Scenario 1: The Elves Besieged

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mal_shubertal
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Re: Scenario 1: The Elves Besieged

Post by mal_shubertal »

(1) What difficulty level and Wesnoth version have you played the scenario on?
1.16.2 Hard
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10) [1]
3. Simple to just survive, a bit complicated to try to get a lot of xp.
(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. Classic high fantasy stuff, evil queen takes out good king by treachery, secret heir has to save the day.
(5) What were your major challenges in completing the scenario?
Getting a reasonable amount of xp out of it. Your allies will steal your kills all the time, and delfador does SO much damage that sometimes he will just kill whatever unit you're trying to soften up.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
5. I've played this campaign several times in the past, though, so I kinda play this scenario on autopilot at this point.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
seems fine to me.
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Re: Scenario 1: The Elves Besieged

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

SO much damage that sometimes he will just kill whatever unit you're trying to soften up.
I sort of wanted Delfador getting some XP sharing ability for this kill-stealing and XP hoarding so that he can transfer it to units who need it more such as mages/Shamans/Archers/Konrad.
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lujo86
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Re: Scenario 1: The Elves Besieged

Post by lujo86 »

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

1.16.8
Lord (Challenging)

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

Before I remembered that the AI chases after Delfador instead of the main character feller, pretty dicey. Reasonably challenging.

After I realized the AI chases after Delfador I managed to clear pretty much every Orc unit off the map while the main dude just strolled to the exit no probs. The fact that the elves totally obliterated the orcs made the ending hilarious because there was nothing to run away from anymore :lol:

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

100% clear.

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

Clear fully. Interesting... eh, really not the target audience.

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

- Not knowing the AI goes after Delfador I ended up needing to get the main guy through a line of dangerous troops, while trying to have at last something survive and level up (managed to level up a shaman).
- After understanding that the AI chases after Delfador, there was no challenge to meeting the stated objectives at all.

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

Um, not terribly fun because it's a bit of an extended cutscene and everything playing out takes a while, but once you figure out that you can manipulate the AI and make it a game of how many units can you level up you do get some agency so it becomes a bit more engaging.

The fact that you can, without even trying too hard, get the Elves to completely obliterate all the orcs is at the same time randomly fun, but kicks the story in the backside so hard it makes you feel sorry for it even if you didn't care much for the story.

So I guess -1 if I were to take it seriously, and a 5 if I take it as oddly amusing unintentional satire.

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

I really, honestly, don't think I'm the right person to suggest anything about this level, but if I were actually asked, I'd really just ditch this level entirely and make it a cutscene. I mean, I played the game multiple times before and the level's been there forever, and I'm used to it and can find my fun in it, and I guess someone really cared and went to the trouble to make it... but god is it wrong on every possible imaginable level game design wise and storytelling wise, I can't even... :lol: In a sense it's brave, because it ticks off so many "don'ts". Off the top of my head:

- Starts the player off with an invincible NPC
- Cliche chosen one story
- Cliche Gandalf clone, also cliche Gandalf clone clone name for the cliche Gandalf clone
- Cliche Gandalf clone steals XP from other units, strength of enemy units makes inexperienced player think using cliche Gandalf clone is how you're supposed to play
- Player has barely any agency in a long level, you sit there while the computer goes through a glorified "loading campaign" animation
- You have to replay it every time you'd want to restart the campaign, campaign has bottleneck maps that make you want to restart it a few times to build up a different troop composition
- Starts you off with elves being pushed hard into your face while the rest of the campaign is basically a series of "you need these non-elf units to get past this point", giving you a misleading impression about what's ahead
- If played with foreknowledge ends in a hilarious story-negating way of elves just beating the orcs up like it's nothing

and yet I'm still here playing the game for the Xth time despite always rolling my eyes at all this. There's just no improving this level, it's too wrong, but I guess it shows that the game is catchy and great enough that not even this much fail can stop even someone who sees nothing positive in that level from still enjoying the game and replaying it.

EDIT: Maybe constructive suggestion would be to just tone down Delfador a bit. Like not a ton, just a bit. Maybe not even his HP, but his attacks, the damage or the power of them or smth. I think that *would* improve this level.
EDIT2: Also an option to just skip this level foregoing any XP.
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Re: Scenario 1: The Elves Besieged

Post by Helmet »

lujo86 wrote: January 31st, 2023, 3:21 pm... but god is it wrong on every possible imaginable level game design wise and storytelling wise, I can't even... :lol: In a sense it's brave, because it ticks off so many "don'ts". Off the top of my head:
C'mon, tell us how you really feel. :)

I don't remember anything off-putting about scenario 1, but your critique has me thinking about replaying it, ha ha. You think the scenario should be replaced by a cut-scene? Oh my goodness. That is the harshest critique I've ever read about a mainline Wesnoth scenario.

Dude, you should review movies on YouTube. I bet your movie criticisms would be highly entertaining. <Not sarcasm!>
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Re: Scenario 1: The Elves Besieged

Post by lujo86 »

Helmet wrote: January 31st, 2023, 3:41 pm
lujo86 wrote: January 31st, 2023, 3:21 pm... but god is it wrong on every possible imaginable level game design wise and storytelling wise, I can't even... :lol: In a sense it's brave, because it ticks off so many "don'ts". Off the top of my head:
C'mon, tell us how you really feel. :)

I don't remember anything off-putting about scenario 1, but your critique has me thinking about replaying it, ha ha. You think the scenario should be replaced by a cut-scene? Oh my goodness. That is the harshest critique I've ever read about a mainline Wesnoth scenario.

Dude, you should review movies on YouTube. I bet your movie criticisms would be highly entertaining. <Not sarcasm!>
The funny thing is that I don't actually mean any of this in a mean way. Like, I played the damned thing a lot of times over the years, it's just wrong on so many levels and I never not think that. Never stopped me from enjoying the game or anything, but like, hey, if anyone wanted my honest opinon, there it is :shrug:

I find it sort of morbidly fascinating because you don't often see this much "wrong" in one place. Because anywhere where you have an editor or oversight or something you get told to not do these things. That level is a weird example where you've got a rather good, even great, game, but nobody who was working on it was told not to do all these things so they did them. And they're every bit as unintentionally hilarious as people who'd tell you not to do them would fear they'd be, except they're gloriously there and the game's somehow great enough that you go wth... Except when the technical parts get annoying on your third restart and you just wish you could skip the thing.

EDIT: Keep in mind that I just replayed several other campaigns and so far Httt is the only one that made me go and post feedback. So it's not like I don't like the game or anything. And it's also a bit of "years of this always being like this with this campaign and getting flashbacks of this suckign every time" coming out in big textwalls :lol:
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Re: Scenario 1: The Elves Besieged

Post by Helmet »

lujo86 wrote: January 31st, 2023, 3:55 pmI find it sort of morbidly fascinating because you don't often see this much "wrong" in one place.
Ha ha, you're killing me.

Maybe the first scenario would work better as 2 or 3 smaller scenarios? I wish I remembered the scenario better. I only played it once.
lujo86 wrote: January 31st, 2023, 3:21 pm...Keep in mind that I just replayed several other campaigns and so far Httt is the only one that made me go and post feedback. So it's not like I don't like the game or anything. And it's also a bit of "years of this always being like this with this campaign and getting flashbacks of this suckign every time" coming out in big textwalls :lol:
I like it, too. I'm scared to replay it because winning was so hard.

It's okay to criticize the things we care about, in my opinion. The way you phrase your thoughts, though...wow. :lol:
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Re: Scenario 1: The Elves Besieged

Post by lujo86 »

Helmet wrote: January 31st, 2023, 4:22 pmMaybe the first scenario would work better as 2 or 3 smaller scenarios? I wish I remembered the scenario better. I only played it once.
The level is really, honestly just an elaborate cutscene, that you get some agency in once you try to game it to pull some survivors with some XP out... but since Delfador is messed-up powerful, you can easily turn the tide of the whole thing. And once you realize that the AI will ignore the guy who has to get to the exit, it becomes comical.

I mean, it *does* teach you that there is such a thing as cannon fodder troops and that you have to keep the important peices alive and so on and so forth, but it honestly feels like someone was just messing around with the engine, got carried away, and what he made was not a great intro level, but a spectacular and pretty unwieldly cutscene.

Just toning Delfador down a wee bit, and/or adding the option to skip the level like you would a cutscene would really be fair. It's kinda too unique to actually scrap, in all it's glorious messed-upness.
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Re: Scenario 1: The Elves Besieged

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lujo86 wrote: January 31st, 2023, 4:50 pm It's kinda too unique to actually scrap, in all it's glorious messed-upness.
"Glorious messed-upness." Heh. :)

My curiosity got the best of me and I replayed the scenario.

Note that I played on easy mode, I didn't enter my leader or Delfador in a battle, and I didn't try to gain a lot of XP. I did what I usually do when I've been told to hurry to a signpost: I hurried to the signpost. My leader got there on turn 9 of 16.

On the way to the signpost I lost 1 unit and killed 2 enemy units, but I probably could've avoided encountering any enemy units had I felt like it.

On the turn I reached the signpost, the bad guys were down to 7 units while the good guys numbered 37. If I had dilly-dallied a couple turns, the ai-controlled elves probably would've killed the last remaining orcs.

The scenario took 25 minutes because the ai had so many units to move.

The village being destroyed was cool.

The scenario has elements that are cutscene-like, but on-the-whole it doesn't quite feel like a cutscene to me. It feels like a deception, designed to trick the player into thinking, "Gosh, I will kick this campaign's butt!" After all, the enemy is weak, the objective is easy, and my ai-controlled allies are unstoppable.

The scenario (intentionally?) creates the impression that the remaining campaign will be a cakewalk. But I've played the campaign; I know better. The campaign will eventually grind your bones into flour, make a loaf of bread from the flour, and feed the bread to your chattering skull.
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Re: Scenario 1: The Elves Besieged

Post by lujo86 »

Helmet wrote: January 31st, 2023, 6:42 pmThe scenario took 25 minutes because the ai had so many units to move.
You don't say? :lol:

Seriously, the gameplay of the thing is more or less click the blue guy, click signpost, click the brown guy, click away from everything else. I think you could likely pull it off without recruiting other units, even.

What makes it a cutscene rather than a scenario is that even though the gameplay required to complete the level is two clicks, more or less, you still have to sit there for 25 minutes watching a...well, literally a cutscene of an epic battle rendered in Wesnoth engine.

If you try to find more gameplay to it, as in try to snag some xp, even longer. Which I wouldn't even mind here and there, there's some fun in grind and I never seen a cutscene I can sorta mess with while it's going on so it's kinda unique, but I'd still love to be able to literally skip the thing.
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Re: Scenario 1: The Elves Besieged

Post by beetlenaut »

lujo86 wrote: January 31st, 2023, 7:27 pm you still have to sit there for 25 minutes
You guys know about the "Skip AI moves" option, right? You can skip combat as well with the Advanced options.
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Re: Scenario 1: The Elves Besieged

Post by lujo86 »

beetlenaut wrote: January 31st, 2023, 7:32 pm
lujo86 wrote: January 31st, 2023, 7:27 pm you still have to sit there for 25 minutes
You guys know about the "Skip AI moves" option, right? You can skip combat as well with the Advanced options.
Huh, never thought of it. Thanks!

Still, I never thought of it because otherwise keeping track of what the AI does is meaningful, and even here depending on where you sent Delfador he could die, but, you know, the observation that the scenario is a longish short movie that you have to sit through one way or another every time you start the campaign I think might be worth a thought.
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Re: Scenario 1: The Elves Besieged

Post by Helmet »

beetlenaut wrote: January 31st, 2023, 7:32 pm You guys know about the "Skip AI moves" option, right?
Skipping the AI moves is for chumps. When I eventually lose while playing Wesnoth, at least I know that it took the computer a long time to do it. ;)
lujo86 wrote: January 31st, 2023, 7:40 pm ...the observation that the scenario is a longish short movie that you have to sit through one way or another every time you start the campaign I think might be worth a thought.
Yeh, scenario 1 is like watching a Marvel super-hero movie. In the beginning of those movies, you have to sit through all those comic book pages flipping and flipping. Only, in this case, the flipping goes on for about a half-hour.
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Re: Scenario 1: The Elves Besieged

Post by egallager »

Well one idea that is often brought up on the Wesnoth Discord server is giving Delfador Garak's "Teaching" ability from UtBS, which would make players think a little bit harder about where to put him in order to maximize XP spreading
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Re: Scenario 1: The Elves Besieged

Post by beetlenaut »

egallager wrote: January 31st, 2023, 10:01 pm giving Delfador Garak's "Teaching" ability
Delfador can get huge amounts of XP, so that would make it trivial to level up side 1 units. That would be quite appropriate for Easy, but not the higher difficulty levels.
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Re: Scenario 1: The Elves Besieged

Post by lujo86 »

beetlenaut wrote: January 31st, 2023, 10:23 pm
egallager wrote: January 31st, 2023, 10:01 pm giving Delfador Garak's "Teaching" ability
Delfador can get huge amounts of XP, so that would make it trivial to level up side 1 units. That would be quite appropriate for Easy, but not the higher difficulty levels.
Agreed with this not being a good idea.

Reason I figure Delfador is just a small bit too strong is that he's strong enough to delete anything with one click. The way the thing plays out on a proper difficulty level is that it only looks like the orcs have much of an advantage over the elves, but they don't. The major advantage is the lvl 3 units. If you reinforce the Elves with your units - and that's an easy way to draw all the orcs away from chasing the main guy - then Delfador removes that advantage easily, and the elves just turn the tables on the orcs.

It's like if Gandalf was in the Shire at the beginning of LoTR when the Nazgul come for Frodo, and he beats up all the Nazgul.
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