Regarding the terrany feeling of abilities I just want to illustrate what I thought when reading the abilities for the mech you posted earlier.
Now bear in mind these are just my own opinions and maybe you already changed it but thats why I said what I said in my post.
Energy Feedback. Creates a consuming vortex in the target area. Deals 15% of target's health as damage per second. Units damaged by the vortex will cause the vortex to grow in size and effect.
Seeker Barrage. Launches a seeker missile every 0.2 second for 2 seconds against a random unit.
wow slow down the terran basically rip desecration from the lich king.. ok..but why the hell would the terran guys roll around and throw the original before-beta-mothership-black-hole at their enemies?
seeker missiles en masse? awesome gimme
So to sum it up only 4 abilities out of the 10(Harpoon, Slow, Overload, Seeker Barrage) gave me the vibe to fit a terran goliath/thor.
The rest seemed somewhat random. For example it seems you wanted to give the mech some aoe capabilities with Energy Feedback and decay, why not use hunter seeker for aoe instead? Also according to what you said on the last page you already have many weapons that cover aoe so why would you even create so many aoe abilities? See thats why i said better cut some abilities that just end up interfering with the buildable thingies and really add nothing new to the game.
Imo what will end up to differentiate the vehicletypes will be the abilities because everyone can build the same stuff in the hangar. Thats why they should be iconic and not dip into each other.
Examples:
OMG there is a fucking laser beam coming from the sky better avoid this and search for the scout who channels it!
/or/
holy crap this area is under heavy siege-tank fire better search for the deployed tank and take him out while he can't move!)
thats just me though. :P
ps:whew i have quite the tendency to type long posts
Right i agree but you got to see the bigger picture.
In dota there are many many abilities like deals x damage, stuns, aoe damage,... but in catalyst the damageabilities are already covered with the stuff you build in the weapons bay, summoning abilities are already covered because of the factories you can build and who knows maybe you can also build armorupgrades, energyregen-generators and whatnot in there.
Soo if you do not want a bunch of generic abilities for different vehicles that do the same thing and are only called differently you have to cut some of them.
Also abilities are really not that much of a customization tool in catalyst because of all the stuff you can do with the hangar.
its just a different approach in these two maps i guess
Alright your take on turrets sounds really good i did not know that so i could only guess obviously.^^
If you really want to have 5 tiers for abilities and 3 choices per tier you will run out of ideas that dont feel generic for new classes (protoss) really soon (gotta save some stuff for later throwing too much at the player is not always good for gameplay). I would suggest either reduce the choice per tier to 2 or reduce tiers to 4.
So I went with the 5 tiers 2 choices approach, I tried to keep the abilities terran based (no black holes/gravity stuff thats for protoss xD) with enough choices and synergies to feel right. Numbers are just guesses so don't blame me on that.I used some of your abilities and threw some passives into the mix course nobody uses 5 active abilities consistently anyways.
Here goes:
Tank
Tier 1:
Harpoon(drags enemys towards you)
Containment Field(60% dmg reduction, tank cannot move)
Tier 2:
Grinder(enemies near tank take 10% of their life as damage per second for 8 seconds, slows them by 20%, uses the Terratron Saw Missile model stuck to the tank(awesome xD))
Deploy shield
Tier 3:
Field Repair(tank gains hefty live regen when under 60% health, uses Fire Supression Bots as animation from campaign)
Heavy Plating(passive, -5% speed -15% dmg taken(could also work like cloak where you activate it and it drains energy per sec))
Tier 4:
Draw fire(forces all enemies to attack the tank, good for rescuing allys)
Smoke Bomb
Tier 5:
Siege Bombardment(Tank deploys and dispenses a major asswhooping in targetarea, could be a one-time-spell or something similar to normal siege mode, dunno if models still upgrade but even the A.R.E.S. has a cool animation for that where he retracts his guns and gets some heavy missile launchers on his back)
Defense Matrix(targetable, 40% of tanks hp as shields)
Mech
Tier 1:
Blackout Missile(Drains 200 Shields/100 Energy, Stuns target for 0.5 seconds every 1.5 seconds lasts 6 seconds)
Snare(snares area by 75%)
Tier 2:
Hunter Seeker
A.W.I.S.(Automatized Weapon Install Systems, decreases buildingcost of turrets/weapons (and corresponding upgrades?) by 10%)(could do something similar for a carrier type with factories, since i don't know if you can build armor upgrades in your hangar i did not include something similar for the tank)
Tier 3:
Electric Induction(applies dot for 5 seconds on target, dot refreshes whenever target moves and stacks up to 5 times, target has to stop moving for 5 seconds to dispell dot(+ hunter seeker = awesome xD))
Overload( 3 second cast, deals 40% dmg, stuns for 2 seconds)
Tier 4:
Overdrive(+20% weapon-/movementspeed, 20% selfdamage over duration)
Target Disruptor(slows enemys weaponspeed by 40%)
Tier 5:
Seeker Barrage
Damage Amplifier(4 sec Debuff, when debuff expires deals the damage target received during those 4 seconds as aoe around target and to target itself)
Also got lots of ideas for a scout class:
(scout should be fastest unit or maybe as fast as fighter, bit less hp than mech)
Tier 1:
T.G.N.(temporal gravity nullifier, basically a jump ability, scout can cross unpathable terrain with it)
Engine Upgrade(20% faster Movement)
Tier 2:
Spider Mines(they should also jump at airunits, you can deploy like 10 or so at once)
Weapon nullifier(stops targets weaponsystems for 5 seconds)
Tier 3:
Bugging Device(lasts for 2 minutes on target, you get to see everything around target)
Scan(scans area,reveals cloaked stuff, scanned enemys take 10% more damage)
Tier 4:
Electromagnetic Mine(triggered mines create a huge area where enemys are slowed by 90% and their energy gets drained pretty fast)
Camouflage(scout only attacks with 20% weapon speed but enemys more than 4 units away from the scout cannot attack him)
Tier 5:
K.I.S.S.(kickass intelligent spider swarm(xD), creates 6 hunter mines that swarm around the scout(like the old drones) and suicide into enemies, are as fast(or faster) as the scout)
Ion Cannon Uplink(immobilizes the scout, long castrange, creates a slow moving Ion Beam at target location that can be moved around by the player, deals hefty area damage over time)
So thats it for now, maybe some ideas for the fighter will come to me who knows. I hope you can use some of this for catalyst i certainly had fun imagining it xD.
I also added a map where i jerked around a bit synchronizing portraits with the valkyrie sound from sc1 and stumbled upon some really cool models that where basically never used anywhere. There is even one for a Doom-bot or a little tank drone.Maybe you wanna use some of these dunno.
So first I want to say this stuff looks good so far my only concern is that you will end up with too many "turret" weapons who will do whatever they want with no ability to target for example enemy players or other important stuff and as result leaving you basically only with the option to move around and use abilities.
Even if the ai lets them target enemy players automatically over mobs thats still bad gameplay because it involves no attention and reaction from the players it just happens.
As for the vehicle abilities, i have lots of ideas but i like to modulate them around the vehicles that will use them, so if you could point out which classes(and models for the classes) will be in the game the concepts will start flowing :P
Well sorry but i don't like your idea for several reasons:
the more bases you control the less gas you gain - aint that a bit counterintuitive? so you have many nice bases but you can`t actually build stuff on them? hmmm
also what are the defenders goin to do with all the vespene they gain? build turrets? cause the mercenaries for vespene are only available if you build the mercbuildings on one of the outposts. atleast thats what eiviyn recently said will be the case.
and the worst: so the defenders gain less minerals-> have less upgrades than the controling players and just get owned. sorry but that just means you can never really get a leg up after a bad start and it results in frustrating gameplay imo. balance between players should never be broken for whatever reasons
i think the system right now - vespene as the gameender resource - is fine enough.
the atackers will eventually be able to buy enough mercs to break the defenders defense but it is easy enough for like 3 players to sneak out and cut of the attackers bases rendering them unable to kill your dropzone (after all you can only kill them if the line of bases towards your opponent is under your control), stopping creepreinforcements and diverting the attackers.
------
the resourcesystem you suggested on the other hand where the killer gains 40% and the rest is distributet was actually pretty good. this should work for playerkills and creepkills the same way.
there could also be a quest for healertypes (at the moment you gain a bunch of minerals for killing 3 players or a certan number of creeps) like heal allies by 1000 health, heal allies by 2000 health and so on. dunno if you can even count healing done to allies per triggers but that would encourage building a healer
-----
and the last thing eiviyn PLEASE make it possible to minimize the frigging huge killboardthingie in the top right corner of the screen. i guess this doesn't just annoy me :P in a 5 vs 5 it is just big and clunky.
I just played the new terrain and i think it is pretty awesome.
Flyers now have a real advantage with all the unpathable terrain which justifies the loss in stats compared to groundchassis.
Also regarding what ililili said about enemys being able to buy turrets on enemy capture points:
i dunno if it is possible but it would really help if you could only build turrets if the capture point is actually captured by your faction.
The only thing i didn't like was the water. Dunno just doesn't fit with the metal/city theme of the map. personally i would throw some buildings/generators/electric stuff down there.
Well it actually is quite popular but since the last popularityreset it's frozen at 0 popularity like storm of the imperial sanctum.
From time to time i try join a game of catalyst and even though you have to scroll down 999 times there is more often than not atleast 1 guy in the lobby.
Lets hope that this bug gets fixed after the next reset.
Hi Eiviyn dunno if you just didn't see it or choose to ignore it but it would be pretty cool if you could share your thoughts regarding chassis-balance at the moment.
My post is at page 29 i think it is somewhat productive xD.
Anyways great map and dont give up just because blizzard did a sucky job with the popularity system.
Would be a pain if your map got drowned because of this crap.
Ok but i thought fighters are for you know fighting stuff xD as healer most of the time you just stay behind your tanks healing the holy crap out of them so the weaknesses i was adressing (low health/not really microable against enemys with same weaponrange/less slots for stuff) by default dont matter that much.
It also further proves my point that tanks with healing capability in any form are pretty unstoppable atm (except by pure offensive tanks/mechs with cannons/mgs and all the dmg-inceasing stuff).
Alright thanks for your suggestions will try it out if i come around to play a bit but the thing is i already use armorrepair+heavy armor and machineguns just not as fighter but as tank - and i literally faceroll my way to victory its kinda dumb. this is why i cant wrap my head around the idea that it is so much harder as a fighter.
I think a first step do get some mid-game balance would be to give the tier2 banshee 4 weapon slots and not 3 after all tanks and mechs at tier 2 also have 4 weapon slots.
Alright maybe i just suck at controling a fighter but mathematically it is impossible for you to win against a mech/tank given same weapon choices.
He has more hp/shields than you and same/more weapon slots. the end
also if you are bound to cliffabusing to use a vehicle somewhat effectively thats no fun in my eyes QQ
One game i tried a fighter-machinegun-bombing build it was fun as hell steathing to the enemy and oneshotting them with mines but it only worked once because after that they just stopped standing under distorted areas. QQ
If i tried approaching without stealth i died faster than a fly that comes into contact with a windshield at 200kmh.
Sure some of you may say dont engage the enemy alone then, its a teamplaymap duh!!11!!!1!
But sadly 1v1 imbalances translate to 2v2/3v3 fights all the same.
0
Regarding the terrany feeling of abilities I just want to illustrate what I thought when reading the abilities for the mech you posted earlier. Now bear in mind these are just my own opinions and maybe you already changed it but thats why I said what I said in my post.
Alright decision between 2 different abilities that control enemy movement.cool.
Yet another snare.. hmmm ok
ok thats basically a psi storm dunno feels somewhat ... uhm think hard...protossy
ok cool a melee-dmg thingie sounds neat but wouldn't it fit a heavy armored unit better to be a battering ram(tank)?
cool a knockback thingie but... hmmm forcewave/gravity - stuff again feels protossy
alright a dmg/stun thingie ok sweet
again the forcewavestuff feels protossy
wow slow down the terran basically rip desecration from the lich king.. ok..but why the hell would the terran guys roll around and throw the original before-beta-mothership-black-hole at their enemies?
seeker missiles en masse? awesome gimme
So to sum it up only 4 abilities out of the 10(Harpoon, Slow, Overload, Seeker Barrage) gave me the vibe to fit a terran goliath/thor. The rest seemed somewhat random. For example it seems you wanted to give the mech some aoe capabilities with Energy Feedback and decay, why not use hunter seeker for aoe instead? Also according to what you said on the last page you already have many weapons that cover aoe so why would you even create so many aoe abilities? See thats why i said better cut some abilities that just end up interfering with the buildable thingies and really add nothing new to the game.
Imo what will end up to differentiate the vehicletypes will be the abilities because everyone can build the same stuff in the hangar. Thats why they should be iconic and not dip into each other.
Examples: OMG there is a fucking laser beam coming from the sky better avoid this and search for the scout who channels it! /or/ holy crap this area is under heavy siege-tank fire better search for the deployed tank and take him out while he can't move!)
thats just me though. :P
ps:whew i have quite the tendency to type long posts
0
@Ryaneko: Go
Right i agree but you got to see the bigger picture. In dota there are many many abilities like deals x damage, stuns, aoe damage,... but in catalyst the damageabilities are already covered with the stuff you build in the weapons bay, summoning abilities are already covered because of the factories you can build and who knows maybe you can also build armorupgrades, energyregen-generators and whatnot in there.
Soo if you do not want a bunch of generic abilities for different vehicles that do the same thing and are only called differently you have to cut some of them. Also abilities are really not that much of a customization tool in catalyst because of all the stuff you can do with the hangar.
its just a different approach in these two maps i guess
0
Alright your take on turrets sounds really good i did not know that so i could only guess obviously.^^
If you really want to have 5 tiers for abilities and 3 choices per tier you will run out of ideas that dont feel generic for new classes (protoss) really soon (gotta save some stuff for later throwing too much at the player is not always good for gameplay). I would suggest either reduce the choice per tier to 2 or reduce tiers to 4.
So I went with the 5 tiers 2 choices approach, I tried to keep the abilities terran based (no black holes/gravity stuff thats for protoss xD) with enough choices and synergies to feel right. Numbers are just guesses so don't blame me on that.I used some of your abilities and threw some passives into the mix course nobody uses 5 active abilities consistently anyways. Here goes:
Tank
Tier 1:
Tier 2:
Tier 3:
Tier 4:
Tier 5:
Mech
Tier 1:
Tier 2:
Tier 3:
Tier 4:
Tier 5:
Also got lots of ideas for a scout class: (scout should be fastest unit or maybe as fast as fighter, bit less hp than mech)
Tier 1:
Tier 2:
Tier 3:
Tier 4:
Tier 5:
So thats it for now, maybe some ideas for the fighter will come to me who knows. I hope you can use some of this for catalyst i certainly had fun imagining it xD.
I also added a map where i jerked around a bit synchronizing portraits with the valkyrie sound from sc1 and stumbled upon some really cool models that where basically never used anywhere. There is even one for a Doom-bot or a little tank drone.Maybe you wanna use some of these dunno.
0
So first I want to say this stuff looks good so far my only concern is that you will end up with too many "turret" weapons who will do whatever they want with no ability to target for example enemy players or other important stuff and as result leaving you basically only with the option to move around and use abilities.
Even if the ai lets them target enemy players automatically over mobs thats still bad gameplay because it involves no attention and reaction from the players it just happens.
As for the vehicle abilities, i have lots of ideas but i like to modulate them around the vehicles that will use them, so if you could point out which classes(and models for the classes) will be in the game the concepts will start flowing :P
0
@Eiviyn: Go
why dont you try to tell us about that idea of yours? maybe someone clever can come up with a solution. this is a forum for mappers after all ^^
0
@bigbluemonkey555: Go
Well sorry but i don't like your idea for several reasons:
the more bases you control the less gas you gain - aint that a bit counterintuitive? so you have many nice bases but you can`t actually build stuff on them? hmmm
also what are the defenders goin to do with all the vespene they gain? build turrets? cause the mercenaries for vespene are only available if you build the mercbuildings on one of the outposts. atleast thats what eiviyn recently said will be the case.
and the worst: so the defenders gain less minerals-> have less upgrades than the controling players and just get owned. sorry but that just means you can never really get a leg up after a bad start and it results in frustrating gameplay imo. balance between players should never be broken for whatever reasons
i think the system right now - vespene as the gameender resource - is fine enough.
the atackers will eventually be able to buy enough mercs to break the defenders defense but it is easy enough for like 3 players to sneak out and cut of the attackers bases rendering them unable to kill your dropzone (after all you can only kill them if the line of bases towards your opponent is under your control), stopping creepreinforcements and diverting the attackers.
------the resourcesystem you suggested on the other hand where the killer gains 40% and the rest is distributet was actually pretty good. this should work for playerkills and creepkills the same way.
there could also be a quest for healertypes (at the moment you gain a bunch of minerals for killing 3 players or a certan number of creeps) like heal allies by 1000 health, heal allies by 2000 health and so on. dunno if you can even count healing done to allies per triggers but that would encourage building a healer
-----and the last thing eiviyn PLEASE make it possible to minimize the frigging huge killboardthingie in the top right corner of the screen. i guess this doesn't just annoy me :P in a 5 vs 5 it is just big and clunky.
0
@TheAlmaity: Go
You know the new -shield + hp item doesnt stack right? it says even [does not stack] ^^
they would otherwise render heavy platings pretty useless
Right thats a good idea Eiviyn you should colour [does not stack] in red so it actually stands out from all the green text.
0
I just played the new terrain and i think it is pretty awesome.
Flyers now have a real advantage with all the unpathable terrain which justifies the loss in stats compared to groundchassis.
Also regarding what ililili said about enemys being able to buy turrets on enemy capture points: i dunno if it is possible but it would really help if you could only build turrets if the capture point is actually captured by your faction.
The only thing i didn't like was the water. Dunno just doesn't fit with the metal/city theme of the map. personally i would throw some buildings/generators/electric stuff down there.
0
@acidragoon: Go
Well it actually is quite popular but since the last popularityreset it's frozen at 0 popularity like storm of the imperial sanctum.
From time to time i try join a game of catalyst and even though you have to scroll down 999 times there is more often than not atleast 1 guy in the lobby.
Lets hope that this bug gets fixed after the next reset.
0
Hi Eiviyn dunno if you just didn't see it or choose to ignore it but it would be pretty cool if you could share your thoughts regarding chassis-balance at the moment.
My post is at page 29 i think it is somewhat productive xD.
Anyways great map and dont give up just because blizzard did a sucky job with the popularity system. Would be a pain if your map got drowned because of this crap.
gl
0
@booom3: Go
Ok but i thought fighters are for you know fighting stuff xD as healer most of the time you just stay behind your tanks healing the holy crap out of them so the weaknesses i was adressing (low health/not really microable against enemys with same weaponrange/less slots for stuff) by default dont matter that much.
It also further proves my point that tanks with healing capability in any form are pretty unstoppable atm (except by pure offensive tanks/mechs with cannons/mgs and all the dmg-inceasing stuff).
0
@TheAlmaity: Go
Alright thanks for your suggestions will try it out if i come around to play a bit but the thing is i already use armorrepair+heavy armor and machineguns just not as fighter but as tank - and i literally faceroll my way to victory its kinda dumb. this is why i cant wrap my head around the idea that it is so much harder as a fighter.
I think a first step do get some mid-game balance would be to give the tier2 banshee 4 weapon slots and not 3 after all tanks and mechs at tier 2 also have 4 weapon slots.
0
my point is that the pretty hefty drawbacks regarding stats and slots currently arent justified with the argument ''Duh you can fly!''.
Thats why i was suggesting in my first post that every chassis needs a chassis-specific ability to give it a role it is good at.
Otherwise everyone uses the best thing mech/tank and that is pretty boring
0
@Ryaneko: Go
alright its true a fighter can have more hp than a NONUPGRADED ares i know but that sadly proves nothing at all
dusk wing: 700hp/300shields/4 armorslots/2Shieldslots/max upgraded:4120hp/shield
ares : 1200hp/600shields/5armorslots/5shieldslots/max upgraded:7200hp/shield
i dont want to sound like a jackass but these are the facts :P
0
Alright maybe i just suck at controling a fighter but mathematically it is impossible for you to win against a mech/tank given same weapon choices. He has more hp/shields than you and same/more weapon slots. the end
also if you are bound to cliffabusing to use a vehicle somewhat effectively thats no fun in my eyes QQ
One game i tried a fighter-machinegun-bombing build it was fun as hell steathing to the enemy and oneshotting them with mines but it only worked once because after that they just stopped standing under distorted areas. QQ If i tried approaching without stealth i died faster than a fly that comes into contact with a windshield at 200kmh.
Sure some of you may say dont engage the enemy alone then, its a teamplaymap duh!!11!!!1! But sadly 1v1 imbalances translate to 2v2/3v3 fights all the same.