Goblin Exploration 3.56

[ShadowFiend]

nice map, but less player would play it, sad...

 

[Hoarfrost]

Hey there! It seems from the map description that this project is being actively developed, but that there has not actually been an update in quite some time. Is this still the case, or is the message out of date at this point?

 

[Midnighters]

It's been a while since I've worked on it, been extremely busy, but I am actually planning to open up and work on this a little more afain.

 

[chapetas]

It's been a while since I've worked on it, been extremely busy, but I am actually planning to open up and work on this a little more afain.

Please please plase!

I really love this map and it has a lot more potential left to be realized

 

[Midnighters]

If anyone is still actively, or passively following the thread of Goblin Exploration, I would like to show a few progress images to you all from the past few weeks.

Mainly, I have been cleaning up code, and working on using some of the new UI natives to create custom windows for Mode Selection, Hero Selection, and Alliances.

Here are a couple images of the Mode Selection screen thus far. This is done entirely with base game frames, no FDF [yet]

https://imgur.com/4h4vmK5

https://imgur.com/50fKXWd

 

[Midnighters]

Another little update, it's coming along really well, and will hopefully be fully functional very soon, with custom textures!

 

[Midnighters]

If anyone here watching isn't in Hives discord, I have been working constantly on UI elements for the GES update, this is the current progress for hero selection!

 

[Midnighters]

https://imgur.com/fGGf9Fl

A little update on the hero select screen!

 

[CapAd]

https://imgur.com/fGGf9Fl

A little update on the hero select screen!

Nice! We just played with 3 people today.
Pyromaniac, Trader and a Tinker.

It was quite fun, building all available stuff and exploring. Tho the amounts of items produced by deep mine, regenerating tree and flower garden were enormous and that mechanic probably needs to be reworked.
We played survival in coop with each other but it was a bit boring since there were no waves of enemies at all (got the usual base spot on the right side of the central continent. After exploring the entire map, killing meat golem and all other enemies (pyromaniac with level 20 can easily handle them all, too easy), plus there was no boss on the skeleton island/cave, boring. Building everything also took a lot of time, at the end we spent like... 4-5 hours on it.

There were minor problems such as sharing control wasn't working between me (red) and the others, but it worked between blue and teal. We had to build two separate skylabs because of that. Or sometimes disappearing materials without building anything.

The largest issues this map has:
1. Too large map. Three continents and an island. It takes too much time to move between them, especially if this is meant to be a competitive map. Plus most space in the desert was empty and boring. It should be at least 2x smaller I think. Or even 4x.

2. Everything takes too much time. Lacks dynamics, fluidity. The worst is checking F9/tooltips for info about materials needed for buildings. Gathering resources takes much time too. What I would suggest to fix this:
a) some way to automate gathering resources from nearby trees/rocks. Perhaps one free starting unit for every player, "Helper Bot" or something, with a few spells like "collect trees/lumber in 800 range" "collect rocks" "collect herbs" or "move resources from this place to target place" and automatically running away from monsters. When turned on, each of these spells would just keep ordering the robot to gather and stockpile in nearby piles (or create new piles of resources). Or keep running and moving resources to another place until it is all done. Bots also would be able to sort items into piles.
This way the players will be able to do other, more complex and less repetitive things with main heroes, like focusing on barricades, towers, buildings, crafting items, crafting units, hunting animals and monsters, fighting with other teams.
b) different crafting mechanic for things like screws, springs, items, robots etc. What I suggest: a spell for each of the crafting items in given buildings. Upon use, the spell orders our hero (needs to be nearby) to pick up all needed items from stockpiles in 1000 range and give it to the building in order to craft an item. Saves a lot of time and prevents the game from becoming too repetitive.
c) now, with easier gathering resources and crafting, it should be faster to set up a base and start fighting vs other teams. But you still need a faster way to get Mk1/2/3/4 fighting bots and TnT, to actually be able to somehow attack other teams and deal actual damage. Imagine how fun it would be to attack the other teams with 10+ bots after a few minutes of gameplay, not 1 bot dying in a few seconds like it is now. Or TnT. Explosions. Boom. Fun. Perhaps the recipes should produce many instances of items/units. Not 1 bot but 4+ of them. Same with TnTs (but make the explosions smaller, they look almost like nukes right now).

3. A different inventories for carrying resources and hero weapons/armor/accessories. It was tiring as a pyromaniac, having to drop my flamethrower, boots of speed and meat just to be able to build something. For example the same amount of slots for hero wearables for each hero and only a different amount of slots for resources, 2-10 or other amount depending on the hero, that's up to you.

Another idea: Procedural map generation, not sure if possible with cliffs though (even if not, still fun).
Or three different maps: Large map (not as large as now ofc, 2-4x smaller), Small Map and Procedurally Generated Small Map.

Another idea x2: Perhaps respawn trees and rocks, to prevent the need of exploring too far away in search of resources. Or do not respawn trees and give a way to plant tree seeds instead. Only respawn rocks in designated cluster areas (4-8 clusters available on map), with random ores inside, based on rarity of course, like 50% rock, 20% copper, 15% iron, 7% silver, 5% gold, 3% mithril. Or whatever percentages look better. But also have some non-respawning rare ores behind minibosses, mithril and gold (and have some non-respawning rocks in random places, like now but enough only for first few minutes). The players will need to protect the spawning clusters so enemies won't take the ores. Another fun mechanic. More competitive. Have you seen all these competitive maps that are going over the top with popularity lately? Like, Lumber TD, Zombie Defense by Frotty, they're all quick to play and don't have time-consuming mechanics like going 9000 kilometers away from your base to collect lumber. You need something easy to learn and play, matches shouldn't take more than 30 minutes to finish (at least in team vs team/FFA mode). Survival could also be fun to play, like, survive for 30 minutes vs waves of monsters.

Another idea x3: Change the "sleep" system used to regenerate life to something else, it is wayy to easy to just have a lot of tents nearby and regenerate life while the enemy is attacking you. Plus it's a bit boring. I mean, you have to come back to your base once in a while just to regenerate life. It's not a hard thing but time consuming and not really making the game more interesting. What I would suggest instead is to have eating and drinking potions as the only way to regenerate life. Easy to carry and use, but players need to worry about having enough sources of it to not die. Meat, cooked meat, rotten meat, fruits (growing fruit trees/bushes?), herbs. And they can't just use it to massively regenerate their life with enemies attacking, because of the cooldown.

Another idea x4: Catapults? Dealing huge damage to structures, but needs a rock (a rare boulder item?) placed to reload it. Or a TnT.

That's all from me. I know that it looks like a massive transformation of the map, especially with all these ideas implemented, and I don't know how it would play out if done, but I think it wouldn't be bad. Feel free to use all these ideas, or only some of them if you want. I'm sure you already thought about similar ones.

Overall the map is fun and interesting, only too time consuming.
I like the system of building structures the most, definitely don't take it away (gives a nice feel).
Good work, and I say this as a fellow mapmaker

 

[CapAd]

a) some way to automate gathering resources from nearby trees/rocks. Perhaps one free starting unit for every player, "Helper Bot" or something, with a few spells like "collect trees/lumber in 800 range" "collect rocks" "collect herbs" or "move resources from this place to target place" (...)

Hold on, I got a better idea, without such complex shenanigans hard to program.

Actually, that is multiple ideas, instead of the Helper Bot (I know, it makes it a bit more like PvP maps than exploration, but I'll just post it):

1. A sorting building to sort all nearby resources (or AoE spell) into piles. Could require some craftable item like "Processing Unit" .
2. Something like a "-drop" command, but in reverse - an ability with hotkey to grab all near resources, available for heroes and all units with inventories.
3. For lumber there are already shredders, just need to give the shredders one ability, to set stockpile point and automatically bring all gathered lumber and hardwood branches to that point.
4. Neutral human "Mining Outposts" controlled by the AI, at the rock cluster spawn places (4-8 per map, as already described above). The player needs to claim the outpost by killing all outpost guards (some militia, captain, shouldn't be too hard). Then the guards respawn at the outpost tent but allied to player (uncontrollable). The miners controlled by AI will attack rocks and collect ores, then send a caravan with ~20 or so gathered items to the stockpile point set by the player (caravans can pass through walls). Enemy team can reclaim the outpost by killing all guards again. Sounds a bit complicated but that is only programming it. In game it'll be just setting the stockpile point, so quite intuitive I think.
We don't need to wait for miners - can as well mine the rocks with our goblins (if we have time for such things).
Another idea to expand on above is for miners to require meat to work - players would need to supply the outpost tent with meat (would be less intuitive. Not a good idea).

+A better way to view resources required for buildings would be cool (right now we have to check F9). Even a tooltip on "Build" ability with all recipes would be enough.

 

[Midnighters]

Nice! We just played with 3 people today.
Pyromaniac, Trader and a Tinker.

It was quite fun, building all available stuff and exploring. Tho the amounts of items produced by deep mine, regenerating tree and flower garden were enormous and that mechanic probably needs to be reworked.
We played survival in coop with each other but it was a bit boring since there were no waves of enemies at all (got the usual base spot on the right side of the central continent. After exploring the entire map, killing meat golem and all other enemies (pyromaniac with level 20 can easily handle them all, too easy), plus there was no boss on the skeleton island/cave, boring. Building everything also took a lot of time, at the end we spent like... 4-5 hours on it.

There were minor problems such as sharing control wasn't working between me (red) and the others, but it worked between blue and teal. We had to build two separate skylabs because of that. Or sometimes disappearing materials without building anything.

I appreciate it greatly, but of course, since this was a group effort, I cannot take all the credit for the way it is now, however, I have been considering doing a lot of changes to some of the systems in game, since there have been some major updates to capabilities within the game since the "release" of warcraft 3 reforged. However, between streaming on twitch, working full time, and having a newborn baby, time has been tight to mess around with this and it has been on the back burner for a while.

The largest issues this map has:
1. Too large map. Three continents and an island. It takes too much time to move between them, especially if this is meant to be a competitive map. Plus most space in the desert was empty and boring. It should be at least 2x smaller I think. Or even 4x.

This has always been the biggest complaint from many people, and the thing that bothers me the most, but the map has remained fairly similar to how it is now, through all versions of the map, to current version. That is, short of adding a few new zones here and there. I feel if I go and massively start changing the map terrain that I might as well make a new map entirely.

2. Everything takes too much time. Lacks dynamics, fluidity. The worst is checking F9/tooltips for info about materials needed for buildings. Gathering resources takes much time too. What I would suggest to fix this:
a) some way to automate gathering resources from nearby trees/rocks. Perhaps one free starting unit for every player, "Helper Bot" or something, with a few spells like "collect trees/lumber in 800 range" "collect rocks" "collect herbs" or "move resources from this place to target place" and automatically running away from monsters. When turned on, each of these spells would just keep ordering the robot to gather and stockpile in nearby piles (or create new piles of resources). Or keep running and moving resources to another place until it is all done. Bots also would be able to sort items into piles.
This way the players will be able to do other, more complex and less repetitive things with main heroes, like focusing on barricades, towers, buildings, crafting items, crafting units, hunting animals and monsters, fighting with other teams.
b) different crafting mechanic for things like screws, springs, items, robots etc. What I suggest: a spell for each of the crafting items in given buildings. Upon use, the spell orders our hero (needs to be nearby) to pick up all needed items from stockpiles in 1000 range and give it to the building in order to craft an item. Saves a lot of time and prevents the game from becoming too repetitive.
c) now, with easier gathering resources and crafting, it should be faster to set up a base and start fighting vs other teams. But you still need a faster way to get Mk1/2/3/4 fighting bots and TnT, to actually be able to somehow attack other teams and deal actual damage. Imagine how fun it would be to attack the other teams with 10+ bots after a few minutes of gameplay, not 1 bot dying in a few seconds like it is now. Or TnT. Explosions. Boom. Fun. Perhaps the recipes should produce many instances of items/units. Not 1 bot but 4+ of them. Same with TnTs (but make the explosions smaller, they look almost like nukes right now).

I don't disagree that it takes a long time to reach certain points, but I also know that this was one of the core features the original authors intended to be there.

A] I won't say that I would completely change the progression rate, but there are definitely certain aspects that can be done differently to make it feel a bit more smooth. I am not sure about the automation process being available to all classes, perhaps something simple, but for advanced stuff I think that would fall in tinkers realm of specialty.

B] Added to this, I agree with the crafting recipes being a bit unimpressive and difficult for new players to understand. That's why with the ability to make custom UI's now, I have considered coding in custom crafting menus for individual buildings, but that would take some time, or bringing on someone that understands it more than me.

C] I know from the thousands of hours I have spent playing the map in testing, that sometimes it seems some move faster than others and simply demolish those who are "newer" or slower in progression, I don't know that making that faster to obtain will help balance it out but it's worth looking at.

3. A different inventories for carrying resources and hero weapons/armor/accessories. It was tiring as a pyromaniac, having to drop my flamethrower, boots of speed and meat just to be able to build something. For example the same amount of slots for hero wearables for each hero and only a different amount of slots for resources, 2-10 or other amount depending on the hero, that's up to you.

This is actually something I have been strongly considering reworking. I have thought about adding in a sort of RPG like inventory system to make the map feel more like an RPG, since it is technically one. Something that has mulktiple gear slots, and a larger, consistent sized bag, cross all characters. And an added bag system that allows you to add more space, but also takes "weight" into consideration, possibly affecting your movement. This would add another "survival" aspect you have to pay attention to.

Another idea: Procedural map generation, not sure if possible with cliffs though (even if not, still fun).
Or three different maps: Large map (not as large as now ofc, 2-4x smaller), Small Map and Procedurally Generated Small Map.

Another idea x2: Perhaps respawn trees and rocks, to prevent the need of exploring too far away in search of resources. Or do not respawn trees and give a way to plant tree seeds instead. Only respawn rocks in designated cluster areas (4-8 clusters available on map), with random ores inside, based on rarity of course, like 50% rock, 20% copper, 15% iron, 7% silver, 5% gold, 3% mithril. Or whatever percentages look better. But also have some non-respawning rare ores behind minibosses, mithril and gold (and have some non-respawning rocks in random places, like now but enough only for first few minutes). The players will need to protect the spawning clusters so enemies won't take the ores. Another fun mechanic. More competitive. Have you seen all these competitive maps that are going over the top with popularity lately? Like, Lumber TD, Zombie Defense by Frotty, they're all quick to play and don't have time-consuming mechanics like going 9000 kilometers away from your base to collect lumber. You need something easy to learn and play, matches shouldn't take more than 30 minutes to finish (at least in team vs team/FFA mode). Survival could also be fun to play, like, survive for 30 minutes vs waves of monsters.

For the first bit, look back at the first bit of the response.

As for the rocks and trees, I have actually already been working on something kind of like this. Not exactly respawning them in the same locations, but randomly spawning them throughout the map when one is destroyed. I've also been planning out potential new bosses, mini bosses, dungeons, and more, to actually give the players something to push to obtain gear and such for.

The waves mode has been kind of broke for a while now it seems, and has never been anything really amazing, it was one of the modes I had considered removing, but may rework entirely. As for teams mode, I feel that the beaty of the map has always been how people can just chill for hours and play. I think my longest game in the map was something like 9 hours straight. Obviously, I don't expect any sane "normal" person to spend that long, but it was fun at that point.

Another idea x3: Change the "sleep" system used to regenerate life to something else, it is wayy to easy to just have a lot of tents nearby and regenerate life while the enemy is attacking you. Plus it's a bit boring. I mean, you have to come back to your base once in a while just to regenerate life. It's not a hard thing but time consuming and not really making the game more interesting. What I would suggest instead is to have eating and drinking potions as the only way to regenerate life. Easy to carry and use, but players need to worry about having enough sources of it to not die. Meat, cooked meat, rotten meat, fruits (growing fruit trees/bushes?), herbs. And they can't just use it to massively regenerate their life with enemies attacking, because of the cooldown.

Another idea x4: Catapults? Dealing huge damage to structures, but needs a rock (a rare boulder item?) placed to reload it. Or a TnT.

I've thought about the food and water mechanic as well, still keeping the temparature and energy portion, the new UI ability will make this easier to implement, I believe.

That's all from me. I know that it looks like a massive transformation of the map, especially with all these ideas implemented, and I don't know how it would play out if done, but I think it wouldn't be bad. Feel free to use all these ideas, or only some of them if you want. I'm sure you already thought about similar ones.

Overall the map is fun and interesting, only too time consuming.
I like the system of building structures the most, definitely don't take it away (gives a nice feel).
Good work, and I say this as a fellow mapmaker

You seem to have many similar ideas that I have either thought of and threw out, or plan to implement myself, and a few I haven't thought about. I think every persons biggest complaint has always been the time required to play it in the past, but you have to also take into consideration, this map was released well over 10 years ago, when certain limitations were an issue.

With that being said, I greatly appreciate this huge review of the map, and I may try to find time to squeeze in some work of it, or possibly find a few old school map makers to give me a hand.

Thanks!

 

[Midnighters]

Hold on, I got a better idea, without such complex shenanigans hard to program.

Actually, that is multiple ideas, instead of the Helper Bot (I know, it makes it a bit more like PvP maps than exploration, but I'll just post it):

1. A sorting building to sort all nearby resources (or AoE spell) into piles. Could require some craftable item like "Processing Unit" .
2. Something like a "-drop" command, but in reverse - an ability with hotkey to grab all near resources, available for heroes and all units with inventories.
3. For lumber there are already shredders, just need to give the shredders one ability, to set stockpile point and automatically bring all gathered lumber and hardwood branches to that point.
4. Neutral human "Mining Outposts" controlled by the AI, at the rock cluster spawn places (4-8 per map, as already described above). The player needs to claim the outpost by killing all outpost guards (some militia, captain, shouldn't be too hard). Then the guards respawn at the outpost tent but allied to player (uncontrollable). The miners controlled by AI will attack rocks and collect ores, then send a caravan with ~20 or so gathered items to the stockpile point set by the player (caravans can pass through walls). Enemy team can reclaim the outpost by killing all guards again. Sounds a bit complicated but that is only programming it. In game it'll be just setting the stockpile point, so quite intuitive I think.
We don't need to wait for miners - can as well mine the rocks with our goblins (if we have time for such things).
Another idea to expand on above is for miners to require meat to work - players would need to supply the outpost tent with meat (would be less intuitive. Not a good idea).

+A better way to view resources required for buildings would be cool (right now we have to check F9). Even a tooltip on "Build" ability with all recipes would be enough.

II do like the thought of this, however, the programming and coding portion might be something I have to brush up on. As for the recipe mentions, I agree with this, it's always been a nightmare for recipe viewing, but that goes back to my earlier mentioned limitations when this map was originally made. With the release of UI editing, I can probably make a nice, well made UI that displays Recipes in a way that seems less clunky, and more smooth.

 

[Hero_Lief]

 

[Midnighters]

Maybe I'll be able to get this dude to come back to modding one day xD

 

[Midnighters]

For anyone that follows this map, I have been hard at work for weeks now on making a sequel to this map. I'm looking for one or two people to join me in the process. Looking primarily for someone that can terrain.