3p MP Campaign - The Great Quest

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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BasiC
Posts: 23
Joined: March 10th, 2012, 4:52 am

Re: 3p MP Campaign - The Great Quest

Post by BasiC »

Man...
This campaign is hard as hell...
We are 3 playing on easy!!! and its still super hard...and the turn limits...WTH so short...How do you finish this on hardest...
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Coffee
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Re: 3p MP Campaign - The Great Quest

Post by Coffee »

Thanks for playing BasiC.
BasiC wrote:how are the chosen maps decided?Say, for level 2 I have seen 2 maps, one thin and prolonged and a square one with a desert at the top right where only dragons can spawn.
The order in which you defeat the enemy leader affects which map you go to next.
BasiC wrote:Man...
This campaign is hard as hell...
We are 3 playing on easy!!! and its still super hard...and the turn limits...WTH so short...How do you finish this on hardest...
Hmm. On easy there should be not so many enemies. Are you using all your gold to recruit? Are there any scenarios are you having more difficulty in completing than others?

I made the turn limits short on the hardest mode to encourage a different play style to some other campaigns (that can go on and on). There are purposefully few villages to encourage use of your leader after fully recruiting. My aim was to make each scenario only just be possible to complete on hardest (with maybe a turn or 2 spare at most).

One thing to realize is that it is often faster to let the enemies come to you on bad terrain (when you have good terrain), rather than going to meet the enemies each time.
BasiC
Posts: 23
Joined: March 10th, 2012, 4:52 am

Re: 3p MP Campaign - The Great Quest

Post by BasiC »

#1 unrelated: Any chance youll make a 4 player veriant?

I'v bee nthinking about it and I think that the best way to play is always get a new leiutenant on every level and alwasy keep them safe...
The new lieutanant thing seems OP over anything else including items and new unit types...
If you alwasy get the lieutenant you ge tons of units for free every scenario...Items you can get fomr enemies anyway..
also any chance ull add a level 4 advancment possibility for leaders?
You can even add one for everyone that just makes them say a bit bigger so they dont look on the same level as ur other lvl 3 units..Its kinda gay when ur leader is on the same level power as all ur other units...

Anyway i am enjoying ur campaign very much, great work.
Not many MP campaigns so thx a lot.

EDIT
By he way can you please add the option to cancel your pick when you are asked what to pick, the item, new champ, gold,or the new unit type.
Should be possible to go view what champs u can select and what unit types and be able to press cancel to finally make a choice...
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Mint
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Re: 3p MP Campaign - The Great Quest

Post by Mint »

BasiC wrote: By the way can you please add the option to cancel your pick when you are asked what to pick, the item, new champ, gold,or the new unit type.
Should be possible to go view what champs u can select and what unit types and be able to press cancel to finally make a choice...
You will find this is already possible, it is below the possible choices - click '<back' :roll:
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Coffee
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Re: 3p MP Campaign - The Great Quest

Post by Coffee »

BasiC wrote:#1 unrelated: Any chance youll make a 4 player veriant?
Probably not. If I make a variant it would probably be a 2p variant.
BasiC wrote:I'v bee nthinking about it and I think that the best way to play is always get a new leiutenant on every level and alwasy keep them safe...
The new lieutanant thing seems OP over anything else including items and new unit types...
If you alwasy get the lieutenant you ge tons of units for free every scenario...Items you can get fomr enemies anyway..
I see what you are saying and I agree that there are maybe too many hero units.

Here are the list of changes I am considering to the version I will release for Wesnoth 1.11:
- replace free hero units with scenario based units only (for scenarios 2-5). So you would save a heroic unit in the desert from a scorpion, bats/spiders in cave, etc. I think this would make it more interesting and also make the story more credible.
- make it so that you can't choose the same start bonus 2 scenarios in a row.
- allow revenant -> death knight advancement
- make the AI smarter again (scouts less likely to rush in and die up front and to make use of leadership/heals) and tweak per difficulty level for more interesting battles
BasiC wrote:also any chance ull add a level 4 advancment possibility for leaders?
I thought about this (stuff like ancient lich, armageddon drake, dwarvish arcanister, etc.), but they are all too powerful advancements compared to the regular level 4's (Grand Marshal, Sylph, etc.) and it wouldn't be a fair advancement. Maybe if I add weakening traits, such as aged on level up to ancient lich it would work, but I need to test for balance.

Wow, this has become a long post.
Thanks again for playing. I had fun making it and I'm glad others are having fun playing it.
BasiC
Posts: 23
Joined: March 10th, 2012, 4:52 am

Re: 3p MP Campaign - The Great Quest

Post by BasiC »

Well You can add lvl 4 advencments but Make the stats just a bit better than the lvl 3 units...
Or just increase the stats of a unit when it becomes or is a leader?
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Coffee
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Re: 3p MP Campaign - The Great Quest

Post by Coffee »

If I made leaders more powerful they might be harder to lose or over-powered. Isn't it fun all of a sudden losing your leader to an AI low chance thunderstick, getting a new one behind on low health that also dies the same turn? :twisted:
BasiC
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Joined: March 10th, 2012, 4:52 am

Re: 3p MP Campaign - The Great Quest

Post by BasiC »

But we are talking about late game anyway...
I just want my leader to look different than my other units :)
BasiC
Posts: 23
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Re: 3p MP Campaign - The Great Quest

Post by BasiC »

A way to raise dead units could be nice as well...
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Coffee
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Re: 3p MP Campaign - The Great Quest

Post by Coffee »

BasiC wrote:A way to raise dead units could be nice as well...
You can use the plague book item to raise undead through melee attacks.
Hex
Posts: 161
Joined: June 15th, 2010, 6:08 am

Re: 3p MP Campaign - The Great Quest

Post by Hex »

Been playing this campaign alot lately. The items are very nicely thought out mostly, much more so then the World Conquest campaign.

I like how the scenario forces you to rush, rather then gives you reason to sit back and wait the enemy out like WC. I like how the challenge stays pretty steady in its difficulty level. I usually end up finishing on the last turn allowed with the second to hardest difficulty level because I play trying to never lose my heroic or itemed units.

There are a few things that could be even better.

1. I want to know what enemies I will be facing. Yes the dialogue gives you clues to what you will be facing, but if you accidental click past that, or don't recognise what faction a portrait represents, you are clueless. Furthermore, I would like to know which castle X faction is coming from. Perhaps vision on the enemy castle and its immediate spaces?

2. I want to know what items the enemies will be carrying, before I make my pick. Vision around enemy castle could tell you that too if they start there.

3. I would like to be able to pick items latter and trigger them at will. Perhaps instead of the pick being triggered by recruiting where you can not escape from that menu screen without making a pick, it is a right click option on leader, where you can get out of the selection menu to pick latter if you like.

4. The lack of gold is a serious problem. New recruit picks can be useful in the first or second map if you need healing, are fighting drakes and can get to recruit augers, or something. But otherwise one can barely afford recalling important units, short of regular troops. If I can recruit level 0s, I might save up a bit of gold for latter recruits, Otherwise I might capture nearby villages and then wait a turn or two to save up a bit of needed gold then recruit everything and press forward. Yes you can choose gold, but that is boring and you can't even take it with you. Besides even in the first map but especially latter on once you got even some of your troops, you are operating in the red. You even have to recall your own heroic units if you exceed the max start of 6 on earlier maps and 7 latter on.

You want to encourage using ones leaders? Then maybe make castles to recruit in, in the half way point. Maybe keep starting gold the same, but add a few more villages and make them produce a bit more gold. But make these villages hard to grab and keep safely. This way one can stay back and let the enemy crash against them, then move forward, or take the risk, press forward, grab villages for gold, and be rewarded for their effort. Also, if you made teleport rings/teleport work with allies villages, that would allow one to use ones leader more effectively more often.

What do you think of the idea of only leaders being able to free, free heroic units? If another unit besides leader frees such units, gold could be received instead (and the screen will warn you of this before hand)

I also think you should allow more carry over gold and perhaps a bigger early finish bonus since finishing even 1 turn early on the hardest level (without losing alot of nice units) can be quit a accomplishment.

Perhaps the leaders need to get to specific spaces to go onto the next map after killing enemy units?

5. Items on killed units of yours should drop their items so another unit can have it. Units should be able to give other units their items, and even players able to pass on items to other players units, but passing on a item could have restrictions like that a unit needs to have full movement and the passing on uses up all movement and attack, to prevent exploitation.

6. I understand establishes maps help keep difficulty level tight, but sometimes it would be nice if there was some randomness to maps like in WC. Maybe a version with map randomness in it?

7. The Yeti in scenario 4 will start attacking anything in range without warning. But if you attack it, it still warns about angering it. This is not fair. I think it should give some text about the yeti going berserk or something, if your going to cause it to come off the mountain and attack things.

The sea serpent in scenario 5, rather boring, eh? Belongs to a different side then the other units you fight, but does not attack them anyway. Perhaps it should attack them? Or at least be made the same side as them so it is clear to players that it won't. Perhaps if the leader gets to it it can be recruited? And/or a Heroic unit one can free and get, but only after the serpent has been killed? Or a item on the serpent?

Item issues:
Health potion just sucks, it gives a tiny amount of HP (7hp I think) and 1 hp per level, pathetic. Just about every other item is way better, even on a unit like a ghost I can think of many items better then this one. It should give more base HP.

Snow ring: Useful for the all snow and ice level. But not a bit of snow or ice anywhere else. Perhaps add a bit of snow and ice elsewhere?

Flying ring: Well done, but do you realise that there is a strange bug where a flying unit like a knight only has 30% defence on forest/snow combination terrain and 40% in village/cave terrain?(perhaps lots of combination terrains are troublesome but not all and those are the only two I saw that I can recall)

Plague book on a leader unit is pretty powerful.
- replace free hero units with scenario based units only (for scenarios 2-5). So you would save a heroic unit in the desert from a scorpion, bats/spiders in cave, etc. I think this would make it more interesting and also make the story more credible.
We would still be able to get a hero as our pick, right? If so, that sounds like a reasonably good idea. The heroic unit you would save would still be pretty random, right?
- make it so that you can't choose the same start bonus 2 scenarios in a row.
Why? I don't like this idea.
- allow revenant -> death knight advancement
Because you want to include death knights? You want leadership as a option from recruits for the dead? Sounds interesting. While considering this idea, I thought of a different but semi related idea.

What if items allowed particular units to morph or advance differently then normal. It would still count as the units one item.

For example:
Snow ring:
On a Lich, allows it to eventually reach the status of ancient lich, but does not give the normal snow/ice or cold resistance bonus. The amount of experience required for this advancement could be very high.

Fire orb:
On a Infernal drake, allows it to eventually reach the status of Armageddon drake with lots of exp required for the advancement. Perhaps does not grant fearlessness in return (or is lost when Armageddon drake is reached, or after the fire drake path is chose)

Leadership flag:
Turns grunts into Orc leaders (the level 2 & 3 versions of Grunt turning into the level 2 & 3 version of Orc leader) and gives +1 (or +2) bonus damage to melee. Along the path the orc leader is mostly definitely superior in every way to that of the grunt one, (except recruit cost exp advancement required, and Orcish warlord does slightly more melee damage then Orcish sovereign, which the bonus to melee damage would even out) and if you think about it, this is only logical.

A Elvish Marshal or Champion with Leadership flag can choose to become a Elvish sovereign with leadership.(right click [non-reversable?] option with no healing) Elvish captains and Elvish marshals get a bonus to their melee and range damage with leadership flag.

Forest Orb:
A Elvish avenger or Elvish sharpshooter can choose to become a Elvish sovereign with heal 8 and cure. Note: Elvish avenger/sharpshooter with forest orb would only have heal 4. Elvish sovereign would not have ambush.
- make the AI smarter again (scouts less likely to rush in and die up front and to make use of leadership/heals) and tweak per difficulty level for more interesting battles
Smarter AI would be nice. Not sure what you mean by the latter bit though.
gloccusv
Posts: 33
Joined: September 6th, 2013, 5:25 am

Re: 3p MP Campaign - The Great Quest

Post by gloccusv »

It is great that this has been ported to 1.14; I've just played it and enjoyed it very much. However, the final scenario causes instant defeat with an error message saying that the temp_unit_variable doesn't exist. I have managed to get it working by changing the 6 in line 80 of TGQ_Scenario6_Homeland.cfg to a 3, but I don't understand the code well enough to know whether this produces the desired behaviour or not.

Hopefully the maintainer can solve the issue and upload a patch.
Author of SP campaigns An Undead Incursion, A Beastly Tale and A Northern Village
and Asymmetric Widescreen theme for 1.12 & 1.14.
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