Legends of Magic - Aos/Rpg

[Andorious]

Legends of Magic - Aos/RPG

It's a game I had an idea for then decided to make it to a wc3 map untill i have the proper schooling finished, its heavily modified for its wc3 form but still.

It takes place in the land of Bael'Runic where the ever going fight between the sides of good and evil magics rage on. The map includes such famous magi as the witch, warlock, necromancer and druid along with others. Six on each side for now, more added later on a 4v4 team. The concept is different then most aos, thats why I changed the genre.

You start off by picking your hero, then choose from 14 unique-to-hero abilities, six offensive, four passive and four defensive. More may be added before release. Hero stats are different, dividied to health points, damage and mana points, starting at value 1. When you start off you get five stat points to distribute and five per level up.. You build your own hero, there are several builds per hero formulated, or you can just make your own(the builds will be posted later).

The object of the game is somewhat like most but also not, there are four camps varying between what magi are chosen and units spawning from them on two lanes. When a hero party has broken through the defense and reach one of the camps, they are teleported to a scripted boss fight of that magi. The heroes must defeat it and the three others to win, while this is going on the opposite side has a mini game to buff the boss.

One of the most unique aspects is its spell system, it does not use the normal point click boom system of most. Each offensive spell is aimable, has a cast time and can miss. Depending on the hero the cast time ranged on baseline damage spells from 1.5-2.5 seconds, the missle speed and damage also vary, its listing on the hero selection.

Spell system features-

Opposing magics- Each spell type has some sort of rival, water to frost, fire to nature, that sort of things. When two missles collide from rivaling magics, the weak one faulters, only enhancing the strong, increasing its effect. Like lets say a water bolt and fire bolt hit, the water bolt destroys the fire bolt and the water bolt is super heated causing burn damage to the target. etc

Complementing magics- Each spell type like having a foe, has a friend... If two magic types that complement eachother collide, they combine to deal both of the effects and negate both of their weaknesses, unless hit with the combination of their weaknesses. Lets say a water bolt collides in the direction of a lightning bolt, the water bolt takes dominate and keeps its course while the lightning is a part of it.

Battle Scarred Terrain - The terrain in this map is beautiful, but why must it stay that way? Each different spell has some sort of negative effect on the enviroment that can be used for warfare. Like the firemage can light a field on fire, the geomancer does an earthquake too near a mountain and causes a rock slide.

Level ups are also different, every five levels(max level 20 for now) you must complete a small quest to "ascend" to the next level of magic, if you do not you cant level up anymore. Every time you do, you gain a new innate ability and your magic art slowly starts consuming you, showing physical manifestations, such as glowing hands to show your power. At the max level each hero gains a global weather effect, to show the peak of their power. Each global effect is quite powerful but cant be combined, you must wait your turn. such as the pyromancer makes the volcano erupt, the hydromancer makes a rain storm that almost floods everything etc.

Pets - In this only a couple heroes have the ability to summon pet like minions, but they have their own system for being useful. Every 2 points in health points they gain 10 hp, every 2 in damage they gain 1 and every 8 in mana points they gain 1 armor.

Items - The items will be somwhat simple, mainly revolving around the abilities of the player, but there will be no healers in this game only potions, at least for now. Some items will have plus to stats or to magic damage but beyond that.

Is this idea too complicated for most players to pick up and play? Or is it just unique? Screenshots to come soon

[Drain_Pipe]

some of the ideas are nice, but trying to trigger that would be a bitch, any way you look at it. You'd need a very complex library to take into account all the different effects. Still, I like the idea of combining magics.

[Andorious]

Yeah it is quite complicated but quite possible, Ive already been working on the triggering for it. It's simple once I actually figured out how to do it all. Now Its a mere task of duplicating it many times. I'm just wondering if all the different features in it would be too complex for some gamers to play and would ultimately make it unappealing to most.

[Drain_Pipe]

you need a balance is all. Not too much stuff to make it a chore to play, yet enough interesting and intuitive things to draw people in. For example, custom spells that are simple but unique and different from regular spells (ex blade barrier) draw people in because it's different, or it looks different or it does something different, regardless of how non complex it is.

I could see a learning curve for this map and a lot of "wtf my missile did nothing to him " "water beats fire, nub" "player X leaves...."

[Drain_Pipe]

...

[Andorious]

True, I had a vision for how certain magiks combat others for defense of allies as well, seeing as theres no healers one could fling a water bolt in front of a fireball about to kill an ally. It could be annoying... But would be harder to master. The biggest learning curve I think would be the boss fights I'm scripting, requires coordination.. Kind of an easier impossible bosses.

I could see how this could be... Aggrevating and the idea of every five levels an ascendancy quest to be able to level more, is cool in the eyes of a developer, but annoying in the eyes of a player. Probably should negate that for now.

[boogieman]

Sound pretty cool, when you get a working version going I'll be happy to help test it for bugs/balance ect.

[Andorious]

For sure I'll put you on the list for testers! Another little feature I came up with is the "familers". The creeps as you will that are generated to go down the lane fom each magi, how you build your hero stat wise depends how strong your familers are much like if you had pets and only yours not the other types those are all depending on the others. Put points in damage their damage goes up, health points their health goes up and mana points their armor goes up and so on. Adding another little feature, the normal creep generation is far too boring and generic for me. In most aos's they are far too weak late game and even their attacks and of pets are dodgable(i.e move out of the way) though its difficult.

Giving them more purpose then mere farming fodder.

[Drain_Pipe]

adding attributes to the pets is quite an interesting idea. And for the most part, you can even make it look and feel quite natural.

[erwtenpeller]

One of the most unique aspects is its spell system, it does not use the normal point click boom system of most. Each offensive spell is aimable, has a cast time and can miss. Depending on the hero the cast time ranged on baseline damage spells from 1.5-2.5 seconds, the missle speed and damage also vary, its listing on the hero selection.

This doesnt work as well as you may think, and certainly isnt as fun as you may think.

[Kaz]

Champions of durance or whatever already does it but yeah, it's very lag dependent. With listchecker I guess it should be fine

[Andorious]

Well the cast times were severely reduced, far too long before, now the max is maybe 1.0.. I know it is lag dependant but alot of things that will be in this require the user to have some kind of decent computer to deal with some of the effects and well internet, they shouldnt be playing bnet if that sucks >.<.

Im attempting to make a map that is a bit more skill dependant then luck or good items, perhaps ill fail but at least ill try to make something unique ya know.

[Kaz]

Well it's not really unique because as mentioned other maps have done it already a couple of years ago. There's nothing wrong with making a map required more out of the player but you have to work with the game, not against it. The interface and netcode of war3 aren't very adequate for reflex and timing-based gameplay.

[Iam2good4u2c]

The interface and netcode of war3 aren't very adequate for reflex and timing-based gameplay.

What's this mean? What about warlocks? Thats kinda reflexy. And timing-based.

[Fledermaus]

I know it is lag dependant but alot of things that will be in this require the user to have some kind of decent computer to deal with some of the effects and well internet, they shouldnt be playing bnet if that sucks >.<.

Sometimes it's blizzards (bnets) fault, not the users..

[Kaz]

It's a RTS interface and units are still slow to react even when you're playing single player.

[Andorious]

Very true I'm attempting to find ways to compensate for said delays, if it works sweet, there are maps out there using this sort of things for a couple spells but not the entire gameplay... Perhaps unique was a bad choice of words, not seen everyday. I've designed a few other maps that were cool to me but just seem like every other map out there so i scrapped them, but perhaps im a perfectionist and my own worst critic. You have valid points Kaz but I can attempt to work around them.

Ill try to make it work if not bleh.. It will end up like those a few years ago that youve talked about.

On a side note I'll some screen shots this weekend for it, once the terrain is up to my standards, seems to be my biggest hang up... Have alot more of it done but the terrain doesnt quite cut it for my tastes... Maybe its the wc3 graphics engine thats bugging me, not as capable as i wish it were.

[erwtenpeller]

Im attempting to make a map that is a bit more skill dependant then luck or good items, perhaps ill fail but at least ill try to make something unique ya know.

If you want to make things more "skill dependant" you have to work with the "skills" that the engine was build to support, such as micro and macro management of multiple units and combining certain commands in the right way.

Making things depend on reflexes and aiming ability, the engine just wasnt build to support that kind of skill. If you want to make a game depending on that, i'd suggest you look for a shooter or other kind of action-orientated game to mod.

[Andorious]

I fully understand your points, but it has been done before slightly successful. A more basic example is archery tactics, it uses a much more basic form of such and it seems to work decently. It isnt as complex as my brain storms but works. Through my testing I have eliminated cast times since the delays in reaction function as such, beyond small cast times on global effects.

It could work, maybe not as successful as I had hoped but it may. You may think I'm stubbourn but, I'm persistant. I'll see how it plays out and you can see my success or failure, wether its the latter or not... The workings may be too complex for most so it may not be the most popular but we'll see. If it doesnt work I'll at least finish it.

I've recently tried that durance map kaz talked about, it's similer sort of but not really, not the same combat spell system its actually quite different. But i had no idea of its existance untill now. My concept may not be entirely unique, but the combat system is, actually quite a few things about it are.

[Drain_Pipe]

Simple fixe, make sure all the abilities have a decent AoE, or a shotgun/cone effect in which case you usually hit the enemy. the counter, have missiles counter eachother, which you are already doing.

you could also add a smart track homing system so that spells home within a certain range and deviate a certain amount, up to a maximum. Those are doable and they could compensate for the delay, though timing would still be an issue....

[Andorious]

True, I plan on fiddling around with a slight homing and all missles have at least a unit and a half aoe. In fact I'm making each magi having a variance in missle stats. Such as faster magic mages have a smaller aoe and lower damage or what not. Each have a variety of spell effects and passives. The magi include

Light magic - speed - width - damage - magic type

Shaman - 5/5 1/5 3/5 Lightning
Geomancer - 1/5 4/5 4/5 Earth
Hydromancer - 3/5 3/5 3/5 Water
Druid - 4/5 3/5 2/5 Nature
Aeromancer - 4/5 2/5 3/5 Wind
Lunar Mage - 2/5 2/5 5/5 Moon

Dark Magic - speed - width - damage - magic type

Frozen Disciple - 2/5 5/5 2/5 Ice
Necromancer - 3/5 2/5 4/5 Plague
Poisonmancer - 3/5 3/5 3/5 Poison
Pyromancer - 2/5 2/5 5/5 Fire
Witch - 4/5 3/5 2/5 Witchcraft
Warlock - 4/5 2/5 3/5 Shadow

The stats are subject to change but those are it for now, more will be added with newer versions.

[Iam2good4u2c]

Sorry, but what does the width factor mean?

[Fledermaus]

AoE

[erwtenpeller]

You seem to have some proper design philosphies behind this, in contrast to other mappers i know that wanted to attempt this *coughvilecough*
At least you kinda know what you're doing, you could make this work.
Whats the point of mentioning magic types though? Those where pretty obvious with class names like "Aeromancer" -.-

[Cassiel]

Don't forget the gynomancer.