Tactics Unleashed : Prologue

2006-04-05

hm.. about that camera lockups, do you know that you can unlock the camera using CTRL + C?

BTW, Chapter 1 will be coming up!

2006-02-08

I enjoy the map, because I really enjoyed FFT and this is a good start at porting the system. But I have some bugs/suggestions:

- My game locks whenever I use a magnifier near anything that might be treasure. I can use it when it fails no problem, but if it is supposed to work the game locks up. Every time, 100% repeatable on every battle with treasure. (by lock-up, the camera stays focused on the char, and action will not continue)
- My game locks on battle 7 every single time when the insane rat gets to move. The opening round I can do anything with my guys, all the rats move, then the insane rat moves, and the game locks up. Every time, I've gone there twice, reloaded, tried everything imaginable, it locks up every time when he moves (same style lock-up as previous)
- My game locks up anytime that the dwarf casts Eagle Skin. The camera angle changes to show his animation, he performs the spell, and the camera stays stuck on that angle and does not allow me to select any character to continue. If the monsters move next, they move but the camera angle stays locked and I cannot continue.
- Sometimes the locked camera when a char is selected can be very annoying, such as when I'm in the middle of my guys round and I want to look around the map, or select a movement circle that is off camera (usually south, covered by the console). Lock the camera during animations, but leave it unlocked all other times please. This might solve the previous bugs, because they all involve the camera locking into a cutscene mode.
- Include some sort of timer that skips a turn if no action is taken, there are weird and rare bugs with reloading at certain odd times and other lockups that could be cleared up with a catch-all timer. Like after 60 seconds of no action by whosever turn it is, their turn gets skipped.
- VERY long cutscenes with no way to skip. Some really last a long time (5 minutes), and after I've seen them once I just want to skip through to the battles.
- all of the maps boil down to the exact same "hang out where you spawn and defeat the incoming waves" feel. All but one have the same snaky setup of just one long tunnel, and even the wide-open one doesn't really allow for anything but defending the spawn point. I'm not sure how to solve this, but the map itself seems to make zero difference to the gameplay, unlike FFT where moving in and out of range and map management was critical.

I like the potential of the system, and it captures the strategic elements of FFT well, but the lock-ups suck =( Prolly due to changing wc3 versions or something...

Jamir

2005-04-24

hmm.. weird. i never had that bug and you can skip attack too by pressing the ESC key. though i guess i'm wrong, battle1 has a memory leak. but playable.

HardGamerDz

2005-04-03

Good campaign. I'm on map1 now and I got stuck becuse I pressed attack with only 1 unit apart from me and I couldn't attack him becuse of the range. But then I couldn't skip ATTACK etheir. So now I'm going to the World Editor just to create a single little unit..

VGsatomi

2005-03-29

Although I still STRONGLY reccomend replacing the current hero models with something more appropriate (not too many kids with beards and wrinkled faces running around), I will go ahead anbd award this the Director's Choice Award for the fact that you have accomplished what no one else has in terms of making a fully functioning tactics-series strategy RPG for warcraft 3. And a difficult feat it mustve been. Very nice campaign, and a job well done.
-VGsatomi

Jamir

2005-02-24

thank you very much for your suggestions, shiggityshwa. i'll try to do those to make chapter1 far better. thanks again.

shiggityshwa

2005-02-20

Here is a list of thing that you can look into for future tactics campaigns

- Have random item drops from monsters

- For the XP maybe doing it by each time a hero attacks a monster and a little extra for killing that way the gaps between lvls might not be that big (just noticed that you said this one, but i'll leave it up)

- As the quest goes on I’m sure the amount of people that join you will become larger, like most other tactics game maybe have it so you can select like 6 people from the party to fight. (this one isn't a big issue so don't look to far into if you don't like the idea)

- Status effects such as poison, blind or sleep

- Have other items that damage or add status effects to monsters also one that revives a hero, maybe like a bomb for damage and rotten apple for poison ect.

- Play around with the armor system in warcraft, maybe have monsters that are weak to melee attack and strong to ranged and the other way around, also maybe some weak to spells

- Maybe allow picking of skills, i think a skill tree like Diablo would be cool if it could be done

- Mini games are also welcome

- Passive skills that a hero could learn or receive from an item such as counter attack, parry or hide (during night)

- Have a few battles that require you to do something different then just killing all enemies, such as destroy this building or target, protect this person , catch that person b4 he runs or other things like that.

- For those huge kick ass spells that some games have, maybe look into one of Angel.of.Doom 's summoning cinematic that he made ( in the spell section)

that’s it for now, I’ll add more if i think of any

Jamir

2005-02-19

thanks for all those comments. as of now, i am doing the next part of the story which is chapter 1. so i think i'll be adding those there.

"Bash (10 mana)"

heh sorry didn't think of it. but i'll do that now. thanks.

I’ll have some other suggestions to help improve the game and make it feel more like a tactics game for any future campaigns you might be making.

sure, i'll be listening.

To cut down on time, why not hide the portions of the map you shouldn't be able to see (give them large siteradius still) and only show movement of units that are worth seeing.

you think i should move the units without the camera focusing on them?

Also, perhaps you should make it so enemies can flee, or that if they can't see you, they don't advance as quickly.

yah, i thought of that. though my plan is to minimize the number of enemies. would it be nice?

Other stuff you should split XP because you should keep all the heroes mainly the same level, unless they aren't close enough, or dead.

hmmm... yes, for the next campaign i'll add EXP whenever they attack an enemy unit. will that be suitable enough?

Other stuff, get enemies to have % chance to drop keys at the end of the battle.

yes, i'll do that. thanks.

thank you for those comments guys. i'll put to it that chapter 1 will be better.

Drain Pipe

2005-02-18

1 suggestion. To cut down on time, why not hide the portions of the map you shouldn't be able to see (give them large siteradius still) and only show movement of units that are worth seeing.

Also, perhaps you should make it so enemies can flee, or that if they can't see you, they don't advance as quickly.

Other things needed is to hide the map parts that you don't need. Perhasp, you should also add a few mini-scenes before you enter a new area (so put a small map in it just before).

Other stuff you should split XP because you should keep all the heroes mainly the same level, unless they aren't close enough, or dead.

Other stuff, get enemies to have % chance to drop keys at the end of the battle.

That's pretty much other things i find might help the map, because i find it lacks some stuff; i mean it's an interesting concept, but you need to fill in all the blanks. It you require cinmatics i can try to make some for you because the in battle spells are kind of lacking the animations.

shiggityshwa

2005-02-18

It was a very good campaign and i enjoyed all the parts that i have played.(got a little bit more to go)
The battle system was cleverly and nicely done, with surprising almost no bugs to it.

Now that you have the system down, i think you need to greatly improve the effects of battle. With tactics games good eye candy spells and skills make a battle much more enjoyable, while poor effect will lose peoples attention with in 3 or so battles.

My only advice with improving spells and skills is:
Remember this is a single player campaign, so that means you can go a little over board with special effect with out the game lagging up on you like a multiplayer game would.
Another thing i would like to see added is being able to see the mana costs for the skills. Maby something like "Bash (10 mana)" (or what ever it costs)
I have not finished the game so i don't know how far you are going with the story but I’ll have some other suggestions to help improve the game and make it feel more like a tactics game for any future campaigns you might be making.

Keep up the very nice work and I hope to see more.

Jamir

2005-02-14

tnx for the very good comment, drain pipe

hmm...

the heal and attack's not a bug, it's made to make the monster tougher.

by the way i have uploaded a new map with bug fixes, namely:
1. fixed transitions between cinematics. they now appear in the right time.

2. fixed the bug about the chest items integer that does not update after you leave polata village. (big bug)
3. fixed battle 6,7 and secret battle 2 where Yuri and Clyve does not acquire a new spell.

newest bug fixed:
fixed the gameplay constant in the 2 secret battles.

i will need more of your comments. tnx

Drain Pipe

2005-02-13

well for one thing, the cinematics still need work. They don't appear at the right time. Also, you should hide the spots we shouldn't see on your map. As for the battles, they still take a long time to use and the dialiect leaves something to be desired, especially the unnessesary content and such. Some stuff just sounded corny, Also spelling mistakes (not a big deal for me) and the scenes shoulda be skippable because it becomes rather long other wise.

All in all, the map really needs work. You'll need to work on some animations and try to make the people look more real. Perhaps use other models for the kids because they look too old and some actions should be smoother. (for better walking in cinematics, try adding ghost to the units. Also, it find it annoying to have to watch every moster move every time. Try and make ones only 1000 for your charaters visble. Another thing you might want to work on is the anims for the spells you make and the showing of damage (sometimes it leaves me guessing).

All in all, it's not bad but it leaves a lot to be desired. If you want, and if i have time, i can help with some of the animations (like in the begining where he falls off the barn, i can make him look like he is actually falling, instead of simply teleporting to the ground.) I didn't manage to get very far, but i liked the combat system, although i found that the melee guys spells dealt less damage and could ususally only be used once in a level while the others could use theires which were more powerful (like the double shot for the archer girl (who should be an archer model). I also noticed that some enemies got to attack twice. They would heal, then attack which i think should be a bug. Anyways, thats pretty much my thoughts on this so far.

It needs some work but it's not bad

3/5. Maybe fix the kinks and that will become a 4.

Jamir

2005-02-12

ok, this is version 2.

to give you a recap of the changes, here they are:
*IMPROVED MOVEMENT SYSTEM (By Ant

)*
*ANGLE DETECTION SYSTEM (By Ant again)*
*NEW AND IMPROVED AI*
*CHESTS AND SECRET ITEMS ADDED*
*2 SECRET OPTIONAL BATTLE MAPS ADDED*
*MADE BATTLES MORE COMPACT (About 25%-40% of their original time taken)*
*FIXED CINEMATICS*
*CAN NOW PRESS ESCAPE WHEN TARGETING AN ENEMY* (Ant's idea. thanks

)
*DOUBLED THE ITEMS*
*CAN NOW REST TO SLOWLY REGAIN HP/MP*
*CAN GUARD*

BASIC HELP:
Your heroes only gain experience if they are the ones who killed the monster.
You can have a chest which holds the items you found in battlefield. But be warned, that the chest can only carry up to six items.
Look for suspicious land markings in the terrain. This usually will be the place where treasures can be found. But be warned, if you use the magic magnifier and you don't find any treasure, it will be wasted.
If you found a secret battle, always press 'yes'. Pressing 'no' will not let you get the battle again.
To leave secret battles, you can let Joshua die or by typing 'leave'.
Always aim for the monster's back. If it's not possible, aim for its side. It will equip you with a bonus damage. Be aware that monsters will also be targeting for your back.

Joshua's combo spell may require the right keys. You may find these in the battlefield. Noticed an unusual doodad?

Rest WILL be useful. But it's not that useful if you rested in the middle of the battlefield.

Some items have skills but can only be used once per battle though.

CREDITS:
Me (Concept and Design,Triggers,Terrain,Cinematics,Etc.)
Ant (Ideas,Triggers,Reviews,Debugger,Etc.)

Tactics Unleashed : Prologue

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