Techtree Contest #4 - Improved Melee Race

[VeljkoM]

-Undead Remake-

Undead race that focuses more on skeletal and ghostly beings. Gameplay is similar to regular Blizzard gameplay with few exceptions. Also because of time I only have 2 heroes. I feel that race is unfinished sadly and hopefully I will remember to finish it after contest (the tooltips for example which are cursed by bad grammar).
View attachment (8)VeljkoM_Undead.w3x

*Skeletal Units can be upgraded with eternal servitude which makes them to raise again after death. Ghost-like units have small evasion.

Units:

units

-Skeleton Warrior - Basic melee unit that can be upgraded with more health
-Skeletal Archer - Basic range unit that can be upgraded to Ice Marksman or Burning archer. Burning Archer deals more damage whole Ice Marksman weakens enemy units.
-Skeletal Marauder - Advanced melee unit that after death turn to Grunt. With upgrade Grunt can be turn back to Marauder.
-Spectre - Anti-caster unit. Partly immune to magic, can feed of other units mana and can curse enemy unit to spawn ghost after death.
-Nerolyte - Offensive caster, can reduce attack of single unit, trap unit in ice and can place curse on enemy group.
-Skeletal Mage - Supporting cater, can animate corpse, enhance speed and attack of friendly unit and summon unholy ward from corpse to increase friendly nearby units attack.
-Corpse Wagon - Siege unit that carries corpses. Lacking unit...
-Sky Barge - Air builder unit. Can spread blight and make obelisks with healing ability, fear aura or spell assimilation ability.
-Wraith - Light Air unit that has AoE air damaging ability.
-Shadow Wyrm - Heavy Air unit. Has shadow fire that periodically attacks enemy units.

Heroes:

heroes

-Bone Ranger - Agility hero.
*Illusion Walk that acts like combination of wind walk and mirror image
*Plagued arrow that damages targeted unit over time and make its attacks to miss
*Multi Shot, fires multiple arrows in one direction. Damage and number of arrows depends of level.
*Unholy Power, increases attack damage, speed and give AoE attack. It uses mana until its deactivated.

-Archlich - Intelligent hero
*Death Coil Chain, casts death coil that bounces of enemy and friendly units. Damages or heals like regular death coil.
*Plague Curse, Reduces armor and attack speed of enemy unit group.
*Dark ritual...like regular lich ability.
*Festering Doom, damages unit in area and reanimates any corpses for small duration of time.

Base defense:
-After building is destroyed group of ghosts are spawned.
-Also instead of towers, Graves (food production building) can raise skeletons as defense.
-Sky barge can summon obelisks that act like weak version of towers but are limited to 5 per obelisk type (duo to low cost and fast construction). Sky barge can desummon.

-Update: Fixed fair amount of bugs... I am sure that there are more out there somewhere...

Action Shot

 

[Direfury]

Unfortunately, I couldn't manage to finalize my race like I planned, so I'll just throw this in now.

 

[JokeMaster]

But ya know it's after the time, right?

 

[Wazzz]

I submitted mine ages ago because I'm awesome.

 

[Direfury]

Yes, I know I'm a bit late, but my connection was a little too hazy for me to upload anything last night. I'm hoping it's still acceptable.

 

[D a w n]

Gah, Map uploaded. Hopefully everything is play-worthy, didn't get much time to test it.

-edit- woops, fixed set player settings. Now this is my final submission, hope this still counts.

-edit edit- that should fix the demon hunter dependencies

-edit edit edit- ok, removed some target dummies I forgot to get rid of. Now this is my final version I swear.

nice race, but you cannot get that orb item and the first sukkubus skill is bugged. it does not give 60 extra hp, but 600 instead D:

 

[Marcelo Hossomi]

Failed...

 

[67chrome]

Wait - was the extension until 11:59pm? For some reason I was thinking the submission date was the 12th but it's on the 12th. If it's PM I still have time to balance out and fix a few things

 

[The World Is Flat]

Purrrfect

 

[Sage Chow]

Submission time for me! xD I got about 70% done of what i originally intended to do, so that's ok i guess. I wanted to model the sentry tower, fungovor vine and armory, aswell as adding two ultimate units (like the frozen throne uber) of which the player can choose one. And maybe make a model/skin for the moon-ranger and mountain druid. Anyways, I've played my race for about 10 minutes, so balancing could be an issue. It's the time.. I'll make it better once I start mapping the campaign.

My starting point was to keep the spells relatively simple, so i wouldn't have to worry about lag. Time will tell if this worked, though.. I also wanted to have the melee AI understand how to play this race, so i haven't done a custom entangle goldmine spell yet. But i do think i'll make it later. A temple entangling a goldmine is a bit weird..

I'll edit in a long description of units and spells later today. The main system is that all units have a passive skill that activates on day/night or rain/sun/hail events. I also made some spells whose effect and damage may change on this and two units that morph at night.
The heroes can buy items from the shop to set the weather, or have a lvl 4 ultimate that summons weather. Eg: The river druid (rain) and the forest druid (sunlight) should be chosen for the weatherpath. (They cán be used together, but might get in the way of eachother). The other heroes are the perfect partner heroes to them. The moonranger is better at night, but the ultimate (eclipse) will enable Astology and a weather-lock to still be usefull with the forest druid. The mountain druid is the ultimate tank and is a pivot point for the entire race.

Here's one pic I quickly snapped and the map:

 

[Direfury]

Small tip, I did most of my testing right from the editor, usually in a 1v1. An earlier test was in a full on FFA 8 player game, and my old set-up trigger didn't seem to work out that well, I'm not sure if it works now, either.

 

[The_Swamp_Warrior]

Submission time for me! xD I got about 70% done of what i originally intended to do, so that's ok i guess. I wanted to model the sentry tower, fungovor vine and armory, aswell as adding two ultimate units (like the frozen throne uber) of which the player can choose one. And maybe make a model/skin for the moon-ranger and mountain druid. Anyways, I've played my race for about 10 minutes, so balancing could be an issue. It's the time.. I'll make it better once I start mapping the campaign.

My starting point was to keep the spells relatively simple, so i wouldn't have to worry about lag. Time will tell if this worked, though.. I also wanted to have the melee AI understand how to play this race, so i haven't done a custom entangle goldmine spell yet. But i do think i'll make it later. A temple entangling a goldmine is a bit weird..

I'll edit in a long description of units and spells later today. The main system is that all units have a passive skill that activates on day/night or rain/sun/hail events. I also made some spells whose effect and damage may change on this and two units that morph at night.
The heroes can buy items from the shop to set the weather, or have a lvl 4 ultimate that summons weather. Eg: The river druid (rain) and the forest druid (sunlight) should be chosen for the weatherpath. (They cán be used together, but might get in the way of eachother). The other heroes are the perfect partner heroes to them. The moonranger is better at night, but the ultimate (eclipse) will enable Astology and a weather-lock to still be usefull with the forest druid. The mountain druid is the ultimate tank and is a pivot point for the entire race.

Here's one pic I quickly snapped and the map:

Sage chow, Um.. i didnt think you were supposed to edit the original rage...that among other flaws such as the pagoda refued to entangle the goldmine...

 

[Malcous]

@ Sage Chow : Your race is just brilliant ! I love the weather idea its very creative . The unit abilities are great and the effects and units/icons fit with the theme , too bad you dont have time to finish it :<

 

[Freyleyes]

4 hours left if my math did not fail me, just need to finish a few things

Edit :

Oooops, didn't see the deadline was this afternoon, I thought it was tonight

Here is what I have done so far, hopefully next time

 

[67chrome]

^^ I'm going to assume it was pm, though if not I'll leave my totally on-time version there.

Here is the new and improved Illidari race.
I fixed the issue with the coliskar reaver's skin showing weapon bits in odd places, imported and directed the predator's skin to use a custom model rather than the wyvern, tinkered with the tech tree a bit to make it feel smoother, filled the item shop with items, changed some spell descriptions around, made the warlord's aura do something, removed the succubus's buggy life-drain attack and gave her a normal one, made the crocadons smaller, made their acid capable of dealing a killing blow, and reduced the acid damage and duration. I changed the training grounds to a different model, turned it into a drop-off point for lumber, changed the rally point icon into a custom one, and a bunch of other minor fixes.

Link to racial overview and screenshots

 

[VeljkoM]

Uh updated my race in last second >>
Map is in same post as before.

Also good luck to you all and I'll test you races when voting begin if you don't mind. Easier to gather all submissions.

 

[GhostThruster]

Lol, it's the 13th in my country, but since it's GMT, I hope the update gets accepted.

Got time to fix up some things (most of these were reported by MogulKhan):
-Increased mana cost of Mind Break
-Changed Sea Ranger's voice
-Dream Harvest has cooldown
-Fixed up Frost Guard tooltip

I haven't my race much, so for all I know, it could be way imba (I realised early game they are pure ownage).

Now, some info:

Race Overview

My race's central theme is 'counter-defense'. This is not to be confused with aggression (which the Orcs use). Many of its elements also come from the Undead, as they are counter-defensive as well.
Basically, my Naga can-
Tank/turtle – eg.Barnacle Turtles
Hit'n'Run – eg. Tortoises
Slow – eg. Sea Dragons
Poison – eg. Water Hounds
En masse – eg. Infectors
Stun – eg. Reavers
Just about anything that can crush the enemy's defenses, hence my coined theme name.
Their strength lies in their versatility and strength when it comes to offense. Their weakness I believe is mainly aerial units. Somehow I think I made them accidently have no aerial resistance, with the exception of the Couatl (which can only kill itself and knock back flyers).

Another part of my race is the lumber gather system. Basically, you can have an unlimited supply of Lumber (like the Night Elves) and at a constant rate of 1 lumber/sec instead of 10 lumber/10 sec for units like Peasants. The trade-off is that Barnacle Turtles(which harvest Lumber from Coral Beds), although hard to kill and even able to effectively demolish enemy bases, cost 3 food. So you'd be sacrificing 9 food for a generation rate of 3 lumber/sec.

Techtree Overview

Units -
Summoner – basic worker. Summons strucutres, enchants and harvests gold from Enchanted Mines
Barnacle Turtle – gather Lumber from Coral Beds. Alternately can be an organic Siege Engine.
Water Hound – fast attacker. Can be used in a variety of ways eg. Hit'n'run, poison, tanking (with some research, it becomes very strong)
Infector – great army killer/spawner. Can devestate enemy army ranks, and replenish yours.
Ethereal – buffer. Useful as a support unit for your allied troops. Primary caster.
Reaver – debuffer. Useul as a support unit that buffs enemies. Secondary caster.
Couatl – air scout. Half scout/half anit-magic/half anti-air.
Tortoise – primary siege unit. Fast and deadly, and a great nuker.
Myrmidon – heavy disruptor. Good at harassment and tanking. A general pisser-offerer.
Hydra – nuker. Great at just damaging an entire armyful of foes. Can be anti-aerial I guess.
Sea Dragon – ultimate. Not only very capable of leading assaults, but also able to hinder enemies.

Buildings -
Temple of Tides(etc.) - Town Hall, nothing special. Trains Summoners and Barnacle Turtles
Breeding Pool – Barracks, weaker than the other races'. Trains Water Hounds and Infectors.
Abyss Forge – Research centre. Contains weapon and armor upgrades.
Tidal Guardian – Basic tower, nothing special.
Coral Bed – Food producer. Also can attach Barnacle Turtles to gather Lumber.
Altar of the Depths – Summons heroes. Revives slain heroes.
Spawning Grounds – Advanced barracks. Trains Tortoises, Myrmidons and Hydras.
Shrine of Azshara – Spellcaster building. Trains Ethereals, Reavers and Couatl.
Dragon Reef – Ultimate building. Trains Sea Dragons.
Reliquary – Sells items.
Enchanted Mine – A Naga-fied Haunted Gold Mine.

Heroes -
Tidal Lord – strength hero, able to run in headfirst and make it out in one piece.
-Tidal Wave, Rip Curl, Deepsea Aura and Spirits of Water
Watcher – agility hero, fast attack and support hero
-Warp Flurry, Cleansing Requiem, Swifstrike Aura and Sea Ranger
Dreamweaver – intelligence hero, capable nuker and buffer
-Dream Harvest, Mind Break, Mana Shield and Nightmare
Frost Guard – agility hero, good disruptor and encumberer
-Wall of Frost, Summon Ice Elemental, Cold Armor and Snap Freeze

GhosT's Naga

 

[Sage Chow]

Ok, i'll put up a little info and an update aswell. Parts of the credits didn't display and I added a build-time to the towers, screw the ugly upgrade art for now.. i'll model that later.

Random Pics

Race Info

I added an enviromental factor to this race to affect the playstyle and strategy based on global events:
- Certain units will function differently during the day than at night and certain abilities and units get boosted or nerfed depending on the daylight. The player must choose between buffing solar upgrades and make an relatively offence- inclined army or the nocternal upgrades, making a defence-oriented army that functions better at night.
- I implemented 3 global weather conditions that may enhance certain abilities. The elves are focussed on Rain and Sunlight. The hero choice and tech-tree choice can focus more on either one of these or make a combination to counter other teams. Certain units and summons function better than others during these weather events.
- I wanted several abilities to make use of the terrain. Special plants and trees give certain kinds of summons. (Reduced to save file space). The turtles need to be near water to deal more damage.

Unit Description

Nymph: The worker
- Entangled gold and NE lumber, can target plants aswell.
- Spirit Link -> Merge with a tree or plant to become a treant and attack enemies. Can be reversed.
- Seed -> Detonates the wisp to plant a random destructible plant.

Ranger: The ranged unit.
Passive: Marksmanship -> Increases attack speed during the day.
- Track: Reveal hidden units and gives vision of nearby enemies for 5 secs.

Sentinel: The staple melee unit.
Passive: Moon Resistance -> Enables magic resistance at night.
- Sword/Spear: Alternates weapon to activate piercing resistance and armor vs attack and movement speed. The spear can target air units.
- Mirror Shield: Gives a high chance to bounce enemy buffs on the source.
- Blaze Shield: Increases attack in a pinch.

Ballista: The siege unit.
Passive: Impaling Bolt -> Deal 25% bonus damage to stuctures during the day or to ground units at night. Effect is enhanced during Rain/Sun.

Moon Adept: Night support caster.
Passive: Raincoat -> Regenerates mana during rain.
- Autocast: Lunar Chant: Increase armor by 3/5 points. Skyrockets hitpoint regeneration when the target has Chlorophyll, Water Absorb or Aqua Shield.
- Mana Torrent: Restore 50 mana over 8 seconds, the mana combusts replenishing 35 mana in a medium area.
- Amnesia: Silences target for 12 seconds and cripples damage.

Sun Adept: Day support caster.
Passive: Solar Power -> Increasea damage in sunlight, decrease in rain.
- Autocast: Solar Boost -> Increase damage by 20/35%.
- Life Blaze: Heal 115 hitpoints over seconds, the energy combusts healing 85 health in a medium area.
- Amnesia: idem

Druid: Status caster/Ancient Supporter
Passive -> Leaf Guard: Block a spell every 30 seconds during sunlight.
Autocast -> Blossom: Increases ancients attack and movement speed by 25% but slows non ancient units. May spawn plants.
- Spore: Poisons non ancient units in AoE. Has a 15% chance to induce poison/stun.
- Abolish Magic (For now..)

Wolf Spirit: The offensive threat (one-on-one combat)
Passive: Chlorophyll -> Increase hitpoint regeneration in sunlight.
- Ivy Claw: Increases damage with each successive hit.

Night Wolf Spirit: The stalker (scout and annoyer)
Passive: Stealth -> Permanently invisible but has 50% hp.
- Shadow Claw -> Slows and deals poison damage on coordinated attack.
- Howl -> Increase damage once, may scare enemy into lowering attack.

Owl Spirit: The Flying unit (anti-air/ground annoyer)
Passive: Nocternal Spirit -> 20% to critical hits at night.
- Headwind -> Slow enemy movespeed on attack.
- Stormwind -> May trap a foe in a cyclone during rain.
- Bravebird -> Knock a target air-unit to the ground at 120 recoil damage

Turtle Spirit: The Tank (amphibious rain abuser)
Passive: Hydrophyll -> Only regenerates mana in rain or while in water. Increases damage and spell damage during rain.
- Spikes
- Resistant Skin
- Hydropump -> Deal damage in a line.
- Water Inlet -> Swimming in water, this can switch attacks, enabling a powerfull siege attack. Attacks 10 times before it's mana is drained. When cast on land it reverts back to the normal attack.

========== Heroes ============
The first two heroes are the main weather abusers, the latter two are partner heroes to team up with the weather changer.

Forest Druid: Bulky support caster.
Passive: Chlorophyll
- Seed Flare: Deals damage and blinds foes in AoE. May spawn a plant.
- Animate Nature: Summons a treant/vine from a target plant.
- Thorns Aura: Only affects ancient units and self.
- Healing Sun: Summons sunlight to boost sun-abilities. Heals units in AoE.

River Druid: Offence rain caster.
Passive: Torrent -> Attack deal 25% additional damage in rain.
- Hydropump: Deal damage in a line depending on weather.
- Water Elemental: Summon, has Torrent ability.
- Aqua Shield: Negates 200 spelldamage and adds hp regeneration.
- Lightning Storm: Summons rain to boost rain-abilities. Damage in AoE.

Mountain Druid: Taunt-Tank, defence partner hero.
Passive: Adaptability -> Increase herostats in special weather conditions.
- Roar: Taunts enemy and lowers attack damage.
- Quake: Damage and slow nearby enemies.
- Rock Skin: Reduce physical damage.
- 4 Seasons: Morph into 4 seasonal avatars with various weather abilities.

Moon Ranger: Status support hero, offence partner hero.
Passive: Night Evasion -> Increase evasion at night.
- Zephyr Arrows: Adds a secondary effect during eclipse/weather conditions.
- Barrage/Lunar Shield: Covers retreat with stunning arrows/makes nearby allies briefly invisible to escape or sneak past enemy lines, adds a spelshield.
- Elune's Grace: Increases attackrange and secondary spell effects. Adds a minor bonus to regeneration.
- Eclipse: Enable night abilities, set a weather-lock and causes amnesia on nearby enemy units.

credits

WilltheAlmighty - Ancient Turtle
Suselishe - Wolf (AncientofLife)
Sylvan Units - Calahan (Pyrolia Vine, Venolia Vine, Thorny Vine, Shroom)
Treasury - Red XIII
Nymph - Elenai
Ranger - General Frank (rewrapped)
Pagoda - Killst4r's (extensively remodelled)
Sentinel Skin - Apheras Lucent
Autumndruid - Erwtenpeller
Waterdruid - Shamanyouranus/Juice F (merged)
Aquaburst - sPy
Water shield - shamanyouranus
Wild growth - champara bros
Ancient explosion - willthealmighty
Nature beam - DragoonZombie

Icons:
Special Zephyr Arrows - Elaniel
Watershield - Bogrim
Eclipse - GooS
Shield Human/Tauren - BlackDoom
Lunar Pendant/Healing Sun - Crazy Russian
Sunburst3 - Redeemer59
Moonflies - Elenai
Howl - Iyzz Fryzz
Trippleshot - MrGoblin
Runes - SKriK
Bark Upgrades - Volvox

 

[GhostThruster]

Now comes the time for 67chrome to face the review of DEATH!!!

Presentation – 4/5 – It was very good, I tell you. Though, I wonder where you got the [Q, W, E, R] hotkey idea from?
-Names
Creative, though I must say, quite long. Try shorten some to one word if you can. And lol I only understand the 'Illidari'. What are Coilskars and Bonechewers? Did you make them up or are they from Wc lore?
-Models/Skins/Icons
Pure excellence. Your skins are gold, and they looked magnificent. That is, for units. Buildings don't look very nice. I think you could've used some better models. However, overall your model and skin use was spectacular. Icons are very nicely done too. Nice job creating a good atmosphere and theme for the race.
-Text
This I'd like some improvements. A lot of them have mistakes and shit, which is minor I know, but every bit of polish counts. Some examples include one of the spell's buffs containing 'Inner Fire', and the Wave summoning dude's Devour still retaining 'Kodo Beast'.
Gameplay – 4/5 – Your race layout wasn't perfect and unique, but it was suitable. I don't really know your race's central theme/strategy though.
-Race
Well, I would have expected a race with like 20 units, since you combined 3 races (Naga, Fel Orcs, Blood Elves) into one. However, I think they were evenly balanced, with the exception of maybe the Fel Orcs, who seemed to not have many units.
-Units
Most of them were good. I can't give you much criticism because I don't know your intended theme/strategy. Their abilities fitted nicely. I liked how they were all built from 1 building (from the Zerg, I think). Btw, 2 of your units' icon positions are switched (hotkeys E and D).
-Buildings
Aside from the ugly models, most were acceptable. One thing though; after you research everything, you'll be left with a base with 5 or 6 useless buildings (or sometimes units require them). Also, I think you could've included some more buidlings. I mean, you've compacted 3 races and end up with 8 buildings.
Balance – 3/5 – I think your balancing is average. There are some ups and downs. For instance, your Wyvern Rider dude, his attacks spawn 'Waves', which can make him kinda OP. I think you could've put some more innovation into his attacks, rather than just spawning some weak Sea Elementals.
Your buildings, although unique and in a different infrastructure compared to the melee races, can balance out properly. Maybe you could've given them a stronger tower or something.
Creativity – 3/5 – Decent, from the unit names to the race layout. Not original (you mashed up the Terrans and Zerg together in terms of race structure), but creative. However, like I said before, I think you should've included at least 1 more Fel Orc dude.
Heroes were alright, I only tested 3 (for obvious reasons). Could've added more 'spice' to the Demon Hunter. Unit abilities weren't that awesome, most of them were just simple edits of normal ones (this isn't a bad thing, I'm just making a statement). The units themselves, were nicely done (for example I liked your Siegebreaker. It added something new to the 'siege unit' category). But the Fel Orc units (or what little of your race are Fel Orc units) needed some jazzing up. You had a Warlock dude and a guy who blinks to attackers...yeah.
Buildings needed some twist too. There were just 8 buildings, most of which were plain and boring.
Storyline - N/A
Overall – 14/20 – 3.5/5 – [4/5] – A good old 4. I absolutely loved the race's aesthetics (except some buildings). I'm not so sure about what this race specialises in. I only did a quick skim of your race, so I didn't get a chance to test it's balancing against a computer (I usually have a good test once I've looked through the race mechanics and techtree). It could've used some more creativity, and perhaps an underlying mechanic/strategy (eg. Sage Chow's day/night/weather, Wraithling's Solidarity, or my counter-defensive units), coz right now, I just see a bunch of random, albiet really sexy units.

I will be reviewing some more techtrees, for the sake of it.

 

[Lich Prince]

Yeah, most of Chrome's units come from WoW's Black Temple, which in my opinion, is excellent use of lore. I was a bit disappointed though that there was no Fel Orc hero, Bloodboil was such a beast in WoW.

 

[Mephestrial]

Ah man, I thought it said the 14th instead of the 12th. I guess i missed the deadline. That sucks caused I was finished too. I guess my last WIP is my entry then.

 

[67chrome]

Yeah, most of Chrome's units come from WoW's Black Temple, which in my opinion, is excellent use of lore. I was a bit disappointed though that there was no Fel Orc hero, Bloodboil was such a beast in WoW.

It was hard incorporating so many different units in a race. It felt like if i took a unit away from blood elves or naga they'd suffer from the same feeling, and as humans and orcs have 2 human/orc heroes I figured I'd do that with the naga...If I added any extra units it would probably be another fel orc. I was also trying to make the race feel unique to the other races by using models not avalible to the melee races, and most fel orcs are just hue changes of in-game units. Also, I had done a decent amount of Naga and Blood Elf skins before the contest start, so it was easier to decide on units there.

Long ass quote

Now comes the time for 67chrome to face the review of DEATH!!!

Presentation – 4/5 – It was very good, I tell you. Though, I wonder where you got the [Q, W, E, R] hotkey idea from?
-Names
Creative, though I must say, quite long. Try shorten some to one word if you can. And lol I only understand the 'Illidari'. What are Coilskars and Bonechewers? Did you make them up or are they from Wc lore?
-Models/Skins/Icons
Pure excellence. Your skins are gold, and they looked magnificent. That is, for units. Buildings don't look very nice. I think you could've used some better models. However, overall your model and skin use was spectacular. Icons are very nicely done too. Nice job creating a good atmosphere and theme for the race.
-Text
This I'd like some improvements. A lot of them have mistakes and shit, which is minor I know, but every bit of polish counts. Some examples include one of the spell's buffs containing 'Inner Fire', and the Wave summoning dude's Devour still retaining 'Kodo Beast'.
Gameplay – 4/5 – Your race layout wasn't perfect and unique, but it was suitable. I don't really know your race's central theme/strategy though.
-Race
Well, I would have expected a race with like 20 units, since you combined 3 races (Naga, Fel Orcs, Blood Elves) into one. However, I think they were evenly balanced, with the exception of maybe the Fel Orcs, who seemed to not have many units.
-Units
Most of them were good. I can't give you much criticism because I don't know your intended theme/strategy. Their abilities fitted nicely. I liked how they were all built from 1 building (from the Zerg, I think). Btw, 2 of your units' icon positions are switched (hotkeys E and D).
-Buildings
Aside from the ugly models, most were acceptable. One thing though; after you research everything, you'll be left with a base with 5 or 6 useless buildings (or sometimes units require them). Also, I think you could've included some more buidlings. I mean, you've compacted 3 races and end up with 8 buildings.
Balance – 3/5 – I think your balancing is average. There are some ups and downs. For instance, your Wyvern Rider dude, his attacks spawn 'Waves', which can make him kinda OP. I think you could've put some more innovation into his attacks, rather than just spawning some weak Sea Elementals.
Your buildings, although unique and in a different infrastructure compared to the melee races, can balance out properly. Maybe you could've given them a stronger tower or something.
Creativity – 3/5 – Decent, from the unit names to the race layout. Not original (you mashed up the Terrans and Zerg together in terms of race structure), but creative. However, like I said before, I think you should've included at least 1 more Fel Orc dude.
Heroes were alright, I only tested 3 (for obvious reasons). Could've added more 'spice' to the Demon Hunter. Unit abilities weren't that awesome, most of them were just simple edits of normal ones (this isn't a bad thing, I'm just making a statement). The units themselves, were nicely done (for example I liked your Siegebreaker. It added something new to the 'siege unit' category). But the Fel Orc units (or what little of your race are Fel Orc units) needed some jazzing up. You had a Warlock dude and a guy who blinks to attackers...yeah.
Buildings needed some twist too. There were just 8 buildings, most of which were plain and boring.
Storyline - N/A
Overall – 14/20 – 3.5/5 – [4/5] – A good old 4. I absolutely loved the race's aesthetics (except some buildings). I'm not so sure about what this race specialises in. I only did a quick skim of your race, so I didn't get a chance to test it's balancing against a computer (I usually have a good test once I've looked through the race mechanics and techtree). It could've used some more creativity, and perhaps an underlying mechanic/strategy (eg. Sage Chow's day/night/weather, Wraithling's Solidarity, or my counter-defensive units), coz right now, I just see a bunch of random, albiet really sexy units.

I will be reviewing some more techtrees, for the sake of it.

Heh, I've been using the QWER hotkeys for a while, from a few test runs with your race I noticed you're doing that to. It makes it nice when there are easy patterns to pick up something new (as long as there in the right place XD). It makes it easier to figure out a good hotkey to as you can just look at the XY coordinants and not have to worry about any hotkey overlap.


Teh Lore:
Like Lich Prince said, most of the units are from the Black Temple raid in World of Warcraft. Most of the Naga in the Temple are Coilskar [insert npc class here], and all the fel orcs that aren't riding a nether dragon belong to the Bonechewer clan. A lot of the building names come from places in the Black Temple raid as well, such as the Halls of Anguish, Den of Mortal Delights, Black Temple, something of lost souls. As for Illidari a lot of demons and blood elves later in the raid bare the title Illidarai, I just took it as the general faction term for the sake that it's Illidans temple and everything in it is essentially his minions. The naga warlord and Nethermancer's names come from WoW as well, though the Warlord is more from miscellaneous naga males and the Nethermancer uses names from the Tempest Keep raid as well. (mostly just found a list on WoW Wiki). Some of the unit abilities are based off of their WoW counterpart as well, and a few from starcraft counterparts.
For instance, High Warlord Nan'jentus has Tidal Shell and Needle Spines abilities, and relatively similar abilities have been added to the naga heroes. Illidan also has flame crash and something that creates a path of fire, though I changed their function a tad in the implementation here.

I might write a more in-depth discription about the Illidari backstory, but I've never been terribly interested in lore. Mostly it's just an excuss to have blood elves and naga working together, with a few demons thrown in the mix XD

Buildings:
As for the buildings I couldn't for the life of me get any decent screenshots of the Black Temple. I've only been in it once on a private server to, so I didn't remember a lot of it's appearance. It's so large most if it is concealed in fog to, and it's surrounded in a no-fly zone (I think) so no luck in finding any good screenies of it there either.

Tech:
For the tech structures hopefully the game dosen't last long enough for you to finish all the upgrades in them, the first two have 10 and the last 4. All things considered though, Protoss and Zerg have quite a few structures with only 3 upgrades. You're correct in noting the shortage of such buildings in wc3 though.

Strategy:
The general racial strategy is very offensive, the unit production building doesn't have to sacrifice time in researching upgrades allowing the Illidari to mass units quickly and unimpeded by time constraints. As the troop production building doubles as a lumber drop-off and can train any standard unit it is beneficial to have several as well at any period in the game. Their defense is essentially a good offense, (though nether foci can aid in giving a home field advantage). Most of the early tier units are also the point-click champs of the Illidari, while higher-tier units require more attention to use and generally have a weaker attack for their cost. The lack of buildings plays into this, were base management isn't a primary focus of the race, allowing kicking @$$ and chewing bubblegum to be.

 

[Direfury]

Overall, my race was designed to be more strategic than anything, allowing different Alterac players to pick and choose their favoured compliment, like a crew of Atramancers, or a Bishop and some rangers. Each one of these raid group types has a hero to compliment their playstyle, and are all keyed to a certain type of Hero.
Blasphemer/Heretic< Atramancer, Longranger, Stolen Catapult
Fallen Knight< Bishop, Syndicate Soldier, Arcanist
Exalted Caster< Skullbearer, Wildhammer Emissary
Heirophant<Trained Bears, Attack Dogs (However, the Heirophant is better suited to Expansion Base defence, since he's able to call units to his location and mark targets.

 

[Wazzz]

No offense, I just personally didn't like your race at all, Vermillion. It doesn't seem to really follow the melee gameplay at all, and doesn't even fit in with it. Even for a standalone mod it seems a bit over the top. That may just be my opinion, but I don't like it at all.

Anyway, now to critique my own race. Basically, I just wanted to do a very simple race with some basic ideas, and I think in the end it shows. I basically modelled my race a little bit after the quantity that the campaign Naga race has, as we are allowed to do this.

As for the strategy involved in the race, I wanted to make the race a very offensive one, and I figured allowing units to garisson inside your structures would give a good reason to construct buildings next to your opponent's base (especially the Hideout for when you get the Brigand thingies).

As for how you get the units, it may seem overpowered, but it is very balanced. The only reason it's op atm is because there are no requirements for the best units (as was with the Naga race).

Also, I made it for fun, so the gameplay is meant for having fun with and it should be easy to use my race =D

 

[GhostThruster]

VE and Wazzz, quake in fear, for your review will soon come!

 

[Fuzzyfury]

Ghost, if you don't know what Bonechewers and Coilskar are, use Wowwiki

 

[67chrome]

No offense...

You're plugging your own race and using repetition to say someone else created a terrible one in the same post? That's a sure fire way to not sound like a total douche bag. Seriously though, saying "like", "don't like" and "interesting" offer nothing constructive to a critique, they are entirely subjective statements. Try to keep things as objective as possible.

 

[Wazzz]

What you seem to be forgetting here is that I AM a douchebag ^^

Anyway, I personally believe I could have put more effort into my race, but at the same time I wanted to follow the K.I.S.S. policy (Keep It Simple, Stupid!). Hopefully it's fun for people to play, although it looks like a lot of other races are going to surpass mine ^^

 

[VeljkoM]

Ah don't be like that. You are a great guy when you want to.

Well think everyone here fells that way but real life takes priority over fun...

 

[67chrome]

What you seem to be forgetting here is that I AM a douchebag ^^

Anyway, I personally believe I could have put more effort into my race, but at the same time I wanted to follow the K.I.S.S. policy (Keep It Simple, Stupid!). Hopefully it's fun for people to play, although it looks like a lot of other races are going to surpass mine ^^

^^ As long as were discussing projects that encompass double and possibly triple-digits in work hours I'm going to expect a higher standard of behavior, and everyone here to put forth an admirable attempt to be respectful of each other.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyways, for GhostThruster's Naga...

The race selection in the beginning of the map seems bugged with your newest map, it worked fine in the older version though. \/


The mid-tier items in the shop (or more specifically potion of haling, potion of mana, and scroll of town portal) don't seem to get unlocked at tier 2. Or they get unlocked and then re-locked. At some point they are unavailable when they should be available, is basically what I'm trying to say.

All four heroes are still available when one is summoned, and all may be summoned without upgrading the town hall once :O (It looks like a blank space is occupying were the heroes should be in the game play constants).

The uh, frost guard model in your race was actually a joint effort by Misha and me. He made the model and I made the skin for it.

The turtle vomit (at least in the first map version) caused major lag on my computer when my units (maybe it was just tortoises that triggered this) walked through it. The more vomit a tortoise was surrounded by the slower my computer ran. I'm running at 4 GB of RAM to, so seeing 1 frame every 3 seconds is kind of scary.

For starting out it would be nice if players received a coral bed for the barnacle turtle to attach to. You could reduce the food supply offered by the town hall to compensate (for instance Zerg hatcheries only offer 1 food while their initial overlord offers 8). Considering all other races start with lumber harvesting capabilities it would be nice, and probably make the unique lumber harvesting mechanic more easily noticeable to first time players.

Speaking of lumber harvesting, the floating text seems to have been removed in you're more recent map version (it worked in the previous one).

It was a little hard to tell the ethereals and summoners apart, it would be nice if you added a few details to separate the two units further. Glowing attachments, semi-transparency, etc. Ethereals were pretty solid casters, I liked their healing ability. They seemed to get targeted first and foremost with every invasion though, their life span was pretty shot. Also, you should set their heal to be initially on auto-cast when they are trained.

Advancing up the tech tree seemed a little rough in the beginning, from the water hounds to infectors it took 2 additional structures.

All the unit production buildings seemed unusually cheap, the caster building and spawning pool only cost 80 gold and some lumber to build, while similar tier structures cost around double that for the other melee races.

Infectors were pretty cool, the masses of units they could summon added a unique asthetic to invasions.

The couatl and tortoise seemed to have to many abilities for their roles, it would be nice if there ability count was lowered by one or two. That being said the tortoise was pretty fun to use, and was one of my favorite units. Perhaps the eat tree ability should have been limited to barnacle turtles though. Barnacle turtles and tortoises could have been different colors as well, atm they look like one should upgrade into the other.

The freeze ability on myrmidons was more annoying than useful, the duration was to long and turning targets invulnerable was a little aggravating. A mini-stun would have been nicer imo.

Mana shield on the dreamweaver didn't fit it terribly well, considering it was the only ranged hero of the bunch it generally didn't need the extra health, while any of the three melee heroes could have gained a substantially greater benefit from it.

Silence proc'ed way to often with the Watcher's aura, with just matching opponent's forces in numbers it essentially locked down all their casters at any level. With the silence effect just on the hero it could be well-balanced, but on an army it seemed rather OP.

The Sea Ranger seemed a little unfinished with the multi-aura effect, it would be nice if she just gave off one unique aura imo. Rather than increasing dps and survivability you could just go for one or the other, or some effect that improves both (ie vampirism with bonus damage, critical strike and evasion bonuses, offering a bash effect).

The structures offered a rather nice atmosphere to this race, even in the snow it seemed like they get to relax in a tropical reef while managing the base.

Mantilisks probably shouldn't have resistant skin, it doesn't make much sense on them. Being considered a hero for the purposes of spells and effects with differing fields for standard units and heroes makes sense on heroic units like mountain giants, infernals, and doom guards, and your Basilisks seem to at least work with that category. Mantilisks don't thematically fit with that group of units though, and if spell resistance is desired the magical bracers (% magic damage reduction) or item defend (% piercing and/or magic and spell damage reduction) would probably serve the unit better. There is no reason Mantilisks should be immune to effects like doom, transmutation, and charm.

In their unit descriptions Basilisks and Sea Dragons are both refereed to as Leviathans, perhaps a more generic term such as sea monster, serpent, or beast would suit them better. With re-naming the hydra a basilisk and then using another monster name to refer to it in the back story makes it a little convoluted. Also, it would be nice if a little effort was put into differentiating Basilisks from hydra, I know DVO submitted a trycilide model that is a red legless version of the hydra that could serve a different enough aesthetic to merit a different name (Especially if you are going to recycle other names, such as myrmidon, couatl, and summoners). You could always use vertex coloring as well, or simply create your own hue/saturation skin change.

There seems to be a long delay from when the frost guard casts his ulty to when it actually comes into effect (I've been having a similar problem with my bowmaster's utly). It seems to take in the neighborhood of 3-5 seconds to show after casting.

Overall the race seemed to have its ups and downs with balancing, though overall felt pretty close to balanced. A lot of units had useful active abilities, but to get the maximum amount of use out of each unit it would require a rather intense amount of micro-managing as well. It would be nice if at least a few of these were auto-cast, such as the coutal's devour magic abilities or the basilisk's split when it approaches low health. Considering how invisibility is a much less serious issue in WC3 than it is in starcraft the invisible-reveal could be tied to the coutals auto-attack instead of requiring targeting.

The little back story description on all the units was a really nice touch, and aesthetically the race seemed rather well polished. Through spell specifics and the utility of units it seemed to be lacking something though, and the units in general felt a little rough and in need of refinement. A lot of the spells had multiple effects to, for mentally processing what the unit is good for and which spells to use at what times it would be nice if ability rolls could be condensed into one or two effects. For most melee units, the auto-attack, attack type, and armor type play a huge roll in their utility, were abilities simply modify these or show passive upgrades. This ins't a problem with all units, but for every unit that requires a little micromanaging the race seems more encumbered and hard to use. The only reason amphibious movement is cool is because it saves the time of loading and unloading units in a flying machine. While at first loading and unloading doesn't seem so bad, the ease of just cruising to an island instead of investing 1-2 minutes of careful management seems like a totally awesome and nifty thing to have. Likewise, streamlining unit abilities to be as easy to use as amphibious movement could make this race go from cool to totally awesome.

So to make a long post even longer, I'd say the whole presentation and storyline was pretty solid, and the actual game play and balance was rougher and could use some improvement.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I hope to get to other entries as well, from the contests in WC3C one of my favorite parts about tech tree creation was reading what other people thought of each other's races. Though if you don't want me to let me know and I'll refrain from doing so.

 

[GhostThruster]

@67chrome:
Well, I'll start off by saying let Wazzz say what he wants to say. No one really cares.

Now, to your review:
1. I won't lie. I used Vexorian's Optimizer (making sure to remove some important checkboxes). I think that screwed the entire thing up.

2. I left the Game constants unchanged, I thought that was part of the rules.

3. Sorry, I didn't see. If I could update, I would add you to the credits.

4. Works fine for me.

5. Yeah, I guess you're right.

6. Refer to 1.

7. I tried to take advantage of the models ingame.

8. Water Hounds have no requirements, and come on, as you've said, Infectors are Pwnage.

9. I dunno if it was in my V1, but I think my prices got screwed. Refer to 1.

10. Fav unit by far.

11. I guess. You only need to use half the abilities in most cases. I tried to make the Tortoise into the ultimate hit'n'runner.

12. Agreed now. It does piss the owner off lol...

13. I think it's HP amount requires a Mana Shield (600 and something at level 10), and btw the Sea Witch also is ranged.

14. I guess I could've set it to maybe 2 second Silence.

15. Yeah, I threw the Sea Ranger in in a hurry, as I was running out of time.

16. Took me hell to get all the models.

17. I thought maybe the genetics would...pass to the younglings? K, I should've changed it lol.

18. Didn't realise. Apologies.

19. Could be (refer to 1) or maybe just stupid old Wc3.

20. Thanks, I thought the backstory would give it a nice touch.
I purposefully made the spells have multiple effects to encourage micro-management and emphasise on their variety and versatility when it comes to countering enemy defenses. I don't understand what you're talking about with amphibious movement... No units have it. If you're talking about the Barnacle Turtle, well, when you research Spiked Shell, you'll see why it can be helpful to stash units in my Turtles...

21. Thanks for the review.
The reasons why my entry was rough was because I didn't have time to balance it (I joined pretty late actually, and I don't go on B.net) and Vexorian's Optimizer fucking screwed the shit up (especially the opening dialog).
Because of these reasons, I agree with you on nearly all your complaints.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Keep the thoughts coming!

 

[The World Is Flat]

Well, i dont think i will be judging, but i will review.

67 Chrome:

First, Your race is absolutely gorgeous, it has a certain level of post-production that makes it feel polished, but I feel like you could have eased some first timers in, directing people around your race. Also, you lack tech requirements for some (specifically the heartseeker) unit ability upgrades, and, I am sad to say, it lacks any real semblance of balance, Explained below.

Aesthetics / Finesse
It looks beautiful, a unified color scheme for the buildings, and some great skin/icon/model choices make it stand out, But the Final Teir naga melee unit really doesn't fit with the rest, he is too bright, kind of breaking the well balanced mold you had, and some of the other models felt out of place somehow. It was also perhaps too dark in feel.

19/25


X-Factor
The units were fun to play with, most of them (especially those end teir naga units) were really cool, and the sense of progression from upgrades was awesome too. Overall, quite fun to play, and nothing (aside from balance) really put me off. It was really quite cool.

22/25

Balance
This is the only really dissapointing part of your race. On my third test, i tried out against two insane computers. I won. Easily.

First of all, the simply insane DPS of Heartseekers and those little snapdragons was too much, combined with the Najentus' heroes attack speed increase... you get the picture. And the charge ability of the fel orcs... the idea of them not tanking is now out of the question, meaning that the ranged units are safe to deal immense amounts of damage... from a safe position.

Your units are waaay too cheap for the damage they deal, and, while your fire attack effects allies, your tank units are cheap enough to replace instantly. Aaaaaand so are your ranged units. Also, your little contagion spell can basically destroy an entire army with one cast, including your own, which means you never use it. Ever. Which means that the synergy between your spells is kinda pointless.

Also, your food buildings both restore Mana... and do damage... They are amazingly waaaay too useful. Also, these Succubus also deal an amazing amount of damage... and have a crapload of hp.

In short, I could probably take on 3 insane A.Is, but their resource production might finally outmatch the cost/DPS efficient of the illidari.

10/50

Total
51/100

I'm usually quite hard on Techtrees. You got a pretty good score by my estimate. just increase costs/building times, and decrease DPS.

 

[67chrome]

All right, thanks for the review. And ya, they are way imbalanced right now, I've experienced most of the drawbacks you've mentioned there. One of the big things with the archers and snap dragons is the weapons upgrades improve them to much, from looking at standard melee units it seems most get any-ware between a 12-20% increase in damage, and the archer and snap dragons get around a 33% boost. Acid saliva working on buildings boosts the snap dragons' damage a bit to much as well, I'm thinking about giving their poison dummy a different version for standard units, heroes, and buildings.

 

[The World Is Flat]

Makes sense.

I would increase the cost of all units by 10 - 18% and work on identifying units who deal to much damage, Probably Archers and Snapdragons.

Usually, depending on the location in the tier, and the existing damage, the factor is increased.

In Wc3, most upgrades simply add a Dice Side, so maybe play around with the number of dice on later tiers.

Poison should only affect organic non hero units, Same with contagion, It should be Nerfed and only effect enemy units.

I have some other suggestions, But I'm too tired to post them now. Good luck if you wanna keep working on your race.

 

[GhostThruster]

Well, good thing I put up some WIPs.

People, please test this map, as the newest one is bugged.

 

[Lich Prince]

These should be the contest entries:

-Wraithling's Air Humans
-VeljkoM's Undead
-Vermillion Edict's Alterac Race
-JokeMaster's High Elves
-Lich Prince's Old Horde
-Fuzzyfury's Forsaken
-GhostThruster's Naga
-Mephestrial's Alliance
-Narogog's Kirin Tor
-67chrome's Illidari
-Sage Chows' Night Elves
-Xiliger's Horde
-Wazzz's Evil Humans

I may have missed something between the 49 pages, so notify me if your race isn't among the list.

 

[Sage Chow]

^^ @Lichprince: good idea! I do have a later entry with some minor fixes. It's up to pharao to allow that one; it was after midnight in my country when i put it up. Shouldn't matter that much.

@TWIF: Well, if you're not judging, then reviews will be very much appreciated.

I've been trying to put together some critical feedback myself. I randomly threw together some remarks and tried to look at the points below. I'm not a judge and won't give points. I'm working on Lich Prince and GhostThrusters reviews right now. I'll delve a little deeper to find some usefull remarks for you guys. 67Chrome, I dug deep but found some critical points. I really liked your race, so the negative stuff is more my personal opinion and stuff to think about. Vermillion Edict, I overdid your review and compiled a huge list of schoolmaster details. It's meant right, but looks a bit harsh. Take it as a compliment to your race that i spend an hour typing it up. Wraithling, I don't have that much to complain about..

- Concept: Are the units, buildings, abilities and upgrades tied together around a central theme?
- Structure: Are units and upgrades distributed over the buildings in a sensible manner?
- Strategy Does each unit have it's own strategic role or are there excess units?
- Does each Hero have it's unique role with respect to the race?
- Abilities: Do the abilities enhance the playstyle?

@Wraithling

I followed your concept an had my entire army up in the air near the end of the game. The nightelves and humans did not stand a chance. (The undead have that stupid web ability..). Also the structure and concepts were original yet clear: Eg. the “healer” flying machine, the “caster” genius, caster upgrades etc. I loved the use of Air-deathcoil and flame strike on the heroes. These abilities go so well with air units. (I always got my bloodelves toast in the stupid flamestikes..). In short, one of my favourites.

Some minor remarks:
- Townhall: It gives 8 food, making you dead in the water in the beginning, you already need to make a black market to get the lumber going. Give the player 12-15 food so you can atleast train a hero right off the bat.
- Dwelling upgrades: This is a good idea that goes with the recycle concept. Just make them upgrade more food and make them more expensive.
- Heroes: I would have loved a level 6 morph ability giving the junkmaster the ability to fly (add some junk wings and some siege bomb attack to drop on buildings). My heroes got killed all the time while my flying units stayed out of trouble (which was the entire point of the race, so 10/10 for that).
- Tech dependancies: Some upgrades required the recycle upgrades. I understand you would want to promote your systems like that, but I felt this was forced on the player and unneccesary.
- Black Market Lumber: Not the strongsuit, but I enjoyed not having to spend time harvesting lumber.
- Flametower: The garrison is a bit of a waste in melee games. But i could see use for it in campaign strategies.

@67Chrome

You've done a great job customizing abilities, groundtiles and tooltips to craft a full detailed race. The bold choices in techtree structure, unit choice and unit training do not get my preference, but atleast you've put a sence of logic behind all of of this that I can appreciate. On the second playthrough I realized that there weren't so many units as I initially assumed and that each unit does have a niche of somesorts. The groundtiles and and townhall fit the Black Temple theme so well and the coilskar naga form a brilliant sub-race. I'm not sure whether the elves and fel orcs fit together aestetically, but this is your choice.

I hoped you'd make the 4 sub buildings to the black temple, maybe one for each sub-race. I'm not a big fan of the single barracks and I would've preferred 3 buildings; one for each sub-race individually. Maybe with the acid beast in the townhall, the sparkwing with the bonechewers and enabling the heartseeker or spellsword right from tier 1. This way you could've placed the relevant upgrades with the relevant units, so the player can choose his preferred sub-race. Anyways, there is a logic to the system, so I guess this is not too bad. At least the upgrades are distrubuted in a logical way; i had no confusion issues when playing your race so that's a very good sign. The summaries below the tooltips played a huge factor in this. Kudo's on the details.

Im not sure what you had in mind for the overarching strategy. The same goes for the hero abilities. They do fit the hero in a way, but don't seem to be part of a combo. The unit abilities are well thought-off (excellent use of the object editor). I highlighted a few that are overpowered or seem to be unfinished; damage is applied twice, a debuff trigger is absent, the spell is not completely MUI etc.

- The spellseeker doesn't seem to have much use in the melee environment. It's a stealth unit, but somehow you get it too late to scout and it's too frail to join the battle. The 1.5x anti hero bonus could be upgraded, but i feel the unit needs more buff to be a late gamer or needs to join in earlier. I don't know.
- The 1 foodcost spammers are a bit broken, I suggest downgrading the acidbeasts and increasing sparkwing foodcost to 2. Remember that you can only select 12 units.
- The bonechewer seems outclassed by the reaver. You could make the reaver cost 5 food to give the bonechewer more of a place and then the spellsword must compete with this guy aswell.
- For me the runed-bracers ability doesn't seem to work when used on a unit, but i only recently updated my wc3.
- Maybe remove the location Temppoint in the triggers (I'm not a very good spellmaker myself)
- Enlarge doesn't completely dispell. You should add a unit group and check if the unit has the buff or remove the abilities.
- Strangle is such a killer ability. I used a similar ability in Avatar of Ice, dealing only 8 damage per attack. Playing against it made it such an annoying ability that I had to dispell it right away or die from the effects. You could increase the mana cost a little. This is definitely an ability that you could combo with illusions, summons and tank units.
- Some units deal double damage. The damage indicated on the screen is applied as well as the spell damage. You can fix this by setting attack 1 to target only wards or allies and making attack 2 the official attack (with a -1 damage), hiding it under a caster upgrade icon to give some information about the spells or whatever. As of now the heartseaker does 22 damage on average + 1- 46 damage depending on the range. This is a bit much.. Also the sparkwing should be fixed in this manner.
- Your hero spell making does not always accout for multiple spells/heroes: Add an index system to Petrify so you can cast it by multiple heroes on multiple targets at once, without bugging it and permanently setting an armor bonus on the target unit. It's good that you used ensnare for this spell. I used pauze unit for a similar freezing spell that ended up crashing the AI on infinite stuns.
- You may want to set unitgroups into a variable to remove leaks, but i'm no expert.

@Vermillion Edict

What is the theme of the race? Judging from the big buildings and the walls I initially assumed that this was a city-themed race, where the player can build a huge fortress with gates and towers. But later I vaguely remembered a refugee theme. These are opposite themes and should not be combined in a race. You need to make a choice.

You've done a good job on the heroes. Here you did make a clear plan how the heroes should function and it pays off: The abilities match the strategic roles and have a little synergy. I love the heirophants teleportation abilities to underline a leader role. Do this with the rest of your units too and you'll be fine!

You've done a very poor job on the structure of the race and to me this sets the race from a well executed fun to play race to a chaotic confusing race. If you fix this part, I'm sure you would've gotten a high rating. There are loads of examples below of little details that got mixed up. I even got a little mad thinking about this, because you could have done so much better. I suggest an alternate distrubution of units and techs in the end. This is just my vision of your race, not me telling you what to do. Use it as a second perspective.

The abilities were a mixed bag. Some abilities were placed on the wrong unit types and missed the ball completely. Others were at least balanced, but lacked detail. This could be a timing issue.

I'd like to point out that names of buildings and units could be kept simple. (more directed in general than at you). You did this, but then you went and added unimportant suffices. Like (ex-)bisshop or (captured) catapult. Leave the suffix out, and it's a lot better.

Lots of remarks

- Skullbearer: Why does a 250 hp unit learn thunderclap and taunt? Put it atleast on a melee (Tcl) or bulky unit (Taunt).
- Cull: Why on earth would an archer with a random 1 manapoint want to steal mana?? At least make it manaburn or feedback. But even then.. It should be on a spellcaster unit.
- Lumbermill: Never use a large pathing map for a lumbermill. It is SUPPOSED to be small so it can be build in the vicinity of resources.
- Altar: There are upgrades, items and units on your altar. This doesn't work here. Make a choice what kind of building you want it to be. NEVER mix heroes with regular units unless you have a logical plan behind it!
- Upgrades: Your upgrades are all over the place and none are where they're supposed to be. Find a logical place for your upgrades, preferably under the corresponding unit icon. So many were in a totally random different building. Putting techs in the right place is basic stuff on a techtree contest!
- Townhall upgrades: Why is there a research that enables the upgrade of the townhall? This should go.
- Safe House: Why would units want to garrison in the upgraders? There is no attack or any other gain from this. The watchtower true sight is quite useless in the melee environment aswell. Add a garrison attack.
- Tavern: You need to make a choice: Either go for the mercenaries or go for training units, preferably the same for the entire race. If you do one mercenary building then don't give unit-specific upgrades for mercenaries. The mercenaries seem to be a random bunch of units slapped together. What is the connection between them? What is the orc catapult doing here? And finally there are items on this building intertwined with units and upgrades... You need to bring a kind of logic to the table here. That is what a techtree is all about!
- Baracks: Allright, the longranger should be here and the upgrades. One down. The mage should definitely go, don't you have any better unit for a baracks? Maybe the soldier or catapult?
- Beastmaster Lodge: Trained bear, attack dog? What are they doing in the race? There is no strategic role for these units that hasn't been fulfilled yet. These units are the Knight, the Bishop and the Soldier. They should definitely go. The icon positions are a mess, I believe there is a random upgrade in position one? But, ok atleast you put the 'beasts' in the 'beastmaster lodge'.
- Wall builder: Good idea, poor execution. Rename the second worker unit to Architect or anything more sensible than 'Dreg'. Also make the unit available from the start rather than the expansion building. Make icons indicating the direction of the wall or gate (eg horizontal stripe + arrow). Have it build the lumbermill, townhall and all defence towers in the last 4 slots, and make it harvest lumber aswell. Alternatively, you could use a morph ability to switch between the two builder units.
- Bishop: Why the 'ex-'? It doesn't make the name cooler, go for the simple name. As a melee unit replace the last 3 abilities with the skullbearer abilities. Thunderclap and taunt do wonders on this guy. Don't get me wrong, this guy has potential, even with the siege damage. I'd love to see it used better.
- Atramancer: What is this guy doing in your race? A mage from the twisted nether just happens to join a human army? I searched for 10 minutes for this unit on the first run, remembering something about item recipies from the forum. A lot of frustration followed: What the hell is it doing on the altar between the heroes? Why is it disguised as an upgrade? (the Unholy Aura icon on a second position screems upgrade!) And why does it need the silver plating upgrade? To be fair: I also used a dependancy like this myself once, on the icetroll race. But after seeing this on multiple entries in the contest I realized that this is just wrong.
- Townhall 2: Why is there a second townhall available? Make this the upgrade from the tent townhall instead.
- Ability Hero Dependancies: Some abilities require a certain hero to be in the field. I have mixed feelings about this. Maybe you could have expanded on this system and enable/disable abilities upon chosing a hero. The disbtn icons and the randomness really made this a bad point for me, when it could have been a selling point to your race. Trigger: A unit is trained (heirophants), enable Holy light for (owner of trained unit).
- Mystic Spire: Make it buildable by the wall-builder unit.

Here is my view of your race. I just moved units to other buildings, swapped some abilities and changed names/associations to fit a concept. This is just another perspective, completely based on your ideas. The names are just associations, I forgot the proper building names while typing this.
- Tent Camp → Building → Castle: Train Worker/Wall Builder. Research any leftover upgrades here.
- Altar: Heroes only!
- Baracks: Soldier/Longranger/Catapult
- Black Magic (Something): Arcanist/Skullbearer/Atramancer
- Church: Arcanist (Depending on his role/name) /Bishop/Crusader(Noble)
- Aviary/Whatever: Warhammer Emissary
- Small Lumbermill: Fortification upgrades for walls/towers
- Upgrader: Place all global and armor techs here.
- Tavern: Place your basic items here. If you want more items you could consider a buildable second item shop and put the watchtower on the wall-building worker. If you want mercenaries: place 3 simple (!!) units in the top three places and leave the fourth open. I suggest the dog here. You could also make a dog-companion ability for the longrangers or casters for instance.

Place unit specific upgrades under the relevant units in the relevant buildings.
Make safehouse something more. A church could have a sickbay regenerating loaded units' hitpoints. The Magic Baracks could replenish loaded units mana. Towers could have an orc-burrow attack. Now you have a racial system that is cool and innovative, without changing much to your initial concept.
In the “wall building and big buildings” theme: you could add a second food production building that is weaker and bigger but also cheaper and faster to build; something like a city building. Add it to the second worker.

 

[Direfury]

I was actually planning to do most of those little updates, I just didn't have the time.

I actually planned on turning the Bear and Wolf into human versions of the Raider and Kodo Beast, with riders and such.

 

[VeljkoM]

Wait are we allowed to still update our map? Doesn't that kinda kill the point of deadline?

 

[Fuzzyfury]

cmon! stop updating the maps... we are past the deadline... -.-

 

[67chrome]

^^ @Lichprince: good idea! I do have a later entry with some minor fixes. It's up to pharao to allow that one; it was after midnight in my country when i put it up. Shouldn't matter that much.

I'd say the time for submitting a final entry has past, though ultimately it will be up to the contest's host.
That's not to say any of the races here shouldn't be updated, just not further updated for the purposes of this contest. I'm planning on improving mine and possibly submitting it to the map section. Perhaps a new thread could be opened for further upgrades? If we could get the races balanced enough we could even play-test them against each other. A lot of the races I've tested so far could be polished a little more and balanced a little more as well, mine included.

In response to Sage Chow's critique

You've done a great job customizing abilities, groundtiles and tooltips to craft a full detailed race. The bold choices in techtree structure, unit choice and unit training do not get my preference, but atleast you've put a sence of logic behind all of of this that I can appreciate. On the second playthrough I realized that there weren't so many units as I initially assumed and that each unit does have a niche of somesorts. The groundtiles and and townhall fit the Black Temple theme so well and the coilskar naga form a brilliant sub-race. I'm not sure whether the elves and fel orcs fit together aestetically, but this is your choice.

The fel-orcs do seem underrepresented, I might end up replacing the dreadmaster with something else a little more colorful, atm he seems sort of...not useful and stuck between the use of brutes, spellswords, and reavers. I might remove the beast units (crocadon, sparkwing) to make room for more fel orcs/and possibly draenei. I'm thinking once I start WoW up again I might run through Black Temple a few times to so I can make a better representation.

I hoped you'd make the 4 sub buildings to the black temple, maybe one for each sub-race. I'm not a big fan of the single barracks and I would've preferred 3 buildings; one for each sub-race individually. Maybe with the acid beast in the townhall, the sparkwing with the bonechewers and enabling the heartseeker or spellsword right from tier 1. This way you could've placed the relevant upgrades with the relevant units, so the player can choose his preferred sub-race. Anyways, there is a logic to the system, so I guess this is not too bad. At least the upgrades are distrubuted in a logical way; i had no confusion issues when playing your race so that's a very good sign. The summaries below the tooltips played a huge factor in this. Kudo's on the details.

I was originally planning on having the training grounds an attachment on the black temple and having a max of 4 per temple, but I ran out of time to implement it. (In brainstorming I was actually planning on using walkable destructibles and having units be able to walk on portions of the buildings, though making pathing maps for that was a little intense and the need to do so really wasn't there). The first tech-structure is also a little weird with the progression, as it is basically the other half of teir 1 training grounds but needs to be built. The tech style was kind of a modified version of my last race, but it worked out much better for them as the town hall was the unit-production building (with gravestones instead of larva, straight-up Zerg build style), so the tier flow was much smoother.

Im not sure what you had in mind for the overarching strategy. The same goes for the hero abilities. They do fit the hero in a way, but don't seem to be part of a combo. The unit abilities are well thought-off (excellent use of the object editor). I highlighted a few that are overpowered or seem to be unfinished; damage is applied twice, a debuff trigger is absent, the spell is not completely MUI etc.

Sadly, didn't really have one. In the beginning of the contest I was stuck with my backup computer that ran to slow to play-test the race, so I never really put much more thought in it than to put some of my finished skins to use in a colorful way that fit with the contest guidelines. Beyond having units that are a good archetype for standard roles and having unique units with unique attacks their isn't much of a thematic strategy, I'm still struggling with coming up with one for them in finishing the race.

- The spellsword doesn't seem to have much use in the melee environment. It's a stealth unit, but somehow you get it too late to scout and it's too frail to join the battle. The 1.5x anti hero bonus could be upgraded, but i feel the unit needs more buff to be a late gamer or needs to join in earlier. I don't know.

Ya, for the cost it's horribly underpowered. I was trying to go for some sort of WC3 Dark Templar, but atm the damage is so low 12 of them can't take out a single hero in late game. Their to slow to intercept vulnerable units to, and generally will chase them into a fortified location before being able to attack.

- The 1 foodcost spammers are a bit broken, I suggest downgrading the acidbeasts and increasing sparkwing foodcost to 2. Remember that you can only select 12 units.

A bit might be an understatement with them, with my current Illidari version I've more than halved their damage and they still seem powerful. With the benefit of them focusing fire on targets just making them a 2 food unit might be a better route though, I just love seeing masses of them hopping around. I might change their acid to reduce armor though, now that I'm getting a little better with triggers. They're meant to be masses of simple dps machines that have a colorful ability that plays to them getting better in numbers, though atm they are geared more to carefully focusing fire and hit and run tactics when their acid damage plateaus.

- The bonechewer seems outclassed by the reaver. You could make the reaver cost 5 food to give the bonechewer more of a place and then the spellsword must compete with this guy aswell.

Similar outclassing happens with footman/knights grunts/tauren ghouls/abominations with the other races, and I tried to keep bonechewers and reavers different enough that they are both still usable at the same time. Considering Mt. giants cost 7 food I think an increase in food cost for reavers is in order though, as they bare more in common with them than myrmidons or abominations.

- For me the runed-bracers ability doesn't seem to work when used on a unit, but i only recently updated my wc3.

It doesn't display any debuff, to see if it works you just have to watch the hp count of a unit when you blast them with a spell. It seemed to work against my target dummies, though in a melee game it would be close to impossible to tell if it works or not. That's the contagion ability right?

- Maybe remove the location Temppoint in the triggers (I'm not a very good spellmaker myself)
- Your hero spell making does not always accout for multiple spells/heroes: Add an index system to Petrify so you can cast it by multiple heroes on multiple targets at once, without bugging it and permanently setting an armor bonus on the target unit. It's good that you used ensnare for this spell. I used pauze unit for a similar freezing spell that ended up crashing the AI on infinite stuns.
- You may want to set unitgroups into a variable to remove leaks, but i'm no expert.

Most of the GUI I know I either picked up with this texturing contest or one hosted a few years ago at wc3c, so I'm pretty bad with triggers atm. I was happy just to get the non-mui hero spells you mentioned to work. The temp Point was there to remove leaks, but world editor didn't like the script to remove it I added...something painfully simple is probably needed to get that to work, but I have no idea what.

- Enlarge doesn't completely dispell. You should add a unit group and check if the unit has the buff or remove the abilities.
- Strangle is such a killer ability. I used a similar ability in Avatar of Ice, dealing only 8 damage per attack. Playing against it made it such an annoying ability that I had to dispell it right away or die from the effects. You could increase the mana cost a little. This is definitely an ability that you could combo with illusions, summons and tank units.

Ya, never really finished the Deepseer, most of her abilities are bugged in some way. I should add a trigger for all the units with negated damage to actually get a benefit from snake eyes (sparkwing, heartseeker, siegebreaker, astromancer's second aerial attack). Still not happy with strangle, I don't really know what it should do. I might change the effect entirly, I want to make the side-effect fit thematically with being suffocated while still being unique. Considering spiked barricades deal 7 damage at level 3 you might be right with the current damage atm. And ya, forgot to take off the other bonuses from enlarge.

- Some units deal double damage. The damage indicated on the screen is applied as well as the spell damage. You can fix this by setting attack 1 to target only wards or allies and making attack 2 the official attack (with a -1 damage), hiding it under a caster upgrade icon to give some information about the spells or whatever. As of now the heartseaker does 22 damage on average + 1- 46 damage depending on the range. This is a bit much.. Also the sparkwing should be fixed in this manner.

The defend ability on those units should have set their auto-attack to deal 0 damage (It's the display ability for all of them), and they were dealing 0 damage to my target dummies before I triggered their attacks. (also, I was able to hide the nether focuses attack by disabling the UI display checkbox as well, so I'm sure that could work for a hidden second attack as well). When I looked through the ability guide at wc3c item defend seemed to be the easiest way to nullify auto-attack damage, though there are quite a few other ways to go about doing so.

Though I'm thinking with the complaints about the archer's attack I need to make the velocity tool tip a lot clearer though, their displayed attack damage is meant to represent how their damage scales based on distance, were rather than having minimum range they just deal crap damage in close quarters and excellent damage at range, the further their target is the more damage they deal. Velocity is more of a drawback to their attack rather than a bonus, and as is it seems to be reading like a bonus ability. I should probably set the archers up to deal medium and small splash damage rather than full damage to everything in their attack aoe as well, but oh well.

Anyways, thanks for the response, It's nice to read such a long response to my race. I've been testing your race a bit and have yet to formulate a good critique of it, though I have to say overall the weather and environmental theme going for it is rather well done. Only major complaint I have with it is WC3 force-quits when the implaing bolt upgrade of the ballista is researched and I try to blast trees with one. Not sure if it's something with my hardware, but if their is code involved it's something to look into.

 

[Wazzz]

@LichPrince: You missed mine :S