Next Release

AquaAscension wrote:

Quit being smart and dancing around my question, damnit!

LOL

And get more specific. I need something like:

"Blue-gray fat animal that lounges around all day and weighs anything between 7 to 30 pounds, depending on mood and circumstance. For example, when you are trying to sleep, then the cat weighs on the 30 pound side and will invariably be making it difficult to breathe by sleeping on your chest.

"However, when it is running away from the dog after ninja-ing it, then it weighs on the 7 pound side of things. This cat is also known to be social when it wants something, think it's god, and utterly bitch at you through meows that are almost expressive.

"Oh, right, and it has 4 white socks, little splotches of brown dotting its body in ink-blot tests that would make Freud weep (or insert some other psychoanalytical babble there: i.e. become 'envious' all over again), and has a thick patch of white from its chin to its tail running across its belly so that it looks as if God didn't quite have enough fabric, because it was a Sunday and all the 'JoAnne Fabric' type stores were closed, but decided that this specific animal was too good not to make."

I want to be able to SEE your cat in my mind and not just get a rough outline.

I understand why not many of you are English majors... or writers.

Spoiler:

Dude, that's exactly the cat I was picturing. We should strive for that kind of a cat.

lol @ Jay

Being on subject I agree w/ dragon for the most part, nature should be all about the dps with its poisons, the dps should be slow and crippling imo not instant, though 1 or 2 instants will be fine but they need to be difficult to use imo. If the spells follow this theme I will be happy.

See, that's depressing. When all your getting out of this is a feeling of being shit upon, why do you continue? Seriously Rhys, I care more about YOU than this map. Don't waste your time if it's not worth it to you.

And it is possible to make unique things. diaster and I gave you suggestions.

Okay, cool. Now we have agreed on a "theme," let's move on.

First, ask Rhys what he thinks. Go ahead.

Okay, after he responds, start offering some suggestions on how we can bring that idea to life. What are some spell ideas that might fit into the theme?

Present them and have a cordial discussion.

Rhys, what are your thoughts: how do you see Nature fitting into the world? Do you see any weaknesses with this idea? How about strengths?

Diaster, throw out some of your poison ideas again. But this time look at page 1 again and try to fit your spells in with the spells that are already created. Don't get caught up in tiny specific stuff that can be changed later. You need to look into the big idea. I.e. small critiquing over names and such make people shut down. Ironic statement: It's like nitpicking someone's grammar without first addressing his/her big ideas. Don't do that, it's dumb.

Dragon... I'm not sure if you're even capable of positive criticism at this point. Is it a lost cause?

Jay... thanks for keeping it light, but I want to know your description of a cat... not "hey that's just the kind of cat I was thinking of." Describe your cat. The nuances will come out in the writing process.

I'm going to stop being so idealistic now. K thx bai.

It's a black and white cat. It has green eyes. It's paws have a white socks like quality to it. It's paws are peachy pink. It has groomed nails which it only uses when it becomes scared. It's got a little white spot on it's head. And it purrs a lot. It's very needy. It always rubs up against you when you're busy and is very ego-centric. It will never pay head to what you're doing and things it's king shit. Like you were saying, it's fat when you would rather it be light and light when you would rather it be fat. Just based on appearance it's normal, and is in good shape. The cat looks very friendly, and if you treat it properly it will be a very good companion, however one slip up and it will make your life hell. It's a very judgmental cat. It's bright for a cat, however it is a cat...and will easily fall for simple tricks such as chasing a shadow that you manipulate on the wall.

Her name is Lilla.

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When you say cat, I think BJ. Simple as that.

Dude, you have to describe the cat. It's an exercise.

And when you hear the word BJ, besides the word cat...what do you think of >.>

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Being on subject I agree w/ dragon for the most part, nature should be all about the dps with its poisons, the dps should be slow and crippling imo not instant, though 1 or 2 instants will be fine but they need to be difficult to use imo. If the spells follow this theme I will be happy.

While at work today I had a few moments on break to think about what Nature is because alot of people ask me whenever I talk about it in tests or here in teh forum I finally gave it some thought. Basically How it is turning out is Nature's Theme is Two Part, First Part is Plant Manipulation, things like Entangling Roots or Raising Treants. Second is Poison, but to be more specific on this I want to say Chemicals or some other word to describe it because I feel that Rejuvenation should Work off of the same basis as the other poison spells just opposite in that the chemical is healing you not poisoning you. So whatever word you want to come up with for it the chemical part and the plant part that is the main theme for Nature so far.
*Edit* Also I had not planned on Any Instant Damage Spells. The current spells for poison have minor initial impact damages but its not to much.

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See, that's depressing. When all your getting out of this is a feeling of being shit upon, why do you continue? Seriously Rhys, I care more about YOU than this map. Don't waste your time if it's not worth it to you.

I agree dragon, you often times depress me greatly and usually you garner a following to jump on your bandwagon.
It is worth it to me btw because I have small benefits like I can honestly tell anyone I meet that I create video games that actual people that i do not know in real life play on a somewhat regular basis. Also I Made a commitment and while I have defaulted on a few commitments in my life i try at every turn I take to honor the things that i say. I will not Stop Making MM&M because the community here on the forums dislikes me or where I take MM&M although the first part I know is not true the second part I often times wonder if the game is better off dead by zync's hands and never reached sins or mine, which gives me motivation to make it better if that makes any sense.

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And it is possible to make unique things. diaster and I gave you suggestions.

Leech Life + Stun = Unique Spell, its never been done. Its unique.
Note that its the same frigging spell with one thing attached to it to make it different, but hey its still unique. No matter what you present to me dragon for an idea I promise that I can break that spell down to copies of other spells.

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Rhys, what are your thoughts: how do you see Nature fitting into the world? Do you see any weaknesses with this idea? How about strengths?

Up until now I have not been a fan of giving Poison a Slow in addition to its already overpowering combination DPS poisons. As far as fitting Nature next to the rest of the elements I feel that the element is meant to take control over a battlefield of many units while still be effective at single 1v1 combat, something that no other element does (your either good at controlling the mobs or at fighting/supporting other mages.

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Dragon... I'm not sure if you're even capable of positive criticism at this point. Is it a lost cause?

I remember once he was happy about a change I made this one time......... Its vague though.

lmfao, stop it guys I do want to keep on the topic, you can split the topic if you really want to continue it and hell, I'll prolly join you in it but for now I wanna help w/ nature.

Alright as everyone knows there are many types of poison, I'd like to suggest that the spells inflict different types of poisons.

The poisons:
Acidic (damage over time)
Neurotoxin (slow)
Viral - Lower stats (power, essence, stamina)
Parasitic - mana over time

As for plant manipulation, plants move slow, so I really think the spells should be slow paced so I will make spells according to this theme.


Overgrowth: Channel
Creates X plants a second in an area. Plants attack for XX and have slow poison.

Seed: Seeds a target, which gives vision and drains X stamina a second for XX seconds until it sprouts. When it sprouts it becomes a fruit which heals the consumer for 100x each point of stamina drained. The seed will still sprout if the target dies but will only drain stamina so long as they are alive. The targets stamina is restored when the seed sprouts.

Fertile Soil: Channel
Causes plants to grow from the blood soaked ground. Over 3 seconds a plant will rise from each nearby corpse. The plants have a ranged attack, and have acidic poison.

Spore Cloud: Instant
The mage sends off a cloud of spores, the spores attach to nearby units draining XXX mana a second for X seconds. At the end of the duration Mushrooms grow and after X seconds will release another spore cloud.

You see, I like those. Interesting, fairly simple and straight forward. I like Fertile Soil for a Dark/Nature Mspell and Overgrowth seems like a viable spell for nature.

Rhys, I like 99% of what you do. Do you want me to sit here and praise your godlikeness? I complain about the things I don't like, because they are in such stark contrast to the rest that I like so very much. That's what criticism is for. Besides, it's not like I say "Your terrible GFTO", it's more like "I think this idea is better or I don't think that's a good idea at this time."

Anyway, I guess you didn't like ANY of my 11 spell ideas? I thought they were all fairly unique, had good synergy, and were interesting. At least SOME of them might be good...

Why put labels on poisons like that so people who are better-informed can tear what you've tried to define apart and tell you why you shouldn't talk about poisons. Viruses and parasites, for instance, are not in of themselves poisonous, in fact it is impossible for viruses to produce a toxin without making use of your cells. Acidity isn't poisonous, it is a measure of how many hydrogen ions are in a solution (I think). Neuro-toxin is the only thing on that list that is actually a poison...

Edit: Sorry, totally harsh, I just think you should call them a poison for whatever they are, "Damage" "Slow" etc.

ya the labels were prolly a bad idea, I just felt like they were bland w/o them, those were the best things I could think of to describe them. But for now I'm going to try to make some more spells.

Decompose: Channel
Decomposes a corpse gaining XX health and mana over X seconds. (consume corpse)

Bite: Instant
Inflicts 1*power damage and the nature mages most devastating poison. The poison last 10 seconds. The poison deals .5*power damage a second, drains X of each stat a second, slows, and silences for the first 2 seconds.

We don't have a Shadow Strike type move in the map, but I think it would work well for Nature.

Entangling Wave is an awesome move with an awesome looking animation and is alot of fun to use. I've seen it in other games.

Having the summons stack up poison damage on the enemy makes for all kinds of strategic use of them.

Having an ability to eat your own summons for mana or kill enemy summons/buffs is a good utility move and is balanced by the fact that your tying up 2 spells just to increase your mana regen.

The Shockwave type move but with poison just sounded fun.

A combination of the eye on the tree and the invisibility move from the Tree thingy in DoTA would be an interesting ability to use in MM&M.



That's the basis behind most of my suggestions on the previous page. The rest of the stuff was just to tie it together well.

I agree with all your thoughts, dragon... but now just leave them there and let Rhys do what he will. Give some helpful feedback (i.e. this may not work as well because of X, what if you try Y instead? leave out the "I think" and "I feel" bullshit though).

Okay, now here's a question for you, dragon:

What would the Shadow Strike ability look like and do? I imagine it would be poisonous, but what kinds of bells and whistles could be attached to it to make it interesting? Base SS slows when it hits: is that a viable thing to keep in with the skill? What kind of animations might be cool to see for this ability?

I honestly can't come up with anything to make Shadow Strike seem like it will fit in... it's single target, but I could easily be missing things and cool ideas, so go for it.

He wants the obnoxious green numbers, obviously.

I didn't think of that, but it would be funny to have poison type damage do green numbers instead of red. (Of course then I would want a unique color for each element's damage.)


For the animation, I was thinking some kind of green blob projectile. I know there's a few. Then, the melee map Destroyer hp regeneration move on impact. (But smaller.)

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Then, the melee map Destroyer hp regeneration move on impact. (But smaller.)

im lost

Essence of Blight or w/e. The greenish/yellowish explosion/barrier around the Destroyer when it casts it. But smaller.

Okay, I think I know the spell you're talking about... but isn't that on Obsidian Statues (the unit from which you get Destroyers?)

That spell is cool looking.

I created the coding structure for the 10th spell which I used a combination of Diaster's Overgrowth and Fertile Soil spells above. I went to test it last night before bed and realized that I had previously setup a spell limit on the nature elemental book to 7 when I last tested it with the first 7 spells, so when I was in game I was unable to actually test the last 3 spells made and it would have taken to long to open up the editor change everything, save it, recompile it, re optimize it then reload it in wc3 then wait for level whatever to get the sp enough to actually test the spell. However Ill be testing it again today to see if it works. Heres what I do have right now.

Over Growth : Aoe Target : 2 Levels : [X] Spell

Level 1 : Consume up to 2 dead units in target Area to sprout Deadly Plants from their carcasses.
Level 2 : Consume up to 4 dead units in target Area to sprout Deadly Plants from their carcasses.

Level 1 Will sprout a Melee and a Ranged Plant, level 2 Will sprout 2 Melees and 2 Ranged. Each plant is Separate I will list them now :

Fungasaur Plant : A Plant that lives under the earth that pops up to surprise its prey. Fungasaur deals no Damage but Stuns its Targets within its Reach with every attack for .5 Seconds. Fungasaur's attack rate is 0.75 Seconds and has a 180 AOE Attack.

Vanolia Plant : A Plant that sprouts from dead units consuming there bodies to create a Slowing Toxin that reduces its targets Movement Speed and Attack Speed. This Plant Deals no Damage to its target.

Pyrolia Plant : A Plant that sprouts from dead units consuming there bodies to create a Burning Toxin that leaves a slow burning substance on the ground of its target point dealing damage to any unit that walks near it every second.
Note : This one may not work I haven't tested it yet but when I made it I distinctly got the feeling it would fail so I may have to remake this one.

Thorn Creeper : A Living Tree that flails its limbs in an attempt to physically smash any enemies around it.


Also balancing like usual has not been completed

Cool, though I don't see anything in it that is like over growth really, it just fertile soil with its name But getting back on topic, do you have the final spell in mind or would you like some more spell suggestions?

Some Updated Info for you guys :

Overgrowth : I made it, and tested it. It was the most god awful looking worthless consumption of space for a spell ever in my entire history playing wc3. slightly exaggerated.

New Spell created in its place will not be disclosed yet, Ive tested it three times and each time the coding caused a fatal error in the game. Of course it was my own stupidity that caused it because I created a looping function with no way to actually get out of the loop which of course is an infinite loop that will never stop creating a memory leak in the wc3 application. So I will test it again tonight to see if it works now that the infinite loop problem is solved.

So that leaves two spells to create left. The Z and the E slot which I have no clue what I'm going to do for yet because i haven't thought that far ahead.

Also I am thinking about changing Rejuvenation slightly to have its interval tick the same speed as the other poison spells (every .25 Seconds) instead of healing you every second. Of course it would still balance wise heal the same amount of HP over the same amount of time it would just happen at a smoother rate rather then choppy bulks of hp. I was thinking this because I want Nature to deal with Plant and chemical manipulation which would lead me to believe the healing over time spell should be a chemical like poison but only the opposite.