34 replies to this topic

[Dracor]

There were many of them back in the day, most will know the most popular ones, DotA, EotA and Tides of Blood.  They kept to the pretty standard AoS style (EotA did have some unique features, with mercenary waves, and capturable points, though I can't remember what they gave other than vision)

However there were a few that attempted base/creep building mechanics.  Maps like The Great Strategy, XAOS etc.

They all encountered the same problem though, the game became 100% about hoarding, and overwhelming in one push.  You could tell when you were against newer players, because they'd send things as soon as they had the money, and because of the way the game worked, that meant extra potential income, and experience for the opposing team.  You were punished for playing aggressive early.

This lead to incredibly stagnant earlygames in matches.  It wasn't uncommon to see no one buy anything for the first half an hour of a game.  The current popular AoS/DotA clones have one major thing in common, they're always trying to speed the game up.  Either by adding more/buffing gank based heroes, adding new items etc that make early game interesting.

Getting ahead early, and investing in extra farming potential is one of the best, and worst things about DotA games.  It creates massive snowball potential, it rewards good play, but also discourages newer players.  If the economy of "Commanding" isn't handled correctly it'll add to that problem.  There needs to be just as much incentive to pool into pushes, as there is to pooling into one hard carry.

Now I have no idea what potential systems you have in place for how generating income as a hero, and a commander works, but this is one of the first things that jumped out at me, when I began reminiscing about the good ol' days playing Warcraft 3.

All things aside, I definitely look forward to seeing this game develop, and hopefully snagging myself a beta spot someday.  Anyone else have similar experiences with similar games?

Edited by Dracor, 22 February 2012 - 03:42 AM.

[Rrated]

Dracor, on 22 February 2012 - 03:40 AM, said:

There were many of them back in the day, most will know the most popular ones, DotA, EotA and Tides of Blood.  They kept to the pretty standard AoS style (EotA did have some unique features, with mercenary waves, and capturable points, though I can't remember what they gave other than vision)

However there were a few that attempted base/creep building mechanics.  Maps like The Great Strategy, XAOS etc.

They all encountered the same problem though, the game became 100% about hoarding, and overwhelming in one push.  You could tell when you were against newer players, because they'd send things as soon as they had the money, and because of the way the game worked, that meant extra potential income, and experience for the opposing team.  You were punished for playing aggressive early.

This lead to incredibly stagnant earlygames in matches.  It wasn't uncommon to see no one buy anything for the first half an hour of a game.  The current popular AoS/DotA clones have one major thing in common, they're always trying to speed the game up.  Either by adding more/buffing gank based heroes, adding new items etc that make early game interesting.

Getting ahead early, and investing in extra farming potential is one of the best, and worst things about DotA games.  It creates massive snowball potential, it rewards good play, but also discourages newer players.  If the economy of "Commanding" isn't handled correctly it'll add to that problem.  There needs to be just as much incentive to pool into pushes, as there is to pooling into one hard carry.

Now I have no idea what potential systems you have in place for how generating income as a hero, and a commander works, but this is one of the first things that jumped out at me, when I began reminiscing about the good ol' days playing Warcraft 3.

All things aside, I definitely look forward to seeing this game develop, and hopefully snagging myself a beta spot someday.  Anyone else have similar experiences with similar games?

The potential for turret/base building expliots can be found in most rts/action-rts games. Looks like we'll just have to wait and see what the maps look like, along with the available building areas etc.

This took me back to WC3 as well. 'The good 'ol days'! Can't wait for the beta either!

[DeadDove]

It will definitely take a lot of playtesting, but I'm confident this hybrid of genres will work well.

[cinderboy]

The concept for "short game sessions" is to cater for those who have little or no time to invest in a "long term" MMO, for example World of Warcraft. Yet, they will like to have the frequent 20-30 minute games when time allows. This is my own interpretion on why MOBA developers are focusing on "quick" games.

[venturis]

DeadDove, on 22 February 2012 - 08:13 AM, said:

It will definitely take a lot of playtesting, but I'm confident this hybrid of genres will work well.

+1, i think that the most important things are the variety of races, heroes, options and scenarios.

[Sarudak]

I understand the point of the OP but there are many ways to mitigate this kind of problem. One of them is of course balancing of the three major strategy archetypes in all building strategy games. Rushing, booming, and turtling. The problem that you're talking about comes when rushers can't beat boomers. It's a pretty typical problem in games that favor the defender and especially static defenses too much. To prevent booming or turtling from becoming too powerful there needs to be significant value to map control (points that provide resources or advancement) and the significant map points need to be difficult to secure (cannot cover in static defenses easily or static defenses are very expensive or not strong enough to defend without support).

[ElOhTeeBee]

It's definitely a problem that I hope the devs are aware of, but not an insurmountable one by any means.

[Dracor]

Yeah it's by no means an insurmountable problem, but it's one I would hope they're aware of.  Even in standard RTS games that have used exp mechanics it's created incredible snowball effects, to the point of rushes being completely all-in, or guaranteed loss.  There was no recovery, and thats with JUST exp gains, not adding gold gains into the mix.

Feed a blademaster early level 3 in a Warcraft 3 1v1, and you're going to feel alot of hurt, even worse is to feed a DK early level 3/5.  C&C Generals to less extent had similar issues.

I have no doubt they can put measures in place to make all avenues of play equally attractive and viable, and I'd love to hear what their perspective on the issue is.

[Derantol]

To a certain extent, the people who play the Commander role when the beta starts should do their best to abuse as many of these game mechanics as possible to make sure it ends up balanced. If I get in, that's probably what I'm going to do - makes the game ultimately better, the way that I see it.

[Sarudak]

Derantol, on 23 February 2012 - 09:23 AM, said:

To a certain extent, the people who play the Commander role when the beta starts should do their best to abuse as many of these game mechanics as possible to make sure it ends up balanced. If I get in, that's probably what I'm going to do - makes the game ultimately better, the way that I see it.

Not just commanders. All players should abuse every game mechanic available (or as I like to call it play to win). Everything needs the kinks worked out and they're only going to fix something if you can show that it's broken.

[Derantol]

Oh, of course. I think the hardest part to balance will end up being the commander role; MOBA has been done a lot before, and there's already plenty of examples of more or less balanced hero pools. That's why I brought up the commander specifically.

We also ought to do our best to find which heroes have more or less synergy with the factions, to make sure that that can be balanced too.

[Sarudak]

Ah ok. That makes sense. The commander role is going to have the biggest draw for me anyway but I think to be a good commander I have a responsibility to play all the heroes at least a few times.

[Derantol]

Yeah. I'm interested to see how the commanders and heroes interact. It could be simply that they work together for a common goal, but I could see there being a big emphasis on certain heroes interacting with commander units.

[Sarudak]

Yeah this is gonna be one of those make or break things. If the interaction is good this game is going to be revolutionary. If not then this game will fail.

[DeadDove]

Sarudak, on 23 February 2012 - 12:17 PM, said:

Yeah this is gonna be one of those make or break things. If the interaction is good this game is going to be revolutionary. If not then this game will fail.

I have faith that Ironclad will pull this off quite well. They did a great job combining 4X and RTS with SoaSE.

[Sarudak]

I didn't say I didn't have faith. Just that it's a make or break thing.

[Hamsamwich]

I am hoping, that role of the commander will be like a player in the popular WC3 map Castle Fight (this can also be seen in various "tug o war" maps in sc2). They get income based off of the buildings that they have, so just saving up money won't in fact work.

Seeing as i didn't read all the posts in this thread, i am hoping no one else has said that, but if they have, kudos to you for playing an awesome game.

Edited by Hamsamwich, 23 February 2012 - 05:30 PM.

[Aridhol]

I am hopeful for this genre, I enjoy RTS games very much, Starcraft (Original/Brood War, not so much 2...) Warcraft, etc and I also like League of Legends and the MOBA gamestyle... The combination of the two should really be a lot of fun to see...

What I would like is for the heros early game to be barely stronger than some units you can create, but later into the game with both the ability to micro and through special abilities, become invaluable to your strategy with their strength. This would keep the game from being about "zerging" which isn't fun at all. Possibly something similar to LoL's towers around your main base... we'll see.

But like the OP said, there needs to be some balancing to make sure turtling isn't the best way to win either... a combo of map control and unit placement and strategy needs to be the most rewarded imo... and hopefully there are many ways to accomplish this..

I'm hoping for a beta invite as well ^^

[cinderboy]

Spoke to a couple of friends about this and most of them are skeptical about genre-mixing and commented not many worked out.

I remain a fan, but will need to try the game out to be thoroughly convinced

[Koiju]

Just to throw an idea out there:
Not sure how they plan to do it, but in games like DotA, the reason that horde and boom is best is because you get farm from minions.
What if this does it differently in that respect, and you get nothing from farming minions, no money or xp. All the money and xp is earnt by taking and holding strategic map positions and reasource nodes, that would encourage good early aggression as well as successful defense of key locations.

Edited by Koiju, 24 February 2012 - 02:00 AM.