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

[Faulty]

Thank you.

[Winterwind]

Glad to be of service. If you have any further questions, feel free to post them any time.

[Faulty]

Awesome. Maybe you could even play against mr or with me some time.

EDIT: I. Hate. Riflemen. :( My huntresses can't get around to them fast enough and I die.

[Rigel Cyrosea]

I've been working on something for a while now, and I was wondering if people would be interested in helping me test it.
I'm in a Game Design program, just finished first year. For my second year project, I want to do an RTS. Nothing really fancy or anything, just the basics. I'm going to start coding once my exams are done and work on that over the summer, but in the meantime, I tried setting up my ideas as a WC3 map, for concept work and balance testing.
Before attempting this, I had never used the World Editor before, so, things aren't very polished. Thankfully, I wasn't trying to do anything particularly complicated, so it pretty much works- it just doesn't look pretty.
Anyway, I was wondering if anyone would like to give it a try. Here's a rough outline of what's done so far.

Basic Concept

Spoiler

Show

As you'll probably be able to tell, Starcraft was my main influence. I'm okay with the game being similar in dynamics to SC, as it's not like I'm going to try and sell it or anything. It's just a project.
To allow for a more constant stream of income that increases consistently with the number of workers, I made lumber the primary resource and gold the secondary- I doubt I'll keep this exact style of mechanic when I'm coding this stuff from scratch, but for now, it works.
There are three races. They don't really have much in the way of fluff (or even proper names) yet, as I've been more concerned with mechanics. I've been referring to them by the idea that I want to define their play.

The 'Technique' race's units each have an ability that the player needs to be aware of. For example, their basic unit, the Musketman, can turn on and off the 'Aim' mode. When Aim is on, they deal much greater damage, but also take more damage themselves, and are painfully slow.

The 'Power' race is all about balancing army and economy. Their barracks structure can build both workers and combat units. Thus, they have the potential to pump economy very hard, but doing so will leave them vulnerable. Scouting is therefore very important for them.

The 'Speed' race has many units that are good for harassment and benefit from proper positioning (and of course, they're fast). The idea here is to force your opponent to engage in positions favorable to you. Late game, I'm thinking they'll have an upgrade which will allow their basic units to become air units. To keep this from completely being totally unbalancing, both other races have strong static anti-air defenses and basic units that can attack air.

Only the Technique and Power races are really playable right now- speed has a central building, worker, and two basic units finished so far, but I'm working on more for them.

[The Orange Zergling]

I've been working on something for a while now, and I was wondering if people would be interested in helping me test it.
I'm in a Game Design program, just finished first year. For my second year project, I want to do an RTS. Nothing really fancy or anything, just the basics. I'm going to start coding once my exams are done and work on that over the summer, but in the meantime, I tried setting up my ideas as a WC3 map, for concept work and balance testing.
Before attempting this, I had never used the World Editor before, so, things aren't very polished. Thankfully, I wasn't trying to do anything particularly complicated, so it pretty much works- it just doesn't look pretty.
Anyway, I was wondering if anyone would like to give it a try. Here's a rough outline of what's done so far.

Basic Concept

Spoiler

Show

As you'll probably be able to tell, Starcraft was my main influence. I'm okay with the game being similar in dynamics to SC, as it's not like I'm going to try and sell it or anything. It's just a project.
To allow for a more constant stream of income that increases consistently with the number of workers, I made lumber the primary resource and gold the secondary- I doubt I'll keep this exact style of mechanic when I'm coding this stuff from scratch, but for now, it works.
There are three races. They don't really have much in the way of fluff (or even proper names) yet, as I've been more concerned with mechanics. I've been referring to them by the idea that I want to define their play.

The 'Technique' race's units each have an ability that the player needs to be aware of. For example, their basic unit, the Musketman, can turn on and off the 'Aim' mode. When Aim is on, they deal much greater damage, but also take more damage themselves, and are painfully slow.

The 'Power' race is all about balancing army and economy. Their barracks structure can build both workers and combat units. Thus, they have the potential to pump economy very hard, but doing so will leave them vulnerable. Scouting is therefore very important for them.

The 'Speed' race has many units that are good for harassment and benefit from proper positioning (and of course, they're fast). The idea here is to force your opponent to engage in positions favorable to you. Late game, I'm thinking they'll have an upgrade which will allow their basic units to become air units. To keep this from completely being totally unbalancing, both other races have strong static anti-air defenses and basic units that can attack air.

Only the Technique and Power races are really playable right now- speed has a central building, worker, and two basic units finished so far, but I'm working on more for them.

Sounds like a pretty decent idea. Can't really say more without knowing any more details, but nothing sticks out as problematic to me at a glance.

As always with custom maps, if you need help, feel free to ask me or another mapper around these parts and I (or we) would be happy to help.

[AgentPaper]

Sounds nearly impossible to balance to me. Not that you shouldn't try, but just know it's going to be a problem, assuming you even care about balance, that is.

[Winterwind]

Awesome. Maybe you could even play against mr or with me some time.

Sure. And otherwise, there are also the Sunday sessions, and plenty of members who log on frequently during the week who, I think, would gladly play with you, too (Rigel Cyrosea was looking for people to play with just a few posts ago, for instance).

EDIT: I. Hate. Riflemen. :( My huntresses can't get around to them fast enough and I die.

You might find it works better if, rather than giving them a straight attack order, you first steer them around the enemy melee force by hand (so they do not end up tangled up in them), move them into a good position, and only then tell them to focus one of the riflemen.

[...]Anyway, I was wondering if anyone would like to give it a try. Here's a rough outline of what's done so far.
[Basic Concept]

Of course we'll glady give it a try! Bring it to the next custom map session, and you will have more playtesters than your map can probably take!

I see no major problems, but am inclined to agree with AgentPaper that balance may prove difficult, especially for the Speed race, because if they win when they fight under the conditions of their choice, it will be difficult to find that one point where it is neither too easy nor too difficult for them to achieve those conditions. Same applies to a lesser degree to the other races, too. Still, all the better you give it a try as WC3 map before coding it, and balance being difficult does not mean it is impossible.

And as Bane said, if you need any help with the editor, feel free to ask any time.

[AgentPaper]

The main part that I think is going to make it hard-to-impossible to balance, is that you're making each race use a completely different set of skills from the player. In a game where everyone is using the same set of skills, no matter the race, it's easier to test balance because you can have the same person play multiple races, and generally they should do about as well with all of them, given some practice.

For example, with Warcraft 3, all the races are different, but it comes down to the same basic principles of micro-management, leveling your hero, not letting things die, etc. If you're good at those things, you can generally do well with any race. Similarly, with Starcraft, you have macro-management, using your resources, continually expanding, and always applying pressure to your opponent. If you're good at those, you should do well no matter the race.

With the way your game is planned, though, each player is playing a completely separate game. It's as if one guy was playing Warcraft, the other was playing Starcraft, and yet another was playing Age of Empires. It's relatively easy to take 2 Starcraft players, watch them play a few games, and then know which one is more skilled than the other, or if they're evenly matched. Even if they're playing different races, which may or may not be balanced, you can still see how this player is great at macro and expansion, while the other is great at using resources and applying pressure.

Now imagine that you have a match, with one player playing the Zerg from Starcraft I, while the other is playing as Orcs from Warcraft III. How do you figure out how their skill levels compare? One is great at continuously expanding and macro, while the other is great at keeping his units alive and micro. It's impossible to say whether the one is better at micro than the other is at macro or not. Did the orc player lose because the Zerg player was better at macro and expansion than the orc player was a micro and leveling his hero? Or was it because the zerg are overpowered as a race, leading to the orc player's demise despite his superior skills?

The only real way to balance a game like that, would be to have a massive amount of dedicated playtesters playing it constantly, watching a metric ton of replays, and then slowly but surely trying to tweak the game until all the races win about the same amount. And even then, it's hard to say if it's balanced. Are the Britons winning more often because they're over-powered? Or do you just happen to have a bunch of players who are good at the Briton's type of gameplay and less who are good at playing the Protoss or Night Elves?

[Rigel Cyrosea]

I'm not sure the differences are quite as drastic as you seem to think they are, Paper. The differences between how to play my races aren't any more drastic than some of the matchups in SC. Say, zerg with a terran opponent, and terran with a protoss opponent.
Zerg builds all of it's units from the same building, which is also it's central building. Most of their units are fast, and a lot of them are fragile and require a flank to have the advantage. To play zerg well, you have to know when to power drones and when to build military units. You need to know how to harass with mutas, and you need to know how to macro from many different places at once (because your hatcheries are spread out all over the place).
Compared this to a Terran playing TvP. You build workers from a central building and units from separate production structures. (That alone is a really big difference). You tech quickly to factory units and then turtle on three bases. You defend and defend and defend forever, and then you roll out with 180 supply and crush the P in one gigantic push.
Totally different ways of playing, all part of the same balanced game.

Since my game hasn't been tested with real opponents yet, I can't speak for how the matchups will turn out. I guess we'll see once their tested. But I'm sure the basic RTS skills of good macro, good multitask, and good micro will be important for all three races.

I'm not trying to say that balancing this will be easy, (and it may indeed prove impossible to with just a small testing group and a summer to work with), but I don't think it's nearly as difficult as you think it will be.

[The Orange Zergling]

RTSs in general are relatively difficult to balance compared to other maps like AoSs due to the fact that there are so many more units. Because of this and the presence of a tech tree, you need to worry about more than just the power of a unit versus other units, you also need to consider its spot on the tech tree, how expensive it is, how well it synergizes with other units (not only of your own race but also units of other races) and how difficult it is for the opponent to get or utilize their units and so on. This can be significantly alleviated by having symmetrical races, but that's not nearly as much fun to make or play.

While absolute perfect balance is nigh unachievable, or at least at our level of play, in your time frame I think it may be doable depending on how much work you put into it (and how much thought you put into your work) and how extensively you can test it. You sound like you know your stuff when it comes to game design and structure, though, so I have confidence in you.

[Rigel Cyrosea]

Yeah, RTS are indeed very difficult to balance. And I'm hardly an expert- only just finished first year.
But I'm willing to put a fair bit of work into it, especially once exams are done (one more week ).
I'm also going to limit my balance decisions to 1v1s at a relatively optimized level of play. For instance, if the technique race is very weak when played poorly, I don't particularly care. If it's still too weak when played reasonably well, that's a problem.
For now, the measure of 'reasonably well' will have to be 'while macroing properly and not making any really serious micro mistakes'. Once some testing has been done, I may be able to add 'following a proper build order' to that list.

[742]

RTSs in general are relatively difficult to balance compared to other maps like AoSs due to the fact that there are so many more units. Because of this and the presence of a tech tree, you need to worry about more than just the power of a unit versus other units, you also need to consider its spot on the tech tree, how expensive it is, how well it synergizes with other units (not only of your own race but also units of other races) and how difficult it is for the opponent to get or utilize their units and so on. This can be significantly alleviated by having symmetrical races, but that's not nearly as much fun to make or play.

While absolute perfect balance is nigh unachievable, or at least at our level of play, in your time frame I think it may be doable depending on how much work you put into it (and how much thought you put into your work) and how extensively you can test it. You sound like you know your stuff when it comes to game design and structure, though, so I have confidence in you.

exactly what he said, except im somewhat skeptical about getting good balance in a reasonable time frame.

also theres a new HU/NE player around? i need to play you at some point. no replays; im too lazy for that and i find them boring.

there are only two universal heroes: death knight and blademaster; even those have their "oops" times. for HU i like to go dark ranger (mercenary) or MK in mirrors (AM is the usual choice but hes so god damn boring and DR is the coolest unit in the whole game! black arrow is good for killing an early humans numerous weak units like footmen/militia/casters and silencing casters but in practice health drain is a better second choice for the rush with a tome of retraining. as for the MK i like to quick militia creep with thunderclap and then get storm bolt with maybe a boots of speed for AM hunting)
for HU vs UD i like to go paladin or mountain king. both STR heroes so somewhat nuke resistant and both have a spell that does heavy damage to an undead; the MK is better for straight up nukes and face to face encounters with paladin as a second whereas the paladin has/adds more survivability and can get L2 holy light L1 divine shield and slaughter undead workers with 1 hit and one light; with a staff of teleportation theres not a damn thing they can do about it even when your trying to leave without a dreadlord (which is not a common choice) or a crypt lord (very rare until T3) and even then a scroll of town portal is more than worth the use if you get all five.
for HU vs NE archmage is the default choice :(. his summons have piercing for hunt killing and his brilliance aura buffs casters (i typically use casters/mortars/knights against NE) while still occasionally letting him cast his spells even in the presence of a demon hunter (which is the usual NE hero in this matchup because human heroes rely so heavily on their already sparse mana). added bonus: hes fast speed so he can run from a DH/non-blink warden.
for HU vs orc i like blood mage. i like to use mass sorcs/priests/knights/breakers against orcs so i throw a flamestrike/mana whatever then when they hex/windwalk at my hero i use one of those sorceresses to throw invisibility, while the slow units cant completely escape the flamestrike. that can also be combined with a staff of teleportation for a devastating base/worker harass as flamestrike at level two does enough to kill workers and it does i think 1.5x damage against buildings. i dont know the exact numbers but "a lot" is a safe bet. this is a good hero for a single hero strategy as all his abilities are useful and synergize nicely for a variety of situations. as a bonus hes a little less squishy than other INT heroes which is always nice when theres a blademaster around.

and remember: never get more heroes than you can micro. thats always a bad thing. its usually a good idea to get aura-based heroes for your second like the POTM or archmage; never something micro-heavy like warden or blood mage.

[The Orange Zergling]

Whoops, just realized a typo; instead of "in your time frame I think it may be doable" I meant "in your time frame I think good enough balance may be doable"; I didn't mean I expected you to achieve absolutely perfect balance.

Personally, I think the Archmage is one of those universal heroes that can be incredibly powerful in any match-up as a first hero. He's not very high-micro, but that just means that your hands are free to micro your troops more effectively. The Water Elemental is incredibly powerful at all stages of play (maybe less so later on because of the frequency of dispels, but still), Brilliance Aura means that the Archmage and other heroes and casters around him will be able to regenerate mana very quickly and Blizzard is an extremely powerful ranged AoE nuke (albeit easy to interrupt with a stun or dodged). Mass Teleport is handy on occasion, since you can teleport to any friendly unit or structure (not just town halls) but it does not make you invulnerable or anything so it by no means replaces a Scroll of Town Portal.

As Eve (742) outlined, these skills make him the perfect counter to the Demon Hunter; the Water Elemental is not subject to Mana Burn, plus it is beefy so Immolation does not damage it very much, Brilliance Aura swiftly replaces any mana lost to Mana Burn and the Archmage is faster than the Demon Hunter (without Boots of Speed, anyway) so he can run away at any time.

[Rigel Cyrosea]

I'm not expecting perfect balance. That would be a bit too much. Honestly, I'd be willing to accept as bad as 60/40 chances in a given matchup. As I've said before, this is just a project- it doesn't have to be perfect.

[The Orange Zergling]

I'm not expecting perfect balance. That would be a bit too much. Honestly, I'd be willing to accept as bad as 60/40 chances in a given matchup. As I've said before, this is just a project- it doesn't have to be perfect.

Yeah, as I said, 'good enough'. Balance does not directly equate to fun anyway.

[742]

Yeah, as I said, 'good enough'. Balance does not directly equate to fun anyway.

you. stop saying true things.

but even 60/40 might be hard to do with three races that are so different in such a short amount of time simply because it looks like they would all have different learning curves so it might be hard to figure out the difference between "this one is overpowered" and "this one is much easier to get the hang of" sort of the same way terrans are underpowered in low level* starcraft play.

*i want to put emphasis on this: i do not think terrans are actually underpowered;i think that terrans are just as good as the others when all players are competent. i do think that theyre harder to learn. i just wanted to make this extra clear so the hardcore SC people dont devour/psi storm/irradiate me. no orbital bombing either please.

[Winterwind]

*i want to put emphasis on this: i do not think terrans are actually underpowered;i think that terrans are just as good as the others when all players are competent. i do think that theyre harder to learn. i just wanted to make this extra clear so the hardcore SC people dont devour/psi storm/irradiate me. no orbital bombing either please.

I surely won't. I keep saying that myself all the time, too.


I am somewhat more optimistic with regards to RC's map; I think with a bit of testing it should be possible to get it fairly well balanced. 40/60, at least, doesn't sound unachievable.

[Winterwind]

Reminder: Tomorrow is our next custom map session. I hope to see you all there.

[Cynan Machae]

Yea, a balanced worse than 40/60 can be quickly fixed because then it's obvious whatthe problem is. What's hard is really getting close to the 50-50.

And yea I agree that Terran is harder to learn at lower levels and Toss can be said to be easier.

Btw I'll probably drop by to see that map Rigel

[AgentPaper]

Yea, a balanced worse than 40/60 can be quickly fixed because then it's obvious whatthe problem is. What's hard is really getting close to the 50-50.

And yea I agree that Terran is harder to learn at lower levels and Toss can be said to be easier.

Btw I'll probably drop by to see that map Rigel

I wouldn't be so sure about that. I'd say that, especially for a game as hard to balance as this and with the limited resources he'll have for testing, he should be happy if he even gets better than 0/100. There's a very good chance that one of the races will have a strategy that the others just literally cannot beat, for example the Zerg rush in early Starcraft I.

[Rigel Cyrosea]

I wouldn't be so sure about that. I'd say that, especially for a game as hard to balance as this and with the limited resources he'll have for testing, he should be happy if he even gets better than 0/100. There's a very good chance that one of the races will have a strategy that the others just literally cannot beat, for example the Zerg rush in early Starcraft I.

Why in the world would I not simply fix such problems?
Certainly, things like that may (and quite likely will) exist in the current, untested version. And it'll take a while to find them and fix them. And some might not be found, but in that case, we don't even have a problem in the first place, since if it's not found, it can't be exploited.

[The Orange Zergling]

Why in the world would I not simply fix such problems?
Certainly, things like that may (and quite likely will) exist in the current, untested version. And it'll take a while to find them and fix them. And some might not be found, but in that case, we don't even have a problem in the first place, since if it's not found, it can't be exploited.

Having released something in the order of 4-5 maps to the group, I can say with certainty that when you first test it with other people there's basically a 100% chance of there being some sort of massive, crazy issue you didn't think of, regardless of how thoroughly you work on it. But there is nothing stopping you from simply fixing it, no.

[AgentPaper]

Why in the world would I not simply fix such problems?
Certainly, things like that may (and quite likely will) exist in the current, untested version. And it'll take a while to find them and fix them. And some might not be found, but in that case, we don't even have a problem in the first place, since if it's not found, it can't be exploited.

It's not that you can't fix them, it's that you can't find them. You simply can't try every single build order every time you update the game, and if your beta-testers don't think of it, you won't even know it exists.

[Rigel Cyrosea]

It's not that you can't fix them, it's that you can't find them. You simply can't try every single build order every time you update the game, and if your beta-testers don't think of it, you won't even know it exists.

And if nobody knows it exists, then how is it a problem? As I've said multiple times, this is a school project for next year- nobody is going to play it but me, my partner, the testers, and whoever marks it. If none of these people are aware of a broken build order, then there's no problem. If they become aware of one, I try my best to fix it.

The point where it'll get marked is the only time someone will play it that I won't be there and able to fix anything crazy they find, and the TA/Prof that marks it isn't exactly going to be looking for strategies to win.

[Rigel Cyrosea]

Thanks a lot to everyone who tried out my map. Some annoying technical issues aside, it worked out better than I expected. Definitely learned some things.
I'm going to be idling in the channel a lot in the coming weeks, on either WC3 or SC. If any of you ever feel like helping me test a bit by playing the map, let me know.

[nooblade]

Well, aren't you going to tell us what you learned? I'm interested, regardless of this horrible affliction with being too busy to show up.

[Rigel Cyrosea]

Well, I suppose I could make a list of things I'll be fixing, but it wouldn't mean that much unless you've seen the game.

• The mage tower is too big... waaay too big.
• The chokepoint of the left base is way too small
• Golem's aren't affected by upgrades from the refinery
• Apprentices don't actively search for targets to heal
• Musketmen need a nerf, especially for late-game. With full attack upgrades and aiming on, they do 24 damage a shot each.
• The amount of gold returned per trip needs to be drastically reduced
• Siege cannons can't attack buildings right now. >.<
• Golems have fortified armour. This explains a lot.
• Renew is not working on golems
• Black Armour become obsolete quickly when Golems are out
• Skirmishers are not very useful, given the current map layout
• Arcane warriors kinda make Phalanx obsolete. They maybe should have less health (150 instead of 200)?

[Nohwl]

i like the high amount of lumber gained from each trip. it makes battles get big pretty fast. or do you mean just gold?

[Rigel Cyrosea]

Yeah, the lumber amounts are fine. It's only the gold I'm gonna change.

[Faulty]

Question about Undead: should I build two crypts? One with a rally point on my hero for ghouls for combat and one with a rally point on lumber?