table that other sides have same settings...

I'll try again later on easiest level of difficulty.

One other comment -- with the previous version, a number of scenarios required that you play through a few times to get the idea and so then set the right strategy, at least on the intermediate level.

Nice campaign, though.
monochromatic
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Re: The Barbaric North - 0.7.2

Post by monochromatic »

sneef wrote:(units flee if 10hp or less)
Nice to see people reading the changelog.

I think I may have been balancing this slightly wrongly. I'm not the best player (especially now as my skills have gotten rusty), so I've been balancing this from me playing the easiest difficulty. Maybe I should balance from the middle difficulty... (ie making the campaign easier by one 'level'.)
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