TC20 - Unshackled

[Wazzz]

Lovely looking faction! I'm having a go at it, and already I love the music hahaha

One thing I feel I should mention to you, though, is I've noticed you can get multiple heroes at tier 1 - this may be a techtree requirement issue where you haven't specified what they require at higher levels. Except I'm noticing it's... not that... interesting...

Okay, on further investigation, I found I could get up to three different heroes before the fourth one requires the Village Cottage - Ah, I know the problem! If I get the Seabreaker, the others will follow the requirements naturally, but any other hero and it won't! This is because the other heroes are not included as heroes in the Gameplay Constants! An easy fix, fortunately
I just want to let you know so you can fix within the contest deadline!

I've also noticed that the Shore Stall won't unlock the Cannibalize research for me, I think this is because it is changing its form to act as different item shops. This is a cool idea, but maybe it needs to have "Dependency Equivalent" set for the base Shore Stall to the other types? I'm not sure if this will fix the issue, but I am hoping it does!

Love the style - I'm a sucker for Murlocs and Sea Giants

Best of luck for the contest!

 

[Althavis]

Thank you @Wazzz , greatly appreciated, I actually forgot about the constant .

For the Shore Stall, it was actually a last-minute change, the racial shop was supposed to have their own items but I kind of rushed and just came up with the lazy idea hehe.


I wish you the best! Once again, thank youuu.

 

[Marchombre]

Hello,

Love the faction, great music choice

Here is my feedback based on a grand total of 1 game (2 if you count that I had a friend mine playing it too)

• Tech requirements :
  • The Coastal Harvester Expert research is locked behind a keep, so it's impossible to do.
  • Shop tiers 3 items can't be bought, as it requires their Tier3 town halls, and not "Any tier 3 town hall" that would include the Chamber of the Seas.
• Interface:
  • There are 3 upgrades in the Bay Rest that were copy/pasted, and name and/or description weren't changed.
  • I feel like Coastal Defender Water Explosion should specify it needs a channel time (5 seconds if I'm not mistaken) and damages only ground targets.
  • In my humble opinion, Leviathan Realm and Mystic's Meet should be swapped in the grid, as support caster are usually on the second row, and late game units on the last.
• Balance:
  • The Claw Lord Heroic Effigy is absolutely overpowered . It has no mana cost and no cd, so spammable. It has no range limit and doesn't even require sight (I think ?). It has no channel time, so you can use it to get in and out fight in an instant. Granted, it can "only" take 12 units, but god knows you can do some damage with 12 hyper mobile units across map.
  • Coastal Defender Water Explosion seems very strong. 1100 damage in a AoE can wipe out an army too easily.
  • Makrura VoidSpawn feels useless. Maybe the projectile motion has a lot of hidden power (probably when under primordial wave), but there is no way to know. Also, it has no mana regen, so can't cast Darksalt Corruption.
  • Crotalus Ensnaring Charge probably should be able to target magic immune targets, as Ensnare is able to if I'm not mistaken. More so on this map where the big dragons on the corner camps are magic immune.

That's all I can recall for now

---

Overall, I still liked the vibes and aesthetic
With a bit more testing and polishing, I'm pretty sure it could be great.

 

[Althavis]

Thank you @Marchombre , hehe it's great to know you like the Taverns of Azeroth Music from WOW. It was
indeed a mistake and oversight on most points you have mentioned. Especially Clawlord, the Heroic Effigy was actually planned to have a cooldown, it it has thr same range and no mana tho, but the cooldown cooldown is 120s and a penalty for armor but kinda forgot to about it. I'm sorry for the inconveniences hehe

I'll update it after the contest an when I'm done with my temporary employment.
Thank you and best wishes.

 

[MogulKahn]

• Worker has no responses
• Coastal Harvester Expert cannot be upgraded
• Shore Stall Tier 3 items cannot be bought
• Various tooltips are all over the place, saying some random things.
• Voidswarm should have at least small attack, not to A-move into enemies. Also Priest soundet?
• Tideshifter is using Naga model
• I feel like you are missing 1-2 more units. Maybe an anti-mage unit and a long-siege unit
• I feel like it is not fait for Coastal Defender hero not to have any bonus on Primordial Wave
• Sea Elementals from Living Reef have some kind of on-death damage?
• Cascading Calamity is extremely broken spell in every possible way
• Crab Storm should be at least moveable
• Weren't Gilbins big part of Unshackeled alliance in WoW?

Overall, decent. I respect the uniquness of the race. I have found Markuras to be the coolest part of this race, but also having an army of various Sea Giants was really cool. Heroic Effigy was better than I expected it to be.

You are really an interesting person my friend. Some parts of your race designs are so interesting and cool, you leave me amazed many times, but at the same time, some other parts are so basic and amateurish that it feels like two different people were working on the design. So random.

 

[Althavis]

Hi @MogulKahn , thank you . I do agree with your last paragraph, I think it boils down in my attempt to make the race unique by having some mechanics/etc, and changing it abruptly when it's too complicated (like the Wheat/Harvest system in my Westfall Brigade). While the tooltips, soundsets and tech requirement problems are more due to me rushing for the deadline. I was planning to finish it by the last 2 weeks, but employment hit me suddenly. Well, that's on me for making small progress in the past few months.

for Voidswarm, it might be weird but I imagined using Retera's Dancing Makrura, where it just dance..... gracefully and inflicting buffs.

for Tideshifter, the use of naga like model was intended, I was planning to add flavor text for each unit and Tideshifter's will talk about it being a product of the Naga's experiment and oppression.

for Coastal Defender, i do agree, the duplication ability was a last minute decision. The original plan was that the hero's effigy has an ability to transform a Neutral Building into something new. The ability cost mana, so you need some time before you can have the needed mana, this makes losing the effigy costly but beneficial if achieve, hiding it is better.
A mercenary camp is turned to one who offers modified Sunken Ruin Creeps, a Gold Mine will have a new perk, and the Goblin Sanctuary will offer 3 alternative units, these units is planned to be Gilgoblin themed.
1. Coralsayer - lumber spellcaster, basically summons a coral and harvest it, + reveal.
2. Swimmer , 3. A flying ship

I'll check the water elemetal later, I think I didn't add anything.

Also, it has 2 shelved units,
1. Gilgoblin Specialist - siege spellcaster unit.
2. Hut-hitching Whitefin, a base defense/terrain modifier unit, basically pukes temporary obstacles from the Sea Dragon's stomach.
The Sea Giant was actually not a siege unit but someone who itself to the backline. While the Coldwings protects it with Greater Frost Armor. At the same time, this serves as an indirect counter to spellcasters due to the mana degeneration aura. Reveals and other missing aspect are to be supplemented by the shop.

Once again, thank you, such feedback is very essential to improving the map. I'll probably have some time after the contest end since I'm only employed for a month. And wish I can invite you and the others to play some of the other maps.

 

[The Nightmare Book]

Sea Giant passive is KNOCKING! WOO-HOO!

Race is strong. Strong in terms of harrassing early game. Heroes are strong. Their sea effigies are strong. Sea Giant is especially strong.
Maybe I should have tried to BM my AI enemy more or add a second AI to my lobby, but Unshackled felt really unshackling the balance's shackles.

Question is...

The Unshackled are a faction of former naga slaves found in Nazjatar. An oppressed group consisting of GILGOBLINS, makrura, and sea giants, these refugees have banded together to rise up and seize their freedom.

Where are they?

Overall, like this custom race! Awaiting more custom races. Maybe Ancoan from Nazjatar, too? From Alliance's perspective

 

[Althavis]

Question is...

Where are they?

Was the siege unit, but lacked the time and innovating ideas to add this guy (and 2 others for the Neutral Building conversion of Coastal Defender) hehe
credits to: Direfury, Uncle Feste, Diegoit

Overall, like this custom race! Awaiting more custom races. Maybe Ancoan from Nazjatar, too? From Alliance's perspective

Thank you @The Nightmare Book for the rating and video, I love that you like this race hehe. There's still a lot to be done to properly polish the race, hopefully I'll have some time after the contest. Initially, I planned to add the Waveblade Ankoans with Gluma's Serpent Knight and other Sunken Ruins creeps, to blur the factional identity of the Horde, but kind of lacked resources.
I won't make promises, but I'll try adding Ankoans in this map or another hehe (suddenly got some idea).

Once again, thank you for playing, much appreciated.

 

[FlameofChange]

☼ Balance is 1.0, you must set it to Melee - Latest patch !!!
☼ Changing tiles to sand is a bad idea since it's seen through fog of war.
☼ Supply is much too frail
☼ Almost no healing source beside items and alchemist. Why ?
☼ How would custom faction items would synergize with your shop ? What happens if there's 21937291 custom factions ?
☼ Two 2 food base units ??! As a rule of thumb no basic units should have the same food cost.
☼ The Ignoble has very high damage per dice, making it too cost efficient. It's tier 3 bonus makes it too cheap. Beware of early creeping speed (cf Vinz previous Tyrande contest entry).
☼ Tower
► Negative armor tower ??! It's just free Xp for heroes and a waste of money. There's a difference between a frail tower (aka Watch tower with 3 base heavy armor) and a literal pile of nachos already drowned in stinky garum.
► It's attack is so ridiculous it's more effective as a XP feeder for enemies than anything else.
► You actually picked the stats of an orc burrow, why ?
☼ Spawned hydra
► Should have an updated attack animation point
► Has an absurd AoE but useless damage at level 1. Why putting these values ?!
► It also deals severe friendly fire, so it's a double edged sword
► Should be specified it's immobile
☼ Seabreaker
► Has two basic passive abilities...
► Why slow as fuck ??! 200 speed is almost like a peon. Too easy to punish, slows your army down like a lot. If you want a slow hero never go bellow 270, but you can compensate with higher HP or damage if you like.
► Has completely absurd stats. It's outside the order of magnitude of Warcraft 3. Cannot even use its spells due to the low mana.
► Has 53 base stats, should be 50
► Final stats bellow 19 (10+1 per level) should be avoided as much as possible due to severe gameplay side effects.
☼ Clawlord could benefit from custom hero stats
☼ Why a lot of shadowmeld techs for each with high cost ?! They might be typo.
☼ Drown should specify it also unlocks that ability, and specify it makes the drowner disappear and is not stunning the enemy (actually it hides it).
☼ Voidspawn should have bigger selection circle, and gaining an attack because it runs towards enemies when attack moving everything
☼ Swap life is broken against heroes. Swap with an injured friendly, then use it on a hero. Focus the hero, you win gg ez no re. Simple as.
☼ Liberator is weak as fuck. 0 armor, no armor upgrades, expensive, low DPS and movement speed. A waste of resources. Maybe okay-ish against structure but is in direct fire of troops and towers...
☼ Water tentacle
► Is active when a structure is being constructed, is this intentional ?
► A poisoned gift. It's just free XP for enemy heroes when raiding your base. And since it's melee it's too easy to blast them from afar.
► You should either make them invulnerable or level 0, both having a ranged attack instead.
► Instead of wasting precious UI icon slots you should remove the icon completely, except maybe on the main building to make it understood since it's the first thing you click on. You may trigger some visual effects on a structure ready to spawn, or currently reloading its tentacle.
► You are comparing the integer remaining cooldown of the ability in the trigger, which in practice could make it a 24 seconds reload time.
► The tentacle is not destroyed when its structure is, is this intentional ?
☼ Crotalus is too strong. Spam them and you win. High punch, low food cost, poison, fast, decently tanky, fast regen rate (!!!). Maybe increasing its food cost to 4.
☼ Having no armor upgrades makes your faction incomplete, even with the best intentions. Armor is a core principle of Warcraft 3 and should not be brushed aside that easily without a serious mechanic to compensate, and I am not talking about making everything glass cannons (AoE spells goes brrr)

Overall this faction feels unfinished with one or two winning compositions. Polishing and balance is one thing, but there's almost no custom items, out of the place stats and quirks, and structures are too lookalike. Has definitely space to grow. Maybe it has not been tested enough. You should also take care of selection circles, attack/backswing animation, projectile launch, repair cost, turn rate, orientation interpolation and HP regen (most of your units do not have the 0.25 default regen). Two stars for now, three after balancing, four when getting more flesh to work with.

 

[Althavis]

☼ Almost no healing source beside items and alchemist. Why ?

Makruras have high hp regen with Molting and they serve as the frontline, plus some hp and invu buff from heroes. Tideshifter also has lifesteal. Adding more healing options makes the army more sturdy like uneding wall.

☼ How would custom faction items would synergize with your shop ? What happens if there's 21937291 custom factions ?

There's no 21937291 custom factions. The race was designed to be a 5th race not the 21 million.

☼ Two 2 food base units ??! As a rule of thumb no basic units should have the same food cost.

I generally don't follow rule of the thumbs or whatever formula there is. Maybe because Im a noob player but I can't really visualize how two 2-food cost units affects the gameplay. I usually follow the norm - I try to explore unorthodox options.

☼ The Ignoble has very high damage per dice, making it too cost efficient. It's tier 3 bonus makes it too cheap. Beware of early creeping speed (cf Vinz previous Tyrande contest entry).
☼ Tower
► Negative armor tower ??! It's just free Xp for heroes and a waste of money. There's a difference between a frail tower (aka Watch tower with 3 base heavy armor) and a literal pile of nachos already drowned in stinky garum.
► It's attack is so ridiculous it's more effective as a XP feeder for enemies than anything else.

I'll keep this in mind, thanks.

☼ Seabreaker
► Has two basic passive abilities...
► Why slow as fuck ??! 200 speed is almost like a peon. Too easy to punish, slows your army down like a lot. If you want a slow hero never go bellow 270, but you can compensate with higher HP or damage if you like.
► Has completely absurd stats. It's outside the order of magnitude of Warcraft 3. Cannot even use its spells due to the low mana.
► Has 53 base stats, should be 50
► Final stats bellow 19 (10+1 per level) should be avoided as much as possible due to severe gameplay side effects.

The hero has the biggest AoE damage, effigy effect, hp and so on - so his movement speed being like a peon is something I have decided. Of the 4 heroes, this one has been conceptualize the most, adding more movement speed makes it much easier for a Seabreaker to pull a unit. I want the hero to feel slow but powerful.

☼ Swap life is broken against heroes. Swap with an injured friendly, then use it on a hero. Focus the hero, you win gg ez no re. Simple as.

I'll change it to exclude heroes.

☼ Liberator is weak as fuck. 0 armor, no armor upgrades, expensive, low DPS and movement speed. A waste of resources. Maybe okay-ish against structure but is in direct fire of troops and towers...

Indeed being weak as fuck but okay okay-ish against structure is how the unit was designed a meathead effective against mechanicals, the tornado ability is to hasten its engage against towers. I'll keep in mind to add armor, thanks.

☼ Water tentacle
► Is active when a structure is being constructed, is this intentional ?

Yes. The Deepmother blesses her believer's work, from its conception to eternity.

► A poisoned gift. It's just free XP for enemy heroes when raiding your base. And since it's melee it's too easy to blast them from afar.
► You should either make them invulnerable or level 0, both having a ranged attack instead.
► Instead of wasting precious UI icon slots you should remove the icon completely, except maybe on the main building to make it understood since it's the first thing you click on. You may trigger some visual effects on a structure ready to spawn, or currently reloading its tentacle.

Nice suggestion, I'll try to make it invulnerable as it is mainly the racial defense. Thank you. For the effects, I will

► The tentacle is not destroyed when its structure is, is this intentional ?

The Deepmother believes in vengeance.

☼ Crotalus is too strong. Spam them and you win. High punch, low food cost, poison, fast, decently tanky, fast regen rate (!!!). Maybe increasing its food cost to 4.
☼ Having no armor upgrades makes your faction uncomplete, even with the best intentions. Armor is a core principle of Warcraft 3 and should not be brushed aside that easily without a serious mechanic to compensate, and I am not talking about making everything glass cannons (AoE spells goes brrr)

The Crotalus is indeed strong, especially since it can also have invulnerability. I'll see what I can I do but probabbly scale down some stats and increase food cost.

Overall this faction feels unfinished with one or two winning compositions. Polishing and balance is one thing, but there's almost no custom items, out of the place stats and quirks, and structures are too lookalike. Has definitely space to grow. Maybe it has not been tested enough. You should also take care of selection circles, attack/backswing animation, projectile launch, repair cost, turn rate, orientation interpolation and HP regen (most of your units do not have the 0.25 default regen). Two stars for now, three after balancing, four when getting more flesh to work with.

I admit that the faction does not just feel unfinished but is indeed unfinished. Due to personal circumstances, I have decided to submit what I have before the deadline, to update it after the contest ends.

I appreciate the review @FlameofChange I'll take note of your suggestions. Though I'll probably not change some like with the Seabreaker and such. For the balance, playtesting will be on my schedule. I cannot promise that the race won't be overpowered, since being OP is the remedy for the unfamiliar.
Thanks!

 

[FlameofChange]

The hero has the biggest AoE damage, effigy effect, hp and so on - so his movement speed being like a peon is something I have decided. Of the 4 heroes, this one has been conceptualize the most, adding more movement speed makes it much easier for a Seabreaker to pull a unit. I want the hero to feel slow but powerful.

The problem is it is such an easy target. If you have to retreat this hero is basically cooked, except if you use tp scroll. While I am not against heroes with 270 speed, bellow it it becomes a game design problem with what Warcraft 3 has to offer ; and I would state the obvious you'll largely prefer losing an army than a high level hero due to the long resurrection time. On the other hand this can be partly alleviated by giving boots of speed ; however that takes precious slots.
Low mana also means getting punished by mana stealing/burning abilities. Even with the most HP in the world, if it's slow and too situational you'll get stomped by a player a bit more clever than you. Even with high HP it needs very active babysitting because your only usable source is tideshifters through swaps. Furthermore the tideshifter is frail and melee, which clogs your already clogged melee and makes a too easy target. Never underestimate full composition DPS against a single hero. If you want to make it a heavy assassin, fuse the two passive abilities, make the pull having a longer cooldown and greater effect, and give it an active ability to soak up damage somewhat.

I generally don't follow rule of the thumbs or whatever formula there is. Maybe because Im a noob player but I can't really visualize how two 2-food cost units affects the gameplay. I usually follow the norm - I try to explore unorthodox options.

This pushes statistic diversity by making the higher food units more impactful, it's easier to bring flesh to a faction that way. Furthermore that makes a bit less units to manage in balanced early composition, since some units are 3 food.

Makruras have high hp regen with Molting and they serve as the frontline, plus some hp and invu buff from heroes. Tideshifter also has lifesteal. Adding more healing options makes the army more sturdy like uneding wall.

Molting comes quite late and is unusable for the early creeping & harass stage. Leviathan's curse comes much much too late and punishes you if you need to retreat ; the 5 HP/s is also very low and unrewarding compared to the 70% movement speed reduction. So you get a dispelable tranquility with slowness and 9x less healing speed ? Awaken fish implies corpse generation and Xp feeding to enemy heroes. In the early game you have... nothing. Except the Alchemist. If your units are injured, you have to pay scrolls in shops. The risk of your faction is too high. Just by adding some healing abilities from your supply would greatly improve base defense and early game flexibility.

Yes. The Deepmother blesses her believer's work, from its conception to eternity.

So during an assault you can just spam the construction of a building, waiting for it to be hit, then cancel, then repeat. Let the cute anime girl cry.

 

[Althavis]

So during an assault you can just spam the construction of a building, waiting for it to be hit, then cancel, then repeat. Let the cute anime girl cry.

Don't care about the cute anime girl crying, tho thanks for this - I'll probabbly make the tentacle from the constructing bldg weaker or just remove it for the unfinished ones.

For the Seabreaker, I'll test some things for now, some mana and speed changes, and a way to avoid/soak damage. Tho I am bias with how slow the guy is, makes me remember the arthritis in our family.

For the healing, I'm thinking of adding some healing to the new Gilgoblin's kit and some revamp to Bone chipper, making the tower a source of heal. I'll probabbly keep the current shop setup except for Tier 3 items.

Once again, thank you. I'll slowly go through everyone's suggestion here and update the day the contest ends.