Terrain Request

[Richardsteel]

Intro: Hi, I'm richardsteel. I've been looking through the forums here for help on my map for awhile, but've never really been an active poster.

Project:King & Queen A 2 team AOS map. A download link is in this thread.

Request:I'd really appreciate it if someone would make me a beautiful terrain. I've seen some really amazing terrains here and would love anything half as good as some of these for my map.

Name: King & Queen

Type: AOS

Details: All I ask is that the terrain fit the map that already exists, the basic theme, size, etc. Here's a breakdown of the requirements: Undead vs. Elf, the basic layout is designed to keep the players together to keep them fighting, thus the single lane, single vendor zone and arena near the center of the map. If it could flow straight up and down, basically, would be nice as it makes the regions easier to work with. Also, I'd like to avoid custom imports unless they're just fantastic to keep file size down. You can edit my existing map, which is max size so there should be plenty of room, or make a new one if you like. I don't mind copying all of my elements into a new map. I don't have any preferences as to tileset or basic appearance.

Images:I've no images in mind, just use your imagination.

Thanks alot for any help.

 

[NinjasDontFight]

Well I tried it out, and I guess not's not something you could consider fair or balanced for a map.



I'll try to make a basic terrain layout.

 

[Richardsteel]

I appreciate the effort. I'm just curious what makes the map unfair and unbalanced. I"m still workin on the hero abilities and i'm sure I probably always will be, but all the comp units for both teams are exactly the same. I've played it plenty of times on bnet and haven't seen any blatent imbalances. I'm not sayin your wrong, I'm just curious what makes it completely unbalanced and unfair. Thanks again.

 

[NinjasDontFight]

Can I expand the current pathway of terrain? Like increase to 2-4 lanes... It's a little narrow. You might have to change the regions to. I can stick with what you have though.



About the imbalance, its more of gold cost, stats, and some other stuff. Here's just a small list.

• The Ghouls and Blood Elf Swordsman having 1.5k of hp is weird, while the range have the normal 300-400 hp.
• The stats for alot of items are abnormally stronger than others while having the same cost.
• Many costs of the items are almost the same.
• The stat upgrades for heroes are imbalanced. You have some for +10 damage, +100 hp/mana. While the +1 strength/agility/intelligence upgrades make no sense. The movement and armor should tell you how much the increase is.
• The gold mines seems a bit confusing.
• The middle section where all the shops are + upgrade sector is weird Since both factions share it, and introduces a nice PvP place. But can easily be controlled by one faction.

Some suggestions...

• Decrease the load time needed for this map. Alot of awesome items/spells/triggers, but loads a little slow.
• More heroes!
• Can you organize them in like Good/Bad... With like seperate taverns for each side. Although I guess it kinda go against the King Vs. Queen.
• Seperate item groups for each faction? With like special stuff in the middle? The teleport beacon kinda makes Hero Vs. Hero extremely likely withen the first 10 seconds of the game.
• Spells should increase, or be more custom made to each hero.
• Special Effects for item combining please? Makes it much more obvious when the recipes work.

To anyone else who wants to try to give suggestions or make a terrain for Richardsteel, your free to do so!

 

[Richardsteel]

Thanks alot for the suggestions. If you want to make more lanes I'll defenitely work with it and at least see how the game flows that way. My basic idea for the single lane is to try to keep the players together instead of split up in smaller groups, but there's no harm in trying something new.

-as for the heros, that's the next big part i'll be workin on. Right now I'm basically using the regular abilities, but I'll be workin on more custom abilities to give the heros more distinctive feels and balancing. I have about twice as many heros in the works, but I'm more focused on improving what I've got before adding more.
-I see what you mean with item pricing, I'll try to rethink that and vary it more. Same with the hero upgrades. The stat upgrades were just added a few days ago so I'll still be workin that out some more, maybe make them just cost a lumber and no gold.
-As for the central buy zone, that's really a basic element. I don't want players running all the way to the rear of their base, that's why there's nothing there for them. I want players to stay as close to the combat as possible. Maybe I could add some stronger, more expensive, team specific items to be purchased in their base along with some weaker starter items. I could also put a mana/health regen aura in there somewhere or make it a neutral zone somehow so players could buy items without so much risk.
-The melee guys have alot of health so they can absorb damage without needing alot of them. I used to have more melee units, but they tend to trap melee heros, so I'm trying to have fewer units serve the same purpose. It's also part of the stragedy, since a player can choose to take out the healers and ranged units whereas the computer will just attack whatevers closer.
-The gold mine is another new addition along with the flag and the arena. Now that I've got them working I'll be working on more visuals to make these objectives more intuitive.
-As for loading, do you have any specific ideas on how to accomplish a faster load? Maybe simpler triggers? My basic thought is "why have a hundred triggers for when a unit gets an item if I can put em all in one", but maybe more smaller triggers would load faster. This is the only map I've ever made so I don't really know the difference.
-The special effects for item combinations is a great idea, I'll defenitely put that in. Maybe also some sort of effect on the flag carrier as well.

Thanks alot for the constructive criticism and suggestions, I appreciate all your effort.

 

[NinjasDontFight]

Can't believe I took 5 days to make this terrain. I know its bad, but I wasn't sure if you wanted the game doodads, or custom ones. Links or suggestions to any would be nice if you wanted them.




Could someone move this to the "Requests" section?

 

[redscores]

Sorry to say Ninja, but that terrain is flat... so flat.. undetailed... you shouldnt critique good mappers terrains if you cannot even follow the easiest rules of terraining.

 

[NinjasDontFight]

Well for one thing, its a shitty example. I understand it needs alot of work, not much effort was put it in right now.
Second, are you talking about playable maps? Or fancy looking ones with great doodads. Because "...if you cannot even follow the easiest rules of terraining." confuses
me.

 

[Gilles]

Sorry to say Ninja, but that terrain is flat... so flat.. undetailed... you shouldnt critique good mappers terrains if you cannot even follow the easiest rules of terraining.

Ones talent does not equal ones ability to critique. I doubt all art critiques can draw well.

 

[NinjasDontFight]

@Gilles - Could you move this to the Requests forum? Help to keep other's peoples terrains fresher.

 

[Richardsteel]

Thanks alot Ninja, I dig it. It's defenitely a helluva lot better than anything I would've come up with. I especially like the choke points. I'm importing in the new things I've been workin on and I'll put a link up once I get everything workin again.

 

[NinjasDontFight]

Do you want anything special? I'm going to redo the terrain I did. It's not that good.

 

[Richardsteel]

Whateve else you wanna do with it is fine with me, I like what you've done so far. I've made some changes, so use the version I've attached here. I really like the new bases you've made. I was gonna add some more details to the vendor area such as campfire, pack mules, tents, stuff layin around, so if you want you can do something like that. Feel free to move the vendors around. In case you didn't notice, the map was originally made in shallow water and then I raised the terrain so I could go back and put in walkable water later. I've tinted the water green and changed the sky, so it'll be apparent if you check out the new version. If you can think of something to make the gold mine zone more distinctive that'd be cool. I've added new vendor zones above and below the original one for each team. I've also added some new things that I haven't tested yet, but they won't effect the terrain. All the heros I'm changing are in the vendor zone under player 2's control for testing, but you can move those guys around or get rid of em if they're in your way. This version is not optimized so it's a little larger than the other one. Also, I have no problem with custom doodads, I'm just trying to avoid too many imports. You're welcome to import things though if you think it'll be really good and it won't make the file size too much bigger. If you want to start all over and not use this version that's cool too, it's not hard to move my new things into the map. Thanks again for all your time and effort.

Some Hours Later: I just had this idea, thought I'd throw it up here while it's fresh in my head. Maybe there could be more water around the map and i could change the water tinting to signify has the flag. I have no idea if that's possible, but i think it'd be cool. Maybe change the sky, fog or weather to signify who controls the gold mine. Switch to day when the elves control it, night when the undead control it. Something like that. Anyway, just some ideas.