Theorycraft: Soemthing I've noticed in DotA Clones recently...

One design decision I've noticed appearing more frequently in newer AoS maps is that destroying enemy barracks, instead of preventing future unit spawns, is simply making your teams units stronger while the enemies units keep spawning.

I can see the gameplay reasons for this (you keep getting kill gold for instance) but it also seems fundamentally extremely anti-intuitive.

What's everyones' thoughts on this? I'd personally replace that system with one that simply gives you the spawnies' average bounty devided amongst the killing team each wave: seems to accomplish the same goal (of preventing killing barracks from handicapping a team) without the daft solution in the status quo. Oh and i know that such a solution would produce snowballing, but frankly i think that by the time a team loses a barracks the game should accelerate to a conclusion.

Thoughts?

That we are discussing such an insignificant design detail rather than much more fundamental design issues of AoS maps is very unproductive, except for maybe pointing out how very deprived of originality contemporary AoS design is, when even such details are the same between maps.

...oh, you said DotA clones, not AoS maps in general...

Well, in that case I find it disturbing that we are talking about DotA clones.

The map Battleships had an interesting take on this: when one side lost it's "barracks", it's ships would no longer spawn, but the opposing ships in that lane would no longer give bounty either. Perhaps keeping the bounty and awarding it by default for the ships that no longer spawn is an even more intuitive idea. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but maybe it should be awarded to the player who destroyed the barracks, rather than divided among all the players on that team? I mean, if you're going to have the abominable last-hit-gets-you-gold mechanic, you might as well do it properly.

But, seriously, shouldn't we be talking about more fundamental issues like whether awarding bounty based on who gets the last hit on the creep is really the best way for the game to be played?

*gives Anitarf cookies*

I could add something here, but on this issue Anitarf's views are basically identicle, so I'll just add my support to him.

I'd love to see an AoS without gold. Or experience. Just a straight forward skill based duel. Could be made a faster paced game.

Dota clones. As if the real thing wasn't bad enough!

I like AOS systems where the hero development does not exponentially floor the spawns. This means spawns that can be upgraded through cash, objectives, hero kills, etc. It's pretty annoying when you break the milestone that turns creeps into crops and the immediate strategy is to kill your own spawns to spite the enemy from getting bounty.

I always wanted to play an AoS game that relies on items just a bit, but revolves completely around how you decide to attack the enemy, where as you destroy a barrack and you leave it, while the opposite team sends out a repair squad. leave that place unguarded, it starts more spawns. and also more ways to kick DoTA's fat ass.

It's nearly impossible to come back after losing a barracks if it means your units stop spawning completely :s

It's also nearly impossible to lose one without the other team overpowering you, so long as cheesing isn't too powerful.

But why have barracks at all? Perhaps all units could be spawned by the main building instead? Or they could come as reinforcments from off the map? What purpose does that additional stage in the game, when you destroy the barracks, but haven't yet destroyed the main objective, serve?

I like it better when you need the barracks to spawn units, and when you can upgrade your units and upgrade barrackses to make more units.

I also have another idea. Perhaps, the MAIN base you need to kill can also spawn really weak units, just to keep gold income for the other side. That would be nice, actually.

In reply primarily to Anitarf, i don't see anything wrong with discussing the more minute details of map design rather than only the broad picture ideas: often we're talking about systems that have large impacts on gameplay and as has happened in this thread, they often serve as springboards into wider elements of design.

It's also nice in that because they represent less radical departures from the tried and true formula, the discussion yields ideas that may in fact be implemented, rather than interesting hypothetical that will simply never see the light of day.

And the reason it's focused on DotA clones is because they're the maps that use this (IMO) anti-intuitive system; other AoS maps and the systems they use are still completely relevant to the discussion.

Warlords approaches version 1.0, and I'm going to have a lot more time soon. Don't be so sure about never seeing the light of day...

Well I agree to an extent. Point is that if you don't have barracks game could drag on for hours. On the other hand if you put the barracks outside of the base snowball effect is greater and that can be bad (sometimes).

The reinforcement system I liked best was DoE. There you could send a 2-wave reinforcements from your barracks (or castles I'm unsure of the name) and up to four at once. Barracks also spawned regular units. And creeps stopped spawning when you would destroy the barracks.

That's really not much of a point. Why would it have to drag on without barracks? If you can destroy the barracks, then, if the barracks weren't there, you could have destroyed the main building instead. The only consideration here is that with barracks, units can spawn on the outskirts of bases, and thus units from two lanes never get to cooperate, making it easier for a push in a single lane to get to the main base unopposed. Practical examples however do not confirm this, in DotA, when you're attacking the barracks, units that spawn in other lanes will be close enough to come to help.

I don't mean to drift off topic, but what exactly does this have to do with map development?

Why shouldn't the creeps not spawn after destroying their barracks? It's kinda wierd seeing creeps appear from out of nowhere like in dota, if you destroyed a barracks, the opposing team deserves the no-more-creep-spawn.

Kinda makes the game easier to end, wherein in dota you could still win even if you had no more barracks.