Would this Map Interest you?

I have procrastinated a lot on this map and I feel right now might be a good time for me to stop procrastinating. What I would like to hear right now is some encouragement, because I feel like the community needs to hear my ideas and I want feedback.

My map will be a standard Aos with the following changes. I don't want to say Dota (OH NOES I DID!) but all the bad parts of it are considered and are fixed as part of the design. So don't go crazy when I say, This is like Dota. Dota is very much standard, mainly because every one knows it. So when you think of lanes, creeps, neutral creeps, heroes, and the objective of killing the enemy team thats what my map has.

Physically, the map is similar to Dota, except that there are now 5 lanes, and 2 outposts for each team one on each side. In the north east corner there is a mountain (with special creeps to match) and in the south west there is a forest.


Read these 10 paragraphs carefully, each is a sort of guideline or sort of feature my map will have. All but the first and fourth will be in the map. The two i excluded are going to be decided (by me, mostly) as the maps begins to take shape. Mainly because these are very new things, I have no frame of reference to judge how well it will work out.


1. Controls: Done with only the keyboard (I hope). The only thing not done with the keyboard is moving items around, but that is nearly impossible without the mouse.

2. Hero Design: I am making the heroes the most important part. Each will be unique, will be fun to play, will have synergy not only with the other spells it has but with most of the other heroes. I have a list of each spell and what type it should follow. Each will have a 100% unique ultimate and 1 spell which will move, disable or interact with units in ways that take a lot of aim and decision making. In addition each hero will have a 5th spell as a sort of extra choice, you can pick it or to enhance another spell to its most powerful/useful form. As well as obviously balance. Some of you may recall that I had ideas of an aos with 60 or more heroes and I have come to realize this to be a very large problem so expected a max of 20, maybe 10 or so as I begin to release the map and more if nessicary, and only if it will follows the guidelines I set. If a hero does not stand out it will be changed or removed.

3. Vehicles and Turrets: Nuff said :P

4. Customizable Bases: Basically you choose what buildings (defensive, production, resource or shop) you need. Thus you can also rebuild and repair all buildings.

5. Customizable Lane Creeps: You can pick which of the few categories of creeps you want to spawn. Say you want all ranged, or all melee, or all pilots(for vehicles) etc. Or if you want any combo of of the types. (These are not the only 4, but there will be less than 10)

6. Bad things removed: Snowball effect will be greatly reduced; no more feeders and all that. No more item dependency. And no more waiting for mana to regen hoping you will have 600 mana for that rediculus nuke. Mana capacity is small and mana regen is quick. This will hopefully add more skill to the mix and a lesser learning curve.

7. New item System: I did not want to abbandon items but I wanted them to be interesting and not just all stat changers. Each item will require some thought to use and will do something other than give you increased speed or life steal. As well all items require certain ingredients, not other items like in Dota but actual ingredients you obtain from neutral creeps, lane creeps, bosses, and heroes when they die. These ingredients will be stored as numbers that you can trade to other allies incase they need. The result is that killing bosses and heroes gives you real results for you hard work.

8. Revival System: If you've ever played 'Return to Castle Wolfenstein' then you will understand this. Basically you won't have to respawn now, you can wait for teammates to come and revive you, if the enemy doesn't get you first.

9. Realism: Though this is warcraft 3 I want the map to have touches of realism which should make the game more obvious, and thus a shorter learning curve. As well to be more interesting. I don't want to say much, but attributes now mean something, weight matters, and objects like rocks, trees and such make sense.

10. As I said before I wanted the game to have more skill thus this is the main approach. Above all else if at any moment a mindless drone of a 5 year old can play well then that part is bad. Every moment you will be challenged to think and act. With less item dependency and as well no snowball effect skill can take precedence over level or kills etc. Players who start the game good will still be good regardless of "late game heroes", items, leavers, or w/e.



I hope I did not bore anyone or make you read too much. Tell me what you think by filling out the poll and make a post explaining your answer. I want to see how every thinks, as I said I procrastinate and any help or encouragement would be perfect.

Thanks for your time, Salbrismind.

good luck with that

5 lanes
So what will happen in 2v2, 3v3 or if theres leavers?

Customizable Lane Creeps
Who determines this? Each player controls 1 lane, or anyone can change it at anytime?

No Buyable Items
You have to creep to acquire strong items? If so what will I spend my gold on, just weak items?

Fulla brings up an interesting point. The more sinks for resources you have, the better. This gives players more options and more ways they can play the map, at a cost in terms of learnability, granted, but it's not so bad. I think if you keep it to a reasonable level, you can find an optimal amount of 'things to buy' versus 'challenge to learn'.

Simply put the only reason a "feeder" exists is because most games with feeders allow players to gain strength with each kill. Either by gold and exp (dota) or by other means like items. My map will simply not have a high dependency on gold, exp, or items, thus feeders are ill relevant.




I really don't want to start brain storming every twist and turn as well I don't want to tell the public absolutely everything I have planned. But if you can't get over the fact that every thing I say is up for a bit of change...

1/2. Lanes will be controlled by one player. With 5 players each controls one lane basically the creeps. With less players a player can control multiple lanes of course. Unless in the future I decided otherwise this causes 2v2 to be awkward as one player would have to control maybe about 3 lanes. I could compensate by "shuting down" a few lanes like in dota and its various modes.

3. As stated, this is not Dota... Gold will not be something that you just throw around. I doubt you will even get it from heroes. That said items are also that way. In dota (and most games) strong items can be acquired by mass solo creeping and constant early game domination. But I hate these things, why play an aos to creep all game or save your money for some item that makes it so all you need to do is attack move?

Strong items still require a brain to use, and like wise they are powerful. Such things cannot be tossed around like some tinket, so the reasonable thing to do is to make it challenging to acquire them.



Gold isn't that important, neither is items, thus a player's focus isn't there. Unlike Dota or such players won't be over taxed with learning the perfect items to buy, items are more of an addition to the effectiveness to a character.



All that being said, any things that seem wrong in some way (and i'm sure someone will find more) ignore it, truely. If this thread turns good results I will make the map submission with full detail on the entire map, then would be the best time to question every component. But understand this is all ideas before results, things might turn around completely different.


So, what do you like?

Stop convincing yourself that the root of the item focus in DotA is the gold, it isn't. Items are important whether you want them to be or not. They add a dimension of variety to a character. You can pick the same hero in multiple games and buy different stuff for it each time, making it feel like a different experience or whatnot. You just need to be careful in development to design items that are equal in value, that way which you pick depends on your metagame.

In addition, gold should be very important, that's the whole reason it exists. If you remove the gold dependency, you might as well remove gold altogether and replace it with something that does get used somehow.

Right, but items don't have to influence the game as heavily as Dota. The last thing i want is for people to again concentrate and money like Dota. Half the battle in the game is about controlling the strength of your team versus the enemy: If someone is farming you need to stop them, you need to constantly deny to make sure they don't get that exp or possibly the gold, etc.

I want items to be about decision making not the best combos or w/e.

Gold is the focus in a hero vs hero game? I know gold and levels are the center of all rpg's and such so far, but its time for that to change. This causes the worst of all problems, snow ball effect. This masks what could be difference in skill and makes people worse or better based on how they gather money and what items they choose.

Please I will ignore any other comments like this, I want this thread to be about my map not about your opinion on Aos design concepts.

It seems to me like this whole thread is "Let's see how many dota-opposite features I can try to cram into an AoS!"

95% of this stuff you're proposing? Garbage. Won't work. It'll turn gameplay to crap for the sake of anti-snowballing anti-gold anti-playing anti-items anti-game ending.

And vehicles? Really? Not needed. Not even close.
EDIT: I'll break it down part-by-part in a minute.

Instant fail. Keyboard controls are clunky and slow. Plus, they'll be a serious pain in the ass (if I'm understanding what "Done with only the keyboard" means)

Like Litany said; everyone says this, and almost nobody ever delivers.

Not needed at all. Complete fluff, and almost a stupid idea. The idea of my hero driving in a vehicle or manning a turret is stupid. Especially in an AoS where the whole point is to move your hero in and out of combat and get some kills.

Cool, so I can just make a crapload of defense and repair/rebuild indefinitely?

Not sure how well this will work, but it's been done before. And it looks like balance is going to be a serious pain in the ass.

Feeders will happen. (How can it not? Are you going to stop players from killing each other all together?)
Item dependency? What? Items are a big AoS feature. They shouldn't act like DotA items, no, but don't downgrade the significance of the items. And mana regen is a form of balance. You can either cast a bunch of other spells, or save up for the big one. It's all about strategy. And allowing people to cast spells at a whim's notice (end of the cooldown) just promotes spell spamming.

Sounds wayyyy too complicated for an AoS. Like, really. That's something you'd want from an RPG, not an AoS.

Oh god. So, it sounds to me like there can be some instant revivals. And what happens if an enemy gets you first?

Yeah... that would make the game harder to learn. Plus, nobody really cares about realism. Especially in an AoS.

I won't even comment on #10 (nothing to really say)

Good luck anyways.

Other than experience gain, how do you develop your hero (Or anything else in the map for that matter) in a hero based map without other resources?
Your map is a result of your design decisions in developing it, all of which I find misplaced, senseless, random, and ultimately showing that you've no sense of direction in how to develop any map, much less this one. Refer to Litany's post for the reasons why.

Before you respond to what I just said angrily, consider the ultimate goal of any game ever made -- to have fun. All of your self-proclaimed features you think would be fun, but rather will make your map a bunch of random crap thrown together like so many other maps before it. You need to have a damned good reason for everything you put into a map; if there isn't a good reason, it shouldn't be there. Period. And no, because you hate the way DotA does it is not a good reason.

You lost me at 5 lanes. Why whould anyone wanna make a map with 5 lanes?


Why? Why would anyone wanna control their heroes with they keyboard? How do you target spells? How do i choose wich to attack? How do i even do anything?


You want make all the heroes unique. Not a chance. Why would any spell take aim and decision to cast? And how the hell am i going to aim a spell with the keyboard? And dident you say that the heroes will reg mana like jesus, so why wouldent i just spam the spells on the enemy hero?


Like catapults and towers?


So when the hell will the game really end? To me it sounds like this game will go on forever.


And why would anyone wanna spawn only ranged? People will just use only meele until their heroes can take on all the creeps, then they will spawn only pilots to get vehicles (wich i quess are like catapults) to push faster.


Mostly people feed because they other player is better then him. I dont really get how it can be less item dependency? You got a low mana pool, therefor you wanna buy items that give you a high mana pool. And wouldent this mean that heroes that have good nuke spells will dominate early games like hell?


So how are my team mates going to stop the enemy from coming first in early games? I mean i am alone on my lane, and the enemy are like 600 range away from me. How are my team mates on the other lanes going to get first? And what happens if i chase an enemy behind his towers and to 1 of their main base. Then his mates comes and kills me. Do i then have to wait for my team mates to revive to play again?

The last thing i have to say is, Think again.

Edit : Forgot, this map would not interest me!

Not interested.

I beg to differ, there were fun maps without the snowball effect, granted they weren't in the AoS genre, but it's unclear from your statement whether it's limited to maps of this genre or not.

Well the snowball effect is generally in any game with Heroes, or where you can levelup becoming stronger than opponents.

If the game ends quickly once one team has a strong advantage then atleast IMO the snowball effect is perfectly fine.
Just like in your average ladder game, the game can easily be wrapped up within 5 min if you dominate someone.

In Dota thou, it tends to really really drag out, where you know you've lost but get stuck in limbo.
Enemies become to strong for you to kill yet at the same time they cant quite finish you off just yet. It really kills the gameplay.

People, the winter is over, summer's coming. I prupose we all stop talking about snowballs.

Bad pun, I know. Its just that I have heard the term "snowball" so many times in this community that it sickens me. It's a ghostly concept thought up by people like me who like to overanalyse and theorycraft any possible scenario. If I where some random kid playing a new map, would I be interested in this "snowball" thing? No, I would just want to destroy stuff with a cool looking character.

Not to mention that some people seem to consider "snowballing" as anything which rewards you for being more skilled than the opponent.

Being rewarded for superior skill is what makes games fun. Which is why "anti-snowballing" sometimes removes the entire element of fun from a game.

On the other hand, when the snowballing effect is too great, it is disappointing since you have no fair fights left to test your uber hero against.

That's the truth of it, man. Even as a veteran player to any map, I ultimately still play to absolutely destroy everyone. That's just where it is, and that's what keeps me coming back to a map. It's overcoming ridiculous opposition in larger than life ways that make things so much fun for me. I try to develop all of my maps around such epic shit because quite frankly, that's why I log onto BNet at all.