34 replies to this topic

[cinderboy]

Koiju, on 24 February 2012 - 01:59 AM, said:

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.

I am thinking there is a need for a common mechanic for both sides to earn something to keep the game balanced.

Different heroes will most probably be geared towards different purposes, some better at mobbing, supporting while others better at killing heroes. Players will then choose the ones with higher base damage from the start, with the supporting heroes playing little to no part since they need to be built up using items purchased with gold from slaying minions.

[Thanatological]

Well for all we know heroes will have some kind of income or even the commander abilty to share a set flow of his income with heroes.  With the control of points may well give income too the entire team disperse that favors the commander over  players, some kind of share incomed. They have a lot of free room too adress income issues too keep the balance there. I honestly feel that we can't really treat this like an MOBA or even an RTS till we see more of how they structured the game.

For all we know it could be a large map with detailed terran that has a few major points, like gold mines that produce gold, or even mana stones to regen heroes mana faster. All kinda of stretgic location. Or we could get a a stright up DoTA map with serveral points along various lanes, that provide gold too the commander.

Either way, if its adresses the issue of hording minions it should adress the issue.

Edited by Thanatological, 24 February 2012 - 02:20 AM.

[DeadDove]

I think SoDA could do away with the last-hitting mechanic of other MOBAs. I always thought it was an unnecessary mechanic that breaks the flow of the game (or maybe I think this simply because I suck at last-hitting). Ironclad has mentioned resource acquisition, and I'm thinking these are resources for the Heroes in addiion to the Commanders.

[Centurion]

I hope that they find another method of preventing early rushing besides towers or turrets. Perhaps every commander will start with the ability to build walls and basic ranged units? Or the heroes in the beginning simply need to focus on defense. Anyway I would actually like to see this game with no towers at all. It seems very unlikely because of the nature of this game, but it seems slightly over-sued in LoL and DotA.

DeadDove, on 24 February 2012 - 07:07 AM, said:

I think SoDA could do away with the last-hitting mechanic of other MOBAs. I always thought it was an unnecessary mechanic that breaks the flow of the game (or maybe I think this simply because I suck at last-hitting). Ironclad has mentioned resource acquisition, and I'm thinking these are resources for the Heroes in addiion to the Commanders.

I also would like to see the "last hit creeps for gold" mechanic gone. I am sure capturing resource points will reward heroes with a lump sum and steady supply of "resource" afterwards, for both them and their commander.

Edited by Centurion, 24 February 2012 - 07:12 AM.

[DeadDove]

I think it's worth mentioning League of Legends' Dominion game mode, which focuses more on capturing points. Their way of handling resources, however, is more just "you get lots of money over time".

[Centurion]

Dominion was fun only because if offered a different game type than Summoners Rift. Honestly though, it was just a dumbed down version of Arathi Basin from WoW, and tons of other capture and hold games. In SoDA I am sure it will be much more interesting to capture and hold resources on different points of the map, for different reasons. It would be nice if the map were randomly generated like other RTS games are as well, to prevent the same old strategies being used. I really hope the SoDA devs incorporate fun was to keep this game entertaining, without repeating over-used game methods.

[DeadDove]

Centurion, on 24 February 2012 - 07:25 AM, said:

Dominion was fun only because if offered a different game type than Summoners Rift. Honestly though, it was just a dumbed down version of Arathi Basin from WoW, and tons of other capture and hold games. In SoDA I am sure it will be much more interesting to capture and hold resources on different points of the map, for different reasons. It would be nice if the map were randomly generated like other RTS games are as well, to prevent the same old strategies being used. I really hope the SoDA devs incorporate fun was to keep this game entertaining, without repeating over-used game methods.

Yeah, I'm not saying Dominion was well executed or anything. I do, however, strongly oppose randomly generated maps. It's better to have a few maps that people can become familiar with, than an infinite number of random ones that they can never completely understand.

[Centurion]

I prefer random maps because I dont like how in LoL and DOTA there are assigned roles EVERY game for each champion. If people dont want to play one of these roles, you essentially lose the game. Either because the other team plays the roles correctly, or your team rage quits because they think you are being in-cooperative. (In LoL you MUST have solo top, AP mid,  jungle, and support/range carry bot) There is a little variance in the strategy but essentially that is what you must have in LoL to win, and it gets realllly old.

I think randomly generated maps forces players and commanders to survey their battlefield and design strategies around it. Im not saying it's the best idea, but it is something i would definitely test. (The devs may already have)  I would settle for pre-made maps if there were at least a handful to cycle through.

Hell, if it were up to me, I would try to bring back the classic old Age of Empires style fog of war, where you must discover the map without knowing anything without it, and once you had it would be covered by normal fog of war. I doubt this will be implemented into SODA unless they design some sort of mode players can choose.

[CraigFraser]

DeadDove, on 24 February 2012 - 07:07 AM, said:

I think SoDA could do away with the last-hitting mechanic of other MOBAs. I always thought it was an unnecessary mechanic that breaks the flow of the game (or maybe I think this simply because I suck at last-hitting). Ironclad has mentioned resource acquisition, and I'm thinking these are resources for the Heroes in addiion to the Commanders.

  I can't say exactly what the final algorithm will be because we are still refining it, but I think you'll find that our system will better represent the value of each players contribution to the battle. We want to encourage both individual and team progression - not every player for themselves.

[Sarudak]

I find last hitting tedious and uninteresting.

[DeadDove]

Centurion, on 24 February 2012 - 08:32 AM, said:

I prefer random maps because I dont like how in LoL and DOTA there are assigned roles EVERY game for each champion. If people dont want to play one of these roles, you essentially lose the game. Either because the other team plays the roles correctly, or your team rage quits because they think you are being in-cooperative. (In LoL you MUST have solo top, AP mid,  jungle, and support/range carry bot) There is a little variance in the strategy but essentially that is what you must have in LoL to win, and it gets realllly old.

I think randomly generated maps forces players and commanders to survey their battlefield and design strategies around it. Im not saying it's the best idea, but it is something i would definitely test. (The devs may already have)  I would settle for pre-made maps if there were at least a handful to cycle through.

Hell, if it were up to me, I would try to bring back the classic old Age of Empires style fog of war, where you must discover the map without knowing anything without it, and once you had it would be covered by normal fog of war. I doubt this will be implemented into SODA unless they design some sort of mode players can choose.

The roles (aka the meta) in League of Legends wasn't designed. It simply happened because that's how the math works out to have gain the most gold and XP as fast as possible. Riot has explicitly said they don't want to settle on a certain meta, but they can't really do anything to stop it. Randomly generated maps can also lead to some major balance issues that can be more easily handled with a set number of  pre-made maps. I also don't think a classic fog-of-war system would work well in an online game.

CraigFraser, on 24 February 2012 - 09:34 AM, said:

I can't say exactly what the final algorithm will be because we are still refining it, but I think you'll find that our system will better represent the value of each players contribution to the battle. We want to encourage both individual and team progression - not every player for themselves.

Awesome. I like the sound of a more team oriented game.

[Thanatological]

Im going too have too agree with DeadDove's nice and simple explanation.

[PyroMancer]

Centurion, on 24 February 2012 - 07:25 AM, said:

It would be nice if the map were randomly generated like other RTS games are as well, to prevent the same old strategies being used.

I don't know of any standard RTS games that use random maps because of the difficulty of making a system that actually generates good ones, let alone ones that are balanced.

The only RTS games I can think of that use random maps are Space based ones and that's because they are mostly empty with few stars/planets that act as capture points to mixing those up doesn't upset balance to much and is easy enough to code. The only other sort of RTS that I can think of was Majesty - Fantasy Kingdom Sim. But it's maps were always flat with no real terrain. It was the starting location and placement of monster lairs that made it "Random".

[Dracor]

Yeah, random is something to be avoided when it comes to Multiplayer RTS that wants some level of competitive nature.  It's hard enough making non completely symmetrical (and boring) maps in games that are balanced.

[Ascanius31]

A question for the forum:

What about a random map generator that is only semi-random, that has some preset features, or that has a limited number of physical landmarks that can be arranged randomly? As a consept I love random maps, but I know even from games like the HOMM series that they can be very unbalanced and even borderline impossible from certain starting positions....

I guess the short version of the question is: can random maps be done well at all in RTS, esp in 5v5?