recoding UI to make it cause less lags, multiple difficulties, more unique items, more item types, some endgame mechanic, whatever players suggest that I could add, maybe more classes one day, too...

Hey Ahli, I had a few more ideas regarding your map. The first is an idea for a magic alteration for the town portal spell. This alteration would be a magic attack that would materialize a magenta colored vortex that would have a very similar or the same model you used for the town portal. The difference with this one would be that it would create a strong gravity pull to all monsters within a small radius and cause constant magic damage while they are stuck in the vortex. I am unsure of the mana cost this spell would incur, so you will likely have to come up with whatever sounds reasonable to you for this spell. The name of this
spell alteration could be like "Arcane Rift" or "Dimensional Vortex".

The other thing I wanted to suggest regards the overcharged bolt mage spell alteration. I believe at max level(level 15) it should go up to 4 bolts, and maybe at levels 1-2 it can be at 2 bolts. I just feel that 3 bolts isn't really worth the skill point investment if the number of bolts never changes. I believe 4 bolts at maximum would provide a much better incentive to max the skill.

An additional idea I had was to allow players the option of seeing their stash at the character select screen. I am aware that all characters share the same stash, which is why I was thinking it might be useful. Lets say you wanted to transfer an item between two characters, but maybe you forgot what the items stats were or if you even put the item into the stash in the first place. This is only one instance where being able to view your stash beforehand would be useful. I am sure there are better examples than the one I gave as well to support being able to see the stash before game start. Again, you could simply make it a toggle-able option at the character select screen. Players could choose to either view the stash or not to.

I can also confirm that all learnable spells can currently be found in the game right now without being level 42 for Adria purchases. I just recently found a book of teleport on hell level 3. It appears that the chests are the only things that can drop these high level books though.

Finally, I wanted to report a couple of bugs. I remember telling you about items in cathedral level 1 being able to spawn with the town portal spell on them. Apparently this can still occur because I found a cap of town portal in version 1.0. I will post a screenshot showing this. (The first screenshot shows this.)

Another bug I wanted to report has to do with the unique item named after me (Seraph's Dimensional Tempest). I found a socketed one and decided to put perfect gems into it. I noticed afterwards though that the required level for the sword remained at 15 even with perfect gems inside. I don't know why this happens, but I believe it probably has something to do with the new sockets on unique items thing. The second screenshot displays this occurring.

Also, it appears that the blade shield skill has the same issue as the thrill of the hunt skill I wrote on earlier. What I mean is if the newer version of blade shield is recast over an older version that has a lower defense value, the defense shown on your character sheet doesn't update if it's open when the skill is cast.

P.S. I almost forgot to mention that it appears the experience bar can still appear full a fair amount of time before you level on some of the later levels (i.e. Level 37+). The screenshot showing this is the third one posted. It shows that my experience bar is completely full, yet I still have over 60k experience from the next level.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 24 2014, 6:06 am by SeraphicStar.

Thanks for the feedback. So, that spell would be close to D3RoS's new spell? That is possible.

lol @ the cap. That is only happening in the first level? The item is dropped or already found on the ground? Does a monster or a chest/corpse drop it?
I'm spawning a scroll of town portal there, but that cannot alter spawned items.

@xpbar
I guess it is a problem with my expanded experience code to allow bigger xp values than an integer can hold.

Good find with the gems in the item not correctly updating the required clvl.

The buff update not updating the stats is a bug. I will check out, if it is just a missing window-updating call or a missing update for a stats calculation. To force an update, you can just grab an equipped item and put it on again.

I will fix these and update the map once I am allowed to update it again (after the competetion).

Um, I am not sure if it is since I haven't played D3RoS yet. I was thinking also that the vortex should be smaller than the regular town portal sprite (maybe like half the size or something). That way, if many Sorcerors are casting the spell, the screen won't be too crowded with large vortexes. I was also thinking that you might want to only allow one vortex active per character, but that part is up to you.

Well the strange thing I have noticed about this bug is that it seems to somehow be altering items in level one to have the town portal suffix. It only seems to be occurring on the first level as well, so I was thinking it has to be somehow related to your spawn town portal scroll on the first level. The really strange thing though is that sometimes the item spawned with town portal on it isn't very close to the entrance to level two. Also, I usually grab the town portal scroll straight away so it's almost as if it is trying to recreate one when I re-enter the portal to level one.

Hmm, I thought integers were based on the operating system though (programming-wise they are anyway ).

Here is the thing about this though, it updates the value when I close the character sheet and then re-open it. So what this sounds like to me is that while the screen is open, it isn't accepting changes to stats from skills being improved and then cast while the screen is open. The only way to increase the skills effectiveness without adding more skill points is by reading a book that improves the skill. This means that the character screen most likely isn't taking that into account while it's open.

Hmm, so you decided to wait for the conclusion of the competition before posting a new version of the map? I suppose that makes sense to make sure the only version people are playing is the rock the cabinet version to give the best chance of additional votes. Also if you won the competition, it would keep people from accusing you of garnering additional votes due to people playing a better version of the map after you had already submitted.

http://youtu.be/GWcA0Z1Q7aw
Rogue Bug Fix!!

Thank you for that video. I will try to understand what went wrong and I have it fixed once the rock the cabinet contest ends. That would be in 1+ weeks.

edit:
I've fixed the problem with the damage numbers. I don't know how the hero died in the video, but I hope it can only occur with those bugged numbers. Normally a hero cannot die like that which is why I'm surprised that this happened. The update will go live after the contest. If this map is not in the final 10 which are announced sometime tomorrow, I might be able to patch it within the next 24 hours.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 30 2014, 1:58 am by Ahli.

So did your map make it into the top 10? I have been unable to find any kind of indication of what maps were selected for the final vote by users. Does this mean the vote was delayed or something? I just don't want to miss my chance to vote for this map is all, and I really look forward to seeing what improvements you were able to make between the last release time and your next one.

They will announce the top 10 on 8th July, so this Tuesday. Then the voting period will last one week. You will be able to vote for 5 maps. The vote will decide the top 5. Blizzard will then crown first, second and third place.

Ahli for first, don't vote for any other maps

So, I didn't make it into Blizzard's top 10. This means I will update the map soon.

Currently I am super busy with university stuff and watching football. I hope to be able to patch it tomorrow.

Are you serious? This map is better than most, who made it to the top 10? You should at least be in the top 5 if not top 3.

Everyone has his own opinion and so does Blizzard's staff that was responsible for picking the top 10. The method to determine these remains a mystery. Maybe their staff voted.

It could be because a lot of things were ripped from D1 (voice/quest, etc...) and they voted on original content instead? But even so, the time and effort to bring D1 into better graphics and revamped item system deserves to be in the top 10, oh well, sorry about the news, but at least we get an earlier update

I'm updating the map with mostly bug fixes now.

I didn't add a verification pass on the items, yet, but I think I will add one in future as one bug was able to create unusual items with weird effects like items with town portal on them.

Blizzard is kind of always disappointing when it comes to selecting good maps for their contests, it seems. They had another contest running many months ago, and the result was extremely disappointing as well: they picked some of the crappiest maps, while there were amazing maps that were submitted (I'm thinking of Kenoli's Laser puzzle game submission, for example).

Yeah, I'm assuming (given the added art/music prizes for this contest in particular) they had to look at a bunch of other factors we may not know about. It could just be one of those unfortunate instances where they looked for more, uh, "original" concepts over a port of an existing game, or looked for maps they would have fun doing custom art and music for. Also I'm using "original" lightly given how unoriginal some of the top 10 are, but still.

I think it's also possible they didn't want any accusations of being biased towards favoring one of their own games.

Also, too much text within the map, favored because I'm already an influencer with contacts to Blizzard, etc etc etc.

In the end, it does not matter. It's actually easier for me to maintain the map as it is only English and not localized.

So, I am at a point where I should start implementing multiple difficulties...

The main problem is the selection of those and how they are changing the dungeons. I want them to do more than just change values for monsters, etc. For example, I would like to scramble the monster appearances in each level. But that requires me to select a difficulty before the dungeon was created.

That means that I would need to make a difficulty and hero selection before creating the dungeons. But what if one player isn't strong enough for higher difficulties, etc...

I think I need to alter the main menu to become a lobby where you select your hero/create new ones, select a difficulty etc, before the dungeon is created... But that really disrupts the flow with: loading, loading, playing...
loading, selecting, loading, playing isn't optimal...

Or I need to add a feature that is able to alter monsters as long as no player spawned... or I separate monster creation and dungeon creation...

I think a system that alters the monsters in a level when it is loaded the first time + a new main menu lobby that allows you to select heroes and difficulty might be the way to go.
Great, writing this out gave me a proper approach...

Haha. It's awesome how just throwing the ideas out there can sometimes organize the thoughts in your brain.

I've been looking at this, and it looks really awesome. I just really don't care for SC2 much sadly...

Good luck on future improvements to the map!