Heaven's Devils Takedown is a project I have just started, but it's been a fast progress. It started as one "Marine Arena Clone", with the intention of replacing some game mechanics, but quickly became something else entirely. It is currently in early alpha phase, with a private map on NA. Here I will describe the concept, mechanics, share some screenshots, and discuss it with anyone interested in it.
CONCEPT
The whole map focuses on Marines and other units as support units. This is one of the first "flaws" in Marine Arena, since mercenary units in that map are the ones that define strategies with their unique abilities and so on. Heaven's Devils Takedown focuses on large numbers of Marines, but the details are key here to make it totally different from a standard mass marines game.
The second feature, and maybe the most important, is that each player can use a hero, all heroes are Heaven's Devils. So players can select Raynor, Tychus, Harnack, Doc, Ward, Kydd and Zander (Read the Heaven's Devils book if you don't know what I'm talking about). But only one of the characters is allowed in a team, so players are forced to form the Heaven's Devils squad and use their different abilities together to overcome the other team.
MECHANICS
-Structures: The game has some base management, but simpler than standard melee, and isn't supposed to take that much of a players attention. Players start with a single Barracks and can only have one at a time. They can build some other structures like Supply Depots, Bunkers and Engineering Bays. But structures are made to be more expensive, bigger, and more important. So the player will only need a few Supply Depots, Bunkers will be bigger with more life and will hold more Marines inside it.
Supply Depots:* They provide supply as always, but they are also useful for the heroes. They can provide items that recharge Devil's abilities like Ward's missiles or Zander's grenades at some resource cost.
-Units: Players start with a single SCV for base management and their chosen Devil. The exact units avaiable from Barracks are still undecided, but may include SCVs, Medics and Transport Trucks. Marines are very cheap but not for free. Players can set their Barracks to auto-train Marines. I'm thinking about giving a free combat unit in case a player runs out of resources. I may add more units later, but I want them all to be support units for marines or the Devils.
-Combat: Infantry units are uncommandable, they can be ordered indirectly, like through rally points. Also, all units have a new stat: Hit Chance, which is the % for actually hitting their target and causing damage. Here I expect heroes to be very important by adding strategies, leading troops and so on depending on their roles, but heroes are not strong enough to charge by themselves against units in large groups, so they need to plan their moves.
-Devils: Each Devil is a unique hero and I'm trying to give them abilities you can find in the book. They are loosely divided into "classes" or roles, like DPS, Tank, Siege, Support and Leader. Leader fits the unique role of giving units better commands in the field. But as the heroes are defined in the book, those classes are only there to give me directions.
Jim Raynor:* Raynor is the Leader hero, so he focuses on crowd control. He can order Infantry units to follow him, hold position or attack an enemy unit or point, this is the only way ifantry units can be used to focus fire. He can also taunt enemy units forcing them to follow and attack him.
Tychus:* The only ability Tychus has right now is 'Operation Early Retirement', that can be used to steal resources from enemy structures (Barracks, Eng Bays and Depots).
Connor Ward:* Ward can launch missiles, whic work best against enemy Devils or vehicles. He only carries 8 at a time.
Ryk Kydd:* He's a sniper and he can use Snipe, Penetrator Round (10 shots) and Paint Target, this is a channeled ability that increases in 20% the damage taken by target units.
Hank Harnack:* He's a Tank type of hero, he has the best armor values and his flamethrower damages all units in the line of fire.
Lisa 'Doc' Cassidy:* She's a Medic, so she can heal and she's the one who applies Stimpack to other units.
Max Zander.* Support hero, he carries 10 grenades that work best against groups of infantry units. He also has more inventory slots so he's useful for carrying items the group may need.
-Upgrades: The Engineering Bay has 5 different upgrades for infantry units that also affect the Devils, and Base upgrades, which affect structures. The 5 upgrades for Infantry units increase damage, hit chance, range, armor and life, and each of them has currently 3 levels. Base upgrades currently include Structure armor (2 levels) and Neosteel Frame (2 levels). Heroes will have their own, unique upgrades, but not many, they won't level up.
-Items: All heroes can buy and use items. Items are divided into 2 categories, Weaponry and Food. Weaponry includes items such as grenades, plasma guns and so on, items that deal damage or other combat effects. These items can be bought from Bob's Guns shop, or maybe direclty from Supply Depots, as I haven't decided yet. Food items affect hero status, no 'healing potions' here, all items will be fun, different and related to some SC2 universe reference. Food items are bought from the Zerger King shop. Currently there are only 2 items in this category, Creepburger and Nuke Cola. Creepburger is Zerger King's specialty, it gives regeneration for a short time, and the extra crispy Zergling Wings are delicious and famous in the whole sector. Nuke Cola makes the hero move and attack faster, but without the Stimpack consequences to the user's heatlh.
-Resouces and map: I still haven't decided how the resouce income will be, but I don't want it to be the standard mineral and gas harvest. I want to add interesting points in the map, maybe capturable structures that provide X resources per second. I will also add special events like trains crossing the map so players can attack it and get resources/items, like in that campaign mission (and because it relates to one of the book's chapters too). The map will be divided in different scenarios, somewhat based on combat fields in the book. There will be Kel-Morian troops as a hostile faction.
Teams and victory conditions: There will be 2 teams and right now each team can have up to 5 players but as there are 7 heroes I may expand it later. A team is defeated by destroying the team's Command Center. As long as a team has at least one structure all players can respawn their heroes for free.
CURRENT STATE
I've been working on the units and heroes. I have the small tech tree almost finished. Basic units finished. All heroes are selectable through a very cool selection screen and are already playable, but with only a few abilities working and no upgrades. The Hit Chance system is already in place upgrades included, and can be checked in the unit's weapon tooltip, I have only to tweak some visual and sound effects to make it perfect.
I haven't started working on the terrain, and I'm not a good terrainer, so that will be the last part of the project. I still have to decide and work on the resource system and the hostile faction and special events. I have many ideas settled I only need time to add them to the game.
That's it! I'll add more information later as well as screenshots. I hope people will get interested and help me test it on Battlenet. My plan is to give it a lot of work with no release date set.
After a long break I decided to update this page even though it seems I'm only one interested. ;-)
This time I'm going to share a few screenshots and explain them and I will update what changed since my first post.
HEAVEN'S DEVILS CHARACTERS
This screenshot shows the character selection screen. Player select one of the Heaven's Devils characters from their picture, taken by Max Speer. When a player selects his Devil the character will be greyed out as you casn see in the picture (Ryk Kydd was selected and I tried to select him too). It means each team can only have one of each hero, forcing team play to use their unique abilities.
At first my idea was to make them respawn for free if killed, but now I think it may be better to go with a no respawn system. This way players will have to make smart moves with their heroes and avoid getting careless. And it makes Lisa Cassidy's abilities more important. Heroes won't die right away, they will become incapacitated just like in that campaign mission on Char. In this state they will slowly bleed and only Doc can heal them. In some cases this method makes things easier because players won't need to wait before respawning, but not having Doc around means their heroes can engage in dangerous situations.
MECHANICS
The 'Hit Chance' system is great. Now units have a new stat that makes them different from others as some units have low Hit Chances (Tychus chaingun) and others have high Hit Chances (Kydd's sniper rifle). This stat can be upgraded just like the others (armor, damage, range and life). Each infantry upgrade has 3 levels. Check the second attached picture and you cansee a Marine's weapon tooltip with the upgraded Hit Chance.
Army control in this map is another main feature. Infantry units cannot be directly given orders. Some simple orders can be given by the player's Barracks: Set Rally Point is a little different here, as unit will acquire targets in their way to the rally point. Players can use it and the ability to auto-train Marines to play in a standard Tug-Of-War style if they want, but this strategy can be easily countered. Set Attack Point orders all infantry units in a radius around the Barracks to attack-move to the target point. Set Fallback Point orders all infantry units in a target area to move back to the barracks.
But better control can be achieved by using Transport Trucks or Raynor's abilities. Transport Trucks can move Infantry units quickly to any point the player wishes and set a Rally Point themselves, making it possible to attack from unexpected directions. Raynor can order infantry units to follow him (including other players' units), hold position and attack, and I plan more like Patrol and maybe others.
CURRENT STATUS
The only thing I need to consider an open Alpha is terrain. The map is just a plain square right now. In my plans it will consist of 3 different options to be selected at the beginning of each match, and I already know how these options will be, but with my terraining skills it will take forever to accomplish. I must find another person to od it for me if I don't want to sedn this project into oblivion.
Other mechanics and balance could be finished after playtests. I an handle all the data work by myself, and so far I've been doing the triggers by myself too, but from now on they may become too complex for me, I can't be sure.
The concept of the heroes and how a match goes seem pretty solid to me. Each character has an unique role and with time and ideas it can only get better. It follows Blizzard's idea as it can be 'easy to learn but hard to master' and I like it.
Sorry if this is the wrong place but wasn't sure whether to post in your other mod thread as this is to do with this mod.. anyhoo here's a WIP picture of my start on making the Sloth. I've shifted around the cab and some other parts to centre it and make it a bit more like a Bulldozer (minus the Dozer blades) and added the Thor cannons. Considering how big it is I shrunk the cab a bit as well to give a sense of size. At this point I'm not sure what to do with the flatbed part yet. Is this something like what you'd like for the Sloth?
@Kanitala: Go Good idea, add engines, ammo stacks and a small gas tank. Things that make it looks like it carries what it needs. Also a suggestion to "fix" the cabin: mirror the right side for the left side, so it won't looks like it as cropped. I can work on the textures later, I feel it needs more team color on the truck and the cannons may need some yellow to them.
Yeah, an unaltered version would be nice :-)
EDIT: I can help you find good models for the flatbed and think about their positions.
@Kanitala: Go Good idea, add engines, ammo stacks and a small gas tank. Things that make it looks like it carries what it needs. Also a suggestion to "fix" the cabin: mirror the right side for the left side, so it won't looks like it as cropped. I can work on the textures later, I feel it needs more team color on the truck and the cannons may need some yellow to them.
Yeah, an unaltered version would be nice :-)
EDIT: I can help you find good models for the flatbed and think about their positions.
Fine by me. I'm making this for you afterall ^^
And yes, more yellow is good! I'm in a constructiony mood what with my Marine Engineer too hehe.
I found the dozer blade. It's called CranePart_02.m3 in the doodads folder. You just need to make it larger. I'm making some screenshots of doodad models I think might look good on the flatbed.
The concept looks interesting, I'm a huge Marine Arena fan, and another variant of that map could really take off. Roman is the most asinine developer, and his slavish adherence to Dark Templar has driven more than a few people away from MA.
I just wish these types of customs were playable right now without converting to flipbook mode. Blizzard really screwed over customs with this last patch =/
Here's an update. After some advice from a friend I've decided to build up the civilian version bulldozer before then making the battle version. As you can see I've reposition the cab to make it more Bulldozer like and added the fuel tanks you suggested from the Terrazine Refinery... I still need to add the part of the hull beneath the cab to stop it hovering and probably add some smoke stacks of some sort.
And after that of course, I'll make the battle version :D
PS, don't worry, I've just hidden the cannons for now.
@Garrthos: Go The map started as one MA variation but the use of the Heaven's Devils characters changed it a lot. I hope it will please the MA fans.
@Kanitala: Go Wooow it looks awesome! Yeah you just need something to fit under the cab and hold to the tanks' straps. I'll try to find something, maybe a part form the SuperCraneAdvanced.m3?
@Kanitala: Go I don't think it needs any changes, maybe some texture rework to add more team colors, but the model is great. What about the animations? Can it use the dozer blade to smash things?
Concerning animations, not yet but I intend to add that very animation :)
Currently it has all the animations of the base unit which isn't many admittedly hah.
And aye, texture work. I was wondering about making the parts from the Utility truck a similar construction yellow colourscheme to mesh it all together. As for team colour, anywhere in particular you have in mind? Of course, the combat version will have more on the plates around the guns previously owned by the Thor >:)
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Heaven's Devils Takedown is a project I have just started, but it's been a fast progress. It started as one "Marine Arena Clone", with the intention of replacing some game mechanics, but quickly became something else entirely. It is currently in early alpha phase, with a private map on NA. Here I will describe the concept, mechanics, share some screenshots, and discuss it with anyone interested in it.
CONCEPT
The whole map focuses on Marines and other units as support units. This is one of the first "flaws" in Marine Arena, since mercenary units in that map are the ones that define strategies with their unique abilities and so on. Heaven's Devils Takedown focuses on large numbers of Marines, but the details are key here to make it totally different from a standard mass marines game.
The second feature, and maybe the most important, is that each player can use a hero, all heroes are Heaven's Devils. So players can select Raynor, Tychus, Harnack, Doc, Ward, Kydd and Zander (Read the Heaven's Devils book if you don't know what I'm talking about). But only one of the characters is allowed in a team, so players are forced to form the Heaven's Devils squad and use their different abilities together to overcome the other team.
MECHANICS
-Structures: The game has some base management, but simpler than standard melee, and isn't supposed to take that much of a players attention. Players start with a single Barracks and can only have one at a time. They can build some other structures like Supply Depots, Bunkers and Engineering Bays. But structures are made to be more expensive, bigger, and more important. So the player will only need a few Supply Depots, Bunkers will be bigger with more life and will hold more Marines inside it.
-Units: Players start with a single SCV for base management and their chosen Devil. The exact units avaiable from Barracks are still undecided, but may include SCVs, Medics and Transport Trucks. Marines are very cheap but not for free. Players can set their Barracks to auto-train Marines. I'm thinking about giving a free combat unit in case a player runs out of resources. I may add more units later, but I want them all to be support units for marines or the Devils.
-Combat: Infantry units are uncommandable, they can be ordered indirectly, like through rally points. Also, all units have a new stat: Hit Chance, which is the % for actually hitting their target and causing damage. Here I expect heroes to be very important by adding strategies, leading troops and so on depending on their roles, but heroes are not strong enough to charge by themselves against units in large groups, so they need to plan their moves.
-Devils: Each Devil is a unique hero and I'm trying to give them abilities you can find in the book. They are loosely divided into "classes" or roles, like DPS, Tank, Siege, Support and Leader. Leader fits the unique role of giving units better commands in the field. But as the heroes are defined in the book, those classes are only there to give me directions.
-Upgrades: The Engineering Bay has 5 different upgrades for infantry units that also affect the Devils, and Base upgrades, which affect structures. The 5 upgrades for Infantry units increase damage, hit chance, range, armor and life, and each of them has currently 3 levels. Base upgrades currently include Structure armor (2 levels) and Neosteel Frame (2 levels). Heroes will have their own, unique upgrades, but not many, they won't level up.
-Items: All heroes can buy and use items. Items are divided into 2 categories, Weaponry and Food. Weaponry includes items such as grenades, plasma guns and so on, items that deal damage or other combat effects. These items can be bought from Bob's Guns shop, or maybe direclty from Supply Depots, as I haven't decided yet. Food items affect hero status, no 'healing potions' here, all items will be fun, different and related to some SC2 universe reference. Food items are bought from the Zerger King shop. Currently there are only 2 items in this category, Creepburger and Nuke Cola. Creepburger is Zerger King's specialty, it gives regeneration for a short time, and the extra crispy Zergling Wings are delicious and famous in the whole sector. Nuke Cola makes the hero move and attack faster, but without the Stimpack consequences to the user's heatlh.
-Resouces and map: I still haven't decided how the resouce income will be, but I don't want it to be the standard mineral and gas harvest. I want to add interesting points in the map, maybe capturable structures that provide X resources per second. I will also add special events like trains crossing the map so players can attack it and get resources/items, like in that campaign mission (and because it relates to one of the book's chapters too). The map will be divided in different scenarios, somewhat based on combat fields in the book. There will be Kel-Morian troops as a hostile faction.
Teams and victory conditions: There will be 2 teams and right now each team can have up to 5 players but as there are 7 heroes I may expand it later. A team is defeated by destroying the team's Command Center. As long as a team has at least one structure all players can respawn their heroes for free.
CURRENT STATE
I've been working on the units and heroes. I have the small tech tree almost finished. Basic units finished. All heroes are selectable through a very cool selection screen and are already playable, but with only a few abilities working and no upgrades. The Hit Chance system is already in place upgrades included, and can be checked in the unit's weapon tooltip, I have only to tweak some visual and sound effects to make it perfect.
I haven't started working on the terrain, and I'm not a good terrainer, so that will be the last part of the project. I still have to decide and work on the resource system and the hostile faction and special events. I have many ideas settled I only need time to add them to the game.
That's it! I'll add more information later as well as screenshots. I hope people will get interested and help me test it on Battlenet. My plan is to give it a lot of work with no release date set.
After a long break I decided to update this page even though it seems I'm only one interested. ;-)
This time I'm going to share a few screenshots and explain them and I will update what changed since my first post.
HEAVEN'S DEVILS CHARACTERS
This screenshot shows the character selection screen. Player select one of the Heaven's Devils characters from their picture, taken by Max Speer. When a player selects his Devil the character will be greyed out as you casn see in the picture (Ryk Kydd was selected and I tried to select him too). It means each team can only have one of each hero, forcing team play to use their unique abilities.
At first my idea was to make them respawn for free if killed, but now I think it may be better to go with a no respawn system. This way players will have to make smart moves with their heroes and avoid getting careless. And it makes Lisa Cassidy's abilities more important. Heroes won't die right away, they will become incapacitated just like in that campaign mission on Char. In this state they will slowly bleed and only Doc can heal them. In some cases this method makes things easier because players won't need to wait before respawning, but not having Doc around means their heroes can engage in dangerous situations.
MECHANICS
The 'Hit Chance' system is great. Now units have a new stat that makes them different from others as some units have low Hit Chances (Tychus chaingun) and others have high Hit Chances (Kydd's sniper rifle). This stat can be upgraded just like the others (armor, damage, range and life). Each infantry upgrade has 3 levels. Check the second attached picture and you cansee a Marine's weapon tooltip with the upgraded Hit Chance.
Army control in this map is another main feature. Infantry units cannot be directly given orders. Some simple orders can be given by the player's Barracks: Set Rally Point is a little different here, as unit will acquire targets in their way to the rally point. Players can use it and the ability to auto-train Marines to play in a standard Tug-Of-War style if they want, but this strategy can be easily countered. Set Attack Point orders all infantry units in a radius around the Barracks to attack-move to the target point. Set Fallback Point orders all infantry units in a target area to move back to the barracks.
But better control can be achieved by using Transport Trucks or Raynor's abilities. Transport Trucks can move Infantry units quickly to any point the player wishes and set a Rally Point themselves, making it possible to attack from unexpected directions. Raynor can order infantry units to follow him (including other players' units), hold position and attack, and I plan more like Patrol and maybe others.
CURRENT STATUS
The only thing I need to consider an open Alpha is terrain. The map is just a plain square right now. In my plans it will consist of 3 different options to be selected at the beginning of each match, and I already know how these options will be, but with my terraining skills it will take forever to accomplish. I must find another person to od it for me if I don't want to sedn this project into oblivion.
Other mechanics and balance could be finished after playtests. I an handle all the data work by myself, and so far I've been doing the triggers by myself too, but from now on they may become too complex for me, I can't be sure.
The concept of the heroes and how a match goes seem pretty solid to me. Each character has an unique role and with time and ideas it can only get better. It follows Blizzard's idea as it can be 'easy to learn but hard to master' and I like it.
- reserved -
This looks really cool, I'd wish I could help.
@ScorpSCII: Go Are you good with terrain? That's where I need some serious help. I'm also open to suggestions and criticism.
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Sorry if this is the wrong place but wasn't sure whether to post in your other mod thread as this is to do with this mod.. anyhoo here's a WIP picture of my start on making the Sloth. I've shifted around the cab and some other parts to centre it and make it a bit more like a Bulldozer (minus the Dozer blades) and added the Thor cannons. Considering how big it is I shrunk the cab a bit as well to give a sense of size. At this point I'm not sure what to do with the flatbed part yet. Is this something like what you'd like for the Sloth?
@Kanitala: Go Yeah, it's very close to what I thought. I'm unsure about the flatbed part too. Great job man.
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Thanks :) glad you like it
As for the flatbed... guess I could try adding an engine block or something back there... guess I'll google Bulldozers heh
Edit: I'm also tempted to make a version with the Dozer blade as well, the unaltered version as it were ^^
@Kanitala: Go Good idea, add engines, ammo stacks and a small gas tank. Things that make it looks like it carries what it needs. Also a suggestion to "fix" the cabin: mirror the right side for the left side, so it won't looks like it as cropped. I can work on the textures later, I feel it needs more team color on the truck and the cannons may need some yellow to them.
Yeah, an unaltered version would be nice :-)
EDIT: I can help you find good models for the flatbed and think about their positions.
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Curse PremiumFine by me. I'm making this for you afterall ^^
And yes, more yellow is good! I'm in a constructiony mood what with my Marine Engineer too hehe.
I found the dozer blade. It's called CranePart_02.m3 in the doodads folder. You just need to make it larger. I'm making some screenshots of doodad models I think might look good on the flatbed.
The concept looks interesting, I'm a huge Marine Arena fan, and another variant of that map could really take off. Roman is the most asinine developer, and his slavish adherence to Dark Templar has driven more than a few people away from MA.
I just wish these types of customs were playable right now without converting to flipbook mode. Blizzard really screwed over customs with this last patch =/
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Curse PremiumHere's an update. After some advice from a friend I've decided to build up the civilian version bulldozer before then making the battle version. As you can see I've reposition the cab to make it more Bulldozer like and added the fuel tanks you suggested from the Terrazine Refinery... I still need to add the part of the hull beneath the cab to stop it hovering and probably add some smoke stacks of some sort.
And after that of course, I'll make the battle version :D
PS, don't worry, I've just hidden the cannons for now.
@Garrthos: Go The map started as one MA variation but the use of the Heaven's Devils characters changed it a lot. I hope it will please the MA fans.
@Kanitala: Go Wooow it looks awesome! Yeah you just need something to fit under the cab and hold to the tanks' straps. I'll try to find something, maybe a part form the SuperCraneAdvanced.m3?
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Thanks :)
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And a long overdue update!
@Kanitala: Go Wow man that's a mean bulldozer! It looks like it could be used to overrun zerg units, extremely useful at choke points ;-)
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Hehe thanks. Any suggestions/requests for the civilian version before I start pimping it out? :D
@Kanitala: Go I don't think it needs any changes, maybe some texture rework to add more team colors, but the model is great. What about the animations? Can it use the dozer blade to smash things?
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Thanks :)
Concerning animations, not yet but I intend to add that very animation :) Currently it has all the animations of the base unit which isn't many admittedly hah.
And aye, texture work. I was wondering about making the parts from the Utility truck a similar construction yellow colourscheme to mesh it all together. As for team colour, anywhere in particular you have in mind? Of course, the combat version will have more on the plates around the guns previously owned by the Thor >:)