SC2Mapster

Edit: You can now play this on the EU server!

[Note: versions 2.1 - 2.29 have been released. See the change logs in this thread.]

Hello everyone,

Hero Attack version 2.0 has been released! It is available on the North American server and the European server. Here is a video of version 2.0:

What is Hero Attack?

Hero attack is an MOBA or AOS style game similar to dota. Players work in teams, control heroes and their goal is to destroy the enemy team's main building. Heroes can gain experience, buy items and learn special abilities.

However, this is not a dota clone and there are a number of features that make Hero Attack unique from other games of this genre. Most noticeably each team chooses a race (Terran, Protoss or Zerg), and each race has a unique set of items, heroes and units. There are also 4 playable maps that players can choose from by voting at the start of the game and each map is very different. Some of the maps have special types of terrain such as mud (which reduces the movement speed of ground units by 50%), ice (which is slippery and prevents ground units from turning or slowing down) and lava (which damages ground units periodically). All heroes and items are based on sc2 units and abilities so it should be fairly strait forward how to use each hero. Each team has computer player that harvests minerals and vespene gas from its base and gives it to the allied players on its team. The computer player builds workers and constructs buildings throughout the game and as the game progresses additional unit producing structures will be constructed that will bring additional units and unit types to the lanes. There are also neutral hostile critters that you can kill for additional minerals and experience.

Currently Hero Attack has:

• 3 playable races.
• 4 playable maps.
• 45 playable heroes.
• Over 100 items.
• Team ugprades.
• Over 200 different abilities.

That is a ridiculously large amount of content and far more than other SC2 custom games of this genre.

If you want to play Hero Attack, but have difficulty finding players, please join the chat channel “Hero Attack” or check out the website www.heroattack.net .

I have uploaded the video to youtube.

That seriously looks really great. I love how you can choose your race and use the sc:bw units as heroes. Also it's pretty cool to have 4 different maps that differs from the classic dota map. I will probably try it.

I think the recall items shouldn't be able to be used in combat, at least make you wait 5 seconds, and all of the heroes should have push priority over creeps.

I would definitely ask someone to record some high quality video footage of your map and re-do the promotion video using this material. It looks much worse in the video than it actually is. It is lagging and looks really bad in this quality (I think you know this ;)).

You could have a look here, for example (dunno if the thread starter is still around. If not, I guess many people would like to help you with this, if you ask for it in the forums)

Also, even on high settings, the terrain does not look very appealing. You might want to refine it a little or "hire" someone to improve it.

I think he did it the way he did because his comp can't handle recording and high quality visuals at the same time. That's the only reason I would lower graphics. Who would lower them below medium while recording unless they can't record it.

From what I watch it was really solid looking, I couldn't continue because the graphics were too low and made me think this can't be starcraft. If you need someone to record the map at medium or higher I might be able to, I haven't tried yet with SC2 but I can usually record good quality stuff, just do what zeldarules said and I'll record it.

p.s. I think zelda is a pretty cool guy. eh kills gnaon and doesn't afraid of anything

EDIT: Didn't see the post above zeldarules so ya use that person to record, that's ultra which is better than what I can do.

"That seriously looks really great."

Thank you. :)

"I think the recall items shouldn't be able to be used in combat, at least make you wait 5 seconds, and all of the heroes should have push priority over creeps."

Good ideas. I will definately try to add those in the next version. Though a few people have objected to adding a timer to the teleport items because they like to use them to escape combat.

"I would definitely ask someone to record some high quality video footage of your map and re-do the promotion video using this material."

I'm definately considering redoing the video because the footage wasn't very good. Unfortunately my laptop cannot handle anything over lowest. I am planning to get a new computer soon so I could wait till then... or I could get someone to record the footage for me.

Also, what do people think of the video itself (with the exception of the poor gameplay footage). This was my first attempt at an 'artistic' video so hopefully the presentation game out okay.

"You could have a look here"

I looked in the thread but there doesn't seem to be a comment there since October. :(

"Also, even on high settings, the terrain does not look very appealing. You might want to refine it a little or "hire" someone to improve it."

Yeah I agree that the terrain isn't spectacular (though hopefully it is an improvement from earlier versions). I should probably explain some of the limitations that I am working with to give people a better understanding of some of the problems I am facing with respect to terrain.

Okay, the first limitation is that sc2map files can only have 8 textures at any given time and there does not seem to be a way to increase this number or change the textures or texture sets using triggers (please correct me if I am mistaken). And since I have 4 maps in hero attack this basically means I have an average of 2 textures per map. I am using 2 grass textures, agria dirt, char dirt, 1 tile texture, a snow texture, an ice texture and a mud texture, which is 8 textures in total. So I cannot really make the map look any nicer by adding more textures until blizzard adds a way to either add more textures or change textures using triggers.

I tried my best to mitigate this problem using a combination of cliffs, water, lava, roads and mass doodads. However that can only do so much and I have hit the maximum number of doodads that the map will allow without crashing. In fact I had to remove several doodads before I released 2.0 because it kept crashing as a result of several doodads. So while I would like to improve the terrain, I cannot really increase the number of textures or add more doodads. My options are very limited: either remove one of the 4 maps so I can have more doodads and textures for the other 3 or find a way to somehow improve the terrain while avoiding the 2 limitations I mentioned above. If anyone has any advice on how I can improve the terrain while avoiding these problems please let me know.

"I would highly recommend making a video by using in-game cameras, triggers, and video editing."

I would probably need to get a better computer to do that though.

Also, Hero Attack is only available on the North American server. However, I would really like to get Hero Attack onto the European server so that Europeans may play it. I'm looking for someone who is willing to publish Hero Attack on the European server (preferably someone who is willing to try to get games played on the European server as well). If anyone is interested please pm me.

I really like how certain types of terrain have different effects on land units.

To respond to your question about the artistic quality of the video, I'd say that it leaves much room for improvement.
You should use a different font which is more space-like. Also, white text doesn't look good over a white background (i.e. the snow terrain).
Either move the text down into the subtitle area or show the text on a black background, between clips of game footage (silent film style). You don't want the text obscuring the action of your game, since that is the main focus.
You should try to use cinematic cameras that rotate/pan around to make your game seem more epic. Take advantage of the fact that sc2 is 3d.

My favoryte part is how the terrain affect the gameplay

@MaskedPoptart: Go

Right :D

"I think the recall items shouldn't be able to be used in combat, at least make you wait 5 seconds, and all of the heroes should have push priority over creeps."

"Good ideas. I will definately try to add those in the next version. Though a few people have objected to adding a timer to the teleport items because they like to use them to escape combat."

In my opinion, there should be at least some limitation to the usage of teleporting right out of combat, seeing as I would find it extremely annoying to have a instant button that if you have nearly no delay and sufficient reflexes, and are not being stunned by a Terran's attack or an ability, then you are impossible to kill for a small money cost in cash, then it seems over powered to me. A few possibilities would be to make a delay after taking damage, make it have a channel time that is interrupted by damage (or not, but increases damage taken for channel duration) or some other method to prevent this. This is annoying mainly because it requires you to kill the enemy before their reflexes allow them to hit a single key that will negate your attempt to kill them, rather than a time saver for going back to base like I think it should be.

"In my opinion, there should be at least some limitation to the usage of teleporting right out of combat, seeing as I would find it extremely annoying to have a instant button that if you have nearly no delay and sufficient reflexes, and are not being stunned by a Terran's attack or an ability, then you are impossible to kill for a small money cost in cash, then it seems over powered to me."

Yeah, you are right. I'll make it so that you cannot use the item if you have taken damage within the past X seconds.

I remade the video in medium settings (using the same laptop).

What do you think?

Well, in my humble opinion, low and medium pretty much looks the same. There is a HUGE difference between medium and high, and ultra is just a little improvement again. So I would try to record at least on high.

But the comment about the lag is correct as well; however as mentioned, if you ask, for example in the team recruitment forum if someone wants to record a high quality video of your map, I am sure you will find one. You would only need the basic gameplay footage anyway, you can edit everything as you like afterwards.

As you said, there is no workaround for the textures currently. But honestly; I would rather have 2 nice, good looking and somewhat refined maps than 4 quite crappy maps. I would cut 2 maps out until eventually a workaround for more textures is found or you somehow find another possibility to make the areas really nice.

Thanks for the advice zeldarules and kueken. I agree that I should record the video in better graphics settings and that I should use things like in game cameras and triggers. I'll definately do that when I make another video.

""

Awesome video zeldarules, but I just wanted to make one comment. The text at the beginning was really slow, speed it up next time.

"As you said, there is no workaround for the textures currently. But honestly; I would rather have 2 nice, good looking and somewhat refined maps than 4 quite crappy maps."

I'm definately considering that. What I will probably do is work on other things related to the map that also need work and then come back to terrain when I've had more time to consider the best path of action. Hopefully blizzard at some point allows map makers to change the textures with triggers.

you really dont need one of those fancy vidoes to promote the map,    the complaints about the terrain would be no different if its on low/high or whatever,  if you fix the terrain, and make a video on atleast medium settings, it will be fine .
Like for e.g , check mines, its the most basic crap out there and is on medium settings when recorded  

heres some feedback ( i did some on youtube)

-a lil more detailed terrain .  Slopes/cliffs/, something!, i can see you put most of your work into creating stuff, and made each of the terrains in like 1 hour . A good terrain will take days to make . Just look at maps like Sotis ( im not talking about the standard dota pattern), im referring to just how the environment is detailed.

-other stuff i noticed
> could change the starting level of heroes to 1 so you can learn an ability right away.
> that dialog counting down elasped game time is wayyyyyyyyyy to big . I know you want it in, but find a way to make it smaller , its just a plain eye saw
> give heroes some interesting names ( infestor hero? marine hero? ) i know stuff like this doesnt matter, but to some ppl they be like, wtf this mapper dont even care to give effort to call them anything.
>3 levels alone of abilties might hurt, though thats up to you .
>Ingame messages saying "you have received gold from player 1 every few seconds,  you could change that to a simple    +400!! and have it fade out

Its small stuff that go a long away.   Other than that, i gave it a try, and i was impressed by some of the hero abilties

Wait, jinx are you incinerate? Why the different username for sc2mapster?

"i can see you put most of your work into creating stuff, and made each of the terrains in like 1 hour."

While it is true that I have spent far more time creating stuff than working on terrain, I haven't created any heroes or items since late November. For the past month I've been working on terrain (as well as performing balance changes, bug fixes and adding various minor features). Though I think most of the effort has gone into things like trying to make the maps have an interesting lane setup, making sure all the space is utilized on the map, thinking if adding a cliff in a certain location would allow for some strategic types fo play or if a certain location would be good for a xel'naga watch tower or critter spawn point, adding special types of terrain, etc.. Plus I had to make triggers to generate all the buildings, spawn locations, the path in which the computer controlled units travel, etc. (which is difficult since each team can be one of three races). Actually, if you measure the length of all the lanes for every single map you will find out that it is roughly the same (I assume you this was not coincidence).

Also, as mentioned above the texture limitation and doodad limitationseriously affect my ability to improve the terrain, so I'm going to have to consider if removing a map is worth the gain I would get by having more textures and doodads to work with. But I definately agree that the terrain is sub par.

"could change the starting level of heroes to 1 so you can learn an ability right away."

I'm considering that. But from my experience with playing dota and other games of this genre if you give heroes a starting level (as well as starting gold) then new players will often sit in base reading everything rather than laning and as a result miss out on gaining experience and minerals.

"that dialog counting down elasped game time is wayyyyyyyyyy to big."

Okay, I'll make it smaller in the next version.

"3 levels alone of abilties might hurt"

I'm probably going to add more levels at some point, or even add a 5th ability to each hero to make them more unique.

"Ingame messages saying "you have received gold from player 1 every few seconds, you could change that to a simple +400!! and have it fade out"

Alright, I'll try to make this message smaller and less annoying.

"Other than that, i gave it a try, and i was impressed by some of the hero abilties"

If you have any questions with some of the hero abilities just ask.

Quote from iiequalsexpipi: Go

I'm probably going to add more levels at some point, or even add a 5th ability to each hero to make them more unique.

You know, Sometimes less is "more". Try not to dilute the power of the abilities.