Scenario 17: The Sceptre of Fire

[lujo86]

Does this bug mean that the sceptre doesn't spawn? Because I've uncovered the whole map and couldn't find it anywhere Version 1.16.8.

If yes, is there a workaround?

firebug.jpg

Save file to troubleshoot?

Sure, where do I find it? It's the steam version.

[lujo86]

(1) What difficulty level and Wesnoth version have you played the scenario on?

1.16.2
Highest

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

1

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

10

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

It was unusually clumsy and awkward, at least compared to some of the dialogue in the scenarios surrounding it, which is generally a bit better than the stuff earlier in the campaign. Can't be helped without a decent rewrite/edit job.

(5) What were your major challenges in completing the scenario?

The first run had some kind of bug which made the sceptre not spawn, I'll upload a savegame when I figure out where they are.

On the second run I just missed the Sceptre and had to backtrack when I ran out of tunnels to explore. It really ought to stand out more visually.

Otherwise, there's no real challenge to these dwarven tunnels levels, since you've got dwarves on favorable terrain and you probably have loads of high-level mages (and healers) to back them up. Beating dwarves usually involves denying them favorable ground, and everything is favorable ground here. I just made 2 dwarf balls backed up by shydes and sylphs and rolled them around the tunnels grinding XP. Only danger were the lava and mispositioning against skirmishers.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

5 I guess, it's not unfun, but it's not very challenging.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

No idea. The feel of the map is fine, but dwarves on mostly-all-dwarven-home-pitch + flying mages are just never going to face an actual challenge.

I would certainly make the scepter art stand out more.

[ElvishMystical0]

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?

Versions 1.12 to 1.16 Easy and Medium. This feedback relates specifically to 1.16 Medium.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

This scenario averages out at a 6.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

Very clear - find the sceptre.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

It's getting better but it's still weak. Konrad still has no character and Delfador is getting weird as he seems to want to show off his psychic abilities. I don't get this 'it speaks to me' regarding the sceptre of fire. It's an inanimate object. Surely it would be better to say 'voices are telling me' or even 'my intuition is suggesting that it's' or even 'I believe it's in this direction'.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

Often by this stage in the campaign I'm playing catch up. It seems like the campaign is designed to assume that you're making progress consistently throughout the campaign with better and better armies and levelled units. I often don't have that much gold so 300 gold helps and I don't have many level 3 units as I'm still trying to get more level 2 units.

The map is randomly spawned and many of the challenges come from having enemies in awkward terrain. However usually I can find a work round.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

I give this a 6. I would give this more points if I were a better player and had more high level units but usually I'm more focussed on levelling up units and trying to keep all my level 2 units alive. Some are getting closer to level 3 and losing one due to RNG is usually frustrating. It's also a big cave scenario and I'm not a fan of cave scenarios. I see them as a chore which needs to be dealt with.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

The storyline needs work. The basic storyline is fine, and I get the feeling that more editing and revision is needed in certain scenarios. A few years ago I considered making an independent film based on Wesnoth but it fell apart due to the practicalities to figuring out how to portray Goblin Riders in a movie. Maybe it would work better as a cartoon or animation.

However.... other than that no suggestions.

[lhybrideur]

Totally unrelated but I see Goblin Riders as smaller version of the Warg riders

[Orek]

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
(6) 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?
(8) How much gold did you have at the start of the scenario?
(9) About how many higher level units did you have in your recall list? Don't list them out.

(1) Challenging (=Champion=Hardest) in 1.14.17 on permadeath
(2) 4 (16th most difficult = 8th easiest)
... [Difficult] 2, 16, 14, 4, 9, 6, 5b, 10, 13, 12, 23, 8, 7, 3, 15, 17, 19c, 22, 1, 20b, 11, 24, 18 [Easy]
(3) Clear
(4) Clear and interesting enough
(5) Randomly generated map made it difficult to plan things ahead of time.
(6) 2 (21st most fun = 3rd most boring)
... [Fun] 2, 1, 6, 9, 5b, 4, 16, 15, 23, 3, 12, 14, 10, 24, 13, 8, 7, 19c, 20b, 11, 17, 22, 18 [Boring]
(7) None
(8) 500, 523, 541 for Run 1~3
(9) For Run 1~3,
... Lvl 4: 2, 1, 3
... Lvl 3: 17, 17, 12
... Lvl 2: 16, 20, 13

YouTube Link: Run 1 Run 2 Run 3
Walkthrough: HttT walkthrough (hardest, permadeath, v1.14.17) + General campaign guides (Replays for all scenarios can be downloaded from here.)

[Orek]

When Konrad spawns at the very bottom of the map (y-coordinate = 68), 1 or 3 castle hexes are outside the map boundary. As a result, only 5 or 3 units can be recruited/recalled per turn. Konrad's x-coordinate determines the number of available castle hexes (5 if odd, 3 if even). Although this situation happens very rarely, this kind of map generation is probably not intended, so I have made a hotfix for this issue. The following code is inserted for the prestart event below the line " {CLEAR_VARIABLE adjacent_to_starting_loc}" in the default scenario file. For the time being, this hotfix should work. However, because I am new to WML, or any programming language for that matter, I am sure that more experienced people can come up with much better codes to fix this problem.

Code: Select all

        [store_locations]
            [and]
                [filter]
                    id=Konrad
                [/filter]

                radius=0

                x=1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,29,31,33,35,37,39,41,43,45,47

                [not]
                    y=1-67
                [/not]
            [/and]

            variable=starting_loc_odd
        [/store_locations]

        [foreach]
            array=starting_loc_odd
            [do]
                [terrain]
                    x,y=$this_item.x,"$($this_item.y - 2)"
                    terrain=Cud
                [/terrain]
            [/do]
        [/foreach]

        {CLEAR_VARIABLE starting_loc_odd}

        [store_locations]
            [and]
                [filter]
                    id=Konrad
                [/filter]

                radius=0

                x=2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22,24,26,28,30,32,34,36,38,40,42,44,46,48

                [not]
                    y=1-67
                [/not]
            [/and]

            variable=starting_loc_even
        [/store_locations]

        [foreach]
            array=starting_loc_even
            [do]
                [terrain]
                    x,y=$this_item.x,"$($this_item.y - 2)"
                    terrain=Cud
                [/terrain]
                [terrain]
                    x,y="$($this_item.x - 1)","$($this_item.y - 1)"
                    terrain=Cud
                [/terrain]
                [terrain]
                    x,y="$($this_item.x + 1)","$($this_item.y - 1)"
                    terrain=Cud
                [/terrain]
            [/do]
        [/foreach]

        {CLEAR_VARIABLE starting_loc_even}

Current default scenario file, hotfix scenario file, and turn 1 game files for all 4 pictures above are attached below.
All of these are tested in version 1.16.10, but nothing should be different for all of the recent stable and development versions as well.