Im kind of afraid Blizzard dota will fail at the hero design. From what Iv seen the heroes seemed boring (even thou they should be EPIC since they are from blizzard universe).
I hope they can bring something like Pudge, Axe, Jakiro, Firebat etc...from dota. No need to copy but unique gameplay mechanics that can totally change the gameplay of a hero...You know you have done hero design right when you get spinoff games from one hero.
But I still think they will fail it. Maybe it well be ok and fun, but wont reach the stellar gameplay and feeling that dota had.
Agreed, and I like simple skills if they're given applicable places to show the user's skill. But some of the skills are just too bland. Arthas has a Ghoul summon spell, Chains of Ice, Death grip and can sacrifice his Ghouls to heal himself. Thrall has Chain Heal, Chain Lightning, a debuffing totem and Bloodlust, and all of these are the exact same things you've come to know from Warcraft III. There's nothing very interesting there on either hero, so I hope they take a look at their hero design and add a bit more depth to the skillsets.
-_- geesh... I would type something else but your seemingly cleaver sarcastic response has stopped me in my tracks... Imma end this now so the thread will not be locked.
But on another note... A feature that is going to be really cool is the mount system that will allow players to have special mounts with additional special abilities. :3 I think they are keeping the best stuff a secret until release.
Also simple doesn't mean bland. SC2 is extremely simple on the surface, but to call it bland would either imply a dislike for RTS games or downs syndrome.
The biggest put-off for DotA games is their learning curve. You're expected to know the game before you even start, and there's a lot of counter-intuitive mechanics to learn before you can even really play properly. Last-hitting, denying, having more-or-less fixed item builds despite pages of shop items etc.
Blizzard's angle is clearly to get random "I've never played dota and I can't be bothered to learn it" people to give it a shot and be semi-good at it from the start.
The problem is that You can't really make cool compelling characters. Like a marine is a marine. Zealot is a zealot. The characters don't feel unique. I forget where I heard that but it's so true. Warcraft has characters that you can use that it's believable if you say they're something else, I forget what reference they used but it was a believable thing where a unit in warcraft could actually be believed to be that thing while starcraft the units are too centered on that role that you can't really see it as much else.
Also simple doesn't mean bland. SC2 is extremely simple on the surface, but to call it bland would either imply a dislike for RTS games or downs syndrome.
The biggest put-off for DotA games is their learning curve. You're expected to know the game before you even start, and there's a lot of counter-intuitive mechanics to learn before you can even really play properly. Last-hitting, denying, having more-or-less fixed item builds despite pages of shop items etc.
Blizzard's angle is clearly to get random "I've never played dota and I can't be bothered to learn it" people to give it a shot and be semi-good at it from the start.
That's definitely their angle, and it's frustrating even for me, an AOS veteran, to have to learn a new map with all new skills and items. It sucks. But with Blizzard's approach, I think I'll know everything there is to know about their map after 1 or 2 games.
And you're also right about simple not being bland; but take Thrall's skillset in Blizzard DOTA. Chain Heal, Chain Lightning, Purge totem and Bloodlust... all point-and-click abilities that do one thing without much thought being put in and don't require much thought or timing. I'm sure basic things like the placement of your totems and the timing of your Bloodlusts will matter somewhat, but contrast that to the Tassadar hero.
At Blizzcon he had a shield ability that would absorb damage temporarily, a forcefield wall ability, a psi-storm that slowed enemies, and a decoy ability. The shield has to be used pre-emptively and timed properly or its useless, the force field wall is only effective when placed properly (well-placed walls leading to "ooh!" moments), and the psi-storm has to be aimed well. These are all abilities just as simple as the Thrall hero, but require much more skill and thought to use properly.
Simple doesn't automatically mean bland, but you have to be careful.
But still... it's not cool to call other peoples maps shyt while not producing AOS content yourself. The Sotis and Hero Attack guys have done a great job with what they have done. Also I believe I stated what could possibly happen... not that Blizzard DOTA will absolutely suck. Mr. Salty stated that no one can create a better AOS map the Blizzard with the assets they release as a absolute fact. ;3 a troll? me? really? why would yo say that my feelings are hurt.
Making a unique zealot hero is easy. My Zealot Hero for my map is kind of like AXE in dota... with a cleave ablity, Taunt, Plasma Shield enhancement... knock back stun shockwave and unique psionic auras that boost stats. I also made a neat little weapon ability called blades of psionic lightning... attached the psirift effects on the zealots blades and enabled the zealot to have a 20% chance of stunning the opponent for 2.5 seconds that is stackable 4 times. You simply have to think outside of the box with unique themes and paradigms. Marines can have different types of grenades, rounds with special effects and weapons load outs. A cool mechanic for a marine would be a reload ability and you can equip the marine with special rounds that deal damage according to the targets type.... like penatrator rounds that deal damage to multiple units within a linear search area or rounds that deal extra damage to armored units. not to mention flash grenades, stun grenades, or plasma grenades. Nothing is impossible if you believe. ;3
But still... it's not cool to call other peoples maps shyt while not producing AOS content yourself. The Sotis and Hero Attack guys have done a great job with what they have done. Also I believe I stated what could possibly happen... not that Blizzard DOTA will absolutely suck. Mr. Salty stated that no one can create a better AOS map the Blizzard with the assets they release as a absolute fact. ;3 a troll? me? really? why would yo say that my feelings are hurt.
I agree they've put a lot of hard work into their maps and have done a great job. I'm not trying to degrade their effort. But I do have criticisms of their maps that are entirely legitimate and make me think they're bad. That's my opinion, and I took that here to ask if anyone else had something in development.
My issue is, Sotis started out as something completely separate from what DotA Allstars is, but over time, apparently the developers gave in and made their map become more and more like it. Instead of pushing the boundaries with their obvious talent with the editor, they folded and made something we've all already seen before. Sotis was actually quite interesting in its early stages. The mercenary concept was interesting and if they had kept that concept and expanded upon it over the past 2 years instead of abandoning it, they may have had something that made their map unique. Now, there's nothing that separates their map from any of the DOTA clones, and if I want to play a map like that, I'll go play DOTA 2 or LoL and not worry about relearning a new game that's the exact same anyway.
That will forever be Sotis's downfall, despite the obvious editing talent of its developers. They've tried to create ways to spice it up a little bit, such as with the talent system, but that's not enough to differentiate Sotis into its own AoS, something that's a completely different experience from Allstars, DotA 2, LoL, HoN, etc.
And Hero Attack? Any editor here could have made that map on Warcraft III. It makes practically no use of the depth of the Starcraft II engine. Its simplistic nature and somewhat tongue-in-cheek presentation is awesome and really friendly for newcomers, but the hero content is boring and the map itself doesn't play well at a competitive level, and yes I do have experience trying it. It's a casual map, and that's cool, but I don't see much development effort/talent and I certainly don't see much depth in the gameplay on that map.
Also, as for the AoS subject, questions arise as to what should be changed in order to evolve in the genre? If you want to stick to the basic base vs base with creep lanes and heroes leveling up you'll probably never break through anything. When DotA Allstars was at it's young ages, heroes were clearly the innovative factor here because they would drift away from standard Wc3 heroes while keeping a meaningfull place to use them. As the genre evolves with HoN, LoL and DotA 2, we clearly see that innovation in heroes is starting to be meaningless as more and more comes out that only look like other ones.
Point is, adding general game mechanics to polish the experience such as money shops and customization is what you currently see as the trend. My best guess would revolve around redesigning the very foundations of the genre istead of trying to polish it as much as you think you can. Going away from the standard creep with timers, heroes with max levels and items.
As saltygrapes stated, SotIS did moev awawy from their mercenary mechanic that they implemented in the earlier versions of their map, but it evetually got dropped of because, for them, it probably wasn't a core mechanic and just an addon that didn't fit in their idea of a MobA/AoS game.
TL;DR, try to think of how to change basics of the genre instead of adding to it.
@michaelknives: Go
hahahaha look at you go! keep it up man you're really rolling
Agreed, and I like simple skills if they're given applicable places to show the user's skill. But some of the skills are just too bland. Arthas has a Ghoul summon spell, Chains of Ice, Death grip and can sacrifice his Ghouls to heal himself. Thrall has Chain Heal, Chain Lightning, a debuffing totem and Bloodlust, and all of these are the exact same things you've come to know from Warcraft III. There's nothing very interesting there on either hero, so I hope they take a look at their hero design and add a bit more depth to the skillsets.
-_- geesh... I would type something else but your seemingly cleaver sarcastic response has stopped me in my tracks... Imma end this now so the thread will not be locked.
But on another note... A feature that is going to be really cool is the mount system that will allow players to have special mounts with additional special abilities. :3 I think they are keeping the best stuff a secret until release.
->
Troll, or immune to irony? You decide!
Also simple doesn't mean bland. SC2 is extremely simple on the surface, but to call it bland would either imply a dislike for RTS games or downs syndrome.
The biggest put-off for DotA games is their learning curve. You're expected to know the game before you even start, and there's a lot of counter-intuitive mechanics to learn before you can even really play properly. Last-hitting, denying, having more-or-less fixed item builds despite pages of shop items etc.
Blizzard's angle is clearly to get random "I've never played dota and I can't be bothered to learn it" people to give it a shot and be semi-good at it from the start.
The problem is that You can't really make cool compelling characters. Like a marine is a marine. Zealot is a zealot. The characters don't feel unique. I forget where I heard that but it's so true. Warcraft has characters that you can use that it's believable if you say they're something else, I forget what reference they used but it was a believable thing where a unit in warcraft could actually be believed to be that thing while starcraft the units are too centered on that role that you can't really see it as much else.
That's definitely their angle, and it's frustrating even for me, an AOS veteran, to have to learn a new map with all new skills and items. It sucks. But with Blizzard's approach, I think I'll know everything there is to know about their map after 1 or 2 games.
And you're also right about simple not being bland; but take Thrall's skillset in Blizzard DOTA. Chain Heal, Chain Lightning, Purge totem and Bloodlust... all point-and-click abilities that do one thing without much thought being put in and don't require much thought or timing. I'm sure basic things like the placement of your totems and the timing of your Bloodlusts will matter somewhat, but contrast that to the Tassadar hero.
At Blizzcon he had a shield ability that would absorb damage temporarily, a forcefield wall ability, a psi-storm that slowed enemies, and a decoy ability. The shield has to be used pre-emptively and timed properly or its useless, the force field wall is only effective when placed properly (well-placed walls leading to "ooh!" moments), and the psi-storm has to be aimed well. These are all abilities just as simple as the Thrall hero, but require much more skill and thought to use properly.
Simple doesn't automatically mean bland, but you have to be careful.
@Eiviyn: Go
lol yah got meh :3
But still... it's not cool to call other peoples maps shyt while not producing AOS content yourself. The Sotis and Hero Attack guys have done a great job with what they have done. Also I believe I stated what could possibly happen... not that Blizzard DOTA will absolutely suck. Mr. Salty stated that no one can create a better AOS map the Blizzard with the assets they release as a absolute fact. ;3 a troll? me? really? why would yo say that my feelings are hurt.
@Keyeszx: Go
Making a unique zealot hero is easy. My Zealot Hero for my map is kind of like AXE in dota... with a cleave ablity, Taunt, Plasma Shield enhancement... knock back stun shockwave and unique psionic auras that boost stats. I also made a neat little weapon ability called blades of psionic lightning... attached the psirift effects on the zealots blades and enabled the zealot to have a 20% chance of stunning the opponent for 2.5 seconds that is stackable 4 times. You simply have to think outside of the box with unique themes and paradigms. Marines can have different types of grenades, rounds with special effects and weapons load outs. A cool mechanic for a marine would be a reload ability and you can equip the marine with special rounds that deal damage according to the targets type.... like penatrator rounds that deal damage to multiple units within a linear search area or rounds that deal extra damage to armored units. not to mention flash grenades, stun grenades, or plasma grenades. Nothing is impossible if you believe. ;3
I agree they've put a lot of hard work into their maps and have done a great job. I'm not trying to degrade their effort. But I do have criticisms of their maps that are entirely legitimate and make me think they're bad. That's my opinion, and I took that here to ask if anyone else had something in development.
My issue is, Sotis started out as something completely separate from what DotA Allstars is, but over time, apparently the developers gave in and made their map become more and more like it. Instead of pushing the boundaries with their obvious talent with the editor, they folded and made something we've all already seen before. Sotis was actually quite interesting in its early stages. The mercenary concept was interesting and if they had kept that concept and expanded upon it over the past 2 years instead of abandoning it, they may have had something that made their map unique. Now, there's nothing that separates their map from any of the DOTA clones, and if I want to play a map like that, I'll go play DOTA 2 or LoL and not worry about relearning a new game that's the exact same anyway.
That will forever be Sotis's downfall, despite the obvious editing talent of its developers. They've tried to create ways to spice it up a little bit, such as with the talent system, but that's not enough to differentiate Sotis into its own AoS, something that's a completely different experience from Allstars, DotA 2, LoL, HoN, etc.
And Hero Attack? Any editor here could have made that map on Warcraft III. It makes practically no use of the depth of the Starcraft II engine. Its simplistic nature and somewhat tongue-in-cheek presentation is awesome and really friendly for newcomers, but the hero content is boring and the map itself doesn't play well at a competitive level, and yes I do have experience trying it. It's a casual map, and that's cool, but I don't see much development effort/talent and I certainly don't see much depth in the gameplay on that map.
Also, as for the AoS subject, questions arise as to what should be changed in order to evolve in the genre? If you want to stick to the basic base vs base with creep lanes and heroes leveling up you'll probably never break through anything. When DotA Allstars was at it's young ages, heroes were clearly the innovative factor here because they would drift away from standard Wc3 heroes while keeping a meaningfull place to use them. As the genre evolves with HoN, LoL and DotA 2, we clearly see that innovation in heroes is starting to be meaningless as more and more comes out that only look like other ones.
Point is, adding general game mechanics to polish the experience such as money shops and customization is what you currently see as the trend. My best guess would revolve around redesigning the very foundations of the genre istead of trying to polish it as much as you think you can. Going away from the standard creep with timers, heroes with max levels and items.
As saltygrapes stated, SotIS did moev awawy from their mercenary mechanic that they implemented in the earlier versions of their map, but it evetually got dropped of because, for them, it probably wasn't a core mechanic and just an addon that didn't fit in their idea of a MobA/AoS game.
TL;DR, try to think of how to change basics of the genre instead of adding to it.