Feedback on Fellowship Campaign

[Kinniken]

My apologies to the mods if there is already a thread for this, but I couldn't fine anything else than the general feedback thread, where anything Fellowship-related gets drowned in the feedback for the main game...

Anyway, I just finished the Fellowship campaign and I wanted to give some feedback. First, congratulation to Amon Amarth, it's a great and novel TATW experience! I'm very impressed with the general work to produce a kind of scripted, mission-based experience in M2TW, and it works very well. The battles are a lot of fun as well, and it's cool to be fielding very different troops in every battle - a nice contrast with the regular game, where you often end up fighting plenty of variants of the same battle. I also liked the good balance between being as faithful to the book as possible, and yet including events the LOTR heros normally miss, such as the Battle Under the Trees or the defense of Dale.

Now for some more specific feedback:
- I think you should be more directive at time, especially in the "missions" part. It's hard to know what you are expected to do. For example, I would specifically state that you are supposed to send each hero to his quests separately.
- The Dale mission would gain to be replaced with a "Defense of the Lonely Mountain" one - maybe a "relieve the siege"-style mission with Gimli leading the relief force, commanding an army of mixed Dwarves and Dale men?
- It should not be possible to bring extra troops into mission battles, instead the player should be provided with exactly what you want him to be fighting with. Otherwise the difficulty level of individual battles can fluctuate widely depending on what the player could bring along - having Faramir and his rangers with Aragorn made Aragorn's missions trivial for me for example.
- The final two battles are a little easy I think, when you consider the player should be fielding a full stack of elite troops from nearly all the "good" races. A front line of Vault Wardens and Barding Hirds with Silvian Heavy Archers at the back and some Eored Heavy Lancers and Aihwothiuda Horseguards to strike from behind makes short work of two sacks of middling orcs. And that's before the Ents come in I won the Black Gate battle with 280 casualties, and that felt a little easy.
- If you ever feel like doing it all over again, I'd love to play an "Evil side" campaign

Once again, great job

[PimP_BombadiL]

i think an evil campaign wud be really interesting

[Amon Amarth 930]

Thanks for the constructive Feedback, very helpful for my later work

- It should not be possible to bring extra troops into mission battles, instead the player should be provided with exactly what you want him to be fighting with. Otherwise the difficulty level of individual battles can fluctuate widely depending on what the player could bring along - having Faramir and his rangers with Aragorn made Aragorn's missions trivial for me for example.

It would be very difficult to prevent that the player don´t use this reeinforcements.
It´s not possible over scripts, only over that way, that we change all missions so, that its impossible for the player to use his reeinforcements from other missions.

- The final two battles are a little easy I think, when you consider the player should be fielding a full stack of elite troops from nearly all the "good" races. A front line of Vault Wardens and Barding Hirds with Silvian Heavy Archers at the back and some Eored Heavy Lancers and Aihwothiuda Horseguards to strike from behind makes short work of two sacks of middling orcs. And that's before the Ents come in I won the Black Gate battle with 280 casualties, and that felt a little easy.

It was very difficult to find a good balancing for the last battle.
We can´t make it necessary that you have to solve every mission and hire every mercenary to win this battle. And as you maybe have read - some people have really big problems to win the Battle of Minas Tirith or at the Black Gate.

- If you ever feel like doing it all over again, I'd love to play an "Evil side" campaign

On my side (and i think KK too) haven´t much desire to rework the whole campaign...
Also I wouldn ´t make a Evil-Side campaign, because i haven ´t the time for that, especially beside my other main-project, Gothic TW, which also have much RPG-Concepts/Features.

[SeekerAfterTruth]

And as you maybe have read - some people have really big problems to win the Battle of Minas Tirith or at the Black Gate.

I agree with this, not because of the difficulty but because of the huge sizes of armies and my computer just couldnt handle it. I eventaully decided to play the whole battle at half speed with the graphics at lowest but it still froze halfway (when i hade finally turned the tide of battle) and i was forced to close it

This is the only reason for not liking the un-allowed auto-resolve, i happily played all the other battles but i was going to auto-resolve this one cos i couldnt play it. Now of course i worked out how to allow the auto-resolve again but i just couldt be bothered going to all the effort of starting again. And i even tried cheating to get past the battle cos i was so annoyed, but of course u have to think of a really smart way to stop that... a bit of a let down i must say

Not to say i dont like the campaign, i think its great its just a shame i never got to finish it, ill go back some time though and start again

[Kinniken]

It would be very difficult to prevent that the player don´t use this reeinforcements.
It´s not possible over scripts, only over that way, that we change all missions so, that its impossible for the player to use his reeinforcements from other missions.

Would it be possible that instead of getting the "reward" troops right away, the campaign just marks it somehow that you've earned them, but they only popup at the end during the "gathering of the forces" stage?

It was very difficult to find a good balancing for the last battle.
We can´t make it necessary that you have to solve every mission and hire every mercenary to win this battle. And as you maybe have read - some people have really big problems to win the Battle of Minas Tirith or at the Black Gate.

Maybe you could provide a "default" army made up mainly of good Gondor troops with some Rohan cavalry added, something that would be strong enough to tackle the two end battles? And then a player who's done well in the missions would be able to swap some troops of that army with better ones he's collected, for example replacing Gondor heavy archers with Sylvian ones or Gondor infantry with Dwarven one? That way you could "calibrate" the battles for a full stack of good Gondor troops, and yet leave the player with lots of units from missions with an advantage.

On my side (and i think KK too) haven´t much desire to rework the whole campaign...
Also I wouldn ´t make a Evil-Side campaign, because i haven ´t the time for that, especially beside my other main-project, Gothic TW, which also have much RPG-Concepts/Features.

I was kidding An Evil campaign would be awesome, but I'm sure you're not so keen on getting neck-deep in other huge project just after having finished this one!

[Amon Amarth 930]

Would it be possible that instead of getting the "reward" troops right away, the campaign just marks it somehow that you've earned them, but they only popup at the end during the "gathering of the forces" stage?

That would be possible, and actual its a good idea in my view.
But it would be excluded the possibility to give the player choices: For example use Aragorn and the Grey Company by the defend of the Hornburg or Legolas and his archers in Gimlis Dale-Mission.
And thats an aspect of RPG to my mind, which i liked, to give the player choices and possibilties.

Maybe you could provide a "default" army made up mainly of good Gondor troops with some Rohan cavalry added, something that would be strong enough to tackle the two end battles? And then a player who's done well in the missions would be able to swap some troops of that army with better ones he's collected, for example replacing Gondor heavy archers with Sylvian ones or Gondor infantry with Dwarven one? That way you could "calibrate" the battles for a full stack of good Gondor troops, and yet leave the player with lots of units from missions with an advantage.

Also a good idea of you
But unfortunately i see the disadvantage that the whole quest/hire merc´s-Section/Missions aren´t such important then.

[Kinniken]

That would be possible, and actual its a good idea in my view.
But it would be excluded the possibility to give the player choices: For example use Aragorn and the Grey Company by the defend of the Hornburg or Legolas and his archers in Gimlis Dale-Mission.
And thats an aspect of RPG to my mind, which i liked, to give the player choices and possibilties.

Ah well, on that one we differ I guess - allowing the player to do that just removes the challenge of the further missions for me. Unless you could balance it so that the extra troops a player can bring to a mission can't be enough to make a big difference, I'd rather remove the possibility. But if you prefer giving the player more freedom, your choice

Also a good idea of you
But unfortunately i see the disadvantage that the whole quest/hire merc´s-Section/Missions aren´t such important then.

That is true, they would be there mostly for flavour, not because they are really necessary. But does it matter? Most players will do them anyway

[Inarus]

Excellen Campaign but perhaps a bit too rewarding if you fail a mission - but the missions are excellent. It's amazing to travel the entirety of Middle-earth without practically any opposition.

[Amon Amarth 930]

Excellen Campaign but perhaps a bit too rewarding if you fail a mission - but the missions are excellent. It's amazing to travel the entirety of Middle-earth without practically any opposition.

I really like that too, its completely different from normal Total War gaming with development of your reign and such things.

And we have implement a reward if you fail a mission because we won´t make it impossible to win a campaign if you couldn´t solve some missions.

[Inarus]

I really like that too, its completely different from normal Total War gaming with development of your reign and such things.

And we have implement a reward if you fail a mission because we won´t make it impossible to win a campaign if you couldn´t solve some missions.

Yeh the reward is good but it seems perhaps too generous.

[ChivalrousKiller]

The fellowship campaign is great, but as Kinniken mentions, it is sometimes a bit unclear what you're supposed to do

[LordSquidworth]

Silvan elves took the misty mountains which prevented me from being able to finish Gimil's quests without letting it terminate.

I can't seem to finish Gandalfs quest to muster the Rohirrim and so I'm past Minas Tirith but still no Helms Deep.

[WykeMartin]

I like rp aspect and like the slight puzzle element of figuring out what needs to be done next at the strategic level, but the difficulty of the quest battles seems very variable.

Gandalf's battle at Helms Deep seems increadibly difficult, (it's been impossible for me to win so far) compared to the rest of the quest battles which are generally quite easy.

Frodo's seems just right, possible but not easy. Though to hold true to the spirit, Boromir should 'teach' him the trait of Ambush, because frodo's superior command puts him in charge of that army.

[uddhava]

Hi,

Compliments for this campaign. Very well done to bring a different 'genre' basicly into M2TW. Perhaps not the place to mention it but in the 'sometimes unclear' department: I didn't understand what I was supposed to do with frodo and sam when they get 'stuck' near cirith ungol. I couldn't move anywhere. Regarding the battles. I found the one with Frodo impossible to win. Should I bring other heroes as well? It feels 'against' lore to do so.

Tenx! And again: excellent work.

[zaidoffire]

actually i found the battle with gandalf at helms deep easy u just have to use in and out tactics

[TheScabMuncher]

I'm a little unsure on one thing, how is the campaign supposed to end? I've destroyed the ring so is that it? I've haven't had any messages saying it's the end though.

[danielpreciad]

i think an evil campaign wud be really interesting

[Dude with the Food]

I really like this but one thing I have noticed, if you lose the very first battle against the nazgul but the heroes all survive, there is no downside. You can start then immediately quit and the nazgul will have disappeared leaving you free to stroll into Rivendell at zero casualties.