Onslaught Arena

Onslaught Arena Beta

Premise: This map was originally inspired as an antithesis for Orc Gladiators. I desired to make a gladiator creep arena, where gladiators must face off against waves of monsters. I, of course, wanted to greatly improve this feature, as the game just ended up being slightly original heroes against non-descript waves (ranged wave! Wave with poison attack! Wave with an autocast ability!). Currently, it is meant for 4 people as a truly cooperative experience.

Gameplay:

• Cooperative aspects: Gold and exp is awarded evenly each round, not by kills. This allows more diversity in classes since everyone will not have incentive to play purely damage classes. Each class fills one of four roles (support, tanking, damage, and crowd control), and balance of these roles is essential to victory.

Gladiators:

• 12 classes to choose from

• 5 abilities per class (1 innate, 3 normal, 1 ultimate)

• Spells are crafted with the intention of originality

• Each class is made to have two or more distinct builds

• Class abilities are constantly being assessed for balance, originality, usefulness, and (most of all) fun.

• Inspired by Rising_Dusk's Desert of Exile, there are streamlined effects that allow interaction between classes.

• Introducing a new game mechanic seldom used: abilities will be affected by hero attributes, as well as being itemized by + spell damage, and + spell heal bonuses.

• Several spell effects are now 100% triggered. Effects such as stun, sleep, and buff duration can now be affected by attributes and items.

Example abilities
Charge
Direct Synergy:STR, AGI
Level 1
Charging at his opponent, the Battlemaster damages his target for 10 + 50% of AGI, and stuns it for 1.5 seconds plus an extra 0.5 second per 10 points of STR.


Waves:

• each wave spawns 1 of 2 alternate waves

• Emphasis on smaller waves with dynamic abilities

• Dynamic waves. Up to 3 different types of units per wave, creating different strategies for each wave

• Boss waves consist of single unit with two to four skills that are synergistic for scripted fights.

Boss fight example:

• example boss: Root Shaper

• abilities: Hidden Root, Rebellion

• Boss Strategy: Hidden Root creates a ward that will entangle gladiators that step near it (imagine a goblin land mine that cast entangling roots instead of damaging), the roots are created in a random area around the root shaper. Rebellion allows the root shaper to root (he is an ancient) and summon trees around him. One by one, the trees become treants and swarm the gladiators. This fight requires crowd control, front-loading damage, and a watchful eye to avoid roots.

Items:

• Items are central to Hero builds, but entirely in how they boost Hero abilities, thus keeping gameplay focused on hero abilities.

• Items are geared towards classes and specific builds, rather than generic items.

• Item exclusion that only allows one suit of armor, one weapon, one shield etc. to keep items balanced and force players to make tradeoffs in item selection.

• Instead of recipes, a forge system upgrades items in an intuitive manner to create a greater variety of items while saving shop space and not overwhelming new players

Future Features:

Players:

• Once I implement the appropriate systems, up to 8 people will be able to play. I am currently working to make it so that playing with 4 versus 8 players will make the xp and wave hit points scale for a similar gameplay experience regardless of number of players.

Gladiators:

• Talent Trees: much like Diablo 2 or World of Warcraft, the gladiators will have access to talent trees once they reach a certain level (to be determined). Each gladiator will have 3 single path trees that will enhance current abilities while giving them new utility. Using my example hero the War Caller as an example, a talent could make his bounding leap stun units instead of just slowing them. One talent could also make his banner weaken enemy melee damage, or give him a passive chance to cast a roar on attack.

• Super Ultimate: At the final level, the gladiators will recieve a super-ultimate ability. At this point I do not have any ideas written, but I hope to make them great.

Waves:

• 25 waves total, with the aforementioned qualities.

Items:

• Legendary items: these items will be great artifacts of power. Only one legenadary may be carried at a time, and in addition to standard stat bonuses, they will have unique abilities that interact with hero abilities. Each legendary can only be used by one class.

Typo? Anyways, sounds pretty good, can't wait.

Sounds interesting.

I liked the example hero when I started reading his skills, but he got a bit boring and repetitive towards the end. The "synergy" should be more subtle than that (as is, it's more of a combo than synergy actualy), who in their right mind would use Judgment without the buffs? Vengeance is also just an inverse copy of Shining Embrace (which is a great spell otherwise, needs brains to use well), would be cool if it were on another hero, but not on the same one.

Also, you can encourage teamplay a lot better if synergies are between spells on different heroes, not the same one.

Overall looks very promising.


Very good.


Be sure not to go for a 'headline' number of heroes; make sure they're all useful and distinct.


None trigger spells can be unique. I resent the implication that they can't. Many trigger spells are shockingly bad, while a well made object edited spell can be interesting, innovative and very good as far as map design goes.


Hmm...good, but take care not to let heroes become a one-trick-pony, as that gets boring after a while.

I appreciate the feedback.

The most central feature of my map is unique and interesting heroes. In close second is the cooperative gameplay.

@Anitarf: trying to fit a hero into a particular role while simultaneously giving it non-repetitive abilities is a challenge inherint to the style of my map. Please let me know what you think of these changes to the light bearer class:

Replace Judgement with Inquisition: ranged aoe effect that deals damage to enemies and heals allies withing range of effect.

Replace Vengence (ultimate) with Brand of Retribution(ultimate): Single target debuff. Attacks made by the light bearer against this target deal 20/40/60 extra divine damage. After 5 hits from the light bearer, the brand is released and deals 50/100/150 damage to the target and 10/20/30 damage to those around it. Debuff lasts 30 seconds.

As far as subtle synergybetween spells, what would be a good example. When you say that I imagine a spell that increases damage taken by spells, and another hero having plenty of spells. Please elaborate or give an example of this.

once again thanks for feedback.

@Griff: concerning a "headline" number of heroes, I strongly belive in quality over quanity. I have over 15 heroes written out on paper, but I would rather focus on making a few. I chose eight arbitrarily because I needed to set a specific number for myself to optimize before adding more.

Concerning trigger spells: I have rephrased the comment to better suit my intentions

Concerning the "one-trick-pony" problem see discussion with anitarf.

When I mentioned subtle synergy, I primarily had in mind that spells shouldn't reference one another by names, but then again, I wouldn't call that synergy in the first place, the word combo is more suitable. (so, drunken haze and breath of fire is a combo, while endurance aura and pulverize would be a synergy)

I think you can find some good synergy examples in one of the spell sessions we've had in the triggers&scripts forum some time ago, I believe one spell session's objective was specificaly to make spells with good synergy.

As for the reworked Light Bearer, I'm not really in a position to judge well since I don't know what other heroes you have, it just feels like you have reworked him rather quickly. I would spend some more time thinking about it. Inquisition seems to be all about covering as many units as you can with the targeting circle - that's not necessarily bad, it can be quite a challenge, but it's nothing more than that. The new ultimate seems needlessly complicated, it seems like a good spell that awards focusing on a single target, but in my opinion it would be better without the 5 hit limit, as it limits the spell's potential. Without the limit, it would award picking targets that you know you'll be able to attack for a longer duration, which is a risk (your tank must hold, your teammates must nuke someone else), it would also synergise with any hero that can boost your attack speed...

I would honestly love it if I could simply list all my heroes as they are and have them criticized for gameplay mechanics and fun. It can be very difficult for me as a map creator to know to which abilities appeal or not.

Actually, which forum would I be allowed to post all my heroes with abilities to be criticized for originality and fun?

Once again, thanks Anitarf.

You could probably post your heroes right here, since they are part of your map design.

Yeah, you are free to post as much information about your map project as you wish, some people want to keep everything secret besides the fact that they're making a map while others like to boast about every little detail before it's actualy made. :) We have certain minimum requirements but you can go above them as much as you wish. Just a hint: if you add a lot of new content to the first post like hero descriptions, make sure you organise it well with the use of paragraphs, bulleted lists, tables, different font colours and sizes in bold and italic... It takes some effort but a lot more people are likely to read a post that looks like a map's webpage by itself rather than a wall of text.

Thanks for suggestion.

also it's not hardly boasting on my part. I'm more concerned with making a good map than tooting my own horn. Though in all reality it would be just as easy to put out a demo and get it play tested.

Of course not, I was just giving humorous examples of the two extremes between which map project threads can exist. :)
That's good. It's still your map, though, so don't let others (like me and my opinionated theoretical critiques :) ) decide everything for you. Some things you can do one way or another and there will be no objective way to say which is better; pick the one that seems better to you.
Of course, and playtesting is also the only real trial a map has to pass. If it's not fun, then saying "but I designed it so well" is no excuse. Still, I think a bit of theorycrafting before making a map is good practice and while it doesn't guarantee good gameplay, it's still gives you better chances than just making a map without thinking about how it might play.

*Bumpage*
This project is extremely close to a "public beta" (posting it on this site), and several features have changed, though the core ideas remain unmarked.

Please check my original post for changes in features.