Descend v1.4.2

[Banaconaconut]

Been playing this for along time, so yeah... really love the game. I also love the fact that this is constantly being updated and stays non-reforge.

Also, I encounter a bug.
Hero: Vegabond
Issue: I can't use my "no mana cost" skills, also can't pick up power-ups because it says "not enough mana"...... which is weird.
Likely cause:
1. I picked up the Ghost Tome where I gain 10 strength while losing 10 int (which in this case, all of my mana).
2. I have the Path which has a debuff of INCREASING the mana cost by 20. My abilities still doesn't cost mana but it takes mana. Yet I can still use them despite having 0/100 mana.
3. I have no mana.... not even an initial mana that doesn't include the mana given by my own int. So losing all my int basically erases the mana bar.

 

[Vladd]

Been playing this for along time, so yeah... really love the game. I also love the fact that this is constantly being updated and stays non-reforge.

Also, I encounter a bug.
Hero: Vegabond
Issue: I can't use my "no mana cost" skills, also can't pick up power-ups because it says "not enough mana"...... which is weird.
Likely cause:
1. I picked up the Ghost Tome where I gain 10 strength while losing 10 int (which in this case, all of my mana).
2. I have the Path which has a debuff of INCREASING the mana cost by 20. My abilities still doesn't cost mana but it takes mana. Yet I can still use them despite having 0/100 mana.
3. I have no mana.... not even an initial mana that doesn't include the mana given by my own int. So losing all my int basically erases the mana bar.

Hey there, thanks for the awesome feedback and it's so nice to hear you're enjoying the map!

This issue looks like an oversight on my part in the path consuming extra mana on abilities that have no inherit manacost, I'll fix this up. Tomes that reduce stats also should have a minimum margin of 1 so I'll check that this is working as intended also.

 

[BaiyuGalan]

Great map! Looking forward to your follow-up update.

 

[Slothic]

Hi.

First of all, I want to express my sincere gratitude for such a great map.

The lag is however unbearable after reaching the "ice" biomes. I have a really good computer, I've never had issues like this before unless there were over 1000 units in other custom games. We beat the final boss, not due to skill, but due to pooling enough lives together on Alistair for him to outdps standing still when wc3 was frozen on his side.

For clarification.
I havem the following specs:
Ryzen 7 5800X3D
RTX 4080
128 GB of DDR4 3200 MHz RAM
Kingston FURY Renegade M.2 2280 SSD 4TB

What I'm trying to say with posting my specs is, I should be more than meeting the recommended requirements for this custom map. However it still has fps freezes. The ice rune boss is especially terrible with the multiple blue circle spell.


I would love to be able to continue to play this, it's such a good map, but having the lag be the final boss, isn't as fun as you would think.

 

[Fawkes]

Hi.

First of all, I want to express my sincere gratitude for such a great map.

The lag is however unbearable after reaching the "ice" biomes. I have a really good computer, I've never had issues like this before unless there were over 1000 units in other custom games. We beat the final boss, not due to skill, but due to pooling enough lives together on Alistair for him to outdps standing still when wc3 was frozen on his side.

For clarification.
I havem the following specs:
Ryzen 7 5800X3D
RTX 4080
128 GB of DDR4 3200 MHz RAM
Kingston FURY Renegade M.2 2280 SSD 4TB

What I'm trying to say with posting my specs is, I should be more than meeting the recommended requirements for this custom map. However it still has fps freezes. The ice rune boss is especially terrible with the multiple blue circle spell.


I would love to be able to continue to play this, it's such a good map, but having the lag be the final boss, isn't as fun as you would think.

Hi Slothic,

Many thanks for your appreciation of the map, and apologies regarding the lag. Despite several major patches to combat this issue, it seems to be an ongoing problem with Warcraft Reforged.

Vladd developed the map on the Classic game version v1.29.2 and that's where we have playtested it right from the first version. It appears to run significantly better on Classic than it does on Reforged, even if using classic graphics mode. I'm not sure how Blizzard managed to make a remaster that runs notably worse than a 2003 game capped at 2GB RAM usage, but here we are. It's quite impressive really.

If you would like to visit the Discord for this map, we have put together some tutorials for improving performance on Reforged (where able), or for optimal experience, there are also tutorials on how to setup and run Classic Warcraft, including some multiplayer options.

Vladd is currently focusing development on navigating issues presented by Reforged, and will hopefully be able to make some progress, but ultimately it's up to Blizzard to optimize their game and stop negatively impacting custom maps with broken patches.

All the best, and please reach out via the Discord if you have any additional feedback or suggestions

 

[Corindir]

I love this map, play it with my friends all the time. You really just can't go wrong, it's always fun and has a lot of different heroes to try out.

 

[nhs325]

Hey, did you ever make it so summons are able to teleport next to you in the next room? If you haven't, please can you make it?

 

[M1stery]

Found a weird bug resulting in an instant win, I managed to dupe Vladd's orb, I could've even duped more, and when multiple orbs were on my inventory, it seems the bonus from blood orbs permanently applied to my hero, resulting in his Q dealing about a million damage and gargoyles stats went crazy too.

The bug is related to the Sludge boss that corrupts an item in your inventory, removing it, once the curse was removed, a bugged orb spawned with 2k charges on my inventory.

When picking this orb with bag of holding, then dropping all items on the ground, another orb of the same level with 2k charges will spawn and instantly upgrade.

 

[MagusMist]

It's a fun map. Hero design is very unique and fun. I think my main gripes are with the items being quite boring for INT (just summons mostly) and STR heroes being quite bad in teamplay. As a strength hero, you are either a tank who still has to kite enemies anyway, CC machine big guy who gets hit by any boss mechanic (so ironically, less "tanky" than others), or someone who would rather be able to build agi for all the damage. Agility itself is fun tho and does super well.

What is the main problem is optimization. Going above floor 70 on bnet is pretty much unplayable. We all had below 4 FPS (at one point, we had a guy with 0.8 FPS). It's probably good to treat floor 60 or so like a final boss and just ignore the latter parts of the map. Boss mechanics tend to lag the game and while they wouldn't be that hard to dodge, doing it on 4 FPS is just insane. Maybe it works good in singleplayer but as a team dungeon crawler it's simply not playable. Perhaps it's an issue with classic graphics but even our reforged guy was not doing great. I figured it's not just issue of low specs since if I can run 2025 games on high settings, wc3 map shouldn't be an issue.

 

[The Nightmare Book]

I played only two sessions solo, but I liked this map: both heroes I had played were a blast.

Overall, I see that this map could be completed by solo, at least after rolling & trying, or learning heroes and praying for random.
Another flawless example of what Roguelikes can be in Warcraft 3.

Like and recommend it to anyone who wants to play Rogue Legacy, but inside Warcraft 3.

 

[Pakett1216]

Hi just wanted to say this map is crazy good and you do tremendous work. One of the best maps out there. Hope you continue updating.

 

[Rockeeb]

Hello! I've been continously enjoying this map for a week now, and I wanted to say how fun this map is. Heroes are varied and almost all of them provide interesting gameplay, there are SO many fun interactions whether in terms of rooms, heroes, items etc. Every little detail that shows up makes my day.

Cricket "getting an idea" while fighting the treasure golem, Gilanore feeling as something "familiar" is watching him, heavy rock item is edible by constructs / causing damage after being airborne...

It's not only the interactions, main gameplay loop is quite fun as well. Shredding swarms with high-aoe damage dealers, taking almost no damage face-tanking the bosses with bruisers, playing almost any support. Man, I want to start a new run already.

I've just finished the game with Gilanore, the Cursed Knight. Making him viable took a lot of effort but it was more than worth it. I don't know what else to say. Crazy work dude, thank you for making this map!

 

[Vladd]

Hello! I've been continously enjoying this map for a week now, and I wanted to say how fun this map is. Heroes are varied and almost all of them provide interesting gameplay, there are SO many fun interactions whether in terms of rooms, heroes, items etc. Every little detail that shows up makes my day.

Cricket "getting an idea" while fighting the treasure golem, Gilanore feeling as something "familiar" is watching him, heavy rock item is edible by constructs / causing damage after being airborne...

It's not only the interactions, main gameplay loop is quite fun as well. Shredding swarms with high-aoe damage dealers, taking almost no damage face-tanking the bosses with bruisers, playing almost any support. Man, I want to start a new run already.

I've just finished the game with Gilanore, the Cursed Knight. Making him viable took a lot of effort but it was more than worth it. I don't know what else to say. Crazy work dude, thank you for making this map!

Hi there, I'm so happy to hear you've been enjoying the map and thank you so much for the feedback! Great stuff on beating the map as Gilanore, it's not easy to pull off but I find it really rewarding and the final showdown with the Lich is a nice conclusion after being hindered for so long.

There's another big update on its way which will add even more in terms of heroes, unique rooms, items, balance, etc. so more is on its way

 

[Banaconaconut]

I found a weird bug with the Runt Secret Hero. Whenever I damage (skills or attack) an enemy using my hero directly, they somehow heal to full HP. Using clones and summoned units is ok, but dots and aoes are not ok cause they will heal any enemy back to 100% hp.... including the boss.

This was before I attacked them, they're already damaged using my clones.

This is after I attacked them. (notice the time)

This happened after poor Tony died to that item that summons hordes of enemy skeletons, which is absurdly hard to beat. But I am not clear if it was after I picked up his legendary hat or just immediately after he died.

Situation:

• my warcraft version is on 1.29 (pls, don't hunt me. )
• played the runt on normal difficulty, turbo, no vote, single player (swear I'm not cheating, I'm just here cause its easier to restart when you lose).
• played until I found Tony's hat in the undead area
• found the skeleton item that summons enemy skeletons
• tony got wrecked and died in that fight
• picked up the his legendary hat
• went to the next room and noticed the bug

 

[Vladd]

I found a weird bug with the Runt Secret Hero. Whenever I damage (skills or attack) an enemy using my hero directly, they somehow heal to full HP. Using clones and summoned units is ok, but dots and aoes are not ok cause they will heal any enemy back to 100% hp.... including the boss.

This was before I attacked them, they're already damaged using my clones.
View attachment 568067

This is after I attacked them. (notice the time)
View attachment 568069


This happened after poor Tony died to that item that summons hordes of enemy skeletons, which is absurdly hard to beat. But I am not clear if it was after I picked up his legendary hat or just immediately after he died.

Situation:

• my warcraft version is on 1.29 (pls, don't hunt me. )
• played the runt on normal difficulty, turbo, no vote, single player (swear I'm not cheating, I'm just here cause its easier to restart when you lose).
• played until I found Tony's hat in the undead area
• found the skeleton item that summons enemy skeletons
• tony got wrecked and died in that fight
• picked up the his legendary hat
• went to the next room and noticed the bug

Thanks for the feedback here, I've found the bug and have fixed it for the next update (which will hopefully be ready soon!)

Basically, because Runtington made true illusions, when they died while holding Tony's Other Hat it was reducing a passive damage amplification value per illusion death, which put the damage amplification into the negatives, causing you to heal enemies when you attack them.

 

[Banaconaconut]

Basically, because Runtington made true illusions, when they died while holding Tony's Other Hat it was reducing a passive damage amplification value per illusion death, which put the damage amplification into the negatives, causing you to heal enemies when you attack them.

That's an interesting item buff system.
I have a question, does Runtington's summoned units not scale with his stats (or int)? Cause they seem like they just stick to the normal unit's stats, hard to notice with the hero's potato stats.

It's a very good skill on the earlier to mid floors, but becomes too weak (or in a better term, rng reliant) in the later levels due to the enemy mobs stats being 5x stronger than them. Of course, I wouldn't want it to become too strong either cause the ult does spawn more units the more int you have - if they scale too much, then it'd be too OP. It's just pretty funny expecting the ult to do some epic come back, only for half of the eggs to spawn runts and gnolls against the desert mobs.

Even once had 6 penguins with 2 damage fight a golem with 9k hp, while the other half of summoned units were just low tier skeletons and runts... safe to say they didn't even buy me enough time to to hide in a corner. But if the design intent is indeed pure luck, then I guess I'm just unlucky

 

[Alex_Captain]

Enjoyable, however some things drop fps drastically. At like stage 65 summoned wyvern instantly frozen the game with its nuke, so I lost tony as a result. Yikes

Upd. Same happened at voidborn challenge (arguably the worst, 0 fps entire fight, can be cheesed via using eggs in-before it starts however). I am starting to feel that likely happens due to leaks from Wizard's "Bounding Ball", specifically from thunder clap animation.

Upd2. And also fps drop at the final boss (which is a big shame)

I kind of appreciated map, considering I played it for 3+ hours, however lags at the lategame the moment actual challenging part starts is a buzz killer. + A lot of this time was spent on reading what all the items do (both dropped on ground and in the shops), most of which are crap to be sold anyway (although it wouldn't be the problem if you had an infinite inventory/stash, which you don't, I wouldn't even mind 15% of them being eaten by hungry horses, but even they are limited by the amount of shop traders you are going to find)

 

[Alex_Captain]

Also thinking of it now, if you could automatically pickup keys/frozen nerubs without them taking any inventory slots it would make the map at least twice as enjoyable. Stackable items can't be picked up unless you freed inventory space first (with an exception for frozen nerubs, which initially can't be picked by mounts, which makes managing them also grindy), in order to open a chest you need to drop key pouch from mount and activate on your hero, then you need to drop pouch again and pick up a key, then you run to the chest to insert the key in it, etc. It just becomes extremely grindy at some point, to a degree where I probably should've just sell all the keys. Even legendary drops from t1 chest are not worth the grind, because at some point you'll likely sell them too anyway (perhaps it would be slightly different in multiplayer, but even then I am not sure why would you take +15 armor bonus over anything you have in the shops for instance).

 

[Fawkes]

Enjoyable, however some things drop fps drastically. At like stage 65 summoned wyvern instantly frozen the game with its nuke, so I lost tony as a result. Yikes

Upd. Same happened at voidborn challenge (arguably the worst, 0 fps entire fight, can be cheesed via using eggs in-before it starts however). I am starting to feel that likely happens due to leaks from Wizard's "Bounding Ball", specifically from thunder clap animation.

Upd2. And also fps drop at the final boss (which is a big shame)

I kind of appreciated map, considering I played it for 3+ hours, however lags at the lategame the moment actual challenging part starts is a buzz killer. + A lot of this time was spent on reading what all the items do (both dropped on ground and in the shops), most of which are crap to be sold anyway (although it wouldn't be the problem if you had an infinite inventory/stash, which you don't, I wouldn't even mind 15% of them being eaten by hungry horses, but even they are limited by the amount of shop traders you are going to find)

Hi Alex,
I'm one of the map devs / play testers. I just thought I'd jump in to mention that most of the lag is unfortunately caused by Reforged. The map is built on, and tested with Classic v1.29.2. How Blizzard managed to make a modern remaster perform significantly worse than its 20+ year old counterpart is beyond me (quite impressive really).

Vladd has spent a huge amount of time going over every aspect of the map, optimizing it as much as possible, but it seems some things simply aren't achievable without Blizzard fixing their game. Sorry that you've had a rough experience - please jump into the discord if you would like to look at the tips/tutorials we have put together to achieve the best gameplay experience

 

[Ctrekoz]

Hi! I've completed the map on version 1.3.3 in 2024, wrote feedback, but never got around to post it (probably because I've wanted to complete the

Spoiler

Secret Area

before doing so, but didn't, only started a bit). I see you're still updating the map, so great to see! I haven't played the new version yet, and I don't know how much has changed, but I'll post my past feedback below still, perhaps something remains relevant.

-----
Great map, just finished it solo with Garithos on Normal Adventure Mode (had to cheat on

Spoiler

Lich's second form

since I've accepted

Spoiler

necromancer's

offer to remove enhancing books shop, so I've lost the opportunity to dump my gold for 300+ books of strength, would've finished without losing a single life otherwise lol; I've thought he will remove just some single book option, not the entire shop, knew it's a bad idea...). Lots of heroes, cool items, custom icons, skills, skins, events! Also really like "overall % increase" notes, doing math instead of players, thank you. Also nice voicelines in combat, though wish there was more variety. Also note on Ship Sinker too, about deactivation despite cd displayed, very considerate. Also nice that you give unlocks through codes and not save-system, better for singleplayer/if lost a save, and for sharing with people.

My gripes/suggestions:
- Boring hero progression, would've prefered less heroes but deeper. Level cap is 40, but for most heroes you have 4 active abilities where first 3 you can learn in any order, then ultimate one on 6, and each level is just a stat increase to them, then you max them out at level 18 and there's nothing left. Yeah, each hero can also have some special innate actives\passives, or multiple forms with different moveset, or walls of text inside their skills, but still eh, and easier heroes suffer anyway, not to mention some skills get irrelevant late. There is no talent trees which are hero-specific or universal, artifact upgrade is done just once late in the game and then it's boring +10 to all stats (and said upgrade can also be boring/useless solo). Look at Sunken City talents/specializations, NorthrendRPG amount of skills and talents. Wall of text inside skills is not a good idea of complexity either, it's better to have simpler skills which are amplified by talents/items unlocking additional traits imo. Yeah it's felt less in co-op than in single but still, since single is perfectly playable alone, you just need some good sustain like Garithos has, dmg can come from auto-attacks. Initial challenge pick for 1 gold is a good idea, maybe add some shop where you can buy auras/passives/actives for lumber which you can get from bosses/events? Might make said abilities limited as 1 pick per entire group. Might add multiple shops corresponding to each hero attribute or even sublcass. Universal stuff mainly, adding char-specific ones is too much of work given how much heroes there is already.

- Most fun in progression here comes from items, but slots are limited, especially with cursed items. Even cursed bag takes one of the slots and can't be removed bruh, and the horse has a chance to eat your items (good thing

Spoiler

Tony

exists, but

Spoiler

Demon Lord

killed him). I'd rather had some invisible-invincible backpack glued to the hero which is often done in rpg maps.

- Many items are underwhelming, especially lategame drops, and especially if you “lose” a slot due to cursed bag (which I didn’t and thus haven’t crafted that one from 3 fragments). Crafting system would’ve been dope to fix this, as well as just item buffs.

- No shops after frozen biome, which is disappointing and there is nothing to spend your gold on anymore except books/potions (and potions take slots...).

- Demon/void chests are not worth it or just too much rng?

- More info in some descriptions like Castinius' BEGONE! (how much bonus dmg?).

- More info in stats description: how much exactly hp regen, as, and mp regen Strength-Agility-Intelligence give?

- Add explanation to initial settings before selecting them, like "Normal (90 levels)", "Turbo (60 levels)", "Hardcore (1life, monster dmg+res+)".

- Maybe buff Garithos' ult cd to 150 instead of 180? It's just an aoe nuke which is not that relevant late. Will make clearing rooms more convenint, like QoL.

- Cricket has a typo in his passive "Cricket using charges" instead of "uses".

- Human racial bonus items suck(. Great idea by the way, would’ve loved to see more items with such.

- More music!

There is model credits but hard to navigate, can you please tell me where to find the model for

Spoiler

Daughter of Osiris (desert naga siren)

?

Heroes with max hp % heal (good for solo) list:
Garithos
Feathers
Alistair (just once per cast but maybe can compensate with vampirism and there's 5s cd if taking 3s invul into account)
Broof (just busted)
Grog
Kenshi (not max hp % but if you buff her autos enough?)
Rusty (no heal but summons look busted)
Ayleth (not max hp % but nice ult heal)
Animal
Drenbar
Umibozu (weak?)

Spoiler

Cool secret area!

Spoiler

And I’ve got Almighty Cheese! Funnily it was from the very first room in a test run after completing my Garithos’ one, and I was just checking what does Turbo Mode means.

 

[Alex_Captain]

There is model credits but hard to navigate, can you please tell me where to find the model for

Spoiler

Daughter of Osiris (desert naga siren)

?

Resources in use by Descend v1.4.2

www.hiveworkshop.com

I think you mean this one?

 

[Banaconaconut]

Resources in use by Descend v1.4.2

www.hiveworkshop.com

I think you mean this one?

can you tell me where the judgement paladin came from? Can't seem to find it there. Always wanted one, but I only saw Uther Ported one, which seems different from the one used in this map.

 

[Ctrekoz]

Resources in use by Descend v1.4.2

www.hiveworkshop.com

I think you mean this one?

Thank you!

 

[Tiaramix]

amazing is not enough to describe it , i downloaded it years ago and came back to warcraft recently and i'm having a blast with BAE and friends.

Incredible replayability
Skills are nice and the roguelike element is just mwah!
Give it a try if you want something truly fun with the bois