They're not secret.. I thought we told u this already??
It's Jack, TZ, and Imago so far.
And this Thread serves the purpose for asking the community for things.

Here: http://www.staredit.net/281451/
This lists several of my current problems.

Idea: Spin-top hero

Hero name: Sprocket
Model: A spin top... think - the object from inception that spins forever in a dream. Except the wide circular edge isn't sharp and smooth, it's teethed like a gear.
Movement: Sprocket's default state is actually not spinning. It's moving around on its 'belly' (the toothed gear edge, reminiscent of SW droid tanks). The interesting part is when you quickly click around it in a circular manner. After about 3 full turns, it gets up, and moving around like a spinning top. I got the idea from playing mutant and bike mode mech - I would often do this for no other reason other than having ADD, and always wanted it to actually do something.

While in its spinning top form, you have to constantly be clicking it around in a circle to keep it up, but will move in the direction with the highest concentration of clicks. Sprocket does melee + knock back damage to everything it touches.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Feb 21 2011, 8:36 pm by ClansAreForGays.

Lols...
sm1's been watching too much Inception

What would be its Abilities?

I want to break out of the box of "hero with 4 spells it casts"

I'm much more interested in making the way each hero plays completely different. We all like to say that's what we are trying to do, but we are always fitting them into the same box of "An avatar that moves where ever you right click" The only thing separating them is their walk speed, and what flashy lights pop out of their but when you hit Q,W,E, or R.

I want heroes to be like night and day from each other.
Heroes where you can only control them using AWSD
Heroes that require 3 clicks a seconds just to function.
Heroes that function autonomously, but need subtle pushes in the right direction by the player.

I want the PLAYER to PHYSICALLY be doing something different sitting at desk depending on what hero they are!

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Feb 21 2011, 9:39 pm by ClansAreForGays.

From the way things are, I don't think it'd work
I know what you mean, tho.. I also wanted to break out that box of 4 spells per hero...

I guess an idea would be to make it so that as you spin, you build up some charge or something, and you can release electrical/sound shockwaves as an ability...
A second would be if you spin fast enough, you can drill into the ground and appear smwhere else...
Or maybe something to do with Tornados

added much more

All of that would be perfect.

Night and Day advantage - Definately.

WASD - no due to lag... may ruin competitiveness... maybe when we're confident enough to implement it without and repercussions

Requiring a lot of clicks - Interesting thoughts... in TS1, I accidentally stumbled upon the "Auto-ing" play mechanic. Auto-ing would seem almost Neanderthal to the SC2 crowd. But what other things would need a lot o' clicks?
There're tons of other unique gameplay mechs to throw in here.. such as Heroes that depend on Positioning (abilities have specific patterns?) .. Heroes that depend on Timing (Spell cooldown/start up).. which of course all need to integrate with the whole map.

Autonomous function - Will probably work with basic, "low-competitive" plays for all heroes.

---

I was thinking more deeply about your Sprocket hero.
In reality, I have no idea the extent's of TZ's ability (or stability in the project)... so asking him to do smthing like this is probably asking too much

In theory.. a more practical hero would be one that looks like a Top and can run around normally and attack melee, just like any other hero.
First ability would be to charge up a spin.. It'd take him normally 5-10 seconds to fully charge the spin... but the more clicking you do, the faster you'd spin (thereby implementing your need for clicking.. Altho how to measure one clicking circularly would be tough....)
Once spinning fully, he'll have a different melee attack animation that'd do more damage, and he'll move much, MUCH quicker. (probably equivalent to Mutant @SC1, or even faster)
We can make it so that his defense is higher when he's normal, and defense lower while spinning.
He'll spin slower and slower over time, and his speed will slow over time as well, until he returns to his normal state. Unless we were able to implement a way that, just by clicking, can increase the spin.
Any stunning spells would stop his spin dead.
Spinning requires no Mana, and he can either gain mana normally, or only gain mana as he spins.. to use his other abilities.

his 2nd ability would be some sort of Charged Jump ability, where he releases either heavy winds or some electrical discharge, stunning players in an AoE.. as he Jumps and kind of bounces around.

His 3rd ability.. if balance issues arise with him being too fast, would be something that'd temporarily give him really fast, but straight movement. Like a Spin Rush or something.. as he moves in that direction, he'll hit smth and deal damage to it. So it's ez to avoid but quite hard hitting. It also hits them back a bit and maybe mini-stun?

Or it can even be a burrow ability, where the AoE is where he unburrows.

His last ability would involve an AoE Tornado.. may depend on how fast he's spinning and such... Lifts people in the air for some time, as they get damaged in the air by the tornado itself, while ranged allies can also shoot at them... this makes Sprocket unable to move for the duration of the spell, so a Ranged Stunning spell Can stop it.

I don't know just sm brainstorming... again, this probly won't happen :C

Been such a long time...Guess it's time to put my big stinking foot on the forums again.

I think for TS to be successful we will need Moose on board. He made the most successful itenerations of the game with supporting help from CAFG. With the combination of CAFG+Moose+Urine you cannot lose. I would really think with moose helping, the chances of an SC2 TS being succesful would dramatically improve.

With that said here are some suggestions:

-Ask the old guard for their opinions aka Vortex, Maxx (Yes I said it), Iceman (Yes I said it),dog, StalinG, fdsa72, shroomz (hacker), Wally, foxwolf, and others. Don't solely take the advice of the "SEN Pros" (Read: 95% Trash, no offense)

-If you are going to implement items, make them consumables, don't make this into HoN/DoTA where by 30 minutes Mr.Carry is insanely pumped and the rest of the team is negligible

-Still make spawn a tactical option. Foxwolf covered this pretty well. As per request I will explain it more indepth.

-Honestly I still think 3v3 will be best, but I can completely understand 4v4. However in no way should this be 5v5, ever.

-Make new heroes of course, but don't make redundant heroes a la HoN/Dota where over 15 Heroes are trash. This ties in with the 3v3 concept where you don't need heroes roles streched thin or overlapping example: Tort/leshrac vs Pyro/lina, yes tort fits into some obscure niche but whatever tort can do pyro can do pretty much better, yes even push.

-Don't make this an auto-attack fest like HoN/DotA is, or the eternal farmfest that is DoTA/Hon

-In terms of heroes, one thing that I always loved was how Heroes could usually fit multiple roles pretty well. DotA/HoN does this to some degree however I always preferred TS hero synergies and strengths. Perfect hero being Assault epitomizing this.

-The one appeal that made TS so addictive and fun was the fact if you were skilled enough you can always make a comeback. In DotA/HoN usuaully if you are losing, you are going to lose point blank. The margin to comeback is very thin. Also I think the no cooldowns on the spells helped the arcadey fast paced action.

-Whatever you do: KEEP THE Stock LIFE SYSTEM IMPLEMETED, weather it be 3 to 5, but you dont need ANYMORE. However if you do implement and item system make it so you can buy lives at a VERY expensive price.

-UnholyUrine is the man, SEN should really make this guy an admin or god status or something

~DoLLe

P.S: Been awhile CAFG, whats up? Vortex I have SC2, hit me up.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Feb 24 2011, 12:39 am by DoLLe.

Lol UU as admin with his maturity? Game should stay 3v3 imo. ;o

NYROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Moose has faded out and I doubt he'd help, plus I don't think we need him for TS2 to be successful. He merely balanced a map that was already made (plus some more major modifications, but in essence the map was complete).
k. Not that I know how to get hold of anyone except wally and vortex, plus some others on bnet, which you may or may not think are good. Problem with many of them is they won't play the map, so why should their opinion matter? They'll still be thinking in SC1 terms, and their opinion may not be entirely helpful.
UU's quite against consumables. We're also aware of the HoN/DotA/LoL situation, and don't want items to be the major thing they are in those games. Items will be a (fairly expensive) tactical advantage, if we even implement them. The main way of building your hero will still be the oldschool statistics way.

Please do explain more. Also, we are considering different ways to make spawn upgrading work. One thing is that in SC2 we can control spawn stats a lot more easily, which means that upgrading spawn 5 times in a few seconds with saved up stat points won't suddenly overwhelm other players (keep in mind you can't see a civilians area like in TS1, so it's harder to predict a spawn upgrade). We may also keep the building-spawners-for-reavers-etc. thing.
Opinions vary from 3v3 to 4v4 to 5v5, although it won't be more than that. I'm personally still not sure whether 4v4 or 5v5 would be best. In HoN/DotA, you have jungling so 5v5 is essentially 4 lanes instead of 3 (not exactly, but close enough).
Definitely, we won't have 120 heroes on release, and probably will never have anywhere near 120 heroes. I'd say betas will have around 20 heroes to play around with, and we can add more if needed later.

Most spells in TS won't have cooldowns, so spells are at least as important as autoattacking and micro in TS, depending on what heroes you have. (E.G. with mech, micro was almost/definitely more important than spells.)

The end result of a proVpro or averageVaverage or noobVnoob will still be balanced on a knife edge. With only 3 lives, I don't think this will ever change even if we screw up something else badly.

Definitely. Don't know about buying lives though. In a 4v4, you've got 12 lives on a team. Buying a life can give you an 8% improvement on lives. Of course, if it was expensive then you'd be weaker. Iunno, we'll have to talk about it.

Hmmm you seemed to have lighteedn up a bit Jack nice replies.

Shame to hear about moose, I still think he deserved a lot more credit he put up with a lot of nonsense.

Well I can get a hold of Iceman and some others. Those who can't progress in the future can stay on SC1 for all I care. I am pretty much in agreement with you here.

I say 4v4 at most. Also Jack, realize most jungling heroes arent viable in DoTA/HoN unless you are pubstomping. Essentially its still 5v5.

Glad to hear you are in agreement about the items though, I am totally for consumables however. I guess you guys will just have to hash it out. But i beg of you don't make sure items don't = instant win.

I am terrible at math, so I didnt see such an improvement can be made on lives if you are able to buy them.

Glad to hear about the spells retaining no cooldown.

In a different post I will explain my take on spawn, and yes spawn cheese did get ridiculous and was almost instant win unless the opposing team had some sort of anti spawn line up (Rine, Archer, ling e.t.c).

Anyways I hope to hear more updates soon.

@Foxwolf: Hey fox, your spawn analysis was spot on, however I want to point out that in the later iternerations of TS when the warp/heal change was implemented the hanging-on-temple-spawn strat was still difficult however viable. However you needed had to have real foresight into your partners skill level because if I knew they were going to end up dying, I'd divert all my exp/resources to a build-a-spawn strat from the drive instead of a mid-game strategy switch to the BaS strategy where it was most likely going to fail.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 24 2011, 1:03 am by DoLLe.

As I've always said, I come to SEN to have fun, cause it's a gaming forum. If I were given the responsibility, I can show my mature side.

@Items and Consumables
NO. No no no no no no no no no, no no no NO No no NO no NO!
No Consumables. It's bothersome.
Items is another story. As far as I'm concerned, Items will be the last thing we look at.

@Maxx n Iceman n etc.
If you can get them to participate on this thread, it'd be great. All ideas and help are appreciated.

@PvP number
I'm pretty sure we'll go with 4v4 b/c of the old school terrain. We'll have double the spawns pass through middle.

@Moose and CAFG
it has become a somewhat hot button topic.
I'm very grateful for their efforts... Both of them have gone through tons of nonsense in my triggering
and Both of them have done tremendous work to the map.
The TS2 team wasn't started by me. I never intended to begin without knowing the editor, and if it were left to me, the map wouldn't be made. B/c of this, it really isn't up to me to choose who to take on board.

Personal Opinion:
-down for consumables only if they have no gamechanging effect, but definitely not items.

-4v4 with 3 lanes will be pretty awkward for grinding even if double the spawn went through mid, 3v3 just makes the game much less "clustered" so to speak, and will likely get games hosted/played faster. 4v4 could always be implemented in later versions

-stock live system is definitely best choice to go, as for buying lives, never thought about it, however it might just only create a larger cleavage ingame since most likely teams that have extra cash could further empower themselves by buying a ton of lives. I think that it would be awesome if you could buy lives for teamates, for example if one of your teamates is pretty much useless by end game they could just buy a life for the PK'er. If buying lives is enabled then there should be a limit on the amount of lives a player can buy; in other words we don't want mass sims letting people buy 10 extra lives..


PS~~Whats your SC2 ID DoLLe?? maybe we can melee/ums sometime.

Buying lives for a dead teammate sounds good if it had some severe repercussions. Such as it costs minerals AND a life to give a life to a player, or your team permanently stays at low morale, or you or your revived teammate gets set back a few levels, or you only gain half exp, or your temple loses some hp (just throwing in thoughts). Only one teammate can be given a life for any given team. This would make for an interesting end-game-changing twist.

Finally read the whole thread here are some of my thoughts now

On Ling being overpowered:

Wow this is still being debated? Especially when mutant has been proven to be a low-tier hero and pubstar hero time and again??

Counters:
-Warrior: L3 rapes his L2, High auto-attack damage, Armor/Shields L1+L4 reduces any mutant threat to 0 sans Chaos Mutant. At 10 Attack, warrior 3-4 shots a 0HP ling at base HP.
-Volt: 3HP volt destroys anything he can do. L1,L2,L3 are guaranteed death for mutant unless he has SHIT tons of mana and L4. Ling cant farm in his lane.
-Assault: Bomber dodging Lurkers, Bombers rapes L2, Bomber chase L4. High HP and good armor hero as well. Ling is owned. Ling cannot farm in his lane.
-DM: Just rape, Ling cant farm in her lane. However his ultimate still negates her ultimate, but mael rapes his ultimate. Tongue twister. Still rape
-Medic: High HP, regens, disable, Concussive, Ranged. Owned.
-Spec Ops: Ling overall wins, despite sniper. Lings L4 2shots this guy. however spec ops gets an honorable mention for the fact that ling will never be able to lane with him.

-Ling is a godly staller. Though against anybody awake he will never cap.

Mutant only shines when its marines or above. when his godly farm mech kicks in and hes at 800 exp while you are still hovering at 400. If you let him live that long then you deserve to die. Mutant is a pubstar pick. Get over it.

Thoughts on the Proposed Spell Systems:

I don't like the spell tree idea. Flat out. It does not fit TS's style of game play. You don't need multiple paths. Keep it simple, fast, however still adding depth and strategy. I don't think a spell tree system would be intuitive and newbie friendly. Shredder, touched up on this as well when you cannot tell what the other guy is going you can be completely blindsided. The four spell system is effective, fast, and fun.

Realize the effect of a spell tree system would automatically slow down the game play, we do not need that.

The Marvel Vs Capcom 2 Assist Groove idea was very good, this can be readily applied to TS2. This was mentioned earlier in the thread and shredder was advocating it.

MvC2 I loved that game, anyways in the context of MvC2 the Assist Grooves determine what type of action your tag partner will perform when you tag him in. In the context of TS2 we should apply this type of gameplay mechanic. Have it so you can choose from three types expansions/grooves when you pick your hero. It's simple, Fast, yet complex and allows for further hero customization and hero synergy.

A rough example, in my mind the Warriors/Hero expansion pool would look something like this, a screen like this would open you could pick from three options:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alpha Expansion (Offensive Expansion): His L2 gains additional attack properties or his stun has additional attack properties or both.

Beta Expansion (Defensive Expansion): L1 and L4 gain bonus armor properties, or gain a bonus of X amount on activation and the bonus slowly fades over time.

Gamma Expansion (Team Expansion): For example, a Global aura that grants bonus that grants bonus HP and Armor, so you can use this to give people who are terrible cappers I.E MUTANT and volt an edge when in the capping phase, or melee farmers who need to endure hits to farm ensuring they can stay in lane longer to farm.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On paper they are pretty simple yet, when you factor in other heroes expansions to mix the combos can become limitless. This will create team synergy and hero customization strategies. It also adds a new element of game play and can further emphasize what type of specific hero role you want to play. This approach will also add a feature to the game while also adding a new layer of strategic depth.

Again I want to stress that it retains the fast, and simple yet complex nature TS is known for. However this system will be beginner friendly as well as pro approved.

I would like to point out you don't have to categorize strictly to attack, defense, support for each heroes expansion options. It can be other things, maybe even an active ability! I just believe it will be better this way while again being accessible to noobs and seasoned vets.

I HIGHLY advise against the spell tree system.

The Breakdown on items:

As far as items, they should be consumables or no items at all. Make them have one-shot effect. Like a burst heal or clutch mana save. In addition, implement items that have AOE effect bonus that are very short term or have detrimental effects to counter the brief bonus. Impose a STRICT one item slot rule only.

There should also be cooldowns in the action of buying items, any item purchase and the cooldown is imposed. Duration I'm talking two minutes and up and should be a flat time across the board. This will promote critical thinking and strategic insight. With everyone on the team with a consumable item, with varied effects combos and team synergy would be seemingly limitless. I emphasize these items should be burst type effects.

Nobody does not want to play "Hey I just bought my holy sword of doom with its 1000+ atk I’ve farmed for 5hours, it’s now GG BADKIDZ ROFL!!!" type of game. Neither do the seasoned vets and fans.

Don't make this item centric like HoN and that nonsense. I am strongly against equippables that makes a game very farm centric, which TS is not about. One shot effects synergize with TS style of gameplay and pace. Some item choices to think about:

-One that reduces incoming tower fire damage could be singular/aoe.
-A teleport stone of course.
-A item that strengthens base defense or makes them immune to spawn for X amount of seconds.
-One that makes removes negative effects on you.
-One that can produce an aoe silencing effect for about 1 second
-Burst Heal or Burst Mana, must be strictly regulated
-One that grants bonuses to Spawn on the area for X amount of seconds
-One that provides true/clear vision in an aoe for x amount of seconds, not long

Theme and Thoughts of TS

I thought about these things pretty hard. I think people would agree TS is about fast-paced action at the same time twitch decision making, and complex hero interactions, strategy and combos. Consumable items and Hero expansions add more to these layers , without breaking what we know is tried and true. They also compliment the nature and pace of TS.

Nobody really wants to read a bible of equippable items and skill trees. Leave that trash to HoN/DoTa/LoL.

Complexity doesn't always necessarily translate to fun. There is a reason why DoTa and HoN are niche games; the learning curve is simple ridiculous. The irony here is that for all those things that you have learned in those aforemented games, it is actually pretty linear progression in terms of gameplay.

The key themes of TS are the FAST, SIMPLE, yet COMPLEX system that made it such a wild success on SC1. We really don’t need DotA style shenanigans because in the end the player will say “This is a low-rent dotA why am I playing this?”

Keep it TS, stick to the core principles while adding some new features. I think the hero expansion system would suit it perfectly.

Post has been edited 10 time(s), last time on Feb 25 2011, 2:46 am by DoLLe.

Well tell me what niche isn't filled so i can come up with a better hero ?

Edit : I wanted L1 to be heavily relied upon... since its a mana eater so its a more intermediate difficult use character...

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 25 2011, 12:08 am by Tempz.

About items, the problem/major effect that health items and teleports can have is that say you're at 100 HP and stuck in a base with players guarding and about to rush you, and your allies are far away or noob or dead: you heal and get out alive. You teleport and get out alive. Either way, cutting a player down to 100 HP and getting him cornered doesn't mean he'll die, which is something that happened fairly regularly in original TS.

Also, if there's going to be equippable items, like armour/atk/hp items, then there won't be over 9000 of them like in HoN/DotA/LoL. I'd say there'd be at most 15 items in the entire game, and there'd be a pretty low item cap (2-4 maybe). They would be an alternative to upgrading, rather than a gamewinner. Think an item that gives you +3 armour and some sort of AoE effect, like allied HP regen increased. It'd be, say, 200 minerals, which wouldn't be worth it early game, and wouldn't break the game late game, but would give you and your team an advantage.

Consumable items don't work b/c of what Jack says.
If you can just heal all of a sudden, it's not really nice...

On the other hand.. if there's a big cooldown and such for healing, almost as if it's like an ability, then it may be interesting to look into. But, again, items will remain last on our list.

@Tempz
W/e new niche you can think of. I can't say I know exactly what niches to be filled, b/c then I'd've created the hero in my mind already. If you can be creative and think of a hero that will interact nicely with the rest, then you got yourself a new niche.
Your plant hero is actually not a very bad idea.
If you were to ask me, the niches we're missing are variations in Tanks. Warrior, and somewhat Spec Ops/Assault/Psion were the tanks back in TS1. A Pure tank is needed, and a Paladin variation is needed too. Unfortunately, I've already thought of a Pure Tank hero .. Altho you're more than welcome to convince me otherwise...

@DoLLe
The Expansion idea has given me some alternatives... they're sort of like Passive abilities.
Thanks!

And.. a face paced game.. okay got it.

IF we were to to change the plant hero into more of a poison type character would that work?