Scenario Review: DW 10 - The Flaming Sword

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Scenario Review: DW 10 - The Flaming Sword

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(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth 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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alda
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 10 - The Flaming Sword

Post by alda »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
difficult, 1.9.0

(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?
average

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Not much. Just advancing and killing the lich. I didn't really expect the fire elementals then, even if you are given some warning to retreat your wounded units first, but they didn't do much and just killed each other with the remaining undead troops.

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

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
nothing here

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No restart or reload on this scenario.

(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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Maiklas3000
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 10 - The Flaming Sword

Post by Maiklas3000 »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Triton (difficult, nightmare); 1.9.2, with patch for Brawlers so that stun is not permanent.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9.5. I have a hard time believing the review above. 6?! Just advance on the lich and kill him?! I suspect it was not on difficult (i.e., Triton.)

(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?
Good.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
That area around the central villages is nasty. I finally decided to simply abandon it immediately before the undead arrived. I also sent more troops to the northwest, which helped weaken the enemy's assault in the middle. This probably helped, but it made my troops so thin in the middle that I lost a diviner.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8. I usually hate fog, but here it helps build to the climax when you finally see the lich.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
There is quite a lot of detail in the scenario, so I was surprised that the Staff of Righteousness simply disappeared and was not also retrievable. I think it would be a nice touch to add it. It also would add an element of strategy: if you pick it up with a unit that the mage then fries, game over!

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
There was a long time gap between my review of the previous scenario and this one. That's because I had to restart the campaign and replay each scenario until I got kick ass results on each, so that I had enough crack troops to finally beat this scenario. Even then, it took a few attempts.

(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?
Most excellently commented and quite detailed code.

To watch the following replay, when it comes up with an error you'll need to select "ignore all" (and "no" for save.) The starting gold is too low, causing the error.
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Pewskeepski
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 10 - The Flaming Sword

Post by Pewskeepski »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Normal 1.9.3 (92 gold)

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

(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?
Excellent, Caladon talks in 'all caps' some times, Is he suppose to be yelling those specific words?

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The first wave of undead was tough, But once I manage to take away the liches villages it wasn't that hard

Killing Caladon wasn't hard at all because I ended up swarming the lich while he was on his keep. And after I killed Caladon, I waited until turn 27, So my gold would go up :) (I think I killed him on turn 22)

(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?
I like Maiklas3000's idea of concerning the staff of righteous flame, It would be very strategical

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No

(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?
Its good
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beetlenaut
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 10 - The Flaming Sword

Post by beetlenaut »

Maiklas3000 wrote:There is quite a lot of detail in the scenario, so I was surprised that the Staff of Righteousness simply disappeared and was not also retrievable. I think it would be a nice touch to add it. It also would add an element of strategy: if you pick it up with a unit that the mage then fries, game over!
Why would you ever pick it up then? I don't want to add a method of instant death. Actually, it should only work in the hands of a mage: it's supposed to be the same as the staff of righteousness that you can find in THoT, though that early one is less powerful.
Pewskeepski wrote:And after I killed Caladon, I waited until turn 27, So my gold would go up (I think I killed him on turn 22)
By ending the level early, you always get a bit more gold than the maximum you could have gotten by holding all the villages until the turns run out.
Pewskeepski wrote:Excellent, Caladon talks in 'all caps' some times, Is he suppose to be yelling those specific words?
Right. He's supposed to be a bit unbalanced.
Campaigns: Dead Water,
The Founding of Borstep,
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Maiklas3000
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 10 - The Flaming Sword

Post by Maiklas3000 »

beetlenaut wrote:
Maiklas3000 wrote:There is quite a lot of detail in the scenario, so I was surprised that the Staff of Righteousness simply disappeared and was not also retrievable. I think it would be a nice touch to add it. It also would add an element of strategy: if you pick it up with a unit that the mage then fries, game over!
Why would you ever pick it up then? I don't want to add a method of instant death.
You're right. "Never mind."
dsa
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 10 - The Flaming Sword

Post by dsa »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Difficult, 1.9.3

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4, I thought this will be tough, because of the 800 start gold of the enemy. However the enemy posed no serious problem for some reasom. Maybe because I had four Diviners (including Cylanna), who just rule against Undead. Additionally the enemy was occupied with the humans (i.e. Siddry and his friends) in the west. Especially Siddry was really lucky and evaded a lot of attacks. So in the end I was able to finish by turn 11.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear. Actually I don't like it, if the objectives change during a scenario, but it really makes sense here. It is also solved very good by giving a break for one turn, until Caladon attacks (although I didn't need this extra turn).

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
None, even the shroud was no problem.

(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?
Maybe I was just lucky, but in my opinion the enemy should focus more on my main army instead of dealing with some weak humans or occupying cities. I don't know though, if this can be influenced by settings in this scenario or is a general AI issue.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No.
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taptap
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 10 - The Flaming Sword

Post by taptap »

Triton (Difficult), 1.9.13. Several restarts because I was unhappy with my disposition, however easier than the small maps (Uncharted Island and Mage). Maximizing income without overcommitting to the bad terrain in the village was crucial. As well as the willingness to play it safe and retreat during the night. I fell back quite a bit in the center (until the small lake) that way, while I defended the periphery. Especially Caladon did wonders in defending villages somewhere far away from the main action against ghosts and even a wraith. 10 losses (3 footpads, 4 citizens and unfortunately Siddry), 70 kills. I found footpads a good addition for otherwise bad defense terrain and recruited half a dozen. Giving Siddry a memorial line if dead would be a nice touch. The fire guardians of Caladon are nice (although hopelessly outgunned in this matchup), I wonder why they are so rarely used in other campaigns.

I would kick the staff of righteous flame from the story. It is a pure keep-the-plot-in-line device, a simple story element like him needing to cast a spell on the Sword before anyone can pick it up, would have the same result without an overpowered artifact without purpose other than keeping Caladon alive until the end of the scenario.
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beetlenaut
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 10 - The Flaming Sword

Post by beetlenaut »

Actually, the staff wasn't my idea. It was invented by esr for THoT. (Though I did beef it up a bit.) I liked being able to add to the mythology of that artifact without actually giving it to the player. (It can only be wielded by a mage according to THoT.) I thought it was a clever way of requiring Caladon to survive, while keeping him from being too helpful, since you can't be reckless with him. So, there is more than one purpose. Also, Caladon doesn't trust anyone, so I didn't think he would go with the merfolk unless he knew they couldn't try to overpower him. So, it's even a character device.
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Ecoris
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Joined: February 19th, 2012, 2:14 pm

Re: Scenario Review: DW 10 - The Flaming Sword

Post by Ecoris »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Highest, 1.10

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5. (Minimal starting gold, no requiting later on).

(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?
A bit predictable. (Why do we need to be given a hint that Caladon will turn on us?)

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The fog requires you to advance with some caution to prevent being ganged.
Selecting someone to pick up the flaming sword. (I chose an Enchantress as most other units have decent melee attacks vs undead already. I would have given it to my poacher had he stayed with me).

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
6. The undead hardly pose a threat. Their army is too spread out; bats and ghosts arrive first and you have time to finish them off before ghouls and skeleton make their way to the battlefield. They don't hesitate to enter water for an abysmal 20% defense, and more or less any unit I have will handily beat them. They are way too eager to engage you.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Better AI (if possible).
If you flag all villages, your income is 34 (5 base + 29 villages). Early finish bonus is 31/turn :? .

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No.
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beetlenaut
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 10 - The Flaming Sword

Post by beetlenaut »

Ecoris wrote:If you flag all villages, your income is 34 (5 base + 29 villages). Early finish bonus is 31/turn :? .
That's not intentional. The calculation probably assumes you get two gold per turn, but it shouldn't. It should be reported as a bug. Will you do it?
Campaigns: Dead Water,
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Wesbane
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 10 - The Flaming Sword

Post by Wesbane »

Under 1.9.7 it did not work so as for now only one thing that disturbs me. I can pick up a sword with any unit of my choice except for humans. Including Friendly bat and Inky! Although I had no objections that Inky could use that weapon. I'm just wondering where bat put this to be able to use it! If this is intended behaviour it seemed strange to me that in campaign aimed so much on quality there is no special strings introduced to handle this event. Like for example for the ring of strength. This is important since things that has no consequence in game world should not be possible.
Pretty much same problem is with Inky and ring in Revenge scenario. How Inky is able to use it? Forget it. It learned to speak!!! Growloff would be proud of it.
Although this is more of general issue I will point out it here. In this campaign magical item stacking is allowed. This is a serious flow. No, not because this is not so effective from strategical point of view or that it create extremely powerful unit. This is really not that much of issue if we allow same unit to have let say storm trident and flaming sword. Only overlay icons will looked bad but that is nothing. The thing is that some items may affect other. Again it is about ring of strength. If we acquire it in second scenario and then we will get flaming sword all base attack of a unit will be increased by one but not flaming sword. However if we will acquire it in Revenge scenario it will increase also flaming sword attack by one.
As it is shown in this example allowing stacking items is a whole lot of trouble, since it forces designer to wrote a system that will track down inventory of a unit. To avoid that simply magical item stacking should be disallowed, and appropriate messages should be implemented to deliver informations about this rules. It could be done by checking for special overlay icons. Simply I think that one magical item, for a unit is enough, since there are so many various boons to obtain in this campaign.
Last edited by Wesbane on March 28th, 2012, 9:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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beetlenaut
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 10 - The Flaming Sword

Post by beetlenaut »

I didn't realize the animals could use the items again. (They weren't able to at one point.) I will not be able to fix it for a while, anyone else is welcome to. If you post a fix, I will commit it.
Campaigns: Dead Water,
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Wesbane
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 10 - The Flaming Sword

Post by Wesbane »

I have made a fix but during review of a code I found couple of typos and several story issues generated by later revisions. Because it applies not to this specific scenario but whole campaign I posted it at development thread to not confuse readers of this topic.
lanceleau2
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 10 - The Flaming Sword

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)
8/10
(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?
They are clear enough.The dialog of the mage while taking back the sword can maybe be changed.Maybe something like "I want to watch if the sword works well let me try it" or maybe something like this which is less predictable.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The fog make it hard to know what will be next and what to recruit.The fact the map is extended make difficult to ctronol Villages.
The resistance of ennemy units (ghost in particular) make them very hard to kill.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7/10 : The fact the mage take back the sword at the end gives a bit of originality, and the fact some allies come from no where is a good idea
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Some unit than can damage ghost, or no ghost.Why not some orcs or anything coming from nowhere to attack the ghosts ?
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Not enough units to kill these ghosts, tried a lot of different strategies to be able to reach leader without killing the units
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