Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

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podbelski
Posts: 151
Joined: June 7th, 2011, 8:35 pm

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by podbelski »

Some more thoughts...

Volk stayed in his keep, which is good IMO.

First time I actually managed to destroy his forces losing just a couple of valuable veterans, but Paladins arriving on turn 7 making this strategy an overkill compared to the one I finally played. It makes the scenario toughness like "9", with a big chance to fail no matter what, and with a 100% guarantee you will lose a lot of experienced veterans.

If you make Paladins arrive later, say about 4 more turns, direct fight with Volk's army might become my preferred strategy. The reason is that bats can hold Volk's army in the south just about 7 turns. After that, with delayed Paladins arrival, you will have to fight all the undead anyway, but with a smaller force.

You can also make Dela arrive earlier, at the same time giving Volk less gold, so the player has an option of beating both of them. This might bring interesting strategies as well, but TBH I like the scenario as is and don't see a big point in spending time on a redesign.
Deki
Posts: 34
Joined: August 9th, 2011, 6:59 am

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by Deki »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
1.9.6 Normal

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

(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?
I read walkthrough and neither of the strategies mentioned worked. Than I tried "Southern trust strategy"

I recruited one draug and full castle of wraits and nighhounds and send them directly east over the bridge. On the second turn I recruited mixed force and made defensive line on my castle plus one nighhounds to go north and pick up villages. Volk send most of the units west and directly toward my castle and only few toward my mobile east force, so I defeated his few units with eastern mobile force and head north toward Volk. Malin and his units only defended castle and tied most of the enemy units. Mobile force killed Vold at turn 8, draug took book and headed to my keep. Unfortunately 3-4 units from mobile force died when paladins arrived but they were only casualties, and necessary to give draug time to get book back to my castle. Spectre were much better for fighting withdrawal with paladins but I only had one.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
9 - I repeated it few times but after "southern trust strategy2 worked it was very fun

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
None.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
paladins arrived and killed drag "book carrier" and his screening force, total defeat was certain so I had to reload.
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taptap
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Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by taptap »

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

Summoner (Difficult), 1.9.9

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

8

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

Not clear, you can guess that picking up the book is done by material units (because you picked up the book earlier), but that you have to bring it back was a surprise, as much else in this scenario.

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

Needs improvement.

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

Surprise, surprise!

Alt+S gave it away, that there will be loyalists arriving, but as my hero couldn't have any preknowledge of this I decided to play it as if I don't know about it.

224 gold, heavy recalls (2 revenants, 1 boneshooter, 2 dark sorcerers, 1 necromancer, 2+initial spectre, 2 nightgaunts) worth over 400.

The nightgaunts went to kill Darken Volk, who surprisingly didn't use his ranged attacks against them - I mean even if nightstalking, he should know what stabbed him the round before. He could have survived this assassination attack easily by taking out the nightgaunts with ranged attacks without retaliation. Anyway, by the time they reached him on turn 7, his army (which was heavy in skeletons) was nearly annihilated - this was not so difficult if you strike first and have enough sorceres / necromancers to handle melee skeletons and spectres for the boneshooters. On turn 8 he was left with 1 hp and no army to rely on, then the wesnothians arrived. Damn it.

I hastily retreated the assassination squad, Darken Volk was killed by a paladin who was attacked by a nightgaunt (which should have been dead, if DV had used his ranged attack) and necromancer soon after (could kill the nightgaunt, but finally fell to the necromancer). Another Paladin couldn't resist the tasty revenant and was frozen to death in retaliation. The Mage of Light ended up as zombie, which gave me a perverse satisfaction.

Replay is added, I just want to mention I disagree with many opinions voiced here and in the walkthrough: There is no need to avoid combat, DV army is beatable, it is quite illogical to wait for loyalists you are not supposed to expect to do the fighting. After you started to do so, you have no chance but to follow through as DV can't do any fighting for you if he has no army left. Whether early or late arrival makes the scenario easier highly depends on your strategy. If I had one or two turns more, there would not have been much need to fight the Wesnothians at all as I handled Darken Volks army early on, and it would have been easy going without the necessity to handle a fighting retreat. I don't honestly know how it is supposed to work to distract DV force until they fight with the loyalists and then how do you manage to kill both him and retrieve the book with much weaker forces because you wasted units for distraction and a time limit and loyalists all over the place. But brute force without splitting forces worked well, I was satisfied. Campaign could have ended here as well, either way it was the final.

Finished turn 15, losses 3 (revenant, spectre, nightgaunt), kills 17 (+ one more in otherwise suicidal way on the last turn, as I knew I will end the scenario this turn). Positive luck in the beginning, evened out against the loyalists.

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

9

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

Better dialog. He wanted the book, so what? You kill your former master, even without knowing what this book is all about?

Making scenario playable without spoilers, that is give you a clue that wesnothians are looking for you and about there approximate arrival. A scouting bat arriving and warning you or sth. like that. It would have no effect at all on 2nd time players, but would make it much more possible to play w/o reading spoilers.

Some dialog upon killing paladins and MoL would be nice.

State the real objective from the beginning, "take back the book and bring it to your keep".

Add information that you have to expect a loyalist force arriving.

Change defensive setting to "preserve HP" setting in general - this is an AI problem, there is usually no need for a unit to omit a no retaliation attack. (Seen this in other scenario with allies, who omitted even no retaliation attacks when instructed to be defensive.) This would have likely resulted in DV taking out my otherwise too small assassination squad, which in turn would have created huge problems as I already destroyed his army when the loyalists were flooding the map.

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

Well, the designers allowed themselves some major surprises here, so I allowed myself a reload once to set a quick necromancer into motion a turn earlier.
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Ninjuri
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Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by Ninjuri »

Normal 1.10.2
Difficulty ~6-8 depending on if you know what you're doing, which i'll explain further.

Storyline was good, it revealed darken's true intentions.

The challenge i faced was understanding what was going to happen in the scenario and changing my strategy accordingly. I had to play this twice, the first time i played, i took it slow and made all my decisions tactical. I made securing an advantage my number 1 priority, with vampire bats taking villages and strong troops advancing toward the castle. Because of this, the human forces came too early, and i only had one ghoul up near the book, which was trapped behind enemy lines and slaughtered. From there it was impossible to push the line and get back up to the book so i lost.

The second time i played it, i knew what was going to happen, so i ignored all villages to the north and west, and just sent a rushing army of new recruits that could be killed straight at the enemy castle. I even sent mevlin with them because he was the fastest land unit so why not have him carry the book. With some cheap units slowing the enemy humans, i managed to make it back to my castle with the book by turn 12.

Fun: 2 if you don't know what's going to happen, and 8 if you can actually plan accordingly with knowledge of the events.
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MetalRocks
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Joined: February 15th, 2012, 7:22 pm

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by MetalRocks »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Difficulty: Medium with 344 starting gold (using 220 gp).
Version: 1.10.0

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5 beating Darken Volk and escaping fast.
9 if you want to beat Sir Cadeus.

(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?
Very interesting.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Not losing any leveled unit in the last couple of turns.

You can easily finish the scenario using just 220gp by recruiting 10 dark adepts (as fodder), 3 or 4 wraiths/spectres and 1 or 2 shadows/nightgaunts by holding off the enemies in the river so you can finish them off (see replay attached). This way you'll end by turn 12 but expect to lose all the dark adepts.

Some advices:

If you want to train a few dark adepts you'll need more troops (I used 5 bats in my original game) so you dont have to sacrifice all the dark adepts.

There is no point on taking villages... you'll end up with negative gold anyway.

Also if you are playing version 1.10 in normal or easy mode don't lose your time trying to confront Darken Volk's forces and Sir Cadeus against each other by distracting Darken with bats, because Sir Cadeus appears by turn 8 and your fodder will be disintegrated by then (unless the AI is very unluky with the dozens of attacks it will make to your bats). Can't say if this strategy works in hard mode.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
If there were unlimited turns or about 60 there would be a point on killing all enemies.

(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?
-
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quincy
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Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by quincy »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.10.3, easy (or normal, I forget)
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8
(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?
It was fine.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Not losing vets. I ended with one Dark Sorcerer (who had the book) and Malin.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
6. It was too hard, though I guess you are supposed to lose vets.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
none.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
I did that whenever a powerful unit died, until I realized I couldn't win without that happening.
(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?
N/A
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Pewskeepski
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Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by Pewskeepski »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Summoner (Difficult), 1.11.2

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8 to just win. 9 without great loss.

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

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Malin turns on his master way too quickly. This is the only guy in the world who "cares" about him, and they've spent months of their lives together. There should be a few more lines of dialog before Malin labels Volk an enemy.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The good news was I could wipe Volks forces out easy. The bad news was he could do the same to me. I tried avoiding his undead as much as possible by luring some of them south with Malin. This helped out a lot when the paladins came, because Malin was able to escape and leave Volk's undead to be destroyed by the holy ones.

While the white mages were starting north toward Darken Volk, my forces had already reached him. The book was taken by a Revenant, but lost when he was incinerated by a paladin. Luckily I had Draug close behind who snatched it up again and boogied to my castle!

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8. It's intense!

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Can't get much better!

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Lost to Malin dying a couple times and restarted.

(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?
Well commented.
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flammstrudel
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Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by flammstrudel »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.10.2 Summoner (difficult) – no reloads

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

(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?
I am sure we all expected this, magic books do always cause trouble. Nice wesnothian standoff. The sister is a pale character and a little bit superfluous (in the entire campaign). But it's still okay.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The scenario relies heavily on metagaming (which is bad). First time I gathered my troops, took my time, dispatched his forces, killed him, took the book and positioned my forces north of the river, letting the paladins come to me – BAMM!, another loyalist blob spawns behind me and I get crushed.
You can't really do much against paladins and a horde of white mages, but I wanted to give it a try. Second time I moved my troops to what is going to be the spawn area of Dela. I attempted to evade the necromancer's army, so that they would weaken the Holy Horde, giving me time to take care of my sister. Can't be done, by the time paladins arrive the necro's troops are already destroyed (they basically commit suicide by charging in my lines). I eradicated the northern loyalists, but in the end I got steamrolled by the mages/ paladins. Third (and successful) attempt: mad rush to get the book, lost my first troops (you really need to hurry, no time to fight as efficient as you might want to), chaotic escape back to my castle. Paladins are going to snipe units no matter what, the freedom you have is chosing which veterans are going to die (a second time). Lost 3 spectres, 1 necrophage and 1 necromancer (it was kind of the final fight, so no big deal). This is probably the intended way to win the scenario (kind of the “run for your life” type) and if you treat it this way it's difficulty is medium at best.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7/10 It's okay. I don't like the nasty surprises, they just force one additional restart. All in all it's one of the better “run” scenarios.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Place a sign where the two loyalists are going to spawn. Make two loyal ghosts appear on the map's edge. “Master, Paladins [humans] are coming our way, they should be here in 1,5 [2,5] days.” This way the player could anticipate how the scenario is going to evolve.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Two failed attempts.
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devavrata
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Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by devavrata »

Content Feedback wrote:(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Battle for Wesnoth 1.8.3, Easy/Medium/Hard
Content Feedback wrote:(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9 - Quite difficult.
Content Feedback wrote:(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Very clear.
Content Feedback wrote:(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Clear. The exchange at the start of the scenario is quite good. Like in the Return to Parthyn scenario, a Spectre on the side of Malin serves as the the voice for his own dark side. Also, the return of Malin's sister is a nice turn to state that in spite of Malin turning against Darken Volk, Malin won't ever be allowed to return home, so he's forever alone from this moment on.
Content Feedback wrote:(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Killing Darken Volk is not easy nor quickly done. And then, when you manage to get the book, the paladins come upon you. Making it back with the book is a difficult mission - but then, it is quite a different mission. It is nice to have it for a change. You have to use one unit to deliver the book and the rest to provide protection, blocking the enemy units. It reminds me of rugby or american football. You are bound to lose some of your better veterans here - but once you play the campaign until the end and notice this very scenario is the main showdown, you are not bothered.
Content Feedback wrote:(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
Fun? :shock: It is stressful. :roll: But it is a nice showdown.
Content Feedback wrote:(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I have read that difficulty has been softened in later versions, specially on easy level. I think that's right.
Content Feedback wrote:(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No.
Content Feedback wrote:(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?
-
Des_Arthes
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Joined: August 15th, 2013, 6:29 pm

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by Des_Arthes »

Yep, it was really hard map, especially when i almost dont have any veteran unit (really you need 2 shadows or better in map a small favour-part one to assassinate captain) and i really lost almost all veteran units there. :(
so, some points
[1] Wesnoth 1.10.6, Hard
[2] 9- really challenging
[3] Its unplayable at first time, because you dont know that will come that strong human army. You really need to know this before (F.E. you or darken should say something like: They following us, they will be here in 2 days before they split. )

I just add my replay how i win. I dont use save/load tactic too much until and except turn 12, you really can see that :twisted: Luck :D was smiling to me (all importandt hits to Darken were made 8) ) i reload this turn for at least 20 times, because i still hope i can win this scenario. Then Malin was only sole survivor of my army.
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fareley
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Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by fareley »

(1) 1.10.6 hardest
(2) 10 at my first try (I did not really realize that more enemies would pop up, even though this is my second playthrough through the campaign)
When I found a clear winning strategy, maybe 3-4.
(3) The objective was very clear; the surprise of 2! new enemies however was not.
(4) It was okay I guess.
(5) Clearing the undead was no Problem, but fighting against white mages/paladins sure was. I remembered on my first playthrough that I managed to distract the Undead long enough for them to end up fighting the white enemies and me sneak-assasinating the sister when she popped up, but that didn't quite work out this time (drawing too much aggro from Undead meant Paladings still wiped them easily). Then I just decided to play the scenario the way it probably was meant to be played - rush through, grab that book, run for your life. It was surprisingly easy, although I did have to reload one turn (got pretty unlucky with my leader tanking like 6/6 attacks, so he died). I used 2 leveled melee Skeletons (lvl 2) to tank enemy skeletons for a turn and mow down Mages, 4 Ghosts (ranging from lvl 1 to lvl 3) to take care of Skele Archers and to last hit Skeletons/Mages if needed, and pumped the rest of my ~300 Gold into Dark Adepts only. The enemy melted quickly and I was able to grab the book and run, sacrificing only one lvl 3 Ghost and a couple of lvl 1 Adepts in the process. The Sister showed up when it was all done anyway, and the Paladins spend a turn capturing villages because I was already out of reach and running.
(6) 8 if you do it the way it probably was intended (hit & run), 1 if you actually try to fight enemies you cannot beat on your own, maybe 4 if you use trickery to assasinate the sister and let Undead + White Mages kill each other (but you feel pretty dirty afterwards). The Paladins are very frustrating, and even more frustrating is having to restart the scenario once for each new enemy showing up because you didn't expect them.
(7) While it does spoil the surprise, doing so is probably a good thing. Give the player a hint that very strong enemies are coming that he cannot beat on his own, maybe even point out the options of cowardice or bravery (although the first one takes quite the finesse), at least point out that time and a swift plan are of essence.
(8) Quite a few, as pointed out above.
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Maiklas3000
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Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by Maiklas3000 »

(1) Level and version? Hard, 1.11.15, 300 starting gold (minimum is 200.)
(2) Difficult? (1-10) 8 for a near total defeat of all the enemy. I did not try the "just run" strategy used by others above.
(3) Objectives? Clear.
(4) Dialog? I repeat my criticisms of my earlier review.
(5) Challenges? In response to taptap's review above, I have been the primary author of the walkthrough (but anyone is free to modify it), and the reason that you disagree with the walkthrough is that both the scenario and the AI were updated, while the walkthrough was not. I have now updated the walkthrough, so please review it to see if it's accurate now. Distracting Volk's forces required skillful puppetmastering before, but now changes in the AI mean that you probably cannot distract more than a few of his units, unless you use your leader as bait. Additionally, gold has been removed from the loyalists, so it is no longer critical to have Volk proxy-fight them on your behalf.

I sent most of my force north and a few ghosts and bats to the southeast to try to distract the enemy. That succeeded in only pulling about five units southwards.

As Cadaeus arrived, I pulled out my southern forces to converge with the rest of my forces in the north-middle, where Dela was about to arrive. It used to be that you could sit on her planned keep spot, but I think that's no longer true. So instead, I just surrounded her stronghold:
Come out with your hands up! We've got you surrounded!
Come out with your hands up! We've got you surrounded!
wesnoth DiD Alone at Last - Dela surrounded.jpg (95.37 KiB) Viewed 13264 times
This prevented Dela from getting more than 6 recruits, which I wiped out. I wasn't sure I could kill her too (since in previous versions you couldn't), but it turns out, I could. It was over just in time to meet the Paladin army from the south. Wow, Paladins and Mages of Light sure are hard to take out. It feels strange to be in the position of struggling to defeat them rather than using them to slice through undead like butter. However, as you can see, my army was pretty beefy, so no real problems.

I advanced southwards as Malin Keshar ran the book back. I could have delayed ending the game so as to kill Sir Cadaeus, but I didn't see the point. I didn't want to risk a unit in the process of trying to take him out in daytime. In the end, the enemy was reduced to Sir Cadaeus, a fresh Spearman recruit, and a heavily wounded Paladin.

(6) Fun? (1-10) 9. I enjoyed beating a difficult scenario, soundly, with minimal losses. I lost 5 units, which consisted of two Vampire Bats, a ready-to-level Blood Bat (sniffle), a Ghost, and a Shadow.
(7) Changes? Volk has been changed to be "passive", which is really bad. He won't attack, anyone, ever, not even a ranged attack vs nonranged enemy right next to him. You can get the effect you want by either making his movement cost outside the stronghold be impossibly high or setting his maximum movement to 1 hex. However, was it really so bad that he used to dart out of his stronghold? It allowed for some strategy to get the book. And it's not like he lasts much longer by staying in his keep. His forces are very weak compared to Sir Cadaeus' and they've probably run off to fight the player's forces anyway.

I'm not sure how the scenario maintainer wants the scenario to work, so it's hard to make other recommendations. If you want Volk to be used as unwilling ally to fight the loyalists as it was before, then something needs to be changed, e.g., Cadaeus could arrive earlier. If you want the scenario to be an exercise in grabbing the book and running, while sacrificing rear guard units, then from the previous reviews it sounds like the scenario is well balanced for that. It's also well balanced in the sense that you have two working strategies: grab-and-run, which is easy but probably will cost you a few high level units, or total victory, which is harder but sometimes costs very few units. I finished on turn 23/24, so turns are also set well. Still, I don't know if the scenario is working as intended.

(8) Restarts? Restarted from start after I lost. Then I won but with a save-reload. Then I replayed from start and won with no save-reloads.
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Inky
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Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by Inky »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.10.4, hard (Summoner), 272 starting gold

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9- very hard. However, killing Volk is very easy as he does not attack your units at all (should be fixed?)

(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?
Fine.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Getting the book before the paladins overrun you.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7 - pretty fun, lots of chaos and dead units.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Make it so Volk attacks, otherwise you can backstab him all day long with nightgaunts and he won't retaliate.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No, won the first time but only because I knew from playing on Medium before that 1. The paladins were coming soon, and 2. The next two scenarios are trivial with only a couple nightgaunts and all other units were expendable. So I recalled everything and rushed Volk with all I had, backstabbing everything I could and using the spectres to kill skeletons. All the spectres ended up dead but I knew I didn't need them after this scenario. Managed to kill Volk and get the book with Malin on turn 8, the turn that the paladins arrived. No save loads.
Sephon
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Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by Sephon »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Easy.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
10. I can't beat it. I've beaten several other campaigns and I've read strategy guides, and still can't beat it. It has nothing to do with willingness to sacrifice my veterans - I've tried that too, in vain. Tried all the strategies. I managed to go for the long game however, and it's perfectly possible to grind out the enemy: but 24 turns is not enough for that and you end up with a huge deficit. It's kind of laughable compared to how easy and quick the rest of the campaign was - this is a huge difficulty spike out of nowhere imo.
I'm not that great a player, but I really feel it's way too difficult - at least compared to everything else in the campaign which was ridiculously easy.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear enough, but I don't think it's good scenario design to necessiate a replay due to the scenario design (The arrival of humans is way too severe for your strategy, you will not beat it in the first try.)

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The southern force onehit everything as they arrive during sunlight. I understand Wesnoth campaigns tend to time the arrival of your enemies so they arrive at their most opportune moment, but two paladins and a lvl 3 white mage wrecks anything you can deliver and you do no damage at that point - and they're faster than you. Rest of the scenario is completely managable.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
2-3, but that has to do with me being unable to complete it. I thik that the rest of the campaign was insanely easy so it is really jarring.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Either remodel the map so that there are more chokepoints for your cheaper units to hold down the enemies - then the scenario becomes focused around a quick run. Else increase the number of available villages and make the scenario grindable. 24 turns is not enough with the poor economy you're allowed.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Either running out of time or having all of my units cut down and cut by paladins and the remainder of Volk's troops when I try to outrun their arrival. I've played it a bunch of times at this point.

(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 WML.
czarkoff
Posts: 12
Joined: May 3rd, 2015, 5:39 am

Re: Scenario Review: DiD 10 - Alone at Last

Post by czarkoff »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Easy, 1.12.2.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
Very much depends on choice of strategy, very hard for the first couple of attempts and easy once a proper vector of attack is chosen.

(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?
Interesting and clear, although outlaws appearing out of nowhere did not seem overly logical. I would expand a bit on Darken Volk's attempts at separating Malin from his village and mention the pursuit there.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The first time I played this scenario, I chose to keep defensive and wait until loyalists crash Darken Volk, but I ended up loosing to outlaws after being hit by undead. Another time I stroke hard on Darken Volk, and managed to kill him with little unit loss before loyalists managed to get there, so that they actually helped me to fight off the remaining undead pursuers. Definitely heaving two necromancers and Darken Volk still on L2 made a lot of difference here. Still, I had to be extra careful about positioning (what units to expose, how to distract, etc.).

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
10. This is actually the mission that raises this campaign above average and makes it so much worth playing.

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

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Not the last time I played, although previous time I had to do quite a lot of reloading to get units positioning right, and I lost miserably anyway.
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