Scenario Review: DW 2 - Flight

Feedback for the mainline campaign Dead Water.

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Pewskeepski
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 2 - Flight

Post by Pewskeepski »

xela wrote:OK I admit it, I logged on to boast. I managed to kill all 3 undead, and it went like this... Turn 1 recalled a bunch of brawlers/citizens. Turn 2 my levelled initiates and a bunch more initiates. Turn 3 more citizens and initiates. I recalled as much as I could before I ran out of money, alternating between initiates and citizens. Most of my army went NE and set up one hex back from the beach. Slow from Gwabbo was essential, as was rotation and healing. Because of the lvl2 nature of the opponents you can quickly level more initiates and citizens, depending on your needs, though you will lose some. The levelled units were necessary to cushion the blow of the ghosts from the SE at dusk. I was slightly fortunate that the leader made a suicide dart out of his keep at dawn, and lo and behold all his minions disappeared when I nobbled him, allowing me to sweep back to my keep, then SE to finish off that leader.
Not that I doubt this, but I would love to see a replay of a battle like that! :)
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xela
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 2 - Flight

Post by xela »

Here's the replay - no reloads, got a bit ragged at the end, lost an experienced initiate, but there we go. Note it's 1.10. I think I save loaded a bit in the initial game I posted (I got reckless at the end again, iirc) so I went back and did it again with no scumming lol - I need to get out more... This time I ended up with 5 enchantresses and 4 healers, several brawlers and a hunter ready to level.
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beetlenaut
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 2 - Flight

Post by beetlenaut »

Nicely played. I think I don't respect initiates enough--They just dominated the map.
Campaigns: Dead Water,
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and WML Guide
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tr0ll
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 2 - Flight

Post by tr0ll »

if you do crush the 2nd scenario like that does it mess up subsequent scenarios balance or does the game compensate for whats in your recall list?
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beetlenaut
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 2 - Flight

Post by beetlenaut »

No, it doesn't compensate. xela is going to find the rest of the scenarios a little easier than they should be. I didn't expect many people to be able to do this, but more importantly, I didn't think about what a large recall list you would have to end up with if you did. I don't know if it's really fair to punish the player for doing better than expected though. What do you think?
Campaigns: Dead Water,
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and WML Guide
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taptap
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 2 - Flight

Post by taptap »

beetlenaut wrote:No, it doesn't compensate. xela is going to find the rest of the scenarios a little easier than they should be. I didn't expect many people to be able to do this, but more importantly, I didn't think about what a large recall list you would have to end up with if you did. I don't know if it's really fair to punish the player for doing better than expected though. What do you think?
If he starts using his many levelled units in the next two scenarios he will have gold problems soon and won't produce many new levelled units + simply running in scenario 2 gave me >100 bonus gold in scenario 4 where you need it most. I would say it either evens out or if he don't use those levelled guys early on just makes a beautiful recall list without too much impact before the final scenario.
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tr0ll
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 2 - Flight

Post by tr0ll »

cool, sounds like the campaign is self-adjusting wrt balance.
a remaining question would be does the objective still make sense in the plot, i.e. why run off to some priestess for help anymore? should the game spawn another wave of level 2 or 3 undead to motivate the player to leave?
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beetlenaut
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 2 - Flight

Post by beetlenaut »

The game doesn't actually spawn them, but the characters discuss the fact that more are on the way. And there are. When they return at the end, there will be new (only slightly different) ones that have taken over. (I don't think that's a big, surprising spoiler.)
Campaigns: Dead Water,
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podbelski
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 2 - Flight

Post by podbelski »

@xela

cool replay! I thought it's not possible to beat all 3 leaders
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 2 - Flight

Post by xela »

Thx for positive feedback, if only I could play like that in multiplayer lol. In regards to balance, the dread bat was uberhelpful. In the scenario where you have to find the mage, off he went and I was out of there in 5 turns or so. The wc bat was just a toy, it was actually difficult to keep it alive, but I felt like I had a moral obligation to! The other bat I levelled to a dread as well, though it had less impressive attributes than the first it was still awesome - having 2 chaotic long range feeders around can really help a guy out.

In terms of recall list, I focused on leveling spear and fighter in the next couple of scenarios, but tbh you don't need them often. Pierce is not so useful vs undead whereas a readymade army of arcane/impact... well. I had more than enough to own, but I really enjoy the leveling aspect of campaigns so resisted the urge to just carve through everything. Always nice to know you've got an army of magic destroyers on hand though...

Plotwise I did kinda feel like, well, bring 'em on, I'll defend my home from here thanks very much. I wonder if my army could have gone straight from that scenario to the last and still won. A solution could be to insert a small running scenario if you defeat all 3 undead, where you're forced to sacrifice a couple of units to get Kai out alive. Obv that's work for the developer and messes with an awesome campaign though, and the player might need some other bonus to compensate, or feel persecuted. In fairness, they ARE being persecuted by the undead...

Overall it's an awesome campaign and I officially heart the initiate - both leveling lines are hardcore awesomeness in a fishy package.
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 2 - Flight

Post by beetlenaut »

I would be very interested to know if you really could have beaten the last scenario significantly earlier. If you want to try, you could go back to one of your saves, then use :debug and :choose_level to skip straight to the end. The end scenario should work just fine. The only problem would be some dialog directed at the character you don't have.

Making that an officially available option would be a better solution than a scenario that takes away your units, but I don't really want to do that either. (Even assuming I had time, that is.)
Campaigns: Dead Water,
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Wesbane
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 2 - Flight

Post by Wesbane »

  • 1) Level, Version? Normal (385/120 gold pieces); 1.9.7
    2) Difficulty? 1 To run. 10 to stay and fight.
    3) Scenario Objectives? Clear.
    4) Dialogue and story? Good.
    5) Challenges? Well timing in this scenario is pretty hard. So I made it one turn before running out of time. But I had to wait one turn because I want to some other unit to pick the artefact. I thought that killer grabs the item. However it seemed that in all campaigns units are not to greedy. Tactic is as in how to. That is swipe enemy clockwise starting from twelve. Going south first is bad idea although terrain is more favourable there for your units and foes are softer. Since you will have then go out through lands. It will be night then. And your enemies will join forces. Skeletons and Wraiths.
    6) Is it fun? 10 Even if you will immediately order evacuation.
    7) Make it more fun? Two minor points.
    Original reward scheme was so much better. Restore it.
    Remove third bat trait - resilience. I know why it is made so, but please also note that Dread Bat is 1.9 gain too. But this is not complete must.
    And one big:
    8) Reload or restart? Heh maybe another time.
    9) WML? It's well commented.
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beetlenaut
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 2 - Flight

Post by beetlenaut »

Wesbane wrote:Original reward scheme was so much better. Restore it.
The new one gives you more and better stuff, so I like it better. Demanding things like this is rude.
Campaigns: Dead Water,
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Wesbane
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 2 - Flight

Post by Wesbane »

I am not in position to demand anything. The only reason I stated my opinion is that I like your campaign and it design before revisions. Otherwise I would not bother. If it look harsh it is not intended.
Secondly I disagree that more means better. Better for me means enough. And I think that this fits for what was before.
However if you said no it makes subject closed for me. I pointed this out in my previous post. One big thing that need to be changed in this scenario.
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taptap
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 2 - Flight

Post by taptap »

I might be partly responsible... because I found the previous reward (for southwestern leader) somewhat mediocre and said so in my feedback. I might be totally wrong because probably the experience has to be considered as the main reward and the other additions just another bonus. On top of it I didn't even fought the scenario when I played it on hard difficulty but swam away without recruiting at all.

I don't understand at all what is meant by: Just fend off those fun makers!!! They are ruining this great campaign.
I am a Saurian Skirmisher: I'm a real pest, especially at night.
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