[POLL] Hero Contest #7

[Kyrbi0]

Contest Theme: Faction/Altar
Contest Style: Solo ~ In-Game Resources

Man, what a strong finish! We had an excellent run with 13 validated entries! It's looking to be a pretty even fight; lots of good Hero design & creativity! Kudos to all who pulled through and finished, and to those who could not, better luck next time!

Entries
A) A Void
B) AngkySaputra
C) Cokemonkey11
D) Cosmicat
E) Dalvengyr
F) DED1
G) Direfury
H) Footman16
I) Kyrbi0
J) Mythic
K) Rufus
L) Shadow Fury
M) Wa666r

Original Contest - Judges & Criteria

Judging Criteria:

• If more than 3 contestants enter, the contest will enter into a public poll.
• [[IF Schulze Preferential Voting Method]]
• In the poll, users will have to rank the heroes from best to worst, ignoring any of the entries that they want to.
• Clear instructions on how to vote will be posted the day the poll opens.
• All points earned in each section of judging will be scaled to 1000 points and then weighted equally in the final tallying of points.
• Judges will grade the heroes, giving weight to the following:

Design Criteria

Theme:	How well the skills, aesthetics & design fit together in a thematic manner such that they feel like they belong on the given hero (i.e. frost mage with frost spells, warrior with martial abilities, etc). Well-fitting & polished aesthetics which complement a cohesive Theme will be graded well; poorly-considered or lacking Thematic elements will result in a poor score.	10
Role:	How well the skills of the hero work together to achieve the tactical synergy & gameplay style the hero has (i.e. ranged assault, tank, support caster, etc). Comprehensive, well-though-out Roles which complement a cohesive Faction will be graded well; ill-considered, insufficient or over-compensating Roles will lose points.	10
Balance:	Includes how well the hero's Theme, & Role fit into the melee environment in terms of balance, theme, style, complicatedness, and so forth. Overpowered or Underpowered Heroes will result in a poor score; properly balanced elements will mean a good score.	10
Creativity:	How original the design of the hero is in terms of creative ideas, clever implementations, or new concepts. Innovation and creativity will be rewarded; re-use of existing elements & poor originality will result in a poor score.	10
Coding:	How well-made the Coding is for your Hero. Regardless of type (GUI, (v)JASS, etc) or amount (minimum 2-triggered spells, or all 4), Code must be good; MUI, MPI, etc are all important considerations. Clean, Efficient, Robust & Reusable code will result in a good score; Leaky, Haphazard, Inefficient code will result in a poor score.	10
Awesomeness:	The most subjective of all grading criteria. This attempts to quantify exactly how awesome a Hero's overall design feels. This is the "subjective elbow room" for people to talk about how "cool" or "nifty" or "rad" the Hero is.	5
	Total points:	55

If you would like to judge the contest simply make a post in this thread stating so.
You need to be a user who is knowledgeable in the process of
designing, creating & implementing custom content; and who is known to judge objectively.

• Bannar
• Kam
• Softmints

• 75 % of the winner shall be determined by the contest's appointed judge(s).
• 25 % of the winner shall be determined by the results of a public poll.

Explanation: This voting method is definitely a step in a different direction for many of you; it's from a long line of voting methods known as "Preferential Voting", and it's been used it in a variety of places. Ever since then, I've desired to see such a voting method implemented here at THW. After doing a bit of research into the matter, this Contest utilizes the "modified Borda Count" method, which has relatively simply math behind it & isn't too hard to understand (really, "preferential voting" says it all, and it's very natural; humans naturally compare things & this just allows for that!). I hope it's a success, and that it may inspire future Contest-creators. : )

Happy voting!

//EDIT// (20141016) - Contestants, when you Vote, please do not rank your entry; rank only the other 12.

Inviting your friends to vote for you, bribing random members with rep and otherwise cheating with the VB poll system will get you DISQUALIFIED, BANNED from future contests, -REPPED, and possibly INFRACTED. So don't do it!

This includes, but is not limited to, sending PMs out to various users, getting other people to send those PMs, advertising this contest on other sites with the intention to gain more votes (whether it is explicitly stated or not), and so on. If you are suspected of cheating, the staff will notify you and interrogate you (hopefully) over PMs.

This Poll ends in One Month, or Saturday, November 15th, 11:59:59PM GMT

Contest Poll

(Sorry this took me a little longer than I expected (1.5 weeks?...), everyone; however, I have a good excuse. I'm posting this from the hospital where my wife just gave birth to our firstborn son! So yeah... Kinda busy. Figured I should get this out as soon as I had time.)

 

[Kyrbi0]

Here are some templates you are free to use in Voting; simply Quote this post and delete the extra stuff, filling in with your Vote.

TABLE

1st	NAME	SUPPORT
2nd	NAME	SUPPORT
3rd	NAME	SUPPORT
4th	NAME	SUPPORT
5th	NAME	SUPPORT
6th	NAME	SUPPORT
7th	NAME	SUPPORT
8th	NAME	SUPPORT
9th	NAME	SUPPORT
10th	NAME	SUPPORT
11th	NAME	SUPPORT
12th	NAME	SUPPORT
13th	NAME	SUPPORT

LIST

• 1st - NAME - SUPPORT
• 2nd - NAME - SUPPORT
• 3rd - NAME - SUPPORT
• 4th - NAME - SUPPORT
• 5th - NAME - SUPPORT
• 6th - NAME - SUPPORT
• 7th - NAME - SUPPORT
• 8th - NAME - SUPPORT
• 9th - NAME - SUPPORT
• 10th - NAME - SUPPORT
• 11th - NAME - SUPPORT
• 12th - NAME - SUPPORT
• 13th - NAME - SUPPORT

 

[Cokemonkey11]

(Sorry this took me so long (1.5 weeks?...), everyone; however, I have a good excuse. I'm posting this from the hospital where my wife just gave birth to our firstborn son! So yeah... Kinda busy. Figured I should get this out as soon as I had time.)

#priorities

edit: your readme.txt doesn't contain a comment about rufus (note there are 13 maps + 1 DQ'd entry, but only 13 readme notes including the DQ'd entry)

edit: I have tested one entry. I hope to make more progress again soon.

 

[Kyrbi0]

#priorities

Lawl. Yep, I was all like "Keep pushing, dear! I'll be there in just a sec; just gotta post this Poll!!"

edit: your readme.txt doesn't contain a comment about rufus (note there are 13 maps + 1 DQ'd entry, but only 13 readme notes including the DQ'd entry)

Ah, thanks; not sure how I missed that. Fixed.

edit: I have tested one entry. I hope to make more progress again soon.

Good to hear.

 

[A Void]

You should link the names of contestants with the entry, to make it easier to DL.

 

[Kazeon]

(Sorry this took me so long (1.5 weeks?...), everyone; however, I have a good excuse. I'm posting this from the hospital where my wife just gave birth to our firstborn son! So yeah... Kinda busy. Figured I should get this out as soon as I had time.)

Congrats!!

Anyway, how should I write my review? Should that based on the judging criteria or just a simple impression about each entry?

 

[Kam]

I am not able to open A Void's entry.

 

[Bannar]

So, may I finally judge those?

Nice job Kyrbi0, especially considering what you're going through.

 

[Cokemonkey11]

By the way, my voting table will contain 12 entries, since I'll not consider my own. I assume everyone should do the same.

I've taken looks at the design of 3 of the heroes' abilities so far.

 

[A Void]

I am not able to open A Void's entry.

jass new gen is required i think.. works fine for me tough.

 

[Kyrbi0]

You should link the names of contestants with the entry, to make it easier to DL.

It's even easier than that; they're all in one single .Zip file (so only 1 DL necessary).

This was done with the most express intentions; I want to encourage (but not force) users to take a look at all the entries, all the hard work, and consider it all in their voting. Kinda the point of "preferential/ranked order" voting, actually.

Anyway, how should I write my review? Should that based on the judging criteria or just a simple impression about each entry?

You can write your review however you prefer; only the Judges are bound to review & grade according to the (hence-named) Judging Criteria.

However, it wouldn't hurt to use that system; I feel it's a pretty good system to 'cover all the bases' of good Hero design & thus a good entry. So sure. : )

I am not able to open A Void's entry.

jass new gen is required i think.. works fine for me tough.

As noted in the readme, I too had that problem... I don't remember anywhere in the Rules that indicated contestants couldn't use something like JNGP or UMSWE (which makes maps unopenable in the normal WE, IIRC)... But that is an issue for the Judges, who need to see inside the map itself.

A Void, since this is your entry, can you take care of working this out with the judges?

So, may I finally judge those?

Nice job Kyrbi0, especially considering what you're going through.

Yes, please. Everything in the .Zip (except, as seen above, A Void's entry) should be ripe & ready for Judging. : )

By the way, my voting table will contain 12 entries, since I'll not consider my own. I assume everyone should do the same.

Woah, thanks for reminding me about that. (In the other Contest's 'Schulze Method', people would just vote for it at the top with "I made it" as the reason, and apparently the dude's code could take care of that somehow... However, I don't know how, so we'll just go with "rank all but yours") I'll put a warning up on the first post.

 

[A Void]

As noted in the readme, I too had that problem... I don't remember anywhere in the Rules that indicated contestants couldn't use something like JNGP or UMSWE (which makes maps unopenable in the normal WE, IIRC)... But that is an issue for the Judges, who need to see inside the map itself.

A Void, since this is your entry, can you take care of working this out with the judges?

What do I have to do? How am I suppose work this out? Aren't you the judge too??

PS: Fix the read-me, it's not trigger error.

 

[Kyrbi0]

What do I have to do? How am I suppose work this out? Aren't you the judge too??

Lol, a question like that at this point in the Contest?... No, I'm not the Judge. Otherwise I wouldn't also be a contestant (and also, you'd see my name under the Hero Contest topic under... wait for it... "Judges". ).

I am the Host. I facilitate the Contest, nothing more.

I don't know how to work it out; I've never used JNGP or UMSWE or whatever (vanilla FTW). Ask around; maybe those programs allow you to make a "regular-WE-openable" map-format... Or maybe (depending on the length of your code) you can provide the judges screenshots of your trigger, object & import editors. Ask Cosmicat; I know him & he has done work for me in JNGP before; he may have an idea (since his map is open-able).

Next time, we'll just have to put something in the Rules, specify "your map must be open-able by the Judges". Ya live & learn...

PS: Fix the read-me, it's not trigger error.

I don't know what it is, but that's the error code (paraphrased) that my WE gave me, so that's what I wrote. It's not really important, though.

 

[Kam]

I use JNGP so if he's using that it isn't the current version.

 

[A Void]

Triggers

I upload some images from triggers, since some people had problem in opening the map.

 

[Kam]

Well you've got an unknown spell call there.

 

[A Void]

Well you've got an unknown spell call there.

It's just a name. Besides, I can open the map without a problem..

 

[Footman16]

Do contestants have to vote?

 

[Kam]

It's just a name. Besides, I can open the map without a problem..

Are you using a standard WE or something else?

 

[Kyrbi0]

Do contestants have to vote?

No, no one has to vote. But it's certainly wise. : ) Every vote counts (moreso in this one).

 

[Cokemonkey11]

I use JNGP 5e and cannot open A Void's entry either, FYI

 

[cosmicat]

He used WE Unlimited, which adds custom GUI triggers and other things. The screenshot gave me a hunch; checked it out and yeah, I can open the map using WE Unlimited.

The following warning appears in the documentation for WE Unlimited:

WE Unlimited is compatible with all custom editors that don't use
local files in the Warcraft III directory including UMSWE.
I guarantee that you can open and edit every map created with
UMSWE or the ordinary WE with WE Unlimited.
However you will understand that if you use WEU only features in
your map in most cases the map can't be opened any more by
UMSWE or the ordinary WE.

Unfortunately, I do not know how to save the map in a format that can be opened without WEU as I have almost no experience actually using it. I will continue to research this topic on my own, but can't guarantee I'll be able to come up with anything more.

ETA: If the judges are willing to use an MPQ extractor to view the map's trigger/jass files (war3map.j, I think?), that should hopefully be enough to judge the "code".

 

[Footman16]

edit: your readme.txt doesn't contain a comment about rufus (note there are 13 maps + 1 DQ'd entry, but only 13 readme notes including the DQ'd entry)

Who was disqualified? Are they still in the .zip file or what?

 

[Cokemonkey11]

If the judges are willing to use an MPQ extractor to view the map's trigger/jass files (war3map.j, I think?), that should hopefully be enough to judge the "code".

WEU injects *loads* of jass. Judges should just download WEU to read the triggers IMO

edit: Footman: Just read the readme.txt

 

[cosmicat]

Heh, yeah, just noticed that after trying to follow my own suggestion. I guess using WEU to view the map is the best solution, then, assuming judges are willing to turn off their browsers' built-in security features and download the "malicious" installer.

 

[Kam]

I have never been a fan of WEU but we shall see.

I have completed judging on eight entries as of now.

 

[Footman16]

I can't wait to see what people say about my entry. I'm getting a little giddy.

 

[Cokemonkey11]

I think a link to all the pastebins in the zip file would be worthwhile, because I wrote about design and theme in my post, but didn't add such details in the map.


Here is my final judgment. Note that for each entry I have considered four
aspects of the design:

• Ability Design: How are the hero's abilities? Points for uniqueness,
  balanceability, and synergy.
• Racial Design: How does the hero fit with its race? Points for filling
  a gameplay role, army interaction, quality of theme, and current
  balance
• Implementation Quality: How does the hero fit in with warcraft in its
  current state? Points for quality, bug-free coding, visual and audio
  effect level of detail, and reasonable power, counterplay, and
  complexity.
• Auxiliary: In this extra section I give or take bonus point for things
  I (dis)like.

Ranking	Username	Hero Name	Notes
1	Dalvengyr	Banshee Queen	Ability Design + Your abilities are individually reasonably good, and there are no clear anti-patterns present. Frost Phase could be argued to provide an unclear use case (you maximise damage and cc by playing overly aggressive), but I like it, so you will not be infracted. - Your hero provides 3 sources of slow and one source of stun. Balancing the spells overall would be unreasonable without some mechanic changes, for example changing frostwave to read "...damage, and further slowing already slowed units." Racial Design - Banshee Queen is an undead utility and DPS mage with a major focus on ice... kind of like the lich. - Frost Phase's stun duration is ridiculously overpowered. Implementation Quality + Your implementation quality is (as usual) very high. You use libraries properly and comment profusely. You could argue it's a bit over-optimized, but I like it that way. + Visual effects are really nice, especially on frostwave. Auxiliary + You have clear and useful testing triggers
2	Mythic	Dark Sorcerer	Ability Design + Your abilities are individually reasonably good and balanceable. - Your abilities lack synergy. It's more accurate to say you have 4 individual abilities than a hero with 4 skills that provide a playstyle. Racial Design - Undead already has a burst damage mage (lich). You didn't really fill any gap here. Implementation Quality - You use GUI for your triggered abilities. Ew. + You don't seem to have any leaks or instaceability issues. I would say you're pushing the limits of GUI by virtualizing a stack... Auxiliary - From in-game there are no clear spawn/test triggers. Recommended Reading: Basics of vJass Spell Development
3	Kybri0	Archdruid	Ability Design + Your abilities are individually reasonably good and original. - Fun Fails to Exceed Anti-Fun: Having spore clouds spread to nearby enemies if they die puts an unreasonable burden on the enemy player, because when your unit has this effect it's unreasonable to try and micro them perfectly. The result is that using this ability to provide maximum damage is unreasonably easy (which is really bad because of how OP the ability's recursive mechanic is) A good thing to keep in mind is that recursive mechanics in general are serious red flags for this kind of problem. - There's no way to disable the channeling mortal coil ability. There obviously should be a way. Racial Design - You're right that night elf lacks a tanky melee, front-line hero. But your abilities all point to "caster". You provide little melee support and have nothing that provides tankiness (compare this to avatar, divine shield, resurrection, spiked carapace, etc) - Your abilities are all pretty overpowered. Level one fury of nature allows the Archdruid to kill green creep camps alone. Preserveration's stun duration is a joke. Spore Cloud was already discussed. Implementation Quality - You mostly use basic wc3 abilities, and you kind of push them to their limits. Spore Cloud is pretty unreliable because of this. - You use GUI for your triggered abilities. Ew. + You don't seem to have any leaks or instaceability issues. Auxiliary + You have clear and useful testing triggers - Preservation doesn't have a DISBTN - Spore's animation is broken (doodad model) - Misuse of active/passive icon on "ethereal". - "Dream Link" (buff) has a broken tooltip. - No tooltip indication of max range for the mortal coil ability.
4	Wa666r	Nathrezim Agent	Ability Design + Your ultimate is generally nice and has an obvious use case. - False Choice - Ineffective Choice: Deceive and Feeding providing bonus effects to nearby dreadlords provides additional power to players who do something you like thematically. Encouraging players to get a second hero as a dreadlord is a false choice because it deceives them into believing a dreadlord optimizes their choice to play the Nathrezim Agent, when in reality (1) the combination might not be a strong pair and (2) reducing the options a player has in selecting their heroes is only frustrating. - Potential Fun Fails to Exceed Anti Fun: Drain Mana effects are always red flags for this one. Gaining mana by attacking is a good mechanic because it rewards basic attacks, but losing mana is a frustrating mechanic because it awards running away from the enemy. The synergy here with deceive is also a huge problem because... - Deceive is a broken ability - even more broken than windwalk. Players are not even encouraged to reveal the enemy because Nathrezim Agents can simply disable the invisiblity, and optimize/counter the enemy's reveal mechanic. I suggest changing this ability entirely. Racial Design +- An undead utility mage is a great idea, and they desparately need one, but I'm not convinced you actually made a utility mage. It looks to me like you have a hero with a utility ultimate, and no basic abilities to back that up. I suggest rethinking the abilities at level 1-5. Implementation Quality - You use GUI for your triggered abilities. Ew. - You leak things like unit groups - Your abilities aren't MUI, nor MPI. - Your deceive implementation is incorrect and will result in dreadlords getting +30% AS permanantly in some cases. Auxiliary - You don't have a note to type -Hero in game -_- I actually had a really hard time deciding which hero was better between this and Kybri0's, because your ultimate is nice in-game. In the end his was more interesting overall and had fewer mistakes. I think you should play with this design again, because with some changes it can be interesting. Recommended Reading: Zileas' List of Game Design Anti-Patterns Recommended Reading: Hashtables and MUI
5	Rufus	Marksman	Ability Design + Your abilities are individually reasonably good, and there are no clear anti-patterns present + Your hero seems to have a focus on area of effect damage. Most values could be balanced to make the hero suitable for the game. - Your hero lacks synergy between its abilities. There is a clear optimization for the order of casts, but not any clear interaction for how to combine abilities to be more powerful than any one individually. This is a minor point subtraction, however, because there is at least minor synergy in the form of an initiation, discussed more below. Racial Design + Human lacks ranged attacking heroes that provide damage, and you fill this niche with Marksman. +- Artic Arrow Provides an initiation tool, but the use in an army is a bit complex. Initiation is also present already in mountain king. I'll neither award nor take away points for this. Implementation Quality - Your whole hero is triggered in GUI. - Your abilities are neither MUI, nor MPI. - You leak loads of objects like unit groups and locations. - You use trigger sleep action which can be abused under unusual circumstances to give players an advantage. - You use the "unit is attacked" event which is utterly broken and can be abused. Auxiliary - Poor tooltip explanation of volley ability, and poor use of active/passive icons. + You have clear and useful testing triggers Suggested Reading: Hashtables and MUI Suggested Reading: Inside the Hero - A Guide to Hero Idea Creation
6	Direfury	Arcanist	Ability Design + Your abilities are individually reasonably good and original. - Providing chaos damage type to a hero is really not recommended. You can't reason about why this is good, other than being "cool" - don't do this. Racial Design - It's a human supportive spellcaster which fits pretty well in with the game. - Starburst is pretty overpowered Implementation Quality - Polymastery doesn't work properly which is a shame because the description sounds like a visually interesting ability. The flaw in your trigger is obvious, but it's a little too late now. - You use GUI for your triggered abilities. Ew. - You leak things like unit groups and locations. - You use trigger sleep action in ways that can be abused by players. - Your abilities are not MUI, nor MPI. Auxiliary - No obvious test triggers - No tooltip explanation of "fel magic" - No tooltip learn icon for polymastery Recommended Reading: Hashtables and MUI
7	Shadow Fury	Fire Knight	Ability Design + Your abilities are individually reasonably good, and there are no clear anti-patterns present + Your hero seems to have a focus on attrition. Most values could be balanced to make the hero suitable for the game. - Your hero lacks synergy between its abilities. There isn't really a clear way to use abilities in sequence to maximize their effect, although there is (at least) hell strikes + infernal meteor (improving likelihood of critical damage). This seems to be due to the fact that the fire knight's primary usage is utility: using abilities sparsely to maximise their effectivity, so this is a minor infraction. Racial Design +- Orc doesn't particularly have a utility hero, but both the far seer and shadow hunter are ranged supportive mages. This should probably be an infraction but I'm feeling nice. Implementation Quality - Your whole hero is triggered in GUI. - Your abilities are neither MUI, nor MPI. - You leak loads of objects like unit groups and locations. - You use trigger sleep action which can be abused under unusual circumstances to give players an advantage. Auxiliary - You lack a level up trigger for testing Suggested Reading: Hashtables and MUI Suggested Reading: Inside the Hero - A Guide to Hero Idea Creation
8	Cosmicat	Artificer	Ability Design + You have some fairly unique abilities which is nice to see. You obviously put a lot of thought into static shield. More on this later. - Unclear Optimization: The casting time on Energize is so high that it does the opposite of what you expect from a movement based ability. This is a big problem in reasoning about use cases for the ability. - Unclear Optimization: Static shield drains mana when damage is received, and it's unclear both to use, and to balance, when the shield should be turned on or off. For example, a frenzied abomination will drain loads of mana due to his attack speed, and the damage you return to it will be negligbile; having static shield on in this case does more harm than good. Reasoning about when to keep the shield on in a team fight isn't realistic. Racial Design - The primary usage of the artificer is as a utility and dps ranged mage - a role the human race already has two of. Implementation Quality + I don't immediately see any major leaks or instanceability issues. - You rely on the "hero is attacked" event which is totally broken and allows players to abuse your hero. - Charged bolt is essentially just chain lightning yet you recoded everything from scratch. Auxiliary - There was no obvious spawn/test trigger, levelup trigger, or race Suggested Reading: Zileas' List of Game Design Anti-Patterns Suggested Reading: More about vJass JASSHelper Manual
9	Footman16	Grand Marshall	Ability Design - There isn't really any underlying synergy. You have 4 seemingly melee abilities, but grand marshall's role as a hero is a bit cloudy. Is he supportive, providing bonuses to his army? Or a berzerker, diving deep into the enemy army to kill mages? Is he an anti-support, debuffing an entire enemy army? He has components of all these things, but his use cases are all weak. Racial Design - A human melee fighter exists (mountain king) - what is grand marshall supposed to do that the MK doesnt? Implementation Quality - Really, all of your abilities are not triggered. The trigger "Stomp cast" could be completely replaced by some standard AI. "Power Strike" could be replaced by directly using acid bomb. - You leak a unit group in "Stomp Cast". Auxiliary - There was no obvious spawn/test trigger. Suggested Reading: Inside the Hero - A Guide for Hero Idea Creation
10	DED1	Pirate Captain	Ability Design - Burden of Knowledge: Players affected by Walk the Plank! have no idea how/why you were able to or not able to push their unit back. There's no way to reason about what's happening without reading the ability description. - Unclear Optimization: Reasoning about which effect you desire to appear when you use Walk the Plank!, and deciding when to use it are pretty disjoint. There isn't a clear "I want to knock back, so I do X" use case - and this is a problem. - False Choice - Ineffective Choice: Pirate Warfare having two disjoint efects based on whether the enemy is facing you or facing away is silly because there's no way to optimize this - it's more like two unrelated passives bundled into one, and it's only deceiving the player to think they can use the right one. - Fun Fails to Exceed Anti-Fun: Making parrots "difficult to handle" has no effect (advantage) on the game, and only makes it more annoying. If you can't reason about why a mechanic should be in the game, why make it? If you're trying to make the ability difficult to use, you've failed. It's easy to use - just annoying. - Fun Fails to Exceed Anti-Fun: Giving parrots the ability to steal an item is broken and wrong. Did you pull out a calculator and consider how much value this is worth in the average case? Not to mention extremely frustrating for the opponent. - "Tell Rumor" is gamebreaking, and not melee. You need to *reason* about abilities before you implement them! explain to yoursel what it's for and why to make it. "it would be cool" isnt good enough. What's the use case? can it be adjusted to be balanceable? - Unclear Optimization: Ghost Ship making units have a chance to turn into ghosts when attacking buildings is confusing because the ghosts are weaker than the base unit. Should I attack and get the gold, and risk losing my unit to a weaker version? Not fun! If skeletons were more powerful versions of the units, that's another story. Racial Design - A pirate captain doesn't really fit in with wc3 in general, and his abilities are too sporadic to reason about filling any kind of niche. Implementation Quality - Talking Bird (among other abilities) not MUI. - You use trigger sleep action to time effects, and this can be abused by players. - You have 50 triggers, loads of duplicate code, and you use GUI! Ew. Auxiliary - All abilities have lore snippets, which isn't melee. - "Cursed Undead" buff has a fail tooltip - Having two summons is generally a red flag. I suggest avoiding that in the future. Suggested Reading: Zileas' List of Game Design Anti-Patterns
11	angkysaputra	Elven Shadow	Ability Design - Your abilities are not unique. Everything revolves around spawning loads of clones that share the Elven Shadow's two unoriginal passives. You walked into a furnace of unbalanceable concepts and falsely synergistic abilities. - Power Without Gameplay: Not only is there not a clear way to play against the Elven Shadow, since attacking him or his illusions spawns more illusions, but there isn't really a clear way to play as the Elven Shadow either. All you have to do is right click, use one of two abilities at an arbitrary time, and your enemy will eventually kill himself. - Unclear Optimization: Different types of shadows have different damage dealt/damage taken values, and there is no clear way to differentiate which ways you should use your abilities to optimize your damage. All a player can do is guess and hope things will work in their favor. Players shouldn't have to make a formal proof or do any calculations that require a calculator to know how to play their character. - Fun Fails to Exceed Anti-Fun: Being some kind of super dota hero with loads of illusions and tricking your opponent into attacking the wrong guy feels fun - especially when he's punished even if he makes the correct choice (illusions deal damage, and you spawn illusions yourself). But there's an enormous discrepancy between this, and the *unfun* your opponent experiences, and that's a major problem. - Non-Reliability: Your hero relies on some pretty small RNG values to be effective, especially in the early game. It's a terrible experience to be playing Elven Shadow at level 3, try to expo, and your army dies because you didn't proc as many illusions as you hoped for. Racial Design - Your hero's primary use case is dueling with another hero or army to optimize his spawn and tricking capability. You're a melee combat hero. Kind of like demon hunter and warden. You've failed to fill any role in the NE race. Implementation Quality - Your whole hero is triggered in GUI and you have untitled triggers, empty triggers, and no comments - You rely on the "hero is attacked" event which is totally broken and allows players to abuse your hero. - Hardly anything is triggered at all and you rely on (poor) wc3 mechanics to make your hero - Your hero is straight up overpowered Auxiliary + Your hero tooltips are fairly well explained and clear. + You have clear and useful testing triggers Suggested Reading: Zileas' List of Game Design Anti-Patterns Suggested Reading: Inside the Hero - A Guide to Hero Idea Creation
12	A Void	Goblin Sappers	Ability Design - Your abilities are not unique. You essentially just rename a few melee abilities and put them into a package that's been done before. See: Goblin Techies - You have no synergy. There is no effective combination of abilities that provide an interesting use case. Racial Design - Your hero doesn't fill a role in any race because it doesn't have a role. It doesn't even have a basic attack, which I will dare to say is not reasonable for any melee hero. Implementation Quality - You have storm bolt, goblin land mines, phoenix fire, and kaboom. No triggers. Auxiliary + No obvious race. No obvious spawn/test trigger. You use WEU. Suggested Reading: Inside the Hero - A Guide to Hero Idea Creation

Final Ranking:

1st	Dalvengyr	(Above)
2nd	Mythic	(Above)
3rd	Kybri0	(Above)
4th	Wa666r	(Above)
5th	Rufus	(Above)
6th	Direfury	(Above)
7th	Shadow Fury	(Above)
8th	Cosmicat	(Above)
9th	Footman16	(Above)
10th	DED1	(Above)
11th	angkysaputra	(Above)
12th	A Void	(Above)

 

[Cokemonkey11]

Please note I have edited my previous reply to include all 12 reviews, and my final ranking table.

 

[Footman16]

I'd disagree with some of your points but meh, it's your decision.

For example, I explained what his role is, he is the Human's version of the Death Knight/Demon Hunter. Could you please explain how his "use cases are all weak". I don't understand what the point is about the Racial Design - "A human melee fighter already exists" and? There are two melee Human fighters Paladin and Mountain King. We weren't supposed to reinvent the wheel here.

About the triggers. They're are two abilties with triggers attached to them. The contest said that two abilities had to be "trigger-enhanced". Just because something could be done without triggers does not make it any less invalid because it is triggered. The whole reason they are triggered is because of the contests requirements.

As for the testing triggers? -spawn -level

Anyway, like I said you're the reviewer but you're not very detailed about your review. Also synergy? I can understand that there is some synergy between hero abilities but just look at the Paladin, how on Earth do his abilities synergise?

Anyway. I appreciate your feedback.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Please note I have edited my previous reply to include all 12 reviews, and my final ranking table.

Well, I just read your review of mine & decided to comment... I must say, I'm surprised (yet gratified) I made it into your personal Top 3... You barely had a handful of "+"s. I'm a bit afraid to see what you said about the others... :<

I'd disagree with some of your points but meh, it's your decision.

Ah, the glorious "vote discussion". Lol, I do it too. : )

... Also synergy? I can understand that there is some synergy between hero abilities but just look at the Paladin, how on Earth do his abilities synergise?

Um, well, I hate to play 'devil's advocate', but I'll beat Cosmicat to the punch and say "Yeah, the Paladin is pretty self-synergistic."

Think about it. He's got Holy Light, which is a pretty potent Heal... For all allies except himself. In turn, he can then choose Divine Shield (which conveniently only makes him invulnerable), forcing enemies to attack the very allies he can heal.

Also Divine Shield & Resurrection. Guys last longer (so can be healed more/better), and when the guys are finally killed? Bring 'em back.

 

[Footman16]

Ok, well then there is always synergy between at least two of my heroes abilties.

Place banner behind enemy hero, power strike him to low health when he tries to run, banner's stomp finishes him off.

 

[Wa666r]

Hero

Deceive and Feeding providing bonus effects to nearby
dreadlords provides additional power to players who do
something you like thematically. Encouraging players to get
a second hero as a dreadlord is a false choice because it
deceives them into believing a dreadlord optimizes their
choice to play the Nathrezim Agent, when in reality (1) the
combination might not be a strong pair and (2) reducing the
options a player has in selecting their heroes is only
frustrating.

I see your point. I wanted to do something new that fits in well with the lore of the Dreadlords - such as their brotherhood-like bond. Though this choice does have its faults, I believe that the encouragement is needed to pick a Dreadlord, as he is an insanely underused hero; always overshadowed by the Death Knight and Lich combo. It lets the player try out something new with the confidence that the Dreadlord wouldn't have been a totally wrong call as a first or second hero.

Potential Fun Fails to Exceed Anti
Fun: Drain Mana effects are always red flags for this one.
Gaining mana by attacking is a good mechanic because it
rewards basic attacks, but losing mana is a frustrating
mechanic because it awards running away from the enemy. The
synergy here with deceive is also a huge problem because...

I somewhat agree and disagree with you. I actually found it fun to try to remain undetected as long as possible by feeding of the enemies mana. I am confused about how the mechanics rewards running away? I would've said it encourages to stay in the battle longer to quickly eat up the enemies' mana.

Deceive is a broken ability - even
more broken than windwalk. Players are not even encouraged
to reveal the enemy because Nathrezim Agents can simply
disable the invisiblity, and optimize/counter the enemy's
reveal mechanic. I suggest changing this ability entirely.

I am not sure if that is completely true. I mean, yes it is very powerful to have an invisible hero attacking you, but the rate at which mana is drained from him balances it out.
The hero is also made a short-ranged attacker for the purpose of balancing him with the ability. With this short range he cannot really snipe many enemies, and he must remain very near the enemy to deal any real damage, or drain mana from "Feeding."

I actually had a really hard time deciding which hero
was better between this and Kybri0's, because your
ultimate is nice in-game. In the end his was more
interesting overall and had fewer mistakes. I think you
should play with this design again, because with some
changes it can be interesting.

Would a cookie help change your mind between deciding? Haha I'm kidding. Thanks for the detailed reviews though.

 

[Cokemonkey11]

he is the Human's version of the Death Knight/Demon Hunter.

Death Knight and Demon Hunter are very different heroes. Death Knight is a tanky utility hero, and demon hunter is a duelist.

The human version of death knight is the paladin.

A human version of demon hunter would have been better, but I would argue that your hero is not a duelist.

Lastly, the demon hunter is a pretty poor hero design. Comparing your hero to melee ones is generally good when starting off, but use your instincts as well to make your own decisions.

Could you please explain how his "use cases are all weak".

I described a set of hero playstyles that I could see your hero fitting into, but your skillset didn't fully commit to any of them. That means he had weak use cases for a few playstyles, rather than a strong use case for one or two.

I don't understand what the point is about the Racial Design - "A human melee fighter already exists" and? There are two melee Human fighters Paladin and Mountain King. We weren't supposed to reinvent the wheel here.

The paladin isn't really a fighter. You don't need to reinvent the wheel, but adding units to a game should fill a role. Consider what the game was like before and after blizzard added each unit to frozen throne. What did human lack without arcane towers, and how did their addition help them? You can do the same for brood war. I would argue that human is unchanged with the addition of your hero.

They're are two abilties with triggers attached to them. The contest said that two abilities had to be "trigger-enhanced". Just because something could be done without triggers does not make it any less invalid because it is triggered. The whole reason they are triggered is because of the contests requirements.

Sorry, but your implementation is worse in this case than if you just extended the base ability in the object editor. You should try doing new things in the trigger editor.

As for the testing triggers? -spawn -level

Why should I have to guess that?

you're not very detailed about your review.

I disagree.

I can understand that there is some synergy between hero abilities but just look at the Paladin, how on Earth do his abilities synergise?

This has been addressed by Kybri0, but I would really encourage you to consider synergy yourself instead of looking to wc3 heroes. They're 12 years old and the breadth of knowledge in terms of design has changed. We can better define what makes a hero than we could 12 years ago.

Well, I just read your review of mine & decided to comment... I must say, I'm surprised (yet gratified) I made it into your personal Top 3... You barely had a handful of "+"s. I'm a bit afraid to see what you said about the others... :<

All my reviews have a lot of minuses. I didn't just count up + and - to decide who wins though. Having leakless and MUI abilities was a major advantage here - something loads of entries failed to do.

Place banner behind enemy hero, power strike him to low health when he tries to run, banner's stomp finishes him off.

So, use damaging abilities to do damage? How does banner's periodic 7 second cooldown get optimized? You've just described a way to use it with 1/6 efficiency.

Though this choice does have its faults, I believe that the encouragement is needed to pick a Dreadlord, as he is an insanely underused hero; always overshadowed by the Death Knight and Lich combo.

Yes, the dreadlord is underpowered, but in this case you've introduced an anti-pattern by trying to balance him indirectly. Your hero would be a stronger concept without any notion of dreadlord interaction, other than in lore.

It lets the player try out something new with the confidence that the Dreadlord wouldn't have been a totally wrong call as a first or second hero.

But balancing the interaction is impossible because either the aura is too strong and dreadlord is the only viable pick in combination, or the aura is too weak and you only deceive players to choose it. See: Power Without Gameplay

I actually found it fun to try to remain undetected as long as possible by feeding of the enemies mana. I am confused about how the mechanics rewards running away? I would've said it encourages to stay in the battle longer to quickly eat up the enemies' mana.

Fun vs Anti Fun is about fun for the player vs anti-fun for the opponent. It encourages the enemy to run away since he has no other reasonable way to fight you.

I mean, yes it is very powerful to have an invisible hero attacking you, but the rate at which mana is drained from him balances it out.

Can you mathematically reason about the rate of mana drained being balanced? It's not really possible because of the way mana is in wc3. Either you drain too much and the efficient use case is to walk around with 0 mana all the time, or you drain too little and you're permanently invisible.

I actually have a hard time reasoning against this, but I encourage you to try and calculate something.

----

That's all I'll respond to questions about my reviews here. If you have any other specific questions feel free to PM/VM me.

 

[Footman16]

Ok, all I'll say is versatility. You keep talking about him not having one or two main playstyles but didn't you think that that might've been the point? Look at most of the Heroes abilties they are not all tailored towards one purpose. They generally have a role and I feel that my hero does what he was supposed to do, kill heroes and buff allies to help in that pursuit. How you accomplish that is up to you within the confines of his abilities, I gave you one example of how two of his abilities could be used. Another use could be Power Strike then use the ally speed boost to surround and finish off. In short: He does what I he is supposed to do - Kill Heroes.

I don't understand what you're saying with the triggers. Your reviewing the triggers - do they work, do they do what they're supposed to do, are they MUI etc etc? If the answer is yes then that's what matters not what they're specifically doing.

 

[cosmicat]

You need not reply, and I certainly don't expect you to agree, but I do want to highlight this:

I would really encourage you to consider synergy yourself instead of looking to wc3 heroes. They're 12 years old and the breadth of knowledge in terms of design has changed. We can better define what makes a hero than we could 12 years ago.

If I was making a unit for a better-designed game than WC3, I would have made a very different unit. As would we all, I hope. I like straightforward designs that are easy to use and to play against, letting players make meaningful choices without having to consider detailed information in the moment. I like diversity in function, and giving everyone a wide variety of strategic and tactical choices at all times. For the most part, I do approve of the design axioms LoL is founded on. Zileas' ideas provide a good baseline of heuristic measures and targets, especially when creating a fresh system.

However, the design of Warcraft III tends to emphasize racial themes over diversity: each race has a radically different distribution of hero types, regeneration mechanics, macro, and unit composition. Tier systems and unit roles are consistent enough across races, but there are still outliers—Spell Breakers and Faerie Dragons do not have identical roles in gameplay, nor do Banshees and Sorceresses have very much in common at all, outside of the "secondary caster" descriptor. The Undead and Night Elves have answers to Tauren and Knight units, but not equivalents. The Undead have exactly one siege unit, while each other race has two. Need I go on?

Existing spells such as Flame Strike, Mana Shield, Banish, Spirit Link, and Stone Form can often backfire on players who use them when the best move is not clear. They can also turn the tide of a battle that might otherwise be lost. Units firing uphill have a chance to miss that is not documented anywhere in the gameplay itself, yet everyone must know what that chance is; an entire volley of uphill attacks may do nothing—or they may destroy an enemy force regardless. Arbitrary risks and rewards, chance, obfuscation, frustration, and overall what I would normally insist is bad design seems to have been intentionally reinforced through several of Warcraft III's core mechanics.

Is this an excuse for poor design choices? Not on its own, no. However, it is worth considering that sometimes the balance of an ability (and the ability to balance that ability without having to completely remake the hero concept) depends not only on what the player can do with it, but what an opposing player can do against it. Yes, an ability like Static Shield makes it difficult to spontaneously compute whether its use is "optimal" during an active skirmish, especially when the stresses of micromanaging other units pile up. It is also difficult for an opponent to micromanage units against such an ability, and similar stresses pile up on that side. Fortunately, the fact that Charged Bolt is much easier to use than Chain Lightning or Forked Lightning (having a more predictable path and more even damage distribution than the former, and better overall range than the latter) and the "cast-and-forget" nature of Lightning Spire each contribute a small quality-of-life improvement to the hero's overall utility.

If you feel up to the task, I would recommend you study more than one design philosophy, and perhaps run some of your own tests until you understand what the specific problems are with using certain Jass natives in certain contexts. I think you would find there is a bit more nuance than merely a list of "never"s.

 

[Kazeon]

Dude, relax, that is just one review. You don't need to pour all of your power to resist his review :O

I believe any review, aside from code/trigger related one, they are all kind of subjective, they are based on personal opinion, not really. But you can't make a very true review after all. Because everybody has their own point of view, their own perspective, which is probably different from yours.

If you can't take your first review, I'm afraid you will need to resist all of the rest reviews, it's wasting time you know. Especially if you wrote 3 or 4 paragraphs which are likely do not affect his mind at all L O L^TM

Personally, I have a bunch of preventions against his review. And it will boost my score anyway. But I will just let it go. Who knows? Maybe he got a better perspective than me?

Anyway, I hope I didn't write the story for nothing Judges should have the link to our pastebins, shouldn't they?

 

[Cokemonkey11]

Dude, relax, that is just one review. You don't need to pour all of your power to resist his review :O

I believe any review, aside from code/trigger related one, they are all kind of subjective, they are based on personal opinion, not really. But you can't make a very true review after all. Because everybody has their own point of view, their own perspective, which is probably different from yours.

If you can't take your first review, I'm afraid you will need to resist all of the rest reviews, it's wasting time you know. Especially if you wrote 3 or 4 paragraphs which are likely do not affect his mind at all L O L^TM

Personally, I have a bunch of preventions against his review. And it will boost my score anyway. But I will just let it go. Who knows? Maybe he got a better perspective than me?

Anyway, I hope I didn't write the story for nothing Judges should have the link to our pastebins, shouldn't they?

I think a lot of people are getting stuck on one of three things:

* I'm mean
* I state opinion in absolutes (it's intentional and a sign of good writing, I encourage you all to try it)
* My design notes were the most important measure of their final score (it wasn't. implementation quality was the most important)

 

[Kam]

* My design notes were the most important measure of their final score (it wasn't. implementation quality was the most important)

I don't read them. If you accomplished what you wanted to do it should be apparent when I play a game.

 

[cosmicat]

Dude, relax, that is just one review. You don't need to pour all of your power to resist his review :O

Please do take me at my word that changing his mind was not my goal.

If you can't take your first review, I'm afraid you will need to resist all of the rest reviews, it's wasting time you know. Especially if you wrote 3 or 4 paragraphs which are likely do not affect his mind at all L O L^TM

I predict most people will provide short, broad statements about their gut feelings, providing minimal justification, and nobody will scrutinize.

I think a lot of people are getting stuck on one of three things:

* I'm mean
* I state opinion in absolutes (it's intentional and a sign of good writing, I encourage you all to try it)

If a lot of people are interpreting your writing as mean, you are either failing to communicate intent (a sign of bad writing) or actually being mean (in which case a lot of people are well-justified in feeling slighted).

Riddling one's list of opinions with "I think" and "perhaps" can often be a waste of space; in most contexts, the fact that one is stating an opinion is obvious and implicit. There is much to be said in favor of directness and efficiency.

Having witnessed the merits of this style for myself, I have seen fit to adopt it as part of a teaching moment for you. You are welcome.

 

[Vinz]

- You use GUI for your triggered
abilities. Ew.

Oh noes. ;_;

And damn.... I didn't put a map init text about -debug.

 

[Kam]

Edit:

I will re-post my reviews at a later date.

 

[Kazeon]

Wait, you are a judge. You should not post the judgement this early, I guess. :/

 

[Cokemonkey11]

If a lot of people are interpreting your writing as mean, you are either failing to communicate intent (a sign of bad writing) or actually being mean (in which case a lot of people are well-justified in feeling slighted).

People are emotional about work they produce. Text communicates empathy poorly. I am mean.

Riddling one's list of opinions with "I think" and "perhaps" can often be a waste of space; in most contexts, the fact that one is stating an opinion is obvious and implicit. There is much to be said in favor of directness and efficiency.

Indeed, and in your case it's obvious you recognize that, but many people handle scrutiny more poorly. It's a life skill, and I won't baby people to make friends

 

[A Void]

People poorly understand my hero, first of all the hero is a harassment type, it has no attack and it best used for hit & run tactics with abilities. He has a considerable low amount of HP, due to this it is advised to keep him away from danger. Due to realistic and animation-related issues, I have disabled his attack.

There are about 5, 4 new triggers created for this hero. Ability triggers include Kaboom!, Light The Fuse!. The other ones were essential to make Blizzard experience and testing.

AI, I am using a custom edited AI script that allows computer players to train Goblin Sapper.

Race, The closest race in terms of lore was Orc, Orc race was made from Orcs, Tauren, Trolls. Goblins are neutral to Orcs depending on the lore of Warcraft franchise. Goblins even aided the horde in Warcraft II. People who think that putting Goblin Sapper in Orc race was a bad choice, are morons.

Abilities:

Cluster Rocket - Stun, Damage.
Goblin Land Mine - Ward, Explosive Damage.
Light The Fuse! - "Attack", Damage
Kaboom! - Suicide, Explosive Damage.

Abilities have been balanced, they compensate the hit points of Goblin Sapper.

I don't care about the reviews, I hardly take notes from them. I am posting this to correct some mistakes.

 

[Footman16]

[/hidden]

Footman16

Theme: The link to Human is dubious. The abilities are loosely related in that they all directly effect the armor/movement/attack stats of units.
8/10

Role:
8/10 Each ability affects unit stats but there is no much opportunity for stacking other than to spam all your abilities.

Balance: Banner of the Alliance is not well suited to a melee hero. The Banner is so weak that a few hits will kill it. A more suitable implementation would be to have it as an activated aura. Otherwise there were no issues.
9/10

Creativity: I've seen all of this before. I might give more points but even the implemetations are not much different than many spells in the database.
6/10

Coding: Meets the requirements.
10/10

Awesomeness:
2/5

Total:
43

Hmm, I can pretty much agree with this, could you provide a statement about the Awesomeness level? It would help me get an idea of what to do for any future designs.

About the abilities not-stacking, why would they need to stack? Not many heroes abilities do stack.

I'm surprised you gave me that much for creativity, I think you're being a bit kind but in truth my hero was aimed at the Theme, role and balance aspects of this judging which is where I was hoping to score the most points which I guess I have with you so all I need to do is work towards 10s.

I'm happy with that result. Your judging is very clear and makes sense which, is why I am having the dispute with Cokemonkey11 not because I'm taking it personally (I'm really just happy to be participating in the contest regardless of the result) but because your judging is not... accurate I think would be the best way to put it.

 

[Kam]

Hmm, I can pretty much agree with this, could you provide a statement about the Awesomeness level? It would help me get an idea of what to do for any future designs.

About the abilities not-stacking, why would they need to stack? Not many heroes abilities do stack.

I'm surprised you gave me that much for creativity, I think you're being a bit kind but in truth my hero was aimed at the Theme, role and balance aspects of this judging which is where I was hoping to score the most points which I guess I have with you so all I need to do is work towards 10s.

I'm happy with that result. Your judging is very clear and makes sense which, is why I am having the dispute with Cokemonkey11 not because I'm taking it personally (I'm really just happy to be participating in the contest regardless of the result) but because your judging is not... accurate I think would be the best way to put it.

Awesomeness level is based entirely on how I felt playing the hero. Did it excite me? If this were an AoS would I scramble to pick it before someone else because I enjoy it so much? Is it engaging beyond simple point-click attacking?

Stacking would give a second level of thought to your hero. For instance you could have multiple effects based on what order spells are cast. I am reminded of the Invoker from DotA. Right now the best bet is to jump into a pile of enemies and spam abilities.

 

[Kazeon]

I'm happy with that result. Your judging is very clear and makes sense which, is why I am having the dispute with Cokemonkey11 not because I'm taking it personally (I'm really just happy to be participating in the contest regardless of the result) but because your judging is not... accurate I think would be the best way to put it.

Huh? Because he gave you high scores?

His scoring is clearly inaccurate, and weak. Unbelievable that he is failed to spot some blatant fatal bugs, glitches, mistakes, and imbalances in most entries and give them high scores or even perfect 10/10. And most of all, he doesn't have a good coding/triggering experience.

@Kam:
I suggest you to spend more times with those entries. Prove me wrong.

 

[Footman16]

Huh? Because he gave you high scores?

I wouldn't consider the score particularly high by average. I came 7th out of 12 which isn't that good.

BUT... he did not give some weird self-inspired connotation of how to judge and claim it to be the God's honest truth or contradict himself.

 

[Cokemonkey11]

Awesomeness level is based entirely on how I felt playing the hero.

he did not give some weird self-inspired connotation of how to judge

well ok