Onslaught Beta 3

NOTICE: This is an old version, the full version has been released.

This is the last beta version of my map before the final. It will be mostly bug fixes and cosmetic changes from here. I didn't get any feedback at all from this forum about beta 2 and not much about beta 1. Hopefully some people will be willing to test this out more and realize that this is a serious effort and a polished map.

Onslaught - Public Beta 3

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 Powercore.

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 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 Powercore 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, like a TD.

Credits:
Created by me, Moss. With help from Ignitedstar and a few others. Also makes use of Vexorian's Caster System, and some spells, icons, etc. from various people. See the quest menu in-game for more details.

Changelog from Beta 2

Hidden information: New Abilities •Interference Ward (Metamagic school) •Effluvium (Alchemy school) •Combative Stance (Subterfuge) •Deathblow (Brawn) •Supercharge (Mechanics) •Corpse Explosion (Alchemy) •Fire Wyrm (Conjuring) •Magic Box (Ultimate) •Abduct (Ultimate) •Immortal Spirits (Ultimate) Units •Greater Weaponsmith (new item shop) •Dragon Roost (neutral merc shop) •Black Market (currently sells nothing, will have a revolving selection of questionable items) Items •Starter Orb (basic orb for melee units to attack air) •Hyper Blades •Savage Blades •Furious Blades (made from the previous two) •Indifference (shield with Hardened Skin type ability) •Nullifier (upgrade of Indifference with castable invulnerability) Commands • -rand (For my whining friends. Chooses 1 of the six heroes at random.) • -unstick/-stuck/-suicide (Last resort if your hero becomes lost, trapped or unresponsive) Plus... •A secret! Call it a quest or riddle hidden on the map. (Hint: critters) Improved •Scrapped asymmetrical creep pathing. Creeps flow equally to every node •Node take over shares XP with nearby allies now •Statistics for each level of every ability are listed at the School Masters •Powercore health is listed on the scoreboard now •Trees grow back now •Removed Life Bomb ability from Alchemy school •Classified rocks from Pile o' Rocks as buildings so they aren't window selected •Adjusted income rates so larger teams don't get so much less gold •Take overs stop from nodes that become isolated •Further improvements and filling in of map terrain. •Changed player starting gold from 200-100 (depending on size of team) to a flat 250 •Units converted by Intimidate use 0 food now •Removed Wand of Shadowsight from contested shops because the buff lasts forever •Reset Evokers sight range so Force of Nature would work better (couldn't see trees) •Moved Assassins Dagger, Farming Implement, and Demolisher to the Greater Weaponsmith •Also moved Stun Stick and maybe something else •Changed some ability hotkeys to avoid conflicts •Improved method for drawing mana bars on power nodes •Made Maelstrom work better (used to sometimes strike lightning without doing damage) •Reduce map file size 1044 KB -> 857 KB while improving loading screen quality (better compression method) •Enabled nodal scrolls to transport player controlled units with hero •Improved cliff texture (doubt that anybody will notice) Balanced •Increased hero experience rate (seems just right now) •Made experience rate and income scale partly with game length (game length set with -ot command) •Reduced base mana capacity on heroes especially Ranger •Increased tower cost and HP by 33% •Cut Revitalize cooldown in half for each level •Increased Maul mana cost 50 -> 70 •Added slight slowing effect to Condemn •Increased Evoker base HP by 80 •Changed Panacea to instant cast around Concocter (no point targeting) •Removed Well-Made Bow option from Stun Stick recipe •Increased Clockwerk Goblin explosions 30-70 -> 50-90 •Reduced Grenade Assault damage 200,300,400 -> 175,250,333 •Changed Anti-Magic Shield to instant-cast AoE and rebalanced everything •Increased mana cost of Hailstorm 100 -> 120 •Increased Redouble cooldown: 30 -> 60; duration: 30,40,50 -> 40,60,80; and mana cost: 200 -> 250 •Altered orb recipes (was two gems, now two gems and Starter Orb) •Reduced orbs gold cost 1000 -> 500 •Reduced gem gold cost 1000 -> 900 •Increased Chaotic Shock cooldown 50 -> 90 •Increased Monolithic Form cooldown 10 -> 20 •Increased Trapper's Net cooldown 15 -> 30 •Reduced Steroids extra damage taken 50% -> 25% •Changed Equilibrium cooldown 15,10,5 -> 13 flat •Increased Revitalize range 500 -> 1200 Fixed •problems with Take Over and Teleport abilities not being removed correctly •major bug (related to previous item) where Hero could repeatedly press Take Over and get tons of XP (thanks Ignitedstar) •bug with Wand of Illusion + Command Badges that made you lose Command Quota (food) and then give you practically infinite food •Intimidate didn't work at all in the Public Beta 2 release! Now it does :) •fixed Strength/Agility/Intelligence tomes unlocking schools for real this time •bug where Brawler was half stuck in Monolithic Form if they died in it and were bought back •Panacea works properly with Emerald now (increased AoE) •level 2 & 3 of Poison Attack worked on buildings

See I was hoping to get more feedback than none. Does 2 views for the map file mean that only 2 people have downloaded it?

Actually Aray did comment on my map by giving me some rep. Thanks Aray.

I'll take some time out to download / test the map for functionality, but I can tell you right now:

Your ideas are nice, I like the setup, and the concept of creep passing by towers is creative and unique, but your lanes are BORING...there is no interest in them as they are just..well, diagonal lines.

As simple of an issue as that may seem, it degrades from my interest in playing it monumentally.

Thanks for your input. I made the paths that way so that it would be balanced nicely for both sides and it is easy to control the creep pathing behaviour. I have seen an Onslaught map in Unreal Tournament that was justa massive grid of nodes and I thought it was cool and didn't make the gameplay boring at all. The terrain was still unique everywhere and that was all the variety needed. The terrain in my map is also irregular (but balanced). For awhile I toyed with the idea of having some sort of randomly generated node network but that would sacrifice the ability to hand-craft the terrain. I would say the paths in my game are still more interesting than say DotA where the creeps just walk straight along one side of the map or the other or across the middle. In my map the creeps randomly split down different paths when the come to nodes or converge again as they approach the enemy side. Any given creep could take I think six variations of paths. When you have played it some tell me if you still think the lanes are boring.

Alright, well I've run an initial test on your map and here are my conclusions:

Things I like
- The way you designed and organized the hero system it very very nice...I like each actual hero having a natural ability that kind of nudges players towards certain ability choices (such as the tinker-hero picking mechanical) but not restricting them, so that the hero can go their own path. What is mildly confusing, however, is that the ult system requiring two seperate "specialities" to have been chosen for ANY ult (there are no single ability ults). I like how you pulled the focus away from items too, by including them but not putting such a focus on them.

-Teleport / capture system is very well created. I like how you can teleport back to your base from any node you control, and that being near an enemy node creates the button in your hero's panel to capture it. I also like that teleporting to a node from your base requires gold.

Things Needing Improvement/Revision
-The pathing out of the base should EMPHASIZE the use of the waygate...as it is, the waygate is placed off to the side, and one doesn't even really think about using it as the primary method of exiting the base. Also, the base design is also a little...overcrowded. Because of the system you have with the hero abilities, I understand the need to have seperate "teachers" of each "school," but when you add in the barracks, banker, basic item shop, the other 4 item shops, the tavern (which remains after a hero has been chosen), the healing well, the waygate, and any other buildings I'm missing out on...it gets to be a bit too much. The 'base' doesn't really feel like a base either...even though its crowded, its lacking in any trees or terrain changes..or anything like that.

-The other main terrain issue I had was that I noticed the presence of neutral creeps throughout the map...now, I played the map in single player mode, so I was by myself...and even with only the creeps to fight against, I was busy enough not to even THINK about going to neutral...plus they don't really have any place in the story line of an "Onslaught" type map. I don't see them really as being necessary, so you might consider removing them.

-I said I only had one last main terrain concern, so this is a non-main concern ;). The fact that you can build towers by your enemy's primary power core is...well, cheap and makes for it being possible to have a REALLY bad game if the other team is full of campers.

Scoreboard
-Size is VERY jumbled...the % size of each column is obviously not the same for every row
-Too much space in between Nodes/Kills/Deaths columns for EVERY row, including the title row

Minor Bugs
-The "Crate" ability (that either lays mines, a stun bomb, or an earthquake generator) shifts its buttons around when one is clicked. IE, with a level 3 crate, i click on the "mine" option and the button suddenly jumps to the 3,2 position instead of remaining at the 0,2 position.
-Double check your triggers that announce the "Your Power core is under attack". When attacking blue team's core, I was like "WOW, my core is under attack?" Its unnecessary to play the sound that says "Your core..." when I'm really attacking THEIR core. Consider playing no sound at all to the attacking team (IE, red attacks blue core, the "Your core is under attack" sound is played for blue team members only...blue team attacks red core, the "Core attacked" sound is played for red team only)
-Tooltip of Backlash is confusing / misworded "automatically create a shockwave towards any unit that attacks them"
-Backlash doesn't seem to consistently deal appropriate damage (deals damage to 1 unit, not units in a line)
-Creep detonation on power nodes does not deplete mana if its controled by neutrals
-Neutral nodes create the green neutral camp spots on minimap; unnecessary.
-Mechanical AOE grenade is too powerful, level 1 destroys every creep in the area and does partial damage to
borderline units, let alone levels 2 and 3.

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That's all I have at the moment, I'll run another test with a different class (as you can tell by my detail, the first class I used was Mechanical w/ Tinker-type hero). I'll also be looking for other bugs / issues as I go along.

EDIT: Included bugs found in 2nd test.

Lots of good suggestions and finds WNxCryptic. Let me try to address some of your dislikes.

Yes the dual school requirement for ultimates is a little tricky for new players and unfortunately it makes it unclear what ultimates are potentially available to any given hero. But the -sch command should help a bit and there are only 12 ultimates and six heroes/schools so eventually you figure out how they fit together. Perhaps some day I will make another ultimate master that can teach 1-school ultimates. But that will just make the bases more crowded.

So speaking of the base...Do you think it should be more spacious? I have tried to make it as compact as possible so that it is easy to go to different building quickly. What would emphasize the use of the Waygates more? I know it can be a problem because one of my own friends kept paying to teleport to his own power core (which perhaps I should disable). But normally if you tell your hero to move somewhere on the map they will automatically use the Waygate if that is the fastest way. The human base is very plain and I figured that would help make it less confusing. Try playing on the blue team and see what you think of their base.

Neutral creeps. They are currently a way for obtain lumber faster which generally only comes at a steady income rate. The red creep camps are a fun little diversion to help pimp out your team when you are good enough to attack them. I really recommend and hope that you try playing a real game with other people, or better yet, a few real games, possibly even with me and my friends who have experience so you can know how things feel in, well, a real game.

Towers at the enemy core. Well you can't build towers right beside the enemy power core (the core and other nodes will attack enemy towers). There have been some games (usually 5v1's or 6v2's etc.) where offensive towering became a hassle, but usually it is not a problem. Towers generally become obsolete late game, like in Melee.

Ya the scoreboard was a bit sloppy. I have tightened it up.

Wow that crate thing is really nitpicky! Turns out it is actually the "turn off" button for the ability that it was based on showing. For some reason it only happens when making a mine. I have cleaned that up.

The only way that I have an announcement that the blue or red power core is under attack is because they announce it that way in Unreal Tournament, where the audio is from. In fact they announce everything to both teams, nodes under attack, isolated, being built etc. I have limited it to just the Power Core announcement for both teams, and when it is your team you get an additional warning *DONG* and text message.

I am not sure what is confusing about the wording for Backlash. It is true that sometimes it seems to do no damage on some units. I will try increasing the AoE (it is currently 75 instead of 150 for normal shockwave) and reducing the damage. Regardless it is a quite effective spell.


Creeps don't detonate on neutral nodes.

Grenade Assault does not kill creeps outright at level 1. At level 2 it can kill the ranged creeps, at level 3 it can kill the melee ones too. I don't believe it is very overpowered but I will increase its cooldown a bit.

Once again, I appreciate your thorough analysis. I will use it to improve my map!

I'm not sure how to explain the neutral detonation bug..because it does seem to work when they pass over most of the nodes, but in that one game I played I watched blue-team creeps detonate on the node immediately above and to the right slightly when it was controlled by neutrals.

Anyways, I havn't had the opportunity to test the map any more, but perhaps I'll take another run sometime in the next week.

Wow, I downloaded this a day after you posted the topic, and I forgot to play it until last night. XD

Very nice map, creative idea, I like it. I haven't played online yet, but I'm assuming it's going to be a very fast-paced game.

I didn't notice any bugs myself, but I've only played this twice, so...

With the neutral creeps...eh, I don't really see too much of a point, but I guess they're a good source of lumber...I dunno, I didn't really have time to creep in my game.

Anyway, great idea. I like it. =]

Cool map, but I only got to play it one player. It seems it would be rather chaotic (in a good way) with a full house. I liked the hero system, its a lot of possibilities without being overly complicated. The phoenix fire egg + some of the metamagic abilities is really powerful, I would recommend getting that, and machine seemed like it was really useful. Um... as for real suggestions, sometimes tooltips are confusing, and the terrain could be nicer (now that you have all the paths right, work on it?). Perhaps add some variation in creep waves or maybe special units.

Thanks for the compliments.:) St33m, if you could point out specific tooltips you found confusing that would help. Of course I try to make them make as much sense as possible but sometimes it makes sense to me but not others! Or maybe it is for something I didn't write.