Eve of the Apocalypse: Twilight

Edit: Couldn't think of a title. Looking at it now, it seems pretty lame. : (

Not sure if you appreciate this DarnYak, but I thought I'd show my appreciation.

EotA is an amazing map and I have been playing for a while now. Mostly just LAN due to lack of Battle-Net activity and my hatred of Battle-Net. The terrain is quite good (which is mainly what I do in wc3 moding), the spells are excellent, and the balacing is pretty good (although I don't play online so it can be hard to tell). I have no idea why it's not played more.

Besides praise, I have some questions.
A) Would you consider uploading your maps to the Hive Workshop? I am a Map Moderator there and therefore strive to make the map section the best possible, which couldn't be complete without EotA in my opinion. I am not doing this because the site wanted me to, this is my own endeavor. This isn't a big deal, I just thought I'd ask you.
B) I realize this may not be the place, and that it's probably been answered a million times ( I didn't find it), but why don't AI computers buy more items, and upgrade them more? Are you still working on the AI? Or leaving that alone generally? In my honest opinion it needs work. The AI for DotA is heads and shoulders above it (not sure if DotA is a taboo word around here, it sure is on The Hive Workshop, always sparks debate).

That's about it for now. I'll try and be a bit active here, but I already have a few wc3 sites I am part of, and only one actually gets much attention (The Hive since I'm staff there).

Thanks, again sorry if I didn't search hard enough for my answers.

Dota has comps now? And try Europe, go to the channel Clan EotA and you might find someone to play with, I hear they're still active, but I don't have easy access or I'd be on playing. And the more experienced players(some) get mad about skill being judged by Lan and comp matches; as proven by someone who brought life to the forums, if only to flame him. So be careful throwing those around.

And if we get a few more new members that are active, maybe we'll be able to bring in stricter rules that include banning, the playerbase is a bit small right now and bans are very serious I believe...bring more if you will, maybe we can get some Theo-type order around here.

Last I heard DotA with AI was a separate map version, did Frog finally add that guy's work into his own map without the need of the other version?

DotA still only has a separate map that doesn't update with the official because someone other than frog has to do it.

I wouldn't think I would be that great only playing against computers, but I doubt I'd suck. I don't have a lot of time and generally dislike Battle.Net, but I may try and play sometimes.

EotA is already on Hive, I was looking at it today. 1.11e is up with a rather sub-par description I might add.

AI does need some work, I'll give you that. Most games are over pretty quick if you have an idiot AI feeding.

As for games, I think you'll find I'm one of the most active members and one of the few hosts still alive. I get my buddies over Xfire to play, so there's usually 3-4 of us and whoever else feels like joining. I'm joramsunrunner on Xfire, add me if you've got it and we'll throw down.

You can get your daily fix of EotA on Europe as long as you do not only play full inhouses.

We still have an active core of players.

I'll try looking on Europe. Thanks guys.

Although I've been thinking, I may not like Online. There are a few unwritten rules that me and my friend play with, that makes the game better IMO. Like only buying one good item from the "good shop" (not sure of the real name). Also no power generators and we don't bother trying for the other winning objectives other than destroying the other persons base. In storm peak we don't use the rock'n Arthas.

From what I see, Rockin Arthas only goes when someones about to lose already, and unless the others have no clue what's going on, it gets destroyed before first minute. Artifacts...I normally only grab one and if later the other(If I'm playing Gravel) one is up I grab. Life steal plus fast attack hurts on him...and the blink can be cheap too. If someone goes for the artifact....that was a long game is all I got to say. Power generations....do you cap obelisks, or just don't use generators? I rarely even saw crystal generators used before. If they were used, it tended to be heavy use...like a fort one next to 50 towers....now that is cheap. But what's wrong with a crystal generator? Some people don't even buy the artifacts I believe....


Storm Earth and Fire, good song and it blows up opponents too! You do know that you can solo Arthas with most heros by level...pretty low considering max.


Now I'm really missing playing EotA...need to find the reign of Chaos disc...Bet I'm rusty too...Gravel, Bane, Ro, AA, AM, TC, Oracle, Rue...I want to play any of em...

Gilles wrote:Like only buying one good item from the "good shop"

The accepted terms are "artifact" and "artifact shop" I think

AnAngryBearDoctor wrote:

Gilles wrote:Like only buying one good item from the "good shop"

The accepted terms are "artifact" and "artifact shop" I think

"Waste of money" and "Bad idea" are also acceptable phrases.

The only Artifacts that are any good, are the Orb of Fury, if you're Fenris, Zypher Totem, if you're a hero that mostly relies on attack, Storm Hammer if a highly used skill uses int and you CONSTANTLY use the summon. The Amulet pretty much is only worth it in Kedge's landed to push unspent money further, that is merces have been launched on the right side, a worker is ready to build spawn towers at the very moment cores are there, and a tavern hero is purchesed and scrolled to shift right lane.

A good thing to help get an idea, but not to base off of souly. Is to take the total cost of an item, then divide it by the total stat bonus of the item, it will help you compare ratios of diferent tiers and items.

A question you could ask yourself, "Is Orb of Battle Worth it?"
Orb of Battle +5 costs 2190 in total, and grants +35 damage.
Orb of Battle
Archer
Archers have 420 health, with a hero that has 60 damage it would take 8 hits to kill (including armor), It would take 5 hits to kill the archer with the Orb of Battle. So the difference is 3 hits on an archer, that is its combat effectiveness. Now to cost effectiveness, it will grant +35 damage, an archer has 420 health, which comes out to 12 hits with the orb's damage alone. For the orb to pay itself off, archers giving 30 gold a piece, 73 archers need to be killed with the orbs damamge alone, which comes to a total of 876 hits on archers for it to have made its worth.

Less hits for an Archer to Kill: About 2 - 4
Cost effectiveness (armor not included): Payback via footmen, 2545 hits; Payback via Archers, 876 hits; Payback Via Sorceress, 939 hits.
(calculation doesn't include not landing final hit)

I don't really get that intense.

I just buy what seems good. Usually just get an orb first and upgrade a couple. Then next item. I don't go to 5 right away because I find I can get more quicker if I wait. I wait until I have pretty much 5 level 5 items before I buy and artifact. Or if I have a bundle of money.

The Orb of Battle math is so flawed. ^^

I dont buy +dmg items to kill spawns, you have AoE skills for that.

+dmg items are to fight enemy heroes, either giving you an advantage to drive them off the lane by making them go healing, denying them exp and gold or in the best case to kill them, increasing their revive time in addition to setting them back in the exp/gold race. This is ofc a snowball effect and should be supported by items if you have excess money after taking care of repairing and keeping a bit money for mercs.


Well artefacts, I dont buy them very often. I ususally get some +5 items before I look if a useful artefact is still avaible.

The only reason you'd want to get an orb of battle, is because your class doesn't have AoE. Unless your teammates will pool gold, you'll need to pick up army kills, while awaiting hero kills. Unless you're going against incompetent opponents, hero kills are strictly luck and/or oppurtunity and then some, nothing to rely on alone. I didn't bother to factor in user creativity as a use of it, simply cold hard numbers as I said something like "not to base on alone". Orb of Battle's function is below par. Using any hero without intent on some form of farming on army is flawed. Dedicated to hero targetting is a very easy way to fall behind to no return in a game.

Ofc the hero kills dont come running to you.
Having a good map oversight is propably one of the most important player skills in EotA.

And as long as I dont find better players than Euro and East Clan members, hero kills are not luck based and being dependent on them will not sentence you to be doomed.

Ofc the hero kills dont come running to you.
Having a good map oversight is propably one of the most important player skills in EotA.

Dekar wrote:And as long as I dont find better players than Euro and East Clan members, hero kills are not luck based and being dependent on them will not sentence you to be doomed.

I question most people in Clan EotA's ability. Most members I've seen are about par, not really compitent enough to make hero focused heros useless in almost any situation. For the most part, avoiding getting killed by a hero targetter is merely watching your health, and not be in a certain position with a certain level of health, as well as compare stats and the general use of the player's skills to determine your level of aggression, as well as point of flee.

Being a pansy and running a lot is easy. Waiting until they make a mistake. It's not much fun though. I'd prefer to take risks. I suppose that would only piss off teammates. But oh well. When I get my Graphics card properly installed I'll hopefully start playing (right now I'm running off an integrated 64mb or something. wc3 can lag).

I just played a online game...hadn't fallen as far as I had thought.

Always good to hear when people enjoy the map.

a) I'll try to remmeber to upload new versions (if they ever happen...) to the hive
b) The AI was meant to primarily be a fun side project when I didn't have a giant list of features to add. As such its fairly low priority (although getting it to stop feeding even half decent teams is in itself a much higher priority..). Further, the testing/debugging process of EotA is rather hellish, and AI is someting tha tneeds to be experimented with more then any other feature, meaning its something I would enjoy having time to play with but it would be so slow and tedious I dread it instead.

As for the discussion on items, all I will say is no, i'm not particullarly happy with the current setup.

DarnYak

DarnYak, did you code the AI all by yourself? Would you be willing to share any of the code/ideas with us so we could learn from it?

FurionII wrote:DarnYak, did you code the AI all by yourself? Would you be willing to share any of the code/ideas with us so we could learn from it?

Yes I did and no i'm not, becuase its a twisted crappy mess that even i have a hard time sorting through.

DarnYak

After talents and 2 heroes for Undead, you should stop adding in, and make newer versions balance revisions and bug fixed, then call it good. I know you're itching to make something from ground up.

Would you ever consider letting someone else do the AI for you? I can understand that it fells a hell of a lot better when you make everything yourself, but it sure would be nice to have better AI.

Gilles wrote:Would you ever consider letting someone else do the AI for you? I can understand that it fells a hell of a lot better when you make everything yourself, but it sure would be nice to have better AI.

Ooops, I forgot to reply to this. And if you're still checking these forums, I uploaded to the hive as you asked.

Lets put it this way, if someone designed an AI that I could port into EotA without too much hassle, i'd strongly consider it. But the map as it is is a giant mess that's kinda embarrassing to let others see ;P Its not out of the question, but I'd need to talk to the person, find out their ideas, plans, experience,etc. first. And probably check they're sanity, becase developing for EotA is hell.

DarnYak

DarnYak wrote:

Gilles wrote:Would you ever consider letting someone else do the AI for you? I can understand that it fells a hell of a lot better when you make everything yourself, but it sure would be nice to have better AI.

Ooops, I forgot to reply to this. And if you're still checking these forums, I uploaded to the hive as you asked.

Lets put it this way, if someone designed an AI that I could port into EotA without too much hassle, i'd strongly consider it. But the map as it is is a giant mess that's kinda embarrassing to let others see ;P Its not out of the question, but I'd need to talk to the person, find out their ideas, plans, experience,etc. first. And probably check they're sanity, becase developing for EotA is hell.

DarnYak

I don't do it often, but it's on my favorites bar!

Keeping maps organized is a hell of a job! Well I sure do hope you can improve the AI, mostly just the items thing.