Warlords and Merchants Discussion

[Xenon]

Goliaths can't attack from transports because their attack effects have the "caster is not hidden" validator. (Hellfire Missile persistent effect, twin autocannons damage effect)

Removing the validator shouldn't cause problems in theory, considering the Thor doesn't use them. Banelings use this validator too, but it might be better to leave it there.

[IskatuMesk]

I think that Banelings and Giant Banelings should be able to attack from transports.

[Xenon]

I managed to make the Aegis shield depend on the unit type doing the damage, which surprisingly is much simpler. (updated: effects, behaviors, validators, button, adaptive barrier block actor, adaptive barrier block sound actor) Updated behaviors and effects have Adaptive Barrier in the name.

The only problems are that it can't update the barrier more than once per tick (probably the same as before) and if a unit morphs after attacking it will reference the morphed unit type instead (eg. a viking attacks then takes off, another viking that attacks won't be blocked).

If you decide not to change it, the current version still appears to have the guardian shield damage reduction included accidentally so remove that. If you use this new version, maybe a 33% or so damage reduction would be fine since it's more specific.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Okay, at this point, I have less and less motivation to update W&M to the point that I tend to see either nothing I could do or that I simply don't want to make the changes. Guess poking the same map for quite a long time and b.net 2.0 being a PoS didn't help either.

I am not abandoning W&M since I do intend to at least patch up the worst unbalancing things that will occur over time. For example, the diamondbacks being simply too powerful right now while earlier week, it was the Sniper commandos, etc.

Project-wise, I will probably be much more motivated to poke a battleships map about now. I am not claiming that I will finish it or anything but here's some ideas I currently have in mind (that I might implant or not) :

A) Being able to have various types of ships

By that, I mean various ships that concretely play and feel different. So far from the current SC2 battleships-like maps I saw, your ship more or less play the exact same way with some minor differences (usually ability-wise).

Some main ship types could be the following :
- Scout (finding enemy locations, detector, radar, anti-trader ship)
- Command Ship (Buffer, possibly able to directly control nearby allied AI units)
- Carrier (Heavy focus on interceptors, usually lacks weapons otherwise)
- Trader (Goes at specific spots and returns for various team rewards).
- Support (Healer, possibly able to build fighters/interceptors to send to allies)
- Great Guardian (Ridiculously slow such as 0.20-0.40 speed but have heavily buffed stats or special capacities)
- your usual standard type of ship.
- etc.

B) Sub-types of main types

While there would be main types, I thought of also allow sub-types of the main types to better suit the players' styles. In general, they will have different stats or equipment rather than a full ship change.

For example, the Scout main type could include the following :
- Owl Spy : Best detection/sight. Has high radar. Very high speed. No weapons.
- Shadow Spy : Less detection/sight range but has high cloak levels. No radar. No weapons.
- Assassin : High cloak levels and weapons intended to "First Strike" standard enemy ships. Easy to destroy if detected.
- Trader Bane : High detection and average sight. Has radar. Very high speed. Has weapons intended to quickly destroy enemy traders.

* For the radar aspect, I intend to try to find a way to only allow yourself and allies to see your radar range.

C) Ship customization

While I am not sure how far I would actually go into this but I know I would like to allow to customize your ships in some fashion and keep them in your bank files.

I would like to allow naming the ships although with Blizzard's censorship, I will probably be forced to only have static clean names that you can string them up.

Examples :
- "Great " + "Excalibur " + "II" ("Great Excalibur II" shown in-game)
- "Armaggedon " + "Doomship"
- "Legendary " + "Piebringer" + " XX" (nope won't allow "XXX" directly)

D) Upgrading, Ship death and Replacements

While you play the map, you would start with 2 ships. Your first one will be considered your active ship and the second would be the "upgrading reserve ship". The ships would start at Level 1 thus your 2nd will be upgraded over time with wanted buffs and gains Levels. Your 1st ship can return and swap with your 2nd.

There won't be super quick healing thus if your 1st ship is heavily damaged, you WILL have to swap with your 2nd while the 1st repaired at like 10 hp/sec (and upgraded).

However, the upgrading will be capped by your current team level which the XP is gained over time (and increased more by successful trader attempts). If you are "buff capped", you can create additional reserve ships instead to upgrade them right after their construction.

The big catch is any ship that get destroyed is permanently lost forcing you to pick any reserve ships to continue (in the worst case, wait to build a new one). I do intend to allow low-level ships to be quickly remade.

Better team levels will increase the minimum level of new ships (ex : Lv4 from scratch instead of Lv1 when the average levels are lv12-15) and to upgrade your reserve ship faster.

****EDIT : Forgot to mention that there won't be money thus upgrading costs are pretty much all time-based.

E) Allied "heroes" join in, random chaos also ensues

An idea would be that after some key points of the game, some emulated "AI players" join in and can control lesser ships into battle. While player ships will be clearly better (or at least better used), those AI ships could act to fill the gaps or just add extra support.

An example would be that if all players are offensive ships, said new AI player could be a Trader or a Support ship.

On a side note, I might want to add some random events to avoid the gameplay to be too predictable. You could think the equivalent of the Black Death ship from WC3 battleships controlled by the AI popping out and shooting everyone.

F) Ship Energy and charge abilities

The ships will have much larger banks of energy. However, all ship equipments will deplete energy : weapons, moving around, abilities, etc. If your energy is zero, you lost your ship (similar to having 0 HP).

Fairly linked with it, I might want to allow to "charge" up more powerful ship abilities which expand considerable energy while "charging up" AND "keeping your charge" (upkeep).

For example, you could start charging Yamato Gun in advance and as soon it reaches 25%, you can fire at 25% effectiveness or you could charge 100% over time. Even if you charge it to 100%, you still have the upkeep energy to pay until you cancel or fire it.

With specific buffs, you could charge it to 250-300%. However, you could easily use 25% to 50% of your ship's energy just for that.

A potential split could be the "Energy Conservative" vs "Energy Burster" buffs. The first allowing to charge up normally but costing less energy in charging up and in upkeep. The latter would cost more but would charge up much faster and have a higher % max. You won't be able to have both at once.

Shield recharge (as in 30%-50%, depends on ship and such) is intended to be one of the main chargeup abilities.

G) Different weapons/buffs

More and different types of weapons. Not just having 10-20 weapon levels of the same 1-2 weapons. Possibly weapons that focus on shield damage, others on energy. Some weapons could be better to destroy ships, others to destroy interceptors/fighters, etc.

Engines examples (can be mixed) :
- Solar Sails : External vulnerable sails, much cheaper, decent speed gain but benefit is lost when shot even once until you repair them at the main base. Benefit is disabled while cloaked but regained if uncloaked (but not shot before).
- Standard Engines : Direct move speed gain.
- Afterburners : More move speed on activation (ability) but drains energy much quicker. Not cost-effective on a constant basis.

H) Multiple levels of Cloak/Detection

While I dislike SC2's data editor for many reasons, one thing that is actually possible is to have Multiple Cloaks and Multiple Detections levels. Better cloaks makes the enemy detector's range less effective against it.

Example :
- You have a Lv1 detector. You detect Lv1 Cloak at 10 range, Lv2 at 9 range, etc. Lv8+ at 3 range.
- You have a Lv2 detector. You detect Lv1 Cloak at 11 range, Lv2 at 10 range, etc. Lv9+ at 3 range.
- To prevent too much lameness about it, all detections (detectors or scans) will detect ANY cloaks in an AoE of 3.

Remainder : I won't guarantee any of those aspects nor even a battleships map although that's the ideas I do have about it.

[IskatuMesk]

I can guarantee something for you:

That you will twitch your mustache.

[Xenon]

I hate Bnet 0.2 too, it's impossible to get a good W&M game going. I managed to enter one just as it was picked by Fun or Not, but most of the players left, leaving the usual mass voids IIRC.

My disgust with the censorship etc. along with the lag from 200 triggered projectiles also drains my motivation to try to work on Wahtleships, and the forced Bnet lag makes it kind of pointless for me to pursue recreating Battletanx or Metal Warriors.

[IskatuMesk]

Battle Tanx would have been a real treat if it wasn't for the lag. Yeah. Same reason shooter maps don't work.

[Xenon]

There was a project at sc2mapster to do just that very early during the beta, but it was quickly abandoned.

[IskatuMesk]

Just like most projects for the game. Too bad.

[IskatuMesk]

Something I noticed in a replay EVWeb sent me - 2x/3x terran turrets don't receive the building armor upgrade.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Something I noticed in a replay EVWeb sent me - 2x/3x terran turrets don't receive the building armor upgrade.

Ah dammit, thought I covered that ... ill have to check if I didn't already fixed it at some point.

[RazorclawX]

I hate Bnet 0.2 too, it's impossible to get a good W&M game going. I managed to enter one just as it was picked by Fun or Not, but most of the players left, leaving the usual mass voids IIRC.

My disgust with the censorship etc. along with the lag from 200 triggered projectiles also drains my motivation to try to work on Wahtleships, and the forced Bnet lag makes it kind of pointless for me to pursue recreating Battletanx or Metal Warriors.

There's a lot I don't like about how SC2's implemented it just turned me off to the whole thing.

[Mucky]

6-day late post regarding opinion I already gave at FFS: Diamondbacks are quite reasonable now. While I still think 3.45 movement speed is a little too fast, their decreased damage allows for PFs/Cannons to actually fight back.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Latest Changes :

A) Bunkers and Missile Turrets now properly benefits from the standard +2 Terran armor building upgrade.
B) Elite - Aegis now reduce damage based on last unit type.
C) Can see bought unit quantities of 20+ without a "...".
D) Diamondbacks' speed has been slightly nerfed.

Old Changes :
1) Diamondback's damage vs armored very nerfed.
2) Combo - Bike now stop having lots of destroyed bikes lying around (for reals)
3) Firebats have 2.5 range (from 2) and 0.8 (from 1.4) attack speed.
4) Elite - Medivac Savior stops flagging air units as targets that can be saved.

Extra Notes :
- Diamondback speed is now 3.30 (from 3.45)

- Yes, this version will use Q's second version of the Aegis. The AoE shields are based on unit type (with any type of damage) and the reduction is 30% damage. This is opposed to damage ranges reduction.

- Unwritten, I also added a behavior to 100% nullify damage on merchant workers and buildings in hope that merchant buildings are no longer in red or yellow for odds reasons (probably some AoE that can still hit invulnerable or something).

- Tried to add the feature that if you buy lots of units in 1 quantity that it tries to stack up on the last bought pack if you bought them in quick enough succession. Unfortunately, it caused critical bugs and I didn't want to put lots of time to debug on such a minor feature so I just rerolled back.

[Lavarinth]

And you also untinted all the units? Wait- no?!