[Historical] Scenario Review - EI 11 - Lake Vrug

Feedback for the mainline campaign Eastern Invasion.

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zookeeper
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Re: Scenario Review - EI: Lake Vrug

Post by zookeeper »

brabar wrote:I came back to the game after a long quit, and I find myself stuck in lake Vrug ... As I bring Gweddry into the fortress, nothing happens, though I've got rid of the Troll and Gryphon leaders ...

What do I miss ? O_o
Gweddry? It's Dacyn you need to bring there, is it not?
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Inky
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Re: Scenario Review - EI: Lake Vrug

Post by Inky »

I think you missed brabar's previous post - in the French translation the objectives incorrectly say Gweddry instead of Dacyn.

(Currently there doesn't seem to be a good place to report translation issues/typos? Maybe each language should get a sticky thread in the Translations forum?)
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zookeeper
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Re: Scenario Review - EI: Lake Vrug

Post by zookeeper »

Inky wrote:I think you missed brabar's previous post - in the French translation the objectives incorrectly say Gweddry instead of Dacyn.
Ah, yes, I did.
Inky wrote:(Currently there doesn't seem to be a good place to report translation issues/typos? Maybe each language should get a sticky thread in the Translations forum?)
Since it'd only be for typos and other outright mistakes, I'd think one thread for all would be enough. But yes, something like that might work.
krekling
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Re: Scenario Review - EI: Lake Vrug

Post by krekling »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Normal, 1.13.8.

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

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Not too clear. On my first run, I thought the gryphon keep was the "stronghold". On my second run, I found the stronghold to the north of the gryphon keep, but I didn't realize there was a second enemy leader.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Interesting enough, though I didn't grab where the drakes fit in (after the dialogue I was expecting only trolls and gryphons).

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Understanding what the stronghold was, finding the stronghold, then finally finding the troll keep.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7, with potential for a 9-10. I think the scenario has a good premise. It was very exciting to explore the map the first time, but then a bit more tedious trying to find out how to match the objectives the second and third time. The time limit felt a tad short on normal difficulty; I finished on my third try by moving Dacyn to the stronghold on turn 29/30.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
With some changes I think this would turn into one of the most fun scenarios of the campaign for me. My suggested changes are:

1. Specify that there are two enemy leaders to kill.

2. Maybe add a few hints in the dialogue about the general location of the keeps (these may be vague to keep it exciting) and the stronghold.

3. Find a way to distinguish the keeps from the stronghold. Maybe some dialogue when discovering the keeps for the first time could help in this regard.

4. Increase the turn limit. This would make it more plausible to take good time exploring the map, not having to do trial and error runs to locate the keeps and stronghold. Even knowing all the locations beforehand, I found the turn limit a bit too short.

5. Maybe make the map just a tad smaller or more linear. Reducing the walking distances from east to west and from the gryphon keep to the stronghold would eliminate a couple of dud turns.
LordWolfDan
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Re: Scenario Review - EI 11 - Lake Vrug

Post by LordWolfDan »

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

- 1.14.5, Easy

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

- 6

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

- Not that clear. It took me a while to realize that Dacyn has to get to some keep on the north

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

- I feel like it needs some polishing, otherwise it's ok

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

- Surviving the troll wave on the bridge. Almost lost two red mages on it

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

- 5

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

- Change from gryphons to some other enemy units, possibly undead, and make them be in the keep Dacyn has to move to. Luckily for Dacyn, these wouldn't understand that keep is not a random keep, but some kind of school of secrets
Konrad2
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Re: Scenario Review - EI 10 - Lake Vrug

Post by Konrad2 »

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

Hard, 1.14.6

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

5

(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. But not interesting.

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

Surviving the first wave of Gryphons and moving Dacyn to the keep in time. I send him over ice at first, so he had no chance to make it in time.

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

4

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

Remove the Sky Drakes. They don't make sense. Why would they obey a Gryphon? And what are Drakes doing on there when it's obviously such a cold place?
(Another way to go about this would be a campaign that explains this. Otherwise it seems weird.)
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Ceesem
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Re: Scenario Review - EI 11 - Lake Vrug

Post by Ceesem »

(1) 1.14.19 normal
(2) can't answer the question really, combat was 4-5 but all other aspects were... random
(3) The scenario should give you more information as to the location of objectives and/or give more time
(4) clear, not interesting, like the above poster I think Gryphon leader + drakes is weird
(5) there is some minor challenge in keeping important guys alive in the beginning but the major "challenge" is knowing where things are and where to go
(6) 1, tedious, random, frustrating! I was on a Wesnoth binge until I reached this scenario and I quit for 2 weeks, frustrated. This scenario seems to be designed from ground-up with save / reload in mind. After a half-ok/half-frustrating battle (gryphons/drakes descending upon you from nowhere and insta-killing off one of your important characters - reload and prepare for that in advance) most of it consists not of making tactical decisions but moving your army about on an empty map and hoping you go in the right direction. If you so much as step in the wrong direction it means reload (out of time!). And there's also the money issue. Since moving around in the mountains is so slow, sometimes there's no way to reload early enough as there's only 10 autosaves.

Basically you have to explore the map, reload, and then play correctly as if there was no shroud - defeating the very purpose of the shroud! (or be lucky)

Now I'm at the point where I have to reload, do all the things I already did for 10 turns except move Dacyn in a different direction. And it's gonna be like 3rd reload of this type. Waste. Of. Time. (I'm OK with reloading to try a different strategy, this is NOT it)

Also, correct me if I'm wrong but "normal" difficulty to me means making mistakes and paying the price (less gold for example, a dead higher-tier unit...), not making mistakes and reloading and then playing perfectly.

(7) reveal the locations of the objectives (which manny missions in Wesnoth actually do!). The gameplay gains nothing from having to search for them.
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josteph
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Re: Scenario Review - EI: Lake Vrug

Post by josteph »

krekling wrote: February 25th, 2018, 10:38 am 1. Specify that there are two enemy leaders to kill.
The objectives say "Defeat the enemy leaders", plural.
krekling wrote: February 25th, 2018, 10:38 am 2. Maybe add a few hints in the dialogue about the general location of the keeps (these may be vague to keep it exciting) and the stronghold.

3. Find a way to distinguish the keeps from the stronghold. Maybe some dialogue when discovering the keeps for the first time could help in this regard.

4. Increase the turn limit. This would make it more plausible to take good time exploring the map, not having to do trial and error runs to locate the keeps and stronghold. Even knowing all the locations beforehand, I found the turn limit a bit too short.
There's something in #4145 about these:
#4145 wrote: S10: the feedback thread and walkthrough are full of people saying they had to restart the scenario and play it already knowing where the enemy keeps are. Maybe change shroud to fog? That also makes sense in-universe since Dacyn knows the territory.

S10: It's not clear where the stronghold is. Some dialog upon seeing the stronghold, and/or a map label "Stronghold" on the stronghold's keep, might help.
Ceesem wrote: September 27th, 2019, 3:32 pm Also, correct me if I'm wrong but "normal" difficulty to me means making mistakes and paying the price (less gold for example, a dead higher-tier unit...), not making mistakes and reloading and then playing perfectly.

(7) reveal the locations of the objectives (which manny missions in Wesnoth actually do!). The gameplay gains nothing from having to search for them.
You're not wrong. Mainline campaigns are supposed to be designed to be winnable in a single go. See what I quoted above, and also this recently-added part of the in-game help: https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/blob ... #L288-L342

In this case, I assume we should either fix the scenario or add an out-of-world warning that reloads are expected in this scenario. Would that be better?

Ceesem wrote: September 27th, 2019, 3:32 pm Since moving around in the mountains is so slow, sometimes there's no way to reload early enough as there's only 10 autosaves.
You can save manually. There is also a preference for the number of autosaves, which can be set to "infinity".
Ceesem
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Re: Scenario Review - EI 11 - Lake Vrug

Post by Ceesem »

I'm all for changing shroud to fog, this would fix most problems of the scenario IMHO.

Gryphons swooping down on you from nowhere I can live with (though Gryphons are hardly present in previous campaigns and I don't remember drakes were there at all, so it's reasonable to assume that a player doesn't yet have a good "feel" of how they perform on a battlefield, especially such an extremely mountainous one, and a tip wouldn't have been overly generous IMO)

There's also perhaps another, lesser problem - after you deal with the initial battle there's almost no resistance just some walking, killing a stray unit or two and then the leaders and then just moving Dacyn to the keep. Not sure how to fix that though. If there was a way for the enemy leaders to spawn units continuously that would help (more villages?).

The first scenario of Heir to the Throne is to me a golden standard of a "move your guy to the other side of the map" type of mission - constant action and drama until the very end. There were some other good ones I vaguely remember. This one is not it.

I'm against the warning that reloads are expected. It's like saying "this scenario is bad, deal with it". Again, most reloads here are not a result of a bad tactical decision but of going the wrong way and might require you to perform same moves all over again for many turns.

BTW also a little cosmetic suggestion I've come up with, putting the nest sprites on top of the Gryphon/Drakes castle would alleviate the weirdness of that faction somewhat, or at least one on the Keep below the leader.

And thanks for the tip about autosaves, I was actually thinking about looking if there's some option, but I always forget! My bad!
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josteph
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Re: Scenario Review - EI 11 - Lake Vrug

Post by josteph »

Ceesem wrote: September 27th, 2019, 11:24 pm There's also perhaps another, lesser problem - after you deal with the initial battle there's almost no resistance just some walking, killing a stray unit or two and then the leaders and then just moving Dacyn to the keep. Not sure how to fix that though. If there was a way for the enemy leaders to spawn units continuously that would help (more villages?).
To be fair, every single battle against the AI is "Fight off the first wave, then just kill stray units until the end". Giving the AI more income helps with that (that can be done with or without adding villages, btw).
Ceesem wrote: September 27th, 2019, 11:24 pm I'm against the warning that reloads are expected. It's like saying "this scenario is bad, deal with it".
Well, yes, that warning is not intended as a permanent fix, just as a stopgap until we fix things to be winnable without restarts/foreknowledge. The idea is to coordinate expectations, so players aren't frustrated by the scenario. For example, if just switching shroud to fog fixes this scenario, then we won't need the warning on this scenario...but if we can't remove the shroud for some reason, then we might add the warning until we find a better / permanent fix.
groggyfroggy
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Re: Scenario Review - EI 11 - Lake Vrug

Post by groggyfroggy »

Hello Forum!

I just reinstalled (2024 AD) Ubuntu and Wesnoth - re-playing Eastern Invasion now.

Made it to Lake Vrug, and Mr Dacyn is not present (not from start, not able to recall him). Can´t finish the scenario.

What to do?

regards
Grogg
Konrad2
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Re: Scenario Review - EI 11 - Lake Vrug

Post by Konrad2 »

groggyfroggy wrote: February 21st, 2024, 7:27 am Hello Forum!

I just reinstalled (2024 AD) Ubuntu and Wesnoth - re-playing Eastern Invasion now.

Made it to Lake Vrug, and Mr Dacyn is not present (not from start, not able to recall him). Can´t finish the scenario.

What to do?

regards
Grogg
What version of Wesnoth are you playing? Can you upload a save?
groggyfroggy
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Re: Scenario Review - EI 11 - Lake Vrug

Post by groggyfroggy »

Konrad2 wrote: February 21st, 2024, 11:37 am
groggyfroggy wrote: February 21st, 2024, 7:27 am Hello Forum!

I just reinstalled (2024 AD) Ubuntu and Wesnoth - re-playing Eastern Invasion now.

Made it to Lake Vrug, and Mr Dacyn is not present (not from start, not able to recall him). Can´t finish the scenario.

What to do?

regards
Grogg
What version of Wesnoth are you playing? Can you upload a save?
1,16,2
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Konrad2
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Re: Scenario Review - EI 11 - Lake Vrug

Post by Konrad2 »

groggyfroggy wrote: February 21st, 2024, 4:44 pm 1,16,2
2 things:
1.16.2 is not up to date (1.16.11 is), so there is a decent chance that it is something that was fixed. Replaying from the last scenario Dacyn was there after updating Wesnoth might fix your problem.
If that didn't help, we'd need a save (probably replay) of the last scenario Dacyn was present, because that is likely when things went wrong.
groggyfroggy
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Re: Scenario Review - EI 11 - Lake Vrug

Post by groggyfroggy »

Trying to update - but no success at all. Error messages en masse.
Strange, as the latest Wesnoth version is older than my installation and the one in Ubuntu software. Why no updates available in the software app wherefrom I installed it?

Is there a bullet-proof Ubuntu instruction for updating Wesnoth?

regards
Grogg, too drunk to understand Linux apparently
(I am not running Ubuntu because it is best, but to avoid Windows)

Edit: Something like the command-line install, but pointing at the *real* latest version:

"Ubuntu
Click here to install the latest version of the wesnoth packaged for your release. Alternatively, search for "wesnoth" in the Ubuntu Software Center or use following command:

Select All
sudo apt-get install wesnoth

Available Versions
Different releases of Ubuntu provide different versions of Wesnoth in their repositories. Often, this version will be older than the most current Wesnoth.

Release Packaged Version
22.04 LTS (Jammy) 1.16.2"
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