King's Rule - 12 Player MOBA - Macro/Micro

[SpoopyShade]

I had an idea that I'm still working the details out for. Essentially just like any moba you'll have 5v5 heroes doing battle in lanes with minions and a jungle. The 6th player on each team is the king and will not be in control of a hero unit, but instead will have control over research and development. Items/Towers/Minions/Skills, all of these will to some degree be up to the king. As he researches through tech trees and is provided assistance from his team in either resource donations, or through their completing random events throughout the map, (dragon has infested the trade route etc..) different skills will be available to the heroes, items will unlock in shops, and the appearance of towers and minions along with their attributes and abilities will all evolve. This will help to keep each game unique and even heroes who are pending a nerf or buff may excel or suffer at the hands of a king who isn't familiar with the tech trees. I'm looking for people to help me get this map up and running and to help test. I'm new to the entire editor system but it seems doable and with the community you guys have, I'm looking forward to it.

 

[SpoopyShade]

Kings could either be selected at the game lobby screen, or by a small 45 second quiz at the beginning of the round to show who answered strategic tech tree questions fastest and correctly, and then a vote would occur so players could still choose an alternative king.

 

[disruptive_]

Such options in good AoS/MOBA are always present to some degree (ie. the glyph/scan in dota2; the EotA wc3 map also has plenty of this strategic macro depth), so you are actually suggesting to centralize the strategic duty unto one dedicated player, while the others just submit and play the regular hero game. To my knowledge, this game feature is indeed new in the wc3 Aos/MOBA department.

I don't know if this would work tho, but as a stepping stone the gameplay of the kingplayer should have plenty of roles or a decent variety of things to be done (because clicking on upgrades is surely not enough).

I like the idea (that is implicit in your post) that the king helps with somewhat scarce but global effects, while the other players, as addition to fighting the lane game, can do meaningful actions so these kingdude effects can be accessible or become upgraded, in a mutually benefactory relation (ie. the king can only use reinforcement type abilities -to help lanes and in team fights- if certain building is captured or controlled). In conclusion, i think kings should have some kind of abilities on their own (another example, the game don't have wards but is task of the king to unlock and properly use an ability, let's say "Spies", so the team can have vision), that follow the limited but meaningful profile.

I also think that the king player has to do something on the dead time, while the other players are farming or doing maintenance stuff. I can only think of base building at the moment, but i think (i don't know why) it is a terrible idea. Maybe, just like you said, the king player is answering questions or permanently drafting resources. Like every X seconds the king is offered Y options and has to choose in a fast paced dynamic between those, ie. 1. team gains +30 gold, or 2. towers recieve 1 armor, or 3. lane minions now have another model (if i would develop such a system i will surely add some neutral gameplay-wise options, so kings can also mess things up) or 4. ally heros lose permanently 10 intelligence but you gain 1000 gold. Maybe even follow some reality references, like a democracy/tyranny-related offer path, etc.

 

[SpoopyShade]

While I agree there should be some more things for the king to do, I like your spy idea for example, I think the level to which the tech trees affect one another is greater than i originally portrayed. I simple sword with magic damage and medium damage may take the first 5 minutes of the game to get to as you research ways to increase income, metal working, enchanting, and mysticism. Weapons being unlocked is all a mystery and the community to some degree will have to work together to discover what items can be achieved at what rate through what research ever optimizing builds and research patters. This makes figuring out the meta more than a 24 hour endeavor as in most games. I do like the idea of a karma like system to be implemented. a pop up appears and asks the king to choose between 3 things, one being good good, one being good bad, and the other being bad bad, if the king continuously chooses good good, the good effects become less and less and eventually are removed, the bad effects even in the good bad will become extremely bad and will ultimately cripple certain aspects of the game.