✅ Techtree Contest #19 - POLL

[frostwhisper]

Inspired by StarCraft II's coop commanders, create a custom Warcraft III faction centered around a hero or major character from Warcraft lore. Your design should reflect the theme, personality, and abilities of your chosen character, and the faction’s gameplay should feel true to their identity.

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CONTESTANT	ENTRY
MyPad​
Footman16​
FlameofChange​
GhostThruster​
matyko​
Riki
Vinz
Superfrycook
Marchombre
ToaNoah

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• Trying to manipulate the poll in any form is not allowed.
  If you're aware of ip-sharing with any voter, for any reason, you should contact the staff.
• Harassment towards others to influence the result will lead to punishment.
  A neutral recommendation to take part at the poll isn't problematic, though.
• Voting for yourself is not allowed, and will lead to a malus by 5%.
• Participating in the poll does not explicitly safe one from being disqualified.
• Judges are not allowed to vote.

You are very welcome to make a short statement what you like the most, so contestants get a bit of public feedback!

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• 1st place: 2250 experience points
• 2nd place: 1800 experience points
• 3rd place: 1350 experience points
• Entry: 250 experience points
• Judge: 50 experience points per entrant

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The three winners will receive an Award Icon representing the winning entry.​

Winning a contest also unlocks Demon Rank icons (at least two wins are required).​

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• SgtWinter
• wa666r
• Spellbound

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Theme	How well the various elements of the Faction (including aesthetics, gameplay & design) fit together in a thematic manner such that they feel like they are representative of the given Faction, as well as that of the chosen Contest Theme. Well-fitting & polished aesthetics which complement a cohesive theme will be graded well; poorly-considered or lacking thematic elements will result in a poor score.	/25
Gameplay	How well the various elements of the Faction work together to achieve the tactical synergy & gameplay style the Faction has, as well as how efficiently each element performs its particular function. Strategic systems that endow an identity to the Faction, comprehensive & well-though-out roles which complement a cohesive Faction will be graded well; ill-considered, insufficient or over-compensating roles will lose points.	/30
Creativity	How original the design of the Faction is in terms of innovative ideas, clever implementations, or creative concepts. Innovation and creativity will be rewarded; extensive re-use of existing elements in vanilla factions & poor originality will result in a poor score.	/45
		/100

Results calculation

• Judgement: 70%
• Poll: 30%

FinalScore = (30*Reached_Votes/POSSIBLE_VOTES) + (70*Average_Judge_Score/POSSIBLE_SCORE)

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The poll shall begin on 22 September 2025 and conclude on 23 October 2025 GMT (day is included).

 

[FlameofChange]

My votes goes to @Footman16, @Vinz and @Riki.
@GhostThruster Has a very solid entry, but I had to make a choice since it's limited to 3 votes. Take this as a mere whim of mine ! The mechanics were interesting on paper with the guldan pivot but overall lacked some clear juice to hold the attention.
Of course can't vote for myself. I could slap more polishing but that's the point of contest deadlines.
If @Vinz had better balance and 3 more heroes he would get my only vote. It is a shame since your macro is much too easy. I may repeat what I've said in my reviews but you should take balance more seriously by actually play it against real players and compare long-term statistics with vanilla ones.
@Footman has the most complete of the entries (beside mine). Even if it could benefit from improved triggers it has no important balance issues. There were not many risks taken but not in a bad way. Could have space for more retention & eyecandy, as some units are a bit underwhelming and overlapping each others. My bet is it is only few unit reworks away from having something talking to me.
@Riki comes from a long road. The risk and reward is clearly there even if its not great by my standards. I cannot blame you at all. That would make wonder once you crank 3 more heroes, better item synergy and some minor balance fixes. With @Footman16 and @GhostThruster they also give a very good character vibe even if I know little about their overextended fanfiction universe from WoW lore.

For the other ones in no particular order
@MyPad This clearly lacked time to make the UX work, even when not talking about the balance (Army remover 3000 goes brrrrrr).
@matyko Mother of AoE, or i'd say MAoEther of splash damage. Like MyPad it shows good technical potential and craftmanship but is plagued by uncoherent user experience and balance. Again it needed much more testing time with and/or against real players.
@Superfrycook Either by lack of experience or testing (or both) this is an absolute mess of a power creep. Even with these fixed it feels like a slightly alternate alliance faction. The perk system is not a bad idea in itself, but it adds a bit of flavor on a overly greasy gigantic durum kebab. It also deserves to be more explicit, but beware of not making 4 separate factions into one at your level.
@Marchombre Your faction looks more like gameplay prototypes gathered into one human-like faction. You should have added SD alternates to make it work for us SDoomers. Even with that fixed I cannot find anything interesting as it is ; but like any faction it has space & time to improve.
@ToaNoah A quite quirky one. I may have liked the risks taken but we quickly find the limits of the design through its execution. Leave it one year or two and maybe you'll see this with a more experienced eye. I know how it feels.

If I had to slap several advice for faction makers :
☼ Test doomstacks of one unit types
☼ Test against real players
☼ Test with real players
☼ Test against itself
☼ Use base gather rate as a reference AND food cost of the economy
☼ Take in account synergy with vanilla factions and potentially custom ones
☼ Compare cost efficiency against vanilla units
☼ Put at least 3 heroes
☼ Don't make upgrades too expensive. Maybe the effects are too strong
☼ Put some healing source with not too many steps
☼ Compare
☼ Compare compare compare

 

[GhostThruster]

My votes goes to @Footman16, @Vinz and @Riki.
@GhostThruster Has a very solid entry, but I had to make a choice since it's limited to 3 votes. Take this as a mere whim of mine ! The mechanics were interesting on paper with the guldan pivot but overall lacked some clear juice to hold the attention.

All is fair in love and war(craft)

My votes go to @Riki, @Footman16 and @FlameofChange. Each entry I played had good ideas, which were implemented to varying degrees of success. I think these 3 had the best balance of creativity, execution, and completeness.
I've reviewed a few of these already, but summarizing my main thoughts for each entry:

MyPad	Some cool ideas, but I was not a fan of how they were implemented. For example, the hero talent tree was a bit awkward having to access via the altar. Timberfellers and Skeletal Orc Champions are as fun as they are immensely broken
Footman16	Of the other entries, I think yours and mine are closest to nailing a "5th race" feel. I like the intuitiveness of its designs, and I do think your faction is fairly complete in terms of unit roles and complexity. Aside from small unit and hero nitpicks, I think the biggest thing lacking was making Katrina's mechanics more deep / compelling to play with.
FlameofChange	This is a race that is as fun and creative as it is overwhelming. Some nice ideas, which are mostly well implemented. Comparing to the base game, I do feel this faction has too much going on - global abilities, a 3rd resource, tons of branching upgrades. I also don't think it conveys Ragnaros well theme-wise. However, this is definitely a faction that grows on you, with lots of synergy within it.
matyko	There is a certain... cleanness to your ideas that I loved. The mechanics, from your gold mine being a roost for your baby wyrms, to the visuals behind Phantasm attacks, are a perfect blend of creative, thematic and intuitive. The main thing holding this entry back is the execution... certain ideas were simply not well balanced, while others were buggy or clunky. Tooltips and other minor UX things were often incorrect. Given more development time, there was a shot that this'd be one of my favourites.
Riki	Well-designed, visually pleasing, though felt a bit underpowered. Nevertheless, this was one of my favourites as with the right number tweaks, I think is an almost-flawless faction. I think that this faction's central mechanic does the best job of the other entries in establishing this to be an Arthas-centric faction.
Vinz	IMO the faction with the most creative elements... though I felt it worked against you in some instances due to unbalancing the gameplay Similarly, this faction was beautiful to look at - but too beautiful for SD. My framerate dropped when plopping down a couple of the buildings, ngl. Nevertheless, a worthy entry.
Superfrycook	A solid entry, the unit and building models were well chosen, and the unit roster does convey a magical naval force led by Jaina. The Prestiges were a neat idea, but had room to be better executed e.g. an in-game menu, some tooltips or written info on what they do before the dialog appears. I felt their impact on the faction could've been more than essentially just a couple small buffs / nerfs. Your unit roster was a bit too close to home vs Wc3's Humans, but your spellcasters were nicely designed.
Marchombre	The standout of this faction is definitely the epic and awe-inspiring abilities, as well as individual design of the units! Where it was lacking was balance and the array of buildings present, but otherwise this is a fun, thematic and gorgeous faction.
ToaNoah	A cool-looking and thematic faction, hindered by some of the mechanics being poorly thought-out. For example, a flying unit at tier 1 is pretty problematic, and I wasn't a fan of the slow-moving heroes. It was also very difficult to get a lategame unit from the Birthing Pool, as getting a reliable source of corpses is not easy.

 

[Footman16]

I really wish I had the time to play through all these entries and give them the in-depth reviews and feedback they deserve. If I have some time I'll maybe try and give them a play so I can vote, as I don't want to vote in the poll without giving every entry a proper dive.

 

[deepstrasz]

I don't want to vote in the poll without giving every entry a proper dive.

But that could mean saving 1 vote for yourself