Suggestions & Ideas

[MoCo]

Please feel free to be creative and post any suggestions and ideas here.

I think the game design really provides some space for new ideas and suggestions, especially regarding features like new items, minibosses and such.

 

[Jumbo]

First of all congratulations on the hosted project achievement. Dwarven Monster Slayers seems to be one of the very few interesting projects.

My suggestion is to add Save/load to your (great looking) map. This is not to say that if your concept is "everyone is equal from the start of each game" you should change this. Just make some little things you can save, like certain abilities or items with abilities. The point is to add longevity and a desire to return to the game to play 'your' progressing character - not to make veterans more powerful and newcomers useless and helpless.

 

[MoCo]

Thanks Jumbo, for your suggestion - I got your point.

Back in a while, I already thought about a save/load system because I agree that permanently building a character can be an essential part of a game’s motivation and fun. Based on your suggestion, I thought this over once again and I think you’re perfectly right. Just as you’ve suggested, I could make it so that items, gold and achievements are saved, but the hero level is not. This way, even loaded characters need to level up (and thus are not too powerful), but they can keep their equipment and achievements creating some kind of long-time motivation. This also adds a nice competitive aspect because other players might want to acquire equal equipment and achievements. Of course, this design requires a massive pool of items and the best ones need to be very rare. However, I see much potential for motivation to play the game a couple of times to collect some cool equipment. And, later on, I guess I could probably add some kind of hardcore mode featuring some exclusive monsters and requiring a group with high-equipped characters to beat. *sigh* This actually means a lot of work to do.. since it will involve adding about a few hundred items. But I think it needs to be done.

Besides the save/load system, I’m also currently looking for some good ideas on the boss fights. Any suggestions are welcome to create epic battles.

Thanks & cheers

 

[Jumbo]

You'r welcome : )

 

[Binsu]

About epic and worthwhile boss fights, there are many things to consider. Let me give you some tips, bro:

We all know Bosses are unique and so you must make them.

• First, their stats. You must make their stats ftting for a real boss or monster like. So it will be like big Life and Mana. It doesnt need to be too big if t has strong armor and attack damage for it will make it too imbalance. So two options here are either: strong Life and Mana; decent attack and armor or decent Life and Mana; strong attack and armor.
  
• Now we are finish with setting up the bosses stats, now let us ensure that the environment we are gonna put the boss is fitting. What do I mean? What I mean is that the boss should be in a place that bestly fits him. You cannot put a Water Elemental Boss in a Volcanic Area right? So put him at the right place and voila.
  
• Mostly we can all know, map makers kind of rely on the Bosses' might on defeating heroes but to add more difficulty. Maybe you can add more active traps around the Boss Area. This will make it harder and grant advantage to the boss. Maybe it be traps that damages, gives a negative buff or does both.
  
• Now let us go on the to the boss itself. If you want to make a cool boss, make sure it has cool spells. Original Warcraft spells just looks bad and unfitting for them. So best is fit it with cool, special and unique spells still making sure it fits woth their style and theme.
  
• Boss battle will be more enjpyable if it is done phase by phase. What do I mean? Some bosses when reaching a certain percentage of their life, they either cast a strong spell to harm a group of heroes or summon minions to help them fight. You can do this to add some more fun in the game.
  
• Now last is the reward for the effort of killing a boss. You must ensure that the reward you gave for killing a boss is just, enough and worth. You dont want to get a Branch that gives 1 stats by killing a hard boss, it makes the gameplay so worthless and such so last tip is give bosses an enough, just and worth rewards or drops upon defeating them.

Well that is my perpective of making a good Boss fight. Hope this helps you in many ways.

 

[MoCo]

Your perspective is spot on, but I am actually looking for some specific suggestions on boss abilities, phases and such.

OK, let's add some details. We got 4 main bosses:

1. The Frozen King: A giant skeleton (frost/ice theme)
2. Morderd the Reaper: A giant vampire boss (dark/shadow theme)
3. Roryn the Betrayer: A corrupted dwarf - he's the arch enemy
4. I want to keep the final boss a secret right now.

 

[Binsu]

For Frozen King, how abut abilities such as that of normal Wc3 Frost Bolt but maybe bigger size and greater damage and stun and better a little modified maybe that stuns and damages enemy in a AOE. Also how about his attacks slows enemies attacks and his increases. I might think of more but this are the only things I can think for this boss

For the Reaper, how about a modifed Carrion Swarm that charges and turns into the Swarm itself charging enemies in that point and knocking them back. Also some lifesteal skills and for his Ultimate skill, put him in a place that he cant be attack but still in the battle field and then he plays his casting animation and summons forth Flame Strike like ability but the model is like related to darkness. The boss will do the Flame strike ability like 5 times and it should deal large damage but this is dodgeable just by moving.

For Roryn the Betrayer, You could make him a modified bash that when takes effect, knocks back enemy and stuns them. Also a skill that stomps on the ground, dealing damage to enemies around and also it is a Warcry that gives it bonus damage maybe? For the ultimate, turn him to Avatar but put some dark auras as an attachent to him to symbolize he is corrupted. The effects are giving him Chaos damage and maybe bonus damage, armor and stats (if its a hero). Also his skills Cooldown or CD is reduced.

 

[Da Fist]

And let me also give a tip :

> DO NOT, by all means just let the boss be defeated by auto-attacks and worthless skills. Give out variation, let the players use tactics, do not let the players defeat the guy by grinding alot, and smacking it upside the head.
>Hinder their ability to confront the guy solo. Give out formations.

Spoiler

Like in wars, Testugo is for anti-archer bombardment, Phalanx is to counter cavalry and so forth.

Give out player boost. With every player still alive and kickin' and fightin', give em' a boost.
>A Boss Limit break. Yes. Usually, when the boss is about to die, players are letting their guard down thinking " ermhegerd, re bers ish dayeng ". Add some surprise factor and do not let players rest ( be careful though, too much of these will be frustrating to some gamers.

 

[MoCo]

Thanks for your input guys. Some of the abilities and aspects you've mentioned are already part of the current boss design, but it still needs improvement.

Da Fist, I think you're right and tactics is a key word here. I think the challenge is to make each fight requiring some serious tactics so that is a considerable challenge while it still must not get too frustrating and ramain fairly manageable with some experience. So any suggestions on specific tactic designs are very welcome too.

I also want to add some more diversity. I think different combat phases might be a good point for some bosses. I'm also wondering if I can add someterrain aspects (imagine some hit and run stuff). Finally, I'm thinking about adding some random stuff so a boss behavior is not always hundred percent the same across different games.

 

[DESTROYER123]

Hey MoCo!
I must say this is a really good map and it's going well.
About the suggestion things I agree with Da Fist.
Make and epic boss fight something like you evade his attacks while moving, players need to find strategic ways to defeat him and all this stuff.
Good luck on the map friend

 

[MoCo]

Thanks!

Before I can continue with improving the bosses, right now I'm totally busy with trying to understand Nestharus save/load systems. This stuff is quite tough. Oh well, and I still need and implement about 100 items or so... Expect a little delay on the release..

 

[lj2831929]

very much expect！

 

[RanchBurner]

Is this by any chance a multiplayer sequel to the Dwarf Campaign from 2004? Only curious.

 

[MoCo]

Nope, this is a new project and its completely different in terms of game mechanics. But I've played the dwarf campaign and I appreciate it very much.

 

[Strydhaizer]

I wish theres a traveller , and his role is a shop that blinks randomly on the map
^^^
This is just a s*%4id suggestion
Well , i dont mind when is the release , i just expect that the map has an enjoyment and supposed to have fun. I (or maybe all) expect that the map has a full of action (Not boring) No matter what the terrain looks like.

And

As always , ..... Good Luck to yar project mah friend

---
ADDITION : And be careful in pathing blockers and triggers

 

[MoCo]

Well, there is a merchant called the nether merchant. After each round, he spawns at the heroe's location to offer them some basic items like health potions. However, there will be other merchants, selling some more rare stuff.. I guess adding a random-located merchant is a cool idea indeed.

Well, right now, I could really use some suggestions and ideas on weapon names. There are 5 basic weapon types, one for each hero class, including: hammer (Thorin), axe (Gotrek), Staff (Borgo), Electric Rod (Alrik) and bow (Durin). As other items, weapon rarities include common, uncommon, rare, epic and legendary.
For the initial beta, I want to have at least 30 different weapons for each type respectively class, resulting in 150 weapons in total. For all those weapons, I need names of course. So if you have some good ideas, please feel free to post a list of your suggestions here (filtering the names by the weapon types).

Thanks!

 

[Strydhaizer]

Do you include arena/duel in your map? I have more suggestions to that
Keep posting updates , were subscribing

 

[MoCo]

Right now there are no arena or duel modes planned since it's baiscally a coop team game. However, deathmatch and/or team deathmatch might be quite funny so chances are that I will add such modes later on if the normal game is finished.

 

[sammath]

Nice a dwarven theme.
When I saw an engineer an idea come to my mind.
To make a new flavor teamwork and strategic events, I wish you could make some "wave events" that use the engineer to be activating a mechanical device (reparing) to open/close a door or fixing a battle golem while the others figths ...
Maybe in an unending billow you can employing the cleric to open an scape portal making a hard-to-complete instance (because the healer is busy opening the portal) ...
To make busy and been entertained, the hero can't fight (desable the move/attack butons) and te player will be pressing a serie of key or clicking in order to get it, failing will recommence.
Keep going and good luck!

 

[Bboy Moose]

Just one thing, why did you call one of the heroes Thorin?
i'm not against that man or anything but seriously some lotr and hobbit fans gonna butthurt.

cant wait for this, to be honest, i'm like man, this map is going to be dope

 

[MoCo]

I guess I just found that the name was a good fit and that there would be more dwarves called Thorin - just a common name, like Bob or something...

Dunno, I could still change it though..

 

[lj2831929]

I want to tell you！！
Continuous attention

Come on！

 

[MoCo]

Yeah, right now it's a bit summer hole. But expect some updates soon. I still have to add a massive bunch of items which is pretty boring work.

 

[sammath]

Hows go the work? any beta tester needed?

 

[MoCo]

The map has made big progress in the last days and I think that I'll be able to release the beta within this year (probably in november or december).

 

[Isobar]

So I know this is really late to the party. My biggest pet peeve with any W3 map (and just about every Hack and slash game not named Diablo 3) is when abilities and spells use arbitrary damage. These skills always tend to be overpowered, or useless. The best maps that I play always have skills and spells that do damage based off your stats.

For example, instead of:
Fireball: Throw a magical ball of fire at the target for 100 damage.

Make it:
Fireball: Throw a magical ball of fire at the target for (1.5 x INT) damage.

This means that no matter how far into the game you get, your skills and spells are always going to be useful as long as you build your stats to match your abilities.

I don't remember which map me and my friends were playing, but by the end of the 4 hours we spent on the map, our stats were all in the 2000-3000 range, and just normal attack was way more powerful than any of our abilities because the abilities did base damage that couldn't be modified. We all agreed the map design was a lot of fun, but that one feature ruined the end game because all our characters felt the same, because all we did was autoattack.

 

[MoCo]

Actually, in this game, it is exactly as you have suggested: The power of all spells and abilities directly depends on the heroe's attributes and scales accordingly.
I think this is the only way to have a smooth balancing over any number of hero levels and to be able to have various items easily influence spells and abilities and such.

 

[louj3580]

I think need fix backpack system.

cuz
1. backpack is hard to click.
2. clicking time is wasted to rest time.

Want to
backpack active click F2 (like as hero) and stick in.

Please refer only I think.

Thank you.

 

[louj3580]

Clear! And Suggestion

Now, I am clear this game. (Attachment picture)


1. Stats
Ver : 0.83 Beta
Score : 69458
ACHVs' : 7/10
Game Over : almost 4-5?

Member
louj3580 - Thordal
Immortal - Gotrek
SDWSDA - Falgrim


2. Overall...

First Chapter's difficulty is moderate, it's proper.

Second Chapter difficulty is like ping-pong. Water monster wave is little hard, but other wave is going to easily game process.

Third Chapter difficulty is little Easy, make more harder is very fun.


3. I think your map need this resources,

Select Difficulty, Harder difficulty is more reward and items. (For advanced players like take Powerful items.)

Balance Need in third stage. more harder.

Resource exchange not allowed. (cuz give resource and save, this will be rise resource nothing act special.)

Save item give is not allowed. (cuz same.)

Need more contents using golds. Gold is gain over 99 far! Once play One game.

Need Animals get skills going level up. (I thinks.)


Please Refer and I enjoy your game always.

 

[MoCo]

Congrats! You're the first one who beat the map.

Thanks for your report. This helps me a lot. It's also interesting to read your playing experiences, since most other people complain about the game being too hard (and it seems you prove them wrong).

I adress your points in the next update. Also, it really seems there are different difficulty modes needed.

 

[Isobar]

I would definitely agree with the backpack thing. Having an always active inventory is a much more convenient system for the user.

I would also say maybe add 2 more options to the stores. One for magic items, and one for elite items. Make these cost say 10 gold for a random class specific magic and 20 gold for elite. Then you jump to the 5 crystals for a epic and 15 for a legendary or whatever it is. Something to spend excess gold on.

 

[MoCo]

Yeah, I agree that the merchant could use a little more options. Anyways, I'm planning on a big item upgrade. Like adding interesting effects to weapons. For example, think of a priest staff, that increases healing, but reduces damage. Or a weapon, that boosts a particular spell. So you will have to make hard decisions, which weapon may be the best fit for your playstyle (right now, most weapons are just dull damage upgrades, I know). I will include the merchant in this upgrade.

Concerning the backpack: Yeah, a backpack with a dedicated icon that is always showing up is a more comfortable solution. Actually, I had it exactly this way in my first implementation. The reason, I changed it though, is simple: Imagine you play singleplayer and you play 4 or 5 heroes. There is just not enough space to show up all backpacks since there can be only 7 icons on screen. On second thought though, I maybe could just make it so that in SP there is only one backpack for the whole team. Yeah, that might work... OK, you probably get the F2 backpack!

 

[ELECTROLYTE]

Do items bind on save? If not I think they should, it looked like a few people in my game were swapping items even after they saved with them. Could also be abused.
What about a repick command to swap at the start in case people want to change? Also maybe a roll command because everyone just grabs everything the instant it drops and there's no way to determine who gets it or who needs it the most.

 

[Silverfox]

I have an idea regarding Heroes. Is it possible you could add a second spellset? For an example, Thordal could have either Smash or Storm Bolt (Storm Bolt is just an example). So players could perhaps choose between 12 different abilities. Just an idea though.

 

[MoCo]

The idea of the item roll system is interesting. I'll think about this. Have to see if this is practical though.. A repick command is possible, but I'd put this on very low priority since I've got a lot of other stuff to do first.

As it regards the idea of addiing alternativ spell-lists, this would be a cool feature for sure. But this also means an incredibly massive amount of work too. I'm already planning to add some customization options via weapons (like weapons boosting particular spells). Anyways, I had some thoughts in a similiar direction though. For the start, my idea was to have one customizable ability for each hero, let's say with 2 or 3 choices. This could be the ultimate for example. So the heroes have a basic spell pool but can choose one ability to specialize in a particular direction.

 

[ELECTROLYTE]

It doesn't have to a be a roll system, just a roll command. There's no way to tell who gets what item when it drops. Giving custom abilities to choose from seems like a great idea.

 

[savinguptobebroke]

small suggestion
My brother ask that after you summon your pet as the archer could you go back to the main ability section as he uses 'Q' for he's nuke and then he summons a bear which uses up the long cool down and is annoying

 

[MoCo]

Yeah, already fixed this for upcoming 0.89. This issue came along after I set up different cooldowns for pets.

 

[nhs325]

Please,make this map avilable again at 'Custom Maps'. You can make some cheats unable to work. .
Btw,if you do that,don't unable 'whosyourdaddy'. I tried to play it with the Engineer,Hunter and Battlepriest (I'm not much of a melee-like) and IT WAS HARD! The first boss,Leoric, take us down so easily. Also,add more items like boots,necklace, armor. That will make the game easier.

 

[ELECTROLYTE]

Allowing some cheats ruins the game. It's meant to be challenging and a team game. What difficulty did you play it on and did those 3 characters have gear?

 

[louj3580]

Long time no see, Moco.

I played single character and made it!

Beat Normal. (v0.89b)

Final score : 99746

Death : 0!!!!

Play time : 90:00(min)

Max Lv. 31

Kills : 955

Character : Thordal

ACHVs' : 8/10 (I'm failed Reaper's achv. and I didn't made it kills 1000.)


---------


Suggestion


(Difficulty is good deal.)

Do you have think more function? ex)

Wave 11 is still little easy. (cuz, mob gen is very slow)
>monster be stronger or faster, more gen.)
Other waves are fit in difficulty, also wave 7(or 8?) in sea monsters.

But it is only Normal. I have fit items I'll play harder mode.


-----------


Here's replay and screenshot.

you can use my replays in play's video or refer user's play.

I will play harder soon, and show. result.

I enjoy your game.

 

[nhs325]

Well, I guess you're right. The problem is,yeah,I forgot to buy some gears. But finally, I manage to get to the final boss. Good micro, able to get 1 Ancient Warden thing, and still manage to keep the dwaren rifemen alive. Defeat the boss. Easily.

 

[louj3580]

Hey Moco.

Do you have a serious think save/load items?

If you have 12 lumber or more, I buy legendary item box and give other players.

and I didn't save and next game load is not lumber loose, other player gain item easily.

This must be fix and suggestion.

(given items not allowed if you save or buy items. only allowed give items if dropped item and not saved.)

 

[MoCo]

Yeah, I see. Gonna find a way to fix this.

 

[ELECTROLYTE]

The range on borgos heal spell (Q) and his beam (R) seem to have a little to much cast range. I mean it's nice but both look to have over 1k range, especially the beam. Could be lowered just a tad.

 

[MoCo]

Yepp, ok.

 

[ELECTROLYTE]

Did a play through that lasted over 100 minutes and only got 4 crystals. The person who was left mentioned that it wasn't worth it. Over an hour and only 1/3 of the way to buying a single legendary. On top of that its a random one. I've gotten 3 of the same legendary before and its a pain to get those crystals again. So he put out the idea of getting crystals for completing the game. That didn't sound like a bad idea. If you were to do a full play through and make it to the end you could be rewarded crystals. Pretty much every game someone leaves. Here's an example Easy=1 Normal=2 Hard=3 Insane=4. For completing the game you get that many crystals. After that I thought the same could be done for achievements. Get crystals based on how many you complete. Not saying one for each, but there are 10 achievements. Maybe if you complete half you get 1 and all you get 2. Make achievements worthwhile not only for score but towards gear as well.

 

[MoCo]

A very good idea. I'll will incorporate it for the next release.

BTW, the 0.90 update really will be a major update that will completely change some things over. I'm also afraid, old savegames won't work any longer with the next release.

Still a lot of work to do, but I'm on it.

 

[ELECTROLYTE]

I figured there would be a few code wipes eventually. Can't wait for the new content. If there's anything you need help with I can try to help! Mainly testing though xD

 

[MoCo]

Thanks a lot for your support. I think the next update will require a lot of testing since I will introduce the pemanent level system and therefore change most of the monster stats.