Satyr Saturday Replays Week 71 and up

[IskatuMesk]

so what's ridiculous about this game? worth watching?

[Xenon]

It's a game where I exploit a modded map's code oversight and a pretty significant game mechanic oversight to charm things that aren't supposed to be charmed. Here's the map if you're interested.

[IskatuMesk]

I think this is the game HKS was telling me about.

It sounds amazing, I might commentate it.

[Xenon]

It's 2 hours long, you'd have to skip through a lot of stuff.

[IskatuMesk]

what the fuuuuuuu how is it 2 hours long

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Let's just say that Q's abuse managed to drag the game a lot, probably either me or HKS would have ended it and won much sooner otherwise.

Btw, if you do make a commentary video on it, do mention that it's not a release version but more of a testing version that hilarious things managed to happen instead. That will be much closer to the author's wishes based on what I know of him (as in to not flag his map as "bad" especially that he did put quite a good deal effort on it and it's mostly Q that managed to find a big bug).

EDIT : Also note that the replay isn't 100% complete but around 90-95% complete, I eventually left when it was just dragging even more for an obvious end.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Conquering laziness again, Weeks 253 to 257 are up :

http://files.campaigncreations.org/wc/satyrsaturday/Replays.html

[Mucky]

So yeah, I agree with Ricky that an update to TGS may be warranted.

I remember trying to make major changes to TGS, like making the level cap for regular skills be 4 and increasing tower damage. In the end, the game just became very boring to play. So instead of trying to make sweeping changes, I think it's better to just focus on balancing spells.

Spells that I think are overpowered:

Mirror Image - There is basically no counter to this. This spell is obscenely good at distracting armies and absorbing damage, because there is no increased damage on images. In regular melee, this isn't a problem because you're the one controlling the units and wouldn't attack something that is obviously an image. Chain dispel does not work; the only thing you can do is buy shittons of staffs of negation and spam them on images.

Here's the first problem with this counter: Staffs cost gold. Mirror image doesn't. After wasting 150~300 gold to dispel a single wave of images, all the other guy has to do is cast mirror images again and you're back at square one. And they can just regenerate mana at the fountain.

Second problem: Inventory space. A staff of negation has 3 charges. It takes right around 3 uses to be rid of the images, so that's one inventory slot for each usage of mirror image. That's early game. Later on, there will be more images, they will all have more health, and you will probably have less space in your inventory because you wanted a teleport staff and maybe some pendants of mana. Now what? You still have the problems I pointed out in the paragraph above, and this is compounded by the need for more uses of dispel for each wave while having less space to work with. One should see why I don't bother with the staffs at all.

On the other hand, I wouldn't want mirror image to go the direction of "increased damage dealt and damage taken", because then they just become useless from all the AoE spam. I have a couple of ideas on what to do to images, but I'd like others to weigh in on this spell.

Divine Shield - Shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Whatever purpose you have for using Divine Shield, it's probably overpowered. The counters to Divine Shield are also rather polarized; Sleep - inferior for everything else compared to Hex, shuts down Divine Shield (and, as a side-effect, Avatar).

I'm thinking Divine Shield could be turned into a castable AoE. Whatever duration it is right now would be that duration for regular units, and half for heroes. A change like that could potentially backfire, but there's not a whole lot of ways to balance a spell that makes you invincible to everything in the game.

Silence - Holy crap. This thing lasts forever. Take a look at its level 10 duration - 30 seconds on heroes. Thirty seconds. If you're a caster and you get hit by this (which is all too easy thanks to the 1300 range and 500 aoe), you basically can't do shit for a year and a half.

Proposed number change:

Level 1: 15s (7.5s) duration, 200 aoe, 75 mana cost
Levels 2: 8 - +2.5s (1.25s), +25 aoe, +15 mana cost
Level 10: +5s (2.5s), +50 aoe, +30 mana cost
900 range and 15s cooldown across the board.
Final result: 40s (20s) duration, 450 aoe, 225 mana cost. Originally, that was 88s (30s), 500 aoe, 210 mana cost, with 1000 range that scaled up to 1300. Both versions have a 15s cooldown. Still a very strong spell, just knocked down a peg.

Hex - Yep. I love abusing this spell. At level 10, it lasts 6.80 seconds and has a 7.50 cooldown. That's not even a full second between hexes. Its range is pretty wtf at level 10 as well (1000), but not as much as Silence.

Proposed change:

Level 1: 40s (4s) duration, 15s cooldown, 80 mana cost
Levels 2 - 8: -1s cooldown, +5 mana cost
900 range across the board.
Final result: 40s (4s) duration, 6s cooldown, 125 mana cost. So now there's a 2 second gap between hexing, and it lasts shorter in general. The main problem with Hex is that you would never want to cast this on a regular unit, even though at level 10 it lasts 150 seconds on them. You'd rather just AoE everything to death. It also costs 160 mana. This change makes it cheaper, though I still probably wouldn't waste this on regular units. I'm thinking of something like how the Eraser works in Castle Fight; Hex could work on the casted unit and all units of that same type in an area. Basically, give it more usage on non-Heroes, and less on Heroes.

Owl Scout - Take away either its anti-magic shell or its invulnerability AUGH

Mana Burn - 600 mana burned and 600 damage... for 140 mana. Like Divine Shield, I don't know how to nerf this without making it totally useless. I'll get back to this one.

Spells that I think are underpowered:

Holy Light - Damage should work on all Horde units/heroes. Either that, or make it an AoE that only heals.

Death Pact - Should work on all Horde units.

Dark Ritual - Should work on all Horde units.

(Yes, I know these spells are hardcoded but it's easy to make triggered spells that work the same way.)

Summons - In general, summons suck. For Horde, it's because Spellbreakers will jack your shit. For Alliance, it's because Shamans and Spirit Walkers are RELENTLESS with their dispel spam. I think player-controlled summons shouldn't be subject to AI dispels at all.

Infernal - And I'd like to make a special case for the Infernal. The summon itself is decent, one of the better ones in TGS, but the ultimate that summons it is balls. Okay, let's put this in perspective. Level 1 Inferno is 8 lumber. For 500 gold, you can get 1 lumber, so it's safe to assume that the exchange rate for 500 gold is 1 lumber. Level 1 Inferno is 4000 gold. What can you do with 4000 gold? Well, you can get an Acolyte, summon a Ziggurat, then a Demon Gate, then hire an Infernal Juggernaut. That costs 30+150+200+500 gold and 1 lumber. 880 gold + 500 gold for the lumber = 1380 gold. Both options net you with one Infernal, except the second one saves you a spell slot and 2620 gold. Level 1 Inferno should summon 3 Infernals, and each level after that should either summon more of the same or summon 3 of the stronger Infernals.

Phoenix - I dunno, I think this is the same case with the Infernal. Phoenixes are nice, but the ultimate doesn't do enough. The Phoenixes should either be stronger or there should be more of them. Making them stronger would be better I think, like increasing the damage of Phoenix Fire and giving the Phoenixes themselves a barrage-like attack.

Doom - Same case as Infernals/Phoenixes. Not sure how to approach this one.

Forked Lightning - Level 10 costs 290 mana, does 550 damage, and hits SIX UNITS. Shockwave costs 280, does 550 damage, and has a cap of 5500 - in other words, ten units. And it has the benefit of dealing full damage to buildings. Forked Lightning is garbage.

Carrion Swarm - Its damage is fine, but its maximum damage is so low that it'd only damage like 4 units. Another awful AoE spell.

Frost Armor - yo whats up i got armor aw dang it just got stolen by a fucken spellbreaker

Brilliance Aura - Could really use an extra effect, like spell resistance for all units around it.

Unholy Aura - It gives movement speed. Well, so does Endurance Aura, which also gives attack speed. Unholy Aura gives 5 health regen per second at level 10, but really, who cares about that? I propose that it instead reduce armor in an AoE; half of whatever Devotion Aura is sounds fine. This will remove the overlapping roles of Endurance and Unholy Aura, and make Unholy Aura useful in its own right.

---

I'm gonna stop here. I do have more to say - there's a ton of spells that I haven't even touched on. There's also innate hero skills, but I've got other things I need to do, and this should be plenty to mull over for now.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

So here's some of my ideas on the top of my head.

I am not sure if Holy Light can be used on self in TGS. If so, then it can be more than enough to compensate as human heroes start healing themselves for 600-750 in one shot.

For mirror image, I believe it might be possible to add a AoE dispel spell based on the staff as a counter. I presume that having higher summon damage should be a priority rather than AoE range to avoid making the spell too powerful to counter buffs.

For Divine Shield, as odd it might seems, it might be possible to modify more horde spells to affect invulnerable foes. Another possibility might be to make it an ultimate (while keeping the same relative stats) so that it becomes much harder to get.

For Mana Burn, a possibility might be slight increases both in damage and in casting range rather than full decking damage. For example, Lv1 would be 100 mana burned and 500 range while Lv10 would be 325 burned and 900 range.

However, I don't agree with Dark Ritual being underpowered, often for a horde caster build it's the best method to recover mana. Doesn't look like it but get some food max, buy an abonimation or two, ritual on one and you just recovered 1000 mana in one shot. It's often being a critical gain to continue to push the lane as a caster instead of having to teleport back for mana (and losing your lane position).

For summons, I guess they could have a modified Elune's Grace so that they get less damaged by spells (including dispels). Another possibility might be that since dispel spells probably relies on the "Summoned" classification. Thus by trigger, you remove the "Summoned" classification of any player-created summons (except Mirror Image) to make them immune to dispel damage.

For brilliance aura, I am more tempted to prefer higher mana regen. Personally, I tend to only pick it as a way to have more mana as a caster build. I am aware that it also gives mana regen to troops but honestly, it tend to be just a plus in the grand scheme of things. Maybe a balance with both thoughts might be a triggerable extra mana regen only for the hero (like 8-10 mana/sec for hero, 3-5 mana/sec for every other allied unit)

For Unholy aura, give meanful health regeneration (like +10-15 per second at lv10).
EDIT : Nah, similar to my Brilliance aura idea, triggerable extra regen for hero (10 hp/sec for hero, 5 hp/sec for every other ally).

For Frost Armor, I wonder if removing the buff itself of it will still allow the armor bonus/freeze effect while killing the possibility that spellbreakers can jack it off you. Otherwise, maybe modify the buff stealing ability of spellbreakers to prevent stealing buffs of heroes.

[Mucky]

I am not sure if Holy Light can be used on self in TGS. If so, then it can be more than enough to compensate as human heroes start healing themselves for 600-750 in one shot.

Forgot about self-targeting. That would definitely be nice; it's pretty much the main appeal for Healing Wave. Though I would suggest that in addition to working on all Horde units/heroes (or none... it's stupid for it to work on some but not all).

I forgot to add Death Coil. It should be able to heal all Horde units/heroes. It's an okay nuke, but it's also kinda expensive (210 mana) for something that can only nuke a single unit. Perhaps Death Coil could be a candidate for spells that penetrate Divine Shield.

For mirror image, I believe it might be possible to add a AoE dispel spell based on the staff as a counter. I presume that having higher summon damage should be a priority rather than AoE range to avoid making the spell too powerful to counter buffs.

Something like that would also affect summons, which worsens the issue I pointed out with summons.

Here's my idea:
The images divert damage from the real hero. If you've ever played Pokemon, Substitute works like this. Any damage the hero takes is distributed among all active images. Say you have 3 images, and your main hero takes 50 damage. The 3 images will all take 50 damage, and the main hero will be healed by 50, negating the damage dealt to him. Also, if you attack an image, the damage is dealt to all active images, so 50 damage on one is 50 damage on all. Basically, kill one image = kill them all. Higher levels would reduce the damage images take.

However, I don't agree with Dark Ritual being underpowered, often for a horde caster build it's the best method to recover mana. Doesn't look like it but get some food max, buy an abonimation or two, ritual on one and you just recovered 1000 mana in one shot. It's often being a critical gain to continue to push the lane as a caster instead of having to teleport back for mana (and losing your lane position).

I don't buy that. If Abominations are such a great way to restore mana, how come I've never seen anyone use Abominations? They cost 155 gold... essentially a glorified mana potion. Isn't the point of a mana-replenishing skill supposed to be that you don't need to spend your gold? If I had the choice of sacrificing a skill slot + lumber while still needing to spend gold to actually get anything out of it, I think I'll just buy Mana Stones/Pendants of Mana. Right now, the only way to use Dark Ritual without spending gold is to get Carrion Beetles or Black Arrow.

I will say though that Dark Ritual might need a numbers adjustment if it's changed to work on all horde units.

For summons, I guess they could have a modified Elune's Grace so that they get less damaged by spells (including dispels). Another possibility might be that since dispel spells probably relies on the "Summoned" classification. Thus by trigger, you remove the "Summoned" classification of any player-created summons (except Mirror Image) to make them immune to dispel damage.

The second option is a bit clunky, but I guess that works. Another way would be to give "Ancient" to player summons and add "Non-Ancient" to all dispel effects.

For brilliance aura, I am more tempted to prefer higher mana regen. Personally, I tend to only pick it as a way to have more mana as a caster build. I am aware that it also gives mana regen to troops but honestly, it tend to be just a plus in the grand scheme of things. Maybe a balance with both thoughts might be a triggerable extra mana regen only for the hero (like 8-10 mana/sec for hero, 3-5 mana/sec for every other allied unit)

For Unholy aura, give meanful health regeneration (like +10-15 per second at lv10).
EDIT : Nah, similar to my Brilliance aura idea, triggerable extra regen for hero (10 hp/sec for hero, 5 hp/sec for every other ally).

Not a fan of turning passives into psuedo-actives. Temporarily increased regen isn't terribly interesting, and it's something that would most likely be used every time it comes up, without any thought. Like spawn larva.

There's also the problem of clutter on buffs; you would have two Unholy/Brilliance Aura buffs whenever you activated the increased regen. Unless you are clever and have an aura that works only on heroes and an aura that works only on units. Actually, nevermind.

For Frost Armor, I wonder if removing the buff itself of it will still allow the armor bonus/freeze effect while killing the possibility that spellbreakers can jack it off you. Otherwise, maybe modify the buff stealing ability of spellbreakers to prevent stealing buffs of heroes.

Basically, modify "Targets Allowed" in Spell Steal to add "Non-Hero". Easy change.

Also, I just noticed something: Bloodlust only lasts 10 seconds on heroes. Inner Fire has no such discrimination; it lasts 60 seconds on heroes and units. What is up with that?

[Xenon]

As always, you're welcome to make your own changes.

I'm pretty sure setting Spell Steal to "Non-Hero" would just prevent it from stealing buffs off of heroes. (edit: that was what you said. oops.) Are you sure they steal Frost Armor? It has a "Spell Steal Priority" value of 0, as all hero spells seem to have.

Silence changes: okay, as long as the max duration remains longer than the cooldown. It's currently the only way orc has to shut down superblink.

Divine Shield: Making death coil target it won't work; you can make spells target invulnerable units, and some effects will work, but they won't cause damage. It would also require it to work against spell-immune targets anyway. I suggest reworking Divine Shield to give a significant armor bonus and spell damage reduction instead of invulnerability.

Mirror Image: interesting suggestion, but damage detection is a pain in the ass to implement unless you don't care about event leaks.

Also, I use Dark Ritual/Beetles all the time. Making it work on all allied units might require a big cooldown nerf to keep it balanced, and I wouldn't like that

I think I already reworked Unholy Aura to have a significantly higher speed bonus than Endurance (which has less move bonus than attack bonus).

[Mucky]

ok so

• Silence was nerfed to the numbers I proposed (slight differences but whatevs)
• Hex I think was nerfed, don't remember if I did it
• I changed all Priest/Shaman/Spirit Walker dispels to do no damage to summons, and Control Magic shouldn't work on player summons anymore. Let me know if the Ancient classification fucks with any other spells.
• Buffed Inferno and Phoenix. Both spells summon 3 units and get 3 stronger units as they level up.

That's it. I didn't do anything to Holy Light, Death Coil, or Frost Armor.

[Xenon]

Here's my damage distribution code if you care to use it:

Globals:
integer i
hashtable MIs
unit group array MIunits (size 14)
Edit: you have to create a hashtable and set MIs to last created hashtable in map initialization.

Code: Select all

function Trig_Mirror_Image_Create_Conditions takes nothing returns boolean
    return IsUnitIllusion(GetTriggerUnit())
endfunction

function MIDamage takes nothing returns nothing
    call ConditionalTriggerExecute( gg_trg_Mirror_Image_Damage )
endfunction

function Trig_Mirror_Image_Create_Actions takes nothing returns nothing
    local integer i = GetHandleId(GetTriggerUnit())
    local trigger t = CreateTrigger()
    local triggeraction a = TriggerAddAction( t, function MIDamage )
    call TriggerRegisterUnitEvent( t, GetTriggerUnit(), EVENT_UNIT_DAMAGED )
    call SaveTriggerHandle( udg_MIs, i, 0, t )
    call SaveTriggerActionHandle( udg_MIs, i, 1, a )
    call GroupAddUnit( udg_MIunits[GetPlayerId(GetOwningPlayer(GetTriggerUnit()))], GetTriggerUnit() )
    set a = null
    set t = null
endfunction

//===========================================================================
function InitTrig_Mirror_Image_Create takes nothing returns nothing
    set gg_trg_Mirror_Image_Create = CreateTrigger(  )
    call TriggerRegisterEnterRectSimple( gg_trg_Mirror_Image_Create, GetEntireMapRect() )
    call TriggerAddCondition( gg_trg_Mirror_Image_Create, Condition( function Trig_Mirror_Image_Create_Conditions ) )
    call TriggerAddAction( gg_trg_Mirror_Image_Create, function Trig_Mirror_Image_Create_Actions )
endfunction

Code: Select all

Mirror Image Damage
    Events
    Conditions
        (Damage taken) Greater than 0.00
    Actions
        Custom script:   set udg_i = GetPlayerId(GetOwningPlayer(GetTriggerUnit()))
        Game - Display to (All players) the text: (String((Level of Mirror Image for (Triggering unit))))
        Unit Group - Pick every unit in MIunits[i] and do (Actions)
            Loop - Actions
                If (All Conditions are True) then do (Then Actions) else do (Else Actions)
                    If - Conditions
                        (Triggering unit) Not equal to (Picked unit)
                    Then - Actions
                        Unit - Set life of (Picked unit) to ((Life of (Picked unit)) - ((Damage taken) x 0.25))
                    Else - Actions

Code: Select all

function Trig_Mirror_Image_DIE_Conditions takes nothing returns boolean
    return IsUnitIllusion(GetTriggerUnit())
endfunction

function Trig_Mirror_Image_DIE_Actions takes nothing returns nothing
    local integer i = GetHandleId(GetTriggerUnit())
    local trigger t = LoadTriggerHandle( udg_MIs, i, 0 )
    call TriggerRemoveAction(t, LoadTriggerActionHandle( udg_MIs, i, 1 ))
    call DestroyTrigger(t)
    call FlushChildHashtable( udg_MIs, i )
    call GroupRemoveUnit( udg_MIunits[GetPlayerId(GetOwningPlayer(GetTriggerUnit()))], GetTriggerUnit() )
    set t = null
endfunction

//===========================================================================
function InitTrig_Mirror_Image_DIE takes nothing returns nothing
    set gg_trg_Mirror_Image_DIE = CreateTrigger(  )
    call TriggerRegisterAnyUnitEventBJ( gg_trg_Mirror_Image_DIE, EVENT_PLAYER_UNIT_DEATH )
    call TriggerAddCondition( gg_trg_Mirror_Image_DIE, Condition( function Trig_Mirror_Image_DIE_Conditions ) )
    call TriggerAddAction( gg_trg_Mirror_Image_DIE, function Trig_Mirror_Image_DIE_Actions )
endfunction

This only distributes damage between the images themselves, at a fixed rate. Now if you'll excuse me, the submit message window is acting all nuts from this post...

[Mucky]

Edit: you have to create a hashtable and set MIs to last created hashtable in map initialization.

Works fine even without doing this.

I had to recreate the damage function because it's not actually copypastable.

Game - Display to (All players) the text: (String((Level of Mirror Image for (Triggering unit))))

This is returning 0 for some reason. I'm guessing because images don't inherit any spells.

But yeah, the code works. I think I'm going to write my own script, but this gives me something to work with. Thanks, Q.

[Xenon]

The damage distribution works without creating the hashtable, but it leaks. It needs the hashtable to remove the trigger and action.

Sorry, forgot to remove that text message. I was testing whether or not I could determine the level that way, since GetAbilityLevel or whatever will only return 0 or 1 for buffs.