[Hero Arena] Hero Solitaire

[~Void~]

I started working on this map tonight, and so far have a working scoreboard and round system.

This is, of course, a 1-player game. Here's a basic outline:

• There is a pool of 13 heroes (one for each card in a suit) arranged in a continuum (which is shuffled before the start of the game), but not given a value
• There will be 14 rounds, starting with Ace, then 2, then 3, etc. (the last round is "Aces High")
• You start by picking one of the heroes, which will be your hero for Round Ace (the first round). This hero is assigned the value of Ace, and all other heroes are assigned appropriate values in that order (so the adjacent heroes in the lineup would be assigned "2" and "King," and so on)
• For Round Ace, your AI opponent is the Joker hero, who is not available to be played, and is quite difficult to kill.
• During each round, you may spend as long as you like farming respawnable neutral creeps for XP and gold, which you can use to buy items and powerups. There is also a Fountain of Healing & Mana.
• For each round, you receive a score which decays over time. So be quick with your farming!
• When you believe you are ready, you may go open the gate to fight the boss... it locks behind you...
• However, you don't want to become too strong. In the next round, you will have to fight yourself! For instance, if you are on Round 2, you play as the 2 against the Ace. If you are on round 7, you play as the 7 against the 6, having just used the 6 to defeat the 5, having just used the 5 to defeat the 4, ... If you are on round Aces High, you play as the Ace against the King.
• At the end of the game, your time scores are added to produce your final score.

Basically, you farm up to defeat a boss, and then your hero (with all his items, XP, and skills) becomes the next round's boss, which you have to farm up to defeat with a new hero, and so on. The goal of the game is to complete all 14 rounds as time-efficiently as possible to receive the maximum final score. If you die at any point during the game, you lose.

1. Skill plays a huge role in determining your score. How fast can you farm neutral creeps? What is the minimum amount of gold and XP you need to kill each round's boss? The less you have when you kill the boss, the less time you will have to spend farming the next round.
2. Strategy also plays a huge role in determining your score. What is the best skill build for each hero given the next hero in the lineup? (You know the lineup in advance.) What is the best item build? Also, note that you get to play your chosen hero twice, and each other hero only once. Pick what you're best at!
3. Luck also plays a bit of a role, and that's always fun. You never know what the hero order is going to be beforehand. I may also create several different Joker heroes which will be randomized so that nobody comes up with a "best hero to kill the Joker"

The hardest part about this map will be triggering a competent AI for the opponents, since the player has so much choice in skill and item builds. I may need to look for help on that... >_>

Thoughts?

 

[rulerofiron99]

I think it's a brilliant idea. The "defeat the hero with as little farm as possible" aspect is very appealing.

My biggest concern would be to have the heroes balanced between each other, i.e. they are all good at hero-hero combat. Balancing around that could harm diversity, since buff/support type heroes would be bad.

As far as AI is concerned, I've always gotten good results from a good deal of randomisation. Plus, it's much easier to code that way. An example trigger would be: every time the hero attacks, he has a 30% chance to attempt to cast spell X. Most spells can easily be broken down into casting on a target or point near a target.

 

[~Void~]

My biggest concern would be to have the heroes balanced between each other, i.e. they are all good at hero-hero combat. Balancing around that could harm diversity, since buff/support type heroes would be bad.

Yes, this would be very challenging. I'm hoping to include a variety of STR, AGI, and INT heroes in this game... and it will be a fun puzzle to balance them all. I want each hero to have its own unique style, so that there is a strategic component for each battle. I also want each hero to have a versatile amount of choices regarding skill builds which the player can modify based on his/her opponent.

As far as AI is concerned, I've always gotten good results from a good deal of randomisation. Plus, it's much easier to code that way. An example trigger would be: every time the hero attacks, he has a 30% chance to attempt to cast spell X. Most spells can easily be broken down into casting on a target or point near a target.

Hmm, yeah. Random is good. As long as it's not predictable! I was thinking about adding a slight handicap, too, but I'd rather not resort to that. It'll take a lot of testing once each of the heroes is finished.

On the bright side, any flaws in the AI will make it less difficult to defeat each boss with a lower and lower increment of farm, so everyone can make it all the way through the game with a positive score. I don't want it to be too easy, but the AI doesn't have to be as good or better than the average player

Thanks for the comments. I'm going to hold off on making a map dev thread until I at least have some terrain screenshots to post hehe

 

[jopi]

Well, Buff/Support Heroes are still possible they just need one or more summons/adds (e.g. Lone druid in DotA). The hard part here would be to also make an AI for the summons.

I also really like this idea, still this map has also some possibility for multiplayer: For two players you can make them switch places (yes, this includes waiting for the boss-player, but honestly these days most maps are played by people who want to play them an are aware what comes with it, in this case a bit of waiting).

 

[~Void~]

Well, Buff/Support Heroes are still possible they just need one or more summons/adds (e.g. Lone druid in DotA). The hard part here would be to also make an AI for the summons.

I also really like this idea, still this map has also some possibility for multiplayer: For two players you can make them switch places (yes, this includes waiting for the boss-player, but honestly these days most maps are played by people who want to play them an are aware what comes with it, in this case a bit of waiting).

True. Summons are definitely possible, even if the AI is so simple as to only chase the player around and do damage or occasionally use an ability.

Multiplayer is possible, but I'm not a very experienced coder and singleplayer might be difficult enough for me already!

 

[Molaf]

That's indeed a good idea. maybe you could turn in into some kind of enfo where you can summon the boss whenever you like (wave 1 or wave 10) and wave 1 would the boss would be obviously much harder to kill.
(just an idea to make it even more ... entertaining)

What about mercenaries ? the gold could be use to buy items or mercenaries and once you become the boss, your mercenary turn into some kind of minion.
Wich means you could play a champion totally support and have a lot of minions.