[Aeon of Strife] Endless Tussle

[Velmarshal]

Endless Tussle
And yes this was the inspiration for the name: Revengers: Endless tussle

Last test: 28th July

Currently working on:
Primary
Fixing the respawn system (seems to work properly atm)
Hero selection messaging

Secondary
Making items "less shit"
Nerfing speed abilities (they are a bit much)
Nerfing slow abilities
Two new heroes


The entire purpose of this map is to test out how many heroes fighting can one have on a map without the the whole gameplay devolving into an incomprehensible mess. Now, taking a slightly more sensible approach, I have decided to stop at 72 heroes, because that would leave each player with 3~4 mini-heroes.

I know, I know, you'll say it will turn into a clusterfu**, 3~4 heroes will be hard to manage, filling up the lobby will be hard. I'll address each of these arguments. Bear with me on this.

Now the idea is that heroes won't be your run on-the-mill WC3 heroes that have multiple active abilities and an ultimate ability. These "mini-heroes" will be weaker than a standard hero, will have three abilities without an ultimate ability. To reduce the need for micro-management further, most of these have only one targeted ability, while the other two are a passive and an auto-cast/un-targeted. This will reduce the mental load on the player and make managing three heroes at once feasible.

This approach has a couple of advantages over the single hero approach.
First, if your hero dies, you still have the other two to keep fighting. So the downtime between deaths is reduced or even non-existant depending on how you play.

And second, combining a couple of dozen of heroes allows me to make a lower number of well made heroes and in turn provides far more combinations of abilities that you would get in any classic MOBA with their 100+ hero rosters.

The gameplay

The game mode itself is a simple three control point two team mode. Very similar to what you see in Company of Heroes games. Both teams start with the same number of tickets, whichever team holds more control points will reduce the other teams tickets over time. The goal of each team is to reduce the enemy team tickets to zero.

Experience gain is teamwide and simultaneous, just like in Heroes of the Storm. Capturing points, killing enemies on the control points provides additional experience for the entire team. Teamwide progression does not stimulate the focus on high DPS hard hitting heroes that gain a lot of kill, but allows for the support and even area denial abilities to be equally rewarded. In theory, this would also curb any toxic behavior, because if your team does well, you do well. Killing enemies outside critical areas still provides XP, but at a normal rate.

Minor gameplay features

With 24 players, leavers are inevitable. So when a player leaves, the first 3 players in his team are given a random 4th hero, keeping the number of heroes on battlefield equal, despite unequal player numbers. The 4th hero balancing also runs at the start of the game in case the teams were unequal. - THIS FEATURE IS IN DEVELOPMENT and may not work correctly or fully in the first phase tests.

The factions that send out the cannon fodder units will dynamically change their focus on control points or even pushing into enemy territory. Essentially a basic AI. - This feature is planned and won't be fully implemented until later stages.


Feel free to ask about it. I will do my best to answer all questions.

Current state of terrain:


Ingame (tested in singleplayer)


And labeled terrain


The paths from the bases to the points are roughly the same in distance.

 

[nedio95]

This sounds faintly interesting idea...
Game night you say ?

How are you going to present the Tickets to the players? UI has always been war3 weakside and those tickets need to be fairly centralized and obvious during the whole game to all players.

How are hero picks going to happen ? If you have 24 players and 72 heroes and the heroes are unique (e.g. hero is picked, nobody else can pick it) you'd have all heroes in play, which is a particularly nice thing to have. Although, for fairness of picking I guess you'd like to have something like a draft pick ? But that would take ages, having 10 seconds per pick limit, which is fairly low to begin with would make the pick phase to 720 seconds...
What you could do is begin with 20 seconds to pick 1st hero for everyone., basically if a player picks a hero, they can't pick 2nd heor until phase 2. When the 20 seconds expire or everyone has picked a hero, phase 2 starts, which is 10 seconds to pick the 2nd hero. Players who pick a 2nd hero can't pick a 3rd until phase 3. If somebody does not pick a hero, they get a random one.
It is a bit, not particularly competitive as fastest player with knowledge would get the better heroes and synergies, but it is a good balance between draft pick and blind pick and speed pick.

Focusing on area control and support may prove fatal. As you said, you got control points, focus on area denial and support may prove fatal as the first to get a point would get to keep it forever and it may be nearly impossible for the other team to recapture it without a serious blunder happening.
With so many pieces on the board any AoE attacks would be deadly and fatal. AoE and multi-target spells should be very carefully balanced. You should be extremely careful with those as heroes with AoE would be extremely strong.
Another balancing issue is between experienced and novice players. That 72 heroes for 24 players with 3 heroes control will most definitely cause unbalance in teams. Experienced players would know strong and weak heroes would pick good teams while new players would pick 3 random heroes because they are "pink" and would get crushed even if they lucky guess 1-2 strong heroes. In regular moba/aos games you have 1 hero, so you can deny only 1, but here you can have all the strongest heroes if you know which they are.


All in all, this would be a NIGHTMARE to balance.

regards
-Ned

 

[Velmarshal]

Tickets are presented on a leaderboard.

For picking heroes, the neutral heroes are placed in the center of the map, double clicking a hero selects him, all placeholder heroes are level 10 and have all abilities unlocked, so you can easily see which ability does what (placeholder heroes have select unit ability and no mana). Players have 60 seconds to select their heroes. If they fail to select some or any, they will be assigned random heroes.

For now, you can pick any combination of heroes regardless of others. Only limitation is that you cant pick the same one twice.

Ofcourse it is hard to balance, but that never detered anyone. Besides, the more depth the game has, the harder it becomes to balance. But thats why Im experimenting with this.

Good point about AoE abilities, I will tweak those. Probably by shortening stuns, reducing the radius and increasing cooldowns.

Player experience is always a factor, meta strategies and cookie cutter combos are a thing balanced much later in development.

 

[A]mun]

Interesting, waiting for playable demo!

 

[Velmarshal]

Small update:
Terrain is pretty much done, I may manage to finish up a couple of minor areas that aren't finished.
Triggers work. The point capturing system should work without bugs.

Currently there are 12 heroes. I aim to have 18~24 finished heroes for the playtest.

Other minor changes:
Gold indicates now the red team remaining tickets.
Lumber indicates the blue team remaining tickets.
Food shows the percentage of team Castle HP.

This made the UI less cluttered as only the reinforcement timer now takes up screen space.
Camera distance to target is now 2000 instead of default 1650, giving the users better awareness due to the sheer number of allies and enemies.
Choke points have been widened and trash mob collision sizes have been reduced to prevent pileups (this made the melee mobs particularly dangerous in high numbers).

Last this to do is to finish as many heroes as I can by saturday and see how this dumpsterfire goes down. xD

More screenshots later today.

 

[nedio95]

Would love to see this on Saturday

Need help with some heroes ideas / designs ?
Also, what are you doing with items ?

regards
-Ned

 

[Velmarshal]

There won't be any items for now. But I had an idea of making inventory a levelable ability, 2 slots per level and items would cost nothing. So you can use items but at a cost of leveling you inventory instead of an ability. The random item shops would be near the frontline, while basic items will be sold in the base. The items would be free and of comparable power level.

For later I planned to add a headhunter mode where the goal is to gather as many hero heads for your team as possible. But I won't fiddle with that yet.

Regarding heroes, atm I need to make more support heroes, healers, buffers and such (using existing or modified existing abilities, to speed up the process).

 

[nedio95]

IMO Items have always been the bane of AoS/MOBA

Name: Karazoo
Class: Kodo Wardrummer
Type: Ranged Support
Based on: Kodo
Attribute: Str
Skill 1: War Rhythm (Unholy Aura) - Nearby allies are inspired moving faster by % and invigorating health regeneration by X.
Skill 2: Bloodlust - Engulfs a friendly unit in the song of combat increasing Attack Speed by % (No MS bonus)
Skill 3: Chomp - Melee skill - Closes fast to an enemy minion killing it instantly and storing it's HP as food. Currently stored food is lost when Chomp is used.
Skill 3-2: Devour - Can be channeled to consume stored food regenerate health equal to % of stored food over X seconds. If Channel is interrupted, stored food is lost. //This one would require some triggering.

Name: Alexander Spelweaver
Class: Force Shielder
Type: Melee Support/Tank
Based on: Spell breaker / Footman captain
Attribute: Int
Skill 1: Force (Mana) Shield - Engulfs himself with energy protecting himself from incoming damage. Absorbs X damage per 1 Mana point.
Skill 2: Runic Shield (Anti-Magic Shell) - Protects a friendly unit from hostile magic attacks for X damage.
Skill 3: Force Awaken - Channels for X seconds regenerating Y mana / % mana / int mana at the end of the channel. If the channel is interrupted % mana is lost. //Some more triggering

Name: Peace
Class: Spiritualist
Type: Ranged Support
Based on: Druid / Keeper / Archmage / Priest
Atribute: Int
Skill 1: Energy is Life! (Essence of Blight) - Restores X life to nearby friendly units.
Skill 2: Energy Shall be Shared! (Spirit Touch) - Restores X mana to nearby friendly units.
Skill 3: Energy Shall Not be Wasted! (Silence) - Silences enemy units in X AoE for Y sec.

I had two more ideas but I lost them while writing the kodo :|

regards
-Ned

 

[nedio95]

Name: Mur'Mor
Class: Murloc
Type: Melee Controller
Based on: Murloc-something
Skill 1: Water prison (Areal Shackles or Net) - Traps an enemy unit inside a water bubble for X seconds.
Skill 2: The Great Pond (Any point summon?) - Creates a Great Big Threatening Pond which lasts X seconds. Every second a random enemy unit inside The Pond takes Y damage and is stunned for Z seconds. (Summons a unit with pond or some sort of water model, the unit has locust, has basic attack with 200-300 range and bash)
Skill 3: Dive! (Metamorphosis) - The Murloc dives into water gaining dodge and increased movement speed and health regeneration. (Alternate form is aquatic, with evasion and higher MS & HP regen

Name: Doc'Tar
Class: Murlocologist
Type: Melee Support
Skill 1: Tuna Slam (Thunder Clap) - Slams the ground with a Great Tuna damaging and slowing nearby enemy units.
Skill 2: Water Pact (Mal Furions' ultimate) - Makes it rain for X seconds healing nearby allies for Y health.
Skill 3: Water Protection (Frost armor) - Grants a friendly unit with a bubble of armor.

@Murlocologist :| I've borrowed your nickname if you allow ?

Name: The Great Wall
Class: World wonder
Type: Ranged Tank
Based on: Wall ?
Skill 1: Immovable Object (Blink) - The great wall stands without faltering. The Great Wall cannot move but is able to change location every 20/ 17 / 14 seconds - 1000 / 1300 / 1600 distance.
Skill 2: Rock and Stone (Stone skin or whatever that skill that reduced AA damage was called) - Swords and arrows versus stone? Good luck. Reduces incoming damage from AA by X, minimum Y.
Skill 3: Hammer time! (Just a summon, e.g. spirit wolves) - Summons a mighty invulnerable worker to slowly repair The Wall. The worker has the ability to turn into Hammer Guard(Metamorphosis). Turning into Hammer Guard is irreversible. The hammer guard has Hammer Strike(Bash).



Tbh, having emphasizes on Support and Control heroes may prolong games significantly...

Hope this helps!

regards
-Ned

 

[noob2]

"Tbh, having emphasizes on Support and Control heroes may prolong games significantly..."
What he said suggested that he already had non support heroes so it is fine to suggest a bunch and let him pick(as you are doing right now)

 

[Velmarshal]

Daily update:
Added some ingame screenshots. (singleplayer only atm)
Two extra new heroes, bringing the total to 18.
Ned I have seen your hero suggestions, I will probably implement them, just need to clear out the "easy" list.

 

[-Manuel-]

Based on the screenshots, i think that the map size is too large to this kind of gameplay. or maybe is because the terrain is lacking of doodads.

Anyway i like the game idea, and the manage of 3 heroes is good addition. Good luck developing this.

 

[Banelingline]

A thought on leavers is, instead of making the micromanagement more extreme with a fourth Hero (and causing balancing to get more mindnumbingly insane, as well as the player-side issues with a random fourth Hero), you could replace the leaver with a support character, or set of them, run by a per-team AI that effectively replaces the player with a healbot. Less disruptive and less prone to breaking things. For start of game team balancing, you could rework the Hero selection so that the game only properly starts after everyone chooses their Hero (of which there really needs to be a three to five minute timer, 60 seconds is hardly enough for 72 Heroes going in blind), then they pick their team, or a trigger is used to swap players randomly, maybe using one of the autosave systems laying around to gather player ratings to cludge player skill by general win/loss rate and other performance characteristics, perhaps including the types of Heroes they pick so that the system can improve on team role balance.

Another way to work around the issue of team balance is to mandate players take Heroes in particular ways, such that every player is bringing some form of healer, some form of mana recovery, some form of crowd control and so on for each role you'd consider fundamentally vital to being competitive. Likely as an ability check, so that they're mandated by abilities instead of Hero categorization. This would severely limit available combinations of Heroes, but that's something I consider an advantage, in a sense, as it means you don't need to neurotically check every single combination, while it also ensures that nobody's passing up inherently powerful abilities that are near-mandatory force multipliers at higher skill levels. You can also use themes to enforce mutual exclusivity so as to keep obviously-broken/optimal combinations out of circulation, like minion swarms with per-target AoE healing, or stacking two high-strength mana restorers with a Hero that just vomits spells all over the place, as well as mandate a level of thematic coherence so you don't have a Paladin side by side with a Necromancer at all times.

Personally, I disagree with the items being free, as it then makes it so that you have what's basically ability swapping. You can't really do that sort of thing without making things highly degenerate and prone to a lot of learning curve issues (same with large Hero rosters). If you go with items in a leveled inventory, then N items needs to equal one ability level, where N is the number of slots you get per inventory level. Given that you have combinations going on, this is a problem for balance, as you need additional items that need to be valid picks for the first item also not overshadow the power of a second level to a normal ability. This means you get very constrained, very fast. Keep the skill-based inventory and add alternative uses for resources, then shift back to a "leaderboard" to display added UI elements right under the UI for resources, menu options, day/night cycle and so on.

By having resources, you open up a number of additional options, including the option for some Heroes that essentially offer micro-RTS capabilities, using the ability levels to spend gold on units instead of items. Still permanent, or semipermanent given they're killable (though this does bring up the possibility of items with passive benefits, but charged uses), mechanisms of gaining power for gold. Upgrading creeps would be another use of gold that some Mobas do use, and you can share the baseline income then offer some Heroes alternate gold generation methods, likely balanced around potions as a comparison point with other abilities. With a leveled inventory, the biggest issue is ultimately how much gold is worth, which needs to be consistent. Spending it on Creep upgrades needs to be balanced against items, accounting for the baseline minimum of a 1st level ability to be worth the slot.

 

[Velmarshal]

Manuel, yes it is big because of a large number of players and heroes. The terrain is lacking detail, I'll get back to it later.

Banelingline, I agree with all the points more or less, but there's no chance I'll implement those changes by saturday.

With items I was also thinking of using negatives, like reduced mana, hp armor for using an item more powerful than average.

 

[Velmarshal]

Update:
Added items, they cost nothing but have drawbacks along with bonuses.
21 heroes finished, had a couple of more in the pipeline, but this will do for now.

The test didn't go down, so I have uploaded the map in the first post.

 

[Velmarshal]

Started the work on the map again. During the test the respawning did not work properly for some reason. Reworked the trigger a bit and the respawning seems to work properly.

Speed clamping was at 100 minimum and 500 maximum, this resulted in some intense slowdowns. I have changed this to 210 minimum and 450 maximum.
For reference, hero speeds are separated in three values, 250, 290 and 330.

Item negatives have been updated and reduced by about 33%. This should make the inventory a more appealing ability in the early game since bonuses/negatives are mostly fixed.

Since I intend to make scouting an important part of the game, vision isn't shared among allies. For the first experiment with vision I will add scout towers that will reveal a sizeable area of the map. They will be capturable.