Scenario 4: Valley of Trolls

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Scenario 4: Valley of Trolls

Post by Content Feedback »

(1) What difficulty levels 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?
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
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alexknibb
Posts: 4
Joined: April 3rd, 2008, 10:47 pm

Re: Scenario Review: AOI 4 - Valley of Trolls

Post by alexknibb »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Just the easiest
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9 - haven't managed to complete it yet after about 5 goes, and that includes going back a few turns a lot of times (and even going back to the start to try get more money). Found the preceding levels easy as pie, but stumped on this one.

(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?
This was fine, but to be honest, I tend to skip the storylines a little.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Too many opposing units, and too strong once it's nighttime. Even veteran units can be easily wiped out by a few of the opposition. I might be being a bit of an idiot, but it's not entirely clear how the instruction to attack them in the bottleneck should be achieved - it's very tricky to get enough units there quickly enough to stem the flow of the bad dudes.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7 - It's a really nice idea for a level. Just a little tricky for a "novice" scenario.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Could do with having the difficulty levelled out a touch from the previous levels.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Yep, a few times. When all my units were wiped out a few times, when it seemed hopeless, when my veteran units were wiped out in one turn, etc, etc... ;)
(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
n/a

Good fun level, just very, very difficult. This was the second scenario I picked because the first one (the training one) had an evilly hard level in it partway through (and there were no instructions on how to apply its fix on OSX), which is a shame. Speaking as a novice, I think the "novice" levels should err on the side of caution in order to keep new players' interest.

Hope this helps :)

PS - Just playing it again and one idea is to drop Gurk down from a Lv3 to Lv2 perhaps. I've just witnessed him take out two units singlehandedly in two different turns. As my leader can't take him alone, I feel I have no choice but to take other units in to try for the kill. I've managed to take him down once, but I lost so many units (and there's not enough cash to get more) each time, that I gave up anyway, before trying to take the other chap on.
Weeksy
Posts: 1017
Joined: January 29th, 2007, 1:05 am
Location: Oregon

Re: Scenario Review: AOI 4 - Valley of Trolls

Post by Weeksy »

alexknibb wrote: (5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Too many opposing units, and too strong once it's nighttime. Even veteran units can be easily wiped out by a few of the opposition. I might be being a bit of an idiot, but it's not entirely clear how the instruction to attack them in the bottleneck should be achieved - it's very tricky to get enough units there quickly enough to stem the flow of the bad dudes.
Lure the trolls out with units that can survive the trolls at daytime. This is a fairly hard scenario, but using slow from a sorceress or druid will help some. Also, using healers to back your wounded units up will help quite a bit.
If enough people bang their heads against a brick wall, The brick wall will fall down
alexknibb
Posts: 4
Joined: April 3rd, 2008, 10:47 pm

Re: Scenario Review: AOI 4 - Valley of Trolls

Post by alexknibb »

Weeksy wrote: Lure the trolls out with units that can survive the trolls at daytime. This is a fairly hard scenario, but using slow from a sorceress or druid will help some. Also, using healers to back your wounded units up will help quite a bit.
Thanks for the assistance. I eventually finished this level last night by just completely changing my tactics.

The preamble to the level says that you should fight them in the bottlenecks to stop the orcs attacking in packs, but I don't think this works. The minute I stopped trying to attack them in the caves, I did much, much better. And this level is a good level for teaching tactics, just not the ones it says. So, while I hope my messages above are useful, I think the most important one I'd suggest is to change the advice where it says to fight them in the bottlenecks, because I think that might be a harder technique than just fighting them straight in the open.

Anyway, thanks for the tips, onto the next maps (I finally finished that one at 3am last night and went straight to bed!) :D
vicza
Posts: 238
Joined: January 16th, 2008, 11:40 pm
Location: Moscow

Re: Scenario Review: AOI 4 - Valley of Trolls

Post by vicza »

alexknibb wrote:I think the most important one I'd suggest is to change the advice
BTW, yes, when I played AOI, these advices in most cases were not very useful. Had to invent some own tactic anyway.
Weeksy wrote:This is a fairly hard scenario, but using slow from a sorceress or druid
I would not waste sorceress for slowing. There are shamans for it. And sorceress can use her arcane attack.
will help some.
Not some, but very much. I'd say, Elvish Shaman and her advancements is a key unit in this scenario. Or, even, in the AOI in general.
Daxam
Posts: 9
Joined: April 7th, 2008, 3:38 am

Re: Scenario Review: AOI 4 - Valley of Trolls

Post by Daxam »

I agree that this is a very tough scenario. I have not managed to clear it yet.

But I will try not to attack them at the cave. The one blocking the cave is always get whacked easily by the Troll King.

How does the Troll manage to recruit so many goons, anyway? How much gold do they have?
vicza
Posts: 238
Joined: January 16th, 2008, 11:40 pm
Location: Moscow

Re: Scenario Review: AOI 4 - Valley of Trolls

Post by vicza »

Daxam wrote:How does the Troll manage to recruit so many goons, anyway? How much gold do they have?
Not much, actually. On easy/normal/hard both leaders have 30/40/50 gold (but they have income 7 gold/turn).

The main problem is not trolls having much, but you having few. The previous scenario was villageless, so you most probably have only 100 gold. So you must carefully chose which units you recall/recruit. I can repeat that the key unit is this scenario is Elvish Shaman.

Just played it on hard, cannot attach replay (corrupted, as usual), but here's statistics of units I used:

[scenario]
scenario="Долина Троллей"
[team]
[recruits]
Elvish Shaman="2"
[/recruits]
[recalls]
Elvish Enchantress="1"
Elvish Scout="1"
Elvish Shaman="1"
(+ 1 Elvish Marksman was autorecalled)
[/recalls]
[advances]
Elvish Rider="1"
Elvish Sorceress="1"
[/advances]
[deaths]
[/deaths]
[killed]
Troll="8"
Troll Warrior="2"
[/killed]
Jozrael
Posts: 1034
Joined: June 2nd, 2006, 1:39 pm
Location: NJ, USA.

Re: Scenario Review: AOI 4 - Valley of Trolls

Post by Jozrael »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Hard
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6
(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?
Nonexistent.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Exploiting the AI to deal with 1 side at a time.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
10.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Its pretty bangup as is, tho I'm still stuck at minimum gold T_T. Once you're in that rut in this campaign, it seems hard to get out of.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Nope.

Alright, reading the above comments, it seems that some people have difficulty with this scenario. First off I'll list what units I'm coming in with, this could make a big difference ^^. Keep in mind, as a good player, I often find the 'hard' difficulty easier than the easy or mediums at times, because I've had the opportunity to accrue a lot more experience and thus leveled units. Just because I had 8 lvl 2s or whatever in a scenario doesnt mean thats even POSSIBLE on easy. You might only be able to have like 4 or something because there just hasnt been that much enemy xp to gather.

Alright:

Kalenz still a lvl 2, mid xp.

Elvish Sorceress with low xp(the lvl 3 one).
Elvish druid with low xp
2 Marksman, both at high xp (one has 1 pt left, rofl)
1 Hero at mid xp
1 Captain at mid xp

Scattering of low xp'd lvl 1 fighters.

Wait, is my replay not corrupted 2_@.

NVM haha. One moment.
Attachments
AOI-Valley_of_Trolls_replay.gz
(13.64 KiB) Downloaded 1260 times
vicza
Posts: 238
Joined: January 16th, 2008, 11:40 pm
Location: Moscow

Re: Scenario Review: AOI 4 - Valley of Trolls

Post by vicza »

Jozrael wrote:Keep in mind, as a good player, I often find the 'hard' difficulty easier than the easy or mediums at times, because I've had the opportunity to accrue a lot more experience and thus leveled units. Just because I had 8 lvl 2s or whatever in a scenario doesnt mean thats even POSSIBLE on easy. You might only be able to have like 4 or something because there just hasnt been that much enemy xp to gather.
I'm far from being a good player, but you don't really need this lot of advanced guys to win this scenario.

Oh, my last replay isn't corrupted, too. Here it is. I even earned some money bonus here. :wink:
Attachments
AOI-Dolina_Trolley_replay.zip
(13.45 KiB) Downloaded 1179 times
Tetrahymenix
Posts: 0
Joined: May 3rd, 2008, 12:57 pm

Re: Scenario Review: AOI 4 - Valley of Trolls

Post by Tetrahymenix »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Easy
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Sufficient, but the bottleneck strategy is a moot point, when the AI units emerge by turn 2.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
AOI started out interesting. Dips midways.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
AI has far more units than player, and can swarm the villages from turn 4 and onwards.
AI has more total levels than player (thanks to troll kings (L3)).
AI units can fight AND regenerate, player must choose between healers OR fighters.
AI troll King deals 25 damage per hit at 'easy' level.


(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
Campaign started around 7-8 until frustration sets in.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Some players have reported that the 'AI can be exploited' in order to win the scenario. If this is neccessary, clearly there is a power imbalance. Others have reported that it is easier to play the scenario on 'hard' level than on 'easy' level. This indicates that something, somewhere is not balanced correctly, otherwise the 'easy' option is misleading.
Jozrael
Posts: 1034
Joined: June 2nd, 2006, 1:39 pm
Location: NJ, USA.

Re: Scenario Review: AOI 4 - Valley of Trolls

Post by Jozrael »

The bottleneck strategy is pure foolishness, ignore it entirely.

The AI having more units is really due to how much gold you have entering this scenario. Which could be quite considerable, I'm not sure how much gold I'd have on any easy runthrough.

Most of your points have to do with the fact that you're fighting trolls. They're sorta ownage. But you gotta do it at one point or another.

By exploiting the AI, I didn't mean I had to cheat or w.e. I just didn't feel like standing in the middle of the map and getting hammered from two sides. So I wiped out all of blues units then surgically removed the leader, all while having 1 unit grabbing villages near the top and the teal trolls being like COME BACK HERE. Made me not worry about getting backdoored.

You gotta use some strat in some levels, its not imbalanced =o. (Altho I will say that this level is often where newcomers begin having difficulty, but its gotta happen at some point. By taking on increasing challenges, and eventually prevailing, you increase your Wesnothian skill).

I just said that, as a good player, I find the hard difficulty setting on MOST campaigns easier, tho this is not always the case, simply because I have more options with a higher leveled army, even if I'm facing a stronger opponent.

I shall play through this on easy if you prefer and attach replays.
Daxam
Posts: 9
Joined: April 7th, 2008, 3:38 am

Re: Scenario Review: AOI 4 - Valley of Trolls

Post by Daxam »

I changed the difficulty level from beginner to normal to complete this scenario.

Two reasons: I have many more level 2s to fight the trolls and the troll recruited are 1 or 2 level 2s, instead of a swarming army of level 1 at the easy level. This actually makes it easier to kill the trolls, as an army of level 1 trolls can fight from many direction, while a few level 2 trolls can be easily contained.....
G-$
Posts: 3
Joined: May 12th, 2008, 11:05 pm

Re: Scenario Review: AOI 4 - Valley of Trolls

Post by G-$ »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
easy

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

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
It makes sense but the strategy advice doesn't.

(4) N/A

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Haven't been able to beat it. If I don't die I lose on time, and if I recruit what seems like enough units (or any higher level ones) I end up with negative income. Also you don't get to pick any units that are actually strong against trolls. You get either healers (pointless to mass them) or fighters/archers/horses all of which do pierce/blade which trolls resist. I am also stuck at minimum gold even though I did what seems to be a smashing good job on the earlier scenarios.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
5. All you are doing is killing trolls. The dynamic is relatively interesting, but the level of challenge is upsetting.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Increase the turn limit, enable you to recruit units that are able to fight trolls. Make the terrain a bit larger with more villages, increase gold per village, make more smaller troll broods.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Losing an apparently impossible scenario that is supposed to be easy mode. Apparently easy campaigns are impossible while the harder skill levels are playable? I'm not sure what is going on but I think it is highly possible that this scenario was never even tested on easy mode. Quality craftsmanship there. As far as I am concerned, the very MINIMUM that should be done to test a campaign is make sure that every mission on every skill level is passable. It should also be passable by someone of that skill level...
vicza
Posts: 238
Joined: January 16th, 2008, 11:40 pm
Location: Moscow

Re: Scenario Review: AOI 4 - Valley of Trolls

Post by vicza »

After reading two last messages I wanted to try it myself. Well... indeed, on easy level it's harder than on hard. Still winnable, though. My best result was 14 turns with heavy losses (on hard I did it in 12 turns with no losses).

I think, trolls' income should be decreased on easy. Say, something like
{INCOME 3 5 7}
Jozrael
Posts: 1034
Joined: June 2nd, 2006, 1:39 pm
Location: NJ, USA.

Re: Scenario Review: AOI 4 - Valley of Trolls

Post by Jozrael »

:x I'm forbidden from playing games right now, or I would help test it too :x.

Btw, I had no idea that on easy they recruited level 1s (Duh). In that case then yes, the bottlenecking strategy would seem to be prudent, tho slow. About how many trolls does each side recruit by turn 6?
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