with a lot of help from this forum (THANK YOU GUYS!) I've brought my first map to beta-state. This is my first project with the data editor, so it may be buggy as hell, but if someone is interested, I would appreciate feedback, comments and/or help.
The map is a remake of the WC3 Battletanks map - up to 8 players fight in two teams to destroy the enemys headquarter while their realms fight each other with their armys. You can buy tanks, weapons and equipment, capture ouposts, etc.
Because I'm only doing this for fun and I dont have that much spare time I'm at a point where much content needs to be added, but I dont have the time and the creativity to do it all in short time. But as I said I'm very interested in feedback and maybe help in tracking errors and fix it (as I said, this is my first map).
Hm.. it seams several players play the map and give their feedback in battlenet. :)
It would be very kind, if some could post their feedback here - optimal a detailed bug report -> Its very hard to track a bug when there are only battlenet-posts like "lost items" without any information of the circumstances... ;)
Wow, a really nice map. Tested it in SC2 and it looks very good^^
All in all: The graphics look very good. Nice Terrain, nice detail and the basic structures are the same as in battletanks. Unfortunately, there is no big variety of weapons, tanks..., but I hope there will come more stuff later. You also have to do much balancing stuff, and it would be nice if you could upgrade weapons (like in the wc3 battletanks).
The game seems pretty bugfree to me, except of this one (not a real bug, but some technical stuff):
If you fire the machinegun weapon at a moving target, while yourself are moving too, there is a chance, that the bullet is not hitting the target but still moves into the fired direction.
But, as I said, a very good map, and I see forward to any updates^^
When you say there is not much variety, do you mean that the tanks/weapons in the game do not differ enough or there should be more tanks/weapons?
I do not remember, but could you upgrade weapons in WC3 battletanks? Whatever, this mechanism is not implemented in the map so far and I thought of a sort of combining-mechanism instead. (there are already two combining weapons) What do you think about this? This mechanism is from wc3 battleships (and also other maps like dota i think) and i like the idea more than just these "click to upgrade" weapons!?
The issue with the bullet not hitting the target: I know that issue, but I dont know how to fix it! (I'm really not that good in the sc2 editor..) Does anyone know? :) btw: on the other hand I think mayby its not that bad - some sort of realism!? :)
regarding balance: please post what you think is not balanced - I dont have any experience in balancing games and I appreciate any help! :)
When you say there is not much variety, do you mean that the tanks/weapons in the game do not differ enough or there should be more tanks/weapons?
I mean, that there are not enough ones. Refering to the original, there were tons of different weapons and also many different tanks with their very own skills. But I know that it is very much work to create all that stuff^^
I do not remember, but could you upgrade weapons in WC3 battletanks? Whatever, this mechanism is not implemented in the map so far and I thought of a sort of combining-mechanism instead. (there are already two combining weapons) What do you think about this? This mechanism is from wc3 battleships (and also other maps like dota i think) and i like the idea more than just these "click to upgrade" weapons!?
Personally i think, that a click to upgrade would be easier to understand and also better in general. But it's your map, so it's your decision^^
The issue with the bullet not hitting the target: I know that issue, but I dont know how to fix it! (I'm really not that good in the sc2 editor..) Does anyone know? :) btw: on the other hand I think mayby its not that bad - some sort of realism!? :)
I'm not really good in the data editor, too, but I think this issue could be solved if you create a bullet, that is updating its destination(place). Sounds complicated, but I think the marauder-weapon has this too, so you could just copy it.
regarding balance: please post what you think is not balanced - I dont have any experience in balancing games and I appreciate any help! :)
First of all, the abilities are pretty unbalanced. For example the overdrive ability of the walker: even at lvl 5, the buff is pretty low for an usable ability, while the cooldown is very high. I'd rather suggest to convert it to an passive ability with some higher values for each level (+4% at first lvl, +8% at second...)
The Weaponprices are ok, but it's pretty "boring", that every weapon-stage has the same price (120 for first stage, 300 for second...)
Same goes for other items and tanks
But all in all I can say, that balance is ok for a beta.
Well, thanks that you saw my review
If you need help with editor or whatever, you can also contact me ingame.
My acc: Ultragon, #492. I'll help you as good as I can^^
Hm yes.. tons of items are cool and a lot of work. :) But ill do my best - this point can be fixed over time. :)
Your tip for the missile actor is good - ill check on that when I have time.
Hm your balancing infos are very helpful.. ill work on this.
The main problem is, that even this "few" items are really hard to balance if you also want them to feel different - that is also a reason for the same tier level prices - I had to start from some point, so I made this tech-like cost-levels and tried to balance the weapons on each level - even with this system I had to guess many parameters because I simply have a lack of experience in such things.
Therefore feedback is very important (and hard to get ) - so again thanks for your detailed feedback and I would appreciate another comment when you maybe play the map again in a few weeks or so. :)
Since I posted yesterday, I don't say much to the game itself (cuz there weren't many changes), but I found some bugs:
First of all, when I was playing a map today (1on1), neither me nor my opponent was revived. Both of us were killed by the computer, and when the revive-timer hit zero, both of us weren't revived, and the timer kept on staying zero.
The second (and last xD) bug I found was that at the top left and lower right side, marauders sometimes get back to the region where you can capture the outpost, and stay there. That's pretty annoying, since you can't push computer units away.
And by the way I was noticing, that most of the usable spells have a very high cooldown. That should be balanced in the future.
no problem. :) Its only the case that I dont have that much time to throw out much new content just in time. :)
The revive-bug is hopefully fixed.
The waypoint-bug.. hm actually no idea why that happened.. I'll try to find out under what circumstances this may occur. Did you do anythink special?
[EDIT]mayby found the reason for this waypoint bug and fixed it...[/EDIT]
Enjoyed this mod so much that i had to register here and reply with some feedback.
So far the concept seems quite promising, but there are some points i'd like to add as feedback:
1. Shields, armor, speed tunes etc, says they are not stackable. But if you buy all the different mark 1,2 & 3 they stack up and give quite a significant boost, especially runspeed wise. Is this intended?
2. The pace of the game so far is abit on the slow side. Increasing base movespeed and removing the stackable movespeed items would give a quite good overall increase in pace.
3. What is the reason for no targeting ability so far? Is the frontload damage too high if targeting is enabled? Could you explain abit more about why theres no targeting enabled?
Overall, the game was a nice experience and i hope you are able to add new content in due time. Looking forward to try out new versions.
Specially to report some small issues, i made a account for you!
1. Like Rolafatas mentioned, if you take the mark 1,2,3 ect, it does stack. (I dont mind though, its nice to run around like crazy..)
2. I think the map is slightly to big, either increase the game speed, or the spawn rate of the units (to keep you busy).
3. Upgrade the waves. There taken out way to easy after like 10 minutes in play.
4. The only 2 weapons you basicly need, is machine gun (for armor) and tazers (for shield). I found out that with 4 machines guns, 2 tazers, 1 shield, 1 engine i can easly take out an enemy who is stronger, and in the meantime take out any wave units for extra cash.
5. Replace the bunkers. Everything has shields, except for those, so you can take out a bunker and just run passed the rest of the defense and take out there HQ.
6. Just a tip, add more slots for higher units. I see guys in Mark 1 tanks rushing up with Mark 4 guns, taking out whole waves.. Maybe give more slots as you advance (mark 1 = 4 slots, mark 2 = 5 slots ect).
7. Requesting minerals will grant you (in some cases) a donation from your side. Found out this happens to small amounts, 50 or 100 minerals. Did gave me a nice 500 mineral boost somewhere halfway the game.
Overall, i rated it 4 stars. It requires some balancing in my case, since i did not lose a game yet.. Good beta, might want to take the few things mentions on top here in mind. There all small things. I had no problem with the targetting system, first comes, first servers. Make the waves like moveable canonfooder, but the idea is nice. Ranking system would be nice to, so you can see your all-time records and stuff.
Hope you can work on it, and put down a good top 20 arcade game!
Well, I played the map some times now and I have to say it doesn't get boring :) Since I already said everything about the game overall, I just want to report some bugs and balance suggestions now.
Bugs:
- The quadpod can't use his abilities requiring a target and can't build any houses. The error message says "can't turn to the target". Maybe it has something to do with it's thermal lances ability.
- The first ability you can upgrade at the quadpod (The one which reduces the shield) disapears in the ability learn section, just after the first time you upgraded it (so it can't be upgraded further)
Balance suggestions:
- the fourth version of the autocannon is a bit too strong in my opinion.
- you should make tuning, shield and armor items stackable, but reduce the amount of bonus they give. That should offer some more interesting combinations in the game overall.
- you should really add some endgame weapons and the possability to manually upgrade the forces of your team. especially at the end of the game you have almost nothing to spend your money on.
well thanks again for the feedback. I've not much time to work on the map at the moment, but I plan to do so in the next few weeks (studies...)
Some points to the things you mentioned:
- The different tier tunings can stack, yes - but it will use up much inventar space - thats the intention behind it.
- again regarding the "no manual targeting": I've adapted this system from the original Battletanks/Battleships from warcraft 3. I found this mechanism very interesting, it gives the oportunity to create "some targets only"-weapons (not much are implemented yet... :( ) and its just a gamestyle that differs a bit from other maps.
@rolafatas: Further increasing in speed would make some tanks look quite ridiculous I think.. but I plan to implement more cross-ways to reduce time to move around.
@failedepicly: Waves are upgraded by now, but automatically and you can not trigger it manually - thats a good option by the way. Do you think the creeps are too weak at all? I mean... stronger creeps will make the game longer...
The requesting-bug is new to me... never thought about begging the PC. :-D but: your "income" you get every 2 minutes is nothing more, than the money your empire earned by killing creeps split among the players - so with your trick you did not generate new money in the game.
That you can rally the defenses is a problem.. ill work on this...
@TheUltragon: thx for the bugreports. More "endgame-content" is planned, yes. I simply dont have the time at the moment. :)
If anyone has an idea for a new weapon etc.: Just post it here - I appreciate any help :)
Hi,
iv got some ideas for your map:
- Let the Zealots grow stronger (over time/or if they kill an unit)
- Let the banshee fly (or add an upgrade for it)
- Harder Zerg
- There is an glitch to get unlimited rankpoint (Bots)
thx for your comment and thank you for your bug report - I think I fixed the problem now.
Regarding your other points:
- For now the Zealots only prevent some shops from being used too early - its not their suppose to block these shops all the time. But the implementations of more protoss is interesting..
- I improved the Zerg forces in the last updates.. see if it is enough
- yeah the flying.. its a general "problem": The map is not designed to habe flying player-units in it - I think it would mean to many advantages for them (this would deny all the restictions given by the pathes - of course I could add "no-fly-zones", but its kind of unrealistic, isnt it?
- Showing the reloadtime is an interesting idea. I try to avoid features that look to "unrealistic" but maybe I find a way to implement it without a huge reload-bar above all tanks ^^
- I heard a few times about this "invisible"-bug, but never experienced it myself when playing - can you say something to the circumstances it apeared? Did all buildings simply get invisible? Sounds strange...
- Why do you think early dropped players unbalance the game? Income is split amongst all allies so basically every team gets the same income. Dropped players nevertheless are a problem. But what to do then? stop the game? :)
Here's the principle reason leavers unbalance the game. When your ally leaves, you don't get his item value in money. So
If Team 1 has a player leave right at the start of the game, they get 1750 split between them.
If team 2 has a player leave after he spends all his money, they get nothing.
Secondly, the higher-tier items are just WTFStronger than the lower tier items. This especially means that if your enemy gets a large chunk of extra change, you get nothing. This is especially bad because the starting money after tank is 1250- not enough to buy two tier1 guns, but enough for a tier3 gun with a small amount extra. The amount should be increased to 1300 so you can buy two tier1 guns or one gun and an item.
The amount given should be (Player's money + Raw value of player's items) * resale rate (70% atm I believe).
A few other balance issues:
The longbow laser is clearly the best weapon in the game. It's weak against shields but almost all enemies have much higher health than shields. The range is just way too strong because it's easy to stack so much damage, your opponent can't possibly reach you before you total him.
In addition, stacking armour and health is woefully underpowered- not to mention there is no way to know how much damage reduce you get for armour.
The recharge times on many skills are way too high, and the way they don't reset when you die is really bad. No skill or item should cool down in more than about 20-30 seconds. In addition, their effect is way too low. Speed increase of 3%? Seriously? Or a health recharge of 100-500 on a 2,300 health tank. The skills should have way more impact. Except for the ultimate of the Battletank, which is massively overpowered. Along this line, the respawn times are often way too long, and the shield recharge times are also too long.
The outpost turrets are way OP at the start of the game. The early tanks just don't make a dent in them. It's virtually impossible to recapture an outpost you lost. Even if you put multiple teammembers in one lane. Later in the game they are a joke. Their health should scale more appropriately.
The lanes have way too much dead space in them. Even in one of the fastest tanks, half the time I'm just running from A to B.
The rewards for killing players are also way too low. You make many kills but barely get a couple thousand minerals for it. They need to be increased, and they also need to scale better.
It's hard to judge when to wait and when to attack, because there's no indication of when your faction will send you money. There should be a timer on it.
Finally, there are some places on the map on the highground near each faction's bases where you can place turrets due to your own giving highground vision, but can never be killed as there is no "scan" item to see up cliffs for such things.
Edit:
Oh, and one last thing. The Zerg should have more of an incentive to be attacked. Right now, they are more like a stupid tax. "You were stupid enough to go around killing Queens? Now the zerg attack you!". There's really no reason to attack the Zerg. There should be, say, significant monetary rewards for killing Queens, or the best items only accessible by killing them.
I'm a big fan of building more of the army units, but they need to spawn in sync with the regular ones.
In addition, the base defences do not benefit from army upgrades.
+ + + + + +UPDATE+ + + + + +UPDATE+ + + + + +UPDATE+ + + + + +UPDATE+ + + + + +
There is a separate SC2MAPSTER PROJECT PAGE for this map.
Please visit: http:www.sc2mapster.com/maps/desert-tankbattle/forum/
+ + + + + +UPDATE+ + + + + +UPDATE+ + + + + +UPDATE+ + + + + +UPDATE+ + + + + +
Original Post:
Heyho,
with a lot of help from this forum (THANK YOU GUYS!) I've brought my first map to beta-state. This is my first project with the data editor, so it may be buggy as hell, but if someone is interested, I would appreciate feedback, comments and/or help.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
DESCRIPTION:
The map is a remake of the WC3 Battletanks map - up to 8 players fight in two teams to destroy the enemys headquarter while their realms fight each other with their armys. You can buy tanks, weapons and equipment, capture ouposts, etc.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Because I'm only doing this for fun and I dont have that much spare time I'm at a point where much content needs to be added, but I dont have the time and the creativity to do it all in short time. But as I said I'm very interested in feedback and maybe help in tracking errors and fix it (as I said, this is my first map).
The name of the map is "Desert Tankbattle BETA" .
- just search for "Tankbattle"
Hm.. it seams several players play the map and give their feedback in battlenet. :)
It would be very kind, if some could post their feedback here - optimal a detailed bug report -> Its very hard to track a bug when there are only battlenet-posts like "lost items" without any information of the circumstances... ;)
@Freddy2287: Go
sounds interesting.
Ill make a video for you when I get a chance to check it out.
Shoot me a PM to remind me.
Reply would be very cool. Here I have some sceenshots if someone is interested: ;)
Wow, a really nice map. Tested it in SC2 and it looks very good^^
All in all: The graphics look very good. Nice Terrain, nice detail and the basic structures are the same as in battletanks. Unfortunately, there is no big variety of weapons, tanks..., but I hope there will come more stuff later. You also have to do much balancing stuff, and it would be nice if you could upgrade weapons (like in the wc3 battletanks).
The game seems pretty bugfree to me, except of this one (not a real bug, but some technical stuff): If you fire the machinegun weapon at a moving target, while yourself are moving too, there is a chance, that the bullet is not hitting the target but still moves into the fired direction.
But, as I said, a very good map, and I see forward to any updates^^
thx for feedback!!
When you say there is not much variety, do you mean that the tanks/weapons in the game do not differ enough or there should be more tanks/weapons?
I do not remember, but could you upgrade weapons in WC3 battletanks? Whatever, this mechanism is not implemented in the map so far and I thought of a sort of combining-mechanism instead. (there are already two combining weapons) What do you think about this? This mechanism is from wc3 battleships (and also other maps like dota i think) and i like the idea more than just these "click to upgrade" weapons!?
The issue with the bullet not hitting the target: I know that issue, but I dont know how to fix it! (I'm really not that good in the sc2 editor..) Does anyone know? :) btw: on the other hand I think mayby its not that bad - some sort of realism!? :)
regarding balance: please post what you think is not balanced - I dont have any experience in balancing games and I appreciate any help! :)
I mean, that there are not enough ones. Refering to the original, there were tons of different weapons and also many different tanks with their very own skills. But I know that it is very much work to create all that stuff^^
Personally i think, that a click to upgrade would be easier to understand and also better in general. But it's your map, so it's your decision^^
I'm not really good in the data editor, too, but I think this issue could be solved if you create a bullet, that is updating its destination(place). Sounds complicated, but I think the marauder-weapon has this too, so you could just copy it.
First of all, the abilities are pretty unbalanced. For example the overdrive ability of the walker: even at lvl 5, the buff is pretty low for an usable ability, while the cooldown is very high. I'd rather suggest to convert it to an passive ability with some higher values for each level (+4% at first lvl, +8% at second...)
The Weaponprices are ok, but it's pretty "boring", that every weapon-stage has the same price (120 for first stage, 300 for second...)
Same goes for other items and tanks
But all in all I can say, that balance is ok for a beta.
Well, thanks that you saw my review If you need help with editor or whatever, you can also contact me ingame. My acc: Ultragon, #492. I'll help you as good as I can^^
Hm yes.. tons of items are cool and a lot of work. :) But ill do my best - this point can be fixed over time. :)
Your tip for the missile actor is good - ill check on that when I have time.
Hm your balancing infos are very helpful.. ill work on this. The main problem is, that even this "few" items are really hard to balance if you also want them to feel different - that is also a reason for the same tier level prices - I had to start from some point, so I made this tech-like cost-levels and tried to balance the weapons on each level - even with this system I had to guess many parameters because I simply have a lack of experience in such things.
Therefore feedback is very important (and hard to get ) - so again thanks for your detailed feedback and I would appreciate another comment when you maybe play the map again in a few weeks or so. :)
@Freddy2287: Go
I hope you dont mind me replying that early :)
Since I posted yesterday, I don't say much to the game itself (cuz there weren't many changes), but I found some bugs:
First of all, when I was playing a map today (1on1), neither me nor my opponent was revived. Both of us were killed by the computer, and when the revive-timer hit zero, both of us weren't revived, and the timer kept on staying zero.
The second (and last xD) bug I found was that at the top left and lower right side, marauders sometimes get back to the region where you can capture the outpost, and stay there. That's pretty annoying, since you can't push computer units away.
And by the way I was noticing, that most of the usable spells have a very high cooldown. That should be balanced in the future.
Well, that's it for now :)
no problem. :) Its only the case that I dont have that much time to throw out much new content just in time. :)
The revive-bug is hopefully fixed. The waypoint-bug.. hm actually no idea why that happened.. I'll try to find out under what circumstances this may occur. Did you do anythink special?
[EDIT]mayby found the reason for this waypoint bug and fixed it...[/EDIT]
Hi there!
Enjoyed this mod so much that i had to register here and reply with some feedback.
So far the concept seems quite promising, but there are some points i'd like to add as feedback:
1. Shields, armor, speed tunes etc, says they are not stackable. But if you buy all the different mark 1,2 & 3 they stack up and give quite a significant boost, especially runspeed wise. Is this intended?
2. The pace of the game so far is abit on the slow side. Increasing base movespeed and removing the stackable movespeed items would give a quite good overall increase in pace.
3. What is the reason for no targeting ability so far? Is the frontload damage too high if targeting is enabled? Could you explain abit more about why theres no targeting enabled?
Overall, the game was a nice experience and i hope you are able to add new content in due time. Looking forward to try out new versions.
Rolafata
Dear,
Specially to report some small issues, i made a account for you!
1. Like Rolafatas mentioned, if you take the mark 1,2,3 ect, it does stack. (I dont mind though, its nice to run around like crazy..)
2. I think the map is slightly to big, either increase the game speed, or the spawn rate of the units (to keep you busy).
3. Upgrade the waves. There taken out way to easy after like 10 minutes in play.
4. The only 2 weapons you basicly need, is machine gun (for armor) and tazers (for shield). I found out that with 4 machines guns, 2 tazers, 1 shield, 1 engine i can easly take out an enemy who is stronger, and in the meantime take out any wave units for extra cash.
5. Replace the bunkers. Everything has shields, except for those, so you can take out a bunker and just run passed the rest of the defense and take out there HQ.
6. Just a tip, add more slots for higher units. I see guys in Mark 1 tanks rushing up with Mark 4 guns, taking out whole waves.. Maybe give more slots as you advance (mark 1 = 4 slots, mark 2 = 5 slots ect).
7. Requesting minerals will grant you (in some cases) a donation from your side. Found out this happens to small amounts, 50 or 100 minerals. Did gave me a nice 500 mineral boost somewhere halfway the game.
Overall, i rated it 4 stars. It requires some balancing in my case, since i did not lose a game yet.. Good beta, might want to take the few things mentions on top here in mind. There all small things. I had no problem with the targetting system, first comes, first servers. Make the waves like moveable canonfooder, but the idea is nice. Ranking system would be nice to, so you can see your all-time records and stuff.
Hope you can work on it, and put down a good top 20 arcade game!
Best of wishes,
Failedepicly / Alexander
Hi again^^
Well, I played the map some times now and I have to say it doesn't get boring :) Since I already said everything about the game overall, I just want to report some bugs and balance suggestions now.
Bugs: - The quadpod can't use his abilities requiring a target and can't build any houses. The error message says "can't turn to the target". Maybe it has something to do with it's thermal lances ability.
- The first ability you can upgrade at the quadpod (The one which reduces the shield) disapears in the ability learn section, just after the first time you upgraded it (so it can't be upgraded further)
Balance suggestions: - the fourth version of the autocannon is a bit too strong in my opinion.
- you should make tuning, shield and armor items stackable, but reduce the amount of bonus they give. That should offer some more interesting combinations in the game overall.
- you should really add some endgame weapons and the possability to manually upgrade the forces of your team. especially at the end of the game you have almost nothing to spend your money on.
That's it for now^^
Hi,
well thanks again for the feedback. I've not much time to work on the map at the moment, but I plan to do so in the next few weeks (studies...)
Some points to the things you mentioned:
- The different tier tunings can stack, yes - but it will use up much inventar space - thats the intention behind it.
- again regarding the "no manual targeting": I've adapted this system from the original Battletanks/Battleships from warcraft 3. I found this mechanism very interesting, it gives the oportunity to create "some targets only"-weapons (not much are implemented yet... :( ) and its just a gamestyle that differs a bit from other maps.
@rolafatas: Further increasing in speed would make some tanks look quite ridiculous I think.. but I plan to implement more cross-ways to reduce time to move around.
@failedepicly: Waves are upgraded by now, but automatically and you can not trigger it manually - thats a good option by the way. Do you think the creeps are too weak at all? I mean... stronger creeps will make the game longer... The requesting-bug is new to me... never thought about begging the PC. :-D but: your "income" you get every 2 minutes is nothing more, than the money your empire earned by killing creeps split among the players - so with your trick you did not generate new money in the game. That you can rally the defenses is a problem.. ill work on this...
@TheUltragon: thx for the bugreports. More "endgame-content" is planned, yes. I simply dont have the time at the moment. :)
If anyone has an idea for a new weapon etc.: Just post it here - I appreciate any help :)
Hi, iv got some ideas for your map:
- Let the Zealots grow stronger (over time/or if they kill an unit)
- Let the banshee fly (or add an upgrade for it)
- Harder Zerg
- There is an glitch to get unlimited rankpoint (Bots)
@windowssiebenfan: Go
thx for your comment and thank you for your bug report - I think I fixed the problem now.
Regarding your other points:
- For now the Zealots only prevent some shops from being used too early - its not their suppose to block these shops all the time. But the implementations of more protoss is interesting..
- I improved the Zerg forces in the last updates.. see if it is enough
- yeah the flying.. its a general "problem": The map is not designed to habe flying player-units in it - I think it would mean to many advantages for them (this would deny all the restictions given by the pathes - of course I could add "no-fly-zones", but its kind of unrealistic, isnt it?
hi,
i like your map, its realy great work
a few things to think about:
cheers
@loers: Go
- Showing the reloadtime is an interesting idea. I try to avoid features that look to "unrealistic" but maybe I find a way to implement it without a huge reload-bar above all tanks ^^
- I heard a few times about this "invisible"-bug, but never experienced it myself when playing - can you say something to the circumstances it apeared? Did all buildings simply get invisible? Sounds strange...
- Why do you think early dropped players unbalance the game? Income is split amongst all allies so basically every team gets the same income. Dropped players nevertheless are a problem. But what to do then? stop the game? :)
Here's the principle reason leavers unbalance the game. When your ally leaves, you don't get his item value in money. So
If Team 1 has a player leave right at the start of the game, they get 1750 split between them. If team 2 has a player leave after he spends all his money, they get nothing.
Secondly, the higher-tier items are just WTFStronger than the lower tier items. This especially means that if your enemy gets a large chunk of extra change, you get nothing. This is especially bad because the starting money after tank is 1250- not enough to buy two tier1 guns, but enough for a tier3 gun with a small amount extra. The amount should be increased to 1300 so you can buy two tier1 guns or one gun and an item.
The amount given should be (Player's money + Raw value of player's items) * resale rate (70% atm I believe).
A few other balance issues:
The longbow laser is clearly the best weapon in the game. It's weak against shields but almost all enemies have much higher health than shields. The range is just way too strong because it's easy to stack so much damage, your opponent can't possibly reach you before you total him.
In addition, stacking armour and health is woefully underpowered- not to mention there is no way to know how much damage reduce you get for armour.
The recharge times on many skills are way too high, and the way they don't reset when you die is really bad. No skill or item should cool down in more than about 20-30 seconds. In addition, their effect is way too low. Speed increase of 3%? Seriously? Or a health recharge of 100-500 on a 2,300 health tank. The skills should have way more impact. Except for the ultimate of the Battletank, which is massively overpowered. Along this line, the respawn times are often way too long, and the shield recharge times are also too long.
The outpost turrets are way OP at the start of the game. The early tanks just don't make a dent in them. It's virtually impossible to recapture an outpost you lost. Even if you put multiple teammembers in one lane. Later in the game they are a joke. Their health should scale more appropriately.
The lanes have way too much dead space in them. Even in one of the fastest tanks, half the time I'm just running from A to B.
The rewards for killing players are also way too low. You make many kills but barely get a couple thousand minerals for it. They need to be increased, and they also need to scale better.
It's hard to judge when to wait and when to attack, because there's no indication of when your faction will send you money. There should be a timer on it.
Finally, there are some places on the map on the highground near each faction's bases where you can place turrets due to your own giving highground vision, but can never be killed as there is no "scan" item to see up cliffs for such things.
Edit:
Oh, and one last thing. The Zerg should have more of an incentive to be attacked. Right now, they are more like a stupid tax. "You were stupid enough to go around killing Queens? Now the zerg attack you!". There's really no reason to attack the Zerg. There should be, say, significant monetary rewards for killing Queens, or the best items only accessible by killing them.
I'm a big fan of building more of the army units, but they need to spawn in sync with the regular ones.
In addition, the base defences do not benefit from army upgrades.
check starbattle for reloading, its the same as spells have
the invis thing seems like a memory issue, not all disappears at same time it seem to get more over time, mostly it comes after 1+ hour playtime
the problem is that the leaver team starts with tier 3 weapons which kills 2 heroes with tier 1 without any problems