INFO: 5 skills + 2 ability heroes

In response to the help I have received from other forum members, I have written this to hopefully pass some info onto newbies as well as reveal the "5th Skill" technique I recently discovered. Veterans should skip down to the "5th Skill" Heading.

=UTILITIES NEEDED=
WinMPQ - needed to extract the files from war3.mpq
Mpq2k - needed in insert the files into your w3m file
Excel - needed to edit the UnitAbilities.slk

=FILES NEEDED= (from war3.mpq)
[X]AbilityFunc.txt - use this to edit the skill slots
[X]AbilityStrings.txt - use this to edit the spell descriptions
AbilityData.slk - use this to edit the spell effects

=METHOD=

2 CREEP/ UNIT ABILITIES
Put these in slots [1,1] and [1,2].

Q: Can I make these spells Hero-type spells?
A: Yes, but it requires more work.
http://www.wc3campaigns.com/forums/s...&threadid=8896

Q: Can I change these spells' effects?
A: Yes, edit NeutralAbilityFunc.txt and AbilityData.slk. See above link.


4 SKILLS
Put the 4 normal skills in [0,2], [1,2], [2,2], [3,2]

5th SKILL
The 5th skill is somewhat of a hack. You have to set the "level" to 10 in the UnitAbilities.slk. Then place the skill in slot [3.1]. What does this do? It makes an ultimate skill that replaces the "level up" icon. Beef up ultimate spells and use them for a "bonus spell" at level 10.

Q: Can I just skip changing the spell slots?
A: No. Without a permanent, working slot arrangement skills will "float" when you level up and cause some skills to move out of the grid. You cannot use active spells which have been "pushed" off the skill grid, even with a hotkey. Passive skills work as normal.

Q: Can I lower the spell level and have 5 skills the whole game?
A: No. The "level up" button will wreck everything. Trust me.

Q: Help! I get "Tooltop Missing" in-game!
A1: Are you using the default map loading screen? If not, sometimes Warcraft 3 doesn't load custom txt files. The best solution would be to use the default map loading screen.
A2: Make sure you are inserting the file with Mpq2k correctly. Read the help file that came with it.
A3: You have messed up your [X]AbilityStrings.txt file. The syntax is very fragile. It is probably best to re-extract it from the original war3.mpq and start editing it from scratch.

Q: Help! I don't know what any of this means!
A: Search the forum archives. All of the basics questions have been answered.

Hakujin

Using a custom loading screen will cause this error too ;)
aniway this is truly helpful and clever :)
thx man!

a couple questions:

button grid looks like

M S A H
P X X +
S S S U

where:
M = move S = stop A = attack H = hold pos
P = patrol X = empty(1) X = empty(2) + = learn skill button
S = skill 1 S = skill 2 S = skill 3 U = ultimate

1,1 is X = empty(1) correct? why can i not make the req level less than 10 and use empty(1) and empty(2)

if i do make a 'bonus ultimate' the old weaker one will still be in spot 6 correct? and with same hot key..

does that work setting level dependecy for a non hero skill? if so thats pretty cool and i should think about that for my new rival nations map =)

thx for the tips

0 1 2 3
-----------
M S A H | 0
P X X + |1
S S S U | 2

EDITING CREEP SPELLS
http://www.wc3campaigns.com/forums/s...&threadid=8896

Are you asking if you can put a Hero skill in the X areas? The answer to that is yes. However, you can only have a total of 5 Hero skills. This is hard-coded. So you could have a spell overwrite another spell (for example: feral spirit (reqlvl 1) and infernal (reqlvl 6) and put them both in [3,2]. But that is risky IMO because the buttons do not like to be overwritten. This kind of usage goes against "best practices."

Therefore, the maximum number of special skills a hero can learn is 7. 2 abilities (I put them in X1 and X2) + 5 hero skills (S, S, S, U, +). You can put them anywhere, but of course the last Hero skill must be reqlvl 10 and go in slot [3,1].

Another technique I use is "1 creep skill + 5 hero skills". This allows the player to customize their character somewhat because they have more skill points than hero skills. For example, In my map I have a Good Mage with:

UNIT
Dispel Magic [1,1]

HERO
Brilliance Aura [2,1] (I put auras in 2,1 to get them out of the way)
Mana Burn [0,2]
Chain Lightning [1,2]
Mirror Image [2,2]
Mass Teleport (w/ 3 levels) [3,2]

So the player has 10 ability points to spread over 5 skills. So Player A may have a "Chain Lightning + Mana burn" Offensive character and Player B may have a "Brilliance Aura + Mass Tele" Supporting character.

Does this help?

Hakujin

Yeah, I am using this technique for the map "Vampires: Darkness". Vampires get three Unit abilities : Feed, Enthrall, and Disguise. Then they get three Hero abilities, depending on their character class, and a Level 10 Game-Ending Ultimate.

good thinking. with that second setup, what if the hero learned all five before he was level ten... then he wouldnt be able to learn anymore :(

With the second method (5 skills + 1 unit ability) you cannot add a 6th hero skill. I tried to get around this by adding a reqlvl unit ability (in this case, Abolish Magic, reqlvl 2) but it was available to my level 1 hero. So I assume that unit abilities are forced to reqlvl 0 despite the AbilityFunc.slk settings. If anyone can disprove this it would be great!

So you must choose:

2 unit abilities + 4 hero skills + 1 lvl 10 ultimate

OR

1 unit ability + 5 hero skills


Hakujin

The 5 hero skill limit is hardcoded. There is no known way to get around it.

Sounds great! I'll try it out in my new map! :D

What about 5 skills + 3 abilities? Can you remove the + sign that adds hero skills and just press esc to select skills you want after levels?

Yea, no 6th hero spell. It's in one of the dll files that cuts the maximum ammount of skills a hero can have. I think this was to prevent ppl from loading a hero full of spells, and probably has some other use too when they were making the game. And if you wanna do 1 ability and 5 hero skills, that works too. And remember, some abilities are passive, such as brilliance aura and revive and such. You can have abilities that "overlap" those abilities, since they stay even if you cant click on them. But all spells that require you to click on them have to be visible to use. Remember that.

Basically you want to play around with commandfunc.txt and throw it into your mapfile when you are done

Default Hero UI:

Move | Stop | Hold | Attack
Patrol | | | Abilities
Ability | Ability | Ability | Ability

That leaves 4 ability slots. and 2 unused ones
3 unused ones if your count the ability button once it dissappears at lvl 10

However playing with the positions in commandfunc.txt you can do the following setup

Move [3,2] Hold [2,2] Attack [1,2]
Abilities [0,2] (not actually required)

Anything you dont want to use, in this case 'stop' and 'patrol'
make them go to [3,2] as there is some kind of override with the exe file that always makes the 'move' command be on top

that way unused commands get pushed off the menu

if you do it correct that should leave you with:

Ability | Ability | Ability | Ability
Ability | Ability | Ability | Ability
Abilities| Attack | Hold | Move

You could also put the abilities menu at pos [3,2] to get rid of that and have 9 positions free. However you would have to use triggers to give each hero it's ability.

I have done this in my rpg. Basically you progress thru 4 different classes as you play and each class allows you to gain another 2 abilities. Resulting in 8 total

Ignoring the button positions, how many NON-HERO abilities can I give to a hero? They don't need to be on the screen they only need to be able to be cast by triggers for the way im using them. In fact I'd prefer they didn't show up on the interface at all :D