[TC19] Warcraft Commander - Uther's Faction

[Adiniz / Imemi]

You have to credit the models and icons used. Otherwise looks interesting, I'll give it a try later.

 

[Marchombre]

You have to credit the models and icons used. Otherwise looks interesting, I'll give it a try later.

I know, that's why I left some space for them
I will go through all models & icons used and fill them overtime as I was stupid enough to not list them during map creation


EDIT: 3 hours later, the list should be now up to date. Of course, if someone sees a mistake or a missing credits, feel free to point it out.
In addition, I saw some models/icons that were in fact no longer in use, so I cleaned them and uploaded v1.1

 

[GhostThruster]

Gave this a playthrough, and I can see the love that's gone into it The inner AoE player loved it, but the inner Wc3 melee player often winced

Good:

• Aesthetically, each unit really is "iconic". From lowly units like Abbots to chivalrous Knight Generals to the incredibly epic but absolutely broken Archangel... each unit not only is very easy to tell what it does, but fit together cohesively and are appropriately epic to the level of power you intend them to be.
  • Partial credit also goes to your great choices of special effects. Standouts to me include Judgement, Shield of Light and Celestial Assault.
  • Idk why, but the Knight General somehow made me want to charge across the fields of Pelennor
• The Faith mechanic was simple and intuitive, and praying works like a charm.
  • "Miracles" as an iteration of global powers is great. Easy-to-understand and thematically spot-on.
• Certain abilities like Judgement and Humanity Defender are equal parts thematically fitting yet cheesy and charming, in a good way. It made me smile seeing a bunch of sentient hammers fight for me .
• This mostly feels like a holy Silver Hand faction, which is good.
  • However, strangely it doesn't feel like an "Uther" faction. I think it's perhaps because your roster shares a lot of elements with Alliance and generic medieval factions. I think more work could be done to tie Faith and Miracles into Uther.
• I like the custom bars you've got for a couple abilities, but I think you have room to enhance the view. e.g. using a custom bar model instead of using floating [IIIII] text.

Lacking:

• Virtually every Angel unit was absolutely busted.
• I love that you've taken inspiration from AoE, but in the context of Wc3 techtrees, some things just don't make sense.
  • Walling in Blizzard RTS's just isn't really a thing because, unlike in AoE, normal buildings achieve this purpose already. e.g. if you watch a pro Human player, they use Farms essentially as walls. In a real game, no one would ever build a Wall Hub.
  • The spread of units and buildings adds complexity / unfamiliarity without adding substantial depth to justify it. You've got almost twice as many buildings as the default Wc3 races, spread across 2 builders. In the worst example, you've got essentially 4 riffs on the same archetype - Cantor, Abbott, Priest, Archbishop.
  • There's some crucial functions missing in your faction e.g. detection, invisibility, decent air and anti-air. Again, this makes sense if you're designing a faction that's for your own hypothetical RTS, but alongside the default races, your own lacks counterplay and dimensionality.
• I'm not a fan of reusing standard Wc3 Human elements, like the Footman, Lumber Mill and Priest. You've done great putting your own spin elsewhere, I don't think there's a good excuse to have also done the same with these.

Nitpicks:

• I think you should caveat in your description that this faction is for Reforged HD only.
• Hammer Warrior and Seraph portraits are broken
• Some units lack an attack sound, like the Battering Ram

In summary: gorgeous, utterly imbalanced, epic, with a mixture of both too-familiar and inspired elements.

 

[Marchombre]

Gave this a playthrough, and I can see the love that's gone into it The inner AoE player loved it, but the inner Wc3 melee player often winced

Thanks for the feedback !

I won't change anything for now, as I'll be waiting for the contest judgement to end, but will be willing to improve a bit later on.


In the meantime, I'll try to address your points by giving my thought process:

• Aesthetically, each unit really is "iconic". From lowly units like Abbots to chivalrous Knight Generals to the incredibly epic but absolutely broken Archangel... each unit not only is very easy to tell what it does, but fit together cohesively and are appropriately epic to the level of power you intend them to be.
  • Partial credit also goes to your great choices of special effects. Standouts to me include Judgement, Shield of Light and Celestial Assault.
  • Idk why, but the Knight General somehow made me want to charge across the fields of Pelennor

Thanks. I was lucky to find such great assets on hive. There such great unit models and spell effect around here, it makes things much easier to bring life to a new faction.
This archangel is meant to be something hard to pull off (against human players at least) but very very rewarding in both power and player satisfaction. Glad it worked.
Knight general tends to do that when getting inspired by one of the greatest speech giver that have ever roamed the middle-earth.

• The Faith mechanic was simple and intuitive, and praying works like a charm.
  • "Miracles" as an iteration of global powers is great. Easy-to-understand and thematically spot-on.

I tried to keep the Faith mechanic simple, as it should be on the same level as harvesting gold and lumber.
Glad to see it landed well, always hard to estimate these things when you're the one who made the system, and thus have full knowledge of it

• Certain abilities like Judgement and Humanity Defender are equal parts thematically fitting yet cheesy and charming, in a good way. It made me smile seeing a bunch of sentient hammers fight for me .

To be honest, Judgement was first an AoE damage only. And then, I saw the spiritual hammer model. How could I not use it ? Plus, I needed a summon for my faction, so I can guess it was perfect !

• This mostly feels like a holy Silver Hand faction, which is good
  • However, strangely it doesn't feel like an "Uther" faction. I think it's perhaps because your roster shares a lot of elements with Alliance and generic medieval factions. I think more work could be done to tie Faith and Miracles into Uther.

I understand how you feel. Uther is such a great character but also kinda the generic human paladin. His lore and looks are tied to the alliance and medieval style, and it was hard to keep the Uther as we know it (ie, coming to rescue Arthas with a bunch of knights and footman) while still being different enough to the human classic race.

I tried different ways to tie more Uther into the Faith & Miracles system, but failed to do so without Uther being and overcomplicated unit.
Maybe I should have dropped the Blessed/Ascended Uther to leave more space for Faith integration, but having both felt overwhelming.

• I like the custom bars you've got for a couple abilities, but I think you have room to enhance the view. e.g. using a custom bar model instead of using floating [IIIII] text.

I kinda like the shield bars as they are, but can understand one would prefer something closer to HPs/Mana bar.

• Virtually every Angel unit was absolutely busted.

This might be true indeed.
I mean, Archangel from the miracle is supposed to be busted, as it should not be that easy to complete the channeling part against other human players.

Seraph are supposed to be on the stronger side given how much they cost and their number limit, but might still need some nerf.
Balance is tricky thing that requires and time and several players to really get right, which I didn't really have

For Ophanim, do you consider them OP because of their ability ?

And do you count the Kyrian summon & Transcended from Uther OP as well ? Or are they not angelic enough ?

I love that you've taken inspiration from AoE, but in the context of Wc3 techtrees, some things just don't make sense.

• Walling in Blizzard RTS's just isn't really a thing because, unlike in AoE, normal buildings achieve this purpose already. e.g. if you watch a pro Human player, they use Farms essentially as walls. In a real game, no one would ever build a Wall Hub.

I think I'll have to disagree on this one. While it's true basic building are being used as walls, the wall hub provides many things that a farm wall cannot:

• Instant building capacity. This is not to be underestimated. Being able to close of a path in a mere second is very powerful. one could only build a wall hub and close a path only if needed instead of being forced to do it preemptively.
• Wall gate. This might not be the strongest thing about these walls, but having a way to cross the wall for your own units is an advantage. The gate can also protect a unit by keeping it inside as long as it's alive.
• Wall banner & towers are powerful defensive towers. Wall tower has a great reach, and banner can boost your defending units.
• Siege hub can be bought at the reliquary, giving a wall hub that can be constructed quickly (which in turn allow a nearly instant wall). Great for reacting to attack, or to siege an enemy base.

Wall hub might not be a mandatory building in your building path in every game, but I think it still brings a lot of possibilities. One pro player would certainly make use of it, probably in ways I can't even think of

• The spread of units and buildings adds complexity / unfamiliarity without adding substantial depth to justify it. You've got almost twice as many buildings as the default Wc3 races, spread across 2 builders. In the worst example, you've got essentially 4 riffs on the same archetype - Cantor, Abbott, Priest, Archbishop.

I considered a few options at first to simplify buildings that I finally decided against:

• Make lumber mill & forge one building. This one could make sense, but the resulting building might have a bit too much power in unlocking many things in the techtree.
• Getting rid of the Farm, as lodges lead to Monument/Guardian Angel which is good for max faith. The reason I kept the farm was in case a player need to rebuild while only having peasants and no more cantors. I didn't want them to feel stuck, unable to provide more food.
• Removing scout tower and placing Tower of Light as a wall upgrade. This one, I feel like I should have done it, but didn't have time to test it nor find a good model that would fit in the wall.

Unit production units were meant to be separated to achieve the following:

• Avoid an early power spike that would allow Uther faction to invade its enemy way to early for a defensive faction.
• Delay the late game power spike where Uther faction would thrive.

For using the same archetype:
Priest and archbishop are meant to share their archetype, as all officers do (Captain is a stronger footman, Knight general a better knight).
Abbots are meant to be an early replacement for priests that would become obsolete late game, like footmen should become obsolete in favor of hammer warriors and knights, So it made sense for me to keep an overall coherence in theme.

As for cantors, their function being a peasant for place of prayers and praying, that it felt natural to be in the clergy theme as well. Maybe I could have look for a more distinct model tho ?

• There's some crucial functions missing in your faction e.g. detection, invisibility, decent air and anti-air. Again, this makes sense if you're designing a faction that's for your own hypothetical RTS, but alongside the default races, your own lacks counterplay and dimensionality.

Ophanim have true sight, so you do have some invisibility detection. Might be a little late and need an other source that comes earlier in the game.
It is true that you can't turn yourself invisible tho, this is something I overlooked. This might be a future improvement after contest end.

Air is meant to be this faction true weakness.
I might have been a bit heavy handed on it, but that was on purpose.

• Lack of offensive air units means you can't just do small skirmishes tactics. Uther faction is meant to mainly stay defensive early and going all out in late game (especially if you manage to get Archangel).
• Lack of anti-air unit serves the same kind of goal: having your army vulnerable against air commandos outside of your base (where towers can manage them).

Archers and Glaive Throwers can do some work, but you should struggle against a full air army until you reach Ophanim. Your T3 favorite ball of eyes should destroy air units tho. They have insane dps against air units and should go on rampage in a T3 against T3 air combat.
Lack of cheap anti-air unit is also an other safety measure to keep the Miracle: Archangel coming in check, as it makes things easier for your opponent to snipe that channeling cantor is you tried to use it too early.

I would love to debate more on this to balance things out if this weakness feels too much of an handicap.

• I'm not a fan of reusing standard Wc3 Human elements, like the Footman, Lumber Mill and Priest. You've done great putting your own spin elsewhere, I don't think there's a good excuse to have also done the same with these.

Footmen do have their own spin with faith and shield (they even have a different model ), I felt it was enough as there isn't much you can do on the basic early melee unit.
It is true that priests could use a revamp to make them truly different from classic human race. I purely blame time on this, as I entered the contest way too late. This is my main dissatisfaction with the current version.

Lumber mill on itself isn't an issue I think, but is true that upgrades could be different. But building upgrades fit too much with the defensive identity i wanted that I kept it like that.
As for lumber harvesting upgrade, that was the start of a tentative try to make peasant and cantors more distinct from one an other. An other point where i could have used more time indeed.

Feel free to make some suggestion for future improvements

Nitpicks:

• I think you should caveat in your description that this faction is for Reforged HD only.

I'll add that to the thread description.

• Hammer Warrior and Seraph portraits are broken

Are they ? They worked well for me

• Some units lack an attack sound, like the Battering Ram

Oh damn, you're right.
I'll check all units and fix that for 1.2

In summary: gorgeous, utterly imbalanced, epic, with a mixture of both too-familiar and inspired elements.

Glad you liked it !
Imbalance will be fixed over time I guess, so it should only get better

 

[The Nightmare Book]

Note: My impression could be outdated, since I played on the earliest version author posted here, on HIVE.

OVERALL, I join @GhostThruster review, only wanting to add that in terms of design, I still cannot take Classic HD seriously - it looks strange combination of high-poly and 'low'-poly models. But its my own quirk.
Gameplay is smooth like a knife through a butter: Uther hero development shows that in finale he just outstands any other hero on map, maybe surpassing only to Dark Ranger's Silence.

In terms of BALANCE - I've nothing to add, @GhostThruster stated it well.


As a result, we have a combination of Alliance, HoMM vibes, and AoE gameplay butterbrod.
Like.

 

[Marchombre]

Note: My impression could be outdated, since I played on the earliest version author posted here, on HIVE.

OVERALL, I join @GhostThruster review, only wanting to add that in terms of design, I still cannot take Classic HD seriously - it looks strange combination of high-poly and 'low'-poly models. But its my own quirk.
Gameplay is smooth like a knife through a butter: Uther hero development shows that in finale he just outstands any other hero on map, maybe surpassing only to Dark Ranger's Silence.

In terms of BALANCE - I've nothing to add, @GhostThruster stated it well.


As a result, we have a combination of Alliance, HoMM vibes, and AoE gameplay butterbrod.
Like.

Thanks for the feedback

I would be curious to have your opinion on my answers to GhostThruster review to help me in future improvement.

About Classic HD, well, I got used to it, and some old models now hurt my eyes, so it's hard to go back
I agree some new models feel a bit weird sometimes, but there are Reforged HD models on Hive are usually very good, and I really want to use them.

Maybe if enough people push for it, I'll finally give in and also add replacements models for SD that might not be the best fit, but at least would be better than an invisible model.

---

PS: Today I learnt what a butterbrod was, thanks for that

 

[The Nightmare Book]

Thanks for the feedback

I would be curious to have your opinion on my answers to GhostThruster review to help me in future improvement.

About Classic HD, well, I got used to it, and some old models now hurt my eyes, so it's hard to go back
I agree some new models feel a bit weird sometimes, but there are Reforged HD models on Hive are usually very good, and I really want to use them.

Maybe if enough people push for it, I'll finally give in and also add replacements models for SD that might not be the best fit, but at least would be better than an invisible model.

---

PS: Today I learnt what a butterbrod was, thanks for that

You are welcome.
In terms of your answer - I like your ideas and your general balance thought, but also I want to indicate that this is weird that the faction doesn't have anything (or I didn't notice) against Undead. You know, Exorcism and such. Maybe it would be out-of-balance, but it will enhance the strong flavor.
If it's already exist then currently I have nothing to add, as I said - such "butterbrot" is tasteful and good enough.

 

[Marchombre]

You are welcome.
In terms of your answer - I like your ideas and your general balance thought, but also I want to indicate that this is weird that the faction doesn't have anything (or I didn't notice) against Undead. You know, Exorcism and such. Maybe it would be out-of-balance, but it will enhance the strong flavor.
If it's already exist then currently I have nothing to add, as I said - such "butterbrot" is tasteful and good enough.

There are a few things that interacts with undead:

• Blessed (and Ascended) Uther deals passively more damage to Undead units (and even more against death knight, because... Arthas )
• Angelic bows bonus damage damage is multiplied by 2 against undead units
• Ophanim's spell damages Undead and mechanical enemies units in the area.

I really wanted to put some more, but I felt it would be really unfair against undead players if I did
Probably could have added something on archangel tho, as it wouldn't matter to be a little more OP if managed to successfully summon one.

 

[deepstrasz]

Approved based on Techtree Contest #19 - Results Quite an underwhelming faction due to overwhelming gameplay ramifications all at once. I feel tightening the belt on this one would make it more playable and moreover enjoyable.