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| Thread: Only great player can make great maps | |
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted February 21, 2014 06:01 PM |
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Only great players can make great maps
I'm starting to think that a leaser player has zero chances to create a great map or mod, independently of how skilled he is in ERM or grafic tools.
Right now, when I see a map like "Metaxater's Revenge", "To kill for Power" or Wayfarer I realise that to be able to create something that amazing you have to be able to predict and visualize the great battles .
So I decided to postpone learning to mod and instead learning how to play really good first.
But the fact that I can read doesn't made able to wrote something like "A song of Fire and Ice" so, why should I think that becoming a better player will help me to create a good map?
I would like to have your opnions.
Thank you for your time.
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OxFEA
Promising
Famous Hero
feanor on DF2.ru
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posted February 21, 2014 06:16 PM |
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bloodsucker said:
I'm starting to think that a leaser player has zero chances to create a great map or mod, independently of how skilled he is in ERM or grafic tools.
No, I think.
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Orzie
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted February 21, 2014 07:03 PM |
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I totally disagree. First of all, you should define what is a qualified map.
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted February 21, 2014 07:18 PM |
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Orzie said:
I totally disagree. First of all, you should define what is a qualified map.
I have no idea how. Can you define what is a qualifed novel or painting?
I have to admit it depends a lot of personnal taste.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 21, 2014 08:02 PM |
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This is complete bullsh*t. Everyone knows that dark haired guys make the best maps.
I heard somewhere that for making a good new town, must have a tiny burrito (commonly called peepee). Now I know why I never could make a town. Sorry guys. For you, I mean.
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Era II mods and utilities
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Macron1
Supreme Hero
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posted February 22, 2014 08:22 AM |
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Edited by Macron1 at 08:42, 22 Feb 2014.
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There are a lot of maps for SOD without any ERM. And they are played.
I think good map is a map where 90% or more of terrain is occupied by objects and misc decorations, and this is looking good not artificial.
PS My own maps lack this criteria, so they are based on large armies combats but poor in visual.
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted February 22, 2014 12:25 PM |
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Macron1 said:
There are a lot of maps for SOD without any ERM. And they are played.
Yes, all the maps I mention are for SoD no ERM inside and that aids my point: what you need to create a great map is to have a very precise notion of what army the player will have at a certain moment of the game and then chose an oponent that can be beat but very hardly.
If you don't play s... you can't have this perspective, so you simply add some big groups of neutral monsters or some improved heroes with reinforced armys and you hope they give challenge. Even if you test every battle and think they are hard; a good player who has lost half of the troops you did and was able to attack the map much sooner, knowing tricks you never imagined, "will cruch them like a bug".
I concluded that only a top player can create a challengeable map. But I admit I may not be seeing the big picture so I put the question to the community.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted February 22, 2014 12:31 PM |
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With Era, making challenging maps is now possible for everyone. Era allows changing erm scripts on the fly, thus saved hundred of testing hours for mapmakers. Before you had to restart the whole game if opponent x was not enough strong, now you change his army, press F12, is ready for testing.
You don't need to define what's a good map. Time defines it. A map which is still played and discussed 12 years after release (TEW1-2, Unleashing, Vengeance and many others) reach this standard. And from looking at those maps we see that both design quality and battle challenge is required for a map to pass the test of time.
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Herry
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
100% Devil
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posted February 22, 2014 12:42 PM |
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IMHO, i think that even a noob player could make a great map with training. even if you are the best HOMM player in the world, try making an XL map when it's your first time, and trust me, it will be total ****, no matter how good you are as a player, you must be a good map maker. there is a diffirence: a player plays, a map maker makes a map. and being a good one on either of these two has different resources, so what i mean is: you don't need to be a good player to make a good map, unless you will be making it exremely tactical and/or situational which makes it boring for some player(including me).
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LizardWarrior
Honorable
Legendary Hero
the reckoning is at hand
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posted February 22, 2014 12:49 PM |
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Herry said:
unless you will be making it exremely tactical and/or situational which makes it boring for some player(including me).
Heroes is a turn-based strategy game, it is mean to be tactical
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Herry
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
100% Devil
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posted February 22, 2014 12:51 PM |
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LizardWarrior said:
Herry said:
unless you will be making it exremely tactical and/or situational which makes it boring for some player(including me).
Heroes is a turn-based strategy game, it is mean to be tactical
but not to the extent of breaking down your calculator every single move you do. and i said not simply tactical, i said EXTREMELY TACTICAL. by the way, tell us if there is any plague in the community, we need to be prepared 
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted February 22, 2014 02:49 PM |
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To make a good balanced SoD multiplayer map, where every player can be both human or computer, you really don't need to be such a good player.
You put a mine of each tipe on the starting area of each player or maybe just one of wood, one of ore and one of the particular special resource that town needs; put some thinking in wich dwellings will make each faction stronger and add them in proportion.
You decide if map will be open or close, how many banks and power ups will have and if there will be rich treasure areas or not and how heavly guarded they will be, how many neutral cities and dwellings it will have. To make it more funny you will probably add some quests. That's basicly it.
In a map like this you trust the game internal mechanics to make things interesting. And it works, sometimes you really get a trill from these maps.
But you can get it also by using the right template on the map genetator (keeping in mind that templates are also designed by users).
There are other kind of maps: typically they are for one player only and all the other factions are blocked and much stronger.
In this case the map maker has to predict what will be a challenge to the player at a given moment, perhaps find a trick to make a disproporticional battle winneable by exploring AI's mistakes or something of the kind.
This maps are usually much more directive and it is here that WoG (and beyond) operates wonders.
I have to admit, it was only with this kind of map in mind that I arrived to the initial permisse: you have to be a great player to create a great map.
P.S. And then there is TDS...
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Herry
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
100% Devil
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posted February 22, 2014 03:18 PM |
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hmmmmm..... i have no comments but i heard about a program to predict a battles obstacles, which is useful for predicting battles in map editor, through, i want to know something, which is better, do something and test right away or complete the whole map and test it as a whole? but to make things even more challenging, link quests with map accessibility, what i mean is to make a certain area open for who completes this quest and whatever, that way you don't have to worry about what YOU, as the map maker did, but the players choices will decide that, which gets you less things to worry about. you might also make side quests give some creatures to help fight guards.... and and and, possibilities are endless. and you might ban some spells to make it even harder.
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Macron1
Supreme Hero
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posted February 22, 2014 04:51 PM |
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Herry said:
IMHO, i think that even a noob player could make a great map with training.
First draw good looking map. When this is complete, play it several times by different players and correct things, that make process too easy or impossible.
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Herry
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
100% Devil
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posted February 22, 2014 04:52 PM |
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too easy or impossible? how is that?
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Macron1
Supreme Hero
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posted February 23, 2014 07:08 AM |
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Herry said:
too easy or impossible? how is that?
If you win your map without any difficulties and have a lot of resources on first 3-4 mounths, than your map is too easy.
If you started playing several times and lost all of them to AI, than maybe your map is unwinnable.
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Herry
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
100% Devil
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posted February 23, 2014 07:29 AM |
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Macron1 said:
Herry said:
too easy or impossible? how is that?
If you win your map without any difficulties and have a lot of resources on first 3-4 mounths, than your map is too easy.
If you started playing several times and lost all of them to AI, than maybe your map is unwinnable.
now i get what you mean, you have to keep balance between impossible and hard
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