Warlords and Merchants is now public!

Post Reply
User avatar
Ricky_Honejasi
Xel'naga Solar Moderator
Xel'naga Solar Moderator
Posts: 2011
Joined: Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:50 pm

Re: Warlords and Merchants is now public!

Post by Ricky_Honejasi »

While it would be nice and all to make warlords truly "different", it will be damn hard to do it right. I already have trouble (and time-consuming) just to make new combo units and new elite units and properly ensure they got their buttons (tooltips), upgrades, abilities right and so on.

The other big pitfall is that even if things are quite different, units can end up being "generic" thus giving no real extra incentive over standard melee. That's not even considering balance and such yet.

Considering how it can fail miserably and how much effort would be required to "make it work", I prefer to not do it. I already spent like 110-150 hours just to bring W&M to this point.

As far for future changes for Warlords, short of some changes and having more SC1 units, the Advanced Research merchant might help quite a bit as that would bring some unique and dramatic changes into play.

Unfortunately, the eternal drawback of W&M is that merchants will be always more attractive than warlords. Even if I make warlords shiny and such, it will "stay melee" while merchants are a completely different and original gameplay.

As for making mercenaries ("dumbed down" melee)/swords (single heroes), it could be a nice add-on for W&M although my main worry might be that it would draw even more players off warlords into them. Although the potential benefit might be also that it would cut down the number of merchants (less saturated market) and bring more players into active battle. This option tend to appeal for those that like to fight yet don't want to be "punished" for losing and have less stress about the final outcome.

If I do implement them, it would be only swords (heroes) as mercenaries ("dumbed down" melee) would only draw warlords away with no benefit to the overall play (same relative melee but less "warlords") with the way it is.
User avatar
Alevice
Zerg Drone Masseur
Zerg Drone Masseur
Posts: 373
Joined: Fri Aug 25, 2006 5:51 pm

Re: Warlords and Merchants is now public!

Post by Alevice »

Maybe some more drastic lose conditions for merchants? In my case, I am such a wuss that I would rather have a less crushing blow by playing merch rather than playing warlord and get badly owned.
User avatar
IskatuMesk
Xel'naga World Shaper
Xel'naga World Shaper
Posts: 8328
Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2009 1:40 pm
Location: M͈̙̞͍͞ͅE̹H̨͇̰͈͕͇̫Ì̩̳CO̼̩̤͖͘ జ్ఞ‌ా

Re: Warlords and Merchants is now public!

Post by IskatuMesk »

hey at least you aren't playing standard melee and lose everything you have to stupid shit repeatedly like I always do ^_________^ that's always great fun
User avatar
Ricky_Honejasi
Xel'naga Solar Moderator
Xel'naga Solar Moderator
Posts: 2011
Joined: Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:50 pm

Re: Warlords and Merchants is now public!

Post by Ricky_Honejasi »

Alevice wrote:Maybe some more drastic lose conditions for merchants? In my case, I am such a wuss that I would rather have a less crushing blow by playing merch rather than playing warlord and get badly owned.
I honestly don't see how I can implement a lose condition without it being too annoying or such. If they auto-lose to being under some negative profit score for X time, it kills teching and they would only go units.

For warlords, the only things I can see that I can change (while avoiding any important drawbacks) would be to buff the harvesting rate from 1.5x to 2.0x and greatly buff the Warlord's Defender (example : 2x HP, 1.5x range and 1.5x damage of current values) to encourage players to play more as Warlords.

For the Defender, it would mean it would become 4000 HP, 15 range and 1.5x of whatever considerable damage value it have thus meaning that early rushes are even more dead and it pretty much cover the whole immediate main base. The thing that does worry me is risking to make games longer, perphas it might be solved to keeping its HP to 1500-2000 to allow cheap killing shots against it in mid-game to end-game.

I am not willing to allow much more total resources to be harvestable since I still want to avoid the long games issue that should be now semi-solved by now.

***OTHER W&M STUFF***

I plan to buff the mothership's speed/acceleration to match carriers' so that it becomes more usable in real battles.

***COMPUTER NEWS***
In other news, my computer will take yet another week to be repaired. They got the replacement video card but as they made final tests, the motherboard failed their tests so they ordered a new motherboard which will take time as well. According to techs, my case is one of those hard cases that they get once every 3-4 months. It also doesn't help that when they find out about the next problem, it's always in the worst ordering time (their deliveries arrive at mondays and fridays with a 3 business days delay each time they do a order).

So finally ... if they FINALLY fully fix it, it should be next Friday. They would have changed my video card AND motherboard after that.

However, with such delay and my university semester's end drawing near (homework and exams), odds are I won't have time to do anything really serious about W&M by the time I finally get my main computer.
User avatar
IskatuMesk
Xel'naga World Shaper
Xel'naga World Shaper
Posts: 8328
Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2009 1:40 pm
Location: M͈̙̞͍͞ͅE̹H̨͇̰͈͕͇̫Ì̩̳CO̼̩̤͖͘ జ్ఞ‌ా

Re: Warlords and Merchants is now public!

Post by IskatuMesk »

they are probably buying arbitrary stuff just to charge you more

next they'll tell you is your cpu/ram won't work with the mobo they bought, gotta buy those too
User avatar
Ricky_Honejasi
Xel'naga Solar Moderator
Xel'naga Solar Moderator
Posts: 2011
Joined: Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:50 pm

Re: Warlords and Merchants is now public!

Post by Ricky_Honejasi »

IskatuMesk wrote:they are probably buying arbitrary stuff just to charge you more

next they'll tell you is your cpu/ram won't work with the mobo they bought, gotta buy those too
My main computer is still on extended warranty. So anything they buy/use, they are not supposed to charge as it covers those too. The only thing that they don't cover basically is HD data (which I made my backup of it) which they charge you 160$ CAN + whatever medium to have the backup on.

If they do charge for my changed pieces, then they will beat my earlier record of bad/screwed customer service I had at that other shop.
User avatar
IskatuMesk
Xel'naga World Shaper
Xel'naga World Shaper
Posts: 8328
Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2009 1:40 pm
Location: M͈̙̞͍͞ͅE̹H̨͇̰͈͕͇̫Ì̩̳CO̼̩̤͖͘ జ్ఞ‌ా

Re: Warlords and Merchants is now public!

Post by IskatuMesk »

Well it's something I've heard about quite a lot, though more in regards to stuff like Geek Squad.
User avatar
Ricky_Honejasi
Xel'naga Solar Moderator
Xel'naga Solar Moderator
Posts: 2011
Joined: Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:50 pm

Re: Warlords and Merchants is now public!

Post by Ricky_Honejasi »

IskatuMesk wrote:Well it's something I've heard about quite a lot, though more in regards to stuff like Geek Squad.
Well, at this rate, I fear I have to admit it's Geek Squad poking at my computer. At the time I took my extended warranty, I kind of hoped to avoid the issue I had with Future Shop back then. However, it seems more and more to be a reproduction of it. Seeing more bad experiences about the Geek Squad off the web doesn't help.

Ill probably give them until they change the motherboard since it's about the only logical thing they would have to change from the very beginning. After that, if they tell me there is still something wrong, Ill probably just take the computer back as it would look more and more of a sham to void my warranty and make me pay for the exchanged pieces (that might actually make everything worse).

As far that computer is concerned, I only need it enough functional for my father since I did intended to buy a better computer (that actually have decent FPS in big FFAs for SC2) very soon even if this whole thing didn't happened. Ill obviously NOT buy my next computer at Best Buy. 3 weeks is too long even if they get it 100% right.
User avatar
Krazy
Zerg Creep Colony Landscaper
Zerg Creep Colony Landscaper
Posts: 446
Joined: Sun Nov 30, 2008 1:49 am

Re: Warlords and Merchants is now public!

Post by Krazy »

Ricky_Honejasi wrote: ***OTHER W&M STUFF***

I plan to buff the mothership's speed/acceleration to match carriers' so that it becomes more usable in real battles.
Ricky, Ricky, Ricky... one word: Arbiters.
User avatar
Ricky_Honejasi
Xel'naga Solar Moderator
Xel'naga Solar Moderator
Posts: 2011
Joined: Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:50 pm

Re: Warlords and Merchants is now public!

Post by Ricky_Honejasi »

Krazy wrote:Ricky, Ricky, Ricky... one word: Arbiters.
When ill get to poke SC1 units more from RCX's mod overall. In addition, my laptop takes forever to do most things in the SC2 Editor.

Anyway, here's the upcoming change log :

1) Harvesting resource rate is now 2x instead of 1.5x
2) Warlord's Defender's Range increased from 10 to 15.
3) Warlord's Defender's HP from 2000 to 1500.
4) Mothership's speed/acceleration buffed to Carriers' values.
5) Siege Tank's Crusio Cannon now to latest patch's values.
6) Computers auto-become warlords with basic AI enabled.
NOTE : AI Warlords won't buy off merchants for now.
7) The 4 players public version of W&M now have their left side's minerals better adjusted.
8) Fixed a tip button's incorrect info.

So do tell me if it got improved or got worse after trying a game.
User avatar
RazorclawX
Xel'naga World Shaper
Xel'naga World Shaper
Posts: 2078
Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 7:19 pm

Re: Warlords and Merchants is now public!

Post by RazorclawX »

There isn't an Arbiter in that mod, although all of its abilities are there.
Image
-- Razorclaw X
Creator of Wanderers of Sorceria and Vision of the Future
User avatar
Ricky_Honejasi
Xel'naga Solar Moderator
Xel'naga Solar Moderator
Posts: 2011
Joined: Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:50 pm

Re: Warlords and Merchants is now public!

Post by Ricky_Honejasi »

RazorclawX wrote:There isn't an Arbiter in that mod, although all of its abilities are there.
I had some doubts about it but it was fine either way. Even if there was nothing of an Arbiter, it's essentially a down-scaled Mothership. I could just use the mothership model at like 25-40% model size, reduce the number of recallable units and just plain use vortex with less duration instead of trying to remake static field. However, it's nice that the arbiter's abilities are in your mod.

Although, in my earlier post I pretty much also meant that I would really poke about all SC1 units after I poke your mod again regardless if each individual unit is there or not. To me, there is little point to add a single extra SC1 unit if I am better off to bother myself to put everything in from your mod when I consider everything is fine.

As a side thing, I noticed that Firebats' weapons are considered Splash (concerning Dark Swarm) and not Ranged. Tank's Siege mode is also Splash. So those are extra details that I now know that satisfy me to be more inclined to add them up. I still need to retest the other units although.
User avatar
Alevice
Zerg Drone Masseur
Zerg Drone Masseur
Posts: 373
Joined: Fri Aug 25, 2006 5:51 pm

Re: Warlords and Merchants is now public!

Post by Alevice »

Add them up as in nullifying their splash damage within the dark sawrm? Dark Swarm didnt affect their spalsh damage in sc1 either.
User avatar
Xenon
Zerg Queen's Nest Slave Trainee
Zerg Queen's Nest Slave Trainee
Posts: 771
Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2006 3:29 pm

Re: Warlords and Merchants is now public!

Post by Xenon »

No, but it did make it hit slightly in front of the target so it didn't always do full damage. It could be possible to make the tank's weapon hit like this in sc2 in the case of dark swarm, but doing it for the Colossus would probably require a lot more work considering all the beam-related stuff.
User avatar
Ricky_Honejasi
Xel'naga Solar Moderator
Xel'naga Solar Moderator
Posts: 2011
Joined: Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:50 pm

Re: Warlords and Merchants is now public!

Post by Ricky_Honejasi »

Guess I misexplained myself a bit.

About Dark Swarm, my main concern was avoiding that a race gets heavily screwed due to it. With how Dark Spawn is implented by RCX, it reduces Ranged damage (aka non-melee, non-splash and non-spell) to 0%.

Ultimately, I am not looking to have Dark Swarm 100% loyal to SC1 but at least fairly loyal to it. After more considerations, it seems it will be fine like that.

On top of it, since I did forgot the existence of more units (ex : Colossi) that can pierce through Dark Swarm on top of some of the extra SC1 units, I guess the potential issue of Dark Swarm is now very limited.
Post Reply