Near-finishing project: Battledawn - The Aeon of Legend

Battledawn - The Aeon of Legend (OVERHAULED!)

New map is found here!
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/m...legend-256177/

Map Description
Two armies are fighting a desperate war with steel, magic and beasts in this Aeon of Legend. The only hope of your people lies in a great hero, that you must choose yourself. Will this be the legendary hero that along with fearless warriors will stand victorious and save your people?

Battledawn is an epic AoS map that aims give you an astounding experience of fighting in an epic war of Warcraft3 in a beautifully drawn and well designed map, where you must fight alongside your allied forces using both heroes and all units from the original game. Battledawn will retain the feeling of Warcraft3 (and many original abilities), but in a more action packed, cinematic way, with sieges on epic defenses, hero combats and grand battles. Use your repertoire of both old and new tactics to the fully, take advantage of the dominant terrain. The computer spawned forces attacks with all sorts of units, paths and tactics to win the war, and so should you. The best way to describe Battledawn is simply... Epic.

This map, being under construction for about 4 years, it's beginning to feel like a life project. I'm actually proud to tell it's soon nearing completion, slowly but surely. And it has been worth it; me and my 3-5 local playtesters have had an awesome time testing the map. One of the guys bought the game to play this map online when it comes, even though he's no big fan of War3. So naturally me, and my players helping me out with concepts, ideas and balance, are all eager to see it on the web.
(And now I need a crew of experienced playtesters with skill and qualification to rate maps after having the patience to learn it, to test how this works on the net. And further I would really appreciate if I met some experienced mappers to work with to make a finishing touch on the map (importing graphics, cleaning up triggers, possible leaks etc). I'll gladly admit that I suck technically; I'm an artist, a visionaire, and one that has played strategy games all his life. I'm nothing much when it comes to programming. The map runs purely on GUI triggers, and the WC3campains.net community shall have much credit for making this work.

The Author's Notes below is something I wrote a couple of years ago during design, and it may give a hint of how the map works and the idea behind it.




Features/Author's Notes

The starting concept of this map was an addition to the Aeon of Strife genre. But as the work progressed, it seemed that this map will have it's own unique style, in which me and my co-designers have improved over the course of four(!) years!. First of all, players will recognize much of Warcraft3's original features and units, even heroes. I addition to your chosen hero, you may buy and command every unit that is found in war 3 (human and orc), including other surprises. You may buy units where ever on the map your hero is. This makes it possible to use original tactics, both macro and micro to achieve your goals.

I find the aesthetics of a map is very important. How it all looks gives a certain feeling of play. So this has almost been a priority for us, and spent extreme amounts of time on improving it. "First make it look/feel good, then balance it" has been my policy from the start. The terrain shifts in style throughout this huge epic map, all with exciting places to explore. Battledawn's bases/buildings are placed logically around the land, and blends naturally in with a fitting terrain.
I found it boring that most maps of this kind were more or less symmetrical, flat and dull. Not only the terrain, but also how the computer forces spawn and attack. Same waves running the same paths over and over. Battledawn will keep surprising you as the computer attacks each other with archer rows, catapults, spells, fliers, and everything in the repertoire of units, new combinations and paths every time. Some times the Horde will push the Alliance back over the mountain on the right side, forest on the left side, through the main battlefield or any cunning way spawned by the semi-random waypoint system, and some times a suppressed Alliance will launch fantastic counter attacks from their great defense. Just looking at the game in single player without controlling anything is actually worthwhile and you may see a lot of awesome scenes. So besides having both the terrain and the behavior feel natural and exciting, the next big part was to balance it all. First many months (and counting) of running Battledawn without any player influence, then hundreds of games including player and heroes, improving one thing at a time. Getting that part right took even more time than the lush terrain to make. After hard work, it seems that Battledawn kept both the balance and the aesthetics.

Another difference to most other AoS maps is how you acquire gold; A footman should aid the alliance, not be a friggin' walking purse for the enemy, as in so many other maps of the type. This really frustrated me and I wanted to go for another approach.
So how do you get gold? Primarily, your buildings produce gold for you. A farm makes 4 gold every minute, a Town Hall makes 32, etc. Thus protecting your buildings, even thouse far off in dangerous places (it's a huge map) is the key to keep an upper hand on the enemy. Secondly, you may find throngs of creeps through the land in which you may loot for both gold and random item drops. Items may be sold. Gold Coins powerups are also spread throughout the land for the eager explorer to find. More importantly, there are three gold-spawning "control-points" on strategical places on the map. You will get control of these by destroying all enemy units guarding it. While your Hero often is needed other places, sending units to capture these points is wise. Another very important thing about these control points is that you may Town Portal to them (as well as to all key buildings). The strategical gain of this is priceless in a game of Battledawn.

So try out many different things to defeat your enemy; Perhaps join the battle with the large armies in the middle, you may go out and creep for gold and items, hire special mercenaries, find secret places or portals hiding deep in the terrain, and indulge in an action packed world. There are a percentage of global XP destribution, so moving your hero through desolate places to attack at clever places doesn't necessarily make you lagg behind in the "XP race". Use your hero in smart ways. If you manage to receive a control point on the far away mountain, reinforcements may teleport in.


Battledawn is much about survival. Survival, and then naturally Town Portal scrolls (each having 3 charges in Battledawn). If you die you will drop your collected items to the ground, and resurrection will take longer than usual in AoS's. Based on the level of the hero, resurrection time can range from approximately 0.5-3 minutes.
This is long enough to give the other team an advantage. This might be a little hardcore and may sound unforgiving, but it's not really; It's easy to double-click on your Town Portal scroll to butt out of combat in time. This will automatically teleport your hero to the epic locations of Altar of Kings/Storms (which regenerates your life and mana at a very fast rate). Should you die however, and must wait a minute for resurrection, you may still buy and command troops and well micro-managing these. When your hero dies it's no time to get bored, it's just when you have to work extra hard ;)

Pop-up-hints gives both instructions about the maps and good advices. Those roughly covers the basics of the map and should be a great help for beginners.


Additional info

(Some of this is explained above)

The basics of the map is simple. Both teams have a heavily fortified castle. Ultimately, the objective is as simple to destroy this in order to win the game. But how to get there is the real trick. All buildings on the map serves a purpose, and what is as important as destroying your opponents buildings is to guard your own. Buildings can not be built during a game of Battledawn, but workers can of course repair them. A short overview on the buildings:

Barracks - Produces computer controlled forces that attack at random designated waypoints.
Also lets you buy your own units under your command. <br>
Town HallGreat Hall - Produces a steady income of gold, at 32 gold every minute.<br>
Keep/Stronghold - Very important building. Works both as a Barracks and Town Hall.<br>
Farm - Creates 4 gold every minute
Arcane Sanctum/Spirit Lodge - Sells items, scrolls etc.
Forge - Sells a few useful items, orbs, and let you upgrade your own units, as normal.
Workshop - Sells most siege units.
The Castle/Fortress - Critical Building. Sells almost every unit, otherwise works as a keep that produces 48 gold every minute.
The Altar - Resurrects your hero. Sells "Legendary items". Replenishes life and mana of allies.
And of course you may visit neutral buildings scattered around the map, like the Goblin Observatory, the Tavern, Mercenary Camps, Merchants etc.

The Legendary Items sold at the Altar is REALLY expensive (but fun!) items powerful enough to shift the balance of the map (if used right). The Alliance and the Horde has each of their own 6-7 unique Legendary Items that awaits to be tested out against the enemy.

Notice that although all the unit's relative stats is more or less kept, but the thing you will notice first is that every unit in the game has a halved max hit points value. This is both for the making battles more "furious", fast paced and action packed and to set a little more focus on the heroes than usual. Upon reaching level 15 (max level, seen now and then in longer games)m your hero is no less than a one man army with a serious job to do.

Hero selection is important. Each of the 12 heroes have unique skills, and serves different purposes. As you may have understood yet, I like to keep orignal elemetnts fom Warcraft 3, so a few original heroes (although they may reach level 15 and get level 4 skills and level 2 ultimate) exists, and most skills are close to original. I like the original blizzard skills and heroes better than the flashy heroes you see all over battlenet, and really think it helps holding the original Warcraft 3 feel. But of course, a few of the skills will really surprise you as well.

Remember In the end Battledawn is about WarCraft units macro, micro and teamwork rather than just a hero.

PS; Another last thing with the map is that there are really powerful units that you can acquire trough mini-quests, if you invest the needed time and effort in it. When you suddenly bring in Triumph the Floating Fortress I will guarantee that both you and your enemies will be surprised of how awesome this unit is!

Well, hope you will enjoy playing Battledawn - The Aeon of legend as much as we do, and I hope my efforts will give other Warcraft players a good gaming experience!

I'd love to beta test, this sounds awesome, especially if you've put years of work into it.

I can host and I play on a non-official server, so therefore we can cover a broader spectrum of players.

There is a lot of text so I won't read it now, but please do add an upload link so that the map can speak for itself.

Thanks man, that would be awesome. And true, the map can certainly speak for itself, and I dare promise you won't be disappointed. :) (reading the author's notes could give a good preparation, though).

I will need a couple of more tests together with my local group to try out a few balance mods etc, but i'm pretty sure I will have the product ready for StageII Beta in a matter of weeks.

So I hope this thread and the thread on the 'map playtesting'-forum will dig up more players to join.

Cheers.

Does people have the same issues with other AoS maps as I do? Flat, symmetrical terrain with un-inspired scripted warfare and the same boring mobs all the time. Why is hero-abilities in such a focus while the map itself -the very game dynamic- suffer a tragic death?

This is a question that really bothers me.

Wow, this seems really amazing. I mean, I've probably worked on my custom races project for about the same amount of time; but it's really been off-and-on, breaks for months at a time, and I haven't gotten nearly as much done as you have. Well done, can't wait to check it out.

Unfortunately, as to your query;


I can't say I completely concur. I agree, AoS's (and maps in general) could always benefit from better terraining and expert triggers, etc... But for me, when I play an AoS, I'm looking for
- cool custom models,
- cool hero ideas,
- awexome, innovative spell ideas.

Meh. Just IMHO.

Ok, but that's an honest answer, and respectable. Your three points of interest isn't that much present in Battledawn (but of course there are some, and especially the epic items).

I mostly like the original Blizzard work which I KNOW is balanced, and I KNOW how to play, all set in a new scenario. All new flashy abilities in an otherwise plain map doesn't amuse me as much, and I have seen too much bad of the sort.

I still believe new-abilities-fans would really like the map, though. And probably be interested in making a new version with custom abilities. But this isn't in my present interest.

After a so long intro, you just do not give us the map ????

Couple of reasons. I've yet a few finishing touches to work with, and I'd like to gather some interested people for a pre-planned playtest. That's why I'm a bit early out with this thread.

And it would be interesting to know if most people regard custom models/abilities as the most important thing in a map. It would certainly not make the map better than is, but if it "sold" better on on Bnet for that reason, I'd consider making a version with more flashy stuff, so the kids have something to amuse them while the strategists enjoy the map structure

We try to aim at a broad audience without overdoing it ;)

Can we see some screenshots of it when it gets closer to completion?

Yeah, screenshots would be good.

Additionally, many of the features that you describe sound as though they would contribute to a longer, more defensive gameplay style. Is this true?

Screen shots is no problem, as the actual terrain was completed a few years ago ;) I'll get to work on this tonight.

Shade; Good question. For the length of a game, a normal game of Battledawn takes about 40 minutes. I've also seen games ending in 20 minutes and another 2 hours (!), that that's extreme.

But it doesn't really have to be more defensive. If you see three opponent heroes has brought in catapults and stuff to take down an important stronghold, you could always try to attack yourself and try to make the same damage. This is very dangerous though. If the enemy manages to take down your Stronghold and Town Portals back to save their own just in time, you've lost an important battle in a could-be long game.

But yes, considering the best way to win (having played the map too many times) I think caring about a good defence is the most important. Good defence, and precision attacks. Bring in siege weapons, dragons, whatever to strike with precision and power in the right time.

I think just that is what's important. As we know attack may be the best defense, I think Battledawn is much about timing. If you play the Horde and you see they suddenly have fifty units attacking at some place, you should really try to move your hero out and aid this assault. So compared to other maps, it's not as static. You should try to follow what's happening on the mini-map and go with the flow. Work on your timing.

An offensive game is very useful if you manage to hold the Control Points. When you get wounded you can Town Portal back to the Altar to heal fast, then Town Portal back to the furthest Control Point to continue the pressure on the enemy base.

All in all, play offensive or defensive, but use the right units in the right times to do more damage on the opponent base than they do to yours ;)

I have little faith in maps that thrive on chaos...

Define Chaos, if you please.

I can promise you. Battledawn is ROCK HARD strategy. The creators have been discussing different tactics and tried stuff out for ages. We've joked that you may have a doctor's degree in that map. The structure in it is iron-like and logical, even though the scripted warfare open for random things. I don't know if this is what you meant by chaos.

I see that you have linked Tides of Blood. That map, while awesome abilities, have this very repetitive and symmetric pattern, that most -sorry to say- boring AoS' does. To believe that is necessary to have a balanced map, is equally useless as to say all units must have a equivalent on each team/race to maintain balance (like in WarCraft2). It doesn't.



ps; adding screens soon.

I dont believe it is nescesary for balance, but i do believe it is nescesary for gameplay that i percieve as "fun".

Tides of blood is all about heroes hunting heroes. The mobs that run along they're scripted paths are fodder to get your xp up. If you wont your focus to lie on hunting heros, wich i want, then repetative predicable spawn patterns are a must, becouse you can count on them. The unnacountabilitie comes from players.

This also allows players to determain the strategy. If you leave an expo alone to go push the other, you know you have to keep your eye on where the enemy heroes are. If some of them vanish, you can count on that left alone expo being raided soon. However if you have spawns with random paths and/or quanity, you never know if a base will get a sudden rush of spawns going there, taking a lot of decition making away from the players and in the hands of chance. Wich in term will popularise defencive play becouse you can more easely secure victory that way.

And i dont like that. Wich is ofcourse, a matter of personal taste.

That is a valid point that Tides of Blood is about heroes battling heroes, and doesn't aim at anything else. Battledawn is about using the repertoire of units in WarCraft3, with your hero in greater focus.

As you say, if a large mob of orcs suddenly attacks one distant keep, you don't HAVE to run your hero back there. You just buy lots of defensive UNITS to do the job.

You might say that some things are left to chance, but the ability to stay flexible, make note of situations early (have scouts) and act quickly is a set of skills you'll need here. So it's not up to less skills, but maybe the focus is on slightly different skills than ToB.

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I've made a .rar/zip package with like 50 action screenshots. Linking it asap. I'll add some more screenshots during the day, but for starters you can see a part of the orc fortress. The trench there is hideous; the alliance must pass through it in order to reach the fortress, being bombarded by spears, towers, and catapults with burning oil on the way. THe orc bases have this craggy and rocky, almost industrial feeling, while the lands further north and the alliance are more lush with trees etc. More harmonic.