Melee Mapping Contest #1 - 1v1[$100 Prize Pool]

[deepstrasz]

On the subject, are fog generation tiles allowed?

What about self changing weather (triggers) ? (as in from rain to nothing or to snow, fog and so)

No customized / imported killable or playable units at all. Sorry about that guys, but it's to keep consistency in gameplay as much as possible. Like ascrelle said, critters do affect gameplay. And if in a competitive game a player who usually utilizes critters does not recognize some custom units as critters, that's a changed gameplay factor.

Good thinking.

 

[Maxwell]

As always I going to use some unselectable, flying critters, that will play part of decorations for the map.

 

[deepstrasz]

As always I going to use some unselectable, flying critters, that will play part of decorations for the map.

some might use Possession or Charm on flying critters to use them as spies
So, now, more confusion

 

[Maxwell]

some might use Possession or Charm on flying critters to use them as spies
So, now, more confusion

UNSELECTABLE It works like a movable decoration, it can't be attacked, be targetted by spell and so on.

 

[deepstrasz]

UNSELECTABLE It works like a movable decoration, it can't be attacked, be targetted by spell and so on.

Yeah sure, but it could still theoretically deviate attention for a couple of seconds

 

[Paillan]

just use normal critters with skins.

 

[mafe]

well well well, who would believe you would see me actually do stuff.
Anyway, first pic, there's plans for imported doodads.
I am concerned with the fact the map is not classified as melee, even though the only thing I changed was that all creeps have camp vision instead of normal vision.

I never paid attention to this "Melee Map:No". At least when I open any of the common blizzard melee maps, it says the same.

 

[Paillan]

I never paid attention to this "Melee Map:No". At least when I open any of the common blizzard melee maps, it says the same.

good to know. I though it was just my editor being a dick. Thanks.

 

[borissuworov]

What means a check marks in front of usernames in second post of this thread?

 

[Maxwell]

What means a check marks in front of usernames in second post of this thread?

WIPs - screenshots of development of your map, to consider that it is actually your.

 

[borissuworov]

WIPs - screenshots of development of your map, to consider that it is actually your.

Strange, I post the screenshots of WIP version of my map on page-9 (post #165).
And already sent out before a alpha version to main judge of contest. But my nick name not marked... Else, I don't know how to prove that my map is mine.

 

[Mr.Henci]

Just droping here some early WIP, finally got time to work on it

Picture

 

[aeman]

i got hard time placing the trees in the starting area

 

[L8man]

Hello everyone! I'm amazed by how good everyone is doing! Since my last post I've made alot of stuctural changes, testing, adjustments and balancing on my Map "Decapitated_Village"

People gave my feedback, that it was too big for an 1v1 map an I had to agree after a bunch of testing.

Here a list of changes I mad since the last alpha version:

-Removed map space in all corners, reducing travel distances greatly
-Added a middle passway to get to your opponent and pass observers unseen. Also represents the perfect distance for human militia for tower rush.
-Moved megacreeps to the middle. Removed Mudgolems. Kept the distructible rock idea.
-Added 4 new creepcamps while removing 4 others.
-Changed items for better balance. Trying to keep blademaster solofarm in check.
-Adjusted creeps so NE can AOW creep in easy and convinient fashion.
-Reworked all trees. Everything is as tight as possible now.
-Lots of minor fixes everwhere

There is still a thing that gives me big trouble tho:
My tavern doesn't have all heroes... Firelord, Pitlord, Beastmaster and some others are missing... Does anybody know why? Super weird.

Thanks for watching,

L8man

 

[Svetli]

Hello everyone! I'm amazed by how good everyone is doing! Since my last post I've made alot of stuctural changes, testing, adjustments and balancing on my Map "Decapitated_Village"

People gave my feedback, that it was too big for an 1v1 map an I had to agree after a bunch of testing.

Here a list of changes I mad since the last alpha version:

-Removed map space in all corners, reducing travel distances greatly
-Added a middle passway to get to your opponent and pass observers unseen. Also represents the perfect distance for human militia for tower rush.
-Moved megacreeps to the middle. Removed Mudgolems. Kept the distructible rock idea.
-Added 4 more creepcamps while removing 4 others.
-Changed items for better balance. Trying to keep blademaster solofarm in check.
-Adjusted creeps so NE can AOW creep in easy and confinient fashion.
-Overworked all trees. Everything is as tight as possible now.
-Lots of minor fixes everwhere

View attachment 282801

There is still a thing that gives me big trouble tho:
My tavern doesn't have all heroes... Firelord, Pitlord, Beastmaster and some others are missing... Does anybody know why? Super weird.

View attachment 282799


Thanks for watching,

L8man

I have tested the map and found all heroes in the Tavern. However, good luck L8man!

 

[L8man]

@Svetli Thank's alot for your feedback - glad to hear that it works. Don't know what I messed of on my part Good luck to you too mate!

 

[mafe]

@L8man you gotta set your map options to "melee (latest patch)" to be have all up-to-date mechanics, inlcuding patch-introduced heroes. And most importantly, to fit the submission criteria.
Other than that:
-I have to say that I liked the "destroyed village" look near the tavern in the old version very much, so I wouldve liked it if you kept that.
-Regarding items, there are still drops of undefined class, which can be either permanent or consumables; I think this is too much randomness. Common practice is to define the class of any item.
-One can now only attack the natural expansion if you go up a choke. This might be too much of an advantage for the defender. Imho it wouldve been good to keep the direct path from the top/bottom gold mines to the now-dragon/gnoll camps.
-The map does not have any shadow area near the edges, which is sometimes unusual if people cannot scroll the camera as far as the might expect.
-Distances between the mains look good now.
-Regarding destructable rocks: The AI cannot destroy those, so the map isnt ideal for playing against the computer. It is not important if you dont value that. It might be more interesting if you use destructable to keep make the creeps more unaccessible only from one direction, but ensure they can still be reached without destroying the rocks. For example, provided you reintroduce the path I suggested above, you could switch the golems back to near their old position, and block the path between the east/west mines and the golems, so that for one player, the destroying the rocks opens a path to the big golem spot, while the other gains another attack angle towards the mine by destroying the rocks.

Nevertheless, overall for me, the map is a very good one.

 

[aeman]

Another WIP, i recreate the old one

 

[mafe]

@aeman Good look, however I think there are several major problems with the map right now regarding gameplay:
-asymmetric in many aspects. This is a usually a no-go for melee maps. It can look asymmetric, but gameplay aspects should be symmetric (slight asymmetries are ok, see Echo Isles).
-Too large distances between main: I believe common practice is around 15-25 cell edge lengths (as I count it, meaning that one cell edge length is the length of one side of the yellow grid boxes). Your is more like 35.
-Forest are non dense and even have several small pathes where you surely didnt intend to be some.

Also there is a blizzard with the name "wetlands".

 

[aeman]

@aeman Good look, however I think there are several major problems with the map right now regarding gameplay:
-asymmetric in many aspects. This is a usually a no-go for melee maps. It can look asymmetric, but gameplay aspects should be symmetric (slight asymmetries are ok, see Echo Isles).
-Too large distances between main: I believe common practice is around 15-25 cell edge lengths (as I count it, meaning that one cell edge length is the length of one side of the yellow grid boxes). Your is more like 35.
-Forest are non dense and even have several small pathes where you surely didnt intend to be some.

Also there is a blizzard with the name "wetlands".

Thanks for the review, im actually having hard time with creating the starting area and proper placement for the trees. the idea were actually based on the Wetlands from WoW as you can see. can you give me suggestion on trees and creeps placement

 

[The Panda]

Just stepped in to show 2 photos, bye now.

 

[L8man]

@mafe
Thank you alot mafe! Thats some top level feedback!
I adjusted alot of these things and also pushed myself to once more change the structure - although I created the ramps to the natural expansions very large and wide, I still think aswell that it might be problematic against a skilled human for example. Because of that I will be adding bridges from the second expansions to the dragoncreep area. I also thought about moving those red creeps back there but creep wise I think it would work this way aswell. Its generealy a nice Idea to add dest. rocks there to block the path but I'm worried that this will interfere with early attacks on fastexpanders - the route allready is superlong-ish and this would add to much obstucktion for it to be viable imo.
Added a small border area aswell.
I will 100% add all those doodats + the raided town back into it. Right now I just super focued on terrain and balance cuz its just a pain in the a** too rework stuff later on. These cliff bugs are driving me insane allready )
But seriously - this is some very valuable critique made by you - thanks a ton!




Here some screens of the likley/possible AOW creepspots I intended

More updates later! Cheers

 

[Abovegame]

Early wip :3



EDIT #1:



EDIT #2:

 

[L8man]

@The Panda - Very promising! Looking forward to it!

@Abovegame - I love this tileset!

 

[Maxwell]

@L8man not bad at all man. Good luck.

 

[Maxwell]

(2)Emerald Nightmare | HIVE

(This isn't the last version of the map, just take a look at it please)

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

"The Nightmare is created using the twisted thoughts and fears
of sleeping beings’ subconscious minds to corrupt the Emerald Dream.
It travels slowly through the Dream, leaving corrupted,
vicious animals and monsters in its path"
--------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Svetli]

I'm starting to update my submission.

 

[mafe]

@Maxwell short notes. Mostly negative unfortunately; however you have gotten some key aspects right, which is good as they would be much harder to fix. Decide for yourself how important the issues are for you.
-Visual style is unusual and I personnaly find it too much of a distraction.
-Expansion creeps too hard -> humans will suffer.
-Shops not easily accessible: Takes away the boots/no boots decisions. Fewer options than usual is rarely a good thing
-Distances are fine. So is the general layout. Could have a bit fewer trees and some additional paths instead.
-Too few creeps for my liking, in particular during the early game you dont have many options what to do.
-Items are fine. The creep composition is higly unusual and might cause irritation, but I think this is also a fresh aspect of the map.
-Satyr soulstealer with manaburn is something to immediately piss off players though.
-Trees are non-dense.

 

[The Panda]

(2)Emerald Nightmare | HIVE

(This isn't the last version of the map, just take a look at it please)

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

"The Nightmare is created using the twisted thoughts and fears
of sleeping beings’ subconscious minds to corrupt the Emerald Dream.
It travels slowly through the Dream, leaving corrupted,
vicious animals and monsters in its path"
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Where do you find these models?! lol, its nice it just really hurts my eyes to be honest.

 

[Maxwell]

it just really hurts my eyes

I personnaly find it too much of a distraction

Oh
Actually all textures are made by myself...

 

[The Panda]

Oh
Actually all textures are made by myself...

Nice! and I like it, it just hurts my eyes is all lol.

 

[Abovegame]

If anyone wants to try this one out!

 

[The Panda]

@StoPCampinGn00b Is there a limit too how many custom doodads we import?

 

[Maxwell]

Sorry, I don't understand what it's mean, my bad English.

-Trees are non-dense.

 

[Ascrelle]

Sorry, I don't understand what it's mean, my bad English.

Trees are a 2x2 size object in the editor. If they are not neatly placed together, there are small 1x1 blocks of empty space between them. Making the trees 'dense' means placing the trees close together so all the empty spaces are closed off and no units can walk between the trees. Units being able to do so is bad in melee maps.

 

[Diegoit]

Entry here

Spoiler

Map -> Sigilo

I dont know how to join xd

 

[mafe]

If anyone wants to try this one out!

Short notes:
-Basic Layout is good.
-Trees are non-dense.
-Manaburn creeps are anti-fun. Felwood-merccamp contains manaburn creep, ashenvale-merccamp might be less controversial.
-For my liking, there should be 1-2 more creep spots (per player).
-Many lvl 2 powerups easily available, so tome of experience can play a big luck-based role early on. I wonder, why did you explicitly avoid the manual of health from lvl 1 powerups, where it would be more common to exclude tome of experience from lvl 2 powerups?
-Infernals need some trees or other pathing blockers surrounding them.
-Expansions could be more clearly "belong" to a player. With poison spiders and equal distances to either base, expanding is a huge risk, despite the creeps appearing not that strong. On the other hand once the expansions is up, with a choke it's easy to defend. Maybe I'm wrong, though.

 

[Abovegame]

Thanks for the mini review i'll still be tweaking it.

 

[rbr.Godfather]

How can i take participation in the contest? I never knew there will be limited number of people.. I have already made something and wanna contest with it.

 

[XanderD]

Hi everyone!

Since this is my first participation in a contest here, please tell me if I missed something! Also I apologize already for my bad English - it's not my native tongue.

Here are several screenshots of the work in progress from the editor as well as a few ingame screenshots when I let some bots slug it out (for the last of these I used a custom camera and staged a battle on this map).

About the map itself: When I watch replays of professional Warcraft-III players and also from several statistics of map usage I always get the impression that the most played maps use the Lordaeron Summer tileset or other "green" tilesets that give Warcraft III more the look of a renaissance fair fairy tale (with Skeletons and Orcs...). A few of the more often used maps use tilesets like Lordaeron Fall or the Barrens that make this world more alive because it looks more used. But I personally loved the campaign of the original Reign of Chaos and how the World of Azeroth declined during the fall of Lordaeron and the Invasion of the Burning Legion. And there was one mission in particular that I felt showed this the most, and that was the one where Illidan Stormrage caught the Skull of Gul'dan to defeat Tichondrius in the corrupted forest of Felwood. The Felwood tileset for me is even more emotionally affecting than say other "dark" tilesets like the Dungeon tileset and not being so otherworldy distant like the tilesets for Draenor. Felwood has become an ill part of an otherwise living, breathing world. A symbol for devastation, neglect, defeat and ecological desaster. The Felwood forest is almost like the Chernobyl of Warcraft. It's a F-Worded upped place still infested by remnants of the Burning Legion. And that is why I picked it to make this map.

I hope everyone who will play this map will become as happily depressed as I intended it

 

[Abovegame]

Some more wips.


I'm more or less done with the map, just need some terrain tweaking and beautifying.

EDIT #1: Here's the map now.

 

[Anomines]

A first draft of my submission. Creeps are not done yet and added just for the sake of having some for now and the terrain will also change quite a bit, but i guess one can see where it is going.
Stuff like tree density and so on will be done in a later stage. Also im not sure yet about the position of the goblin labs.

Features:
2 naturals and 1 contested goldmine which should increase the possibilities and dynamics of gameplay ->expanding closer to your enemy or further, depending on risk and gamestyle
1 contested shop to add the "b2w shopcontrol" gamedynamics which is actually a lot of fun
1 Tavern
2 merc camps - love games with mercs
2 goblin labs for sappers, shredder and zeppelin

The midst of the map, around the tavern some single trees are placed which can be used for some early hiding/microplay with the fog of war
The general idea of the map lies in providing several different areas from chokes to wide fields which makes choosing the battlefield and positioning a stronger factor in gameplay.

Also i will further try to give the map several different areas which should make the visual variety bigger and the play-experience more diverse.

 

[The Panda]

How can i take participation in the contest? I never knew there will be limited number of people.. I have already made something and wanna contest with it.

Please talk to @StoPCampinGn00b you may be on the wait list.

 

[L8man]

@Maxwell Thanks alot, I like your idea and layout alot! If you go down a bit in saturation of your textures, I'm convinced this can work and be very awesome! Good work!

Here is a new version and preview of my map: (Also renamed it to "Marauded Village")

Polished alot in this version (terrain/doodats)
Added the "Marauded Village" back in
Added a new path on each side with bridges to the natural exp
lots of minor tweaks
EDIT:
-Fixed all items and creeps
-Changed some creep camps again so there is more variation and less of the same mobs
-did some testing and everything should work fine so far.
-also changed merc camps to lorderon-summer. ogre-magi seemms too OP for orc
I'd say this map is ready for intensive testing now, which will be what I do until I finally call it done!


Thanks for watching and all the critique!

 

[L8man]

@Maxwell you just got to move the startingpositions further away from the gold mine inside the editor and test it until you got the right amount of space. had to do this aswell for undead cuz it looks super silly if ghouls and akolytes spawn inside of each other.

 

[Maxwell]

@Maxwell you just got to move the startingpositions further away from the gold mine inside the editor and test it until you got the right amount of space. had to do this aswell for undead cuz it looks super silly if ghouls and akolytes spawn inside of each other.

But than Humans and Orcs will spawn exactly at starting point, and they will be too far away.

 

[L8man]

does it really vary? if i look at other maps they have simple startingpositions aswell or is there a way to use multiple ones? well than I'm confused aswell
Edit
Edit: I just doublechecked this! To me it looks like there is only 1 starting position no matter what race. (tryed it on echo isles while playing random and reloading a bunch of times) So i really think you gotta find the sweet spot imho.

 

[The Panda]

For the love of taverns.
Last update for a little bit.

 

[Maxwell]

For the love of taverns.
Last update for a little bit.

 

[mafe]

@XanderD Your maps looks simply awesome, and the basic layout with creeps, contested spots and expansions is also good. As always, I have some points to make about the gameplay:
-As a consequence if your concept, the top right starting position is on higher elevation than the bottom left. Basically, the rop right player should have highground advantage pretty much on many parts of the map. On the other hand, the top right gold mine looks more exposed than the bottom left.
-The map is very large, and might be judged to be too large.
-The felwood creeps are very unusual and have some questionable aspects:
-For manaburn creeps, see above. It no fun if your hero leaves a creepspot with 200 mana less than before. This is somewhat softened by the mana fountain however.
-Treant with disease cloud: Undeads should (not tested) be immune to this, other races are not.
-Satyr hellcaller resurrects units. I'm not sure if those give exp, but if they do, the overall amount from the creepspot can vary greatly. Which might however be a feature, given that it is a contested spot, so it doesnt favor any player be default.
-The green creepspots look kinda asymmetric.
-For my liking, the map could contain more creepspots overall, given its size.
The expansions gold mines are highly unuasl with unobstructed pathing in all directions. Trees are usually good, as the can help making it more defensible (though there should still be various attack angles). Right, the expasions are far away from the mains (militia will have barely anythign left on their timer when they arrive to fight the creeps), defended by mean creep (manaburn) and hard to defend against the other player. Expanding looks too unattractive for me, which will impact the balance in hu vs ud for example.