1.33 Campaign Balance Update

[Stefan.K]

Goblin Shredder model also crash the game.

 

[Kam]

Model crashes aren’t a campaign map issue - it’s the facefx portrait. The model needs to be re-exported most likely.

 

[Anaxie]

I’ll check the triggers but Sylvanas returns in Silvermoon periodically after you encounter her. My guess is you ran through the map faster than her redeploy timer. If you trigger her death scene she of course won’t return as you now control her banshee form.

Silvermoon is fine and the 1.33 AI improvements are great only bug is the misaligned gate.

I'm talking about Into the Realm Eternal Ch3 and Key of the Three Moons Ch4

After her first wave she never comes back and moves out of bounds in Ch3.
In Ch4 She never attacks no catapults either and she waits at her base to starfall you which is a joke because i just waygate out and then she goes behind a treeline after you "defeat" her which YOU can reach with catapults but she is unvulnerable and peridoncally windwalk loops.

Maybe the area is ment to Auto Kill trigger her so she comes back in new waves but you Never "kill" her. A similar thing happened to malganis except his auto port area in Frostmourn Ch9 Human Kills him.


The Balance changes and even the gold squeeze is great I'm enjoying the new difficulty. On Blackrock and Roll Too! undead mission Blue orc base attacked THE FIRST TIME EVER since I've been playing this game in 2003 and the Red base attacks from the start.

THE ONLY ISSUES*

*Broken Portraits (Shredder, Black Dragon( Dragon, Drake, WHelp),
*No lip sync or moving mouths, No music (ptr issue?),
*Mal'Ganis Ch9 Human and Sylvanas Ch3/Ch4 revives need looked at,
*Misaligned Gate on Sunstrider Isle (Troll Rescueable Gate) on Silvermoon Ch5 Undead,
*item drop Circlet of Nobility Missing from the Salramm the Fleshcrafter Miniboss in The Culling Ch6 Human.
*No Necropolish for Purple Undead or way to rebuild army n Ch7 Human The Shores of Northrend base needs improved (second Crypt?)
* The 5 Milita men now attack Malganis. They count as 0 for him but 5 for you. THis creates a scenario where you can have 96 Kills and Mal'ganis 99 and the map is unable to be failed or finished and must be reset. 5 Milita Men did not attack Mal'ganis in 1.32 -1.32.10 just make them count for his total or turn them Neutral.
*Purple Undead base in Ch9 Human Frostmourn ( They mine 10 gold not 1 and deplete mine
* BLUE ELF BASE in Silvermoon Ch5 Undead (Chop trees down at player rate and mine Gold at 10 gold not 1) With 1.33 Reduced gold the exhaust mine and you exhaust yuour mine before you can even make a 100 food army WITH buying no shop items and minmal basebuilding. <<<<<<<THIS NEEDS ADDRESSED BIGGEST GLARING FLAW SO FAR.
* Ch2 Curse kf the Blood elves Dalvengyr has a Blank Name
*Ch6 Night elf Illidan /Tichondrius level. orange skeleton King at base has no name.

Wishes
*Add an item thats not a consumable to one of the Hidden item wagons on Silvermoon Helm of Valor? Any Orb Type? (would help with aggroing Gryphons in with Arthas in Dalaran Undead missions and Dragons in Orc) ,or Allerias Flute of Accuracy (Fits Silvermoon) ANY ITEM other than a potion of mana for a "hidden item. 3 Wagons and all we get hidden is a potion of mana, Scroll of Beast, and Arcane Scroll.

*Make items match their Campaign Descriptions either by text change or changing values. Campaigns do not update with balance patches this is known but the information in the campaign that was updated is wrong and misleading and a new player or one who forgot would NOT know.
Campaign Description: Claws of Attack +5 actual value +6 ingame
Campaign Description: Medallion of Courage 5 int / 5 Str actual value 4/4 ingame
Campaign Description: Hood of Cunning 5 int / 5 Agi actual value 4/4 ingame
Campaign Description: Helm of Valor 5 Str/ 5 Agi actual value 4/4 ingame

Only issues thusfar. Everything else is a Straight upgrade.

I didn't even encounter any difficulty issues in Ch1/Ch2 Kalimdor Horde with no upgrades, Less units, and no Troll Regen. INfact I still cleared the maps and lost 0 units.

 

[Kam]

I see what's going on in the 3/4 missions. SlyvanasEscapes and SylvanasPreventDeath are conflicting with each other placing her in an endless loop. This is unfortunate but at least does not break the mission.

I'm glad you are enjoying the updates! That blue AI was actually broken in the script which is why it was not attacking. Blackrock and Roll Too! was one of my favorite to make the scripts for because WC2 hah.

That you feel the balance adjustments are an overall upgrade is exactly what I had hoped. There's a group of players that enjoy the Blizzard campaign and they deserved a more developed gameplay experience. Based on all the reports I've read fixing campaign map bugs would be trivial - I'd love to help you all out.

 

[Anaxie]

I see what's going on in the 3/4 missions. SlyvanasEscapes and SylvanasPreventDeath are conflicting with each other placing her in an endless loop. This is unfortunate but at least does not break the mission.

I'm glad you are enjoying the updates! That blue AI was actually broken in the script which is why it was not attacking. Blackrock and Roll Too! was one of my favorite to make the scripts for because WC2 hah.

That you feel the balance adjustments are an overall upgrade is exactly what I had hoped. There's a group of players that enjoy the Blizzard campaign and they deserved a more developed gameplay experience. Based on all the reports I've read fixing campaign map bugs would be trivial - I'd love to help you all out.

Help in what way?
So is it likely they will fix bugged Sylvanas?

Or Blue elves at Silvetmoon depleting their mine?

Is there a way to get music to work on ptr manipulating files because quiet maps right now is the only thing turning me off ftom doing the entire game to get all the bugs

Glad I did though because this Sylvanas bug is something id hate to be stuck with forever

Also @Kam Ch3 horde cry of the warsong.

Wanna know how i managed with groms instant attack timer in 1.33 Hard?

Skip cutscene and let all orcs vut grom die and build and let grom solo kill the buildings so cutscene doesnt trigger. Then body block him in base until you get 6 or 12 grunts.

I usually destroy each base on first warsong attack on hard and with it taking ao l9ng he goes straight from eqch baae to next while you pillage all the reaources. This was about the same even with them having more production buildings and upgrades.

As for March of the scourge ch5 human. If you hotkey spam your scroll of healing and watch cutscene the zombies need to hit the 1 hp people to kill them the are dead if u skio cutscene. You can save a rifleman about footmen 6-7 units with a scroll. Ive done this for years.

 

[Kam]

I don’t expect the campaign to be touched at all beyond high priority issues (crashes).

That said it’s still important to report issues on the off chance someone does update maps. I am considering editing the maps as needed and sending them to Blizzard.

 

[deepstrasz]

That said it’s still important to report issues on the off chance someone does update maps. I am considering editing the maps as needed and sending them to Blizzard.

They'd have to be retested by the community (or someone) after changes are made before sending them.

 

[Kyrbi0]

That said it’s still important to report issues on the off chance someone does update maps. I am considering editing the maps as needed and sending them to Blizzard.

At first I was gonna say "no way that would work", but maybe, just maybe, you have the connections that they might accept your pro bono work.

Good heart, man.

 

[InsaneMonster]

I don’t expect the campaign to be touched at all beyond high priority issues (crashes).

That said it’s still important to report issues on the off chance someone does update maps. I am considering editing the maps as needed and sending them to Blizzard.

Hey hey! Send my own! (joking, of course)

 

[Anaxie]

Patch fixed portraits crashes i believe Didnt check others

 

[AlexMSimeonov]

Hello there!

I was thinking... Did Blizzard ever consider re-creating those beautiful 3D Campaign Screens and/or the Menu in general, or did they always think that the moving 2D Backgrounds would be enough?
Also, is there a possibility that RoC version of Malfurion would make a comeback some day? I know that there was a model made, but never officially used.

Also, i was left with the impression that Normal Difficulty would remove the enemy's handicap. There are some missions that still have enemies handicapped on Normal.

 

[Linaze]

I played through the reforged human RoC campaign on ptr and thankfully had neither weird bugs or crashes.

The difficulty was also quite good at hard, especially considering previously you could basically complete every mission with your starting force alone.

 

[Kam]

Also, i was left with the impression that Normal Difficulty would remove the enemy's handicap. There are some missions that still have enemies handicapped on Normal.

Which missions still have a handicap?

 

[AlexMSimeonov]

Which missions still have a handicap?

The Scourge of Lordaeron
Mission 4 - The Cult of the Damned
Mission 6 - The Culling
Mission 7 - The Shores of Northrend (Handicap removed on Normal, but active on Hard, is this intentional?)

Path of the Damned
Mission 1 - Trudging through the Ashes (Health is fine, but 80% of normal damage. Is this intentional?)


Those are the missions that i found so far.
I haven't played the whole campaign yet.

 

[Kam]

I checked these out and my current assumption is that during play testing it was determined that removing them would prove too much to rebalance in the allotted timeframe. You'll have to forgive me this was over two years ago now.

 

[AlexMSimeonov]

I checked these out and my current assumption is that during play testing it was determined that removing them would prove too much to rebalance in the allotted timeframe. You'll have to forgive me this was over two years ago now.

No problem. I usually play on Hard Difficulty and i so far i like the improvements.
I stumbled upon this by accident and decided to report.

 

[Anaxie]

long weekend so well see how deep we can dive.

I ASSUME lip sync / no moving mouths and music will be working on live.

My only complaint is the Sylvanas Loop bug we discovered.

Replayed Prolouge and Human and UD RoC.

Whatever issue i had with Mal'ganis is gone

THE ONLY issue was Sylvanas never returning on Ch3 and Ch4

Onto Orcs I may be able to get to Blood Elves this holiday.

ALL Maps Enemies have 1/1 upgrades attack/armor and at times much faster attack waves
Gold is Significantly reduced from all mines you WILL need expos sometimes multiple smart upkeep before maxing

Prologue
Ch1 "Chasing Visions" Gnoll camp dangerous needs to be kited or you will lose orcs
Ch2 "Despartures" Almost triple the amount of enemy than original
Ch3 "Riders on the Storm" Kul'Tiras is now green, Will rebuild towers inside base
Ch4 "The Fires Down Below" Nothing
Ch5 "Countdown to Extinction" all your buildings are extreme low HP, Enemy 20% handicap removed (Destroyed All bases/creeps)

HUMAN
Ch1 "The Defense of Strahbrad" Almost Double the Orcs (0 footmen lost)
Ch2 "Blackrock and Roll" Nothing of note more units sprinkled around.
Ch3 "Ravages of the Plague" Final Battle double the units
Ch4 "Cult of the Damned" Slaughter houses at base, Kel'Thuzad is a hero much better fight (abombs/ Zombies teleport in)
Ch5 "March of the Scourge" Huge Zombie attack at start X30 gotta be quick to save towers. Lvl 6 Green Lich attacks in Waves now minimal Catapult usage (destroyed both bases)
Ch6 "The Culling" Mal'ganis group much more dangerous with upgrades, Salramm the Fleshcrafter is VERY dangerous with and will wipe half a group of knights if not moving or healing when he comes out. (Purple Base destroyed / Killed Mal'ganis X25 using Arthas DS/HL)
Ch7 "Shores of Northrend" Lvl 9 Lich, MUCH larger attack waves, Faster attack waves, Double the Ziggs
Ch8 "Dissension" More units
Ch9 "Frostmourne" Enemies dont take forever to send attacks at your base like original Hard Mode. Green Outpost is now a small base with 6X Towers

UNDEAD
Ch1 " Trudging Through the Ashes" Less player units and 1/1 enemy upgrades Cleared entire map with 0 losses
Ch2 "Digging up the Dead" Nothing noiticeable
Ch3 "Into the Realm Eternal" 3X Tree Paths immediatly open. The Teal elven bases sending attack waves keeps pressure up need Sylvanas and her Rank 3 Trueshot back for maximum pain
Ch4 "Key of the Three Moons" You Start the mission with a base. (THANK GOD!) Both camps now predominantly use Dragonhawks to attack your base no catapults. Sylvanas missing isnt so pronounced because she waits in the base to Starfall and will likely only be fought once anyway before bugging out.
Ch5 "Fall of Silvermoon" Stronger Blue archmage lvl 7. Much Stronger Sylvanas attacks, faster attacks from Sylvanas/Blue base, VERY limited gold, 4X Moss Golems in final battle, Visually appealing city redesign.
Ch6 "Blackrock and Roll Too" Blue now attacks and X2 Dragon roosts and Red begins attacking with Dragons at the start of the mission.
Ch7 "The Siege of Dalaran" Anti Undead field is more potent.
Ch8 "Under the Burning SKy" You start with a Siege Golem if you did optional Quest. Nothing changed mission was massively upgraded in difficulty in 1.32 (All three Bases destroyed)

@Kam MUCH BETTER THE SECOND TIME

New Difficulty is like a new game for me and what I always wished Hard mode was. RoC is now more in line with TFT campaign Difficulty across the board.

 

[Kam]

MUCH BETTER THE SECOND TIME

New Difficulty is like a new game for me and what I always wished Hard mode was. RoC is now more in line with TFT campaign Difficulty across the board.

That was the goal and I am glad it met the bar!

 

[Anaxie]

I will finish orc and night elf by tommorrow and post findings.

Also someone mentioned Culling and Shores has a handicap on? Didnt frel like it but i wasnt chwcking enemy hp so id say it hit the balace needed

@Kam. An unintentional benefit of the new reforged Hard is it makes Classic truely stand out as an entirely different experience [RoC stats, non 1.33 balance, old maps, OG graphics,] And I can play both

This mode has justified my purchase 3 years ago

Im just sad that classic doesnt use classic campaign mission screens. The menus would be nice but i miss og map art

 

[rioru]

Too bad there‘s no option to use the classic graphics to play the updated campaign. The only method I know is that you can open the individual campaign map files in the editor and explicitly set the graphics setting to classic and then launch the map from the editor.

 

[Kam]

Too bad there‘s no option to use the classic graphics to play the updated campaign. The only method I know is that you can open the individual campaign map files in the editor and explicitly set the graphics setting to classic and then launch the map from the editor.

That's not really an option as many models will not load. The custscenes won't make sense at all as they were designed with the new animations in mind. Some of the maps might not even be playable.

 

[Anaxie]

70 hour work weeks but i noticed. Zero issues in orc and elf campaign up to the druid of claw mission which i stopped at.

I ntoiced u removed balistta tree damage upgrade in the rescue malfurion mission so i cant sctoll teleport to his grove area anymorr and cheese the map or destroy tocondrius and the base.

Map is also Omega hard now eith upgraded orcs and the fixed 1 bugged tree ghouls cpuldnt reqch

 

[Linaze]

long weekend so well see how deep we can dive.

I ASSUME lip sync / no moving mouths and music will be working on live.

My only complaint is the Sylvanas Loop bug we discovered.

Replayed Prolouge and Human and UD RoC.

Whatever issue i had with Mal'ganis is gone

THE ONLY issue was Sylvanas never returning on Ch3 and Ch4

Onto Orcs I may be able to get to Blood Elves this holiday.

ALL Maps Enemies have 1/1 upgrades attack/armor and at times much faster attack waves
Gold is Significantly reduced from all mines you WILL need expos sometimes multiple smart upkeep before maxing

Prologue
Ch1 "Chasing Visions" Gnoll camp dangerous needs to be kited or you will lose orcs
Ch2 "Despartures" Almost triple the amount of enemy than original
Ch3 "Riders on the Storm" Kul'Tiras is now green, Will rebuild towers inside base
Ch4 "The Fires Down Below" Nothing
Ch5 "Countdown to Extinction" all your buildings are extreme low HP, Enemy 20% handicap removed (Destroyed All bases/creeps)

HUMAN
Ch1 "The Defense of Strahbrad" Almost Double the Orcs (0 footmen lost)
Ch2 "Blackrock and Roll" Nothing of note more units sprinkled around.
Ch3 "Ravages of the Plague" Final Battle double the units
Ch4 "Cult of the Damned" Slaughter houses at base, Kel'Thuzad is a hero much better fight (abombs/ Zombies teleport in)
Ch5 "March of the Scourge" Huge Zombie attack at start X30 gotta be quick to save towers. Lvl 6 Green Lich attacks in Waves now minimal Catapult usage (destroyed both bases)
Ch6 "The Culling" Mal'ganis group much more dangerous with upgrades, Salramm the Fleshcrafter is VERY dangerous with and will wipe half a group of knights if not moving or healing when he comes out. (Purple Base destroyed / Killed Mal'ganis X25 using Arthas DS/HL)
Ch7 "Shores of Northrend" Lvl 9 Lich, MUCH larger attack waves, Faster attack waves, Double the Ziggs
Ch8 "Dissension" More units
Ch9 "Frostmourne" Enemies dont take forever to send attacks at your base like original Hard Mode. Green Outpost is now a small base with 6X Towers

UNDEAD
Ch1 " Trudging Through the Ashes" Less player units and 1/1 enemy upgrades Cleared entire map with 0 losses
Ch2 "Digging up the Dead" Nothing noiticeable
Ch3 "Into the Realm Eternal" 3X Tree Paths immediatly open. The Teal elven bases sending attack waves keeps pressure up need Sylvanas and her Rank 3 Trueshot back for maximum pain
Ch4 "Key of the Three Moons" You Start the mission with a base. (THANK GOD!) Both camps now predominantly use Dragonhawks to attack your base no catapults. Sylvanas missing isnt so pronounced because she waits in the base to Starfall and will likely only be fought once anyway before bugging out.
Ch5 "Fall of Silvermoon" Stronger Blue archmage lvl 7. Much Stronger Sylvanas attacks, faster attacks from Sylvanas/Blue base, VERY limited gold, 4X Moss Golems in final battle, Visually appealing city redesign.
Ch6 "Blackrock and Roll Too" Blue now attacks and X2 Dragon roosts and Red begins attacking with Dragons at the start of the mission.
Ch7 "The Siege of Dalaran" Anti Undead field is more potent.
Ch8 "Under the Burning SKy" You start with a Siege Golem if you did optional Quest. Nothing changed mission was massively upgraded in difficulty in 1.32 (All three Bases destroyed)

@Kam MUCH BETTER THE SECOND TIME

New Difficulty is like a new game for me and what I always wished Hard mode was. RoC is now more in line with TFT campaign Difficulty across the board.

Did you have any crashes in the Undead campaign on PTR? I had issues primarily with Ch5 and Ch7 which both crashed repeatedly. Because of the semi-random nature of the crashes I think it might be related to the AI (which is known to cause such issues).

 

[Kam]

When did you play those? If it is as before the latest PTR they fixed the model portrait crashes.

 

[Linaze]

When did you play those? If it is as before the latest PTR they fixed the model portrait crashes.

No, I played it just the other day so it's on the latest (available) PTR build.

Honestly I tried to troubleshoot it a bit but it was quite random and hard to find a consistent cause. The fact that it only happened on the "reforged" missions might give somebody a hint, though.

 

[Kam]

I just ran through them without issue. Would you mind repairing your install and testing one of them again? You can use cheats to speed it up.

 

[Kakerate]

How does one even edit campaign maps? Weren't they all compiled on the first patch? Would you have to edit from an editor on that patch to do it without breaking the maps?

 

[Linaze]

I just ran through them without issue. Would you mind repairing your install and testing one of them again? You can use cheats to speed it up.

I tried the repair (it said zero files were repaired, though) but I still get consistent crashes on UD05 (Silvermoon) after a couple of minutes. Occured both on normal and hard difficulties.

 

[Kam]

How does one even edit campaign maps? Weren't they all compiled on the first patch? Would you have to edit from an editor on that patch to do it without breaking the maps?

They have always been available in the mpq. Since 1.32 they are accessible in the editor menu via File->Open.

I tried the repair (it said zero files were repaired, though) but I still get consistent crashes on UD05 (Silvermoon) after a couple of minutes. Occured both on normal and hard difficulties.

These issues are usually related to HD assets. AI files would only cause an issue if they referenced a unit ID that did not exist and that crash would be 100% for every player. What OS are you running? (Mac wasn't tested beyond a surface level and no coverage on linux et. al.) Are your drivers up to date?

 

[Linaze]

They have always been available in the mpq. Since 1.32 they are accessible in the editor menu via File->Open.


These issues are usually related to HD assets. AI files would only cause an issue if they referenced a unit ID that did not exist and that crash would be 100% for every player. What OS are you running? (Mac wasn't tested beyond a surface level and no coverage on linux et. al.) Are your drivers up to date?

I'm on Win10.

I did update my GPU drivers and it sorta worked? I still got one or two crashes will clearing out Sylvanas' base to the right, but no crashes after that and was able to beat the mission. The vertical gate was hilarious.

Oh well.

 

[Kam]

I just noticed they fixed the wagon model not showing:

Edit: On second thought we may have fixed this two years ago... hah.

 

[Anaxie]

Did you have any crashes in the Undead campaign on PTR? I had issues primarily with Ch5 and Ch7 which both crashed repeatedly. Because of the semi-random nature of the crashes I think it might be related to the AI (which is known to cause such issues

I've had zero crashes on win10 with a 3080 Ti running off a NvM

the only crash is when i reset when watching a CGI cinematic breaks campaign selection.

 

[Kakerate]

They have always been available in the mpq. Since 1.32 they are accessible in the editor menu via File->Open.

Sorry, I was pretty vague in my last message. I didn't mean literally how you access the map and such, but how you compile the script without it breaking. I recall saving the mission where Grom drinks from the blood fountain, and he started as Red Grom at the start, amongst various other incompatibilities with how RoC maps were scripted.

 

[Malistroth]

Hey guys, I don't have the PTR unfortunately, but I'll play the campaigns again when the update will be live, so I'm very interested in its improving.

So, what really bothers me is the TEAM COLOURING. Especially in the Rexxar campaign. Is it possble to make the player colour orange, brown or red? Blue just doesn't seem right imho.
I really like the team colouring in WC2 where each nation and clan had their own colours. I'd like to see the matching colours in WC3 campaigns if possible.

 

[Kam]

A number of the factions got TC updates in the Reforged campaign so you’re in luck. I didn’t adjust Rexxar though.

 

[Malistroth]

A number of the factions got TC updates in the Reforged campaign so you’re in luck. I didn’t adjust Rexxar though.

Would be cool if Rexxar started as brown or orange, but after meeting Thrall the player colour changes to red representing joining the Horde.
He's got red armor parts even on the campaign title screen.

 

[Azill]

Hello, Kam i've been playing your new campaign changes on the PTR and i've noticed some serious bugs / crashes. I posted them on the official bug forums for wc3 but I sincerely doubt anyone is looking at them. I figured I would tell you though since they are your changes afterall, and you might have a better chance of notifying them of the bugs than my post on the forums.

 

[Kam]

Hello, Kam i've been playing your new campaign changes on the PTR and i've noticed some serious bugs / crashes. I posted them on the official bug forums for wc3 but I sincerely doubt anyone is looking at them. I figured I would tell you though since they are your changes afterall, and you might have a better chance of notifying them of the bugs than my post on the forums.

I’m not aware of any crash bugs. Do you have a link?

 

[Orikon]

Kam, I've got a quick question/topic that I was hoping you could give your opinion on.

In your notes, you described how Kel'Thuzad in HU04 has been giving a proper boss fight treatment. If you were given a chance, would you be interested in doing the same for Uther in UD02? It is supposed to be a major fight between Arthas and Uther, yet both in Classic and Reforged he simply pops his Divine Shield as soon as you touch him and then you have to run around until it expires. And once it does expire, he basically becomes a "bullet sponge" type of boss and you have to hope you brought enough Ghouls with you to dps him before the pops the shield again.

And if you were to make a proper boss fight for him, how would you design it? A different skill set? Scripted behavior?

 

[Kam]

Kam, I've got a quick question/topic that I was hoping you could give your opinion on.

In your notes, you described how Kel'Thuzad in HU04 has been giving a proper boss fight treatment. If you were given a chance, would you be interested in doing the same for Uther in UD02? It is supposed to be a major fight between Arthas and Uther, yet both in Classic and Reforged he simply pops his Divine Shield as soon as you touch him and then you have to run around until it expires. And once it does expire, he basically becomes a "bullet sponge" type of boss and you have to hope you brought enough Ghouls with you to dps him before the pops the shield again.

And if you were to make a proper boss fight for him, how would you design it? A different skill set? Scripted behavior?

It's important to understand that I was flying solo on implementation, and I am not an engineer, so I was fairly limited on what kinds of gameplay changes I could make in the allotted period. When I say proper there I mean: Not a pushover a-move battle. My original plans were much broader in scope.

For Uther, and every major battle, there were going to be new abilities. In fact the playable heroes were all going to get new kits. Attached you'll find what Paladin Arthas was going to have (thanks to @Spellbound for helping code it in 2018, mostly done). The general idea was to focus on providing an exciting experience with hero abilities rather than stick to the harsh bounds of melee balance design.

Specifically for the Uther fight I wanted to re-arrange the paladins so you would have two choices:

• Kill one or all of the supporting paladins before engaging Uther, weakening him, and then clean up any remaining paladins.
• Attack Uther directly, and then kill the other paladins whose guards would have fled for the most part.
  • Attacking Uther and then retreating in either choice triggers a third track where the paladins begin attacking your base because you were a dirty coward. If it was only Uther left he would remain in his place and new reinforcement units would spawn and a-move to your base.

 

[Kyrbi0]

In fact the playable heroes were all going to get new kits. ... The general idea was to focus on providing an exciting experience with hero abilities rather than stick to the harsh bounds of melee balance design.

boo hiss

; )

 

[Orikon]

Hell yeah, that sounds great. Incorporating different ways to approach a mission while staying true to the vanilla design/vision is precisely what the Campaign would need -- both in order to incorporate modern designs and to increase replayability for those of us who have beaten it a bunch of times before.

Out of curiosity, what do you think would happen if you created those changes in your spare time, and simply sent them to Blizzard?

Although Campaign changes probably aren't planned for future patches, they would have no reason not to include your files. They were not only done for free, but they were also done by a former employee and/or contractor who simply followed the original project plans. Plans that would've been realized if everything had gone right.

The only reason (that I can see) why your files might be rejected, is if the developers were given strict instructions to rigidly stick to the project scope/schedule.

 

[Bitterman]

Now that it was announced that the update will drop next Wednesday?

any ideas of what will be on the fixes outside campaign?

 

[Orikon]

Ok, here's my report thus far.

I played all missions on Hard. Bear in mind, I am by no means a highly skilled player (maybe slightly above average) so my feedback regarding difficulty probably won't be objective.

UD03
General:

• In the opening cutscene, troops can still be seen appearing out of nowhere behind the Meat Wagons. Breaks immersion.
• Sylvanas attacks you once, runs away when her HP gets to half (yay!), but then never attacks you again. Why? She says multiple voice lines throughout the mission, yet she isn't present. Since the script for her escape now works, I don't see why she couldn't appear more often, at the very least in the final Farstrider base.
• Her introductory cutscene is still a bit awkward since Arthas' gameplay and cutscene locations are totally different. In my opinion, he should stay in his cutscene location after the scene ends. It might not be where you moved him during gameplay, but at least it will feel more consistent.

Difficulty:
Not gonna lie, I struggled. It took me 4 attempts because the big teal base on the south path is swarming with Sorcs and Priests, and I kept running out of gold due to the new nerfs. It doesn't help that the base is also a frequent choke point because every group that periodically attacks you passes through that very base. I had to learn the attack timings, and then time my own attacks to avoid getting overwhelmed.

The AI also fanatically rebuilds, even as I am destroying their base and whatever is being built clearly has no chance of survival.

Even before 1.33, this mission was a slog. I understand that this is Hard difficulty, and that the goal of the mission is to teach you fast expansion and Necrowagon strategy, but with only 3 units available you're quite limited.

It becomes a tedious mission when you're fighting masses of Rank 2 Sorcs/Priests who directly counter your only available strategy. Personally, I feel like the new resource nerfs do a great job of keeping you on your feet. But I would either let the player have another unit on this map, or nerf the number of elves, or just remove one rank from Sorcs/Priests.

UD04:
- No major commentary here. Resource nerfs feel good and not too harsh. But again, I do wish Sylvanas attacked you more often.

UD05
General:

• Silvermoon looks even better than on the pics you posted. Glorious. It's not perfect, but definitely acceptable and a major improvement over 1.32.
• The gate guarding the trolls is rotated sideways. Needs fixing.
• Whenever Slyvanas attacks your base, she plays one of her voice lines, but there's no subtitle or portrait. Feels off.
• I had an issue where a Runner's pathing would get screwed and he would keep running into the edge of an isle.

Difficulty:
Ok, this one is definitely down to my lack of skill, but personally I cannot beat this mission on the new 1.33 Hard. The resources are very scarce, and even when I rush the southeast base, its gold mine has around 6k gold left. If I fail in my first attack, its basically game over because by the time I take the base there won't be enough gold left for the attack on the city.

Good micro will keep my city assault army mostly intact as I fight through Silvermoon, but no matter what I do, I get absolutely demolished by the new Golems + Bosses on the revamped isle. Which wouldn't be a problem if resources weren't as scarce.

The enemy buffs feel great though, especially the level 7 Archmage.

ORC03:

• Love the new hidden path. Thrall's dialogue now makes sense.
• Personally I feel like the attacks are too frequent. Especially since the AI has a tendency to attack you with two groups at once -- so unless you're in your base guarding it, it's game over. You really have to time it nicely. It would be great if Grommash came to help you in case you're being simultaneously attacked by two groups. Nothing wrong with frequent attacks, but I would reduce the size of the groups.

 

[fayde]

First time posting in this forum, I appreciate all the work you've done with the campaign Kam!
I've been getting a lot of crashes while replaying the missions, they're all happen at random times except one that I can't get past

In The Scourge Campaign, Chapter 7 Part 3, as soon as I destroy the second power generator, the game crashes. I replayed it about 5-6 times and it always happens in the exact same moment, soon as the power generator crashes or a few seconds after.
I've tried it on Hard and Normal as well as using cheats like whosyourdaddy and iseedeadpeople but didnt work.

 

[Blazethesage]

I will note, the Circlet of Nobility being missing from Salramm in Culling that people were talking about before release appears to have been fixed. As an aside, I will note that there is a note in the Culling section of the topic post that says Hard Mode no longer reduces starting units; this is not true. In Hard Mode, you have only two footmen to start instead of four, and two of your starting Guard Towers are removed, one at each entrance. It also felt like I started with fewer resources, but that may be me being crazy? Wouldn't be surprised if you do. As a pretty poor player myself, Culling definitely kicked my butt on Hard mode; I just couldn't keep up with keeping Mal'ganis from screaming ahead in claiming civvies while also defending my base from the monstrous attack waves Purple sends.

I will say, I do appreciate some of the little changes, though. Like the Archmage in Prologue 03 being given a new name that fits him being from Kul Tiras. Also, all three Captains being present in the mission Frostmourne is nice. I haven't looked further ahead to see any further minor changes like this, though. Definitely won't be continuing in Hard mode though; I was never able to beat the Frozen Throne campaigns in Reforged Hard Mode, and this patch definitely puts the Reign of Chaos campaigns on that same level. I'll have to be satisfied with Normal Difficulty. Though I will say, hearing the AI allies at the end of the Orc and Night Elf campaigns will actually rebuild stuff is very, very appealing.

Final note, the note about the "teal AI" on the Frostmourne mission confused me, and provoked me into checking the map in the editor to see what in the world that might be referring to. I never knew that little expansion outpost held by green was a separate player. And indeed, now that they have some lumber, they actually build stuff! I used the vision cheat right at the start and saw them building a Crypt. I guess they just became a priority target; bad enough to have two enemies to worry about, let's not allow a third one to establish, shall we?

 

[Blazethesage]

So, following up on the stuff about Sylvanas' behavior in Undead Missions 4 & 5... in Key of the Three Moons, I decided to take a different route; I'd heard you can repair the Bridge to Sylvanas' base that she breaks in the cutscene, but I'd never tried it, so I did and took out her base first. And then I stumbled across this. In this spot right here, Sylvanas is doing her "low-health run-away Windwalk" routine every two seconds or so. On loop. Eternally.

I think something broke.

I will note, I think I caught a glimpse of her doing this next to the Waygate, but then she perhaps got picked up by a Zeppelin that flew off in this direction. The zeppelin is nowhere to be found, but... well, here she is.

 

[Lorddenorstrus]

@Anaxie I agree on the changes. It's absolutely idiotic. But it can't be undone now. Blizzard is Retconning WC3 20 years later as they expanded on Sylvanas "story" in WoW. So because of a shitty WoW xpac that's getting the WoD treatment and getting tincanned ASAP. WC3 gets unwelcome lore changes. Congratz, the new forced lore is Sylvanas died in a field. I don't even remember the og map having a field ish looking area. But hey that's why the art department can create a pretty new map with a field where it's only purpose is Sylvanas dying in a cinematic.

 

[Blazethesage]

Can I just say, by the way, that I love all the little details in regards to stuff like Hero names. I noticed in the Prologue campaign, the Archmage Hero in level 3 (when you first appear on the island) was given a Kul-Tiras sounding name, and then multiple Archmagi throughout the undead campaign got the same treatment; the ones in Silvermoon all got Elven names, and the ones in the final undead mission to defend Kel'thuzad got a set of names (that I just discovered are distributed randomly to the Archmagi on the map) mostly pulled from lore. Couldn't quite find a source for Ericon and Pascal Spellbinder, though I recognize Pascal's brother(?), Peril Spellbinder as one of the Archmage's random melee-map names

I can't wait to keep going and see if I can spot more of this going forward!

EDIT: It would appear that for Orc01, all three changes listed under "Hard mode" are applied to all difficulties; Tauren have only 1/1 upgrades and reinforcement numbers are reduced on Story, Normal, and Hard difficulty.

EDIT: Interesting; normal mode of Orc03 starts the player with 1/1 upgrades. I went to select my War Mill to start upgrades, and realized "why is there only spikes barricades here?" and checked my grunts, and lo and behold! Also, still appreciating the hero names!

EDIT: Taking a quick peek through a few levels ahead of where I am currently, two things pop out; namely, two notable enemies whose names are completely blank. First, the Keeper of the Grove in the Night Elf cave mission, guarding Illidan; I'm pretty sure his name was set as Califax previously, which was accepted canonically as that Keeper's name in the Illidan novel. In particular, the Keeper's name being blank actually bugs out the UI when you mouse over him. Also, the giant Skeleton dude who's clearly meant to be the leader in the orange Corrupted Ancient base in Illidan's level has no name for some reason. And for some reason the Skull of Gul'dan's name has also been removed?

EDIT: Um. The uhh, the Ancient Storm Wyrm in Night Elf 04 to "Death Revenant". There's definitely some odd stuff happening with names in the Night Elf campaign. And the Corrupted Tree of (Ages? Eternity?) is unnamed.

EDIT: Yeah, another addition to the "stuff has lost their names" crowd, this time all of the enemy heroes in Night Elf 07, Twilight of the Gods.

 

[Husarz94]

I believe that the slow walking of characters in the movie scenes is one of the worst changes, after all, it is a game, not real life, because of this change, the game lost its dynamics and atmosphere.