Warcraft: War Heroes - Official Thread

Frostion

@Zjelcop Go ahead and post. Just remember to state that it is an unfinished "work in progress" map. I have intentions og getting back to work and development on this map, but right now it seems that my RL takes up too much time. I hope to find time in the future I see that I got some feedback posts to read at some point!

gr8gamerguy

I've played a few games and here are a few problems to address:

Undead-Abomination unit is 2HP and works, but no unit to display for Abomination with 1 hit damage. at start of next Undead turn, it heals like normal and re-displays. All other 2HP units seem to work fine.
Hero Target Fire appears to offer too many attacks. my 8th level Marryk has the Shooter skill, Mystical Scepter, and Amulet of Accuracy. It looks like he made 6 attacks rolling for 7/10. the 7/10 seems right, and it seems like items that give Hero targeted power add to both the #/10 and the number of rolls, but it seems like all the heroes have too many target attack rolls.
the order of attack and removal of casualties seems arbitrary. It seems to go Guns first, then Magic, then Missile, then First Strike, then regular attacks. with so many different items and creature attacks, each of them seems to over-complicate the sequence and hard to follow. Also, some seem to have the AI eliminate casualties while others allow user to select casualties. It would be good to know which is which.
Submarines don't offer submersion consistently. 1 out of 5 sea battles did I get the option to submerge after 1st round of combat. It seems all sea units except transport can detect subs.
Gnome Manabots are too expensive at 15PU and 50Mana. should either be 15PU and 25Mana or they should provide some benefit like generate 1PU per turn.
it would be nice to have some way to see Portals on the mini-map, like have the colored icon be gold so it stands out. Same suggestion for the four creature buildings that can be captured and produce units. Same suggestion for any building that can produce units so they are easier to find.
Damaged buildings are very expensive to repair at 25PU per hit. Maybe 15PU; 1/2 cost of building a new one.
Gnomeregan starts out under Trogg control at full health, which gives the Troggs a huge advantage with 5 wall-archer attacks. Then the captured building has 5 hits needing to be repaired. Either disable wall-archer's for creatures or have Gnomeregan be fully functional once captured. Most games it ends up the Horde capture it because Humans and Dwarves spend too much energy fighting off a joint Troll and Undead assault to free Gnomeregan so the Gnomes can help defend.
defeating other player units should reward XP just like neutral creatures. with just neutral creatures awarding XP after death, the board runs out of fast XP bumps too soon.
I had a huge Orc Horde attack a heavily defended Gadgetzan and after the battle Gadgetzan had the same damage (1) it had before the start of the battle. Not sure why it wasn't damaged fully like every other building I capture. The little reward message of Thrall earning +100 veteran points after the battle was very cool; first time I saw that.

I'll add more as I come across them. I love what you've created and it is truly a unique TripleA experience. The unit graphics were a bit confusing at first, but quickly learned to identify them and love each of the unique units; much like Elemental Forces. The magic items mechanic is brilliant and really makes it a fun play every time. At first I thought each unit was too expensive as it was hard to amass a large force, but now it feels just right. The Heroes are the real main force and the regular troops just supplement; but a decent force of 5-8 troops can be a problem for a hero. overall, good balance. It seems in late game, especially with all the sea territories captured, the PUs earned each turn are quickly outstripped by other resources, so I'm always running out of PU before other resources. But I'm still thinking about that. I think it's pretty good balance overall. Love the game!

gr8gamerguy

Okay, I didn't realize at first each of the heroes have a different number of targeted range attacks, so #2 above makes sense now. That little gnome Marryk can be deadly if he gets some target power boosts!

Regarding #1, the error message is as follows:

gr8gamerguy

Another time I transported a unit on the recovered balloon. after I lost the battle, the game crashed:

gr8gamerguy

Also, the Tauren hero's 6th level ability 'Owl Form' lists in the hero panel the owl is 6/6/5, but the owl only has 4 movement. In the purchase panel it is displayed correctly.

Another question is about casualty removal. You have a long list of targeted attacks (guns, missiles, magic, etc.) with each step listing to remove casualties, but it seems the casualties get to perform their targeted attacks even after they are supposedly removed. All targeted attack casualties are removed before standard fire, so they don't get an attack if taken out by targeted attack. It works fine, but the sequence of battle sounds like they should be removed when they are not actually being removed until just before 'Land Paratroopers'.

One final suggestion I would make is increasing movement for all units by +1. The map is large enough that it takes very long to travel. Just my thoughts. Thanks for a great game!

gr8gamerguy

I tried posting this once, but it seems to have disappeared, so here it is again:

Used Hippogryph to move Ayaana and attacked lone orc footman. Ayaana didn't get blunderbuss targeted attack in that battle.
AI doesn't seem to use Air Transports to move land units.
Air units can attack submarines.
Targeted attacks, such as Juggernaut, occur before submarine can first strike. I would suggest moving first strike ability before targeted attacks.
Marryk's frost delivery only stops units with 1 movement. If unit has 2 or more movement, they get full movement out of space, and can use full movement when moving through a frosted space.
Crown of Kings treasure is giving 10 elite per turn instead of 5 as stated in treasure pop up.
Ally unit can't pick up an unused range weapon left in an allies' space.
Elf's Ceremonial Fire unit dies at start of next round. Unit should remain and sustain wisps like Ogre Mound and other such territory captureable items.
Ettin should have 2HP.
can't deploy a factory in a space containing a shipyard.
no option to build a shipyard. Factories can't build ships.
may have mentioned this earlier, but too many targeted attacks don't allow selection of casualties and AI always picks most expensive unit it can kill with attack. Should allow user to select casualty.

gr8gamerguy

I had three different game crashes when Air Units were involved in the battle:

gr8gamerguy

I moved Ayaana on a Hippogryph so she could take her Mastiff with her. She has the Treasure Item 'Rapid-Foot-Standard' giving footmen +1 movement (not blitz). The Allied-Footman unit is with her and they moved 2 spaces (1 through friendly space, second into enemy space) to attack an orc joined by 2 cavalry. The next turn, the cavalry blitzed through 2 enemy spaces. during non-combat move, my Allied-Footman did not get 2 movement; started in same space as Ayaana with the RF Standard but couldn't move into space with cavalry. Couldn't even move 2 spaces through friendly territory. The Hippogryph is still carrying Ayaana and the Mastiff even though I didn't get a prompt to pick them up again. Ayaana and Mastiff are permanently attached to the Hippogryph now.

Jason Green-Lowe

@redrum Is there a way to get the AI to consider buying production buildings that are not called "factory"? Right now I am designing a map where large factories are only available as starting units placed during game start-up, but players can purchase smaller factories (called "barracks") whenever they like.

I could rename the "barracks" unit to be called "factory" and call the factory something else, but I would need new graphics; the barracks looks like a barracks and the factory looks like a factory.

I tried adding "isInfrastructure=true" to my barracks unit, per your general AI thread, but that didn't seem to change anything.

	<attachment name="unitAttachment" attachTo="barracks" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.UnitAttachment" type="unitType">
		<option name="isFactory" value="true"/>
		<option name="isInfrastructure" value="true"/>
		<option name="canBeDamaged" value="true"/>
                <option name="canProduceXUnits" value="3"/>
                <option name="canOnlyBePlacedInTerritoryValuedAtX" value="2"/>
		<option name="destroyedWhenCapturedBy" value="Americans:French:British:Russians:Chinese:Germans:Italians:Japanese"/>			
    </attachment>

Right now the AI is not buying any barracks even when it has way more cash than it could possibly spend at its starting factories, and I'd like to change that if I can.

ff03k64

@Jason-Green-Lowe I think the AI is just broken right now, and doesn't buy factories at all at the moment.

gr8gamerguy

I bombed the level 4 factory at Gadgetzan with 2 Trebuchet and they did 4 damage. The factory was wiped out instead of listing 4 damage to be repaired.

Frostion

All thanks for all the great feedback! I have read it all through and it has been taken into account while I have been working on the next update. Here are some answers to many of the posts:

@TheDog said: “Also noticed this … Line 15736 I think should say <option name="players" value="$AllPlayers$"/> as its missing … There are many missing $AllPlayers$ lines, are they required?”
You have really studied the XML in detail I am impressed.
Note that it is all the support attachments belonging to Hero units that are missing these lines. As it is a long time ago that I made the code and got these support attachments to work, I really can’t remember why it is so. Without testing it out, I will try to guess … and I maybe have vague memories supporting my theory: The support attachment of the Heroes are not active/working from game start, but is an activated later as the hero’s level up. When the support attachments are activated by triggers, the support attachments will only activate for a specific mentioned player:
<attachment name="triggerAttachment_Arthur_has_reached_level_4_A" attachTo="Humans" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.TriggerAttachment" type="player">
<option name="support" value="supportAttachmentDevotion-Aura"/>
<option name="when" value="before:HumansPurchase"/>
<option name="uses" value="1"/>
</attachment>
All other support attachments are actually active from game start, working with $AllPlayers$. So for them to be active from start, all players must be mentioned. An exception is the support attachment “Battle-Totem” which is the Totem Unit’s second Totem and activated (like hero supports) later in the game. Does this make sense?

@ff03k64 said: “You have a notification about setting pause duration to 0. If I am reading that correctly, it is in the "Engine Preferences" on the "AI" tab?”
This is hopefully just temporary information that this BETA-stage map gives when starting up. I hope that I can figure something out, maybe in cooperation with the devs, and get rid of the need to have players adjust AI pause duration. If this is a lost cause and I can’t figure something out, then it will be stated in the notes.

@ff03k64 said: “The starting 'perks', for lack of better word, would be nice to see them all at once to compare them, instead of just tooltips.”
I want to keep notes as short as posible, so anything that can be read / learned by reading tooltips will not be writen in the notes … as a general rule … with exemptions of course I hope players may learn the hero origin skills by heart .

@ff03k64 said:”hero progression would be nice to have in the notes, unless it is randomized”
Hero progression will be Listed in the notes at some point, and of course in the top Hero Bar also.

@ff03k64 said: “Unless i am not reading the map right, i can't tell how many hp a hero has.”
Heroes have standard engine generated tooltips, and you can see their HPs there (3 HP). Hero may get extras HP via items or levels, and the new HP max should also be in the normal tooltips. Heroes heal 1 HP per turn, normally. This is also stated in the tooltips.

@ff03k64 said: “Can you upgrade the 'creep' factories that you capture?”
No

@ff03k64 said: ”How does xp collecting work? It obviously is collected by the hero when they are in fight. It looks like some can be collected in other fights too?”
XP is generated by units. Units like the stuff in the Hero Backpack, like killed/dead corpses and also some buildings. It is not really connected to the “slaying” of enemies like in real Warcraft games

@ff03k64 said: “The item 'Rapid-Foot-Standard' didn't seem to work. When i clicked the button to see units with movement left, it would go to the footmen, but they couldn't move anymore.”
I tested the item out, and it seems to work fine. Note that the item does not give “blitz” to the footmen, so the footmen cannot walk into 1 enemy land and then 1 more.

@ff03k64 said: ”The Gnome capital seemed to go over to nature right at the start. Specifically, 'Trogg-Savages' were there at the start of the game.”
This is intentional and a part of the Warcraft / history. The Troggs have invaded the Gnomen capital and the Gnomes are living as refugees elsewhere, like on this map

@gr8gamerguy said: “Hero Target Fire appears to offer too many attacks.”
Marryk has 5 “Targeted Rolls” / “TR” to start with. Shooter Skill give +1 rolls. Smooth-Gloves gives +1 rolls. Ring-of-Quickness gives +2 rolls. These are the only items that can give Marryk more rolls. I have tested out giving him all of them, creating a little Super Marryk!!! He gets the 9 rolls that he is supposed to. So I can’t see any errors at the moment. Note: Don’t confuse “Targeted Rolls” / “TR” with “Targeted Power” / “TP”, another fighting stat that can be upgraded.

@gr8gamerguy said: “Submarines don't offer submersion consistently. 1 out of 5 sea battles did I get the option to submerge after 1st round of combat. It seems all sea units except transport can detect subs.”
I can’t explain what you are experiencing. I just know that only the “Destroyer” sea unit has the “isDestroyer ability”. If anyone experiences this and have an explanation on what is wrong, please post it. Thx.

@gr8gamerguy said: ”I had a huge Orc Horde attack a heavily defended Gadgetzan and after the battle Gadgetzan had the same damage (1) it had before the start of the battle. Not sure why it wasn't damaged fully like every other building I capture.”
I can’t explain this either. I just tried attacking the Trogg occupied and undamaged capital with an army of only Gnomen Infantry, and when I got the city it was 5 damaged. So it seems to work, but I am sure thatthere are sometimes glitches caused by the engine miscalculating or something, maybe skipping some engine/AI tasks for some reasons. This is maybe something a dev can answer and explain.

@gr8gamerguy said: “The little reward message of Thrall earning +100 veteran points after the battle was very cool; first time I saw that.”
Yay! Maybe you are the first player in history to get this notification! At least you are the first to mention it

@gr8gamerguy said: “I transported a unit on the recovered balloon. after I lost the battle, the game crashed”
This is probably an engine error and work for the devs at GitHub. I can’t do anything about it other than post your picture at GitHub. Please report errors like this via the game error reporting function or directly at GitHub. Thx.

@gr8gamerguy said: ”You have a long list of targeted attacks (guns, missiles, magic, etc.) with each step listing to remove casualties, but it seems the casualties get to perform their targeted attacks even after they are supposedly removed. All targeted attack casualties are removed before standard fire, so they don't get an attack if taken out by targeted attack. It works fine, but the sequence of battle sounds like they should be removed when they are not actually being removed until just before 'Land Paratroopers'.”
I don’t understand this part of your post “but the sequence of battle sounds like they should be removed when they are not actually being removed until just before 'Land Paratroopers'”? Please explain again and I will try to understand

@gr8gamerguy said: “Used Hippogryph to move Ayaana and attacked lone orc footman. Ayaana didn't get blunderbuss targeted attack in that battle.”
Yes, I see the same when I try this out. I can’t explain, but it seems like an air transported unit cannot enter battle firing it own targeted attacks. @Cernel and @LaFayette perhaps you can explain if this is the way it should be?

@gr8gamerguy said: ”Marryk's frost delivery only stops units with 1 movement. If unit has 2 or more movement, they get full movement out of space”
I can’t reproduce this. It works for me and Cavalry can exit a territory with Frost, but just have 1 move when doing so.

@gr8gamerguy said: “I bombed the level 4 factory at Gadgetzan with 2 Trebuchet and they did 4 damage. The factory was wiped out instead of listing 4 damage to be repaired.”
It is no error. Gadgetzan is not a “Capital”, but actually a building buildable by players. It has 4 HP and can die from reaching max damage.

Based on all the great feedback, a new update is done and soon downloadable. Thanks for all the help! Here are some sneak peeks and change descriptions:

Warcraft: War Heroes changes v0.1.4 to v0.1.5 (Human Update):
• Minor unit and tooltip changes.
• Human Hero now has visual level and skill information in the Hero Bar.
• Notes now have Human player/racial specific information.
• Added a missing Wraith_hit.png image, preventing an error when wraiths are killed.
• Added a missing Abomination_hit.png image, so this unit no longer turns invisible when wounded.
• Catapult stat changes and shots are now targeting only Factories and Land Units.
• Ballista stat changes and shots are now targeting only Factories and Air Units.
• Trebuchet stat changes and shots are now targeting only Factories and Sea Units.
• Ceremonial-Fire now has a custom tooltip.
• Skeletons are now a unit buildable anywhere by Level 3 Sevis, up to a maximum of 3 Skeletons at any time.
• Some instances of the word “Fiendly” changed to “Friendly”.
• Gyrocopter now costs 25 PUs, not 30.
• Owl-Form tooltip / Gart Level information in the Hero Bar now correctly states 4 movement, not 5.
• Juggernaught, Giant-Turtle and Fire-Canoe is now "isFirstStrike"="false", giving Submarines the ability to take them out before retaliation.

(Update will hopefully soon be downloadable! Keep the feedback coming! I can’t guarantee that I will read or answer quickly, but I will eventually ... and feedback really helps the development of this map)

TheDog

@Frostion
Thanks for the update, looking forward to playing/testing it.

LaFayette

@Frostion are we talking the latest release, or latest pre-release?

Yes, I see the same when I try this out. I can’t explain, but it seems like an air transported unit cannot enter battle firing it own targeted attacks. @Cernel and @LaFayette perhaps you can explain if this is the way it should be?

@Trevan has become the new resident expert on how that would work : ) Can you answer this one after having dug into the code around this recently? AFAIK air transported units behave as carge during AA, and then they join the battle if their air transport is not destroyed during AA.

Trevan

@LaFayette said in Warcraft: War Heroes - Official Thread:

@Frostion are we talking the latest release, or latest pre-release?

Yes, I see the same when I try this out. I can’t explain, but it seems like an air transported unit cannot enter battle firing it own targeted attacks. @Cernel and @LaFayette perhaps you can explain if this is the way it should be?

@Trevan has become the new resident expert on how that would work : ) Can you answer this one after having dug into the code around this recently? AFAIK air transported units behave as carge during AA, and then they join the battle if their air transport is not destroyed during AA.

Paratroopers don't land until after the AA/Targeted round. They don't fire until after they land and so they don't get their first Targeted fire until the second round.

Cernel

@LaFayette said in Warcraft: War Heroes - Official Thread:

@Frostion are we talking the latest release, or latest pre-release?

Yes, I see the same when I try this out. I can’t explain, but it seems like an air transported unit cannot enter battle firing it own targeted attacks. @Cernel and @LaFayette perhaps you can explain if this is the way it should be?

@Trevan has become the new resident expert on how that would work : ) Can you answer this one after having dug into the code around this recently?

Maybe @Panther can give an interpretation here, but I'm fairly positive that air transported units not being able to use their AA fire is completely consistent with every rules set. AA fire certainly happens before the air transported units cease to be cargo, since they are automatically destroyed if the air transport is lost because of AA fire. Since every AA fire is considered to be simultaneous, air transported units cannot make AA fire, on the first round of combat, as in doing so they would actually either:

do it after the other AA fire (and only as long as the trasport is not downed), which should not happen, or
do it while they are cargo, which should be impossible.

In my opinion, if you want air transported units being able to make AA fire, you should make a feature request about a property (or something) that changes the rules as to say that air transported units cease to be cargo before the AA fire step (so they can be destroyed by AA fire only if the AA fire is targeting them) (so that you would assume that the air transported units jumped out of the air transport before the AA fire happens) or a feature request about a property (or something) about having two or more levels of AA fire, happening sequentially (for example, in the case of transport planes dropping paratroopers, you can have first the (heavy) AA fire to destroy the planes (before the paratroopers can jump out) and, then, the (light) AA fire to kill the paratroopers while they are parachuting).

Realistically, most paratroopers should not be lost when the transport plane is lost. There is usually plenty of time for them to jump out while the plane is on its death dive and, besides, it is normal even for the crew to parachute once the plane appears to be lost, so I really don't know why to have this rule, but the rules are what they are. On the other hand, it can also easily happen that crew members and passengers are killed in the plane without the plane being lost or even seriously damaged (just some small holes in the fuselage).

A more involved feature would be generally allowing cargo to take part in combat while still being cargo (this would make a lot of sense for ships during the age-of-sails and before, when the men transported by the ships would fight in the naval battles, also by boarding and capturing other ships).

However, you can still give air transported units "first strike", instead of AA fire. In theory, air transported units should be able to make "first strike" in v3 or later rulesets (as in v3 "first strike" happens after AA fire, while in v2 it happens at the same time as AA fire) (I said in theory, because I don't believe TripleA supports this difference between v2 and v3, but I'm not sure).

AFAIK air transported units behave as carge during AA, and then they join the battle if their air transport is not destroyed during AA.

Yep. Paratroopers are cargo when the AA fire happens (thus cannot do anything and are destroyed if the unit they are cargo of is destroyed) and cease being cargo only after the AA fire step is over, so they are too late to take part in it. However, they should be able to make AA fire from the second round of combat onwards if the AA fire is set to last for more than 1 round of combat.

So I would confirm what @Trevan said:

Paratroopers don't land until after the AA/Targeted round. They don't fire until after they land and so they don't get their first Targeted fire until the second round.

Related to this, @Panther: What do you think it should happen if there is an "aaGun" unit that is able to make AA fire against "tank" (land) units and, in doing so, kills a tank that is land transporting one infantry unit. Should the infantry be lost at the same time or should it be unaffected? Anyone knows or tested how this actually works in the program?

I think cases like this make highly advisable to have one property or one option to allow the mapmakers to settle the matter, individually.

Trevan

@Cernel said in Warcraft: War Heroes - Official Thread:

Related to this, @Panther: What do you think it should happen if there is an "aaGun" unit that is able to make AA fire against "tank" (land) units and, in doing so, kills a tank that is land transporting one infantry unit. Should the infantry be lost at the same time or should it be unaffected? Anyone knows or tested how this actually works in the program?

I don't recall seeing anything in the code that differentiates land transport from air transport. So, both land and air transport would be affected by the same code and should have the same outcome. But there might be a flag that I've missed that differentiates them.

beelee

Yea good point by Cernel. I'd say the land unit shouldn't necessarily die if transported by a land unit. Air unit should probably be dust. If you're gonna make an option tho, might as well make it as flexible as possible, depending on labor.

Frostion

I would really like options to customize behaviour.
I can imagine instances where it would be nice to have the carried units also fire AA in the first round. Like if a beast rider with ranged weapons or magic attack could attack from the beast, or if a vessel carrying a "mod"-unit or "component"-unit in a "slot" could be allowed to attack, like a "defense turret" or "missile module".

A flexible system could also distinguish between Land, Air and Sea transports and their ability to let their "cargo" fire.

Panther

@Cernel said in Warcraft: War Heroes - Official Thread:

Related to this, @Panther: What do you think it should happen if there is an "aaGun" unit that is able to make AA fire against "tank" (land) units and, in doing so, kills a tank that is land transporting one infantry unit. Should the infantry be lost at the same time or should it be unaffected?

IMHO by default the transported unit should be destroyed together with the transporting unit. There should be a difference between the situation when a unit attacks together with another (two active units) and the situation when a unit transports another (one active, one passive unit).