Uhhh, I havent logged in since sunday, however, I will let you know what myself, and some people with 200+ games are saying and thinking...
First of all, Stetmann was by far the best hero in the game, before whatever buff Defiler is happy about. we actually banned him from use in many of our games. Stupid good. The other "too good" hero we would have to call is Zeratul. His stalkers are just too much compared to what other heroes get for the same investment. The guy who rains acid is also considered "among the best" but unlike zeratul and stetmann, we never got raged because the other teams used him a lot.
That said, I am generally into hero-arena type games; though I do not generally like tug of war games, or "dota" style games. More the classic "semi-rpg/pvp" style arena, which really dont exist. I enjoy survival games (sorry to say, I think your zerg survival is insanely basic, and after 3 games, I couldn't play it again) and defenses, empire builders; yeh know. I guess what really draws me into a game is "how many ways there are to win". I like customization, uniqueness. The items in "summoners" are what keeps me playing. I can have a handful of build concepts with each hero. I hate "do this, then go over here and do this; pick this, level that, and you are 100% optimized"
I will likely play some summoners tonight and give some feedback on any changes you have made.
A suggestion for increasing game time while increasing defense is to simply scale the spawn rates a little slower and allow for an additional upgrade to items. Make monsters stronger rather than more numerous. As it stands, if I start top or bottom and there is no one defending me; i can march right to the opponents base before my army is finally destroyed by their base cannon. Giving towers 1-2 armor, 10% more life; a little more damage, and a slow regen might be enough to make a big change in the game. It is usually early game against new players when 1 team really gets steamrolled in the manner mentioned above.
Mmm, my zerg defense map was just a quick experiment to see if heroes could work in a tug of war setting. I think they could, but they'd have to be more like commanders than heroes. Having interesting unit buffs and calling in units, while the tug of war element would have to be simplified. Still, I left the map online because it's surprisingly popular for how little time it took to create, usually hanging around page 2. It was never meant to be a "killer app" though. I'll revisit the idea of a PvE tug of war someday and use what I've learnt.
Items are totally the core of the map, yeah. I like the style of having to choose which stats you want to focus on. Items were built with having one primary stat that increases the raw power of your wave (max life, weapon damage etc) and one secondary stat that gave some smaller benefit (ability cooldown speed, energy regen, ability damage). I'm pretty pleased with the item system overall, though some refinement seems needed. I plan to swap out energy regen from the rifle, for weapon range.
I'm also looking for ideas for item effects, like the Siegebreaker aura. 200 games is about double what I've played, so I'm all ears regarding suggestions.
Ideally you'd be able to customise your items to counter any enemy hero, but focusing too much on that one enemy hero would put you at risk of that hero just changing lanes. I added Siegebreaker purely to counter Zeratul and Tychus, for instance.
Weak defenses and short game length are probably the biggest complaints about the map. I'll definitely look into extending it a bit. Though, the item system was only designed to last 25-30 minutes (depending on how many gold income bonuses you purchased), so the match length couldn't be stretched too much.
Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated! And again, any thoughts on item changes and item balance are more than welcome.
I enjoy survival games and defenses, empire builders; yeh know.
Wanted to comment on this separately. What kind of survival/defense games? I've spent the last week building Hero Line Wars (the map is hooked up to the same asset pool as The Summoners), but the fact of the matter is that I have no real experience with hero-centric maps. I don't suppose that's the kind of defense map you were referring to, was it?
Sure, hero line wars fits the genre I guess, a bit. Though for me, it is still always about the customization of heroes and/or playstyles. Warcraft 3 had many hero lines wars style games, and many of them were really quite different.
Unless you are really looking to make the next DOTA, you should avoid heavy focus on skill shots and hardcore pvp focus in any hero game. While elite players like that; new players have a rough time with it. Slowing the game down overall helps newer players catch up. Using acceleration on units to avoid kiting (instant turn rates and instant rates of fire are idiotic in most games). In my opinion, and what I have noticed in my years of wc3 and sc2, is that casual players make the game, and hardcore players will adapt to use whatever they can to be "hardcore".
Roles could be a good idea for any "line wars" game, depending on team size. You can allow a player to pick "defender" which grants them bonus income from killing monsters, "summoner" which grants them bonus income from summoning more, or throw some odd wrench into the mix. This already will allow for 2 major playstyles for players.
To add to that, allowing for unique ability upgrades will help players create a "unique" hero. Everyone wants to think that they have created a concept. For example; in summoners, I like to use tosh and rush all +armor items, so I have a 7 armor battlecruiser floating around. I have never seen anyone else do that; so I feel unique to have that concept under my belt.
A large variety of items to support a large variety of builds also goes a long way. Maybe I want to focus on high damage, slow hits; maybe I want to regenerate my allies. Who knows; but let me, the player decide. Dont make me pick the healer character and then go heal shit; let me pick a fast DPS machine, and then go heal people; because I am a lunatic and that is my choice! ..err whatever...
Counters should be soft; due to the fact that in a tower wars game, shit is generally spammed; and AoE spells are a dime a dozen. Having something that deals 50% more damage to armored... well... if you opponent sends something armored at you, DER, you need to use that spell or die. Keeping counters smaller and more broad helps players adjust better. Cut and paste counters work well in large battles, like sc2 has, and many maps have.
Summons are the same concept; if anyone wants to cut and paste counter everything, they will play battlecraft; where you have exactly 4 seconds to counter, or you lose. Almost all tugs are the same concept. People who like tugs, already have the list of tugs they love; and again, unless you are truly trying to reinvent the wheel, you should aim for making everyone happy first.
I feel a little silly making general gameplay suggestions to you; knowing that you have many many popular maps. All of my project in wc3 and sc2 have been hero based, and my longstanding wc3 and sc2 favorites are hero based games; so I am hopeful that my concepts are uhhh, more than just my personal opinion; and more of what I have learned during my time chasing players.
TLDR:
The 3 most important concepts I can summarize are:
Make the hero be "Heroic". Big flashy spells; allow them to survive a dozen mobs at once (even if they cannot kill them fast).
Allow players to directly influence the playstyle of their hero, and their game for that matter.
Soft counters give a feeling of accomplishment over hard counters, which offer anger!
I am sure you dont need help; but I enjoy making trigger systems and am good at it. I however get bored quickly with data, which leaves me with many partially made games. If you are interested, I have a good handful of hero-based systems created and in-place which I may be able to modify to suit whatever needs you may have with them; or create shit from scratch as well; it is almost all custom UI/dialog based.
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Curse PremiumUhhh, I havent logged in since sunday, however, I will let you know what myself, and some people with 200+ games are saying and thinking...
First of all, Stetmann was by far the best hero in the game, before whatever buff Defiler is happy about. we actually banned him from use in many of our games. Stupid good. The other "too good" hero we would have to call is Zeratul. His stalkers are just too much compared to what other heroes get for the same investment. The guy who rains acid is also considered "among the best" but unlike zeratul and stetmann, we never got raged because the other teams used him a lot.
That said, I am generally into hero-arena type games; though I do not generally like tug of war games, or "dota" style games. More the classic "semi-rpg/pvp" style arena, which really dont exist. I enjoy survival games (sorry to say, I think your zerg survival is insanely basic, and after 3 games, I couldn't play it again) and defenses, empire builders; yeh know. I guess what really draws me into a game is "how many ways there are to win". I like customization, uniqueness. The items in "summoners" are what keeps me playing. I can have a handful of build concepts with each hero. I hate "do this, then go over here and do this; pick this, level that, and you are 100% optimized"
I will likely play some summoners tonight and give some feedback on any changes you have made.
A suggestion for increasing game time while increasing defense is to simply scale the spawn rates a little slower and allow for an additional upgrade to items. Make monsters stronger rather than more numerous. As it stands, if I start top or bottom and there is no one defending me; i can march right to the opponents base before my army is finally destroyed by their base cannon. Giving towers 1-2 armor, 10% more life; a little more damage, and a slow regen might be enough to make a big change in the game. It is usually early game against new players when 1 team really gets steamrolled in the manner mentioned above.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
Mmm, my zerg defense map was just a quick experiment to see if heroes could work in a tug of war setting. I think they could, but they'd have to be more like commanders than heroes. Having interesting unit buffs and calling in units, while the tug of war element would have to be simplified. Still, I left the map online because it's surprisingly popular for how little time it took to create, usually hanging around page 2. It was never meant to be a "killer app" though. I'll revisit the idea of a PvE tug of war someday and use what I've learnt.
Items are totally the core of the map, yeah. I like the style of having to choose which stats you want to focus on. Items were built with having one primary stat that increases the raw power of your wave (max life, weapon damage etc) and one secondary stat that gave some smaller benefit (ability cooldown speed, energy regen, ability damage). I'm pretty pleased with the item system overall, though some refinement seems needed. I plan to swap out energy regen from the rifle, for weapon range.
I'm also looking for ideas for item effects, like the Siegebreaker aura. 200 games is about double what I've played, so I'm all ears regarding suggestions.
Ideally you'd be able to customise your items to counter any enemy hero, but focusing too much on that one enemy hero would put you at risk of that hero just changing lanes. I added Siegebreaker purely to counter Zeratul and Tychus, for instance.
Weak defenses and short game length are probably the biggest complaints about the map. I'll definitely look into extending it a bit. Though, the item system was only designed to last 25-30 minutes (depending on how many gold income bonuses you purchased), so the match length couldn't be stretched too much.
Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated! And again, any thoughts on item changes and item balance are more than welcome.
Wanted to comment on this separately. What kind of survival/defense games? I've spent the last week building Hero Line Wars (the map is hooked up to the same asset pool as The Summoners), but the fact of the matter is that I have no real experience with hero-centric maps. I don't suppose that's the kind of defense map you were referring to, was it?
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Curse PremiumWall of text with TLDR near bottom.
Sure, hero line wars fits the genre I guess, a bit. Though for me, it is still always about the customization of heroes and/or playstyles. Warcraft 3 had many hero lines wars style games, and many of them were really quite different.
Unless you are really looking to make the next DOTA, you should avoid heavy focus on skill shots and hardcore pvp focus in any hero game. While elite players like that; new players have a rough time with it. Slowing the game down overall helps newer players catch up. Using acceleration on units to avoid kiting (instant turn rates and instant rates of fire are idiotic in most games). In my opinion, and what I have noticed in my years of wc3 and sc2, is that casual players make the game, and hardcore players will adapt to use whatever they can to be "hardcore".
Roles could be a good idea for any "line wars" game, depending on team size. You can allow a player to pick "defender" which grants them bonus income from killing monsters, "summoner" which grants them bonus income from summoning more, or throw some odd wrench into the mix. This already will allow for 2 major playstyles for players.
To add to that, allowing for unique ability upgrades will help players create a "unique" hero. Everyone wants to think that they have created a concept. For example; in summoners, I like to use tosh and rush all +armor items, so I have a 7 armor battlecruiser floating around. I have never seen anyone else do that; so I feel unique to have that concept under my belt.
A large variety of items to support a large variety of builds also goes a long way. Maybe I want to focus on high damage, slow hits; maybe I want to regenerate my allies. Who knows; but let me, the player decide. Dont make me pick the healer character and then go heal shit; let me pick a fast DPS machine, and then go heal people; because I am a lunatic and that is my choice! ..err whatever...
Counters should be soft; due to the fact that in a tower wars game, shit is generally spammed; and AoE spells are a dime a dozen. Having something that deals 50% more damage to armored... well... if you opponent sends something armored at you, DER, you need to use that spell or die. Keeping counters smaller and more broad helps players adjust better. Cut and paste counters work well in large battles, like sc2 has, and many maps have.
Summons are the same concept; if anyone wants to cut and paste counter everything, they will play battlecraft; where you have exactly 4 seconds to counter, or you lose. Almost all tugs are the same concept. People who like tugs, already have the list of tugs they love; and again, unless you are truly trying to reinvent the wheel, you should aim for making everyone happy first.
I feel a little silly making general gameplay suggestions to you; knowing that you have many many popular maps. All of my project in wc3 and sc2 have been hero based, and my longstanding wc3 and sc2 favorites are hero based games; so I am hopeful that my concepts are uhhh, more than just my personal opinion; and more of what I have learned during my time chasing players.
TLDR:
The 3 most important concepts I can summarize are:
Make the hero be "Heroic". Big flashy spells; allow them to survive a dozen mobs at once (even if they cannot kill them fast).
Allow players to directly influence the playstyle of their hero, and their game for that matter.
Soft counters give a feeling of accomplishment over hard counters, which offer anger!
I am sure you dont need help; but I enjoy making trigger systems and am good at it. I however get bored quickly with data, which leaves me with many partially made games. If you are interested, I have a good handful of hero-based systems created and in-place which I may be able to modify to suit whatever needs you may have with them; or create shit from scratch as well; it is almost all custom UI/dialog based.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418