Holy Grail War (Fate map)

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Hello, I am creating a map which is supposed to simulate the Holy Grail War. For those who doesn't know, Holy Grail War is a battle between mages who acts as Masters with their servants to win the Holy Grail, which is said to grant wishes.
For more information, check this link Holy Grail War

Here is the overview,

Gameplay

• 7 pairs will fight each other until the last pair remains. If you are a fan of the Fate series then you probably already know about this.

• There are 7 masters and 7 servant of different classes. If a master or servant dies, their pair will automatically lose.

• If all of a master's command seal is spent, their pair will lose the game except if that command seal is used to win the game. For example, there are only two pairs remaining, if a command seal is used to kill the other master or servant, the command seal is used to win the game.

Mechanics

• There will damage bonus/reduction depending on the servant you are against.

• An attack will critically strike if that attack is used to interrupt another attack.

• Masters are weaker than Servants.

• If a Servant has no more mana, He/She will use the Master's mana

• Only the master can decide to use a command seal

• A command seal can be used to teleport the Servant near the master, use a Servant's noble phantasm and amplify it, Boost and heal a Servant

• For a servant, There are 3 types of attack, Buster, Arts, Quick

• Quick Attacks are the fastest attack, boosts critical chance and doesn't cost any mana, but has the weakest damage.

• Art Attacks boost mana regeneration. Among the three, Art Attacks are the most balanced and it also does not require mana.

• Buster Attacks are the slowest attacks and costs mana, however among the three, its damage cannot be blocked and has the highest damage output

• other mechanics will be discussed in the future.

Problems

• How will players find each other? Do I have to create a shrinking ring like any other battle royale?

• How must the terrain should look like? Modern or not?

• Should I lock the camera? How should my camera system work?

• How should I make my Servant's battles look like the ones in the anime

• If the master is weaker than servants, how should I punish the servants who targets the Masters?

Notes:
-The Master is 5x weaker than the servant.
-For Fate fans, you'll wonder why there are servant who aren't included in the anime(For example, Altair in RE:creators as an Archer servant). I plan to create some servants in other anime which is I really like.

System I already made includes,

• Physics System, rigid, meaning if a unit is knocked back on higher ground, that unit will not stick on the ground. I am planning to add a stun system if a unit is knocked back with enough velocity against a wall or something.
• Missile system, not yet optimized, able to add 50+ missile without fps drop (gpu: Gtx 1060 cpu: i5-7577).

On progress...

• Terrain

• Hero Selection

• Blocking system

Sample Videos of the map (testing ability combos, do they look flashy enough?):

So basically its a kind of battle royal map but with pairs, where the servant must protect its master. This is my first map and I'm planning to make this map feel like your inside the Fate universe (before I create a full pleded game). I originally planned to make my own anime map since every other anime map I know has messy abilities (Too much explosion).
Any criticism are greatly appreciated.

 

[KuroNigi]

Noice!

 

[blink]

Noice!

Thanks dude!

 

[blink]

I added anime parkour mechanics. for more style... and mechanic. This will cause me more gameplay problems but whatever.

 

[Blarto]

Hi, I am the current head developer of Fate/Another West. And I wish to offer some lore "question marks" on your gameplay rules. Keep in mind this isn't trying to make you change rules, just offering clarification on how the grail war works.

1) "If a master or servant dies, their pair will automatically lose." That shouldn't be the case. a master can win the war by himself, and a servant can exist without a master (although both cases are rare). The grail technically considers the master a loser, but there's nothing stopping them from trying to take on a servant, and slaying the their master (as suicidal as it sounds).

2) "If all of a master's command seal is spent, their pair will lose the game". This is false. A reserve command seal is needed only to prevent a servant from betraying you. If the master and servant aren't antagonistic to each other, they don't need command seals to function as a team. Although a command seal represents authority.

3) "Masters are weaker than Servants". 99% true, but should a Dead Apostle Ancestor, Humunculus, or a very powerful Magus (e.g. Zeltrech) become masters, they are just as strong or stronger.

4) "How will players find each other? Do I have to create a shrinking ring like any other battle royale?". This is a "problem" in Fate/Another too. Generally in Type Moon lore, Masters typically exhibit a sort of aura that let other masters know their presence. Archers and casters can also use class based detection. Assassins have presence concealment, but also possibly tracking as well. Fate/Another solves this by with adding multiple "tracking"-type features.

5) "How must the terrain should look like? Modern or not?". Moon cell-like terrain is easiest to do and will offer you great flexibility. See Ferd terrain but you can make much more detailed as you keep developing, and it will also offer you great diversity since its essentially a simulation virtual world, which will look like a stark contrast to the medieval/modern-cityscape maps that dot warcraft 3.

6) "If the master is weaker than servants, how should I punish the servants who targets the Masters". Masters should be invulnerable to servants if they are near their servant. Otherwise you have to add some sort of protection mechanic. "Rageaiming" masters will be a 100% strat in a FFA type game where multiple people just attack 1 master and if you don't have anything preventing that. Masters are just that valuable.

 

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@Blarto I see. Thanks for your feedback! This really helped me a lot in terms of knowledge and gameplay design. I will stick to the losing mechanic since remaking the true holy grail war is a lot more complex than I thought lol. It helped me understand what I'm trying to do a lot more tho, thanks! The tracking one really helped me a lot, and will plan to do what you suggested Also the options about terrain design is damn nice! I actually already planned what to do against servant who goes for the masters. Like if a master is targeted, his/her servant can immediately block the incoming attack when hes/shes in range something like that plus defensive abilities for the masters. Remember when lancer tried to kill rin. It's something like that. I plan to also apply a debuff when the master is attacked while a servant is still in battle with the master's servant.

You can join my discord server for more info, Join the Holy Grail War Discord Server!

 

[Cespie]

Hello, I am creating a map which is supposed to simulate the Holy Grail War.

Cool!

There are 7 masters and 7 servant of different classes. If a master or servant dies, their pair will automatically lose.

In the original lore, the pair only loses if the master dies. The master can still compete without a servant. This is the case for Rin in the Heaven's Feel route, for example. I am not aware if this was retconned in the later installments of the series, I only played the first VN.

If all of a master's command seal is spent, their pair will lose the game except if that command seal is used to win the game. For example, there are only two pairs remaining, if a command seal is used to kill the other master or servant, the command seal is used to win the game.

Kinda same as the above, but I think losing all 3 command seals merely makes the master lose control of the servant, meaning that the servant is no longer tied to the master for a joint victory. Not entirely sure on this one though.

Masters are weaker than Servants.

Lore-wise there are exceptions to this, in which the servant actually imbues their master (Caster in Unlimited Blades Work), and then there's things like Rin and Shirou, especially in Heaven's Feel. There's also some weird story scenarios that don't conform to the standard setup, but I guess you could ignore that for a game. However, it'd be kinda cool if there were certain setups in which the masters will gain offensive capabilities.

How will players find each other? Do I have to create a shrinking ring like any other battle royale?

No shrinking ring. One of the best parts of the holy grail war is that it's a disorganized contest in which people roam around and choose their own opponents. Furthermore, you wanna maintain the class perks of being able to detect others for Caster and concealment for Assassin.

How must the terrain should look like? Modern or not?

Definitely modern. Cannonically, the first proper war (3rd) took place in the 1930s. The two prior were either not really a Holy Grail War but more of a disagreement (1st) while the second was a random unorganized bloodbath with too unclear rules (2nd). So 3rd war or beyond would make the most sense, and if you want to include the corruption of the grail as point in the story, then it'd have to be past the 3rd war, lore-wise, this would be a necessity for breaking the strict rules of the servant summons and various other weird mechanics. So the way I see it, 1930s is the earliest you could set the plot. 1994 and 2004 would give you the 4th and 5th war as setting, which would make the most sense. If you wanna go with an original setting, then I'd still set it somewhere around that time.

If the master is weaker than servants, how should I punish the servants who targets the Masters?

Don't! Targeting the masters is an integral strategical concept in the holy grail war, particularly when the battle-dominant servant types (Saber, Berserker, Archer, Lancer) would be fighting strategical types like Caster and Assassin, or the utilitarian Rider type. An assassin shouldn't be trying to overpower a Saber or Berserker. Instead, they should try to catch their enemies offguard, in particular, by taking out a master.
In order to avoid making master hunting a far too dominant strategy, you need to design them around being able to hide themselves or otherwise protect themselves in battle. For battle types in particular, it'd make sense to have servants take critical damage when being attacked from behind, that means that chasing down masters would expose the servant to some heavy damage punishment. In the story you have plenty of masters who are able to throw in some diversions or downright attacks. You should design the masters to be able to fend for themselves, although ultimately still unable to win the fights alone.

 

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@Cespie Thanks! About the masters having offensive capabilities, I actually considered that (Like when caster buffed souichiro on their fight against saber? something like that). Again, my knowledge about the holy grail war keeps increasing XD. Your last suggestion is really interesting. I would definitely consider that!

 

[Blarto]

By the way, 7 masters and 7 servants is 14 players, which is a tall order for anime maps nowadays, unless you have a confirmed community of 100+ members like fate/another has. The only way I can think of that solves this is adding a really competent AI. I did such a thing for Fate/Another-W and it somewhat works. But AI development is expensive on time so it's only half-competent. If you design a game for 14 players, it will feel really bad with 8 players, and if you design it for 8 players, it might feel REALLY unbalanced with 14.

Further complication in attracting players arises when you consider your game type... Fate-Another is a Noble Phantasm ("ultimate ability") spamming game, which evolved from standard Arena type map (think angel arena). This actually makes it quite easy to pick up from a wc3-player standpoint (minus the freak innovations such as the seals/items that make the skill-cap big). If you design your game around reflexes and counters, with a non-wc3 native system of controlling units, the average Wc3 player will not even be able play your map. Even for something like F/A, the Chinese/Korean community added in a no-item mode to Fate/Another to remove the item-use skill-cap to make it more approachable to more players. The reason I'm conveying all this is that if you make the map too complex, it will be "great" but practically unplayable due to the nature of the wc3 community. Many, many other maps have fallen to obscurity for less. This is the primary why you should keep your features scope to a realistic level (for example, avoid stuff like parkour nonsense until you have an alpha version that's fully playable). A side note: Your battle system looks eerily like KurtzPel (a recent free anime-brawler game with a sizeable population), but in wc3. You might gain some ideas from that game by playing it a few hours. Coincidentally enough, KurtzPel pvp is 2v2/3v3 max atm.

The dependency on a partner can be a double edged sword. Lots of wc3 maps have partner dependency - most blaring example nowadays is the Eras Zombie series, in which 1 defending partner can easily screw over a team of 10 people and lose the game on a whim. You should consider that going forward, and also what happens if the game has an odd number of players and thus cannot start without kicking 1 person.

All and all you have to ask yourself what type of map and game mechanics players will find enjoyable, and do that. In case it wasn't clear already, I have a have conflict of interest (UFW Fate/Another Info), so take anything I say with a grain of salt.

 

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@Blarto hmm... Thanks for the criticisms! I really appreciate it. Dw I am doing this just for my fun and for others as well, so I dont really have in mind whether my map will succeed or not. Dunno what's with the salty attitude tho, you have a bad experience on something like this? Not that I mind tho, in fact I really appreciate the thoughts

 

[Blarto]

Dunno what's with the salty attitude tho, you have a bad experience on something like this? Not that I mind tho, in fact I really appreciate the thoughts

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-inevitable-that-you-become-more-cynical-as-you-age

 

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Dw i'm not the kind of person that expects anything XD Just as I said, I found this fun to do and that's the reason why I'm doing it lol

Edit: Well, just because I'm doing this for fun doesn't mean I'm gonna half ass this. This is like my tryout for creating my own game.

 

[Blarto]

If I wouldn't care I wouldn't be posting 2-3 paragraphs here. So if you think I'm somehow salty you're wrong.

Though your skills at animating stuff, both with model editor, and in game scripting have peaked my interest.

 

[blink]

Thanks. English isn't my first language that's why I thought when you said this

so take anything I say with a grain of salt

you were being salty lol. Well, I take everything as criticism so it doesn't really matter if someone is being salty or not.

 

[Blarto]

Oh a misunderstanding then.

I merely said I have conflict of interest as the developer of Fate/Another-W, which will in direct competition with whatever you produce since both are pvp arenas.

Take with a grain of salt doesn't mean someone is "salty", it means what they are saying needs to be "salted" (as in to improve "taste"), because it might be tainted by various factors (such as a conflict of interest).

Basically I told you not to take anything I say regarding your map super seriously as I might be biased.

 

[Krakenn99]

This is amazing, the mechanics looks very good, I kinda wish this wasn't an anime map since they are not my favorite but I will still give it a try when it comes out!