Scenario 11: Crosswind

[Content Feedback]

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
(3) What did you think about the dialog and story?
(4) What were the major challenges you faced?
(5) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
(6) What suggestions do you have to make it more fun?

[Sandsculpture]

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

1.18.0, Dominant (Hard), with biased RNG

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

5. Use Drake Arbiters.

(3) What did you think about the dialog and story?

Clear.

(4) What were the major challenges you faced?

No.

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

6.

(6) What suggestions do you have to make it more fun?

No. Maybe Karron's main force should have more L2 & L3 units.
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[SpenceLack]

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

Easy. v1.18. I should note that my version of "easy" has two self-imposed "ironman" rules: #1 No save-scumming, you roll with the RNG no matter how unlucky you are. #2 If you are defeated, the whole campaign is over and it's back to the first level.

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

4.

(3) What did you think about the dialog and story?

Overall, I liked the story of WoF. Karron was not your typical antagonist, you can sympathize with her on some level, and it fits that of all the Wesnoth campaigns I think she’s the only final villain to actually survive her campaign.

(4) What were the major challenges you faced?

Karron’s ambushes. Normally I don’t like tomato surprises, but the player was explicitly warned about these so it’s fine.

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

7.

(6) What suggestions do you have to make it more fun?

It seems there were a few loose ends in the plot:

Who was the Nova guy and what was he trying to hide?
Who was the bad guy the elvish princess was corresponding with?
Whatever happened to that flight of soon-to-be rogues that showed up on level 2? They threatened us then flew off, never to be seen again.

The final tablet that grants XP can only be read by a clasher, but that location is so far out of the way that slow-moving clashers will have trouble reaching it. I suspect most players will reach Karron first. Anyways, these are just minor quibbles.

Overall, I think this is one of the best Wesnoth official campaigns. There’s a ton of unit variety for both players and opponents, lots of cool tactical challenges to keep things fresh, and an interesting story. Thanks devs for a fun campaign!

[fredbobsmith2]

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on? Hard 1.18.4

Overall I feel the difficulty of this campaign isn't particularly well balanced, but I realize this is partially due to my adopting the mindset of other campaigns. Relative to other campaigns, building a recall list here is really not important, and so losses of non-essential units is expected. That said, there are many scenarios where the low defense of drakes makes fighting not very strategic, and potentially very difficult based on enemy recruitment and luck

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10) 10, but 6 with luck

(3) What did you think about the dialog and story? Excellent

I think the story for this campaign is excellent, adds alot to the lore of drakes, and also manages to have a decent character dynamic built over its short length. There could be even more dialog but I realize some people won't like this. Regardless, one of the best points of this campaign.

(4) What were the major challenges you faced?
I've tried playing this scenario the "proper" way, but even on normal I found fighting off the waves of drakes and recruits quite difficult. Karron simply has an enormous gold advantage, even with the player initially holding all the villages. I didn't try to fight her fairly I could see it being too difficult, as I ended up having to fight the glider wing with just a few recruits, and the burners hadn't even shown up yet. I can't imagine how I'd win if Karron started recruiting too, on top of her starting units. Ultimately I recruited/recalled only Sky drakes and gliders in the first round, using my intendants to push through Karron's starting units, and having the gliders and the extra units from the villages surround Karron.

Overall I felt this campaign, as probably an introduction to drakes for many players, could have its maps reviewed. The first scenario helps the player really get a feel for the drakes' strengths, but after that you are really just stuck trying to overcome their weaknesses, while at a gold disadvantage. Having loyal starting units really helps but I feel it's a bit of a crutch in this campaign, in ways that it isn't always in others.

(5) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10) 3, maybe it would've been more fun to just try to fight her fairly, but I just didn't see how to overcome a 2x gold advantage.

Overall, despite using a neat faction, this campaign is somehow... not that fun. I already mentioned the issue with the maps and gold. Plus there are many levels where you don't really recruit, just fly around and kill infinitely spawning enemies. And finally, the full recall cost really makes building exp a less rewarding activity than in other campaigns.

(6) What suggestions do you have to make it more fun? Less reinforcements? Less gold?

I think just making more of the campaign "normal" (20g recall, turn limits) might be better than the current design direction.

[SanDonk]

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Hard, 1.18.4.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8

(3) What did you think about the dialog and story?
The end baffled me. I think the reconciliation should be better explained. Maybe it is just my slow and defensive playstyle (including abandonment of the keep), which allowed for massive recruitment, but Karron created a massive civil war, which massacred around 120 drakes, which is about triple of the losses encountered by the drake race (including Karron's forces as your ally in previous scenarios) thorough the whole campaign... at least from the player perspective, what we had as playable. And yet the previous losses are framed as having nearly annihilating effect on the drake race (and forcing them to take refuge in different nesting place). I think, it should be at least addressed somehow, Gorlak should be at least a little bit angry, not necessarily wanting to kill her, but at least start the dialogue with some sort of reproaches ("do you see, what you have done? have you gone crazy?") and not call her "friend". How he can trust her after such bloodshed? Maybe it might be addressed, that she is exiled also (or primarily due to?) lack of trust ("you are a capable leader and we cannot afford to lose you, but we cannot trust you anymore and cannot be on one continent, let's go to the Green Island and form your own colony").
If it does not fit the lore and drake culture, then the culture and way of thinking should be addressed, so it is understandable.

(4) What were the major challenges you faced?
Huge and huge waves of enemies from all sides, especially the Sky and Fire caste. I loved that! The most critical moment came, when Karron started recruiting lvl2 saurians who used cold attacks and the reach my keep. I had to abandon it and retreat over the river the (around turn 15) and take a stand there postponing the fight for morning (which locked me there for some further 10 turns unable to break her waves and return to my keep, while she had a comfortable income of about 40 per turn (due to holding all villages).
Recruitment strategy: Recalling 1 Flameheart for leadership and recruiting solely Arbiters (in my previous attempts I tried to recruit 2-3 oracles, but it did not work as I was unable to keep them alive due to their low HP). The Flameheart was sacrificed in tanking damage at a point, when all my Arbiters were either dead or evolved to lvl 3. In total I lost about 15 units and Karron about 110. That is a final fight, how it should be!

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

(6) What suggestions do you have to make it more fun?
Except for the dialogue nothing.