SC2Mapster

Bump/Update

Still working on toss, they seem to be giving me the most trouble, specificially with trying to balance out 3 archons..

also is anyone aware if terrain can move? :P IE a floating space platform that moves around the map that you can build on.. i really doubt it.. but maybe its possible.., even if sc2 doesnt support 3d environments

@BloodyTurds: Go

bump..

i dislike most of blizz's melee games, with the exception of broodwar, although i never really played that on ladder, i had fun playing lan with it. a few of the things that i like/dislike about sc2, and other blizz RTs''s

Sc2 dislike - spawnlarvae/mule/chrono; the whole system is designed, especially in larvaes case to waste your time, its just not fun. like - movement system; i think its great that units can actually get to the front lines, thus giving a major advantage to close range units compared to other titles. dislike - the terrain; aside from chokes, and highground there is hardly anything the terrain accounts for, and in high grounds case its either to much of an advantage or none (once you can see up there) like - selection; 255 units makes me happy, although execution could have been just a little bit better, like all the units of a type stacking under a single units icon, until its clicked (which selects the first one in that group, and expands the rest to be shown below. Wc3 Dislike - heros; oh god where do i begin?, a unit that can take on 10x its price in units after its recieved a few levels. there is not 1 medium or long term strategy that doesnt involve them. might be better if exp could be substituted for gold if theres no hero present to collect, and items auto-sold when you killed without a hero likes - creeps; creeps in general are interesting, especially the bounty aspect, although in its current state its almost always a good idea to creep, without heros, the only incentive would be the income, and maybe whatever resource there protecting likes - nodes/mercenarys; expanding on the idea of terrain advantage.. whoever held precious nodes gained bonuses, sometimes life regen, sometimes mana, sometimes the ability to hire help. the xel naga tower needs some company!

wc2 Likes - naval units; they were only good on certain maps however, with there limited reach; although in sc2 it might be cool to have them, especially if they can travel on land and sea. (differing from air because they dont go over cliffs.) although they would have to be a mercenary type unit, since they would be usless in many/most maps

whats wrong with bumping after a long period of time? it shows im still interested while refreshing the topic.. also in this particular type of post the first post will contain all the relevent info for newcomers, so it doesnt really matter whats after that...

@wall tried my best to remove the wall, but the formatting here is horrid..

@lobbying together: im not really looking for commitment.. if you happen to find a problem with the editor.. just post it here.. even if blizzard doesnt fix the problem, as long as the problem is identified someone out there in 3rd party mods might make it :P

if it were good people would play it.. lol.. people play hitman dont they?

normally i dont grammar comment, but in english/us its 3rd not 3th (everything after 3 is th though, 4th, 5th, 100th ect) :P

@Mozared:

yea i did learn about holding shift shortly after making this page.. although i just cnpied it from that.. i kinda meant auto though cause more often than not i dont use the pathing req (maybe making shift enforce the req)

footprint = pathing map?, aka the grid that show where/what units can/cant go over it?

i like it, but the hydralisk head seems like it could use a little more work, maybe some leather straps holding it on, and remove the bottom jawbone, next time around.. because that looks like itd hurt if it were bumped

Heres how this works… post features/functionality you think could be better in the editor… ill do my best to seperate all the suggestions into somewhat formated/organized tree.. whether its new features or improvements on existing ones.. i wana hear from ya.. feel free to post improvements on ideas posted here aswell.

ill start with a list i already compiled and sent to blizz (after the beta test)

Things the Editor Needs:

Doodad:

Organize the doodads as follows:

Terran(anything that looks potentially human) destroyed Structure (anything big, or combined models) Props (anything small we can add anywhere to make our own structures with… undestroyed Structures Props
Protoss (anything that looks like it could be protoss, this includes xel naga stuff…) destroyed(runins n stuff) structures Props Undestroyed structures Props
Zerg (this would be anything semi-organic that looks zerg like ) structures (anything large and squishy, probably any infested building models) props (anything organicish that looks squish,

Misc natural animal/bones plants rocks/minerals emitters light sight blockers(only really needs maybe 8 doodads) No-see(Ground-directional): the dood will be an an editor only box, with arrow facing a specific angle), anything on the No-See(ground): No-see (Air-directional): no-see(air):

UberSplats Inteligent Design: (anything that looks like terrain or protoss could have made it) Organic: anything made by zerg, plants, or blood ect, or otherwise naturally occuring

1. sticky movement option (doodads will only move in 8 directions, based on the current FACING of the selected doodad, thus allowing for easily aligning doodads on X/Y axis, Z axis align would be nice aswell, (maybe give 2 Z’s global Z hight, and terrain based Z hight)
2. Ignore All placement Reqs (a mode/hotkey to force all doodads to ignore placement rules, including newly created)
3. Brigthen, i see you still cant make a doodad lighter than its default.., maybe instead of setting 255,255,255 as the default, maybe 127 could be 'normal’ color, making 255/0/0 pure red(the texture wouldnt show through at all)

give an 'options’ button (beside the doodads model)when placing doodads of a type, when pressed a window with all possible variations(in checkbox’s,and a random checked variation is selected each time a new doodad of that type is placed), default custom color, default facing (1-360 would default to face that way -1 would give random angle, default min random scale xyz, default max random scale, xyz, default hight

We need more basic doodads, and less 'batch’ doodads… its ok to see the same light post 20 times, but its not ok to see the same building 20 times…

here is a list of all the basic doodads i can think of, that i havnt seen in the current doodads list.., especially if u wana see more good fps maps…(being so close makes them especially vulnerable to players getting visually bored…

every doodad aslong as atleast 1 of them is in the map, should have its name underlined (or something of the sort)
also its kinda easy to loose which doodad your on when placing (especially if u havnt narrowed the results with a search)

Terrain:
1. Texture Planes: flat 'planes’ that are essentially 5 movable points, (the 4 corners and the center), the plane would then stretch to the position(if possible not stretching the texture to much) of all 5 points, they would also be able to use every ground/cliff texture, and if possible ANY texture, or piece of texture the user chooses
2. completely vertical terrain, i dont want no 85 degree angles, 89 might be acceptable
3. snap to doodad: if possible the ability to snap a piece of terrain to a particular part of a doodad (hold a certain key, click a specific part of the doodad, and the terrain below it matches its hight, without raising the doodad itself (the nearest single square terrain unit),
4.sticky movement: same as for doodads, except locked at 0/45/90/ect
5. get rid of the spinny selection circle, replace with a solid line (or atleast put a solid line, with the spiny line over it…

allow for more cliff hights than 4…., we need atleast 8, and make them more uniform, except maybe the lowest, and the highest, which can be extreeme, also decrease the distance of cliff hight significantly (maybe 1/2-2/3 as tall as the default, to 1 level up hight is)

Pathing:
the pathing editor is a start.. but its kinda anoying i think sticking to squares might be better than the triangles…., also the pathing shape that is going to be added should be displayed on mousover (maybe in a semi-clear hue)

also more pathing options:
no-fly: not just the current 'no fly zone’ it should really be part of the regular pathing editor, and be mapable
no-ground: stops all ground based movement
no-build: stops the building or landing of structures on it..
no-drive: stops anything that has wheels from moving over it
Clear-Path: removes all pathing from a point (if used on cliffs, they become walkable.., if used on doodads it overwrites their pathing maps (not the maps of units/buildings however))
Climb-only: allows only units able to climb atleast 1 cliff level to pass over this terrain
Climb-only 2: allows only units who can climb 2 or more cliff levels to pass…
Slow-ground(-30%), slow-ground(-50%): Slows anything that is currently walking on ground by whatever %
drive-slow (-30%), drive-slow (50%), Drive fast (+40%): increases or decreases drive speed by whatever %, on anything that has wheels.
Extend-range(5%,10%,20%,30%,50%, 100%,): allows anyone on this pathing to have an attack, and sight range bonus against anyone on reduce-range pathing ONLY.
Reduce-range(0%.10%,50%,90%): reduces the range of anyone on it against units on extend range pathing, and reducing range, with the following formula: (oldrange/(1+(extendedrange%/100))*(1-(reducerange%/100))= new units range, but ONLY vs units on extend-range pathing.
also every one of these should be combinable if the person paints both over a the same point it would be affected by both..

@ all this 'not possible' talk.. anything is possible.. there still finding exploits in wc3, that allow external code to run within a map, or outside of it.. which means anything is 'possible' a more apropriate answer is; thusfar i am unaware of any way to do this (followed by your experience level) or something :P hell id be willing to bet that in the next 10~ years someone finds a way to do this *note i said finds a way(meaning its already there), not blizz patches a way to do this*

duno if its possible in sc2 to access a 3rd party website, but there are several websites that you type in what u wana say, and an audio file is made or whatever..., ofc as said before the actual phonetic pronounciation and stuff is still fairly limited even with the thousands of manhours put into it globally

hmm, yea i saw those explosives.. just didnt see the exact map name, wasnt it that 'secret mission"? @ your parisite concept: whats with the 'works for 25 mins' part? if it works that long why not forever? @ after it attacks u get option to build 5 more parisites or mind control a unit; just a tad complicated id say for melee

Update: heres a few toss ideas that have potential in my book, so i want feedback:

- shield generator(shield battery); upgrades from pylon, maintains its food produced, and building powering. but also - recharges energy/shields (units and buildings?) and reduces damage done to all allies in its shield area

- void ray; transforms into warp prism (with a time cost(can move while transforming), and maybe a mana cost. may also take mana to fire (build up damage), likely partially armor bypassing damage, or something (making it good vs heavy units)

-warp prism; transforms into void rays with a time cost and mana cost can move in transformation. also recalls troops via 2 abilitys (group recall, which recalls as many units in an area as possible for a mana cost based on transport size; and emergency recall, which is autocastable and recalls any unit that hits less than 10% health, with no shields at a conciderably higher mana cost, and a fair cast-time and cooldown.), Can also act as a pylon to power structures

-dragoons; get an upgrade for immortal type shields, requiring robotics bay (t3), since my latest build kinda cuts immortals outa the picture, and the role is sorta unfilled.

also it has been suggested that i add something to the nest (zerg), so i was thinking about maybe removing nidus canal/wyrm and allowing nest to function in a similar fasion (ofc you would need 2 or more nest, at different locations, otherwise it basically just serves as a way to bolster your forces.. also as per the control, i think that if you load into a nest, it should auto unload at the 'rally point' nest, if aplicable, otherwise just sit inside the nest like nydus wyrm currently is.

Also if anyone wants to chat live about this potential project; [email protected] is my live account so feel free to add me

ah nice @ the 25% more saturation, im sure id find a way to limit this.. for example i could make it drain minerals at the same rate, but increase the movement speed, and mineral capacity of the worker, meaning that a mineral patch is fully saturated at 2 workers instead of 2.5 or whatever, although i believe the mule probably harvest a bit faster than workers, and it seems ok.. besides humans do tend to deplete resources rather quickly..

@events: (player innitiated), yea player innitiated events might be cool, maybe 'explosives' placed on the map in certain locations that users can attack inorder to deal aoe damage to nearby enemys, or even bridges being destroyable, are all in the realm of possibiltys, however those things ill really have to see how they turn out ingame, and would ofc be a map by map basis @nest, i had low health in mind, esp if i plan on fusing it with nydus canal @infestation; not 100% sure where your coming from off hand(which post is it in?); but the infestor currently has: - Infect: Infects a small-biological(scvs included) unit with a parasite, after 5 seconds the target is destroyed, and 3 parasites emerge, and attempt to infect other biological units, parasite has 10 hitpoints, and last 90 seconds outside of a host. transport, and Dark Swarm: Unleashes a horde of Insectoids that act as cover, which increases the chance that ranged attacks targeting units inside the cloud will miss by 30% (even structures). (defiler) although i have been thinking about including a fungal type skill similar to fungal growth @toss morphing, yea it may be a bit tough to find a good toss morph anim, i might run into a bit of visual trouble.., but i think that they could probably just expand out of the pylon in sort of a generic growth @mercs: yea zerg hireing humans might be odd, but i could always replace the model while retaining stats, and name it 'infested merc' or whatever

2. i kinda like the whole bio decay idea... but what if instead of that, or feedback, the dark archon decayed energy from all nearby enemys, slowly gaining his own.., maybe dealing damage to any casters for mana sapped.. the dark archon will probably be alot more specialized though, and stick mostly to spellcasters.. maybe mind control though as it is primarily good against spellcasters, especially if it last a limited time.

3. goliaths are pretty anti-air yea, but i could always make vikings anti-ground ::P, wasnt sure if i wanted them or banshees anyways.. also as you said goliaths have strong piercing attacks that make them more suited for anti strong-units, and the gun buggy already covers weak ground nicely..

4. i kinda figured it was that thing XD, although i still say i like the current one better.. although if i do scourgelings (flying banelings) i may use a hybrid of that model, with a baneling attachment to its chest

5. yea the races do start out similar, i might change it up a bit, maybe make scvs harvest 25% more, but also cost 25% more, only start with 3 instead of 4 or some stuff meh...

6. still its really anoying to split the units up like that.. if 1 building healed em all itd be practical, if i do go anything like this itl be more of just the creep adds bonus health, and maybe more regen based on number of buildings on it.. but i doubt that

7. well the waygate 'morphs' into the warp gate. a pylon is basically a generator, so it wouldnt be much of a step to retro-fit a way to convert that energy into shields aswell.. but yea 'morph' prolly isnt the right word, its more of an upgrade XD

events; i might allow for several 'endgame' events like raising water/lava. and personally im not againtst semi-random events, solong as there localized to a single path, giving the user the choice.. and that the event is well documented so they dont just run in and BAM, to late @more xel naga stuff; yea for sure :P, although i dont see any reason protoss/human structures cant be layining around aslong as their fair to all 3 races in what they offer (they cant offer something you can already build), by mercs i meant hireable hands :P,

@totally missunderstood my idea.....: ah, well asfar as resources go, it wont be long before 1-2 mods become particularly used, and include large quantities of resources, and are used in almost every map..., so you plan on adding all the alternative games to this 1 map? so when game is hosted the host picks a mode? ah

@nest having something else; in sc1 people built several hatcherys.. they dont do much else.. being a total unit producer in itself is pretty big, just maybe though they might function as nidus canals aswell, thats one of my possibilities for them, or maybe just house units similar to a bunker, except with inability to attack

also got an opinion on infested structures? im kinda against it, although i think zerg should be able to infest units (not mind control, they would essentially become weaker versions, an infested tank couldnt siege ect, and did about 50% the dmg, with 60%~ the life

thanks for the ideas.. just what im lookin for :P

1. overlords gain upgrade for detect; this is probably a good idea.. although it was already added a while ago :P: (see link on first post) "Optical Sensors: increases sight range, and allows for detecton of invisible (@lair)"

2. 3 types of archons; still thinking about this one, i know im either doing 1, or 3, and the middle one would likely be a more average unit, strong and a spellcaster... might make the high templars fusion more of a spellcasting archon, and dark templars could be an anti-spellcaster maybe (feedback on attack, spell resistance ect)

3. @ vikings; i was thinking they wouldnt morph. although possibly if i added a longer transition mode (5-10 seconds), i might be able to squeeze them in. (basically id make them convert to goliaths, and goliaths convert to them, giving goliath the ground viking model, but its a bit unlikely)

4. melee flying, the new corrupter is melee range, with an aoe spore cloud (which im thinking might just become primary attack), although ive got no idea what the phylasaur is XD, its currently gonna use the old corrupters model as it seems to fit the descrip fine.

5. yea its a bit crazy to make workers anywhere beyond the main building, atleast soley, i just might allow the robo facility to make probes though, it might aide in faster expanding.. if the toss need it (there the only ones without a fast expansion method (zerg poop 50 workers in 1 setting, human can land a dropship then convert it.) so i guess if they expanded they could throw nexus, and pylon, soon as pylon is done throw a robo facility, to aide with worker production.. a bit.. id have to give it another role though.. maybe it could release repair robots or something (way slower than scvs repair but free)... although this might be to much for balance (if toss mechs can repair) ill look into it

6. @zerg regaining at their building; i think that would be just a little anoying having to split your people up to their respective base to regen

7. @shield battery: although not yet posted. i do have several ideas for this, and my current plan was to have it upgrade from a pylon. recharge ofc, but still deciding on the mechanics of it, either 1 unit at a time quickly, or 4-6 at a time for 15-20, or all nearby for 3-4 mana per sec with no mana cost to use, or some hybrid recall battery; i was thinking a shield battery could, recall 1 unit at a time, probably automatically, when hp goes below 10%, with no shielding, the recall time would have a cast time that is dependent on recalling units size, and the cooldown would be 4-6 seconds, added to the cast time. i dont have plans for any real mining aides, except maybe the zerg queens, although that doesnt aide in full saturation situations, and is only about a 5-7% bonus total to mining, and is still iffy if itl help mining, but if i were to add something for toss mining it would likely be an upgrade, that increases there mineral carrying ammounts or something, and maybe give humans pipeline; aka return gas without workers

meteor shower might be interesting, but to prevent it from being a global thing, one would have to be in caves, or something, thereby the shower only hits outside the caves.. but its definently a doable mechanic, and it would probably work pretty well, and have unique damage compared to thorns bushes which would just deal small dot as the unit moves, @ gates that go on/off; well maybe special terminals, that you bring a worker, and click on the worker automatically builds you a bridge... although gates that are invulnerable and dropable by the holder of a node might be just a little to benificial and not to mention anoying because of ai issues trying to find shortest way, and repeated drop raise will cause ur enemy to patrol back and forth possibly

@alternative tech trees; aside from a few possible map specific structures to aide in general gameplay, i doubt im introducing any special units on a map by map basis..., although a few more neutral buildings might be included still duno yet, and mercs hmm?, what do u think of rescuable mercs, or neutral hostilies sitting around the minimap?, note; unlike in wc3 they would only serve the purpose of blocking access to vital points and stuff, and would be fairly weak 4-5 marines and a medic, protecting a xel naga tower or something

as for skins, ill try my best to incorperate any skins included in the mpq, that will pop up randomly on the units of that type, as sort of eastereggs... (that or changing the skin of level '10' units to make them slightly more recognizable.. this might be simple attachments or decals though nothing to fancy if no skin is available

all in all i really apreciate the input :)

@LaertesSC2: Go

@whos planning on making this; officially no-one, although if anyone its probably gonna be me....., however as i said.. i havnt started, nor do i know if i will..

@new race idea is halfassed and crap...when you come back with new origional ideas; why? because the 'races' follow what sc already has?, couldnt the same be said about sc2 then.. it basically followed in sc1's footsteps keeping nearly identical tech trees..., and atleast 1/2 the units... my human/toss tech trees are quite a bit different than sc1/2, (asfar as paths you can go), zerg is a little more conservative however..., and as for origional ideas?, give me 1 example (something origional, that would actually be cool/fit).. because i have quite a few new abilitys/upgrades added already.., and any mechanic that adds 'realism' has likely been tried in some other game (thusforth 'un-origional' by your definition?)

i wasnt unwilling to listen, but "this is imba period" isnt a valid critique(esp b4 i get into the actual stats), as there is almost always a scenario/stats where it would in-fact be fair

asfar as distribution of the counters its pretty close to what sc2/sc already has.. so the layout in general isnt imba? Heres the FIRST 5 balance disagreements given in that post, and what i did in response:

"The reason everything hits on attack and doesn't miss is because league games are about skill and micro/macro. Not about being lucky ;):" - this particular comment doesnt make much sense to me.., certain units like zerglings do benifit greater from luck systems... than those that dont die 1-2 hits.. but that will be taken into account when/if the actual mod comes out... so no real change, aside from noting people are hesitant about miss chance

"Like it or not what your describing is very damn close to every unit being a Hero, or at the very least taking from Command & Conquer's promotion system used in Red Alert and Tiberium games.... making it even more 1 sided twards the winner" - i had never planned on making the leveled units significantly stronger, although i havnt really played red alert, so i cant say if this is/isnt like them.. even if it is, is that necessarily bad? essentially no change, because 'like another game" isnt exactly a bad thing.., ive already explored quite a few possibilitys to keep the game less 1 sided, although if after test this is still to good it may get removed...

"replinishing minerals would make camping to easy" after looking into this i agreed and removed it from the POSSIBLE list.., although i kept gas like sc1

"adrinaline mode not needed, people can just play game speed slow" - that wasnt the point of it, it was to increase battle time, while NOT increasing overall game time by much.... but anyways this probably wont make it into the mod..

".....You pretty much have the Hive turned into a Super Carrier building...(locust swarm type ability)" - whats so super about it? i failed to give ANY stats at this points at the time, you could be getting 2 'locust' that attack 1ce every 2 seconds for 1 damage.. so even arguing this is somewhat pointless.. it was just meant as a minor defense for the hive, since the new queen may or may not be at your base to protect it..

so outa those suggestings we have 1 actual valid balance suggestion (replinishing minerals), 3 i view as missunderstandings (miss chance, adrinaline, unit experience), 1 completely unbacked "OMG thats rigged"(hive with 'locust swarm'),