GitP WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne group (thread II)

[AgentPaper]

Haven't been around here for a while, but I've started playing again from time to time. I should probably join you guys on one of your planned times.

Anyways, have any of you been playing Legion TD Wars? I've found it quite fun and challenging, and quite different from most TDs. For the uninitiated, you basically build "towers" in your lane, kinda like a normal TD, but when the level starts, these towers (which of course look like various creatures) come to life and fight the wave in brutal combat. You can also send monsters at the enemy, which increases your income at the expense of lumber. You can get more lumber by spending gold on workers and lumber upgrades, but you have to balance the money spent on those carefully so that you don't take too many resources away from building your troops.

The game is pretty simple to start: If you just spend you gold on various units and your lumber on summons, you should do OK, though picking the right towers to build can be tricky, especially for some races, but the choices and their places are mostly intuitive, ranged in back, melee in front, and so on, so you don't have to worry too much about messing up and screwing your team over. You might eventually buy a couple workers and get the first upgrade, but you don't really need to to survive, so you can skip that and just spam militia for the income.

After you've figured out how to play as a particular race, though, you can start playing the lumber game, seeing how little troops you can build while not leaking any units, so you can spend more money on lumber production, which lets you summon more monsters, which gives you more income, which gives you more gold, which means in the end the more you manage to spend gold on lumber, the more gold you'll end up with at the end of the game. If both teams are good enough to get to the final round, the ultimate test then starts: Surviving for as long as possible in the un-ending round.

I'd be awesome if we got a group of 4, or even 8 people doing this, to see how long we could last on the last level. Currently, I want to try 2 builds: One of all 4 races as nature, spamming Yggdrasil/Trees of Life, so that they're all healing each other all the time. Unless the enemy's damage and such increases over time (not sure if they do, though they should if they don't) they can last essentially forever.

The other build would be somewhat more complicated, going for element/shadow/demihuman/ghost. Element is obvious, providing the messiah for increased mana regen across the board, as well as birds, which do nice damage and make decent tanks. Shadow provides of course Hades, and with the increased mana regen you'll be seeing massive amounts of imps. Demihuman provides healers, lots of them, which of course with the mana regen, helps to keep everything alive forever. They also provide oracle for spirit link, which helps to keep the damage spread around and hopefully preventing death, as well as a couple bigfoots, which have their awesome stun. Finally, Shadow provides general debuffs, with the gravekeeper and massed mercurials/dark priests and such.

To start, all the races should build at their spawn as normal, and try to get some lumbering going when and if they can, except for Shadow, which should just go for pure lumbering, so it can get a truly massive amount of gold and thus hades. I'm thinking at least a dozen. To make up for the leaked units that shadow isn't killing, the shadow player should be trying to keep the king upgraded, which should be enough to handle what gets through the combined defenders, as long as they don't do TOO badly. He will eventually have to start building, of course, but not until probably level 20-21, or higher. Basically, whenever he gets to the point where he has all the lumber upgrades and has enough workers that all the trees are being chopped at all the time, he can start making hades to help out and prepare for the eventual marathon level.

[Bunny of Faith]

Hi, folks, I'm back!

And I missed the lot of you dearly. How are you all, what have I missed?

Thanks once more to Baneling for posting the reminders; I'll be taking over from here onward again.

So, reminder. Tomorrow is our next custom map session.

Ahhh, I missed doing that, too.

We have a Winter!

[The Orange Zergling]

Yes, actually; in fact we've been playing it a lot in the last couple of months.

We have a Winter!

And it started snowing here today. Coincidence? I think not!

[Bunny of Faith]

<Snip Snip>

Mhm, we've been playing this map most weeks so far!

[Winterwind]

Thanks for the welcome, all of you.

And it started snowing here today. Coincidence? I think not!

Hey, I just like to enter in style!

I hope it doesn't inconvenience any of you though.

Mhm, we've been playing this map most weeks so far!

Though judging by the sound of it not nearly on the level AgentPaper is playing it on (unless you all got a lot better at it while I was gone).

[AgentPaper]

Though judging by the sound of it not nearly on the level AgentPaper is playing it on (unless you all got a lot better at it while I was gone).

Eh, I probably sound more skilled than I actually am. I can use most of the races decently, at least.

One thing I like is that the balance seems to be pretty good. All of them can be somewhat effective, though beast seems to pull out ahead a little, and ghost is a bit lacking at the higher levels.

I used to think Nature was a terrible race, and it's true I've never really had much success with them, but the hands-down two best players I've seen were both nature users, killing with little to no leaks, and getting an absurd amount of lumbering going, almost as much as a pure lumberer.

[Inhuman Bot]

Hi, folks, I'm back!

And I missed the lot of you dearly. How are you all, what have I missed?

Thanks once more to Baneling for posting the reminders; I'll be taking over from here onward again.

So, reminder. Tomorrow is our next custom map session.

Ahhh, I missed doing that, too.

Winter! <3

Good to have you back.

Legion TD: I've played it a few times, and was unimpressed.

[Legoshrimp]

Yay! Welcome back Winter!!!

Sadly I will probably only be at the session for the first hour and a half tomorrow.

Yeah I really like legion TD right now. It is probably the second or third game I play most, although I haven't played it much recently.

[AgentPaper]

When is you guys' next session?

Right, first page.

See you all tomorrow, hopefully.

My sleep schedule has been weird the past few days though, so I might be dead tired and just about to head to bed when that starts. Hm. Well, next week then!

[Legoshrimp]

Hi, folks, I'm back!


So, reminder. Tomorrow is our next custom map session.

Ahhh, I missed doing that, too.

its at 4 EST, or 1 PST for cool people like me :p

[SirSigfried]

Hi, folks, I'm back!

And I missed the lot of you dearly. How are you all, what have I missed?

Thanks once more to Baneling for posting the reminders; I'll be taking over from here onward again.

So, reminder. Tomorrow is our next custom map session.

Ahhh, I missed doing that, too.

What did you miss? How about this...

http://classic.battle.net/war3/ladde...&PlayerSearch=

Notice any familiar names?

[Inhuman Bot]

What did you miss? How about this...

http://classic.battle.net/war3/ladde...&PlayerSearch=

Notice any familiar names?

I was impressed too, until 742 commented that most of the other people sucked, and not just by her standerds.

Still about 5 times better then I could do though.

[742]

What did you miss? How about this...

http://classic.battle.net/war3/ladde...&PlayerSearch=

Notice any familiar names?

we were briefly rank 13/level 32 >< stupid 15-3 solo players with low team levels kicking our asses ><

[TFT]

I may be able to make it tomorrow... I will be missing the first 3 hours though.

[nooblade]

I'll miss the first four hours again, too. It wasn't worth it to show up in the past, but I bet someone would be around if I showed up that late with Winter around.


Also, I've enjoyed our daily CfG pubs, but now I have a couple of weeks in which I need to study for finals, so I can't keep it up. I'm thinking that over the break I'll want to take a crack at unprotecting it to make a few changes that have been irritating me for forever. Mainly it's just sealing off the cliff terrain. Also I hate the Druid's projectile (the default one is much better) and the way weapons can't override it, and I'm considering what would happen if Tranquility were replaced with (toned-down) Starfall.

The semester being nearly over also means more time for games.

[TFT]

I'll miss the first four hours again, too. It wasn't worth it to show up in the past, but I bet someone would be around if I showed up that late with Winter around.


Also, I've enjoyed our daily CfG pubs, but now I have a couple of weeks in which I need to study for finals, so I can't keep it up. I'm thinking that over the break I'll want to take a crack at unprotecting it to make a few changes that have been irritating me for forever. Mainly it's just sealing off the cliff terrain. Also I hate the Druid's projectile (the default one is much better) and the way weapons can't override it, and I'm considering what would happen if Tranquility were replaced with (toned-down) Starfall.

The semester being nearly over also means more time for games.

Alright, who was supposed to inform me of the CfG pubs?

[Inhuman Bot]

Alright, who was supposed to inform me of the CfG pubs?

Noone, because they were so boring.

Just my opinion, of course, but the CfG matches were really one sided. And that got old quickly.

But yes, Noob, Faith, UGNG, Nohwl and I have been doing this for.. 2-3 days, maybe?

[Bunny of Faith]

Noone, because they were so boring.

Just my opinion, of course, but the CfG matches were really one sided. And that got old quickly.

But yes, Noob, Faith, UGNG, Nohwl and I have been doing this for.. 2-3 days, maybe?

Lego also joined us for a couple games too, occasionally.

[Winterwind]

Aaaand reminder: Tomorrow is the next melee session.

Hoo, boy, I'm kinda scared to find out how rusty I have become after these six weeks of no games.

Still, very much looking forward to it. Hope to see you all!

[Inhuman Bot]

Hoo, boy, I'm kinda scared to find out how rusty I have become after these six weeks of no games.

While I am very much looking forward to it.

[nooblade]

It appears that listchecker fails to attract as many players as orochi does, but I haven't seen a ping above 100ms yet. But the main attraction is that it's MINE.


^Something to look forward to when finals are done.


GACK. There's something about it that doesn't put in enough players to get a full game. People complain about how it refreshes at only 1/15s, but I suspect that's it's actually something about the ports involved that orochi could possibly work around (port 6113, in my setup).

[Winterwind]

So, for once, three reminders in one post.

Firstly, the classic: Tomorrow is our next custom map session, and I hope to see you all there.

Secondly, as I'm not going to be at home or anywhere near a computer with Internet on Saturday, I won't be able to post a reminder for the melee session (though I will show up for it), so I do so now. Melee on Sunday, hope to see you there, too.

Lastly, I hope you forgive me for hijacking this post to post something not WarCraft related, but all the members of our D&D group be reminded that we have a session scheduled today at 2 PM EST.

[nooblade]

It appears that the orochi bots are offline. Did I decide to check out LC at a good time?

But it appears that the games I'm creating only work selectively. Or at least Nohwl said he couldn't find the ones I tried making.

[AgentPaper]

So, I've been working on a custom map of my own. It's basically an AoS, with a few twists: One, it's an 8-player FFA. Two, you also get to control a small group of special units that you get based on which hero you pick. They spawn much more slowly than normal creeps, and have special abilities that scale with your hero's level, so controlling them well is key if you want to win. I'll also probably add some modes later on for team games, among other things.

Anyways, so far I've finished the hero selection system (for the most part) and the very basics of the game itself. My next step is to work on the heroes and their units while adding things like items and such. I also have plans for a type of "capture" system, with various points around the map that give various bonuses if you control them, such as gold, increased spawn time, additional spawns, global buffs, additional food, and so on. I'll probably want to completely re-do the map, since the concept has changed a fair amount since I made it, but it'll work for basic testing purposes.

Anyways, here's my notes for the game so far. Hopefully I can get this to the point where it's at least playable enough to test out before our next session.

Spoiler

Show

Fall of the Lich King
Arthas has been killed, and with his defeat the scourge are now leaderless. However, this does not mean they are defeated! The scourge now fights within itself to decide who will lead the most powerful force in Azeroth. Powerful beings from across Azeroth - and beyond - have come to Icecrown in the hopes that they can become the new Lich King.


Heroes:
Defender: Crypt Lord, Pit Lord
Leader: Death Knight, Dark Ranger
Striker: Eredar Warlock, Fel Blademaster
Controller: Lich, Dreadlord


---------------------------------------------------------------------------


(Hero Name)
Type: (The role of the hero)
Health: (How much health the hero has)
Armor: (How much armor the hero has)
Attack: (How strong the hero's attack is)
Mana: (How much mana the hero has)
Main Stat: (What stat the hero gains damage from)
Special Unit: (The special unit the hero grants)

Abilities

(Ability 1): (Basic ability gained at level 1/3/5)
(Ability 2): (Basic ability gained at level 1/3/5)
(Aura Ability) - Aura: (Passive aura gained at level 1/3/5)
(Ultimate Ability) - Ultimate: (Ultimate ability gained at level 6)


(Special Unit Name)
Health: (How much health the unit has)
Armor: (How much armor the unit has)
Attack: (How strong the unit's attack is)
Basic - (Basic Ability): (Ability gained at hero level 1)
Intermediate - (Intermediate ability): (Ability gained at hero level 4)
Advanced - (Advanced Ability): (Ability gained at hero level 8)


---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Crypt Lord
Type: Defender
Health: High
Armor: High
Attack: Low
Mana: Low
Main Stat: Strength
Special Unit: Cryptguard

Abilities

Implale: Spikes erupt from the ground, damaging and stunning enemies.
Locust Swarm: Creates a swarm of locusts that leech life from enemies.
Spiked Carapace - Aura: Increases armor and damages melee attackers.
Burrow - Ultimate: The Crypt Lord burrows underground, granting increased armor and spell immunity, and allowing him to attack from range.


Cryptguard
Health: Medium
Armor: High
Attack: Low
Basic - Burrow: Burrows underground, becoming invisible and immobile.
Intermediate - Hardened Carapace: Gives a high chance to evade attacks.
Advanced - Spider Swarm: Attacks have a chance to create a small spider.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Pit Lord
Type: Defender
Health: High
Armor: Medium
Attack: Medium
Mana: Low
Main Stat: Strength
Special Unit: Mo'arg Warrior

Abilities

Rain of Fire: Rains fire on the Pit Lord's enemies.
Fel Warblade: Attacks have a chance to hit nearby enemies and grant mana.
Demonic Blood - Aura: Increases health and melee damage.
Howling Doom - Ultimate: The Pit Lords lets out a terrifying roar, encouraging his troops and causing nearby enemies to flee.


Mo'arg Warrior
Health: High
Armor: Low
Attack: Medium
Basic: Cleave: Attacks hit nearby enemies.
Intermediate: Blood Fury: Activate to increase damage and restore health.
Advanced: Mechanical Enhancements: Gives critical strike and evasion.


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Death Knight
Type: Leader
Health: Medium
Armor: Medium
Attack: Medium
Mana: Medium
Main Stat: Strength
Special Unit: Frost Revenant

Abilities

Death Coil: All units near the target take damage, or are healed if allies.
:
Unholy Aura - Aura: Increases movement speed and life regeneration.
Army of the Dead - Ultimate: Raises nearby units, which become invulnerable and fight for the Death Knight for a short time.


Frost Revenant
Health: Medium
Armor: Medium
Attack: Medium
Basic - Frost Bolt: Launches a bolt of frost at target unit, damaging and slowing it.
Intermediate - Frost Armor: Surrounds target with frost, giving armor and slowing attackers.
Advanced - From the Grave: When it dies, the Frost Revenant becomes a Death Revenant, becoming invulnerable and increasing it's attack speed and damage for a short time, after which it dies permanently.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Dark Ranger
Type: Leader
Health: Low
Armor: Medium
Attack: High
Mana: Medium
Main Stat: Agility
Special Unit: Banshee

Abilities

:
Black Arrow: Attacks deal extra damage over time and create skeletons.
Unholy Accuracy - Aura: Increases damage of ranged units.
- Ultimate:


Banshee
Health: Low
Armor: Medium
Attack: High
Basic - Curse: Gives target a chance to miss attacks.
Intermediate - Ethereal Form: Unit becomes invisible and can move through other units, but cannot attack.
Advanced - Possess: Destroyes the Banshee to take control of target non-hero unit permanantly. Controlled unit counts towards special unit cap.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Eredar Warlock
Type: Striker
Health: Medium
Armor: Low
Attack: Medium
Mana: High
Main Stat: Intelligence
Special Unit: Infernal

Abilities

:
:
- Aura:
- Ultimate:


Infernal
Health: High
Armor: Medium
Attack: Low
Basic - Spell Resistance: Cannot be targeted by most spells and abilities.
Intermediate - Immolation: Deals damage to nearby enemies.
Advanced - Slam: Deals damage and stuns nearby enemies.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Fel Blademaster
Type: Striker
Health: Medium
Armor: Medium
Attack: High
Mana: Low
Main Stat: Agility
Special Unit: Fel Orc

Abilities

Wind Walk: Created mirror images and then turns invisible.
Whirlwind: Deals damage to units near the Blademaster.
Critical Strike - Aura: Gives a chance to deal extra damage on attack.
Bladestorm - Ultimate: Strikes random targets in an area multiple times.


Fel Orc
Health: Medium
Armor: Low
Attack: High
Basic - Chaos Attack: Attacks deal chaos damage.
Intermediate - Frenzy: Increases damage and attack speed but drains health while active.
Advanced - Bloodthirst: Gives attacks a chance to deal additional damage and restore health.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Lich
Type: Controller
Health: Low
Armor: Low
Attack: High
Mana: High
Main Stat: Intelligence
Special Unit: Coldwraith

Abilities

Frost Nova: Slows and damages units in an area.
:
Chilling Presence - Aura: Slows the movement and attack speed of enemies.
- Ultimate:


Coldwraith
Health: Low
Armor: Medium
Attack: High
Basic - Frost Attack: Slows attacked unit's movement and attack speed.
Intermediate - Raise Dead: Raises undead minions to fight.
Advanced - Ice Pillar: Creates a pillar of ice, damaging and blocking movement.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Dreadlord
Type: Controller
Health: Medium
Armor: Medium
Attack: Low
Mana: High
Main Stat: Intelligence
Special Unit: Succubus

Abilities

Lullaby: Puts target unit to sleep.
:
Vampiric Aura - Aura: Melee units drain life on attack.
- Ultimate:


Succubus
Health: Low
Armor: High
Attack: Medium
Basic - Whip: Stuns target enemy for a short time. Melee range.
Intermediate - :
Advanced - Seduce: Grants control of target non-Hero temporarily.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------

As you can see, it's not done yet, as a lot of hero abilities have yet to even be named, so any ideas you guys have for that would be awesome. As well, if you have a better name or mechanics for something I already have, feel free to give that as well. Nothing is set in stone right now.

I'm thinking of making the auras into an ability that all the heroes start with, instead of them having to learn it, and then adding a third "basic" ability. This would especially be important for heroes with passive abilities right now, such as the Pit Lord, which I don't really want to take cleave away from, but also don't really like giving only two active abilities, one of which is an ultimate that can't be used very often.

[The Orange Zergling]

Sounds like it has potential. If you ever need help with anything, feel free to ask.

I would recommend making the aura slot abilities innate abilities, as you say - passives are valid hero skills but in general they tend to just be nice bonuses that don't really affect the way you play the hero (there are, of course, plenty of exceptions to that - Atrius' Ashes to Ashes from Desert of Exile comes to mind). But aside from that it looks fine to me.

[Winterwind]

I'd say it looks pretty promising, too.

One note regarding the Death Knight's Revenants - make sure that when they turn into Death Revenants and die "ultimately", they remain reviveable by Army of the Dead, for else you would have an anti-synergy on your hands.

Also, since you kept the heroes similar to their melee equivalents, Unholy Pact would make very much sense for this version of the Death Knight, too, since it would allow the player to turn Frost Revenants into the stronger Death Revenants at will, adding a new dimension to this skill.


Regarding heroes ending up with too many passive skills, another way to work around this would be turning some of them into skills that consume mana when active (so, for instance, give Cleave to the Pit Lord only for as long as the player is willing to continuously pay mana for that, and have it grant a damage bonus or something similar in addition to make up for it). This way, you turn passive skills into another skill the player uses actively (or decides not to use, depending on strategy), while keeping their character of being something that is part of the hero for extended periods of time.

[The Orange Zergling]

Regarding heroes ending up with too many passive skills, another way to work around this would be turning some of them into skills that consume mana when active (so, for instance, give Cleave to the Pit Lord only for as long as the player is willing to continuously pay mana for that, and have it grant a damage bonus or something similar in addition to make up for it). This way, you turn passive skills into another skill the player uses actively (or decides not to use, depending on strategy), while keeping their character of being something that is part of the hero for extended periods of time.

For clarification, do you mean something like Immolation that must be toggled on and off or do you mean a passive that automatically consumes mana whether you like it or not? The first one is fine, the second one... has problems.

[Winterwind]

For clarification, do you mean something like Immolation that must be toggled on and off or do you mean a passive that automatically consumes mana whether you like it or not? The first one is fine, the second one... has problems.

The former, of course. I do not advocate denying the players the ability to have any mana ever again.

(More accurately, I could see the latter actually working in a map designed specifically around the existance of such things, and it might be a pretty interesting feature there - like if all heroes had a 100% mana shield, very high mana regeneration and low damage, were able to customize their heroes by picking their skills like in Water War, and the mana degeneration from passives would merely lower the mana regeneration - then one could design a very tanky hero simply by having no or few passives, or a very damaging but fragile one by having many passives - but that has nothing whatsoever to do with AgentPaper's map )

[The Orange Zergling]

The former, of course. I do not advocate denying the players the ability to have any mana ever again.

Spirit of Eternity 0.5!

(More accurately, I could see the latter actually working in a map designed specifically around the existance of such things, and it might be a pretty interesting feature there - like if all heroes had a 100% mana shield, very high mana regeneration and low damage, were able to customize their heroes by picking their skills like in Water War, and the mana degeneration from passives would merely lower the mana regeneration - then one could design a very tanky hero simply by having no or few passives, or a very damaging but fragile one by having many passives - but that has nothing whatsoever to do with AgentPaper's map )

That does sound interesting, actually...

Damnit, I have too many maps already, stop giving me ideas.

[Winterwind]

Spirit of Eternity 0.5!

Yeah, it denies mana only to itself, not to the entire team. But it hopes to be a full Spirit of Eternity when it grows up!

So, for the love of whatever is holy to you, kill it now!

That does sound interesting, actually...

Damnit, I have too many maps already, stop giving me ideas.

My work here is done.