Heroes Quest I: Dragonslayers BETA1

Latest Version - Beta 1.4
http://www.darkcrescent.com/Hakujin/...slayersb14.w3m

============1.4================
fixed a critical game start bug which was stripping lagged players of heroes
added FX to dragon head carrier
fixed Leadership affecting friendy players bug (again)
widened first village entry areas to prevent blocking
buffed Furlbogs
fixed Mana Surge not being able to target friendlies (?)
fixed multiple units quest message spam
fixed Bloodlust level 3 research tooltip
fixed sheriff quest re: invulrnable in town (test please!)
added trigger: remove all invulrnable areas after Dragon is killed

============1.3================
fixed being able to sneak past level 9 Orc Camp Heroes
buffed Infernal
buffed Siege Golem
fixed clipping problem on right side of Dragon mountain
fixed creeps dropping items when life timer expires
fixed Bronzebeard's Hammer anti-magic ability
fixed healing in Night Elf Camp
nerfed Undead Forest Lich
fixed Vampiric Aura bufftip
added no-attack zones in towns and revive locations
lowered all item prices
nerfed Immolation to 10-15-20
changed Cleric model to Arthas
increased Desert monster difficulty

============1.2================
CHARACTER TWEAKS
Barbarians - skills mana cost to 75
Beastmaster - increased War Eagle HP
White mage - boosted Slow, Chain Lightning, and Mirror Image
Necromancer - increased raise dead cooldown
Assassin - poison arrow range up / AOE down
Thief - added notification upon successful Disarm
Shaman - boosted Mana Surge
Cleric - nerfed Heal amount / cooldown
Cleric - boosted Inner fire
Druid - boosted Thorn Nova damage to 100 - 200 - 300
Knight - removed Combat Stance
Knight - added Storm Bolt

GAMEPLAY
nerfed monsters attack / HP / number / respawn frequency
halved death penalties (XP and gold)
edited terrain to reduce early game conflict
moved midgame respawn zones away
added healing to revive points
added monster anti-camp to late-game revive zones
eliminated fog effects
fixed mountain paths (i think)

BUGS
fixed level counting errors when player inheirits hero
fixed hero inheiriting
fixed leadership bufftip
fixed spirit wolf truesight
reduced NPC message spam
fixed BM War Eagle monster pull
many tooltip fixes
================================

Well, I'm finally ready for public beta. I would appreciate any feedback on this map regarding gameplay, trigger errors, tweaks, etc. Please either post feedback here or to my email at [email protected] . BETA 2 will be a battlenet release. Let me go through a quick feature list to tempt you:

FEATURES
4 team, 12 player map
12 original heroes with 5-6 powers each
9 themed locations
random monster encounters
NPC quests
no permanent death, but there are penalites

GAMEPLAY
goal: become strong enough to kill the final dragon. Take the dragon's head to the king's castle gate in order to win. Of course, anyone dying with the head will drop it...

'tis a sad day when you have to bump your own map release. If I told you it had many custom spells would that help inspire you to test it for me?

SWEEEEEEEEET!

Hakujins map is ready! alright!

I saw this map way before it was beta testable but it had all the heroes and the custom spells and it looks pretty damn cool. I'll go check it out pronto.

w00tness

I'm an excellent critic when it comes to maps, I'll let ya know my thoughts after some testing.

like sooo many RPGs,
-alot of creeps, to many if u ask me, but i was playing by myself.
-the terain is pretty good, could use more water.
-and the weather, the weather, is kinda wierd cause its starts off sunny, im walkin along killing spiders and wutnot, sudenly in like less that a second it turns foggy and rainy, and im like ahhh did i do somthing wrong? y is it foggy and rainy and i cant see and the before i know it, im being eaten by spider, wolfs , more spiders, and, MORE SPIDER!!!!

My first impression of the map is that I'm feeling overwhelmed; mainly due to the massive amount of creeps. But, I also was playing alone, so I would say the amount of creeps looks about right with 2 teammates. My second concern was the instant environment changes. Like monkey said, the fog instantly appears/disappears, leaving you with that "I just walked over a region that triggered a weather effect" feeling.

Now for the good, I love the hero selection setup. The descriptions are excellent, as is the avatars. I was only able to test out the Assassin and the Beastmaster so far, so it's only fair that I comment on their abilities. First the Assassin, love the whole theme with this hero, every ability fits this hero to a tee. The poison, the snares, evasion, and curse work well with this class. The evasion/confusing gaze(curse) combo will make this class a force to reckon with. As for the avatar, the warden fits the class well, good choice. My only gripe with this class is that its difficult to creep with her at the early levels on her lonesome. If it wasn't for shadowmeld, I would of been eating dirt constantly. Now, lets talk about the ill-fated TV series the Beastmaster, er I mean your hero. Unlike the TV series, this character is actually entertaining. I like the makeup of this hero, the stun/pet combo is mint. Plus his tank role makes it possible to creep on his lonesome without too much fear of eating dirt (well until the 8+ creep scouting brigade tramples ya). My gripe with this class actually deals with one of his abilities, the GIANT eagle. I was quite excited to see what this looked like when I picked it as my first skill, but was letdown greatly to find out the GIANT eagle was no bigger than a parakeet. But the plus about this skill is that the parake...er GIANT eagle seems to grab all the creep aggro off you when you use it, which would be useful if the eagle could take a few hits (the evasion helps, but it needs more HP).

In conclusion, I'm really looking forward to testing the rest of the heroes out, which is a plus. Its still too early to comment on the overall design of the map, but if the minimap is any indication, it won't disappoint.

First Impression Quick Review:

Pros
+Hero Selection
+Avatars

Cons
-Massive amount of creeps make xping solo at the lower levels a difficult task
-Environment changes are too ' instant '

Thanks for the feedback, guys. Though I have a long list of fixes for beta 2, some of the most significant are:

- increase spawn distance for the teams
- cut all death penalties in half
- reduce monster damage / armor
- increase (double) the monster respawn delay

Regarding Instant Environment Changes
The are not region based but changed randomly every 120 seconds. However, there is no way to "fade in" a weather transition. I have plans to halve the fog amounts. But the rain and wind will still "appear" because ther are no gradients or ways to smooth the transition. Should I drop the random weather altogether?

Regarding the Giant Eagle...the original version was a huge (6x model size) eagle which could transport, but WC would crash with a fatal error every time it was summoned. (summoning transports = bad) So i changed the eagle to a small, high damage, low HP pet. At level 3 it only costs 50 mana with a 5 sec cooldown...you could swarm the enemy with war eagles...(not giant eagles...have to change that description :))

Thanks for the detailed feedback PacSun. I really appreciate it.

Hello there. I just downloaded your map and tried it. I didn't get to play through all of them yet, but I did restart the map 12 times just to see their skills. I noticed a few minor bugs so far, but they can be easily fixed. I'm looking to thoroughly play through the whole map at least once with a hero just to see how it goes. I should be done by tomorrow and should be able to comment on some of the things in-game.

My first impressions of this map is that it's detailed, interms of editted skills, and each character has a lot of variety. I can tell it's going to be great, well time for me to begin testing =)

Looks like a great start! Cant wait for more
a few comments:
For one, the terrain is nice, but nothing spectacular, i could use some work, but its good as it is. I like the moving creeps, gives it a more life like feeling. I didnt get a chance to get very far with it, but the first little village u ecounter is deserted, maybe add some peasants with wander so theyll move about a bit. As for the weather, i like the idea, but the implementation could use some work. A good way of doing it is maybe play a thunder sound, and let the rain start. For the fog, use some waits and "fade" it in. I dont like the wind, but thats just my personal preference... I really like what u did with the color text. Its usefull, and not overdone, kudos! All in all, a great start, just needs some polishing up.

Oh yeah, a place to sell excess items is always a welcomed addition :D

[edit]
I forgot to add, maybe add single player mode, where u can select and control 2 heroes and have a little faster experience gain. Would make testin easier and its always nice to have the option.

ur terain is alitle dull. u need more doodads. and the dragon, the dragon, is WAY WAY WAY to strong. i dont think that 12 lvl 10 heros could kill him(well maybe they could). and i dont really want to tell u this but, im nice so here it goes. were the dragon is, u kno how u have to go up a winding path were u fight a bunch of guys, like iron golem, infernal, 3 lvl 9 dudes, well u can skip them ALL. if u r near the water, u can just tell ur hero to go the were the dragon is, and he can skip all the monsters. it is were the rock doodads r right behind the last monster, a iron golem i think. u can walk between the doodads. hope u dont fix that cause i kinda like it. saves me less fighting:gsmile:

k just soloed it to the dragon. At the moment it is a bit too hard for 1 person, i died a shit load with the barbarian.

The terrain is nice in some places and needs a lot of work in others. There is lots of open space which isnt good. Add a bunch of doodads to make it look nicer.

The quests were all pretty cool, the ones i ran across.

The dragon looks fuxx0ring hard. As to whether he's killable...well stunning him will help a lot. If you go at it with him in a group with characters that can stun him more than once that would work nicely.

The weather changes are too abrupt.

The evil forest swampy place was kewl, and the river was nice.

Oh yeah, and all the characters are exquisite :)

One bug i caught: on (I think it was bladestorm) the description still said "Level 2" altho the other stats and actual performance worked fine.

Good job, can't wait to play it on BNet

After playing your map over and over with several different chars, I've noticed a lot of stuff, stuff i like/dislike, and here's my list of inputs.

1. A wide selection of heroes, very diverse, although not very balanced interms of gameplay.
2. Cool weather effects, but it changes too sudden and can be annoying at times.
3. Large selection of creeps to do battle with, however, they spawn too quickly.
4. Patrolling creeps is a great idea, except that sometimes it's too overwhelming to be surrounded on all sides by masses of units.
5. The heroes all have their specialties interms of skills and stats, but a couple of them are too supportive that most people wouldn't bother to pick them.
6. The quests idea is great, but they don't show up on the quest log.(I guess it's because this is a beta) Also, more quests need to be added, there's only so many on the map. (Like 6?)
7. The look of each area is about right. Besides the wildlands, which looks more like a creepy ghost forest.
8. Some skills are just sooooo good, while some just sucks major ***. Example of a good spell is flame wave lvl 3, 300 direct damage, 100 mana cost, works like shockwave but seems to have a wider range. If you compare flame wave with blizzard, you would notice how crappy blizzard is. 70 damage x 4 waves, 150 mana cost. Ok it's good vs a BIG group of weak monsters, but in the later parts of the game, it's useless, AND its 150 mana!! Example of a crappy spell would be bash lvl 3. 15% chance to stun 1 second. Damn that sucks.
9. As I've mentioned before, the editted skills are cool, but the placement of these skills on certain chars is bad. Take the Red Mage for example, he has a summon spell, and 2 offensive damaging spells, but since he's a mage, he has a crapload of mana at higher level. Now we look at Mr. barbarian, he's a melee fighter, his mana at level 10 is like 300, but he has a crapload of offensive spells also. Bladestorm (100), Battlecry (100), thunderclap (100), that's pretty costly for spells he needs to use to make him worth playing. Besides these spells, he has critical strike, which is a good passive, but that's all he can do without the use of mana. Compare him to the Knight and you'd realize how mana intensive he is.
10. The game is hard for solo with certain chars, and impossible for some chars. I realize this is an RPG about teamwork, but not every combination of a 3 player team can make it through to the dragon. And NONE 3 player team will beat the dragon without dying over and over for a crapload of times. Now of course, nobody likes an easyass RPG(well maybe some do), but sometimes it just doesn't work no matter how hard you try. Only a few level 3 skills are effective even at later part of the game. Those being the almighty offensive direct damage spells. (Carrion, nova, FlAME WAVE, finger of death) But I do realize I run out of mana too quickly even using ONLY those spells with 1500 mana. Heh.
11. The items that the main town sells is too underpowered for what you're going against, and it lacks any GOOD items for mage type chars.
12. RED MAGE PWNS JOO ALLL MWAHAHAH!!!

All of the above comments are just my opinions of this map, feel free to disagree with constructive criticism. I hope I don't sound too harsh in any of them. It's just that this RPG has so much potential that I want it to be the best it can be. I spent the whole night playing through 3 chars for this map, none of which was a melee char. I got up to the dragon with the Red Mage, but only as far as the desert with the Archer and the Beastmaster. Below are my minor comments for each class.

1. Barbarian - Could use more passive, low mana cost spells. A boost in attack speed and damage also helps.
2. BeastMaster - A good combo of Barbarian with Knight, 2 passives if I remember correctly, and it attacks decently fast to make good use of Bash and Critic strike. The bird summon is too weak, and even level 3 Spirit Wolves couldn't do much against those maulers in the desert.
3. Knight - Attacks too slow, low damage, leader ship aura doesn't help much even at level 3 and divine shield 7 seconds at level 3 is a joke, even though I DON'T recomment using it in a party, since it makes all the creeps attack your allies.

1. Necrodude - HOLY GOD THIS DUDE IS MADDDDDD RIGGED gg nuff said. However, this mage is still a backrow fighter and needs a tank so he can do his Carrion/nova/finger over and over. Goddamn it's nice.
2. Red Mage - IMHO the BEST solo char. Iron golems are nice tanks, short cooldown, can summon more than 1 at a time, good life, damage, and SPELL IMMUNITY. GG, I mean look at him. Good summon, 2 useful offensive spells, loads of mana, and AMS. DAMN this guy is good. Best for solo, second best for damage dealing compared to the necro.
3. White Mage - This char is a joke. Chainlight is decent but flamewave beats the crap out of it. Mirror image on a mage is just hilarious. She has crappy life because she's a mage, even 3 images of her won't do much good. I was hoping SHE was the healer, but still shes not good even for a support char.

1. Assassin - She's more PVP oriented, with cripple and curse spells. But her damage is pathetic and she doesn't have critical strike or fatal strike.
2. Thief - Lol I'd like to see how this char REALLY works in multiplayer games. Stealing gold and stuff is funny, although it didn't seem to work on creeps.
3. Ranger - Has the potential to do the most damage in a single hit, but the chance of doing it is very low, and because her attack speed isn't super fast you'd have to pray for a lucky shot like that. Her fatal strike seems to do 20x displayed damage, not 100% sure if that's what it is. I had her at level 2 doing 4000+ damage in that lucky hit, if that happened more often she could be very useful later on.

1. Druid - Not too useful, if you want damaging spells you have the mage, if you want healing you have the cleric, mixing a mage and a healer just doesn't work well especially on a melee char with not too high life.
2. Shama - This char is like a mage's pet, except that's all he's good for.
3. Cleric - Good set of skills, seems tankable, and very dedicated in his role in the game. This char is a must for any party that relies on melee chars to deal damage.

Now for some possible bugs/glitches that I've found in the game.

1. In the hero selection screen, it said the Knight had a move call Storm Hammer, but in the actual game, Storm Hammer isn't there and is replaced by divine shield.
2. Leadership aura says devotion aura on enemy units.
3. In the description for Combat Stance(Knight), it's supposed to increase damage(?), and armor vs piercing attacks. I don't seem to notice increased damage with that skill.
4. This might be intended, but battle cry seems to increase enemy damage as well.
5. Spirit wolf level 1 is described to have true sight, but I don't see the icon for them, maybe it's just hidden. Same for level 3s which are supposed to have evasion truesight and critic, even though only critic shows up.
6. For the skill where the Ranger summons the big Owlbear, it says in the description that it lasts 2 seconds(!!) even though it lasts more like a minute.
7. Assassin's poison arrow skill hurts her also, and since she has to get in melee range to cast it, she almost always gets damaged by it.
8. For critical strike, it said it's a chance to do double damage + xx damage per hit. But from seeing myself do it a few times, only the double damage part seems to be working. The + xx damage doesn't work.
9. The quest to rescue the child doesn't seem to work unless I did it wrong. I went to that spot before I got the quest from the parents in town, and since I didn't know what else to do I just attacked the trolls, and that led them to kill the boy. After that I went to town to talk to the parents but they didn't say anything.

Well that's all info I could give you right now. I'm waiting for my friends to sign on so we can play it with 3 people and maybe even test out if disarm/steal works. Thanks for reading(if you did), I know it's a big long but I'm just trying to help out. Keep up the good work =)

re the barbarian, yes its true that he has lots of skills that while good are very expensive. The one passive skill he has seems to be total crap. One thing that I'd recommend is making the throwing hammer about 1.2 as powerful as it is i.e. weak, but making it cost less mana. That way he can cast spells more instead of sitting around waiting for 100 mana to stockpile up

Beta 2 has some very good changes. Some chars got buffed, while others (Red Mage) got nerfed. The main problem I find in beta 2 is that it's too easy now. I think reducing the spawn interval for creeps was a good idea, but nerfing their damage, armor was a BAD idea. It makes a lot of summons overpowered, such as raise skelie. It makes 2x 180 life pretty high damage skelies. Each one of these skelies can easily kill those 240 life spiders, and you get 2 for every courpse, along with the low mana cost and short cooldown. I'd say to make the creeps' damage + armor + life back to how it was before, but keep the shortened spawn intervals.

Now that most chars got a tweak, time to move over to the problem with items. First off, the icon and stats for each item is very appropriate. Such as Arcanite Gauntlet (+6 str/+2 armor), that's very approriate stats. Also items like the Arcanite Axe which is +15 damage and the Sword which had increased attack speed and damage. It's pretty much assumed that axes are heavysome but is mightier than a sword, which is often quicker. The main problem with items is their cost compare to other items and the rate at which you can obtain the gold. Take for example, the Ankh, 400 gold. Compare this to a healing pot which heals 500 HP but costs 300 gold!! Of course if you were a level 1 mage you would prefer the pot because you don't even have that much life. But say for a barbarian at lvl 10 with 1300+ life. Ankh would heal full life/mana for 400, while that pot would only heal 500 for 3/4 the cost of Ankh. Which one would you choose? Of course the ankh. Heck, even a high level mage would choose ankh because it heals all mana too.

Solutions to the above problem could be: 1) Raise price of Ankh, 2) Lower price of regular pots, OR 3) Reduce the amount of gold obtained from each creep killed. Oh yea did I mention the Pot of Restoration? 650 gold, and does exactly the same thing the ankh does, except the ankh is better. Ankh is automatically used when life reachs 0. The pot's most efficient time of usage would be when you have 1 life and 1 mana, and it has to be manually used. Get my point?

Besides those problems, I find the beta 2 to be more entertaining in terms of character skills, but beta 1 is still more fun because of difficulty. Also there seems to be a possible exploit with one of the functions. That being the "-newhero" command. Since the same party will always spawn in the same location, you can theorectically(sp?) choose a new char, drop the Ankh, do the -newhero command, and choose another char. When you spawn you will have that extra Ankh on the floor. This can be done infinite amount of times and can be quite CHEAP.

Good job on beta 2 and generally this RPG, you have succeeded where a lot of other mapmakers out there have failed. I'd like to point out one of them, which is the skill placement on the chars. By this I mean the slot in which the skill appears when it is chosen. Many RPGs out there that has more than 4 skills for each char has the skill placement f*cked up, so some skills either don't appear in the right place, or don't appear at all. I have not noticed the same problem with your RPG, which is a relief. Well don't give up and keep it up =)

Released v 1.3 on February 22, 2002

See above for changes. Feedback would be appreciated. feel free to test this map on battle.net!