Changing of difficulty names and campaign ordering

[turin]

When I last brought this up, there seemed to be no real objections to it; thus I am bringing it to the next stage of development, being posted in DD not Ideas.

Here is the basic deal:

Currently, the official campaigns on the Campaign Selection dialogue seem to be ordered by which was officialized first. Thats fine, but i think it would be better to order them on how easy they are. Then, beginners can just start at the top of the list and go down. Obviously this difficulty rating would be subjective.

Also I proposed a system for making it obvious which was harder. Dave had a better solution:

As for difficulty levels, my preferred solution is to change the names of the difficulties to reflect how hard they actually are.

i.e. the easiest campaign could let you choose between 'very easy', 'easy', and 'normal', while the hardest would let you choose between 'hard', 'very hard', and 'impossible'.

This was my final listing for orders and names of difficulty levels:

HttT (diffs Fish in a Barrel, Very Easy, Easy)
tDH (diffs Very Easy, Easy, Normal)
tRoW (diffs Easy, Normal, Hard)
tEI (diffs Normal, Hard, Very Hard)
SotBE (diffs Hard, Very Hard, Impossible)

Comments? Any objections to this change? If there are none, I ask permission to go through and change these in CVS.

[silene]

I don't mind a change of the difficulty level names. But I completely disagree with your suggested changes. I don't even understand how somebody could think that the first difficulty level of SotBE is "hard" and the latest difficulty level of HttT is "easy". It just doesn't make any sense to me. For example, SotBE doesn't have a level like "Scepter of Fire" where the AI has a 80gp/turn base income!

[turin]

I don't mind a change of the difficulty level names. But I completely disagree with your suggested changes. I don't even understand how somebody could think that the first difficulty level of SotBE is "hard" and the latest difficulty level of HttT is "easy". It just doesn't make any sense to me. For example, SotBE doesn't have a level like "Scepter of Fire" where the AI has a 80gp/turn base income!

As I said, those were just the last results in that thread. No one objected to them, and posts were made after them, so I went ahead and posted here, before the idea was forgotten.


So what do you suggest instead?


[edit]
Oh, and yes it does. "Shan Taun the Smug". Plus in that one you have to defeat them, not something else, and it is earlier in the campaign.

[quartex]

I don't get the phrase "fish in a barrel". a phrase like "extremely easy" might be clearer.

Your idea is good, but I think there is some disagreement as to which campaigns should have which difficulty names. Is HttT really that easy? I thought it was still quite challenging.

[turin]

How about this ordering, then?
Also, IMHO a new, easier campaign like South Guard should be added and put at the top, in the same class as TDH

#suggested# The South Guard ( Very Easy, Easy, Normal)
The Dark Hordes (Very Easy, Easy, Normal)
The Rise of Wesnoth (Easy, Normal, Challenging)
Heir to the Throne (Easy, Normal, Challenging)
The Eastern Invasion (Normal, Challenging, Hard)
Son of the Black Eye (Normal, Challenging, Hard)

[aelius]

If it makes a difference, I use "trivial", "simple", and "easy" for South Guard. Trivial is really really easy. Simple is pretty straightforward. Easy is about as tough as HttT on easy, I think.

I do think it'd be good to give some idea of the relative difficulties of the campaigns, though.

- b.

[MadMax]

Also, IMHO a new, easier campaign like South Guard should be added and put at the top, in the same class as TDH

I sa y that the tutorial should be given difficulty levels and expanded to a campaign. This would fill the easy campaign niche, make the tutorial more interesting, and give more opportunity to teach. However, it will also remove the coverage of Konrad's upbringing.

My idea for the expanded tutorial (based on turin's Great Library):

Aldrian is a student training to become a mage in the Tower of Kaleon (TDH Mages and Elves), like Great Library's Aldrian. He must complete a series of tests, such as hand-to-hand and ranged combat, commanding an army, moving to locations etc. Also, the Great Library itself will still be in the tower, and the player would be able to read the poetry and study the maps.

[turin]

I think having difficulty levels in the tutorial would be a bit confusing, since really, why would a tutorial be hard, or easy, or anything but educational?

But I think your plot idea sounds good... actually, I think taking out the part about Konrad's upbringing might be good, because it makes it seem like Konrad is an idiot . (at least the current tutorial does).

[silene]

[edit]
Oh, and yes it does. "Shan Taun the Smug". Plus in that one you have to defeat them, not something else, and it is earlier in the campaign.

No, it doesn't. Let's be coherent. Since you were saying that the easiest difficulty level of SotBE was a lot harder than the hardest difficulty level of HttT, and since I pointed out the example of a scenario in this hardest difficulty level of HttT, you should have given an example in the easiest difficulty level of SotBE, in order to contradict me. "Shan Taun the Smug" is only 45gp/turm of base income in the easiest difficulty level of SotBE, and that is a lot lower than 80gp/turn. So no it doesn't.

How about this ordering, then?

Still no good. What are you trying to do in this thread? Putting completely random/arbitrary difficulty level names for the in-game campaigns? Did you even play these 18 campaigns (counting the three difficulty levels of the "The South Guard" since you want it to be added) so that you are able to compare them?

Putting such names that are completely unjustified will just confuse the player more than s/he already could be. Unless you suggest a scheme that actually permits to judge that two difficulty level of two different campaigns are of the same difficulty, I don't see the point of even starting a thread about that in the first place.

[quartex]

Definitely certain campaigns are easier or harder than others, but agreeing on the different difficulties of each campaign could prove...difficult.

[turin]

[edit]
Oh, and yes it does. "Shan Taun the Smug". Plus in that one you have to defeat them, not something else, and it is earlier in the campaign.

No, it doesn't. Let's be coherent. Since you were saying that the easiest difficulty level of SotBE was a lot harder than the hardest difficulty level of HttT, and since I pointed out the example of a scenario in this hardest difficulty level of HttT, you should have given an example in the easiest difficulty level of SotBE, in order to contradict me. "Shan Taun the Smug" is only 45gp/turm of base income in the easiest difficulty level of SotBE, and that is a lot lower than 80gp/turn. So no it doesn't.

Very well, it doesn't. I've revised the list anyway, so its no big deal.

How about this ordering, then?

Still no good. What are you trying to do in this thread? Putting completely random/arbitrary difficulty level names for the in-game campaigns? Did you even play these 18 campaigns (counting the three difficulty levels of the "The South Guard" since you want it to be added) so that you are able to compare them?

NO I have not! What I am trying to do is get people who actually HAVE to make a better list! I thought that was obvious....

Putting such names that are completely unjustified will just confuse the player more than s/he already could be. Unless you suggest a scheme that actually permits to judge that two difficulty level of two different campaigns are of the same difficulty, I don't see the point of even starting a thread about that in the first place.

I don't think we have to be perfectly accurate in the naming, though. I don't see how this system is any more confusing than the current one, in which campaigns are ordered randomly and the difficulty names offer no sense of how hard they actually are. That just makes people not know which campaign to play first, and often they start SOTBE or EI first, thinking it will be just as easy as one of the others. It is IMHO obvious that we need some way to show which is harder and easier. People should be suggesting those ways here.

OT: Please stop ruining the english language... the use of "s/he" is just politically correct nonsense.

[Jetrel]

OT: Please stop ruining the english language... the use of "s/he" is just politically correct nonsense.

Easy, there tiger, keep in mind Msr. Melquiond is FRENCH (IIRC). To be honest, he has an intimidating command of the english language - he's far better with it than I am with any of my second languages.

that said, I do heartily agree with your sentiment, may what my english teacher said be damned. It has, of late, become normal for people to use "they" in place of he/she - effectively generating a new, gender neutral pronoun, but only for use when the subject is deliberately arbitrary or unknown.

[BigMoney]

Hope you don't mind a newbie non-developer chiming in, but from what I've read from others on the forums I think naming HttT difficulty as proposed may be demoralizing to new players.

I like the idea of ordering campaigns in terms of relative difficulty, except for HttT needs to be first or just after the tutorial since it appears to be the primary and most polished campaign.

The problem with giving different names for the difficulty level for each campaign is twofold: First, it's subjective to begin with given the different playstyle and luck possibilities. Second, it's unconventional and likely to confuse new users.

[scott]

For some reason I cannot post in this thread. Three times now I have tried and either it doesn't work or it gets deleted.
TEST TEST TEST
If it works I'll edit and give my opinion.

By the way, I cannot agree with this:

that said, I do heartily agree with your sentiment, may what my english teacher said be damned. It has, of late, become normal for people to use "they" in place of he/she - effectively generating a new, gender neutral pronoun, but only for use when the subject is deliberately arbitrary or unknown.

The same people that use it's for possessive its also use they in place of he or she. S/he is annoying but more correct than they. If you used just "he" that would be fine (to be anti-pc) as long as sanna doesn't zap you with her magic wand.

[Viliam]

IMHO it would be good to order campaigns by difficulty (assuming that HTTT is the first, the easiest) in the game menu. As a player, without additional information, I would play campaigns in the order they appear in menu -- and playing from easiest to hardest would be good.

However, I think labeling the campaigns according to their difficulty is not necessary. A small text "It is suggested (though not necessary) that you play campaigns in this order, as the later ones are generally more difficult" would be enough.