Making a more fair AoS...

:WD: ...Well, this is my map project for the year (and an impossible one at that)...I'm trying to make an aos that is completely fair, no cheats or codes, no biases about units, and heroes being ALL on a fair playing ground. Anyway, here is what I gathered from a couple different message boards, tell me what needs to be changed or added or removed...

-no tomes (it seems that agility heroes become the only hero you see nowadays, because of this reason)
-no lightning orbs (not being able to run away is very, very cruel and unfair)
-no godly items (again, pretty much just a rush for money with an agility character)
-fair heroes (on both teams...more below)

Anyway, about fair heroes, I plan to change attack and life and such of some heroes, but mostly just make more need for their spells. Of course, in dueling, a blademaster is gonna be better than a far seer, but the far seer is gonna be better at cloud control. For example, to make the Far Seer a decent hero (I notice no one uses him in aos's nowadays, and for good reasons), I would give his far sight a longer last, and wider area (this spell is used to spot like invisible heroes). I would also make his Feral Spirits much stronger, so that they aren't killed in 4 hits. Now, for the KotG, it's much easier. Pretty much all I'd do is make his treants stronger, and make his tranquility heal more life, quicker, and longer.

So, anything I missed? If you doubt that I can make a hero fair WITH ALL THEIR ORIGINAL SPELLS, then please list their name here, and I'll tell you how I plan to make them fair,and you can tell me if they are too strong, or too weak, or etc.

All help is appreciated.

ADVICE: make new heroes, don't use heroes from the game. If you don't want to spell edit, then just splice abilities, but i think its boring to play with the same old heroes.

One main thing that makes Valley of Dissent and Defense of the Ancients 1 and 2 kickass are its custom abilities. Valley is balanced because both sides get the same hero options. There are some other things that makes it not always fair...but the things to exploit are there for both sides.

emote_sweat Valley of Dissent? I've never heard of that one. Anyway, I too like Defence of the Ancients, except for that fact that not both sides have the same spells. Yeah, custom spells are cool, but they're are some units that are much stronger than others. Also, I'd edit DoA, but it's protected, and I've tried talking to Eul, but he's really very rude. So, I'm just updating old heroes and making them more fair, so using the same old spells is funner, because you know that your water element is gonna be a good force throughout the game, because no stupid tomes are gonna make them worthless.

i would personally suggest not using the sight spells (farsight, owl scout). They are largely useless in battle, and discourage people from using the character that has this skill (unless you gave it to the dh...)

Yeah, I might have to create 1 or 2 custom spells, but I'll try making the heroes good enough that 1 bad spell will be over weighed by the greatness of their other 2 or 3. So, the farseer might have far sight (which is bad), but I'll make his dog's much stronger, and perhaps make his chain lightning hit like 12 people. Also, I have a quick question.

-Alot of people complain about the BM's mirror image being too strong. I was thinking 1 of several possibilites.

#1. Make it so the images take even more damage, so that like 7 hits would kill it.

#2. Take the spell away altogether, and give him a different spell, maybe something like mana burn?

#3. Perhaps I could comehow make it so that the other people (being enemy heroes and such) could tell that the mirror image was a fake, but I could make it so that the computer troops still go after it, making it a halfway effective decoy.


So...what do you think?

Spell editting can do some nifty stuff though. Earthquake it mostly useless in AOS for example because it only slows units.. but...... If you change the number to 0 then you could have it completely stop everything in the area, or you could set it to higher than 100 and it would speed up stuff in the area :P

Well, you'd have a tough time modifying mirror image for #3, although you could use triggers to modify the transperency of the mirrors or something similar. However, that serves a null point, seeing as the aim of mirror image is to confuse the enemy. It won't be very useful if the onther person knows they're fake from the outset.

I'd probably go with option 1 and make the mirrors much more suspectable to damage, as option 2 would probably upset a number of folk who play bm solely for mirror. And besides, option 1 ties in with your theme of balance :ggani:.

~kharma

K, i think ill go with 1 then, so thanks on that. also, earthquake is meant for buildings, towers, etc., not really for units, although making all units stop would be....a little too cheap. I'm waiting for someone to say something like, "How are you going to make Death Pact and Dark Ritual decent spells"...

by taking them out and adding something new and more interesting...?

Thats good.


Also good. Dont forgot NO spell immun necklace also :-)


I give you a hint for items. You need to make the CHEAP items worth buying. Little example:
Ring +1 Armor = 100 Gold
Ring +2 Armor = 300 Gold
Ring +3 Armor = 600 Gold
Ring +4 Armor = 1200 Gold

Result? People will not save 5000 Gold for the first item and dont buy others (DotA, Valley, any other AoS). Its ALOT better then to buy first a inventory full of little items and improve em slowly.
Cause if your saving for the 7000 Gold Armor that gives 10 AR and +300 Hits.. the other can easy have +15 AR, +300 Hits and +30 Dmg with small items for 5k.
Also add the healpots like in Valley of Dissent. (small pot 1 use = 25 gold, small pot 2 use = 75 gold, ....)
so inv slots get also important

avoid making ANKHS cheaper than lots of heal and mana pots and add death penalty (-gold, -exp or -spawn time)


yeah thats important, hehe!
Little idea for you: avoid agility heroes. On my own I use 2 agility heroes, 1 for each team. 12 heroes together. The first is a high elvish blade dancer, the other an orcish assassin. Both are very special...


You need to make a cool new terrain and cool new heroes with unique stuff in, or save ur time and dont make the map. Nobody needs more "X's AoS" that nobody plays.

Interesting Bloodlust... I like your ideas. So, your saying, that you should be able to be able to achieve the same effects as a good item with smaller, more cheaper items...I like that. Also, to FrOgGe, I really wanna stay away from custom spells, because it's really hard to make your favorite unit and make him just as strong as your least favorite unit. So, what I want to do, is just make it so that all the spells have a purpose, and the ones that are too powerful...tone them down. As for ones where you sacrifice undead allied units to gain health/mana, here is what I was thinking...

K, so, we all know that since you make no units in an AoS, other than a hero and some mercs, it makes Death Pact and Dark Ritual worthless. Well, the soultion, is below.

What I'm going to do is make a Zombie merc. It will cost less than health potions, and do like no damage. No armor, no mana. It would have about 150 health. Why would you buy this 'worthless' unit fix your problems?

Well, for those 2 units, Death Knight and Lich, they could use this merc as the subject to their spells, and overall cut down on costs. This will prolly make both of them overly used, but I'll put little extras in for everyone. So...is this cheap?

I was also thinking of reducing the cooldown time on Animate Dead by 50%, because the animated units always seem to die so quickly.

Thoughts?

:WD: Ohh, I forget to mention, that perhaps it would be easier just to do the classic 3 rows, but about double in size so you don't get jammed. That way, I'm sure to know that there are no secret hiding spots where you can slink around, and it will pretty much be easier to make. I'd rather concentrate on unit balancing than one base being smaller than another, or 1 base having a tower that isn't even close to the action. :WD:

Also, I was thinking of adding a much needed system in the game. Getting towers blown up always sucks, and with people with earthquake, blizzard, and D&D attacking you, defences and bases fall very easily. I was thinking you could buy an orc peon, which could build towers. They, the towers, would cost quite a bit, but could be repaired and added defense. So, if one of your towers got destroyed, you could replace it with like 2 weaker towers, about 1200 each. The only reason I make them so expensive, is because you'll have 2 sources of income, towers and hero. So, because of this, I worry. Is building towers (weaker, think maybe like 800 health and 40-50 dmg each) not a bad idea?

Ooh, one more thing...where can I get Valley of Dissent? I've never played it before, so...yeah. It's not on this site, so is there a different site i can get it from?

why staying away from triggers? in this forum are 2 great tutorials and i can help u also if u have icq...
balancing - test games. DotA isnt THAT balanced. The Flamelord for example does 650 insta dmg on the whole screen (2 spells, 250 mana together) and stuff like this (-> and lycantrop life leech doesnt work in wolf form as well as storm spirit passive skill doesnt work)
btw: spell editing is UBER EASY after u did it a few times

towers are fine, but hard to balance..