LLS v0.22b beta

[Moderator]

00:17, 28th Mar 2009 by bounty hunter2:
This isn't a full review, since we didn't put this map on a testing session. However I'm sure we will in the future, and you will get more reviews. This one is only for the cause of approval.
My apologies, maps don't get tested this soon here, however I remembered yours from your thread in the Map Development Forum and thought: "Hey, I'l check this, it looked promising!" And it's even more. The terrain is great, fantastic actually. My only complain is that the north west wall isn't straight, it goes up and down. I'm sure terrainers such as Void or raid wouldn't be ashamed of a terrain such as this. The heroes are fine, spells average, I played only two, but still I didn't find them anything above average. There are quite some heroes, those there are a lot of combinations and the replayability is immense. When the game started, it said: Repick is now dis-abled. It's spelled: disabled, one word. The packaging of the map is fine, lacks a couple of images to make it perfect. For an early beta, a great map, it has a lot of potential, and I'm sure it will evolve into something special. Approved with a 3/5 (Useful) rating, for now. Good job!

 

[FrozenFenrir]

i have to say...
wow
long time ago i enjoyed a 4way hero def that much
good terrain imo
nice spells
wide variety of heroes
pretty ballanced

btw i have 2 suggestions:
-adding an "easy" mode(for some reason...i suck even at normal...
-uhm...weapons? i couldnt find any...only armors and charms

 

[xenoche]

Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for the feedback.

Normal difficulty at the moment is about right challenge wise after testing it over the last couple of weeks. Were you playing single player or multiplayer? I was thinking of adding the ability in single player to select a second hero, makes single player more interesting, and you could come up with different combination's.

Weapons are on the cards, however, they will be rare and only Ordinary weapons will be available at vendors. Here's a list of item abilities I'm reserving for the weapon item class:
Damage Amp - Increases the heroes base damage by a percentage.
Critical bonuses - Buffs to critical chance and multiplier (with adequate testing).
Dueling - Dueling weapons increase the critical multiplier of combo attacks (possibly reserved for the fighter class).

 

[kyle150]

The Gaian Heart (Middle Tower)
-- You do not receive experience when Gaian Heart when it kills an enemy.

+ Lots of character choices
- Character choices are vastly unbalanced. Try the golem and then compare him to anybody else.

 

[xenoche]

The Gaian Heart (Middle Tower)
-- You do not receive experience when Gaian Heart when it kills an enemy.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention, noted.

+ Lots of character choices
- Character choices are vastly unbalanced. Try the golem and then compare him to anybody else.

The stone golem IS to strong at the moment. I am aware of many op's that I will be remedying over the next few versions. I would make comparisons to stone golem, but hopefully I will be able to balance without having to expose weaknesses that I need only know until they are balanced or removed.

Anything else you find in regard to balance/bugs would be good.

 

[FrozenFenrir]

Normal difficulty at the moment is about right challenge wise after testing it over the last couple of weeks. Were you playing single player or multiplayer?

i tried it at singleplayer, 4players and 8 players.

singleplayer:was okay with the tauren captain, but only if u buy enough armor...
4players: we've never beaten the 3rd boss...>_>
8players: no comment...those bnet retards at the northrend server are just too stupid to choose at least 4 tanks/captains...


btw:
those random events("psychic orb" or that catapult attack) are kinda evil =O
maybe adding some...positive effects? like more regeneration for a short duration or doubled bounty

EDIT:
the mind heart should be magic immune(some of the boss spell seems to dmg it...)
that catapult attacks shouldnt do dmg to the heart(if u stand near to it it gets like 50% of the dmg...>_>)
also there should be somehow a way to repair heart

 

[xenoche]

i tried it at singleplayer, 4players and 8 players.

singleplayer:was okay with the tauren captain, but only if u buy enough armor...
4players: we've never beaten the 3rd boss...>_>
8players: no comment...those bnet retards at the northrend server are just too stupid to choose at least 4 tanks/captains...


btw:
those random events("psychic orb" or that catapult attack) are kinda evil =O
maybe adding some...positive effects? like more regeneration for a short duration or doubled bounty

EDIT:
the mind heart should be magic immune(some of the boss spell seems to dmg it...)
that catapult attacks shouldn't do dmg to the heart(if u stand near to it it gets like 50% of the dmg...>_>)
also there should be somehow a way to repair heart

The third boss is indeed difficult (not impossible, though), i'll consider nerfing her move speed and 'Slaves to Torment' skill, it does seem to heal her abit too much.
As for 8 player, it does seem to be alot more difficult, simply because more people equals more chance players don't organize their lanes and balance their damage potentials, for example, having 2 heavy aoe nukers on one side is a waste of damage potential, when 1 plus a tanker would suffice.

I love the idea of a double bounty event (expect to see it added).

Demonic events can be avoided by destroying altars and demonic energies, by achieving this you can always keep your Gaian energy high enough that you wont have to worry about random 'Psychic bombs' or the dreaded chaos barrages.

The Gaian heart can be repaired by destroying demon energies. The heart has 20000 hit points, each energy destroyed restores 1000 hit points, with 8 players 8 demon energies spawn, meaning you could potentially heal the heart by 42% in the time of 1 level. I think that is more than enough, unless they aren't healing as they should.

If you can, please post the replay in my map development thread (links in my sig). Replays make it much easier to detect and fix possible integral problems, that only I would notice.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[FrozenFenrir]

The third boss is indeed difficult (not impossible, though), i'll consider nerfing her move speed and 'Slaves to Torment' skill, it does seem to heal her abit too much.
As for 8 player, it does seem to be alot more difficult, simply because more people equals more chance players don't organize their lanes and balance their damage potentials, for example, having 2 heavy aoe nukers on one side is a waste of damage potential, when 1 plus a tanker would suffice.

ye we managed it yesterday with a 4player group to reach the 4th boss(mostly because i had that uber golem lol)

I love the idea of a double bounty event (expect to see it added).

hehe im glad to hear =P

The Gaian heart can be repaired by destroying demon energies. The heart has 20000 hit points, each energy destroyed restores 1000 hit points, with 8 players 8 demon energies spawn, meaning you could potentially heal the heart by 42% in the time of 1 level. I think that is more than enough, unless they aren't healing as they should.

well...only because you HAVE 8 players which are good and intelligent enough to get that.
mostly i am the only one whos getting his way to the altars to destroy them...
so its maybe 5% per lvl which is everything else than much
maybe they could spawn closer to the enemies walk-path so it wouldnt be so difficult to destroy the altar AND hold the lane.(especially the south lane is hard with their altar-spawning places)

If you can, please post the replay in my map development thread (links in my sig). Replays make it much easier to detect and fix possible integral problems, that only I would notice.

Thanks for the feedback.

hehe no problem ;D
im glad i can support maps with that high potential

ill save some replays in the near future and give it to u

 

[Skopetski]

Great map!
but you should some kind of invulnerability to the heart when heroes are present, cause atm they just destroy the heart for me all the time even thou i try to kill em off and i'm present.... =/

 

[xenoche]

well...only because you HAVE 8 players which are good and intelligent enough to get that.
mostly i am the only one whos getting his way to the altars to destroy them...
so its maybe 5% per lvl which is everything else than much
maybe they could spawn closer to the enemies walk-path so it wouldnt be so difficult to destroy the altar AND hold the lane.(especially the south lane is hard with their altar-spawning places)

Yea, what I will do is cause each destroyed demon energy to heal the heart by 4000 divided by the number of players. That should help balance them out abit.

I'm looking forward to seeing some of those replays.

well...only because you HAVE 8 players which are good and intelligent enough to get that.
mostly i am the only one whos getting his way to the altars to destroy them...
so its maybe 5% per lvl which is everything else than much
maybe they could spawn closer to the enemies walk-path so it wouldnt be so difficult to destroy the altar AND hold the lane.(especially the south lane is hard with their altar-spawning places)

I think that reason alone kinda qualifies the map for an easy mode of sorts, your right that hosting with random players that have never played before is really, really tough (Easy mode would make everything alot easier at the expense of gold vault interest rate, drop rate or something). I'll look into it.

Great map!
but you should some kind of invulnerability to the heart when heroes are present, cause atm they just destroy the heart for me all the time even thou i try to kill em off and i'm present.... =/

Whats strange is that I've set its priority to 0, and its still attracting creeps, like its got some mass taunt spell or something (which it doesn't). I'm thinking up some ideas to rectify it, hold on, version 2.1 is just around the corner. If nothing else works I may end up removing the hearts attack (I'm sure thats a big part of the problem).

 

[bounty hunter2]

Great job on this map, I approved it since it deserves it. Expect more full reviews soon.

 

[Misha]

Increase the Gaian Hearth hit-points, dammage and attack rate. It was killed easily and immediately

give shrines something to defend with =S

3.67/5 Good

~Misha~

 

[xenoche]

Thanks for the brief but useful review bountyhunter. I am putting all my efforts into this at the moment, the next version (0.21) will have many balance fixes, since my constant minor tinkering with balance doesn't seem to be having as much of an effect that I would like, I'm gonna go all out and re-balance everything. If I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna damn well do it properly this time.

Increase the Gaian Hearth hit-points, dammage and attack rate. It was killed easily and immediately

give shrines something to defend with =S

3.67/5 Good

~Misha~

The gaian hearts attack is a last defense, and isn't supposed to be used as THE defense, I'll be adding pets soon that can help aid your hero in battle, to help possibly offset your heroes deficits.

 

[CloudMax]

Dueling - Dueling weapons increase the critical multiplier of combo attacks (possibly reserved for the fighter class).

Are you sure you dont mean Dual Wielding?
Dueling weapons sound wrong. I mean, its not weapons you duel with, or is it? :O
Dual wielding weapons means that you wield two weapons so that you can attack faster, which means that you can do combo attacks easier.
Maybe its suppost to be Dueling weapons, i dont know.

 

[xenoche]

Special class based item ideas welcome

A dueling weapon is light and maneuverable, allowing consecutive critical attacks to deal bonus damage. Dueling weapons are fighter only weapons.

I'm gonna add special item types for each class eventually, so far, casters/priests have Wands of Magic Amp that increases critical chance, fighters are going to have dueling weapons and captains are going to get battle standards that grand various auras. Tanks and Rangers I'm yet to think of a special item, any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Mangouste]

Your map is really interesting and well-made.
TERRAIN 5/5
I don't think I have anything to say about it. It looks nice without being overcharged with doodads, and enemy camps are not all similar which is a good thing.

HEROES 4/5
I liked the variety of heroes (spells and names), yet as others said, some balances have to be made. I suggest you test them 1 by 1 to compare them. Calculate how much time Tanks can survive, the DPS of Fighters, Rangers and Casters and the HPS of Healers. Captains should be the hardest class to test as they seem to be buffers. Also notice in your balance work that heroes should be tested at several levels, as some heroes are good starters (like Fighters with high STR and AGI, Junipar and Yozshura) and some are better in late game (like the Captain Tristram and its 42% cleave). But overall, I saw no severe imbalance apart from Gorganite, and Yozshura's abilities.

ITEMS 4.5/5
Again a good variety, and pretty balanced. Yet as FrozenFenrir said, there are no weapons, and players ARE gonna be looking for bonus damage. This is a thorny issue, as inserting items that grant bonus damage is going to cause more imbalances. The solutions could be to (apart from, of course, limit them by 1 per hero) only make weapons to increase damage by a percentage, to prevent from early mass bonus damage, and to make them more expensive than armors, so that choosing a damage boost would mean sacrifice a aprt of your protection). Of course, many players are bonus damage addicts, so do not discourage them by making weapons unaffordable =)

GAMEPLAY 3.5/5
You managed to create a defensive atmosphere, meaning players are soon aware that any selfish choice will cost heavy on the Gaian Heart. Indeed, if you flee from waves, creeps attack the Heart and only tanks seem to be able to taunt them back. If you remain in your lane without looking for destroying the Demonic Altars, you will suffer from Demonic Events, and finally, Demonic Events like Chaos barrage are focusing heroes first, meaning if all heroes die the Gaian Heart will be focused.
I only went until Level 4, because of a problem I think you need to fix: Heroes are almost permahexed starting wave 2. If you reach last wave of level 4, you face Hexors' hex + Ogres' bash, which almost forbids all movements. Be very cautious when you grant enemies abilities that stun, hex or silence, because in mass this can be frustrating. A solution could be to only create a few of them per wave, and to set the manacost of these spells to the maximum mana of the units, so that they only cast it once (this or a 1 hour CD). Anything that doesn't force players to purchase the Ultimus amulet just for this wave.
EDIT: I noticed one could purchase Anti-magic potions, which might be a good remedy against this, for they are not too expensive.
I joined a replay in solo that shows Yozshura's ubber abilities and the abuse of Hex and bash in level 4. I am aware that with more players, units will be hexed less often and only tanks will be stunned, but I still think nerfing these abilities is a need.
I'll keep on testing your map because it remains fun to play, and edit this post if I find other things if you are interested. Keep up the good work =)

TOTAL 4.25/5
+rep

 

[Misha]

The gaian hearts attack is a last defense, and isn't supposed to be used as THE defense, I'll be adding pets soon that can help aid your hero in battle, to help possibly offset your heroes deficits.

that would be a GREAT idea

i got to 6 Lvl before beeing obliderated lol...
but still at leas hit-points on gaian hearth shhould be increased a lill bit.

and ehm.... need any models? ^_^

EDIT: Hex and bash abuse got me to using "godmod cheat" >.>

 

[Sgt. Johnson]

Alright so played this at least 5 times or so in the last few hours, love the map, at this point though the map is insanely difficult with 4+ players. With 8 we'd be lucky to last to the 2nd boss, let alone kill him. Last game we did was me and my 3 friends we made it to the 4th boss but got some really bad luck by the time we made it to the ogres.

Our suggestions and feedback are as followed

Shops need to possibly be accessible from much further away, as soon as the waves start coming it is nearly impossible to make a quick run back to the shops for possibly pots or anything you may need without your lane being overwhelmed in seconds.

The ogres in the 4th level are incredibly overpowered, the stunlock is pretty much permanent, I had 8 of em beating on me at the beginning of that wave and couldn't get them off me from the constant stun, got lucky and got the golems ultimate off and knocked em all out.

The hero killers are ridiculous, there needs to be a way to get rid of them. We had the hero killer spawn in our last game right as the ogres came. He 2 shotted my lane partner then went after me, and since I was perma-stunned from the ogres I just had to sit there as the shade finished me off.

The Altars really can do a number on your lane, our last game we had 4 people. Me as the golem, my brother as the lady of the lake, friend as the mountain king, and my other friend as the bloodmage. Me and my brother covered one lane, they both covered the other, if me and my bro got the altar spawn in our lane we pushed it then I held the lane and he killed the altar then we fell back to our shrine. But if the altar popped on our friends lane, we would have to juggle the bloodmage and my brother, so he could keep my other friend with the mountain king healed as they pushed, then during the juggle the lanes would get stacked up.

Like someone else said, the random events need to possibly have a positive effect, everythings negative and really hurts the hell out of your team.

The Demonic energies need to seriously be slowed or something, certain melee classes it is ridiculously hard to stop the energies from getting by you.

From what I heard from the tests, Magnataur and the tank Pandaren were not nearly as powerful as the MK and golem and couldn't last very long.

The bank is a nice touch, but it would help a little more if you could at least deposit your gold at any time via a command, or again by making the shops have a much higher range of use.

Some instant heal potions would really help alot, or at least make the potions heal for alot more than they do over time, pretty much the only way potions helped was if you got the one that heals for 1.5k then you at least regenerated enough life that you would be stable against certain waves.

An easy mode really is needed, Normal is difficult enough but I would hate to see insane. Most 8 player games I hosted we couldn't even get thru level 1 without losing at least 1 or 2 shrines, and most of the time we couldn't push an altar if it spawned without a healer.

Possibly add a defensive mechanism for the shrines and the heart if they are like say under 40% life, spawns a guardian or something to defend it for 1 minute or so. Also the shrines really need a way to be repaired, maybe make it so at the end of each round the shrines and heart are repaired?

Well thats bout all I can think of atm, love the map, terrain is amazing man, I've only seen a handful of maps with terrain that good. It just needs a little bit of balancing and fixes and such and I think it'll be great.

Terrain: 5/5
Terrain was amazing, bout all I can say.

Heroes: 4/5
Only played the golem most games, played the pandaren tank once and he didn't seem to be very strong. From what I could see most of the other classes are balanced, Lady of the Lake's AoE spell seemed pretty damn strong though, my brother was easily 1 shotting waves at one point with it.

Items: 4.5/5
Items were pretty good, though didn't realize until the last damn game that there was an amulet with life steal XD

Gameplay: 4/5
Gameplay was nice, requires teamwork and strategy, just needs some work on the difficulty with more players.

--------------------------------------

Average Score: 4.375/5
All in all I really liked the map, just needs a few improvements and fixes and it'll be great.

 

[xenoche]

Thanks for the reviews

Wow, all I got to say is, what a great response. Glad you guys enjoyed it.
Now for some replies:

Mangouste
I see you added Yozshura to your list of 'imbas', I agree that I definitely needed to balance the amount of area damage a single hero can output, as displayed by both heroes in your 'imbas' list. As I've stated i am adding a weapon class of item (the item abilities have been there since v0.16, I just need to add the vendor and items to it). The Ogres of Great Kill do bash way to often, so I'm halving the bash chance to 30% (from 60%, I know, I'm evil ). I added the potions of magic resistance, so, after nerfing the ogres I think I'll leave the hexors (for now).

Misha
The heart already has lots of hitpoints, however, I am going to cause the heart to heal after every level by 15% automatically (on top of a buffed hp regeneration).

Sgt. Johnson
Shops are more than accessible after the update from v0.16 to .16b, when I added Gaian support units that can be purchased from the potion vendor. Gaian support units (or GSU's for short) can carry items, use the gold vault and even has a handy hitpoint regen aura.
The stun lock problem should be alot better after I nerf the bash chance (was 60%, opps, my bad haha).
I will review the hero killers damage and so forth (once I've finished balancing the heroes, and your right that was an evil combo, stun lock + deadly shade lol).
Juggling lanes is something that may not be as much of a problem once I've adequately balanced the heroes and creeps.
I will add positive random events that will trigger after different sets of circumstances like, clearing a wave without a death, killing altars within X amount of time, positive effects after completing optional quests that I'll be adding next version and the list could go on, but I wont divulge to much until 0.21's release.
If you use a GSU, it can do your banking for you, makes life alot easier for 400 gold (too cheap?).
Before i add an easy mode I would like to get everything balanced for normal mode, that way I know how easy is easy, I will add one though.
The 'spawn a Gaian Guardian when shrines reach 50% hp idea' is awesome and I will definatly add it next version.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to test my map, it has a long way to go, but with your support, it can only get better.

xenO.

 

[Sgt. Johnson]

Ok something else, me and my friend were playing 2 player, we were owning for awhile, I was using golem as usual, he had lady of the lake, after a bit we were just raping everything. Until we got to level 5... the Ancient of War wave, wave 4 I believe, completely raped us, their damage says 200-220 or something like that, but they were hitting my golem upwards of 400-600 a hit, I dropped in about 10 seconds. Friend with the lady got 2 shotted. Then they preceded to kill the shrine in about 5 seconds, then the altar in about 10 seconds or so after that (It was bout half health from bosses that of course pushed toward the heart and we couldn't stop them)

We both had died from that wave and before we even respawned the ancients pushed to the heart and killed it in that time.

 

[xenoche]

That could possibly be linked to another problem someone was experiencing with the demonic pheonixes. They both have an ability that adds damage equal to 30% of their current hitpoints. I'll either nerf or replace the ability next version as its FAR too strong.

Thanks that helped alot.

EDIT: I just watched your replay, much thanks. I found about half a page of things that need nerfing, buffing, tweeking, fixing, I'm gonna be busy tonight...

 

[Sgt. Johnson]

Also we think there may be a problem with the gaian energy, it continues to deplete even when a level is cleared =/ and doesn't seem to reset till some random occurence (haven't figured out what)

Also maybe have the altars despawn at the end of a round if the players didn't kill them that level? Or maybe since it does just give a bonus, maybe make the Altar temporary, cause almost every game if the people on the lane with an altar cannot immediatly push and kill the altar, its pretty much GG because within a few minutes all hell breaks loose from the gaian energy depleting. And only a few classes are actually strong enough to push too *cough* Golem *cough*

The gaian spirit thing you were talking about that can be used to run back and forth for items seems to also be way to squishy, maybe buff it a lil bit.

 

[herro_master]

damn fine if i may say so

Me n my buddies like this map and finding it on friday brightened mny day i told my buddy to host it and lo and behold after hosting he played it again and wanted to continue but couldent thats somthing for mah friends so good job Xenoche good freaking job


and DAMN FINE

 

[xenoche]

Also we think there may be a problem with the gaian energy, it continues to deplete even when a level is cleared =/ and doesn't seem to reset till some random occurence (haven't figured out what)

Also maybe have the altars despawn at the end of a round if the players didn't kill them that level? Or maybe since it does just give a bonus, maybe make the Altar temporary, cause almost every game if the people on the lane with an altar cannot immediatly push and kill the altar, its pretty much GG because within a few minutes all hell breaks loose from the gaian energy depleting. And only a few classes are actually strong enough to push too *cough* Golem *cough*

The gaian spirit thing you were talking about that can be used to run back and forth for items seems to also be way to squishy, maybe buff it a lil bit.

Press f9 during play brings up alot of info, including how gaian energy works, but I'll post a brief summary here.

Gaian energy depletes periodically begining at 360 (-50 for each destroyed shrine). Destroying demonic energies and altars replenishes it. If gaian energy reaches 0, a random demonic event occurs. Demonic altars, energies, hero deaths all contribute to decrease gaian energy.

Altars, if left unchecked will eventually upgrade to a demon Portal that summons a level 8 demonic wave whenever gaian energy reaches 0. If you have to, destroy altars in the time between levels before they get a chance to upgrade.

The Gaian support unit (GSU) has a mana shield that obsorbs all damage (until its mana pool of 1000 goes to 0 anyway). So GSU's are tough enough, not that they should be in the heat of battle anyway (I'll think about a buff, mabee to mana regen).

Once the heroes have been properly balanced the 'cant destroy altar' problem should also be resolved.

xenO.

 

[BlackCat500]

Hello xenoche.

I've played this map with a few friends of mine a few times and although I might be repeating some things from the previous posts I'll just mention everything I found odd. Here we go:

Aether Drakes owned everything in one shot. I don't know what's up with it.

The East side is heavily disadvantaging for ranged people because you have to shoot up to a higher area from the shrine, which often causes the enemy to dodge your attacks.

I'd recommend you to fix some spelling mistakes in the map (for example the word recommend in the loading screen) just to improve the map a bit more. It's pretty much awesome though, thumbs up.

Some heroes are very weak from the beginning, or even useless..some abilities are becoming useless later on. How about you base some of the spells on attributes? It sure would help the survival a lot.

I'd like to see a higher buying range of shops or an increase of the time in between the rounds.

An easy difficulty and for all difficulties a scaled amount of gaian energy maximum and minimum, as well as scaled starting gold

Gaian Heart buff in health (I read that's going to be done, no complaints here then)

Weaken the dragon boss a slight bit (the rush attack is kind of strong, it killed our fighter in one shot all the time)

I was actually fine with the golem, though I believe if his strength was placed onto other heroes he wouldn't need to be that strong. The Magnataur seemed totally useless because of the single-targeting. The health he has doesn't really make up for it.

Well..that's all I can remember for now. It's a really great map..the over all design is great and the fun factor is high. Good job!

 

[Sgt. Johnson]

Press f9 during play brings up alot of info, including how gaian energy works, but I'll post a brief summary here.

Gaian energy depletes periodically begining at 360 (-50 for each destroyed shrine). Destroying demonic energies and altars replenishes it. If gaian energy reaches 0, a random demonic event occurs. Demonic altars, energies, hero deaths all contribute to decrease gaian energy.

Altars, if left unchecked will eventually upgrade to a demon Portal that summons a level 8 demonic wave whenever gaian energy reaches 0. If you have to, destroy altars in the time between levels before they get a chance to upgrade.

The Gaian support unit (GSU) has a mana shield that obsorbs all damage (until its mana pool of 1000 goes to 0 anyway). So GSU's are tough enough, not that they should be in the heat of battle anyway (I'll think about a buff, mabee to mana regen).

Once the heroes have been properly balanced the 'cant destroy altar' problem should also be resolved.

xenO.

Kk, I still stand on the idea of having altars despawn at the end of a level, that would make it so if players didn't kill it during the level they would miss out on the bonus gold.

And I believe the energy was depleting even between waves without an altar up, because we were waiting for the next level and suddenly started getting barrages one game.


Also maybe you should rework the Psychic Bomb occurence, instead of a base ammount of damage have it deal say 75% of the heroes life, cause the damage Psychic Bomb does is ridiculous, if it happens to hit a caster there is an extremely high chance that the hero will die instantly.

--------------------

As for those positive effects for performing well, I have some suggestions.

- Bounty Increase, if the players are performing well the bounty on killing enemies is increased by a %.

- Grand Life Regeneration Aura, if players are performing exceptionally well the AoE range of the life regeneration auras of the Shrines and the Gaian Heart are greatly increased.

- Movement Reduction Aura, of players are performing well enemies will have their movement speed reduced by a %.

None of those would buff the players by to much, at most the grand life regen aura would be a nice buff, but if the creeps remain at current strength it will be enough to give the players a slight advantage but enough that players can still take damage.

 

[xenoche]

Thx for the feedback blackcat500

I haven't got to much time to chat, but I'll quickly run through and reply.

Hello xenoche
Hi

I've played this map with a few friends of mine a few times and although I might be repeating some things from the previous posts I'll just mention everything I found odd. Here we go:

Aether Drakes owned everything in one shot. I don't know what's up with it.
A problem that has now been fixed (they had an ability that caused them to deal damage equal to 50% of their hp, now its 13%)

The East side is heavily disadvantaging for ranged people because you have to shoot up to a higher area from the shrine, which often causes the enemy to dodge your attacks.
There are advantageous positions for melee and ranged heroes, for sure, in my mind it adds to the strategic game play of the map.

I'd recommend you to fix some spelling mistakes in the map (for example the word recommend in the loading screen) just to improve the map a bit more. It's pretty much awesome though, thumbs up.
Funnily enough my gf pointed that out (Reccomended) not so long ago, yes it is now fixed thanks.

Some heroes are very weak from the beginning, or even useless..some abilities are becoming useless later on. How about you base some of the spells on attributes? It sure would help the survival a lot.
Many abilities are already based on attributes, but the map is still being developed and the conversion of abilities to stat based effectivness is still under way.

I'd like to see a higher buying range of shops or an increase of the time in between the rounds.
I have added a unit that can be bought at the pot merchant that can carry/purchase/sell items for you (and can use the gold vault). This isn't the first complaint about the buy range, should I simply remove the item carrier unit and give all vendors 20000 buy range?

An easy difficulty and for all difficulties a scaled amount of gaian energy maximum and minimum, as well as scaled starting gold.
I've had a few players comment on why I used 360 for the gaian energy 'ceiling', instead of a nice round number like 100, and just nerf gaian energy degeneration, I am seriously considering a change like this, for simplicities sake.

Gaian Heart buff in health (I read that's going to be done, no complaints here then)
A buff to hitpoints and armor is on the way.

Weaken the dragon boss a slight bit (the rush attack is kind of strong, it killed our fighter in one shot all the time)
I agree, and being done.

I was actually fine with the golem, though I believe if his strength was placed onto other heroes he wouldn't need to be that strong. The Magnataur seemed totally useless because of the single-targeting. The health he has doesn't really make up for it.
I was considering removing him since he's proberly the most unfinished hero in LLS at the moment (apart from the 4th captain hero ).

Well..that's all I can remember for now. It's a really great map..the over all design is great and the fun factor is high. Good job!
Thank you

 

[Vaarj]

Aether Drakes owned everything in one shot. I don't know what's up with it.

A problem that has now been fixed (they had an ability that caused them to deal damage equal to 50% of their hp, now its 13%)

Great that you found out what was causing that bug, sorry i couldn't give you a replay, my friends weren't up to playing it..

Just wondering, any ETA on the new version? I'm really looking forward to it

 

[xenoche]

Even without the replay Vaarj, your posts have helped alot.

Working on LLS as I post this, after grueling through my 2 pages of 'to-do list' over the last few days, I've got about a quarter of a page left. My best guess, 0.21 will be ready either tonight, or tomorrow morning.

 

[herro_master]

cool cuz me and my buddies like this and would like to see it completed or at least more finished to us its a way to be entertained while keeping us on the edge of our seats

ps. the mortar team is pretty damn strong if you can get the mage crit orb

-herro

 

[Sgt. Johnson]

New version has a few issues it seems.

Level 1 seems to have greatly increased in difficulty we died so many times it was ridiculous, pretty much we got pushed to the shrine instantly, then we couldn't push back until the guardian spawned, then when he despawned we lost the shrine and got pushed to the heart in seconds and it was just constant die and respawn for a few minutes till the heart got low and the guardians decimated everything.

Those phoenixes are RIDICULOUSLY overpowered, after a few levels we managed to get decked out in ultimate items and pretty much owned everything up to phoenixes with ease. When the phoenixes arrived we pretty much died instantly and lost the game.

So may wanna check out level 1 creeps and the phoenixes.

Putting up a replay of last game.

 

[xenoche]

Darn, well I'll view your replay ASAP.

I would advise nobody to download 0.21, it seems I stuffed one of the triggers up. I'll fix and upload 0.21a as soon as its done. Thanks Sgt. Johnson, somehow I didn't pick that up while testing myself (possibly a discrepancy that only effects non-solo games).

EDIT: I watched the replay, I'm so sorry :[ , I'll fix it asap.

 

[Vaarj]

Just played 0.21 solo and it seems to work fine, got farther then i've ever come before i think..too bad i got an fatal error when i accidentally bought a tome with the item-buyer -.-

 

[CloudMax]

It doesnt work fine if you get fatal error.

 

[T-s-G]

For the score system, contact doos_101 (http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/members/doos_101) I´m sure he would be happy to have his system in your map.

 

[Dezedor]

Well this map certainly deserves to be developted even further, so im gonna share my experience of it aswell.

Firstly: I'm not a Heroic guy normally. I prefer strategy maps, were i control the men in line of fire, instead of being them. That being said, this map just might convert me to play more Hero defences.
I only played it single player and only made it to lvl 3. So thats all i can comment.

There was a lot of great things in this map.
1. The looks and feels of the map, was fantastic. Great terrain (Can't be said to often), Nice lightning effects, good use of sound, appropiate models, fine icons and so on. It somehow makes the map more pleasant, without messing with the atmopherer of approching danger. And the way the lighting turns red near the end: Nice though.
2. The gameplay is simply fun. Nice banking system, a well working item system and nice details. Good random events which always means +1 points in my book.
I like the Gaiin Energy concept. A LOT! Also the feeling of relief when the Guardians appered for the first time, was indescribable. (I spelled that wrong, right?)
And the creeps! The main reason i stop caring in about ten waves, in normal hero maps is the creeps. Theyre ALWAYS boring as hell.
Until this map came along. Nice variation in skills, playstyle and so on.

To sum it all up:
The gameplay and presentation, aswell as the sounds (loved the tracks) is great. A major problem is balance between heroes. (In my experience Mortar Team is to weak. That may be due to single play but still a lot weaker than the Battle Maiden, for example.) Fix that, and you've made one of the best Hero Defence maps ever.

Well at least thats my opponion.
I rate this 3.5/5 so far, simply because it was enjoyable. Even the defeat screen, doesn't seem as annoying as in most maps.
However i will hold my final rating, till the hero balance is better, and i've play it in multiplayer. Until then keep up the good... no, Great work, and thx for a nice experience.

 

[Vaarj]

Played it solo once again, this time i'm attaching a replay, since there's still some things that need to be fixed..

 

[xenoche]

v.21a Released

Finally finished re-furbishing all creep stats, what an epic mission.
Thanks for the replays guys, they help so much that every time I watch them I get at least another half a page of ideas and fixes.

So here it is, in all its glory, v.21a.

v.21a changelog
-Re-evaluated all creep statistics and reconstructed the difficulty settings.
-Gaian Conduct actually works now.
-Fixed a bug where a demonic event would fail to occur.
-Nerfed Gold Vault interest to 4% after the addition of the 'Double Interest' ability.
-Standardized hero hitpoints, giving more survivability to casters and priests.
-Stone bomb no longer damages structures.
-Gaian Support unit no longer crashes the game when buying tomes.
-Various creep ability buffs and nerfs.

 

[Sgt. Johnson]

-Stone bomb no longer damages structures.

now I'm a sad panda, you nerfed the Golem so much man, the AoE for the one rock ability being nerfed was big enough since I pretty much only used it for a quick stun and minor damage. But now your nerfing Stone Bomb even more than before? it was so nice being able to drop an altar quickly and get out before the shrine got swarmed lol.

 

[xenoche]

Hah, yes, well considering no other hero really has that luxury, its a bit if an inconsistency. The stone bomb still deals potentially the most aoe damage in the game, even after being nerfed to 30%. Its very wise to pot up before going out on a mission to destroy altars, or hold the lane far enough forward that its not a mission (if you can tear yourself away from the soothing aura of your beloved Shrine ).

Time will tell, but I'm semi-expecting more issues with balance after the major creep revamp, at least now I'm ready, complete with spreadsheets and difficulty curves, should make my tinkering with balance a bit more structured from now on.

 

[Sgt. Johnson]

Hah, yes, well considering no other hero really has that luxury, its a bit if an inconsistency. The stone bomb still deals potentially the most aoe damage in the game, even after being nerfed to 30%. Its very wise to pot up before going out on a mission to destroy altars, or hold the lane far enough forward that its not a mission (if you can tear yourself away from the soothing aura of your beloved Shrine ).

Time will tell, but I'm semi-expecting more issues with balance after the major creep revamp, at least now I'm ready, complete with spreadsheets and difficulty curves, should make my tinkering with balance a bit more structured from now on.

Actually I think the shrines aura wasn't working properly in that other version, when level 1 was completely raping us I swear the aura wasn't regenning anything at all. May wanna check that replay, btw did you balance level 1? Or was there just something I was missing last game that was the reason level 1 completely melted our faces in that game.

And ya stone bomb is still one of the strongest AoE's, but since it can't hit altars anymore... may want to lower the altars life a little bit now in normal difficulty, because they do take awhile to kill with just normal attacks.

 

[xenoche]

0.21 was a right off due to me stuffing up the first waves upgrades, it should be fine now, the shrines healing aura still works, that first wave was just ludicrous (my bad). I've tried to make sure that the altars hitpoints scale, but with so many heroes, makes it difficult. I was even thinking about shrinking the hero pool down to 12, getting them balanced, then add 1 each new version. I found it tough to cut down to 12 though, I'll just keep on wit what I got.

Another thought, I could make all abilities target structures...hmmm, then I'd have to buff altars, what do ya think?

 

[FrozenFenrir]

0.21 was a right off due to me stuffing up the first waves upgrades, it should be fine now, the shrines healing aura still works, that first wave was just ludicrous (my bad). I've tried to make sure that the altars hitpoints scale, but with so many heroes, makes it difficult. I was even thinking about shrinking the hero pool down to 12, getting them balanced, then add 1 each new version. I found it tough to cut down to 12 though, I'll just keep on wit what I got.

Another thought, I could make all abilities target structures...hmmm, then I'd have to buff altars, what do ya think?

this would actually makes it alot easier cause the spell-based heroes have finally a chance to destroy them too
atm they havent any good way to destroy them with their low atk.

 

[Skopetski]

I say make most abilities scale a tiny bit with various stats, since you have to make "combos" to do any damage with spells at later levels ^_^

 

[kyle150]

I noticed at some times my spell attacks would damage myself in-game, same thing happen to others in the game.

Is this intended? because i could not tell where this is coming from.

 

[Vaarj]

I noticed at some times my spell attacks would damage myself in-game, same thing happen to others in the game.

Is this intended? because i could not tell where this is coming from.

I think it's when the mobs have "Thorns" on them that this happens, the buff description should probably be changed as it now only mentions melee.

I've had times where i've insta-killed myself when doing a spell that hits alot of mobs with thorns, like the Lightning-Panda's chain-lightning.

 

[slasherxx]

I think there might be a crash bugg with the hero zeus[forgot the name, but that the dota look]. I played 3 straight pub game when someone picked zeus and when he reach lvl 6 it crashes.

 

[xenoche]

I think there might be a crash bugg with the hero zeus[forgot the name, but that the dota look]. I played 3 straight pub game when someone picked zeus and when he reach lvl 6 it crashes.

When you say zeus, do you mean the Iron Breaker?

The damage return should be returning only melee damage, but it's not working as intended (I think its because of the way I've managed my damage detection, I'll either nerf it and fix the buff description, or find out how a standard wc ability is returning spell damage, very strange).

 

[Vaarj]

Played it once again solo, i still think the Aether Drakes are too strong, this time i spammed strength tomes as much as i could and still got killed instantly..

Here's the replay..

Edit: Rewatching the replay myself i noticed that i hadn't got much HP left when the Aether Drakes got to me..