Theorycraft: New AoS Concept manifest

First, a disclaimer: the thoughts and ideas presented here are a result of my dissatisfaction with how similar most AoS maps tend to be; however, it is not my intention to preach about what an AoS should or shouldn't be like, but rather discuss what it could be like. There is no one perfect solution; rather, there are probably many viable designs available, and the designs we've seen so far might very well be among the viable ones, but I think we should still explore to see if we can find others.

My motivation was mainly to seek changes in areas I disliked in the currently popular designs (or at least ones I'm familiar with, my impression of the genre as a whole may not fit individual maps which I may or may not have played), which I will talk about in my post, but these areas are not neccessarily something someone else would want to change and do not represent the whole scope of this discussion. Any thoughts about what and why you would want to see done differently in an AoS are welcome.


The thing I hold against most AoS maps the most is the activity called "farming". I just find the idea that so much time should be spent doing something as tedious as getting last hits on creeps is ridiculous. Sure, there is skill involved, and when "denying" comes into play it can be quite a challenging activity - but nearly anything can be challenging when played against an opponent of similar skill, that doesn't make it any less silly. Speaking of denying, that's just taking the sillyness one step further: let's last-hit our own units so the enemy doesn't do it.

This is all the result of Warcraft's bounty system that was applied to the AoS genre in times when mapmaking was less developed and it stuck since then. Besides things like farming and denying, the bounty system also leads to another gameplay issue in my view: excessive caution. Risky moves are not worth doing because even if the potential reward for a success is a lot bigger than what you get for playing it safe, if you play it safe then you are more likely to keep safely collecting bounty until the extra strength you get from gold and levels allows you to gain bigger rewards while still playing it safe.

Of course, it's would be no fun if players were to just suicide on towers all the time, but I think there are better methods to avoid this than imposing a system on the game that stalls it until players reach a level when the potential benefits of a risky maneuver are big enough to be worth the risk of failure. Instead, I would prefer to see a system that gives players a temporary disadvantage upon death that diminishes over time rather than a permanent disadvatange that has the potential to grow over time, like the bounty clearly is.

One such mechanic is the revive time: if there were no bounty of the sort that we are used to (the type where you only grow in strength by being in combat and killing things), then you would gain as much power while waiting to revive as someone being in combat; once you revived, the two teams would be on even ground again, however while you were reviving the other team would have a numerical advanatage and could thus defend better, push better and therefore make more progress towards the game's objective. Because of that, you can not just suicide on enemy towers all the time; you can only take risks that have potential benefits larger than the benefits the enemy could have while you were reviving if you were to die; but at least you can take risks.

The problem with revive time is that it's boring to have to wait for your hero to revive, so it's not the final answer to everything.


Another thing that I think most AoS maps could work more (or just differently) on is the hero skill design. I believe that the Warcraft III melee spell mechanics are insufficient when it comes to AoS design. In melee games, spells have to be very straightforward as they play only a small part in the game, controling your armies and your economy is just an important. In an AoS, one hero and his skills are typicaly all you have. The complexity that is lost by not having to micromanage other units, manage expansions and work your way up a techtree should be at least somehow readded here.

That is not to say that an AoS should be as complex as melee, but I do believe it should be at least a bit more complex than a small part of melee. There are many ways to upgrade spell mechanics, some have already been demonstrated like the conditions system in Rising_Dusk's Desert of Exile, some have been discussed like the element classifications in Erwtenpeller's Elemental Wars. This is a field that has a lot of potential for creativity.


Another thing that I wasn't sure if I should write here or not is the story, the reason being that it's a more optional component of a map. Some people care about it, others don't, so you might find an audience for a map wether it has anything of that sorts or not. I like a good story or piece of lore, that's why I'm including this point here: The good versus evil or order versus chaos "plots" are getting old. I for example liked the setting of Blades&Billets much better: two rivaling corporations and a bunch of mercenary heroes available to both of them. Granted, this leaves the players without a "meaningful" choice of which side to pick, but how meaningful can a victory in battle be when you'll be back to fighting it again from the start in the next game?

TcX AoX mode xD it will be the Advanced AoS style =)
it will have so fucking alot of custom stuff so i will almost not remain on wc3 =) and relatively all before in tech/possibility meaning will be shit =) thats all =)
yes i am just talking shit =) but who knows ;D

+ what is the sense on this thread ? =) ahhh ^^ every one must decide it self =) "no one force you to do that"

Well, i've always found items to be the most understimated part in an AoS.

Sure everyone generally 'fall in love' with their favourite Hero.
Having a specific item build you can plan, can really make the game alot more fun.

Dota follows a very simple patern of encouraging ppl to acquire +100's of damage asap, and very little on the many other possible aspects.
Im sure it could be vastly improved, if anyone remembers the good old diablo2 days of many different items builds/combos per Hero/Class this could definetly be incorporated into an AoS.

(Not intened as a bash) this is what I felt was missing in DoE, it had great background/storyline and themes for each Hero. Ontop of that a nice condition system to allow teams to combo Heroes well.

But no real potential item builds. Nothing really where you can seriously think/discuss with friends on optimum builds, the best early item to get.

I heard a rumour that ToB is implementing a socket system or something along those lines.
If so, sounds like well get some nice items in there.

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The other thing is I find most AoS games seriously tend to drag out alot longer than they should do.
Once one team is winning by a lot, they should be able to quickly finish the game.

Really the fact is that almost all AoS type maps have very primitive hero design.

Fancy items, fancy gameplay objectives, fancy systems, etc... those aren't what you spend 99% of your gameplay time doing. You spend almost all of it directly controlling the actions of your hero. Without a fun hero, you have nothing at all.

And what do you generally see in AoS maps? Heroes have slots for 6 to 8 skills, yet only 4 of them are utilized. One of them generally has an extremely long cooldown, and all of them have high mana costs and at least moderate cooldowns. This means that you're restricted from doing anything but autoattacking for 99% of the gameplay. On top of that, when you do get to use a skill, they're all variations of the same few themes or have little strategic application. What this boils down to is that the player's capability to make meaningful choice is reduced to near-nothing on a moment-to-moment basis, making it unworthy of even being called a "game."

I blame this on lack of imagination of game designers and/or lack of technical skill to create whatever is necessary to facilitate their ideas. There's really nowhere else the blame can be placed.

This would end activities such as farming and denying, but that still leaves the problem (or, at least, what I percieve as a problem) of being out of action resulting in a permanent disadvantage (unless you made it a global area effect that also affects dead heroes, but then couldn't it just be a periodic income of gold and experience?), which makes early game rather boring - players participate in combat for the sake of participating, with no other objective in mind than being there to get the exp and thus not stay behind.


I think both increase in numbers and increase in complexity helps, but I agree that skills with fullscreen tooltips are not the way to go, instead think of a nice set of mechanics that add complexity to the way you use your spells without requireing long paragraphs to explain how it works.

Perhaps I should have used the word setup instead of story myself. And yes, why shouldn't I ignore all undead or orc or naga models? Or humans or elves, for that matter. Why should an AoS setup include all wc3 races? That's why most maps are just a vague hodgepodge of themes, because they do just that. Sure, a very limited scenario like Tauren vs Centaurs wouldn't work because those two races do not have enough models on their own for a full AoS, but I'm sure you could compose a setup that isn't the usual generic evil side with blighted terrain and undead buildings vs a generic good side, and yes, I think such setups are quite rampant.

For example, couldn't both sides utilize necromantic magic and have their share of undead heroes? Or a conflict where elves are paired with undead against orcs and trolls, for example? Anything could work. I just think that a map should look like it has a story to it, but not neccesarily have a story that would offend you with how poorly written it is. Then again, in such a case, you could just not read it, I don't see why you would not play such a map if it's gameplay was good.


A good point. I have been wondering lately what an "ideal" rate of casting spells would be: not too slow, so you don't just auto attack most of the game, but also not too fast, since in that case it becomes more important to spam spells as fast as you can rather than wait to cast them for the most effect. I have considered a rate of about one spell per ten seconds (on average, in critical moments you would be casting a lot more), which would require, if the average mana cost of a spell was around 100 mana, a mana regeneration of 10 mana per second to be sustainable. In most AoS maps, you only get that kind of regeneration once you're at max level and have some mana regeneration items.

What usually makes or breaks a map is the actual gameplay and the fun the map offers, not just a bunch of fancy systems and engines.

People play maps for the sake of having fun, not just shoot some rockets or lasers just to see them bouncing in the room or exploding like fireworks in the 4th of July.

Take a look at Dota, it gives the players what they want, uberwtfimbashithax fun. Heck, who wouldn't have fun playing a hero killing another with one move?

People nowadays try to force themselves to make their AoS more complex and unique than the current standards today, thus overcomplicating the map and ruining it like AoM's spells where you'd have to stare at the tooltip for like, 5 minutes. And the spells' tooltips sometimes don't even fit in the tooltip box.

Going to have to say the skills aspect usually sucks in AoS. Like the above posters stated, they generally have major flaws.

Skills shouldn't be so complex that it takes 2 full games to understand how 1 hero's skills work. On the other hand skills shouldn't be so easy to understand that you just recognize "Oh this is storm bolt, 200 damage, and 2 second stun". Skills should be friendly to the inexperienced and tactical to the adept. Skills with mini-stuns to cancel channeling spells are an example.

Furthermore, Skills between heroes usually have no direct influence on each other. The only skills that generally matter are chain stuns to obliterate someone unprepared without giving them the opportunity to do anything. Really, its not synergy, its just chain stun. The only exception is the banish abilities (very rare) that increase damage done by spells. Even then, I've seen the ability misused more than used correctly due to its physical immunity.

I had an idea about an AoS some time ago, it was to (I wan't to say mimic, but I'll go with ...) copy the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles style of casting spells. I'll explain it here for anyone not familiar. Lets say you have 4 spells: Fire, Ice, Heal, and Shadow. All 4 spells are the same format, a medium range delayed AOE effect. If you were to cast Fire on a point, and an ally would also cast Fire on that same point it would become "Fire 2" (Yes, square is so cleverly designing ability names). In the rare case where 3 members of a team were together and all would cast Fire at the same time, maybe it'd be Fire 3. Combining Fire and Heal would do another spell, etc. I'm not claiming this style of skills would work in an AoS, but I am claiming if it didn't work it'd probably still be more fun then playing a hero with 40% life leech, 40% attack speed bonus, and a 40% slow poison effect, all of which are passive. It is easy to pickup for new players, but with experience it rewards players who use teamwork and combo spells.

This leads me to hero design. I've played only a few AoS maps, but generally I have no interest at all anymore playing an AoS in which my first game I am allowed to pick 50 different heroes. Why? With 50 different heroes it cannot be balanced, and it becomes a rock paper scissors. Hero A owns Hero B and C early game, Hero B owns Hero C mid game, and Hero C owns all end game. I'd enjoy a small set of heroes to choose from, all with a more specific role. In this case there is no reason to limit heroes to 1 of each type in each game.

Skills vs Items: I know this is primarily a DOTA issue, not sure if its in alot of other AoS's but I'll address it. Items tend to become more powerful than skills eventually. With enough items the primary attack attacks so fast and hits so hard that it far exceeds the damage of any skills on any hero (even ultimates!). This effect is further worsened by heroes with passive skills, especially bash abilities and critical strikes. There is absolutely no reason for this, as it puts Spell-focused heroes at a significant disadvantage as time goes by. Please, if you add an item that gives 60 damage to a hero with an innate base damage of 60, add another item that improves spells damage by 60 as well.

And to throw this out there for no reason what so ever, completely related to my entire blog about skills, An AoS with unique items may be interesting. I don't mean unique as in "a gold name", I mean an item type which never has more than 1 instance of it available. Drops on death of course. Balance its Power to eliminate the fear of its loss.

Hehe, that reminds me of the verry first map me and vig embarked on. It was about Maiev vs. Illidan, one side was illidans team with bloodelves, naga and draenei, Maievs side consited of sentinels (no druids) and undead. The idea was that not being able to catch illidan drove maiev insane and made her make a pact with the lich king. The eventual goal was to kill either Maiev or Illidan instead of a building, kind of like a boss encounter if you will. I still verry much like the idea of a boss instead of a building to kill.

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The problem on that "farming" thing ani is going on and on about, is the fact you you need to have something to do, something that rewards you for participating in the game. If you do xp and gold globally, it means everyone levels up with the same speed, and everyone gains the same amounts of gold. Then i ask, what is the use of even having experience and gold? They become trivial recources, they're not rewards for playing the game anymore. Sure you could do that, but then the reward for killing enemy heros should be huge. A player wants to be rewarded for his efforts. This would mean though that the map would only be fun if everyone was a hero killer. Everyone.

So you see, this whole "farming" thing as you call it, plays a much bigger role then i think you anticipated. Without it, there is no need for diffrent hero styles. Without it, there is no constant reward for participating. Withoyt it, there is allmost no way to gain an advantage over your opponants, wich you in term need to win the game.

In a way i actually agree with Toink. Keep things simple, and the players will be happy. But i would use tob as an example for this reather then dota. It has cleverly designed yet really easy to cast and simple to understand abilities. And in O, combined with the item system and lots of little underlying little systems, the gameplay becomes a lot more complex that way, without ever making playing the game actually harder. Dota did just that, with its retardedly-huge heap of crappy heros and rediculous ocean of item recepies to learn by heart it made a verry simple and verry fucking cool game (DotA on RoC) the stuff of retards. If there is one group of people i'd like to remove from existance, its the fucking bunch of retards that thought it was a good idea to fuck up dota. On the other hand, Eul's new map was an overly complex piece of shit as well.

On hero skill design i fully agree with cassiel. Dont make more complex abilities, simply make more of them and have players have to make a choice in how to build they're heros. That will eventually result in more diverse and fun gameplay.

That actually is a good idea. It needs a lot of tweaking to, you know, get it into an AoS/War3 setting correctly in a way that plays smoothly, but the base idea is pretty good.

The problem here is not the power of the items, but reather the limitations of the game engine. Maps like tides of blood v.O code every single ability, so that its aspects can increase with power as you buy items, just like your "passive" or "innate" attributes.

This is by no means a "unique item". Look at what Litany posted, THOSE are fresh item ideas.

Very clever indeed, but they do look kinda wierd when you cast too near. Like Call the moon being Storm Bolt with a modified missile, it looked very pwetty though when BR is running away and the meteor homes in.. and I liked it that way XD

Btw, I heard boat was getting removed before... So, no more happy time for rat in v.O?

I meant unique item to be game limited to exactly 1 at all times. Put a "Rain9441's Shield" on the map somewhere, not easily accessible. This item cannot be destroyed, and is dropped on death. What the item does is completely irrelevant, its just that there is only ever one of this type of item in existence. Trick is to make it give the team an edge, but not so powerful as to generate an abundant fear of death, since death results in the item dropping.

It would add another aspect of control to the map without a permanent advantage. The side effects may be that the team with the item(s) generate a permanent advantage that is impossible to overcome. Obviously if anyone even considers hiding the item to eliminate the possibility of the other team(s) using it, the item is probably too powerful.

isnt this just a Ward?

Dragon's Tooth!

This is a false dichotomy and pretty much blatantly wrong... WC3's basic gameplay is extremely limited. In order to do almost anything new or unique it's going to require either 1000 years of coding per ability (with lots of bugs left over) or a system to facilitate it. It's a problem when people spend so much time wrangling with systems that they neglect the gameplay, but that isn't the fault of the systems.

I really hate these topics, but I feel like I'm unable to avoid them whenever they sprout up.
*Sigh*

I'm going to approach this post as a player first and foremost, not a mapmaker. And let me start this by saying I don't care how fresh, unique, individual, or awesome an item idea is... If it isn't practical, useful, worth it, and at the same time easy to make do whatever you need it to do, then it sucks. Why do we never see half of these fresh and unique and cool ideas ever actually used in the games they are in? Because people don't use something just because it's a cool idea. I don't care if it's the coolest fucking item you've ever seen in your life, you're going to use it once and forget about it unless it meets the requirements I stated above.

On that note, everyone seems to think that an item has to have an active effect to be unique, cool, or fresh. Honestly, the reason passive items are the best as a player is because you don't have to do jack shit to make them do what you want them to. They give you 5 agility or whatever, and that is that. I don't want to have to watch for the right moment to click an item in my inventory and do some super awesome thing that maybe they could dodge or whatever. That's bullshit, I want to grab an item and go do what my hero was intended to do (Which guaranteed has nothing to do with the item).

And gold in a large area? That's lame as hell, you just stand next to a creep and gold jumps into your pockets when they die. I don't care if farming is a problem, you can deal with it in a more subtle way than changing how bounty works. People LIKE getting the last hit, I love that sudden burst of adrenaline I get when I kill 5 creeps at once, it makes me feel momentarily badass. That's the shit that makes the map fun. If killing the unit no longer matters, you've eliminated that source of adrenaline and feeling of badass. That sucks.

The real trick there is that most maps make creeps give ludicrously low gold and then make items cost ridiculous amounts. That way you have to farm a lot before you can get what you want. That drags games on, and indeed makes farming more prominent. Now, consider this: creeps give 30-50g apiece and then items cost 200g. Well shit, now you can kill a few dudes and buy a bunch of items to fill out your inventory early on. Then if all later items only cost 200g, but instead require an additional resource (Say obtained from killing heroes) in some amount... Well you have still solved the problem of farming while not changing the bounty system at all. You of course would still need cash sinks for players that just wreck shit and have loads of cash, these could be in the form of spawns or something else, depending on how your map works.

And you know what? I like stories in maps, it helps bring things together. Who gives a shit if it's two-dimensional or cliche or done before or whatever, it just takes everything in the damned map and links them ethereally. Some people like the story, and they will read it and love/hate/wrist whatever because of it, and some people just don't give a shit... And they don't have to because it's not like you've got some fucking cinematic in the start of your map forcing them to deal with it. They can read it if they want, or skip it entirely and get to the nitty-gritty of the map.

How about winning?

This is the idea I keep trying to debunk, and yet it still persists. Yes, you need an advantage to win, but it does not need to be a level advantage or an item advantage. Contrary to what you say, there are plenty of ways to get an advantage, for example when you kill the opposing heroes (due to superior skill use and/or team strategy, not due to having farmed more gold) and then take advantage of them reviving by building a push unopposed, thus dealing damage to their towers and this brings you closer to victory.

Perhaps some or even most players enjoy gameplay with self-reinforcing advantages like hero levels and items, but it is not the only way a game can be played, a good example of this is Elimination Tournament, a map where all advantages a player can get are only temporary.

Why would it no longer matter? You need to kill units if you want to win, if no unit ever died then the game would be pretty much stuck in the middle of the map. I don't need little yellow numbers floating above dying enemy units to tell me that I'm doing a good push for the enemy tower, but to each their own I suppose.