"Human vs Scourge" (dont got a name yet) AOS

[Hemske]

"Azeroth's Last defence" will be the name as it looks at the moment

Story about the map is something i am in need of/working on but i got a very short summary.
The humans/good guys have lived peacefully in their homes/cities/villages until the scourge scums came to their lands, invaded their homes and slaughtered their familiys, ancient warriors and heroes have been awaken when this happened. And they will not give up without a fight... Its a 5v5 AOS style map, with custom heroes, items, events and much more to come

Heroes

Heroes:

Shaman- Exiled by his tribesmen, Themos has seeked his purpose for all his life. One day the spirits answered his call and told him of the encroaching darkness. WIth the combined power of elemental spirts at his side, Themos is now going to prove that his life isn't as worthless, as his tribesmen once said.

Abilites: Chain Lightning, Bloodlust, Healing Wave and Lava Burst.

Minor Ability: Critical Strike.

Pretty boring hero, got normal abilities >_> except from the lava burst, which is just a huge damage target spell with ministun. Can work pretty good as both support and carry a team.

Banshee- (No lore yet)

Abilities: Wave of death (just a modified shockwave), Death strike, (A modified Flame strike), Dark Blast (Blasting the area around herself, dealing damage to all units nearby and stunning. also dealing minor damage to herself), Demonic Summoning ( Summons X number of Dark Minions with chaos damage)

Minor ability: Transform (a minor hex)

This one isnt that original either... A nuking hero with a lot if intelligence. A support hero.

Chupacabra- Driven from his cave in the deserts by the Scourge, the Chupacabra became a powerfull ally to the Forces of Azeroth. Known for his brute force, Neuthit mere presence on the battlefield inspires fear in the hearts of his enemies.

Abilities: Blood Steal,(Life steal kind of ability) Stalking, (a wind walk that increases movement speed and gives a huge amount of extra damage when breaking the invisibility) Chupacabra Spirit, (passive movement speed increase spell), Duplicate. (Creates a clone identical to the Chupacabra itself, has all bonuses and deals 100 % damage and takes 100 % damage, doesnt lasts for so long though).

Minor ability: Burning skin. (deals some % of damage taken from melee heroes and increases armor by 2)

Nothing original with this one either to be honest... The first heroes i did for this map is pretty lame.
Mostly passive skills, great with some attack speed and damage items, carry type of hero.

Kuang Shi- Banished from the world long ago, The Kuang Shi was a myth, a local legend. Yet, against all odds, the ancient being had somehow managed to survive. It was only recently that he was recruited into the Scourge, and little is known of his capabilities.

Abilities: Death Implosion, (deals X multiplied with intelligenc to nearby units and stuns) Death and Decay, (not channeling) Devastating Power, (Cleaving attack) Dark offering. (offers 15 % of his max hp to heal a friendly target)

Minor Ability: Vampire Haste (passive attackspeed increase)

Carry/Supporter hero.

Runemaster- Mikko Runewrench always was a strange gnome... He spent too much time with the dwarven explorers and too little time at the engineering workshop. When gnomes began gathering an army, they frowned at Mikko, who didn't know how to use a gun! (And he called himself a gnome!) However, soon it was proven, that after all the time spent with dwarven rune-priests, Mikko doesn't really needed all those crude mechanical junkboxes...

Abilities: Life stone (healing ward kind of spell, if the life stone is destroyed, it deals massive AOE damage to nearby enemies) Rune of Lightning Strike, (Deals X multiplied with Intelligence to nearby enemies, also taunts them to attack him for X seconds), Rune of protection, (Increases armor by X, passive) Rune of elements. (He creates rune of elements, summoning random elements (shadow, water, fire))

Minor Ability: Rune of inscribed lightning (chance to blast attacking enemies with a forked lightning)

Tank-like hero, great at taking care of nuking heroes with rune of lightning strike.

Being of Light- While little is known of its origins, Archon soon gained a reputation as an ever effective supportive tactician. The being may be odd but he sure can fight.

Abilities: Righteous Gain, (chance to get healed when attacked by normal attacks) Armor Burst, (Reduces armor of nearby enemy units) Blessings of the Holy, (increases attack damage by some % on friendly target for some seconds) Holy Wrath. (Dealing damage to all nearby enemy units, and healing all friendly nearby units)

Minor Ability: Healing Nova (Heals all friendly nearby units by 5 % of max hp)

Both support hero and carry hero, with holy wrath making him excellent at having in ganks.

Ice Giant (not done yet)- For ages Ardon Winterchill has wandered the frozen wastes of the North, guarding the icy lands. When evil invaded and ravaged his homeland, the peaceful giant has sworn revenge. Now, his icy fist and cold fury are eager to bring reckoning to the evil itself...

Abilities: Frost Blast (Blasts the ground, creating X amount of frost novas in a circle around himself, each dealing damage to all units nearby), Frost Spikes. (Like a impale, but frosty ^^), Freezing Fists (slows the enemy when attacking) and Sub Zero (if unit has below a set amount of mana it gets instantly killed).

Minor Ability: Eat tree (can eat trees to regenerate some hit points)

Overall a nuking hero, but got some abilities to manage a combat.

Battle Mage (not done yet)- (No lore yet)

Abilities: Power of Blood, (gives splash damage and some extra % damage for some seconds) Mana burst, (creates a orb that moves towards the target aura, draining 10 % mana from each unit (including self) and then deal damage equal to mana drained at target area) Magic of quel'thalas (gives a chance to heal a random unit nearby each time he casts a spell), and Mana Burn (y'all know what a mana burn is ^^)

Minor ability:

Some info about the concept

Will contain a large amount of custom items, heroes, units and spells. Will add a sort of "Defender" and "Commander" event, "the humans/good guys are using all their summoners to recreate the ancient defender to bring holy wrath upon the scourge", same with the "commander" but instead the opposite of "defender". These two "imba creeps" will spawn at the middle lane after maybe 30-40-50 (?) minutes played if none of the teams have won. Different teleports on the map will exists, Different points of interest that enhances the gameplay with extra exp/gold/special creeps, will also have some events on the map that triggers under special circumstances. You have to destroy all towers on the map before killing the other team's base. You can win either by destroying the opposite teams base or by a designated amount of hero kills.

Upcoming things and things to add

Things to add:
-Commands (to enhance the players game)
-Different game modes (quick mode (lesser creeps, easier towers, less hero kills needed to win), long mode (the opposite of quick, duh) And more)
-More heroes (target is at least 30-40) (For BETA version 10-16)
-More items (target is at least 4-6 full shops (including recipes)
-Events
-Upgradeable creeps and towers
-certain points that give exp/units/gold that exist on different spots of the battlefield
-Abilities to the some creeps
-Any idea is welcome

Things Needed

Things needed (at the moment):
- I need someone to make me a multiboard, including deaths, kills, death time, time until Defender/commander summon. (beacuse im not that good with multiboards, if someone can make this for me, pm me or write a post on this thread, and ill give you more info about it
- I need a good terrainer (got ALPHA/BETA terrain, but i want the map to be a LOT bigger than now, so i can have space for all events, points of interest, different neutral buildings and other stuff) pm or write in this thread if you are interested, and ill give you more info.
-Need someone that can make me icons i need (wont be a million, just sometimes when i feel that there doesnt exist a proper one for the spell im doing^^)

Any suggestions/tips/help is always welcome . Tell me what you think about it .
Will update this post regulary.

Update:

-Added a screenshot for showing how the tooltips look like.
-A new ability to both Battle Mage and Ice Giant
-Lore for Chupacabra, Being of Light and Kuang Shi
-Deny and suicide triggers added
-Ice Giant is completed
-Some small bugs/problems fixed

Screenshots:

 

[Lolaroids]

Hi there,

This sounds like a good idea, not very original. If I were you I'd make the characters more related to eachother then they are right now, for example: shamans are a common sight in the Warcraft lore, Chupacabra's however dont have anything to do with the Warcraft lore. On the other hand, good choice of models/skins.

Regards,
Lolaroids

 

[Hemske]

I know its not that original, thats why i want to add things, that ARENT . Thats why i am adding stuff like these random events, commander/defender thingy and these kind of stuff (also open for more suggestions to make this more original). And my opinion is that combining both some kind of other heroes than only regular warcraft universe units, might give it a little more original touch . Thanks for your comment though

 

[Bob1897]

I know that I probably sound like a broken record, but don't make a map that's already been done, esspecially if you can't meet the standards of the origional map. Besides, there are more than enough AOS maps out there....
Anyway, I don't mean to discourage you, I'm just stating my opinion. In any case, while the map as a whole might not have any prospect for origionality, that doesn't mean that certain aspects can't. Try to offer an incentive so as to draw more AOS players from icewind or dota, and to your map. Best of wishes, and good luck.

 

[Hemske]

I will not stop working on this project . And i want it to be something.. Special . Even though AOS is nothing original, its not many that are played, since Dota exists, and therefore i want to make an AOS that is great, and can draw players from dota (and thats not easy with the huge community and competitions and stuff)Thanks for you comment ^^

 

[YeeShadow]

This is quite long, but take a little time to read it, it might help you.

I did an AoS map for testing a new AI System I created to used on a campaign I'm working on right now. This was a really weird AoS map and I never uploaded it anywhere, and I acually lost it XD (I didn't use the AI system in the campaign after all...)

Well this AoS I created was really weird in many aspects, I really like to create maps that are uncommon. I'll list some of the most important and weirds parts of that AoS map, use any idea you want.

- Another resource: I named this resource "magic", you used to buy special things, specially upgrades or to repair buildings (And something more importnat). The way to gather that magic was simple, there were lanes, each lane had one tower that produced magic, of course you could conquer those tree places to work for your side, it was a battle for resources too.

- More gold income: It worked like the magic, but instead a tower, it was a gold mine...

- Summon Builders: No, no, this is not a common hire peon-type unit to use it to repair your base, you buy that thing to summon lots of peons to repair the towers. I really loved how it looked, a lot of peons appeared in front of the castle (the primary building you need to destroy to win) and they start running all around repairing towers, buildings and almost everything. Of course you could kill the peons to stop them.

- Power Generators: The goal was the same, destroy the enemies base, to do that, you needed to destroy the generators first, those generators were almost in the entrance of the base, to make it simple... but, this was to make people fight in each lane, not just focus on one.

- Rebuild Buildings: You could rebuild your defenses and of course the generators, for that you needed magic. This worked different from the Summon Builders function, the buildings just appeared (with a teleport effect) so it was an instant thing, this is a very tricky part for the balance, but it make the game really fast, always with lot of action, you needed to be fast to defeat your enemies, this simple function make the map 10 times more interesting, and you need to destroy the enemies magic spots as fast as you could to prevent them from gathering magic.

- Change sides: What?? Are you insane?? Yes... you could be a traitor the whole time...

- Send items: I loved this function, if you are a terrible player you could send items to the other players to help. Lets say you buy a potion and want to send it to another one, you go to the shop, "buy" the send item, you give the item to the runner, and she started running, the problem is that she could be killed and she dropped the items.

- Nightmare Spell: Well, this is as simple as it sounds, but it was extremely weird, it was an ultimate, you put to sleep a target then it becomes invulnerable, then a ghost appeared far away from the target, that was a representation of the unit dreaming, that ghost could be controlled by the owner of the sleeping unit, the objective was to reach his body to wake up, but, if the ghost was killed before reaching the body the sleeping unit died, the problem is that the only one that could see that ghost were the nightmare caster, but the ghost make the minimap ping, but if he stopped, the mini-map stop the ping, so it was a hide and seek mini-game with an ability. I never uploaded this because is harder to use than it sounds, specially beacause you can't make the ghost appear in any place, because it could get trapped.

- Advance AI: And it was seriously Advanced, so advanced that you could only use it in single player mode (too much lag in multiplayer, specially with full house, 10 players). And what is the advanced thing? Well... if you typed something like "I need gold!" or "Gives me money" or things like that, the AI
respond in different ways, so, it was really AI, not a simple command, like "-all gold to me". Let me get a little more in depth with this system.
- Each hero have their own personality, and each hero react different depending on the situation. You may have seen things like, the base is being destroyed and the AI is still trying to destroy the enemies base... well, with my system the AI, depending on the situation and the personality of each hero they could go and defend, buy a "Summon Peons", continue attacking, and more...
- More important, the AI was created to make the player feel like it was playing with someone. Not just another random creep. If you typed things like "help me", they answer depending on the situation and their personality, and yes... they answer... They could answer things like "Can't you see I'm in trouble here?" or "Can't teleport, I'm going as fast as I can", each hero with more than 20 different phrases for each situation...
- To make the player feel like it was playing with someone else, the AI also talked sometimes, and can even chat with the other AI units, from your side and from the enemies side too, they could something like "you're gonna die" or they could ask for your help, money of something else, like "I'm dying here! Please give a potion, you have to spare!"
- To make this possible you need to develop the heroes, their history, an more, it was really simple to me, because they were from a previous campaign I created, so they act as if you were playing with those characters, they even have a relation between heroes that could change their answers.

That's all I remeber now... hope you find it useful.

More things that are not really common but have been used:
- Upgrade units: Stats only
- Upgrade units: Change their actual look and improve all their stats.
- Quests
- Secret Heroes: Not overpowered heroes please xD
- Secret Items: Secret and unique powerful items that can be dropped when dead, if you want you could destroy it for no one to use.

That's all I can remember, but I have more ideas right now XD maybe in another post I'll tell you, I already write far too much. Sorry for the typos XD

 

[Hemske]

Oh man, thats a lot :O. Thanks for the huge comment . Was useful and maybe ill take some of those things. Not that good in AI so im afraid i cant create a AI like that (seems awesome though^^). Appreciate that you took your time for this.

 

[Bob1897]

I will not stop working on this project . And i want it to be something.. Special . Even though AOS is nothing original, its not many that are played, since Dota exists, and therefore i want to make an AOS that is great, and can draw players from dota (and thats not easy with the huge community and competitions and stuff)Thanks for you comment ^^

Don't go on the defensive... I already stated that I don't mean to discourage you. I'm simply stating that you, as a single player, must live up to the expectations for any AOS map, and must be prepared to compete with Dota. In any case, I appologize, I simply find it rather difficult to comment on an AOS when Dota takes up practically all of the custom games section. In my opinion, Dota is ridiculous, but that doesn't mean all AOS maps have to be. Again, sorry.

 

[YeeShadow]

Oh! I forgot something.

I also used (in almost every map I make) a secret merchant, that goes from place to place selling his items XD is a normal unit that can sell items, is not a building, you can make him stop every time a unit comes close to him, and set certain spot so he will stop there a few minutes, that's the way I used it. It can also be killed, so you can make crazy strategies with that, like, gather as much gold as you can, buy some of his special items and then kill him, that way the other players won't get any of his special items. But in my AoS, to make it more fair, the items he sell were droppable.

You'll probably see me in this thread a lot XD I love AoS maps and I think this will be a great one.

 

[Hemske]

Well, thats just good, i need ideas and suggestions ^^

 

[DanThanh]

Hi fagge, nice to see your project, i think Antistone has some nice ideas you should take a look at: (link:http://www.mindflare.com/wc3maps/ideas/aos.htm)

AoS Map Ideas

Notes for various modifications to the typical AoS template.

Update: Some time after this page was originally written, I began work on a map entitled "Fields of Stained Snow" that incorporates many of the ideas described below. You can download the current beta here.



Remarks
It seems (at least to me) that in a typical AoS map, the focus of the map is on hero vs. hero combat, and all of the bases, towers, and computer-controlled units just serve as an interesting backdrop. You kill computer-controlled units, because it gives you resources (generally XP and gold), but you can leave them alone and they'll pretty much cancel each other out without any serious risk of upsetting the game. You destroy enemy buildings, because you need to do it eventually to win the game, but you don't have any serious chance of winning unless your heroes can consistently beat the enemy heroes. The computer units and buildings are very basic, with few (if any) interesting qualities, while the heroes are myriad, diverse, and have access to a bunch of skills, items, or other upgrades. In short, the typical AoS is basically just a glorified hero team arena.

Personally, I'm fond of games with some kind of strategic depth, and I think there's a lot of potential going to waste here. Thus, the following is a series of ideas and concepts for modified AoS maps designed to shift the focus away from hero duels and emphasize territory control, strategic maneuvering, and the large-scale clash of armies, while preserving (and maybe even enhancing) the feeling of being a proud hero, leading an army into enemy lands.

Some of these ideas are clearly designed to work together, but this is far from an all-or-nothing deal. Many of the ideas are separable, and could be implemented independently of each other. Certain ideas are even incompatible (or seem so). This is a collection of ideas, not a unified design.



Territory Control
Capturable Points of Interest
Rather than the typical advance towers placed in each lane, which don't really do anything except prevent advancing into the enemy base too early, scatter key structures around the map (with lanes going through them) that can be captured and controlled by one team or the other. Various means of "capturing" these structures could be used, but the most logical one would probably be to require that you destroy the enemy structure, and then wait while a new one is built under your control (meanwhile defending it from being destroyed in turn). Many useful buildings are possible; for example:

Attacking Towers (possibly with the position and the range to provide support fire in other lanes)
Support Towers (providing an aura or other bonus to the controlling team)
Mines (generate some resource, such as gold or XP, for the controlling team)
Teleporters (allowing heroes to travel around the map more quickly--probably should not be usable by computer units)
Morale-Boosting Buildings, e.g. Statues (provides some global bonus to the controlling team--movement speed might be a good choice, since this will shift the effective "midpoint" of each lane towards the enemy base and increase maneuverability without actually giving a direct combat advantage)
Shops
Academies (providing access to upgrades)
These should be designed to give long-term benefits if control is maintained, not quick advantages. A team which pushes forward into enemy territory is expending resources (probably the health and mana of its heroes, if nothing else) and lengthening its lines, making it temporarily vulnerable to retaliation, so as long as controlling the points of interest grants a long-term strategic advantage, rather than an immediate one, there is an important strategic trade-off involved in taking them, and the enemy team has a window of opportunity to regain lost ground before they are put at too great a disadvantage.

In order to help prevent a stalemate where the two teams keep trading the points of interest back and forth, the maximum health of each structure could be reduced every time it changes hands, so that it becomes progressively harder to keep control of any point of interest unless you can utterly overwhelm the area and push the fighting line far away from it.

Intertwined Paths
Rather than presenting simple, straight paths between bases, the paths twist, turn, and overlap one another (effective "overlapping" may be accomplished by judicious use of way gates). Some paths have their length concentrated closer to one base than the other (it will be necessary to use rotational symmetry, instead of reflective symmetry), so that the natural front line / midpoint of each path isn't along the center divide of the map, but it will be natural to have friendly units along one path going right past enemy units on an adjacent path.

Then, heroes and units can launch ranged bombardments across lanes where they come into close contact (preferably with differing elevations, giving one side or the other a tactical advantage). Thus, possibilities are created for "flanking" maneuvers. Additionally, heroes may be allowed to travel between lanes at selected locations, thereby enabling surgical strikes into enemy territory, or inversely, quick escapes.

Of course, one reason this hasn't been done is most likely because no one wants to go to the trouble of forcing the computer units through so many way points to keep them on the correct, convoluted path. But this concern is easily addressed by some clever pathing. Give heroes a collision size of 31, and other units a collision size of 32 or greater, so that heroes can fit through spaces that other units cannot. Place lines of flags along the edges of lanes where they are otherwise open, leaving just enough space between them for heroes to fit through. Do this even inside each team's base, with flag lines connecting to each team's main structure, so that it is reachable from all lanes, but no lanes have openings into each other large enough for non-hero units to use. Now you don't need any way points at all--all computer units can be blindly ordered straight to the middle of the enemy base, and all of them will stay perfectly within their own lanes.

Of course, similar results might be obtained by completely isolating the paths and giving heroes some form of flight or teleportation, but those abilities would have much more significant tactical uses.

Branching Paths
Rather than having a few avenues of attack between the bases that are entirely separate, create a network of branching and interconnected paths. Thus, computer units moving along a path will periodically reach some sort of intersection that presents a choice of direction.

Players can control the distribution of their forces by using dummy abilities on "signpost" units located at each fork (this power could be given to the whole team or one designated player). Different options allow the player to specify that all the friendly computer units reaching that intersection should proceed in a certain direction, or that they should split up between several available options.

Players are only allowed to specify directions that get their units closer to the enemy base, to ensure that players can't create a cycle that will allow them to build up forces and unleash them all at once, but several branches might converge at a single intersection. Thus, players can separate and merge their forces, concentrating their numbers in particular areas while withdrawing support from others, thereby directing the flow of the battle.



Army Management
Computer Unit Abilities
It seems to be very rare for computer-controlled units to use any abilities, even simple auto-cast spells like Heal or Slow. Creating diverse computer units with different abilities could make the map more interesting, not only by increasing the variety of effects in battle, but by creating tactical reasons to focus on particular targets, potentially increasing the variety of battle tactics available to the players.

Controlled Unit Production
Rather than spawning a fixed set of units in each lane on each wave, players are given options to control the number and type of units produced (separately for each lane). However, every time a wave spawns, it costs team gold, based on the number and type of units produced. This would most likely need to be countered by some form of regular income, such as from controlling points of interest (see above).

This means players can lower production of units in one lane to boost them in another, or temporarily lower output in all lanes to save up money for a concerted push later on. Thus, players have an opportunity to focus their forces on a target of interest, or try to catch the enemy team off-guard. Of course, it would be necessary to have a maximum rate of production for each lane (12 might be a good limit, since that will allow all units produced in a given lane in a single wave to be ordered to move in formation).

Players could even be given the option to build and sell various unit production structures in each lane, to gain access to different unit-types and increase maximum production. For example, provide space to build 4 production buildings in each lane, with 2 unit-types per building. Players can select the building and change production to any combination of the two unit-types resulting in at most 3 units per wave (that's a total of 9 options per building), or can sell a building to make room for another one when they want to change the composition of their forces.

Controlling unit production could even be the dedicated job of one player, who would be responsible for carefully controlling unit production (and possibly some other management tasks, such as the signposts at lane branches), but would not be given a hero. Of course, the feasibility of this depends on how interested the average player is in taking on this role; you don't want to create a necessary job that no one wants to do.



Heroes
Army-Focused Skills
Heroes are given skills designed to support a sizable force, rather than just to heal and buff themselves or to damage and debuff an enemy hero. In particular, lots of AoE buffs, such as Roar, which will be most effective when used with a lot of allies present.

Martyrdom
Whenever a hero dies, it automatically grants a temporary but powerful buff to all nearby friendly units, which shout battle cries such as "I will avenge you!" or "For Frodo!" (or whatever's appropriate in the map). This buff might provide bonuses (for example) to movement speed, attack speed, and health and mana regeneration; the bonuses could possibly vary depending on the slain hero.

This will discourage targeting enemy heroes first during large engagements, since taking down the enemy hero will make the remaining enemy units much stronger; however, a hero who charges in alone, or who sticks around when his backup has mostly been killed, may be killed with impunity. This should help shift the focus away from hero assassination and focus it on the larger battle.

Heroes still experience penalties for dying, which may include a delay before respawning, being moved away from the battle, having low health and mana, and/or temporary debuffs. Thus, the penalties for dying may outweigh the temporary bonuses (unless the battle in which the hero fell was very large or very important). Dying need not be encouraged. However, this will still allow heroes to take greater risks and make strategic sacrifices.

Hero Escorts
Heroes are given special abilities that can be used to take charge of individual computer-controlled unit, up to a certain maximum (and possibly also abilities to return them to their regular behavior). Computer-units that are made part of a hero's personal "escort" will change color to match the hero, move in formation with (or around) that hero, and attack that hero's target. Thus, each hero is able to create a special strike force they can take with them wherever they go, ensuring that the hero never has to fight alone, and giving the heroes power to direct their team's forces in battle.

It's clearly important to impose a limit on the number of units that can be detained in this way, to prevent a hero from amassing too large a force in one place, but if you want to use the game's built-in unit formation logic, you can't have more than 12 units in formation anyway.

This idea would probably work particularly well with Branching Paths and not so well with Intertwined Paths, since it relies on the escort being able to travel with the hero, and there being some place interesting to go.



Resources
No Bounty
In almost any AoS map, heroes accumulate gold and XP by killing enemy units. This is an ubiquitous technique, because it's naturally supported by the engine--there's XP and gold for kills in standard melee, and it's very easy to adapt to a custom map. Unfortunately, the system sucks, and I really think it would be best to get over it.

The problem, you ask? There are several. First, it places far too much emphasis on the killing blow. Supposedly allied players are forced to compete with each other to score kills, and it even encourages such perverse behavior as killing your own units to deny XP and gold to the enemy team, which I personally feel should never be a legitimate tactic. Secondly, it allows heroes to get better at killing by doing nothing but killing--a directly self-reinforcing cycle, which promotes runaway leads, which simply isn't good for game balance. Sure, the whole point of fighting for strategic advantage is that you get some advantage out of it, but inserting some other steps into the loop provides an opening for enemy interference and makes game balance more stable. Third, the system is horrendously unfair to any hero trying to fill a defensive or support role, and by forcing all heroes to be offensively-focused it seriously depletes the potential variety of the map.

Fine, you say, but what can it be replaced with? I have several ideas on other ways resources could be distributed, which are outlined below. But, frankly, I think you'd be better off creating an AoS where heroes never level up and can't get items than using the standard bounty system.

Capturable Resource Buildings
Capturable Points of Interest (see above) can bestow resources over time; for example, giving all heroes on a team a fixed amount of gold and/or XP every few seconds while they're under that team's control. This was already discussed, but I thought it needed to be explicitly referenced in this category.

Champions
Each team can periodically spawn some champion unit, which would be comparable in power to a hero (or perhaps even stronger), but under computer control, and thus fairly stupid. The team may or may not have some control over the precise time at which the champion charges, and which lane he fights through. Regardless, the champion is powerful enough to seriously upset the balance of power in his lane. The enemy team receives a warning message when the champion is created, allowing them to prepare a concerted defense.

However, when the champion dies, all heroes on the enemy team gain a level (even if they're far away or dead at the time), and possibly some gold. Thus, a champion gives you a chance to push really hard on the enemy team for a while, but when he falls your opponents gain a long-term advantage. Enemy computer-controlled units could possibly also be given a temporary buff to represent the morale boost gained by slaying such a mighty opponent.

The rate at which champions spawn could depend on a variety of things; for example, controlling points of interest might increase the spawn rate for your team--but of course, that would be a double-edged sword. My favorite idea regarding the champions is that, the less territory (possibly measured in points of interest) that your team controls, the faster your champions spawn, as the desperation of your cause inspires them. This means that the losing team gets an opportunity to make a comeback (assuming that having less territory means you're losing), but if the winning team can dispatch the champion without suffering severe losses, they can solidify their winning position with the extra levels. Thus, if one team is winning by a little, the other team has a better chance of reversing the situation, but if one team is solidly dominating the battlefield, their lead increases quickly, so they can finish the game.

At this point, some readers may be wondering how this is different from the bounty system I so loathe. The key difference is that the XP rewarded has nothing to do with who kills the champion, whereas with the traditional bounty system, you need to be near to get XP, and need to score the killing blow to get gold, so the resources given to each player and to each team can vary widely depending on luck and tactics. Additionally, champions are a much more tightly-controlled resource; the designer can make the production of champions (and therefore levels) tied to whatever other game elements he likes, thereby making the reward ultimately dependent on the secondary goals of his choice, rather than simply killing. Unless the champion wins the game for the enemy team, you're really guaranteed the resources when he spawns (even if you need to wait until he dies to collect them), so you get XP by controlling the spawn rate of champions--killing them is a necessary step, but it only affects the timeliness of your XP, not the rate at which you get it.

Timed Resources
All players are given resources (gold, XP, and/or whatever else the map uses) as time passes, at an equal rate, completely ignoring what they're doing or how effective they're being. Tthe rate might change as time passes.

Not a very interesting system, I'll grant, but it can be used to ensure that heroes become more powerful as the game goes on without tipping the playing field, and that can be a good thing (1) to give new players a window in which to learn about the game when they mistakes aren't as important, and (2) to help make sure the game lasts the time you want it to, rather than ending early or dragging on.

And, of course, this can always be combined with other systems.

 

[YeeShadow]

I personally liked the idea to manage the amount of units in each lane, but, I don't like the idea of the resourcers, its to limited, but I have some ideas to make that work.

- Manage units -
Well, this could be awesome, but, the problem is that it won't fit at all with a system that gives no bounty (since this is a primary source of gold), so it cannot cost gold if this is implemented, but instead make the other lines suffer. Start with the same quantity of units in each lane, but let's say the right lane is suffering too much, so you could take away 1 unit for the middle and south lane, and put them in the right, causing the other lanes to decrease in offensive power, but giving the other a huge advantage, but it really implies lot of strategy since the other lanes are losing men. Of course, if could be an option to increase the man power of each lane by recruiting more man, and in that case it could cost you gold... or better, cost gold to the CPU Player. (Check the CPU Player Gold section)

- Gold and Exp -
I agree with the bounty, it really sucks, but there are better solutions for this:

- Exp and gold for all -
Each time someone kills a unit all the team will receive gold and exp, so, that way the people of the same team will actually be a team, and they'll try to work together to kill the enemies and gain exp, and gold. But it is still a bounty and the enemies could kill their own units right? Well... keep reading.

- The Jail -
Yes, I though of a Jail, just to put a player there, and now I know how to use it, if you kill a friendly unit you will be teleported to the Jail, and... What you're going to do there? Well... nothing XD you'll lose precious time, and while you are there you won't gain exp nor gold, so you'll need to be careful with spells like Blizzard.

- CPU Player Gold -
As all we know, with a bounty system the player that gets the most gold is the CPU Player, well with a "bounty for all" system you could get a lot of gold from this player, alone, so I thinks there's no need for extra resources points, but that's a little unfair, so the gold and exp won't be as high as if one hero kill the unit. But if you decide to give gold to the CPU Players, those resources could be used to improve defenses, hire more man "permanently" (it will keep draining gold for each spawn, so there will be a limit, but it won't affect the players' gold)

More things... strange things...
- Super Turrets -
Those could be special points, or special units in the base.
Those could shoot at really far distances, and with some massive attack damage, the ability can cost mana, or gold, but it won't reach the enemies base, but is a really fun way to attack from far distances, you could test your luck and shoot in an unexplored area, or send someone of the team to the action and keep firing from the distance. (I got the idea from an oooold game, Total Annihilation, with the Big Berta that was the name of a turret XD)

- Air Attacks! -
Similar to the Supper Turrets, but instead of towers, send some planes to strike! It requires more strategy, since the planes take time to reach their target.

- AoS Tower Defense! -
Weird... right? You could use some peons to build cheap towers (something like 10 gold) and with really low attack... of course, more type of towers could make it a really weird combination of an AoS and a Tower Defense map.

- Change the main base -
Kinda weird... but it would be great to make more bases, if one is about to fall quickly move to the other, this could be really complicated to use, specially for how to make the terrain, but the way to use could be really simple, send a peon to the castle to build another castle, of maybe a townhall, then the townhall will need to upgrade until it becomes a castle, it could take a lot of time to do, and money too, so if the castle is not ready yet and the other is destroyed you lose.

 

[DanThanh]

Well, your ideas seem very interesting, i doubt why you not make an AOS yourself =))
In truth, i'm also developing another AOS, but it seems i can't do it better than DotA nor bring all those ideas to truth !

 

[YeeShadow]

I was actually thinking to make my own AoS, but not right know, I'm working on a huuuge campaign, you'll see a thread of it really soon and a playable demo with it, and also a cinematic explaining must of the campaign XD

I've got another idea, this time for a spell. (This was an ultimate from my previous AoS XD)
The chupacabra, instead of making just a simple mirror image of it as his ultimate, why not make an exact duplicate... it's a common summon unit ability, but, here's the trick.
The unit summon will be a complete replica of the caster, but, it won't be a hero, it will have the same defense, the same attack, and even the same abilities, and those could be used (except the ultimate of course).
But, here's the trick of balance, the summoned unit will have the stats, of the hero at certain level, lets say that all the heros learn the ultimates at level 10, then, the duplica will have the stats of a level 10 hero, and spells of maybe level 2 or even 1... and the next level of the ultimate is at 20, then the duplica will have level 2 abilities and stats of a level 20 hero... this is just a common summon unit spell as I said before, but with the same principle as the mirror image spell (yes, it will be easier to indentify... but is as powerful as the real hero and with abilities, so you should be careful anyway)

 

[Hemske]

Dan and Yee, thanks both of you, have a lot to think about now, and a lot of things to add to my AOS ^^. (too bad my terrain is so small at the moment so i dont have that much place to make all these points of interest and stuff, at the moment )

 

[HellslayerX15]

sorry that i cant compete with the huge posts you guys are capable of making but i just had to say that making a map has nothing to do with how popular it will become you should just make it if you find it amusing creating it.

 

[darkreapers]

ok i am just going to come out and say it.
1) looks like a good start and you have the motivation which is the main thing in making a map!
2) AoS map, you are going to face the biggest competition ever so good luck to you
3) Do you plan to release your map over battle net? if so how big is your map right now, it seems to me you have wayy and i mean way to much imported models for people to DL, any map over the 3 mb mark is going to be hard getting a full house. People just dont have the time to wait 10 mins.
4) try not over do the special effects on spells, people get annoyed when thier heroes die cause they get blinded by a huge flash of frost nova or some other effect

i wish you luck in ur mapping !

 

[YeeShadow]

4) try not over do the special effects on spells, people get annoyed when thier heroes die cause they get blinded by a huge flash of frost nova or some other effect

That's true, I also hate the spells that takes like 5 minutes to read... and then other 30 minutes to understand it... I really hate that kind of super-complicated spells with 30 minor effects... don't do that please..

 

[DanThanh]

That's true, I also hate the spells that takes like 5 minutes to read... and then other 30 minutes to understand it... I really hate that kind of super-complicated spells with 30 minor effects... don't do that please..

YUP..I agree, that's the reason i do not like Desert of Exile, Age of Myths..etc.
My eyes bleed when reading those complicated and long description, why not just make a simple line, for example:

Magically split one arrow into many

or

Throws a fireball which explode upon impatc

(Diablo II)

Also, there is no need for something like:

type:AOE
target:instant
.....

I think just use the Blizzard standard, and 4 levels for normal spells/3 levels for ulti, that's enough!

Sure, many AOS have already been created but none good enough so people just keeping saying "waste of time" or something similar, but i personally think, you do it just because you like it !

 

[Hemske]

Thanks for all comments guys And darkreaper, no worry about the imported files, i only got maybe 3-4 models imported, and wont have a lot more, since i want it small, i only intend to have some imported models.

 

[Swerd]

Terrain looks a bit sloppy but it's great idea and good choice on the gnome with shielded hands i have him too XD but i bid you good luck and if you need help with multiboard i can make a simple onewith deaths and kills.

 

[Hemske]

Hmm thanks, but i need one with deaths, kills, time until ressurection when you die, time until defender/commander spawns. Think you can make that too?

 

[YeeShadow]

Hmm thanks, but i need one with deaths, kills, time until ressurection when you die, time until defender/commander spawns. Think you can make that too?

That would be an incredible big multiboard.. XD I personally don't like that, I've seen huge multiboards that cover at least a 1/4 of the screen... normally in AoS or Hero Arenas... I just close it and never open it again XD... I suggest a simple multiboard... or use the resources to check the kills/deads, about greedisgood and those cheats you can disable them (In the AoS I did I use a system that disables them)...

 

[Hemske]

Well, i myself only use the multiboard when i am at base, regeneratin my hp or buying items. So it doesnt bother me since i only watch it sometimes. And the multiboard wont be that hard, 12 rows. (10 for players, one that says what every column tells and one for defender/commander spawn).

 

[Tiaan]

Why do you admit that some of the heros that you made are boring and unoriginal? Why dont you remake/edit them to make them original and exciting?

 

[Hemske]

I wont change them until the map is, well "playable". Later on its most likely i'll change them, but not for now.

 

[Hemske]

*update*
-ice giant is now finished
-some minor things fixed/added/changed

 

[Swerd]

I'm not sure if i could make all those other things you want in the multiboard probably not because im not very good with them.But i know for sure i can make the kills/deaths XD

 

[Hemske]

Well, already got a temporary multiboard with that. But thanks anyways

 

[Hemske]

Sorry to you guys supporting me at this project and taking your time to help me. I have begun with the "upper secondary school" (not sure for the english word) and its taking up a lot more time for me than the regular school did. So i dont got time with my real life and studying and working on this... this project will be delayed until unkown time. Thanks for the support you guys at least (especially yeeshadow and danthan for all remarkable ideas ), and ill hope to finish this sometime in the future!