Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Feedback for the mainline campaign Descent into Darkness.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

User avatar
Content Feedback
Battle for Wesnoth
Location: Wesnoth.org
Contact:

Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by Content Feedback »

(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?
Mainline Campaigns: Scenario FeedbackDevelopment & Overall Feedback
User-made Add-ons: Feedback
miekka
Posts: 62
Joined: December 30th, 2007, 2:48 pm

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by miekka »

1. Easy.
2. 7, impossible if you really care about your veterans. Also for me Malin's teacher was severely injured when the scenario started, making killing him much easier.
3. Clear.
4. Very interesting. Malin and his teacher taking a fight "the Wesnoth way" was a hilarity, the way they set up camps.
5. Not losing all my veterans, this is where my fail comes in.
6. For everything else besides paladins: 8, For paladins: 0.
7. Maybe it should be just a bit easier? :roll:
8. Well, usually I would load game ever when losing a veteran... but that wouldn't help here anyway.
fareley
Posts: 66
Joined: September 10th, 2008, 5:45 pm

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by fareley »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
hard, 1.5.3
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
clear - kill the only one who may help you against the paladins and your sister, take his book with one of your slowest units and bring it back while standing between 2 unbeatable armies... no problem :roll:
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
thy were really confusing - the paladins watched darken for months - why didn't they attack him earlier? and with the sister it's the same problem. Maybe just let them say "finally we found you" - that would be more realistic i think. And the sister may be there because she heard the rumor and knows of the book stealing action?
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
finding a strategy to get the book. First i tried just assasinating darken and getting the book with a Ghoul but it didn't work very well. I tried slowing down his army with a lot of undead corpses but he just killed them while he was being overrun by the paladins. Then i defeated his whole army with level 1 units - without saveloading! It was tough but i only lost one unit - and was overrun by my sisters army and the paladins...
At least i used a very tricky strategy - only recruiting 2 Ghosts, 1 Ghoul, 2 level 2 Ghosts (those with arcane blades) and my starting level 3 shadow. I send them all north. Darken lost a lot of time with capturing the villages and then fighting against the paladins. I only had to kill 1 Skeleton archer level 2 and a blade-ghost level 2 - no problem with a few level-one-units. My Ghost-army (which i had send north) killed another Ghost - and at round 10 killed the sister (she wasn't able to recruit any unit...). When the paladins arrived, Darken battled against them - no one won. Both, Darken and the Paladin leader died, they killed each other until there were only 3 white Mages and 2 Paladins left. And those weren't really a problem. So at least you could say it is easy and you can beat it on hard - but not the traditional way.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
First, it was really frustrating. But when i realised that Darken was my only help against those Paladins (which were too fast and made it impossible to get the book before killind them...) and started using the enemies against each other it was one of the funniest scerario i ever played...
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Maybe give the player a skeleton cavalry or an other fast unit (non-ghost and no bat... :roll: ) to give him a real chance doing his duty without killing 3 armies who are each stronger than you ever can get to...
or give the player a better defense position (well the river was great but they overrun you quickly with some mages...)
and maybe give the sister a real chance to build up her camp. She wasn't even able to reach it - my units blocked her path...
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
i was being overrun several times by each enemy -.- but never saveloaded :-)
(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 anything about the WML :lol2:
User avatar
Ken_Oh
Moderator Emeritus
Posts: 2178
Joined: February 6th, 2006, 4:03 am
Location: Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by Ken_Oh »

7: It would be better if the objective were put into one. Rather than two objectives "Take the book back from Darken Volk" and "Bring the book back to Malin's castle," have one objective "Take the book back from Darken Volk and bring it back to Malin's castle."

Surprises of this nature are bad.
maclag
Posts: 12
Joined: October 27th, 2008, 1:22 pm

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by maclag »

(1) Easy on 1.4.7 (debian packaged version)
(2) 9 (I don't write 10 in case an expert could win with the army i've brought to this level)
(3) Very clear (I was suspecting the bad trick about bringing the book back...)
(4) The paladins and sister appearing in 2 different areas in the same time is not realistic. Maybe rather they've JUST found the necromancers and decided to ambush them from both side?
(5) The paladins crushes the master necromancer much too easily!! I have almost no time to reach the master: the paladins already killed in and then turn to my army. Even without the sister, I don't stand a chance! My only level3 ghost had died while entering the crypt (no I've not "let the ghosts do the job", my army at this stage has gone almost completely with skeletons and skeleton archers, which makes this very last scenario very very difficult!!). The only good thing I've done is since the paladins were coming from south, I moved my army around by north, and so when the sister arrives, she's already surrounded by my army and has no opportunity to inflict any damage nor recruit anyone.
(6) 3 - Would be fun if at least I didn't have the feeling that I should remake half of the campaign to train ghosts in order to win this one :'(
(7) Make it realistic to get the book and come back with trained skeletons rather than ghosts?
(8) Nothing not explained above
(9) I've never read any doc on WML
User avatar
LemonTea
Posts: 138
Joined: September 24th, 2008, 4:56 am
Location: Brisbane, Dumb State, Australia

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by LemonTea »

Mythological wrote:(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
The middle difficulty ("Challenging"), Wesnoth 1.4.7
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
Quite. 180 gold vs 3 armies with 400 gold each and high arcane dmg FTW/L. I phailed once before deciding to do it the chicken-play way. 8/10. Wasn't impossible, quite do-able if you know what's gonna happen and don't care about losing a few veterans, though you'll still be hard-pressed.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
I found them very clear, though if one only looks at the words without making a bit of a guess one wouldn't know exactly what to do. (experience from other campaigns helped, get the book by KILLING him, fetch the book by STANDING ON the hex and MOVING it back).
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
The plot was quite interesting compared to some other mainline campaigns. Dialogue was clear.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Um, surviving. Tried doing it the 'conventional' method (attacking the necromancer), got pwned. Restarted, moved my units to the north, held off the initial attack from the necromancer, waited till the pally came and watched them kill Darken Volk. Dela spawned right in the middle of my lvl 3 units and died. Played tag with the pally's forces, keeping my units out of the range of his paladins and killed the stray magi, then rushed the leader. Finished off ALL the enemy units on the map before I dared to touch that book, and took a short stroll back. Meanwhile I was basically faced with the choice of which of my veterans were more expendable than others.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
5/10. Not boring but having to run from enemies who you have NO chance at all of defeating in a 'normal' battle was annoying. Took a while too, I finished deep into negative gold.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Make it possible to complete WITHOUT having to do the chicken-play that the N3T clan is against and camping Dela's spawn counterstrike-style?
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Um, yes like I mentioned earlier. Getting pwned in general.
(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?
No comment. I didn't bother read the WML for it.
JW's Wesnoth personality quiz wrote:You are a Skeleton: a lifeless animation of bone controlled by a necromancer. See a therapist.
:augh:
zengya
Posts: 6
Joined: February 1st, 2009, 12:10 pm

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by zengya »

I did this campaign in both novice and intermediate mode. I had Darken Volk killed and every enemies too, I took the book, brought it back to my castle but nothing happened. How do you finish this scenario ? Do I have a bug ? Please help me !!!!!!
AI
Developer
Posts: 2396
Joined: January 31st, 2008, 8:38 pm

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by AI »

Are you running 1.4.x?

Please type the following while holding the cursor over the book carrier (or any random unit you want to fill that role):

Code: Select all

:debug
:unit role=book_carrier
:nodebug
Then move that unit off and onto your castle.
tvik
Posts: 4
Joined: March 25th, 2009, 7:16 pm

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by tvik »

(1) Normal. 1.4.5
(2) 10
(3) Clear enough.
(4) Solid. Nice chaos.
(5) Pretty much everything was a challenge. It took me a while to figure out, that Malin's sister should've been slain instantly. Then it was almost impossible to kill Volk in a sensible position. I've always ended surrounded with 4 horsemens with 2 last ghosts by my side. This is a sick scenario. I was patiently waiting for AI to do something stupid, like moving the leader in reach of my nightgaunts. This was the only way to win it from my point of view. In other words - for me the objectives could've been "Kill everyone". I had to do it anyways.
(6) Somewhere between 1 and 10. Don't get me wrong. It was a serious pain to win it. I had to go back 3 scenarios to exp enough nighgaunts and wights. But after all that... the feeling of victory was great.
(7) Maybe weaken the white power a bit too make it a reasonable fight. Not just hit and run with multiple save-load spell usage. I would prefer to do some full frontal battle and retrive the book from between the soldiers legs.
(8) Every turn was an event that made me load the game at least 5 times. And at some point I decided not only to restart it, but to make a 3 scenarios back trip.
froodh
Posts: 1
Joined: March 27th, 2009, 9:34 am

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by froodh »

1) Easy, 1.5.12
2) 9 - I lost all but one veteran unit (a necromancer) and got the book through by the skin of that vet's teeth.
3) Very clear
4) A real climatic battle
5) 3 opposing armies more powerful than yours is challenging enough even on easy mode!
6) 5, very challenging, but watching your cherished veterans being cut down like wheat is rather depressing
7) Not much without reducing the challenge
8) Too many times! First attempt I tried the conventional raising of an army and slugging out, but my handful of level 2 & 3 units were no match for Darken's horde of level 2 units and I gave up.

Second attempt was to assassinate Darken with two Nightgaunts who did that easily enough with a front-back double backstab job, but ended in frustration because they could not pick up the book. By the time I got another unit around, the paladins had over-run the whole territory and I had to restart.

Third go, my assassination force (two Nightgaunts and a necromancer) were sent north and around, but skirted too close to the river, and Darken Volk's forces crossed the river and blocked them off - had to restart again.

Fourth go with the assassination force sweeping wider around the north and nabbing Darken just as the paladins were bashing down his fort doors. The necromancer grabbed the book, narrowly avoided a paladin's lance in her back as the NightGaunts are cut down, skirted back around the river just before the sister appears, running all way with Parthyn troops on her tail. Meanwhile, Darken's forces slash their way through my cannon fodder corpse army and as my last units barricade themselves in the castle, the paladins trample Darken's undead horde from behind. One by one my remaining veterans fall to paladins and white mages until by some miracle the necromancer with the book slipped in and Malin got away with HP in the red. Pheew!

Good thing the last two scenarios are easy and can be won without vet units.
User avatar
Orcish Shyde
Posts: 303
Joined: October 13th, 2008, 6:13 pm

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by Orcish Shyde »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Medium, 1.6a; Easy/Medium/Hard, 1.4 series

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
7. 10 before I thought "this is the climax of the campaign, I can afford to lose all my veterans"

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear as day, but it would have helped to make it clear from the word "go" that you have to take the book back after killing Volk.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
I thought Dela could do better than "I will hear no more of your lies", but otherwise clear and highly interesting - making Darken Volk possibly the most sympathetic villain in mainline Wesnoth.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Not getting wiped by the paladins. Dela too, but I could have run away from her.

(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?
Make Dela killable, possibly with last "I failed... better to be dead than see what you've become... brother..." or simply "Fine! I will retreat! You are more trouble than you are worth, dark fiend!" followed by a move_unit_fake to get her out of there. I could have finished her off by turn 40 if not for the code that makes her unkillable.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Not having enough gold, due to not realising I'd need bonus gold from A Small Favour. This resulted in me restarting from there...

(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?
It looked fine to me.
Shameless Crossover Excuse
Necromancer (campaign)

You are a Dwarvish Berserker: you're freaking crazy and enjoy it.
xivarmy
Posts: 12
Joined: March 25th, 2009, 7:33 am

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by xivarmy »

Mythological wrote:(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?
(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?
1) 1.6a, Hardest setting
2) 7 - but bearing in mind i played the entire campaign recruiting only ghosts i think it should've been a bit harder - the paladins were mostly taken care of by the enemy necromancer... in effect making the scenario easier not harder. Perhaps the AI could be tuned so that the various enemy AIs place a higher price on my units than on each other? Also the sister showing up was a nonevent, escaping with the book seemed trivial.
3) Not terribly clear - i wasn't aware that as soon as i got the book back to my castle the scenario would be over - felt like it was just another step and then the scenario would keep going
4) fine
5) mainly just that i had confined myself to ghosts - ghosts vs ghosts is a funny sight. Plus having to walk my leader out to pickup the book because ghosts can't take it ;) but even with these extra "problems" it wasn't really a problem
6) 7? I dunno, i always wish for more of an interesting challenge when it comes to the campaigns that the current AI doesn't really provide, nothing against this specific scenario.
7) AI tuning mentioned in 2 perhaps
8) I had to restart the scenario once because i wasn't clear i needed a unit out there to ferry it back and ghosts wouldn't count, hence needed to restart so i could move my leader forward after recruiting.
9) didn't attempt to read it.

Edit: some comments on the rest of the campaign because finding and filling out one of these for each episode saying basically the same thing seems tedious. For the most part this campaign seemed far too simple given that i made no attempt to take any unit diversity (and often this lack of diversity seemed a strongpoint not a weakpoint - the one where you have to strike quick and break in seems like an army full of ghosts is about as good as it gets. ambushing the leader and knocking him out with nightgaunts and taking out the two mages guarding the manor the same turn, and using wraiths to hit the units on the wall first turn rather than having to move into range to let them hit me first. After completing that scenario i wondered how i would've even gone about it if i didn't have such an army of fast moving ghosts to blitz things when breaking in. The same goes for the scenario with the northerner armies and the ice they kept falling into. My all ghosts let me surround them with ease. I'd played this campaign with a hope for a campaign with some different units and the hope it'd be a challenge since it was rated hard. But the only times i had to restart a scenario were due to not quite understanding the layout at first. It'd be nice if the campaign as a whole was designed to encourage a more diverse unit selection.

Also, the final scenario that repeats, some clue that it is actually getting harder would be nice, i wasn't aware of it after completing it 3 or 4 times when i got another orcish foolish hero and assumed i was just in a tedious infinite loop - i might have kept playing if i knew it was going to get harder each time.
silent
Posts: 244
Joined: February 20th, 2009, 5:53 am

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by silent »

Is it even possible to damage dela?

I have tried nightgaunts, dark adepts, even my own leader and cannot land a single blow.

Is there some sort of code that prevents me from killing her?

I'm playing 1.6 on the middle difficulty BTW
User avatar
stupidjaguar
Posts: 81
Joined: September 20th, 2007, 1:15 am
Location: Where the shadows lie

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by stupidjaguar »

Hands down the hardest scenario in DiD, the others aren't even close in difficulty and I suspect some balancing is in order.
-It's very hard, probably 8 or 9, and 12 if you try and do it while preserving your high-level units. I played on Easy and had a difficult time. Clear objectives, fun, etc. I have nothing to add to those questions that has not already been said.

-I suggest giving the paladin less gold, giving him lower level units, or giving Volk more gold. A key strategy here is to let Darken Volk attack the paladins, but this strategy backfires miserably when the paladin army steamrolls over Darken Volk's troops and then comes after mine. The paladin's army is not beatable. An invincible Dela Keshar does not help either.

I won this scenario by the skin of my teeth by dragging a Draug to the north of the map and then dragging him back, leaving all my Wraiths, Spectres, Shadows, and Nightgaunts near Dela Keshar's camp so that she could not recruit and so that the paladin army would run into them to leave my draug alone, but when the holy warriors started taking all my units out, I ran off with the few ghost-line units I had left, since the draug was getting close to home; a paladin nearly killed Malin at one point while retreating but I barely managed to pick him off with a Nightgaunt. I lost 80% of my high level units in the process and would have lost my last Spectre and last Nightgaunt had I waited even one more turn. I was left with 1 bone shooted, 1 draug, 1 spectre, 1 shadow, and 1 nightgaunt from a starting army of 3 shadows, 3 nightgaunts, 2 draugs, 2 bone shooters, and 4 spectres. Is it supposed to be possible to defeat the paladin? Is this steamrolling intended? I'm just asking, because I had played this scenario dozens of time with no luck and one day I restarted the campaign, leveled units aggressively, and still barely managed to escape... on Easy. Had I been playing on anything else, the paladin army would be invincible. I had mistakenly assumed that I could/was meant to clean up a little before grabbing the book in peace. Not the case, it seems.

Since the last two scenarios do not require a large or powerful army (I was able to take the troll leader out with a keepful of ghosts and my last spectre, and the last scenario Malin is supposed to die, so one must simply win the first time), this could also be seen as the final showdown seen in most campaigns, the only difference being that it is not the last scenario like it is in NR, Liberty, HttT, THoT, and others. In this case, the scenario should not be altered much, but I think it should somehow be made clear that taking out the enemy (besides Volk) is not expected, not possible, and futile.

-I also suggest adding a note somewhere that Dela Keshar cannot be harmed. After wondering why magical attacks and 5 other ghost-line units were failing to put a scratch on her for 3 turns, I opened up the scenario file and found that the chance to hit her was written in to be 0 for plot purposes. This is strange since Dela doesn't actually feature in the plot anymore - Malin becomes a lich in the next scenario and dies in the one after that. Since the field North of Volk's keep is a natural spot to stash units while trying to kill Volk, Dela often appears in the midst of several units, and if she can't make it to her keep or if she is on her keep and is surrounded by units, she can neither die nor recruit.

Great campaign, one of the best plot-wise and off the charts for originality, right up there for uniqueness with UtBS. Hope my post wasn't too long and that something in there caught someone's interest at least a little. Thanks for the game.
I am of two minds; I shall be complete when I can bring them into harmony.
zengya
Posts: 6
Joined: February 1st, 2009, 12:10 pm

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by zengya »

zengya wrote:I did this campaign in both novice and intermediate mode. I had Darken Volk killed and every enemies too, I took the book, brought it back to my castle but nothing happened. How do you finish this scenario ? Do I have a bug ? Please help me !!!!!!
AI wrote:Are you running 1.4.x?

Please type the following while holding the cursor over the book carrier (or any random unit you want to fill that role):

Code: Select all

:debug
:unit role=book_carrier
:nodebug
Then move that unit off and onto your castle.
Sorry for the time I took to answer
I'm curently running 1.5.6, is it the same thing ?
Post Reply