AoS Manifest- Custom hero AOS

[Angrypuffin]

I'd like some feedback on my map, Manifest, which I'm releasing here for the first time. It's designed for 4v4 play.

The map is really designed around fixing some of my irritation with prevailing AOS maps, namely:

In most AOS maps:
You have to get killing blows to be rewarded. Support heroes are untenable.
In Manifest:
Reward is shared between all players that participate in a kill. Support heroes, including dedicated healers, are incredibly powerful.

In most AOS maps:
There are dozens of different heroes, but they usually fall into a few basic archetypes.
In Manifest:
You design your hero's attribute progressions (strength, agility, intelligence), range, and move speed. You buy your skills, and they're available to any heroes, in any combination. In the games my friends and I have played, I've seen some very surprising- and viable- heroes.

In most AOS maps:
Your computer ally sucks, because they're basically just an income source for the enemy team.
In Manifest:
Your computer ally is pretty important. They get a share of gold from kills (or, if there are no heroes around, they get all of it), and they use it to upgrade their troops. If the enemy's troops are much stronger than yours, you'll have a rough time. Also, the towers in the middle lane are owned by the computer- but you can invest in them, to upgrade them. Some of these upgrades give you sources of income, which means that taking one of the lanes, upgrading a tower, and living off its income is a viable defensive strategy.

In most AOS maps:
There is no demon realm, where a powerful summoner creates units who venture out into the material world to attack both castles; a realm that slowly destroys any non-demon units that approach it; a realm where a party of determined adventurers can fight or sneak their way in, kill the summoner, and restore... well, some measure of peace to the world.
In Manifest:
There is.

There's more I could say about the map, but perhaps you'd rather just try it? I'm sure there'll be imbalances, bugs, and irritations, and I'd appreciate your feedback. I'd especially appreciate multiplayer (PvP) replays.

 

[Xienoph]

I tried it several times. I used Lich with Frost Nova, Brilliance Aura, and Destruction Orb. I didn't remember the stat gain per level but I put the most points in Int, followed by Agl and Str.

Since I played player vs creeps, I can't comment on the balance.

• The wisps (ability shops) should stop wondering. It's very hard to find which shop has which ability. Maybe you should use miniature of the melee heroes as shops. E.g. Mini tauren chieftain sells his abilities.
• I played as East, but for some reason the West's creeps level up faster than me. I'm not sure why, but maybe the terrain slope has something to do with it?
• I notice that a lot of the tooltips aren't done.
• Does Black Arrow produce minions? I didn't get any minions.
• How are the price of the abilities calculated? Maybe you should put something in the ability tooltips so the players can budget their gold.

Overall, I find it surprisingly not broken (I like how you weaken Phoenix ... I was going to abuse that ). Still can't say if it's balanced though.

 

[Xienoph]

EDUT: Uh ... accidentally posted my response twice. How do I delete this?

 

[Angrypuffin]

Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it.

-I know what you mean about the wisp wandering. It's one of my favorite things, aesthetically, but I know it can be confusing for new players; once you get used to it, though, you generally know what wisp you want and you can just go directly to them. I was thinking of having the west side get their skills from obelisks, color coded in the same fashion. It wouldn't be as explanatory as having ghost versions of the heroes, but do you think that would suffice? Then people who didn't like the wisps could opt for the west side.

-I should probably include a note in the help files that the game auto-balances for "comp stomp" games where the computer has no heroes, by giving them more upgrades. So that's no bug- it's a feature! Player 1 can also type "-hardmode" in the first 60 seconds to go straight to 4v0 balancing- it's quite a challenge for a pair of players, and virtually impossible to solo.

-I'm continuing to work on the tooltips, as I rebalance the skills themselves. I guess it wouldn't be much trouble to put the default tooltips in, for the time being, though.

-Black Arrow, indeed, does not produce minions! For some reason, it's not applying the buff. I don't know why; it applies the buff in normal games.

-The cost of abilities varies from version to version (I'm looking for a system I like); right now it's 300 gold per skill point you get, period, plus an extra 200 for each level of the skill itself. So every level in a skill costs 500 more than the last; and other skills get more expensive as you level your first. I do intend for the Genesis Tower to have an ability you can cast on your heroes that will bring up text explaining how much it will cost to level up their abilities.

 

[Xienoph]

-I know what you mean about the wisp wandering. It's one of my favorite things, aesthetically, but I know it can be confusing for new players; once you get used to it, though, you generally know what wisp you want and you can just go directly to them. I was thinking of having the west side get their skills from obelisks, color coded in the same fashion. It wouldn't be as explanatory as having ghost versions of the heroes, but do you think that would suffice? Then people who didn't like the wisps could opt for the west side.

Now that I've played more, I understand the colour coding. Still, even though I know which wisp I want, because the wisps get close to each other, it's tough to click the right one properly.

-I should probably include a note in the help files that the game auto-balances for "comp stomp" games where the computer has no heroes, by giving them more upgrades. So that's no bug- it's a feature! Player 1 can also type "-hardmode" in the first 60 seconds to go straight to 4v0 balancing- it's quite a challenge for a pair of players, and virtually impossible to solo.

Oh, that makes sense. But ... I tried playing the same build on both sides. And I notice that playing on West is so much harder than playing on East. I also noticed that sometimes the minions return to the spawn point midway. That's probably why it's harder to play on the West.

 

[Jaujarahje]

Some suggestions, In the quests say what each tower upgrade does, and how much better/more effective it gets with each upgrade. Also when upgrading Endurance Aura, despite paying for it, it stopped at lvl 3, I bought all upgrades for it, but it still was stuck at level. Terrain is pretty plain. The gameplay is really fun though, I was just playing against computer creeps and I played about 3 matches in a row trying different builds.
Would be cool if you made map bigger and added better bases (More towers, defenses, etc.) More items for heroes would be cool too. And also prices for spells would be good.

Good map with great replay value

 

[Moridin]

Just wanted to say that your map looks very interesting. I've already downloaded it and I'm probably going to try it with a couple friends tomorrow evening. Will give you feedback then.

 

[Angrypuffin]

Thanks for the feedback, folks! I'd still love to see the PvP feedback if anybody tries it out.

The newest version is in the original post. It's got a couple of additional hero models, and, by popular demand, the wisps have stopped moving.

Jua, the problem you describe with Endurance Aura was just a tooltip error- you were getting full value for your money, it just wasn't updating the tooltip. This has also been fixed.

Also, your Genesis Tower now has an ability you can cast on your heroes that will tell you how much it costs to upgrade your abilities; you can use it in the field, to plan when to come back to base.

 

[Jaujarahje]

Haven't tried new version yet, but was thinking that it would be cool to put in either a vote, or host pick, for how much mana your tower starts with. Just an idea