1 Behavior. The chain for these is Search -> Set -> Damage & Apply -> Behavior
That's fine and I like how everything's modularised in the SC2 editor.
Except I have to duplicate 5 elements per level (effects & behavior). Which is disgusting. That's before I even get into how tedious it is making tooltips for each level: noticing one grammar mistake and having to rewrite 5 tooltips by hand is horrible.
Can someone please tell me I'm missing something? Is there really no automation for this in SC2?
If you asked a month ago, the answer would have been no. Today is different. You may have noticed in data there is a new Wizards menu. These wizards are the automation you seek.
Now, you can also take your entire effect chain and behavior, and duplicate them. By doing duplicate (not copy/paste), the duplicate elements that you select, will remain linked together. This means once you have the first level of the effect chain created, you can duplicate and get the other levels relatively quickly. Then you can go about tweaking each level.
I've developed a wizard for doing multi level effects. I will be doing further development along lines of automating what you are doing, because I too face a similar challenge.
Attached is my multi level effect wizard (there are other wizards in it as well). It is VERY basic at this time, only had a week to work on these. I'll be fleshing this one out to display common relevant fields for each effect type.
IF you want to make your own wizards or edit others, you can go Wizards -> Wizards Help, and it fully explains how wizard files are created.
Also, I would make use of data references in tooltips. Data refences allow the insertion of data values into a tooltip and will be kept updated dynamically, for the fields referenced. So if you change it in the data editor, you don't have to back and update the tooltip. ALso if the field is upgraded in game, it will change as well to reflect the new value.
Learnable abilities such as used in WC3 have been generally proven to be undesirable anyway. A better approach is to provide continuous "per level" improvement of abilities such as seen in Heroes of the Storm. Damage is improved continuously per level with either vetereancy, buffs or upgrades. Upgrades can also improve buffs, effects and most things you would want to improve per level. This improvement mechanic is not fully MUI but as long as you design around per player MUI (which is a good design decision) then it will work perfectly.
This way you end up with 1 ability level which is always useful and scales with hero level. Easy to design, easy to balance and easy to use.
You could use the new "Wizard" functionality to make them as you originally intended. It might automate a lot of the tasks you find laborious. This has just been posted above as I was writing.
So I'll definitely give that Wizard system a go, thanks for that. I've been using data references (familar with WC3's editor) but they aren't a solution to grammar mistakes. Or redesigning abilities for that matter.
But is there somewhere I could find more info on what you suggest, ImperialGood? e.g. attaching veterancy to effect/behavior damage scaling. I looked into this and I know it's possible but couldn't find how to scale ability damage externally.
1) Use the Talent system, that was brought over from heroes of the storm. I do not know precisely how it works yet, but it provides this capability
2) Using the level up effect in the veterancy behavior to run a modify player effect, which then you modify the relevant effects (this is a new capability in 3.0). In the modify player effect, you will have an array called Effects, this is where you can do upgrade like modifications.
2) Using the level up effect in the veterancy behavior to run a modify player effect, which then you modify the relevant effects (this is a new capability in 3.0). In the modify player effect, you will have an array called Effects, this is where you can do upgrade like modifications.
Exactly what I needed, thanks!
I'm still playing around with designs for my ability system though. I do like the HotS system but it destroys the feel of an RPG "build". All abilities are guaranteed to be useful sure, but none stand out and a level up just feels like "oh yay all numbers just increased by 2% /s". Just going to have to experiment for a bit. I too have no idea how the talent system works so might just experiment with mutually exclusive learn abilities that augment the heroes default abilities.
So I've found a slight boundary issue with the level up gain effect method. If the hero levels up more than once from a single experience gain, it only triggers the level up effect once. It's unlikely to be an issue in the actual game, just something I noticed while testing.
i don't use more than one effect chain for my levelable abilities anymore. instead of using the learn ability i do a research ability with upgrades that directly modifies the desired value. all you have to do is to setup some triggers to show the numbers (on the command card) correctly to validate the submenu with the research ability. this, ofc, only works if there is just one hero of this type per player. all non linear changes have to be done with triggers too. it saves alot of time, you only have two tooltips (upgrade button and ability), one upgrade.
you can duplicate the same effect for each lvl of your ability (i mean not duplicate the effect object, just copy paste same effect multiple time in ability's "effect" array field), but use upgrades as people here suggested. This is what i used for lvl-ed spells. To execute upgrades each time you learned next spell level your hero need to have hidden "research" ability and run additional buff with requirement, that will detect whenever player pick next lvl and execute research order. In my map that behaviors marked with "- Executor" tag. I'm using one unified tooltip for all levels.
To avoid using this behavior you can alternatively just directly upgrade your spells with "research" ability. But in this case the learn button won't show the available skill points properly, you will have to use just default "submenu" button to enter the learn submenu.
Look in warhound spells:
study the "ability", "requirements", "upgrades" and "behaviors" tabs
you can duplicate the same effect for each lvl of your ability (i mean not duplicate the effect object, just copy paste same effect multiple time in ability's "effect" array field), but use upgrades as people here suggested. This is what i used for lvl-ed spells. To execute upgrades each time you learned next spell level your hero need to have hidden "research" ability and run additional buff with requirement, that will detect whenever player pick next lvl and execute research order. In my map that behaviors marked with "- Executor" tag. I'm using one unified tooltip for all levels.
To avoid using this behavior you can alternatively just directly upgrade your spells with "research" ability. But in this case the learn button won't show the available skill points properly, you will have to use just default "submenu" button to enter the learn submenu.
Look in warhound spells:
study the "ability", "requirements", "upgrades" and "behaviors" tabs
you can also just add more fields to the costs array (which is often needed anyway) to have more than one lvl.
you can duplicate the same effect for each lvl of your ability, but use upgrades as people here suggested. This is what i used for lvl-ed spells. To execute upgrades each time you learned next spell level your hero need to have hidden "research" ability and run additional buff with requirement, that will detect whenever player pick next lvl and execute research order. In my map that behaviors marked with "- Executor" tag. I'm using one unified tooltip for all levels.
To avoid using this behavior you can alternatively just directly upgrade your spells with "research" ability. But in this case the learn button won't show the available skill points properly, you will have to use just default "submenu" button to enter the learn submenu.
Look in warhound spells:
study the "ability", "requirements", "upgrades" and "behaviors" tabs
Honestly the suggestion by ImperialGood has been working far better than I expected so far. My current test hero has 3 starting abilities, each of which is nothing more than a single ability + effect/behavior chain. All 3 get scaled up by a single level up effect attached to the heroes veterancy. Only one tooltip is necessary since data references get updated automatically. Then, to maintain character customization I'm trying to make a sort of talent tree where each path concludes with a mutually exclusive "ultimate" ability themed after that path.
Total overhead is 6 unique ability/effect/behavior chains + 1 modify player effect to scale everything per hero independent of level cap. If I can figure out a way to fix the bug I mentioned earlier then this method is pretty much golden for my purposes: if not I'm just limited to avoiding multi-level gain events which hardly cramps the design.
I feel like I have to be missing part of the editor.
This is what I had to make to create a very basic AOE damage & slow ability:
Ability
2 Buttons (usage & learn)
4 Effects (SearchArea, Set, Damage, ApplyBehavior)
1 Behavior. The chain for these is Search -> Set -> Damage & Apply -> Behavior
That's fine and I like how everything's modularised in the SC2 editor.
Except I have to duplicate 5 elements per level (effects & behavior). Which is disgusting. That's before I even get into how tedious it is making tooltips for each level: noticing one grammar mistake and having to rewrite 5 tooltips by hand is horrible.
Can someone please tell me I'm missing something? Is there really no automation for this in SC2?
If you asked a month ago, the answer would have been no. Today is different. You may have noticed in data there is a new Wizards menu. These wizards are the automation you seek.
Now, you can also take your entire effect chain and behavior, and duplicate them. By doing duplicate (not copy/paste), the duplicate elements that you select, will remain linked together. This means once you have the first level of the effect chain created, you can duplicate and get the other levels relatively quickly. Then you can go about tweaking each level.
I've developed a wizard for doing multi level effects. I will be doing further development along lines of automating what you are doing, because I too face a similar challenge.
Attached is my multi level effect wizard (there are other wizards in it as well). It is VERY basic at this time, only had a week to work on these. I'll be fleshing this one out to display common relevant fields for each effect type.
IF you want to make your own wizards or edit others, you can go Wizards -> Wizards Help, and it fully explains how wizard files are created.
Also, I would make use of data references in tooltips. Data refences allow the insertion of data values into a tooltip and will be kept updated dynamically, for the fields referenced. So if you change it in the data editor, you don't have to back and update the tooltip. ALso if the field is upgraded in game, it will change as well to reflect the new value.
Learnable abilities such as used in WC3 have been generally proven to be undesirable anyway. A better approach is to provide continuous "per level" improvement of abilities such as seen in Heroes of the Storm. Damage is improved continuously per level with either vetereancy, buffs or upgrades. Upgrades can also improve buffs, effects and most things you would want to improve per level. This improvement mechanic is not fully MUI but as long as you design around per player MUI (which is a good design decision) then it will work perfectly.
This way you end up with 1 ability level which is always useful and scales with hero level. Easy to design, easy to balance and easy to use.
You could use the new "Wizard" functionality to make them as you originally intended. It might automate a lot of the tasks you find laborious. This has just been posted above as I was writing.
So I'll definitely give that Wizard system a go, thanks for that. I've been using data references (familar with WC3's editor) but they aren't a solution to grammar mistakes. Or redesigning abilities for that matter.
But is there somewhere I could find more info on what you suggest, ImperialGood? e.g. attaching veterancy to effect/behavior damage scaling. I looked into this and I know it's possible but couldn't find how to scale ability damage externally.
There are 2 approaches
1) Use the Talent system, that was brought over from heroes of the storm. I do not know precisely how it works yet, but it provides this capability
2) Using the level up effect in the veterancy behavior to run a modify player effect, which then you modify the relevant effects (this is a new capability in 3.0). In the modify player effect, you will have an array called Effects, this is where you can do upgrade like modifications.
Like some others have suggested, I would probably just use upgrades.
Exactly what I needed, thanks!
I'm still playing around with designs for my ability system though. I do like the HotS system but it destroys the feel of an RPG "build". All abilities are guaranteed to be useful sure, but none stand out and a level up just feels like "oh yay all numbers just increased by 2% /s". Just going to have to experiment for a bit. I too have no idea how the talent system works so might just experiment with mutually exclusive learn abilities that augment the heroes default abilities.
So I've found a slight boundary issue with the level up gain effect method. If the hero levels up more than once from a single experience gain, it only triggers the level up effect once. It's unlikely to be an issue in the actual game, just something I noticed while testing.
i don't use more than one effect chain for my levelable abilities anymore. instead of using the learn ability i do a research ability with upgrades that directly modifies the desired value. all you have to do is to setup some triggers to show the numbers (on the command card) correctly to validate the submenu with the research ability. this, ofc, only works if there is just one hero of this type per player. all non linear changes have to be done with triggers too. it saves alot of time, you only have two tooltips (upgrade button and ability), one upgrade.
@raolan_au: Go
you can duplicate the same effect for each lvl of your ability (i mean not duplicate the effect object, just copy paste same effect multiple time in ability's "effect" array field), but use upgrades as people here suggested. This is what i used for lvl-ed spells. To execute upgrades each time you learned next spell level your hero need to have hidden "research" ability and run additional buff with requirement, that will detect whenever player pick next lvl and execute research order. In my map that behaviors marked with "- Executor" tag. I'm using one unified tooltip for all levels.
To avoid using this behavior you can alternatively just directly upgrade your spells with "research" ability. But in this case the learn button won't show the available skill points properly, you will have to use just default "submenu" button to enter the learn submenu.
Look in warhound spells:
study the "ability", "requirements", "upgrades" and "behaviors" tabs
you can also just add more fields to the costs array (which is often needed anyway) to have more than one lvl.
@FunkyUserName: Go
that works too.
Honestly the suggestion by ImperialGood has been working far better than I expected so far. My current test hero has 3 starting abilities, each of which is nothing more than a single ability + effect/behavior chain. All 3 get scaled up by a single level up effect attached to the heroes veterancy. Only one tooltip is necessary since data references get updated automatically. Then, to maintain character customization I'm trying to make a sort of talent tree where each path concludes with a mutually exclusive "ultimate" ability themed after that path.
Total overhead is 6 unique ability/effect/behavior chains + 1 modify player effect to scale everything per hero independent of level cap. If I can figure out a way to fix the bug I mentioned earlier then this method is pretty much golden for my purposes: if not I'm just limited to avoiding multi-level gain events which hardly cramps the design.