If you have any questions that you think can somehow be answered by any of us, ask away.

Can you create a list, please? ;D

A list.. of what?
Spells and what their effect/gameplay mechanics are or is supposed to be?
New ideas that were floating around?

Yes, then I can sort of recreate the spell effects/roles within sc2.
Just list each spell for each hero and I can see what I can do then.

Or just post it whenever you got the first hero's spells listed. Then I can already start on that.

At first I want to recreate the game with only a few changes to spells.

No problem..
I'll start by posting what I think would be the easiest heroes to make in SC2 (from the little information I know)

Everything listed is either straight from sc1, or projected from previous discussions...

A few notes:
- Stun means immobilize, but doesn't mean cannot attack or cast abilities.
- Progression from sc1 and sc2 complicates a lot of things.. I will describe them with *
- I'm assuming that almost all damaging spells that used units for damage (aka spawn units, then remove them) will be replaced by spell effects in sc2.
- This is all assuming that we're still using the same mana costs as sc1 (25 for 1st spell, 50 for 2nd spell, 80 for 3rd, and 120 for 4th).

* - Not sure what to do with units' innate abilities, such as plague, psionic storm, and consume... Right now, I am assuming that we're leaving them out.












I will continue to edit this.
Also, try using ur own ideas as well. You probably got some awesome ones.

Post has been edited 6 time(s), last time on Dec 14 2011, 9:44 pm by UnholyUrine.

Stun should mean can't attack but can't use abilities; at least it did in TS1 unless you could manual.

EDIT
And Blink plus l2 plus l4 would be PRETTY powerful especially at night; maybe have the Blink spell have an obvious effect visible at both day and night so the enemy can see it?

But then if l2 is instant it wouldn't matter...hrm. A short warmup to the Blink?

Good point.. probably need to lower the stun/immobalize time for assassin's l2.

It should be can't attack/move, and can use abilities.
Although mech should be an exception to this rule.

I made Volt's Shockwave. It's a modified version of the spell in the campaign. It knocks enemy units back, deals damage during landing and stuns them for 1.8 seconds. The units fly for 1.2 seconds and should be able to move during that time I think (seems to be needed for the push back).

Also, I made Special Ops' spell Defensive Traps which spawns 3 mines in a line 90 degrees to the caster. Casting range is 2 which is pretty short. The mines are slightly altered. Sadly I can't make them as randomly stupid as they were in SCBW.
I plan to make them be thrown or shot to their position instead of just appearing there.
Oh and they should be able to attack cloaked units, too (I hope). But I think with 5 life and 100 armor they can tank towers very easy. Were spidermines able to tank towers in SCBW or were they ignored as soon as a unit with a weapon vs buildings came in range?

Shadow Step is Assasin's blink ability. It's just a renamed Transit from Zeratul and has a cooldown of 10 seconds. I might reduce the range because 8 feels pretty powerful and give the Assasin a speed buff for a short duration instead.
Also I named it's passive cloaking during night "Shadow Cloak".

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Dec 14 2011, 11:43 pm by Ahli.

I think defensive turrets would be easier to work with and feel more natural than spider mines.
Spider mines never attacked buildings back in SCBW... sooo I don't know...

That's more of an engineer ability than planting mines.
Special Ops has special equipment for "special tactics"
But I'm not sure what his other spells were, but I will see soon enough.

Woops, can* use abilities I meant.

And mech shouldn't be an exception

Assasin's crippling strike now hits 5 targets around him. It choses the enemies with the lowest hitpoints around him and stuns each one for 5-7 seconds. He also teleports to his last target. The ability deals no damage, but gives assists. ;D

The Light Mage is a High Templar that has an attack. He throws a light-saw from above his head onto his enemy.

Assasin's Enemy Imitation works with usage of triggers, but the enemy temple heals you because it's allied to you. ;D If anyone knows how to set up a working validator that checks the alliance of the target to the source and tells me how to, I would be happy.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 15 2011, 6:38 pm by Ahli.

Crippling strike should stun the units with highest max health (heroes) befpre it stuns spawn; it's useless if it stuns five spawn and doesn't stun the hero right next to you.

Mech would be almost unplayable if not made as the exception. He doesn't have spells that can hit the enemy back while stunned until lv4

I can make changing the form removes stuns.

Can be easily changed with modifying the sort order of the search effect.
I just didn't want an Assassin to stun every unit around for a long time.

edit:
Made Temple's heal now differ between Assassin in disguise and your team's Assassin and I noticed that I couldn't spell Assassin properly.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 16 2011, 12:01 am by Ahli.

Good compromise

Finished the mechanics for Volt's Power Overwhelming.
It just lacks animations + sound.
Power Overwhelming saves the stats @ casting and sets his life to 100%, sets his shields to 4000/4000 and raises all damage by 50%. After 20 seconds or if received lethal damage, the old stats are loaded again.
It's done with the combined power of triggers and data.

So. what's done so far with the heroes:
- Light Mage, Special Ops, Assassin, Volt, Mutant, Archer, Summoner, Assault, Mech (Goliath) and Warrior have a unit + stats
- Light Mage got a default attack
- Volt has Shockwave (L1) and Power Overwhelming (L4) [lacks sound, animation]
- Special Ops has Defensive Traps (L1) [lacks cool animation]
- Assassin has Shadow Step (L1), Crippling Strike (L2) [lacks casting animation] and Enemy Imitation (L3) [lacks animation, sound]
- Stuns show a model above the units that they are stunned

try to complete a few heroes so we can playtest XD

Summoner can now spawn Zergling Eggs.
These eggs hatch after 3 seconds and spawn a Zergling (120hp, 10 dmg; just like warpgate spawns day 2).
Zerglings will lose 2 Hitpoints per Second and stop regenerating life, if they move more than 20 range units away from their master.

edit:
Created Dark Swarm for Summoner.
But the persistent effect's actor isn't thick enough to be clearly visible.
Also, I've still a bug: the actor creates itself onto the caster and not onto the persistent effect.
I'm using "Effect.SummonerDarkSwarm.Start -> Create", but that doesn't work...

edit:
What were the level up rules? (Condition to level up)?
I guess they were kills due to the limitations of SCBW. Since with sc2 there can be made another way of gaining the xp to level up.

Should the map use kills, damage, distance to slain units (problematic with summoner), to level up?

As there won't be lasthits used to generate money directly and minion kills only generate experience, killing stuff should benefit the xp gain.

Possible variations:
- A: only kills give xp
New players will be way behind. The game becomes harder to player and people might sit there and only do the lasthits. Most lasthits = lead ingame. This is what EVERY dota map did, yet.

- B: damaging a unit gives xp when it dies
Damage every unit equally and try not to kill them because you deal less damage on a killing blow (and minions deal more damage to enemy minions which gives your opponent less xp).

- C: xp directly on dealt damage % to that unit (=> every hit -> xp++)
This can be bad in some situations: If minions regenerate because you let them regenerate to deal more damage all together = farming extra hits.

- D: xp based on done damage of the total damage the unit received.
You could go ahead and say damage% = xp% after death. Then people would try to kill minions as fast as they can because allied minions reduce your xp gain.

- E: xp on being next to dieing units, no extra rewards on kills
Why bothering killing them? Sticking near your cannons would be the best strategy then. Spells? nope...

- F: combinations of these

Example of a combination would be:
kill = 50% xp; damage dealt % on death = max xp% (you did 50 of the 100 damage on the unit which was killed by a cannon = 50% of max xp); being close to a dieing unit = 5% xp

Example Scenario:
-Minion with 100 xp and 100 summed damage received died.
-Player A did the last hit with 10 damage.
-Player B did 50 damage to the unit.
-Your minions did 50 damage.
-Player A & B were close when it died.
-> A gets 50% of the xp for the kill: A = 50 xp; 50xp unspend
-> A was close to the unit, but he killed hit -> nothing
-> B was close to the unit -> 5%: B = 5 xp; 45xp unspend
-> 45xp unspend, the rest will be given with damage done%
-> A did 10 damage = 10% of total damage -> 4xp for damage: A = 54 xp
-> B did 50 damage = 50% of total damage -> 22xp for damage: B = 27 xp
-> In the end there were 19% of the xp unspend because of the 40% of the damage that was dealt by allied minions.
A = 54 xp, B = 27 xp
If we use real values to store&calculate xp, there will be less rounding errors.

Now we change the situation:
- A didn't do the last hit anymore. A cannon killed the minion. A still did only 10 damage.
-> A was close to the unit -> 5%: A = 5 xp
-> B was close to the unit -> 5%: B = 5 xp, 90xp unspend
-> A did 10 damage = 10% of total damage -> 9xp for damage: A = 14 xp
-> B did 50 damage = 50% of total damage -> 45xp for damage: B = 50 xp
-> 36% of the xp unspend because of the 40% of the damage & last hit was dealt by allied minions/cannon.
A = 14 xp, B = 50 xp
The difference between last hitting and not last hitting for the team is 17xp.

This rewards kills with fastest leveling, this rewards damage done. If you kill everything yourself as fast as you can, you get 100%. If you are passive and only lasthit, you get at least 50%. If you are agressive and cast spells to deal more damage = most.

But heroes with strong ranged attacks benefit most from this because they deal much damage from distance without receiving damage.
So people will tend to use glass cannon builds for xp, but that makes them easier to kill. Melee units would need reliable armor advantages or life steal or damage advantages to overcome ranged DPS's benefits.

Every system has pros and cons, so it really comes to what level of difficulty you want to give your players.

Suggestions?

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Dec 18 2011, 5:22 am by Ahli.