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Serpent Valley

This bundle is marked as useful / simple. Simplicity is bliss, low effort and/or may contain minor bugs.
Prepare for uncomfortably narrow spaces and air unit abuse on this small 4v4 melee map!

Made for the 7th Melee Mapping Contest.

It's early spring in the Serpent Valley, and with first flowers showing from under the snow, come first wars and battles in this land of graves and magic...

The map is set in the middle of a rocky graveyard near the lands of Quel'Thalas.

Features

Logistics

Buildings

Fauna


  • narrow valley in the middle, be careful
  • 1 player from each team is separated from the rest of the team and is the closest to the enemy
  • these two players also don't have direct access to the tavern
  • some players (red, green, cyan, yellow) can see into the valley
  • 3 players from each team are protected by a gate, which doesn't do much but is a good holding point
  • goblin workshops a protected by breakable stones
  • some trees are hiding shortcuts

  • tavern x2
  • goblin shop x2
  • goblin workshop x2
  • creep camp x2
  • black dragon roost x2
  • fountain of mana x2
  • fountain of life x1
  • portal (1-way) x2
  • portal (2-way) x4
  • goldmine (15000) x8 (starting goldmines)
  • goldmine (12500) x6
  • goldmine (30000) x2 (the ones near the center)
Common:
  • spiders
  • murlocs
  • gnolls
  • dark trolls
  • mutants
  • undead
  • demons
  • black dragons
Rare:
  • wendigos
  • ogres
  • corrupted ents
  • lizards


Landscape

Normal

Creeps

Cliff Levels

Landscape

Screenshot

192023-e7ccd6e1d35e4a8b2ba2391558f13e70.jpg

191339-7bb32a3185024763b04954eac1e1c89a.png

191338-bacc5438d160de6c47b41d85923681af.png

Red = cliff level 1 (the lowest)
Orange = cliff level 2
Yellow = cliff level 3
Green = cliff level 4 (the highest)
Purple = cliff change
191340-9022e95a7d3009d795159e6feac30da4.png

191341-8e06a69683c4f156bef6449eed59d212.png



Strategy

Air

Ground

Portal Guide

Goldmines

Instead of crossing the valley, you can attack the enemy directly from air!
Also, goblin workshops give provide zeppelins, giving easy access not only to enemy territory, but also to hidden goldmines and even black dragon roosts!
Crossing in the middle might be dangerous, but the middle contains the 30000 goldmines and portals to goblin workshops, so its worth checking out.
Also, if the enemy has built their base too close to the cliff, you can attack it with artillery!
The two portals that don't have a pair:
  • the one between red, blue and cyan players leads to the area near the purple player.
  • the one between yellow, orange and green players leads to the area near the pink player.
The ones that do lead to the nearest goblin workshop.
Each player starts with a 15000 goldmine, and there are 2 12500 goldmines near blue and orange, four hidden 12500 goldmine that can be accessed either by air or by chopping down the forest.
Finally, there are 2 30000 goldmines near the center of the map in the valley, but they are exposed to the enemy.


PvE

The map has a separate PvE version, since the original is not very suitable for computer players because of all the destructibles and complicated landscape.

Update:
- moved spawn points of each team closer together to avoid having one player spawn apart from their team. As a result, the bug now seems to still happen, but is much more rare. From 20 test launches it occurred only 3 times, so nearly 17.65% of the time. So if this happens to you, just restart the game.
- relocated some trees to make them denser.
Contents

Serpent Valley (Map)

Serpent Valley PvE (Map)

Reviews
mafe
Based on/In addition to the reviews of: https://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/melee-mapping-contest-7-results.333989/ Of all the maps from the contest, this was the one that I had the most trouble with, in terms of how to review it. Ofc there is the...
mafe
Map not updated in a long time. Therefore set to useful/simple.
Level 7
Joined
Oct 15, 2019
Messages
55
Well met!

I got the chance to play this map. I haven't played a map with so many portals and cliffs. Most of the times feels like a turret/sunken custom game where the armies crushed in the middle in order to take the fountain. It's not a common 4v4 map, but I trully think this map is only for a 4v4. FFA doesn't make sense and 3v3 could be weird due to the last spawning position.

Overall I like the uniqueness. It's meant to be a map for longggg games. The amount of creeps I guess is correct. The variety of creeps is pretty good. The amount of gold mines I think it's perfect. More goldmines could make the game last too much.

What I think it feels weird (not wrong):
  1. There are many creep spots that don't drop items (only tomes).
  2. There is a creep spot (I think the one close to the gate) that drops a very unique item that I never seen before. Not sure if this item is balanced but it's pretty good as it summons 2 troll headhunters without consuming the item (just a big cooldown).
  3. It's all about narrow paths and cliffs, so the best thing to do is massing air units.
  4. Red creep camp in the middle (the fountain one) does not attack air units, and this map is mostly air battles. They cannot defend themselves.. so it makes it imbalanced a little bit.:grin:.
What it's clearly wrong:
  1. There is a chance that a 4th player could spawn in the other site of the map. There is only one way to play this map. 3 players on the top left + another one in the other side of the gate, on the left side. Thats team 1. The team 2 should only spawn in the bottom right and the last player of its team in the other side of the gate, right side. If you make a 4v4 all A.I. game and restart the game a couple of times, you will see that spawn positions are not suitable. Check my attach files if you want.
I would love to hear more opinions as this map is going to be shown in a 4v4 map making contest.:infl_thumbs_up:
 

Attachments

  • perfect positions.PNG
    perfect positions.PNG
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  • wrong positions.PNG
    wrong positions.PNG
    205.4 KB · Views: 39
Level 26
Joined
Jan 4, 2020
Messages
364
I don't wanna really say this but let me tell you something...

-some creep ability that u should avoid used. Entangle, Plague, Death Coil, Sleep, Mana Burning, only Possession and Unholy Frenzy are prohibited.
-never used random lv.n item drop, better drop charge or permanent.
-check for some medium armor creep.
-miscellaneous item type problem mostly come from the cost of the item when sell it. some item gave you 6900 gold from one sell...
 

mafe

Map Reviewer
Level 24
Joined
Nov 2, 2013
Messages
869
Based on/In addition to the reviews of:

Of all the maps from the contest, this was the one that I had the most trouble with, in terms of how to review it.

Ofc there is the layout, which as the judges mentioned, will favor teching and mass air. Some players like a lot, others dislike it just as much (I include myself in this group, by I wont hold against the map). And nice to make a create a version that is playable against the AI.
Visually, I found the map very stylish and athmospheric.
But in terms of gameplay, there are many things which simply dont belong into "normal" melee maps, and nearly every single one of them is on its own enough to answer the question of "is this map viable with competitive play?" with a firm "no":
1. Campaign item drops: Not viable due to insane selling values, and general inpredictability.
2. Less than 100% chance for itemdrops: It's just not fun if one team receives several items and the other team is unlucky and doesnt.
3. Bugged level 0 powerup item drop: No items will drop here. None of the lvl 0 powerups is eligible to drop as a random item.
4. Creeps with posession potentially dropping items: Item will be lost if they use posession. Annoying even when player can theoretically play around it.
5. One-way-portals with creeps nearby: Creep can go thruogh the portal, and then they will run across half the map to get back to their spawn point. Just weird.
6. All itemdrops should normally have a defined class (powerup/permanen/charged).
7. Critters should not drop items.
8. Most of the normal itemdrops are too weak in relation to the creepcamps from which they drop.

So as it stands, the map is only really playable in a pure just-for-fun setting. Imho several of these issues should be addressed. Map set to Awaiting Update.
 
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