[General] Number of Hero skill points granted to Hero's upon Level up..

[Amathor929]

I need to know if there is a way to CHANGE the amount of skill points given to a hero when he achieves a new level to more then one, or even less then one..

On my map I basically want my hero's to not have skill points, because I want to level up abilities using triggers instead of skill points.
However I can't do this unless I take away my hero's skill points, because Each ability he has levels up when the hero does, basically, the max hero lvl is 85, and all his spells have 85 levels.. and each time he levels up, the trigger levels up his spells through a "research" upgrade, which is set to level each of his 4 abilities.

All that works fine, however I am also able to go into his hero skills menu, and learn skills at a higher pace then I want. (Like normal heroes spend poins to level their abilities, but since im also leveling them trhough triggers, they end up at a higher level sometimes then I want. IE: I had a level 40 hero with a spell that was level 67 (Obv OP against other level 40 players and npc's)



I just need to know how to either remove the skill points, or add more. Thanks.

 

[BlackArmsShadow]

First of all, did you set the level skip to 0 in gameplay constants?

• whatever you want to name it.
• Events
• Unit - A unit Gains a level
• Conditions
• ((Unit-type of (Triggering Unit)) is A Hero) Equal to True
• Actions
• Hero - Modify unspent skill points of (Leveling Hero): Add 2 points

You can choose to set the Add to Subtract and the integer to 1 if you want the hero to get no skills for leveling, or even make the integer higher to get even more skillpoints, if you so desire. I used it to make a Diablo 2-esque stat system.

 

[Amathor929]

no i think the gameplay constant is still 2(default) i'll do that trigger to remove the skill points. Now do u know of a way to make hero's already know their abilities at level one? or do I have to make them non-hero abilities for them not to need a skill point to learn the first level of the ability?

 

[BlackArmsShadow]

Makng them non-hero would be a safe bet because 5 is the maximum amount of hero abilities you can have. you can have up to eight or nine normal abilities depending on how many buttons the unit can fit on the ui.

 

[Amathor929]

Oki, i'll just trade em all off into non-hero abilities, I think that will work better for my plans anyways, basically the heroes will start with 1 useable spell, and the rest will have research requierments, which will be granted when they hit a certain level, and each ability will have 85 levels, and will level up when the hero does(even the ones that arent useable yet).

 

[BlackArmsShadow]

Your welcome, good luck on the map.

 

[Spartipilo]

Giving 85 levels to an ability is A LOT of data for the game. It will require a lot of loading time, even if you have several skills with 85 levels... Making a triggered spell would be a lot better.

 

[BlackArmsShadow]

You could lower the maximum level of abilities.

 

[Spartipilo]

I've never seen games with skills that has more than 10 levels. If heroes can reach lvl 80, they would upgrade skills every 8 levels.

I would suggest, again, that if you are using more than 10 levels in a skill, Trigger the effect =)

 

[baassee]

85 levels? This is insanity, enjoy your slk files

 

[Amathor929]

how do i trigger all of the abilities? right now i have 8 classes, each with 4 abilities each, working on my 9th class, I dont even know how to trigger the effects of some the abilities I have, such as the Avatar ability, i know for damaging abilities i can just make the ability do nothing, and have the trigger deal damage as an arithmatic such as,

• Example
• Events
  • Unit - A unit casts an ability
• Conditions
  • (Ability being cast) Equal to Fireball
• Actions
  • Unit - Cause (Triggering unit) to damage (Target of Ability being cast) for 250.00 x ((Real((Level of (Triggering unit))))

I know this will cause the ability to always deal 250(base damage) times the level of the unit casting the spell, and I know how to manipulate it based on additional artihmetic and conditions and such..

But how do I work this for healing abilities? or abilities that increase armor, or health, or provide health/mana regen? or damage increases? ??

 

[Spartipilo]

Well... giving 85 levels to an ability is insane. If the max level in the map is 85, make the skills increase every 8 or 9 levels, so your skills have 10 levels.

Healing abilities would deal -100 Damage =) (haven't tested tough, but I think it works) Another way would be 'Set life of target unit of ability being cast to 'Current life of target unit of ability being cast + *YourFormula*.

There is an Aura System in the Spell sections.

Want a Regen Aura? Do this. Regen happens every second, so, start a repeating timer with 1 sec expiration Every time the timer expires, do (for each aura)

• HP REG:
• Pick every units in 'Range of your aura' matching 'Your Matching Conditions' and do:
  • Loop
    • Set life of picked unit to current life of picked unit + 'Your aura formula'.

• Mana REG:
• Pick every units in 'Range of your aura' matching 'Your Matching Conditions' and do:
  • Loop
    • Set mana of picked unit to current mana of picked unit + 'Your aura formula'.

¿Damage Aura? The same.

You can use buffs and If/Then/Else to improve trigger efficiency and unit inclusion/exclusion.

Amor can't be manipulated with triggers, neither 'damage increase', though you can make your unit deal a bonus damage to attacked unit based on ability level. The damage will be done, but won't be shown in the unit stats (Damage xxx-xxx + xxx), but you will need to have a Damage Detection System like Weep's GDD.

GDD_Event becomes equal to 0.
Cond...
Action:
If Damage_Source is a hero. Cause Damage_Source to cause *Your_Formula_Damage* to *Damaged_Unit*...

Anyway, just NEVER give an ability so much levels. You can give those abilities 10 levels, and make them upgrade gradually, even randomly.

 

[BlackArmsShadow]

Anything above 30 might be overkill...

 

[Amathor929]

Ok well I decided, at least for now while I work on something better, I'm going to change alot to do with the map, particularly the heroes on the map. Realizing it would take an imense amount of time to go from 1 to 85 on a wc3 map(given that i havent played with the level-exp requierment constants yet) I am limiting heroes to level 40 for the time being, and giving their abilities 10levels, leveling every 4 levels, so 1, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 40. And I will still go off the idea of using upgrades to increase the level of their abilities, their abilities being non-hero abilities, and not allowing heroes to get skill points when they level. That way I can make sure that abilities are always mostly-balanced based on their level and that there wont be any abilities that get overpowered because they can get learned a couple levels early.

 

[Spartipilo]

Good to know

 

[Amathor929]

at 10lvls per ability, how many abilities can i have before it will start messing up the loading screens and stuff rly badly?

 

[Spartipilo]

Skills only lags the first time they are learned/used. They would take around ~0.3 segs to preload each skill (At least that was my experience). If you don't preload them (Give the ability to a unit in the game, place the unit in the map, and remove the unit on map init) They won't reduce the Loading Time, they will only lag when someone touches them, and only the first time. Same happens with units, attachments, etc.

 

[baassee]

When abilities in the object editor have more levels than 4 then it makes the loading time much slower as they cannot be converted into slk files (dunno what's the opposite). Adding abilities thru the triggering editor will 'cause a first time lagg when they're fired thus they should be preloaded by adding them to a dummy unit at map initialization to prevent this first time lagg. Special Effects can be preloaded by using the GUI command Game - Preload which takes a string which is the string of the model that you are using as special effect. Although putting more things at map initialization will increase the loading time (probably noticeable with lots of abilities) so it's not a win-win situation.

 

[Spartipilo]

I prefer not to preload attachments and some abilities, since players in game won't get in contact with 2/4 of them in a single game. I would be preloading a lot of stuff no one is ever going to use. Yeah, lags the first time... But is better than loading (the same lag duration) every time. #PersonalOpinion

 

[Amathor929]

I think i'm going to follow Spartipilo's opinion this time, altho yours makes sense to in some situations baassee, however My map will have 10+classes, each with 4-6abilities, each ability with 10levels, if u avg. it at 5abilities each thats 500levels worth of abilities being preloaded, when there will probably only be 3-5 diffrent classes being used each game, which is equivilant of about 250levels at 5 players each using a diff class. which is half the total, I think it would just be better to load them as-required in this case, but I would suppose things i KNOW are going to be used eventually could be preloaded just to make the game play smoother after the beginning, such as summoned-bosses' abilities, i know they arent on the map to begin with, but i do know they will most likely eventually be loaded anyways so I may as well preload them.

 

[baassee]

Oh my you have no idea what you are talking about don't ya? This preloading does not apply to abilities that heroes already have from the beginning, it's about adding dummy abilities as an example, if you trigger a spell to give a armor bonus, you'll add a ability to the hero when the spell is cast that gives the unit the amount of armor and later on remove the same ability. And no you do not have to preload each and every level of a spell and as said, only applies to dummy spells, not actual hero spells. And preloading is for sure better, ask any map moderator about it how they feel when you'll have a lagg when a dummy ability is added to a unit.

 

[Spartipilo]

Off course that doesn't apply to skills that units already have from the beginning of the game... because they are preloaded together with the unit data, the first time it enters the map. Unit data includes the unit skills data.

As baassee said, you don't have to preload each level, just add the skill to the unit and all the skill data (including the levels data) will be preloaded as well.

About being better... I don't know. Preloading everything could increase loading time 5~20 seconds. Yeah, moderators don't like a 0.2 lag when learning a new skill or using a new item with attachment... and I don't to wait loading time for stuff I will never use/cast.

Dota has 104 heroes, each one with 4 skills = 416 Skills, each skill with 4 levels = 1664 + Aghanims scepter skill upgrades, and Invoker skills. About 1680. What do you think... ¡Lets preload all of them! Who cares players will only pick a maximum of 10? .

ask any map moderator about it how they feel when you'll have a lagg when a dummy ability is added to a unit.

Not preloading some stuff can't be bad just because Hive moderators don't like it. You said it: how THEY FEEL. What about I, or you, or anyone feels? I don't care. I prefer lag spike than long loading time. Is the moderator better than you or me? Or his words have more weight in this matter? They may know about map making, coding, and else... But the gaming experience is unique and different from player to player.

If Amathor929 is having 10 classes, and 5 players, why to preload 5 unnecesary heroes with 20-30 unnecessary skills with 200-300 levels? If I have over 300 attachments, and players may get in touch with... 40 (Unless they continuously play 17 hours or something) Why to make them wait the loading time of the others 260? If players don't reach the final boss, Why to preload it?

OH.. I know why... to avoid a 0.15 inoffensive lag spike, just the first time.

 

[baassee]

Dota is a bad example as they preload when the unit is selected (invoker even gives a warning). Although it does not matter as each spell has 4 levels which is enough to optimize it into slk files which decreases the loading time by far more than not preloading at all. Preloading when a unit is selected is kinda bad as well but Dota followed your lead and made it preload when actually selected. And how about for other players? Should they feel the laggspike because of you want to? It's the same question asked. Map moderators are there for a cause and I listen to them.

And you speak of loading time? Just by having all those levels on the skills will increase the loading time to infinity and the preload time would not matter in that case. And you don't need to preload units now don't ya? If not the unit is a hero but it shouldn't.

 

[Spartipilo]

Anyway... the players are the ones who decide if the lag spike matters or not. They can just say "Hey! Map is great! Keep it that way" or say "Lag spikes are really annoying, would you please preload stuff?".

 

[Amathor929]

well, honestly.. if ur the one making the map.. then the players rly do kinda have to deal with the lag spikes if thats what you'd prefer.
Its alot easier to put a game txt msg to everyone right at the beginning "There may be some lag while selecting characters" or something, then have a 10min. loading screen that people are going to just atl+f4 out of.

and Spartipilo is right, its up to the make maker and the players of the map to decide, if I get alot of feedback saying they don't like the lag spikes throughout the game or w.e then I will consider doing it all pre-load style, till then I like this method.

And if during testing I find one class has a uberlag like the invoker on dota i will include warning there aswell.

 

[VanguardXoX]

First of all, did you set the level skip to 0 in gameplay constants?

• whatever you want to name it.
• Events
• Unit - A unit Gains a level
• Conditions
• ((Unit-type of (Triggering Unit)) is A Hero) Equal to True
• Actions
• Hero - Modify unspent skill points of (Leveling Hero): Add 2 points

You can choose to set the Add to Subtract and the integer to 1 if you want the hero to get no skills for leveling, or even make the integer higher to get even more skillpoints, if you so desire. I used it to make a Diablo 2-esque stat system.

I DId TRY THAT TRIGGER BUT IT ONLY ACTIVATES WHEN LEVEL 2 . HOW BOUt wHEN YOUR LEVEL 1,

 

[Spartipilo]

A unit enters playable map area -> Triggering Unit is a Hero AND Hero Level of Triggering Unit = 1-> Add 2 points.