Squad-based Fantasy RTS

[GhostThruster]

Zombie are basically target practice if they are slow and have a chance to insta-die. I think a negative HP regen would suit more. Zombies should be like meat shields. High HP, but very weak attack. They could have abilities, like Disease cloud as you mentioned, that activate on attack. They should be cheap, numerous, and hard to kill (or not necessarily hard to kill, but they could have abilities which hinder the enemy when the Zombie is attacked or defending).

Maybe Wights can be a dual scout and anti-mage. The ultimate fusion of Far Seer, Shade and Demon Hunter Seeing as Wights are spirit-people, shouldn't they get a ranged attack? The Ghoul seems too boring to me, and his combat roles are already filled by Skeletons and Zombies.
IMO, kill off the Ghoul, and make the Wight half-scout.

 

[Wazzz]

Hmm... well, I do want Wights to be fast units, so perhaps they can have a Night Vision ability or something to aid them in seeing further at night.

But what shall another ranged unit be? I'm not too sure what to implement, as Undead are primarily melee units :/

As for the Zombie, they are meant to be weak against archers, basically, they have 35 health each (really high in comparison to other starting units, atm Peasants have 12 health each, for example, while the Militia Footman has 30 [might increase Zombie health even more, but Militia Footmen come in groups of 6 while Zombies come in groups of 8]).

So, should I include another ranged unit for the Undead? I might just implement another melee unit, or even a flyer (perhaps something like a Gargoyle, although I'm not too fond of those being used atm).

 

[GhostThruster]

Perhaps you can allow Wights to see further at night, to make things more interesting. Can he have a 'reverse Windwalk'? A cloaking ability that lasts for X seconds but decreases his speed by X%?

I like the idea of Undead sacrificing themselves recklessly, so maybe what would be cool is some kind of really awesome meat dude, whose attacks are splash and quite strong, but with each attack it drains its HP? Like, it literally launches its body parts.

 

[Ss-4-Goku]

The tiered spell thing was so that one spell could be chosen for a respective tier, such as Fire Bolt for tier 1 and Chain Bolt for tier 2. Or Degility for tier 1 and Chain Bolt for tier 2.

 

[Tleno]

Maybe instead of giving zombies a chance to get insta-killed, they should just have no armor or even have increased damage recieved...

Now about Flesh golem... maybe Homunculus or Flesh construct or Flesh beast would sound better?
And the Ghoul... I got a suggestion... what about making it like some kind of cavalry? You know, so it could like ram into a line of enemies, stuning them. Like cavalry. So they would be pretty fast, would have an ability to increase speed to max and increase damage for some time.

 

[Direfury]

So, are you going to try and support various or customizeable playstyles?

For example, a Necromancer designed to use Souls to fuel his attacks, and ignore summons, or a hider designed exlusively for micromanagement, buffing and support?

 

[Wazzz]

@Goku: Ah yes, that's what I was going to do in the end =D

@Ghost: Undead guy throwing his body parts sounds funky, could be a possibility, but at the same time I'm unsure about it sacrificing itself so willingly

Yea, that's what I meant by Night Vision, they see far at night. Idk about the Wind Walk ability, it's a possibility, but still not too sure about it.

@tleno: That was the role of the ghoul, essentially, but I'm not too sure about having a melee cavalry unit when I have the Zombie, Skeleton Warrior and the Wight.
Some kind of fleshy beast could work, but I am using this model currently for the 'Flesh Golem', forgot to mention that.

@Vermillion: In a way, yes. I want players to choose what spells they use based on how they want to use their units. I'll be making plenty of spells to support this, and the system itself for supporting this isn't overcomplicated.

 

[Deolrin]

Hmm.
Didn't read through all the pages.
First post looks interesting.
Waiting for progress.

 

[Wazzz]

Just working on spells atm, using the 'Age of Wonders' series as a HUGE inspiration source in that department (even got the 6 elements idea from it).

SHOULD be able to get something playable soonish, but it requires a lot more work for items and spells and such

 

[Tleno]

You know, I was thinking the flesh giant could have a short-range attack instead of melee. It could throw rocks or some flesh pieces that spread desease or maybe even it could throw entire corpses! You know, it could like even have an ability to spawn smaller undead at cost of his live!

 

[GhostThruster]

That's what I'm talking about. Sacrificing his useless carcass meat for the greater good!

 

[Wazzz]

Idk, I'm not too keen on a unit that kills itself slowly to attack as you would often find that it disappears very quickly. Mind you, wouldn't be too bad if it dealt a massive payload of damage, but I'm still sceptical

The theme I sort of want for the Undead is regeneration and such as opposed to sacrifice. Like, you raise the dead in huge quantities, but at the same time you try and preserve them (as is reflected by the spells and resurrection and such).

 

[Tleno]

Well yeah, but zombies and such are ussually imagined as combination of largest cannon fodder masses plus elite single heavy units.
Wait... you know, it can be otherwise. See, zombies can be sacrifaced to restore the life of flesh golem! See, golems are some kind of super heavy and costly unit, it can wreck a lot of havoc, but it needs a cover of lighter and more mass units, such as combination of cheap zombies and ranged skeleton archers. So archers will be protected from melee attackers by bulky golem and the zombies, while melee units will be protected from ranged attacks, thanks to archers. Of course, without the golem the forces can be easily overrun because of their low-tier-ness, and enemies can easily concentrate their fire on a single large target, so using zombies as the material for golem restoration could be pretty rational. Sure, you could loose all the zombies by time golem would get to enemies, but it coud take care of most of units himself, and all the fast ranbged enemmies that can kite the golem can be killed by skeleton archers.

 

[Wazzz]

Ah, now that sounds like an excellent combination of sacrifice and regeneration =D
I like that idea a lot, it will be an excellent feature, now all that's left is to figure out how to implement it (as in how to make the ability only target Zombies and such) :3

 

[Tleno]

Maybe some kind of Call to Arms based ability that calls zombies to th golem? You know, when zombies transform into dummy unit, using trrigers dummy's life amount is given to the nearest golem, dummy is removed, and golem gets his call to arms canceled.
What about that?

 

[Wazzz]

Hmm... not too sure, although that does give me a good idea derived from that Ö

How about an ability based off the Orc Burrow's 'Battle Stations' ability where it calls in the nearest zombie? With triggers, it could removed the zombie and... actually, that wouldn't work on account of the squad system :/

Hmm... not too sure yet :/

 

[Tleno]

Well zombies could have an ability which would when trageted on Flesh Golem remove the zombie and heal the golem, and Golem could have an ability which would force zombies in Area of Effect to use the ability to get sacrifaced. Oh, also the Golem could have a no-target channeled ability which when activated make the surrounding zombies sacriface to the golem, and would get canceled when golem's life is max.

 

[Wazzz]

Possibly

Another way I was thinking could be for the Flesh Golems to feed off of Corpses, rather, and maybe include a unit that carries corpses. But I'm not too sure about that idea :/

Then again, what exactly is the Flesh Golem doing with the Zombies in the first place? Is it devouring them or something?

 

[Tleno]

Well, I just came up that golem is just like a Frankeinstein monster beeing made from lots of various flesh pieces salvaged from the corpses, so I just tough that zombies can be used as some kind of material to reinforce the damaged part, but not sure how eaxctly, maybe it just swallows zombies and the flesh of his someway regrows, maybe he simply grabs a zombie and sticks it to himself using a duck tape... :/

 

[Wazzz]

lool, I do like this idea, but not too sure about execution. Perhaps there is an alternative idea or something which can be derived from it. However, the squad system serves that when a unit enters another unit or a building as cargo, the entire squad goes in and appears as one unit.

 

[Ss-4-Goku]

May I suggest?

The Flesh Golem's health is his cargo (4-6 zombie squads). He starts out with max, and when he takes sufficient damage, one squad dies in him. He can also unload the zombie squads, but this will kill him. You can then reinforce him by loading zombie squads into him.

Sound fair?

 

[Wazzz]

Hmmm.... what you're suggesting leads me to believe I should make the Flesh Golem a single unit for this.
I like it, not too sure how I'd do it but at the same time it's really cool.

So, when you say he 'takes sufficient damage', how much are you thinking? Could work quite nicely.

 

[Ss-4-Goku]

I'm thinking that if zombie squad has medium HP, then fleshie would have "super high HP".

Let's say that the health total would be at about 3 z. squads, of course more if this seems underpowered. So when fleshie takes 0.5 z. squads' hp worth of damage, one squad dies.

Also I thought of this, his HP maximum will be reduced if he's reinforced with injured zombie squads.

 

[Wazzz]

Hmm... not too sure about this idea anymore

How about something like the Meat Wagon's abilities? I might even leave the Flesh Golem as is, see how it goes in gameplay so far.

Although I wouldn't mind Zombies being a little bit extra useful, they might end up overshadowing Skeleton Warriors. Kind of want Zombies to die in the front line to expel their Disease Clouds, causing damage over time while the Skeleton Warriors are able to hold the line further and take decent hits from ranged weaponry with great defense.

 

[Wazzz]

~bump

 

[GhostThruster]

~demand progress so we can actually give you some feedback.

 

[Wazzz]

Oh yeah, progress... got uni back again, so progress has been slow.

However, I shall put up a list of Human units.
Note: I must put these races down as proper techtrees.

Peasant: Basic worker unit, fundamental to the Human race. Can train to become a Militia Footman or Militia Bowman.

Militia Footman: Basic infantry. Can be upgraded to have a faster attack, very offensive unit (more offense than defense, can get shot down rather easily).

Militia Bowman: Basic ranged unit. Can be upgraded with the Flaming Arrows ability, allowing it to be used in siege against buildings. Can be trained to become a Militia Cavalry.

Militia Cavalry: Fast ranged cavalry unit. Not sure what upgrades it will have, will not have any abilities. Thinking perhaps a speed upgrade could be implemented on this unit.

Man-At-Arms: Defensive melee unit. Deals bonus damage to 'Large' targets (Large refers to cavalry and units that are 'Large'. As not all races will have Cavalry.). Can be trained to become a Knight or a Pegasus Rider.

Knight: Heavy cavalry unit. May have an upgrade which boosts it's max health.

Pegasus Rider: Flying ranged unit. No upgrades planned for it yet.

Priest: Caster unit, deals great damage but can be easily targetted down if not taken proper care of. Obviously, it will be able to cast spells. As for what spells it will be allowed to cast, I am not too sure.

Templar: Bulky melee unit, very defensive. Provides beneficial auras that boost the defensive stats of nearby friendly units. Additionally, it takes less damage from the Undead.

So, that's the Human units as planned so far. Upgrade suggestions are more than welcome. As for unit roles, I believe that each role is clearly defined making each unit viable, but if anyone believes otherwise or has a suggestion to either add an extra role or perhaps even change an existing one, feel free to add these suggestions.

Now, what I've been thinking with the 'choosing your spells' idea for your units and heroes, I've come up with some issues. The casters will overshadow the heroes in that they will be able to cast the same spell en masse while the hero will be a single unit. So, I've thought of a few possible solutions.

A) Casters get preset spells that require upgrades, so you don't actually choose what spells they get.
B) Heroes can cast more powerful versions of each spell.
C) Heroes and units choose from different sets of spells. In other words, it won't be grouped by the type of spells and such, but instead there will be certain spells that the unit gets and certain spells that the heroes get.

I'm personally leaning towards option (C) atm. Your thoughts?

 

[Ss-4-Goku]

Option B is my favorite out of those, say, like in my suggestion, go like that the heroes' spells are effectively the T2/3/4 spells while the regular casters have the T1/2/3 spells. And with heroes, the T2 spells will be auto-cast while on regular casters they'll have a bigger cooldown on them.

As with some upgrades, here ya go:

Marksmanship I, II, III Upgrades damage of ranged Human units (like, 10%, 20%, 30%)
Combat Training I, II, III Upgrades damage of Footmen, Men-at-Arms and Knights.
...and Justice to All Upgrades Templar damage bonus against undead to apply against all biological units.
Divine Guidance Upgrades Pegasus Rider attacks to never miss their targets and give them a 12.5% critical strike chance.
Steadiness Practice Upgrades Militia Cavalry to be able to shoot while moving. When shooting while moving, the Militia Cavalry have a 25% chance to miss their target.

 

[Wazzz]

Hmm... a chance to miss your target would be pretty cool (that is, a percentage chance to deal 0 damage on each attack). Could present an interesting upgrade factor, too.

But the problem with having the same spells only more powerful on your hero as well as your casters I find is that, as it stands, health isn't high and attack damage is (in comparison with health). I'm probably going to reduce attack strength so that battles last a bit longer, but still, if you have a healing spell for caster units that restores 5 health, your hero would need to heal about 10 health. Which would be odd, kind of boring, idk.

Although the possibility of applying upgrades to your hero's spells would be cool. And I would probably make it so you can't have the same spells on your caster as well as your hero... I think I see your point, goku, that would work.

Love the Marksmanship I, II, III business cause it makes me think of Age of Wonders :3
I might need to do upgrades in that style now because I love the Age of Wonders series

I wonder how to make units attack on the move, though... does anyone know how to do that?

 

[Tleno]

Marksmanship is an awesome name for upgrade. Actually, Steadiness could be shortened to one word, too. ...and Justine to All could become just "Justice" or "Justice to All".

About the Militia, kinda lame there are three units that are called Militia, you could like rename them in more different ways, and one of them can stay "Militia".

About the priest, if it will be able to specialize, I have some ideas.
Firstly, the traditional for priest, the healing specialization. You can call it "Salvation". Most of abilities heal units or increase their survivalability, like add additional armor. It could concentrate more on light magic, water magic, and probably some small amount of non-wicked, light necromancy.
Second would be "Purging" or "Retribution" and could base more on offencive abilities and offencive buffs for your units, could have cleansing spells, too. Now, fire spells would look best here.
Third one could be "Enlightment", which would be based more on buffing allied spellcaster and hero-type units.

Pegasus rider could have "Sky lance", which would slightly increase the range of attack and the damage, too. So it could become more effective against melee enemies, plus as it's an elite but fragille unit, it would be quite practical to cover it by some more expendable units.

 

[Ss-4-Goku]

@tleno

...and Justice to All is supposed to be a Metallica reference, btw. And yeah it could be just Steadiness.

 

[Wazzz]

Ah, I do like the Skylance upgrade idea, although do keep in mind the Pegasus is a flying unit (melee ground units won't stand much of a chance!). However, ranged upgrade would mean it can sit further back in your army and avoid beind shot down a lot more, which is always a good thing imo (also enables it to perhaps kite other flying ranged units a little more, making this tech important in HvH battles).

These unit roles sound good for the caster, as the choosing of spells will result in many variations of strategies. For example, I was thinking that one spell would be 'Turn Undead'. This would allow for Priests to become more anti-Undead, and possibly allow them to be a lot more offensive in general with other spell choices. However, you wouldn't choose Turn Undead if you were against, for example, a race that ISN'T Undead, so you'd be able to choose other spells to suit your strategy better.

Another idea I was toying with a while ago was the idea of alternate upgrades. So, for example, you could have a choice between weapon upgrades for your Militia Footman. One weapon upgrade could enhance their attack speed by a certain amount, while another upgrade could enhance their attack damage by a small amount (small enough to make the attack speed one a higher bonus to the damage), but add a certain on-attack ability (such as 4% chance of Stun). Sort of so you can implement the units in slightly different ways (but not as various as casters, it would seem, although there is by no means at all a limitation to that).

 

[Tleno]

Wait, so you suggest weapon uogrades, so like for example, at first Militia have ordinary Lumberjack axes, but later they can get upgraded or to Light axes, which immprove attack speed, or instead you can research other upgrade and equip them with Heavy axes, which are slower than Lumberjack ones, but deal more damage and stun enemies. Did I got you right?

 

[Wazzz]

Couldn't have gotten it more right, I reckon. Pretty much exactly what I was thinking.

The upgrades would be represented by items, btw, and these items would be replaced with the upgraded versions as you perform research.

 

[Tleno]

Would both heroes and units have those items? Oh and by the way, will you give the damage or whatever bonus to the item, or this will be done by upgrades and trrigers?

 

[Skycraft]

I'm only posting to sub to this thread.
<3

 

[Wazzz]

Project HAS been on halt what with uni and me being lazy to focus on too many things at once, so with uni clearing up considerably I should hopefully be getting back to work on this mod very soon.
I'll work on figuring out some basic spells for the casters, maybe for the heroes as well, and have them artificially ready for playing around with.

 

[Tleno]

Nice to hear that the project is still alive.

 

[Wazzz]

Aye, half the problem was I tried doing too much before actually having it properly tested for gameplay. So I'll get the bare essentials done so it can actually be playtested.

Balance will be an amazing thing to attempt with having races using completely different gameplay styles, too. Challenge accepted.

 

[GhostThruster]

Lol it's good to brainstorm first, but you kinda over-brainstormed before seeing if it could be used practically.

Offtopic: You're avatar makes me wet... as in it is so ugly it makes my eyes water*
*thanks for reading another one of Ghostie's classic lame jokes! bai!

 

[Wazzz]

UPDATE

I figured a nice way to have this mod released with various playable maps would be to allow users to create maps of their own.

Maps are essentially going to be very similar to the melee maps of Warcraft 3, but the key difference will be in the expansions. As I don't want the Undead and the Humans to have the same expansion point, multiple expansions must be assigned. Although I am now thinking that it would perhaps be better to make them the same points, perhaps this could be a point to brainstorm about.

The other key difference is trees are not harvestable, so they may be used as blockers. Whether or not I will implement units that may destroy trees is still to be decided.

As for creeps, you may invent your own, but do let me know so I can assimilate them with the rest of the current creeps.

 

[Ss-4-Goku]

QUICK! A MESSAGE! POST!

...er-hem.

So, can I just make some creeps with custom abilities in WE and then send them to you for "assimilation"?

 

[Wazzz]

Yea, or you can tell me what your ideas are and I can do them myself, whichever's more preferable for you

I'm leaning towards the Undead having a separate expansion point, but have also tried figuring out ways for the expansion points to be in the same area, what are your thoughts?

 

[Ss-4-Goku]

Wazzz the Boomkin, what's the official status of this project or is it just put into cryofreeze for some time?

Also shameless bump.

 

[Wazzz]

a bit of a cyrofreeze atm, i think i will need a terrainer to make a map for me, as it turns out i'm pretty bad at coming up with terrains xD

also wasn't too sure how i was going to do spells before, but now i'm thinking of making it that you have set spells for each race, it's just a matter of researching them (for the sake of a beta, anyway). also probably make heroes a non-event for now (once again for the sake of a beta).

 

[Tleno]

Well, at least nice to hear the project is not completely dead. Better frozen than that.

A terrainer, eh? You should probably make a recruiting thread in recruiting sub-forum.

 

[Wazzz]

True, true, i might look into that
although, in terms of people on this thread, who here is good at making playable terrains?

if i could get some terrains done then i will be very grateful

 

[Mechanical Man]

What about picking one from hive in template terrain section?

 

[Wazzz]

worth a look through, although i can't help but feel pessemistic that there will be one for my gameplay
that is, a somewhat symmetrical map with expansion points, aren't most the terrain templates for RPGs and Dota?
gonna check it out though, might get lucky

 

[Vengeancekael]

This is good project in my oppinion of tast.
Keep work in it.