Quick CTF Map

[Zovc]

I'm going to a LAN (probably small in comparison to what you're thinking of, we'll be lucky to have eight players) tonight, and since I have nothing to do today, I figured I'd toss together something simple to kill some time.

A CTF map seems like it could be really basic (or really complicated, heh), and the map design is going to reflect that. The map that I'm largely basing this off of had a straight shot from one base to the other with barriers on each side, hiding shops for both teams; here's an example of it:

____________
|     F    |
|          |
|          |
|S        S|
----    ----
|S        S|
|          |
|          |
|     F    |
____________

In this map, each player was a footman with wind walk (and possibly a few other abilities). The shops provided items such as healing potions, wands of illusion, and other utilitarian things. Players started with X gold and gainned Y every so often, there was no alternative way to earn gold, so gameplay was "literally" balanced.

My map design will be similar, I will use trees to create walls, and I will create an item that can destroy trees somehow (be it Force of Nature or Flamestrike, or whatever), so that there is a way to subvert players taking cover behind trees.

________________
|       F      |
| o          o |
|              |
| o S      S o |
| oooo    oooo |
| o S      S o |
|              |
| o          o |
|       F      |
________________

F = Flag, S = Shop, o = Trees; there would be enough space for you to walk between the shops and the trees, but trees would effectively be walls so long as no one destroys them. I'm not sure how fast trees should grow back.

I like the idea of players having Wind Walk, as it encourages players to use a Gem of True Seeing (or perhaps a totem that can see invisible units), and it possibly allows for a "sprint."

I would like for there to be buffs in the game, likely provided by items. Whenever a unit picks up the flag, I will have a "dummy" unit waiting to cast Mass Dispell at the location that occours; thus, grabbing the flag can make you more vulnerable in that sense.

I'm not sure if I want the game to reset after every capture, or after a team gets 3 caputres, either way, I would like to have the map be a two-out-of-three match, to where once a team wins 3 matches, they win the game. Allowing a 2/3 subgame inside of each game leads to a more back and forth style, but if one team is somehow dominating, there is no reset until the next game. Perhaps there's a happy median in there somewhere?

I don't know how to deal with player resurrection, any ideas for that?

Also, I'd love to hear ideas for any aspect of this game; most importantly, what items and abilities would you like to see?

 

[Orniflyer]

sounds like fun
do it

it doesn't have to look nice and you do not need custom abilities and items. Just throw everything together quickly. Maps like this one are a lot of fun on smaller lans. Just make sure you also implement some crazy stuff. Maybe a command to spawn random firestrikes periodicly at random points or something like that.

and if it rocks, make a reworked, good looking version and submit it

 

[Zovc]

Thanks for the support.

I'm going to do Kobolds versus Murlocs. Kobolds have Blue, Purple, Gray, and Light Blue as their colors and Murlocs have Red, Yellow, Orange, and Pink. I like making things look nice, and I gave kobolds blues because they clash with the orange/brown kobold model, where as red hues clash against the (cold,) purple murloc I'm using. Clashing colors are more noticeable, so there is a lesser chance that blue kobold looks like a purple kobold.

Kobolds and Murlocs will have identical stats. Here's what I've decided so far:

150 HP base, 50 damage attack with a 2-sec cooldown (65 range [[subject to change]]). As you can see, three strikes and you're out, this provides consistency with the round structure, whether or not there are three rounds each match or if there are just three matches.

Movment speed = 300, Wind Walk reduces your speed by 25% (to roughly 225), makes you invisible for X seconds, and gives you 75 extra damage. The reason Wind Walk doesn't just grant you an extra attack is because I want players to be able to 1-shot other players with some effort. There are going to be team-exclusive healing fountains which would otherwise guarantee players victory against enemies when nearby. The balancing factor is that you can outrun a cloaked player you're aware of. WW's mana cost will be based on units maximum mana and regeneration, while considdering other abilities.

Naturally, in order to be able to kill another player in one shot, you have to do 150 damage, but the backstab bonus is only 75 and your attack does 50... This is why any players who want to be ambushing others need to get the War Drums (or whatever they are) that give Command Aura (although the radius will be smaller and raise damage by 50%, giving you that extra 25 you need).

Then again, you have to be a slowpoke in order to backstab people (or use it quickly, I may incorporate a casting time into Wind Walk for that reason), so why not deal damage directly from a distance? That's right, you can buy Flamestrikes from the shop, the only problem is that it takes mana to use (the same goes for any other skills you buy from the shop). Flamestrikes will also do 75 damage, and will do an additional 75 over time (6-to-9 seconds)--too bad that won't kill someone instantly (unless you considder trees someone). It may seem insignificant, but killing trees raises everyone's potential visibility.

On the subject of visiblity, you can always see the inside of your base, that is, from the "back" of your base all the way to your healing fountain, and all the way to the openings on the side. Basically, you can see every entrance to your flag, so as soon as someone crosses that line, they're visible on your minimap, but your camera is bound to your unit (isometrically), so you have to play attention to the minimap, in addition to your character (think FPS games).

And Fountains, I'm going to try to create one fountain of restoration for each team that heals exclusively members of that team.

I think trees should respawn, how fast should they do so?

 

[Zovc]

I changed my mind, instead of having ambushes be the answer to fountain-camping, I'm going to make an item that kills a unit if it has the fountain of healing buff. This item'll be expensive and cost a lot of mana to use, but death is a scary enough reason to stay away from the fountain. Also, instead of having the fountain and the flag in the same area, I'm going to partition the two off, to where bases have two vertical sections, the Fountain/Shop area and the flag area. You can enter either shop area from the other, or from their own sides. You can enter the flag area from the respective team's shop area, the shop area side entrances, or the sides entrances farthest from your team's flags.

Wind Walk ("Stealth") is going to effectively give you an extra attack on your opponent, therefore forcing them to retreat or die (if they then stealth and backstab you, you'll attack them again first and kill them). I'm going to remove the casting time from Wind Walk, since I think I'm going to allow players to buy nets. Nets will last long enough to make Flamestrike's damage over time almost kill players; unskilled players will be killed by Flamestrike + Net (although the combo won't be cheap, and will likely use 100% of the user's mana), where better players should be able to move out of the DoT alive, but ready to be killed.