16 - The Chief must die

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16 - The Chief must die

Post by Content Feedback »

The Legend of Wesmere, scenario 16 - The Chief must die:

(1) What difficulty levels and what 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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governor
Posts: 267
Joined: December 8th, 2006, 12:32 am

Re: Scenario Review: LoW 16 - The Chief must die

Post by governor »

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Medium and Hard 1.5.6
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
1
(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?
Didn't really like this arc. See my idea below:
(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)
3 - Its more tedium than anything. This scenario could be 100% scripted (move-to's, more dialogue showing the immediate effects on Landar's personality etc.) and have the same result. In fact it should be.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Make some sentries see you, forcing you to kill them immediately before they can call for reinforcements.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
None

I personally didn't enjoy this part of the story. It is obvious from previous scenarios that Landar is unforgiving and tending towards a darker path, however his descent to evil is rushed and I feel nothing other than ambivalence towards the Landar character. I propose the following sequence:

After getting the potions from the mage:
- Landar covertly drinks his potion. And has to get another. (Before the scenario)
- (During the scenario) As Kalenz drinks his potion, Landar swipes the vial from Kalenz and drinks the remainder for himself. He then proceeds to assasinate the orcish warlord by himself, leaving Kalenz unable to help at the signpost. Kalenz is helpless at this point essentially making way for Landar's rise to power.
- Landar becomes very boastful and arrogant while Kalenz is in turmoil with how to deal with his friend.
- Landar then forces an unconvinced Kalenz to slaughter the saurians in the next scenario, either by boasting to the men that they will have revenge or some other good reason that removes Kalenz from his role as leader to a role of follower.
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santi
Lord of Wesmere
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Re: Scenario Review: LoW 16 - The Chief must die

Post by santi »

I think you're rushing things. The story is that Landar goes back to Crelanu, maybe gets another vial and probably slays Crelanu. Landar taking control is not consistent with the potion slowly eating away and at any rate Kalenz still own the army not to mention the shydes and dwarves. Taking control of the army is too soon IMHO and Landar's descent will be too obvious. In fact Kalenz's failure is his failure to see landar's path in time. Not that he could have done much perhaps.
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governor
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Re: Scenario Review: LoW 16 - The Chief must die

Post by governor »

Perhaps I was not clear, Kalenz is still in control, but Landar gains incontestable influence over Kalenz (even more than what does not allow Kalenz to see how dark his friend really is). My intention with the first point (about covertly drinking the potion) was an overlap to your storyline in order to indicate where my proposal would fit. This point could be exaggerated when they decide to take on the saurians a final time and allow Kalenz to be more aligned to Cleodil' frame of mind: that it is an unnecessary slaughter.

Another reason I proposed this was so that when Kalenz 'retires' it is also possible for players to attribute more hopelessness to Kalenz' situation, stemming from his internal conflict with how to handle Landar.
taemyr
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Joined: September 1st, 2007, 12:33 pm

Re: Scenario Review: LoW 16 - The Chief must die

Post by taemyr »

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
medium 1.5.8
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
1
(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
(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)
1
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Make the wolves move? Something to add a bit of challenge.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No
Bircoph
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Joined: October 5th, 2007, 8:23 pm

Re: Scenario Review: LoW 16 - The Chief must die

Post by Bircoph »

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.5.10+svn-r32867; hard.

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

(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 interesting. I highly disagree with second post arguing to turn Landar into berserk. At this point almost everything is ok. Potion may take effect only later, it swallows soul tardily, but firmly.

(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)
10. I like non-standard things. However... see 7 below.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
This scenario is really too easy. Maybe player should make some additional action to mimic this slayery as done by orcish hand.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
None.
Per aspera ad astra!
Lone_Isle
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Joined: November 2nd, 2006, 2:36 am

Re: Scenario Review: LoW 16 - The Chief must die

Post by Lone_Isle »

1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.6; hard.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
3, it was frustrating to figure the hidden rules of "invisibility" but once I did it was easy and boring. See below.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Unclear, for the bewildering fact that apparently there is no way to avoid the wolf riders and the hugely useless tip we're given to "avoid them as they might smell us", which should have instead been "We must kill all the wolves as we cannot get past them, but don't worry about the grunts and archers as they might as well not be there since THEY DONT ATTACK YOU EVEN IF YOU GO NEXT TO THEM"


(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
As mentioned above, the exact quote: "remember to stay far away from wolves" is contrary to how one actually completes this scenario: killing all the wolf units as they will all unerringly catch you, and pretending the other units don't exist, because they effectively don't since you can waltz Landar next to a grunt, shoot at it for 3 straight turns without the grunt doing anything.

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

The tooltip for invisibility. I suggest it be changed to: "Only wolf units can attack you."


(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
3. It's not very fun because so many elements of this map might as well not be there.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I do not have any ideas to make the concept of this scenario more fun. I've never liked rpg style stages wherein you only control a few units0 in strategy or tactics based games.

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

Yes, at the beginning I thought whenever I was caught by the wolves my cover was blown since the invisibility seems to wear off, so I reloaded. It took me several tries to realise two things:

1. It's not possible to avoid the wolves, how foolish for me to listen to the dialog LOL.

2. Whether you have the invisibility on or not makes no difference. Wolf units will find you and attack you, grunts and crossbow will ignore you regardless.
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Benefuchs
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Joined: February 24th, 2009, 9:40 pm

Re: Scenario Review: LoW 16 - The Chief must die

Post by Benefuchs »

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.6 , medium

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
rather clear. Kill the Chief in the middle.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
not really clear. At first I thought, the wolves would attack me straight when I'm too close (maybe 3 Hex) to them and not just move random and attack me only when in direct contact.
Plus: the German translation (of the whole campaign) needs fine tuning of the spelling.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Understanding, what exactly to do with the wolves. The first time, I tried to run, took too long healing my characters and didn't return in time but one turn too late.
The second time I killed nearly all of them and managed to level up Kalenz again.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8 I like some variety.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Make the part about the wolves clearer. And make the units just standing there attack you when you're seen (more or less like in that outlaw-campaign. Maybe they should be fewer then.)

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario
s. above
PhilipN
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Joined: October 27th, 2008, 4:49 am

Re: Scenario Review: LoW 16 - The Chief must die

Post by PhilipN »

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.6.1 medium
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4-5
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear; kill the Orcish Sovereign and get back to the signpost before the invisibility wears off (from earlier experience in other camps such as AOI and NR, I'd had the idea before going into this scenario that the "great leader" was going to be an Orcish Sovereign).
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
As has been pointed out, the "stay away from the wolves" can be interpreted in different ways; it could be that the wolves can smell you from close up, or that they can smell you from anywhere on the map, but ultimately you can't stay away from them all, so you'll have to kill several (although it is possible to avoid some of them, especially the ones that are left near the end of the scenario, lending some truth to the beginning dialog about staying away from them).
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Surviving the wolf attack, then having enough time to kill the Sovereign and make it back out, especially since you are still affected by the non-wolf units' ZoC, which takes some time to move through and limits you while you are fighting the wolves.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8 or 9 (I like variety in campaigns), possibly I could give this one a 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?
I underestimated the wolves and let a character die (I forget which one). The second time through I was able to keep him alive and complete the scenario without trouble. The question about the difficulty was interesting as this was a very easy scenario, except that I lost and had to reload which makes it a not-so-easy scenario (confused? So am I!).
energyman76c
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Joined: May 26th, 2004, 9:38 pm

Re: Scenario Review: LoW 16 - The Chief must die

Post by energyman76c »

The Legend of Wesmere, scenario 16 - The Chief must die:

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

last time 1.7.0, normal. Played it with prior wesnoth versions on different difficulty levels.

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

10 - unbeatable with 1.7.0

(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?

medium

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

the [censored] wolf riders being everywhere and for some [censored] reason sensing one even when 5 tiles away.

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

zero. Really, it was bad with earlier versions. But it hit rock bottom now. It was always only winable with a lot of luck. Now not even luck does help one.

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

less wolfes. Or have them move around a lot less.

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

yes. In fact, after 10 tries I am still not able to win this one. And I did in the past.
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A-Red
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Re: Scenario Review: LoW 16 - The Chief must die

Post by A-Red »

In response to the above poster, I happen to have just beaten this level for the first time, and I did it on Medium. It was on 1.6.1, not 1.7, so perhaps the poster is right. I counted 10 riders of various types in the version of the level I played, and I actually killed every single one of them before getting to the Sovereign--I found them nearly impossible to avoid, so I tended to try to fight them on my own terms, trying to wound or kill them before they had a chance to attack me, and using villages to my advantage when possible. It was doable, but quite tough. If 1.7 does indeed have added difficulty, my two cents is to change it back to the way it was, at least on Medium.

I like the gameplay and overall concept of the level. As for the story, I don't think there's anything wrong with it in this particular level--however, I agree that Landar's descent is rushed, mostly because he gets so little dialogue until this point in the story. I hardly would have even known he was important until the vials of invisibility showed up. He needs more character, not in the Chief level, but in the whole campaign.
energyman76c
Posts: 199
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Re: Scenario Review: LoW 16 - The Chief must die

Post by energyman76c »

I beat it on 1.6 - and it was a lot easier there ;)
fabi
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Re: Scenario Review: LoW 16 - The Chief must die

Post by fabi »

Thank you very much for the feedback.

I will have a look at the 1.7.x code.

Greetings, Fabi
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StandYourGround
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Re: Scenario Review: LoW 16 - The Chief must die

Post by StandYourGround »

I am playing it on 1.7, and I also find it totally unbeatable. The wolves always catch me in packs, and all the grunts, crossbowmen, and goblins move as a whole mob immediately towards me after the first time I'm sighted, usually cutting me off. I tried to spit up and go two ways, hoping to split the mob up and kill the wolves, but no good.
I will now resume lurking silently.
dELFador
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Re: Scenario Review: LoW 16 - The Chief must die

Post by dELFador »

I am currently trying to beat this game on medium, 1.7.0 and I'm wondering, is it possibly to kill a warlord and recruit soldiers? (yes, I know you don't get income from villages and you only have 100 gold)
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Try to teach a man to fish, and he will resent you for trying to make him work.
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