Hey guys, it's great to finally have the Publish feature!
I've seen many interesting custom maps today, and I'd like as well to share my little project with you - hoping for some sort of feedback or suggestions to improve it. It's not your usual turret defense or hero mod, but something completely different which tries to link the new Bank feature with the fun of micro-management / army composition brought by SC2.
I tested it repeatedly with a couple of friends and everything worked fine, unfortunately I'm behind a NAT so I can't host B.Net games and sharing it turned out to be a pain. I still need to implement some useful features (accurate stats, camera settings, possibly 2v2 teams support), decorate arenas in a decent way and correct a few minor glitches around, but I think it's 100% playable right now and I'd appreciate someone playing and commenting on it.
I will probably upload the source .SC2Map file after Release, here's a lazy copy-paste from my project page :)
-
DESCRIPTION
Players needed: 3+, 8-14 suggested
Round duration: 30 minutes
Current version: 3.0 (Europe)
WGX Nagrand is a new custom scenario designed around optimal group planning, metagame countering and micro management skills, which are all big words for a simple yet very competitive medium-sized army confrontation mod.
Your first step will be creating your "arena team" - given 1600/1200 resources, and access to any fully upgraded unit of your favourite race (singleplayer ones included, in a near future) the goal is to create a balanced army capable of facing anything your opponents may throw at you.
When you feel ready, confirm your setup and the internal matchmaking queue will pit you against random opponents in a series of quick 1v1 battles. You can play defensively and mix unit types to be prepared for everything, be aggressive with fast units or caster support, directly counter predictable strategies... or simply outsmart your opponents with any bizarre unconventional tactic you come up with. Think you can dominate the tournament?
-
FEATURES
6 Arenas
Different settings, same objective. Rush to the Xel'Naga tower to scout the enemy and get the strategic advantage!
Personal Rating
Your rating is persistent, being saved and imported every time you play WGX Nagrand. It influences your gain/loss after every match, helps arranging balanced rounds, and basically identifies your overall skill level. Thanks to a parity check every important stored value is protected and cannot be manually altered in the .SC2Bank savefile to cheat.
Smart Matchmaking
The double queue system willl (try to) pick a different opponent each time, to prevent direct countering. You can also switch to Spectator Mode to have a glimpse at the most abused strategies in the tournament before preparing yourself for the next random fight.
Custom UI
No chat commands, everything is done through dialogs and the side menu. Players can even vote whether to lower game speed to Tactical (best micro-management) or raise it to Normal/Pro.
-
FEW SCREENSHOTS
... And now I'm seeing typos in texts. Ugh. I definitely need a coffee, it's 06.39 AM here :D
Yes, unfortunately nothing can prevent that at the moment.
You got to rating 1XXX, let's say you backup your file every time not to lose points.
You can't raise it easily either if you don't deserve it, since in the release version the minimum amount of players to start will be 8+ and other than the "tax" you pay upon joining the tournament to feed the final prizes, you also temporarily lose a moderate amount of points which are given back at the end (simple anti-ragequitters/leavers precaution).
Honestly Blizzard should make Banks work server-side, with values tied to the specific map and stored on Battle.net iself. I could make a "Guys join this it's awesome!" map which immediately opens ALL the bank files used by famous multiplayer maps and trash them, that's just... dumb :|
Uploaded the map again on Europe realm though, if anyone wants to give it a shot :)
Yes, unfortunately nothing can prevent that at the moment.
You got to rating 1XXX, let's say you backup your file every time not to lose points.
You can't raise it easily either if you don't deserve it, since in the release version the minimum amount of players to start will be 8+ and other than the "tax" you pay upon joining the tournament to feed the final prizes, you also temporarily lose a moderate amount of points which are given back at the end (simple anti-ragequitters/leavers precaution).
Honestly Blizzard should make Banks work server-side, with values tied to the specific map and stored on Battle.net iself. I could make a "Guys join this it's awesome!" map which immediately opens ALL the bank files used by famous multiplayer maps and trash them, that's just... dumb :|
Uploaded the map again on Europe realm though, if anyone wants to give it a shot :)
you know you can have more than 1 bank open per player and state them in variables. then from there there is a bank sync so have a global bank (the bank that is synced) and a local bank (where other data that applied only to the player is stored). it may not work for a tournament but you can pass stats around and average things out the more a player plays and collects data it will sync to other banks and information spreads like wildfire.
Problem is: you can't prevent a player from backing up their savefile and restoring it if they lose, you can only tell if that savefile is legit - as: generated by the map with a valid parity key, not manually altered.
Sharing informations between all 14 players each game is a nice solution if you want to implement some sort of Top10 online ranking or something like that, since synchronizing 10*N keys is quick and doable (highest scores seen by each player would spread virus-like in a few days), but this wouldn't work for saving player ratings since that would mean storing WAY too many informations and even given the possibility (the number of keys you can store in a file is limited, and you can't really have a file for each player you played with) that would make the initialization extremely laggy :/
Can you dynamically create and save banks? This way you could ask other people to give you out 10 random saved profile they have. This way you would for each game you play gather 10 * [number of players in the map] profiles.
You won't ever have the global information but you'd still be able to get a good snapshot even if you play rarely (you get about 13 * 10 = 130 profiles per game)
Implementation
You can store in a fake linked list all the players you have stored in the banks "BankListing1" "BankListing2" ...
Then for each player you have a bank called "BankPlayerVjeux", "BankPlayerWhiskee" that stores all the infos.
You don't have to load all the banks at initialization. You just need to load them when the player wants to see the profile of someone. You can store in the listing the score if you want to display it as a table.
Actually no, you can't, since Bank name must be a fixed string and not a variable / function return :(
But even if it was possible, yes you could have a global snapshot of people you saw over B.Net but not guarantee their accuracy over time nor that they were legit in the first place. Let's say I played a game against you and lost, then came back one hour later with the same rating I had, you couldn't tell if I restored my savefile or played again with random people and won.
I explained on the EU forum why banks should work server-side, that place is like dead but I hope they'll even take a look at my thread. I don't really know how RPG mapmakers will handle this, I can count 5-6 ways of duping items right now.
I guess you (by you I mean mapmakers in general) could always go the route of games like Modern Warfare... where everything, even losses, contributes quite a bit to your experience and a lot of experience is needed to raise in ranks. This may deter some people from using a backup. (Since only ever counting your wins would greatly slow down your ranking up unless you were already naturally awesome.) The only downside is that you have a system which has complete noobs at the highest rank.
Alternatively, You could just count on the fact that most people will be oblivious to the fact they can backup their bank files.
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Hey guys, it's great to finally have the Publish feature!
I've seen many interesting custom maps today, and I'd like as well to share my little project with you - hoping for some sort of feedback or suggestions to improve it. It's not your usual turret defense or hero mod, but something completely different which tries to link the new Bank feature with the fun of micro-management / army composition brought by SC2.
I tested it repeatedly with a couple of friends and everything worked fine, unfortunately I'm behind a NAT so I can't host B.Net games and sharing it turned out to be a pain. I still need to implement some useful features (accurate stats, camera settings, possibly 2v2 teams support), decorate arenas in a decent way and correct a few minor glitches around, but I think it's 100% playable right now and I'd appreciate someone playing and commenting on it.
I will probably upload the source .SC2Map file after Release, here's a lazy copy-paste from my project page :)
-DESCRIPTION
WGX Nagrand is a new custom scenario designed around optimal group planning, metagame countering and micro management skills, which are all big words for a simple yet very competitive medium-sized army confrontation mod.
Your first step will be creating your "arena team" - given 1600/1200 resources, and access to any fully upgraded unit of your favourite race (singleplayer ones included, in a near future) the goal is to create a balanced army capable of facing anything your opponents may throw at you.
When you feel ready, confirm your setup and the internal matchmaking queue will pit you against random opponents in a series of quick 1v1 battles. You can play defensively and mix unit types to be prepared for everything, be aggressive with fast units or caster support, directly counter predictable strategies... or simply outsmart your opponents with any bizarre unconventional tactic you come up with. Think you can dominate the tournament?
-FEATURES
Different settings, same objective. Rush to the Xel'Naga tower to scout the enemy and get the strategic advantage!
Your rating is persistent, being saved and imported every time you play WGX Nagrand. It influences your gain/loss after every match, helps arranging balanced rounds, and basically identifies your overall skill level. Thanks to a parity check every important stored value is protected and cannot be manually altered in the .SC2Bank savefile to cheat.
The double queue system willl (try to) pick a different opponent each time, to prevent direct countering. You can also switch to Spectator Mode to have a glimpse at the most abused strategies in the tournament before preparing yourself for the next random fight.
No chat commands, everything is done through dialogs and the side menu. Players can even vote whether to lower game speed to Tactical (best micro-management) or raise it to Normal/Pro.
-FEW SCREENSHOTS
... And now I'm seeing typos in texts. Ugh. I definitely need a coffee, it's 06.39 AM here :D
@WhiskeeGX: Go
Looks Awesome.
Simple Idea but seems like it will be very fun to play!
Map removed since custom maps aren't working on B.Net anyway.
Will upload it again after the downtime.
Isn't it possible to just backup the bank every time, so your record is awesome?
Yes, unfortunately nothing can prevent that at the moment.
You got to rating 1XXX, let's say you backup your file every time not to lose points.
You can't raise it easily either if you don't deserve it, since in the release version the minimum amount of players to start will be 8+ and other than the "tax" you pay upon joining the tournament to feed the final prizes, you also temporarily lose a moderate amount of points which are given back at the end (simple anti-ragequitters/leavers precaution).
Honestly Blizzard should make Banks work server-side, with values tied to the specific map and stored on Battle.net iself. I could make a "Guys join this it's awesome!" map which immediately opens ALL the bank files used by famous multiplayer maps and trash them, that's just... dumb :|
Uploaded the map again on Europe realm though, if anyone wants to give it a shot :)
you know you can have more than 1 bank open per player and state them in variables. then from there there is a bank sync so have a global bank (the bank that is synced) and a local bank (where other data that applied only to the player is stored). it may not work for a tournament but you can pass stats around and average things out the more a player plays and collects data it will sync to other banks and information spreads like wildfire.
Problem is: you can't prevent a player from backing up their savefile and restoring it if they lose, you can only tell if that savefile is legit - as: generated by the map with a valid parity key, not manually altered.
Sharing informations between all 14 players each game is a nice solution if you want to implement some sort of Top10 online ranking or something like that, since synchronizing 10*N keys is quick and doable (highest scores seen by each player would spread virus-like in a few days), but this wouldn't work for saving player ratings since that would mean storing WAY too many informations and even given the possibility (the number of keys you can store in a file is limited, and you can't really have a file for each player you played with) that would make the initialization extremely laggy :/
The top 10 thing is a really nice suggestion.
Can you dynamically create and save banks? This way you could ask other people to give you out 10 random saved profile they have. This way you would for each game you play gather 10 * [number of players in the map] profiles.
You won't ever have the global information but you'd still be able to get a good snapshot even if you play rarely (you get about 13 * 10 = 130 profiles per game)
Implementation
You can store in a fake linked list all the players you have stored in the banks "BankListing1" "BankListing2" ...
Then for each player you have a bank called "BankPlayerVjeux", "BankPlayerWhiskee" that stores all the infos.
You don't have to load all the banks at initialization. You just need to load them when the player wants to see the profile of someone. You can store in the listing the score if you want to display it as a table.
Actually no, you can't, since Bank name must be a fixed string and not a variable / function return :(
But even if it was possible, yes you could have a global snapshot of people you saw over B.Net but not guarantee their accuracy over time nor that they were legit in the first place. Let's say I played a game against you and lost, then came back one hour later with the same rating I had, you couldn't tell if I restored my savefile or played again with random people and won.
I explained on the EU forum why banks should work server-side, that place is like dead but I hope they'll even take a look at my thread. I don't really know how RPG mapmakers will handle this, I can count 5-6 ways of duping items right now.
I guess you (by you I mean mapmakers in general) could always go the route of games like Modern Warfare... where everything, even losses, contributes quite a bit to your experience and a lot of experience is needed to raise in ranks. This may deter some people from using a backup. (Since only ever counting your wins would greatly slow down your ranking up unless you were already naturally awesome.) The only downside is that you have a system which has complete noobs at the highest rank.
Alternatively, You could just count on the fact that most people will be oblivious to the fact they can backup their bank files.