Hero Attack v2.27 has been released!!! - November 7th, 2011

Hero Attack v2.29 has been released

[Note: versions 2.1 - 2.29 have been released. See the change logs in this thread.]

Hello everyone,

Hero Attack version 2.0 has been released! It is available on the North American server and European server. Here is a video of version 2.0:

[youtube]HHigg3MFqy4[/youtube]

What is Hero Attack?

Hero attack is an MOBA or AOS style game similar to dota. Players work in teams, control heroes and their goal is to destroy the enemy team's main building. Heroes can gain experience, buy items and learn special abilities.

However, this is not a dota clone and there are a number of features that make Hero Attack unique from other games of this genre. Most noticeably each team chooses a race (Terran, Protoss or Zerg), and each race has a unique set of items, heroes and units. There are also 4 playable maps that players can choose from by voting at the start of the game and each map is very different. Some of the maps have special types of terrain such as mud (which reduces the movement speed of ground units by 50%), ice (which is slippery and prevents ground units from turning or slowing down) and lava (which damages ground units periodically). All heroes and items are based on sc2 units and abilities so it should be fairly strait forward how to use each hero. Each team has computer player that harvests minerals and vespene gas from its base and gives it to the allied players on its team. The computer player builds workers and constructs buildings throughout the game and as the game progresses additional unit producing structures will be constructed that will bring additional units and unit types to the lanes. There are also neutral hostile critters that you can kill for additional minerals and experience.

Currently Hero Attack has:
- 3 playable races.
- 4 playable maps.
- 45 playable heroes.
- 100 items.
- Team upgrades.
- Over 200 different abilities.

That is a ridiculously large amount of content and far more than other SC2 custom games of this genre.

If you want to play Hero Attack, but have difficulty finding players, please join the chat channel “Hero Attack” or check out the website www.heroattack.net .

 

Wow as a DOTA/ HON player I'm excited at this, the current Storm of Imperial is avg, I'll definitely try this out.

Congrats.

 

I've never even seen version 1!
how do i find it? o.o

 

I've totally wanted to play this but I can't ever find it in the list. Are you NA?

 

"how do i find it? o.o"

Version 1.0 is at the bottom of the popularity list, with all the other good games.

"Are you NA?"

Yes.

 

Wow lol @ good games

MMm Blizzard should change their "featured" list more often.
Also, include the option of Typing in and searching for a Map name (although thats a bit icky) WITH AUTOTYPE

 

I will be releasing Hero Attack version 1.1 on Saturday at noon EST. Look for the map then.

This map will only be available on the North American Server.

 

Looks like you put a lot of work into this. Too bad the videos are very low quality. But I have to ask, if you didn't spare imagination and work, how come the name is so bland? And I sort of understand the reasoning behind making things straight forward as the plethora of options and names were indeed factors that deterred me from DOTA, but the "<unit name> hero" formula is definitely going to cause people to meh. I would've tried to call them names that would allude to their roles with their rank preceding the name.

Anyway, good luck with the project, just thought I'd share my two cents.

 

The reason why I choose to have <unit name> hero as the names of the heroes is precisely the reason you mention. I want my game to be easy to understand. So if a player sees a hero called the marine hero the player should instantly know that the marine hero is a ranged infantry unit with abilities such as stimpack and combat shield.

Also, I sort of like the blandness of the names. The majority (if not all) of the DOTA maps are pretty much dota clones with slightly different heroes and items. I will let them fight over who has the most badass hero names because I would rather my map stand out for good gameplay. Honestly, if a player is turned away from my map due to a lack of hero names then they probably weren't in my target audience to begin with. My target audience is players who appreciate interesting (and perhaps competitive) gameplay, not players who just want to pwn some noobs with heroes with badass names.

Basically, I want to differentiate my map from the other DOTA like maps.

 

I watched your videos and the map is quite intriguing, I'm very interested to see how the heroes balance with one another and how the air heroes will work out.

I get where you are coming from with a simplified item system, but there definitely needs to be a little more available. I think that a communal shop would be your best bet rather than a mercenary shop, which would turn the game away from hero play and towards massing mercs.

You could also consider replacing the attack and shield items with something to the effect of a tome shop, allowing players to upgrade their damage/health/armor/energy/attack speed/shields directly. You would have to place long cooldowns on each upgrade type though, to prevent having someone spend all of their money upgrading attack damage for instance. Or you could just place cooldowns on all upgrades for players individually (ie. if player 1 upgrades attack damage, all possible upgrades go into cooldown for player 1, but player 2 still has all upgrades available to them)

 

30 minutes until release!

 

I'm going to publish the map now. Look for it under new maps.

 

Has anyone had any luck finding and joining a game?

 

Unfortunatly it is near impossible to find Hero Attack even with show new only. I'll try to boost it's popularity by playing 5 minute games so it is easier to find.

I'm going to try again at 1:00 EST so every one please join then. Until then I would appreciate it if you could boost it's popularity just a bit so we can get a game going at 1:00.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

 

I am right in thinking that custom games are not limited to gateways, right? I couldn't find it after 5 "show more" with new only ticked.

 

I'm currently hosting a game, you can join it by clicking show new only, show custom only and clicking show more 9 times.

 

There are currently 4 people in the lobby. Please join Hero Attack so we can get a game started!

 

Some issues from the first play test ever:
-I think it was the third player slot. I can't remember who his hero was, but it was a protoss hero. He died and an error occurred so he did not respawn.
-Reaver is a little too powerful, imo.
-Creeps do slightly too much damage to heroes. Just slightly.
-Can get quite chaotic at times, increasing the wait time in between creep spawns could fix this if you think it's a problem. I like the chaos factor.
-The Reaper's stim pack felt obscenely unnecessary. I used it once, for the attack speed bonus. I never needed the move speed bonus. Perhaps increase the attack speed bonus and remove the move speed bonus, or change the move speed bonus to some other buff.
-The ghost's snipe ability felt useless towards the endgame, and the early-mid game "perma-cloak" (cloaking rank 3 costs nothing) felt way too powerful, but was almost necessary at the end game.
-The defiler was really weak for being a close-range hero early-game, imo.
-Heroes in general felt super vulnerable to attack from other heroes in the early game which slowly evolved to invincible to attacks in the late game. The mid-game felt like it had the perfect balance between hero vitality and hero attack.
-I would like vision of the shop while I'm away so that I can check the costs of items while not at the base.
-Items were too cheap, or income was too high. In about 5 minutes I could afford the top tier weapon item.
-Heroes level too quickly after the first level, or there are not enough levels. I hit max level in 10-15 minutes.

For a first play test, it felt pretty solid. Great work! This is just my input, take it however you want to take it.

 

Hi everyone,

I would just like to thank everyone who played Hero Attack today. I had a lot of fun and the feedback that I got was really helpful. Despites the fact that I couldn't get a full game and mostly played 2v2's and 3v3's, today's gameplay gave me an idea of the general feel of Hero Attack and what aspects of Hero Attack need improvement. So again, I am very grateful to those who played Hero Attack, especially the handful of players that played for several rounds.

I do realize there are some general areas that need improvement such as heroes leveling to quickly, players receiving too many minerals, the fact that there are not enough items and ways to spend minerals (unless your team is protoss in which case you can mass obelisks), and there was also the occasional bug. I'll try to focus on these issues in the next version. Also, the game did seem a bit too chaotic (though admitedly the chaos sort of made it fun) so I will see what I can do about that as well.

For those who still want to play Hero Attack, it's on the second page if you filter for custom games and click show new only. However, just don't expect to play full games (unless you join with a lot of friends) because even I could only get half full games at best. Also, please give me feedback in the forums because I will read your posts and take them into consideration. If you are one of the players that gave me feedback online then I would like to ask you to summarize your suggestions in the forums so I do not forget what you told me.

 

"-I think it was the third player slot. I can't remember who his hero was, but it was a protoss hero. He died and an error occurred so he did not respawn."

I believe he was the reaver hero and the bug occured because the warp prism died while the reaver hero was inside it. The bug occurs because my revive trigger requires knowledge of the 'killing player' of the hero. However since the player killed the warp prism rather than the reaver, for some reason trying to get the killing player results in an error. I noticed this problem 3 days ago and thought I fixed it but I guess I didn't.

"-Reaver is a little too powerful, imo."

Definately.

"-Can get quite chaotic at times, increasing the wait time in between creep spawns could fix this if you think it's a problem. I like the chaos factor."

Yeah, it was chaotic but fun at the same time. Not quite sure how I should approach this issue.

"-The Reaper's stim pack felt obscenely unnecessary. I used it once, for the attack speed bonus. I never needed the move speed bonus. Perhaps increase the attack speed bonus and remove the move speed bonus, or change the move speed bonus to some other buff."

I could always remove the stimpack from the reaper hero. However, I would need an ability to replace it and I can't think of an ability that would fit the reaper(and that doesn't overlap with D-8 charge).

"-The ghost's snipe ability felt useless towards the endgame, and the early-mid game "perma-cloak" (cloaking rank 3 costs nothing) felt way too powerful, but was almost necessary at the end game."

Are you sure? Because I remember owning your ghost hero with my roach hero + overseers a few times.

"-The defiler was really weak for being a close-range hero early-game, imo."

I was thinking of giving the defiler hero a range attack but I was afraid that would make him too similar to the infestor hero.

"-Heroes in general felt super vulnerable to attack from other heroes in the early game which slowly evolved to invincible to attacks in the late game. The mid-game felt like it had the perfect balance between hero vitality and hero attack."

This is interesting because damage and vitality increase at the same rate each level. Each level your hero receives +10% life, shields, energy, damage and energy regeneration. What do you think the cause of this is? Is it the items? An abundance of hero mobility in the late game?

"-I would like vision of the shop while I'm away so that I can check the costs of items while not at the base."

Sorry, I must have forgotten to give players vision of the cliff where the shop is located. If you look at my recent video, my hero did have vision of the shops and could browse items while far away. Somehow I forgot to give the beacons a sight radius. However, you should be able to browse the shops if you have vision of it.

"-Items were too cheap, or income was too high. In about 5 minutes I could afford the top tier weapon item.
-Heroes level too quickly after the first level, or there are not enough levels. I hit max level in 10-15 minutes."

I'll try to focus on these two issues in the next version of the map.