WBR,
Max (Leader of the "a whole new continent" project Sighisoara)
MAP TESTERS NEEDED NOW!
MAP TESTERS NEEDED NOW!
I have created a christmas map for my Sighisoara project, I need maptesters right away. It is supposed to be quite a challange atleast to play this map. So please send me a PM with your email or just write here if you can test my map within like 1 or 2 days. It is done and have been tested once already. Not by me, and edited after that. PLEASE write me, I am desperate
WBR,
Max (Leader of the "a whole new continent" project Sighisoara)
WBR,
Max (Leader of the "a whole new continent" project Sighisoara)
"By the power of Zelas!"
Err... that timeframe is tight! Perhaps you should have uploaded your map straight away. I'm now just seeing your message, and that's 1 of the 1 or 2 days you want the map tested in already gone, and tomorrow noon UK time is the earliest I can check my email again!
I'll give you my email: RythmnBlues666@aol.com, but it might not be worth much!
I'll give you my email: RythmnBlues666@aol.com, but it might not be worth much!
I know... Yurian is usually the one fixing that... I am only 18 years old and from Sweden so it is hard for me to get 100% accurate language... I have not had any help on this one... 
And yeah you are right. Maybe I should just go for the harder one and let the non super veterans play it on less then impossible?
What is your opinion here? Shall I make the map easier or shall I just let it be?
And yeah you are right. Maybe I should just go for the harder one and let the non super veterans play it on less then impossible?
What is your opinion here? Shall I make the map easier or shall I just let it be?
"By the power of Zelas!"
-
Yurian Stonebow
- Archmage
- Posts: 961
- Joined: 06 Jan 2006
- Location: Vantaa, Finland
-
Yurian Stonebow
- Archmage
- Posts: 961
- Joined: 06 Jan 2006
- Location: Vantaa, Finland
I ran a playtest and just sent a reply to HeroOfPunk. If only I wasn't reliant on the library for my internet, then I could have sent it last night...
The map I got had its tricky bits, but the difficulty tag of 'normal' seems correct to me.
I haven't responded to the English at all (in my response that I just sent HeroOfPunk). If you're talking about that, then yeah, it's not Cambridge English, it's the English of a Swedish bloke. It's got it's charm in that way, though. It's probably the least important thing to adjust, also considering that once you start to adjust it, then it's almost every sentence that needs a bit of work, and with the time pressure here I would rather accept it the way it is.
If you do need a hand with the English language I'm willing to help out, but now's too tight for time. For a later update perhaps.
Merry Christmas!
The map I got had its tricky bits, but the difficulty tag of 'normal' seems correct to me.
I haven't responded to the English at all (in my response that I just sent HeroOfPunk). If you're talking about that, then yeah, it's not Cambridge English, it's the English of a Swedish bloke. It's got it's charm in that way, though. It's probably the least important thing to adjust, also considering that once you start to adjust it, then it's almost every sentence that needs a bit of work, and with the time pressure here I would rather accept it the way it is.
If you do need a hand with the English language I'm willing to help out, but now's too tight for time. For a later update perhaps.
Merry Christmas!
Let me tell you something real quick while you are online, you are not supposed to win by killing the enemy, there has been some sort of bug, it should be deliver the artifact only... So therefor I need to add a town underground with a hero. Allthough he will not build anything or so.. Soif you are still online... Please read this and like... retry it with adding a town underground in the editor so that you can not win in a normal way. If you have the time and if you want to ofcourse 
"By the power of Zelas!"
Here is what the good sir coconut wrote me (have in mind that he did not know it was supposed to be a transport the artifact quest):
had a play-through of your christmas present, finished it in 63 days, had at most an army of just over 20 Champions, 100 Griffins and something like 40 Crusaders and 20 Zealots.
I can't say it's easy or difficult. My game was very dependant on what the AI was doing. It looked tough after the first couple of weeks, with the AI's main hero with several Angels in her pack hovering around my castle and me sitting tight.
I had my break because the AI's main started roaming around way north. By that time I had the Boots of Speed, Expert Pathfinding and the stables. With that kind of speed I fancied looking south, and found Red's castle weakly undefended - an easy take. When I went back north to cover my own castle, Red's main hero, Luna, hadn't reinforced for a while, and was easier to take out than I thought.
I was chasing a couple of Red's lesser heroes when the message came that Red's hero's had abandoned him and that Yurian had won the game.
My speed was crucial, and the fact that Red had gone so far astray.
Okay, a bit more detail about my game, plus opinions:
I had a restart. My first start was at 160%. The first few days I picked up some resources and then on the third day... there's that message and you get everything taken away. I always hate that! Why not leave it up to the player with which resources to start? A player that wants to start with nothing can choose 200%, and players that don't feel comfortable with that can choose something a bit easier. You're taking that choice away from the player with an event like this. Why?
Okay, lots of maps do it, I know, but if I'm testing a map and giving feedback I say these things as well, even if I know that with many maps would give me the same frustration.
Anyway, I ran around with my hero a bit more that first start, but then thought; nah, I now know what the conditions at the start are, I want to try and play well within those conditions, and not pick up goodies for a couple of days only to see them taken away, that's just silly.
So I restarted, at 200%, and decided not to pick anything up the first few days.
The start is then still fairly swift, as you pick up some gold and other resources that are lying around and your castle is getting built up in a reasonable time. The amount of resources lying around is right for this type of start.
Also the guards around the starting castle are right. You can't attack them straight away, you start with nothing after all, but after your initial exploration you have about enought troops gathered to win some mines. Some mines are easy to get, others have to wait a bit longer; the difficulty curve was perfect for me.
It became a bit more squeeky bum time in my game once the areas around my castle were cleared. Luna - the AI's main - was in the neighbourhood and I didn't dare venture further out because of her presence. She could have killed me, Luna, as at that time she had Archangels where I had Zealots.
Red had some other heroes roaming about as well and somewhere halfway I defeated one of them and got some handy artefacts, a metal buckler being the best thing.
There was lots that I never dealt with in this game. I came across several witch hut's that asked for artefacts that I've never seen. Several big stacks I left alone: Wraiths at 22-41, bandits at 7-45, green dragons at 0-12, crystal dragons at 57-30 and probably more. Only after the game in the editor I saw there was a stronghold in the bottom right corner with a complicated looking defense.
Some stacks that I did do: ogre mages at 58-43 and nomads at 45-40, and I was sort of eyeing up the minotaur kings at 31-43. I didn't have great spells; no slow, haste or blind, so I was a bit conservative in what I was willing to take on.
Once I reloaded; I had gone through the monolith-one-way at 50-19 but saw that that was a dead end. I should have used a scout for that, but being stuck with my main there it was reload or restart. I never had any resources for spare as I was building up my castle (but always just enough to build something - well done!), so I wasn't thinking about trying to gather the resources for the quest guard while err... doing nothing. Now I see in the editor the second quest guard is asking for Orrin the knight. Quite difficult, all of that. I prefer some hints if I'm going through a portal, so that I have at least some idea of what to expect and can make some kind of judgment. If I know nothing it's always a complete shot in the dark. You can maybe guess that I'm also not very fond of pandoras boxes! Not that I saw them on this map, but just to make a comparison.
There's a nice humour on the map. Straight away I got the rumour about Santa Claus being real, which you wouldn't think is funny, but somehow it works as funny in this Heroes map!
I noticed no obvious errors in the map. I'm a bit worried about the fact that I left so many stones unturned on this map, and by the fact that speed alone can win you the game. That speed you almost get gifted, while other stuff like quests and what's guarded by some big stacks seems very far out of reach.
I wouldn't start to re-balance the whole thing, though, unless you want it to become a map for christmas next year! It's also personal of course what you want a map to do.
it's certainly a very nice map the way it is and a great christmas present.
Greetings,
Coconut
had a play-through of your christmas present, finished it in 63 days, had at most an army of just over 20 Champions, 100 Griffins and something like 40 Crusaders and 20 Zealots.
I can't say it's easy or difficult. My game was very dependant on what the AI was doing. It looked tough after the first couple of weeks, with the AI's main hero with several Angels in her pack hovering around my castle and me sitting tight.
I had my break because the AI's main started roaming around way north. By that time I had the Boots of Speed, Expert Pathfinding and the stables. With that kind of speed I fancied looking south, and found Red's castle weakly undefended - an easy take. When I went back north to cover my own castle, Red's main hero, Luna, hadn't reinforced for a while, and was easier to take out than I thought.
I was chasing a couple of Red's lesser heroes when the message came that Red's hero's had abandoned him and that Yurian had won the game.
My speed was crucial, and the fact that Red had gone so far astray.
Okay, a bit more detail about my game, plus opinions:
I had a restart. My first start was at 160%. The first few days I picked up some resources and then on the third day... there's that message and you get everything taken away. I always hate that! Why not leave it up to the player with which resources to start? A player that wants to start with nothing can choose 200%, and players that don't feel comfortable with that can choose something a bit easier. You're taking that choice away from the player with an event like this. Why?
Okay, lots of maps do it, I know, but if I'm testing a map and giving feedback I say these things as well, even if I know that with many maps would give me the same frustration.
Anyway, I ran around with my hero a bit more that first start, but then thought; nah, I now know what the conditions at the start are, I want to try and play well within those conditions, and not pick up goodies for a couple of days only to see them taken away, that's just silly.
So I restarted, at 200%, and decided not to pick anything up the first few days.
The start is then still fairly swift, as you pick up some gold and other resources that are lying around and your castle is getting built up in a reasonable time. The amount of resources lying around is right for this type of start.
Also the guards around the starting castle are right. You can't attack them straight away, you start with nothing after all, but after your initial exploration you have about enought troops gathered to win some mines. Some mines are easy to get, others have to wait a bit longer; the difficulty curve was perfect for me.
It became a bit more squeeky bum time in my game once the areas around my castle were cleared. Luna - the AI's main - was in the neighbourhood and I didn't dare venture further out because of her presence. She could have killed me, Luna, as at that time she had Archangels where I had Zealots.
Red had some other heroes roaming about as well and somewhere halfway I defeated one of them and got some handy artefacts, a metal buckler being the best thing.
There was lots that I never dealt with in this game. I came across several witch hut's that asked for artefacts that I've never seen. Several big stacks I left alone: Wraiths at 22-41, bandits at 7-45, green dragons at 0-12, crystal dragons at 57-30 and probably more. Only after the game in the editor I saw there was a stronghold in the bottom right corner with a complicated looking defense.
Some stacks that I did do: ogre mages at 58-43 and nomads at 45-40, and I was sort of eyeing up the minotaur kings at 31-43. I didn't have great spells; no slow, haste or blind, so I was a bit conservative in what I was willing to take on.
Once I reloaded; I had gone through the monolith-one-way at 50-19 but saw that that was a dead end. I should have used a scout for that, but being stuck with my main there it was reload or restart. I never had any resources for spare as I was building up my castle (but always just enough to build something - well done!), so I wasn't thinking about trying to gather the resources for the quest guard while err... doing nothing. Now I see in the editor the second quest guard is asking for Orrin the knight. Quite difficult, all of that. I prefer some hints if I'm going through a portal, so that I have at least some idea of what to expect and can make some kind of judgment. If I know nothing it's always a complete shot in the dark. You can maybe guess that I'm also not very fond of pandoras boxes! Not that I saw them on this map, but just to make a comparison.
There's a nice humour on the map. Straight away I got the rumour about Santa Claus being real, which you wouldn't think is funny, but somehow it works as funny in this Heroes map!
I noticed no obvious errors in the map. I'm a bit worried about the fact that I left so many stones unturned on this map, and by the fact that speed alone can win you the game. That speed you almost get gifted, while other stuff like quests and what's guarded by some big stacks seems very far out of reach.
I wouldn't start to re-balance the whole thing, though, unless you want it to become a map for christmas next year! It's also personal of course what you want a map to do.
it's certainly a very nice map the way it is and a great christmas present.
Greetings,
Coconut
"By the power of Zelas!"
I was just trying to get back to you about that. I had another look at the map in the editor and checked the win condition... Yeah, you do explain it at the beginning, what the win condition is, but I guess it's the nature of the player to try and defeat the enemy.
You do realize now how you can set it up so that it is impossible to win any other way, right?
Have an AI town somewhere inaccessible, with only a oneway portal out. A map I know that does this is 'Hell Bursts', I think it's on one of those Russian sites. The inaccessible AI town(s) there are underground. I suppose it can be on the surface as well, but then you need to make sure that spells like Fly or Dimension Door are out.
In itself it isn't bad that I made that mistake and missed stuff, because of those mistakes we learn, and in the map design this mistake can quite easily be prevented.
A concern I have is that there could be a bit of a boring spell in a game on this map if you've taken the sting out of Red, but you don't have the resources yet to do the rest. That quest guard that only wanted to let me through after offering lots of resources could lead to a boring wait for resources to accumulate, for example. And I don't know which big stacks need to be defeated to perform the other quests, but if that kind of stuff is a lot more difficult than dealing with red then you could have a problem there. To make the big stacks a bit smaller is probably the safer option, to allow the player to make some progress with those quests while still dealing with Red. Perhaps make the Purse of Gold - was that the first bit? - quite easy to get, and remind the player of his goal once he makes that first step.
Red will always be a huge distraction, so the challenge in map design is to keep the player focused on the quests as well.
An example: I just looked at a quest again in the editor. In the north-east corner a quest guard is asking to defeat Enchanters. Those Enchanters are completely somewhere else on the map, and the quest doesn't explain where they are. I never visited this quest guard, as Red kept me too busy and this quest guard is placed in a remote corner, but even if I had visited it, it would be quite hard for me to figure out what I needed to do.
Then I guess most players would find it easier to focus on defeating Red first, after all, if Red takes your castle you're gone, so you have to deal with Red anyway.
Probably my playtest didn't quite go as you hoped, as there seems still some homework to do. I would certainly want to play my part, and I really like the idea of the map, but I'm still feeling the late night I had last night with your map, so it would be to tough for me.
Keep us updated, though!
You do realize now how you can set it up so that it is impossible to win any other way, right?
Have an AI town somewhere inaccessible, with only a oneway portal out. A map I know that does this is 'Hell Bursts', I think it's on one of those Russian sites. The inaccessible AI town(s) there are underground. I suppose it can be on the surface as well, but then you need to make sure that spells like Fly or Dimension Door are out.
In itself it isn't bad that I made that mistake and missed stuff, because of those mistakes we learn, and in the map design this mistake can quite easily be prevented.
A concern I have is that there could be a bit of a boring spell in a game on this map if you've taken the sting out of Red, but you don't have the resources yet to do the rest. That quest guard that only wanted to let me through after offering lots of resources could lead to a boring wait for resources to accumulate, for example. And I don't know which big stacks need to be defeated to perform the other quests, but if that kind of stuff is a lot more difficult than dealing with red then you could have a problem there. To make the big stacks a bit smaller is probably the safer option, to allow the player to make some progress with those quests while still dealing with Red. Perhaps make the Purse of Gold - was that the first bit? - quite easy to get, and remind the player of his goal once he makes that first step.
Red will always be a huge distraction, so the challenge in map design is to keep the player focused on the quests as well.
An example: I just looked at a quest again in the editor. In the north-east corner a quest guard is asking to defeat Enchanters. Those Enchanters are completely somewhere else on the map, and the quest doesn't explain where they are. I never visited this quest guard, as Red kept me too busy and this quest guard is placed in a remote corner, but even if I had visited it, it would be quite hard for me to figure out what I needed to do.
Then I guess most players would find it easier to focus on defeating Red first, after all, if Red takes your castle you're gone, so you have to deal with Red anyway.
Probably my playtest didn't quite go as you hoped, as there seems still some homework to do. I would certainly want to play my part, and I really like the idea of the map, but I'm still feeling the late night I had last night with your map, so it would be to tough for me.
Keep us updated, though!
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