Help needed testing 3.2.x Campaign games!

[Berserk Cyborg]

Now I know why that happens. The regrouping code picked a coordinate up on the cliff above the units, which is more or less what happens most of the time if they are forced to regroup. So they did go at their own speed then? If so, here is a more complete mod with all the scripts included and a modified artifact group behavior and start time for them in the cam1-7 script. Still, the tracked unit will be left behind like previous iterations.

Updated-Campaign.wz

[-Philosopher-]

Now I know why that happens. The regrouping code picked a coordinate up on the cliff above the units, which is more or less what happens most of the time if they are forced to regroup. So they did go at their own speed then? If so, here is a more complete mod with all the scripts included and a modified artifact group behavior and start time for them in the cam1-7 script. Still, the tracked unit will be left behind like previous iterations

All the units in the artefact group moved together until the half-track medium unit decided to take off up the hill by itself (at which point the rest stopped in place). Until that point they did appear to be moving with the heavy tracked unit, however - they keep pausing for it to keep up. Is that not the intended behaviour?

Anyway, I'll try the updated mod above and see how I get on.

[-Philosopher-]

Testing on Master 81c95fd (24-Sep-2017)

Alpha 12

Preliminary findings only… Big level, with lots of different approaches to it, so many things to test. I've basically only played one approach to this level so far (albeit a few times now), so no doubt there are things I've missed checking.

1. Jscam has 1:00 timer for reinforcements; wzcam had a 2:00 min timer for the same. This makes jscam significantly less of a challenge than wzcam. If that’s a deliberate change it doesn’t seem in keeping with the terms of reference to me.

2. The red dot marking the overall objective for the stage disappears somewhere along the line. Can be fairly early in the stage too - here it’s gone by the time I recover the hover tech. It should be present the whole time:


Also, in wzcam, the stage objective is separate to the HQ base marker, so both are visible until you complete the stage:


3. In Alpha 12, the LZ objective marker isn’t visible until both (1) the LZ has opened and (2) the LZ structures have been sighted (so, in wzcam, if you’re new to the stage, you have to figure out where it is; in jscam it’s marked as soon as it opens):


4. In a change I particularly don’t like, in jscam the choices for ending the stage are (1) returning to LZ - a long, unnecessary, schlep or (2) destroying all structures. Both of which are a pain (albeit to very different degrees) compared to what you needed to do previously. In wzscript, the stage ends when all the enemy bases are eradicated (or possibly just the HQ - I haven’t managed to check that yet) - i.e. there are plenty of structures that can be ignored and still finish the stage.

On the subject of changes from the original, I’ve tried to stay out of the debate because (1) I’m relatively new here and (2) I sense I might be out of step with the general sentiment, but I think my bias is probably showing in my comments anyway. So...

For the record: what I want to get out of the warzone campaign is to play a faithful recreation of the original - or at least its intent, where the original had bugs. (What seem to me to be) Arbitrary changes to the design of the stages detract from that for me, and in many cases have unintended consequences that make the stage play out in less satisfying ways too.

Changes to the victory conditions of the stages fall squarely into this category, for example. For me at least, they don’t add anything, sometimes introduce buggeration-factor, and I can’t see what problem they might have been introduced to solve (if that was the motivation).

Thus, my test for any “shall we change x” questions is “does it fix a bug in the original?” If it doesn’t then I think it’d be hard to justify given the terms of reference.

I think designing new campaign levels - either based on the existing or entirely new - would be a fun thing to do, but should be a separate exercise, available alongside the original campaign rather than replacing it and making it unavailable except in earlier versions.

Here endeth the opining I’ll continue to note differences but leave it to the devs to determine whether they’re fixing the original intent of the stage or changing it, and the extent to which they care about the difference.

[-Philosopher-]

I while back I reported an issue where trying to restore from certain saves locked the game up from time to time (it turned out it was writing a ridiculous number of rows to the log file).

This save seems to recreate this issue fairly reliably:

Beta 02-02-Dodgy Save.zip

(97.66 KiB) Downloaded 105 times

Is this something within your power to look into, @Beserk Cyborg, or should I raise it as a separate ticket?

If it's already been raised, can someone point me to the reference? I did a search but didn't turn anything up.

[-Philosopher-]

Anyway, I'll try the updated mod above and see how I get on.

Alpha 11

Good news (mostly) but (some) bad news...

The artefact group now seems to be moving correctly - they don't wait on the heavy unit...


... and go the right way once they've picked up the artefact:


They're still setting out way too early though. In this example, they've already picked the artefact up by 29:00. In wzcam they don't even start moving until after 28:00 - I think 27:45 is the exact time but it's not easy to track.

[Berserk Cyborg]

Alpha 11
...
They're still setting out way too early though. In this example, they've already picked the artefact up by 29:00. In wzcam they don't even start moving until after 28:00 - I think 27:45 is the exact time but it's not easy to track.

I now put it back to two minutes as it was before since they are no longer regrouping.

Is this something within your power to look into, @Beserk Cyborg, or should I raise it as a separate ticket?

If it's already been raised, can someone point me to the reference? I did a search but didn't turn anything up.

I can look into anything, though it does not mean I will know how to fix anything... you should create a ticket and attach your save. I also would point out that sometimes it can cause random blocks of visibility corruption (seeing areas the player has not yet seen). Oddly, this behavior is common with Beta campaign maps for some reason.

As for Alpha 12, fixed reinforcement timer to be two minutes. Remove(?) the objective marker when the NE base is eliminated. Victory, at a minimum, requires all bases to be destroyed. Going to try fixing the LZ blip so it appears only when the LZ-base is discovered.

Anything else before I release a new mod?

[-Philosopher-]

I can look into anything, though it does not mean I will know how to fix anything... you should create a ticket and attach your save.

Copy that - will do.

Remove(?) the objective marker when the NE base is eliminated.

Not sure if that was the issue I raised - but depends on what you meant. There should be two objective markers in the NE - one is the overall stage objective, and is visible the whole time the stage is active (currently, it goes off too soon), the other relates to the base in the NE and is otherwise normal - becomes visible when structures relating to it are sighted, turns off when the base is destroyed. This means you can see them both, side by side when assailing the NE base (cf. my screen shot of a wzcam game in the earlier post).

Victory, at a minimum, requires all bases to be destroyed.

Ah, OK. Currently it's asking for a lot more than that though - i.e. you have to destroy all the structures that aren't part of bases too. Shouldn't have to - it should only be the bases that need eradicating to complete the level.

Re other stuff...

What's the status of the red dot for the second LZ in Alpha 06? Don't remember where we left this. Last I checked it was discoverable too early (i.e. before it opens), so it may still be outstanding.

Also, I'm not sure what you decided to do with the timing of when red dots turn on for incoming transporters (e.g. Alpha 10)? Last I checked they turned on somewhat later in jscam than wzcam (after they've touched down vs. as they start to descend)

That's all I can think of off the top of my head re already raised stuff. I'm onto the beta stages now. Couple of early things I picked up - can you check the LZ area hasn't changed for beta 02 between jscam and wzcam? I haven't checked it myself yet, but when the cyborgs attacked from the north they seemed to compromise the LZ while still far away from it.

On jscam Beta 05, one of the factories produces lancer VTOLs. They never used to be present on Beta 05 - it was only ever assault gun and bomber VTOLs in wzcam.

[Berserk Cyborg]

Updated-Campaign.wz

Not sure if that was the issue I raised - but depends on what you meant. There should be two objective markers in the NE - one is the overall stage objective, and is visible the whole time the stage is active (currently, it goes off too soon), the other relates to the base in the NE and is otherwise normal - becomes visible when structures relating to it are sighted, turns off when the base is destroyed. This means you can see them both, side by side when assailing the NE base (cf. my screen shot of a wzcam game in the earlier post).

Ah, OK. Currently it's asking for a lot more than that though - i.e. you have to destroy all the structures that aren't part of bases too. Shouldn't have to - it should only be the bases that need eradicating to complete the level.

Blip stays now. As for victory, I only did that for this mission. Should we force players to destroy all enemy bases, across all missions, to allow them to achieve the minimal effort victory? I leave that up for more discussion.

What's the status of the red dot for the second LZ in Alpha 06? Don't remember where we left this. Last I checked it was discoverable too early (i.e. before it opens), so it may still be outstanding.

Forgot about this one. I will see what I can do with it.

Also, I'm not sure what you decided to do with the timing of when red dots turn on for incoming transporters (e.g. Alpha 10)? Last I checked they turned on somewhat later in jscam than wzcam (after they've touched down vs. as they start to descend)

It is fine as it is. At most it shows 2-3 seconds later which is fairly trivial.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head re already raised stuff. I'm onto the beta stages now. Couple of early things I picked up - can you check the LZ area hasn't changed for beta 02 between jscam and wzcam? I haven't checked it myself yet, but when the cyborgs attacked from the north they seemed to compromise the LZ while still far away from it.

Now using original coordinates.

On jscam Beta 05, one of the factories produces lancer VTOLs. They never used to be present on Beta 05 - it was only ever assault gun and bomber VTOLs in wzcam.

Fixed. The civilian capture scenario still working good?

You still playing on Normal? Not too difficult is it?

[Bethrezen]

All the units in the artefact group moved together until the half-track medium unit decided to take off up the hill by itself (at which point the rest stopped in place). Until that point they did appear to be moving with the heavy tracked unit, however - they keep pausing for it to keep up. Is that not the intended behaviour?

Short answer yes.

Long answer yes because if they don’t stick together then what ends up happening is that the quicker units get so far ahead that in order to try and catch up the slower units go the wrong way.

Having said that I do seem to recall that any units in the convoy could pick up the artefact, and that typically the artefact carrier would race off ahead of the rest of the convoy where the rest of the units in the convey would try there best to stop the player getting to the unit carrying the artefact, and if the artefact was dropped then any of the surviving units would turn back and attempt to recover it. Although it should be noted that I haven't gotten to alpha 11 on v1.10 yet so i can't confirm if this is the correct behaviour for the convoy on this level just yet.

Ah, OK. Currently it's asking for a lot more than that though - i.e. you have to destroy all the structures that aren't part of bases too. Shouldn't have to - it should only be the bases that need eradicating to complete the level.

While i can't confirm this just now because I haven’t gotten to alpha 12 on v1.10 yet as I recall the only way you could end alpha 12 in the original was to return to your LZ after you destroyed there base, you didn’t have to take out the turrets to get the return to LZ message but you did have to return to LZ to end the stage.

So having a second means of ending the level by wiping the map clean doesn't seem to unreasonable however this could be helped if bombards where made at least as effective against bunkers as they are against towers and building because right now destroying bunkers with bombards is a very slow and tedious process as each bunker takes several salvoes before it's destroyed where as a single salvo from 18 bombards is enough to destroy a tower.

But I'll know more when i get that far on v1.10.

[alfred007]

Should we force players to destroy all enemy bases, across all missions, to allow them to achieve the minimal effort victory? I leave that up for more discussion.

I think that should depend on the goal of the level. I. e. at beta 4 the goal is to stop the enemy commander and catch the artifact. If you can do that without destroying the NE base this should be enough to win the level when you are back at your LZ. Also in alpha 3 it should be enough to catch the artifact and return to LZ. What we should do for consistency is, that total annihilation is a winning condition at all levels, no matter what it was at 1.10. First, it would confuse new players when they win at one level by total annihilation and in another level not (and also me ). Second, specially at insane difficulty you have often just enough time for total annihilation, but not for returning to LZ after that. And especially when you are using mortars or bombards. If you then also have to go back to the LZ those levels would become too insane/tough. And then we will have an even much bigger discussion about the time you need to finish the level.

[-Philosopher-]

Not sure if that was the issue I raised - but depends on what you meant. There should be two objective markers in the NE - one is the overall stage objective, and is visible the whole time the stage is active (currently, it goes off too soon), the other relates to the base in the NE and is otherwise normal - becomes visible when structures relating to it are sighted, turns off when the base is destroyed. This means you can see them both, side by side when assailing the NE base (cf. my screen shot of a wzcam game in the earlier post).

Ah, OK. Currently it's asking for a lot more than that though - i.e. you have to destroy all the structures that aren't part of bases too. Shouldn't have to - it should only be the bases that need eradicating to complete the level.

Blip stays now. As for victory, I only did that for this mission. Should we force players to destroy all enemy bases, across all missions, to allow them to achieve the minimal effort victory? I leave that up for more discussion.

I think we should have the same victory conditions as the original campaign Each stage varied as to what you had to do to complete it.

Re. this specific stage, I'm worried we might be talking at cross-purposes (or, if not, I'm missing your point, sorry). The point I originally raised was in jscam you have to destroy all structures to finish (or return to the LZ) whereas in wzcam you didn't. I hadn't actually determined whether you had to destroy all the bases to finish the level or just the final one (in wzcam), but my desire was that whatever the victory condition was, it was retained in jscam. Anyway, I'll take a look at the latest mod and let you know how I get on. Might be an evening or two before I get to it - Alpha 12 takes a while to play through and I presume I should start from the beginning as usual.

On jscam Beta 05, one of the factories produces lancer VTOLs. They never used to be present on Beta 05 - it was only ever assault gun and bomber VTOLs in wzcam.

Fixed. The civilian capture scenario still working good?

Well... I'm not sure. It was always a bit of a funny one even in wzcam - was never exactly clear what the condition that needed to be achieved was, although it seemed to be simply to rescue any civilian, which was easy enough to achieve in jscam as well.

I did hit a problem though. In my example all the civs ran off and got stuck on some defences I put up earlier, and the stage wouldn't end until I dismantled several of the defences to let them through (and until then it was "civilian rescued" on an endless loop):

(the fact there were gaps wasn't enough - I had to remove the actual defences the civs were stuck on. They seemed determined to follow a certain route - almost as if they weren't aware of the existence of the structures they ran into)

You still playing on Normal? Not too difficult is it?

Yup - still on Normal. Whether it's too difficult or not... probably not, but it depends on what you mean (define "too difficult"?). There's a number of ways of looking at it:

- Overall, 3.2.x is easier than the 2.x.x versions I remember but - from my limited exposure to it so far - harder than 1.1x used to be (on normal, anyway). This is very subjective, all over the shop from version to version, and IMO 2.x.x had balance issues that effectively broke some levels anyway, so for several reasons, I don't think it's the right thing to look at - not in this context anyway.
- I have no trouble completing any of the levels. However, I've been playing for a while so I'm pretty sure that's not the right test.
- For me, completing levels on normal without losing any units is a reasonable goal (beta 04 perhaps the exception - still working that one out, but that's always been the case). Again, very subjective so only really useful to me personally as an indicative test. I think balance needs to be considered across the experiences of a number of playtesters and I'm not sure we're currently enough people for that.
- Perhaps the most useful way to look at it is how difficult the levels are compared to each other, and how those comparisons have changed. With the unit behaviour changes, Alphas 03 and 05 have gotten relatively easier than they used to be (i.e. compared to the other alpha stages), as did Alpha 12 with the reinforcement timer (now resolved - presumably - I haven't checked yet). Conversely, Beta 05 got a lot harder with lancer VTOLs, so much so that it was out of step with its companion levels, hence noticing it.
- Having to do something completely different to what I used to in order to complete a stage (or being able to get away with things I would never have previously) is also probably indicative something is off. One of the reasons I play on normal is so I don't have to look at difficulty, but when this happens you can't avoid noticing it. In those cases I think it's important to raise because it means the level has changed materially - not consistent with the terms of reference, presumably.

That said, I'm conscious playing on normal may be giving me a credibility issue here, so when I get the time I'm going to play through a couple of the more interesting stages (I think Alpha 12 should be on the list, at a minimum) on insane just to tick that box, although it's still not a priority for me. Out of curiosity though, what changes with the different difficulty levels (I've never looked into it)?

Long answer yes because if they don’t stick together then what ends up happening is that the quicker units get so far ahead that in order to try and catch up the slower units go the wrong way.

That wasn't the cause of the units going the wrong way. It was a separate issue - @Beserk Cyborg touched on it briefly earlier in this thread. Until it was fixed, they were still going the wrong way, even after the group behaviour was introduced. But anyway, it's now sorted so no issues with them getting lost anymore

Having said that I do seem to recall that any units in the convoy could pick up the artefact, and that typically the artefact carrier would race off ahead of the rest of the convoy where the rest of the units in the convey would try there best to stop the player getting to the unit carrying the artefact, and if the artefact was dropped then any of the surviving units would turn back and attempt to recover it.

Yes, that's what they do in wzcam - see my earlier write-up. The fast units are off ahead while you're trying to bash through the heavies, if you were too slow in the first place. If you weren't too slow, you meet them all together anyway, because of how the level is designed. Either way, harder to intercept than if they move as a group at the pace of the slowest unit. And they do go back and pick up the artefact if any of their mates who were carrying it get destroyed.

[Berserk Cyborg]

Well... I'm not sure. It was always a bit of a funny one even in wzcam - was never exactly clear what the condition that needed to be achieved was, although it seemed to be simply to rescue any civilian, which was easy enough to achieve in jscam as well.

I did hit a problem though. In my example all the civs ran off and got stuck on some defences I put up earlier, and the stage wouldn't end until I dismantled several of the defences to let them through (and until then it was "civilian rescued" on an endless loop)

Yeah, it was overall a complex and delicate situation, to code anyway. The WZScripts "fixed" scavengers getting stuck by ending the mission regardless if all civilians made it to the player LZ--so now it will do so again. "Civilians rescued" will play every ten seconds should a player droid be near one--excluding structures--and ends the mission even if civilians did not make it to the LZ.

Path finding is weird with scavenger units and it is easy to first observe near the Alpha 6 northern base factory with all those walls around it. Probably worthy of a ticket in and of itself.

[Bethrezen]

Should we force players to destroy all enemy bases, across all missions, to allow them to achieve the minimal effort victory? I leave that up for more discussion.

I think that should depend on the goal of the level. I. e. at beta 4 the goal is to stop the enemy commander and catch the artifact. If you can do that without destroying the NE base this should be enough to win the level when you are back at your LZ. Also in alpha 3 it should be enough to catch the artifact and return to LZ. What we should do for consistency is, that total annihilation is a winning condition at all levels, no matter what it was at 1.10. First, it would confuse new players when they win at one level by total annihilation and in another level not (and also me ). Second, specially at insane difficulty you have often just enough time for total annihilation, but not for returning to LZ after that. And especially when you are using mortars or bombards. If you then also have to go back to the LZ those levels would become too insane/tough. And then we will have an even much bigger discussion about the time you need to finish the level.

Generally my take on this would be to give players the choice, and allow them to win via total annihilation or by returning to there LZ after there primary objective is complete, and for the sake of consistency do that for all levels, so as not to confuse players.

So taking say alpha 03 as an example the primary objective is to recover the heavy machine gun artefact, so once that is done you should get the message to return to LZ and at that point you can choose how to end the level do you want to end the level by going back to the LZ or do you want to sweep the map and destroy the rest of the computers units and structures.

As far as the primary objectives go they should match the original game unless there is a specific reason to change them such as it makes the level to easy, as was the case in alpha 11 where it was possible to compete the level in under 2 minuets, and on alpha 07 where again it was possible to complete the level in about 2 to 3 minutes.

As for having to do total annihilation and returning to there LZ that's just mean, and would require adjusting the timers so that like Alfred I'm of the opinion that is not a good idea.

[Berserk Cyborg]

That is fair, just wanted to see what was thought about it since it was brought up.

Again, another mod. This includes the updates I described for Beta 5. If everything looks good, I will push the recent updates to master soon.

Updated-Campaign.wz

Edit:
Ever see what 20+ angry lancer hovers can do on insane in Beta 4? Quite the surprise.

[Bethrezen]

Edit:
Ever see what 20+ angry lancer hovers can do on insane in Beta 4? Quite the surprise.

Nope but then i have been some what stymied by alpha 12 / beta 01 for the last little while, having said that i have seen what they can do on older versions and its pretty nasty which is why I always dealt with them via artillery, so i can avoid loosing a ton of experience units.