As I'm getting some feedback in the map page's comments, I decided to create a thread for it. I also can't post comments via proxy, so I can't answer in the comments half the time.
-Finish the terrain. Is pretty poor in some places.
-Add more heroes, and balance the skills.
-Add some kind of respawn of units, late game on a 8 player game there are few left.
-Try to do a multilanguage option. I have some ideas about how to accomplish this.
Ingame tooltips
GAME BASICS
The goal of Xel'Naga Relics is achieve the higher Narud Reputation of all players. There are four ways of winning reputation:
1.- Reclaiming Relics. Each small relic is worth 75 reputation, each large relic 130 reputation and the Artifact is worth 225 reputation.
2.-Doing optional objetives. The reputation varies, but as a base number, a lvl 1-3 objetive is worth 15 reputation, a lvl 4-7 objetive is worth 30 reputation, and a lvl 8-12 is worth 50 reputation.
3.- Killing players. Each player killed is worth 10 reputation.
4.- Killing enemy units. Each unit is worth 1 reputation.
The Relics spawns randomly over the map. When the 4 small relics have been reclaimed, 2 large relics will appear randomly. When those large relics have been reclaimed, a Xel'naga Artifact will spawn near the Swarm base or the Moebius base. You can search the relics yourself, or recruit a Scientist and use his skills Search Small Relic and Search Large Relic. The Artifact can't be searched with Scientist.
The optional objetives are choosed randomly each game. Read the text, if you need to kill specific units, you'll probably have their position marked on the map, or shared vision with them.
RELIC RECLAIMING
The Small Xel'naga Relics spawn randomly around the world. Each one is worth 75 reputation, so is important to try to reclaim some, and prevent other players to do so.
<c val="FF0000">How to find a relic:</c> you can try to search around the map walking yourself. Usually the don't spawn around the edges, so try to go the center of the map. At level 5 you can recruit a Scientist, that among their useful skills can help you find Relics easily on the map. If other player is reclaiming a relic, you'll see a mark in the map with their position. If you are near enough try to kill him and reclaim the relic yourself.
<c val="FF0000">How to reclaim a relic:</c> stay still a few seconds near the relic to start the reclaiming. You'll recieve a message. You'll get attacked by some random zergs and probably other players. For a succesful reclaiming, don't die or go too far away from the relic during the reclaiming. You can move the mouse over the relic to see the remaining reclaiming time.
ARTIFACT RECLAIMING
The Xel'naga Artifact is the last relic in the game. Is worth 225 reputation so is important to reclaim it yourself and prevent other to do so.
<c val="FF0000">How to find the artifact:</c> you'll get a message saying near what base it is. Also is written in the objetive log. There are two possibilities, near the Swarm base, or the Moebius base. If you don't know where it is because you didn't explored all the map, try to deduce the base position. Can't be too near the other bases, and can't be near the edges of the map. Can be inside the base, or in the surroundings, each game is different.
<c val="FF0000">How to reclaim the Artifact:</c> once activated, the Artifact will evaluate all the players in the map and choose the best hero. You'll see a bar with your color in the top of the screen with your actual approval rate. You can gain approval killing enemies and heroes. You lose approval dying. Being close to the Artifact increases the approval gained by killing. The player that activated the Artifact also get a small bonus, and will win extra approval. Try to kill him first.
I played it yesterday and has a great upgrade system.
But I think is too much, is impossible to balance that, and new players feel a bit lost with that many options (has like 3X different upgrades). And again is impossible to balance, so there are builds pretty poor, and others unstoppable.
I wanna add more customization to XNR, but I thinking seriously about what to add. Is mainly an action game, not an RPG, I don't wanna players to need to read too many skills/options each time they level. But I will add something more, that's for sure.
New build published. I saw the streaming (thanks for playing it) and I decided to nerf a bit Nova. Is not really overpowered in PvP (if you run when she does invis or force field), but probably is the easier to level with.
I'm also working on the high level quests, right now I have done 8, I need a couple more before activating them tought. Right now you'll repeat too many quests at high level, the idea is you have a real low chance to repeat the same quest in a single game.
XNR Change Log 0.37 (beta)
-Upgraded Ammo passive skill by Raynor now properly shows his icon at levels II and III.
-Fixed a random bug where a player spawned multiples heroes at the start.
-The Zealot vs Zergling quest must be easier to find now.
-The all zerlings wave when reclaiming a Small Xel'naga Relic has been nerfed. Was almost impossible to do without an AOE skill.
-All the relic/artifact text messages now have colored player name.
-Blinding Grenade has been changed to a point-based AOE. Duration increased to 10/15 seconds, and now also reduces movement speed by 20%.
-Nitro Boots tooltip fixed. Now also heals 2/3 hit points per second on combat.
-Cloak of Shadow now also removes Find Weakness Stun, Weak debuff by Nova and Force field.
-Added a couple more tips at the loading screen.
-Mercenary Medics now start with 25 more energy.
-Nova now has a Cancel button in the Train Nova submenu.
-Nova damage reduced to 22/+6 vs light armor from 30 damage at level 1. Also she gains 3 less damage leveling up to level 10.
-Finally the permanent Medevac bug is fixed.
-The Moebius Forces quest now only ask for 7 kills, and the Zealot quests only needs 4 kills. Down from 10/5. They also have extra reward versus other easier Tier II quests.
-Mercenary Medevac speed increased.
-Extractor Tower and Xel'naga Chamber buildings now have correctly the name in English.
Hi, just an idea, since Novas attack cooldown is pretty long, perhaps you could show it on weapons icon? Just like Siege tanks (Siege Mode) weapon. Would make it easier to micro.
Also played a few multiplayer games of your map today and didn't find fending off "all zergling" waves that hard (I was Nova/Zeratul), just had to run around/micro a bit (and perhaps summon mercs).
And, perhaps it's just me, but I dislike seeing old familiar names in this new environment, it feels just like they don't belong, maybe give characters new names/bio? But that's more like a storyline thingy and as you said most texts are placeholders.
Problem is that if you micro a bit far reclaiming a relic you can fail the reclaiming. Also all small relics must be doable at lvl 4-5. That wave was really too hard, I only made it slighty easier tought.
I also tought at the start of the design to rename the heroes and build a new story around them. But I concluded that they are too well know faces, people will end calling them Nova, Raynor, Tychus, and so on. But I'll rethink about it later. I have still much work to do.
About the Nova's weapon CD I'll look at it. I don't know how to do it, but must be easy looking at the Siege Tank.
They are a well known faces and people will probably call them by their storymode names or by player colors, but the problem is that Zeratul without his huge health, one shot kill damage and extremely powerful storymode spells isn't a true Zeratul, which creates a little dissapointment feeling since instead of a hero we get an allmost-regular-stats-unit.
Also, a bug happened to me. My second quest was "survive reapers" and I failed, after that an invincible reaper met me at my respawn point. Had to run away from him every time I respawned.
-10 new level 8+ quests added.
-The Scientist now can choose two specializations: Engineer and Battlefield Support. With the first one you can build Narud Scanner that give you a Mineral income. With the second one, they get more hit points and armor, and have the skill Radar.
-New system of Chosen One bars. Easier to understand now.
-Reaper quest bug when failed is fixed. Now the Reapers will return to their base, and not stay there, probably one or more of them invulnerable.
-Infested Terran now properly gives xp and minerals when killed.
-New quest assignement system. Must be ten times faster in multiplayer with high number of players.
-Thor no longer gives 300 minerals when killed.
-Hotkey for Stop, changed for all languages to Stop (Hotkey: S). Before was "Parar" (P) for the Spanish players. Many hotkeys adapted to this change, so they don't use 'S'.
-Scientist no longer cost supplies.
-Less Protoss units will attack the Artifact now. Was a bit unbalanced with the Terran and Zerg units.
-The Artifact or other buildings can no longer spawn under the library in the triangular zone.
In the attachment the new Artifact's Chosen One UI:
I played it yesterday on the Custom Live and it had a great potential! However the hero fights are not fun at all. I was zerathul and I just couldn't kill anyone because people are running too fast :( I chose all the passive abilities because I'm being so pwned by monsters so I thought it would increase my survavibility but didn't do much.
And we don't really understand what's the goal of the game. You have to take artifacts but when you got one you have nothing more, and if you don't, well you are doing well ... Everything is relative to the last battle!
Side note: you want to make reapers NOT invulnerable :)
Zeratul needs at least one point on Shadowstep or Mind Over Matter to be able to compete. I'll try to put online a basic character guide with all skill. Probably easier for people to help me with balance. Anyway Zeratul is a pretty good hero in PvP, no one can outrun him with those skills, a 4 second lock, high base damage, and a second life when you are level 8.
I'm thinking about giving for free a Skill for each heroe (what I consider a "base" skill), and putting another Level I skill trainable.
The goal is simply to amass the higher Reputation. There are multiple ways, but usually the best is to do the maximum number of quests while you actively search Relics. People underuse the Scientist, but are great for rapid relic hunting. One Scientist is probably a must. The last Artifact is worth 225 reputation, so in many games is a decisive battle, but not always. I did it that way because almost everyone has a chance to win until the end. If not people can start to drop the game if they are 100+ points under the leader. The way its designed you can win if you do great in the last Artifact if you have even 225 less reputation than the leader.
Usuallly the last battle is the better. If you are the leader, you wanna take the Artifact, or at least kill anyone near you in points. If you are not the leader, you wanna make sure you kill everyone over you in points, and try to survive until the end of the reclaiming.
The Reapers are invulnerable until they are close to you. If not they'll die too easily (i made them spawn in the moebius base, for a random direction and time to come to your position). The bug was that if they killed you, the code didn't sent the survivors back to the base, and delete them, as planned. Probably I'll need to take a look at what happens if someone with that quest disconnects.
Bug report:
Played newest vers, was reclaiming small artifact when got 2 mutalisk quest. Killed one mutalisk, then second came and after that 3rd(one of mutas was a wave spawn?) after I killed second mutalisk I got quest failed and soon after 3rd muta got removed.
In overlord drop quest I stunned overlord with Void Prison-like spell(lvl 2), after overlord got out of it he started to spawn creep but didn't unload troops.
After capturing him second time got quest done.
Also, mobeus foundation outpost = Dark Templar shrine + DT?
And abit of feedback: without minimap ping it's sometimes hard to find where your high-level quest target is located. Especially since almost always it's on the other side of the map.
About selection menu, perhaps add a dialog timer which would indicate how much time is left? and a little note which would tell player to hurry up or his choice would be made for him?
The Mutalisk one is fixed for next build. My old code is messy as hell, didn't updated that quest to the new system (the condition needs to be unit in the quest group, not unit is Mutalisk, it failed because you killed 2 Mutalisk but one of the quest's one was alive).
Overlord drop, that is a recurring bug with many quest, you can cancel orders with some interactions. I'll try to get it fixed for that and Infestor one.
The Dark Shrine don't know how it ended with the other quest text. Fixed.
What quest do you have problems with? Many of them aren't with ping, but with revelators or shared visibility.
There is already a timer in the chat text, if I undersand you correctly. I can try to make it more visual or something.
Not sure which version I've played but it was sweet. It didn't get boring, the upgrades were really well done, the objectives were interesting and challenging, the Medivac trigger was well done (if pressed multiple times it adds the unit to the Medivac cargo instead of calling in several Medivacs). Fun game, can't wait for the full release.
The mission where I had to kill the 3 scientists though, I think it may have been bugged, I thought I only killed 1/3 and it completed the quest for me. Only other critique is to finish the terrain... and if possible implement a bit more balance to adjust the difficulty of the enemies by the level of the attackers or something... I died 3 times at the very start. Once I got Tychus' armor upgrade I was all set though. :)
EDIT: So I played the game the whole way through with Tychus and have a few other critiques... I leveled up to 12 with a fair amount of play remaining (granted, I was playing by myself, maybe its faster paced online) but once I'd reached level 12, the game got a little stale. Maybe add 3 more levels? That would probably stretch it to the end of the game.
Also, I bought a few Medics but found that for 200 minerals, 2 Marines are just as good. The AI goes straight for the Medics, so they always get killed first. My setup was: 1 scientist hidden somewhere safe to find relics, and then 3 Marines and a Medic. Medic ended up being worthless. Maybe give them a slow health regen? That would make them worth the money.
Finally, the progress bar for the final XNR is broken I think. It started, and then paused at about 10-15%, and then jumped around 40%-50% and again at 60% and then it activated and I won the game. But the bar wasn't full. I think what happened was my Hero walked away from it for a short while to kill some attackers (but maybe left a few Marines near it, keeping the timer going?) and when I went back it continued the progress bar? I dunno for sure.
Overall though, great map. Very fun. Polish it up and I'm sure it will be popular. :)
In multiplayer the levels seems ok, I almost never hit 12 until the last artifact. If people keeps getting maximum level I'll do something about it.
The Scientist quest, probably some zergs killed the Scientist, multiples quest does not matter if you kill them or not, you can get lucky. Or sometimes unlucky because they spawn near many friendly units.
I'll reduce Medics threat again probably, I almost always play with 2, maybe that's why I don't find them dying that fast.
About the Artifact, probably you played an old version if the bars didnt looked like the image I showed a few post ago. Also I'll need to explain how the last Artifact works, is not really intuitive like the other Relics. Is a competition, you don't need to get a full bar, only the longest bar :P (kill and not get killed basicaly)
I'm now working on the next hero, Tosh. I have him 50% ready. A little preview of my favourite skill, Fear:
I've tested the map.
Pros :
- Nice background ! I really like the idea of playing a mercenary and searching relics like Raynor did. Really into starcraft background.
- I didn't understood the way the ending worked, I think its kinda bugged. But things get heavy and that's cool.
- Quests were an original idea and it worked fine.
There are several cons however.
- General relic capturing was a nice idea but kinda buggy : if many units are in the capturing zone, the capturing doesn't stop. It's not very logical !
- The map lacks balance, but that you can expect of a beta.
- Another problem would be the abilities. I tested as a Marauder, and the spells were not really good. I mean, it could be cool that you change the spell a lil bit so they are more interesting. Concussive shells should definitivly have an additionnal effect like slowing down attack rate. Spells like the final marauder one were bad and overpowered.
- mobs are just mobs spread throught the maps. Maybe making differents factions for zerg, protoss and terran, givin them a story, and make them walk around slowly could make it a little less like you're farming exp.
Bugs :
- When you die spawning a mercenary, the medivak bugs.
Suggestions :
- More mercenaries to choose from, (some will be better for some heroes depending on their weakness)
- Cheaper mercenaries
- Mercenaries supply limit to 3 or something !
- Make mercenaries gain life over time like the hero do.
- More hp, less damage for mercenaries !
Relic capturing isnt really buggy, works as intended. Probably you are talking about the last one, the harder to understand how it works. The other simply if you don't die or go too far away, the player that activates the relic reclaims it. I'll try to make it clear how it works, so people can really help me improving it.
The skills are more or less balanced, still much work to do tought. Marauder is not a bad hero, probably a bit too based on mercs, but that's his best point. Concussive Shells can get some work, that's true. I didn't understand what you mean with Shock Wave is bad AND overpowered. Is really not that overpowered, and probably with bad you mean doesn't fit on the character or something. If you could explain a bit better...
The mobs and factions are still a work on progress. I'm thinking what to do to make everything more active, but isn't that easy. All I think can do things too hard or too easy depends on the luck. I'll probably add something mid-late game for more active mobs, but the start must be like is now, really.
About the mercenaries:
-More mercenaries is a thing i have in mind. Just don't wanna add many for the sake of adding them. I'm thinking about an upgrade system for mercs too.
-I think they are cheaper enough, you'll need to make good use of them, don't spam infinitely. The Scientist can help giving some extra minerals now, so you can use more in a game.
-Limit the supply... I'll think about it. But 3 is too low, maybe 4. I'll need to reduce medic supply cost to 1 then. And if I put better mercs will sustitute the Marines because you'll be too supply limited. Uhmm. Needs thinking.
-I'll make mercenaries regen life. I always think I need to do that, but I'll never do when I'm at the editor, lol.
-I can give the mercs more HP, but not less damage. Marines are too dependant on enemy armor, if I reduce the damage, the heroes with high armor like Tychus or Maroon will be totally overpowered versus heroes with 0 armor. I can try to increase speed attack, tought. I'll need more testing before deciding this.
And bug anoted. I'll try to sort it out for next build.
New build published. Next build will probably be a full balance build. Tosh was really fun to code, Stealth and Fear were interesting skills to do. Added new ingame tooltips to the first post.
XNR Change Log 0.40
-New hero added: Tosh!
-Better tooltips on hero selection.
-Now all 3 levels of Expose Armor share cooldown properly.
-Mutalisk quest will not fail now if you kill another Mutalisk not quest-related.
-Dark Shrine quest now has his own text quest.
-Overseer and Infestor quest has his AI upgraded. They must keep attacking if something stop them.
-Fixed a potential bug with Reapers staying invulnerable if the player with that quest disconnects.
-Nova now shows a cooldown over her head with the weapon cooldown.
-Added some tips ingame. More to come.
-Zergling Ambush quest should never fail again and show an error. Also it will be possible to complete it if other player abandoned it.
-Medic Threat reduced.
-Now Raynor starts with 1 armor, but doesn't gain +1 armor at level 9.
-Now you recruit Marine Mercenaries, have 5 HP extra, and regenerate life. Medics also regenerate life now.
-Supply cap is now 5, but Medics only cost 1 supply.
Nice.
What I meant with the shockwave is that it stuns for like, 5 seconds, which is definitivly overpowered against any kind of heroes. Thing is, I was marauder against another marauder, and there is absolutley nothing I could do as he was level 10 and I was 9. I know he had higher level, but that shouldn't mean he has absolute power over me !
Second, it is not a good choice for an ultimate ability imho. Ultimate abilities should be more something like a channeling AOE spell or a morphing spell, but this shockwave ability sounds more like a basic spell a hero could use as part of his gameplay : a little stunning/damage ability that last 1 second or something.
Finally, I couldn't see any fancy effect. In fact maybe there was, but it was too fast and we couldn't see any impact effect going on !
Keep up the goodwork.
I'll do many revamps to the heroes probably. I need more testing tought, but with the latest reset my map is in the 6-7 page, so I need to find testers again, sigh. Funny is, I have people said Maroon is overpower (specially because of Conc Shells + Stim Pack), Nova is overpowered, Tychus is overpowered, and Zeratul is overpowered (is almost impossible to kill my brother in PvP when he plays Zeratul :P). No one said Raynor is overpowered tought, but Defensive Shield + Air Support + Penetrating Shot on the other players mercs is pretty good. That's why I need more testing, *all* the heroes can't be overpowered, lol.
The selection of the latest Maroon skill was based on that he really doesn't have anything defensive. And an AOE stun helps specially if you have many mercs, like Maroon usually has. Any ideas are welcome tought. A bit of brainstorming is always good. He doesn't have a special visual effect, that's why I was thinking you mean that with poor.
Edit:
I uploaded a small build, called 40b, because of some bugs. Part of the balacing I started is there, but not much.
Change Log:
-Tosh now have hotkeys for all skills.
-Now you can recruit Scientist at maximum Supply Count.
-Mercenary Marine DPS slighty nerfed (around 8%). Their damage is less affected by armor too, they'll do roughly double damage against an high armor hero. Using Marines against Tychus or Maroon was not useful. For example a Marine against a full armor Tychus did 1.1 DPS. Now it does 2.3 DPS, even if global Marine DPS is lower now.
-Mercenary Medics will heal an additional 60% heal per cast, and energy cost increased by 20%. That will make them balanced against Marines cost wise.
-Armor for heroes changed: maximum now is 4 armor. Tychus can get to 5, because he needs to use 3 skill points on it. With this changes, Tychus and Maroon lose 1 armor at maximum level. Zeratul now has 0 armor like designed, but can get up to 6 shield armor with skills.
-Hit Points + Shields at maximum level increased roughly by 10% on each hero. Maroon and Nova got the best hit points upgrade.
-Zeratul DPS is slighty lower now.
As I'm getting some feedback in the map page's comments, I decided to create a thread for it. I also can't post comments via proxy, so I can't answer in the comments half the time.
Map:
http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/xelnaga-relics/
Beta published to Europe.
To Do (not a full list):
-Finish the terrain. Is pretty poor in some places.
-Add more heroes, and balance the skills.
-Add some kind of respawn of units, late game on a 8 player game there are few left.
-Try to do a multilanguage option. I have some ideas about how to accomplish this.
Ingame tooltips
GAME BASICS
The goal of Xel'Naga Relics is achieve the higher Narud Reputation of all players. There are four ways of winning reputation:
1.- Reclaiming Relics. Each small relic is worth 75 reputation, each large relic 130 reputation and the Artifact is worth 225 reputation.
2.-Doing optional objetives. The reputation varies, but as a base number, a lvl 1-3 objetive is worth 15 reputation, a lvl 4-7 objetive is worth 30 reputation, and a lvl 8-12 is worth 50 reputation.
3.- Killing players. Each player killed is worth 10 reputation.
4.- Killing enemy units. Each unit is worth 1 reputation.
The Relics spawns randomly over the map. When the 4 small relics have been reclaimed, 2 large relics will appear randomly. When those large relics have been reclaimed, a Xel'naga Artifact will spawn near the Swarm base or the Moebius base. You can search the relics yourself, or recruit a Scientist and use his skills Search Small Relic and Search Large Relic. The Artifact can't be searched with Scientist.
The optional objetives are choosed randomly each game. Read the text, if you need to kill specific units, you'll probably have their position marked on the map, or shared vision with them.
RELIC RECLAIMING
The Small Xel'naga Relics spawn randomly around the world. Each one is worth 75 reputation, so is important to try to reclaim some, and prevent other players to do so.
<c val="FF0000">How to find a relic:</c> you can try to search around the map walking yourself. Usually the don't spawn around the edges, so try to go the center of the map. At level 5 you can recruit a Scientist, that among their useful skills can help you find Relics easily on the map. If other player is reclaiming a relic, you'll see a mark in the map with their position. If you are near enough try to kill him and reclaim the relic yourself.
<c val="FF0000">How to reclaim a relic:</c> stay still a few seconds near the relic to start the reclaiming. You'll recieve a message. You'll get attacked by some random zergs and probably other players. For a succesful reclaiming, don't die or go too far away from the relic during the reclaiming. You can move the mouse over the relic to see the remaining reclaiming time.
ARTIFACT RECLAIMING
The Xel'naga Artifact is the last relic in the game. Is worth 225 reputation so is important to reclaim it yourself and prevent other to do so.
<c val="FF0000">How to find the artifact:</c> you'll get a message saying near what base it is. Also is written in the objetive log. There are two possibilities, near the Swarm base, or the Moebius base. If you don't know where it is because you didn't explored all the map, try to deduce the base position. Can't be too near the other bases, and can't be near the edges of the map. Can be inside the base, or in the surroundings, each game is different.
<c val="FF0000">How to reclaim the Artifact:</c> once activated, the Artifact will evaluate all the players in the map and choose the best hero. You'll see a bar with your color in the top of the screen with your actual approval rate. You can gain approval killing enemies and heroes. You lose approval dying. Being close to the Artifact increases the approval gained by killing. The player that activated the Artifact also get a small bonus, and will win extra approval. Try to kill him first.
I played infested arena yesterday and it has a really cool upgrade system.
So I think you should implement something similar.
@zenx1: Go
I played it yesterday and has a great upgrade system.
But I think is too much, is impossible to balance that, and new players feel a bit lost with that many options (has like 3X different upgrades). And again is impossible to balance, so there are builds pretty poor, and others unstoppable.
I wanna add more customization to XNR, but I thinking seriously about what to add. Is mainly an action game, not an RPG, I don't wanna players to need to read too many skills/options each time they level. But I will add something more, that's for sure.
New build published. I saw the streaming (thanks for playing it) and I decided to nerf a bit Nova. Is not really overpowered in PvP (if you run when she does invis or force field), but probably is the easier to level with.
I'm also working on the high level quests, right now I have done 8, I need a couple more before activating them tought. Right now you'll repeat too many quests at high level, the idea is you have a real low chance to repeat the same quest in a single game.
XNR Change Log 0.37 (beta)
-Upgraded Ammo passive skill by Raynor now properly shows his icon at levels II and III.
-Fixed a random bug where a player spawned multiples heroes at the start.
-The Zealot vs Zergling quest must be easier to find now.
-The all zerlings wave when reclaiming a Small Xel'naga Relic has been nerfed. Was almost impossible to do without an AOE skill.
-All the relic/artifact text messages now have colored player name.
-Blinding Grenade has been changed to a point-based AOE. Duration increased to 10/15 seconds, and now also reduces movement speed by 20%.
-Nitro Boots tooltip fixed. Now also heals 2/3 hit points per second on combat.
-Cloak of Shadow now also removes Find Weakness Stun, Weak debuff by Nova and Force field.
-Added a couple more tips at the loading screen.
-Mercenary Medics now start with 25 more energy.
-Nova now has a Cancel button in the Train Nova submenu.
-Nova damage reduced to 22/+6 vs light armor from 30 damage at level 1. Also she gains 3 less damage leveling up to level 10.
-Finally the permanent Medevac bug is fixed.
-The Moebius Forces quest now only ask for 7 kills, and the Zealot quests only needs 4 kills. Down from 10/5. They also have extra reward versus other easier Tier II quests.
-Mercenary Medevac speed increased.
-Extractor Tower and Xel'naga Chamber buildings now have correctly the name in English.
Hi, just an idea, since Novas attack cooldown is pretty long, perhaps you could show it on weapons icon? Just like Siege tanks (Siege Mode) weapon. Would make it easier to micro.
Also played a few multiplayer games of your map today and didn't find fending off "all zergling" waves that hard (I was Nova/Zeratul), just had to run around/micro a bit (and perhaps summon mercs).
And, perhaps it's just me, but I dislike seeing old familiar names in this new environment, it feels just like they don't belong, maybe give characters new names/bio? But that's more like a storyline thingy and as you said most texts are placeholders.
Problem is that if you micro a bit far reclaiming a relic you can fail the reclaiming. Also all small relics must be doable at lvl 4-5. That wave was really too hard, I only made it slighty easier tought.
I also tought at the start of the design to rename the heroes and build a new story around them. But I concluded that they are too well know faces, people will end calling them Nova, Raynor, Tychus, and so on. But I'll rethink about it later. I have still much work to do.
About the Nova's weapon CD I'll look at it. I don't know how to do it, but must be easy looking at the Siege Tank.
They are a well known faces and people will probably call them by their storymode names or by player colors, but the problem is that Zeratul without his huge health, one shot kill damage and extremely powerful storymode spells isn't a true Zeratul, which creates a little dissapointment feeling since instead of a hero we get an allmost-regular-stats-unit.
Also, a bug happened to me. My second quest was "survive reapers" and I failed, after that an invincible reaper met me at my respawn point. Had to run away from him every time I respawned.
Thanks for the feedback.
The Reaper bug will be fixed next build. The new code for "hunt" quests wasn't properly applyed to the Reapers one.
XNR Change Log 0.38
-10 new level 8+ quests added.
-The Scientist now can choose two specializations: Engineer and Battlefield Support. With the first one you can build Narud Scanner that give you a Mineral income. With the second one, they get more hit points and armor, and have the skill Radar.
-New system of Chosen One bars. Easier to understand now.
-Reaper quest bug when failed is fixed. Now the Reapers will return to their base, and not stay there, probably one or more of them invulnerable.
-Infested Terran now properly gives xp and minerals when killed.
-New quest assignement system. Must be ten times faster in multiplayer with high number of players.
-Thor no longer gives 300 minerals when killed.
-Hotkey for Stop, changed for all languages to Stop (Hotkey: S). Before was "Parar" (P) for the Spanish players. Many hotkeys adapted to this change, so they don't use 'S'.
-Scientist no longer cost supplies.
-Less Protoss units will attack the Artifact now. Was a bit unbalanced with the Terran and Zerg units.
-The Artifact or other buildings can no longer spawn under the library in the triangular zone.
In the attachment the new Artifact's Chosen One UI:
I played it yesterday on the Custom Live and it had a great potential! However the hero fights are not fun at all. I was zerathul and I just couldn't kill anyone because people are running too fast :( I chose all the passive abilities because I'm being so pwned by monsters so I thought it would increase my survavibility but didn't do much.
And we don't really understand what's the goal of the game. You have to take artifacts but when you got one you have nothing more, and if you don't, well you are doing well ... Everything is relative to the last battle!
Side note: you want to make reapers NOT invulnerable :)
Zeratul needs at least one point on Shadowstep or Mind Over Matter to be able to compete. I'll try to put online a basic character guide with all skill. Probably easier for people to help me with balance. Anyway Zeratul is a pretty good hero in PvP, no one can outrun him with those skills, a 4 second lock, high base damage, and a second life when you are level 8.
I'm thinking about giving for free a Skill for each heroe (what I consider a "base" skill), and putting another Level I skill trainable.
The goal is simply to amass the higher Reputation. There are multiple ways, but usually the best is to do the maximum number of quests while you actively search Relics. People underuse the Scientist, but are great for rapid relic hunting. One Scientist is probably a must. The last Artifact is worth 225 reputation, so in many games is a decisive battle, but not always. I did it that way because almost everyone has a chance to win until the end. If not people can start to drop the game if they are 100+ points under the leader. The way its designed you can win if you do great in the last Artifact if you have even 225 less reputation than the leader.
Usuallly the last battle is the better. If you are the leader, you wanna take the Artifact, or at least kill anyone near you in points. If you are not the leader, you wanna make sure you kill everyone over you in points, and try to survive until the end of the reclaiming.
The Reapers are invulnerable until they are close to you. If not they'll die too easily (i made them spawn in the moebius base, for a random direction and time to come to your position). The bug was that if they killed you, the code didn't sent the survivors back to the base, and delete them, as planned. Probably I'll need to take a look at what happens if someone with that quest disconnects.
Bug report: Played newest vers, was reclaiming small artifact when got 2 mutalisk quest. Killed one mutalisk, then second came and after that 3rd(one of mutas was a wave spawn?) after I killed second mutalisk I got quest failed and soon after 3rd muta got removed.
In overlord drop quest I stunned overlord with Void Prison-like spell(lvl 2), after overlord got out of it he started to spawn creep but didn't unload troops. After capturing him second time got quest done.
Also, mobeus foundation outpost = Dark Templar shrine + DT?
And abit of feedback: without minimap ping it's sometimes hard to find where your high-level quest target is located. Especially since almost always it's on the other side of the map. About selection menu, perhaps add a dialog timer which would indicate how much time is left? and a little note which would tell player to hurry up or his choice would be made for him?
Hope I'm not being too annoying :P
No, no, I love to get feedback.
The Mutalisk one is fixed for next build. My old code is messy as hell, didn't updated that quest to the new system (the condition needs to be unit in the quest group, not unit is Mutalisk, it failed because you killed 2 Mutalisk but one of the quest's one was alive).
Overlord drop, that is a recurring bug with many quest, you can cancel orders with some interactions. I'll try to get it fixed for that and Infestor one.
The Dark Shrine don't know how it ended with the other quest text. Fixed.
What quest do you have problems with? Many of them aren't with ping, but with revelators or shared visibility.
There is already a timer in the chat text, if I undersand you correctly. I can try to make it more visual or something.
@fr0d0b0ls0n: Go
Not sure which version I've played but it was sweet. It didn't get boring, the upgrades were really well done, the objectives were interesting and challenging, the Medivac trigger was well done (if pressed multiple times it adds the unit to the Medivac cargo instead of calling in several Medivacs). Fun game, can't wait for the full release.
The mission where I had to kill the 3 scientists though, I think it may have been bugged, I thought I only killed 1/3 and it completed the quest for me. Only other critique is to finish the terrain... and if possible implement a bit more balance to adjust the difficulty of the enemies by the level of the attackers or something... I died 3 times at the very start. Once I got Tychus' armor upgrade I was all set though. :)
EDIT: So I played the game the whole way through with Tychus and have a few other critiques... I leveled up to 12 with a fair amount of play remaining (granted, I was playing by myself, maybe its faster paced online) but once I'd reached level 12, the game got a little stale. Maybe add 3 more levels? That would probably stretch it to the end of the game.
Also, I bought a few Medics but found that for 200 minerals, 2 Marines are just as good. The AI goes straight for the Medics, so they always get killed first. My setup was: 1 scientist hidden somewhere safe to find relics, and then 3 Marines and a Medic. Medic ended up being worthless. Maybe give them a slow health regen? That would make them worth the money.
Finally, the progress bar for the final XNR is broken I think. It started, and then paused at about 10-15%, and then jumped around 40%-50% and again at 60% and then it activated and I won the game. But the bar wasn't full. I think what happened was my Hero walked away from it for a short while to kill some attackers (but maybe left a few Marines near it, keeping the timer going?) and when I went back it continued the progress bar? I dunno for sure.
Overall though, great map. Very fun. Polish it up and I'm sure it will be popular. :)
In multiplayer the levels seems ok, I almost never hit 12 until the last artifact. If people keeps getting maximum level I'll do something about it.
The Scientist quest, probably some zergs killed the Scientist, multiples quest does not matter if you kill them or not, you can get lucky. Or sometimes unlucky because they spawn near many friendly units.
I'll reduce Medics threat again probably, I almost always play with 2, maybe that's why I don't find them dying that fast.
About the Artifact, probably you played an old version if the bars didnt looked like the image I showed a few post ago. Also I'll need to explain how the last Artifact works, is not really intuitive like the other Relics. Is a competition, you don't need to get a full bar, only the longest bar :P (kill and not get killed basicaly)
I'm now working on the next hero, Tosh. I have him 50% ready. A little preview of my favourite skill, Fear:
Relic capturing isnt really buggy, works as intended. Probably you are talking about the last one, the harder to understand how it works. The other simply if you don't die or go too far away, the player that activates the relic reclaims it. I'll try to make it clear how it works, so people can really help me improving it.
The skills are more or less balanced, still much work to do tought. Marauder is not a bad hero, probably a bit too based on mercs, but that's his best point. Concussive Shells can get some work, that's true. I didn't understand what you mean with Shock Wave is bad AND overpowered. Is really not that overpowered, and probably with bad you mean doesn't fit on the character or something. If you could explain a bit better...
The mobs and factions are still a work on progress. I'm thinking what to do to make everything more active, but isn't that easy. All I think can do things too hard or too easy depends on the luck. I'll probably add something mid-late game for more active mobs, but the start must be like is now, really.
About the mercenaries:
-More mercenaries is a thing i have in mind. Just don't wanna add many for the sake of adding them. I'm thinking about an upgrade system for mercs too.
-I think they are cheaper enough, you'll need to make good use of them, don't spam infinitely. The Scientist can help giving some extra minerals now, so you can use more in a game.
-Limit the supply... I'll think about it. But 3 is too low, maybe 4. I'll need to reduce medic supply cost to 1 then. And if I put better mercs will sustitute the Marines because you'll be too supply limited. Uhmm. Needs thinking.
-I'll make mercenaries regen life. I always think I need to do that, but I'll never do when I'm at the editor, lol.
-I can give the mercs more HP, but not less damage. Marines are too dependant on enemy armor, if I reduce the damage, the heroes with high armor like Tychus or Maroon will be totally overpowered versus heroes with 0 armor. I can try to increase speed attack, tought. I'll need more testing before deciding this.
And bug anoted. I'll try to sort it out for next build.
Thanks for the feedback!
New build published. Next build will probably be a full balance build. Tosh was really fun to code, Stealth and Fear were interesting skills to do. Added new ingame tooltips to the first post.
XNR Change Log 0.40
-New hero added: Tosh!
-Better tooltips on hero selection.
-Now all 3 levels of Expose Armor share cooldown properly.
-Mutalisk quest will not fail now if you kill another Mutalisk not quest-related.
-Dark Shrine quest now has his own text quest.
-Overseer and Infestor quest has his AI upgraded. They must keep attacking if something stop them.
-Fixed a potential bug with Reapers staying invulnerable if the player with that quest disconnects.
-Nova now shows a cooldown over her head with the weapon cooldown.
-Added some tips ingame. More to come.
-Zergling Ambush quest should never fail again and show an error. Also it will be possible to complete it if other player abandoned it.
-Medic Threat reduced.
-Now Raynor starts with 1 armor, but doesn't gain +1 armor at level 9.
-Now you recruit Marine Mercenaries, have 5 HP extra, and regenerate life. Medics also regenerate life now.
-Supply cap is now 5, but Medics only cost 1 supply.
Attachment with new tooltips on hero selection:
I'll do many revamps to the heroes probably. I need more testing tought, but with the latest reset my map is in the 6-7 page, so I need to find testers again, sigh. Funny is, I have people said Maroon is overpower (specially because of Conc Shells + Stim Pack), Nova is overpowered, Tychus is overpowered, and Zeratul is overpowered (is almost impossible to kill my brother in PvP when he plays Zeratul :P). No one said Raynor is overpowered tought, but Defensive Shield + Air Support + Penetrating Shot on the other players mercs is pretty good. That's why I need more testing, *all* the heroes can't be overpowered, lol.
The selection of the latest Maroon skill was based on that he really doesn't have anything defensive. And an AOE stun helps specially if you have many mercs, like Maroon usually has. Any ideas are welcome tought. A bit of brainstorming is always good. He doesn't have a special visual effect, that's why I was thinking you mean that with poor.
Edit:
I uploaded a small build, called 40b, because of some bugs. Part of the balacing I started is there, but not much.
Change Log:
-Tosh now have hotkeys for all skills.
-Now you can recruit Scientist at maximum Supply Count.
-Mercenary Marine DPS slighty nerfed (around 8%). Their damage is less affected by armor too, they'll do roughly double damage against an high armor hero. Using Marines against Tychus or Maroon was not useful. For example a Marine against a full armor Tychus did 1.1 DPS. Now it does 2.3 DPS, even if global Marine DPS is lower now.
-Mercenary Medics will heal an additional 60% heal per cast, and energy cost increased by 20%. That will make them balanced against Marines cost wise.
-Armor for heroes changed: maximum now is 4 armor. Tychus can get to 5, because he needs to use 3 skill points on it. With this changes, Tychus and Maroon lose 1 armor at maximum level. Zeratul now has 0 armor like designed, but can get up to 6 shield armor with skills.
-Hit Points + Shields at maximum level increased roughly by 10% on each hero. Maroon and Nova got the best hit points upgrade.
-Zeratul DPS is slighty lower now.