I have finished all the new chapters.
C15: It's very boring. There is no change in 52 minutes, so most of the time I close my eyes and have a rest.
And this chapter is so easy. The emergence of advanced units will inevitably lead to a decrease in difficulty, which is unavoidable in any RTS campaign. Setting different achievements may slightly enhance the gaming experience. Furthermore, the talent points in this campaign are too limited, resulting in most talents not being considered.
Taking these two points into consideration, I believe achievements can be designated and additional talent points awarded upon completion of achievements. In Wings of Liberty, military funds can purchase most upgrades, but not all. However, the talent points in this campaign are completely insufficient.
For example,
in chapter 15,
Achievements
Favorite to cause trouble - defeat Blackdragon before the timer reaches 20 minutes
It does not belong to you - Do not train extra frostwyrms in this chapter in Hard 2 level (+1 Talent points)
Love soldiers as sons - complete this chapter without losing any ritual casters
C16: The damage of the Fire Dragon is unparalleled, but Cult's overall lack of recovery methods limits its abilities. I think this design is great.
C17: I think setting a certain number of attack waves for the opponent can give the attacking side better attack opportunities and make this level less boring.
C18: This level shows that Cult is still too weak compared to other races, lacking strong recovery methods and unstable output, making it extremely difficult to destroy the red base above. Moreover, the lack of recovery methods makes it almost impossible for high health units to play.
Thank you for the feedback.
Ch15: In the case of the Black Dragonflight, from a storytelling perspective, they are meant to be portrayed as a third-party observer faction. Thus, in-game they remain neutral at first and only launch a full-scale offensive after being attacked. But they pillaged our gold mines, and we can make attempts to reclaim them. This design choice was made to test the player’s strategic insight and judgment in deciding when it would be most appropriate to subdue the Black Dragonflight.
As for why I didn’t create a separate optional quest regarding them: even if it were labeled as optional, I worried that players might feel compelled to complete it as if it were a main quest. (Of course, this may simply be my own misconception.)
Originally, the plan was for five factions-including the new Horde and the various Dragonflights-to put pressure on the Scourge from all directions. However, due to severe frame drops and frequent crashes, the Horde faction was removed entirely in this update, which greatly reduced the number of enemy factions and heroes the player has to face. Since I did not significantly adjust the intensity of enemy assaults in the process, the gameplay may have felt less engaging as a result.
I plan to review this further at a later time.
Ch17: The issues you mentioned in this chapter seem to stem from a combination of narrative progression, narrative justification, and other intertwined factors.
From a storytelling perspective: The Alliance will likely make their final appearance in this campaign during this chapter. They have suffered many defeats, and with Alexandros-their High Commander and central figure-gone, they are left without leadership. The chapter also depicts their last stand around the fortress during an emergency, where the Scourge is launching raids while the Alliance struggles to evacuate civilians. Because of this context, I judged that sending them on suicidal mass assaults would not be appropriate.
Instead, they periodically divert some of their air units around the outskirts and send them toward the player’s gold mine to launch harassment.
From a gameplay perspective: The Alliance AIs are designed to grow gradually, but once they take a certain amount of accumulated damage, their growth and ability to rebuild structures are halted for several minutes. (I can’t quite recall if I also made them stop their waves of assaults during that period, but I think that’s probably the case.)
Since this mission requires the player to wipe out the enemy within a set time limit, I designed it this way to prevent players from feeling that their usual level of rushing tactics would be useless.
In the case of the Light Blue AI, their food usage probably exceeds 250 by far. The idea was that the player should take them down in cooperation with their allied AI, though I can see how the waiting time for the ally’s sortie could feel tedious.
I may consider adjustments such as making the aerial assault waves continue regardless of accumulated damage, and shortening their intervals somewhat.
Ch18: This mission is also heavily influenced by the story. I wanted to show the Scourge barely managing to take down the enemy’s key figures and struggling just to rebuild and hold an outpost, so the enemy AI’s main base is set up with extremely strong defenses.
The red AI base may appear to be 1 CPU Player, but in fact there are two or more, and there are also hidden structures that continually reproduce watchguard units. If production buildings are destroyed, the reproduction of watchguards disappear as well (and they don’t get rebuilt), but without cheats it was made to be nearly impossible to achieve.
On Talent Points: I wasn’t sure how far I should go with chapter development, and I was worried that the player might become too strong, so I initially set the point rewards rather conservatively.
Once the campaign is complete, I plan to review the Talent Point as a whole. I think it would be appropriate to adjust the overall point rewards throughout the entire chapter, and certain optional quests-particularly those whose rewards feel underwhelming-so that they also grant Talent Points. (For example, subduing the Illidari goblins in Ch12, or the Plague Cauldron in Ch16.)
On Achievements: Honestly, I haven’t given this part any thought at all, and I don’t really have a sense of what direction to take.
