Outlaws

[Moderator]

21:48, 30th Aug 2013
Orcnet: AgentAAA's review

 

[StoPCampinGn00b]

New comer + campaign? That takes guts. +rep to momowarlord

Please fix the description, add a prologue story, a backround, and the time period and place of the story.

What type of campaign is it? Full on custom war game-type, rpg/hero quest type, or blizzard like gameplay.

A submitted recourse (maps, spells, etc) must be finished, or mostly finished with unknown bugs and problems. Of course, people can suggest more things. Not to be judging or anything, but 3 chapters seem very short.

Map rules: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/beta-rules-information-710/map-submission-rules-228244/

 

[Legal_Ease]

And screenshots, don't forget screenshots!

 

[AgentAAA]

Firstly, compliments on doing a campaign up already, while just starting out. I'm about to sound rather harsh, so I'd like to note first that this was a ballsy move, and while this needs a lot of improvement, it's a really great start.

This may have been the shortest campaign I have ever played, lasting roughly an hour for me to play, at least a quarter of that spent screwing around rather than simply rushing to finish the level - I wager someone attempting to finish the campaign as quickly as possible would take thirty minutes.

in the first level, the intro is a rather abrupt and brief introduction - you're attempting to escape the royal guard. No more detail is really given at that point, as you play the role of Victor, who appears to be a fallen paladin of some sort - The character seems rather contradictory, having the capability of resurrection and Holy light, but also creating a fear aura.
The main issue is that his new abilities don't add a lot to his gameplay - the only thing you handle differently is wind walk, and most of the time in the first mission, you need to save the mana for healing, so it's a skill that doesn't really get touched.
the other issue is simply that he has no real personality - he's rarely touched upon in the first mission, and I felt 0 connection to him.

the bandits as a group are balanced, but the AI seems to be that of a creep, and that, combined with the general lack of challenge on the map, allowed me to clear the first map in the space of ten minutes. there was little fanciness on my part, and I did clear all the secondary objectives and creep camps, but in general it felt like I had no real threat of losing except perhaps at the level's end.

The second level, again, introduces the plot a little quickly, involving the mage character on this map, Cornelius. I felt no real personality to this character, much like Victor. He's also rather overpowered if one makes sure to give him early brilliance aura, the combination of skeleton warriors, water elementals, and, later, charm to allow him to take control of enemies made the second map, especially with the creep AI allowing him easy hit-n-run attacks, or unit steals, made the map easy. The bandit helpers were hardly needed - as long as he had a corpse or two to work with, or elementals ready, Cornelius could solo this rather easy map.

The third level gains the highest marks, but still has a fair amount of deficiencies. The level's start gives you a bandit base with 2 taverns capable of making bandit troops, and gave you the unique objective of destroying wagons to gain money, 3 wagons in total with guards to make the prospect a challenge. At first, especially with wagon-runs alternating with Cornelius, in the bottom half of the map, dealing with constant attack, this would seem rather unique and good - and it is to a point, however, the main issue is that the guard's don't attack you. They just move on "Move order" along with the wagons, and let you get free shots on the wagons, which quickly die as a result. More or less, the wagons end up being free money.

This map should also be the most difficult, as you're given a tight time limit to fight your way to the center of the map before Cornelius is swarmed by 40 or so knights, which are capable of killing even him by that point - except, as I found out, if you take out the nearby lumber camp, barring cornelius's path, and then hug the tree line to the right - the knights issue forth towards the clearing Cornelius spawns, and then miss attacking him completely.

After that, the level became mostly just to clear the map, with little difficulty - I had time to charm a peasant, create additional farms, charm the water elementals because I like having cool-looking stuff under my control, build to the cap, wipe out the knight force with my 100+ food army, and then simply send cornelius back to camp when I remembered that just blowing up the human town wasn't my objective.

Overall, this is not a horrible map, but the AI, the difficulty, the storyline, and the glitches and exploits all need to be looked at and improved. the story is brief and disconnected to the point I doubt I counted more than 5 dialogue lines in any one map, the gameplay is just too easy to hold my interest at all, the map ideas in map 3 were great in terms of concept but executed poorly, the maps themselves looked very bland and rarely had more than one or two optional creep camps to help them feel alive, and the first 2 maps are just straightforward linear creeping. This needs some improvement to be the fun and light campaign it wants to be.

 

[Momowarlord]

I am glad you guys posted comments. I will use this to improve myself in future. I know that storyline is sucky and without connection but i just wanted to make something. I know i must improve ai but i need to learn more about triggers.

 

[BandolXD]

K... At first chapter Cinematic was too short. There's a villager at first chapter right? I think that would be bad... Villagers would see group of Bandits and they no reaction? Maybe just make the Villagers Enemy that will drop items. Defense of Enemy in first chapter is hard,maybe other players will forcely use a cheat called "whosyourdaddy"(I'm Your Daddy !)

I lost all of my unit in the Big Defense at Second Chapter. I forced to use "whosyourdaddy". Maybe add more units?

At Chapter Three player don't have much gold. Why don't you add a Cinematic where Victor will find a Gold Mine? It's so hard to follow those Wagon. I forced to spam Tower in map.

 

[Momowarlord]

Well i think it's relatively easy to win cuz u have holy light and in second chapter mass skeletons and use beast scroll for easy win :/
Edit: In chapter one villagers does run away when they see bandits.

 

[The_Messenger]

It was a fun little campaign. Although this post and upload is very old I was looking for something to try out. It was an interesting take on Bandits and Outlaws since there's little to no action taking place around these types of people.

It showed promise. It was terribly short, the first two missions usually take you about 10 min tops to complete and the third one might take you a bit more since the place is heavily guarded. Of course there are some grammar errors, blunt dialogues and unfleshed story but the core of the campaign was interesting despite the maps being terribly simple and easy.
Cornelius is a pretty powerful hero since he can summon a personal army and take control of key units from the enemy. Victor is a reverse version of a paladin, his aura decreases armor (-4 armor hurts), can heal, wind walk and resurrect; it's an odd combination of spells but this makes him a type of offensive support.
I'd give it a 3 rating but I'll have to give it a 2.5/5 rating. It was fun, but terribly short with a few errors and mistakes that weighed it down. It would have been a great Bandit campaign if it were longer and more fleshed out.