17a. The Duel

[Content Feedback]

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions 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?

[Vendrick]

(1) Invasion, 1.18
(2) 3
(3) Clear
(4) Excellent
(5) Killing Mal-Ravanal (without the Sentinel Shield and Yetiburger)
(6) 8
(7) I feel like Mal-Ravanal's cheap tactics are actually less cheap than turning up with party of anti-Undead units stocked with items and AMLAs. It's quite an easy win, but it works well as a finale in combination with the previous scenario.

The bonus dialogue for the loyal units and Heroes is good.

Mal-Ravanal's fun as a villain and Dacyn banishing Mal-Ravanal is really good.
Dacyn's final scene is excellent. I genuinely thought the ending was heading for Dacyn meeting the same fate as Ravan which adds weight to Dacyn's final moment of quiet heroism.

The epilogue:
Owaec isn't essential, and the conflict is laid to rest in the Drowned Plains but since their conflict is a throughline for the campaign, Owaec not having a line acknowledging Dacyn's fate is a shame.

Overall campaign thoughts:

Spoiler:

I liked EI before and this is an improvement across the board, I rank revised EI among the best campaigns in Wesnoth.

Custom AMLAs:
I think +8HP is the best option on most units. A unit doesn't do any damage if it dies, and the bonus HP lets the player get more aggressive with the unit. The increased damage is more situationally useful.
I think I prefer it the straight +3 HP advancement overall.

If expanded to other campaigns, the +8 HP might need scaled to base unit HP. Units like Spectres with 36 or 39 HP are considerably more powerful already.
It's a buff to Level 2 units which is fine for something like the Javelineer that barely has a niche, but probably excessive on something that's really good like the Goblin Pillager (I would have had several 65+ HP Goblin Pillagers in my last SotBE run).

Difficulty Scaling:
Revised EI feels similar in difficulty to the other Expert difficult campaigns (at least on 1.16). I don't think this is a bad thing, but it is a break from mainline conventions.

I like that the campaign's a significant challenge for experienced players, but the wider difficulty range might also make it harder for players to "break-in" to higher difficulty levels.

Scenario Design:
The scenarios' all benefit from distinct themes which complement the gameplay well. There's a distinct on focus on each scenario having a narrative that makes them all standout from each other.

I really like the bonus objectives implemented in Soradoc and Eleventh Hour. They aren't very easy to achieve, but they add some welcome strategic complexity and allow for increased difficult without making the scenario inaccessible.

The Item System:
I really like EI's item system.
The pickup and drop system is really flexible and intuitive, and it doesn't require the player to have foreknowledge to get good value from the items.
The corresponding item trait makes them easy to find in the recall list.
I was initially concerned the items would would dominate the campaign, but they are fairly restrained in terms of power and scope. The only item I have reservations about is the Sentinel Shield, mostly because the AI is baffled by it.

Branching paths:
My only reservation about the difficulty labels and better rewards on the harder branching paths is that a player that chooses Easy paths early will actually increase the difficulty of the mandatory harder scenarios later. The campaign is designed to accomodate this, but it feels a little like a campaign being harder on Easy than on Normal.

The branching paths having labels is a distinct improvement though.