Grnk the Mighty: Parts 1 & 2 now on 1.12 and 1.14 server

[mattsc]

figl569: you're right, he is visible to the AI and it is a bug. [If you care about the details, this is because I did my testing with Gertburt still being an Outlaw, whereas in your case he has leveled up and Fugitives already have a hiding ability (concealment). In that case, the way how I added the new stealth mode doesn't work.]

The attached file has this corrected for your savefile, and I know how to fix it in the campaign, but I haven't had time to do so yet. Hopefully, I'll be able to do that tonight (look for v1.0.2).

Thanks for letting me know about this!

[Rowanthepreacher]

I really wanted to like this, I did. It looks like it could be a lot of fun, but the crazy, over the top difficulty jut ruins it for me.

In the first mission, I finally beat it by doing -exactly- as you said. Usually we give players a chance to.. y'know... play... but in this mission, you've got one option, and any deviation is instant failure.

In the second mission (for the rogues) we're told to level up our pathetic goblin while still getting him to a box of treasure, guarded by high level units. Fair enough. The problem arises because you can't storm the location, so you have to go softly, and even if you march at full speed, using on Grnk and a couple of fast units, you can't get there before the sentries turn up, or the southern sentry spots you. Ok, still, fair enough. We've got to get in and out quickly. Unfortunately, you have to hold the way open for Grnk, or he can't escape once he reaches the treasure. Assuming the spearman that appears doesn't happen to block the only way out while stabbing Grnk, you get another wave, which locks you in before you even have another turn!

I think I've found a way, though. Although I can't protect Grnk properly, i'll just savescum until he doesn't die from the 4 or 5 units, each of which are battering at him on 40% terrain.

Tl;dr: Way too difficult, and in ways that appear to be unaffected by difficulty.

EDIT: Oh.. no. The guards follow you once you've set off the alarm, murdering any escort you send with Grnk and ensuring that your exquisitely fragile goblin dies no matter what.

[mattsc]

Rowan: Fair enough. I have to admit that those two scenarios are my least favorite in the entire campaign, for exactly the reason you describe: there's pretty much one way through them, it's too "scripted". (Actually, if you can believe it, they were even worse originally ...) The reasons for this are many: they were the first scenarios I wrote, I didn't quite know where to go with this yet, I didn't know how to do running scenarios that are both non-trivial and stable (something I still find extremely difficult), etc. There are a couple more scenarios that are along those lines later on, but these 2 are the "worst", I think.

Unfortunately, they are the first scenarios the player encounters and I am afraid (not just since your comments) that they will turn away a lot of players. I think they should be entirely redone - but I don't have time for that at the moment. So, here are 2 questions for you (and anybody else who would care to comment):

1. Can you imagine ways of changing this "characteristic" of these scenarios (I mean the fact that there's really only one way through more so than the difficulty by itself) so that they can be "salvaged", or do they need to be entirely redone? I'm actually considering to pull the campaign altogether, since I don't have the time to do the latter soon-ish, and repost it in a couple months. Also, you say "in ways that appear to be unaffected by difficulty", which is probably true to some extent. Any suggestions what to do differently for the different difficulty levels? Currently, these are mostly just variations of the amount of gold the player and the opponents have.

2. A very specific question: I don't understand why you say that you cannot get your troops to the fortress before the sentries come out. I can get all my units there, losing maybe 1 or 2 along the way to the woodsmen as I skirt around them.

Either way, I appreciate the comments. I really do. I hope you're not too disgusted yet to reply to this post.

[Elvish_Hunter]

1. Can you imagine ways of changing this "characteristic" of these scenarios (I mean the fact that there's really only one way through more so than the difficulty by itself) so that they can be "salvaged", or do they need to be entirely redone?

For me, scenario 1 was pretty much fine as is, but indeed it was quite hard, even on Easy. My suggestions are:
- Perhaps give Grnk a few more Goblin Spearmen?
- Made it so, if you manage to burn the bridge, that the blue Orcs don't have a way round to reach you: remove the small passage at North.
- The Bandit is clearly outnumbered by Orcs, so to pass this scenario I had to spam Thugs and do some save-load. Perhaps place some more bottlenecks, where the Bandits can defend against only one or two units per time, and one village in the mountains, where the player can heal?
Finally, it's true that Grnk at level 0 has a meager ranged attack, but losing it at L1 may configure as a RIPLIB violation, considering that there isn't an alternate advancement that keeps it. By the way, adding the ranged attack at L1 will enable you to add another AMLA option. And if you want to make him able to advance at L2, in Era of Magic there is a Goblin Warbanner with sprites.

[mattsc]

Thanks for the comments, Elvish_Hunter - and again to everybody else! I have changed Scenario 1 in the following way (v1.0.3):

- Grnk has a (slightly) stronger group of goblins around him. One of the spearmen was changed to an impaler, and he has 3/2/1 additional spearmen on easy/medium/hard
- I changed the terrain behind the castle in which Gertburt recruits. There is now no narrow pass behind it any more (so in a way I did the opposite of what EH suggested ). As a result, the battle is taken to the area around the castle, and Gertburt has a lot more gold for units. It is still supposed to be a losing battle for Gertburt (he is presumed to be dead at the end of the scenario for story reasons), although it is probably possible to win against the orcs now if one plays really carefully. Either way, there are many more options to play through this part now, which, I hope, makes it more fun to play. It is also a much more active battle, as opposed to the defensive holing up at the pass one had to do before.
- I did not change the passage through the river in the north. I have nothing against doing that, but I don't think it changes the difficulty of the scenario, so I left it for now.

Scenario 3 (Treasure): I haven't done much yet other than extending the turn limit until the enemy troops show up by 1. (Btw, I forgot that last night, but there is a significant difference here for the difficulty levels: you get 2 turns more on medium than on hard, and 3 more turns on top of that on easy.) Other than that, I am not sure what, if anything to do without additional feedback (or without redoing the entire scenario). It's not my favorite scenario by any means, and maybe it's still too hard, but you're not supposed to take a little goblin in against a large army without a lot of backup around him. I think it is described in the scenario instructions/dialog how to do that (in fact, one of the things I don't like so much is how much instructions there are), but please let me know if something isn't clear.

Finally, it's true that Grnk at level 0 has a meager ranged attack, but losing it at L1 may configure as a RIPLIB violation ...

Hmm, that's true. I hadn't thought of that. There are reasons why I did it that way, but it probably should be changed. Something to think about.

By the way, adding the ranged attack at L1 will enable you to add another AMLA option. And if you want to make him able to advance at L2, in Era of Magic there is a Goblin Warbanner with sprites.

I'll consider that for a future upgrade!

Thanks again everybody for the feedback. I do believe that the first scenario is more fun to play the way it is now.

[mattsc]

Argh, I'm an idiot!! The version I posted this morning had a typo in it that crashed it upon start. My apologies to everybody who might have tried it today. It's fixed now! I hope....

[WanderingHero]

Came here to say the story seemed intresting (though im NOT sure goblins are that stupid, and why has the wolf Pillager got inteleigent when hes idiotic and is at alama so wouldnt really benefit from it?).

<complaint about diffaculty rendered redundant by your fix>


Edit: Found out I was playing verison 1.0.0 ,You haven't uploaded the fixed verison to 1.98, meaning peopel are still stuck with the super hard verison

[mattsc]

WH: Thanks much for the comments! I was just about to reply and ask whether you were playing an older verison...

Edit: Found out I was playing verison 1.0.0 ,You haven't uploaded the fixed verison to 1.98, meaning people are still stuck with the super hard verison

I'm confused by this. Yes, I am uploading new versions using 1.9.9, but I thought that changes them for all of 1.9. Is that not the case? I just started 1.9.8 and Grnk shows up as 1.0.3 on the add-ons server. What am I missing or do I need to do differently?

And the pillager got intelligent in your case? You're right, that should be fixed. Other than that, I guess I am not sure how stupid orcs and goblins are supposed to be. Them being very dumb is certainly a trait running through the entire campaign.

[Max]

you may want to consider limiting the number of units with poison attacks the AI recruits in scenario 1.
you've designed this scenario with the intent that the player holds a certain line. i've had 6 poisoned units within three rounds and just two villages for healing.

i think it's a balancing issue because the difficulty of this scenario varies a lot depending on how many assassins the player's going to face.

[mattsc]

Max: Good point, those assassins are nasty. They are also really hard to get rid of, especially once they make it onto hills or mountains. In other scenarios, I do limit them for exactly those balancing and stability reason you describe. In this one, since you're supposed to lose the battle in the end, I guess I didn't pay enough attention. I don't want there to be as many villages as you will face assassins, but 6 in the first 3 rounds seems excessive...

How about I limit their number to 3/4/5 on easy/medium/hard? That also introduces another difference between the difficulty levels.

Thanks much!

[Njord]

Hi - I'm having the same problem with Prunes and the same error code. You're right I did kill off the necromancer and now I'm hung up. I'm using Wesnoth 1.9.7 on a Mac, using Grnk 1.0.0. (the latest that was available on the upload window). I downloaded the Grnk-Prunes savefile but I don't know how to get that into Wesnoth so I can go on with the game. Thanks for any help.

game_error:creating unit with an empty type field

Hmm, that could mean a number of things, for example, that the leader of a side didn't carry over correctly; but it could be a bunch of other things too. Could you send me the very first savefile for that scenario: Grnk-Prunes.gz ?

this is the first savefile:

[mattsc]

Hi Njord - to make the savefile available in Wesnoth, you need to find the user directory. On a Mac with BfW 1.9.7, that should be '~/Library/Application\ Support/Wesnoth_1.9/'. In there is a subdirectory 'saves/', into which you want to copy the savefile.

Be aware though that the file you downloaded is consistent with the way how luxury played the previous scenarios, and not with your game. So things might happen that don't really make sense based on what you have previously done. I'd be happy to fix your own savegame, if you want me to. It's quick and easy now that I know what the problem is.

Grnk 1.0.0. (the latest that was available on the upload window).

Do you mean that it is the latest version you saw when you first downloaded the game? (Because if that's the latest you can see right now, I really don't know what is going on. The current version should be 1.0.4) You probably know this, but just in case: you can download a newer version and continue the game with that, even if you started with an older version (although the changes only take effect when you start a new scenario, not in the middle of one).

Let me know if this makes sense and if I can help with the savefile or something else.

EDIT: If you don't mind sending me your replay file for the previous scenario (Escape), either as an attachment in this thread or as a private message, I'd love to see how you played that. Thanks!

[WanderingHero]

Are you sure 1.03 is much different from 1.00? Because I downloaded 0.3 (despite the strange lack of "update add on"), the description still says 1.00, and the 2 scenarios (not counting the town as a scenario) are STILL ludicrously hard and rigid. I didnt see any extra goblins in scenario 1, nor did I feel their were any less orcs, though I got through that and moved onto the teeth clenching second scenario.

"What? You spent 10 turns fighting the bandits? well now his guards have shown up and its nigh impossible to finish the mission! Back to turn 1 for you!"

........

Missions REALLY shouldn't be designed like this. The whole you have only 1 way of doing things and you have to do it perfectly and you have to have creator knowledge of what is coming (because the dialogue won't tell you!), especially on a campaign not even marked as being especially difficult, is aggravating, especially for the first 2 missions of the game before one has any chance to get settled in or build up recruits. And how would the bandit know about "levels" to share out the treasure? Ohhh you failed to reach level 1, that means your entitled to 0 percent of the treasure. Thats pretty 4th wall breaking and arbitrary. I'd complain about getting to level 1, but if you hunt rats and get hit at the right time, you can get to level 1 in town

I know you don't want to redo the entire mission, but surely tweaking it a bit (adding warnings, suggestions, more units on your side, a less tight time limit for scenario 2, etc) wouldn't be too much work?

Storywise the campaign seems interesting, but mission wise its FAR to rigid, especially this early on. Maybe design this for the very hardest setting (which should be something above hard, as even hard mode genereally doesn't "surprise" you that way) and then work down.

Or maybe I was still playing 1.00(although it did say 1.03)...

[mattsc]

WH: First, let me say that I really appreciate the comments, and that while positive feedback is nice to get, the critical comments are really the ones that will help me improve my campaign. So, thanks for taking the time to write this. That doesn't mean that I'll agree with everything you write though.

First, for the version problem, how much gold does the bandit have in the first scenario? If it's somewhere between 200 and 300, you're playing 1.0.3 or later. If it's 100 or less, it's an earlier version. (Oh, I just noticed that I forgot to update the version number in the description!! Duh! But in the download window it should say 1.0.4 by now. I'll fix that.) In 1.0.3, I tweaked, as you say, the first scenario. I think it is much easier now. There is still a certain way how you have to go through it, that's true, I'll address that below, but you have more freedom in the big battle itself.

I have not changed the second scenario (Treasure) yet, because I am somewhat at a loss how to do that without throwing it out entirely, and until your email I had received no constructive suggestions for it at all. Now, on to specific things:

nor did I feel their were any less orcs

No, I did not reduce the number of orcs, I gave the bandit much more gold to fight them.

Missions REALLY shouldn't be designed like this

I agree with some of what you write here and disagree with other parts. First, I disagree with that statement itself (that missions, all missions, any missions without adjective or qualifier should be designed in a certain way), but that's a philosophical discussion that we can leave for a different time. And just to be clear, I am not offended in any way by the statement.

The whole you have only 1 way of doing things

Let me just briefly explain where I am coming from: When I started this campaign, I tried to write something that was pretty close to one of the old-style RPGs (yes, I am dating myself here). In those, there usually is exactly one way through and the challenge is to figure out what that way is. This is, in fact, an aspect that I specifically like about them. As I proceeded with the campaign, I found out that Wesnoth isn't really the right platform for this (or at least that I, personally, don't like the way how it played out). So I abandoned some of that along the way, although the campaign is still supposed to have some elements of puzzle-solving (but not in a way that you're supposed to stumble across accidentally, there should be plenty of hints and instructions). Unfortunately, the first scenarios are still a bit more rigid than I'd like them to be, simply because they were the first ones I wrote...

and you have to do it perfectly and you have to have creator knowledge of what is coming (because the dialogue won't tell you!), especially

That, I agree with, is not good and not at all what I intended. In the original version, you did have to do the 1st scenario perfectly and that wasn't good. I think that that's been changed. As for the creator knowledge, I've been trying hard to avoid that. Apparently, I failed. In my opinion, it's all in the dialogs, but you seem to disagree with that. Let me make a separate post later where I explain this about the second scenario, and you tell me where it comes short, since obviously it isn't as clear as I think it is.

on a campaign not even marked as being especially difficult

The reason why I didn't mark any difficulty is because I have no idea how good or bad a player I am, and how hard this is to anybody else. (I've only played SP games.) I still don't know how hard the campaign is as a whole. Maybe I just misjudged the first 2 scenarios. Actually, I'd be really interested what you think of the scenarios coming after this, as I think the character of the campaign changes a little (not entirely) then. If you still don't like it, we probably won't be able to reconcile our opinions, if you do, maybe there's hope. I can get you to the end of S2, if you don't want to deal with that one the way it is right now.

And how would the bandit know about "levels" to share out the treasure? Ohhh you failed to reach level 1, that means your entitled to 0 percent of the treasure. Thats pretty 4th wall breaking and arbitrary.

I disagree with that one, at least to some extent. It is quite normal in life that you get paid by the amount of "experience" you have (time or position in a company, rank in the military, etc.) Now, I agree that "level" is a game engine thing that the characters should not know about, and I have tried hard to keep this separate (Wesnoth info in the dialog, game info in objectives, narrator messages, etc.), but I have made some exceptions to that, in order to make it clearer at the time what it means. I'll think about if there's a better way to do that here.

Or maybe you object that a "no experience" (level 0) unit gets no gold at all? You're right, that might be a bit harsh. Maybe I could give him half of what an L1 unit gets?

I'd complain about getting to level 1, but if you hunt rats and get hit at the right time, you can get to level 1 in town

I think it is possible to level up Grnk from 0 in 'Treasure' itself. How to do that is part of the problem-solving aspect of the game that I find interesting. And this one is announced up front, so it doesn't come as a surprise. Although, I often do that after Grnk steals the gold, and it might not be clear up front that there's more coming after that. (There are hints in there, but I agree that they might be too subtle.)

I know you don't want to redo the entire mission, but surely tweaking it a bit (adding warnings, suggestions, more units on your side, a less tight time limit for scenario 2, etc) wouldn't be too much work?

No, no, you misunderstood that. I want to change it (the second that is; the first one is better already the way it is, IMHO). I want to throw it out and redo it entirely. I don't have time for that right now. I do not know how to make tweaks that would change the aspects that you commented on. Any specific suggestions would be much appreciated. (As I said, I'll write a separate post in a couple hours in which I'll ask which part of the instructions is not clear. It might be easier to make specific suggestions on that one.)

Storywise the campaign seems interesting, but mission wise its FAR to rigid, especially this early on. Maybe design this for the very hardest setting (which should be something above hard, as even hard mode genereally doesn't "surprise" you that way) and then work down.

As I said, I agree that there should not be surprises, tomato or other... I've been actively trying to avoid surprises (but you do have to read the dialog carefully; that's one of the RPG heritages). It's becoming clear that I need to rethink that.

Phew, long email. Sorry. But I wanted to tell you why I set things up the way they are. I am perfectly happy to change things to make them easier/harder/more enjoyable/whatever, as long as the aspects that are important to me remain.

Again, thanks for the comments. This feedback is great! (I have to do something else for a couple hours, then I'll ask for specific comments on the second scenario.)

[mattsc]

I have updated the version number in the campaign description (in addition to the add-ons server description). Sorry for the confusion, I had forgotten that it appears in 2 places.

I also added a line saying that this is probably not a beginners campaign, although I am still uncertain about whether the entire campaign is hard, or if the first two scenarios are out of proportion. Please keep the feedback coming, so that I can make the necessary adjustments.