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- Apr 9, 2004
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Hi All,
As a pet project I'm working on developing an AoS that takes into account some of the many interesting features that I've noticed over the last decade and combining and improving on some of them in the process. My biggest thing is that while I have a fairly decent knowledge of a lot of triggering and GUI basics and I have the math background to design most of the effects and systems I want to incorporate, I fail hard when it comes to leak-proofing, and optimizing my systems.
I'll give the outline of the system below and what I'm looking for is some ideas and references on where I should be looking to start building the map and the universe of heroes within it:
WC3 game universe
Premise: 5v5 game with heroes fighting eachother to obtain dominance over the other side.
Systems:
Damage Detection system:
Damage is split up into damage types and damage sources:
Damage Types:
-Physical damage: Damage that can be reduced by armor.
-Magical Damage: Damage that can be reduced by magic resistance.
-Pure damage: Damage that is neither reduced by armor or magic resistance but may be reduced by universal resistance.
-Kill damage: Damage designed to kill target and award gold/xp to killer. Cannot be resisted, only used if kill is guaranteed.
Damage sources:
-Melee strikes
-Damage enhancement
-Projectiles at low arc
-Sky/high arc
-Ground
-instant/internal
-buff
Elemental Affinity:
Damage and MR also carries with it an element type:
Physical damage and armor will always be Normal element type.
Magic damage and resistance can be Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth, or a combination of these.
Fire damage:
Deals + 10% dmg to earth MR,-50% dmg to fire MR, -25% dmg to water MR, and +5% to normal MR.
Earth damage:
Deals + 10% dmg to wind MR,-50% dmg to earth MR, -25% dmg to fire MR, and +5% to normal MR.
Wind damage:
Deals + 10% dmg to water MR, -50% dmg to wind MR, -25% dmg to earth MR, and +5% to normal MR.
Water damage:
Deals + 10% dmg to fire MR,-50% dmg to water MR, -25% dmg to wind MR, and +5% to normal MR.
Normal Damage:
+ 0% dmg to all element types
Each level of affinity adds +10% dmg vs same element, +5% dmg vs strong & weak element, +10% resistance vs same element, +5% resistance vs strong & weak element.
Each level of affinity adds + 2% dmg towards normal element.
Notes:
Elemental affinity affects both magical damage and resistance at the same time for a hero.
Heroes may possess more than 1 affinity at 1 time.
In the case of having a weak and strong affinity, each affinity effect is applied separately.
Affinity is tied to magic damage only, other items may offer flat magic resistance which differs from boosting elemental affinity. This MR affects all types of magic damage.
Enhancing Elemental affinity:
Split up as levels starting at level 1. At affinity level 1, gains the bonuses and weaknesses listed above. Affinity may be enhanced or altered by items or abilities, or may be innately active on a hero. Affinity is always active for MR but does not always affect offensive magic abilities. As such, for some heroes, it makes more sense to focus either a certain specific affinity, or in some cases, none at all.
Weapons, Armor /Offensive Adaptations, Defensive Adaptations:
There exist both heroes that can use weapons and armor as well as heroes who possess innate offensive and defensive adaptations. These work differently and are outlined below:
Weapons & Armor
Heroes who can wear weapons and armor can gain great bonuses and attributes at the cost of potential additional weight and higher upkeep costs. These heroes typically have a lot more flexibility to tackle any sort of situation and have full access to the shops around the map. These heroes also have access to consumable items and trinkets which further increase their diversity and adaptability. Weapons and armor grant an initial advantage early game as these heroes will have an unseemingly large advantage in terms of power and survivability. The downside is that they suffer from lower natural gains and do require upkeep and overtime the item dependence makes them harder to keep themselves sustained in long drawn-out battles. Their equipment is also subject to wear and tear and needs repair, making the upkeep of their early game advantage a late game burden. Note that late game items unlock a lot of power and can still be kept up with reasonable care. Overall, late game weapons and armor are superior to adaptations but require continual maintenance and are achieved much later than maxed out adaptations.
Offensive & Defensive Adaptations
The other type of heroes cannot purchase any armor or weapons or consumables and have no access to the shops. Instead they have adaptations which naturally increase their abilities over time based on in-game situations that play out. These heroes gain larger bonuses as they level and the innate abilities allow them to be close to on par with heroes with mid to high level equipment. They additionally can stay on the battlefield longer and do not typically need to retreat to re-equip and heal, thus allowing them to level faster and overpower their enemies around the mid point. The downside to these heroes is that they cannot be as versatile and are somewhat locked into the limitations of their abilities. Because of this, once their weaknesses are determined they can be countered. Additionally, top tier items will prove more effective than maxed adaptations. One big weakness is that early game they do not possess all of their primary abilities which adaptations work with and as such do not fully unlock that potential until at least a few levels later. This gives them a large offensive and defensive disadvantage over equipped heroes who have items and consumables much stronger than low level adaptations.
In both cases, each hero type has their good and bad traits, although the intent is that neither side have an outright advantage over the other. The intent is to shift the advantage throughout the game with the equipped players gaining an early game bonus and potentially late game bonus, but otherwise limited to mandatory upkeep and maintenance to be effective. Alternatively, heroes with adaptations don’t have the upkeep problem and have natural survivability, but have to manage in-lane survivability and learn to work within their hero’s limitations, thus taking advantage of their innate abilities to strike enemies when they can maximize their chance for success.
Special features of weapons and armor:
Types of weapons and armor deal additional bonuses based on enemy armor types.
Weapon Types:
Weaponless (+0 weight)
Cutting (+1-2 weight)
Bashing (+1-2 weight)
Piercing (+1-2 weight)
Seige (+2-3 weight)
Defense Types:
Armorless (+0 weight)
Shield (+1 weight)
Cloth Armor (+0.5 weight)
Hide Armor (+1 weight)
Metal Armor (+2 weight)
Stone (+5 weight)
Weapon vs Armor Types:
Weaponless:
-10% Shield
-5% Cloth Armor
-7.5% Hide Armor
-15% Metal Armor
-85% Stone
Critical Strike: +50% Damage
Cutting:
+15% Armorless
-10% Shield
+7.5% Cloth Armor
-2.5% Hide Armor
-10% Metal Armor
-75% Stone
Critical Strike: +75% Damage, Negate Shield Armor
Bashing:
Bashing:
+10% Armorless
-10% Shield
+5% Cloth Armor
-5% Hide Armor
-7.5% Metal Armor
-70% Stone
Critical Strike: +25% Dmg, 1.00s Stun
Piercing:
+20% Armorless
-15% Shield
+15% Cloth Armor
-2.5% Hide Armor
-15% Metal Armor
-90% Stone
Critical Strike: +40% Pure Dmg
Seige:
Seige is not reduced by any armor, including stone.
Offhand weapons:
Offhand weapons include additional weapons or shields. These items grant bonus effects such as extra armor, damage, or alternative buffs.
Dual-handed Weapons:
Typically fill both slots, these weapons act as heavy weapons despite being similar tier of weapons. Takes up 2 slots.
Heavy Weapons & Armor:
Heavy Weapons & armor are +100% effective vs light weapons & armor but have high weight (5-8)
Notes:
Melee weapons have durability whereas ranged weapons have ammo. In both cases heroes have use of extra consumable slots to keep their stocks full, although these must be managed.
Buff System:
Buffs are any status effects that can be placed on a hero. These have a variety of effects and can interact with eachother.
Each buff is stored individually and organized based on the unit it is targeted to, the effect, the left-over duration etc. Buff effect and duration can be manipulated but is manipulated at the buff level (i.e. the buff will check for special circumstances or units each time the global timer refreshes.
Buff Durations:
Temporary (timed)
Permanent (self aura)
Semi permanent (allies aura)
Buff type:
Physical
Magical
Effect of Vitality
Vitality ranged from 0 to 100 and reflects the ability to resist buff durations.
Buff duration on temporary buffs is affected by vitality with varying degrees based on how it affects mobility.
Non-impairing buffs: 15% of vitality as % duration reduction.
Slows: 75% of vitality as % duration reduction
Stuns/roots: 100% of vitality as % duration reduction (i.e. stun immunity)
Grapples: 0% or 100% if vitality is 100 (either succumb or resist grapple)
Accuracy/Evasion & Critical Strikes:
Each unit has base accuracy and evasion. After accuracy increases beyond 100%, gains critical striking chance based on 1.5X [accuracy - evasion].
Evasion occurs upon a damaging event. For physical attacks this is straight forward but not so for projectile attacks. You can actively dodge projectiles and breaking projectile homing, which is separate from evasion. If a projectile makes contact to damage you, then evasion chance will apply. This means ranged heroes have a harder time hitting their opponents as there are multiple chances to avoid damage. This is just the drawback for having a ranged attack.
Universal Unit Properties:
All units can have the following properties:
-Health Points (HP)
-Health Points Regeneration Rate (HPR)
-Movement Speed (MS)
-Attack Speed (AS)
-Armor (AR)
-Magic Resistance (MR)
-Affinity (AF)
-Vitality (VIT)
-Accuracy (ACC)
-Evasion (EVA)
-Attack damage
-Resource Points [i.e. mana, stamina, whatever special resource the hero uses) (RP)
-Resource Points Regeneration Rate (RPR)
-weight (WGT)
-traction (TRC)
-attack type (ATT)
-armor type (ART)
-vertical position [Ground (GR), midair (MD), beyond range (BR)]
-Vision Radius (VR)
Hero Bonus stats:
Strength (STR):
-Increases Physical Damage (PD)
-Reduces the effect of weight
-Partially increases vitality
-May affect abilities.
Intelligence (INT):
-Increases Magical Damage (MD)
-Partially increases vitality
-May affect abilities
-increases evasion (lesser increase)
Dexterity (DEX):
-Increases AS
-Increases ACC
-Increases MS
-Reduces casting time (CT)
-increases evasion (greater increase)
Effect of Weight:
Weight on units affects a few things such as knockback sliding distance, MS penalty, AS penalty, EVA penalty, CT penalty, fall rate.
Each point of weight reduces MS & AS by 5%, EVA by 2%, CT by 2% directly. Sliding and falling are addressed in the knockback system section and require other variables to calculate.
Weight comes from the following:
-Natural Weight
-items
-spells/abilities
Natural Weight based on unit weight classification:
Feather Light (0-1 pts)
Light (1-2 pts)
Medium (2-4 pts)
Heavy (4-6 pts)
Rock Heavy (6 - 8 pts)
Each 5 pts of STR reduce the MS/AS/EVA effect of 1 pt of weight. Any STR beyond offers no advantage vs weight.
Each 5 pts of INT reduce the CT effect of 1 pt of weight. Any INT beyond offers no advantage vs weight.
This all means that some heroes cannot effectively work with certain equipment as they do not have the natural strength to use such items. STR INT and DEX are natural to the hero and as such will usually limit the hero. Certain playstyles can be used but with some sacrifices of certain areas of the heroes’ playability (i.e. archers and light heroes typically have very low STR such that they typically cannot wear heavy armor and use heavy weapons without serious consequences whereas juggernaut and larger heroes can do this without issue late game).
Knockback System:
The knockback system is a 3D knockback system which has 3 main mechanisms of motion:
-ground movement
-aerial movement
-collision
Ground Movement:
When knocked back on the ground, the unit will slide based on it’s traction (TR) attribute. Traction is based on the following formula:
TR=S_foot×N_foot×F_ground
Where
Sfoot = foot size (ranges from 0.125 for small feet to 0.5 for large feet)
Nfoot = number of feet (i.e. knight has 2 feet, juggernaut has 4 feet, spider has 8 feet etc.)
Fground = ground factor (based on type of terrain)
Ground Factors from in game:
Dirt: 0.5 (0.4)
Grass: 0.55 (0.45)
Water: 0.66 (0.33)
Ice: 0.20 (0.10)
Mud: 0.75 (0.50)
Pavement: 0.45 (0.40)
Note: Values in (brackets) are applied once a unit is in motion.
TR has 2 functions, first to determine if a knockback push force (KPF) will push the unit back and secondly the rate at which the unit will decelerate once knocked back. If KPF > Wcurrent X TR, then a knockback will occur.
Wcurrent =current overall weight of unit (very heavy without abilities is between 24-30 pts)
KPF is set based on the parameters of the knockback
Units knocked back are not stunned and still have the ability to move as needed. The acceleration rated is related to TR as well such that it’s effectively 50% as effective once motion comes into play. The intent is to show that knockbacks will either be resisted or be fairly effective if units do start to slide.
Snares, roots, any effect that ties a unit down will effectively increase the units TR greatly. IF, however a knockback occurs, the root/snare, or tie down effect is removed after the FPF is reduced by a relative amount and unsnared TR is used for the deceleration.
Structures have a TR greater than any KPF that can be generated in game and thus cannot be affected by knockbacks.
Aerial Movement:
When a unit is knocked back into the air, TR has absolutely no effect although they will fall at a gravity weight (G). Acceleration while falling is related to the drop force (DF) = Wcurrent X G. Units who hit the ground will take damage relative to the Drop Force (DF) and Ground Hardness Factor (GH).
Ground Hardness Factors from in game:
Dirt: 0.70
Grass: 0.60
Water: 0.35
Ice: 0.75
Mud: 0.40
Pavement: 0.80
Collision:
Collision occurs in 3 scenarios, ground vs ground, ground vs air, and air vs air
During collision units that collide will bounce off eachother based certain criteria related to weight, unit TR.
Ground vs Ground: Collision will depending on WGT and TR between the two units as well as collision efficiency (e) which reflects how much force is dissipated during impact. This changes based on what collides together.
Ground vs Air: Units that fall onto the ground or other units will bounce back up.
Air vs air: Units that collide in mid air (uncommon) will displace based only on Weight ratio.
In game collision efficiencies:
Contact with other units and structures: 0.90
Contact with ground: use hardness factor
Projectile System:
All projectiles in game are tracked and can be of two main types:
Physical
Magical
Projectiles have custom tracking tools as well and are each stored individually and organized by projectile source, projectile destination, potential units, death type etc.
Projectile homing:
Projectiles have a particular homing system. Either they home from the beginning to a specific target, they are capable of acquiring targets live, or they do not home at all.
Tracking Projectiles will have a designated max curve angle, which means they will only track within a certain angle range from their original firing angle before they lose tracking. This range can be adjust such that this limitation does not occur.
Projectiles will have a designated max curve angle rate which limits the rate at which they can turn or change direction. A lower rate means they are more easily dodged whereas a higher rate means they can change direction almost immediately.
Projectiles also have an arc which means they can only travel a max range. By default is set to +25% of the projectile initial allowed launch range. This can be adjusted to whatever value (i.e some projectiles could follow an enemy forever)
Projectiles can be set to only follow a single target or be capable of hitting any group of targets.
Projectiles can have parameters around how they die and decay defined.
Projectiles can have parameters that define the effect on impact.
Projectiles that lose tracking default to non-tracking and will proceed as if straight projectiles. This may alter the units that can be affected.
Projectiles have a unique relationship with deflection and evasion as these effects happen once a “hit” has been established, which differs from melee attacks which are instant by nature.
Projectiles have a primary motion which acts as their primary flight path and a secondary trajectory which is a deviation of the projectile from that primary flight path, and a facing direction, which is simply the visual facing direction. This can be as simple as a rotation or an oscillation or more varied movement.
Spell Casting System:
Spells are cast a little different as they have casting time (i.e. casting backswing) which can be affected and increased/decreased as well as spell cooldown which can be affected as well.
All spells will initiated as instant cast spells although the effects will only occur once the casting backswing has been reached. This means it is possible to interrupt the effect of a spell being cast before it occurs. This varies depending on spells and animations as well as abilities.
Time System:
One new and unique variable is a time system. What this means is that time can be sped up or slowed down, essentially affecting all attributes affected by time. What this means is that everything from unit animation, recognizing orders and performing orders, everything. This allows for some interesting concepts such as abilities that grant one player or unit the ability to slow down time.
Sample Hero Idea:
Sample Idea 1: Lightning Phalanx
Model: Modified Blademaster
Lightning themed hero, excels at engaging and outranking melee opponents. Built squishy but capable of holding off melee really well with appropriate equipment.
Excels in combat vs single or multiple heroes and has high mobility to snag single targets or break from engaging. His main weakness is his low strength and health making him drop very fast to burst dmg. If played right, can be highly devastating to groups.
Starting Items:
Weapon 1: Wooden Pike
Weapon 2: Weapon takes both slots.
Armor: Leather Vest (leather armor)
Boots: Leather Shoes
Misc 1: Health Potion (3)
Misc 2: Mana Potion (3)
Skills:
Leap Strike:
Jumps to a target location and deals physical dmg on landing. Each unit hit reduces cooldown to a minimum cooldown.
Ability grants him high mobility and allows him to engage his enemy and setup piercing barage.
Piercing barrage:
Attacks multiple times dealing line missile physical dmg equivalent to a percentage of his attack in a cone area. Units hit multiple times take additional damage each subsequent strike.
Ability can be used to clear mobs or as an effective cone-AOE burst ability. While range allows him to harass, close proximity ensures higher burst damage. As this ability deals building damage most damage comes near the end and is unexpected.
Harpoon:
Dashes forward, impaling the first unit he hits with physical damage, and carries them a short distance before knocking them back. Units he collides with deal additional damage to both the main target and unit and knocks them out of the way. If he hits a tree, stops the collision and stuns. If no collision happens until the end running distance, tosses enemy backwards and stuns dealing bonus damage. Collision is treated the same as incoming physical attack damage, not missile damage. Treated as a "snag" ability.
Great snag ability or way to escape/engage his enemy. Can deal significant damage by plowing an enemy through his own creeps or snag a target and set them up for his combo.
Care should be maintained as this has a long cooldown and can leave him vulnerable.
Charge (ultimate):
Gains electric stacks by moving and attacking. Each stack grants bonus +1 wind affinity. Can boost other abilities with electrical effects or can discharge, zapping and damaging units in short range. Dmg taken while channeling this ability is also dispersed to surrounding units. All abilities deal an electrocuting effect.
Max 3/5/7 charges
Leap strike:
Gains additional ability midair to rain lighting down into his foes in an AoE where he would have landed. Deals base physical and bonus wind magical dmg. Casting is an instant cast on his target landing point, casting stops his movement midair and falls straight down.
Piercing Barrage:
Each line attack also generates a bonus longer ranged wind-based magical line attack. Both attacks are treated separately.
Harpoon:
Deals bonus magical wind dmg to all foes. If no foe is struck, fires out a lightning harpoon which extends grapple reach further. Any unit hit will be dealt bonus magical wind damage, then be dragged back to his position and then tossed backwards, dealing bonus stun and physical dmg.
Wind dmg is +20% of physical ability dmg for every point of wind affinity gained through the ult and items. Damage is bonus magical wind dmg.
Synergy and intended Playstyle:
Role:
This hero is designed as a strong engager, sort of a glass cannon style hero. His abilities grant him high mobility, disable, and damage output as well as strong positioning. His ultimate acts as a passive steroid to all of his abilities as well as a unique close proximity damage absorb and reflect. The electrocution effect interacts with other buffs (i.e. "wet" buff) to give him a lot more utility in teamfights as well.
Ability Synergy:
His skills are designed primarily for high damage and good positioning. His main "nuke" is his piercing barrage which has high dps which builds the more hits he gets on his enemies, but is dispersed over a cone effect, which means it works the best at close range and requires his enemies to be still for a decent duration of time. Luckily he has two skills that give him close proximity and can either be combined to give him a surprising range to his attack, allow for the ability to pursue or disengage, or to better position himself. His ultimate provides a few perks, not only stacking bonus magical damage to his abilities to tackle armored foes, but also giving himself more utility to his abilities and granting him range to all of his attacks. This further helps give him options to either engage from a larger distance or damage his enemies from further back, reducing the risk needed to trade blows with enemies.
Itemization:
This hero needs to itemize for mobility and physical damage output and resource pool. Even though he is a melee hero, he relies primarily on his spells for damage output. His ultimate gains power based on his physical damage so focusing on that will increase his magical damage output as well. Higher mobility means faster engaging and positioning
Sample idea 2: Gargoyle
Model: Gargoyle
Flying hero designed to have high disable and cc but low damage output. Is a flying hero which makes him harder to target and instantly immune to certain spells, however stuns and net abilities will ground him quickly and these items are cheap enough to always have.
Natural Strengths:
Offensive 1: Powerful Wings
25% of damage from his attack is converted into a knockback. Units knocked into trees take additional damage and are stunned.
Offensive 2: Tireless Beast
All actions (i.e. moving, attacking, casting spells, channeling etc.) increase strength permanently, some more than others.
Defensive 1: Stone Skin
Grants a regenerating shield that can absorb damage equivalent to a % of max health. Shield takes a period of being out of battle to regenerate. While shield is active, armor type is considered as stone.
Defensive 2: Undaunted Approach
Resists 25% of knockback effects if he was in motion and facing towards the knockback source. This increases to 100% if he is channeling a skill.
Utility 1: Aerial Ace
After remaining still for a minimum short duration, when he breaks his position, gains max acceleration and breaking any projectile homing.
Utility 2: Persistent Hunter
Gains maximum vitality for a short duration every time he uses a skill.
Skills:
Glare:
Fires out a beam of energy in a line on the ground from his height. Units hit will be momentarily stunned and turned to stone. Units turned to stone gain a lot of extra weight and can be killed instantly if below a high % health for spawns and low % health for heroes.
Swoop:
Swoops down at enemy units and if he connects, grabs a unit and can carry them a short distance before dropping them. Units carried are disabled. Dropping them deals drop damage. Cannot carry units that weigh too much.
Stone Coffin:
Drops from the sky dealing the damage from falling in an AoE gaining extremely high resistance and regeneration for a few seconds. Also refreshes Stone Skin shield. Knocks units back and deals 3X the gargoyles falling damage to all units within the AoE. Cannot kill himself from falling damage.
Screeching Gale:
Circles an AoE emitting a high pitched screech. Enemies within the AoE are silenced and have reduced attack and spell damage. Gains high evasion while channeling. Ability sucks units towards the center of AoE.
Reduces cooldown by 100-0% based on how much of the first 3 full circles he completes. (i.e. 50% of first circle = 86% cooldown reduced, 100% of 3rd circle = 0% reduction). Effect doesn't start until first circle is completed.
Synergy and intended Playstyle:
Role:
This hero is designed as a strong lane partner and agile tank hero. He is designed to maximize the effectiveness of his team carry by offering a strong ranged support with the ability to safely engage or retreat.
Ability Synergy:
His skills work effectively for ranged disable and crowd control, often allowing him to slow or disperse his enemies. The abilities have most power in their disabling and positioning effects which allow him to put enemies in situations that are unfavorable. The ultimate allows great mobility and his innate strengths make him almost unkillable without persistent and well-timed snares and nets.
Itemization:
This hero does not itemize but rather has natural strengths that grow over time. His strengths play to his unique flying attribute granting him greater effectiveness for aggressive and head on play against his enemies. Abilities should be maximized by keeping him casting as often as possible and taking advantage of his extra life shield. While he can prove weak vs casters and ranged heroes, he is equipped to dodge their attacks and resist their abilities. Suggestions would be to keep fixed position as often as possible so that he can dodge any targeted ranged engaging attacks.
[GENERAL NOTES]
For all of the systems generated I already have ideas about how to implement them but I'd like to know if there is a particular resource that already does what I need a system in my map to do.
As a pet project I'm working on developing an AoS that takes into account some of the many interesting features that I've noticed over the last decade and combining and improving on some of them in the process. My biggest thing is that while I have a fairly decent knowledge of a lot of triggering and GUI basics and I have the math background to design most of the effects and systems I want to incorporate, I fail hard when it comes to leak-proofing, and optimizing my systems.
I'll give the outline of the system below and what I'm looking for is some ideas and references on where I should be looking to start building the map and the universe of heroes within it:
WC3 game universe
Premise: 5v5 game with heroes fighting eachother to obtain dominance over the other side.
Systems:
Damage Detection system:
Damage is split up into damage types and damage sources:
Damage Types:
-Physical damage: Damage that can be reduced by armor.
-Magical Damage: Damage that can be reduced by magic resistance.
-Pure damage: Damage that is neither reduced by armor or magic resistance but may be reduced by universal resistance.
-Kill damage: Damage designed to kill target and award gold/xp to killer. Cannot be resisted, only used if kill is guaranteed.
Damage sources:
-Melee strikes
-Damage enhancement
-Projectiles at low arc
-Sky/high arc
-Ground
-instant/internal
-buff
Elemental Affinity:
Damage and MR also carries with it an element type:
Physical damage and armor will always be Normal element type.
Magic damage and resistance can be Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth, or a combination of these.
Fire damage:
Deals + 10% dmg to earth MR,-50% dmg to fire MR, -25% dmg to water MR, and +5% to normal MR.
Earth damage:
Deals + 10% dmg to wind MR,-50% dmg to earth MR, -25% dmg to fire MR, and +5% to normal MR.
Wind damage:
Deals + 10% dmg to water MR, -50% dmg to wind MR, -25% dmg to earth MR, and +5% to normal MR.
Water damage:
Deals + 10% dmg to fire MR,-50% dmg to water MR, -25% dmg to wind MR, and +5% to normal MR.
Normal Damage:
+ 0% dmg to all element types
Each level of affinity adds +10% dmg vs same element, +5% dmg vs strong & weak element, +10% resistance vs same element, +5% resistance vs strong & weak element.
Each level of affinity adds + 2% dmg towards normal element.
Notes:
Elemental affinity affects both magical damage and resistance at the same time for a hero.
Heroes may possess more than 1 affinity at 1 time.
In the case of having a weak and strong affinity, each affinity effect is applied separately.
Affinity is tied to magic damage only, other items may offer flat magic resistance which differs from boosting elemental affinity. This MR affects all types of magic damage.
Enhancing Elemental affinity:
Split up as levels starting at level 1. At affinity level 1, gains the bonuses and weaknesses listed above. Affinity may be enhanced or altered by items or abilities, or may be innately active on a hero. Affinity is always active for MR but does not always affect offensive magic abilities. As such, for some heroes, it makes more sense to focus either a certain specific affinity, or in some cases, none at all.
Weapons, Armor /Offensive Adaptations, Defensive Adaptations:
There exist both heroes that can use weapons and armor as well as heroes who possess innate offensive and defensive adaptations. These work differently and are outlined below:
Weapons & Armor
Heroes who can wear weapons and armor can gain great bonuses and attributes at the cost of potential additional weight and higher upkeep costs. These heroes typically have a lot more flexibility to tackle any sort of situation and have full access to the shops around the map. These heroes also have access to consumable items and trinkets which further increase their diversity and adaptability. Weapons and armor grant an initial advantage early game as these heroes will have an unseemingly large advantage in terms of power and survivability. The downside is that they suffer from lower natural gains and do require upkeep and overtime the item dependence makes them harder to keep themselves sustained in long drawn-out battles. Their equipment is also subject to wear and tear and needs repair, making the upkeep of their early game advantage a late game burden. Note that late game items unlock a lot of power and can still be kept up with reasonable care. Overall, late game weapons and armor are superior to adaptations but require continual maintenance and are achieved much later than maxed out adaptations.
Offensive & Defensive Adaptations
The other type of heroes cannot purchase any armor or weapons or consumables and have no access to the shops. Instead they have adaptations which naturally increase their abilities over time based on in-game situations that play out. These heroes gain larger bonuses as they level and the innate abilities allow them to be close to on par with heroes with mid to high level equipment. They additionally can stay on the battlefield longer and do not typically need to retreat to re-equip and heal, thus allowing them to level faster and overpower their enemies around the mid point. The downside to these heroes is that they cannot be as versatile and are somewhat locked into the limitations of their abilities. Because of this, once their weaknesses are determined they can be countered. Additionally, top tier items will prove more effective than maxed adaptations. One big weakness is that early game they do not possess all of their primary abilities which adaptations work with and as such do not fully unlock that potential until at least a few levels later. This gives them a large offensive and defensive disadvantage over equipped heroes who have items and consumables much stronger than low level adaptations.
In both cases, each hero type has their good and bad traits, although the intent is that neither side have an outright advantage over the other. The intent is to shift the advantage throughout the game with the equipped players gaining an early game bonus and potentially late game bonus, but otherwise limited to mandatory upkeep and maintenance to be effective. Alternatively, heroes with adaptations don’t have the upkeep problem and have natural survivability, but have to manage in-lane survivability and learn to work within their hero’s limitations, thus taking advantage of their innate abilities to strike enemies when they can maximize their chance for success.
Special features of weapons and armor:
Types of weapons and armor deal additional bonuses based on enemy armor types.
Weapon Types:
Weaponless (+0 weight)
Cutting (+1-2 weight)
Bashing (+1-2 weight)
Piercing (+1-2 weight)
Seige (+2-3 weight)
Defense Types:
Armorless (+0 weight)
Shield (+1 weight)
Cloth Armor (+0.5 weight)
Hide Armor (+1 weight)
Metal Armor (+2 weight)
Stone (+5 weight)
Weapon vs Armor Types:
Weaponless:
-10% Shield
-5% Cloth Armor
-7.5% Hide Armor
-15% Metal Armor
-85% Stone
Critical Strike: +50% Damage
Cutting:
+15% Armorless
-10% Shield
+7.5% Cloth Armor
-2.5% Hide Armor
-10% Metal Armor
-75% Stone
Critical Strike: +75% Damage, Negate Shield Armor
Bashing:
Bashing:
+10% Armorless
-10% Shield
+5% Cloth Armor
-5% Hide Armor
-7.5% Metal Armor
-70% Stone
Critical Strike: +25% Dmg, 1.00s Stun
Piercing:
+20% Armorless
-15% Shield
+15% Cloth Armor
-2.5% Hide Armor
-15% Metal Armor
-90% Stone
Critical Strike: +40% Pure Dmg
Seige:
Seige is not reduced by any armor, including stone.
Offhand weapons:
Offhand weapons include additional weapons or shields. These items grant bonus effects such as extra armor, damage, or alternative buffs.
Dual-handed Weapons:
Typically fill both slots, these weapons act as heavy weapons despite being similar tier of weapons. Takes up 2 slots.
Heavy Weapons & Armor:
Heavy Weapons & armor are +100% effective vs light weapons & armor but have high weight (5-8)
Notes:
Melee weapons have durability whereas ranged weapons have ammo. In both cases heroes have use of extra consumable slots to keep their stocks full, although these must be managed.
Buff System:
Buffs are any status effects that can be placed on a hero. These have a variety of effects and can interact with eachother.
Each buff is stored individually and organized based on the unit it is targeted to, the effect, the left-over duration etc. Buff effect and duration can be manipulated but is manipulated at the buff level (i.e. the buff will check for special circumstances or units each time the global timer refreshes.
Buff Durations:
Temporary (timed)
Permanent (self aura)
Semi permanent (allies aura)
Buff type:
Physical
Magical
Effect of Vitality
Vitality ranged from 0 to 100 and reflects the ability to resist buff durations.
Buff duration on temporary buffs is affected by vitality with varying degrees based on how it affects mobility.
Non-impairing buffs: 15% of vitality as % duration reduction.
Slows: 75% of vitality as % duration reduction
Stuns/roots: 100% of vitality as % duration reduction (i.e. stun immunity)
Grapples: 0% or 100% if vitality is 100 (either succumb or resist grapple)
Accuracy/Evasion & Critical Strikes:
Each unit has base accuracy and evasion. After accuracy increases beyond 100%, gains critical striking chance based on 1.5X [accuracy - evasion].
Evasion occurs upon a damaging event. For physical attacks this is straight forward but not so for projectile attacks. You can actively dodge projectiles and breaking projectile homing, which is separate from evasion. If a projectile makes contact to damage you, then evasion chance will apply. This means ranged heroes have a harder time hitting their opponents as there are multiple chances to avoid damage. This is just the drawback for having a ranged attack.
Universal Unit Properties:
All units can have the following properties:
-Health Points (HP)
-Health Points Regeneration Rate (HPR)
-Movement Speed (MS)
-Attack Speed (AS)
-Armor (AR)
-Magic Resistance (MR)
-Affinity (AF)
-Vitality (VIT)
-Accuracy (ACC)
-Evasion (EVA)
-Attack damage
-Resource Points [i.e. mana, stamina, whatever special resource the hero uses) (RP)
-Resource Points Regeneration Rate (RPR)
-weight (WGT)
-traction (TRC)
-attack type (ATT)
-armor type (ART)
-vertical position [Ground (GR), midair (MD), beyond range (BR)]
-Vision Radius (VR)
Hero Bonus stats:
Strength (STR):
-Increases Physical Damage (PD)
-Reduces the effect of weight
-Partially increases vitality
-May affect abilities.
Intelligence (INT):
-Increases Magical Damage (MD)
-Partially increases vitality
-May affect abilities
-increases evasion (lesser increase)
Dexterity (DEX):
-Increases AS
-Increases ACC
-Increases MS
-Reduces casting time (CT)
-increases evasion (greater increase)
Effect of Weight:
Weight on units affects a few things such as knockback sliding distance, MS penalty, AS penalty, EVA penalty, CT penalty, fall rate.
Each point of weight reduces MS & AS by 5%, EVA by 2%, CT by 2% directly. Sliding and falling are addressed in the knockback system section and require other variables to calculate.
Weight comes from the following:
-Natural Weight
-items
-spells/abilities
Natural Weight based on unit weight classification:
Feather Light (0-1 pts)
Light (1-2 pts)
Medium (2-4 pts)
Heavy (4-6 pts)
Rock Heavy (6 - 8 pts)
Each 5 pts of STR reduce the MS/AS/EVA effect of 1 pt of weight. Any STR beyond offers no advantage vs weight.
Each 5 pts of INT reduce the CT effect of 1 pt of weight. Any INT beyond offers no advantage vs weight.
This all means that some heroes cannot effectively work with certain equipment as they do not have the natural strength to use such items. STR INT and DEX are natural to the hero and as such will usually limit the hero. Certain playstyles can be used but with some sacrifices of certain areas of the heroes’ playability (i.e. archers and light heroes typically have very low STR such that they typically cannot wear heavy armor and use heavy weapons without serious consequences whereas juggernaut and larger heroes can do this without issue late game).
Knockback System:
The knockback system is a 3D knockback system which has 3 main mechanisms of motion:
-ground movement
-aerial movement
-collision
Ground Movement:
When knocked back on the ground, the unit will slide based on it’s traction (TR) attribute. Traction is based on the following formula:
TR=S_foot×N_foot×F_ground
Where
Sfoot = foot size (ranges from 0.125 for small feet to 0.5 for large feet)
Nfoot = number of feet (i.e. knight has 2 feet, juggernaut has 4 feet, spider has 8 feet etc.)
Fground = ground factor (based on type of terrain)
Ground Factors from in game:
Dirt: 0.5 (0.4)
Grass: 0.55 (0.45)
Water: 0.66 (0.33)
Ice: 0.20 (0.10)
Mud: 0.75 (0.50)
Pavement: 0.45 (0.40)
Note: Values in (brackets) are applied once a unit is in motion.
TR has 2 functions, first to determine if a knockback push force (KPF) will push the unit back and secondly the rate at which the unit will decelerate once knocked back. If KPF > Wcurrent X TR, then a knockback will occur.
Wcurrent =current overall weight of unit (very heavy without abilities is between 24-30 pts)
KPF is set based on the parameters of the knockback
Units knocked back are not stunned and still have the ability to move as needed. The acceleration rated is related to TR as well such that it’s effectively 50% as effective once motion comes into play. The intent is to show that knockbacks will either be resisted or be fairly effective if units do start to slide.
Snares, roots, any effect that ties a unit down will effectively increase the units TR greatly. IF, however a knockback occurs, the root/snare, or tie down effect is removed after the FPF is reduced by a relative amount and unsnared TR is used for the deceleration.
Structures have a TR greater than any KPF that can be generated in game and thus cannot be affected by knockbacks.
Aerial Movement:
When a unit is knocked back into the air, TR has absolutely no effect although they will fall at a gravity weight (G). Acceleration while falling is related to the drop force (DF) = Wcurrent X G. Units who hit the ground will take damage relative to the Drop Force (DF) and Ground Hardness Factor (GH).
Ground Hardness Factors from in game:
Dirt: 0.70
Grass: 0.60
Water: 0.35
Ice: 0.75
Mud: 0.40
Pavement: 0.80
Collision:
Collision occurs in 3 scenarios, ground vs ground, ground vs air, and air vs air
During collision units that collide will bounce off eachother based certain criteria related to weight, unit TR.
Ground vs Ground: Collision will depending on WGT and TR between the two units as well as collision efficiency (e) which reflects how much force is dissipated during impact. This changes based on what collides together.
Ground vs Air: Units that fall onto the ground or other units will bounce back up.
Air vs air: Units that collide in mid air (uncommon) will displace based only on Weight ratio.
In game collision efficiencies:
Contact with other units and structures: 0.90
Contact with ground: use hardness factor
Projectile System:
All projectiles in game are tracked and can be of two main types:
Physical
Magical
Projectiles have custom tracking tools as well and are each stored individually and organized by projectile source, projectile destination, potential units, death type etc.
Projectile homing:
Projectiles have a particular homing system. Either they home from the beginning to a specific target, they are capable of acquiring targets live, or they do not home at all.
Tracking Projectiles will have a designated max curve angle, which means they will only track within a certain angle range from their original firing angle before they lose tracking. This range can be adjust such that this limitation does not occur.
Projectiles will have a designated max curve angle rate which limits the rate at which they can turn or change direction. A lower rate means they are more easily dodged whereas a higher rate means they can change direction almost immediately.
Projectiles also have an arc which means they can only travel a max range. By default is set to +25% of the projectile initial allowed launch range. This can be adjusted to whatever value (i.e some projectiles could follow an enemy forever)
Projectiles can be set to only follow a single target or be capable of hitting any group of targets.
Projectiles can have parameters around how they die and decay defined.
Projectiles can have parameters that define the effect on impact.
Projectiles that lose tracking default to non-tracking and will proceed as if straight projectiles. This may alter the units that can be affected.
Projectiles have a unique relationship with deflection and evasion as these effects happen once a “hit” has been established, which differs from melee attacks which are instant by nature.
Projectiles have a primary motion which acts as their primary flight path and a secondary trajectory which is a deviation of the projectile from that primary flight path, and a facing direction, which is simply the visual facing direction. This can be as simple as a rotation or an oscillation or more varied movement.
Spell Casting System:
Spells are cast a little different as they have casting time (i.e. casting backswing) which can be affected and increased/decreased as well as spell cooldown which can be affected as well.
All spells will initiated as instant cast spells although the effects will only occur once the casting backswing has been reached. This means it is possible to interrupt the effect of a spell being cast before it occurs. This varies depending on spells and animations as well as abilities.
Time System:
One new and unique variable is a time system. What this means is that time can be sped up or slowed down, essentially affecting all attributes affected by time. What this means is that everything from unit animation, recognizing orders and performing orders, everything. This allows for some interesting concepts such as abilities that grant one player or unit the ability to slow down time.
Sample Hero Idea:
Sample Idea 1: Lightning Phalanx
Model: Modified Blademaster
Lightning themed hero, excels at engaging and outranking melee opponents. Built squishy but capable of holding off melee really well with appropriate equipment.
Excels in combat vs single or multiple heroes and has high mobility to snag single targets or break from engaging. His main weakness is his low strength and health making him drop very fast to burst dmg. If played right, can be highly devastating to groups.
Starting Items:
Weapon 1: Wooden Pike
Weapon 2: Weapon takes both slots.
Armor: Leather Vest (leather armor)
Boots: Leather Shoes
Misc 1: Health Potion (3)
Misc 2: Mana Potion (3)
Skills:
Leap Strike:
Jumps to a target location and deals physical dmg on landing. Each unit hit reduces cooldown to a minimum cooldown.
Ability grants him high mobility and allows him to engage his enemy and setup piercing barage.
Piercing barrage:
Attacks multiple times dealing line missile physical dmg equivalent to a percentage of his attack in a cone area. Units hit multiple times take additional damage each subsequent strike.
Ability can be used to clear mobs or as an effective cone-AOE burst ability. While range allows him to harass, close proximity ensures higher burst damage. As this ability deals building damage most damage comes near the end and is unexpected.
Harpoon:
Dashes forward, impaling the first unit he hits with physical damage, and carries them a short distance before knocking them back. Units he collides with deal additional damage to both the main target and unit and knocks them out of the way. If he hits a tree, stops the collision and stuns. If no collision happens until the end running distance, tosses enemy backwards and stuns dealing bonus damage. Collision is treated the same as incoming physical attack damage, not missile damage. Treated as a "snag" ability.
Great snag ability or way to escape/engage his enemy. Can deal significant damage by plowing an enemy through his own creeps or snag a target and set them up for his combo.
Care should be maintained as this has a long cooldown and can leave him vulnerable.
Charge (ultimate):
Gains electric stacks by moving and attacking. Each stack grants bonus +1 wind affinity. Can boost other abilities with electrical effects or can discharge, zapping and damaging units in short range. Dmg taken while channeling this ability is also dispersed to surrounding units. All abilities deal an electrocuting effect.
Max 3/5/7 charges
Leap strike:
Gains additional ability midair to rain lighting down into his foes in an AoE where he would have landed. Deals base physical and bonus wind magical dmg. Casting is an instant cast on his target landing point, casting stops his movement midair and falls straight down.
Piercing Barrage:
Each line attack also generates a bonus longer ranged wind-based magical line attack. Both attacks are treated separately.
Harpoon:
Deals bonus magical wind dmg to all foes. If no foe is struck, fires out a lightning harpoon which extends grapple reach further. Any unit hit will be dealt bonus magical wind damage, then be dragged back to his position and then tossed backwards, dealing bonus stun and physical dmg.
Wind dmg is +20% of physical ability dmg for every point of wind affinity gained through the ult and items. Damage is bonus magical wind dmg.
Synergy and intended Playstyle:
Role:
This hero is designed as a strong engager, sort of a glass cannon style hero. His abilities grant him high mobility, disable, and damage output as well as strong positioning. His ultimate acts as a passive steroid to all of his abilities as well as a unique close proximity damage absorb and reflect. The electrocution effect interacts with other buffs (i.e. "wet" buff) to give him a lot more utility in teamfights as well.
Ability Synergy:
His skills are designed primarily for high damage and good positioning. His main "nuke" is his piercing barrage which has high dps which builds the more hits he gets on his enemies, but is dispersed over a cone effect, which means it works the best at close range and requires his enemies to be still for a decent duration of time. Luckily he has two skills that give him close proximity and can either be combined to give him a surprising range to his attack, allow for the ability to pursue or disengage, or to better position himself. His ultimate provides a few perks, not only stacking bonus magical damage to his abilities to tackle armored foes, but also giving himself more utility to his abilities and granting him range to all of his attacks. This further helps give him options to either engage from a larger distance or damage his enemies from further back, reducing the risk needed to trade blows with enemies.
Itemization:
This hero needs to itemize for mobility and physical damage output and resource pool. Even though he is a melee hero, he relies primarily on his spells for damage output. His ultimate gains power based on his physical damage so focusing on that will increase his magical damage output as well. Higher mobility means faster engaging and positioning
Sample idea 2: Gargoyle
Model: Gargoyle
Flying hero designed to have high disable and cc but low damage output. Is a flying hero which makes him harder to target and instantly immune to certain spells, however stuns and net abilities will ground him quickly and these items are cheap enough to always have.
Natural Strengths:
Offensive 1: Powerful Wings
25% of damage from his attack is converted into a knockback. Units knocked into trees take additional damage and are stunned.
Offensive 2: Tireless Beast
All actions (i.e. moving, attacking, casting spells, channeling etc.) increase strength permanently, some more than others.
Defensive 1: Stone Skin
Grants a regenerating shield that can absorb damage equivalent to a % of max health. Shield takes a period of being out of battle to regenerate. While shield is active, armor type is considered as stone.
Defensive 2: Undaunted Approach
Resists 25% of knockback effects if he was in motion and facing towards the knockback source. This increases to 100% if he is channeling a skill.
Utility 1: Aerial Ace
After remaining still for a minimum short duration, when he breaks his position, gains max acceleration and breaking any projectile homing.
Utility 2: Persistent Hunter
Gains maximum vitality for a short duration every time he uses a skill.
Skills:
Glare:
Fires out a beam of energy in a line on the ground from his height. Units hit will be momentarily stunned and turned to stone. Units turned to stone gain a lot of extra weight and can be killed instantly if below a high % health for spawns and low % health for heroes.
Swoop:
Swoops down at enemy units and if he connects, grabs a unit and can carry them a short distance before dropping them. Units carried are disabled. Dropping them deals drop damage. Cannot carry units that weigh too much.
Stone Coffin:
Drops from the sky dealing the damage from falling in an AoE gaining extremely high resistance and regeneration for a few seconds. Also refreshes Stone Skin shield. Knocks units back and deals 3X the gargoyles falling damage to all units within the AoE. Cannot kill himself from falling damage.
Screeching Gale:
Circles an AoE emitting a high pitched screech. Enemies within the AoE are silenced and have reduced attack and spell damage. Gains high evasion while channeling. Ability sucks units towards the center of AoE.
Reduces cooldown by 100-0% based on how much of the first 3 full circles he completes. (i.e. 50% of first circle = 86% cooldown reduced, 100% of 3rd circle = 0% reduction). Effect doesn't start until first circle is completed.
Synergy and intended Playstyle:
Role:
This hero is designed as a strong lane partner and agile tank hero. He is designed to maximize the effectiveness of his team carry by offering a strong ranged support with the ability to safely engage or retreat.
Ability Synergy:
His skills work effectively for ranged disable and crowd control, often allowing him to slow or disperse his enemies. The abilities have most power in their disabling and positioning effects which allow him to put enemies in situations that are unfavorable. The ultimate allows great mobility and his innate strengths make him almost unkillable without persistent and well-timed snares and nets.
Itemization:
This hero does not itemize but rather has natural strengths that grow over time. His strengths play to his unique flying attribute granting him greater effectiveness for aggressive and head on play against his enemies. Abilities should be maximized by keeping him casting as often as possible and taking advantage of his extra life shield. While he can prove weak vs casters and ranged heroes, he is equipped to dodge their attacks and resist their abilities. Suggestions would be to keep fixed position as often as possible so that he can dodge any targeted ranged engaging attacks.
[GENERAL NOTES]
For all of the systems generated I already have ideas about how to implement them but I'd like to know if there is a particular resource that already does what I need a system in my map to do.
