Grand Rift Fortress

[EternalOne]

This is my debut map here on HiveWorkshop. Any feedback is appreciated, especially if I need to fix something.

 

[Daffa]

Seems 24p is quite on hot trails I see.

 

[mafe]

Hello, nice to see new mappers. As this is your first map, here is some feedback.
-First of all, if you take a look at my comments in this (24) Legion Mana Temple 1.0a thread, then you will see that much of this (but not everything) also applies to your map.
-In particular is better to not use those strange items or have doodads drop items. I know it is tempting to try something creative, but this is a serious aspect of balance and there are usually reasons why we see a limited set of items only in melee maps.
-Regarding FFA, the player in the middle of the 3-player groups is in a very bad position if both his neighbor spawn positions are occupied. Unfortunately I dont see an easy fix for this, but for team games your map is fine.
-I see a potential problem with the circular waygate layout as this means it takes a some time to get back to your original position if you accidentially walk past the gate. Especially if units sometimes get ported through the gates unintentionally, which they happens to me, but maybe I just do not fully understand the mechanics.
-Also I expect that the creep near the waygates will attack units that port through the gate. Maybe creeps will also port then, this could be very weird if they try to get back to their original position. I think these creeps should be at least set to camp stance, as is usual for creeps anyway (except at gold mines).
-The central gold mines which can be reached from two opposite directions are somewhat awkward to attack or hold.
-Some creeps are positioned in way that they will attack units (scouts) that walk past them.
-Minor asymmetries with the ramps towards the dragon roosts and fountains in center.
-What did you intend with the dead ends behind some goldmines? DId you plan to have brdiges towards the shops/labs there?

Positives: Nevertheless, the map is very good, even if it wasnt your first map. The layout is good and creative, in particular I like the center of your map.

 

[EternalOne]

All right, here's my first round of revisions, taking into account what you've told me:

-In particular is better to not use those strange items or have doodads drop items. I know it is tempting to try something creative, but this is a serious aspect of balance and there are usually reasons why we see a limited set of items only in melee maps.

This bit of feedback was... kind of hard to hear, after the time I spent thinking about safe and balanced ways to implement less-used items. Even so, I've removed the item drops from all doodads and made the item drop tables only use the standard items.

-Regarding FFA, the player in the middle of the 3-player groups is in a very bad position if both his neighbor spawn positions are occupied. Unfortunately I dont see an easy fix for this, but for team games your map is fine.

You're right about there being no easy fix, aside from changing the description to note that FFA isn't perfectly balanced. I did my best to make the side players have just as easy access to each other, and I put some of the early green camps closer to the central player, but it will never be perfect. That said, when I played a test FFA game on the map, I spawned in the central position and didn't have that much trouble dispatching both of the side players on my own. Sadly, I was then destroyed by someone from a different area, so I didn't get to play it all the way out.

-I see a potential problem with the circular waygate layout as this means it takes a some time to get back to your original position if you accidentially walk past the gate. Especially if units sometimes get ported through the gates unintentionally, which they happens to me, but maybe I just do not fully understand the mechanics.
-Also I expect that the creep near the waygates will attack units that port through the gate. Maybe creeps will also port then, this could be very weird if they try to get back to their original position. I think these creeps should be at least set to camp stance, as is usual for creeps anyway (except at gold mines).

These were some great points, thanks for bringing them up! I've reworked the waygate areas to have a clockwise gate and a counterclockwise gate to deal with the return-time problem. I also shifted the local creep camps further away and gave them camp stance, as suggested. I had originally thought that making them more aggressive would slow down early rotation through the ring of gates, but maybe that wasn't such a good idea in the first place.

-The central gold mines which can be reached from two opposite directions are somewhat awkward to attack or hold.

That's... kind of the point. The central mines are richer than what you'll usually see in a melee map, so I made them hard to capture and hard to defend, so that, if the game stretches on, they become points of conflict that require alternative thinking. Usually you can't manage to defend them so well with your heroes unless you have a zeppelin, so you have to rely more on your army and a few well-placed towers.
If you really think that they're a disaster I can rework them in a later round of revisions, but that will take a lot more time.

-Some creeps are positioned in way that they will attack units (scouts) that walk past them.

Another good catch, thanks! I've shifted the positions of certain creeps to put them further out of the way, and I also added some key doodads that change the pathing in such a way that units will more naturally flow around those creeps instead of straight into them. Obviously that doesn't work on flying units, but you have to be careful when scouting with those on any Blizzard melee map too.

-Minor asymmetries with the ramps towards the dragon roosts and fountains in center.

I didn't think that symmetry would matter so much in the middle, since everyone has to travel about the same distance to get there. Even so, I made it more symmetrical.

-What did you intend with the dead ends behind some goldmines? Did you plan to have bridges towards the shops/labs there?

No, those are places where a wily player can drop in forces with a zeppelin to ambush the base! Also, now that the object limits are properly raised, I've added more creeps to those locations.

Thanks for all the great feedback so far! I'll be looking forward to hearing more.

 

[deepstrasz]

The map is OK. 24 player ones in general are a pain to make, look at both on the minimap and ingame and play.

Two Dragon Roosts and so near each other. Gr... plus the fountains.

Anyways, I'm not approving this with a non-melee unit on it: Flesh Golem.

Awaiting Update.

 

[EternalOne]

Second round of revisions are here.

Two Dragon Roosts and so near each other. Gr... plus the fountains.

Anyways, I'm not approving this with a non-melee unit on it: Flesh Golem.

Awaiting Update.

This isn't the kind of detail that I got from mafe's feedback, but I did my best to work with it.

I've spaced out the Dragon Roosts (and the Marketplaces) further from each other in the center. It made sense, seeing as having the Roosts too close might have made it too easy for a player to grab both dragons. It's still a valid option on 24 player maps in my book, so it wouldn't make much sense to delete one.

As for the fountains, they are also a bit further apart from each other, but not so much. I've seen Blizzard maps put a pair of fountains closer together than this, and this is a map for more players. Also, while the fountains are placed somewhat close to the Roosts and Marketplaces, the pathing and creep groups are set up to make it hard for players to hit both sites in rapid succession. It could be done with an air-based army and a zeppelin for the Heroes, I suppose, but there are a lot of anti-air creeps in that neighborhood. It would be a risky move.

The Flesh Golem is gone. It kind of flattens some of the feel of "Ascending to the summit" in my opinion, but I suppose it was a campaign unit, not properly balanced for melee games. Makes me wish I could create and balance over-level-10 creeps myself, but then it wouldn't be a melee map anymore.

Thanks for the feedback! I'll be looking forward to hearing more.

 

[deepstrasz]

This isn't the kind of detail that I got from mafe's feedback, but I did my best to work with it.

Changes made,
Approved.

 

[sharicasmi]

Undead players randomly can't build on their own blight in maps bigger than 256. The only fix right now is to remove blight requirement

 

[Reputation Generator]

This map is huge. I wonder how can i play it?

 

[WC3 Reforged]

needs more gold mines