[Contest] Hero Contest 1#

[warden13]

Ergoth the Necromancer​

Disabler/Nuker Intellgience Based Hero.

Firstly, I have to say this. My english is not good so, if you see any spelling error please don't blame me. And i made the spell icons harmonious i hope you enjoy them ^.^ I made the map easy to test with some stuff. You can think numbers are imbalanced if you compare them with Dota but don't care about them numbers can change : ) And skill synergy is very good if you use them good.

If you find any bugs or suggestions please tell me. Thanks.

Edit: I will make this with 10 level and change something.
Edit2: My Hero is OK Now. Check it.

warden13​

 

[Rheias]

To clear a few matters...

> Mod joining would lead this to stiky lol

That fact that a moderator entered the contest doesn't make it an instant sticky. It got stickied because it is active and has some point to it.

Let's try to keep the thread cleaner from now on, 95% of the posts are as close as it gets to be deleted.

A note about contests approval. Consider your contest approved only if it doesn't get locked in a few days. If you want a reward you need at least 10 submissions and the contest to be somewhat professional.

 

[Daskunk]

17+ pages in a few days, holy crap, how did I miss this

perhaps I may join this, got nothing better to do right now

Mostly got 17 pages so fast because of spam and me not making things clear so people ask lots of questions..

 

[needshelpplz]

k

"Disabler/Nuker Intellgience Based Hero."

I tried it.

The icons are well done.
The map is useful to test it on.
You should only make it go up to level 10 (like other melee map heroes).
You should also work on the special effects some more so your abilities look cooler.

 

[Pyrogasm]

So, nedshelpplz, you have... 7 abilities for your worm? I think there's something wrong with that. I also think that having 3 passives is a bad idea.

Parasitic Worms: 50 mana, 10 sec cooldown, autocastable
Infects the target with a parasitic worm, doing initial damage and giving vision of the target. Lasts 120 seconds and if the target dies with this effect, a small worm is created.

Level 1 - Does 40 initial damage and spawns lvl 1 worm.
Level 2 - Does 80 initial damage and spawns lvl 2 worm.
Level 3 - Does 120 initial damage and spawns lvl 3 worm.

How is that any different from a parasite that, instead of dealing damage over time, deals all the damage immediately?

Annelidian Metabolism: Passive
Makes the giant worm attack and move faster as well as absorb some of the enemy's health when it attacks. This ability also affects smaller worms created by the giant worm.

Level 1 - Increases attack speed, movement and life steal by 8%.
Level 2 - Increases attack speed, movement and life steal by 14%.
Level 3 - Increases attack speed, movement and life steal by 20%.

So it's Endurance Aura and Vampiric Aura that affect only himself and his worms.

Asexual Reproduction: Passive
Giant Worms can reproduce asexually, new worms will form from the detached cells of the giant worm. When attacked there will be a 0.5 * damage taken % chance to spawn a new worm. Also gives a health regeneration bonus.

Level 1 - Chance to spawn lvl 1 worm and +2 hps regeneration.
Level 2 - Chance to spawn lvl 2 worm and +3.5 hps regeneration.
Level 3 - Chance to spawn lvl 3 worm and +5 hps regeneration.

The way of spawning worms is unique, I'll give you that... but here's the thing to keep in mind when making spells:

A spell that does one thing should do it well; a spell that does two things should do each moderately well; a spell that does three things should do each badly.​

Nearly all of your spells have 2 or 3 effects that are all pretty good, and I would tone them down a bit or simply remove some of the effects.

Subterrainian Travel: Passive
Allows the giant worm to move while underground (so it can move under trees, cliffs and stuff). The giant worm still cant attack and still loses sight range while underground. (it's useful to use parasites with this ability to make up for lost sight range). Enemies under the giant worm while underground will have their movement and attack speed reduced.

Why not remove the basic burrow ability and make this an active ability?

Let's try to keep the thread cleaner from now on, 95% of the posts are as close as it gets to be deleted.

I really don't understand why this is such a problem. For pete's sake it's a thread on a website! It's not the voting thread; it's not a serious discussion thread; it's not a thread filled with random spam posts; this is a thread regarding the contest. For the voting thread, sure, I would endorse your statement because that could become a pain to count through... but not here; what does it matter?!

So what if someone like emjlr3 has to look through 17 pages of posts before he knows what the hell is going on? Boo hoo. Too bad he has to use his eyes. Maybe he'll actually learn something useful by reading the thread.

 

[emjlr3]

highly doubtful

just to clear a few things up

its a thread on a website, one that we moderate(and by moderating I mean keeping idioticness to a minimum), a thread full of spam, and as such, and as all other threads, it should stay clean, regardless of what the topic is

i will not look through 17 pages of a thead, riddled with crap, to try and discern the true meaning, using my eyes to see 17 pages of crap is enough in tiself

 

[needshelpplz]

lol

"So, nedshelpplz, you have... 7 abilities for your worm?"

Well it's 4 hero abilities and up to 3 non-hero abilities which are related to the ultimate.

"I also think that having 3 passives is a bad idea."

Well technically the ultimate isn't a passive but rather a completely new active, but it will appear to the user as a passive. He is an extremely low int hero (worms are stupid) so giving him too many mana costing abilities could be problematic.

Actually, i was having a bit of problems with the initial burrow because i don't want him to have both the old burrow and the new burrow (i.e. ultimate) at the same time. So i have to remove the old burrow every time he learns the new one or burrows and unburrows using triggers. I might remove the initial burrow.

"How is that any different from a parasite that, instead of dealing damage over time, deals all the damage immediately?"

How is it different? Well it gives sight so it can be used in combination with the ultimate. :O (faery fire ftw) I could make it deal damage over time or an armor reduction bonus. I choose to do the damage at once so it is more comparable and easier to balance with other abilities. What do you think is the best way to balance this ability?

"So it's Endurance Aura and Vampiric Aura that affect only himself and his worms."

Yeah. What values do you think I should use for balance or do you think there is a better ability I could use?

"The way of spawning worms is unique, I'll give you that..."

That's what I was going for.

"Nearly all of your spells have 2 or 3 effects that are all pretty good, and I would tone them down a bit or simply remove some of the effects."

The 3rd one is the one I am most concerned about simply because both effects are not very comparable with anything else in the game. Unholy aura is somewhat comparable with the regen bonus but it is an aura (so affects like your entire army) and is percent based (which could be overpowered in combination with his high strengh).

As for the chance to spawn a worm, currently he spawns one on average for every 200 hp lost; what value do you think is appropriate? Initially, i was thinking of just having the chance to spawn worms but i realised if the enemy avoids attacking you it quickly becomes useless (so more, weaker abilities = spread out the benefit thus more balance ).

I guess it also depends on how strong the mini worms are. I was planning to make them slightly weaker than the Crypt Lord's beetles or the Dark Ranger's dark minions and decay after a period of time (unlike the beetles). Maybe something like:
lvl 1 - 150 health, 8 damage attack
lvl 2 - 250 health, 14 damage attack
lvl 3 - 350 health, 20 damage attack

I don't know, what do you think is balanced?

Also, what values should i use for the hero attributes? I was thinking:
28 strength (+3.15 per level), 56 @ level 10
15 agility (+1.70 per level), 30 @ level 10
10 int (+1.15 per level), 20 @ level 10

Anyway, if you want to attempt to balance my worm hero, then please try. ^_^

 

[Joker(Div)]

I'm Joining.

Edit: Have a better required setup for your heroes. I don't understand what your asking for. Organize that post better. Show how the points are gonna be given. (i.e. Coding = 5 Points, etc.) Also, get someone to delete useless posts. It is pointless to keep some of them. Like the posts that are beating down on emijr for complaining about the 17 pages he has to read through.

 

[Knight7770]

It might be less time-consuming, but it wouldn't be more effective. The new thread wouldn't be stickied, and no one would know about it.

 

[Daskunk]

Edit:[/b] Have a better required setup for your heroes. I don't understand what your asking for. Organize that post better. Show how the points are gonna be given. (i.e. Coding = 5 Points, etc.)

What isnt clear? Coding = 5 points?!??! It says how voting is done plenty good... By public poll.. (Kind of, read the first post!)

 

[Joker(Div)]

What isnt clear? Coding = 5 points?!??! It says how voting is done plenty good... By public poll.. (Kind of, read the first post!)

This is what I mean.

In this contest, you must make a hero that goes together well, and is fun to use.
EXAMPLE: Archmage. All icons and spells have a blue theme. He has an aura which increases mana regeneration, and abilities that cost a lot of mana, and pretty low cooldown. His aura goes well with his other abilities because of that. He can use water elementals to take damage while he casts blizzard, or fires from a range. He's INT which also goes well with low cooldown and high mana cost spells.His attack, and all of his spells, are range, and, being a spell caster, this is good. You can also summon a water elemental and mass TP to it with his ult.. Generally, everything fits together well to make a fun hero.

This is in a paragraph. The bolded parts are the only sources of a hero setup. The rest is just an example. Paragraphs != Neat Layout

1. People submit their heroes.
2. People on the forum playtest the maps for the heroes.
3. Anybody and everybody can vote publicly by posting in the poll thread. Every voter can give 2 points; they can give 1 point to each of their two favorites, or they can give 2 points to just one submission. Perhaps they only want to give out 1 point.
4. People's votes only count if they give a valid, acceptable reason for doing so. E.G: "I liked hero X for A, B, and C. It did have a flaw due to D, but overall it was the best hero of the bunch."
5. After some time, the public voting is closed.
6. Votes are counted manually by someone (a moderator or the contest runner) and then shown.
7. Either the top 4 contestants or all of them are then reviewed by 1 or 2 judges and given an X/100 score for their coding.
8. Points given in votes and the judging score are then combined in some way to yield a total score that determines the "winner".

This is what I'm talking about. Judges should not be able to just pull a number from 0-100 out of their ass. They need a setup.

 

[needshelpplz]

yeah

Yeah, we will need categories or a judge guideline for them to follow. Categories can include:

Icons
Models
Skinning
Animation
Effects
Map
Fun
Balance
Uniqueness
Variety (i.e. not all abilities are the same)
Theme
Tool tip
Hero Attributes
Easy to use
Whatever

 

[Ashcat]

Yeah, we will need categories or a judge guideline for them to follow. Categories can include:

Icons
Models
Skinning
Animation
Effects
Map
Fun
Balance
Uniqueness
Variety (i.e. not all abilities are the same)
Theme
Tool tip
Hero Attributes
Easy to use
Whatever

Second ^.^

 

[Pyrogasm]

No, needshelpplz, Ashcat and Joker(Div), you don't need a listed setup or any guidelines. Everything that you mentioned, needshelpplz, is something that people should factor in when they cast their votes. Every single thing.

You're saying that while testing heroes you wouldn't look at any of the things you mentioned and that you would leave that up to the judges? I sure hope not. The point of having a public poll is that you can weed out all the heroes that don't have good balance, theme, variety, and whatnot because people simply won't (or at least in theory they won't) vote for those heroes.

Some people may not be interested in looking specifically at code (though I would hope most are), but they can't ignore the other stuff they see upon testing a hero (which is the stuff you mentioned). That is why the judges specifically nitpick as much as they can about the code and then grade on that.

The X/100 is just a way of symbolizing how well the judge thinks the specific submission was. If hero A has poor coding it might receive a 40/100 for coding; if hero B then also has poor coding but the judge thinks it was slightly better than hero A, the judge might give it a 45/100.

Of course, the judges shouldn't just post something that says "Hero A - 50/100; Hero B - 32/100; Hero C - 88/100". They should give good, solid reasons and reviews of the code. For example, check out my reviews of spells for the "Christmas Spell Contest". That is what I would expect from the judges.

The other reason for having judges is to making the "winner" be forced to be an all-around winner. He/she might have great ideas and concepts for the hero with neat, flashy abilities... but if he/she doesn't code for beans and does the triggering horribly, there is a lower chance he/she will win. However, a person who might not get as many votes in the public poll but has flawlessly-coded, challenging-to-code spells will probably end up in a better position that the first entrant.



I still don't see what the problem is with "useless posts". If you think they're useless then don't bother to read them. Everything you should need to know is in the first post. If you're not willing to read about the contest then I don't think you should join the contest.

its...a thread full of spam

Where?! Show me spam. I see none. I see talking. Show me spam from this thread and you may have a point.

Well it's 4 hero abilities and up to 3 non-hero abilities which are related to the ultimate.

4 abilities. No more, no less. I would consider "3 non-hero abilties" to be against the contest rules.

Yeah. What values do you think I should use for balance or do you think there is a better ability I could use?

I think there are simply too many effects. Also, I don't find it to be original.

How is it different? Well it gives sight so it can be used in combination with the ultimate. :O (faery fire ftw)

I meant Parasite + Faerie Fire >< I guess having it grant sight is a useful bonus, but then you're going with the 3 effects for 1 ability thing again. Also, wouldn't it be pretty annoying to randomly lose sight of your hero and then not be able to select him or order him to do anything?

I would love to help you balance your abilities, but I think it would be best to have a test map to test them out in first. Once you get a testmap up I'll fool around with the hero and see what I can say about it specifically.

 

[Ashcat]

Well this is the first hero contest I've ever really been in, actually the first of any contest, so I'll just assume you know what you're talking about. >.> In my opinion, it could be done either way, but okay. :l

 

[foodflare]

pyrogasm is right when you vote you are supposed to look at all that stuff and then give reasons, its only polite.

 

[Pyrogasm]

Want proof that it works, Ashcat? Here:

• http://www.wc3campaigns.net/showthread.php?t=88296
• http://www.wc3campaigns.net/showthread.php?t=89669
• http://www.wc3campaigns.net/showthread.php?t=90146
• http://www.wc3campaigns.net/showthread.php?t=90832

 

[Ashcat]

I didn't ever beleive your method wouldn't work >.<

 

[needshelpplz]

p

"You're saying that while testing heroes you wouldn't look at any of the things you mentioned and that you would leave that up to the judges?"

No, we are saying that it would be extremely useful to have a guideline for the judges to follow so they can give different points for each category. F.ex why do they have categories when judging figure skating?

"The point of having a public poll is that you can weed out all the heroes that don't have good balance, theme, variety, and whatnot."

No, no, we were suggesting having a judge guideline after the initial bad ones are weeded out through a public poll.

"A has poor coding it might receive a 40/100 for coding; if hero B then also has poor coding but the judge thinks it was slightly better than hero A, the judge might give it a 45/100."

That happens too in a categorized judging system; the second submission would do better in the non-coding areas.

"The other reason for having judges is to making the "winner" be forced to be an all-around winner."

Again, that wont change with a categorized system.

Also, if it is just going to be arbitrary then it should be out of ten rather than out of 100.

"I would consider "3 non-hero abilties" to be against the contest rules."

Actually the contest rules allow for morphs to have different abilities. If you said no non hero abilities then many melee heroes would not be legal in this contest including priestess of the moon, warden, naga sea witch, panda brewmaster, etc.

"I think there are simply too many effects."

You mean abilities, not effects.

"Also, wouldn't it be pretty annoying to randomly lose sight of your hero and then not be able to select him or order him to do anything?"

Maybe, but you could reselect your hero using the f1 key or clicking on the hero icon. It's supposed to be a weakness.

"I would love to help you balance your abilities"

you wont even suggest values?

 

[Pyrogasm]

I can't suggest values because I haven't seen it in action. I don't really know how strong those abilities are; I only think they seem imbalanced to me on paper.

Actually the contest rules allow for morphs to have different abilities. If you said no non hero abilities then many melee heroes would not be legal in this contest including priestess of the moon, warden, naga sea witch, panda brewmaster, etc.

PotM doesn't have a morph; Warden doesn't have a morph (she has a summon); the Naga Sea Witch doesn't have a morph; the Brewmaster has a morph. Does your hero have a morph? No; it can burrow into the ground.

I don't see anything wrong with, say, having a summon that has 1 (maybe 2) abilities or giving the hero the "hide" ability, if it was intended to be a Night-Elf hero... but random unit abilities on the hero do not fall into either of those two categories.

You mean abilities, not effects.

No, I mean effects. Your first ability does three things (grants sight, does damage, and spawns minions); your second ability does three things (movement speed, attack speed, and lifesteal); your third ability does two things (spawns minions and grants health regeneration); your ultimate does four (maybe only 3) things (removes pathing, slows enemies, jumps worm out of ground, and moves ground above him).

Too many effects.

No, we are saying that it would be extremely useful to have a guideline for the judges to follow so they can give different points for each category.

What categories are the judges judging? There's only one they are judging and it's called "Coding". The judges are not basing any score they give on what the spells do, what the tooltips are, how the hero fits his theme, how useful the hero is, or anything of that sort. They are simply reviewing the hero's code.

Having them give scores for any of the things you mentioned would effectively mean that the judges are no longer judges but rather people whose votes count for a vast amount more than anyone else's.

I didn't ever beleive your method wouldn't work >.<

I know, but you also did say you haven't entered any contests before and that you assumed my method would work; thus, I showed you it works.