Antar, Son of Rheor [Development Thread]

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Adamant14
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Re: Antar, Son of Rheor [Development Thread]

Post by Adamant14 »

Sadaharu wrote: March 4th, 2019, 3:50 am A kind of… well, maybe bug, maybe a feature. I'm at The Crystal and, in spite of the helpful scenario maker's entreaties, I logically sent a Shyde and my two Sylphs to try and attack the undead leader to the west from behind. A Lv. 2 or Lv.3 skeleton appeared with every step the girls took so they were retreating towards the castle in the middle when some lug called Ugoshag (re)appeared and took the therebefore empty castle with some Soulless and Walking Corpses and the lasses just went straight for him. So 1/3 of the attacking forces was eliminated right then.
Both is intended.
There is a note added to the objectives:
NOTE: "Keep your focus on defending the cave's entry, not in trying to defeat the enemies!"

This part of the scenario is very hard to balance, the enemies should keep the defenders under permanent pressure, but he should not be to strong, nor to week. And it is important for story reason not to allow the player to assassinate the besieger leaders, but that is not easy to code, so there is this ugly trick needed: So every time a defender unit comes too close to one of the besieger leaders, a unit appears to defend his leader. At least until I find a smoother way to keep the besieger leaders alive. Suggestions welcome.

At a certain turn, depending on the chosen difficulty, Ugoshag appears, to increase the pressure on the defenders. That is also intended.
Maybe I should add some kind of hint about that.

Sadaharu wrote: March 4th, 2019, 3:50 am The Slither Blades have no advancement but their XP meter is still blue.
Sadly I have no idea how these bars work, nor how to fix that issue.

Sadaharu wrote: March 4th, 2019, 3:50 am How the Crystal actually works (I suspect, as intended):
  • There's the same thing with the XP meter
  • It cannot dodge (100% cth) and has no resistances
  • It's on (26,2) but the life meter is all the way up and to the left (24,1)
  • If attacked with any unit other than Gelphrad it will regenerate back to full health even if Gelphrad had already damaged it.
Again, I have no idea how the bars work.
Spoiler:
I am not fully satisfied with the actual behaviour of the crystal, and I hope I find a solution for that.

Sadaharu wrote: March 4th, 2019, 3:50 am And btw you've misspelled epilogue as epilouge (and where it says ‘without anymore guidance’ remove the anymore).
Thank you for noticing that.

Sadaharu wrote: March 4th, 2019, 3:50 am I really liked it. Thanks for the campaign!!
Glad you likeed it. Thank you very much. :D
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Sadaharu
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Re: Antar, Son of Rheor [Development Thread]

Post by Sadaharu »

Adamant14 wrote: March 4th, 2019, 4:54 pm
Sadaharu wrote: March 4th, 2019, 3:50 am A kind of… well, maybe bug, maybe a feature. I'm at The Crystal and, in spite of the helpful scenario maker's entreaties, I logically sent a Shyde and my two Sylphs to try and attack the undead leader to the west from behind. A Lv. 2 or Lv.3 skeleton appeared with every step the girls took so they were retreating towards the castle in the middle when some lug called Ugoshag (re)appeared and took the therebefore empty castle with some Soulless and Walking Corpses and the lasses just went straight for him. So 1/3 of the attacking forces was eliminated right then.
Both is intended.
There is a note added to the objectives:
NOTE: "Keep your focus on defending the cave's entry, not in trying to defeat the enemies!"

This part of the scenario is very hard to balance, the enemies should keep the defenders under permanent pressure, but he should not be to strong, nor to week. And it is important for story reason not to allow the player to assassinate the besieger leaders, but that is not easy to code, so there is this ugly trick needed: So every time a defender unit comes too close to one of the besieger leaders, a unit appears to defend his leader. At least until I find a smoother way to keep the besieger leaders alive. Suggestions welcome.

At a certain turn, depending on the chosen difficulty, Ugoshag appears, to increase the pressure on the defenders. That is also intended.
Maybe I should add some kind of hint about that.
I have played enough Wesnoth to know that an empty castle is just waiting to be filled, especially if it has enough space to recruit an attacking wave and the enemies are undead who might just cross that deep water. ;)
To me that was enough of a hint, but just being able to destroy Ugoshag even before he can start recruiting made the outside fight significantly easier.

The besiegers could be given extra resistances if necessary, but I actually proved unable to destroy either the orcish leader or the Death Knight. I did prove that a suicide attack with the two Sylphs can work, but as I said it's a suicide attack and the margin of error for missed attacks means it can only be safely done with a Sylph with 6 attacks + the dextrous-quick traits unless you savescum like a maniac. Upon one such failed attempt I just started decided to heed the scenario instructions, retreated westwards and stumbled into Ugoshag (Turn 12 or 13 IIRC) and wiped him off the map without losing any of the three elves.

So the problem is Ugoshag. He does not get extra defenders added automatically every time a unit moves closer to him as the other two leaders do, so maybe you could just give him good resistances, or give him a decent escort to start with. Or, if necessary, make him unkillable. Or, even, just a differently-configured castle so that he cannot be killed by just one or two pre-positioned attackers.

Since we're at it, a dextrous, quick Sylph with the special ring that gives her one extra attack for faerie touch, entangle and faerie fire is death from above. Poor skeletons (read: mwahaha, for an all-out finale it's exactly the type of last-minute superpower one needs).
Adamant14 wrote:
Sadaharu wrote: March 4th, 2019, 3:50 am The Slither Blades have no advancement but their XP meter is still blue.
Sadly I have no idea how these bars work, nor how to fix that issue.
I remember reporting the exact same condition in After the Storm, so you could ask shadowm, who fixed it.
Adamant14 wrote:
Sadaharu wrote: March 4th, 2019, 3:50 am How the Crystal actually works (I suspect, as intended):
  • There's the same thing with the XP meter
  • It cannot dodge (100% cth) and has no resistances
  • It's on (26,2) but the life meter is all the way up and to the left (24,1)
  • If attacked with any unit other than Gelphrad it will regenerate back to full health even if Gelphrad had already damaged it.
Again, I have no idea how the bars work.
Spoiler:
I am not fully satisfied with the actual behaviour of the crystal, and I hope I find a solution for that.
I supposed it was meant to work that way given the story. I was just reporting its actual behaviour just in case it was meant to be something else. :)

For the blue bars, see above.

As for the crystal… well, for now it at least works as intended. It can only be damaged by Gelphrad and Gelphrad ends up being corrupted by it in the epilogue.
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Sadaharu
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Re: Antar, Son of Rheor [Development Thread]

Post by Sadaharu »

A much more minor issue I've just accidentally discovered is that the campaign is not marked as completed even after I go through the entire epilogue without skipping ahead.
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Adamant14
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Re: Antar, Son of Rheor [Development Thread]

Post by Adamant14 »

Sadaharu wrote: March 4th, 2019, 3:50 am The Slither Blades have no advancement but their XP meter is still blue.
I guess I found out how to fix that.

Sadaharu wrote: March 4th, 2019, 3:50 am Reports on things inside the cave
How the Crystal actually works (I suspect, as intended):
[*]It cannot dodge (100% cth) and has no resistances
[*]It's on (26,2) but the life meter is all the way up and to the left (24,1)
[*]If attacked with any unit other than Gelphrad it will regenerate back to full health even if Gelphrad had already damaged it.[/LIST]
I am about to rework the behaviour of the crystal unit. The crystal will no longer heal itself. I think I will give the crystal drain as attack, + 100% resistances against all attacks except arcane, so that no other units than mages can damage it, no units except Dagor and Gelphrad, so that the player is forced to attack the crystal with his only two mages.

Sadaharu wrote: March 4th, 2019, 10:12 pm So the problem is Ugoshag. He does not get extra defenders added automatically every time a unit moves closer to him as the other two leaders do, so maybe you could just give him good resistances, or give him a decent escort to start with.
I thought that Ugoshag is protected enough by the forces of the two other besiegers, and the deep water of the lake, but you proved me wrong, so I will give him protection too.

Sadaharu wrote: March 7th, 2019, 4:47 am A much more minor issue I've just accidentally discovered is that the campaign is not marked as completed even after I go through the entire epilogue without skipping ahead.
That is strange, here on my engine (Windows 10) the laurel appears. :hmm:
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Sadaharu
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Re: Antar, Son of Rheor [Development Thread]

Post by Sadaharu »

Adamant14 wrote: March 7th, 2019, 6:56 pm
Sadaharu wrote: March 4th, 2019, 3:50 am The Slither Blades have no advancement but their XP meter is still blue.
I guess I found out how to fix that.
:Awesome:
Adamant14 wrote:
Sadaharu wrote: March 4th, 2019, 3:50 am Reports on things inside the cave
How the Crystal actually works (I suspect, as intended):
[*]It cannot dodge (100% cth) and has no resistances
[*]It's on (26,2) but the life meter is all the way up and to the left (24,1)
[*]If attacked with any unit other than Gelphrad it will regenerate back to full health even if Gelphrad had already damaged it.[/LIST]
I am about to rework the behaviour of the crystal unit. The crystal will no longer heal itself. I think I will give the crystal drain as attack, + 100% resistances against all attacks except arcane, so that no other units than mages can damage it, no units except Dagor and Gelphrad, so that the player is forced to attack the crystal with his only two mages.
That might work… wait, no. I had five paladins with arcane attacks in that cave. They would have made mincemeat of the thing, but for storytelling purposes you could make it so that if the last blow is dealt by anybody other than Gelphrad then the crystal will be healed or otherwise not killed.

Also, I found it easier to destroy the crystal using the staff attacks (100% cth) than with the magical ones which tend to miss.
Adamant14 wrote:
Sadaharu wrote: March 4th, 2019, 10:12 pm So the problem is Ugoshag. He does not get extra defenders added automatically every time a unit moves closer to him as the other two leaders do, so maybe you could just give him good resistances, or give him a decent escort to start with.
I thought that Ugoshag is protected enough by the forces of the two other besiegers, and the deep water of the lake, but you proved me wrong, so I will give him protection too.
If he were attacked only by the dwarves or the humans that would be completely true, but any Elf-based army that's halfway decently levelled up can't not have a few flying units, and especially when there's been heavy fighting against undead units which means there has to be at least one Sylph if the army made it that far.

If you need to make it even nastier (or just feel like it!) you could just add some water monsters.
Adamant14 wrote:
Sadaharu wrote: March 7th, 2019, 4:47 am A much more minor issue I've just accidentally discovered is that the campaign is not marked as completed even after I go through the entire epilogue without skipping ahead.
That is strange, here on my engine (Windows 10) the laurel appears. :hmm:
I won it using BfW 1.14.5 on Linux Mint 18.3.
I know, 1.14.6 came out just now but I hadn't updated yet.
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Re: Antar, Son of Rheor [Development Thread]

Post by Adamant14 »

Sadaharu wrote: March 7th, 2019, 11:50 pm If you need to make it even nastier (or just feel like it!) you could just add some water monsters.
I have already thought about it myself, but found no suitable water monster. Squid and octopus do not quite fit. All that remains are undead rising from the water.

Sadaharu wrote: March 7th, 2019, 11:50 pm
Adamant14 wrote:
Sadaharu wrote: March 4th, 2019, 3:50 am Reports on things inside the cave
How the Crystal actually works (I suspect, as intended):
[*]It cannot dodge (100% cth) and has no resistances
[*]It's on (26,2) but the life meter is all the way up and to the left (24,1)
[*]If attacked with any unit other than Gelphrad it will regenerate back to full health even if Gelphrad had already damaged it.[/LIST]
I am about to rework the behaviour of the crystal unit. The crystal will no longer heal itself. I think I will give the crystal drain as attack, + 100% resistances against all attacks except arcane, so that no other units than mages can damage it, no units except Dagor and Gelphrad, so that the player is forced to attack the crystal with his only two mages.
That might work… wait, no. I had five paladins with arcane attacks in that cave. They would have made mincemeat of the thing, but for storytelling purposes you could make it so that if the last blow is dealt by anybody other than Gelphrad then the crystal will be healed or otherwise not killed.
Paladins, one more time I have forgotten the Paladins, :doh:
maybe because I do not use them myself.
Now I've fiddled with that issue for a while, tried out a few things, but it's not quite as easy as I had imagined. So I leave the final fight against the crystal as it is, at least as long until I've found a more satisfying solution.

One more time I have to thank you for your assessment and opinion.
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Sadaharu
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Re: Antar, Son of Rheor [Development Thread]

Post by Sadaharu »

Adamant14 wrote: March 9th, 2019, 6:56 pm
Sadaharu wrote: March 7th, 2019, 11:50 pm If you need to make it even nastier (or just feel like it!) you could just add some water monsters.
I have already thought about it myself, but found no suitable water monster. Squid and octopus do not quite fit. All that remains are undead rising from the water.
I suppose that whatever it is should also be featured when you are attacking the cave entrance in the previous scenario to keep the story consistent.

I ended up having three Sylphs and four Shydes not long after beginning the scenario. The undead, unless they are ridiculously numerous -to the point of making the player wonder why they don't just join the other undead and the orcs in attacking- do not stand a chance when there's arcane attacks and four units who'll just keep entangling with a 90% cth.
And also they'd block the path of Ugoshag's troops straight through the water and to the cave gate.

Maybe just tweaking the tiles so that only units with the ‘Submerge’ ability can cross them would be a better option.
(as a hint, when you cross the water on your way north in the previous scenario you could have a unit say that there is a curse/something wrong with the water, depending on which unit it is)
Adamant14 wrote:Paladins, one more time I have forgotten the Paladins, :doh:
maybe because I do not use them myself.
Now I've fiddled with that issue for a while, tried out a few things, but it's not quite as easy as I had imagined. So I leave the final fight against the crystal as it is, at least as long until I've found a more satisfying solution.

One more time I have to thank you for your assessment and opinion.
Yes, I raised my two armies in as traditional a way as I could. The elves stay massed in the forests near the riverbank where the orcs can be safely hemmed in by the arbitrary barrier of the map's edge; meanwhile, since I had no other healers, i raised all but one of my Knights into Paladins (and gave one of the the Ring of Regeneration) to get enough auxiliary healers. Together with a few dwarfs with the healthy trait they make a very effective fighting force.

If you need me to test a new version of the map or just to bounce some ideas just post here, this is one of the threads to which I am subscribed.
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Re: Antar, Son of Rheor [Development Thread]

Post by Hildebrand2 »

I got a message in the game saying "This is nearly impossible and unexpected" and asked me to send a replay. I don't know how to do this. Apart from replaying some moves I don't think I did anything weird.
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Adamant14
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Re: Antar, Son of Rheor [Development Thread]

Post by Adamant14 »

Hildebrand2 wrote: March 25th, 2019, 12:04 am I got a message in the game saying "This is nearly impossible and unexpected" and asked me to send a replay. I don't know how to do this. Apart from replaying some moves I don't think I did anything weird.
Thank you for your feedback.
I guess we are talking about scenario '08 Meeting the Dwarven King', right?
And you have managed to kill all enemies, but you have not met the the Dwarven King, right?

The objectives say "Find Gomdring, and move Antar to meet him" (Gomdring is the Dwarven King)
Were the objectives not clear enough for you? Did you overseen them?
Was there any problem for you to move deeper into the mines?
Were there too many enemies inside the mines?
How could you kill all enemies, without finding the Dwarven King?

Can you tell me what version of Antar, Son of Rheor you have installed?
And what version of Battle for Wesnoth you have installed?
And if you can't share a replay, can you explain how you played this scenario? (replays, if you record replays, can "maybe" found in your documents folder documents/My Games/Wesnoth/Saves)
Can you tell me which entrance you have used to get inside the mines?
Have you used :debug?
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Re: Antar, Son of Rheor [Development Thread]

Post by Hildebrand2 »

Sorry for the delay but I thought I would finish the campaign first.
Wesnoth 1.14.4
Antar 1.13.23
I looked through the replay and this is roughly what happened.
Basically I went directly to the southern entrance and then attacked the bad guy. The specific requirement to move Antar to Gomdring only seems to be on a pop up when you first see the dwarfs in the north. I probably didn't take enough notice of this. I think I had decided by this point that the basic objective was to get to the southern entrance and save Gomdring from undead attackers.
I replayed the scenario with Antar going through the northern entrance and finding Gomdring while the rest did what they did before. I killed all the enemies outside but I am not sure about all the ones in the mines.
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Sadaharu
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Re: Antar, Son of Rheor [Development Thread]

Post by Sadaharu »

Derpaderp I accidentally unsubscribed from this thread.
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Adamant14
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Re: Antar, Son of Rheor [Development Thread]

Post by Adamant14 »

I have noticed that my campaign did not work with Wesnoth versions newer than 1.14.5 (1.14.6 and 1.14.7).
Strange, but it seems that a custom song had caused that issue, a song that I had used for years.
Now, after removing that song, everything works fine again.
To play ASoR with the latest BfW versions, please update the campaign to version 1.13.24.
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Sadaharu
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Re: Antar, Son of Rheor [Development Thread]

Post by Sadaharu »

I never had that problem because my packager's latest version is still 1.14.5, but I've updated it in advance anyway to keep it safe.
Last edited by Sadaharu on May 18th, 2019, 1:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
Wayirr
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Re: Antar, Son of Rheor [Development Thread]

Post by Wayirr »

I have this message when trying to load the first scenario: found the following problem: Failed to size window; wanted size 870,824 available size 1024,768
So the first dialogue in first scenario is too big to fit in screen by height.
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Re: Antar, Son of Rheor [Development Thread]

Post by EarthCake »

You need to change your Wesnoth resolution in preferences.
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