War of Characters 1.11

[Moderator]

10:58, 13th Jun 2015
Map approved with a rating of 3/5 due to a large radical update which improved the map thoroughly. Good job!

09:16, 1st Jun 2015
Shadow Fury: Map set to needs fix with a rating of 2/5 based on my review. Also consider reading Ardenian's review to gather more info about what you need to improve your map.

 

[Ardenian]

Unofficial Review

Positive things I noticed: Other things: Suggestions: great use of custom, realistic modern city doodads good choice between some different heroes fully customized heroes that match the modern style of the map good basic idea, cannot remember seeing such an AOS theme ever many custom item icons that perfectly match each other the starting cam is rather strange and misplaced, maybe set it instantly to hero choice area creep groups are easily wiped out with abilities, but hard to take down without any abilities base turrets are very weak, they seem weaker than the common creeps are, they won't be an obstacle for incoming heroes, what should be their purpose in an AOS, to prevent early base rush you could add a state information for the heroes. Yes, the colour indicates perfectly the corresponding primary state, as well as the name colour when choosing a hero, but nonetheless a bit more info on heroes could be nice grenade damages not the hero / allies, I think it could be a good idea, but it is up to you one or another pathing blocker is missing or misplaced, maybe take a look on that again

Terrain

The terrain feels overall okay. It is a bit empty and uniform, making it look boring. You could add little rocks and more, different doodads to improve especially the forest terrain. Additionally, I think an additional gras tile, maybe a darker one could greatly improve its look. Overall, the terrain looks good enough for being a good background to the gameplay, but lacks highlights and different styles. Nonetheless, you greatly used custom doodads and it looks very good, but you could add more style, give the town maybe some unique areas as well as different parts for the forest. Rating: 4/10 - There is room for more

Gameplay

The gameplay is also influenced by the great use of custom doodads. All heroes seem to use custom models which is a great example for the use of such. I played as a SWAT and the gameplay seemed overall interesting, as the hero has either the opportunity to focus on ranged damage or to level into melee abilities. Something I didn't liked at all was the total lack of item build. The hero has no choice between different item builds, but can only buy four / six different item types and level them up, slightly increasing their stats. In my opinion, it is, especially in AOS maps, very important to give the choice between different item builds, offering different strategically options. War of Characters totally lack this option, making the item build very simple. Additional, the items do not give special things, but simple boni to HP, MP, both kinds of regeneration, movement speed and such. You should think again about giving more items and item builds. The gameplay seems very simple therefore. Your hero, having 4 abilities, tries to hunt down enemy heroes and destroy their base. It is nothing special about this gameplay, feeling simple and does not offer any unique quality. Beside the great use of customized resources, the map is too simple to offer unique gameplay and a good time playing it. I suggest to add more features, think about your choice to remove allied creep spawn that is moving to the enemy base. I have to say, wouldn't this map be customized like hell, I would vote for rejection. You put a great effort into this map, as can be seen, but the gameplay totally lacks features and tension. Rating: 3/10 - You could add more features

War of Characters offers a very customized interface and an unseen theme in the world of AOS. I cannot remember having seen this theme for an AOS. However, the gameplay in this map is too simple to get approved, in my opinion. If this were a zombie survival map, I would say, alright, but for an AOS it is too simple, offering neither item build nor exciting abilities and gameplay. Personal Rating: 3,5/10 Personal Vote: Awaiting Update ( Pending)

 

[Shadow Fury]

TERRAIN The terrain was mediocre. There are some positive and negative details about your terrain. I notice you did an excellent job in creating the city itself because it actually feels modern (that's pretty good because many people fail in this part). The tiles and the doodads you utilized are very fitting to the theme. Despite that, the city actually looks incomplete like that due to a lack of decorations. Now, moving to the green areas, they were not pleasant. The way you put the vegetation randomly everywhere doesn't really contribute to an attractive scenery. In addition, one grass tile is just not enough to create a decent forest; an extra one would surely be better. Talking about the most critical issue about your terrain, I have to tell you that the use of overscaled doodads such as the pines and the buildings merely cause trouble to gameplay. These doodads obstruct the view of the heroes and the creeps thus making the game bothersome and putting players in inconvenient situations. What I recommend you to do is making these doodads "Units". Once you did that, in the trigger editor you can use the command Animation - Change Unit Vertex Colouring to set transparency to something like 75% to make the structure translucent (semi-visible) when a unit gets nearby such a doodad (using regions). When the unit goes away from the building, you reset the transparency to 0%. GAMEPLAY The game itself provides a solid base idea and puts you into the shoes of a soldier. As in any AOS, the goal is to destroy the enemy base. Now I got some remarks about this part. Firstly, the turrets are far too weak. I can tranquilly send my hero level 1 with some items and destroy both turrets. They really need to be a lot stronger. Another point is that the Law Enforcement can flank the portal but the Characters cannot do the same thing with the Police Station. This is just unfair. I'd suggest making the sides of the Portal inaccessible to balance things out. Having a word about the items, I have to say you could've done much better than that. The items that are already present are great but you lack some of the most important items required in an AOS. Due to the large size of the map, a teleporting item would've been very appropriate. Other missing items, for example, are the ones that regenerate mana. Good Medkit and First Aid Kit are there for HP but for mana there's nothing sadly. Getting to heroes, I would like to ask one question. Why is SWAT exactly equal to Alpha Spetsnatz? They are two identical clones and I don't get the reason for this. Another issue is that some heroes have exactly equal skills (Dodge and Critical Strike). Why not changing them? There are many more passive skills which are different from these two. OTHER ISSUES Let's start off with a little but considerable issue. Whenever I learn a passive skill, I have its passive icon. It should be the active one when I click on it to learn it. You may also consider changing the name of the place where I pick heroes from "Tavern" to something more modern like "Headquarters". Heading to something more crucial, you lack variation within the neutral creeps. Just a Mutant Fish and a Bear can get repetitive pretty rapidly. I recommend adding some more types of creeps and also swapping the model of Bear with "Misha" instead of Druid of the Claw (Bear Form). The thieves could also be moving around the city instead of standing idly for no reason. That would spice up the gameplay a bit because players would certainly meet them on their way and be forced to fight them. OVERALL RESULT Eventually, the map has some potential but it needs to be polished and improved a bit more. I will give it 2/5 and set it to needs fix.

 

[Ardenian]

Please add an appropriate changelog to the map thread.
Saying 'New map' does not offer any information on what you have done so far.

 

[JenkovAA]

Please add an appropriate changelog to the map thread.
Saying 'New map' does not offer any information on what you have done so far.

New Terrain, Hero, Items, Abilities, Units, and Systems.

 

[Shadow Fury]

Definitely, the map has improved a LOT! New heroes with awesome skills, good modern terrain, fantastic items and a more AoS-like gameplay with creeps spawning from both sides. I'll approve this now with a rating of 3/5. I would give it a 4 if the gameplay wasn't that slow-paced and if the huge buildings didn't obstruct my view.

Also, you might still consider:

1- Nerfing the tanks because it takes ages to destroy one of them
2- Fixing the tooltip mistakes because there are plenty of them (but still understandable luckily)
3- Making buildings transparent as I suggested above in my review
4- Speeding up the initial attack speed of all heroes as they are tediously slow in the beginning

 

[raisen]

Good Terrain and i love this. I suggest to keep it up and add more features on
it so it could be more useful and interesting. btw the building is huge make it perfect.
for me I rate your map 3.5/5. Useful map thanks for sharing

 

[JaredVeatz]

nice map you got there bro! A modern-themed map with great gameplay. Liked it!

 

[RED BARON]

Uhh, something I made is being used in a map.. Really need to make more stuff now that I think about it. Looks promising, now I just need to play it to discover what I made thats in it.