I don't want to add a point defence drone type unit simply because it would only work against cannons and missiles. I might add an ability that allows you to blow up all missiles in a radius on a lengthy cd though.
Deployable items, I'm going to add some deployable shield that protects units under it, similar to the shield projector except it would absorb all damage and simply die after it's taken too much damage. The repair tower sounds nice, think I'd have to keep it an out of combat thing though otherwise it'd just be a more tedious version of the armour/shield repair items.
bout the PDD:
First, it blocks marauders as well, which do loads of damage early game
Second, it discourages missile-play and actually gives players a chance early game to beat players using missiles. MGs are the short range super weapons and i think they deserve to be immune to PDDs since their range is a pretty huge disadvantage anyway.
Mid-late game the advantage of the PDD isn't that big, but i know i would defintely use it (unless my opponents went pure MGs as well, which is unlikely)
And about the repair tower... Doesn't have to be out of combat - i just shouldn't be a ridiculous healing power. it should heal in total about a half of the same level of healing items, but simply AoE. Make them heal through a 1 second behavior that gets refreshed every 0.9 seconds or so, that way multiple towers cant stack (and dissallow buyin multiples)
I like the shield idea.
Also, the ability that blows up missiles... Missiles travel ridiculously fast. You'd need a miracle to time the ability perfectly to destroy a couple of missiles... Unless of course you would destroy all missiles for a period of time, in which case i think the PDD would be better again as the ablity would basically be a invulnerability thing, while PDDs are stationary so it wouldnt allow you to run away as with the ability.
another deployable item idea: Sensor tower. Does the same thing as in melee, possibly also has a large line of sight
and ive got an idea for an ability. Ive come to like force effects, so my idea is that basically you target a location, and a very powerful force effect is applied over a large radius that hits everything (including yourself). I think this would be pretty fun and useful, as you can force a pause into battles, it can help you get away, and it can help you get rid of large numbers of creeps. Possibly also allow the ability item to be upgraded to change the ability radius (and have the upgrade "upgrade" itself back into the old item. one has a very large radius (around 6-7) while the other has a radius of about 2-3)
Apparently Catalyst Beta has 22 games/hour currently, so i'll definitely try and get a game on it tommorow with a full house (and i hope my friend finally gets some time to play...)
also Eiviyn, if you dont have the time, i can write triggers up for you and send you the maps. Ive got way too much free time on my hands and nothing to do with it (i'm working on my own map, but every time i do something, i face a problem that can't be solved... Todays problem was applying a force effect through a behavior and getting the unit to move in a direction other than south... and yes, ive tried large combinations of persistents and search effects, i even tried placing persistents behind the unit and using negative force... None of the persistents work)
I can work with the data editor as well, as long as you polish any actors. They hate me. i can do most other things, particularly behaviors, effects, units and abilities (and the related stuff)
I'd really like to see Catalyst advance quickly, and will help with everything to speed it up :)
I have found a bug in the beta version: When you conquer the last node, the one in the front of the enemy base, and then you push to enter to the enemy base, the death enemies will respawn at your back, in front of the previous node.
Instead of a Point Defence Drone, you could just make a weapon that shoots at incoming missiles, but nothing else.
Maybe not fire as fast(unless fully upgraded?) as a PDD, but reduce incoming missile attacks enough to notice.
I support any means of reducing missile attacks, because personally I think its the cheese of the game.
Maybe it should also shoot down first tier cannons(the ones that look like missiles, not the battlecruiser shots) as well. This way the weapon is useful against marauders, it will not be niche item and just add a little survivability when fighting creeps.
It's actually just a passive income system with an exponential formula that increases with time. There's other ways to get income but this is where 95% of your minerals come from. It's dull and lacks depth.
I actually have a kinda good idea for this then.
Seeing as how there are two types of resources, minerals and vespene, what you can do is this.
For each control point you have, you gain more minerals, but you gain less vespene in exchange.
Heres the rationale:
1). Minerals make you able to buy higher tier items. Over the long term of the game, this will mean you eventually win because you have a better income if you hold onto more of the control points.
2). On the flip side, Vespene should be more valuable for the short term, like giving all the bio a stimpack like buff for a short time, or dropping down units that are good at pushing the enemy bio back. In this way, if one team loses the middle, they haven't completely lost the game, as they have an opportunity to push the lanes back and retake the middle.
3.) This still leads the game towards an end, because holding the middle becomes more and more valuable the longer you hold it. If one team is working together and keeping the lanes from pushing, then they will eventually win the game, as it should be. But because you gain more vespene the less nodes you have, it isn't (as I am drawing it is now via previous posts in this thread) that whoever gets the early advantage always wins.
EDIT: To clarify, the minerals will still ramp up slowly over time as it is currently, just the ramp up will scale based on how many nodes are controlled.
Well sorry but i don't like your idea for several reasons:
the more bases you control the less gas you gain - aint that a bit counterintuitive? so you have many nice bases but you can`t actually build stuff on them? hmmm
also what are the defenders goin to do with all the vespene they gain? build turrets? cause the mercenaries for vespene are only available if you build the mercbuildings on one of the outposts. atleast thats what eiviyn recently said will be the case.
and the worst: so the defenders gain less minerals-> have less upgrades than the controling players and just get owned. sorry but that just means you can never really get a leg up after a bad start and it results in frustrating gameplay imo. balance between players should never be broken for whatever reasons
i think the system right now - vespene as the gameender resource - is fine enough.
the atackers will eventually be able to buy enough mercs to break the defenders defense but it is easy enough for like 3 players to sneak out and cut of the attackers bases rendering them unable to kill your dropzone (after all you can only kill them if the line of bases towards your opponent is under your control), stopping creepreinforcements and diverting the attackers.
------
the resourcesystem you suggested on the other hand where the killer gains 40% and the rest is distributet was actually pretty good. this should work for playerkills and creepkills the same way.
there could also be a quest for healertypes (at the moment you gain a bunch of minerals for killing 3 players or a certan number of creeps) like heal allies by 1000 health, heal allies by 2000 health and so on. dunno if you can even count healing done to allies per triggers but that would encourage building a healer
-----
and the last thing eiviyn PLEASE make it possible to minimize the frigging huge killboardthingie in the top right corner of the screen. i guess this doesn't just annoy me :P in a 5 vs 5 it is just big and clunky.
i dont think splitting res is the way, and that would be hard to implement i think.
But i like the healing stuff. Im pretty sure theres a trigger that registers it, OR she can just create a modify player effect which adds minerals, and then make the healing items use that effect in addition to healing, so every time someone is healed a tiny bit of res is given to the player without creating massive amounts of triggers and variables to keep track of healing.
Basically I was going to make 5 variants of each ability, and hide the buttons on the command card. So if you had an ability in ability slot 1, it would become available in the first ability slot of your vehicle. Repeat for all 5. However, the command card has a cap of 32 buttons, and your vehicle has a cap of 32 unique abilities.
Try that. Only problem is that hotkeys dont work with it, but if you dont hide your command card, hotkeys should work over the command card instead
I think you'd have to re-do your hotkeys then though, since grid-like hotkeys wont really fit the action bar and will be harder to learn by heart.
EDIT: Nvm, didnt read the topic about it till the end... its probably harder to get to work than i though. Anyway, see if you can get an idea off of that ;)
Catalyst will return, but this "experiment" has expired.
Thank you to everyone for the tons of amazing feedback. Hopefully I can return the favour sometime in the future. While this is a failure, the things I have learnt are priceless. I'll be back.
One: Is there any way to talk you out of it?
Two: You think of giving someone else *wink wink* the map to continue working on it and uploading untill you come back?
the problem is you priorize the things wrong, cute mapdesign is fine WHEN the rest actually works well. and sadly it does not. there are great things about this map, it has much potential to be a hit but things are going either the wrong direction or are not changing.. the killcount bug for example.
i would not call it a failure, its just far from finished.
and what do you mean with this experiment?
edit:
creation25: i dont even know her/his/its accent. for me Eiviyn is a mapdesigner. but if she has a sexy accent then good for the people raiding with her :P
I would hardly call this a failure, I still play this map on a daily basis and loved the beta map.
I'm looking forward to seeing your next work, in the mean time catalyst remains my favorite map.
I would hardly call this a failure, I still play this map on a daily basis and loved the beta map. I'm looking forward to seeing your next work, in the mean time catalyst remains my favorite map.
What he said.
I dont even know what could possibly be a failure about this map. That theres so much you can add? thats not a failure, thats just more work to do. There is always stuff you can add and polish.
If there is something that is seriously bad, all you have to do is fix it. If you dont know how, ask. If its too much work, get someone to share it with.
This, under no circumstance, is a failure. Its pure win. If i had to pick the best map on Bnet, i'd go for catalyst since it's the only thing i really like to play. Everything else is mostly TDs or something like footies, nexus wars and income wars. My friend doesnt wanna play custom maps cause there its all the same crap except for catalyst. The only other map i find good is SotIS, but it uses so many actors my comp just lags me to death if there are too many spells used at the same time...
I registered on these forums just to express my appreciation for these maps. They're insanely fun! I play them again and again even alone when no friends are online.
Nothing is so fun than to find the optimal upgrade combo to have a really badass vehicle.
I play this map all the time with friends. We have tried tons of custom maps and these ones are in the top 5 easily.
If I can make a fan request: try and make a map in a different environement than the basic city one. Like one on a volcanic planet, one in a Protoss temple or something like that. Would be great!
Keep this up! I'll be following any progress in these maps closely!
Thanks for making this! I myself make maps for Left 4 Dead 2 and I know how much time and efforts are needed to make maps and levels. So really, from one mapper to another, this is top notch work.
This map is the only one I currently play on BattleNet. The Unreal like gameplay makes this map unique. And what I used to love about this map was your incessant development. Every 3-4 days there was a new version out with bugfixes and new features. ... Definitely I won't call this an experiment.
Hope you get back on this project soon. Good luck.
bout the PDD:
First, it blocks marauders as well, which do loads of damage early game
Second, it discourages missile-play and actually gives players a chance early game to beat players using missiles. MGs are the short range super weapons and i think they deserve to be immune to PDDs since their range is a pretty huge disadvantage anyway.
Mid-late game the advantage of the PDD isn't that big, but i know i would defintely use it (unless my opponents went pure MGs as well, which is unlikely)
And about the repair tower... Doesn't have to be out of combat - i just shouldn't be a ridiculous healing power. it should heal in total about a half of the same level of healing items, but simply AoE. Make them heal through a 1 second behavior that gets refreshed every 0.9 seconds or so, that way multiple towers cant stack (and dissallow buyin multiples)
I like the shield idea.
Also, the ability that blows up missiles... Missiles travel ridiculously fast. You'd need a miracle to time the ability perfectly to destroy a couple of missiles... Unless of course you would destroy all missiles for a period of time, in which case i think the PDD would be better again as the ablity would basically be a invulnerability thing, while PDDs are stationary so it wouldnt allow you to run away as with the ability.
another deployable item idea: Sensor tower. Does the same thing as in melee, possibly also has a large line of sight
and ive got an idea for an ability. Ive come to like force effects, so my idea is that basically you target a location, and a very powerful force effect is applied over a large radius that hits everything (including yourself). I think this would be pretty fun and useful, as you can force a pause into battles, it can help you get away, and it can help you get rid of large numbers of creeps. Possibly also allow the ability item to be upgraded to change the ability radius (and have the upgrade "upgrade" itself back into the old item. one has a very large radius (around 6-7) while the other has a radius of about 2-3)
Apparently Catalyst Beta has 22 games/hour currently, so i'll definitely try and get a game on it tommorow with a full house (and i hope my friend finally gets some time to play...)
also Eiviyn, if you dont have the time, i can write triggers up for you and send you the maps. Ive got way too much free time on my hands and nothing to do with it (i'm working on my own map, but every time i do something, i face a problem that can't be solved... Todays problem was applying a force effect through a behavior and getting the unit to move in a direction other than south... and yes, ive tried large combinations of persistents and search effects, i even tried placing persistents behind the unit and using negative force... None of the persistents work)
I can work with the data editor as well, as long as you polish any actors. They hate me. i can do most other things, particularly behaviors, effects, units and abilities (and the related stuff)
I'd really like to see Catalyst advance quickly, and will help with everything to speed it up :)
I have found a bug in the beta version: When you conquer the last node, the one in the front of the enemy base, and then you push to enter to the enemy base, the death enemies will respawn at your back, in front of the previous node.
Instead of a Point Defence Drone, you could just make a weapon that shoots at incoming missiles, but nothing else. Maybe not fire as fast(unless fully upgraded?) as a PDD, but reduce incoming missile attacks enough to notice.
I support any means of reducing missile attacks, because personally I think its the cheese of the game. Maybe it should also shoot down first tier cannons(the ones that look like missiles, not the battlecruiser shots) as well. This way the weapon is useful against marauders, it will not be niche item and just add a little survivability when fighting creeps.
I actually have a kinda good idea for this then.
Seeing as how there are two types of resources, minerals and vespene, what you can do is this.
For each control point you have, you gain more minerals, but you gain less vespene in exchange.
Heres the rationale:
1). Minerals make you able to buy higher tier items. Over the long term of the game, this will mean you eventually win because you have a better income if you hold onto more of the control points.
2). On the flip side, Vespene should be more valuable for the short term, like giving all the bio a stimpack like buff for a short time, or dropping down units that are good at pushing the enemy bio back. In this way, if one team loses the middle, they haven't completely lost the game, as they have an opportunity to push the lanes back and retake the middle.
3.) This still leads the game towards an end, because holding the middle becomes more and more valuable the longer you hold it. If one team is working together and keeping the lanes from pushing, then they will eventually win the game, as it should be. But because you gain more vespene the less nodes you have, it isn't (as I am drawing it is now via previous posts in this thread) that whoever gets the early advantage always wins.
EDIT: To clarify, the minerals will still ramp up slowly over time as it is currently, just the ramp up will scale based on how many nodes are controlled.
@bigbluemonkey555: Go
Well sorry but i don't like your idea for several reasons:
the more bases you control the less gas you gain - aint that a bit counterintuitive? so you have many nice bases but you can`t actually build stuff on them? hmmm
also what are the defenders goin to do with all the vespene they gain? build turrets? cause the mercenaries for vespene are only available if you build the mercbuildings on one of the outposts. atleast thats what eiviyn recently said will be the case.
and the worst: so the defenders gain less minerals-> have less upgrades than the controling players and just get owned. sorry but that just means you can never really get a leg up after a bad start and it results in frustrating gameplay imo. balance between players should never be broken for whatever reasons
i think the system right now - vespene as the gameender resource - is fine enough.
the atackers will eventually be able to buy enough mercs to break the defenders defense but it is easy enough for like 3 players to sneak out and cut of the attackers bases rendering them unable to kill your dropzone (after all you can only kill them if the line of bases towards your opponent is under your control), stopping creepreinforcements and diverting the attackers.
------the resourcesystem you suggested on the other hand where the killer gains 40% and the rest is distributet was actually pretty good. this should work for playerkills and creepkills the same way.
there could also be a quest for healertypes (at the moment you gain a bunch of minerals for killing 3 players or a certan number of creeps) like heal allies by 1000 health, heal allies by 2000 health and so on. dunno if you can even count healing done to allies per triggers but that would encourage building a healer
-----and the last thing eiviyn PLEASE make it possible to minimize the frigging huge killboardthingie in the top right corner of the screen. i guess this doesn't just annoy me :P in a 5 vs 5 it is just big and clunky.
i dont think splitting res is the way, and that would be hard to implement i think.
But i like the healing stuff. Im pretty sure theres a trigger that registers it, OR she can just create a modify player effect which adds minerals, and then make the healing items use that effect in addition to healing, so every time someone is healed a tiny bit of res is given to the player without creating massive amounts of triggers and variables to keep track of healing.
Couldn't seem to get the ability system I wanted working.
Another alternative I had, though it's not perfect;
Abilities ordered into 5 types. Abilities of the same type don't stack. For example;
Type 1
Armour Repair
Shield Repair
Energy Battery (Restores 10% energy)
Type 2
Cloak
Probe
Something stealthy
Type 3
Overcharge
Containment Field
Something tanky
Type 4
Afterburner
Micro Warp Drive
Something movey
Type 5
The ones I forgot
I admit, I'm not much of a fan of this system. It's a bit clunky and confusing, but would let me add a lot of new abilities.
@Eiviyn: Go
why dont you try to tell us about that idea of yours? maybe someone clever can come up with a solution. this is a forum for mappers after all ^^
Basically I was going to make 5 variants of each ability, and hide the buttons on the command card. So if you had an ability in ability slot 1, it would become available in the first ability slot of your vehicle. Repeat for all 5. However, the command card has a cap of 32 buttons, and your vehicle has a cap of 32 unique abilities.
Still trying to think of a better solution.
http://www.sc2mapster.com/assets/libactionbar/
Try that. Only problem is that hotkeys dont work with it, but if you dont hide your command card, hotkeys should work over the command card insteadI think you'd have to re-do your hotkeys then though, since grid-like hotkeys wont really fit the action bar and will be harder to learn by heart.
EDIT: Nvm, didnt read the topic about it till the end... its probably harder to get to work than i though. Anyway, see if you can get an idea off of that ;)
still the same bugs, the same issues, the same bad things.. im getting tired of this sorry
I'm officially pulling the plug.
Catalyst will return, but this "experiment" has expired.
Thank you to everyone for the tons of amazing feedback. Hopefully I can return the favour sometime in the future. While this is a failure, the things I have learnt are priceless. I'll be back.
You mean youre giving up the complete map? O.o
One: Is there any way to talk you out of it?
Two: You think of giving someone else *wink wink* the map to continue working on it and uploading untill you come back?
10 bucks says part of the reason this thread has 34 pages is because Eiviyn's accent is extremely sexy. Nice looking project too btw.
the problem is you priorize the things wrong, cute mapdesign is fine WHEN the rest actually works well. and sadly it does not. there are great things about this map, it has much potential to be a hit but things are going either the wrong direction or are not changing.. the killcount bug for example. i would not call it a failure, its just far from finished.
and what do you mean with this experiment?
edit: creation25: i dont even know her/his/its accent. for me Eiviyn is a mapdesigner. but if she has a sexy accent then good for the people raiding with her :P
What do you mean? Its coming back ,or not? What experiment?
@Eiviyn: Go
I would hardly call this a failure, I still play this map on a daily basis and loved the beta map. I'm looking forward to seeing your next work, in the mean time catalyst remains my favorite map.
What he said.
I dont even know what could possibly be a failure about this map. That theres so much you can add? thats not a failure, thats just more work to do. There is always stuff you can add and polish.
If there is something that is seriously bad, all you have to do is fix it. If you dont know how, ask. If its too much work, get someone to share it with.
This, under no circumstance, is a failure. Its pure win. If i had to pick the best map on Bnet, i'd go for catalyst since it's the only thing i really like to play. Everything else is mostly TDs or something like footies, nexus wars and income wars. My friend doesnt wanna play custom maps cause there its all the same crap except for catalyst. The only other map i find good is SotIS, but it uses so many actors my comp just lags me to death if there are too many spells used at the same time...
@Eiviyn: Go
I registered on these forums just to express my appreciation for these maps. They're insanely fun! I play them again and again even alone when no friends are online. Nothing is so fun than to find the optimal upgrade combo to have a really badass vehicle. I play this map all the time with friends. We have tried tons of custom maps and these ones are in the top 5 easily.
If I can make a fan request: try and make a map in a different environement than the basic city one. Like one on a volcanic planet, one in a Protoss temple or something like that. Would be great!
Keep this up! I'll be following any progress in these maps closely! Thanks for making this! I myself make maps for Left 4 Dead 2 and I know how much time and efforts are needed to make maps and levels. So really, from one mapper to another, this is top notch work.
Thats really bad news.
This map is the only one I currently play on BattleNet. The Unreal like gameplay makes this map unique. And what I used to love about this map was your incessant development. Every 3-4 days there was a new version out with bugfixes and new features. ... Definitely I won't call this an experiment.
Hope you get back on this project soon. Good luck.