Cheating, difficulty, and a challenge to expert players.

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pauxlo
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Re: Cheating, difficulty, and a challenge to expert players.

Post by pauxlo »

Just to make sure: The HttT challenge which Stephanie put out concerns only the first two scenarios, doesn't it? So it should not take too long to play this five times (or even some more, for training).

(I won't do it, since I actually don't have a Wesnoth installation available.)
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Maiklas3000
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Re: Cheating, difficulty, and a challenge to expert players.

Post by Maiklas3000 »

I just played the first two scenarios of Heir to the Throne on hard (challenging.) I did not finish the second scenario early for the bonus. However, I beat both with no save-loads, no big deal. I also did no restarts, though I'm not opposed to doing them. And I lost no units during the second scenario, for what it's worth. Killing the enemy leader seems hard, but like others said, the bonus loyal knight is not necessary for beating the rest of the campaign. I think if anything it makes sense that you generally don't get the loyal knight on the hardest difficulty. For example, some scenarios in some campaigns give you a loyal unit unless you're playing on hard.
Stephanie
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Re: Cheating, difficulty, and a challenge to expert players.

Post by Stephanie »

Maiklas3000 wrote:I did not finish the second scenario early for the bonus. However, I beat both with no save-loads, no big deal.
Yeah, it's easy to complete the first two scenarios, but if you intend to get through the rest of them you need to consider your recall list. It isn't as bad as I thought at first, and others claim to have done it, but getting Simyr is still impossible without extremely good luck and a reckless play style.
Maiklas3000 wrote:I think if anything it makes sense that you generally don't get the loyal knight on the hardest difficulty. For example, some scenarios in some campaigns give you a loyal unit unless you're playing on hard.
No, you don't understand. Getting Simyr as a bonus for killing the orc leader is only possible on hard. He isn't in the other difficulty levels, and since it's impossible to get him without luck manipulation, one has to wonder why he is there at all. It seems to contradict the statement in the manual discouraging saveloading if you reward players for doing it in the second scenario. But that's just my opinion. Maybe an easter egg bonus unit is a good idea. Or maybe the whole point is to make it clear that players can't necessarily complete all objectives. Or maybe there is no point, who knows?
pauxlo wrote:Just to make sure: The HttT challenge which Stephanie put out concerns only the first two scenarios, doesn't it? So it should not take too long to play this five times
Yes, that was the point, to just play the first two scenarios five times without loading and get Simyr three times. Hell, I'd be impressed if you got him twice. I've never been able to get him, but I almost did it, twice.
Insinuator
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Re: Cheating, difficulty, and a challenge to expert players.

Post by Insinuator »

Stephanie wrote:Maybe an easter egg bonus unit is a good idea.
Personally, I never even knew about Simyr and I can not say it had any impact on future scenarios. Easter eggs are there to toy with "completionests", who get annoyed if they can't exploit EVERY possibility. I see no reason to cater to those people. HttT can be beaten on hard without save/loading. Easter egg/bonuses may be nice, but by definition are unnecessary.
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Skrim
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Re: Cheating, difficulty, and a challenge to expert players.

Post by Skrim »

Stephanie wrote:
Maiklas3000 wrote:I did not finish the second scenario early for the bonus. However, I beat both with no save-loads, no big deal.
Yeah, it's easy to complete the first two scenarios, but if you intend to get through the rest of them you need to consider your recall list. It isn't as bad as I thought at first, and others claim to have done it, but getting Simyr is still impossible without extremely good luck and a reckless play style.
Maiklas3000 wrote:I think if anything it makes sense that you generally don't get the loyal knight on the hardest difficulty. For example, some scenarios in some campaigns give you a loyal unit unless you're playing on hard.
No, you don't understand. Getting Simyr as a bonus for killing the orc leader is only possible on hard. He isn't in the other difficulty levels, and since it's impossible to get him without luck manipulation, one has to wonder why he is there at all. It seems to contradict the statement in the manual discouraging saveloading if you reward players for doing it in the second scenario. But that's just my opinion. Maybe an easter egg bonus unit is a good idea. Or maybe the whole point is to make it clear that players can't necessarily complete all objectives. Or maybe there is no point, who knows?
pauxlo wrote:Just to make sure: The HttT challenge which Stephanie put out concerns only the first two scenarios, doesn't it? So it should not take too long to play this five times
Yes, that was the point, to just play the first two scenarios five times without loading and get Simyr three times. Hell, I'd be impressed if you got him twice. I've never been able to get him, but I almost did it, twice.
How is it a balance problem if you can't reasonably get Simyr without save-loading? Getting him is not an objective but a neat bonus, and his presence is not in any way promoting save-loading, just like the Ulfserker in The Lost General is not promoting the use of Mermen in caves (hell, the "WTF is a Merman doing down here" aspect is even lampshaded by the damn Ulf himself).

The reason why Simyr is there is for people to get all annoyed trying to pick up every little extra prize on the road. Simyr, the storm tridents, Moremirmu, the Ulf, void armor, the flaming sword, none of it is necessary to win the campaign. None of it 'means' anything, and none of it is a factor in campaign balance. They're all just fun little bonuses that you get for doing random stuff that you didn't have to do and that no one told you to do, but you somehow went ahead and did anyway.

Sometimes its just sitting there ready for picking if you do so much as notice it (storm tridents), sometimes it's difficult to discover but not so hard to get once you know of it (ulf, flaming sword), sometimes it's a prize for a bonus challenge (moremirmu, void armor), and sometimes it exists only to commemorate the occurrence of bizarre and improbable feats that the game was not balanced for and that the game did not ask of you (Simyr).
Last edited by Skrim on April 15th, 2011, 6:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The Black Sword
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Re: Cheating, difficulty, and a challenge to expert players.

Post by The Black Sword »

Just to make sure: The HttT challenge which Stephanie put out concerns only the first two scenarios, doesn't it? So it should not take too long to play this five times (or even some more, for training).
This inspired me to give it a shot. 1st try, no reloads, I kill the orc leader on turn 8 and I even thought I got a bit unlucky :P .
To be fair I did lose Haldiel but I wasn't really trying to keep any of my units alive just go for Simryn, it was bad luck that lost him too. Given the fairly handy state I'm in on turn 8 I think he could easily be kept alive. And besides I'm essentially trading a lvl 1 horse for a lvl 2 knight ;).

Of course I can't really prove if I'm telling the truth or not but look at the replay and you can see if it looks right or not. In fact there is a moment where Konrad misses 3/3 where I really felt like reloading but then I squashed the impulse :D
Attachments
HttT-The_Elves_Besieged_replay.gz
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HttT-Blackwater_Port_replay.gz
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Anonymissimus
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Re: Cheating, difficulty, and a challenge to expert players.

Post by Anonymissimus »

The Black Sword:
I believe you that you didn't reload. However, your replays cannot be accepted as a solution since you lost Haldiel. And also you did at least one time (turn 7 IIRC) an attack with Konrad with a chance of dying due to the counter damage of certainly more than the 10% required (see opening post).

Other than that - your recall list is somewhat poor after that scenario (I usually aim for a druid). Also, did you get any gold added in the next scenario with that negative current gold ? Both wasn't part of the task, but are important when planning to continue the campaign. The next scenario (Isle of Alduin) is much less difficult however so may be not that crucial.
What I get from your EB replay is that it's probably a good idea to not try to give experience to Konrad in the first scenario since you'll lose a turn to finish early. I'm generally tempted to do that. ;)

EDIT
Fiddled a bit with debug mode - Konrad must have had a 50% of dying in that attack - you really wouldn't do that in a normal playthrough, would you ? (I require 0% for all heros and loyals in general.)
projects (BfW 1.12):
A Simple Campaign: campaign draft for wml startersPlan Your Advancements: mp mod
The Earth's Gut: sp campaignSettlers of Wesnoth: mp scenarioWesnoth Lua Pack: lua tags and utils
updated to 1.8 and handed over: A Gryphon's Tale: sp campaign
The Black Sword
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Re: Cheating, difficulty, and a challenge to expert players.

Post by The Black Sword »

Konrad needed 1/3, the wolf needed 2/3 and Konrad struck first. Tbh I'm not sure if I would have done it in a normal replay, its quite a small chance and the type of thing I'd risk :wink: .
BUT, you say 10% was the limit? I just went back and checked my autosave, konrad had a 9.something% ctk, so it still counts :P .

Haldiel wasn't mentioned in the challenge and neither was the recall list(though a captain, longbowman and loyal knight sounds pretty good to me, also Delfador kept killing people I wanted for xp in the first scenario :lol2: ). In any case the campaign could easily be finished from that state so that doesn't really hold up either. Additionally, as I said, I finished it pretty handily, with a turn and a lot of elvish cannon fodder spare, I'm fairly sure that I could trade these resources for Haldiel etc. if I tried. I may try another run with the extra conditions in place but surely the replay shows that it can be done without excessive luck.

About the gold, it's a personal restriction, I don't like to take my allies villages just for gold in campaigns, it doesn't strike me as the type of thing Konrad would do. It also allows me and my ally to put more troops into the fighting, which can help.

I think I also usually try get Konrad some experience in the first scenario but in this case I was maximising my chances of the loyal knight so I didn't. Tbh getting Konrad up quicker is probably just as good.

EDIT: My apologies, Haldiel was part of the challenge, I hadn't noticed that, I'll probably give it another shot.
Anonymissimus
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Re: Cheating, difficulty, and a challenge to expert players.

Post by Anonymissimus »

Anonymissimus wrote:EDIT
Fiddled a bit with debug mode - Konrad must have had a 50% of dying in that attack
I apparently forgot to set down the wolf rider's hp so you were right about the chance to be killed.
projects (BfW 1.12):
A Simple Campaign: campaign draft for wml startersPlan Your Advancements: mp mod
The Earth's Gut: sp campaignSettlers of Wesnoth: mp scenarioWesnoth Lua Pack: lua tags and utils
updated to 1.8 and handed over: A Gryphon's Tale: sp campaign
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Faello
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Re: Cheating, difficulty, and a challenge to expert players.

Post by Faello »

1.9.6, no saves/reloads, second approach to this scenario <I really don't have the time to deal with some artificial "no restarts rule", sorry>, Challenging (Champion) difficulty level.

Finished this one in turn 8 with 1 turn in reserve.

Konrad and Delfador were below 10% ctk. Even if I'd miss more with Delfador, and archer would be unlucky, AI would try to protect the king and go for low-melee retaliation <archer, Delfador, wounded shammy, wounded archer> = not for almost full hp lawful Konrad <lawful ToD>. Notice also the fact that if Delfador would hit less than he did, I'd move differently than I did.
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HttT-Blackwater_Port_replay.gz
Blackwater Leader Kill replay, 1.9.6, no saves/reloads, Challenging (Champion) difficulty level
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Deukalion
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Re: Cheating, difficulty, and a challenge to expert players.

Post by Deukalion »

I don't want to cause any waves, but I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say that this is a silly, unnecessary thread.

Play the way you want. If you want to play a campaign dealing with all the bad luck that comes, then do so. If you want to never lose a unit and have to load a lot, do so. It really doesn't matter, and it doesn't effect anyone else in any way.

Isn't the idea of this game to be open, and played by a large community of people with their own likes and tastes?
Why nitpick?

And that is my two cents.

Although, I think if its just gonna turn into a discussion about challenging one another to pull of some hard campaign challenges, then cool. Play the way you want, and challenge others!
Last edited by Deukalion on May 27th, 2011, 5:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Caphriel
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Re: Cheating, difficulty, and a challenge to expert players.

Post by Caphriel »

You don't want to cause any waves, but you're going to revive a dead thread in order to insult the original poster? :doh:
Deukalion
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Re: Cheating, difficulty, and a challenge to expert players.

Post by Deukalion »

lol necro. I am on a work computer and totally didn't see the timestamps.

Maybe we should lock it so I don't derp again? :p
Raliven
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Re: Cheating, difficulty, and a challenge to expert players.

Post by Raliven »

I've never finished HttT and haven't played it much for a long time. But as a challenge I used to try to see how far I could get on hard difficulty without losing a single unit, and I'd often get through the first five or so scenarios before I'd suffer a loss and restart the campaign. (Note that this challenge did not allow scenario restarts.)
Sangel
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Re: Cheating, difficulty, and a challenge to expert players.

Post by Sangel »

Deukalion wrote:lol necro. I am on a work computer and totally didn't see the timestamps.

Maybe we should lock it so I don't derp again? :p
It's always worth checking the timestamps carefully when posting from a new computer.
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