Scarlet Crusade - The Finest Hour (Definitive Edition)

[Homor]

I remember playing this back in late 2020, didn't actually expect it to get an update for 1.31, I'm glad it's 1.31 and not the disaster that is Reforged.
Very nice!

Hey, maybe 1.33 will come out and make the game playable again. I'm not holding my breath, though. Glad you enjoyed the game!

 

[nv4]

Now, I'm not good with words when it comes to describing positives and praising something. But that's the best map of your Angora series. Terrain is good, heroes are cool, tech tree is very nice, lore is interesting, and most important - it's enjoyable to actually play it. And I thought I'd leave a comment just to show my appreciation.

Spoiler: General overview

In 1.31 version casters are leagues weaker than in classic one (no more battle mages wiping the entire city with Crushing Wave and cojurers summoning free armies), and some units also received nerfs (my poor Recruit), but in general 1.31 version is a massive improvement, although some things should've stayed the way they were in classic version, at least partly.
Having Dynamic Enemy AI is cool, but I wish it was more intellegent than what it is now. Like changing from which direction each Undead AI attacks and their wave composition, otherwise it's too easy to adapt to their attacks (for example, Godfrey's Machinations always attack from western entries, always the save wave composition, and it's easily countered by single cavalier blocking entrance + chaplain healing him, and gryphons annihilate heavy-armored aboms and wagons). Also would be cool if AI would send attack waves not only to the base, but also to player's units inside the city.
Played on -df3 and -df6 and didn't really feel like -df6 was genuinely harder, rather more time consuming since enemies have so much health. Not a fan of "difficulty = more health" approach. Actually, I would much prefer to see undead be true to their name and operate countless armies of not so strong units, instead of not so numerous but very strong units (filthy bone crushers). I mean like bringing in wagons with corpses, unloading them and necromancers just raise a little horde of skeletons - that would be way cooler than simple wagons+abominations. Besides, lore addendum says "war and death has reduced the numbers of all sapient races down to a tenth of what they once were", so surely there would be hordes of undeads that were simple civilians in life. Ironically, The Necromancer maps do it the right way - weak and numerous.

Spoiler: Units and heroes

1) Majority of enemies have heavy armor type (and about half of those who don't are casters with low unarmored type armor, so they're easy to kill anyway), making magic damage type the best choice. Gryphons are flying, have magic damage and even AOE. Absolute gryphon superiority. Changing armor type of some enemies could really diversify viable strategies.
2) Recruits should have 420 hp in both forms, it just makes no sense for them to have lowered max health in their standard form.
3) Scarlet Wizard's description says "Can hold his own on the battlefield and has a wide array of offensive and utility spells" and it's total lie. Biggest disappointment of this map. Spirit Touch is completely obsolete due to casters having huge manapools and regen. Death And Decay isn't really worth it - damage is rather low + friendly fire. Not that it's bad, but it's definitely not something that's "offensive spell which allows to hold his own on the battlefield". Now, Spell Steal is very good, but ironically the supposedly strongest caster has relatively low mana pool (475 max mana with Spell Steal costing 75 and it has to be casted right off cooldown due to huge amounts of deffus from numerous enemy casters) and regen, and as a result he runs out of mana rather fast. It's even more ironic when you consider that Scarlet Bishop has 800 max mana but his spells don't cost anything. In conclusion, Scarlet Wizard should've retained Battle Mage's kit (with increased damage values since now he can't be mass hired) and same or higher max mana.
4) Conjurer's kit also doesn't really fit the name, I liked him more in classic version.
5) Is Scarlet Protector supposed to be so weak? Medium armor when most melee undead have normal attack type, only 1k health and yet he has Taunt. Doesn't look like a good choice. He's very good against piercing damage, but that's not really useful on this map. Should have at least hero type armor.
6) Also I think all demi-heroes should have resistant skin like Scarlet Champion does. It's rather silly how a simple banshee can posess them. Like, I lost Scarlet Executioner about a dozen times, and all of them were because banshees always immediately were going to posess her.
7) Assassins still aren't worth it. They're very squishy and their damage isn't that high to justife the effort it takes to unleash their potential. Now, if they had Demolish that works on heroes (for example, x10 damage and x3 mana burn against heroes) that would make them true to their name.
8) Scounderls - not sure how I feel about them. They have high damage per hit, but DPS isn't that high due to slow attack speed. They could be very good backline killers, but they only have 600 range and no convinient way to get a good position since enemies are always ahead. They're squishy and expensive both in resources and food. However, they're exceptionaly good in killing air units, so pairing scoundrels with gryphons (one thing gryphons struggle against is gargoyles with frost wyrms) makes the best combination of units to steam roll the map. Other than pairing with gryphons it's probably always better to hire cavaliers or crusaders instead.

Joshua Wolfgang
Marking Shot - 100 damage is rather weak (its cast time is longer than doing a few basic attacks, so doing basic attacks is more effective even against armored targets), would be better to make it [attack damage]+20/35/50 and damage type is spell damage. It's just too hard to pull off with only 100 damage.

Hezkiah the Brutal
Berserk - would be nice to know how long the effect lasts.

Aegeus the Wise
Arcane Bolt - could be something more interesting than just plain damage. Or it could be just plain damage, but high damage, like Point Blank Shot.
Burning Strike - description mentions burning ground with damage per second, but it doesn't burn anything, there is only initial damage. And it doesn't even damage buildings (which I assume it should since it's basically Blood Mage's Flame Strike).
Telekinesis - not the first time I see this spell, not the first time is sucks. It has almost no cooldown and low damage (114 on average on lvl 3), basically it's a crowd control with a little extra damage, but you have to repeatedly keep using it which is tiring and something more interesting\important could be micro'ed instead. There is enough ways to make a good spell. First, cooldown should be longer, so it doesn't take so much effort to micro it. Then it could stun when enemies when they crash into ground or keep them lifted in the air for longer time. That would allow to keep its crowd control feature. Otherwise the damage could be increased to make it a mass damage spell with a little CC flavor. Or it could be even made into channeling spell with enemies being repeatedly lifted and smashed throught the spell's duration - that's basically what it is now but no need to spam the button. Although it would disallow to cast other spells while channeling, but it could be sompensated by increasing damage.
Arcane Mastery - simply adding +30 int is rather boring. Simply adding stats is always a lazy choice, any active spell would be more interesting.

Spoiler: Items

1) Would be nice to know exact values of bonuses the items provide, like how much % lifesteal, cleave, evasion, how many hp regen and so on.
2) Black Runeblade - descritption doesn't mention the +12 damage that it actually adds. Also no mention of being able to attack air targets.
3) Purified Runebale - description says "+15 attack... and bonus fire damage". It's somewhat confusing, as it actually adds +25 damage and 10 splash damage on basic attacks.
4) Heavy Machine Gun - description partialy copies that of a shotgun.
5) Guardian Shield - "...increases hit points, adds bonus life". Uhh, what's "bonus life"? It doesn't provide resurrection so I assume it's just max health, which is the same as "increases hit points".

Spoiler: Bugs

1) Not sure if it's a bug or intended, but nothing happens when I get to Pandaren (used Kelen's dagger to bring Grand Crusader there). Only thing I can do is kill him, the red message shows, though.
2) Does "Sundering Blades" upgrade in barracks even do anything? It mentions Crusaders, but they are hired from different building and don't have the glow on their blades like knights have.
3) Recruit's Bow Training upgrage mentions searing arrows, but there is no such thing.
4) Chaplain can cast Clease without doing Adept Training.
5) Monks initially can't cast anything. Spirit Link requires adept training, Rejuvenation requires master training, Appease Spirit is not available at all because it requires Necromancer Adept Training. Ironically, Appease Spirit is Monk's main feature and that problem still isn't fixed since classic version.
6) Plague Doctor's description states he's able to cast Abolish Magic (which also removes disease) and Silence. But he doesn't have these spells. Once again, unit's main feature is missing, but this time at least it wasn't a problem in classic version.
7) Sorcerer and Conjurer don't get bonus mana, health, regen from training upgrades.
8) Conjurer gets bonus mana, health, regen from Inquisitor Training upgrades.
9) Inquisitor receives both Banish and Anathema just from Adept Training upgrade.
10) And almost all training upgrades for caster mention wrong spells in their descriptions.
11) Inquisitor, Conjurer and Chaplain (rather ironic, considering how they don't benefit from their own upgrades) benefit from Arcange Knowledge upgrade (+500 max mana for heroes).
12) Flame Tower doesn't benefit from Masonry upgrades and Glyph of Fortification.
13) Joshua Wolfgang - Point Blank Shot - description mentions wrong damage values, description in lvl up menu is right.
14) Quite a few spells have either wrong hotkeys marked or no hotkeys marked at all.

Spoiler: Hotkeys

All heroes have either no hotkey marked or legacy hotkeys marked.

Inquisitor
Purge - "g" highlighted, but the actual hotkey is [Q].
Banish - "B" highlighted and it's the actual hotkey, but it's just strange how the other 2 are QE and this one is not [W].
Anathema - hotkey not marked at all, but it's actually [E].

Conjurer
All spells are actually QWE, but the marked hotkeys are classic ones.

Scarlet Wizard
Spirit Touch - "t" highlighted, but the actual hotkey is [Q].

Scarlet Bishop
Circle of Healing [Q] and Resurrection [E] - no hotkeys marked.

 

[HuanJuan]

Now, I'm not good with words when it comes to describing positives and praising something. But that's the best map of your Angora series. Terrain is good, heroes are cool, tech tree is very nice, lore is interesting, and most important - it's enjoyable to actually play it. And I thought I'd leave a comment just to show my appreciation.

Spoiler: General overview

In 1.31 version casters are leagues weaker than in classic one (no more battle mages wiping the entire city with Crushing Wave and cojurers summoning free armies), and some units also received nerfs (my poor Recruit), but in general 1.31 version is a massive improvement, although some things should've stayed the way they were in classic version, at least partly.
Having Dynamic Enemy AI is cool, but I wish it was more intellegent than what it is now. Like changing from which direction each Undead AI attacks and their wave composition, otherwise it's too easy to adapt to their attacks (for example, Godfrey's Machinations always attack from western entries, always the save wave composition, and it's easily countered by single cavalier blocking entrance + chaplain healing him, and gryphons annihilate heavy-armored aboms and wagons). Also would be cool if AI would send attack waves not only to the base, but also to player's units inside the city.
Played on -df3 and -df6 and didn't really feel like -df6 was genuinely harder, rather more time consuming since enemies have so much health. Not a fan of "difficulty = more health" approach. Actually, I would much prefer to see undead be true to their name and operate countless armies of not so strong units, instead of not so numerous but very strong units (filthy bone crushers). I mean like bringing in wagons with corpses, unloading them and necromancers just raise a little horde of skeletons - that would be way cooler than simple wagons+abominations. Besides, lore addendum says "war and death has reduced the numbers of all sapient races down to a tenth of what they once were", so surely there would be hordes of undeads that were simple civilians in life. Ironically, The Necromancer maps do it the right way - weak and numerous.

Spoiler: Units and heroes

1) Majority of enemies have heavy armor type (and about half of those who don't are casters with low unarmored type armor, so they're easy to kill anyway), making magic damage type the best choice. Gryphons are flying, have magic damage and even AOE. Absolute gryphon superiority. Changing armor type of some enemies could really diversify viable strategies.
2) Recruits should have 420 hp in both forms, it just makes no sense for them to have lowered max health in their standard form.
3) Scarlet Wizard's description says "Can hold his own on the battlefield and has a wide array of offensive and utility spells" and it's total lie. Biggest disappointment of this map. Spirit Touch is completely obsolete due to casters having huge manapools and regen. Death And Decay isn't really worth it - damage is rather low + friendly fire. Not that it's bad, but it's definitely not something that's "offensive spell which allows to hold his own on the battlefield". Now, Spell Steal is very good, but ironically the supposedly strongest caster has relatively low mana pool (475 max mana with Spell Steal costing 75 and it has to be casted right off cooldown due to huge amounts of deffus from numerous enemy casters) and regen, and as a result he runs out of mana rather fast. It's even more ironic when you consider that Scarlet Bishop has 800 max mana but his spells don't cost anything. In conclusion, Scarlet Wizard should've retained Battle Mage's kit (with increased damage values since now he can't be mass hired) and same or higher max mana.
4) Conjurer's kit also doesn't really fit the name, I liked him more in classic version.
5) Is Scarlet Protector supposed to be so weak? Medium armor when most melee undead have normal attack type, only 1k health and yet he has Taunt. Doesn't look like a good choice. He's very good against piercing damage, but that's not really useful on this map. Should have at least hero type armor.
6) Also I think all demi-heroes should have resistant skin like Scarlet Champion does. It's rather silly how a simple banshee can posess them. Like, I lost Scarlet Executioner about a dozen times, and all of them were because banshees always immediately were going to posess her.
7) Assassins still aren't worth it. They're very squishy and their damage isn't that high to justife the effort it takes to unleash their potential. Now, if they had Demolish that works on heroes (for example, x10 damage and x3 mana burn against heroes) that would make them true to their name.
8) Scounderls - not sure how I feel about them. They have high damage per hit, but DPS isn't that high due to slow attack speed. They could be very good backline killers, but they only have 600 range and no convinient way to get a good position since enemies are always ahead. They're squishy and expensive both in resources and food. However, they're exceptionaly good in killing air units, so pairing scoundrels with gryphons (one thing gryphons struggle against is gargoyles with frost wyrms) makes the best combination of units to steam roll the map. Other than pairing with gryphons it's probably always better to hire cavaliers or crusaders instead.

Joshua Wolfgang
Marking Shot - 100 damage is rather weak (its cast time is longer than doing a few basic attacks, so doing basic attacks is more effective even against armored targets), would be better to make it [attack damage]+20/35/50 and damage type is spell damage. It's just too hard to pull off with only 100 damage.

Hezkiah the Brutal
Berserk - would be nice to know how long the effect lasts.

Aegeus the Wise
Arcane Bolt - could be something more interesting than just plain damage. Or it could be just plain damage, but high damage, like Point Blank Shot.
Burning Strike - description mentions burning ground with damage per second, but it doesn't burn anything, there is only initial damage. And it doesn't even damage buildings (which I assume it should since it's basically Blood Mage's Flame Strike).
Telekinesis - not the first time I see this spell, not the first time is sucks. It has almost no cooldown and low damage (114 on average on lvl 3), basically it's a crowd control with a little extra damage, but you have to repeatedly keep using it which is tiring and something more interesting\important could be micro'ed instead. There is enough ways to make a good spell. First, cooldown should be longer, so it doesn't take so much effort to micro it. Then it could stun when enemies when they crash into ground or keep them lifted in the air for longer time. That would allow to keep its crowd control feature. Otherwise the damage could be increased to make it a mass damage spell with a little CC flavor. Or it could be even made into channeling spell with enemies being repeatedly lifted and smashed throught the spell's duration - that's basically what it is now but no need to spam the button. Although it would disallow to cast other spells while channeling, but it could be sompensated by increasing damage.
Arcane Mastery - simply adding +30 int is rather boring. Simply adding stats is always a lazy choice, any active spell would be more interesting.

Spoiler: Items

1) Would be nice to know exact values of bonuses the items provide, like how much % lifesteal, cleave, evasion, how many hp regen and so on.
2) Black Runeblade - descritption doesn't mention the +12 damage that it actually adds. Also no mention of being able to attack air targets.
3) Purified Runebale - description says "+15 attack... and bonus fire damage". It's somewhat confusing, as it actually adds +25 damage and 10 splash damage on basic attacks.
4) Heavy Machine Gun - description partialy copies that of a shotgun.
5) Guardian Shield - "...increases hit points, adds bonus life". Uhh, what's "bonus life"? It doesn't provide resurrection so I assume it's just max health, which is the same as "increases hit points".

Spoiler: Bugs

1) Not sure if it's a bug or intended, but nothing happens when I get to Pandaren (used Kelen's dagger to bring Grand Crusader there). Only thing I can do is kill him, the red message shows, though.
2) Does "Sundering Blades" upgrade in barracks even do anything? It mentions Crusaders, but they are hired from different building and don't have the glow on their blades like knights have.
3) Recruit's Bow Training upgrage mentions searing arrows, but there is no such thing.
4) Chaplain can cast Clease without doing Adept Training.
5) Monks initially can't cast anything. Spirit Link requires adept training, Rejuvenation requires master training, Appease Spirit is not available at all because it requires Necromancer Adept Training. Ironically, Appease Spirit is Monk's main feature and that problem still isn't fixed since classic version.
6) Plague Doctor's description states he's able to cast Abolish Magic (which also removes disease) and Silence. But he doesn't have these spells. Once again, unit's main feature is missing, but this time at least it wasn't a problem in classic version.
7) Sorcerer and Conjurer don't get bonus mana, health, regen from training upgrades.
8) Conjurer gets bonus mana, health, regen from Inquisitor Training upgrades.
9) Inquisitor receives both Banish and Anathema just from Adept Training upgrade.
10) And almost all training upgrades for caster mention wrong spells in their descriptions.
11) Inquisitor, Conjurer and Chaplain (rather ironic, considering how they don't benefit from their own upgrades) benefit from Arcange Knowledge upgrade (+500 max mana for heroes).
12) Flame Tower doesn't benefit from Masonry upgrades and Glyph of Fortification.
13) Joshua Wolfgang - Point Blank Shot - description mentions wrong damage values, description in lvl up menu is right.
14) Quite a few spells have either wrong hotkeys marked or no hotkeys marked at all.

Spoiler: Hotkeys

All heroes have either no hotkey marked or legacy hotkeys marked.

Inquisitor
Purge - "g" highlighted, but the actual hotkey is [Q].
Banish - "B" highlighted and it's the actual hotkey, but it's just strange how the other 2 are QE and this one is not [W].
Anathema - hotkey not marked at all, but it's actually [E].

Conjurer
All spells are actually QWE, but the marked hotkeys are classic ones.

Scarlet Wizard
Spirit Touch - "t" highlighted, but the actual hotkey is [Q].

Scarlet Bishop
Circle of Healing [Q] and Resurrection [E] - no hotkeys marked.

The latest updated Scarlet Crusade map is works properly only with REFORGED(There is two download option, the left one with "update" in the file name are works properly in REFORGED). (I tested it with 1.32.10 REFORGED, and with 1.31).
On Non reforged versions of Warcraft III are not going to play it properly, because some abilities of units are not usable sadly. I Highly miss a proper description about in WHICH version is recommended to play, and a change log.
I enjoyed this map, with his bugs, which ones are annoyed me a bit. (They are destroying the atmosphere of the game one bit per bug as you continoue to improve your base and units & stuff). I can recommend it. Hope one day an improved version is coming out.

 

[Ravager16829]

The latest updated Scarlet Crusade map is works properly only with REFORGED(There is two download option, the left one with "update" in the file name are works properly in REFORGED). (I tested it with 1.32.10 REFORGED, and with 1.31).

I highly NOT RECOMMENDED to download campaigns that are designed for Classic WC3 (1.26-1.31) to be playable on Reforged. You can still play all custom campaigns on Reforged using the Quenching or Campaign Splitter, but expect a lot of bugs with 1.32 such as missing textures, etc. 1.33 is the version you should avoid because the game is still buggy with tons of crashes (due to the memory leaks).

On Non reforged versions of Warcraft III are not going to play it properly, because some abilities of units are not usable sadly. I Highly miss a proper description about in WHICH version is recommended to play, and a change log.

Actually, this bug seems to be caused by the save-load feature, which in 1.31 can "break" the gameplay.

 

[HuanJuan]

I highly NOT RECOMMENDED to download campaigns that are designed for Classic WC3 (1.26-1.31) to be playable on Reforged. You can still play all custom campaigns on Reforged using the Quenching or Campaign Splitter, but expect a lot of bugs with 1.32 such as missing textures, etc. 1.33 is the version you should avoid because the game is still buggy with tons of crashes (due to the memory leaks).

Actually, this bug seems to be caused by the save-load feature, which in 1.31 can "break" the gameplay.

The monk's ability to destroy corpses are not working on 1.31, you even described in your comment below(In the mentioned reforged it works). Sundering blades aren't even working in both maps. I just say what I experienced.

 

[Homor]

The latest updated Scarlet Crusade map is works properly only with REFORGED(There is two download option, the left one with "update" in the file name are works properly in REFORGED). (I tested it with 1.32.10 REFORGED, and with 1.31).
On Non reforged versions of Warcraft III are not going to play it properly, because some abilities of units are not usable sadly. I Highly miss a proper description about in WHICH version is recommended to play, and a change log.
I enjoyed this map, with his bugs, which ones are annoyed me a bit. (They are destroying the atmosphere of the game one bit per bug as you continoue to improve your base and units & stuff). I can recommend it. Hope one day an improved version is coming out.

1.31 can be very buggy in general. This map was specifically designed in and for 1.31 (I wouldn't touch Reforged with someone else's dick DX) but I'm absolutely sure you'll still get bugs and issues with it. Despite the problems, it's playable from start to finish with no problems (as long as save/load doesn't mess things up DX). It might work better with Reforged, but I can't attest to that because I refuse to play it until they add HD asset opt-out, if ever.

Best of luck to you, man.

 

[HuanJuan]

1.31 can be very buggy in general. This map was specifically designed in and for 1.31 (I wouldn't touch Reforged with someone else's dick DX) but I'm absolutely sure you'll still get bugs and issues with it. Despite the problems, it's playable from start to finish with no problems (as long as save/load doesn't mess things up DX). It might work better with Reforged, but I can't attest to that because I refuse to play it until they add HD asset opt-out, if ever.

Best of luck to you, man.

It was fun You really worked on this map. I was amazed how much stuff and creativity put there. The amount of items of this map has, was shocked me... I wish best of luck to you, and keep it up.

 

[Homor]

Heya, kids! We've got a new update for you! I've humbly dubbed this one the "Bug Squishing Update"! Boy, this is a doozy!

• Fixed Crusaders' Sundering Blades Ability
• Clarified the description for Archery training.
• All Recruit variants have the same health
• Fixed Monk's Appease Spirit ability
• Fixed Chaplain's abilities
• Fixed Plague Doctor's Description and Abilities
• Fixed Monk's Description and Abilities
• Removed "Arcane Knowledge" upgrade from non-hero units
• Fixed the upgrades for Conjurers and Sorcerers not working correctly
• Fixed Inquisitors techtree
• Descriptions for all spellcaster units should now be accurate
• Bishop spells now properly cost mana (no idea how this one even happened)
• Assassins now deal x4 damage to hero units.
• Scoundrels buffed with extra attack range
• Flame Towers now recieve benefits from upgrades
• Fixed the description for Guardian Shield.
• ALL Demi-Heroes now have Resistant Skin.
• Scarlet Protector now has Hero armor
• Scarlet Wizard heavily buffed. Mana pool greatly increased, and given flamestrike.
• Fixed the description for Point Blank Shot.
• Enemy armor types diversified
• Fixed descriptions for Black Runeblade, Purified Runeblade and Heavy Machinegun.

If I missed anything, be sure to point it out! Hope you have a blast.

 

[HuanJuan]

Heya, kids! We've got a new update for you! I've humbly dubbed this one the "Bug Squishing Update"! Boy, this is a doozy!

View attachment 410410

• Fixed Crusaders' Sundering Blades Ability
• Clarified the description for Archery training.
• All Recruit variants have the same health
• Fixed Monk's Appease Spirit ability
• Fixed Chaplain's abilities
• Fixed Plague Doctor's Description and Abilities
• Fixed Monk's Description and Abilities
• Removed "Arcane Knowledge" upgrade from non-hero units
• Fixed the upgrades for Conjurers and Sorcerers not working correctly
• Fixed Inquisitors techtree
• Descriptions for all spellcaster units should now be accurate
• Bishop spells now properly cost mana (no idea how this one even happened)
• Assassins now deal x4 damage to hero units.
• Scoundrels buffed with extra attack range
• Flame Towers now recieve benefits from upgrades
• Fixed the description for Guardian Shield.
• ALL Demi-Heroes now have Resistant Skin.
• Scarlet Protector now has Hero armor
• Scarlet Wizard heavily buffed. Mana pool greatly increased, and given flamestrike.
• Fixed the description for Point Blank Shot.
• Enemy armor types diversified
• Fixed descriptions for Black Runeblade, Purified Runeblade and Heavy Machinegun.

If I missed anything, be sure to point it out! Hope you have a blast.

I played the updated "SCTheFinestHourUpdate.w3x" file on this game version. Is the recommended game version to play this map ?

Here is da monk you writed about. I'm still testing.

 

[HuanJuan]

Here are some of my interesting things that I found at on the newer version you released.

No sign about the upgrades on here. This unit is not effected by armor and attack upgrades from the Blacksmith.

In the Juggernaut is the same. Is it suppose to be have it or not?

Spirit touch does not use Mana.

Executioner does not affected by the upgrades from the Blacksmith.

Assasin's attack damage are not affected by the upgrades from the Blacksmith. Only defence.

Scoundrel's Hounds are suppose to be permanent or it suppose to be have a timer or somewhat after disappearing? Because it's permanent.

Marking Shot ability in Joshua Wolfgang: After level 2-3 the Hounds are suppose to be permanent or als good summoned units, they suppose to have timers and disappear? Because it's permanent.

 

[Homor]

Here are some of my interesting things that I found at on the newer version you released.View attachment 410470No sign about the upgrades on here. This unit is not effected by armor and attack upgrades from the Blacksmith.

View attachment 410471
In the Juggernaut is the same. Is it suppose to be have it or not?
View attachment 410472
Spirit touch does not use Mana.

View attachment 410473
Executioner does not affected by the upgrades from the Blacksmith.
View attachment 410474
Assasin's attack damage are not affected by the upgrades from the Blacksmith. Only defence.

Scoundrel's Hounds are suppose to be permanent or it suppose to be have a timer or somewhat after disappearing? Because it's permanent.

Marking Shot ability in Joshua Wolfgang: After level 2-3 the Hounds are suppose to be permanent or als good summoned units, they suppose to have timers and disappear? Because it's permanent.

IIRC, Demi-Heroes aren't supposed to use upgrades. It was a balanced decision Walichrage made.

I'm not sure what the original intent behind the Scoundrel's hounds was. They lose their timer after a certain level. Depending on what people think of it, I may make them all permanent, or always timed.

I'll be sure to fix the Assassin's attack.

 

[HuanJuan]

IIRC, Demi-Heroes aren't supposed to use upgrades. It was a balanced decision Walichrage made.

I'm not sure what the original intent behind the Scoundrel's hounds was. They lose their timer after a certain level. Depending on what people think of it, I may make them all permanent, or always timed.

I'll be sure to fix the Assassin's attack.

Scoundrel's Hound are suppose to defend his summoner because it can't do melee, that's why the upgrade is useful.
Marking shot: If it's going to stay as it is, it's good.
When an ability is toggleable, please use some marking on the ability icon to be more discoverable. Blizzard did that, and everybody is doing that.

 

[Shellshock]

So I played the game again since you updated it and what not. on df6 properly this time.

Still quite love it.
I do sort of wish we had more marketplaces. Like waiting to get the right item so it can be fused takes a while.
Is there a way you can add a permenant of buying the items just with a high gold cost or something? I don't wanna wait for chance. Didn't get the hood of cunning more than once.
You know I never had to use any other units besides the main ones. The towers did there job.
is there a difficulty higher than DF6?
My only real request is more marketplaces so I can do this quicker.

 

[nv4]

Well, nice to see my feedback was useful. So I played an updated version and here's a bit more feedback. As for balance concerning things, I played on -df6 so I suppose my suggestions might not sound fair for lower difficulties.
Also, noticed one thing. What is Cambria's Coheed doing there? According to lore, "The Necromancer" takes place 15 years later, and Cambria finished Coheed there. I mean, he wasn't even a necromancer back when retaking of Stratholme took place.

Spoiler: Gameplay

1) Research Sundering Blades should be moved from Barracks to Training Grounds, since Crusader is trained there and it's the only unit benefitting from sundering blades.
2) I guess something went wrong with changing armor type of some units. Damned Zealot and Zombie have icon of Light armor, the name says it's Normal armor, and tooltip says it's medium. Didn't test the actual damage values though.
3) Plague Doctor should be able to cast Cleanse on himself.
4) I feel like Cannon's range should be increased. Maybe 900 or 1000.
5) Scarlet Skyterror's armor could be increased to 3. And damage could also be increased up to something like 100-125.
6) Scarlet Juggernaut could use some abilities to feel more in tune with other demi-heroes and in tune with the theme of the unit being the pinnacle of military engineering and siege machinery.
I think flat damage reduction (like Plate Armor of Cavaliers) and Tinker's Cluster Rockets would be nice.
7) Scarlet Wizard - attack range should be increased to 600. And Flamestrike should be lvl 2 or better yet 3. Dealing 140 damage (and that is if unit stays inside range during whole duration) on -df6 when even measly ghouls have 680 hp feels rather weak. Might also add Firebolt with 200 damage 2 sec stun.
8) Scarlet Protector still feels off. I think his hp should be increased to 1500 at least. But that won't fix the problem that he feels obsolete. Like, all other main frontliners (heroes, demi-heroes, cavaliers) are already capable to tank reasonably large amounts of damage, and provided with heals and buffs they don't really need a specialised tank. As for Taunt, usually there are more than 10 enemies, especially when necromancers start raising skeletons, so it doesn't aggro that much enemies and the duration isn't that long. And despite the name, he can't provide defense from something like Bone Crusher's Shockwave and War Stomp. And lastly, his damage is also low.
Overall, it feels like a single Cavalier provides more impact than Scarlet Protector.
9) Still think that Joshua's Marking Shot should be buffed for the same reason as explained for Point Blank Shot in bugs section.

Spoiler: Bugs

1) Monk - Appease Spirit still requires adept training.
2) Inquisitor - Banish and Anathema icons should be switched places.
3) Scarlet Protector and Scarlet Champion benefit from attack\defense upgrades.
4) Scarlet Bishop - Circle of Healing - tooltip says it costs 40 mana, but it's 2 mana per unit healed.
5) Joshua Wolfgang - Point Blank Shot - tooltip now says 310 damage, but it actually does 500. Though I think it should be kept at 500 or at least 400. I mean, Joshua is agility hero, as he levels up and gets good items he does huge DPS with basic attacks. So if his PBS costs mana and provides less DPS than basic attacks, then what's the point using it?
6) Assassin doesn't benefit from attack upgrades.
7) Tested Assassin's damage output on Baron Ahabus, who has 43% damage reduction. A single hit deals 29 damage to him. Assassin has 11-12 damage from basic attack and 40 damage from feedback. So that's (11 + 40) * (1 - 0,43) = 29,07. Math corresponds to actually dealt values, so I assume Demolish doesn't work.

Spoiler: Icons

1) Barracks - Research Zeal icon should have borders.
2) Hideout - Research Cheap Shot icon should have borders.
3) Zealot - Frenzy icon should should have borders like other autocast-able abilities.
4) Joshua Wolfgang - Marking Shot icon should have borders like other autocast-able abilities.
5) Assassin - Demolish icon should be borderless.

Spoiler: Hotkeys

1) All heroes have either no hotkey marked or legacy hotkeys marked, but mapped hotkeys are QWER.
2) Chaplain - Inner Fire - (F) marked, but actual hotkey is (E). And it overlaps with Heal, which also has (E) as hotkey.
3) Monk - Appease Spirit and Rejuvenation mapped to the same hotkey. Spirit Link has no hotkey.
4) Plague Doctor - Potion of Holy Rage not marked, but mapped to E. Healing Spray marked, but doesn't work (maybe overlaps with Potion of Holy Rage). Cleanse and Acid Bomb not mapped.
5) Scarlet Bishop - Circle of Healing (Q) and Resurrection (E) hotkeys not marked.
6) Conjurer - all spells are actually QWE, but the marked hotkeys are classic ones.
7) Inquisitor
Purge - "g" highlighted, but the actual hotkey is (Q).
Banish - "B" highlighted and it's the actual hotkey, but it's just strange how the other 2 are QE and this one is not (W).
Anathema - hotkey not marked, but it's actually (E).
8) Scarlet Wizard - Spirit Touch - "c" highlighted, but the actual hotkey is (Q).

Spoiler: Spelling issues

1) Mission loading screen - "in the outskirts in the city" -> "on the outskirts of the city"
2) Starting dialog - "This is the pivital moment" -> "This is the pivotal moment"
3) Upgrade that allows to train Scarlet Skyterror is called "Scarlet Sky Watcher". I guess both should have the same name.
4) Research Cloud tooltip mentions Dragonhawk Riders, but those are Pegasus Riders now.
5) Reasearch Holy Cannon of Crusade: "Allow construct Scarlet Juggernaut." -> "Allows to construct Scarlet Juggernaut."
6) Zealot's Frenzy ability should be renamed to Zeal (or otherwise upgrade in barracks renamed to Frenzy).
7) Training Grounds - "Animal War Training" -> "Charge"
8) Cannon's tooltip: "Can learn Fragmentation Shards and abilities." -> "Can learn Fragmentation Shards ability."
9) Plague Doctor's tooltip: "Can also cast Holy Potion of Rage. Can learn Acid Bomb and Healing Spray." -> "Can also cast Healing spray. Can learn Acid Bomb and Potion of Holy Rage."
10) Plague Doctor Master Training tooltip: "gives them the ability to cast Healing Spray" -> "gives them the ability to cast Potion of Holy Rage."
11) "Sorceress Adept Training" -> "Sorcerer Adept Training". And tooltip: "Sorcereres' mana" -> "Sorcerer's mana", "to cast Invisibility." -> "to cast Anti-magic Shell".
12) "Sorceress Master Training" -> "Sorcerer Master Training". And tooltip: "Sorcereres' mana" -> "Sorcerer's mana".
13) Inquisitor Adept Training tooltip: "to cast Cripple." -> "to cast Banish."
14) Inquisitor Master Training tooltip: "to cast Bloodlust." -> "to cast Anathema."
15) Scarlet Protector's tooltip: "Have Taunt, Scarlet Shield and Thorn Aura abilities." -> "Has Taunt, Scarlet Defense and Armored abilities."
16) Scarlet Wizard - Spirit Touch tooltip: "Restores 3 mana" -> "Restores 10 mana". Or maybe the tooltip is right and it's actually a bug, and it should restore 3 mana instead of 10. Though in this case I think something inbetween would be better, like 5 or 6 mana.

I'm not sure what the original intent behind the Scoundrel's hounds was. They lose their timer after a certain level. Depending on what people think of it, I may make them all permanent, or always timed.

For high difficulty, hounds are rather weak and squishy, so it doesn't really matter there - even massed out they won't do much.
For lower difficulties, massed out they might serve as a decent wall of meat shields and maybe even provide some noticeable damage. So I think it wouldn't hurt the balance to make them permanent, allowing for more strategic diversity.

 

[Homor]

Well, nice to see my feedback was useful. So I played an updated version and here's a bit more feedback. As for balance concerning things, I played on -df6 so I suppose my suggestions might not sound fair for lower difficulties.
Also, noticed one thing. What is Cambria's Coheed doing there? According to lore, "The Necromancer" takes place 15 years later, and Cambria finished Coheed there. I mean, he wasn't even a necromancer back when retaking of Stratholme took place.

Spoiler: Gameplay

1) Research Sundering Blades should be moved from Barracks to Training Grounds, since Crusader is trained there and it's the only unit benefitting from sundering blades.
2) I guess something went wrong with changing armor type of some units. Damned Zealot and Zombie have icon of Light armor, the name says it's Normal armor, and tooltip says it's medium. Didn't test the actual damage values though.
3) Plague Doctor should be able to cast Cleanse on himself.
4) I feel like Cannon's range should be increased. Maybe 900 or 1000.
5) Scarlet Skyterror's armor could be increased to 3. And damage could also be increased up to something like 100-125.
6) Scarlet Juggernaut could use some abilities to feel more in tune with other demi-heroes and in tune with the theme of the unit being the pinnacle of military engineering and siege machinery.
I think flat damage reduction (like Plate Armor of Cavaliers) and Tinker's Cluster Rockets would be nice. Maybe even
7) Scarlet Wizard - attack range should be increased to 600. And Flamestrike should be lvl 2 or better yet 3. Dealing 140 damage (and that is if unit stays inside range during whole duration) on -df6 when even measly ghouls have 680 hp feels rather weak. Might also add Firebolt with 200 damage 2 sec stun.
8) Scarlet Protector still feels off. I think his hp should be increased to 1500 at least. But that won't fix the problem that he feels obsolete. Like, all other main frontliners (heroes, demi-heroes, cavaliers) are already capable to tank reasonably large amounts of damage, and provided with heals and buffs they don't really need a specialised tank. As for Taunt, usually there are more than 10 enemies, especially when necromancers start raising skeletons, so it doesn't aggro that much enemies and the duration isn't that long. And despite the name, he can't provide defense from something like Bone Crusher's Shockwave and War Stomp. And lastly, his damage is also low.
Overall, it feels like a single Cavalier provides more impact than Scarlet Protector.
9) Still think that Joshua's Marking Shot should be buffed for the same reason as explained for Point Blank Shot in bugs section.

Spoiler: Bugs

1) Monk - Appease Spirit still requires adept training.
2) Inquisitor - Banish and Anathema icons should be switched places.
3) Scarlet Protector and Scarlet Champion benefit from attack\defense upgrades.
4) Scarlet Bishop - Circle of Healing - tooltip says it costs 40 mana, but it's 2 mana per unit healed.
5) Joshua Wolfgang - Point Blank Shot - tooltip now says 310 damage, but it actually does 500. Though I think it should be kept at 500 or at least 400. I mean, Joshua is agility hero, as he levels up and gets good items he does huge DPS with basic attacks. So if his PBS costs mana and provides less DPS than basic attacks, then what's the point using it?
6) Assassin doesn't benefit from attack upgrades.
7) Tested Assassin's damage output on Baron Ahabus, who has 43% damage reduction. A single hit deals 29 damage to him. Assassin has 11-12 damage from basic attack and 40 damage from feedback. So that's (11 + 40) * (1 - 0,43) = 29,07. Math corresponds to actually dealt values, so I assume Demolish doesn't work.

Spoiler: Icons

1) Barracks - Research Zeal icon should have borders.
2) Hideout - Research Cheap Shot icon should have borders.
3) Zealot - Frenzy icon should should have borders like other autocast-able abilities.
4) Joshua Wolfgang - Marking Shot icon should have borders like other autocast-able abilities.
5) Assassin - Demolish icon should be borderless.

Spoiler: Hotkeys

1) All heroes have either no hotkey marked or legacy hotkeys marked, but mapped hotkeys are QWER.
2) Chaplain - Inner Fire - (F) marked, but actual hotkey is (E). And it overlaps with Heal, which also has (E) as hotkey.
3) Monk - Appease Spirit and Rejuvenation mapped to the same hotkey. Spirit Link has no hotkey.
4) Plague Doctor - Potion of Holy Rage not marked, but mapped to E. Healing Spray marked, but doesn't work (maybe overlaps with Potion of Holy Rage). Cleanse and Acid Bomb not mapped.
5) Scarlet Bishop - Circle of Healing (Q) and Resurrection (E) hotkeys not marked.
6) Conjurer - all spells are actually QWE, but the marked hotkeys are classic ones.
7) Inquisitor
Purge - "g" highlighted, but the actual hotkey is (Q).
Banish - "B" highlighted and it's the actual hotkey, but it's just strange how the other 2 are QE and this one is not (W).
Anathema - hotkey not marked, but it's actually (E).
8) Scarlet Wizard - Spirit Touch - "c" highlighted, but the actual hotkey is (Q).

Spoiler: Spelling issues

1) Mission loading screen - "in the outskirts in the city" -> "on the outskirts of the city"
2) Starting dialog - "This is the pivital moment" -> "This is the pivotal moment"
3) Upgrade that allows to train Scarlet Skyterror is called "Scarlet Sky Watcher". I guess both should have the same name.
4) Research Cloud tooltip mentions Dragonhawk Riders, but those are Pegasus Riders now.
5) Reasearch Holy Cannon of Crusade: "Allow construct Scarlet Juggernaut." -> "Allows to construct Scarlet Juggernaut."
6) Zealot's Frenzy ability should be renamed to Zeal (or otherwise upgrade in barracks renamed to Frenzy).
7) Training Grounds - "Animal War Training" -> "Charge"
8) Cannon's tooltip: "Can learn Fragmentation Shards and abilities." -> "Can learn Fragmentation Shards ability."
9) Plague Doctor's tooltip: "Can also cast Holy Potion of Rage. Can learn Acid Bomb and Healing Spray." -> "Can also cast Healing spray. Can learn Acid Bomb and Potion of Holy Rage."
10) Plague Doctor Master Training tooltip: "gives them the ability to cast Healing Spray" -> "gives them the ability to cast Potion of Holy Rage."
11) "Sorceress Adept Training" -> "Sorcerer Adept Training". And tooltip: "Sorcereres' mana" -> "Sorcerer's mana", "to cast Invisibility." -> "to cast Anti-magic Shell".
12) "Sorceress Master Training" -> "Sorcerer Master Training". And tooltip: "Sorcereres' mana" -> "Sorcerer's mana".
13) Inquisitor Adept Training tooltip: "to cast Cripple." -> "to cast Banish."
14) Inquisitor Master Training tooltip: "to cast Bloodlust." -> "to cast Anathema."
15) Scarlet Protector's tooltip: "Have Taunt, Scarlet Shield and Thorn Aura abilities." -> "Has Taunt, Scarlet Defense and Armored abilities."
16) Scarlet Wizard - Spirit Touch tooltip: "Restores 3 mana" -> "Restores 10 mana". Or maybe the tooltip is right and it's actually a bug, and it should restore 3 mana instead of 10. Though in this case I think something inbetween would be better, like 5 or 6 mana.

For high difficulty, hounds are rather weak and squishy, so it doesn't really matter there - even massed out they won't do much.
For lower difficulties, massed out they might serve as a decent wall of meat shields and maybe even provide some noticeable damage. So I think it wouldn't hurt the balance to make them permanent, allowing for more strategic diversity.

Interesting! Many of the bugs you list are simple editor value errors, but others are things I can't exactly see when I look under the hood. Like Joshua's Point Blank Shot. The way I'm looking at it, everything looks normal. I'm not sure what's causing it...

 

[HuanJuan]

Interesting! Many of the bugs you list are simple editor value errors, but others are things I can't exactly see when I look under the hood. Like Joshua's Point Blank Shot. The way I'm looking at it, everything looks normal. I'm not sure what's causing it...

which version of the editor are you using? That may can the issue. Remember: A now days edited reforged map cannot be played in 1.32 reforged.... Because Blizzard and new functions.

 

[Homor]

which version of the editor are you using? That may can the issue. Remember: A now days edited reforged map cannot be played in 1.32 reforged.... Because Blizzard and new functions.

The problem might be I'm using version 1.31. Maybe I'll try downgrading the map to 1.29 sometime?

 

[HuanJuan]

The problem might be I'm using version 1.31. Maybe I'll try downgrading the map to 1.29 sometime?

I don't know what even an editor do. I'm just a player. Sorry, I can't help you with that, but if you make the map in 1.29, I try it on that version later.

 

[KingSlender]

i'll honestly have to agree with the recommendation of downgrading to 1.29 (with the dynamic AI and stuff) since in my opinion that's the best version -and the only one i prefer to use since most maps work really well there-

 

[Homor]

i'll honestly have to agree with the recommendation of downgrading to 1.29 (with the dynamic AI and stuff) since in my opinion that's the best version -and the only one i prefer to use since most maps work really well there-

When I figure out if its even possibly and how to do it, I will.

Anyway,

NEW PATCH INCOMING!

Trying to resolve all the feedback I get is a daunting task and there's certainly a lot, I might not get everything. But I did a lot, focusing mainly on the high-priority stuff.

Spoiler: Changelog

• Assassins' attack can now be upgraded.
• Changed "Bash (Assassin)" ability to "Cheap Shot"
• Fixed Appease Spirit
• Fixed Inquisitor's spell upgrade order
• The desciption for Circle of Healing should have more accurate information, and its own Buff.
• Sundering Blades upgrade moved to Training Grounds
• Various spelling error fixes.
• Hotkeys for all Hero abilities have now been properly marked
• Plague Doctors can now cast Cleanse on themselves
• Increased range of Cannons
• Scarlet Skyterror buffed
• Scarlet Juggernaut can now cast Cluster Rockets and Flame Cannon, and has advanced shielding. Also increased size.
• Scarlet Protector now has Endurance Aura.
• Scarlet Wizard attack range increased to 750. Flamestrike ability buffed. Stats increased.
• Attempted to fix Assassinate ability.

 

[Shellshock]

My only real request is more marketplaces so I can do this quicker.

Any chance of this happening homor dude?

 

[Homor]

Any chance of this happening homor dude?

Sure, I can add some a little closer.

===

Patch Notes 11/19/2022

• New icon for Cheap Shot
• New icon for Assassinate
• Extra vendors added closer to the starting zone to make early game less tedious.
• When a condition is met to end attacks from an enemy army, the characters will point it out in dialogue. (Excluding the DK army, who can be defeated by traditional means.)
• New cheat added: "-OrcPork" will give you a Peon that builds orc structures.
• Night Elves rebalanced
• Special Death Knight unit balanced

Patch Notes 12/04/2022

• You can now purchase Kelen's Dagger of Escape from the Goblin Merchant
• Anathema now costs mana
• Fixed the dialogue prompts for killing Ezekiel and Godfrey
• Various minor spelling and grammar fixes.
• Hounds can now detect invisible units.
• Skeletal Knights now properly classified as Undead
• Added workaround for the ending not properly playing on 1.31: type "workaround" while Sadian is holding the soulstone to trigger the ending.
• Added workaround if you lost or destroyed the soulstone: type "fixstone" if Balnazzar is dead to summon a replacement at his area.
• New cheat code added: -NagaBaga. Gives you naga units.
• New cheat code added: -Drans. Gives you Lost One units.
• Better descriptions for various units.
• New shop added: Thrift Store. Scrap Metal and Purification orbs moved there.
• New items added to Goblin Merchant
• 12 New Crafting recipes added (see description for a list). Purification Orbs and Scrap metal have now become more useful. Be sure to report any errors or conflicts, this was a big project.

This was just going to be a small update, but I went wild because I got bored and I wanted to give something to the wonderful fans who've stuck around for so long. You guys rock!

 

[nv4]

Great updates, enjoyed playing it again. Can confirm that assassins' extra damage vs heroes now works properly (if only humans accepted assassins' guild's help earlier, perhaps 12 assassins could flex on helpless Balnazzar before he destroyed the Northern Kingdoms).

Not sure if AI bugged this time or it was intended (don't remember the condition to stop their attacks), but I only got attacked once by Terror From Above. Looking at them here, they seem to be stuck.

Spoiler: Stuck?

Zealot - needs proper borders (like other autocast-able abilites) for Zeal ability.
Scarlet Monastery is called "Cathedral" in building menu.
A lot of units still have wrong\missing\unmarked hotkeys.

Still think that Scarlet Protector should have 1500 hp.
Scarlet Juggernaut's rocket barrage damage could be like 100. Also, would be fit for breath of fire to damage buildings, like Pandaren's breath does.
Also, I think either goblin merchant (in this case, instead of Periapt of vitality & Tome of retraining) or Thrift shop should have scroll of mana and sentry wards.

 

[Homor]

Great updates, enjoyed playing it again. Can confirm that assassins' extra damage vs heroes now works properly (if only humans accepted assassins' guild's help earlier, perhaps 12 assassins could flex on helpless Balnazzar before he destroyed the Northern Kingdoms).

Not sure if AI bugged this time or it was intended (don't remember the condition to stop their attacks), but I only got attacked once by Terror From Above. Looking at them here, they seem to be stuck.

Spoiler: Stuck?

View attachment 414975View attachment 414976

Zealot - needs proper borders (like other autocast-able abilites) for Zeal ability.
Scarlet Monastery is called "Cathedral" in building menu.
A lot of units still have wrong\missing\unmarked hotkeys.

Still think that Scarlet Protector should have 1500 hp.
Scarlet Juggernaut's rocket barrage damage could be like 100. Also, would be fit for breath of fire to damage buildings, like Pandaren's breath does.
Also, I think either goblin merchant (in this case, instead of Periapt of vitality & Tome of retraining) or Thrift shop should have scroll of mana and sentry wards.

Just to help me out, can you give me a full list of units who don't have proper hotkeys? Or at least a full list of the ones you can find? I'd like to fix this asap.

Terror From Above's units getting stuck isn't intentional. But its also something I can't really fix from my end DX. If I knew what I was doing, I'd fix it and make the army stop attacking when you kill Nihlathak.

Cluster Rocket's max damage is set to 105. But I can raise it even further.

-------
UPDATE: 15/05/2022
4.1: The Ol' Spitshine Patch

• Hotkeys overhauled. Now they should all be properly labeled. Some have been changed to be closer to vanilla. Certain units that lacked hotkeys now have them.
• Zeal ability now has proper autocast borders.
• Scarlet Protector's HP raised to 1500
• Scarlet Juggernaut buffed. Missile Barrage does more damage, and Flame Cannons now effect buildings.

This should be the last update for a little while. I think this map is in a definitive state. If I come up for ideas for most cube recipes (or any are suggested by my lovely audience!) I might update it again. But I'm really happy with where it is now, and I really, really just wanna sleep XD.

 

[nv4]

Just to help me out, can you give me a full list of units who don't have proper hotkeys? Or at least a full list of the ones you can find? I'd like to fix this asap.

Damn, that's a fast response and update. Anyway, full list and even more.
And yes, those hotkeys are still messed even on 4.1 patch.

Spoiler: Icons

Aegeus the Wise - Arcane Mastery - should be borderless.
And just for 100% consistency in everything, a few "research ..." icons could use proper icon borders as well. I mean, this solid white-gray border that all "research ..." have:
Barracks - Research Zeal.
Hideout - Research Cheap Shot.

Spoiler: Hotkeys

Crusader - Charge - (B) hotkey, no highlight. (why even B, there's no such letter in its spell name even)
Scarlet Champion - Iron Will - no hotkey, no highlight.

Recruit (bow form) - Sword - (B) hotkey, (w) highlighted.
Scarlet Protector - Scarlet Defense - (W) hotkey, no highlight. (again, why even W)

Scarlet Mages Guild - Train Sorcerer and Train Inquisitor both have (I) as marked hotkey, and actually pressing (I) trains Inquisitor.
Conjurer - Ignite - (Q) hotkey, no highlight.
Conjurer - Lighting Shield - (W) hotkey, (L) highlighted.
Conjurer - Cyclone - no hotkey, (C) highlighted.
Conjurer - Summon Water Elemental - hotkey is fine, but it's (E) while the icon is 4th on the panel. For consistency, it should be moved to 3th position, and then Cyclone assigned (R) hotkey and moved to 4th position.
Inquisitor - Anathema - (E) hotkey, no highlight.
Inquisitor - Purge - (Q) hotkey, (g) highlighted.
Scarlet Wizard - Spitit Touch - (Q) hotkey, (t) highlighted.

Chaplain - Heal - (Q) hotkey, (e) highlighted.
Chaplain - Dispel Magic - hotkey (D) is fine, but it's the legacy hotkey, which makes it inconsistent with other 2 spells using QWER layout.
Chaplain - Inner Fire - (E) hotkey, (F) highlighted.
Monk - Appease Spirit - (Q) hotkey, (e) highlighted. Also should be on the 1st position on the panel.
Monk - Spirit Link - (W) hotkey, no highlight.
Monk - Rejuvenation - hotkey is fine, but it's legacy while other 2 are QWER layout.
Plague Doctor - Healing Spray - (Q) hotkey, (e) highlted.
Plague Doctor - Cleanse - (W) hotkey, no highlight.
Plague Doctor - Potion of Holy Rage - (E) hotkey, no highlight.
Plague Doctor - Acid Bomb - no hotkey, no highlight.
Scarlet Bishop - Circle of Healing - (Q) hotkey, no highlight.
Scarlet Bishop - Activate Divine Shield - hotkey is fine, but it's legacy thus inconsistent with other 2 spells.
Scarlet Bishop - Resurrection - (E) hotkey, no highlight.

Scoundrel - Summon Companion - (Q) hotkey, no highlight.

All heroes have QWER hotkeys properly assigned, but tooltips lack corresponding mark\highlight.
Also, since I'm talking about the consistency... Saidan's initial hotkey is F3, but after acquiring Hezkiah, Saidan's hotkey becomes F4, and Hezkiah's F3. Naturally, Saidan's should remain F3, and Hezkiah's should be F4.

Spoiler: Bugs

Aegeus the Wise - Burning Strike - tooltip is overall wrong, it deals no damage over time and even flat damage on lvl 3 is 270 instead of 225 that tooltip says.
Scarlet Bishop - Circle of Healing tooltip indicated it costs 40 mana, but it's actually 3 mana per healed target.
Scarlet Wizard - Spirit Touch - tooltips says it restores 3 mana, but it's actually 10. (also, might nerf it down to 5 or 6).
Scarlet Juggernaut - Cluster Rockets - tooltip still says "45 damage", actual damage dealt is 90.
Not really a bug, since Juggernaut is a mechanical unit, but is it possible to make Scarlet Wizard's Spirit Touch also restore Juggernaut's mana?
Also just noticed that Marksman uses a crossbow but has no animation or arrow flying. So his attacks are hitscan like rifleman's, instead of projectile like NE's archer. It's even funnier, considering that Joshua's Marking Shot and Point Blank Shot are both projectile, despite them being a literal pistol shot.

Also, I still stand with my assesment of Joshua Wolfgang's Marking Shot - it sucks. 100 damage is rather weak (its cast time is longer than doing a couple basic attacks, so doing basic attacks is more effective even against armored targets), making it counterproductive on higher difficulties, as it's hard to pull off the finisher and hounds aren't worth it. In my original review I suggested to rescale the damage, but now I think it would better be a non-autocastable. Rather, it should be a spell with a few seconds cooldown and 100\180\270 spell damage.

 

[Homor]

Damn, that's a fast response and update. Anyway, full list and even more.
And yes, those hotkeys are still messed even on 4.1 patch.

Spoiler: Icons

Aegeus the Wise - Arcane Mastery - should be borderless.
And just for 100% consistency in everything, a few "research ..." icons could use proper icon borders as well. I mean, this solid white-gray border that all "research ..." have:
Barracks - Research Zeal.
Hideout - Research Cheap Shot.

Spoiler: Hotkeys

Crusader - Charge - (B) hotkey, no highlight. (why even B, there's no such letter in its spell name even)
Scarlet Champion - Iron Will - no hotkey, no highlight.

Recruit (bow form) - Sword - (B) hotkey, (w) highlighted.
Scarlet Protector - Scarlet Defense - (W) hotkey, no highlight. (again, why even W)

Scarlet Mages Guild - Train Sorcerer and Train Inquisitor both have (I) as marked hotkey, and actually pressing (I) trains Inquisitor.
Conjurer - Ignite - (Q) hotkey, no highlight.
Conjurer - Lighting Shield - (W) hotkey, (L) highlighted.
Conjurer - Cyclone - no hotkey, (C) highlighted.
Conjurer - Summon Water Elemental - hotkey is fine, but it's (E) while the icon is 4th on the panel. For consistency, it should be moved to 3th position, and then Cyclone assigned (R) hotkey and moved to 4th position.
Inquisitor - Anathema - (E) hotkey, no highlight.
Inquisitor - Purge - (Q) hotkey, (g) highlighted.
Scarlet Wizard - Spitit Touch - (Q) hotkey, (t) highlighted.

Chaplain - Heal - (Q) hotkey, (e) highlighted.
Chaplain - Dispel Magic - hotkey (D) is fine, but it's the legacy hotkey, which makes it inconsistent with other 2 spells using QWER layout.
Chaplain - Inner Fire - (E) hotkey, (F) highlighted.
Monk - Appease Spirit - (Q) hotkey, (e) highlighted. Also should be on the 1st position on the panel.
Monk - Spirit Link - (W) hotkey, no highlight.
Monk - Rejuvenation - hotkey is fine, but it's legacy while other 2 are QWER layout.
Plague Doctor - Healing Spray - (Q) hotkey, (e) highlted.
Plague Doctor - Cleanse - (W) hotkey, no highlight.
Plague Doctor - Potion of Holy Rage - (E) hotkey, no highlight.
Plague Doctor - Acid Bomb - no hotkey, no highlight.
Scarlet Bishop - Circle of Healing - (Q) hotkey, no highlight.
Scarlet Bishop - Activate Divine Shield - hotkey is fine, but it's legacy thus inconsistent with other 2 spells.
Scarlet Bishop - Resurrection - (E) hotkey, no highlight.

Scoundrel - Summon Companion - (Q) hotkey, no highlight.

All heroes have QWER hotkeys properly assigned, but tooltips lack corresponding mark\highlight.
Also, since I'm talking about the consistency... Saidan's initial hotkey is F3, but after acquiring Hezkiah, Saidan's hotkey becomes F4, and Hezkiah's F3. Naturally, Saidan's should remain F3, and Hezkiah's should be F4.

Spoiler: Bugs

Aegeus the Wise - Burning Strike - tooltip is overall wrong, it deals no damage over time and even flat damage on lvl 3 is 270 instead of 225 that tooltip says.
Scarlet Bishop - Circle of Healing tooltip indicated it costs 40 mana, but it's actually 3 mana per healed target.
Scarlet Wizard - Spirit Touch - tooltips says it restores 3 mana, but it's actually 10. (also, might nerf it down to 5 or 6).
Scarlet Juggernaut - Cluster Rockets - tooltip still says "45 damage", actual damage dealt is 90.
Not really a bug, since Juggernaut is a mechanical unit, but is it possible to make Scarlet Wizard's Spirit Touch also restore Juggernaut's mana?
Also just noticed that Marksman uses a crossbow but has no animation or arrow flying. So his attacks are hitscan like rifleman's, instead of projectile like NE's archer. It's even funnier, considering that Joshua's Marking Shot and Point Blank Shot are both projectile, despite them being a literal pistol shot.

Also, I still stand with my assesment of Joshua Wolfgang's Marking Shot - it sucks. 100 damage is rather weak (its cast time is longer than doing a couple basic attacks, so doing basic attacks is more effective even against armored targets), making it counterproductive on higher difficulties, as it's hard to pull off the finisher and hounds aren't worth it. In my original review I suggested to rescale the damage, but now I think it would better be a non-autocastable. Rather, it should be a spell with a few seconds cooldown and 100\180\270 spell damage.

Are you sure Burning Strike deals no after-effect damage? Because there's a trigger linked to it.

 

[nv4]

Are you sure Burning Strike deals no after-effect damage? Because there's a trigger linked to it.

Absolutely sure. Also, if it actually dealt as much damage as tooltip says, it would be rather OP, 135 per second for 10 seconds is a lot.
Also, I just reread my previous comment and realised I read the tooltip wrong and 225 is AOE, so impact damage is 270 as it should be. Or is it? I tried using it on a bunch of units, and it appears to deal different damage to different units, lol. The test results are:
Skeleton Archer - 200
Skeletal Mage - 200
Crypt Fiend - 200
Skeletal Knight - 160
Dark Invoker - 210
Dread Guard - 150
Deceiver - 270
Ghoul (both 680 and 1100 hp variants) - 270
Giant Skeleton Warrior - 170
Abomination - 180
Skeleton Warrior - 190 to summoned ones, 255 to permanent ones
Bone Smasher - 140
Carrion Beetle - 240
Zombie - 270
Necromancer - 270

Edit: just realised that excessive testing was actually unnecessary, as these numbers correspond to units' armor values. In other words, burning strike actually deals physical damage and therefore is affected by targets' armor.

 

[Shellshock]

I've played this map like 5 billion times.
Its amazing how many times i've replayed this map. Fully deserved 5 stars.

 

[Homor]

I've played this map like 5 billion times.
Its amazing how many times i've replayed this map. Fully deserved 5 stars.

Thank you so much for telling me that, friend! Posts like this let me know it's all worth it.

Next patch will be the "final" version of the map -- doesn't mean I'll stop updating it for hotfixes and stuff, just means I'll stop numbering versions. This will fix all the problems previously addressed and add the long-awaited "Overtime Mode."

----

It's finally here! The Definitive Edition patch is now online! This is most likely the biggest patch for the map ever, and it's stuffed to the brim with goodies for all you loyal fans!

DEFINITIVE MODE Release Patch Notes:

• OVERTIME MODE! A feature I've been waiting for a very, very long time to implement. It's finally here! Follow our SUPER SECRET GUIDE in the description to learn how to activate it after you've beaten Balnazzar!
• Marking Shot buffed. Damage increased, mana cost decreased. Attack speed increased.
• Burning Strike fixed! Now deals proper after-effect damage.
• Properly marked Hotkeys for all Hero abilities. (Passive effects only have their Learn hotkeys marked)
• Circle of Healing tooltip corrected.
• Mana Tide nerfed, but tooltip is now correct and restores mana to mechanical units.
• Cluster Rockets tooltip corrected.
• Marksman attack now properly a projectile instead of a hitscan
• Hotkeys fixed on the following units: Crusader, Scarlet Champion, Scarlet Protector, Sorcerer, Conjuerer, Plague Doctor, Scarlet Bishop, Monk, Chaplain, Inquisitor, Wizard and Scoundrel.
• Scarlet Monastery has a new model and icon, and is now properly named in the build menu!
• Unit invetory was previously increased to six, when it was supposed to be 2. A middleground has been reached and now its 4.
• Art: Balnazzar shrunk.
• New items added to the Thrift Store: Mana Scroll and Sentry Wards
• Marking Shot tooltip fixed.
• Bow Recruits now deal normal damage to better contrast against Marksmen.
• Monk skill order fixed.
• Wizard's Mana Tide ability is now on by default.
• New abilities for Scarlet Wizard and Skyterror!
• New Cheat Code Added: type -lvlup to make all your heroes Level 10!
• "-NoAttackers" cheat now properly kills Death Knights.

Feedback for hotfixes and bug squashing is very appreciated . This will most likely be the last content patch. FINALLY.

 

[Shellshock]

Definitive Edition

Ah shit.. Here we go again

 

[HuanJuan]

Ah shit.. Here we go again

Chrsitmas comes early, isn't?

 

[nv4]

Tested Overtime on -df6 and can confirm that no single unit can beat a squad of assassins stunlocking him. And if by some miracle one squad somehow doesn't make it, there's always enough food limit for another squad and a squad of casters with buffs.

A few suggestions.
1) Holy Tome of Light \ Templar Amulet - Iron Will's cooldown should be lower. That 2 armor is not worth it when I can cast 2-3 healing waves instead.
2) Also Templar Amulet is crafted from Holy Tome of Light, Martin's dedicated item. Yet it gives Devotion Aura, which Martin already has. Sure, I could give to another hero, but I'd rather see it has some other effect. Maybe Brilliance Aura or just increased hp regeneration.
3) Scoundrel's food cost should be 4 instead of 5.
4) I think it would be more fitting if Scarlet Protector and Scarlet Champion had their auras swapped. So Protector would have Thourns Aura and Champion would have Endurance Aura. Might also give Iron Will to Protector and replace Champion's Iron Will with Cleave or Critical Strike.
5) Also Scarlet Protector's Scarlet Defense could use some buff. Like, chance to reflect piercing attacks could be increased to 50%. Current 10% is almost nothing, even footman's Defend has higher chance to reflect and piercing damage reduction. And I actually dislike that it gives magic immunity, since it disallows to apply buffs. Would be cooler if instead it had a chance (maybe 65%) to reflect a debuff back to attacker or any nearby enemy unit.
6) Mage's Blade could also use some buff. Right now it's weaker than other swords yet costs the most. Compare it to Searing Sword, which is not only the strongest of swords, but its sell cost is more than double of the total cost of its components.
Speaking of price balance, Shield of the Deathlord craft price is 600+250+125=925, but the sell price is 4500. Who needs the bank anyway?
7) Catapult could have its minimum damage increased up to ~90.
8) Is it possible to make Scarlet Juggernaut deal x10 damage not just to buildings, but to everything with Fortified armor type? So it could be more fair to put Juggernaut against carnage wagons.
9) A lot of sellable items get dropped throught the map, and generaly the demiheroes and heroes have no place for them in the inventory, as they have their slots occupied with high-tier stuff. So it would be nice to have pack mules to collect the loot.
10) I'd replace Aegeus's ult with Mass Teleport.
11) Staff of Ages (allows to cast silence) and The Archmagi's Spellbook (has 3 castable spells) are components fro Archmage's Greatstaff, but Greatstaff has only 1 castable spell - Finger of death. It should have other spells. Maybe even empowered versions.
12) Also all casters have rather arbitrary stats and resource costs. Don't want to bother with resources, but here's a few thoughts about stats.
Monk - shouldn't be that fragile, since he has to come even closer to enemies than Chaplain. Could have hp increased to 380 like Chaplain has. Maybe also a bit more damage, like 13-14.
Conjurer - has powerful summons fighting for him, a pretty strong unit overall. Could have hp decreased to 300.
Plague Doctor - also a very strong unit (maybe even the best caster). And his hp pool is second among casters. Could be decreased to 400.
Inquisitor - probably my personal favorite. While using him as a powerful debuffer is fine, I like the idea of him being more combat capable in terms of damage. Like, being able not only to banish enemies, but also pour some noticeable damage to banished enemies. So maybe increase his damage up to 16-18.
Sorcerer - the caster that I use the least. Polymorph is kind of pointless here, considering its high mana cost and huge quantities of enemies. Slow is cheaper but weaker version of Inqusitor's Anathema\Cripple, and the only real advantage is that it's autocastable. Anti-magic Shell disallows the use of important buffs like spirit link, frenzy and so on. And he's also weak in terms of damage output. So I dunno, maybe make him more raw-combat oriented? Like, 450 hp, fast attack, 16-18 damage, 2 armor. Could also decrease manacosts, like 40 for slow, 150 for polymorph.
Also might add some upgrade for all casters for +2 armor.

Bugs.
1) Maybe not a bug, but I've never before paid any attention to that. Immolation hurts non-hostile neutral units (villagers along the border of the map here) even though tooltip assures it only works on enemy units. Is it a general Warcraft bug (or rather tooltip being misleading) or just this map?
2) Inquisitor's spell names are Purge, Anathema, Banish. But tooltip in Scarlet Mages Guild says he has Anathema, Cripple, Purge.
3) Scarlet Executioner can't attack (she does the animation, but there is no projectile shot) if she has any item with orb effect (Black Runeblade, The Sword of Damocles, Orb of Heat, etc.) equiped. Curiosly, if she has Searing Blade and it crits, the projectile does fly off, but it only hits 1 target (doesn't proc her Bouncing Blade passive). Even more curiosly, everything's fine when she attacks buildings. I guess there's some conflict with orb effects?
4) Scarlet Juggernaut - Rocket Barrage tooltip is now even more wrong actually, as it still deals only 90 damage.
5) Aegeus the Wise - Burning Strike is still bugged as it was before - physical damage and no damage over time.
6) Death Knight is not considered an undead unit somehow, can't cast Holy Light on him.
7) Chaplain now has 4 item slots and benefits from items, which is unintended I suppose.
8) Gro'Gar's Orders item can appear at marketplace (which itself I consider a bug, since it should be a unique item), and its tooltip has botched markup.

Spoiler: Gro'Gar's Orders

9) When Aegeus picks up Orb of Darkness or someone transfers it to his inventory, it instantly kills him.
10) Crafting Mask of Fury produces Mask of Fury and Orb of Heat.
11) Radiant Holy Orb doesn't provide ability to attack air units. Maybe not a bug, but I think it should, after all it's built from Orb of Darkness, which does provide such ability.
12) Saidnazzar doesn't benefit from hero upgrades from Scarlet Monastery.
13) In the end dialog after completing Overtime, there's a typo saying "Scarlet Templar" instead of "Scarlet Crusade"
14) After spawning, demons just stand there and that's it. They should all come to the main base, otherwise there's just no point fighting them.
Demons' stats are not affected by the difficulty.

Spoiler: Idle demons

Hotkeys.
Scarlet Wizard - Starfall and Flame Strike are both hotkeyd to (F).
Heroes still have wrong\missing hotkeys mentioned in tooltips:
Aegeus - W
Hezkiah - Q R
Martin - Q R
Joshua - R
Saidan - R

 

[Homor]

Merry Christmas! Enjoy the new "bells of holly" update!

Spoiler

[BALANCE CHANGES]

• Immolation no longer damages neutral units. This was standard in Vanilla but not helpful in this map.
• Scoundrel food cost set to 4.
• Holy Tome of Light \ Templar Amulet - Iron Will's cooldown reduced. Amulet now gives Brilliance Aura.
• Arcanist's Ultimate Skill changed to Mass Teleport
• Mage's Blade buffed. Higher stat increases and gives Feedback damage.
• Now that Shield of the Deathlord and Searing Blade are craftable, it became necessary to lower their price.
• Catapult's Minimum Range buffed to 90.
• Archmagi's Staff now has all the spells of its components.
• Scarlet Protector's ability "Scarlet Defense" has been buffed.
• Training Grounds can now train pack horses to help you move items around the map better.
• Scarlet Juggernaut will now also deal 10x damage to mechanical units as well. (Couldn't figure out how to do it to all units with Fortified armor so I did the next best thing imo)
• Monk health and damage buffed, projectile changed.
• Conjurer health slightly decreased.
• Plague Doctor health slightly decreased.
• Inquisitor damage buffed.
• Scarlet Bishop and Scarlet Wizard now have higher base armor.
• New Upgrade added: Arcane Protection. Gives all magic users more armor.
• Sorcerer massively upgraded. Deals more damage, has more health, spells cost less, attacks faster.
• Cannon Towers now use Fragmentation Shards upgrade again.
• Magic Sentry re-added. Just because I think its neat.
• Difficult levelsnow effect creeps and demons. Demons now also use undead upgrades.
• New enemy type: Inquisitor Demon, should properly spawn during overtime mode. Replaces Voidwalker.
• Infernal added to Overtime Spawn.
• Hero ability tooltips fixed to properly show hotkeys.

[BUG FIXES]

• Inquisitor description fixed.
• Scarlet Executioner doesn't have an inventory anymore, to prevent glitched attack.
• Unit Death Knights are now properly classified as Undead.
• Unit Invetory set back to 2. All standard units now properly have it.
• Tooltip for Orge Lord's orders should work properly now, and shouldn't appear at the marketplace.
• Orb of Heat now properly removed after use in crafting Mask of Fury
• Secret hero now benefits from Monastery upgrades
• Radiant Holy Orb now allows you to attack air units.

[NOTES]

• Rocket Barrage does up to 210 damage, it will often deal less depending on several different factors, as far as I can tell. If there's a way to guarantee higher damage, I'm not sure how.
• If Burning Strike doesn't work properly for you, I don't know how to fix it >_<
• It's been reported that for some people, Aegeus will die if the Orb of Darkness is placed in his inventory. I have been unable to replicate that glitch.
• In my head, the Scarlet Crusade of this universe are also refered to as the "Scarlet Templar." But I never really used this idea outside of one line, so I changed the line to avoid confusion.
• Auras swapped for Scarlet Protector and Scarlet Champion.
• Scarlet Champion now has critical strike, while Protector has Iron Will.
• I'm still on the fence about making all the demons attack the base at the end. Littering enemies around the city was always meant to give the player more gameplay, like players who cleared the map could explore it and clear it again. But if people would prefer the final battle being a huge onslaught to protect your base in one last stand I can make that change.

 

[HuanJuan]

• Secret hero now benefits from Monastery upgrades

What kind of Secret Hero if may I ask?

 

[Homor]

What kind of Secret Hero if may I ask?

Play the map and make it to Overtime Mode to find out! If you don't mind spoilers:

Spoiler

In Overtime mode, you purify Balnazzar's soulstone into an overtime token, and it fuses a purified Balnazzar and Saidan into Saidnazzar.

 

[XenoMorphing]

This map never failed to make me have fun no matter what and i'm still happy i can still use my code and get my free items

also i played the map for 3 hours and 29 minutes and i literally couldn't find Orb of Heat its either im blind or i just cant find it because as far as i remember last time i played the map i found it but this time nope, anyways great update and it was really fun.
I also wonder if you'd ever make a map that is exactly like this but contains the Twilight of the Gods campaign map but where you play as Undead/Archimonde trying to destroy World Tree or just as Elves or another map with the same idea haha, thanks again for the great map.

 

[Homor]

This map never failed to make me have fun no matter what and i'm still happy i can still use my code and get my free items

also i played the map for 3 hours and 29 minutes and i literally couldn't find Orb of Heat its either im blind or i just cant find it because as far as i remember last time i played the map i found it but this time nope, anyways great update and it was really fun.
I also wonder if you'd ever make a map that is exactly like this but contains the Twilight of the Gods campaign map but where you play as Undead/Archimonde trying to destroy World Tree or just as Elves or another map with the same idea haha, thanks again for the great map.

The Orb of Heat is bought from your Arcane Vault

 

[XenoMorphing]

oh god im really blind

 

[nv4]

In my head, the Scarlet Crusade of this universe are also refered to as the "Scarlet Templar." But I never really used this idea outside of one line, so I changed the line to avoid confusion.

Well, "crusade", by definition, is an act\expedition, or in this case - an organisation\order with such name that also does the act\expedition. While templar, by definition, is a person that belongs to some religious-military organisation\order, in this case - to Scarlet Crusade. So I just find it weird that people would reffer to a whole organisation as "Scarlet Templar" when any member of Scarlet Crusade is technically a "scarlet tempalr".

I'm still on the fence about making all the demons attack the base at the end. Littering enemies around the city was always meant to give the player more gameplay, like players who cleared the map could explore it and clear it again. But if people would prefer the final battle being a huge onslaught to protect your base in one last stand I can make that change.

I just don't get what's there to explore again. Getting to overtime requires beating Balnazzar, and that requires killing 3 bosses, each situated in his own corner of the map, far from the other 2. So dealing with them almost guarantees that you explore at least most of the map. And part of what makes exploring interesting is that you're purging the city and find all those cool items, heroes, fight minibosses, etc. So a bunch of demons idly standing throughout the map doesn't have the same effect.
Also, it kind of makes spoilerboss look pathetic - he brags so angerly about willing to wipe Scarlet Crusade from the face of the earth, and then... He just stands there. Doing nothing. Menacingly, perhaps. And so do all of his demons. And all that with a music that you'd expect to come along with some hardcore action.

And here's the usual.

Spoiler: Suggestions

1) Maybe Godfrey's Machinations could send carnage wagons instead of the usual meat wagons on -df5 as well.

2)

Scarlet Executioner doesn't have an inventory anymore, to prevent glitched attack.

Scarlet Executioner doesn't deserve to have no inventory slots just because of bugged attacks. Better to give her inventory and just put a warning in her tooltip that her attacks will be bugged with items providing orb effects.

3) ALL units having 2 inventory slots is an interesting choice. On one hand, it allows for great variety of army composition, which is pretty cool. On the other hand, it can become kind of OP. Imagine a squad of units equiped with Searing Blade and Guardian Shield. Such squad of Cavaliers + Scarlet Bishop are almost unstoppable even on -df6. And another issue is that it belittles the importance of demiheroes. Give any unit 2 powerful artefacts and basically you get a demihero stats-wise.
So perhaps it would be better to give normal units 1 slot and demi-heroes 2 or 3. Or somehow restrict normal units to take too powerful items?

4) Speaking of artefacts - might as well nerf Guardian Shield, especially since it can be given to any unit now. 20 armor is A LOT, and combined with extra health and regen it makes almost any unit into a tank. I guess something like +200 health, +5 armor +1 regen would be balanced.

5)

Catapult's Minimum Range buffed to 90.

I meant catapult's damage, not range. And I forgot to mention that I was talking about damage with lvl 3 attack upgrade. So now that I think about, maybe it's better instead to make it (with lvl 3 upgrade) something like 60-150, and cannon's damage 122-152. The idea being that cannon has tighter damage spread, thus providing higher and more reliable damage, but at the cost of less range and AOE. I mean, it already is that way, just could use a bit of value adjustments.

6) Would it be possible to give Scarlet Juggernaut's attacks small AOE? Or better yet splash damage (like demon hunter in metamorphosis form has) so it doesn't damage itself.

7) Death Knight apparently has no magic immunity which he should have, otherwise it's too easy to deal him - just polymorph him and he's basically done.

8) So I've been thinking about Arcane Protection. Maybe instead of being just 1 upgrade for casters, there could be such "global" upgrades for all units? For example, corresponding upgrades for casters, infantry and machines. Values shouldn't be high, those upgrades should be like small buffs for when you have everything else upgraded. Like 1-2 armor, 1-2 damage, 10-30 hp, you know, something like that. And make them researchable in Scarlet Monastery, with prices like hero upgrades.

Spoiler: Bugs

1) Pack Horse's tooltip and name are "Tool tip missing!"

2) Train Scarlet Champion icon is not lefter than Train Crusader icon

3) Scarlet Protector doesn't have a magic resistance like other demi-heroes.

4) Scarlet Protector benefits from attack & defense upgrades. And I think it's better to increase his base values a bit.

5) Inquisitor doesn't gain inventory slots from Backpack upgrade.

6) Plague Doctor doesn't gain extra armor from Arcane Protection upgrade.

7)

Immolation no longer damages neutral units. This was standard in Vanilla but not helpful in this map.

Scarlet Executioner's Permanent Immolation still damages neutral units. And found another interesting thing - Starfall also targets neutral units and buildings.

8) Regarding Aegeus dying when he picks up orb of darkness - this orb is really weird. This time nothing happened with Aegeus no matter how he got the orb. But picking the orb with caster units (except demiheroes) makes them lose all mana. Though it doesn't make Marksman lose his mana. And even more baffling - if such caster has Shield of the Deathlord in his inventory, picking the orb doesn't remove his mana.

9)

Rocket Barrage does up to 210 damage, it will often deal less depending on several different factors, as far as I can tell. If there's a way to guarantee higher damage, I'm not sure how.

Still doesn't deal up to 210 no matter how I try to use it. The usual Rocket Barrage (that Tinker has) works fine though - damage depends on casting time and canceling the spell early results in less damage dealt. Rocket Barrage on other custom maps and campaigns also works fine. Seems to be the issue with this map exclusively.

10)

Scarlet Juggernaut will now also deal 10x damage to mechanical units as well. (Couldn't figure out how to do it to all units with Fortified armor so I did the next best thing imo)

Tested on meat wagons - doesn't work.

11)

Properly marked Hotkeys for all Hero abilities. (Passive effects only have their Learn hotkeys marked)

Martin still has Holy Light with t highlighted and Beacon of Light has nothing.

12)

Inquisitor description fixed.

Not quite. He can cast Purge initially, and Anathema and Banish are researchable. Description states he has Anathema initially and can learn Purge and Banish.

13) Scarlet Wizard still has both Starfall and Flamestrike bound to (F) hotkey, with Starfall overlapping the Flamestrike. I wouldn't even mind Starfall having no hotkey at all since it has long cooldown and therefore (relatively) rarely used - I can click it with a mouse. But Flamestrike has to be casted often, and doing it with the mouse is inconvinient.

Burning Strike still doesn't work for me as it should. No idea if something's wrong with my version of Warcraft, if it's somehow caused by different versions installed at the same time (though each installed in its own folder, so I doubt the possibility they can interfere with each other in any way), or if it's some 1.31 shenanigans. I guess the only way to know is to have other people test it.

 

[Reiisen01]

(Played on 1.31)
I just played like an hour of this map and so far I really liked it. I mostly want to say huge thanks for adding so many difficulty options. I was a bit afraid that this is going to be just some hardcore map with no other option. So huge props for that.
One bug i noticed was that plague doctor didn't want to automaticly use their ability to cure debuffs.
Not sure if Im going to finish it but I will say that it is quite enjoyable and I can see you put a lot of work in it. Good Job!

 

[Homor]

(Played on 1.31)
I just played like an hour of this map and so far I really liked it. I mostly want to say huge thanks for adding so many difficulty options. I was a bit afraid that this is going to be just some hardcore map with no other option. So huge props for that.
One bug i noticed was that plague doctor didn't want to automaticly use their ability to cure debuffs.
Not sure if Im going to finish it but I will say that it is quite enjoyable and I can see you put a lot of work in it. Good Job!

Thanks!

The Plague Doctor's spell autocasts, but because of the way the game is programmed, it doesn't recognize "Disease Cloud" as a debuff. So if you want to remove it, you have to do it manually.

 

[Reiisen01]

Thanks!

The Plague Doctor's spell autocasts, but because of the way the game is programmed, it doesn't recognize "Disease Cloud" as a debuff. So if you want to remove it, you have to do it manually.

Ouh I see. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Shellshock]

I have finished this game once again.
Loved it once again. I already gave it a 5/5 and like i said fully deserved.
I don't really have anything to add. tons of replayability, as it were.

I'll mention something that I took advantage of which is the resurrection spell. Because the Unique units still create a corpse you can train a second set of heroes and revive them. I had a lot of unique units by the end of it.
If you wanna fix that you can but I think you've done enough man. Love the level love the game.

 

[Homor]

DECEMBER 17TH 2023 - "Polishing" Update

I didn't think I'd be updating this map again. Then again, I've thought that a lot of times. This is pretty much my magnum opus at this point. After replaying it again, I came up with a few ideas.

• Updated secret ending. All enemies will now attack your base instead of staying inside the city limits. I've recently replayed the map and even I thought the original ending was too easy, and I suck at Warcraft 3.
• Pack Horses now have a proper tooltip and description.
• Fixed an exploit where you could clone Unique units with revival spells. Man, you guys are clever!
• Scarlet Protector now has Resistant Skin like he should have from the start. He also no longer benefits from upgrades, and has slightly better base stats to compensate.
• Inquisitor now has a unit inventory.
• Plague Doctors now benefit from Arcane Protection.
• Templar's Holy Light ability should be fixed now. Q should be the hotkey, and he should be able to use it on himself.
• Various minor fixes to icon placement, unit descriptions and Hotkeys.
• Some changes to dialogue sequences.
• New cheat added! "-DeadByDawn" will give you Acolytes. Building an undead army seems to be the complete opposite of what you're trying to do, but uh... these guys are the good ones? This also means by using cheats, you can control units from every single race in the game!

Known Issues:

• I've attempted to make all forms of Immolation and Starfall not hurt neutral units, but I don't know if I pulled it off. I have no idea what causes this and because of that, I'm not sure how to fix it.
• I also don't know how the hell to make the Juggernauts abilities work properly. It might be an in-engine issue, or something to do with the version you play, or just something beyond my knowledge.
• I have no idea what the hell is going on with Burning Strike and at this point I'm a little afraid to keep messing with it.
• Using the Undead cheat will give you access to some of the custom undead units you can make. These can be terribly unbalanced and have lots of problems, as they weren't intended for this purpose. But you can only play with them by cheating anyway, so no biggie.

 

[VanAndro]

Great description of the game. I would give 5 stars for it alone.

I decided to try the classic version of the default difficulty first (at 1.27). To be honest, I was expecting attacks on my base, but it didn't happen. With this peace and enough wood and gold, how can you not pump all your units to the max? It happened that I quickly found the other two heroes, made 2 items, found others on the way, and after breaking the southeast base and shortly after revealing half the map, I decided to try how things would go with only the five heroes. After making 2-3 more items and finding others along the way, I completed the map without any difficulty. This is expected on Normal difficulty but:

Disadvantages:
1. Item recipes are not available in any shop. They should be at least in one place, or they should be discovered gradually along the way. It's a hassle to switch between the browser or a .txt file to see the recipe.
2. The following items cannot be made:

• Purification Orb + Orb of Darkness = Radiant Holy Orb
• Scrap Metal + Circlet of Nobility + Purification Orb = Amulet of Spellshield

I haven't tried them all, so there may be a few more. I also allow for the possibility that this depends on the level of difficulty as well.
3. No Overtime Mode. If it is only available for 1.31, it is not indicated in the description.
4. Architects must be able to build Stash and Cube to save time OR for even greater convenience, a Staff Of Teleportation can be added to the shops.
5. Dynamically changing custom background music is missing.
6. The enemy is missing attacks all the time. It doesn't seem right to me all the time the opponent is waiting for you to destroy him. I hope this isn't the case on difficulty levels after 3.
7. The issue lies in the difficulty selection. It may work on occasion, but most of the time, it fails. If a higher difficulty cannot be selected, the game becomes uninteresting to play a second time.
8. Quick cues at the beginning.
9. I never got around to trying the game on a higher difficulty level at more than 10 restarts of the map and of Wc.

Advantages:
1. The map is not big and the characters move fast.
2. Item crafting system, interesting and powerful items, interesting story.
3. There is plenty of gold and trees but on Normal difficulty one mine is enough.
4. Ability to choose difficulty - in my case it didn't work.

Of course, I will also play the version for 1.31 . Thank you for sharing.


EDIT: map version for 1.31

I start the map and try several times to see if the difficulty codes work - yes they work without error. I leave the difficulty at default. While looking at character abilities, training the first workers and building the first buildings I am surprised by an undead attack - a pleasant surprise. After that, however, an unpleasant surprise immediately followed: Martin's Holy Light only works on him, and the description of the ability is that it works on every friendly unit.
Not long after, the first Deadt Knight arrived and managed to single-handedly kill one hero, the units accompanying him, four defense towers, a second hero, and the units on the upper side of the base which I moved to deal with him after killing the first hero. During this encounter, I realized the limitations of Martin's ability to heal friendly units with Holy Light. In version 1.27, his healing ability was considered excessive for -df3, and I believe he would have been more effective on -df4 to -df6. In version 1.31, it seems that we have a more self-centered Martin. I believe that a correction in the description of Holy Light is absolutely necessary as a mandatory minimum.

- After initial game launch:
1-select a worker and open the list of buildings or select a hero and open the list of his abilities
2-press the ESC key and see what happens or just select any unit and press ESC.

- Mask of Death + Orb of Heat + Savage Battle Axe = Mask of Fury - cannot be made
I haven't tried them all, so there may be a few more.

Overall, the 1.31 release is quite different and definitely challenging. Gold is severely limited unlike in 1.27, crafting items is faster with horses, and units that heal have been replaced with ones that resurrect or summon helpers. Definitely, 1.31 is the more interesting version.

 

[Shellshock]

Great description of the game. I would give 5 stars for it alone.

I decided to try the classic version of the default difficulty first (at 1.27). To be honest, I was expecting attacks on my base, but it didn't happen. With this peace and enough wood and gold, how can you not pump all your units to the max? It happened that I quickly found the other two heroes, made 2 items, found others on the way, and after breaking the southeast base and shortly after revealing half the map, I decided to try how things would go with only the five heroes. After making 2-3 more items and finding others along the way, I completed the map without any difficulty. This is expected on Normal difficulty but:

Disadvantages:
1. Item recipes are not available in any shop. They should be at least in one place, or they should be discovered gradually along the way. It's a hassle to switch between the browser or a .txt file to see the recipe.
2. The following items cannot be made:

• Purification Orb + Orb of Darkness = Radiant Holy Orb
• Scrap Metal + Circlet of Nobility + Purification Orb = Amulet of Spellshield

I haven't tried them all, so there may be a few more. I also allow for the possibility that this depends on the level of difficulty as well.
3. No Overtime Mode. If it is only available for 1.31, it is not indicated in the description.
4. Architects must be able to build Stash and Cube to save time OR for even greater convenience, a Staff Of Teleportation can be added to the shops.
5. Dynamically changing custom background music is missing.
6. The enemy is missing attacks all the time. It doesn't seem right to me all the time the opponent is waiting for you to destroy him. I hope this isn't the case on difficulty levels after 3.
7. The issue lies in the difficulty selection. It may work on occasion, but most of the time, it fails. If a higher difficulty cannot be selected, the game becomes uninteresting to play a second time.
8. Quick cues at the beginning.
9. I never got around to trying the game on a higher difficulty level at more than 10 restarts of the map and of Wc.

Advantages:
1. The map is not big and the characters move fast.
2. Item crafting system, interesting and powerful items, interesting story.
3. There is plenty of gold and trees but on Normal difficulty one mine is enough.
4. Ability to choose difficulty - in my case it didn't work.

Of course, I will also play the version for 1.31 . Thank you for sharing.


EDIT: map version for 1.31

I start the map and try several times to see if the difficulty codes work - yes they work without error. I leave the difficulty at default. While looking at character abilities, training the first workers and building the first buildings I am surprised by an undead attack - a pleasant surprise. After that, however, an unpleasant surprise immediately followed: Martin's Holy Light only works on him, and the description of the ability is that it works on every friendly unit.
Not long after, the first Deadt Knight arrived and managed to single-handedly kill one hero, the units accompanying him, four defense towers, a second hero, and the units on the upper side of the base which I moved to deal with him after killing the first hero. During this encounter, I realized the limitations of Martin's ability to heal friendly units with Holy Light. In version 1.27, his healing ability was considered excessive for -df3, and I believe he would have been more effective on -df4 to -df6. In version 1.31, it seems that we have a more self-centered Martin. I believe that a correction in the description of Holy Light is absolutely necessary as a mandatory minimum.

- After initial game launch:
1-select a worker and open the list of buildings or select a hero and open the list of his abilities
2-press the ESC key and see what happens or just select any unit and press ESC.

I also played this on 1.31

These items worked for me though. Overtime mode worked for me as well.