Map Changes @ Madhatters

I just talked to Madhatters about fixing a new map. Please show your support in this thread!

Here are some core suggestions that most of the Euro community support and that will dramatically change the map for the better:

- Both teams to have a default 20min when playing Versus.
- Remove bombers' ability to block - set them at 50 gold as a tree killing mechanism.
- Do something about Iron golems - marginally lower speed/range.
- Lower strength and beam costs (You've already done this I think?)
- Golem at 70 gold (You've already done this I think?)
- Fix cloak bugs etc (You've already done this I think?)
- Add cost to tiny farm to nerf abuse (You've already done this I think?)
- Fix so pressing Z doesn't disable invis + readd invis to portable shop

- Remove sentry farm entirely.
- Keep invis with same stats as in current Revo map.
- Add a stack farm @ 10 gold with the following conditions
1. Cannot be built in the middle whatsoever
2. Cannot be built near wolves (i.e. give wolves a 100 range disabler aura)
3. Can be built near invis wolves + golems.

This will need some tweaking but the idea is to use the stack farm as a skillful counter to invis and golems whilst simultaneous dislodging any concerns that stacks disable isolations.

Many of these suggestions have been discussed extensively on battle.net and our forums and I'm confident that most of the European community will support these changes - or are at least willing to try them out. If we have a mapmaker that updates the map more than once a year we don't need to worry as much about changes messing things up, we can be more open-minded and actually set concepts in motion!

All of these proposed changes are based on the criteria of mastery. That is - that the more skill the map requires the more fun, competitive, and long-lasting it will be. An example of this is the case of the sentry farm - building sentry farms all over the map to reveal invis wolves takes absolutely no skill whatsoever, slows the game down, and is a boring mindless task - whereas using stacks to counter invis wolves gives skilled players a means to keep massing farms whilst skillfully using stacks to avoid invisers.

The major current concerns of the map have to do with probabilistic assessments. Expanding is today TOO risky because of invis and every time you mass fast you are making a probabilistic assessment as to whether a wolf might be there or not rather than relying on your skill to survive. The same case applies to golems - with wolves, iron golems with inventory slows etc - players are forced to make probabilistic assessments pertaining to whether they might get golemed or not. Tiny farms don't do the trick here. Probabilistic assessment is the opposite of skill and we need to get rid of it as much as possible.

People like Drewisfat and Chakra & Gosusheep have ruined this community for years by not updating the map and not listening to concerns. This is a HUGE opportunity to better this community and to get some fresh(-.-) ideas into an ARCHAIC map. If we get these changes implemented into a playable map I honestly believe that not a single relevant person on Europe will continue playing the current revo map.

If you support trying out all or some parts of these changes I suggest you leave your support in this thread. We can debate changes all year long and not get anywhere - or we compromise and finally try some new stuff out. These changes reflect, in part, all our wills and doesn't ignore anyone's concerns.

I support everything except readding invis. Let it stay removed.

We have a new mapmaker? Since when lol?

Anyways, these ideas all seem good. We have to make the stack farm disable aura on wolves extremely small tho, just as big as it cover the wolves size, nothing more. It also need to have a faster destroy time than the old anti-stack thing so that you cant jump a wolf with the stack.

Also we need to make it so that clicking z to see scoreboard won't disable invis. Otherwise wolves will just click z when they come into true sight range and bang, stack becomes completely useless.

Yeah nice. I added that to the list.

If u keep it to this changes I am willing to try it out.

If you (Sidey) takes a role a god and start bumping the terrain and remove zoom etc etc i will keep hosting normal revo, FOR SURE!
CYa

who said stacks???? SUPPORT POST!

invis definitelly has to stay. reintroducing stackers is contingent on the invispotion being in the map. it makes no sense to be for the stacks changes without also accepting the invis. this is going to be the main difference between chakramap and madhatters map. this is going to be GUUD!

- Both teams to have a default 20min when playing Versus.
I agree and will do this soon.

- Remove bombers' ability to block - set them at 50 gold as a tree killing mechanism.
Pretty split on this one, I like that bomber is an item that requires a lot of skill to use successfully, but I am not crazy about it being specifically used to hurt RTers.

- Do something about Iron golems - marginally lower speed/range.
I personally think iron golems are good as is, and definitely dont agree with changing the range(range should remain constant between all killing units)

- Lower strength and beam costs (You've already done this I think?)
I agree, but can we get more specific on the price?

- Golem at 70 gold (You've already done this I think?)
- Fix cloak bugs etc (You've already done this I think?)
Done.

- Add cost to tiny farm to nerf abuse (You've already done this I think?)
Currently I have tiny farm at 0 gold and awarding 4 bounty. Are you suggesting changing it to 1 gold and 1 bounty or what?

- Fix so pressing Z doesn't disable invis + readd invis to portable shop
I don't want to readd invis until it is balanced. A possible suggestion is reducing the duration to 15 seconds for obvious reasons or readding stacks, but as I say below, I don't want to make any changes as drastic as adding stacks just yet and am not convinced that stacks are the way to go.

- Remove sentry farm entirely.
- Add a stack farm @ 10 gold with the following conditions
1. Cannot be built in the middle whatsoever
2. Cannot be built near wolves (i.e. give wolves a 100 range disabler aura)
3. Can be built near invis wolves + golems.
Definitely don't want to make drastic changes such as this until my map has been established as the map to be played.

As of now I have a first version of revolution with the following changes:

>Removed Invis Potion
>Tiny Farn bounty raised to 4
>-Auto x (continuously restarts the game with the same settings and -smart x) added
>-FAFK (force afk) added
>All known bugs fixed(probably replaced with new bugs but meh)
>No doubt missing a few unimportant commands from revo
>Claws of attack +30(74/90 gold)
>-Buy 2c(143 gold)
>Claws icons
>Replaced red fence lightning(visual effect only... unimportant)
>AFK players now get +1 sc on the first game they afk, and every other game after that
>Drastically reduced APR required to not be set afk
>Beam replaced invis in quick shop
>Gem cost reduced to 40/56 gold

http://www.epicwar.com/maps/191147/

i dont see any problem with adding these ''drastic changes''. you can remove them if they turn out to be bad or that ''stacks are not the way to go''. whats the problem with letting people try it out? and im not sure whether you understand the stack suggestion. the stacks will be disabled from EVERY sort of use apart from countering invis. this way everyone is happy. stack-supporters get a small piece of the cake. invis supporters get to keep invis. anti-stackers are happy since the stack isnt applicable in any important situations(which was one of the reasons they argued to remove it, because it ''pushed'' wolfes when the sheep should have died). and anti-invissers no longer have to die - if they are skilled. ALL ARE HAPPY XD!!!!




this has slowed st progress so much with people being overly skeptical to every change and wanting to debate for 4 months before anything gets done(usually nothing gets done in fear of ruining the game we've currently built). you dont have to test every change anyone suggests, but when there is such a big support behind an idea, whats the problem with testing it? maybe you are wrong that its not the way to go? worst scenario is that you'll have to remove it again..

The change is drastic because just by saying stacks are in the game I would be willing to bet that 50% of the community wouldn't even try it. Stacks cannot be added until I have atleast most of the community supporting the map.

I am a bit unclear as to how the disabling of stacks would work... would it immediately cancel the order of a sheep who tried to build near a shepard/in the middle, or do you want it actually removed from the build menu whenever a shepard comes near/sheep enters middle? There are flaws with both of these methods.

~!_!~ Yeeeeeeeee Madhatters ~!_!~

What's the rationale for not keeping bounty somewhat proportional to farm cost. I've long been saying tiny farms should not be free, but just raising the bounty insanely high (to 4 gold) is a really really indirect way of discouraging their overuse.

Also would be nice to have a timer to "beat" the other team and then perhaps a "bonus" timer popup with whatever time is left from the 20. Just having team 2s timer count down from 20 would diminish what time they're supposed to achieve for a victory.

Iron golems are some seriously misunderstood creatures. It's one thing if you believe they should be slower than shepherds, but I think some people believe they are faster than shepherds, which is just false. Go open a map. Go summon an iron golem. Go race your units. Easy enough to test. The range/speed issues are really just issues of the different animation.

Another change I think should be non-controversial is making strong farms not be killed by strength beam in one hit. (And lowering the price of the farm as well now that people aren't convince it's imba city). This is especially an important edit with str beam price decreasing. The point of str beam was to increase isolations but instead its main purpose is to make it so tanking at the end of a game is completely worthless.

Also why did you add more intermediate claws? People have recommended this before but it never made much sense to me, with only 3 hits, 2 hits, and 1 hit possibilities ( + aura ) wouldn't more intermediate claws just be fluff?

its essential that the disabling of stack isnt like the old anti-stack, so that u can actually use the stack to jump, only to have the stack-farm destroyed 0.5 sec later.

i dont think its important how you do it, just make sure that the conditions are being met: stacks cant be built anywhere except on invis. a possible way to make this happend is similar to the ''burry farm'' or ''ground farm'' or whatever on 1way, where sheeps can walk over it, but it blocks wolfs. basically everyone, wolfs and sheeps, can walk through the stack if its built anywhere on the map. it doesn't block shit, nor does it make ppl jump. however, when an invis wolf is near, it triggers the farm to become a blockable/solid stackfarm.



anyway, you removed the invis. why isn't this a drastic change? how is this different? obviously there will always be two opposing sides when discussing drastic changes. you can have them debate over it for years and never agree(like we have so far), or you can just make a version and test the ideas out. most sheeptaggers are more open-minded/willing to change their position when they try the new map than from debates.

I think the versus timer should be set to the max after the round because if the better team goes first, the worse team has to sit through a full game of wolfing, but if the worse team goes first they only have to wolf as long as the better team did. Reseting the timer rewards the better team and makes the possible time not based on the luck of getting sheep first or second.

As for the strength items, here are my thoughts:
Change strength potion to 35/49(or anything close) gold and make it 1 hit any farm.
Change strength beam to 60/84 (or anything close) gold and make it deal a maximum damage of 480. This would cause it to be able to kill 2 upgraded farms, 4 regular(though i dont think this can be realistically done), 1 strong and 1 regular etc, but only deal partial damage to a second strong farm or a upgraded farm after a strong farm.

Who says adding fluff to the game is a bad thing? And it also allows wolves to get 2 hit completely from the shop without buying a c60 and a way to get 2 hit from 2 item slots.

This was in response to Drew.

In response to chiefhero...

I will have to test this, but if the farm can make sheep jump i think it will always push shepherds a little.

Removing the invis potion was probably a bit drastic, but no other item in the game could completely cripple a wolf team or get a kill like the invis potion, especially in international host. I will probably work on a stack/invis trial this week.

You know, before I saw this I thought I was gonna oppose this "re-add stack blabla" but many ideas seems sane and good, especially that both teams gets to play 20 minutes, but make SURE that theres some sort of acknowledgement in the map such as "Team 1 made X.X, Team 2 made X.X Team 1 won by X.X minutes congratulations!" (similar to how the Sheep Tag Battle map works I think?) This to make sure that there is no painful long discussions (that greatly reduces the fun and the incentive to play your best) after each game "no we won u didnt make 4 minutes"

Here's my problem and some questions regarding invis and stack, now I haven't played that much with stack so I have to ask is stack REALLY a reliable way to counter invis? Now, I get that it might be a way to counter invis if you are a very good player who play in a 0-delay host and you have fast reflexes, but what about international games? Will I be able to counter invis wolf with stack when I play in useast host with 100ms?

Perhaps true sight should be increased slightly so that we atleast have the ABILITY to avoid invis, right now the only method to avoid invis is to avoid getting bored and safemass, while stack perhaps would help its doubtful that you would be able to build it in time in international games or if you have a slight delay?

i dont think you would or should be able to counter the invis with stacks in delay. the point is not to make the invis useless through stacks, but so that players with good reflexes and good delay(as you said) can survive. players that lack reflexes will have to mass a little slower. this results in players with certain skillsets(in this case, reflexes and farm placement accuracy) lasting longer/dying less, and winning more. this is EXACTLY what we want. we dont want people with 1 sec delay or bad reflexes to be able to counter the invis, then you might as well just remove the item.

stack is a possible counter to invis, but not a definite one. and thats the good part. you CAN counter the invis with it, but its not a given that you avoid dying just because u know how to press b+s. this way both teams get something out of the deal: wolfs can still kill sheep by being unpredictable, having good timing and knowing when/who to snipe, and sheep can actually counter this if they are good.

Mad, I just want to make sure team 2 still knows what time team 1 got when they're playing is all I'm saying. People = get upset when they own and then get like a 2 minute sheep round.
What I'm saying is if it's say a 12 minute 23 second game, don't simply give the second team a 20 minute timer and have them "remember" it was a 12 minute 23 second game to beat. That will somewhat ruin the competitive nature of the versus round as well.

I want there to be some indication in round of what the time to beat is. This seems obvious and I'm sure everyone agrees, I just don't want it to get mixed up.

Those prices sound ok. Ultimately a price scheme with str pot / beam is awkward because they really do belong as abilities, but that is for another version.

I still don't quite get what you mean with the first farm / 2nd farm thing. Why does the ability do more damage to the first farm then the second farm it hits? And if it does, is this inherent or can we fix it? I would like it not to. I don't want to speak for everyone, but I did talk to a few people on bnet and it seemed unanimous, even with big time beam supporters like shoop that it shouldn't kill strong farm even the first one, in one hit.

And I define fluff as inherently bad stuff added to the map just to take up space. Current example of fluff is the sentry farm which has no point except to waste gold for people that think it has a point. Its true sight range should either be increased, or if invis is removed, it should be removed. There are already 4 ways of getting to 2 hits with just claws, and -buy 4c stands out as the slightly better option like 95% of the time in big games. It seems silly to me to add a couple more items just to add a couple other nearly identical routes.


Also crazy idea #drew22
What if we DIDNT fix the cloak bug, and we just raised the price of cloak by 20? It gives a purpose to late game illusions and mana pots! (Without having them like actually kill sheep or something really iffy).

Also LoLz amir are you serious with that invis + stack aura #1 + antistack aura #2 monstrosity or are you just trolling, hoping he messes up and adds back stacks ^^ I really hope it's the 2nd otherwise I sort of lose some respect for you

Quote :

invis + stack aura #1 + antistack aura #2

what?

What if in the timer window for the versus i put the time to beat and started the timer at 20 minutes. Would that satisfy everyone?

As for the strength beam, it would do at most 480 damage. If it hit a strong farm, it would kill the farm and be able to do 120 more damage, preventing it from killing any other farm with more than 120 health. Basically, this would prevent the beam from killing two strong farms, but not prevent it from killing two upgrades or two normal farms. I don't understand what you mean by "fix this" it was a suggestion that I thought would balance the item, its not a bug.

Considering the +30 claws, I see what you mean about there not being much point to it, but a few people do like having it there and it certainly isnt harming the map.

I would rather decrease the price of cloaks or make each cloak deal 20 damage than allow images to deal damage with them and tbh I don't know how the old map managed to break the cloaks like that, but I could probably figure it out if we wanted. Also, even with the bug I still very rarely see people using cloaks and raising the price would discourage using them even more.


Also, in response to stacks, how much would i get shit on if i made a trial map with stacks being instantly removed if there wasnt an invisible wolf within say 600 range? Im guessing a good amount.

I got bored and made something...
Pro-Stack Aura!

What it does: A unit that has X ability (and is NOT on Y terrain) enables stacks to be built around it (in what I have, a 32x32 grid).

32x32 is relative to four cubed hard farms (that is, the area is four times as large as a hard farm). The area is so big simply because you must realize that the radius is what we are worrying about--something that will equal a hard farm in this case. Secondly, because my method sucks so bad (it could be dramatically improved), there is a .1 delay to how fast the enabler encroaches (I could turn to make it handle 0.0000001, but fuck that). Either way, running test, 32x32 seems fine (it can be turned into somewhat of a circle if someone wanted to bother.


Technical mombojumbo:
What it really does is create a "unit" every .1 seconds on a specific unit that has X ability (Ie, invis buff) and is not on Y terrain (not rock). This "unit" is a structure with a custom pathing map that simply BLOCKS air units in a 32x32 grid. The unit then dies and is removed after .11 seconds (makes it continuous).
Note: This may disrupt unit movements if they are classified as air (sheep in ReVo, probably your version too, Madhatters). I honestly don't get why they are classified as air. A fix would be to obviously change it. -_-

Here is the code:

Code:

function isShep takes nothing returns boolean
    return GetUnitTypeId(GetFilterUnit()) == 'hfoo'
endfunction

function enableStackTick takes nothing returns nothing
    local group g = CreateGroup()
    local unit u
    call GroupEnumUnitsInRect(g, GetWorldBounds(), function isShep)
    loop
        set u = FirstOfGroup(g)
        exitwhen u == null
        if GetUnitAbilityLevel(u, 'Aloc') and GetTerrainType(GetUniX(u), GetUnitY(u)) != 'Xyxt' then
            call UnitApplyTimedLife(CreateUnit(Player(15), 'halt', GetUnitX(u), GetUnitY(u), 270), 'BTLF', .11)
        endif
        call GroupRemoveUnit(g, u)
        set u = null
    endloop
endfunction

//===========================================================================
function InitTrig_enableStack takes nothing returns nothing
    local trigger t = CreateTrigger()
    call TriggerRegisterTimerEvent(t, .1, true)
    call TriggerAddAction(t, function enableStackTick)
endfunction

Where:
hfoo = the shepherd type
Aloc = the invis buff
Xyzt = the terrain type of stone in de middle
halt = the structure that is dynamically created

The 32x32green.tga must be imported.
http://www.mediafire.com/?2b6847x2das47ep
'halt' is any structure. All I did was set the model path to " " (ie, nothing), texture to nothing, and pathing to 32x32green.tga

And the stack farm must be set to
Placement Prevented By: Air-pathable
Placement Requires: (none)



And BAM! You have stack-enabling aura on invisible shepherds.

NOTE!~!: This will fuck up the pen when shepherds are CLOSE but not ON (ie, they can make stacks on the border if shepherd is just outside pen).

I would provide a video but Xfire refuses to work and CBA to do it any other way.

FUCK "New members are not allowed to post external links or emails for 7 days. Please contact the forum administrator for more information."

But yeaaaaahhh. I'm bored. :/ It's midnight, now to start essaYz.


Edit:
YOOOOOO. I remade the terrain to be a circle... sort of.
Here is how it works (remember it is centered around de footman, the farms are actually stack farms).

And the new DL link:
http://www.mediafire.com/?rkfjjur6og6j76m

chakra delivers candy to the community! nice job.

Quote :

I think the versus timer should be set to the max after the round because if the better team goes first, the worse team has to sit through a full game of wolfing, but if the worse team goes first they only have to wolf as long as the better team did. Reseting the timer rewards the better team and makes the possible time not based on the luck of getting sheep first or second.

The worse team will have no incentive to play once they lose. Some may AFK, others may just start chatting. I doubt many will try as hard as possible to "not lose by much."

Quote :

Why does the ability do more damage to the first farm then the second farm it hits?

There are two fields: total damage done to a single unit and total damage to the entire group. The "entire group" feeds down per unit, IE, the "last" unit will be hurt least. Obviously can be ignored by setting the latter field to 9999999 and the former to just 240 or w/e.

Quote :

tbh I don't know how the old map managed to break the cloaks like that

Gosu's idea of stacking cloaks was insane. I replaced it with a fully triggered system in which I forgot to check if the unit was an illusion (illusions are units just like everyone else, yo!). But yeah, it kind of does make images more useful late game. :/
Really just made this post to defend myself about cloak bug.

Madhatters wrote:

- Remove bombers' ability to block - set them at 50 gold as a tree killing mechanism.
Pretty split on this one, I like that bomber is an item that requires a lot of skill to use successfully, but I am not crazy about it being specifically used to hurt RTers.[

Bombers might be the item with lowest skill-factor. OFC you can be really good with them but the worst players in Europe (thats not pubs) can use them to counter RT extremly easy. Blocking entrances to hills W/E does NOT require any skill at all.

This item MUST BE removed or fixed.

I don't support all of these changes myself but I have designed them so that not a single person in the European community will have problems playing the map once they are implemented. Any other combination of changes at current will make everyone run from the map.

I don't know what your relationship with drew but if you're going to be a clone or a puppet of his your need to exist disappears. He has his own map and we've seen what he has done with it - we don't need or want a repeat or to keep going in his direction. That has been clear for years.

Europe as opposed to UsEast is a free market. Everyone speaks their mind and have their own ideas - yet are willing to try this combination of changes. In UsEast everyone more or less bows to Drew whether directly or indirectly. Any statistics relating to map liking are thus extremely skewed on UsEast.

I also want to note that any talk of "splitting the community" is mumbo-jumbo phraseology used to settle the masses and protect ideas from competition. Splitting the community is GOOD because it means competition - something we haven't had for a LONG LONG time. Furthermore, as I've already stated - these changes are agreed upon by all pertinent european players - the only active sheep tag realm. If we'd had competition NO ONE would be playing this shitty ass undeveloped and not cared for revolution map and NO ONE would have given a shit about egomaniac and unworthy mapmakers such as chakra, gosusheep, drew.

If you're unwilling to set aside personal opinion from majority opinion and pressure you serve no purpose.

If you're going to listen to and do what Drew says (YOUR COMPETITOR) you serve no purpose.

If you're willing to implement a set of changes that are agreed in large by this community as I've described you will quickly get everyone playing a new map and help develop this stagnate community.

I stress again, NOT A SINGLE PROMINENT PLAYER IN THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY is opposed to trying these ideas out. If you remove invis - a majority refuse to play. If you leave out the stack a majority don't see a point in your use. These are NOT controversial changes because they are supported by the community in large.

drewisfat wrote:

Mad, I just want to make sure team 2 still knows what time team 1 got when they're playing is all I'm saying. People = get upset when they own and then get like a 2 minute sheep round.
What I'm saying is if it's say a 12 minute 23 second game, don't simply give the second team a 20 minute timer and have them "remember" it was a 12 minute 23 second game to beat. That will somewhat ruin the competitive nature of the versus round as well.

I want there to be some indication in round of what the time to beat is. This seems obvious and I'm sure everyone agrees, I just don't want it to get mixed up.

I agree fully, to 100%. 2 Timers (that you could hide) or the other teams time in the scoreboard or W/E should be easy and is extremely important if you want your map to be used in competative games such as versus, tournaments, cups

Madhatters wrote:

Also, in response to stacks, how much would i get shit on if i made a trial map with stacks being instantly removed if there wasnt an invisible wolf within say 600 range? Im guessing a good amount.

This will obviously make you able to understand when invis is close to you and therefore just stay inside farms and change direction? I mean you can try build stack and if its not working you can speed mass as a fuck, if its not u go other way?

Sorry for massive amount of posts in a row, but I dano how to fix that now, didnt notice where were 2 pages I had to answer to

But a question to madhatters: Have you remembered to implement stuff such as allies locator, checked all items works like sheep locator and have you changed the terrain ANYHING?