Ok the so called "storm" is extremely broken. Watcher slaughtered us like pigs! With just void storm + TP....
Also are those skills really suppose to be useful and balanced? I feel like this is heading overly complex directiong. You give so many options to choose from start, and those who played before are yet again so OP.
I wouldnt be totally against having many options to choose from, but the presentation is just overwhelming and I highly doubt all skills are equally usefull.
Watcher said he doesnt mind the upgrade UI, but I do! even after playing like 10 games I still have no idea what upgrades should I get and they are just so hard to find...I wonder if its really needed to have specific elemnt upgrades, you could go just like (+5 damage, -5 mana cost etc...) probly would be easier to gategorize and people could find them easier.
About storms: They are strong, but considering that you are very close to enemy, so you are
1. an easy target...
2. you cant team up with an ally because you damage each other...
3. gets countered by an airshield, pushing you away all the time...
4. gets countered by air storm, pushing you also away...
5. each time you are heading for an enemy he can fire directly in your direction, which will be kind of hard to escape
so in my opinion it's not op.
In the same night i made a 1v1 against watcher with his storm build. He died several times before he got me the first time (no more bandages)... I used 4 Bolts and 1 shield (+abilities). Btw. i am sure watcher used also shields and other abilities like haste and sprint with his build...
Of course a major problem of Magicide is that new players get totally slaughtered by the experienced players. (Like in any other fast paced actiongame).This effect gets dramatically increased by the fact, that new players have 1 spell and 0 experience to buy any upgrade.
My suggestion would be:
2 Modes:
1. Newbie-Mode: Everyone starts with the same spells and Experience (Nothing is saved, beside statistics like kills, games,...)
2. Advanced-Mode: Like it is now (nearly): Everyone can load one of the 3 old Characters or start with a new one with 6000Exp. An ingame -load command would be cool if you want to switch the character.
Terrain is completely new. Capture points are gone.
Upgrades and items are gone. I never felt they added much to the game anyway.
Spells are redesigned. I've gone through every component and remade each. Spell cores are now absolutely consistent.
UI completely revamped to provide a more logical and easier to work with interface.
New players will start with a selection of Spirit spells.
Abilities are gone. They will return in the future, but will serve a different purpose to now. I feel abilities are part of the problem concerning new vs veteran players.
A full PvE mode.
Basically I'm re-working the map to be a very clean and enjoyable experience. It's a good job I had this trial period before releasing. I feel so many problems have arisen that I never saw coming, and I hope to address them all with the next update.
I will be taking the map down for now. The new map will be published under a new name. Thank you for the feedback.
Hmm, there was a bug yesterday:
Someone left, but his shield was visible until the game ended (I suppose it was his shield, just saw it when I was running around)
That's odd. Easily fixed, but odd. I'm working on a new version that will allow all spells to have a self cast option (so say, a shield spell will always be used on you). I'll fix it with that update.
He was killed by me with shield+storm. He had most likely only Bolt. So i guess the green shield appearing after a few seconds is the immortal revive shield.
Capture points is a good thing you should take out of the game. Maybe you should consider redesigning them so they don't give you score but some tactical advantage like turrets, extra creeps, teleport, healing points, respawning points... Capture points make the game more of a team strategy game instead of a full pvp game.
Capture points is a good thing you should take out of the game. Maybe you should consider redesigning them so they don't give you score but some tactical advantage like turrets, extra creeps, teleport, healing points, respawning points... Capture points make the game more of a team strategy game instead of a full pvp game.
This is exactly what I have planned. The battlefield is divided into 53 invisible grid squares. Each grid square can be built on. Your choices are income, production or defence (plus a few other utilities). Building on a square costs minerals, which are gained from slaying the other team.
Once "bought", the grid square belongs to your team for the remainder of the match, however the other team can destroy your building for minerals which shuts down it's effect for 3 minutes. The more grid squares your team controls, the more weaknesses the other team have to exploit since you have a larger surface area to defend. This may sound complicated, but it's rather well hidden behind a normal SC2 build interface.
This system replaces all forms of character progression. There are no more items, upgrades or masteries.
My goals were as follows;
To make each match plays out in a unique way independent of hero fights
To carry over the SC2 baseline of focusing on economy, production or defence
To open up strategic options for players in terms of how they contribute to the overall fight
To make something not seen in previous DotA style games to differentiate my map from BDotA and other upcoming map releases
I feel I met my goals with this system. I am very proud of it. Weeks of thought went into solving this. I can't wait to show off the new implementations.
The cornerstone of all strategy games. The holy trinity of RTS. Focus on economy and risk being battered by an early productive push. Erect the Great Wall of Turtling and you risk being outpaced by superior economy, and so on.
This is a DotA style map. There's no hiding from that. There are many twists though.
Build
The map is divided into 53 grid squares. You begin with 5 squares under your control. You take over a square by building in it. Each square may only house either 1 production structure or 1 economy structure. Defence structures may be placed anywhere.
This immediately gives you 3 choices. The more your base expands, the more surface area you have to defend, and the more opportunities your enemy has to attack.
Economy structures give your team a passive income. Production structures add extra creeps to your waves. While killing creeps does provide minerals, the overall creep wave is always worth the same amount. Having 4 creeps in your wave makes each creep worth 25 minerals. Having 5 reduces this to 20 minerals per creep; always totaling 100.
Map is live again. Still EU only. Still beta. New gameplay, new UI, re-balanced spells, hopefully 10x more streamlined.
I love feedback. Give plx.
I added a rather competent AI to the game. Just join with 1 team empty to start PvE mode, which spawns a boss based on your (and your friend's) level.
Humm...overall a bit better, but on the other hand it felt pretty much the same. It not as much trouble to keep track of things when you removed those upgrades and stuff.
Kinda weird choise to use those buttons to upgrade since I sometimes use both hotkeys and clicking to cast spells. Dunno if it bothers me or not...
Well Im really neutral about this map, I suppose I would have to play it on mapnight to get a better feeling. So as feedback I just leave these notes:
I just put random elements together but do not feel strategical meaning to it. I suppose there might be balance issues and I havent played enough to see the difference with all spells. Not sure how many valid playstyles there is....
Its hard to shop stuff when you dont know the cost and how much exp you have. Definetly should atleast show the exp you have at the shop menu (I know it shows in the bar, but not so user friendly to look at there)
Dialog images "overlap" while targeting spell (ducky complained about this to me at my own map, but doesnt really bother me)
I still just get a feeling its lacking something. Dunno if its the cost of spells or what. Did you add refund spell function yet? I mostly dont bother changing the spells too much since its so freaking expensive and its kinda hard to make a picture of the whole game since you dont have enough money to try out all possible combinations....(add me a cheat that gives me unlimited money and exp T_T). Since the game saves those spells, shouldnt it save the exp too? so you wouldnt have to buy all the stuff when game ends....just seems a bit weird to me that its like that.
I kinda lost my thought while writing this so pff....
- its not the "bash 1vs5 noobs map" anymore ... awwwww.... XD
But i still like it :) Here comes the feedback:
1. Spells arent loaded correctly, there are differences between the description shown and the spell you will cast (xxxtrail when i have no trail at all)
2. Spell cost doesnt change while spirit shield is active (it works but the description of a spell still shows the same (wrong) cost
3. New players still start with 0 exp, meaning they have an extra disadvantage because they are stucked to the starting spells, why not:
(a) give them more exp
(b) make buying/changing spells in the first 3 minutes for free
(c) use experience for something other than spells, so everyone has the same chances, by being able to pick suitable spells. It's still weird for me losing "experience" if i buy a spell...
4. It wasnt clear enough for me that destroyed builings automatically rebuild (without costs) after a few minutes (how many exactly?)
Greetings TimSin
PS. If anyone wants to play: Come to Channel "Magicide" and whisper me! ;)
I'll fix most of the above in an update sometime this week. I'll also be adding the Healer (medic) creepwave unit and the Healing Tower (defensive structure).
There's an issue with the AI boss sometimes simply not spawning. I'm looking into the cause.
Right now though, I want to know anything that you find annoying about the map. I'm trying to iron out the whole experience. I plan to make a few changes for the next build; removing friendly fire entirely and removing friendly collision. I feel it's just plain annoying to have your spells impact friendly units. I have an open mind regarding this, but I want to make the whole map experience as smooth as possible.
Secondly, I'm looking into a way to replace experience. Something I have in mind is that spell modifications are free, but spells "level" somehow, and modifying them will reset their level.
Levels would ideally be rather weak overall but persistent between games. An example would be leveling your Risen spell would increase their health regeneration so that they no longer decay over time, and eventually begin self-healing. Something like this would be very small in combat, but the player would notice the effect.
Why not make abilities every time used increase their strength. Never and can't play since I live in the US, but if you for example had...something pathetically basic...a fireball spell, it starts at 50 damage or something and a cooldown of 10 seconds. Each time it is used it gains say... 0.1 damage and every 20 times used the cooldown decreases by 1 or something. It's just an example...but you kind of get the Idea...I hope.
1. Spells arent loaded correctly, there are differences between the description shown and the spell you will cast (xxxtrail when i have no trail at all)
Why not make abilities every time used increase their strength. Never and can't play since I live in the US, but if you for example had...something pathetically basic...a fireball spell, it starts at 50 damage or something and a cooldown of 10 seconds. Each time it is used it gains say... 0.1 damage and every 20 times used the cooldown decreases by 1 or something. It's just an example...but you kind of get the Idea...I hope.
This is something I have in mind. Landing your fireball will improve the fireball.
The obvious issue with this is that it promotes just sticking to 1 spell for the whole game. I'm not sure how big an issue this would be, though.
The upside is that it's a damn cool way of doing things, and fits perfectly since modifying the spell could reset it's progress, ensuring that you don't change your spells mid-game.
- make another delay at beginning, maybe 20 seconds before heroes spawn. So everyone will have enough time to select profile/hero. The start is very important and you shouldnt get an advantage for picking your hero in 1 second instead of 10 seconds
- while revive shield activated you can selfcast shield but it has no effect (without cooldown started:( ) I try not to use it but it happens again and again... :P
The obvious issue with this is that it promotes just sticking to 1 spell
for the whole game. I'm not sure how big an issue this would be, though.
The upside is that it's a damn cool way of doing things, and fits
perfectly since modifying the spell could reset it's progress, ensuring
that you don't change your spells mid-game.
I would modify this to doing damage at all improves all you current spells. Because judging if a shield is "good used" or minions or bombs or... might be very difficult.
Does the "improved" version of a spell reset each game? If not - new players will be behind again.
EDIT: Why don't you want people to change spells midgame? Isn't it a valid way to adopt to the enemy or trying to win back land with different strategy?
However all spells have an internal, persistent (between games) experience points.
Spells gain experience through use (landing fireballs, using shields that take damage).
After some arbitrary amount of experience, your spell becomes leveled. At this point you may pick a single perk for your spell. Think glyphs from WoW, or gems from Diablo.
eg
Risen (pick one)
Your Risen no longer degenerate. Instead, they gain 5 health per second.
Your Risen are reborn at your side after a few seconds after being killed.
Your Risen spell summons 5 Risen at once.
You may change your perk freely during prep time (30 seconds at map start), or after the match. You may also select the perk mid-game if your spell levels during the match.
Spells only level once. Modifying the spell in any way will reset the spell's experience.
Note that the perks are rather meaningless in the grand scheme of things, they will be mostly quality of life modifiers. I'd want them just strong enough to make you think twice before modifying a spell, but give you enough room to experiment.
Leveling a spell would take around 5 matches, or about the same amount of time it would take to grind an aura.
- air shield (with air link,aura) still does not increase movespeed
-shields on buildings doesnt vanish
- earthball sometimes doesnt heal ( especially low hp creeps)
- i use shields mainly for aura and link, and since they lose shieldpoints over time and vanish after it reaches 0 i especially try to evade damage so i can use bonuses longer. Now you want to tell me that i have to run into the line of fire to "use my shield good"? :(
- also bomb can be used as reflection of spells, but they wont deal damage there, so its also "bad use"?
- obelisks?
- maybe its just my oppinion, but in a PvP map its best when all have the same opportunities at the start. Those perks will have a strong influence on the game. I prefer ranks, different heroes, no gameplaychanging features for experienced players, but as i said, maybe its just my oppinion...
EDIT:
- "fast building" is not possible: you can't just shiftclick buildings, you have to click the 2 buttons first again; also if you press the 2 buttons fast behind each other, the game doesnt realize the second button pressed
Edit2:
- heal at base would enice
- pls add control groups, me and many other players use ctrl+1 and 1,1 to center the hero, select him again
- maybe you can add some differences to heroes: more(less) HP/Energy, slower(faster) movespeed
Taking a break is best for sometimes. Arent you busy with skyrim anyway?! Some ideas work and some dont, usually its better to think all the things trough for best results (I always go do stuff and then im like FFFUU....it was suppose to be cool :D)
But I think its still going to right direction. Everyone should be equal at start (since its pvp) and you should be able to test/change spells easilly since otherwise you wont be able to try all the 9 million combinations there are (lol).
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Ok the so called "storm" is extremely broken. Watcher slaughtered us like pigs! With just void storm + TP....
Also are those skills really suppose to be useful and balanced? I feel like this is heading overly complex directiong. You give so many options to choose from start, and those who played before are yet again so OP.
I wouldnt be totally against having many options to choose from, but the presentation is just overwhelming and I highly doubt all skills are equally usefull.
Watcher said he doesnt mind the upgrade UI, but I do! even after playing like 10 games I still have no idea what upgrades should I get and they are just so hard to find...I wonder if its really needed to have specific elemnt upgrades, you could go just like (+5 damage, -5 mana cost etc...) probly would be easier to gategorize and people could find them easier.
Just suggesting again.
I still think Storm is not broken:
In the same night i made a 1v1 against watcher with his storm build. He died several times before he got me the first time (no more bandages)... I used 4 Bolts and 1 shield (+abilities). Btw. i am sure watcher used also shields and other abilities like haste and sprint with his build...
Of course a major problem of Magicide is that new players get totally slaughtered by the experienced players. (Like in any other fast paced actiongame).This effect gets dramatically increased by the fact, that new players have 1 spell and 0 experience to buy any upgrade.
My suggestion would be: 2 Modes:
1. Newbie-Mode: Everyone starts with the same spells and Experience (Nothing is saved, beside statistics like kills, games,...)
2. Advanced-Mode: Like it is now (nearly): Everyone can load one of the 3 old Characters or start with a new one with 6000Exp. An ingame -load command would be cool if you want to switch the character.
I'm redesigning the whole map.
Terrain is completely new. Capture points are gone.
Upgrades and items are gone. I never felt they added much to the game anyway.
Spells are redesigned. I've gone through every component and remade each. Spell cores are now absolutely consistent.
UI completely revamped to provide a more logical and easier to work with interface.
New players will start with a selection of Spirit spells.
Abilities are gone. They will return in the future, but will serve a different purpose to now. I feel abilities are part of the problem concerning new vs veteran players.
A full PvE mode.
Basically I'm re-working the map to be a very clean and enjoyable experience. It's a good job I had this trial period before releasing. I feel so many problems have arisen that I never saw coming, and I hope to address them all with the next update.
I will be taking the map down for now. The new map will be published under a new name. Thank you for the feedback.
I am curious about that! :)
Just had a game of Magicide in "Fun Or Not". So you didnt take the map down yet:) Actually you could w8 until your new reworked map is playable:D
We started with 6 players (me vs 5).
Player 2 disced at once.
Player 1 didn't get a hero so his screen stayed black. He had his only profile (profile 0) selected.
And when the last player disconnected i saw this again:
He was killed by me with shield+storm. He had most likely only Bolt. So i guess the green shield appearing after a few seconds is the immortal revive shield.
Capture points is a good thing you should take out of the game. Maybe you should consider redesigning them so they don't give you score but some tactical advantage like turrets, extra creeps, teleport, healing points, respawning points... Capture points make the game more of a team strategy game instead of a full pvp game.
This is exactly what I have planned. The battlefield is divided into 53 invisible grid squares. Each grid square can be built on. Your choices are income, production or defence (plus a few other utilities). Building on a square costs minerals, which are gained from slaying the other team.
Once "bought", the grid square belongs to your team for the remainder of the match, however the other team can destroy your building for minerals which shuts down it's effect for 3 minutes. The more grid squares your team controls, the more weaknesses the other team have to exploit since you have a larger surface area to defend. This may sound complicated, but it's rather well hidden behind a normal SC2 build interface.
This system replaces all forms of character progression. There are no more items, upgrades or masteries.
My goals were as follows;
To make each match plays out in a unique way independent of hero fights
To carry over the SC2 baseline of focusing on economy, production or defence
To open up strategic options for players in terms of how they contribute to the overall fight
To make something not seen in previous DotA style games to differentiate my map from BDotA and other upcoming map releases
I feel I met my goals with this system. I am very proud of it. Weeks of thought went into solving this. I can't wait to show off the new implementations.
Strategic depth in a PvP map. Awesome!
I can't wait to play this! :)
Map is live again. Still EU only. Still beta. New gameplay, new UI, re-balanced spells, hopefully 10x more streamlined.
I love feedback. Give plx.
I added a rather competent AI to the game. Just join with 1 team empty to start PvE mode, which spawns a boss based on your (and your friend's) level.
I tested it just to see what changed.
Humm...overall a bit better, but on the other hand it felt pretty much the same. It not as much trouble to keep track of things when you removed those upgrades and stuff.
Kinda weird choise to use those buttons to upgrade since I sometimes use both hotkeys and clicking to cast spells. Dunno if it bothers me or not...
Well Im really neutral about this map, I suppose I would have to play it on mapnight to get a better feeling. So as feedback I just leave these notes:
I still just get a feeling its lacking something. Dunno if its the cost of spells or what. Did you add refund spell function yet? I mostly dont bother changing the spells too much since its so freaking expensive and its kinda hard to make a picture of the whole game since you dont have enough money to try out all possible combinations....(add me a cheat that gives me unlimited money and exp T_T). Since the game saves those spells, shouldnt it save the exp too? so you wouldnt have to buy all the stuff when game ends....just seems a bit weird to me that its like that.
I kinda lost my thought while writing this so pff....
Played a few games, Coop and vs players:
- its not the "bash 1vs5 noobs map" anymore ... awwwww.... XD
But i still like it :) Here comes the feedback:
1. Spells arent loaded correctly, there are differences between the description shown and the spell you will cast (xxxtrail when i have no trail at all)
2. Spell cost doesnt change while spirit shield is active (it works but the description of a spell still shows the same (wrong) cost
3. New players still start with 0 exp, meaning they have an extra disadvantage because they are stucked to the starting spells, why not:
(a) give them more exp
(b) make buying/changing spells in the first 3 minutes for free
(c) use experience for something other than spells, so everyone has the same chances, by being able to pick suitable spells. It's still weird for me losing "experience" if i buy a spell...
4. It wasnt clear enough for me that destroyed builings automatically rebuild (without costs) after a few minutes (how many exactly?)
Greetings TimSin
PS. If anyone wants to play: Come to Channel "Magicide" and whisper me! ;)
I'll fix most of the above in an update sometime this week. I'll also be adding the Healer (medic) creepwave unit and the Healing Tower (defensive structure).
There's an issue with the AI boss sometimes simply not spawning. I'm looking into the cause.
Right now though, I want to know anything that you find annoying about the map. I'm trying to iron out the whole experience. I plan to make a few changes for the next build; removing friendly fire entirely and removing friendly collision. I feel it's just plain annoying to have your spells impact friendly units. I have an open mind regarding this, but I want to make the whole map experience as smooth as possible.
Secondly, I'm looking into a way to replace experience. Something I have in mind is that spell modifications are free, but spells "level" somehow, and modifying them will reset their level.
Levels would ideally be rather weak overall but persistent between games. An example would be leveling your Risen spell would increase their health regeneration so that they no longer decay over time, and eventually begin self-healing. Something like this would be very small in combat, but the player would notice the effect.
Why not make abilities every time used increase their strength. Never and can't play since I live in the US, but if you for example had...something pathetically basic...a fireball spell, it starts at 50 damage or something and a cooldown of 10 seconds. Each time it is used it gains say... 0.1 damage and every 20 times used the cooldown decreases by 1 or something. It's just an example...but you kind of get the Idea...I hope.
- Canons should not shoot own balls.
- building menu should close after you build something
- buildings should need some minerals to rebuild and/or a hero/unit near it
- would be nice to know when a building will respawn
Fixed
Fixed
Fixed
Fixed
Also disabled friendly collision and self-damage.
More fixes to come in the next few days. Any more small changes would be appreciated.
I'm still trying to think of an alternative to the experience system. I may just vastly reduce spell xp cost while I try to think of something cooler.
This is something I have in mind. Landing your fireball will improve the fireball.
The obvious issue with this is that it promotes just sticking to 1 spell for the whole game. I'm not sure how big an issue this would be, though.
The upside is that it's a damn cool way of doing things, and fits perfectly since modifying the spell could reset it's progress, ensuring that you don't change your spells mid-game.
- make another delay at beginning, maybe 20 seconds before heroes spawn. So everyone will have enough time to select profile/hero. The start is very important and you shouldnt get an advantage for picking your hero in 1 second instead of 10 seconds
- while revive shield activated you can selfcast shield but it has no effect (without cooldown started:( ) I try not to use it but it happens again and again... :P
I would modify this to doing damage at all improves all you current spells. Because judging if a shield is "good used" or minions or bombs or... might be very difficult.
Does the "improved" version of a spell reset each game? If not - new players will be behind again.
EDIT: Why don't you want people to change spells midgame? Isn't it a valid way to adopt to the enemy or trying to win back land with different strategy?
So I was thinking about this a lot.
Spells can be modified freely, in any way.
However all spells have an internal, persistent (between games) experience points.
Spells gain experience through use (landing fireballs, using shields that take damage).
After some arbitrary amount of experience, your spell becomes leveled. At this point you may pick a single perk for your spell. Think glyphs from WoW, or gems from Diablo.
eg
Risen (pick one)
Your Risen no longer degenerate. Instead, they gain 5 health per second.
Your Risen are reborn at your side after a few seconds after being killed.
Your Risen spell summons 5 Risen at once.
You may change your perk freely during prep time (30 seconds at map start), or after the match. You may also select the perk mid-game if your spell levels during the match.
Spells only level once. Modifying the spell in any way will reset the spell's experience.
Note that the perks are rather meaningless in the grand scheme of things, they will be mostly quality of life modifiers. I'd want them just strong enough to make you think twice before modifying a spell, but give you enough room to experiment.
Leveling a spell would take around 5 matches, or about the same amount of time it would take to grind an aura.
- air shield (with air link,aura) still does not increase movespeed
-shields on buildings doesnt vanish
- earthball sometimes doesnt heal ( especially low hp creeps)
- i use shields mainly for aura and link, and since they lose shieldpoints over time and vanish after it reaches 0 i especially try to evade damage so i can use bonuses longer. Now you want to tell me that i have to run into the line of fire to "use my shield good"? :(
- also bomb can be used as reflection of spells, but they wont deal damage there, so its also "bad use"?
- obelisks?
- maybe its just my oppinion, but in a PvP map its best when all have the same opportunities at the start. Those perks will have a strong influence on the game. I prefer ranks, different heroes, no gameplaychanging features for experienced players, but as i said, maybe its just my oppinion...
EDIT:
- "fast building" is not possible: you can't just shiftclick buildings, you have to click the 2 buttons first again; also if you press the 2 buttons fast behind each other, the game doesnt realize the second button pressed
Edit2:
- heal at base would enice
- pls add control groups, me and many other players use ctrl+1 and 1,1 to center the hero, select him again
- maybe you can add some differences to heroes: more(less) HP/Energy, slower(faster) movespeed
- an ingame time would be nice to know
Maybe I'm putting too much thought into this. Maybe I'm also going about it the wrong way.
This is causing me such a huge headache.
@Eiviyn: Go
Taking a break is best for sometimes. Arent you busy with skyrim anyway?! Some ideas work and some dont, usually its better to think all the things trough for best results (I always go do stuff and then im like FFFUU....it was suppose to be cool :D)
But I think its still going to right direction. Everyone should be equal at start (since its pvp) and you should be able to test/change spells easilly since otherwise you wont be able to try all the 9 million combinations there are (lol).