(5) Dark Sun RPG

== Items Needing Testing ==

• Ability Tooltips/Hotkeys
• Abilities working properly
• Class balancing (DPS, Tanking, PvP, ect)
• Dungeon balancing (Creep damage/health tuning, difficulty, ect.)
• Quests Working properly
• Terrain glitches (Holes in cliff pathing allowing players through and such)

== Classes Needing Feedback ==

- Druid -

• Suggestions needed for the Class, such as new abilties, ways to incorporate skills for both bear form and caster form.

- Paladin -

• Ways to improve the gameplay for the Paladin, making the class more interesting and such.

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Dark Sun RPG

The Story..

The kingdom of Menasil has been in peace for hundreds of years, free of war, free of famine. Those times were bright and hopeful...

Three years ago however..

Darkness began to take its hold in nearby lands, eventually reaching into Menasil. The Dark Lord Gald'anoth commanded legions of corrupted warriors into peaceful lands, corrupting those he could, and killing those who rebelled against him.

Although...Menasil had...what you could call a touch of luck. Gald'anoth had little success at invading Menasil, though he took much of the southern lands, the north was able to defend their land and stop his armies from pressing further into Menasil.

This is where your story takes place...It all starts here, in the Sunwood Forest...will your story take you into a heroic ending, or have an untimely end...the choice is yours...


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Features

• Experience several dungeons, including bosses, loot, and other rewards.
• Level up to 55 and experience everything the map has to offer.
• Quests!
• Hireable mercenaries to accompany you in your adventure.
• A PvP system including PvP gear.
• Variety among classes as each spell has a maximum level of 20, allowing players to choose spells they more prefer for that class.
• Working Save/Load
• And more!

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V3.4.2 Change Log

Hidden information: = General = All items now show what item-type they are. Hemet's Insignia now restores 15% life & mana on killing an enemy, up from 5%.

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Known Bugs

• Concencration seems to be very buggy at this moment in time, the cause of this I've yet to pinpoint.

+ If you happen to discover any bugs (Which there probably will be a few since the map is new) I would appreciate it if you post them here or contact me in game (Sgt_Johnson@USWest)


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Credits

• IPeonRush: For helping me with a few things a year ago before I had given up on this due to not having a Save/Load.
• AceHart: For creating a very nice and easy to understand and implement Save/Load system.
• Cyberlemons & Shpartikus: Supporting me to get this map out finally :P
• Others I may not remember the name of, sorry if I have forgotten your names.

Minimap.tga?

Convert it to .jpg

Ya fixed it right after I uploaded it lol

Centered, bulleted text == fail.

Perhaps I'll test this sometime; it doesn't seem particularly enticing, but it probably merits a run-through.

1) Terrain - When I view the terrain through World Editor. The terrain was impressive, but not every part of the map was impressive and able to blow my mind away.

A good example would be the bottom middle. The entire tent look like they been placed at random degree in huge amount, the same goes to the city at the east of it. I think it would be better for you to fix it.

The most detail and most beautifully made terrain would be at the middle of the map.

2) Scripting/Trigger - I do not browse the entire trigger as there is many of it. But from what I seen, it seems like all trigger was set at the most effective way as possible.

3) Contradiction - I could be wrong about it. But, there is something that doesn't make any sense. When the wolf chase my hero right into the base, ain't the guard suppose to attack it? After all, their duty is to protect the tent.

4) Credit - I try to view the quest log several times, but I do not find a quest log that give credit towards those custom model/icon you have import to this map. Can you tell me where is the credit was located?

5) Hero Selection - At the beginning of the game, I could select those hero. But, the question was. Why is there no detail about the hero and their ability? Before I select a hero, I would like to know what is their ability about.

Try implement a system that would show a brief description of the hero and their ability.

6) Balance - The price of Soldier/Ranger/Priest was 40 gold, but trying to earn that much just to hire 1 of it take quite a time if you wanted to hire it for the quest of The Nightblades. I suggest the gold cost be reduce to 25-30.

My Soldier ain't that strong either, most of the time I have to send it back to fountain for healing. It isn't quite strong and lost a lot of hp when fighting a level 7 wolves even though my hero level was level 8.

Blackfang was very strong to be solo and his hp seems to be recover very quick, you should try to tweak it to make it easier for player to play it at single player as well. When I try to escape to fountain to heal, this big wolves chase me all the way down to the fountain. You should not make those wolves chase people right into the town.

The quest of thin the population seems to be a level 15 quest to me.

7) Hotkey - Hotkey for ability work and none it mix with one another (But I could be wrong since I use druid character only). But, I cannot said the same to item and hire mercenery. There is no hotkey available for item/hire unit, you should add hotkey for it.

Suppose I wanted to purchase something quicker and faster, I could easily click at the shop and immediately press the hotkey to buy it right away. An example could be purchasing potion.

8) Machine/Net Friendly - 2mb size was alright since it was a 5 player map. But the problem lies on the loading time. It took almost 2 minutes just to have the loading done. By the time it was done, more than 2 people have left this game.

I try to host it several times, but the same situation repeat all over again till I have to play this map at single player.

9) Fun Factor - If this map was play with a team, maybe it was fun. But I definitely said No if you are trying to play it alone. Infact, I have to constantly hack and slash weaker monster all the time till it was strong enough to accomplish the task.

It was quite frustrating to play it at single player till I decided to quit even before I could finish the 3rd quest.

Is this approvable at wc3c ? I would said NO. Main reason why it was unacceptable to wc3c map data base was because

1) Playing this at single player was boring and dull, it probably balance at multiplayer map but it definitely not at single player. Some player prefer to play this alone or trying to test it out before they try to host it at battlenet or garena.

2) Extremely long loading time cause most of the player to quit before it even started.

3) Credit towards those custom model/icon/skin seems to be missing. If my memory serves me right, all custom resources must be credited.

If you make this map more balance at single player & reduce the loading time, then it would probably have much more success rate to be accepted into this database.

If you ask my rating. I would probably give it 3/5 at this moment.

The only player the guards attack are the corrupted, the reason they don't attack wolves and such is because of my crappy respawn system I have implemented atm. Maybe when I get a better one going I'll have them attack whatever tries coming into the camps.


My bad must have forgot to put it in or deleted, there are credits in the post on the site however, but I will get them in the map asap.


I'll implement this asap as well.


Hmm the beginning has never been hard for any class I've tested at the beginning, you can usually afford a Merc after you complete <The Nightblades> or during the quest. Do you use potions? Those are definately key when playing solo.


I think I may implement a self heal ability to all the Mercs (Other than priest) like a bandage self type thing.


The outdoor named mobs are usually mini-bosses and require at least 1 more person to kill (sometimes more) however Blackfang I have been able to solo with most classes, the high life regen is on most mobs as sort of a... whats the word.. I wanna say DPS cap, the players have to deal a certain ammount of DPS to kill a mob, otherwise it just regens back to full life. Again though try potions, though in Blackfangs case I may bump him down a lil bit in difficulty, maybe the same level as the wolves there and lower his life/damage, most heroes cant solo him till 11-14, though with 2 lvl 8's he goes down extremely quick.


Perhaps I should put those in after all.


I've never really had anyone complain about the loading time and leave =/ you may have just got a bunch of impatient players. Though since when has a long loading time in RPG's stopped people from playing them, look at Defiance for example, thats a killer loading time if I remember correctly.


The team play comes with Elite quests and dungeons, the first 2 dungeons are possible to solo (2nd dungeon is quite difficult to solo the final boss) but after that it's near impossible to solo the rest of the dungeons)

What class(es) did you test? So I can improve them if they were what was giving you trouble. I know most of the classes do pretty well solo, the only one I'm really worried about is the Cleric and possibly the Paladin now because his dmg has been a bit off as of late.

The loading indeed long, i seen a post of your map thread at hive of user complain about the loading time as well.


I try the druid class, and it seems like only the bear form and bear ability is the most useful. his magic ability doesn't seems to be stronger than his bear ability.

The Arcanists's Arcane Focus' learn tooltip is different than the actual tooltip once learned. Also, Mental Blast is called Mental Shackles in the actual tooltip. Also, level 5 (and maybe previous levels), claim to have a 0% chance for the effect to go off. Also, I think this spell still works even if you learn it once, use a tome of retaining, and then learn new spells. Actually, based on your trigger, there is always a 1% chance for the skill to go off it is unlearned.

Also note that it's easy to lure monsters into town. They get healed by the fountain and don't return to their original spots. Currently, I have blackfang in town right next to my spawn point.

Caster druids can put out alot of AoE dmg, tho for single target the damage is a lil lacking yes. I need to revamp the druid at some point very badly lol


I'll get those tooltips fixed.


Easiest solution to this is if I could find an easy to implement respawn system =/ then I could have the guards kill any enemies that enter towns, instead of just corrupted.

Also, I tested a few heroes very briefly and a couple of them have a few tooltip errors similar to the Arcanist: learn tooltips differ from the actual tooltips in the command card. Double check all the heroes and you should be good. =P

Version 3.3.1 Released

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V3.3.1 Fixes/Changes

= General =

• Increased the gold cost of Armor slightly, weapons remain the same.
• All Rooting spells now have a chance to break when the rooted unit is attacked.
• Food/Water now has a 30 second cooldown to stop players from spam using them.
• Blessing of the Crusader now has an active use ability that increases the attack damage of nearby allied units by 40% for 30 seconds.
• Hemet's Insignia now has an active use ability that increases the movement speed of nearby allies by 20% for 30 seconds.

= Classes =

• The Paladin's Holy Light now properly can be casted on enemy undead units.
• The Assassain's Quick Retreat has been changed to Vanish, and can now be cast on the Assassain.

= Dungeons =

• Damage dealt by dungeon creeps and bosses has been greatly increased.
• Loot distribution after clearing a dungeon has been optimized slightly, and no longer will show multiple messages and such.

Disapproved

- Dull; I mean, really, beyond heal/attack spam, there is no strategy. Button mashing gets old fast.
- Repetitive. Adds to the dullness. Nothing ever new.
- Total WoW ripoff. Like, everything. Except the abilities...which just sucked because of how boring and unimaginative they were. Most were useless, a few indispensible.
- Balance totally blown to bits. The game was easy as shit so long as you had a healer and enough DPS to overcome the regen, but boring as shit as it took so long to take stuff down.
- Polish simply isn't there. Hotkey conflicts, wrong tooltips, mana was useless due to pots and low costs, money was infinitely available from destroying tomes of retraining, etc. etc. etc.

With work it could be a very good map. But at the moment, it isn't.

Sorry I designed the map to cater to the general public of Bnet, and in past experiences with my other RPG dungeon style maps bosses that required strategy usually ended up with complaints that the map is to difficult and they couldn't handle it.

I'm brainstorming a way of adding a Hard mode for high level players, in which all the dungeons are tuned to max level players, and are much more challenging, hopefully this will add a challenge to high level players.


Ok... so because it's an RPG it's a WoW ripoff? Show me what major part of the map makes this a total WoW ripoff -_-


Since when is a map expected to be completely balanced? That's what tests and feedback are for. I've been working pretty damn hard to get this working as well as I can and as balanced as I can, theres a limit to what I can get balanced when I only get one or two pieces of feedback every couple days, and most of it is just minor things, nothing about something being imbalanced.


I've gone over hotkeys many times and haven't seen any and if I find one I fix it immediatly. As for mana issues yes if you spread your skills out you won't run out of mana very easily, but if a hero focuses to much on one skill the mana consumption can ramp up pretty quickly, also thanks for pointing out that bug with the tome of retraining I never realized that was there.


I appreciate your moderation, and sorry if any of my comments sound a little harsh, I've just put so much work into the map I hate to see it still non-approved when I've been trying for months to get it approved. It just seems no matter how much work I put into the map it's never good enough for WC3C =/

Valley of giants (teleport)'s hotkey said it brought you to that marsh, for one.

I haven't played WoW, but saber was saying that some of the boss names (etc) were ripped straight out of WoW.

We aren't complaining about how much damage the enemies have or how much life. We're complaining about the fact that you just sit there hitting them over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over (and over and over and over and over and over) for about five minutes (bosses).

It wasn't somewhat imbalanced - it was insanely imbalanced. For example, as the druid, fissure and armageddon were completely useless, maul was highly rigged, and his other two spells were decent.

Mana was a non-issue. One of the bosses had a stunlock. PvP was totally unfair (for example, Pally would crush Druid due to the fact that he healed faster than you could damage him). The final boss had ridiculous regeneration and pushed me into a wall (thus trapping me). Etc, etc.

I could have sworn I fixed that last version =/


So putting a cameo or easter egg from other games automatically means your ripping off other games? Shame on anyone whose ever put an easter egg or cameo in their game I guess.

Btw if you want a list I can compile it for you.

Cameos

- Hemet Nesingwary (Location: Naasil Marsh/Valley of Giants) Warcraft Character

Easter Eggs

- Left for Dead (Quest in the Deadlands referring to the video game Left 4 Dead that has you kill hordes of Zombies)
- Evil Residents (Quest in Deadlands referring to Resident Evil)
- The Most Dangerous Game (Feat of Strength in which you slay Minotau the Ancient, refers to a book by an author whose name escapes me, although in the book the most dangerous game is a human, in the game it's Minotau)


I designed the map to not be as difficult as other maps I've made, yes the beginning dungeons have bosses that are pretty straightforward and are a bit tank and spank, the final dungeons however at least require people to try and such.


I have asked multiple times on both WC3C and the hive for people to leave feedback and suggestions on the druid and have not gotten a single response, maybe people should actually post what they think about him, right now your the first to actually give any.

Caster druids are pretty good at dungeons, they can put out alot of AoE damage with fissure, and if the fissures happen to hit the same target it can give a huge boost in damage, as for Armageddon yes its kind of a random AoE spell but if it hits it can do some good damage.


Sorry I haven't had much of a chance to get any PvP balancing done, though yes melee classes seem to dominate it at this moment in time.

And if you tried to solo the final boss.... and then complain he's to tough......... Have you not realized that dungeons are designed for multiple players by now...