The Sojournings of Grog (3.6.1 is out)

[Elvish_Hunter]

Would look cool but yeah i dont hink its worth the space unless it could go in a seperate macro.
NB: Why does it no longer work on 1.9 should we bug post it?

It's [status]uncovered= now afaik.

So, yesterday I did more testing on both 1.8 and 1.9 to give you a more precise answer.
- hidden=yes is now changed to uncovered=no
- Changelog states for version 1.7.7:
* Make status "hidden=yes" default, no need to do it manually in WML anymore
- For what I tested, hidden and uncovered work only if the unit has an [hides] ability; giving [status] hidden=yes or uncovered=no doesn't hide a unit without such ability.
So, no bug to report, and no way to do this without storing all units, giving all of them an object with a level duration and a new ability, and unstoring them (I think).

About adding levels would you rather I posted any changes in the files or would you rather I added them seperately to allow you to work on the orig? For me its easier to add outside the file but I dont mind really.

I prefer to have your changes in a separate file, more or less like Daravel did (original above, modified version below). Do what is easier to you; chances are high that it'll be easier also for me to handle.

I thought I had already commented on music somewhere in my previous posts.

Excuse me; I intended a more detailed comment on each scenario playlist; like, for example, "A1: I like this playlist / add this track / remove this track". Sorry for me being unclear.

[Eros]

prefer to have your changes in a separate file, more or less like Daravel did (original above, modified version below). Do what is easier to you; chances are high that it'll be easier also for me to handle.

Will do

Music I will listen sometime though I will probably save until I have some more time than I do at the moment. Tell me which scenarios you would like me to balance and I will. When Daravel has cast his eye over the dialog and when I have done the white troll we will probably be ready to submit the campaign to wescamp. (Finally).

Lets appeal to the general public to balence our campaign by opening a thread in addon feedback with the standard 10 question feedback guideline. (I will do this when we have the first couple done.)

EDIT: I have just started, with a little help from TSI, a topic in Addon Feedback here. Please could all feedback go there in future.

[Elvish_Hunter]

Tell me which scenarios you would like me to balance and I will.

Let me quote one of your former posts (I removed the camouflage things):

I have also got some "good" balancing features for these scenarios (Not tested) to complement the boring "double the gold on hard" approach. I am not a fan of just increasing the units. increasing the unit levels is good as are other more subtle changes.

A0 - make the bandits and mudcrawlers higher level (rather than more of them)
- make the nagas and mudcrawlers not fight each other.
- make the walking corpses soullesses
A1 - Make Cactoses stronger (rather than more). This would be a CAMPAIGN WIDE change effecting C1 as well.
- Make the bandits have a better selection of units for desert terrain.
- Make the bandit leader L3 and recruit some L2s
- Make Elyssa wounded when you meet her.
- Soften Grog's modification making him fast on sand. (This will mean he will have to follow the road more)
A2-1 - Make the guards come back a turn earlier.
- Make cave spiders into Giant spiders
A2-2 - Make undead leader do a little MORE but make the Dwarves do a LOT more.
A3 - Very hard to balance prob hard enough as it is.
A4 - Easy to balance on hard
A5 - Just use higher levelled units (except the campaign specific units which we can change the stats for)
A6 - Remove the macros that make the yetis and orcs target each other.
- remove passive leader=yes for gryphon and ogre (just ogre on MEDIUM as he is easier to keep alive.)
- Ironically enough but have less Yetis and/or make them guardians.
A7 - The bats are a key part of the scenario so make them stronger
- Make the easter-egg guards stronger.
- bottleneck the main path more.

My idea for Prologue is to have on Medium one of the L2 Elves reduced to L1 (which one?), and on Hard the player will have only L1 Elves. Also, in the second scenario of UtBS, the Holy Water is not given on Hard, so we'll need to remove it on Hard as well.
I'll do my modifications on each scenario (at least for the A part, where you gave me also some ideas), and upload the modified scenarios here so you'll be able to do other modifications and balancing; or at least, I'll post a list of every changes that I made in each scenario. Is this fine for you?

When Daravel has cast his eye over the dialog and when I have done the white troll we will probably be ready to submit the campaign to wescamp. (Finally).

When I have a bit of time I'll send a PM to Daravel, so he can start working. I'll have to learn how poedit works, so I'll be able to give it a try in translating it in my language (that is Italian).

Lets appeal to the general public to balence our campaign by opening a thread in addon feedback with the standard 10 question feedback guideline. (I will do this when we have the first couple done.)

EDIT: I have just started, with a little help from TSI, a topic in Addon Feedback here. Please could all feedback go there in future.

Good

[Eros]

All that sounds good to me.

Nb. isn't mobile internet wonderful!

[Elvish_Hunter]

Version 2.10.6 is on the 1.9 server. This release includes Eros' dialogue corrections, the new sprites for the White Troll (but I haven't yet removed the old ones, because I feel that they may still be useful), removed the HP AMLA option from the White Troll (that now gains some HPs with each AMLA, and requires 376 XP to full development: too much or too few?), E-kills is now converted as a weapon special (and I added a note about this in A1), and I removed almost all FLAG macros (there is no point in having a bunch of macros that are substantially duplicated of mainline ones; I didn't removed TROLL_FLAG, because this macros uses all the 6 frames of the ragged flag, instead of 4 like mainline FLAG_VARIANT).
I think that now we have a base to start adding difficult levels, so I'll start working on Prologue and A0 and see what happens. There are still some TODOs left in the comments, but we will fix them. After all, also UtBS has a lot of TODOs...

Nb. isn't mobile internet wonderful!

I completely agree!

[Daravel]

Hey! You two have been really busy!

I'm happy to come back and take a look at the dialog. What exactly do you need doing?
Is everyone saying what you want them to say, with all the story in place; and you just want changes to wording?
Or are you looking for me to really pull it apart and such (Like I was before)?

When I left it, there was problems with characters not maintaining the same speech style, and a lack of interaction between characters. I'd aim to bind all the scenario's into one cohesive story.

[Elvish_Hunter]

When I left it, there was problems with characters not maintaining the same speech style, and a lack of interaction between characters. I'd aim to bind all the scenario's into one cohesive story.

Hi Daravel, it's nice to see you here! I'll explain our needs in a few words: please do whatever is needed to have dialogues up to mainline standards. Some things that come in my mind are, for example:
- we may need a description for the Gold Mage unit (currently such unit uses the Silver Mage one)
- I completely updated the music playlist, so you can install the UMC Music Pack and tell me if you like the new playlist (not a dialogue task, but while you replay...)
- we probably need a better description for the White Troll unit, and in the comments of that unit cfg you can find a sort-of description that I made some time ago

Eros, as promised I added difficult levels to Prologue and A0; I'm attaching them, can you take a look and tell me if they need other modifications? I had to modify unit-create to be able to change the Elves' side as it was in TODOs. I also decided to go for the usual 40% carryover, it's fine?

[Daravel]

Hey, I've played through scenario's 1-3. Nothing much to say really. It's all very good.

These two lines:
"Phew, we are finally free of that nuisance."
"Ahh, what’s this? It looks like a bottle. I wonder what’s inside." In the second scenario are spoken by the scorpion as it gets the killing blow, and I assume that a Naga would too. Is it possible to block either of them from saying the line?

Why did you add a mudpie to Grog's army? It seems very random

In "The Long Way Home" the second set of dialogue between Grog and Elyssa is still triggered when the first bandit in the group appears (so you get it one turn after the bandits appear, rather than when you have killed them). You want the dialogue to trigger once they die, and before you reach the oasis.

I made a word up for Grog "Rrrobblnuth" - I wanted it to sound Earthy and Troll like - but I'm useless at this kind of thing. Basically, it means 'vendetta' or 'vengence' - it's similar to when someone swears to avenge someone and hunts down all responsibile.

A Cactose is visible with the first group of bandits, but the Cactose dialogue doesn't trigger until they are down by the oasis.



I have been mainly changing wording, but I have also been putting alternate dialogue in for if it's an Elf or Grog talking. I have also decided that some of my previous changes were rubbish - but on the whole, I'm changing much less

[Eros]

All this sounds good.

@Daravel - IMHO all that is neede is for you to play the campaign and comment on any anomolous dialog etc. As you said some of the charecters don't hang together very well.

[Daravel]

Just a quick point about difficulty levels. First Contact was pretty hard, I'd place it as slightly harder then medium difficulty but not quite hard enough to be hard - if you understand

In other words, make it slightly tougher for hard and slightly easier for medium.

For the White Troll and how much dialogue he has; by the halfway point of the game you have these auto-recall units:
Grog,
Bedet,
Arcamenel,
Krunk,
Omron,
The other human prisoner,
Bubble,
White Troll,
Jaash,
Ogre

Not all of them are auto-recalled all the time, and not all of them have major speaking roles. Bedet is reduced to a standard recall and so is Arcamenel. My point is, you have a seriously large supporting cast - it might be a good idea for us to work out who the major ones are, who will be minor and who will never be an auto-recall and start to define some relationships between them so that we/I can put that into dialogue (such as Krunk and Elyssa's little rivalry). I'm at work now, but I can work out a rough sketch of it all based on how I view the campaign. I'd prefer to work on all of this before I get into the major scenario's.

Also, E_H, you mentioned some spelling mistakes before; the British English spellings are the proper ones and you might just have to deal with changing them back to the wrong spelling (sorry!). There was a word "cewwwed" - can you give me the few lines surrounding it's usage? It sounds like someone is talking about a Gryphon. Any other spelling mistakes you don't understand, it's either my typo's or I had a good reason - just ask.

[Elvish_Hunter]

These two lines:
"Phew, we are finally free of that nuisance."
"Ahh, what’s this? It looks like a bottle. I wonder what’s inside." In the second scenario are spoken by the scorpion as it gets the killing blow, and I assume that a Naga would too. Is it possible to block either of them from saying the line?

Yes, it's possible. Probably I'll use Grog as fallback speaker.

In "The Long Way Home" the second set of dialogue between Grog and Elyssa is still triggered when the first bandit in the group appears (so you get it one turn after the bandits appear, rather than when you have killed them). You want the dialogue to trigger once they die, and before you reach the oasis.

The dialogue is triggered once that you kill the leader of this group. Using [event] name=die [filter] role=bandit [filter_condition] [not] [have_unit] role=bandit should work. Filter_condition wasn't available in 1.8

I made a word up for Grog "Rrrobblnuth" - I wanted it to sound Earthy and Troll like - but I'm useless at this kind of thing. Basically, it means 'vendetta' or 'vengence' - it's similar to when someone swears to avenge someone and hunts down all responsibile.

Grog says Rrrobblnuth nice battle cry. Grog like it.

Why did you add a mudpie to Grog's army? It seems very random

It was Eros' idea.

A Cactose is visible with the first group of bandits, but the Cactose dialogue doesn't trigger until they are down by the oasis.

The dialogue is triggered with either a sighted or a moveto event. If a Cactose is spawned in your visible hexes at the start, it doesn't work. I can try to use the new ON_SIGHTING macro, or add a third event.

Just a quick point about difficulty levels. First Contact was pretty hard, I'd place it as slightly harder then medium difficulty but not quite hard enough to be hard - if you understand

At least, my rebalancing made it a bit easier; but I suspect that we'll have to work a bit on it even after releasing 3.0.

For the White Troll and how much dialogue he has; by the halfway point of the game you have these auto-recall units:
Grog,
Bedet,
Arcamenel,
Krunk,
Omron,
The other human prisoner,
Bubble,
White Troll,
Jaash,
Ogre

Not exactly: the Elves are autorecalled only until A2-1 (and one in A3). So, they're out of the list.

My point is, you have a seriously large supporting cast - it might be a good idea for us to work out who the major ones are, who will be minor and who will never be an auto-recall and start to define some relationships between them so that we/I can put that into dialogue (such as Krunk and Elyssa's little rivalry). I'm at work now, but I can work out a rough sketch of it all based on how I view the campaign. I'd prefer to work on all of this before I get into the major scenario's.

Sure: Grog, Elyssa and Zurg are available in every scenario (with A3, B1 and C part as exceptions). Ormron, Jaash, I-gruk and the two human speakers are always autorecalled in B part, if they're alive. Bubble and Krunk (the White Troll) are autorecalled only until A5.

Also, E_H, you mentioned some spelling mistakes before; the British English spellings are the proper ones and you might just have to deal with changing them back to the wrong spelling (sorry!). There was a word "cewwwed" - can you give me the few lines surrounding it's usage? It sounds like someone is talking about a Gryphon.

The problem isn't that British spelling is wrong; the problem is that mainline uses American spelling, and I made some examples before. If you try running grep on the campaign folder (grep is a special command-line Linux tool that searches for text strings; it's available also for Windows, and Microsoft's own version is called QGREP), looking for "honour" you'll receive no results, while looking for "honor" gives you several matches. So, if we want to have dialogues up to mainline standards, we're forced to use American spelling. About "cewwed", it's used in B6 only:

"They followed the road north. On the wind their nostrils caught the salt of the sea. Overhead seagulls cewwed in to the air."

I also added difficult levels for A1 and A2-1; there is still something to fix, but they're 90% done.

[Anonymissimus]

Also, E_H, you mentioned some spelling mistakes before; the British English spellings are the proper ones and you might just have to deal with changing them back to the wrong spelling (sorry!). There was a word "cewwwed" - can you give me the few lines surrounding it's usage? It sounds like someone is talking about a Gryphon. Any other spelling mistakes you don't understand, it's either my typo's or I had a good reason - just ask.

Mainline, and E_H too, use wmllint's spellcheck (a developer tool, running on all files of the whole campaign) which is standardized to American spelling. You could use British spelling but it'd imply adding lots of # wmllint: directory spellings - exceptions (for all words appearing in the campaign which are spelled differently in British than American English)

[Eros]

Even as a loyal son of John Bull I think that using the standard American spellings would be better.

[Elvish_Hunter]

You could use British spelling but it'd imply adding lots of # wmllint: directory spellings - exceptions (for all words appearing in the campaign which are spelled differently in British than American English)

That would be the last of my problems: placing in the _main.cfg something like

Code: Select all

#wmllint: directory spelling colour honour travellers centre recognise

and some other words will solve this issue for the whole campaign; but then, the dialogues won't be any longer up to "mainline standards". Consider, for example, that [colour_adjust] is now converted as [color_adjust].

Even as a loyal son of John Bull I think that using the standard American spellings would be better.

Thanks
I added difficult levels also for scenario A2-2. To go beyond the usual "double enemy gold on Hard", I enabled recruiting of Runesmiths on Medium and Hard, and of Bersekers on Hard. Why? Because these specialist units tend to unbalance the scenario, and are quite hard to deal with (I tested). For this reason, I also added LIMIT_CONTEMPORANEOUS_RECRUITS to have only one of them per time on the map. Eros, please take a look; if it's OK, the next release for Wesnoth 1.9.3 will have difficult levels for the first 5 scenarios (including Prologue; I'm adding the levels slowly because I'm also replaying the campaign, to be sure that the it can be won even on Hard.)
Finally, one note for Daravel: your dialogue rewriting, when talking about Cactoses, has Elyssa saying "I have never seen one venture so far from their forests before". Forests? Permission to change it in "oasis" or something else? Anyway, you're doing a good job as usual.

[Eros]

Will have a go.