[Hero Arena] Strife of the Honorless

[Eriador]

After living a brave and violent live, a warrior should find his eternal glory in the battlefields of the Valhalla. Yet sometimes they are denied and their restless spirits will have to wander the empty planes for all eternity. Unless... your restless spirit just walk up to the valhalla and slaughter them like there is no tomorrow. Because... who really needs a good story? Strife of the Honorless is a hero survival map. You will fight progressivly harder randomly generated monster waves, random bosses and superbosses. A lot of the focus while desigining this map has gone towards creating heroes that have an interesting and unique skillsets, so you can expect triggered abilities, that scale with attributes and synergises to become a usefull skillset. There are over 150 items, with plenty of unique and triggered effects that can drop, be combined with recipes or bought. Pauzes after every 5th wave make sure that you can figure out the game or choose which items you want to buy/keep at your own pace. The strength of the wave, the drop rates, the strength and health of monsters and enemy heroes are all depenent on the selected difficulty and number of players. Tips: This is not just a game of offence, don't neglect your Endurance even when you are a Magic Power or Swiftness hero. When things get tough, instant healing is available at the shop. Don't be to greedy about it. When things are getting even more tough, you can rent a Mammoth (tank) or Siren (caster) in the warehouse under blessings and powerups. The Item Forge in the west creates some of the most powerful items in the game that never drop. Check out the requirements of these powerful items and start collecting those. Combining and upgrading the Soulstones may seem tedious, but it's easy when you are used to it. Generaly you just want one stone, so when you have collected enough Soulshards, just put your stone on the forge and click the upgrade button. When playing in a group, if most of your group is wiped out, you can ressurect them with the ressurection blessing in the warehouse. When all players are dead you lose. When playing in a group, use heroes with different primary stats, so you fill different roles and can make the best use of the items that drop. Eight unique heroes with triggered spells. Progressively powerful random item and gold drops. Unique items, with a unique look and (triggered) abilities. Cooldown reduction system. Randomized monster spawnings, with normal and lieutenant monsters and bosses. Shop system with different 'tabs', item recipes, socketed items and combinable gems. Multiple game difficulties Playable for 1 - 8 players Custom attribute system. All damage skills scale on these custom attributes. Reviving after every wave if at least one of the players survive. QWER Skill hotkeys Screenshots I will add a bunch of legitimate screenshots soon. Credits Extensive testing Donderbus Kino Spells and scripts: Paladon Weep Screen Layout: Spellbound Icons: Donderbus NFWar PeeKay Pyramidhe@d CRAZYRUSSIAN sigelang -BerZeKeR- Skypsi Stanley darkdeathknight Static JollyD wuddle I3lackDeath Mad stonneash Ezikielth Anachron

 

[Kino]

Ill give you a more in-depth look soon.

In the mean time.
- The coloured text on higher tier items is dark to the point of being unreadable.
- Items (within their individual categories) don't seem to be arranged in any logical way, the high tier/most expensive items do not necessarily come last etc.
- Way, way too long to level, 8 waves until you get excess to more than 1 ability.
- The first skill of the Tauren Hero has a passive learn icon.

- Is there a reason why potions are used on buying?
- Is there a reason why we have to type hero names to pick them?

 

[Eriador]

Hi,

Thank you very much for taking a look!

In regard to your feedback:

- The coloured text on higher tier items is dark to the point of being unreadable.

Thank you, I am going to change that, to make it more clear.

- Items (within their individual categories) don't seem to be arranged in any logical way, the high tier/most expensive items do not necessarily come last etc.

You are referring to how it is categorized in the shop? They are sorta catagorised between theme (robes, etc) but if it's not clear, I will think about how to improve it.

- Way, way too long to level, 8 waves until you get excess to more than 1 ability.

Yea... it does take about 2,5 hours to finish up till lvl 60. And the experience curve starts slow...

- The first skill of the Tauren Hero has a passive learn icon.

I will change that.

- Is there a reason why potions are used on buying?

I thought it was convenient, this way you could have 6 items in your inventory, and still quickly grab a potion from the shop. What do you think of it?

- Is there a reason why we have to type hero names to pick them?

The reason is me finding no suitable alternative to it. Do you have a suggestion (guide to look at or whatever) for a better champion selection?

 

[Kino]

You are referring to how it is categorized in the shop? They are sorta catagorised between theme (robes, etc) but if it's not clear, I will think about how to improve it.

I am referring to how the items within each category (weapons. armour etc.) are arranged.
It seems more logical to arrange them in rarity/price.

Yea... it does take about 2,5 hours to finish up till lvl 60. And the experience curve starts slow...

I have no problem with the map taking a long play session to complete. However it does bother me that it takes 8-9 waves to get access to more than 1 button.

Why?
Because for all those 8 waves I (as the Tauren) simply walked into the whole mob and pressed W once per wave.
Didn't need to adapt my strategy or approach things differently.
Those 8 waves could have been composed of the same monster and I wouldn't have noticed.

I thought it was convenient, this way you could have 6 items in your inventory, and still quickly grab a potion from the shop. What do you think of it?

Personally dislike it.
However that doesn't mean you should change it.
You are the creator of the map, and as long as you have a valid reason for it being there, it doesn't really bother me.

I guess you could "theme" it better by calling blessing of healing/mana as to avoid the connotation of potions being a "consume as you please" item.

The reason is me finding no suitable alternative to it. Do you have a suggestion (guide to look at or whatever) for a better champion selection?

How is one supposed to know if name refers to the hero's proper name or class name?

It seems more straight forward to use a "2x click to select" or "send a wisp in the circle of power" method.
You can open up the Warchasers or ExtremeCandyWar to see a bare bones version of how to do it.

 

[Eriador]

Updated the map with your feedback in it. You now choose your hero by 2x click, visibility of the tooltips is improved, shop is rearranged, etc.

 

[Kino]

Final Thoughts

Minor
- Name is uninteresting, searching for a map simply called "heroes" in your map list is a pain.
- (Unsure) Monster exp seems to be uneven, getting to level 2 can take anywhere from 5 - 8 waves.
- You cannot walk up to portals to kill monsters that have pathing errors, if I had been using a melee hero the game would have just broken there.

Major
The general vibe im getting is that the game is slow, real slow.
Boringly slow, abuseably slow.

I basically kept 1 weak enemy alive to wait out ult cooldowns before starting the next level because they were that long.

You save up huge amounts of cash to buy boring stat upgrades, each one takes vastly more than the previous for minor bonuses. But you buy them anyway, because there's nothing interesting to spend on anyway.

The game takes at least 30 or so waves for the game to get interesting, which by then you're so kitted out in items that the monsters stop being a threat

 

[Eriador]

Once again, thank you very much for testing the map!
Albeit admittedly, i might have hoped you would like it more

I have a few questions regarding your feedback
Regarding the pathing error, with which monster, or in response to which spell did that happen?

Regarding the low cooldown ulti and slow gameplay, which champion did you play?
In addition, some ulties are for emergency situations, not to be used in every wave. If in a multiplayer game you wouldn´t be forced to use it all the time, (because a healer, a tank and a damage dealer together would have synergy) and it might diversify the gameplay because there is the teamwork aspect. Would that increase the pace of the game?

Another thought about the slow gameplay, I could put in minigames at lvl 10, 30 and 50, to break up the gameplay a little bit?

One more idea is this regard, i could make the difficulty of the game in the first waves a bit harder, but give the players another skill point in return, you would have more to play with.
The problem i might have with it, is that inexperienced players will have more to adapt to in the first waves.

Or I could add a non-hero activatable skill with a short cooldown, you would have it from the start in addition to your hero skill point, which would scale into late game. Like a special attack, monster mana removal, small stun, etc, monsters difficulty could be increased accordingly.

About the way to spend and not spend money:
I could add (expensive) tomes of stats.
Could make (additional/ more expensive) buffs.
Add different, maybe more expensive hirelings (although i would probably choose that all cooldowns reset to not flood the arena.)
Or do you suggest something completely different?

Other question
I have a total of 22 skill points and 30 levels. Especialy if i would choose that you get another skill point in the start, should I add more levels to the skill points?

 

[Kino]

Regarding the pathing error, with which monster, or in response to which spell did that happen?

Any ranged monster with large unit collision.
Pretty much equals all the waves post 30 - 40.

It doesn't happen because of spells.
The passage from the portal simply isn't wide enough to accommodate the movement of a whole pack of large units, so they simply stall at the spawn point.

Regarding the low cooldown ulti and slow gameplay, which champion did you play?

I played the Ranger and Tauren Chief, the other heroes didn't seem to be useful in a solo/small team setup.

In addition, some ulties are for emergency situations, not to be used in every wave.

Which seems nice in theory until you realise that you can wait out the cooldowns by kiting the last monster of each wave until its over.

If in a multiplayer game you wouldn´t be forced to use it all the time, (because a healer, a tank and a damage dealer together would have synergy) and it might diversify the gameplay because there is the teamwork aspect. Would that increase the pace of the game?

Im not really understanding what you're getting at here.

Another thought about the slow gameplay, I could put in minigames at lvl 10, 30 and 50, to break up the gameplay a little bit?

Okay, the problem here is this.

Its a cause and effect.
> Because Getting enough actives to make the gameplay interesting takes forever.
> Thus you have very limited means of actively influencing the combat
> The combat is balanced around players doing a lot of nothing.
> As a result, monsters all feel "more of the same" since they balanced around the above.


The main gripe I have with this map, is that its full of features that seem to exist for the sake of "ticking a box".

- "Players like items" > have items for the heck of it even if they're very uninteresting.
- "The game is long" > therefore draw out the whole progression till it becomes painful.
- "Game is boring" > add minigames to cover that.

When I think of hero survival Id like to fight against monsters to survive, adding mini-games wont help if the core game is boring.


You are ultimately the creator of the map, and I don't want to dictate what you should or should not do.
However, these are the things in my opinion that you should note.
Also, consider this an answer to the other points I have not responded to.

The Map's Strength
- Your objective is very fluid. There is no fixed "defend a castle" objective, you simply stay alive.
- Random enemies, interesting in theory. Only makes a difference if having different monsters affects the gameplay in anyway.

The Map's Weaknesses
- Due to stay alive being the only objective, interesting combat = utmost priority. (Which currently it doesn't have.)
- Progression is boring, items are boring. (eg. I would have loved to buy a flat damage item to augment my crit item. But there wasnt, my only option was to stack another of that top-end crit weapon.)

Adding more features like tomes is a minor thing, disguising the very core issues I believe this map has wont change a thing.

 

[Eriador]

Allright, it took me a lot of hours, but I have made a major and imo cool update.

Changes:

1. Created an extra mana free skill for each hero, with a short cooldown, that adds to the playstile of the hero.
2. Created a skill that can sell items, so you don't have to sell everything in the shop. (Walking up and down the shop = no fun).
3. Made the time between waves shorter. You don't need to walk up and down the shop anyways.
4. Made a much more fun boss and interactive first boss wave.
5. Redesigned the map layout, and worked a lot on the look.
6. Reworked the experience curve. Allowing you to level up much quicker in the beginning of the game, while slower later on.

I feel the game has become a lot more faster paced, and the skill skill ceiling has increased by the extra short cooldown skill.
I would love to hear what you guys think.

 

[Kino]

A few things

1. What is so sacred about your spawn portals that heroes are not allowed near them?
2. Item variety expecially armour kinda still sucks.

Atm, its not terrible.
But at the same time, it doesn't feel very special or interesting as far as hero siege type maps go.

I still think the map has one very generalised problem. Combat is all it has, (which is fine, it is a hero siege after all) but the combat isn't very good.
Now this has nothing to do with how spammable your skills are or how many buttons you have to press (although it can help)

Notice is how a melee map, there are plenty of factors that combat interesting even though you only using auto attack?
Terrain shape - Height, space, layout etc.
Vision - Fog, Doodads the block sight etc.

There is some semblance of it in the new version (so kudos to you for that) but it still feels very much like slamming units against each other on a flat map waiting for the bigger stats to prevail.
Actually, that last phrase is exactly how I would describe what I dislike about this map atm.

It might sound like I really hate this map. But if I did, I wouldn't bother testing it.
Your ability to create cool ability concepts definitely shows, so use that to your advantage.

 

[Fang]

Looks interesting good luck

 

[Eriador]

A few things

So you managed to download it before i could put it offline
When I noticed there still where some major bugs, I quickly removed the file.

Those should now be removed.
In addition, I have made more changes, like

• Channeled ability for monsters that needs to be interrupted to prevent a painful lightning strike.
• Charge ability for monsters and new buy-able summon.
• Reworked some skills a bit.
• Made the map in general easier.
• Added more buy-able buffs.
• Made free buffs spawn in random spots once in a while.
• Made the whole map accassable and increased the spawning points
• made monsters spawns more random.
• Etc.

I have put the file back online.

Btw. I have taken your comments into consideration, so the items are also slightly more diverse with a few activated and triggered abilities added.

 

[Eriador]

I got the mapmaking spirit again, and I like where it is going.

The map now got a custom attribute system and the attributes are now much more influencing the power of your skills.

The items are changed again and with custom images for not only the unique but also the standard items. Also in stats and abilities the items are majorly changed again. making them much more interesting with a lot of actives and unique abilities. Most of them can be checked out in the shop straight away. Although there are also plenty of unique items that you just got to find accidentally.

I changed the map difficulty again, it starts out pretty calm, but get's harder when you get deeper into the game. It is still a multiplayer map, but it can be played and finished single player on normal difficulty.

All around the map is starting to feel more finished now.
Hopefully you guys like it, but let me know what you think.

 

[Eriador]

I figured I needed to improve on my opening post to get my map a little bit more into the picture

So I have written information about the skills of three of the heroes and added some in game screenshots so you might get a little better idea of how this map looks.
At the moment I am doing a multiplayer session on the map, I will try to make some screenshots of that, but for now you get the picture ^.^

The map has hugely improved since I first uploaded it here, even to the point I don't know how to further improve it. So I would love to hear some user experiences and perhaps see some replays of it. Hopefully some can take the time for that.

 

[ukn0wnD3str0y3r]

Cool, i can help with something if you want , although im not a professional ._.

 

[Binsu]

Upon looking on to maps here at the Develeopments Section, I've found this promising project and played it for a little while until Wave 15. I must say that it's pretty decent in its state given you are just starting on it but as for me, it needs some enjoyment factor. The gameplay is quite boring and it only requires you to stay still and kill countless creeps without much of a challenge (probably because I've only tried Normal difficulty) most likely when using the Primal Warrior which is a good tank and can absorb most damage with ease that makes it too easy for me on the game (can't say though for the next following waves beyond Wave 15). I would suggest adding some sort of bosses at some specific waves if there isn't yet. And when referring to bosses, it's not those who you just completely tank and hit for a long time then take it down. It should require some specific strategy which makes it worthy of its title as boss. Make it use skills that poses threat to the heroes and when killed, it would probably drop boss exclusive items from the boss that can help on your progress and strengthens your hero with decent stats and probably additional item skills. And also, make some waves different. Not just killing hordes of monsters but probably puzzles and such that needs to be accomplished by players, it adds up to the challenge, trust me!

Moving on, you could also add much more variety of items into the game and probably a secret spot if you could still lend some in the map area where a secret shop can be found that sells items different from the Observatory on the middle of the map and probably stronger. Could also use some sort of Recipe System where you have to gather the required items to form a much stronger item. I think the Recipe System adds restriction on easily acquiring godly items and more effort from the player instead of just saving up gold.

Your terrain which is another part of my review (you could say that it's a review, lol), is quite good but can be improved on some extent. I would suggest adding more doodads around such as blood (you can have a model of it here in the site by searching it on the Models Section as far as I know) which gives you a feeling that there's struggling in the terrain, magical effects which you can do by changing the models of a custom doodads to a Special effect that suits the terrain and etc. Feel free to search the site as well for resources on improving your terrain.

Lastly, the heroes seems good enough to me with their spells that fits their role in the battlefield and of course, triggered but I would check for leaks if there are, can't say for I'm not an expert on the field of triggers and scripts. Their spells are also scaled with certain attributes which is good because it is sure that the skill grows as the hero grows making it much more meaningful to power up.

Overall in its state, it's quite decent as I've said. Keep up on improving this one and eventually finishing this one. I hope to see this one on the Map Sections... soon.

Good luck and be motivated on this one!

 

[Eriador]

Ah thanks! it really encourages to get a in dept review.
You also gave me a few pointers of what to focus on to further improve the map.
I will keep on improving on the item system. Perhaps I should make a secondary rare recourse, that can be used for the highest tear items.

Cool, i can help with something if you want , although im not a professional ._.

Yeah sure, although I do not know what your area of expertise is. What kind of stuff do you like to make in such projects?

 

[Binsu]

Ah thanks! it really encourages to get a in dept review.
You also gave me a few pointers of what to focus on to further improve the map.
I will keep on improving on the item system. Perhaps I should make a secondary rare recourse, that can be used for the highest tear items.


Yeah sure, although I do not know what your area of expertise is. What kind of stuff do you like to make in such projects?

No problem, and yes, please do improve the item system

 

[ukn0wnD3str0y3r]

Yeah sure, although I do not know what your area of expertise is. What kind of stuff do you like to make in such projects?

Hero/Item/Hero & Item Ideas/Spell/Suggestions =)

 

[Eriador]

I'll send you a private message.

 

[Kino]

Some things to note.

- The Rogue Archer's Chain Lignting skill doesnt work, when you learn it, you instead get an ability called Discharge that doesn't do anything.
- There very little incentive to use the Pain Mage's Blood Golem as anything but meat. It's active heals so little when compared to it's total health, its low damage renders lifesteal also very weak.
- Most of the innate skills now feel very weak, now with attack power upgrades allowing you to auto-hit for far more than those abilities are useful for.
- Collision size is still a pain later game, combine that flying waves being able to access unpathable areas and melee characters become an annoyance to play.
- You need to standardise your wording. In various item and skill tooltips there is reference to "spell power" when the stat is officially named "magic power"

 

[Eriador]

Hi Kino,

Once again thanks for testing the map.
It's unfortunate that you have to find a major bug like the 'chain lightning spell.'
I am clueless how it ended up there, I have tested the magic mirror spell plenty of time, and now there is a whole other (disfunctional) spell in that slot... -_-

I don't understand what you are referring to regarding the 'Spell Power'. I have tried really hard to make all the wording standard, and after checking all the spells, I couldn't find any that had 'spell power'. Perhaps I missed something.

Regarding the innate skills. The weakness depends on how you create your character. An attack skill point is worth 1,75 damage, a primary attribute skill point 0,5 but has other advantages like more powerful skills, attack speed etc. But it deserves some time balancing.

Edit:
I'll upload a corrected one as soon as i got it.

As for the golem, it kinda is a meat shield literally. I have been thinking about an active, with a delay that would let him explode, could add a little extra sumething to it. Never had the time to do it though.

 

[Kino]

Once again thanks for testing the map.
It's unfortunate that you have to find a major bug like the 'chain lightning spell.'
I am clueless how it ended up there, I have tested the magic mirror spell plenty of time, and now there is a whole other (disfunctional) spell in that slot... -_-

Well I opened to map, and the Ability list for Rogue Archer shows Discharge not magic mirror. So that's that.

I don't understand what you are referring to regarding the 'Spell Power'. I have tried really hard to make all the wording standard, and after checking all the spells, I couldn't find any that had 'spell power'. Perhaps I missed something.

Its actually my bad, I misread spell damage as spell power.

Regarding the innate skills. The weakness depends on how you create your character. An attack skill point is worth 1,75 damage, a primary attribute skill point 0,5 but has other advantages like more powerful skills, attack speed etc. But it deserves some time balancing.

Think about it this way.
With attacks, you can increase attack-speed and have two forms of flat damage scaling; attack power and prime stat.

With innate skills, you have
- 1 form of damage scaling
- Windup time
- Base damage lower than an auto hit

The prime example is the pain mage's innate.
You can do up to 20% of normal creep's health on condition it is severely injured.
I have not come across a time where an auto attack would not have finished the job quicker, better and under less strict conditions.

As for the golem, it kinda is a meat shield literally. I have been thinking about an active, with a delay that would let him explode, could add a little extra sumething to it. Never had the time to do it though.

Being a meat shield is fine. It's just that 15 health per second, while channelling and requiring a corpse doesn't cut it when the golem has 1900 hp.

I'll upload a corrected one as soon as i got it.

Dont rush it, make it good.


After I played abit more, these are some of the conclusions I found.

Creep variety and tiers.
In a melee game, creeps come in packs. A larger commander often comes with smaller ones, and the abilities they have are balanced around this.
- Small creeps often have no abilities or very weak ones because they numerous.
- Big creeps have big decisive skills that support the smaller mobs. Stuns, auras etc.

This all falls part here because you spawn them based on unit level.
- Early levels are a bore since they do mostly nothing.
- Late levels are an annoyance since the monsters have lots of stuns and have very large collision sizes.

Hurl Boulder-ring Golems were not balanced around being able to mob you 6 or more at a time.

Having more unit types with commander-eque skills early, and more "stat meat" monsters later would be nice.
ie. monsters should feel more like a proper squad, big guys supporting a mob of smaller ones.

Monster Skills
There are some mechanics that really don't fit this type of game.
That being those that take away control for extended periods of time and or those that simply force you to wait.

If you bring an enemy Blademaster hero down to low health, he wind walks and you have to wait since there is no detection in the game. Combine that with Wind Walk having no cooldown and you have to hit >enemy wind walks> you wait >repeat.


Same can be said for Divine Shield. (Though when used by non hero mobs its actually kind of fine, since you can often just switch targets and hit something else.)

Sleep as a normal mob skills is stupid, its long and not balanced around a game where you control 1 hero.
In a melee game, you get hit by sleep > go control something else.
Here, you get hit by sleep > brb afk a for abit.

Its not difficult or challenging, just waiting.

Powerups
Its really nice but could be improved on.
They spawn far too rarely, which is a missed opportunity since they are one of the few things that actually give you an incentive to move your position instead of camp the middle.

Character Skills
The general feel I get from a lot of skills is that their cooldowns need to scale with skill level. They are fine at low levels but become very long at higher levels.

Pain Mage

• Innate - Explained above, arguably the weakest innate.
• Orb of Pain - Interesting concept, fairly weak in practice. In order to farm damage for this skill you have..
  - Auto attack
  - Golem (measly damage)
  - Telekenesis (long cooldown)
  - Ult (unreliable)
  Auto attack is by far the most effective way to charge the skill.
• Golem - Decent meat early. Long cooldown at high levels, gets torn apart at late game.
• Telekenesis - This skill is worded far more complex than it actually is.
  It lifts (at max level) 500-750 height and deals 16% height in damage.
  Which is a more convoluted way of saying lifts enemies and deals 80 - 120 damage.
  Its not like the player is able to control how high the lift is going to be.
  
• Ult - Annoying to use and weak.
  Taking control of a single enemy is fairly "meh", dealing some damage to 1 target is also pretty "meh".
  Combine that with having to calculate the "mind control threshold" and you have a skill that's nowhere near worth the effort you put into using it.

Rogue Archer
Probably the best designed hero atm, innate aside.

• Innate - Okay-ish, gets obsolete very quickly as your attack-speed vastly outstrips the fixed cast-point of the skill.
• Disturbed Dimensionsm - Great skill, has nice tactical use with W. Only gripe is that the damage calculation is near unreadable.
• Charon Ward - Great skill, cooldown at max level is abit high.
• Ult - Good skill, allows you to stop casters later on and the meat shield summon is nice.

 

[Eriador]

Dont rush it, make it good.

Then consider this an in between upload, because I just had to remove that bug.

This is actually a version I have been working on for the past 5 days, but I have integrated a bunch of feedback you have given, like lower collision sizes, the cooldown is now dependent on the skill level for every skill, and the innate (let me take over that term) skills of the Pain Mage, Primal Warrior and Archer are now more powerful.

Your feedback is insightful, and when I got more time I will keep improving the map.

For now, this will be an update primarily focused on the item system.

 

[Fang]

Its better than I thought!

 

[Eriador]

Updated the map once again. It took me a long while to search and destroy a fatal error that had slipped into the map, but I got the bastard.

This map is created for a lan party I am going to have in about half a month. Up to that time, I don't think I am going to add extra features, as features might come with bugs. Hopefully they will like it

This update contains a change that might be important, every 5 waves, there is a pauze moment, in which you have all the time you need to work on your character and find out which items you want to keep and which you want to ditch. Especially with the more complex combine systems I had already added, this might be pleasant for people with less/ no experience with the map.

To give more combat options and reward moving around, there are now recharging destructables, you can destroy for lightning discharges against nearby enemies. Obviously the damage increases as waves get stronger, so it stays relevant.

Other then that, I tried worked on the fall out of map protection, I have changed some spells a bit, changed how the map looked and tried to overall make the map more clean and bugfree.

I hope you like it

 

[Eriador]

Played it with 6 players, and it went quiet to my liking. In the second try, inexperienced players combined with a few more experienced players where able to finish the game from start to end on normal difficulty.
On the lowest difficulty the game starts off easy, but the bosses will prove a danger for those not prepared.
A few bugs occurred, but those are removed now, otherwise the map was received very positively.

It was the latest version, which is a mayor update, with 60 new elite monsters, a lot of spells for monsters, and a bunch of heroes spells replaced that didn't work nicely enough it its current state.

So I uploaded the new version in my starting post, with a more specified changelog.
Please take a look and let me know what you think, it's especially a joy to play multiplayer.

The map creation is in its final stage, and I do not plan to add any more utility to it.

 

[Kino]

Those elevators man, they seem really trivial on paper but they're actually add quite a fair bit to the game.

Pain Mage is quite solid when built caster now. His innate; because of the scaling, actually gives him fairly good consistent damage when built for magic damage.
Though thematically its ability to be used as an execute is still meh.

Brekt's innate is bugged this version, it deals damage to yourself instead of healing.

Also tinkered with the map abit and got this by extending the fog and camera bounds by abit. See how you like this.

 

[Eriador]

Glad you like them

Yea, that foggy/ dreamy feel is kinda what I am looking for, at it does seem that a 32x32 map is becoming to restraining.
But a 64x64 map seems to be so big, leaving a lot of unused space. Also the bridge in the map seems kinda problematic, as it seems to bug area of effect indicators of spells.
I am not really sure what I want with it... I could use help in that regard..

In regard to the problem with the Feral Strike, I created a hot fix for it.
I also used this day to create a custom cooldown system for items, which I find to be pretty cool

Would you think that perhaps with some terrain editing, this map is starting to become worthy of an official release?

 

[Kino]

Yea, that foggy/ dreamy feel is kinda what I am looking for, at it does seem that a 32x32 map is becoming to restraining.
But a 64x64 map seems to be so big, leaving a lot of unused space. Also the bridge in the map seems kinda problematic, as it seems to bug area of effect indicators of spells.
I am not really sure what I want with it... I could use help in that regard..

Well, I expressed my feeling on the terrain awhile back via PMs, nothing has changed in regard to that.
As for a 64x64 map, you can always bring in the camera bounds the something you find more suitable. The map play space atm is rather small so some expansions wouldn't be too bad.

Would you think that perhaps with some terrain editing, this map is starting to become worthy of an official release?

Terrain is always an iffy thing.
By re-terraining the map you never know how it will affect gameplay.
But, Im all in for it. If you need a prototype, I can get one sorted out. The blanks are your call to fill.

As for what else needs to be done, 2 things mainly
1) I played the map a few more times and finally understood why ability use in this map feels so "odd".
You often have extremely conditional usage for your abilities. Such as how the Pain Mage's golem takes a whole 4 seconds to self destruct or how that same hero's innate requires a very low health enemy to do damage that barely outstrips an auto attack.

This isn't by itself a bad thing. It forces the player to think and try to set up scenario's where it can pay-off, which is good. The problem is that the payout is often so "meh" that you realise that building around auto-attack is much simpler and is often more consistent and equally as effective.

2) Some hero skills could stand to be changed. Though that's an extension of 1.

 

[Eriador]

Hmm, I see. Basically the skills are underpowered in comparison to the effort you have to put into them.
Even though I think you will be punished if you neglect to use skills, I see where you are coming from.

I have made a prototype of new terrain myself, I am curious what you think of it.

I think it's a little bit to spacious now, but it leaves options for the following:

• Increase the amount of monsters per wave.
• Empower the hero spells to keep it ballanced.
• By empowering the hero spells, in combination with more monsters for area of effect skills, using skills will be more rewarding.

What's your opinion about this terrain?

 

[IcemanBo]

Thread opened.

 

[Eriador]

Thanks for opening. I will try to make a youtube video of a multiplayer game, so you get an idea what this map is all about.

But obviously you can also download it from the opening post and check it out for yourself

Stuff that changed since the last update:
Added a new hero.
Reworked the Roque Archer
Recreated the map terrain.
More.

 

[Acutesharpness]

Note: I played the game once with tauren chieftain and browse some items.

Map Rating: pending

Hero Test Count: 1

Suggestion: The game is alright with a smooth pace but also challenging, the pace can be increased with additional gold perhaps, that would make the game better. The hero level system is cool but I think Tauren's abilities are really overloaded. What I mean by that is he doesn't seem to have a style of play but just overall awesome spells, possibly make him a little tone down to better suit a style for him!

 

[Eriador]

Hi, thank you for testing out the map, it is really appreciated.

I am not sure what you mean by:

possibly make him a little tone down to better suit a style for him!

You mean, make his spells weaker?

 

[Acutesharpness]

Regarding that, his knock back skill is a little awkward, his stomp should not be a channeling :d

 

[Kino]

Just throwing my personal recommendation out here.

 

[Eriador]

I have uploaded my latest version of the map.

The most important thing that changed is the overal speed. Movement speed, attack speed and cooldown reduction is increased across the board. The game feels a lot faster now.

A few abilities are tweaked. The Guard of Charon of the Arcane Archer now scales with swiftness but has reduced hp and early game damage.
The innate skill of the archer doesn't do AoE damage anymore but colides with it's first target. However, it deals more damage and has a lower cooldown.
The Elementalist has gained a much needed blink.

I also fixed a few minor bugs, leaks and description errors.

Hopefully you like it.

Anyway, what do I have to do to get this map approved?

 

[Kino]

Anyway, what do I have to do to get this map approved?

I personally think this map is more than the approval quality, though I am a little biased in the maps favour

 

[Eriador]

I personally think this map is more than the approval quality, though I am a little biased in the maps favour

You are to kind!
Thank you though. It would not be what it is without your advice.

Btw, i will upload some screenshots in the future, but I have to wait untill I can play it with a group, so the fichting screenshots will look a bit more juicy

 

[Eriador]

As I consider this map finished, i do not plan to add any more content to the map in the future.

However, I have changed several things in this last update:

• Added an extra feature for the Spirit Healer: Stag spirits spawn randomly when enemies are killed. Collecting those spirits heal some life and add up as stacks that empower his heals.
• Changed the innate ability of the Spirit Healer:
  Restores 60 mana of target ally over 8 seconds. The unit is able to collect Spirit stags and receives 25% increased healing from spells and items for the duration of the spell.
• Changed the Ultimate of the Spirit Healer:
  A divine spirit descents from the sky, damaging enemies and healing allies. Can be cast 3 times within 10 seconds before going on cooldown but the effectiveness is halved for each time the damage / healing is reapplied on the same target. Heals Nuihina for 25% of the damage done.
• I have added 'socketed items'. Soulgems can be imbued in certain items to give those items a permanent bonus.
• Changed a lot of item discriptions to make it more clear which properties stack and which don't.
• Updated the mission objectives.
• Removed a few bugs.
• Minor tweaks in ability stats and items.

I want to thank everyone who contributed, tested and gave advice.
Unless someone notices considerable flaws in the map, i will soon send this map for approval.

 

[Chaosy]

This is one fancy thread. I really like it.

For your public release I would change a thing or two around, for example not using attachment for your screenshots. (and add more of them while you're at it)