I have a lot of problems with the maps design. Why do rocks gain 500 hp per cave sealed? There is no warning about caves becoming aggressive when attacked. Attacks scaling from 3 zerglings to 2 ultralisks is not OK when the player does not know about it and tries to seal one off early. The mastery allowing high templar to cost 150/50 instead of 50/150 is utterly broken given a generally larger mineral bank than vespene bank, making high archons be more useful than zealots and stalkers. There doesn't seem to be a natural progression, game is extremely easy, then has a epic difficulty spike requiring huge map control/multitasking when those pesky droplords start heading out. (Why are they damage immune for so long? Why does psi storm only do 1 damage/tick to them instead of 10?)
The best way to play this is to build up as high as you can go before the first base mines out, port to seal off the ovie spawn caves, then win.
Caster full energy does not work on archons with psistorm after merging.
The shield mastery causes units to warp in with 20 shield missing
Minor nitpick, but ending punctuation is missing from a lot of lines.
A bunch of the overlords may not send units to base, causing incredible lag
Edit (because this does deserve some praise):
The observer hero pairs well with the psi thingy, and does allow some cool tactical maneuvers and can give you multiple points to return to, which is useful on this highly linear map.
All the later caves feel somewhat unique, even if there's too many of them to assign them specific names (There's two dropperlord caves and 3 ling caves, for example)
The auto-researching tech upgrades makes units more exciting faster. However, this does come at a strategical depth cost, as getting these upgrades are too cheap not to get, especially since you need to tech up to unlock your full unit roster.
Thank you for your feedback. Very much appreciated =)
Rock gain hp so its easier to destroy early on when you have fewer units. Perhaps its not needed and I can increase rock hp overall.
Good point about warning player on caves becoming aggressive. I'll add it. Perhaps an indication that closing caves will open new and tougher ones too.
And with the later caves I can portion them out abit so that not all 5 overlord caves trigger at once. Caves are opened on a progress variable that count in number of units the player has constructed and number of caves already closed so it can trigger them all at once. The intent is that overlords should be a surprise attack at unexpected locations but triggering all 5 of them at the same time is way too overwhelming.
Thank you for reporting those bugs.
Thanks for the praise part too :)
I was hoping the solarite talents would create a feeling of strategic choices after having simplified normal research upgrades. Was also hoping having the ability to reset solar talents and pick anew based on the current situations need would add some depth to the gameplay.
Again, thank you very much for your input. I shall put it to use.
It's interesting to see you go back and make modifications to previously well-functioning maps. These changes does pose one question, though; Are these changes entirely unique to this mission or are you going to include them, or perhaps similar features to other maps of the campaign as well?
This looks really interesting. I'll see if I can't take a look at it soon.
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StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
Okay tried it again after my initial complaints. Manged to beat it on hard with an immortal/archon deathball. Spent solarite on resource income boost first, so quickly got 3 forges+ tech up and running, switched to army-based solarite afterwards. Focussed on teleporting to kill the caves first so I only got 2 dropperlords. Made the game feel a lot easier.
Closing order of caves.
Caves opening on units created is probably too abusable. For example, I purposefully didn't hit the first cap until just before I closed cave 6. On the other hand, caves opening on units created is painful if you lose a lot of units early (zealot heavy strats), setting you back farther. Similarly, players have an incentive to close the stronger caves first.
Some of the caves may need reworking to allow more units to hit them, or so you can put a few immortals off on the side to constantly whittle down hp. Cave 3 in particular.
Bug found: opening both menu's and closing one keeps one menu open but the game unpauses.
Definetely need to rework cave opening mechanism, should probably toughen the nearest caves over time to create an incentive to knock them out.
Nice to see the talent system work as intended.
Archon replacing Zealot/Sentry/Stalker is a problem. Perhaps I can make some talents to boost those units.
Thanks for bug reports :D
Sentries do have some niche use, I think I built 2 one for defending 1 for offensive. Crushing grip is good for boss mobs (quillgors especially, and the very shield regen is good for archons, and hp regen good for zealots. A buff to zealots would see more sentries due to zealot's 100 hp.
I'm not sure solarite works as an strategic mechanic, as its use remains fairly one-dimentional. You get income for econ greed, then use the epic income to get a tech advantage which you convert into army advantage which you increase further with army solarite tech. Feels like a flatout buff rather than a strategical, as by the time you swap you no longer need the econ advantage.
Definetely need to rework cave opening mechanism, should probably toughen the nearest caves over time to create an incentive to knock them out.
Nice to see the talent system work as intended.
Archon replacing Zealot/Sentry/Stalker is a problem. Perhaps I can make some talents to boost those units.
Thanks for bug reports :D
Sentries do have some niche use, I think I built 2 one for defending 1 for offensive. Crushing grip is good for boss mobs (quillgors especially, and the very shield regen is good for archons, and hp regen good for zealots. A buff to zealots would see more sentries due to zealot's 100 hp.
I'm not sure solarite works as an strategic mechanic, as its use remains fairly one-dimentional. You get income for econ greed, then use the epic income to get a tech advantage which you convert into army advantage which you increase further with army solarite tech. Feels like a flatout buff rather than a strategical, as by the time you swap you no longer need the econ advantage.
With econ talents combined with defense talents and warp observer buff talents you can turtle your way forward like in a tower defense. Warp in multiple pylons and then spam photon cannons and shield batteries and you can easily fortify a position to warp in units with.
Or you can buff archons and sentry along with generic army buff and gain a fast moving, agile power army which can regenerate.
Those are the two main strategies i mostly played with and they are very different approaches which cater to two different play styles.
I have been thinking perhaps I should tweak the amount of solarites to force hard choices. Any suggestions?
Ditched that army size difficulty variable- The difficulty now progress based on time elapsed and number of caverns destroyed.
After a set amount of time the difficulty increases (indicated by an earthquake) which causes the caves to send stronger attacks.
Passive caves now only open as a respons to another cave being destroyed, making the game more predictable
(ofcourse, passive caves still open if you outright attack them)
Nearby caves are more dangerous and the attacks are much harder early on (especially on hard mode)
I have set a limit on how many Overlords there can be on the map at once. Now only about 3 locations can be attacked at once but they are still randomly placed to create an element of surprise. Before in all 7 overlord locations could be active at once making it far too overwhelming.
Also tried to rework some attack scrips to make sure the overlord spawn actually attacks. As a failsafe the Overlords will stop generate spawns if there are too many units near them so to prevent lag-fest.
I have added a new Army talent that increases the attack speed of Zealots and Stalker by 50% making them a much more viable choice in combination with upgraded sentry. I've tested that strategy and I think it works well.
I added some new tips that explain gameplay mechanisms (cave health etc.) to avoid confusion
Bug fixes:
-Archons get full energy after merge if energy talent is active
-Shields talents now appropiately increases 20+ shields to warped in units
A good rebalance from having to close the caves out of order, but I think the difficulty swung too far in the other direction.
Archons still remain the undisputed king of the mission, with immortals + sentries getting honourable mentions. Perhaps change the cost change talent bit to limit how many you can have.
Stalkers are useful for fighting overlords, but having the same range as immortals (which break rocks fast) doesn't help them.
I didn't find the upgraded zealots very useful, mostly because I lost most of mine to jump banelings (while archons would just ignore them), though they weren't terrible warp ins when my base was undefended.
Midgame i feel like there were too few caves open, dropping down to 1 at some point.
Thinking about turning the 20+ shields upgrade for all units into an 100+ shields & 1+armor for Zealots and Stalkers specifically. Perhaps that could make Zealots and Stalkers more useful.
I think the cost upgrade for templar/archons need to go. Perhaps instead it could be a buff to High Templar specifically, increasing health and movement speed/attack speed.
I want to make the second row of the defence talents (which are now unused) into uprades for Immortals. And rename Defence into Mech with one tier to Defence and one for Immortals. Current idea;
tier 1: Making immortals warpable
tier 2: making immortals do splash damage.
I think I need to buff the Zerg units somewhat. Give them a bit more health and attack damage. Tune down the difficulty at beginning to compensate. Perhaps add Zerg casters but hard to keep that in line with Primal strain. If anyone have any ideas be sure to tell.
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Curse PremiumGod. This thread is ancient...
Anyhoo, finally put togheter a test version of a remodeling of an old mission
This is a heavily modified version of Ignos02, which is now numbered Ignos03
Ignos03SE - A remodeled version of the old Ignos02
New Stuff:
Solarite -
New resource that can be summoned at the Forge and found around the map. Can be used in the Solar Menu on new talents.
Warp Observer -
Now a hero unit. Can Mass Recall at no cost or cooldown and can get a Solar Talent to Warp in Pylons (10 sec, 200 mineral cost)
New Caves -
2 New Caves and more challenging attacks.
Modified Terrain -
Much more of the terrain is now buildable. Secrets are hidden many places.
Many more doodads and effects have been used. Can affect performance.
Bugs may occur.
I have a lot of problems with the maps design. Why do rocks gain 500 hp per cave sealed? There is no warning about caves becoming aggressive when attacked. Attacks scaling from 3 zerglings to 2 ultralisks is not OK when the player does not know about it and tries to seal one off early. The mastery allowing high templar to cost 150/50 instead of 50/150 is utterly broken given a generally larger mineral bank than vespene bank, making high archons be more useful than zealots and stalkers. There doesn't seem to be a natural progression, game is extremely easy, then has a epic difficulty spike requiring huge map control/multitasking when those pesky droplords start heading out. (Why are they damage immune for so long? Why does psi storm only do 1 damage/tick to them instead of 10?)
The best way to play this is to build up as high as you can go before the first base mines out, port to seal off the ovie spawn caves, then win.
Edit (because this does deserve some praise):
The observer hero pairs well with the psi thingy, and does allow some cool tactical maneuvers and can give you multiple points to return to, which is useful on this highly linear map.
All the later caves feel somewhat unique, even if there's too many of them to assign them specific names (There's two dropperlord caves and 3 ling caves, for example)
The auto-researching tech upgrades makes units more exciting faster. However, this does come at a strategical depth cost, as getting these upgrades are too cheap not to get, especially since you need to tech up to unlock your full unit roster.
The condensed Custom Campaign Initiative is on this Google Sheet!
List of my Custom campaign text reviews (warning: only the first half of each is serious)
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Curse PremiumThank you for your feedback. Very much appreciated =)
Rock gain hp so its easier to destroy early on when you have fewer units. Perhaps its not needed and I can increase rock hp overall.
Good point about warning player on caves becoming aggressive. I'll add it. Perhaps an indication that closing caves will open new and tougher ones too.
And with the later caves I can portion them out abit so that not all 5 overlord caves trigger at once. Caves are opened on a progress variable that count in number of units the player has constructed and number of caves already closed so it can trigger them all at once. The intent is that overlords should be a surprise attack at unexpected locations but triggering all 5 of them at the same time is way too overwhelming.
Thank you for reporting those bugs.
Thanks for the praise part too :)
I was hoping the solarite talents would create a feeling of strategic choices after having simplified normal research upgrades. Was also hoping having the ability to reset solar talents and pick anew based on the current situations need would add some depth to the gameplay.
Again, thank you very much for your input. I shall put it to use.
Baby he's back!
It's interesting to see you go back and make modifications to previously well-functioning maps. These changes does pose one question, though; Are these changes entirely unique to this mission or are you going to include them, or perhaps similar features to other maps of the campaign as well?
This looks really interesting. I'll see if I can't take a look at it soon.
StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
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Okay tried it again after my initial complaints. Manged to beat it on hard with an immortal/archon deathball. Spent solarite on resource income boost first, so quickly got 3 forges+ tech up and running, switched to army-based solarite afterwards. Focussed on teleporting to kill the caves first so I only got 2 dropperlords. Made the game feel a lot easier.
Closing order of caves.
Caves opening on units created is probably too abusable. For example, I purposefully didn't hit the first cap until just before I closed cave 6. On the other hand, caves opening on units created is painful if you lose a lot of units early (zealot heavy strats), setting you back farther. Similarly, players have an incentive to close the stronger caves first.
Some of the caves may need reworking to allow more units to hit them, or so you can put a few immortals off on the side to constantly whittle down hp. Cave 3 in particular.
Bug found: opening both menu's and closing one keeps one menu open but the game unpauses.
The condensed Custom Campaign Initiative is on this Google Sheet!
List of my Custom campaign text reviews (warning: only the first half of each is serious)
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Curse PremiumIn reply to DudkiSC2:
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Curse PremiumIn reply to TChosenOne:
The condensed Custom Campaign Initiative is on this Google Sheet!
List of my Custom campaign text reviews (warning: only the first half of each is serious)
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Curse PremiumSo I made some changes based on the feedback:
https://www.sc2mapster.com/projects/ignos/files/2546233
(temp download while waiting for approval: https://ufile.io/m9raj )
Ditched that army size difficulty variable- The difficulty now progress based on time elapsed and number of caverns destroyed.
After a set amount of time the difficulty increases (indicated by an earthquake) which causes the caves to send stronger attacks.
Passive caves now only open as a respons to another cave being destroyed, making the game more predictable
(ofcourse, passive caves still open if you outright attack them)
Nearby caves are more dangerous and the attacks are much harder early on (especially on hard mode)
I have set a limit on how many Overlords there can be on the map at once. Now only about 3 locations can be attacked at once but they are still randomly placed to create an element of surprise. Before in all 7 overlord locations could be active at once making it far too overwhelming.
Also tried to rework some attack scrips to make sure the overlord spawn actually attacks. As a failsafe the Overlords will stop generate spawns if there are too many units near them so to prevent lag-fest.
I have added a new Army talent that increases the attack speed of Zealots and Stalker by 50% making them a much more viable choice in combination with upgraded sentry. I've tested that strategy and I think it works well.
I added some new tips that explain gameplay mechanisms (cave health etc.) to avoid confusion
Bug fixes:
-Archons get full energy after merge if energy talent is active
-Shields talents now appropiately increases 20+ shields to warped in units
-Overlord gangs no longer damage immune
A good rebalance from having to close the caves out of order, but I think the difficulty swung too far in the other direction.
Archons still remain the undisputed king of the mission, with immortals + sentries getting honourable mentions. Perhaps change the cost change talent bit to limit how many you can have.
Stalkers are useful for fighting overlords, but having the same range as immortals (which break rocks fast) doesn't help them.
I didn't find the upgraded zealots very useful, mostly because I lost most of mine to jump banelings (while archons would just ignore them), though they weren't terrible warp ins when my base was undefended.
Midgame i feel like there were too few caves open, dropping down to 1 at some point.
The condensed Custom Campaign Initiative is on this Google Sheet!
List of my Custom campaign text reviews (warning: only the first half of each is serious)
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Curse PremiumThanks for feedback.
Thinking about turning the 20+ shields upgrade for all units into an 100+ shields & 1+armor for Zealots and Stalkers specifically. Perhaps that could make Zealots and Stalkers more useful.
I think the cost upgrade for templar/archons need to go. Perhaps instead it could be a buff to High Templar specifically, increasing health and movement speed/attack speed.
I want to make the second row of the defence talents (which are now unused) into uprades for Immortals. And rename Defence into Mech with one tier to Defence and one for Immortals. Current idea;
tier 1: Making immortals warpable
tier 2: making immortals do splash damage.
I think I need to buff the Zerg units somewhat. Give them a bit more health and attack damage. Tune down the difficulty at beginning to compensate. Perhaps add Zerg casters but hard to keep that in line with Primal strain. If anyone have any ideas be sure to tell.