[AoS] Invasion in Duskwood

[Luorax]

Do you have a replay of that game where the allocator message appeared? It could possibly by anything, I need the details to start figuring out what's responsible for the message.

It must have been Norjhan whose items disappeared; his ultimate transformation has (had) the same issues as Quoyochakee, unfortunately I only noticed it after the patch was released. I've already fixed it though.

Revive time is displayed, it's on the board, next to your hero's portrait icon.

I was planning on making shopping available while dead, my friend also requested it, I may do it then.

The tower range indicator works perfectly for me, and all of my friends, so it's your game/options that you have to check.

Sight range; last time I played with my friend I was constantly whining about that weird warcraft thing where you lose vision of an area if you stand one unit lower than it is. It's on

Unfortunately I haven't heard from Tobyfat for quite a while; once he's back or he gets some time, I think I'll ask him to remake the terrain. There are some structural errors that can only be fixed by redoing the entire terrain, so I'll have it done once my terrainer is back.

 

[WaterKnight]

Do you have a replay of that game where the allocator message appeared? It could possibly by anything, I need the details to start figuring out what's responsible for the message.

I do not know for this error but other fatal errors do not save the replay. Can only give you the error log.

Revive time is displayed, it's on the board, next to your hero's portrait icon.

I asked the other players in the game and nobody noticed it.

The tower range indicator works perfectly for me, and all of my friends, so it's your game/options that you have to check.

See vid and things should be acceptable no matter my options. Graphic options are all high 1024x768x32. Also you could display the tower ranges when the camera is above it rather than where the hero is.

 

[Luorax]

The range indicator units've got a 100 unit fly height, they shouldn't blend into the ground like that - and again, noone else have reported such bug before. It's true that it should work for everyone, but if you don't have enough free space to install a game, it's not the developer's task to make the game smaller.

I'll give the model a higher Z value, if that doesn't solve it then I'm out of ideas.

 

[WaterKnight]

How does this work with non-flat terrain anyway? Cant you just take an ubersplat, which is drawn on the terrain and wraps around edges? Or set another rendering priority. And still, it is very blurry.

Your comparison is inappropriate. First this is a map and the requirements are not stated, so one would expect those of the game. Second, when one does not meet the requirements, the functionality should be either disabled or adjusted to a lower level but not simply screw things up that make the game appear broken.

 

[Luorax]

The problem with ubersplats is that I can't show/hide them for players, it'd be visible for everyone - I don't think that's the best solution.

I can ask a modeller to make the inner, slightly visible geoset's edges more like a circle (it's been annoying me as well to be honest), that'd definitely make it look better.

 

[WaterKnight]

Ubersplats are local-only. Just put them in a local block. There is even a show/render function.

 

[Luorax]

When Fjury gets back from his holiday I'll ask him to make a custom texture then and we shall see what we can do together. I'm quite sceptic though.

 

[Tom_Kazansky]

I recommend using Image instead of Ubersplat because Image's size is changeable (you don't have to import big texture).

though there is a note: the origin (defined by originX and originY arguments) of the image should be at its center so you can avoid image disappears on edge of screen (oh well, this problem is like model's extents, I can't explain more, though)

Warper function for CreateImage

function NewImage takes string path, real x, real y, real z, real size, integer r, integer g, integer b, integer a returns image
	set bj_lastCreatedImage = CreateImage(path, size, size, size, x,y, z, size/2.,size/2.,0, 1 )
	call SetImageRenderAlways(bj_lastCreatedImage,true)
	call SetImageColor(bj_lastCreatedImage,r,g,b,a)
	return bj_lastCreatedImage
endfunction

yes, (x,y) is the center of the image

 

[Luorax]

Okay, I have one of the textures already, but 1, ubersplats are insane and 2, at certain spots they would look ugly. So instead, I'll make 2 new models based on the textures and use them as range-indicators.

EDIT: *sigh* tested it as a model, and no matter how great the texture is (yea, Fjury did a great job), it's just ugly as a model. Ubersplats fail to display the texture (only a white square or crash), so it appears that we'll have to stick to the current circles. Maybe I'll have the model made a little nicer and remove the unnecessary parts of the semi-transparent inner section.

As a last thing, a hilarious picture I took while I was making the model for the new circles:

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/8210/hilariousm.png

----

About the next patch: it's not going to contain a new hero this time. I have more concepts in mind, though without a modeller it's hard to implement any of them. Maybe the last hero (before 1.0) will come in 0.85, we'll see about that - unfortunately I can't promise anything. Though this patch will also contain a tremendous amount of bug fixes, a few new or reworked features, and what's more important, 9 new items; a fancy toy for casters, a mighty weapon for those who prefer to use their physical strength, and finally those, who want to support their allies will also get some love.

I've also started balancing out certain things - my friend's finally back from his youth hostel and we can pull off some nice 1v1 games, thus helping me fixing absurd heroes/items/things (like Quoyochakee or Sirion - those who've tried older versions may know what I'm talking about)

 

[Druu]

for the range, have you tried making the selection circle = the range of the tower. So that everytime you put your cursor over the tower, you know what's the range instead of having it at all time.

Also, another way of doing it is just by making the terrain around it change when you're in the range and when you're out. Kind of like league did with their first towers.

You'll see that the ground changes exactly at the tower range or nearby to give you a good approximation of the range.

 

[Luorax]

The selection circle is a good idea, it's so silly of me that I haven't thought of that before. I'll keep the current model as well, there'll be an "Options" menu added to the shop where you can turn them on and do other things (like change the camera height) - some people (including me) prefers constantly visible range indicators because they're useful.

I don't like the change-terrain solution to be honest, though this selection circle thing is cool - I think I'll temporarily remove the current circle and modify the values and add an option to turn them on once the options menu is implemented.

EDIT:
Nevermind, let's just stick to the old solution where I have the current model fixed.

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/8821/wc3scrnshot070612212122.jpg

 

[MogulKahn]

Great map, but just copy of LoL, no offense...
And dont bash high cds, high mana cost spells, farming for 20 mins then right click for the win, str, int and agi stats ( khm,khm DOTA), because if it sucks that much as you said, DOTA wouldnt be the best and most playable game in her genre....

 

[Luorax]

I'll take that as a compliment, considering LoL is a complex, individual game, if one thinks it's very similar then I've done my job very well.

Though I'm honestly fed up with this "it's a LoL copy" garbage - just because I hate high CD, high mana cost spells and that boring gameplay and made my map more action-paced, and the developers of League of Legends are on the same opinion, it doesn't immediately mean I copied it. Yea, I've implemented a few things that I find useful in League of Legends, but I've also made many things that LoL doesn't have. My goal was not "reinventing the wheel", so keep this in mind.

I won't respond to the DotA part of your message, such a pitiful piece of s**t, I don't find it worthy enough to talk about that thing in more than 1 sentence (and I'll report every message that's a reply or contains response to this, this thread was not meant to be "discuss about Luorax's taste of games")

 

[MogulKahn]

And btw. why dont you change some hero models ?
Sadly I dont have wc3 installed on my computer, but I can recognize some of the icons on this picture: http://imageshack.us/f/543/wc3scrnshot012012175259.jpg/
I dont know who is this fish-orc guy (2nd icon), but his icon is not in wc3 style at all, then this Barbarian ( last icon in first row ), is bad, just really bad, I think there is 10x better models on this site, and they have proper animations, not like this guy... and I saw him in xxxx maps, and this guy between Captain and Razor, dont know his model, but icon is bad... But this is just my own opinion...
P.S. Goblin Rumble ! =D

 

[Luorax]

That's a damn old picture - most of the pictures in the main post are outdated, I'll refresh them, and I'll also try to give them a better layout (I'll add less pictures but attach them to the post)

Even the creator of Tidalus' icon (13lackDeath, our icon moderator) said he wasn't satisfied with the result, but it's been remade years ago:

http://invasoninduskwood.freeforums.org/the-complete-list-of-heroes-t14.html

 

[MogulKahn]

Oh sorry then... I am going to install wc3 just to try this map... It is something new in wc3, and I love the fact that you are trying to be different from the others !
When we can expect full 1.0 ver ? =D

 

[Luorax]

I really don't know. You see, there's a lot of things I still have to do:

1, Finish Scneer's ultimate
2, Rework Nessara and Xirris (coming in the next patch)
3, Rework Raz'Jalr and Anub'Theran's passive
4, Add in an epic jungle creep and make jungle creeps regain their health when they stop chasing heroes
5, We need one more hero and even more items
6, I have to fix all the bugs that may occour (I'm on it, I've played a lot with my friends recently)
7, Remake the terrain (I have to wait for Tobyfat to be back, sadly)
8, The most important thing: balance out everything.

So yea, the list is still quite long. I'm trying to do my best, but you know, we all have our lives, plus it's stummer, most of us has a summer job or tries to relax a little bit with their friends. I've also lost my OP modeller (Champara_Bros), that's why I'm stuck and the development's slowed down a bit.

 

[Luorax]

Well, Champara_Bros's just logged in and let me know that he's got 2 months of leisure time, so I guess we have a modeller again.... hoooray, that's damn f**ing news!

And sorry for double posting, all the edit buttons are suddenly gone from my own posts.

 

[Luorax]

Update:

• Check out the latest version Invasion in Duskwood Alpha v0.84a

As always, thanks for your patience and have fun testing the latest alpha version!

P.S: I'll replace the current "Screenshots and Videos" in the main post with a few attached pictures that are actually up to date.

EDIT: I found a gamebreaking bug (jungle creeps, and possibly minions too) can't deal damage - expect a hotfix soon.
EDIT2: okay, the hotfix is now live. I'm really sorry for it, but... yea, you know how programming works - you may always screw up things by an accident. For those who're more experienced and interested what the problem was: something messed up triggering order of 2 allocators, thus causing regular units to have their stats nulled after the proper values have been set. I don't have an idea why would such thing happen, but obviously it happened, and it's already been fixed.

 

[TheGamaniac]

Found an annoying bug regarding jungling with the Bloodfiend (and anyone else who has a Fear, i havn't seen the entire hero pool yet)...

If you Fear a neutral camp at the bounderies of their leash, and the auto-run makes them run past it, the entire camp starts getting the out-of-combat huge regeneration boost. Except they'll aggro right back on to you after the fear is over, and hound you to the end of the earth with no leash and absurd regen. Managed to pull the lower wolves camp into the bottom lane past the tower, and it was tanking 3 entire waves of creeps until I decided to help nuke it down (Tempted to see just how long a full camp can go without me cutting in).

 

[Luorax]

That must be because the retreat command is issued only once in my opinion. I'll most likely make the system ignore feared/hexed units, so that they'll only start retreating once they expire.

 

[TheGamaniac]

Some other things found while 1v1-ing with a friend...

Doombot's hilariously broken in a mechanical way. Sometimes his innate doesn't go on it's buff-placer cooldown, and if you die while ulting... things get fun/random. Perma-flamethrower cone damage, no ignite when hitting a slowed target, no overheating, perma-overheating, heat both increasing and degenerating at the same time... and not a lick of it is consistant, except for how it all starts.

The living shadow's ult is similarly bugged, in a different sort of way. I don't know what exactly causes it beyond being linked to my ult, but suffice to say that by the end of the match both me *and* the enemy Wildborn were running around with 500-dps auras of shadowy death that sometimes just disappeared (but always came back when we cast spells), i was occasionally stalking empty air and able to move around, getting my movespeed tripled outright after exiting Stalk, and the barbarian was mysteriously doing severely amplified damage to me and only me (to the tune of about 3.5x damage by the end).

And... is the Nerubian supposed to be 100% untargetable by towers while burrowing? Because he is. I can towerdive people with impunity since it never fires at me.

 

[Luorax]

Doombot's hilariously broken in a mechanical way. Sometimes his innate doesn't go on it's buff-placer cooldown, and if you die while ulting... things get fun/random. Perma-flamethrower cone damage, no ignite when hitting a slowed target, no overheating, perma-overheating, heat both increasing and degenerating at the same time... and not a lick of it is consistant, except for how it all starts.

The living shadow's ult is similarly bugged, in a different sort of way. I don't know what exactly causes it beyond being linked to my ult, but suffice to say that by the end of the match both me *and* the enemy Wildborn were running around with 500-dps auras of shadowy death that sometimes just disappeared (but always came back when we cast spells), i was occasionally stalking empty air and able to move around, getting my movespeed tripled outright after exiting Stalk, and the barbarian was mysteriously doing severely amplified damage to me and only me (to the tune of about 3.5x damage by the end).

Okay, so: I once managed to bug Doombot's ultimate but I couldn't reproduce it and because of the constant changes I lost the map that I saved the replay with. I once was doing a lot of damage with Snodhar, that's also true, but I didn't have an idea why either.
Though Doombot's W+E has nothing to do with the ultimate; it DID ignite the oil, but remember, the debuff only lasts as long as the pool itself; if you step on it 0.1 seconds before it expires, the slow itself will only lost 0.1 seconds too, and the same goes to the DoT as well.

Do you have replays? I feel really bad because of the bugs, but there's a reason why it's just an alpha version, and if you could help me out with some replays it'd definitely helpful.

And... is the Nerubian supposed to be 100% untargetable by towers while burrowing? Because he is. I can towerdive people with impunity since it never fires at me.

Nope, though in older versions he lost the dummy ability that made him untargetable by AoE spells and it's been fixed, making towers unable to attack him. I'll fix it.

 

[TheGamaniac]

Came across another bug playing just now: Jainar can walk through Tidalus' whirlpool like it ain't no thing. No stun. And I don't think i have replays of those two matches saved, but I can try to set them up again.

 

[Luorax]

I'd be glad if you could reproduce them and send me a replay, currently my friend who I play with is on vacation and I can't really test anything.

The problem with Jainar is his passive, I've just checked it, and one extra "P" letter messed the whole thing up; he's immune to all CC at the moment. That's because his CC reduction is not modified by a set amount, but it's set to it, so with 0 bonus AD the duration of Crowd Control effects is set to 0% instead of being modified by 0%. It's pretty hilarious what one single letter is capable of, isn't it?

Thanks for testing the map and reporting the bugs, I'll do my best to fix them.

 

[TheGamaniac]

...This just in! It may not have been the living shadow... but Jainar himself! He has a perma-whirlwind, and leap causes Tide's whirlpool to move around. Or teleport to jainar. Or get all the waves to converge in one spot if I use water shield. And craziness like that.

 

[Luorax]

As a friend of mine would say: replay or didn't happen! I really need to see what's happening, it makes a lot easier to figure out where the problem is coming from.

 

[TheGamaniac]

Yep, i'll get one to you as soon as the match finishes. We're having fun exploring how broken we can make this thing.

 

[Luorax]

Okay, PM me once you have it.

 

[TheGamaniac]

Done. Going to see if I can coax Doom into... uh, "cooperation".

 

[Luorax]

Okay, to bump the thread a little bit, here is something from the upcoming patch:

Tock, the Time-Lost Corruptor

His effects are in progress, but all the codes and icons are already up and live.
I'd also like to tell you, that thanks to TheGamaniac, and his friend, lots of bugs have been fixed, few of them being small, others gamebreaking. For example, percentage stats now work again, and Jainar's ultimate will no longer break the spell system.

So we're working on the patch - hopefully we in the close future our beloved terrainer, Tobyfat will be also back so that we can start remaking the terrain and adding the epic jungle creep, otherwise I'll have to find someone else, because I've only got one and a half months of free time left to work on the project, and I'd really like to finish it, I've put too much work and effort into it to just leave, and so have done Champara_Bros and Fjury.

 

[Druu]

to be honest, I really like Tock. Specially the attack speed spell, not sure if it's what I think but the description really is great. I always try to put your heroes into the League since it is your inspiration.

I think this one would be good. Not too sure about the attack speed spell though since it seems to be a dueling spell.

Awesome job again.

 

[Luorax]

"Out of Time" is an AS/MS steroid combined with an on-hit damage/heal effect. After activation he gains X% extra MS and Y% extra AS for 3 seconds, plus 5% eveyr second over the duration, which is increased by 1 second with each basic attack, up to a 6 seconds of total duration cap. Basic attacks made while this buff is active will deal damage to the target equal to 2.5% of their maximum health and heal Tock for this amount.

Some of his spells scale with both AP and AD, so the extra attack and movement speed may come in handy. He also can't nuke but has got great sustained damage, assuming his Q hits the enemy.

Yea, overall I'm quite satisfied with this hero, as I always prefered sustained mages to nukers and rightclickzors. This hero is also one of the main persons of the storyline - the perfect hero to complete the "24 heroes" goal. Of course, more may come later on.

EDIT: note that the healed amount is based on the damage DEALT, and the damage is magic damage, thus by getting some extra Resistance it may be reduced.

 

[Druu]

Okay, makes it a bit less impressive and a bit more OP

"Additionally, his basic attacks and Time Breaker hits while the buff is active will set a piece of the victim's spirit out of dimension where he can absorb it"

I thought that the spirit worked like Draven's Axes, he throws it and he can pick it up to proc the trigger. So I thought Tock would have to pick the spirit up to proc the effect.

That makes more sense now.

 

[jadkni]

Not that we tried him extensively but I don't think he's really OP. Maybe a bit on the high end as far as damage goes but nothing crazy.

He's a blast to play though.

 

[Druu]

I was talking about the spell itself, not the hero. I'm sure he's pretty fine.

I'd like to know, how do you guys do the testing, do you have an evening where you play couple games or do you just test it with friends?

If it's a couple games on a weekly basis, how do you play, online, Garena or maybe in lan?

 

[Luorax]

I usually play with my friend (1v1) and so does TheGamaniac, against Jadkni. They play on B.net whereas we play on Garena. The reason why we don't play together is because these games are mostly all about finding bugs that I can fix.

Plus, the terrain has some crucial issues, the two bases are too small and so is the riven, it's a rectangle and not a square, and it just looks weird at certain spots. I'd like to have it remade by Tobyfat, after that it may enter the Beta state (as even Raz'jalr has been reworked; the only thing left do to is to make the effects for Tock and finish Scneer's ulti, plus the loading screen).

Once the map reaches the Beta state, I'll propably make a Garena group for it as well and post it in the "Maps" section and on Epicwar, it'd be nice to pull off a few games with more people on the reworked terrain and with all the heroes working properly.

 

[MogulKahn]

When you start searching for players, you can count on me ! =D

 

[Luorax]

I think I'll make a Garena group and share its ID here, in the topic, and maybe I'll place it in the map as well.

 

[FRENGERS]

@.@ It's me or my eyes tricking me??
That aMEWzing But how do you put that mana bar'z?? @.@

 

[Luorax]

They're units with custom models, if that helps.

 

[Luorax]

The new hero selector has an annoying glitch; the way WC3 wraps texttags differs on each resolution. Thus, the map will ask the player to choose their resolution from the supported resolutions list (because the values have to be determined by manually testing everything). I'm doing the line wrapping instead of WC3 now. So, currently, I only support these resolutions:

• 1024x768
• 1280x960
• 1280x1024
• 1440x900
• 1600x1200.

These are quite commone resolutions - but if you're using something else, please let me know and I'll add them to the list. Please note that my monitor doesn't support anything above 1600x1200 (the old one - the current one's limit is 1440x900), so it has to be below that.

 

[KuWe]

Pretty neat aos map, I like the custom health bars. All the heroes seems to be well thought and designed also.

You could add support to 1920x1080 resolution as it is a pretty common resolution. Pretty much everyone I know uses a monitor that supports that resolution.

 

[Luorax]

I'd really like to, and many other resolutions as well, though my monitor doesn't support it, thus I can't find the proper values for them (they all have to be manually found using a long, boring procedure). 1440x900 will work perfectly for them though, as it's the same aspect ratio, but lower resolution.

I got a PM from Champara_Bros today, so those 3 damn effects might be soon finished, that I need for 0.85. I don't dare to promise anything, though, but I'm willing to release it, as 0.84 has lots of gamebreaking bugs.

 

[Luorax]

Update:

• Check out the latest version Invasion in Duskwood Alpha v0.85
• Credits to TheGamaniac & jadkni for exploiting ~75% of the bugs fixed in this patch!

As always, thanks for your patience and have fun testing the latest alpha version!

 

[Druu]

very nice rework. I like the dodge/crit mechanic.

 

[Luorax]

Yea, I wanted to keep the proc mechanisms, but I think it was too random, and also unfair as it had no cooldown whatsoever. Now the player can sort of control the strength of individual procs by getting the proper stats, but it'll still come down to their luck. The additional damage/mana replenishment was added to compensate the early uselessness of the skill, and to make up for the over the average mana costs.

I'm satisfied with the result as well, I think the Primordial Sentinel effect is just epic (credits to J, who's unfortunately banned from THW), and the passive/active components are helpful (now he has a cool movement speed steroid, so he can chase others) - though he isn't that CC monster he used to be.

I'm also damn glad I finally managed to finish Scneer's ultimate, my favourite spell in the entire "game".

 

[Luorax]

I'd like to bump the thread as I want more feedback - we worked quite hard on this version and it's propably the last one before the beta release so I want more feedback.

 

[Vengeancekael]

• Forked Lightning tooltip: Amount*
• Add a short summary under the hero's storyline during selection, "Role: Mage/Tank, Difficulty: Easy" etc., you play LoL, you should know what I'm talking about
• Add a separation in the selection maybe, ranged heroes on top, melee at the bottom
• Add a starter shop icon which contains the basic items a player should buy in the beginning

I love the tower range indicator
Overall I'd have to say there's a neat amount of items, hero variety, oh and also the spells and the concept of all the heroes are really interesting, especially Lightning Phenomenon's
This can easily get a 5/5 rating in its current state, however, it really reminds me of LoL a lot, you've obviously taken most of its features like AP, AD, Resistance, Recall, etc.
The map doesn't seem to be showing me anything new.
The only last thing I could say is that maybe you should consider making this a bit more user-friendly but adding a summarization of what a spell does instead of really long text and also add a short summary about a hero.

 

[Luorax]

First of all, thanks for reviewing our project once again!

So to reply to your notes:

• I'll fix that typo; it's a common mistake Hungarians do (ammount, loose) - I don't want to go into details, let's just say that I'll fix it.
• I think I'll lower the height of the "hero board" so that I can make another window, where things like "Difficulty" and "Attributes" will be shown. ("attributes" like "jungler", "carry", "tank", "squishy", "support", "nuker", "mage", "ranged", "melee")
• Because lot of the heroes can be played multiple ways and might fit into multiple roles, I can't group them - and to be honest I don't want to do it either. Once I add that small window it'll also become unnecessary.
• I was thinking of replacing the "Exit Shop" icon with a dummy ability that shows the list of required items - I can also make a spellbook, though certain items might have the same hotkey, which will collide.
• Well yea, LoL surely inspired me many times, but it's also true that it's the biggest MOBA game right now and it'd be quite hard to make something that LoL doesn't have already. My goal also wasn't reinventing the wheel, I just wanted to make an AoS map based on the old DotA-like gameplay, but with enhanced game mechanisms, items and heroes.
• "It doesn't have to show anything new" - well, I think it's relative. I'm proud of the stat & combat system, the health plates, the tower range indicators, the shop system, and quite a few other things. And the heroes/items as well. I mean a lot of people compare this to LoL, but it's just WarCraft 3; it's annoying sometimes, but I'm also glad that my map reminds them of an individual game.
• And last but not least, spell tooltips. To be honest this is something I've been debating on changing for quite a while by now, though I think I'll keep it like this. A lot of the spells are so complex that even if I cut down on their length it'll still be over the average, and also, you only have to read it once or twice, after that you'll remember. All the important stats are at the top, so you'll always be able to find what you need immediately. I like that most of the tooltips contain some lore and describe how and why they work the way they do, plus, I love English and those long tooltips

Once again, thanks for testing it and I hope that my reply was sufficient.