[Melee] Warcraft 3: Ability Draft

[bhusta]

Whoo nice

 

[jopi]

ok, nice^^, the video shows the main issues in my opinion.

One way to solve the rush in the pick phase would be to add some kind of
reserve time (idk how hard this would be to code) for every player and to
also seperate the pick phases by a pause.
This could look like this.

Pick Phases

15sec preparation time
---
1st pick phase 5sec per pick +25 sec reserve time
---
5sec pause
---
2nd pick phase 5sec per pick +20 sec reserve time
---
5sec pause
---
3rd pick phase 5sec per pick + 15sec reserve time
---
5sec pause
---
4th pick phase 5sec per pick + 10sec reserve time

Reserve time is used up once the normal pick time is over and reserve time
that is not used up is not added to reserve time in the following pick phase.

Also an interesting twist would be to add bans, so every player can ban
abilities that he does not want to fight against. To make this a bit faster
you could handle it like this.
Before anyone picks spells every player can pick a number of spells into his
ban-list (e.g. 10, some might think this is too much, please read on). Then all
abilities that are in multiple (the exact number would need to be tested)
players ban-lists are removed from the pool.

Also you really should pount out somehow, that the abilities in the pool are
completely random and are not added in sets, so you are not looking for
brilliance aura just because you found blizzard or is was in the pool the
match before.

 

[bhusta]

ok, nice^^, the video shows the main issues in my opinion.

One way to solve the rush in the pick phase would be to add some kind of
reserve time (idk how hard this would be to code) for every player and to
also seperate the pick phases by a pause.
This could look like this.

Pick Phases

15sec preparation time
---
1st pick phase 5sec per pick +25 sec reserve time
---
5sec pause
---
2nd pick phase 5sec per pick +20 sec reserve time
---
5sec pause
---
3rd pick phase 5sec per pick + 15sec reserve time
---
5sec pause
---
4th pick phase 5sec per pick + 10sec reserve time

Reserve time is used up once the normal pick time is over and reserve time
that is not used up is not added to reserve time in the following pick phase.

Also an interesting twist would be to add bans, so every player can ban
abilities that he does not want to fight against. To make this a bit faster
you could handle it like this.
Before anyone picks spells every player can pick a number of spells into his
ban-list (e.g. 10, some might think this is too much, please read on). Then all
abilities that are in multiple (the exact number would need to be tested)
players ban-lists are removed from the pool.

Also you really should pount out somehow, that the abilities in the pool are
completely random and are not added in sets, so you are not looking for
brilliance aura just because you found blizzard or is was in the pool the
match before.

The reserve time is really interesting. I'll implement that.

 

[bhusta]

Update Version 0.5 Gameplay of Version 0.4

Changes from 0.4 to 0.5 "Give the players more seconds pick time"

I did not do that because simply increasing
the pick time in general would just stretch
the gamestart.
What I did instead is something one can find
in many games that have draft modes like MTG.
I implemented 25 seconds reserve time for
each player which was suggested by jopi.

"Give the players one hero per attribute"

I also did not do that.
For example night elves have no strength hero
at all. What I did instead was splitting the
heroes into two groups (tanks and casters).
So, the first hero you get is a tank and
the seconds one is a caster and the last one
is fully random again.

"Most of the tooltips of the selection screen buttons show rawcodes"

They just don't work in the system which shows
them. I have to write them manually. This is
a little bit time consuming and I just improve
some of them for every new version.

"There are green creep camps in the middle"

I got rid of them.

The Maps (2)Echo Isle
(2)Secret Valley

(4)Lost Temple
(4)The Red Swamp by Filmting
(4)Turtle Rock
(4)Twisted Meadows

 

[bhusta]

Hey guys,
update version 0.6 needs another one or two weeks.
But I have something different on my mind at the moment.

Here is a post of mine in WTiis subreddit (link).

Anybody is free to tell me his or her opinion about my idea

Edit: Seconds after my post, WTii uploaded this:

 

[Chaosy]

The concept is pretty charmy. Too bad I can't play it vs an AI.

 

[bhusta]

The concept is pretty charmy. Too bad I can't play it vs an AI.

Why? Only the pick phase is without AI.
After the pick phase, the AI works normally.

 

[Chaosy]

Isn't that unfair though? If the AI don't get to pick as well? Maybe I am overthinking it

edit: I tried it, went out of control. I got Bash, Evasion, Stormbolt and Metamorphesis as the demon hunter. The first two items I got was gloves of haste and claws of attack +9 (the items were just a bonus obviously)

 

[jopi]

Well, nice vid. What you should add is either some kind of pop-up (maybe below the abilites picking area) which says things like: 'Your pick', 'Enemy pick', 'Reserve time!' The reason for this is also noticeable in the vid, as WTii rushes to pick for Beastmaster as he does not know he has reserve time. Hell, you could maybe even find someone to voice act this small lines so you can play them, they should not take up that much of space.

 

[bhusta]

Well, nice vid. What you should add is either some kind of pop-up (maybe below the abilites picking area) which says things like: 'Your pick', 'Enemy pick', 'Reserve time!' The reason for this is also noticeable in the vid, as WTii rushes to pick for Beastmaster as he does not know he has reserve time. Hell, you could maybe even find someone to voice act this small lines so you can play them, they should not take up that much of space.

The pop up texts would be good and I will add that in future.
But I am not so sure about voice acting. I would have someone in mind for that but imagine every five to ten seconds hearing someone saying "It's your turn!". In DotA 2 it is different because there is more time between picking so it isn't that annoying.

 

[bhusta]

Update Version 0.6

This update brings some new features to the game.

• Repick one time for the specific role Tank/Caster/Random
• Pause Time for 60seconds
• Healthbars and tooltips can be turned off and on by clicking on the button on the left.

There are some changes on minor things.

• Bug fix: up to version 0.5 it was possible that games just couldn't end
  because the victory/lose condition broke.
• randomized background color

The Maps: (2)Echo Isle (2)Secret Valley (2)Melting Valley (4)Lost Temple (4)Turtle Rock (4)Twisted Meadows Other stuff
Skilled melee players have problems with the implemented QWER-Hotkeys
because they learned the original hotkeys or have modified hotkeys.
Original hotkeys don't work that well because many spells have the same hotkeys
like stormbold and banish.
I don't know what alternative I could implement.

One of my future goals for this project is, to organize a tournament.
I don't know if it will be 1v1 or 4 player FFA.
I would like to hear ideas and opinions about it.

If you play with your friends you can send me the replays. It's often super informative and helpful.

 

[bhusta]

Hey guys,
the development of Ability Draft did not stop.
Version 0.7 will be a revamp of a lot of things.
I got a lot of feedback and I think 0.7 will bring some nice features you guys want.

1. The Dragon
   After 8 to 10 min of played game time, there will spawn a random dragon in the middle of the map.
   On death it will drop an experience tome. After another 8 to 10 min it will respawn.
   The reason for this is giving an incentive for fights and rainsing the experience gain overall,
   because people want to see their abilities in action as for example ultimates.
   
2. Ability Pool
   The overall pick pool will be different and more like the Dota2 mode.
   The old one was entirely random. The new one consists of the abilities of the random heroes plus
   another six hero ability sets (only 9 ultimate abilities because of reasons).
   I decinded to do this because of two reasons. The first one is one can see in Wtii videos where
   certain abilities exist without their beneficial counterpart as breath of fire and drunken haze
   or the whole tinker set.
   And the second reason is that I think the big pick pool is poisonous for the diversity of games,
   because players always try to pick the same abilities. For example a bigger pick pool has a bigger
   possibility for mass summons. So the smaller pick pool brings more variety.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Re-role
   The re-role option will be given in a different way. At the moment on has to click the question mark
   at the heroes. I want player to get the possibility to re-role only one hero and it will be more
   obvious how it will work. The obvious reason for that is, most players do not know that this
   possibility exists at all and I don't want players to re-role their whole set because of "insert reason".
   
4. Player Constellation
   Ability Draft will be 12 player compatible but only two players will be able to pick together.
   So there will be 6 pick teams in a full party game.
   The overall reason for this is a shorter duration of the whole pick process.
   I'd like to prioritize enemy players to pick together so they can be able do deny picks.
   
5. Pick Style
   Overall players will pick as a player and not for every single unit anymore.
   One will be able to freely switch abilities to the slots the heroes one want it to be.
   Other ability hotkeys as QWER won't be possible due to warcraft3 limitations,
   but one will be free at least able to choose which ability should get which hotkey during the pick phase.
   
6. Start Points
   Start points will be optimized so that players will spawn on the same side of the map as their team.
   At the moment the start locations aren't ordered.
   
7. Game Start
   The game will start as soon as all teams have picked. Players won't finish the pick phase at the same time
   due to the reserve time and pause options.

I have a lot of other ideas for ability draft but only the mentioned changes will come with the new version.

Version 0.7 won't come out during the next three weeks due to me beeing on vacation, but I am eager to
read what you guys think about these changes

 

[Chaosy]

@Dragon
Spawning in the middle does not seem flexible. I mean in certain melee maps 'the middle' might be not be a perfect spot. In booty bay the exact middle is in the water I think. Or if it spawn in the middle of an already existing creep pack.

 

[bhusta]

@Dragon
Spawning in the middle does not seem flexible. I mean in certain melee maps 'the middle' might be not be a perfect spot. In booty bay the exact middle is in the water I think. Or if it spawn in the middle of an already existing creep pack.

That's one of the challenges I have to face if I want to create only one code for all maps.
Atm I create one GUI trigger in every map where I set some variables at the beginning of every game. For example what fog settings the map have.

I could simply add a variable for the point where the dragon should spawn.
But it will always be a challenge to get the perfect spot if the middle is unavaiable in case of fairness.