So I have a couple of thoughts for you to chew on. I'm no popular game developer, but I've spent a lot of time on the same map (5 years, not kidding). You probably won't find it useful, but here it is.
Two fantastic elements of a game are polish and clarity. By polish, I mean the game better be pretty. No rough edges, it should present itself well. You shouldn't be saying "well, it's a neat concept!", it should be a neat IMPLEMENTATION. By clarity, I mean, it doesn't matter what happens in your game, what matters is how you communicate it - for this i'll use an example from my map.
Once upon a time, on level up as a little guy, you would transform into this bigger class. This was a primary mechanic of my game, it would happen all the time, every single game. I thought I hate communicated it clearly enough, but in the end, it was awful. The transformation animation was just a stupid terran explosion played on the unit - so what did I do? I changed it. It now beams down a giant yellow laser from the sky over 1.5 seconds, that slowly transforms your hero.
As for complexity, it's totally up to you how you do it and control it, but here's my personal goal. The game could be complex (which, in my case, it is via abilities and complex skills), there could be intricate interactions between units, but I'd try to make it so that regardless of what the player does, he's relatively powerful, lets say a solid 7/10 in power. Don't punish people for doing something -wrong-, but rather reward them for doing something -right- with more power, or what have you.
If your complexity is of a different nature than abilities / unit composition / balance stuff, then I'd probably shoot for something easily graspable, or well communicated. Players tend not to like tutorials. Try things like a popup hint after a few seconds (30+ ) of a player not getting the concept, that may help.
Anyway, take all this with a grain of salt. My game isn't played at all. It's not bad, it's just not great yet. Obviously, what everyone else said (like, play your own map daily) is totally a thing that needs to be done. But also make sure your game is really worth playing, too.
So it turns out that I've reached a relatively large impasse in development, so I'd say my map is ready when you are. You'll hopefully notice some of the changes I've made!
Note: If you and duckies play teams, I HIGHLY recommend you split up (it would be totally unfair to new dudes.. just trust me).
Well that's been something I've been avoiding but it might come to that.
From my understanding, smartcast in blizzard terms means that it casts on right-click, which isn't really ideal when you have multiple abilities to work with. I could be wrong though.
The smartcast most people have referred to is a quick-cast on your cursor which is used via triggers (where you hook up two abilities, one instant and one targeted), however the problem with this method is that units hit the ability cap twice as quickly, which has finally happened.
So when you click to cast a skill, you enter what is called "target mode" (example: When you click on psionic storm, it says "Select target" and you can cancel the ability). I'm wondering if there is a way to completely remove target mode, or prevent it from hiding the command-card.
I understand that this is most likely impossible, but I was curious if anyone knows anything about it!
Hey deadzergling, I'd love to see you give my map another shot (Hellion's inferno) - but I'm not quite ready for you yet. I have some stuff I really wanted to add, so I'll need somewhere along a week to implement it all. Note that the game is now published publicly so you should be able to get a 2 to 4 player game in, I'd still recommend playing with duckies (if you're still doing that!).
I appreciate all of the videos! I've had a planned (but obviously never implemented) feature of a round system, where each game of hellion's inferno would be a best-of-five, where at the end you could vote for a re-match. I'll start working on this after I get all of the bugs pertaining to transformations.
Balance is something that I've had a incredibly (read: impossibly) hard time with because of the various different stages of interaction throughout the game. The sub-classes (firebats and the like) *ideally* should have a fighting chance against the vehicles, however level 1 combat shouldn't be the end of every game!
I think that now that the game ends in an appropriate fashion (all players on all opposing teams must be dead!), that'll hopefully shift up the early-game meta. If not, I'll make some heavy handed changes to the sub-classes.
Hey Krazy Kat, I decided to publish it publicly after all (Figured it was about time). I would still love to join you guys though(I would most likely watch, perhaps join in later). Do you know approximately what time (I'm US EST) you'll be playing?
Hey KrazyKat, I'd really appreciate it if you checked out my game, Hellion's Inferno (). It's a 2 to 4 player PvP hero arena, so the more players the better (it can support 3v3, however it's never been tested). Note that the map is currently private (Too many bugs and kinks for my own liking), so just let me know when you'd like to play it. Thanks in advance!
EDIT: It's published publicly, "Hellion's Inferno". Check it out when you can.
Hellion's Inferno is a fast-paced, 2v2 hero arena where hostile zerg swarm in from all sides. Players must stave off the zerg to gain levels, then use their abilities to wipe out their foes.
Primary Features
Short matches: playing a game of Hellion's Inferno is quick and easy - each match (ideally) only lasts 3-5 minutes each.
Accuracy matters: Almost every ability is a skillshot, so players must aim carefully to hit their foes!
Three classes, each with a different passive that shapes their gameplay:
The Hellion features an attrition playstyle: He applies stacks of burning to his foes, causing heavy damage over time - Upon reaching the maximum number of stacks, the Hellion's spells have additional effects. The Hellion excels at prolonged combat and long-term mobility!
The Diamondback features deathly combos: Hitting three abilities deals heavy damage to his foe, while refreshing the diamondback's skills and energy. The Diamondback can pack a heavy punch, but needs time to recuperate!
The Berserkerling features raw beatdown: He gets up close to his foes and builds up fury as he fights, then goes insane - reducing his cooldowns by 66%, and empowering all of his skills. You don't want to be close to an angry Berserkerling.
No respawn timers, only transformations: Upon death the player is ejected from their vehicle into their pilot. To return to their vehicle, the pilot must gain enough experience to level up.
No items, only skills: No need to worry about pesky item builds and stats, you just choose your skills as you go! No need to worry about taking a shopping break.
Multiple skill-builds: Each class has multiple skills to chose from, allowing players to mix and match their abilities each match!
Beta Testing
This game is currently in open beta, it is not a finished product. There are various features which are either absent or unfinished (Such as tooltips, a couple of skills, so on).
Interested in playing? Check it out on the SC2 Arcade!
Thanks for the review deadzergling, it was really eye-opening. Here are some of the things that really stood out:
Internally, my (one) playtester and I ended games at level 2 and 3, and sometimes level 4 - so our matches ended in 4 minutes tops. We've never made it to level 5. Your matches dragged on for an eternity (at least 16 minutes on your first match: that was not intended!). Hopefully, either I can change that, or 2v2 will fix that!
That point where many queens spawned, nydus worms appeared, and a bunch of zerglings/roaches spawned is called "massive spawns", and it's supposed to be a game-ending armageddon. It was mostly implemented as a joke - it happens after 9 minutes, and ever 7 minutes following. I'll be removing those now.
When you reached level 5 as the hellion, you were supposed to get an ultimate skill (that was the "new content" i was trying to add before you played). I was too lazy to develop it - so he didn't have an ultimate skill. (Rest assured, I implemented the zergling hero's ultimate. . . #priorities)
Ranking up isn't supposed to give you more power, it's supposed to give you more options! Anything that is blatantly overpowered will hopefully be brought in line. That having been said, my play tester and I agreed that the hellion is not only the most "overpowered" class, but also the "easiest to play", so I thought it would be beneficial to make him your starting character.
I was hoping you guys would have either enough curiosity to learn your classes' passive, or intuition to figure it out (however they are quite nuanced and aren't terribly obvious!). Each hero has an immensely powerful passive, that makes up 50% of their damage, if not more. Example, the hellion's afterburn stacks up to 4 times, where it then deal 40 damage per second for 6 seconds every time you hit them. His abilities also do bonus effects (which result in practically double the damage for each skill), which allow you to tear your foes wide open.
Queens weren't worth it in the internal play tests either, sorry :(
Obviously, firebat -> hellion and vice-versa are THE MOST confusing mechanic in the game, and it is pivotal for the player to understand the basics of that mechanic. I'm hoping I can explain that with a simple circle-graph on the load screen.
You brought out a lot of weird quirks, and I'm glad I got to see them. There's still quite a bit of work to be done, but now I feel inspired to fix the game up! Lastly, thanks for your time commitment - I appreciate you spending over 40 minutes on my ("short") game just to figure it out, all the while giving me valuable feedback. Keep up the good work.
I'd appreciate it if you could try my map out . It's in early beta, and is missing quite a bit of clarity and polish for newer players, but I'd love to see how completely fresh players learn the game, and whether or not they can enjoy it. Note that it takes 2 to 4 (human) players to play.
My map is currently private, shoot me a PM on here or Battle.net (RedFox.1544) if you want to play.
Thanks for all of the info guys. I was mostly skeptical because I run across some of the sub-forums and I see really old posts (things that I actually read a year ago) - but it's good to know that people are still at it!
@FunkyUserName: Go I think blizzard will do something with it. They touched it up around the time HoTS came out so they'll probably try one more time to get it right. It's not really in the worst of spots - it's just not as conducive towards newer maps as it could be.
@DuckyTheDuck: Go I remember map-night! I was hoping it was still around, but I knew it'd end eventually. I saw they were doing an arcade spotlight thing on the front page, is that still going to be a thing or did that fizzle out too? If it is, do feature small maps as well as massive projects?
Hey guys, I've been away from the mapster forums for quite some time now, and I was wondering if there was still an active community here. I know that a few years ago it used to be hopping around here, but now I feel as if the community has died off. Have they moved somewhere else, or have they just gone silent?
On a related note, is there still a high volume of players on the arcade? And has the popularity system improved much since 2012?
0
So I have a couple of thoughts for you to chew on. I'm no popular game developer, but I've spent a lot of time on the same map (5 years, not kidding). You probably won't find it useful, but here it is.
Two fantastic elements of a game are polish and clarity. By polish, I mean the game better be pretty. No rough edges, it should present itself well. You shouldn't be saying "well, it's a neat concept!", it should be a neat IMPLEMENTATION. By clarity, I mean, it doesn't matter what happens in your game, what matters is how you communicate it - for this i'll use an example from my map.
Once upon a time, on level up as a little guy, you would transform into this bigger class. This was a primary mechanic of my game, it would happen all the time, every single game. I thought I hate communicated it clearly enough, but in the end, it was awful. The transformation animation was just a stupid terran explosion played on the unit - so what did I do? I changed it. It now beams down a giant yellow laser from the sky over 1.5 seconds, that slowly transforms your hero.
As for complexity, it's totally up to you how you do it and control it, but here's my personal goal. The game could be complex (which, in my case, it is via abilities and complex skills), there could be intricate interactions between units, but I'd try to make it so that regardless of what the player does, he's relatively powerful, lets say a solid 7/10 in power. Don't punish people for doing something -wrong-, but rather reward them for doing something -right- with more power, or what have you.
If your complexity is of a different nature than abilities / unit composition / balance stuff, then I'd probably shoot for something easily graspable, or well communicated. Players tend not to like tutorials. Try things like a popup hint after a few seconds (30+ ) of a player not getting the concept, that may help.
Anyway, take all this with a grain of salt. My game isn't played at all. It's not bad, it's just not great yet. Obviously, what everyone else said (like, play your own map daily) is totally a thing that needs to be done. But also make sure your game is really worth playing, too.
0
@greythepirate: Go
Oh my gosh dude. Thanks so much! My map is dang old (going on almost six years) but that'll save me so heartache!
0
@Deadzergling: Go
So it turns out that I've reached a relatively large impasse in development, so I'd say my map is ready when you are. You'll hopefully notice some of the changes I've made!
Note: If you and duckies play teams, I HIGHLY recommend you split up (it would be totally unfair to new dudes.. just trust me).
0
Well that's been something I've been avoiding but it might come to that.
From my understanding, smartcast in blizzard terms means that it casts on right-click, which isn't really ideal when you have multiple abilities to work with. I could be wrong though.
The smartcast most people have referred to is a quick-cast on your cursor which is used via triggers (where you hook up two abilities, one instant and one targeted), however the problem with this method is that units hit the ability cap twice as quickly, which has finally happened.
0
So when you click to cast a skill, you enter what is called "target mode" (example: When you click on psionic storm, it says "Select target" and you can cancel the ability). I'm wondering if there is a way to completely remove target mode, or prevent it from hiding the command-card.
I understand that this is most likely impossible, but I was curious if anyone knows anything about it!
0
Hey deadzergling, I'd love to see you give my map another shot (Hellion's inferno) - but I'm not quite ready for you yet. I have some stuff I really wanted to add, so I'll need somewhere along a week to implement it all. Note that the game is now published publicly so you should be able to get a 2 to 4 player game in, I'd still recommend playing with duckies (if you're still doing that!).
0
@TheKrazyKat: Go
I appreciate all of the videos! I've had a planned (but obviously never implemented) feature of a round system, where each game of hellion's inferno would be a best-of-five, where at the end you could vote for a re-match. I'll start working on this after I get all of the bugs pertaining to transformations.
Balance is something that I've had a incredibly (read: impossibly) hard time with because of the various different stages of interaction throughout the game. The sub-classes (firebats and the like) *ideally* should have a fighting chance against the vehicles, however level 1 combat shouldn't be the end of every game!
I think that now that the game ends in an appropriate fashion (all players on all opposing teams must be dead!), that'll hopefully shift up the early-game meta. If not, I'll make some heavy handed changes to the sub-classes.
0
Hey Krazy Kat, I decided to publish it publicly after all (Figured it was about time). I would still love to join you guys though(I would most likely watch, perhaps join in later). Do you know approximately what time (I'm US EST) you'll be playing?
0
I have opened this game up to the Sc2 arcade. If you have any feedback, I'd love to hear it.
EDIT: It's currently only available in NA region. If there's any interest in other regions, I'll happily publish it there too.
0
Hey KrazyKat, I'd really appreciate it if you checked out my game, Hellion's Inferno (). It's a 2 to 4 player PvP hero arena, so the more players the better (it can support 3v3, however it's never been tested). Note that the map is currently private (Too many bugs and kinks for my own liking), so just let me know when you'd like to play it. Thanks in advance!
EDIT: It's published publicly, "Hellion's Inferno". Check it out when you can.
0
Trailer
Summary
Hellion's Inferno is a fast-paced, 2v2 hero arena where hostile zerg swarm in from all sides. Players must stave off the zerg to gain levels, then use their abilities to wipe out their foes.
Primary Features
Short matches: playing a game of Hellion's Inferno is quick and easy - each match (ideally) only lasts 3-5 minutes each.
Accuracy matters: Almost every ability is a skillshot, so players must aim carefully to hit their foes!
Three classes, each with a different passive that shapes their gameplay:
No respawn timers, only transformations: Upon death the player is ejected from their vehicle into their pilot. To return to their vehicle, the pilot must gain enough experience to level up.
No items, only skills: No need to worry about pesky item builds and stats, you just choose your skills as you go! No need to worry about taking a shopping break.
Multiple skill-builds: Each class has multiple skills to chose from, allowing players to mix and match their abilities each match!
Beta Testing
This game is currently in open beta, it is not a finished product. There are various features which are either absent or unfinished (Such as tooltips, a couple of skills, so on).
Interested in playing? Check it out on the SC2 Arcade!
0
Thanks for the review deadzergling, it was really eye-opening. Here are some of the things that really stood out:
You brought out a lot of weird quirks, and I'm glad I got to see them. There's still quite a bit of work to be done, but now I feel inspired to fix the game up! Lastly, thanks for your time commitment - I appreciate you spending over 40 minutes on my ("short") game just to figure it out, all the while giving me valuable feedback. Keep up the good work.
0
I'd appreciate it if you could try my map out . It's in early beta, and is missing quite a bit of clarity and polish for newer players, but I'd love to see how completely fresh players learn the game, and whether or not they can enjoy it. Note that it takes 2 to 4 (human) players to play.
My map is currently private, shoot me a PM on here or Battle.net (RedFox.1544) if you want to play.
0
Thanks for all of the info guys. I was mostly skeptical because I run across some of the sub-forums and I see really old posts (things that I actually read a year ago) - but it's good to know that people are still at it!
@FunkyUserName: Go I think blizzard will do something with it. They touched it up around the time HoTS came out so they'll probably try one more time to get it right. It's not really in the worst of spots - it's just not as conducive towards newer maps as it could be.
@DuckyTheDuck: Go I remember map-night! I was hoping it was still around, but I knew it'd end eventually. I saw they were doing an arcade spotlight thing on the front page, is that still going to be a thing or did that fizzle out too? If it is, do feature small maps as well as massive projects?
0
Hey guys, I've been away from the mapster forums for quite some time now, and I was wondering if there was still an active community here. I know that a few years ago it used to be hopping around here, but now I feel as if the community has died off. Have they moved somewhere else, or have they just gone silent?
On a related note, is there still a high volume of players on the arcade? And has the popularity system improved much since 2012?