Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit
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Re: Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit
(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Spearman (Challenging), 1.17.25
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5, as far as combat
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
2
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
The story was clear and interesting.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The spider room is silly but as long as you don't lose an important unit to it (which I didn't) it's no big deal. By far the biggest challenge was figuring out how to beat Malifor. Without having one of the white mages die on accident, there's no way to know that they're the solution.
What happened for me was that I got to the final room, swarmed Malifor with Highwaymen, and... all the attacks missed. I checked statistics and saw that the attacks all force missed. I hadn't cleared the southeastern corridor, so I assumed the solution might be somewhere in there. After clearing that area, I found a room of holy water. Ah, that must be the solution. I get all the units back up to the final room, and the attacks miss again. Now I try going into the spider room to see if there was anything useful there, and in the process I accidentally get a white mage killed. Problem is:
Realizing I was probably not going to beat the scenario before my gold went negative, I flooded the naga room with Thugs, in case I needed them. That meant the closest tile to Tallin was the water area over there, past an impassable tile (the tile two spaces below the white mage in the picture is marked impassable). However, I didn't know how the respawn ability worked, and assumed the point of spawning the mage there was to remove them from the scenario as a smaller punishment for letting them die. This meant I didn't consider that they could infinitely respawn (and while the white mages being able to kill the lich was plausible, I didn't see how they could do enough damage without dying).
After clearing out the spiders and finding nothing there, the next thing I considered was that the Rod of Justice was necessary to kill Malifor. I couldn't risk losing Tallin though, so I slowly earned enough EXP from the units Malifor bought every now and then to level up after attacking Malifor. I attack and get the first piece of dialogue indicating an attack won't work. Looking at the WML, a message occurs for a blade attack and a pierce attack, but not for an impact attack or an arcane attack (from holy water) for some reason (and my army was all impact attacks against undead). Finally I give up and look up the solution, and then win the scenario.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4, extremely flawed, but still reasonably interesting.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Make it more clear what to do. I think I got unlucky with a white mage spawning in an inaccessible area but it seems like you could never lose a white mage and have no idea what's going on.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Lost the druid on an early first attempt and decided to restart.
Spearman (Challenging), 1.17.25
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5, as far as combat
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
2
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
The story was clear and interesting.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The spider room is silly but as long as you don't lose an important unit to it (which I didn't) it's no big deal. By far the biggest challenge was figuring out how to beat Malifor. Without having one of the white mages die on accident, there's no way to know that they're the solution.
What happened for me was that I got to the final room, swarmed Malifor with Highwaymen, and... all the attacks missed. I checked statistics and saw that the attacks all force missed. I hadn't cleared the southeastern corridor, so I assumed the solution might be somewhere in there. After clearing that area, I found a room of holy water. Ah, that must be the solution. I get all the units back up to the final room, and the attacks miss again. Now I try going into the spider room to see if there was anything useful there, and in the process I accidentally get a white mage killed. Problem is:
Realizing I was probably not going to beat the scenario before my gold went negative, I flooded the naga room with Thugs, in case I needed them. That meant the closest tile to Tallin was the water area over there, past an impassable tile (the tile two spaces below the white mage in the picture is marked impassable). However, I didn't know how the respawn ability worked, and assumed the point of spawning the mage there was to remove them from the scenario as a smaller punishment for letting them die. This meant I didn't consider that they could infinitely respawn (and while the white mages being able to kill the lich was plausible, I didn't see how they could do enough damage without dying).
After clearing out the spiders and finding nothing there, the next thing I considered was that the Rod of Justice was necessary to kill Malifor. I couldn't risk losing Tallin though, so I slowly earned enough EXP from the units Malifor bought every now and then to level up after attacking Malifor. I attack and get the first piece of dialogue indicating an attack won't work. Looking at the WML, a message occurs for a blade attack and a pierce attack, but not for an impact attack or an arcane attack (from holy water) for some reason (and my army was all impact attacks against undead). Finally I give up and look up the solution, and then win the scenario.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4, extremely flawed, but still reasonably interesting.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Make it more clear what to do. I think I got unlucky with a white mage spawning in an inaccessible area but it seems like you could never lose a white mage and have no idea what's going on.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Lost the druid on an early first attempt and decided to restart.
Re: Scenario Review: NR 5 - The Pursuit
Is there still holy water as mentioned in the walkthrough? I played Wesnoth 1.16.9 and didn't find any holy water after clearing the tunnel. It seemed like there maybe was an inaccessible chamber though (just the outline behind the wall) - it is possible that I failed to trigger some event to open it?
If holy water is no longer there, how should I suggest an update to the walkthrough?
As for the questions,
(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Spearman
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
If I hadn't read the walkthrough, it would be really difficult, because I would trigger all the tunnels at once ("be sure to explore"!) and would not be clear on how to avoid that. I'd also explore them in "wrong order"
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
I totally agree with the poster above that it's very unclear that Malifor has to be attacked with the white mages.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
I must admit immortal white mages are fun. (But weird.)
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
First I ran with Tallin to the keep but didn't reach the middle and was killed by Revenants. Ooops, my bad.
Then I triggered all tunnels at once. Ooops. Then I read the walkthrough.
Then I failed to push down the jail tunnel without many deaths. Better luck (or skill? no, I think luck was involved) on second attempt.
(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?
Provide more guidance to the player. Make it clear that undead will start pouring from a tunnel once you enter it.
At the very start, even just reading the sign-posts to several tunnels will trigger undead. It should be possible to read them without triggering guards (and without a-priori knowledge that you need to do it by with a slow unit). Perhaps also give more of a hint that it's a good idea to start with the dungeon - venturing into other tunnels without healers is... painful.
Spider room is nonsense which will just have you reload if you lose a valuable unit. If you have to have a death trap make it so that it also gives a reward, like, perhaps make it possible to re-open it, kill the spiders and get an artifact.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
I restarted several times as described in (5).
If holy water is no longer there, how should I suggest an update to the walkthrough?
As for the questions,
(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Spearman
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
If I hadn't read the walkthrough, it would be really difficult, because I would trigger all the tunnels at once ("be sure to explore"!) and would not be clear on how to avoid that. I'd also explore them in "wrong order"
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
I totally agree with the poster above that it's very unclear that Malifor has to be attacked with the white mages.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
I must admit immortal white mages are fun. (But weird.)
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
First I ran with Tallin to the keep but didn't reach the middle and was killed by Revenants. Ooops, my bad.
Then I triggered all tunnels at once. Ooops. Then I read the walkthrough.
Then I failed to push down the jail tunnel without many deaths. Better luck (or skill? no, I think luck was involved) on second attempt.
(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?
Provide more guidance to the player. Make it clear that undead will start pouring from a tunnel once you enter it.
At the very start, even just reading the sign-posts to several tunnels will trigger undead. It should be possible to read them without triggering guards (and without a-priori knowledge that you need to do it by with a slow unit). Perhaps also give more of a hint that it's a good idea to start with the dungeon - venturing into other tunnels without healers is... painful.
Spider room is nonsense which will just have you reload if you lose a valuable unit. If you have to have a death trap make it so that it also gives a reward, like, perhaps make it possible to re-open it, kill the spiders and get an artifact.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
I restarted several times as described in (5).