[Melee] (4) Deluge (Melee Map)

[Shaeam]

(4) Deluge

General Details

Map Description

Screenshots

Map Category	Melee
Suggested Players	2v2 or FFA
(Red) Creep Camps	3 (7 including mine guardians)
(Orange) Creep Camps	18
(Green) Creep Camps	8
Neutral Buildings	Tavern (4), Goblin Merchant (2), Goblin Laboratory (2), Mercenary Camp (Lordaeron Summer) (4), Fountain of Mana (1), Waygate (6), Gold Mine (10)

"This beautiful verdant landscape is plagued by constant storms and rain, it's rumoured that a coven of revenants are responsible for the inhospitible weather, warding off those who would lay claim to their treasures."

I've been wanting to work on a melee map, and even though I know the contest is specifically for 4v4, I was inspired by all the other great melee maps being added to the resource section as of late. My intentions here are to create a great-looking melee map for the 2v2 format (or FFA) that is as close to blizz-like as I can possibly muster.

Currently, this map is very early in alpha (the map is completely playable, but the terrain hasn't been detailed thoroughly yet); but... I'd like to have some play testers and feedback, so I'm releasing it here a little early.

Currently, I'm not quite sure if I like the one-way Waygates or not, I added them in at the request of a friend; so I'd like feedback on that. All constructive criticism is appreciated (except for comments about the terrain, I'm already aware it still needs work)

 

[CookieKiller92]

Heyo. I really apreciate ppl working on melee/altered melee maps. So i really want to help you as good as i can.
This is what i have for my first look, and play test of the map:

-The Gold mine Wolves only give one tome. Is that intentional? Seems a bit weak to me.
-Revenant in the middle gives random ANY item lvl4. That is unusual. Is it intended?
-The distance to the natural expansions is really short. Maybe reconsider it. (Fine if you want it like that, but i guess it almost forces to go for early expansions)
-If you look at the Creep camps in general, especially around the main base, there are so many camps with only melee units. I dont really like that, it gets abused a lot and makes creeping so easy. Some ranged unit, maybe trappers and troll priests might be an option there.
In general i think the challenge of creepcamps and their rewards are a bit underwhelming. For a 4 player map you can add a bit more power maybe.

Else i really like the idea, and the flavor. I generally like the Idea of oneway gateway, but i am not sure how it will play out that on each side one gateway is really close to the drop area.

Keep up the work.
Regards
Cookie

 

[Shaeam]

Heyo. I really apreciate ppl working on melee/altered melee maps. So i really want to help you as good as i can.
This is what i have for my first look, and play test of the map:

-The Gold mine Wolves only give one tome. Is that intentional? Seems a bit weak to me.
-Revenant in the middle gives random ANY item lvl4. That is unusual. Is it intended?
-The distance to the natural expansions is really short. Maybe reconsider it. (Fine if you want it like that, but i guess it almost forces to go for early expansions)
-If you look at the Creep camps in general, especially around the main base, there are so many camps with only melee units. I dont really like that, it gets abused a lot and makes creeping so easy. Some ranged unit, maybe trappers and troll priests might be an option there.
In general i think the challenge of creepcamps and their rewards are a bit underwhelming. For a 4 player map you can add a bit more power maybe.

Else i really like the idea, and the flavor. I generally like the Idea of oneway gateway, but i am not sure how it will play out that on each side one gateway is really close to the drop area.

Keep up the work.
Regards
Cookie

Point 1) Yes, it was intentional; although now I've overhauled the mine camp (see part 4), and overhauled their loot table as well.
Point 2) Definitely not intentional, actually; It was meant to be a Permanent Level 4 item, thanks for bringing it to my attention! It's fixed now.
Point 3) Actually, from the 4~5 maps I used as inspiration (all 4 player, blizzard maps) the gold mines expansions were even closer! That being said; I don't plan on adding any further distance between the mines, I'm fine with the fast expansion. Though; the level 15 (mostly ranged) creep camp will make that harder to do than it was prior, so that might balance it out a little.
Point 4) Good point, actually. I want to keep levels roughly the same at the creep camps, but I just added a Huntsman (replacing one of the tiderunners) for his ensnare to the murloc camp and the camp is now total level: 4, I redid the mine camp with gnolls (makes sense to have gnolls on a map like this, since it's almost thematically bordering both the Ashenvale and Summer Forest tilesets) and now the camp is total level: 15 (up from 12),unfortunately there's nothing I can do to the ogre camp outside of completely redoing it; and I really like the flavor of the ogre mound being there.

Overall, thanks for the review and the suggestions! All feedback is more than welcomed and very appreciated! I'll probably be updating the map 1~2 more times here on the Map Development forums before releasing it officially. I updated the version on the main post.

 

[CookieKiller92]

Cool that you updated it so fast.
Now something with the Portals seem broken...
All portals were heading to the same spot....

I like the creep camp changes that you made.
I know the problem of mixing different creep types. (I don´t like those camps with too many types)
But for Ogres and Trolls are very often combined, as they are only melee/ranged respectivly. Blizzard does it all the time, and it somehow fits together imo.
But it is up to you.

Reconsidering the distance to the first expansion you are totally right. It is perfectly fine. And the new Creep camp there is good now.

 

[Shaeam]

Cool that you updated it so fast.
Now something with the Portals seem broken...
All portals were heading to the same spot....

I like the creep camp changes that you made.
I know the problem of mixing different creep types. (I don´t like those camps with too many types)
But for Ogres and Trolls are very often combined, as they are only melee/ranged respectivly. Blizzard does it all the time, and it somehow fits together imo.
But it is up to you.

Reconsidering the distance to the first expansion you are totally right. It is perfectly fine. And the new Creep camp there is good now.

Lol, oops! It seems as though in that version I had made so many creep changes that I copy and pasted that entire side of the map (including portals); so that's what happened. I forgot to change the waygate point. In other words; I'm an idiot, lol!

But yeah; I updated the main post with the newest version, the biggest change is that after a bit of playtesting I have decided to make the way-gates not one-way anymore; I noticed some people were getting confused during my few play tests; I've added two more waygates to allow this to be possible (connecting all four player-start islands to the middle of the map). Outside of that rather drastic change; I mostly just updated terrain. Unless I get more feedback on things I'm mostly just polishing and preparing it for release.

I'm glad that the gold mines are good now! But yeah, I'm sorry for the broken version, I actually didn't even realize that was a thing until you mentioned it; the waygates were mostly ignored by most of the playtesters once they discovered it was one-way. (another reason I decided to scrap the concept of the one-way gate.)