Bad map, good map

I was playing on bnet . I found X map and I figured out why the map was bad or why I actually didn't like it. Maybe the map is good but not my style.

- What? There were like 800 heroes and I didn't know any of them so I could only pick those with an icon I like.
- Then I of course started up losing cause I didn't know the map at all. That'll be great if it wasn't for the bnet guys asking me to leave as if they paid my cdkey or they own bnet. They actually told me to play the map in single player first! What ? I wanted to play in multiplayer and I simply don't have 8 hours of my life to use to learn how to play a map.

Once I learn the darn map's mechanics I buy items and they call me a noob for buying them instead of the other ones. So the map has a bunch of trash items that are there just to detect noobs and not to extend the gameplay.

And there were like 800 items in the stores how would I know what to buy? I don't have time to memorize that much stuff.

Then no matter I learned the easy gameplay (hit and run) It became impossible for me to turn the tide of the battle cause besides of killing points the enemy also gets insane experience when he kills other heroes so you end up with a constant 3 level difference.

And the worst part, is the fact that there are spells that simply kill instantly without even aiming expected from the player. You could be walking without seeing anything in a long distance and you are actually in your own base but kapoot an enemy appears and you are just death by some spell that kills you instantly.

Besides the map itself was really bad modding wise. IF A SPELL IS PASSIVE USE AN ICON WITHOUT BORDERS! Also some of the spell effects look really lame, awful in fact. I keep saying that eyecandy is not important but is that an excuse to make a line of earthquake effects that don't even have correct birth/dead animations?


And one of the heroes had a very blurry blademaster skin, so blurry even I could notice.

Besides the size of the map was huge and the reason apparentally was the loading screen, and a bunch of sounds that weren't really needed.

The bad thing is that I had to waste all that time of my life, the good thing is that it helped me figure out what I like in a map:

• I had my doubts when I decided to remove hero experience from my arena but I am now certain that hero experience is a game breaker. Players that kill you already get a point advantage and maybe gold, making them more difficult to kill is just senseless.
  
• A lot of heroes is a bad idea it is better to have 10 unique heroes that 500 clones with repeated skills. Seriously. I once aimed to make a hero arena with 70 heroes but now my objective is gonna be 10.
  
• A good game is easy to learn yet difficult to master. This map was difficult to learn but easy to master that's just not good.
  
• Eye candy is important for god's sake
  
• Spells that do massive damage that cannot be dodge without even warning or something are just wrong.
  
• Quickly dying heroes does not mean a game is fast paced. All players end just escapign from any fight until they get a good level. Otherwise they get complaints about feeding the enemy with experience. It turns the game into a really slow one.
  
• Game modes suck. having to input a bunch of letters when the map begins may seem leet but is just garbage when people isn't aware of what does that mean. I mean you read "-eria" when the map begins how in hell would you know what that means?
  
• Big maps blow. Hey these guys expected you to download the map before joinning, if you tried to join a game without downloading the map first they would kick you. That's probably because they don't want to wait hours until I download it.
  
  However this requirement is simply not possible for a new map.
  
  Forget bnet's 4.0MB limit. Maps should be as small as possible.
  

Wait...you mean to say you found a map that wasn't DoTA? Yeah, there's a lot of bad maps out there, but it's good you can fix you map to the better in the course of playing them.

Maybe he is referring to dota

edit: Whats your account on B.net, oh great Vexorian?

Based on his description, it might very well be DotA. Well, it could be just about any DotA clone, except for that little comment about hosts kicking you if you don't have the map.

I am still not convinced it's that simple. I think experience has it's good sides, with it you have to build your hero over time, adding a new dimension to how you play, since you have to worry about skill choices. The snowball effect, where a player who does well is given an even bigger advantage, is an obvious fault of experience, though. It made sense in melee gameplay to prevent turtling, forcing players to creep and fight, but it doesn't work well in hero-centric custom games. I think hero growth adds an important dimension to the game, but it should be more even for all players.

I so agree. My arena had 10 heroes, now it's moving up to 12 with the next version. Seems like nothing compared to most maps, but at least this way, these 12 heroes are more or less unique.

If DotA is in question, then I wouldn't dismiss it too quickly as easy to master; but I'll agree that the starting learning curve is far too steep. The heroes and the skills may resemble those of normal warcraft and gameplay that of every other AoS , but the ammount of items and heroes you have to learn in order to play at least half-decently is overwhelming.

Maybe not eye candy as in spells-with-masses-of-special-effects so much as decent hero design with good colour choices for the skin, the icons, the spell effects.

While I'll agree that if nothing else, that kind of design is not particularly noob-friendly, I think such skills can work. In DotA, the power of the spells makes surprise tactics work so well, which adds an interesting dimension to the game because you have to anticipate enemy moves and guess their positions when they're not visible. I don't find the design particularly appealing, but I can understand why an adrenaline junky would find DotA fun.

Yep, quick reviving would make a game fast-paced. As is the situation in DotA and all it's clones, due to high death penalties, it pays off more to wait than to risk, leading the game to a stalemate of power.

Not to mention what different game modes do to balance.

Once again, agreed. I would say a practical limit would be 1MB, and by that I really mean a limit that few maps should reach, while the average map size should be below half that value.

This thread could be in General Development.

I thank you for the tips.

I don't think experience is a game breaker in itself, but rather in the way it is used.

Personally, I would like to see leveling used more not as a method of becoming stronger, but of becoming more diverse and the hero more maluable.

That is, rather than just +5 stats, +100% damage to your spells from leveling up, you can get more abilities, which don't automatically make you stronger, just give you more options, which makes you more powerful if you use them well.

Oh, and you don't have to memorise stuff for each map. I occasionally play maps like these, and all you have to do is just think about what a bad map maker would have made overpowered.

On maps that really require developments I would have made it so a hero doesn't win experience if he kills a hero with lower level. A 3 level difference is just too much.

Or maybe make the curve smaller so increasing level does not make you a lot stronger just a little. I don't know.

In my map I'd prefer heroes to start with all abilities so everybody start with the same chance, then there could be items that improve abilities and things like that, all limited to a 12 slots inventory.

But if the outcome of a game depends on the first 5 minutes, it should simply last 5 minutes.

When I say eye candy is important I do not mean "use massive effects for your spell" but "find the right effects for your spell"

Thread moved.

I guess everyone needs to rant about a map sometimes...but what can you do when some maps are simply "hey I learned what triggers are, this is so great, I will create an AoS now". The worst thing here is that people actually play these maps. Usually the one that hosts is the one that found a bug/cheat/exploit and wants to show it to the others by beating the ***t out of them (preferably he alone against 6 players to get more xp) and of course calling them noobs since he is the great expert that found the bug/cheat/exploit first.
Well that was my rant and it was mostly referring to a map i played recently - Orcs and Undead vs Humans and Night Elf (one of many).
In it there was an archmage hero that was taken by the host of course. The spells? No big deal...a frost nova with about 500 damage per level (unless you buy a lot of strength tomes these are instant death) with about 1500 range and very low cooldown, a monsoon that was later able to kill our base in about 1 second (it had full hp btw) and 2 more that I forgot. Well luckily the horde side had its "pro" hero as well - shadow hunter. Each level gave him one more ward (magic immune, 40 magic damage) so at level 10 it created 10 insane wards...and can you guess what happens when you cast it where some enemy hero is? I guess they can call this balance - one insane hero for the alliance, one insane hero for the horde and 10 more "suckers" that would feed the above two with xp and money. Of course if you don't manage to take shadow hunter or archmage the smartest thing is to leave...
This was just one of many examples of a "good" map.
I don't even want to write a review of "footman 10000" (in which you can attack allied heroes to get xp) or "loap naga" (in which you have illidan, god and death heroes with 50000 damage and 100000 health)...one thing is certain though - as long as there are maps in which someone can be "the best" by simply knowing which hero to take, people will gladly play them.

Now to answer Vexorian's post:
XP: I always hated the fact that in most of the hero arena and AoS maps a 2 level difference can be fatal and end the game eventually (the lucky hero that has it would simply level up more by killing others). However this might not be a good reason to completely remove XP from your map. For example after 10 minutes you can give every hero a level up, all abilities increased by 1 level (maybe one added) and some more HP. True, this wouldn't do much, but some people simply like to see their heroes stronger and might get bored from using the same abilities. And its probably one of every mapper's main goals to get more people to play his map.
Number of Heroes: I can't agree more. 10 balanced will always beat 100 imbalanced (considering the fact that 10 is much easier to balance than 100). Its also really painful to choose a hero amongst 100 of them as you already said.
Map Size: There is certainly no need for importing more than 2 models and about 5 textures in your map unless its a campaign. Hasn't warcraft got enough already? Not to mention WoW models, sounds and 1024x768 loading screens...

Not only that but there are excellent compression tools out there, mdx squisher, modelviewer texture compressor, and sound compression. I was able to fit the whole konstruct pack (units, attachments, tileset, doodads, interface buttons but not game UI), some icons, a map preview, and some sounds into a 1MB map.

My map got probably a lot of stuff, even models and icons and I was unable to make it past 600KB.

Is that Naruto Wars you are refering to?

indeed what map were you referring to if its not a secret?

His Hero Arena, I supose.

i mean the map he just wrote a review about...not his arena.