The Champions of Ursidae *Formerly Kalbruk's Journey*

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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DeCoolest_Cat
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Re: Kalbruk's Journey

Post by DeCoolest_Cat »

Going to start posting updates on the progress, so you its easier for the like 4 people that care to see whats going on.

Update 0.7.0 is now out. New features include big fixes, scenario and dialogue updates, and placeholder portraits for bears. Also scenario 11 is out. I'm pretty ashamed that its like about 5 months and the campaign isn't finished, but real life has gotten in the way.

(on a side-note, I was soooo cringey on this thread before :lol:)
Author of beta campaign Kalbruk's Journey - My art thread - My collection of single player scenarios: The Archives
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Inky
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Re: Kalbruk's Journey

Post by Inky »

Hey,
I've played the first few scenarios of your campaign so far (campaign version 0.7.0 / Wesnoth 1.12.5 / hard difficulty). I think the idea of a bear campaign is really cool!

I often found the objectives/mechanics extremely unclear though (I had to guess / look in the scenario files a lot to see what I had to do), and I also felt the maps were too large in general, with a lot of empty space with no enemies around.
General Notes
  • Gold carryover: This seems to be 80% for all scenarios, despite the objectives saying otherwise.
  • It would be nice to have some music in scenarios; even just the generic default playlist is better than silence.
  • The two advancement paths for bears are too similar, especially since bears are your only recruit; this doesn't leave the player with many tactical options. I'd find some way to differentiate them more (different number of strikes, different weapon specials, etc.)
  • It's very hard to tell the level 1 juvenile bear apart from the level 2 brown bear since their sprites are almost identical; perhaps the juvenile bear sprite could be made smaller.
  • The white wolves/snow wolves etc. have 20% defense and 2 movement cost on snow which directly contradicts their description that they're used to snowy terrain; 50/60% defense and 1 movement cost seems more appropriate.
Notes on Scenarios 1-10
Scenario 2:
  • It is extremely unclear that you can recruit at the very beginning. You could either add a snowy encampment, or a note in the objectives saying you can recruit on the snow hexes. (I think an encampment would be better because it is really hard to tell which hexes you're able to recruit on.)
  • The objectives were unclear: "Explore the caves" almost always implies there's something within the cave that you need to find. "Find the exit to the caves" would be much clearer.
  • This scenario seems to have a pacing problem - it's pretty difficult for the first few turns when you get flooded with spiders etc. (and personally I found the initial combat with the giant spiders a bit luck based; you're forced to attack them in melee so depending on how the RNG goes you can either have a few dying/poisoned bears, or practically everyone dying/poisoned). But once you get rid of the spiders there's practically nothing else and most of the cave is just empty. My suggestion would be maybe remove some of the enemies at the beginning and place more enemies in other parts of the cave.
  • The trigger area for finding the bear in the southeast and for finding the exit is too small (only 1 hex - I had to read the scenario file to find the exit hex); I think you should make it so 1. you discover the southwest bear by stepping anywhere in his cave; and 2. you discover the exit by stepping anywhere on that small eastern cave area.
Scenario 3:
  • The vertical distance on this map is too large, making it so that most of the time is not spent fighting but just moving your units up north.
  • Less 1-hex bottlenecks would be very welcome, especially since your bears have very few strikes and will often miss. It's okay to have some, but having every passage be a 1-hex bottleneck is frustrating.
  • This scenario is very easy; maybe give less gold to the allied troll side.
Scenario 4:
Again, an encampment or note that you can recruit on the snow would be nice (though it's not necessary to recruit at all here.)

Scenario 5:
  • This map is far too large for the amount of enemies here. Most of this map is just vast empty space (I went southwest through the mountains and the huge forest, so I encountered almost no enemy units the whole scenario); I would highly recommend cutting out some of this empty space and making the map much smaller.
  • There is a large amount of lag during the AI turn (it seems to be worst during the turn for the scattered animals on side 3, but every side is quite slow) which makes this scenario very slow and tedious to play through given the extremely huge map. I would remove at least some of these units, because it is uninteresting to watch some random animals fight each other at random locations which are too far away to ever affect you. (I would keep some of the animals though, because they look really cool!)
  • The objectives are extremely unclear. I moved everyone into the southeast cave and expected some kind of dialogue. I would make it so that when one unit enters the cave, they say it is not safe due to the grizzly bear, and the objectives change to something like "Secure the cave by defeating the grizzly bear."
  • The fight against the grizzly is frustratingly luck based. It's in a bottleneck and when you attack it it'll move to the village, where attacking it is suicide. Even after you lure it off the village, attacking is very dicey since it's really strong in melee and you only have melee attacks; in the end you just have to pray that you hit and it misses. Maybe this could be a level 2 unit instead.
Scenario 6 (cutscene):
Since this is a cutscene there shouldn't be a carryover report (add "carryover_report=no" in the [endlevel] tag)

Scenario 7:
  • Again there should be an encampment here; it's really counterintuitive to recruit on flatland unless the objectives note that you can.
  • The left side of the map (where the battle takes place) is just completely flat terrain. Adding some kind of terrain like clumps of forests/hills etc. would not only make the map look less monotonous but also make the combat more interesting since you could use the terrain to your advantage.
  • This scenario is very easy; I was actually expecting a second surprise enemy to show up in the southeast during the fight.
Scenario 8:
  • The objectives are really, really unclear. I had a hard time following the dialogue at the beginning because I could not keep track of who was who with all the bear names. It would be nice if it was written in the objectives that Kalbruk needs to go to the city center and Taviqq needs to go northwest.
  • Finally, it needs to specify that "escape the city to the south" means move Kalbruk to a certain hex (there needs to be a signpost here; I had to read the scenario file to figure it out).
  • Does keeping Taviqq & Co. alive actually do anything? This was pretty unclear (I kept them all alive, but it seems like there's no penalty for them dying?)
Scenario 9 (cutscene):
Since this is a cutscene there shouldn't be a carryover report (add "carryover_report=no" in the [endlevel] tag)

Scenario 10:
  • The 3 bear leaders do not get renamed ("The Strong One" etc.) making the objectives confusing. Also I would start Kalbruk in a hex where he is visible, otherwise it is confusing to not see him (due to snowstalk).
  • How to capture a bear needs to be explained in the objectives.
  • The dialogue for getting captured got spoken by my dwarvish explorer.
  • Bug: The scenario did not end when I captured all 3 leaders. There was one normal bear left on the map though and when I captured it the scenario ended.
----
Anyway, I'm looking forward to see how this campaign develops. I hope this helps, and keep up the good work!

edit: added [sections] so the post won't take up so much space
Last edited by Inky on April 28th, 2016, 1:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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DeCoolest_Cat
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Re: Kalbruk's Journey

Post by DeCoolest_Cat »

Thanks for the reply, it's nice to see some feedback finally. I won't be able to fix anything for a few days, as my computer has a virus (I can still use the forums on another, but it doesn't have the data). Keep in mind that this was my first bit of WML coding, so some of the missing features aren't there because of ignorance/lack of looking it up.

General notes:
• will fix the gold carryover
• I was unaware that you have to code in music, I thought it would play naturally. I will add music.
• It seems very bland to me as well, so expect some more diversity in the unit trees.
• I feel making the level 2 brown bear slightly bigger may help.
• I think I used orcishfoot, my bad.

Scenario 2:
• I realize that without guessing, it is very unclear to see where you can recruit. That will be fixed.
• This is due to me not knowing how to change objectives, I've always meant to change it.
• I didn't know how to make a unit have the guardian status. With that the cave will be more fleshed out.
• That will be fixed.

Scenario 3:
• I agree, most of the fighting happens near the enemy keep.
• This is also true, I will change the map around.
• I may make it so that the trolls don't fight, but are npcs. They had little impact when I played, so I don't think it will make much of a difference.

Scenario 4:
• This is mostly a cutscene, with a little fighting. I don't think it matters if the player doesn't recruit, as you can't possibly lose.

Scenario 5:
• I am completely unsatisfied with this scenario. I had a grand idea for this, but the end product turn out poor. It will be entirely revamped, focusing more with the Inuits, which could've been orcs for all the difference they make.

Scenario 6:
• That is a bug, thanks for pointing it out.

Scenario 7:
• The battle on this map is boring, and I was able to rush the orcs. This will be fixed, and possibly done over. The east side of the map is mostly for the loyal unit.

Scenario 8:
• I had some trouble myself with this. The objectives are going to be changed.
• I don't know why I forgot to add the signpost in. My fault.
• Taviqq and party are supposed to die. When I played, I knew this, so I didn't try to keep them alive. I will probably add some event that will kill them, or add some dialogue on how they couldn't get out.

Scenario 10:
• This used to be the case, but when I changed the WML to suit scenario 11, this must've changed too.
• You are right.
• It seems that it is because he is named. I don't know how to fix that, any help would be appreciated.
• To win, there must be no enemy bears on the map. You have to capture the leaders, and either capture or kill the rest. This is because of [not] [have_unit] race=Bears [/have_unit] [/not]. I am going to change the WML to make the scenario clearer, along with the scenario objectives.

Scenario 11:
• Have you made it there yet? I swear 0.7 added that in.

General Questions:
• Are Ryth's ramblings too crazy?
• How "realistic" is Bolkuvek's power (compared to talking bears being the norm)?
• Is the campaign too easy overall, especially on hard difficulty?


Again, thanks for the feedback!
Author of beta campaign Kalbruk's Journey - My art thread - My collection of single player scenarios: The Archives
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Inky
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Re: Kalbruk's Journey

Post by Inky »

Hey,
Thanks for reading my huge post and taking the time to respond to everything!

Scenario 8:
(Story spoiler)
Spoiler:
Bug: This scenario shouldn't allow recalling (all the other leaders are on the recall list, including Ryth who should be gone), and allowing recruits also seems unintentional.

Scenario 10:

Dialogue bug: not sure, but I think it is due to a typo in the variable name in line 365:
x,y=$bear_to_capture[$i].x,$bears_to_capture[$i].y
(The first variable is missing an s in "bears")

There's also another variable name typo in line 360:
$ogre_capture_msgs should be $bear_capture_msgs

Scenario 11

Kalbruk's side: The only unit on my recall list was the other bear that got captured last scenario; at first I thought this was intentional due to the story but looking at the scenario file it seems the trolls at least were supposed to be on the recall list.

For the undead side, the [allow_recruit] thing for the bats doesn't work inside [side]; to change recruits based on difficulty:

Code: Select all

#ifdef EASY
    recruit=...
#endif

#ifdef NORMAL
    recruit=...
#endif
etc.

The mounted dwarves: Basically all of them do pierce damage, which is really ineffective against undead, even though the story says they were specifically meant as an anti undead force. Since this seems to be an anti undead campaign, these units might end up being pretty useless (though it's hard to tell, since I don't know what future scenarios will be like).

Some things I found strange about the mounted dwarf unit tree:
  • Level 1 bear riders and mounted thunderers can both advance to thundering bears; it would make more sense if only mounted thunderers advanced to thundering bears.
  • The level 2 melee bear spearman advances into a level 3 ranged specialist (dwarvish javelineer) - it would make more sense for the level 2 ranged crossbowman to advance into the javelineer instead (especially since the bear spearman has two level 3 advancements and the crossbowman has none).
DeCoolest_Cat wrote:General Questions:
• Are Ryth's ramblings too crazy?
• How "realistic" is Bolkuvek's power (compared to talking bears being the norm)?
• Is the campaign too easy overall, especially on hard difficulty?
-I liked Ryth's ramblings! I thought the dialogues with the trapper who thought Ryth was crazy were especially funny.
-If you mean his ability to detect the incoming undead threat I think it's pretty realistic; lots of animals seem to have an instinct for sensing danger.
-Scenario 7 (the fight against orcs) was too easy, and Scenario 3 (the fight against undead) could be made harder too (about the allied troll side - there were several high level trolls with me when I attacked the undead keep and they actually killed the undead leader for me). The rest seemed fine; it's hard to comment on their difficulty since they have more of a cutscene feel to them.

Some dialogue typos:
Spoiler:
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DeCoolest_Cat
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Re: Kalbruk's Journey

Post by DeCoolest_Cat »

Recruiting in Scenario 8 is unintentional, but where can you recruit? Is it by the south gate?

About the bear riders; the tree is unfinished. A level 3 thunderer will come up, along with a line for Targan. I agree that they are majorly useless against skeletons, but that is where regular bears, and trolls, come in. That gives you a reason to balance out your army. The crossbowman is a side (similar to the human javelineer) that doesn't have a level 3. I do agree about the bear rider being able to level into the thundering bear though.

The 3 loyal bears found in scenarios 2, 3, and 7 can be rescued in scenario 8. They are in the villages near the town center. If you rescue them, they should be on scenario 11's recall list. It worked when I tested it, so there shouldn't be any bugs.
Author of beta campaign Kalbruk's Journey - My art thread - My collection of single player scenarios: The Archives
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Inky
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Re: Kalbruk's Journey

Post by Inky »

Scenario 8 recruiting: If I remember correctly there are two keeps by the south gate and one keep in the northeast that you can recruit/recall from.

Scenario 11 recall list: Ah okay, so it was intentional that the rest of the bears are gone. What about the 3 trolls? They were gone too but the scenario file for Scenario 11 has a dialogue event in case you recall them, which seems to imply the trolls were still supposed to be there.
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DeCoolest_Cat
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Re: Kalbruk's Journey

Post by DeCoolest_Cat »

Version 0.7.1 is out. It has been completed on and off for about a month, due to finals. It has most of everything fixed, but there are still some bugs. I decided to add this to make the bigger problems better, and 0.7.2 should be out by Sunday.

Scenario 5 is redone, scenarios 2, 3, 7, 8, 10, and 11 have been updated. The bear lines are more diverse, and more. Check the change log for more details
Author of beta campaign Kalbruk's Journey - My art thread - My collection of single player scenarios: The Archives
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DeCoolest_Cat
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Re: Kalbruk's Journey

Post by DeCoolest_Cat »

Version 0.7.2 is out, and adds 2 major updates. It also puts music in scenarios, fixes bugs and typos, and reworked scenarios. Check out the changelog for more details.

Major update 1: The black bear line. This doesn't seem big, but as the second of 2 recruitment trees, it seems worthy of its own mention. This line focuses more on healing than attack power. The level 1 black bear gets +4 regen, and has 2 advancements: the dire bear and the moon bear.
- The dire bear gets more physical resistances than all the brown or white bears, but isn't as powerful. It also gets regeneration, but it doesn't go up to level 3.
- The moon bear sacrifices +4 regen to get +8 heal. It gets pretty weak attacks, but gets a 7-2 ranged. The moon bear has no advancements

Major update 2: Rework of traits. Bears now get 1 trait instead of 2, for balancing. Special Bears will still get 2, but recruits only get 1. There are 5 new traits to go along with strong, resilient, and quick (no intelligent).
- Savage gives the unit 40% defense in villages, but they get +1 damage and +1 movement.
- Thick fur units get increased physical resistances, but are weaker to fire. All bears now have 0 fire resistance, while they used to have 20%.
- Head-strong units have a 10% better chance at hitting their opponents (this appears to be bugged)
- hibernated units have +4 hp and +1 damage, but need 20% more XP to advance.
- Instinctive units get 10% better defense on all terrain besides fungus, village, mountain, castle, and swamp.
Reasons for only 1 trait would be that they could overpower a unit. A polar bear would have 6mp, if it had savage it would have 7mp and +1 damage, and it had hibernated it would have another +1 damage and +4hp. The XP nerf wouldn't matter cause it's level 3. In the end it would have 7mp, +4 hp, and +2 damage.

So I really need feedback on these traits, as I want to keep them balanced, but it would make this campaign even more unique. Thanks in advance to anyone that helps!
Author of beta campaign Kalbruk's Journey - My art thread - My collection of single player scenarios: The Archives
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DeCoolest_Cat
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Re: Kalbruk's Journey

Post by DeCoolest_Cat »

Version 0.7.3 was released earlier today. It's main goal was to fix a macro bug with the music that prevented you from playing. I also removed most of the custom trolls (excluding the chieftain, fire shaman, and shaman), and the ones given at scenario 4.
Author of beta campaign Kalbruk's Journey - My art thread - My collection of single player scenarios: The Archives
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Inky
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Re: Kalbruk's Journey

Post by Inky »

Campaign version 0.7.3

Hey, I'm giving your campaign another playthrough right now. The campaign crashes at Scenario 3 due to an extra underscore in line 89 (unknown unit type: Troll_Whelp).

Some other issues so far:
-Gold carryover: It's still always 80% despite the objectives saying otherwise.
-Traits: These traits do not seem to do anything: Instinctive, Headstrong, Regenerates 4
-Scenario 2: When discovering Druntvol, the shroud around him isn't lifted until the next turn, so you can't actually see him.

I like the new bearlike traits and the new black bear line! Though I would say Moon bear (+8 healing) vs. Dire bear (regenerates) may be a bit unbalanced - I don't see why you would ever choose regenerates over +8 healing.

EDIT: Played a few more scenarios after fixing the underscore in Scenario 3.
-Scenario 5: I think there's a lack of healing- you have to fight a bunch of pretty strong units with no healer and no villages. Maybe add some villages, give the player a +8 healer, or have less enemies.
-Scenario 8: I felt the dialogue in the beginning was still pretty confusing with all the bear names; maybe state explicitly in the dialogue or objectives that Kalbruk should investigate the city center and Taviqq should investigate the northeast. (Also Taviqq's bears all ended up alive; maybe there could be some kind of dialogue/event at the end to explain what happened to them.)

Also, some typos:
-Scenario 3, line 15: them stumble across more danger. -> they
-Scenario 5, line 19: The party makes hurries to a cave -> hurries / makes haste
-Scenario 5, line 19: A Inuit -> An
-Scenario 7: {SCENARIO_MUSIC northerns.ogg} {EXTRA_SCENARIO_MUSIC casulties_of_war.ogg} -> northerners.ogg and casualties_of_war.ogg
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ForestDragon
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Re: Kalbruk's Journey

Post by ForestDragon »

ok, little bug found: dire bear and juvenile bear's images aren't displayed in-game
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DeCoolest_Cat
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Re: Kalbruk's Journey

Post by DeCoolest_Cat »

Inky wrote:Campaign version 0.7.3

Some other issues so far:
-Gold carryover: It's still always 80% despite the objectives saying otherwise.
-Traits: These traits do not seem to do anything: Instinctive, Headstrong, Regenerates 4
-Scenario 2: When discovering Druntvol, the shroud around him isn't lifted until the next turn, so you can't actually see him.

I like the new bearlike traits and the new black bear line! Though I would say Moon bear (+8 healing) vs. Dire bear (regenerates) may be a bit unbalanced - I don't see why you would ever choose regenerates over +8 healing.

EDIT: Played a few more scenarios after fixing the underscore in Scenario 3.
-Scenario 5: I think there's a lack of healing- you have to fight a bunch of pretty strong units with no healer and no villages. Maybe add some villages, give the player a +8 healer, or have less enemies.
-Scenario 8: I felt the dialogue in the beginning was still pretty confusing with all the bear names; maybe state explicitly in the dialogue or objectives that Kalbruk should investigate the city center and Taviqq should investigate the northeast. (Also Taviqq's bears all ended up alive; maybe there could be some kind of dialogue/event at the end to explain what happened to them.)
Thanks for the report.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
And ForestDragon, could you explain more. It must be something on your end otherwise Inky would've commented on it.
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Inky
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Re: Kalbruk's Journey

Post by Inky »

Maybe ForestDragon meant that those units don't have portraits?

About gold carryover, it has to be specified in the [endlevel] tag (using carryover_percentage = x, and carryover_add = yes/no); writing the carryover in the objectives is just for the benefit of the player and doesn't actually affect it.

Black bear line: I feel like the dire bear already has very good resistances so it doesn't need a buff. Maybe either reduce the healing of the Moon bear like you said, or another possibility is to reduce the Moon bear's HP / damage.
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ForestDragon
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Re: Kalbruk's Journey

Post by ForestDragon »

Inky wrote:Maybe ForestDragon meant that those units don't have portraits?
no, they have portraits, i meant unit sprites, here is the bug (in juvenile bear file):

Code: Select all

	image="data/add-ons/Bears_Campaign/images/animals/young-bear.png"
while in the files it's called Young-Beat.png

same bug with dire bear (in unit file it's Dire-bear.png, while the image itselg is dire-bear.png) so letter size matters a lot
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DeCoolest_Cat
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Re: Kalbruk's Journey

Post by DeCoolest_Cat »

I looked at it, and found nothing wrong. I didn't see any typos, and capitalization didn't matter for me. I played it again, and nothing appeared wrong. It must be something on your end.
Author of beta campaign Kalbruk's Journey - My art thread - My collection of single player scenarios: The Archives
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