[Defense / Survival] Soul Gladiators

[Silva]

It's been a while since I checked this map. Played my favourite OP champion -> Arthas

Finished the 16 waves. Not easily though. Played Sylvanas and lost at wave 12. She is a bit weaker in singeplayer.

Sylvanas is just another skill-based agility hero though. Not what I exactly expected. Managing the armor types later in-game isn't that hard. You should add something like a sniper, a fast-attacker, a heavy attacker, etc.

My replay :

 

[Kino]

Sylvanas is blast to play.
She feels powerful without being broken, the right amount of "moving parts" required to be powerful.
Great and versatile skillset.
- Her "Black Arrows recover health" passive is currently bugged, it procs even though you may not have it learned.

 

[pick-a-chew]

Yeah that should be fixed in the next ver.

Just a heads up that my work on this will be very slow and it's probable that i'll become inactive to pursue other things. If anyone is interested in taking over the map, send me a PM.

 

[Acutesharpness]

There we go >_> why give up?

 

[pick-a-chew]

I spent a lot of time on the editor because i was unemployed (and thus had more time than I knew what to do with). Serious mapmaking such as this really needs a lot of time & dedication I don't have anymore.

I would keep it and maybe return to it one day; but i wouldn't want it to be untouched for years. I'm inclined to say that my Warcraft 3 days are probably over for good; if I ever have no job and lack a machine that runs current games, I'll be back, but I think that's unlikely .

Thus I'd rather give the file to someone or leave it as a learning resource.

 

[Kino]

You could upload it to the map section.
It may not be "done" in terms of your final vision, but it certainly is a solid hero siege as of current.

 

[Acutesharpness]

Yeap I guess the latter is going to have to work since Hive makers are becoming good at hiding themselves ;p

 

[Silva]

That's sad to hear. Was hoping for this map to get finished. I would've taken it if I weren't working on stuff already.

 

[pick-a-chew]

I am now resuming work on this map. All feedback is welcomed!

 

[Kino]

Woop woop!

 

[pick-a-chew]

Woop woop!

Glad to see that enthusiasm! The next update is already in the works and will contain Anub'arak, Wave 17 and several fixes/buffs.

 

[Acutesharpness]

I've played the Alpha 0.22, it looks fine, seems like the Hero selection is default to random, I have played using Tauren Chieftain and he is fine, just having some time to figure out the boss area of effect death coil and I lost lol. However his abilities are interesting since it gives damage based on Strength. The items I got for him was Circlet of Nobility x2 then Claw of Attack. I honestly will tell you that the Soul concept need some tuning if you are going in that direction!

I suggest to add a force start for each round for those who want a faster game, may be give them bonus soul to reward their dominance.

 

[pick-a-chew]

I've played the Alpha 0.22, it looks fine, seems like the Hero selection is default to random, I have played using Tauren Chieftain and he is fine, just having some time to figure out the boss area of effect death coil and I lost lol. However his abilities are interesting since it gives damage based on Strength. The items I got for him was Circlet of Nobility x2 then Claw of Attack. I honestly will tell you that the Soul concept need some tuning if you are going in that direction!

I suggest to add a force start for each round for those who want a faster game, may be give them bonus soul to reward their dominance.

Cheers!

Correct, random is default (originally random was the only option but i ditched that a while ago) and all pick can be activated at the start of the game with -pick.

Soul Concept does need some tuning; though for now i want to have the concept fully implemented (i.e. add the final recipe items). I don't want the game to be too heavily based around items; and i want items to be a somewhat smart choice and to not overcrowd inventories/stashes. Were there any specific issues you had with souls?

There is a -quick mode that is currently a testing-only mode (time between levels becomes 5 seconds), i will add this to the game maybe on the next update. Having a -start command to start levels if all players are ready could work too. I'll give it some thought.

Again, thanks for the feedback!

 

[Acutesharpness]

I would urge you to reveal all the commands as it is not convenient for new players to get used to the rules. I played a second round with Dark Ranger, it seem to be designed for multi-player and not for single player. When will we get to see single player mode?

 

[pick-a-chew]

Game is actually balanced based on single player (because i test it by myself), and numbers are adjusted again after a few plays on bnet or feedback. What levels are you struggling on? The Dark Ranger depends on making Dark Minions with Black Arrow and once she gets Charm, most levels become a lot easier if you let her summons tank.

The amount of enemies that spawn per level is based on player number, and unique mobs (e.g. Bosses) have their hit points and attack damage scale with players.

-quick is the only real test command (and was disabled in that version), the only other commands i have activate specific levels to check they run smoothly, and are disabled for obvious reasons.

 

[Acutesharpness]

It is probably a bug that happened, when I did the double damage Black Arrow and it kills, no skeleton was spawning. Hopefully it gets fixed or Dark Ranger won't see play.

 

[pick-a-chew]

Odd; just looked over the triggers and i can't see why Black Arrow would bug out. The only condition is to check to see if the target is dead, and if it is, then a Dark Minion is created at the location. I'll be testing later publicly so i'll have a look into her then.

Thanks for the report!

 

[Acutesharpness]

To further clarify, it was at around second level, the first skeleton did spawn, not the second one.

 

[pick-a-chew]

The map has been updated. Anub'arak has been added, as well as Wave 17. These require testing so all feedback is welcomed!

 

[Kino]

Alright, played the new version.

Crypt Lord
- I like how you can prep several scarabs and effectively create a minefield before hand.
- His second passive, "traitor king" seems rather meh. By that, I don't mean that it lacks power but more that it seems an over complicated way of saying "has slightly higher str in the long run".

Ill stand by my critique that the forgotten one is very poorly built boss.
- Both its attacks have such a long lock down that if you get hit by one, you pretty much die.
- Otherwise, this boss essentially does nothing.

In the long haul, I think having more terrain features to kite and split monster packs over will be very useful.

 

[pick-a-chew]

Alright, played the new version.

Crypt Lord
- I like how you can prep several scarabs and effectively create a minefield before hand.
- His second passive, "traitor king" seems rather meh. By that, I don't mean that it lacks power but more that it seems an over complicated way of saying "has slightly higher str in the long run".

Ill stand by my critique that the forgotten one is very poorly built boss.
- Both its attacks have such a long lock down that if you get hit by one, you pretty much die.
- Otherwise, this boss essentially does nothing.

In the long haul, I think having more terrain features to kite and split monster packs over will be very useful.

I have nerfed Traitor King by half because it was overpowered (reaching 120+ strength by wave 17). To compensate I was going to give it a 35% chance to summon a Scarab on spell cast. The idea behind the passive is to reward high usage of his abilities.
As far as his ability kit goes I like where he stands - a tank with lots of self healing.

I understand by what you say about the forgotten one. In multiplayer people who don't grasp the strategy get hit repeatedly and die. However if you dodge the attacks, the boss is rather easy. What specifically would you want to see changed? Less damage but more usage of his abilities? New abilities? One idea I toyed around with was giving it the ability to teleport around the map.

New terrain is always an option, though there's limited space and I have to use it wisely. I'll give it some thought.

Thanks for the feedback! Much appreciated.

 

[Kino]

The idea behind the passive is to reward high usage of his abilities.

Which is fine, I just dont think having another "economy passive" creates that effect in an interesting way. As in, if you simply modified the heroes overall str gain, you could create a similar effect without changing much tactically.
I also feel a strange urge to prolong waves so I can "farm str" with the passive, maybe Im just insane; eh.

Less damage but more usage of his abilities? New abilities?

Id like to see more damage, less stun.
Impale has a massive stun duration > thus if you get hit, you will get trapped by tentacles.
No hero can clear tentacle cage fast enough, > thus if you get hit, you will get impaled.
I bring this up because certain heroes (crypt lord) have such large models you cant see the warning indicator underneath your hero. The boss also does absolutely nothing if you avoid those 2 skills.[/QUOTE]

 

[pick-a-chew]

Perhaps. But if ability spam gives you strength, that might persuade you to take an intelligence/mana build rather than building strength or armor directly. Anub'arak has a very poor mana pool. The original design of Traitor King was to just give Anub'arak extra strength after each round, but i thought this was far more boring than the current design.

You can farm stats with several abilities (Varimathras, Kel'thuzad, Arthas, Cairne) though the end-game will be influenced by the amount of time you have taken (longer time = bad), so i'm not too bothered about this.

I can increase the time gap between the casts, and i do agree the warning indicator isn't obvious under hero models, so i will make it bigger. Tentacle cage isn't too difficult to get out of (well it is if you're blowing your cooldowns on the boss!) and does mince ranged/squishy heroes in seconds

Thanks for clarifying your points! <3

 

[Kino]

Personally I like the idea of free scarab on cast.
Theres a certain minelayer aspect to that character that I like.


Also a few points on Jaina
- Blizzard as your first skill seems a bad idea, low hero health means you don't have a luxury of channeling it to significant amount. None of the early waves truly needs hard AOE anyway.
IMO, Water Ele > Pyro > Blizzard seems a more sensible skill progression.
- You already have strong AOE from Mass Tele and Blizzard, Pyro could be single tgt only and have much a lower CD to compensate.
- I would be cool if her spell crit could somehow affect Water Ele.

The new waves are pretty cool, albeit a little easy.
Wave 17 is great in concept, though I think it seems most suited to an earlier wave.


Minor bug: if you type -pick just as the time runs out, nothing happens.

 

[pick-a-chew]

I have had time to touch up the map today (at last!) and have quickly drafted in some of the points you have mentioned.

That's a good idea with the Water Elemental but may require me to do some number adjustments on Jaina since late-game she already devastates groups of enemies. Water Elementals are quite bland at the moment anyway, their passive ability is a bit lackluster in my opinion and might get replaced.
I'm not *too* worried about Pyroblast; it already does high single target damage, the splash was added as a bonus mostly (the AoE is quite small). I may lower its cool down, but since she has such high mana regeneration, she might be able to spam this to full effect.

I have mixed feelings about Wave 17 tbh, in multiplayer no one single-targets enemies, and the mobs don't really do that much damage anyway, so it ends up being a long boring wave, so i may change them to have a shared health pool instead (or mega-health pools and they all die when one dies).

I am still looking to spice up the earlier waves; you might be right that this mechanic can go to one of those (though where it fits in logically i'm not sure).

Not sure about that -pick bug, the mode triggers turn off when the game mode timer expires! Very strange :S

Thanks again tho <3

 

[Kino]

I have mixed feelings about Wave 17 tbh, in multiplayer no one single-targets enemies, and the mobs don't really do that much damage anyway, so it ends up being a long boring wave, so i may change them to have a shared health pool instead (or mega-health pools and they all die when one dies).

I am still looking to spice up the earlier waves; you might be right that this mechanic can go to one of those (though where it fits in logically i'm not sure).

Yeah, that's what I felt as well.
The mechanics isn't bad, its quite interesting in fact.
It just comes across as too simple/not threatening for such a late wave.

A few more things.
- I swear Skull of Guldan is way too strong for it's cost
- The lifesteal mask is rather meh. There's quite a lot of direct healing in this game, the 30% leech isn't that good. That said, I don't think the solution would be to increase the leech amount, but rather give the item more stat bonuses.
- Some sort of Corruption attack item could be interesting, as I find that after a certain point, summon heavy characters end up just stacking stats to scale summons (buying more than 1 crown of kings for example).

Id also like to reiterate how much I enjoy playing this map.
I really do like how you take the design of the standard heroes and adapt them to this game type.

 

[pick-a-chew]

I have gone back to the drawing board for Wave 17 and plan to have a handful of unique mobs (two of which still use the Stormreaver Orc and Undead Orc model) spawn (the number that spawns with other players stays the same, but their hit points and damage increase). The mechanic of when one dies, they all fully heal, will stay in place, but the wave will hopefully be made more challenging by which ability each mob has (and thus the order in which you burst them down will be depending on the strengths and weaknesses of your hero/team).

Skull of Guldan is indeed powerful, and i have raised its loot cost by 2. I was probably modest with it to begin with because it provides no attributes (and thus no damage), but the 500 mana increase probably offsets that disadvantage quite well.

The Mask of Deah is very meh, when i get round to it, it will provide life steal for spell damage also, and provide an agility and strength bonus from the Helm of Valor used in the recipe. (Related: Kelen's Dagger of escape will provide Movement Speed to replace the Boots of Speed used in the recipe).

Crown of Kings is probably quite powerful and i might reduce it from +15 stats to +12 stats.

I am looking to add another set of recipes because although the recipe system is simple and straightforward, there isn't much item diversity, and stacking things like Mindstaff and Jangos make no sense if a teammate already has the item.

Glad you like the map , i'm always taking ideas for new waves and new heroes, and always enjoy reading your feedback!

 

[pick-a-chew]

Version 0.24b is now out and on MMH.

• Wave 17 has been adjusted (requires testing)
• Kael has been added (requires testing)
• DDS has been updated (requires testing)
• Anub'arak Balanced
• Various hero changes/fixes
• Wave 8 should be less likely to crash

I will take a break from working on new heroes and will focus on cleaning up existing heroes (Varimathras and Tyrande in particular), creating new waves and working on items.

 

[Acutesharpness]

DDS will lag mine you.

 

[pick-a-chew]

DDS will lag mine you.

If used inefficiently yes, but triggers that use the DDS in the map are turned off or destroyed if they are not needed. I haven't really had any problems or bugs with the DDS that aren't a result of bad triggering on my part. The update to the DDS, if anything, should make it better?

I just tested publicly and wave 8 is still having problems... think it's related to so many spell effects going off; i've nerfed the frequency of blizzards but increased their AOE.

 

[Acutesharpness]

Yes you really had to accurately pin point where they start and end then turn them on or off accordingly.

 

[pick-a-chew]

Also Destiny i looked further into the trigger work for Black Arrow after seeing some anomalies in multiplayer; it turns out you was right (sort of) - sometimes Dark Minions would spawn with 75 hit points and 1-3 damage because the Agility wasn't factored in to boost their stats. I think i have fixed the problem now however.

 

[Acutesharpness]

It is probably due to memory stacking up some other sources and it collided which result in clash and short circuit within the codes.

 

[Kino]

Alright, did a quick game of Kael.

He honestly seems to be the weakest hero, either that or Im not "getting" how to play him.
-Flame Strike is really weak considering its cast time and cooldown.
-Mana Drain is decent, although I found it to be most useful for it's slow effect, the mana restore was nice but it rarely ever refunded a noticeable amount of mana
- Fire Soul to me is his strongest skill, in terms of overall damage output
- Phoenix Bolt is strong, however conceptually Im torn about having the only defense mechanic on a squishy hero be an ultimate and a conditional execute.
- Invocation Aura seems weak. Although when compared to the other team steroid aura's (Endurance/Trueshot) its number seem balanced, the other such auras affect attacks which every hero relies on to a degree. Kael's aura becomes much weaker if you don't have a spell heavy team.
- His stacking AS steroid also seems lackluster, in general his spell cooldowns are way too long to stack it to any meaningful degree and by then, the wave has been cut down to size; rendering the bonus mostly for faster cleanup than actually securing victory.

There yo go, my inital opinions on Kael.

 

[pick-a-chew]

I have dusted this off and am once again looking for feedback. My current plan is to finish wave 19 and then the final boss, and to push for a playable release.

You can find the latest version on MMH for playing!

 

[pick-a-chew]

For what is probably like the 100th time, i am back to working on this. I had a problem with the design of the map which is why i haven't pushed through anything new.

Rather than farting out new heroes and waves like there's no tomorrow, my new focus is on reworking all heroes. Currently, heroes learn their [Q], [W], [E], [R], [F] and [G] level 1 abilities at Hero Level 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 respectively, and these abilities gain an extra level on Hero Level 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 ([G] has only 1 level). I found this design problematic for balancing as increasing ability level often led to power creep in Heroes, which resulted in me bloating up the health and armor of later waves. Increasing the ability level was one way to increase mana costs of spells to combat high mana pools later on. Game play with each hero became a bit static, and after playing a few different hero-based games, i have come up with a new design.

Heroes will continue to learn their 6 abilities from Levels 2 to 7, but rather than simply leveling up in power in a boring way from Levels 8 to 12, I have added a "talent" system (which is similiar to any other kind of talent system you'll find in games). This is designed to accomodate styles and make heroes more adaptive depending on solo or team play. So currently my plan is to rework the heroes by scaling back their abilities, redesign if necessary, and to create 1 talent for each ability.

So far i have reworked Cairne (he had to be done first due to a limitation in my hero indexing sytem ) and i am interested what other people think of the system.

His talents are:

• Shockwave:
  • Forcewave: Shockwave stuns targets for 2 seconds.
  • Powerwave: Reduces distance by 33%, but increases damage by 50%.
  • Invigoration: Heals the caster for 12% HP.
• War Stomp:
  • Knockdown: Increases stun duration by 1.5 seconds.
  • Booming Stomp: Increases area by 33%.
• Endurance Aura:
  • Fleet: Increases movement speed by 5%.
  • Vigor: Increases attack speed by 10%.
  • Influence: Aura is global.
• Spirit Link:
  • Communion: Area increased by 100%. If the group is below 20% health, heals them to 20%.
  • Fortified Spirit: Armor bonus duration increased by 2 seconds.
• Reincarnation:
  • Eternal: Cooldown reduced by 33%.
  • Tremble: Upon Reincarnating, slow enemies in the area (doesn't work yet)
• Ancestral Healing:
  • Resurgence: Target is healed again after 8 seconds.
  • Guidance: Mana cost removed.

Intelligence now gives much less mana per point, but to compensate all heroes have 250 base mana (may change) and higher base mana regen.

I will attach the new version later for testing (all other heroes have been removed from the selection pool).

 

[pick-a-chew]

Edit: New version attached on first page. Testing conditions are enforced and there are power of tomes to test with. I changed the way i styled the tooltips of upgraded abilities for Rokhan (compared to Cairne). Feedback on the aesthetic differences* would be appreciated!
*Cairne has green text within the tooltips named after the chosen talent that more or less says what has changed to the ability, whereas with Rokhan, any changes to the ability are now reflected in the base tooltip.

I only had 1 tester for Cairne, and the map isn't testable for multiplayer in its current state... anyhow, for those interested, Rokhan has been updated.

I've made a fancy table to make it look more attractive:

Ability	Icon	Description	Talents
Healing Wave		Calls forth a wave of healing energy that bounces, healing less on each jump.
Serpent Ward		Summons a Serpent Ward to attack your enemies.
Hex		Transforms the target into a frog, disabling it. A portion of damage dealt by your Serpent Wards is also dealt to all hexed targets
Snake Bite		The first strike of your Serpent Wards deals extra damage
Troll Regeneration		Increases Rok'hans health regeneration rate
Big Bad Voodoo		Shrouds an ally, preventing all damage they take for a moderate duration and restoring mana over time

Focused Wave - Initial heal is increased, but falloff is doubled Healing Stream - Heals more targets and bounce distance increased

Cobra Essence - Cast and Ward attack range increased Viper Essence - Dying wards refund mana

Snake Eat Frog - Increased Serpent Ward damage replicate to Hexxed targets. Plague of Frogs - Nearby targets are hexxed for a shorter duration, and primary target is hexxed for longer

Fangs - Damage increased and also stuns targets briefly. Undulations - When triggered, increases the Caster's speed briefly

Enhanced Healing - Potion duration increased by 50% Natural Vitality - Increases movement speed by 15%

Bigger Bad Voodoo - Affects allies near the target, always affects Rokhan but mana cost is doubled Voodoo Protection - Duration and mana restored doubled, and cast range is unlimited

 

[pick-a-chew]

Still lacking testers or people's thoughts for the hero reworks!

I am currently doing a quick rework on Attack and Armor types, and updating Kel'thuzad with talents (he's next in line).

Since a majority of damage dealt by players is Hero (from attacks) or Spell (from abilities), and a majority of damage taken by players is reduced by Hero Armor, it made no sense to have Wave Monsters have varied attack and armor types (piercing, magical, siege etc.) and made balancing for me a bit tricky.

Now, all non-boss Enemies and player summons have the "Minion" damage type and "Minion" armor type (these replace the default Normal attack type), and Bosses have the "Boss" damage type and "Boss" armor type. Heroes take and deal 100% damage to these armor types, but Minions deal 50% damage to Bosses and take 150% damage from Bosses. Part of the goal of this change is to stop summons from overpowering bosses too easily since they can be precast before the wave starts. Bosses will continue to do a lot of Spell Damage though and the Boss damage type will primarily be done through their basic attacks.

 

[ArchDuke]

Looks nice, I will try it when I have some spare time