[SD & HD] The very end of you 1.0.173 & (1.1.526_beta)

[deepstrasz]

A very nice melee+defense/survival mix that uses random generated terrain whose only downside is no cliffs. Not that they are necessary but there are gameplay mechanics around them (miss chance, vision impediment).
Would be neat to have more factions to play with for even more replayability..

Approved.

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[ScrewTheTrees]

A very nice melee+defense/survival mix that uses random generated terrain whose only downside is no cliffs. Not that they are necessary but there are gameplay mechanics around them (miss chance, vision impediment).
Would be neat to have more factions to play with for even more replayability..

Thank you kindly for your review!

Cliffs is something i would want in the map, however there is no way to Procedurally generate actual cliffs & Cliff levels when warcraft 3 is running. When i tried to implement a solution where i used Elevators and very steep terrain at places to simulate it. it started having major impacts on performance sadly, so it is currently in a "I dont know if i can realistically implement this" mode.


As for the techtree thing i agree entirely. While i don't want to make a "Pick a faction" type of deal when the map starts. I have been fiddling with making the town hall being able to upgrade to different specialisations / Factions that provide different unique bonuses / buildings / units / etc... related to the picked faction.

It does however require me to rework the Techtree majorly, but its on my TODO list! (Along with a lot of other things like more enemy variety and general content).


If you have any other feedbacks or suggestions. I would also be happy to hear them too

 

[Ralle]

I really liked playing this map a couple months back. Thanks for finally submitting it!

 

[MindWorX]

Pretty neat.

 

[Ralle]

Saw the update. What's new?

 

[ScrewTheTrees]

Update post regarding version 1.0.173 and the indev version of 1.1.x .

I have been on hiatus from warcraft 3 for quite a while now, dealing with IRL thing and mental health issues in general.
But i thought it was finally time to fix this map so that it would run on more recent WC3 versions as my shoddily implemented Lua obfuscator broke with 1.33.

Now i want to point out that 1.0.173 is simply a bugfix to work on 1.35, but there is a 1.1.x (currently 1.1.230 as of writing) currently in development.
It was the much written techtree update that was all about expanding the techtrees and introduce new fun tools and systems for players to mess around with (like F2 all units from SC2, and allowing different types of units inside watch towers at the same time).

It has been on hiatus with me for a long ass time and i only recently started working on it again. There is no estimate for when the techtree update will be released but i am aiming to atleast release an alpha of it in february.

Saw the update. What's new?

Currently just patching as it was broken on 1.33+ since forever and i have been very lazy and never patched it, but i am also working on a pretty large update again



Fun little teasers (for fun).
Little units ontop of buildings that now individually fire on nearby enemies, pretty much just the normal units but you can now mix the units inside the towers. Instead of having a tower for every unit type.

The new techtree will include 4 factions, every faction has their own worker with the faction specific buildings. They also have special bonuses, for example the Stone Factions unique workers cannot harvest trees, but they are a lot more efficent at harvesting from stones (obviously), and they are very durable as you would expect!

 

[Ralle]

Haha that's really cool. The units in top of the towers must be coded to move around within pathing blockers and not be targetable by attacks / spells, right? Sweet.

 

[ScrewTheTrees]

Haha that's really cool. The units in top of the towers must be coded to move around within pathing blockers and not be targetable by attacks / spells, right? Sweet.

Haha well they are locust units that cannot move at all, entirely untargetable by both enemies and players, so no moving them around on the tower manually sadly

 

[Ralle]

Ah, still cool!

Remember Battle Ships? Imagine a HD version of the ship with the various cannons ON the ship and firing.

This is similar, right?

 

[ScrewTheTrees]

Ah, still cool!

Remember Battle Ships? Imagine a HD version of the ship with the various cannons ON the ship and firing.

This is similar, right?

Ah yes its exacly like that, the system i developed for this is generic and allows moving vehicles as well x)
Here you have some of General Franks Tanks going to town in one of my test maps

(Moving tanks with garrisoned units is currently not in this map thou, but i have considered adding an armored transport like that).

 

[Ralle]

Haha that's so cool. For your next map, you gotta make some sort of Mad Max experience with fighters all around some crazy ship.

 

[ScrewTheTrees]

Delays, due to some complications IRL the beta for v1.1 is delayed sadly, tried getting it done in a sane manner but ran out of time.
Hopefully i can get it out this week or next week, but it remains to be seen when.
If there wasnt a game breaking bug in the current build i would drop it now but ech.

 

[ScrewTheTrees]

Release 1.1.368 Beta

Long time no see! Due to IRL things i have been very busy and will be very busy for a long time comming, but i finally got an Early Beta ready for v1.1
This beta comes with a long list of changes, additions and tweaks. Spread over a lot of different systems of the map.


##Note that this does not include everything because documentation is a pain when doing rapid developing.
Notes having something like (Metal Age) at the end means that this is bound to a specific techtree.

### Balance/Gameplay/Engine/Misc changes

• Players are now given slightly more time until the first night falls.
• Increased base max resources to make the early game resource management slightly easier.
• Player starting resources have been adjusted.
• Recovery nights (nights without a wave), are now slightly shorter.
• The final night is now slightly longer to force people to really hold on.
• Changes to enemy spawning for performance reasons.
• All soldiers Training time has drastically increased (Soldier camps are slightly cheaper to compensate).
• Dead destructibles(not trees) are deleted on death. (Technically last patch but that was merged from this patch).
• Many structures now have a different pathing map that makes them harder to place. (They have walkable pathing on the edge to still allow units to move around them).
  • This change is primarily to nudge people into expanding their bases more. Currently, It's way too easy to turtle even late game.
• Added an "All Combat Units" on the F2 Key.
  • Uses normal unit commands to give orders to all combat units.
  • Has a "Save guard position" command that saves the position of said units.
  • Has a "Move to saved position" command that moves all soldiers to their saved positions.
  • Has a "Attack move to saved position" command that attack move all soldiers to their saved positions.
• Majorly changed map generator:
  • The entire algorithm for generating trees have been changed to provide a more consistent experience.
  • Roads have been entirely rewritten, making them more consistent, more visually appealing and provide their intended functionality better.
  • Biomes have been cut for now (There was only 2, and the interpolation between the biomes was bad, need rewrite).
  • Metal/Stone node algorithm has been adjusted to be more consistent with the distance between nodes.

• There are now 3 tech trees focusing on a different resource each.
  • Elven Town Hall (Grants Wood Age)
    • Focuses primarily on technology related to lumber and magic.
  • Masons Keep (Grants Stone Age)
    • Focuses primarily on technology related to stone and survivability.
  • Furni Factory (Name Pending) (Grants Metal Age)
    • Focuses primarily on technology related to metal.

### Techtree Additions

• Elven Town Hall (Grants Wood Age)
  • Trains Wisp, a worker that can harvest wood withing killing trees but can't harvest stone/metal.
    • Builds: Tree Protector, tower that consumes lumber on each attack to deal AOE damage/Stun.
• Masons Keep (Grants Stone Age)
  • Worker Golem, builds special buildings. Can't harvest wood, but twice the gains from harvesting stone.
    • Builds: Mortar factory, a building that gives armor and regeneration to all buildings in a moderate range around it.
• Furni Factory (Name Pending) (Grants Metal Age)
  • Metal Automaton, builds special buildings. Can't harvest wood, but twice the gains from harvesting metal.
    • Builds: Firecracker, a tower that consumes metal on shooting, creating a zone of reduced movement/attack speed.

### Major Techtree Changes From version 1.0

• Watch Tower / Stone Turret
  • Soldier Tower -> Stone Turret (Stone Age)
    • Stone turret stone cost increased from 200 to 400.
    • Stone turret can now Garrison 6 units instead of 4.
    • Durability has been increased
  • Both Towers now work differently, all units can now enter them and gain a bonus to attack range.
    • Only Archers, Soldiers, Centaur Impaler and High Priests will currently fire out of the tower when inserted this way.

• Transfers
  • Rapid Transfer -> Dwarven Transfer and requires (Metal Age)
    • Now consumes 5 Stone instead of 9 Lumber to heal.
  • Long Transfer -> Elven Transfer and requires (Wood Age)
• Farms
  • Food produced have been reduced from 12 to 8.
  • Stone cost been reduced from 200 to 100.
  • Lumber cost reduced from 250 to 150.
  • Gold cost reduced from 150 to 100.
  • Pathing map is a lot larger now (walkable around the edge), making it take up more space and harder to place.
• Barricades
  • Wood Barricade T2 -> Reinforced Wood Barricade
  • Stone Barricade T2 -> Reinforced Stone Barricade
    • Now requires (Stone Age)
  • Health reduced for Reinforced Wood Barricade, Stone Barricade and Reinforced Stone Barricade.
  • Stone cost reduced for Stone Barricade from 200 to 150.
  • Stone cost reduced for Reinforced Stone Barricade from 300 to 250.
  • Time to repair has been reduced slightly for all barricade types (Workers are better at repairing them).

• Archer
  • Arcane ooze now requires (Wood Age)
• Soldier
  • Deep focus now requires (Metal Age)
• Engine of Doom
  • Gives AOE attack speed and armor to nearby units. (Metal Age)
• Autonomous Golem
  • Receives +200% health regeneration and 25% move speed. (Stone Age)
• High Priest
  • Receives +1.00 Mana regeneration/s. (Wood Age)

 

[ExaFlare]

looks like a fun map but you are given no time to search the map for a suitable base location and i have restarted quite a few times but never seen a good place with less than 5 different entrances to worry about and therefore i got blasted very quickly (obviously testing this solo to see if it's fun enough to play with my friend) and some buildings could definitely use a placement area reduction as it forces you to find a huge area... night comes WAY too quickly on day 1 to get any kind of defenses going i just get surrounded from every angle before my first line of walls is up. if i could edit this i would simply at the least add another 7-10 minutes before nightfall as that feels reasonable as i feel like i am being pigeonholed into the starting area before getting murked within 3 minutes. tree lines also end up being split which does not help for defense as they can slip in. giving us vision of the whole map to see where we might want to base up would be nice too rather than blindly running a direction and hoping not to get screwed. and air waves by night 3? when the day/night cycle is already super fast? medium should not be the recommended for new players then as this feels way more unbalanced than custom castle defense
this maps got good potential but i would like to see it also allow for people like me who cannot handle the pressure of 5 different entrances to focus on

 

[ScrewTheTrees]

looks like a fun map but you are given no time to search the map for a suitable base location and i have restarted quite a few times but never seen a good place with less than 5 different entrances to worry about and therefore i got blasted very quickly (obviously testing this solo to see if it's fun enough to play with my friend) and some buildings could definitely use a placement area reduction as it forces you to find a huge area... night comes WAY too quickly on day 1 to get any kind of defenses going i just get surrounded from every angle before my first line of walls is up. if i could edit this i would simply at the least add another 7-10 minutes before nightfall as that feels reasonable as i feel like i am being pigeonholed into the starting area before getting murked within 3 minutes. tree lines also end up being split which does not help for defense as they can slip in. giving us vision of the whole map to see where we might want to base up would be nice too rather than blindly running a direction and hoping not to get screwed. and air waves by night 3? when the day/night cycle is already super fast? medium should not be the recommended for new players then as this feels way more unbalanced than custom castle defense
this maps got good potential but i would like to see it also allow for people like me who cannot handle the pressure of 5 different entrances to focus on

Thanks for the feedback. 1.1.368 is a beta and still needs lot of work, so i appreciate the feedback!

1.0.173 is far more stable gameplay, the map generator for that one is also very different and might provide a more stable gameplay as well (It's also easier).

The next version for the 1.1.xxx beta will be giving more time before the first night falls, it will also fix a bug with how enemies spawn (the enemies spawning for 16 hours of the day instead of the intended 8).
This gives you more time to think during the day without being constantly under siege. Will also slightly reduce the amount of enemies on easy/normal, as its a bit too much currently.

While some degree of pigeonholing is intended (the map is designed with the idea that you will never get a perfect base), it's a bit too extreme and players will be given more time to find a base in the next 1.1.xxx beta version.
As for vision, yeah i agree that its a bit too limiting, old design choice that will be changed in the next beta to give far more vision on map start.

Usually you can survive night 1 without any barricades and only only using your archers (and their melee forms), but my current tips encourage you to build barricades instead, and that is something i have altered in the introduction tips (so now players get to know that archers have a melee form )

As for the building size, its easier to manage in the old 1.0.173 version. In fact, it was too easy in those earlier versions to manage your base layout. I think a major problem is that enemies don't stop attacking during the day (the spawn bug), so expanding is extremely hard.
But its something i have to keep experimenting with.

Flying enemies on night 3 is very much intended (they only have 2 damage per attack, negative armor and are weak to archers piercing damage). Designed to be more of an annoyance than an actual threat.
But night 3 is definitly spawning too many of them, i have reduced their night 3 spawnrate by 66% and night 4 by 50%. So there should be far far less of them early game, they have also had their health and health regeneration slightly reduced as i noticed it was a bit too high.

About bases having many entrances, it's intended but its a bit too extreme for small bases currently and needs tweaking. I also think the major issue is not explicitly holding 5 entrances, it's that you have to do it all the time as enemies are constantly attacking you from all sides. Giving you absolutly no chance to to think and just being extremely stressful in general.
That one definitly needs a fix... sensory overload is not very nice!


There is a few issues in the current map generator, it's a constant work in progress, and changing frequently, some of the things i want to adress are base layouts (provide some better building areas in general) and the slips in the trees. The slips are intended but are very experimental and will either be removed or tweaked to be less annoying.


But yeah i am deeply sorry for the pressure given, i didnt know it was that bad until i watched someone play it on stream two days ago and realized how stressful it could be (map makers bias ).
He also mentioned a few of the issues you encountered, along with how hard it can be the first time you play due to some bad tutorialising.


Thank you for your feedback and playing the map
There should be a patch later today or tomorrow fixing a bunch of the issues hopefully, depending on how long some of them take.

 

[ScrewTheTrees]

Release 1.1.526 Beta
After a lot of rebalancing and retweaking a new beta is going out now. It mainly focuses on fixing some of the more major bugs and design choices.
As always, not everything changed is included, only the things i remebered to write down.

• Fixed a lot of tooltips and descriptions.
• Changed a lot of tips making them more useful and adding coloration.
• Remade the flow of tutorial tips to better introduce new players to the basics.
• Night tips are now yellow instead of teal.
• Now shows a tip when the map starts that you can use -cam xxxx or the numpad to zoom the camera.
• The vision range when the map finishes generating is now double the radius.
• (Experimental) Added coloration to a lot of tooltips to potentially make them faster to digest.

• Rest nights (no enemies) are now at 5,10 instead of 8.
• (Major) Fixed a bug where nights would be between 16 and 8, instead of the intended 18 to 02.
  • This made the game extremely hard to play as you were constantly under siege.
• The enemy roaming behavior has been majorly reduced, this means that you should be far less harassed during the day.
• The time before the first night falls have been increased.
• Less enemies in the early game to make the game a bit less punishing on easier difficulties.
• Less flying enemies in the early game, they have also been slightly nerfed with less health.
• Fixed an issue where if there were too few enemies on the map, they might spazz out.

• Some requirements have been put on buildings to streamline the early game and make it less confusing for new players.
• The amount of gold you start with have been reduced, this means you have more time to look for a base before you can afford your town hall.
• You now start with 90 stonel.
• You now start with 50 metal.
• You now start with 200 lumber instead of 150.

• Macro module now has an ability that allows for the user to easily upgrade barricades, either by clicking or automatically using autocast.
• Barricades can now be opened/closed every 3 seconds instead of every 10 seconds.
• Removed some dated and useless things from the Macro module.
• Time between "Attack notifications" (your base is under attack) has been doubled, it also only triggers further away.
  • This is to reduce the constant annoyance, pings on the minimap should still occurr.
• Marketplace is now called Gold Transmutator to fit the lore of the map more thematically.
• Housing can be upgraded to Fine Housing again properly (but those snobs require good barricades).

• General Performance optimizations.
• Terrain heightmap is now a lot flatter to make building placement easier.
• A lot of Alterations, fixes and tweaks to the map generator.
  • Maps are gonna look very different now, this is still a major work in progress thou and will most likely be changed again.
• Tree generating algorithm have had a major overhaul.
• A lot of other minor tweaks, alterations and fixes to balance.

Thanks to Jayborino for playing the map on his Maporino, watching him play it gave me a lot of insight needed to make improvements to the map.
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