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I am sick so didn't make any progress the last 2 days.
Will present something i guess, just won't be as good as i wanted it to be.
Also regarding the deadline, can we work tomorrow too or does it end with the minute it becomes 16th?
If tomorrow is available also that would be awesome.
Well, I'm sorry to say, but I prioritized my Vote over at the Hero Contest over this... And I didn't even finish that. Since I don't mod on the Sabbath... Looks like this is it for the Alchemist's Union. :<
Sorry to those who were hoping for another entry (lame though it would've been )... And sorry to everyone else. I kinda hoped for better in myself, in a Contest I personally tried to spearhead into existence.
I'm glad I have a good 'excuse' for this last 2 weeks slowdown (family issues), but an 'excuse' is just that. C'est la vie. :<
I ran out of time as well. Still have several issues to fix, and I don't feel the map will be complete without a few more days' work. I'll still release it, but unfortunately not for the contest.
I guess we can do an unofficial judging eventually if enough of us release our maps later down the line?
I believe the deadline's been passed already. I do hope I'll still get to see at least what some of you have made thus far, if you don't intend to complete your maps. Some of what I've seen looked quite interesting and I'd love to check them out regardless of completion.
I'll finish mine and post it here in a few days maybe.
Short Bio:Insectoid race that hates all life and sees its purpose to expand the desert across the entire globe.
Unique Features:
- Units hatch from eggs. Broken eggs will spawn lesser version of the unit.
- Units regenerate only during they day. You can summon daylight for emergency much like how Night Elves summon Moon. Main Building casts Sunlight.
- Moisture Extractors and Obelisk (an item) spawn sand which increase attack of Swarm units and slows down enemy units. Sand is removed when source is destroyed.
- Units can be upgraded to be trained faster
- Some units can move while burrowed
Drone: Basic Worker. At tier 3 gets harvest upgrade so you can easier replace units during the end game. Can burrow and move underground
Hatchery; Main Troop building
Scorpion - Basic light melee unit. It is rather weak and the only upgrade it gets is increase in health and move speed. Can burrow and move underground
Fire Scarab - Basic ranged unit. Gets upgrade to increase rate of fire and moment. Can burrow and move.
Reaver - Advanced melee unit. Gets Cleave upgrade. This unit needed more love.
Shrine; Advanced Troop building
Stalker - Harassment unit. Has permanent stealth but it takes 20 seconds to regain it after unit attacks. Has Slow Venom that drastically reduces speed of infected unit and can be upgrade to use Pestilence (tier3) to turn off enemy buildings.
Impaler - Siege Unit. On Surface it acts as melee siege tank and can be upgraded with Sharp Carapace. When burrowed (can't move) unit gains long ranged attack and also line damage attack.
Hive Guard - Light Air unit, serves as anti air. Has only melee pierce attack to deal with enemy air units and can infect air units with parasite that slows them, hurts over time and spawns couple of uncontrollable wasps.
Mana Eater - Flying anti caster. Immune to magic, can dispel buffs and summoned units with Drain magic which feeds the unit with mana, has Feadback that destroys enemy mana and gives mana to Mana Eater. Has upgrade Mana Transfer that allows the unit to channel the mana it gathers to friendly unit or a hero.
Desert Sanctum; Caster Building
Sand Witch - She can initially cast Sand Armor that increases armor to friendly unit, Sand Storm that she channels at targeted area and makes units miss and move slower and Whirlwind that summons stationary Whirlwind that periodically trows units in the air.
Venomancer - He casts initially Decay that lowers enemy armor and drains health very slightly, Corrupt Tree that creates stationary ward which periodically damages enemy units with roots and Symbiosis which increases attack and move speed of single unit but if unit dies it spawns wasps.
Corpse Harvester - Support unit. Initially can spawn Organic Bomb from a corpse that acts as stationary land mine and you can have only 3 at a time. Regeneration Synapse (tier3) allows unit to create Healing Spawn that heals nearby units. Since both spells use corpses, Harvester can pick up corpses and be upgraded to make its own.
Grand Vizier; Caster Hero
Fire Skull - Tosses a bouncy lava rock that with each bounce splinters several rocks that hurt enemy units. Standard hurting spell.
Sand Elemental - Summoned melee unit that has taunt. I figured it would distract enemy from your fragile starting units.
Arcane Resort - Passive chance to convert set amount of enemy hp in to mana for hero. Mana regenerating technique I figured would be useful.
Mirage - Creates two copies of the hero. Copies receive only half of damage and deal double. Homage to certain boss in Ahn'quiraj.
Ruby Lord; Tank Hero
Impale - Cone Shaped Impale.
Bloodthrist - Temporary vampire and increased attack.
Reflect - Reflects all attacks back to the enemy. Doesn't reflect spells, it merely blocks them.
Enrage -...I won't lie it is Avatar and it is redundant but I couldn't think of anything else.
Scarab Lord; Leader Hero
Dark Command - AoE damage spell and also increase attack of your units. I have distinct feeling I lack single target spells to hurt.
Battle Focus - Grants critical strikes to friendly units for very short duration. Rather op and needs balance and doesn't differ that much with each level.
Regenerating presence - Healing Immolation, figured that I needed some heal from heroes. I imagine it would be interesting combo with mana eater ability to supply hero with mana.
Reinforcements - Open the portal to Northrend which spawns nerubians periodicly. Need more love kinda.
Missing in action 4th hero; Would be agility with more focus on single target, especially heroes.
Ultimate Building
Desolator - Heavy Flying air unit. Lacks usual splash and instead has incinerate which makes unit killed by Desolator to explode and deal 100 damage. Also has range upgrade.
- Grammar.
- I believe there is a leak or leaks somewhere as I have experianced lag during playing. Though lag goes away when I turn off hive workshop,,,
- Sand spawning doesn't work well as buildings aren't exactly in center of the circle. Sand will also remove unbuildable tiles.
- Impaler has to be forced attack to use his line damage (and even then I am suspicious >>).
- Mana Eater will gain mana before the moment it attacks unit that has mana, regardless if the unit gets hit by the missile. Unit won't lose mana though unless it is hurt.
- Buildings still use naga birth as I was lazy to edit naga birth to use sand texture. In my defense damn thing has 40 textures. Death uses custom sand death.
- Grammar.
- Models in general don't really fit. Naga and Highborn buildings have too much water, units don't mix well with each other. Special mention to painful TC on Lurker model.
There are probably more but I can't think of anything else.
Conclusion: I am not exactly satisfied with my end product and no extra time will change that as I just lack necessary skills and really can't think of anything to improve some units (I hate what i have done with reaver and corpse harvester).
Edit: And I forgot to attach map...fixed now.
Update: I have updated the map with minor changes since Spellbound made few changes himself on his map. Original version is still up.
Changes:
-Tooltip/Shortcut fix
-Scarab Lord Ult now needs level 6 and Battle Focus uses mana
-Ruby lord slightly nerfed and Bloodthirst has correct buff
-Impaler burrowed attack range increased slightly and removed effect of upgrades on impale ability. Should now actually work.
-Desolator attack stat changed to have lesser gap between min and max.
-Sandstorm no longer shares model effect with whirlwind.
Well i couldn't produce anything better than this saddly:
Lords of Dust
Background:
An order of mages was faced with extinction at the hand of a curse of petrification. To escape this each house of mages developed a way to elude the curse.
House of Kalem bound themselves to dust, making them have resilent fighting capabilities but are devoid of magic.
House of Phaeris bound themselves to ash and coal, making them more magic attuned (especially to fire) but more fragile.
House of Eering bound themselves to desert winds, their unit's have the least defense but are light and can cast a variety of magic spells.
Gameplay effect:
These unit's don't regenerate on their own. Items, auras, being near some units will give them a regeneration but other than that they won't regenerate over time. Might add negative health regen to make this even more of a gameplay changer but didn't even have time to test this out.
Known stuff:
* Some abilities don't work as said, didn't trigger all of them
* Eerin hero isn't complete at all
* Need more balancing and upgrades/etc
* No credits given, this is because simply the list is way too long and i didnt have the time, will write it all down when i get the time
* Eerin units and Kalem units might seem weak compared to Phaeris because they were worked on the least
* Dust disruptor is unfinished, to say the least
* Some resources aren't utilized (icons and models)
* Some abilities are bland and not so interesting (Kalem Lord ultimate >.>)
* Unit and building count is low, this is because it's a pain to find models that fit the background
To play as the race start a game as Undead.
Open map in WE at your own but know that you might not be able to compile it if you lack the proper newgen / JassHelper combo.
Probably missed more points but it's late and it's the 2nd entry so far P) and im tired. Would have been better if i weren't sick this week.
Also was pain of thinking of unit combo fitting to "spirits in armor" so had to do some odd things (Accursed unit for example).
Would love to work more on the race ofc, as it isn't really complete.
Also didn't balance test it at all xD, i expect it to be broken beyond measure in that term. Either as weak or strong.
Hope you guys have fun testing, will work on it more and might release it later somewhere.
Ur map doesn't work, Kingz :\ Try to run it but it just brings me back to the wc3 menu.
EDIT: I'm a dumbass apparently bcuz the map had not downloaded properly and I tried to play it when it was just 150kb...
Okay, got to try it out. The theme seems a bit all over the place, but I can't really fault you for that since there's barely any desert-related models for wc3. If I didn't have Retera making a bunch of models for me (and I've reskinned so much shit you have no idea @_@), I would be in the same situation imo. I still feel as though my own stuff could be more visually connected, but I digress.
It's interesting the way you basically made ranged/melee/caster each have their own tier. It was a fun change from the usual progression of the other races. This said, requiring all three buildings to go to the next stage seemed like a bit of a stretch, but I can see how that could make sense balance-wise.
I've only briefly tested the heroes (I only played with the Kalem dude) before the attack-ground feature for the sand elemental guy crashed my game, so that's as far as I got
Oh, also, the tree-harvester buildings should be set to the Undead race because right now they can't be Unsummoned.
@Velkjom
Took a few minutes to test your map. I actually had the idea to implement a similar sand-spreading mechanic but didn't know how it would affect the terrain should the sand-spreader die. Your solution seems to work pretty well, so don't mind me if I copy that xD I'll credit you, don't worry.
The egg-hatching mechanic would be fine if not for the fact that the units don't follow rally points. This said, I'm not sure I understand the point of it. It would have been better if the system was more like the Zerg larvae, but that's just my preference.
I just did what Blizz did when blight is removed, spawn regular dirt tiles to cower the sand tiles. Though I guess it gets problematic if two sand makers are next to each other and one gets destroyed and it would delete sand in circle regardless of the other spawner. I guess sand should spawned periodically but I feared that might lag, perhaps when one is destroyed make other building respawn the sand.
As for eggs same reason why I added sand. As a flavor. But as I said long time ago the egg system makes it easier to spawn units faster as eggs are trained faster than regular units so you can train an egg and then train another while first one is still hatching. Individually compared to other races units trained slightly longer but it is faster to make 2 scorpions than 2 footmen. But yeah zerg system in retrospect would have been more practical and better.
Ok tested the Lords of Dust and I had fun with them though they do feel unfinished.
General Observation:
- Map doesn't use newest patch, it is still in 1.07 patch.
- Starting location for some reason is changed to Base Expansion location which is very small spot. I actually first time didn't have enough room for all buildings duo to bad planing.
- Tier 2 needs all unit production buildings. Making them all is kinda expensive and so is tier 3. Also Tier 3 has no Altar requirements like races usually have but that isn't even a minor issue, just random fact.
- Gold Mine building, the Collector, costs only 5 food. Makes making new bases free and since you don't start with pre-made collector on your own mine so you lose valuable time to start harvesting. I assume 5 food is because you don't start with it, which is why I suggest you to use the Race System I posted two time since it has an option to create Haunted Mine like buildings at start. Also even though building only uses 3 workers it harvests very fast so I never had any trouble with gold.
- Lumber building on the other hand is kinda a pain. Sure auto harvesting building is great but range is limited so you need to make them constantly and they are kinda big. I wish you allowed unsummon (none of the buildings are undead) to effect them to save the space and move the food production to some other building like tower or troop making buildings.
- Wish there was one shop building that sells town portals, the only item that really maters to me.
- You don't have any dispel as far as I can see.
Unit Observations:
Tier 1
Kalem;
Vanguard - Good starting unit but the racial ability to be hurt by magic more hurts a lot if enemy chooses AoE hero. Kalem's Wrath doesn't need upgrade. I would probably reduce the cost of this unit.
Phaeris;
Accursed - Basic ranged unit nothing special. Lacks attack damage upgrade which reduces its usefulness. Has a nice ability upgrade. But I do not believe this unit should require Furnace to be produced since you already need two buildings to make both melee and ranged unit.
Eerin;
Wind Elemental - tier 1 caster, nice change. But abilities confuse me regarding its role since two abilities and racial would suggest this was combat unit and not a caster.
*Essence split makes a lesser copy of this unit, I can only this to be useful if you chose to rush enemy with Wind Elementals and ignore the two other temples. Copies are weak version of already weak unit and if you do add health reduction then you remove even the surprise advantage.
*Eternal Wind doesn't really fit weak caster. It is evasion but this unit is in the back protected and shouldn't even be in danger. This ability doesn't actually require caster upgrade and it seems it was intended this ability to be 2nd upgrade but I can't imagine why.
*Blessing of dust is the only ability I would use from this caster. It is chain heal and requires 1st caster upgrade yet is located in 3rd position.
Tier 2
Kalem;
Dust Disruptor - Basic siege unit, lacks the Kalem racial though. My biggest issue is if you order attack ground this unit crashes my game. It is because abilities like pillage, frost breath or any that effects attack in some way don't work with units that have ground attack. Also needs Phaeris building as requirement but unsure why since tier 2 requires that already. Doesn't get attack upgrade.
Phaeris;
Ash Templar - Classic caster unit, seems he has all spells without need of the upgrades, ups.
*Phaeris Devotion, this ability bugs me personally. It adds 100% and armor and drains health which I think is powerful ability for starting ability. Yes health drain hurts race that can't regenerate naturally but I believe there are at least 4-5 abilities that heal units and -5 hp is not a big deal for heroes. Lacks an auto cast icon (*)
*Dust Reaver on the other hand is less good as it adds +10 damage to caster unit and AoE, but damage even with +10 is to low yo make this ability useful it just wastes mana. Casters at least in my opinion shouldn't directly damage units but should support your own units who are designed to deal damage.
*Dust Offering is the best ability this unit has since it reanimates 1 invulnerable unit. However tooltip suggests that caster uses his own essence which makes me think that this unit should actually sacrifice itself to reanimate unit which I hope is not the case as sacrificing unit to temporary get new one isn't effective.
Ash Prophet - Fun unit, melee magic attackers are too rare in my opinion. i do find unarmored armor to be bad idea for melee unit. Orb attack ability to restore mana and health is great idea and the Molten Shell helps this unit to survive. Brilliance Aura though might be unbalanced on a unit but sure helps. With little optimization this unit will be great.
Eerin;
Ayendils - Medium Air unit, I kinda find it little strong for tier 2. Yes other races did with newer patches made their light air units be at tier 2 but with exception to orcs, most of those units have weak ground attack and are mostly anti air oriented. But other than that this unit is simple flyer with good attack orb effect to reduce enemy armor (you forgot to remove Auto-cast tool tip on it). Doesn't get attack upgrade.
Tier 3
Kalem;
Dust Lord - Stronger version of Vanguard. For some reason I always have to make two Kalem Temples.
Eerin;
The Sower - Now this is a scary unit. Health Aura, Phoenix Fire on steroids and high magic attack, I suspect this unit on its own can annihilate a small army. Attack can't be upgraded, can get magic reduction upgrade and can't attack air units with it's primary attack.
Overall good unit selection, only units that are lacking would be alternative siege/harasser and anti-magic unit. Heh that would make it exactly 12.
For heroes I don't have much to say. Phaeris hero has loads of AoE damage abilities and could use more variation as no hero has so many direct damage spells. Kalem hero is tanking hero with two abilities to regain health and one ability to sacrifice health for better damage.
Also seeing how many non Passive icons you used for Passive abilities I give you button manager tool. You can make Passive, Hero Score, Auto Cast out of any icon with it (you'll have to extract in game icons with some other tool).
Didnt have time to test and finish the race, but if another extension appears i will do so. Some of the abilities were made in a hurry so need to rethink them. Will reply when i get back home with a better response.
Generally, yes, a Contest should have at least 3 entrants to be considered "finish-able".
Really the question is: "what's important to us"? This Contest only exists as an extension of our will (i.e. the desire to have one), so we're in charge, not 'it'.
Do we desperately want to have another one, so soon? Then yeah, end the Contest (participation rewards, maybe).
Do we want to duke it out with what we got, regardless of time (sorta)? Then throw another extension on.
Do we want to do the above, but don't want to denigrate the sanctity of Contests here at the Hive (lol)? Then just sort of "extend" the Contest as more of a "Challenge" (i.e. remove the prizes & judging, just finish it as a thing among buds).
Some other 4th thing?
etc.
Personally, I'd love to see what I have completed (rather than have to remake it for another Contest or recycle it elsewhere), but I don't have much in the way of time (classes coming to a close, finals & other big projects, etc), so I don't want to sway too much one way or another.
Hmm, as far as I'm concerned, I'm still planning to finish my race for others to review/play/take a look at. Whether it's in any official context doesn't really matter, though it would be interesting to see what other people could achieve with another extension.
As for showing off what I have, I would if I know how to make use of GetClosestWidget since my lumber harvesting depends entirely on that :|
EDIT: NEVERMIND I FIXED IT. Except now the tree refuses to die >_>
Well I could argue that we do have 3 uploaded entries: Retra, VeljkoM and Kingz. It is not pleasant outcome but that is reality. I don't think extension will mater as it would only in best case scenario improve existing races and add Spellbound. Others have simply stopped caring (At least Kyrib0 bothered to say "hey sorry guys I can't make it"). I am disappointed since I put so much time in this contest to begin at all, get moving and even pushed for an extension.
Also Kyrib0 the moderators are in charge not us and they weren't exactly glad to add extension in the first place as they assumed that this would happen. To be honest I am skeptical about the future of Techtree contests as whole since it is one of the less successful genres.
So anyway if anyone here makes a race and needs a tester call me, also I would appreciate if someone would review my race.
Well Techtree contests never were the most popular.
That being said the timing of this one wasn't really that great.
I mean, even with extensions, my tests and labs started last week and are chaining together every week from now to like 3rd week of december (every week a test or some stuff to do in the lab).
And not long after that exams start.
It's hard for me to risk and/or justify spending my time on this contest when my studies keep throwing more obligations at me every week
@VeljkoM
I will try and write a review about your race when i get the time.
Yeah contest was supposed to start in the summer but you already know what happened. Also King you actually presented your work, heck I was betting on you to win anyway. I too was busy with exams in October and I even at one point had to restart my race because I left my work back home.
Well hopefully next contest will start in some more manageable time and won't interfere with other similar contests.
EDIT: BEFORE I FORGET FOR THE 4TH TIME: To play as Sandborn, choose Undead with 90% handicap.
EDIT 2: Changes made. Lemme know if you find any weird things and I'll fix em.
EDIT3: made lumber harvesting more effective and changed some silly tech requirements levels and (hopfully) fixed costs for town hall upgrades.
So, here's a WIP of my map. It's almost done but there are a few things missing + possibly some stuff I forgot to cover.
I made the Sandborn. It's a faction of Nagas who left the leadership of Aszhara to live their own lives away from her tyranny. In their journey they uncovered a fragment of a dead creature that was strongly attuned to the Light, and as they studied it they realised it was a piece of a Naaru who likely went rogue and left its own brethen, for reasons unknown. It fell to Azeroth and broke into hundreds of pieces. The Nagas by then had begun to harness the Light and worship it through the Sun, and thus called themselves the Sunvipers.
Their quest exhausted them, so they created a society of human mage-slaves that they called the Sandborn in an unnamed desert in Kalimdor. After their subjects were well-established, the Sunvipers slithered into their pyramids and temples and buried themselves under the sands to slumber for centuries.
Unfortunately, their slaves failed to uphold the quest to re-assemble the broken Naaru, and were destroyed in an unknown war. Now, after aeons of sleep, the Sunvipers have awoken, and are raising their cities from the sand and calling upon their subjects from the dead to serve them once again.
Stuff to take note of:
• Sandborn harvest both gold and lumber with flying units called Megaliths. Megalith provide 10 food but take up 5 food because they should represent the effectiveness of 5 workers. Sandborn are very effective resource-gatherers.
• Monoliths are your builders. Anchor them in the ground and open the menu to see what you can build. Once you click on a building, it will start to build and once it's done, the building will appear in the Monolith's command card. Place it down near any Monolith you own and it will deploy within seconds.
• Since Monolith and Megaliths both provide food, you start with 20 food. I suppose this is balanced out somewhat by the fact that you have literally only 1 builder to start with.
• Monolith animation is borked and doesn't function properly.
• Missing portraits for some models
• A few icons are missing.
• Some models don't have complete birth/death animations.
• No custom items for shop yet.
• The Desert Moth has not been implemented yet.
• The animation for the build progress bar doesn't work. I have no idea why.
• One hero doesn't have an ultimate yet.
• The Reaping Winds for the Reaper of the Dust doesn't work properlly.
• Balance could be all over the place.
• Map has not been thoroughly tested, so could be broken as hell.
• Haven't credited anyone yet. This said, big thanks to Retera, who was gracious enough to do some models for me. Most of the more awesome models were made by him. (Dat Megalith, amirite?)
Will write more detailed opinions later but I would just like to point out that you forgot to say how to even access your race. Had to open the map and see I was supposed to select undead 90% handicap and even after I did that the undead haunted mine wasn't removed and I couldn't harvest gold. I really don't like that wc3c race system...
Anyway noticed that many abilities don't need upgrades, you can train all 4 heroes at tier 1, you can't access most items as main building isn't considered as main building by the game. Also, like Kingz map, you use 1.07 patch and not the latest one (scenario - map option - game data "latest melee patch") and also nobody remembered to change the ingame map name so I have Turtle Rocks folder.
Monoliths are your builders. Anchor them in the ground and open the menu to see what you can build. Once you click on a building, it will start to build and once it's done, the building will appear in the Monolith's command card. Place it down near any Monolith you own and it will deploy within seconds
Lore was cobbled together after I started working on it. I was in model shortage so I just took whatever I could find and lore-retrofitted them to fit inside the race. Not the best, but it serves imo.
As for the build system, I wanted to do something like with Command and Conquer, where your buildings construct in safety, and then you just plop em down near your base. I took the Protoss Psionic Matrix from the Pylons to basically say where you can place the buildings down. I didn't have time to create the power-field range for the Monoliths, though.
Ideally, if we could have a secondary blight tileset, I'd replace it with sand and just make the Monoliths spread it and make the buildings require sand to be built. The workaround I'm thinking of is to just make the Monolith spread sand, and use that distance as an indication as to it's range for buiding placement.
Your build system while it is great feels rather slow. Since you start with only one monolith so you can't make barracks and altar at same time like other factions can. Also terrible sorry I forgot to mention that when you switch to newest patch for some stupid reason it changes the way tiers cost are calculated (upgrade costs core base building + upgrade building) so right now tier is negative value and tier 3 is rather high value.
You should re-download the map, I already fixed the cost issue.
EDIT: Yes, build system does feel slow. The animation of the progress bar bugging doesn't help. I think I might add like a special effect or something to show that a Monolith is done building and ready to place something down.
As for the build system, I wanted to do something like with Command and Conquer, where your buildings construct in safety, and then you just plop em down near your base. I took the Protoss Psionic Matrix from the Pylons to basically say where you can place the buildings down. I didn't have time to create the power-field range for the Monoliths, though.
Yep, yep yeppers yep. Pretty much identical not only to the concept but the source.
*headdesk*
Well, whatevs. I'll still try to work on mine that way (though honestly, it fits much better for a "Mechanical"-themed Goblin cartel... But I already did Explosions for them (which honestly fits better for an "Explosion"-themed Goblin cartel... Lol. I just need to create an Altered Melee with the 4 Cartels one day, and do things right). "Good ideas get around", as they say.
EDIT: Yes, build system does feel slow. The animation of the progress bar bugging doesn't help. I think I might add like a special effect or something to show that a Monolith is done building and ready to place something down.
There is that but I mean you start with only one monolith and you have to chose altar or barracks first while all other races can make altar, barracks and farm building at same time. Anyway will write tomorrow better observations, i was busy these few days.
@Kyribo
Alchemist cartel is the exploding cartel. What is gun-poweder if not basic chemistry. Still guess I think real goblin race should have Alchemist, Mechanicus and Slaver aspects since all ingame "races" are actually unions of several races and nobody has just one aspect (Human, Elf, Dwarf; Orc, Troll, Tauren; Sentinels, Druids, Nature Creatures; Humanoid Undead, Nerubian Undead and Freaky undead).
Y'know, I realized this exact thing when I was theory-crafting as to what an "Alchemist" cartel would have; I realized the whole "Explosives" angle could be covered (like you said; gunpowder & nitro-glycerin & stuff)... But also the whole "Mechanics" angle (at least slightly; some advanced metallurgical steps involve chemicals... acids to etch metal, electrolysis to plate metal, etc).
I realized that if I wanted to have a Faction that felt different from the other(s), though, I would have to 'ignore' those facets and focus on the "purely" "Alchemical" stuff (chemicals, potions, toxins, alchemy, etc), with perhaps a derivative focus on the "Science" bit (research, genius, etc). Also threw in the focus on "Fire" (gasoline/kerosene/propane/etc)... But not too much lest it overpower.
Veljkom said:
Still guess I think real goblin race should have Alchemist, Mechanicus and Slaver aspects since all ingame "races" are actually unions of several races...
"Slaver"? Really? Interesting choice. I know the slave trade/rings are a (supposedly) big part of Goblin life, but that's not the first thing(s) to come to mind...
I personally subscribe (no pun intended ) to the Handclaw school of thought (via "A Tinker's Tale", his excellent-but-basically-dead project): Goblins focus primarily on Greed as the one, driving principle behind everything they do. The glimmer of gold is the sole motivating force behind all Goblin endeavors.
Second to that come to the 'classic' Goblin aspects of "Mechanical Wizardry", "Alchemical Knowledge", and "Explosive Emphasis"... Otherwise known as MECH, CHEM, and BOOM. All of these are of great importance but tertiary to that of "Greed" (or COIN).
That gives the 4-fold focus for a Goblin faction (4-fold rather than 2 or 3 due to there being 4 Heroes); a "Greed"-hero, a "Bomb"-hero, a "Mech"-hero, and an "Alchemy"-hero. This also gives the proper distinction of Themes for the various units & buildings.
(Personally, I'd see "slavery" going under the "Greed" heading)
Ok Ladies and gentlemen, time for the review of Sandborn. Also death to the forests who did not get one finished race.
General Observations:
- Ok lets be clear build system from creative and appearance point of view is great. But from the practical side it is a handicap. You start with only on monolith and you can make either Altar or Barracks and either way your start is slow. It is kinda annoying for me to root and up root monolith to make something but I guess rooting serves to clean the space for building list? Other than that I am unsure what is the point to root or unroot monolith, I guess originally they would produce sand?
- Resource harvesting has never been more simpler and is scary how effective it is. While you are slow to start unit production you from the very start get full gold capacity harvest, perhaps even faster. Wood harvesting on the other hand is slower (not as painful in previous versions) but unit has odd habit of wandering across the map to harvest wood.
- Shop costs 90 gold and 240 wood which is kinda an overkill for building that in most cases costs 130 gold and 30 wood.
- Building Tool tips are odd.
- Shining Flare tooltip doesn't say it kills monolith. I am unsure if it is even good idea to sacrifice monolith for 250 hp reg when you can buy scroll.
- Minor but wish you added more custom items.
- No Anti Air unit, it kinda bugs me.
- Main Building has mana?
- No way to repair buildings. It seems they regenerate like zerg... Only during the day.
Unit Observation:
Tier 1
Sand Pit;
Sandling - I don't know if you have noticed but this unit has mana still and has normal ranged attack. Of course there is nothing wrong with giving ranged units normal attack but you already have melee unit that provides melee attack and upgraded version of sandling uses pierce. Also I would change the cost to be 105 gold and 5 wood. Kinda funny how they at the moment have better attack than footmen.
Sand Elemental - The real ranged unit of this race, Sandlings exist to make this unit and I kinda wouldn't mind to skip the step and get them directly. Still has mana for some reason but has pierce attack. Now the reason why I suggest change of the sandling cost is because this unit cost 240 gold. Normally unit like this would be 3 food and would cost some wood. Sadly this unit doesn't get any upgrades to make it useful for later tiers.
Scytheclaw - Glad to see he returned from tier 2 to more appropriate place. Frenzied Assault works on any unit which I find odd. Sure it lasts for 8 seconds but it is per 2 attack points so it goes from 14 to 12 to 10 each 8 seconds (with brief period of time with no bonus). I kinda think that this passive deserves more to be tier 2 upgrade than simple charge.
Tier 2
Sand Pit;
Earthripper - This unit I consider too good for its cost. Line Damage (triggered so expect full 80 damage or more instead of reduction from it being siege) and Earthquake (5 sec CD, 50 damage to Area) plus Demolisher damage. Tremor waves are autocast and hurt your own units so in most cases I would suggest not to even use it. I really think you should have picked one of the two abilities instead of going with both.
Mausoleum;
Sandspeaker - I expected by now that he would stop being free. Also for some reason he has pierce attack instead of magic.
*Arid ability drains mana, so far so good. Don't how balanced it is but since it lasts for 10 seconds on heroes and it doesn't stack so it isn't that scary. Buff icon needs a change.
*Illusion, makes an illusion of target so harmless but fun spell. Just avoid targeting it on units with birth animations. Tooltip should say how long it lasts
*Desert Armor, I have no complaints, useful defensive auto-cast ability.
Sunfire Cleric - Has normal attack and medium armor but it still a regular caster, a bit pricy one.
*Kindle, while I am guilty of using this ability too, I always felt that parasite is too strong ability to be starting ability. You balanced it out by making summoned unit lasts 10 seconds and is unelectable but it is still 30 sec long buff that can't be removed and constantly hurts.
*Burn magic, an often forgotten thing in custom races, a dispel. I would suggest reducing the mana cost since you can only remove buffs from 4 units while regular AoE dispel for same mana cost can intentionally target larger crowd.
*Fireband is simple but useful ability. 25% more damage to the target.
Enigma Cube - What puzzles me is that you can upgrade it before the unit is available. Nevertheless it is 3rd caster.
* Jinx, fun ability that makes units stun themselves. Perhaps a bit powerful for starting ability but that would require additional testing.
* Spell Rift, still uses faery dragon tooltip. You wouldn't even now that this ability has been changed to deal 1 damage per 1 mana spent and does not have the 90 damage limit (hey I didn't even know that the ability was limited).
* Hidden Essence, 125% attack speed for minute that can't be removed but it kills poor cube. I generally don't like suicide abilities and faster attack I don't see as valid reason to kill a unit unless it is about to die anyway.
Buried Temple;
Hierophant - I don't really get this unit. I do think magic damage users are rare but this unit seems to be a healer. I don't think it is practical at all to heal units by force attacking them, it would have been more practical if it was autocast heal based ability. It isn't that big amount it is half of 15-25 damage per 1.75 seconds. There is an upgrade to make heal better but the real use of this unit doesn't appear until 3rd tier. For some reason has mana.
Djin - A weak flyer unit, supposed to be hit and run but it doesn't get the vital ability till tier 3 when it might be to late and you have a better option. If you added at least siege attack this unit would be useful in tier 2.
Tier 3
Sand Pit; Upgraded;
Desert Moth - Cheap and easy to mass tier 3 heavy air unit, you don't see that every day. Personally I think 180 gold 40 lumber 2 food and 30 sec build time is really low for flying unit with magic attack that also has an evasion. It good idea but needs balance.
Empyreal - A shocking unit, pure opposite of the Moth. This is extra powerful tier 3 melee unit, stats overshadow even Royal Guard (at 3rd Attack upgrade easily reaches 150 damage). The passive is AoE heal (each time he gets hurt he heals everyone) which is made even more powerful with Hierophants (their real role in the army). While I get the concept of the uber owerpowered unit that can't be spamed I can't say I like it. It is now mater of personal taste but I don't really like owerpowered super units.
Overall from units roles that are lacking are Anti Air and I really wouldn't mind a more reasonable tier 3 melee unit. Tier 3 with this race is unusual and from my guess you are supposed to make 1 or maybe barely 2 Empyreal (two would cost 800 gold) who are being constantly healed by Hierophants (130 per Hierophant + 75 upgrade to heal more + 200 upgrade for Empyreal to heal nearby units) while dirt cheep Moths deal actual damage. Of course by tier 3 the uber harvesters won't disappoint you
Again I'll be lazy with the heroes, I just don't like heroes in general.
-Ancient Apostle by mistake has two ults.
*By that I mean Atral pixies (aka Locust) still needs level 6; (I don't consider locust practical ability to damage and you removed the health benefits)
*there is mana regeneration ability;
*for very odd reason Attack aura with tooltip of health degeneration Aura from another hero;
*Ult is Spinx which is really scary summon for enemy casters (I didn't get to try it sadly since map is too small for late game).
Odd Intelligence hero, my suggestion is that he needs instread of attack aura a ability to use magic to justify the mana restoring ability.
-Grand Priestes, more standard intel hero.
*Focused Beam while cool is unpractical for me since I have to aim the beam while hero is vulnerable and takes my attention away from my army. *Shining Corona tooltip is wrong, it heals your units.
*Sun Globe is refreshing idea it dispels and damages based on how much it dispeled but perhaps limited at begging of game.
*The ult from description kinda disappointed me as it is 600 damage spell that you channel, that thing is to powerful for melee (10 second casting I don't see as balance) and kinda unimaginable.
Probably the best multipurpose hero of the bunch and I would only change ult for something less simple damaging and more useful.
-Reaper of the Dust is yet another intelligence damage hero, kinda getting crowded.
*Since I don't know how much Reaping winds damage I don't know how good ability is, it is unpredictable spell but hard for enemy to avoid as hero can direct it unlike other AoE which kinda makes it unfair for the enemy. *Dust Cloud is nice utility, I would prefer if he level changed the % of miss factor instead of AoE range.
*Erosion Aura, a degenerating Aura that slowly harms enemy which actually is not that good as it sounds. At lower levels it barely counters natural regeneration of regular units and even at top level the effect on battle won't be that devastating. Aura abilities are extremely hard to balance between useless and owerpowerd and I don't think you will be ever be able to balance Aura that drains health.
*Guardians of the dust I didn't get to use but from what I see in editor the units summoned are slightly stronger footmen with 3/s health regeneration so hey it isn't overpowered like the previous two ability potentially are. I think 2-3 dispels should kill them all in no time.
-Sandborn Avatar, gentlemen a not intelligence hero. Sadly it is still aimed at dealing damage mostly.
*Sandslide, basic single line damage that can also save the hero by removing him from combat. It did cause my game to crash once.
*Desert Tendrils are immobile summons, kinda limited usefulness and is yet another damage focused skill.
*Flowing Body, a tanking ability kinda surprised. Simple but effective.
Overall heroes from my point of view suffer that they all have similar roles and that is mass damage and disruption of enemy. Heroes focus mostly on AoE damage (not a single single target spell) with few utilities to make some difference in which hero to pick. My first pick would be Repear of the dust as his tornadoes are most reliable AoE with Sandborn as my second hero to be a meatshield. You should make Sandborn more tanky and remove one intelligence hero in favor for either another str or maybe agi hero killer.
Bonus: Lore
It is really weird and needs a lot of stretching of current WoW lore to fit in. Strange parts are renegade broken Na'aru that just happened to be in Kalimdor, Human mage slave society is weird idea and random.
My idea would be like this:
"Naga sandborn are the highborn who were changed by C'thun in to sand naga while the undead humanoid casters are the highborn who were became undead either because the power of C'thun or purely because they were powerful in life and their anger. They were wiped out in the War of the Shifting Sand and were dormant beneath the sands of tanaris until one day the fire that fuels their rage has been rekindled..."
But then again wow lore is by definition bad so do what ever you want since you can't possibly make it worse. Not that your lore is bad!.
It is good race, creative and has interesting systems besides eye candy. You do have too much eye candy, you should be eternally thankful that there was no limit this time. In general 7 MB are usually to much for just one race. I was actually surprised to see some similar ideas that I had in my own race. I just wish I enjoyed the race more but the gameplay doesn't fit my playstyle, I didn't feel like I had choices of how to play the race. If I sounded harsh keep in mind that this list was made to point out things I personally found broken or odd and I didn't focus much on good points. Also I am human I could be wrong, kinda why I don't like to judge with scores at all.
Holy crap, I hadn't realised I left all these little mistakes here and there @_@
I'll make the changes. Check this post for an updated map.
Thanks for that thorough review
PS: The Desert Moth should not have been available in that version btw. It's something I threw together as a test, idk how it ended up being available. I thought I had removed the upgrade for the Sacred Orb but I must have missed that as well.
EDIT: Okay, I made the changes that were the least time-consuming. Will tackle heroes later, tho I did make Astral Pixies available at lvl 1.
• Monoliths now provide 8 food, and you start out with 2. Megaliths no longer provide food.
• Idk why the shop cost that much, but I reduced the price to more reasonable cost.
• fixed some derpy building tooltips.
• The reason why there's only 1 custom item is that I just didn't have the time to add more. There will be a Sunstone eventually, and more.
• Shining Flare should not kill the Monolith. That was a bug. I also added the mana cost that I forgot to add before, which is why the Pyramid had a mana pool.
• The reason buildings can't be repaired is because I wanted a little nod to the lore, the nagas calling themselves Sunvipers and everything (and the fact all the Sandborn units regen during the day). So the buildings regen instead. Sunstones from shops were supposed to make this mechanic a bit better. Might buff the regen (it was kinda OP before)
UNITS
• Sandling - made the changes you requested, and lowered attack damage. No longer has mana.
• Sand Elemental - No change.
• Scytheclaw - Frenzies Assault buff duration reduced to 4 seconds. I do have a better way of making that ability work, but it's a bit more time-consuming and I got lazy.
• Earthripper - No change. This unit needs to be reworked, if I'm to believe you. I might just make the line damage no longer affect allies. The earthquake is just there to destroy trees and deal small damage to buildings, so I might just nerf the damage to 25. Will see.
• Sandspeaker - has cost now.
• Sunfire Cleric - Kindle slightly nerfed. Deals 4 dps instead of 5 dps.
• Enigma Cube - Spell Rift has proper tooltip now.
• Hierophant - No change.
• Djinn - Grinding Sand no longer requires research. Available by default.
• Empyreal - No change.
• Desert Moth - No change. Sacred Orb can no longer be made, so you shouldn't be able to train that unit. Until I know what to do with it, it stays hidden
Other notes: I haven't the faintest idea why the Megaliths go to harvest near the center of the map. Must be the GetClosestWidget code derping, or I just used it wrong.
As far as heroes are concerned, I didn't even realise I gave every single one of them an AoE spell... so I think I'll give pretty much all of them a well-needed revision.
Well the only one that wanted to judge was Apheraz Lucent so guess ask her. And yeah I would have worked too but I didn't want to work after the time had run out. Now we are in little disadvantage. I'll fix some small issues I had noticed and then link both map versions just to be safe.
@Spellbound
Good I'll just point out two wings:
-Earth Ripper would benefit very much from Tremor not hurting units but it is this ability I would nerf line damage (just imagine 5 of them shooting 100 trigger damage waves each). Earthquake isn't really problem with damage amount, simple splash damage from any siege unit will be as effective, plus as already noticed line damage already anyway makes earthquake as damage dealer redundant. I would instead increase CD and maybe actually increase area but unsure. Imagine how scary this unit is for enemy economy when it can annihilate forest in seconds and there is nothing you can do about it.
- I think Moth should remain since without it race is handicapped with no real damage dealer at tier 3. You simply can't use Empyreal duo to the cost as usual tier 3 melee but is more similar to the Mountain Giant. You basiclly are forced to use tier 1 sand elemental and scythclaw for entire game as the damage dealers, with sand elemental being the only option to attack Air Units. Or perhaps use Hierophant as the actual damage dealer and ignore the healing aspect.
Still the best test would be against real player and have series of matches trying out race against basic melee races but also trying with melee race to defeat sandborn. Then the suggestions and observations would be more accurate. I had test with my Desert Swarm and I noticed some big issues (Biggest being that Ruby Lord alone at high level is basically immortal).
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