Soulchess

Soulchess

currently planned:
-random events (optional)
-pentagrammsfx
-project "Red Magic": give every unit unique abilities for lvl1, 2 and 3:
Units to be upgraded (levels): known Abilitynames
Black Horde:
Guard of Pergatory (1)
Fusion Wraith (2)
Unholy Lady (1,2): ?
Duke of Pergatory (general change)
Goblin Swarm:
Submarine (3): ?
Seraphie: yet unknown
Cold Armors: yet unknown
Blood Orcs: yet unknown
Elementals: none
Green death: none

Changelog for V.:1.15:
-bugfix/change: flamewave cooldown increased; damagefactor increased to 3.7 from 3.5
-fixed a vacuumgrenade issue
-altered ending display
-new board (use -ab to activate)
-changed zoomcommand (changed main command; extended limits to 20-5000) default is now 1650
-added customtracks as boardmusic fighting theme and epic battle theme (battle between kings or king vs aznereth); removed music commands; most music tracks can now be disabled (they don't count as "sound" anymore); version "Lite" changed to "Epic" (~3,8 mb now!)
EDIT: -removed music commands (will be redone)
-changed introcam for epic battles and added random taunt for attacker
-fixed a "thedarkmoon" issue
-fixed hud position of some abilities
-fixed soulpower music overlap
-aznereth maximum hitpoints lowered from 200 to 180; movementspeed increased from 230 to 240 EDIT: this is obsolete due to rebalance
-soulpowers overwrite zoom now
-"-resetcam" resets zooms now
-changed -rm a bit (hopefully fixed now)
-fixed overlap issue: -re and -repick (partial substring)
-fixed random bug
-updated iknowuhax' account to ikuh
-ikuh's poke only works once per game now (was a bit annoying)
-rebalance: increased hp of all units and adjusted some abilities (e.g. alucard's craving for blood, bloodrage)
-fixed an issue with cold armor gamma's field attack
-losing a fight now adds 4 instead of 5 sp; draws also result in 4 sp for both players instead of 5 sp
-changed display of number of turns a unit is trapped by an ice cage
-decreased healing% of healingfields
-buffed damage of V17-Steelstorm by 20%
-reduced attacker's advantage ias to 20% from 25%
-fixed bug with tutorial removing units in the board if -ar was enabled during -rm
-changed projectile model of gelidus
-added heroic fanatism as level 3 ability for Garel'Ta soldier
-nerfed holy guard's level 2 ability thunder axe
-replaced Zap's level1 with Flashbang
-added former level1 ability as lvl3 ability for Zap; buffed it
-moved level2 ability vacuum grenade from mecha to Zap
-added Phasing as level2 ability for Cocktail Bombers
-added Válin's Fart as level2 ability for Mecha
-shortened range of garel'ta soldier's stun to 200
-added Arcane Advantage as level2 ability for garel'ta soldier
-fixed damagebug with defiled necromancer's vampiric ressurection
-removed shadows from some units which were used for certain cinematics
-added "Riddlespike" as level2 ability for unholy lady
-re X (random events with X% chance per turn added)
-fixed fast animations for black horde's soulpower
-fixed a taunt-typo
-slightly changed voidsphere sfx to get rid of the shadow at end
-seraphie's cursedelay halved in formula
-seraphie's cursedelay has now a maximum of 5 seconds EDIT: lowered to 3 seconds
-fixed soulpower-multiboard-display bug after distributed levelups
-buffed damage&hp for necro's level3 summon: burning dead
-fixed fast animation camera issue for black horde's soulpower
-fixed epic battle cinematic message random
-fixed -ar
-added "Defiled Soul" as new level2 ability for Blooded One Barbarian and Blooded One Rider
-added "Souledge" as new level2 ability for Kragr The Blood Master
-reworked Kragr's "Fury"
-added "Blood Rage" as level1 ability for Blooded One Warlock; reduced his maxhp by 20 and increased his attackcooldown from 0.9 to 1.2 seconds
-fixed hotkey for Skullbomb
-added "Final Strike" as level3 ability for Kragr The Blood Master
-added "Soul Drain" as level1 ability for Holy Guard
-added Ashgan (aka Northwind-Hero) as avatar
-increased duration of dualise from 1.1 to 1.3 seconds
-us now increases size by 50% instead of 100%
-changed various icons
-random command can't be used before the chessters are unpaused
-repick is now disabled for -ar
-changed Blooded One Shaman's lvl1 ability to "Blood Bolt"
-added "-cd" for admins and beta testers
-changed descriptions for the selection circles

Changelog for V.: 1.14
-fixed issue: final curse remove after ashari's angelic ascension
-fixed tooltip of hydra spawn's coralcage
-reduced bloodfog spirits' duration from 10 to 7 seconds
-increased the aoe of shuriken-jitsu from 150 to 175
-removed chance to spellreflect for arcane defense
-equalized armorreduction of bio bomb to 6 (originally 5 as arenaspell and 7 as field attack)
-increased initial damage for sandstorm to 17 from 2 and halved movementspeed reduction to 25%
-blood mastery now adds 15% bonus attackspeed; movementspeed bonus increased to 15% from 10%; maxmana bonus reduced to 10 from 20
-reduced manacost on energy bind to 10 from 15; tooltip changed
-reduced meta curse attackspeed reduction to 40% from 50%
-changed golden chicken sfx; added a customized buff; changed tooltip
-reduced damage of tsunami to factor 2 from 2.5
-increased burning rage attackspeed bonus to 15% from 10% (summon: burning dead)
-fixed coordinates of final curse to match a common level 3 ability
-reduced unchanneled castingtime of skullbomb to 2 from 3 seconds
-increased casting range of widow's kiss to 250 from 200
-fixed soul rend
-increased damage of combustion to 25 from 15
-increased hpcost of unholy contract to 8 from 5
-unholy claws now deal 5 damage per second for 3 seconds
-reduced angelic ascension hp bonus to 150 from 200
-fixed dualise duration
-reduced damage of freezing winds to 40 from 50
-reduced damage of gravity wave to 60 from 70
-reduced chilling amor armorbonus to 3 from 4
-increased bonusdamage for frost orb to 6 from 5; highly increased splash effect
-reduced sharp armor's damagereflect to 25% from 30%
-reduced stop duration to 3 from 5 seconds; increased cooldown to 15 from 10 seconds
-increased kragr the blood masters' maximum damage by 2
-reduced meteoric critter's hp to 95 from 100
-reduced hydra spawns base&maxdamage by 5
-increased pyromancers attack cooldown to 1.5 from 1.15 seconds; increased base&maxdamage by 3
-reduced guard of pergatory's attack cooldown to 1.9 from 2 seconds
-reduced rotten bonedragon's attack cooldown to 2.7 from 3 seconds; fixed acquisitionrange
-increased movementspeed of summoned ghuls to 250 from 200
-increased movementspeed of summoned burning dead to 280 from 240
-increased attackcooldown of cold armor gamma to 1.8 from 1.65 seconds
-reduced maxhp of gelidus the cold foci to 215 from 230
-increased maxhp of lash beast to 100 from 90
-price: avatar and soulpoints added, updated avatareffects
-account&avatar update: the_savior changed to eternal-pain
-added mode: -ar (allrandom)
-added mode: -ss (soulstorm)
-added admincommand: -setsouls
-added hellsingpentagram (thx to n00bstance for the model!)
-changed chrononuke: 30% of the damage is dealt to the caster; +7% if the caster dies
-added mode: -fu (fortifiedunits) i really like some of those shortcuts
-enabled working ending
-added mode: -ns (nosouls)
-added mode: -mm (minime)
-added mode: -us (ubersize)
-added "mode": -tt X (turntime X)
-added mode: -te (tilltheend)
-added mode: -ru (randomunits)
-updated questinfo
-extended pre-tutorial time by 50% (from 20 to 30 seconds)
-added "-modes?" to display all activated modes in chronologic order
-added mode: -rm (random modes) <-freaky! (prevented any possible conflicts between modes)
-replaced bio tinker's lvl2 ability energy bind by bio lure
misc. changes

Changelog V.: 1.13
-added hotkey for final curse
-fixed "restless" (archbone warrior: lvl3, green death) movespeed
-reduced basespeed of archbone warrior and archbone assassin by 40
-increased minimumcost of divine recreation (soulpower, alliance) by 5 soulpoints
-increased manacost of widow's kiss (unholy lady: lvl3, black horde) by 5
-reduced cocktail bombers (goblin swarm) stun duration by 0.7 seconds
-fixed bug related to aznereth (soulpower, black horde) being defeated by field attacks
-increased minimumcost of voidsphere (soulpower, elementals) by 2 soulpoints
-reduced attack&movespeed sloweffect of gravityorb (soulpower, cold armors) by 5%.
-reduced duration/nr.of blood effects for The Will of Blood (soulpower, blood orcs) by 1/3 to prevent perfomance problems or even disconnect issues.
-fixed ashari's morph issue
-fixed typo at end of a battle
-fixed camerapan at battleending
-fixed zoom at goblin&seraphie soulpower
-added some pathblockers to prevent warp&batform abusing
-changed healingfields: heal per turn instead per round (no advantage for player green)
-reduced delay time for new round by 0.5+2.5 seconds
-added manacost for cocktail bomber's hold out pistol: 4
-slightly increased damage and damageradius for engineer's V17-Steelstorm
-redesigned blood rage
-gave blood rage to barbarian
-increased damage of shadow elemental (meta mage lvl3)
-changed armor and attacktypes
-customized armor and attacktype tooltipinfo

i heard about an "unpause" issue which may randomly happen after battles. please spam me with any information concerning this. would be very useful since i never encountered this bug myself.

changelog 1.12:
-fixed 1st-line tauntissue
-fixed 1st-click-leveluprequest issue at beginning of the game
-fixed beyondmax-leveluprequest issue
-reduced cold armor alpha's basedamage
-added a turncounter
-upgraded levelupgraphics
-added dummi for cursed flesh (icon&tooltip)
-added P23 Incinerator as lvl1 ability for mecha
-slightly updated uranium-235-powercore sfx
-added -zoom X (value X from 20 to 840)
-added -resetcam
-updated gameplay constants
-customized the is-attacked-buff
-increased mecha's attackcooldown by 30%
-various misc stuff
-rotten bonedragon -20 maxhp
-bloodfogspirits as lvl3 ability for bloodfog archer

changelog 1.11:
-decreased cold armor beta's dmg by 5
-renamed Fren-Wu The Elementalist to Fren-Wu The Meta Mage
-renamed Seraphie Sword Maidens to Seraphie
-fusion wraith's soul rend has now a 3% chance to deal 5 times dmg
-developed final curse as level 3 ability for fusion wraith
-reduced gridsize of map (160x160 to 160x12
-gave submarine level 2 ability tsunami
-developed vacuum grenade as level 2 ability for mecha
-changed leveluptriggers to prevent overflow
-developed Uranium-235-Powercore as level 3 ability for Mecha
-fixed tauntloop-issue

changelog 1.10:
-fixed loop-overlap issue: more triggers at the same time caused very werid bugs every once in a while because the loops used the same variables
-tutorial may now be skipped with 1 vote if theres only 1 player in the game
-reduced number of effects on blood orcs' and seraphie's soulpowers to prevent certain players from dropping (i just hate that >.<)
-enabled "evillaugh", "insanelaugh" and "play soulpower" (2 single sounds, 1 musictheme) as substringcommands for common users
-added "-iam XYZ" as renamecommand. the old "-rename N XYZ" which can be used to rename player number N still exists and is restricted to admins and betatesters (ppl might get annoyed if this is accessable for common users)
-replacing cold armor alpha's "warp" by a new ability called "dualise"
-balance: increasing strength of blood orcs (just a bit), decreasing the power of rotten bonedragon, cold armor beta and gelidus, increasing Warrior's hp and decreasing its armor (renamed: Silveredge Warrior)
-certain details changed in triggers
-increasing the cost of aznereth by 10 souls each time he was summoned
-added "-random" to pick a random race
-fixed teamdeclaration for creeps in singleplayer
-evaluating the high random for certain races

although the LITE versions are about 2 mb smaller ill create another normal version of 1.10 for those who play lan or have enough patience for the transfer. (normal version includes 2 WoW tracks: one as boardtheme and one as battletheme)
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i will update this post to display the current status of the map

lol....i thought the name Laosh'Ra was familliar....im actually playing the map on lan with my friends ... i win every time...that made em try to take me out form the begining sa i wouldn't win again.

i recomend adding a random for races...or adding a few new ones as well ><.

Very good map and i recomend it

You can make a Real Risk map the same way (the way it should be played...turn based)

MOVED: was originaly the first post
well i've spend 9 months of work until i considered this map to be ready for a release. here it is and i hope you enjoy it. however id like to have some feedback of course, im open minded for any suggestions or criticism.

to learn how to play the map, start it in singleplayer, watch the tutorial and read the whole stuff in the quest section because this post is ment to be an addition as well as giving an impression of the map.

here's some general information about the project:

main idea:
create something unique instead of aos-style #3072 or td #4508. although there are a lot of maps which are much more fun to certain people they might still play the map every once in a while for a change.

genre:
mix between turnbased strategy game and arenabattles and other misc possibilities (its defo NOT like chess). consider the game to last about 1 hour 30 mins with 4 players.

players:
1-4, they can pick between 8 completely different races.
1: to get a first impression. creeps will spawn but they won't move at all.
2: works but not recommended
3: big disadvantage for the player in the middle
4: that's the way it's ment to be played. even noobies have chances to win since its 1on1on1on1 which leads to a natural balance during the game.

controls:
select one of your own units during your turn to let circles appear on the ground. the grey ones are blocked, green ones to move, red ones to attack an enemy or to use a field attack. selecting your king or pressing ESC during your turn will show up a menu for different actions.
the unitshotkeys are: Q W E and R (depending on the position of the abilities). there are also certain commands like "-skip" to voteskip the tutorial, "-cam" to reset the camera or "play xyz" where xyz is a musictrack.
some commands such as changing a units life, skipping a turn or even... more suspicious stuff is limited to certain betatesters and admins and is NOT ment to be abused. if you're annoyed by such a person please report it to me.
important: talk to ALL and NOT TO ALLIES (change that in the chatmenu). i havent found a way to change the default for this yet.

general info / progress of the game:
the board is shaped like a cross (so the forces don't overlap in the corners), there are 4 healingfields in the middle. each player has 10 units and loses if his king-type unit dies. the players take turns to move their units.
during your turn you can EITHER
-move a unit
-attack a unit (arena)
-attack a unit (field attack)
-skip your own turn (to leave everything as it is)
-increase the level of one of your units
-use your soulpower
-do stupid stuff until the turntime runs out (1:30)

-attack a unit (arena)
instead of killing a unit directly an arenafight is triggered (both units are unpaused and transported to 1 out of currently 6 arenas). the attacker has +25% attackspeed and +10% movementspeed. warning: the damage is VERY randomized. the winning unit will levelup (max: lvl3) and gather 3 soulpoints, the loser will gather 5 soulpoints.

-attack a unit (field attack)
some units (averagely 2 per race) have field attacks. instead of triggering an arenafight the attacker will attack once or cast a single spell to hurt / weaken the victim. (check the abilities of the RED CRICLES for field attacks)

-levelup / soulpower
as mentioned before you gather souls by fighting. but you also gather souls by occupying the kingfields (1 soul per round) and the healingfields in the middle (2 souls per round). those souls can be spend to increase the level of a unit (neither a king nor aznereth) for 10 souls or to cast the race-specific soulpower. both options can be found in the menu which shows up if you select your king or press ESC.
soulpowers are usualy very strong and may change the tide of the battle.


about balance:
you cannot compare certain units of each race like "his king is stronger than mine! IMBA!" because each race has advantages and disadvantages in certain CATERGORIES. for example the blood orcs are very strong in 1on1 arena-combat but they got no field attacks at all. the black horde have weak units but a strong king and a strong soulpower. in the end the 1on1on1on1 contributes a lot of balance.

i changed the damagetables for the different attack and armortypes and i also randomized the damage a lot (stuff like 15-35 damage) so don't be too angry if you lose a fight although you attacked.

about strategy:
hiding at your startingpoints won't help you at all. you units won't reach higher levels and you will gather only 1 soul per round. besides that other players will recognize your tactic and either focus on you or just occupy the middle until they gathered enough souls to blow you apart.

be sure to always COVER your units with other units because most of them will die if attacked. in this case you need another unit next to it to counter the attack.

about bugs:
due to the fact that it is a turnbased map a lot of bugs appeared and it took ages to fix them and the map is stable now. however if there are still some left, please report them to me. theres still 1 thing that buggs me: 1 or 2 soulpowers DROP some players. this happens rarely and im going to reduce the sfx to prevent this to happen any further.
/MOVED


thanks for feedback... if you want send me some replays A: makes me happy to c other ppl having fun with my work B: a good way to get some balance infos (since im the creator i always have certain advantages against the poor noobs so its no real balance test in the end) C: also a good way to find out about possible bugs or ppl having problems getting along with certain stuff (movesystem etc.)
just mail them to [email protected] during a period of boredo(o)m. ah just in case u want to whisper me: b.net doesnt allow the precious ' so my nick is actually LaoshRa (however its automaticly changed to Laosh'Ra while i play the map xD)

well about the nr. of races... there are about 20 suggestions for new races but im not even sure if ill add a single one anymore. creating the units and adding them to the specific triggers takes 1 day, adding abilities takes about 3 days, the soulpower another day and in the end it takes... uh... at least a month to balance/bugfix. therefore i focus on the goal to make unique levelup abilities for every unit.

as for the suggestion of creating a risk map... im not sure if its worth creating such a thing since is MUCH work. besides that i think i've heard about a risk map which contains dices etc...

By the way ...i forgot to tell you ....nice avatar of Hexadeath

but still i would like to see a random race option .... just like an -ar or -ap in dota...

and why boost blood orcs they allready are insanely strong in arena fights... and soul points should be used to heal units too....cause later in fight...there maybe no units left just kings...and kings are imune to some soulpowers (blood orcs kill random unit...not king so his soul points are no use to him ...while goblins can cast ChronoNuke so it can hurt all other kings) and kings are also imune to theire own lvl up spell :/...why can't they lvl up like normal units

(as u might have noticed im still working on 1.10)

uh... the avatar is gilgamesh from ff5 and i never heard of hexadeath (maybe ur talking about exdeath... perhaps a different translation). i use it because im interested in the REAL history of gilgamesh (yes, he did exist and is said to have ruled for about 120 years in uruk): it is the oldest epic created by mankind (~4000 years old) and made by the sumerians (the ppl who invented writing and... BEER ). besides that the bible, the book with the 2nd most print runs on earth (nr.1 is indeed the IKEA catalog) took over the part of noah and the Flood (the ark had 217.000 m³ space). although i dont know anyone who read the epic of gilgamesh i still think its an important piece of culture. putting ff aside u can find relations to gilgamesh, enkidu (his best friend) or ishtar in games like tales of phantasia or... whatever. bah im brabbling too much unrelated stuff >.<
ANYWAY... the blood orcs are ment to be much stronger in arenafights but they still lose too often and the disadvantage of not having any field attacks (and a weak soulpower if you compare it) is too strong. as for the healing, there are already healingfields which are important to prevent ppl from hiding (kind of a king of the hill) so it is important that theres hardly any other way to heal the units. besides that theres one soulpower which DOES heal and units with higher levels also regenerate a certain amount of hp per round.
leveling kings (or aznereth) would be just too imba because some kings are insanely strong on higher levels (e.g. alucard). they have to be leveled by fighting which is another way to annoy "hiding" players. as for the fact that the soulpoints become useless in lategame for certain races... thats just another disadvantage of a race (compare naix with silencer in dota!) and wont be altered. however i MIGHT invent another way of distributing the points but ill make it very unefficent for the players.
as for the random race option... i think ill do that. besides that i already made a trigger which is currently limited for admins: u only get the king and the soulpower if you select a race and all other units are random (they still keep their class). however this contains an uneceptable amount of imbalance since some kings/soulpowers are stronger than others which is actually equalised by weaker common units.

double post ....did yo uget my e-mail i send you with the played demo with my friends ><....

and yes that is gilgamesh!! ...as i recall he kidda was a persistent dude ....and ies that was exadeath (i mgiht just try to play ff5 again.. i finished it twice....with perfection...i got all the monsters ,spirits , blue spells ...normaly that is where the story of Finel Fantasy should have ended ...once with the gems....nut of cours play station didn't agree )

good luck on soul chess please tell me when you get a new version ><

im done with 1.10 (upload in a few mins). not THAT much features because i got a lot of work atm... anyway check the post above for a changelog. ill watch the replay(s) tomorrow i guess, hf!

yeah...hours of fun ....but my friend refuses to play cause you added 10 soulpoints to azereth ))....ROFL =))

omg... its 10 points more for the SECOND time he's summoned (first time: 45, second time: 55, third: 65 and so on). i guess i focus on new abilities now, as for the camerathing there'd be a lot to change (changing cam a lot) so ill do that during my holy-days or in case i find a faster solution.

lol...thats better i guess +10 for each summon....oh...and the ulti of the elemental leaves holes in the ground when he uses it (should that happen? ) good luck and if u need any thing (i know i will) just ask me (i know i will ask you)... you make friends fast ...maybe because you are a goodeditor....before i complete any maps i'll send em to you for a complete check-up ..

BTW...any advice on what map i should make?

(yes the voidsphere of the elementals is ment to leave permanent craters... thats just KEWL!)
as for a mapproject... i guess that depends on you (i got no idea what kind of maps u like... dont make a map which u wouldnt like yourself!) i got a single mapidea at the moment but... uh... id like to create that myself XD if you really have no idea what to do... id always like some kind of rampage map: many different groups (single heroes? whole bases?) and each has its own unique goal and there are a lot of possibilities that can be triggered... another great maptype is a coop-dungeon with loads of traps and treasures. i already made one of those but it has a linear storyline and id like to see a diablo-like map which is more like an open-rpg... hum... i think ill update the one i made and upload it. was actually a nice map... mtg tempest

i was wondering.... can you actualy make a open rpg map....and have about 50 (i'll name the map RPG 1) and you get a -save code and a -password. the question is....could you use the code to load your hero on OPENRPG 2 ??? (that is the second map) ...and if you do not enter the corect password you can not play map 2 cause you did not finish map 1 (wiitch gives you password if you finish the map... this would be a good way to implement a new type of rpg...a multi map one (this should also help your diablo map quite much....you wold gain just like in diablo original map...you would have people helping weaker guy pass map 1 faster buy directly killing andariel .... but i do intend to make this RPG from my own personal imagination)

strange enough that i know a guy called northwind-hero which is doing an aos-style map (actually more like an openrpg: genre is quite similar to WoW) which will include many terrains (maxlvl 200). so i guess he got about the same idea u just brought up. however he planned to give each terrain a suggested and a maximum level. i know about that project because he asked me for some help with triggers (reviving heroes with spells etc.). as far as i know theres a standart save&load system in weu but i dont know if that can be used to save certain integers as well. shouldnt be too hard to create own algorithms for this though. the big problem due to the genre is: if you change something you have to apply it to ALL maps... anyway... we shouldnt spam mapideas in this topic XD

i don't need to give it a maximum level...cause monsters in first map probaly will give exp not enough for 000.1% of an entir lvl for a hero ><... also you could add a team mode just like diablo (Ex: -team invite red ... that should invite red in you're group and it will devide exp >< would help a lot in Plvl)

I just released 1.11. Check the first post of this topic for changes. hf!