If you would like, I can teach you how each of them is significantly different (the spells using DT's). One other person has had this misconception and it just takes a few seconds to learn how each is used.

Offensive2 = Ranged Homing Sword attack. It also doubles over as a defensive move for nearby allies.

Offensive4 = Melee attack that pulls enemies close and had an added blinding effect.

Even though both use DT, they are very different in function. I can show you in later tests if you are interested in learning how I put my spells together - a way which is much more complex than you assume with that post.

Then there are the auras: These are support auras that give you (and allies, if they are in range during the cast) passive bonuses. My map uses a common color theme where Scantid death (Green puffs) correlates to MP gain. Ragnasaur death (orange sparks) correlates to increased $$ earnage. The artifacts, special situations, and spells that are related to these themed effects have the same type of animation. This is like this so that when an enemy sees you with the green puffs, they can realize that you have that aura on. When they see you have the Dust clouds when you make kills, they know you have the Orb of Medina because that is the effect that goes with that passive augment.



Toss deaths are only used for offensive techniques, I don't want to confuse players that will play their characters based on animated cues from enemies. Knowing if an opponent is using an attack or just gaining increase MP from an aura can dictate whether you're going to run or confront them. Knowing what artifacts they have based on the passive bonuses they gain will help you decide if it's worth killing them to try to jack whatever they're carrying.

@Everyone: I can only ask that you trust me in the ways I approach this project. Once a finished product is out, everything SHOULD fall together perfectly. Of course, BETA testing is going to be the next step (really soon actually) in reaching a maximum level of balance that (As said at the very top of the OP) is a goal that no SC AoS map has ever achieved. Thank you for your patience and contributions.

p.s. Anyone up for testing tonight?

I'll be there.

Also, that is good, very good. Adding things like these adds depth as the general pubbies wont figure this out ever, and the people who do figure it out will have to use it for it to help them, so its not an unfair advantage, merely a small advantage that differs pros from pubbies.

Eh, I want to try the sandbox...
And try to find some sick combos with Ninja

Can anyone get online to help test in a 3v3 match?

It appears that the rare artifacts appear much less than the other artifacts (like they are supposed to), but they are there for the same time. It makes it exceedingly difficult to get rare artifacts, since when on the special occasion you see the artifact, you cannot reach it in time. Maybe it's just me...

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Things that need to be fixed/Thoughts:

• The sandbox enemy spawn messages say levels 0-7, however, the nuclear dots say 1-8; confusing.
  
• Nuclear dots in sandbox spawn are not perfect, some are slightly off, and it is noticeable.
  
• Need some way to say spawn levels. Spawn 7 and 8 are the same unit, but level 8 has full shields, 7 does not. It isn't obvious immediately, and it my appear to be a glitch.
  
• Need another tutorial to tell how to play each character, and its strengths and weaknesses. Also include detailed spell descriptions, because the mission obj ones are too vague. [[[ie: The Samurai has 2 builds, offensive and defensive. offensive is used to attack and kill enemy, while defensive gives defensive bonuses to yourself, and for some spells, your allied heroes. *More detailed spell description* In addition, this hero can gather materials by standing next to glowing mineral fields; getting a certain amount of each of this will give your hero armor (shield constantly set to an amount). This hero is a great tank, but can be (weakness here).]]]
  
• Random "Lives Remaining" burrowed in the tutorial section.
  
• Don't kill dship when it goes out of bounds. Sometimes mistakes are made, and the dship will die. Other times, this method can be used to deny dship kills. Then again, you used another method if the rine was in the dship when it went out of bounds... you have a reason?
  
• Air units cannot get probe, yet other land units (non hero) can.
  
• Tutorial needs to spam the message, and use map pings. The messages can easily be bumped off by other players making it difficult to read. Then the player has to do all the other stuff to play the 1st part of the tutorial again. Pings are needed to point to the locations on the map, in case to player loses the location them.
  
• Things to add to tutorial: Include the EXP notifications off in the tutorial; Explain gas = more money for entire team; explain the effects/kinds of artifacts; explain steel/wood/other resource.
  
• Specify that Oath and Doom Spawns are not normal spawns, and that spawn buildings spawn units when the normal spawn appears.
  
• Use Mr.Anti-Clog from TS, it will help. Also, maybe make the skills area a lil bigger.
  
• Disable beacons? Sometimes the skill points stop right before the beacon. Or just make the locations slightly larger than the beacons.
  
• For player colors, use a color scheme. Blue/Green one team, Red/Yellow other. Or Primary vs Secondary colors. Don't use white, as it looks like the current player's unit on the minimap.
  
  

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• Creature of Mist: 3rd spell for lurker, the summoning of 4 (or 5?) hydralisks. The hydras were invulnerable. Recasting the spell removed the 4 original hydras, and created 4 new invulnerable hydras.
  
• Creature of Mist: 4th spell? It made a halu effect, and spawned a scourge, but overall, did nothing. The description said "gives great movement" Does that mean it teleports me to an enemy hero? Maybe not a glitch?
  
• Psychopath: Look at your locations, the right battle field location is missing a small part of the land. This will kill the dship if it goes out of range, although it is still technically over the battlefield land.
  
• Hero Select: make that location bigger. If a player chooses, say, the lurker, and another player walks all the way left, he will not get a random hero, and he will just be stuck there. The hero cannot die, as it is invulnerable. Idk if the creature of mist can teleport out.
  

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K I will cross off anything that is no longer valid, and give explanations in BLUE FONT.

Anything I do not address has been notice and will be worked on as I progress towards BETA.


UPDATE:
•Fixed a bug involving player elimination affecting spawn movement.
•Fixed a bug that prevented Samurai from using one of his spells in a certain situation.

•Need 5X testers to resume testing. Can anyone get online?

Black = Middle Line touching all warp gates. This is the only straight line. Divides map in 1/2.
Red = side paths
Blue = middle path
Green = Looking from the Temple to the middle of the map, the line goes from the left exit to the middle.
Brown = closest path from red to blue after exiting base (sides to mid).
Light Blue = Paths linking Red Paths w/o going into the side capture able bases.
Red Dot & Light Blue = Extra Paths linking the main L.Blue line to the red line (side path).
Purple = Paths leading from the middle back to the middle. Although there is a purple line at the right, it doesn't exist, making a map imbalance.
Peach = Leads from the side capture able bases to the middle.
Dark Red = Part of Peach line; leads from the L.Blue line to the middle. Both of these lines are south of the Black line.
Red/Black = To make map symmetrical, these lines should exist. They are above the Black line.

Blue X = High grounds that are on the blue line.
Red X = 3 Potential terrain trap zones; makes a triangle. The 2 high grounds can have "rock/mud slides", where the currently water/not walkable on rocks can "flood"

The Red X areas can have warning for when they become inaccessible (random), be night/day, or on a time interval. All units in that area can simply teleport the unit out of the area (added stun?), be killed, flood = random area in map, etc. Also, they can change paths; say if there were 3 ramps, 1 becomes inaccessible, and with rock slide, the ramp which is blocked changes to another ramp.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Oct 22 2009, 3:43 am by fat_flying_pigs.

Oh wow, nice post pigs. Looks like the northeastern side has more of a "delta" than the south. The south has less paths, with the light blue and purple. That might want to be modified so that the sides are more mirrored. Though, I disagree with the red and black lines. More "tributaries" need to be added to the southwest side to make the map more mirrored, added to the light blue and a little to the purple (northeast additions to the purple).

Mirroring lacks depth, imo.

Look at top/bottom paths from mid in TS. Those are balanced yet different, and add depth.

Side choosing should be a viable aspect of the game, as long as no one side is rigged in any way from the other, however you can acheive such a thing without mirroring.

Mirroring also gives certain units advantages unless terrain is completly balanced for every hero.

Was fun. Ninja is kinda confusing at first, but poof + sub is actually sweet to pull off. I'm not sure I like Shurikens much, how does the AI work on that? It always went down for me.

Mirrored is good, but with variation. The map should be mirrored on the black line, but adding slight variations keeps it unique, like a small lake.


As long as a map is not perfectly mirrored, one side will have an advantage. This is a technicality, and doesn't mean much, as most of us don't have computers for brains.
The pathing in TS cannot be compared to this map, as the different dimensions in this game rely on pathing greatly. Much of the game play is reliant quick movement/running around, and random factors (artifacts, items, resources (ieLsteel), vespene geyser, random terrain shifts). The lack of pathing on the northeast side disadvantages the south team from farming there.

GG Ultimo, u win this time. I shall win the next game.

From what i've seen, the map is easy to move around in.

From what you have seen. Have you actually played?

It actually gets really cramped, especially when spawn builds up. The firebat phase was icky because of this.

For now, my plans about the terrain is to modify the east side of center outpost to allow for an additional PURPLE PATH to balance it out. I have been considering this long b4 reload pointed it out in that picture, but since I'm not the only one thinking that this is needed, it's obviously something that needs to be worked in. In addition to that, I am going to find a way to implement the flooded path somewhere between the midpoint of the right side path, bottom outpost, and center outpost. Image those 3 points form a triangle and the flooded path runs in the middle of it. This will allow for an added path AT TIMES when it is not flooded, and together with the additional PURPLE PATH, will make it easier for players to utilize the bottom portion of the map.

Also, Cosmetic issues with the terrain and moderation of unbuildable terrain patches in the optimal locations is an ongoing project, but these things are secondary to my first two terrain concerns. Thanks again for that detailed analysis of layout, it will probably come in handy again as the terrain undergoes constant tweaks as the game progresses.



I took a new approach with the dimensions of the battlefield. You may have noticed that because of it's rectangular shape as opposed to square, Southwest has difficulty getting XP from Northeast's top exit. I got lucky in the fact that Whatever way I set up the locations still allowed Northeast to gain XP from Southwest's bottom exit normally despite the rectangular shape of the map. I will have to do a series of minor adjustments in cannon/spawner/path placement in the top side path/ top exit of northeast base to figure out a way to get the spawn to be equally exposed as the spawn of southwest's bottom exit.

That will take care of that issue...

@MEMEME, yeah it's easy to move around in for the most part, but that's just generally speaking. The game is however (Because of it's greater size and complexity) designed to be more fast-paced and reliant (like flying pigs said) on quick movement/moving around a lot. Between trying to gather artifacts, fending off enemy heroes, and trying to train on spawn units, there is a lot going on. Not to mention you can expect spells to be going off faster than what most people will be use to from past AoS maps. [With stackable and combo spells, things can get hectic.] I have also taken measures to give all heroes a way to increase their map presence over a large distance.


That one case was mostly due to the fact that Firebats had an unbalanced dmg output to lifespan ratio. Tweaks to spawn stats will help regulate the flow of movement along the 3 main paths, and of course these tweaks need testing before I'll know how to go about them.



Yeah, ninja is sweet cuz he is designed to be crazy about his combo spells. The shuikens actually have dynamic tracking depending on where you are on the map. They go toward where enemies are predicted to be (It sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is). For example, if you are in northeast base at the very tip, all shurikens will go southwest direction. As you approach the center of the map, the spread of shurikens is more like a circular path. (Shot in all directions).

EDIT: Oh yeah, and flying pigs, thanks for pointing out those bugs with the hydralisk. I finally managed to fix them all.

I don't know if I can promote this map anymore in good faith. The last time I played this there was trigger lag (if you've played astrogears, you know what this is), and Norm's response was "so what" or "it doesnt matter". I don't see a map with unabashed trigger lag competing with temple siege. I hope the problem ends up being taken more seriously.

WTH NO.

That doesnt sound like norm.

And yeah trigger lag (exactly what though)could ruin a game.

What is trigger lag? It it just slow rate of triggers? Like if I cast a zealot for a spell, the triggers will lag slightly to make the spell occur a bit slower?
Also, how did you see trigger lag? If i remember correctly, you claimed that there trig lag after the first few seconds of the game.
Keep in mind, that most games lag for the first second or two of the game. Many times, a lag box pops up for a player, just for a second; that player may not even lag/the game may not lag.

@Norm: I am not just ordinary flying pigs, but the rare fat, flying pigs.

Ah I really feel left out. Is it possible to PM me the map so I can use the sandbox? Want to add some input

Ninja's 2nd spell, if casted using all mana, will essentially last forever. Ant he damage (45+5?) is ridiculous for that duration.
Necromancer can mine; is it possible you didn't think of this? The minerals always reset to 100% of what they originally were. Did you want the necro to mine? Also, whats with the random amount of drones i get - up to 12. It seems fitting that the necro gets to mine since he has shit for damage, but the zealots damage is strong, especially since they can be sacrificed (spell). I got up to 1k minerals in the game.

(How does one post replays?)