Need some opinions.

[Rugarus]

So this was never an issue in the past since we had host bots (We had host bot admins for this game) As well as a database for bans. But now that; that is going to be gone.

In this game we have a rule that you cannot trap the main heroes with structures blocking them into an area/base until 18 minutes into the game.

There is teleport items you can buy but they are not ideal for your money buying them early (since there are many other items that you need first)

People respected these rules but there's no telling what will happen now with games being hosted by anyone and there not being any real admins in game to monitor these actives. So I need to develop a system to detect if the main hero's have become trapped or their escape route is blocked before that time period (18 minutes)

The game is vampirism fire. For those that don't know the game, it's a cat and mouse type game. Two vampires (Main hero's) 10 human players. The idea of the game is vampires attack bases to get gold and want to kill all humans. Humans want to further their base keep vampires out and eventually "smite them with end game towers"

This image is a normal scenario where vampires are attacking a base and there exit out is clear.
Screenshot - b250de51de558543710179f2d086477c - Gyazo

This image is the same scenario but the human the vampires were attacking decided to trap them inside.
Screenshot - 92c769bbe10a7971ebf175c578ea3a16 - Gyazo

Do you guys have any ideas how I can go about a good system to fix this issue? There is a teleport rod item in the game, but giving it to them for free really screws up a lot of stuff in the game and isn't exactly ideal. Basically I need to detect if they've been trapped by any objects blocking their exit and detonate them or refund them to the human player.

 

[Limitteditemeater]

I remember that one of the tds had a wisp that would move along a path and if it could not reach its target because of being blocked it would do something. Not sure if this could work in your situation but that could be a decent starting point.

 

[Rugarus]

I remember that one of the tds had a wisp that would move along a path and if it could not reach its target because of being blocked it would do something. Not sure if this could work in your situation but that could be a decent starting point.

How do you detect if it can't reach it's end point? Like if I could detect if a path is blocked that would make this easier I think.

 

[Limitteditemeater]

I think what you can do is give it a path and an invisible point it has to reach. If it reaches it the thing will kill it preventing the next trigger from working. Then after x amount of time if it has not reached the area x thing will happen to stop this from happening. To check that it has reached the area use a condition where it checks if it is alive. I'm not too sure if this will work with your design I think it might I can create something like this and try to test it out and see if it works.

 

[Rigborn]

Not sure if it would work but simply, I'd create regions for each base entrance. When heroes enter that region, make it unbuildable.

 

[Rugarus]

Thanks guys, I'll see if I can come up with something.

 

[The_Silent]

Give vampires a teleport to base item or ability that dissapears 18min into the game?

A more advanced option is a no-build aura around heros that is only active if they have been attacked the last 5 seconds or something?

 

[noob]

You could simply make the vampires leave a trail of blight in the first 18 minutes and have the blight prevent building?(would not prevent trapping the vampires in their base but you probably have placed some defenses on the base of the vampires?)
Also what was this rule for?
Is it that vampires are so frail they can get trapped and killed in the first 18 minutes?
I believed that one of the parts of a tag was to avoid being trapped.
And are vampires able to break trees early?

 

[Wrda]

The idea of the game is vampires attack bases to get gold and want to kill all humans. Humans want to further their base keep vampires out and eventually "smite them with end game towers"

No humans don't want to further their base, what they want is to kill the vampires using any means necessary.
Also I don't understand how is this an issue, blocking vampires was always a strategy to kill them, specially noob vampires. Destroying that strategy seems just to be noob-like.
Plus I question who has the entitlement to make even such a rule to map they didn't even make in first place. Neither the map maker made such rule and no system to counter it.
There is also another problem, will the author of the map even agree to let you change it?
But for this problem, there is really no good way to do this, only if blizzard made a new native something like IsPathBlocked...

 

[Rugarus]

No humans don't want to further their base, what they want is to kill the vampires using any means necessary.
Also I don't understand how is this an issue, blocking vampires was always a strategy to kill them, specially noob vampires. Destroying that strategy seems just to be noob-like.
Plus I question who has the entitlement to make even such a rule to map they didn't even make in first place. Neither the map maker made such rule and no system to counter it.
There is also another problem, will the author of the map even agree to let you change it?
But for this problem, there is really no good way to do this, only if blizzard made a new native something like IsPathBlocked...

The problem is if even two gold is leaked humans can build a structure called a "wall tower" which in theory could be built as early as 4-5 minutes if vampires leak any gold. In this version of Vampirism, vampires tend to leak as early as 2 minutes. Especially new players that don't know if leaking gold is bad or not. Vampires either need a tele rod to escape or items that they can't afford until around 8-12 minutes in a typical game. There's many more factors that make it harder for a vampire let alone being worried about being trapped which is why the rule was created.



And I'm the current developer at this time for Vampirism Fire.

You could simply make the vampires leave a trail of blight in the first 18 minutes and have the blight prevent building?(would not prevent trapping the vampires in their base but you probably have placed some defenses on the base of the vampires?)
Also what was this rule for?
Is it that vampires are so frail they can get trapped and killed in the first 18 minutes?
I believed that one of the parts of a tag was to avoid being trapped.
And are vampires able to break trees early?

The problem with blight is humans can see where the vampire is at all times even if he is invisible. But good idea though. I could perhaps create a trail of invisible units that prevent humans from building in those spots. This rule is because vampires already have enough issues to deal with in the game without being worried about being trapped. 18 minutes was agreed long ago because it's usually by then that buying a teleport rod and worrying about trapping is a minor threat compared to early on in the game. And no vamps can't break trees. The only way they can escape a structure trap is by killing the structure.

If you guys want an example of trapping in an extreme form you can take a look at this:

If you watch you can imagine how hard it is for vampires to escape when a skilled player traps them in. If we allowed traps before 18 minutes it's 10x harder for vampires to escape.

It's just I'd prefer to create a system rather than giving a teleport rod. Teleport rod is a strategy item in the game and giving it for free kinda removes part of the strategy involved in the game.

 

[Pyrogasm]

Checking for a being trapped has always been and will always be hard. Because there could be a very large circle that encloses the vampire. I know you mostly care about a small scale trap, but anything that detects small scale traps will inevitably find larger areas that are fully enclosed (if they don't hit the OP limit while finding them) and consider that to be a trap too. I think your best solution is to use some sort of a fast-moving unit to try to get out from where the vampire is (not ideal because it's not an instant check and could go awry) or use invisible buildings with a pathing map to block players from building directly on the vampires.

 

[Wrda]

And I'm the current developer at this time for Vampirism Fire.

I asked who was the author, not the developer.

The problem is if even two gold is leaked humans can build a structure called a "wall tower" which in theory could be built as early as 4-5 minutes if vampires leak any gold. In this version of Vampirism, vampires tend to leak as early as 2 minutes. Especially new players that don't know if leaking gold is bad or not. Vampires either need a tele rod to escape or items that they can't afford until around 8-12 minutes in a typical game.

People who don't play this vamp map don't know what the hell leaking gold is...mind elaborating?

18 minutes was agreed long ago because it's usually by then that buying a teleport rod and worrying about trapping is a minor threat compared to early on in the game.

Pretty sure no one is going to block vamps when they fired up with stats in mid-game unless they have walls that can keep up with the vamps DPS when building behind.

If you watch you can imagine how hard it is for vampires to escape when a skilled player traps them in. If we allowed traps before 18 minutes it's 10x harder for vampires to escape.

I also can imagine how hard it is for you to provide pro vamps and see them how they react. Really...are you serious? You showed us that most of the clips only contain noob vamps, they didn't even bother to destroy houses or clear their path, or check their back, they just COMPLETELY ignored the enemy, which is just pathetic. There was only one clip that vamps bothered about the block.
Now about your problem, I noticed that not just your builder but also the tower builder has 2 blinks. Which makes the blocking way too easy, there is just NO RISKS involved, which is just pretty lame. You can attempt to block all day and still don't have any risk and punishment. Also the tower builder has the undead building ability (summon building) which makes it even easier. You could try to experiment changing some of the fields: the towers building speed, tower builder's blinks, make him anything else than undead race. Anti-block system is just too complex and hard to do as already said, but also completely destroys that tactic.

 

[Rugarus]

I asked who was the author, not the developer.

People who don't play this vamp map don't know what the hell leaking gold is...mind elaborating?

Pretty sure no one is going to block vamps when they fired up with stats in mid-game unless they have walls that can keep up with the vamps DPS when building behind.


I also can imagine how hard it is for you to provide pro vamps and see them how they react. Really...are you serious? You showed us that most of the clips only contain noob vamps, they didn't even bother to destroy houses or clear their path, or check their back, they just COMPLETELY ignored the enemy, which is just pathetic. There was only one clip that vamps bothered about the block.
Now about your problem, I noticed that not just your builder but also the tower builder has 2 blinks. Which makes the blocking way too easy, there is just NO RISKS involved, which is just pretty lame. You can attempt to block all day and still don't have any risk and punishment. Also the tower builder has the undead building ability (summon building) which makes it even easier. You could try to experiment changing some of the fields: the towers building speed, tower builder's blinks, make him anything else than undead race. Anti-block system is just too complex and hard to do as already said, but also completely destroys that tactic.

I can't tell if you're just here to troll? You've provided absolutely 0 solutions to my problem. Please just leave.

Thank you to everyone else though.

 

[DaneTheBeast]

He actually did provide many solutions, changing the mechanics of the game to make it harder to do trapping while still keeping the other 99% of the game the same. Though by now you got quite a few good solutions for your problem, best of luck

 

[Rugarus]

He actually did provide many solutions, changing the mechanics of the game to make it harder to do trapping while still keeping the other 99% of the game the same. Though by now you got quite a few good solutions for your problem, best of luck

Ah well my bad I stopped reading his last post it seemed like kinda hate or trolley. It looks more professional imo to have the undead auto build. Changing the wall mechanics won't solve this issue if a player is determined to trap. You'd have to play the game to really understand what I mean. Anyway yeah I think I have some ideas from everyone's posts.

 

[Rigborn]

There are so many things to consider. What if they ensnared when you tp to your research center? And slayers love ensnaring. Like you said blight is kinda limiting vamps ability to rush early bases cause of wind walk. And people can build their research outside the center. Besides, they can only trap with houses, wall towers and walls right? You can add a "get out of jail free" spell in your art of darkness thingie and if a vamp clicks on it, when the trap conditions are met, give him either resistance or one shot opportunity to kill the buildings. Or when you cast that spell, destroy all the trap buildings.

 

[Wrda]

Changing the wall mechanics won't solve this issue if a player is determined to trap. You'd have to play the game to really understand what I mean.

My suggestions were never to "remove" trapping", but rather make it more difficult, because, judging from the gameplay you showed, it is clearly shown that humans have a large of different methods to block, and they all have no risk of dying. A Human's mindset in this map is something like this: "if my tower builder dies it's okay because I can just make another and don't need to worry about resources cost in no time with blink", "don't need the main builder to go risk going outside and trap vamp","it's pretty fast to build multiple towers at once","use slayers' ensnare to trap". It's too much, right? I understand why you made this thread and all, but doing anti-block system wouldn't be not only extremely hard to do specifically in this kind of map but also would discourage "punishing" vampires who make blunders or disregard awareness.

Ah well my bad I stopped reading his last post it seemed like kinda hate or trolley.

I don't know how you got to this conclusion but oh well, I always like to give criticism objectively, don't mistake me with haters or trolls, I have better things to do than being them, which would be wasting my time