[Role Playing Game] Heroic - The true heroes

[Xonok]

This map is about the true heroes of Warcraft III - the footmen, druids, necromancers, etc.
Without them the paladins, wardens and blademasters would never be able to be so OP.

Gameplay
You start as an invulnerable and invisible spirit with 2 items - Heroic Soul and Unformed Body.
With Heroic Soul you can copy the hero attribute stats(main attribute, initial amounts, gains per level) of any hero to your own.
With Unformed Body you can take the shape and abilities of almost any non-hero unit and upgrade them as you level up.
Both items are single-use.

*It's a PvP map - You can fight other players and I try to keep things balanced.
*It's a PvE map - The project is an alternative way to play melee maps, so there are creeps.
*It's a team game - Hero kits are specialized and thus are way more powerful in balanced groups than alone.
*When you die you are revived at a random tavern.
*Creeps give XP all the way to lvl 10, but in diminishing amounts.

Development stages(and their requirements):
Alpha.
*Startup. (Done)
*Revival. (Done)
*Heroic Soul and Unformed Body work properly. (2/2)
Beta.
*At least 3 hero kits are completed and work properly. (3/3)
*All heroic units have hero glows. (Done)
*All available abilities and items have tooltips. (Done)
*Abilities are linked to triggers automatically. (Done)
*Abilities are automatically given to heroes upon creation, instead of being added in object editor. (Done)
Release.
*A win mechanic. (NDY)
*Creeps respawn. (NDY)
*Hero versions of all usual racial units. (7/~39)
Further development.
*At least 1 hero per each neutral creep family. (4/~43)
*More thorough balancing with less guesswork. Can not be done without player feedback and before a high amount of heroes exists. (NDY)
*Custom items. (NDY)
*Custom bounty system. Would allow easily changing bounties based on game settings. (NDY)
*Talents. Basically upgrades for abilities.

Current progress
Hero kits completed: 11
Necromancer.
Spell Breaker.
Satyr Hellcaller.
Priest. Ultimate needs some tuning. (circling markers)
Ogre Magi.
Crypt Fiend. Needs QA.
Dryad.
Sorceress.
Death Revenant.
Shaman.
Queen of Suffering.
Hero kits usable, but incomplete: 0
Game mechanics:
Startup triggers.
Heroic Soul
Unformed Body
Respawning

Pre-beta development logs

Day 1

Made one footman ability.
Started and completed the necromancer skillset. Checked that the tooltips exist and are right.
Spirits spawn properly and get their items. Currently their items don't do anything.
Typed in the attributes, gains and main attribute of every hero(24) for the Heroic Soul mechanic.

Day 2

Got the Heroic Soul and Unformed Body to work properly.
Created the revive mechanic.
Made neutral heroes and one usual necromancer spawn at random places. This is necessary for Heroic Soul and Unformed Body to have any use.
Did 3 skills on shaman and priest. Also made normal versions spawn for HS and UB.
Implemented an ability search system that dynamically allocates abilities to triggers.

Day 3

Made the Satyr Hellcaller.
Created 3 skills for the Ogre Magi. (Might change the third)
Created 3 abilities for the Spell Breaker.

Day 4

Created the system that automatically gives abilities to heroes when they appear.
This required a workaround with engineering upgrade and dummy abilities, because it's not possible to give hero abilities without making them work just like regular ones.
Got magic resistance to work properly.
Did a round of testing to get the map into a presentable format.

Beta 0.00
*First public version.
Previous version: Beta 0.01
*Priest ultimate.
*Names for heroes.
*Crypt Fiend completed.
*Ogre Magi ultimate.
*Made it more clear what you're supposed to do.
*Dryad completed.
Beta 0.02
*Credits given in quests.
*Sorceress completed.
*Death Revenant completed.
*Gave Shaman an ultimate, completing him.
*Queen of Suffering nearly complete, but disabled due to a bad interaction.
*Made intelligence give some more mana due to there being much more fighting in this map than ladder.
Current version: Beta 0.03
*Enabled Queen of Suffering.
*Fixed a bug that made Priest's ultimate not do anything despite seeming like it does.
*Replaced the normal bounty system with one that's based on the actual cost of units.
*Lots of behind the scenes changes and optimizations that took the most time.

 

[WhiteFang]

hmm,I'm a little busy now(reviewing maps)but ill try to test this some time tomorrow.If I don't get to it,I apologies in advance

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Interesting concept.
Will you keep the rest of the melee mechanics unaltered or will there be different game goals?

 

[Silva]

Either the map is so bugged it can't be played or the concept is over my head.

Heroic soul can't be used on champions. and if used on building, it grants a piece of cheese.

More explaining would be helpful, also some screenshots of the gameplay.

 

[Xonok]

Interesting concept.
Will you keep the rest of the melee mechanics unaltered or will there be different game goals?

I won't change anything that I don't have to change, but the flow of the game will be much different, considering how it's more of an RPG than RTS.

Either the map is so bugged it can't be played or the concept is over my head.

Heroic soul can't be used on champions. and if used on building, it grants a piece of cheese.

More explaining would be helpful, also some screenshots of the gameplay.

You can't use Heroic Soul on champions at all, so I think you meant Unformed Body. You can only use Unformed Body on non-heroes. You can find targets for both abilities near the taverns.
Also, the cheese is what I use to make sure items get put in the right slot. Made sure it's a harmless item, so nothing bad happens when it bugs, like it happened in this case.

 

[Nordmar]

I am not sure if I understand this. I couldn't target any unit with my 2 items. I tried like 20 different mobs..u should explain things better >_>

 

[Xonok]

Try only the ones around taverns.
Eventually I might have one hero for every mob type, but since I don't, then I placed neutral versions of every valid target around taverns. Their positions are randomized, so you won't know which one is where exactly.

 

[Xonok]

Weekly update:
Version: Beta 0.00 -> Beta 0.01
Completed heroes: 3 -> 7
Highlights:
*Priest ultimate.
*Names for some heroes.
*Crypt Fiend completed.
*Ogre Magi ultimate.
*Made it more clear what you're supposed to do.
*Dryad completed.

Will update the map in a few hours.

EDIT: Map attached to first post.

 

[Xonok]

Weekly update:
Version: Beta 0.01 -> Beta 0.02
Completed heroes: 7 -> 10
Highlights:
*Credits given in quests.
*Sorceress completed.
*Death Revenant completed.
*Gave Shaman an ultimate, completing him.
*Queen of Suffering nearly complete, but disabled due to a bad interaction.
*Made intelligence give some more mana due to there being much more fighting in this map than ladder.

Map attached to first post.

I'm a bit disappointed at the lack of interest.

EDIT: Seems like I can't upload the map atm due to connection issues with the hive. Will try again tomorrow.

 

[Nordmar]

Why don't you make the map smaller and just add all heroes and non-hero units in the middle of the map so we can test it easier?

I combined a dryad with sylvana but the dryad had only 1 skill, but it sais the hero is completed? I still think it's an interesting concept but you should make bigger updates and then release the testversion because right now I don't feel any difference to the first time I played except that I understood how the map works.
cheers

 

[Xonok]

I'm making the updates once per week so that I wouldn't post every small update, while still doing them fairly regularly. Also, of the last 10 days I've been at work for 8.
Try 0.02. I failed to upload it yesterday. I just checked that dryad has the whole skillset in there.
I will consider your advice though. Maybe I should develop the map in multiple ways at the same time? E.g, instead of doing updates that are mostly about adding heroes I would also add some game mechanics in every update, so that even the previous heroes will have somewhat different choices.

Strategy advice - Try playing with other people. There are very few heroes that can kill things fast without tanking everything(dryad), so playing the map with friends can help quite a lot. I have beaten the map alone(killing the hydras in the center), but I can only do it with some heroes.