Scenario Review: DiD 4 - Beginning of the Revenge

Feedback for the mainline campaign Descent into Darkness.

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Lord-Knightmare
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Re: Scenario Review: DiD 4 - Beginning of the Revenge

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

WealthyJester98 wrote: August 3rd, 2022, 9:45 pm I'm playing on the last official version (1.16) and after finishing the fourth scenario, I find it laughably easy. I'm playing on medium difficulty and I've realised that all of the orcish leaders so far have started with very minimal gold (30-40 each) while I have 200-300. I remember this campaign being much harder in the earlier patches and it is definitely one of my favourites. Is this correct or is there some kind of a bug?
This campaign was reworked during the 1.15.x to 1.16.x cycle. It's somewhat challenging on the hardest difficulty though.
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mal_shubertal
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Re: Scenario Review: DiD 4 - Beginning of the Revenge

Post by mal_shubertal »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.16.6 Summoner (Challenging)
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8. That turn limit is TIGHT.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
VERY
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
I like it. Some nice character development for Malin, more 'descent', him starting to realize that his motivations for fighting the orcs are becoming more about 'enmity' than his original noble motive to defend Parthyn, although like a true dramatic tragedy he doesn't realize the significance of this shift until it's too late.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
time limit. Holding the line on your side of the frozen lake lets you keep most of your units alive and farm xp, but you have to have your 'breakout' early enough to reach the signpost or kill both leaders, which took MUCH longer than I expected.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8. I played this years ago, when the dominant strategies involved multiple high level ghost assassination squads, and now that scenario 3 is different you have to depend on the skeletal units much more. Figuring out how to use the ice to your advantage and take out the very dangerous units like goblin pillagers with minimal losses was an interesting challenge.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I like it as is. Skeletons dying when they fall through the ice was counterintuitive since they have Submerge, but not that big of a deal once I got used to it.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
I had to restart a few times because I just got worn down by the lack of healers and low number of villages, and had to manage my xp better to heal units by leveling. I had to restart once because I just ran out of time and went back to have Malin start his run for the signpost a little earlier.
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JL42
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Re: Scenario Review: DiD 4 - Beginning of the Revenge

Post by JL42 »

(scenario name has apparently changed; now "Spring of Reprisal")
What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
v. 1.16.10
Summoner / Challenging
How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8
How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Very clear.
How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Solid continuation of the story, as Malin starts to embrace his desire for vengeance against the world's wrongdoers.
What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
This is a fascinating and challenging map. The smiley-ice mechanic is a lot of fun and can make it easier to deal with the steady stream of enemies, but it's also really easy to get bottlenecked there and run out of time. While I really wanted to use the ice to maximum advantage, I found that it was necessary to just rush through that area as quickly as possible to press the attack and make it to the north before time runs out. Which isn't easy, because the enemies can be quite dangerous, and there are a lot of them. Overall it's solidly hard, but doable.
How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7
What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
It really doesn't make sense that my submersible skeletons get "mired in the mud," and thus somehow die, when falling from the ice into the water. Especially since the same thing doesn't happen when you move them into the same spot when the ice is already gone. Changing this to let skeletons survive the broken ice might make the scenario slightly easier and more enjoyable, as well as more logical.

There's a skeleton on the map up in the northwest that gives a message, "someone was pushed off from here," if you move close by. But it doesn't seem that you can raise this skeleton, or do anything else with it, and overall it's just confusing. Probably best to remove.

I think the "special objective" of the book at 24.6 should be labeled or explained in some way.

---------------
About the Overall Campaign:

I was a bit conflicted about how to rate this campaign, because it has some elements that are just completely epically awesome, but other elements that are still glitchy and frustrating. The best parts are the overall story with its nuance and moral complexity, the final scenario concept, and the unique leveling system. A lot of the maps seem to have improved since the last time I played, with more interesting terrain and tactics and new "special objectives"; those changes seem generally great. On the downside though, the implementation of the leveling system has some confusing and frustrating aspects, some of the writing is not up to the story's overall standards, and there are numerous minor glitches, poorly placed objectives, confusing descriptions and events, confusing map clutter, etc. To avoid repetition I'll put the details of leveling issues etc. into the last scenario thread. Overall I'm going to give the campaign 5 out of 5 stars, because I think its awesomeness outweighs the lingering problems. But, it could definitely still benefit from patching up in places.
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