VoD2 - Improved AoS/DotA

Along with a small team, I am currently working on an AoS that has been in development for quite some time, and whose declared intention is to be the "new" DotA. However: Whether people could ever be persuaded to switch to a new AoS is not the topic of this post.

This post is about how VoD2 will be - what makes it different and better? The ideas here are the result of months upon months of discussions with my fellow map-makers as well as much personal experience as a DotA:AS player on a "semi-serious" level.


Part 1 - New skill system

Problem: In DotA, all skills (except ultimates) follow the exact same pattern and can be maxed out by the time you reach level 7.

This is why int-heroes are considered good early-game; they reach their potential quickly. Combat heroes on the other hand generally benefit from every new level they gain, increasing their hitpoints and damage output throughout the game.

This skill-system ruins the true potential of an AoS. Every single skill can be leveled at the exact same speed and thus every skill has to be similar in power to every other skill. That is why you have 20 nukes that deal almost the exact same damage. Just imagine all the possibilities lost!

Improvement: Every single ability has it's own progression that suits the ability. Most abilities will have levels that range from "very early game" to "mid game" to "late game". The cost to learn each new level will be hand-tailored to fit perfectly. This gives all sorts of possibilities. There can be abilities that are intentionally better early or late-game, expensive and powerful ones, those that are cheap but less devastating and so forth. A custom levelling system removes the artificial boundaries imposed by the unsuitable War3 system.

It will work in a very simple way: Heroes gain an amount of Crystals for each level of experience. This crystal can then be spent on abilities. To avoid "pooling" all crystals into making one ability too powerful too soon, there will also be level requirements for each level of each ability.

Part 2 - New economy

If you have a team of equally skilled players, with heroes of equal potential, the team that gains more xp and gold throughout the game will likely win.

This is good. It basically says that those that play better during the game will gain an economic advantage which in turn will give them the victory. Thus by "economy", I am talking about gold and experience.

Economic disadvantaged teams may still win - they may have heroes that finally reach their potential or pull off some great play - but in the end, the economy becomes the major factor.

The problem is that DotA's Economy is flawed. Players are often rewarded for the wrong things, or punished in an unfair way.

Last Hit Flaw: Only the person that kills the hero gains gold, and any other hero involved gets nothing apart from minor experience.
Solution: Calculate each hero's influence on the kill, and split the reward among those involved.

Death Penalty: Getting killed both rewards the enemy and severely punish the victim both in time and money. Taken together this becomes too much.
Solution: Reward the killer(s) with money and punish the victim with a revival time only.

Last Hit Flaw #2: Only the last hit on enemy creeps yield gold. Newbies have no idea how insane amounts of gold a good player really earns with extreme last-hit skills and understands nothing when they are owned by someone with much better equipment than themselves.
Solution: Last-hit farming is replaced with other ways to earn money, as described below.

Farming Is Boring: In DotA, the absolutely most efficient way to become powerful is to play defensively and farm gold like you have the goldfever. Ganking heroes, while often successful and fun, yields limited money - spend too much time trying to kill heroes (or running back home with 10% hp after a failed attempt) and you fall behind on both gold and xp.
Solution: Replace farming with economic gameplay elements that are more fun, as described below.

Denying Is Stupid: Since when did it make sense to kill your fellow soldiers to deny your enemy experience and gold? It is amazingly silly. And when you have 3-4 skilled players trying to deny/kill every single creep, it becomes pure random who actually gets each kill, yet everyone is forced to do it because if they don't, the enemy will.
Solution: Killing your allies counts as if they were killed by an enemy. The entire need for denying disappears in any case due to the following section:

Economic Change #1 - Sensible Gold Collection

In VoD2, the Gods are watching the battle and having a great time. It's their entertainment. To reward the players for providing this entertainment, each killed creature is dissolved into tiny pieces of gold that spread out to nearby heroes. It is shared among players like this:

Each hero that manages to be within close ranged of the killed unit within the next 2 seconds will get a share. The player will see a sparkling source of gold where the creature just died, and has to walk close to enough to it. After the two second period, any hero that was within range will get a share of the gold. For example: Two heroes walk up to a dead creep that gives 100 gold, and after 2 seconds both of them receive 50 gold each.

Heroes can even gain gold from visiting the bodies of their allies' creeps, although they only get 25% of the normal amount. This reduces, slightly, the gold the enemy gets. 2 Enemies and 2 allies visiting a dead creep that gives 100 gold will share 75 gold among the enemies, and 25 gold among the allies.

The main reason for this kind of gold distribution is to allow heroes of all kinds to earn gold, regardless of whether they have good offensive capabilities that can get the last hit on a creature or not. It simply gives more freedom in hero-design. It is also much more friendly to beginners to say the least.

Because this system rewards heroes that can stay inside the very heat of battle, any hero that can force another hero to retreat will gain more gold. Although ranged heroes certainly are good at driving the enemy away, the 2 second time each hero has to collect gold should give good opportunities also for melee units to gain gold. Likewise, ranged heroes can't stay in the safety far behind their own creeps - they are forced to move forward to earn anything. What used to be denying kills in DotA becomes denying position in VoD2.

Economic Change #2 - Reward Risk

One of the most fundemental changes in VoD 2 is that creeps give off more gold if killed closer to their home base. What this means is that if you are pushing deep into enemy territory, every enemy creep that dies will yield more gold. This strikes a good balance between risk and reward. Pushing deep into the enemy is dangerous because they can more easily gather, heal and gank you - but gives greater rewards.

This will change everything. You can no longer farm defensively for 45+ minutes. If you allow the other team to keep pushing deep into your part of the map without countering them, you are giving them free money. The game becomes a true battle where teamplay is a must, both to push for economic benefits and to counterpush. The defending team needs advantages in their home territory in order to prevent an endless steamrolling effect, which gives further depth to the gameplay. There will be several locations that the defending team can take advantage of to thwart overly brave intruders. Examples would be a tavern that gives temporary boosting potions, a shrine that bestows helping spirits upon visiting heroes and so on.

Part 3 - Beyond the engine limits

Experienced mapmakers know very well what you can and cannot do in the War3 engine. Adding 10 armor to a unit is easy, adding 10% extra armor certainly isn't. Giving a unit extra attackspeed is no problem, but what if you want to know what the attackspeed of any random unit is? Or how about it's current total damage? With the exception of really cumbersome solutions, there is a lot you cannot do with War3 the way it is. VoD2 however has taken a slightly different road, one that shows how ambitious the project truly is.

All unit stats; hitpoints, mana, regeneration, damage, attackspeed, movespeed, magic resistance, armor and so on is implemented from scratch using a custom system. In VoD2, there are functions for both setting and reading the value for all the mentioned stats. There is even a custom buff system that makes temporary changes very easy. Since there is no silly agi/str/int, we can use the following command card:


There's more. Ranged units can have custom projectiles due to the Custom Attack system used by heroes. How about a ranged unit that shoots tiny ghosts which follows the target around for a while, damaging it? Or perhaps a debuff that causes target ranged unit's projectiles to miss and actually hit another random nearby unit? A custom attack system also removes the need for anything resembling "orb effects" and their stacking problems. A Unit's projectile art (including size and color) and effect upon impact can be modified at will by the JASS code.

Finally, it would be a shame not to mention the underlying technology. Every single ability for every hero and item is 100% custom JASS. VoD2 also uses WeWarlock to its full potential, which means that we can handle a lot more spells and projectiles than normal War3, which again means there will be a lot more eyecandy and fancy effects.

Part 4 - Everything else

So far I have only mentioned some broad areas in which VoD2 hopes to improve. But the real improvement is going to be in the actual content, and that is something I cannot explain in a forum post. Saying "better heroes!!1" doesn't sound too convincing. But beyond promising really freakin' awesome heroes and items, here are a quick mention of other interesting features:

*Fullscreen Shop (100% easy to use)

Hidden information: In-game demo of the shop. Although most of the buttons are default ones, the shop works just fine in-game.

*"Paperdoll" inventory[/b] with the following 9 slots: Head (Helmet, Hat), Body (Armor, Robe), Back (Cloak, Cape, Mantlet), Feet (Boots), Hands (Gloves), Right Hand (Weapon), Left Hand (Shield, Two-handed Weapon), Ringfinger (Ring), Neck (Amulet, Necklace) (100% easy to use and automatic, you can't do anything wrong)

Hidden information: This is the paperdoll inventory without any items equipped. Don't laugh, it's just a sketch and I can't draw. The red icon is the unit's chosen God Aarblejock.

*An entirely new type of recipe system
*Gods that give passive benefits and goals to achieve that suits different kinds of playstyles, picked at the start of the map.
*A few strategically placed teleporters that allow quick teleportation from the inner-base to certain key points, reducing the need for boring walks somewhat.
*7 buttons free on each hero's command card that is used to make every skill as easy to use as possible.
*Advanced multi-page multiboard in which you can view all kinds of stats, such as economy statistics, enemy hero information and so on.
*Better heroes!!1


Project status: Most underlying system has been properly designed and implemented. Currently working on this list of 10 heroes for Beta 1.

Full members: Meanie (Spellcoder), Mosef (Terrain, Art) and Karukef (Coder).

This post is mostly to get people's feedback and opinions on the gameplay described. However, we are actively recruiting skilled individuals (coding and art), and anyone that is interested in joining the team may contact me or just visit the VoD2 development forum.

I stopped caring when I got to that.

But seriously, good luck and nice to see some effort put into that post.

- If that is true then I would strongly recommend that you try a little bit harder. When Karukef says "the new DotA", he is talking about a game that will be the new majore AoS game. This AoS resembles DotA no more than most other quality AoS games on this site. What differs it from the others is that it is intended to become a truly popular game, not just another quality AoS with, sadly but true, a very small community.

People have got start accepting DotA as one of the most important maps in Wc3 custom games history. The way I see it, many people hate DotA because its quality doesn't really live up to its massive community, and this is where VoD2 will try to do different.

DoTA is successful in a dead game. Get over it. WC3 is dead; DoTA is successful due to being the only map that got continuously updated. Its rise occured ONLY after the other maps stopped being updated.

Get your history straight before making remarks like that, Aray. ToB was FAR more popular than DoTA while still being updated, as were several other quality maps.

Karukef - I'd love to see this actually finished. My cynical side is telling me it won't though.

Couple of things:

Remember KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).

Simplicity lending to complexity beats complicated leading to confusion.

First off, I want to make a small apology to Karukef for giving you an opening to start arguing in this thread, but I guess that is inevitable. I for one, did not come here to argue, and so I wont.
- So please now, do karu a favor and stick to the topic. Take your time and read the entire article carefully. Karukef spent a lot of time writing this so that people could understand the (in my opinion brilliant) idea behind VoD2, and what makes it so special. This has plenty of never before seen ideas as to how an AoS can work. I've seen so many people (including myself) go on and on about how an AoS always turns out the same these days. A few new unique features like a new way of doing skills just wont work. But here you got an entire concept with the soul purpose of revolutionizing the AoS genre! Breaking that pattern of mere DotA-clones, and instead becoming a fierce opponent of DotA.

This is a modding-forum right? Then people around here should become really interested when a guy shows up and presents all these new ideas. That is what you should be commenting on. So please do.

At last you post an update on this promising project, karukef.

To that I would like to also add, Don't Fight the Engine (sadly this acronym isn't as cool).

Well, I hope the new systems and gameplay will work well in practice. As intuitive and simple as it supposedly will be, it still took you quite a few sentences to explain the new economics. But let's leave doubts aside until we see the whole thing in action.

That is the same advice I would give to anyone. But for my own sake, I already fought the engine and won. All the described behaviour is pretty much implemented already and working superbly.


I currently disagree with hints that I am being complex. Just because I write about some aspects in great detail does not mean they can't also be simple. Take the economy for example, which can easily be summed up in a few points:

• Last-hit farming is boring and difficult for newbies, and is replaced with picking up gold from dead bodies, shared between nearby heroes. This gives more freedom in designing heroes as the healer can earn just as much gold as the nuker.
• More gold is given further into enemy territory, rewarding offensive play. Defensive farming yields less, and thus shifting the focus to where the fun is: battling the enemy.

This is the very essense of keeping it simple. Only two very basic changes, yet with the potential to change the gameplay at its very core.

In fact, if all works out as planned, would there even be a term for farming? Money should just be something you gain while you are having fun battling it out against the enemy.

Just as a little addition to what Karukef said: If you thought DotA was a KISS game, you thought wrong:
http://forums.dota-allstars.com/inde...howtopic=33799
I'd say it would take me about 10-15 pages to fully explain the mechanincs of DotA. And after doing that, people would still not be fully aware of what's going on in that game with all its messed up triggers and whatnot. While karu here, having made many of the systems in VoD2 from scratch, will know exactly what's going on in his map, and how to approach any new tasks. And therefore he can pass on any relative information on to the players with great ease.

I heartily agree. As far as denying goes, I thought that was not possible in DotA:A, although they might have changed that or you were reffering to other AoS maps out there. Either way, it is silly.

The annoying thing about constant battles is that, while they are exciting, they aren't constant: it's all fun and games until somebody looses a hero, and then comes the annoying revival time for some and fountain regeneration time for others. The fun could be made to last longer if you had a wider choice of regeneration spells, both life and mana, avaliable for the heroes.

I have a question about terrain: what is your lane setup like, if you have one finalized yet anyway? I am curious because many AoS maps tend to overdo the ammount of lanes when gameplay is usualy at it's best when more heroes are cooperating in one. Personaly, I wouldn't go above 3.

Edit: Aray, most of the questions in that FAQ that I have read so far is just the usual way how stuff stacks in warcraft 3. That's in no way DotA:A specific. Also, how is the fact that karukef knows the ins and outs of all his code in any way relevant to the simplicity of the game? If anything, it makes his opinion on this topic biased. Also, whoever said DotA was a KISS game?

Another thing that just randomly crossed my mind right now: what is your stance on backdooring and how does VoD2 handle this topic? It's something widely disputed between fans of the genre, some consider it a viable tactical option while others practicaly cry cheat when someone does it.

Yea would be interesting to see your terrain layout.
Even if a simply diagram over a world map screenie.

Most ppl always talk about the systems, heroes, this and that.
But terrain is often underestimated.
Its one of the things that give a 'first glance' thumbs up/down approval of map in the eyes of the beholder.

Looking pretty neat, and seems to me that Fulla and I now have a bit of a challenge on our hands as we now have some direct competition:).

Anyway, this all looks really nice(and I love the expanded inventory, cause it is a cool feature, not to mention fun to code). My only issue is with the gold, it sort of ruins spells that tend to be more anti-creep, as using it to toast a wackload of creeps nets you and any allies who care to run by some gold, but then I guess you can just dispense with those sorts of abilities, and go with some hot buffs/etc.


Keeping an eye on this.

I would say that this game will never be made... but it seems you have progress already which gives it a chance. So, approximately at what percent are you?

Looks cool, I'd play it. Though I am a fan of "KISS," I must say that the system your promise sounds interesting. Best of luck.

Oh baby you can deny in DotA:AS. When DotA introduced the de-buff in denying, there was this huge uproar from veterans that were against "taking the skill out of the game" - obviously, to some people at least, last hitting is the skill. But sadly, that is in fact true for high level dota. Farming skills is one of the most important aspects. And THAT is stupid.

I certainly think there shouldn't be long-winded regeneration times. I plan on having the same teleporting system as in VoD 1 - where you can teleport OUT of the base to a few points near the mid. You can also teleport back to the base from those points, but then you have to stand on them for several seconds, so you can't use it as an easy escape. This system worked amazingly well in VoD 1.


3 lanes is surely enough, and that's what VoD 2 has.

This picture shows an overview of the current terrain. T indicates planned "tower" positions. Notice how the mid-lane is shielded off by a lot of unpathable terrain (the red line). You can hardly be ambushed in that lane. You can however, easily leave the mid-lane in order to ambush the outer lanes through the indicated thin white lines. It is also a tight lane with little room to move around. I think we can call this the easy/boring lane.

The two outer lanes however are very different, with lots and lots of room to manouver in. Although it may look like it takes forever to go from one outer lane to the opposite one, this is where those teleporters will come in handy: 5 second charge up to teleport back to base, then instantly teleport out again.


I think what Aray meant to say is that VoD2 will make away with all those oddities on "how stuff works in war3". Everything will work as expected. If your hero gets two "orb" effects, they will both work at the same time. There are only two damage types, physical and magical. No odd stuff such as being able to use target SOME spells on an avatar-ed unit only to find out it deals no damage, or on the other hand having spell-immunity yet being owned by some triggered spell. VoD2 will do things right, and not depend on any of the built in abilities.


I think we discussed this before as well :) And my stance is that anything that is possible within game-mechanics should be allowed. VoD doesn't handle it in any way so far, but my not so detailed plans is pretty simple: CPU units, when approaching enemy towers, will reduce the towers strength by a large amount. This basically means if you and your teammates decide to attack with no creep-support, be prepared for a challenge (i.e 80% damage reduction or some such).

Why did you seclude the middle lane?