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I'll make this OP short and hope to expand it as the thread develops.
The topic of stronger high-ground advantage and how it could immensely improve the game by encouraging positional gameplay and reducing the prevalence of death-balls has been brought up many times.
This thread is the most recent:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=394845
The important point however is that high-ground advantage can be replaced by any other ground advantage. Strategically putting dark swarms / disruption webs / other spells on the map or covering certain areas by fog / glow / other (hopefully not very obtrusive) visual effect that gives +armor or -range would do the job just as well. Don't forget that some BW pro maps had permanent spells on them, and it worked great!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HCgloBu.png)
I personally believe that it is up to mapmakers to introduce various ground advantage zones on new maps, so that we and pros would be able to test them and determine which ones improve the game while retaining the balance.
What do you guys think?
Poll: Would you like to see new types of ground advantage in SC2?Yes, I encourage mapmakers to experiment! (110) 91% No, it does not do any good. (11) 9% 121 total votes Your vote: Would you like to see new types of ground advantage in SC2? (Vote): No, it does not do any good.
(Vote): Yes, I encourage mapmakers to experiment!
If you think it's a good idea, please share your suggestions on what particular kind of ground advantage (and corresponding visual effect) would you propose, and how you think it could enhance the gameplay.
EDIT: Some nice points and my answers
On January 25 2013 19:43 [F_]aths wrote:
I think, we have to consider esports. This means, there should not be too many exceptions to the standard rules.
Definitely! I think there should be no more then 1 ground advantage zone type per map and not more than 2-3 in the map pool.
On January 25 2013 18:52 JOJOsc2news wrote:
I think this is a great idea.
The plea should go towards tournament organizers and Blizzard though. They are reluctant to include these maps into their map pools. I'm hoping that, with the Pro League, organizers will start to be less conservative about their map pools. What does Pro League have to do with it? I think they would be the first ones to experiment with that and could set a good example. They have brought in some new aspects already like the sand animation on one of their maps.
I Agree. However look at the voting here. Overwhelming majority of viewers would be happy to see pro players playing at such maps. If mapmakers make good balanced maps with interesting ground advantage zones, then small local tournaments will pick them up just to attract the viewers. I myself would definitely watch such a tournament. Bigger guys like Pro League will follow eventually.
On January 26 2013 01:29 Qikz wrote:
I missvoted, I meant to say yes, but clicked no. Still, more experimentation is a good thing! ^^
On January 26 2013 01:40 Alpino wrote:
I missvoted as well. I meant to say yes, but clicked no ):
On January 26 2013 01:53 Barrin wrote:
^--- lol @ putting "yes" second and not clicking "always display results in this order"
On January 26 2013 01:56 JOJOsc2news wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 01:53 Barrin wrote:
^--- lol @ putting "yes" second and not clicking "always display results in this order" Yeah... I realized that just before clicking. So due to my excellent TL-post-micro I could prevent a misvote. 
Sorry guys! 
Have a nice day! 
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I think this is a great idea.
The plea should go towards tournament organizers and Blizzard though. They are reluctant to include these maps into their map pools. I'm hoping that, with the Pro League, organizers will start to be less conservative about their map pools. What does Pro League have to do with it? I think they would be the first ones to experiment with that and could set a good example. They have brought in some new aspects already like the sand animation on one of their maps.
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I think, we have to consider esports. This means, there should not be too many exceptions to the standard rules.
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Just copy the system Dawn of War had - mappers could define a separate "layer" of cover (visuals independent from the affected gameplay area). Light cover, like a small crater, would grant a defensive boost. Heavy cover would grant a strong defensive boost but slow units going through it. Negative cover (e.g. water) instead made them take additional damage. Cover was shown with a (de)buff icon, straightforward to understand and can easily be put on any map. Hovering your cursor over an area of cover changed it to show if an area had cover and which type.
Simplify it for SC2 a bit and there you go.
"putting dark swarms down" on the other hand seems like a really hacky (albeit oldschool) way of doing things
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Dawn of War never made it successfully into big esports. You cannot just copy something to make a different thing better.
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On January 25 2013 20:00 [F_]aths wrote:
Dawn of War never made it successfully into big esports. You cannot just copy something to make a different thing better.
Sure you can... it's what Blizzard does with all their games, what Apple does with all their products. Definitely a viable design strategy. An appropriate mix of good, tested ideas can be better than an original one.
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I just checked to see if we could not get it under melee in the HotS editor (Blinding Cloud from the Viper) as just a regular old unit ability much like you can place arbitrary force fields. Could not find it.  Hopefully someone figures it out -- might require some data work.
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On January 25 2013 20:00 [F_]aths wrote:
Dawn of War never made it successfully into big esports. You cannot just copy something to make a different thing better.
For two sentences, you've managed to cram quite a lot of sentiments into your post that I think are idiotic, but let's go with this one for starters: At what point did making SC2 a fun game to play and watch become a lower priority than "ESPORTS!"?
Followup question: How many games have "made it successfully into big esports"? Enough that you feel confident in making very broad generalizations about what is and is not possible in that area?
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
On January 25 2013 20:00 [F_]aths wrote:
Dawn of War never made it successfully into big esports. You cannot just copy something to make a different thing better.
Just because something wasn't an esport doesn't mean that it didn't have good parts to it...
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
I missvoted, I meant to say yes, but clicked no. Still, more experimentation is a good thing! ^^
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I missvoted as well. I meant to say yes, but clicked no ):
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On January 26 2013 01:53 Barrin wrote:
^--- lol @ putting "yes" second and not clicking "always display results in this order"
Yeah... I realized that just before clicking. So due to my excellent TL-post-micro I could prevent a misvote.
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Force field is actually a unit. It self destructs if massive units are nearby via autocadt validstors. Effects like blinding cloud sre just persistent effects with models. Should be easy to make a blinding cloud unit though.
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On January 26 2013 01:20 AmericanUmlaut wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 20:00 [F_]aths wrote:
Dawn of War never made it successfully into big esports. You cannot just copy something to make a different thing better. For two sentences, you've managed to cram quite a lot of sentiments into your post that I think are idiotic, but let's go with this one for starters: At what point did making SC2 a fun game to play and watch become a lower priority than "ESPORTS!"? Followup question: How many games have "made it successfully into big esports"? Enough that you feel confident in making very broad generalizations about what is and is not possible in that area?
I agree that this posting of mine lacks content. I should have explained my statement.
Dawn of War 2 was casted by Take in a sponsored ESL league, but it never was a big esports title. Dawn of War has quite nice graphics and good gameplay, but we have to ask why it isn't an esports title.
I think, the graphics of DoW tries to be realistic up to a point where it is a bit confusing to follow. And while the campaign setting is very good of course, the multiplayer feels a bit like an addition to the campaign. The SC2 multiplayer feels like a seperate product from the campain. Is is rather easy to follow the action. I saw complete noobs, which most recent RTS experience was WC2 (yes WC2, not even WC3) and they were able to get a rough picture of what is going on. I believe that DoW lacks those qualities.
A second point: Chess is an incredible deep strategy game. Incredibly deep! Even though the board on it is played is rather boring. There were many attempts to make chess more interesting, but most of the world champions still play the classic chess.
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I'm all for trying this stuff, but it has to be done right.
SC2 already has big problems with clarity and ability to see what's going on.
If you have an area that reduces clarity, it should probably have a negative affect so players try to keep their units out of it if possible. It should be used in ways where it doesn't force ugly engagements, it's just used to control zones.
You also have to think about confliction with creep... Would you need it to be a no-creep zone if it were something on the ground? A no-building zone as well? It could visually conflict with creep and whatnot. What if you had something that reduces speed of units? Would that conflict with creep gameplay-wise?
Something like this has it's advantages. We can do it, even at the tournament level, without Blizzard giving approval, so it's more practical. Also, having the advantages independent of terrain level can actually give us more freedom as map makers. Before, I have thought that this made more sense than high ground advantage. However, there's something very SC-ish and somewhat easy to understand and simple about high ground advantage, isn't there? It might just be me, but that seems like the best solution. To have high ground advantage as a base, I mean, and to use other types of terrain as a bit more special and less common. Maybe more common than the neutral spells in BW but more like that.
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Something like this has it's advantages. We can do it, even at the tournament level, without Blizzard giving approval, so it's more practical. Also, having the advantages independent of terrain level can actually give us more freedom as map makers. Before, I have thought that this made more sense than high ground advantage. However, there's something very SC-ish and somewhat easy to understand and simple about high ground advantage, isn't there? It might just be me, but that seems like the best solution. To have high ground advantage as a base, I mean, and to use other types of terrain as a bit more special and less common. Maybe more common than the neutral spells in BW but more like that.
Agree. Like I said in the high ground thread, it's better to have one mechanic that everyone understands that can do multiple things for you. But there's no reason you couldn't also combine special features later. These should only be added into maps after we begin to exhaust the other options, though. Otherwise, you dilute the identity and meaningfulness of SC2 mastery.
In any case, unless we move into a new era of foreigner mapmaking ascendance, this thread should be titled "a plea to tournament organizers". I don't blame you for framing it the way you did, but we've been dealing with the problem of "yeah, but so what" since the beginning. =\
I'd be very interested to test what kind of neutral buff/debuff things, used correctly, can add depth to the game without threatening balance. I just don't see how that happens, unless GOM or Kespa executive-decisions such a map into the tournament pool, which we have nothing to do with.
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I had the idea a while back of putting a "tower" type thing on maps to give guardian shield (or insert other buff here) when you get near it (lasts the normal duration a guardian shield would, and the tower might have a cooldown on it so it doesn't spam 30 guardian shields if you walk up with 30 zerglings).. which is fairly similar to what's being talked about here. Unfortunately my knowledge of the data editor is pretty rudimentary and I couldn't figure out how to make it work.
there is going to be at least 1 ground debuff shipping with HOTS.. the "Rough Terrain (Snare patches)" in the units tab, afaik this will slow units going through it. I kind of want a speed one too, because that would allow you to place 3rds further away and put the speed buff inbetween the nat and the 3rd.
But we can't always have nice things.
edit: while we're on it, the absolute NUMBER ONE thing I want for the editor in the future is BRIDGES that can have pathable terrain underneath them. This would multiply the amount of interesting map layouts (esp. with regards to mixing up the layout of the main/nat/3rd) you can have by a billion (or so ).
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ahaha, would be nice, but it'd break the engine, so you might want to swallow that particular dream. 
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On January 26 2013 15:41 EatThePath wrote:ahaha, would be nice, but it'd break the engine, so you might want to swallow that particular dream.
It actually is possible, but I'm not sure if it's worth the amount of work it requires
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On January 26 2013 17:15 ScorpSCII wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 15:41 EatThePath wrote:ahaha, would be nice, but it'd break the engine, so you might want to swallow that particular dream. It actually is possible, but I'm not sure if it's worth the amount of work it requires
I'm not sure that you could get it to work without buggy unit AI
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On January 26 2013 05:14 Barrin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2013 04:03 [F_]aths wrote:On January 26 2013 01:20 AmericanUmlaut wrote:On January 25 2013 20:00 [F_]aths wrote:
Dawn of War never made it successfully into big esports. You cannot just copy something to make a different thing better. For two sentences, you've managed to cram quite a lot of sentiments into your post that I think are idiotic, but let's go with this one for starters: At what point did making SC2 a fun game to play and watch become a lower priority than "ESPORTS!"? Followup question: How many games have "made it successfully into big esports"? Enough that you feel confident in making very broad generalizations about what is and is not possible in that area? I agree that this posting of mine lacks content. I should have explained my statement. Dawn of War 2 was casted by Take in a sponsored ESL league, but it never was a big esports title. Dawn of War has quite nice graphics and good gameplay, but we have to ask why it isn't an esports title. I think, the graphics of DoW tries to be realistic up to a point where it is a bit confusing to follow. And while the campaign setting is very good of course, the multiplayer feels a bit like an addition to the campaign. The SC2 multiplayer feels like a seperate product from the campain. Is is rather easy to follow the action. I saw complete noobs, which most recent RTS experience was WC2 (yes WC2, not even WC3) and they were able to get a rough picture of what is going on. I believe that DoW lacks those qualities. A second point: Chess is an incredible deep strategy game. Incredibly deep! Even though the board on it is played is rather boring. There were many attempts to make chess more interesting, but most of the world champions still play the classic chess. What if you make the board bigger and twice as many pieces? Two moves per turn and maybe nerf each piece? ... /patent
I am not able to follow you here. Chess has a certain amount of complexity which seems to fit the needs.
Making SC2 more complex with different highground advantages could hurt the watchability.
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If you meant 'twice as many pieces' as 'double the supply' to 400, then I have no idea how the worker : army ratio will work out. Would endless tides of zerg units be super-imba off of 140 drones? Would a pure 400/400 terran army be actually unstoppable? 50 warp-gate replenish off of 5 saturated bases?
Also, more units + bigger map = more CPU performance needed to be lagless if that's a factor to consider.
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If you mean 'double the number of different units' then it's possible the amount of variability would make the game even more more rock-paper-scissory.
I know from doing my own melee modding that having tripled the number of units in the game, from a casual / casual spectator point it's more 'exciting'. But as a player, it's much worse since you can't properly react to seeing this or that and you have to play super safe as a result (or maybe I'm just terrible at it).
I'm not sure what the number is, or if HotS has reached it, but there is some limit to the number of unique units you should have in the game.
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Wouldn't bridges with pathable terrain underneath cause a UI problem? I remember some interview where Blizzard was saying one of the reasons burrowed units can't go 'under' buildings is because it would be impossible to see them / re-select them if they ever got 'lost' underneath the building.
I wonder, if you had to, could you approximate a 'space bridge' by using a teleport region/trigger kind of idea? Like the beacons you see in the campaign that spirit you around the map. No idea if sending 100 zerglings across would cause the trigger to cause performance issues though.
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On January 27 2013 02:16 The_Frozen_Inferno wrote:
Would a pure 400/400 terran army be actually unstoppable?
I am going to have nightmares...
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Wouldn't bridges with pathable terrain underneath cause a UI problem? I remember some interview where Blizzard was saying one of the reasons burrowed units can't go 'under' buildings is because it would be impossible to see them / re-select them if they ever got 'lost' underneath the building.
That's one of the tricky bits. As long as it was done correctly, you could get around it with correct positioning and use of the isometric view, with the camera rotation as backup. It'd still be wack when trying to select units on the fly when you have them above and below the bridge.
I wonder, if you had to, could you approximate a 'space bridge' by using a teleport region/trigger kind of idea? Like the beacons you see in the campaign that spirit you around the map. No idea if sending 100 zerglings across would cause the trigger to cause performance issues though.
At that point you might as well just make it appear as teleportation, not a bridge/tunnel/etc. But in theory it could work. I think if you devised the right setup, it wouldn't have a problem handling large amounts of units, since it's a simple thing (in theory). I've actually designed two maps that use this but I never went through with it because I couldn't decide how exactly I wanted the teleporter to work.
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I think waygates would let you do something like bridges, or even way more. However, I think it wouldn't have the visual and pathing issues. It could be a bit hard to wrap your brain around, though, which for pro players I think is fine but it might be confusing for spectators. Would need testing.
By waygates I mean a pair of gates on the map, where units sent to one gate would teleport to the other.
I also want something that would give a passive advantage (like economy advantage,) to players who hold it but unlike a base can be passed back and forth instantly and it will always be beneficial to hold it even for the shortest amount of time. With the right placement and the proper number balance you could really encourage a lot more action.
These two things I like but... I'm not sure if it doesn't feel enough like Starcraft anymore with them. For custom maps, though, worth a try.
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Waiting for the day we see waygate micro, where units 'blink' back and forth between gates to avoid missiles.
I don't know how it would fit in lore-wise, or if it would be un-Starcrafty and too warcrafty or gimmicky, but maybe you could make like a 'resource fountain.'
If you have unit holding it, it'll periodically spawn resource items (those on-map units that you see in the campaign) that can be picked up and will add a direct, immediate boost to your economy. Perhaps you could even require a greater-than-one number of worker units to activate it if you want greater risk vs reward.
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Something that might feel a bit more comfortable would be the scrap robots from the campaign that periodically created scrap you could collect.
I'm not sure about an unlimited source of resources... But maybe if they kept going until the 25 minute mark or something.
For something significant it might be smart to block them with rocks or something so it doesn't disrupt things in the early game too much... Unless you want it to be pretty crazy. For the scrap robots... I guess you could have them be idle for the first 5 minutes and then start producing scrap.
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Yeah waygates would be amazing and would also increase the # of possible viable map layouts by a lot. They already introduced healing shrines which is something that was from wc3, so I don't see why not. Just give them a protoss-y skin and call them "Psi Gates" or something like that. The protoss already have warp technology so it's not exactly far-fetched.
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Neutral sentries with a bajillion HP that randomly cast forcefield on chokes - effectively making a gate that opens and closes. Just an idea that can already be implemented (I think).
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I've always wanted to put down neutral force fields on a map, which would put more of an emphasis on massive ground units. Since Ultralisks are much more viable in HotS, this idea seems like it could be balanced. I am not sure how neutral force fields would affect pathing though.
Since there isn't much of a high ground advantage in SC2, we create defender's advantage through the use of really really small choke points. So far, I think it's working. People need to think a bit outside of the box. Height advantage makes sense, but it isn't as good anymore, so let's just focus on what we can do, like creating bottlenecks that players really don't want to attack into.
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On January 27 2013 12:41 Antares777 wrote:
I've always wanted to put down neutral force fields on a map, which would put more of an emphasis on massive ground units. Since Ultralisks are much more viable in HotS, this idea seems like it could be balanced. I am not sure how neutral force fields would affect pathing though.
You already can, they're in the units tab. An early draft of one of my maps had some, but I ended up getting rid of them b/c I was worried about balance, since protoss gets massive ground units like 4x more often than terran or zerg do. I'm not really sure what the "correct" place to put them on a map is, but there might be one where it works well.
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The waygates idea is what I meant by teleporters. The question is whether you want them to connect to each other exactly, with some kind of cooldown, or a step out and back in thing, or a "landing platform" nearby to the "sending platform" so that you don't get stupid teleporter shenanigans. I'd also worry about cramming too many units into the receiver area, so I tend to lean towards the separate platforms idea, with the landing platform being a large space. Of course you can add all sorts of funny with random destinations etc. It definitely opens up way more layout possibilities.
A long time ago before WoL beta came out, I thought they had said that they would have wrap-around maps. How fucking cool would that be.
A basic thing that is never used but should be: destructible barriers that have a trigger that is separate from the barrier itself. I have used this in a couple maps, where the barrier protects a 2nd entrance to the natural, or something, but to open it you must destroy the command structure, which is deep in the natural, so protected from aggression unless they break in the normal way. This allows you to make more aggressive or defensive "rocks", which changes everything.
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About the "eSports" talk from last page.
SC2 is not nearly as mainstream enough to be considered a sport or anything (even an 'eSport'). It's still #1 a video game, and a video game played for fun (there are much better activities that require more skill and/or talent than SC2; I think people should view SC2 as more of a video game and less as an "eSport", this includes all video games in general).
(Besides maybe BW, which was a really special case, nearly all cases of people watching competitive video game tournaments are by people who play the games themselves or have played it a decent amount in the past. In actual sports, there are plenty of people who don't play the sport at all, but yet still watch the sport.)
Speaking of changes, Dota 2 changes often (every patch which comes out every few months) and is way more popular than SC2 already. People don't watch Dota 2 because they find the game fun to watch on its own, it's very likely they play the game too (considering Dota 2 is the most popular game played according to steam stats, that's no surprise).
(Honestly, most video games are boring to watch on their own. The only exception is BW and that's because of the huge foundation built from South Korea + the fact that BW is best competitive video game ever accidentally made.)
Experimenting should be definitely be welcomed.
One of the main problems with SC2 is that there's too many things that may break the game easily (unlike BW which had a bit more solid foundation thanks to the game being more gradual and less random).
In BW, like Idra and Artosis said, there are a million different ways to win in BW (the last SotG for example, Artosis said some players were good off of Mutalisk micro alone). Also BW, is a much more gradual game and less random than SC2 (there's a ton of topics on this already).
tl;dr - SC2 needs a ton of work to be as good as BW. Experimentation should be welcomed, but due to the design of SC2, small things break the game.
Anyway, just my thoughts. I think the throwing around "SC2 is eSports!" thing is what's ironically what's ruining eSports (IMO). BW is probably the greatest exception (but even BW itself, the best competitive video game ever made IMO, couldn't prevent viewer loss).
Video game tournament gain views solely by people who play the game (again, the exception being maybe BW), so the first step to making it better is to make the game better. (And again, Dota 2 changes a ton and often, and it's way more popular than SC2.)
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How would you do this in the date editor though? I want to try it? One assumes you can just make a doodat/unit which is a blinding cloud which you can just place everywhere? How?
Edit: One assumes you just want to make an invulernable unselectable unit with the blinding cloud model that has a behaviour/ability that makes everything around it have range 0.1, but how do you make that behaviour/ability?
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I don't have the beta client / editor, so I'm making a couple assumptions about what already exists in the HotS editor. I'm assuming that blinding cloud works like most other abilities like it. As usual, there is also more than one way to do it:
The viper has an ability that creates a 'persistent effect' that will periodically 'search area' and 'apply behaviour' to all viable targets. These kinds of abilities usually last for like 0.5 a second but the periodic search is equal to that duration and would re-apply the behaviour as long as the unit is in the AoE. (that's why when you leave, the unit is instantly restored, since the applied behaviour wears off).
A model actor is then probably connected to the persistent effect's creation/destruction to make it pretty.
So, all you have to do is create a new behaviour: buff with infinite duration. Its periodic effect will be set to fire off blinding cloud's 'search area' effect. You just need to match the period stats with that of the original 'create persistent' effect.
Stick this new behaviour on the unselectable unit you make by adding it to the 'Behavior: Behaviors - Behavior' field (the same field that the immortal's hardened shield is on, for reference).
Then you need to fiddle with model actors to make sure everything looks pretty. The simplest way is to duplicate the blinding cloud model actor, and change its events to:
Unit birth. cloud unit
= create
Unit death. cloud unit
= destroy
Actor creation
= AnimPlay. (whatever asset name is normally played for blinding cloud)
Actor creation
= SetTintColor. (If you want to give it a visual indicator that it's a non-standard blinding cloud)
-> Now that I think about it, you could also just change the Unit Model to the blinding cloud model. But that method has a few other disadvantages and is marginally more complex to set up. Though both methods should work.
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You could also do it with triggers/regions and a noninteractive doodad just to indicate where the effect is. Might be simpler this way, but less data gosu.
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Elevators and doors that open/close periodically. Same for bridges that appear and disappear.
Also moving platforms. Like imagine the metropolis islands floating in between the main bases.
You build a Nydus, connect it with the island. Once it docks with the opponents main, all your army goes through the docking choke point
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Treadmills would be pretty sick, too.
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On January 25 2013 20:00 [F_]aths wrote:
Dawn of War never made it successfully into big esports. You cannot just copy something to make a different thing better.
Bullshit. It did as much as any other pre-SC2 non-Blizzard RTS did. It was in WCG 2 years running, which back in the pre-esports days, was a BIG FUCKING DEAL for a non-Blizz title. DoW was a great game and had a lot of good players competing, most of whom were BW players.
On January 27 2013 06:38 Gfire wrote:
I think waygates would let you do something like bridges, or even way more. However, I think it wouldn't have the visual and pathing issues. It could be a bit hard to wrap your brain around, though, which for pro players I think is fine but it might be confusing for spectators. Would need testing.
By waygates I mean a pair of gates on the map, where units sent to one gate would teleport to the other.
I also want something that would give a passive advantage (like economy advantage,) to players who hold it but unlike a base can be passed back and forth instantly and it will always be beneficial to hold it even for the shortest amount of time. With the right placement and the proper number balance you could really encourage a lot more action.
These two things I like but... I'm not sure if it doesn't feel enough like Starcraft anymore with them. For custom maps, though, worth a try.
I would LOVE to see Xel'Naga watchtowers provide a slow but steady trickly of minerals or gas to whichever player controls the area. It would really promote getting small numbers of units out on the map early instead of just expanding or even double expanding off of zero units, and would give lots of small skirmishes between small numbers of units to watch in the early game that actually carried importance. C&C3 and DoW had similar things, and it was crucial to get your first few units out on the map and contest certain things to get a slight economic advantage, which made a slight difference down the road, and encouraged players to get units early even if going econ and skirmish/contest the areas, or at least not let the other player take them all and leverage a decent econ advantage. I'm not suggesting a hold-victory-points-for-money type system like Dawn of War, of course, but giving a small stream of minerals for holding something sort of like a watchtower (maybe the equivalent of 3 or so mining drones?) while it is held by a player, just to get players to not totally turtle up early.
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On January 28 2013 03:15 The_Frozen_Inferno wrote:
I don't have the beta client / editor, so I'm making a couple assumptions about what already exists in the HotS editor. I'm assuming that blinding cloud works like most other abilities like it. As usual, there is also more than one way to do it:
The viper has an ability that creates a 'persistent effect' that will periodically 'search area' and 'apply behaviour' to all viable targets. These kinds of abilities usually last for like 0.5 a second but the periodic search is equal to that duration and would re-apply the behaviour as long as the unit is in the AoE. (that's why when you leave, the unit is instantly restored, since the applied behaviour wears off).
A model actor is then probably connected to the persistent effect's creation/destruction to make it pretty.
So, all you have to do is create a new behaviour: buff with infinite duration. Its periodic effect will be set to fire off blinding cloud's 'search area' effect. You just need to match the period stats with that of the original 'create persistent' effect.
Stick this new behaviour on the unselectable unit you make by adding it to the 'Behavior: Behaviors - Behavior' field (the same field that the immortal's hardened shield is on, for reference).
Then you need to fiddle with model actors to make sure everything looks pretty. The simplest way is to duplicate the blinding cloud model actor, and change its events to:
Unit birth. cloud unit
= create
Unit death. cloud unit
= destroy
Actor creation
= AnimPlay. (whatever asset name is normally played for blinding cloud)
Actor creation
= SetTintColor. (If you want to give it a visual indicator that it's a non-standard blinding cloud)
-> Now that I think about it, you could also just change the Unit Model to the blinding cloud model. But that method has a few other disadvantages and is marginally more complex to set up. Though both methods should work. I tried that, the only thing is that I can't seem to place the unit I made and the icon also doesn't look normal but like a green zealot or something when I make the new unit, any suggestions? The rest seems to work.
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On January 28 2013 07:12 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 03:15 The_Frozen_Inferno wrote:
I don't have the beta client / editor, so I'm making a couple assumptions about what already exists in the HotS editor. I'm assuming that blinding cloud works like most other abilities like it. As usual, there is also more than one way to do it:
The viper has an ability that creates a 'persistent effect' that will periodically 'search area' and 'apply behaviour' to all viable targets. These kinds of abilities usually last for like 0.5 a second but the periodic search is equal to that duration and would re-apply the behaviour as long as the unit is in the AoE. (that's why when you leave, the unit is instantly restored, since the applied behaviour wears off).
A model actor is then probably connected to the persistent effect's creation/destruction to make it pretty.
So, all you have to do is create a new behaviour: buff with infinite duration. Its periodic effect will be set to fire off blinding cloud's 'search area' effect. You just need to match the period stats with that of the original 'create persistent' effect.
Stick this new behaviour on the unselectable unit you make by adding it to the 'Behavior: Behaviors - Behavior' field (the same field that the immortal's hardened shield is on, for reference).
Then you need to fiddle with model actors to make sure everything looks pretty. The simplest way is to duplicate the blinding cloud model actor, and change its events to:
Unit birth. cloud unit
= create
Unit death. cloud unit
= destroy
Actor creation
= AnimPlay. (whatever asset name is normally played for blinding cloud)
Actor creation
= SetTintColor. (If you want to give it a visual indicator that it's a non-standard blinding cloud)
-> Now that I think about it, you could also just change the Unit Model to the blinding cloud model. But that method has a few other disadvantages and is marginally more complex to set up. Though both methods should work. I tried that, the only thing is that I can't seem to place the unit I made and the icon also doesn't look normal but like a green zealot or something when I make the new unit, any suggestions? The rest seems to work.
Did you save, close, and reopen? Otherwise your units won't show up in the list.
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On January 28 2013 05:21 Big J wrote:Elevators and doors that open/close periodically. Same for bridges that appear and disappear. Also moving platforms. Like imagine the metropolis islands floating in between the main bases. You build a Nydus, connect it with the island. Once it docks with the opponents main, all your army goes through the docking choke point
I've tried to do that, but the tough part is making sure units behave correctly when they are at the edge of terrain, especially when it changes. Like a closing door, does it kill things? Or push them aside? I couldn't figure out how to make it work properly. But that was when I was a total editor noob, maybe I should try again. I had so many cool map ideas for it!
[edit] oops I meant to edit not double post, sry =\
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
I have a plea as a meching terran player.
Is there a chance map makers can look into either better shaped or larger mains? Some maps are so damn small for factory units to either move around or get out of the base so oftentimes it's very easy to get things stuck. Running out of space for production is a problem for Terran in general, but due to the inability to put buildings close to each other mech has such a big problem.
I hate Ohana for many reasons, and cloud kingdom, but both of them have the big issue of the main being horrible to try and build up properly.
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In the WoL editor at least, there is a buggy way to 'break' your unit if your actor, unit and their respective editor IDs don't link up properly. Then it won't show up in the units layer for place.
I haven't figured out how to fix that once I break it. Saving and restarting doesn't always fix it either. Or maybe it does now. I'm not sure. Usually I always end up duplicating an existing unit + actor (not messing with their ID - only editor names) and go from there. That's usually a safe way to do it.
Can you spawn the unit manually in the tester?
Open the chat window in the test document and enter 'createunit ________' where ___ is the name of your unit. If it doesn't spawn there or turns into the white orb model, it's likely broken.
****
Can you really make moving terrain in the editor? I thought at most you could make dynamic water effects, which are purely aesthetics.
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Changing high ground mechanics would NOT make deathball type play less viable.
It would however force, as you wrote above, more positional play. I'd like to see some maps where there are different mechanics for high ground to low ground attacks/spells
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In my recent experience you can alter the id of something and it will still link up for most things, but I'm not sure if that includes actors. I think it does, though. Either way, you can alter the linked ID on the actor quite easily.
But the easiest way to make new units is with the duplicate feature (not copy+paste,) so you can duplicate the actors as well without any problems.
I think duplicating force field and then changing the actor model and behaviors would probably be the easiest way to make neutral spells.
As far as moving terrain goes... You can't make moving cliffs, but there might be a way to dynamically change which area is pathable, and use units for the platform underneath, and also move the units standing on it along as well... But it could get pretty complicated.
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/tHJvXinl.jpg)
It works by the way. I am working on a map now with ridiculously short rush distance, the catch is that the key choke on the natural as well as some other parts of it have blinding clouds.
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On January 28 2013 08:41 SiskosGoatee wrote:+ Show Spoiler +It works by the way. I am working on a map now with ridiculously short rush distance, the catch is that the key choke on the natural as well as some other parts of it have blinding clouds.
hmm really short rush distance + no disadvantage to melee? wouldn't that make early ling aggression OP? Or am I missing something.
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On January 28 2013 08:53 Fatam wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 08:41 SiskosGoatee wrote:+ Show Spoiler +It works by the way. I am working on a map now with ridiculously short rush distance, the catch is that the key choke on the natural as well as some other parts of it have blinding clouds. hmm really short rush distance + no disadvantage to melee? wouldn't that make early ling aggression OP? Or am I missing something. Something has to balance out the fact that Zerg is at a pretty big disadvantage at this very chocked map with a short rush distance?
It's also this very desired Zerg themed map that people like to see, infested space platform specifically.
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On January 28 2013 08:41 SiskosGoatee wrote:It works by the way. I am working on a map now with ridiculously short rush distance, the catch is that the key choke on the natural as well as some other parts of it have blinding clouds.
That's pretty cool. I have been following this thread ever since my reply because it was in my Subscribed Threads. It's great to see that this has actually worked out. I'm looking forward to the map. I guess zealot aggression would be quite good on it.
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On January 28 2013 09:07 JOJOsc2news wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 08:41 SiskosGoatee wrote:It works by the way. I am working on a map now with ridiculously short rush distance, the catch is that the key choke on the natural as well as some other parts of it have blinding clouds. That's pretty cool. I have been following this thread ever since my reply because it was in my Subscribed Threads. It's great to see that this has actually worked out. I'm looking forward to the map. I guess zealot aggression would be quite good on it. Yeah, well, it's also pretty darn choked so I hoped to balance the chokes out with the clouds.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/lZqgdtgl.jpg)
It's another 2-in-1 map. It's cross only, one of the spawns has a very short rush distance. I'm also thinking about adding neutral creep at some points maybe for balance reasons?
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On January 28 2013 09:17 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 09:07 JOJOsc2news wrote:On January 28 2013 08:41 SiskosGoatee wrote:+ Show Spoiler +It works by the way. I am working on a map now with ridiculously short rush distance, the catch is that the key choke on the natural as well as some other parts of it have blinding clouds. That's pretty cool. I have been following this thread ever since my reply because it was in my Subscribed Threads. It's great to see that this has actually worked out. I'm looking forward to the map. I guess zealot aggression would be quite good on it. Yeah, well, it's also pretty darn choked so I hoped to balance the chokes out with the clouds. It's another 2-in-1 map. It's cross only, one of the spawns has a very short rush distance. I'm also thinking about adding neutral creep at some points maybe for balance reasons?
Oh cool a picture!
As for the creep... I am really not a fan of neutral creep but since this is a Zerg themed map it would make sense (especially with the blinding clouds around etc.) Where would you put it?
Edit: spoilered picture
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I don't think creep is necessary... The map's already too big and complicated. But the use of the blinding cloud and the different spawn points is nice and interesting.
Reminds me a bit of crossfire.
I'm not sure about the double entrance nat, though... it seems like the blinding cloud isn't very effective since the other entrance is so much more appealing already.
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Not sure where, I would make it if balance requires it honestly, thus far I don't really see a reason yet to make it, but maybe if it turns out it''s massively T favoured I'll add it to some spots.
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On January 28 2013 09:26 Gfire wrote:
I don't think creep is necessary... The map's already too big and complicated. But the use of the blinding cloud and the different spawn points is nice and interesting.
Reminds me a bit of crossfire.
I'm not sure about the double entrance nat, though... it seems like the blinding cloud isn't very effective since the other entrance is so much more appealing already.
Thought so too.
Having no way on ground into someones base/natural without passing a blinding cloud right in front of it on the other hand is quite tricky too.
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I do think neutral creep tumors is better than neutral creep, but both are a bit icky to me. I was kinda feeling like it would be good to go with a reasonably standard map apart from the blinding clouds. I think one of the reasons that neutral spells weren't used much in BW is because they were tried in combination with a lot of other crazy stuff.
After thinking about it for a minute I don't have such a problem with the use of the blinding cloud on that entrance to the nat... It seems okay to me. Maybe the other ramp is too wide, though? Not really on-topic though.
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On January 28 2013 09:26 Gfire wrote:
I don't think creep is necessary... The map's already too big and complicated. But the use of the blinding cloud and the different spawn points is nice and interesting.
Reminds me a bit of crossfire. Every map I make rips of crossfire to some degree honestly. Making a balanced version of Crossfire is sort of an obsession for me. Spefically to encorporate 'that part' of crossfire.
I'm not sure about the double entrance nat, though... it seems like the blinding cloud isn't very effective since the other entrance is so much more appealing already. I concur, that's why I did this:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/EMd9Wb7l.jpg)
You basically have two defence points a bit further apart, the rocks also now mean you probably want to break them down shortly after taking that fourth.
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Nice use of the neutral blinding clouds. Imagine zealots guarding the middle. XD
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On January 28 2013 09:33 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2013 09:26 Gfire wrote:
I don't think creep is necessary... The map's already too big and complicated. But the use of the blinding cloud and the different spawn points is nice and interesting.
Reminds me a bit of crossfire. Every map I make rips of crossfire to some degree honestly. Making a balanced version of Crossfire is sort of an obsession for me. Spefically to encorporate 'that part' of crossfire. Show nested quote +I'm not sure about the double entrance nat, though... it seems like the blinding cloud isn't very effective since the other entrance is so much more appealing already. I concur, that's why I did this: + Show Spoiler +You basically have two defence points a bit further apart, the rocks also now mean you probably want to break them down shortly after taking that fourth.
Yeah, that looks really good.
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Would actual mods be out of the question? There's a mod on TL that lets you stick a BW high-ground advantage (either miss chance or damage reduction) into any map, and I think it still works.
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I'd honestly love HotS to be balanced around a -1 range penalty for firing up to a higher level.
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My favourite idea for high ground advantage . . .
Miss chance applied when shooting at extreme range from below. Functionally a range reduction but with a soft implementation. To explain: when shooting from max range - 1, no penalty. When shooting from max - 1 to max, miss chance increases from 0% to 75% proportional to max - distance. So you can shoot from normal range but with a huge miss chance. This puts the onus on the low ground player to micro their guys into range. If they a-move towards the high ground, they'll form an arc with huge miss chance penalty. Very easy to tune numbers to both emphasize the effect (miss chance zone) while diminish the penalty if needed.
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On January 25 2013 18:52 JOJOsc2news wrote:
I think this is a great idea.
The plea should go towards tournament organizers and Blizzard though. They are reluctant to include these maps into their map pools. I'm hoping that, with the Pro League, organizers will start to be less conservative about their map pools. What does Pro League have to do with it? I think they would be the first ones to experiment with that and could set a good example. They have brought in some new aspects already like the sand animation on one of their maps.
I Agree. However look at the voting here. Overwhelming majority of viewers would be happy to see pro players playing at such maps. If mapmakers make good balanced maps with interesting ground advantage zones, then small local tournaments will pick them up just to attract the viewers. I myself would definitely watch such a tournament. Bigger guys like Pro League will follow eventually.
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On January 30 2013 18:43 Alex1Sun wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 18:52 JOJOsc2news wrote:
I think this is a great idea.
The plea should go towards tournament organizers and Blizzard though. They are reluctant to include these maps into their map pools. I'm hoping that, with the Pro League, organizers will start to be less conservative about their map pools. What does Pro League have to do with it? I think they would be the first ones to experiment with that and could set a good example. They have brought in some new aspects already like the sand animation on one of their maps. I Agree. However look at the voting here. Overwhelming majority of viewers would be happy to see pro players playing at such maps. If mapmakers make good balanced maps with interesting ground advantage zones, then small local tournaments will pick them up just to attract the viewers. I myself would definitely watch such a tournament. Bigger guys like Pro League will follow eventually.
Absolutely. My point was geared towards the phenomenon that a pro player won't simply start playing a map like that if it's not tournament (or even ladder) relevant. That's why the plea should be aimed at tournament organizers to pick up a map like that in order to get the pro players to use it. Another way to sort of ease something like that into the maps that are played regularly would be to have a tournament use an already existing well established map and edit them in a way that they include a small ground advantage zone for example. That's the best way to go about getting players, casters, and viewers to appreciate these ideas. I think it would be great if map makers would create / edit such a map and present it to a larger tournament (preferably a whole group of map makers and map making teams). I don't see any other way for changes like that to ever be implemented into the competitive scene.
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Thanks JOJOsc2news,
I agree with you.
So does anybody here have connections to at least one some small tournament organizer? I'd be happy to watch a tournament with new creative maps even if it does not have top players
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