SC2Mapster

Transcendence RPG

Greetings,

I have been working on this Hero Base Defense RPG for quite some time now and, generally, I believe it is complete. I was wondering if some of you wonderful people would mind testing it for me. You can find it on battle.net (U.S.) under the name Transcendence RPG.

Here is a (very old) video demonstrating a little of the game from beta:

Map's Features:

• The ultimate goal is to defend Queen Morah for 50 minutes. The game is won by defeating King Wicker who arrives at the end of the timer.

• You begin by choosing one of five heroes. Each hero has six abilities (including an ultimate), may gain experience/learning points and obtain loot. The heroes may also build structures, hire mercenaries and purchase upgrades.

• The game is quite unique because, while there is a "primary" base to defend, there are also two others that contain Shrines of Morah. These shrines must be defended because, if destroyed, the enemy (including bosses) will be positively handicapped by 35%.

• Although this is a Base Defense RPG, there is more to do other than defend as there are "special" respawning enemies in labeled areas that provide additional experience/minerals and improved loot. The gameworld also contains Bob's Bazaar, a place to sell excess loot, and Domains of Sanctuary that provide healing.

• Your hero has an unlimited number of lives but respawns after a delay and with reduced energy. There are common/rare/epic/legendary items and I plan on adding more later. I also plan on adding additional heroes, a save system, difficulty modes (the game is currently balanced based on the number of players), balance changes, and more content.

I did my best to make the map look good and be exciting without causing lag. I also polished it extensively to get rid of all the bugs I could find and I tried to make it easy to understand. If you find any bugs or something else that you believe is wrong or should be changed, please let me know.

Thank you,

Potfish

Changelog - 1.7

• A Splinter Turret now defends Queen Morah.
• Shrines of Morah are now equipped with Star Pulsars.
• Status bars on numerous feeble enemies have been removed to reduce lag.
• Enemies are no longer ordered to attack heroes after they spawn at the Altar of Heroes.
• Heroes now respawn with full health but reduced energy.
• Queen Morah now has the Plasma Grenade ability.

@A52BcE: Go

That's weird - I guess I messed up. The respawn was supposed to be half health and half mana. I will fix it now. I don't think that Force Field buff would be very good, but I made sure that each hero has a good escape mechanism. All of the heroes have an ability that lets them ignore unit collision, so you can activate it and run away even though you may be completely surrounded.

@A52BcE: Go

I updated the map with a lot of your considerations. Thanks a bunch.

More feedback would be lovely. I think I know a friend who could upload to EU for me. Oh, and I have been working on a new hero who basically revolves around towers and/or minions.

@A52BcE: Go

I need someone to upload to EU for me. :(

@A52BcE: Go

Well, right now there is only one legendary item in the game, and it has a (very low) chance to drop off any boss (including Albator).

@A52BcE: Go

You are a genius. I have been trying to figure out why the bunkers would suddenly stop firing and what would happen to the marines; the Solars cleaving through them explains it.

I agree with just about everything else you said. For one, I planned on making the healing stations provide % based health, but I think I can only do this through triggers. Your suggestion for Force Field is also genius.

@A52BcE: Go

I made it so that the map's difficulty is now set based on the number of active players. All of Queen Morah's forces have their attack damage and maximum health increased for every missing player. I am not sure what the numbers should be so I know this map has severe balancing issues.

Anyway, I will add in dialog options to change the difficulty manually when I get the time. I would love to host on EU but I need someone to do it for me. :(

Transcendence RPG

Greetings,

This is the old thread that someone bumped, so I will just put the updated information here as well.

I have been working on this Hero Base Defense RPG for quite some time now and, generally, I believe it is complete. I was wondering if some of you wonderful people would mind testing it for me. You can find it on battle.net (U.S.) under the name Transcendence RPG.

Here is a (very old) video demonstrating a little of the game from beta:

Map's Features:

• The ultimate goal is to defend Queen Morah for 50 minutes. The game is won by defeating King Wicker who arrives at the end of the timer.

• You begin by choosing one of five heroes. Each hero has six abilities (including an ultimate), may gain experience/learning points and obtain loot. The heroes may also build structures, hire mercenaries and purchase upgrades.

• The game is quite unique because, while there is a "primary" base to defend, there are also two others that contain Shrines of Morah. These shrines must be defended because, if destroyed, the enemy (including bosses) will be positively handicapped by 35%.

• Although this is a Base Defense RPG, there is more to do other than defend as there are "special" respawning enemies in labeled areas that provide additional experience/minerals and improved loot. The gameworld also contains Bob's Bazaar, a place to sell excess loot, and Domains of Sanctuary that provide healing.

• Your hero has an unlimited number of lives but respawns after a delay and with reduced energy. There are common/rare/epic/legendary items and I plan on adding more later. I also plan on adding additional heroes, a save system, difficulty modes (the game is currently balanced based on the number of players), balance changes, and more content.

I did my best to make the map look good and be exciting without causing lag. I also polished it extensively to get rid of all the bugs I could find and I tried to make it easy to understand. If you find any bugs or something else that you believe is wrong or should be changed, please let me know.

Thank you,

Potfish

Changelog - 1.7

• A Splinter Turret now defends Queen Morah.
• Shrines of Morah are now equipped with Star Pulsars.
• Status bars on numerous feeble enemies have been removed to reduce lag.
• Enemies are no longer ordered to attack heroes after they spawn at the Altar of Heroes.
• Heroes now respawn with full health but reduced energy.
• Queen Morah now has the Plasma Grenade ability.

Greetings,

I am making a map that includes loot from killed enemies. I added custom tooltips so that players can see what items they are about to pick up without having to check through their inventory. I did this through Units -> Item Actor -> UI Highlight Tooltip. When I hit test document, the tooltips appear nicely and there are no issues.

However, when the map is published and I am testing it online, these tooltips suddenly disappear. I have been trying to figure out how to solve this problem for quite a while now, but to no avail.

I would appreciate any assistance.

Thank you,

Potfish

Thanks for all the feedback, guys. I changed a lot of things and now the map is out of beta. Actually, I got way more feedback from my REAL ID friends, but you were all helpful, too.

I learned a lot about the editor. Perhaps one day I will make something else.

So, I was fooling around with the data editor and finally got a nice powerup system working. They have a chance to drop off any enemy but a greater chance to drop off special enemies. Killing an enemy Dungeon Keeper will drop one of each powerup. They all provide a 40-second buff to the first Keeper that walks over them and are color-coded so players know which buff to expect.

Quote from ZealNaga: Go

@Pottfish: Go

...LOL. Quote:

If I had the lost the "war", and it is sad that you think this is a "war", then the map would have a different name. As far as I know the map is still called Dungeon Keeper.

Not anymore... So we were only a few to give the advice but we were right, weren't we? The voice of majority just tells you to remain a sheep in the flock, I personally think it doesn't serve your purpose. Keeping the name implies being amongst the few maps that nobody will ever care about because there are already "monsters" in place. If your project is different from those "monsters", name it otherwise. Pretty simple for anyone to understand and I'm glad you did.

@redmarine: Go

Yeah... Actually, let's ban everyone who disagree with someone. They are so evil. Burn the witches! Oh wait... Aren't we all witches?

@Szei: Go

"War" is just a word here. My point being that he shouldn't deny every advice given because it could only end in one way: he'll get flamed. And a few members in the forums will probably disagree with each other, in the process. "War" is a strong word but the idea is still here though... Quote:

How is that disrespect? He's not saying, "My map is going to be better than your map!"

The name of his map was confusing for 2 reasons: - it could be mistaken for the original game (Dungeon Keeper) - it could be mistaken for the SC2 mod (Hive Keeper) Keeping the same name despite all the advices which went against the idea is just like saying "I don't care about what the others did, I don't care about your advices, because my map has nothing to do with them anyway". Don't tell me you don't see what's wrong with that... Quote:

If you feel your advice is valid and Pottfish still will not take it, then forget about it. You tried to help him and he refused. No need to pursue the matter.

Fair enough. ;) By the way, I would probably have tested his map anyway if I were in NA.

@Zsteven44: Go

15 maps with the same kind of name just proves lack of creativity. One of them being on top of the popularity list doesn't mean anything but map being boosted. What's wrong with having the same name is that you are amongst X other maps, mostly low quality maps by the way, so BNet users won't even care about yours.

@SouLCarveRR: Go

High number of posts never was a proof of cleverness and/or kindness. I know I get offended pretty easily by a few things, but it doesn't mean my advices are shit, and it doesn't mean I'm trolling either. As far as I know, I've given feedback and helped a lot of people here since I subscribed (and before that, on other forums), even if I use my own words and can be rough sometimes I don't think I've been such a nuisance so far with barely 200+ posts...

Think about it like this: two grand master ninjas are fighting over a final slice of pizza, but then in the middle of their epic duel with kicks, jumps, and shuriken throwing, one ninja says, "Actually, I'm not hungry anymore."

Quote from Abion47: Go

@Pottfish: Go

I'm not even going to mention that you just readily accepted Szei's point in a heartbeat after I've spent the past few posts saying the exact same thing. I've resigned myself to the fact that if you cared about what I had to say, you would have said so when I first said it. It obviously can't be because you think I'm wrong, because you think Szei is right and we said the exact same thing. But whatever.

Here's my review of the game itself.

For the most part, it is a Jurassic Park/Kodo Tag clone. Right off the bat, you are given a worker (Imp) and a Dungeon Keeper and are told to go off and build a base, complete with walls, towers, and unit-spawning structures. In fact, the only real difference between this map and WC3's Kodo Tag is that there are "heroes" placed around the map that are much tougher, but provide a much bigger payoff.

That said, there is some of nostalgia in the units themselves being named after units in Dungeon Keeper, even though there is some artistic license in the actual units you can spawn (such as being able to spawn a cleric, even though that is a human unit in DK and therefore only obtainable via torture).

You start off with an amount of gold that you will easily not see again for a while, so there is the possibility of players abusing this and only building the portal building and spawning the best units right off the bat. However, most of those units are equipped to deal with the massive/heroic units you will typically be fighting later on in the game, and are thus ill equipped to be fighting off the early hordes.

There is some praise in a bit of originality in having the worker not be the guy you are trying to protect. That guy is your Dungeon Keeper: a hero that is quite strong in his own right, but when alone can easily be overrun and killed. Back him up with some trolls, on the other hand, and he is an insta-killing machine.

This bit of originality, however, seems to have the two-edged sword aspect in that the worker is invincible, making him the perfect scout and spy when he isn't building stuff which, given the limited number of buildings actually available, can happen a lot. And given the free-for-all feel of this map, this can easily become an unfair advantage over someone with an air-tight defense that the unit actually designed for scouting (Firefly) can't even walk in close proximity of without being smashed to a bloody pulp.

Here's some of the other minor gameplay bugs/annoyances I found: The Dungeon Keeper's knock back spell doesn't actually knock units back - it merely damages them. The spine crawlers positioned around the map (usually around hero units) make it extremely hard to kill those heroes early game, the trade-off of the units lost to the spine crawlers not being made up for by killing the heroes they protect. Also, if you start the game near a group of them, they can easily cripple if not kill your Dungeon Keeper. The limited selection of buildings and spells coupled with the lack of any surprises (nothing unlocks anything else) make the game to be a rather straightforward and therefore boring experience. If I might make a suggestion, make spells/items available as droppable items by heroes. This both gives a sense of exploration and gives a bigger reason to go after the heroes at all. It will also give another reference to your map's namesake. The unit "Solar" is visible on the minimap and through the fog of war. And when it finally reached me, it killed all of my units in about half a second, leaving my Dungeon Keeper wide open to direct attack. He was dead before I had time to retreat him. That is one seriously broken unit. There is no clear objective.

There. I played your map and gave my honest opinion about it. It has some potential, but currently holds little as far as something that distinguishes it from all the other Base Survival maps out there, but as this map is still in beta, that isn't necessarily my final opinion.

Oh, and by the way. The map itself holds reference to Dungeon Keeper in names only, but the title "Dungeon Keeper" is flaunted at every turn. Not only that, but you use the bloody Dungeon Keeper logo in both your map preview and the loading screen. So forgive me if I expected the game to be a bit more like Dungeon Keeper and less like what it actually is. Correct that by simply adding a descriptive suffix to your title like ZealNaga, Szei and I have been telling you to do, and you will get far less confusion from your testers and your end consumers.

I am trying to figure out a way that items/spells can be dropped from creatures while still being balanced in a sort of PvP map. I'm thinking they would need to have a 100% drop rate or provide some sort of very minor bonus, or maybe there could be a limit on the number of items that drop per player.

I also need to watch this tutorial i found on YouTube on how to do item drops because I don't know very much about the editor still ...

Oh, and the Spinecrawlers are there to prevent players from building turrets at the spawn points. I fixed that issue by reducing their damage but giving them a large bonus vs structures. I also never played Warcraft so I have no idea what Kodo Tag is.

It's called Dungeon Wars.

Anyway ... does anyone know how you can make it so that a building is prioritized by the AI? For example, I set the priority of a supply depot to 1000 or some absurd number, yet either way enemies do not attack them first. What have I done wrong?

Quote from Fullachain: Go

@Szei: Go Your Lord of the Ring example, yes people do call their maps LOTR, but they often add a prefix after to give ppl a general hint of what it's about, LOTR RPG, LOTR Helms Deep, LOTR RISK etc. etc.

That makes sense. You're right. Maybe I'll rename it to Dungeon Wars or Dungeon Keeper Arena when I get around to updating it.