E.O.R. V3B6: Ice Cube

[Moderator]

19:11, 2nd Nov 2014
StoPCampinGn00b: Set to await update/needs fix due to no screenshots.

 

[Fokyip]

I know, I have poor grammar but I did my best to provide my advice to altered melee map makers.

Tips to altered melee map makers.

Map Making
1) Make easy, medium, and hard creeps, everyone likes to level up there heroes asap (ex. this process allows them to level up there hero and exercising their new abilities)
2) When scattering creeps across the map make sure most of them don’t obstruct an army’s pathway or attack a player’s base at the very beginning. Make creeps at every neutral building except for tavern.
3) Add items or power ups to creeps to what you believe would be fair for killing the level of the creeps.
4) Adding cliff is optional but if you do, don’t make difficult for an army to make it from one end to another especially making it feel like a maze unless that is your objective.
5) Apply some height and texture variation to the terrain.
6) Supply sufficient trees around a player’s area (ex. you don’t want workers to go out of there way just to get lumber) and make sure trees also don’t block army pathways.
7) Symmetrical map, make sure top to bottom or side to side are exactly the same. Asymmetrical map, make sure that each player fights the same number and level of creeps within there general area and make the terrain as fair as possible. (ex. you don’t want open pathways on all side for one player and a terrain advantage base for the other player.)

Animation
1) Try and match the picture with the unit as close as possible if nothing is close to the unit at all, request for one at the forum. (tip. Learning how to create icons with Wc3 Image Extractor II and Photoshop is huge asset because I felt as though it made the units more credible.)
2) Do not duplicate units icons once used it’s used. (ex. players won’t like it if you are having them confused from a worker to a heavy unit because of same icons)
3) How the unit launches there art range. (ex. you want a catapult to launch a projectile from the launcher not from an unusual area of the catapult)
4) Be aware of significant details such as heroes glows and death for building that don't have death animation.
5) Position icon buttons at x and y certain locations such as of upgrades and units. (ex. you don’t want things jumping around it confuses the player when they have never played your new race)

>>Relevant only if you are swapping the Art – Model File
6) Be aware of the casting point and back swing. (ex. it’s weird when a unit is bringing an axe up and the damage has already been dealt or a unit shooting a arrow that doesn’t appear to be synchronized with the archer)
7) Running animation look at as to how your unit walks (ex. you don’t want your unit running like hell when he has the speed of walking)

Abilities
1) You can duplicate abilities and just change buffs, damage, range or area effect of the abilities player will know which abilities they are based off of but at least there is some difference.
2) New custom abilities this is a hassle to integrate triggers into your map. The frustration is worth it because in the end users will recognize a non-w3 ability and they will be impressed.
3) Try to avoid of having a spell caster with two auto-casting abilities.
4) The first two of hero abilities generally have special abilities (ex. damage units - chain lighting, summon units - force of nature, healing units - holy light) third ability is an aura or and self enhancement (ex. endurance aura, critical strike, incinerate) and the forth is a highly powerful spell that’s my point of view when creating abilities for each new hero.

Adding new races
1) Balancing is the most difficult thing to do between races try to get reference from the original races by copying the gold, lumber, hit point, mana points, attack damage and dice damages and work it from there. (tip. You can keep attributes that units currently have but be aware that mercenary units aka the hired units cost more than train units.
2) I usually look at it from this point of view when creating a whole new races base it from the current attributes of these units, and I add a little bit here and there for special units.

Worker (ex. Peon, Peasant, Acylotes)
Basic range unit (ex. Archer, Fiend and Rifleman)
Basic melee unit (ex. Grunt, Footman and Huntress)
Healer (ex. Druid of the Claw, Obsidian Statue, Troll Witch Doctor)
Anti magic (ex. Dryad, Shaman and Priest)
Support Spell Caster (Shaman, Necromancer, Priest)
Attack Spell Caster (Sorceress, Druid of the Talon, Banshee)
Anti air unit (ex. berserkers, steam engine, hippogryph)
Air units (ex. Wyvern Rider, Gryphon Rider and Frost Wyrm)
Tank unit (ex. Abomination, Mountain giant or Knight)
Unit that hits structures hard (ex. Chimera, Glaive Thrower, or Demolisher)

When adding one of these types of unit you can go various ways but make sure everyone gets a fair share whether it’s a single unit or a combination of them.

3) Try and limit the various models when implementing a race. (for example you have models of gnoll, skeleton, and orge in your race and the races name is goblins.) It doesn't make sense to the end user so try and keep it consistant when creating a race. You want to leave as little imagination as possible to players. From your perspective it may seem like everything is goblins but a bunch of people will see it for what it is.

Memory Space
1) Conserve as much space as possible utilize doodads. Reuse models, change the size and change the colour of the models but not solid colours just a light of blue or red enough for players to identify the difference. Search for actually hidden models and icons within warcraft editor.
2) I suggest making your map less than 3 mb or 3.5. I made the mistake of import many model and realize my map is over 15 mb and realize that people cannot play it online only by themselves because the map take forever to download. I optimized map choose models that take up little memory. Used the map map optimizer tool http://www.wc3c.net/showthread.php?t=79326 which also protected my map.

Test
1) Make sure every newly created races are not too powerful or too weak do some test against a AI normal.
2) Make sure every tool tip is fill and correctly for every unit abilities and upgrades creating hot keys for everything is a one upper but make sure they don’t conflict with the global hot keys (example of hot keys you cannot use, attack [A] hold position [H] move [M])
3) Test every abilities and triggers if you don’t you’re just setting yourself up for a bugged map.

If you have any questions on how some of these tips work just send me a private message to my hiveworkshop account. I’ll gladly assist you with feedback or any questions on how some of the things within my map can be implemented into your map. Don’t contact me if you are going to ask me to contribute my time to help make your map it’s because I don’t have the will to work on other people’s projects.

 

[adr3n]

thats a pleasant news, been inactive this 2 months or so because im so hooked on cs 1.6, and now, i have uninstalled my cs 1.6 and back to WC3 yay!!

 

[DPL]

thats a pleasant news, been inactive this 2 months or so because im so hooked on cs 1.6, and now, i have uninstalled my cs 1.6 and back to WC3 yay!!

Nice Job bro
Ontopic: The map was cool and relaxing to play

 

[alucard_659]

This map is great for melee lovers Thanks

 

[888462]

EPIC !!!! Im glad you will stick to the races, i love alternate races and you make them so very well! And then you released this new map with the same races... it made me cry, i MEAN IT!!!! it made me cry

***EDIT***
5/5 Bro! Keep up the good work!
***End of Edit***

 

[VeljkoM]

Greatest altered melee map.
But I only dislike two things:
1-Some units have wrong type of armor.
Like some melee units have medium armor.
All spellcasters should have unarmored not light armor(small in editor)
and Forsaku archer has large(heavy armor)
2-Some icons don't have disabled version.They are just green when you click menu button.

 

[Tr!KzZ]

man you seriously have to use the "Update" button, i have seen like 3 maps 1 after another from this, all are the same versions.. dude you seriuosly have to fix this, else you get some warnings for triple uploading the same map..

p.s. besides of that, it's a really good map, it's nice for melee players

 

[VeljkoM]

No those are not three same maps.Terrain is different.

 

[Fokyip]

Greatest altered melee map.
But I only dislike two things:
1-Some units have wrong type of armor.
Like some melee units have medium armor.
All spellcasters should have unarmored not light armor(small in editor)
and Forsaku archer has large(heavy armor)
2-Some icons don't have disabled version.They are just green when you click menu button.

Ya I know about the armour type, I changed almost all of them I meant to do that. I know some icons don't have disabled version I deleted the ones that wouldn't show up during gameplay to conserve memory space.

man you seriously have to use the "Update" button, i have seen like 3 maps 1 after another from this, all are the same versions.. dude you seriuosly have to fix this, else you get some warnings for triple uploading the same map..

p.s. besides of that, it's a really good map, it's nice for melee players

There are three types of map just for those alter melee map players who want to play on different terrain. Wouldn't u think my maps would be remove if they were all the same. This would probably be my last update for a while because I think smoothed out the last few things within these map. This update was to fix a missing model, smoothed out abilities, fix several things tool tip and added the last hero for centaurs that's the purpose of this update.

 

[VeljkoM]

Buy there is reason why do melee units have heavy armor and not medium.
Medium armor takes more damage from normal attacks which usually have melee units.
So when goblin warrior(Forgot name) battles footman, grunt...he is going to die very easy.But heavy armor which melee units usually have is week against magic attacks.
And air units have light armor so they could actually have weakness.

So why did you make units melee units on purpose week.

 

[Fokyip]

Buy there is reason why do melee units have heavy armor and not medium.
Medium armor takes more damage from normal attacks which usually have melee units.
So when goblin warrior(Forgot name) battles footman, grunt...he is going to die very easy.But heavy armor which melee units usually have is weak against magic attacks.
And air units have light armor so they could actually have weakness.

So why did you make units melee units on purpose weak.

Well its not a significant difference with the armor type except for the fortified armor. I remember running a simulation between slasher and footman during my creation of goblins and it was ruffly a leveled off outcome. I am of course not going to have him battle against a grunt because it is exceptionally stronger hence why he cost more. Beside, I'm not too worry about it.

 

[VeljkoM]

Well if you know better then Blizzard it is OK.

 

[Fokyip]

Well if you know better then Blizzard it is OK.

Please don't make assumptions. I'm saying that i'm not focusing on making sure every single unit has the correct armor type because is a small picture compared to hit points, regeneration rate, dice damage, cooldown heck I would say attack type is a plays more of a significant role when it comes to hand to hand combat.

 

[VeljkoM]

Fair.So will you make maybe smaller maps 2v2.It gets sometimes lagging with all 8 players.

 

[Fokyip]

Fair.So will you make maybe smaller maps 2v2.It gets sometimes lagging with all 8 players.

Umm, Ice Cube and Barren Eye are 2vs2vs2vs2 so it can become a 2vs2 I kind of thought about flexibility. Leaflet Forest is 4vs4 but if your talking about smaller map where 2vs2 is the only option I could make it I feel like I'm trying to take the spotlight with all my maps up currently uploaded but we'll see in the future.

 

[VeljkoM]

I think you won't wait to long.

 

[Handycombinder]

Does this use AI?

 

[Fokyip]

Does this use AI?

The map only uses the default races as AI's (ex. human,orc,undead and night elves) its better to play with several human players.

 

[leet.firefox]

I prefer orc players, lol. Very awesome maps. The time it took to create and balance the races must have been considerable.

 

[Fokyip]

Story time

I prefer orc players, lol. Very awesome maps. The time it took to create and balance the races must have been considerable.

Thanks you for the generous compliment. I started this project in 2003 so yea it toke me quite a long time to have my map reach this far. First version was pretty crappy with only Demon and Naga because they were the easiest to implement. After developing ways to integrate triggers, creating icons so on so forward; creating races were becoming easier to make. I can't take too much credit for balancing I just try and get a good reference from units of original races and I gave each new race like 5 game play test against normal AI. So yea that's my Evolution of Races story.

 

[supertoinkz]

Ive found a bug in the centaur race!!! In the start there are no worker units just their shadows!! And when i try to train this slaves they all come up in shadow and i can't click on them!!

 

[Fokyip]

Ive found a bug in the centaur race!!! In the start there are no worker units just their shadows!! And when i try to train this slaves they all come up in shadow and i can't click on them!!

I got rid of the whole slaves thing it shouldn't appear as slaves but as drudge. Though you bug sounds familiar so I checked the coding and object editor it looks fine. What version were you playing in? were you playing in ice cube map? what color were you? did you use the random button?

 

[supertoinkz]

(VERY OLD POST) I use this one and i don't pick random.. Im red player


(new post)I thought this was deleted? But its still standing!

 

[rAmPaGingONI]

it would be nice to fix the lag. when playing with friends, the further the game goes on, the more lag there is, until its almost unplayable. maybe check for leaks in the triggers. other than that, awesome map. 4/5 cuz of the lag
EDIT: couple of other things i noticed: almost every air unit you have does magic damage and has light armor. if you look at the original air units, they do magic, pierce, siege and even normal damage, so i think that your air units need more diversity. and also, why do all your casters have light armor and pierce damage? traditionally, casters have unarmored and do low magic damage. plus, you need to fix some of the descriptions for units and abilities. im not trying to be overly critical, just noting things that could be improved

 

[Fokyip]

it would be nice to fix the lag. when playing with friends, the further the game goes on, the more lag there is, until its almost unplayable. maybe check for leaks in the triggers. other than that, awesome map. 4/5 cuz of the lag
EDIT: couple of other things i noticed: almost every air unit you have does magic damage and has light armor. if you look at the original air units, they do magic, pierce, siege and even normal damage, so i think that your air units need more diversity. and also, why do all your casters have light armor and pierce damage? traditionally, casters have unarmored and do low magic damage. plus, you need to fix some of the descriptions for units and abilities. im not trying to be overly critical, just noting things that could be improved

I just thought about it and realized why some of the triggers can cause a lag. Thank you for letting me know about that there should be diverse in air units I will make the changes and the magic casters as well. I swear there is over 1000 tip tools such as abilities, upgrade, units, items and buffs, and I will fix them if I come across them. I appreciate it that you're overly critical because criticism is what helps improves my map.

 

[kakuzu]

Really great map !

 

[StoPCampinGn00b]

I do not know why or who put this back in the pending section.. but for this to be approved again you must add screenshots. Set to await update/needs fix.