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Boss Battle 1.5.3

Boss Battle - a map in the HeroArena genre with RogueLike elements. On it you fight with bosses, strengthen your hero with various artifacts and advance up the battle ladder.

In one game, you will meet 10 bosses who have unique abilities. You can also contact the local arena manager, Cute Bob, to join additional optional arenas in order to earn more gold and strengthen your character. Good luck in the battle!


What can you see on the map?
  • More than 60 unique heroes with their own mechanics.
  • Over 400 artifacts with their own unique effects.
  • 50 bosses who want to destroy you.
  • All abilities, items and bosses are unique and have no analogues in the standard game.
  • 2 additional stats - spell power and luck.
  • There are no recipes on the map, so you will not need to learn them!
  • Additional arenas for a variety of boss fights.
  • Play with mods that add variety to the gameplay: fast start with artifacts, chaos mode and others.
Map Properties:
Required Version: 1.32 (Last game version).
Number of players: 1-4.

Map works in both: Classic and Reforged.
Playing time: 30-60 minutes.



Database of all items.
Discord-Logo.png
Map Server in Discord: Discord Server


Special thanks to Sadtwig, responsible for creating patches 1.5.0-1.5.2.
You start the game by choosing a hero Choosing a hero you can see his abilities, "uniques"-skill, and also what class he belongs to: defender, healer, hybrid, killer and others.

After choosing a hero, you click on the sword button in the middle of the screen, indicating your readiness for battle. After all the players have done this, the battle begins.

In battle, you fight against a random boss who has his own abilities. If you lose to him, you have an additional attempt to fight. If you lose again, the game will end. If you defeat the boss, then you will go to the "Prep Room", where you will get some gold and a choice of three items.

When choosing an item, you can visit it to see its description and icon in a separate window. Also, a skull icon appears to the right of the sword icon. If you click on it, then the items will disappear. You will not lose anything except the selection of these items. Why do you find yourself on items? Everything is very simple - you cannot throw an item away just like that. You will have to exchange or split it for a certain amount.

There are various shops on the base that help in the development of the hero: Jule, huckster, mixologist, library, splitter and exchanger. Jule sells random items for a high price. Jule selection of items is updated after the boss wins or for a certain amount. Huckster changes the item in the selected slot for random, and also sells some... Doubtful goods. A mixologist sells potions, a library sells books, and an exchanger allows exchanges between players.
The game ends when you finally lose or if you defeat all 10 bosses.
Donations
Sheepy
Azazelk0
ZiHell
Ratman
Banderling
Glen
Infoneral
Rena
Mika
Wondershovel
Eric

Help with map development

Cotya_Ra
prizraknadache
Sadtwig
ZiHeLL

Map promotion

xWizard
Wtii
Krabster
Snupi
Zolo



Notes
Thank you all for supporting map! I will continue to continue to delight you with new content for map. You can also order your new heroes or items by supporting the map. At the moment I have some ideas for developing a map, but I would also like to know your opinion on this. What do you think of it? Write me your thoughts on our discord server.
Since there is interest in the map, I will sometimes update it and because of this I will more often listen to your opinion. Write your ideas and thoughts in our Discord!
Thanks to everyone who played my map! I hope you enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I received weak feedback from Reforged players during the month of card transfer, so I’ll have to release updates for the card less often. In addition: I was offered to put my card on NetEase for version of Warcraft 3 1.26, so most often I will work there. But I'll be back if I see a lot of feedback from you. Good luck in the battle!
Hello everyone! I am the creator of this card from Ukraine! I have been creating this map for 2.5 years. It has a Discord server and a group in Vkontakte (a Russian analogue of Facebook). Previously, it was only in Russian and for Warcraft 3 version 1.26. I recently decided to switch to Reforged and felt a problem for English-speaking players. Recently, I was engaged in translating a map through a translator, I hope in the future my quality of English will improve. Now enjoy the map! I tried to make it unique, not like the others, so you may come across the feeling that some elements do not work the way you are used to. Good luck in the battle!

Youtube video


Also check our other projects!
Contents

Boss Battle 1.5.3 (Map)

deepstrasz

Map Reviewer
Level 68
Joined
Jun 4, 2009
Messages
18,706
Thanks for the feedback! I thought that Russian-speaking players would also play the map, so I left this translation for them. In the future I will refuse it, but later. All other information is described in Notes/ver
Bilingual maps are allowed. So if you for instance made two sides of a unit description one being in Rus and one in Eng, it's OK but nothing should be exclusively in Rus without Eng understanding. Basically, there should be no content loss in what the gameplay is concerned. No advantage to the other language speaker.
 
Level 6
Joined
Apr 5, 2020
Messages
36
Bilingual maps are allowed. So if you for instance made two sides of a unit description one being in Rus and one in Eng, it's OK but nothing should be exclusively in Rus without Eng understanding. Basically, there should be no content loss in what the gameplay is concerned. No advantage to the other language speaker.
All descriptions of abilities, items, and bosses comply with the rules. Only some descriptions that do not affect the gameplay are not translated.
 
Level 13
Joined
Jul 15, 2007
Messages
763
Good feedback:
  • UI is interesting
  • Most heroes are interesting/fun
  • Lots of item diversity
  • Interesting bosses
  • Set bonuses are great
  • Jules is great
  • Potions are balanced
Criticism:
  • Game is very short. If you "luck out" and get a good team comp with great items, you just steam roll the game and all the bosses fall over. It's fun but at the same time not very challenging, and also, by the time you get to boss 10, this feels like when your character is really coming online, but then the game ends and it's kind of meh. Why not cycle the bosses endlessly with infinite scaling after Boss 10?
  • Some heroes are absolutely shit and boring compared to others. Having a hero be called "hard" because of this doesn't really justify it. Hero balance is a bit precarious also; the Monk for example has (in my experience) the best healing output in the game, and some of the best AoE. The adventurer (the eskimo dude) on the other hand is absolute garbage tier; 0 effectiveness, 0 fun.
  • The Item system whilst great and truly reminiscent of rogue-likes, can be quite frustrating. In rogue-likes, items you get often change the way you "build" or play your hero, but in the majority of cases this is not true for this map. Either an item compliments your hero, or doesn't. Many items are simply stat sticks which are quite boring (nothing wrong with stat sticks per se as they offer a low-stress low-thought choice for newbies). I'll use the Panda as an example; anything with attack speed increase or spell power is great, if you didn't get those, then survival stats are good too, but anything else (90% of the item pool) is pointless. There are some great items that are really fun though, like the 2000% mana regeneration one, that make game play very exciting.
  • There's not many proc based effects which I would have thought would have been well suited for a map like this. When they are they very simplistic (e.g. % chance to dodge, bash, extra damage).
  • Some bosses are just overpowered compared to others. I get this is a roguelike so RNG is acceptable, but the success or failure of the run can simple rely on what bosses you get. The flying dragon with all the glaive throwers is the biggest offender, it's a damage race with no interesting mechanics to it other than "kill all these auto-attacking units asap before we die".
  • Other bosses just go ape-shit when they hit their ~25% mechanic and do tons of unavoidable damage, like the Banshee, which punishes low-damage compositions and encourages people to build glass cannons, which makes the game a bit stale.
  • The Luck stat is a bit untuitive, does 100% more luck means all my procs have 100% chance to work, or does it double the proc rate? (e.g. 1% becomes 2%). I've found that stacking luck on heroes that like it (such as the Tinker) is a complete waste of time as it scales so slowly.
  • Targeting restrictions on wards and mechanicals makes some heroes unviable. Why bother risking your spell caster not being able to hit the Golem's wards when you can just bring an auto-attacker who's 100% consistent? There's no monsters with 100% evasion so why did you create caster heroes and then penalize them with target restrictions on their abilities?
 
Level 6
Joined
Apr 5, 2020
Messages
36
Good feedback:
  • UI is interesting
  • Most heroes are interesting/fun
  • Lots of item diversity
  • Interesting bosses
  • Set bonuses are great
  • Jules is great
  • Potions are balanced
Criticism:
  • Game is very short. If you "luck out" and get a good team comp with great items, you just steam roll the game and all the bosses fall over. It's fun but at the same time not very challenging, and also, by the time you get to boss 10, this feels like when your character is really coming online, but then the game ends and it's kind of meh. Why not cycle the bosses endlessly with infinite scaling after Boss 10?
  • Some heroes are absolutely shit and boring compared to others. Having a hero be called "hard" because of this doesn't really justify it. Hero balance is a bit precarious also; the Monk for example has (in my experience) the best healing output in the game, and some of the best AoE. The adventurer (the eskimo dude) on the other hand is absolute garbage tier; 0 effectiveness, 0 fun.
  • The Item system whilst great and truly reminiscent of rogue-likes, can be quite frustrating. In rogue-likes, items you get often change the way you "build" or play your hero, but in the majority of cases this is not true for this map. Either an item compliments your hero, or doesn't. Many items are simply stat sticks which are quite boring (nothing wrong with stat sticks per se as they offer a low-stress low-thought choice for newbies). I'll use the Panda as an example; anything with attack speed increase or spell power is great, if you didn't get those, then survival stats are good too, but anything else (90% of the item pool) is pointless. There are some great items that are really fun though, like the 2000% mana regeneration one, that make game play very exciting.
  • There's not many proc based effects which I would have thought would have been well suited for a map like this. When they are they very simplistic (e.g. % chance to dodge, bash, extra damage).
  • Some bosses are just overpowered compared to others. I get this is a roguelike so RNG is acceptable, but the success or failure of the run can simple rely on what bosses you get. The flying dragon with all the glaive throwers is the biggest offender, it's a damage race with no interesting mechanics to it other than "kill all these auto-attacking units asap before we die".
  • Other bosses just go ape-shit when they hit their ~25% mechanic and do tons of unavoidable damage, like the Banshee, which punishes low-damage compositions and encourages people to build glass cannons, which makes the game a bit stale.
  • The Luck stat is a bit untuitive, does 100% more luck means all my procs have 100% chance to work, or does it double the proc rate? (e.g. 1% becomes 2%). I've found that stacking luck on heroes that like it (such as the Tinker) is a complete waste of time as it scales so slowly.
  • Targeting restrictions on wards and mechanicals makes some heroes unviable. Why bother risking your spell caster not being able to hit the Golem's wards when you can just bring an auto-attacker who's 100% consistent? There's no monsters with 100% evasion so why did you create caster heroes and then penalize them with target restrictions on their abilities?

[Google Translate] Thanks for the tip!

Regarding criticism:
1) There are 7 difficulty modes on the map that can diversify the gameplay. I'm still thinking about implementing an endless game, maybe it will appear in the future.

2) With heroes, this is not entirely true. The monk, although showing the best treatment indicators, is poorly adapted for a bad situation. A monk cannot cure a critical amount of health, and he cannot cure if he has little health. On the other hand, The adventurer feels good like a semi-tank and you need to know some good game tactics on it (for example, through an endless passive ability).

3) I try to experiment with specific items and change them if they are not in great demand. The Weapon and Runes sets are just designed to collect items with boring effects so that they feel more unique. Also, I no longer just create items with stats. If it's just a stats item, it surely has some kind of unusual effect to emphasize it.

4) I heard a lot of criticism about the dragon: someone likes him, someone doesn't. I try not to make dummy bosses. In addition, you can try the battle mode with two bosses at once! He will be more interesting than usual!

5) -

6) On older versions, luck was more in demand. I will try to do something with this in the future. Tinker, although tied to luck, can be used as support for accumulating luck by other players.

7) Mages have strong spells. They are easier to succeed, but also easier to lose everything in a bad situation. In general, the fifth-level boss pool for the most part is made as counter to various tactics: the spirit of the knight - legions of creatures, the banshee - one strong hero, the golem - magicians, the faceless - main players.
 
Last edited:
Level 1
Joined
Jun 14, 2020
Messages
1
Easily one of the best maps on hive, Extreme amounts of dedication, Balancing and thought has gone into this map. Its much better than impossible Bosses , It not as clunky and over paced to create a artificial difficulty. All the bosses are extremely unique, As well as all of the heros, There are many strategies to win , And the inclusion of luck this being a rouge like makes it entrancing to get that perfect build to keep upping the difficulty and keep changing your strategy
 
Level 3
Joined
May 28, 2012
Messages
28
Very solid roguelike map. I think even the best at the moment.

Just need more items and bosses. And maybe more than 10 bosses in one go?
 
Level 6
Joined
Apr 5, 2020
Messages
36
Very solid roguelike map. I think even the best at the moment.

Just need more items and bosses. And maybe more than 10 bosses in one go?

New items, heroes and bosses can be ordered by players, supporting map on Patreon or Paypal. The system of "10 bosses" is balanced, if you make a match of 15-20 bosses, the map will be too long. In any case, you can play different mods that will change your gameplay: double bosses, new hero each fight, random chaos and others.
 
Level 3
Joined
Jul 29, 2009
Messages
26
It's interesting, a lot of other maps I find I have trouble keeping public players attentions and they leave early. This map seems to keep everyone captivated from start to finish. Strongly recommend this map to anyone looking for a fun easy to pick up, but hard to master game.
 

stn

stn

Level 4
Joined
Dec 27, 2018
Messages
7
Let me start off by saying that I really like this map. It packs a variety of neat features, comes with loads of heroes, bosses and items. Some real dedication. I got to play somewhere between 10-20 games, usually with 2-4 players.

One thing I noticed is that the early game tends to be harder than the late game, as players lack both abilities and items. The last boss, in case you reach him, tends to be a walk in the park. (Fast start might be an alternative, but I'd prefer picking items between rounds.) It wouldn't hurt if these later bosses possessed more stats, combo breakers, cheap shots and what not. Perhaps adding progressively more special powers on the bosses with difficulty would also make sense. It would also give new players a chance to learn the game, as they would have to deal with fewer specials.

The "1% chance to reset all abilities" (sundial?) might need some rebalancing (maybe some internal cooldown, or 10% one random ability). It scales too hard with luck. Also, the vampire can crash the game when he dives into negative strength.

Also, I noticed that some heroes can carry the game, naga gave me 100+ stat gain. Panda seems to pack a good punch too. All in all the heroes appear to have varying power levels. But as the game is not competitive this seems minor.
 
Level 4
Joined
Dec 16, 2003
Messages
75
me and my friend really enjoy playing this map! but could you make all summons scale? the only one i found so far is the dude with the shield who does magic dmg, also do quest have to take up inventory space? and is there a reason you can't just drop items as you want? or a gamemode where you could do that?
I love the map just so you know! huge fans!!
 
Level 6
Joined
Apr 5, 2020
Messages
36
me and my friend really enjoy playing this map! but could you make all summons scale? the only one i found so far is the dude with the shield who does magic dmg, also do quest have to take up inventory space? and is there a reason you can't just drop items as you want? or a gamemode where you could do that?
I love the map just so you know! huge fans!!

Thanks for your feedback!

but could you make all summons scale?

Summons is one of the game mechanics that can easily get out of hand. Scaling sumons will only make this problem worse.

and is there a reason you can't just drop items as you want?

This is done so that you think about whether you need this item or not, so in the future you will have to give gold to get rid of it. Many items have not only positive effects, but also negative ones.

also do quest have to take up inventory space?

Quests give very powerful items. The temporary absence of one slot for a quest is an honest condition for obtaining such a powerful item.
 
Level 4
Joined
Dec 16, 2003
Messages
75
Thanks for your feedback!

but could you make all summons scale?

Summons is one of the game mechanics that can easily get out of hand. Scaling sumons will only make this problem worse.

and is there a reason you can't just drop items as you want?

This is done so that you think about whether you need this item or not, so in the future you will have to give gold to get rid of it. Many items have not only positive effects, but also negative ones.

also do quest have to take up inventory space?

Quests give very powerful items. The temporary absence of one slot for a quest is an honest condition for obtaining such a powerful item.


I don't understand in the case of the hero who only has a single summon and skills only based around it, and the only spell that scales is a single target dmg spell? it honestly doesn't make any sense.

not having all summons scale i can understand if you can spam them or have many of them but this isn't the case with every summon, so it should be adjusted for those cases where you only summon a single summon with a long cooldown.

i can understand having a penalty for quests, though, but the penalty for items is kind of clunky imo
 
Level 15
Joined
Feb 2, 2009
Messages
154
This map is insanely good, with the majority of the fun coming from its roguelike elements and insanely smart Hero and Item design. There is something liberating about a map that understands that certain combinations (albeit rare) of abilities and benefits can lead to some hilariously amazing and overpowered situations without making amendments or changes. This game has a heavy element of rng for its generation of available items and the lineup of bosses you will fight. Even if a player chooses to play a hero that they had played last match, there is never a guarantee that it can be played the same way. The abilities, items, and Heroes have such interactive synergy that it is hard to not be engaged. At every point during this game the player is thinking about the mechanics of the boss, their hero, and their build. These levels of engagement can even be taken further with the map's scaling difficulty which can be chosen by the host at the beginning of the game.

With all that said, replay value and dynamic experience are the capstones of this map, here are some reasons why:
-There are more bosses than just the ones the player fights in one playthrough! A player would have to play multiple times to fight every boss.
-The items create builds for the Heroes, and as multiple Heroes having differing abilities every playthrough would be unique!
-The player levels up after playing, leveling up unlocks options to customize the experience AND even available items!

All of that said, this is a phenomenal map with some pretty innovating ideas. Its utilization of techniques from the roguelike genre makes it play like a standalone game, and it can be easy to forget that it is a warcraft 3 map.

I highly recommend this to those who enjoy roguelike games, or anyone who enjoyed the "Ultimate Boss" maps.
 
Level 6
Joined
Apr 5, 2020
Messages
36
Are the only items that don't stack Legendaries?

Also, how does Pendant of Knowledge work?
I didn't quite understand what was meant by "only items that don't stack Legendaries". Due to some technical conditions, only items that have attributes (agility, spell power, [random bonus] and etc) and effects that are triggered every X seconds are stacked.

To understand the essence of the "Pendant of Knowledge" artifact, complete its condition 5 times.
 
Level 13
Joined
Oct 18, 2013
Messages
690
Item-effects that do not stack should have the text "Unique:" prefacing them. It'd do a lot to clarify things. We stacked 3 of the plague tarot cards on a character and were dissapointed its an aura that only grants 1 bonus.

I've played the map 25 times or so, and wrote down some quirks I noticed playing. Great stuff btw.
Also, what are the criteria for patreon items?


item - amber has typo on crystal (2 L's)
GD magic hat says "each battle" but its actually 1 time bonus (I think)
The item that gives 35% Cooldown Reduction if all your items are Alchemy set appears not to work with the Special abilities. (I think)
+1 Intelligence tome doesnt progress quest, same thing with the Gold earned item. That or tooltip is not updated for those respective events.
Explosive moss would make good use of stating Area-of-effect in the tooltip.
I was silenced an entire endless arena once, the effect wore off the others after 10-15s though. Not sure of the exact circumstances around that, but it wasn't any of the random events. I was Player Red
Theres a weapon that says it grants a shield (crystal synergy one) doesn't say how big shield is, just that it reduces incoming damage by 15%. edit: It doesn't grant a shield, my bad.

Boss Specific Things;

Is the Kodo immune to stuns? It'd be nice if that was in the tooltip

The Ogre wakes up by default after 35 seconds I believe, not 40. That, or the threshold at which its said to wakeup (40%) is incorrect.

I don't see where in the tooltip the 100% mana burn on Faerie Dragon is. It could use a bit of clarification.

Whats new in this version?


edit:
golden lamp interaction with trading - resets damage, DOESNT reset tooltip

golden lamp damage bugs when players are swapped by the Faceless Void guy
+%SP is ATTACHED to runestone glas, this should be clarified. What I mean is that you aren't gaining Spell power, the item is. So if you ditch the item, you lose the bonus.
I've seen orbs not merge, the mechanic could use clarification. Do both orbs need the merge ability?
heat seekers (rocket item) bugs on hero soul swap
soul swap ended RIGHT at end of a boss fight, teal got reds special ability (had 2 specials), then after each subsequent round it would remove that players special ablity they had actually purchased.
 
Last edited:
Level 6
Joined
Apr 5, 2020
Messages
36
Item-effects that do not stack should have the text "Unique:" prefacing them. It'd do a lot to clarify things. We stacked 3 of the plague tarot cards on a character and were dissapointed its an aura that only grants 1 bonus.

I've played the map 25 times or so, and wrote down some quirks I noticed playing. Great stuff btw.
Also, what are the criteria for patreon items?


item - amber has typo on crystal (2 L's)
GD magic hat says "each battle" but its actually 1 time bonus (I think)
The item that gives 35% Cooldown Reduction if all your items are Alchemy set appears not to work with the Special abilities. (I think)
+1 Intelligence tome doesnt progress quest, same thing with the Gold earned item. That or tooltip is not updated for those respective events.
Explosive moss would make good use of stating Area-of-effect in the tooltip.
I was silenced an entire endless arena once, the effect wore off the others after 10-15s though. Not sure of the exact circumstances around that, but it wasn't any of the random events. I was Player Red
Theres a weapon that says it grants a shield (crystal synergy one) doesn't say how big shield is, just that it reduces incoming damage by 15%. edit: It doesn't grant a shield, my bad.

Boss Specific Things;

Is the Kodo immune to stuns? It'd be nice if that was in the tooltip

The Ogre wakes up by default after 35 seconds I believe, not 40. That, or the threshold at which its said to wakeup (40%) is incorrect.

I don't see where in the tooltip the 100% mana burn on Faerie Dragon is. It could use a bit of clarification.

Whats new in this version?


edit:
golden lamp interaction with trading - resets damage, DOESNT reset tooltip

golden lamp damage bugs when players are swapped by the Faceless Void guy
+%SP is ATTACHED to runestone glas, this should be clarified. What I mean is that you aren't gaining Spell power, the item is. So if you ditch the item, you lose the bonus.
I've seen orbs not merge, the mechanic could use clarification. Do both orbs need the merge ability?
heat seekers (rocket item) bugs on hero soul swap
soul swap ended RIGHT at end of a boss fight, teal got reds special ability (had 2 specials), then after each subsequent round it would remove that players special ablity they had actually purchased.
We mainly discuss all these details on our server in Discord. I have written down the bugs you reported and will try to fix them in the future.
 
Level 13
Joined
Oct 18, 2013
Messages
690
Hey Varcklen, could you share the script that lets you "queue" casts before they are off CD? Example, my W is on CD but hotkey W opens up the target selection, then I can spam until its off CD

btw, that script isn't applied to the 2 abilities heroes get outside of their learnable abilities.

Thanks!
 
Level 6
Joined
Apr 5, 2020
Messages
36
Hey Varcklen, could you share the script that lets you "queue" casts before they are off CD? Example, my W is on CD but hotkey W opens up the target selection, then I can spam until its off CD

btw, that script isn't applied to the 2 abilities heroes get outside of their learnable abilities.

Thanks!
Hi.
Isn't that part of the main game? Perhaps I misunderstood you.
 
Level 13
Joined
Oct 18, 2013
Messages
690
Hero abilities don't give "Ability on Cooldown!" when I click them/ use the hotkey. This is not part of the main game, evidenced by the fact that innate abiliies (like Curse, Lesser Heal) don't have this script enabled with them.
 
Level 1
Joined
Sep 17, 2021
Messages
1
One of the best maps ever created. It is almost like you are not playing Warcraft anymore, and the feeling is unmatched.
 
Level 1
Joined
Dec 5, 2020
Messages
3
Although it's a good map, it has some extremely questionable "balancing." Too many bosses have obnoxious RNG that completely ruin the gameplay on Solo, Duos, and sometimes even Trios. Not to mention some bosses have attacks that just never vanish from the arena and cause even more problems.

I want to enjoy this, and I'm already at Level 7, but I'm not going to turn a blind eye to how unfair the map is to the solo-duo players and even how bad it can be towards people who want to play certain heroes. It's a good map, but poorly balanced unless you have four people. A solo mode would be greatly appreciated for those of us who want to play this on our off time or those of us that prefer to play custom maps solo. It looks bad when your game win-to-lose ratio is basically 0 out of every 10 solo games because either the game or the creator doesn't take 1-player games into account, especially in the early-game. If all the cards somehow end up in your hand, then yeah, you might be able to make it to the final boss solo. But if you aren't playing a specific hero and don't get the specific items, you're basically SOL. This desperately needs early-game balancing or some mode/update for solo players.
 
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