The Ashenvale Tournament

[Raging Ent]

Introduction
The Ashenvale Tournament, or TAT, is a small but action-packed arena.
The idea of TAT came from playing regular WC3 games, DOTA games and other arenas.
We concluded that it was time for a arena without loads of items and anime-ripped heroes, a time for intense teamplay without masses of creeps..
A time for the Ashenvale Tournament!

Information
Terrain
The terrain of TAT is small and has alot of cliffs.
This makes it a dangerous place to move around, and due to the fact there are only 2 juking points, it's pretty hard to run from enemy ambushes.

This forces players to move in packs and play as a team.

Heroes
Just like any other arena, TAT uses the 3 attributes of Warcraft 3 to determine the role of each hero.
- Intelligence Heroes will mainly be magical damage dealers, at around level 6 they get the most out of their abilities and stat gains.
- Strength Heroes will mainly be tanks, at around level 12 they get the most out of their abilities and stat gains.
- Agility Heroes will mainly be physical damage dealers, at around level 18 they get the most out of their abilities and stat gains.

Items
TAT has 6 different item shops;
- 4 are located at your starting point (Offensive, Defensive, Magical and Supportive items can be bought here).
- 2 are located at the river in the middle of the map;
- 1 Mercenary Camp which sells strong units with a large cooldown.
- 1 Goblin Merchant which sells strong items with a large cooldown.

The location of the 2 strongest shops, along with the cooldown on the items makes TAT a intense arena with alot of bluffing and area domination.

Walls
At the beginning of each round, there will be 3 walls on the exits of each spawnsite.
These walls will be removed after 1 minute, giving new players some time to setup their heroes.

Goal
A game of TAT is split up into 3 rounds of 30 minutes.
Your goal as a team is to get more kills than your enemy team by the end of each round in order to win this round.

This system makes TAT intense and suitable for competative play.

Etcetera
Current Progress
We're currently reworking some of our older heroes, creating items and calculating cost compared to the gold one has around each level.

We're in need for testers and someone able to host the map on Battle.net in the near future!!

Terain Screenshot

Terrain

I hope I got all of you readers excited about this new arena that is coming up! Feel welcome to comment below

 

[Raging Ent]

.. Saving if needed ..










By the way, 30 people viewed and none commented? I feel sad.

 

[Whisper]

so it's basically Dota in Arena style?
cool
Can i help somehow?

 

[Raging Ent]

Why would you say it's DOTA? :O

We're currently thinking about using WC3 standard stats and damages to improve gameplay, also allowign Scrolls of Teleport to make the caster invulnerable to enhance it's effect on the game.

Anyway, I don't know, what could you do ^^

 

[Raging Ent]

Bump?! :O

 

[HyperActive]

I wanna be a tester.

When will this be playable?
So far it looks great, but you haven't presented any hero yet.

 

[Raging Ent]

Update #01

Some tragic news.. I seem to have lost all progress of the map so far.
So this means we'll have to recreate it from the start.

But we're staying positive and we have come up with the following new heroes:

Master of the Wild (Strength)
- The master of the Wild is an adept at staying alive in the forest, his skills focus on regeneration and granting visibility.

Tauren (Strength)
- Taurens are shamanic warriors that are always in contact with their ancestors, their abilities range from damaging enemies to aiding allies.

Armsmaster (Strength)
- The armsmaster is an adept at dealing massive damage with their weapons, their abilities aid them in doing so.

Skeleton Knight (Strength)
- Skeleton Knights are stronger than your regular Skeleton Warriors and they are adept at stealing the very lifeforce of their enemies.

Twilight Archer (Agility)
- The Twilight Archer is a mysterious woman often hired for assassinations, her abilities aid her with cloaking herself and killing her enemies swift.

Firespawn (Agility)
- The Firespawn is a demon sprung from the fires of hell, it's abilities are based on the hellfire that spawned it.

Berserker (Agility)
- The berserker is a warrior who's only purpose in life is to destroy it, his abilities grant him fast movement speed and furious attacks.

Gnoll Hunter (Agility)
- Gnoll Hunters are their races' pride and glory when it comes to archery, their abilities allow them to track and hunt down enemy creatures.

Bone Creator (Intelligence)
- The Bone Creator is a skeleton mage, it's abilities cause other skeletons to rise and inflict damage upon it's enemies.

Lightning Witch (Intelligence)
- The Lightning Witch is a wraith with immense powers, her abilities stun and harm groups of enemies with the power of thunder.

Mistress of Fire (Intelligence)
- The Mistress of Fire is a human sorceress, her abilities invoke the terrible powers of fire.

Druid (Intelligence)
- Druids are night elves that have devoted their lives to guarding the lands, their abilities invoke the wrath and the blessings of the nature.

Final Note
I hope readers will feel like commenting now, since we could really use the support with starting over!

 

[Zack1996]

I do love Hero Arenas. The terrain looks really good and well made.

The gameplay seems pretty decent too. Nice emphasis on map control and awareness. The time limit should make the game really fast paced and fun.

Some of the heroes sound rather generic, but its nice to see that you have a wide variety of them planned out already, since a large hero pool will probably make the map more dynamic.

If you need some hero/spell ideas, I'm always ready to give some

Also, care to share some of the current items?

 

[rcshaggy]

Would be very interesting and do you need anymore help?

 

[Raging Ent]

Update 2

Update #2

Okay so here's update 2, we're currently recreating the terrain because I lost all of the progress like I mentioned in update 1.

We're going for a real Warcraft 3-ish feel, using the tileset like blizzard uses it..
Here's a quick preview:

Screenshot

Also, we noticed there was a request on showing some of the items, so here it is!

Note that the '-Relic-' items are the items that are bought in the middle shop and which have a larger cooldown thus making them more special.

Items

--------------------------
Varek's Axe
--------------------------
+100 Hitpoints
+10% Attack Rate
+5 Agility
--------------------------

--------------------------
Varek's Shield
--------------------------
+100 Hitpoints
+2 HP/Sec
+5 Strength
--------------------------

--------------------------
Varek's Ring
--------------------------
+100 Hitpoints
+100% Mana Regeneration
+5 Intelligence
--------------------------

--------------------------
Emberlight Cloak
--------------------------
+250 Hitpoints
+25 Armor
Unique: 25 Dmg/Sec Aura
--------------------------

--------------------------
Everlonging Charm
--------------------------
+300 Mana
+10 Intelligence
Unique: 150% Mana Regeneration Aura
--------------------------

--------------------------
Warlord's Shield
--------------------------
+300 Hitpoints
+10 Strength
Unique: +5 Armor Aura
--------------------------

--------------------------
Warmonger's Crown
--------------------------
+50 Damage
+10 Agility
Unique: +50% Damage Aura
--------------------------

--------------------------
Zeta's Blade
--------------------------
+10 Damage
+10% Chance to Critical Hit
+10 Gold/5 Sec
--------------------------

--------------------------
Zeta's Armor
--------------------------
+10 Armor
+5 HP/Sec
+10 Gold/5 Sec
--------------------------

--------------------------
Zeta's Ring
--------------------------
+5 Intelligence
+50% Mana Regeneration
+10 Gold/5 Sec
--------------------------

--------------------------
Soul Saviour
--------------------------
+50 Armor
+25% Magic Resistance
Unique: 50% Dmg Return Aura
--------------------------

--------------------------
The Last Secret
--------------------------
+50 Damage
+25% Magic Resistance
Unique: 25 Dmg Feedback (Orb Effect)
--------------------------

--------------------------
Lichbane Scepter
--------------------------
+35 Intelligence
+25% Magic Resistance
Unique: -10 Armor Aura
--------------------------

--------------------------
Boots of Speed
--------------------------
- Relic -
+100 Movement Speed
+50% Attack Rate
--------------------------

--------------------------
Beholder's Gem
--------------------------
- Relic -
+5 Damage
+5 Armor
+5 Strength
+5 Agility
+5 Intelligence
Unique: True Sight
--------------------------

--------------------------
Gem of Greed
--------------------------
- Relic -
+25 Gold/5 Sec
--------------------------

--------------------------
Crystal of Rejuvenation
--------------------------
- Relic -
+150 Hitpoints
+100 Mana
Unique: Heals 200 Hitpoints & 150 Mana upon Leveling Up
--------------------------

We hope you enjoyed this second update, have a good one!

 

[Zack1996]

Do you, by any chance, play League of Legends?

Anyway, the terrain looks pretty decent, and the items seem fine. However, I think that you should make most of the items rather difficult to acquire, so that items become more of a luxury than anything.

Nothing takes the fun out of hero arenas more than a super-geared up hero. If someone manages to do really well early, its becomes really difficult to turn the tides. So basically, I hope that the game will place less emphasis on acquiring items, and more on map control and teamwork.

For example, some items (such as those Varek items) could be pretty cheap. The rest would be more expensive, so that you can't gear up your hero with tons of equipment quick, since some of those items look pretty game-changing.

Basically, it would be nice if the arena didn't have a very strong "snowballing" effect, if you know what I mean. Games are more fun if they aren't completely one-sided.

 

[Raging Ent]

Yes, I do by any chance play League of Legends.

And after discussing about what the items in TAT should be like we decided to take a LoL approach, meaning high hitpoints and armor gains with decent to low damage gain.
We don't want your hero to be able to take down 3 of the enemy team's heroes just by using your ultimate.. we want full cooperation, making every player important.

And there will be enough balancing between cost and what type of item it is..
For instance, Varek items should be cheap enough to be buyable at start, but Boots of Speed should be as well, giving players the option of buying basic items or try to get their hands on a relic. Some of the other items, like Lichbane Scepter are really lategame items thus we will measure the ammount of kills a average player will have around 20 minutes in the game and measure the cost of those items to fit that.

Thusfar, there's alot of thinking involved while creating this map.. and thanks for the feedback Zack, I hope you will continue assisting TAT.

 

[Zack1996]

And after discussing about what the items in TAT should be like we decided to take a LoL approach, meaning high hitpoints and armor gains with decent to low damage gain.

That's fine. However, I do hope that you stay away from the LoL approach in terms of spells.

The thing is, LoL is an AoS. AoS tend to require more powerful, instant effect skills, since the enemy will simply run away and regenerate if you don't slay them quick. For hero arenas, spells tend to be less powerful, but more spammable.
I noticed that there is no fountain to regenerate your health at. This just makes it more important to make spells less instant-kill. For example, instead of a 300 damage, 5 second slow spell on a 15 second cooldown, you could have a 180 damage, 3 second slow spell on a 9 second cooldown.

This way, there will be less instances when someone feels completely useless due to dying in a second.

Furthermore, massive Ultimate-chains are really annoying. LoL faces the problem of being dominated by Ultimate-chaining, where throwing one ultimate after another just tears the other team apart. If all ultimates are weaker per cast, but on a smaller cooldown/mana cost, players would try to use the ultimate whenever possible, thus playing more aggressive instead of idling around while their ultimate cools down.


Of course, that doesn't mean that allspells should have short cooldowns/weak effects. If you feel that a hero would work well with power, long cooldown spells, its perfectly fine.

 

[Raging Ent]

Update #3
While we're busy with working on the map and it's features, this week's update will explain some of the game's features.. hope you enjoy!

Indepth Explainations
Field Shops
You will find shops outside of the base in alot of other arena and other maps, but based on actual Warcraft 3 gameplay, TAT makes special use of Field Shops, of which there are 2:

Relic Shop

The Relic Shop is located on the northern side of the river, it sells high end items but every item it sells can't be purchased for another minute.

For example, when one player buys a Relic called Boots of Speed, other players won't be able to buy a pair.
Giving the first player to buy that relic a major advantage when chasing.

The relic shop will take away some of the basic items like Boots of Speed from your hero's core itembuild and force players into adept their itembuilds on the game's progress more than any other arena.

Mercenary Shop

The Mercenary Shop is located on the southern side of the river, it sells mercenary units but once one is recruited other players won't be able to recruit one alike it for another minute.

Mercenaries carry special abilities like Heal and Ensnare and will chance the outcome of a teamclash, match or even a whole game if used well.

Heroes
Heroes are the backbone of every arena.
They each carry 5 unique abilities: 3 regular abilities, 1 ultimate and 1 passive ability.

The maximum level of heroes in TAT is level 10; this low maximum will ensure good players to finish their abilitybuilds in a good match with low ammounts of actual kills.

There are tanks, phsycal damage dealers, supporters and magical damage dealers in TAT; players can tell by their abilities what role their hero has, making it easier for new players to buy the proper items.

Terrain
The terrain in TAT is different from other arena's that either have a very large area in which players fight, or a very small one, to illustrate what the terrain of TAT looks like, here's a schematic drawing:

Terrain Drawing

The terrain in TAT is small but very strategic, players find themselves walking around the general area or using the cliffs in the center..
This allows for strategies that not only include heroes but also positions, making TAT stand out as an arena when it comes to competative play.

Gold
Gold is a important factor of TAT, and because of the fact that there are no creeps or neutrals to kill for gold, a special way of gaining gold is needed:

Gold Per Second

Every players gains gold every 10 second, the ammount of gold a player gains depends on several factors: kills, deaths and items.

-At the start of each round, every player will gain 5 gold every 10 seconds.
-Every kill a player makes adds 1 to this ammount.
-Every death a player makes decreases that player's gold gain ammount by 1.
-Another way to increase your gold gain is by purchasing items that increase your gold gain.

To sum things up, every player gets (5+"kills"+"items"-"deaths") per 10 seconds.

This system allows players to gain enough gold to steadily buy better and better items, while also providing a economic reason to kill a enemy player who has 10 kills and 0 deaths..
No longer will you get a massive gold award, you merely cut into the player's gold gaining ammount causing a larger effect later on.



Okay, that's it for this week's update, see you guys next week!

 

[Zack1996]

I'm kinda concerned about the gold system creating a snowball problem...

Just curious about something, is there a killing spree system in The Ashenvale Tournament? If there is, perhaps you could use the system in conjunction with the gold system to create something slightly different.
Gold per 10 seconds = 5 + Killing Spree

Basically, if you kill someone with a killing spree, that person would lose all the gold/10 seconds he/she has gained from killing. This would encourage teams to pick tanks/healers to keep their main damage dealer/killer alive.

It's not that the gold system is bad, I just think that it is not very fun to get destroyed since the beginning. With the killing spree system, you would be able to stop an enemy dead in his/her tracks if your team manages a tricky counter attack or if their team makes a big mistake.
The gold items would function as they do, though.

 

[Raging Ent]

We're changing the formula to 5+(Kills/Deaths)+Items.

This way, a kill will have a even larger effect on the target's gold flow, yet it's impossible to get a player's goldflow to 0.


We need your guys' opinion, would a save/load system with player levels and buffs according to that level be cool?
Like +1% Attack Speed upgrades that require 1 player level to upgrade, etc..

 

[Raging Ent]

Just letting you guys know!

We haven't been updating this thread because we're currently recreating the terrain because it felt to big and creating heroes, we're up to 27 hero ideas now.. There will be a big update ready for you all very soon!!

 

[Raging Ent]

Small Update

Some Screenshots

Some Screenshots

Custom Hero Icon

Custom Hero Icon

 

[Zack1996]

Looks good. I love how you placed the shops on top of those doodads.

Why did you name the teams cold and warm? Does it have anything to do with Bloodline Champions, by any chance?

 

[Raging Ent]

Looks good. I love how you placed the shops on top of those doodads.

Why did you name the teams cold and warm? Does it have anything to do with Bloodline Champions, by any chance?

Not quite, I think I'll rename them anyway since we decided the map is too big for 6v6 so we reduced it to 4v4.

 

[Leak-]

The TAT icon looks strikingly similar to the DotA2 icon.

 

[Raging Ent]

I somewhat used the style but the lines etc are different since the TAT terrain is different, but we might get a different logo eventually (we might switch themes etc etc)

 

[Raging Ent]

The Ashenvale Tournament v0.7

Need I say more?!

 

[Leak-]

• Terrain is really nice and finely detailed. Good job on that.
• Are there any game-mode commands? I assume there is, since at the beginning of the game it says it defaults to Normal Mode. F9 is also disabled
• This game desyncs players who play with a Mac when researching abilities for following listed specific heroes. I understand that this issue may not be worth your effort to fix it, but I thought you should at least be aware of it. I am familiar with this issue since I've seen it occur on many maps here at HiveWorkShop; it most likely has to do with the icons the heroes in question have has. The other heroes work fine.
  • Undead Pirate
  • Golem Knight
  • Grunt Champion
  • Gunner
  • Lightning Revenant
  • Rock Giant
  • *It seems that all the other heroes that work on Macs have traditional Warcraft 3 icons. Do the heroes above have other custom icons for one or more of the abilities? That may be the issue at the root of this problem.
• A -repick function would be useful.
• For the Skeleton King Unholy Power tooltip: it uses '=' instead of '-' for Level 2.

I would help test more, but there isn't really much I can to at the moment since I can't use so many of the heroes.

 

[Raging Ent]

• Terrain is really nice and finely detailed. Good job on that.
• Are there any game-mode commands? I assume there is, since at the beginning of the game it says it defaults to Normal Mode. F9 is also disabled
• This game desyncs players who play with a Mac when researching abilities for following listed specific heroes. I understand that this issue may not be worth your effort to fix it, but I thought you should at least be aware of it. I am familiar with this issue since I've seen it occur on many maps here at HiveWorkShop; it most likely has to do with the icons the heroes in question have has. The other heroes work fine.
  • Undead Pirate
  • Golem Knight
  • Grunt Champion
  • Gunner
  • Lightning Revenant
  • Rock Giant
  • *It seems that all the other heroes that work on Macs have traditional Warcraft 3 icons. Do the heroes above have other custom icons for one or more of the abilities? That may be the issue at the root of this problem.
• A -repick function would be useful.
• For the Skeleton King Unholy Power tooltip: it uses '=' instead of '-' for Level 2.

I would help test more, but there isn't really much I can to at the moment since I can't use so many of the heroes.

Repick is coming up, Unholy Power will be fixed.
Game modes are on their way too.
And yes, they have custom icons, how do I fix that? :/ never knew that was a issue.

 

[Leak-]

apparently, .blp icon compressions aren't compatible with mac. Would it be possible to just use traditional warcraft 3 icons? or just use a different type of icon compression?

if that's too much, then it's probably worth the effort to not tweak the icons.

 

[Zack1996]

Magnataur's Frenzy has its Learn- Basic tooltip missing.

The runes don't feel balanced. The Strength rune gives +5 strength, a huge bonus at any point in the game. On the other hand, the EXP rune gives +50 EXP, which is rather insignificant even at early game.

The Orc Champion's Ultimate does not feel like it's worth levelling (more than 1 level, anyway). The best part about the spell seems to be the permanent +2 strength on kill. 12% attack speed isn't really strong enough for me to level up the Ultimate to level 2. Two ways to make the spell more worth levelling:
1) 2 Str/kill at level 1, 12% AS. 3 str/kill at level 2, 24% AS.
2) 2 str/kill at all levels. 10% AS at level 1, 35% AS at level 2.

Metal Knight's learn tooltip is wrong at level 4, I believe. It says that the interval of the shock is 4 seconds, although level 3 states that it is 3 seconds (weaker although levelled 0_o)

Some pretty interesting heroes, would love to try TAT online.

 

[Raging Ent]

Magnataur's Frenzy has its Learn- Basic tooltip missing.

The runes don't feel balanced. The Strength rune gives +5 strength, a huge bonus at any point in the game. On the other hand, the EXP rune gives +50 EXP, which is rather insignificant even at early game.

The Orc Champion's Ultimate does not feel like it's worth levelling (more than 1 level, anyway). The best part about the spell seems to be the permanent +2 strength on kill. 12% attack speed isn't really strong enough for me to level up the Ultimate to level 2. Two ways to make the spell more worth levelling:
1) 2 Str/kill at level 1, 12% AS. 3 str/kill at level 2, 24% AS.
2) 2 str/kill at all levels. 10% AS at level 1, 35% AS at level 2.

Metal Knight's learn tooltip is wrong at level 4, I believe. It says that the interval of the shock is 4 seconds, although level 3 states that it is 3 seconds (weaker although levelled 0_o)

Some pretty interesting heroes, would love to try TAT online.

To bad your comment came to late, man!
I already finished 0.7b with a Paladin buff and some bug fixes..
Will fix your points in 0.8 when, hopefully, CRAZYRUSSIAN has finished his loadscreen artwork he's making for TAT.

 

[Raging Ent]

A new update!
- Hope you guys enjoy.

 

[RaijinSpark]

Ok, I have 3 cousin with me here we're going to test the map in Lan, I will leave my feedbacks and review later *just woke up* -.-

 

[Raging Ent]

Ok, I have 3 cousin with me here we're going to test the map in Lan, I will leave my feedbacks and review later *just woke up* -.-

WAIT!

Here's a update:

 

[RaijinSpark]

*Downloads the latest version*

lol, ok.. got the latest version.. we're going to start in few minutes..

 

[Raging Ent]

Ok, I hope you enjoy!

 

[Miss_Foxy]

555.5 KB, wow. That seems acceptable.

 

[RaijinSpark]

*phew..* Played all day

I'll post my feedbacks and such later..

 

[Raging Ent]

lol you played TAT all day? XD

EDIT

555.5 KB, wow. That seems acceptable.

That's because the loadscreen isn't added yet, but here's a quick WIP regarding that loadscreen!

WIP

 

[Super-Sheep]

I thought that it could be nice map but I couldnt get anyone when I tried to host it.

Ofcourse there joins maybe two at max but they leave too soon + I think nobody can't see normally hosted games anymore because of all the bots...

 

[Raging Ent]

I thought that it could be nice map but I couldnt get anyone when I tried to host it.

Ofcourse there joins maybe two at max but they leave too soon + I think nobody can't see normally hosted games anymore because of all the bots...

Well if you can / will host on battle.net I might join in!
I've been trying to get a testing host because my net here is busted..
You could get a autorefresher program though and people would still see it.

 

[Super-Sheep]

I have tried with VCK and LC. Both give better results but they seem still to be a lot less effective than Bots. And if I spam refresh too much I get kicked out from Battle.net. But it might be a bug or something with my Interner and/or Warcraft III because over half of the people who join are from Finland (as am I). So the problem might be that my game is not shown in the list to some of the countries... for a some... very... mystical reason.

This same problem has also ruined my motivation to make maps. >.<

 

[Raging Ent]

Could you try hosting it in a bit?
I'll see if I can join (gotta check some replay first)

 

[Raging Ent]

It Has Arrived!
Click on my signature to go to the map's download page!

 

[Miss_Foxy]

Love it. I'm gonna check it out, would you be giving regular updates by the way?

 

[Raging Ent]

Yup, aiming for 2 new heroes every 2 weeks, along with various changes to 'current version's metagame heroes and items'.

Keeping it exciting for the public!

 

[Leak-]

When bot for TAT is up, will it be on BattleNet East or Northrend? Or both?

 

[Raging Ent]

I hope we can get some nice people to bot it on both, if not I'll have to get some job pretty soon and hire 2 bots myself - if enough players like TAT.

 

[Miss_Foxy]

Hmm... How about a mode for a team kind of battle with two teams?

 

[Raging Ent]

Hmm... How about a mode for a team kind of battle with two teams?

What do you mean?

 

[Miss_Foxy]

Oops, I forgot to phrase it properly. I meant like, a team battle with only heroes, in some tiny arena of the map, with certain special benefits if you're the winning team.

 

[Kino]

Oops, I forgot to phrase it properly. I meant like, a team battle with only heroes, in some tiny arena of the map, with certain special benefits if you're the winning team.

And how would that be different from the standard game?

 

[Raging Ent]

I think he means some sort of dueling system - which I will not make because it ruins the teamplay in my arena, other arenas where all players can kill other players solo - you can add duels.