AbilityData.slk

Is this unusable on battle.net? People say you cannot add it to a w3m map but I seem to have been able to. I mpq2k it into the w3m and all of my custom spells work. So why do people write that it doesn't work on battle.net?

Does b.net load AbilityData.slk from the HDD and then refuse to acknowledge the map's AbilityData.slk? That doesn't seem right because I have not edited my war3.mpq or war3patch.mpq yet I can use the custom abilities gained from the w3m's AbilityData.slk in a custom single-player game.

If we can't use this file on b.net then I'm going to sh!t myself seeing as I just spent 2 weeks adding 40 custom spells to my 12 player map...

Hakujin

no you can use them...for examples see Valley of Dissent and Defense of the Ancients...

but tell me more abour your map...40 custom spells,wow! I want to play that. Could you post it here when its done?

fr0ggE

I have a map with over 50 custom spells, it works no problem on b.net.

If you had read something about people unable to use abilitydata.slk in their .w3m file, it may have been referring to an older version of war3. Previous to ver. 1.04 I think you couldn't use it correctly in your map if I remember correctly.

So check the date on the thread / tutorial about it, and see if it's older than the 1.04 patch. You can basically patch in any .slk file in the war3.mpq, and there are a bunch, and I haven't seen one not work yet.

Thanks. I was hoping that those posts referred to v1.03.

Re: my map. It is a 3 team, 12 player game where the teams are trying to kill a dragon and get its head back to point X. Of course, they have to creep in order to become powerful enough to do it, all the while fighting the 2 other teams to set them back (death = XP penalty). It has 12 character classes:

Knight
Barbarian
Beastmaster

White Mage
Red Mage
Black Mage

Ranger
Rogue
Assassin

Cleric
Shaman
Druid

All heroes have 5 hero skills, except maybe the knight who has command aura and defend. Not all of these skills are 100% brand new. For example, the shaman has a 3 level Heal and a 3 level Bloodlust. I call that "a new spell." In terms of new new spells, there are maybe 10.

Example:
Druid - Thorn Burst
Graphic - the orc spiked barricades upgrade animation, centered on caster
Effect - Essentially a Warstomp that does no stun and higher damage.

Also, my map has NO divine shield and NO freezing weapons. I hate that stuff.

Hakujin

no divine and no freeze and your my hero
now remove tomes and i love you

is your map done? it sounds ****ing awesome. If you need a playtester just let me know.

if its done (or when it is) post it in the downloads section or just put a link here.

fr0ggE

p.s. yeah, tomes for sale are total crap. They ruin the game, dammit. Tomes that get dropped, tho, are totally cool.

also, how do you do the xp penalty? do you take them back to the start of their level or start them over at level 1 or what?

Could you PLEASE PLEASE post how you got a normal unit spell working for a hero character class unit ? ? ?
I've been having some problems getting Unholy Frenzy to work as my lvl6 ULTIMATE firebat spell....
I want to use it as stimpack :) :)

the spell needs always a target, but u could make it target only self
check the 2 spell tutorials out, they explain how to do it

Re: Unit spell -> Hero spell

In the Abilitydata.slk change:

Hero -> 1
Levels -> 1
Reqlevel -> 6

[IF player wants 3 levels THEN read this ELSE do nothing]
Then manually cut and paste the level one stats (starting at column M) and paste them in column Y and AK to create levels 2 and 3. Then modify the stats and you have a 3 level hero spell. And yes I knew this from memory.

Then edit the spell's stats in xAbilityFunc.txt and XAbilityStrings.txt and you should be able to use it in the editor. If not you have done something wrong.



Re: XP penalty

Players HATE starting over. And they hate only having one life. So I simply take their existing character and subtract XP from their total when they die using this formula: (2*lvl)*25. This gives me a nice exponential XP penalty. You cannot take levels away from a character without replacing it and that is too much of a pain. So a player's death will only slow down their leveling and they also have a random chance of dropping an item.


Re: Testing

Thanks for the offer. I need testers badly, seeing as I have 5 spells x 12 characters to balance plus HP, Mana, Attack, speeds, creeps, items, etc... its a nightmare! But for now forget about this map and let me work on it. I'll let you all know when its done...

Hakujin