Lost Kingdoms - Reforged

[Ardenaso]

looks cool and the terraining is good; I'll give it a try

 

[Ardenaso]

can't play this map; what's the system requirements for it? here's my specs:

 

[Ardenaso]

okay managed to play this with shadows turned off, the set rally point doesn't seem to lead spawned units

 

[deepstrasz]

If it's heavily based on someone else's map, have you contacted the original author to get permission to make your own version?

A credits list in the map description with the names of the authors whose resources you've used is mandatory. That includes models, skins, icons, custom spells, systems. Also, sounds, music and everything outside this site.
This helps you with the models, skins and icons from Hiveworkshop: Resources in use by Lost Kingdoms Reforged 16

The description has unnecessary coding in it that doesn't turn to coloured text.

Awaiting Update.

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R U L E S

Site Rules
Map Submission Rules


M A P - D E S C R I P T I O N

Details

BB CODES
BB Codes | HIVE

MELEE MAPS
Description Guide - Melee Maps
Describing Your Melee Map
Melee Map Description Generator v1.3

MAPS IN GENERAL
The importance of a Description
Description Guide - Maps
Map Thread Guide
Map Description Making: Good & Bad
Map Description - Templates
Map Description Generator [1.2]

How to Add a Screenshot to your Map Description

ADDITIONAL NECESSARY INFORMATION

• A credits list in the map thread description is required where the names of the resource (models, skins, icons, spells, sound etc.) authors are mentioned along with the specific resource. It would be a luxury to have links leading to the used resources. Credits in the Quest Log would be appreciated too.
• A detailed changelog in the first post would be helpful to reviewers and notify fans about the newest implementations to your map.
• Map thread tags are important. Please use those that fit and not more or none.

M A P - C R E A T I O N - G U I D E S

Details

GENERAL MAPPING
A Beginner's Guide to Map Making
The Ultimate Beginners Terrain Tutorial
Advanced Terraining Tutorial
A Guideline to Terraining and the Hive's Terraining Section
Various Terraining Tips!
Basic Mapping Video Tutorial
WE Map Editor for Newbies!
The Path Of Proper Map Making - What to do and what should be avoided

MELEE MAPPING
How to create Melee Maps
General - Melee Maps like the Professionals
Competitive Melee Map
Melee mapping - The reasons behind common aspects of competitive 1v1 maps
Melee Do's and Dont's

PATHING
Pathing - Everything about it
[Terraining] Alternative Pathing Technique

LEAKS
Triggers - Memory Leaks and Custom Scripts

If you're not satisfied with the review and wish another opinion, contact the other reviewers or use the staff contact:
Wazzz
Alexen
https://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/staff-contact.692/

 

[deepstrasz]

Set to Lacking for rules breaking, no reply and inactivity.

 

[deepstrasz]

1. Overall it seems nice. A bit of a rush at first to get more settlements which means more troops to spawn at each cycled timer's end. Only one hero type (ability roster) for now?
2. Upgrades don't have a proper position and they move around in the building. The Catapult and Ballista are moved way up after all are researched. Same with hero abilities.
3. Some items like the Hardshell Gloves don't have a DISBTN and appear green during F10/game pause. If there's no disabled version, this program can make one: Warcraft Image Lab Apparently all custom item icons suffer from this.
4. Would be nice for the convertible bases to appear on the minimap before you discover them.
5. Abilities could have QWERTY type hotkeys.
6. Not sure how balanced the factions are, some having only ranged (piercing attack) troops. Some factions like the troll ones seem kind of copycat.
7. Mud Golems have Slow but no mana to cast.
8. An Ice Troll Gacier Priest (no Reforged model; has the SD/Classic one) and an Ice Troll Warlord appeared near the granite golem building after I took it and the spawn cycle started again. Yes, the ice troll upgrades were finalized before that. Next cycle, an Ice Troll Warlord appeared there as well; none of these appeared where the actual ice troll base is.
9. Some ability icons like Scorpion Venom and the one on the spiders look as if they are disabled rather than Passive. The program linked above can make passive variants from active (border) looking icons. Also some abilities don't look passive: Bestial Claws, Loot, so on.
10. Apparently neutral hostile units and bosses don't reappear. Maybe a game mode with that would be a good idea?

Generally pretty good albeit extensive use of core gameplay mechanics.

Approved.

 

[Campocalypse7]

1. Overall it seems nice. A bit of a rush at first to get more settlements which means more troops to spawn at each cycled timer's end. Only one hero type (ability roster) for now?
2. Upgrades don't have a proper position and they move around in the building. The Catapult and Ballista are moved way up after all are researched. Same with hero abilities.
3. Some items like the Hardshell Gloves don't have a DISBTN and appear green during F10/game pause. If there's no disabled version, this program can make one: Warcraft Image Lab Apparently all custom item icons suffer from this.
4. Would be nice for the convertible bases to appear on the minimap before you discover them.
5. Abilities could have QWERTY type hotkeys.
6. Not sure how balanced the factions are, some having only ranged (piercing attack) troops. Some factions like the troll ones seem kind of copycat.
7. Mud Golems have Slow but no mana to cast.
8. An Ice Troll Gacier Priest (no Reforged model; has the SD/Classic one) and an Ice Troll Warlord appeared near the granite golem building after I took it and the spawn cycle started again. Yes, the ice troll upgrades were finalized before that. Next cycle, an Ice Troll Warlord appeared there as well; none of these appeared where the actual ice troll base is.
9. Some ability icons like Scorpion Venom and the one on the spiders look as if they are disabled rather than Passive. The program linked above can make passive variants from active (border) looking icons. Also some abilities don't look passive: Bestial Claws, Loot, so on.
10. Apparently neutral hostile units and bosses don't reappear. Maybe a game mode with that would be a good idea?

Generally pretty good albeit extensive use of core gameplay mechanics.

Approved.

Thank you for your review, and I appreciate the time you spent testing the map -you've found some very interesting things that I'll look in to as soon as I get off work (Especially #8).

1. Overall it seems nice. A bit of a rush at first to get more settlements which means more troops to spawn at each cycled timer's end. Only one hero type (ability roster) for now?

Thank you! The game is at its best when you have 12+ human players duking it out, so the pacing will definitely feel off if you're only playing with AI. Your starting gold also scales with the player count, so in normal matches you can usually only afford a single base at the start.

The early game has been a tricky thing to get right. I don't want players who buy their first base to be forced to sit around while other players are still searching for theirs, but I also don't want players who pick a northern base to feel like they're falling behind everyone who picked bases closer to the starting island. I'm looking for creative ways to extend the early game (since its personally my favorite part of the game) -so I'm always to open to suggestions!

2. Upgrades don't have a proper position and they move around in the building. The Catapult and Ballista are moved way up after all are researched. Same with hero abilities.

It never bothered me before, but I suppose it wouldn't be too difficult to assign button positions to each upgrade (just time intensive since there's hundreds). I'll add this to my To-Do List!

3. Some items like the Hardshell Gloves don't have a DISBTN and appear green during F10/game pause. If there's no disabled version, this program can make one: Warcraft Image Lab Apparently all custom item icons suffer from this.

9. Some ability icons like Scorpion Venom and the one on the spiders look as if they are disabled rather than Passive. The program linked above can make passive variants from active (border) looking icons. Also some abilities don't look passive: Bestial Claws, Loot, so on.

Yeah I neglected my button imports early on in development, and only started including DISBTNs for the last couple of abilities/custom units I brought in. I'll try to get these more uniform over time. I appreciate the tip too -I'll check that out if I can't find the correct corresponding BTNs on my own.

4. Would be nice for the convertible bases to appear on the minimap before you discover them.

All the bases get visually pinged for the first 3 minutes of the match to help new players find a base. It used to be a permanent ping that disappeared once a base was acquired, but that led to minimap clutter (there are 43 bases, after all).

5. Abilities could have QWERTY type hotkeys.

Not at the top of my priorities, but its a valid point! I'm a bit torn on changing hotkeys for some of the vanilla-ish spells I've given to units.

6. Not sure how balanced the factions are, some having only ranged (piercing attack) troops. Some factions like the troll ones seem kind of copycat.

Early on a came up with a 2-part system:

1. Have pre-set maximum and minimum values for stats for each tier of spawns, and only allow those limits to be exceeded for the 450g bases (the 2 "fortress" type bases).

2. Pit each base's spawn against every other spawn, across all spawn tiers, just to see how they performed in head-on fights. There was a giant 7x6 grid outside of bounds I used just for this purpose. Each time I added a new base I would run the same test over and over again, adjusting stats in between, until the new spawn won roughly 50% of the fights. For range-heavy spawns, I preferred an even lower win-rate (typically 35%) since ranged units tend to dominate in mass-unit game types. I also re-ran the same tests across all bases one last time after I created my 43rd base.

It wasn't perfect by any means, but it did a good job of highlighting power creep from individual bases. I'm sure smart players can figure out OP combinations of spawns, and definitely control them better than my simple head-to-head mini battles -but I think I've eliminated the case where base X is superior to base Y.

As for the Troll bases, they're actually all very different!

• Darkspear relies on utility/damage spells and their unique Berserker units
• Ice trolls are slow, tanky, short-ranged, have slow debuffs.
• Dark trolls are mid-range high DPS, and probably the best ranged damage dealers in the game.
• Forest trolls have a mix of healers, ranged units, a melee frontliner, and their Tier 3 gives DMG and Def buffs.

You'll find more in common with other bases TBH.

7. Mud Golems have Slow but no mana to cast.

Good catch! I just patched it and will release it in the next map update.

8. An Ice Troll Gacier Priest (no Reforged model; has the SD/Classic one) and an Ice Troll Warlord appeared near the granite golem building after I took it and the spawn cycle started again. Yes, the ice troll upgrades were finalized before that. Next cycle, an Ice Troll Warlord appeared there as well; none of these appeared where the actual ice troll base is.

This one is very interesting... I'm not sure how you witnessed an SD model, because I'm getting a Reforged model when I see the spawn. There's no custom imports for the ice trolls either.

I also don't know how an ice troll would end up in the golems spawning pool. I checked the triggers (which all rely on the same generic base trigger for spawns), and it shouldn't allow for any other type of unit to appear in that region. If I had to hazard a guess, I think it may have to do with my latest addition of AI. The AI triggers reference regions a lot and have special cases tied to them, so its most likely responsible. I'll have to look into this a lot deeper before I can figure it out.

Great find tho! I hope I can get to the bottom of it soon.

9. Apparently neutral hostile units and bosses don't reappear. Maybe a game mode with that would be a good idea?

This is a feature. In the original there were basically no creeps, which forced forced players to be aggressive and fight each other early on to generate income. I wanted to preserve this incentive since PvP is the focus, but I also recognized how much it would suck for someone to pick a base that happened to be far away from other players -so the 40+ creep camps, passive base income, and Boss Bounty system were my compromise.

I also prefer the dynamic that a limited resource creates -it adds an extra layer of tension and forces players to make decisions that impact the remainder of the game.

Also, the gold from Boss Bounties increases after each one is slain -so even if you failed to kill a boss before your enemy did, you can expect even greater rewards from the next one.