I want all your opinions PLEASE!!

hi, i have been working on an aos for a while now, and i've almost completed it..
but it's boring.. atleast i find it boring, and i don't understand why so i'm going to post everything i can think of about the map and ask for your suggestions, i'm also posting some screen shots as well, and if your interested in playing the map just IM me as Locoh8u or msn [email protected] and i'll set up a game (I AM ALSO LOOKING FOR SOME TESTERS WHO ARE AVAIBLE FOR MULTIPLY TEST GAMES, You must be online atleast abit, you'll get your name on the map, where depends on how much of an effort you put into testing.(I want honest testers, if you don't like the map say so & tell me why.)

Ok well here's my map in a nutshell, if you think i left anything out tell me and i'll put it in the post.

-Map type-

AOS

Inspired by Dota & Tob (Obviously, since they are the only 2 aos's i've ever played.)

-Terrain-
(Posted a Screen Shot of birds eye view of terrain)

Terrain is set to be 2 rival forts, with space inbetween.

3 Primary lanes (Computer units travel these paths)

Multiply alternative routes for heros.

Path 1 (Left aka Top): This path is designed to be a kind of solitare path, it is blocked off from the majority of the map.
Path 2 (Middle): This path is the main path, with access to Path 3, closest access to most shops, and shortest route.
Path 3 (Right aka Bottom): This path has acess to Path 2, as well as many escape routes out of plain sight of units, but is

also the longest path.

-Defense-

Along each path is 1 Wall Ends Tower(Skin by: Tha chump) with 2 units mounted on each tower with 900 range.
Each Base Entry has 2 Wall Ends Towers each with 2 units mounted.


-Unit Spawning-
(For Each Lane)
(Easy to tell each teams units apart)

Every 30 seconds: 2 melee, 1 ranged.
Every 90 seconds: 1 mage.
Every 250 seconds: 1 champion.

-Optional Spawning Buildings-
(These units require you to buy the spawning building & place it yourself, once a player bought building has been placed it

is instantly converted to computer owned, and begins spawning.)

Every 30 seconds: 1 Stronger Melee unit for each lane.
Every 90 seconds: 1 Tank Type unit for each lane.
Every 250 seconds: 1 strong long ranged unit for each lane.


-Upgrades-

There are upgrades for each unit (Melee, Ranged, Mage, Champion & Tower Defenders)
Each upgrade has 3 levels.
The computer upgrades it's self when it has sufficent gold, giving gold to your teams computer will make it upgrade faster.

edit: Also once it's finished all upgrades, the computer divides it's gold evenly amoungst it's allied players, once it stockpiles a certain amount.

-Items-

Key:
1 Per base = 1 type of that shop inside each teams base
Shared = # type of that shop on the map in nuetral zone.
Hidden = Not Seeable on Mini-map.

(1 per Base) Basic Armor Shop: +2, +4, +6, +8, +10 armor, +5 attribute+5 armor.

(1 per Base) Basic Weapon Shop: +3, +6, +9, +12, +15, +5 attribute+6 damage.

(1 per Base) Basic Misc Shop: +5 attribute, +10 attribute, +15% Attack Speed, +25% movement speed, 2 Charges of Teleport.

(1 per base) Basic Health & Mana Shop: +300hp, +200mana, +2hp p/s, +50% mana regen, +25% mana&+1hp p/s, +200hp&+150mana, 3

Charges of Reincarnation.

(1 per Base) Real Estate Agent: 3 placable towers, 3 placable spawning buildings.

(Shared & Hidden) Sea Merchant: +50% attack speed, +25% attack speed&+20 damage, +30 damage, +5 armor&Thorns Aura, +200hp&2hp

p/s, +200% mana regen, +20% self vampiric, +100% mana regen&+4hp p/s, +10armor&200hp&2hp p/s.

(1 Shared) Potion Shop: Restore Health, Restore Mana, Healing Wards, Eclipse, Scroll of Attack, Scroll of Protection, Scroll

of Restroration, Potion of Anti-Magic, Potion of Mana&Health.

(2 shared & Hidden) (Once you buy an item from this shop, it never perishes, it requires mana & has a cooldown with no

limited use. Spells Dealer: Bottomless sack of Land Mines, Wand of Lightning, Amulet of Spell Shield, (125mana&150hp over

10sec) Bottomless Jar of Mealth, (250 mana over 15sec) Bottomleess Jar of Mana, (300hp over 20sec) Bottomless Jar of Health.

(1 shared) Slave Dealer: (This shop allows you to buy a second hero, slave heros are approx half power of normal heros) Slave

Blade Master, Slave Kirby, Slave Tauren, Slave Spirit Walker.

-Heros-
(Will be more heros eventually, but i'd rather balanced heros then lots of unbalanced heros.)
Hero Select allows you to view your heros skills first before choosing.

13 level max.

16 heros to choose from (8 per side)

10 trigger spells (More on the way), 90% of all spells are atleast non-trigger custom (changed animations, damage, cooldown,

some to the point of them seeming to be trigger custom.)

-Balance-

Computer Owned units havn't got the exact same damage, because factors have to be taken into consideration (spells mainly).
But i ran the map with nobody playing when i went to bed and i woke up 3hours later and they were still battling it out,

they'd each made it into each others base.
So computer units in my opinion are balanced, they arn't stupidily weak to the point of never be able to do anything on there

own, but they arn't strong enough to defeat each other without help from player owned heros.

Heros are balanced in my opinion also, there are still probably a few changes to be made to them.
Melee ARE NOT god, while melee units become the strongest heros in later stage games, they are not however impossibly

difficult to kill.

-Defeat & Victory-

To win the game you have to destroy the other bases main building, once it's destroyed a champion of each unit type (melee,

ranged & mage) will appear, as well as that sides Leader (King or Queen), you have to kill there King or Queen in order for

that side to be defeated.

King = Computer owned hero unit, it has a 13 level cap, with movement, it is basicly a strong hero.
Queen = Same as above.

-Revival-

Revival time is Level*Amount of Times Died = # seconds.
There is a 90second cap on hero revival time.
A timer window is created to count down time til revival.
300 Gold is loss from death.

I honestly value any opinions greatly, as this map is designed to let people have fun, so please give me any suggestions you want, that is what im looking for.

~Loco.

When I thought my AoS map was a bit boring, I solved that by increasing the ammount of experience gained by heroes. In the end, the experience gain was doubled compared to what I originally had.

Of course, my AoS had a slightly different approach, I had heroes morph from "tier1" heroes to "tier2", so fast experience gain was a must, if you have less levels to gain, then building up the experence gain could result in your heroes reaching highest levels too fast, and then it really gets boring.

So, what helps a map getting by faster is also less hp and damage to towers, some base-destroying ultimates (such as earthquake, death&decay, tornado) on your heroes, and of course, but that would be hard to fix now, a smaller map (that is, of course, if it is not small already). You can, instead, just add in items like staff of teleportation and boots of speed.

And, also, check your map with more players; the more the merrier. My map is unplayable in 1v1, sadness in 2v2, playable in 3v3, and a carnage in 4v4. I am still waiting to try it in 5v5, it will probably be a battle to remember. ^_^

Well, it looks fairly sly, and you've obviously put a lot of effort.

I could recommend that you put a little more time into spicing up the terrain, as right now it seems fairly blocky and flat.

Have you considered that it might seem boring because you've been working on it so much?

it looks rock solid, thats waht it is!

no really ground breaking new things, but solid, verry solid, with quality.

i especially like how the computer upgrades itself, thats a really good idea imo... that prevents that heros become so strong at the end that units mean jack shit. good plan.
(also that the comp actually uses the money it makes, thats one thing that has always bothered me about eos maps... the comps make shitloads of money but nevery use any of it!)

post some heros with the skills they have and such, its all up to hereo balance now... if the hero balance is good and the skills and themes are nice and inspiering, i'd asay this is a rock solid eos game, and verry playable...

(no gold vaults... YAY!)

thanks alot for the reply. =)

Also a couple things i thought i'd mention

File Size - 301kb, i've tried to keep file size as small as possible to make it downloadable on b.net by everyone, but that also means very few skins there are a few select skins such as blue standard icons, some spell icons, a spell animation skin, a few doodad skins such as the towers & a couple unit skins/models. all downloaded from the wc3campaigns download sections.

and yes, no gold vaults, however every player does recieve 2 gold per second.

also when a player leaves the game it's gold is given to the computer, to go towards upgrades.


and here's one of the heros with a few screen shots (Please ignore the skin, it's not in the actual map)


Dirty Harry; The Gun Slinger

Primary Attribute: Agility

Abilities:

ShadowMeld (Natural)

Long Range Missile:
Fires a long range missile at a target enemy unit.
Level 1 - 1250 range, 75 damage.
Level 2 - 1400 range, 125 damage.
Level 3 - 1550 range, 175 damage.

Summon Cannon:
Summons a Cannon to do your bidding.
Lasts 80 seconds.
Level 1 - 300 hit points, low damage.
Level 2 - 400 hit points, average damage.
Level 3 - 500 hit points, high damage.
(Cannon is a model by Cookie, I'm sure you've seen it before.)

Fragmenting Bullets:
Use Fragmenting Bullets in your rifle, causing your bullets to shatter into pieces, causing massive internal bleeding.
Lasts 8 seconds.
Level 1 - 3 damage per second.
Level 2 - 6 damage per second.
Level 3 - 9 damage per second.

Bonus Agility:
5 bonus agility per level. (All heros have the same ability for there primary attribute in an attempt to make them dominate over non-primarys)

(Ultimate) TnT:
Places a huge barrel of tnt on the ground, after 5 second delay the barrel explodes, dealing 800 damage over a 400 radius and 400 damage in a 800 radius.


I'll post a few more heros with less detailing, just thought i'd atleast post one with a fair bit of details, i didn't pick the best hero, or my favorite i just picked that hero because i was fixing up his hotkeys atm, dirty harry is about the same standard as all the heros, so tell me what you think!.

~Loco.

ps. any specific suggestions for living up the terrain would be appriciated=)

really cant help to say that skin sucks ass...i assume fragmentimg bullets is a passive? probubly is... i'd move it to Y:2,X:2, so it is in third place... all passives should always be in the third skill position! ^^''

he looks cool, but i'd have to say that theultimate deals err.. a bit much damage compared to his other skills... that bomb is allmost a one hit ko if you dont get away... but then, 5 seconds is a long time to run away!! ^^~! so i dont think that'd be much of a problem really...

show some moe heros, you dont ahve to show the xact stats, just the skills and what they do... imo heros are the most importatnt thing to get right in an eos, becouse thats the main focus of gamaplay (most of the time)

this dude looks usefull, only his skills dont really seem to benefit eachother-- actually they dont really benefit from eachother at all. now that doesnt immidiatly mean its a bad hero, but it does, however, affect the funfactor. whjats his main perpouse? it looks like he would be verry effective at assasination, with the extra attack damage over time thing, the verry long ranged attack and the ultimate (wich is a blast.. get it? blast ^^) but the summon... i dont see that have much use in combination with his other abilities.

Bob The Builder

Primary Attribute: Strength

Abilities:

Bob's Son (Has Repair):
Bob finds a pretty woman, they fall inlove and have a baby, but before long bob becomes unhappy with the sex life and gets a divorce, he also wins custody of the kid. He spends weekends teaching his boy how to Repair Structures & Towers.
Level 1 - Weak & Slow.
Level 2 - Average & Average
Level 3 - Strong & Fast.

Bob's Tower:
Build a Bobs Tower, 700 Range, Fast Attack Rate, Splash Damage, 500 HP.
Lasts 60 seconds.
Level 1 - 19 - 29 damage.
Level 2 - 29 - 39 damage.
Level 3 - 39 - 49 damage.

Wood Hatchet:
Bob throws his wood hatchet at an enemy unit, stunning and wounding the target.
Level 1 - 100 damage, 1 second stun.
Level 2 - 150 damage, 2 second stun.
Level 3 - 200 damage, 3 second stun.

Bonus Strength:
+5 Strength per level.

Warrior Spirit:
Bob puts on his war armor and gets his throwing axes and prepares for battle, Giving him a Ranged Attack, increasing his Damage by 50 and Armor by 10.
Lasts 45 seconds.


I know this is all pretty boring stuff to post, but i'm excited about my map, i love my map i've put alot of effort into it, i just wish i didn't find it boring to play and i wish i knew why i found it boring.

~Loco.

Is his skills more inline with each other?

Also, as for TnT's damage, it is massive yes (Highest damage spell in the map) but it's only really useful for killing units, 5 second gives heros alot of time to run away unless you position it right. and i just wanted to use the cannon model, thats why he got a cannon. =)

alright here's the rest of the heros in a nutshell..

Imperial Army:

Bob The Builder (Seen above)


Sir Bean:

Primary Attribute: Strength

Skills:

War Stomp.
Command Aura.
Bonus Strength.
Holy Rage (Increases attack & movement speed).
(Ultimate) Legion (Altered swarm, 10 footmen, no damage return.)

Holy Warrior:

God's Touch (Lowers nearby enemys armor)
Chase (Moves the hero instantly towards the target, dealing X damage+Attack.
Skull Crushing Blow (Gives X% chance to instatly kill any non-hero ground unit)
Inner Demon (Morphs him into a tauren chieften with increased damage & hp).

Sparky:

Spirit Infest (Black arrow, but makes them an unmovable tentacle with increased damage/range per level)
Heal (AutoCast): 50/75/100 heal 1.5sec cooldown.
Power Surge: Chain Lightning with finger of death lightning.
Teleport.
Bonus Intelligence.

Dirty Harry:
As seen above.

Blood Lord:

Summon Blood Golem.
Blood Web: uh i forget what it's based on, but it holds the target dealing X damage per second.
Life Drain.
Blood Grenade (Throws a blood grenade, dealing 300 area damage.)
Bonus Intelligence.

Ranger:

(Passive) Poison Arrow: Deals X Damage per second, and lowers attack speed by X%
Fire Arrow: Fires a fire arrow at the target, catching them on fire & dealing X initial damage & X damage over time.
Stealth: Invis.
(Mana Drain) Ring of Spears: Causes spears to come up from the ground at nearby enemys dealing 25 damage.


Pirate:

Critical Strike.
Summon Cursed Treasure.
Bonus Agility
Imperial Fleet: (Stampede, but with ships)



Demonic Army:


Gimp:
Gimps Tower (Builds a tower).
Gimp's Son (summoned unit, with repair).
gimp's pick (storm bolt)
morph (faster and stronger)


big phil:

cleave attack.
disease cloud.
blood fiend (locust, but using hydralisks and only 1/2/3 of them)
Fire Wheel (rolls an on fire wheel, causing damage in a line & area damage when it explodes, also leaves a fire trail)


bombers:

Final Breath (Area damage on death)
Land Mine Layer (Drops a land mine every 5 seconds for 60seconds)

Ethereal Flame:

Flaming Jaebom (Summoned unit with flame thrower)
Fire Line (causes explosions in a line)
Flame (immolation)
Fire Rain (starfall)


Demonic Warrior:

Sharuken (Long ranged storm bolt)
Metal Grasp (vines)
Death Aura (Lowers attack of nearby enemy)
MultiShot (allows 3 targets)


Undead Queen:

Mana Drain
Aoe Heal
Charm
Animate dead



Barbarian:

endurance aura
starfall
critical strike
enrage (damage increase)



Loco:

Unstable Fire Element (Summons an unmovable ward, with unlimited target multishot flame thrower)
Blink (2000/3000/4000 range)
mana shield
dark majik (Cast on allied transfers 50hp from loco to target, Cast on enemy transfers 50hp from target to loco.)


thats there abilities in very little detail, i just said the spells they were based on, virtually none look the same, or are named the same.

anything else you want me to post?

~Loco.

allthough i dispise builder models used for heros, i must say that this is one of the best and most usefull 'builder heros' i've seen in a while, maily becouse he doesnt completel;y forus on building, hes good for fighting as well. his ultimate and his tower combined make him both a great sieger and sfender...

also his summoned babay builder is handy to repair his tower... but it would be even more handy if the towers are permanent. that would be best imo.

also, you didnt have to use a costom model for throwing axes... i believe there are two attack models for that allredy: the creep trolla xes, and rexxars axe...

his throwing axe is a nice extra touch for dealing damage :), especially good when combined with that explosive barrel of tnt the gunmen dude has ^_^

i'd like to test this when its done... any beta slots left?

check the above post if you havn't already, i added the rest of the heros.

as for testing it, i just log on b.net & start up a game of it, which sucks because not many people really give comments they just say (it sucks or it's good, or nothing at all) there's no detailed comments, thats why i posted here, cause people here give good comments, suggestions & advice.

You got AIM or MSN or Yahoo?

well basically there is nothing i really dispise, there are several heros that sound fun to me and some that i wouldnt want to play, but if i had to i would.

so yeah.. as soon as i get that damn router bypassed and i can host again, i'll see if i can play this.

especially those defence towers with units on top look sexy ^^

You can buy placable permenate towers, Bob's tower is just more powerful.
edit: Also if i did make Bob's Towers permenate, then it could be easily exploited by putting towers at his base from the start, then by the time the enemy make it there his towers would make it impossible to bust in, however i have been thinking about changing his tower to permenate, but only 1 allowed at a time, so if he builds another the previous one is destroyed, what u think about that?


It is rexxars axe. =)

woh... i didnt know rexxars axe was that big ^^ my bad

and yes, that does sound verry good... only one tower allowed, but permanent! saves mana as well ^^

What u need is more fun custom triggered spells. Neat effects and sweet spells to master always win the fun in a game. No spells no fun- Cool Special effect spells lots of levels, great fun

i do not fully agree on that...

having superb trigerred spell fun helps-- yes.

but if they are not verry inspired and good themed, they are worth nothing.
and ofcourse, if the balance blows the game will suck as well...

dont underestimate the level disighns importance,
Terrors Threshold has verry fun heros-- but the map desighn blows. wich ruins a part of the fun for me.

I have to agree with erwtenpeller there. One of the reasons i started to hate FF is because of the ass-long spells. Having lots of special effects are fun but only for the first few times. Other than that they're a pain to watch. Having them as Ultimates are ok.

It's just my opinion that function comes before form. I like spells that are themed(not just elementally) and work together an support other heroes.