Theorycraft: Full stand-alone AoS game.

Mainly i'm verry curious about peoples vieuw on this subject; how could AoS gameplay be best translated into a fully developped stand-alone title.

A main thing that you have to keep in mind in this is that you can basically redesign everything, so it gets you thinking about what exactly is an AoS, and what could you do to preserve that gameplay in something bigger then just one wc3/sc map.

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The way i see AoS if you look beyond wc3 (big thanks to talks with vig0r on this subject, btw) is basically an MMORPG lite. There are a lot of simulairities there, you pick a hero/character, level it up, get epic loots-- the big diffrence is that with an AoS you do it in roughly an hour, where in an MMORPG you do it in months or even years.

I also think this is its strength; the fact that you start each match anew. Each match you have to rebuild your character, wich allows you to try out more diffrent things.

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Now back to translating it. The biggest objective i think is to keep it action-driven. In a stand-alone title i think i'd go for a third-person setup with an actual aiming system etc, in other words you'd have to "click" to attack, and actually aim that attack at something. Line spells would work the same way, AoE spells would still use the classic AoE indicator style of casting. This would make the action somewhat more fast paced and would probubly keep things a little more interesting in the long run. Imagine for example a character with a shield where you can manually raise the shield for more protection, or even bouncing spells back.

The con of such a setup however is that its a bit harder to handle summons and/or mercinaries.

Another big dilemma that you'll face is the choice between using characters and heros. Characters meaning more per-determained heros that have a more limited set of abilities, but those abilities fit extremely well within its story and background. Heroes would mean that you have more freedom in how to build it, possubly introducing tech-trees for spells and the likes.

In the single player i'd like to see one big story-arch for each "side" that involves all the diffrent heros/characters. As you progress through this story you'd come across more heros/characters, wich then in turn can be used to play the multiplayer maps.

http://www.demigodthegame.com/

Standalone AoS.

So I guess we'll see :P

Ok, I'll give a brief overview.
I guess I'd imagine it sort of a FPS mixed with a MMORPG.

It would work like an FPS in terms of how games are setup, you can just host/create games & ppl join.
The host can start the game when its full enough, perhaps ppl can still join halfway, if host/game settings allow it with starting at an appropiate level.

Ofcourse Dedicated servers could be setup, where they just cycle through games, starting when sufficient ppl's join & creating a fresh one ends.

One of the key things, would be to allow alot more ppl than say Dota does. Such as 64 vs 64 if maxed out. Imagine a non stop WoW Raiding game, but spread into lanes with troops/fodder by your side.

There would be multiple maps to pick/play from. Each with different styles/gameplay & perhaps even a few special bonuses/alternative objectives, but I'd prefer it was kept simple.

The camera/fighting style would be like WoW, perhaps with a little bit more skill required such as Unreal Tournament style shooting/aiming.
A cool spell system I'd imagine would need to be invented/incorporated.

Leveling/Leaning/Purchasing largely same as AoS/Dota.
Heroes + Ability systems should be very simple, same goes for items.

For singleplayer I'd just imagine similiar to Unreal Tournament to just follow a simple storyline playing a few games across different maps, with different teams.
Would mainly be for training you up thou.

For storyline I'd really have to think about that, I'm sure others can give much better input.
Thats about it for now.

The first thing I ask myself in this situation is, what would the interface be like.

The interface is one of the most limiting factors in WC3, whether you like it or not you can't dramaticaly change the way the player controls the game, so the first thing that comes to my mind when going into a stand-alone environment is, what kind of an interface should such a gametype have now that I can make anything.

AoS maps are often compared with FPS games; you have a similar one-player-one-guy-in-a-team-vs-team situation, you could argue that summons go against that but they're just one of many spell types that were present in WC3 and thus adopted by the genre, you could do without them just as well. Anyway, the parallels with FPS games are obvious, but does that mean an AoS should have a first person view? Seems like an odd idea, but maybe that's only because we're used to the third person view? Or does what we're used to already define what the game should be like?

Anyway, there are games out there where you control a single character yet have the more WC3-ish top-down view and mouse controls: many RPGs are like that, though a more fitting example than a regular RPG would be a hack&slash "RPG" like Diablo. It seems like Diablo's interface would be quite fitting for a game based on the AoS map genre and is my personal choice at the moment, the only dilemmas left are if we should keep a minimap and if screen scrolling should be allowed.

Another difference between a WC3 map and a stand alone game is that the latter can, and usualy does, have more maps. Continuing with the FPS analogy, FPS games usualy have quite a lot of diverse maps. In an AoS, however, it seems like the diversity of maps is limited by the necessity to facilitate the whole bases&spawnies setup (but perhaps you could get mnore diversity by changing these). You could make levels without spawnies and bases but that would be a different game type, not AoS but hero arena.

That doesn't mean, however, that we can't have that. FPS games too have different modes, like deathmatch and CTF. If you find the whole spell and item combat a more important aspect of AoS gameplay than spawnies and bases, then a hero arena mode and possibly others are something to consider.

One of the biggest issues with a third person view is going to be how you actually aim the skills/spells. With a third person view, AoE spells are much more difficult to aim, because of the scaling of distance as the land moves away from you. That being said, I think a third person view is THE way to go. Battles become much more engaging, and overall the experience is more... exciting. Third person is what makes hack and slash fun.

Since this is an AoS, we can keep a more singularly oriented control scheme. WASD for movement gives us forward, backward and strafe. Moving the mouse adjusts the camera (moving the mouse to the left turns both your view and your character to the left, up and down tilts the angle slightly. Left click gives us attack (possibly you could double click for a special attack, like a spin that pushes nearby enemies away slightly). Right click would be sprint - hold the right mouse button and move forward and your speed increase considerably, but you lose the ability to turn as sharply (very useful for getting back to the action, or for running away).

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Spells, then, would need to be displayed and selected in a way not requiring the mouse. So, assuming we don't have incredibly large amounts of spells (such as WoW), we could line them up in two columns, categorized by 'spells cast by left click' and 'spells cast by right click'. We would then have a sort of scroll bar which scrolled up and down the pairs, selecting which set we were on.


As for how to actually cast the spells, the player would hold shift. When this happens:

• The selected spells would glow really bright and emit cool particles :p
• A left click would cast the selected left skill, a right click would cast the right skill

Now, some skills would need to be targeted on the ground (such as a meteor storm). When the button is clicked for meteor storm (lets say it's shift + left click), a targeting circle would appear, and hero and camera movement would be disabled (except for zooming in and out with the mouse wheel). The camera would pan up to a more bird's eye view. A left click would cast the skill in the selected area (chosen by moving the mouse). A right click would activate the right skill (assuming that we wouldn't be stupid enough to put two AoE targeted skills right next to each other, the right click skill would activate immediately, without disrupting the casting of the left click skill). To stop targeting the AoE skill, the player would simply let go of the shift button, and the spell icons would stop glowing, the camera would pan back to where it was when the AoE started, and camera movement would be re-enabled.

Or, alternatively, the shift key could disable movement and camera movement, and would pan up to a bird's eye view, and a targeting image would appear. Then, left or right clicking would target the spell you used toward where ever the targeting image was. This removes the need for the player to click to activate AoE mode, and then click again to target the spell, but means that skills can't be used while moving (where as before, only AoE spells couldn't be used while moving). While I think this is a better design, it doesn't allow for some of the more battle oriented skills (a dash/slice in whatever direction the camera is facing, for instance - great for chasing).

Perhaps a compromise - the caster (intelligence) based heroes (with aimed projectile skills, and targeted AoE's) get the second setup, whereas the battle heroes (agility or strength) get the first setup (because they wouldn't be casting targeted skills - everything would either be around them or in front of them or in the facing of the camera).

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I think it's important to cover the topic of items. How do we incorporate them? Do we incorporate them? A big issue with items is that if they are too complex, they take away from the action of a game severely. You spend time out of combat, reading up on how to best make your character moer uber. Not to mention the snowball effect that having great equipment creates. So here's my solution - items are only activatable (potions, runes, etc.). They would have effect like 'Your character deals X more damage for Y seconds', or 'For the next X seconds, you gain Y life every time you successfully land an attack'. But how do we display them then? A side bar on the left? I think we make a scrollbar at the bottom that stretches all the way across to the sides.
It simply displays all the possible potions/runes you can have. If you have at least one of the item, it has a number - 'x1' or 'x2', etc. which displays how many you have. If you don't have the item, its icon is grayed out. To scroll through the items, you would use Q and E (left and right). The selected item would grow to twice its original size, and get a glowing border. A text box would show the item's name, and what it does. If you actually have the item, the text box also displays 'Press Spacebar to Use'. I think the spacebar is the way to go here, because it's so big that you can arrange your hand however you want. If the item is to the left of the center of the screen, the text box would display to its right, if the item is on the right, the text box displays to its left.

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That's about all I've got to say for now.

Aiming system is always a bad idea.
The right choice is to make abilities more important than physical attacks.
This has to be equally true for both caster and fighter hero types.

The main goal of this is to prevent situation where an overpowered agility hero can triple kill some casters just by passively standing near them and auto-attacking.

The way to accomplish this is to make a game without passive abilities.
So no more heroes with crazy damage, magic immunity and 60% vampiric aura.
If you want to make a hero that uses vampiric, make it a vampiric frenzy ability that gives you some life steal and bonus damage for 20 sec and CAN be dispelled.

Also no more items like this:
* 30% evasion, 100 AGI
* 50% vampiric, 100 STR
and similar stupidities...

And no auras, ever.
Auras are lame in 2 ways, they are passive skills and they are AOE.

Instead of say devotion aura better use Area Defence Bonus spell.

DIDYOUKNOWTHAT:
- silence prevents units from using spell.
- banishing prevents units from using physical abilities.
- An AoS with this preconditions has already been made, it only hides in hero defence genre out of pure resentment for dota.

God I hate these topics. In all reality, though, I have only one contribution that I want to make to this topic; Dynasty Warriors.

i like John O'Callaghan feat. Audrey Gallagher - Big Sky (Agnelli & Nelson Remix) <3
+1

you wouldn't play FPS-AoS or at least to first solid MP game with some skilled FPS gamers xD. WoW like AoS is possible... but the view range would be essential. and also the synchronisation method is important. and how can it be played ? on dedicated server or hosted like D2 (or war3) ?

cohadar someone is anal fucking you in dota ? =O
the really bad thing ballance wise is passive stun (bash) it's really an imba.

and in fact every one has own taste. so it makes hard to find some "solution"

cohadar, how is what you just said related specifically to this topic, rather than being a rant about AoS maps in general?

I am not obliged to find the topic links for you just because you don't see them.

Well my first impression is that game is just another dota clone.

It has same awful item/recipe system,
same terrain design(creep attack pathing)
same spell philosophy...

The only thing that makes it different is that it has all heroes skinned as some anime characters witch adds nothing to the gameplay but adds 3MB to map size.

Really Dusk I expected better from you.

never expect something from someone ^^

// it's special made so to attract Dota players...

Umm I don't know what the fuck you're talking about...but it sounds like you're referring to a warcraft 3 map, Dynasty Warriors is a standalone game for the consoles and isn't anything even close to DotA

Uh... What the hell? Please, if you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, it's generally better to not say anything at all.

Deleted some spam and off-topic positngs; let's keep this on topic guys, thank you.

C&C Renegade's multiplayer was pretty similar to AoSes, albeit without the mindless CPU spawns. Anyway, there are several ways you can go with the interface, and they'll have a big impact on how you design it - third person, first person, or top-down? Each one will lead on to (or be lead onto) by different styles of gameplay.

The way I invision a stand alone AoS is as more of an RPG then an FPS style game. Over a large RPG style map area there would be various towns and cities, owned by one of 3 (or any number) of factions (each will be unique). The leaders of these factions* can direct their armies to siege the enemies towns. However you cant siege just any town, on the map would be a coloured line representing the boarders of each faction's territory. Sieged towns must be within a certain distance of this line to be attacked. The winner of the battle will of course retain or gain control of the contested settlement.

To prevent one faction being crushed from the others there would be a bonus for defending closer in, so as they crush through your outer towns it will become increasingly hard as they will fight harder spawns, and towers etc.

When you join the siege of a town (either by exploring your way to it, or by electing to travel to it by convoy or double clicking on the town on the map) you would join an AoS battle. Depending on the size of the town/city that is being sieged and the terrain around it determines the number of lanes, lanes do not have to be even, as this is just where the spawns will run down. For example a super fortified city situated on a rock plateau would be able to spawn 5 lanes, but the attacker may be limited to just 2 due to the rocky terrain. The attackers would experience a rush down their lanes and from the sides.

The attacker would be able to field special unit such as catapults or tunneling teams depending on the mini scenario that is selected. A few mini scenarios that i imagined are;

- 'destroy the statue', The attacker is given a couple of catapults which can be manned by players in an attempt to destroy a statue of an enemy king. If destroyed the attacking army would receive a buff, and the defenders would take a moral drop.
- 'ambush', before the game starts the attackers can maneuver their forces into position to take various special points around the map to gain buffs at the start of the game (buff ggodness increases as the risk of capturing the point increases). However if a gaurd spots them then they suddenly get attacked by a double spawn from the defender. The attacker can elect to start the battle normaly to receive no bonuses, and also no double spawn from the defender.
- 'Tunnelers', The soil in the area is perfect for tunneling, a tunnel team can, if well protected, move into position to tunnel under the walls of the town, and directly into a cellar, or just inside the walls. Protect the team for a duration to receive a bonus lane. Enemies will try cave in the tunnel using rocks and watnot, and also rush the tunnel entrance.

You get the picture.

I have mentioned a couple of times the attacker doing stuff, this is actualy a commander of the attacking army, or a vote. The commander is the highest reputation player at the battle. Reputation depends on level, kills and wins in battles, etc. That player can elect to pass on the honour, and it will go to the second etc etc.


So THAT is how i would have the game
It would have a generic setup interface, 1-0 quick bar of spells, left click action (for moving and selecting, and some spells), right click move camera, scroll for view distance, quick bar of spells at the bottom of the screen, I to open your inventory, so you can put items on your quick bar, or equip them (its not necessary to have a bar, as equipped stuff is equipped...). It would be 3rd peson, as 1st person rpgs are tacky.
space bar is action (for attacking and spells), click to select target, tab to scroll targets.
But realy, interface is just a small detail i think.

ITEMS; some of you said stuff about them, and i want to add that during the battle only pots and 1 use items can be bought, with the exception of the defender, which of course has a whole town to buy from. Armor and swords would be bought and equip prebattle, so none of this running back and forth for items, that would never happen in a REAL battle...


* For the first few months of the game relese these could be controled by staff members or NPCs, but after that their would be elections weekly/monthly to choose faction leaders. It would be expensive to enroll, and you would have to be in the top ~50 of your race. Players who vote would have to be of a certain level. Clans can only be represented once in the election, so a whole clan cant enroll to make sure that they win.

EDIT: i didnt realy talk about the importance of clans, they would be called somethign appropriatley medieval armyish.
Also you can join a party of up to 20 people, this is called a 'regiment', regiments can then join together (up to 10 of them) to form a 'battalion'. Leaders of each of the individual regiments can speak enmass to the whole battalion, to give orders and whateva.