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Techtree Contest #5 ~ The Voting Process

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true

anyway what confuses me about the requirement for public polls is why it's necessarily needed
after all in a lot of contests where a panel of judges are the only voters there is still a public interest :p

and 0 is only for when there is nothing going right in that area, i do not give it lightly, although it may change a little bit for chrome as i revisited his race again, nothing is final there
 
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hmmmm no
that 0 was really well deserved in that aspect, if you read my notes you'll understand why
just a quick recap:
- limitless army
- statistics imbalanced for army as it is
- units are free
- the sky barge unit is really imbalanced
- getting gold straight up without the need for any workers

0 balance gets 0 out of 10
going on the opinion of 'well balanced' from one person when you can get a free and limitless army is just a little too hopeful
wasn't that frankster, anyway, not ashbringer? i'm sure ashbringer would have more sense in the balance field.
 
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My concern is that you didn't play a game against a skilled opponent. The large build time and costs involved mean that by the time you complete your first combat unit structure (assuming you start one right away) your enemy should have a 20-30 food army completed and leveled their hero several times. I played 12 games against an insane AI (3 of each vanilla race) and manged to win only 5 games. The army in theory is limitless, however that relies on you either building more Crux's (one every 45 seconds to be exact) or making sure every unit gets a kill every 45 seconds. Further the building costs make doing the above impossible even with 2 functioning mines if you still want to build any other structures or research. From my play testing I've actually determined that the gold intake needs to be increased to 4 in order to get the win/loss ratio more favorable.

If I were to be objective about this I would rate it a 5 simply because there are some issues, the barge being one, but nothing that cripples the game play.
 
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So you confess that the enemy should have a large army by the time you're able to get 1 unit. As well as a levelled hero.
And you also admit that the army is theoretically limitless.

Fact is they also don't cost anything. You can just spam unit production buildings and if the opponent DOESN'T rush you with their 20-30 food army + levelled hero, you'll dominate. This is imbalanced, as it forces opponents to rush against you to win, making for a very boring game.

My guess is you don't know how to exploit things the way I tend to exploit things ingame. When I say it's not balanced, I don't mean it's overpowered only. It's ridiculously overpowered if, for example, your enemy just doesn't attack you... ever. It's also ridiculously underpowered if, for example, the enemy just decides to rush you. I know if I was playing against this race, I would send a scout, notice that my scout is killing your base without being repelled, and then just send more and more units until you died. That's how every game would end up being going on what you're saying is a 'balanced' feature.

Incidentally AI does not equal a 'skilled opponent'. They don't take circumstance into account.

On another note, Chrome's race was revisited, the score unchanged until the mentioned condition is met.
 
Any race is over powered if they never get attacked. Turtling is not a viable strategy.

There are other issues here. You are forced to expand due to base size limitations, you simply can't fit 10 Crux's in a base with other essential structures. Stating that the units are free is also not an accurate statement, mana is a serious constrictor for production - especially with the regen rate at 1 per second. If you exhaust your primary combat unit structure you'll be waiting 3+ minutes to get another unit. If you take the Shambler that means when you have one Shambler they will have 3 Footmen and the Shambler does roughly twice the damage of a Footman. You could build another Aperture, but now you're limiting what research you can do or what other structures you can build.

I don't have a desire to argue, I have a desire for you to understand that a 0 is for a race that wins the game one second after it starts with no effort. There are now multiple other reviews that list my balance as acceptable, surely you can concede that it's not a 0/10. Even a 1/10 is better.
 
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Forcing an opponent to bum rush you to stop you from becoming way too strong isn't balancing :/

Now I've played my fair share of Melee maps. I'm not a pro, I'm not even good, but it doesn't take a Korean to realize that every single race has a LOT of different ways to play them. Forcing your player to turtle to win, or forcing your opponent to have to rush you to win, is not balancing.
 
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Considering I got a "well balanced" from ashbringer753 you might revisit the 0/10 you gave me for balance.

I told you i defeated my opponent with a handful of units, you call this well balanced?
And wazzz why dont you put a 1/10 , its not gonna matter anyways, but you could also rerate chrome's balance, as the slaves dont really give much xp and they are considered neutral so hero cant go more than lvl5 with them.
 
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it's my voting system. i don't treat anyone any differently, it's only the final result that matters, so i don't see why anyone should make a big fuss out of one section when there are 4 others.

ESPECIALLY when Kam and Chrome did very good in some of these other areas.

But the simple fact is, in order to get 1/10 at the very least from me for balance, there has to be at least one sign of balance. I could find none, no matter how hard I looked.

HOWEVER, having Chrome's system work the way you say it does for heroes limiting at level 5 is alright... to an extent. Still not much of a balance feature for the race itself imo.

And what Kam needs to understand is that no, 0/10 is not just for a race that wins with its first unit from the word 'go', it is for a race with 0 balance. 0 = 0 and no matter what you put under that 0 it will still be equal to 0. Therefore, 0/10.

ADDITIONAL: 'Multiple' other reviews generally means more than one. There is only one other review of your race atm and that was Frankster's.
 
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'usually' as in for contests that are completely different to this contest?

anyway i get the feeling you're just saying that now because i gave a 0/10 to you for balance
don't take it personally, i cannot emphasise that enough, i gave it a 0/10 purely because i could not find a single feature of the race that was balanced and i do NOT give 1-3 points just to be 'nice'
i find it nicer to be straight out honest with you
 
I find it odd that you lowered my score from a 30 to a 27 after I brought this up. Further you are biased, and I know this based on your review: "However, I felt as though it was a system similar to mine that wasn't as complete. 3/5"

Using your own entry as a benchmark to rate others is not an acceptable practice.

Do you not see the conflict of interest here?
 
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nope

if you look above or at everyone elses reviews, i changed the scores based on splitting Gameplay into two fields:
- How fun it was (the original diagnosis)
- How well it fit into the melee game (very important aspect imo)

the lowering of your score was purely circumstantial, on account of your race not fitting in with the melee game. once again, do not take it personally.

didn't use my race as a benchmark. even if i had an entirely different system to yours i would say the same.

seriously one person says your race is 'well balanced' and you get all upset that one other person said the complete opposite...
 
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i only ask questions when information is lacking
i provided a full list of reasons why i rated the way i did
i also put up the disclaimer that i do not give points for effort

no amount of bickering will change my score (for better or for worse), only reasonable points that i may have missed
now if you don't have any resonable points that i may have missed, i would thank you to stop this
after all, chrome got a 0/10 for balance as well but i notice you don't mention him
he was completely fine with it, incidentally
 
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why bribe when i can blackmail with:

Your opinions don't mean anything. Especially yours Wazzz.

anyway, public interest is going to be hard to come by, we may either have to nullify public voting or allow for contestants to vote/review
either way i will continue writing my review, never did it for anyone but my own interest in reviewing the races, anyway

interesting how people comment on my image after that comment though
 
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i do in the event of there being a lack of public interest as well as a lack of proper reviews (going back on the first post, 'Your review must concern the current contest's criteria, but feel free to sum up your review into one generic wall of text.')

if voters do abide by this properly (as in not just voting, but giving their thoughts on how each submition faired in each of the criteria) as well as it being done intelligently (there's some sort of comments that i don't think anyone should expect, but that's part of the fun for public polls, i guess), AND if there are more numbers (could always let contestants vote if numbers are too low, but that may not be agreed with by some), then public polls are definitely viable.
 
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okay, its time for my review. im not completely sure about some things, but nvm, here it comes!
(G,B,L,O,A means Gameplay, Balance, The Legion, Originality, Appearance)

Overall taboos:
Only two heroes - not much tactical options when they are needed here - Gameplay -1
Only one hero - not much tactical options, underpowered also - Gameplay & Balance -1
A demonlike race (especially with the same main building model) - there are too much of them, it shows that the idea is not very original - Originality -1
Divided gatherers and builders - the same as above - Originality -1
Sorry guys, but its just annyoing when you try the 4th race and there are the same "innovations" again and again. Its not just unluck, if youre asked to be original, be more original than everyone else! Also, if youre asked to create a complete race, the heroes are the main part of it.

67chrome's Drow [6]
Great! I loved the idea of the arena style main building, also the whole slave system, it works well and is original enough! So many options with them i felt like it was a custom map. I dont get why the random types of slaves, but i like it. The wall between farms seems too powerful to me as it cannot be destroyed and costs nothing, but i guess its just at first glance. Great idea, i was also thinking of it but i cant trigger that :D Heroes were nice, the idea of mana shield race is neat, you also used a lot of custom models and nice UI, most of the tooltips were nice... And, you created 3 heroes! No doubt, one of the best entries. (BTW, how to evolve wyrmlings into wyrms?)
Rating: G-9 B-8 L-8 O-9 A-10 |44/50

ashbringer753's Archavin kingdom [7]
For some reason i love this race. Simple and amazing at the same time. The Spire thing was really nice, also the system as you used 5 mana for it which you cant get back. You made a race which just gathers resources like most normal races, not a crazy innovative way. Thats bad, because this contest is about originality, but good, because it works as intended. The reinforcements system was great too, you didnt upgrade the whole building, you dont get bonuses for it, but you get bonus units. Really nice. I like the building order, how you unlocked those units you get, i liked the defending system of workers, at first i thought there is no way to defend but as i got the siege engineer things changed. I love the packable trebuchet (though i think it needs too much micro to be used at full potential) and finally there is a way to instantly heal mechanical units. Too bad they have only 2 heroes. The visuals? It reminded me of human race, but it wasnt like that at all and it was really nice. Also, you used really fitting models and icons (though some of them were very similar). Anyway, i like it very much!
Rating: G-9 B-9 L-9 O-8 A-10 |45/50

Dionesiist's Cabal [3]
Well, you created a very nice race. It took me a while to realise how to evolve units, but it was pretty nice (though it was sometimes annoying, that i had to evolve units like 3 times to get the desired ones... Only one hero? Anyway, the models and icons you used were fitting (but in a melee game with undead player with you it can be confusing), the building order system was enough (although quite difficult). Unsummoned were pretty nice units as they only build or heal... Also, there is interesting thing, that you dont have defense towers, but in case of attack you can instantly evolve phaselings... But that way you would have less workers. Oh, and also, the first flying unit doesnt have proper visual height settings. Not really much more to say here, you made a good entry, but there were better ones.
Rating: G-7 B-9 L-9 O-6 A-6 |37/50

Kam's Lost [4]
Nice one! At first, i was shocked about the non-gaining gold, which was in one part good, because you have enough lumber workers, but also bad, because of limited gold gain - thats nice. The mana-based summoning was very original. Although it seemed a bit op that you can instantly build those units and also a hero (which was just one...), even though you had really a long cooldown... Nice thing that you could place the unit where you want to have it summoned. I loved spells of those units, some were just simple and great, like that aoe circle around puppeteer or stealth of the basic skeleton. The flying-second-barracks thing was a bit op in my opinion, and also, there were some buildings which had no use (as far as im concerned)... The last thing is, i dont understand why you didnt give this race a food limit, it makes them too op in turtlegames in my opinion. Anyway, you used a lot of custom models and icons which were all fitting... Very nice. A specific race, you dont create armies, you just choose which units you want. iLike, too bad its not balanced enough.
Rating: G-8 B-5 L-7 O-9 A-9 |38/50

Narogog's Nerubian [1]
How to start? I like the idea that "everything goes out of the entrance", but it was annyoing that it was only the last one entrance built. Also, i felt like the race needs too much micro to control well :/ Nextly, the thing that you can build something in almost every building was quite interesting, but the whole race had a real lack of proper resources (models, icons... Im not saying imports, but you used rocks as barracks and thats quite weird), also some tooltips were wrong and the button positions of buildings confused me... Furthermore, builders were so hard to find, it was almost impossible without the help of the targetting button... Also, as i look to your description - where to build the Tunnel Spider hero? Without him there is just one... Anyway, IMO you made a nice race, which just needs some more work.
Rating: G-8 B-7 L-8 O-6 A-4 |33/50

shiiK's Slayers [5]
A complex race of metal demons. What to say... The blacksmith building which generated wood was a nice idea, it reminded me of gold-gain in C&C3 :) Though, there is no way (afaic) how to cut down trees, so there is really a limited space to build your base (but you have 5 gold workers, which can also cooperate on building...), that seems balanced in a way. I missed an option to create the colorful spirits where i want to, they were just appearing next to the building. The combining was really nice, but too complicated. And LOL what model you used for purple runes :D Despite the difficulties about learning time, it seems really well, too bad you have only 1 working hero (and it has a male voice, lol). Anyway, its a pretty nice kickass metal-listening race.
Rating: G-9 B-7 L-7 O-9 A-10 |39/50

Spinnaker's Fallen [8]
Really good entry. At first i was confused with the building system, but as i got used to it it seems very nice, those range circles looks fine and the spires idea was nice. It is a bit similar to blight, but still original. The building process has a small delay, but its ok because you dont have to walk with builders and so on. Only 2 levels of main building? YES! Anyway, i liked the way how you made the main building evolve (no new model, just those tentacles). And i almost forgot, the sacrifice of slaves for energy was a great idea. The race looked complete and optimized, a lot of nice tooltips, very good use of imports, those upgrades looked like those on regular races, and they werent over-complicated. It fit the original races really well, i felt like playing one of them. Good job.
Rating: G-9 B-10 L-9 O-8 A-10 |46/50

Wazzz's Demons [2]
Pretty nice entry. The gathering system was just fine, also those power generators, but it seemed to me they take too much space, so you have to plan from start where are you going to build each building so you can support it with its own generator. The mana-gaining barracks idea is great, i really like that, i also like those units, but the undisruptable horror creating was weird. Also, the only one unit i find really original was the hellion, which is able to get fly form. Thats good. Nextly, you had only one hero, he was original, but i think his ulti doesnt really fit him... And, -1 on A for the heros name, "TBD is a HOMO" really doesnt fit that guy. You used nice models, icons were fitting, some mana shields were also nice. Except that heretics eye, it was just randomly lagging around, lol. In conclusion, it was pretty good, but i expected more from it.
Rating: G-6 B-8 L-9 O-6 A-7 |36/50

Results
1. Spinnaker - 46/50 -- 8 points
2. Ashbringer753 - 45/50 -- 7 points
3. 67chrome - 44/50 -- 6 points
4. Shiik - 39/50 -- 5 points
5. Kam - 38/50 -- 4 points
6. Dionesiist - 37/50 -- 3 points
7. Wazzz - 36/50 -- 2 points
8. Narogog - 33/50 -- 1 point

Forgotten - Human - Mana Elves - Demons - Demons - Demons - Demons - Nerubian
lol

in conclusion, it was a nice contest, quite a lot of good entries. the bad part of this voting from is that i have to choose a guy who will be last.


ALSO! Mephestrial helped me solve the problem with my race (it was kind of shame i didnt find it out myself but nvm), so i made it playable. there are still some things which doesnt work as intended (the evolving system is not working properly i think) but im not gonna work on that, its too late :(
anyway, i attached it here so you can at least try it in game.
 

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Level 35
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just had a quick look at some of the others, notice you didn't know how to get Wyrmlings to Wyrms as Chrome's drow!
you know the train/feed system? i notice you didn't seem to mention it, which may be why you gave it pretty high for balance (which does confuse me because Wyrmlings would be seen costing a LOT of monies)

basically, if you have slaves in your town hall, you can target a friendly unit to fight against the slave and gain battle experience from it. if you do this on Wyrmlings, you can get it to gain up to 8 levels. On the 8th level it will be a Wyrm (brings me back to Age of Wonders days ^^)

on to my review, undisruptable Horror creation? i was sure you could stop it at any time, the system's designed to allow for that (basically an alternative to using Sacrifice).

also want to know where i lost points for originality (i'm aware the concept hasn't been done before, but thinking that maybe i lost points for originality elsewhere)
 

Deleted member 157129

D

Deleted member 157129

Thanks for the review, Ahimtar. You can make space using the siege unit, Mayhem Machine (Green+Green) and I think Immortal's (Green+Blue) first spell takes down trees as well, but I do see your point. As you mentioned, though, it adds to balance, because more space would mean more potential Blacksmiths and Shaperies in one base. Even though they take up food, the lack of building time makes it possible to recycle armies pretty fast if you have the Shaperies to back it up, and even though you'll lose a big fight, you'll have a new full army by the time the enemy reaches your front gates if you play your cards right. So yeah, smaller base area helps limit this early in the game.

As for the spirits, yeah, I don't have enough experience with coding to make that work. It would probably not be too hard to do, I just didn't know how and my time was limited. I would probably allow rally points for them if I got around to fixing it. I'd also implement a feature so you can see the spirit being spawned (as if it was trained normally) to give you a better overview of production. Not really a whole lot of ways to make the combining easier with the WC3 interface, so it does add a little to the learning curve, but there's somewhat of a logical explanation behind them, so you should be able to learn the combinations quickly. The purple spirit, well, I had first intended to just use the wisp model for all of the spirits, and use fixed team colour, but they all turned out to be red (player's colour) in-game, so I had to find special effects and unit missiles for them. I didn't find anything better for the purple one.

Again, really appreciate the feedback.
 
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also i wonder how many people understood my theeeme

it was demons as aliens, yes, but not cyber demons. Demons. As Aliens.

let me put it differently. you know how regular demons are in most gaming lore and things like that? they're meant to come across as that, but everything's explained by alien technology. essentially, it's 'there's not actually magic and stuff happening, it has an explanation after all'.

so no, it is not 'cyber demons', it is demons themed as aliens in order to explain their demonisticness. of course there was a tank and a space ship and such, but the tank was already in the game and the space ship was pretty cool.
 
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well, yes wazzz about those Drow, that was my first review of all and i wasnt that punctual. but anyway he could lost 5 more points and he will be still on the same place, so its not very crucial.

undisruptable horror creation- i mean, you can disrupt it manually but not in the hall, and i didnt know which one worker went to be sacrificed there, so i had to look for him and stop him. thats why i called it weird (not exactly bad, just weird).

and as for originality- -1 for the gatherers/workers, it was almost the same as in 3 other races, maybe im too strict but i feel like its overused idea, -1 for the whole race idea, i mean 3 out of 8 races had even the same main hall (i know its not your fault, but it shows its not that innovative), its like creating "own" naga race - everyone knows there is possibility to create one, but we want something new!, yes it was demons as aliens but still too similar to other demons. -1 as for the overall feeling of originality of the race, and i dont really remember why i cut the last point down. maybe i was too strict about those generators or i shouldve added you a point for those mana-barracks so you would have the same score as dionesiist´s cabal - but as i compare those two races, im slightly for dio.


shiik - np :) i was also wondering why you didnt just use all as wisps :D
 
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yes, but... if 4 contestants pick the same race it shows that the idea isnt that original :ogre_icwydt: the model was just an example of how are the races similar

take it like i didnt cut you any point - i just added a bonus point to races which had more unique themes.
 
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like... drow with beasts such as hydras, faceless ones with forgotten ones, humans with a british theme, etc. etc.

you say you didn't cut any points, but if we look at your 'overall taboos', that's exactly what you're doing

and besides, my theme was completely original, demons have never been done like this before. but i sense some butthurt, so i'll just be content with knowing that the judges will have better reasoning than this (UNLESS THEY TOO ARE FOOLS Ö)
 
also want to know where i lost points for originality (i'm aware the concept hasn't been done before, but thinking that maybe i lost points for originality elsewhere)

Originality is quite subjective, some time ago I lost points in originality because TDR assumed it's just a 'wizard tower' and he gave more originality points to HT, while his model was total rip (concept I mean) from homm5 (and TDR knew that game very well), so it's a delicate matter really.

And you see that Ahmitar placed all demon entries quite low, so your entry is not an exception, when there half of entries are demons, it isn't that original anymore and it drowns in the pool with many similar entries, regardless of the special gameplay. This time even humans, who aren't well accepted as original here, can score higher, hence good placement for ashbringer753 (spelled right, so he don't get pissed).
 
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like... drow with beasts such as hydras, faceless ones with forgotten ones, humans with a british theme, etc. etc.
orcs with tauren? human with gnomes? night elves with faerie dragons? come on.

you say you didn't cut any points, but if we look at your 'overall taboos', that's exactly what you're doing
yes, i cut those points. because its the SAME - if you say "i cut you a point from 10 and other entry has 10" its the same as "i gave you 9 points and i added the other entry additional one point, he has 10."



wazzz, you are arguing about 1-2 points in voters review which will change maximally 1 point in overall rating of all reviews, which is just 30% of the total results. thats almost nothing.
and, if we were that strict, we would find more places where i took maybe too much points or not enough. if we were supposed to be that absolute objective, all reviews would just be the same. there are judges here for the total objectivity. if i consider cabal more original than your demons, then im going to vote for the damn cabal. thats just the way it is.
 
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i think its ok, a part of the success of map is how much public likes it. critics blamed rowling for harry potter and look how popular it is amongst people... but still, objective judges are the main part. i guess the system now is just fine (except that now there will be much less voters)


btw, have someone tested my map out of boredom? :D
 
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Bannar

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Have you touched the code? I'm afraid, you are not the first person who told me that, but most ppl after "re-trying" had errors no more.

To be honest, I'm not sure whats going wrong, on my WE everything runs fine each time I run my race -.-
Futhermore, with addition of few start settings, even 12 Fallens can play at once, in case triggers are MUI/MPI.

I appologise for any problems aproached during testing my race, and I'm gratefull for willing to test it.
 
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