Sheep Tag 7.3.0B

This update includes bug fixes, new abilities, return of the stack farm, invis back, and farms 2 hit! Enjoy.

Fixes
-A bug where -ds would still remove savings from your farm count
-A bug where mirror images could kill farms with cloak of flames
-A bug with humiliation
-A bug with str pot kills
-A bug where -cancel would set everyone afk
-A bug where versus would display incorrect round times
-A bug where sharing units as sheep would be removed when wolves spawned
-A bug where any user could reset the leader and loser
-A typo when you couldn't afford bomber from quick shop


Items
-Cloak of Flames gold cost reduced to 120/160 from 140/180
-Claws of Attack +60 is now Claws of Attack +48
-Claws of Attack +240 is now Claws of Attack +192
-Claws of Attack +192 Recipe cost reduced to 100/140 from 140/180
-buy 3c/4c/5c removed
-Iron golem gold cost increased to 120 from 100


Farms
-Savings farm gold cost returned back to 30 from 26
-Sentry initial mana increased to 75 from 0
-Sentry mana regen increased to 2.5 from 2
-Sentry max mana increased to 200 from 150
-Sentry true sight reduced to 1300 from 1800
-Invisibility Farm is now Magic Farm
-Magic Farm now has Sheep Illusion as an ability
-Magic Farm mana regen increased to 3.5 from 2.5
-Changed hotkey of magic farm to G
-Changed hotkey of strong farm to D
-Normal Farm now upgrades into frost farm hotkey G

Stack Farm Return
-Cannot be built mid
-Cost 12 gold
-Bounty 4 gold
-40 HP and hotkey S


Abilities
-Invulnerability duration reduced to 6 seconds from 8

New ability Sheep Illusion
-Creates an illusion of a targeted sheep that lasts 90 seconds
-hotkey S
-Costs 150 Mana

New Ability Anti Stack Stomp
-Slams the ground disabling stack farms from nearby sheep build menu for 4 seconds
-Hotkey T cost 100 mana 20 second cooldown AoE of 275


Runes
-Power ups that respawn every 4 minutes they are consumed
-Initially spawn when the wolves spawn
-Cannot be killed by sheep

Rune of Invisibility
-Spawns on the left side of the pen
-Makes the user invisible for 45 seconds

Rune of Speed
-Spawns on the right side of the pen
-increases the users movespeed by 5%
-lasts 45 seconds


General
-Sheep now have true sight range 700
-Sheep now recieve gold every 1.30 seconds instead of every 2
-Pen is now blight instead of unbuildable
-Took multikills out of game (Sound effects took up to much memory)
-Increased wolf damage to 147 from 99
-Increased wolf spawn time to 18 seconds from 13
-Round timer does not begin till wolves spawn
-Versus is now automatically time 20 for both teams
-New command -loser Opposite of -leader it displays the team with the worst time


Download

http://www.epicwar.com/maps/218437/

First thought: How do I spot if a sheep is an illusion or not? Imba as fuck.

Why do you change 20 different things? Wolves spawn 5 seconds later, sheep gold income increased, runes ( instead of wolfing everyone is trying to catch the invis rune... ).
Why does the sentry farm has mana?


But overall good work beer (if my hotkeys aren't fucked up anymore), at least u try to change the things up. Not sure how the map will be!

so many great changes. big step in the right direction. i have no idea how to argue for or against any of these ideas tho, and that is a problem. what would i say if i wanted the stack removed? that i think its boring? anyway, just randomly testing different ideas will almost certainly result in a better map than the one we've played for years.

beer, try to give the newly added concepts/ideas some time to be properly tested and balanced. it's very common that people are skeptical and negative towards new map-changes when the changes are unfamiliar to them. this applies to dota as well, people whining that new heroes are imbalanced because someone figured out how the hero works and manages to do well, while they fail miserably with it. balancing issues might also cause negative emotions towards the change, but this is obviously not an issue about the concept/idea.




the best thing about beer is that the famous(and only) objection against the stack is now left on page 54 in the HISTORY BOOKS, never to see daylight again. the argument that goes "if you add stack because it increase mastery u might as well add other stuff that increases mastery!". classic shoop/drew material. unfortunately, it seems like beer is positive towards adding stuff that is justified and adds something valuable to the game WAWAWEWA JAKSHEMASH CinQUI!

SO many changes, AND only stack had a discussion? What are you doing?
This map can ONLY be used for tests, unless u will properly explain ALL the changes.
Write the reasons asap

2 hits??????????????

Okay after a little test we did I came to a conclusion already.

Sheep illusion is some imba fuck.

We had bug where ppl couldn't build stacks even without being stomped by this new spell.

Hotkeys aren't like they are shown in the game. For example me and another player have to press x instead of t for anti stack.


Basically I felt like playing combined version of farmer vs hunter and peon wars.


Not the best map.

Most changes were touched upon in other topics, Night.

The major shift was two-hit farms. This instantly called for changes in claws and opened the door to the stack farm. It calls for a much faster game, thus increase in gold (I originally suggested reducing all farm prices, but I suppose this has the same effect).

Many of the changes were in his previous maps, as well, such as changes to money/sentry farms, which were again touched on. Sentry farms have mana because they have Far Sight. Money farms decreased in price because they weren't used much - though I'd suggest a total revamp of them (make appear normal farms, reduce effectiveness, reduce cost).

No clue where sheep illusions came, or the runes.

@Amir. That was hardly the only objection, lol.

hotkeys are fucked i think for some kids they complaint about not being able to make stack farm.

2hit per farm = shit but thats just my opinion i will still test the map tho

...Why = 2hit normal farm shit ??
wolves get gold faster = pool 1 wolf to get cloaks for ONLY 120 gold that means EVEN more gold for wolves gg wolves

Chakra wrote:

Most changes were touched upon in other topics, Night.

The major shift was two-hit farms. This instantly called for changes in claws and opened the door to the stack farm. It calls for a much faster game, thus increase in gold (I originally suggested reducing all farm prices, but I suppose this has the same effect).

Many of the changes were in his previous maps, as well, such as changes to money/sentry farms, which were again touched on. Sentry farms have mana because they have Far Sight. Money farms decreased in price because they weren't used much - though I'd suggest a total revamp of them (make appear normal farms, reduce effectiveness, reduce cost).

No clue where sheep illusions came, or the runes.

@Amir. That was hardly the only objection, lol.

Yes it was TOUCHED , not thoroughly discussed. Imo everytime u add a new addition to map, it needs to be discussed among the community.




I tested out the new map:
1.The new 1 hit +5 gloves is completely op, its practically impossible to do 20 minutes now.
2. WTF IS THIS sheep illusion? It wasn't even debated whether to add it or not, it seems like its just a random edition for no reason.
3. 2 hit system must be discussed more before adding it. Its a drastical change to both sheep tag and map.
4. I have no comments on stack, since i tested it out once, cant provide any analysis, but imo the anti-stack ability is not enough to counter stacks.


My only suggestion would be to not play this map in competetive games until we get thorough analysis of the new abilities/items and so on. At the moment it seems like lots of things are op and need balancing.

what other objections were there chakra? ofc there was emotional garbadge from drew as usual, "its really annoying when the sheep pushes me", "its impossible to play vs stack in delay" and so on... but the only valid point that was ever made is that the mastery argument can apply to several changes, and not just the stack. how in GODS NAME shoop/drew thought this was an argument against anything is beyond me, but its still the only objective argument ever made. as far as i can remember atleast. but feel free to enlighten me.


btw, noone is entitled to complain about any changes. you had no problems with beers decision to avoid consistency/objective goals (and build his map based on "throwing sand around a sandbox" or whatever) when he was going with YOUR vision (removing invis, removing stacks or whatever the low-skilled position is these days). the double-standard is gross. the baconbrains really got PISSED when the tables got turned around, hunting for objective JUSTIFICATION!!!!

Quote :

Yes it was TOUCHED , not thoroughly discussed. Imo everytime u add a new addition to map, it needs to be discussed among the community.

This leads to a completely static map. People complain me and Gosu did nothing, but it wasn't because we were unwilling to make changes or because Drew opposed any changes to the map, it was because we spent a year debating a change, then might finally come through.

I agree that these many drastic changes is bad. However, making a few changes every version is not--it is the best way to test if something is good or not. It was how the stack issue was initially settled.

I agree that the cost of items (gloves/claws) should be increased - one hit with one item is fine so long as gloves are more expensive. If 192 claws are the only sought after item, it suggests they are imbalanced compared to other permanent items (cloak, gloves, etc), and price should be increased.

On the Amir:
It's strange that you think an argument for a game--which is supposed to be fun--can not include "emotional garbadge." Is "fun" and "boring" emotion? Does that make them invalid of an argument? I understand you might want to do something for the sole sake of mastery, but most of us play games to have fun. If I am going to do something that isn't enjoyable, I'll ask for money.

Everyone is entitled to complain about any changes, just not decide what they are. Do you really not understand the difference?

Why dont we just remake ROTS?

Seriously, WTF is this? My objection is exacly the same as amirs. What is the logic behind changes?

chakra, ofc the end-goal is fun. i think stacks are fun, drew thinks stacks are boring. what conclusion can you make based on this? add or remove stacks?

this is why we need to have objective goals. i think mastery is a great goal. someone else might think the opposite, that we should have as little mastery as possible and have games be decided on luck. you might think that rolling dice and cheering if u get the highest number is fun, i think that it isnt.

do you want us to move away from mastery? do you have a totally different objective goal in mind? tell me HOW you want to increase fun. obviously we all want to increase fun you numbnut....



heres my theory: shoop and drew want to remove mastery at aspects of sheeptag that they are bad at. by removing the invis, they perform better relative to me/others who are good at the invis. however, they dont want to remove mastery where it hurts them, because that would make SIMBA perform better relative to shoop/drew

the problem is obviously that there is 0 consistency and objectivity here. they want to fine-tune mastery based on what they're good at, and then back it up with subjective arguments. i want to increase mastery even if it makes nightmare better than me in ST.

I really do like changes to the maps. The readded bombers, the endur and brill-auras etc has been nice to the map.

BUT, seriously. We need some time/mapversion, we cant have 10 MAJOR changes to the map every other week.

Many ideas are sweet but some are just a result of alocohol or some sugar kick at 04 at the night.

Why should we make changes to the map JUST to change? Why change spawn time for wolves? Why add invis runes instead of potion? Why make new farm-claw-system just like that?

Sheep tag is a game that have had the same core-community for 5 years with a ~50 active players last 2 years - the only reason why it survived is because the nostalgia and because the game is "our game" and the map is "our map". It's great with some refreshing items and things but adding things like sheep illusions is madness.

I'm really glad we have beer to create new versions of revolution

I want to get new versions of revo, I really do, but i do not want a entirely new map

Amir your "theory" of why we want to remove invis is irrelevant. Nowhere in the discussion have we argued that we should remove invis beacause we are bad at it, so stop using strawmen arguments and counter the arguments actually put on the table.

I totally agree with traxx on this one. U can't make 10 major changes and just throw map out without writting any reasoning why u added this or that.

Inb4 stack/invis debate gets to long let me clarify every change for those who can't think for themselves.

REASON = IN BOLD BELOW CHANGE
Numbers can be changed remember that my numbers are guesses and are definitely not perfect.
Also to all those people saying "We shouldn't play this map competitively" no shit good thing theres no tournaments going on for over a month. Also I have no beta testing team or server etc. to make these numbers perfect before I release. You guys ARE my beta test team please help me. Tell me whats overpower and whats useless.

Fixes
-A bug where -ds would still remove savings from your farm count
-A bug where mirror images could kill farms with cloak of flames
-A bug with humiliation
-A bug with str pot kills
-A bug where -cancel would set everyone afk
-A bug where versus would display incorrect round times
-A bug where sharing units as sheep would be removed when wolves spawned
-A bug where any user could reset the leader and loser
-A typo when you couldn't afford bomber from quick shop


Items
-Cloak of Flames gold cost reduced to 120/160 from 140/180
Removed mirror image damage so found this cost reduction needed
-Claws of Attack +60 is now Claws of Attack +48
Wanted 1 hit to still be just as hard to achieve
-Claws of Attack +240 is now Claws of Attack +192
Do the math
-Claws of Attack +192 Recipe cost reduced to 100/140 from 140/180
This was probably a bad idea
-buy 3c/4c/5c removed
You already have 2 hit
-Iron golem gold cost increased to 120 from 100
Didn't want iron golems everywhere, but can be changed


Farms
-Savings farm gold cost returned back to 30 from 26
Sheep now gain gold faster passively so why this farm price should increase
-Sentry initial mana increased to 75 from 0
Far sight took to long before it could be cast
-Sentry mana regen increased to 2.5 from 2
Sentry mana regen seemed pretty slow
-Sentry max mana increased to 200 from 150
Just to give sentry a lil buff
-Sentry true sight reduced to 1300 from 1800
Invis re added therefore sentry true sight of 1800 ruins the ability
-Invisibility Farm is now Magic Farm
It has two abilities not just invis so might as well be magic
-Magic Farm now has Sheep Illusion as an ability
Give sheep a lil more of something to mess around with excellent ability that adds strategy and mind games
-Magic Farm mana regen increased to 3.5 from 2.5
With two abilities to be cast I found an increase in mana regen to be necessary
-Changed hotkey of magic farm to G
G for upgrade
-Changed hotkey of strong farm to D
Stack farm is S and strong farm came after stack
-Normal Farm now upgrades into frost farm hotkey G
Stack needed a spot on the main build menu frost farm seemed like the best farm to put as an upgrade

Stack Farm Return
-Cannot be built mid
Would make saving to easy
-Cost 12 gold
-Bounty 4 gold
-40 HP and hotkey S
Remember these numbers can be changed report back to me what you think they should be


Abilities
-Invulnerability duration reduced to 6 seconds from 8
Made frost farm a bit easy to evade

New ability Sheep Illusion
-Creates an illusion of a targeted sheep that lasts 90 seconds
Adds mind games and strategy for sheep
-hotkey S
-Costs 150 Mana
@Martin you can tell which is the fake one because its the one not building farms/not attacking its just like a wolf mirror image

New Ability Anti Stack Stomp
-Slams the ground disabling stack farms from nearby sheep build menu for 4 seconds
Needed to give the wolves a fair way of countering stack farm and figured an ability would add some mastery to it
-Hotkey T cost 100 mana 20 second cooldown AoE of 275
There may be some bugs with this haven't fully tested it as I am only 1 person


Runes
Something new, something for the wolves to want, something that makes controlling mid more important for sheep and wolves
-Power ups that respawn every 4 minutes they are consumed
I only want 1 wolf per team to have a rune at any given time
-Initially spawn when the wolves spawn
-Cannot be killed by sheep
Couldn't trigger it properly I originally did want the sheep to be able to kill farms @Chakra if you know a units kills item event let me know

Rune of Invisibility
-Spawns on the left side of the pen
Wanted to make it outside of the pen, but then it blocks sheep build path etc. etc.
-Makes the user invisible for 45 seconds
Don't want a wolf to be invisible forever

Rune of Speed
-Spawns on the right side of the pen
-increases the users movespeed by 5%
-lasts 45 seconds
Goes along with the invis rune nicely


General
-Sheep now have true sight range 700
Wolves can go invis true sight is needed 700 is fair with the sentry buffs and knowing which wolf is invis and when they go invis via watching mid
-Sheep now recieve gold every 1.30 seconds instead of every 2
Wolves can cut faster which means sheep need to be able to access there more powerful farms faster
-Pen is now blight instead of unbuildable
Only way I could make stacks unbuildable mid
-Took multikills out of game
Sound effects took up to much memory
-Increased wolf damage to 147 from 99
Makes the game more fast pace and less of a waiting game for two hit
-Increased wolf spawn time to 18 seconds from 13
Wolves have two hit sheep need a bit more time to get a mass going
-Round timer does not begin till wolves spawn
Why should wolves lose round time when they can't even play
-Versus is now automatically time 20 for both teams
I always see everyone -cancel -time 20 so here you go I did it for you
-New command -loser Opposite of -leader it displays the team with the worst time
Just a fun command who doesn't love commands

ANYWAYS numbers are not going to be balanced and CAN be changed please don't hate on something when you haven't tried it/given it time. I think you will find all these changes add more to sheep tag while still maintaining that old fun strategy of controlling mid and cutting/massing.

Yes there will be some bugs and I will do my best to fix them ASAP. Let me know what exactly is happening and to whom RoC Players/TfT Players.


EDIT: Stop saying theres 10 BIG CHANGES if you look closesly there is 4 BIG CHANGES.
1 Stack Farms
2. Runes
3. Wolves start 2 hit
4. Sheep illusion ability

The rest of the changes go hand in hand with these 4 major changes to try to balance them properly.

Aight so i tested the map a bit and my insights(things that should be removed or nerfed asap imo):

1. The illusion sheep at magic farm seems useless. Who would go through the trouble of making the magic farm and wait for mana to increase? My point is this ability is ONLY for fun purposes , it's completely useless and timewasting in serious games.
2. The one hit recipe is COMPLETELY op with 5 gloves. i mean, there is NO fucking chance of sheep surviving 20 minutes. I suggest either increase the recipe cost/gloves cost or remove it.
3. The 2hit farm thing makes the game an isolation escape all round tag. Basically what u do is u get isolated 100% , or one of your ally gets isolated, and you run around mid/map trying to outrun wolves, maybe mass a little. Its hard to survive 3 minutes unless u get lucky with the runtag. There is practically no teamwork, no massing. The game is VERY fast paced. All u do is try to escape isolations(this applies for 3v5 and 2v4, this wasn't tested in 5v5 or 6v6, but i doubt its different). Point is that the gameplay completely changes, the luck factor is increased by a huge amount.
I dont really know if this is good or bad, but its not sheep tag anymore as we knew it before.

I strongly suggest you to overthink these things i mentioned above. I'm still going to test everything on 5v5/6v6 games and give u analysis after.

Night wrote:

Aight so i tested the map a bit and my insights(things that should be removed or nerfed asap imo):

1. The illusion sheep at magic farm seems useless. Who would go through the trouble of making the magic farm and wait for mana to increase? My point is this ability is ONLY for fun purposes , it's completely useless and timewasting in serious games.
2. The one hit recipe is COMPLETELY op with 5 gloves. i mean, there is NO fucking chance of sheep surviving 20 minutes. I suggest either increase the recipe cost/gloves cost or remove it.
3. The 2hit farm thing makes the game an isolation escape all round tag. Basically what u do is u get isolated 100% , or one of your ally gets isolated, and you run around mid/map trying to outrun wolves, maybe mass a little. Its hard to survive 3 minutes unless u get lucky with the runtag. There is practically no teamwork, no massing. The game is VERY fast paced. All u do is try to escape isolations(this applies for 3v5 and 2v4, this wasn't tested in 5v5 or 6v6, but i doubt its different). Point is that the gameplay completely changes, the luck factor is increased by a huge amount.
I dont really know if this is good or bad, but its not sheep tag anymore as we knew it before.

I strongly suggest you to overthink these things i mentioned above. I'm still going to test everything on 5v5/6v6 games and give u analysis after.

1. Yes it does right now though no one knows how to use to its maximum potential. If you micro probably by skilled players you can "double save" by yourself. Which adds loads of dynamics to player who want to become better.

2. Yes I agree there needs to be a serious gold increase for these wolf items or possibly a straight nerf perhaps instead of claws 192 its claws 96.

3. That is what makes sheep tag exciting, fun, and skilled. Also maybe think of a dynamic shift in the way we play sheep tag. Instead of 3v5 do a 4v4. Overall this changes increases the gap between skilled and unskilled players. A skilled player now has to recognize when and iso is coming much faster then before or can use the newly provided stack farm to try to escape the iso. And what is this luck factor. There is no luck in sheep tag except mirror images and respawn spots. Also I agree its not the same sheep tag, but it still has the same strategies as our old sheep tag just with newer things. Ever wonder why our community is dwindling down because the game got stale was boring same thing over n over. I want to try to achieve a new more evolved kind of sheep tag that is still skill at its finest.

As amir said give it sometime at first no one likes any change because they are used to the way the game has been played and have fully mastered that style. Now I'm providing a new game that has even more to master and work at. Everyone who might say they "plateaued" now has a shot at increasing there skill.

It was probably not the best idea to add all this into the game at once, but most of the stuff went together. For instance stacks = easier to get out of isolations and easier to dodge invis. Which then allows invis and faster paced games with more cutting/isolations. Overall it just needs some balancing and rewoking, but I think most people will like it more in time.

Edit: Thanks for your suggestions night, but instead of just saying something is OP or useless give me reasons on how I can make it more useful or what the costs of gold/mana/cd should be I'm very open to suggestions.

I would agree on keeping all the changes,playing the map and testing them in normal games, except for 2hits and 1 hit recipe. I think these should be removed for now and kept for later. With one hit recipe-> as i mentioned before , either remove it or increase the price. 2 hits-> IMO remove it and keep for later, because this improvement changed the game COMPLETELY and made it into something new. I believe its too much for today and all the other changes are enough. I dont recommend to try nerf it, because it requires a lot of tests and balancing.

Night wrote:

I would agree on keeping all the changes,playing the map and testing them in normal games, except for 2hits and 1 hit recipe. I think these should be removed for now and kept for later. With one hit recipe-> as i mentioned before , either remove it or increase the price. 2 hits-> IMO remove it and keep for later, because this improvement changed the game COMPLETELY and made it into something new. I believe its too much for today and all the other changes are enough. I dont recommend to try nerf it, because it requires a lot of tests and balancing.

I see your point and I agree that 2 hit changed the game a lot, but it changed it for the better imo. Also not sure how much you have played, but wolf spawn time is increased giving sheep more time to mass before wolves spawn. Also remember times are going to look shorter as well because these 18 seconds aren't factored into it like the 13 seconds used to be. Also high skilled players are still rewarded now it just punishes lower skilled players more thats the only major difference I have noticed. Also sheep recieve gold faster so they can make more upgrades and pretty much reduce that 2 hit back down to 4 if they think before they place their upgrades.

Overall does it change the game yes. Does it ruin the game no. The numbers need tweaking, but overall I think you'll find players skill levels increase ten fold.

Quote :

Shoop: Amir your "theory" of why we want to remove invis is irrelevant. Nowhere in the discussion have we argued that we should remove invis beacause we are bad at it, so stop using strawmen arguments and counter the arguments actually put on the table.

you didn't get the point. a theory on why you wanna remove the invis isn't a strawman. nor is it a counter-argument to anything. the theory explains why someone might genuinly think its a good idea to remove the invis, assuming that 1) invis adds mastery and 2) mastery is good. it also explains why its a BAD idea to cater to these needs, as they are inconsistent and subjective.

the same would apply to shoops "lets increase runtag" argument. you can never objectively defend the notion that "we have enough runtag now, we dont need to increase it further", which shoop used as a counter-argument to further increasing runtag beyond removing the invis. i might as well say that i want MORE runtag.




in other words, beer has absolutely NO reason to listen to any of your arguments, suggestions or objections, unless you define how you want to increase fun in an objective way. "i think we have enough runtag" "invis is boring" and arguments of this kind should be splashed with water and beaten with an electric cattleprod by irish farmers.

A classic logic fallacy from amir when he goes from

"adding mastery is good"

to

"adding mastery is always good"

Amir, the fact is most people dont agree with adding master is always good. Not me, not drew, not exa, not chaise, not chakra, etc. That does not mean we think all mastery is bad.

The arguments against invis have been posted 100s of times, do I really need to quote them again?

shoop, you're embarresing yourself.

Quote :

the theory explains why someone might genuinly think its a good idea to remove the invis, assuming that 1) invis adds mastery and 2) mastery is good.

1) and 2) are assumptions.

and i already explained that you can't objectively justify when we should add mastery and when we shouldn't. your two "quotes" are, in turn, identical from an objective viewpoint. mastery is good = anything that increases mastery is good.

your position on when we should add mastery isn't any more valid than anyone elses position. same applies to your runtag arguments. these are...what was the term again? subjective arguments? yEEEEE!

i say we should add more mastery, shoop sais we shouldn't. its no wonder that you think you've won all debates when you think the latter is more valid than the former.




if you really dont understand simple logic, answer this: who decides when we should add mastery and when we shouldn't? i think we should add mastery now by adding the invis. why am i wrong? how COULD i, even theoretically, be wrong?

Amir, you cant objectivly justify why we shouldnt remove invis, I cant objectivly justify why we should remove invis. I agree with this. What exacly is your point?

Ofcourse its a subjective discussion. It is a matter of taste. Havent you figured that out until now?

Who decides what? The mapmaker decides what to add to his map, the hosts decides what map to host, the players decides what games to join.

Does this mean a discussion is meaningless? Ofcourse not. You might present a way of looking at the map I havent thought off, and vice versa.

Do you mind me asking you this though, do you think "adding more mastery" is always good?