In short, it's a hero creator. The goal is to let you create any hero you can think of. This is a goal, the game isn't there yet (if it's even possible to reach that goal), but I'll be working towards it.
You are given a blank slate hero with a single spell, tasked to turn it into something great, useful or just downright stupid. Entirely your call. Your blank hero may have up to 5 spells and 5 abilities (described in detail below). This may seem a lot compared to traditional DotA maps, but the game makes little use of item abilities so it evens out somewhat.
Currently the only map terrain available is Azure Strand. This is an Arathi Basin (Or LoL's Dominion) style base capture gameplay.Capture and hold bases, gain points, be the first team to reach the points cap. Win.
Summary
All spells have a type and a core. Type dictates the spell's basic function. Core gives the spell it's elemental properties. To make a firebolt, you would combine a fire core with a bolt type. An ice shield; ice core + shield type. There are 12 types and 7 cores. More types will be added over time.
----Type----
There are 3 main types of spells; projectile, summon and assist. Projectile spells typically launch globes of magic in a target direction, exploding on contact. Summon spells call minions to assist you, while assist spells are aimed at aiding allies.
----Core----
There are 7 elements in the game, with a core to represent each. The elements are; Spirit (Light blue): Cheapest element to cast, and the default element for new spells. Spirit is associated with the Silence debuff and reducing spell cost.
Fire (Red). High damage element. Slight penalty to duration. Associated with the "Burn" status effect and increasing overall damage.
Ice (Dark blue) Slowing element. While ice is below average in both speed and damage, it makes up for it with the "Chill" status effect; applied on all ice attacks. This effect reduces movement speed, making followup attacks easier to land, or for minions to close the gap faster. Associated with increasing attack speed.
Earth (Green): Defensive element. Lasts the longest of all elements, making earth minions the toughest of all. However earth is also the slowest element. Associated with damage resistance.
Lightning (Pink): Energy element. Opposed to earth, lightning is the fastest of all elements but also lasts the shortest. Lightning magic burns energy from targets, and is associated with the "Drain" status effect and restoring energy.
Air (Yellow) Speed element. Air projectile spells are unique in that they pass through targets rather than exploding against them. While air deals the least damage of all elements, any targets that air projectiles pass through will take shearing damage and be knocked back. Air can quickly disperse a battlefield and excels at keeping melee attackers at bay. Associated with knockback and increasing move speed.
Void (Dark purple): Time element. Opposed to air in that void sucks targets in rather than knocking them away, void spells deal slightly higher damage than average and last slightly longer, while moving slower. Void is excellent at pulling ranged units to the caster, and is associated with timescale.
You can link any spell type to any core element. Spirit Bolts are cheap, Earth Shields are tough, and Fire Elementals are great assistive damage dealers. Different cores can really change the nature of a spell, though it will still be defined by it's type.
----Secondaries----
In addition to type and core, there are a myriad of other less defining aspects that can be added to each spell. These are simple additions, and each come in 7 varieties; one for each element.
Shell: Adds effect to a spell when the spell expires. A fire shell causes the spell to erupt into lava. Adding this to a firebolt will cause it to erupt into flames when it lands. Adding the same shell to a summoned minion will cause the same eruption when the minion dies.
Link: Applies a large bonus to both the spell and the caster while they are within range of eachother. Each element has an associated stat, such as +damage for fire, or +move speed for air. Adding a fire link to a firebolt will increase yours, and the bolt's damage while you are within range 10. Adding an air link instead will increase both yours and the bolt's move speed.
Trails: Leaves a magical effect behind as the spell moves. An ice trail leaves behind slowing patches of ice. As with other secondaries, these can be applied to most spell types. Adding a fire trail to a shield type spell will cause the shield's target to leave a trail as they move, for example.
Auras: The simplest of all secondaries, auras apply a stat bonus (again, +damage for a fire aura and so on) to all friendly units within range 14.
More secondaries and spell types will be added as the game progresses. You only get 5 slots for spells, so choose wisely. Or stupidly, it's entirely your call.
Abilities deal no damage, but rather modify the battlefield to your advantage. Things like temporary damage bonuses, or time-slowing bubbles. Unlike spells, abilities cannot be customised. Instead, there is a large varitety of unique (and generally simple) abilities to choose from. As with spells, you have 5 ability slots.
I think of abilities as being problems for your opponent to solve. Carefully select your abilities to create the desired set of problems for your opponent. Many summon spells? Blocking abilities such as Barrier or Wall would be most helpful to ensure your minions get higher uptime. Enjoy playing a supportive style? Take abilities like Haste and Dispel to assist your allies. That, or just draw smiley faces with Rage zones.
I dont quite like the 344064 possible spells...I prefer everything super useful over the mass. (like in earlier test I found the air elemental more useless than usefull).
and not sure if I stated earlier...Having the 5 slots were more harmful that useful. The mana cost just becomes too high if you put something on everything that the spells is totally useless.
Im sure it has changed a lot from what I last played. But still some things bothered me a bit.
Adding more components to spells will increase the spell's energy cost.
You probably want to keep your "nuke" spells relatively cheap, so adding components to them can be a bad idea. However you do want to benefit from as many links and auras as possible, so adding them to more persistent spells like Wards, Elementals and Shields can be a good idea.
As for the spell count, my goal is to make the components "super-useful" and let the player combine them at will.
That's interesting, there are some new concepts in there!
Although, if I were you, I would be worried about the conflict between a process that requires careful planning and thinking (designing the spells), and the fast gameplay demands of a real-time game.
Your spells are persistent. Think of them as gear on an MMO character that you steadily gain while playing. The difference is that here, a "fully geared" character isn't physically more powerful than a fresh character. The "geared" character will have more ways to kill the fresh one, though.
Thanks for the questions! When I post elsewhere I'll make sure to clarify this stuff.
But one thing was really annoying: I spent 600xp to buy my Fire-Archon an earth-trail, but it didn't get one ._. Then I removed it, hoping to get a refund, but I didn't get anything : /
You have to resummon pets after you add components to them, before they take effect.
That said, a refund system would be nice. Perhaps only for the secondary components, returning 75% of the cost if you bought the upgrade this game, or 25-50% if you bought it in a previous game.
That, or an undo button.
I'm trying to devise some solo/small group content. I'm torn between a survival type map or an enfos remake.
CONCEPT VERSIONS
In short, it's a hero creator. The goal is to let you create any hero you can think of. This is a goal, the game isn't there yet (if it's even possible to reach that goal), but I'll be working towards it.
You are given a blank slate hero with a single spell, tasked to turn it into something great, useful or just downright stupid. Entirely your call. Your blank hero may have up to 5 spells and 5 abilities (described in detail below). This may seem a lot compared to traditional DotA maps, but the game makes little use of item abilities so it evens out somewhat.
Currently the only map terrain available is Azure Strand. This is an Arathi Basin (Or LoL's Dominion) style base capture gameplay.Capture and hold bases, gain points, be the first team to reach the points cap. Win.
Fire + Bolt = Firebolt
Summary
All spells have a type and a core. Type dictates the spell's basic function. Core gives the spell it's elemental properties. To make a firebolt, you would combine a fire core with a bolt type. An ice shield; ice core + shield type. There are 12 types and 7 cores. More types will be added over time.
----Type----There are 3 main types of spells; projectile, summon and assist. Projectile spells typically launch globes of magic in a target direction, exploding on contact. Summon spells call minions to assist you, while assist spells are aimed at aiding allies.
----Core----There are 7 elements in the game, with a core to represent each. The elements are;
Spirit (Light blue): Cheapest element to cast, and the default element for new spells. Spirit is associated with the Silence debuff and reducing spell cost.
Fire (Red). High damage element. Slight penalty to duration. Associated with the "Burn" status effect and increasing overall damage.
Ice (Dark blue) Slowing element. While ice is below average in both speed and damage, it makes up for it with the "Chill" status effect; applied on all ice attacks. This effect reduces movement speed, making followup attacks easier to land, or for minions to close the gap faster. Associated with increasing attack speed.
Earth (Green): Defensive element. Lasts the longest of all elements, making earth minions the toughest of all. However earth is also the slowest element. Associated with damage resistance.
Lightning (Pink): Energy element. Opposed to earth, lightning is the fastest of all elements but also lasts the shortest. Lightning magic burns energy from targets, and is associated with the "Drain" status effect and restoring energy.
Air (Yellow) Speed element. Air projectile spells are unique in that they pass through targets rather than exploding against them. While air deals the least damage of all elements, any targets that air projectiles pass through will take shearing damage and be knocked back. Air can quickly disperse a battlefield and excels at keeping melee attackers at bay. Associated with knockback and increasing move speed.
Void (Dark purple): Time element. Opposed to air in that void sucks targets in rather than knocking them away, void spells deal slightly higher damage than average and last slightly longer, while moving slower. Void is excellent at pulling ranged units to the caster, and is associated with timescale.
You can link any spell type to any core element. Spirit Bolts are cheap, Earth Shields are tough, and Fire Elementals are great assistive damage dealers. Different cores can really change the nature of a spell, though it will still be defined by it's type.
----Secondaries----In addition to type and core, there are a myriad of other less defining aspects that can be added to each spell. These are simple additions, and each come in 7 varieties; one for each element.
Shell: Adds effect to a spell when the spell expires. A fire shell causes the spell to erupt into lava. Adding this to a firebolt will cause it to erupt into flames when it lands. Adding the same shell to a summoned minion will cause the same eruption when the minion dies.
Link: Applies a large bonus to both the spell and the caster while they are within range of eachother. Each element has an associated stat, such as +damage for fire, or +move speed for air. Adding a fire link to a firebolt will increase yours, and the bolt's damage while you are within range 10. Adding an air link instead will increase both yours and the bolt's move speed.
Trails: Leaves a magical effect behind as the spell moves. An ice trail leaves behind slowing patches of ice. As with other secondaries, these can be applied to most spell types. Adding a fire trail to a shield type spell will cause the shield's target to leave a trail as they move, for example.
Auras: The simplest of all secondaries, auras apply a stat bonus (again, +damage for a fire aura and so on) to all friendly units within range 14.
More secondaries and spell types will be added as the game progresses. You only get 5 slots for spells, so choose wisely. Or stupidly, it's entirely your call.
Spell creation UI
Abilities deal no damage, but rather modify the battlefield to your advantage. Things like temporary damage bonuses, or time-slowing bubbles. Unlike spells, abilities cannot be customised. Instead, there is a large varitety of unique (and generally simple) abilities to choose from. As with spells, you have 5 ability slots.
I think of abilities as being problems for your opponent to solve. Carefully select your abilities to create the desired set of problems for your opponent. Many summon spells? Blocking abilities such as Barrier or Wall would be most helpful to ensure your minions get higher uptime. Enjoy playing a supportive style? Take abilities like Haste and Dispel to assist your allies. That, or just draw smiley faces with Rage zones.
Currently live on EU for testing purposes before I upload elsewhere.
Feedback is always appreciated. I'm not thin skinned either so do your worst.
I'm working on an Enfos map which will use the same system, and carry over your custom heroes.
Sounds fun, please let us know when its on NA servers. I want to play this right now.
Yeah I own a US copy of SC2 so it's just a case of throwing it up there when I find any remaining bugs.
It should be basically bug free already though, it's already had dozens of hours of testing, just not of my "final" version.
That and I'm making a promo video where I pretend to be a girl before I officially release the map with a reddit and TL post.
Can't wait till I get a working comp again >.> Really wanna play it... I wanna see what the abilities do!
I hope there's a lot of abilities like the reflective wall which I can use to piss people off and make them suicide.
Also, for anyone unsure if the map is good... Good would be an understatement :p we played it a billion times on map night
@TheAlmaity: Go
Looks excellent. I'll check it out as soon as it gets to US. Hopefully you end up making your "dream map" ;)
Tidied up a lot of stuff and replaced the persistent resource with an experience bar, allowing you to spend experience on your spell modifications.
Some random stats;
344064 possible spells
83 trillion possible heroes
Over 1000 rocks
Putting together a promo video before uploading it to US. Not found anything fatal yet.
I want to tidy up these posts, but not really sure how.
@Eiviyn: Go
You have earned yourself:
Can't wait for the promo video!
I dont quite like the 344064 possible spells...I prefer everything super useful over the mass. (like in earlier test I found the air elemental more useless than usefull).
and not sure if I stated earlier...Having the 5 slots were more harmful that useful. The mana cost just becomes too high if you put something on everything that the spells is totally useless.
Im sure it has changed a lot from what I last played. But still some things bothered me a bit.
Adding more components to spells will increase the spell's energy cost.
You probably want to keep your "nuke" spells relatively cheap, so adding components to them can be a bad idea. However you do want to benefit from as many links and auras as possible, so adding them to more persistent spells like Wards, Elementals and Shields can be a good idea.
As for the spell count, my goal is to make the components "super-useful" and let the player combine them at will.
That's interesting, there are some new concepts in there!
Although, if I were you, I would be worried about the conflict between a process that requires careful planning and thinking (designing the spells), and the fast gameplay demands of a real-time game.
Your spells are persistent. Think of them as gear on an MMO character that you steadily gain while playing. The difference is that here, a "fully geared" character isn't physically more powerful than a fresh character. The "geared" character will have more ways to kill the fresh one, though.
Thanks for the questions! When I post elsewhere I'll make sure to clarify this stuff.
@Eiviyn: Go
Nice game : ) (just played it for hours xD)
But one thing was really annoying: I spent 600xp to buy my Fire-Archon an earth-trail, but it didn't get one ._.
Then I removed it, hoping to get a refund, but I didn't get anything : /
You have to resummon pets after you add components to them, before they take effect.
That said, a refund system would be nice. Perhaps only for the secondary components, returning 75% of the cost if you bought the upgrade this game, or 25-50% if you bought it in a previous game.
That, or an undo button.
I'm trying to devise some solo/small group content. I'm torn between a survival type map or an enfos remake.
I resummoned it about 5 times
Hah, you're right. Earth trails don't work with elementals. The collision radius of the elemental is larger than the spawn radius of the rocks.
Fixed it anyway, I update the map on Fridays so it'll come then.
I also plan to increase the victory experience gain significantly.
Looking forward to seeing this on US Bnet :)