Okay, so. You will have to excuse my bluntness, but this map was unimpressive, to say the least.

I have played your map during mapnight, and I have to say that this map was boring, uncreative, and have almost no original ideas.
There're already too many similarities to DOTA and other like games, and the heroes are uninteresting. And while you say you want it to be easy for the players to understand, you have tons of heroes, and many items. What part of items are easy to comprehend?

You HAVE to have more interesting and novel heroes. The only hero I played was the reaper, and it was boring as fuck. My "abilities" were two Passives, a Buff, and a useless offensive. While the speed up is nice and gives the reaper its niche, why wouldn't u just start the hero as being faster than the rest? Why use up an ability space? Stim Pack as my first spell? Cliff jump as my ultimate? Fuck that. That's worse than Zerg Hunter RPG, where blink was the tier 3 spell for one of its heroes.
They are all spells related to the melee, and that just seems thoughtless. The D8 charge does barely any damage, and the reaper can't even attack air units, which is a horrible idea since the creep spawns air units QUITE quickly.

While all the data editor stuff is well made, you greatly lack the gameplay focus and the imagination that is needed to create a game to this extent. What I'd advise you to do is cut half the heroes off the list, and focus on the ones you really like, or you think would really make a difference in your map (i.e fill a niche that was never shown before)
You have to step back and think about what is fun about your heroes and their abilities, and what makes your map differ from the rest of the DOTA clones.

Taking from the Reaper Hero's example, we know he's going to fill the fast and furious glass cannon niche. Glass cannons of this sort usually have to take big risks in trying to kill others, but if he succeeds, he do it very efficiently. From this mindset, you should design spells accordingly. Instead of Stim Pack, how about another drug that makes it do 1.5x damage/attack speed/speed, but also receive 1.5x more damage? I don't know, call it Steroids Pack, I'm sure Blizzard's Censorship team will love that.
How about the D8 charge do either a fairy high damage, close ranged explosion that can pepper the heroes so you can go in for the kill, or do a bigger AoE with bigger range from the Reaper so that it can fend of large swarms of creep? What about a Jet-pack that lets you jump to another point very quickly (allowing you to climb cliffs), but have like a 5-10 second cooldown, so that if he mis-jumps, it'd be lights out for him? It could also allow him to make narrow escapes.
See? These are the things you have to think about while designing a hero, not just throw in some spells you think are cool or from melee...

Also, if I were you, I'd scratch items completely. They only confuse new players and normally does not add depth to a Dota/AoS game... but that's just me.

It was the second time I played a DotA map, and I personally appreciated items and wasn't really lost.

Sorry I didn't reply sooner. I have been busy with exams the past few days.

I'll see if I can find some time to finish the next version for next map night, though this is improbable. For the next version I'll fix the bugs mentioned in this thread and I'll double the number of levels to 20. 10 levels just doesn't work out very well because with 10 levels either players hit the experience ceiling too early or it takes too long to level up early on (or I would have to adopt some sort of a non-linear experience system). Plus I find that heroes are a bit too weak in the late game relative to spawned units and this results in long stalemates.

@ UnholyUrine - I think you should give the game another try and not base everything on a single hero. There are 36 heroes in total and I'll admit that the reaper hero is one of the least interesting heroes.


Actually, the reaper hero does have a faster starting movement speed than other heroes (more than twice as fast as the reaver hero). The reason the reaper hero doesn't start with a ridiculously high movement speed is because I wanted to have the heroes start out somewhat similar and then diversify into their roles as the game progressed.


The computers do not spawn air units until 15 minutes into the game so hopefully that is enough time for players to prepare and adapt to air units. Many heroes cannot attack air units while some heroes have very good anti-air. I want to see how this works in an AOS style map because it gives heroes different roles. Generally, heroes that cannot attack air are compensated in some other way (be it more speed, longer range, more energy, more dps, etc.). If your hero cannot attack air units buy has really good movement speed and moblility then use that to your advantage by being in the right place at the right time and pick off weakened enemy heroes while avoiding air units.

I also added anti-air items to each race in a recent patch (terran have devastator missiles, protoss have disruption web, zerg have scourge), so if air is a difficulty then buy those. On map night I only played heroes that could not attack air (infestor and hellion), and in both cases I did not find air units to be much of an issue because I bought anti air items and used played the heroes to their strengths. However, if after enough playtesting the inability for some heroes to attack air is a problem then I will allow all heroes to attack air.


Items will probably not be removed because they give players something to spend minerals on. However, I will not have an item combining system like DOTA because that just makes things unnecesarily complicated. I tried my best to make the inventory organized (placing weapons next to weapons, armor next to armor, spell items next to spell items, etc.), so I am sad to hear that players got confused by the items.

Anyway, thanks for your feedback.

You really shouldn't have started off with so many heroes if you want this map to excel. Basically, ALL of the heroes should be interesting.

My suggestion of scrapping half the heroes is only temporary. You shouldn't create a hero until you've ascertain its niche/gameplay style/abilities and etc. It ruins the game for newbies like me.

And trust me, pubbies will give you one chance and one chance only.

(But I'll try again tomorrow during mapnight if we play it again =)

@Air units
Anti-air items make no sense whatsoever.

---

EDIT: b/c you don't come to this site that often, I think I should elaborate more...
@Air units again.
Anti-air items make no sense whatsoever against spawns/creeps.
They make sense against units that may be summoned by other heroes that are giving them huge annoyance. (i.e. Situational Advantage)

Anti-air items don't make sense against spawns/creep because it basically forces a group of heroes to buy this item in order to farm as well as other heroes. This isn't a good design, since buying items should be a strategic choice that weighs money with its effects. If you make buying an item practically essential to play, then it doesn't have any strategies anymore. Moreover, it is imbalanced against heroes who can't attack air since it'd not only take their money, but also their ability to upgrade their anti-air dmg (unless it's an ability), and take a slot of weapons.

It also doesn't work b/c heroes just can't farm well when they're being attacked by units that they can't even kill. So it doubly decreases their farming abilities.

The aesthetics of the anti-air items themselves don't make much sense either. My reaper would just pop rockets out of his ass while I just whistle around the creeps. Put everything together, and the experience just feels.. cheap.

Another thing is that specialized Spawns (i.e. Immortals) should either be very similar between the races or not be there at all (I'd choose the former). While choosing the race in which your base will be is a very interesting idea, the specialized spawns heavily counter certain heroes (i.e. Immortal > Reaper Hero). But since the spawns are automatic, it makes it NOT a Strategic choice, since everything's set in the beginning. Rather, it forces players to Not choose certain heroes while battling respective races (e.g. I would never ever pick reapers against a protoss base b/c Immortals totally rape it). You do NOT want this to happen... as it'd just minimizes possible gameplay mechanics.
... It's almost as bad as having Tiers in your heroes. Like in SSBB... It sux and it's hard to accept by non-dedicated fans D:

@Items
Apparently, my view on items is very personal (no one agrees with me). But I still feel it can be better organized.
I think Armor/weapon/mana/health weapons should be put in one place
while special items like the Drop pod should be put in another.
Or are they already? I can't remember.
The reason I dislike Items b/c it forces players to have to read all of the descriptions and try to pick out the best one. In theory, it is okay, but I feel it takes the players away from the action too much.
Moreover, it just doesn't have the same feel as reading the description of spells.... don't you think?
Anyways, items is one of my personal pet peeves, and I don't think you should remove them, since your map is already based around them.
BTW.. VERY good choice to not copy DOTA's item combining thing. It's ridiculously redundant, retarded, unrewarding, repeatitive, unrealistic, and boring (ran out of R's :C).

What else do I have to say...?
O, the terrain sux.
plz, it doesn't Have to be symmetrical.... why copy everyone else D:
Also, there aren't enough cliff variances to warrant the Reaper Hero's ultimate.

I guess... last thing I should say is.. Don't take anything too personally. We're here to improve your map. If your map sucked beyond belief, I wouldn't even have tried to convince u to improve it. I see potential, and that's the only reason why I would criticize it...

Post has been edited 9 time(s), last time on Dec 17 2010, 8:13 pm by UnholyUrine.

"You really shouldn't have started off with so many heroes"

I actually started with half as many (18) and have been adding new heroes over the past 3 months. However, I'm probably not going to add any more heroes for a long time because I feel like I have plenty and that I should focus on other aspects of the game.

"Anti-air items don't make sense against spawns/creep because it basically forces a group of heroes to buy this item in order to farm as well as other heroes."

I am not sure I follow this. Air units don't appear until quite late into the game (15 minutes), and heroes that can't attack air are compensated in some other way (such as having longer range, dealing more damage, having more energy, etc.). But this is why I need more playtesting, to see if there is an imbalance such as this.

"but also their ability to upgrade their anti-air dmg (unless it's an ability), and take a slot of weapons."

I'm not really sure that is the case with the anti-air items that are currently in the game. Disruption web makes air units into ground units for a short period of time, so with disruption web, heroes use their ground attack to attack air units. The damage of devastator missiles and glaive wurms both increase as a hero levels and as the hero buys better weapon items (I should probably put that in the tooltip). The scourge item does not scale with levels, but the item costs energy, so the item becomes better as you get more energy.

"My reaper would just pop rockets out of his ass"

That's true. I'll see if I can change the rocket mover or attachement point so that the effect looks nicer.

Anti-air is definately one of my concerns and it is one of the things that I look at when I playtest the game. But I would like more playtesting (especially in 6v6's) so I can make a better conclusion about how the lack of anti-air on some heroes affects balance.

"the specialized spawns heavily counter certain heroes (i.e. Immortal > Reaper Hero)"

I'm not really sure if I understand how the immortal heavily counters the reaper hero, so you will definatly have to elaborate more. I'm also not sure if I understand what you mean by 'specialized spawns', so again please elaborate. The immortal is strong, but it is strong vs all races and all heroes (and only 1 immortal is spawned per robotics facility per 30 seconds to compensate). You will have to elaborate more.

"Or are they already? I can't remember."

I think the similar items are next to each other. I tried my best to keep the items somewhat organized.

"The reason I dislike Items b/c it forces players to have to read all of the descriptions and try to pick out the best one. In theory, it is okay, but I feel it takes the players away from the action too much."

Yeah, reading items is a bit annoying. My tip is to read item descriptions while you are travelling back and forth from your base (that is what I did in dota).

"Also, there aren't enough cliff variances to warrant the Reaper Hero's ultimate."

That is true. Cliff jumping and cliff walking seem underpowered. I'll try to add more cliffs when I start working on version 2.0 and focus on terrain.

Anyway, I really appreciate the feedback and it is nice to get other people's opinions on balance.

Version 1.4 has been published. See the first post for more details.

Looks like a promising update. Good to see you listen to your "customers"

I was using DT's Hold Fire a lot: it keeps me from dying when I only have lvl 1 and 2 (out of 3) of the cloak since attacking reveals you; if I was low HP, I'd HF until enemies are gone.

I always try my best to listen to those who give me feedback. The problem is that in the past I just haven't been receiving enough feedback (and even now I'm not receiving as much as I would like).


I can add that back in version 1.5 if people want it back in.


Also, I have been out of town for the past since I released version 1.4 (and will continue to be for the next few days), so have been unable to play version 1.4 with other people. Hopefully everything works properly. Also I'm sorry that it took so long for me to finish 1.4 even though it is just a small update in comparison to other versions (I was busy with exams the past few weeks).

Version 1.5 has been published. See the first post for more details.

My honest opinion is that you receive lots of feedback, you just ignore most of it.

Remove 18 heroes, maybe more.
Do some thinking. What makes one hero different from another hero?

Okay, still with me?

Tanks - absorb damage/physical damage
Carry - deal lots of damage/physical damage
Spellcasters - disable multiple opponents or deal lots of damage/magical damage

Then we combine this further

Tank + Carry = Warrior, ok-tank, ok-damage dealer, has an aura ability maybe? maybe a stun? (Think Davion)
Carry + Spellcaster = Nuker, very fragile, very high damage spells. (Think Lion)
Tank + Spellcaster = Support/Nuker, can absorb damage, maybe through spells? (think Naga/Leshrac)

Let's be even more creative and add in some totally specialised types of hero:

Glass Cannon = Reaper hero, very fast and agile, can enter in and exit combat quickly, has really high damage per second attacks and a D8-charge ability that knocks opponents back from the center of its blast. Allowing him to harass and control the shape of the battlefield.

Anti Spell Caster Hero = Zealot Prisoner (use the campaign dependency model)... can blink from point to point allowing him to dodge some spells! His ultimate drains all mana from a target unit and gives it to nearby allies. Make him fragile, but able to take a hit... maybe differentiate between physical and magical damage?

Regenerative Hero = Ultralisk hero? Really high hitpoints, and regenerates health extremely quickly when not in combat. Can burrow really deeply as his ultimate... and then unburrow really quickly to deal Area of Effect damage and stuns to a large area... So he goes in, tanks a lot of damage, uses his ulti (forcing enemies to flee), regenerates his health (burrowed = not in combat), and then some enemy hero chases a fleeing friendly hero and BAM ultralisk unburrows and gets a kill.

So
1. Pure Tank
2. Pure Carry
3. Pure Spellcaster
4. Warrior (Tank + Carry) - Support Role
5. Spellsword (Carry + Spellcaster) - Nuking/support Role
6. Magic Tank (Tank + Spellcaster) - Support Role
7. Glass Cannon
8. Anti-Spells
9. Regenerative

That's NINE hero's. Create them. Go wild, make some crazy never-seen-before abilities and spells...

Then BALANCE them... Make it so that these a random selection of these NINE heroes fights in a completely unbiased and balanced fashion agaisnt another random selection of these NINE heroes...

Once you get your map to this level I might play it and help you out more.

Thankyou for your feedback Cardinal.

However, I am going to be a bit blunt here. I am probably not going to remove any of the heroes, let alone over 18 of them. Also, I do not really understand where this impression that the heroes were poorly thought out or that the heroes somehow do not have roles comes from. I assure you that all the heroes are very well made and have distinct roles and I tried to make as little overlap as possible. The thing is that I'm not trying to make a DOTA clone where people can own noobs with their hero with over 9000 attack power. Rather, I am trying to make something different where positioning and movement are emphasized more and the game is aimed to be easy to learn but have a high skill ceiling (and therefore good for competitive play). As a result the heroes do not neccesarily fit into the traditional DOTA roles of tank, carry and caster. The only reason it says dota in the title is because otherwise people do not read the thread and try out the game and it becomes difficult to recieve feedback with the popularity system.

"Glass Cannon = Reaper hero, very fast and agile, can enter in and exit combat quickly, has really high damage per second attacks and a D8-charge ability that knocks opponents back from the center of its blast."

I already have the reaper hero in the game.

"Anti Spell Caster Hero = Zealot Prisoner (use the campaign dependency model)... can blink from point to point allowing him to dodge some spells!"

That sounds very similar to the dark zealot hero.

"Ultralisk hero? Really high hitpoints, and regenerates health extremely quickly when not in combat. Can burrow really deeply as his ultimate... and then unburrow really quickly to deal Area of Effect damage and stuns to a large area."

That sounds like a cross between to ultralisk hero and the roach hero, which are already in the game.

"Once you get your map to this level I might play it and help you out more."

I'm not going to remove over half the heroes and make hero attack into a completely different game that I never intended it to be. I'm trying to make something different and if you do not like that then you are not obligated to play hero attack.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 1 2011, 11:12 pm by iiequalsexpipi.

That's exactly what he's talking about.

"That's exactly what he's talking about."

I do read and consider all suggestions and feedback, however that doesn't mean that I should agree with or implement every suggestion. With regards to the suggestion about removing half the heroes, sure it would make a few people happy, but it would probably make many more people unhappy because players might no longer be able to use their favorite heroes.

I guess I should apologize for being too blunt in my last post. I was just a bit annoyed because some posters were making it seem like hero attack is a horrible or poorly made game (which it isn't). Also, please understand that mapmakers (including myself) can sometimes be stubborn about changes and often when a suggestion is made will often need to have more evidence to conclude that a suggestion is good. This is one of the reasons I would really like more feedback (more specifically feedback based on game play experience in a competitive setting), so that I can make more informed decisions.

Anyway, I published a new version of hero attack on Saturday night. It is more of a test version than anything else. The new version allows the host to choose from 4 playable maps (river map, forest map, snow map and lava map). By default the map choice is random and the host can choose the map they would like to play from the lobby. I might add a voting system for the map choice in the future so players can vote for their favorite map (might do this for races as well). The snow map and the forest map are probably the more finished maps (while the river map and the larva map probably need to be redone). Please let me know what you think of the new maps. In the past I have received many (justified) complaints that the hero attack map was too bland and / or ugly. Do the new maps look nice or do I need to make them look better?

I still have a few more things to add before I can release version 2.0 (such as terrain for the current maps), though version 2.0 should be released in January. Eventually, I hope to add more maps to choose from and maybe even a map editor so players can create their own hero attack maps without knowledge of the sc2 editor and all its complexity. However, there seem too be several limitations that might prevent me from doing this. Map files created with galaxy editor have a maximum size of 256x256 (so i can only fit a maximum of 4 128x128 sized hero attack maps in hero attack), map files are limited to 8 textures (and I am using all 8 already, so I cannot create a space platform map for example) and map files have a maximum size of 10.5 mb (and hero attack is already 9 mb large). These limitations will make it difficult for me to reach my goals with hero attack so hopefully blizzard releases changes in future patches that will remove some of these limitations.

Forget DOTA altogether for a moment.

The reason I suggested roles is because heroes must be fundamentally different to each other. If you make the balance between these differences just right, your game will play for itself and you won't have to worry about the 'popularity' system. The roles I suggested are not from DotA, they are from pretty much ANY game that involves RPG/Statistics/Attributes/Heroes etc. It is also the most simplified and easiest way to differentiate between heroes, this creates diversity which in turn creates tactics and adds massive replay value to your game. And the best thing about it? It takes minimal effort from the map creator.

Returning to DOTA now: when I first played DOTA there was over 60 heroes implemented and over 80 items. What ultimately addicted me to DOTA was the VARIANCE between the heroes, their playing style, and their roles - and how this married perfectly to the items and income system. No two heroes were at all similar. On top of this, almost every ability was custom created and absolutely nothing to very little was simply borrowed from Warcraft 3 / Frozen Throne.

You must remember that I haven't played your map - I am simply being a mouthpiece for all those who have played your map and left feedback in this thread. And to me, it sounds like your map has very little in the way of custom abilities, with many units simply being their Starcraft 2 components - please don't correct me if I am wrong in this, just ignore it.

My simplest advice for you, as one mapmaker to another, is to start simple, evolve, create, implement and BUILD. And at every stage, and every patch you implement BALANCE. In no time at all your map will become insanely popular. Just remember, when DOTA started there was about 12 heroes and 20 items or so.

"You must remember that I haven't played your map"

I think this is the problem. If you actually played hero attack you might realize that many of your claims aren't really true and that is why I cannot agree with what you are saying.

"Just remember, when DOTA started there was about 12 heroes and 20 items or so."

When hero attack started out there were 6 heroes per race and 15 items per race (with many of the items similar between the races). Additional items were added because lack of item selection was a serious problem in earlier versions. Additional heroes were added because players wanted more hero selection and the additional heroes increased the number of playstyles. What? You think it started with 36 heroes and 90 items?

"And to me, it sounds like your map has very little in the way of custom abilities, with many units simply being their Starcraft 2 components - please don't correct me if I am wrong in this, just ignore it."

Gonna correct you anyway. It has a lot of custom abilities (actually all the abilities are custom). Do you think I just opened the map editor and clicked the magic 'convert unit into hero' button? Or the 'convert ability into hero ability button'? Or that I did all these heroes over a weekend or something?

When I started writing this post I intended to write out all the heroes and explain their roles and why there is a large diversity of playstyles. But at this point I am pretty sure that I'm being trolled, so it probably isn't worth my time.

I'm going to look at this tonight and provide feedback then. But for now, I can definitely say that you really need to learn to accept advice.

And no one here is trolling. You're just getting angry.

Actually I will go over the heroes and describe their roles / how they are unique.

TERRAN:
Marine Hero - high dps ranged hero. Can also call down reinforcements at any location on the map to help allies (or be used offensively).
Medic Hero - support hero, strongest terran caster. Can heal / restore allies which makes her good in team fights as well as use offensive spells like irradiate and optical flare.
Reaper Hero - very mobile hero due to high movement speed, cliff jumping and stim pack. Allows the hero to be in the right place at the right time.
SCV Hero - builder hero. Can construct and repair buildings and even construct and mass a battle cruiser fleet which can own late game.
Ghost Hero - Long range sniper hero that can cloak and use spells such as emp and nuclear launch. A very strong hero because it forces the other team to get detection items if the other team doesn't have a hero with a detection ability.
Siege Tank Hero - long range artillery hero. Can out range defenses using siege mode and artillery barrage. Very useful hero but best used with support. Can also use scanner sweep which means that the hero can detect for allies from halfway across the map. This hero requires good teamwork to be used to its full potential.
Fire Bat Hero - the terran's only short range combat oriented hero. Has a very high dps and can deal splash damage. This hero is very good at crittering. Can also cast fireblast which is a very strong AOE ultimate.
Vulture Hero - fast combat oriented hero that can lay mines. Can also use patrol micro (which basically allows you to attack while moving if you use patrol). This hero is very strong with decent micro.
Marauder Hero - durable combat oriented hero that can slow enemies and cast defensive drones.
Thor Hero - Basically the terran 'tank'. Can take a lot of damage, especially with the ultimate immortality protocol. This hero is a weak caster, but has very good anti air and has decent damage output.
Hellion Hero - fast caster hero. The hellion hero is very mobile due to high initial movement speed and the spell flame boost. The hero also has some interesting spells such as flame turret and fire trail.
Banshee Hero - the only terran hero that can fly. The banshee doesn't have a very high damage output and doesn't have any damage spells. However, the hero is very difficult to kill (due to cloak, fly, evasion and the suppression drone spell) so the hero can be a very good harasser.

PROTOSS:
Zealot Hero - Powerful melee hero. Has one of the highest dps's in the game and is very durable. Is also quite mobile due to leg enhancements and charge. Can warp in zealots anywhere on the map.
Stalker Hero - Mobile ranged combat oriented hero. The stalker hero has a decent damage output and can be difficult to kill due to evasion and blink. Is mobile due to blink and wormhole transit so can be in the right place at the right time.
Dark Templar Hero - Melee hero that can become invisible (and thus the enemy team might need detection to deal with the dark templar hero). The dark templar hero also has 2 good disable spells (void prison and vortex) so is good at ganking or picking off low health enemy heroes.
High Templar Hero - strongest protoss caster hero. Has 4 powerful spells, all of which are useful in different situations.
Sentry Hero - support caster hero. Can turn the tide of battles with spells like guardian shield and force field. Good at pushing lanes.
Probe Hero - builder hero. Can construct pylons and photon cannons. The probe hero can also use patrol micro and can hold its own vs some melee heroes if microed correctly. Can summon motherships as an ultimate, the mothership can decimate enemy defenses using planet craker.
Phoenix Hero - the only protoss hero that can fly. The phoenix hero is a very mobile caster hero (a bit like the hellion hero). Can use patrol micro. Graviton Beam is a strong spell that can be used to disable enemies or drag them into photon cannons. Also has void spheres which is a decent damage spell.
Colossus Hero - long ranged combat oriented hero with decent mobility (due to cliff walking). You can upgrade the hero's attack to have longer range or deal splash damage. One common technique is to trap enemies in a time pyramid and then abuse your long range and mobility to deal damage to the enemy while they cannot deal damage to you.
Archon Hero - very powerful combat oriented hero with very good splash damage. Has a really awesome ultimate (power overwhelming) that makes the hero own everything.
Reaver Hero - anyone remember this SC1 unit? the reaver hero is a very slow but powerful long range combat hero. The hero may store scarabs, use super scarabs and can summon warp prisms (which you can use to carry the reaver hero around to make up for the reaver hero's poor mobility). This hero is micro intensive and requires good warp prism / reaver micro to use properly.
Dark Archon - powerful caster hero. The dark archon hero has 2 disables so is very good in team fights. Can be annoying early game due to feed back and mass an army late game using mind control.
Dark Zealot - combat oriented melee hero with a decent amount of energy. The hero is not as strong as the zealot hero but has 4 spells to make up for it. This hero requires a good use of spells to be effective.

ZERG:
Zergling Heroes - two fast and mobile but weak melee heroes. The zergling heroes require very good multi tasking because the player that controls them has to be able to control two heroes at once. I highly recommend crittering when using these heroes.
Baneling Heroes - two suicidal heroes that are also decent laners due to the searing acid spell. Like the zergling heroes, you need good multitasking to use them effectively.
Hydralisk Hero - ranged combat hero with decent dps. Can become a lurker, which makes the hydralisk hero the zerg's stealth hero.
Roach Hero - short ranged combat hero that has good speed and durability. The roach hero has the fastest regeneration in the game and can also move while burrowed. As a result, the roach hero is very good at hit and run tactics.
Queen Hero - support caster hero. The queen hero is a good support hero due to transfusion and shockwave. Can provide anti air using acid spines. Can also summon larvae which can be used for a variety of purposes (be it scouting, taking damage, absorbing damage, etc).
Infestor Hero - caster hero, very good laner. The infestor hero has 3 awesome spells with different uses and can also move while burrowed, which allows the infestor hero to escape from combat when neccesary.
Drone Hero - the drone hero is definatly and interesting and unique hero due to its ability to morph between 3 different states. The drone hero may become a spore crawler, in which case the drone hero provides detection and has very good anti air. Alternatively, the drone hero maybe become a spine crawler in which case it has a very strong anti-ground attack. The drone hero can be considered the zerg's siege hero due to the long range of the spine crawler and due to its ability to summon guardians.
Defiler Hero - strongest zerg caster hero. It differs from the infestor hero in that its spells are more oriented towards dealing damage and preventing damage to allies rather than summoning units.
Ultralisk Hero - basically the zerg's 'tank' hero. Is a melee hero that can take a lot of damage. Is also fairly mobile and has a decent damage output. Can deal splash damage. Not a very good caster though.
Overlord Hero - Caster oriented hero that can fly. Starts out not very mobile but has high mobility in the late game. Has two AOE damage spells (disease cloud and generate creep), which make the hero good at laning.
Nydus Worm Hero - Short range melee hero. Has a decent damage output and can take a decent amount of damage. Has an awesome ultimate (leap) which can be used to escape combat, to enter combat, to attack air units or to deal splash damage to ground units. Can use parasite, which can be used to gain scouting information or be used to create wormlings. Also, whenever the nydus hero takes damage there is a chance that wormlings will be produced.
Mutalisk Hero - Short ranged combat oriented hero that can fly. The mutalisk hero may use scream, which deals AOE damage and scares away enemy units for a short period of time. Can also summon mutalisks for a short period of time, which allows you to use muta stacking (if you don't know what muta stacking is, I suggest you watch any brood war TvZ progame in the past decade).


I just cannot understand how anyone can conclude that hero attack doesn't have a large diversity of heroes based on what I wrote above (oh wait yes I can, people can make that conclusion if they don't even bother to play the game and jump to conclusions; either that or they are trolling). Diversity and variety of heroes is definatly the one thing the map has, so I apologize if I appear 'angry' when people make claims that are not true.

Anyway, I have spent a lot of time writing this post that could have gone towards working on version 2.0. I'll try to get the new version done as soon as possible.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 11 2011, 6:21 am by iiequalsexpipi.

I found this quite unimpressive. I can't really say why, but I do definitely agree with what the others have been saying... Fewer and more distinct heroes. You might think you do already, but it really only takes a small amount of similarity to render two heroes effectively identical. Like, your Roach and Infestor can both move while burrowed. I can tell you right now that that'll cause them to have very similar gameplay... Actually come to think of it, they'll also be similar to the DT and probably the Reaper.

I also find the idea that your hero choice is limited based on the race of the computer kinda... Bad.

EDIT: More ways to customize your hero would be far from lacking, too.

"Like, your Roach and Infestor can both move while burrowed. I can tell you right now that that'll cause them to have very similar gameplay."

That is a very interesting point of view. Though from my experience the roach hero and the infestor hero have very different playstyles considering the infestor is a caster hero with powerful spells but low dps, health, etc. while the roach is a combat oriented hero that specializes in hit and run tactics.

"Actually come to think of it, they'll also be similar to the DT and probably the Reaper."

The similarity with the DT I get (burrowed heroes are invisible), but you are going to have to explain the similarity with the reaper.

"I also find the idea that your hero choice is limited based on the race of the computer kinda... Bad."

Could you please elaborate as to why?

"More ways to customize your hero would be far from lacking, too."

I'm going to assume that you mean that there is a lack of ways to customize heroes (please correct me if I am wrong). If this is the case, in what ways is customization lacking. And in what ways should I improve the number of ways to customize your hero (should I add items? increase the number of levels? add more abilities? etc.)?

Sorry, but this is clearly coming from someone who does not have experience with AoS style games. That's like saying Rikimaru and Nerubian Assassin are similar because both of their ultimates make them invisible and they both deal backstab damage... which is incidentally completely wrong. Subtle differences between similar heroes is what makes the game deep. Why should I pick Lion over Lina, for example? Does the enemy team have a Stormspirit?

Most of the people here are mappers before gamers. They're looking at your map from a "how hard was this to do" standpoint, and if it wasn't hard to do or original they're going to give you shit for it. What those people fail to realize is that this is a very small factor in making a fun map, and in a lot of cases (like DotA) the exact opposite is true- people want something that's familiar and easy to pick up to make up for the game's difficulties. Retaining gameplay fixtures from a previous map (or from the StarCraft campaign) is one simple way to do this.

In this case, everyone is asking you to piece together brand new abilities. In the long run, that should probably be your goal, since you've already achieved the "easy to pick up" style for anyone who's played an AoS and the SC2 campaign. For now, though, you're better off finding ways to make the gameplay more exciting. One obvious way to do this is to stop the racial limitations (your team is Terran!). DotA tried it, too, and it's just an arbitrary limitation that had to be done away with before the game got interesting and vastly more replayable.

I find your map lacking simply because the SC2 platform is bad for AoS games. It's innnately laggy and too graphically busy, not to mention how strange it is to get games going. I've played quite a lot of HoN, so it's a definite step back from there.