New WOW inspired custom map: Warsong

[ice-design]

This is my second map for you guys.
This time it's heavily inspired by the Elven Forest from World of Warcraft.

This map is a beast. It took me over 40 hours to build, test and refine the map.
It contains side missions, hidden entrances, a scripted difficulty challenge for late game, dwarfs and much more.

Please feel free and leave your impressions, suggestions and feedback.
https://mod.io/g/dungeons-4/m/warsong

You can also download it ingame by giong in the main menu to "Extras" -> "Editor (Beta)" -> "Mod.io" and look for the "Warsong" map there.

[Thats How We do action in Uganda]

This map is so brutal HOLY, i will have to make another attempt tommorow.

[ice-design]

Glad you like it.
Yes it is designed to be a achallenge.
As soon as you know the triggeres after some test plays, then only you have a chance to beat it on hard mode.

[ronhedlund]

Excellent job ice-design. It was a fun map. Thank you

[Valion]

how easy are the map making tools to use, do you have to use one of the maps provided or can you make one from scratch?

[ice-design]

The Map Editor is not realy user friendly. But it is a beta, so I would expect improvments in the future. But it's no magic either.

You can do a map from scratch, but you would need to look into the existing campaign maps to understand how things work.

You can do easy basic stuff from the get go, but as soon as you want to go into more detailed scripting you need to try and error and look into the campaign scripts to create your own ideas.

But despite the scripting the rest is easy. Random skirmish maps (like we knew from Dungeons 2 radmonized maps) is super easy to set up and the rest is just painting the outworld and dungeon map, which is easy to do.

If you follow the just the first tutorial video, you can already do like 90% for the regular skirmish map.

Maybe I'll release a video on youtube that explains better how to set things up. e.g. raid groups, evildeeds bosses and the transporter and builder caravans.

[Valion]

Originally posted by ice-design:

The Map Editor is not realy user friendly. But it is a beta, so I would expect improvments in the future. But it's no magic either.

You can do a map from scratch, but you would need to look into the existing campaign maps to understand how things work.

You can do easy basic stuff from the get go, but as soon as you want to go into more detailed scripting you need to try and error and look into the campaign scripts to create your own ideas.

But despite the scripting the rest is easy. Random skirmish maps (like we knew from Dungeons 2 radmonized maps) is super easy to set up and the rest is just painting the outworld and dungeon map, which is easy to do.

If you follow the just the first tutorial video, you can already do like 90% for the regular skirmish map.

Maybe I'll release a video on youtube that explains better how to set things up. e.g. raid groups, evildeeds bosses and the transporter and builder caravans.

that would be cool, i enjoyed making Maps in the WC3 editor back in the day so if it's around that level i think i could work it out but above that i would need a guide

[ice-design]

Yes the old WC3 Editor comes close to complexity of this one

[Valion]

Originally posted by ice-design:

Yes the old WC3 Editor comes close to complexity of this one

oh that is good, i was always fond of how the trigger systems worked in the WC3 editor

[Thats How We do action in Uganda]

I finished this map after 5 hours, clearly I did something wrong.

I had to stop exploring map before second entrance or I would get swarmed by heroes, so i just build prison and started farming heroes for evilness. Is there better way of handling this?

[ice-design]

Best way to get evilnes is through the evildeed missions, and doing the two side missions.
Oh and farm the bullfrog boss as soon as you can. Mid game you can also farm the unicorn without triggering the North West dwarfs. (see trigger 3. in the desc bellow)
The bosses scale with the current hero level, so they get stronger with every new spawn, but are weak in the beginning.

This map has 4 main triggers.
1.After the second Village, before you hit the main road. Once you cross that line you activate the southern dwarfs with their entrance that you can conquer. This gives you faster access to most of those EvilDeeds transports for evilnes.

2. The center village that leads the road into the main city has a city wide trigger to activate the warfs in the north west, which gives all city heroes a direct access to the dungeon. This entrance can not be conquered.
You can use the southern road to get to the south west mausoleum entrance and conquer it, without triggereing the center village dwarf entrence trigger.

3. The south west mausoleum entrance (side quest as you cross the bridge near to it). It's heavyly guarded but only one group. Kill it and the mausoleum to get a free entrance in the south west, which allows you to catch the remaining evil deeds transports on the map. But be aware, depends on how far you are in the map, this might trigger an advances spider nest in the dungeon.

4. Late game enrage mechanics. As soon as you kill 10 enemy hero spawner buildings on the map, the AI get into an enrage mode, which doubles all spawns of attack grouns, raids and evildeeds. Making the game twice as hard as before. To prep yourself before killing hero spawner building number 10.


The map also scales with maximum hero level caps.
If you have 0 - 3 spawners early game killed hero level maximum is capped at lvl 11.
From 3 - 7 Spawners it's mid game and max hero lavel is capped to lvl 21.
As soon as you kill an eight hero spawner max hero level cap goes to 30 starting the late game.
And as soon as you kill your 10th spawner the AI goes into enrage mode.

[ice-design]

And about your 5 hours. That's fine, as the map is designed to be replayable and to take a while. ;)

Edit: did you look for the artifacts in the dungeon to make you minions stronger? There are 6 or 7 artifacts to boost your army hidden in the underground.

[Thats How We do action in Uganda]

Originally posted by ice-design:

And about your 5 hours. That's fine, as the map is designed to be replayable and to take a while. ;)

Edit: did you look for the artifacts in the dungeon to make you minions stronger? There are 6 or 7 artifacts to boost your army hidden in the underground.

I found only 3, dunno i was too occupied by trying to survive.

[ice-design]

Yes, the map is very punishing if you rush to early.

[konnichi]

Hello ice!
I played through warsong, i loved it! It took me ~2,5 hours to complete it. Really nice map. Please create more. Can't wait to see more of your creation.
The special thing here in warsong is, its clearly balanced. It was not uber hard, but by no means easy. Plus very good gold digs placed, if you look for gold, you find it. It is kinda rewarding.
And its not short in gameplay. You play it long, it can take multiple hours to complete it. Which makes it pretty content rich map.
Please continue your work. I want more :D
see ya

[ice-design]

Thank you.

I am already working on a new idea which is rather complex to build and need a ton of ballancing though as it won't be a typical dungeons map. But as soon as the new map will be ready you guys will have something to replay multitple times and it will be super fun in coop. :D