Hello,
Guess it's around the fourth time I do you campaigns, which I still enjoy much. However, regarding the difficulty settings (hard), I have things to say.
Mission 5 is the big issue, it's a "roll the dice until you have the good waves". I've finally made it, because of that, to be honest. This is what I have observed :
- At the start, the obvious choice is to send Jaina get the Lordaeron followers. They are the main force in the up Orgrimmar. At the same time, you can send Sylvanas and Thrall clean the thunderous lizard at Garrosh portail, then Jaina can arrive precisely when you kill them and activate Garrosh. Then you can get back to Orgrimmar just for the arrival of the waves.
- Here start the problem : you have creeps on the map, Drek'thar to free, and a city to defend. The waves are simply too much to leave efficiently the city to get Drek'thar or creeps, making those things useless.
- The allied IA is useless. Really. Garrosh and Drek'thar often take the long road and fight with lizards and murlocs, sometimes even dying in the process. Worst case is they come, then go up and low, locked into movement, never do anything. But anyway, it's not like what they sent is especially good. Something is wrong with those two guys. The problem is I managed to get Jaina pass through the murloc alone when Thrall and Sylvanas where defending, using her ultimate for taking down the quillboar, and my reward is Drek'thar dying alone on the murlocs and barely doing anything for the rest of the mission. Eh.
- It seems that the waves are random. Playing the campaign, it happens that I have sometimes three waves at each point (which means I lose, there is no way the defender can take that much), sometimes only one by one, the best (or worst from a design perspective?) is the south don't attack regularily letting you breath for a second.
- That brings me to the heroes. They are... not exactly the best defenders of the world. Strangely, Jaina don't have the regular Q, it's only 4 waves, meaning you can't kill necromander/banshee/chariots and the like in one wave. Not having access to her aura of illumination means mana is a big issue overall. Ring of frost is good, except that it have friendly fire, making it often unusable or frankly just a tool to fire in you own foot. Thrall is here to play the aura of illumination, make a earth totem and maybe wolves sometimes. You can let him goes low on mana pool. For Sylvanas, the silence and the summoning are usefull, the rest not much. The global problem is that : you have no hero that can clean efficiently large pack of enemy, no hero with an ability to focus and kill quickly the strongest threats that heroes and frost wyrms are, and mana and heal can quickly become a problem to sustain waves.
- You can't upgrade them efficiently because money is limited and you can't really creep. I think getting a fraction of the money the AI makes during the mission could be good. That reward you if you defend Lordaeron's faction, cause your income is doubled. That means healing and mana potions, and orbs of lightning. Nothing can make your heroes broken but they at least can keep fighting better.
- The size of the map is a problem. The healing and mana fountains are far from each others, going to north to north west to south take a lot of time preventing you to roam efficiently. It's also keep you to creep because you can't afford to walk that far from Orgrimmar.
So, critics is good, but here my ideas to solve a part of the issues (they don't need all to be solve, of course that would totally destroy the difficulty) :
- Concerning Garrosh and Drek'thar, instead of having those two trying to come from the portal, which seems to be a big problem for the pathfinding of the AI, make some space behind Lordaeron and Orgrimmar base. When you activate a portal, they will sent workers, themselves and a bunch of units. The workers will build the altar, and building for troops. Instead of coming with a totally random behavior, they will now be present directly in the Lordaeron base for Drek'thar, and Orgrimmar base for Garrosh. Then it will be a constant reinforcement and a rewarding power spike. The alternative road would be to give control of Drek'thar and Garrosh to the player (not the units, just the heroes).
- About the size of the map, I think you can keep the two, but two changes could help : transform the two fountains in one in the middle of the map that gives mana and health. Being on the middle of the map, that could be a great way to help you to make a last stand (that would buy only a bit of time if the enemy has destroyed north and south, not change everything). Also the shop should be in the middle too.
- Makes the lich coming less often (it's by far the worst enemy to fight, the lich's kit is excellent against anything and the anti magic shield from the banshees prevent you to kill it efficiently). The waves would still be dangerous that way.
One last thing, not sure if it is intended or not, but if you hold 20 minutes but are already drown in the quantity of enemies, the allied don't help you in the defense, meaning you can still lose.
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For the rest of the campaign, my main grip is the unit balance. Dark ranger are interesting by design but things are kinda off about them. They are very fragile, don't have a long range, their ghost form and spiders are too weak to be relevant even in the mission two, and the two types of arrows aren't really a choice. My suggestion, and something that I think is logical from a lore perspective considering dark rangers are heroes to begin with, is changing them to make a 3 food units, with like 500 - 550 hp (so they will not be that fragile). That way, you can justify a stronger spider, ghost form. For the arrows, the poison one needs to be at least at 30% effect instead of 15% to justify itself, I think.
Apothecary have no automatic ability, it's too much micro for abilities not really impactful except the healing waves.
I want just to point that I appreciate the banshees are being able to mind control workers ranging from peons to make dragons in 2, crusader in 3 and 4 for make humans, and vrykul to make mammoth riders in 7 and 10 is awesome. And a solution to many problems. Also, the mammoth rider don't count as food for the later missions, making you able to create an unlimited army of them.
Val'kyr are op. Like, too much op. One of them isn't that strong, but a doomstack of val'kyr is absurd. Ability to heal in pack, going from 1 to 1250 hp, the two different colors means control group are way easier to manager for the heal, you can bring back the deads, and their attack strength is damn powerfull too. Being a flyer, most enemies can just watch you shred everything, and in fly mode, their a armor is still heavy, many the piercing attacks of the ranged units are not as strong as they should be against flyers. They turn mission 11 into a joke. A stack can take down Arthas and every base with no much efforts. I didn't even need the AI in that one (which was doing the same thing as Drek'thar and Garrosh, being unable to know where to go). Why not limit val'kyrs as one per type, so two at the same times in you army? Or turn their armor into light when they fly, so ranged can take down them way faster?
The campaign has a bit too much of heroes sections imo. It's personal, but the RTS aspect is lacking after the Scarlet Crusade arc. 5, Half of 6, 8, 9, and 12 revolves around heroes, that means more than 1/3 of the campaign, and for the rest of the missions, they still do most of the work in 7 and 10. The RTS aspect kinda fell off, especially when most of the strategies are walling and making a big army (of val'kyr in the last two RTS missions).
I have no real solution because you would have to remake for missions from the ground. But heh, I have abandon of the lich king, I was too bored at that point to persist trying him.
I think you can at least turn mission 10 into a time limited one from the beginning. You start with 30 minutes to do it, because you are supposed to come back at the wrathgate. Then Vereesa event after dealing with the vrykuls, with it's own 10 minutes time limit.
Also the Alliance being here in 6 makes no sense. I know you kept that from the 2.0 storyline, but without the wrathgates, they are no explanations of being in Undercity. I think making an event like Jaina warning Thrall when you destroyed the demonic forces outside that Varian, being aware of what happens, have come to deal with the demonic threat, and that he will soon interfere. Then you do the Undercity section, and when the Alliance comes at the end, that makes sense. They are just late.
Anyway, my favorite mission was 4. Defending as hard as you can, collecting meats on the attackers, feeding the bats that slowly take ground for you, and making the Crusade rebels are all great ways to turn what seems to be an impossible mission into a really pleasant one.