Swarm (Survival / Hero Defense)

[akrep_ve_su]

What is this?
A hero defense / survival map where creautres love to show their crazy abilities..
What is different in this map?
Survivors are unique in their roles (abilities, weapons) as well as advanced creatures do more than just some simple melee attacks. Ammo is also limited; so you don’t just wait behind a barricade, shooting, until you or your enemies die. Gameplay is believed to be more dynamic than that.
What can enemies do?
While classic zombies do nothing other than basic mele attacks; Ghouls can paralyze, Forgotten Ones can walk, climb over walls and obstacles; bats can fly (as usual), Stalkers can charge to survivors; Glowing Ones can blast survivors, knocking them away; Abominations can cause diseases, Fiends can ensnare Survivors, rendering them unable to move; and mighty Dreadlords can bind and drag survivors to themselves.
What can YOU do?
You can pick one of the 4 unique heroes, work cooperatively with your team mates, live or die together. Engineer can craft items for example. He can build turrets, some wise traps that will confuse the enemy; or create ammo from raw materiels. Heavy Impact Specialist can Artilery Strike at long range as well as being able to Slam ground; dealing with enemies by knocking them back. While Marine can improve his battle capabilities to extraordinary levels, controlling X22-K Prototype will be a totally different experience. (Duh, sounds like some lame product advertisement)
Inspirations
Afterlife (Ammunition and Reload System Idea)
Resident Evil Tribute (City Geometry)
Fallout Universe (Concept, names etc..)
Credits
Everything in the map (except models and icons) are made from scratch. People that have contributed to the map is credited in the map (F9 during game)

Known Bugs (Latest Version):
- Random buff icons with "Tooltip missing" text appear on units.


Changelog:

Beta 2.2b

- Fixed Stalker and Dreadlord abilities' malfunctioning (hopefully),
- Reduced cast range of Shackles to 2000 (for Dreadlord) and it no drags victim over obstacles,
- Creeps now ONLY target heroes with their abilities,
- Fixed reload-sprint related issue,
- (Hopefully) fixed auto reload-crafting issue,
- Modified creep behaviour in combat,
- Increased Weapon - Scope Attachment's production rate,
- Reduced coodown of Basic Crafting to 35 seconds,
- Using Basic or Master crafting ability does not interrupt orders.

Beta 2.2

- Modified armor gain rate upon Psycho usage,
- Weapon - HE Attachment now deal more damage (220),
- Level skip time and creep spawn intervals are modified,
- Fixed Maintanence bonus - energy regen correlation,
- Modified Creep Spawn dice,
- Increased Rifle Scope production time,
- Added new Item: Jet,
- Added new Item: Medkit,
- Added new Item: Med-X,
- Added new Item: Land Mines,
- Creatures will attempt to use their abilities on barricades and turrets too.

Known Bugs that I haven't been able to fix:
* Auto-Reload sometimes doesn't work.
* Effects of Jet, Med-x speed bonus or Sprint speed bonus wear off when user reloads his weapon,
* Random buff icons with "Tooltip missing" text appear on units.

Beta 2.1

- Changed XP gain rate from %15 to %20,
- Changed heal rate of meat,
- Added new items,
+ Weapon - HE Attachment
+ Weapon - Rifle Scope
+ Weapon - Hunter Kit
+ Stimpak
+ Super Stimpak
+ Psycho
- Some minor changes which are unnecessary to document =)
* This one is a little rushed. If you find any bugs, please report to me =)

Beta 2

- Modified stat gain for each hero,
- Removed Attack-Disable and added Auto-Reload ability,
- Increased accuracy for Fragmentation Bombs (to prevent overkill of mass units; and properly dealing with Dreadlords),
- Dreadlord will now only drag Heroes,
- Marine can no longer craft items while running (he will stop instead),
- Marine can no longer build turrets with Basic Engineering ability,
- Turrets can now target air units,
- Ammo boxes now contain 960 bullets,
- Increased HP for all buildings dramatically,
- Increased stun duraiton of Energy Bolt,
- Increased energy regeneration for each Maintanence point,
- XP gain is reduced (From %25 to %15) and XP gain is still global,
- Added new infected creatures with new abilities,
+ Stalker (with Charge Ability)
+ Glowing One (with Radioactive Blast Ability)
+ Fiend (with Web Ability)
- Wave X command is removed from developer commands,
- Wave system is exchanged with Level system (random creep spawn with increasing difficulty),
- Repair rate is increased to %20 and now it is auto-castable,
- Heavy Turrets now show "Out of Ammo" SFX properly.

Beta 1.2 + Dev

- Minor changes were made to further balance the gameplay (creep oriented),
- Dreadlords now spawn at random locations,
- When a Dreadlord begins dragging an ally, Dreadlord is rendered visible,
- During Drag, location of ally is pinged in minimap,
- Removed useless Scouting Expert from Marine, added Basic Crafting,
- Marine has higher attack range and rate now,
- Cloaking no longer consumes all suit energy of Engineer,
- Fixed the board's visual problem (thanks to Kala),
- Barricades can be repaired with Engineering skill now,
- XP Gain is now global.

Still Not Fixed:
* Creep Spawn Trigger spawns inappropriate number of creeps. (Still)
However, maintaining playability with developer commands is possible.

Beta 1.1c + Dev

- Modified some of the developer commands,
- Increased the attack range of Engineer and Marine. Reduced the range of HW Guy,
- Modified attack damage parameters of all units (heroes),
- Minor improvements and grammar fixes with some new tooltips and descriptions,
- Modified accuracy for Fragmentation Bombs (It is now more accurate at close range),
- Production Rate of Steel And Engine are increased,
- Reduced cooldown of many abilities to expand playability,
- Changed movement speed of Infected units (mostly reduced) to balance difficulty,
- Increased XP gain by %150 (You now gain 2.5 times experience points) which is much more balanced (trust me),
- Units of quitting player is now shared with team.

Things that I haven't been able to fix:
* Board not showing up properly when game first starts or another player leaves,
* Creep Spawn Trigger spawns inappropriate number of creeps
(This may have something to do with Vexorian optimization tool, because it started after I had tampered with it)
* Very rare, but sometimes dropped items (upon death) become unselectable, un-pickable. It stands in the spot like
a special effect. This may have something to do with Vexorian thing too.
* -wave X commands need some more modification before it can be used at any time to spawn a desired wave manually.
Misuse in current form causes even more bugs to take place.

Beta 1.1b + Dev

- Added some developer "tools" (for detailed information, hit F9 during game)
- Added extra hints between rounds.
- Halved the waiting time between raids for first 10 rounds.
- Prevented friendly AOE damage from occourring.
- Fixed inproper round numbers,
- Weakened the Forgotten One by reducing attack damage and hit points.

Beta 1.1

Beta 1.1
- Minor improvements with descriptions and tooltips,
- Minor terrain improvements,
- Fixed weapon sound's "unstable frequency" glitch,
- Fixed some minor animation, SFX issues,
- Fixed "Unable to Repair" message bug,
- Changed (mostly reduced) some of the ability cooldowns,
- Fixed missing "origin" attachment point of Heavy Turret so it shows SFX properly when it is being repaired,
- Map is optimized and now takes less space. (around 84 kbs)
- Reduced creep attack range,
- Reduced collision of building to prevent attacks from far distance,
- Reduced attack damage of Mutated Bat.

 

[akrep_ve_su]

First beta is uploaded and attached to the first post.

Important: I still need item ideas. Craftable or directly usable. Gameplay needs some expanding and new items should affect the survivalability soomehow. Share your ideas under this topic please.

And this sitiuation still applies =)

 

[frostloh]

interesting

 

[akrep_ve_su]

- Beta 1.1 is uploaded.
- Changelog is added to the first post.
Still need item ideas for the map =) And If anyone can take some screenshots from game and send them to me via PM, I would be most grateful. For 4-5 good in-game screenshots, I will credit you in the next release =)

 

[akrep_ve_su]

Update! Beta 1.1b is out. There is still a problem with kill count system of the map. Sometimes next wave does not spawn due to improper counting. To maintain playability, I added some developer commands that can summon next wave or kill stuck units or check board values etc.. New map is open-source too, so If anyone have time and can spot the bug with the Kill Count System, I would appreciate it and give him credit in the next release =)

 

[akrep_ve_su]

Beta 1.1c is uploaded and changelog is attached to the first post. There have been some demotivational developments; most being weird bugs that've come up recently. (I am quite blaming the Vexorian tool for that)
Map is open-source, If anyone is interested in fixing bugs/helping, they're welcome to join. =)
Those who contribute to map will -of course- get credit for their work =)
From deleted previos post:

I've seen that Vexorian optimization screwed the hell out of the map and has been causing weird bugs. Anyone know a way to fast-export-import map data? (triggers, objects etc..)

 

[akrep_ve_su]

Beta 1.2 is out.
Still need item ideas, feedback and if possible; some help with the buggy spawn system =)

 

[akrep_ve_su]

I haven't done anything new, due to lack of interest in the map. (253 views, 4 or 5 downloads since first beta release, no comments -except the single one- etc..)
I am planning to discontinue the project If It has no potential =)

 

[Landmine]

I think the reason for this not getting much attention is because it seems like just another zombie survival map. Honestly, I'm not going to download it because there are much more interesting versions of survival maps out there.
Tips: Do some research. Look at popular survivals (such as Zombie Assault Force)
An idea I just had: try having global "turret pads". Essentially pre-placed structures that a player can turn into a turret when conditions are met (costs, levels or whatever). This would be: new, fairly simple to do and wont break the game like adding potential "turret" items which can go anywhere to make the team untouchable. However, cut the Engineer's ability to build turrets, but make the Engineer the one that can upgrade built turrets (so players build turrets as they can, Engineer upgrades them as he can).
Lastly, if this is a game of survival, make it action packed. Cut the wave-by-wave stuff, and make it a nearly seamless onslaught. This way the game doesn't last as long (as players don't have much downtime) and you don't get bored between waves. Of course, you can be nice and have some time where the attacking force is thinned for a bit.
My ideas. I'd be interested in trying the map out if you add something more original.

 

[Miss_Foxy]

That sounds interesting, hope to see more updates! I'll help you bump it, try to make it unique in a way you think is special too

 

[AyeKantSpel]

Might I suggest a better name for the Heavy Weapons Guy? Maybe changing it to High Impact Specialist?

I fully agree with Landmine, downtime is boring, people with guns like to shoot things and make them explode, plain and simple. The turrets at a specific location are a great idea, would give them a hard choice, to either decide if it's worth it to risk a go for the turret or to stay and hold their position.

 

[akrep_ve_su]

Thank you all for your comments. Everything you said will be taken into consideration.
Right now; High Impact Specialist name change for HW Guy is applied and AyeKantSpel is credited for his suggestion.
My most major plans for now are:
- Adding new creeps with new abilities which will surely make the game interesting =)
- Removal of Wave system (adding a random spawn system with increasing difficulty rate)

 

[AyeKantSpel]

I have another suggestion, this is purely optional and wouldn't make the game any harder, but would add an interesting twist to it;

Maybe another class that's kinda a support class that could hold it's own, much like a field medic, with the ability to detect and clean infected meat/stagnant water to increase your stores.

That is if you're up for adding another class and some more game mechanics and enough people support that idea.

 

[akrep_ve_su]

Interesting Idea. So you say this ability is passive and increases food/water production rates and storing capacity?
Actually, I was planning to add another 4 hero (all being second alternatives to the existing ones) I needed to import 3 new models and edit all of them (in minor way) Model editor had a problem and couldn't open 2 of it. (Maybe protected?) I canceled that right then. But If you can create concept for a 5th hero (4 upgradeable abilities and 1 constant ability -like the engineering of Engineer =) ) We can discuss it and add it to the map.

 

[AyeKantSpel]

Downloading now to check out the engineer's skills, I'll give you a rough draft of the hero concept as soon as I can.

Edit: Here it is

Nano-Tech Biologist

Nano-tech Biologist
The Nano-tech Biologist uses cutting edge nano technology to fight the infection, he employs field medic training with scientific research he has acquired over the years to give his team the upper hand in surviving.

Purify: Cleans a stack of food or water, restoring 35% of the food/water stack. Cooldown, cast time and mana cost improve with each level. (Requires medical supplies).


Nanite Injection: Nanites swarm into the target unit, giving the biologist an offensive and support-healing ability.

Nanite Injection(Offensive): Fires a nanite round at the target, injecting it with nanites that attack the infection and damage the target over 5 seconds, if the target is killed with nanite injection active, it will explode and spread the nanites to nearby enemies.

Nanite Injection(Support): Injects a friendly unit with nanites, the nanites repair damaged and remove infected tissue, replacing it. Provides a direct heal as well as a cure effect to poisoned/infected units or a light heal over time to damaged units.


Field Veteran: The Nano-tech Biologist has had field experience, he knows ways to improve his Purify and Nanite Overload.

Purify: Adds an additional 7% food/water per level.

Nanite Overload: Damage and area of effect are increased slightly.


Nanite Overload: Nanites are released into the target area, the then nanites are all short circuited causing an electromagnetic pulse, stunning enemies in the target area.

 

[AyeKantSpel]

Hahaha, bump.

How's the editing coming along?

Double post ftw.

 

[akrep_ve_su]

Gonna release Beta 2 soon, today probably. =D However new hero idea will have to delay since I am limited on time :/ And it is best If I keep the map simple, yet more action packed (rather than logical, strategical etc..) =)

 

[AyeKantSpel]

Haha that's fine, there are times I prefer action over strategy myself, not a whole lot, but I do like to keep it simple every now and then, no rush though.

Edit: ^^ That being said, the next hero idea that comes to mind is a pyrotechnitian, because making things combust and explode is always fun.

 

[akrep_ve_su]

Yes there was a Pyro idea and I didn't add it only because I couldn't find an Icon for it Btw, what I really need is new item ideas. Items that are essential or semi-essential. They are free to acquire (like the others) but has limited production rates.

 

[AyeKantSpel]

Okay, soon as I get some much needed sleep I'll play around a little and see what every item does and what I feel is missing and make a list and get back to you with it.

 

[akrep_ve_su]

Ok. Btw, Beta 2 is out, with all major changes compared to the last version =)

 

[Landmine]

I'll try out the map and report back with my review (and possible ideas).

 

[AyeKantSpel]

The top of the two air spawns on the left comes straight over the mine, I think you have a gap in the pathing blockers of the walls, also the buy tooltip for the Junk box says "A little box containing minor electronic parts, scraps and other stuff used my mechanics.", as far as item suggestions;
- Grenade kits, or other random item kits that allow you to construct something that isn't a class specific skill, or you could add kits that give lesser abilities of class abilities so that way the class isn't necessary (once you get several more classes).
- Different Kinds of rounds (Possibly? Idk much here)
- Scopes (Attack speed, Attack range, damage, etc, whatever you want to add)
- Adrenaline Needles, restore a bit of energy and health, and all the good stuff adrenaline does to people, but could have side effects when used in clusters. (Overdose)

Other changes
- Progressively strengthening zombies, as the waves go on the basic zombies get stronger.
- Powerful zombies - ocassionally spawn, much stronger than the normal zombie.
- Class A hostiles - Very powerful zombies, rarely spawn if at all, will be announced and pinged.

That's all I have for now.

 

[akrep_ve_su]

The top of the two air spawns on the left comes straight over the mine, I think you have a gap in the pathing blockers of the walls, also the buy tooltip for the Junk box says "A little box containing minor electronic parts, scraps and other stuff used my mechanics.", as far as item suggestions;
- Grenade kits, or other random item kits that allow you to construct something that isn't a class specific skill, or you could add kits that give lesser abilities of class abilities so that way the class isn't necessary (once you get several more classes).
- Different Kinds of rounds (Possibly? Idk much here)
- Scopes (Attack speed, Attack range, damage, etc, whatever you want to add)
- Adrenaline Needles, restore a bit of energy and health, and all the good stuff adrenaline does to people, but could have side effects when used in clusters. (Overdose)

Other changes
- Progressively strengthening zombies, as the waves go on the basic zombies get stronger.
- Powerful zombies - ocassionally spawn, much stronger than the normal zombie.
- Class A hostiles - Very powerful zombies, rarely spawn if at all, will be announced and pinged.

That's all I have for now.

If those units are bats or forgotten ones, then there is no problem since they are able to move over walls and obstacles.
Fixed grammar error with Junk Box.
Item kits, needles are good idea, gonna start working on it now. Thank you =)
Edit: Btw, creeps already get stronger wave by wave (time actually) =) There is a dice system in game which goes as:

Dice

0-30 = Zombie
31-34 = Mutated Bat
35-55 = Ghoul
56-65 = Forgotten One
66-70 = Abomination
71-76 = Fiend
77-84 = Stalker
85-92 = Glowing One
93-100 = Dreadlord

There is a Integer X here; it starts at 30 and levels up one by one for each level in the game. Integer X is the max value of the dice. So as the time passes, stronger creeps will likely to come. Altough their spawn is still a matter of chance =)

Edit2: Uploaded Beta 2.1 with new items and minor adjustments.

 

[AyeKantSpel]

If those units are bats or forgotten ones, then there is no problem since they are able to move over walls and obstacles.

They were bats, not like they got close enough to do anything, just saw all the other ones going to the bottom/top entrances and then entering.


And I see on the dice thing, I played to like lvl 56 or around there, never saw a dreadlord.

 

[akrep_ve_su]

They were bats, not like they got close enough to do anything, just saw all the other ones going to the bottom/top entrances and then entering.


And I see on the dice thing, I played to like lvl 56 or around there, never saw a dreadlord.

Level 56 means, dice around 85 which is the min limit of Glowing One spawn =)
Dreadlords only spawn at the very late of the game since they are pain in the ass and forces survivors to watch each others back =)

 

[AyeKantSpel]

Ah, I see so around lvl 70 the dreadlords can start visiting, time to go hunt some vampires! =P

What I meant by getting stronger is like the basic creeps recieve an upgrade (every 7 minutes/10 levels or something like that) that slowly increases their health and damage, and can have a 'mutation' or some kind of enhancement that makes them even more deadly.

 

[akrep_ve_su]

Beta 2.2 is out and uploaded to the first post. Need feedback on items and require new ideas for Engineering - Master Crafting ability and creation of new items. Aye, give it a try some time =)

 

[AyeKantSpel]

I tried it, from what time I had to play the engineer fits nicely, though I've yet to fully explore his capabilities I did enjoy him up to the point where I was still stuffing my face and a dreadlord ate me, I also noticed that the waves come faster/stronger and were through the barricades rather quickly vs last time I played, nice improvements thus far.

 

[akrep_ve_su]

Game is meant to be played with exact 4 players (However we have managed to finish it as 3; but there were bugs helped us finish it that easily =D) With only one player, only way to survive Dreadlord would be usage of psycho just before he starts dragging and prefably a jet to run away after dragging ends =)
Btw, known bugs are added to the main post. If anyone reports anything, I'll add them too =)

 

[Landmine]

I finally got to test your map. To expand on the auto-reload bug, it stopped working after I used my crafting ability. Might want to explore that more.
A tip: Add a timer window. At first it should count down from 60, but then count up to see the time you survived (rather than just seeing the waves/kills).
Other than that, I enjoyed the game. Seems that the enemies prefer the left side over the right, however.

 

[akrep_ve_su]

Thank you for your review Landmine =) I've fixed all bugs after trying couple of different methods with them (I hope). With the new fixes, Beta 2.2b is out and uploaded. Other than bug reports; I am open for new item ideas and hero-skill replacements.

 

[akrep_ve_su]

I am putting an end to the beta process. Project is moved the maps section. (Here)
Mods can close this thread. Thank you.