Descend v1.3.2

[Hey Ocean]

Hey there, so I've played 1.1.1 version (on WC3 Reforged), in terms of performance the final boss is still laggy, The Shifter's Q ability Grizzly Fury create drop in the game performance as well.

I don't know if it's intentional, but Ghoul Hand stacks with other vampiric auras(it shows like 2 vampiric auras with different names), I find it to be too OP. Is this a bug maybe?

And there's another thing, The Shifter's E ability Inner Beast states in it's description that the Spirits have to deal 1.5x of the hero damage, but the actual effect is 1.5x of the hero white damage + damage from bonus agility. With the stats from this screenshot the Spirit had 516 attack. I wonder if it's an error in the ability description, or the damage formula?

Also, are those small lava chests should drop the same items as regular gray locked chests? After all this time playing I've decided to ask this question after all, lol.

 

[Vladd]

Hey there, so I've played 1.1.1 version (on WC3 Reforged), in terms of performance the final boss is still laggy, The Shifter's Q ability Grizzly Fury create drop in the game performance as well.

I don't know if it's intentional, but Ghoul Hand stacks with other vampiric auras(it shows like 2 vampiric auras with different names), I find it to be too OP. Is this a bug maybe?

View attachment 430295

And there's another thing, The Shifter's E ability Inner Beast states in it's description that the Spirits have to deal 1.5x of the hero damage, but the actual effect is 1.5x of the hero white damage + damage from bonus agility. With the stats from this screenshot the Spirit had 516 attack. I wonder if it's an error in the ability description, or the damage formula?

Also, are those small lava chests should drop the same items as regular gray locked chests? After all this time playing I've decided to ask this question after all, lol.

Hi there! Still working on some of the performance, it seems to be much worse in Reforged, however.

I didn't know that about Ghoul Hand! I'll be sure to patch that.

The Spirit will naturally inherit damage from Agility items, as far as I'm aware, and most damage bonuses. I'll look into it though, it is calculated to include any damage bonuses you have.

They definitely should have their own drop pool at some point. I actually made Demon Chests simply because regular chests looked odd in the Hell Zone. I am adding unique chest drop pools to a new mode I am working on that is water themed, so changes like this will likely circulate back around to making those chests more interesting. Some Ice themed chests would be pretty cool too

Thanks so much for the feedback!

 

[E.T.Frost]

Great map to play with friends co-op.

 

[Hey Ocean]

Hello-hello, found another bug(or missing text, idk what was intended here) - Void Ring still gives +10 to Strenght, while the text don't say that.

 

[Vladd]

Hello-hello, found another bug(or missing text, idk what was intended here) - Void Ring still gives +10 to Strenght, while the text don't say that.View attachment 431377

Thanks for catching that! It'll be fixed in the next update

 

[Tran Huu Nhan]

I finished this map alone in about 4:25m with Hero Star Knight. The boss fights are pretty good. but when fighting with the final boss, the FPS dropped a lot because too many circles appeared. you should make them 1/2 less.

 

[Fawkes]

I finished this map alone in about 4:25m with Hero Star Knight. The boss fights are pretty good. but when fighting with the final boss, the FPS dropped a lot because too many circles appeared. you should make them 1/2 less.

Hey!

Thanks for playing the map! - I just thought I'd answer on Vladd's behalf here:

Unfortunately some parts of the game, particularly the Lich fight, seem to perform very poorly on Warcraft Reforged (using classic graphics mode does not seem to fix this). Many attempts have been made to remedy this issue, but at the end of the day, it simply seems that Reforged is a poorly optimized game.

We are looking at making further adjustments to the Reforged option within the map to lessen number of effects, particularly for the Lich, but this might mean reworking some abilities which is quite time consuming.

Keep an eye out for future updates

 

[lludo1337]

I created an account just to say how much I enjoy this map with my friends. Although 3 of us have 0 fps on the final boss in reforged, we managed to beat it which felt very satisfying. Would it be possible to consider a party of 5 and increase the difficulty accordingly for each additional player, sort of like in Diablo 2 where each member increase monster power? I believe it's just enough people but not too much, and also due to having to switch out 2 people to spectator mode every time we play .

I was also inspired to make a small version for my friends to play, sort of like a DnD kind of thing while we wait for a new update.

Maybe it's not the right place to ask, but how did you make the map transition? It seems almost like a campaign transition but I tried that before and it didn't work well on bnet.

Thanks!

 

[Vladd]

I created an account just to say how much I enjoy this map with my friends. Although 3 of us have 0 fps on the final boss in reforged, we managed to beat it which felt very satisfying. Would it be possible to consider a party of 5 and increase the difficulty accordingly for each additional player, sort of like in Diablo 2 where each member increase monster power? I believe it's just enough people but not too much, and also due to having to switch out 2 people to spectator mode every time we play .

I was also inspired to make a small version for my friends to play, sort of like a DnD kind of thing while we wait for a new update.

Maybe it's not the right place to ask, but how did you make the map transition? It seems almost like a campaign transition but I tried that before and it didn't work well on bnet.

Thanks!

Hi there, so happy you're enjoying the map and that I've inspired some of your own projects! That's just awesome. I'm very sorry about the state of the final boss, he is unfortunately quite heavy on performance and as I only play on V1.29, I didn't realise that it would be such a big issue for lots of people. In the next update, some more performance enhancements are on the way, which should help a bit He may even need a straight up redesign with some of his attacks, if need be.

In regards to enemy power, the distribution of experience and gold among multiple players means that each individual player has less items and is lower level, so I wasn't too sure whether or not I should make enemies harder as each hero in your party is weaker. I would be interested to know if you personally found the game too easy with multiple players! Bosses however do scale with multiple players, as I did find that the combined focus of multiple heroes on a singular unit made the bosses take exceptional amounts of damage.

Descend uses random generation to transition between levels, and a level tracker to track what should be happening at any given time. So when you go through a doorway, the screen goes black, the level you were on is completely erased and a new randomly generated level is constructed within that instance. The functions behind the random generation can be very complex. If you'd like to know more, feel free to reach out to me on the Descend Discord!

 

[lludo1337]

Hi there, so happy you're enjoying the map and that I've inspired some of your own projects! That's just awesome. I'm very sorry about the state of the final boss, he is unfortunately quite heavy on performance and as I only play on V1.29, I didn't realise that it would be such a big issue for lots of people. In the next update, some more performance enhancements are on the way, which should help a bit He may even need a straight up redesign with some of his attacks, if need be.

In regards to enemy power, the distribution of experience and gold among multiple players means that each individual player has less items and is lower level, so I wasn't too sure whether or not I should make enemies harder as each hero in your party is weaker. I would be interested to know if you personally found the game too easy with multiple players! Bosses however do scale with multiple players, as I did find that the combined focus of multiple heroes on a singular unit made the bosses take exceptional amounts of damage.

Descend uses random generation to transition between levels, and a level tracker to track what should be happening at any given time. So when you go through a doorway, the screen goes black, the level you were on is completely erased and a new randomly generated level is constructed within that instance. The functions behind the random generation can be very complex. If you'd like to know more, feel free to reach out to me on the Descend Discord!

Hey, thanks for the response! I don't think it's too easy, we played on normal and hardcore, and while hardcore is definitely harder, normal is at a good difficulty. The gold split definitely allow us to make use of teamwork more. We would pour gold to whoever needs it most first (mostly to the dps), and it's funny seeing the tank just running when low to let the dps get aggro on and one-shotted.

What I mean by making monsters harder would just be, maybe make monsters take like 20% less damage/deal 20% more damage for a 5th player. It's just an idea, but I do hope you consider the case with 5 players. Either way, it's a really enjoyable map.

I do have a few other suggestions that you should consider: maybe give some random permanent artifacts that can be found besides items? They can be as silly as decrease move speed, or make you randomly tp around the map when attacking, etc. It will add to the replayability of the map. I have also seen other maps use an aggro system to make the roles of tank more prominent; I believe if it doesn't force you to uproot everything, you should definitely consider it. As it currently stands, tank/bruisers lack a good defining trait in the party.

Sure most tanks/bruisers have more CC abilities, but in most of our playthroughs, the tank usually just get ignored once everybody got enough items and levels to sustain some amount of damage. Supports without any healing are also a bit underpower—not sure how to tune them, but comparing the priest of light with somebody like the troll, we had a much, much easier time when we got the priest of light in our party. He pretty much trivializes everything.

Anyway, hoping to see the next update soon! I guess you can leave the balancing for last when the map is in a more stable state. As a last note, I do hope the final boss is on your next list of priority, and please consider letting us stay after we beat the boss so we can chill a bit in the lobby after beating him. Two of the friend didn't even get to take a drink!

Edit: I will definitely join the discord!

 

[Vladd]

Hey, thanks for the response! I don't think it's too easy, we played on normal and hardcore, and while hardcore is definitely harder, normal is at a good difficulty. The gold split definitely allow us to make use of teamwork more. We would pour gold to whoever needs it most first (mostly to the dps), and it's funny seeing the tank just running when low to let the dps get aggro on and one-shotted.

What I mean by making monsters harder would just be, maybe make monsters take like 20% less damage/deal 20% more damage for a 5th player. It's just an idea, but I do hope you consider the case with 5 players. Either way, it's a really enjoyable map.

I do have a few other suggestions that you should consider: maybe give some random permanent artifacts that can be found besides items? They can be as silly as decrease move speed, or make you randomly tp around the map when attacking, etc. It will add to the replayability of the map. I have also seen other maps use an aggro system to make the roles of tank more prominent; I believe if it doesn't force you to uproot everything, you should definitely consider it. As it currently stands, tank/bruisers lack a good defining trait in the party.

Sure most tanks/bruisers have more CC abilities, but in most of our playthroughs, the tank usually just get ignored once everybody got enough items and levels to sustain some amount of damage. Supports without any healing are also a bit underpower—not sure how to tune them, but comparing the priest of light with somebody like the troll, we had a much, much easier time when we got the priest of light in our party. He pretty much trivializes everything.

Anyway, hoping to see the next update soon! I guess you can leave the balancing for last when the map is in a more stable state. As a last note, I do hope the final boss is on your next list of priority, and please consider letting us stay after we beat the boss so we can chill a bit in the lobby after beating him. Two of the friend didn't even get to take a drink!

Edit: I will definitely join the discord!

Ah that makes sense, thanks for the feedback! Definitely a fan of the artifact idea, I'm currently working on a big content update, after that I can start adding more little things like that

The Lich is definitely getting a mini-rework in terms of the number of effects he summons on the screen at any given time in the next update, so I'm hoping this helps a great deal.

In regards to having 5 players, 5 players would be something I would love to add but it will be in the far future. A lot of the map has systems oriented specifically towards player 1,2,3,4, and adding a 5th player would require these systems to include considerations for another player, so it's definitely on the list of things to do, but I doubt it will be finished in the next update.

 

[stan0033]

looks really cool

 

[Jemmish]

I think 1.36 broke gold and experience bounties again, -xpgoldfix doesn't seem to work.

 

[Vladd]

I think 1.36 broke gold and experience bounties again, -xpgoldfix doesn't seem to work.

The "-xpgoldfix" is no longer a command - at the beginning of the game, Player 1 is asked "Are you playing on Warcraft III: Reforged?", and if yes is clicked, then the fix is automatically enabled, if this still doesn't work let me know!

 

[Jemmish]

The "-xpgoldfix" is no longer a command - at the beginning of the game, Player 1 is asked "Are you playing on Warcraft III: Reforged?", and if yes is clicked, then the fix is automatically enabled, if this still doesn't work let me know!

Ahhhhh okay, I've been clicking on no since I play on classic graphics and figured it was asking based on my graphics setting instead of the patch. Ty very much

 

[Gluma]

Enjoying this map a ton with a bunch of buddies of mine, the hero roster is really cool and they feel pretty unique. Very replayable too as others have mentioned

That big death knight boss keeps tpk'ing us though. Is it a bit too busted or are we just incompetent? That horse charge attack is particularly hard to dodge - it reaches real wide and we keep getting one- or two-shot.

Also I feel like standard enemy rooms feel a bit visually repetetive. Would be very cool if dungeon scenery kept changing as move deeper to signify progression, like at first it's a cave, then a nornal brick dungen, then some more evil dungeon idk. Unless its already a thing and we just missed it thanks to Arthas. I have no clue how hard or time-consuming it is or if it's even possible, though.

Still, I sure enjoyed this map more than I enjoyed some standalone games, great work

 

[Vladd]

Enjoying this map a ton with a bunch of buddies of mine, the hero roster is really cool and they feel pretty unique. Very replayable too as others have mentioned

That big death knight boss keeps tpk'ing us though. Is it a bit too busted or are we just incompetent? That horse charge attack is particularly hard to dodge - it reaches real wide and we keep getting one- or two-shot.

Also I feel like standard enemy rooms feel a bit visually repetetive. Would be very cool if dungeon scenery kept changing as move deeper to signify progression, like at first it's a cave, then a nornal brick dungen, then some more evil dungeon idk. Unless its already a thing and we just missed it thanks to Arthas. I have no clue how hard or time-consuming it is or if it's even possible, though.

Still, I sure enjoyed this map more than I enjoyed some standalone games, great work

Hi there, so glad you enjoyed it! I definitely like the suggestion of more room decoration, it is lacking in some areas. The rooms do get visually quite different, but between the first 2 zones, they aren't super distinct.

Currently the zones are Dirt -> Dungeon -> Hell -> Ice -> Tomb -> Deep Dark

The Horseman of Hatred is one of the harder fights in the map for sure, I've had quite a few people ask a similar question about how to go about beating him. The biggest help I can provide for beating him is that he follows a pattern. Once you learn it, you can anticipate an ability and be ready for it. If you aren't ready, especially during his charge, he can wipe a team very quickly. I would also say that it's worth investing in some movement speed items, especially if your heroes lack mobility. He actually doesn't have much health for a boss but has some crazy damage that is hard to dodge.

Thanks so much for the feedback!

 

[Gluma]

Hi there, so glad you enjoyed it! I definitely like the suggestion of more room decoration, it is lacking in some areas. The rooms do get visually quite different, but between the first 2 zones, they aren't super distinct.

Currently the zones are Dirt -> Dungeon -> Hell -> Ice -> Tomb -> Deep Dark

The Horseman of Hatred is one of the harder fights in the map for sure, I've had quite a few people ask a similar question about how to go about beating him. The biggest help I can provide for beating him is that he follows a pattern. Once you learn it, you can anticipate an ability and be ready for it. If you aren't ready, especially during his charge, he can wipe a team very quickly. I would also say that it's worth investing in some movement speed items, especially if your heroes lack mobility. He actually doesn't have much health for a boss but has some crazy damage that is hard to dodge.

Thanks so much for the feedback!

Idk, he felt pretty beefy hp-wise too, although we might have been too distracted trying to dodge his attacks

 

[Daratrix]

Got a 4 men crew going, picked dragon priest, and had a good time with the very fun kit! Although I would have preferred the ultimate to increase the dragon breath range/width a little bit over increasing the damage a lot.

Was pretty fun overall, will play again!

Get sludged @Antares A !

 

[kykeka]

Hey logged in to make this comment but I have a suggestion that I think would benefit the map greatly. I like a lot of the hero designs but a LOT of them in your map have one serious flaw. They have little to no stat scaling which makes them largely useless late game when bosses and enemies have gigantic amounts of health. Please add more Str/Agi/Int scaling to hero abilities, preferably at least 1 per class so they're all at least a bit useful later on. Especially summons need stat scaling, they're pretty worthless without it, the item summons are great however because the int scaling.

Also, the paladin W late game is very laggy along with some other spells causing some sort of backup making the game lag like the boss meteor spam. I'd give those a check so you don't cripple people's fps.

Awesome map otherwise though I just figured some suggestions would help make it even better!

 

[Vladd]

Hey logged in to make this comment but I have a suggestion that I think would benefit the map greatly. I like a lot of the hero designs but a LOT of them in your map have one serious flaw. They have little to no stat scaling which makes them largely useless late game when bosses and enemies have gigantic amounts of health. Please add more Str/Agi/Int scaling to hero abilities, preferably at least 1 per class so they're all at least a bit useful later on. Especially summons need stat scaling, they're pretty worthless without it, the item summons are great however because the int scaling.

Also, the paladin W late game is very laggy along with some other spells causing some sort of backup making the game lag like the boss meteor spam. I'd give those a check so you don't cripple people's fps.

Awesome map otherwise though I just figured some suggestions would help make it even better!

Hey there, sorry for the late response. I'm glad you're enjoying the map despite these issues, they will be addressed in the next update

 

[Swaguar]

Very fun! Me and a couple of the buds have been playing this recently and we have had a blast figuring everything out.
We came up with a list of stuff after doing quite a few runs that we think would enhance the experience.


-Though there are many heroes to try, there are some that are much, much stronger, particularly Rusty the Highwayman and the Wolf Rider.
-Most of the support heroes do not have scaling abilities, and it makes them feel like deadweight later on in a run.
-Cricket is very interesting, but his whole kit needs a buff, percentage chances on opening stuff needs to be much higher, and the shop options stronger.
-Some of the event items delete stuff in your inventory, especially the bonus challenges you take on from the obelisk.
-It would be very cool if there were different merchants and events in each area, and not just the merchants in the goblin king/merchant area.
-option to turn the music off, I love the runescape and divinity tunes, but for some reason some of the tracks get really loud. This could be a reforged problem.
-some of the tooltips lack descriptors, duration of an effect being the most common discrepancy.
-The process of obtaining good items is very cool and fun, but slightly more item variety would do this game a lot of help, especially in the end game.

Keep up the good work, we look forward to future updates of this map!

 

[Swaguar]

Unsure if its intentional, but jump abilities stop working in the underwater level after a certain depth.

 

[Vladd]

Unsure if its intentional, but jump abilities stop working in the underwater level after a certain depth.

This isn't intended, but I know the cause of the issue (easy for it to crop up), do you recall what heroes you were playing when you ran into this issue? That would be a huge help

 

[Vladd]

Very fun! Me and a couple of the buds have been playing this recently and we have had a blast figuring everything out.
We came up with a list of stuff after doing quite a few runs that we think would enhance the experience.


-Though there are many heroes to try, there are some that are much, much stronger, particularly Rusty the Highwayman and the Wolf Rider.
-Most of the support heroes do not have scaling abilities, and it makes them feel like deadweight later on in a run.
-Cricket is very interesting, but his whole kit needs a buff, percentage chances on opening stuff needs to be much higher, and the shop options stronger.
-Some of the event items delete stuff in your inventory, especially the bonus challenges you take on from the obelisk.
-It would be very cool if there were different merchants and events in each area, and not just the merchants in the goblin king/merchant area.
-option to turn the music off, I love the runescape and divinity tunes, but for some reason some of the tracks get really loud. This could be a reforged problem.
-some of the tooltips lack descriptors, duration of an effect being the most common discrepancy.
-The process of obtaining good items is very cool and fun, but slightly more item variety would do this game a lot of help, especially in the end game.

Keep up the good work, we look forward to future updates of this map!

Hey thanks very much for the feedback!

- I actually do struggle with balance but don't receive much feedback from players of what is overpowered and what isn't, so I appreciate your input here. I'll look into those heroes and see how they perform in a few runs. There is also a "balance" section of the Descend discord where you can post balance related suggestions!

- Scaling is often a bit of a placebo effect, especially when it is applied in small amounts. Supports provide utility to the team and some are intended to be stronger early and some are intended to be stronger late game. The Priest of Havoc for example does not have a percentage heal or a heal that scales, however he grants flat damage reduction to enemies, and can provide invulnerability to allies, which keeps him useful later on. But if you have any specific heroes that you find to be underwhelming, please let me know!

- Thanks for the feedback on Cricket, he recently had a huge rework as he was very overpowered, so it may be fair to investigate and trickle his power scaling up a bit.

- I will look into Paths getting deleted, this isn't intended.

- For the music, are you able to turn it off by putting your music slider to 0 in settings?

Thanks again for the feedback and hopefully many of these suggestions/issues will be tackled by the next update

 

[Zabijak]

Killing enemies with spells does not grant gold or exp.

 

[Vladd]

Killing enemies with spells does not grant gold or exp.

When asked at the beginning of the match "Are you playing on Warcraft 3 Reforged", click yes. It enables a fix for reforged that allows for bounty and xp to be given from spells.

 

[Swaguar]

This isn't intended, but I know the cause of the issue (easy for it to crop up), do you recall what heroes you were playing when you ran into this issue? That would be a huge help

It was Rusty the Highwayman and Wolfheart Skullcrusher the Orc Raider. Very similar abilities.

 

[Swaguar]

- I actually do struggle with balance but don't receive much feedback from players of what is overpowered and what isn't, so I appreciate your input here. I'll look into those heroes and see how they perform in a few runs. There is also a "balance" section of the Descend discord where you can post balance related suggestions!

- Scaling is often a bit of a placebo effect, especially when it is applied in small amounts. Supports provide utility to the team and some are intended to be stronger early and some are intended to be stronger late game. The Priest of Havoc for example does not have a percentage heal or a heal that scales, however he grants flat damage reduction to enemies, and can provide invulnerability to allies, which keeps him useful later on. But if you have any specific heroes that you find to be underwhelming, please let me know!

I think most people who have played this game would agree that the major bottlenecks for progression are the bosses, which is a good thing in my opinion. Now, theoretically, you could kill the bosses with any heroes because all the boss mechanics are largely avoidable, which is also a good thing. The caveat to that however is the health pools of the bosses are quite large (minus the treasure golem), and if you have three players, and two of them are not playing one of the better damage dealing heroes, the boss fights can drag on for a really long time. The longer the boss fights go, the more mistakes are made, the more lives are lost, you get the idea.

So how does this relate to the imbalance in hero power? Well, with the way the game is currently, it really incentivizes players to prioritize dealing damage. Many of the support type heroes don't have scaling abilities, so that 300 damage AoE or that 200 hp heal feels pretty bad even as soon as the hell layer. Moreover, A lot of the strongest heroes in the game have ways to mitigate damage either by mobility or just being tanky, and also either have a good auto attack (they are ranged), or a spell that is spammable and has good scaling. Garithos I think really illustrates what I mean. With two lifestealing items that stack, and his Liberty ability active, he can essentially ignore boss mechanics provided he can attack it, which is most the time. Not to mention that while he is doing this, he is actively clobbering the boss. He is by no means the highest damage hero in the game, but he certainly carries his weight.

The Heroes I think are really strong:
-Rusty (also ironically kind of the best support hero because of all the extra gold, and how you can stuff the map up with decent summons.)
-Wolfheart
-Ishtar
-Mimir
-Ayleth
-Jyzargo (he can kind of do both, tank up and avoid)
-Garithos (not the best hero on this list, but perhaps the most belligerent example of what I am talking about.)

TL;DR- Stacking damage is much better than having supports

 

[boxman]

Before I mention any criticisms, just wanna say that me and da boyz have been really REALLY enjoying this map, big props. I've played basically every roguelike map available for wc3, and this one by FAR outshines them. Hell, it stands up to actual, standalone roguelikes. Incredible map!

As Swaguar (one of the previously mentioned boyz) mentioned, the biggest issue I have with it is how scaling basically kills half of the roster off in late game multiplayer runs. Especially for support heroes! The items heavily favor auto attackers, so support heroes basically get reduced to a weak summoner/healbot that desperately runs around hoping to avoid death. This is gets particularly bad when the bag of holding damage reduction gets factored in. You lose an item slot, lose a flat percentage of damage, AND have to rely on summons. It ends up being a tedious micro-fest just to have the summons get one shot by an AOE. I'm sure you have your reasons, but I really wish the bag of holding didn't have the damage penalty. Being the designated "bag holder" in a group never feels good. I also wish there were more items for casters, or items that had intelligence scaling of some sort.

I have a lot of nit-picky or small points, which I'll list here:
1. Tony overtakes your F1 hotkey as the main hero, which usually causes some difficulty when microing
2. Dying to a boss in group play basically gimps you permanently (especially on turbo mode), due to the massive loss in XP
3. Ishtar's missile range is larger than the enemy attack range, allowing her to cheese if she positions correctly
4. The lava elemental sub-boss summoned from the rune is outrageously strong when compared to the others

Lastly, the shark boss is extremely unfun overall. With the lack of movement options on most heroes, and the shark's lack of telegraphs on its charge, most of the fight is pretty frustrating. This was the boss that really killed my love of most of the support heroes...

I don't want my post to sound negative despite my many criticisms, I just wanted to give honest feedback on what I found frustrating. I hope the fact I'm even giving feedback with this much detail shows how much I really really enjoy this map. Looking forward to any future updates, and thanks again for making the map! Easy 5 stars

 

[Vladd]

It was Rusty the Highwayman and Wolfheart Skullcrusher the Orc Raider. Very similar abilities.

Thanks very much, I will look into that

I think most people who have played this game would agree that the major bottlenecks for progression are the bosses, which is a good thing in my opinion. Now, theoretically, you could kill the bosses with any heroes because all the boss mechanics are largely avoidable, which is also a good thing. The caveat to that however is the health pools of the bosses are quite large (minus the treasure golem), and if you have three players, and two of them are not playing one of the better damage dealing heroes, the boss fights can drag on for a really long time. The longer the boss fights go, the more mistakes are made, the more lives are lost, you get the idea.

So how does this relate to the imbalance in hero power? Well, with the way the game is currently, it really incentivizes players to prioritize dealing damage. Many of the support type heroes don't have scaling abilities, so that 300 damage AoE or that 200 hp heal feels pretty bad even as soon as the hell layer. Moreover, A lot of the strongest heroes in the game have ways to mitigate damage either by mobility or just being tanky, and also either have a good auto attack (they are ranged), or a spell that is spammable and has good scaling. Garithos I think really illustrates what I mean. With two lifestealing items that stack, and his Liberty ability active, he can essentially ignore boss mechanics provided he can attack it, which is most the time. Not to mention that while he is doing this, he is actively clobbering the boss. He is by no means the highest damage hero in the game, but he certainly carries his weight.

The Heroes I think are really strong:
-Rusty (also ironically kind of the best support hero because of all the extra gold, and how you can stuff the map up with decent summons.)
-Wolfheart
-Ishtar
-Mimir
-Ayleth
-Jyzargo (he can kind of do both, tank up and avoid)
-Garithos (not the best hero on this list, but perhaps the most belligerent example of what I am talking about.)

TL;DR- Stacking damage is much better than having supports

The next update will contain a number of buffs to some of the support roster to alleviate some of their more redundant abilities, as some are certainly better than others. Although, generally the design concept of supports was to provide utility and to enable DPS heroes to DPS better, so I wouldn't be looking to turn any support into a DPS, as that is not their role. If you had any specific support heroes you felt were particularly lack-luster though, or abilities that could be reworked, I'd love to hear your ideas! Currently I'm looking into tweaking the Prophet of Flame, Woodland Wizard, and the Troll Hunter.

Before I mention any criticisms, just wanna say that me and da boyz have been really REALLY enjoying this map, big props. I've played basically every roguelike map available for wc3, and this one by FAR outshines them. Hell, it stands up to actual, standalone roguelikes. Incredible map!

As Swaguar (one of the previously mentioned boyz) mentioned, the biggest issue I have with it is how scaling basically kills half of the roster off in late game multiplayer runs. Especially for support heroes! The items heavily favor auto attackers, so support heroes basically get reduced to a weak summoner/healbot that desperately runs around hoping to avoid death. This is gets particularly bad when the bag of holding damage reduction gets factored in. You lose an item slot, lose a flat percentage of damage, AND have to rely on summons. It ends up being a tedious micro-fest just to have the summons get one shot by an AOE. I'm sure you have your reasons, but I really wish the bag of holding didn't have the damage penalty. Being the designated "bag holder" in a group never feels good. I also wish there were more items for casters, or items that had intelligence scaling of some sort.

I have a lot of nit-picky or small points, which I'll list here:
1. Tony overtakes your F1 hotkey as the main hero, which usually causes some difficulty when microing
2. Dying to a boss in group play basically gimps you permanently (especially on turbo mode), due to the massive loss in XP
3. Ishtar's missile range is larger than the enemy attack range, allowing her to cheese if she positions correctly
4. The lava elemental sub-boss summoned from the rune is outrageously strong when compared to the others

Lastly, the shark boss is extremely unfun overall. With the lack of movement options on most heroes, and the shark's lack of telegraphs on its charge, most of the fight is pretty frustrating. This was the boss that really killed my love of most of the support heroes...

I don't want my post to sound negative despite my many criticisms, I just wanted to give honest feedback on what I found frustrating. I hope the fact I'm even giving feedback with this much detail shows how much I really really enjoy this map. Looking forward to any future updates, and thanks again for making the map! Easy 5 stars

Hi there! Thanks so much for the feedback, so happy to hear you're enjoying the map As mentioned above I'm looking to tweak some of the supports who fall a bit behind other heroes. I'm also looking to give supports in general a boost as the idea of them was to provide value outside of dealing damage, so I'm looking to tweak a few of the items to make them more useful and perhaps add some new ones.

I do agree with your Bag of Holding change, initially the damage penalty existed as I was unsure how powerful the item would be in practice, however given that it takes up a slot and provides no stats of any kind, it does seem a bit much to also inflict a damage penalty. It will be removed in the next update.

 

[Swaguar]

The next update will contain a number of buffs to some of the support roster to alleviate some of their more redundant abilities, as some are certainly better than others. Although, generally the design concept of supports was to provide utility and to enable DPS heroes to DPS better, so I wouldn't be looking to turn any support into a DPS, as that is not their role. If you had any specific support heroes you felt were particularly lack-luster though, or abilities that could be reworked, I'd love to hear your ideas! Currently I'm looking into tweaking the Prophet of Flame, Woodland Wizard, and the Troll Hunter.

Right, my point is just that. I want the supports to have value to contend with that loss of damage. It doesn't have to be an exact 1:1 trade off (nigh impossible to discern anyway), but it should feel right, and I would say most of the supports need some help.

Specific Support Heroes:

Swampy
-Some of his value comes from whether chests are worth picking up or not, and regular chest become pretty worthless fairly quickly. I don't know if you intend on changing the loot tables of the chests that appear later like the demon chests, but that would be a start.
-Protective Hold not stunning would probably be all the buff he needs if I am totally honest, it would give him really interesting synergy with a lot of the cast. (it may also make the game crash, but thats a separate issue.)

Priest of Havoc
-Scaling on his abilities that are not the curse, or his ultimate. The summons and damage of Dark Voodooz are really weak, If I am totally honest, I think all the summons in the game should have some kind of stat scaling, not just the item summons. Tacking on even a small percentage heal (2%~) on Mending Magickz would make this hero feel a lot better, even if its not a tremendous buff.

Shrub
-Basically the same points as Priest of Havoc.
-Changing Saplings to scale with strength would probably mean that you need them to have a percentage life drain and not a flat value, and a corresponding percentage damage increase.
-Again, slapping on a minor percentage to the wisps heal would be great.

Weaver of Wisdom
-This guy is basically good enough already, I would just like to see his bugs have more impact. To me that means they have some intelligence scaling, but whatever you wanna do with them would be fine.

The three you listed
-I think you kind of get the picture, these guys sort of follow the same theme.

I think Bulljin and Ezran are both pretty good already. The Alchemist Brothers are kind of in a weird spot. I mentioned Cricket already.
Other than that, I think you could explore armor reduction a little more in both items and abilities, slapping that on to some support abilities would be enough to address some of the issues without resorting to giving them some kind of stat scaling.

 

[A]mun]

Came back to it, made it to 89/90 without a healer (dropped level 20 something)!
Made it a mission to continue with: Ratling Gunner, Earth King, Axeman thief.
Sadly, at the final boss, the memory leak got to us - 0 fps temporarily.
(looks like it started after our Axeman-thief acquired the helmet of souls?!)
8000 hp left, came in with 30 lives, felt pretty robbed. Well what can you do.
Still was a 3h+ ride of craziness really.

 

[Vladd]

Came back to it, made it to 89/90 without a healer (dropped level 20 something)!
Made it a mission to continue with: Ratling Gunner, Earth King, Axeman thief.
Sadly, at the final boss, the memory leak got to us - 0 fps temporarily.
(looks like it started after our Axeman-thief acquired the helmet of souls?!)
8000 hp left, came in with 30 lives, felt pretty robbed. Well what can you do.
Still was a 3h+ ride of craziness really.

Hi there, so sorry you had this experience! I will look into that. So everything was performing okay until Rusty (Axeman Thief) bought the Helmet of Souls? Was there anything else spiking the performance in the game?

 

[A]mun]

The ratling gunner ultimate (bullet hell) and the Earth King's stone circle prison, well and the final boss abilities of course.
It just seems it all started after the acquisition of the helmet of souls - could be a coincidence of course.

 

[Jemmish]

Hey I know I commented last time about gold being bugged on reforged, but im not getting gold or xp for kills with spells or summoned units on 1.3.1. even with the reforged option selected. still fine on 1.3.0.

 

[Vladd]

Hey I know I commented last time about gold being bugged on reforged, but im not getting gold or xp for kills with spells or summoned units on 1.3.1. even with the reforged option selected. still fine on 1.3.0.

Hi there, sorry to hear this issue has been occurring for you. I have asked in the Descend discord and it seems no one else is having this happen to them. Could you please confirm what player slots you were occupying? I am unsure if perhaps Reforged allows you to change which player you are playing as.

The only different between 1.3.1 and 1.3.0 in regards to XP/Gold is that XP/Gold is only given if the enemy that died was killed by anything owned by player 1, 2, 3, or 4.

 

[Jemmish]

Hi there, sorry to hear this issue has been occurring for you. I have asked in the Descend discord and it seems no one else is having this happen to them. Could you please confirm what player slots you were occupying? I am unsure if perhaps Reforged allows you to change which player you are playing as.

The only different between 1.3.1 and 1.3.0 in regards to XP/Gold is that XP/Gold is only given if the enemy that died was killed by anything owned by player 1, 2, 3, or 4.

I was player 1 (red) in a single player game, I get gold for kills with attacks but not with spells. Malithios beetles and Dagon murlocs do grant me gold because they're owned by the player so It could be something with dummy units or damage sources from spells belonging to neutral im not really sure.

also something i found when i was messing around with settings is that rally runes cant be picked up on reforged graphics. I mostly play on classic but just thought you should know

 

[Vladd]

I was player 1 (red) in a single player game, I get gold for kills with attacks but not with spells. Malithios beetles and Dagon murlocs do grant me gold because they're owned by the player so It could be something with dummy units or damage sources from spells belonging to neutral im not really sure.

also something i found when i was messing around with settings is that rally runes cant be picked up on reforged graphics. I mostly play on classic but just thought you should know

Unfortunately it isn't any of these things, Reforged is just quite buggy in terms of custom maps. I know a workaround for this and will implement it in the next patch In the meantime please use 1.3.0. I'll have an update out as soon as I can!