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Gaias Retaliation ORPG v1.2E(4)

This bundle is marked as director's cut. It exceeds all expectations and excels in every regard.
Special Thanks to SHBlade, FanOf.Anonymous and Jumbo for applying some much needed bugfixes for WC3 Reforged compatibility - and now also huge amounts of new content.

v1.2E(4) is downwards compatible to v1.2D(3).

Note: to import codes of v1.2D(2), use -comp instead of -load!
Only codes of 1.2D(2) or later are currently supported by the "-comp" command. If you have older codes, load and save them in 1.2D(2) to convert them into the new format!


In case the savesystem crashes from invalid load codes, you can use -fixsave to unstuck the system. However, this might cause unwanted bugs, so use with caution!


BUGFIXES/GENERAL(v 1.2E(4)):
Sorcerer:
- New Ability: Rune of Power
- Lightning Arc: reduced damage scaling from SP x 3.5 to SP x 3
- Greater Fireball: reduced damage scaling from SP x 0.85 to SP x 0.7 and SP x 1.25 to SP x 1.1
- Gravity Pull: now paired with Water Elemental
- Water Globes: crit damage bonus from stacking effect decreased from 3% to 2.5% per stack
- lvl 50 talent nr 1: Now summons 4 meteors- lvl 50 talent nr 2: Gravity Pull now doesn't require channeling and its cd is reduced by 33%
- lvl 50 talent nr 3: You Water Elemental is now permanent and launches 1 more globe which applies the flowing current to the target.
- lvl 45 talent nr 1: 'Lightning Arc' now spawns 2 globes. Standing on the 'Rune of Power' increases attack speed by 15%
- lvl 45 talent nr 3: Increases Haste by 15%. Standing on the 'Rune of Power' causes 'Greater Fireball' to fire currently active Globe at one random enemy hit at a 40% chance.

Necromancer:
- Reduced Wight's defensive capabilities

Hexblade:
- Binding Chains: now deals 1.5 x AP baseline
- Stone Guardian: now has sfx when Guardian takes damage from the absorption effect
- lvl 50 talent nr 3: Stone Guardian now inherits 50% of Hexblade's defensive stats. Petrify damage resistance reduced to 25%

Psion:
- Magical Conduit: maximum amount stored increased from Int x 12 to Int x 15

2h handed weapons:
- increased aoe range by 25%

Mercenaries:
- buffed Spellpower of the enchantress by 5%

Fixes:
- added a new map preview and minimap
- hopefully fixed bfd memory leaks
- hopefully fixed the crash on map load, as such monk's elemental harmony 3rd stage is now point target instead of quick cast
- fixed some ability tooltips
- fixed some talent tooltips
- fixed bfd enemies being able to use Phantasmal Killer
- fixed Venomous Blades gained from a lvl 50 talent disappearing on death
- Bramble Seed now is correctly cast when moving


BUGFIXES/GENERAL(v 1.2E(3)):

Items:
Axe of Blackrune:- AP 20 -> 27

Fixes:
- removed a gamebreaking bug that could cause desyncs and crashes on map load in multilpayer under certain conditions
- fixed a typo in Perfidious Armor's description


BUGFIXES/GENERAL(v 1.2E(2)):

Features:
---------
1. New Codeless save system has been implemented:
- use the wisp as an interface, it contains all spells for loading characters and the vault
- 3 new spells added to Game Options submenu (Z hotkey): Save (S), Repick (R), Vault Load
- new system will create 2 save files when saving, one for loading manually (it allows to load lower level saves) and one for codeless loading
- codeless loading will always load newest version of your character, newest version updates each time you save

2. Pet Command queue
- pet commands are now queued, which allows for using them in quick succession without the pet getting confused and only using the last command

3. Resurrection cooldowns
- solo players (no other player withing a certain range) will now have their resurrection cd set to 0s after death
- revive mercenary cd is also reduced to 0s but mana cost increased to 45

4. Fully implemented Attack Speed into the stat board
---------

Classes:
---------
1. Crusader:
- New Ability: Avenging Zeal
- New Ability: Sanctify
- Old Ability Changes
- Talent Changes

2. Berserker:
- New Ability: Bloodcraze
- New Ability: Mak'gora
- New Ability: Sunder Armor
- Old Ability Changes
- Talent Changes

3. Bishop:
- New Ability: Void Lightning
- New Ability: Hallowed Ground
- New Ability: Repentance
- Old Ability Changes
- Talent Changes

4. Monk:
- New Ability: Overcharge
- New Ability: Elemental Harmony
- Old Ability Changes
- Talent Changes

5. Assassin:
- New Ability: Fan of knives
- New Ability: Desperate Strike
- New Ability: Death Blossom
- Old Ability Changes
- Talent Changes

6. Bard:
- New Ability: Hymn of Heroes
- New Ability: Feint
- New Ability: Flourishing Riposte
- New Ability: Duelist Stance
- New Ability: Dexterous Shot
- Talent Changes

7. Hexblade:
- New Ability: Earth Strike
- New Ability: Orbiting Stones
- New Ability: Stone Guardian
- Old Ability Changes
- Talent Changes

8. Psion:
- New Ability: Phantasmal Killer
- New Ability: Magical Conduit
- Old Ability Changes
- Talent Changes

9. Druid:
- New Ability: Summon Spark
- New Ability: Storm Fall
- New Ability: Bramble Seed
- New Ability: Barkskin
- Talent Changes

10. Hunter:
- New Ability: Misdirect
- New Ability: Piercing Thunder
- Old Ability Changes
- Talent Changes

11. Sorcerer:
- New Ability: Greater Fireball
- New Ability: Gravity Pull
- Old Ability Changes
- Talent Changes

12. Necromancer:
- New Ability: Vile Infection
- New Ability: Bone Sacrifice
- New Ability: Summon Wight
- Old Ability Changes
- Talent Changes

13. Valkyrie:
- New Ability: Allfather's Blessing
- Ability Pairing Changes
---------

Items:

Flamebringer:
- Str 12 -> 16
- Crit 5 -> 7
- Added fire damage proc 30dmg/40% chance

Cold Reaper:
- AP 20 -> 28
- Str 0 -> 11
- Agi 12 -> 21
- Int 10 -> 21
- Crit 5 -> 7

Reborn Phoenix:
- Str 10 -> 8
- Int 10 -> 13
- Sp 0 -> 9
- Ar 0 -> 7

Crushing Mace:
- Ap 30 -> 37
- Agi 4 -> 0

Cunning Halberd:
- Gray -> Green
- Ar 0 -> 2
- Str 0 -> 4
- now purchaseable from Bolivar in Lumberjack camp





BUGFIXES/GENERAL(v 1.2E (1)):


- Added attack speed to the stats screen
- Berserker Rage now notifies the player via sound and visual effect
- Expanded Mountain Beast area
- Expanded Mines Area in The Foothills.
- Expanded the Ogre area outside Mytargas.
- Added new rarespawn in foothills area
- Added new item Lance for Valkyries (lvl 50)

Fixes:
- Unholy Brand's stats now match the tooltip AP: 30 -> 28, Int: 12 -> 14
- Hulking Bear Head's stats now match the tooltip AP: 0 -> 5, Str: 10 -> 7
- The Siren's Lament's stats now match the tooltip HP: 60 - > 50
- Raging Trinket's stats now match the tooltip AP: 0 -> 3, Str: 0 -> 3
- Ethereal Vestments tooltip now matches the stats AP: 25 - > 8
- Fixed Unholy Brand's attachment not disappearing immediately when unequiping the item
- Arctic Pine Scepter attachment point fixed so it no longer is invisible
- Fixed Rest in Peace quest spawning models far away from actual interactable corpses
- Talents that increase item stats (i.e. Squire lvl 10 to increase equipped shield armor) now works correctly with ethereal items
- Fixed Mountain Bear not casting demoralizing shout while being enslaved by Psion
- Fixed the Troll Witch Doctor path blockers
- Fixed some foothills path blockers

Quests:
- Quest Safety Measures (20) is now split into 2 separate repeatable quests
-- Safety Measures I (18): crows/bandits (Sophia on Greavus' Farm), awards 800xp
-- Safety Measures II (26): gnolls/ogres (Adept Marco), awards 900xp (was 500)
-- Both quests have cooldown of 10 minutes instead of 20
- New quest The Hunt (44) added to foothills area

Balance:
--- Pre lvl 25 2h weapons buffs to bring them on par with sword and board
--- Whitepine area items were sometimes worse than ethereal gear so adjustments were made
--- Necromancer
- Deathfire Veil now stacks up to SP * 2 instead of SP * 3, adds 25% of damage dealt to shield power instead of 33% and shield is destroyed upon absorbing damage
--- Mystic
- Draining Timber now provides logarythmically scaled AP when AP gained from a staff is too low (outscales all staves up to level 26)
--- Berserker
- During Berserker Rage Revenge does AP * (1.5 + 0.5 * Rage Stacks) damage, has 10s cooldown and reduces all rage stacks to 0
--- Crusaders
- During Celestial Zeal Revenge does 1.5*SP extra damage
--- Hunter
- Buffed Servant of Nature/ Servant of the Skies offensive stats by ~20%
- Frostbite Arrow and Multishot now deal 50% more damage when hitting a single target
- Beast Fury now additionally deals AP (pet) * 1 damage
---Valkyrie
- Increased Cooldown time of Urgency: 45s -> 55s , 35s -> 45s (with talent)



BUGFIXES/GENERAL(v 1.2D (6)):
- fixed Reforged Classic Graphics Gfx glitches
- fixed Meteor Strike being unable to cast
- fixed Overseer tower quest trigger to no longer allow completing the quest from outside the tower
- fixed crash on Backstab ability due to Reforged patch 1.33
- Added new endgame item Sword for Valkyries
- buying a legendary material with full inventory will no longer despawn the legendary materials vendor
- Northwind Blast damage dot is now applied properly on Iridescent Mark targets
- Lucky Trickster can no longer be sold
- Fixed a tooltip inconsistency with Growth Trinket (Druid)
- Fixed Icy Harp applying too much health
- Fixed Ethereal Mantle ArP value
- Divine Hammer now properly interrupts as the description implies
- Ensnare from Rangers can no longer be partially dispelled by Dispel Magic (as it's not a magical effect); it can still be removed by abilities that dispel all immobilizers, though
- Fixed Valkyrie +7% AP talent to linger even after unlearning the talent
- Ethereal Bead now gives the correct stats
- Ethereal Vestment now gives the correct stats
- Escort NPC now properly vanishs when Blackfire Deep resets
- Hinjo the Collector soul now properly displays
- Fixed Divine Fist duration increase talent often not working correctly
- Fixed Dread Lance buff tooltip
- DP now properly resets to zero when you use the -repick command
- Double clicking the town portal or ability/talent reset icons no longer causes the popup menues to break




BUGFIXES/GENERAL(v 1.2D (5)):
- *Hotfix* Fixed a small exploit with the legendary vendor
- Added an option to summon a legendary material vendor for DP
- Water Globes no longer apply the 'soaked' debuff; this is now exclusive to the new old Waterball ability from water elementals
- 'Meteor Strike' is now a spell with cast time, but much lower cooldown
- Fixed a cave wall corner tile in Blackfire Deep that sometimes prevented passage through the caves
- Fixed a bug that dropped the Psionic Blade when leaving or entering Blackfire Deep
- Fixed a bug that sometimes rendered stolen items saved
- You can no longer progress to the next Blackfire Floor when you die on the exit Beacon
- Fire Globes now applies a DOT on first hit instead of a resistance debuff


BUGFIXES/GENERAL(v 1.2D (4)):
- Fixed two major exploits with the inventory system
- When your minion gets attacked, the master will also be set in combat state
- Laying traps is now always possible when being stealthed, regardless of combat state
- Blackfire Events can no longer appear on the first floor
- mounts will no longer grant dp
- Lava dungeon tileset can no longer spawn the defense event
- Fixed typo in Greater Rod of Summoning


BUGFIXES/GENERAL(v 1.2D (3)):
- *Hotfix* fixed incorrect version numbers displayed ingame
- Due to the newly added Dungeon Points feature; save/load has been modified; -comp in your codes from D(1) or D(2)!
- Added new resource: Dungeon Points can be gained by progressing through Blackfire Deep
- Dungeon Points can be turned in for Ethereal items and a unique summoning rod at the entrance of Blackfire Deep
- More Dungeon Point rewards will be added in future updates
- Blackfire Deep floors can now have special event features like dual-bosses, multiple bosses in general and a defense or escort event
- 'Radiant Heart' Spellpower modifiers Reduced



BUGFIXES/GENERAL (v 1.2D (2)):
- *Hotfix* Fixed a bug with vault saves that prevent newly created vaults from being loaded
- *Hotfix* Meteor Strike cooldown reset has been removed again for obvious reasons

- Changed Divine Lance and Dread Lance implementation so that they no longer get deactivated randomly; in addition, the buff icons will now be displayed in the status monitor
- Fire Globes, Water Globes and Lightning Arc will now resummon 5 orbs when used out of combat
- Fixed a problem with Blackfire map generator to sometimes create empty maps
- Treasure Chest and Ancient Apparatus are now more common in lower floors
- Increased item droprates of mobs in Blackfire Deep by 50% to accomodate for the smaller maps
- 'Meditation', 'Meteor Strike' and 'Recovery' will now reset cooldowns out of combat
- 'Meteor Strike' and 'Guardian Angel' Cooldowns reduced by 30 seconds
- You can no longer stay out of combat when a player of your group is fighting in Blackfire Deep
- Fixed a bug with the mercenary system that prevented multiple players from employing the same mercenary even when they are far enough apart


BUGFIXES/GENERAL (v 1.2D (1)):
- *Hotfix* Fixed a bug with the save/load system that prevent D(1) vault codes from being loaded in D(1); your old D(1) vault codes are useless; you need to save again in this version to get a "clean" save
- Due to significant changes in the vault, this version no longer supports vault codes without the collectible feature initialized
- To properly load vault codes from c(18), make sure you have at least one collectible in your vault archive!
- New character class: Valkyrie - this class gets unlocked by reaching level 50 with any class - to create this character, simply use the -repick with any level 50 character
- New item type: Lances are the new misc item used by Valkyries
- "Fireball", "Water Globes" and "Lightning Charge" have been redesigned to make Mage archetypes more enjoyable and versatile
- All talents affecting these abilities have been replaced by new effects
- Blackfire Deep maps are now 33% smaller; in return, all mobs inside Blackfire deep now grant 50% more experience to compensate for the smaller maps
- fixed -fixsave command to properly execute when used as a direct chat input
- Displayed Green numbers from quick consecutive heals on the same target will now be displaced similar to damage numbers
- Fixed a bug with the train prevention script (players will now properly receive less kill experience when a player that is 5+ levels above the creature level is in range)
- Keystones can no longer be traded with other players after leaving Blackfire Deep
- Keystones will now be dropped to the ground when leaving Blackfire Deep, to prevent them from blocking inventory space when the game attempts to recreate the original outdoor item set on the hero
- Players can no longer -repick in combat
- Lunar Mantle selling price fixed


BUGFIXES/GENERAL (v 1.2C (18)):
- changed merc mechanic to count validity based on players and mercs within range of each other instead of in the game in total; this allows for all 6 players having their own mercs out, as long as they aren't questing in the same general area
- Added custom sound sets (including the pissed responses) for Squire, Magician (both skins) and Cleric (both skins) ... more to come soon!
-> Voices by: Travis "Capt. Eagle" Lindsey, brock lee, Jeni Dean (www.jenidean.com), David Bodtcher, Chris Luhrs (MetalMartian)
- Druid efreet summons now also provide an aura that grants 9 to all resistances
- Fixed a bug with Instill momentum charge count flickering in buff monitor
- added audio cue for tranquilizing sting
- tranquilizing sting can no longer be dispelled by dispel magic
- Venomspawn generation will now shake the camera around to give it more impact
- Reduced HP of Venomspawns
- Ethereal Attire now properly grants 3% crit chance
- The entering zone of the Arsaios entry beacon will no longer be covered in fog of war when entering
- negative auras will no longer affect allied NPC units
- terrain fog no longer overwrites current terrain fog for other players if a player enters Blackfire
- fixed a bug that assigned the wrong class items to quest rewards of alternate hero skins
- fixed cinematic filters not being properly displayed in cinematics when another player is also watching a cinematic
- fixed an inconsistency that could potentially lead to desyncs when watching cinematics *Note: Please report any further desyncs when watching cinematics!*
- maximum Number of players in Blackfire Deep now limited to 5 to bring it in line with other dungeon content in Gaias Retaliation


BUGFIXES/GENERAL (v 1.2C (17)):
- *Hotfix* Fixed a bug that prevented Venomspine from respawning properly when resetting D4
- *Hotfix* vault saves now also save to .txt
- You can now use "-fixsave" command to unlock the saving system again if it crashed from an invalid code; warning: this might cause unwanted bugs; use with caution!
- Added the first boss encounter of Dungeon 4 for betatesting; you can reach D4 via Zaxis Zepelin
- Savecodes will now save as .txt files again, to prevent the client from renaming the files to .pld
- Added support for extension pack 1.6
- extension pack files will now be loaded from the path "Warcraft III\CustomMapData\GaiasRetaliation", make sure to install the new extension pack into CustomMapData, not the main directory
- Fixed a bug with items dropping when dying inside Blackfire and reviving via the Gravestone


BUGFIXES/GENERAL (v 1.2C (16)):
- Added support for recent WC3 patch 1.27b
- Souls will now drop on the ground when leaving blackfire, so that they no longer occupy inventory space when the old gear is reapplied
- Made dwarf Cleric shadow smaller
- Improved visuals of dwarf cleric portrait
- Redesign of Blackfire entry mechanic: starting gear will now spawn in a shop instead of being applied to heroes directly
- you can now also enter Blackfire with a keystone in backpack; you can manually select the floor to spawn to on entry
- Fixed a bug that prevented clerics from finishing the advanced class training to monk
- Due to changes in the hero command card in the most recent patch, the way town portals work has been revamped
- Added a new button to the command card: you can now place a team colored beacon on the ground to communicate locations with other players

BUGFIXES/GENERAL (v 1.2C (15)):
- Added a new hero skin: Dwarven Cleric
- Squire and Mystic models now have a proper attack sound on 2 handed attacks
- Cleric and Magician models now have a particle emitter on ranged attacks
- Fixed a bug with legendary auras not being shared properly
- target dummies are no longer flagged as mechanical (for better DPS testing)

BUGFIXES/GENERAL (v 1.2C (14)):
- fixed a bug where female magicians could level beyond level 25 before changing class
- fixed a bug that sometimes prevented new floors from getting generated in Blackfire
- fixed a bug that allowed duplicating keystones
- save code version has been updated: load codes from (13) by using -comp
- Added a new alternate hero skin for the magician to pick ... still highly experimental; so there might be bugs - use at your own risk!
- Fixed a bug with Hexblade shield absorb not working for physical abilities
- Increased Awareness aura is no longer displayed in shop windows
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused players to skip floors in Blackfire Deep
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused ethereal items to disappear when having an ethereal item, keystone or soul in your hero inventory
- collectible stands of other players should now no longer be visible to players
- ethereal item skins no longer disappear when entering Blackfire
- items that can not be added when entering Blackfire (due to full inventory) will now spawn near the entry of the first floor
- fixed a bug that caused collectibles from other players to carry over to your vault load sometimes
- Wiped all collectibles for the sake of bringing everyone back to square one


BUGFIXES/GENERAL (v 1.2C (13)):
- Ethereals will now be properly snapshotted when entering Blackfire Deep, so that they will remain in the inventory when leaving Blackfire by townportal or death
- Druids will now receive a rod of revitalization when entering Blackfire Deep via a keystone; this rod has unlimited ressurection spells, but can only be used outside of combat
- Keystones can no longer be purchased on the ancient Apparatus in Blackfire
- Fixed some attack elements and attack splash damage of Blackfire mobs
- chests and shops in Blackfire will now always be guarded by creeps, to make stealth tactics harder
- chests and shops in Blackfire will now grant all creeps guarding them improved stealth detection
- Rebalanced AP values in Blackfire Deep (nerfed too strong mobs and buffed too weak mobs)
- Removed several unfair boss abilities with high attack modifiers from Blackfire Deep ability database


BUGFIXES/GENERAL (v 1.2C (12)):
- fixed a bug that allowed duping collectibles
- fixed missing mail armor in floor 10 shop in Blackfire
- fixed archives being removed when dying or entering Blackfire
- fixed a bug with Blackfire not properly resetting when dying on a Keystone run


BUGFIXES/GENERAL (v 1.2C (11)):
- Added new Legendary items as rewards for Blackfire Deep
- Added a new item category as a reward from Blackfire Deep: Chains can be used as offhand items by Mystics/Hexblades and Squires/Crusaders using 2H weapons
- Added a new item class: Ethereal items as rewards for Blackfire Deep. These items will level with the hero and will not get removed when entering Blackfire Deep
- Added a new item class: Collectible items as rewards for Blackfire Deep. These items can be stored in class-specific containers inside your vault (and will be saved in your vault save)
- Added new mount rewards for Blackfire Deep
- Added Intro cinematic to the core game imports
- Added legendary vault models to be part of the core game imports
- Increased resolution of many environmental doodads and hero textures
- Blackfire now has a quick explanation dialogue from Winalis Blackfire
- Fixed Keystone tooltip not to be cut off early
- Reduced drop chance of Hopebringer
- Fixed Revenge Tooltip
- Instill momentum now only charges up from white physical damage, but will now ignore all damage mitigation like evasion and armor in return
- Fel Nova is now stunnable in Blackfire Deep
- Fixed a small problem with the Squire model shield attachment point
- Thunderstep no longer breaks Blackfire when used on the entry
- Fixed the druid spirit HP bug
- Water Globes "soaked" debuff nerfed to -10% resistance
- Merchants that spawn when entering Blackfire through a keystone will no longer be randomized

CHANGELOG (v1.2C(10)):
- Crafting Bag contents are no longer bound to the character opening the crafting bag
- Fixed Hat of Wisdom granting +2 AP instead of +1 Ar
- Increased boss spawn rate in Blackfire Deep
- Fixed Keystone tooltip not displaying properly ingame
- Fixed a bug with items dropping at wrong points when leaving blackfire, however...
- When leaving Blackfire Deep, the Psionic Blade ability will now reset to what it was before entering
- You can now use mounts inside Blackfire Deep
- Heroes will now stop moving after getting transported to the next floor in Blackfire Deep
- Fixed Keystone tooltips


CHANGELOG (v1.2C(9)):
- Warhammer of The Brute now attaches properly to the hands of heroes
- Shield Throw now properly deals double damage to undead
- Optimized Squire model right hand attach point to make shields attach better
- Closed a hole in the pathing map south of Varthuvash spawn region
- "Body and Mind" now triggers on a pseudo-random (instead of true random) distribution to make it more reliable
- Fixed a bug that allowed duplicating keystones
- Keystones are now much more likely to drop after reaching the required floor
- However, Keystone drops will now be limited to the amount of players in the dungeon
- Greatly increased mob spawn rates in all cavernous tilesets in Blackfire Deep
- Fixed a bug that caused minion/mercenary HP/MP not to update properly on death or gear changes
- 'Barbed Arrow' Cooldown reduced to 40s (30s with talent); damage reduced to x2.5


CHANGELOG (v1.2C(8)):
- Added a new type of item to Blackfire Deep: Keystones. Keystones can be found from level 10 onward and allow players to "skip" floors on future visits of the dungeon. But they can also be used to safely exit the dungeon and taking your loot outside.
- Dun Haldran teleport now gets properly deactivated when repicking a character
- Fixed an small graphical inconsistency in the lava cave tileset of Blackfire Deep
- Removed Holy Surge from the table of available spells for Blackfire Deep
- Remedy will only appear with a cooldown on mobs in Blackfire Deep
- Fixed a bug that caused abilities not to be reassigned properly upon leaving Blackfire Deep
- Fixed a bug with Helios' Blazing Eyes not healing properly on proc
- Fixed a bug with negative spell haste capping at -100% (infinite casting time) instead of -50% (2x casting time)
- Reduced Clumsy Moves haste penalty from 30% to 25%
- Reduced haste penalty from all kinds of frost effects from 25% to 15%
- Auto Engage toggle setting will no longer reset during the game
- White Steel Mail now got a proper model
- 'Instill Momentum' buff now lasts 30 seconds instead of 10 seconds
- 'Distracting Weapon' cooldown reduced to 20 seconds (10 with talent)
- increased nature cave tile set spawnrate
- Reduced cooldown of Revenge to 50 seconds (37.5 seconds with talent), but also reduced damage modifier to x3.
- Taunt now also generates permanent threat based on damage dealt from allies against the target over the duration



CHANGELOG (v1.2C(7)):
- Added two new tilesets and a huge set of new creeps to Blackfire Deep
- Big nerf of HP of mobs inside Blackfire Deep
- Slightly increased drop chance of rods of summoning and tomes in Blackfire Deep
- Added a mercenary NPC to the list of possible spawns in the dungeon
- Slightly increased XP gain inside the dungeon
- Changed the icon of "Mind Lash" in buff status to what the ability actually uses
- Fixed Hat of the Traitor icon
- Fixed a bug with Bladefury sometimes bugging up enemies to increase their animation speed

CHANGELOG (v1.2C(6)):
- Ma'kar's crushing blow attack now also has a small range
- You can no longer enter Blackfire deep while a quest dialogue plays
- Removed Revenge from the table of available spells for Blackfire Deep
- Fixed a bug that sometimes bugged up the item randomizer on the first levels of Blackfire Deep
- Adjusted the level curve of monsters inside Blackfire Deep at floor 7+
- Arctic Skull now properly grants Water Resistance
- Changed merc hiring rules to allow hiring up to 3 mercs total and hiring until the fifth player slot

CHANGELOG (v1.2C(5)):
- First Public Beta release of Blackfire Deep, a fully randomized dungeon in the style of old rogue-like games beneath the village of Dun Haldran
-> Currently, there are no rewards attached to Blackfire Deep except the chance to find legendary souls at a higher chance at higher levels; this release is mainly for those guys that enjoy a challenge and want to give feedback on the balancing and do proper bugtesting before this becomes actual content in later releases
- Adjusted stats and attributes of dozens of items
- Switched positions of tier 3 and tier 4 abilities of rangers
- Added some lowlevel healing items for rangers using remedy
- Spirit of Ma'kar now has an attack range
- Dancing Blade will now stop of the target and the caster get too far away from each other while casting
- Magma Wave, Icy Barrage, Flame Nova and Thunderstep now take Spellpower or Attackpower depending on what is the higher value
- Reduced Mana cost of Magma Wave, Icy Barrage, Flame Nova and Thunderstep
- Fixed a typo on Arctic Pine Scepter
- Made High Mage staff model slightly smaller
- Fire Nova damage is now applied earlier
- Healing Salve no longer breaks from bleeding damage
- Fixed a math error that sometimes caused bosses to not drop an item
- Fixed a typo in "Black Defender" recipe
- Fixed a bug in crit calculations that caused certain crit modifiers not to work properly (including Monk level 50 talent)
- Blade Storm now ignores armor
- Psions can no longer absorb steel body
- Reduced cooldown of Berserker Rage
- Plane Shift is now a 5 second channel ability that turns the hero invulnerable, but no longer resets threat; cooldown reduced to 45 seconds.
- Fixed a bug with Divine Fist lasting shorter than it should
- Fixed a bug with Divine Fist +duration talent not working correctly


CHANGELOG (v1.2C(4)):
- Crafting materials spawned from whitepine bags will now properly despawn
- Fixed a bug with Gaias Retaliation Part III
- Flamebringer recipe now properly creates the item instead of creating the precursor
- d3 waves will now spawn as soon as the previous wave was defeated
- Gravestones now have the "roll" ability


CHANGELOG (v1.2C(3)):
- *Hotfix* Fixed a bug with the output HTML files when saving your character/vault
- Staff of the Dead recipe now only requires 1 silver ore (to match the tooltip)
- Fixed a bug that caused recipes to subtract stacks from more than one material stack if the number of stacks exceeds the requirement of the recipe
- Fixed incorrect pricing of Dun Haldran recipes
- Fixed a tooltip error in Magic Arrow
- Mark of Chaos from mercenary will no longer trigger Lady Carimedraz Sound file
- Improved the looks of Mask of Guile


CHANGELOG (v1.2C(2)):
- Lightning blade now always calculates its path from the current position instead of the starting point
- Fixed aura from Devils Flute
- Improved the looks of Mask of the Betrayal
- Improved the looks of Verdant Cap
- Fixed a requirements bug with Icy Harp Recipe
- Increased Slevar attack modifier
- Decreased Vale health modifier
- Fixed Fevered bow granting attackspeed even if it shouldn't
- Fixed Hurricane Ring Crit chance (and increase AP a little to compensate for the undertuned stats)
- Nerfed Mask of Guile to only award 3 crit instead of 7 (it wasn't applying the correct bonus anyway)
- Increases AP gained from Lucky Sevens and removed the useless INT stat
- Improved Lucky Sevens and Lucky Trickster Stat distribution
- Improved Icy Harp Stat distribution


CHANGELOG (v1.2C(1)):
- Mercenaries will now learn a new spell when reaching level 30 and 45
- Added some extra polygons to improve the texture wrapping on the Ranger and Thief model
- Granite maul model attachment point corrected
- Footman's Platebody armor model now properly displays
- Artifacts can no longer be carried on the hero main inventory, as originally intended
- Fixed dwarf corpse animation on respawn
- Heroes now properly require level 42 to teleport to Dun Haldran
- Readjusted the size of the cap of vines model to better fit the size of the heroes heads
- Readjusted the position of the Mask of the Betrayal model to fit the heroes heads better
- You can no longer use your mount in caves or dungeons
- Increased the return range of the elite Magnataurs in the ice cavern
- Slightly increased the respawn timer of elite creeps
- Bloodthirst now has a visual and sound effect
- Expedition Chimes and Icy Harp now have the aura effect promised on the tooltip
- Gryphon head now properly grants 10 agi
- Viper's Grip now grants armor
- Fixed Pure Essence and Frost Entity Totem recipe
- The Lord of Caverns no longer drops both skulls and trophies; one has been moved to other bosses each
- Titan's Spear model has been made slightly longer
- Runic Vestment now has a cloak model
- Divine Fist no longer procs on allies
- Captured Lightning now has a model that attaches correctly to the mage's hand
- Overseer's Constructs now spawn farther away from the Overseer so they won't get stuck behind him
- Pure Essence proc damage increased
- Made Gift of Genos model slightly smaller
- Healing and Mana potions in the potion belt now got proper hotkeys
- Fixed the particle emitters of both skulls
- Greatly increased drop chance for Whitepine crafting bag
- Increased the speed of the Spirit of Ma'kar
- Fixed several tooltip typos


CHANGELOG (v1.2C):

CONTENT:
- You can now explore the Whitepine Mountains for a brand new chapter of Gaias Retaliation
- New items, quests, bosses, events
- Explore the world and find unique rarespawns and treasure chests for interesting loot in duo and even for single players with mercenaries
- Over 30 new recipes
- Find components and build 10 new legendaries
- Updated Extension pack to 1.4: new music, new voice-over, etc
... update here: Gaias Retaliation: Extension Package (v1.6)


BUGFIXES/GENERAL:
- Fixed a serious flaw in the buff system, causing the struct allocation to get corrupted (very likely responsible for the crashes and permabuff bugs too)
- Fixed a bug with some items (Golden Feather Mantle, Celestial Garments) not showing the right skin texture
- Fixed some weird shadows around the neck of the thief and ranger portrait
- Added some improvements to the ranger portrait (more visible hair)
- Block ability on shields reduced from 20% to 10%
- Bosses with random target abilities will no longer try to target untargetable units
- Fixed a bug that allowed picking both abilities in the first ability choice
- Increased cooldown of Mass Teleport on Overseer again, but kept the reduced time until the first Mass Teleport
- Changed the buff monitor to display charges for Chorus, Divine Fist, Berserker Rage and Deathfire Veil
- Curse of the Vampire will now be displayed on the buff monitor
- Fixed a bug with steel body hotkey on deactivate
- 'Charge' buff will now be removed if the character dismounts
- Hardened Dagger now correctly applies the attackspeed bonus
- The game will now determine the highest level player that had threat on a unit when applying XP gains; if the highest level player is more than 5 levels over the level of the killed creep, XP awarded by that creep is reduced by 10% for each additional level over the creep beyond 5
- Gold gain is not affected by this
- Cleric Quest no longer bugs for other players after the first player wins the event
- 'Inspire' now regenerates a percentage of mana instead of a fixed amount
- 'Song of Vigor' is now based on the caster's agility instead of character level
- XP gain curve from kills now slightly drops off after reaching level 45
- All mercenaries and minions now have their cast points adjusted properly so that channeling spells no longer cast at a slight delay
- Water resistance now properly reduces the duration of frost slow effects
- Poison resistance now properly reduces the duration of poison slow effects
- Fixed a bug with the disenchanting system not being able to disenchant lowlevel armors
- Fixed a bug that caused some legendary soul auras not to display correctly in the stat window
- Psion Level 50 talent changed to only grant 1 point of attackpower every 2 charges of Psionic Blade




CHANGELOG (v1.2B (16)):

- Added a feature demo (and proof of concept) for the new repeatable quest system just outside of Mytargas at the refugee camp; offering a semi-random repeatable level 16-24 quest
- *HOTFIX* fixed a bug that resetted cooldowns on repeatable quests; changed cooldown to 20 minutes
- Fixed a bug sometimes affecting units with a permanent frost debuff when using Frostbite Arrow or fighting Gazrow
- Dispel Magic can no longer be spammed without triggering the 0.5 second cooldown when upgraded
- SP-dependency of Skeleton Mage, Efreet and Nymph summons now mentioned in the tooltip
- Symbol of Fury tooltips corrected
- Fixed Claw Strike and Beast Fury on Servant of the Skies (this time for real!)
- Game Hints now have a toggle button in the options tab in the hero command card; this will also restart the game hints
- Fixed a bug with frost cage lasting way longer than intended
- Added 'Cold Death' Recipe to the drop list of the Ancient One and increased chance to drop the recipe from turtles and water elementals in the cave aswell



CHANGELOG (v1.2B (15)):

BUGFIXES/GENERAL:
- Replaced some core systems with newer, more up-to-date systems, hopefully fixing some issues with crashes and permanent buffs
- NOTE: Please keep me informed if permanent buffs still happen or not; this is not something that is easy to reproduce, so I kind of have to apply bugfixes in sprinkler fashion
- Implemented new stat: Hit Chance (counters Evasion)
- Gold penalty when dying removed from the game
- Lord of Caverns: Increased life
- Lord of Caverns: Battering Ram damage is now dependant on the distance to the target
- Lord of Caverns: Battering Ram is now a random target ability (prefers heroes over minions)
- Overseer: Increased life
- Overseer: Reduced Cooldown on Mass Teleport
- Bladefury and Opportunist can now be properly interrupted by stuns or interrupt effects
- Fixed a bug that allowed learning both first tier spells when clicking rapidly on the skill selector buttons
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused "Chorus" to not apply the damage/heal effect properly
- Servant of the Skies can now attack air units and will perform "Claw Strike" and "Beast Fury" from a distance (just like normal attacks)
- Fixed a bug that prevent town portals from triggering their cooldown
- Fixed a bug that caused Gargoyle to lose the steal marker when changing it's form
- Fixed a bug that instantly removed spawned blue souls after disenchanting three green souls
- 'Bottle of Whine' no longer grants any stats
- 'Deathfire Veil' will no longer redirect threat caused from minions to the Necromancer
- Fixed a bug with Frostbite Arrow affecting allies
- Fixed a bug with low to midlevel bosses sometimes not dropping any items
- Fixed a bug that caused certain talents to not properly apply if abilities were selected after picking talents
- Lightning charge can now be cast on air units
- Fixed a terrain leak near the beacon tower
- Fixed Zharo'khen AI
- Riding Turtle now has a faster walk animation
- Made the SFX of Holy Surge less aggressive and moved the ring art more towards the feet of the target
- Corrected tooltip of Warcry buff
- Embrittling acid now scales with AGI instead of the character level
- Detonating Bones armor reduction now scales with SP instead of the character level
- Jolting Strikes damage modifier increased from 0.5 to 1.0
- Shield Throw will now deal the remaining hits against the currently affected target if no other unit is within range
- Dancing Blade damage will now ignore armor of the target
- Soul Strike no longer does reduced damage when under the effect of 'Weakened Soul'
- Corrected tooltip from the evasion damage reduction talent
- Ensnare now works on bosses (at a drastically reduced immobilize duration, followed by a slow for the remaining duration) and also reduces the chance to hit of the target by 20%
- Burst of Light cooldown reduced to 90 seconds
- Added a 30% haste bonus to Symbol of Fury and increased attackspeed bonus by 5%
- Divine Fist now doubles ArP score of the monk, but elemental damage bonus applied is now 2% per stack across the board, including monks
- Divine Fist stacks will now also be applied if the monk deals physical ability damage (instead of just auto attacks)
- Ressurection now works like Life Infusion
- Life Infusion and Ressurection now only heal the target by 50% and grant only 20% mana instead of 30%.
- Using Dazing Trap and Explosive Trap in combat will no longer trigger a cooldown
- Several talents have been revamped or replaced by new ones (more talent changes following throughout the next updates)
- Skeletons under influence of Deathfire Veil and the Servant of the Skies are no longer affected by Broodmother Chrysalis ability
- Load limit has been removed
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused Vaults to disappear when a player without a vault leaves the game




CHANGELOG (v1.2B (14)):

BUGFIXES/GENERAL:

IMPORTANT: Due to critical changes in the item system, your backpack and stashes will be empty when importing your character into this version via -comp
Players that finished the Gargoyle Quest will get the quest reward hammer back after importing their old codes.

GAMEPLAY:
- Implemented new ability system: abilities can now be learned as mutual exclusive choices directly from within the spellbook at levels 1,3,7,13,25,27,33,37 and 43
- Learned ability spellbook positions will now match the keyboard layout upon learning
- Due to these changes, many ability hotkeys have been changed so that frequently used abilities are on easily reachable keys Q,W,E,R,D,F and less frequently used abilities are on A,S and Z
- Note: Due to the changes in the internal computing, importing old codes from the previous version via -comp can mess up abilities learned
- Note: Due to the removal of ability scrolls, savable non-equipment items (like Recipes) can be messed up when importing old codes via -comp
- Monks can now do a roundhouse kick as one of their attack animations
- 'Rest' mechanic removed. Instead, units will now constantly recover their health/mana at resting speed when out of combat
- Mounts! You can now buy your first mount for a small gold fee at Riversdale
- Better mounts will be available at many places across the map for a larger cost, but will also have an additional ability
- Legendary Souls will no longer have a random distribution of stats; instead, they will now select of a pool of presets with unique names
- This will not affect existing Legendary Souls, only newfound souls will use these presets
- Many Legendary Soul Auras have been changed to have new effects
- Due to the changes to the ability system; the spell unlearning mechanic has been changed to unlearn all abilities in a bulk at a cost
- New base class abilities for all classes!
- Due to the new ranger ability, some talents and abilities have been adjusted to accomodate for the new ability; make sure to read the tooltips to get up to date!
- There is now a button in the hero options menu to kill all controlled minions if neccesary


BUGFIXES/BALANCE/OTHER:
- There will now be game hints displayed after picking a new level 1 hero
- Until Blizzard releases the patch that increases the map size, the intro cinematic has been temporarily disabled (to avoid synchronization issues at game start)
- The Mystic class change Quest can now be done regardless of the time of day
- Splicing green souls does no longer require an extra item to be disenchanted
- Weather changes (and thus the related lag spike) will no longer happen during combat
- Added some audio cues for the Zharokhen encounter
- Zharokhen priest add can now be CCed; however, he now also has an ability that allows him to break out of CC spells or stuns
- Dazing Trap no longer affects immune units
- Chain Lightning will now properly display a chained lightning instead of a forked lightning
- Binding Chains will no longer pull stationary units
- Reduced Cooldown of 'Guardian Angel' to 90 seconds
- Changed icons for 'Spell Mirror' and 'Confidence' for consistency with the new spell selection method
- Reduced Cooldown of 'Crucify' to 25 seconds
- Added more bloodstone drops throughout the Foothills area loottables
- Legendary Soul Auras will no longer linger around after the owning player left the game
- 'Dispel' can now be used on mechanical units
- The Overseer will no longer cast 'Mana Trap' on minions or mercenaries
- 'Mana Trap' damage and drain effect reduced
- Fixed several terrain leaks around Zharo that caused the pathfinding to go nuts if players accidentally clicked outside of the playable terrain
- Fixed a bug with Hunter level 30 talent (now properly grants 10% resistances instead of just 5%)
- Moved Lieutenant Magast for the transit quest to Mytargas to the bridge connecting the starting area with the farmland area
- Reduced the required level for the transit quest to Mytargas
- Many AoE spells and effects have been updated to take the collision size of units into account (larger units are now easier to hit; for example with 'Crucify')
- Snowfall fog effect reduced to improve visibility
- Fixed 'Maintenance' spell in Overseer encounter still healing even when outranged
- Reduced Construct HP and Aura damage in Construct phase on Overseer encounter
- Slightly increased melee damage of the Lord of Caverns
- Reduced Bloodthirst timer of Lord of Caverns from 360 to 300 seconds
- Increased raw attack power and ArP gain from melee skeletons
- Skeleton mages can now also auto attack once all mana is depleted
- 'Detonating Bones' is now an enemy-target spell (but can only target organic units) and deals extra damage to the main target
- 'Mind Lash' will now always jump to the first-in-threat if that unit is within the jumping range; if not, it will target the closest unit
- 'Imbue Armor' will no longer reflect damage that exceeds the absorbed amount
- You can no longer enslave player units
- 'Steal' will no longer drop the stolen item on the ground if the main inventory is full (and there is space in the bag)
- Quest rewards will no longer drop to the ground if the main inventory is full (and there is space in the bag)
- Updated tooltips of Vault teleport and stash purchase to notify the player that stashes will be moved to the Soul Vault once loaded
- Soul Vault portal will now always be available if the vault is loaded, even if the character hasn't yet reached level 4.
- Fixed a bug that allowed Mystics to reflect white damage back as white damage, triggering onAttack procs like Levitate
- Psionic Blade will no longer accumulate charges when attacking friendlies
- Psionic Blade can no longer steal 'Stealth' and 'Into the Shades' for balancing reasons
- Valgar in Squire class change encounter will no longer cast heal
- Increased droprates for all quest items required to obtain the Gargoyle Hammer
- Fixed a bug with Psionic Blade not absorbing many self-cast abilities correctly
- Fixed a bug with Robe of Fire Protection not giving armor
- Missiles will now originate from the caster even if the caster was pulled by Binding Chains
- Fixed a bug that allowed having 2 enslaved creatures under certain conditions
- Missile launch height from stolen spells will now be properly adjusted for levitating Psions
- Minions and Mercenaries will no longer jerk and run around like crazy if there are many players in the game
- Binding Chains will no longer pull invulnerable units
- Petrify will no longer be castable on bosses
- 'Bladefury' now has a smoother feeling and animation; damage now spreads over 4 hits instead of 5
- 'Bursting Touch' is now SP based instead of AP
- 'Mind Lash' will now jump from any damage dealt, not just normal attack damage
- 'Mind Lash' will now always jump if the unit dies from the damage dealt
- Fixed a bug with a Hexblade talent not applying 60% absorb increase to Imbue Armor correctly
- 'Ground Slam' no longer hits air units



CHANGELOG (v1.2B (13)):

- 'Desintegrate' marker now displayed in the correct direction
- Slimes now have a limited lifespan
- Slimes now have reduced HP and no longer regenerate HP
- Slime damage reduced (however, at a high ArP)
- disenchanting a weapon will now always yield a raremat
- disenchanting everything else will yield a common mat
- 3 item requirement from disenchanting removed
- Fixed a tooltip error with the monk talent for Symbol of Fury
- merc ressurection/dismiss now share a slot in the command card
- Reduced HP of Overseer
- Slightly reduced number of missiles created by 'Fel Nova'
- Implemented a new boss for betatesting; as always, use -test to access the boss area


CHANGELOG (v1.2B (12)):
- Stashes can no longer ... crawl away...
- PvP command in-combat bug fixed
- Fixed 'roar' sometimes applying to invalid targets
- Jolting Strikes Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds
- Distracting Weapon is now an instant-cast self-buff only, but cooldown was reduced to 30 seconds (20 with talent)
- Distracting Weapon Mana cost removed
- Distracting Weapon now also generates a decent amount of threat on it's own when cast (similar to Demoralizing Shout)
- Bladefury will now stop once the caster dies
- Pets will now be considered as the same level as the caster when performing level checks (for hit & crit mechanics)
- Battering Ram now works as intended
- Frostbite now also colors the affected unit
- Spell Mirror cooldown reduced to 25 seconds
- Fire Shield damage increased to SP x 0.4
- Added a new boss to beta test



CHANGELOG (v1.2B (11)):
- Fixed an exploit that allowed duplicating items

CHANGELOG (v1.2B (10)):
- Fixed a tooltip bug with Souls
- Fixed a bug with stashes not appearing correctly when loading vaults
- Removed shadows from stashes
- Fixed a bug where sometimes souls appeared out of nowhere when importing characters
- Fixed a bug that allowed leveling souls further even after reaching level 25 with a base class
- Summoned units no longer drop souls
- Nether Circles can now disenchant 3 green souls combined with a magic item of itemlevel 35+ to create a blue soul
- Playback position of background themes will not be stored and recovered after leaving a bossbattle
- Sound effect from Lightning Blade will not properly cut off if the distance to the model is too large
- Slightly Increased Battering Ram AoE
- Fixed a bug with some soul skins not properly getting displayed (does not fix issues with incorrect filepaths on the Extension Pack, though)


CHANGELOG (v1.2B (9)):
- New feature: disenchanting!
--> Mytargas, Lumberjack and Riversdale now have a Nether Circle that allows to disenchant (unsaved) items for materials
--> 1 item = 1 mat
--> 3 items = 1 raremat
- Increased number of vault slots to 7
- Fixed a bug that caused unused linear stat components of souls to suddenly appear after level 10
- Added a music theme for the soul vault


CHANGELOG (v1.2B (8)):
- New Feature: Souls
- Souls and Soul Vaults are imported on a seperate (account-bound) load code and can be shared between multiple characters
- Only one Vault load per game
- Vault, once loaded, can not be "repicked"
- Vault autosaves whenever a hero is saved
- Saving will now process a HTML file instead of a raw .txt, to improve readability
--> if asked for a confirmation about activating script plugins upon opening these HTML files, confirm it and add this folder to any whitelists regarding scripts
--> this script is not dangerous and will only pre-select the savecode so that you can copy it to your clipboard faster

- Improved performance for Shattering Glacier
- Fixed a bug with AoE of Battering Ram not getting calculated correctly
- Increased damage of Battering Ram, but changed targeting to first-in-aggro
- Added a better visible effect to Frostbite
- Increased base damage of BETA Boss


CHANGELOG (v1.2B (7)):
- Level 42 bears will now cast 'Claw Strike' properly
- Improved Mob repositioning algorithm
- Fixed a couple of bugs with arena battles (alliance states and auto-revival)
- re-added buff art to symbol of fury
- extension package music playback volume slightly reduced
- guardian angel can no longer be cast on enemies
- Dazing trap will now work properly
- Implemented one of the new 1.2C boss battles for balance testing
--> use "-test" chat command to teleport your character to the testing area
--> boss battle will drop no loot or rewards; this is only for playtesting the boss balancing
--> super SPOILERific! Use with discretion and ask players in your session before using this command


CHANGELOG (v1.2B (6)):
- Timers on buffs now get properly initialized (Should fix permanent buff bug; please report if it still happens!)
- Fixed inconsistency on sound file creation (Should fix desyncs on turning in quests; please report if that still happens!)
- Fixed Symbol of Fury sometimes not properly applying
- Fixed a bug with ogre boss battle shield
- Re-enslaving a unit will not make Psionic Resonance buff disappear any longer
- Fixed level 35 Sorcerer cooldown talents
- Level 45 Psion draining timber talent now only applies to the mana drain effect and not the stat gain, as originally intended


CHANGELOG (v1.2B (5)):
BUGFIXES/GENERAL:
- Added support for the newly released extension pack version 1.1
- Added support for new voiceovers to the game (and extension pack)
- Psionic Blade stat bonuses reduced
- Fixed a bug with stat bonuses (or reductions) through talents or abilities stacking on proc attacks
- Fixed a bug with Twisting Metal dealing incorrect damage if used as combat opener
- Redesigned Distracting weapon to deal threat depending on the number of remaining charges
- Fixed a couple of pathing blockers on the Foothills mountain ramp; it should now be easier to cross with pets
- Fixed Dazing Trap
- Fixed mob AI not randomizing targets for certain spells
- Fixed additional delay when casting certain channeled spells
- Individual Town Portals now have a 60 second cooldown
- Fixed Guardian Angel being castable on enemies
- Syncing process at game start is now automaticly disabled for 5 or 6 player games, to avoid massive delay
- Fixed various issues with the Talk scripting, which should hopefully prevent crashes now
- Laros van Garen & his minions are now immune to Enslave
- You will no longer receive level-difference based bonuses when attacking training dummies
- Stashes now have a small sight radius to make them visible in fog of war
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused potions to drop in a bulk
- The anvil in the Lumberjack encampment finished his vacation in a parallel dimension
- Twisting Metal can now target air units
- Psionic Blade now appears properly on first load if the blade was placed in a lower item slot than the weapon
- Fixed Psionic Blade: Crucify
- Psionic Resonance now gets cleansed when an enslaved unit dies
- Respeccing talents will now also reset Psionic Blade charges
- Incinerate will no longer hit friendly targets
- Bladefury can no longer be stolen via Psionic Blade, as it requires an offhand weapon
- Fixed some bugs with the buff system, which will hopefully resolve several issues with persitent buffs
- Psion Levitate attack can now hit air units
- Imbue armor now also reflects absorbed damage
- 20% shield block effect now works properly on Mystics and Hexblades
- Enslave now has a hotkey (B)
- Dispel can now properly target enemy units
- Levitate is now a true modal and can be activated and deactivated regardless of combat state
- Levitation spellcasts will now play the intended animation
- Bosses won't try to reposition themselves if blocked by other mobs anymore to avoid exploitation
- Fixed a bug with players sometimes not leaving combat correctly
- Fixed blood splats of Mystics... no more poison in your veins, folks ;)
- Enemy units will now immediately continue attacking their main target after finishing any spellcasts (instead of attacking randomly)
- Fixed armor value of Ring of the Troll Magi
- Draining timber damage boost increased by 50%
- Mark of the Vampire is now correctly healing Lady Varimetraz
- "Dust to Dust" ability removed from the Blazing Flame (as it bugged up the AI and was made redundant after resistance changes)
- Fixed starting mana of Blazing Flame manifestations
- Crawlings Plague spawns on Gargoyle will no longer spawn inside the mountain walls or in the valley
- Placed two additional Mountain Ursas in the Mountain area to make farming them a bit easier
- Added a new toggle option: Enable/Disable auto engagement of the hero
- Moved the missile spawning point of levitate attacks a bit higher
- Corrected damage on Twisting Metal tooltip
- Changed Mind Lash to always jump to the closest nearby valid target, instead of a random target
- Reduced Mana cost of "Bursting Touch" to 5
- Enslave will now by default allow enslavement of same level creatures
- New Psion level 50 talent: 'Imbue Armor' effect extended to nearby allies aswell



CHANGELOG (v1.2B (4)):
- *hotfix* Added new voice acting files
- *hotfix* wrong ability mapping for Psionic Blade fixed
- *hotfix* dungeon units can not longer be enslaved
- Again, fixed a bug that let the Mystic go invulnerable after completing the class change quest (this time for real)
- Buffs and debuffs now get properly removed on death
- Mytargas gate now is properly shown as opened
- Fixed a couple of bugs with the Mystic class change dungeon patrols
- Fixed hotkeys in Psionic Blade stolen ability tooltips
- Bard Songs can no longer be stolen by Psionic Blade (due to lack of instrument)
- Quest rewards will now properly vanish if not picked up and show their item model properly

CHANGELOG (v1.2B (3)):
- *hotfix* Fixed a bug that rendered a Mystic sometimes invulnerable after class change quest
- Fixed a bug that caused the game to desynchronize when some players used the extension package
- Fixed a bug that allowed mystics to advance beyond level 25
- Fixed a camera pan globally applying to all players on mystic class change quest
- Jolting Strikes now only immobilizes on first hit; immobilize duration reduced to 3 seconds (1.5 seconds on bosses)
- Twisting Metal stun now only lasts 1.5 seconds on bosses (similar to how backstab works)
- Dying during the Mystic class change quest will no longer cause a gold penalty
- Levitate will now last for 3 additional seconds when combat ends, to allow re-engaging enemies before the effect ends
- Levitate evasion bonus reduced to 30%
- Swapped 'Blurred Motions' and 'Stealth' Hotkeys to fix hotkey localization issue

CHANGELOG (v1.2B (2)):
- Fixed a bug that caused the game to desync if one player had the extension module installed and another had not

CHANGELOG (v1.2B (1)):
- Implemented support for Extension Package: Gaias Retaliation: Extension Package (v1.6)
- New basic character class: Mystic
- All relativistic stats (Crit chance, crit damage, spell crit damage and evasion) will now be affected by the level difference between the combatants
--> Level ups will no longer weaken the character, as the formulaes in stat tooltips now only apply to same-level enemies.
- Fixed a bug that caused 3rd person camera to jerk when rotating the view too long
- Bard Songs will now properly vanish if the Bard unequips his instrument
- Fixed monk level 50 anti-crit talent not working on normal attacks
- Reduced damage and health of Crawling Plague spawns of the Gargoyle
- Fixed a bug with cooldown reducing talents on Berserker and Crusader not functioning properly
- Fixed a bug that caused crafted and quest items not to show the proper item model when dropped on the ground from the bag
- Creep reset will now also cleanse any buff or debuff from the resetting creep
- 'Blurred Motions' will now instantly clean all debuffs from the caster (including stun effects), however, will not reduce threat any longer (to remove redundancy with 'Into the Shades')
- 'Stone Skin' will now also remove all immobilizing effects from the caster
- 'Ensnare' will no longer prevent enemy units from casting spells or cancel spellcasting
- Changed the icon of all passive abilities to non-borderized icons
- Changed two buildings in Mytargas to new designs to save map space
- Fixed a bug that caused Coup De Grace critical bonus not to work under certain conditions
- Town Portal scrolls have been removed from the game; instead, characters can now teleport directly via the hero command card


CHANGELOG (v1.2A (13)):
- Gold income from killing is now divided by the number of players (and mercs) in range; however, you will now always gain at least 1 gold
- Fixed a bug with blurred motions causing the game to crash
- Fixed a bug with the soldiers of Mytargas escort quest not following correctly on first attempt
- fixed head attachment point of rangers
- Fixed a typo in Linen Hood Recipe
- Fixed a bug with Flaming Arrow +duration Talent
- Fixed Eternal Strings attack speed bonus
- Gravestones can now be selected via the idle-worker button
- Fixed a typo in Cold Death recipe
- Fixed 'Stone Skin' cooldown talent
- Fixed a bug that caused some talents not to reset properly when unlearning talents
- chance to drop outdoor scrolls on low level bosses increased
- chance to drop dungeon scrolls on D1 bosses increased
- chance to drop Ogre boss scrolls increased
- shifted weights on Ogre boss treasure drops more towards items (instead of demon heart)
- adjusted a lot of drop weights for rare, common and boss materials to make lowlevel crafting easier
- completing the first kill quest now rewards a white armor
- corrected some faulty stats on the hero selector units
- Fixed a bug with the Dispel Magic AoE-talent
- Fixed a rounding error that caused mercenaries to slowly lose HP when repeatedly equipping items



If you experience crashes during the loading process, try set your Texture Quality setting to high. That should fix the problem. I also recommend setting Light Quality to high, or you might encounter graphic bugs inside dungeons.



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Years have passed since the poison of Gaia sprung forth from the lands. Corrupted forests, inhospitable to all, have spread across the face of Kurodan, and borders have faded as all fled before the encroachment of the toxic spores. Ankhmaron, the last haven protected by the Grand River, has sent out messengers to gather volunteers for the task of finding a cure to the plague.
In a tavern close to the village Riversdale, a small group of adventurers have gathered, unknowing, that their search will turn out not to be just a race against time ...


Creators:
Shapy: Terraining
muzzel: Jass
teh.fellow aka Playmo: Terraining, project leading
Zwiebelchen aka Todeszwiebel: Jass, object data, terraining, project leading

Trailer:


Check out our official forums at:
Gaias Retaliation ORPG

Download the official Gaias Retaliation Extension package at:
Gaias Retaliation: Extension Package (v1.6)

Screenshots:
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PS:
I know that I didn't add everyone to the Credits I used resources from. I lost track on all the things I imported into the map. If you made something I didn't give credit to, send me a PM please and the name of the resource.

Keywords:
RPG, ORPG, GR, Gaia
Contents

Gaias Retaliation ORPG v1.2E (4) (Map)

Reviews
19:48, 28th Feb 2011 ap0calypse: Director's Cut! All 3 (current) map moderators agreed on this one. It's a unique, high-quality map which certainly deserves a high rating.
Level 5
Joined
Sep 28, 2014
Messages
47
I Tried it 5 times solo b'cause i neither have means to play it online nor i have a warcraft gamer in my neighbourhood,i even reach level 17 but every time i save & quit,i always get a fatal error whenever i try to load my saved game, and the in game save system is just for multiplayer and dont work for single,so basically if i want to advance i just have to play this without saving,is there any means to avoid those fatal crashes
 

Zwiebelchen

Hosted Project GR
Level 35
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
7,236
I Tried it 5 times solo b'cause i neither have means to play it online nor i have a warcraft gamer in my neighbourhood,i even reach level 17 but every time i save & quit,i always get a fatal error whenever i try to load my saved game, and the in game save system is just for multiplayer and dont work for single,so basically if i want to advance i just have to play this without saving,is there any means to avoid those fatal crashes
If you want to play this solo, play it via LAN mode. It will remove the singleplayer check and will let you -save your characters normally.
 
Level 1
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Nov 4, 2015
Messages
1
Hi all, just wanted to drop by and say this map is utter perfection. (I registered just now just to say this... heh. :D)
 
Level 11
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Mar 18, 2009
Messages
788
Where can i download the 1.2B(1) Version to transfer my saves ?

I don't have that one but I believe 1.2B(4) should work fine for transferring saves.

I don't find way to the dwarf place at the snow mountain. It seems like the path blocked by falling tree and no other way to the dwarf place. Can you give a hint ? If there any alternative way ?

That area has not been officially released yet. You will have to wait a while until it is finished.
 

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  • GaiasORPG_v1_2B(4)fix.w3x
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Level 3
Joined
Sep 5, 2015
Messages
43
I was hyped by this map reviews but when i downloaded it and play .Warcraft 3 just became unresponsive in the loading screen and i had to manually use the task manager to end it. I did not encounter this problem before with other maps .
Anyone can help me with this problem?
 
Level 11
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
788
I was hyped by this map reviews but when i downloaded it and play .Warcraft 3 just became unresponsive in the loading screen and i had to manually use the task manager to end it. I did not encounter this problem before with other maps .
Anyone can help me with this problem?

You have to set your lightning and texture quality to high in your Warcraft 3 video settings.
 
Level 1
Joined
Dec 20, 2015
Messages
1
I cant save the vault twice. Already collected 3 different souls but when I save and then load, I only get the first save i had made. Is it normal? How do I fix it?
 

Zwiebelchen

Hosted Project GR
Level 35
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
7,236
I cant save the vault twice. Already collected 3 different souls but when I save and then load, I only get the first save i had made. Is it normal? How do I fix it?
The vault code file overwrites itself with every save. Unlike heroes, there is no real point in keeping older vault saves so this is intended design.
 

Zwiebelchen

Hosted Project GR
Level 35
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
7,236
hi, really good map but its hard playing single. is there an option for singleplayer difficulty?
This map can be easily played solo, especially when you hire a mercenary.

You just can't do any bosses unless significantly overleveled. Quests and creeps should be no problem at all.
 
Level 3
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Sep 5, 2015
Messages
43
It really sucks to not find any games when my time is GMT +08 and i only play from 2pm to 5pm (sometimes till 7pm) . It also really sucks to have a new players and have the time zone to play with other people , having to get all their characters to 50 faster than someone who played longer than them but do not have the time zone to play with other people. Only on weekends and holidays that i can play till 1am. I did not know that this rpg factors timezone "luck" also. I have accepted rng but timezone "luck" really? lol. (im not saying that this rpg really bad , im just saying that it really sucks to not play after 7pm in my time)
 
Last edited:
Level 35
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Oct 9, 2006
Messages
6,392
Huh? Not sure how amount of players in different time-zones is the maps problem? And whats with the timezone luck? As in when you can find players like any other game or do you mean that some drops are based on actual time of day? Because then you can just change your computers time settings.

EDIT: So tried to play it, and couldn't. Seems to be some problem somewhere.
 
Last edited:

Zwiebelchen

Hosted Project GR
Level 35
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
7,236
It really sucks to not find any games when my time is GMT +08 and i only play from 2pm to 5pm (sometimes till 7pm) . It also really sucks to have a new players and have the time zone to play with other people , having to get all their characters to 50 faster than someone who played longer than them but do not have the time zone to play with other people. Only on weekends and holidays that i can play till 1am. I did not know that this rpg factors timezone "luck" also. I have accepted rng but timezone "luck" really? lol. (im not saying that this rpg really bad , im just saying that it really sucks to not play after 7pm in my time)
I have literally no idea what you are talking about with "timezone luck".

If you are referring to the game lobbies not being filled at certain times of the day, that is hardly the maps fault, isn't it?

If you refer to item drops being bound to your time zone, then lol, how do you even expect me to code something like this? This is not only impossible to do, but also completely nonsensical.
 
Level 35
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Messages
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If you refer to item drops being bound to your time zone, then lol, how do you even expect me to code something like this? This is not only impossible to do, but also completely nonsensical.

Nah, come on, it makes perfect sense to code item drops to be based on your computers local time :grin: I mean how else could you possibly get a random curve for items :mwahaha:
 

Dr Super Good

Spell Reviewer
Level 63
Joined
Jan 18, 2005
Messages
27,180
WC3 probably uses local time of the server to determine the RNG seed when starting a session. Host robots can probably use other random sources. That said the impact of seed and likely granularity of the local time sampling would be such that any correlation with drops when starting at a certain time of day is purely down to luck rather than the way the RNG is selected. Further more the slightest change in input sequence during play can cause the RNG to generate completely different results.
 
Level 35
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Okay got the map to work. Must say, that for single player usage it doesn't scale well. The wizard is utterly boned, while the ranger has some chance. Still it is very slow going, with few abilities being accessible early on. I would also have preferred a penalty on items or less frequency for dropping items not of my class when playing single player, it becomes a choir to constantly having to switch to storage and then back again.

Also townportals doesn't appear to work correctly. I could only ever teleport to Riverside, and it should really come with a "are you sure" button, as it was somewhat irritating to be teleported to riverside, when I actually wanted to enter my soul vault, due to a missclick.

I like the terrain a lot, with the many details and interesting custom models (fish and eels on tables, light house, trebuche and so forth. Also the spider queen area filled with atmosphere). The customization options, and weapons with a visual change to the hero. Finally the variety of quests is good. That however brings me to another point: One should be able to skip dialog.. it keeps going and going, leading me to just click the accept button to get and utterly ignore the story, which is a shame. But with how long it takes to finish, and being unable to hear anyone else while they are talking..So yea, some function to skip text.

And also for quests, add a ping function, that would be extremely helpful. I cannot remember the names of a cave, so I have to run around to several caves just to find it. Its okay for more randomly placed things, but specifically named spots needs an indicator.

I assume its an anti cheat system or something? But it is very very frustrating to finally kill a fairly high level monster, just to have it give zero exp.

Monster spawns should to be fair, check if player is near, before re-spawning. Having finally kill something and preparing to heal, only to have something else spawn right next to you, is well bad.

The vault guide/help mentions moving items to the vault. He didn't and couldn't as I didn't have a storage.

I might have missed it with the text taking a fairly long time, and no simple quest being added about the soul vault, but how and at what rate does the soul rank up? Something that is never explained. I would also love some form of indicator as to their bonus, like an aura?

I enjoy the rest mechanic, although as it was never explained by text, I actually restarted before realizing it was there.

I dislike the large amount of grinding required to move on. I mean, you need lvl 16 to get pointed to another town, but you already reach the town when you are not even lvl 10. Might be slightly different with a group, but still you would be halted by the higher leveled monsters not providing any exp.

The game never explained where the personal storage one buys is located (its in the vault), but it should be mentioned.

So yea, you can play it solo, but it takes a long long time to get anywhere, several quests are level locked (somewhat understandable) and you find yourself just grinding and grinding the same units until you finally can get the quest, so killing the guy actually does something.

You can get quest items before you get a quest.. not that it matter that much, but somewhat confusing.

I find the item system way way too restrictive. I mean you have the awesome dice roll mechanic, but as basically each class have their own stuff with little sharing in the lower levels, it serves no purpose.

I mean, why can't the archer use anything other than leather - like say cloth? Mana potions can't be sold, a dagger cannot be used. I would highly prefer some negative effects due to for instance an archer in chain mail, than picking up 6 mails in a row, with my archer. Rings and Gloves overlap? So one cannot wear a glove and any other accessory. If you could wear two accessories then I could see it working, but one? Again it feels restricted.

Then skills, at first I thought "Wow awesome, I can actually buy skills for other character types", but no. Its just there to taunt the fact that one only has 2 skills for a vast majority of the initial play. And with no progression for your hero other than items (that you mostly can't use), talents (level locked from lvl 10 and then each fifth with just a passive bonus) and then some auto level system, which has an overall effect on how strong and effective you are, but you don't really feel it the same way because it just happened. It feels like getting a skill book, not a level, so for me the only actual levels was when I could finally get a talent.
I believe that to be a shame, as I would really focus on getting some early progression into the game to draw in the player and give them a reason to grind.

Still this is from a solo player perspective. Lot of potential in this and consider this things I would recommend from a game developer stand point, as a map compared to other wc3 maps it is great.

Oh yea, one final thing: In caves, the lighting can make the road appear to be dead ends due to shadow and fog of war, which can confuse the player. More torches or light sources perhaps, although I mostly thought that way for the initial bandit cave (where the guy you save, really should vanish after you leave).
 

Zwiebelchen

Hosted Project GR
Level 35
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
7,236
Okay got the map to work. Must say, that for single player usage it doesn't scale well. The wizard is utterly boned, while the ranger has some chance.
With mercenaries, the differences between the classes become negligible in solo play. Hire a merc when you want to play alone.

Still it is very slow going, with few abilities being accessible early on. I would also have preferred a penalty on items or less frequency for dropping items not of my class when playing single player, it becomes a choir to constantly having to switch to storage and then back again.
So you want everything on the silver platter? This is not how ORPGs work imho.

Also townportals doesn't appear to work correctly. I could only ever teleport to Riverside, and it should really come with a "are you sure" button, as it was somewhat irritating to be teleported to riverside, when I actually wanted to enter my soul vault, due to a missclick.
If you click the wrong one, nothing prevents you from clicking the right one afterwards. The cooldowns are not shared.

I like the terrain a lot, with the many details and interesting custom models (fish and eels on tables, light house, trebuche and so forth. Also the spider queen area filled with atmosphere). The customization options, and weapons with a visual change to the hero. Finally the variety of quests is good. That however brings me to another point: One should be able to skip dialog.. it keeps going and going, leading me to just click the accept button to get and utterly ignore the story, which is a shame.
There's a big button on the upper left of your keyboard labeled 'esc' ...

And also for quests, add a ping function, that would be extremely helpful. I cannot remember the names of a cave, so I have to run around to several caves just to find it. Its okay for more randomly placed things, but specifically named spots needs an indicator.
This is an oldschool RPG. I don't like modern "holds your hands" RPGs, so, no, no pings or visual indicators for quest goals.

I assume its an anti cheat system or something? But it is very very frustrating to finally kill a fairly high level monster, just to have it give zero exp.
This is to prevent people from exploiting mob AI or get trained to level up ridicolously fast.

Monster spawns should to be fair, check if player is near, before re-spawning. Having finally kill something and preparing to heal, only to have something else spawn right next to you, is well bad.
Could be exploited easily. Stick to the roads if you want to rest; monsters never spawn there.

The vault guide/help mentions moving items to the vault. He didn't and couldn't as I didn't have a storage.
So... how exactly is it an issue then? Obviously, it only moves a storage there when you have one.

I might have missed it with the text taking a fairly long time, and no simple quest being added about the soul vault, but how and at what rate does the soul rank up? Something that is never explained. I would also love some form of indicator as to their bonus, like an aura?
You can see their bonuses in the stats tab on the multiboard. Just click the "minimize" button of the multiboard once to display it. Souls gain xp whenever the hero gains xp from kills.

I enjoy the rest mechanic, although as it was never explained by text, I actually restarted before realizing it was there.
The rest mechanic will be removed in the next release and replaced with out-of-combat health/mana regen.

I dislike the large amount of grinding required to move on. I mean, you need lvl 16 to get pointed to another town, but you already reach the town when you are not even lvl 10. Might be slightly different with a group, but still you would be halted by the higher leveled monsters not providing any exp.
Leveling doesn't take long in this game. There is always a couple of options for same-level monsters in the game. I planned to add some repeatable quests in the future for those that need some more variety in lowlevel, though. But normal quests pretty much cover all XP needs up to level 25 if you are not playing alone. It's just solo play that is a bit more grindy.

The game never explained where the personal storage one buys is located (its in the vault), but it should be mentioned.
It's either in the town or in the vault if you have one. You can easily find it by checking out the minimap.

So yea, you can play it solo, but it takes a long long time to get anywhere, several quests are level locked (somewhat understandable) and you find yourself just grinding and grinding the same units until you finally can get the quest, so killing the guy actually does something.

You can get quest items before you get a quest.. not that it matter that much, but somewhat confusing.
Quest items drop as soon as one player in your game has the quest active. Otherwise they won't drop, so Idk what you are talking about.

I find the item system way way too restrictive. I mean you have the awesome dice roll mechanic, but as basically each class have their own stuff with little sharing in the lower levels, it serves no purpose.
This is to keep the save codes small. I don't like it either, but there is no other way until blizzard allows us to save and load files from the hard drive.

So one cannot wear a glove and any other accessory. If you could wear two accessories then I could see it working, but one? Again it feels restricted.
Again, save/load restrictions to save code length. No other way unfortunately. I'll remove that as soon as blizzard gives us a better option to save data.

Then skills, at first I thought "Wow awesome, I can actually buy skills for other character types", but no. Its just there to taunt the fact that one only has 2 skills for a vast majority of the initial play. And with no progression for your hero other than items (that you mostly can't use), talents (level locked from lvl 10 and then each fifth with just a passive bonus) and then some auto level system, which has an overall effect on how strong and effective you are, but you don't really feel it the same way because it just happened. It feels like getting a skill book, not a level, so for me the only actual levels was when I could finally get a talent.
I believe that to be a shame, as I would really focus on getting some early progression into the game to draw in the player and give them a reason to grind.
The ability system will be changed in the next update to be based on levels.

Oh yea, one final thing: In caves, the lighting can make the road appear to be dead ends due to shadow and fog of war, which can confuse the player. More torches or light sources perhaps, although I mostly thought that way for the initial bandit cave (where the guy you save, really should vanish after you leave).
Well, that's kind of the point of caves, right? Exploring...
 
Level 35
Joined
Oct 9, 2006
Messages
6,392
Just going to expand what I meant a little better and reply to your post.

With mercenaries, the differences between the classes become negligible in solo play. Hire a merc when you want to play alone.

I am aware, but you only meet them at town, so before that the Wizard being very low damage had a hard time surviving, even more so as for some reason one of the wolfs kept chasing (which I initially thought all did, but no, they get reset, so might have been a minor bug). Still I tested the wizard out before I realized the rest mechanic, so that would have changed things, still my point was more that the game isn't made for single player. In the sense that the problem I mention only exist for the solo experience.

So you want everything on the silver platter? This is not how ORPGs work imho.

Oh no :smile: Just less time consumption on the same action. The comment is actually the one I expanded on later, and you replied to. Like why the item system is limited and so forth. Also keep in mind that this is again from a solo perspective, where you do not have a social dynamic to keep you going, so you require some feedback, which isn't provided all that much as of now. However the mentions of a reworked ability system will do a lot to alleviate that problem. Most of my comments in this regards, is in relation to good game design, and not for an easier game.

If you click the wrong one, nothing prevents you from clicking the right one afterwards. The cooldowns are not shared.

The cooldown is not the issue, being teleportet to Riverside when I was just about to talk to a merchant after having finished the trade routes, and having to go the entire way again is :wink:

There's a big button on the upper left of your keyboard labeled 'esc' ...

But you never write it. Its again, game design with ensuring that every bit of info is in there. It is good that it is there, but you need to make sure the player is aware of it.

This is an oldschool RPG. I don't like modern "holds your hands" RPGs, so, no, no pings or visual indicators for quest goals.

No handholding is fine, but then you need to do what those old school RPGS did and write more. The quest talks about a cave, then place that description in relation to something the player knows. Like say: Go to the caverns near Riverside or I lost my package running away from thunderhawks through a corn field. A bit more info so the exploration still has an indication as to where things might be. That both feels more natural and makes much more sense from a game creation perspective.

This is to prevent people from exploiting mob AI or get trained to level up ridiculously fast.

I figured, but then just have it give something.. say the same amount of exp or slightly less. Nothing feels out of place and again isn't that great from a design perspective. And I mean, I managed to solo a lvl 20 as lvl 16, and I got nothing out of it. A group would have a lot easier time taking one down, and still get nothing?

Could be exploited easily. Stick to the roads if you want to rest; monsters never spawn there.

In caves yes, I am uncertain as to how having them re-spawn while you are waiting is less exploitable, as that is the very mechanic that allows people to spawn camp and this exploit the hell out of the game. Instead having it check for nearby players and not spawn units, is a whole lot less exploitable. Also there is several points on the road where the monsters spawn is located so close to the road that they will attack you.

So... how exactly is it an issue then? Obviously, it only moves a storage there when you have one.

Because he says he already moved some items there.. What items? He couldn't have moved any items, nor did he. I know it is meant to be part of the joke, but it makes no sense and could be confusing. Either a check for having a storage or just make it a more general explanation saying you can get a personal storage in the vault. That would solve two problems at once.

You can see their bonuses in the stats tab on the multiboard. Just click the "minimize" button of the multiboard once to display it. Souls gain xp whenever the hero gains xp from kills.

Figured about the souls, but again never really explained. Maybe one could imagine a system where offensive got exp from your hero attacking and defensive from taking hits. I mean, it might seem obvious, but still needs to have a tooltip - What you have written above for instance could be the tooltip. Its the lack of those that is my main point for that comment. Because the vault system is damn cool, and it deserves to be even better. In regards to scoreboard, yea I noticed, but people love visuals - having those rare souls actually show an effect on your hero of some-kind would add that extra "wow" to the whole thing. Because it is a shame that you hardly notice it.

The rest mechanic will be removed in the next release and replaced with out-of-combat health/mana regen.

Hmm, I would actually suggest keeping some variation of it. Maybe for the healing of summons or something. Because the idea is nice.

Leveling doesn't take long in this game. There is always a couple of options for same-level monsters in the game. I planned to add some repeatable quests in the future for those that need some more variety in lowlevel, though. But normal quests pretty much cover all XP needs up to level 25 if you are not playing alone. It's just solo play that is a bit more grindy.

Yea, it is likely the solo experience, because when you cannot complete bosses before being a lot high level and for instance cannot take on the bandit cave again before being way higher level, even with both a merc and summon, then you cannot get the quest exp. As the rest is locked that means you can only complete 4 quests (I believe: Wolf hunt, Boy's quest, reach town, first part of bandit) before being stuck.

It's either in the town or in the vault if you have one. You can easily find it by checking out the minimap.

Yea, but it still needs a tooltip, as it is never explained. So when you have a vault you just buy it and then nothing. A small text or a quest-log saying where to find it, would just be better.

Quest items drop as soon as one player in your game has the quest active. Otherwise they won't drop, so Idk what you are talking about.

I might be wrong about it, but I found a wizard hat, which I thought was the item I needed for the quest I later got from that color switching child. Still you can kill quest targets without the quest giver ever acknowledging you did so already - having that happen would be an awesome extra.

This is to keep the save codes small. I don't like it either, but there is no other way until blizzard allows us to save and load files from the hard drive.

Again, save/load restrictions to save code length. No other way unfortunately. I'll remove that as soon as blizzard gives us a better option to save data.

Ahh yea, I can see the issue. I played the elemental ORPG (I believe the name was) with its ton of items, race mixing and everything and yea, the codes could get fairly long, but not unreasonably so. I dunno if they use a different save/load system, but it worked rather well. Maybe an idea to look at? Though I have a fairly limited experience with those systems.

The ability system will be changed in the next update to be based on levels.

Sounds great.

Well, that's kind of the point of caves, right? Exploring...

Yep, but then you would normally also have things to add illumination, like say torches. As you don't, I actually wandered into several dead ends and almost left the cave because I couldn't see that there was a path. Only thing making me realize it was the quest and the assumption that it must be in there. A simple torch or something would solve it and make more sense from a story perspective. I mean why would the bandits live in an utterly dark cave?

But yea, as always keep in mind that my comments are from a solo experience.
 

Zwiebelchen

Hosted Project GR
Level 35
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
7,236
I am aware, but you only meet them at town, so before that the Wizard being very low damage had a hard time surviving, even more so as for some reason one of the wolfs kept chasing (which I initially thought all did, but no, they get reset, so might have been a minor bug). Still I tested the wizard out before I realized the rest mechanic, so that would have changed things, still my point was more that the game isn't made for single player. In the sense that the problem I mention only exist for the solo experience.
Mages have absolutely no problem soloing everything in the starting zone even without a merc, except for the (group)bosses obviously.

Oh no :smile: Just less time consumption on the same action. The comment is actually the one I expanded on later, and you replied to. Like why the item system is limited and so forth. Also keep in mind that this is again from a solo perspective, where you do not have a social dynamic to keep you going, so you require some feedback, which isn't provided all that much as of now. However the mentions of a reworked ability system will do a lot to alleviate that problem. Most of my comments in this regards, is in relation to good game design, and not for an easier game.
This game is not grindy at all when compared to other rpg maps. In fact, you can get pretty much everything very fast. Many people run 1-40 in less than 3 hours gameplay.

The cooldown is not the issue, being teleportet to Riverside when I was just about to talk to a merchant after having finished the trade routes, and having to go the entire way again is :wink:
The teleport is inside a spellbook. There is no "accidental" activation unless you are a complete retard.

But you never write it. Its again, game design with ensuring that every bit of info is in there. It is good that it is there, but you need to make sure the player is aware of it.
Pressing esc to skip dialogue in WC3 is common sense as that is how the campaigns handle it. Seriously.

No handholding is fine, but then you need to do what those old school RPGS did and write more. The quest talks about a cave, then place that description in relation to something the player knows. Like say: Go to the caverns near Riverside or I lost my package running away from thunderhawks through a corn field. A bit more info so the exploration still has an indication as to where things might be. That both feels more natural and makes much more sense from a game creation perspective.
All the questgivers are either positioned in the zone of action or point you into the right direction when using "talk".

I figured, but then just have it give something.. say the same amount of exp or slightly less. Nothing feels out of place and again isn't that great from a design perspective. And I mean, I managed to solo a lvl 20 as lvl 16, and I got nothing out of it. A group would have a lot easier time taking one down, and still get nothing?
If you kill a level 20 when level 16, you get XP, so I don't know what you are talking about.

In caves yes, I am uncertain as to how having them re-spawn while you are waiting is less exploitable, as that is the very mechanic that allows people to spawn camp and this exploit the hell out of the game. Instead having it check for nearby players and not spawn units, is a whole lot less exploitable. Also there is several points on the road where the monsters spawn is located so close to the road that they will attack you.
It would be counter-intuitive. What if people wait next to a specific mob they want to grind and wonder why it doesn't respawn? Limiting the spawns around players is another mechanic that would be needed to be explained. Which might be fine to you, since you seem to be a person that needs everything explained in golden letters, but many people (including me) like intuitive designs that don't need explanations.

Because he says he already moved some items there.. What items? He couldn't have moved any items, nor did he. I know it is meant to be part of the joke, but it makes no sense and could be confusing. Either a check for having a storage or just make it a more general explanation saying you can get a personal storage in the vault. That would solve two problems at once.
The message is there to remind people that this is what happens when they have a stash. Changing the message depending on if the stash exists or not would confuse those players that buy a stash afterwards. Again, something that would need to be explained and I don't like that.

Figured about the souls, but again never really explained. Maybe one could imagine a system where offensive got exp from your hero attacking and defensive from taking hits.
That would suck giant balls, as certain classes will get hit more often than others, etc.
Also, how would that be any more intuitive than just let them gain XP when your hero gains XP?

I mean, it might seem obvious, but still needs to have a tooltip - What you have written above for instance could be the tooltip. Its the lack of those that is my main point for that comment. Because the vault system is damn cool, and it deserves to be even better. In regards to scoreboard, yea I noticed, but people love visuals - having those rare souls actually show an effect on your hero of some-kind would add that extra "wow" to the whole thing. Because it is a shame that you hardly notice it.
Yeah, and then when everything adds up, your hero glows like a giant colored lightbulb? No thanks, really. It's bad enough that the legendary soul auras take up so many slots in the buff list.

Yea, it is likely the solo experience, because when you cannot complete bosses before being a lot high level and for instance cannot take on the bandit cave again before being way higher level, even with both a merc and summon, then you cannot get the quest exp. As the rest is locked that means you can only complete 4 quests (I believe: Wolf hunt, Boy's quest, reach town, first part of bandit) before being stuck.
There are mobs in every level range. If you finish the starting area, the boars (level 9) are your next target. You can skip any open world bosses and dungeons and still have a consistent leveling play if you just progress from zone to zone naturally. Yes you cant complete the group quests, but that is kind of the point, isn't it? You can just move on without completing it, it doesn't really matter.

Yea, but it still needs a tooltip, as it is never explained. So when you have a vault you just buy it and then nothing. A small text or a quest-log saying where to find it, would just be better.
Like with the ESC thing, I can expect the players using the minimap as is common sense.

I might be wrong about it, but I found a wizard hat, which I thought was the item I needed for the quest I later got from that color switching child. Still you can kill quest targets without the quest giver ever acknowledging you did so already - having that happen would be an awesome extra.
You can only find the wizard hat after accepting the quest. If you got it before doing so, this is a bug and I'll add it to the list.

Ahh yea, I can see the issue. I played the elemental ORPG (I believe the name was) with its ton of items, race mixing and everything and yea, the codes could get fairly long, but not unreasonably so. I dunno if they use a different save/load system, but it worked rather well. Maybe an idea to look at? Though I have a fairly limited experience with those systems.
With all due respect, but the amount of stuff that is saved in Gaias is WAY LARGER than what you have in elemental ORPG.
And I don't really see the need for extending the items towards non-optimal choices anyway; this would just lead to ninja-looting in multiplayer games.

Yep, but then you would normally also have things to add illumination, like say torches. As you don't, I actually wandered into several dead ends and almost left the cave because I couldn't see that there was a path. Only thing making me realize it was the quest and the assumption that it must be in there. A simple torch or something would solve it and make more sense from a story perspective. I mean why would the bandits live in an utterly dark cave?
The cave is fairly well lit and every bandit has his own light circle.
Check out if your graphic settings are off; because there is a bug with omnilights on low light quality settings.

But yea, as always keep in mind that my comments are from a solo experience.
Maybe you should play it multiplayer before we go on with this discussion. This is an ORPG, after all. If it were meant to be played solo, it would be a singleplayer map and I would have more freedom to implement story elements.
Consider the solo part of Gaias as just an added bonus. It's not meant to replace multiplayer games.
 
Level 35
Joined
Oct 9, 2006
Messages
6,392
You are missing my point. Its not about "if you can", its a question about the core gameplay loop, the flow of combat, UI and basic gameplay elements and good ideas for game design. Consider this a game designer (and yes.. I am) trying to advice you, as to what could make your map great. Its not because I couldn't do it, its game design 101.
Also sorry if I come across as a little grumpy in the following, I get somewhat caught up in the discussion, so it might. Its mostly because I see potential.

So I'll try again to explain, because I really feel that this could be an epic map, as it has a solid foundation.

Mages have absolutely no problem soloing everything in the starting zone even without a merc, except for the (group)bosses obviously.

Yea, but if you solo it, it takes time. When you are playing solo, waiting 60 seconds for a revive doesn't make sense. Heck even when playing in a group, 1 minute is a very long time to start out with. You want people to immediately be invested in it, if you want to have high player retention. E.g consider making it scale to hero level.

Take a map I just played, called Sunken City - it checked if you were playing single player, and then added an extra unit to help. Also it had a high degree of customization for difficulty level. It also did something else that is extremely good: It introduced every basic function clearly. It used colored text to bring special notification to certain key presses. Not just plain white text, as you will tend to zone it out - which is shame given the effort put into it.

This game is not grindy at all when compared to other rpg maps. In fact, you can get pretty much everything very fast. Many people run 1-40 in less than 3 hours gameplay.

The grind is not the problem, the problem is the way the grind works. Something which a new ability system will help no doubt. However as it is not there yet, I can only comment on the current. And the current one is a fairly lack luster combat. Shoot, wait for 1 or two cooldowns pending on class, and repeat. This could work, and of course is different in a group. But there is basic problems present. For instance: The flaming arrow agro the monster, meaning that it will stop fighting your merc/summon and attack you. This is however not mentioned in the tooltip. This is also not something you can deal with if you do not have another thing to agro it with, as hitting it does not create agro (although it might randomly change target), so what you do is you run... and then it gain invulnarability when it begins to return, so you cannot attack it again, and of course full health. I know why you have done it, but it is not a good solution. It punishes the player for trying to use tactics other than stay close and keep hitting it. A primary philosophy of game design is that you need to reward the player, not punish. I mean, in the current map, you can have a situation where you almost killed the boss, you have pulled him slightly away from his starting spot.. your ranged hero then shoots something at him that makes it target your hero, he goes outside his range and baam, he is going back, invulnerable and full health. Some random other ideas would be to keep the health, make it regenerate at rates similar to the hero or slightly more when it moves back / Teleport it back or whatever. I would need to do some gameplay testing to see what would be better. Heck, make its range larger with the health regeneration, and you would still have a system that didn't punish as hard.

The teleport is inside a spellbook. There is no "accidental" activation unless you are a complete retard.

Or you want to enter your vault.. as it is right next to the townportal... Its the most basic thing in design: Do not place two very very different options right next to each other without any form of check. I mean, going to the vault places you somewhat back where you were, taking the townportal does not. Both are located right next to each other in that "spellbook". Hence why you can fairly easily missclick.

Pressing esc to skip dialogue in WC3 is common sense as that is how the campaigns handle it. Seriously.

No again it is not. It is common sense to click esc to skip movie dialog. Where it is in the letterbox. When you can freely move your hero around the map, it is not common to be able to skip text dialog. Actually that is very uncommon. The action most people have learned with esc is that it exits the current program, or at least opens the menu. Therefor it makes sense that you press escape to skip a movie/letterbox dialog in Wc3, it does not make sense to press esc to skip white floating text. I have actually in +10 years of playing Warcraft never seen or heard that before, and I have played a lot of maps. And heck even if it was common, you still need to write it somewhere. Always assume the player does not know it. Heck design your map to be able to inform anyone who haven't tried a custom map before how it works. It is in your own absolute interest, as it ensures that every player knows what to do, that in turn creates a better experience for all the players, and make them play more.

All the questgivers are either positioned in the zone of action or point you into the right direction when using "talk".

I hope you are seeing the irony here... first talk about skipping the text dialog, then saying that the only information about where to find certain quests is given in said dialog. This is exactly the reason why it should be written in the quest log as well. That's basically why you have the quest dialog. Find A in some named cave is not enough. If you wrote e.g: Find A in some named cave somewhere between the city of riverside and the lumber camp, then suddenly you have map directions. You have something the player can identify and feel part of the world, not just a random interloper and it would be way way more intuitive, because that is what just about every player is used to. Making something intuitive means that you follow common themes, meaning tooltips for actions when you move your mouse over them, quest dialog give actual useful information, skipping dialog when starting a new conversation and so forth. All things we have gotten used to.

As for when they are standing right next to the objective, well that's fine - but still put the info in the quest log, because who says the players will take that objective first? Maybe they want to go do something else first and then they have to remember where they got that quest.

If you kill a level 20 when level 16, you get XP, so I don't know what you are talking about.

I can only say I didn't and that I find that system fundamentally flawed. Again punishing the player, instead of rewarding them for a feat. Take Witcher 3; Yes you can attack any monster in there if you want. But if you try to take on something that is significantly higher level than you, it gets buffed and you pretty much get reked. Still, be good enough and you might beat it, earning yourself a reward earlier and some extra exp. That makes for some intense fights and in case of a social game like the yours; it makes the team fight and communicate much more. Its like a raid.. the raid boss is tougher than all of you, but heck if you beat it you get a reward.

Imagine how much Wow would suck, if you after beating a boss got zero rewards and exp because you were one level lower than some arbitrary requirement.

As for the reason: What is it really? The only reason I can actually see for this is to prevent cheats to level faster. I say, then just do as again sunken city did and put in a simple cheat prevention system. If it is to prevent power-leveling, well then it isn't needed. The time they spend to kill one high level, likely doesn't give enough exp to outdo killing several slightly lower level creatures + that also gives increased item chance.

It would be counter-intuitive. What if people wait next to a specific mob they want to grind and wonder why it doesn't respawn? Limiting the spawns around players is another mechanic that would be needed to be explained. Which might be fine to you, since you seem to be a person that needs everything explained in golden letters, but many people (including me) like intuitive designs that don't need explanations.

No, again your are completely missing the point. Making something intuitive requires you to use common, often used systems and explain things that might not be as obvious. You have done neither. Your system is not intuitive. Yes, you know how to do things because you already know the map. A new player will not. You always need to design the map to be new player friendly (and if you are smart; put in some means to skip those introductions for experienced players). Limiting spawns or not, requires the same explanation: On line of text saying either: Yes they spawn no matter where you are or no, they don't spawn in a circle around you. It is also not counter-intuitive as the most common thing now a days is to have monsters spawn off-screen. Unless it is a MORPG, without instances, where they due the amount of players are forced to use the respawn system. However you have a limited amount of players and can as such make use of the much better system, you see in just about any good game. Say Left for Dead 2, does the monsters respawn right next to you?? No.

It is not about "golden letters", it is about introducing the map you made. Explaining things early makes for a better gameplay experience. Why else do you think that most games have a tutorial level, or games have some introduction levels? For fun? I mean heck, even basic FPS games have tutorial even if most players would already know how to do things - hence why you can skip tutorials in most good games.

The message is there to remind people that this is what happens when they have a stash. Changing the message depending on if the stash exists or not would confuse those players that buy a stash afterwards. Again, something that would need to be explained and I don't like that.

Or say the much more obvious choice: Explain it in either a quest log about the stash, or.. when you buy it. Explaining things before you have access to something is not a good idea. Usually you get the explanation for a new thing when you acquire it, not before. Say, how often will you find an explanation in how you jump in a game before you can? An exaggerated example: Imagine playing counterstrike, and it said: To jump press the spacebar.. and when you pressed the spacebar, nothing happened? You would likely start to believe there was an error or you were missing something.

That would suck giant balls, as certain classes will get hit more often than others, etc.
Also, how would that be any more intuitive than just let them gain XP when your hero gains XP?

That was meant as an example as to how it might be misunderstood, not something you should do. Again the point is, that when you introduce a new system, explain it. And if you believe that to me irrelevant; place it in the quest log, where all such explanation usually have a home.

Yeah, and then when everything adds up, your hero glows like a giant colored lightbulb? No thanks, really. It's bad enough that the legendary soul auras take up so many slots in the buff list.

Yea, if you moronically added a glow effect to every single buff and had them stack.. which I doubt you would. The point is not to have one for everything. It is to make the gameplay and combat interesting. Currently the only interesting visuals in the entire game is the abilities. You have some nice visuals with changing gear, but it makes little to no difference in how the combat feels. Imagine that when you got new bow, the arrow you shot was different. When you equipped a different type of soul, that would affect you in some way, e.g slightly red light for offensive or whatever. That servers a dual purpose: It makes your ally mates have a quick reference as to what is happening with you and it makes the core gameplay loop of leveling and acquiring items much much more interesting. As that is the only thing you actually do in the game, that needs to be damn solid. Heck, that is why there is so many items in WOW, so many abilities and every single one has a visual. Wc3 can't really do much for the item appearance unless you want huge file size, but you can still do yours to make them feel more unique. I mean I got a special bow, equipped it and it looked and felt exactly like before, even more so since I was now fighting tougher enemies so the increase in stats didn't really show (other than the fact that I could fight them of course). You need to put simple: Pimp it up and early on. Again that vital player retention: Something DOTA nailed, hence the popularity

There are mobs in every level range. If you finish the starting area, the boars (level 9) are your next target. You can skip any open world bosses and dungeons and still have a consistent leveling play if you just progress from zone to zone naturally. Yes you cant complete the group quests, but that is kind of the point, isn't it? You can just move on without completing it, it doesn't really matter.

The sentence: It doesn't really matter, is a big part of the problem. Because that is exactly it: nothing you do in this game really feels like it matters. The quest givers don't really look like they give a shit, monsters still respawn, items doesn't do anything other than passive bonuses and well, you can keep killing, but there is so many other maps that does it better or worse. So what exactly is the reason to play? Yea, I can go to another leveling range, but I have little to look forward to for the next several levels, and even then its a passive bonus. You don't feel awesome (something the class upgrade might change, can't say haven't tried them) - and what there might be to make you feel awesome comes far far too late. I mean, why would I spent 3 hours to finally feel something interesting was happening in the game, when I could use 5 minutes in another map and feel the same?

Honestly I only continued playing the map hoping to get another town-portal, something that never happened. (You never replied to that, is that something that should happen, one town-portal for the entire map, the the zone far away from the rest?).

Like with the ESC thing, I can expect the players using the minimap as is common sense.

Again, showing you know your map too well, and don't look at it from another's perspective. A common design error, but still a problem. I don't look at the minimap for my storage.. why because usually it is in the HUD, or in case of your map I have clearly seen I can access a storage bag on the side, that is not visible. Yes, there has been other maps that have marked it on the minimap.. and then told you they did.

Also there is several icons on the minimap, none of them explained: which one is your storage; did you notice you suddenly got another icon on it? Are you constantly looking at your minimap when you buy something expecting it to show on the minimap in wc3? It is not common sense.. it is very far from it. What would be common sense is a small tooltip or floating text and quest log, saying: You bought a stash, you can find it on your minimap, or in this or that area. That would be common sense.

Just like removing the option to buy another upgrade for the stash, when you can't buy more, would be common sense.

Yes, for you it is common sense. For others who are already used to the map, it is common sense. But in general it is not common sense. Your whole: I want intuitive gameplay have very little meaning if you do nothing to further it. Yes, old games back before 2000 had the same errors and yes, people overcame them. But do you know why video games are getting more and more popular, because we have moved away from the trend of just doing stuff and hope someone will figure it out.

You can only find the wizard hat after accepting the quest. If you got it before doing so, this is a bug and I'll add it to the list.

If so, then likely it could just have been another wizard hat not related to the quest. I couldn't say.

With all due respect, but the amount of stuff that is saved in Gaias is WAY LARGER than what you have in elemental ORPG.

What do you save? Because I see only a need to save: Items, class, abilities, soul, level. That's it. But this is an area I cannot say anything about as I do not know, nor have I sen the internal working of it. So I'll just take your word for it and say it is a shame that you can't make it more fluid. (And given the point you made, I assume it doesn't save from the backpack, because if it does, then I don't see a reason not to allow you to pick up items with your main inventory).

And I don't really see the need for extending the items towards non-optimal choices anyway; this would just lead to ninja-looting in multiplayer games.

Fair point. Still would like to be able to pick up stuff with main, I mean you already have the system in place where if you can use the item, but already have one of the type it auto-collects to backpack. Something similar for items you can't use would be great.

The cave is fairly well lit and every bandit has his own light circle.
Check out if your graphic settings are off; because there is a bug with omnilights on low light quality settings.

I run everything on max, but my gamma was as wc3 for some reason prefer, set low. Likely the reason for my problem.

Maybe you should play it multiplayer before we go on with this discussion. This is an ORPG, after all. If it were meant to be played solo, it would be a singleplayer map and I would have more freedom to implement story elements.
Consider the solo part of Gaias as just an added bonus. It's not meant to replace multiplayer games.

I agree and it is completely fair. However most of the points I have made applies to improved gameplay for both multilplayer and singleplayer. Only the aspects of scaling to singleplayer and difficulty is what I meant with my disclaimer.

As always, any points you want some better examples for, better explanations or maybe ideas. Just write and I'll try to expand/revise my statement/reason. :wink:
 
Level 3
Joined
Sep 5, 2015
Messages
43
It really sucks to not find any games when my time is GMT +08 and i only play from 2pm to 5pm (sometimes till 7pm) . It also really sucks to have a new players and have the time zone to play with other people , having to get all their characters to 50 faster than someone who played longer than them but do not have the time zone to play with other people. Only on weekends and holidays that i can play till 1am. I did not know that this rpg factors timezone "luck" also. I have accepted rng but timezone "luck" really? lol. (im not saying that this rpg really bad , im just saying that it really sucks to not play after 7pm in my time)
OK so maybe i didnt explain what "timezone luck" properly. What i meant by "timezone luck" was that players played after 7PM in my time (GMT +8) and i could only play from 2-7PM . What i mean by timezone luck was that people from other countries could play at their preferred time where there are actually players. So new players which have the "correct" timezone to play with other players gets characters to level 50 faster than me which makes me a bit mad . Im just saying when i talk about the rpg factoring timezone that it depends on where you live and when youre allowed to play. I have those type of parents.(sry for bad English + misconceptions :thumbs_up:)
 

Zwiebelchen

Hosted Project GR
Level 35
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
7,236
You are missing my point. Its not about "if you can", its a question about the core gameplay loop, the flow of combat, UI and basic gameplay elements and good ideas for game design. Consider this a game designer (and yes.. I am) trying to advice you, as to what could make your map great. Its not because I couldn't do it, its game design 101.
Also sorry if I come across as a little grumpy in the following, I get somewhat caught up in the discussion, so it might. Its mostly because I see potential.

So I'll try again to explain, because I really feel that this could be an epic map, as it has a solid foundation.
Great that you see "potential" and a "solid foundation" in a map that is not only around for 7 years, has a DC rating and a huge fanbase to begin with.

Not trying to be a smartass here, but who exactly are you to give me advice on game design anyway? Do you have any references to point me to? Or released any good indie games?

There's absolutely nothing wrong in voicing your opinion; but please don't try to sell your opinion as a general rule to be taken for a fact when it is clearly just an opinion.
It undermines your credibility.

Yea, but if you solo it, it takes time. When you are playing solo, waiting 60 seconds for a revive doesn't make sense. Heck even when playing in a group, 1 minute is a very long time to start out with. You want people to immediately be invested in it, if you want to have high player retention. E.g consider making it scale to hero level.
Mages have the strongest nukes in the game. Killing creeps with a mage is a matter of seconds. I don't get why it "takes time" at all.

Take a map I just played, called Sunken City - it checked if you were playing single player, and then added an extra unit to help. Also it had a high degree of customization for difficulty level. It also did something else that is extremely good: It introduced every basic function clearly. It used colored text to bring special notification to certain key presses. Not just plain white text, as you will tend to zone it out - which is shame given the effort put into it.
Comparing an action-orientated dungeon crawler with an MMO-orientated RPG map. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. *facepalm*

The grind is not the problem, the problem is the way the grind works. Something which a new ability system will help no doubt. However as it is not there yet, I can only comment on the current. And the current one is a fairly lack luster combat. Shoot, wait for 1 or two cooldowns pending on class, and repeat.
Yeah. Let's criticize a game mechanic that has been a staple of the MMO genre for decades and is pretty much built into the engine anyway, since Bnet delays would make button mashing combat annoying as fuck and combine it with the baseless accusation of this game being grindy (when it's clearly not, as you can reach max level in <4 hours of gameplay anyway), to prove a point that doesn't exist to begin with.

This could work, and of course is different in a group. But there is basic problems present. For instance: The flaming arrow agro the monster, meaning that it will stop fighting your merc/summon and attack you. This is however not mentioned in the tooltip.
This is not mentioned in the tooltip because this is not how it works.

This is also not something you can deal with if you do not have another thing to agro it with, as hitting it does not create agro (although it might randomly change target), so what you do is you run... and then it gain invulnarability when it begins to return, so you cannot attack it again, and of course full health. I know why you have done it, but it is not a good solution. It punishes the player for trying to use tactics other than stay close and keep hitting it.
So, wait, as you basicly revealed that you never played World of Warcraft at this point AND compared this map to Sunken City, let me ask you this: are you sure you know what kind of genre this map is?

A primary philosophy of game design is that you need to reward the player, not punish. I mean, in the current map, you can have a situation where you almost killed the boss, you have pulled him slightly away from his starting spot.. your ranged hero then shoots something at him that makes it target your hero, he goes outside his range and baam, he is going back, invulnerable and full health. Some random other ideas would be to keep the health, make it regenerate at rates similar to the hero or slightly more when it moves back / Teleport it back or whatever. I would need to do some gameplay testing to see what would be better. Heck, make its range larger with the health regeneration, and you would still have a system that didn't punish as hard.
Working. as. intended. If I wanted players to kill bosses by kiting and abusing the world geometry, I would have made this a fucking maze map, not a team-oriented ORPG. Because that's the point of team games: you win by playing as a team, not by playing alone and using the horrible collision mechanics of WC3 to your advantage.

Or you want to enter your vault.. as it is right next to the townportal... Its the most basic thing in design: Do not place two very very different options right next to each other without any form of check. I mean, going to the vault places you somewhat back where you were, taking the townportal does not. Both are located right next to each other in that "spellbook". Hence why you can fairly easily missclick.
If you opened the townportal spellbook, chances are you intended to teleport somewhere. And in this case it does not matter if you misclick, as you can always "correct" your choice afterwards.
You don't accidentally port away from your position. You just accidentally have to use two teleports instead of just one. A confirmation prompt would be just additional annoyance, not convenience.

No again it is not. It is common sense to click esc to skip movie dialog. Where it is in the letterbox. When you can freely move your hero around the map, it is not common to be able to skip text dialog.
Yeah, because this is not how it's done in the campaign, right?

Actually that is very uncommon. The action most people have learned with esc is that it exits the current program, or at least opens the menu.
Okay, seriously, at this point I really wonder if you ever played any computer games before. I really do. Because almost all the games I played used ESC as the universal skip mechanic for anything related to instructions, dialogue, text or cinematics.
If you want to skip dialogue in a game you just bought, you ALWAYS try esc first. It's literally the first thing you try.

Therefor it makes sense that you press escape to skip a movie/letterbox dialog in Wc3, it does not make sense to press esc to skip white floating text. I have actually in +10 years of playing Warcraft never seen or heard that before, and I have played a lot of maps.
So, in 10 years of playing Warcraft, you never noticed that this is how it is done in the campaigns? You never noticed that the removal of transmission text is even HARDCODED to Esc to begin with (seriously, you can not even turn that off in the editor)?

And heck even if it was common, you still need to write it somewhere.
Yeah. You are probably one of those guys that needs to be told that a coffee is hot.

Always assume the player does not know it. Heck design your map to be able to inform anyone who haven't tried a custom map before how it works. It is in your own absolute interest, as it ensures that every player knows what to do, that in turn creates a better experience for all the players, and make them play more.
Okay. Look; this map exists for over 7 years now. It has been played for hundreds of thousands of times. Never ever did anyone ever ask me how to skip dialogue. NEVER. Why? Because it's friggin' ESCAPE! Literally gaming 101!

I hope you are seeing the irony here... first talk about skipping the text dialog, then saying that the only information about where to find certain quests is given in said dialog. This is exactly the reason why it should be written in the quest log as well. That's basically why you have the quest dialog. Find A in some named cave is not enough.
Okay; first: most quests DO have the direction mentioned in the quest dialog.
Second: You can always visit the quest giver again and talk to him again; the dialogue can always be reviewed.
Third: The point of NOT giving a direction is the same why I don't give map markers: because it is fucking exploration content.

I get it. You don't like exploration. But I do. And this is my game after all. And luckily many people agree with me that it's nice to not have everything presented to you on the silver platter.

If you wrote e.g: Find A in some named cave somewhere between the city of riverside and the lumber camp, then suddenly you have map directions. You have something the player can identify and feel part of the world, not just a random interloper and it would be way way more intuitive, because that is what just about every player is used to. Making something intuitive means that you follow common themes, meaning tooltips for actions when you move your mouse over them, quest dialog give actual useful information, skipping dialog when starting a new conversation and so forth. All things we have gotten used to.
All things we have been spoonfed.
I'm an oldschool gamer. I played RPGs back in the Infinity Engine days where there weren't any map pings or direction arrows or anything of that shit. And back then the games had MILLIONS of dialogue lines, not just some cheap voice acted hollywood shit of modern era.
I hate what RPGs have become.
I'd rather die than to make players adhere to these disgusting "new gameplay standards" we are so sick of anyway (otherwise indie games wouldn't sell so well).
Seriously, we put A LOT of work into the quest dialogue. Guess what, I WANT players to read it. That's why I even had voice actors speak these lines.

I can only say I didn't and that I find that system fundamentally flawed. Again punishing the player, instead of rewarding them for a feat. Take Witcher 3
You mean that ACTION ADVENTURE Witcher 3? The SINGLEPLAYER game that is in no way designed for MULTIPLAYER PURPOSES?
Exhibit A:
Yes you can attack any monster in there if you want. But if you try to take on something that is significantly higher level than you, it gets buffed and you pretty much get reked. Still, be good enough and you might beat it, earning yourself a reward earlier and some extra exp. That makes for some intense fights and in case of a social game like the yours; it makes the team fight and communicate much more. Its like a raid.. the raid boss is tougher than all of you, but heck if you beat it you get a reward.
Yeah... maybe they tried to beat a challenge way before they were supposed to. Or they just got trained by a higher level player and/or took the easy route of exploiting the landscape geometry ... oh pardon, I meant "using a different tactic".
Seriously, if you don't see the purpose of limiting the XP gain from monsters 5(!) levels above the player, you have clearly never played an MMO to begin with.

Imagine how much Wow would suck, if you after beating a boss got zero rewards and exp because you were one level lower than some arbitrary requirement.
HAHAHAHAHAHA, funny that you say that, because this is exactly how it works in WoW. You get most XP if the monster is exactly your level. Not only is it pretty much impossible to kill outside of your level range (due to arbitrary attack maluses), but if you get help by a higher level player, you won't get any XP for it anyway.

You still get the drops. But that's how it happens in Gaias aswell.

I say, then just do as again sunken city did and put in a simple cheat prevention system. If it is to prevent power-leveling, well then it isn't needed. The time they spend to kill one high level, likely doesn't give enough exp to outdo killing several slightly lower level creatures + that also gives increased item chance.
Let me just stay here ... in silence, mouth open, being in awe about your naivity if you truly believe that cheat prevention in WC3 is possible.

No, again your are completely missing the point. Making something intuitive requires you to use common, often used systems and explain things that might not be as obvious. You have done neither. Your system is not intuitive. Yes, you know how to do things because you already know the map. A new player will not. You always need to design the map to be new player friendly (and if you are smart; put in some means to skip those introductions for experienced players). Limiting spawns or not, requires the same explanation: On line of text saying either: Yes they spawn no matter where you are or no, they don't spawn in a circle around you. It is also not counter-intuitive as the most common thing now a days is to have monsters spawn off-screen. Unless it is a MORPG, without instances, where they due the amount of players are forced to use the respawn system. However you have a limited amount of players and can as such make use of the much better system, you see in just about any good game. Say Left for Dead 2, does the monsters respawn right next to you?? No.

It is not about "golden letters", it is about introducing the map you made. Explaining things early makes for a better gameplay experience. Why else do you think that most games have a tutorial level, or games have some introduction levels? For fun? I mean heck, even basic FPS games have tutorial even if most players would already know how to do things - hence why you can skip tutorials in most good games.
... so you basicly acknowledge that seasoned players skip tutorials for being annoying as fuck, then criticize me for not wasting time on a tutorial everyone would skip anyway, since anyone still playing WC3 at this point would probably know how these games work?
Forgive me if I can't quite follow that logic.

Also, better have a consistant system with no magic variables that can not be exploited and nobody ever complained about for 7 years, than an inconsitant system that not only needs explanation, but can also be exploited easily.

Or say the much more obvious choice: Explain it in either a quest log about the stash, or.. when you buy it. Explaining things before you have access to something is not a good idea.
The vault is loaded on a seperate save. The game can under no circumstance know if you have a working vault or not before you loaded it.
Either way, it makes sense to tell the player about the stash no matter if he loaded or did not load the vault.

That was meant as an example as to how it might be misunderstood, not something you should do. Again the point is, that when you introduce a new system, explain it. And if you believe that to me irrelevant; place it in the quest log, where all such explanation usually have a home.
This is why there is an NPC inside the vault that explains how it works. I don't get your point.

Yea, if you moronically added a glow effect to every single buff and had them stack.. which I doubt you would. The point is not to have one for everything. It is to make the gameplay and combat interesting. Currently the only interesting visuals in the entire game is the abilities. You have some nice visuals with changing gear, but it makes little to no difference in how the combat feels. Imagine that when you got new bow, the arrow you shot was different.
This is what happens when you equip elemental enchanted weapons. It serves gameplay purpose and changing the effect for non-enchanted weapons for purely visual fluff would pointlessly confuse players.

When you equipped a different type of soul, that would affect you in some way, e.g slightly red light for offensive or whatever. That servers a dual purpose: It makes your ally mates have a quick reference as to what is happening with you and it makes the core gameplay loop of leveling and acquiring items much much more interesting.
Legendary souls add buffs. Again, I use SFX when it matters for the gameplay and leave them out if it serves no other purpose.
Players already complained about certain battles being too SFX-laden. Adding buff SFX to items would certainly NOT help with that.

Again, you fail to understand that this is a teamplay-orientated map. Any SFX that does not convey a clear meaning would be a distraction from the game and make chaotic battles harder to handle. Players don't like SFX spam in multiplayer games. That's why WoW has such barebones effects and why many professional FPS players play with reduced visual effects.

As that is the only thing you actually do in the game, that needs to be damn solid. Heck, that is why there is so many items in WOW, so many abilities and every single one has a visual. Wc3 can't really do much for the item appearance unless you want huge file size, but you can still do yours to make them feel more unique. I mean I got a special bow, equipped it and it looked and felt exactly like before, even more so since I was now fighting tougher enemies so the increase in stats didn't really show (other than the fact that I could fight them of course). You need to put simple: Pimp it up and early on. Again that vital player retention: Something DOTA nailed, hence the popularity
DOTA doesn't even HAVE item models to begin with. What the fuck are you even talking about?

The sentence: It doesn't really matter, is a big part of the problem. Because that is exactly it: nothing you do in this game really feels like it matters. The quest givers don't really look like they give a shit, monsters still respawn, items doesn't do anything other than passive bonuses and well, you can keep killing, but there is so many other maps that does it better or worse. So what exactly is the reason to play? Yea, I can go to another leveling range, but I have little to look forward to for the next several levels, and even then its a passive bonus. You don't feel awesome (something the class upgrade might change, can't say haven't tried them) - and what there might be to make you feel awesome comes far far too late. I mean, why would I spent 3 hours to finally feel something interesting was happening in the game, when I could use 5 minutes in another map and feel the same?
Dude, why are you even playing this map if you clearly don't like the concept of social ORPGs to begin with?
What do you expect me to do about that? Scrap the entire map and program it from scratch just to appeal to you? Don't you see how ridicolous you are right now?

Honestly I only continued playing the map hoping to get another town-portal, something that never happened. (You never replied to that, is that something that should happen, one town-portal for the entire map, the the zone far away from the rest?).
You unlock new town portals after reaching certain levels.

Again, showing you know your map too well, and don't look at it from another's perspective. A common design error, but still a problem. I don't look at the minimap for my storage.. why because usually it is in the HUD, or in case of your map I have clearly seen I can access a storage bag on the side, that is not visible. Yes, there has been other maps that have marked it on the minimap.. and then told you they did.
Hm ... You know what? I'll add an additional line in the tooltip that the stash moves to the vault if you have it active. Fair point. It takes just a minute and if that is enough to make you happy, sure, why not?

Just like removing the option to buy another upgrade for the stash, when you can't buy more, would be common sense.
Technical reasons.

What do you save? Because I see only a need to save: Items, class, abilities, soul, level. That's it.
XP, talents, gold, MCs, QUESTS (yeah, you probably didn't notice that, right?) and some game settings. Plus, you say that as if it is *just* items. That is 700 different items at 24 available slots. 700^24 combinations from just the items alone, NOT including the stackable materials which add another 30^6 + 10^6.
You can do the maths on your own...

But this is an area I cannot say anything about as I do not know, nor have I sen the internal working of it. So I'll just take your word for it and say it is a shame that you can't make it more fluid. (And given the point you made, I assume it doesn't save from the backpack, because if it does, then I don't see a reason not to allow you to pick up items with your main inventory).
It saves from the backpack just fine. The reason you can not pick up items with your main inventory is because if would be confusing as fuck to have "disabled" and "enabled" items in your inventory, as in only one of each type grants stats for being equipped.

Fair point. Still would like to be able to pick up stuff with main, I mean you already have the system in place where if you can use the item, but already have one of the type it auto-collects to backpack. Something similar for items you can't use would be great.
I had that before, but people didn't like it, as new players tended to grab equipment without thinking about it twice.
The way it is now has been proven to be the better solution.
 
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-snip-
Not trying to be a smartass here, but who exactly are you to give me advice on game design anyway? Do you have any references to point me to? Or released any good indie games? There's absolutely nothing wrong in voicing your opinion; but please don't try to sell your opinion as a general rule to be taken for a fact when it is clearly just an opinion.
It undermines your credibility.

Could start quoting game design books, but not much point (As those points are pretty much general rules (though pending on genre, here your game being a 4 player coop as I see it (and not an MMO as you see it))). Still, I was the one that came across as the smartass with that beginning to the post, although it was intended to explain why I was so focused on tooltips and rewards.

Mages have the strongest nukes in the game. Killing creeps with a mage is a matter of seconds. I don't get why it "takes time" at all.

Ignoring the leveling now, as I believe we established this will never be meant to be solo played. Hence the revive point.

Comparing an action-orientated dungeon crawler with an MMO-orientated RPG map. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. *facepalm*

Only compared one thing which you can fairly easily compare for every game: Well done introduction to core functions and good UI. As for the types of game, yea... they have some differences and plenty of similarities. Had I compared it to say..RTS or a simulator, I would agree with the facepalm :smile:

Yeah. Let's criticize a game mechanic that has been a staple of the MMO genre for decades and is pretty much built into the engine anyway, since -snip-

Difference being that I don't see your map as an MMO, as it is not. It has far fewer players. Its a team coop game. As such it could gain something from being more than just what most MMO's have done. Anyway I forgot to mention last that I would recommend having the abilities used in combat to be the ones visible right as the hero is selected, instead of inside a subsection, given that they are the abilities most used, and the rest is used less frequent.

This is not mentioned in the tooltip because this is not how it works.

Then that would be a bug I found then. As every time the flaming arrow hit, the monster not matter what would instantly be agro'ed to the archer.

-snip-let me ask you this: are you sure you know what kind of genre this map is?

For the genre I consider it to be yes :grin: But I have also played other MMO's, so while I were never the huge WoW player, I would say yes. Still you don't have thousands or just say; 80 player raids in the map.

Working. as. intended. If I wanted players to kill bosses by kiting and abusing the world geometry, -Snip-

I get the idea, but I can't help wonder if there isn't a better solution to it, other than the straight up: Bam full health, invulnerable. It is tough, given the limits of Wc3.

-snip-
You don't accidentally port away from your position. You just accidentally have to use two teleports instead of just one. A confirmation prompt would be just additional annoyance, not convenience.

So going to the vault would teleport me back to where I was, after I teleportet to the start city? Keep in mind I am talking about wanting the enter the vault, not take a teleport to another city (where yes it would just be a simple matter to correct it).

Yeah, because this is not how it's done in the campaign, right? -Snip- So, in 10 years of playing Warcraft, you never noticed that this is how it is done in the campaigns? You never noticed that the removal of transmission text is even HARDCODED to Esc to begin with (seriously, you can not even turn that off in the editor)?

Okay, you made me doubt my memory, given how long its been since I played the campaign, so went back and checked. My memory was correct: You can only skip text when the game is in the letterbox mode (that is, by the way, also what is coded into the game - leave the letterbox mode/cinematic with esc), you cannot however skip floating text. Also the floating text in the campaign is matched to a colored name, making it very clear who is saying what. So my point stand, it is not the common action.

-snip- played used ESC as the universal skip mechanic for anything related to instructions, dialogue, text or cinematics.
If you want to skip dialogue in a game you just bought, you ALWAYS try esc first. It's literally the first thing you try.

Yea, and no. The problem is that those things where you press esc is situations where you a somehow locked into the scene. What you have, is what in other games would be background chatter, if you had enabled subtitles. You don't normally assume that clicking esc while you can run around in the map would skip any dialog that was currently going on. How often haven't you just clicked esc to leave, and still heard the guy keep talking while you leave? Usually he gets muted by distance though.

What I am trying to say is that, if the dialog was in a letterbox it would be the natural action to click esc for skip.. however it is not. Its like chat messages or quest updates, you don't normally press esc to skip those.

Yeah. You are probably one of those guys that needs to be told that a coffee is hot.

Okay. Look; this map exists for over 7 years now. It has been played for hundreds of thousands of times. Never ever did anyone ever ask me how to skip dialogue. -snip-

No, because people either waited for it, or knew the map or just didn't care to comment about it. Other than that, yes esc is the common action for similar things in many games. Not in Wc3 though and not in that setting :wink:

-snip- Third: The point of NOT giving a direction is the same why I don't give map markers: because it is fucking exploration content.

It would make much more sense story wise, to give a new adventurer directions when asking for help. Also giving hints to where stuff is, is fairly old school (with exceptions). Say, Ultima - while the main char might not know, he can direct you to one that might know more, or you will have to find one that can help, with some hints to help. That would be exploration, and padding, but they had limited space. As to that, more about the while skip thing later.

I get it. You don't like exploration. But I do. And this is my game after all. And luckily many people agree with me that it's nice to not have everything presented to you on the silver platter.

Actually I love it, as attempted to explain in the beginning of the post, its not that I had a problem with it, its that I can see how a new player or one less inclined to randomly wander or whatever, would have a problem + how I saw it as a way to improve. I have yet to finish skyrim after 500 hours+ because I keep doing side-quests and exploration (might never finish it, given new games coming out and lack of time).

I'm an oldschool gamer. -snip-
I'd rather die than to make players adhere to these disgusting "new gameplay standards" we are so sick of anyway -snip-
Seriously, we put A LOT of work into the quest dialogue. Guess what, I WANT players to read it. That's why I even had voice actors speak these lines.

And I feel the same, heck grew up with them. But not all the new is bad and some of the old stuff was just due to sheer need for padding and lack of space. What I want, and what I see in many indie games and some larger, is the good combination of the two. Shovel knight for instance takes the old stuff, but also makes use of the new possibility and it creates a much better game for it. I love that there is dialog, and I love reading it. I should explain why I even got into the skip thing: Because I read fast, so for me, the dialog I had already read just became a wall preventing me from reading the next. I would have loved to skip it after I finished reading, to go to the next part. Or if I clicked the guy who had nothing new to say, I could talk the the person I wanted without having to wait pointlessly. Hence also why I care that the guy you rescued never left the cave and just stayed there, why I argue that the quest givers doesn't seem to give a fuck. I mean move a little around now that some problem have been solved. I mean yes, MMO's have set a terrible precedence, that luckily is being somewhat changed as of late, in regards to story telling. With actions that should be glorious being repeated by players standing in line to do it, with dialog and quests becoming meaningless sources of exp and nothing else and thus the story ignored as you repeat the same quest for the 100th time to get that special rare mount or something. Guild Wars made an effort to change things and others are trying/doing similar things because they want the effort put into the story to matter.

That is why I am arguing for tutorials about how to skip stuff, making the npc's react and to have directions in there. To make it feel, if you will more real. Yes, I could take physical notes from the dialog as we used to, but honestly - I don't really see the need to do that in our time. So do not misunderstand.


You mean that ACTION ADVENTURE Witcher 3?

As previous: A game made for one thing, can still have a mechanic that can be used for another. Heck, even making them impossible to beat would solve it. See later in post.

-snip-
Seriously, if you don't see the purpose of limiting the XP gain from monsters 5(!) levels above the player, you have clearly never played an MMO to begin with.
-snip- if you get help by a higher level player, you won't get any XP for it anyway.

You can easily powerlevel with help from a higher level player in wow.. Say for instance get a druid to heal you and spam buffs, never touching the mobs. Enjoy all that lovely exp, oh and also from quest of course. Its not that I don't see the purpose, I just believe there is a better method, hence the mention of the single player game. But you were right I forgot the crucial thing when I wrote this, the saved accounts (kept considering all being in the same starting level each game). That would make it a fairly complex thing to do as I suggested, as you would have to check levels of any nearby players and then change accordingly. Would be awesome, but I get why you didn't.

Let me just stay here ... in silence, mouth open, being in awe about your naivety if you truly believe that cheat prevention in WC3 is possible.

Yea, terrible the way I worded it.. I only meant towards wc3 built-in cheats.

... so you basicly acknowledge that seasoned players skip tutorials for being annoying as fuck, then criticize me for not wasting time on a tutorial everyone would skip -snip-

Some noob guide or anything like the wouldn't waste time, and would instead help players not having to explain everything to a new player. The person might be new to wc3, it is still getting new players, he might not have played for a while or more importantly: He/she might never have played your map before, and not everything happening is bug standard, heck even if it is, having instructions is always a good idea. A quest log, with a single floating text as the map loads, saying: look here for help and you would have done most of it.

Also, better have a consistent system with no magic variables that can not be exploited -snip- This is what happens when you equip elemental enchanted weapons. It serves gameplay purpose and changing the effect for non-enchanted weapons for purely visual fluff would pointlessly confuse players. -snip- Legendary souls add buffs. -snip- Players don't like SFX spam in multiplayer games. -snip-

I am unsure why you would need to change the system? You mentioned you already are changing it (abilities) which pending on how it turns out will solve most of this issue. My point is not about creating another system, nor is is about adding a whole bunch of visuals, it is to provide more rewards early on, even if those rewards are just in visuals as an example. I mean, I was happy when I got the soul, because something awesome was going on, but was slightly disappointed when the soul was basically just a passive I didn't even notice much. I don't want a blast of SFX, but say when I first entered a town and found people selling abilities, only to discover I couldn't buy a single one nor did it make sense to buy any of them, I was disappointed.
I'll try to explain: Currently (at the start) when you level up you gain nothing, but a passive upgrade, when you get items you get a passive update - you don't gain more things to play with. This goes back to what I said about the combat. Say when you hired a merc you decided what abilities he used, suddenly you had added more nuance to the game. You gained something. If you had a choice as to what nature summon you would make, that would be a tactical choice and make combat more interesting.

This is the reason for my Dota example; say you get a level and suddenly you can throw a chain to hook people, that is awesome, it is a tactical option and you feel like you really gained something. Yea, you also got some buffs to stats, but that isn't what you notice. When you get gold, you get items, that can change your abilities, and you constantly see where they can bring you next with combinations, giving you something to look forward to. In a card game, you gain new cards - its not just a matter of the same cards you already have that becomes slightly better. That would be boring. In wow, yea, they don't have that "explosive" sfx's, but they have a ton of ability and gear. And you can see the gear on your person, again an instant reward - which you also have, but its wc3 so its fairly limited for the most part - still awesome though, hence why I quickly began to love those items I could see change something, like a hat. Its all just a matter of giving the player something that makes him/her feel like the earned something for the effort. Gaining a good item for a quest is good, but if the exp it gave also worked towards unlocking my next different ability or upgrade my current to do something new, then it would be a lot more exciting. Currently the game is mostly passive for the vast majority of the beginning, with a harsh punishment for dying. That might very well put people off, and as such my mention of player retention.

To make you believe I am not talking out of my ass, I've attached to segments about retention, regarding punishments and rewards to improve the gaming experience and keep players interested.


The vault is loaded on a separate save. The game can under no circumstance know if you have a working vault or not before you loaded it.
-snip-
Hm ... You know what? I'll add an additional line in the tooltip that the stash moves to the vault if you have it active. Fair point. -snip-

It helps, still would be easier to have the mention for at the stash shop - as you would then both avoid the issue of the vault and make everything clear. But minor gripe.

Dude, why are you even playing this map if you clearly don't like the concept of social ORPGs to begin with? What do you expect me to do about that? Scrap the entire map -snip-

No no :hohum: And I do like the concept of it, actually some of my favorites maps, your included. But adding a few tool-tips and consider when you are making the new ability system, the suggestions of retention would just make it an even better map, where it would be easier to get people to stay in the game, thus also easier to get a proper social game going :wink: Hence the suggestions.

You unlock new town portals after reaching certain levels.

So not when I actually enter the town as part of the quest? That is odd, I really did expect that after I got lvl 16, then talked to the sergeant in the huge city, that the town-portal would open. Guess that is something that could use a tool-tip :xxd:

Technical reasons. -snip- XP, talents, gold, MCs, QUESTS -snip- That is 700 different -snip- You can do the maths on your own...

Yea, that is very reasonable (I was just curious). And damn, nice amount of items.

I had that before, but people didn't like it, as new players tended to grab equipment without thinking about it twice.
The way it is now has been proven to be the better solution.

Ah okay, good to see the whole "new players not knowing enough about the game" affected something :wink: That is part of my point about some brief explanations (crafting, circles on floor, alchemy tables, armor types, shops (why not the blacksmith selling?), gaining new abilities). But yea, the system does prevent idiots from screwing around, but I would say they would be doing that just by being there, if they didn't play as a team and thus anyone with teammates doing that, wouldn't be able to play the map properly anyway.
 

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Zwiebelchen

Hosted Project GR
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I'll make this one a bit shorter, simply because this discussion went a bit out of its initial scope for a map discussion thread.

If you want this discussed in detail, I recommend you post it in the official forums instead, where this can be discussed with the entire community and not just the few people reading this thread:
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/gaias-retaliation-orpg-649/

A tutorial quest for this map is planned; it has been something that some people were requesting for a while now. The thing is, I haven't had the time to implement it yet and as this is a multiplayer game, the need for it just wasn't really that urgent.
Players on Bnet are always willing to explain stuff to new players.

Some of the core game mechanics like the threat system are explained in the quest log.

Then that would be a bug I found then. As every time the flaming arrow hit, the monster not matter what would instantly be agro'ed to the archer.
It's not a bug, it's the mob AI.
There is a threat mechanic in Gaias Retaliation that is similar to how it works in MMORPGs. That's what the bar in the upper right corner is for. There is a quick guide for it in the quest log.
If you played WOW, it works 100% the same.

For the genre I consider it to be yes :grin: But I have also played other MMO's, so while I were never the huge WoW player, I would say yes. Still you don't have thousands or just say; 80 player raids in the map.
The crucial difference between Gaias and Sunken City is:
Sunken City is designed for a static group. It expects players to play with the same team from start to end. That's why there is no code-based save mechanic in this game.
Gaias, on the other hand, is designed to be played with random players of any particular level and players can be freely interchanged.
This is a HUGE difference and is what seperates a co-op game from an ORPG.
Sunken City is co-op. Gaias is ORPG.

I get the idea, but I can't help wonder if there isn't a better solution to it, other than the straight up: Bam full health, invulnerable. It is tough, given the limits of Wc3.
It's the best solution I could come up with. Again, inspired by World of Warcraft. There is nothing wrong with learning from the best.

So going to the vault would teleport me back to where I was, after I teleportet to the start city?
No, but the vault wouldn't teleport you back to where you were anyway. It teleports you back to the last respawn point if you leave the vault.

Okay, you made me doubt my memory, given how long its been since I played the campaign, so went back and checked. My memory was correct: You can only skip text when the game is in the letterbox mode (that is, by the way, also what is coded into the game - leave the letterbox mode/cinematic with esc), you cannot however skip floating text. Also the floating text in the campaign is matched to a colored name, making it very clear who is saying what. So my point stand, it is not the common action.
Pressing ESC in the middle of a transmission will remove the text message from the screen in the campaigns.

It would make much more sense story wise, to give a new adventurer directions when asking for help. Also giving hints to where stuff is, is fairly old school (with exceptions). Say, Ultima - while the main char might not know, he can direct you to one that might know more, or you will have to find one that can help, with some hints to help. That would be exploration, and padding, but they had limited space. As to that, more about the while skip thing later.
If the NPC knows the direction, he will tell you in the dialogue. Often, quests have directions written in the quest log aswell. If it isn't particulary pointed out, then this is intentional as the NPC doesn't know where to look in this case.
Obviously, for example with the finding Casimir quest, there is no way the NPC asking you for that would know where he is. She still gives you a general direction with the thief cave, though.

I mean move a little around now that some problem have been solved. I mean yes, MMO's have set a terrible precedence, that luckily is being somewhat changed as of late, in regards to story telling.
You want me to change the world as players do quests but don't realize that this is impossible to do in a multiplayer game with non-shared quests.

Let's just say player A finishes the Casimir escort quest and player B is late to the party and tries to do it later on in the same session, but the NPC has already been removed? What now? Player B would be screwed over and everyone would have to remake the game just for player B to catch up.
THIS would be terrible game design, if you ask me.

The static world you see here (and in MMOs) is the result of the fact that not everyone can always be on the same page in an open world game where everyone can play on his own pace.
Sunken City can do this, as it is a true co-op game with non-interchanging players. Gaias, on the other hand, can't rely on that.
That is why I asked you if you understood the difference between co-op dungeon crawlers and ORPGs in the first place.


You can easily powerlevel with help from a higher level player in wow.. Say for instance get a druid to heal you and spam buffs, never touching the mobs. Enjoy all that lovely exp, oh and also from quest of course.
No you can not. You can only do that up to a certain point. After that, you just gain nothing from the kill, not even loot.
You can also not even see or accept quests way higher than your character level either.
World of Warcraft tries it's hardest to prevent you from doing stuff way before you should. And rightfully so, otherwise people would simply bypass all the lovely lowlevel content in the game to progress faster.

Yea, terrible the way I worded it.. I only meant towards wc3 built-in cheats.
There is already such a thing in place. You can not save your character if you play in singleplayer (so cheat codes are deactivated). If you truly want to play alone, you need to host the game as a local LAN session.

Some noob guide or anything like the wouldn't waste time, and would instead help players not having to explain everything to a new player. The person might be new to wc3, it is still getting new players, he might not have played for a while or more importantly: He/she might never have played your map before, and not everything happening is bug standard, heck even if it is, having instructions is always a good idea. A quest log, with a single floating text as the map loads, saying: look here for help and you would have done most of it.
Let's be perfectly honest here:
Those people that would desperately need such a tutorial will probably never do it. Players want to jump right into the action and want to figure it out as they go. It's maybe 5% of players that ever read game guides or do tutorials.

I prefer a clean game start without message and information overflow. Hence why many of the systems are level-locked (teleports, talents, abilities behind a paywall). This was made to ease the players into the general game concept first before introducing new elements to the game. In a way, the game already has a tutorial. Just that it isn't clearly pointed out that it is one. Everyone leveling from 1-10 learns new mechanics after a couple of levels:
- you start by killing stuff
- you get your first items and are either able to equip them or get an error message telling you if an item fits or doesn't fit
- you get your first reward item which might get placed in your backpack, introducing the backpack mechanic
- you enter the inn and smithery to figure out how shops work and that you can purchase new abilities
- you probably encountered your first boss by this time through quests and figure out that a red name means danger
- you encounter a quest that you are too low-level to accept, telling you that the game expects you to do content at appropriate level range
- you enter your first dungeon, getting introduced to the threat mechanics as you play in a group


it is to provide more rewards early on, even if those rewards are just in visuals as an example. I mean, I was happy when I got the soul, because something awesome was going on, but was slightly disappointed when the soul was basically just a passive I didn't even notice much. I don't want a blast of SFX, but say when I first entered a town and found people selling abilities, only to discover I couldn't buy a single one nor did it make sense to buy any of them, I was disappointed.
That's pretty much the nature of MMOs and "humble beginnings".
And believe me if I say that it doesn't even take long to find cool stuff in this game. You can find cool looking unique items as early as the first world bosses or dungeon.
Souls are a relatively young and new feature. They haven't been fully fleshed out yet anyway.
In a way, they are my take on randomized items, since randomized item stats are impossible to do with the unmodified WC3 engine.

I'll try to explain: Currently (at the start) when you level up you gain nothing, but a passive upgrade, when you get items you get a passive update - you don't gain more things to play with. This goes back to what I said about the combat. Say when you hired a merc you decided what abilities he used, suddenly you had added more nuance to the game. You gained something. If you had a choice as to what nature summon you would make, that would be a tactical choice and make combat more interesting.
The merc is not a core game mechanic. It's just meant as an emergency replacement for missing players. The game is intended to be played without mercs in a 4-5 player group.
Consider them a bonus for single player and two-player games.

This is the reason for my Dota example; say you get a level and suddenly you can throw a chain to hook people, that is awesome, it is a tactical option and you feel like you really gained something.
I can not give the player a new ability every time they level, for obvious reasons.
Again, this is not how MMOs work. This game is not meant to be played for 1 hour and then you've seen it all. It's a game designed for a much longer gamespan with changing players.

To make you believe I am not talking out of my ass, I've attached to segments about retention, regarding punishments and rewards to improve the gaming experience and keep players interested.
To be honest, I always belittle guys who write books about game design instead of ... well ... doing game design.
Do you think guys like Icefrog or TobyFox read books about game design?

So not when I actually enter the town as part of the quest? That is odd, I really did expect that after I got lvl 16, then talked to the sergeant in the huge city, that the town-portal would open. Guess that is something that could use a tool-tip :xxd:
The enter-town requirement was up to debate at first, but I scrapped the idea simply because there is hardly any point to that and it would have to be saved in the savecode aswell (which is not a huge problem, but still requires me to do another -comp import, which I have been doing way too much lately).

But yea, the system does prevent idiots from screwing around, but I would say they would be doing that just by being there, if they didn't play as a team and thus anyone with teammates doing that, wouldn't be able to play the map properly anyway.
It defeats the whole "but I can wear it too!" - "But it is clearly meant for my class, not yours" debacle from the ground up.

Plus, there is a very simple technical reason why Squires can not wear leather armor and vice versa: because the female armor textures would probably not quite fit a male character and I will absolutely not make male AND female variants of these textures just for a minor side feature that nobody would care about after reaching a certain point in character progression.
 
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I'll make this one a bit shorter, simply because this discussion went a bit out of its initial scope for a map discussion thread.
-snip-

Yea, attempted a short form as well, and thanks for the replies. I see where you are coming from, with the WoW inspiration, but I dislike WoW's method of doing things. It was based upon a need to do, more than a good to do idea. But yea, it clicked for many people. Calling the best, for being the largest is a stretch. Anyway I believe that most of what I wanted to give as feedback has been said. So yea, ending it here, and looking forward to the new features/ability system :wink:
 
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very nice map! how did you made this?

He likely used the world editor. You can find a lot of tutorials on this site, in case you are asking for how one creates wc3 maps. There is also plenty of resources, if you for instance want save/load system, specials spells and so forth. But I would recommend you begin with some basic tutorials about map making.
 
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