- Joined
- Aug 31, 2008
- Messages
- 12
Greetings from germany!
(excuse some grammer mistakes^^)
However, I'm going to make an AoS style map and want to hear your opinions about my design so far before actually developing the whole stuff.
Please don't be afraid to read this text, I would really like to have a lot of opinions and suggestions. This are just 5 minutes of reading which may result in some great suggestions which would help me to make a map for tons of hours of cool playtime.
Let's start with the map design. I would like an smaller AoS map than the dota size. It'll be perfect for 8 players but still playable with just 6. This will be achieved by shrinking everything down a bit. Also the design of the ways will be different. The two sides will be seperated by a river with two bridges. Here's a sketch:
B = Bases , T = PlayerTowers , F = Flag
Furthermore the ways will just concentrate on this two paths making the map playable with 4 or 3 players per side. The bases will consist of the main base building, some towers, a healing spot, a throne, some merchants and some unit spawning buildings.
The towers at the base will be the only existing towers at the beginning. The Units won't run to the flag points unless an enemy hero is entering them. However, some guarding units will spawn everytime the flag is brought back.
The gameplay design itself will be like this:
You're team wins the game by either reaching an amount of points or by having more points at the end of the game. The mode and the needed amount of points as well as the playtime is selectable. So you can play either until one team get's the needed points or for a fixed amount of time.
So ... what are this points about ?
Let me explain. You won't get any gold/wood for killing units/heroes. Instead you'll get points. Every enemy unit will give 1 point and every hero about 5 till 20 points (depending on his level). In Addition there will be point rewards for special actions. First of all, killing enemy buildings as well as the player towers will result in extra points. Same goes for capturing the flag of the enemy. The integrated Ctf mode will work exactly like the one you know from Unreal Tournament except for the fact the the flag will slow you down dramaticly and will drop whenever you get invisible or teleport yourself. If you manage to kill the main base building you will however win the game immediatly since this will reward you with the amount of points you'll need in total. I'm also planning to make an optional king mode with a king at both bases which will protect it by beeing a very strong unit and which will give also a very large amount of points. Every players points will gather on a team-point counter to win the game, but that's common sense.
In addition to this points are also the ingame currency. As I said you'll get the points instead of gold. You can spend them to buy items and upgrade your army. Army upgrades will be buyable by every player of the team and will be necessary to win the game since you can let periodicly spawn healing units, aura giving captain units and siege units in addition to just increase the strength of your troops.
The interessting part of the game will be an artifact located at the center of the map (on a small island on the river). Once a team got 100 points more than the other it will spawn and the loosing team will gain control of it. The artifact can cast spells at the whole map range and help your team to push back the enemy. It will also get stronger spells unlocked the more you're team falls behind pointwise. This will somehow make the game interessting at every point and balance the teams a bit, however, the spells won't be too strong but still very helpfull.
Another game feature will be the player towers. Since there are no towers on the ways the players can create their own. This will be possible at the player tower spots. There will be some kind of tower sockets you can upgrade to different towers. The enemy troops can destroy the tower but every team can only build on their own two tower spots. This towers will be quite powerfull since you can specialize them. I plan to implement canon towers which will have splash damage and will be perfect to kill enemy troops and a lighting tower which will have a strong slow attack and stunning capabilities making it a hero killer. Also you can build a healing ward an them which will heal the allied troops as well as an cursing ward which will curse the enemys.
Unit Design: The left team will be some kind of kings royal army with footmen while the right team will be the legion of the undead. Just another classic fight between the living and the dead. I'm not sure if I'll be able to implement a weapon attachment system to every unit (which would be really cool) without causing a lot of memory leaks over time which aren't avoidable through jass coding. But right now I'm planning to do so. By upgrading your army they would use other weapons and shields.
Both teams got acces to the same heroes. The undead ones are ... well, undead. I'm planning to use other skins for them as well as other spell effects and spell names but they will have the same stats ans same effects. So they will look different to each other. There will be a right hand and left hand item slot. You'll be able to wield two one-hand items or one two-hand item. However, you won't be able to use two shields. This items will be attached to the hero model so you will be able to see the items of this type immediatly as you see the enemy hero without having to look at his inventory. Hand slot items will be the strongest ones ingame. The others will be just scrolls, potions or recipe materials.
So far I'm planning to do 6 heroes for the first release. Of course a living and an undead version of each one. In future releases I'll increase the amount for sure but there won't be more than 12 I think. Dota got around 100 heroes wich is a pain in the ass to balance and in my opinion just plain unnessecary to make it a good game. Every good RPG style game like WoW or Diablo features around 10 very unique heroes which is completly enough as long as they are as different as possible. I'm truly respecting the balancing work of the dota developers ... it's just awesome to get so good balancing with that amount of heroes.
3 of the 6 heroes of the first release are already done:
Elemental Lord (this will be the only hero which will look the same on both sides)
An Fire/Frost elemental which has the ability to shift between this two forms which stuns himself for one second. Both forms got two spells but share the same ultimate. The fireform will have a firebreath type spell and an aura which damages every unit near him (nothing special so far). The frostform will have a taunt ability which also freezes the frostlord into an immovable block of ice making him very resistable to attacks and slows down the attack and movement speed of every unit attacking him in this state. The other frostform spell will be a freeze spell which freezes a enemy unit for a short amount of time and slows it down after breaking free of it. (great against recovering heroes). The Ultimate will spawn several fire and frost elementals for the elemental lord fighting by his side.
As you can see this hero's fire form is great for killing creeps and the frost form is just great for team situations since he's able to tank the creeps while slowing the enemy hero (and attacking him with his strong elementals)
The next hero ist some kind of pandaren berserk. Because he's trained in the way of the warrior he would never use any shields or armor. So he can carry only weapons. He also got no magical attributes and got no mana.
His first ability is a passive parry chance, just the same as evasion. He will need this a lot since he's got a quite low armor rating and no shield option. This will also increase his magic resistance.
Next spell will be a small whirlwind. Like the one of the blademaster but just in one direction and for a shorter period of time (no mana cost, just cooldown) This will be a very fast spell almost blinking him to another spot and really useful to recover himself out of combat.
His third ability is a berserk state (passive) which will increase his damage, movement and attack speed when under 50% life, this will also disable the automatic life regeneration when around 50%.
His ultimate will be a life leech (also passive) which will heal him quite a lot but never over 50% of his life.
So he will be the perfect hero for all players without any tactical knowledge. This hero will be picked a lot by newbies, which however isn't bad at all cause this hero will kill a lot of creeps and deal massive damage in 1on1 situations. But he will die fast if just thrown into the enemy units or against a hero with slow or stun spells. Also he will get the most effect out af items since a weapon with stun chance or +life items will improve him a lot. (there will be items like this)
The next hero is a warlock type of thing. The undead version will summon undead minions while the living version will summon some kind of holy spirits.
The hero itself will be quite weak but his main ability will be a necromancy aura which will summon a minion out of every unit dying in range of the aura. (both friendly and enemy ones) this unity won't be under the control of the player and assist the normal own troops, they won't also give points once killed. However, this gives the warlock the power to create a huge army for his own team just by standing side by side to the creeps. Since he won't kill a lot by himself every third minion raised will give him a point.
He will also get a fear ability which will scare all enemy units around him and enables him to flee out of dangerous situations.
The next spell is a dot (curse) which will do damage over a long time. This will be great to finish heroes since in most cases they got no possibility to purge it. He can also cast it on himself which will deal double damage to him.
His ultimate will be a reincarnation. His own death will release his mighty soul out of his weak body and turn him into a very strong unit for an amount of time. In this form he can deal massive damage. If died due to his own curse (selfkill) this form will become even more powerful.
This hero is just all about teamplay. He will help a lot by creating a huge force of creeps while guarded by a teammate. The holy variant will transform into an angel after death while the undead form will become a skeleton warlord.
The other three heroes will be a healing hero based on a nature element, maybee a tree by itself, a fast teleporting ghost hero with stealth attacks and another hero I still got no clue about.
So a huge thanks for everybody who read all this stuff and I really appreciate this. I hope you can give me some suggestions and opinions.
(excuse some grammer mistakes^^)
However, I'm going to make an AoS style map and want to hear your opinions about my design so far before actually developing the whole stuff.
Please don't be afraid to read this text, I would really like to have a lot of opinions and suggestions. This are just 5 minutes of reading which may result in some great suggestions which would help me to make a map for tons of hours of cool playtime.
Let's start with the map design. I would like an smaller AoS map than the dota size. It'll be perfect for 8 players but still playable with just 6. This will be achieved by shrinking everything down a bit. Also the design of the ways will be different. The two sides will be seperated by a river with two bridges. Here's a sketch:
B = Bases , T = PlayerTowers , F = Flag
Furthermore the ways will just concentrate on this two paths making the map playable with 4 or 3 players per side. The bases will consist of the main base building, some towers, a healing spot, a throne, some merchants and some unit spawning buildings.
The towers at the base will be the only existing towers at the beginning. The Units won't run to the flag points unless an enemy hero is entering them. However, some guarding units will spawn everytime the flag is brought back.
The gameplay design itself will be like this:
You're team wins the game by either reaching an amount of points or by having more points at the end of the game. The mode and the needed amount of points as well as the playtime is selectable. So you can play either until one team get's the needed points or for a fixed amount of time.
So ... what are this points about ?
Let me explain. You won't get any gold/wood for killing units/heroes. Instead you'll get points. Every enemy unit will give 1 point and every hero about 5 till 20 points (depending on his level). In Addition there will be point rewards for special actions. First of all, killing enemy buildings as well as the player towers will result in extra points. Same goes for capturing the flag of the enemy. The integrated Ctf mode will work exactly like the one you know from Unreal Tournament except for the fact the the flag will slow you down dramaticly and will drop whenever you get invisible or teleport yourself. If you manage to kill the main base building you will however win the game immediatly since this will reward you with the amount of points you'll need in total. I'm also planning to make an optional king mode with a king at both bases which will protect it by beeing a very strong unit and which will give also a very large amount of points. Every players points will gather on a team-point counter to win the game, but that's common sense.
In addition to this points are also the ingame currency. As I said you'll get the points instead of gold. You can spend them to buy items and upgrade your army. Army upgrades will be buyable by every player of the team and will be necessary to win the game since you can let periodicly spawn healing units, aura giving captain units and siege units in addition to just increase the strength of your troops.
The interessting part of the game will be an artifact located at the center of the map (on a small island on the river). Once a team got 100 points more than the other it will spawn and the loosing team will gain control of it. The artifact can cast spells at the whole map range and help your team to push back the enemy. It will also get stronger spells unlocked the more you're team falls behind pointwise. This will somehow make the game interessting at every point and balance the teams a bit, however, the spells won't be too strong but still very helpfull.
Another game feature will be the player towers. Since there are no towers on the ways the players can create their own. This will be possible at the player tower spots. There will be some kind of tower sockets you can upgrade to different towers. The enemy troops can destroy the tower but every team can only build on their own two tower spots. This towers will be quite powerfull since you can specialize them. I plan to implement canon towers which will have splash damage and will be perfect to kill enemy troops and a lighting tower which will have a strong slow attack and stunning capabilities making it a hero killer. Also you can build a healing ward an them which will heal the allied troops as well as an cursing ward which will curse the enemys.
Unit Design: The left team will be some kind of kings royal army with footmen while the right team will be the legion of the undead. Just another classic fight between the living and the dead. I'm not sure if I'll be able to implement a weapon attachment system to every unit (which would be really cool) without causing a lot of memory leaks over time which aren't avoidable through jass coding. But right now I'm planning to do so. By upgrading your army they would use other weapons and shields.
Both teams got acces to the same heroes. The undead ones are ... well, undead. I'm planning to use other skins for them as well as other spell effects and spell names but they will have the same stats ans same effects. So they will look different to each other. There will be a right hand and left hand item slot. You'll be able to wield two one-hand items or one two-hand item. However, you won't be able to use two shields. This items will be attached to the hero model so you will be able to see the items of this type immediatly as you see the enemy hero without having to look at his inventory. Hand slot items will be the strongest ones ingame. The others will be just scrolls, potions or recipe materials.
So far I'm planning to do 6 heroes for the first release. Of course a living and an undead version of each one. In future releases I'll increase the amount for sure but there won't be more than 12 I think. Dota got around 100 heroes wich is a pain in the ass to balance and in my opinion just plain unnessecary to make it a good game. Every good RPG style game like WoW or Diablo features around 10 very unique heroes which is completly enough as long as they are as different as possible. I'm truly respecting the balancing work of the dota developers ... it's just awesome to get so good balancing with that amount of heroes.
3 of the 6 heroes of the first release are already done:
Elemental Lord (this will be the only hero which will look the same on both sides)
An Fire/Frost elemental which has the ability to shift between this two forms which stuns himself for one second. Both forms got two spells but share the same ultimate. The fireform will have a firebreath type spell and an aura which damages every unit near him (nothing special so far). The frostform will have a taunt ability which also freezes the frostlord into an immovable block of ice making him very resistable to attacks and slows down the attack and movement speed of every unit attacking him in this state. The other frostform spell will be a freeze spell which freezes a enemy unit for a short amount of time and slows it down after breaking free of it. (great against recovering heroes). The Ultimate will spawn several fire and frost elementals for the elemental lord fighting by his side.
As you can see this hero's fire form is great for killing creeps and the frost form is just great for team situations since he's able to tank the creeps while slowing the enemy hero (and attacking him with his strong elementals)
The next hero ist some kind of pandaren berserk. Because he's trained in the way of the warrior he would never use any shields or armor. So he can carry only weapons. He also got no magical attributes and got no mana.
His first ability is a passive parry chance, just the same as evasion. He will need this a lot since he's got a quite low armor rating and no shield option. This will also increase his magic resistance.
Next spell will be a small whirlwind. Like the one of the blademaster but just in one direction and for a shorter period of time (no mana cost, just cooldown) This will be a very fast spell almost blinking him to another spot and really useful to recover himself out of combat.
His third ability is a berserk state (passive) which will increase his damage, movement and attack speed when under 50% life, this will also disable the automatic life regeneration when around 50%.
His ultimate will be a life leech (also passive) which will heal him quite a lot but never over 50% of his life.
So he will be the perfect hero for all players without any tactical knowledge. This hero will be picked a lot by newbies, which however isn't bad at all cause this hero will kill a lot of creeps and deal massive damage in 1on1 situations. But he will die fast if just thrown into the enemy units or against a hero with slow or stun spells. Also he will get the most effect out af items since a weapon with stun chance or +life items will improve him a lot. (there will be items like this)
The next hero is a warlock type of thing. The undead version will summon undead minions while the living version will summon some kind of holy spirits.
The hero itself will be quite weak but his main ability will be a necromancy aura which will summon a minion out of every unit dying in range of the aura. (both friendly and enemy ones) this unity won't be under the control of the player and assist the normal own troops, they won't also give points once killed. However, this gives the warlock the power to create a huge army for his own team just by standing side by side to the creeps. Since he won't kill a lot by himself every third minion raised will give him a point.
He will also get a fear ability which will scare all enemy units around him and enables him to flee out of dangerous situations.
The next spell is a dot (curse) which will do damage over a long time. This will be great to finish heroes since in most cases they got no possibility to purge it. He can also cast it on himself which will deal double damage to him.
His ultimate will be a reincarnation. His own death will release his mighty soul out of his weak body and turn him into a very strong unit for an amount of time. In this form he can deal massive damage. If died due to his own curse (selfkill) this form will become even more powerful.
This hero is just all about teamplay. He will help a lot by creating a huge force of creeps while guarded by a teammate. The holy variant will transform into an angel after death while the undead form will become a skeleton warlord.
The other three heroes will be a healing hero based on a nature element, maybee a tree by itself, a fast teleporting ghost hero with stealth attacks and another hero I still got no clue about.
So a huge thanks for everybody who read all this stuff and I really appreciate this. I hope you can give me some suggestions and opinions.
