Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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arobinson
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by arobinson »

The forums did not give me updates for a while that there were posts here. I'll try to make the updates within the next couple of weeks. As for the grammar mistakes, I am a native English speaker, but I don't do a wonderful job of proofreading the dialog before posting as you can tell.

As for the 1.9.9 issue, I haven't really supported 1.9.x as 1.10 should be used and is the released product.
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by Silux »

Finished the campaign and the chapter 3 was the best for story and battles(except for the first scenario, which is pretty though)

I used to think about elementals as neutral forces, neither holy or demonic, so discovering that air, stone and fire are bad was so strange to me.
Driving lava elementals was really funny and they are stronger than stone elementals.

Air elementals could have less hitpoints but be cheaper.They are best used when they can sorround the enemy, but it's hard to do when they are expensive, and having a so high life isn't necessary, and makes them more annoying to deal with.

Wisp are really cool units!

I tried using the elementals from To Lands Unknown instead of the built in ones, and even if they are indeed beautiful to see, they don't fit with the flavor.
They could be used along the ones of the campaign, but they are more like free spirits embedded on elements, rather than golem made from a demon.

The choice for water elementals is really good, even if for the purposes of the campaign the best used is the tempest evolution.
The thunder guardian is really poor against drakes and fire elementals, and the nymph has poor movement, but it's an excellent defender.
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arobinson
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by arobinson »

Evander wrote:As they are now, maximum at level 2 most of them, they are pretty imbalanced.
I'm not seeing why you think they are imbalanced. All the elementals are built around existing "wesnothian" units and balanced as such. They are not intended to be used outside of this campaign, so there is an argument that a fully upgraded unit (all AMLA achieved) will be more powerful than a standard level 3 unit, but that is intentional. The whole point of AMLA style (one could say role-playing style) advancements is to build units over time that you "get attached to".
Evander wrote:I was unable to comprehend why water elementals would require 2 movement points to move over a dirt/grassland.
Check out the stats on mermaids/mermen on land and you can see the rational. The water elementals are at home on watery terrain, not dry land. Except for the movement on sand, village and castle tiles, the water elementals have the same or better movement than merfolk.
Evander wrote:The balance issues are overshadowing whole campaign and it requires a lot of reloading in order to maintain your units.
In all my testing and playing the campaigns, I never had to reload to maintain my units. Like all wesnoth units, it is the responsibility for the user to learn the strengths and weaknesses of each unit type and use them to their best ability. One does not charge a mounted unit into a group of enemies and expect them to live, elementals should be no different.
Evander wrote:Also elementals are pretty expensive to hire. One would prefer to go for a large-scale battle with elementals, rather swarming map with them (especially in third part of campaign).
Elementals are no different from normal Wesnoth units in terms of hiring expenses. For example, the whirlwind has a cost of 17 and the elvish scout has a cost of 18. I think that is fairly reasonable for a scouting unit. All the hitpoints and damage were also compared to the Wesnoth units for balancing. During my playing, if I felt one was too powerful or too weak, I adjusted their stats, so they are not exactly like the built in units.

If you look at the unit stats, you will see a strong similarity to other units.
  • The fire elemental is based on the elvish archer
  • The water elemental is based on the elvish fighter and merfolk
  • The air element has many traits taken from the whirlwind in the "Under the Burning Sons" campaign and the elvish scout
  • The earth elemental is similar to the troll warrior
  • The lava elemental is similar to the troll rock lobber
  • Fog is a unique unit
  • The storm and thunder warriors are roughly based on the silver mage but other ranged units as well
  • The Water tempest is mostly balanced from the Dark Adept
Evander wrote:For example - earth elementals regenerate in hills/dirt. But they do not regenerate in caves, where the earth is all around them?
Not sure what version you played, but that is not accurate (I'm pretty sure I tested this and ensured that it was working). The earth elementals have both dirt healing and rock healing. Only the air elementals have only dirt healing. That is because the air elemental needs "loose dirt" to heal, but cave floors and other hard surfaces are not enough to pick up more dust to incorporate into themselves.

Code: Select all

#define ABILITY_ROCK_HEALING
    [regenerate]
        [filter_self]
            [filter_location]
                terrain=Uh^*,Ms^*,Mm^*,Md^*,Hh^*,Ha^*,Hd^*,Uu^*,Ur^*,Ql^*,Wyu^*,Wyur^*,Wyuh
            [/filter_location]
        [/filter_self]
        value=6
        affect_self="yes"
        name=_ "assimilate rock"
        description= _ "Assimilate Rock:
The unit will heal itself 6 HP per turn on mountain, cave and hill terrains."
    [/regenerate]
#enddef
And the snippet from the rock elemental:

Code: Select all

    [abilities]
        {ABILITY_STEADFAST}
        {ABILITY_ROCK_HEALING}
        {ABILITY_DIRT_HEALING}
        {ABILITY_SUBMERGE}
    [/abilities]
Evander wrote:Also - fog is such an amazing unit, that one can only wonder why that concept wasn't used in other campaigns. But I think that fog resistances need to be altered a little. -50% for fire and 90% for anything else would be better I think.
I understand your argument, but how can one justify an arrow damaging fog? Fog dissipates when the sun dries it out. Basically, all it is is water moisture suspended in the air. It makes sense to have the fog unit extremely vulnerable to fire and not damaged by physical attacks. Now with that said, I can understand that it does make the unit unbalanced, but that is why I made it practically useless except for slowing.
Evander wrote:Story line is acceptable, but with sometimes ridiculous dialogue lines it becomes annoying. Needs more suspense and a feeling of overwhelming doom like in Invasion from the Unknown.
Sorry, I really didn't spend much time in crafting the story. I came about as I was writing the code and as you can tell, I really spent the time with the battles and very little time on the dialog. I have gone back and improved it since the original versions, especially when I made the 3rd campaign, but there is still more work to be done. The problem mostly is that I lost motivation to improve it. Perhaps I can re-motivate myself to work on it.

FYI, I fixed the dialog issues you reported and will upload them with the next release on Wesnoth 1.10

Thanks for the feedback
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arobinson
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by arobinson »

5.0.1 posted. Mostly small changes. Largest is dialog improvements for the first campaign
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by Crow_T »

I just finished the first chapter, I think it was a solid B+, only for balance reasons. Some scenarios were very hard, some were very easy, one seemed very short to beat but had something like 56 turns. Other than that, I like the story (moreso that is was driven by in-game animations many times, which gives it a cool FF3 appeal), units, and the clever code tricks. Starting Chapter 2 now :geek:
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arobinson
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by arobinson »

Crow_T wrote:I just finished the first chapter, I think it was a solid B+, only for balance reasons. Some scenarios were very hard, some were very easy, one seemed very short to beat but had something like 56 turns. Other than that, I like the story (moreso that is was driven by in-game animations many times, which gives it a cool FF3 appeal), units, and the clever code tricks. Starting Chapter 2 now :geek:
Do you remember which ones you found too easy or too hard?
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by Crow_T »

Hmmm let me think- I've been playing Wesnoth sporadically.
Spoiler:
So far Chapter 2 is good fun, I did cheat on one:
Spoiler:
Then again, I'm not the best player- I'm way too aggressive :twisted: I'd actually hate to see any one scenario nerfed on my account, but if I think it's too easy than it probably is. But it's been a while since I've played a campaign this much, I think it's well balanced in the sense that the scenarios aren't overwhelming or frustrating. Plus the new boss is cool. I will try to give decent feedback from here on in.
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arobinson
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by arobinson »

Bring Word (Campaign 1, Scenario 12) does really stink. It is awful. I replayed all three campaigns and tried to resist not reading my own messages to see if I could find more grammar issues and other issues and that scenario really bothered me.

I'm open to ideas on how to improve that one.

My potential thoughts:
  • Placed enemies south of the guild, but no leader
  • New keep south of the guild, potentially near the "farms"
  • Two new keeps south of the guild
I'm open to other suggestions though. It should fit with the storyline, so no drakes or anything.

FYI, 5.0.2 uploaded with only a few updates. Mostly small grammar fixes for issues I found while replaying.
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by Crow_T »

When I initially played Bring Word I wondered why it just wasn't a story scenario- ever think of just combining it with the following one?
I'm open to other suggestions though. It should fit with the storyline, so no drakes or anything.
I would never, ever request adding PITA drakes to any scenario :whistle:
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by FiniteSunrise »

I'm not one to give harsh criticism, but dang.
I was a big fan of the first two campaigns, but the third one is just frustrating. On top of the first scenario being basically unbeatable unless you re-load your saves constantly, you spend the first four or five scenarios doing absolutely nothing but running away while everyone else fights. Which would be fine except that there's so many allies/enemies that each scenario takes about ten minutes to complete, even if you're just sitting there doing absolutely nothing, with all your moves mapped out waiting to press "End Turn." It needs less running/escaping and more action. Very disappointing because the first two were so much fun right from the start, and I was really looking forward to seeing how it all wraps up. But the payout is not worth the frustration of sitting through ten minutes of the computer battling the computer while I wait for my elf or dwarf to inch a little bit closer to the corner of the screen.
I hope that you end up adding more and perhaps focus more on the player battling the computer in the earlier scenarios, rather than just running away from stuff. The first two were great and I'd totally play a fourth if that were the case!
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by arobinson »

As you have probably noticed, my desire to support this add-on has dwindled as other aspects of my life have replaced my time that I used to spend on Wesnoth. This is problematic if people like these campaigns and wish them to continue to improve and be supported on newer versions of Wesnoth. I don't mind doing little fixes here and there, but I don't see myself making any big changes. It is also getting harder for me to remember my own story as I have been away for so long.

I'm writing this to see if there is any community interest in turning this into an open source project and letting others collaborate on maintaining and enhancing this add-on and porting it to newer versions of wesnoth as they come out. I'd be looking for those that would have the time and the desire and also would want not want to radically change the story and the campaigns (it would be better to create a fork of this add-on if that was the desire). I'd be wiling at some level to help any that want to get involved and to setup an open source hosting project for it (like github or equivalent).

Thank you and sorry for the lack of time I can devote.
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arobinson
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by arobinson »

I decided to update the add-on for the latest Wesnoth stable version.

Add-on has been updated to Wesnoth 1.12 and published to the add-on server.

Also I changed the fog unit to a level 1 unit that can advance to level 3 as I was never fully happy with the fog unit before.

Enjoy.
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by Shield »

I use the 1.12 version. It seems good, but there's a problem it causes in the map editor.

It messes up the transitions of river ford and sand(when next to water), and causes the former to have a "non-core, requires extra care to use" message. I am referring to the actual core terrains, that is; this wouldn't be as big an issue if it was confined to the campaign's own in-editor terrain folder, but it's affecting how the mainline terrain tiles appear in-editor, and that's a big problem.
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arobinson
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by arobinson »

Shield wrote:I use the 1.12 version. It seems good, but there's a problem it causes in the map editor.

It messes up the transitions of river ford and sand(when next to water), and causes the former to have a "non-core, requires extra care to use" message. I am referring to the actual core terrains, that is; this wouldn't be as big an issue if it was confined to the campaign's own in-editor terrain folder, but it's affecting how the mainline terrain tiles appear in-editor, and that's a big problem.

Thanks, I'll have to do some research. I'm not aware right away what I would have done as I added new items, I did not change any existing terrains. I probably messed something up with the port to 1.12 as wesnoth retired some of the terrain codes and renamed others.
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by marat »

Russian translation:
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