Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Feedback for the mainline campaign The Hammer of Thursagan.

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octalot
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by octalot »

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

1.13.12 Normal

(2-5)

I've played this before (probably on 1.10), and forewarned is, in this case, forearmed with 3 white mages. I also knew about the chests of gold near the entrance which gave me 3 extra recalls. I expected flying nightstalkers, and surrounded chasms with L3s; I expected far more of them than actually happen, I was cautious of every chasm in the south and in the sneak-passage.

With that, difficulty 3, but with a couple of times where I pushed forward too quickly and was saved by the RNG or lost an L3. One mistake where I had to reload.

(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?

I decided to wait outside the doors of the south-west lich (ai7), wearing down his forces in safety, but this took a long time. I think giving him less gold to recruit would be good, and I think that's what was expected. On turns 1, 3, and 5 he captures the villages around him, and then gets a few recruits who take the villages around ai8, giving ai7 an income of around 18 per turn from turn 20 onwards. He then fills his castle with recruits and stops because they're not moving off the castle, but still had +11 when he stopped recruiting. When I opened the chamber (turn 78), he had about 750 gold to churn in to recruits. Maybe give him a set amount when the doors on 21,54 are opened?

There was a spectre in the spider room (it's a bug), which made me more defensive.

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

I got impatient and pushed forward leaving Angarthing where an ulf could get him. Went back a turn and kept to the slower tactics that were working.

(bugs)

I'll open a PR for these before 1.13.14, once I've played through it with the changes. There was a graphics-only fix that went in just before 1.13.13, these are bugs still in 1.13.13.

There's an "x=" test that should an "x,y=" test, the eastern sneak-door opened much earlier in the level, allowing the undead from the south-east lich to go north to the spider room. The flying nightstalkers that are supposed to ambush the player's forces in the south end up joining the spider fight, while slower-moving undead are fought one-by-one in the sneak passage.

There's an "x=" test that should an "x,y=" test, taking the chest south of the start (on 15,38) hid the door and chest that are north of the start.
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Balroth
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by Balroth »

I made a campaign-wide feedback, including this scenario. But the campaign is really polished, so I focused mostly on this scenario, in hopes it will help any developer about to edit it :mrgreen:

Not meant in any way to overshadow the rest of the (extremely constructive) comments here, it's just 1 more feedback, but just more detailed.
LordWolfDan
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by LordWolfDan »

(1) What difficulty levels 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?

- Very clear

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

- Interesting, could use some more dialogue though. Plus I wish we got to know what happened to the hammer in the aftermath

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

- Staying away from ulfsekers/berserkers, dealing with spiders and ghostly units

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

- 10

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

- Add a revelation what does the hammer do, like Angarthing deciding he'd inspect the hammer

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

- None
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kartacha
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by kartacha »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on? - Normal
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10) - 4
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives? - Not too much. The main goal is clear but the substeps were kind of vague. I did not know that freeing the dwarves was a thing at all until I killed 3 or 4 leaders. Had I not stepped on a certain spot on random I may have not opened the secret door to the spiders at all
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario? - Not too much dialog here as in the rest of the campaign
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario? - Moving units from point A to point B. It took forever!
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10) - 1. I know this is unpopular opinion but easily the least enjoyable scenario in the entire game so far for me. I play the campaigns in chronological order (hence this is number 12) and I have never been more aggravated and enjoyed a scenario less. It took me a little over 3 hours to beat while the entire rest of the campaign took me a little more than 4 hours. I do not mind long scenarios. The previous campaign I played was Northern Rebirth and I loved it. However, the entire campaign is fast paced and then in the end this...
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun? - I would cut the upper route and will shorten the lengths in general Also, make the hidden routes' existence more obvious (bring it to the players attention by a dialog or something)
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario? - N/A. I restart a lot. I do not really care for the challenge as much as for cool setups and seeing all my loyal characters come to the end of the campaigns
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josteph
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by josteph »

kartacha wrote: July 28th, 2019, 11:11 pm (7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun? - I would cut the upper route and will shorten the lengths in general Also, make the hidden routes' existence more obvious (bring it to the players attention by a dialog or something)
The scenario was replaced by another one in 1.14.6.
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BTIsaac
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by BTIsaac »

josteph wrote: August 12th, 2019, 7:48 pm The scenario was replaced by another one in 1.14.6.
So i looked at the new layout out of curiosity and all i can say is, SERIOUSLY? I know the old map was ridiculous and needed to be cut down, but this feels like a joke. Where are the large dwarven halls? Where's the gallery with the hidden treasure chambers? Where's the hidden cave path? This is no different from just another generic cave level.
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josteph
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by josteph »

There's no accounting for taste, but please don't be dismissive of the design, balance, and playtesting work that has been put into the new final scenario. The new scenario is not intended to be a scaled-down version of the old one; it's intended to be judged with respect to the campaign that preceded it, not with respect to the scenario it replaced. If you have specific suggestions please do start a new thread.
Konrad2
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by Konrad2 »

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

1.15.1, Challenging (Lord)

(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?

Interesting and clear.

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

Establishing a foothold instead of being torn apart right at the beginning, and pushing into Karrags lair fast enough.
Like really, I was cutting it a bit close.

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

6

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

-

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

No.
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supperman
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by supperman »

Content Feedback wrote: March 10th, 2008, 11:19 pm (1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Challenging 1.12.5

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8, but this level is more about endurance than strategy.

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

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Rotating units while having them heal quickly enough. Patience.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4. It's too long, but the ending is enjoyable because I sent the mage with the sceptre on a suicidal attack against karrag.
Destroyed him and a draug by sacrficing himself. Mage of Light was very fitting for that role, and the lines fit together very well. Could be a movie script.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
This would be easy to split in two parts at the locked doors. I hear that the newer version is much shorter though.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Stupidly exposing vulnerable units. You start to make mistakes due to fatigue.
OneMisterD
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by OneMisterD »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Steelclad, 1.14.11

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
10 playing intuitively, 2 after revising strategy.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
They were a bit unclear, albeit by design. I knew you had to kill the boss, and that you had to explore the cave to find him, but not knowing where he was proved to be a problem when it came to evaluating whether I was going to have enough turns to complete the scenario.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
The best part of the level.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Getting bottlenecked by swarms of enemies

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
6, It's too long, but if the way it tests endurance can be great fun. Nothing like fending off the enemy horde.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
The gate opening at the start is too important to be done automatically. If you open the doors and don't immediately get a good formation on the next room, the enemy will start to flood the room.

If the gates are opened by a scout who went ahead, odds are that by the time you get your tanks up it will be too late and the enemy numbers will start mounting up and eventually be too great to make a breakthrough in time. This is a big problem since that's a pretty intuitive way to play the game, and since you don't know how big the cave is, you might waste 30 to 60 minutes before you realize that there's no way you will have enough turns.

The scenario could be greatly improved if the gate required the main character to open it. Your leader is very unlikely to get ahead of the group since he'll be busy recalling your troops and will only move forward after you have the setup you want. You could even use this to make the story more immersive, having the MC pick up some sort of key in the previous scenario.

Another good addition would be setting up some sort of reward for fully exploring the cave, or at least reaching some of the dead-ends currently there.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
The gate opening sequence as described above.
mal_shubertal
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by mal_shubertal »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.16.6 Lord Challenging
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
clear enough. It's intentionally vague, you just go underground and wander around searching for the lich, but I found the little dialogue helpful when I found the runes so I knew I had to search for the keys.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
I liked it, a nice ending to the campaign.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
I started running out of gold and units at one point and getting bogged down, but the scenario is actually very nicely designed in that by that time I was able to recruiting more because there were so many villages.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8. It's a nice change of pace. You get the fun of a big dungeon crawl exploration game, as well as throwing a massive horde of dwarves against a bunch of draugs at the end. By that point you have such a ridiculous income that it doesn't really take much strategy, but it was a fun and novel way to end the campaign.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I played the old version so long ago that I can't really remember it, other than that it was longer than this, and it had some spiders and ghost-type undead. I think making it shorter was a good choice, this pushed my patience as is, but I think it could also be more varied. Right now, this scenario basically has 3 phases: the breakout where you have to push back the first waves of dwarves and get out of your starting tunnel, the search where your units fan out and look for the keys to the north and south, and then the swarm where you recruit a ridiculous number of dwarvish fighters to crush the undead. The breakout section was fun and challenging, I had to restart once because I was too cautious and got stuck in the starting tunnel. The swarm section at the end was fun and almost silly, I think I had nearly 30 dwarves on screen at one point. But the search section got pretty boring, as my units just slowly chopped through a million dwarvish guardsmen in the endless tunnels. Having more variety of enemies would make this better, like making the northern tunnels full of ghostly undead and the southern ones full of cave spiders, or something like that, to make it less monotonous.
For the writing on the epilogue, I thought it was weird that the Kal Kartha dwarves were all so impressed when Aiglondur got his promotion to "Lord Companion". Earlier in the campaign, it indicated that the Northern Alliance is still quite new and even its own members are still getting used to this new way of doing things. So I figure that the Kal Kartha dwarves hearing Aiglondur is a Lord Companion would be a like a society of monarchists hearing that someone got elected to be a Senator. They would know it was something important from context, but it wouldn't really fill them with a sense of awe because the government system is so different from their own. I think it would fit better with the themes of the campaign if the dwarves are more uncertain/dubious about joining the alliance, but they agree to try it out because they've seen the error of their ways after following the lich with his dwarvish supremacist ideology.
I'd also like at least a couple lines of dialogue about what happens with the hammer. It's been the central MacGuffin driving the plot for the whole campaign, but it seems like everybody forgets about it after the last battle.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
The first playthrough, I triggered the first gate too early and then the enemy trapped me in the starting tunnel, so I had to restart and position my units carefully to swarm out the moment the gate opened. I don't think this is a design flaw, as it happens so early in the scenario that it doesn't take much time to restart and come up with a different strategy.

OVERALL CAMPAIGN FEEDBACK:
I played this campaign years ago, when there were still mages in it and it was significantly longer. I was pretty dubious about the changes, but now that I finished the campaign, I like the new version! Healers play such an absolutely crucial role in all of the Loyalist and Rebel faction campaigns, and most of the early scenarios of those campaigns are hugely focused on leveling up, protecting, and maneuvering around your healers, so I think it's refreshing to have a whole campaign with almost zero healers (except for Angarthing, and this makes his +4 heal SO impactful), so that you are forced to play differently and it makes the dwarf faction feel more unique.

The difficulty curve of the campaign is pretty wonky, though. Forbidden Forest is absolutely brutal, especially now that it happens earlier in the campaign and you face it without healers, and at the highest difficulty I had to replay the whole campaign leading up to it with Forbidden Forest in mind in order to beat it. But then the difficulty just collapses and the Siege of Kal Kartha and Court of Karrag are so trivially easy that they're not even fun, which gives the player a weird sense of whiplash after working so hard to get past Forbidden Forest.

For the writing, I really like the way it ties this campaign in to the other ones and does a lot of worldbuilding, so you feel like you're learning more about Irdya and you're getting more insight into stuff you've seen in other campaigns. I think it does a really good job of exploring the dynamics of cultural exchange/assimilation, the tension of intersecting national and racial identities, and finding the balance between societal progress and respecting tradition. And it does all that without trying to make any overbearing references to real world politics/history or pushing any kind of real-world agenda (other than "genocide is bad", which seems pretty reasonable). It lets the cultures and races of this universe develop on their own terms, and it is more than I was expecting for my silly little fantasy strategy game! BUT, all of this focus on cultural identity makes the player (or at least me!) pay much closer attention to WAY the characters talk, their dialects, vocabulary, pronunciations, accents, etc, because those are so closely connected to culture in the real world, and the way people talk is one of the aspects of culture that changes most rapidly during times of societal change. And the dialects are all over the place in this campaign, from character to character, scenario to scenario, and even sentence to sentence! Some campaigns have managed this really well, like Liberty, where all the outlaw characters talk in a very distinctive way that reminds me of Americans from the rural South, and the Loyalist leaders all talk like caricatures of old-timey British gentlemen, and this helps the player connect with the characters and the culture clash they're experiencing. I would love to see a similar situation in this campaign, where all enemy orcs and Kal Kartha dwarves have very heavy and distinctive accents, and the dwarves and orcs in the Alliance all sound more similar to Loyalist humans to reflect their early stages of cultural mixing.
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JL42
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by JL42 »

What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
v. 1.16.10
Lord / Challenging
How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8
How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Very clear.
How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Excellent. I was particularly gratified that the dwarves understood membership in the "true race" is defined by one's deeds.
What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Basically just fighting our way through tough enemies, sometimes in narrow terrain, and with limited healing. The timer is a real factor here even though it is 65 turns. The final battle is a definite challenge due to the waves of high-level enemies that can wear down the health of even a large and well-managed army.

Overall the difficulty is perfect for me – hard enough to keep you focused but not insane or frustrating. The way that the terrain is set up gives you time to rotate out your troops and fight effectively, while also having enough complexity that it's not boring.
How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
10
What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
None. I was a bit sad to hear that the original epic Underlevels map had been replaced, but this is a worthy successor, possibly even more fun than the original (and the original scenario was great). The problems in the story and gameplay that have infected some of the earlier maps in the campaign were not an issue here. This is nicely done.

A couple of brief notes. One, it looks like there's a chest or something embedded in the wall of the cave at 14.29, but I can't find any way to get to it. Two, the first unit to touch the skeletons at 19.5 and 15.5 gets a few bonus HP, but this is not indicated in any way and they player could easily miss seeing the bonus. The dialogue just says "someone died here" so maybe there could be a visual or something for the HP bonus? (In the Descent into Darkness campaign, there are some instances where you move onto a special objective and it shows some floating text that rises up like "+8 exp." Perhaps that could be used here.)

---------------
About the Overall Campaign:

This campaign has deteriorated a bit since the last time I played. Which sucks, because it used to be one of the absolute best. There are still some very strong points – particularly in the last few scenarios (I'm agnostic about the changes to the final map; both versions of that one are good) – and the core strength of the writing continues to carry it. I love how the story develops the heathen culture of the dwarves and their sense of honor etc. However, it desperately needs some work, or restoration, around the middle of the campaign to resolve the confusing events, logical lapses, and frustrating gameplay that have been introduced. I really dislike the addition of the character Movrur, who is not as strong in the writing and kind of ruins the mystery and sense of exploration and adventure that drove the original campaign. In addition to having less mystery and tension, the story is now very confusing and illogical in places, and the maps around scenarios 3–5 are much less enjoyable than previous versions. This used to be one of my favorite campaigns in Wesnoth, five out of five, full marks, but I can't really say that anymore. I'll give it 3 out of 5 stars for the current version, and that is generous based on the lingering writing strength and still having a few solid maps. Would really, really love to see this campaign developed or restored a bit to bring it back to where it could be.
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