I randomly decided to make an AoS where you can spells not by building or something, but by using an ability instrinct to your unit, such as burrowing, siege, etc. So, I did some concepting. First, I decided to change the genre from an AoS to a team arena map: There are no bases, you win by killing each enemy character 10 times, and you heal by building a Probe (which costs minerals, which slowly go up over time). Probes take several seconds to build. Second, I decided to not have upgrades. Third, I decided to use a fairly standard mana system (gas = mana and slowly goes up over time) for most characters. Fourth, I drew up a list of characters for you guys to criticize, which is as follows:

Character name (Base unit): Description

Portalmech (Dragoon): Has two Portals (Science Vessels). Anything which touches one Portal is teleported to the other.
Snipersnake (Defiler): Has a Mutant Bat Thingy (Mutalisk), which can't move or attack when the Snipersnake is unburrowed. The Snipersnake has no spells and can be seen while burrowed.
Infested Gerbil (Drone): Can build an Extractor on a geyser (at a gas cost) to fully heal.
Mutant Mudkip (Zergling): Can burrow (at a gas cost) to create a Disruption Web.
Cyberdude (SCV): Can build Bunkers (at a gas cost). While in a Bunker, the Cyberdude is healed over time.
Sneak (Hydralisk): Can burrow (at a gas cost) to turn into a Scourge (like a boss) for five seconds.
Sniperchick (Sarah Kerrigan): Can cloak (at a gas cost) to summon a Healerchick (Medic).
Gunnercycle (Vulture): Can plant a mine to heal. Buying a Probe restores your mine count in addition to healing you.
Explosive Thingy Maker (Reaver): Can build a Scarab (at a gas cost) to summon a Spider Mine (and destroy the Scarab).
Animated Fart (Archon): Summons a Turd (Broodling) with every attack.
Beserker (Firebat): Gets one gas with every attack and loses gas over time. When his gas hits 30, he temporarily turns into a hero Firebat.
Necrophiliac (Lurker): Can burrow (at a gas cost) to summon an Infested Terran.

I suggest you actually start something before we give you all this feedback. You will likely drop this project when you get caught up in all the planning and hesitate to map.

Anyway...
Portalmech: Interesting. Nothing wrong
Snipersnake: so... he cant chase. Weak.
Infested Gerbil: Lame bones
Mutant mudkip: might consider changing name... D-web is dumb because then you cant attack since hes melee
Cyberdude: No idea how you would heal it over time in a bunker. Same as snipersnake. You can't move, so its pretty weak. Its for hiding.
Sneak: so he can't kill anyhting. Again, a running away skill
Sniperchick: Same as cyberdude but crappier
Gunnercycle: Same as above
Explosive thingy maker: Cool idea
Animated fart: how would you do that?
Berserker: same as above
Necrophiliac: decent, but cant run

A few interesting ideas, but overall kinda boring. A 1 spell hero w/ no upgrades is kinda boring imo. What I see is a "We are Friends" map with a slight twist, but overall worse. Also, the building a probe to heal thing kinda beats the purpose of having a no-building spell casting system. Maybe use a "if no foes are in location (around the hero)".

If drones cancel whatever they are morphing into, they will emerge with full hp. So there would be no need for the player to wait for the extractor to be finished.

Portalmech: k
Snipersnake: He can chase with his Mutalisk.
Infested Gerbil: I guess you're right.
Mutant Mudkip: Oh. Didn't realize that.
Cyberdude: You can go into combat, then run into a bunker when you're low on HP. Maybe I'll make the Bunker heal him faster than I was originally planning.
Sneak: It's not just a running away skill. It can also be used to rescue allies in trouble, or to scout. Though, in order to make it useful in combat, I'll make it so he does damage to anything he flies over while in Scourge form.
Sniperchick: I'm taking her out for technical reasons. (Namely, cloak detection eats up a player slot, and I'd prefer to have 4v4 instead of 3v3.)
Gunnercycle: Disagree.
Explosive Thingy Maker: k. Oh, I'll make his mines hit hovering units, btw.
Animated Fart: I'll detect attacking using a variant of vHP.
Berserker: Same as above.
Necrophiliac: Yes he can, what are you talking about?

Good point. I'll take out healing altogether. Every hero has some way to heal anyway. (Gunnercycle will get mines back on death.)

I'm removing the Infested Gerbil, so this doesn't matter.

Anyway. New character list:

Portalgunner (Infested Duran): Has two Portals (Science Vessels). Anything which touches one Portal is teleported to the other. No spells. (His unit and name were changed for a reason.)
Snipersnake (Defiler): Has a Mutant Bat Thingy (Mutalisk), which can't move or attack when the Snipersnake is unburrowed. The Snipersnake has no spells and can be seen while burrowed.
Robotic Kitten (Probe): Can build an Assimilator (at a gas cost) to turn into a Dragoon temporarily.
Infested Gerbil (Zergling): Can burrow (at a gas cost) to create a Disruption Web. Burrowing while under a Disruption Web will summon a Guardian (at a gas cost).
Cyberdude (SCV): Can build Bunkers (at a gas cost). While in a Bunker, the Cyberdude is healed over time.
Sneak (Hydralisk): Can burrow (at a gas cost) to turn into a Scourge (like a boss) for five seconds. Flying over enemies hurts them.
APC (Siege Tank): Has four Marines "inside" it. Siege Mode deploys the Marines. Tank Mode teleports them back inside. While inside, the Marines are slowly healed.
Gunnercycle (Vulture): Can plant a mine to heal.
Explosive Thingy Maker (Reaver): Can build a Scarab (at a gas cost) to summon a Spider Mine (and destroy the Scarab).
Animated Fart (Archon): Summons a Turd (Broodling) with every attack.
Beserker (Firebat): Gets one gas with every attack and loses gas over time. When his gas hits 30, he temporarily turns into a hero Firebat.
Necrophiliac (Lurker): Can burrow (at a gas cost) to summon an Infested Terran.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 12 2010, 8:32 pm by TassadarZeratul.

It would really help your project if you reduced the number of characters. Pick a few with really cool abilities and pour all your efforts into polishing those. That way, players won't be overwhelmed by choices, and there will be a genuine sense of strategy.

Like the Portal Gunner, I like that one. He has a unique, fun, and effective ability, and It's easy to get a handle on what the consequences will be for game strategy.

Imagine rock paper scissors with 15 possible hand signals -- nobody would play it. You could devote the rest of your efforts to creating a cool arena or environment to really showcase and challenge those characters' abilities.

Which ones would you recommend removing?

As it stands, I am not removing the APC, Portalgunner, Snipernake, Explosive Thingy Maker, or Animated Fart, unless you can give me a really good reason.

EDIT: Though I think I should have at least eight characters, as there are eight players.

I would say that if those five are the ones you really don't want to remove, then your map would be very strong by keeping only those five.

EDIT: I just saw your comment about eight players. I would even say it's better to have some players be playing the same character, than to have too many characters.

I'll still need three more so each player can have one. I'll probably keep the Infested Gerbil, Necrophiliac, and Berserker, unless anyone else has any suggestions to the contrary.

I would make the decision based on your original five. Make sure that the three you choose really pose gameplay challenges for the original five, and vice versa.

I think the ones I chose might have interesting relations with each other, so I'll use them. Thanks for the advice.

Goodbye, Robot Kitten, Sneak, Cyberdude, and Gunnercycle.

Cool. Sounds good. Btw, I especially like the Portalgunner and the APC, I think they'd be really fun to play with.

Hope it goes well.

I just realized that Berserker and APC have no way to heal. For Berserker, it's easy: I'll heal him (either with a few Medics or full heal via trigger) when he enters hero form. (The non-hero bat is moved out of play when he enters hero bat form.) However, it's a bit harder to come up with a way for APC to heal. One possibility is giving him an SCV in addition to his Marines, though I dislike this option. Another possibility is just leaving him unable to heal the tank: He can heal the Marines, which might be enough.

Your thoughts, SEN?

EDIT: Minor change: Berserker will now get gas whenever there is an enemy in his attack range, instead of every attack. This way, I don't have to find some way to detect when he attacks Necrophiliac's Explosive Corpses or Explosive Thingy Maker's mines. Animated Fart will still summon when attacking, because its much easier to detect his attacks. (I'll keep P12 observers over him and detect when his kill score is > 0. Can't do that with Berserker.)

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jan 13 2010, 3:03 pm by TassadarZeratul. Reason: Also, inb4norm flaming the map

Listen to this man, for his words are wise.

For APC, it could be 4 rines and an scv; need to deploy for scv to repair.
Suggestion:
Take advantage of snipersnake's darkswarm. It's easy to replace him with a different unit and have the same ability.
Suggestion:
Puzzler: A drone that morphs into a hatchery which spawns a spidermine (that is already burrowed).

Good idea. Snipersnake has been changed to a Hydralisk, and Necrophiliac is a Defiler. I can't do anything trigger-based for Dark Swarm (except possibly lowering the duration), sadly, but this at least gives a reason to bring your Defiler into combat. Snipersnake will have sucky stats, though, so he should stay out of combat. I'm not giving APC an SCV, though. As for your Puzzler idea: I already have a minelaying character.

Also, Berserker has been changed to a Marine and APC's Marines have been changed to Kerrigan Ghosts. Berserker will turn into a Firebat when his gas hits 30.

imo, you should have a HT hero that uses hallucination to trigger a spell

*TassadarZeratul casts Level 42 necromancy*

I realized a problem with the Portalgunner: "Portal spamming". A player could jump through a portal, then jump through again when an enemy follows them. If the enemy chases them through the portal again, they jump through again. They'll be basically invulnerable, which gives them time to heal. Every character can do this, with Berserker being the only exception. (APC can heal the ghosts in this manner.) I'm debating changing the portal to only work in one direction, but there might be a better solution.

Also, anyone have a better name idea for APC? ;o

@above: Nowhere near enough details.

Don't change the APC name. It's wonderful. That's a great idea with the tank and marines "inside". When I first read that the marines were inside and you can siege to get out, I thought "wow, now that's inventive". APC stands for Armored Personnel Carrier, in which it's the EXACT word you should be using. Although, a problem arises with your tank idea. Usually, in any game ive played with an APC, it cannot attack until the units are outside of it. You could however just say that the tank = all marines HP combined and.... attack = all marines attack combined, as if they were shooting from a open slot in the vehicle . I like your ideas, these could make for a wonderful new game if you put them to use elsewhere. For now, I think you should keep the Reaver and Tank ideas, as for the others.... they aren't so inventive, but they will do just fine.

I have an idea for you Vulture character, of course you can ignore what I say if you don't like it, but here it goes.

Jeep (vulture) - Fast character with a constant wraith above it (as if it were a machine gun) and attacks with vultures normal attack (called grenade) and machine gun both at once. When the jeep gets a kill (or wraith), it gets gas. If it has enough gas, it gets the power "moral boost" (if it has enough gas, some #). This turns the wraith into a BC (with a bit more damage) and you can just spawn a secondary jeep (that is also constantly beside the jeep, jimmy raynor instead) and have it as if it were throwing 2X the grenades (for a limited amount of time).

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jan 28 2010, 12:55 am by atto.