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Soulchess: V.:1.22e

This bundle is marked as director's cut. It exceeds all expectations and excels in every regard.
Soulchess 1.22e (contact: LaoshRa@Northrend; www.clancbs.com)
NOW WORKING WITH WC3 1.24!
Genre:
A mix between turn based strategy game, arena battles and other miscellaneous possibilities (it’s de facto NOT like normal chess). Consider the game to last about one hour if played with 4 players.

Main Features:
Unique game play.
Long lasting fun due to 8 completely different races.
8 different arenas to fight in.
A tutorial and a detailed info section (F9) to understand the rules.
A well thought-out system for collecting Soulpoints.
Customized units with changed attack/armor types, a LOT of different level 1/2/3 abilities and Field Attacks.
Board Abilities.
Global spells with extravagant cinematics.
Certain changes to prevent the players from “hiding” at their starting positions.
Various just-for-fun extras, including music change, renaming, retinting, random taunts and a third-person-camera.
Player 1 (Red) can easily change the terrain of the board.
Playerlevel (PL) with -save / -load for additional privileges.

Players:
1-4, they can pick out of 8 completely different races.
1: To get a first impression. Creeps will spawn but they won't move at all.
2: Works. Not recommended though – some races have big advantages here.
3: Big disadvantage for the player in the middle.
4: That's the way it's meant to be played.
All games are FFA. If you want to play 2on2, talk with the other players before you start.

Controls:
Select one of your own units during your turn to let circles appear on the ground. The gray ones are blocked, green ones to move, red ones to attack an enemy or to use a Field Attack. Selecting your king or pressing ESC during your turn will show up a menu for different actions.
The unit’s hotkeys are: Q W E and R (depending on the position of the abilities).

General info / Progress of the game:
The board is shaped like a cross (so the forces don't overlap in the corners), there are 4 healing fields in the middle. Each player has 10 units and loses if his king-type unit dies. The players take turns to move their units.
During your turn you can EITHER
-Move a unit
-Attack a unit (Arena)
-Attack a unit (Field Attack)
-Use a Board Ability
-Skip your own turn
-Increase the level of one of your units by paying 10 Soulpoints
-Cast your race specific Soulpower
or
-Do unrelated stuff until the turn time runs out (default: 1:30 minutes)

-Attack a unit (Arena)
Instead of killing a unit directly an arena fight is triggered (both units become unpaused and transported to a random arena). The attacker has +25% attackspeed and +10% movementspeed. The winning unit will reach a higher level (maximum is level 3) and gather 3 Soulpoints; the loser will acquire 5 Soulpoints.

-Attack a unit (Field Attack)
Some units (averagely 2 per race) have Field Attacks. Instead of triggering an arena fight the attacker will attack once or cast a single spell to hurt / weaken the victim.

-Use a Board Ability (Requires PL2)
Similar to Field Attacks, Board Abilities end your turn after usage. However, they don't require a hostile target like Field Attacks do.
All Soldier-types have "Soul Release":
Sets the soul of this unit free: it gains 20% bonusdamage, +1 armor and instantly restores 2 manapoints. The effect lasts for the duration of the next battle of this unit. However, you won't gain any Soulpoints from this battle. Using this ability multiple times won't make the bonuses stack, only the manarestoration does.
All Archer-types have "Fortify":
Attackers won't have any Attacker's Advantage (attack&movespeed bonus) against it. Lasts until the unit uses a Field Attack, attacks another unit or until it moves onto another field.
All Caster-types have "Meditate":
Restores 1 Manapoint to this and all nearby allied units (covers 9 fields).

-Levelup / Soulpower
As mentioned before you gather Soulpoints by fighting. But you also gather Soulpoints by occupying the king fields (+1 Soulpoint per round) and the healing fields in the middle (+2 Soulpoints per round). Those Soulpoints can be spend to increase the level of a unit for 10 Soulpoints (neither a king nor Aznereth) or to cast the race-specific Soulpower. Both options can be found in the menu which shows up if you select your king or press ESC.
Soulpowers are extremely powerful and may change the tide of the battle. Some drain all Soulpoints beoming more effective with each point, others have a static cost.

NEW: Playerlevel (PL)
You gain play Playerlevel points for arena battles and eventually gain a higher Playerlevel (PL):

initial: [PL1 Newbie]: +0 initial Soulpoints
50 points: [PL2 Decent]: +0 SP; Board Abilities
150 points: [PL3 Experienced]: +1 SP; Rename Command
500 points: [PL4 Professional]: +3 SP; Tinting Command
1500 points: [PL5 Elite]: +5 SP; Random Unit Command
5000 points: [PL6 Master]: +10 SP; Beast starts with level 2
15000 points: [PL7 Legend]: +10 SP; Get your own avatar

Before leaving, you should always type "-save" to get a password which contains your points.

When starting a new game, you can "-load XYZ" whereas XYZ is your code. You can only load before all players have picked their races and you can only load one code per game.

Those Playerlevel points gained in arena battles depend on many factors: many players, a tough battle, an opponent with high PL... those things will increase the amount of points significantly. You gain most by draws, and a lot by winning the battle. Losing it hardly gives you any points.
Winning a game also adds some points, depending on the duration of the game. Even if you didn't win, staying until the end of the game also adds a small amount of points.

NEW:
Ice Arena.
All Beasts units are done.
Various misc improvements.

For a version without custom music, click HERE.

Keywords:
Soulchess, Soul, Chess, Turn, Turns, Turnbased, Roundbased, Round, Rounds, Mix
Contents

Soulchess: V.:1.22e (Map)

Reviews
13:05, 4th Oct 2008 VGsatomi: This map was originally awarded Director's choice on Wc3sear.ch. That award carries over here.

Moderator

M

Moderator

13:05, 4th Oct 2008
VGsatomi: This map was originally awarded Director's choice on Wc3sear.ch. That award carries over here.
 
Level 6
Joined
Mar 18, 2005
Messages
153
1.20 released!

to sum up the main updates:

•Beast Unit Type (only 4 of 8 done yet, sorry)
•Player Levels (PL) which can be saved&loaded
•Desert Arena
•Cocktail Bomber remake & certain ability remakes
•bugfixes, rebalance, misc improvements
•custom weapon&armor icons, 100+ epic battle phrases
•faster soulpower animations on 2nd cast

{EDIT}
i forgot to remove the private beta protection XD sorry for those who downloaded this unfunctional version, 1.20a is the one you need instead.
 
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Level 6
Joined
Mar 18, 2005
Messages
153
1.20g released.

Balance Changes
-manacost for Zap Flashbang's abilities are now: 11/12/14 (he has 30 maxmana)
-increased missle speed of V17 Steelstorm (Zap's Level 3) from 700 to 850
-increased Cocktail Bomber's base damage by 5
-nerfed various effects of Goblin Orb (Cocktail Bomber's Level 2)
-reduced Soul Drain's cooldown from 20 to 15
-reduced duration of Goblin Transmutation by 1 (Bio Tinker's Level 3) and increased casting range from 300 to 400
-random using "-random" grants players 2 bonus soulpoints at the beginning (doesn't apply for -ar mode) <fixed in 1.20g>
-buffed rotten bone dragon to compensate lvl1 bug
-vip units (kings,beasts,aznereth) now regen 3/7 hp per round (lvl2/lvl3) instead of 2/5 like common units
-increased Guard of Purgatories maxhp by 5
-additional effect of Cursed Flesh (Guard of Purgatories LVL3): reduces own armor by 75%
Fixes
-restored Deathclock Ability (Fusion Wrath's Level 2)
-added Attacker's Advantage Towers to Desert Arena (how could i forget this <_v")
-fixed Soul Drain and Riddlespike (Unholy Ladies Level 1 and 2) not to base on the same ability anymore
-fixed bug with abilities based on elune's grace: "Data - Magic Damage Reduction" is the factor it is SET to, not the factor it is reduced by... (applies to firebrand&rotten bone dragon)
-removed lilith's mana-per-sec-regen
-fixed ending-PL-score-message&pointgain
-fixed Surprise From Above (Tornado LVL3 Field Attack) issue
Misc
-cured some more memory leaks
-Attacker's Advantage Towers are now totally invisible
-added new beast for Blood Orcs
-added new beast for Elementals
-changed initial tinting for Tornados in order to make it easier to recognize their lvl3 tinting

I still couldnt fix the chatmessage cut-off. it's somehow caused by renaming the players. using the -iam command (requires PL3) seems to help for a while, you can always look up the whole chatmessages in the chat log (F12).


As for the new beasts...

Blood Orcs:

Kish'Krí
Model: Misha (Bear), red tinting

Level 1: Concussive Roar
A powerful roar will confuse the target by shaking it's screen. Additionally, the target loses all buffs and is significantly slowed. Lasts 5 seconds.

Suggested Usage:
•Use in short or melee range
•Use to make enemy missclick

Level 2: Gorelust
Kish'Krí's hunger for blood enrages her. Whenever attacked or attacking, this ability is charged and the cost of this ability is lowered. The ability can only be used once per fight, it increases attack speed and taken damage by 10%/5% per charge.
Current stacks: 0/5.
Lasts until the fight has ended.

Suggested Usage:
•Requires no targeting (like War Stomp)
•Use against weaker opponents
•If possible, wait until sum of attacks in the fight is 5
•Use on melee range
•Use between your attacks

Level 3:
Kish'Krí's Claws are amplified by 10 damage. Her powerful attacks attempt to stomp the opponent deeper and deeper into the ground, stunning him for 0.2 seconds per attack.


This one is brute force. Having 200 maxhp it's quite effective against nuking units.


Elementals:

Fading Nightmare
Model: Hydra, almost black tinting, gains transparency due to Level 1

Level 1: Flickering Fate
The Fading Nightmare's destination is to disappear step by step. The blur adds an evasion about equal to the transparency in percent. Passing 75%, the Fading Nightmare will instantly die after adding 10% of it's remaining hp as Venomcounters to the opponent.
Every order given to the Nightmare vanishes it by 1% (max 40%, max 2 times per sec).
Being attacked vanishes it by 3%.
Enemy spellcasting vanishes it by 7%.
Winning a fight vanishes it by 4%.
Current Fading (in steps of 5%): 0%

Level 2: Shadow Ring
Unleashes a ring of darkness to engulf the opponent. Every half second, the enemy takes 1/15 of the Fading Nightmare's Flickering Fate (always rounded down) as damage. Lasts 15 seconds.

Suggested Usage:
•Requires no targeting (like War Stomp)
•Being more vanished deals more damage
•Use at least 15 seconds before the fight ends

Level 3: Cursed Flesh
Contracting with a lesser demon, this unit has the ability to regenerate itself for 5 hitpoints per second and 100% per turn (between battles). Reduces own armor by 75%.


This one makes a great assassinate-through-counter-unit. Moving it around on the board too much is a bad idea though (2% vanish per move).
 
Level 6
Joined
Mar 18, 2005
Messages
153
approaching a new release...
wont post the changelog yet, but i can already spoiler that every unit will have 6 info-items. those items don't do anything except having the same tooltip as the abilities/field attacks of the unit. it also displays manacost and cooldown (modified gold & lumber). the first release will only contain info items for all units with field attacks (sorry but its a lot of work).
this will not only help newbies to get immersed into the game, even experienced players like myself are usually unable to remember all of the exact values & manacosts throughout the various rebalances...
 
Level 8
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
391
Why not give the units/pieces and inventory so they can have items. That'd increase the funnnes of the gameplay. Otherwise it's good, although i keep wondering, why did you make the goblin swarm so weak? I could never get anything with them.
 
Level 6
Joined
Mar 18, 2005
Messages
153
sorry to keep you waiting, new version is released. merry christmas :D
as for items, they are now used as tooltips to display the unit's level 1, 2 and 3 abilities (arena in the left column, field attacks in the right column). not all of them are added yet though...
theres a new arena and all beast units are done... there are quite some misc improvements which i cba to list here. :)
 
Level 6
Joined
Mar 18, 2005
Messages
153
1.21e
Rebalance/Game Rules:
LVL3 Sunhelix manacost 10->12
readjusted Firebrand's Obedience To Power (lvl1): chance to trigger now starts at about 50% (instead of 100%) but only goes down to about 25% (instead of almost 0%)
Archbone Warrior now starts with 85 instead of 80 hp, but Durable Bones (LVL2) now only adds 30 instead of 40 maxhp and attackcooldown increased from 1.25 to 1.30.
Bubanshee now starts with Horror like all other green death units (-10% attackspeed for opponent).
Crown of the Mistress (Bubanshee LVL2) now adds 4 armor instead of 2 and restores 5*level hitpoints (instead of 4*level) of the dying unit (manarestore remains as before).
Light Bringer damage: 35->30

Bugfixes/Optimisation:
fixed a rare bug which allowed you to spend more than 1 levelup within one turn (still have to test if fix-method has worked)

Interface/Effects:
Fixed Meditate hotkey
Changed Poison Breath (Rotten Bonedragon LVL3) icon to active version (LuckerKid +5)
Renamed Lash Beast into Lash Fiend (to prevent people from thinking it is beast-type)
Cold Armor Beta/ now uses the Mountain Giant model (Nerv91.Slayer +7)
Fixed 2 admincommand typos
Improved an admin command
Gravity Orb (Cold Armor Soulpower) message is now shown to all players instead of only to the caster (TheDarkMoon +8 )
Improved Watereffect in the Ice Arena (Ashgan +7)
"-resetcam" now resets the camera without delay
fixed a zoom bug and set default value from 2150/1650 (yea, it was different when using -resetcam) to 2500.

New Content/Remakes:
Put the forum's List Of Interested Players into the info section (F9)
People who get their turn skipped are automagically marked as away. the status is removed whenever they select a unit or type a message. while marked as away all further turns will be skipped. (not tested yet) (Zakamutt +15)
zaka, this is a bit different than you suggested: i dont like the idea of people -afking volunteerly whenever they want to, as thats abuseable by backstabbing at the right time (and people will most likely not attack their king)... so they should at least be forced not to write/click anything, which should ruin their mood to abuse it another advantage is that people are marked as afk even if they dont know the command or have no time to enter it due to sudden incidents... as for PL points, i guess i will remove any PL gain when fighting afk units.
 
Level 6
Joined
Mar 18, 2005
Messages
153
monoflauta, i wonder why you even bother rating a map you havent decently played yet... this map does indeed not match everyones taste as it requires some patience, but i dont think its fair to give it such a bad rating just because "didnt understand a lot of that game". take your time to get into it, or just ignore it!
 
Level 2
Joined
Oct 16, 2008
Messages
11
great great map.. one of the best and most detailed I ever played. I often play it with my friends, at least twice a week. Thank you and we are looking forward for new releases :)

ehee, me too:grin:
Laosh'Ra, if you're ever feeling blue or you start wondering why do you continue making Soulchess by wasting so much time and effort say this: "That's right! I'm doing this for Delta21, and HE deserves it!!! Yay...off to some mapmaking!:xxd:"
 
Level 6
Joined
Mar 18, 2005
Messages
153
i will try to get it working but i'm not sure if i'm able to...

{EDIT}
i did it, soulchess is fixed. tested it a few minutes with 3 other ppl on b.net and everything seemed fine.
NOTE: the 1.21h changes are removed for now. so are the admin commands to prevent a certain exploit.
this is more like a hotfix, you can expect a decent patch coming soon.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Level 6
Joined
Mar 18, 2005
Messages
153
Is there a way to skip the tutourial
yes, at least two players (one if you start it alone) have to write "-skip" at the beginning.

it became an Wc3 Error when fading Hydra made a spell where it came a lot of explodsion.
this is new, it always worked so far. it might be 1.24 related and ill take a look at this issue, thanks for reporting.

Could you update Space Rogues too, please?
first things first, i wanted to improve&release the tool which helped me fixing soulchess. improving it also improves the chances of me fixing spacerogues and my other maps.
 
Level 6
Joined
Mar 18, 2005
Messages
153
it was a one instant thing i think.
still i want to fix it. the map is actually free from critical errors since a few years, and i really want to keep it like that because it is very frustrating for people to start all over in such a type of map... i found a possible source for the error which could happen upon a draw, could that have been the case?

it need a disable icon
yea, it lacks a disable icon. but then again, it's only a temporary solution until i added all remaining infoitems. maybe i quickly find something better-suiting though...
 
Level 4
Joined
Aug 27, 2008
Messages
61
The Error happend when the Fading Hydra fad out in a battle and explode (but i dont remember whate unit it was in battle with).

Im writing this to help you find whate it is.

A few years you say, thats inpressive.
Tornados "attack from abo" does also need a disable icon.
 
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Level 6
Joined
Mar 18, 2005
Messages
153
apparently the save-codes don't work anymore. this is really odd because i didn't change them at all, probably 1.24 related as well...
don't worry and keep your code: i'll do my best to to get it working again.
if you find any other issues, please report them.

{EDIT}
.h changes have been restored, savecodes are almost entirely fixed.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

TKF

TKF

Level 19
Joined
Nov 29, 2006
Messages
1,266
Wow, this is on hive too!

This is a very unique map. I played one of the earlier versions. I'm going to try this and see how balanced it has become!



However there's 1 thing I don't like. The map size is 3.5MB which is kinda a lot when you host it on bnet and wait long time for newbies to dl. But it get 5/5 still from me.
 
Level 6
Joined
Mar 18, 2005
Messages
153
1.22d (also a to c)

known issues:
it seems the fatal errors are gone, i cannot promise it though. also, you now need to wait until the turntimer runs out whenever someone leaves (only during the turn he was leaving) i don't dare attempting to fix it as i cannot test this singleplayer. so expect it fixed with the next release.

Rebalance/Game Rules:
-Influence of the difference of Playerlevels reduced on PL-exp gain (factor from ^0.5 (squareroot) to ^0.35) meaning you get less bonus when fighting higher PL players and less malus when fighting lower PL players
-Doubled all PL-exp gain
Defiled Necromancer's abilities:
-Vampiric Ressurection: Ghoul hp increased from 25 to 30, self-degeneration increased from 1.5 to 2, damage reduced from 3-10 to 3-7
-Absorb (LVL2): Manadrain reduced from 10 to 7
-Summon Burning Dead (LVL3): hp from 80 to 70, attack cooldown from 1.35 to 1.50, damage from 15-20 to 10-15
-Defiled Necromancer's hitpoints increased from 107 to 113
-Archbone Warrior's/Assassin's attackcooldown from 1.30/1.40 to 1.35/1.35
-Reduced Gelidus' Gloves of Desonance knockback chance from 25% to 22%
-Increased Archbone Assassin's Mesmerise (LVL2) cooldown from 7 to 12
-Changed Souledge, Shadowring, Meteo, Deathclock, Summon Shadowelemental, Angelic Ascension, Flashbang cooldown to 50 (you could hardly use those twice in the same fight before, this is rather an esthetic decision)
-Reduced Terrafiend's Terrastrike (LVL3) cooldown from 40 to 7
-Increased Cold Armor Alpha's Stop (LVL3) cooldown from 15 to 50
Bugfixes/Optimisation:
-Fixed an issue with Defiled Necromancer's Absorb (LVL2) draining 0.3 hp&mana too much in total by adjusting the drainintervals
-Fixed memory leaks on Phoenix Claw
-Reparsed all instances of add/remove ability as there has been at least one IDmissmatch (possibly fixing the rare fatal errors)
-Hopefully fixed an issue which caused kings to get stuck when their opponent left right after their king was defeated in battle
-Fixed a serious levelup issue
Interface/Effects:
-Deceitful Seduction effect slightly changed
-Removed a Debugmessage from Ashari's Angelic Ascension ending part
-Fixed an infoitem issue with Light Bringer
-Deathray's tooltip now correctly displays the manacost (10)
-Greater Slam's tooltip now indicates that it is a Level 2 ability
-Renamed Cold Armor Gamma's Frost Orb (LVL2) into Frost Blast and fixed a typo
-Added a warning message to Alucard's Batform (LVL2)
-Minor optical/duration changes for Alucard's The Dark Moon (LVL3) as well as custom music (see new content)
-Fixed |n being displayed within the raceinfo message
-Reworked message The Three are giving and removed the poke of Ikuh
-Added charges to the following abilities' infoitems to display their status:
Alucard's Craving For Blood (LVL1): the maxhp gained throughout the game
The Dark Moon (LVL3): 1 charge if it can still be used, 0 if not
Garel'Ta Soldier's & Keto's Arcane Kite Shield (LVL2): amount of armor added
Kish'Krí's Gorelust (LVL2): how far the ability has been powered up during this fight
Ashari's & Silveredge Warrior's Avenging Justice (LVL3): amount of units the opponent has killed of you (thus improving the power of this ability)
Firebrand's Obedience to Power (LVL1): how many hp/maxhp you can still lose/gain
Bubanshee's Deceitful Seduction (LVL1): how many maxhp alucard has recieved from this ability
Keto's Crystal Form (LVL1): how much armor you have lost
Leviathan's Faith Field (LVL1): current damagereduction
Fading Nightmare's Flickering Fate (LVL1): current evasion (this is different from the fading text because the evasion is applied in steps of 5%)
-Fixed all current info item's manacost&cooldown values (note: some info items are still missing)
New Content/Remakes:
New themes:
intro (also used as boardtheme), outro, alucard's thedarkmoon
Reworked:
original boardtheme (stop screaming! it is still the same mp3, just a different part of it which is also longer) which is now alternating with the new introtheme (the themes take turns whenever the board theme has to start over)

Now using 99.25% of the 8 mb limit, the map takes more than twice as long to download. I consider this acceptable because usually either 2 or 3 people have to download, meaning it is done in 1-2 steps. Also, people who don't have the patience to wait for this download shouldn't even give this map a try as it is not as fast paced as most other wc3 games...

@papfles: could you be more specific? what doesnt work?
@TKF: sorry but its even more than twice as big now X'D
 

TKF

TKF

Level 19
Joined
Nov 29, 2006
Messages
1,266
My internet sucks to much so I wouldn't host it anymore on bnet now.


What shit do you put into the map anyways? You know music takes much size. I use to supercompress them with fruityloops. It sounds a bit crappier though...
 
Level 6
Joined
Mar 18, 2005
Messages
153
i use winLAME and reduce the quality to 96 kbps which seems the minimum of "still sounding good".
but yea, theres a lot of music now:
2 alternating board themes of which one is also for the intro
battle
epic battle
soulpower
alucard's thedarkmoon
outro
and some minor sounds...

i will consider to create a version without music, have to make up my mind on this first as there are quite a few cons...
 

TKF

TKF

Level 19
Joined
Nov 29, 2006
Messages
1,266
Well, that compression is good enough I suppose. But a music free version is also a good idea.

However removing the music removes the atmosphere of the map. :/



Maybe you should add another ability to each king. Maybe not a soul power, but a minor secondary ability which cost soulpower. Adding diversity. Or maybe not....

I'm playing this once in a rare while so :p
 
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