Hammerwatch Forum
Custom mapping and Mods => Custom Maps => Topic started by: Heretic on December 05, 2013, 12:39:51 PM
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Download Link (https://www.dropbox.com/s/92qcut2rbd2xrug/Ravenwatch_Beta_0185.hwm) (42MB) v0.185
Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE6_pok2fcc
Be sure to change the quality to 720p or Higher!
Be sure to check it out on the Steam Workshop and leave me a comment! Any feedback is welcome, let's make this the best mod that we can!
Features:
New Monsters, ghosts, demons, vampires, ravens, scorpions, and more!
2 Acts are planned
New Music **
Original Tilesets and Doodads
New traps and items!
Minigames *
Town
*More to be patched later
** Will be added later
Premise:
Castle Ravenwatch sits on top of a island mountain alone and dark. Very few people venture to the island, as there are rumors that it is haunted by the thousands of souls taken by the great lich who built the castle.
Pretty standard eh? Having a lot of fun building it, and any help would be welcome. If you have some skills you'd like to contribute just let me know!
patch notes
Update: Jul 18 @ 4:04am
-Fixed invisible wall on bridge to 1st Reaper - not sure how it happened, but it's been shot in the face.
Update: Jul 14 @ 7:04am
Version 0.18
-Fixed crypt collision that allowed you outside the level.
-Fixed various tileset graphical glitches and layering
-Fixed second bronze key on Level 2 not always spawning
-Fixed rain parallax discoloration
-Changed rain to randomly change intensity and frequency, turns on and off.
Update: Jul 7 @ 3:51pm
Patch 0.17
Notes
General:
-Changed minigame in town only viewable by Ranger, Wizard, Priest, and Thief
-While playing the minigame, the range will be increased to allow playing as follows:
--Thief fan of knives throws 2 knives and cost 0 mana, 2gold
--Wizard's fireball range increased to 6.5
--Priest Beam range increased to 8
The Palading and Warlock do not ahve abilities that allow the target practice.
-Removed custom skin for warlock - was accidently placed and not intended as part of Ravenwatch.
-Ravens now properly do damage in Easy mode.
Level2:
Tree Thorn projectiles now much easier to see.
Level 3:
-Spine Shooter now spawns properly in the sarcophagi
-Bronze doors now properly spawn loot.
Update: Jul 6 @ 2:14pm
Version 0.15
General:
-Updated Ravenwatch Preview Icon
-Changed minigame price from 200+ to 35 for both Easy Mode and Man Mode
Level1:
- Fixed collision bug that allowed you to walk outside the level
Level2:
-Fixed graphical bugs when walking into caves - all textures should disappear or remain properly now. (Thanks for the feedback to find these!)
-Fixed exploit that allowed you to walk around the obstacle area of hand traps
Level4:
-Fixed exploit that allowed you to avoid parts of the hand traps in the obstacle area.
-Fixed hand trap prefab to no longer damage during multiplayer (due to lag)
Thanks for checking it out guys!
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Would love to play through it! Hopefully there's still enough of a community lingering around to get a team run on it.
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Would love to play through it! Hopefully there's still enough of a community lingering around to get a team run on it.
I'll always be lingering around :D
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That seems great !!! I hope that the music will be epic :D
But sound of the ghosts is kinda annoying :/
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But sound of the ghosts is kinda annoying :/
It definitely needs some tweaking :P
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This is really nice and a nice presentation too, that video.
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Oh yeah these sounds are better :D !
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just watched the video. can not wait for this to come out. thanks for showing off all your hard work. looks amazing. keep us posted.
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Updated with screenshots of the new tilesets and spider peek
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Looks good!
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This looks very good. Your custom tilesets make the game look almost diabloesque, but still keep it close to the Hammerwatch style.
I am looking forward for this!
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but still keep it close to the Hammerwatch style.
I am looking forward for this!
I think this is the best way to go for custom levels, if you plan to use any of the original assets, it's nice if the new one matches!
I mean, you could do a completely new graphics style here, super highres and all, but it would just take too long and be too much work.
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I have a question. Can I possibly use any of the actors for my own map? I will credit you of course on the forum post and in some end game credits. (if I can figure that out :P)
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I have a question. Can I possibly use any of the actors for my own map? I will credit you of course on the forum post and in some end game credits. (if I can figure that out :P)
I'm not opposed to it Gammer, but I'd have to know more about your project, pm me?
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Since you mentioned that you need any help you can take for this project in then I would gladly give you a helping hand. I am no good at game design, but I study English language and literature at university so if you need any help with the setting, plot or mood I can always give my two cents!
Let me know if you need any help with anything!
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Since you mentioned that you need any help you can take for this project in then I would gladly give you a helping hand. I am no good at game design, but I study English language and literature at university so if you need any help with the setting, plot or mood I can always give my two cents!
Let me know if you need any help with anything!
Thanks so much! I'll pm you!
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but still keep it close to the Hammerwatch style.
I am looking forward for this!
I think this is the best way to go for custom levels, if you plan to use any of the original assets, it's nice if the new one matches!
I mean, you could do a completely new graphics style here, super highres and all, but it would just take too long and be too much work.
I would like to just say right now, we have officially reached the point of no return. The last remaining default asset we've been using were the default crates. But I have just finished work on new crates to replace the default ones and now the ONLY thing that's from the main campaign will be some of the particles, the player's abilities, and some of the sounds and it's ENTIRELY possible we will begin replacing those as well.
Oh, and hello, I've taken a break from designing my own maps and started up level designing for Ravenwatch. The project is most definitely still alive and I'm so excited to build the beta for you guys. Stay tuned!
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It's gonna be interesting to see what happens here, maybe show some video soon again? =)
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Maybe, there's still a lot of little things that need polished up before I think we can show off some of what has been completed in the last month and Pwnography has had some issues lately, so maybe soon...ish...
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Yes my stylus broke! :P But an idea of what we're working on right now is finishing the last few actors for act1, including the miniboss. The boss is mostly drawn but neesd to be put in, and redrawn if needed (yikes!)
Other than we've finished some more parts of the graveyard tileset including cliffs/stairs, etc. Ocean and beach/waves, destructibles, food/health items, decorations and more :P
I should be getting my new stylus today or tomorrow, so maybe in a week or so we can release a progress video to replace the old one :P
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Added Reaper and Skeleton previews, and the cliff tilset/beach examples.
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This is all extremely impressive! Amazing work so far :D
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It looks amazing, I can't wait until it's finished!
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where can I download this map?
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Hopefully later this month a playable beta of Act1 will be released and I'll put the link on this thread here. The boss is finished (mostly) and so are most other assets except for the town tileset. All that is left is building the actual areas and we will have something playable for feedback!
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We are all looking forward to the release!
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Please! End the map! I'm from Argentina, and waiting for this because seems awesome!
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Please! End the map! I'm from Argentina, and waiting for this because seems awesome!
Thanks for your hype! I assure you I'm just as excited to release this, but as it is a solo project it has been quite a bit of work! I want to release act 1 by the end of this month and absolutely all of my spare time is going into this, I look forward to your feedback once it releases!
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Thanks for your hype! I assure you I'm just as excited to release this, but as it is a solo project it has been quite a bit of work! I want to release act 1 by the end of this month and absolutely all of my spare time is going into this, I look forward to your feedback once it releases!
Thanks you for answer! And i'll keep bothering you to see if you continue with your map! XD
(sorry for my poor english)
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Trailer added!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE6_pok2fcc&fmt=22
Watch in HD!
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Really really cool. Congrats on getting so far on this, looking forward to the release!
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Very exciting.
How did you do the music? Just looking for tips on art/music (anything really).
Also curious how you implemented the spawning animations (skeletons rising from ground or spider dropping from ceiling).
I especially like the stairs, adding in the cliffs and elevation to the level really breaks things up and adds some more dimension and texture to the level design.
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Very exciting.
How did you do the music? Just looking for tips on art/music (anything really).
Also curious how you implemented the spawning animations (skeletons rising from ground or spider dropping from ceiling).
I especially like the stairs, adding in the cliffs and elevation to the level really breaks things up and adds some more dimension and texture to the level design.
I used Audacity, which is a freeware audio editing software. I got permission from Mochipet to use their song and then mixed it using that program.
Spawning animations are a bit tricker - in the .xml you can have a sprite bank and name it something (I name mine "Summon") <sprite name="summon"> and in the editor you can use the PlayEffect and select the monster.xml:summon as the effect you want to play. To get it on the reaper and spider boss it is a scripted event so I can really customize it how I want - but to do it for the skeletons and the spiders I made a prefab so that I don't have to script every little mob. The prefab lets me script it just once and then place it however many times I want :D
Thanks for your feedback, I wanted to have the outdoor areas have a new feel to them, and the cliffs/stairs were a perfect way to get the feel I wanted!
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Spawning animations are a bit tricker - in the .xml you can have a sprite bank and name it something (I name mine "Summon") <sprite name="summon"> and in the editor you can use the PlayEffect and select the monster.xml:summon as the effect you want to play. To get it on the reaper and spider boss it is a scripted event so I can really customize it how I want - but to do it for the skeletons and the spiders I made a prefab so that I don't have to script every little mob. The prefab lets me script it just once and then place it however many times I want :D
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So you actually have a spritebank in the monster's actor xml? Is the prefab just a circle area or somesuch that triggers when the players get close?
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So you actually have a spritebank in the monster's actor xml? Is the prefab just a circle area or somesuch that triggers when the players get close?
For the skeletons and spiders yes, its an area near them that triggers the playeffect, and then spawns the mob precisely where it should be after the animation
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I'd be willing to try my hand at putting together a dungeon or two if you still need people.
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What a beauty this campaign is ;)
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HEY ! Got your email ! everyone is extremely excited to play it, I can't wait for it to come out !! any eta on the demo/first act ? :)
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Sorry on the delay folks! I had hoped to get it finished before I went out of town for a vacation to meet my wife's family and such, but that didn't happen! As an update, I'm currently working on the final level which I think will be the funnest level, and once that's done I'll be releasing the act 1 beta for all to play!
Thanks so much for everyone's patience, this project has been a lot of fun in the making!
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Woooo!
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This trailer looks gorgeous :o
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How long is the gameplay of the map?
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How long is the gameplay of the map?
It's 5 Levels, 7 maps total if you count the town and side area. I'm not sure how long it will be to play through it all, since it's meant to be a challenge and harder than the normal campaign overall. I'm hoping for a few solid hours of gameplay from all this including the boss :D
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bump - Released and available on the Steam Workshop!
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You might wanna post the hwm to those that don't have steam though =) the DRM free version.
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Good thinking! Posting now!
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updated to 0.15
General:
-Updated Ravenwatch Preview Icon
-Changed minigame price from 200+ to 35 for both Easy Mode and Man Mode
Level1:
- Fixed collision bug that allowed you to walk outside the level
Level2:
-Fixed graphical bugs when walking into caves - all textures should disappear or remain properly now. (Thanks for the feedback to find these!)
-Fixed exploit that allowed you to walk around the obstacle area of hand traps
Level4:
-Fixed exploit that allowed you to avoid parts of the hand traps in the obstacle area.
-Fixed hand trap prefab to no longer damage during multiplayer (due to lag)
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Hey, just finished playing Ravenwatch up until the 5th black candle (I died :P). I'd dare say this is the best Hammerwatch map I've player so far, even beating the campaign itself.
Figured I'd give some feedback and play the rest through later at a better time.
First, I found some graphical glitches. I've compiled the ones I noticed in no particular order at this album here (http://imgur.com/a/Tv2Co#0) EDIT: apparently you just fixed a bunch of these. I'll remove the obsolete ones on my next playthrough. I've circled or drawn arrows pointing at the bugs. Sorry for the poor map visibility, couldn't figure out a good way to show it.
Found 3 other bugs as well:
1. In the village, the houses don't show up on the map (don't know if intentional).
2. Paladin (and maybe others too) can buy the chance to play the archery minigame, even though they lack a ranged attack.
3. When the shooting skulls with just their spines attached rise from a sarcophagus, they are layered (correct word?) under it. This partially hides them from view.
I've got a few suggestions as well that might be good additions.
1. Add signs on the shop walls in the village. Easier for first timers to find their class house. Or maybe make a doodad that only shows the sign on the map.
\/ !!! SPOILERS from here on !!! \/
2. In the crypts after the Grim reaper boss, there is a room in which there are 4 copper doors with keys hidden inside a lot of sarcophagi. You need to look for a silver key inside one of them.
Right now you need to use only 1 key since there is no fog of war hiding the contents of the room (silver key room is visible).
Hiding the contents of the room until opening would force the players to guess instead of just going straight for the important one.
3. Maybe reduce the damage on the timed grabbing hands in the 5th black candle map (at the vendor coin + silver key spot). 14 damage ticking quickly combined with a strong slow and a very short time window for moving cost many lives even on a paladin.
4. !!!IMPORTANT!!!
Reduce/limit the amount of crows spawning at the 5th black candle. The amount made my PC, which is not all that old, lag badly enough to be unable to hit, resulting in death.
Also, are these suppose to spawn infinitely? I sat in a corner for a while but they just kept on coming and the lag kept getting worse.
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Is it normal that crows don't deal any damage on easy mode ?
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Hey, just finished playing Ravenwatch up until the 5th black candle (I died :P). I'd dare say this is the best Hammerwatch map I've player so far, even beating the campaign itself.
Figured I'd give some feedback and play the rest through later at a better time.
I'm really glad you liked it! Feedback is the only thing that's going to make it better, so let's address it all!
First, I found some graphical glitches. I've compiled the ones I noticed in no particular order at this album here (http://imgur.com/a/Tv2Co#0) EDIT: apparently you just fixed a bunch of these. I'll remove the obsolete ones on my next playthrough. I've circled or drawn arrows pointing at the bugs. Sorry for the poor map visibility, couldn't figure out a good way to show it.
Wow great job on compiling all of these! The graphical glitches for the caves and such were all fixed but that dirt/grass cutoff is kind of a glitch (don't shoot me, Myran!) with the editor. I'll have to go through and perfect those spots! Thanks for these screenshots it makes it a lot easier for me!
Found 3 other bugs as well:
1. In the village, the houses don't show up on the map (don't know if intentional).
2. Paladin (and maybe others too) can buy the chance to play the archery minigame, even though they lack a ranged attack.
3. When the shooting skulls with just their spines attached rise from a sarcophagus, they are layered (correct word?) under it. This partially hides them from view.
1. The village doesn't have a minimap yet, I definitely need to get on that!
2. You're right I should change it to be ranger only - though the Thief is able to do decently too if you use his fan of knives! ;)
3. Myran and Hipshot pointed that bug out to me on our playthrough on my Twitch.tv stream - I need to fix that and will do so today!
I've got a few suggestions as well that might be good additions.
1. Add signs on the shop walls in the village. Easier for first timers to find their class house. Or maybe make a doodad that only shows the sign on the map.
\/ !!! SPOILERS from here on !!! \/
2. In the crypts after the Grim reaper boss, there is a room in which there are 4 copper doors with keys hidden inside a lot of sarcophagi. You need to look for a silver key inside one of them.
Right now you need to use only 1 key since there is no fog of war hiding the contents of the room (silver key room is visible).
Hiding the contents of the room until opening would force the players to guess instead of just going straight for the important one.
3. Maybe reduce the damage on the timed grabbing hands in the 5th black candle map (at the vendor coin + silver key spot). 14 damage ticking quickly combined with a strong slow and a very short time window for moving cost many lives even on a paladin.
4. !!!IMPORTANT!!!
Reduce/limit the amount of crows spawning at the 5th black candle. The amount made my PC, which is not all that old, lag badly enough to be unable to hit, resulting in death.
Also, are these suppose to spawn infinitely? I sat in a corner for a while but they just kept on coming and the lag kept getting worse.
1. This needs to be done, and I'm sorry I overlooked this before releasing! Great suggestion!
2. Those doors are supposed to have prizes/rewards inside them besides just monsters. I'm not sure how they got lost or maybe I overwrote the wrong version of the level.xml, but I'll be fixing this today as well!
3. The damage is 1 - or at least it should be. Maybe I can reduce how quickly the damage happens so that it's not so brutal, but its an alternative to the spikes from the vanilla campaign that were insta-death (remember those damn things?) so I want them to be hard and make it so you avoid them. I'll try to rebalance these as well today!
4. I knew that part of the map was going to be a problem. I will limit the number of ravens and make them spawn less quickly - will fix this today! They will continue to spawn forever until
spoilers!
you pick up the candle.
I will have to make it less impossible to do so - and maybe add a hint that says "GET THE CANDLE" or something hahaha.
Great suggestions I really appreciate the time you took to do this post! I'll work on these fixes today and update it on the workshop. Will credit you for the finds as well!
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Is it normal that crows don't deal any damage on easy mode ?
Unfortunately there is not a minimum damage set by the engine - they do 1 damage on medium which is hard enough. The game reduces it to 0 apparently if you set it to easy. I'll have to change the XMLs somehow to make easy mode ravens harder (so they do 1 damage) :D
Thanks for this find sir!
p.s. they're ravens ;)
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Patch 0.17
Notes
General:
-Changed minigame in town only viewable by Ranger, Wizard, Priest, and Thief
-While playing the minigame, the range will be increased to allow playing as follows:
--Thief fan of knives throws 2 knives and cost 0 mana, 2gold
--Wizard's fireball range increased to 6.5
--Priest Beam range increased to 8
The Palading and Warlock do not ahve abilities that allow the target practice.
-Removed custom skin for warlock - was accidently placed and not intended as part of Ravenwatch.
-Ravens now properly do damage in Easy mode.
Level2:
Tree Thorn projectiles now much easier to see.
Level 3:
-Spine Shooter now spawns properly in the sarcophagi
-Bronze doors now properly spawn loot.
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Maybe you could reduce the ravens :) attack speed by half, but make them deal 2 damage in medium mode ?
Edit : Nevermind
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-Removed custom skin for warlock - was accidently placed and not intended as part of Ravenwatch.
Was it a problem ?
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Was it a problem ?
It wasn't my artwork, and I didn't really care for it too much. It was cute and fun but not really what I had in mind as far as tone :D
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It wasn't my artwork, and I didn't really care for it too much. It was cute and fun but not really what I had in mind as far as tone :D
Well okay ...so does that mean you're going to make the custom skins by yourself ? I'm kinda tired of the warlock headgear going inbetween an iron helmet and spock's hair :(
It would be nice to have custom skins for all classes !
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It wasn't my artwork, and I didn't really care for it too much. It was cute and fun but not really what I had in mind as far as tone :D
Well okay ...so does that mean you're going to make the custom skins by yourself ? I'm kinda tired of the warlock headgear going inbetween an iron helmet and spock's hair :(
It would be nice to have custom skins for all classes !
I agree! And yes I plan on re-theming all classes. It's right up there on the to do list next to the new custom GUI. I also have to do new art for the keys and doors - Oh so much work to do!
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I have a suggestion from a design standpoint regarding the ravens.
Currently, ravens are not fun imo. They don't even feel challenging, they feel cheap. Now this is a big problem considering the campaign basically revolves around this enemy type. Ravens should be "fun" to kill. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be challenging at times, because challenges are often fun, but it does mean that they shouldn't be frustrating to kill. You don't want the player to be thinking, "Holy shit if another raven pops out from behind a tree I'm going to asdhfoasuidvhals..."
Here's my suggestion:
1. Don't hide ravens behind things often. The last version I played all the way through was plagued by ambush after ambush. I started dreading whenever I had to move forward because there were always hidden ravens in every other tree.
2. Visually design things for visually challenged people. What I mean is, make things obvious. If an enemy is fast-moving, you can't also make them very small and a drab color. The visually challenged player won't see it. "But I'm not making an experience for blind people", you may think. But your players are, at times, effectively blind. When you've got crazy weather effects, and animations going off, the priests fucking God beam, numbers popping up, and noises are happening, you can't see the single raven right behind you. Then the player finally notices the thing after it's knocked off 10 points of health and they become frustrated because they just couldn't see it.
You need to balance the raven's speed, contrast, and size. If the raven stays black (which makes sense) then it has to be slowed down a notch and scaled up a little or else your players will be blind to it whenever there's more than nothing happening on screen.
3. The physics are too small. The other melee classes (any class with a sword) don't have the extreme damage angle that the paladin can have. What happens is the ravens will get either a little to the left or the right of where the player's swing counts, and it misses. Fair? Yes, it's fair. Fun? It's really not. They play like mosquitoes. A constant game of "oops, you missed!". If ravens are to be as prominent as they currently are I would bump up the physics to make them more hit-able.
That's all I got. The mod is great fun and I can't wait to see more, I just wanted to explain my frustration.
And also I don't blame you for taking your time on the custom player sprites. They're quite tedious to work on.
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Currently, ravens are not fun imo. They don't even feel challenging, they feel cheap. Now this is a big problem considering the campaign basically revolves around this enemy type. Ravens should be "fun" to kill. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be challenging at times, because challenges are often fun, but it does mean that they shouldn't be frustrating to kill. You don't want the player to be thinking, "Holy shit if another raven pops out from behind a tree I'm going to asdhfoasuidvhals..."
Here's my suggestion:
1. Don't hide ravens behind things often. The last version I played all the way through was plagued by ambush after ambush. I started dreading whenever I had to move forward because there were always hidden ravens in every other tree.
Personally I actually loved the way ravens are. A small, fast mob killed in 1 hit, yet attacking fast enough and in flocks from places I didn't expect made a simple mob challenging and, quite frankly, somewhat intimidating (in a good way) at times. Opinions, I suppose, but I loved them.
Way better than the campaigns bats, at least...
2. Visually design things for visually challenged people. What I mean is, make things obvious. If an enemy is fast-moving, you can't also make them very small and a drab color. The visually challenged player won't see it. "But I'm not making an experience for blind people", you may think. But your players are, at times, effectively blind. When you've got crazy weather effects, and animations going off, the priests fucking God beam, numbers popping up, and noises are happening, you can't see the single raven right behind you. Then the player finally notices the thing after it's knocked off 10 points of health and they become frustrated because they just couldn't see it.
Again, I liked them hiding around and ambushing the player. Their eyes are red so they aren't that difficult to spot in my opinion.
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Me and Christian just played the level, way, WAY to many ravens spawns at that cemetery =) Our computers started to lag, until it was almost completely unplayable.
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Great work, Heretic!
Its amazing how much art assets you have been able to produce for this campagin! As hipshot mentioned: me(paladin) and hipshot(wizard) decided to play through the campaign and noted some issues/suggestions that could be added.
Graphical errors
(http://i.imgur.com/ftBOvns.png)
This bridge area somewhere around the beginning is layerd above the player somehow, thought a screengrab could show you. Also the rain has a purple dot tiling all over. I have marked a circle around it, should be easy fixes! There were also a few unimportant issues such as collision was to big for entrances or enemy characters collisionboxes should be larger.
[-SPOILERS- WITH PICTURES STARTS HERE]
Other issues
(http://i.imgur.com/6jSdrkV.png)
As hathunter and hipshot mentioned eariler: where crows starts to spawn beside the hand maze a insane lag hit our computers. I think its because there are way to many actors, maybe you could separate these parts more to avoid the lag?
(http://i.imgur.com/0iaYxGx.png)
The spiderboss got stuck in one of the pillars which made it super easy for hipshot to take the boss down, I know its a pathfinding-myran-issue because the actors sometimes get stuck in corners but maybe there is another way to design that area with no pillars or emerging pillars like the queen boss? Maybe there is another alternative?
[SPOILERS WITH PICTURES ENDS HERE]
But we had a blast playing it through, finished it in about 2 hours and 10+ deaths, many interesting new enemies and I am looking forward to playing act 2!
Ps: I really liked the handgrabtraps aniamtion!
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Hey,
played this map with a friend (Ranger+Warlock on hard) and we finished it. We needed to load several times where the thousands of ravens spawn.
The map Looks really beautiful. It's cool to see new graphics (mushrooms instead of apples) and new enemies (Spider!! grrr).
There was just one huge bug. We had to load the game, because there was no key to continue. As we loaded the game, there were keys which we already had collected and used!
So at the end we finished the game with 1 bronze und 2 silver keys and we opended every door.
I really enjoyed playing this map and please do act 2! Cant wait for it.
Termy
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I have a suggestion from a design standpoint regarding the ravens.
Currently, ravens are not fun imo. They don't even feel challenging, they feel cheap. Now this is a big problem considering the campaign basically revolves around this enemy type. Ravens should be "fun" to kill. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't be challenging at times, because challenges are often fun, but it does mean that they shouldn't be frustrating to kill. You don't want the player to be thinking, "Holy shit if another raven pops out from behind a tree I'm going to asdhfoasuidvhals..."
Here's my suggestion:
1. Don't hide ravens behind things often. The last version I played all the way through was plagued by ambush after ambush. I started dreading whenever I had to move forward because there were always hidden ravens in every other tree.
2. Visually design things for visually challenged people. What I mean is, make things obvious. If an enemy is fast-moving, you can't also make them very small and a drab color. The visually challenged player won't see it. "But I'm not making an experience for blind people", you may think. But your players are, at times, effectively blind. When you've got crazy weather effects, and animations going off, the priests fucking God beam, numbers popping up, and noises are happening, you can't see the single raven right behind you. Then the player finally notices the thing after it's knocked off 10 points of health and they become frustrated because they just couldn't see it.
You need to balance the raven's speed, contrast, and size. If the raven stays black (which makes sense) then it has to be slowed down a notch and scaled up a little or else your players will be blind to it whenever there's more than nothing happening on screen.
3. The physics are too small. The other melee classes (any class with a sword) don't have the extreme damage angle that the paladin can have. What happens is the ravens will get either a little to the left or the right of where the player's swing counts, and it misses. Fair? Yes, it's fair. Fun? It's really not. They play like mosquitoes. A constant game of "oops, you missed!". If ravens are to be as prominent as they currently are I would bump up the physics to make them more hit-able.
That's all I got. The mod is great fun and I can't wait to see more, I just wanted to explain my frustration.
And also I don't blame you for taking your time on the custom player sprites. They're quite tedious to work on.
You make some good points! I don't want the ravens to be too frustrating, but they are actually behaving in the exact way that I had intended. Ravenwatch is supposed to be a bit harder than the campaign and the ravens are meant to make you got a bit slower and check hiding spots, and also be a quick-reaction mob that is lacking in the Hammerwatch vanilla campaign. The only mob that really made you think quick was the flower-tower and it wasn't anything except make you move.
The key to the ravens is to move while attacking. They actually can't attack you if you keep moving, which you'll notice if you just keep running away from them. The tactic to kill them is to either use some form of AoE that your class has, or to hold your direction while moving backwards and attacking. This prevents them from hitting you,a nd they're easy to dispatch.
I'm sorry they frustrated you, and I'll definitely look into a way to maybe change up the color palette a bit to where they are more noticeable. Maybe even add more glows to their eyes or some kind of highlight - though their main theme is still an ambush-quick reaction type mob.
I truly appreciate the feedback and I'm going to look into the best way to change them!
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Great work, Heretic!
Its amazing how much art assets you have been able to produce for this campagin! As hipshot mentioned: me(paladin) and hipshot(wizard) decided to play through the campaign and noted some issues/suggestions that could be added.
Graphical errors
This bridge area somewhere around the beginning is layerd above the player somehow, thought a screengrab could show you. Also the rain has a purple dot tiling all over. I have marked a circle around it, should be easy fixes! There were also a few unimportant issues such as collision was to big for entrances or enemy characters collisionboxes should be larger.
Other issues
As hathunter and hipshot mentioned eariler: where crows starts to spawn beside the hand maze a insane lag hit our computers. I think its because there are way to many actors, maybe you could separate these parts more to avoid the lag?
The spiderboss got stuck in one of the pillars which made it super easy for hipshot to take the boss down, I know its a pathfinding-myran-issue because the actors sometimes get stuck in corners but maybe there is another way to design that area with no pillars or emerging pillars like the queen boss? Maybe there is another alternative?
But we had a blast playing it through, finished it in about 2 hours and 10+ deaths, many interesting new enemies and I am looking forward to playing act 2!
Ps: I really liked the handgrabtraps aniamtion!
Thanks so much for the feedback it means a lot to me!
I'll get to work on those graphical glitches - that pink dot in the rain was a marker for me while drawing up the rain to tell when it was repeating and when I should spread out or change the rain drops accordingly - it shouldn't be there anymore, I think an old version snuck into the final release! Thanks for picking that up!
The spider boss getting stuck is weird - I blame Myran as well! I'll see what I can do to make the last boss fight more dynamic (and more fun, at that!)
The ravens spawning too much should have been fixed already - I had reduced it greatly in the last patch. I'll try it out and see if I can reduce it even more.
Thanks so much for your feedback and the screenshots, you've been very helpful!
p.s. it's also great to finally have a dialog with you! I hope to talk to you about many things in the future!
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Hey,
played this map with a friend (Ranger+Warlock on hard) and we finished it. We needed to load several times where the thousands of ravens spawn.
The map Looks really beautiful. It's cool to see new graphics (mushrooms instead of apples) and new enemies (Spider!! grrr).
There was just one huge bug. We had to load the game, because there was no key to continue. As we loaded the game, there were keys which we already had collected and used!
So at the end we finished the game with 1 bronze und 2 silver keys and we opended every door.
I really enjoyed playing this map and please do act 2! Cant wait for it.
Termy
I'm so glad you liked it! That is a strange bug that you've described, I'll have to look into it and see if I can figure out exactly where the problem is with that. Someone else had mentioned that they couldnt find the second bronze key on level 2 - is that they key you couldnt find?
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I have only played through to a bit beyond the first boss, and so far it is amazing, best map I have seen so far. Might not be playing with the best classes for it though (took me and my friend 10 lives to kill the raven summoner) Was really annoying when, if you were not close enough to where they appeared in the first boss fight, they did not move towards you. Later, a huge swarm of 100+ would fly at you and be a pain (kept trapping me against the torches, I couldn't move and they suck down hp fast) Boss health was a bit High, but only going through with 2 people (And I might not be the best Hammerwatch player either).
Other than that, only one bug so far, when you get into the area right after the first boss, it spawns you by this entrance, if you attempt to go backwards, you can exit the map. Just wandering around in the void forever. Might want to make it move people back outside.
Also, some of the spider den exits look bigger than the actual exit is, on outside it looks fine, big web wall that you can go through, but on inside the hit box for the walls is a bit too big (or the opening looks too big). Not a big thing, but thought I would point it out.
So far it has been a great, though frustrating, world. Can't wait to see what act 2 has in store.
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I have only played through to a bit beyond the first boss, and so far it is amazing, best map I have seen so far. Might not be playing with the best classes for it though (took me and my friend 10 lives to kill the raven summoner) Was really annoying when, if you were not close enough to where they appeared in the first boss fight, they did not move towards you. Later, a huge swarm of 100+ would fly at you and be a pain (kept trapping me against the torches, I couldn't move and they suck down hp fast) Boss health was a bit High, but only going through with 2 people (And I might not be the best Hammerwatch player either).
Other than that, only one bug so far, when you get into the area right after the first boss, it spawns you by this entrance, if you attempt to go backwards, you can exit the map. Just wandering around in the void forever. Might want to make it move people back outside.
Also, some of the spider den exits look bigger than the actual exit is, on outside it looks fine, big web wall that you can go through, but on inside the hit box for the walls is a bit too big (or the opening looks too big). Not a big thing, but thought I would point it out.
So far it has been a great, though frustrating, world. Can't wait to see what act 2 has in store.
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah that Reaper boss is always tougher the first time through as you're learning him! I'm sorry for the frustration, but I'm glad that you're enjoying it overall. I have already fixed that collision problem in the crypt where it lets you leave the level so to speak, the latest version on the workshop should have that as well as a lot of graphical glitches in the cliff/graveyard levels fixed.
I may consider lowering the amount of ravens on the reaper boss, we'll have to see. I'm SO glad you liked it, your feedback means a lot to me!
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Absolutely love this new custom campaign. Thank you so very much for making this Heretic!
I only have one problem and that is I cannot find a vendor to buy the combo. I have no problem finding everything else, but when my friend and I visit the village where all the vendors are at, there is no vendor that supplies the combo even when going into the Inn where the non class vendors are.
Is this some other place? Or are there no combos to buy?
Thanks again for an awesome new campaign!
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Good work on this Hereitic!(I think I spelled your name right):D
would you mind putting up some custom assets for download or something?(I really want things like the trees and grass and......everything?)
If you require me to give credit I don't mind :P(I want to base my own sprites in my own theme off of yours :P)
oh and if you need more help to make this fully realized I wouldn't mind helping(although it looks like you dont need any more help with this):P
~shiftyBOT
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hey could I use use some of your sprites?
I really want to figure out how they work so I can do similar things with my custom campaign:P
~shiftyBOT
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me and shiftBOT could make some custom assets (reskined versions of things and were even starting to make our own balls to the walls hard monsters)
so let us know if you need some help with xml code ;D
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Absolutely love this new custom campaign. Thank you so very much for making this Heretic!
I only have one problem and that is I cannot find a vendor to buy the combo. I have no problem finding everything else, but when my friend and I visit the village where all the vendors are at, there is no vendor that supplies the combo even when going into the Inn where the non class vendors are.
Is this some other place? Or are there no combos to buy?
Thanks again for an awesome new campaign!
I'm sorry, there are no combos to be had here, my son!
I'm glad you like the campaign, I hope you play act 2 when it releases (someday)!
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Good work on this Hereitic!(I think I spelled your name right):D
would you mind putting up some custom assets for download or something?(I really want things like the trees and grass and......everything?)
If you require me to give credit I don't mind :P(I want to base my own sprites in my own theme off of yours :P)
oh and if you need more help to make this fully realized I wouldn't mind helping(although it looks like you dont need any more help with this):P
~shiftyBOT
I will be releasing all of the Ravenwatch assets. I suppose I'll do that sometime soon, so stay tuned!
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Absolutely love this new custom campaign. Thank you so very much for making this Heretic!
I only have one problem and that is I cannot find a vendor to buy the combo. I have no problem finding everything else, but when my friend and I visit the village where all the vendors are at,
I'm sorry, there are no combos to be had here, my son!
I'm glad you like the campaign, I hope you play act 2 when it releases (someday)!
Would you consider adding combos as a modifier/crutch?
Looking forward to Act 2! :)
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Would you consider adding combos as a modifier/crutch?
Looking forward to Act 2! :)
That's a good idea! I might add it as a crutch to easy mode, but I would want to keep it off of the normal/medium difficulty as it's not intended.
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Got this off the workshop. So far it seems super fun, aside from a few graphical glitches it looked awesome and seemed very cool. You have a frankly ridiculous number of custom assets, of which my favorite are the ravens perched in the trees. Looking for more of it.
Also I forgot if you've addressed this previous but how do you feel about your assets getting used other places? OK to have a few ravens showing up in other people's maps or you want to mostly keep them your own thing?
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So here's my experience with this campaign:
I played through as the Ranger.
At the start I noticed a pretty big flaw with your raven enemies, and it's that they can surround you very easily and deal a lot of damage. 1 damage times 50 hits per second equals one really dead ranger in a matter of moments. I imagine this was designed with the paladin in mind more than anything, and it shows a lot of the time when you're expecting the player to shrug the ravens off like they're wimps. It's hard to when you can only shoot in a straight, narrow line, and when bombs have a timer on them a little too long to be useful outside of kiting.
The second flaw I found was in level length - too much of it. This became really noticeable during the forest where you had to collect candles - I wound up running around for an hour because there was no clear indication of where to go or where I should look. Eventually everything was dead and I had to wander around a completely empty map with my minimap open the whole time in order to figure out which corners I didn't quite walk into before.
A third flaw was the use of atmosphere. When the levels started they set up some really nice atmosphere and a decent concept for a level, but tying in with my second flaw above, after a while it just sort of stopped. This is evident in the tomb level when it starts out - a nice crypt full of breakable sarcophagi and bone ornaments... And then you turn around and make 90% of the level a single-tile-wide maze over a black abyss. What the heck happened? Is wandering around aimlessly with a lack of visual stimulus something you found fun while testing?
Overall I found a lot of bad mixed with the good, and the campaign felt too drawn-out and very... "disappointing". There's potential here, but it doesn't feel like there's a good sense of direction for it it to follow.
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After running through Greyfall two buddies of mine and I ran through the first part of Hammerwatch, defeated the first boss before it got too late and called it quits, which is unfortunate because I solo'ed the next area for a bit and it seemed well done.
Bit of a review.
Cons
- Minor Graphical Glitches - a few out of place tiles on the beach, some minimap icons which down line up, lack of a border around the cave entrance doodad, and the lack of transition tiles between the different ground textures. Overall super great (see pro below) but I assume you already know most of what you have to work on there
- Bit slow on the pacing - I really like the first area and you definitely build up to the full Ravenwatch experience at a slow boil, I just can't quite decide if its too slow of a boil
- Health - the variety of health items is good, but it seemed like there may have been a few too many ways to get health back. I definitely got the sense that "Ravenwatch is a place where you are going to take tons of damage, but, is also willing to let you find plenty of opportunities to get it back," which changes the feel of Hammerwatch and makes it more about surviving individual encounters than the long slog against the inevitable hit point loss. That part was good, but it still seemed like a few less mushrooms may make it a bit more tense.
Pros
- Direction - the maps felt very complex and windy, full of twists and turns and new areas which changed up the style and kept it fresh. Despite this we never felt lost and it doesn't seem like just a linear hallway either, very good. The use of the different levels and stairs also adds a ton to it, I feel like I'm wandering around some old school Gauntlet map
- Fun Loot - the gravestones were fun, and the loot rate on the monsters was high enough that taking out a crowd left a satisfying little coin pile, something I think which vanilla Hammerwatch maybe should do more often.
- Customs Assets - like a ton of super cool custom assets; beach with waves, multi-level areas, shops, town, ravens, cool trees. Thats a ton of work and is pretty much the best thing ever.
- Cool Traps - the raven traps certainly add a nice little edge to the areas, I think you might want to touch up their sprite a little bit but overall very cool. The area which combined the zombie hands (also great art) with the raven traps was unique and really stood out. The whole boss battle as well had a fun dynamic to it also.
Overall I'd say you have a cool direction and that I was sold the moment I saw those little ravens hiding in the trees to come out at me. You've a good sense of aesthetics and design and I wish you luck with making more Ravenwatch.
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So how many acts are you looking for here, and about how many hours of gameplay? I'm curious at what your goals with this in the end are.
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So how many acts are you looking for here, and about how many hours of gameplay? I'm curious at what your goals with this in the end are.
There are going to be 2 acts, the second act is still currently being made slowly by myself and before anything is concrete I don't want to set an expectation. There are a lot of ideas that I've gone through and most of them involve changing or fixing act1 a bit and involve using all of the newest elements of the engine including UI, new items, and lighting effects to really make the mood a castlevania/shadowgate type feel to the castle.
While the length of act 2 might be a bit shorter it is going to have some cool things in it. And with it the town should also be finished with more minigames, as well as re-dos of Act1 levels and an in-game UI change. In total both acts might be a 5 hour endeavor, or much longer if you play with a keyboard or struggle with the difficulty ;)
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This is fun. Any way to throw money at this? Kickstarter or Paypal?
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I highly doubt there would be enough of a crowd to fun it - I do believe Hammerwatch itself was crowd funded. I'll ask Myran and Hipshot if that's true! :P
The only way I could do it is if I had enough to pay what I make at my job currently for a year, so around 45k - that's pretty pricey :/
I love your feedback though! I'm still slowly working on Act 2 :)
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There's really no reason to crowdfund a mod for an old game, I don't see a big enough crowd =/
And HW wasn't crowdfunded, it was funded from savings and took about 9 months to do. But people should be aware that the game released in august 2013, is not the same game as now, we have added so many features to make the game better and also the expansion.
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For some reason I thought it was crowdfunded - but I may have had that mixed up with Steam Greenlight. Either way - this definitely isn't a fundable project :D
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Have you given up on the project? I think it's really nice, and I'd like to see some more. It could use some more action/challenge and traps during the level, the pacing can become a little dull, but otherwise it's top class. Love the boss.
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I haven't given up - I just have a new job that demands a lot more of my time. This is a project I'm going to revisit someday, maybe with the new engine for their next game :D