Warcraft IV - Lost Temple

[Deleted member 247165]

What's the difference between this and the default Lost Temple ?

 

[Homer123]

What's the difference between this and the default Lost Temple ?

added/modified skills, units and heros. Almost every hero and unit has modified/added skills, while player can still choose to use original units/heroes. Base can upgrade to l4/l5, neutral will spread across map after events, etc.

 

[Deleted member 247165]

-the map description in the lobby is in Chinese.
-almost all the spells of the custom units and heroes have nothing in their tooltips, not even the name of the ability.
-random messages are shown of the allied forces but they don't seem to do what is said in the message. The name of each player is also shown incorrectly. It shows the color code | c004234| and not the name under that color.
-there are random annoying framedrops which I'm 100% sure that they are caused by the memory leaks you have in the triggers
-The map is literally the same as the basic Lost Temple with really minor modification.

Sorry but in this state, it cannot gain more than the simple status.

 

[Homer123]

Alright thanks for reviewing, I guess I just wanted to try it out here. Like I mentioend in description it's currently in Chinese and I don't have time to translate to English. For other issues you listed I'm pretty sure it's also due to language problem, I've tested it in both Netease and Blizzard platforms at least 50 times each 30min+.

And lastly I strongly disagree this is minor modification from orignial one, I'm a top 20 player of Netease and have been playing melee only for 15 years. I modified every unit based on my vision and dream of Warcraft 4. Those modifications are not just change of amount of damages etc, but completely revamp of how a skill/unit can do, something like what dota does but for RTS. For example:

• A unit that doesn't have a model that enemy can't select.
• A unit has highest/lowest possible attack/move speed while maintaining balance.
• A unit can attack while moving.
• ...

Anyways

 

[Deleted member 247165]

Being a top player in a genre doesn't mean that the content you create will also be the same way. There is always time to improve.
If you are not satisfied with the review, you can ask:
@deepstrasz or @Wazzz or @mafe for another review.

 

[Homer123]

I just updated the version with all text translated using Google, added memory leak handling, and added some new features.

 

[Deleted member 247165]

I just updated the version with all text translated using Google, added memory leak handling, and added some new features.

@deepstrasz would you please re-review this ?

 

[deepstrasz]

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3. Some abilities have weird descriptions (Kassan getting 0 damage) or none at all (Frenzy). Arthas doesn't have a hero type description. Learn about descriptions:
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5. There are superfluous and unneeded things like Formation.
6. Retreat and Increase Attack have the same icons. So do other abilities from Formation share icons with some standard abilities.
7. Carry doesn't specify what unit it needs.
8. Timed units like the Hydromancer are a bad investment.
9. Heroes have weirdly edited/replaced abilities.

Generally, it's a chaotic edit of the original melee, not quite creative, original and even balanced.

 

[Homer123]

Thanks for the review. I play this myself everyday and keep fixing stuff so thanks for pointing out those improvement suggestions. However, I don't quite understand the comment of "not quite creative, original", can you please maybe suggest some example of what is not creative and original?

For example, "There are superfluous and unneeded things like Formation.", one of the ability is retreat, so that player can simple click the ability/or use ability shortcut to go back to town during fight, instead of left click on unit and right click on minimap to order it to go back, which saves lots error prone controls for human.

 

[deepstrasz]

However, I don't quite understand the comment of "not quite creative, original", can you please maybe suggest some example of what is not creative and original?

There are plenty altered melee maps around with fun and creative ideas and that don't clutter the gameplay.
In essence, this map is mainly an edit.

 

[Homer123]

Sorry I really don't understand, I downloaded and tried lots of altered maps everywhere, they have new races, new models, but almost 99% skilks are about how damages are dealt differently. Is there any fun/creative ideas that I fail to notice? Will you please just mention something in your mind that count as creative?

For my map, yes it's an edit, just like Frozen Throne to original War3. And like I said in the description, you can always change hero back to normal version etc. When I play it I always use same strategy I use when playing normal melee. So can you suggest what is cluttering the gameplay plz?

 

[deepstrasz]

Sorry I really don't understand, I downloaded and tried lots of altered maps everywhere, they have new races, new models, but almost 99% skilks are about how damages are dealt differently. Is there any fun/creative ideas that I fail to notice? Will you please just mention something in your mind that count as creative?

New game mechanics that go differently from the original or triggered things is what shows effort and creativity. New races too if they are made in a unique way.
The Frozen Throne is not a mere edit. It introduces new material that is different than Reign of Chaos.

 

[Homer123]

Thanks for explaining. Do you think the "Custom Race" "Weather" "Co-Op mode" things in my map would count then? Like I put in the description.
I believe Frozen Throne added new units and heroes but not new race, which I did same for this map also. I have 6+ new units for each race, new abilities for existing ones (to not break balance some require new base upgrade), and every hero has a different version. Each new unit is unique that I'm sure no such thing exist today, for example a unit can change attack type for untis around, a hero has no ability but high attributes and units around can't cast spell. Those are in the demos I added above.

 

[Homer123]

Spent some time adding more details to skill tooltips and so on. Also added few new features like defense mode (moving base to island at begining of game). Hopefully it can attract more eyes.

 

[Resyak]

A pity that it requires Reforged, in the classic version it would attract a lot more people. Personally, I don't even have Reforged installed to test things anymore, it's a complete and utter mess, not even a million patches fix that mess...

But as an amateur custom content creator, it makes me angry because I know the amount of work and hours it can take to create something like this only to be played by very few.

Good luck with your project, regards.

 

[Kakerate]

What is the benefit of making a map only playable with reforged graphics? Maybe if you had some doodads that were mis-scaled, but for a melee map?

 

[Homer123]

First of all, I don't know how many people have reforged. But at least pros do play reforged with latest patch 1.33 if I'm not wrong. Secondly, this is my dream and vision of warcraft 4 which needs to combine with reforged + quenching mod to provide myself best experience of "dreaming". Lastly, I don't have non-reforged installed but it doesn't mean this map won't work 100% on non-reforged.

I don't make this map for any profitability purpose, just because I only play war3 melee for my life, and this is the dream of me to play war4 that might not ever come. I'm just hoping some melee pros that one day may play it with me and that would be enough.

 

[Deleted member 247165]

@iamocult is your alternate account @Homer.G !! Multiaccounting is not allowed on Hive. You used the alternate account to rate your map to max.

 

[Homer123]

Oh man, apologize for that. Wasn't aware that doing so is not allowed. It was normal behavior to even buy ratings in other places... This map doesn't get much appreciation anyways so really doesn't matter to me without the ratings lol.

 

[Deleted member 247165]

Instead of doing that, you could work on your map to improve it. About your previous reply regarding creativity in other melees. They are not 99% about damage. Playing a melee map generally requires a solid strategy to beat your opponents, wise use of the units and heroes your race offers, attacking during key moments and so on. And when something doesnt offer much, you cant really call it an altered melee. Try to improve it. Giving up isn't an option!

 

[deepstrasz]

Wasn't aware that doing so is not allowed.

It goes without saying that something like this should never be allowed as it's immoral. You don't need rules for this, you need to have good character.
However, it's nice of you to have confessed and apologized.

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Archian has a secret multiaccount that he uses to boost the ratings of his resources. The staff found out about this and ban the multiaccount, as well as giving Archian a 6 point infraction for 6 months.

 

[Homer123]

Man I was trying to be polite here, I don't really understand your problems with me. I'm just trying to share something I enjoy and play myself everyday here. I completely don't understand the saying on "It goes without saying that something like this should never be allowed as it's immoral. You don't need rules for this, you need to have good character.", people doing that all the time on everywhere like amazon, and I just used one account to rate it because my current account keeps preventing me doing so.

About Alexen's comment of "Instead of doing that, you could work on your map to improve it. About your previous reply regarding creativity in other melees. They are not 99% about damage. Playing a melee map generally requires a solid strategy to beat your opponents, wise use of the units and heroes your race offers, attacking during key moments and so on. And when something doesnt offer much, you cant really call it an altered melee. Try to improve it. Giving up isn't an option!", I don't know if you guys ever play melee, ever looked into my map's details, and how you come up with the opinion. I didn't want to interfere with your review so didn't mention other people's thoughts on this, but here's what Mafe said:

"
Hello, so I took a quick.
First of all, I do not want to interfere with reviews from other reviewers. I also have nearly 0 experience with playing other altered melee, so I cannot really judge if it is true that (like the other reviewers suggest) the map is less creative than "normal" altered melee maps.

In my personal opinion, the map has a lot of fun ideas. I can see how this map presents one possible evolution from wc3 to wc4. For me it is no problem that much of it is based on standard wc3 assets, and there are a few really interesting abilites, like for example the base defense, the units which deal %-based damage.

But I also have a few problems with the map:
1. There are probably a lot of bugs, for example when nightelves upgrade to tier 4, the mine is no longer entangled so they cannot earn gold.
2. More units/abilities make the game more complicated, but they do not automatically make it more challenging or entertaining, for several reasons:
-Think about chess: The rules are very simple, but they create incredibly deep gameplay. A game with complicated rules can still make for shallow gameplay.
-For example, a race in a strategy game can have 25 different units to chose from, but it might not matter if in practice the gameplay works in such a way that only 4 units are used most of the time.
-In a game like wc3, for me the beauty (and sometimes controversy) comes from the fact that the races are different, and they are different because each race has a limited set of units/abilities/heroes... to chose from. Not every race can use their workers/buildings to creep. Races are forced to play around different "power spike" timings. Not every race can fastexpand (well, maybe only orcs not cannot) and so on. If you give more stuff to each race, the chances are high that (even if you didnt intend it) the races become more similar to play. Which imho would be less fun.
-Also, if there are many units/etc... the game becomes less accessible for newer players/viewers of pro games, since it takes longer to understand the basic mechanics of the game.
3. I agree with the other reviewers that the map appears chaotic. Even if the ideas are good, it is hard to see if you have to do not know what the abilities are doing.
"

Here's what RoboGoblin on Discord said:
"
Wow, you are a very talented developer. You have done a great and very cool job.

but unfortunately this map is not suitable for our competition on several points at once. https://goodgame.ru/cups/map-contest-3457 ->> Requirements for MAPs: 1. there is a very very global balance change on the map. this means adding something small, for example 1-2 new items, or for example a shop where you can change resources to buy wood for gold (as is done in your main building). but not more. This visually should remain WCIII v1.32 melee. 4. The map must be new. This is visually almost a standard LT. We are looking for maps that are new in terms of landscape and design. New combinations of tiles, new combinations of decorations, and so on. I'm very impressed, I like a lot of the mechanics you made. can I ask you for help to create triggers in the future?
“

I also fixed all the tooltips, languages things you guys so concerned about but no veil. You don't recoginize the creativity in the map, so I give up, bye!

 

[Deleted member 247165]

You clearly misunderstood everything of what I and Deepstrasz said. Sadly, your choice then.

 

[deepstrasz]

Man I was trying to be polite here, I don't really understand your problems with me.

You are the one not being polite at all by now justifying wrongdoing by account of others doing the same which is illogical. We have shown you the rules that you should have read and respected and yet you still want to come out as not guilty.
How are we not polite? Would you have expected us to close our eyes to this?

It is rather irrelevant what people think about the map when we are discussing your behaviour and rule breaking on this site.

 

[Homer123]

I did apologize for that, and I didn't say you are not polite. I'm just saying it's not common sense to disallow multiaccounting ratings so how would I know. But you actually say it's due to "no good character", how is that polite?

I got pissed off just because of your questionable judgement on this melee map.

 

[Deleted member 247165]

Any forum has rules, please take time to read them before actioning. As for this discussion, if you are not satisfied or anything, you can leave a message in Staff Contact. The map bundle isn't the suited place for such things.

 

[Resyak]

Man I was trying to be polite here, I don't really understand your problems with me. I'm just trying to share something I enjoy and play myself everyday here. I completely don't understand the saying on "It goes without saying that something like this should never be allowed as it's immoral. You don't need rules for this, you need to have good character.", people doing that all the time on everywhere like amazon, and I just used one account to rate it because my current account keeps preventing me doing so.

About Alexen's comment of "Instead of doing that, you could work on your map to improve it. About your previous reply regarding creativity in other melees. They are not 99% about damage. Playing a melee map generally requires a solid strategy to beat your opponents, wise use of the units and heroes your race offers, attacking during key moments and so on. And when something doesnt offer much, you cant really call it an altered melee. Try to improve it. Giving up isn't an option!", I don't know if you guys ever play melee, ever looked into my map's details, and how you come up with the opinion. I didn't want to interfere with your review so didn't mention other people's thoughts on this, but here's what Mafe said:

"
Hello, so I took a quick.
First of all, I do not want to interfere with reviews from other reviewers. I also have nearly 0 experience with playing other altered melee, so I cannot really judge if it is true that (like the other reviewers suggest) the map is less creative than "normal" altered melee maps.

In my personal opinion, the map has a lot of fun ideas. I can see how this map presents one possible evolution from wc3 to wc4. For me it is no problem that much of it is based on standard wc3 assets, and there are a few really interesting abilites, like for example the base defense, the units which deal %-based damage.

But I also have a few problems with the map:
1. There are probably a lot of bugs, for example when nightelves upgrade to tier 4, the mine is no longer entangled so they cannot earn gold.
2. More units/abilities make the game more complicated, but they do not automatically make it more challenging or entertaining, for several reasons:
-Think about chess: The rules are very simple, but they create incredibly deep gameplay. A game with complicated rules can still make for shallow gameplay.
-For example, a race in a strategy game can have 25 different units to chose from, but it might not matter if in practice the gameplay works in such a way that only 4 units are used most of the time.
-In a game like wc3, for me the beauty (and sometimes controversy) comes from the fact that the races are different, and they are different because each race has a limited set of units/abilities/heroes... to chose from. Not every race can use their workers/buildings to creep. Races are forced to play around different "power spike" timings. Not every race can fastexpand (well, maybe only orcs not cannot) and so on. If you give more stuff to each race, the chances are high that (even if you didnt intend it) the races become more similar to play. Which imho would be less fun.
-Also, if there are many units/etc... the game becomes less accessible for newer players/viewers of pro games, since it takes longer to understand the basic mechanics of the game.
3. I agree with the other reviewers that the map appears chaotic. Even if the ideas are good, it is hard to see if you have to do not know what the abilities are doing.
"

Here's what RoboGoblin on Discord said:
"
Wow, you are a very talented developer. You have done a great and very cool job.

but unfortunately this map is not suitable for our competition on several points at once. https://goodgame.ru/cups/map-contest-3457 ->> Requirements for MAPs: 1. there is a very very global balance change on the map. this means adding something small, for example 1-2 new items, or for example a shop where you can change resources to buy wood for gold (as is done in your main building). but not more. This visually should remain WCIII v1.32 melee. 4. The map must be new. This is visually almost a standard LT. We are looking for maps that are new in terms of landscape and design. New combinations of tiles, new combinations of decorations, and so on. I'm very impressed, I like a lot of the mechanics you made. can I ask you for help to create triggers in the future?
“

I also fixed all the tooltips, languages things you guys so concerned about but no veil. You don't recoginize the creativity in the map, so I give up, bye!

Sorry, but your comment made me very funny. Advice from a random person who is not a "professional player" if that even exists today in a title that is dead competitively speaking.

Stop thinking that what you do is so good and that those who say that it is not as good as you think are wrong, probably neither of the two "sides" is 100% right, because there is always an important subjective factor of each one when it comes to valuing something, it is inevitable.

On the other hand, I assure you that none of the moderates have anything personal against you, first of all, they don't even know you so it is very unlikely that there is anything personal. Also, luckily in this forum, the reviews are not of the "it's bad." style, the moderators argue their opinions and give their reasons, many of them objective that should not be discussed, others perhaps, more subjective, about which You can get to debate, always from the cordiality and not getting angry about what someone said in a forum...

And finally, as I said I'm not a professional player, but as a custom content creator I do have some experience. What you intend to achieve with this map is incredibly complicated, even for a company, to make a deep modification of the races with new mechanics and for that to work, it is something that most RTS games with a company behind them have never achieved, imagine achieving that by being a single person. If you are not willing to accept advice and opinions and to continue working on your map to improve it little by little and you are going to continue insisting on how good it is as it is and on what I don't know who told you, then you are in a bad way.

I have been angry when I received certain opinions without arguments about my content, but I have never thought that everyone is wrong except me and that my content is perfect because some said it is perfect. One invests many hours in this without receiving anything in return and always hopes that the reception is good, but the reality is not always that and theirs is to accept it and try to improve. That or get angry and stop uploading content.

Anyway, regards and good luck, I hope you don't take it personally.

 

[Homer123]

Reyak you seem like a reasonable person.

I'm not saying in anyways this map is so good that everyone should play it. I don't even want to make this map if someone else or blizzard can make it happen it the first place. I'm just putting whatever I can think of into this map, from my experience of 20 years of melee play. Of course there are so many details to enhance, which I'm doing everyday as much as I can. I only hope that one day war4 can actually happen with this kind of effort. What are other melee players doing? Either busy making their money out of war3 or nothing. Netease is also making hundreds of thousands of money from non reforged RPG maps. Only few people are saving melee.

But the comments they made really pissed me off. Is there any specific example they listed instead of just saying this map is not creative or so? Has anyone actually looked at the hero skills or anything I created? Just to compare, this is an altered melee that got approved with many good feedback: Bronzebeard, Wildhammer, and Dark Iron Clans, if you look at the units and heros, most of them have ability to "deal X damage, stun for Y seconds", "deal damage in a row", etc. Now what did I create? Random race, a unit that is purely manual attack/defend, a army that can transform into same army enemy has, just to give examples. See the point? I introuce something that current war3 doesn't have. Of course there might be other maps that contain similar skills, maybe, but how can you keep saying this is not creative and original? I agree that this kind of effort is extremely complicated, but if no one makes it, it won't ever happen. That other alter melee map above is indeed well made, but ask yourself, do you ever imaging yourself play it over and over again with others? However people do play random hero melee.

I also kind of believe they don't have personal issue with me. But if your map is not reviewed for monthes even after you fixed things they suggested, and suddenly all of them jumped out of nowhere just because I used another account to rate my map, and keep mentioning comments on my map without details, how would you feel about it? I understand this map is in a vague area where melee players would have more thoughts but they don't care to visit, while non melee players would have totally different view. But melee is the essense of this game. I also looked at other similar maps like this: [MFO]Lost Temple II 0.81, I can clearly see the goodness of the ideas however that map was also marked as simple with comments not understanding melee plays. How am I going to trust these reviewers if good ideas and map makers are turned away all the time? Other people at least mentioned the goodness in my map like Mafe, but not other reviewers.

I'm also willing to take advises, like I fixed all the tooltips and other things they suggested. But what other advise are they suggesting? Maybe I'm blind but I don't see any, I don't know what they expect even. You want me to create a new race? No, this is melee, no one plays new races in melee, take Naga for example. You want me to add skills that "deal X damage, stun for Y seconds" with some fancy models? What's the point if this kind of thing already exist?

But I appreciate your advise, I have never ever joined any forum and posted this many comments and contents so maybe it's just me not used to the internet thing lol.

 

[Remixer]

Review - Warcraft IV - Lost Temple
(Version August 27th 2024)
Synopsis: Warcraft IV - Lost Temple is an altered melee map, featuring a custom race that allows the players to include units, buildings, and heroes from whichever race they wish. The standard units of normal melee have also been customized. The implementation of these changes seems quite scattered and it takes dedication to learn which things have been changed as the indication of things having been changed is lacking.
Map Aesthetics: The map itself is the standard melee Lost Temple, so I'm not going to spend time going into the layout and visual aspects of the ground and environment. Some minor edits have been made: such as randomly spawning Enhance Building, neutral villagers, and customized creeps, but nothing major. More important in this case is the visual clarity of the map (and its changes) - or the lack of visual clarity. A lot of times the unit, building, or ability descriptions are misleading, insufficient, or straight out wrong - take for example Chimaera Roost, which doesn't mention anything about the new aerial units available, or the custom race Farm that doesn't mention it has dozen of researches gated behind it. What makes the lack of visual and design clarity even worse is that often it seems illogical: why exactly does the farm have race-specific researches available from every race? Overall the custom changes that lack indication and good design logic give the player an unfinished and confused impression. A prime example of lack if visual clarity is the opening message of the map that consists of around eight lines of text, including text commands and what they do - but all that text disappears in a few seconds and there's no time to read that message.
Altered Design: The interesting twist in this altered melee compared to the common one is that "you can build your own race". Well, while I can see what you meant by that by allowing players to include any unit in their tech tree, the execution is very lacking. The text-chat-based command system, while functional, is quite clunky and for example Spellbook-based approach would probably be more user-friendly. Regardless of the user control interface, the unit-specific researches, abilities and texts must be bound to whether said units are unlocked or locked - it makes no sense to have Brute Strength available (or unavailable) in the Barracks if you cannot get Grunts - it just makes visual clutter and confusion worse. Design could also be improved greatly by usage of custom icons and models as right now, it is very hard to tell what has been changed and what has been not - even Blizzard does this. Minor edits to a unit (Grunt) could be implied by a change of size, color and/or name of the unit as well as custom icon, so players can tell it has been edited from a glance at the icon, rather than needing to read the whole description of the unit to find out whether it has been modified or not.
Map Gameplay: Overall the gameplay quality suffers immensely from lack of clear design: a lot of changes have been crammed into seemingly everything without really clear indication of what the goal of said changes: why can Nightelves train Nether Drakes, and why do the Nether Drake look like an ordinary Nether Drake, while they are not ordinary Nether Drake? While the freedom to train or include whatever in your armies can be desirable it is a very poor design choice without very careful implementation and presentation. The game must guide the players in what to do and what can be done, and what can not be done. You could ask yourself a question: Is having 16 researchers available through Farm the most clear and user-friendly approach to grant them access to race-specific researchers? Probably not. Even if the design clarity and readability are disregarded it is hard to see the desired goals of the alterations.

Recommendations:
Try to improve the design clarity immensely: focus on design philosophy first - each change should have a reason to exist and design that follows common logic is usually helpful. Regardless of design clarity, the implementation must be clear as well. Custom icons, models and names can help you here (I highly recommend reading on visual clarity).

Probably the easiest step to improving the design and visual clarity is here on the Hive thread. Update the map page and write more careful and thorough introduction on what actually changes - with pictures. Take screenshots and explain what is possible. Completely overhauled melee gameplay is quickly too overwhelming for the average user you might encounter.

I also encountered a bug where the computer instantly lost upon start - no idea why.

Rated as Simple.

 

[Homer123]

This feedback is comprehensive and makes sense overall. As suggested, I will try to add more details on the thread. Meanwhile, although I know it won't change anything, just trying to put answers to some of the comments above -

The implementation of these changes seems quite scattered and it takes dedication to learn which things have been changed as the indication of things having been changed is lacking.

The intention of the changes to be scattered is that I tried to interfere as less as possible with existing melee play. So at least when I play, I use same strategies as I do on any other melee maps, occationally discovering new abilities to use and to try new strategies. I believe it's hard to learn basically anything new for a melee player, no one wants to including me. That's also the reason I avoid creating new race or so which is never going to happen in next Warcraft or DLC. But point taken that there can be more indications.

why exactly does the farm have race-specific researches available from every race? Overall the custom changes that lack indication and good design logic give the player an unfinished and confused impression.

I agree on this one. To me this is just one of the features I created for this map which I don't want to spend too much effort to optimize. I guess this is the delima this map is in that there are so many features that if no one is going to appreciate it why should it be perfected? If it's no perfert why should some one play it?

A prime example of lack if visual clarity is the opening message of the map that consists of around eight lines of text, including text commands and what they do - but all that text disappears in a few seconds and there's no time to read that message.

I guess what I'm trying to do here is that if there's no such message, no one would know that you can 1) build your own race 2) share units with ally 3) set initial resources etc. But showing it for too long would impact melee game. So I made the choice of showing it for only seconds.

Design could also be improved greatly by usage of custom icons and models as right now

I try to avoid custom icons and models for several reasons 1) It's a melee map don't want to add addtional resources. 2) Warcraft already has tons of resources that a normal melee player never seen in melee maps, and that's also one of the main purposes of this map. Again, a melee player will never care reading any tips or instructions but follow whatever has been there for melee, it just to me makes more sense for them to discover new ideas/features during normal game play. For example, Blizzard introduced the new Prioritize skill for StoneGargoyle, and I don't even need to read anything but know that what it does after trying.

a lot of changes have been crammed into seemingly everything without really clear indication of what the goal of said changes: why can Nightelves train Nether Drakes, and why do the Nether Drake look like an ordinary Nether Drake, while they are not ordinary Nether Drake?

It's the idea that I want to create a unit that 1) can revive infinitely as long as one of them exist 2) can purchase other units, both of which do not exist today. Same thought process for other abilities as well. And Nether Drake looks like an ordinary Nether Drake because it's Nether Drake, and normal melee players don't use it today.

Even if the design clarity and readability are disregarded it is hard to see the desired goals of the alterations.

Two goals here - 1) the alternation is meant to create something doesn't exist today. For example, a hero with all auras. I admit it might be unbalanced or so, but it will create more strategy for melee and more fun to play. 2) It just makes sense to a normal melee player. For example, huntress is known for being weak for longer play, so you can now combine them.

I'm also curious about other alternative melee maps if someone can answer me. For example the maps from Wa666r. They are really great made with good looking resources and detailed instructions. But as a melee player honestly I won't play it for a second time. But there are features that really can be used in melee game, for example random heroes. For example, if you can't beat Happy, why don't you try 2v1 (2 controling one race)? I enjoy playing it myself and I really hope one day I can play Warcraft 4 with such new features. Doesn't need to be me to make it though.

 

[Remixer]

I guess what I'm trying to do here is that if there's no such message, no one would know that you can 1) build your own race 2) share units with ally 3) set initial resources etc. But showing it for too long would impact melee game. So I made the choice of showing it for only seconds.

What I am trying to highlight with this example is, that you've made design choices that are not always exactly the best - even for the result you wish to achieve. Take the opening message for example - rather than showing it for a few seconds (which is way too little as it doesn't remain to be displayed anywhere), you could change the message type of it, so it's stored in the Game Log or make it a Quest Message so players can return to it. Additionally you could make the message disappear per player when they start doing something (engage in the melee gameplay - as obviously a wall of text that is not normally shown is something that they will focus on first, so detect the moment they no longer wish to engage with it).

I try to avoid custom icons and models for several reasons 1) It's a melee map don't want to add addtional resources. 2) Warcraft already has tons of resources that a normal melee player never seen in melee maps, and that's also one of the main purposes of this map.

I understand that it is your design philosophy which I respect. Still, my point stands that using appropriate icons is part of visual readability, so when you choose not to use custom icons (or models) you need to make sure that visual clarity and readability are on point in other ways.

...to me makes more sense for them to discover new ideas/features during normal game play.

I don't think anyone will understand this key point you're trying to achieve only from reading the map description or loading screen for now. So I'd encourage you to think how you can better explain that it's a normal melee, but some aspects of it have been enhanced (though it has many aspects). You could compare this to the altered melee maps that introduce boats and Computer AI capable of handling naval units - that's a distinct area of gameplay that is being focused on and enhanced, and thus, easier to explain.

It's the idea that I want to create a unit that 1) can revive infinitely as long as one of them exist 2) can purchase other units, both of which do not exist today. Same thought process for other abilities as well. And Nether Drake looks like an ordinary Nether Drake because it's Nether Drake, and normal melee players don't use it today.

I understand the idea of having the unit and it is actually a very nice concept. I tested it in-game and it was even hard for me (the controller of said units) to know what is going on. I have to disagree with normal melee players being engaged with Nether Drakes as they are represented in some tilesets and modern melee creators tend to have interest in including unusual things, such as Nether Drakes, in their maps. That being so, I think melee players do have an idea of what Nether Drake is. Nevertheless, the visual clarity example applies here too: there could be an indication when the Nether Drake can spawn another one (perhaps you should, instead of removing the revive ability, just disable it, so the player can still read it). There could be visual indicator of this too - perhaps the number of nearby Nether Drakes could be indicated by the Sphere ability (the one that makes particles float around the unit), adding a sphere for each nearby Nether Drake, possibly changing their color if the unit can cast the ability (not on cooldown). The model of Nether Drake is also hard to read (whether it is channeling or just flying still for it is missing a proper looping channel animation).

I'm also curious about other alternative melee maps if someone can answer me.

I am personally not super active player of altered melee, so I cannot really give you a comprehensive answer to that, but I know that Maxwell is working on his own vision of Warcraft IV. So that one you might want to check out, and if you want a completely overhauled game experience with custom everything I'd recommend Kam's Beyond the Throne project that he has developed for many years.

 

[Homer123]

Agree on the visual readability part, yes there's much opportunities to improve on existing UI designs. And in simple word it just needs more effort which I don't have (even after addressing all the previous ones). The question really is whether ideas/concepts can outweight visual clarity, I guess seeing from the reviews here the answer is no. I am going to get my answers though from the maps you suggested, although haven't found luck yet with Kam's Beyond the Throne project. But thanks for your input.

 

[Advon]

It's alright, but I feel a lack of cohesion between the abilities, and some are implemented in a clunky way. Of course, some of my earlier maps have a similar clunkiness.

Units killing/absorbing others for stat upgrades is rather janky with what looks to be some sort of item or aura buff? I've found it a lot cleaner to do so using triggers to directly edit unit properties.

Heroes aren't well rounded, Arthas just has 3 cone AOE damage spells? I also don't see the point of changing the main heroes to get their Ulti at 7 to give them new spells. Let a few of your new heroes shine with a balance of all custom abilities, and make sure they're all actually filled out. As for attribute bonus, removing the level skip might be good, otherwise at higher levels heroes end up with a bunch of un-spendable points.

Increasing upgrades beyond level 3 is also one of my first intuitions in a custom map, although outside of testing, you start to realize the research time starts to become abysmally long. While I do still let the upgrades go to 15 for variety, I make a secondary set of upgrades that once again just tells some triggers to increase the damage/health/armor of units.

T4/5 producing all workers and being the same for all races feels like a cop out, and a few tech tree requirements are busted by it(in particular I think there was something from orc?). Can't open the map in the editor for some reason, but maybe open the game constants if you haven't set a higher XP rate for higher tiers, thats always fun.

Ignoring the actual ease of use, the style of map this is appeals to me, but ultimately, I don't think the novelty changes things up in a meaningful way. It's interesting, but I probably won't be trying it again.

 

[Homer123]

It's alright, but I feel a lack of cohesion between the abilities, and some are implemented in a clunky way. Of course, some of my earlier maps have a similar clunkiness.

Units killing/absorbing others for stat upgrades is rather janky with what looks to be some sort of item or aura buff? I've found it a lot cleaner to do so using triggers to directly edit unit properties.

Heroes aren't well rounded, Arthas just has 3 cone AOE damage spells? I also don't see the point of changing the main heroes to get their Ulti at 7 to give them new spells. Let a few of your new heroes shine with a balance of all custom abilities, and make sure they're all actually filled out. As for attribute bonus, removing the level skip might be good, otherwise at higher levels heroes end up with a bunch of un-spendable points.

Increasing upgrades beyond level 3 is also one of my first intuitions in a custom map, although outside of testing, you start to realize the research time starts to become abysmally long. While I do still let the upgrades go to 15 for variety, I make a secondary set of upgrades that once again just tells some triggers to increase the damage/health/armor of units.

T4/5 producing all workers and being the same for all races feels like a cop out, and a few tech tree requirements are busted by it(in particular I think there was something from orc?). Can't open the map in the editor for some reason, but maybe open the game constants if you haven't set a higher XP rate for higher tiers, thats always fun.

Ignoring the actual ease of use, the style of map this is appeals to me, but ultimately, I don't think the novelty changes things up in a meaningful way. It's interesting, but I probably won't be trying it again.

Good comments, points taken. I know it's not easy to make everyone happy, even I don't actually play the games but just check what units do when I try other people's maps. Anyways I like play it so I will continue to build this. Actually now I'm doing what I always wanted to add, a new superhero race where there's no hero and you can only build a unit once, pretty fun at early stage.

Units killing/absorbing others for stat upgrades is rather janky with what looks to be some sort of item or aura buff? I've found it a lot cleaner to do so using triggers to directly edit unit properties.

You guys are right on these, I just implemented whatever ways I found simpliest.

Arthas just has 3 cone AOE damage spells?

That's actually the point. Have you ever played anything like this in any games? I played it many times and it's strong and fun, and that's why it's a L4 hero.

I also don't see the point of changing the main heroes to get their Ulti at 7 to give them new spells.

I just added too many abilities for them so manually add original L6 abilities when they reach 7. They still can use original version though. Those newly added abilities are what melee players might want to try always. For example, undead is strong at instantKill, what if we give them banish? I know it might be unbalanced, but balance can always be adjusted in other ways.

Increasing upgrades beyond level 3 is also one of my first intuitions in a custom map, although outside of testing, you start to realize the research time starts to become abysmally long

Couple reasons for this - 1) There are so many creeps melee players don't use so L4/L5 give them chance to use them. 2) Long melee games can last 1h or more, but in later game there's nothing to research anymore. 3) easy to implement.

Can't open the map in the editor for some reason

It's hard, I tried it many times also. Now you can only manually add ydwe to Jasshelper to open the map.

but maybe open the game constants if you haven't set a higher XP rate for higher tiers, thats always fun.

Yeah L4/L5 have higher exp gaining rate and more food.