Tuskarr Frenzy

[Q[0.oQ]WHAM]

Written by: Me ^_^. Took a whorish amount of the basic concept of Footmen Frenzy by HatoUP/TheBigGame/Fox/that guy who's not windaleblizard or Mr.Apples.

Tuskarrs are those little squirrel-walruses for those of you that don't know.
Uhhhhhh. Wut?:
Good question. Tuskarr Frenzy is... well... In 3 words, it would be "Footies in snow," but in reality, its only similar features are the layout and early-game gameplay.

Your starting base spawns cute, blubbery, little squirrel-walruses that you then fling into pitched combat with your enemies. You can upgrade your spawns and your base as the game goes on.
It's really a very simple map to learn to play. So simple, in fact, that I lose about half the time in my alpha tests on battle net to people who are playing the map for the first time.

So why play this over footies?:
Another good question. Overall, the balance in this game skews WAY in favor of high tier units over heroes. Heroes, with a few exceptions, will start to fade around tier 3 or 4. None of the heroes I've made so far can even come close to demolishing an army.

Heroes are still strong in their own right, don't get me wrong. But they can't just sit back and blast away with spell after spell with a wall of meaty bodyguards to protect them. Items are nearly nonexistent in this map, mostly consisting of temporary buff scrolls/tp scrolls, or very moderate hero enhancements. The focus lies on the army, not the hero.

Another thing, possibly even more appealing. Look at the filesize. 88kb at the moment. This map is made for Battle.net play. It downloads in a snap and the game loads in 15-45 seconds depending on the speed of your computer. I've actually managed to get full house games of this going simply because people didn't have to wait in the lobby for their dl to start.

What about the units?:
Well, you have a base, and it spawns units. You can upgrade your base to grant access to higher tier units. Spawn units are divided into 4 tiers and 4 basic classes: Melee Tanks, Melee DPS, Ranged, and Caster. Each tier has 1 option from each basic class that you can set your spawn to.

I will say right now that some of the spawn units DO need to be tweaked a bit, though I haven't played enough to decide what should be adjusted and how much.

And the Heroes?:
There are 11 heroes as of version 1.2b. Each has a unique skillset, each skillset is designed to be in line with both the theme of the hero and the overall balance of the game. Heroes have a broad range of skills and each one demands its own style of gameplay. (there will probably start to be overlap pretty soon as far as hero play styles as I write more heroes.)

Each hero has 3 basic skills that go to level 6, and one 3 level ultimate, in general. Hero levels are capped at 21, and hero stat growth is slightly faster than for ladder games, but not ridiculous.

So... is there a plot?:
Forgive my french, but hell no! It's senseless violence for no reason at all! It's a frenzy map, not an rpg.



Any feedback or suggestions or (really unlikely) bugs are welcome. Even if the hero count is scant, the triggering is nearly fully debugged. (it sometimes kicks out some incorrect values when someone leaves immediately after being defeated, which I'm working on.)

At the moment, the upload function is giving me a gigantic middle finger, but the current version can be found by following the link in my sig. Screenies coming soon, once I get another good full game going.

 

[Nudl9]

Erm... so any custom triggered spells and anything original except for new heroes and a whooooooole new tileset?!

 

[Q[0.oQ]WHAM]

No, that would defeat the purpose of the map.

This is meant to be small, simple, and have a very shallow learning curve. The spells are meant to be mindblowingly easy to use and understand so you don't use up game time reading tooltips trying to figure out what exactly a given spell does.

Triggered spells consume space, and because they're normally far more complicated insofar as the effects and mechanics that would be mentioned in a tooltip, really have no niche in this map. Your average footies player on battle.net is not joining for innovative mapping or spell design. They want a fast game that's easy to get and easy to play. A majority of players understand the ladder spells and how they work, why not base a skill off those? It means less time reading tooltips and more time playing the game.