Sanctuary Guardians is a Hero Survival map in which you pick a class and try to free the area from the Zerg's influence. It was created by me (game design, triggers) and wargirl (terrain), with Tobyfat adding some neat teleport circle art (which I didn't use in the end, but I want to thank toby for doing this anyway).
The map is inspired by the WarCraft III map "Terrania Hero Survival". The cleansing the land aspect is strong here, as is the need for working together as a team. However, unlike Terraria, it isn't quite as hard to newcomers.
There are plenty of maps out there that require some prior knowledge of the map and some high level to get the required class and stats just to survive at all. I decided to do my own thing, and while the map is still challenging, the classes are all combat-focused and are easy to play. The map still has many moments where an unprepared team can lose, but at least every player starts on equal footing.
Story
You and your playmates are Terran prisoners who managed to escape from a prison complex that was under attack by the Zerg - unfortunately they catched up to you and your shuttle is burning. The crew manages to land before it explodes and seeks shelter inside a nearby cave.
That cave turns out to be a Protoss sanctuary. A guardian greets you and tells you that the cave is threatened, and if the prisoners hope to survive to live another day, they must become Protoss guardians themselves and clean the surrounding area from the Zerg.
Game Modes
The map features three game modes: Classic, Exploration and Base Defense.
-Classic is the original game mode which features only temporary leveling. It is similar to Gauntlet in that regard.
-Exploration is the same as Classic, expect that there are permanent stat boots to be gained. When the game ends, your progress is saved. The more games you play, the stronger you become.
-Base Defense is the ultimate challenge, as countless enemies are attacking the Nexus. Not even easy difficulty is finishable unless there are some experienced players present.
Classes
SG offers a total of six classes: Zealot (Melee), Dark Templar (Spellcaster), Immortal (Tank), High Templar(Support), Drone(Builder) and Archon (Single-Target Damage Dealer).
-The Zealot is a melee fighter. He has high health which allows him to survive longer when his shield is down.
-The Dark Templar is a spellcaster. He excels at stopping enemy attacks by stunning them or creating illusions of himself as bait.
-The Immortal is a tank. He can absort a great deal of damage with his increased shield capacity, and is well-suited for attacking enemies from a distance.
-The High Templar supports his allies with a variety of defense and support spells. While he can't attack on his own, his Psi Storm can deal massive damage if executed wisely.
-The Drone is can recharge other players' shields, as well as creating a great line of defense by positioning mines and photon cannons. He also is good at recon as he can fly up to cliffs and cloak himself.
-The Archon excels at dealing damage against single targets, especially big ones. He can be surrounded by multiple enemies quite easily, however, which is why he needs support from others the most.
All classes have abilities that are quite useful on its own, but excel in their efficiency when used in combination with other classes. For instance, the Dark Templar can stun enemies - follow that by a High Templar's Psi Storm and an Immortal's Mortar attack and you're golden.
Each class has four abilites at their disposal. Some of them are of offensive nature, others are defensive or support, and some are passive buffs.
The fourth ability is very strong, but can only be used when the unit is not standing on creep.
Each ability might seem weak at first, but they can be upgraded by collecting Protoss relics from across the map. Each relic found increases the power of each ability, as well as increases the standard attack damage and defenses of each class.
Feedback
The map was in beta for about two months and a great many changes and balancing has been done during that time. As it stands, the map is feature complete, and only some finetuning regarding the difficulties are required.
Feel free to post your opinion and balancing suggestions here!
The game was ok at best. I played by myself, which might've been a mistake as the game didn't scale or change the dialog from "we" to "i". That however was the least of the issues. I foolishly chose to play as the archon which hopefully is the worst Hero. His abilities were a joke (the one literally did 1 damage). Overall I was disappointed by the game, the intro could've been a little faster as well. The game does have the potential to be better.
We still improving the map as we go. It is posted here as we want suggestions and the how to improve this BETA a good one. All suggestions will be read and improve as we go, so please give more suggestions thank you for taking the time to play and comment.
I've just released a big update for the map ( v0.09). This update fixes the Drone and the Archon for good (I admit the Archon was a bit useless before - but it's all good now!).
This update also completely changes the enemy spawn system. The enemy group constellations are now different, as is the maximum number of enemies that can spawn at once (each altar adds one more enemy per wave, meaning that a total of 10 enemies can show up at the every end!).
The creep also has received a revamp: I've nixed the idea of trying to destroy the creep tumors - instead, destroying the creep tower will cleanse an area of the creep automatically. However, the towers now will receive backup via nydus worms as well - and their destruction add to the increasing difficulty of the enemy spawns as well.
There also is a sort-of penalty in place for players dying too often: A one-time nydus worm will appear and send a few troops towards the Nexus. The difficulty of this group isn't as high as the others, but it can add up quite fast, so avoid dying needlessly if possible!
Lastly, the enemies will now regularly attack the nexus (it was only triggered at certain points for beta testing purposes before). Their difficulty increase together with the altar and creep tower assault groups - meaning, the further you advance in the map, the tougher everything gets.
All of these changes will make the map considerably harder - but that is the way it was intended. I mentioned how this was inspired by Terrania, and it is close to that feeling at last: Only experience and good teamwork will result in victory.
To make things a bit easier, the overall difficulty is decreased if 7 or less players are present at the beginning of the map. This way, a few people can get the hang of things in a small group, and veterans can attempt to create a full house with 12 players and win the map on Hard Mode.
I thank, and apologize, to everyone who experienced the first few versions of this map. Now it is getting closer to maturity, so please give it another try if possible.
As always, feedback for the new update is welcome.
It's been a while, hasn't it? I decided to take a break from my other project and revisited Sanctuary Guardians.
While the core gameplay is good, I always knew that there is little reason to play this map more than a few times. I created the ultimate team-based map which requires thinking, skill and patience (and that doesn't require a permanent leveling system).
But little did I know, there's next to no interest for this kind of game on Battle.net.
So, I decided to add two new game modes to cater to the other types of players as well.
Over the past week, I've added two new game modes to the map: "Exploration" and "Base Defense". (The original Sanctuary Guardians experience is still avalibale via the "Classic" mode).
Exploration mode is the same thing as Classic, expect that the relics you find in this mode give you a permanent stat boost that is saved in a bankfile. The number of relics is reduced in exploration as to not make you ridiculously strong after just one round, but over time, players can become very strong.
Base Defense is a real hero survival experience, as enemies spawn constantly and try to destroy the Nexus. Not even Easy Mode is actually beatable unless you've aquired some stat boosts.
All of this comes with a new bank system, some changes for first-time players so that their first game session is not quite as frustrating, and a few map optimizations to (hopefully) reduce the very long load times.
Lastly, both the difficulty selection, as well as the class selection, has been moved to lobby options.
Just like with MineralZ Evolution, you can now select your class from a drop-down menu in the lobby, right next from the player color.
The difficulty is defined by the host now, but it is Easy by default, so nobody is in for a rude awakening when playing the game for the first time.
I hope all these additions and improvements make the map a little bit more attractive.
As always, feedback is appreciated.
Note: The new additions are currently only live on NA battle.net. I'll update the EU version as soon as everything has been finalized.
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Current Version: 1.11
Americas: starcraft://map/1/241759
Europe: starcraft://map/2/168609
Suggested Number of Players: 6-12
Introduction
Sanctuary Guardians is a Hero Survival map in which you pick a class and try to free the area from the Zerg's influence. It was created by me (game design, triggers) and wargirl (terrain), with Tobyfat adding some neat teleport circle art (which I didn't use in the end, but I want to thank toby for doing this anyway).
The map is inspired by the WarCraft III map "Terrania Hero Survival". The cleansing the land aspect is strong here, as is the need for working together as a team. However, unlike Terraria, it isn't quite as hard to newcomers.
There are plenty of maps out there that require some prior knowledge of the map and some high level to get the required class and stats just to survive at all. I decided to do my own thing, and while the map is still challenging, the classes are all combat-focused and are easy to play. The map still has many moments where an unprepared team can lose, but at least every player starts on equal footing.
Story
You and your playmates are Terran prisoners who managed to escape from a prison complex that was under attack by the Zerg - unfortunately they catched up to you and your shuttle is burning. The crew manages to land before it explodes and seeks shelter inside a nearby cave.
That cave turns out to be a Protoss sanctuary. A guardian greets you and tells you that the cave is threatened, and if the prisoners hope to survive to live another day, they must become Protoss guardians themselves and clean the surrounding area from the Zerg.
Game Modes
The map features three game modes: Classic, Exploration and Base Defense.
-Classic is the original game mode which features only temporary leveling. It is similar to Gauntlet in that regard.
-Exploration is the same as Classic, expect that there are permanent stat boots to be gained. When the game ends, your progress is saved. The more games you play, the stronger you become.
-Base Defense is the ultimate challenge, as countless enemies are attacking the Nexus. Not even easy difficulty is finishable unless there are some experienced players present.
Classes
SG offers a total of six classes: Zealot (Melee), Dark Templar (Spellcaster), Immortal (Tank), High Templar(Support), Drone(Builder) and Archon (Single-Target Damage Dealer).
-The Zealot is a melee fighter. He has high health which allows him to survive longer when his shield is down.
-The Dark Templar is a spellcaster. He excels at stopping enemy attacks by stunning them or creating illusions of himself as bait.
-The Immortal is a tank. He can absort a great deal of damage with his increased shield capacity, and is well-suited for attacking enemies from a distance.
-The High Templar supports his allies with a variety of defense and support spells. While he can't attack on his own, his Psi Storm can deal massive damage if executed wisely.
-The Drone is can recharge other players' shields, as well as creating a great line of defense by positioning mines and photon cannons. He also is good at recon as he can fly up to cliffs and cloak himself.
-The Archon excels at dealing damage against single targets, especially big ones. He can be surrounded by multiple enemies quite easily, however, which is why he needs support from others the most.
All classes have abilities that are quite useful on its own, but excel in their efficiency when used in combination with other classes. For instance, the Dark Templar can stun enemies - follow that by a High Templar's Psi Storm and an Immortal's Mortar attack and you're golden.
Each class has four abilites at their disposal. Some of them are of offensive nature, others are defensive or support, and some are passive buffs. The fourth ability is very strong, but can only be used when the unit is not standing on creep.
Each ability might seem weak at first, but they can be upgraded by collecting Protoss relics from across the map. Each relic found increases the power of each ability, as well as increases the standard attack damage and defenses of each class.
Feedback
The map was in beta for about two months and a great many changes and balancing has been done during that time. As it stands, the map is feature complete, and only some finetuning regarding the difficulties are required.
Feel free to post your opinion and balancing suggestions here!
The game was ok at best. I played by myself, which might've been a mistake as the game didn't scale or change the dialog from "we" to "i". That however was the least of the issues. I foolishly chose to play as the archon which hopefully is the worst Hero. His abilities were a joke (the one literally did 1 damage). Overall I was disappointed by the game, the intro could've been a little faster as well. The game does have the potential to be better.
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Curse PremiumWe still improving the map as we go. It is posted here as we want suggestions and the how to improve this BETA a good one. All suggestions will be read and improve as we go, so please give more suggestions thank you for taking the time to play and comment.
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I've just released a big update for the map ( v0.09). This update fixes the Drone and the Archon for good (I admit the Archon was a bit useless before - but it's all good now!).
This update also completely changes the enemy spawn system. The enemy group constellations are now different, as is the maximum number of enemies that can spawn at once (each altar adds one more enemy per wave, meaning that a total of 10 enemies can show up at the every end!).
The creep also has received a revamp: I've nixed the idea of trying to destroy the creep tumors - instead, destroying the creep tower will cleanse an area of the creep automatically. However, the towers now will receive backup via nydus worms as well - and their destruction add to the increasing difficulty of the enemy spawns as well.
There also is a sort-of penalty in place for players dying too often: A one-time nydus worm will appear and send a few troops towards the Nexus. The difficulty of this group isn't as high as the others, but it can add up quite fast, so avoid dying needlessly if possible!
Lastly, the enemies will now regularly attack the nexus (it was only triggered at certain points for beta testing purposes before). Their difficulty increase together with the altar and creep tower assault groups - meaning, the further you advance in the map, the tougher everything gets.
All of these changes will make the map considerably harder - but that is the way it was intended. I mentioned how this was inspired by Terrania, and it is close to that feeling at last: Only experience and good teamwork will result in victory.
To make things a bit easier, the overall difficulty is decreased if 7 or less players are present at the beginning of the map. This way, a few people can get the hang of things in a small group, and veterans can attempt to create a full house with 12 players and win the map on Hard Mode.
I thank, and apologize, to everyone who experienced the first few versions of this map. Now it is getting closer to maturity, so please give it another try if possible.
As always, feedback for the new update is welcome.
It's been a while, hasn't it? I decided to take a break from my other project and revisited Sanctuary Guardians.
While the core gameplay is good, I always knew that there is little reason to play this map more than a few times. I created the ultimate team-based map which requires thinking, skill and patience (and that doesn't require a permanent leveling system). But little did I know, there's next to no interest for this kind of game on Battle.net.
So, I decided to add two new game modes to cater to the other types of players as well.
Over the past week, I've added two new game modes to the map: "Exploration" and "Base Defense". (The original Sanctuary Guardians experience is still avalibale via the "Classic" mode).
Exploration mode is the same thing as Classic, expect that the relics you find in this mode give you a permanent stat boost that is saved in a bankfile. The number of relics is reduced in exploration as to not make you ridiculously strong after just one round, but over time, players can become very strong.
Base Defense is a real hero survival experience, as enemies spawn constantly and try to destroy the Nexus. Not even Easy Mode is actually beatable unless you've aquired some stat boosts.
All of this comes with a new bank system, some changes for first-time players so that their first game session is not quite as frustrating, and a few map optimizations to (hopefully) reduce the very long load times.
Lastly, both the difficulty selection, as well as the class selection, has been moved to lobby options. Just like with MineralZ Evolution, you can now select your class from a drop-down menu in the lobby, right next from the player color. The difficulty is defined by the host now, but it is Easy by default, so nobody is in for a rude awakening when playing the game for the first time.
I hope all these additions and improvements make the map a little bit more attractive.
As always, feedback is appreciated.
Note: The new additions are currently only live on NA battle.net. I'll update the EU version as soon as everything has been finalized.