zircon

The other day I went up against a good Scout. I was playing Magebane and was equally farmed, but he ripped me to shreds 1v1 thanks to his insane attack speed and disarm. The rest of his team wasn't that great, but his use of AOE silences and disarm was crazy. With a Riftshards and Brutalizer, he was doing 1k crits by lategame. Why exactly is a rework a waste? He has the best invis in the game, arguably (+200 attack speed for 4 attacks is nuts), a disabling crit, free wards that double as AOE silence spells in teamfights, and a massive range scaling ult.

The key thing is honestly just getting better samples. Your lead isn't too bad, but clearly you're using a very limited library/soundfont. It doesn't sound like there are any alternating samples (round robins) or articulations like palm mutes to make the chugs more realistic.

Well, the issue isn't batch renaming. It's batch splitting and naming simultaneously.

You forgot Magebane rework and Scout rework; both were community suggestions. Considering the game is not even out I would say that S2 has done a pretty fantastic job of implementing community feedback and suggestions, and will probably do an even better job once more of the bread and butter stuff is done (more maps, matchmaking, more DotA ports.) The potential for HoN is limitless since it isn't limited by WC3's engine. You're saying Enrage shouldn't be +Str because it's been done in DotA. How many repeat skills are there already, anyway? There are tons of line nukes, simple damage+stuns, passive crit skills... and DotA was much worse in that regard. Are there really any skills that are active, relatively spammable, proc a secondary skill and give a short boost to STR? Even if there was one exactly like that, it certainly would fit Behemoth and be more useful than Enrage.

I've never heard of a Behemoth build with battlefuries... that's pretty stupid. By endgame with no +damage items (which he SHOULDN'T HAVE) he will do 380-400 damage in a swipe. Nothing to scoff at, but it's not useful enough vs. 3 levels of stats, IMO. His inventory is better used for things like Portkey, Shrunken Head, Posthaste/Steamboots, Behemoth's Heart, Frostfield Plate and Ring of Sorcery. I'm not suggesting anything that would change his playstyle at all. Enrage adds nothing to his playstyle. I also don't want to change Fissure at all. If anything, like I said, I would advocate a slight nerf of his ult so it doesn't gib the entire enemy team instantly in the lategame. He doesn't NEED that to be an excellent hero; 700-800 instant AOE damage + Heavyweight + stun + Fissure + Fissure stun + Heavyweight is a brutal enough combo as it is. Changing enrage to a +Strength buff instead would still help with last-hitting, but make the ability worth using outside of simply proccing Heavyweight. In other words, it only adds depth, without changing his core playstyle in the least. An ability doesn't need to be BAD to fit in with a current hero build; you guys aren't thinking creatively enough.

Right, which is why I was saying if you're going to buff a useless skill, the question is how to adjust the others to compensate. I've said umpteen times that I know Behemoth is powerful, and I'm not suggesting an overall buff... merely making one of his useless abilities useful and toning some other aspect down to compensate. Otherwise, why not just make heroes that pretty much only do one thing and one thing only, but are gamebreaking when they do it? That's just poor design. Remember that DotA has been cobbled together over the years and just because it is one way doesn't mean that way is correct and should never be touched. In other words, I don't believe overpowering one ability to compensate for an underpowered second ability is a good way of doing things. Make them BOTH good. You can only gain strategy and depth by doing this. It's like if Ryu had a Hadoken in Street Fighter that did 50% of your health if you got hit, but the rest of his abilities (dragon punch, hurricane kick) were useless. Would anyone say that is better than his current character, with three useful abilities?

I'm not saying every skill needs to be equally powerful and worth getting ASAP, but if a skill is so obviously bad that it's just never used or leveled really late (Terrify, Enrage, Chain Lightning) then it should be redesigned. The result will only be deeper heroes and deeper gameplay.

Here's my typical workflow; I know Will works a little differently. Usually, you start with a massive WAV file that contains tons of oneshot samples. The first thing I do is load that up into REAPER and begin slicing out the individual samples. This pass is usually a little messy, and I don't bother with fades here. The goal is simply to separate all of the oneshots with digital silence, and have them edited reasonably well. At this stage I also organize the hits into a sensible sequence and cut out any bad ones. I then save this new WAV file as something else. The new WAV file is loaded into Wavelab, which can auto-split a file based on various parameters, including silence between notes. Since I just created digital silence (pure -140db or whatever) this auto-splitting typically works well. Wavelab also allows you to set up a list of file names in plain text, which it will assign to the resulting auto-split WAV files. This part is really quite easy; lots of ctrl+v. GB_Snare_v1_rr1 GB_Snare_v1_rr2 GB_Snare_v1_rr3 GB_Snare_v1_rr4 GB_Snare_v1_rr5 Typing all that just now took me less than two seconds. I just make one template line, copy it a lot, and then quickly go down the list with arrow keys and change digits when necessary. Anyway, after I have all the auto-split WAV files, I use Goldwave to batch-normalize and convert (if I need to make them mono, or something) though Wavelab could also do that. Wavelab is then the editing tool of choice for individual sample tweaking.

Zero, like I posted on the HoN forums, if we're willing to just say it's OK for heroes to have crappy skills if we just buff their other ones, why not make a really one-dimensional hero with only ONE good skill and three crappy ones? If given the choice between having three good skills and four good skills, NO other factors considered, the obvious choice would be the latter. The question only becomes how to balance a character if they were already good even with a 'bad' skill. There is absolutely no reason to settle for less when we can instead shoot for optimal game design. Honestly, this mirrors the HD Remix "debate" almost perfectly. SSF2T is considered to be one of the best, most balanced fighting games around. That being said, there are clear character tiers, useless moves and imbalances. Many people whined when David Sirlin said he was creating a rebalanced mode in HD Remix, because, well, the game was already good. However, the end result is that HD Remix adds new tactical decisions, tightens the tiers, adds new moves and buffs the formerly useless ones. Now, it is the tournament standard, and not SSF2T. Point is, a good game designer can take even a great design and make it better than it was. Great doesn't mean 'flawless.'

I would argue, however, that his Chain Lightning *can* be leveled earlier as a farming tool. But yes, that one pretty much sucks also, and I would rather they buff that and nerf his lightning rod rather than have useless skills that might as well just do nothing but proc a passive.

Legato is actually a really broad term when it comes to samples. There are many ways to do it, and it's very dependent on the instrument. Kontakt obviously has its own legato built in; just limit the voices to one and add some portamento, like any old synthesizer. That's one way of doing it. Another way is to use a script. There is one that has been floating around for awhile which basically interpolates between two notes of ANY patch, doing a combination of pitch-bending and crossfading to both in order to achieve a legato effect. Will uses this (or some variation) with great results, and I've messed with it too. Some libraries have specific legato samples. To be honest, I haven't ever recorded or edited such a library myself, but the jist is that you record a lot of slides, bends and tranasitions and use scripting tools to cobble it all together. The end result (ie. Kontakt VSL) sounds amazing, so this way is probably the best of all. For percussion, I find it hard to conceive of how you would record legato playing, so a script or just the built-in Kontakt monophony seems like it would be the best way...

The most important thing is good source material. Kontakt's ability to load basically unlimited velocities and RRs means you can get extremely realistic sounds simply by recording a ton of samples and just mapping them normally. For percussive libraries, that is honestly the main thing. Careful editing of the WAVs themselves and tweaking of envelopes is also good to do, but most Kontakt features aren't needed for simple drums. Scripting is best done with Nils Script Editor, a free program that is a scripting reference and editor all in one. I believe it's only compatible with Kontakt 2 and higher, so you won't get K3/K4 scripting features, but K2 is very, VERY powerful by itself. The thing is, there isn't much scripting you need to do unless you find Kontakt's built-in features lacking. Here is how I approach building a library... 1. Define the goal of the library. 2. Establish the instrument(s) to be recorded, and who is playing them. 3. Study the instruments carefully. Listen to lots of music and watch videos to see what the key playing techniques are. Discuss with performers the most important articulations to include. 4. Review existing libraries of the same type. 5. Establish recording setup. What mics? What room? What studio?! 6. Record tons of material. Always do MORE than you think you will need. It's easy to edit down, but if you didn't get enough RRs to begin with, you'll regret it. 7. Edit and name samples using REAPER, Wavelab and Goldwave. 8. Map into Kontakt. 9. Optimize and polish.

Thanks, Larry. And yeah, Winamp 2 runs WAY better and faster than the latest version. Edit: OK, now the problem is that if I change the display to filename, my properly-tagged MP3s don't display the artist/title like they should. The problem is that tons of my MP3s have ONE tag (like date, or encoded with...) but not artist/title, so I guess Winamp reads them as having a tag anyway. Is there a way to get it to display filename IF and ONLY IF there is no artist + title? This is definitely how my old Winamp 2 was set up, and I don't remember how I did it.

Haha, get out of here Meteo: I have no idea what (if anything) will be recorded, but I sure hope so. Among other things, the impromptu band I'm in ("Big Daddy and the Splicers") is playing a medley of Super Mario Bros. Underground, Ken and Trogdor, a sort of gothic Kraid, my (Sixto-powered) arrangement of Lunatic Moon, a reggae version of Chemical Plant zone, and lots of other cool stuff. I heard VGxpo didn't go too well this year so GameX is looking to be the new hotness. If you're within two-hundred miles, you should come!

The Greater Philadelphia Convention Center in Oaks, PA is hosting a weekend gaming convention, GameX (http://gamexpo.us). I'm going to be there with some friends doing a panel on the "Industry Summit" (oriented toward game devs) side of things, as well as playing in a VGM band! The OneUps will be there too, so it looks like it will be a great time. Shall we organize some kind of meetup for Saturday?

Well, the new Enrage would only be SLIGHTLY less spammable. Believe me, by level 15 or so Behe has *no* mana problems at all with a Ring of Sorcery and one Talisman of Exile. If he ever gets Frostfield, he's set for life. New Enrage is still spammable based on cooldown alone.

In order to set up perfect fissures he needs to expose himself to harassment, which he can't really take well early game anyway. And that's still less reliable than the aforementioned VERY reliable, longer-lasting stuns (Fissure's stun is not that long) which can be spammed more easily. Anyway, the new Enrage numbers could be changed, including the mana, but the CONCEPT of it is almost objectively superior to the old one, which was simply useless. Again, competitive Behe guides don't recommend leveling it past one EVER or until way late in the game. That's not good design.

Buffing strength boosts current and max HP temporarily. Once the buff is gone, the HP is gone (but obviously the drop won't kill you.) Tensei: I've found his lane presence to be VERY weak, and his attack animation is actually pretty bad combined with his bad last hitting potential. There are many better choices for stuns, such as Electrician, Andromeda, Hammerstorm etc. Fissure does not last as long and is more difficult to pull off properly, plus it usually costs more mana than any of those. So, compared to many others his earlygame is bad. However you didn't even respond to my suggestions. Enrage by all accounts is a garbage skill, so why not replace it? To compensate, nerf his ult a bit. Seems perfectly sensible.

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=34544 New suggestion! Behemoth tweaks. Yes, I know he's an awesome character. Read anyway.

OK, so only having played with Vindicator a bit (in practice), I have to say that he really seems like a very obvious S-tier pick for almost any lineup. His lane control appears to be unstoppable. His base damage is already quite high, and by level 3 or 4 he can easily have +10-15 damage per shot. By level 7 with just two Talismans he is doing +30 damage on every attack, which in and of itself is pretty amazing - not as good as Soulstealer, but then again, Vindicator also has a brutal DOT and the silencing aura. The hero who I think counters Vindicator - and who I think was underappreciated before - is Blood Hunter, whose Blood Crazy skills shuts Vind down entirely. He basically loses all his powers for a solid 15 seconds, wherein BH can go to town (not to mention, BH doesn't care if he himself is silenced.)

Yeah. I think Electrician is actually quite strong - I'm going to play him the next two to three games to prove it

Silencer seems like a no-brainer with the current state of the metagame right now. For example, we were playing against a fairly decent team in the game I mentioned in my previous post, yet because of our massive AOE barrage we completely dominated teamfights. Silencer just needs to hit that global silence as soon as he sees Behe or Tempest try to initiate, no?

We just played a game (3 OCR vs. 3 some Euro clan) where our team had Tempest, Hellbringer, Behemoth, Plague Rider and Pandamonium. ... GG. We got raped early (they had Lego, Arachna, Hammerstorm, Pyro, Valk) but midgame it it was just a genocide every teamfight.

You only get 8 of those slows, however, while Brutalizer is a lasting investment (and adds a bit more damage in total.) Also consider that Nullfire's manaburn does not stack with Magebane's passive which makes it a bit less useful.

Tensei, I would argue that Magebane also requires Brutalizer. He has essentially about +55 damage as a passive (the mana burn) plus a damaging ulti and aura, but no way to disable opponents. I'd say Predator can sometimes be a better pick than Pesti depending on the opposing team. Like you said, if they're going to be stacking high-armor/high-HP characters, Predator will have them for dinner. He's also harder to kill than either of them in a head-on fight because of his magic immunity and massive lifesteal. Obviously Pesti and Warbeast have better escapes, though.