SC2Mapster

Love it! All I can ask for is more! More! Heros, etc!

I would love to see some of the very mechanical transforming heroes like Tanks and Vikings that have different tactics depending on their mode. Also wouldn't mind seeing some of the other air units making an entrance like that protoss phoenix or the terran coptor from avatar, even if they end up pathing mostly like ground units.

I've been playing this game for a few days now, and I've seen several major problems that need to be fixed. Some may echo the sentiments of dompruss who commented before me.

1) Mercenaries do not fit.

I've never played DotA, so when I saw the forum post that said "get rid of mercenaries", I first though "no way, you just can't take something new." After playing for a while though, mercenaries add HUGE imbalances to the game. At the beginning of the game, mercenaries are simply overpowering. With them, neutral creeps can be shredded for fast money. Also, since they're so much more powerful than players, early in the game, a hero who encounters a group of enemy mercenaries is a dead hero. This makes the game very punishing to anyone who opts NOT to hire mercenaries early on. Later in the game, mercenaries are every bit a problem still. At this point, mercenaries are meaningless against other players as they simply don't do enough damage. This leaves them with two uses: creeping camps for excess money (which doesn't seem like what they were meant for), or adding clutter to the game. Later in the game, you already have the heroes, their special attacks with special effects, the team creeps (possibly improved with additional Ultralisks and Colossi), and possibly the SHC. The MULE also tosses extra SCVs. The game really doesn't need more clutter at this point, and having the burning trees from the merc flamethrowers, or the extra units hobbling around, is just unnecessary.

At first I thought mercenaries were kind of cool, but I think I've changed my vote. I think it's best to scrap them, scrap the Darksteel Titan, and move on.

2) Item Balance

I think items need to be taken a look at. This is where I disagree with dompruss, the 45% attack speed item is NOT overpowered. You have the Hyperion weapon with +35 attack, the Graviton item with 45% attack speed, costing 3,700 and 2,150 for a total of 5,850. Then you have the Primal Gutter with 25% attack speed and 25 attack, as well as defense and a special effect, costing 2,650. 2 of these cost 5,300. This gives you more attack, more attack speed, and more for a smaller cost.

I'm not saying anything should be nerfed or buffed, but I think balance should be looked at a little more. I don't really understand the point of recipe items - with the rate cash flows in this game, all it does is annoy the player when he doesn't have room to buy the components. Then it's a mess of dropping the item, buying new items, etc. And hoping your team mates don't steal your items. Also, it seems you can't use your team mate's items in recipes, which only adds to the confusion - the rules for the recipes aren't exactly clear. I suggest doing away with recipes altogether, reorganizing the shops (single stat items in the main store, multiple stat or special items in the hidden store), and adding some new items while reworking the values of the first few items. Maybe items shouldn't stack? That would make a difference too, I think. Also, are you supposed to be able to sell items back? Some people say they can, but I've never been able to do it, and plenty of other people have tried and failed.

3) Archons

What exactly do these guys do? They give you some minerals, yes, but they're also fairly strong... and there is two of them. Without expendable items, usually by the time you can beat the archons, you're already pretty powerful. This just puts the game further in your favor. As it stands, archons are either:

a) A small advantage to someone who knows the map... who is probably winning already. b) A small advantage to the winning team who is first capable of defeating them... again, you probably already have enough money, and you're already winning.

I think the archons should be split up, first of all. I don't know why they're on one side of the map. second of all, a google search shows that the DotA equivalent of the archon dropped a special item. Maybe a similar concept here? How about an item that reduces respawn times? Speaking of respawn times,

4) Game speed

The game feels really inconsistent. Ultimate attacks have a HUMONGOUS cool down. Energy replenishes oh so slowly without items to fix it. Respawn times are incredibly long, especially when you're higher level, and don't even allow for you to wear down your cool downs.

On the other hand, battles are very short. The ultimate attacks simply kill your opponent outright most of the time. Heck, even the lower level abilities equate an instant kill when timed correctly. This gives your hero a feeling of having "bursts" of effectiveness, after which they're fairly useless and vulnerable, and can only kill the creeps (which become harmless fairly quickly).

There isn't that much micro involved. It's more of getting the jump on someone who just used their special attacks, and using your own. Or, later in the game, it's about using the better items you have and completely rolling them over, because later in the game, they respawn way too slowly to really fight back (it takes good use of special attacks to take out someone with the upper hand - special attacks that can't be used because of cool down).

I think death cool down should be tempered down. It's fair that higher levels wait longer, but the amount by which the timer increases should not be that extreme. Also, special attacks need to be re-worked. As it is right now, early in the game, you're limited by energy. Late in the game, you've either abandoned special attacks since your character doesn't require them to be effective (Ghost, for example, typically does better just by stacking offense), or you've collected an item for fast energy regen, effectively removing energy limitations, and now you're limited by cooldown.

It's a fun game but I think it needs quite a bit of work still.

First -You should probably remove the -45% attack speed item from the secret shop. That item is way overpowered, and I've seen quite a few Snipers buy 2 of those, get the primal gutter, and then just cheese their way to victory because their attack speed sitting around 0.1 second. getting effectively 10 attacks a second, i've also seen Lord's (zealots) get 2 of those so they can blinkstorm and almost instakill.

Second of all, increase the aggro range of neutral creeps, snipers can also neutral creep without getting attacked, and I believe so can reapers, but i know it's a small map, so it can't be helped yet, but a larger map would be better.

Third make neutral creeps strong, or make hire able anti-marines weaker, I've seen too many people start off a game by buying 5-6 anti-marines, and sit them at a creep spawn to get unlimited money.

Besides that, the rest of the thousand of imbalances I've seen can wait. Those 3 things make this game seem terrible enough to not want to play due to players abusing these things(way too much). Sure it's fun to play an overpowered character, but it takes no skill to win if you always play a sniper and neutral creep to cheap victory.