[Altered Melee] looking for opinions on map functions

[Cheshire]

Hey there,

I'm creating a pirate themed altered melee. I had some Ideas for functions on the map but wasn't sure if they sound like a fun change-up, or just disruptive for gameplay and annoying.

roving creeps - creeps that act more natural and move around the map by themselves (or sharks that appear and attack when there is blood in the water).

whirlpool that sucks in ships harder the closer they get, and damages them when they are in the middle...

these functions on one hand sound kind of cool, but on the other hand sound like it would be annoying to lose a ship full of units to some random PvE stuff you weren't expecting to bump into while being focused on fighting the enemies...

any opinions would be welcome, and if you have experience playing melee, all the more so. thanks!

 

[cleavinghammer]

I think they could be fun, but maybe have an option to disable them at the start, and/or make them easy to avoid (e.g. the whirlpool has plenty of space to go around, sharks only appear if the wounded units stay unhealed for too long instead of immediately).

Sharks showing up to attack wounded units should be temporary rather than accumulating until there's a huge mass of sharks that can't be attacked without spawning more sharks.

 

[Cheshire]

thanks!

another thing I would like to hear opinions on - the way you get items in this map is by using a treasure map and digging where the treasure is.

without going into how that system works - the end is that once you cast the "dig" ability where the treasure is - you get it. should I have all the worker units have the dig ability (downside - you don't really want to have to run a worker around the map with you...), or should I have each hero start off with a "shovel" item that can dig (downside - takes up inventory slot) ?

thanks!

 

[cleavinghammer]

Putting in both sounds like a good idea.

Don't want to babysit the worker -> get the shovel
Don't want to lose an inventory slot -> have a worker around

Maybe give the worker unit inventory.

 

[Knight of Arsford]

How about giving the hero the 'dig' ability? This is assuming that you don't plan on making use of all the ability slots and sticking with the 4 abilities like in most melees.

The shovel item doesn't seem to be that much of a hassle. You can literally just drop it off a safe place when you need that inventory slot, and pick it up when you want to find an item again.

The roving creeps could be fun. I'm imagining native islanders trying to keep you off their territory, or neutral hostile pirates who wish to get to the treasure first.

You could have the whirlpool appear and disappear in different points of the sea. If the "whirlpool" is a unit, it's just a matter of checking whether a ship is within its range, and you can easily move it at a different spot if needed be, just to shake things up.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Creeps: If they move around, keep them away from start locations, neutral buildings (or at least not taverns and fountains) and expansions. However, you could have other objectives that are regularly attacked by creeps to take them back, or chokepoints and areas that players will very likely move through (keeping at least one path clear if the player would rather avoid them).

Maybe some kind of mercenary mechanic where you pay the creeps to leave an area, or guard a specific spot, or even be neutral to you for a set time.