Zephyr Contest #11 - My aura, Your aura

[Pharaoh_]

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"(...) The ground was emitting magical energies as if they were coming from beneath. Slowly degenerating the environment around them, they were coherently forming a shape that looked like a rune. I realized that it was unfathomable to me, because it was a representation of the sorcerer's mind, an aura of his own existence. (...)"

Create an aura ability, which is either passive, active or toggle. The aura can affect yourself and your allies, your enemies or everyone in your presence.

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• No submission may violate any of the site rules.
• If a submission does not follow the spell submission rules, the result will be heavy downgrading up to disqualification.
• Your submission must be posted before the deadline. The post containing your final submission must also contain the following:
  • An in game screenshot showing your submission in action.
  • The file in the appropriate format.
• Your submission may not be started/made before the official launch of the contest.
• The spell can be of any type, active/passive/toggle/single target/area of effect (and any of the previous combined).
• Judges may not participate.
• Teamwork is not allowed; however, finding testers to help you with your submission is not considered teamwork.
• Imports may be used in the map, however they must all be credited.
• Any submission must follow a Work In Progress (WiP), before it is published and labelled as the final piece.
• The ability can be followed by a maximum of one (1) sub-ability, but the latter must not be more effective and/or powerful than the super-ability.
• Either GUI or JASS may be used to create your spell; you will not be penalized if you use GUI over JASS.
• Convenience over effort won't be an excuse to make use of third party programs (exception: Jass New Gen Pack). GUI actions that do not exist in the vanilla editor's database may lead to disqualification. WEU (World Editor Unlimited) and UMSWE fall into this category.
• All spells must have documentation, regarding the use of each variable and/or actions (if needed). This will ensure readability and easier configuration for testing purposes.
• You can use any enhancing system (xe, IsDestructableTree, Damage detection systems, etc.), as long as the judge(s) and/or host give(s) consent to its usage.

• First Place: 45 reputation points and a special award icon
• Second Place: 30 reputation points
• Third Place: 15 reputation points
• Remaining entries: 5 reputation points for each submission (for users wth final entries who made it to the public poll)
• Judge: 10 reputation for each assigned judge.

Uniqueness	How creatively was the ability executed?	/10
Coding	Is the skill bug- and leak-free? Does it support multiple instances? Is there any documentation and are there any configurable variables to fit the needs of any user? Does it cause performance issues upon effect?	/20
Visuals	How does the skill look? Is it overloaded with special effects? How explanatory is the tooltip/description of its functionality?	/10

• IcemanBo
• Contact me if you want to judge.

The contest shall begin on 1st of July and conclude on 1st of August.

 

[Pharaoh_]

We can't fit the deadlines to everyone's needs and while one month is enough for an ability, we will stick to the regular duration.

 

[rulerofiron99]

Sounds fun.

Here's my plan:
A "travel" aura that lets friendly units travel faster, beyond maximum movespeed. This will be very useful to have a mobile army that can quickly escape or strike at distant targets. Units would accelerate over time, so the aura would be effectively useless for microing in a battle.

EDIT: Using Bribe's IsUnitMoving system, but now that I've looked a bit more closely at how it works, it'll be a bit trickier to implement.

EDIT 2: So the problem mentioned above has been resolved, but now I've discovered a new issue: with war3's pathfinding, non-flying units move across long distances by going from waypoint to waypoint, instead of along a straight line. At each of these way points, it seems the unit does a mini stop before continuing. I'll just a do a "delayed" stop of some sort. Thereafter all that's left to do is reduce speed when turning, and that's the aura. Maybe I'll add a speed-based damage bonus or something and rename the aura to "jousting" aura.

 

[Vinz]

Ohhh Pharaoh. You respond so fast! <3

===============
My List of Contestants
===============

AKA.GywGod133
Bannar
Cakemaster
Dat-C3
Gunslinger
jondrean; Preview
Kyrbi0
rulerofiron99
SallyAnna
Tank-Commander
Zeatherann

 

[Kyrbi0]

Yay: The contest has started! Now to work on that Hero & Techtree contest write-up...

Boo: I'm sad that my potential Aura contest write-up wasn't used. :<

 

[Tank-Commander]

Had my idea planned out for a while, will probably be a while before I can get it ready, but yeah should be good to go, good this finally started

Edit: Currently at 200 lines of code

 

[Kingz]

Just dropping this here:
CustomAura by Anachron

Since it will probably be useful for contestants.
I might participate if an idea comes to mind.
Edit:
With the presumption this is allowed that is.

 

[Bannar]

Is the quote beneath title taken from warcraft story books?

Btw, who gave the title? Sounds diplomatic or.. democratic in some way

 

[Pharaoh_]

Is the quote beneath title taken from warcraft story books?

Btw, who gave the title? Sounds diplomatic or.. democratic in some way

Nope, I made them up, if it matters ;p

 

[Bannar]

Sounds so much like if it was taken from Khadgars story book (Last Guardian)
Nice creation tho.

 

[rulerofiron99]

It's WIP time:

MS: Unit movement speed
RM: System's movement per tick (equals 100 movespeed)
ES: Effective speed; how far the unit has moved in the last second

The turning speed reduction doesn't look like it'll be necessary anymore, since units pause for a moment (based on their turn rate) when turning, leading to a loss in speed.

Now for the damage bonus, I need to decide whether to do it on unit is attacked event or apply a damage bonus buff that will be removed after the first attack.

 

[Blightsower]

oh wow a contest. how long does this contest lasts?

 

[rulerofiron99]

oh wow a contest. how long does this contest lasts?

From the OP:

The contest shall begin on 1st of July and conclude on 1st of August.

 

[Tank-Commander]

Well that was certainly a fast base implementation, ruler XD
quite far off anything showable for now, though I'll outline my concept (though I'd have to write an essay to get everything I intend to do written down)

Basic idea:
Aura "infects" nearby enemies (deals damage upon impact hp/mana, homing, AOE)
Infected units take a percentage of extra damage hp/mana(damage source is the Hero with the aura)
If a unit dies while infected, it will launch at another infected unit (deals more damage on impact hp/mana, AOE) if no others exist, it will deal damage in it's immediate area
If the hero with the aura dies, all infected units are healed for a lump sum of hp/mana

potential effect: big chain reaction of death if lots of units are infected/low health

and as always, I've made/making everything I can possibly think of configurable

 

[rulerofiron99]

Sounds interesting, can't wait to see it in action. Knowing your work, it will be quite a visual treat

Well that was certainly a fast base implementation, ruler XD

Mild insomnia is no fun... but does provide plenty of time to make fun stuff like this.

Here's my system in action:

Done:
- Aura detection, select highest level aura from nearby aura givers.
- Settings and levels for: range, turning allowance, damage, top speed, acceleration.
- Speed is reduced while turning.
- Damage is dealt before your first attack when ending march.
- SFX shown when unit reaches max speed.

To do:
- Improve the visuals of the charge effect, limit to melee only.
- Fix some bugginess with the way warcraft handles long-range movement.
- Fix some bugginess with navigating around obstacles, causing units to turn excessively and lose all speed.
- Stress testing.
- Maybe a charge knockback of some sort. Would be cool for cavalry charges that break through enemy formations.

Edit: Added option for speed bonus to be affected by movement slows, like Frost or Cripple.

 

[Tank-Commander]

Right first visual WIP from me:

Current Progress:
Name: Soul Tear Aura
Form: JASS
Code Size: 600 lines
Memory Structure: Linked list

Functions:
New targets identified (prep for allowing stacking in place)
Initial Projectiles and all their values (including velocities in Z and X/Y) have been assigned though movement is not currently carried out (hence screenshot)
Recycling is finished
Structure of control has been laid out
All key functions declared (though one is still empty)
Special Effect handling is complete

Expected Final Code size: 900 Lines

Edit: Damage on Health/Mana boost is now working with effects in place
Edit2: Movement has been fully implemented just have damage to do and validation on new casters (i.e. reapplying when they die and revive)

 

[IcemanBo]

That's amazing already to see 2 WIPs with some working code and screenshots.

 

[rulerofiron99]

Warcraft's mini-stopping on unit moving is becoming quite the headache. With a group attack-moving, they stop for a moment when noticing a target, causing them to lose their speed.

 

[Zeatherann]

While it uses a 3rd party, and it is easier; Can I import my war3map.j file? This allows easier and cleaner coding of my spell. It's also not the first time I've done this.

 

[Tank-Commander]

Right, my Aura is complete, I shall now spend the rest of the contest getting GIFs,polishing up any rough edges I find, documenting, and general bugtesting, wish everybody else goodluck.

Second image WIP of just it in a bit of action, when I can get some GIFs it'll be a lot more clear/crisp I think
(the hard-to-see-purple effect (clear ingame, just hard to catch a screeshot of) is the effect used for showing the bonus magic damage)

 

[Vinz]

It's WIP time:

MS: Unit movement speed
RM: System's movement per tick (equals 100 movespeed)
ES: Effective speed; how far the unit has moved in the last second

The turning speed reduction doesn't look like it'll be necessary anymore, since units pause for a moment (based on their turn rate) when turning, leading to a loss in speed.

Now for the damage bonus, I need to decide whether to do it on unit is attacked event or apply a damage bonus buff that will be removed after the first attack.

Dude did we just think of the same speed theme? Mine is ramping up speed that disappears on the first attack. ;_;

 

[rulerofiron99]

Hehe... great minds think alike

No reason why we can't both make it. I'd be interested in seeing your implementation, and how you solve the various issues.

I'll probably drop the damage functionality if I can't fix the remaining issues with it. For me the important part is the acceleration and higher than max top speed, damage is just an added bonus.

 

[Vinz]

I'm thinking if it's too simple of an aura. I have a better idea up my sleeve if so.

 

[edo494]

I have one aura in mind, but it can be created so quickly that I think I will most likely violate

Any submission must follow a Work In Progress (WiP), before it is published and labelled as the final piece.

You know, its hard to get WIP of something that takes few hours to create, especially if it is 1 single spell. However if I push myself to actually make the thing, I can still provide the JNGP-generated backups

 

[rulerofiron99]

Just post a screen of your code halfway through.

When I make a spell/system, I test every aspect before adding the next. For my spell posted above, it's been about 20+ tests, and each of those is a chance to hit PrntScrn for a WIP.

 

[Vinz]

You know, its hard to get WIP of something that takes few hours to create, especially if it is 1 single spell

This. However I will post Intro WIP for bling.

E: Does the spell have to be configurable?

 

[Pharaoh_]

This. However I will post Intro WIP for bling.

E: Does the spell have to be configurable?

Most of it should be configurable, yes.

 

[Vinz]

Okay, thanks for clarifying.

Done with the spell, might tweak it later on for some adjustments.

Tooltip:

Once enemy heroes within 650 range drop below 40% health, the Shadow Wolf goes into stealth with a fade rate of 1 second. He then gains 30% movement speed, while stalked enemies lose half the percentage.

E: I'm not sure if it works with vanilla editors; I did it in JNGP but did not use vJASS as I'm a noob in those parts.

Additionally it only affects heroes, and the present Pea-saints in the test map are just a distraction for whoever needs them.

 

[rulerofiron99]

Managed to fix the unit mini-pausing issue by allowing X number of "paused" ticks before being declared as stopped.

Configurables:

• Acceleration
• Top Speed
• Range
• Charge damage
• Charge speed threshold - how fast the unit must be to deal charge damage
• Damage attack type
• Turn Loss - How much speed is lost while turning
• Turn Window - Used to determine if a unit is turning for Turn Loss above
• Pause Ticks - How many iterations the unit can be "stopped" before being declared stopped by the system. The trade-off here is that a higher value allows units to attack move and acquire targets without losing all their speed on the mini-pause, while a higher value also causes the unit to slide a bit when stopping.
• Damage Buff Duration - How much time a unit has after reaching threshold speed to attack for bonus damage
• Relative Top Speed - If enabled, any slows to the unit's movement speed will also affect the aura's speed bonus. E.g. frost will reduce the top speed by 50%.
• Scale Damage - If enabled, damage done is multiplied by the percentage speed reached. E.g. if the unit is going at 75% of aura speed, 75% damage will be done.

To do:

• Option to equalise movement speed for groups (otherwise tardy units can be left behind)
• Improve charge damage visuals

 

[Blightsower]

i have to post my concept before creating my spell? or ill just upload it in the spell section and declare it as an entry? i quite dont get some of the rules sorry.

edit: i've read the earlier posts i quite understand now and im interested in joining this contest. But first, can i ask if my idea is qualified.

Name: Aura of Faith
Form: Simple Triggers

Description:

Emits an aura that heals nearby allied units whenever the bearer of the aura is attacked. Units that has this ability will not be healed.

 

[rulerofiron99]

i have to post my concept before creating my spell? or ill just upload it in the spell section and declare it as an entry? i quite dont get some of the rules sorry.

We need proof that you made the spell, and that you didn't just copy someone else's spell and submit it as your own.

Just take a few screenshots of your code/testing and post that here. You don't have to post you concept.

Best way I can think of is to take a screenshot with debug text running in game while testing.

EDIT: Ugh, every time I fix something, the units-not-stopping-fully bug reappears

 

[Pharaoh_]

Okay, thanks for clarifying.

Done with the spell, might tweak it later on for some adjustments.

Tooltip:


E: I'm not sure if it works with vanilla editors; I did it in JNGP but did not use vJASS as I'm a noob in those parts.

Additionally it only affects heroes, and the present Pea-saints in the test map are just a distraction for whoever needs them.

I would advise you to retain the movement speed bonus for more than 650 range, because the area of effect is not big enough to justify the bonus. Thus, retain the radius to 650 for detection, but apply the bonus for let's say 800. Otherwise the ability is mainly circumstantial and useful only when an enemy hero is fleeing and you have to do a follow-up.
Moreover, if both heroes remain stationary, the aura is practically useless. How about decreasing the movement speed bonus and adding some evasion to excuse the fading effect?

(null "g").

 

[Blightsower]

so, is my concept acceptable in this contest? or its too simple?

Current WIP:

-Create the aura ability
-Make the Triggers
-Finalize

 

[Pharaoh_]

so, is my concept acceptable in this contest? or its too simple?

We don't deny simple concepts, but I would suggest you to boost the effect or change the mechanics a bit. If you think of a gameplay scenario, when the enemy players realize that the hero has learned this skill, they will first of all kill every unit around him and then focus on the hero. This is good, to some extent, because the hero will take advantage and freely attack, but it also causes unwanted attention over your allied units. In order to increase the potential of the ability, you could force nearby enemies to attack the hero every X seconds, which is disabled if the percentage of life is lower than Y%.

 

[Blightsower]

That was my plan hehe. I intend to add another ability that does exactly that

Edit:
Current WIP:

-Create the aura ability (DONE)
-Make the Triggers (Done)
adding some few things
added screenshot of spell testing
-Finalize(Done)

now where do i upload?

 

[Vinz]

I would advise you to retain the movement speed bonus for more than 650 range, because the area of effect is not big enough to justify the bonus. Thus, retain the radius to 650 for detection, but apply the bonus for let's say 800. Otherwise the ability is mainly circumstantial and useful only when an enemy hero is fleeing and you have to do a follow-up.
Moreover, if both heroes remain stationary, the aura is practically useless. How about decreasing the movement speed bonus and adding some evasion to excuse the fading effect?

(null "g").

Would it be OP to shift the movement speed from 30 to 20%, then add 20% evasion and damage bonus against targets stalked?

 

[rulerofiron99]

OP is relative to the other spells and units in the map. Relative to vanilla warcraft, it sounds fine. Demon Hunter has evasion going up to 30%, and TC gives a 30% move aura. Yours combines that - but has an added handicap of only working on low HP heroes.

 

[IcemanBo]

now where do i upload?

If you want upload something you can attach it to your post.

 

[Blightsower]

If you want upload something you can attach it to your post.

entries for the contest must be uploaded on this thread?

 

[IcemanBo]

Yes everything you do for this contest should be shared in this thread.

 

[Blightsower]

Yes everything you do for this contest should be shared in this thread.

Thank you for your guidance.

Ok heres my entry for the contest. This is also my first spell.

Aura of Faith
Emits an aura that heals nearby allied units whenever the bearer of the aura is attacked. Also allows you to force nearby enemy units to attack you for a duration.

|cffffcc00Level 1|r - Heals nearby units based on 30% of the bearer's Strength
|cffffcc00Level 2|r - Heals nearby units based on 60% of the bearer's Strength
|cffffcc00Level 3|r - Heals nearby units based on 90% of the bearer's Strength
|cffffcc00Level 4|r - Heals nearby units based on 120% of the bearer's Strength

Area of Effect: 500
Units that has this ability will not be healed by this aura.

 

[Pharaoh_]

Would it be OP to shift the movement speed from 30 to 20%, then add 20% evasion and damage bonus against targets stalked?

I think it sounds balanced enough, but that also depends on the damage bonus (remember, you will have 3 effects for one passive skill). You could increase the damage depending on how many enemy units are around (X for heroes, Y for regular units) and have the evasion and speed bonus static.
As for the "targets stalked", this means that you will need to set a trigger that checks if the targeted unit (unit acquires a target or a damage detection system) is the unit that generated the Stalk buff (so that the damage bonus is removed upon switching target - or in the case you get taunted).

 

[Vinz]

I see, thanks for the tips.

 

[Zeatherann]

While not needed, configurability would grant you more points in the coding aspect of the challenge. Back to my original question: Can I import my map script?

 

[Pharaoh_]

While not needed, configurability would grant you more points in the coding aspect of the challenge. Back to my original question: Can I import my map script?

Why do you need it, what does it contain?

 

[Kyrbi0]

SallyAnna raises an important issue (and one which, to my disadvantage, I failed to bring up earlier), and it's one that I have raised for other, similar contests (esp. Hero & Techtree): What are we comparing these Aura's to?

More below, but example here:

... But first, can i ask if my idea is qualified.

Name: Aura of Faith
Form: Simple Triggers

Description:

Emits an aura that heals nearby allied units whenever the bearer of the aura is attacked. Units that has this ability will not be healed.

~~~

so, is my concept acceptable in this contest? or its too simple?

If the answer is "in-game/existing/TFT/ladder/standard Auras", then SallyAnna's is perfect & RulerOfIron's & TankCommander's might be a little too good, too advanced (not quite sure, waiting to see full implementation).

On the contrary, if the answer is not "in-game/existing/TFT/ladder/standard Auras", then SallyAnna is correct; his submission might easily be considered "too simple" (and conversely, RoI & TC have the right idea).
Now, an argument can be made here that, as simple as all the Auras in-game are, it'd be a pretty boring contest... // Also an argument can be made that a "Zephyr" contest is as much about Coding as it is about Ideas, in which case a true "challenge" (contest) should end up with something complex enough to be a challenge to make, thus = somewhat more complex than 'in-game Auras'...

But that being said, which is it? And in the future, let's definitely make sure this is well-defined from the start. Saying "balance it according to in-game stuff" isn't quite enough; "balance" has part to do with "how over-/under-powered it is", but also has to do with "how simple/complex is it, comparatively"? Even stretching the definition of Aura as we have (to include Toggled Auras & Active Auras & DD Auras & such), their really not all the complex.

~~~

Let me be clear, though; I mean no ill will towards RoI's or TC's entries. Both are pretty snazzy-lookin' and I'm glad someone is cranking stuff out early.

 

[rulerofiron99]

@Kyrbi0
No ill will detected

I think the judging criteria answers your issue:

Uniqueness	How creatively was the ability executed?	/10
Coding	Is the skill bug- and leak-free? Does it support multiple instances? Is there any documentation and are there any configurable variables to fit the needs of any user? Does it cause performance issues upon effect?	/20
Visuals	How does the skill look? Is it overloaded with special effects? How explanatory is the tooltip/description of its functionality?	/10

A bland vanilla-ish aura will score low on uniqueness, and lose a few points on coding for limited configurables.

With these criteria, the emphasis is on making a unique and good-looking spell that has no bugs. Balance isn't listed.

The requirement in this contest is simply to make an aura, so any aura, no matter how complex or how bland, is acceptable for the contest.

Anyway, progress report:
All the functions have been implemented and seem to work. I'm going to test it further in a game against bots.

There is still a lot of room for improvement with my spell in terms of efficiency; since it's currently checking unit groups and spell levels in the main loop (0.03 sec).

 

[Zeatherann]

It just makes it a whole lot quicker and simpler to code.

 

[Pharaoh_]

Adding natives is like using WEU, which is not supported. Use custom functions or libraries to make it easier to code. If it can be opened in the regular editor, however, then it's fine.

 

[Vinz]

How about mine? Is mine around the middle of simplicity and complexity?