Map Critique and Debugging. [1st post!]

L

Laika.

Guest
Hello, this is my first post here. I'm a new map maker and I've been working on this map for the past few days (and lurking around here as well). The map finally has enough content to require some critique, however it lacks any gameplay triggers/elements at this point (or terrain). This map was made entirely from stratch (triggers, heros, abilities), save the inspiration which is from the White Wolf RPG: Exalted.

I'm a fairly skilled programmer so I decided to jump in full force with my first project.

This map is a combination AoS/Hero Arena multiplayer game with 2 teams. I've been playing WC3 for quite some time and have played mostly custom games and I was interested in trying to create a new way of aquiring skills and abilities. That where Exalted comes in...

Skills in Exalted:
Skills in this RPG are sorted by ability (Archery, Melee, Awareness, Athletics, etc) and are in the form of a tree (i.e like the normal game's tech-tree) where each skill has only 1 level of power yet the tree as a whole provides a range of power and versitility for the character.

I have been working towards implementing this idea by having abilities being 'purchased' with lumber at a building which has 1 tree of abilities. Considering the maximum of 7 accessable slots for active abilities, most of the abilities are passive (upgrades or triggers). Each tree has roughly 5-8 skills and each character has 3 trees of abilities. And each tree has 3 tiers (abilities costing 1 lumber and tier 1, 3 at tier 2 and 5 at tier 3). It is not possible for any one hero to get all the abilities available to them. That was done to allow the creation of more diverse choices from a smaller hero set.

Also, I've been tinkering with the normal balance formula attempted by most hero based maps (i.e big numbers LOL) by making the heros stats relatively low/weak and making the abilities considerably more powerfull to give more meaning to your skill choice.

Game Setup:
1 Hero per player, 9 total.
Max level of 25. (Exp rate increased from default)
2 teams of 4 players each.

Hero Arena Mode:
A common game type, simply a ring in which to fight, and a base in which to buy items. Goal: First to reach a specified number of kills.

AoS Mode:
A game type currently popularized by DOTA. This is a 2 lane AoS with a faster pace, hopefully will include more advanced features such as item recipes as the map reaches completion. Goal: Destroy opposing teams 'Headquarters'

Currently I have 3 of the 9 heros implemented and 5 of the 9 skills mostly done.

I am aiming for a game time of 15-25 minutes.

If anyone has any comments on these ideas please let me know. =] (No balance suggestions please.)

Also, If anyone would like more info on my design documentation (skill sets, heros, abilities) or trigger-coding, I would be glad to post it. If you're interested in the RPG I was inspired from (a great tabletop game) please refer to Introduction to Exalted.

CURRENT ALPHA IS ATTACHED (ver. a0.5)

KNOWN BUGS (Anyone willing to help? =]):
-Activated Item (Anima: Essence Deflection) may only be used once.
-!repick (hero reselect) does not reset tech tree (though i think it should)
-Spellbooks (on the Twilight Occultist) do not sort poperly, nor do they display the correct spell list (3 spellbooks, all display all of the spells, not just the ones listed in their ability on the object manager).
- "Anima" type items (activatable) do not display the "mana" symbol or the mp cost of the ascociated ability in their tool tip. (I manually added them as quick fix.)

QUESTIONS:
-I've heard mention of certain 'memory leak' issues, could anyone with some technical knowledge point these problems out to me and/or how to avoid them.
-Also, I read some things about map optimization, could anyone point out some common pitfalls regarding this or a resource for doing it.

NOTES:
-This map was made in the GUI TFT WE.
-Thanks for reading my first post =p
 
Impressive start, especially for a first map. Programming expierience seems to help.

I am not certain about lag, but I think it is things like your
Initiaisation -> Start Region Visible -> going through each player instead of doing one loop like in the show dialog trigger.
 
Ah, ok =] I'll try to loop more repeated actions then. If you'd like to help me fix any of those 'known bugs' I'd really apperciated it. Also, I'll probably update the post with another alpha with more content if interested (Hoping to get this map roughed out and playable asap!)
 
first of ure map has GREAT sence in magic and i very much like it on the other hand i also like the thing with lumber so micro is more of an option which is good in these games now i only played 1 character and i can say that u did a good job (druid) although i dont find the map very interesting but i think ull get working on it becouse its a little bit flat and red :) anyways a nice map for ure first one
 
Flat and red indeed. I'm hoping to fix that soon XD
But most likely i'll get most of the abilities working first.

PS. Thanks for checking out my map =p
 
Your problem with the "Essence deflection" item is vexing, and probably deserves a thread of its own. I cannot see why the game doesn't let your ability work. The "Player - Set the current research level of Arrow Storm Technique to 0 for (Triggering player)" Says down the bottom that you can't unlearn tech with this. Maybe the setting below - set max research level to X - could do something? But it seems unlikly,possibly there is something on thios already in the forum? ther is a search bar you could try.

In actual fact all your "known bugs" are completely beyod my scope! Oh well, I tried. The only thing I can even try is to re-balnce the sircle user, and give him three seperate spellbook-items, in the hope this sorts the problem out.
 
KNOWN BUGS (Anyone willing to help? =]):
-Activated Item (Anima: Essence Deflection) may only be used once.
- "Anima" type items (activatable) do not display the "mana" symbol or the mp cost of the ascociated ability in their tool tip. (I manually added them as quick fix.)

FIXED BUGS:
-Spellbooks work now =] I gave each one a different base order id, that was the problem.
-removed !repick from map. I may reimplement it after v1.0 is finished.
 
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