Scenario 1: Rooting out a Mage

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Scenario 1: Rooting out a Mage

Post by Content Feedback »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
toms
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Post by toms »

(1) On easy
(2) 4 or 5
(3) Not misunderstandable
(4) Is OK
(5) Beating the skeletons with no effficient unit against them
(6) Ummm..say 6
(7) Don´t know...but in general, please add "medium" to the difficulties. :wink:
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jg
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Post by jg »

(1) easy
(2) 5
(3) very
(4) good
(5) my units being slaughtered by undead
(6) add a unit like Heavy Infantryman, so you have a chance to efficiently beat them (maybe
that would be too efficient
Last edited by jg on March 18th, 2006, 8:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
SmokemJags
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Post by SmokemJags »

1. Hard 1.1.1
2. 8, this was actually incredibly challenging.
3. Clear enough
4. A little... fast. But nothing wrong with that outside of personal preference.
5. Cutting a path through the skeletons with enough manpower and time left to kill the necro. I lost almost all of my starting loyal units, killed him on turn 17/18 and did my best to only fight during the day, retreating out of range during the night.
6. 6. Challenging is fun, though a bit unexpected.
7. Seems alright... but if it really puts your understanding of the game mechanics to the test, at least on hard mode. If you're not at least semi-skilled and have a decent amount of luck... I can see this scenario as becoming nigh unbeatable. I probably would have hated to play this scenario as my first ever experience with Wesnoth.
"A wise man speaks when he has something to say. A fool speaks when he has to say something."
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ivanovic
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Post by ivanovic »

jg wrote:add a unit like Heavy Infantryman, so you have a chance to efficiently beat them (maybe that would be too efficient)
I did allow the player to recruit Footpads in every mission. This should help against the Skelletons since they deal impact damage. The units itself are quite weak unlike the heavy infantry.
toms
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Post by toms »

ivanovic wrote:
jg wrote:add a unit like Heavy Infantryman, so you have a chance to efficiently beat them (maybe that would be too efficient)
I did allow the player to recruit Footpads in every mission. This should help against the Skelletons since they deal impact damage. The units itself are quite weak unlike the heavy infantry.
Leads to an idea: Give the footpads only on the easy level. If the "hard" difficulty is too hard then, increase the gold or the number of units in the beginning.
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ivanovic
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Post by ivanovic »

I don't think this unit will change much for the hard difficulty. The unit itself if quite week against the units the enemy has. The main problem is that this unit is chaotic just like the skelletons. This will make it very hard to protect them at night. So the scenario should still be challenging even in hard. And since it is the first scenario it should better not be the hardest... ;)
Skippy
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Re: Two Brothers: 1. Rooting out a Mage

Post by Skippy »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Hard and easy, 1.1.1

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
Hard - 9, Easy - 4

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

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Fighting skeletons with pierce units

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

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Depends on the audience - if beginners I've got some comments below. For me, not much (although the following scenarios could be improved I think - there are a lot of confusing things, for example, where did those heavy infantry come from? Billy-Bob Boneshaker (or whatever his name is) appears out of the blue. Huh?). Also, although I haven't done it on hard, an end run at the lich with your horsemen while the rest deal with the skeletons seems the quickest way to finish this scenario and seems a little easy.

Two brother is billed as suitable for beginners. I have doubts about that. For a start, fighting undead with units that mostly do pierce damage seems like a recipe for pain for a beginner. Now if experience is the best teacher they are going to learn quickly or quit quickly with this scenario - I suspect quit quickly could be more likely.

Also, the difference between night and day is large in this scenario. Once again, a recipe for pain for a beginner. Once again, learn quickly or quit quickly...

Finally, there was very little levelling up for me on easy. Given that this is a crucial part of Wesnoth (and part of the fun for a beginner - or veteran) I would have preferred to see a little more opportunity.
toms
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Post by toms »

ivanovic wrote:I don't think this unit will change much for the hard difficulty. The unit itself if quite week against the units the enemy has. The main problem is that this unit is chaotic just like the skelletons. This will make it very hard to protect them at night. So the scenario should still be challenging even in hard. And since it is the first scenario it should better not be the hardest... ;)
Well, I would use their elusive type when fightning with them.
Maybe I abuse them as scouts.[/OT]
First read, then think. Read again, think again. And then post!
Stilgar
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Post by Stilgar »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Easy & Hard, 1.1.2a as well as an earlier version
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4 - Quite easy for me now that I can use Footpads, but does require sensible tactics.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
I had no problem with them.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Fine.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Getting the best advantage of the terrain, getting the most effective use out of the units that are disadvantaged against the undead (which still applies with the addition of the Footpads - it's still good to use all the units you're given). Neither are overly hard for me though.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
6 - Nothing amazing, but not a bore either. It's fine as an intro to the campaign, bringing in the characters and setting up the plot.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Can't think of anything reasonable offhand.
Tropico
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Post by Tropico »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?

Easy, version 1.1.2a - I am a new beginning player and this is my first Wesnoth map ever.

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

7. the scenario itself wasn't that hard, but coming to the realizations that I needed to play effectively was very hard.

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

That was very clear.

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

Unclear. It might have been clear for someone who is already familiar with game mechanics, but the warning of "I hear these guys are invulnerable to our weapons" left me completely cold.

Yeah they're invulnerable to our weapons alright -- and? So what am I supposed to do? I had no idea. So I kept going at it, trying to win by attrition. Only much later did the lightbulb go off to use footpads, and this was by no means thanks to anything in the dialogue or map itself, but by sheer try-everything-ness.

Also no indication anywhere that skeletons get stronger at night and me weaker, and vice versa. Went through lot of confusion before I realized why sometimes I did 6 damage per hit and sometimes only 2 for example.

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

Understanding the things mentioned above was the only major hurdle, once I got that figured out, it was pretty easy.

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

8, I found it very fun actually, confusion aside (I was of course aware that the confusion came from me being a newbie, and was willing to stick to it and see it through)

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

The knight guy says, "I hear these monsters are invulnerable to our weapons".

Alright.. thats cool but he NEEDS to follow up on this, after you hit one, saying something like, "Oh my god its true! Our lances are useless against them! We're going to have to recruit some footpads, and quickly!" Or SOMETHING to guide the player. Yeah this sounds really dumb but, you are under the assumption that it's the first contact with Wesnoth for the player right? So yeah.

Same with night!! The knight needs to say something like, "Oh no! the nighttime makes them stronger! quickly, let us retreat, and renew our attack at dawn!" Or something.

I would have really appreciated something like this, even if it took away some of the satisfaction of figuring it out for myself at the end.

Now, after I played Tale of Two brothers, I tried the South Guard Campaign, and THAT campaign does it right. It explains EVERYTHING in an awesome, easy to understand way, and I found myself wishing I had played South Guard first.

I would suggest either modifying Two Brothers to be as explanatory as South Guard is, OR alternatively, simply switch ToTB with SG in the Campaign Menu and have SG be first and ToTB second. As a true-blue total newbie to the game, I can say this simple change would ease the first-play experience a whole lot.
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Zhukov
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Re: Two Brothers: 1. Rooting out a Mage

Post by Zhukov »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Version 1.1.7 - Hard

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6/10 - Whole level is basically a footpad party.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Not bad.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Clear, not at all interesting.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Having to fight with footpads.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
2/10 - I shall not continue the campaign.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Give the player a unit that does something other then pierce damage. Heavy Infantry might make it too easy, some Thugs would be good though.
Quitch
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Re: Two Brothers: 1. Rooting out a Mage

Post by Quitch »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Easy, 1.1.7

Chosen because I didn't class myself as "pro", but Easy turned out to be too easy.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
3, already played some Wesnoth prior to this campaign.

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

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Dialogue was pretty awful IMO. I'd assumed this was a more jokey campaign, not to be taken seriously.

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

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4, it's nothing special and your foes pretty much force your hand tactically.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Foes with different weaknesses so I could use different units.
Linthar
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Post by Linthar »

1. Easy, Version 1.19
2. 3
3. The scenario objects were perfectly clear
4. The dialog and the story were both pretty bad.
5. The major challange is figuring out to use footpads. I had stumbled across a remark on these boards to that effect while I was trying to figure out if the game was checking out, but if I didn't know things would have been a lot harder.
6. 5. Most of the problems impacting my experince were due to me being new to the game and still figuring things out.
7. It needs to be more clear that you should use footpads. If that was taken care of then the scenario would be a pretty good introduction.
Lone_Isle
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Post by Lone_Isle »

(1) Hard 1.1.11
(2) Umm.. considering I got it on my first try, i give it 4 out of 10 for difficulty.
(3) Obvious
(4) n/a
(5) taking a few minutes to figure out that massing footpads is the path to certain victory
(6) It's to simple to win if you just mass footpads. I think something needs to be changed maybe remove footpads for another less effective unit so that it's genuinely hard.
(7) The way I see it the difficulty of this campaign for newbies mostly comes from figuring out you need to mass footpads. I suggest having Arne suggest you should get footpads, while giving the enemy abit of diversity in its unit choices so that you can't win just by massing footpads.
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