Winter is Coming v2.0

[deepstrasz]

no, not being tricked again

Then, it's obvious, you're just lazy.

 

[DrakPanda]

Then, it's obvious, you're just lazy.

no as i said im on hiatus, dont assume shit that isnt said, never asked for a remake on reforged for a rating change, no idea how u got that idea in your warped mind

 

[Ralle]

Be nice guys.

 

[deepstrasz]

no idea how u got that idea in your warped mind

Sorry, I didn't mean to force you or anything. It's just, I get irritated when I see low ratings on maps which I think deserve more stars.

 

[3ICE]

Hi,

Thanks for commenting on my status update (in my profile). I played your map and rate it 5/5 for fun Huge wall of text incoming:

• The "IcecrownSeer.mdx" model file seems to be missing from the map. Or corrupted. Or wrong path. (Two occurrences - Dark Entity)
• Level up Attribute bonus 1-2-3 triggers could be merged into one, with condition: (Level of (Triggering unit)) Greater than 17
• Remove asdasd.bmp from the map. It wastes almost a whole megabyte of map size. (Good job keeping it under 12 MB btw.)
• The model references C:\Users\GP62\Downloads\asdasd.bmp anyway. Not the correct texture file. (It works ONLY on your PC...)
• Single player first impressions, I chose the "OP hero" option. (Saying that a hero is OP is slightly immersion breaking.)
• "Circles of power"* An apostrophe would denote possession, you are going for plurality. Circles, not Circle's. (Alternatively; "Circle of Power"s)
• The fog + snowfall + camera shake immediately put me off. Can effects be turned of please? (Via a chat command, like -nolag)
• The cinematic text is ever so slightly too slow. ESC should not skip the whole conversation, just advance one dialog line instead.
• I ran past the second Gnoll camp (Brutes) And they ran past me without engaging. (Increase their target acquisition range slightly.)
• Raging Blow is too weak. (Animation time + cost + low damage → I am better off auto-attacking for the same DPS and save mana.)
• Units continue to bleed and play the nasty corpse explosion sound after death if killed during Raging Blow effect. (Use isUnitAlive(u) each cycle, to avoid this.)
• The Raging Blow effect is hidden. A Bleed status icon (flashing) on the target would be useful to see how long it will last.
• Ability tooltips say their level in green text on their own line. This is non-standard. And hotkeys are a letter from the spell's name.
• Normal ability tooltip text design principles should put the level after the name, in gold: R|cffffcc00e|rjuvenation (level x)
• I can see Dire Frost Wolf boss from Explosives quest boss. (Add a few vision blockers there. Or taller doodads like trees that block sight.)
• The escort quest NPC almost suicided itself into mobs. (Add a simple AI trigger to make him run away for a second at low HP. Or let me taunt!)
• I've been smashing my hammer into "Ice Rock Gate" for minutes. But nothing... (It should be invulnerable if designed to be trigger-opened.)
• Lars never heals to full after the quest. But is invulnerable. (Unit - Set Health of Lars to 100% would fix the red health bar, no problem.)
• Death is WORTH IT. Only way to restore my mana to full. I learned to just suicide as soon as I run out of mana. (This is super OP.)
• Yngvar is still called Mortar Team, when clicked. I recommend you rename a copy of this unit to be more in line with other NPCs.
• The resurrection stone by the Sea Giant Behemoth does not work. I killed it with a single Chi Strike (1000 damage lol) and 2 Raging Blows
• Dragonspawn Apprentice should have more health than Meddler. It's bigger and higher level. (Casters are usually the smallest units...)
• Magnataur Destroyer took three deaths to defeat. Quadruple stuns are no fun. (I was spamming heal but my hero just stood still.)
• Each time I had to ferry myself back to the island as the Resurrection Stone refused to activate. I might have killed Sea Giant too early.
• I was able to aggro a Brood Mother + lots of level 1 spiders by the middle (empty) Ancient elven moon stone. Summoner?
• They pathed all around the city ruins until they nearly reached me, then turned back. From much too far away. Reduce their guard radius.
• Greater Voidwalker cancelled my Raging Blow somehow (no Bleed was applied) it cast Frost Armor at the same time my hero even switched targets. Invulnerability frame?
• The first time Skeleton Warriors are summoned, I experienced a short lag spike. I recommend Preloading them on map initialization.
• My hero has trouble going around some walls and invisible path blockers. I right click, attack-move, patrol, but all he does is get stuck on a tree.
• The Tents by Ragnar Snoheim are not invulnerable. Well, I mean they were* not. Because I have killed them all.
• The camp looks weird without the tents there. Also the barricades. Just make all decoration invulnerable. Barrels too!
• My spells cannot target air units. Nor can my hero. Except Grand Slam, apparently. Even though it looks like a ground-only spell.
• (I know the solution to this problem; find where I dropped the orb of venom or the more recently acquired orb of fire...)
• Westernmost middle Waygate is not working. On the north-east big island (city ruins) in the center. (Sorry about these bad directions.)
• (Edit: Turns out it's just unlocked later by the Snow Elf (in prison) Maybe hide or magically block it until then so we don't think it's bugged.)
• After level 14, my auto attacks are starting to feel more powerful (and faster) than even my ultimate ability. (With no items!)
• Critical strike is way too strong at 5x damage. All I need is agility now. Got +12 agility's worth already, plus gloves of haste.
• I need like a pack mule or something... Have more than 12 items on the ground (I use the penguins' island as my warehouse.) No combinations yet.
• Rename "Player 4" (purple) to "Ancient elven moon stones" - looks so much better than Player 4 when hovering over the stones.
• Also rename Player 3 to something like Expedition Forces or Allied Army of Ragnar Snoheim. Unchanged names like "Player 3" look unprofessional.
• Mage 1: Summons galore. They heal him back to full so no death scumming this one... Massive explosion takes half my health while I'm channeling so can't dodge...
• Mage 2: Banish lasts an eternity. And with no access to dispel... I must run around in circles. (At least no heal this time.) The second fight was easy: The boss had no mana!
• Mage 3: This one is impossible without items. She hits like a truck and all her mirror images cast spells at me... How!?
• I'll combine myself a Crown of Empires and grab +11 armor to cheese things. And ferry over a 7th item (Vampiric potion) to boot.
• The game pace has slowed down by a lot around this point. Dying, respawning, walking... I am so far away from the mage
• By the time I slowly walk back to her, the boss is back at full health, full mana. Not even Grand Slam touched her it seems...
• Exploit found: Repeatedly walk away and back in until she runs out of mana. She is triggered to cast Mirror Image each time.
• Thankful for the constantly stronger roadside enemy spawns as I walk to the next mage. Glad to have something extra to do
• Mage 5: Huge guy, cannot see what he is casting because I am to the north of him. Died instantly. Let's try from the south!
• Yeah he put fire on the ground but hid it under his big model. That's what killed me. Even now that I can see I still died to it, but now I understand why.
• As soon as I run the mages out of mana, the fight becomes winnable. They need a little more mana regen I think. Not too much though!
• The fire and explosions do not stop after boss is dead (Tornado effect from the fire and just big damage dealt to me from the explosions). Turn off that trigger!
• A common theme between all five bosses: First try ended in failure for all of them. But then I learned mechanics and beat them without much struggling. Good design.
• Mage 6: I must have miscounted as there are only 5, no? This guy, the last guy, the Summoner I killed on first try!
• Woohoo! Possible even without items I think. Just Rejuvenate during Banish (There's lots of Banish!) and Crit him dead. Summons have low health, two hits end most of them.
• Consider giving that boss Magic damage instead of Hero so Banish works more to their advantage. Or buff some of the summons. Make them cast abilities.
• So much walking... What I'd give for a speed boost ability or potion. Even boots of speed would be welcome. All I have is Legion Doom Horn.
• At the treants there is a diverging tree path, but the left branch was a dead end. I cannot go left, only right. Visually I should be able to squeeze through, but no such luck.
• Attribute bonus level 2+ tooltips are wrong slightly. The name of the ability is not on the first line anymore, but the third.
• Saving is slow. Too many doodads? Grand Slam lags. Too many effects? Also feels wrong to be paused... Standing still is no fun. Make spells instant cast!
• Giving treants thorns aura was an amazing move. I suddenly started to take so much more damage. Healing finally useful.
• Ancient protectors do not have a spell cast animation. Instead, they T-pose and it looks weird. Consider using a dummy unit to cast the ground spikes.
• Corrupted Tree of Eternity summons most of its Plague treants behind itself, so that they are unable to join the fight.
• Consider deleting a few trees to make them able to reach me. And stop with the dead ends! I got stopped by an invisible wall again.
• Thank you for making the three keys not take up inventory space. So good! I think tomes would be even better though.
• Trigger works the same with tomes but we won't need to drop something first. Also just let us get a +1 agi, str, or int per key, it would be nice
• Died to Demon Hunter. Respawned all the way across the map! Come on, there has to be a resurrection stone closer than that... If not, add one!
• The waygate spawns right where the key of the three moons is. Cannot click the item, cannot progress quest.
• Extremely bad pathing from the bottom right corner of the map to the penguin island took me through ten waygates!
• Maybe choosing to house my items at penguin island was not such a smart idea of mine. But the ability to combine items is there!
• Once I complete ghost quest I lose access to the city, right? I will then also lose all my items. And the ability to combine items...
• Ancient Nerubian Queen is level 7 yet she was way harder than the level 15-20 bosses due to the sheer amount of summons her summons summon.
• And she heals to full if there is so much as one spider or skeleton around her. And she isn't running out of mana like the others.
• Well, I only managed to kill her after level 20 Demon Hunter and all the mages fell to my blade... Died a few times.
• Exploit: Luring her to problem trees finally allowed me to unblock some bad paths. Her war stomp kills doodads around her.
• NOW you give me a penguin courier!? When my path back is blocked!? WHY! All my items were left behind...
• Framerate is starting to drop now. Lag spikes too. This new zone is not good for my video card it seems. Ground fog worse than snow / blizzard confirmed.
• Snow Elf warrior + 2 warlocks combo is not a good idea. Seems to be three kinds of Banish and this one's the worst.
• Silence and Banish is a deadly combo. I mean it's deadly for my fun. Not being able to attack or cast spells is very uninteresting. And it lasts SO LONG.
• Next up: more of the same!? Except five of them this time. Frost armor + Silence + Banish spammed at my face - I really cannot do much of anything.
• Accidentally aggro'd the Shadow Spawns into the mix. Now I'm fighting five Snow Elves and getting burnt by some kind of phoenix fire ability.
• Death. Over and over again. Lag. Loss of control of my character. No access to my spells. No auto attacks. Barely any movement speed.
• Can you increase the gameplay constant for minimum movement speed to something more reasonable? All these slowing combos make me stand still.
• I think what's killing me is: Cripple Banish Silence + frost nova shadow strike venom poison + finger of death + permanent freeze in place. Okay.
• Icecrown Obelisk has a way too big click area. I cannot micro around it at all. Forced to stop and let my hero just auto attack stuff.
• Freezing Flame is way too hard. I hit the first pillar, I am slowed by water elementals, my path is blocked, I crawl to the second pillar...
• But by the time I reach the boss and land a couple hits the invulnerability comes back and I have to hit the two pillars again. Also I die around this point.
• I can deal 400 damage per resurrection only. Boss has 7300 HP, not reasonable to die and run back 18+ times.
• Three respawns later the game crashed. I think I was close to the end? Good game. 5/5 despite some frustrations.
• At this point I want to see this in multiplayer. Must try coop for full experience. Not sure how much effort went into my singleplayer-only hero...
• But I'm absolutely sure your focus was more on developing the "non-OP" heroes. Multiplayer is recommended, that is.

--3ICE

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

Hi,

Thanks for commenting on my status update (in my profile). I played your map and rate it 5/5 for fun Huge wall of text incoming:

• The "IcecrownSeer.mdx" model file seems to be missing from the map. Or corrupted. Or wrong path. (Two occurrences - Dark Entity)
• Level up Attribute bonus 1-2-3 triggers could be merged into one, with condition: (Level of (Triggering unit)) Greater than 17
• Remove asdasd.bmp from the map. It wastes almost a whole megabyte of map size. (Good job keeping it under 12 MB btw.)
• The model references C:\Users\GP62\Downloads\asdasd.bmp anyway. Not the correct texture file. (It works ONLY on your PC...)
• Single player first impressions, I chose the "OP hero" option. (Saying that a hero is OP is slightly immersion breaking.)
• "Circles of power"* An apostrophe would denote possession, you are going for plurality. Circles, not Circle's. (Alternatively; "Circle of Power"s)
• The fog + snowfall + camera shake immediately put me off. Can effects be turned of please? (Via a chat command, like -nolag)
• The cinematic text is ever so slightly too slow. ESC should not skip the whole conversation, just advance one dialog line instead.
• I ran past the second Gnoll camp (Brutes) And they ran past me without engaging. (Increase their target acquisition range slightly.)
• Raging Blow is too weak. (Animation time + cost + low damage → I am better off auto-attacking for the same DPS and save mana.)
• Units continue to bleed and play the nasty corpse explosion sound after death if killed during Raging Blow effect. (Use isUnitAlive(u) each cycle, to avoid this.)
• The Raging Blow effect is hidden. A Bleed status icon (flashing) on the target would be useful to see how long it will last.
• Ability tooltips say their level in green text on their own line. This is non-standard. And hotkeys are a letter from the spell's name.
• Normal ability tooltip text design principles should put the level after the name, in gold: R|cffffcc00e|rjuvenation (level x)
• I can see Dire Frost Wolf boss from Explosives quest boss. (Add a few vision blockers there. Or taller doodads like trees that block sight.)
• The escort quest NPC almost suicided itself into mobs. (Add a simple AI trigger to make him run away for a second at low HP. Or let me taunt!)
• I've been smashing my hammer into "Ice Rock Gate" for minutes. But nothing... (It should be invulnerable if designed to be trigger-opened.)
• Lars never heals to full after the quest. But is invulnerable. (Unit - Set Health of Lars to 100% would fix the red health bar, no problem.)
• Death is WORTH IT. Only way to restore my mana to full. I learned to just suicide as soon as I run out of mana. (This is super OP.)
• Yngvar is still called Mortar Team, when clicked. I recommend you rename a copy of this unit to be more in line with other NPCs.
• The resurrection stone by the Sea Giant Behemoth does not work. I killed it with a single Chi Strike (1000 damage lol) and 2 Raging Blows
• Dragonspawn Apprentice should have more health than Meddler. It's bigger and higher level. (Casters are usually the smallest units...)
• Magnataur Destroyer took three deaths to defeat. Quadruple stuns are no fun. (I was spamming heal but my hero just stood still.)
• Each time I had to ferry myself back to the island as the Resurrection Stone refused to activate. I might have killed Sea Giant too early.
• I was able to aggro a Brood Mother + lots of level 1 spiders by the middle (empty) Ancient elven moon stone. Summoner?
• They pathed all around the city ruins until they nearly reached me, then turned back. From much too far away. Reduce their guard radius.
• Greater Voidwalker cancelled my Raging Blow somehow (no Bleed was applied) it cast Frost Armor at the same time my hero even switched targets. Invulnerability frame?
• The first time Skeleton Warriors are summoned, I experienced a short lag spike. I recommend Preloading them on map initialization.
• My hero has trouble going around some walls and invisible path blockers. I right click, attack-move, patrol, but all he does is get stuck on a tree.
• The Tents by Ragnar Snoheim are not invulnerable. Well, I mean they were* not. Because I have killed them all.
• The camp looks weird without the tents there. Also the barricades. Just make all decoration invulnerable. Barrels too!
• My spells cannot target air units. Nor can my hero. Except Grand Slam, apparently. Even though it looks like a ground-only spell.
• (I know the solution to this problem; find where I dropped the orb of venom or the more recently acquired orb of fire...)
• Westernmost middle Waygate is not working. On the north-east big island (city ruins) in the center. (Sorry about these bad directions.)
• (Edit: Turns out it's just unlocked later by the Snow Elf (in prison) Maybe hide or magically block it until then so we don't think it's bugged.)
• After level 14, my auto attacks are starting to feel more powerful (and faster) than even my ultimate ability. (With no items!)
• Critical strike is way too strong at 5x damage. All I need is agility now. Got +12 agility's worth already, plus gloves of haste.
• I need like a pack mule or something... Have more than 12 items on the ground (I use the penguins' island as my warehouse.) No combinations yet.
• Rename "Player 4" (purple) to "Ancient elven moon stones" - looks so much better than Player 4 when hovering over the stones.
• Also rename Player 3 to something like Expedition Forces or Allied Army of Ragnar Snoheim. Unchanged names like "Player 3" look unprofessional.
• Mage 1: Summons galore. They heal him back to full so no death scumming this one... Massive explosion takes half my health while I'm channeling so can't dodge...
• Mage 2: Banish lasts an eternity. And with no access to dispel... I must run around in circles. (At least no heal this time.) The second fight was easy: The boss had no mana!
• Mage 3: This one is impossible without items. She hits like a truck and all her mirror images cast spells at me... How!?
• I'll combine myself a Crown of Empires and grab +11 armor to cheese things. And ferry over a 7th item (Vampiric potion) to boot.
• The game pace has slowed down by a lot around this point. Dying, respawning, walking... I am so far away from the mage
• By the time I slowly walk back to her, the boss is back at full health, full mana. Not even Grand Slam touched her it seems...
• Exploit found: Repeatedly walk away and back in until she runs out of mana. She is triggered to cast Mirror Image each time.
• Thankful for the constantly stronger roadside enemy spawns as I walk to the next mage. Glad to have something extra to do
• Mage 5: Huge guy, cannot see what he is casting because I am to the north of him. Died instantly. Let's try from the south!
• Yeah he put fire on the ground but hid it under his big model. That's what killed me. Even now that I can see I still died to it, but now I understand why.
• As soon as I run the mages out of mana, the fight becomes winnable. They need a little more mana regen I think. Not too much though!
• The fire and explosions do not stop after boss is dead (Tornado effect from the fire and just big damage dealt to me from the explosions). Turn off that trigger!
• A common theme between all five bosses: First try ended in failure for all of them. But then I learned mechanics and beat them without much struggling. Good design.
• Mage 6: I must have miscounted as there are only 5, no? This guy, the last guy, the Summoner I killed on first try!
• Woohoo! Possible even without items I think. Just Rejuvenate during Banish (There's lots of Banish!) and Crit him dead. Summons have low health, two hits end most of them.
• Consider giving that boss Magic damage instead of Hero so Banish works more to their advantage. Or buff some of the summons. Make them cast abilities.
• So much walking... What I'd give for a speed boost ability or potion. Even boots of speed would be welcome. All I have is Legion Doom Horn.
• At the treants there is a diverging tree path, but the left branch was a dead end. I cannot go left, only right. Visually I should be able to squeeze through, but no such luck.
• Attribute bonus level 2+ tooltips are wrong slightly. The name of the ability is not on the first line anymore, but the third.
• Saving is slow. Too many doodads? Grand Slam lags. Too many effects? Also feels wrong to be paused... Standing still is no fun. Make spells instant cast!
• Giving treants thorns aura was an amazing move. I suddenly started to take so much more damage. Healing finally useful.
• Ancient protectors do not have a spell cast animation. Instead, they T-pose and it looks weird. Consider using a dummy unit to cast the ground spikes.
• Corrupted Tree of Eternity summons most of its Plague treants behind itself, so that they are unable to join the fight.
• Consider deleting a few trees to make them able to reach me. And stop with the dead ends! I got stopped by an invisible wall again.
• Thank you for making the three keys not take up inventory space. So good! I think tomes would be even better though.
• Trigger works the same with tomes but we won't need to drop something first. Also just let us get a +1 agi, str, or int per key, it would be nice
• Died to Demon Hunter. Respawned all the way across the map! Come on, there has to be a resurrection stone closer than that... If not, add one!
• The waygate spawns right where the key of the three moons is. Cannot click the item, cannot progress quest.
• Extremely bad pathing from the bottom right corner of the map to the penguin island took me through ten waygates!
• Maybe choosing to house my items at penguin island was not such a smart idea of mine. But the ability to combine items is there!
• Once I complete ghost quest I lose access to the city, right? I will then also lose all my items. And the ability to combine items...
• Ancient Nerubian Queen is level 7 yet she was way harder than the level 15-20 bosses due to the sheer amount of summons her summons summon.
• And she heals to full if there is so much as one spider or skeleton around her. And she isn't running out of mana like the others.
• Well, I only managed to kill her after level 20 Demon Hunter and all the mages fell to my blade... Died a few times.
• Exploit: Luring her to problem trees finally allowed me to unblock some bad paths. Her war stomp kills doodads around her.
• NOW you give me a penguin courier!? When my path back is blocked!? WHY! All my items were left behind...
• Framerate is starting to drop now. Lag spikes too. This new zone is not good for my video card it seems. Ground fog worse than snow / blizzard confirmed.
• Snow Elf warrior + 2 warlocks combo is not a good idea. Seems to be three kinds of Banish and this one's the worst.
• Silence and Banish is a deadly combo. I mean it's deadly for my fun. Not being able to attack or cast spells is very uninteresting. And it lasts SO LONG.
• Next up: more of the same!? Except five of them this time. Frost armor + Silence + Banish spammed at my face - I really cannot do much of anything.
• Accidentally aggro'd the Shadow Spawns into the mix. Now I'm fighting five Snow Elves and getting burnt by some kind of phoenix fire ability.
• Death. Over and over again. Lag. Loss of control of my character. No access to my spells. No auto attacks. Barely any movement speed.
• Can you increase the gameplay constant for minimum movement speed to something more reasonable? All these slowing combos make me stand still.
• I think what's killing me is: Cripple Banish Silence + frost nova shadow strike venom poison + finger of death + permanent freeze in place. Okay.
• Icecrown Obelisk has a way too big click area. I cannot micro around it at all. Forced to stop and let my hero just auto attack stuff.
• Freezing Flame is way too hard. I hit the first pillar, I am slowed by water elementals, my path is blocked, I crawl to the second pillar...
• But by the time I reach the boss and land a couple hits the invulnerability comes back and I have to hit the two pillars again. Also I die around this point.
• I can deal 400 damage per resurrection only. Boss has 7300 HP, not reasonable to die and run back 18+ times.
• Three respawns later the game crashed. I think I was close to the end? Good game. 5/5 despite some frustrations.
• At this point I want to see this in multiplayer. Must try coop for full experience. Not sure how much effort went into my singleplayer-only hero...
• But I'm absolutely sure your focus was more on developing the "non-OP" heroes. Multiplayer is recommended, that is.

--3ICE

Wow, such an extensive review, thank you for that. I would give you +4 rep, but my rep power is (still?!) too low to give 4 rep for some reason.

I know there are substantial issues with the map as it is. I am working on a far more ambitious project right now (click my signature), but will re-visit and optimize this map when reforged comes out.

The missing models happened in the most recent patch but worked fine before. Some of the bosses are way too hard, and the game play is not balanced at all. As you said, the game is more fun with two heroes but even then some bosses are almost impossible from what I remember. It's a little weird that you were able to get to the penguin island without getting the courier.

Three respawns later the game crashed. I think I was close to the end?

The game probably crashed as a result of leaking periodic triggers. And yeah you were right before the last boss.

As I said, when Reforged comes out I will optimize this map, remove all leaks and fix other major issues. I will definitely use your review as a reference when fixing the map. Thank you for playing this far though, I didn't think anyone still played this map

 

[Leods]

So play on the work uh? I see you have your little secrets too.

 

[FeelsGoodMan]

So play on the work uh?

Huh?

I see you have your little secrets too.

I have no secrets!

 

[deepstrasz]

Huh?

Think he's trying to have his, revenge(?).

I have no secrets!

Only in the fountain.

 

[Againstallodds]

I just picked up the map and i like it.
I play 1.29 and after my meeting with the Penguin, dialogue box immidiatεly disappeared without a trace of it in f12.
So i understand that there should be a way to combine items but i dont know how to do that and what items i
need to gather.
So i combined some items by accident i suppose.
I managed to combine the orb and some others, it real doesnt matter.
I finished it. I had fun playing this.
Thanx for the map.