An idea of generic tutorial campaign

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Aldarisvet
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An idea of generic tutorial campaign

Post by Aldarisvet »

Since after many years of ossification I see that Wesnoth became more open to changes in mainline content, several problems arise. I mean Wesnoth mainline content is like a badly constructed house. You need a new good house, but you cannot get it instantly so you can not get rid of all bad things immediately.

One problem is that with beginner mainline campaigns. There are two of them, The Tale of Two Brothers and An Orcish Incursion and despite all their faults they serve their function as an easy campaigns for beginners. Both of these campaigns seemed to be demainlined (or reworked for not being for beginners) with time because they do not fit the global storyline design that was recently suggested.

So we have a lack of really beginner campaigns. But moreover, we never had really beginner/tutorial and short (which is important!) campaigns for dwarves, orcs, drakes and undead. What beginning player actually could do with that situation to learn to play different races - is to start some multiplayer scenario in a single player mode. But in fact this is not an obvious thing to guess and convenient to implement.

Now I want to suggest relatively fast and easy solution of the problem. Because creating a campaign often is a hard work, and there are already big plans to add new content for Wesnoth and rework old campaigns.

I suggest creating a short generic campaign with a simple plotline (but it must be a beautiful plotline still) that can be used for any race (mind that The Tale of Two Brothers and An Orcish Incursion have also quite primitive plotlines). It would be a generic story of a hero of any race you can choose in the start (at the start you chose a race from the menu and play with the hero and recall list of that race during all the campaign). It will have same maps and enemies regardless of race you play and even would be with the same dialogues. But tutorial recommendations of every scenario could be unique for every race of course.

So all maps should be universal and fit to any race. I suggest not to reinvent the wheel and just take 1vs1 multiplayer maps. They are supposed to be balanced for any race against any race. Yes, these maps would be symmetrical, but this would be a tutorial campaign after all. I think that 4-5 scenarios for this campaign would be quite enough.

So what is left - you just need to invent a universal storyline that would be suitable for any race. I have not started thinking about this yet. What it could be? A hunt for a treasure, guarded by a Skeletial Dragon, for example. Whenever deep story should be founded in main campaigns.
Last edited by Aldarisvet on December 12th, 2019, 8:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: And idea of generic tutorial campaign

Post by Pentarctagon »

The first couple campaigns in the first arc of the reworked single player story were stated to be Novice level campaigns, so I don't think it's accurate to say that there'd be a lack of beginner campaigns.
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Re: And idea of generic tutorial campaign

Post by Aldarisvet »

Pentarctagon wrote: December 11th, 2019, 2:04 pm The first couple campaigns in the first arc of the reworked single player story were stated to be Novice level campaigns, so I don't think it's accurate to say that there'd be a lack of beginner campaigns.
If the campaign demands playing two races at the same time - elves/humans in reworked TSG and humans/orcs in future AA, I doubt it can be named classical beginning mono-race campaign.

Moreover, I am speaking about tutorial, when hero's adviser would counsel about advantages and disadvantages of his race against current enemy.
Also, I am speaking about creating universal beginning campaign for all races, not just for only 3. We have no good tutorial so far, only the beginning of HtTT provides something like this in earlier scenarios (what is now tutorial is actually an introduction to very very basics).

And in the end, I just suggest something to immediately fill the gap that is already going to be created with AOI demainlined. I had the feeling that some people was concerned with demainlining beginning campaigns whenever new ones are far from being created.
________________________

I think I get some idea I find brilliant for this campaign storyline which I think could be connected with the last scenario of DiD.
So here is the prequel text for the first scenario which is also could be a character-creation script:



Let the tale begin!
Once upon a time there was a hero... Oh, at first we must decide of which race this hero was:
(a menu appears where a player can chose a race: human, elf, orc., etc).

That [chosen racial prefix] hero was not actually a hero. He was a local leader of some local group of [name of his race in plural].
No one knew he is a hero, but he dreamed to adventure and become a real hero. And for the moment the story begins our character was only... Really, who he was?
(a menu appears where a player can chose a type of the unit from the chosen race: for human it would be spearmen or archer or duelist etc, for elf - fighter or archer etc).

So he dreamed to do something extraordinary, some great, like killing a dragon to become famous. But he was ordinary level1 [type of the unit] and like ordinary [type of the unit] he has two traits.
(a menu appears where a player could chose traits for the hero).

One day our hero heard that there is an evil lich sitting in the north mountains. So he gathered his group and declared them they are going to defeat that lich and to take his treasure. His comrades were young and even more foolish than him and they agreed. Only his uncle tried to dissuade them all from that dangerous idea but given he failed to do that he decided to go with them (that uncle would be a tutorial adviser).
..........
Well, and so on. As you understand that hero is going to be the same foolish hero that was able to retrieve a copy of that book from Mal-Keshar from his dungeon. So the last scenario must be on the same map as the last in DiD vs Malin Keshar. Other scenarios would be about different enemies that our hero would met in the way to the dungeon.

The whole campaign could be in a humorous style with main hero all the time behave like a selfrighteous idiot but this unserios approach should be ok given this is only a tutorial.
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Re: And idea of generic tutorial campaign

Post by lhybrideur »

Would the "evil lich" part of the scenario really fit if the player plays undeads ?
I think your idea of a treasure guarded by a Skeletal Dragon cover better this case.
Anyway it could be nice but this means you have to find a way to have a different set of dialog for each race.
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Re: And idea of generic tutorial campaign

Post by octalot »

If AToTB gets demainlined for not being related to Nemaara's plotline, wouldn't this campaign get demainlined for the same reason?

Note: my feeling is that AToTB should stay in, possibly even that AOI should be re-added.
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Re: And idea of generic tutorial campaign

Post by Mawmoocn »

I think making it team specific tutorial wouldn’t work as there’re too much options. Unit specific tutorial is a ton of work with complicated results that depends on goals (exceptions messes things).


Um but generic plot line wouldn’t work on grand design plot unless you intend to show the “effect” of mainline campaigns.

Anyways, I think the beginner tutorial lacks “depth” and most importantly the “fun” aspect.

The “depth” is how to solve situations not part of your usual “scenarios”.

Basically it’s the lack of “known” options like if you where to redo the first tutorial, you can’t skip your turn (1.14) and should (forced) attack to end your turn.

While on (1.12), “skipping” a turn, allows you to manage the risk of death and choose to decide if the outcome after your opponents turn is worthwhile to attack.
Spoiler:

The current tutorial (1.14), is basically prohibitive of actions inside it’s preprogrammed part, which doesn’t promote better learning.

Game "options" (method to deal with action A) are extremely limited to reading walls of text and time based experience that may discourage most people.

How to solve it? Remove “attack” basics and promote terrain and the dangers and weakness of terrain.

For the beginning of the tutorial scenario, “attack basics” do not promote the use of terrain and encourages to ignore terrain, even if the enemy can use magical......

The complicated answer? Make the player guess what the AI is doing with multiple choice questions. Have a “score” system that tells you if you accomplished what the designer told you on what you should do at the completion of the scenario... and tell the exceptions that do exist but are very difficult to achieve so it’s best to avoid it in a normal game.

Also the system should check if you had the acceptable resources and if does not meet the requirements, the system will recommend a scenario to retry/replay or have a “hidden” recommended resources to achieve/fulfill to allow you to be able to make it through the rain it manageable and effective difficulty (not extremely hard but not too easy) but still allow you to try the scenario if you choose to ignore warnings.


The “effect” plot.

It isn’t part of the major accomplishments or the "main plot" but that’s because of many reasons like the entire town was wiped out and no one lived to tell a tale.

So yeah it’s basically a “hidden” type plot that doesn’t affect Wesnoth, because it gets hidden by various reasons that wasn’t recorded reliably.

What it does is enrich the existing plot, and to show the effect of the timeline. (like The aftermath of an Orcish genocide)

I guess I like the generic hero plot, but that’s mainly because I saw a similar system on a UMC that allows you to choose a hero.

And that takes time (and typos) so... I hope have time to play :lol:.
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Re: And idea of generic tutorial campaign

Post by Aldarisvet »

lhybrideur wrote: December 12th, 2019, 2:57 pm Would the "evil lich" part of the scenario really fit if the player plays undeads ?
I think your idea of a treasure guarded by a Skeletal Dragon cover better this case.
Anyway it could be nice but this means you have to find a way to have a different set of dialog for each race.
There is a problem with undead faction. Because for this faction there is no choice for a unit type for a hero. He only can be an adept. A mindless skeleton or ghoul obviously cannot be a hero from a common sense point of view. But this can be just an exception.
And I do not think there would be a very big problem that a group of young adepts would decide to go and kill a lich. Really, adept of necromany shoudn't worship liches don't they? Though I agree this is kinda a bit complicated case and such case must be storyline justfied.

Concerning dialogs, I think that there should be 2 types of dialogs. Ones of storyline - they could be universal for all races. Another type of dialogs, a tutorial part, between a hero and adviser, should be of course race specific.
Mawmoocn wrote: I think making it team specific tutorial wouldn’t work as there’re too much options. Unit specific tutorial is a ton of work with complicated results that depends on goals (exceptions messes things).
...
I must admit that I cannot understand what you are speaking about. Guess you speaking about tutorial with Lisar and Konrad.
I am not suggest to replace that tutorial at all. That tutorial is about very basics of the game, how to move and attack units, it must be as it is.
I am speaking about tactical tutorial. For example, if a player has chosen to play for dwarves, his adviser should tell him about weaknesses and advantages of his race and his enemy race on the specific map. That he to put dwarves on the hill to get better terrain defence, that he should use impact attacks against bats and pierce attack against cavalry and so on. No one campaign for now provide such tactical tutorial. It should be like a tactical playthrough embedded into the very campaign.
octalot wrote: December 12th, 2019, 3:09 pm If AToTB gets demainlined for not being related to Nemaara's plotline, wouldn't this campaign get demainlined for the same reason?

Note: my feeling is that AToTB should stay in, possibly even that AOI should be re-added.
I see the whole situaltion in a different way.
Most of mainline campaigns simply sux.
Just one argument why they are sux, they repeat the same storyline cliches. One of the most crying cliche is that almost any campaign begins with that something evil attacks the homeland of a campaign's hero. As if authors do not have imagination to find a way to begin a first scenario by the different way than some stupid INVASION and defending sweet home by good boys against bad boys. A pity that this refers not only for maniline campaigs, but to most famous UMC too. This is a plague!!!
And AOI and ToTB is not an exception. Storylines of these campaigns is simply a sum of worst cliches. The other cliche of many campaigns is that the whole campaigns are about moving from point A to point B on the map, hunting, or opposite, retreating enemy. And so on, I could continue, but this topic is not for that.

So I understand these campaigns going to be demainlined not because they do not fit to the arc's storyline.
Nope. From that sum of bad or not so bad storylines namaraa are going to take something to sculp an arc's storyline, and what is left unused, must be demainlined.
_____________________

Concerning this tactical tutorial campaign I clearly understand that idea of group of heroes going for treasure is more than overused. And simply use it would be using worst cliche. Thats why I see this campaign only as a parody. And thats why I found brilliant an idea about connecting it with Foolish heroes attacking Mal-Keshars lair. Often in campaigns we see that some very good hero fights against superior forces of evil but mindless enemy.
I want to create something opposite for fun, I think that for a tutorial a parody would be ok.
A hero would be some self-righteous ignorant whenever his enemies would act quite rationally. Imagine such a dialog:

- Filthy orcs! How dare you to stand in my way?
- Well, we are orcs, we always do raids on human lands at this time of the year. And who are you?
- I am John the Magnificent, I am going to the north mountains to destroy the lich that resides there and to take his treasure.
- We know about that lich. If we kill you now then we will save you from much worse fate. So thank us in advance for that.
- Kill me? I will show you!

....
And now a tactical part that would be specific for orcs vs humans. Let us name an adviser as uncle Ben.
...

Uncle Ben: Now stop this bravado, John! Orcs are dangerous enemies! If we do not outsmart them, they will smash us with the raw force! Look at their muscles! An orcish Grunt can cut a man in half with a sword!
John: You boomers are always so boring! But ok, I care to listen your suggestions.
Uncle Ben: Orcs are with strong attacks at the night and weak at the day...
John: You think I am a child? I know that!
Uncle Ben: Just listen to me and do not interrupt. Our plan is to be defensive at the night and counterattack at the day when our warriors are most effective and their not. The most important thing is to take villages because they provide gold, healing and 60% terrain defence. We are to occupy hill and forest tiles because we have 50% terrain defence there. But in plains we have 40%. All the same is for orcs. At night we would be defensive with spearmans covering archers and mages. At the day we would use archers to kill orcs on plains and mages to kills them on points with high defence such as villages or castles. At the day we advance, at the night we are defensive. Clear?
John: Of course, that was obvious for me without you! I neen't your stupid advices.
...

Turn 2. Orcs recruit assassins amongst other units.

John: What are these orcs with knifes?
Uncle Ben: These are assassins. They can poison our units. Poisoned units will lose 8 hp per turn.
John: (looks frightened) I do not want to be posioned.
Uncle Ben: They also has 70% defence at the forest, village, castle and any rough terrain.
John: This do not look good. May be we should retreat.
Uncle Ben: I knew you are coward! Blame the day I promised my sister Martha to watch over you! Look, these assassins have their own vulnerabilities. They are especially weak against blade attacks, -30 resistance penalty. But probably the best way to get rid of them is to use mages. Because their 70% magic probability to hit is always 70%, even against these cunning assassins. Luckily they do not have much hit points. And villages can heal their poison.
John: Well, it is not so bad then.

And so on....
Last edited by Aldarisvet on December 14th, 2019, 7:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: And idea of generic tutorial campaign

Post by Mawmoocn »

Aldarisvet wrote: December 12th, 2019, 7:05 pmI cannot understand what you are speaking about. Guess you speaking about tutorial with Lisar and Konrad.
It’s about the first scenario tutorial, some weakness of the first scenario tutorial, the difference between “constricted (one way)” learning vs the real time application after learning with experience, which I implied that the knowledge in the current tutorial is quite limiting and probably dangerous to ignore, as “defence” (damage reduction) is more important than attack in this game.

I also try to incorporate what type of plot might be good to add which is a hidden/unknown/remote place either away or “hidden” part of Wesnoth.


I tried to compress because I thought it would be easier to read, I apologise for making it unreadable.

If you can tell me what went wrong, I’ll be able to explain the points you want to know.
Aldarisvet wrote: December 12th, 2019, 7:05 pmI am not suggest to replace that tutorial at all. That tutorial is about very basics of the game, how to move and attack units, it must be as it is.
I assume that the tutorial will be improve or extended, because tutorials should be easier to learn.

Personally, I’m inclined to think that it’ll be eventually replaced as it didn’t help me at all when I tried redoing it to learn better tactics.


“Attack” basics are useless to any player that knows how eat with their hands/spoon/fork/chopsticks/(insert preferred utensil) as it never imparts anything of real use on a real situational basis that doesn’t tell you that attacking is damned useless and your sometimes better off "skipping" turns (counterattack).

What’s the point of that? Worse, if you tried to play at Hard, you’ll most likely need to find ways to reduce damage taken while increasing damage output, which isn’t very straightforward to learn...

Dead units are basically lost lives organs.


Basically, I thought that part was unnecessary as your not teaching anything meaningful (my opinion) even if you try to retry the scenario, as many times as you can (I tried).

Aldarisvet wrote: December 12th, 2019, 7:05 pmFor example, if a player has chosen to play for dwarves, his adviser should tell him about weaknesses and advantages of his race and his enemy race on the specific map.
This is going to be a really long tutorial if you make it for every unit and every faction not including odd combinations that other mainline campaigns might do outside of what has been taught there. I’m overthinking this...

You also have to consider that most mainline scenario places the player on a disadvantageous position that either lacks terrain or gold.

Basically this is what I mean by team specific or unit specific as you plan to make tactical options for every faction there is.
Aldarisvet wrote: December 12th, 2019, 7:05 pmI am speaking about tactical tutorial.
The focus should be dealing with disadvantage and not just units, as it won’t apply for other special UMC and mainline campaigns/scenarios.

Basically Easy and Normal can be done without much thought but Hard isn’t the same....

Advancements play some part especially if the campaigns have unit specific requirements and the units you trained lack the needed potential to deal with these enemy reinforcements.

I assumed your idea was about setting new standards for better player integration on how to deal with situation A to situation B.
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Re: An idea of generic tutorial campaign

Post by Aldarisvet »

Well, you can see an example of dialog between a hero and adviser in my previous post.
It can mention any important tactical aspect actually. Would it be about terrain defence rate, resistances, movement restricts, alignment, traits, special abilities, about how to chose best unit to counter another unit, how to use terrain properly etc. Many would depend on the particular map.

The only restraint is that adviser cannot be a real interactive adviser. He cannot give real advices during the battle. He can say something in the turn 1 and in the turn 2, after it is would be 'possible to see' what enemy leader recruited.

The advantage of it being a humorous campaign is that in serious campaign heroes couldn't seriosuly discuss such things as '50% defence rate in the forest'. AOI or TTOTB pretends to be serious campaigns even they a positioned as campaigns for beginners. It would be stupid to discuss digits of game mechanics in serious camapaign. That because AOI or TTOTB coudnt become real good tactical educating campaigns even if there would be such intention.

But in humorous campain - you can say all as it is, even let heroes to discuss game mechanics and it woudnt look stupid. Well, in it you can even srcipt such a dialog as: when you put a loyalist unit to the swamp he could camplain that you left him vulnurable with 20% terrain defence rate.

And about a number of dialogs to write. Well, if we going to cover 6 basic factions (acutally from the beginning I meant multiplayer actions not races), so there are 6 factions and to cover all variation 'all vs all' it must be 6 scenarios in depth and totally 36 dialogs. Well, that would be too much, probably we can exclude some races (undead or drakes) and not to cover all possible encounters like enemies would be of the same faction that of a hero. So it would be 20-25 type of encounters.
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Re: An idea of generic tutorial campaign

Post by Caladbolg »

I don't like the idea of the tutorial being humorous because it'd be so out of place given the tone of the game. I also dislike the idea of a generic campaign with heroes of different races, as it goes completely against nemaara's suggestion that campaigns should have a good, cohesive storyline. Also, having special tutorials for various races seems like a lot of work for a tutorial.

HttT had some hints on how to use horsemen in the first scenarios on easy difficulty, and TSG also had some for its units. Why not do the same in other campaigns on easy? It'd effectively achieve the same thing as a tactical tutorial on a given race, but in the context of already existing campaigns. The only issue being that some races don't have a campaign yet, but there are plans to fix that.
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Re: An idea of generic tutorial campaign

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Caladbolg wrote: December 14th, 2019, 8:35 pm I don't like the idea of the tutorial being humorous because it'd be so out of place given the tone of the game. I also dislike the idea of a generic campaign with heroes of different races, as it goes completely against nemaara's suggestion that campaigns should have a good, cohesive storyline. Also, having special tutorials for various races seems like a lot of work for a tutorial.
Do you imply that current tutorial is something serious and has something with Wesnoth storyline?
Deflador teaching both Lisar and Conrad? How it even possible to happen?
What I am suggesting is something close to Tutorial section of the main menu rather than Campaign section.
And, if coming to this, do you really think that the whole Foolish heroes affair in the end of DiD is something serious? I am not imply somthing less serios than what is shown there.
Caladbolg wrote: December 14th, 2019, 8:35 pm HttT had some hints on how to use horsemen in the first scenarios on easy difficulty, and TSG also had some for its units. Why not do the same in other campaigns on easy? It'd effectively achieve the same thing as a tactical tutorial on a given race, but in the context of already existing campaigns. The only issue being that some races don't have a campaign yet, but there are plans to fix that.
What is now is HttT is far from being good tutorial. Some hints, it is nothing at all.
As I wrote, if you do not go into the root of things, to all that digits, then it would be too general anycase. A player could not even understand what it is all about (that resistances, terrain defences, from my experience it took quite a time before I understand that you have to pay attention into such things). I must admit, in the very beginning I passed several of Wesnoth campaigns not even understanding what that 4-6 digits mean. For me it was like damage is random between 4 and 6 (even now I do not remember which of them is damage and which of them is number of attacks, I mean what of them goes first, ah, seems damage goes first because Dragonguard has 40-1). I really passed several campaigns absolutely without knowing basics of game mechanics.

Of course a player could read game descriptions, but I barely can imagine a player who would begin with the game with reading documentation. It is boring.
And, it would be really impossible to make even something like what exists in HttT in other campaigns.
Becase in HttT Konrad is young and Delfador is actually his teacher in the storyline. Such circumstances would be impossible in other campaigns of that arc exactly because the arc is storyline driven. Do you really think that every campaign of HttT arc would begin with Adviser-Unior relationship? That would really look stupid.
As I understood, only HttT arc campaigns going to be of novice level. It would be stupid to make campaigns of every race just for them to be a tutorial for that race. So obviously there actually no such plans. There are no signs that new Wings of Victory is tutorial in any degree, what to say more.

The only thing that provide some tactical advices in the game for now is that notes in the main manu page. But they are too general.
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Re: An idea of generic tutorial campaign

Post by Mawmoocn »

The reason why I like generic storyline for tutorial campaign is because it helps you detach yourself when they die and it can work standalone without excess strings attached.

Basically the aim was to let the player learn that those heroes will not join you on the main campaign.


While creating a special plot could be great, it’s not realistic to expect a better plot would easily fit on changes between development and purging phase.

So until a lot of things are fleshed out, generic campaign plot for tutorial will probably help get things done.

Further improvements can be made instead of redoing everything.



Aldarisvet wrote: December 14th, 2019, 8:12 pm Would it be about terrain defence rate, resistances, movement restricts, alignment, traits, special abilities, about how to chose best unit to counter another unit, how to use terrain properly etc. Many would depend on the particular map.
These are quite too much to cover on a tutorial and micromanagement is best used after important things have been done. (It depends on the player.)

I agree that it depends on the map.
Aldarisvet wrote: December 14th, 2019, 8:12 pm The only restraint is that adviser cannot be a real interactive adviser. He cannot give real advices during the battle. He can say something in the turn 1 and in the turn 2, after it is would be 'possible to see' what enemy leader recruited.

You don’t need an interactive advisor, but you need to get the basics of how to deal damage while reducing damage.... I think it’s more complex than that, so it should be based on the consensus on what makes the game unnecessarily hard.
Aldarisvet wrote: December 14th, 2019, 8:12 pm The advantage of it being a humorous campaign is that in serious campaign heroes couldn't seriosuly discuss such things as '50% defence rate in the forest'.
“defence rate” is misleading (it doesn’t reduces damage when hit) but disregarding that point, position is quite important than terrain when attacking and “defence” on this game is only for special abilities and ZoC.


Humour is a double edged sword, and for a tutorial campaign, it may backfire on different languages with the risk of dry humour.

Aldarisvet wrote: December 14th, 2019, 8:12 pm Well, that would be too much, probably we can exclude some races (undead or drakes) and not to cover all possible encounters like enemies would be of the same faction that of a hero. So it would be 20-25 type of encounters.
The real problem is maps and how map designers use terrain.

Disregarding maps, we probably shouldn’t skimp out on units but I really think it’s too much if we avoid reusing previous maps designed for a faction and refuse to let a player pick on what faction to use and fight against.

If you can pick what you want to learn, it’ll cut down the time spent learning....
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Re: And idea of generic tutorial campaign

Post by Edwylm »

Aldarisvet wrote: December 12th, 2019, 7:05 pm
I see the whole situaltion in a different way.
Most of mainline campaigns simply sux.
Just one argument why they are sux, they repeat the same storyline cliches. One of the most crying cliche is that almost any campaign begins with that something evil attacks the homeland of a campaign's hero. As if authors do not have imagination to find a way to begin a first scenario by the different way than some stupid INVASION and defending sweet home by good boys against bad boys. A pity that this refers not only for maniline campaigs, but to most famous UMC too. This is a plague!!!
And AOI and ToTB is not an exception. Storylines of these campaigns is simply a sum of worst cliches. The other cliche of many campaigns is that the whole campaigns are about moving from point A to point B on the map, hunting, or opposite, retreating enemy. And so on, I could continue, but this topic is not for that.
A plague you say? I say not. It is not over used its merely common for its a trope you are ether on the offense or on the defense. Typically a offensive war is lot less justified in having good morels. So far there are no "evil sided mainline campaigns" as far as I know. However the "I was attacked" is used quite often however the context of each one differs in certain ways. (counting there are atleast 6 out of 15 mainline campaigns that uses your so called "cliche ")

tRoW and SotBE start off similar with being started defensive and running away. HttT we have the start as being attacked but claimed that he fully wasn't ready to start a rebellion so he had to flee. HttT could be different with the main characters assisting an ally/allies for war experience for his upcoming roll for rebellion then the queen would send an army to kill Konrad. This would make this a little bit more interesting but will it affect it overall story line? no not really.

However the point is you feel much more relatable and justified better being a defender for the following reasons. You were minding your own business and someone intrudes or does harm to what you hold dear. Not many people want to fight a war that they feel is pointless. If you feel they can be better give constructive criticism and suggestions to the respectful campaigns that you feel like need improvements. Insulting creators/community for lack of imagination is not positive remember most of these stories were created by other players/fans that eventually was decided to become mainline.


On a different note the tutorial is a tutorial most strategy games do not make them cannon. however if you want a mainline tutorial campaign your best bet is to use HttT as that storyline has almost every unit both playable and fighting against.
You don't need to play every race for a tutorial as that in itself would take to long to even play/learn. you just need narrative giving advice.
if you want a tutorial campaign that is independent then aim for the beginning of wasnoth "in this case before tRoW" for lore wise.
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Aldarisvet
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Re: And idea of generic tutorial campaign

Post by Aldarisvet »

Edwylm wrote: December 14th, 2019, 11:10 pm A plague you say? I say not. It is not over used its merely common for its a trope you are ether on the offense or on the defense. Typically a offensive war is lot less justified in having good morels. So far there are no "evil sided mainline campaigns" as far as I know. However the "I was attacked" is used quite often however the context of each one differs in certain ways. (counting there are atleast 6 out of 15 mainline campaigns that uses your so called "cliche ")
I forsaw such position because I was thinking about campaign creating for years.
So you say this game is about war, so a player can be either agressor or defender. Actually this is wrong, it is possible to create situations were conflict was inevitable and there is no clear side which to blame. But let us forget about it for now.
You say, I want to play on the good side, so let me be a defender, so you can declare - "it is not we, they started this, so they are bad guys!"

And now my position. A cliche that I am speaking about is that when a hero happily lived on his sweet home, then in the first scenario he was suddenly attacked by evil guys and the whole campaign is about fighting these evil guys with triumphal killing of main_bad_boy in the last scenario. If an author cannot create a reason for why the whole adventure begins other than main hero was driven away from his ordinary life because of some bad guys forced him to change his life, this author is using that worst cliche.

I assure you that there are countless ways to begin the story other than "bad guys attacked my home". Still most of mainline campaigns use that worst clische (even HttT despite it is good campaign in general, but since it was one of the first campaign it would be unfair to blame Dave for using that cliche, it is others who overused the same plotline to be blamed). But not all! As I remember UtbS begins with a catastrophe, not some invasion, SoTA begins with Ardonna running from the academy, SoF begins with some conflict with elves blocking the passage and demanding high toll, TtoT begins with dwarves starting an expedition to investigate what happened with other clan. So you see it is no problem to create alternative beginning than "I was living peacefully in my village before these evil guys attacked us".

Mind that any cliche is not something bad itself. It becomes bad if it is overused. This goes not only for storylines, but in fashion in clothes or in many other cases.
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Re: An idea of generic tutorial campaign

Post by Tad_Carlucci »

You don't need to go straight to the main confrontaion. You can spend some time developing the main characters.

Here's a couple ideas off the top of my head:

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You've hired on as a guard for a merchant's caravan heading to Weldyn. (Your qualifications are simply that you have a sword and a small bow, and can't afford to pay your way.) Along the way the caravan is attacked, you manage to save the civilians but the caravan master, all the drivers, horses and wagons are lost. You become the de-facto leader. The civilians are members of a noble family. Your reward upon reaching Weldyn is the command of a garrison. You get there to find it's under regular attack. ...

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You're an apprentice to the apothicary. You're rather infactuated with the boy who works for the blacksmith. During a festival the two of you sneak off to do whatever it is two such do when they finally get the chance. Unfortunately you soon stumble upon a half-starved orc, and things go badly. Your friend beats the orc off with an improvised club but is injured. You use what you've learned to bind his wounds. Returning to the village you find a couple buildings burning and a number of villagers dead, including the apothicary and smith. The survivng villagers give you two more boys with spears, some herbs foryou, the smith's hammer for your beau, and send you to take word of the raid to the garrison at Westin.

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