Strange.. I always find games with similar heroes or characters really boring..
I guess an analogy would be to compare Street Fighter 4 and Super Smash Bros Brawl ... I personally like SSBB over SF because the characters in SSBB are more diverged, allowing you to build upon a character that you like... SF is more discrete, tho each character does have their own play tactics, the differences are not as obvious as in SSBB.

Obviously, we can't change what the SC units are going to be like.. Zerglings, marines, tanks, ghosts, and vultures are who they are, and we can't change that (not until SCII). Instead of going against that, I'd rather take the units' differences to my advantage... Zerglings the fast guy.. i'll make him the fast striker w/ low HP... Marine's a fast attacker.. i'll make him Assault ... tank's attack is concussive, sux against small units... and vult's really really fast... OH! put them together as one hero... solving all the problems...

Instead of avoiding or working against it.. take advantage of what we have... To clarify.. using extensive triggering with Grids and Deathcounts to produce spell effects that's integral to the spell itself is arguably going against the system... This is b/c the triggers aren't always perfect.. and will just confuse players who aren't used to it. It is unintuitive.

Taking advantage of things is like.. for example... if I have pick a Vulture hero.. i'd expect it to be fast because that would be its advantage... Same as the zling hero... If I picked the Templar, I'd expect it to be slow, but its attack/strength/spells will compensate somehow, and I want to see what cool spells it has...

I don't think these units should be avoided, but things must be considered very carefully...

If we're gonna have preset spells... wouldn't this just be another Custom Hero Wars? and CHW is really imbalanced.. if you were the ghost, you can summon skeletons (ghost), and bam.... instant pwnage.

In Hero Sancturary, Norm's hero design also provides a good example of what can be done with SC's limitation.

Take it like this Unholy. The Templar isn't fast enough to deal with anything in the game except melee units, and we expect it to have the stats necessary to win in that scenario. Well in every other case he won't win, so you make spells. But, if you make spells to deal with ranged units you no longer think it can be countered.

That's the problem right there, everything is a counter to someone else, instead of just basically being playable. If the LM's L1 was something that could actually deal with Mech, Archer, Spec Ops or Med, then it would be a worthwhile character to choose. In tourneys any team with a LM that isn't directly countering the opponents is almost guaranteed to lose.

Where the LM is great for HKoing it's bad at everything else. Hell it's not even all that great for base stomping. Archer, Mut, Summoner, Assault and Assassin are all better. And they all have higher survival rates. The only advantage you gain by having the LM is double spawn killing, which is broken anyway.

The point is this, you can't control all the factors in the game, you can't create one counter after another and hope that it's going to compensate. If you create a Templar, you need to give him spells that help him with his weaknesses, not pigeonhole him further into his own design flaws. Giving him double spawn kill just makes him too good, then you add in the lane controllers, which makes him unable to exp at all. It goes from one problem to the next never being solved.

This could go on and on. There's always potential to balance the game, and yet it's never done. Let players just design the characters they want, instead of creating an uneven format that has clear flaws. Even then, there will be spells that are superior, not balanced correctly, counters added to deal with it, leading to more counters, causing more imbalanced and convoluted gameplay. It always starts from just one problem.

The point in regards to marines/zerglings is how they deal with a direct fight. A marine generally either deals too much damage or not enough. He's basically a ranged Zealot really, with faster attack. The range isn't enough to justify the damage decrease, and yet just enough to make melee vs. range an unbalanced fight. He wins or loses based on this number. Stim changes things, but nobody balances this correctly either.

The Zergling is just too fast as a melee unit, who when balanced with this in mind, has damage or health reduced to compensate. When you don't do this he just runs across the map and slays people slower than him, and when you lower his damage it's not enough to deal with other melee characters. The Zergling plays like a scavenger, trying to get the scraps left over after the battle, in which case it will always be too good or not good enough.

The tank is more all around balanced. His attack speed, movement speed, and attack range make him an optimal choice, because it's the players goal to stay out of melee, and the tank is an actual test of one's ability to do that. He has explosive damage btw. Concussive is what Ghosts, Vultures and Firebats use. It's also easier to balance him when you add in a Hydralisk because of that. You build the tank with the intention of dealing with small units, and the added damage against the medium unit balances the hydra's advantage against him.

Compared with popular AoS's CHW is unprofessional. It's a bad example to use here, and it's a cheap shot too.

sorry i havnt posted for ages guys!! ive been busy with uni work.... anyway!! i have some really fantastic news ive been working on this map, devoting countless hours to experimental work and i have some really nice surprises!

1 - implementation of complex 9x9 grid systems (posted a picture below as an example)
2 - instant and automatic casting of plague/ensnare abilities without defiler or queen being sighted by player (cool or what??)
3 - lots of cool new spells (some have honestly never been done before!)

here are some examples of spells that uses the 9x9 grid system. you cant see the entire spell because it wont fit on the screen. also these spells are totaly glitch free, no "cant create unit here" messages.

the following picture is the tank's "orbital bombardment" spell which creates scarabs, dealing 75 splash damage in random locations around the tank. casts 4 times a second. it is totally awesome to see in action trust me!

and the last thing i want to show you is isntant plague. it looks like this.


also im just about finished the heroes. i settled for 8 heroes since the spells are pretty complex and theyre all unique and fun to play. i will post the rest of the heroes soon.

THAT must've taken a while.

yeh it basicaly works by using the standard 5x5 grid and then expanding on it from the corners and being careful not to overlap units

Oh, I already know how it works - and that's why I'm impressed. This kind of stuff takes a very long time to do properly, and the slightest mistake can easily screw up everything. It's even harder when using the scourge/observer grid as opposed to the devourer grid.

About the instant plague and ensnare, is it really necessary? Plague only drains a fair amount of of dmg (250?) and ensnare is just an untimely burrowed unit under unit concept. Plague could be useful in the beginning, but not so much with the middle and ending games. You can make an ensnare effect like Temple Siege's Dark Mage l3, you can even time it as well. Also with the 9x9 grids, its nice but, that range is ecstatic.The orbital bombardment uses the 9x9 grid to the fullest, but that goon//dt spell, almost seems imba when i see it (just my opinion). 9x9 grids are nice, just dont go crazy with it .
And that Templar spell, looks like the Saber's prana sprint in "This is Anime"
Hope to see more info soon.

How did you get the ensnare/plague to work without seeing the defiler/queen? I wanted to use plague as a visual effect.
Btw, for your mission objectives, since you have multiple ages, you can use EUD key detection to detect arrows (left and right for flipping pages) then change the mission objectives. I'm pretty sure mission objectives will work multiplayer with key detection.

as for the instant plague/ensnare... well yeah i think its necessary because im really focusing alot on the visuals of the game this time around. i want the visual FX to just blow your mind away. also plague is useful because it cuts through armor and therefore its good all game. great spell.. especially if it targets multiple heroes and has other spell effects to go with it.

as for the 9x9 grids, only certain spells will use it, and if they do, it wont necessarily cover every square in its radius. some of the spells choose random locations within the grid system while others just use its perimeter. there is however 1 spell which uses all 81 squares.. it only lasts a few seconds though so i wont make it too cheap.
the ensnare/plague works by creating 4 goliaths in a small circle and 4 defilers/queens around the perimeter. the goliaths attack and the defilers/queens will use their abilities every time. then you just teleport your unit into the middle of the circle between the goliaths for 1 trigger cycle and then teleport him back and theres your instant plagued/ensnared unit. i will post the map soon so you can see how it fully works.
sorry im not too familiar with EUD. i know i should know this by now but what exactly is it? i didnt know key detection was possible? how reliable is it?

OKAY GUYS... i have submitted all the heroes and it would be great to get some feedback on them. also im going to need a pro terrain artist if anyones interested? full credit will be given.

EUD detection is reliable. However, for multiplayer, EUD key detection will only allow client side changes that aren't shared (I think) . So, changing displau text is fine. However I'm not quite sure if it works for mission obs.

Ok, if plague and snare are for visuals than thats fine. But now im questioning: Why would you need to plague or snare yourself? xD btw, even though plague cuts through armor, it does about 200<X<300 dmg, that being a small number AoS map style wise. Most ppl just go all out hp if they wanna tank, not spam armor.


Care to list them? I would happily give my feedback. lol is there the farmer? xD

I'm pretty sure he can tweak the HP amounts to whatever best fits.

He listed the heroes in the first post.

I suppose 1000 max hp zeal with 10+2 attack could work out with plague. Question still stands why the need to plague himself? xD. Instant plague as a visual is nice though. Ill give my feedback on the heroes listed soon.

hmm i think im going to avoid doing EUDs. they seem cool but they dont sound 100% reilable and i have no idea how to use them. besides... im incorporating quite a nice information system by giving the player a Gateway. by building units, the player can access complete spell evaluations. its fast and easy to use and there is instructions in the hero selection screen on how to do it. it looks like this...




it deals 295 damage.. and like i was saying... its not the only effect of the spell. the spell also reduces the heroe's spell defenses and it targets 3 heroes, which is potentially 885 damage.

Like I said.. you've got talents !!!
The other other person who has done this was .... err Kenoli I think. (or was it Kaias?) .. with a d-swarm casted Psionic storm, which the HT's removed so fast you don't see it.

This would be cool to see.. but I hope it is actually fun to play

@Multivision-Doors
Hey aren't you that guy who keeps arguing? Right--
This raises the same problems you were talking about :\
Tank is bad against spawns which are small units.. so you'd have to have both medium n small units.. then you'd have to have direct kills to cash system to mediate the extra killscore that the medium spawns will have... and you'd have to make counters for small units....

I wouldn't call Tanks vs Hydras "balanced".. I'd call them Ezier to be "balanced" .. and also.. "Balanced" is subjective... something that's balanced in my perspective may not be in urs.. there's no way we can have an exact, numerical equivilence between the heroes ... OR ELSE IT WON'T BE CREATIVE OR ANYTHING FUN!!!

This kinda segways to metalgear's previous AOS problems, and my worries about this one too. Plz plz plz PLZ play test this and make sure it's actually FUN before doing all these work!! don't waste your time!! The effects so far look awesome, but eye-candy nonetheless.

Multi-Doors.. I put fun before competition.. .U should know that by now... don't bother trying to convince me :\ .. I'd never sacrifice the potential for Fun for the potential of competition. I try to look for an option that satisfies both. Anyways, This ain't no korean national sport. U think Dota is balanced? (>100 heroes doesn't make it balanced XD)

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Apr 12 2010, 2:50 am by UnholyUrine.

thanks yer i just know i got it going this time. im aiming for a masterpiece this time

by the way id hav 2 agree with u unholy about the balancing concept.. there is mathematical balanced and there is practical balanced and sometimes being too mathematical is the wrong way to go. and what the units lack in the physical context of the game, they can be made up for in so many other ways. also id have to disagree about the tank being balanced. its slow, hard to manouevre and suffers a 50% damage loss against melee units. and yer as long as its fun and not units are not too overpowered, then it should be fine.

HELP GUYS - hey can someone take a look at the topic post and rewrite spells for the Soul Hunter? hes the only hero im not happy with. i love the idea of his second and third spells however so keep those. i want to get rid of the reincarnation spell though definately.

appreciated

Um, are you going to beta test this to SEN members? It'd probably help with practical balancing.

yes i will definately need testers. im hoping to start beta testing in about 1 week as the map is nearly finished. is the idea to add the names into the briefing of people who beta tested?

alright.. just so you can see how sexy this map is getting along.. i have a couple of screenshots for you of the Mind Breaker in action

this screenie shows the Mind Breaker's second skill... Static Charge. it kills spawn units and deals 375 damage to enemy heroes.

this pic shows his first skill... Blink. it teleports him forward in his headed direction a minimum distance of 4 tiles and a max distance of 16. he can teleport over cliffs and other blockades. sounds cheap but he needs it due to his lack of movement speed.

Sign me up for tester

For blink, do you control how far you teleport, or is it random?