Heroes style for a Zone Control Map

[MateoSoetsu]

I have been working on a map based on OgreBattle64 for a long time, but I haven't done much with the Generals yet. Every player will have one General which has a specific name and abilities that no other player will be able to have. Its stats move up faster than other heroes and it has more abilities and more powerful abilities than other units. The question I have is how should I style their abilities. All units in my map are heroes, not all heroes are Generals.

Normal unit heroes have 1 unit ability (usually passive,auto-cast, aura) and another hero ability that gains a level every 7 unit levels. The hero ability can be anything from another passive to a heal or targeted nuke. Each hero has varying amounts of micro'ing required (favoring very little) and uses different gear.

The question is how should I do the Generals abilities?

1. Footman Frenzy style - 3 skills, 1 ultimate, default wc3 spells (some triggers)

2. DOTA style - all triggered spells (not the best option, don't know JASS)

3. Ogrebattle64 spells - keep it simple, just a passive and an active, maybe and ultimate. Try to maintain the lore of the game and make them slightly more powerful than regular units.

4. some other style, plz explain I haven't played every map out there.

And for those of you that don't know how OB64 works, you have a General and anywhere from 5-40 or more units (my game will have less). The Generals aren't much stronger than normal units and they all have a limited number of different attacks. All units level and become stronger and can transform into new units (except the Generals). You use your units to take over towns, and in my map towns mean more shops, more food, and more income for more and stronger units. I've modified the play style to fit an RTS style of wc3. OB64 is more of a turn-based-strategy game. And I've added a lot of new abilities while trying to stay true to the original.

 

[blooman]

well most epople like their spells to be like dota everything customly made
but if your not good at that just go with number 1

 

[MateoSoetsu]

Thx for the response, looking for more opinions.

The reason I would sort of like to avoid DOTA spells, is that the original game lacked such complex abilities. It's not so much hero vs hero as it is small army vs small army, where good micro'ing and countering units w/ others (attack&armor types) won the game.

 

[madd_999]

if the origonal game was simple and you want to keep it like te origonal game.. make it simple..

 

[MateoSoetsu]

Thx, anyone else, been slow lately, I really should've just done a poll, wasn't sure how it worked though.

 

[13lade619]

all triggered / all blizz is not 'really' a problem IMO..
it's about the synergy of the skills together.. and sometimes you just need something simple like a warstomp.

 

[MateoSoetsu]

Also I'm not 100% sure going to add this, but the Generals may get a few additional unit skills: Talk - charms neutral hostiles at low life on a % chance, Make Camp - sets up a tent that puts allies to sleep and heals them overtime.

Here is an example of one possible hero I was thinking of

Magnus - Vanguard
Str based
Aqua Blast - single target nuke (with bonus damage from intelligence)
Blue Spiral - AoE damage spell that has a chance to poison lowering the stats of the enemy, intelligence either increases damage or chance to poison.
Healing - single target heal
Summon Fenrir - Ult triggered version of stampede, wolves are summoned that attack nearby enemies and then disappear.

 

[FhelZone]

Basically I would recommend that you use a hybrid of triggered and non triggered. If you've realized already, the current generation for maps is now different. Look at the biggest projects popping out this time, they have pretty unique systems with them. So at least try to reach beyond the limit to at least acquire some little uniqueness in your game. Go with the WC3 Map 2nd Generation.

1st gens are those map whose mostly based from normal skills and whatsoever with little triggering. But please keep on trying your best to reach your greatest potential. Try helping out others for a while and you'll be better in time.

 

[Nivius]

i personaly dont belive in havving all jass skills. i like skills that work well togather and balanced, if its a good effect or it does some fun things dont realy matter to me. if its well done its well done

 

[MateoSoetsu]

Basically I would recommend that you use a hybrid of triggered and non triggered. If you've realized already, the current generation for maps is now different. Look at the biggest projects popping out this time, they have pretty unique systems with them. So at least try to reach beyond the limit to at least acquire some little uniqueness in your game. Go with the WC3 Map 2nd Generation.

1st gens are those map whose mostly based from normal skills and whatsoever with little triggering. But please keep on trying your best to reach your greatest potential. Try helping out others for a while and you'll be better in time.

Skills are just one part of the bigger pictures. I think my item, class, and magic systems are pretty epic, and I've spent days worth of time building them to be unlike most maps I've played and true to the original.

The question comes down to whether players want heroes similar to ladder games in strength and function or do they want heroes so powerful and unique that the other units aren't worth upgrading items/class. I think the strategy of my map will come down to a mix but I'd really like to avoid max level Generals wtf-owning armies of upgraded units just because they spent all their gold on items for their hero and tomes, etc.

Also I lost my pw, I've been a mapper and thehelper forum troll for years just changed emails awhile ago and couldn't get back my old account.

 

[SanKakU]

i remember zone control from starcraft and i know everything seemed to cost money. perhaps you could make some kind of general abilities that would cost resources to cast. the way you would do it is make a trigger say event a unit starts to cast a spell...confirm he doesn't lose his mana at that point, then just condition he has >= x ammount of gold/lumber then action take away x ammound of gold/lumber else stop casting the spell.

btw you're probably far enough along in your map that you are already doing this...but just in case...
you said your map has every unit is ahero , right? but the gernerals are special heroes? so you should hide the hero icons for the normal heroes...i think you can find that in the object editor unit data fields.

but you probably already know that...but if not...yeah you don't want a line of like 8 or so hero icons on the left of the screen and you can only fnumber select the first 4 i think...

 

[MateoSoetsu]

Ya I already disabled the hero icons for everything but the Generals in the map as well as the score screen. Also the title is a little misleading, its not like a starcraft zone control map, you have a base and you kill creeps and other players and take over small neutral towns and cities to gain more food/resources/shops and to expand your control over the map.

Ex. You can take over a town that is near a bridge to make a choke point for your enemies to enter your land from a given direction and it will give you enough food for a few more units and gold every day you control that town. It will also allow your units to regain hp faster. Towns also serve as points for town portal teleports to move around your units across the map faster or to surround your enemy's base.

There will be a few different types of neutral bases that the players can capture. Towns/Cities/Mines/Farms all that give varying amounts of resources and other benifits.

Edit - Also unrelated but I was also somewhat considering making hero synergies (kind of like Marvel Ult Alliance), since the game is probably going to be 2v2v2v2. An example would be Magnus + Dio gets some synergy related to being gladiators, or Magnus + Ankiseth gets a synergy for being father/son. The only problem w/ that route is that not all characters are related just a majority of them. Also some characters like Magnus are related to a lot of other main characters making him a very well rounded choice, which could be imbalanced.

 

[MateoSoetsu]

Last bump before I make a decision and start working on it. Thx for input!

 

[PrisonLove]

I don't like the idea of single units being able to destroy everything around them. If you are going to have huge unit killing abilities, I would suggest having the abilities cost money so that players now have to make a choice as to what they should spend their money on.

You should have a mix of triggered and stock abilities from the editor. Too many triggered abilities is just too much for someone to take in. That's just my opinion.

 

[MateoSoetsu]

I don't want the generals to get to that point. It isn't 100% about the Generals and their items. Hopefully the right balance will be with a handful (5-10) of strong units that work well with your general's abilities. I don't like the idea of abilities costing gold though. The way you spend your gold in the map is by upgrading the items/class on your units. Gold will actually be something that is pretty limited if you try to get the strongest classes fast. I am also working on a training system, that will let you spend gold to spawn neutral hostile enemies in your base to grind experience. It will help you move up your lower level heroes with the help of your higher level heroes but if an enemy player attacks you during training it can leave you weakened. And the cost/training will also scale with level making it rather expensive if you aren't out expanding your control.

Another question I'd like to ask the public is that all my units have special attack and armor types that counter each other like rock paper scissors. Should the Generals also have these types or should they have a standard 100% damage and like 75% armor or something so they are equally effective at killing and better than average defense.