I've beaten dark souls seven times with four different builds.
But yeah. It's always hardest the first time through. I knew what I was supposed to do so actually killing the boss wasn't really a problem. It threw me off when it did an attack that it never did before, though
I'm an accentuate the negative type of person. Unless I have something scripted, I have a hard time explaining my negative thoughts on something without sounding like I'm ranting. I'm better at delivering text reviews since I can stop and see how I can make things shorter and to the point. It doesn't stop it from sounding like I'm angry at it, unfortunately - usually I'm not.
The tip in the loading screen says to save often. The game itself is literally telling you to save. An actual autosave system for custom maps and campaigns is hard to implement. And yes, it would be more convenient for there to be an autosave system. I'm not saying your request is a bad one. But as it stands, the only reason you gave to not use saves is your forgetfulness and some personal moral hang up.
The tips, I can sort of get. But honestly, one look at the abilities and you should know what type of units all the heroes are. The Hydralisk and Medic are healers. The marine and sniper are your primary damage dealers. The adept is your offensive support. All the tips are literally just there to give backstory that you don't even really need to read. I didn't need to know the Medic is possibly a lesbian or bi-sexual, but it's there. There's nothing that forced me to read it. I just did.
Also yes, I agree that the best tutorial is the kind that can teach you while you're playing. Portal is literally a tutorial game for the first 19 levels and only the over analysts really noticed and pointed that out. But since you're playing a custom campaign here, assumptions can be made about how competent the player is. While those assumptions are not always correct, there are just some things that require text to explain how they work. It's either that or trial and error by way of save-scumming, which you have established that you will not do.
Finally, let me reiterate a point I made before. Challenging micro management is one of the core aspects of this campaign. What you're suggesting is the removal of the reason many people enjoy playing this campaign in the first place. Who do you think you are in telling the developer to completely change the point of his entire campaign all because you don't enjoy micro management?
Honestly, maybe this campaign just isn't for you.
As for the brain damage thing, personally, I don't care. I have a lot of bad habits that might end up killing me. I might only live for 50 years or less with my insomnia and habit of not eating breakfast or lunch. If playing Starcraft is also killing me then it's just another nail in the coffin.
So the biggest change between this version and the last version is that I can no longer lift up my Factory which basically means I have to play this mission as it is intended.
Originally, I was going to use Vultures and Widow Mines. The idea was to pull enemies into the Widow Mines and slow push with a small group of fast cheap units.
Upon trying this out, it becomes very clear the moment I push out that it will not work. And to seal the deal even further, Edhriano explained how the attack waves work.
The AI doesn't really send attack waves your way. There are just enemies on the map that will be rebuilt as soon as you kill them. My strategy of pulling enemies into Widow Mine explosives will work up to a point. After pushing past that point, there are just so many enemies coming at you that the Widow Mines' won't have enough shots to kill everything. With their 20 second attack cooldown, it just isn't viable.
Instead, I did this map the normal way and pushed with Bio-Tank. A little bit boring, yes, but at least it can't be cheesed the way I did in the previous video.
Another change I pointed out was with the Hybrid Behemoth near the boss door. I think its vision radius or something was increased so using Snipe on it will now draw aggression.
One small change that I didn't comment on is that Stukov's color scheme is now green. Not the same bright shade of green as in Heart of the Swarm but close enough.
So far, a solid but breakable map was made more solid than it was previously. It'll be really hard to break this one. Great work, Edhriano.
I could not click enemy units to see their stats. I wanted to decide what would be a more optimal army so I can do more damage to certain attributes
I can't click the mineral patches to see the amount remaining
Many of your gameplay settings might have gotten reset when you tested the map. It's a common that people will have to re-toggle Enable Enemy Unit Selection and untoggle Enable Simple Command Card in their gameplay options. This has been a problem since the start and doesn't seem like it can be fixed. The weird thing is sometimes it resets, some times it doesn't. It's really annoying like that.
Also, this mission is part of a campaign whose primary draw is challenging micro-intensive missions with boss fights. This mission is literally the only one with a macro section that's currently released. All the others were micro missions. That being said, the use of hotkeys is kinda necessary for all of them.
Your suggestions for making it easier aren't unfounded, though. Casual difficulty should be easier. Having the boss be just as micro intensive on easy as it is on hard makes the difficulty selection kinda pointless.
If that's the case then my strategy doesn't really work with the difficulty. I killed the Hives before pushing into the bases so there was no way they could rebuild.
Edit
Earlier into the video I said I had a strategy I wanted to try but that wasn't the factory lifting that I ended up doing.
The planned strategy was actually using 4-6 reapers to lure a bunch of zerg in range of 6 or more Widow Mines. I realize that Vultures are also a viable option for this strategy so I might end up doing that instead once that factory thing is fixed
The factory thing, you can make the cliffs unpathable or just remove the lift-off ability entirely. As for me killing those NPCs, it's just the Half Life 2 dilemma. I had control during a cutscene and got bored of the dialogue. Next time, just don't give the player control.
No fix for that Hydralisk model, huh? That's unfortunate.
I actually had 14 retries. I stopped commentating after the first few deaths and really analyzed the boss. I regularly play bullet hell games and recognizing and exploiting patterns has been hammered into my brain at this point. Your boss's attack were fairly simple all things considered. I only really needed to deal with one projectile at a time as opposed to a screen full of them.
Edit
Just to add, maybe make the tech lab upgrades for the Widow Mine available for research? And possibly some of the campaign upgrades for the Medic, Vulture and Goliath as well?
So this is an interesting mission to play. While I was playing mostly blind, I did get a good look at the terrain before I played. I made good use of that knowledge on my second attempt at the macro section. Just watch the video to find out what I did. Edhriano, since I know you're watching, I hope my strategy amuses you. Get to work on fixing that.
Next up is the micro section. Fairly easy, but mostly because I was playing on normal. My biggest gripe with this section is the hotkeys. They're all on different buttons. While I am completely fine with hotkeys being different between individual macro units, having heroes with weirdly placed hotkeys really fucks me up. I had to switch to grid to even be able to play. Honestly, it would have been easier if all of them were mapped to the Z, X, C, V, B keys. It'd be so much more convenient.
Another little inconvenience is that Hydralik hero's model. Sometimes I'm clicking right on it but it won't select. I have to click a little bit lower or to the side to be able to select it. I have the same problem when targeting Void Trashers in the LotV Epilogue. If there is a way to fix that, please do so.
Minor gripe, lots of vertical and horizontal terrain. Starcraft's aesthetic design favors isometric terrain more. You some how make it work but I do believe that angling your cliffs will make your maps look better.
The boss fight is a memorization boss which I don't like. Luckily, it goes by fast.Once you get the pattern down, it's not much of a bother.
I got really lost during the micro section but it's more my problem than the map's or mapmakers. It was a matter of observation and the way to go was right under my nose.
Overall, pretty fun map. I'm probably the first person to break this map. Granted, I go out of my way to break them so it's not surprising. In any case, good job Edhriano. Very clean
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@EDHRIANO: Go
I've beaten dark souls seven times with four different builds.
But yeah. It's always hardest the first time through. I knew what I was supposed to do so actually killing the boss wasn't really a problem. It threw me off when it did an attack that it never did before, though
@Scbroodsc2: Go
I'm an accentuate the negative type of person. Unless I have something scripted, I have a hard time explaining my negative thoughts on something without sounding like I'm ranting. I'm better at delivering text reviews since I can stop and see how I can make things shorter and to the point. It doesn't stop it from sounding like I'm angry at it, unfortunately - usually I'm not.
@Trieva: Go
The tip in the loading screen says to save often. The game itself is literally telling you to save. An actual autosave system for custom maps and campaigns is hard to implement. And yes, it would be more convenient for there to be an autosave system. I'm not saying your request is a bad one. But as it stands, the only reason you gave to not use saves is your forgetfulness and some personal moral hang up.
The tips, I can sort of get. But honestly, one look at the abilities and you should know what type of units all the heroes are. The Hydralisk and Medic are healers. The marine and sniper are your primary damage dealers. The adept is your offensive support. All the tips are literally just there to give backstory that you don't even really need to read. I didn't need to know the Medic is possibly a lesbian or bi-sexual, but it's there. There's nothing that forced me to read it. I just did.
Also yes, I agree that the best tutorial is the kind that can teach you while you're playing. Portal is literally a tutorial game for the first 19 levels and only the over analysts really noticed and pointed that out. But since you're playing a custom campaign here, assumptions can be made about how competent the player is. While those assumptions are not always correct, there are just some things that require text to explain how they work. It's either that or trial and error by way of save-scumming, which you have established that you will not do.
Finally, let me reiterate a point I made before. Challenging micro management is one of the core aspects of this campaign. What you're suggesting is the removal of the reason many people enjoy playing this campaign in the first place. Who do you think you are in telling the developer to completely change the point of his entire campaign all because you don't enjoy micro management?
Honestly, maybe this campaign just isn't for you.
As for the brain damage thing, personally, I don't care. I have a lot of bad habits that might end up killing me. I might only live for 50 years or less with my insomnia and habit of not eating breakfast or lunch. If playing Starcraft is also killing me then it's just another nail in the coffin.
@EDHRIANO: Go
Btw, Edhriano, disregard my comments about the hotkeys. I got over my problem with them part way into the micro section
New Video Up
So the biggest change between this version and the last version is that I can no longer lift up my Factory which basically means I have to play this mission as it is intended.
Originally, I was going to use Vultures and Widow Mines. The idea was to pull enemies into the Widow Mines and slow push with a small group of fast cheap units.
Upon trying this out, it becomes very clear the moment I push out that it will not work. And to seal the deal even further, Edhriano explained how the attack waves work.
The AI doesn't really send attack waves your way. There are just enemies on the map that will be rebuilt as soon as you kill them. My strategy of pulling enemies into Widow Mine explosives will work up to a point. After pushing past that point, there are just so many enemies coming at you that the Widow Mines' won't have enough shots to kill everything. With their 20 second attack cooldown, it just isn't viable.
Instead, I did this map the normal way and pushed with Bio-Tank. A little bit boring, yes, but at least it can't be cheesed the way I did in the previous video.
Another change I pointed out was with the Hybrid Behemoth near the boss door. I think its vision radius or something was increased so using Snipe on it will now draw aggression.
One small change that I didn't comment on is that Stukov's color scheme is now green. Not the same bright shade of green as in Heart of the Swarm but close enough.
So far, a solid but breakable map was made more solid than it was previously. It'll be really hard to break this one. Great work, Edhriano.
Many of your gameplay settings might have gotten reset when you tested the map. It's a common that people will have to re-toggle Enable Enemy Unit Selection and untoggle Enable Simple Command Card in their gameplay options. This has been a problem since the start and doesn't seem like it can be fixed. The weird thing is sometimes it resets, some times it doesn't. It's really annoying like that.
Also, this mission is part of a campaign whose primary draw is challenging micro-intensive missions with boss fights. This mission is literally the only one with a macro section that's currently released. All the others were micro missions. That being said, the use of hotkeys is kinda necessary for all of them.
Your suggestions for making it easier aren't unfounded, though. Casual difficulty should be easier. Having the boss be just as micro intensive on easy as it is on hard makes the difficulty selection kinda pointless.
@EDHRIANO: Go
If that's the case then my strategy doesn't really work with the difficulty. I killed the Hives before pushing into the bases so there was no way they could rebuild.
Edit
Earlier into the video I said I had a strategy I wanted to try but that wasn't the factory lifting that I ended up doing.
The planned strategy was actually using 4-6 reapers to lure a bunch of zerg in range of 6 or more Widow Mines. I realize that Vultures are also a viable option for this strategy so I might end up doing that instead once that factory thing is fixed
@deltronLive: Go
If there is literally no difference between the difficulties except for starting units and boss health then consider it a placebo. A confidence boost.
@EDHRIANO: Go
The factory thing, you can make the cliffs unpathable or just remove the lift-off ability entirely. As for me killing those NPCs, it's just the Half Life 2 dilemma. I had control during a cutscene and got bored of the dialogue. Next time, just don't give the player control.
No fix for that Hydralisk model, huh? That's unfortunate.
I actually had 14 retries. I stopped commentating after the first few deaths and really analyzed the boss. I regularly play bullet hell games and recognizing and exploiting patterns has been hammered into my brain at this point. Your boss's attack were fairly simple all things considered. I only really needed to deal with one projectile at a time as opposed to a screen full of them.
Edit
Just to add, maybe make the tech lab upgrades for the Widow Mine available for research? And possibly some of the campaign upgrades for the Medic, Vulture and Goliath as well?
Feedback
So this is an interesting mission to play. While I was playing mostly blind, I did get a good look at the terrain before I played. I made good use of that knowledge on my second attempt at the macro section. Just watch the video to find out what I did. Edhriano, since I know you're watching, I hope my strategy amuses you. Get to work on fixing that.
Next up is the micro section. Fairly easy, but mostly because I was playing on normal. My biggest gripe with this section is the hotkeys. They're all on different buttons. While I am completely fine with hotkeys being different between individual macro units, having heroes with weirdly placed hotkeys really fucks me up. I had to switch to grid to even be able to play. Honestly, it would have been easier if all of them were mapped to the Z, X, C, V, B keys. It'd be so much more convenient.
Another little inconvenience is that Hydralik hero's model. Sometimes I'm clicking right on it but it won't select. I have to click a little bit lower or to the side to be able to select it. I have the same problem when targeting Void Trashers in the LotV Epilogue. If there is a way to fix that, please do so.
Minor gripe, lots of vertical and horizontal terrain. Starcraft's aesthetic design favors isometric terrain more. You some how make it work but I do believe that angling your cliffs will make your maps look better.
The boss fight is a memorization boss which I don't like. Luckily, it goes by fast.Once you get the pattern down, it's not much of a bother.
I got really lost during the micro section but it's more my problem than the map's or mapmakers. It was a matter of observation and the way to go was right under my nose.
Overall, pretty fun map. I'm probably the first person to break this map. Granted, I go out of my way to break them so it's not surprising. In any case, good job Edhriano. Very clean