[Defense / Survival] Ordo Ab Chao

[Vengyr]

Greetings, I want to show my WIP map. Still lots to be done, but it is playable, and, I believe, enjoyable.

A bit of introduction:

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Originally, 9 years ago, this map started as a pure joke when I was asked to make a map in 15 minutes we could play with friends. I've made a map that randomly spawns mortars and random items all along the map, and you have to survive. Oh, and mortar's projectiles were slow-mo. That's it. We had a good laugh, then it was forgotten.

Many years after, I've found that map and thought the concept is pretty fun - and started developing it further. I've made some bosses, added some variety in enemies, but in general it was still a "joke" map, although, again, it was pretty fun to play with friends. I've tried adding some further variety, but found out it was not fitting for that current map state, and thought I've made all I could out of that.

And, to finish that, at the beginning of 2017 I've hosted that map a little. I've received quite a positive feedback, and therefore thought of rewamping it to make it a real map. I've spent quite a bit of time doing that. I've yet to accomplish what I want to do, but, again, I actually like playing my own map, be it solo or with a friend.

Features:

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• Original concept - show me another map that utilizes slow-mo mortars as a core mechanic and I'll take my words back.
• Dynamic and chaotic - played Magicka? Well, you can't combine spells here, but the pace of gameplay reminds me of Magicka's arenas. It is extremely high.
  
• Easy to learn, hard to master - game is deceptively easy at the beginning, only to slaughter you at the first boss, especially on -hard.
• Logical mechanics - following the previous point, game features some custom mechanics to add a bit of depth, but they're easy to understand and fit into a complete picture.
  
• Variety - even at current point, you are forced into different builds, playstyles and, therefore, witness different situations. This is the main thing I am going to impove on.

Gameplay:

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Gameplay consists of "trash levels" and "boss levels".

At "trash levels" you face many weak enemies, which you should try to farm for gold and exp, at the same time trying to stay alive, as trash levels will get more and more punishing as the game goes on.

At "boss levels" you face a strong enemy and several "goons", which, while weak, provide enough support for him. Bosses require different approach, which is based not only on the encounter, but on the type of hero you play and build you have.

The map currently has 5 trash levels and 5 bosses.

At any level, however, there are random items which keep appearing on the map. Obviously, you should either use or sell them. For gold, you can buy potions, expensive items that will last a bit (although they're designed to be slightly weaker than boss drops), or extra lives.

If you die while having no lives, you die for good. Lives (currently disguised as a wood, duh) are set at the beginning, and then can be bought.

There are currently 2 modes which can be triggered by commands at the beginning:
-lc X sets your life count to X. I suggest playing with 2 or 3, more if you're beginning to learn hard mode.
-hard puts the game into a hard mode. Have fun.

Mechanics:

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To enhance the experience, there are several gameplay mechanics that were not in the original WC3. They, however, are easy to understand:

• All heroes are strength heroes - this might be a bit of "why" for some, but it is rather obvious for me, and hopefully for you once you make it to the end. Strength boosts your auto attack damage. That's how it affects your offensive stats. Let's settle with this for now.
  
• Spell Power - your spells (at least those that deal magic damage) do scale. Every point of spellpower adds 1% to your spell damage. Every point of intelligence also grants 1 spellpower, so intelligence in regards to spellpower is kind of the same what strength is to attack damage. And again, as you can find damage items, so you can with spell power items.
• Custom crits - critical hits do not behave the way they do in WC3. Naturally, every hero has a chance to critically hit whenever he deals physical damage. This chance equals to (agility-10)%. The crit damage amount, or crit rating - that's how I call it - by default, is 150%. So, agility boosts your offensive stats by addind your crit chance and attack speed as it does normally. Of course, you can find items that boost crit chance or crit rating. There are even some extra tricks with crits, but that's for you to discover.
  
• Magic armor - if you played HoN, it is exactly the same here. If you didn't, well, magic armor now behaves like normal armor. That means it can be stacked, but the more you have, the less it contributes towards damage reduction. All heroes start with 5.5 magic armor, which makes for nearly the same spell damage reduction as it does in normal WC3. Of course, that can be improved with items.

All these fancy stats (and also movespeed, which, by the way, increases with Agility) can be seen by typing -info

So, every stat increases both offensive values and defensive values. And that is why Strength is always a main stat.

Random info:

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Setting - it is very strange. The most epic boss is (spoiler) the second one, then you face random fictional and RL characters (but hey, they are connected!). Just don't take it too seriously.

There are currently four heroes. All highly differ from each other.

There are stats. They behave incorrectly when player #X is missing but player #(X+Y) is present. Need fixing. Aside for that, you can have fun checking who died the most or dealt the least damage.

Game is completeable at -hard, -lc 2. Managed to do with -lc 0, -hard as an Admiral a few versions ago, not sure if this is doable now. Game is actually balanced around hard mode, with several content (boss abilities) being present only there, however that does not mean that normal mode is an easy walk.

Skill builds are somewhat counterintuitive. There has to be a proper balance between grabbing all the skills and maxing one. I like this decisionmaking part.

I've taught bosses to aim a bit and also see the potential to improve this. This, however, might be extremely frustrating/hard if they'll be able to aim the every skillshot they possess, so you'll currently see it only at hard mode from some bosses. I can also teach them to dodge your skillshots, but currently they're hard enough.

Game is coded badly. I know about leaks and try to dodge them, but I don't know JASS (and honestly in 2017 don't really want to learn it) and some stuff is clunky (boss 2 on -hard is kinda laggy).

I don't know anything about landscaping. It is functional, at the very least.

Boss scaling is kinda poor now. I've tested this map mostly for 1 or 2 players, but for 4 players bosses are much easier, and scaling does not do as much as I'd like to. For 1 or 2, they're fine.

4th boss is bad and needs improvements. Also he has a wrong model, but that will change once I make the 6th one, the one who actually needs that model.

To-do:

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• More heroes! Variety!
• More items! Variety! (Game actually has plenty of those, but you can never have enough)
• More bosses! Content! (I have planned bosses 6-10 with concepts, ability sets and even names, but now I am focused more on the variety rather than game length).
• Balance. In theory, every character should be able to complete the game solo at -lc 0 -hard. I am not sure if it is possible right now.
• Bug fixing. There are some bugs that currently are tough to fix. Most of them, fortunately, are not.

Considering:

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• Inventory system? Might be too slow for this map, even the non-fullscreen one.
• New arena? Once you reach Wave X, move to a different arena. At the same time, clears all the clutter.
  
• Pretty much tons of stuff, although they're not on the priority list.

Screenies (there might be spoilers):

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Special thanks:

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Some parts of the map are not made by me. I use:

GUI Damage Engine by Bribe
Advanced Missile Engine by Anonymous (no idea who made that, found randomly, tried googling up, no info available)
These two made this map actually possible.

And some custom models:

The False Kaiser by HerrDave
Night Elf Archer by wingednosering
A-10 Thunderbolt II by Illidan(Evil)X
Panzer 4 ausf G by Kofi_Banan


And tons of Blizzard's WoW icons.

That's it, hurray!

 

[Vengyr]

I've been improving the map, and here's what is new:

2 new heroes
Map has 2 new heroes, Bear and Arcanist.
Bear is designed as a slow, tanky hero - although it is possible to build him to deal decent AOE or single target damage. Beginner-friendly hero (although some bosses might be hard).
Arcanist is designed as a fast-paced mana-centric hero, inspired by Diablo II Lightning Sorceress. She is able to output very high damage and move around rapidly while she has mana, but is an easy prey without. Probably not beginner-friendly.

Currently all heroes offer very different experience, and seem to have at least 2 builds you can make, for a different playstyle.

Item sets
They are here! There are currently four item sets, each requiring you to possess a certain amount of items from the list. They give different bonuses, from plain stat boost to spell empowerment.

Also, added plenty of items.

Note that item sets are not designed to be the only way to gear your character. They offer great bonuses, but often don't bring much stats by themselves, with set items often being subpar to other items and, especially, boss drops. Bonuses, while highly impactful, are playstyle dependent.

Gambling
To help collecting item sets, there's a Casino open now! You can reroll the item you have in slot 6: either to the same or upper quality. Not for free, obviously. Gambling serves 2 goals: it helps with early game gearing, and it helps collecting missing set items. I plan on adding another tier of items, which would be mostly accessible by gambling.

Item description rework
Made item descriptions look a bit cleaner.

And, of course, balance tweaks and bug fixes. Managed to complete the game with all characters at -lc 2, -hard, which is a good sign.

Updated OP with a new version.