Black Rock Dungeons v2.3.1

[Moderator]

[2016-05-07]

Rufus Review Map Score Gameplay: 18 / 30 Aesthetics: 7 / 20 Total: 25 / 50 Rating Chart 45-50 5/5 Highly Recommended 35-44 4/5 Recommended 25-34 3/5 Useful 15-24 2/5 Lacking 0-14 1/5 Unacceptable Gameplay A fun dungeon crawler where you make your way through a giant maze of enemies and a few bosses. Even though it was pretty simple, I found it to be pretty fun. It was not very hard, and difficulty choices in the future might be a good idea. The heroes are not very advanced either, but they work, and synergizes with each other if you pick the right ones. THe items are fun aswell, but you could add a lot more of them. I ended up having three of the same type early in the game. It could be fun with more variation. The late-game items however, was really good as they gave you a power spike that felt really good. Although, they made the fights pretty easy, and the final battle wasn't really hard. I thought it would be pretty boring after launching the map, due to the terrain, but it was surprisingly good! An idea could be that you make this multiplayer with up to two players, but if a second player isn't present, one player can control both heroes. Aesthetics This could use a lot of improvement. The entire map was just consisting of plain tunnels with a few destructables and minimal use of doodads. I cannot say it looked good, but it wasn't all bad either thanks to the well-placed cliffs in some places. However, since the terrain is extremely simple, this map won't be getting a high aesthetics score. Bugs Some items doesn't display the correct bonuses. For example the divine hammer gave me more intelligence than agility. Summary A simple but fun dungeon crawler. Approved with a rating of 3/5.

 

[BlueFire]

I suggest improving your description, also a changelog needs to be present as far as I know. Try adding screenshots too. I sincerely am not any kind of map reviewer but if you want I'll download the map and give you a little more feedback.

 

[Garkanka]

Yea dude! Download it and give feedback pls!
This is my first time submitting anything on here so i am a bit of a noob when it comes to the discription and shit but i will look in to it!
I saw the other post about "defence of the base" were the guy has models and icons of every class which looked really cool.

 

[BlueFire]

*le Review

Overall:
Okay so the overall gameplay feels nicely paced most of the times and the aura of the whole place seems like what it should, the terrain isn't outstanding but it is nice enough for the genre of the map I suppose. Heroes seem to be fairly balanced compared to each other and the fact that you can pick 2 heroes makes the thing more pleasant.

Some "Failed" Things:
Sometimes the Learn tooltips do not match the "actuall" tooltip (For an example the Rifleman's "Firebolt (Q)" says it has a 4 second stun on level 1 upon learning but it says 5 seconds in the general tooltip. The gates that require "Silver Keys" spam you whenever any of your units enters its activation area, I suggest setting a delay between the massages via turning the trigger of for a few seconds. The 1st bosses Death Coil ability seems to move him a few units upon use, try fixing that? Some units (mainly ranged) can snipe some bosses, I killed the 2nd boss without taking any damage at all using the Rifelman's ability "Mortar Strike" and then sniping him using ranged attacks through the gate. There are small grammar mistakes at some points, nothing major.

Recommendations:
Haunted Stashes do like literally no damage, try raising it up a bit. I think a minor shop selling just weaker potions should come before every boss fight just for sure, this is definetly not needed though. The first 2 bosses also felt kinda unchallenging, try raising their stats up just a little bit. Decrease the "Sturdy Gloves of Haste" drop rate, I feel like they're pretty much everywhere. Maybe move some bosses a bit just for sure.

Some last words:
Even through the mistakes I still enjoyed the gameplay well enough, the heroes aren't hard to manage and it is overall fun to sometimes just watch your enemies burn without giving them much chance. I will revisit this after you do fixes and some updates if you want and remember that I am not any map reviewer but for now;
I give this map a 2.5 out of 5 and am voting for "Awaiting Update" (or whatever it was )

 

[Garkanka]

Thanks dude really appreciate it!
Update will be coming within the next few days and I will fix the things you wrote about!

 

[Aether]

Type: Campaign

Is this a campaign? Or a RPG?

 

[bear_369]

You should fix the changelog. They're nothing but a spam of 'x'.
Also fix the Map-Type that Aether encountered.

 

[Aether]

Aether's Review [TD] Black Rock Dungeons By ImNotTheWereWolf Black Rock Dungeons By ImNotTheWereWolf Gameplay: The heroes are not that many, but you won't get bored and it could played many times, to know their usefulness. Heroes have a good and well detailed description. The description of the heroes describes the roles of it. Some descriptions of the abilities are incorrect and missing, like the Druid's Strength in Size. Try to check it. Anyways, the heroes are balance. The variation of monsters isn't good. Skeletons and kobolds and bandits and golems dosen't match. I think, if you add more kinds of skeletons, it would be great. Also, try to add some ablities to some units. For example, the Haunted Stash has a summoning ability, like Raise Skeleton, which is a Water Elemental ability. Every levels or stages I pass, the monsters still no match for me. You might want to improve all the monsters, its easy defeat every single monsters I pass. The boss fight wasn't that good. Most boss fight are kinda boring, and easy to defeat. Plus, nothing happens, except you just attack the boss, then the boss uses ability, and again. I suggest to add some events to every boss fight. For example, the Bandit boss, some bandits spawn somewhere in the boss area. Another example, the Crypt Lord, a random impale will burst out in the boss area. By the way, the Tree of Ancient or Corrupted Ancient has a missing attack, when its still rooted. Some merchants or shops are bit imbalance. I think, its the way you place it. When I first encounter a merchant, which is the ghost merchant, most of the items it sells are good. But, when I encounter the Kobold Merchant. It has no item to sell useful in that kind of level or stages of the map. The second and third ghost merchant I encounter is balance. Most of the items you made was useful. I can't resist it, and its hard to pick 6 items which it fits to the hero, as I said earlier, most of the items are useful. One of it is the Shield of Honor. The kodo was really useful, which I like the idea. The Kodo's devour is also useful. Sometimes, some messages or hints sometimes showed twice. Try adding some time to show again. Finally, I finish it and defeat the last boss, which is the Black Rock Boss, but nothing happen after it dies. I manage to found a secret, but still nothing happens.​ Aesthetics: The description was great. It has information about the map, and features. Add more screenshots to attrack more users, maybe 2 or 3 more screenshots. The changelog is nothing much a spam of XXXXXX. You might want to add some version to your map. Type: Campaign Its a RPG, not a Campaign. Fix it. Created by Garkanka Are you the author? If not, you need permission. This might get rejected. You could add a custom loading screen, as it would give nicer feeling to the game. And a preview screen would be also nice. Terrain is good. Nothing much to say about it, it just full of cliffs. The tiles variation you choose was nice, and well-placed, it fits to the map, especially when boss fights. But, the enviroment lacks of doodads, try adding some corpse, bones, bats, and so on.​ Verdict: Overall, this is a fun and easy map. I see a lot of potential in this map. I will rate it 3/5, and voting for approval.​

 

[Garkanka]

Thanks for the review!
Update coming soon!
ImNotTheWereWolf is an account that I made a long time ago and then forgot about, since then Garkanka has become my new "nickname". And I cant make a new account called Garkanka because my email is already in use for this account. I can change the author in the map but Im not sure how I would prove that I am Garkanka..

 

[Aether]

Thanks for the review!

No problem.

ImNotTheWereWolf is an account that I made a long time ago and then forgot about, since then Garkanka has become my new "nickname". And I cant make a new account called Garkanka because my email is already in use for this account. I can change the author in the map but Im not sure how I would prove that I am Garkanka..

Oh, okay. Fair enough.

 

[Rufus]

Rufus Review Map Score Gameplay: 18 / 30 Aesthetics: 7 / 20 Total: 25 / 50 Rating Chart 45-50 5/5 Highly Recommended 35-44 4/5 Recommended 25-34 3/5 Useful 15-24 2/5 Lacking 0-14 1/5 Unacceptable Gameplay A fun dungeon crawler where you make your way through a giant maze of enemies and a few bosses. Even though it was pretty simple, I found it to be pretty fun. It was not very hard, and difficulty choices in the future might be a good idea. The heroes are not very advanced either, but they work, and synergizes with each other if you pick the right ones. The items are fun aswell, but you could add a lot more of them. I ended up having three of the same type early in the game. It could be fun with more variation. The late-game items however, was really good as they gave you a power spike that felt really good. Although, they made the fights pretty easy, and the final battle wasn't really hard. I thought it would be pretty boring after launching the map, due to the terrain, but it was surprisingly good! An idea could be that you make this multiplayer with up to two players, but if a second player isn't present, one player can control both heroes. Aesthetics This could use a lot of improvement. The entire map was just consisting of plain tunnels with a few destructables and minimal use of doodads. I cannot say it looked good, but it wasn't all bad either thanks to the well-placed cliffs in some places. However, since the terrain is extremely simple, this map won't be getting a high aesthetics score. Bugs Some items doesn't display the correct bonuses. For example the divine hammer gave me more intelligence than agility. Summary A simple but fun dungeon crawler. Approved with a rating of 3/5.

Additional comment:
Keep this up!
Update this or create a new one with different and improved terrain, heroes and variety and I think you can deserve a much higher score.
You have a good base for a really nice dungeon crawler. Well done!

 

[Garkanka]

Thanks!
Update will include numerous tooltip changes
Higher difficulty, more interesting boss fights, more items
and a few terrain improvements!

 

[JesusHipster]

Small but very pleasant map. The downside is the non-existing difficulty.

 

[Kino]

Well, I dont necessarily think the uniform, spartan look of the terrain is a bad thing.
Thats said here I some things I feel could be done better.
- Area indentity, that is more areas that have their own distinct mob types and look. There is some of that already in place; though I feel that it could be done much better. As of current there are some universal monsters that can be found in most areas.

- Stat items are a little too commonplace, its very easy find yourself 6 slotted with decent/good gear.

- Cooldowns are all over the place, certain abilities such as the rifleman's dog have absurdly log cooldowns, and the skill isn't quite powerful enough to warrant that.

- Could definitely have more visual distinction (size/colour) between enemy types. For example the Necromancer Kobolds are barely different in apearance from the normal caster types.

- An animation to show when a key has been removed from a hero would be nice.

 

[Heaven Editor]

This map is nice. For single player. You may exceed many limits. You can make the content abundant.

 

[BlueFire]

Re-rating

Nice, I see that you made quite a lot of improvements, while the map is still not too challenging I can see some people struggle a lil' bit. The terrain is nicer and for these reasons I decided to give this map a 3.7.

 

[Ardenaso]

Enemies late game can be a problem for the heroes. Try making the skills of the heroes scale with their stats, or maybe increase the max level of the basics skills to level 4 and the ultimate skills to level 2?

So far I've liked it but there are tooltip errors. I give it a 4/5 unless improved.

 

[Garkanka]

Yea, I think some agililty heroes like axemaster and warden with percentage based crit and evasion passives still might be a bit too strong whilst intelligence heroes would need higher level spells too be valid in the later stages.

 

[watermelon_1234]

I decided to give this map a try because it was an rpg where two heroes could be controlled. I playtested with the Keeper and the Tauren heroes. Spoilers abound.

Gameplay

• As others have mentioned, the difficulty really isn't there; probably the beginning was tougher than the endgame. One glaring issue is that it's very easy to kite the creeps so that you're only fighting one at a time. (This also seems necessary in that room with a lot of Corrupted Druids and Treants which were probably the most difficult enemies to face.)
• I'm not sure what was with the barricades; I could just lure my heroes close to the enemies and then the enemies would just slip through the barricades to attack.

Example of cheesing the AI:

• 
  Hitting enemies with the Keeper beyond the gate.
• 
  Making the bandit boss leave the fountain so that the Tauren could be healed but the boss couldn't.

Tauren:
His abilities are rather boring and become irrelevant rather quickly, especially since an ability can only be levelled up every 4 levels.

• A 200 damage shockwave is essentially nothing endgame when units are much stronger.
• War Stomp is okay since the stun duration is nothing to scoff at, but I didn't need much CC due to the hero I paired him up with.
• I don't really understand why his ancestral buff had a somewhat long cooldown; but I guess it was the only real ability that I made him use at the end since the extra armor was nice.
• Reincarnation really doesn't seem fitting in this map since a hero being killed means a game over. If I got him killed in the first place, it probably means I'm so screwed that he's probably going to die again after he revives. This ability was only used once when I got surprised by the evil druids and treants; even then I would have preferred something more active to use that wouldn't have led to a situation like that in the first place.

Keeper:
This hero feels broken with Rejuvenation and two disables.

• At level 3, Rejuvenation essentially always allows the Keeper to recover 700 hit points and 25 mana points. There is almost no reason why the Keeper shouldn't have Rejuvenation active on him. Since the Keeper was kind of squishy, I mostly used it on the Tauren so he could tank. I think the mana regeneration is really unnecessary. Or at least, it shouldn't recover more mana than it costs.
• Entangling Roots really lent itself to kiting enemies. That long disable also mostly made creeps a nonissue as I could just entangle one enemy, run away and then entangle another as the creeps gave up on chasing.
• Sleep was only useful in boss fights, like the insane Paladins. It also made the final boss even easier than it was. This felt like an unnecessary ability when the Keeper has roots.
• The ultimate doesn't scale at all. At the end, it was much easier to just use it to summon invulnerable Treants and then be in some safe spot, but the easiest thing to do was to not use it. I say this mostly because it's already difficult to micromanage two heroes and having to manage another unit which is much weaker than the heroes isn't really worth it.

Polishing:

• In the start of the map, the vault could already be selected for the player. In addition, there should be a prompt to choose two heroes.
• Allow backtracking to be easier. This is particularly painful and boring when trying to use the Dwarven Ring as the heroes have to travel across the large empty map. I think the unopenable gates should be opened after reaching the area that was beyond the gate.
• I think the caves should have some kind of indication on the minimap that they're caves. This was somewhat frustrating for me when I was trying to find the caves to go back to once getting the Dwarven Ring. Was there a particular reason why Waypoints couldn't have been used? I think that would have been less jarring than always having the camera be focused on a unit that moves through the cave (this isn't fun when you have multiple units that need to move through the cave).
• The ending felt kind of abrupt; maybe have a little cinematic or something to show how awesome the player's heroes have become? In general, the story is nonexistent and the map can definitely expand on it (why are the heroes there, what's up with all the bosses that they have to fight, why are human enemies labelled as undead?).
• I did not like seeing all those destructable egg sacks since some could just have items while others were just environment. I think you could do something more with them if the player decides to kill them.
• I disliked having to manually attack the barricades; why not just make them a enemy unit?
• Why does the Kodo unit move so slowly? I think it should match the movespeed of the heroes.

Tooltip issues:

• Commmon -> Common in the items
• Rejuvenation buff icon doesn't match the the spell icon
• Potion of Healing description says "Heals <AIh1,DataA1> hit points when used." This is when you select the item.
• Reincarnation mentions reviving the Tauren Chieftain instead of the Tauren hero.
• can't is misspelled in the hint: "Hint: This gate can't be opened."

Other thoughts:

• I think it's kind of strange for the War Stomp icon to be used for Endurance Aura when the abilities are the standard Warcraft 3 ones.
• What was the decision with the maximum level 15 cap?

 

[Garkanka]

Thanks for the review watermelon! A lot of really good feedback!

I am currently working on and update of this map where the tooltip issues you mentioned will be fixed!

I will also be reworking the Druid, having two CC does seem broken.
There will be a lot more heroes to choose from and the hero vault will get a nice polish.
All heroes will have 3 levels in their ults so that the level 15 cap will make more sense.
This will hopefully also make spells/spellcasters scale better.
The Druid ult for example will be able to summon diffrent kinds of vulnerable treants and use Tranquility at higher levels.

About the War Stomp icon, I think it fits better with a Tauren than the Orc Hand icon that Endurance Aura Normally has.
But yea I get what you mean, maybe changing the name of the spell will make it look/feel better?
One hero dying in the new version will no longer be the end of the map, instead the player will have the option to go on with just the other hero.
I am doing this to make ressurecting more of a fitting spell mechanic. (The new Priest class will be able to ressurect dead heroes!)

I feel like kiting is a part of wc3 gameplay mechanic as long as it is not gamebreaking.
The units you are attacking should always be able to get to you to attack.
This is also why treants that the druid ultimate can summon will no longer be invulnerable.

Giving "cave entering units" a waypoint instead of moving camera is probably a good idea!
Opening all locked doors in the end is also a really good idea,
but I have thougt about making it so that the final ghost merchant can teleport you to other ghost merchants for pay.

I havent really been bothered with making a story for the map since I am not very good with that stuff + It would take me a long ass time to write it all in English.
The map is going to be harder and I'll give the ending more of an epic feel with cinematics and shit.

 

[cleavinghammer]

* Kodo's devour apparently stops working after eating a tree and its tooltip says they can eat destructibles. You should also be able to hire more than one, given the number of items to haul around.
* Near the first bandit boss, there's a sleeping invulnerable militia who doesn't react to the heroes or his buddy getting attacked.

 

[Garkanka]

* Near the first bandit boss, there's a sleeping invulnerable militia who doesn't react to the heroes or his buddy getting attacked.

Have you tried poking him with a stick?

 

[cleavinghammer]

Ohhhhhhh. Yeah, okay.

Update on the Devour bug: if you right-click a tree, the kodo starts eating every tree in sight.

The bandit boss in the northeast corner (near the Gold Key door) comes running in from offscreeen when you attack the units at the barricade.

 

[Liamz0r]

Hello!

I really enjoy this type of maps and had fun playing your map! I have a few questions/comments. I've finished this map and I choose Keeper/Axemaster as my heroes. Some feedback.

1. It's not possible to buy a second kodo, if you wait (or come back) and buy a second one when the timer refreshes, the vendor will steal your gold but not give you another kodo.
   
   
   
2. The heroes are a bit unbalanced, especially if you pick a "wierd" combination (two casters)
   
   
   
3. Game is a bit easy, you can easily kite/exploit just about every boss except maybe the paladins. And since bosses have low/no regen you can just attack, run, heal, attack repeat. (not that this should be needed).
   
   
   
4. Some tooltips are incomplete, for instance, the keepers starfall has atleast 6 levels, yet the tooltip only details damage for level 1, 2 and 3.
   
   
   
5. What's going on with the levelcaps? Keeper has a spell that requires level 16, which he obviously can't get.
   
   
   
6. Different amount of skillpoints. My heroes are both level 15, but the keeper has two skills he can still update (entangle rank 4 and starfall rank 6). Axemaster has nothing.
   
   
   
7. While the terrain is usually fine, on the ramps leading down/up into the shallow water filled with ghouls your heroes can get stuck for seemingly no reason.
   
   
   
8. Item balance can be a bit off. I realise that in singleplayer games balance isn't a huge issue, but a few examples. The Warhelm of flame breath is simply not worth using (except for stats) Doing 200 damage in the later stages of this game is not worth the effort. By contrast, the cheaper and earlier available Armorpiercing Javelin is monsterously strong, and basically boosts all damage by roughly 50%.
   
   
   
9. Weakness of spells, others have pointed this out, but since spells don't scale, most of them quickly become useless. On my Axemaster, only the -dmg roar and ultimate were worth using. The bladestorm/windwalk were not worth using compared to just autoattacking after level 5 or so.
   
   
   
10. Dwarven ring. The distance needed to run for this is really, really, really long. I suggest that after you aquire this ring, there should be a cave in the immediate area that opens up, that leads back to the cave system, but that can't be entered earlier.
    
    
    
11. Golden keys, again, to use all the golden keys you need to walk a long distance. I think this should be shortened somehow.
    
    
    
12. Minor thing, the gates that open after you do certain things, that display the "this gate can't be opened" should have their text changed into something like "This gate can't be opened from this side".
    
    
    
13. I think you should give the player slightly more gold, and slightly less "random drops" I guess you might get really unlucky, but I basically had a ton of junk items lying around, that I was too scared to sell incase they were needed for a recipie later.
    
    
    
14. Noob alert. When the game started, I just assumed that the "choose second vault"-button was actually the standard "choose different buyer"-icon, and thus had no idea there were more heroes. Not until finding a certain item that told me about the additional heroes did I figure this out. Maybe there should be a short "Click button for more heroes" message when game starts?
    
    
    
15. The quest log is incorrect. While it reports that there are 4 legendary items, only three are listed, missing the Sword of Eternal frost.
    
    
    
16. I don't know if this is hard to do, but I think the kodo should be able to use items/open doors.
    
    
    
17. Small suggestion, I think you should add slightly more glyphs, and make gold keys cost glyphs instead of gold. While this didn't happen to me, I can imagine that some players could get "screwed" by wasting all their gold, and then finding out they couln't buy enough goldkeys to open all the doors. Somewhat related, the goldgain actually seems to slow down a lot as the game progresses.
    
    
    
18. The cave entrances could have a slightly bigger "teleportation field" as your heroes easily get stuck while moving into them.

I'll hide this for eventual spoilers.

Secrets?

1. While killing fish, I got a whole bunch of fish, aswell as one "fish of darkness" Do these have any secret function that I'm too stupid to figure out? Or are they just for gold? I realise that this might supposed to be a trick, but you should probably make the hitbox on fish slightly larger, I had a lot of trouble attacking them and usually had to chain a bunch of attack commands on the ground before I got lucky.
   
   
   
2. In the same vein, is there a point to the hidden snowman found in the caverns? It seems to me that there should be, but I can't find any.
   
   
   
3. Does the stick have any other function than waking that first boss? If not, it should be consumed when used. I basically dragged it along the entire map fearing it might be usefull
   again.
   
   
   
4. In this map, there are plenty of single, oddly looking mushrooms standing around. I just assumed that destroying all of them would make something happen. Am I mistaken, or did I just miss this and/or hunt mushrooms for no reason?
   
   
   
5. Can you do something with the Remains of the dwarf king Torodyl? It seems like this mythical item should have some use, but I can't figure it out.
   
   
   
   
   
   

 

[Garkanka]

Hi Liamz0r!
Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed the map!
I must say I didnt think anyone would find some of the secrets you listed!

1. I want the player to only ever have the one kodo but yea the vendor shouldnt steal your gold, I'll fix that!
   
   
2. Yea, I know that this might be an issue however I have gotten bored of playing through the map with all different heroes myself to find what things need balancing. I will mostly be relying on feedback like yours to find what needs to be fixed!
   
   
3. Boss hp/mp regeneration buff sounds like a good idea.
   
   
4. Starfall will be fixed.
   
   
5. Will be fixed, no hero should have a spell that requires a level above 15.
   
   
6. Will fix this.
   
   
7. Hmm, I think I might know what the problem is.
   
   
8. You are right helm needs buff.
   
   
9. Yea, your right and I want to do something about that, I just dont really know what to do atm.
   
   
10. I like the idea of these secret ultra good items being tedious to get, In the case of the dwarven ring I think that the walk is half the challenge.
    
    
11. Im thinking about adding ghost teleportation.
    
    
12. Huh? I dont think there are any gates that can only be opened from one side? Some of them only open after a certain action but yea I dont really see the problem.
    
    
13. I see, well I think the only item needed for a recipe can be bought from vendors.
    
    
14. This was something I thougt about when I made the map, would an Icon of the Hero Vault be clearer? + Im gonna add text.
    
    
15. Yeah, will fix that!
    
    
16. Nah, I think that the kodo would end up being a bit OP if it could use items.
    
    
17. Gold Keys for Glyphs sounds good!
    
    
18. Sure

Anwsers

1. The Fish - The fish are just there for gold no secret function what so ever. If you look carefully you can see that the fish that drop "fish of darkness" are a seperate unit, so its not exactly random, there only two dark fish in the map, the rest are regular sewer fish.
2. The Snowman - The snowman is just an ester egg right now You could see it as a hint for what is to come later in the map. Id like to think that it was the Skeleton Frostmage that turned some unlucky guy into a snowman!
3. No the stick has no further use, I will make it so that it is used up like the keys.
   
4. Haha, the mushrooms are simply there for decoration, but I like the idea!
5. Hum, yea maybe it should have some use.

 

[deepstrasz]

2.5/5.
Pretty much drag and kill stationed units.
It would be nicer if it could be played in two players.

-the druid has the regeneration spell from the start; is that the ultimate since there's no other to choose from?
-the tauren cannot choose level two for another spell at level 3

 

[Ksiner]

Nice map. That's pretty much it.

 

[Deleted member 237964]

I beg of you....do something about that shipyard music.It's playing on loop and makes my ears bleed,i'm not sure if it have to do something with fact that i picked Hero Admiral.It's really interesting map i just wish there would be some dialogue in it,like Bosses actually taunting you or your heroes commenting on enemies and areas.

 

[AkarinKana]

Hey!
This is a fun map, HONESTLY!
There are items that trigger certain events to happen, and summon certain bosses, which what makes it fun.
All in all, RECOMMENDED!