The forgotten outpost - RELEASED

[Jax]

Who thinks there should be a wooden fence on the hills around the tower?

Well, maybe a smaller wooden wall OR a bunch of big, spaced spiked logs (some broken for effect) stickin out of the ground, angled low (originally for preventing/skewering seige weapons that got near from doing damage)

 

[Thothie]

Curious as to what stops the players from sitting up on cliffs and picking off the Orcs safely from up above... Cheatmap material that would be.

 

[evilsquirrel]

hopefully the troll lobbers / elite archers / (something new?) will stop such activities...

maybe something like a "Trained giant bat" or...some strong orcs that come in on the hills during a few of the waves...maybe as soon as the second or third waves start something could happen to the single ladder up to those cliffs, and some cannons could also fire at players...

maybe even a REALLY MEAN troll coming up there

like, a mountain troll...stronger than the hideous cave troll!

i'll work out some way of stopping people from cheating like that...

 

[evilsquirrel]

ah...sorry for the double post, but i've figured out a way to fix the cliffs from being so cheatable...

isntead of going up on top of the cliffs, i *could* make it so you go into some caves up there, and the guard tower it out of the caves, looking over the valey, with some wooden walls (and player clips) blocking players in, the only problem with this method is that it would take alot longer to do...i'd basicly have to redo that whole mountain...players would still be able to shoot bows out of the tower...if you can hit from that distance you're 1337 and you deserve the free xp...

 

[ITS'aME'aMARIO!!!!]

this map sounds like lots of fun and i dont know much about mapping sooo...

would it be possible to have some scripted ladder raising and orcs that can walk up these ladders? (or climb) and then the ladders can be destroyed and will the orcs be able to light a keg and explode a hole in the wall? am i going to get to climb to the top and blow a horn, and then gandalf is gonna show up with the riders of rohan?

eh, ladders for orcs, break hole in wall or multiple parts of the wall catapults of course... oh! and arrow "shop" or resupply for archer buddies?

 

[Orochi]

I should convert my old TFC fun-map mansion, slap some MS textures on it, and redo the interior. Could be a haunted mansion or something.

 

[Thothie]

...if you can hit from that distance you're 1337 and you deserve the free xp...

I'd have to see the map - but it maybe easy as pie to rain fireballs down on the poor guys. If you put a monsterclip around the tower, that may fix it. Monsterclips seem to stop spells, oddly enough. You can also just add lines of trees via env_model - that may put an end to it.

I can't think of a way off hand to let the orcs get up a ladder... You can try playing with monster-flagged teleporters, but I doubt it'd work. Orcs hate ramps - let alone ladders, but might be worth a shot.

Your orc elite rangers are ready (see PM) - they'll shoot at things at a fair distance, but v. often monsters have trouble shooting at things above or below them.

 

[evilsquirrel]

this map sounds like lots of fun and i dont know much about mapping sooo...

would it be possible to have some scripted ladder raising and orcs that can walk up these ladders? (or climb) and then the ladders can be destroyed and will the orcs be able to light a keg and explode a hole in the wall? am i going to get to climb to the top and blow a horn, and then gandalf is gonna show up with the riders of rohan?

eh, ladders for orcs, break hole in wall or multiple parts of the wall catapults of course... oh! and arrow "shop" or resupply for archer buddies?

i dont think that the MS monsters can climb ladders...or light kegs...and no, gandalf will not be making an appearance...

what might be possible, is for the orcs to fire canons like they do in helena, but even that...would probably only break down the door, as this is not source and i cant make it take out one leg of the guard tower and watch it fall...

 

[Thothie]

guard tower and watch it fall...

func_breakable + func_door_rotating = leg breaks and tower falls over.

You can put a ms_npc with scriptfile "edana/shroom" inside a func_breakable with an exposion strength and the orcs should go break it for you. Just be sure to killtarget the shroom when they do.

and as for climbing ladders, see teleporter comment above.

 

[ITS'aME'aMARIO!!!!]

so how are we gonna defend against the orcs? sit atop a wall and throw rocks and hot chocolate at them? i hear orcs are allergic to chocolate, i sympathize for them, they're missing out

 

[evilsquirrel]

you're going to defend in the same way you would normally defend old helena...

"OMGOMG THE ORCS R IN ON TEH LEFT GOGOGOGO, OMG THEY GOT A GUY!!!"
"OMG CAMP THE INN!!!!!"

only...theres no inn camping, as the guy you have to protect isn't in a building with a small entrance with only a narrow back alley leading to it...



still trying to find a way to de-cheat the top areas without making it only a cave entrance up to the tower...(going to test those monsters to see if they put up a fight from down there)


also, thothie the distance they would have to shoot to hit the middle rock in that field in front of the wall is a little over the tree bows max range, when fired downward quite a long way...probably about longbow distance on a flat plane...

 

[evilsquirrel]

Double post... but i think its worth it for a teaser on the difficulty level of this map...

edit: darn jpeg image quality >.<

 

[The Man In Black]

Yeah, that archer owns. We're thinking of making them spawn on top of the cliff on the second wave (or whenever the tower explodes) so that it clears players out (clears out because we're also thinking of making a rock fall and block the ladder up).

I think with these archers spawning in the right places, we've taken away any chance of this being a cheat map

--Scratch that--

We were playing against a few of them and I got the idea to just have (on the 3rd wave or so) "The orcs are invading the cliffs" appear in the middle of players' screens. Then an archer spawn will form on the guard tower and a lot of orcs will rush along the cliffs, killing things. Perhaps the ladder can get destroyed, but anything on the cliffs is gonna get owned.

Also, I can rush 1 and hit it a few times 1v1, but 5 or 6 and I can barely make it to 1, much less hit it.

 

[evilsquirrel]

of course, we are using ADVENTURER characters... since fuzzy or thothie have yet to send me a character backup from Fuznet that i can use on my server...

if its possible...i'd just like a backup of fuznet, so that we can get a few people in to test it... once i've balanced these cliffs out...

the orcs shoot you if you stand on the edge and they're nearly below you...but not much else...

 

[Thothie]

if its possible...i'd just like a backup of fuznet, so that we can get a few people in to test it... once i've balanced these cliffs out...

*cough*

After you DL your character, and *today's* beta package (which is newer than the one I sent you via PM yesterday) - you'll want to check this out:
http://www.thothie.com/msc/lure_example.rar

It's a map, with source, that demonstrates how to make a bunch of monsters tear down a tower - as well as a sloppy use of making monsters climb ladders via monster-only teleports. Just run the map (you don't actually need the enclosed wad to run it) - run to the moss ladder - let some of the orcs follow you... Then run up to safety on the archers nest. (Note: There's no teleporter to let the orcs follow you that far).

...wait a few moments, and the orcs should attack the back supports of the tower, breaking them, and bring it crashing down.

The teleporter thing there works kinda sloppy - monsters will often get stuck together in wads... It might be possible to avoid that with a multisource and a master that'd force a delay between teleports. The monsters will free themselves after a few seconds though - thanks to the anti-stuck scripts.

 

[Jester]

Wow the archers are more powerful than the blacksmith. Are they demi-gods?

 

[The Man In Black]

More like full-fledged gods >_>

 

[ITS'aME'aMARIO!!!!]

actually i think they're juicers >_> <_<

 

[Jester]

i think they are overused asian-oriented emoticons

 

[Netrogor]

Remember not to bough your damn orc-waves on steroids: isn't fair to low-mid level people (Level 10-25, which includes me: this being IMO for low-mid lvls).

 

[evilsquirrel]

its not meant to be for low-mid level players, they mgiht be able to take the first wave, or the second wave, but they wont beat it without the help of high levels help...

its meant to be for about level 30-35 players, not as extreme as upcoming areas (frozen tear), but still definately NOT a low level area...

the whole map set that MiB and I are working on is oriented towards high level characters...we've drawn up a world map diagram and it fits into the region past keledrosprelude...so expect quite alot of difficulty...


i'm thinking of reworking my map...so...NO CLIFF CAMPING FOR YOU!

 

[Thothie]

I got somethin that may help cut down on your cliff campers in the July 15th's Beta Package:

Trolls that toss boulders...

monsters/troll_lobber - slightly tougher troll that uses boulders as its primary attack
monsters/troll_turret - same thing, but doesn't move - in the spirit of spider_turret

The boulders themselves are kinda erratic, damage wise. They are AOE with a rapid falloff. Splash damage can be as low as 5-30pts - but a direct hit can do as much as 200hp (inc. armor) - so these guys are much more dangerous at a distance than they are close up - which may encourage players to come down. They will switch to melee attacks when struck at close range.

I'm not sure how well they deal with players far above or below them - but the AOE on the boulders reduces their need for accuracy.

In addition, I've setup your Elite Rangers to handle exploiters at close range, as requested. They've three attacks - kick, sideswipe with metal bow, and overhead strike with metal bow. The last has a chance to stun and each attack pushes the player around a bit (similar to the effect with Blackhand Berserkers), so usually, by the third strike the sniper's pushed the player far enough away that he can safely take another shot at him.

Still gotta work up those damn orc shamans for the magical backup.

PS. If yer looking for high-end orc warriors, I think the toughest non-boss ones are "monsters/orc_berserker_blackhand", "helena/orcwarrior_hard", "monsters/orcflayer", "dq/voldarwarrior" , and "helena/orcguard" - perhaps in that order - not including the ice clan orcs, of course.

 

[Netrogor]

Awesome Thothie, a new challenge to forsake all noobs with less than 201 HP This'll be fun, does this new type of Troll give slightly better XP though, to make it worth the effort of closing the gap in range for killing it?

 

[Gaz]

Yay my rock anims will finally be put to use!

 

[Netrogor]

Both a \/\/()()7 for you Gaz; and a question
Why'd you animate a rock :O

EDIT:
lol still, it's good to have long range trolls: pure challenge to see how you can twist it around.