Gameplay | Although a little difficult to manage at first, once I figured out ho to make things work within the race I really liked your ideas! Although I'm not keen on the idea of boosting a single unit and such to a higher level, I do appreciate how you went further than this to implement other aspects around it, such as having an ability that requires a particular level of the unit (Devour on the Wyrm).
But really, the system itself didn't 'wow' me. In the sense of being something new and unusual, it did 'wow' me, but in terms of being practical and good in an RTS environment, I'm not a fan. What I AM a fan of, however, is your abilities. The way you pulled off units like the Hydra with it's Multiple Heads ability is beautiful imo. Not a balanced feature, but this section is about gameplay!
My only real criticism is that there are a LOT of abilities to keep track of on each individual unit. It is an eyesore. If it was anything but melee I would encourage it. But as far as critical points go, is it really bad to have too much stuff? At worst it just means you have to cut down a little bit. 5/5
[Fitting in with the melee game] - Your ideas don't fit in entirely too well with the melee gameplay. Some aspects, such as how the Slaves work, fits in very well, but levelling up your units with them doesn't. Tier 1 units are very expensive (75 lumber for your first unit), but the problem is that it's so powerful (not just statistically but ability wise, too) that it kind of really needs to be expensive. Nevertheless, it does fit in to a degree, although Heroes having a starting ability and requiring 6 food instead of 5 on account of said ability doesn't really fit in too well, either. 2/5 | 7/10 |
Balance | WELL. balance. HMMM. I have a few critical points as well as suggestions I would like to make. First of all, Slaves cost the same amount as any other unit. HOWEVER, you get weak units that cost a lot of money. You make these stronger by sacrificing the slaves.
Some levels cost extra food for your unit, while others don't. I noticed your starting Drow units from the Garrison do not cost any additional food as you level them up.
In terms of abilities, you have a lot of abilities (i like smart sentences, don't you?). More to the point, each unit does a lot of shit. A LOT. They are all potentially one man armies. All the Hydra has to do is take friendly damage from a swarm of workers and it will get permanent double attack in no time. With regeneration upgrades it will restore health pretty quickly (highest level of Hydra gets 1600 HP, 1% health regen means it regenerates 16 health per second).
Heroes can kill workers for free experience. WHAT THE HELL. That is REALLY imbalanced imo, as this encourages players to stay in their base and they will STILL level their heroes up at a greater rate than their opponent. Build a second Town Hall in base, just keep training your hero up.
Also, Wyrms deal Chaos damage. That's silly.
[Revisit] Revisiting the race I notice in World Editor every unit has potential to be a Slave (from the other races). But I do not notice the system implemented for capturing these units ingame. If indeed you are able to use enemy units as Slaves in a fair way and I am just not seeing where the ability is, then you will get +1 for balance. Other than that, revisiting this race confirms my ideals that it is so imbalanced I can't really give it any points.
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The Legion | Roles were reasonably well defined, as there weren't too many unit types, but definitely no lack of unit roles. Basically, you have the Archer, the Caster, the Flyer, the Tank, the Meatshield (fancy term for Tank), and the... Basilisk. Yes, the Meatshield and the Tank have a clash of roles. Here's why. The Meatshield is a term for a unit which basically absorbs damage while not necessarily dealing much damage back. This is so archers and other ranged units can sit back safely and deal the real damage. The Tank, on the other hand, is a term for a unti which basically absorbs... yeah it's the same thing.
Unit roles are also a little harder to keep unique when you include more abilities on each unit. Your Hydras (i love talking about your hydras, don't i?), for example, have the abilities to make it an ideal tank. And an ideal attacker. That is, when you gain double attack speed, your DPS will double. Obviously. Which is good in terms of 'hey the more hits this unit takes the stronger it gets', but bad in terms of 'my tank unit is demolishing this army i no longer need ranged units for the damage'. The other reason I'm bringing up the Hydras is because it is a perfect example of a unit having abilities based on lore over gameplay. Same for the Basilisk. I love and encourage the use of lore when making abilities for creatures of mythology, but you must be sure to make their abilities balanced and practical for their unit role. For example, instead of additional attack speed, the Multiple Heads ability could improve Defense or Health, and instead of being based on taking damage, more so dealing damage. Doesn't make much sense in terms of the dealing damage thing, but it works!
Basically I find that the more abilities you add to each and every unit, the more and more blurred the unit roles can become. This is what I'm seeing here. Then there's the Fight/Feed system. That blurs the roles even more. This section is not your strong suit. However, you get away with it a bit by not having that many different unit types. So on the most part, they do compliment each other. Dusk Knights and Hydras share their roles on the most part, but the key difference is the Dusk Knight can serve as fast attack as well. Focusing most on that for the Dusk Knight could have been a better choice. | 8/10 |
Originality | Let me see... the race itself reaks of unoriginality. Drow have always been seen with creatures such as Hydras and Basilisks (the Basilisk is a new one, but same policy), as cruel slave masters and as having Sacrifice. So that is unoriginal. Aspects such as unit abilities are also unoriginal, taken straight from lore. The Hydra and the Basilisk are great examples of this.
In terms of gameplay, the race is very original (with the exception of unit abilities). That is, I have never seen this sytem implemented in an RTS environment (with the sacrifice of units to gain strength). Of course, it is very experimental, and I would suggest using alternative ideas that I may implement myself in my future endeavours, but the system itself is original. Conceptually the race is not unique. From a technical standpoint, it is very unique. In most aspects. | 4/10 |
Appearance | Bound very well together, nothing did not fit in with the race. VERY well done. | 10/10 |
Overall | From an unprofessional standpoint, I found the race very fun to play around with and loved the ideas behind everything you did for the race, including the unoriginal implementations (hey, just because this theme is done to death for the drow doesn't mean i don't love it!). From a more professional standpoint, the race is unbalanced, it reaks of unoriginality, but looks very good. In terms of appearance, it has zazz. In terms of new ideas and fun stuff to play around, it also has zazz. In terms of gameplay in a balanced environment... no. It does not have zazz. Except for having a basic idea of unit roles (Hydra was the core of my criticism on the most part despite being my favourite implementation). Love the ideas, love you, dislike the implementation from a professional standpoint (BUT STILL LOVE PLAYING IT for awhile). | 29/50
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