Think dota, with nexus word wars, with balanced, fun, features that doesn't become unbalanced once some elite typer comes into the picture.
The biggest requirement to make this map, would be AI.
You would have to give each hero a "personality" and you as a player become the "summoner", sorta like a commander who shouts orders to them.
The problem would be "how to control these heroes" so why not limit the controls to 3 paces:
- Attack! (The hero goes on a full offensive, and spends all his energy trying to inflict the most damage, and not prioritize safety so much)
- Defend! (The hero uses movements and maneuver to avoid being hit too much by enemies, using hit and run tactics and skills to suit that style)
- Rush! (The hero stops caring about safety, and goes to quickly inflict the most possible damage to a enemy hero or minion with the least health or seemed the most vulnerable)
At first the idea seems great, then I realize how complex this can be and it does need some revisions.
lol inspired by our most recent news? Are you saying this is just DOTA but you can type attack, defend, or rush to control your hero- and thats it? if thats the case its going to be really boring to play.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Feel free to Send me a PM if you have any questions/concerns!
WARNING: Huge blocks of text!
I don't really like using Curse's kind of text editor because there aren't buttons to make it easier to interpret it on this post.
- You can order them to change lanes via directional hotkey <Up | Down> since the map would be horizontal and is like a nexus war direction. This causes them to jump (or warp) to the other side of the lane on the same horizontal area. To keep the game simple, two lanes can exist.
- Your hero will maintain his distance to the enemy army, so he'll never run past the opponent's wave, and heroes can't cross each other, they have to fight or flee. Minions cannot run past your hero, so think of him as a barrier for your enemy forces, but they can harm your hero if you stay on the front lines. Basically, you tell your hero to stay on the front, or on the back, and having them stay on the back means the hero will rather hide behind his ally's units rather than stand in front of them when engaging enemies.
- Every hero has a range that works for them. When your hero is close enough to a enemy, he will attack the enemy with his weapons, depending on the front/back conditions (a warrior will throw knives or weaponry and do different damage, if you tell him to stay back). In this range, enemy minions will reveal words above them.
- By quickly typing in the words that appears when your hero is in range, you will "tag" that enemy and start a chain of combos. The goal is to tag as much enemies as possible so you can initiate your combo and set off the hero's abilities. Combos will have timers so they will automatically use skills once it ends, otherwise a specific "magic" keyword you can use to initiate a combo... Like "Power!" or "[Insert your custom favorite phrase here]". By the way, a tagged enemy will take a number of hits equal to your combo count, and some enemies can have multiple words for multiple attacks and chaining combos.
- Every heroes has a set of abilities that goes off when a fixed amount of combos are met, and depending if its a "prefix" or a "suffix" it will occur before the combo starts, or after it ends. Supportive abilities like buffs and debuff are prefixes, and destructive abilities are suffixes (so after a combo you unleash a attack ability). Defending against a combo can work by having a a higher number of combo counts than the opposing hero, and inflicting a "counter" damage if you are greater than them.
- So if a hero is standing and sees another enemy hero in his range, he can combo and it'll target this new foe too! This works if your building a combo midway and a enemy hero walks into range, you can tag him and inflict damage on him! This is why battle position makes a difference when engaging enemies, because you never know if your going to walk into a combo. Spellcasters has the longest range and thus can initiate combos from the back onto his enemies (but being at the back means you target less targets).
- So if a enemy spellcaster is standing on the back, and your standing on the front, you can be targetted, and you are allowed to move to the back to avoid this. Showdowns (see below) are impossible if both players are on the back regardless of range since heroes will unable to hit other heroes.
- If both heroes has a combo set up and one of them initiates it, it starts a showdown, of which the two opposing heroes will type the randomly appearing words as fast as possible, to attain the highest count.
- The hits on target hero is based on the difference in "combo count" between each other, and the higher count means that person will inflict the damage.
- Dead heroes respawns back at base and will run back to the battlefield. Healing isn't a big issue, but rather comboing is the big deal, since its easy to kill heroes if they are ill prepared in a showdown.
- When two forces collide on one lane, a "front line" will occur, where one force stands on one side and the other stands on the other side, and they both throw attacks at each other. Heroes being on the front line zone will buff his allies' morale and give them stat boosts. Towers can exist as a defensive barrier from the army, and requires a hero's hand in order to destroy it. The tower takes damage every time an ally minion dies on it's territory, and it acts as a natural barrier so heroes and minions can't cross it unless its owned by them. Basically, your hero will stand at the tower and attack the minions that comes to attempt to fend you off, but you kill them, resulting in the tower taking damage.
- It would be better if the camera is locked to the hero and you can't move it, so the game focuses on typing and lane changing.
Will add more over time...
You see, I imagine a sort of "turn based cutscene" kind of scene, where your hero locks onto the number of targets and unleashes his attacks on them, and then the game resumes as usual.
Note: While the gameplay is simple, creating it can be complex, because I'm making up a kind of system specifically for this while innovating on the go.
As for leveling, maximum combo can be tied to your hero's level and the ability to be used can be tied to that combo, which results in being tied to the levels too.
Level 1 hero can combo up to 3 times, thus attacks 3 times, on 1~3 targets (depending on hero type this changes and its based on targets tagged).
Level 10 hero can combo up to 30 times, on 1~10 targets (same as above).
Levels will slightly affect the health, damage, and defense of your heroes.
It would be better to keep stats simple, and to a smaller spectrum.
Example:
Level 1 hero will have ~400 HP and the damage they inflict on foes is ~25, and a defense rating of ~5...
Words of the Ancients.
Nuff said?
Think dota, with nexus word wars, with balanced, fun, features that doesn't become unbalanced once some elite typer comes into the picture.
The biggest requirement to make this map, would be AI.
You would have to give each hero a "personality" and you as a player become the "summoner", sorta like a commander who shouts orders to them.
The problem would be "how to control these heroes" so why not limit the controls to 3 paces:
- Attack! (The hero goes on a full offensive, and spends all his energy trying to inflict the most damage, and not prioritize safety so much)
- Defend! (The hero uses movements and maneuver to avoid being hit too much by enemies, using hit and run tactics and skills to suit that style)
- Rush! (The hero stops caring about safety, and goes to quickly inflict the most possible damage to a enemy hero or minion with the least health or seemed the most vulnerable)
At first the idea seems great, then I realize how complex this can be and it does need some revisions.
lol inspired by our most recent news? Are you saying this is just DOTA but you can type attack, defend, or rush to control your hero- and thats it? if thats the case its going to be really boring to play.
Maybe you can type the spell names in as a way to manually use spells. Although I think Rodrigo's idea about debating would be better.
I got a pretty good setup for this...
WARNING: Huge blocks of text!
I don't really like using Curse's kind of text editor because there aren't buttons to make it easier to interpret it on this post.
- You can order them to change lanes via directional hotkey <Up | Down> since the map would be horizontal and is like a nexus war direction. This causes them to jump (or warp) to the other side of the lane on the same horizontal area. To keep the game simple, two lanes can exist.
- Your hero will maintain his distance to the enemy army, so he'll never run past the opponent's wave, and heroes can't cross each other, they have to fight or flee. Minions cannot run past your hero, so think of him as a barrier for your enemy forces, but they can harm your hero if you stay on the front lines. Basically, you tell your hero to stay on the front, or on the back, and having them stay on the back means the hero will rather hide behind his ally's units rather than stand in front of them when engaging enemies.
- Every hero has a range that works for them. When your hero is close enough to a enemy, he will attack the enemy with his weapons, depending on the front/back conditions (a warrior will throw knives or weaponry and do different damage, if you tell him to stay back). In this range, enemy minions will reveal words above them.
- By quickly typing in the words that appears when your hero is in range, you will "tag" that enemy and start a chain of combos. The goal is to tag as much enemies as possible so you can initiate your combo and set off the hero's abilities. Combos will have timers so they will automatically use skills once it ends, otherwise a specific "magic" keyword you can use to initiate a combo... Like "Power!" or "[Insert your custom favorite phrase here]". By the way, a tagged enemy will take a number of hits equal to your combo count, and some enemies can have multiple words for multiple attacks and chaining combos.
- Every heroes has a set of abilities that goes off when a fixed amount of combos are met, and depending if its a "prefix" or a "suffix" it will occur before the combo starts, or after it ends. Supportive abilities like buffs and debuff are prefixes, and destructive abilities are suffixes (so after a combo you unleash a attack ability). Defending against a combo can work by having a a higher number of combo counts than the opposing hero, and inflicting a "counter" damage if you are greater than them.
- So if a hero is standing and sees another enemy hero in his range, he can combo and it'll target this new foe too! This works if your building a combo midway and a enemy hero walks into range, you can tag him and inflict damage on him! This is why battle position makes a difference when engaging enemies, because you never know if your going to walk into a combo. Spellcasters has the longest range and thus can initiate combos from the back onto his enemies (but being at the back means you target less targets).
- So if a enemy spellcaster is standing on the back, and your standing on the front, you can be targetted, and you are allowed to move to the back to avoid this. Showdowns (see below) are impossible if both players are on the back regardless of range since heroes will unable to hit other heroes.
- If both heroes has a combo set up and one of them initiates it, it starts a showdown, of which the two opposing heroes will type the randomly appearing words as fast as possible, to attain the highest count.
- The hits on target hero is based on the difference in "combo count" between each other, and the higher count means that person will inflict the damage.
- Dead heroes respawns back at base and will run back to the battlefield. Healing isn't a big issue, but rather comboing is the big deal, since its easy to kill heroes if they are ill prepared in a showdown.
- When two forces collide on one lane, a "front line" will occur, where one force stands on one side and the other stands on the other side, and they both throw attacks at each other. Heroes being on the front line zone will buff his allies' morale and give them stat boosts. Towers can exist as a defensive barrier from the army, and requires a hero's hand in order to destroy it. The tower takes damage every time an ally minion dies on it's territory, and it acts as a natural barrier so heroes and minions can't cross it unless its owned by them. Basically, your hero will stand at the tower and attack the minions that comes to attempt to fend you off, but you kill them, resulting in the tower taking damage.
- It would be better if the camera is locked to the hero and you can't move it, so the game focuses on typing and lane changing.
Will add more over time...
You see, I imagine a sort of "turn based cutscene" kind of scene, where your hero locks onto the number of targets and unleashes his attacks on them, and then the game resumes as usual.
Note: While the gameplay is simple, creating it can be complex, because I'm making up a kind of system specifically for this while innovating on the go.
As for leveling, maximum combo can be tied to your hero's level and the ability to be used can be tied to that combo, which results in being tied to the levels too.
Level 1 hero can combo up to 3 times, thus attacks 3 times, on 1~3 targets (depending on hero type this changes and its based on targets tagged).
Level 10 hero can combo up to 30 times, on 1~10 targets (same as above).
Levels will slightly affect the health, damage, and defense of your heroes.
It would be better to keep stats simple, and to a smaller spectrum.
Example:
Level 1 hero will have ~400 HP and the damage they inflict on foes is ~25, and a defense rating of ~5...
Level 10 hero = ~1000 HP / ~95 damage / ~45 Defense
The problem is that drastic changes to this idea doesn't really make it similar to DotA anymore lol.