And resources, as well. I know of the current flaws, and I am indeed trying to find solutions for it. The temple itself is difficult, since it's a doodad and it's in a very 'terrain' oriented location. (Oh, and don't worry about ambiguity for these things, lol. they're likely to change anyway. just keep the secrets you've thought up private, is all. Thanks for the effort though; for reference I guess it would be for the best to simply keep as much as we can secret) If you have any ideas for relocating it or something, I would appreciate it.
As for the prisoners and the cave, they're very minor bonuses and I'm likely not to try moving them.
The only way I can think of to do the temple would be to make it a few times in different places, dont place on startup, and use triggers to pick a location.
Just thought I'd let anyone who reads this know that I'm still working on the game.
I've just finished up making a new High Templar ability that takes the form of a fast, high damaging fire attack. I've had some difficulty sorting out the behavior stacking, but I think it's working out okay.
As well, I've been adding 'Matured' Zerg units like the Torrasque and Raptor and Kukulza and such. As well, I'm giving them different textures using the texture swapping method. (Well, the Torrasque has the omegalisk...but yea, same difference haha)
Besides that, I still need ideas for the new objective technologies. Trying to link them together with a sort of 'description' that gives the tech a way to actually work, like a name, would also be really helpful.
Here's my current list, let me know what you think.
I just played your map as Protoss. There are a few things I have to say about it. You have a good map idea there but there are many points that need improvement.
First, the map is just too complex. Pathfinding and planning is terrible because large units can't move past many areas and even air units have their problems. The extreme height variation brings a lot of weird situations. Also don't let the camera get that close to the borders cause its possible to see under the terrain in many points.
I used the tutorial mode. I could use a lot more help than that, but its ok I was alone in the map I wouldn't get killed anyway. The credits tip appeared twice. I had no idea what all those artifacts would do. I brought 3 of them to that shrine thing but apparently nothing happened, maybe its related to multiplayer? You should create tips to better explain how artifacts work. I saw no point in destructing lots of rocks just to attack a Terran base inside (there was a beacon but it disappeared doing nothing).
Now for the protoss race. The Fusion Obelisk is the requirement for 2 different units. In order to have Fusion Scouts a player has to go all the way building Twilight Council -> Dark Shrine -> Fusion Obelisk if the player is not planning to use Psi Hunters its a waste of time and resources just to get Scouts.
Resize the Obelisk placement model to be the same of the final model. The Psi Hunter is a final tier unit, still its not that great. In my opinion it shouldn't come into play that late in the game. Some overall interface details need improvement, like a proper icon for the Psionic Targeting upgrade and for that mysterious artifact thing (you can use the one you used for the Psi Hunter's ability).
Keep working man! Let's show what the community can do for this game!
Thanks for the feedback, Soul! =) I really appreciate it. I always know that the map has bugs, so it's nice to have someone lay them out for me to squash, haha.
Sooome points though, I'd like to discuss- I'm not going to disagree with you, not to the point where I'm going to say you're wrong, because in all of these cases, you aren't, but I'd like to explain myself. ;; If you don't mind, I mean.
The feel I wanted to convey for this map was a sense of exploration with each playthrough. Having realistic Terrain, I found, lends to that, and although the Camera gets a bit wonky sometimes, I'm unsure how to fix it, and I just don't really feel willing to redo all of the Terrain, since it's just so gorgeous. Besides that, I wasn't the one that made the pretty map- a friend of mine, a Terrainer named Uplo, made it for me when he played one of the older versions of the map that was just played on a Blizzard map. Believe it or not, the Terran height differences actually used to be more drastic than it is now. I've been gradually flattening some of the worse instances, but I really just don't want to ruin the feel. I found that in alot of cases it doesn't wind up ruining gameplay, or anything, and I'm sort of surprised that yours is quite literally the first legitimate complaint (comment?) I've gotten on it. It seems alot of people just ignore it.
But going back to the 'feel' that I wanted, that explains alot of the stuff that wasn't explained in the tutorial. It hasn't been developed much yet, but the idea of this map is to provide a large amount of random events that have chances to occur. If I were to take the time to explain all of them, people wouldn't read it, and they wouldn't be surprised or receive that feel of 'exploration' when they discover something they hadn't seen before. Besides the feel, though, the hope is that by randomizing features on the map, new players will be on a more even footing with veteran players. Right now, the effect isn't seen all that clearly, but hopefully I'll be able to develop that with the next big update.
As for the artifacts not doing anything, I...don't know.. If they were all locked into place and then nothing occured, and you received no message... then I don't know. That sounds like a bug.
The terran base inside of the cave is not always a Terran base. If you were, say, a Terran player, you could enter that cave and the Terrans would not fire on you. Instead, you could walk onto that beacon and the units would be transfered to your command, with a message regarding their sworn loyalty to you.
As any other race, you can kill them and the command center will drop resources; minerals and gas.
I've changed the requirements to the Fusion Obelisk to a Dark Shrine, Templar Archives, OR a Fleet Beacon. Hopefully this won't restrict player tech trees as much, yes???
I've resized the Obelisk. Thank you for noticing that, I didn't. =)
Thank you a LOOTT for your feedback! It's really nice to have someone telling me what needs to be discussed. ^^
Well, I definitely got some exploration time! The map does look good and diversified. Stay in one corner doesn't give the player any idea how the rest of the map is. But I can olny imagine the trouble of moving a Thor around. To solve the camera issue I guess you just have to move camera bounds a little bit away from map border.
For the tips and artifacts, maybe I'm just used to the way Blizzard explains things in the campaign. Even when I plan things for a map I usually try to make it Blizzard style. I got the feeling of a "mysterious thing" going on, but then no tip popped up, nothing happened and I got a little confused, no big deal.
Now the Obelisk doesn't look that hard to get. Isnt it a better idea make Psi Hunters and Scouts require separate buildings? Unless it is lore-related, if this is the case keep it the way it is. One tip for the Obelisk requirement interface: it looks "cleaner" if players see only one line for the requirement, like "Templar Archives, Dark Shrine or Fleet Beacon" than 3 spearated lines with "OR" between them.
@Tips
Do you think it would be best to add in tips whenever players discover something...? I want people to get that sense of satisfaction whenever they figure something out on their own, but at the same time I don't want to scare off the people who have difficulty figuring out what does what, or have them get frustrated. What do you think? Do you think that would kill the feel? I'm open to suggestions and reasoning.
You don't need to explain everything in a tip. At least give us players some direction. Not enough to discover what to do with them. Like: If a unit carrying an atifact gets killed the artifact will be dropped. Each unit can carry a single artifact at a time.
The framework for the new UI now works, and has been uploaded. I have a progress bar in the works, and I'm also working on a few of the new upgrades in the data editor, such as the 'Swarm Propagator', which creates infested terrans by destroying terran structures. It's very cool, if I do say so myself. =)
Been awhile since I posted here, but I thought I'd let anyone know that I'm still working on the next big update. The Guardian has been created as an objective technology; a Zerg unit that acts as a sort of Mothership/Hercules type thing. As well, the Maturation chamber and the training facilities work excellently.
Sad to say that I've been holding off on working on this. All of the work is just so incredibly daunting (over 40 new objective technologies...) and I doubt the map would even get played, in the popularity system. So..postponing work on PoA to work on War of Duality, instead.
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And resources, as well. I know of the current flaws, and I am indeed trying to find solutions for it. The temple itself is difficult, since it's a doodad and it's in a very 'terrain' oriented location. (Oh, and don't worry about ambiguity for these things, lol. they're likely to change anyway. just keep the secrets you've thought up private, is all. Thanks for the effort though; for reference I guess it would be for the best to simply keep as much as we can secret) If you have any ideas for relocating it or something, I would appreciate it.
As for the prisoners and the cave, they're very minor bonuses and I'm likely not to try moving them.
@Zetal: Go
The only way I can think of to do the temple would be to make it a few times in different places, dont place on startup, and use triggers to pick a location.
So choosing from a preplaced list, or choosing from a random list?
preplaced list, would be hard to make it completely random because of the eviroment where it is set up.
Right, right... I'll add it to the list,
Just thought I'd let anyone who reads this know that I'm still working on the game. I've just finished up making a new High Templar ability that takes the form of a fast, high damaging fire attack. I've had some difficulty sorting out the behavior stacking, but I think it's working out okay.
As well, I've been adding 'Matured' Zerg units like the Torrasque and Raptor and Kukulza and such. As well, I'm giving them different textures using the texture swapping method. (Well, the Torrasque has the omegalisk...but yea, same difference haha)
Besides that, I still need ideas for the new objective technologies. Trying to link them together with a sort of 'description' that gives the tech a way to actually work, like a name, would also be really helpful. Here's my current list, let me know what you think.
I just played your map as Protoss. There are a few things I have to say about it. You have a good map idea there but there are many points that need improvement.
First, the map is just too complex. Pathfinding and planning is terrible because large units can't move past many areas and even air units have their problems. The extreme height variation brings a lot of weird situations. Also don't let the camera get that close to the borders cause its possible to see under the terrain in many points.
I used the tutorial mode. I could use a lot more help than that, but its ok I was alone in the map I wouldn't get killed anyway. The credits tip appeared twice. I had no idea what all those artifacts would do. I brought 3 of them to that shrine thing but apparently nothing happened, maybe its related to multiplayer? You should create tips to better explain how artifacts work. I saw no point in destructing lots of rocks just to attack a Terran base inside (there was a beacon but it disappeared doing nothing).
Now for the protoss race. The Fusion Obelisk is the requirement for 2 different units. In order to have Fusion Scouts a player has to go all the way building Twilight Council -> Dark Shrine -> Fusion Obelisk if the player is not planning to use Psi Hunters its a waste of time and resources just to get Scouts.
Resize the Obelisk placement model to be the same of the final model. The Psi Hunter is a final tier unit, still its not that great. In my opinion it shouldn't come into play that late in the game. Some overall interface details need improvement, like a proper icon for the Psionic Targeting upgrade and for that mysterious artifact thing (you can use the one you used for the Psi Hunter's ability).
Keep working man! Let's show what the community can do for this game!
Thanks for the feedback, Soul! =) I really appreciate it. I always know that the map has bugs, so it's nice to have someone lay them out for me to squash, haha. Sooome points though, I'd like to discuss- I'm not going to disagree with you, not to the point where I'm going to say you're wrong, because in all of these cases, you aren't, but I'd like to explain myself. ;; If you don't mind, I mean.
The feel I wanted to convey for this map was a sense of exploration with each playthrough. Having realistic Terrain, I found, lends to that, and although the Camera gets a bit wonky sometimes, I'm unsure how to fix it, and I just don't really feel willing to redo all of the Terrain, since it's just so gorgeous. Besides that, I wasn't the one that made the pretty map- a friend of mine, a Terrainer named Uplo, made it for me when he played one of the older versions of the map that was just played on a Blizzard map. Believe it or not, the Terran height differences actually used to be more drastic than it is now. I've been gradually flattening some of the worse instances, but I really just don't want to ruin the feel. I found that in alot of cases it doesn't wind up ruining gameplay, or anything, and I'm sort of surprised that yours is quite literally the first legitimate complaint (comment?) I've gotten on it. It seems alot of people just ignore it.
But going back to the 'feel' that I wanted, that explains alot of the stuff that wasn't explained in the tutorial. It hasn't been developed much yet, but the idea of this map is to provide a large amount of random events that have chances to occur. If I were to take the time to explain all of them, people wouldn't read it, and they wouldn't be surprised or receive that feel of 'exploration' when they discover something they hadn't seen before. Besides the feel, though, the hope is that by randomizing features on the map, new players will be on a more even footing with veteran players. Right now, the effect isn't seen all that clearly, but hopefully I'll be able to develop that with the next big update.
As for the artifacts not doing anything, I...don't know.. If they were all locked into place and then nothing occured, and you received no message... then I don't know. That sounds like a bug.
The terran base inside of the cave is not always a Terran base. If you were, say, a Terran player, you could enter that cave and the Terrans would not fire on you. Instead, you could walk onto that beacon and the units would be transfered to your command, with a message regarding their sworn loyalty to you. As any other race, you can kill them and the command center will drop resources; minerals and gas.
I've changed the requirements to the Fusion Obelisk to a Dark Shrine, Templar Archives, OR a Fleet Beacon. Hopefully this won't restrict player tech trees as much, yes??? I've resized the Obelisk. Thank you for noticing that, I didn't. =)
Thank you a LOOTT for your feedback! It's really nice to have someone telling me what needs to be discussed. ^^
Well, I definitely got some exploration time! The map does look good and diversified. Stay in one corner doesn't give the player any idea how the rest of the map is. But I can olny imagine the trouble of moving a Thor around. To solve the camera issue I guess you just have to move camera bounds a little bit away from map border.
For the tips and artifacts, maybe I'm just used to the way Blizzard explains things in the campaign. Even when I plan things for a map I usually try to make it Blizzard style. I got the feeling of a "mysterious thing" going on, but then no tip popped up, nothing happened and I got a little confused, no big deal.
Now the Obelisk doesn't look that hard to get. Isnt it a better idea make Psi Hunters and Scouts require separate buildings? Unless it is lore-related, if this is the case keep it the way it is. One tip for the Obelisk requirement interface: it looks "cleaner" if players see only one line for the requirement, like "Templar Archives, Dark Shrine or Fleet Beacon" than 3 spearated lines with "OR" between them.
@Tips Do you think it would be best to add in tips whenever players discover something...? I want people to get that sense of satisfaction whenever they figure something out on their own, but at the same time I don't want to scare off the people who have difficulty figuring out what does what, or have them get frustrated. What do you think? Do you think that would kill the feel? I'm open to suggestions and reasoning.
@Cleaner I did it that way, thank you. ^^
You don't need to explain everything in a tip. At least give us players some direction. Not enough to discover what to do with them. Like: If a unit carrying an atifact gets killed the artifact will be dropped. Each unit can carry a single artifact at a time.
Aah okay, I guess as sort of acknowledgement that the game knows they exist? Haha.
The framework for the new UI now works, and has been uploaded. I have a progress bar in the works, and I'm also working on a few of the new upgrades in the data editor, such as the 'Swarm Propagator', which creates infested terrans by destroying terran structures. It's very cool, if I do say so myself. =)
Been awhile since I posted here, but I thought I'd let anyone know that I'm still working on the next big update. The Guardian has been created as an objective technology; a Zerg unit that acts as a sort of Mothership/Hercules type thing. As well, the Maturation chamber and the training facilities work excellently.
Yeah man! Keep on working! Don't let university hold you back :-)
Sad to say that I've been holding off on working on this. All of the work is just so incredibly daunting (over 40 new objective technologies...) and I doubt the map would even get played, in the popularity system. So..postponing work on PoA to work on War of Duality, instead.