This is actually a good idea that fits the Infantry guy's Tanking niche. Altho, one problem is that it is very similar to the Barrier spell. Maybe instead of preventing all direct damage, it's active ability should decrease damage that can be stacked with barrier

Another way would be to separate attacks into groups, like Physical/Special, Melee/Ranged, or what have you, and have barrier decrease damage from one group of attacks, and have Ironclad decrease damage from the other.

If you're looking for more workHeroes, you are sort of missing a hero that builds things, like an Engineer. It almost seems like it's in every game now, so it's not that attractive.

I don't plan on adding a hero that builds things. The closest I'll come to that is the Assault's Turret ability.

EDIT:
Finished the "Cruise Missile" ability. Apparently deleting Mover overlays crashes my editor, but ultimately they had no affect on my missile animation, so that's good. For some reason, the missile wont show an impact animation or play a sound on impact, as well, even though it did a few tests ago. I must have changed something but I'm too tired to check now.

I've also finished retexturing the Psionic Tactician (Prison Zealot). The changes aren't huge by any means, but I prefer how he looks now. I can't seem to find the Prison Zealot's blade texture in the Assets, and I want to edit it if possible, so if someone knows where that might be, let me know.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 13 2011, 8:03 am by DevliN.

I know the normal dark templar's blade texture won't visibly change unless you change the emissive texture as well; maybe the prison zealot's emissive has the blades. Also, if you're going to be working with dds files at all, I suggest you install this: http://www.nvidia.com/object/dds_thumbnail_viewer.html

Oh nice, that would make things easier. I've just been previewing them through the editor all this time.

EDIT:
Still can't get an impact effect or sound to appear on the Cruise Missile ability, but I don't care too much about it so I'm moving on. I may have found a way to do my Leap ability afterall, but I've only thought about how to do it in theory rather than actually attempting to get it to work. Essentially it would work the same way as the Data-only version that I used before, except use Triggers to teleport and change opacity of the caster. I'm hoping it works, because I really don't want to scrap that ability.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 14 2011, 8:20 pm by DevliN.

Redid the teaser again. Best viewed at 1080p in full screen.



The only abilities seen in it are the Assault Commander's "Assault Rally" and "Incendiary Rounds" (though the animation for this didn't show for some reason), the Mech Operative's "Missile Array" and "Laser Cannon," and the Psionic Tactician's "Energy Bomb" and "Clone" (without the "clone" unit being created).

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 19 2011, 8:42 pm by DevliN.

Much more awesome video, plus dubstep <3

Yeah, I originally cut the redo to a different dubstep song, but I thought this one worked better. I think all the future teasers and whatnot for this map will be set to dubstep.

YES GAMEPLAY!!!!!

AND IT LOOKS AWESOME
DID THAT MARINE FART A ROCKET OUT OF ITS ASS?!?!?!

great stuff =D
dying to help play test

Just finished the damn "Flight" ability for the Mech Operative. I tried every way I could think of to exploit it since it uses Triggers to move rather than the Data Editor. I may need some Trigger guru help when I'm done with the rest of the abilities to help come up with a better way of possibly doing it, but for now the ability works like a charm.

Tomorrow night I'm going to try to tackle the "F" ability system. I have it all laid out in my head and on paper, and I think it will work in theory. I just suck at Triggers, so it will take more time than usual since I have to learn it as I go along. My goal is to get a simple system working by the end of the weekend, so I can do a video for just the Mech hero (basically showing how it works, combined with more gameplay video of it in action).

The in game zooming in (on the characters) looks a little cheesy but it is well made. Good luck on your project and yay actual gameplay.

Update:

• Got the custom health bar display working. I'll try to post some screenshots of it, tonight. It is small and simple, but will be helpful.
  
• Finished the preliminary merchant window. Rather than doing it through Data, I'll be doing everything through Triggers. A player will still have to walk up to the building to buy and sell things, but I'll be taking care of the purchasing and all via Triggers.
  
• Finished the UI for the "F" ability augments. I decided not to give them hotkeys, for now. The one major problem I'm having is that I want to change the buttom image to something custom, but for now just putting an image over it works.
  
• Started working on the next terrain area. I ran out of space, so I had to move everything down as far as I could, and had to place the doodads over again (interestingly enough dragging them all at once was impossible.
  
• Started working on a new character selection idea. I like the simplicity of the current system, but I also kind of like the idea of seeing the unit standing there as you cycle through them.
  

Update:

• Finished the "Tactical Strike" and "Mark for Death" abilities for the Covert Operative. "Tactical Strike" took longer than expected to make, but I eventually got it. I was being dumb when it came to making the explosions appear.
  
• Started to redo the Covert Operative's "Sniper Round." It will essentially be similar to the Snipe ability from the campaign, but I'm gonna add some more pizazz to it. A simple sound effect isn't good enough.
  
• My goal is to finish the "Scope" and "Cloak" abilities tonight (which shouldn't take long at all) and then attempt to tackle the "Injection Mine" ability. I imagine that won't be super difficult to manage, just time consuming to produce. I'm hoping the large amount of missiles being fired from the mine wont cause lag, if detonated under a ton of enemy units.
  

Is the custom HP bar for all units over the top of them instead of what SCII uses? Or just a bar for your chosen hero?

It'll be like a party frame from WoW or any other MMORPG. You'll see your hero's health as well as the rest of your team's as part of the UI. I have the bars set up above the minimap, and I made them small enough so that they shouldn't be in the way or distracting. I was considering putting it on the hero units, but I have a feeling that may cause lag, and would ultimately become a nuisance. I'm anticipating that players will have killed about 1000+ enemy units by the time they destroy the 3 Barracks in the first tier, so I'm trying to prepare for the possibility of lots of lag.

Update:

• Attached new sounds to the Covert's "Tactical Strike" ability, and attached a squib to units affected by "Mark for Death." I also went back and modified the events of all the heroes/abilities I've done so far, so certain animations will play when abilities will be used.
  
• Started groundwork for the Covert "Injection Mine" ability. I'm torn between whether I want to make it explode on contact, explode on a timer, or use manual detonation. I'll think about that today, and hopefully finish it this evening.

EDIT:
INCOMING BRAINSTORM!
Im thinking about redesigning some of the Medical Tactician's abilities. I'm mainly considering making her abilities cost life to cast, so that she then has to regenerate life with other abilities to add to the challenge. As I'm going through these abilities for all the heroes, I'm actively trying to determine how to balance all the perks with some detrimental effect.

The Mech Operative has a ton of AoE abilities to plow through large amount of groups, but is relatively slow and deals lower weapon damage. All of his abilities will also have relatively high energy costs.

The Covert Operative also has lower weapon damage, but has an AoE debuff and a self-buff to increase damage done. His Tactical Strike will have a high cooldown to make up for its range.

The Psionic Tactician does the most damage, but has the lowest health and constantly has to be on the move as the only melee fighter. Passive life leech helps, along with a teleport that creates a dummy taunting tank. His Void Discs ability will have a low cooldown, as it is a single-target ability.

The Assault Commander is the fastest hero and relies heavily on his movement. All of his abilities require him to dive into the fight head first. He is able to call in help, though the minion units do significantly less damage. At a low coast and cooldown, however, this ability should be pretty effective.

The Infantry Commander has the highest health mixed with his passive increased armor, and as such is effective as a tank. The Bull Rush ability will also taunt enemies in the area (and at a low cooldown and energy cost, this can be used over and over again), and when coupled with his Barrier ability, he can attempt to reduce as much incoming damage as possible.

And then there's the Medical Tactician...

• Irradiate is similar to Mark for Death (without the added bonus of the debuff) but at least it is mobile.
  
• Life Leech will be the primary focus for this hero, as it will greatly replenish health.
  
• EMP Arc will not cost life, and will be a standard AoE ability. This one will probably be the most powerful AoE of all the heroes, as it can branch out to hit the most enemies.
  
• Healing Aura will take life from the hero to heal nearby units. There most likely wont be a set duration on this, as I'm planning on setting it to a 1:1 ratio for healing and damage taken
  
• Energy Shield will provide much more protection than the Infantry's Barrier ability, but as such will have a long cooldown.
  
• Nanobot Infusion would be the only direct heal the hero can cast, but can also deal damage to enemies. The issue I'm now having with this is that I am planning on having 4 augments added to each hero's ult, and as such I would need to make 8 for this ability. What I'm considering doing is have the augements change the ult into a positive version of regular abilities. For example, one may be like EMP Arc in that you target an ally, and it branches out to heal other teammates, one may be like Irradiate in that you put a aura on a target that heals nearby allies, one may be like Energy Shield in that it creates a shield ont he unit, but instead the shield absorbs damage to a certain point, and lastly one may be like life leech in that you can use it to give a massive amount of your life to the target ally at a larger ratio (like 2 health healed for 1 of your health).

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 27 2011, 8:15 pm by DevliN.

Update:

• Added the "Irradiate" ability for the Medical Tactician. I was going to make my own from scratch, but it is supposed to work similarly to the Sci Vessel irradiate, so I just used the existing ability instead. I'll probably change the model of the actor, but essentially it is the same thing.
  
• Added the Psionic Tactician's "Psi Slash" ability. I use 25 periodic offsets and I actually had to draw out an XY graph to make sure I got them right. In hindsight, I think I mixed up the coordinates (it is supposed to hit enemies in front of the hero in a 180 degree arc), but I think it was actually hitting all the enemies to the right of the hero. I keep forgetting that everything in front of the hero is negative, so perhaps that's where I went wrong. Originally I was having damage dealt at all the offsets, but that created issues with some enemies not being hit, or enemies being hit twice, so instead I'm having damage dealt via triggers.
  
• Outlined how the Psionic's "Void Discs" would work on paper, but have yet to implement it. I'm thinking of redoing it slightly so that the discs can hit other enemies as well. Essentially the hero targets an enemy, that enemy is raised up, and 4 discs are thrown at it, dealing a significant amount of damage. Originally it would end there, but I'm thinking of having the discs then target nearby enemies to deal a fraction of the damage so it doesn't feel powerless when everyone else has so much AoE.
  
• Added a recall ability to all the heroes to teleport the caster back to the starting area. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do this originally, but since you have to go to an actual building to purchase items, it just made more sense. Plus it would help in case any checkpoints are being attacked or get taken back. For now it has a 5 minute cooldown.

I've also started writing an actual preview for the map (yes, a preview, like a short cinematic trailer). There will still be a short intro to the map in-game, but I still want to make this as an intro to the plot. I may ask if anyone wants to provide voice talent for it, as there are a couple speaking parts. It would require a very crisp mic and serious attitude, but the end result should be good.

Waiting for the update that says:

Made map Public/Uploaded map for Private testing

Update:
Almost done with all the terrain. Here's a map image of how it looks currently.


I also started playing around with the SC2Layout files, but I'm not sure if I want to do a custom UI for this or not.

And I redesigned the Assault Commander's "Rocket leap" ability so it works now, but it doesn't look as clean as it used to. I'll keep it for now, but I know I'm not gonna like it later.

Update!

• I decided not to do a customized UI for this. Maybe I will in the future if it becomes popular or something, but for now it doesn't seem worth it. I did finish all my UI elements, though, which is good. The ult bar properly shows up and fits in its own area. The health bar setup is done, but I still need to set up the system for displaying it in the proper places for allied players. So far I have the current player's bar just above the minimap and the rest of the teammates above that. I'm not sure yet if I want to go through the trouble of having the bars automatically move if the game isn't full and/or a player leaves, or if I want to just display the blank bar placeholders at 50% opacity like I have them currently.
  
• Speaking of the health bars, I took the .dds texture I'm using as the health indicator to modify it, but now for some reason I can't save it as a dds because the dimensions are not a power of 2. How the hell was the file .dds in the first place, then? Ugh.
  
• I finished my lists of all the health/damage/armor/experience of the basic units (and the amount of each gained when they level up as well), so that wont take long to implement. That also means I'm going to start crunching numbers to get the hero abilities fleshed out properly. As it stands now the base health of units will be between 50 and 120, the lower health amounts being for infantry units while the higher amounts being for vehicles. Because you have to kill a ton of enemies to level up, I'm not too worried about abilities being able to eventually 1-shot groups, but I would like to make sure the 1-shotting doesn't make it super easy in the long run.
  
• Terrain is just about finished. The larger "fortress" area in the top will be more spacious than I originally planned due to a few bosses that players may have to fight.

I've also started to rethink the plot to this game, as the more I read my description, the more I'm making the players villains. This was inherently based on Normandy Invasion, which was of course about invading Nazi-occupied France. Because I'm using a futuristic environment in a fictional town, it is more difficult to explain that and my original description makes it seem like players are invading some random military town. The trailer I'm working on will provide a better explanation and work as an opening to the game (since I don't really want a long opening cinematic in the map itself).

I would think that it would be more linear and less of split path type thing.

What would be?

EDIT:
Oh, you mean the final area? It will be split, sort of, but the paths will be more open. This is loosely based on Normandy, after all, so I'm trying to get the terrain to be similar to it in layout.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on May 5 2011, 11:03 pm by DevliN.