Thanks Kyton, just lemme know what you think of it, and here comes my post, it's a doozie but it might prove helpful, here's hoping!
giving your map a go as we speak, writing down what I notice
First thing I see, I really like that you show the hero's stat increases on their descriptions. It's a good idea, wish I'd thought of it
I noticed a couple of typos, such as "Strength" on the Ferocity ability and "Adrenaline" on Adrenaline Rush. Obviously this is nothing major, since I can tell you are a literate person, but there are quite a few typos in the many tooltips, descriptions, etc. Just thought you might want to be aware, I know I'm a stickler and hate when there's typos on my own map XD
Using the QWERTY keybinds for the skills was a great idea, and one that I definitely copied, no question about it, from Eternal Conflict. Good move there, I hate maps where each hero has its own stupid keys to learn XD
There's a spider statue up the middle lane from the evil faction's base (The Soulless) that is overlapping a cliff face. It looks a bit odd, just making you aware of it, not a big deal
Telling people in an overhead text display, what a player is casting, is an awesome idea. I've never seen that before, very good job man.
I like that all of the levels of the abilities are shown, so you know how the abilities increase with level ahead of time. I wanted to do this with my map, but my tooltips are long enough as is XD. I chose to go with the story information about the abilities rather than display all the levels, with the space. But your choice is good, and works well for your map.
While I really like the customized ability selection, I think that there should be some type of limitation on how many stuns a hero can get. Looking at the stun/incapacitate abilities available, it's perfectly possible to make a hero that has nothing but stuns and just abuses the everlovin' hell out of them. I like your system a lot in many respects, but I think that one of the good things about preset abilities for a certain hero class, is that those abilities can be balanced against each other, because they are known variables instead of potentially changing ones. I don't know how exactly to combat this problem, except maybe as I said to set a limitation on stun abilities to say, 2 or maybe even 3. The same can be said with healing type abilities, which could allow a player to become nearly immortal XD. Just something to think about.
On the tower destruction notifications, I think it would be helpful if it said WHOSE tower was being destroyed by whom, instead of just "soandso has destroyed a tower".
I really like that there are some different skill sets available depending upon which class you choose, in addition to standard skills. Very interesting man.
Now since my map was pretty bad with this until recently, I'm going to suggest from a completely objective perspective that you implement some more doodads/terraining, as in some places there are wide open spaces with nothing going on, looks pretty bleh. You'd be surprised what it adds to a map.
I notice none of the heroes have any armor to start with. Was this intended, so that they may equip items to receive armor bonuses, or is it a bug? I'm not sure so I thought I'd mention it.
I like the number of recipes available, and I also like the way you divided them among different "elements" with the names of gems to represent them. Very cool.
Upgrading units is something I consider almost key to a great AoS map. Too many maps focus on heroes being uber pwn machines that crush all the troops without any problem. I like maps where strategy pays off, and troop upgrades is one way to make sure the troops can do something to keep up with the heroes. Good job there.
While the Wealth Shrines are a very interesting idea, I think they might take away from the primary focus of the battle somewhat. I really sort of like the idea, I just don't know how well it fits into an AoS, because of the nature of maps where defending a keep and assaulting enemy bases are the main goals.
By spawning big batches of creeps from single triggers at a single point, you sometimes get a lot of cramping when the mobs spawn and they trip all over each other for a bit. I would suggest maybe separating some of the spawns into a couple triggers, a short distance apart? Just an idea.
Goblin Zeppelins are a cool idea, and when they are destroyed it's good that you don't die, but the dizziness effect seems to last quite a long time.
The gravestone idea when a player dies, is very cool however my name is cut in half on the overhead text display. Just a little bug I noticed.
There is a somewhat large lag spike of approximately 4 seconds when a player purchases his first skill, I don't know if this can be fixed but it's quite irritating. I guarantee you it's not my machine ;D. If 4 gigs of RAM isn't enough for a 5+ year old game, then I'm going to console games!
Inner bases are pretty barren and there's wide open spaces with nothing going on in them. Try putting in some towers, some troops on standby, or something like that to make the bases more well-defended and less barren looking. The spawn points are set near the base and provide some okay defense, but nothing to even slow down an onslaught of heroes coming right for the base. Try putting in some kind of castle guardians that make players have to work at infiltrating a base a little more. Just another suggestion.
So far, I really like this map, and I hope and know you will continue to improve it. Please realize all of my criticisms are with the understanding that
It is a beta and that I only want to help you make your map kick even more ass
Some very very unique and original ideas here, and overall most of it is implemented well. It has some hiccups, and some things such as a lack of limits on stuns and heals for purchased skills, which potentially harm the balance a bit, but I'm rating this map a 5 because I feel that it has great potential, and is very original.
Feel free to rate my resource if you like, I'll check back for future versions, this map could very well become amazing.
Approved
oh and about the custom loading screen ill post it in the other forum u made!
