Onslaught Public Beta released (and website)

I have finally released a public beta for the map I have been working on since January. Apparently I am not allowed to list the website that I have made for my map but you can access it from my signature.

Onslaught
Version: "Public Beta 1"

Summary:
Basically an AoS-style map, inspired by the Onslaught mode in UT2004. Two teams of up to 6 players fight for control of a network of power nodes. You win by draining your enemies base node.

Features:

• 6 Hero classes, based on a combination of Strength, Intelligence or Agility as primary and secondary attributes. Each class comes with 1 non-levelling class ability to help define their role.
• 6 Schools to learn new abilities for your hero. Schools require minimum levels of the 3 Hero attributes.
• Ultimate School to learn one of 15 (not fully implemented) ultimate abilities based on two regular Schools
• A network of 9 inter-connected power nodes with mana as their "energy".
• NPC creeps which spawn behind your base node and filter throught the network until they reach an enemy node and detonate, draining mana from it.
• Player controllable units and associated tech-tree.
• 3 tiers of items to craft for your hero.
• Towers which can be built along lanes by your hero. Creeps do not attack the towers, rather like a TD.

Credits:
Created be me, Moss. Also makes use of Vexorian's Caster System.

Moved to map testing section.

Now, either you upload the map here, and have your post comply with the rules, or I delete it. WC3C is not for just linking to off-site material.

Ok, me and some friends did a test game, full house. Its not bad, but its not excitong either. Heres a list:

Disable team killing. If someone attacks an ally, order the hero to attack ground that point, instead.

How do skills exactly work? How do you know when you can get another?

Building and destruction of nodes needs to be more user frienldy.

Those are all minor, the biggies are gameplay.

This is lacking what makes ONS fun. There is no offence or defesne of nodes. You either own it or you dont, there is no race to defend or attack. They should be about as important as an expansion it Tides of blood, if you have not played tob, they are extremely important.

How to do this? First, it should be possible to defend. Teleportation to nodes combined with a slower move speed would be good. I hate to say it, but the heros are very very bad. They are single track, you cant get a good spell mix. Either summoning or building, or whatever. And the cannot really work together, if that was the point.

The skills should be strong and scary. That would (in theory) make killing enemies before nodes important, like ut. Death and respwan should be fast. No more of this being surrounded by enemies but still capturing their node.

Lack of redeemer. Nuff said. :(

And, of course the terrain. As said before, it needs work! Hills and buildings around nodes. Make key ones harder capture, others harder to hold. Possibly a whole new link setup...


This may be be harsh, but im hoping it will help.
Cant wait for beta2!

Wow, that is a lot of thoughts! That is awesome that you got a full house. I have never had enough people for a 6v6. Let me try to address your points one at a time.


I figured I would have to do that eventually, since DotA and presumably other such maps do that.


What do you mean? Whenever you have unspent skill points (the number in the corner of the + button) you can learn new abilities. It is like regular Warcraft except you pick from a range of spells at the School Masters instead of picking from a predefined set already on your hero.

If you mean how do schools work, I can tell you. Each school has a prerequisite of 30 of one hero attribute and 20 of another. For example, Brawn requires 30 Strength and 20 Agility. Each hero starts off with 30, 28 and 17 of the each of the attributes. There are 6 possible combinations which determines the 6 hero classes. So to begin with, each hero can learn from only one school (their "Affinity"). But at level 2 they can learn from another school and at level 4 they can learn from two more. Since it can be hard for even somebody who has been playing for a while to think about which schools they can learn from and when, I created the -sch command to give you a summary of how your hero compares to all the schools at the moment. There is a note about it on screen after you pick your hero.


What would be more user friendly than standing at the node and pressing a button on your hero?



I am not quite sure what you mean by this or what I can do about it.



You can teleport to nodes, but you have to buy nodal scrolls in your base. I already made the map much larger than it originally was in order to achieve the effect of slower movement among other things.


Was this in relation to offence/defence of nodes? Because you put it in the same paragraph. This sounds like something we could talk about in more depth. I need you to explain more I think. Maybe you can't get a good spell mix because I don't have a lot of spells per school yet, or because you didn't know you can learn from multiple schools or because you only played once so you don't know what all the spells are? Perhaps we could talk about this in the Balance section on my website.


I guess I haven't put a lot of thought into how the heroes can work together. I just thought up some defined roles they can play and figured that they would automatically complement each other with their strengths and weaknesses. If you have any particular ideas in this area I would like to hear them.


So you think the game should be twitchier like DotA? Because I hate that about DotA. Fast pace is fine in an FPS but I think RTSs should be slower since there is more micromanaging. Do you really think there is an issue with taking over nodes with enemies nearby? Couldn't you just kill or chase off the hero even if they take it over, and take it right back?


I am gathering that you want more devastating, insta-killing spells? Again, I think insta-killing is dumb because you can't react to it. You have to predict it and avoid it which is a different style of gameplay, I prefer reacting. Redeemer could be an interesting game mode where it is an item on the map that players can pick up and use.


OK, for the most part the terrain/doodads should either be basically done in some areas (around the main playing area), or barely or not at all touched (mostly in the periphery), with a few half done areas. You seem to be talking about the areas around nodes. So I am not sure what more I can do. Are you talking about gameplay altering changes or just beautification? There are both hills and "buildings" around the base nodes and the center node. I don't know what more you want!



You think important nodes should be easier to hold? Wouldn't that enable the team that gets the key nodes to dominate too easily?


The one I got is nice and generic. I did consider slightly different arrangments but this has been the basic format since the very beginning (it was the first part of the map ever made). If you can think of a better setup I will give it due consideration. If it is too complicated though then it is a pain to manage the creep spawns. I have toyed with the idea of a customizable node setup, which could provide more replayability. I sure wish you could make multi-map mods with WC.

By the way, I don't suppose you could get a replay of your game. Anyway I would like to get replays to examine how people are playing.

I guess after reading your and my arguments I can sum it us as this.

I lacked the bloodthirsty adrenaline rush when play, loseing a node, or capturing one. There are just to many, they are expendable. My team just plowed through, never lost a node, and didn't pass level three. Maybe the enemy wasn't that good, we need to find out why. I add a hero point or two sitting there unused, didn't want to go back to get skillz-- How about shops you can see from anywhere? (dummy buyers)

Lets do some more testing!

Wow, your game was that fast?! Most games I have been playing now last about 1 hour, and most players get to level 12 (the last level). I would really like the game to be about 30 - 45 minutes, so I was planning to incorperate a sudden death overtime like UT ONS has.

But like I said I have never tested with so many people and I did suspect that the game could end faster with more people. Like 4v4 ladder games tend to end stupidly fast, there is generally one major battle and then the winning team has enough army left over to plow through the enemy bases before they can rebuild.

I am guessing nobody built towers? Maybe I should rig the game to be harder to push when there are more total players. Unlike DotA you can just force your way over to the enemy side and end the game real soon.