54 replies to this topic

[IanD967]

With the amount of MOBA's around and individual heroes across all sorts of genres it woulden't be hard to realise that some things will just be a copy of some sort no matter how hard you try to be unique and different.
Afterall, it will only be a matter of time before people will post their thoughts on new champions with "His Q is just like X's, His E is Y's and his Ult is just like X's aswell!"

[Malaise]

I think the MOBA community will have the biggest edge though i voted for those with both.  Esp since most of the players in each game will not be playing the commander role anyway.

[IanD967]

Given how the game is now with it's gameplay, I agree. MOBA players would have an advantage since there is more MOBA and much less RTS to the game now.

[Fuegotigre]

Yep. I feel that it's to hard to tell atm.  I'm really interested to see what incentives are built into the commander's role that really entice heroes to cooperate.

Of course, the incentive could be as simple as, "You'll Lose if you don't".  Closest thing I can compare it to is say Battlefield vs CoD (sorry, I went there). One require a lot more teamwork, the other does not. Didn't play DotA or LoL. Aware of how they work but, this game seems to be more like that, with a twist!  The RTS element is certainly what's drawing me to the game (AoE:Online didn't do it for me), though I full expect to get my first taste of this "dota"-playstyle I keep hearing about.

I wonder how you'll go about selecting the commander?

[IanD967]

Well...I believe the last IGN article said that it was randomly given but that you can give up your selection-percentage for an ally to give them an increased chance of getting it aswell.

[khmerking]

Hmm i believe that RTS player might have a little more power just of the fact they have control of producing units to spam at a champion.
Thats just me though.

[IanD967]

There could be a longer or shorter cooldown period for spawning units. plus, when the champions are higher level it would be like getting a wolf to try and take on the Hulk

[murdeoc]

indeed, if you just keep spawning units at an enemy hero you might very well end up feeding him like mad and he snowballs way out of control... ending with you looking at him butchering your base and thinking 'ok, why did i do that again?'

[IanD967]

Exactly! unless your ally champions are able to not screw up and actually use them to their advantage

[maiden22acacia]

I think that commanders will not have any advantage because everyone will have to get into mechanics of a new game. So will heroes.

[murdeoc]

so everyone has to get into new mechanics and that will only work against the commanders?

i i have in the time passed by changed my vote to the idea that indeed anyone with knowledge of both roles will have the advantage.

[IanD967]

Good boy haha

I have no idea how Commanders won't have any advantage :s could you elaborate Maiden?

[maiden22acacia]

IanD967, on 13 June 2012 - 10:06 AM, said:

I have no idea how Commanders won't have any advantage :s could you elaborate Maiden?

I will not believe me but i don't remember why i wrote that

[TheseWalls]

well the commander i don't think will have the most effect or even advantage because a really good commander with okay heroes, i believe would lose against a okay commander with good heroes because of the fact that your not going to win if you can't win the little battles. thus it takes the combined might and strategy of both the heroes and commanders working together to win....... well that is to say that the entire team you fighting isn't full of 100% nubelings

[Repent]

The whole concept I think is great. As for advantage, I think people will do great in their area of past play experience. The concept reminds me somewhat (althought not really the same in the end at all) of the old HF/CS mod natural whatever You had the feet on the ground, FPS and then a commander which assigned better gear and building/machines. Always wanted a game like this. Someone at the helm and real people playing out the orders given.

[torxen]

As far as I can tell with my semi-minimal research into this game, I think veteran RTS players may have less of an advantage just because the heroes will be the powerhouses of the game. Minions are easily destroyed by them, and even with incredible micro it seems  to me that the commander is honestly more of a support role than someone that can carry a team.

[Ekko_Tek]

You're looking at it though as if the game played as commander vs. hero when it's commander + hero vs. same. Veteran RTS players will have no trouble playing with one unit (the hero) when they are used to controlling whole armies. The only advantage MOBA only players will have is if some of the basic strategies and hero playstyles are similar from other MOBA games and RTS only players try to play as a hero and need to pick up on them still. Put it this way, MOBA players who never play RTS will feel more challenged playing the Commander role in soada than RTS only players who try to play the hero. But really, what does it matter? Everyone will have new things to learn. Everyone will likely want to try out the different roles. I don't think heros will be the same "powerhouses" that they are in other MOBA games - minions will be more powerful in soada than other MOBAs from what I've read and are upgradeable. Plus you've got commander powers to shift the tide of battles and the Captain and controlling certain areas of the map will have a big effect. All of those factors could easily shift battles in favour of lower level heros if done right I think.

[torxen]

I do see your point in saying that RTS players will still be able to play heroes effectively.

I still stand in saying that the commander is a support role though. Even with more powerful minions, heroes will likely still be able to easily take the minions just for the farm, and upgrading minions will probably make them worth more gold as well. My point is that even if the commander is good, he will just feed the other team without decent heroes as well.

[Ekko_Tek]

That would make the commander role more just support and his minions just feed for the other team. Happily, they haven't balanced it that way, which would make commander minions sort of meaningless. Check out the weekly dev question for this week as it provides a lot of answers to the direction this thread has been going...

[torxen]

"The only catch is that the Commander is worried that enemy Heroes will join the defense and because he is currently setup for taking down defenses, he probably isn't suited to dealing with Heroes."

What I was trying to say was that without Heroes there the commander would feed. Reading that article, there were many points that showed that the commander is a support role, such as making heroes do more damage or move faster.