- Getting the bosses to work with objectives (attack the eggs when no players units are around)
- Testing various level design layouts. The bosses need a lot of space; I tried some variation where they are grouped and very close together. Now I'm trying the opposite and they are very far apart. Looks better but need to test it more.
- Separate starting bases
- Testing some sort of neutral Nydus Worm that can transport player units quickly. Might not add it if it feels uneccessary or like it takes away from co-op commander traits (is there a commander with a Nydus Worm?).
I have barely implemented any enemy bases. The current map design is just to test the bosses/objectives, so the map design will most definitely change once I add the enemy bases. (Boss distribution/activation is now 1-2-3-4).
Currently the objectives are:
- Slay the Primal Pack Ascendants (0/10)
- Do Not Let 10 Eggs Be Destroyed (0/10)
Uhhhh
Kerrigan has a nydus worm it's one of her (many) support abilities
So would a tutorial map prior to prologue be helpful to learn the new race?
It's up to you, there are mutliple ways to communicate each units role. Tooltips when you hover over the icon in a production structure, f12 tips, tutorial map...
Should I try and improve enemy mining or perhaps slow down further the colonists? suppose it's not well explained? (I figure that in most cases such as in an established colony the civilians would perform a better mining job?) Oh! i should reduce the miners ability to mine to just under an scv but make it quicker gather n make the truck gather less but sooooo much faster would that help?
Personally, I think you should slow down ALL resource rates (including vespene collection) and reduce prices as well. Think about making units "less" efficient then their "real" counterparts.
Extensive list of problems (I have no idea how to fix many of them). Perhaps other users can recommend some tutorials to help with these.
AI problems
Ally AI cannot send colonists to their death
AI does not understand the resource layout, builds buildings in terrible locations
Figure out how to create a "custom AI" I guess
It's pretty anti-immursive to have AI bellow Raynor's voice whenever they do something, especially since they're not Raynor.
Design problems
Map #1 is way too big and too empty. I was spending huge amounts of time heading to ally units being harassed by Dominion banshees.
Bonus objective +'s did not appear. If you did not memorize them based on the pings then you may have to spend a fair amount of time.
For a race that's supposed to be "weak but fast build", I found that in the first map I had to wait to build up a force of the big splash damage things.
The spectres are 100% useless, they don't see anything
Lifting up your main base gives you resources, landing takes resources
You're not introduced to your units (didn't know the big tank has splash, for example) or your enemies main units, making what the enemy builds and your counters to their units a complete surprise.
Enemy AI pushes out with a huge army. Combined with the above, that's asking for a sudden loss about 15 minutes in the game. It feels very frustrating to lose suddenly this way.
Mining is really fast in this game. Why do colonists have better miners than the army?
Other problems
The big thingy has terrible pathing issues, spent a lot of time coaxing them out around structures in my base or around hills/trees.
Units in the ending cutscene all spawn in 1-spot.
Plenty of conflicting hotkeys (resource truck and assault vehicle from garage, or patrol and war pigs from raynor)
Missing buttons such as cancel from some production structures
Base isn't in an optimal spot, had to move it left a bit
Something that would be nice in Red Snow is to be able to sacrifice time for energy. I spent a lot of time waiting around for my energy to get back up, yet finished the mission with >30 minutes left. A slightly inefficent time->energy ability would increase the speed of people completing the mission, and get people a little closer to the limit.
Of course it can only be used while out of combat, all enemies heal to full, etc etc.
The thing about software, and especially games is, they are never truly finished. There is always something to adjust.
... If anyone's wondering about my contribution to the RTC: I've thrown away a lot of ideas now and now I've turned to the most simple: Bossfights. So imagine a typical co-op map like Rifts to Korhal, but instead of destroying Void Shards you kill bosses. Will be a while before I can post screenshots; too much real-life stuff to do :)
Should be interesting to see how you do that. I would guess the reason why there is no "single object" objectives (ex. void thrashers spawn in groups) is because of how easy it is for ability snipes (B/C, solar, fleet, nuke)
Non-spoiler verdict: Play this now! Stop reading and go get it!
Mission spoilers ahead of course.
The 3 major differences between LifeForce and normal SC2 is:
Units have more hp for their cost, without the extra damage. The reaction time needed to move a <50% hp sphinx is huge compared to moving most SC2 units
Units cost more. This means that you don't have to build a large amount of buildings to keep your resources low, especially since you get tech reactors. So, a lower macro level than SC2. As well, it will take a little longer to build up a decent size army.
Enemy units have in general been melee or have dodgable projectiles. Micro is much more rewarding in terms of hp saved than in Starcraft.
Given that LifeForce seems to be in theory less difficult than Starcraft II, can it provide an engaging experience that isn't a-move to win?
Yes it can! LifeForce is an amazing campaign, and really should be played by literally everybody. The missions add things to up the difficulty. Examples:
M1: Limited resources! Your micro better be excellent, because the more units you lose, the more likely you're going to fail the mission. Strong early attacks! You're going to be hit by lyote alphas before you're going to have bunkers up.
M2: Rush focused! The cutter pilots forces you to move out early.
M3: Strong enemy early game! With only 4 mech techs and a tank you have to fend off a huge number of bugs. Micro is highly effective, but at the same time you have to be getting your economy going.
M4: Strong early attacks! You're going to be fending off forces twice as large as yours while getting your economy up, and the difficulty keeps going up. Base crushing rewards! Going after enemy bases, while optional rewards you with less attacks, and resources. Limited resources! Vespene is pretty limited this mission; you may have to choose between what upgrades/units you get now/later No reinforcements! The swamp means not only will it take a large amount of time to work your way through the swamp, but you're not going to be able to "constantly" reinforce during an attack, as they will be eaten alive by the dwellers.
Do these always work? Are missions always great? Sadly, no. Mission 2 going to be a bit of a drag if you don't try to rush down the pilots (sphinx's + repair makes shooting down the shredders trivial), as well it is very easy to A-move with a heavy sphinx+commando comp. The second half of mission 3 can end up being pretty easy as well, only having to cast goo once every few seconds and just watching your enforcer bunkers tearing apart stragglers, mammoth bugs aren't just threatening (or heavily armored) enough against them and their ~70 bunker DPS aura of death. And in mission 4, attack waves heading to expansions can be frustrating because of how slow (or damaging) it is to work your way through the swamp to engage. Many 2 and 4 attack waves can be defeated by running some guy in front of your army, have everyone target him, and just keep him moving.
Still, LifeForce manages to hit the things I like. Rewarding to use comps of multiple units? Absolutely! Every unit has at least some place that it's good. `Difficult enough that I'm not bored (Brutal SC2 campaign player)? Yes!
Obligatory balance suggestions:
Shadowcats can't move through other shadowcats. Spreads out the effects of the stun much better, prevents players from sniping down objectives (will get hit by AoE and stuff, as well as they can't group up to burst), and putting Sphinx's back in front regarding burst damage.
More hp nerfs to Sphinx please
In conclusion:
Rating: I'm going to rate this "higher than The Master" (seriously, look at the guy's lines. Lay off the vespene a little. "only one to get past the trials?" More like only one with a high enough tolerance that you're not completely brainpanned)
Life Lessons from LifeForce:
Take a flashlight whenever you're heading underground, you never know when accidents happen.
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, but maybe look it over with a scanner
It's Bilxor, not Blixor
Gas masks: not just fashion statements
Always back up your files, especially your bioweapon databases (RIP Razorface)
Have your cult members do a lot of menial tasks for a long time every day, gives them an extra 90HP
Everything can be explained away by pirate attack! Cult murdered? Pirate attack! Planet disappeared? Pirate attack! Zerg invasion of Tarsonis? Pirate attack!
Hm, anyone else having difficulty getting attack waves to scale with difficulty? Their built in function for co-op map waves lets you choose supply and tech brackets, but these are supposed to scale based on difficulty. I can't seem to get them to do that. No matter what I set the difficulty level to, these attack waves always spawn set amounts.
I'm just doing it manually based on my own game attribute instead, just a shame if we can't use the built in scaling.
i had read some place that they don't want it on different difficulties. Just a "normal" difficulty and not "Brutal/Expert" or otherwise harder scale. I don't really think difficulty matters that much anyways. The concept is probably more important than specific enemy unit waves.
That's just a design guideline, does not HAVE to be followed (but perhaps it should). It's more that players should work more on design than multi-difficulty gameplay.
One improvement to make it clearer that you have to stay out of neutral territories might be giving them nigh-invincible production and army instead of a simple land block.
Since neutrals are very large, I didn't notice spain was neutral and spent a good 5 minutes trying to march my army around there.
0
0
0
Extensive list of problems (I have no idea how to fix many of them). Perhaps other users can recommend some tutorials to help with these.
AI problems
Design problems
Other problems
0
can URL in titles be filtered as spam k thx.
0
Something that would be nice in Red Snow is to be able to sacrifice time for energy. I spent a lot of time waiting around for my energy to get back up, yet finished the mission with >30 minutes left. A slightly inefficent time->energy ability would increase the speed of people completing the mission, and get people a little closer to the limit.
Of course it can only be used while out of combat, all enemies heal to full, etc etc.
0
Some feedback:
In the first micro mission I played I was facing the same enemy composition over and over and over and over, which gets incredibly boring quickly.
Outside of map design, with all units being so functionally similar, it feels like you're doing the same thing over and over again.
0
Do all units still feel like they're exactly the same?
0
Some problems I've noticed (all ep.4)
Mission 2: you can hold position with units to block your "allies" from reaching the dominion
Mission 4: Raven's have the seeker missile upgrade, which makes seeker missiles pretty much unstoppable. Please have a look at that
Mission 6: Cutscene fails if you build a building where the Dark Archon is supposed to go.
0
Room for plenty of bossfights. I mean we have void thrashers and rifts which are ALMOST the same in map style (1-2-3-4 stationary objectives)
0
0
Ummm we can embed youtube videos using the embed button, but we can't embed playlists.
Edit: you can't have bullet points and numbering in the same post
0
Well, here's my review of LifeForce.
Non-spoiler verdict: Play this now! Stop reading and go get it!
Mission spoilers ahead of course.
The 3 major differences between LifeForce and normal SC2 is:
Given that LifeForce seems to be in theory less difficult than Starcraft II, can it provide an engaging experience that isn't a-move to win?
Yes it can! LifeForce is an amazing campaign, and really should be played by literally everybody. The missions add things to up the difficulty. Examples:
Strong early attacks! You're going to be hit by lyote alphas before you're going to have bunkers up.
Base crushing rewards! Going after enemy bases, while optional rewards you with less attacks, and resources.
Limited resources! Vespene is pretty limited this mission; you may have to choose between what upgrades/units you get now/later
No reinforcements! The swamp means not only will it take a large amount of time to work your way through the swamp, but you're not going to be able to "constantly" reinforce during an attack, as they will be eaten alive by the dwellers.
Do these always work? Are missions always great? Sadly, no. Mission 2 going to be a bit of a drag if you don't try to rush down the pilots (sphinx's + repair makes shooting down the shredders trivial), as well it is very easy to A-move with a heavy sphinx+commando comp. The second half of mission 3 can end up being pretty easy as well, only having to cast goo once every few seconds and just watching your enforcer bunkers tearing apart stragglers, mammoth bugs aren't just threatening (or heavily armored) enough against them and their ~70 bunker DPS aura of death. And in mission 4, attack waves heading to expansions can be frustrating because of how slow (or damaging) it is to work your way through the swamp to engage. Many 2 and 4 attack waves can be defeated by running some guy in front of your army, have everyone target him, and just keep him moving.
Still, LifeForce manages to hit the things I like. Rewarding to use comps of multiple units? Absolutely! Every unit has at least some place that it's good. `Difficult enough that I'm not bored (Brutal SC2 campaign player)? Yes!
Obligatory balance suggestions:
In conclusion:
Rating: I'm going to rate this "higher than The Master" (seriously, look at the guy's lines. Lay off the vespene a little. "only one to get past the trials?" More like only one with a high enough tolerance that you're not completely brainpanned)
Life Lessons from LifeForce:
0
0
Just a small word of congratulations that the map is currently the TOP RATED map on NA! Well deserved!
0
One improvement to make it clearer that you have to stay out of neutral territories might be giving them nigh-invincible production and army instead of a simple land block.
Since neutrals are very large, I didn't notice spain was neutral and spent a good 5 minutes trying to march my army around there.