[Aeon of Strife] The New Age V0.9H (Updated: 09/10/2018)

[Shadon]

Hello everyone, here's the latest version of my very long in gestation AoS map.

I've included a gameplay manual and basic introduction in the link below, and some screenshots to get you started. Credits for assets that I've used are also included in the manual.

The main goals with this AoS map to set it apart from all others are:

• Create a set of unique heroes for each side whose ability sets and purposes are clearly defined, engaging, fun to play and allow for a higher level of decision making than the norm. Without exception, no hero has a learnable passive, and many hero abilities are synergistic with one another.
  
  
• Allow players to spend their gold on something other than items. This can include units you control, additional waves of units that the computer forces spawn, defensive/offensive tower pushes and even powerful unit spawners, the control of which can be wrestled away for a price. Item power in general is also a bit lesser than you might see in other AoS maps.

Hope you all enjoy it. I do have some more changes in mind and will flesh out the gameplay manual with more content (both text and visual) but I figured this was as good a time as any to put it up.

Gameplay Manual

Many thanks,

- Shadon

EDIT: Version 0.9H is now out! Here's the changelist, which is mostly bug fixes so the map is actually playable and not a giant bowl of spaghetti.

Spoiler: V0.9H Changelist

The New Age - Version 0.9H Changelist

GENERAL:

- Most abilities relying on code/triggers have had their event flags changed from "Begins Casting" to "Starts the effect of". This is to prevent silliness like rapidly spawning Dark Angels or the like through hitting stop immediately after casting.
- In Single Player, you can no longer select Heroes from the opposite faction by placing a unit/Hero near the Hero selection area.
- Broken triggers for Unit Channelling upgrade purchases and Siege/Magic unit conjuration have been fixed.
- Goblin Merchants now correctly have the same inventory as the Enchanter (previously was missing the Periapt of Vitality)
- Level Factor for Hero XP gained has been doubled from 5 to 10 to make levelling significantly faster.
- Worked around the 3 Hero Selection bug in Single Player by forcing a 99 Hero Select limit and then removing the Altars once the third Hero is selected.
- Cleaned out some depreciated custom object data.

Spoiler: V0.9G Changelist

The New Age - Version 0.9G Changelist

GENERAL:

- The terrain inside both the Alliance and Horde bases has been redesigned to be more visually appealing.
- Fountains at both bases have been moved to new elevated sections at the rear of each base, putting them out of range of being usable during combat near each base's structures.
- Terrain across the entire map has been cleaned up, including removing areas of shallow water, flattening, more deep sea and appropriate doodads.
- Hero selection areas have new terrain and the heroes themselves have been moved to new locations.
- Selecting a Hero now teleports it to your faction's Fountain area. Worker units (Astral Spirits / Cult Acolytes) are now spawned at the bottom of the ramp to the Fountain, to prevent bottlenecking.
- Hero selection limit raised to 4 for Single Player for the time being. This is due to a bug that causes selecting Heroes to lock out when 2 are picked, and I've yet to isolate why this is.
- New merchants have been added for each faction next to their fountains. These merchants sell entry level healing and mana potions so you don't have to divert to the Loremaster/Covetous Shade for potions before proceeding to your chosen lane.
- Pretty much everything you can buy/build/use is now appropriately hotkeyed.
- Towers that can be built by players have had a tuning pass.
- Entry level units summoned from a Summoning Tower now cost 2 Food each.
- Dust of Appearance, Scroll of Regeneration and Healing Salve added to Loremaster/Covetous Shade merchants.
- Gem of True Seeing has been removed and replaced with the Periapt of Vitality.
- Litany of Compulsion (Taunt item) is now with the Loremaster/Covetous Shade and is no longer classed as an Artifact.
- Saurod the Malicious' Dimensional Gates now summons Infernals rather than Doom Guards.
- Countless tooltip clean ups and corrections.
- Credits have been moved to the Quests menu and separated into General, Models, Skins and Icons categories. The entire credits list has been updated for Version 0.9G.
- All summoned units now have forced Team Colour to match their respective Hero.

ALLIANCE HEROES:

Arcane Master:

- Scintillating Storm - Missile speed nerfed from 450 to 260. This makes it possible to outrun the missiles if you're playing any Hero apart from the Deep Slayer, provided you aren't slowed.
- Energy Sink - Redesigned. It now attaches a negative energy vortex to the target friendly or enemy unit that drains 10/20/30/40 mana per second from units hostile to the Arcane Master, lasting 10 seconds. Energy Sink does not affect the unit it is attached to.
- Energy Sink - Now has new spell effect art.

Drowned Captain:

- Under Pressure - The Liquid Heart spawned by this ability now has a significantly smaller collision radius.

Hunter of Time:

- Now has new art for her standard attack.
- Millenia Volley - Mana cost reduced to 50 for all levels.
- Prescient Shot - Damage nerfed to 25/50/75/100. No longer slows movement speed.
- Chronoshift - Removed and replaced with Quantum Rune.
- Quantum Rune - A new ability that plants a Quantum Rune at the target location which goes invisible after 2 sec. When triggered by being destroyed or activated by a nearby enemy the Rune creates a temporal warp that silences enemy units inside its radius and slows their movement speed by 10/20/30/40 percent. Area of effect is 250/300/350/400.

Lionheart:

- Lion's Charge - Now has new spell art and a new icon.
- Lion's Charge - Duration increased to 8 sec (was 6 sec). Cooldown increased to 16 sec (was 12 sec).
- Roar of the Pride - Now has a new icon.
- Roar of the Pride - Now can only summon 2 Pride Guards at any time. Recasting this spell will unsummon existing Pride Guards. Pride Guards no longer have Critical Strike. Aura of Pride now scales with this ability's level, granting 10/20 bonus damage to units close to a Pride Guard.

Shadowmaiden:

- Dark Angel - Height of the singularity summoned by this spell lowered so it is easier to tell exactly where it is.

Sun Guard Archon:

- Pillar of the Sun - Duration reduced to 20 sec (was 40 sec). Damage and healing per second increased by 100%.

Zealot of the Blade:

- Double Edged - Duration increased to 30 sec (was 20 sec).
- Stand Unrivalled - Now has a new icon and new spell effect art.
- Stand Unrivalled - No longer appears on the command card once activated, and therefore no longer disables the Zealot's inherent ability.
- Sheathe the Blade - Ability removed.
- Blade Blur - A new inherent ability for the Zealot that turns him or his duplicate invisible for 60 sec, after a 15 second transition time.

HORDE HEROES:

Baron of the Dead:

- Consume the Living - Redesigned. Now no longer restores health on successfully devouring a unit, but instead causes the unit to explode from the Baron's body, dealing 75/150/225/300 damage to nearby enemies.
- Consume the Living - Now has new spell effect art.
- Meat Grinder - The Corpsefire explosion bonus from this ability now also affects the new explosion effect provided by Consume the Living.

Deep Slayer:

- Was previously named the Naga Reaver.
- Brothers in Arms - Renamed to Blood Brothers.
- Blood Brothers - Health and damage of the summoned Blood Brother reduced at all levels.
- Blood Brothers - The Ensnare ability available to the Blood Brother now only traps Heroes for 2 sec, down from 3 sec.

Demonarch:

- Consumed by Chaos - Duration increased to 20 sec for all levels, up from 15 sec.
- Reaper of Souls - Now has a new icon.

Marrow Knight:

- Unbreakable - Now correctly applies the appropriate amount of spell damage reduction, rather than making the Marrow Knight invulnerable to spells.
- Unbreakable - Now has new spell effect art.

Nightshade:

- Purple Haze - Redesigned. No longer suppresses ranged attacks. Attack speed reduction increased to 20/40/60/80 percent. Now also grants friendly units inside the gas cloud a 10/20/30/40 percent boost to their own attack speed.

Primal Mage:

- Apocalypse - Now has a new icon.

Storm Rider:

- Almost completely redesigned. Is now called the Thunder Wolf.
- Now has a new model, new icon and new projectile art.
- Movement speed nerfed to 270 from 350.
- Rolling Thunder - Redesigned. Static Orbs now prime after 2 sec at all levels. Static Orbs now also have the Polarity passive, which grants 10/20/30/40 bonus damage to the Thunder Wolf or Storm Alphas if nearby.
- Thunderstruck - Ability removed.
- Electric Avenue - A new ability that replaces Thunderstruck. Hurls a ball of negatively charged electricity that ricochets between enemies, dispelling magic on them. Deals 100/200/300/400 damage to summoned units. Hits up to 3/4/5/6 targets maximum.
- Ride The Lightning - Has replaced Overcharge as the Thunder Wolf's inherent ability. No longer deals damage.
- Storm Howl - A new ability that replaces Ride The Lightning. Summons two Storm Alphas to the Thunder Wolf's side. These elemental wolves have the Polarity passive, granting other Storm Alphas and the Thunder Wolf 10/20/30/40 bonus damage. They also destroy 3/6/9/12 mana with each hit.
- Perfect Storm - Ability removed.
- Raw Power - A new ultimate ability that replaces Perfect Storm. Disables the Thunder Wolf's attack and reduces his movement speed by 25%, but grants him access to Thunder Crash, a powerful spell that deals 100/200 damage instantly and 15/30 damage per second to enemies who remain in the area of effect. This spell can be cast in quick succession. Raw Power lasts 15 sec, with a 120 sec cooldown.

World Breaker:

- Was previously the Earth Mover, and has now been renamed.
- Now has a new skin.

Spoiler: Screenshots

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• Sep 5, 2018

 

[Veldris]

Hey man your map is amazing and i liked every model you have in it,but i think your map is Corrupted Because i wasn't able to open it in WE and the map has no Description it only has the name Heres my review;
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

=-=:1=There are no Hints at the start of the game it just a Altar of the kings with Heros in it [Put hints in the description of the map]
=-=:2=If you're going to release Please put credits in the Description,Give credits to the owners of the Models
=-=:3=Put Screenshots in Description aswell you need to attract more players by putting SS
=-=:4=Map is Corrupted and needs to be fixed if you're going to release it
if the map is Corrupted some players May crash During Gameplay [this is BAD]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
++=1:Great effort in putting Spells and models/icons Together
++=2:Great map Environment
++=3:Balanced Champion Abilities
++=4:Overall Great map Really exciting to see more of this Map!

Rating = 3.5/5
\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=
Awaiting Updates..

 

[Shadon]

Thanks for your feedback Veldris. I'll make another update this weekend, but re the Map Corruption thing, I've just opened it successfully in the vanilla Frozen Throne editor that comes with Warcraft III (which is also what I made it in). What editor are you using and what error are you getting?

EDIT: I've had someone else check with the basic editors that come with War III from Patches 1.29, 1.3 and the PTR and they all work fine.

 

[Veldris]

Thanks for your feedback Veldris. I'll make another update this weekend, but re the Map Corruption thing, I've just opened it successfully in the vanilla Frozen Throne editor that comes with Warcraft III (which is also what I made it in). What editor are you using and what error are you getting?

EDIT: I've had someone else check with the basic editors that come with War III from Patches 1.29, 1.3 and the PTR and they all work fine.

Latest one and map was Glitchy it might be my WE but i hope it's better Next Verison Goodluck!

 

[Shadon]

No problem. I'll be uploading a new version with the changes you suggested tomorrow.

In the meantime, I've thrown up some screenshots of the various Heroes and some of the secondary features of the map. Hope you enjoy!

 

[Shadon]

Okay everyone, I'm pleased to announce I've uploaded version 0.9F. Not a huge amount of changes here, but they do address most of Veldris' comments.

The New Age - Version 0.9F Changelog

General:

- New Singleplayer Mode added. If you are the only player when you start the game, you can choose up to 3 Heroes instead of just 1.
- Gold Channelling: Every worker you have channelling gold gives you 2 gold per second, up from 1.
- Map loading screen now includes full credits.
- Added a proper map description.
- A message now appears shortly after the game starts to prompt you to pick a hero/heroes from the Altar of Kings/Altar of Storms.

Marrow Knight:

- Dragon of Marrow's tooltip has had a typo correction.

Zealot of the Blade:

- Zealous Wrath now has a learn hotkey (E)

I've elected for the time being not to barrage players with hints during the game since there are a lot of systems in the map and I don't want it to get visually noisy or repetitive with text appearing all the time. The Gameplay Manual is your one stop quick reference if you're interested. That said, let me know if any tooltips aren't clear enough to get you started.

Also, as the map was tested by others and is working fine, I've not made any fixes in that regard. That said, if you find any bugs/glitches or the like, please tell me what they are. Screenshots are also super useful.

Not a huge update, but I hope you enjoy it and find the singleplayer mode addition helpful for playing around with the Heroes on offer. I'd be particularly impressed to see clear times on the map and what Heroes you used to do so.

Cheers,

- Shadon

 

[Veldris]

Okay everyone, I'm pleased to announce I've uploaded version 0.9F. Not a huge amount of changes here, but they do address most of Veldris' comments.

The New Age - Version 0.9F Changelog

General:

- New Singleplayer Mode added. If you are the only player when you start the game, you can choose up to 3 Heroes instead of just 1.
- Gold Channelling: Every worker you have channelling gold gives you 2 gold per second, up from 1.
- Map loading screen now includes full credits.
- Added a proper map description.
- A message now appears shortly after the game starts to prompt you to pick a hero/heroes from the Altar of Kings/Altar of Storms.

Marrow Knight:

- Dragon of Marrow's tooltip has had a typo correction.

Zealot of the Blade:

- Zealous Wrath now has a learn hotkey (E)

I've elected for the time being not to barrage players with hints during the game since there are a lot of systems in the map and I don't want it to get visually noisy or repetitive with text appearing all the time. The Gameplay Manual is your one stop quick reference if you're interested. That said, let me know if any tooltips aren't clear enough to get you started.

Also, as the map was tested by others and is working fine, I've not made any fixes in that regard. That said, if you find any bugs/glitches or the like, please tell me what they are. Screenshots are also super useful.

Not a huge update, but I hope you enjoy it and find the singleplayer mode addition helpful for playing around with the Heroes on offer. I'd be particularly impressed to see clear times on the map and what Heroes you used to do so.

Cheers,

- Shadon

Thats wonderful!! 5/5 without Doubt! Good luck in other Patches!

 

[Deleted member 247165]

Review	The New Age
Key Concept	Aeon of Strife - My favorite concept. The loading screen contains credits to the people whose resources you used. It's fine but it should contain the update log of the current version. You can put the credits in the Quests or in the bundle of the map when you firstly upload it. First thing I spotted, the Disjunction system. Good job on that. You can practically, create a checkpoint where to teleport back. Really nice. The map layout is designed well. The bases are very large but I guess it's because of the massive amount of creeps being spawned, so does for the multiple towers at each entrance of the base. You have Astral Spirits that can be used to build additional towers. The towers can also be upgraded and those spirits can be used to channel +2 gold per second. Very cool. It gave me a nice impression of the map at first
Gameplay	Heroes seem to be carefully designed. Played the Arcane Master first. I love the first spell "Scintillating Storm" Those orbs smashing upon the enemies, it looks cool . The ultimate is really nice. After this hero, I tried the Monk of the Flame hero. Funny name Saladin. His Fireflash spell's cooldown is too big in my point of view, considering that he is a potential assassin hero, that blinkspell should have a cooldown between 8 and 12 seconds. I like the concept of his ultimate, although I believe that you should either raise his basic health or lower the damage dealt to himself, since he might die too quickly considering he is not a Strength based hero. No items? Are they not ready or you do not want to add items to the map?
Terrain & Aesthetics	A nice and fitting terrain for the map's concept. Love the watery sides of the map, where those ramps collide with the entrances of the base.
Wizardry	The spells are fine and some of them are totally cool. I liked them all.
Final Suggestions	The orbs of the Arcane Master's first spell can explode upon the same unit. The might be lethal, if only a single enemy is in the radius of their action. I suggest you make them hit only 1 target. Raise the health of Saladin. Add items maybe? Don't know if you intend not to do it. improve the terrain appearance in the bases. Using only 2 tiles, looks a bit nostalgic ( Sorry, artistic point of view)

Overall, you did a good job with the map. I would like to see what things you will add in the future updates. And although it's beta, I would have rated it 4/5. I like what you implemented into the map.

 

[Shadon]

Thanks for your feedback Alxen. I'll address some of your points here:

- The Monk of the Flame's inherent passive is a 3 minute reincarnation, hence why the self damage of his ultimate is that high. You can effectively do a combination of Fire Flash (Teleport + AoE Damage) -> Blast Furnace (AoE Damage and Snare) -> Baptism of Fire to deal huge AoE damage to enemy units and structures. That conceptually was what I had in mind. As for Fire Flash having a long cooldown, that's because 1) it deals AoE damage as well as a teleport. 2) I envisioned forcing a choice on Monk players: Use Fire Flash to jump into a group of enemies and then Baptism, or go there on foot and then Baptism, and then use Fire Flash to escape. A shorter cooldown would mean you could zip around at will, which is not what I had in mind. Also note his other ability, Burn to Fight, is a HoT which he can place on himself to take some of the sting out of Baptism's self damage.

- Scintillating Storm is intended to be a truckload of damage as AoE, but what I'll do in the next update is nerf the movement speed of the missiles so they can be outrun. This will also make Gravity Well (the Arcane Master's root spell) more useful in tandem.

- Items are in the map but I could do with breadcrumbing/signposting where they are. On each lane there are vendors, just outside the main base but before you hit the outer layer of towers.

- The lanes inside each base were a lot thinner originally but this often caused bottlenecks even in singleplayer and without additional units, so I widened them. I'll have a look at prettying up the terrain inside the bases themselves. Also, those ramps you've noted are specifically for the Naga Reaver, who moves more slowly than other heroes but can swim, so this gives him a unique way of navigating the map.

Again, thanks for taking the time to give the map a go. Any feedback is very much welcome.

EDIT: Before I forget; Overload, the Arcane Master's ultimate, can be cast on your own units. If you build a Summoning Tower, you can buy a cheap melee unit, drop Overload on it, and send it into enemy forces as you please.

 

[Deleted member 247165]

Glad I could help. Regarding the Flame monk hero, it's just my point of view, since you designed him like that for a reason, then it's fine how it is

 

[nhs325]

Smokes's Ult can't target creeps, but only structures, you might want ot fix that.

 

[Shadon]

Smokes's Ult can't target creeps, but only structures, you might want ot fix that.

That's actually intended. You can still manually hit ground forces with the Attack Ground command, bound to G.

My rationale with this is that I wanted controlling and getting optimal use out of Bessie (the tank spawned by the ultimate) to be more involved than just letting it sit in the backlines with the Arsenal Thane. This is why Bessie also has the Napalm Death passive, which lights the ground on fire, although it could perhaps do with some tweaking / buffing to make the fire damage it provides much more dangerous. Otherwise, I don't plan to allow units to be targetted directly by the tank.

I do also have a tooltip change in mind to clarify Napalm Death's damage and duration.

 

[nhs325]

So far, the map is pretty fun to play with, and I like how you keep the heroes's abilites simple but still really useful and have alot of synergies with together. The Ultimates are also really fitting too. Some changes I would like to see:

Add creep camps, so we can farm more easily (The map might be too small for that but its your choice)

And that's all. Really love the map (Porbably the 3rd good AoS project I saw on Hive so far) hope you keep updating it!

 

[Deleted member 247165]

So far, the map is pretty fun to play with, and I like how you keep the heroes's abilites simple but still really useful and have alot of synergies with together. The Ultimates are also really fitting too. Some changes I would like to see:

Add creep camps, so we can farm more easily (The map might be too small for that but its your choice)

And that's all. Really love the map (Porbably the 3rd good AoS project I saw on Hive so far) hope you keep updating it!

Mind naming the other two?

 

[Pyrogasm]

I understand there needs to be room to move around in the base area, but it looks really barren to me. Perhaps it's because it's all the same tile for large sections of it? I would suggest finding a way to include some visual flair to make the bases seem more alive. For example: acouple destroyed buildings/towers, some rock piles, a watery area, and most of all plants/critters. Many of these could be doodads with no collision/pathing map so they wouldn't impede players walking around the base.

 

[nhs325]

Mind naming the other two?

Err forget that, thats just one of my concern.

Mind naming the other two?

 

[Deleted member 247165]

Err forget that, thats just one of my concern.

I'm curious

 

[Shadon]

So far, the map is pretty fun to play with, and I like how you keep the heroes's abilites simple but still really useful and have alot of synergies with together. The Ultimates are also really fitting too. Some changes I would like to see:

Add creep camps, so we can farm more easily (The map might be too small for that but its your choice)

And that's all. Really love the map (Porbably the 3rd good AoS project I saw on Hive so far) hope you keep updating it!

Given the map's size I'm probably going to avoid adding creeps for the time being. If the XP/Gold rewards from the regular forces aren't great I'll bump them up a bit as a compensation.

I understand there needs to be room to move around in the base area, but it looks really barren to me. Perhaps it's because it's all the same tile for large sections of it? I would suggest finding a way to include some visual flair to make the bases seem more alive. For example: acouple destroyed buildings/towers, some rock piles, a watery area, and most of all plants/critters. Many of these could be doodads with no collision/pathing map so they wouldn't impede players walking around the base.

I'm in agreement that the inner base areas could look a lot less plain, and I've brainstormed what I think is a good idea for what to put there. That'll come in the next update, which will also include a suite of polish changes and reworks to some Heroes and hero abilities to make them more interesting, as well as a balance/tuning pass on the buildable towers.

 

[Shadon]

Hello everyone, just a quick update on what I've been working on with the map.

- Hero tuning and polish is in progress. This involves a couple of things; new models for certain abilities and buffs/debuffs, additional effects to make certain spells more snazzy, ability tuning, additional interactions for some abilities, new icons and so forth. Not every Hero will be getting tuning or changes, but for a few there'll be some nice additions that enhance their existing gameplay without completely revamping them.

For example, the Naga Reaver Hero for the Horde now has a few changes all around. He's been renamed to the Deep Slayer, Rip & Tear has a new debuff icon, and his Brother In Arms summon has been tuned to have less health and damage, but now gains bonus damage against victims of Rip & Tear, as well as a life steal effect that activates in tandem with the Slayer's Gift of Azshara ultimate. This tones down his early game power while giving him more tools and interactions with the Slayer's abilities, making for more interesting gameplay.

- Base redesign: As mentioned in a few bits of feedback before, the bases are currently very barren and look a bit rubbish tbh. I've just completed a redesign of the Alliance base (seen in the screenshot below) with the aim of giving it more visual variety and density without compromising pathing and still allowing freedom of movement. In addition, I have created a new elevated space for the Alliance's Fountain of Restoration so it no longer is possible to fight next to it if your base is under attack. Heroes will also revive/spawn next to it as well, although workers will be spawned around the cosmetic fountain to the south, so as not to blockade the area around the fountain when everyone starts the game.

Thank you all for your feedback thusfar. Once this next update is out I'll likely be moving to a release candidate, and every comment or insight helps.

NewAllianceAreaDesign

• Shadon
• Sep 15, 2018
• 2

EDIT: Here's the redesigned Horde area. Took me a fair bit longer than I expected due to some incongruities with the Alliance base (specifically the size, as it was a bit smaller than the Alliance's base).

NewHordeAreaDesign

• Shadon
• Sep 15, 2018

 

[Deleted member 247165]

Looks much more better! Good luck on finishing the first version meant for release.

 

[Pyrogasm]

In general I think the bases have been improved significantly, and I have some further suggestions to think about!

• I think the liberal use of the Grassy Dirt tile is great, but I am really not a fan of the 2 straight grass tiles for some reason. They seem out of place to me, somehow. I know they are used elsewhere in your map, but I would try experimenting with the Rough Dirt, Small Bricks, and Sand tiles in your tileset. If you can integrate some of those with the grass as you have done in the forest south of the Alliance base I think it would be less attention-grabbing. IMO it's also a little too random-looking. If it's really an established base wouldn't there be paths and lines where many units have crossed before?
  
  
• Pick different ubersplats (the ground texture) for your base buildings; human cobblestone is out of place here. You can modify this under Art - Ground Texture individual for each type of building, so you can choose what's appropriate on a case-by-case basis. I like Temple of Tides for the human buildings but it's up to you. The night elf-y ones don't make much sense unless the grass stays, IMO (but maybe that's a reason to keep the grass localized to the buildings using grass ubersplats). Not sure what you'll want to do on the Horde side, but I would probably get rid of the blight ubersplat on the Necropolis in lieu of something more sunken-temple-y. I think your Horde towers are also missing them entirely. You could also put blight under a fair number of them and try to incorporate that tile significantly into their base.
  
  
• You can rotate the buildings to have different facing directions! While not super relevant for some of the models, the night elf ancient models might look more prepared to actually fight off attackers from the East, and select buildings might look better from different directions. To do this, set the Stats - Is a building to false for that unit-type in the object editor, rotate all of them as you would normal units, then set Stats - Is a building back to true. They will only reset to default 270° if you try to move them, I believe.
  
  
• You still need some doodads in the base. Also maybe a couple trees here and there?

 

[Shadon]

Thank you for your detailed feedback Pyro. I'll address the points in turn:

In general I think the bases have been improved significantly, and I have some further suggestions to think about!

• I think the liberal use of the Grassy Dirt tile is great, but I am really not a fan of the 2 straight grass tiles for some reason. They seem out of place to me, somehow. I know they are used elsewhere in your map, but I would try experimenting with the Rough Dirt, Small Bricks, and Sand tiles in your tileset. If you can integrate some of those with the grass as you have done in the forest south of the Alliance base I think it would be less attention-grabbing. IMO it's also a little too random-looking. If it's really an established base wouldn't there be paths and lines where many units have crossed before?

I've cleared out the dark grass tiles and instead placed some dirt tracks over where the units from the Castle/Fortress path, to make it look more well worn. The idea behind these bases is that they were originally ornate gardens/areas of worship, but have become overgrown, hence the grass. That said, the dark tiles were distracting, so they're gone.

• Pick different ubersplats (the ground texture) for your base buildings; human cobblestone is out of place here. You can modify this under Art - Ground Texture individual for each type of building, so you can choose what's appropriate on a case-by-case basis. I like Temple of Tides for the human buildings but it's up to you. The night elf-y ones don't make much sense unless the grass stays, IMO (but maybe that's a reason to keep the grass localized to the buildings using grass ubersplats). Not sure what you'll want to do on the Horde side, but I would probably get rid of the blight ubersplat on the Necropolis in lieu of something more sunken-temple-y. I think your Horde towers are also missing them entirely. You could also put blight under a fair number of them and try to incorporate that tile significantly into their base.

I've added the original ubersplats back to the Spirit Towers. Orc Boulder Towers now also have an ubersplat too. I've left the Black Citadel ubersplats as is and added blight in for more visual flair.

• You can rotate the buildings to have different facing directions! While not super relevant for some of the models, the night elf ancient models might look more prepared to actually fight off attackers from the East, and select buildings might look better from different directions. To do this, set the Stats - Is a building to false for that unit-type in the object editor, rotate all of them as you would normal units, then set Stats - Is a building back to true. They will only reset to default 270° if you try to move them, I believe.

Kudos for the tip; I've applied it to the Ancient Protectors as you've suggested and also to two of the Horde merchant units.

• You still need some doodads in the base. Also maybe a couple trees here and there?

I'm honestly very loathe to put a lot of doodads in the bases themselves for a couple of reasons. Firstly; pathing. The addition of the foundations has already played a bit with the pathing of the Castle/Fortress spawns as is, so I don't particularly want to crowd up the area anymore with collision enabled doodads, especially since at its peak the base has to hold 6 heroes, 30 workers, and whatever units the players are controlling in addition to those, plus the computer spawns. It could get very crowded in there, so the more freedom for units to move around, the better in my opinion.

In theory I could add in doodads such as tents and the like that don't have collision/pathing, but I'm of the opinion that'd be like making visual soup as well. Units clipping through these structures, difficulty seeing the exact radius of AoE effects, there's a number of issues I could see happening. For now, I'm electing to leave it as is, which is still a marked improvement on the original barren state both bases were in.

Nonetheless, your feedback is appreciated, so thank you for that.

n.b. I've also made a visual pass on the map itself to turn most of the surrounding edges into deep water, gated behind doodads so if you happening to be playing the one amphibious hero in the game (the Deep Slayer) you can't go there, but it now helps make the place feel more like an island. I've also added a merchant to each base's fountain that sells entry level potions, so you can buy those and go straight to the lane of your choice rather than diverting to the merchant in the middle lane who sells the stronger stuff (also you can now sell items to this merchant while at the fountain).

Other changes en route, and I'm hoping to have a new version out next weekend. The changelist is going to be extensive, and hopefully it'll put the map in a good place for release.

 

[Shadon]

Hello everyone, time to necro this thread and explain what's been going on with one screenshot.

RIP

• Shadon
• Oct 2, 2018
• 7

TRIGSTR is my mortal enemy. May it never return.

Yup. While finishing the last Hero ability revamp I needed to do, the vanilla editor decided to corrupt all of my custom strings save for maybe 10. All gone. And I had no backups. Not exactly the most pleasant scenario I think you'll agree.

Between that and a few events I've been attending this past fortnight the map has suffered a setback, but thankfully I've managed to save the terrain changes and reimport all of the object data from version F. This in effect has put me one step forward, two back, so I now need to redo all of the changes I had made, which I've started work on. Hopefully I'll have another update for this coming weekend. Thank you all for your patience!

 

[Shadon]

Hi everyone! Version 0.9G is now out. Feel free to check the first post for the changelist and the download. This version is now a release candidate so barring any bugs or issues I'll be uploading it proper to HIVE soon. Please let me know what you think!

 

[Pyrogasm]

Unfortunate about the trigstr file, hopefully now you know to back up every day before you make changes!

 

[Shadon]

I made a backup manually after every time I did a big update this time around and thankfully the whole thing didn't turn to spaghetti. Now just to hope the map itself plays out okay now that it's 99% done!

 

[Shadon]

Well, not less than 2 - 3 days after the first update I found a fair few nasty bugs in the map, so these have been fixed and a new version is out. Changelist is in the OP. Enjoy!