ladder will be relaunched soon with a bonus pool system and prize money for a season
edit 09-07-2016: some pretty cool games from last sunday's tourney casted by jayborino are already up at his youtube channel, check out this sweet series between burny and winter:
if you plan on cashing in, you better go practice some hepta - "/join heptacraft" on battle.net, or look for players in our discord: http://www.heptacraft.com/discord
this week's tournament will require players to random from at least two factions every game, in order to stop filthy semi-pros to stomp everyone using BW zerg tactics
So go to our Discord channel] or channel HeptaCraft on b.net to find opponents, and practice for that dirty esports money :o
original post with outdated information: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + Show Spoiler +
After 5 months of development, HeptaCraft is now basically bug-free and ready for release
HeptaCraft is an extension mod for SC2:LotV, featuring a whooping seven playable factions, ranging from old-school BW-like factions to completely new ones with fresh ideas. It has its own ladder system, and the gameplay is more like BW than StarCraft 2, with longer, more positional battles.
If Blizzard only ever went for Commander 1v1... your Mod is like commander 1v1 0.5... com on Blizzard, a game can make fun without being balanced, you dont need Balance outside of the esport part.
Started out with the infested. I spent a long time understanding how the heck this race worked. Then my opponent attacked me with air, and I had nothing to deal with it.
Next game I played Raiders. Raiders feels like normal terran with a few changes. I got a lot of marines and the medic thingies and got a lot of upgrades. When I attacked my opponent who played the last race (the one that doesn't have any day/night time effects) he had a lot of defense towers and a few hounds etc. He smashed my army with an ability. That push failed hard, but I knew that i had to split my army next time. So I geared up for another push. This time I split my marines like I would do against banelings, and his army just got completely rekt.
The next game I did the same thing, where I got a large bio army, attacked with an upgrade timing and smashed him. My opponent then started arguing to why Raiders were op. I found them to be pretty op too.
The last game I played, I was the last race and he played raiders. He did the same style of push I did, with marines and medics. I had a few zealot thingies, and a few different units. I traded pretty evenly with his push. After that it turned into a macro game, where we both had tons of expansions and tons of fights all over the map. Two things I noticed is that the high templar like unit, which has the AOE lightning spell seems REALLY op against raiders. One of those spells killed every marine he had. This kept happening where I would just murder every bio unit he had with that spell alone. It seems very overpowered.
They also have this capital ship, which reminds me a bit of a battlecruiser without an auto attack. The unit was very expensive, required an upgrade to use its ability. That unit seems to be completely useless. It doesn't kill anything effeciently, it's slow, it doesnt do any damage after it runs out of energy and even the ability itself doesn't so a lot of damage.
Overall I found it very enjoyable. Looking forward to playing it more!
EDIT: Starcraft crashes when I look at my build order history after a game with this mod.
They also have this capital ship, which reminds me a bit of a battlecruiser without an auto attack. The unit was very expensive, required an upgrade to use its ability. That unit seems to be completely useless. It doesn't kill anything effeciently, it's slow, it doesnt do any damage after it runs out of energy and even the ability itself doesn't so a lot of damage.
the covenant frigates - their capital ships - are basically air superiority units, like big valkyries, the tesla cannon is just an added ability that happens to also hit ground, but their main use is vs mass air
Remember, boys, DotA started off as a silly Warcraft 3 mod back in 2002. I'm hoping that Blizzard will use some of the stuff from this mod to make the base game better. Or that this mod will overtake the base game (unlikely, but would be cool).
Too much OP, too hard to balance it out, not much fun at least for me, i rather play LOTV than this mod.I think it is only good for the casual. Btw, i still like the idea of Collosus beam line but i don't like the flame part.
This looks really fun. I hope you keep working on it, as a balanced version of this would be really fun to play (I assume it isn't balanced, but I'm not an expert on this by any means yet). The Covenant are well put together and interesting.
I also think many of the changes, such as keeping casters back in battles, Siege Tanks overkilling targets, ect... are sorely needed in SC2.
Good work.
On May 01 2016 06:17 Eternal Dalek wrote: Remember, boys, DotA started off as a silly Warcraft 3 mod back in 2002. I'm hoping that Blizzard will use some of the stuff from this mod to make the base game better. Or that this mod will overtake the base game (unlikely, but would be cool).
Counterstrike started as a mod for Half-Life too. I feel honored to play have both of those gems from the very beginning.
On May 02 2016 17:04 Cyro wrote: Nice colossus attack
yeah thats one of my favourite changes, and one i suggested on blizz forums for a long time. makes them really strong in certain situations, very positional, and not at all a-movable.
also, friendly fire is hilarious. watching someones own dragoons catch fire is priceless
if you havent played or are unsure about how colossi work in heptacraft:
they can deploy an attack (kinda like a liberator), this makes them immobile and creates an aoe firestorm at a given position. they can maintain that forever, so you can block off ramps (kinda like with force fields)
any unit that is hit by the firestorm catches on fire and gets dealt 100 damage over time
I watched Fenner playing yesterday and sorry, but for me this mod is way to slow. Maybe bronze and silver league players will enjoy this game but I did not come to sc2 to wait - and wait... and wait.
On May 01 2016 10:46 Thinh123456 wrote: Too much OP, too hard to balance it out, not much fun at least for me, i rather play LOTV than this mod.I think it is only good for the casual. Btw, i still like the idea of Collosus beam line but i don't like the flame part.
At this stage the mod is not about balance aka OP stuff, but fun - enjoyment.
On May 02 2016 20:06 watchlulu wrote: I watched Fenner playing yesterday and sorry, but for me this mod is way to slow. Maybe bronze and silver league players will enjoy this game but I did not come to sc2 to wait - and wait... and wait.
It's not my thing.
That's one key difference between this mod and normal LotV: LotV is fun to watch but not necessarily fun to play. This mod is surprisingly fun to play but not that exciting to watch yet (since the meta doesn't even exist yet, and we really don't know what good play looks like).
There's a lot of games that aren't very fun to watch but are fun to play. Sometimes, the fun to play part overpowers the unfun to watch part and makes the game popular even on Twitch (Minecraft comes to mind).
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I like a lot of the ideas in this mod:
1. I like the faster siege toggle upgrade for siege tanks. Instead of a total to 6 seconds to undeploy and redeploy, you can cut it down to 3 seconds. This is close to how flying tanks work right now (siege tanks dropped on the ground can't fire for 2 seconds). This feels a lot better than flying tanks while still achieving a similar purpose (more mobile siege tanks).
2. I also like cloaked dropships, and I feel that the medivac's speed boost should be removed and replaced with a temporary cloaking device. Cloaking lets you get in and out, just like speed boost, but the difference is that if the enemy has detection, you're not getting out, whereas with speed boost, it doesn't matter what they have as you're getting away anyway unless they have overwhelming defenses.
3. Battlecruisers that fire while moving and use both weapons at the same time (like the campaign goliath) are a very good idea. This solves the issue of BCs getting constantly kited without giving them a speed buff that might make them too good. Also, the ability to shoot ground and air at the same time improves their DPS without directly buffing the numbers.
4. The absence of macro mechanics is wonderful. I was on the side of no macro mechanics back in the LotV beta, and the game feels smoother and more comfortable to play.
5. I love the day/night cycle, and I like how it's shorter than DotA's (4 minutes of day/4 minutes of night). Starcraft games are significantly shorter than DotA games, so the standard cycle might not fit well. However, I don't like how you impose penalties on certain races based on the time of day. I would prefer everyone have a unique bonus for day and night. Regardless, having specific bonuses for time of day feels more natural to me, as you can go macro during your faction's weak time and then attack when they're stronger (Raynor's Raiders are slower during the day but faster at night).
6. In general, it seems like you went with a fun to play, easy to learn, and hard to master route.
That's one key difference between this mod and normal LotV: LotV is fun to watch but not necessarily fun to play. This mod is surprisingly fun to play but not that exciting to watch yet (since the meta doesn't even exist yet, and we really don't know what good play looks like).
Waiting while nothing is happening is still not fun when you play.
While talking about the day and night circle. Whenever it happens I experience a hug LAG. Like nothing moving for several seconds. Does that happen to more persons ? Is it because my pc is not fast/good enough?
That's one key difference between this mod and normal LotV: LotV is fun to watch but not necessarily fun to play. This mod is surprisingly fun to play but not that exciting to watch yet (since the meta doesn't even exist yet, and we really don't know what good play looks like).
Waiting while nothing is happening is still not fun when you play.
Chat with the other players, drink coffee, come up with a strategy, micro your scout? There's plenty to do.
That's one key difference between this mod and normal LotV: LotV is fun to watch but not necessarily fun to play. This mod is surprisingly fun to play but not that exciting to watch yet (since the meta doesn't even exist yet, and we really don't know what good play looks like).
Waiting while nothing is happening is still not fun when you play.
Chat with the other players, drink coffee, come up with a strategy, micro your scout? There's plenty to do.
That's one key difference between this mod and normal LotV: LotV is fun to watch but not necessarily fun to play. This mod is surprisingly fun to play but not that exciting to watch yet (since the meta doesn't even exist yet, and we really don't know what good play looks like).
Waiting while nothing is happening is still not fun when you play.
Chat with the other players, drink coffee, come up with a strategy, micro your scout? There's plenty to do.
I wanna say this is sarcasm, but you never know.
not really lol the early and mid game its usually just a lot of sitting with the economic model
That's one key difference between this mod and normal LotV: LotV is fun to watch but not necessarily fun to play. This mod is surprisingly fun to play but not that exciting to watch yet (since the meta doesn't even exist yet, and we really don't know what good play looks like).
Waiting while nothing is happening is still not fun when you play.
Chat with the other players, drink coffee, come up with a strategy, micro your scout? There's plenty to do.
I wanna say this is sarcasm, but you never know.
It's not sarcasm.
Starcraft 2 is a very asocial game because you have no time to socialize with your opponent. The slow start with 6 workers gave normal people time to talk to their opponent and to come up with a strategy and to control their early scout. This 12 worker start throws all that social interaction out the window. The changes to make the game more clicky makes it suicide to try and talk to your opponent at any time.
This is how I see it. We'll have to agree to disagree.
On May 02 2016 20:06 watchlulu wrote: I watched Fenner playing yesterday and sorry, but for me this mod is way to slow. Maybe bronze and silver league players will enjoy this game but I did not come to sc2 to wait - and wait... and wait.
It's not my thing.
yesterdays patch reduced worker build times, speeded up the game a lot
keep in mind it was released 3 days ago after a beta where i 90% of the games were for testing bugs and with two different ppl TT
On May 03 2016 06:31 ThorPool wrote: While talking about the day and night circle. Whenever it happens I experience a hug LAG. Like nothing moving for several seconds. Does that happen to more persons ? Is it because my pc is not fast/good enough?
Other then that: AWESOME MOD !
try reducing the shadow settings in your sc2 gfx settings, that might help. if it does, please report back
Starcraft 2 is a very asocial game because you have no time to socialize with your opponent.
It seems his silver level response was on point if you think its funny to control a scout and chat with your opponent and don't want to spend time microing high skill cap units.
But anyway that is still nonsense. Hearthstone is popular and you can't even chat with your opponent. Noone gives a shit about chatting with random opponents or teammates. It's a terrible expereince in any teamgame.
On May 01 2016 10:46 Thinh123456 wrote: Too much OP, too hard to balance it out, not much fun at least for me, i rather play LOTV than this mod.I think it is only good for the casual. Btw, i still like the idea of Collosus beam line but i don't like the flame part.
I suppose, its good for players who like a more campaign gameplay oriented player vs player. With campaign i mean slow games with big armies where micro, multitasking and so on doesnt matter much.
I hoped one would make a mode like this. I hope blizzard builds in a script where you can control the matchmaking system of arcade or custom games so that a third party ladder isnt needed anymore.
EDIT: I dont mean it in a bad sense. The game has a lot to discover just like the campaign or when you play an rts the first time.
Reading this thread, I have a few things to get off of my chest.
First off, this is amazing. The amount of time and energy you've put into this is amazing! This is mod is basically a new game, you deserve a lot of praise for undertaking this.
I read about HC before and I was wondering if this was on-going. Turns out that it is, so that's great to hear.
Secondly, please take criticism in this thread with a pinch of salt. You put your heart and energy into making this game, you probably shouldn't give too much credence to people who played 1 game without understanding that this isn't Starcraft 2.1, it's HeptaCraft. No one should care if it's slower than SC2, or if it's confusing, etc. It's a new game, treat it as such!
Your number one priority right now would probably be to make it easy for people to find games for each other. That's where your site and discord comes into play.
Anyway, great to see this. I'm going to check it out in more detail when I get home.
I really just want to give you props for going through with this, it's not an easy project.
Edit: By the way, it's about time we get something like this. Starbow was sort of the pioneer of this one, HC continues the awesome trend of having new games thanks to a skilled community.
I think this is some kind of hybrid between Starcraft 2 and RA. Each race needs a new skin to become really distinctive. This game is very good for casual players.
I don't know why people get stuck up on "casual" and "hardcore" labels. If the game is fun, it's fun!
I'd be surprised if this game were balanced right off the bat (no RTS has ever done that anyway), but I'm sure that it's fun.
If you're into competitive play, I'm sure you can hit the ladder and try to hit rank 1. Just do it Age of Empires style and play more than one faction.
i dont get the casual vs hardcore thing either. i think its a hipster like "omg my game is so hard you cant even play it" thing
firstly, as far as gamespeed is concerned, (and speed increased a lot with the worker build time buff yesterday) - but i see the issue. people are used to LotV game start now, HotS would seem impossibly slow at the start as well.
personally i think that starting with so many workers was one of the best decisions blizzard made in lotv, BUT only because the meta was so stale that early game did not matter anymore anyways. if i have to choose if i want LotV's turbo charged game start at the cost of killing all the possible early game strategic options including 1 base play, then i personally think its not worth it
secondly, i think a game should be easy to learn to appeal to many ppl, but have an impossible to reach skill ceiling - so far so mundane.
the thing is - how do you reach that impossibly high skill ceiling? do you do it by rewarding pressing the same buttons over and over, or by rewarding the speed of turning a DECISION into an ACTION.
kinda like inject vs siege a tank - the first one doesnt require thinking, just learning a certain rhythm, the second one needs some thought on were to siege.
i think it comes down to pretty much the same argument that the community had in beta when macro mechanics were removed, and i also think that there are people who prefer performing mechanical tasks to ones who prefer performing a little bit more creative tasks - and i dont mean to say that one is superior to the other, hell, i love repetitive electronic music for example, because the repetitiveness turns it into something medidative.
when blizzard removed macro mechanics in lotv beta, my first impression was "WTF ARE THEY DOING", then i read a very long and well-written post on the tl.net forum why removing macro mechanics was actually a good thing. it convinced me, and i preordered to get the beta, had a blast for one week, played the best games in a long time without macro mechanics, then blizzard turned the game to shit again... and thats when i decided to make a mod.
the thing with sc2 is that armies are too much a-move. heptacraft armies arent a-move, thats why it doesnt need macro mechanics. i daresay that the skill ceiling is actually higher since armies generally consist of more different units. i actually would love to see how someone with 300 apm manages the new colossi, while reaver dropping, for example.
there is GM players on the ladder btw, so if you think its for casuals, go take that number one spot
edit: about being social: a community with ANY other place to meet than the abysmal battle.net chat interface is already inherently more social. discord is pretty cool :o
Man, this looks exciting. Some part of me hopes it gets a big following, gets balanced by the community, and becomes a viable esport... I know, I'm dreaming, but still...
On May 08 2016 20:00 neutralrobot wrote: Man, this looks exciting. Some part of me hopes it gets a big following, gets balanced by the community, and becomes a viable esport... I know, I'm dreaming, but still...
well, go ahead and be part of the community or it wont happen
phenomenal mod. have played ~20-25 games with it so far and i love it! summercloud (i.e., the author) is also VERY responsive to bugs (which are going away quite fast) and general comments in the discord.
nerazim and raiders are my fav, tho infested are growing on me. there's nothing like warping in a warp prism at a proxy pylon and then using said warp prism to warp in immortals into your opponent's production
would be great to see more people in the discord and in-game heptacraft group!
not responsive right now, unexpectedly away for personal matters
but yes i am still commited on both developing this and holding future tourneys, there ll prolly be one in july, even though i doubt i ll have time to play myself
if you plan on cashing in, you better go practice some hepta - "/join heptacraft" on battle.net, or look for players in our discord: http://www.heptacraft.com/discord
this week's tournament will require players to random from at least two factions every game, in order to stop filthy semi-pros to stomp everyone using BW zerg tactics
this week's tournament will require players to random from at least two factions every game, in order to stop filthy semi-pros to stomp everyone using BW zerg tactics
Or maybe the balance/design needs to be improved so lame strats aren't that strong (?)
This last tournament had some truly fun games to spectate. Interestingly enough, the two best (in my opinion) were mirror matchups of the two different Terran subfactions.
some pretty cool games from last sunday's tourney casted by jayborino are already up at his youtube channel, check out this sweet series between burny and winter:
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.heptacraft.com/logosm.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.heptacraft.com/heptacraft/dominion.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.heptacraft.com/heptacraft/raiders.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.heptacraft.com/heptacraft/khala.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.heptacraft.com/heptacraft/nerazim.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.heptacraft.com/heptacraft/swarm.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.heptacraft.com/heptacraft/infested.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.heptacraft.com/heptacraft/covenant.png)
