- Joined
- Jul 13, 2004
- Messages
- 282
About HDSM
HDSM was sort of inspired by xXm0rpH3usXx's wall doodad pack back when it came out that long, long time ago. This project for me has been rather off and on, and is the first real map that I've designed from the ground up involving anything more than ten triggers.
HDSM was/is my working name for the map, and stands for "Helms Deep Style Map". This has sort of been a grief for me over the duration of the time I've spent on the map and tinkering/minimal testing with it. As you can see, the fortress is slightly (or even more so) shaped like every other single Helms Deep map out there on battle.net. This isn’t meant to be homage, but was rather placed due to the level development of having the main bases at opposite ends, and needing a village inside the wall. I could have reversed it, but to me this lay out felt better.
All this being said, the map at current stage is only in a beta stage, the terrain is for the most part complete, the heroes have all been designed and developed (I hope to go back and create more spiffy spells eventually though for most of the heroes) there is also a very intricate story in my head and my notes including lore, story, family bonds, the purposes and goals and such that these derive/come from.
So is this like every other Helms Deep map?This I of course have to acknowledge, but I didn't just want to make "another helms deep map" instead I wanted to try and revolutionize the whole genre as a whole. HDSM currently is very rough on the edges due to a lack of testing (maybe because I haven't had a lot of people to test it at the same time). While I could polish it (and trust me I intend to do so (and if you look carefully you will see a lot of polish already in the product)) I have put off some of the systems for several reasons such as my lack of skills at triggering (which will become apparent if you view the trigger editor), lack of game play predictability, and simply lack of knowledge how to properly utilize and adapt my goals to the map in its current state.
So why is HDSM different? Quite frankly I don't know if it is, but it is clearly not the same hack and hold position as the normal Helms Deep style maps are. Anyone who has been in the community for a while (vaguely similar to myself) probably remembers Ramza. and his King of Khum'ra map. His map is also a partial inspiration because he addressed a main problem with the genre, namely being to get the defending team out of the castle, and more importantly give them a benefit if they do. I of course take a bit of a different spin on the issue, and try to rely on the spawning for food system, as well as two other minor systems.
Some of the ‘Systems’ / Gameplay Framing / Level Design
As I’ve said earlier, this map is NOT very trigger intensive and so these systems aren’t that complex, however I am a fan of not needing complexity in order to affect game play and game/level design. The three systems (and possibly a fourth although I wouldn't consider it a system to keep the players outside) are a caravan-of-villager system that spawns villagers per village outside the castle, a control point system, and a caravan system that spawns close to the main exit of the castle.
This first system is what I hope to be the biggest cure for the "hold position" anomaly of the current maps in the genre. I am currently trying on working on a proper formula of internal-pro-population (without needing the extra civilians to help prevent a complete gridlock once the outer towns are taken). As well as the food these villagers give, the villagers also give gold upon their arrival in the town inside the castle, as well as certain buildings (like the church or tavern) give a very minor gold bonus (which I'd like to add to the formula for internal pro-population).
The second system (which is also the system for victory) is a capture-point system spread throughout the map. There are ten (and an eleventh for some global power I have to think of still) which convert with the presence of units from one team or the other in its immediate area. To win one team must own all ten points (the game should be over before this ever happens so it would be hard for this to be abused). These points also grant vision to the entire side that owns these points which I believe is similar to the bonus granted by the new towers in SC2 (and this feature has existed since before the reviewing of these towers sadly enough). I have also considered these giving a slight area-bonus for the units in the area, however it would have to be minor as to not affect balance, or create stand stills (as well I think the harder to defend spots would have a better bonus, or possibly two different bonuses depending if the attackers or defenders owned it to again correlate to the difficulty of capturing and maintaining the point).
The third system that this map revolves around is more of a bonus caravan. It is sent by the attacking team, and can be captured by the defending team. The cart can go both ways, and will give a substantial bonus to the team that gathers it. Due to the layout of the map it is easy for the attacking team to defend the last half of the commute for their caravan, but the first half is in the open which gives the defenders a fair opportunity to defend it (and the attackers to capture it). This isn't exactly balanced yet like a lot of the game play, but I hope in the end this system isn't to be relied on, but rather treated upon (in the sense that it's a bonus and not just your salary). In turn with this the attacking team will get bounty for units killed belonging to the defending team. This needs some tweaking but I have been unable to see how to tweak it due to a lack of testing environments to check it out.
The fourth system/dynamic I was talking about is a quest system, but specifically a quest for both sides is what I mentioned earlier. If you take a look at the map, you'll notice there is a tunnel that goes through the mountains among the left side of the map. Through completing quests (I don't know if I want them to be hard or time consuming quite yet) you can unlock 1 "bomb" or "explosive" crew to help "clear out" the tunnel as it starts the game as being filled with debris. This helps the attackers out by giving them another system to bypass the wall, but more importantly this way leads into the edge of the town inside the castle which is focused on some of the economy of the defending team. This is also a fast way to get to the defence of one of the villages that lie near the outer entrance into this tunnel. The tunnel will have n amount of rocks, and both sides can remove one of these blockades by completing a quest (so both teams can essentially work to the same goal).
Generic Systems/Map Set Up
As for other systems the map sports in general, there is a global upgrade system (that I'm certain could have been done both way easier and faster, but I am bad with triggering). That is to say that each team has several (around 4) upgrade buildings which will upgrade different things. Only one person on a team can be upgrading a research at a time for each building, but when it completes it then applies it to every unit on your team (which again I know is not that complex).
There is also the unit-building set up which is a bit different, every player has their own barracks set under "the barracks" of the castle, or "the fletcher's lodge" etc. this is to try and create the idea of all the units coming from inside the actual keep, thus giving them a prolonged distance to most of the defensive points (and enforcing thinking ahead as opposed to holding position). This isn't done in the most elegant fashion as you can see upon running the map (specially if you're playing it single player) but with more people the system works far more smoother, this mostly being due to full shared control).
Another thing that I have tried to utilize is that underneath the doodad walls, there are actual blizzard terrain raises and lowering such as to simulate the vision fields of normal wc3 games, but also to simulate the hit/miss balance inside the WC3 engine (which I believe is tinkered with minimally for a more successful balance overall).
Both sides feature an array of units with a total count of around 20 (per side) totally redesigned custom units (that still probably need further balancing). That being said, I have tried (and still am trying) to make all the units useful despite there being a tree with some units in terms of tiers. The higher up tiers do have more armour/health/damage/dice and such, but they also suffer from movement penalties, size penalties in some cases, and also turning penalties. This isn't to make tech useless (as currently there isn't any 'tech' to unlock these trees) but rather to allow you to customize your army(s) to what you want to do, rather it be guerrilla warfare, or defending a position. One thing I've also done is that the more heavily armed cavalry do deal more damage, but also move slower (and obviously will cost more).
This can come into play specifically with some of the upgrades as it can possibly determine how your team is fighting and designing it's armies/upgrades. This is not to penalize teams with trolls or griefers, but rather to enforce team work and some team planning, and again foresight into the future as opposed to simply just holding position on a wall.
Story
As far as story goes, I haven't looked at all my notes and miscellaneous scribbling in a little while, but there is a definite story planned out. The attacking force is (que the helms deep cliche) orcs. This being said, I have ousted the using of trolls (except for one hero partially due to the story aspect (which has aspects blatantly copied from the WC3 story). I also have some back story written which is rather tacky and cheesy, yet it feels like it can work (and it is full of subtle references to Helms Deep sadly but in good taste).
This all being said, the map does feature a customized armour/damage chart (and icons to go along with those). I do not reassure that is a perfect system, but it supposed to help give the illusion of again more foresight than simply massing archers and taking a 20% damage penalty (which isn't that much considering a range advantage is huge). This system I hope to eventually iron out and make it perfect, but there simply has not been enough testing for me to conclude that there is no room for improvement. While there is nothing wrong with WC3’s armour tables I wanted a system that supported more of a counter similar to some diplomacy games like Rise of China and such. The tables in my map are not copied, and are not simply just 100%/50%/200%, but rather some types (as in warcraft 3) are more effective than others. Something interesting that I haven’t seen in any other maps on the top of my mind is that I have given the caster units damage (and damage upgrades) and as outlined in warcraft 3 made these more effective against the higher strength armours so massing strong units isn’t perfect because casters counter them both hard (via damage table) but also due to the nature of the spells they have.
I have also tried to create a system where archers do -not- have homing missiles which results in a fair amount of misses at moving units. As implied if two units are running in a row, and you shoot for the first it is possible to then hit the second one (all through world editor). This was my hope to address the archer spamming issue en masse, and yet I believe there is room for improvement still, but again I can’t really test this without proper testing environments.
The story is one of the most compelling things (as well as the terrain) that I’ve loved about this project. I don’t really want to reveal a massive novel here, but as I have said there is definitely a story in mind as to the structure. I have tried learning how to make simple cinematics in GUI (yes, that’s how bad I am at triggering) to use as story telling devices and have story boarded out the opening quick cinematic, but have been struggling trying to apply anything more than the very basic stuff.
Essentially the attackers were young and enslaved (10 points if you get the reference) and that’s where they met their two ‘comrades’ if such a term was to be used. One being this massive orc that I’m trying to shape up as the air headed ogre (yet not so excessively) and then a troll who tries to make a lot of bad puns and has laughing issues (like a mad scientist, he does mix potions!). The two other orc leaders are brothers whom have some grudge against the human king for killing their parents while they were young. Some grand escape and a blood thirsty vengeance (so cliché I know, but to me it felt right) and have been hunting down this one king for years trying to find him creating quite a problem along the way for other villages.
One thing I am not ripping from WC3 is the whole prophet ordeal. However I do have religions (based off of some real world influences of course) for both sides. One other thing is that I tried to find a linguistic style for the humans giving them a lot of soft linguistical names (similar to French and Italian (and some English)) and abilities, whereas with the orcs I’ve tried to get more Arabic/German (yes those two don’t normally go together) with the heavy accented G’s and Z’s and such. Along with this I have also taken this into consideration when trying to name the places of the map (yes I’m a bit of a story/back story buff) and have actually derived names deriving the character they are supposed to have (if I can find a way to story tell characters throughout an action game (I hope to try and accomplish this via quests).
The Human side of the story is more bland in terms of facts, but is spiced up due to the higher character dynamic. There is the king and his two brothers (the knight (who is a bit rash) and the nether mage (who is similar to Djinn in terms of being infused with ‘the nether’). They are on ‘rough terms’ to be light, and are reunited in this castle for the anniversary of their father’s death some X years ago by rogue orcs (and thus causing their crusade to kill the father of the orcs who are now attacking them). The Lieutenant of the castle guard is a younger soldier who has a bit of an attitude in terms of being defensive (despite his defensive play style). The Paladin is a bit of a religious zealot (as one would assume) yet he isn’t afraid to press the borders of the whole lawful good nature. The next three are a group that are known to each other, yet are all in the city for different reasons. The Mercenary, who is a male (and constantly gets referred to Aragorn and makes me want to bash my face in) he’s a give it all melee character with a rather suave character. The next is the Dwarf who is well... a Dwarf. The next person is the ranger (and if you’re stabbing your eyes out for LotR references by all means I understand how this seems similar, but the character dynamic between them I plan to set out differently) who is a princess of an Elvish kingdom and is known for the sassy adventurous attitude that ends up killing the ‘black guy’ in movies.
So for those of you not up to par on your math skills this map is essentially ends up being an eight (defending) versus four (attacking). While again this generally fits into the cliche helms deep team variations there is a reasoning behind this. Every single hero has an aura that is unique (at least for their team, due to my inability to trigger and think of unique ones) and generally speaking there is a ratio that 1 of the orc heroes should in a 1 on 1 always win. In a 1 v 2 it should be close, but the humans should win. In huge team battles the orcs have an advantage due to their ability of having slightly more AoE attacks, as well as mobile siege units in comparison to the stationary trebuchets of the humans.
The Heroes (at present):
The heroes in HDSM have 18 levels in abilities, similar to the levelling structure of heroes in ToB, and yet all the heroes start off with two ‘basic’ abilities that help set the tone of the hero (at least in my opinion). This means at level 1 you will have 3 abilities some of which may cost a lot of mana relative to how much you have and such (as I haven’t been able to completely test all of these) but ultimately help synergize with the hero (and some of them are bland as almost every hero does have a passive). I have mentioned several times, and I will again these heroes are not what I would like and are always under aim for improvement (and some of them have been improved as I have slightly learned more about triggering) and hopefully will continue to do so.
The King: Morzad Zayne
Base Abilities: Defensive Spirit Link, Howl of Terror
Primary Abilities: Inspire (Battle Roar mod), Battle Veteran (Hardened Skin), Command Aura mod
Ultimate: Holy Reckoning (Summon infernal mod for both damage and an ‘angel’ unit)
Notes: The King has a bit of a religious overtone to him because historically kings did, but this is changeable if newer ideas come along. Generally boring, but with some customized effects he doesn’t play as boring as he sounds.
The Lieutenant: Julian Valliant
Base Abilities: Veteran Warrior (Drunken Bawler mod), Healing Salve
Primary Abilities: Defensive Stance, Fan of Knives, Devotion Aura
Ultimate: Poisoned Blade (incineration mod)
Notes: This guy is fairly boring, however I was thinking of making him only have ‘stances’ but that seemed unfair. I really have no idea what he should of had, I was thinking of maybe a % chance on hit to do a combo-attack, but that seemed a bit powerful.
The Commander/Palladin: Pascal Hyacinth
Base Abilities: Bash, Taunt
Primary Abilities: Redemption (Thorns mod), Resurrection (more units), Holy Blessing (holy light mod)
Ultimate: Second Chance (Reincarnation)
Notes: Very boring, but plays fine. Support is really nice to have, and with reincarnate in tests has been a nice saviour to wasting lots of food.
The Nether Mage: Istarin Zayne
Base Abilities: Nether Existence (Reduced Phys. Dmg), Summon Grul’nar (Summon Misha mod)
Primary Abilities: Planar Rift, Phase, Nether Blessing,
Ultimate: Defabricate
Notes: Yes that Nether Mage. I found he just fit with what I had in mind (and it was nice and customized spells and decided to add it)
The Knight: Warrick Zayne
Base Abilities: Stomp, Pulverising Mount (Pulverise
), Thunder Struck (Storm Bolt mod)Primary Abilities: Lightning Hammer (inversed chain lightning), Speed Aura,
Ultimate: Charge! (Movement speed boost)
Notes: Currently his spells are a bit too powerful, and his spells don’t say much about him, but rather his weapon. I have an idea for a spell that I’m trying to add for him that works like a blitzing attack which I hope will replace Thunder Struck (but the name might stick).
The Mercenary: Fredderic Forrestor
Base Abilities: Evasion, Feedback
Primary Abilities: Shockwave, Advanced Training (+misc. Stats), negative command aura
Ultimate: Mana Burn
Notes: This hero is again very dull as what I wanted to try and do with him would take me more triggering expertise than I have, but I have been trying out how to give him the abilities I want him to have and am getting better at it.
The Ranger: Camila Calanthe
Base Abilities: Critical Strike, Hide
Primary Abilities: Crippling Arrow, Arrow Volley, Trueshot Aura
Ultimate: Ranger’s Guidance
Notes: This hero is partially dull due to me not wanting it to be a massive carry like in every other helms deep style of map. Specifically, this is the only hero that can miss a lot of their shots, which requires you to navigate where you are on the field and play accordingly.
The Dwarf: Dorak Kalle
Base Abilities: Stone Skin (Avatar), Drunken Haze
Primary Abilities: Stomp, Thunder Clap, Reduce Movement Speed Aura
Ultimate: Jump (targetable AoE stun/slow)
Notes: Possibly my favourite hero due to the brawly nature of him, I want to change up his stomps and claps etc. to a more fitting feel, but I have ran out of ideas in how to try that.
And then Orc Heroes:
The Warchief: Grawk
Base Abilities: Avatar, Bash
Primary Abilities: Beserk, Attack Speed Aura, Encourage (+dmg/health regen)
Ultimate: Spirits of the Vanquished (Stampede)
The Blade Dancer: Tol’gra
Base Abilities: Whip, Demolish (x2)
Primary Abilities: Summon Reinforcements, Cleave, Movement Speed Bonus
Ultimate: Spiked Armour
The Beserker: Kagutzi
Base Abilities: Summon Bird, Drunken Bawler
Primary Abilities: Throw Axe, Fear (Howl of Terror), Vampiric Aura
Ultimate: Crush (Slams an enemy into the ground for X seconds for Y damage)
Troll Alchemist: Hotei
Base Abilities: Healing Concoction,
Primary Abilities: Voodoo Curse, Acidic Concoction, Brilliance Aura
Ultimate: Flaming Concoction (currently only flame strike)
Again, as you can see the heroes generally speaking are very boring as they are just standard wc3 abilities. It isn't that I exactly want them this way (I have on paper by design what I wanted a more fulfilling set of abilities, but simply do not have the skills to write them).
Resource Management
HDSM currently I believe is relatively close to the 3 MB range in map size due to a rather large amount of custom content such as skins and models. This includes almost every hero having a custom model to help distinguish itself not only from the units I am using (which mostly are all in-game WC3 models) but also to help give the experience of a unique unit, to hopefully a unique game in the ever prevalent genre. Generally I have been trying to pull back on importing mass amounts of custom content, and the files I do import I have optimized as best as I can without losing a noticeable quality. One thing I still aim to find is some sort of loopable music, preferably something that I can procedurally alter to change the mood based on combat (if x units die over y time).
Still Reading?
I know this is probably now getting rather long, but I can’t really explain my map in many other ways. There may be too much to read, and if so I’m sorry, but to me this reflects not only all the work, but also the thought and thinking about this project and how to try and make it add to the genre. I am definitely not a superb map maker by any means, but I do have an appreciation and understanding of some of the thought that goes behind good level design and gameplay design. Gameplay is always #1, aesthetics are a secondary thought. Sorry if the formatting is a little bland, I’ve tried to use some of the highlights and such effectively but I’m not a big fan of using them and didn’t want to over glorify my rant.
Screenshots
As far as Screenshots go, I haven’t taken any new ones lately, I’ll do that in the morning if anybody actually wants some, as for some out dated ones though you can view them over here:
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/terrain-board-267/hdsm-terrain-39856/
Thanks for reading those of you that made it through!
Last edited:
