Naga Projects

[Kaos]

Yeah, I'll probably wind up writing a custom effect for those Medusa. None of the petrify spells I see appeal to me, and the one shot is just too hard to balance.

Also I was playing the Naga map and noticed some balance issues.

Naga by default have 15 food on temple and coral. This is pretty nice and if kept should be balanced somehow.

They can summon but aren't limited by blight. This gives them a serious edge. One thing I thought might be to penalize their build times but give them a powerbuild option, yes the Restore ability has stats for it. So they could take a slow summon or use one or more workers and resources to boost it's speed.

Finally, and probably least signifigantly, they start with a turtle and 3 adherants. That is effectively 7 workers compared to the standard 5. It does take the turtle a minute to deploy slaves but it's still a very nice start.

Also the slaves don't respond to attack orders well but I've gotten them to attack and so did the AI. It should probably made so they can just attack normally or remove their attack altogether so this doesn't come up.

 

[VeljkoM]

Hm I guess I didn't think 3 extra food in main base would be that important but will reduce just i case.

Well if that is possible for restore to do that then great though wonder if AI will remember to use it.

Well first slaves were manually built so it wasn't an issue. Though slaves at least gather less wood then regular workers. Oh and guess they'll just lose ability to target units... wonder if they could still enter turtle tower to use it as orc burrow...

 

[VeljkoM]

By the way about your map isn't 5 heroes an overkill? AI can use just 3 heroes so you'll need at least 2 Ais to include all 5 heroes, or more if you want computer to use all hero combinations.

Played also with undead and well they can't make Oil Rigs witch stopped me from testing ships and squid (lack of models I guess?). New upgrade of regeneration is weird as undead already have better regeneration of any other race (on blight at least), catapult longer range is I guess useful against ships. There seems in object editor third upgrade that says it increases speed of blight, though also ads mana regeneration which is unsaid?

The new undead hero seems unneeded as she has unholy armor which is similar to regular necromancers ability just auto casted, there is also health reg aura which Death Knight already has though his adds speed too, zombies are like carrier beetles as crypt lord already has though better, only ult seems unique for undead. Also ultimate abilities have 3 levels, well that's an overkill. Better to make hero level limit to 15 and make regular abilities have 4 levels and ult 2. Considering it is naval map its not like you'll even use heroes in all combats.

Also were you considering raising population limit as naval combat will require more food supply.

Also about workers wasn't it easier to make them morph ability instead of trigger that adds manually buildings to all workers? Also Acolytes lose their sacrifice ability when build list is changed.

By the way naga didn't bother to attack me though that maybe cuz naga AIs have sometimes problem to cross water or maybe just current Ai attacks to late.

 

[Kaos]

It's 5 extra food. Only humans get 12, and they build small farms with 8 food. The others 10/10. Naga are currently 15/15. That's 50% more food. If it were 15/10 then I could accept them getting as part of their having longer build times.

I think the AI will handle it but I'll have to check and see.

The trouble with slaves is they tend to override orders, getting them to attack at all was sort of a glitch I think. If you removed the attack they should still be able to use burrows just fine as I don't think they are directly related. The issue would be slave system trying to send them back to trees instead, you'd probably have to alter it a bit.

I'm not saying any of the stuff I listed is game breaking, just that it should be considered in balancing the Naga.

I found out if you just add the Royal Guard to the Myrmidion as an Upgrade you don't even need an ability, the unit limit works properly (you could get around it with an ability an a group selected), the unit smoothly grows in size, and it doesn't try to go to alternate form (the looks submerged when at rest). Only downside, it seems that units have a fixed near instant upgrade time, no way to change it, not that it matters here I think.

Unfortunettely that last bit it making any alter form abilities on the Warlord finicky. I can remove the alternate tag as soon as it moves but he's gonna start out looking underwater unless I find a way to catch the ability finishing the morph.

 

[VeljkoM]

Oh damn corals were supposed to be reduced to 10 I must have forgotten that too. Well will be changed in a sec.

Don't underestimate the artificial idiocy. AI isn't known for being bright.

Slave system currently works that way. I wanted actually slaves to be repairman of naga and defense workers but then lumber harvest was to costly as Naga needed turtle and slaves. I am not sure why was it hard though for people to manually target lumber with slaves so the system forced orders little annoy me.

Somehow I think non-naga races would call it game breaking.

Huh that sounds promising. Thanks for the info. Oh and I always forget to remove "alternate" tag in morph ability so that's why Royal Guard keep swimming. But upgrade shouldn't have that right?

 

[Kaos]

The concept of my map is basically to add many things that didn't make it to the final Warcraft 3. The heroes are based on beta concepts from when there were 5 heroes. I will be running multiple AIs with their own styles in the end. Also the ruleset is going to be used on other maps, maybe a campaign. That is largely why it goes to 20. Actually though the way things work I could reduce the levels for melee and the data will still be there if I need the higher levels for a campaign. Nice little feature I ran across.

I will check the Undead rigs. I know I had them working at one point but the Undead ruleset makes them a bit tricky.

The Blight expansion was a trick I tred, using leveled Blight abilities to see what happened. The result was nothing happened, perhaps levels are set when the building is built. The regen thing is my next attempt at a Blight enchancement, but if it's too much I will keep working.

The new Undead hero is based on the beta Necro hero which was essential to Undead and something between the Acolyte and Necro as they exist. I tried to make her a supplemental hero that augmented a lot of basic Undead functions. Given your feed back I may look at re-adjusting her more toward a ward-type ability set as a major part of the beta concept was casting placed permanant enchantments (the beta undead design used very few buildings per se apparently).

I am considering raising the food cap actually, I should get too that.

Morph had it's own set of troubles, like Peons not being recognized by Burrows. It doesn't actually add them to workers, it just alters the player's tech list. That's probably why Sacrifice disappears. If there's a better way I hope to find it.

By the way naga didn't bother to attack me though that maybe cuz naga AIs have sometimes problem to cross water or maybe just current Ai attacks to late.

Yeah, the AI initialization is still experimental. I will try and get a more playable version up soon.

 

[Kaos]

False alarm, the coral IS at 10. I just saw the default 15 for Temple and panicked.

I would prefer a system like you describe for slaves and turtles. It seemed a bit more traditional when the concept was described. I think there should be a way to balance their resource gathering, costly it might be but with mobile mills they should pretty nice lumber harvest overall.

By the way thanks for all the feedback on my map. I hope all the glitches aren't too frustrating I really haven't had much outside testing yet.

 

[VeljkoM]

Wish I knew more about beta cuz from screenshots it looked better then current version. Though I guess beta was more oriented to be like wc2 where larger numbers of units were available and where stats weren't sky high.

Yea blight only works once and only once...tried making mobile blight spawn and didn't work. Though you can make blight wards ability basically for blight spreading.

I forgot about Peons and burrows. Well most people usually just make 2 workers but guess that's not really an improvement.

Well I just remembered one guy making Naga Ai and had problem of making naga to attack night elf base on an island.

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Oh thank god I though I didn't fix corals...though forgot to change their ability also.

Maybe if turtles could spawn slaves like carrier in sc do though think that caused crashes when I tried it. Turtle-slave thing is just annoying as it can make crashes, confuse ai and annoy players. Perhaps I should just increase spawn time of slave and somehow disable turtle mind control.

And no prob that's why I like warcraft iin the first place.

 

[Kaos]

Beta was... ambitious. The early alpha designs called for an open world without distinct levels and we slowly saw things became more practical as it went to beta. Demons and a 6th race that was not announced were supposed to be playable. I am fairly certain that race was Naga and kept secret for use in the expansion. Actually a lot of expansion material was revived from cut material, which I liked. A lot of the rest became campaign stuff. I think they wanted people to be able to mod in as much of it as they could once they realized they would be way overschedule if they stuck their first plan.

Some of the changes were probably for the best. The Necromancer as must have hero-worker might have been a bit much and the Undead are unusual enough even with buildings. I didn't much care for the planned 3rd resource of magic gems that were needed for heroes and some research. Still I'm trying to bring back interesting elements in new ways since I'm under no deadline.

The Naga AI seems fine. I hear things about the AI can't path deep water, but I never actually have a problem with it. The AI can't use transports so non-Naga are out of luck for now but in my two tests once the Naga were bit haphazard but did go after my rig and eventually my main base. The next time, after some tweaks to the AI priorities, they suprised me at the end of mid-game with an overwhelming assault.

 

[VeljkoM]

Well from cut material there are still many things gone like flying heroes. And orcs lost races they had in wc2...and ships were lost...thank god warcraft is easy to edit other wise it would have been boring. Hm didn't know it was 6 race I though ti twas 5 including demons. But that woud explained how they had naga models and how in Day of The Dragon naga in ice appears.

Well my naga Ai refuses to make expansions...need a 100% functional AI to learn more...

 

[Kaos]

Oh yeah, that's true. They failed to expand, horribly. I found two main temples in their base the first game. Really what I need to do is figure out how to mod AMAI since it's a lot smarter and already does transports. It would just need to be setup with the Naga and other new data. However that's fair amount of work.

I've got a new version up here: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/pastebin.php?id=3vfq7b Undead rigs should work now.

Also if anyone has any ideas for Naga oil harvest/usage let me know.

 

[VeljkoM]

Where can I find AMAI? Also I am surprised Ai can't use transports yet zeppelins are ok.

Great will try to test all races this time.

Maybe naga could instead make a water outpost and send slaves or turtle workers? Oh that reminds me is undead shipyard supposed to drop off lumber too or just gold?

 

[Kaos]

AMAI can be found here: http://www.wc3c.net/forumdisplay.php?f=601

There actually is no Drop Gold only option, so shipyards can take both resources.

 

[sacridshadow]

Wow. You guys really went at it. Plotwise, I think the player will discover the turtles and murlocs and gain their aid, but that won't be until you need a base. lol Keep up the great work.

 

[Kaos]

Glad to help out. Warcraft 3 has so much modding potential it's ridiculous.

VeljkoM, What do you mean like the carrier? Train from turtle? Or actually limited to a capacity on the turtle? If so, how? Alternate trigger system?

What I've been messing with on my map just now is making the turtle a rooted building. I put it on the ToT for training, half expecting a crash and hoping for a trained turtle in unit form. Amusingly it came out "rooted" but got up and got to work no problem. It can't train or produce upgrades while moving but it can receive wood.

 

[VeljkoM]

Well train like carrier but limit would be cool too now that you mention it.

Yea I had troubles like that with turtle. Crash get s when AI tries to use turtle as he gets easily confused. He sees turtle rooted and uprooted as two units. I don't get though why units can't train units. Think loophole is that they can build them as buildings?

 

[Kaos]

Yeah, they build when "rooted". It's certainly workable, but I'm leaning toward the turtles auto-producing a finite number because it results is more interesting mechanics.

Also a couple tidbits of data.

The upgrade time does work for unit upgrades. I just forgot to turn off a cheat

Naga rush build works in game (my AI is fubar again so I didn't test that yet) but only works during initial summon (upgrades don't count) and is limited to 1 rush builder per building. The first part is slightly annoying but I honestly see the 2nd more as feature than bug since it distinguishes them from human and undead nicely.

 

[VeljkoM]

It is just not really practical in the end.

Great so I can safely change ability to upgrade thanks for the info.

Wait so just 2 workers at same time? If that is so I think it would balance it out so naga would speed make everything.

 

[Kaos]

Well they build undead style, so 1 worker. Worker summons, then worker rushes. But no other workers can help rush. Since the idea was that Naga would have longer build times to compensate for no blight dependancy, this basically makes it a choice of resources or time.

It also gives the Adherants something to do. In comparison to Acolytes their use options are a tad limited.

 

[VeljkoM]

Think you forgot to increase build time for naga buildings. Won't now naga make buildings to fast?

By the way what exactly should I do to deactivate the Turtle slave control?

 

[Kaos]

Yeah, I was working on the abilities first. Then gonna do the build rate increase. Just wanted to make sure the concept was all good first.

For slave control, look here http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/pastebin.php?id=ycs1i6 All I did was disable the 4 disabled functions shown there. That's in System Operation. Basically I just stopped it from sending new orders to the Mur'guls every 0.09 seconds. Though it will send an order to freshly trained ones if you've used Select Tree.

 

[VeljkoM]

Oh and hope you fix the Naga 5th hero. And to clear main building build list as it is cramped.

Excellent thanks man you really did great job for naga races.

 

[Kaos]

Glad to be of help.

I will do some re-arranging with the buildings stuff. As for heroes, I'm still working out details for all abilities. The Warlord is almost workable now at least.

 

[Darthmechas]

Well I'm not sure if this counts but I am planning a huge campaign and the second main character is a Naga, he's an outcast who was near death, and the main character makes a sort of pact with him....does that count as a project lol

 

[Misha]

perhaps, if you do have the motivation and will to make it :3

 

[Darthmechas]

Well I'm hoping to but I can't without help lol but I'm trying to learn how to use the software lol

 

[Misha]

hmm.. at the moment we really need a driving force, to give off motivation

 

[Darthmechas]

Oh well then that's up to you but all I have to say is that Warcraft three in my opinion should have continued its RTS legacy, and that is what I'm hoping my project can act as a new story, and from that, even more can come, and THAT...ladies and gentlemen...is what drives me...so wether or not that drives you is your call ^_^

 

[Misha]

lately it's the skyrim that drives me o3o

 

[Darthmechas]

XD skyrim used to drive me.....but then I took an arrow to the knee <.<

 

[Misha]

no arrow to the knee jokes >.> my argonian has already archery'd many guards like that and then i had to reload many times xD

 

[Darthmechas]

Lol well I had to, you set it up beautifully anyhoo...I had another interesting idea, whichive used in a map of mine lol, I made it so that to make mural slaves, the nagas made "slavers" which are royal gaurds basically, but you can make murgal slaves :3

 

[Misha]

it is odd to have a unit make a unit.. maybe you could use something like charm to really enslave wild murguls.. .. maybe any dummy spell would work, if the triggers replace the affected unit with a murgul slave. should make sure the comp knows it's a mur'gul, and not a.. let's say.. a bandit

 

[Darthmechas]

Hmmm...I see your point, and that could work...once I figure out the trigger system xD

 

[VeljkoM]

Wouldn't that require fresh supplies of native mur'guls?

 

[Misha]

m'yes.. but it is a custom naga map after all, you could have murguls respawn in a special pen once you catch.. i dunno how much

 

[Darthmechas]

Or you could make a robogoblin factory like thing, spawning murgals to catch

 

[VeljkoM]

Think triggers is safer then that ability.

 

[Darthmechas]

Well what I'm saying is that the ability would make random murals, then the triggers could work as way for the slavers to make the mural slaves

 

[VeljkoM]

Yea but that ability never stops while with triggers you can set conditions to spawn. So there wouldn't be unlimited number, or that the slaves wouldn't die cuz of summon status.

 

[Darthmechas]

Hmmm true...but wouldnt the structure dissappear?

 

[VeljkoM]

Well in that case you would still need the triggers for the building to appear unless you think for your own unit to cast it but then whats the point of slave system?

 

[Misha]

i thiink.. it would be easier to put mur'guls on maps, create the simple enslave ability, and just have a trigger to spawn mur'guls randomly across the map when they drop in numbers below.. 10? Oo

 

[Darthmechas]

hmmmm that could work lol

 

[Misha]

hey folks, Coilfang automaton myrmidon skin is back, check the skins

 

[Ujimasa Hojo]

If it were up to you, how would you separate Naga units among 4 buildings? For me, one would be the main barracks, another one for spellcasters, and the third for beast-type units. I am confounded as to what type of units the 4th training building could produce.

 

[Misha]

vault/vendor?

 

[Chaos.]

Secondary barracks (tier 2)... mutations? Like Naj'entus style naga?
Or just make an ultimate unit producing building like the frost wyrms.

 

[Ujimasa Hojo]

@Misha: I was referring to troop-producing buildings. Every "race" has 4.

@Chaos: What would be the perfect ultimate Naga unit? Naaj'entus-style Naga seems more like of a Hero unit.

 

[Misha]

well, Naga in WoW Cataclysm have one huge octopus monster.. but i dunno how much that would be of use, since it's only sea-able