[Historical] [1.7.x/1.8.x] Legend of Wesmere

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Captain_Wrathbow
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Re: I really dislike "Legend of Wesmere"...

Post by Captain_Wrathbow »

1. Your first point is true, and this annoys many people to no end. I am one of them, and I don't like it either.

2. No, I would say this is just a place where you really need to have levelled up your units well, and it can't really be impossible without flying units. Your point "You are forced to play the way the creator wants" may have some truth behind it, but you really need more than one example to prove this.

3. You are not meant to go through a campaign with no losses. If you think you need to get through without losing any veterans, that's not true.

Yes, there are some frustrating parts, but not really a substantially higher amount than any other campaign. It wouldn't be mainline if it weren't considered fair, balanced, and beatable. :wink:
(Although I totally agree with you about the losing levelled troops thing, I hate that! :evil: )
Calza
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Re: I really dislike "Legend of Wesmere"...

Post by Calza »

Captain_Wrathbow wrote: 2. No, I would say this is just a place where you really need to have levelled up your units well, and it can't really be impossible without flying units. Your point "You are forced to play the way the creator wants" may have some truth behind it, but you really need more than one example to prove this.
I think point 1 covers this matter too, since you don't have control over a lot of unpredictable events, so if you are in the head of the creator you know how to prepare well, otherwise you risk a lot. However I divided the two points to remark my opinion.
3. You are not meant to go through a campaign with no losses. If you think you need to get through without losing any veterans, that's not true.

Yes, there are some frustrating parts, but not really a substantially higher amount than any other campaign. It wouldn't be mainline if it weren't considered fair, balanced, and beatable. :wink:
(Although I totally agree with you about the losing levelled troops thing, I hate that! :evil: )
I don't say it's unbeatable, it surely is beatable, but you need to know in advance, for example, that you need a lot of flying units. Since these units are primarily supporting, till now I was fine with only a limited amount of that. On the other hand, elvish fighters are almost useless compared to archers, since you are always forced to hope that enemies will miss you, since they are much stronger than you in melee, so it's better to have archers, who have higher defense and can attack without retaliation. The frustrating point in all the matter is that you can't really know these facts when you start the campaign, so the only intelligent choice to do is to create a well balanced army; but a well balanced army is not the best choice for the previous points.

Thanks for your reply!
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Captain_Wrathbow
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Re: I really dislike "Legend of Wesmere"...

Post by Captain_Wrathbow »

Calza wrote:but you need to know in advance
You're right... :hmm:

And I just realized, doesn't this break the "no tomato surprises" general rule, but on campaign scale?! It is understood among all decent campaign developers that it's a bad idea to have an event mid-scenario that would drastically alter your playing strategy, had you known about it before the surprise. This is exactly what happens in LoW, except it's blown to whole-campaign-sized proportions! :shock: :augh:

If I'm going off on a meaningless rant here, would someone explain why I'm wrong please?
AI
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Re: I really dislike "Legend of Wesmere"...

Post by AI »

1. Unless you get Anduilas killed, he should not leave your side and neither should any other loyal troops
Spoiler:
. If you lose him somewhere without getting him killed, that's a bug.

3. Surround your units with expendable elvish fighters. Even if there's a hole in the line, the AI will typically go for the easiest target.
TheHouseJackBuilt
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Re: I really dislike "Legend of Wesmere"...

Post by TheHouseJackBuilt »

1. Hmm to be honest i wasnt frustrated from that. I thought it was a nice plot twist. The reason for not getting lots of gold after a scenario even if u had it is because it would make the next scenarios trivial. I dont really remember the specific scenario since its being a long time since i played LoW but if it can be done with the gold u get it would be far too easy if u had much more gold right? Same goes for the other scenario u are mentioning. I dont find this to be unfair but even if it was i would prefer an unfair treatment rather than having the next scenarios being a walk in the park.

2. Well yeah thats how every campaign plays out to some extend :P . If u are given a few powerful units like the four lvl lich and no gold then u are expected to use them to win the scenario. If u are given 1000 gold and u can only recruit peasants and woodsmen to beat an army of orcs then u are expected to use peasants and woodsmen (lots of them).

As for the flying units on that scenario: The first time i played the campaign i remember having 3 or 4 flyers (i was raising them because i think they are very usefull not for that specific scenario). Adding to that that u only had Andulas as marshall maybe its a more general not having enough leveled units that can be presented in every campaign not just LoW. Furthermore its generally good to level all kinds of units in campaigns if u dont know what enemies u will be facing but some units like flying healers (shydes) or powerfull flying magic users that can go up to lvl 4 should get a bit priority in a "what unit should i level next" list. In Heir To The Throne campaign if i level all my knights to grand knights (not paladins) and i dont level any mages or shamans except 1 then i ll probably have trouble when i run into a scenario with undead enemies.

3. Slow the yetis with entangle and they will be far less of a threat (although i m not sure if u can recruit shamans on this one). They wont be able to kill any of your units except maybe lvl 1 who can be considered expendable I agree that those gryphons were kinda annoying and this scenario has a bit more bad suprises than most. But even if u lose u can always restart it. Its a relatively small scenario. Saurians can get lucky and kill some of ur units with their skirmish ability but the player is expected to have enough backups in the recruit list. As for trolls that goes in every campaign where u face heavy hitters not just trolls or LoW especially with elves who generally count more on their defense on some terrains than high health.

In the Northen Rebirth campaign most scenarios (at least to the point i played) have the player managing a huge army. Some of these scenarios are underground. One of this scenarios wants the player to fight an incredibly high amount of lvl 2 and 3 undead enemies in really small corridors, having maybe of 10-15 of your 50-100 fighting 10-15 of the enemy's 200(?) or so units. That scenario is the reason why i never finished that campaign, although i won after a long boring fight, i found a similar one later. That doesnt necesarilly means that NR is a problematic campaign, maybe theres some other way to do it, or maybe some people like that kind of campaigns.
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Captain_Wrathbow
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Re: I really dislike "Legend of Wesmere"...

Post by Captain_Wrathbow »

My question about campaign-sized tomato surprises still hasn't been answered... *whistling emo*
Calza
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Re: I really dislike "Legend of Wesmere"...

Post by Calza »

AI wrote:1. Unless you get Anduilas killed, he should not leave your side and neither should any other loyal troops
Spoiler:
. If you lose him somewhere without getting him killed, that's a bug.

3. Surround your units with expendable elvish fighters. Even if there's a hole in the line, the AI will typically go for the easiest target.
Anduilas is left behind to defend the country and you get him back only some scenarios later... Your suggestion about the expendable targets is surely right, but it requires more gold to be implemented and it doesn't seem to me that I have gold to waste in this campaign :-\ Maybe I'm just too unexperienced, but I think this campaign should include some advices throughout its course, since it's long and presents some unpleasant surprises...
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Re: I really dislike "Legend of Wesmere"...

Post by AI »

He shouldn't be, this is a bug. Which version are you using?

And, as TheHouseJackBuilt said, shamans are game changers.


Most of the tomato surprises are unfortunately inherent to the plot. They might be discussed if you specified them though. ;)
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Captain_Wrathbow
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Re: I really dislike "Legend of Wesmere"...

Post by Captain_Wrathbow »

AI wrote:Most of the tomato surprises are unfortunately inherent to the plot. They might be discussed if you specified them though. ;)
Losing most of your recall list partway through the campaign. :annoyed:
Calza
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Re: I really dislike "Legend of Wesmere"...

Post by Calza »

AI wrote:He shouldn't be, this is a bug. Which version are you using?

And, as TheHouseJackBuilt said, shamans are game changers.


Most of the tomato surprises are unfortunately inherent to the plot. They might be discussed if you specified them though. ;)
I don't think that's a bug, it's stated clearly in an in-game dialog; however I'm playing 1.6.5, if you want to check something.

Coming back to the discussion, I can agree that shamans are game changers, but I intend them mainly as supporting units: they heal wounded units and they slow dangerous enemies to allow fighters and archers to kill them with less harm. I think this is a completely fair way to consider shamans. If in HttT I don't level up enough mages, I will have big difficulties, but that's due to the lack of esoterical attacks in the army and it's an obvious handicap; here the point is different, since I have some magical units, but the focus is just on the flying ability. The ability to fly is a nice feature, but it shouldn't be crucial to the completion of a scenario IMHO... The only units useful in "Breaking the siege" are sylphs and shydes, since every other unit is too slow on the snow (except for scout, who are incredibly weak in combat) and I think that's a too strong constraint: for example it wouldn't be a good idea to add some more roads to loose it a bit? I feel forced on the binaries thought by the creator of the campaign, it's the sixth campaign I try to play and that's the first one to give me this feeling...
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Re: I really dislike "Legend of Wesmere"...

Post by AI »

Calza wrote:
AI wrote:He shouldn't be, this is a bug. Which version are you using?

And, as TheHouseJackBuilt said, shamans are game changers.


Most of the tomato surprises are unfortunately inherent to the plot. They might be discussed if you specified them though. ;)
I don't think that's a bug, it's stated clearly in an in-game dialog; however I'm playing 1.6.5, if you want to check something.
That statement is generated from the list of units that stay behind. Which are your level3 units MINUS all loyal/essential characters. It seems that someone forgot about Anduilas in 1.6.5. It has long been fixed in the 1.7 series.

I intended to address the yeti issue with my comment about shamans: slow+expendable units+healers are the preferred way to screen heavy hitters.

I'll ask fendrin for his opinion on the snowy scenario.
TheHouseJackBuilt
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Re: I really dislike "Legend of Wesmere"...

Post by TheHouseJackBuilt »

Calza wrote: Coming back to the discussion, I can agree that shamans are game changers, but I intend them mainly as supporting units: they heal wounded units and they slow dangerous enemies to allow fighters and archers to kill them with less harm. I think this is a completely fair way to consider shamans.
Shamans at level two and above are much more than that, especially the sorceress line.
If in HttT I don't level up enough mages, I will have big difficulties, but that's due to the lack of esoterical attacks in the army and it's an obvious handicap



Dont take the HttT example literally i was just giving a very exaggarated example to make my self more clear.

here the point is different, since I have some magical units, but the focus is just on the flying ability.


The point i was trying to make was that while u couldnt have known beforehand that the flying ability would be so important, it makes sense for the creator of the campaign to expect from the players to have some leveled 3 or 4 flyers. Not just because they can fly but because they are extremely useful units in general.

The ability to fly is a nice feature, but it shouldn't be crucial to the completion of a scenario IMHO...
I can agree with that.
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Re: I really dislike "Legend of Wesmere"...

Post by Zarel »

AI wrote:1. Unless you get Anduilas killed, he should not leave your side and neither should any other loyal troops
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
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Re: I really dislike "Legend of Wesmere"...

Post by fabi »

Calza wrote:Ok, I hope this thread won't be intended as a useless rant, but as a critic feedback. Moreover, I hope this is the right forum section, I was in doubt with mainline campaigns feedback. So let's start...
No it won't. Negative feedback is often more useful than positive feedback.
I think this campaign has at least three serious problems:
Please note that LoW is still under heavy development. Please have a look at the version that will be shipped with Wesnoth 1.7/1.8.
There are quite a few changes and additions made. I would love to hear your feedback on that version again.
1. You are deprived of what you fought to have, I think this is really frustrating for a careful player. For example I levelled Anduilas to become my only marshal and he vanished after a specific scenario! So I had to create another elvish marshal to support my gaming strategy, even if I was extremely careful in keeping Anduilas alive in the campaign.
That is a known bug that has been fixed in the latest versions. But Kalenz still orders all lvl3 units to stay and protect the Ka'lian (That includes all loyal units except of Andulias and the heroes you aren't allowed to loose.) Maybe that filter is a little too simple but we have to reduce the amount of units in the recall list at this time.
Note that that units rejoin the player's forces in scenario 14. Didn't that work in 1.6.5?
Another example: I completed "Elves' last stand" with really a lot of gold, but I was given a ridicolous amount in the next scenario, even if the percentage of carried gold had to be lot higher.
The scenario informs you at scenario start (The objectives window) that there is no Gold carryover which allows you to spend all the gold available.
This is common for every Wesnoth campaign in mainline.
Kalenz is talking to Galtrid that he has some part of the elvish treasury with him and returns it with a little sound effect.
(I think about an award depending about how many is given back).
I will also add an extra note in a narrators message or let Kalenz give a hint about the 0% carryover in version 1.9.
A hint about the returning of the gold in scenario 5 where it is stolen back can be added as well.
A last example: in "The chief must die" you can't get more gold, but at the end of the scenario you get only 80% of what you carried over... why?! That's unfair!
Right, another bug. I will have a look if it is fixed in the development version, thanks.
2. You are forced to play the way the creator of the campaign wants. The most significant example of this is in "Breaking the siege", where if you don't have a good amount of flying units you are screwed, since the map is huge and the snow doesn't allow normal units to move at a decent speed. I have only a sylph and a shyde, a part from Cleodil, and an enchantress, who cant' fly yet...
That is a known problem. Crab is redoing the map to make it faster for non flying units and less ugly.
I hope the new map will make it into 1.8. I am not a great map maker, every help is welcomed.

Can you give more examples, please? I would like to fix them.

3. Sometimes you just can't do anything to prevent losses. The most frustrating map in this sense was "Cliffs of Thoria", since yetis can kill almost every unit with just two right hits and griphons coming out from the fog of war can be an unpredictable, serious harm. But that's not the only example, even against Saurian skirmisher or levelled-up trolls you are sometimes forced to cross your fingers and hope in a miss...
That is expected so. Use some low level units you sacrifice and go around the yetis. I fear them as well and usually manage to get around them without a fight (and don't even loose the lvl one cannon fooder). Remember that elves are quite fast in that forest part of the map.
And I dislike killing the yetis, I have heared they are rare. Again I am thinking about some kind of reward if you spare them.
There will be a spoken hint in the future that tells the user about this strategy.
Saurians and Trolls need another strategy. I suggest using shamans to slow high level trolls. What scenario in particular do you have problems with?

To conclude, a lot of frustrating situations, also in addition to the previous points, tempted me to adopt save/load, but I resisted quite well till now. Now I'm stuck at "Breaking the siege", I think that's the most boring map ever and I'm seriously thinking to leave this campaign and start the following one. I'm sorry for the creator of the campaign, but I'm really not enjoying it, despite his efforts.
Yes, "Breaking the siege" bores me as well...
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Re: I really dislike "Legend of Wesmere"...

Post by fabi »

I don't say it's unbeatable, it surely is beatable, but you need to know in advance, for example, that you need a lot of flying units. Since these units are primarily supporting, till now I was fine with only a limited amount of that. On the other hand, elvish fighters are almost useless compared to archers, since you are always forced to hope that enemies will miss you, since they are much stronger than you in melee, so it's better to have archers, who have higher defense and can attack without retaliation. The frustrating point in all the matter is that you can't really know these facts when you start the campaign, so the only intelligent choice to do is to create a well balanced army; but a well balanced army is not the best choice for the previous points.

Thanks for your reply!
The many trolls that have butchered you, in scenario2 I guess, should have forced you to recruit a lot of shamans and leveled them.
The trolls in scenario2 have now the troll rocklobber in their rows, so there is more need for fighters early on.
The campaign's description notes that orcs are the main enemies. Orcs are better melee units.
I think that is common knowledge and sounds like a strong hint.

I usually need fighters against slayers, augurs and bowman, they are not totally useless.
I agree on the need for flying units, that has been balanced a bit since flying units are disallowed in the second winter scenario and the first one's map is redone as mentioned earlier.
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