Battle Tactics Arena v5.34

*****This map is protected*****

Quick Description:
Engage in an epic battle between good and evil. Side with the god of Fire and Light (Elieon) or the god of Shadow (Zantar). Pick your class and his specialization (path) and engage in a unique mix of a PvE RPG and a PvP Arena.

Recommended Players:
5v5 or 6v6 (New Players), fewer not recommended unless experienced.

How to Play:
This is a group-oriented game. Both teams will need a tank and a healer to traverse through each level. With the exception of the fifth (and final) level, they all have the basic layout; a mirror with each team starting on its respective side. A boss in the center of each level will give a large amount of gold to the team who slays it. Gold can be then used to purchase weapons and armor from the marketplace to improve your character's stats. Every 10 minutes an arena match commences, pitting both teams against each other in a sandbox-style arena. The winning team receives a gold reward for this as well. For further information, pay attention to the in-game tips as they come up.

How to Win:
The fifth level holds the key to winning the game. Unlike the previous 4 mirrored maps, Level 5 has you entering the enemy base and slaying the opposing team's faction leader. To win the game, you must win an Arena match against the enemy team while the enemy's faction leader is dead.

Class System:
Most classes have two different paths to choose from, and are given a custom set of abilities which will be unlocked every 7 levels (up to 21, the level cap). As of Patch 5.00, each level-up and each boss slain rewards you with a Trait Point (Press F1 to access). When spent on your path's trait tree, they provide your character unique, passive benefits which can augment your abilities, enhance them, or provide passive statistic bonuses.

Combat System:
This game now (As of Patch 5.00) features Critical Strikes, Armor, Armor Penetration, Misses (Evasion) built into the attack/ability system, which is completely triggered. All classes have their own specific Armor type which provides a respective amount of armor from items. Casters have cast-times attached to most of their abilities, which deal magical damage, ignoring enemy armor.

It Can Also Be an RPG:
You don't have to play BTA as Team Vs. Team, simply start the game with all players on one side and play through each level like a standard RPG. Note that if there is no enemy team, the game will simply end after defeating the boss in Level 5.

Feel free to leave a message here with any comments, or Email me at [email protected]

Credits:
Map created by Ugy on USWest.
Skill and Character Icons: Guild Wars
Item Icons: World of Warcraft
Loading Screen: Warhammer Online
Custom Models/Skins: Dan van Ohllus, shockwave
Alpha Testers: bobothegenesis, tg-original, nagarian, magiking7, GPAX.Crusages, WCKS_Eijiro, proxgamer, zours, tropmaster

Keywords:
Battle Tactics, RPG, Arena, Guild Wars, World of Warcraft, Instance, PvP, PvE
Contents

Battle Tactics Arena v5.34 (Map)

Reviews
19:29, 13th Aug 2010 ap0calypse: Approved
Level 19
Joined
Oct 1, 2008
Messages
1,667
A very good map that has a lot of interesting features, such as the equipment system, etc.
The icons were nice and tooltips are very informative and helpful.
The Path system was also a very good idea, and made for interesting, varied gameplay.
The colouring of the text was very annoying at times, make it easier to see, NOT BLACK!!!
Also, you should add in difficulty scaling (A simple aura that affects enemies) as this would be a great touch for smaller amounts of players.
5/5 Voted for Approval
 
Level 4
Joined
Mar 29, 2009
Messages
66
THe game in its self is great. Well made. But it isn't very active it seems. I can't get my games big which lead them to be boring and full of leavers. Aslo, it is unreasonably hard if we dont have a healer and a tank.
 

Ugy

Ugy

Level 2
Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
15
Thanks for the comments guys!

Yeah, sorry about the black text. It may be a little hard to read but I can't find something that will fit for the necromancer types so this may not be changed for a while. As for the scaling aura, this is difficult to implement because if a game devolved into a 2v5, the reduced difficulty would make it too easy for the larger team.

Unfortunately, the largest design flaw was me not compensating for leavers/douchers/etc. so the game will fall apart without a dedicated healer/tank and a couple DPS.

If you guys can't get a game started, I run an automated bot on USEast from 6PM-12AM (Edit: Mountain Time) and on Euro at all other times. It is titled "New RPG/Arena All Welcome #X", drop in if you want a full game. It usually starts about 150 matches a day and won't go untill full.
 
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Level 19
Joined
Oct 1, 2008
Messages
1,667
v3.3b
You still need to change the colour of the description and map name text.
The assassins' name is still impossible to see, I suggest making it a deep-ish purple/red.
The same goes for the Keeper of Undeath and Deathbringer, make the former have green text, and the latter, red.
Otherwise its better
 
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Level 3
Joined
Mar 9, 2006
Messages
46
This map's really good, but it sux when your healer or tank leaves. It's like GG than, maybe try to make AI for healer or something? :D
 
Level 3
Joined
Mar 25, 2009
Messages
31
one of the duels i fought was a 3v3 human team pyro tank lightbringer enemy team was weaponmaster, assassin and the undead healer we handed their asses to them so hard that is was funny and neither team had defeated the bosses for the round so pyro is a little powerful on single target

both teams had lvl3 gear but overall a good map

gj
 

Ugy

Ugy

Level 2
Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
15
Update on the bot: My internet connection is downgraded, so I can only host one game at a time now :(

The time period when I would previously host on USWest I am changing to USEast as it is much easier to fill up a lobby there.

Also: :( at whoever rated 1, care to explain exactly what you didn't like about the map?
 

Ugy

Ugy

Level 2
Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
15
Nope, it is mostly influenced by WoW and Guild Wars. The map itself isn't really based on any other WC3 maps as I don't play many of them myself, but I've heard it compared to Angel Arena and WoW Arena, neither of which I have played.

The setting and storyline, while not very apparent in-game, is based loosely on a collection of fantasy books me and a friend have written over the years. The only connection to the books in-game are in the faction names (Zantar & Elieon), as well as the names of the heroes.
 
Level 4
Joined
Sep 25, 2009
Messages
84
I liked the map.

What is the name of your bot?

When you say

"The setting and storyline, while not very apparent in-game, is based loosely on a collection of fantasy books me and a friend have written over the years"

Are you referring to published books, or non-published books? And if the former, links? :grin:
 

Ugy

Ugy

Level 2
Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
15
I liked the map.

What is the name of your bot?

When you say

"The setting and storyline, while not very apparent in-game, is based loosely on a collection of fantasy books me and a friend have written over the years"

Are you referring to published books, or non-published books? And if the former, links? :grin:

Thanks for the support of the map :thumbs_up:

The bot's name is Map_Bot, and I run it on USEast, USWest, or Europe, although it rarely starts games these days. I came back after 6-month hiatus to find out that the number of people willing to play a new map has dried up. The bot's gone from starting 80 games a day to 5-6.

I probably phrased the "books" thing wrong, it's more like a loose collection of hundreds of pages ;) If it ever gets published, it won't be for a long time...
 
Level 8
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
548
Fun map, glad to see it updated. What was changed though? Do you have a change log for us, or just minor bug fixes?
 

Ugy

Ugy

Level 2
Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
15
Fun map, glad to see it updated. What was changed though? Do you have a change log for us, or just minor bug fixes?

Quite a bit was changed in the 5.12 -> 5.15 cycle. First and foremost, Physical classes (Archer and Melee) are now significantly improved. There was a glitch that sometimes caused their attacks to not register, and this has been fixed. In addition, Incentive and Adrenaline (the mana systems for those classes) have been sped up by 150% (meaning they can use abilities two and a half times more often now).

I suspect the Priest classes will still be more powerful in competent hands, but this is a step in the right direction towards balance.

Tanks were of particular focus, they all now have a trait which converts Evasion Rating to Attack Damage, meaning they will scale better while wearing the items designed for them (DPS classes will still do more damage, but tanks should be doing -some- damage now, cause hitting for 50 damage per hit wasn't fun).

In addition, many Traits and Abilities have been reworked, moved, buffed, etc. Too many changes for me to list out one-by-one, pretty much every spec has had their abilities rebalanced. Traits which were undesirable before have in general been improved.

Any bugs I found through playtesting have been fixed along the way, but it's a slow process. Please report any you find.

I welcome any suggestions or comments on Class Balance as well and your view of them, so long as it's constructive and intelligent.

Edit: As of 5.16, patch notes have been updated. See them in the Quest Log.
 
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Level 8
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
548
Most definitely not, give it a try it is pretty fun.

Also thank you for the reply downloading newest v.
 

Ugy

Ugy

Level 2
Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
15
I loved the classes I thought they were well done and the pathing was well setup. The boss units and items are kind of boring however.

I agree on both points. The classes, their paths, abilities and traits were my primary focus and I really like how they turned out.

I had originally wanted there to be more variety of items, ie rare item drops, items from bosses, etc, but the filesize is already a little astronomical and I couldn't find a way to have these items drop fairly for all classes and specializations (IE: Plate with healing stats is only useful to one spec of one class on one of the two factions). Basically items in the final version are simply a way to convert gold into stats, which might be boring, but at least it adds another dimension to the game.

As for bosses, I agree as well, they could use some more interesting abilities and do less damage through auto attacks.
 
Level 8
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
548
Why not just add tokens? Each level drops tokens low chance on mobs and 5 of them drop on the boss. Where the boss is, there is another circle of power shop go in it brings you to a new place. Tokens are required to get them, they also add maybe a set bonus if you have more than 3 pieces?

Level one requires 1 token for each piece, level 2 requires 5 tokens per piece, level 3 requires 20 a piece, etc

So they can't use their tokens to buy the higher levels. They don't sell for any tokens or if you insist at least lower than HALF of what they give.

Make going after the boss a bit more competitive.

Downfall is that there will be people who just run in and steal tokens and then say "Ooops my bad" or something to that extent making players angry etc...
 
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Level 1
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Jul 31, 2008
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1
Hey ugy

Ugy, very nice map, I and my friends play and like it a lot.
It's very creative the map indeed, especially talking about the classes and its paths that each have, I can see you put a lot of effort in making that.
One question: do you have plans in continuing the map?So me and my friends may have hope in see updates in this great map?

Things that i think that can be changed to better.

1-Make the bosses more "special", like less autoattacks and more sklls, summons and drop(yeah unique drops..).

2-Make gold MORE special in the game(i see that we have many "worlds" in the map each one have level, like level one, level two, etc..), so to make gold more special, you could make a "special" level that players could only enter paying a lot of gold(I say a LOT) and in that level it may have mobs that give good xp and so on.

3-To make gold more special you could increase the number os itens in the game,or upgrades to them, like the bosses could drop GEMS that you could use them in yours itens and each gems would give a specific and different effect(like givind splash attack, more attack speed, life steal, not powerful effects, but something medium effect).

4-More mage classes (we have a lot of classes in the map but minor are mage, so this is not so important, but can be improved).

Really liked your map, has BIG potential, many things can be improvet so my rate is 4/5 .
 
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Ugy

Ugy

Level 2
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Apr 6, 2009
Messages
15
New Patch

Patch 5.21 took a while for me to complete as it adds random item drops from mobs. Basically, whenever your team kills a mob, there's a certain chance that an "Uncommon" or "Rare" item will drop. Then, one random person on the team is selected and an item is created for that player's class and spec choice. Drop chances are:

Regular Mobs:
1% chance Rare item
6% chance Uncommon Item

Bosses:
100% chance Rare item

In addition, the Rare items from regular mobs and bosses are based on differing loot tables, to allow bosses some unique drops (such as Valdrek's Axe from Rogue Lord Valdrek for Berserkers). In total, this patch added 133 new items, many with new icons imported from the latest WoW patches.

Items are weighted based on the level they are dropped in, with rare items one "item level" higher than uncommon ones. All dropped items have no level requirement to wield and sell for 50% of what an equivalent level store-bought item is worth. Any comments or suggestions on this change are definitely welcome.

Plenty of other balance changes and bug fixes took place, check the change log to see them all.

Ugy, very nice map, I and my friends play and like it a lot.
It's very creative the map indeed, especially talking about the classes and its paths that each have, I can see you put a lot of effort in making that.
One question: do you have plans in continuing the map?So me and my friends may have hope in see updates in this great map?

Things that i think that can be changed to better.

1-Make the bosses more "special", like less autoattacks and more sklls, summons and drop(yeah unique drops..).

2-Make gold MORE special in the game(i see that we have many "worlds" in the map each one have level, like level one, level two, etc..), so to make gold more special, you could make a "special" level that players could only enter paying a lot of gold(I say a LOT) and in that level it may have mobs that give good xp and so on.

3-To make gold more special you could increase the number os itens in the game,or upgrades to them, like the bosses could drop GEMS that you could use them in yours itens and each gems would give a specific and different effect(like givind splash attack, more attack speed, life steal, not powerful effects, but something medium effect).

4-More mage classes (we have a lot of classes in the map but minor are mage, so this is not so important, but can be improved).

Really liked your map, has BIG potential, many things can be improvet so my rate is 4/5 .

1 - Like I said, it is a goal to make bosses more interesting, but I really wanted to get the random item system out of the way first.

2 - Interesting idea, but a reward of experience would be rather lackluster as experience tends to come so fast anyway. It is a long-term goal to make gold more exciting, I'll go into this in the next point.

3 - Gems are an interesting idea, but due to how I set the item system up (item stats like spell haste and crit have to be triggered manually), it would be an enormous hassle to create different variants of items with differing upgrades, then trigger them. I think something along the lines of a seperate inventory screen for your character (apart from equipment) that you can put gems/jewelry/trinkets/etc into to boost stats of your choice is something I'm likely to attempt in the future.

4 - I've toyed with the idea of more classes time and time again. It is likely that if this ever does happen (no plans as of now), that Zantar would receive a Healer/DPS class and Elieon would get another DPS caster. One thing that limits this idea is that the filesize is over 7MB after the last patch, rapidly approaching the 8MB filesize limit. As for your specific point of not enough "Mage" classes, there are in actuality 4 classes that can function as DPS casters (Lightbringers, Pyromancers, Deathbringers, Harbingers) but they are spread out over the two factions. I think the number of DPS casters is actually reasonable, and they are quite varied. If you are a mage-type player, try playing the other faction and seeing what their casters are like.

Thanks for the feedback, more is always appreciated!
 
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Ugy

Ugy

Level 2
Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
15
The latest patch seems to cause the game considerable lag. I'm not sure if it's leaking caused in the item drop system or some other factor. It seems to start off slightly laggy and get worse as the game progresses. I'm looking into it and hopefully this will get fixed with the next patch. If you notice this lag, or lack of lag, let me know.

Edit: Patch 5.23 directly stopped many triggers from leaking, hopefully this will reduce in-game lag. If you still notice games still getting progressively laggier, let me know.
 
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Lets see...

Things that I like:


1st - Custom Game interface
2nd -Custom Icons, lol 2 many of them :D
3th - Ingame Description, just awesome
4th - Floating text, attack, spell everything!
5th - Levels, bonuses
6th - Monsters/Creeps, how many, maybe over 100 different units :D
7th - Heroes, large number of combinations
8th - Custom spells, abilities
9th - Hints

Things that I don't like:

1st - Map Description, add screenshots, colored text, maybe even video
2nd - There was no loading screen :(
3th - Terrain, this map should have better terrain!
4th - Stash, market place
5th - Hero was on F2 (second place) instead on F1
6th - Small bugs, like when you cast custom ability, if you order hero to move, ability effect will be ignored but cooldown and mana effected!

Word or 2 to Author:

I really like this map, it was fun, hard to play and has many new ideas (All what I like) but some small problems are still here, like that above!
Also I can't check triggers so I hope you cleaned all memory leaks :D

4/5 Vote for Approval
+Rep for awesome custom resources
 
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Level 5
Joined
Aug 19, 2007
Messages
133
I like the fact that the arena matches are always even but the random picking when the teams are unbalanced is annoying. The other team would keep winning rounds of the arena because my teams healer never got randomed into the arena while their healer was there.
 

Ugy

Ugy

Level 2
Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
15
Long time, no update. This latest patch was in the works for some time, if anyone still even plays wc3 any more!

Got the bot up and running and was able to test it with some randoms and work out a few last minute bugs. Everything should be smooth now.

This latest patch adds two new classes, one for each faction with a new mana system. The Elieonian team gains another dps caster (evening up with the other team) and the Zantarians get a healer/melee dps hybrid class. As the evil faction now has two healers, I toned down the Keeper of Undeath for the sake of balance. Both sides now seem to be fairly on par with eachother (the Keeper was a bit rigged before).

Let me know what you think, assuming there's any interest in this silly map any more.
 
Level 1
Joined
May 19, 2011
Messages
1
I enjoy that map immensely and I look am looking forward to some of your other maps. The chemist melee dps path seemed a little strong, but not certain as I didn't play him but he was claiming 3-4k crits at level 15ish.
Also as of May 18th around 9 in the morning I have been unable to join the bots game and am not sure why? Look forward to playing again soon.
 

Ugy

Ugy

Level 2
Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
15
This patch adds an "underdog" system. If a team is losing very badly (lower level AND less bosses killed/less arenas won combined) they will receive equal gold for losing in the arena. So if the underdog team loses (as expected), both teams get gold. If the underdog team actually wins, they only get the gold. This should help keep the game from being a runaway victory for one team, or at the very least make the game tolerable for the losers.

Let me know how this plays out, I am thinking of reducing the underdog bonus to 50% instead of 100%.

I enjoy that map immensely and I look am looking forward to some of your other maps. The chemist melee dps path seemed a little strong, but not certain as I didn't play him but he was claiming 3-4k crits at level 15ish.
Also as of May 18th around 9 in the morning I have been unable to join the bots game and am not sure why? Look forward to playing again soon.

The chemist is a direct counterpart to the Templar DPS path and both function very similarly. However, since the Templar wears plate and the Chemist wears leather, the Chemist should do more damage. If he is consistently doing way more damage than he should be, I'll look into it.

Feel free to send any replays to [email protected] with any suspected issues.
 
Level 20
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Jul 12, 2010
Messages
1,719
wow i really liked your ideas of making Traits!!
btw why does your hero get paused when you being casting an ability?
i have played Guardian and it was pretty good but...
How about make system that when a guardian gets in battle, his adrenaline won't stop droping untill he is not attacked for 5 seconds...because when you are in a fight your adrenaline shouldn't be dropping ;p
anyway the game is pretty good, im looking forward to a newer version, good luck 5/5 :thumbs_up:
 

Ugy

Ugy

Level 2
Joined
Apr 6, 2009
Messages
15
After the last two patches, arenas work like so:

If a team wins an arena, they gain 100% of the gold.
If an arena is a draw, both teams gain 50% of the gold.

If the losing team in arena has less boss kills/arena victories combined, they also gain 50% gold (while the winners gain 100%). They no longer need to be lower level than the winning team.

wow i really liked your ideas of making Traits!!
btw why does your hero get paused when you being casting an ability?
i have played Guardian and it was pretty good but...
How about make system that when a guardian gets in battle, his adrenaline won't stop droping untill he is not attacked for 5 seconds...because when you are in a fight your adrenaline shouldn't be dropping ;p
anyway the game is pretty good, im looking forward to a newer version, good luck 5/5 :thumbs_up:

Thank you for your support! As to the Adrenaline, that is an interesting idea, but Adrenaline would have to be nerfed in some other way to compensate. Currently, Adrenaline is well balanced against other mana systems.

I'm continuing to patch the game to improve balance (this latest patch includes an entire overhaul on the Weapon Master damage path), glitch fixes, etc. Nothing major is on the horizon though, the next major patch will likely add abilities for all creeps and bosses to make the RPG segment more interesting.

No ETA currently on that as it will take quite a bit of thought and work to implement.

As always, any and all balance suggestions will be taken seriously! The players directly influence how classes are improved or weakened with each patch.
 
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