I had 1 game of the new HLW (1v1) and i gotta admit it feels a hell of alot different.
A few topics i would like to bring up:
The incredibly wide map. Its kind of annoying how wide the lanes are....it just doesn't feel right :S
The shops. I had absolutely no idea what was what and where i had to buy the right stuff. Perhaps giving the shops titles (visible above the shops) or perhaps a sign above the shops stating what they are eg: potions, helmets ect. I know you can view what the shop is when you click on it, but playing for the first time i was clueless and my opponent mentioned he bought alot of items that he didnt want.
Skills. The skills are great....so far since ive played one guy but...when i am playing a game in which waves of powerful enemies are comming at me constantly i dont have time to read a paragraph of information about a skill. When i click/mouse over on a skill the first thing a read is Defensive buffs (usually i see them in a blue/ green box or text) Offensive buffs (perhaps orange colour) Damage skills ( red colour and i concentrate on reading digits first! i always want to know asap how much damage the skills does and whether is an AoE or single nuke. Perhaps giving the skills a category title beside their name like AoE/nuke, Buff, Aura, ect. I'm mentioning this because i didnt have time to read what skills i should upgrade since strong enemies were already comming at me and it was quite frustrating knowing that the skill that i picked was not useful for my situation.
In a nutshell:
Different map, different feel, not sure if im liking it...atleast in 1v1
Better labeled shops
Better labeled/described/categorized skills
Edit: Perhaps i didnt describe what i wanted with the skills that well.
I had 1 game of the new HLW (1v1) and i gotta admit it feels a hell of alot different. A few topics i would like to bring up:
The incredibly wide map. Its kind of annoying how wide the lanes are....it just doesn't feel right :S
Nothing's final about the map, I just needed a map for this to work. It might and probably will get changed.
Quote:
The shops. I had absolutely no idea what was what and where i had to buy the right stuff. Perhaps giving the shops titles (visible above the shops) or perhaps a sign above the shops stating what they are eg: potions, helmets ect. I know you can view what the shop is when you click on it, but playing for the first time i was clueless and my opponent mentioned he bought alot of items that he didnt want.
I will add much more and especially obvious information for the shops (not only for them, for many aspects of the game, which lack explanation)
Quote:
Skills. The skills are great....so far since ive played one guy but...when i am playing a game in which waves of powerful enemies are comming at me constantly i dont have time to read a paragraph of information about a skill. When i click/mouse over on a skill the first thing a read is Defensive buffs (usually i see them in a blue/ green box or text) Offensive buffs (perhaps orange colour) Damage skills ( red colour and i concentrate on reading digits first! i always want to know asap how much damage the skills does and whether is an AoE or single nuke. Perhaps giving the skills a category title beside their name like AoE/nuke, Buff, Aura, ect. I'm mentioning this because i didnt have time to read what skills i should upgrade since strong enemies were already comming at me and it was quite frustrating knowing that the skill that i picked was not useful for my situation.
I like a short, concise line of explanation way more than a fix categorization.
The learn tooltip usually has 3 parts:
The first, grey part is unimportant for gameplay, it consists some story and background. Just skip that.
The second part should be a 1 to 2 line explanation, what the skill does. Just read this, and you should know, what type the spell is.
The third part in blue has some additional information, like if the spell is passive, or which type of damage it causes.
If you just skip the first paragraph, are the descriptions still too long to choose one skill from 3?
Quote:
Different map, different feel, not sure if im liking it...atleast in 1v1
The feeling is different, yes. This was inevitable, and I like, that the feeling is indeed different. Its a different game, a different platform, after all.
I am not sure, if I am absolutely fine with the current feeling, but it might change anyway.
However, compared to the first few versions I tested by myself, I am positively surprised, how the feeling worked out (in the beginning, it felt just horrible, and I was almost sure, I would never be able to achieve a sort of good feeling).
Fantastic job. I didn't play a full game (couldn't find another player, so I just went in solo to get a feel for it). I don't know if you want suggestions here, but I'm gonna go ahead with the constructive criticism anyway.
It would be nice if there were some markers around the spawns. When I first started, I thought the enemies would spawn in the water at the end of the lane, but it became apparent quite quickly that they were spawning all around me.
The idle worker icon is inside the inventory panel. Moving the inventory panel, or using a UI alteration XML to move the worker icon is probably a good idea. I think it would also help if you left the inventory panel open permanently. You could even move the inventory panel over the unit's portrait (and then hide the portrait), so it feels like it fits into the UI better.
I've never liked the way heroes seem to work in SC2 (They're one of the few things I haven't tried creating yet). I feel like if it's possible to rectify these problems, the game might play a little better (not saying it doesn't play well....you did a great job, Blizzard just did a lousy job with heroes. HotS will fix these issues, I assume). First and foremost, when you spend your last upgrade/ability point, the command card doesn't automatically reset to default. You have to manually exit the ability upgrade command card.
Second, it's difficult to tell what the attributes (strength, agility, intelligence) actually do. More specifically, which hero uses which attribute to increase its damage. If you go with a random hero, you know nothing about its attributes, what items are best for you, etc;
The only other thing I can think of would be the income rate. It seemed like I was getting waaaayyyy too many minerals. If I actually managed to spend them all, my hero would have been swarmed immediately. My hero also respawned immediately. I know you said balance work is still being done, but those should definitely be high priority.
Fantastic job. I didn't play a full game (couldn't find another player, so I just went in solo to get a feel for it). I don't know if you want suggestions here, but I'm gonna go ahead with the constructive criticism anyway.
Any feedback you can give me is very much apprechiated.
Quote:
The abilties were great. In response to what the person above me said, perhaps you can leave the long writeups (I didn't mind them) and simply have one line at the end of the ability that is a different colour (to stand out), which gives a summary + stats on the attack/boost/etc.
There should be different colors already. The lore text is greyed out, the summary should be 1 to 2 lines in standard color, and important additional info is blue. Just always skip the grey parts.
The use tooltip has no lore text, usually holds all the important current values and repeats the blue important information text.
Quote:
It would be nice if there were some markers around the spawns. When I first started, I thought the enemies would spawn in the water at the end of the lane, but it became apparent quite quickly that they were spawning all around me.
Good call, I will think of anything.
Quote:
The idle worker icon is inside the inventory panel. Moving the inventory panel, or using a UI alteration XML to move the worker icon is probably a good idea. I think it would also help if you left the inventory panel open permanently. You could even move the inventory panel over the unit's portrait (and then hide the portrait), so it feels like it fits into the UI better.
Well, you do not need the equipment inventory THAT much, the consumable slots are more crucial.
Moving over unit portrait is probably not gonna happen, because of the resolution variations; I dont think, there is a way, this fits for all possible resolutions.
Quote:
I've never liked the way heroes seem to work in SC2 (They're one of the few things I haven't tried creating yet). I feel like if it's possible to rectify these problems, the game might play a little better (not saying it doesn't play well....you did a great job, Blizzard just did a lousy job with heroes. HotS will fix these issues, I assume). First and foremost, when you spend your last upgrade/ability point, the command card doesn't automatically reset to default. You have to manually exit the ability upgrade command card.
There are 2 ways currently: Either close the command card after every point you spend, or stay open, even after all points are spent. I am not sure, which one is better; but I did not find a possibility to combine both yet.
Quote:
Second, it's difficult to tell what the attributes (strength, agility, intelligence) actually do. More specifically, which hero uses which attribute to increase its damage. If you go with a random hero, you know nothing about its attributes, what items are best for you, etc;
Just hover the mouse over your attributes, there should be tooltips for them. Str increases HP and melee damage, Agi increases attack speed and ranged damage, Int increases energy and spell damage.
Obviously, a hero with a melee attack will cause melee damage, and a hero with a ranged attack will cause ranged damage ;). For spells, the damage type is always stated in blue color. Usually it is spell damage, however, there are a few exceptions.
Quote:
The only other thing I can think of would be the income rate. It seemed like I was getting waaaayyyy too many minerals. If I actually managed to spend them all, my hero would have been swarmed immediately. My hero also respawned immediately. I know you said balance work is still being done, but those should definitely be high priority.
<<quote>>There should be different colors already. The lore text is greyed out, the summary should be 1 to 2 lines in standard color, and important additional info is blue. Just always skip the grey parts.
The use tooltip has no lore text, usually holds all the important current values and repeats the blue important information text.<</quote>>
Ahh, I didn't really notice the colours. It didn't really bother me (I edited it out above). Just noticed another user mentioning it and thought I'd comment.
Quote:
Well, you do not need the equipment inventory THAT much, the consumable slots are more crucial.
Moving over unit portrait is probably not gonna happen, because of the resolution variations; I dont think, there is a way, this fits for all possible resolutions.
I thought editing the XML values could make the inventory work for all resolutions :O? I assumed you could edit the width and height of the inventory panel to match the default portrait pos and dimensions. I'm sort of new to the whole UI override concept, so I never thought resolutions would mess it up :S.
Quote:
There are 2 ways currently: Either close the command card after every point you spend, or stay open, even after all points are spent. I am not sure, which one is better; but I did not find a possibility to combine both yet..
Ahh, that's a shame. You can't make a trigger that goes something like this?
Event: A unit upgrades an ability
Condition: Upgrade points remaining <= 0
Actions: Order (Hero) to Cancel (Before Current Orders)
Like I said, I don't have any experience with heroes in sc2 yet, but I thought something like that would be possible. Even deselecting and reselecting the hero faster than the user could notice would probably work.
Quote:
Just hover the mouse over your attributes, there should be tooltips for them. Str increases HP and melee damage, Agi increases attack speed and ranged damage, Int increases energy and spell damage.
Obviously, a hero with a melee attack will cause melee damage, and a hero with a ranged attack will cause ranged damage ;). For spells, the damage type is always stated in blue color. Usually it is spell damage, however, there are a few exceptions.
Ahh I'm an idiot. That makes sense.
I look forward to playing it more. Hopefully it'll get popular quickly so we can get some large games going.
I thought editing the XML values could make the inventory work for all resolutions :O? I assumed you could edit the width and height of the inventory panel to match the default portrait pos and dimensions. I'm sort of new to the whole UI override concept, so I never thought resolutions would mess it up :S.
Afaik all UI editing in SC2 is not handled in screen percentages, but in pixels (well, sort of. Not exactly pixels, but parts, which become more for higher resolutions ;) )
So if the inventory is hovering over the portrait in one resolution, it might block the command card in another. Moving it to match this resolution will probably cover the wireframe for a 3rd...
Quote:
Ahh, that's a shame. You can't make a trigger that goes something like this?
Event: A unit upgrades an ability
Condition: Upgrade points remaining <= 0
Actions: Order (Hero) to Cancel (Before Current Orders)
Like I said, I don't have any experience with heroes in sc2 yet, but I thought something like that would be possible. Even deselecting and reselecting the hero faster than the user could notice would probably work.
I wish there was, but I did not find any way to check for remaining upgrade points. Selecting would always be noticeable, because it is affected by bnet lag. However, closing the submenu would be possible, I think.
The income rate will really have to be tinkered around with quite a lot before getting reasonable results. I've only went for HLW during the EU night. At the beginning I was still getting used to everything and only started spamming units near mid game. By the end game of 30 mins, I had about 190k income which was rather fun to spam on my keyboard.
The current income rate for units varies from 8 to 4 percent (very straight forward, tier 1: first line 8%, second 7%, third 6%. Tier 2: first 7%, second 6%, third 5% and so on), averaging to 6%. So, theoretically speaking, we get 6% interest each income period (assuming we always can and will spend all our money to mercenaries, don't get money from killing mercs and don't buy any items etc as well as don't count upgrade costs and start money)
So, at each point in game time, income should be about StartIncome * (1 + average interest) ^ (time / income interval).
For a 30 minute game at current settings, this would be 200 * 1.06 ^ (1800 / 18) ~ 68k.
So, with your non-perfect gameplay, I still wonder, why the discrepancy is that high...
Also note, that this is very sensitive, due to the nature of the formula. If I increase overall income by 1%, we are at 173k (about 2.5 times more), if I decrease by 1%, we are at 26k (about same factor, just for a 1% change)
I could upload the replay if you want but basically I whipped out the trusty calculator and also found that the first line gave the best income, to which I mashed the QWERT (I think it was 5 in a line) buttons constantly to quickly deplete all the resources that I gained. Quite awhile later I switched to the 2nd tier building, sending the QWERT monsters as well. At the end game when I switched to 3rd tier, I only spammed the QWERT ones for awhile before realising motherships are the way to go ( also realising that I couldn't spend my money fast enough either ).
Rather than increasing the overall income, changing the income interval is also a viable option ( Or just make the units cost more to send whilst maintaining the same income ). Anyway, the other room you were in had a much longer battle & so I could very well be an outlier
edit : I jabbed in a constant sending of first line units with 8% interest over a 30 minute period (Excluding the fact that it is impossible to use up all the resources before the next income later on), the income will be a whopping 440k, with 7% at a sad 173k. This means I had basically been sending an average of around 7.1-7.2% interest units
During Map Night we discovered a major bug with observers: If you set up observers and change the teams afterwards (for example move a player from observers in one team, to make another player an observer), sometimes the whole lobby will screw up, resulting in 3v5 matches or other strange bugs.
This seems to be caused by Blizzard's flawed lobby system, and I doubt, I can fix this.
So, should I deactivate observers to get rid of this potential game-breaking bug? Or should I allow the possibility for observers and allow the bug to happen?
I'd say remove observers. Most people would want to play instead of watch ( Except in map night :P )
Well, I am not sure. For the usual mapmaking stuff, it does not matter anyway. If you just join by popularity list, ther will be no observers anyway, so no possibility for the bug to ever happen.
Observers are only useful for private games, and in this case you probably know the people you are playing with and can set up everything correctly.
Good point, since no one would bother changing the modes in public games anyway.
Btw : It might've just been my imagination but I think in the HLW game last night, I noticed something odd. Interceptors (from the carriers) that were attacking enemy heroes at the middle of the circle were warped away and counted as 1 life each. (Meaning that 5 carriers = 40 interceptors = 40 lives gone). Not really an issue I suppose, and wouldn't be worth the while to fix.
i'd noticed that before if the interceptors couldn't attack you from outside the circle they flew into the circle and you lost lives unless they were attacking you
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Played maybe four rounds, and I love it! I found no bugs or issues, but sadly all I could do is 1v1 play. You did great Kueken!
It's slowly gaining popularity on the EU so hopefully it'll be more than 1v1 soon =p
Thanks :)
Lurking on page 3 ;)
I am working on a promotion video, maybe it will attract some more players.
Europe Battle.net is doomed by Mineralz as it was with Nexus Wars... :D . I am really can't understund people, how they choosing maps for play.
P.S. Your map is good, but there are no people to play it.
http://www.youtube.com/user/RussianMapster
I had 1 game of the new HLW (1v1) and i gotta admit it feels a hell of alot different. A few topics i would like to bring up:
In a nutshell:
Edit: Perhaps i didnt describe what i wanted with the skills that well.
Maybe they just choose whats at the top of the list ;)
Thanks. I am sure, there will be. Just hang out in the channel, maybe others will pick up that habit ;)
Nothing's final about the map, I just needed a map for this to work. It might and probably will get changed.
I will add much more and especially obvious information for the shops (not only for them, for many aspects of the game, which lack explanation)
I like a short, concise line of explanation way more than a fix categorization.
The learn tooltip usually has 3 parts:
The first, grey part is unimportant for gameplay, it consists some story and background. Just skip that.
The second part should be a 1 to 2 line explanation, what the skill does. Just read this, and you should know, what type the spell is.
The third part in blue has some additional information, like if the spell is passive, or which type of damage it causes.
If you just skip the first paragraph, are the descriptions still too long to choose one skill from 3?
The feeling is different, yes. This was inevitable, and I like, that the feeling is indeed different. Its a different game, a different platform, after all.
I am not sure, if I am absolutely fine with the current feeling, but it might change anyway.
However, compared to the first few versions I tested by myself, I am positively surprised, how the feeling worked out (in the beginning, it felt just horrible, and I was almost sure, I would never be able to achieve a sort of good feeling).
Fantastic job. I didn't play a full game (couldn't find another player, so I just went in solo to get a feel for it). I don't know if you want suggestions here, but I'm gonna go ahead with the constructive criticism anyway.
It would be nice if there were some markers around the spawns. When I first started, I thought the enemies would spawn in the water at the end of the lane, but it became apparent quite quickly that they were spawning all around me.
The idle worker icon is inside the inventory panel. Moving the inventory panel, or using a UI alteration XML to move the worker icon is probably a good idea. I think it would also help if you left the inventory panel open permanently. You could even move the inventory panel over the unit's portrait (and then hide the portrait), so it feels like it fits into the UI better.
I've never liked the way heroes seem to work in SC2 (They're one of the few things I haven't tried creating yet). I feel like if it's possible to rectify these problems, the game might play a little better (not saying it doesn't play well....you did a great job, Blizzard just did a lousy job with heroes. HotS will fix these issues, I assume). First and foremost, when you spend your last upgrade/ability point, the command card doesn't automatically reset to default. You have to manually exit the ability upgrade command card.
Second, it's difficult to tell what the attributes (strength, agility, intelligence) actually do. More specifically, which hero uses which attribute to increase its damage. If you go with a random hero, you know nothing about its attributes, what items are best for you, etc;
The only other thing I can think of would be the income rate. It seemed like I was getting waaaayyyy too many minerals. If I actually managed to spend them all, my hero would have been swarmed immediately. My hero also respawned immediately. I know you said balance work is still being done, but those should definitely be high priority.
Any feedback you can give me is very much apprechiated.
There should be different colors already. The lore text is greyed out, the summary should be 1 to 2 lines in standard color, and important additional info is blue. Just always skip the grey parts.
The use tooltip has no lore text, usually holds all the important current values and repeats the blue important information text.
Good call, I will think of anything.
Well, you do not need the equipment inventory THAT much, the consumable slots are more crucial.
Moving over unit portrait is probably not gonna happen, because of the resolution variations; I dont think, there is a way, this fits for all possible resolutions.
There are 2 ways currently: Either close the command card after every point you spend, or stay open, even after all points are spent. I am not sure, which one is better; but I did not find a possibility to combine both yet.
Just hover the mouse over your attributes, there should be tooltips for them. Str increases HP and melee damage, Agi increases attack speed and ranged damage, Int increases energy and spell damage.
Obviously, a hero with a melee attack will cause melee damage, and a hero with a ranged attack will cause ranged damage ;). For spells, the damage type is always stated in blue color. Usually it is spell damage, however, there are a few exceptions.
I will play around with this for a while.
<<quote>>
There should be different colors already. The lore text is greyed out, the summary should be 1 to 2 lines in standard color, and important additional info is blue. Just always skip the grey parts.The use tooltip has no lore text, usually holds all the important current values and repeats the blue important information text.<</quote>>
Ahh, I didn't really notice the colours. It didn't really bother me (I edited it out above). Just noticed another user mentioning it and thought I'd comment.
I thought editing the XML values could make the inventory work for all resolutions :O? I assumed you could edit the width and height of the inventory panel to match the default portrait pos and dimensions. I'm sort of new to the whole UI override concept, so I never thought resolutions would mess it up :S.
Ahh, that's a shame. You can't make a trigger that goes something like this?
Event: A unit upgrades an ability
Condition: Upgrade points remaining <= 0
Actions: Order (Hero) to Cancel (Before Current Orders)
Like I said, I don't have any experience with heroes in sc2 yet, but I thought something like that would be possible. Even deselecting and reselecting the hero faster than the user could notice would probably work.
Ahh I'm an idiot. That makes sense.
I look forward to playing it more. Hopefully it'll get popular quickly so we can get some large games going.
Afaik all UI editing in SC2 is not handled in screen percentages, but in pixels (well, sort of. Not exactly pixels, but parts, which become more for higher resolutions ;) )
So if the inventory is hovering over the portrait in one resolution, it might block the command card in another. Moving it to match this resolution will probably cover the wireframe for a 3rd...
I wish there was, but I did not find any way to check for remaining upgrade points. Selecting would always be noticeable, because it is affected by bnet lag. However, closing the submenu would be possible, I think.
The income rate will really have to be tinkered around with quite a lot before getting reasonable results. I've only went for HLW during the EU night. At the beginning I was still getting used to everything and only started spamming units near mid game. By the end game of 30 mins, I had about 190k income which was rather fun to spam on my keyboard.
@Shad0wsEdge: Go
The current income rate for units varies from 8 to 4 percent (very straight forward, tier 1: first line 8%, second 7%, third 6%. Tier 2: first 7%, second 6%, third 5% and so on), averaging to 6%. So, theoretically speaking, we get 6% interest each income period (assuming we always can and will spend all our money to mercenaries, don't get money from killing mercs and don't buy any items etc as well as don't count upgrade costs and start money)
So, at each point in game time, income should be about StartIncome * (1 + average interest) ^ (time / income interval).
For a 30 minute game at current settings, this would be 200 * 1.06 ^ (1800 / 18) ~ 68k.
So, with your non-perfect gameplay, I still wonder, why the discrepancy is that high...
Also note, that this is very sensitive, due to the nature of the formula. If I increase overall income by 1%, we are at 173k (about 2.5 times more), if I decrease by 1%, we are at 26k (about same factor, just for a 1% change)
Quick everyone of US server hop on :D
I could upload the replay if you want but basically I whipped out the trusty calculator and also found that the first line gave the best income, to which I mashed the QWERT (I think it was 5 in a line) buttons constantly to quickly deplete all the resources that I gained. Quite awhile later I switched to the 2nd tier building, sending the QWERT monsters as well. At the end game when I switched to 3rd tier, I only spammed the QWERT ones for awhile before realising motherships are the way to go ( also realising that I couldn't spend my money fast enough either ).
Rather than increasing the overall income, changing the income interval is also a viable option ( Or just make the units cost more to send whilst maintaining the same income ). Anyway, the other room you were in had a much longer battle & so I could very well be an outlier
edit : I jabbed in a constant sending of first line units with 8% interest over a 30 minute period (Excluding the fact that it is impossible to use up all the resources before the next income later on), the income will be a whopping 440k, with 7% at a sad 173k. This means I had basically been sending an average of around 7.1-7.2% interest units
@Shad0wsEdge: Go
O.o say what?
i just killed stuff and when i got a breather sent as big a pain in the ass dudes against the enemy
During Map Night we discovered a major bug with observers: If you set up observers and change the teams afterwards (for example move a player from observers in one team, to make another player an observer), sometimes the whole lobby will screw up, resulting in 3v5 matches or other strange bugs.
This seems to be caused by Blizzard's flawed lobby system, and I doubt, I can fix this.
So, should I deactivate observers to get rid of this potential game-breaking bug? Or should I allow the possibility for observers and allow the bug to happen?
I'd say remove observers. Most people would want to play instead of watch ( Except in map night :P )
Well, I am not sure. For the usual mapmaking stuff, it does not matter anyway. If you just join by popularity list, ther will be no observers anyway, so no possibility for the bug to ever happen.
Observers are only useful for private games, and in this case you probably know the people you are playing with and can set up everything correctly.
Good point, since no one would bother changing the modes in public games anyway.
Btw : It might've just been my imagination but I think in the HLW game last night, I noticed something odd. Interceptors (from the carriers) that were attacking enemy heroes at the middle of the circle were warped away and counted as 1 life each. (Meaning that 5 carriers = 40 interceptors = 40 lives gone). Not really an issue I suppose, and wouldn't be worth the while to fix.
@Shad0wsEdge: Go
i'd noticed that before if the interceptors couldn't attack you from outside the circle they flew into the circle and you lost lives unless they were attacking you