Aw, I missed it last night. How was it? Any new bugs? Anyone else like, hate it? Can we play it now?

Sorry you missed it. I am currently implicating some minor changes to the text, based on peoples reviews last night. They didn't seem to like the CAPS which all of the messages were in, but I don't care. I just have to modify the order of the splash text briefing and add a Mission Briefing and Mission Objectives in the game, as well as the rest of the protoss units names and colors. I might have to change the colors around. I really don't like the White and Yellow... I might go White and Red. Let me know what you think.

Oh and I'm online right now so we can play it. Op SEN

When are you going to upload the map into the Data Base? I can't wait to play this version of it. The terrain looks awesome Excalibur[MM], both the Twilight and the Desert. I wonder how many people will switch over to this, hackles version of Phantom Rather then the old school Big Game Hunters that has seemed to be infamous.

I'm kind of holding off on releasing it because I don't want a alpha version to be out everywhere. I want the people who will play this game to have the full working, non bugging game. The only bug that I think was a bug, involves the anti zerg mineral hack detection and defeat. The defeat triggers are set to exactly 514, 1028, 1542, 2056, 2570, and then at least 3000. When you are the Phantom, you have similar triggers working for you as the mineral hack ones do, but instead of replacing each mineral subtracted with 8 mineral, you get replaced 12 minerals. It would be a 8:12 ratio for both minerals and gas. Now when your the Phantom and you use the zerg mineral hack, I think it messes up the values of the defeat triggers. Like instead of it being 514, the player would have 12 more, or something like that. It needs to be looked into more. Other than that minor but, I think its just lag. I have not tested the game enough with actual players to determine if everything works nicely with all internet speeds. I noticed when it was lagging, bad, last night that when I used the zerg mineral hack, it would boost up my minerals, and keep it at that count. Which is basically another bug, in a way, if the player is not defeated for hacking. If you use the zerg mineral hack and you are the phantom, which is pointless but never the less, you get that 514 for each larva added to your next ore increase count, Instantaneously which means that the players increase would go up 514 / 8 = x and then x * 12 = a This "a" would be the minerals you gain each trigger loop by using the hack and it messing up. I basically need to test more in depth when you are the phantom and you use the hack.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 21 2008, 2:49 pm by Brontobyte. Reason: Fixed meh typos

.. Sounds complicated.

You should make a series of these maps - pretty much the same triggers and all, but for all Excalibur's (and others) terrain if they make more. I can envision 20 Phantoms, each with different, magnificent terrain and hacker-defeating superpowers floating around battle net... /drool

That was the idea, but I need MOAR terrain please... I like what Excalibur[MM] has so far. The triggering is the same for most of them. All I need is to have a small center piece for the selection of the dfferent types of ore for each base, ect...

Does your anti-maphack work still?
If you need an alternative to EUDs, ask me.

... Another method would be requiring EUDs to start the game. Hack loaded == no EUDs.

Yo I have a cool idea!
Maybe have an option for if you can have a resource swap.
Like minerals turn into gas and gas turns into minerals.

Sure, fire away. I already have the map hack working and tested. The EUD's only work after the game is started. With this said, you can start the game with any state of the Map Hack loaded, but it only works if you toggle with the state. This is why I use it in conjunction with a disabled mine field at the start of the game and I force a center screen on it.


The map already has 1000+ triggers and will most likely need to be compressed but still Open Source, for easier transport over battle.net. It would be way to complex to trigger that and make it work.

I'm amazed to have come across this. I was only on this site to see if there were any Phantom maps in the db. As a last ditch effort I searchd the site for "phantom."

I have been thinking about/kind of working on a Phantom that would catch some hacks. But it sounds like you could do it much better than I would have. I was only hoping to catch people from auto-unallying (not telling them that was what I was doing) and zerg mineral hacking (not in the sophisticated way you plan to, but just if they have too much money too fast).

I've built Phantom from scratch several times, and have tried to play it in public games as much as possible, so I want to share some of my preferences w you. It seems like in public games people will only play Omniscourge's versions, which are huge (300k-400k+) monsters. It's really sad because you can have a complete phantom game for under 40k. there are enough sounds already in starcraft to make a good map.

Anyways with omniscourge's versions, he used to hide who the phantom was on the scoreboard (but not well). He took this out recently because he couldn't figure out how to do this without allowing people to get free 100/100 by researching then cancelling burrow while he gives the money. This can be easily avoided, while still messing with how the resources look on the scoreboard.

The other issue is map balance. Phantom can typically rush and just kill everyone. They get way too much money, and it sounds like you might be into that too. IMO Phantom should receive just enough money that they can win via rushing, if they play perfectly etc. Anything more than that is just ridiculous. In fact, goal should be to make the player unsure whether it is worth it to rush or not. In present phantom games it's obvious they should, and the reasons they won't are outside the game ("it's not fair if i rush" "ruins the game" noob logic). Phantoms should need to mine and expand just like everyone else. They will be able to do it easier, but money should still matter to them. But regardless (for instance, if you do the thing where phantom gets more res per time he mines), make the phantom only advantaged "enough", not excessively.

The amount of res phantoms get has typically been X times the amount of players in the game. this is the flawed math that has made low # of players always lose vs phantoms. Because in a 3 player phantom game, the phantom gets 3X to fight 2 opponents. That's 3 per 2. In an 8 player phantom game, the phantom gets 8X to fight 7 opponents, that's 8 per 7. You can see how this is not even proportional (not to mention the question of whether it being proportional is even the way to go). So be aware of this, and don't count the phantom as an opponent--i.e. give the phantom an advantage proportinoal to how many opponents they have.

In fact, you may also want to detect which players are incompetant and only count them has half opponents for purposes of the advantage calculation. The phantoms advantage could be +2 per competent opponent, +1 per the rest. Incompetent players would be ones that start the game really slowly and proceed to follow a worthless, easily killable pattern.

You can also make eliminated players not count as opponents anymore. and make the phantom stop getting res after he is down to 1 opponent. Seems fair enough. Of course to make this worthwhile you may want to help players be eliminated in a more timely manner as well. You could make it so players who have no chance of really contributting could be eliminated. This is really necessary for those annoying games where the guy who might be phantom is being kept alive with 1 building or w/e by other people. A few triggers could do this nicely.

These are all things i have thought about or done in my phantom maps, so I just hope some of these innovations will also interest you. They are all (like anti-hack) geared with public games phantomming in mind.

Ok, first off, I want to thank you for being so interested in my map creation. Second of all, I think that my maps anti-hacking triggers all work fine, so far, and there is no need to implicate any more.

The Phantom still has to mine in order to gain minerals. This being said, once he has his main base depleted of ore and gas, he will not gain any more minerals, so he will have to expand.

The part about having it proportional to the number of players in a game is crazy. He has a set amount of gain for each resource he brings to his headquarters. (Command Center/Nexus/Hatchery, Lair, Hive) This is what makes phantom phantom. If you decide to play with 3 people, thats fine, but you know one of them is going to be picked as the phantom and might rush you if you are not careful.

The part about rushing is the same in all of the Phantom games. Its part of the game. If you are playing with 8 players, chances are that rushing will not work, because someone will notice that you have a lot of buildings that can create units or see that you turned off the shared vision. Either way, if a person rushes, chances are, if the host didn't want a rush, that the player who rushes, will be booted from the next game. I really don't care if someone rushes in my game.

The part about, oh wait, I think I have already explained all of it.


UPDATE: June 29^th, 2008 10:00AM EST (GMT -5)

Ok, Not much has changed between my updates. I have tried out some ways to have a mineral setting system in place in the start of the game. It would be cool if you could post how much you think it should go up to, and how low should it go, for both the ore/gas. I was thinking for Ore= Low/1,500 High/5,000 & Gas= Low/1,500 High/5,000. Let me know what you think of this.

I also have the thought of doing a binary count off system for detecting the ore/gas amount instead of just having a bunch of triggers, although that may save space.



IMPORTANT:

My map is going to be epic. It is 256x256 with almost 1,000+ triggers. The size will be something around the 500kb mark. If you don't already know, I do support Open Source Mapping. My map will have to be compressed to save space. This may or may not appear as being protected in a given editor. Feel free to unprotect it. If and when I release a public copy of the game, It will sadly not have any trigger comments, as well as no Location names. (Location 0 = 000, Location 1 = 001) If you would like to reserve your copy of a uncompressed, trigger commented, Location named version, just PM me here. Thanks!

So.. IT'S READY? (I'm back from Canada)

I'm starting to get lazy... Does that explain it? Its semi-ready now, in the fact that it can be played, beaten, enjoyed, but I want to wait until I can implicate the mineral/gas selection system into it.

Keep it 1500/5000 per. No easy mode for teh nubz.

Maybe you are used to playing phantom maps I have not seen, but IMO you don't realize it but phantom advantage has always been proportional to the amount of players in the game. If you don't do this (it's easy to do, takes few triggers, probably the same amount you're using now just have to do them differently) you're really limitting your map. There has always been, in nearly every phantom map i've seen, a different res for 8 player games as 7, as 6, 5, etc. The problem is that the math is not done intelligently, and that is the reason why small games (4 or less) are too imba in favor of phantom.

Also you seem to think an 8 player game of typical phantom is balanced. It's not. A zerg or protoss can win 100% of the time if they have some experience rushing as phantom. Only terran has some complications. If you want to make your map good i suggest you try to find broken strategies and balance your map against them. Stopping hack is great but changing it so the phantom advantage is static and overly high (like most/all phantom maps) is missing a huge opportunity to correct some known flaws in this great game.

I don't really think there will be rushing problems. Since you have to mine to get resources, the phantom won't send all the drones to make hatcheries - it'll still take time, and with the larger map, more time to reach the enemy. The phantom won't be strong enough, I think, to win by rushing in even a six-player game. Or maybe even four.

Ok, I thought it would be decent.


I play normal phantom games that are either hosted by people from SEN on map night, Centreri, or random battle.net people. There all similar. If it is that much of an advantage, during the extensive testing I will be doing, I will see it, and make the correct changes to it.

Assuming you do the testing you indicate, I will be looking forward to a drastically differently balanced Phantom, whether it's a 3 player game or a f ull house.

Its just simple triggering. I would just figure out who was here and add them to a Death Counter. Then I would get the running total of the Death Count and that would be the number of players who were present when the game started.

Then I would just modify the Binary Count Off triggers to vary the amount of minerals/ore it would give back based on the number of players in the game when it started.

Of course it's easy. Anyways, assuming you make sure phantom can't auto-win via rushing with any of the 3 races, the next weakness of phantom is that phantom is too pointless with 4 or 3 people. Fix that, have anti-hack, and you got yourself a pretty perfect phantom. Sorry if I offered too many other suggestions.

I suggest you make a rigged version where you get to be phantom every game and balance test your rushes that way.