A few questions regarding custom units/spells.

[GuitaristsBane]

Well, I have a lot of questions, and due to the lack of a good help file with the editor, all I have are these forums

Anyway, I had a strange problem when making some custom skills. I was making a Ward using hero, where he would have 3 types of wards to throw down, each having a seperate special ability (frost attacks, feedback, etc). So I made all the units and skills, set them up (based of the serpent ward skill). Heres the problem I had, even though I set the coordinates of where the skill should be on the hero, they all stack. They are correct in the "learn skill" portion, but they stack. If I pick the leftmost first, they stack on that, if I pick the rightmost, they stack on that etc. My friend has this same problem. I thought about using stasis trap to make another skill, but thats another problem I've had.

Is there any way to take a unit skill, and give it levels? I saw the field to change it to a hero skill, but that just made it a hero skill with 1 level, and no stat box to change it to a 3 level skill.

Another question: Is there a way to change the graphics of a spell? For example, take a skill like Death & Decay, but give it Flame Strike graphics. I tried changing everything I could see in the art catagory, but nothing helped. Also, can you tint graphics like you can heroes? I was thinking about making a black tinted flame strike, but I couldnt see anything for that either.

I also have another stupid question here. I made an AoS, and it worked okay, triggers worked & everything, but for some reason, the AI would target summons like mad. The priority of a unit has something to do with this right? Does a priority of 1 mean its first priority to kill or last? Or am I just on the wrong page completely?

Thanks in advance.

-Edit- Forgot to say I'm using the TFT editor, although its probably apparant (references to Flame Strike).

 

[Darg]

Anyway, I had a strange problem when making some custom skills. I was making a Ward using hero, where he would have 3 types of wards to throw down, each having a seperate special ability (frost attacks, feedback, etc). So I made all the units and skills, set them up (based of the serpent ward skill). Heres the problem I had, even though I set the coordinates of where the skill should be on the hero, they all stack. They are correct in the "learn skill" portion, but they stack. If I pick the leftmost first, they stack on that, if I pick the rightmost, they stack on that etc. My friend has this same problem. I thought about using stasis trap to make another skill, but thats another problem I've had.

Technically you've done nothing wrong, its the fundamental fact that you can't give the same unit more than 1 spell based off the same spell. Thus you can't give a hero 3 ward spells based off the same spell, only 1. As a workaround, you could maybe base 1 off sentry ward and 1 off stasis trap and one off serpent ward. I haven't tried using these 3 spells for 1 hero, though, so I'm not sure if it works or not.

Is there any way to take a unit skill, and give it levels? I saw the field to change it to a hero skill, but that just made it a hero skill with 1 level, and no stat box to change it to a 3 level skill.

Well the field to do that is just a couple of fields or so down from the 'stats - hero ability' field - look for 'stats - levels'.

Another question: Is there a way to change the graphics of a spell? For example, take a skill like Death & Decay, but give it Flame Strike graphics. I tried changing everything I could see in the art catagory, but nothing helped. Also, can you tint graphics like you can heroes? I was thinking about making a black tinted flame strike, but I couldnt see anything for that either.

What you are talking about in the first bit is referred to as 'buff art'. Unfortunately, the ability to change buff art in the editor is one feature blizzard ran out of time to put in before shipping the game. This feature should be added in the future, but for now you can edit the various *abilityfunc.txt files found inside war3x.mpq (just look through them, you'll see the graphics stuff all listed there).

No, you can't change the tinting for flame strike as a spell. The only way to do it is to make flame strike into a unit or doodad or something, and change the tint that way. Having said that, tinting does not work with every single 3d model in the game.

I also have another stupid question here. I made an AoS, and it worked okay, triggers worked & everything, but for some reason, the AI would target summons like mad. The priority of a unit has something to do with this right? Does a priority of 1 mean its first priority to kill or last? Or am I just on the wrong page completely?

Yeah, I think it means first, although no one is 100% clear on which priority numbers mean what. You are not far off in your guessing though, you will just have to observe in the game who is being attacked first and who is attacked last, and then look up their priority numbers in the editor and work from there.

.

 

[GuitaristsBane]

Thanks, but I noticed that when you change a unit spell to a hero spell, the stupid levels field still isnt there :-/

 

[Darg]

If it's not showing, then its probably due to a bug in the editor. Can you please tell me which spell you tried that it's not showing for? I can tell you that I tried making a custom ability from command aura and turned it into a hero spell, and the 'stats - level' field showed up for it, although the 'data' fields did disappear due to an editor bug.

 

[GuitaristsBane]

I was trying it with Rejuvenation (NE version)

 

[Darg]

Sorry for the long delay, I've been really flat out with uni.

I just tried it out, and it does work, but there is a known editor bug coming into play here:

- Changing an object "category" does not automatically refresh the field list, if necessary

This means, that if you make it into a hero ability, you will not see the 'stats - levels' field show up straight away, you have to actually click on any other ability first, and then go straight back to the first ability, and you will see that the levels field has now shown up.

 

[GuitaristsBane]

Thanks for the tip, turns out a friend told me that beforehand, but thanks again Map has been stalled though due to my laziness, and lack of being able to be on a computer whenever I want.

 

[Bomook]

actually, the thing is, when converting a unit skill to a hero skill or vice versa, you first change the skill to whatever you want it (be it a unit or hero skill), then click on any skill in the bar on the left, and it'll show all the fields for that skill. After that, just click back on the skill that you wanted to change, and the appropriate fields should be there.

 

[Darg]

Bomook: maybe I explained it badly, but I think you just rehashed what I said before

 

[Bomook]

hmmm... I don't know how I missed it . Oh well, in the summertime I'm almost nocturnal, so my eyes were half-open when I was reading ... you explained it fine, btw

 

[Darg]

lol

what's the deal with most gamers leading nocturnal lives?!?!