I think everyone... or just about everyone, has gotten to know my hero, Kheldrun, through my recent movie. :) Thanks, Sixen!
Anyway, I was thinking of reworking Kheldrun's passive, Psionic Mind Link, into either an active or still passive (yet different) ability.
Here's the thing, currently, Psionic Mind Link works like Roach regen, except it's for energy: Kheldrun gets a higher energy regen rate when burrowed (which is about 2.25 energy/sec). However, does make sense lore wise? How does he connect with the Psionic Link of the Swarm to gain more energy when burrowing?
So, I thought of an active that's similar to Chrono Boost:
Psionic Mind Link: Gives Kheldrun a burst of energy regen when activated. It gives 10x his energy regen rate for 10 seconds. The ability has a 30 second (maybe 60 second) cooldown.
Here was a passive reworking of the ability:
Body and Mind: Kheldrun, when standing still (and not attacking) or burrowed, gains 4x his energy and health regeneration rate.
Now, I think the active is cooler, and the new passive still doesn't make as much sense. However, I really would prefer that it was a passive ability. I'm willing to hear any suggestions, though, for a new "Psionic Mind Link" for Kheldrun. What are your thoughts?
I personally would advise against any ability which requires the player to "stand still."
Doing nothing... is so not a skill.
Energy regen in general is kind of boring. If I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO HAVE a regen skill, like if a chupacabra burst into my house and forced me, at sucker-point, to put in an energy regen skill, I would tie in with a kill chain where my hero's energy regeneration scales upward each time I kill unit. And I'd put a 4-5 second cooldown on it before it reset back to default. And I don't even think that would be that hard to code.
Lore-wise, I would make it out to be psionic life leech. Kheldrun is no monk, he's a psionic warrior, and he finds his concentration in slaughter. Lore is the last thing I'd worry about -- with enough creativity, you could link eating a hamburger to psionic prowess.
@AegisRunestone:
I personally would advise against any ability which requires the player to "stand still."
Doing nothing... is so not a skill.
Not if the enemies can't hit you while you do nothing. (Think WoW mages. You drink after battle when there is no danger...) If you have to stand still in a war zone...
Energy regen in general is kind of boring. If I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO HAVE a regen skill, like if a chupacabra burst into my house and forced me, at sucker-point, to put in an energy regen skill, I would tie in with a kill chain where my hero's energy regeneration scales upward each time I kill unit. And I'd put a 4-5 second cooldown on it before it reset back to default. And I don't even think that would be that hard to code.
Energy regen makes sense if you run out of energy unless you do X. This makes you want to do X, which is usually something dangerous like running around near an enemy so you can passively leech its energy, or an energy stealing melee attack...
If you're really worried about lore. Make it so that your hero needs to be within a certain distance of an ally building in order to regen faster and take away the necessity of standing still or being burrowed. This means that he is "linked" with his fellow zergs.
Hmm... tentacles don't fit him. I'm really trying not to spoil the first campaign if I reveal too much about his character. :P
But you are right, the active ability I had in mind would be something people would spam religiously every 30 or 60 seconds. Hrrrmmmmm....
I am trying to avoid abilities that use Triggers BTW. Granted, the Data Editor is a lot more powerful, so it could be easier to do without triggers.
Anyway, also, Consume is out of the question for very much lore reasons. :P (Let's just say that Kheldrun has a small force and values his minions more than the Cerebrates would. So, it would make little sense for him to kill his own troops randomly.)
Hmmmm... kill chain... that's an interesting idea. Where would you start with something like that?
how about for lore-wise just think of it that while borrowed he is resting or meditating, something along the lines of that
for a new ability,why not try to make it so that for a short duration he gets a huge boost to energy, however after its all spent or times out he cant regen any energy and/or be slowed/stunned for a while
That was the original thought of the passive. And you just described the active version. :P How would you implement a stun effect, though? I'm curious. Enlighten me.
Well. One of the reasons I want to rework this is: 1) to have something to do with this map, 2) I'm not sure the ability is "fun." The kill chain, or getting energy for kills sounded interesting.
I'm not really sure how to do a kill chain without triggers. I assume you want to avoid using triggers because you want your hero to be readily available to others (or to your other maps with a minimal of effort). To be honest, you can do that with a trigger library just as easily (if not more easily) as importing data. Still, if you must, I imagine that it would be something along the lines of the void ray's double -> quad damage effect, except instead of damage increasing, you'd be increasing either energy leech on your weapon or adding behaviors that increase energy regeneration (if that's even possible).
Alternatively, I think a damage shield that converts damage into energy for a short while would also be... perhaps not amazing but strategically interesting.
When I suggested that your hero needs to be near allied buildings, I meant it as just a requirement for the skill. Not necessarily meaning that he consumes he's allies, but instead needs the collective "life force" in order to speed up his regen.
well the thor's special ability stuns its target. I just took a look at it and im not sure how it works, but its something to do with a behavior i think. not sure what about the behavior makes things stunned but its worth a shot to mess around with it. If anything you could just apply a behavior that changes his time scale so he does things slower
Edit: k i figured out how the stun works. make a buff type behavior, and then for the datafield Modification - modify flags, just enable "disable abilites", "suppress movement", and "suppress turning".
You shouldn't try to limit your options like that. Triggers are actually easier and more powerful than the data editor when it comes to spells if you learn to use them. ;)
That said, I can suggest that you have an ability that deals area of effect damage to nearby friendly units and converts a portion of the damage done to energy (should be doable in the data editor alone). Kind of like an AoE version of Dark Pact from Warcraft 3.
Because he didn't, nor would he have any motive for doing so in the current lore, so I wouldn't really worry about being constrained by current lore.
And on that note, just some friendly critique...from what I understand, your campaign isn't going to be purely hero based, but a standard RTS with a special unit in it. Starcraft doesn't accommodate hero play naturally, the default playstyle is incongruous with having a hero as a focus of your campaign, the hero fails to remain cohesive towards the overall mission. I'd recommend either dropping your huge focus on a superdeveloped hero, or restructure the mission to revolve around him, ala warcraft 3 style with items and upgradable abilities you could get by completeing bonus missions just to start, if you don't like that, pick something else.
The bottom line is you should optimally make your hero integral to the gameplay itself besides "Heres a neat mission", and "Heres a neat hero". You should either focus on the mission itself and just include the hero as a normal unit for plot purposes, or make a mission that is intrinsically connected to having a hero. (Gameplay wise)
When I suggested that your hero needs to be near allied buildings, I meant it as just a requirement for the skill. Not necessarily meaning that he consumes he's allies, but instead needs the collective "life force" in order to speed up his regen.
Oh, I wasn't referring to you when I was talking about Consume. Sorry about that! But how would I do regen near buildings? Do you have any suggestions for how to do that/start that? Also, what about increased energy regen while on the creep?
@halfthought: Go
Kheldrun isn't a leveled hero. He's a 'classic' hero.
@ProxyTooMuch: Go
I know, I just want the transfers to be easier. Hence why I don't want to use triggers. Transferring trigger abilities is a MAJOR pain, at least it was in War3.
@xenrathe: Go
A shield... like a protoss shield? I may look into the Void Ray thing, too.
[in general]
I am considering all your ideas. However, I did come up with an idea for my original active version of the ability that might work better instead of a spamming ability: Giving it a validator/requirement that means if Kheldrun has more than 25-40 energy, he cannot use the burst of energy regen because he has enough already. Basically, it's usable when his energy is low. That's what I thought of. Does that sound viable?
Again, I am considering most of your suggestions (the ones I haven't rejected). So, what do you think?
To me, that sounds like it should just be a passive ability, unless you can think of a reason why someone would choose to not use it when it's available for use. When you make an active ability, always make sure that the player needs to make a choice about using that specific ability. For example, an ability that costs 25 energy to deal X amount of damage is a choice because that 25 energy could be used for some other ability instead. An ability that boosts your energy regeneration needs to have some kind of catch (i.e. you take 25% more damage for the duration, or something) in order to make sense as an active instead of a passive.
To me, that sounds like it should just be a passive ability, unless you can think of a reason why someone would choose to not use it when it's available for use. When you make an active ability, always make sure that the player needs to make a choice about using that specific ability. For example, an ability that costs 25 energy to deal X amount of damage is a choice because that 25 energy could be used for some other ability instead. An ability that boosts your energy regeneration needs to have some kind of catch (i.e. you take 25% more damage for the duration, or something) in order to make sense as an active instead of a passive.
That's why my new idea was to make it so that it would only be usable when he had low energy.
@Zaphrous: Go
How do you do that? That sounds very interesting!
@AegisRunestone: Go
Making something only usable at low energy is still not interesting as an active. Think about it, what difference would it make if it was a passive/autocast ability instead of active?
The energy regeneration delay is a basic stat in the Unit portion of the data editor. (None) - Energy Regeneration Delay.
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I think everyone... or just about everyone, has gotten to know my hero, Kheldrun, through my recent movie. :) Thanks, Sixen!
Anyway, I was thinking of reworking Kheldrun's passive, Psionic Mind Link, into either an active or still passive (yet different) ability.
Here's the thing, currently, Psionic Mind Link works like Roach regen, except it's for energy: Kheldrun gets a higher energy regen rate when burrowed (which is about 2.25 energy/sec). However, does make sense lore wise? How does he connect with the Psionic Link of the Swarm to gain more energy when burrowing?
So, I thought of an active that's similar to Chrono Boost:
Psionic Mind Link: Gives Kheldrun a burst of energy regen when activated. It gives 10x his energy regen rate for 10 seconds. The ability has a 30 second (maybe 60 second) cooldown.
Here was a passive reworking of the ability:
Body and Mind: Kheldrun, when standing still (and not attacking) or burrowed, gains 4x his energy and health regeneration rate.
Now, I think the active is cooler, and the new passive still doesn't make as much sense. However, I really would prefer that it was a passive ability. I'm willing to hear any suggestions, though, for a new "Psionic Mind Link" for Kheldrun. What are your thoughts?
@AegisRunestone:
I personally would advise against any ability which requires the player to "stand still."
Doing nothing... is so not a skill.
Energy regen in general is kind of boring. If I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO HAVE a regen skill, like if a chupacabra burst into my house and forced me, at sucker-point, to put in an energy regen skill, I would tie in with a kill chain where my hero's energy regeneration scales upward each time I kill unit. And I'd put a 4-5 second cooldown on it before it reset back to default. And I don't even think that would be that hard to code.
Lore-wise, I would make it out to be psionic life leech. Kheldrun is no monk, he's a psionic warrior, and he finds his concentration in slaughter. Lore is the last thing I'd worry about -- with enough creativity, you could link eating a hamburger to psionic prowess.
Not if the enemies can't hit you while you do nothing. (Think WoW mages. You drink after battle when there is no danger...) If you have to stand still in a war zone...
Energy regen makes sense if you run out of energy unless you do X. This makes you want to do X, which is usually something dangerous like running around near an enemy so you can passively leech its energy, or an energy stealing melee attack...
If you're really worried about lore. Make it so that your hero needs to be within a certain distance of an ally building in order to regen faster and take away the necessity of standing still or being burrowed. This means that he is "linked" with his fellow zergs.
Well, what do you think about the active version of the ability?
It's basically spawn larva: something you mindlessly spam religiously every X seconds.
Suggestion: spell that activates energy stealing tentacles that auto attack with a range of 4 for 10 seconds.
Hmm... tentacles don't fit him. I'm really trying not to spoil the first campaign if I reveal too much about his character. :P
But you are right, the active ability I had in mind would be something people would spam religiously every 30 or 60 seconds. Hrrrmmmmm....
I am trying to avoid abilities that use Triggers BTW. Granted, the Data Editor is a lot more powerful, so it could be easier to do without triggers.
Anyway, also, Consume is out of the question for very much lore reasons. :P (Let's just say that Kheldrun has a small force and values his minions more than the Cerebrates would. So, it would make little sense for him to kill his own troops randomly.)
Hmmmm... kill chain... that's an interesting idea. Where would you start with something like that?
No offense, but the idea of a psionic hydralisk doesn't make any sense lore wise :P
how about for lore-wise just think of it that while borrowed he is resting or meditating, something along the lines of that
for a new ability,why not try to make it so that for a short duration he gets a huge boost to energy, however after its all spent or times out he cant regen any energy and/or be slowed/stunned for a while
And why not? Have you played my SC1 campaign? Why can't the Overmind birth a "walking Cerebrate" in the form of a Hydralisk?
@gizmachu: Go
That was the original thought of the passive. And you just described the active version. :P How would you implement a stun effect, though? I'm curious. Enlighten me.
Well. One of the reasons I want to rework this is: 1) to have something to do with this map, 2) I'm not sure the ability is "fun." The kill chain, or getting energy for kills sounded interesting.
@AegisRunestone: Go
I'm not really sure how to do a kill chain without triggers. I assume you want to avoid using triggers because you want your hero to be readily available to others (or to your other maps with a minimal of effort). To be honest, you can do that with a trigger library just as easily (if not more easily) as importing data. Still, if you must, I imagine that it would be something along the lines of the void ray's double -> quad damage effect, except instead of damage increasing, you'd be increasing either energy leech on your weapon or adding behaviors that increase energy regeneration (if that's even possible).
Alternatively, I think a damage shield that converts damage into energy for a short while would also be... perhaps not amazing but strategically interesting.
When I suggested that your hero needs to be near allied buildings, I meant it as just a requirement for the skill. Not necessarily meaning that he consumes he's allies, but instead needs the collective "life force" in order to speed up his regen.
well the thor's special ability stuns its target. I just took a look at it and im not sure how it works, but its something to do with a behavior i think. not sure what about the behavior makes things stunned but its worth a shot to mess around with it. If anything you could just apply a behavior that changes his time scale so he does things slower
Edit: k i figured out how the stun works. make a buff type behavior, and then for the datafield Modification - modify flags, just enable "disable abilites", "suppress movement", and "suppress turning".
@AegisRunestone: Go
You shouldn't try to limit your options like that. Triggers are actually easier and more powerful than the data editor when it comes to spells if you learn to use them. ;)
That said, I can suggest that you have an ability that deals area of effect damage to nearby friendly units and converts a portion of the damage done to energy (should be doable in the data editor alone). Kind of like an AoE version of Dark Pact from Warcraft 3.
Because he didn't, nor would he have any motive for doing so in the current lore, so I wouldn't really worry about being constrained by current lore.
And on that note, just some friendly critique...from what I understand, your campaign isn't going to be purely hero based, but a standard RTS with a special unit in it. Starcraft doesn't accommodate hero play naturally, the default playstyle is incongruous with having a hero as a focus of your campaign, the hero fails to remain cohesive towards the overall mission. I'd recommend either dropping your huge focus on a superdeveloped hero, or restructure the mission to revolve around him, ala warcraft 3 style with items and upgradable abilities you could get by completeing bonus missions just to start, if you don't like that, pick something else.
The bottom line is you should optimally make your hero integral to the gameplay itself besides "Heres a neat mission", and "Heres a neat hero". You should either focus on the mission itself and just include the hero as a normal unit for plot purposes, or make a mission that is intrinsically connected to having a hero. (Gameplay wise)
Oh, I wasn't referring to you when I was talking about Consume. Sorry about that! But how would I do regen near buildings? Do you have any suggestions for how to do that/start that? Also, what about increased energy regen while on the creep?
@halfthought: Go Kheldrun isn't a leveled hero. He's a 'classic' hero.
@ProxyTooMuch: Go I know, I just want the transfers to be easier. Hence why I don't want to use triggers. Transferring trigger abilities is a MAJOR pain, at least it was in War3.
@xenrathe: Go A shield... like a protoss shield? I may look into the Void Ray thing, too.
[in general]
I am considering all your ideas. However, I did come up with an idea for my original active version of the ability that might work better instead of a spamming ability: Giving it a validator/requirement that means if Kheldrun has more than 25-40 energy, he cannot use the burst of energy regen because he has enough already. Basically, it's usable when his energy is low. That's what I thought of. Does that sound viable?
Again, I am considering most of your suggestions (the ones I haven't rejected). So, what do you think?
@AegisRunestone: Go
To me, that sounds like it should just be a passive ability, unless you can think of a reason why someone would choose to not use it when it's available for use. When you make an active ability, always make sure that the player needs to make a choice about using that specific ability. For example, an ability that costs 25 energy to deal X amount of damage is a choice because that 25 energy could be used for some other ability instead. An ability that boosts your energy regeneration needs to have some kind of catch (i.e. you take 25% more damage for the duration, or something) in order to make sense as an active instead of a passive.
@ProxyTooMuch: Go
Could just go with the basic energy regen delay, so he has a good regen speed but only after not casting for a certain amount of time.
That's why my new idea was to make it so that it would only be usable when he had low energy.
@Zaphrous: Go How do you do that? That sounds very interesting!
@AegisRunestone: Go Making something only usable at low energy is still not interesting as an active. Think about it, what difference would it make if it was a passive/autocast ability instead of active?
The energy regeneration delay is a basic stat in the Unit portion of the data editor. (None) - Energy Regeneration Delay.