Post by Couple things on Jan 4, 2006 21:34:52 GMT -5
Well stumbled upon this map a couple days ago and its a great job; it is obvious the amount of work went into it. however it is far from perfect. There is only a couple things that needs pointing out, but this is what I see.
Forum Suggestions:
Well first off, the strictness about the account activation has NOT been fixed. This account (deadlift) is still waiting for approval. Also I believe there should be a separate section for bugs. the game is still in beta, there will be many, many bugs to be fixed as the game evolves, especially in the early development stages, and a separate forum would be useful.
The Website:
The website could use some work. Its a nice setting and all, and I know you aren't about to get enough funding to get rid of the popups, but you need to make it as user friendly as possible. A couple nice things would be links to the changes in the latest updates, maybe a quick description of the map is (I can't get anybody to join the games I make because nobody even knows what it is, most people think that it is a hero arena) and the latest version on the front page would be helpful. Granted you have gone out of your way to make a great map, but face it: people are lazy bums. If you don't make it a 1-click-wonder website, people won't bother with it.
Anyway the bugs:
Any recipie that uses consumable items (well I THINK it is any recipie, I have only tried it with the recipie that involved a clarity potion and the healing salve) will not combine. Also this is, I believe, known but the arena asks for a confirmation message when a player asks to duel. An organized team can exploit this to screw over people trying to fight, and it doesn't even work yet. A suggestion would be to put it in game message rather then a dialogue box and have an -accept command.
The Suggestions:
the arena
The arena is nice and all but nobody will use it, due to the fact that any beneficial rewards would be negated by creeping in a lane. Similarly, if the rewards are too great then nobody will do anything else. it will cease to be an aeon and become a hero arena. I suggest taking out the arena altogether, broken or not, and have that be a separate beta test to balance it to the point where the beneficial rewards would be similar to neutral creeping. Also certain heroes are designed to do certain things. A healer isn't about to beat a hero killer in an arena. While this isn't that big of an issue since they can decline, there needs to be a time limit on when you can duel someone next, assuming you get it fixed and balanced.
standardization
The game is somewhat balanced, but you have gone about balancing in completely the wrong way (no offense). Rather then have a standardized system and tweaking as necessary, you have simply worked from a base model and tinkered everything into a semblence of balance. While this works for now, it will (trust me on this) make adding any extra heroes or really any changes at all a royal pain in the ass. What you need to do is have a template (DoTA's template is 15 to each stat, and 300 move speed, 1 passive, 2 active, stats and an ultimate that has synergy). From there they change stats, movespeed and spells as necessary to fit the person to a specific purpose. if there is no clear purpose for a certain hero, then that hero shouldn't exist.
Terrain
The terrain is beautiful; but ungainly. What I mean about this, is the pathing does not allow for a whole lot of strategy. It is very easy to be trapped behind the creep wave due to the fact that the creeps hug the wall when attacking. This only allows someone to attack from the right, which puts melee at a very large disadvantage, since they have to round the creep wave to get the finishing blow on the enemy's creep. Furthermore the towers are placed below the adjacent terrain. this means that the tower does not have view of the enemy creeps, and anybody attacking from tower range has a high probability of missing, which again puts the defensive on a very big disadvantage, since they cannot use the tower's full effectiveness against the enemy. There is also not very many ambush points, especially on the side rows. Not only that, but many of the ambush points are host to various creeps: which brings me to my next subject, the neutral creeps. The neutral creeps can play too important a role in this game. in the late game, a person can easily make more money neutral creeping then they can pushing a lane, which defeats the purpose of farming. Ultimately the neutral creeps shouldn't give off quite so much a reward. Also, almost all the creeps are in a position where they a) are blocking a ramp and b) uphill from the ramp. The combination of these two aspects means a hero not only will find a ramp blocked, but will actualy run into the creeps before the ai turns him around. this could be potentially fatal. Due to this, the creep should be moved to a position away from the main paths of travel. That aside, great terarin but it could be better. I thought I was a good terrainer until I saw the wonders the good people at wc3campaigns could do. Check out these maps/images to see great ways to improve your terrain.
terrain examples
a night elf village
I have no idea what this is but OMG
just... wow
probably the best example of expert terraining, fourth post down or so. map format too!
roshan-clone
he falls asleep at night. wtf?
travelling merchant
The travelling merchant is a great idea, but he carries mediocre items at best. Ultimately the travelling merchant should be used for one of two things: hid in a secret place to buy the better items off of, or to extort the customer out of their money with over-priced goods to save the trip to the base. the travelling merchants do neither, and consequently are pointless because of it.
dota is a great example of what a secret merchant should be like.
items
The items selection is to be commendable, however there is no standardization for it. The items just have a bunch of good abilities lumped together, if they aren't a specific dota-clone. Items serve a purpose, and specific purposes only. For the items in this game, any person could get basically any of the legendary items and be a great all around hero. Items are supposed to enhance a specific strength, or boost a weakness, so heroes can choose a certain item build to negate their weaknesses or boost their strengths. Most of these items are hybrids, just boosting every ability in general without any specific field (a great example of this is the assassin blade and the battle gem. Both of these serve multiple purposes). As it is, a person doesn't have that much choice in items since most items boost multiple things rather then specific things, which takes a large portion of the strategy out of the game.
Presentation/Optimization
A little presentation can go a long way. You have done wonderous things with the terrain, but the terrain is only a small portion of the game. Weather effects is extremely important, more important then you think. putting in randomized weather effects, assuming they don't lag too much (some maps they do if the map is too overloaded) would be unparalleled. Probably the biggest thing that you could do is to change the UI. You can import some icons and then change the background tile in the game constants section. It doesn't take up that much space, since they are images; up to 100kb. See the linked map below for an excellent example of this. The quickest flash change you can make is camera smoothing. This makes it so rather then instantly stopping when scrolling, it slides to a stop. this is in the triggers section (camera - change camera smooth). Also, assuming you aren't using boundless doodads, a quick change in the tilesets of trees and whatnot every update shouldn't take more then 5 mins, but makes a huge difference in how the game looks. While it might not be a change for the better, people will nevertheless appreciate the change. Small things like this can make or break a game. A quick change, seen in Optimization, while small, can also make a huge difference. Vexorian's map optimizer is a great tool for this.
UI examples
Return of the Dragons = This is a single player campaign, just an FYI.
Ice Trolls = Both great maps to showcase the custom UIs.
Camera Smoothing Examples
Land of Legends 2 Really just one example, but you only need one.
Useful Links:
Vexorian's map optimizer = Excellent Tool for shortening load times and making the game run faster, etc.
Pitzer's Widgitizer = Another excellent tool for shortening load times and helping out with changing custom data.
no limits patch = This is a quick patch that allows you to add more doodads, units, terrain height, etc. then the WE allows
WEU = I love this program. allows you to do so much you can't usually do.
Well I got a bit more carried away then I meant to, but there you go, theres my suggestions ;D.
Forum Suggestions:
Well first off, the strictness about the account activation has NOT been fixed. This account (deadlift) is still waiting for approval. Also I believe there should be a separate section for bugs. the game is still in beta, there will be many, many bugs to be fixed as the game evolves, especially in the early development stages, and a separate forum would be useful.
The Website:
The website could use some work. Its a nice setting and all, and I know you aren't about to get enough funding to get rid of the popups, but you need to make it as user friendly as possible. A couple nice things would be links to the changes in the latest updates, maybe a quick description of the map is (I can't get anybody to join the games I make because nobody even knows what it is, most people think that it is a hero arena) and the latest version on the front page would be helpful. Granted you have gone out of your way to make a great map, but face it: people are lazy bums. If you don't make it a 1-click-wonder website, people won't bother with it.
Anyway the bugs:
Any recipie that uses consumable items (well I THINK it is any recipie, I have only tried it with the recipie that involved a clarity potion and the healing salve) will not combine. Also this is, I believe, known but the arena asks for a confirmation message when a player asks to duel. An organized team can exploit this to screw over people trying to fight, and it doesn't even work yet. A suggestion would be to put it in game message rather then a dialogue box and have an -accept command.
The Suggestions:
the arena
The arena is nice and all but nobody will use it, due to the fact that any beneficial rewards would be negated by creeping in a lane. Similarly, if the rewards are too great then nobody will do anything else. it will cease to be an aeon and become a hero arena. I suggest taking out the arena altogether, broken or not, and have that be a separate beta test to balance it to the point where the beneficial rewards would be similar to neutral creeping. Also certain heroes are designed to do certain things. A healer isn't about to beat a hero killer in an arena. While this isn't that big of an issue since they can decline, there needs to be a time limit on when you can duel someone next, assuming you get it fixed and balanced.
standardization
The game is somewhat balanced, but you have gone about balancing in completely the wrong way (no offense). Rather then have a standardized system and tweaking as necessary, you have simply worked from a base model and tinkered everything into a semblence of balance. While this works for now, it will (trust me on this) make adding any extra heroes or really any changes at all a royal pain in the ass. What you need to do is have a template (DoTA's template is 15 to each stat, and 300 move speed, 1 passive, 2 active, stats and an ultimate that has synergy). From there they change stats, movespeed and spells as necessary to fit the person to a specific purpose. if there is no clear purpose for a certain hero, then that hero shouldn't exist.
Terrain
The terrain is beautiful; but ungainly. What I mean about this, is the pathing does not allow for a whole lot of strategy. It is very easy to be trapped behind the creep wave due to the fact that the creeps hug the wall when attacking. This only allows someone to attack from the right, which puts melee at a very large disadvantage, since they have to round the creep wave to get the finishing blow on the enemy's creep. Furthermore the towers are placed below the adjacent terrain. this means that the tower does not have view of the enemy creeps, and anybody attacking from tower range has a high probability of missing, which again puts the defensive on a very big disadvantage, since they cannot use the tower's full effectiveness against the enemy. There is also not very many ambush points, especially on the side rows. Not only that, but many of the ambush points are host to various creeps: which brings me to my next subject, the neutral creeps. The neutral creeps can play too important a role in this game. in the late game, a person can easily make more money neutral creeping then they can pushing a lane, which defeats the purpose of farming. Ultimately the neutral creeps shouldn't give off quite so much a reward. Also, almost all the creeps are in a position where they a) are blocking a ramp and b) uphill from the ramp. The combination of these two aspects means a hero not only will find a ramp blocked, but will actualy run into the creeps before the ai turns him around. this could be potentially fatal. Due to this, the creep should be moved to a position away from the main paths of travel. That aside, great terarin but it could be better. I thought I was a good terrainer until I saw the wonders the good people at wc3campaigns could do. Check out these maps/images to see great ways to improve your terrain.
terrain examples
a night elf village
I have no idea what this is but OMG
just... wow
probably the best example of expert terraining, fourth post down or so. map format too!
roshan-clone
he falls asleep at night. wtf?
travelling merchant
The travelling merchant is a great idea, but he carries mediocre items at best. Ultimately the travelling merchant should be used for one of two things: hid in a secret place to buy the better items off of, or to extort the customer out of their money with over-priced goods to save the trip to the base. the travelling merchants do neither, and consequently are pointless because of it.
dota is a great example of what a secret merchant should be like.
items
The items selection is to be commendable, however there is no standardization for it. The items just have a bunch of good abilities lumped together, if they aren't a specific dota-clone. Items serve a purpose, and specific purposes only. For the items in this game, any person could get basically any of the legendary items and be a great all around hero. Items are supposed to enhance a specific strength, or boost a weakness, so heroes can choose a certain item build to negate their weaknesses or boost their strengths. Most of these items are hybrids, just boosting every ability in general without any specific field (a great example of this is the assassin blade and the battle gem. Both of these serve multiple purposes). As it is, a person doesn't have that much choice in items since most items boost multiple things rather then specific things, which takes a large portion of the strategy out of the game.
Presentation/Optimization
A little presentation can go a long way. You have done wonderous things with the terrain, but the terrain is only a small portion of the game. Weather effects is extremely important, more important then you think. putting in randomized weather effects, assuming they don't lag too much (some maps they do if the map is too overloaded) would be unparalleled. Probably the biggest thing that you could do is to change the UI. You can import some icons and then change the background tile in the game constants section. It doesn't take up that much space, since they are images; up to 100kb. See the linked map below for an excellent example of this. The quickest flash change you can make is camera smoothing. This makes it so rather then instantly stopping when scrolling, it slides to a stop. this is in the triggers section (camera - change camera smooth). Also, assuming you aren't using boundless doodads, a quick change in the tilesets of trees and whatnot every update shouldn't take more then 5 mins, but makes a huge difference in how the game looks. While it might not be a change for the better, people will nevertheless appreciate the change. Small things like this can make or break a game. A quick change, seen in Optimization, while small, can also make a huge difference. Vexorian's map optimizer is a great tool for this.
UI examples
Return of the Dragons = This is a single player campaign, just an FYI.
Ice Trolls = Both great maps to showcase the custom UIs.
Camera Smoothing Examples
Land of Legends 2 Really just one example, but you only need one.
Useful Links:
Vexorian's map optimizer = Excellent Tool for shortening load times and making the game run faster, etc.
Pitzer's Widgitizer = Another excellent tool for shortening load times and helping out with changing custom data.
no limits patch = This is a quick patch that allows you to add more doodads, units, terrain height, etc. then the WE allows
WEU = I love this program. allows you to do so much you can't usually do.
Well I got a bit more carried away then I meant to, but there you go, theres my suggestions ;D.
