[Solved] Looking for feedback on a map

[SalvatorThenorium]

I recently started working on a short campaign and I need someone to test the first map and give me honest feedback about it. The map is fully finished, including cutscenes, triggers, and other elements. If you notice any bugs or have suggestions for improvement, feel free to mention them below as well.

 

[Chaosium]

Once the cinematic is done, if you press Esc it is re-skipped, so all the introduction hints are displayed again and again ^^
About those hints, maybe delay them a bit because hint 1 + hint 2 + quest discovered + warning is quite the wall of text that hits you right at the beginning
I barely had the time to make an unit that Rotmaw immediately put me over the supply cap so thanks I guess lol

Visuals are cool though, I'll try some more tomorrow

 

[SalvatorThenorium]

Once the cinematic is done, if you press Esc it is re-skipped, so all the introduction hints are displayed again and again ^^
About those hints, maybe delay them a bit because hint 1 + hint 2 + quest discovered + warning is quite the wall of text that hits you right at the beginning
I barely had the time to make an unit that Rotmaw immediately put me over the supply cap so thanks I guess lol

Visuals are cool though, I'll try some more tomorrow

What do you mean they reset? I'm trying it here and I can't reproduce that. What I was aiming for was to convey a sense of urgency, where you, as the Scourge, have to act quickly just like Arthas did when he fled to Northrend. Rotmaw was my way of letting you defend your base against early enemy waves so you could build up. Believe me, you can build a ziggurat with the gold and wood you start with I made sure of that. I'm really glad you gave it a shot, and I'm looking forward to your full feedback

What do you mean they reset? I'm trying it here and I can't reproduce that. What I was aiming for was to convey a sense of urgency, where you, as the Scourge, have to act quickly just like Arthas did when he fled to Northrend. Rotmaw was my way of letting you defend your base against early enemy waves so you could build up. Believe me, you can build a ziggurat with the gold and wood you start with I made sure of that. I'm really glad you gave it a shot, and I'm looking forward to your full feedback

I just reread the triggers, I had actually set it to check during the warnings haha. It's fixed now! I'll be updating the download link. Thanks!

 

[Chaosium]

Alright I played it some more but I'll be honest I won't probably finish it because of the overall difficulty of it, the available units are all exceptionally weak (I mean fine, they're skeletons and zombies, it makes sense), but even clearing the sasquatches requires to throw quite a lot of money by the window << And on 1 goldmine, that's painful to do. I'm sure there are people better at the game than me who can do this easily, but yeah right now I feel too much on the backfoot to really accomplish anything with that faction.

A few misc things:

• After using his AOE heal ability, the hero stands there and does nothing until manually ordered to stop. I realized that it's an autocast ability so it's probably based on the obsidian statue's spell. You might want to use another one, because well you'll never have enough mana to autocast that spell, and it's just an extra annoyance to deal with lol
• Acolyte's repair and raise zombie abilities share the same hotkey (R, but can't say if that's because I changed hotkeys in the options)
• You may want to update the acolyte's tooltip where it still says that they can harvest gold but in fact cannot
• Human spearmen's portrait is buggy, sometimes it's full black, sometimes they show on a weird angle, I suspect that's a model issue

 

[SalvatorThenorium]

Alright I played it some more but I'll be honest I won't probably finish it because of the overall difficulty of it, the available units are all exceptionally weak (I mean fine, they're skeletons and zombies, it makes sense), but even clearing the sasquatches requires to throw quite a lot of money by the window << And on 1 goldmine, that's painful to do. I'm sure there are people better at the game than me who can do this easily, but yeah right now I feel too much on the backfoot to really accomplish anything with that faction.

A few misc things:

• After using his AOE heal ability, the hero stands there and does nothing until manually ordered to stop. I realized that it's an autocast ability so it's probably based on the obsidian statue's spell. You might want to use another one, because well you'll never have enough mana to autocast that spell, and it's just an extra annoyance to deal with lol
• Acolyte's repair and raise zombie abilities share the same hotkey (R, but can't say if that's because I changed hotkeys in the options)
• You may want to update the acolyte's tooltip where it still says that they can harvest gold but in fact cannot
• Human spearmen's portrait is buggy, sometimes it's full black, sometimes they show on a weird angle, I suspect that's a model issue

Alright. I just finished correcting everything you mentioned, I'm just thinking of a way to balance the game a bit, do you have any ideas?

 

[Chaosium]

Honestly I don't know if it really requires balancing or if I'm just not an undead player Perhaps other people could give their insights about that

Perhaps adding an extra gold mine somewhere in the blue base on the left ? Or a collectible item/something that would unlock an extra upgrade for your troops? For instance I saw that the basic skeletons can learn an ability, I assume it comes in later missions, it could be cool to let players have a preview of what it is

 

[SalvatorThenorium]

Honestly I don't know if it really requires balancing or if I'm just not an undead player Perhaps other people could give their insights about that

Perhaps adding an extra gold mine somewhere in the blue base on the left ? Or a collectible item/something that would unlock an extra upgrade for your troops? For instance I saw that the basic skeletons can learn an ability, I assume it comes in later missions, it could be cool to let players have a preview of what it is

Alright, but even so, I'll look for some way to make it fairer. I’ve uploaded a new version to install, with everything you mentioned corrected. Thanks for the help.

 

[SalvatorThenorium]

Many things have been added and fixed, feel free to give it another try if you'd like

 

[Chaosium]

Okay I've replayed it and finished it! It does feels better, I like the money pick-ups you added, they were useful, and at the end I floated 8k gold in the bank so economy is definitely not an issue I played with level 2 heal and level 1 vampiric aura, the first spell especially is great for unit retention
The miniboss was nice, not too overpowered, and pushing in teal's base was actually pretty easy, actually the worst part is dealing with blue because of the layout of his base. This time I engaged more with acolytes and summoning zombies as a replenishable force to defend home while my army was away, and it was working, so I like that mechanic

Some misc stuff:

• I noticed the both skeleton units do not have a hotkey for training them in the crypt
• I ventured north-west and saw corpses with a stone golem at half health, I think teal was sending attack groups against them and eventually didn't have many men left at home xD Maybe the AIs should leave the creeps alone for their sake
• Completing the main quest did not trigger a "quest completed" message before the cinematic, but that's not too bad

I think my biggest piece of feedback would be either reduce the unit collisions, or widen some of the paths, like blue's base or especially this ramp of hell where the kobolds are, it took me ages to get out of there XD

But overall nice map

 

[SalvatorThenorium]

Okay I've replayed it and finished it! It does feels better, I like the money pick-ups you added, they were useful, and at the end I floated 8k gold in the bank so economy is definitely not an issue I played with level 2 heal and level 1 vampiric aura, the first spell especially is great for unit retention
The miniboss was nice, not too overpowered, and pushing in teal's base was actually pretty easy, actually the worst part is dealing with blue because of the layout of his base. This time I engaged more with acolytes and summoning zombies as a replenishable force to defend home while my army was away, and it was working, so I like that mechanic

Some misc stuff:

• I noticed the both skeleton units do not have a hotkey for training them in the crypt
• I ventured north-west and saw corpses with a stone golem at half health, I think teal was sending attack groups against them and eventually didn't have many men left at home xD Maybe the AIs should leave the creeps alone for their sake
• Completing the main quest did not trigger a "quest completed" message before the cinematic, but that's not too bad

I think my biggest piece of feedback would be either reduce the unit collisions, or widen some of the paths, like blue's base or especially this ramp of hell where the kobolds are, it took me ages to get out of there XD

View attachment 544644

But overall nice map

i noticed that the teal player hadn't been attacking since the last time I tested the map, and I’ve been racking my brain trying to fix the issue. Well, looks like you found the problem. What did you think of the map’s appearance and the undead faction? I mixed three different biomes to achieve this look, and I’m really happy with the result. Thanks again for testing my campaign. I'm already working on fixing the issues you mentioned.

 

[Chaosium]

The terraining is nice, feels like a transition between the old Eastweald and the soon-to-be Plaguelands, but it's still lush and lively, with farms scattered here and there, it looks nice
As for the faction itself, it's not easy to make a judgement because the techtree available is quite limited (and for a mission 1 that's normal), I'd be curious to see the higher unit tiers/spellcasters, because I can't imagine doing all the maps with the weak skeletons

 

[SalvatorThenorium]

The terraining is nice, feels like a transition between the old Eastweald and the soon-to-be Plaguelands, but it's still lush and lively, with farms scattered here and there, it looks nice
As for the faction itself, it's not easy to make a judgement because the techtree available is quite limited (and for a mission 1 that's normal), I'd be curious to see the higher unit tiers/spellcasters, because I can't imagine doing all the maps with the weak skeletons

That was exactly my intention. I was playing the Undead campaign in Warcraft III (TFT) and noticed that the Plaguelands had been called that ever since Lordaeron fell. So I figured they should actually look like that. From there, I started thinking about what Kel'Thuzad might have done during Arthas’s absence, and that gave me the idea to create this campaign.


To be honest, this is the first campaign where I’m really putting in serious effort, so feedback is very important to me. And coming from someone like you, who clearly seems experienced, it’s a great motivation. I don’t want to bother you, so I won’t ask any more questions. Thanks again for your feedback!

 

[Chaosium]

I'd say you're off to a good start, keep it up