AoS Twilight Crusade

[Larcenist]

Have you ever played an Aeon of Strife-type map and felt that "This needs more strategy into it"?
Have you ever played a strategy-type map and felt that "This needs more man- to man, real-time action into it"?

I have, and so I had an epiphany; Someone has to make an Aeon of Strife-type map that circulates around strategy.
The result is this:



Twilight Crusade:


Current members of this project:
Larcenist (Triggers)
Flare (Triggers)
TheDamien (Triggers)
WastedSavior (Terrain)


Systems and gameplay:

Unlike a lot of AoS maps circulating the battlenet this one has it's main focus on strategy; tactics and counter-tactics.
With a lot custom systems and available options for each player it will take some quick thinking and a lot of teamwork to last throughout the game.

A few samples of these systems:

Custom Damage detection (Made by TheDamien):

An awesome damage detection system, allowing us to create anything from a fully triggered cleaving attack to unique spells.

Spoiler

Creep-type selection:

In each of the three lanes players can control the abilities of the creeps in any of the lanes. The creeps can be either
defensive, normal or offensive, each and everyone good in their own way with unique custom abilities.

Capturing outposts:

Several outposts are to be spread out across the map, allowing teams to capture them to benefit their team with extra
income and much more.

Creeps with scaling powers:

The power of the creeps spawning for each team will have a power that scales together with the average level of the opposite team's heroes. This to give feeded players a more difficult time.

Possible systems:

Creep control:

Allows player to decrease the amount of creeps spawned in one lane in order to gain some extra force in another one.

Reward system:

Once in a while each player is granted a reward based on the amount of kills/deaths they've got. A natural born killer would
be granted something to help him/her shed innocent blood, while someone who dies a lot would be granted something to help him/her survive.

The terrain (Made by WastedSavior):

The battle takes place on a huge mountain, to give an extra touch to it all. Fight your fights on the mountain or by
the beach.

Spoiler

Unique heroes and abilities (Made by TheDamien, Flare and Larcenist):


The map features unique heroes with just as unique abilities, each and everyone follows the standard "Quality over quantity".
Enhanced with TheDamien's systems to get that little extra.

Current plans:

Instead of adding that Attribute Bonus to each hero that's overused in AoS maps, we're planning on making abilities to fit each hero's gamestyle.

A caster/nuker for example will have a skill that slightly increases the effect of that hero's spells, while a tank will have something to aid him while tanking. Rangers will have a range increasement and similar.

Spell Examples:


Flare's Pyromancer:

Spoiler

Flare's Herbalist:

Spoiler

Larcenist's Heroes:

Paladin:

Spoiler

Witch Doctor:

Spoiler

(New) Overlord:

Spoiler

Stay tuned for updates and further progress.

 

[WastedSavior]

Some other screen shots you can decide if you want to use.

 

[Dakho]

The terraining could be better but overall this is looking good. The custom spells and damage detection looks really awesome and should make this AoS stick out more than others. Should be fun to play once it comes out.:thup:

 

[Larcenist]

The terraining is only the foundations atm, there aint much details or so yet, but we'll get there ^^

 

[Lobster]

This seems like a good game, even though its an aos. ill try it when it gets finsished.

Also twilight crusade is a cool name.

 

[Flare]

The terraining could be better but overall this is looking good. The custom spells and damage detection looks really awesome and should make this AoS stick out more than others. Should be fun to play once it comes out.:thup:

(What Larcenist said). And as regards the spells, we are -possibly- (I'm not 100% sure if everyone wants it) going to make them synergize with each other (positively and, maybe, negatively).

For the positive spell synergy:
You see an enemy on fire, you have a fiery spell. Why shouldn't it re-ignite the target, extending the duration of the effect they were under, OR deal extra damage (burn + burn = more burn, right?)


Let's take an example of negative synergy:
You see an enemy hero who has just been buffed with a fiery spell that grants +50% damage, and he is cutting down your mobs with ease, and you can't risk fighting him directly since the power of his attacks would easily defeat you. You have a water-y spell ready to cast. Water (usually ) beats fire, doesn't it? Why not blast him with the spell, negating the effect of the buff (or weakening it to a fraction of it's previous strength), thus improving your chances of beating him in direct combat, and giving your creeps a chance to fight.

Then there is the other side of the story (where a spell you cast on an ally negates a particular positive effect, since the buffs are opposed)


EDIT: Oh ye, I forgot to mention - If you have any ideas (of anything new, or improvements to what has already been mentioned), let us know. If we have some hero ideas ready to go into production, we can continue working on the map while WastedSavior is perfecting the terrain (and any things the uninformed player will not know about i.e. systems and stuff like that)

 

[UndeadDragon]

I agree with Lobster. Twilight Crusade is a cool name.

Anyways, the map looks fun. You have already said the terrain is just foundation, so that is fine. Overall, it should be a good map to play. Good Luck on it.

 

[Knight7770]

This map will definitely turn out awesomely, as long as the members don't give up. It looks like you've got some pretty good people on your team :thup:

Good luck :thup:

 

[Larcenist]

I do not know the word "Quit", nor the words "Give Up", so I'm afraid I just can't do it. This is sure to be finished. As for the team, It couldn't end up better.

 

[Knight7770]

I do not know the word "Quit", nor the words "Give Up", so I'm afraid I just can't do it. This is sure to be finished.

Well, that's good.

As for the team, It couldn't end up better.

The only way it could be better would be if it had people like AceHart or Ghan_04 or me (just kidding) on it.

 

[Flare]

Well, that's good.

The only way it could be better would be if it had people like AceHart or Ghan_04 or me (just kidding) on it.

Ye, it would be awesome to have someone like AceHart on the team (or any other great mapmaker for that matter) but we should get along just fine with the team we have.

WastedSavior is great at terrain, TheDamien is great with making good systems, me and Larcenist can probably handle most of the spell coding, OneBadPsycho has some good modelling ability, and Sajberhippie and TheLastAce should have some good ideas for us (don't know what else they can do/are doing though, haven't seen either online in a while)

 

[thewrongvine]

To your questions, yes, but AotZ and DoE are pretty good.

This looks very promising. I know the terrain is just the foundation right now but it "annoys" me to see such a promising map have... well... not exactly the best you can do terrain.

For the creep-ability-choosing thing, one thing that gets bugged or annoying, is people massing changes. If you've ever played AotZ or DoE, you know that the barracks can hire creeps but there is a creep counter, maximum of 4 per spawn. Make it so that each player can change an amount of creeps for the send, so like 1 person can make it have 'defensive' and say 1 footman will be defensive; then like 2 people did 'offensive' and like 1 footman and 1 archer would be offensive.

Can't wait for this. :thup:

 

[Larcenist]

The thought is to keep it so that you can have different creep setups in different lanes, say offensive in upper and mid while defensive in bottom lane etc.

Also the terrain is looking somewhat plain since that's just the basics WastedSavior threw together to show us what he had in mind. He hasn't added any details or such since we've got quite a few systems and such (the outpost one for example) that requires some map space, therefore he just put up the basics so that we could distuss further.

 

[Flare]

As regards the spawning things, I believe there is going to be a cooldown associated with the spawns, or else a casting time (so, if you want to counter-act a spawn change, your gonna have to shift your heroes around and do some work)

And the spawn system, from my last discussion with Larcenist, was going to be you choose between Offensive, Defensive or Normal (each being strong against another type, and weak against the remaining type, but you will be able to change creep types if you feel it is a good way to counter the enemy), and you can alternate your spawn numbers between them, but there will be an overall limit as to how many units you can send. But I don't know what the other team members think of this yet

You -COULD- theoretically drop all your defenses and go for one massive push on a single lane, by clearing the spawns from other lanes, but you are leaving your team wide open to a two-pronged attack from two lanes which would comprise of creeps AND heroes (and the opposing team could send 1/2 their total spawns on each of those lanes), but there will probably be a limit on the number of mobs per wave (i.e. you can't have more than 3 extra units to any lane, for example) but that's assuming we allow for greater creep control.

And the problem with allowing only one player to control spawns is obvious. If they share a difference of opinion, you can't guarantee they will do what everyone else thinks is more beneficial for the team, and that's not very strategic.


And I have played both DoE and AotZ (they are two of my favourite maps), but that additional spawn system was more of a temporary solution to an often permanent problem (small little scorpions + normal wave aren't gonna beat back dragon + normal wave)


BTW: Larcenist, do we need suggestions on items for the reward system? And potential categories for giving rewards?

 

[Daskunk]

It sounds nice, but many things sound nice, wether it acually comes out good is another thing.

The names nice, although I can't say it matches up with the map. o.0

Also, how many players is it going to be?

 

[Flare]

5v5 from what I recall.

And the damage detection system/wave spawning/unit indexing systems are complete I think (will need to ask TheDamien to confirm this though), which gives us a good foundation for the abilities, wave spawning and wave configuration.

If you want more info about the system, I'm sure Larcenist can add some info about its features to the main post

The names nice, although I can't say it matches up with the map. o.0

Got a better name?

 

[Daskunk]

Got a better name?

No, not at the minute, or I would have said it...I'm not really very good with names.

 

[Larcenist]

The name will stay unless someone comes with a better suggestion that everyone likes I guess, since at least some people believes it's a rather good name.

As for the systems, the unit indexing, wave spawning and damage detection are in beta stage I guess, since I'm currently trying them out. Hasn't found any glitch so far, so they seem somewhat ready. If you want any more info on any system in particular I guess I can add some info to the main post.

 

[Vestras]

Is it possible to get into this?
I know that you have seen alot of my work, Larcenist (since you have commented it all ), so I don't have to say my skills.
But I'll do it anyway;

JASS, spells, systems (not so much), object editor.

I myself are making an AoS map, but I see no reason why that should stop me joining. Well, my comment.

 

[Larcenist]

We're currently not recruiting since we do not need another person at this point, but thank you for the offer and I'll be sure to let you know if we ever need another person on the team.