Also, @GGMano, the arbiter ability causes units around the arbiter to die. Shuttle(made from cannon) spawns units.

I think the Shuttle should be replaced by some other unit since Reavers get stuck in their spawn location. I rarely make cannon these days because making the Reavers go into the battlefield is much more important that spawning extra Archons and other units from the Shuttle.

Random: Might using a Hallucinated Shuttle fix the Reaver issue? I mean, Hallucinations can't load... Now, it would explode after three minutes, which is probably a deal-breaker, and it might not work anyway, but I'm still going to suggest this.

Possibly although I wouldn't count on it. Filling the shuttle up with other units didn't prevent the reavers from attempting to load into it and getting stuck. Certainly you see entire groups of reavers all simultaneously trying to load into a single shuttle when clearly that wouldn't work. Would the checks correctly be in place for a hallucinated one? It's quite possible and would fit with other things that Blizzard do with hallucinations.

Unfortunately it wouldn't be a drop-in replacement because hallucinations have their own set of limitations when it comes to triggers, principally that they can't be detected directly in trigger Conditions. Possibly that could be worked around but it would be quite a bit of effort and testing, and I'd still have to deal with the auto-death problem as well.

can't u just make it have unending energy. I've seen it done in other maps o.o. Or maybe I've only seen it done with broods and other regular units? idk.

Also, I think the reaver problem isn't the shuttle. I've had the problem without having a shuttle recently.

There is very little (nothing?) you can control about hallucinations, unfortunately.

You can give broodlings unlimited energy but it is actually a different timer/number than what is used for hallucinations and the same method doesn't work.

Certainly you may have pathing issues with reavers without a shuttle (dropship and overlord might sometimes contribute?), but definitely the shuttle is the largest cause of the worst case, where some reavers simply freeze and won't move at all.

Can we use some other units that has the function as the warp prism (spawning units) but not with a Shuttle?

I remember you said you don't like the concept of warp prism in the first place so perhaps we can come up with completely new unit with a different function?

The interesting things you can do for a hero unit, in a map like desert strike, is rather limited. I've more or less covered them off (at least everything I can think of that is interesting) with the existing heroes:
Mothership: Kills units
Infestor: Steals Units
Medivac: Heals units
Nydus Worm / Thor / Warp Prism: Spawns units

If you could come up with some other potentially interesting hero ability then it could be considered. I can't think of anything else that really fits easily, though.

Also the use of the shuttle is for playability / readability purposes. The shuttle otherwise doesn't appear on the map, so when you see one you know it is a warp prism. If I used a Scout hero as the base unit then when you simply saw a scout unit on the map you wouldn't be sure if it was a warp prism (or other hero) or a regular scout or a void ray, for that matter.

You'll note I did intend to investigate the shuttle/reaver stuff in the last update, and I did, but eventually chose on pushing the map out rather than potentially holding it back and not getting it released at all.


Realistically however, I haven't done anything with Starcraft at all since Diablo 3 came out, and I'm not terribly likely to suddenly want to go back. At this point I don't have any plans for a new version, and mainly new versions were spurred on by my own playing experience on battle.net where I would see things that seemed unbalanced to me - if I'm not playing the map I don't get that feedback and so can't balance. It also starts to become a bit of a broken record, releasing updates with more and more balance tweaks going around in circles.

I may consider uploading an uprotected version of this map some time in the next few months. I'm a bit wary of that though as I believe one of the strengths of this map on battle.net is that it's consistent and people generally know what they're getting based on the version number (except for that guy that ripped it off and made 2.25 etc) and I wouldn't want to see a plethora of 'lame' versions sprout up. Some people have crazily bad ideas, like suggesting I have a 4x mineral rate mode (yay?) or incredibly unbalanced suggestions for the units. Another facet is that the trigger systems, while quite well-documented, are pretty complex and can have gotchas, so it'd be easy for people to release buggy versions (something I myself was quite capable of doing). On the other hand though, it would be nice for other people to get an inside-look at my triggers, as I do believe they are pretty well designed in general - certainly compared to the DS Night 2 map I started with the triggers are orders of magnitude more complex but also less buggy.

SUPER SHUTTLE!!!!

That is my suggestion for a new ability for the shuttle .

Other hero ideas:

Make Valk a Hero! Since Valks are best in low numbers this would be a great idea!

Introduce Duran for the Final Version!!!! IT IS NOW TIME TO FACE DURAN!!! (if for protoss, say he was MC'ed XD)

Cannon Hero built by Cannon?

A unit already used but slowed by burrowed ling below?

A permanent line of D-Webs? By The Enemy Spawning Area? lol

Make Final Hero Named Lanthanide?

Special Abilities:

Infinite Energy
Nearby Enemy units are killed(cooldown)
Nearby Enemy units are frozen temporarily(cooldown)
Nearby Enemy units are spawned with #%HP(idk why lol)
Nearby Enemy Units HP set to 30%.
Nearby Enemy units are teleported back to enemy spawning area.(cooldown)
Nearby Allied units gain Shield Recharge.
Nearby Allied Units gain HP recharge.
Nearby Allied Units Shields set to 60%.
Nearby Allied Units teleported to middle of the map.
Nearby Allied units spawned with #%HP.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 29 2012, 2:37 am by 3FFA.

Poison(reduce enemy hp/shield) as ffa said

invinsibillity short period time

spider mines (splash damage)

Create hallucinations

advanced stuff:

ensnare

plague

dweb

irradiate

Actually all of that can be considered "advanced". You also didn't explain anything clearly enough. All I got out of that was "here is some spells units are given at the beginning of the game."

Just played this map for the first time in a lonnnngggg while.

Just one question, why do you increase the mineral rate by 15-20% when someone leaves?

Because it is for balance. If he didn't, how are you supposed to contend with 2 different spawns to counter, probably each needing different counters, and also it helps with specials. This has been in the map since like 2.01

How you mean?

Both teams spawn at the same time regardless if the teams are uneven. It actually throws off the balance of the game giving one team more income than the other. If the purpose of it was to balance out specials that can be balanced via refund very easily.

*EDIT*
Ah i see what youre talking about now that im not half asleep. Youre saying its to balance out being able to purchase units to counter both races. So let me ask you this...what happens if you have the same race as your allies? No extra income should be needed as you wouldnt need to counter different races. Agreed?

Now let me also ask you this, if your enemy has been given a 15-20% bonus within the first 2 minutes of the game, whats the likelihood of them being able to spam you out and win without even breaking a sweat?

Either way, was my first game in a while so i'll give it a few more tries even tho i despise bw.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 2 2012, 4:49 pm by staxx.

Lolz!!!
2 player on a team gathers 1000 minerals each times 2 = 2000 minerals

1 player on a team gathers 1000 minerals times 1 = 1000 minerals

Staxx where is the balance in 2000 minerals vs 1000 minerals?

Very easily

If youve played any of the original versions you would know what i mean

Hey,

Still don't think anyone has addressed my concern.

Terran special vs zerg vs protoss.

Protoss or Zerg spawn 'stops' spawning....where Terran does not... follow my situation.

18 seconds on clock, you special.

250 units total will spawn, but because protoss and zerg's special mind control the field, it stops the spawning... so maybe 150 spawn and 100 are 'killed' in the waiting-to-spawn area.

If a terran does the same thing, the units 150 die, but then the rest still filter out....this can really hurt a terrans ability to push quickly.


If you understand...then you can see why it would suck to have it left like that....

But the enemy units dance while being at very low hp and your army charges, also it can be used in such a way(before enemy spawns) to have your forces attacking the area by their temple just as they spawn. Also, the terran special does damage directly to the temple so that even if it is countered, you still did damage. That is not true for the other 2 specials.

yeah but you can easily lose the push and then they damage ur temple...thats bit retarded

Ehhh xd........ 2player 1000 minerals (does players spawn at same time???????) if players spawn individual then 2 players gather 1k each is same as 1 player gather 1k mineral

As staxx is saying u put refund when building specials since 2 players can do 2 x special vs 1 player can only do 1 special...

Another xample game start 2v2..... 1 leaves the 1 player gets extra ressource 15-20%....(2v1). after 10 minuts 1 more leaves (game now 1v1)... no one gets extra ressource.. is that balanced?? XD

The problem staxx adress is totally correct shouldnt be gettin any bonus when leaves only refunds on specials.....

For the hero units stuff ideas... 3ffa you xplained ideas more, i just added couple ideas to ur post.. at least was my intension. I could explain it more if lanthanide wanted me to.