Alright, wow, where do I begin commenting? In short, in my opinion, this mission is just plain awesome :D The terrain is amazing, the idea's great and so is the execution. I love all the side-objectives and lore relics you can collect. I really like the use of custom music as well, and how it changes as you move to other areas. Very well done level!
I really like the RPGish feel it has, it reminds me of playing through Rexxar's campaign in WC3, hehe. The upgrades are a nice addition too! There were some interesting enemies to fight too, what I liked most about them is the lore you wrote down in their descriptions. A very immersive level all in all :)
Still, I have a few suggestions. Adding a teleport ability to Voradin, allowing him to teleport to any of the activated revival beacon structures. Kinda like the waypoint/town portal system in Diablo 3. It would greatly reduce the downtime of going from point A to point B.
It would be nice to be able to see quest givers on the minimap and through the fog of war. It would also be nice if the rocks between the capital and the stinger nests were destroyed after the "kill 7 stingers" quest is complete. Considering how many times I died to those damn Growthalisks, it would save the time of going back there. :P
Mobs respawning on top of you was rather weird. While I like njordys' suggestion, the only thing I'd change is making the condition "Player's camera is in position AND player has vision of position" - that way players couldn't block spawning by keeping the camera there and ordering Voradin elsewhere. Also, while I liked the enemies, I think areas could be spiced up a bit. Most of them have only one enemy type, perhaps add some more just to shake things up a bit? Even 1 more would do.
With all that said, here's a few other notes I took while playing:
The Icemanes made jetpack sounds when jumping off cliffs in the intro, I found that a bit weird.
Scantipedes exploded on death, I'd recommend using a bloody death model instead.
I killed the Ancient Beast in the overgrown camp before the Archon's quest (love the way he talks, btw :P) - when I activated the quest and went back to see if it respawned, it did, but it had no model. It was there, but I was shooting and getting shot by thin air.
You can still hear the slimey Zerg sounds from the infestation around the first warp spire even after retaking the capital.
In the ending, the Scout that informs Noros of the incoming Terran invasion, is also called Noros.
There seemed to be no music in the ending cinematic.
And found some typos:
"When will this suffering ever end?" - You should remove either "when" or "ever".
"There are nothing to be found here" - When the Dark Templar searches crash sites, "are" should be "is"
Someone says "phenomenal", but it is misspelled as "phenominal"
A stalker says "captial" instead of "capital", I think it was after securing the small camp from the Zerg
I think this was when you collect pieces for the final warp spire, but it could've been elsewhere: "acquire" was misspelled as "aqcuire"
Someone said "recieved heavy damage", should be "received"
In the executor's speech, she requests "undevided attention", should be "undivided"
There were also some "have"s instead of "has" and things like "gets" instead of "get". Sorry if this feels like nitpicking, thought you'd want 'em pointed out. Of course these didn't take away from the enjoyment of this mission. :D It's probably one of my favorite campaign missions so far, not just out of Annihilation, but generally speaking. As I already said, awesome work!
I was going to continue this mission today. However, when I loaded my save, there was no music. I don't know if it's a bug or just the editor being stupid (don't think I've ever saved, quit and then loaded before). Anyway, I'm going to start over tomorrow from the beginning. Was really tired today and not in a gaming mood.
Most of them have only one enemy type, perhaps add some more just to shake things up a bit? Even 1 more would do.
I thought about doing this initially, but as I slowly progressed through the map I was getting more tired of working on it, and I just wanted to move on to something new. I was also running out of existing (but unused) units to use, so I would have to go and directly create my own custom units. I just felt like it wasn't worth the time nor effort. I also tried implement most of the mobs into the questing experience. Few of them aren't directly linked to a quest, but the majority are.
Thanks for pointing those out. It's not a problem you mention them, honestly! I expected there to be a lot of grammar mistakes. I wasn't able to find all of these mistakes but I'll keep a close eye on it next time I play!
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.
Well, I've played through it, though I had to toggle off doodads, units and water in the editor so I could see if that freezing from before was video card memory. This time it all went through smoothly, so it must've been it, really.
On the mission, well... I can say I've never played something as immense or as RPGish as 'Ussorous', at least, not for StarCraft II. The one that'd actually surpass it would only be New Avalon II and some other RPGs for Brood War, like some of the missions from RazorclawX (Namely the Vision of the Future series). But the reason why is more of the effort and that it was more detailed. This, though it's just a mission for the campaign, must be the first RPG map I've played in years, and that's something to consider.
The leveling system, the powers, the decision to move on or farm for a bit like I did, it's mostly all there. But, as StealthToast well suggested, if there was more stuff worked in it, the map could've been a bit more interesting. Not just the teleport stuff, but also spicing up some areas, varying a bit on the units, ramping up the difficulty as the map and player progress... There also seemed to be a lack of urgency and 'oomph' I look for when I see there's a threat in the air or venturing into the unknown. That'd mostly be due to the few enemies which'd make my abilities' usage more important, thus valueing conserving these abilities, but also due to most Protoss being virtually invincible you just have no problem stepping back and letting others do the dirty work.
There wasn't even an ambush of sorts for me to be caught off-guard. Yeah, you can explore, collect the lore relics and stuff, but in the end, as you've leveled enough, there's nothing much but A-moving and grinding... Well, I died a couple of times, but it was because I rushed through and I made my own mistakes, looking to make it challenging by playing with the map's triggers, but it was neat, in a way.
Another problem is the terrain, at least the lack of variation. At best you find three sorts of areas - Protoss towns, ice glaciers and forests. But I could also be nitpicking, as when I think of RPG I mostly remember of Darksiders and how, after little travel, you're suddenly in a whole different area, and many times I felt I was playing just all in a big region. Yeah, yeah, you'd literally need to do miracles to fit a world in a 256x256 map, but it doesn't help much if the areas themselves aren't that very interesting. At the first moment you're kinda into it but then you're just travelling and... that's about it.
The missions themselves don't vary that much. There's escort, defend, spearhead, collect certain pickups, some bit of CSI with crashed ships... Not bad but also not that interesting either - It's mostly relatively easy, particularly when you're at max level, there's not much to do in the open map but grinding and farming when you're done with all the other stuff and searching and reading through the lore. While I can consider that in inventory would be too much and not even needed, here, I'd consider that this isn't a complete RPG - A complete one would mean you could talk with any character, find out details about the story that you'd most likely discover later if you didn't listen, hire a few allies, make a few more challenges like, for an example, running through an area under orbital bombardment else you're killed and you're forced to repeat, limit the number of times you can be resurrected and thus you must be very careful where you go... Yeah, pretty much summarizing it. Yeah, it's messy but, I'm kind of a messy person, many times...
Now let's get to virtually the final issue with it and that's the boss fight and the eventual ending cutscene. First the boss. No, I won't say it's ridiculous to fight and nearly kill a giant Lasarra, but rather how little there was to it. There was just avoiding getting much damage, not getting close to her, chasing her as she blinked around and rather draining her, using the power bolt and shooting and stuff. Well, if I believe you're fighting a giant Lasarra, especially one with such a god-like ability, like the mission insists, I think I should've been on the fight of my life. Like her duking out entire areas and forcing me to run and take as less damage as possible, or draining my energy and shields or making hallucinations of herself or even slowing down time! This was literally a barrel of Miyazaki you had in your hands, Dudki, but the way it was handled, with just blinking, a few storms and shockwave and power shots... I actually expected more, especially since I was supposed to be facing god-like powers. Well, maybe I'm just nitpicking too much.
And finally the ending cutscene and all the battles and dialogues. This does get in par with the ending for the ninth mission of Aureolin Eclipse except it could've used a bit more of warp-in effects and the action could be more interesting than just warping units from behind and surrounding the opponents. Also, the dialogue could've really been shortened, just a few effective lines and then we just get to the next mission, whom let's hope it doesn't take much longer to make. In particular, I think there was just too much appreciation from the freed Lasarra and I kind of was expecting some sort of twist at some point, no thanks to what EivindL did in that exaggerated twist of his on that other map. (I plan to talk about it when I do my review of the whole campaign of his, when he releases and I play through the last mission)
There were good things, though. A few times, particularly while fighting in Protoss city, there was one or two challenges, it was a break from most micro-oriented missions and I was surprised so much time and effort was spent in trying to make a map that can be memorable, if only for a while. But maybe, what with all my criticism I'm just expecting too much and wanting for too much, so much the work I put on my stuff.
Well, at least that freezing thing was a once stuff, and kinda like an issue with my video card memory, so that's good news...
While I think you bring up several valid issues and point out some of the weak spots in the map I think the overly negative tone in your post is counter-productive. In my opinion you are blowing faults out of proportion and setting an unreasonable high standard.
If the map making scene is to grow we need to encourage people with enthusiasm, not scare people away with unrealistic expectations of professional-like quality.
Well, I don't think I said anything bad, I even left suggestions and stuff. And I'm being anything but negative, I'm just exposing the issues and stating what could've been done to make it a bit better.
Though, while we need to encourage, a bit of criticism is necessary as well, as if we're challenging people in the terms of 'you can make it better, just try'. Else, it's just cuddling and, so to say, saying in a way that it's just okay, when we can push people a bit beyond.
Thank you for the feedback, and also, I don't mind critiscism unless it's like "You're and idiot, and this map sucks so bad". But your feedback is not like that. You bring out some very fair points and I can see what you mean.
You mention a ton of stuff about the difficulty, including easy-to-kill enemies and no neccessary ability usage, the boss fight etc. I want to point out that I have four difficulty levels, and if you played on Brutal, then I'm surprised it was all this easy for you. For the lower difficulties, the map is one big A-move adventure, I admit that. But that's why it's meant for newer players. I purposely make that difficulty overly simplified for people that just want to follow the story without having to worry about dying and such. Hard and Brutal are some good difficulties for skilled people but I don't know which one you played. From your comments, it seems like you played on Normal.
I've designed the map so the higher level you are at the final boss, the easier you make it on yourself. I perosnally find that fight to be one of my hardest so far. On Brutal, she deals a ton of damage if you just stand still in areas.
About the terrain - I agree that many areas are the same. It was such a gigantic map, and making so many new areas would take much longer than I would have liked. On top of that, I was forced to be creative with my use of doodads since Ice-terrains in general doesn't have much variation. I tried adding variation by adding a forest-type environment to parts of it and I think that did help a bit, though there could obviously had been more.
About the RPG-fell - Well, it's never going to be a complete RPG, let's be honest about that. Making a map like this is incredibly time-consuming and the goal was to execute a minor RPGish idea I had, not to directly make a fully functional RPG game. So, while I agree with your points, you also have to concider the abilities we have within the StarCraft II Editor and how difficult making this stuff actually is.
Ending cutscene - Hmm, I personally thought the build-up and everything after the battle was perfect for the context. The Idu'ran have high appreciation of their executor because she's... well... the executor, and one of the most renowned and powerful Protoss in their history. There was a bunch of stuff I wanted to capture. I wanted to capture the loyalty and relationship they all have with each other in the tribe, which could be done through lots of dialogue, and I wanted the forces to be rallied and ready to assist Khaduros so I added a speech at the end.
In short, there was a bunch of stuff I wanted to make for the ending cinematic and I'm personally a bigger fan of longer cinematics so I suppose I tried my best in accomplishing that goal.
Twists will be coming eventually, don't worry about that. It's always good to have a happy ending in a mission once in a while :)
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.
Appreciated you viewed and read through my feedback. I believe I'm actually fair in my points, though also I simply want too much, beyond of what we get in our everyday lives. So much so that it can be negative as well, but I also exposed some stuff I liked about your map.
BTW, I played that mission on Brutal.
I understand that you made this map meaning it for the newer players, but also this is what the Casual and Normal difficulties are for - They're the introduction for virtually new Starcrafters or people already used to it. They can grind at these difficulties, if they want, but you must also take account those people may want to reset the game in a higher difficulty, if only for some challenge. In those higher difficulties, not only the numbers should be thickened, but also with upgrades in armor and firepower as to make the player understand that attacking directly, even in the highest level, is a terrible idea, and that ability, micro skills and what to do and when is absolutely vital. Besides, even as people die constantly, they can regen and thus learn from their mistakes. There's also the Save/Load function.
There's something I witnessed constantly, playing through the WoL/HotS missions and even other campaigns named 'progressive difficulty', in which things get more and more harder the more the player progresses. I felt the lack of this as well, through the mission, as I could one-shot the beastlings I faced in the early mission, and even with the more dangerous beasts there wasn't much danger, unless I tried grouping them, which would deplete my shield easily, all just to use the mass choking ability or going close combat with the Predator attack.
I recall when IskatuMesk said in a development video when he tried making his cancelled Apex campaign (Which I learned about bullies, as well), he wanted to design his missions so 'when it started it'd be tough, but when you were done, it'd also be tough.' A good example, as well, is the very final mission for WoL, 'All In' - Unless you acted fast and quickly fortified the entrances, blocking the way to the Artifact, you'd be quickly overwhelmed, to not mention the Overlord Drop and the Nydus Worms/Air Attackers popping in.
On the terrain, true, it could've had more, but I can also assume it was all virtually in one single region. I confess I was just rolling too much on that terrain thing and I was treating the map more like an Arcade RPG map than a scenario from your campaign. I was slightly wrong on that matter, so apologies where's due, then. A bit sorry as well on the RPG thing.
Still, on the Boss Fight, true, you'd get instantly killed if you tried facing her on the lowest level, but also there could've been much more of a challenge and more variations on the scope of the power you're trying to show her to be. She can deal a ton of damage if I standed still, but I moved a lot, only making one mistake once, and mostly sounded like a breeze, only made complicated with the fact she blinked a lot here and there.
And I have no problems that you're trying to show how much the Idu'ran have an appreciation for the lady and how she's also grateful for her rescue. My only issue is the amount of dialogue there was and how much of the same action there was in every scene in the battle. I'm something of a devout in the style of a battle as well as the 'Show, Don't Tell' mantra, in which the Zealots could be cheering, Nassarin could've said a bit of a thank you and Voradin simply asks her he joins him in helping Khaduros out.
Also, I agree, it's good having a happy ending, even a small one compared to the campaign, once in a while. But, a hint, when you try and make the twists, also ensure they seem absurd at first, but eventually make sense as you figure it out. That's how this stuff usually works best.
Because of the music issues—which I believe to be an issue of the editor, and not your map—I started the map anew. Not a big problem. I rewatch great movies all the time, so replaying great missions shouldn't be an issue.
Note: I played this on Hard, wanting to experience the storywhile while simultaneously not steamrolling through the entire thing.
This, I am certain, will for a long time be renowned as one of the premiere custom campaign missions ever designed for SC2. How anyone could find serious faults with this is beyond me, though I suspect a positive correlation between contentment and number of maps released. Anyone who's tried to create a map as detailed as this will know how hard it is.
Now we know why we waited so long for this thing, and I'm proud of you for sticking through with it. It must have been a test of endurance, I am sure.
Every issue I have with this map is purely nit-picking, not reaching beyond petty bugs and tiny grammar errors. Some of them have been mentioned already, so I apologize if I bring them up again:
I noticed you used the "Enter region" event for the crash site mission, forcing me to exit the regions and then re-enter (similar to mission 7). Could be confusing for players less familiar with triggers.
I must admit some of the mission pings confused me at first, particularly the one where you pick plants. I thought the ping designated the plant, when it really represented the entire area. This is a minor nitpick, though. Not sure how to improve this beyond making me smarter. Eh, just ignore it.
Some camera shots lagged, most likely because of the angle. This was particularly true when the DT is saying, "and using this information...".
There are some spelling errors, like "spritiual vigor" instead of "spiritual vigor" (in the archives for the ultimate ability), "undevided" instead of "undivided", and one time in the beginning where it said "need of reinforcements" instead of "in need of reinforcements".
I noticed that neither the enemy Zerg and Protoss seemed to have campaign AI activated, as I could attack a unit of theirs without nearby units interfering.
Zealots turn when idle. I learned in AE09 that idles for some units don't work exactly as they should, and zealots is one of those units. Setting "turn" to 0 won't work, so just delay idle by 9999 seconds.
Small nitpick: you should make Nassarin's minimap icon smaller, especially as she has the boss ping anyway. The boss ping doesn't block the icon completely (as the icon's so large).
The locusts levitate below ground sometimes, most likely because they're so big and because they're height is reduced. They fly up and down, and then occasionally do a lower dive.
There was one point Voradin dies, and the "Voradin has been slain" message appeared twice in a row. At another time, this didn't happen, so not sure what could explain that.
I also noticed that allied units didn't take any damage, which I suppose has a gameplay mechanic explanation or something?
I have written down "city lag" in my notes, which I think is supposed to mean that there are parts of the city cinematic that lags.
Now, to the good stuff. I really, as I said before, loooove this map. It engaged me from the start, with its superb terrain and excellent music. I really got involved with this thing, not wanting to skip any mission. I loved how you would enter a new area, and you'd get the name in titles on top of the screen and the music changing.
Lack of environmental variation is not an issue. First of all, it's varied enough for me. Secondly, any area in a given setting is bound to have limited variation, anyway, something any cross-country skier in Norway will tell ya. Thirdly, there's only so much variation one can do with eight tiles before you sacrifice quality.
The music was great too, btw, an amazing feat considering how many tracks there were.
I loved the boss fight, which was really intense, and increasingly so as it went on! I must have died like eight-or-so times! Wouldn't change anything with it, really. I do have a question: where have I heard Nassarin's voice before?
I also loved the ending cinematic. Kinda spooky that we have two long, battle-centric ending cutscenes being released only days between each other. I had to smile when I noticed ssome imilarities between them (that must have been unintentional), like the forces getting into position, some camera angles, and confident soldiers getting a can of well-deserved karmaic whoop-ass retribution handed to them as only a sadistic and remorseless map-maker is able to.
I liked the ending too, with everyone crowding Nassarin, obviously eager to see their leader returned safely.
Well done, my friend. Bring on mission 12, I say. Though I hope for the sake of your endurance that it's not this complex.
I just finished playing mission 11. Amazing job! I played on hard and took me about 2.5 hours but I am pretty sure I completed every possible objective. I did not find the 2nd lore relic though. I loved being able to take my time and explore all the possible bonus objectives as well as the beautiful terrain! I've played RPG type maps before in SC2 but the fact that this is part of a campaign and continuing story just makes it that much better! Other things I really enjoyed - the music, cinematics, boss fights, story, and just the gameplay overall.
Just 3 things I want to mention:
1. I think someone else mentioned this but the destructible rocks that aren't destructible possibly could be changed to something that does not say "attack this to destroy it". Very minor though.
2. EivindL mentioned this too, but having the allied units not take any damage was probably the biggest weakness of this map imo. For example, when the zerg are attacking the Executor's Shield (Protoss city), they were all aggregated on a single stalker. So there was 2-3 ultralisks and a number of zerglings, roaches, and hydralisks, all attacking a single stalker. This happened when I was defending the Executor's shield.
3. I agree with DeltaCamidus that this was not the hardest mission by far (your others are plenty hard enough on higher difficulties), but I really don't think this mission needs to be that hard. What is important to me is that it was super fun to play, the story fit it with the campaign and was interesting, and was just something different. I think a lot of people are going to really enjoy this.
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Check out my YouTube channel for test playthroughs of custom campaigns as well as editor tutorial videos. Mapmakers, don’t hesitate to PM me if you would like me to test your campaign.
I think someone else mentioned this but the destructible rocks that aren't destructible possibly could be changed to something that does not say "attack this to destroy it". Very minor though.
That message can actually be removed (in the actor, I think).
EivindL mentioned this too, but having the allied units not take any damage was probably the biggest weakness of this map imo. For example, when the zerg are attacking the Executor's Shield (Protoss city), they were all aggregated on a single stalker. So there was 2-3 ultralisks and a number of zerglings, roaches, and hydralisks, all attacking a single stalker. This happened when I was defending the Executor's shield.
Well, if you did play on Brutal, I suppose these kinds of missions are just easier for you in general. Seems most people thought it had decent difficulty. You also say you farm and thst definitely helps s lot. More levels and more upgrades to help you out later :D
No need to be sorry about anything you mentioned. Your points make sense. I can also understand that, from your perspective, the boss fight didn't seen like a "godly" Protoss and it was the intention. I guess I never thought about it as she's much harder for me.
Kinda spooky that we have two long, battle-centric ending cutscenes being released only days between each other. I had to smile when I noticed ssome imilarities between them
You know, at this point I'm just eagerly waiting to see what ending you've cooked up for the PS trilogy, as I'm curious to see if it's going to have any similarities to my ending or at least events later in the campaign. There seems to be a few small but noticeabld similarities between our campaigns. (First Malrick's and Meridian's business plan, and now a PvT battle, including some of the mission ideas) :D
@deltronLive: Go
I can easily remove the rock text. In retrospect, I don't know why I didn't decide to do this earlier.
The reason every allied Idu'ran is "invulnerable" is because of several issues.
First of all, for some missions, having allies is crucial. For example where you defend against the Zerg, and if they die, you're all alone. Sure, I could have triggers that continously spawn new ones, but if you take a look at my trigger editor, you'll see how much stuff I had to do as it is. Adding additional respawn triggers for all those particular areas would just be more work that I wasn't willing to commit to.
The second reason is because of the story, although this reason was kinda created because of the first. I wanted to give the impression that when united together and under Voradin's guidance, the Idu'ran could withstand any force.
The Campaign AI gave me issues with some units coming to help from areas much farther away. I wanted only the units in the specific areas to be part of that specific objective at the time, or else things got a little messy. I believe there was another issue aswell but I don't remember off the op of my head.
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.
I finally readed all the comments after mine own, and i can say that the boss battle was good (he dankscoped me only 3 times with that sort of yamato burst), to make it more godly, maybe you should change the light into a more dark one during the battle only and add a lot of electric spikes doodads here and here, all this sort of DBZ stuffs, i love DBZ btw...
The difficulty was not present to be honest, not a single time i feared to lose, only with the boss and that stupid suicidal wounded zealot i feared it, i only let the story guide me and the obsessive Diablo 3 mood that this map putted on me, i farmed everything and explored every inch of the map, i purchased one exp boost, full regen boost, the two ultimates and if i remember well also the damage increase upgrade... The boss battle was random hits and wait x+y combo to burst her down on safety, it was annoyng to see her blink so much, it was not really a demonstration of power, i must agree with Delta.
Suggestion: Remove useless upgrades like experience boost (you can simply increase the exp gain by default) and another one that sadly i don't remember
See the city under critical assault and no protoss dying while defending it was very underwhelming, the suggestion is to add units from another player that dies like normal units and so removing the immortal protoss vs zerg silly moments
One way to increase difficulty could be to add during the defensive phases on the city and outside, a structure with a lot of HP that must not be destroyed, or you lose, this could increase the immersion and the sense of danger in this mission.
Can't wait for a Zerg mission, the Stukov dude is very badass!
Work on this project has temporarily been put on hold.
The recent patch 3.0 messed my editor up completely and I'm unable to actually play any maps. Unless a solution is found before the release of LotV, work will continue on November 10th, when the official game is out. (Hopefully all the editor issues have been fixed by then)
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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.
Oh, not just you, buddy, everyone's editor, mine included is messed up. Thankfully, my maps aren't damaged. But, yeah, I'm afraid that, until 3.1, when the issues are addressed, most works will be put on hold.
This is really odd. I haven't downloaded the patch yet, and I can't test my maps either. Thought it might be a one-shot thing, but it was the same yesterday.
Browsed a bit around reddit and TeamLiquid, and there are gameplay bugs as well as editor bugs. Hopefully such a wide spread will incentivize Blizzard to fix the patch quickly.
Huh, I can test maps just fine (I have patch 3.0). My main problem is just the lack of prefix/suffixes which makes it annoying when say for instance I want to choose the a zergling in a create unit action and not it burrowed counterpart or evolved version.
I haven't hit any issues other than my entire maps folder getting nuked. I'll try out a few more campaigns when I get home.
I know this a silly thing, but check your firewall settings (assuming you have one) because it may be blocking the editor from downloading any of the new dependencies. This actually stopped me from being able to load up the editor until I launched it separately from the Bnet Launcher where Windows Firewall prompted me to allow access and I realized why I couldn't open it before that.
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Alright, wow, where do I begin commenting? In short, in my opinion, this mission is just plain awesome :D The terrain is amazing, the idea's great and so is the execution. I love all the side-objectives and lore relics you can collect. I really like the use of custom music as well, and how it changes as you move to other areas. Very well done level!
I really like the RPGish feel it has, it reminds me of playing through Rexxar's campaign in WC3, hehe. The upgrades are a nice addition too! There were some interesting enemies to fight too, what I liked most about them is the lore you wrote down in their descriptions. A very immersive level all in all :)
Still, I have a few suggestions. Adding a teleport ability to Voradin, allowing him to teleport to any of the activated revival beacon structures. Kinda like the waypoint/town portal system in Diablo 3. It would greatly reduce the downtime of going from point A to point B.
It would be nice to be able to see quest givers on the minimap and through the fog of war. It would also be nice if the rocks between the capital and the stinger nests were destroyed after the "kill 7 stingers" quest is complete. Considering how many times I died to those damn Growthalisks, it would save the time of going back there. :P
Mobs respawning on top of you was rather weird. While I like njordys' suggestion, the only thing I'd change is making the condition "Player's camera is in position AND player has vision of position" - that way players couldn't block spawning by keeping the camera there and ordering Voradin elsewhere. Also, while I liked the enemies, I think areas could be spiced up a bit. Most of them have only one enemy type, perhaps add some more just to shake things up a bit? Even 1 more would do.
With all that said, here's a few other notes I took while playing:
And found some typos:
There were also some "have"s instead of "has" and things like "gets" instead of "get". Sorry if this feels like nitpicking, thought you'd want 'em pointed out. Of course these didn't take away from the enjoyment of this mission. :D It's probably one of my favorite campaign missions so far, not just out of Annihilation, but generally speaking. As I already said, awesome work!
I was going to continue this mission today. However, when I loaded my save, there was no music. I don't know if it's a bug or just the editor being stupid (don't think I've ever saved, quit and then loaded before). Anyway, I'm going to start over tomorrow from the beginning. Was really tired today and not in a gaming mood.
@EivindL: Go
Just in case it's an obvious mistake, did you check your sound volume in options, including music specific?
I did, as well as toggle it on and off.
Wow, I'm pleasantly surprised that this mission is being received so well. I expected a lot more negativity, for some reason!
@StealthToast: Go
Right, I'm looking into this. A few people seem to be wanting this, it seems, and I can understand that!
Good addition. I'll try to implement that for the update.
I thought about doing this initially, but as I slowly progressed through the map I was getting more tired of working on it, and I just wanted to move on to something new. I was also running out of existing (but unused) units to use, so I would have to go and directly create my own custom units. I just felt like it wasn't worth the time nor effort. I also tried implement most of the mobs into the questing experience. Few of them aren't directly linked to a quest, but the majority are.
Very good. Thanks!
Thanks for pointing those out. It's not a problem you mention them, honestly! I expected there to be a lot of grammar mistakes. I wasn't able to find all of these mistakes but I'll keep a close eye on it next time I play!
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.
Starcraft II: A War Story Campaign - A multi-act campaign with custom factions. Follow my discord for updates: https://discord.gg/Ztu44gZ
If you want to see a list of other awesome campaigns, go to: Custom Campaign Initiative
Well, I've played through it, though I had to toggle off doodads, units and water in the editor so I could see if that freezing from before was video card memory. This time it all went through smoothly, so it must've been it, really.
On the mission, well... I can say I've never played something as immense or as RPGish as 'Ussorous', at least, not for StarCraft II. The one that'd actually surpass it would only be New Avalon II and some other RPGs for Brood War, like some of the missions from RazorclawX (Namely the Vision of the Future series). But the reason why is more of the effort and that it was more detailed. This, though it's just a mission for the campaign, must be the first RPG map I've played in years, and that's something to consider.
The leveling system, the powers, the decision to move on or farm for a bit like I did, it's mostly all there. But, as StealthToast well suggested, if there was more stuff worked in it, the map could've been a bit more interesting. Not just the teleport stuff, but also spicing up some areas, varying a bit on the units, ramping up the difficulty as the map and player progress... There also seemed to be a lack of urgency and 'oomph' I look for when I see there's a threat in the air or venturing into the unknown. That'd mostly be due to the few enemies which'd make my abilities' usage more important, thus valueing conserving these abilities, but also due to most Protoss being virtually invincible you just have no problem stepping back and letting others do the dirty work.
There wasn't even an ambush of sorts for me to be caught off-guard. Yeah, you can explore, collect the lore relics and stuff, but in the end, as you've leveled enough, there's nothing much but A-moving and grinding... Well, I died a couple of times, but it was because I rushed through and I made my own mistakes, looking to make it challenging by playing with the map's triggers, but it was neat, in a way.
Another problem is the terrain, at least the lack of variation. At best you find three sorts of areas - Protoss towns, ice glaciers and forests. But I could also be nitpicking, as when I think of RPG I mostly remember of Darksiders and how, after little travel, you're suddenly in a whole different area, and many times I felt I was playing just all in a big region. Yeah, yeah, you'd literally need to do miracles to fit a world in a 256x256 map, but it doesn't help much if the areas themselves aren't that very interesting. At the first moment you're kinda into it but then you're just travelling and... that's about it.
The missions themselves don't vary that much. There's escort, defend, spearhead, collect certain pickups, some bit of CSI with crashed ships... Not bad but also not that interesting either - It's mostly relatively easy, particularly when you're at max level, there's not much to do in the open map but grinding and farming when you're done with all the other stuff and searching and reading through the lore. While I can consider that in inventory would be too much and not even needed, here, I'd consider that this isn't a complete RPG - A complete one would mean you could talk with any character, find out details about the story that you'd most likely discover later if you didn't listen, hire a few allies, make a few more challenges like, for an example, running through an area under orbital bombardment else you're killed and you're forced to repeat, limit the number of times you can be resurrected and thus you must be very careful where you go... Yeah, pretty much summarizing it. Yeah, it's messy but, I'm kind of a messy person, many times...
Now let's get to virtually the final issue with it and that's the boss fight and the eventual ending cutscene. First the boss. No, I won't say it's ridiculous to fight and nearly kill a giant Lasarra, but rather how little there was to it. There was just avoiding getting much damage, not getting close to her, chasing her as she blinked around and rather draining her, using the power bolt and shooting and stuff. Well, if I believe you're fighting a giant Lasarra, especially one with such a god-like ability, like the mission insists, I think I should've been on the fight of my life. Like her duking out entire areas and forcing me to run and take as less damage as possible, or draining my energy and shields or making hallucinations of herself or even slowing down time! This was literally a barrel of Miyazaki you had in your hands, Dudki, but the way it was handled, with just blinking, a few storms and shockwave and power shots... I actually expected more, especially since I was supposed to be facing god-like powers. Well, maybe I'm just nitpicking too much.
And finally the ending cutscene and all the battles and dialogues. This does get in par with the ending for the ninth mission of Aureolin Eclipse except it could've used a bit more of warp-in effects and the action could be more interesting than just warping units from behind and surrounding the opponents. Also, the dialogue could've really been shortened, just a few effective lines and then we just get to the next mission, whom let's hope it doesn't take much longer to make. In particular, I think there was just too much appreciation from the freed Lasarra and I kind of was expecting some sort of twist at some point, no thanks to what EivindL did in that exaggerated twist of his on that other map. (I plan to talk about it when I do my review of the whole campaign of his, when he releases and I play through the last mission)
There were good things, though. A few times, particularly while fighting in Protoss city, there was one or two challenges, it was a break from most micro-oriented missions and I was surprised so much time and effort was spent in trying to make a map that can be memorable, if only for a while. But maybe, what with all my criticism I'm just expecting too much and wanting for too much, so much the work I put on my stuff.
Well, at least that freezing thing was a once stuff, and kinda like an issue with my video card memory, so that's good news...
@DeltaCadimus: Go
While I think you bring up several valid issues and point out some of the weak spots in the map I think the overly negative tone in your post is counter-productive. In my opinion you are blowing faults out of proportion and setting an unreasonable high standard.
If the map making scene is to grow we need to encourage people with enthusiasm, not scare people away with unrealistic expectations of professional-like quality.
Well, I don't think I said anything bad, I even left suggestions and stuff. And I'm being anything but negative, I'm just exposing the issues and stating what could've been done to make it a bit better.
Though, while we need to encourage, a bit of criticism is necessary as well, as if we're challenging people in the terms of 'you can make it better, just try'. Else, it's just cuddling and, so to say, saying in a way that it's just okay, when we can push people a bit beyond.
@DeltaCadimus: Go
Thank you for the feedback, and also, I don't mind critiscism unless it's like "You're and idiot, and this map sucks so bad". But your feedback is not like that. You bring out some very fair points and I can see what you mean.
You mention a ton of stuff about the difficulty, including easy-to-kill enemies and no neccessary ability usage, the boss fight etc. I want to point out that I have four difficulty levels, and if you played on Brutal, then I'm surprised it was all this easy for you. For the lower difficulties, the map is one big A-move adventure, I admit that. But that's why it's meant for newer players. I purposely make that difficulty overly simplified for people that just want to follow the story without having to worry about dying and such. Hard and Brutal are some good difficulties for skilled people but I don't know which one you played. From your comments, it seems like you played on Normal.
I've designed the map so the higher level you are at the final boss, the easier you make it on yourself. I perosnally find that fight to be one of my hardest so far. On Brutal, she deals a ton of damage if you just stand still in areas.
About the terrain - I agree that many areas are the same. It was such a gigantic map, and making so many new areas would take much longer than I would have liked. On top of that, I was forced to be creative with my use of doodads since Ice-terrains in general doesn't have much variation. I tried adding variation by adding a forest-type environment to parts of it and I think that did help a bit, though there could obviously had been more.
About the RPG-fell - Well, it's never going to be a complete RPG, let's be honest about that. Making a map like this is incredibly time-consuming and the goal was to execute a minor RPGish idea I had, not to directly make a fully functional RPG game. So, while I agree with your points, you also have to concider the abilities we have within the StarCraft II Editor and how difficult making this stuff actually is.
Ending cutscene - Hmm, I personally thought the build-up and everything after the battle was perfect for the context. The Idu'ran have high appreciation of their executor because she's... well... the executor, and one of the most renowned and powerful Protoss in their history. There was a bunch of stuff I wanted to capture. I wanted to capture the loyalty and relationship they all have with each other in the tribe, which could be done through lots of dialogue, and I wanted the forces to be rallied and ready to assist Khaduros so I added a speech at the end. In short, there was a bunch of stuff I wanted to make for the ending cinematic and I'm personally a bigger fan of longer cinematics so I suppose I tried my best in accomplishing that goal.
Twists will be coming eventually, don't worry about that. It's always good to have a happy ending in a mission once in a while :)
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.
Starcraft II: A War Story Campaign - A multi-act campaign with custom factions. Follow my discord for updates: https://discord.gg/Ztu44gZ
If you want to see a list of other awesome campaigns, go to: Custom Campaign Initiative
@DudkiSC2: Go
Appreciated you viewed and read through my feedback. I believe I'm actually fair in my points, though also I simply want too much, beyond of what we get in our everyday lives. So much so that it can be negative as well, but I also exposed some stuff I liked about your map.
BTW, I played that mission on Brutal.
I understand that you made this map meaning it for the newer players, but also this is what the Casual and Normal difficulties are for - They're the introduction for virtually new Starcrafters or people already used to it. They can grind at these difficulties, if they want, but you must also take account those people may want to reset the game in a higher difficulty, if only for some challenge. In those higher difficulties, not only the numbers should be thickened, but also with upgrades in armor and firepower as to make the player understand that attacking directly, even in the highest level, is a terrible idea, and that ability, micro skills and what to do and when is absolutely vital. Besides, even as people die constantly, they can regen and thus learn from their mistakes. There's also the Save/Load function.
There's something I witnessed constantly, playing through the WoL/HotS missions and even other campaigns named 'progressive difficulty', in which things get more and more harder the more the player progresses. I felt the lack of this as well, through the mission, as I could one-shot the beastlings I faced in the early mission, and even with the more dangerous beasts there wasn't much danger, unless I tried grouping them, which would deplete my shield easily, all just to use the mass choking ability or going close combat with the Predator attack.
I recall when IskatuMesk said in a development video when he tried making his cancelled Apex campaign (Which I learned about bullies, as well), he wanted to design his missions so 'when it started it'd be tough, but when you were done, it'd also be tough.' A good example, as well, is the very final mission for WoL, 'All In' - Unless you acted fast and quickly fortified the entrances, blocking the way to the Artifact, you'd be quickly overwhelmed, to not mention the Overlord Drop and the Nydus Worms/Air Attackers popping in.
On the terrain, true, it could've had more, but I can also assume it was all virtually in one single region. I confess I was just rolling too much on that terrain thing and I was treating the map more like an Arcade RPG map than a scenario from your campaign. I was slightly wrong on that matter, so apologies where's due, then. A bit sorry as well on the RPG thing.
Still, on the Boss Fight, true, you'd get instantly killed if you tried facing her on the lowest level, but also there could've been much more of a challenge and more variations on the scope of the power you're trying to show her to be. She can deal a ton of damage if I standed still, but I moved a lot, only making one mistake once, and mostly sounded like a breeze, only made complicated with the fact she blinked a lot here and there.
And I have no problems that you're trying to show how much the Idu'ran have an appreciation for the lady and how she's also grateful for her rescue. My only issue is the amount of dialogue there was and how much of the same action there was in every scene in the battle. I'm something of a devout in the style of a battle as well as the 'Show, Don't Tell' mantra, in which the Zealots could be cheering, Nassarin could've said a bit of a thank you and Voradin simply asks her he joins him in helping Khaduros out.
Also, I agree, it's good having a happy ending, even a small one compared to the campaign, once in a while. But, a hint, when you try and make the twists, also ensure they seem absurd at first, but eventually make sense as you figure it out. That's how this stuff usually works best.
Because of the music issues—which I believe to be an issue of the editor, and not your map—I started the map anew. Not a big problem. I rewatch great movies all the time, so replaying great missions shouldn't be an issue.
Note: I played this on Hard, wanting to experience the storywhile while simultaneously not steamrolling through the entire thing.
This, I am certain, will for a long time be renowned as one of the premiere custom campaign missions ever designed for SC2. How anyone could find serious faults with this is beyond me, though I suspect a positive correlation between contentment and number of maps released. Anyone who's tried to create a map as detailed as this will know how hard it is.
Now we know why we waited so long for this thing, and I'm proud of you for sticking through with it. It must have been a test of endurance, I am sure.
Every issue I have with this map is purely nit-picking, not reaching beyond petty bugs and tiny grammar errors. Some of them have been mentioned already, so I apologize if I bring them up again:
Now, to the good stuff. I really, as I said before, loooove this map. It engaged me from the start, with its superb terrain and excellent music. I really got involved with this thing, not wanting to skip any mission. I loved how you would enter a new area, and you'd get the name in titles on top of the screen and the music changing.
Lack of environmental variation is not an issue. First of all, it's varied enough for me. Secondly, any area in a given setting is bound to have limited variation, anyway, something any cross-country skier in Norway will tell ya. Thirdly, there's only so much variation one can do with eight tiles before you sacrifice quality.
The music was great too, btw, an amazing feat considering how many tracks there were.
I loved the boss fight, which was really intense, and increasingly so as it went on! I must have died like eight-or-so times! Wouldn't change anything with it, really. I do have a question: where have I heard Nassarin's voice before?
I also loved the ending cinematic. Kinda spooky that we have two long, battle-centric ending cutscenes being released only days between each other. I had to smile when I noticed ssome imilarities between them (that must have been unintentional), like the forces getting into position, some camera angles, and confident soldiers getting a can of well-deserved karmaic whoop-ass retribution handed to them as only a sadistic and remorseless map-maker is able to.
I liked the ending too, with everyone crowding Nassarin, obviously eager to see their leader returned safely.
Well done, my friend. Bring on mission 12, I say. Though I hope for the sake of your endurance that it's not this complex.
I just finished playing mission 11. Amazing job! I played on hard and took me about 2.5 hours but I am pretty sure I completed every possible objective. I did not find the 2nd lore relic though. I loved being able to take my time and explore all the possible bonus objectives as well as the beautiful terrain! I've played RPG type maps before in SC2 but the fact that this is part of a campaign and continuing story just makes it that much better! Other things I really enjoyed - the music, cinematics, boss fights, story, and just the gameplay overall.
Just 3 things I want to mention:
1. I think someone else mentioned this but the destructible rocks that aren't destructible possibly could be changed to something that does not say "attack this to destroy it". Very minor though.
2. EivindL mentioned this too, but having the allied units not take any damage was probably the biggest weakness of this map imo. For example, when the zerg are attacking the Executor's Shield (Protoss city), they were all aggregated on a single stalker. So there was 2-3 ultralisks and a number of zerglings, roaches, and hydralisks, all attacking a single stalker. This happened when I was defending the Executor's shield.
3. I agree with DeltaCamidus that this was not the hardest mission by far (your others are plenty hard enough on higher difficulties), but I really don't think this mission needs to be that hard. What is important to me is that it was super fun to play, the story fit it with the campaign and was interesting, and was just something different. I think a lot of people are going to really enjoy this.
Check out my YouTube channel for test playthroughs of custom campaigns as well as editor tutorial videos. Mapmakers, don’t hesitate to PM me if you would like me to test your campaign.
That message can actually be removed (in the actor, I think).
I agree with this.
@DeltaCadimus: Go
Well, if you did play on Brutal, I suppose these kinds of missions are just easier for you in general. Seems most people thought it had decent difficulty. You also say you farm and thst definitely helps s lot. More levels and more upgrades to help you out later :D
No need to be sorry about anything you mentioned. Your points make sense. I can also understand that, from your perspective, the boss fight didn't seen like a "godly" Protoss and it was the intention. I guess I never thought about it as she's much harder for me.
@EivindL: Go
Oh, if only you knew how many breaks I took from making this map... I mentioned it a few times in my updates but that was like 20%
Thanks for the bug reports. The turning units issue is really starting to annoy me, lol
Nassarin's voice is made up of Lasarra's actual campaign dialogue.
You know, at this point I'm just eagerly waiting to see what ending you've cooked up for the PS trilogy, as I'm curious to see if it's going to have any similarities to my ending or at least events later in the campaign. There seems to be a few small but noticeabld similarities between our campaigns. (First Malrick's and Meridian's business plan, and now a PvT battle, including some of the mission ideas) :D
@deltronLive: Go I can easily remove the rock text. In retrospect, I don't know why I didn't decide to do this earlier.
The reason every allied Idu'ran is "invulnerable" is because of several issues. First of all, for some missions, having allies is crucial. For example where you defend against the Zerg, and if they die, you're all alone. Sure, I could have triggers that continously spawn new ones, but if you take a look at my trigger editor, you'll see how much stuff I had to do as it is. Adding additional respawn triggers for all those particular areas would just be more work that I wasn't willing to commit to.
The second reason is because of the story, although this reason was kinda created because of the first. I wanted to give the impression that when united together and under Voradin's guidance, the Idu'ran could withstand any force.
The Campaign AI gave me issues with some units coming to help from areas much farther away. I wanted only the units in the specific areas to be part of that specific objective at the time, or else things got a little messy. I believe there was another issue aswell but I don't remember off the op of my head.
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.
Starcraft II: A War Story Campaign - A multi-act campaign with custom factions. Follow my discord for updates: https://discord.gg/Ztu44gZ
If you want to see a list of other awesome campaigns, go to: Custom Campaign Initiative
I finally readed all the comments after mine own, and i can say that the boss battle was good (he dankscoped me only 3 times with that sort of yamato burst), to make it more godly, maybe you should change the light into a more dark one during the battle only and add a lot of electric spikes doodads here and here, all this sort of DBZ stuffs, i love DBZ btw...
Work on this project has temporarily been put on hold.
The recent patch 3.0 messed my editor up completely and I'm unable to actually play any maps. Unless a solution is found before the release of LotV, work will continue on November 10th, when the official game is out. (Hopefully all the editor issues have been fixed by then)
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.
Starcraft II: A War Story Campaign - A multi-act campaign with custom factions. Follow my discord for updates: https://discord.gg/Ztu44gZ
If you want to see a list of other awesome campaigns, go to: Custom Campaign Initiative
@DudkiSC2: Go
Oh, not just you, buddy, everyone's editor, mine included is messed up. Thankfully, my maps aren't damaged. But, yeah, I'm afraid that, until 3.1, when the issues are addressed, most works will be put on hold.
This is really odd. I haven't downloaded the patch yet, and I can't test my maps either. Thought it might be a one-shot thing, but it was the same yesterday.
Browsed a bit around reddit and TeamLiquid, and there are gameplay bugs as well as editor bugs. Hopefully such a wide spread will incentivize Blizzard to fix the patch quickly.
Huh, I can test maps just fine (I have patch 3.0). My main problem is just the lack of prefix/suffixes which makes it annoying when say for instance I want to choose the a zergling in a create unit action and not it burrowed counterpart or evolved version.
I haven't hit any issues other than my entire maps folder getting nuked. I'll try out a few more campaigns when I get home.
I know this a silly thing, but check your firewall settings (assuming you have one) because it may be blocking the editor from downloading any of the new dependencies. This actually stopped me from being able to load up the editor until I launched it separately from the Bnet Launcher where Windows Firewall prompted me to allow access and I realized why I couldn't open it before that.
Visit my channel where I showcase custom content! Send me a PM or respond to my YouTube thread if you'd like to see your map/s on my channel (eventually!)