Additional Abilities

So in my map, Players can select what creeps their base spawns from a list of ten (It's an AoS).

• Archers - Basic Ranged
• Infantry - Basic Melee, balanced light unit
• Necromancers - Don't deal attack damage, but Raise Dead
• Wolves - Low melee damage, but can Silence
• Barbarians - Deal Melee AoE
• Artillery - Deal Ranged AoE
• Priests - Don't deal attack damage, but can Heal
• Minotaurs - Tough Melee Unit, High armor and health, low damage but can taunt
• War Machines - Fairly Balanced heavy melee unit that's Spell Immune
• Sorceresses - Low Ranged Damage, but can Replenish mana of allies at the cost of their own mana

The first four are default, the next four require two different Upgrades, Advanced Physical Units and Advanced Magic Units. The Last two require Advanced Units, which can't be done until the first two are researched.

However, I was thinking of also having the Upgrades give some units new abilities. Advanced Physical Units would also give Archers a very short ensnare. Advanced Magic Units would give Wolves Blink. Then, Advanced Units would give Minotaurs the ability to spawn tiny Minotaurs that deal no damage, but can still taunt and be attacked when they die. It would also (This is something I'm still thinking of) give Barbarians a passive ability that makes them deal minor AoE damage around them when they are attacked by an enemy.

What I'm wondering is if this seems like it makes sense. I want to add another level of complexity to the selection of Creeps, but I don't want them to just start out with those abilities, as that would be confusing for new players. Currently the selection of creeps doesn't make that much of a strategic difference, but I think that these additions would help.

One thing I'm thinking is that the barbarian's passive makes it seem like a tank, which is sort of the Job the Minotaur is supposed to get. If there was a better way for the Barbarian to do extra AoE damage in Melee besides getting hit, that would work. (Because I want it like this: The more enemies, the more damage he deals, in addition to the fact that the more enemies around him the more efficient the AoE damage gets, and the "On-Hit" thing accomplishes that)

I don't really see any questions... Do you want us to comment on the idea or something?

Well, I do have one thing to say. Having Necromancers with no attack will bring conflicts, because they'll only stop their common unit path to use Raise Dead; they'll pass everything else. Give them a damage of 1-1 or something. At least they'll stop when the other units do.

well i no how i would play. warmachines, sorceresses, and shit load of necros. I'd say the worst are the minotaurs and barbarians. you could go DnD and make unkillable trolls (killed by fire and acid only). give the minotaur hardened skin or something. barbarian, um, i don't no.

You should make the creeps in such way that they have a clear counter. You can customize the armor descriptions or trigger the damage type, so some units gets more damage than others, for example: "Priest are weak against Archers damage" and/or "Archers are weak against infantry damage". Keep this as simple as possible so it can be easily to counter a game.

Other interesting option is to make the damage upgrade and armor independant of the race, so players can change the strategy with the creeps, I think this would give some replayability to your game. Just my 2 cents :)

Yeah, there's different upgrades for different units, but one of the main thing is that the team has to work together, since each one of them only controls one of the team's barracks (It's 3v3v3). I really want to add another level of strategy to the Game with the units, specifically using different ones for different times, but I want to do it without just flat out "Blank is weak to Blank" things. And the minotaurs actually work really well, they're one of my favorites. But yeah, the barbarian's are one of the map's weak points, which is why I think giving them something else to deepen their strategy would be good, but I'm not sure what.

Oh, and yeah, they have an attack of 1-1. I wish I could make them attack for 0 damage, but that doesn't seem possible :(

My main point was about the addition of extra skills via upgrades, but comments on anything work I guess.

I'm pretty adamant about not completely changing the units, but minor things could work fine, and I guess if it really makes sense I'll do it (Until just recently, sorceresses were useless crap.).

Oh, and with that many Necros & Sorceresses, some wolves would tear you up. Then maybe some priests and archers to deal with the War Machines.

It is possible. Play around with negative values in the object editor. I can't remember the exact combination off the top of my head, but i think 1d1-1 works.

I can't implement this, but wouldn't it be having the two dice values 1 but the damage base as -1? The damage base can be anything and the attack would work, but if either of the dice values are 0, the attack won't... well... attack.

So... 1d1-1 it is. Thanks for the confirmation.

Upgrades are kind of snowball generators, honestly. Since one team starts to dominate and then upgrades and starts to dominate even more. Also, it's counter-intuitive because new players won't know the upgrades exist or won't recognize the value of them, so they might not get them and opt for other gold sinks.

You should ensure that upgrades help, but are not the best way to spend your gold, otherwise you alienate all other methods of development from your map. It just sounds like your upgrades are necessary the way you've explained them, since they add abilities, stats, etc. to units. Just be careful.

be careful with the necros, what i was getting at earlier is the ability to raise a massive army in a few seconds.

Nah, the skeletons have been balanced, and only last 20 seconds at most.
See, that was my real question, should these upgrades also add new abilities? I think it would be kinda interesting, but could also be possibly really bad.
And as Players research more upgrades the Enemies' static gold generation increases. Just BTW.

the thing with the skellys is as long as theres mana and bodies theres skellys but what ever. this is pvp right? u proboly wnat to give them one more ability but you gotta make sure its not too good. thats the hardest part. maybe put the rest into spawn time, armor, ect.

Yeah, it's PvP. Hmm... there's a few of the abilities I really like (Archers, Minotaurs, Wolves), but I'm not too keen on the Barbarian's extra ability, and I really think they need one cuz right now they kinda suck, but I don't want to just give them lots of health and damage and stuff.

With the blink, wolves would do what they're really intended to do - Kill the hell out of priests, necros, and sorceresses.
The Extra spawns from the minotaur on death give them the ability to hold back advancing forces, which is their original design.
And the Archers all get the ability to easily deal with certain melee units (Wolves, Barbarians, Minotaur) with net, while not working as well on a lot of enemies (Necros (Skellies), Infantry).

Oh and yeah, the upgrades that give you new units are the only ones that don't increase stats, every other is purely that.