Oh, yes, I realized it wasn't an all round buff. Hence my point - as it is now, I don't think anyone will ever bother buying drone health or shields. Especially not as a carrier - you have so much drones anyway that you will constantly have at least 3 or 4 of them up. They already soak up plenty of damage.
As for turrets - I like them too, but I do somewhat feel like they don't live up to the awesomeness that is drones. I've been carefully thinking about whether it might be an idea to allow ranged turret placement in the same way a melee-style Raven throws them down. I'm sure this will make them overpowered in one or two areas of the game, but it would A) Greatly increase their offensive capabilities, allowing someone with full turrets instead of Drones to actually kill enemy battlebots, B) Not (as much) cause this 'sieging turrets from safety' problem you pointed out and C) Stop you from being so obscenely vulnerable when placing them. I like to see turrets as 'support' units, but right now the only way to use them for anything but pure defense is by basically 'towering' yourself towards your opponents by constantly deleting your last-most turret and rebuilding it at the front of a line. And this tactic is heavily underpowered as your enemy will just end up driving away, rendering your 5 minute of microing completely worthless.
Edit: Another thing regarding turrets, by the way! What do you think about the idea of making the base defense turrets to extra damage against placeable turrets? This would prevent the whole 'sieging turrets' thing without really buffing the base turrets.
Without having played yet, I'm already wondering why you added drone armour/shielding. Aside from maybe at the very start, this isn't something that really fits in with the maps in terms of playability - drones 'respawn' so fast anyway that it's usually not worth killing them as it is, making armour/shields somewhat void.
Oh, something I might add - I played a game some time ago where I went in as a healer battlecruiser. I bought six turrets and upgraded them all. One of my allies left and the other was a complete noob, basically rendering the match 1v3. Through insane turret micro I managed to keep the match at a stalemate - I only managed to do this because none of our enemies were really good either, if they had been pros they would've killed us. At one point I thought sod it, sold all my turrets, replaced them with 6X Missile Drones, and steamrolled the enemy base in about three minutes. I'm not too sure as to what this says as turrets and drones have slightly different functions, but I'm still edging towards "Turrets are underpowered".
I figured I'd post here to make this thread 600 pages long. Still liking the map, still going, Eiv! Maps like these make me proud to be a member of the community.
Speaking of turrets; what really grinds my gears is that to build a new turret, I need to manually destroy the old one. Would it be an idea to implement a couple of triggers that allow the 'place turret' button to automatically kill older turrets if I'm at my limit when trying to place one?
I played the map again yesterday, after about two weeks of not playing it, and sadly have to admit I like it a little less. The new item upgrading system works pretty well, but the playable part of the map is simply less fun. It seemed to be a rush to end-game, after which you quickly max out on your items and the entire game becomes about either sniping enemy heroes or countering them.
The reason your map doesn't do well in end-game is because at that point it basically turns into a standard AoS-style game with a lot less customization options. Compare it to HotAT, for example - even if everyone is maxxed out, you still have different kinds of heroes and know what kind of abilities to watch out for in which heroes. Actual micro applies. In this map, everybody just upgrades his weapons/armour and abilities don't really make a lot of difference - either you 3-shot him or he 3-shots you. Earlier on in the game everybody is specializing in a specific playstyle (armour, weapons, drones, etc) and doesn't have everything maxxed out yet, allowing for a lot more variety in play.
End-game, as it is now, is just downright boring. And even if it isn't, once everyone becomes maxxed out you're really just waiting for an opportunity to 3-shot their defense towers and then planetary fortress. Unless you completely overhaul the map, this probably won't change, so I would simply suggest slowing down the pace of the game and keeping folks in early/mid-game a little bit longer.
I'd offer my help in terraining as doing it for a map like that would be downright awesome, but even if you wanted my help, you don't really need it - the terrain I've seen in the released map really ranks as one of the most awesome playable terrains I've seen, beaten only by showcases. Regardless, keep up the good work, the map's still as awesome as ever.
Just a simple question - I may have missed something obvious, but why is this map actually named Catalyst? No offense, but I don't see the connection between a catalyst and building up your own war tank and crushing the enemies base with it. I could go for some far-fetched explanation like the tanks being the catalyst to their teams victory or such, but that just sounds lame rather than explaining the name of the map.
I gave it some more goes tonight, here's more thoughts of mine;
-Like others have mentioned, the Neutralizer drones seem to have retarded amounts of hit points. One rank 1 neutralizer drone is basically enough to make the whole first 5 minutes of a match completely one sided, as all your units will spend 10 seconds trying to kill the drone while getting raped themselves. This idea in itself isn't stupid, but if you want to implement it you should add something along the lines of a 'decoy drone' of which the whole concept is about it taking hits without doing anything special. As it is the Neutralizer drones just seem grossly overpowered.
-I'm not sure if you intended your map to be played this way, but I've tried playing a healer a couple of rounds. As in: throw away all normal weapons and mass up on shield and armour repairers + energy regeneration equipment. I was surprised at how viable even this manner of play was, though I have a couple of comments;
A) Healers, while pretty good when played correctly, are inherently penalized because they barely get any kills (I tend to bring along a drone, just to get *some* kills), thus gain less money. This isn't as much of a problem in early game as it is in late game, when DPS players simply do so much more damage that they're literally sitting on 4X ultimate weapon when you are barely reaching enough to upgrade your second heal to max rank.
B) The heals should be targetable - I've had a couple of my allies die because the heals went off healing marines. I reckon it should be fairly doable if you turn the heals into actual weapons that do minus X damage and are friendly targets only?
C) Even aside from the priorities, the heals sometimes seem to target targets all across the map. It seems that it's just the visual that is off, though I'm not entirely sure.
With just a couple of changes, you could make playing a full-time healer a completely viable option in your map and add a LOT of dimension.
-Might it be an idea to enable the AI you made for the map if someone quits?
Overall, still loving it, the gameplay is right and the amount of customization is awesome.
I've been playing around with this lately, will come up with balancing problems soon enough. For now, I haven't really had enough games to say much on it, except that the map seems to be a bit pendulum-ized; every game I've started losing I kept losing faster and faster until my base got steamrolled. Once the middle is taken and you can't manage to get it back, it seems fairly easy for your opponent to get both your outer bases and from that point on it seems to become really hard to get back into the game.
Could be just me though - Like I said, I haven't played a lot yet, and most of my games also involved a quitter or two.
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@Eiviyn:
Oh, yes, I realized it wasn't an all round buff. Hence my point - as it is now, I don't think anyone will ever bother buying drone health or shields. Especially not as a carrier - you have so much drones anyway that you will constantly have at least 3 or 4 of them up. They already soak up plenty of damage.
As for turrets - I like them too, but I do somewhat feel like they don't live up to the awesomeness that is drones. I've been carefully thinking about whether it might be an idea to allow ranged turret placement in the same way a melee-style Raven throws them down. I'm sure this will make them overpowered in one or two areas of the game, but it would A) Greatly increase their offensive capabilities, allowing someone with full turrets instead of Drones to actually kill enemy battlebots, B) Not (as much) cause this 'sieging turrets from safety' problem you pointed out and C) Stop you from being so obscenely vulnerable when placing them. I like to see turrets as 'support' units, but right now the only way to use them for anything but pure defense is by basically 'towering' yourself towards your opponents by constantly deleting your last-most turret and rebuilding it at the front of a line. And this tactic is heavily underpowered as your enemy will just end up driving away, rendering your 5 minute of microing completely worthless.
Edit: Another thing regarding turrets, by the way! What do you think about the idea of making the base defense turrets to extra damage against placeable turrets? This would prevent the whole 'sieging turrets' thing without really buffing the base turrets.
Without having played yet, I'm already wondering why you added drone armour/shielding. Aside from maybe at the very start, this isn't something that really fits in with the maps in terms of playability - drones 'respawn' so fast anyway that it's usually not worth killing them as it is, making armour/shields somewhat void.
Oh, something I might add - I played a game some time ago where I went in as a healer battlecruiser. I bought six turrets and upgraded them all. One of my allies left and the other was a complete noob, basically rendering the match 1v3. Through insane turret micro I managed to keep the match at a stalemate - I only managed to do this because none of our enemies were really good either, if they had been pros they would've killed us. At one point I thought sod it, sold all my turrets, replaced them with 6X Missile Drones, and steamrolled the enemy base in about three minutes. I'm not too sure as to what this says as turrets and drones have slightly different functions, but I'm still edging towards "Turrets are underpowered".
I figured I'd post here to make this thread 600 pages long. Still liking the map, still going, Eiv! Maps like these make me proud to be a member of the community.
Speaking of turrets; what really grinds my gears is that to build a new turret, I need to manually destroy the old one. Would it be an idea to implement a couple of triggers that allow the 'place turret' button to automatically kill older turrets if I'm at my limit when trying to place one?
I played the map again yesterday, after about two weeks of not playing it, and sadly have to admit I like it a little less. The new item upgrading system works pretty well, but the playable part of the map is simply less fun. It seemed to be a rush to end-game, after which you quickly max out on your items and the entire game becomes about either sniping enemy heroes or countering them.
The reason your map doesn't do well in end-game is because at that point it basically turns into a standard AoS-style game with a lot less customization options. Compare it to HotAT, for example - even if everyone is maxxed out, you still have different kinds of heroes and know what kind of abilities to watch out for in which heroes. Actual micro applies. In this map, everybody just upgrades his weapons/armour and abilities don't really make a lot of difference - either you 3-shot him or he 3-shots you. Earlier on in the game everybody is specializing in a specific playstyle (armour, weapons, drones, etc) and doesn't have everything maxxed out yet, allowing for a lot more variety in play.
End-game, as it is now, is just downright boring. And even if it isn't, once everyone becomes maxxed out you're really just waiting for an opportunity to 3-shot their defense towers and then planetary fortress. Unless you completely overhaul the map, this probably won't change, so I would simply suggest slowing down the pace of the game and keeping folks in early/mid-game a little bit longer.
I'd offer my help in terraining as doing it for a map like that would be downright awesome, but even if you wanted my help, you don't really need it - the terrain I've seen in the released map really ranks as one of the most awesome playable terrains I've seen, beaten only by showcases. Regardless, keep up the good work, the map's still as awesome as ever.
Just a simple question - I may have missed something obvious, but why is this map actually named Catalyst? No offense, but I don't see the connection between a catalyst and building up your own war tank and crushing the enemies base with it. I could go for some far-fetched explanation like the tanks being the catalyst to their teams victory or such, but that just sounds lame rather than explaining the name of the map.
I gave it some more goes tonight, here's more thoughts of mine;
-Like others have mentioned, the Neutralizer drones seem to have retarded amounts of hit points. One rank 1 neutralizer drone is basically enough to make the whole first 5 minutes of a match completely one sided, as all your units will spend 10 seconds trying to kill the drone while getting raped themselves. This idea in itself isn't stupid, but if you want to implement it you should add something along the lines of a 'decoy drone' of which the whole concept is about it taking hits without doing anything special. As it is the Neutralizer drones just seem grossly overpowered.
-I'm not sure if you intended your map to be played this way, but I've tried playing a healer a couple of rounds. As in: throw away all normal weapons and mass up on shield and armour repairers + energy regeneration equipment. I was surprised at how viable even this manner of play was, though I have a couple of comments;
A) Healers, while pretty good when played correctly, are inherently penalized because they barely get any kills (I tend to bring along a drone, just to get *some* kills), thus gain less money. This isn't as much of a problem in early game as it is in late game, when DPS players simply do so much more damage that they're literally sitting on 4X ultimate weapon when you are barely reaching enough to upgrade your second heal to max rank.
B) The heals should be targetable - I've had a couple of my allies die because the heals went off healing marines. I reckon it should be fairly doable if you turn the heals into actual weapons that do minus X damage and are friendly targets only?
C) Even aside from the priorities, the heals sometimes seem to target targets all across the map. It seems that it's just the visual that is off, though I'm not entirely sure.
With just a couple of changes, you could make playing a full-time healer a completely viable option in your map and add a LOT of dimension.
-Might it be an idea to enable the AI you made for the map if someone quits?
Overall, still loving it, the gameplay is right and the amount of customization is awesome.
I've been playing around with this lately, will come up with balancing problems soon enough. For now, I haven't really had enough games to say much on it, except that the map seems to be a bit pendulum-ized; every game I've started losing I kept losing faster and faster until my base got steamrolled. Once the middle is taken and you can't manage to get it back, it seems fairly easy for your opponent to get both your outer bases and from that point on it seems to become really hard to get back into the game.
Could be just me though - Like I said, I haven't played a lot yet, and most of my games also involved a quitter or two.