If you're familiar with my past projects then you'll probably know the style I use when designing content. Some love it, some hate it, but either way more arcade maps can't be bad, right?
I'll be dropping the tome system in favor of a more robust item system. I may add tomes in future but they're not planned for release. There'll be 25 heroes, about a dozen items that can be upgraded and all the gameplay that made this a wc3 classic.
Having a lot of fun making this. Brings back so many memories! Hoping to release on Monday unless something explodes.
The concept of Warships, Tya's Zerg Defense and Lordaeron Strike are all 100% me! Sadly original concepts take months to develop instead of days, and have a chance of just outright failing so I'm pretty limited in how often I can get something original to fully work.
I have no problem with all of the remakes; especially since the "hero games" scene of sc2 is pretty limited if you aren't a fan of DoTA. I think that if you are going to re-use the same mod containing all of your heroes though, you need more heroes and more ways to make them unique.
On the topic of this game, am I creating the same units I would be creating in any of your other games, to fight alongside a hero who is only marginally stronger than them? My biggest beef with all of your games except hero line wars is that a hero is never "heroic". At no point is a hero worth more than 3-4 generic units.
I try all of your games, and like a lot of them; so I am looking forward to playing this when it is more complete.
This is more Hero Line Wars than my other maps, yeah. I am a big fan of "weak" heroes in general though, but that won't apply here.
It does plug into the same mod file as Hero Line Wars but that mod is very modular and it wouldn't take me long to mix the heroes up. The mod is basically just parts that I assemble for each map. I'm tempted to mix in a few StarCraft heroes this time around because I just played the prologue and some of the new units look so good!
A map with 25 heroes over a weekend? Huh, you work fast. :P Terrain's looking pretty cool, very glowy. I say do mix SC heroes in. Having both SC and WC in a map is always good, hehe.
Btw, the middle Ziggurat here - no idea what's hovering above it, but it looks really cool. :P
Tomes could be replaced with pure stat improvements. This could also be applied to hero ability damage allowing them to be better balanced than in WC3 (where they ended up useless unless they had a good debuff or buff). There is no need for hero attributes in SC2. You could get away with item buffs and pure stat buffs or upgrades.
Levels automatically scale up abilities by a certain amount. "Tomes" also scale up abilities by a certain level value. Levelling up abilities would provide big boosts to their performance (level 1 -> 2 doubles damage, 2 -> 3 is 3 times damage as level 1). Possibly the talent system could be used as a replacement to levelling abilities WC3 style.
I would personally recommend getting rid of the silly mini games or heavily revising them. If you did badly in the mini-games in WC3 you might as well quit as you will never catch up. If mini games do exist they should be team based with everyone getting the reward if they succeed or no one if they fail. The rewards from the minigame should also be toned down since they were too game changing in WC3 version.
Yeah I was never a fan of stats. Here's an example of an item;
This would basically be "+30 Strength", give or take a few stat points.
I'd like to do a talent system someday but that would be too time-consuming. I also think that the talent systems come with their own set of problems too, where, like HotS, you end up with one, maybe two viable talent builds making the whole thing a total waste of time.
Right now there's a stat called Ability Power which increases the strength of abilities by a %. +10% ability power makes your abilities deal or heal 10% more. Summons gain +10% life and damage.
Leveling an ability usually increases it's output by 33%. The old problem of "I need to pick 1-2 abilities and use those only" is still there but I'm hoping that the abilities are distinct enough to make that an interesting choice.
I'd like to do a talent system someday but that would be too time-consuming. I also think that the talent systems come with their own set of problems too, where, like HotS, you end up with one, maybe two viable talent builds making the whole thing a total waste of time.
That is a lie. Most talents have usable cases and you will be surprised how some unconventional talent builds can be very effective. Sure some are not, but they will be eventually revised and are usually on older heroes.
The talent system needs to be investigated further into what can be customized with it. Currently a lot of developers probably have no idea how to even set one up.
Quote:
Leveling an ability usually increases it's output by 33%. The old problem of "I need to pick 1-2 abilities and use those only" is still there but I'm hoping that the abilities are distinct enough to make that an interesting choice.
Each ability level needs to be linear in output and you eventually get them all anyway. This is how WC3 melee was balanced and how the WC3 skill system worked well when there were choices before maxing out. You can then play usefulness of skills against each other so that they are roughly equal. An extra level in Holy Light will give an extra level worth of healing but I could also get an extra level worth of Divine Shield or Devotion Aura. The system breaks when you have any form of exponential gain since then you are channelled into choosing 1-2 viable options.
Yeah I quickly learnt that exponential skills are just not a thing that can happen. They're practically unbalanceable, either worthless at level 1 and only gaining balance at high level, or decent at level 1 and obscene later. There are a few cases, like stuns increasing in duration and damage with each level, and auras increasing in both effect and radius.
Wanted to release today but the servers are down so it looks like it's tomorrow.
i suggest reconsider that ruby ring bonus, cuz if it's hero defense your hero most surely will be attacked 99% of time which eliminates the condition. Basicaly just straight up continious 25% dmg buff. For example make it trigger only from high dmg attacks or give +0.xxx points of damage per each attacker etc.
Kul'Thuzard is broken. I was unfortunate enough to find out by random choosing him.
Illusions ability does not scale with Ability Damage. Not only that but they are a whole order of magnitude weaker than what they copy. By the end they die in 1-2 hits and do trivial damage. The strength of the illusions should either be identical to the monsters they clone or scale with spell power.
Wisps ability does not help you during events (possibly paused in main area). For example in the minion kill event the wisps were not present so obviously my performance of the event was terrible since 2/3 of the abilities on a spell caster were usless. The only ability that I could use during the event was Frost Nova which I foolishly did not level up.
Deminos (the Void Walker, if I spelt it wrong) has some bugs.
Two abilities share the Q hotkey rendering 1 unable to be cast by hotkeys. The delayed meteor is always selected (even when in cooldown) over the plague ability. Based on hotkey standards plague should be using W instead of Q.
Using his instant kill move to kill a Doomed target results in no Doom Guard spawning. If the target is plagued the plague will correctly jump to another target. This makes a reasonable combination of doom and instant kill not possible.
Next to that the hero is pretty solid. I was happy with its performance, even doing moderately (but not perfect) at kills in the arena.
the farseer hero also has the same hotkey issue as above.
The cenarius hero is worthless, shot; done for. In HLW he is only strong late game, with really high mana regen and top tier items. In this, at no point are any of his skills viable.
Compare that to the blademaster, who with mirror images can control 4 lanes...
Possible a team-shared gold would be helpful. As it goes, early kills lead to more kills, lead to more kills. If I pick cenarius, I have absolutely no chance of getting him to some late-game form where he is powerful, because I literally cannot gain gold. Using this hero, I think I had 40 kills, when the top killers (Archimond and blademaster) were around 500. In a team based game like this, you normally have 5 players leave within 5 minutes; because they do not get enough gold to keep up. I think shared gold might keep them playing, and allow them to contribute more as the game goes on.
Fixed the hotkey conflicts on all heroes. Fixed Doom failing to proc if the target is killed by Dark Ritual or Death Pact. I've buffed Entangling Roots a bit but you're right in that Cenarius really takes the crown at the extreme end-game where he has amazing items. I'm okay with heroes like this. Still, with Engangling Roots being stronger, it should let him score more kills!
I don't often update these threads, but I'll give a shot at fixing that.
NEW CONTENT
- Heirarch hero added! Based on Artanis from the StarCraft 2 LotV campaign!
Note that this hero is only available on EU as the US version is locked for the Rock the Cabinet contest.
As X Hero Siege and Hero Line Wars are intimately linked, this hero is also available in X Hero Siege.
When I'm happy with it, I will be releasing my abilities pack publically. If you're coming back here from the future (oOOoOoOooOoo spooky), here is the XML to add Artanis. Simply set to XML view, and paste this into any tab (it will sort itself automatically);
I've got a free weekend so I thought I'd put together this wc3 classic.
Friday: Terraining. 100% done.
Saturday: Triggering. 90% done.
Sunday: Data work.
Imgur album: http://imgur.com/a/kdXWS
You can find my previous work here; http://desertstrike.freeforums.org/tya-s-maps-t103.html
If you're familiar with my past projects then you'll probably know the style I use when designing content. Some love it, some hate it, but either way more arcade maps can't be bad, right?
I'll be dropping the tome system in favor of a more robust item system. I may add tomes in future but they're not planned for release. There'll be 25 heroes, about a dozen items that can be upgraded and all the gameplay that made this a wc3 classic.
Having a lot of fun making this. Brings back so many memories! Hoping to release on Monday unless something explodes.
i would like to see a map that is 100% tya, not a 90% remake of any wc3 map.
The concept of Warships, Tya's Zerg Defense and Lordaeron Strike are all 100% me! Sadly original concepts take months to develop instead of days, and have a chance of just outright failing so I'm pretty limited in how often I can get something original to fully work.
I have no problem with all of the remakes; especially since the "hero games" scene of sc2 is pretty limited if you aren't a fan of DoTA. I think that if you are going to re-use the same mod containing all of your heroes though, you need more heroes and more ways to make them unique.
On the topic of this game, am I creating the same units I would be creating in any of your other games, to fight alongside a hero who is only marginally stronger than them? My biggest beef with all of your games except hero line wars is that a hero is never "heroic". At no point is a hero worth more than 3-4 generic units.
I try all of your games, and like a lot of them; so I am looking forward to playing this when it is more complete.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
This is more Hero Line Wars than my other maps, yeah. I am a big fan of "weak" heroes in general though, but that won't apply here.
It does plug into the same mod file as Hero Line Wars but that mod is very modular and it wouldn't take me long to mix the heroes up. The mod is basically just parts that I assemble for each map. I'm tempted to mix in a few StarCraft heroes this time around because I just played the prologue and some of the new units look so good!
A map with 25 heroes over a weekend? Huh, you work fast. :P Terrain's looking pretty cool, very glowy. I say do mix SC heroes in. Having both SC and WC in a map is always good, hehe.
Btw, the middle Ziggurat here - no idea what's hovering above it, but it looks really cool. :P
I have a mod with hero parts and I just put them together as needed! Otherwise, yeah, it's way too time-consuming to make heroes on demand.
I think that's one of the bile launcher projectile models.
Yeah, just checked, it's Assets\Effects\Zerg\BileLauncherMissile\BileLauncherMissile.m3
Just balance left to do. Wanted to get it completed today but the triggering took longer than I thought!
Tomes could be replaced with pure stat improvements. This could also be applied to hero ability damage allowing them to be better balanced than in WC3 (where they ended up useless unless they had a good debuff or buff). There is no need for hero attributes in SC2. You could get away with item buffs and pure stat buffs or upgrades.
Levels automatically scale up abilities by a certain amount. "Tomes" also scale up abilities by a certain level value. Levelling up abilities would provide big boosts to their performance (level 1 -> 2 doubles damage, 2 -> 3 is 3 times damage as level 1). Possibly the talent system could be used as a replacement to levelling abilities WC3 style.
I would personally recommend getting rid of the silly mini games or heavily revising them. If you did badly in the mini-games in WC3 you might as well quit as you will never catch up. If mini games do exist they should be team based with everyone getting the reward if they succeed or no one if they fail. The rewards from the minigame should also be toned down since they were too game changing in WC3 version.
Yeah I was never a fan of stats. Here's an example of an item;
This would basically be "+30 Strength", give or take a few stat points.
I'd like to do a talent system someday but that would be too time-consuming. I also think that the talent systems come with their own set of problems too, where, like HotS, you end up with one, maybe two viable talent builds making the whole thing a total waste of time.
Right now there's a stat called Ability Power which increases the strength of abilities by a %. +10% ability power makes your abilities deal or heal 10% more. Summons gain +10% life and damage.
Leveling an ability usually increases it's output by 33%. The old problem of "I need to pick 1-2 abilities and use those only" is still there but I'm hoping that the abilities are distinct enough to make that an interesting choice.
That is a lie. Most talents have usable cases and you will be surprised how some unconventional talent builds can be very effective. Sure some are not, but they will be eventually revised and are usually on older heroes.
The talent system needs to be investigated further into what can be customized with it. Currently a lot of developers probably have no idea how to even set one up.
Each ability level needs to be linear in output and you eventually get them all anyway. This is how WC3 melee was balanced and how the WC3 skill system worked well when there were choices before maxing out. You can then play usefulness of skills against each other so that they are roughly equal. An extra level in Holy Light will give an extra level worth of healing but I could also get an extra level worth of Divine Shield or Devotion Aura. The system breaks when you have any form of exponential gain since then you are channelled into choosing 1-2 viable options.
Yeah I quickly learnt that exponential skills are just not a thing that can happen. They're practically unbalanceable, either worthless at level 1 and only gaining balance at high level, or decent at level 1 and obscene later. There are a few cases, like stuns increasing in duration and damage with each level, and auras increasing in both effect and radius.
Wanted to release today but the servers are down so it looks like it's tomorrow.
Map is released! Shouldn't be too hard to find for now.
i suggest reconsider that ruby ring bonus, cuz if it's hero defense your hero most surely will be attacked 99% of time which eliminates the condition. Basicaly just straight up continious 25% dmg buff. For example make it trigger only from high dmg attacks or give +0.xxx points of damage per each attacker etc.
Kul'Thuzard is broken. I was unfortunate enough to find out by random choosing him.
Illusions ability does not scale with Ability Damage. Not only that but they are a whole order of magnitude weaker than what they copy. By the end they die in 1-2 hits and do trivial damage. The strength of the illusions should either be identical to the monsters they clone or scale with spell power.
Wisps ability does not help you during events (possibly paused in main area). For example in the minion kill event the wisps were not present so obviously my performance of the event was terrible since 2/3 of the abilities on a spell caster were usless. The only ability that I could use during the event was Frost Nova which I foolishly did not level up.
Oops! Should be fixed now.
Deminos (the Void Walker, if I spelt it wrong) has some bugs.
Next to that the hero is pretty solid. I was happy with its performance, even doing moderately (but not perfect) at kills in the arena.
the farseer hero also has the same hotkey issue as above.
The cenarius hero is worthless, shot; done for. In HLW he is only strong late game, with really high mana regen and top tier items. In this, at no point are any of his skills viable.
Compare that to the blademaster, who with mirror images can control 4 lanes...
Possible a team-shared gold would be helpful. As it goes, early kills lead to more kills, lead to more kills. If I pick cenarius, I have absolutely no chance of getting him to some late-game form where he is powerful, because I literally cannot gain gold. Using this hero, I think I had 40 kills, when the top killers (Archimond and blademaster) were around 500. In a team based game like this, you normally have 5 players leave within 5 minutes; because they do not get enough gold to keep up. I think shared gold might keep them playing, and allow them to contribute more as the game goes on.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
Heya!
Fixed the hotkey conflicts on all heroes. Fixed Doom failing to proc if the target is killed by Dark Ritual or Death Pact. I've buffed Entangling Roots a bit but you're right in that Cenarius really takes the crown at the extreme end-game where he has amazing items. I'm okay with heroes like this. Still, with Engangling Roots being stronger, it should let him score more kills!
I don't often update these threads, but I'll give a shot at fixing that.
NEW CONTENT
- Heirarch hero added! Based on Artanis from the StarCraft 2 LotV campaign!
Note that this hero is only available on EU as the US version is locked for the Rock the Cabinet contest.
As X Hero Siege and Hero Line Wars are intimately linked, this hero is also available in X Hero Siege.
When I'm happy with it, I will be releasing my abilities pack publically. If you're coming back here from the future (oOOoOoOooOoo spooky), here is the XML to add Artanis. Simply set to XML view, and paste this into any tab (it will sort itself automatically);