[General] Can a lot of ability levels cause lag?

[stan0033]

I'm making a map with some custom abilites that have 100 levels. And the heroes have 6-12 abilities on them, disabled. Can this cause lag and what do I do if it does?

 

[Bitchmoon]

It causes hugely increased load times for your map. Whether it causes ingame lag or not i'm not sure, but last time I tested it it didn't. So just increased load times.

 

[Dr Super Good]

When the ability is first obtained it may cause the game to freeze for a few seconds.

I would recommend avoiding abilities with "100 levels" and instead look for alternative means of scaling. For example having abilities with single levels that are triggered and scale based on hero level or stats. This is sort of how Heroes of the Storm does it, except they use SC2's in-built damage scaling mechanics which are lacking from WC3.

 

[Kaijyuu]

If you don't mind loading times, you can put all your abilities on a single dummy unit, place it on the map somewhere, and kill it with a trigger 0.00 seconds in. This will force the game to load the abilities during the standard start of game loading screen, and not in the middle of gameplay (which can cause short freezes).

 

[DracoL1ch]

best solution - avoid 5+ levels abilities at all
possible solution - preload "definitely gonna be used" high-lvl abilities via dummy
kind of solution - preload all high-lvl abilities in loading screen, increasing load time by few mins