Need Help with Spells in a Spellbook

Hi there. I hope I've choosen the right forum, because I'm a bit new here so please forgive me, if I didn't.

Now to the problem:

I'm working on a map where some heroes got the Hero Ability "Spellbook". This spellbock contains various other spells. Nothin spectacular I know :) But there seem to be some errors with some of them. Some spells are not as they should be, others don't even show up in the Spellbook. I tried almost everything and am sure that the problem lies within some of these spells, because my game craches with an error message when I try to use certain spells.

So is there anyone out there who has time to look at my spells? I would send him my map so he could look at it for himself. And please only guys who really know what they are doin. If interested post here and I'll contact you with a PN. Thx for your help. :\

Really no one here who has the time to help me? Too bad, because my map is based on these heroes...

I just need a person that knows much about the system of the object manager and who checks my abilities in this db and reports any errors / suggestions / fixing tips... o_O

It seems to me you'd have better luck if you tried to solve the problem here in the forum. It's a lot better for the community if your problem is solved publically rather than through private messages, because it may help someone else in the future (if they search and find your thread). Do you want to be a little bit more specific about what, exactly, is happening?

Your heroes have a spellbook ability - what kind of spells do you find in the spellbook? Hero spells or unit spells?

Do the spells still have problems outside of the spellbook? If so, your problem doesn't really have anything to do with the spellbook. Just take some time and list the problem spells and what you are attempting to do with them.

These aren't necessarily all the questions that will need to be answered, and if you can give any more information please do.

Ok let me try.

All Spells are custom spells first. So I made them all by myself based on other spells of course. It seems that certain spells are making those problems. But this thread would get too big if I'd post the code for them wouldn't it? ;)

Some spells don't even appear in the spellbock. Others bring my game to crash (memory could not been read..) when I learn the spellbock where those are contained. So it seems that something is not right yet with the data in the object manager....but as I mentioned before, this thread would grow rapidly if I'd post the code of the spells so what else should I to if not to ask for people to look at the map and the spells I use? :\

I definitely agree this thread would get too big too fast if you started posting the code from all your custom spells - it sounds like you have a lot :).

I guess what I'm asking is for a little bit of troubleshooting on your end. Find out if the spells work first - take the spellbook out of the equation completely and give the heroes your spells and make sure they work. I ask this because, in your original post, you made it sound as if some of the spells didn't work at all. If so, you've sort of got a series of problems. The place to start is by first verifying that all of your spells work, before trying to place them in a spellbook.

Am I right, or did I not understand your first post correctly? Do you have some spell problems, or do all of your spells work perfectly until they are placed in the spellbook? If individual spells do not work, even outside of the spellbook, you will need to take care of that problem first. Deal with the spells that don't work one at a time, either on your own or in this forum. If I misunderstood and all your spells are working, then I apologize.

FYI - I think you didn't get many responses because it sounds like you want someone to do the work for you. When you say "This isn't working, can you just download my map and fix it?" people will probably be less likely to help you, because it seems like you're not willing to take the time to work on it yourself. I'm not saying this is the case, just noting that this is what it came out sounding like.

Do hero abilities even work in spellbooks? i dont think they do cause i remember i had to make everything unit spells cause the hero ones didnt work, i think they didnt show up but im not sure.

they work if you use shift to add them to the spell book, and they work exactly as a unit abiliy would

hmm who figured out the shift thing? i never heard of it until like a month ago. and it is the answer to everything in the object editor. and elaborate on "Some spells are not as they should be".

Blizzard invented it, they documented in some of the patch's logs, and I started using it?

Make sure Mininum Spells=Maxuim spells and that those numbers = the number of spells in the spell book.

Ok first of all ths for posting in here.

I'll try to make some things clear:

1. I didn't try the spells to be available without the spellbook. Maybe I should try that first. Ths for the tip.

2. I don't want to let other people do my work. I tried to fix the spells for almost 2 days now and just don't know what exactly is wrong with them. So I started this thread to get help with it, but because I can't really explain what is wrong I just wanted some guys to look at it and analyse what could be wrong. Then I could fix it by myself. Also they could explain to me why it doesn't work so I could learn from it...

3. I made all my custom abilities to "Stats - Hero Ability = false". Does that effect anything anyway? Because I can't add hero abilities in my spellbook...

4. The spellbook itself is a learnable ability for the heroes..

[edit]

Ok here we go. Here are some of my recent problems:

a) One spell is based on the skill "Evasion", but when I want to press it nothin happens. Just like it was a passive skill that you can't press. Can I change that somehow?

b) I wish to make a spell act like slow but effect an area instead of just one unit. So I gave it an area-of-effect, but it seems to cast slow just in the primary target. Any possibility to change this?

c) One spell shall act like chain lightning does from the Far Seer. But only for mechanical units and shoul stunn them, too. But actually it stops at the first target and doesn't jump to the next. What could be the problem?


The really odd thing is, that I need to take an item / ability which I can use as a base for my own spell, because some items have data in them which others don't have. And afaik you can't manually add another entry to the data or are there any editors for spells out there so I could create my very own spell just as I want it?

Thx for any help guys

Well read the titel...

Just so you know im not an World Editor Expert but I think what some of the probelms can be..

a) If you based it off the normal skill Evasion, Evasion is a passive skill and when you base it of that, it will still be passive

b)You need to make a dummy caster and make it cast slow on the whole area but I can't tell ya exactly so ask either Lord Vexorian or -={tWiStÄr}=- they are both skilled.

c)Im not sure bot does the normal chain lightning jump on to Mechanical units? If it don't then it is hardcoded and you can't change that (I think)

Hope it helped

----Soultaker

everything you posted that doesnt work is because it shouldn't.
for the evasion, it depends how you want it, do you want something sort of like avatar?
for the mass slow, you need to make a custom unit that is really tiny with invisi and Aloc (special ability that makes units undetectible by seleciting or minimap etc.) then you add the slow ability to it. then you make a trigger that checks when the hero uses the mass slow ability (based of a targetless ability such as war stomp) you create this unit and order it to use slow on each unit within a radius of the hero.
for the chain lighting, it is most likely hardcoded. and fairly hard to immitate through triggers.

can you also list some of the spells that cause the game to crash?
note: item abilities given to a unit without changing the value "Stats - Item Ability" to false will cause the item to not show up.

Hi again!

I'll try to add in some useful tips, because I feel kinda bad about giving you a hard time earlier. I didn't mean to put you on the defensive.

When you're making spells in Warcraft, every spell has to be based off another spell. You've noticed this already. Sometimes the spells just can't do what you want (in fact, a lot of the time). When you run into a situation like that, you normally fake the spell through some kind of triggering.

When I'm making spells, the first thing I'll do is try to think of what spell in warcraft is most like what I'm trying to accomplish. If there is a spell that is fairly similar, like your chain lightning idea, then I will attempt to manipulate the original spell. You had the right idea there, but it might be hard-coded into the game that lightning will not jump to mechanical targets. If so, you're going to have a hard time making that spell work.

Keep in mind that you can't change basic traits of a spell. For example, when you talked about an activated ability that gave you evasion - you can't base this off of evasion, because evasion isn't activated (you never click on it - it's a passive spell). To make an activated evasion spell (which you may or may not want), you're going to have to trigger the whole thing. Here is how I would do it:

First, I'd find a good spell to base it off of. You need a spell that requires no target be selected (like storm bolt) and no area be selected (like Flame Strike). I run into this kind of spell a lot, and I normally use Roar, Howl of Terror, or Tranquility as a "base spell". All of these spells are good because you can make them do nothing - that is, you can change the data so that nothing happens when the user clicks on them.

OK, so now you have a spell to base it off of. Create a New Custom Ability and call it what you want. Go through all the Stats - Data fields and change them to 0. You will also need to remove all the art. Once you've done this, you've given them an ability that will hopefully work how you want it to. They click it, and clicking it gives them enhanced evasion.

The next step is to create the actual ability that will do what you want. I'll tell you why you need to do this in the next step. Create a new custom ability based off the Talisman of Evasion. The reason we're basing this ability of the Talisman of Evasion is kind of weird...abilities based off of icons don't add an icon for the player (in most cases). What this means is we can give this ability to the hero without the player knowing. Put in whatever stats you want the ability to give the player.

The next step is to create a Trigger that gives the evasion ability to the player. I guess we'll make this make sense, and make it give him Evasion for thirty seconds. The whole ability will be triggered. I'm not going to give you exact code for the trigger because I don't think you even need this ability, but here is the basics:

I'm going to assume only one hero will ever be able to cast this spell. If you wanted multiple heroes to be able to cast this, it would become much more complicated. You will need one variable - EvasionUnit. It's type should be unit.

Trigger 1: Turn on Evasion
Event: A unit casts a spell
Condition: Spell being cast equal to "Evasion Spell"
Actions:
Unit - Add ability (Evasion based off of Item) to Casting Unit
Set EvasionUnit = Casting Unit
Wait 30 Game-time seconds
Unit - Remove Ability (Evasion based off of Item) from Casting Unit


The reason I ran through that is to give you an example of the process of making a custom ability. Not all will work like that, but that's just an example ability.

Looking at your questions individually...

3) Stats - Hero Ability False does mean something. Basically, every spell is either a Hero Ability, an Item Ability, or a Unit Ability. Hero Abilities have to be learned and only heroes can have them. Every ability that a hero has in standard warcraft is a hero ability (except Shadowmeld). Unit abilities are abilities like the Priest's Heal, Dispel Magic, and Inner Fire. You don't have to learn the abilities, though sometimes an upgrade is required before you can use it. Unit abilities already exist on a unit (unless added through triggers) the instant it is created. They don't need to be learned. Item abilities are the abilities that make items work. When you click on a Wand of the Wind, it actually finds the ability tied to Wand of the Wind and figures out what to do.

a) I feel like I sort of answered above. If you want an ability to be clickable, you have to base it off of a clickable ability.

b) Twistar is pretty much right about mass slow. It is fairly complicated to do an AoE spell that was originally a single target spell. There is a simpler solution, but it might not be what you want. In my latest map, one of my heroes has Area of Effect entangle. All it does is greatly slow the movement speed of enemies in an Area of Effect. I didn't have to do any custom coding though, since all I wanted to do was slow their movement. Look at the Dark Ranger spell "Silence". You can change the spell around quite a bit, and it might work for you.

c) Twistar is right again, I think. If you've changed the spell so it targets mechanical units now and it still doesn't jump to other mechanical units, I think the best idea might be to drop the spell. Consider using Forked Lightning instead, possibly.

Hope this mass of information helped.

Ok, thank you very much guys, I'll try some of these things out later.
Here some more points about the spells I want to create (and these make the problems I think):

1. Order of Brass: (based on Chain Lightning) Jumps up to 4 times and makes every unit caught by it stunned (only mechanical units shall be effected).
- problem: the spell doesn't jump from one unit to another (but I can stunn the primary target).

2. Fur of the Midnight: (based on Evasion) targeted unit shall get 50% evasion for 15seconds. (first I wanted to get better evasion against ranged attacks. Somethin like that possible ?).
- problem: the spell is not clickable (should be solved soon because of your help)

3. Ruin of the forged Steel: (based on Faerie Fire) AoE spell. -15 armor for all caught units.
- problem: only the primary target gets -15 armor ; also the missile is not visible. Maybe because the base spell (Faerie Fire) is instant cast and doesn't got a missle?

4. Flamesword of Rhuin: (based on fire orb) dmg increased by 15 for 30 seconds.
- problem: the spell is activated and doesn't need to be cast

5. Firestorm of Decay: (based on Flame Strike) same is normal Flame Strike but with some damage differences.
- problem: spell doesn't show up in the Spellbook.

6. Wrath of the Bear: (based on Battle Roar) same as base-spell, but only castable on yourself.
- problem: spell doesn't show up in the Spellbook.

7. Pit of the Shadows: (based on Slow) AoE spell that slows all units in the target area.
- problem: spell only effects primary unit (seems to be clear for me now)


Also one thing to the spellbooks: These spellbooks are learnable like all other hero abilities. And those spellbooks contain diffrent spells that are learned when you learn the spellbook. Also the spellbooks got diffrent levels (1,2,3). Each level grants +1 spell in the spellbook.