Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Feedback for the mainline campaign Dead Water.

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taptap
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by taptap »

I love it. Just one thing, undead shouldn't spawn twice from the same village, when you take it for a while but can't defend it.
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by beetlenaut »

You're right, they shouldn't! That's a bug. I've fixed it though, so it will work correctly in 1.9.10. I'm glad you mentioned it.
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taptap
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by taptap »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?

Warrior (Challenging), 1.9.9 / Triton (Difficult) 1.9.13

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

Warrior: 7 - once you understand ZOC and that citizens are meant to live in villages (defending them against bats until reinforcement arrives).

Triton: 7 - but only because you can exploit the tendency of the AI to attack instead to capture villages.

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

Very clear.

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

Impressive. Seems all suggestions in this thread have been implemented. I like it.

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

Warrior:
Keep the villages in the bay by putting citizens on it as long as bats are around.
Defending the NE and SW village in the bay (I didn't defend the swamp villages, maybe defending them is a good idea, you have less annoying undead mermen. Defending everything like Maiklas doesn't look possible and not even good to me on challenging / 1.9.9. You need something to gain experience against, ex-human walking corpses in water are great for this.)
Limit losses. (I lost a brawler and a fighter in the endgame and eight citizens earlier. But one initiate was close to death.)
Levelling Kai Krellis.
Keeping a balance between experience and time limit (I finished on the last turn, so maybe I should have defended one or two villages more).
Defending rather deep in the bay for slowing down the enemies and to make them arrive at different times.

Triton:
Defended the outer perimeter (soulless are so much harder than mixed corpses in lower difficulty), later fell back a little but by then I had already cleared the first wave. I recruited two of the initiates later to have more mass early on. Heavy losses of citizens and much less experience than on warrior. 18 losses, 45 kills.

(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?

It is already the most fun 1st scenario of a campaign. (Loving the merfolk ever since Isle of the Damned of course helped.)

It is rarely useful to level a citizen to hunter or fighter as long as you are not especially going for the traits or have the opportunity to gain more experience in the very same scenario because otherwise you end with a low xp fighter/hunter to recall, which you won't do anyway, but intelligent brawlers are a waste and a little odd somehow. Maybe keeping some recruitment restrictions later on would change that. (E.g. don't allow fighter recruitment, but maybe some more hunters came back from fishing.) Or allow brawler choice only for strong citizens.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

Warrior:
Overlooking a bat in the first try (it didn't actually lost me the game as I my have been able to manage it, but I preferred to restart).
Bad troop placement in another one.

Triton:
Early breakdown of the perimeter when trying to defend instead of offering units to kill.

(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?

I don't know, but the replay is corrupted likely because of the first undead spawning from a village, they are not shown in the replay which leads to oddities later in the replay. Lacking experience points, negative health units (because they levelled) which the replay doesn't understand. It is btw. this village that spawned a second time in the turn before end maybe both effects are related. This also leads to strange statistics later on, when +300%, +150% inflicted makes me look like a heavy save-reloader but it is because the inflicted damage from the first level is kept, but not the expected inflicted damage.

Triton: Still the same bug four versions later.
Last edited by taptap on January 5th, 2012, 9:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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beetlenaut
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by beetlenaut »

Complicated WML shouldn't corrupt the replay, because the replay file includes the WML. It's an engine bug, and nothing I can fix. Replays have been corrupted for a long time.
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podbelski
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by podbelski »

but obviously this exact campaign is way more prone to replay bugs than others. Maybe at least you have some clue what the reason for this?
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by beetlenaut »

I usually don't save replays, so I didn't know that, and I have no idea what causes replay problems. It doesn't matter though. If I did know that the spawning undead (for instance) caused replay problems, it's not like I would take them out to avoid those problems. However, the developers might like to know. If they can reliably cause a corrupt replay, they are more likely to be able to fix it. Look for a bug report on gna.org (I suspect there is one already), and if you have information about that, add it.
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xela
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by xela »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
warrior (challenging)

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
7

(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?
Good - sets it up well

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Levelling enough units for the next scenario - in the end I levelled Kai, 1 priestess, 1 healer and a couple of brawlers, which was enough to kick ass. I went for the swamp village, as well as the south and south eastern villages, and let the ai spawn some exp for me. A neat trick is to move cylanna to where the bats can attack her on turn 2, but the undead can't. That way you bring the pain with initiates to get rid of the pesky bats during the day.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
It's great as is

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Took me a while to work out what to do in the East - had to restart once as I lost too many units

(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
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by fabi »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Wesnoth Version: 1.10
Difficulty Level: Fighter (Normal)

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
7

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
2

The fact that the enemy can produce units by taking villages came as a big tomato surprise to me.
I learned about that fact on the end of turn 2, thus the first turn with the knowledge was my third.
At that time my gold was mostly spend and I also did send my units in the false directions to prevent the undead from destroying villages.

Restarting the scenario over again was my solution to the problem.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
7

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The tomato surprises.

(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?
Show the player that the enemy is producing units when taking villages during the start of scenario dialog.
When the Skeleton enters the village and Gwabbo is spawned, spawn the usual amount (maybe minus one because of Gwabbo) and explain what happened.
Let one of the protagonists yell about protecting the villagers being a good idea.
A message from the "narrator" or "game" explaining the spawning thing.

Also, please mention the different gamerule in the scenario's objective dialog.
You can miss something in the speaking dialogs which can't be reviewed easily but the objective dialog is available at all time.

I would solve the issue by introducing the different gamerule as a secondary objective.
Saving a certain amount of villages from being slain and reawaken could enable the early finish bonus for example.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
None caused me to loose the game, but I restarted twice until I knew how the scenario is going to work.
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by Wesbane »

  • 1) Level, Version? Normal; 1.9.7
    2) Difficulty? 6
    3) Scenario Objectives? They are formed in a way as they should be in every campaign. That means that they are formed clearly without any poetical weight.
    4) Dialogue and story? Really good. I mean its just as much as is needed. Not overdeveloped or something like that. And it is in this way for all this campaign. If something need to be commented at scenario there will be something more than good.
    5) Challenges? Nah nothing special since I made it on first run witch does not happen very often (In other campaigns – I use to play at highest difficulties)
    6) Is it fun? 7 Definitely is. However I found add-on version funnier with those walkies-swimmies popping up from every village instantly ready to hug old friends. It was so freakin sweet!... Nevertheless now its pretty fine too.
    7) Make it more fun? Why if its good? Anyway I am quite sure that other fun makers already make it funnier.
    8) Reload or restart? Not this time.
    9) WML? It's well commented.
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by lanceleau2 »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Normal - 1.10.1
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
7/10
(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 and good enough I think
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
I find the difficulty is a bit high for the first scenario of a campaign.The only way to win seems to be avoiding units and killing leader.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
5/10
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Less limitations of unit, and maybe something hidden in the map somewhere like gold or allied unit.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
The fact of losing one of the leaders.The fact of seeing ennemy army can't be defeated, only the leader.(like most of scenarios of this campaign)
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by beetlenaut »

Actually, I defeated the army in every scenario, so I know it can be done! (That was in hard too, but this is not supposed to be an easy campaign.) In this scenario, you have to use most of your level one units to stop and kill the bats. That should enable you to get the villages yourself. By the middle of the level, you should be getting three citizens every turn, and you can overwhelm the swimming corpses.
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by Ninjuri »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
easy 1.10.2
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Pretty clear.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
It was okay.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
My units were too easy of kills for the zombies, if i couldn't retreat them in time, i would often end up feeding the enemy free troops for his army.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Allow some better units so i'm not feeding the zombie masses as much.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
no

(Edit: after completing all the novice scenarios and some intermediate ones)

Normal 1.10.2
Difficulty: 5
Objectives: 100% clear
Dialogue: I liked the fisherman's vivid description of the undead smell.
Challenges: Reaching the villages in the sandy corners of the map.
Fun: 7
Changes: None
Reloads: none
Last edited by Ninjuri on June 1st, 2012, 8:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by BfWEthnographer »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Wesnoth 1.11.0 (svn 54249)
Level beginner

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

(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?
Interesting. Not too long, but with enough information/interaction to make it interesting to read

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
None

(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?
--

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Just once, after (due to bats movements) I lost the second unit I did not expect to loose.

(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?
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by Greep »

1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.10.2
Highest (triton) (Only reload from start of level)

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

9.5

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

Pretty clear, kill the bad guy.

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

It was fine, and did the job well of setting the scene.

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

Holy crap this was hard! I tried over and over and over to beat the scenario by preventing the enemy from capturing villages, but eventually I found it impossble to prevent the east from being captured, which essentially made attrition impossible. Eventually I settled for sending a mob of level 0s to the southwest to stall the enemy, sent 2 level 0s out village hunting but quickly recalled them, and made a mass of level 1s to crush the middle zombie horde while defending the one village slightly southeast of the 6 village ring. Eventually all sides except the center broke.

Eventually I literally had to abandon my fortress and send everyone to the enemy leader by turn 12 and had dozens of zombies following following my scared to death level 0 leader. Just barely assasinated the leader before dusk.

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

10. Any scenario that doesn't involve an instant assasination or a straightforward approach is exciting.

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

I really dislike having the very next scenario making your leader be level 1. This essentially makes the next level impossible if you did not level a bit. I had to again restart the game after beating it so I could have my leader strike the final blow against the enemy leader, although because that was such a big tomato that I just restarted from the ending autosave, not going to waste my time on something I would've known if I beat the campaign on an easier setting.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

Immediately after discovering zombies broke out from villages I had to start over. And half a dozen times as I figured out how to beat it!

(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?

---
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by fareley »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.10.4. No saveloads for better rolls, but restart previous round if i made critical errors (and never try the same move again for better rolls). As for the time i actually beat it, i'm fairly certain that was one of about 20 complete restarts, and done without reloading a single turn. I got lucky, plus i learned from mistakes. Ended up with 4 brawlers, king lvl 1 (he got lucky, as the enemy visited my keep to give him xp), a second priestess and a couple lvl 1 units with ~20 xp each. Oh, and i killed every single enemy, and with plenty of turns to spare. Will see how that works out for the next scenario.
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
10
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
4 - the first time i tried it, i got the "surprise - your opponent gets free units", and died. After that, i spend a ton of time without realizing that the true objective is to not let the undead get any villages.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
It was really cool, well done.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Finding the right strategy (retreat at night is not an option, as you cannot give up any village, and denying villages is really tricky).
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
I liked it, as it is innovative and i like merfolk. Still, it was frustrating at times, as it took me 3+ hours to beat it (no saveloads, but reloading 1-2 turns when i made a poor decision, aka forgetting units, not putting the right suicide unit on the right spot, forgetting to capture top left, exposing key units and such. And i still restarted the scenario from scratch at least 20 times because i realized my overall strategy was flawed. Oh, and one of my initial mermaid citizen recruits on the eastern side had to be fast, as i did not use the already given ones for north-east village capturing duty. Which takes like 7-8 more turns if your mermaid is not fast. That really sucked.). I'd give it a fair 8, as it was so frustrating and felt unnecessary hard for a first scenario in a campaign (which easily makes people turn away from an otherwise beatable and cool campaign), but also was cool to play due to its concept.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
It was plenty of fun, just incredible difficult and took a lot of time to figure out the attack pattern of the AI to beat. But since it was stated that this should be as hard as it is on hardest difficulty, i'm fine with a challenge.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Key unit dying (Priestess mostly. I figured i had to aggressivly draw all bats from initial recruit onwards AND not allow the undead to get any further village up north, or ground units would overrun me. To do that, the priestess had to kill or heavily wound the skeleton, which left her exposed. Took me another ~2 hours straight until i figured out the right way to suicide citizens to draw fire for my priestess to survive)
(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
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