Orc Campaign Development

[McQvaBlood]

I'm sure they do attack. I remember that Chimeras are used against you in this chapter and gray is the only one who has a Chimera Roost. Perhaps some AI command is not sent or something.
As for the insane mode, I think you should make this one a bit more hard than usual, as this map is probably the best of the orc campaign and therefore best made as challenging as possible. You should make Cenarius as powerful as possible. I suggest you create an Insane Cenarius who uses stats to get the same amount of hit points and mana as the normal Cenarius, because currently he is a simple Keeper of the Grove with 2675 bonus hit points. Instead, you could add 103 strength. He also has 48-104 base attack. This could perhaps be replaced by around 60 intelligence and the sides and dices balanced accordingly. He also has a base attack of 2.00 instead of Keeper of the Grove's 2.18, this means 18 agility.
So he would have 156 strength, 120 intelligence and 46 agility. He could have an attack of about 120-150.
Or, you could make some extra spells for him. Perhaps make Treants more powerful or make Entangling Roots affect an area. Or you could make Tranquility affect structures and increase its heal. Basically, you don't have to combat him early, so you don't have to worry about making him imbalanced. You should make him so strong you can only kill him with two maxed out chaos armies, both heroes and no allied units for him around.
Meteor Strike should destroy trees. I'll leave it up to you if you want to make it damage buildings too.

EDIT: I noticed on Normal that Cenarius' forces have no upgrades. That could also be changed.

 

[TheSpoon]

I'm thinking some better stats,
chance to spawn divine treants (use the ancient of wonders)
cause roots to also hit adjacent targets
Non-channelling tranquility
And dummy that uses a scroll of speed whenever an AI is first attacked

None of these should affect his AI, but will all benefit him
But the 150+ strength/120 agi, is a bit much don't you think? xD

 

[McQvaBlood]

I wrote 120 intelligence and 46 agility.
By the 156 strength, I meant he has 4000 hit points by default, which means his normal stats and 2675 bonus hit points. I suggested changing that to 100 bonus hit points (Like all other heroes) and changing his strength to 156, which equals 25x156 + 100 = 4000. This is important because it greatly increases his hit point regeneration.
Basically, I wanted you to remove his hit point, attack and such base bonuses, and turn them into stat based bonuses.

 

[Cosmo]

Hi, everyone. Long time no "see".
Well, I think McQvaBlood's idea is pretty good. It would be great to have this chapter as one of the most difficult chapters.
I really want to play this campaign and will post here my feedback right when
I finish it. Just would like to know if there's anyone who could play with me, cause my friends are either offline or don't want to play it. I play on garena and Battlenet(Azeroth), if someone wants to play, pm me.

 

[McQvaBlood]

If you are willing to download GameRanger, I will play with you. It's a simple program, quite like Hamachi, only it supports Warcraft III as well, unlike Hamachi. It will take about five minutes, installation included. I am registered as "Tristan Shadowsworn".

 

[TheSpoon]

Hidden

//============================================================================
// Orc 05 -- Dark green player -- AI Script
//============================================================================
globals
player user = Player(3)
endglobals

//============================================================================
// main
//============================================================================
function main takes nothing returns nothing
call CampaignAI(MOON_WELL,null)
call SetReplacements(2,2,4)

// don't harvest immediately
set campaign_wood_peons = 0

call SetBuildUnit( 1, WISP )
call SetBuildUnit( 1, ELF_ALTAR )
call SetBuildUnit( 1, HUNTERS_HALL )
call SetBuildUnit( 2, CHIMAERA_ROOST)
call SetBuildUnit( 8, WISP )

call CampaignDefenderEx( 1,1,2, HIPPO )
call CampaignDefenderEx( 1,1,2, HIPPO_RIDER )
call CampaignDefenderEx( 1,1,2, ARCHER )

call SetBuildUpgr ( 1, UPG_HIPPO_TAME )
call SetBuildUpgr ( 1, UPG_CHIM_ACID )

// wait to start harvesting
call WaitForSignal()
set campaign_wood_peons = 100

// wait to start attack waves
call WaitForSignal()

//*** WAVE 1 ***
call InitAssaultGroup()
call CampaignAttackerEx( 3,3,4, HIPPO_RIDER )
call SuicideOnPlayerEx(M4,M4,M4,user)

call SetBuildUpgrEx( 0,0,1, UPG_STR_MOON )
call SetBuildUpgrEx( 0,0,1, UPG_STR_WILD )
call SetBuildUpgrEx( 1,1,1, UPG_ULTRAVISION )

//*** WAVE 2 ***
call InitAssaultGroup()
call CampaignAttackerEx( 1,1,2, CHIMAERA )
call CampaignAttackerEx( 2,2,4, ARCHER )
call SuicideOnPlayerEx(M8,M8,M7,user)

call SetBuildUpgrEx( 0,0,1, UPG_MOON_ARMOR )
call SetBuildUpgrEx( 0,0,1, UPG_HIDES )
call SetBuildUpgrEx( 0,0,1, UPG_GLAIVE )

//*** WAVE 3 ***
call InitAssaultGroup()
call CampaignAttackerEx( 2,2,5, ARCHER )
call CampaignAttackerEx( 2,2,3, CHIMAERA )
call SuicideOnPlayerEx(M8,M8,M7,user)

call SetBuildUpgrEx( 1,1,1, UPG_BOWS )
call SetBuildUpgrEx( 1,1,2, UPG_STR_MOON )
call SetBuildUpgrEx( 1,1,2, UPG_STR_WILD )

//*** WAVE 4 ***
call InitAssaultGroup()
call CampaignAttackerEx( 5,5,7, HIPPO_RIDER )
call SuicideOnPlayerEx(M8,M8,M7,user)

call SetBuildUpgrEx( 0,0,1, UPG_MARKSMAN )
call SetBuildUpgrEx( 1,1,2, UPG_MOON_ARMOR )
call SetBuildUpgrEx( 1,1,2, UPG_HIDES )
call SetBuildUpgrEx( 1,1,1, UPG_GLAIVE )

//*** WAVE 5 ***
call InitAssaultGroup()
call CampaignAttackerEx( 2,2,2, HIPPO_RIDER )
call CampaignAttackerEx( 2,2,2, CHIMAERA )
call SuicideOnPlayerEx(M8,M8,M7,user)

call SetBuildUpgrEx( 1,1,1, UPG_BOLT )
call SetBuildUpgrEx( 2,2,2, UPG_STR_MOON )
call SetBuildUpgrEx( 2,2,2, UPG_STR_WILD )
call SetBuildUpgrEx( 2,2,2, UPG_MOON_ARMOR )
call SetBuildUpgrEx( 2,2,2, UPG_HIDES )

//*** WAVE 6 ***
call InitAssaultGroup()
call CampaignAttackerEx( 4,4,6, HIPPO_RIDER )
call CampaignAttackerEx( 2,2,5, ARCHER )
call SuicideOnPlayerEx(M8,M8,M7,user)

call SetBuildUpgrEx( 1,1,1, UPG_MARKSMAN )

loop
//*** WAVE 7 ***
call InitAssaultGroup()
call CampaignAttackerEx( 3,3,4, CHIMAERA )
call SuicideOnPlayerEx(M8,M8,M7,user)

//*** WAVE 8 ***
call InitAssaultGroup()
call CampaignAttackerEx( 3,3,5, HIPPO_RIDER )
call CampaignAttackerEx( 1,1,2, CHIMAERA )
call SuicideOnPlayerEx(M8,M8,M7,user)

//*** WAVE 9 ***
call InitAssaultGroup()
call CampaignAttackerEx( 3,3,5, HIPPO_RIDER )
call CampaignAttackerEx( 3,3,5, ARCHER )
call SuicideOnPlayerEx(M8,M8,M7,user)

//*** WAVE 10 ***
call InitAssaultGroup()
call CampaignAttackerEx( 2,2,4, HIPPO_RIDER )
call CampaignAttackerEx( 3,3,5, CHIMAERA )
call SuicideOnPlayerEx(M8,M8,M7,user)
endloop
endfunction

I'm having real trouble fixing grey's AI, here is his script,
But I can't see anything that relates to the player's colour. Grr.

 

[McQvaBlood]

Second line.
player user = Player(3)
Gray is player 10.

 

[TheSpoon]

The other 3 AIs have that aswell
And I think it means the target of their attacks.
You see in Jass, Player(3) is actually Player 4, purple.

 

[McQvaBlood]

I have a massive hangover, so I will just quickly state that:
The load code generated by chapter four will initiate a normal mode on chapter five, even if you played insane previously. So I edited the map to fix that and gray did attack.
Cenarius also won't use his hero abilities, although he did use Cyclone. No idea why. And Enfeeble lasts way too long on him and makes it too easy to kill him. Perhaps you could add some sort of Dispel Magic for him.

 

[TheSpoon]

Grey does have an Insane AI script. Where he sends Faerie Dragons, Hyppo Riders and Chimera. Are you sure it wasn't just part of the insane mode kicking in?

Did you notice if Cenarius came to defend the NE bases?
I've been having trouble with his Insane AI.

 

[McQvaBlood]

Faerie Dragons? Now I'm pretty sure they did not send that. Perhaps my insane mode only run the normal AIs?

Yes, Cenarius did come to defend the base, although he did not put up much of a challenge there as he did not use his hero spells, as mentioned earlier.

 

[kidsoulex]

When i was playing the fourth chapter the sub-quest that gives the shredders(the one to kill the furbolgs) when we killed them nothing happened.

 

[Cufftly]

When i was playing the fourth chapter the sub-quest that gives the shredders(the one to kill the furbolgs) when we killed them nothing happened.

You have to return to the goblin to complete the quest.

 

[McQvaBlood]

No, you can't complete that quest in Insane mode.
Perhaps you were playing an older version or this bug was not fixed, even though I reported it at least once.

I would also like to add that this thread is for reporting bugs related to beta version chapters, as well as posting ideas about future maps of the orc campaign.
When you find a bug in an already released chapter, you should report bugs in Player Feedback.

 

[Princsky]

people may i just know whe is the campaign going to be finished with all bugs fixed and insane mode and everything because i havve a friend with which i want to play the campaign

 

[TheSpoon]

If you mean the whooole thing. Probably never,
But if you mean the Orc Campaign, then maybe next month fingers crossed.

 

[TheSpoon]

I've got a Beta version of chapter 6 ready.
It is attached, testing would be appreciated.
As normal, no insane mode, or cinematic skips.

Few other notes, I've updated the list of known bugs.
And intend to go back and fix as many as possible once I've finished the Orc Campaign.

I'm also thinking of doing the insane AI a little different for this chapter. (McQva might understand this)
Because I've noticed that the AI I was using has a habit of destroying a tower near the edge of your base, and then heading back home. (Which can be horribly abused)
Instead I'm thinking of taking the Blizzard AI scripts and modifying them.
They're in JASS though I think, which I've not got much experience with.
If it goes well I may update the AI in past maps too.

 

[Amauta]

thx u the spoon, testing and playing xD

 

[TheSpoon]

I kind of need you to test in the insane mode McQva xD
My companion just wasn't good enough to take the heat with me unfortunately.

 

[McQvaBlood]

Ah, this completely escaped me! I'll get to it at once.

By the way, math exam is now done. (Actually, it was yesterday.) It was great and it being done frees up a lot of time, so I will be able to help you more.

EDIT:
So I've just spent 1,5 hours playing the map. I would like to start with the bugs, because I can use that to justify our ultimate failure at beating the map.

• The code from chapter three is bugged. It will not load items for Cairne properly and it defaults a normal mode. This forced us to play without items. If you play without using a code, your skill distribution also gets messed up. (You get Chain Lightning (2) and Spirit Wolves (2)) This will make defending against Gyrphons increasingly more difficult until you can get to Level 7.
• Orange treats Red as a Neutral instead of Ally with Shared Vision. This causes Endurance Aura to not work for Red, War Stomp to damage and stun Red's units and Pulverize to damage Red's units. Fortunately, Healing Ward works, which makes the map playable for now.
• The Fountain side-quest cannot be completed. This is because the Glyph of Purification does not drop.
• (UPDATE) Actually, the other side-quest is also bugged, you do not need to kill the Harpy Venomancer, but a Harpy Queen that stays at the place where the Wyverns are ensnared during the cinematic. The Pedant of Mana is also dropped by her, not the Harpy Venomancer.

So, as you see, without items, proper skill distribution and without Endurance Aura spreading to Red, it gets very hard to defend against Gryphons.

However, this map is currently one of the best, I must say. Had these small problems not occured, I think we would have beaten them.
The map require proper use of Tauren, Headhunters, Witch Doctors and both your heroes. I really like the map as it is and I feel the skill level required for beating the map is what I would call insane. It can be done, but it needs a great deal of concentration and careful planning to execute.
What I want to emphasize is that although we failed to beat the map, it does not mean that the AI is too hard. We expanded and destroyed light blue, it's just we got starved out after two failed attempts trying to eliminate blue. So, the AI performs superbly, I can't recall a map so great in a while now, this is the kind of difficulty I was hoping to see in chapter five, but didn't.
I also like the mix of spells you put on the two enemy heroes, it gives them a feel of uniqueness. However, I think you should keep Chain Lightning as a spell exclusive to Thrall and give the Mountain King Forked Lightning instead.

Now I don't want this map to turn into Frostmourne, which started out just as challenging and fun so you proceeded to remove Necromancer Master Training and Disease Cloud, removing the need for proper micro and killing the fun.

So, correct those bugs and nothing else and I'll get back to you.

 

[TheSpoon]

Ooh, big rant.
Yea I noticed the AI was quite a bit stronger in this one when I tried it xD

Hurm, I'm not sure all those save/load things you mentioned actually are bugs.
My intention was:
- In chapter 3, Nazgrel's items are given to Nazgrel in chapter 4.
- And Thrall's items are given to Thrall in chapter 6.
So really, Cairne will get no items from loading in this chapter.

The other thing was, (maybe I shouldn't have done this/explained better)
To get insane mode in chapter 6, you need the insane '-score' code from chapter 5.

The red/orange neutrality, yea I guess I overlooked that.

And more insane quest items/drop bugs - typical!

Ok, I agree with the mountain king forked lightning deal.

My main concern in the 'too hard' deparment is maybe there is too many gryphons in the gryphon attack waves.
They were the main reason I couldn't properly test this level on insane haha.

 

[McQvaBlood]

What rant? You should be grateful I didn't ragequit when I got killed by War Stomp.

The Gyrphon waves are powerful because you removed the upgrade that changes the armor type of Towers and Burrows to Fortified (A TFT upgrade), but did not revert the patch that changed them from Fortified to Heavy in the first place. (Also a TFT change) The attack type of Gryphon Riders were also changed from Piercing to Magic and Magic damage owns Heavy armor. (I believe it deals 60% bonus damage.) So, you can't get Towers, because they get roflstomped. You're forced to get Medium armor Headhunters and spam Healing Ward and Chain Lightning. Even than, you're likely to lose many Headhunters.
But still, I don't think anything needs to get changed for insane. For normal, well, perhaps you could revert the armor type change or add the upgrade for them.

As for the insane mode -score and -load, I feel silly for not figuring out something that obvious. [/sarcasm]

 

[tulee]

Hi guys! I am so glad that insane difficulty has returned to this project. Sadly, it comes at a time when the heroes are not fully developed without items from the oracle map.
SPEAKING of the next map, may I suggest that in order to keep things simple, when player 1 is controlling Thrall, player 2 controls the orcs and while player 2 is controling Cairne, player 1 controls the taurens?

 

[McQvaBlood]

I think we agreed on Red doing Thrall's part while Orange does Cairne's simultaneously.

 

[TheSpoon]

Ooer, I didn't meant rant in any negative sense,
I greatly appreciate the testing you do for me D:

And silly me, I'd completely forgotten all these changes to frozen throne.
Perhaps when I do a big update on all the maps (fix some AIs and some typos)
I can revert some of the major changes like that.
So I may just fix the aforementioned bugs and other changes agreed on for now.

As for the load/score thing, think I should change some stuff,
Or make things more obvious? What do you think?

And for the next chapter, yes I believe that is a good idea, but Cairne's area may need expanding some bit!

 

[McQvaBlood]

It's fine so long as it is explained at least once.

 

[TheSpoon]

Hey guys, just thought I'd give you a taster of whats in store on the extension of Cairne's bit in Orc06.

Heres some screenies of it all in the editor.
Few interesting things you might notice are the evil 'StoneTalon Goblins', the Spirit Walker behind the rocks and the falling rocks on the path.
Those two circle of powers also require 'key' items to activate.

EDIT: It might be easier to right click and save target as to see the pics.
They do load a bit slow on here.

 

[McQvaBlood]

I will have to ask someone to play Thrall if I'm to test that. For some weird reason it's always me who never gets to play custom heroes and therefore I play Thrall in the Orc one as well.

I can't say much about the screenshots, I will wait for the gameplay before I say anything. You can enlarge the area as much as you like if it's still just hack 'n' slash. If you put in extra puzzles, that's better.

 

[TheSpoon]

Ok heres the beta!

 

[McQvaBlood]

I can't find my fellow player, so I will have to delay testing it.
I will try to get it done today or tomorrow at worst.

 

[Cosmo]

McQvaBlood, If u want to, as I've already said, I can test it with you.
Then I can post my feedback.

 

[Amauta]

hi to all, and thx for the new beta version!!!.

wel i played the all map with mi pal and we found many bugs and someting else xD

in the cairne side he stars with... wtf 1 HERO NAGA AND MANY MARINES xD.
The tauren beacon have a new and amazing power RELIEVE (heald 30 for 8 seconds).

All human units are in a ally state (these dont atack us)

when we active the Spike trap to kill the razorman and get the enchante gem, the player two get disconect of the game xD (damm).

And finaly the siege golem of the cairne side doesnot atack!

 

[TheSpoon]

Oh yea, whoops forgot to remove her and the marines ^^''
I'll post another beta with those bugs fixed I think, 1 second..

Here we go.


For insane mode I was thinking of removing the T3 spells on all spellcasters, and putting a miniboss at the end of the level.

 

[tulee]

I would just like to say that for the final orc mission, make sure that in making the insane mode you do not just increase the enemies strength because since we are using Cairne and Thrall, just as from the original version, making the enemies too strong will be too difficult for us as the humans will be throttled.

 

[Amauta]

ello ello xD...
well test the new beta version and found something more!!!!

In the begining of the map, the player two share units control with the player one.
In the cinematic of the ending (when cairne and trall talk with jaina and medivih, cairne and trall kill jaina and her footmans xD...wtf).

and the idea of a miniboss is great for insane mode, but you could put a little sistem of ambush (like the map orc 02)

 

[TheSpoon]

I just released v1 of chapter 8, but the insane mode is untested!
I'm a little worried it may be too hard for completion,
So I'd like to see what the pros *cough McQva cough* make of it.

 

[Amauta]

the v1 of the chapter 8¿??, well i cannot find it..... xD

 

[TheSpoon]

Whoopsie I meant 7 ^^

 

[Amauta]

damm i wass veryyy exiting......... for the final map xD dam dam dam xD

 

[Amauta]

wel i played the v1 of the orc 07 with my pal, and we found 2 thing.

the human towers doesnot atack (in the cairne side), and in the end of the game, when the game show the status , the mensaje say normal mode and we are playing insane mode (with isune ghost)

 

[TheSpoon]

Did you have your tier 3 spells removed?
HealingWards/Bloodlust/Reincarnation

 

[Amauta]

nop the 3 still in the menu after activate the insane mode!!!

 

[TheSpoon]

Doesn't seem like insane mode loaded properly, did you use a load code?

 

[Amauta]

yeah....
i will try play again all maps with the news version of the maps at orc campaign.
(iam find some bug in the load code in some maps... "the code doesnot give the powers or items"). but i cannot remenber who maps..xD...

 

[TheSpoon]

It seems your code lost its insane setting at some point,
and the boss ran accidentally :C
Would you like a special version making that fixes the insane for you?

 

[Amauta]

no thx man,, i play again all maps (i will enojy that xD)... maybe you could check the codes of the all maps of the orc campaing..

 

[TheSpoon]

I think I will at the end, just 1 map to go.

 

[McQvaBlood]

Oh, I forgot to tell you I was on vacation from 28 June.
I'm back, so hopefully I'll be able to concentrate more on this now.

 

[Amauta]

greattt i cannot wait the malfurion maps xD

 

[Samppa]

How is the project going? I really hope you haven't stop this project, because you are doing such amazing work.