Build and Defend 0.9.3

[Moderator]

17:16, 17th Oct 2014
Orcnet:

The tutorial for the map is good, especially giving a lot of essential use for all of the objects that will partake in the game, however it was lacking materials that is capable of enhancing heroes in early stages, instead of little supplies of potions and gear, it would be great if you can deal more items that are worth a cheap price, as same as units that can be trained, they start weak and low in price, there would be upgrades that will make them stronger for later waves.

The waves can be given a conditional difficulty where players can choose if the waves can be played in easy or hard, though this is a suggestion you might want to add to increase game play, lastly terrain should be given some little aspect of life for a change, the huge chunk of cliff on the waves' region is not right in some cases instead you might want to just add some tile variation and doodads to keep in some nice detail if you have no much plans to build a master made design.

Overall the map can be still be approved, but maximize your changes to give in a good result for the map, also its lacking some quest menu I suggest you add those incase some players did not follow some of the Instructor's messages for the game.

 

[Inflicted]

I'm going to use this post as a list of the upcoming changes and known bugs.
At the moment I am not aware of any.
Massive changes to terrain and intro system have been added.

All feedback and criticism are welcome. Suggestions are highly appreciated.

 

[Legal_Ease]

It looks a bit flat and empty.

Legal_Ease's List of Most Useful Links: BBcode key Advanced Terraining Map Submission Rules Hidden Material Weapon Attachment Map Preview Screen Beginner's Guide to Map Making Text Colors

 

[Shadow Fury]

Truly a cheap map which strongly lacks of basic stuff. Here are the reasons:-

BAD POINTS:-
- The game is really unbalanced. There are some spells which are overpowered. They are Lunar Arrow, Breath of Fire, Immolation, Frost Nova and Tornado. Some of them even have low cooldown so I can spam them multiple times. Immolation is the lord of the unbalanced spells. The strange thing about it is that my mana increases when I use it and decreases only when it reaches 100. Perhpaps because you set the mana regeneration of all heroes to -1 and I don't really know why doing this
- The terrain is terrible. No doodads at all, no tile variation and just Dirt in the battlefield and Brick in the starting area
- When I tested the Demon Hunter, the Sea Boss cursed me and then it didn't move or attack anymore
- The problem with the hotkeys of the Demon Hunter seems clear. You let Meteor have the "W" hotkey while you say in its description it is "Q". I think it's not hard to fix this
- An icon for a passive skill has an active one (Moon Armor) while two skills have passive icons when I learn them (Demonic Power and Starlight Restoration)

Those crucial issues are enough. I'll go directly to suggestions:-

SUGGESTIONS:-
- The skills I mentioned above must be weakened. You can either increase their cooldown (not less than 5 seconds increase) or decrease their power, it's your choice. The other heroes instead should be made stronger
- Fix the problem of the hotkeys. Just go to the Object Editor and find the Meteor skill
- Do something for that empty flat terrain. Add some doodads to decorate the terrain (archways, benches, banners etc...) and add some Rough Dirt and Grass on all that Dirt. Some other tiles on the Brick would also be nice like Black Marble and Round Tiles

OVERALL RESULT
To end my review, I'd say the map requires much more effort. Only those issues are enough for me to say that I give this map 1/5 and vote for REJECTION!

 

[Inflicted]

Oh I probably should have mentioned before that the map isn't complete, that I was focusing more on the game mechanics before doing the visuals (terrain, icons and other issues like balancing)

I think the initial reason why those skills were so overpowered was because I was doing a lot of testing in single player and could never progress far enough to test bosses. For that reason either enemies healths were reduced or spammable skills were amplified. I will test and adjust these values accordingly.

Immolation is the lord of the unbalanced spells.

I agree, this hero was designed before the implementation of the Empower system and I didn't relook at him before, causing his damage output to be much higher than initially intended. This will be adjusted accordingly. Likewise with similiarly overpowered skills.

Perhpaps because you set the mana regeneration of all heroes to -1 and I don't really know why doing this

There is a system in place called Empower, check the description. And the -1 is the reduction of this over time. I decided to allow players to enjoy the game without having to worry about mana costs.

The terrain is terrible. No doodads at all, no tile variation and just Dirt in the battlefield and Brick in the starting area

I'll change this is as soon as possible.

When I tested the Demon Hunter, the Sea Boss cursed me and then it didn't move or attack anymore

I shall investigate this, thanks.

The problem with the hotkeys of the Demon Hunter seems clear. You let Meteor have the "W" hotkey while you say in its description it is "Q". I think it's not hard to fix this

Yes I was aware of this, and commented soon after advising not to play him on comment. (this has been removed when I changed the first comment)

An icon for a passive skill has an active one (Moon Armor) while two skills have passive icons when I learn them (Demonic Power and Starlight Restoration)

Will be changed asap.


Thank you all for your feedback, I shall address those issues immediately.

 

[Inflicted]

Upcoming changes and fixes in version 0.9:

Changelog:

-Terrain changes
-Fixed Icon, placement and hotkey bugs (Demon Hunter and Priestess of the Moon)
-Balances to overpowered abilities:
Immolation (reduced from 6-30 to 1-9; area reduced)
Lunar Arrow (cooldown increased from 3s to 8s)
Breath of Fire (Magic scaling ratio reduced from 2x to 0.75x; early game effective damage reduced by approx. 5, deals approx 6 damage now on first level; additionally cooldown increased from 6s to 8s)
Frost Nova (damage severely reduced from 8-40 to 3-15)
Tornado (cooldown increased from 4s to 8s)

Blademaster had an ability replaced.
He no longer has hidden strike (Goes invisible and charges towards an enemy, when hitting it he deals area damage and reduces armor) but now has a melee range strike that deals damage in a line. (4-20 damage; with the ability to critically strike, to synergise with his crit strategy)

These changes to the terrain are not permanent, I shall modify them further and add more detail, or more effective pathing. Comments and suggestions for the terrain would be highly appreciated. Should there be two portals and therefore two directions for enemies to come from? The lanes that have now been added allows me to create a whole variety of new skills such as a temporary blocking to disrupt enemy movement. I look forward to adding all forms of new content in future additions.

The map has been changed and almost all of the above reviews points have been addressed, if anyone would be so kind as to give me another review, comment or just give their general thoughts. I would be most grateful.

I shall draw my attention to fixing bugs, imbalanced and terrain instead of adding new content for the next while. Many thanks for the above reviews and comments.

 

[Inflicted]

Major updates incoming.
Lots of terrain changes, adding an intro/explanation and lots of other minor changes.
Will release it as soon as I've ironed out some new bugs.
Please let me know if you have any suggestions, recommendations or thoughts.


With update 0.9.3 the intro system has been added, feedback on this or bug reporting would be much appreciated.
Does anyone know how to refresh the display image of the map?

 

[Mech_Warrior]

Hello Inflicted,

I just wanted to let you know that I played your map with a friend. It was pretty fun, but my overall impression is that it's not ready for a public release.

There were not enough heroes, not enough items, not enough waves, and the whole thing felt unpolished... it didn't even let us know that we won the game at the end

Also some items are underpowered while others are overpowered. I'm not sure if difficulty scales for more players, but we were able to beat it with minimal difficulty on 2 player.

I will give a more thorough review soon,

Mech

 

[freeTS]

issue: downtime / no player control over gameflow
fix: add -skip to skip tutorial, add -go to start lvl (if number of heroes in PvE area >= number of players)

issue: peon is underused
fix: add inventory to peon, make it act as a mule as well as a builder

issue: bosses stop moving after casting spells & mobs start running towards circle of life instead of attacking me when i become untargetable for a second (mirror image)
fix: add a trigger that orders all mobs to attack-move to the center of PvE area if there are alive heroes in PvE area (that way they will attack closest hero.. kinda), if no player-controlled heroes are alive, order to attack-move to the location of circle of power. maybe have this repeated every few seconds.

suggestions:

• after round ends, teleport hero of each player to position of their peon, that way i can tp myself exactly where i want.
• add another circle of power into base area that tps me infront of portal where mobs spawn. forcing me to walk the same path over and over is frustrating.

conclusion:
overall, a really good effort and i'm enjoying playing the map. i have only tried blademaster, but once the issues with control over gameflow been fixed i'll try others.

i really like all the game mechanics you made (crit, rage, stagger). you have a lot of work ahead of you, as i am sure you are aware, so i hope you keep at it. very good start!

3/5 for current version

 

[Inflicted]

Many thanks, yes it feels far from finished. But I am glad you enjoyed playing it.
Unfortunately studies alongside the decline of warcraft3 players have stunted my progress, but once I am on holiday I will be more than happy to finish it off.

Thanks again for the support.

 

[deepstrasz]

The start sequence with the Instructor is quite useless.
The Druid of the Talon is practically invincible.
The portal waves end abruptly without no mention or victory.
Terrain could use some work.

Not a bad idea overall.

 

[Inflicted]

The start sequence with the Instructor is quite useless.
The Druid of the Talon is practically invincible.
The portal waves end abruptly without no mention or victory.
Terrain could use some work.

Not a bad idea overall.

Thanks for the feedback.

Unfortunately the development of this map had not been continued in many months.

In the next update changes will be made to Druid of the Talon.

More waves shall be added with a final boss and a victory display.

Terrain needs a lot of work, I am aware of this.

Considering moving this onto the Dota 2 engine, but if I go against that idea future development will go into this map.

 

[deepstrasz]

Considering moving this onto the Dota 2 engine, but if I go against that idea future development will go into this map.

How is that doable? Does DotA 2 have an editor like Warcraft III?

 

[Inflicted]

How is that doable? Does DotA 2 have an editor like Warcraft III?

Similar, look for Dota 2 Workshop Tools.
It's still in alpha and its really rough, much more difficult than editing on Warcraft3, but it is possible currently. (requires Steam)

 

[deepstrasz]

Similar, look for Dota 2 Workshop Tools.

Interesting. Is it more difficult than the Galaxy Editor of StarCraft II?