With items at a flat two minute or above cooldown, this type escaping/health save won't happen often. Add in that the teleport will have wind-up of about 3 seconds still reducing the chances of this happening.

No, but it isn't that often that you have people getting trapped in a base either. 3 seconds is no time at all if you're sitting in an outpost. Also, what about when two people are duking it out and someone thinks they've got the other person finished, then the other person pops a HP pot and kills him? That means that that HP pot was worth an entire life.

You can still make the hp potion to heal at a low rate over a higher amount of time. That would allow longer fights at the lane especially for slower heroes.
That wouldn't make a big difference in hero vs hero fights.
You could even use enemy hero's hits to tinker with the potion's effect on hit like decreasing the heal rate or pausing the healing to pretty much nullify the potion in hero combats...

It's closer to a two-life difference, not only do you not die, but you kill the other player instead. BS is sure to be called over and over if hp packs were added. Not only that, some heroes rely on the fact that their counters will slip up in order to kill them; it doesn't matter how long the cooldown is, it's basically a get-out-of-jail free card for the counter. Also, if they were on their last life, they could just easily wait the two minutes to buy it again. Silence spells for 1 second is way to short to do anything, any longer and it would completely OP vs some heroes. One that removes negative effects on you would completely own a character like DM, since that's basically all she is.

@Ahli it has already been stated that a potential item would be one that adds/increases hp regen rate.

I think both sides of the argument is legitimate.

But coming from the point of TS1, and since we're planning to make the game closely resemble TS1, consumables are a No no.
I agree with both Jack's and Flashbeer's arguments.

---

So, I want to divert your attention to another thing that's much more important.

The Spell System does need a Face Lift

I've talked to TZ a bit (he's kind of not really responding...) and talked with Jack.

- If you imagine the Upgrade system, every level, one should be able to level HP, Mana, Attack, Armor, or save up 3 stat pts to unlock L2, or L3.. and if one has all abilities, L4.
- I don't know if Stat points should allow one to gain Minerals
- I'm planning to Open up L2 and L3 at the same time, so there's more customization. Heroes will still start with L1, and will still need all 3 abilities to unlock L4.
- I don't know if Stat points should be able to affect spawns in anyway. But i'm leaning towards no, as there can now be other ways to do that.

- Remember in TS1, spell damage is usually up'd by upgrading the Attack of certain weapons. The problem arises here. How should the abilities be upgraded?
- TZ has told me that he's planning to implement a system where you gain a custom resource for using abilities. The more mana req'd for the spell, the more of this resource you get. This resource's sole purpose is to allow you to upgrade your abilities.
- Each ability will probably have different resource requirements and etc.
- First problem is that a lot of abilities do not have damage upgrades, such as Disable, Night Vision, etc. A solution would be to have it upgrade other things, such as the duration of the spell and etc.
- Second problem is that abilities will no longer upgrade with each other. Meaning that upgrading Zerg melee won't both upgrade the dmg of Mutant's L2 and L4. I don't know how this would affect balance, tho it should be relatively easy to iron out.
- Biggest problem I have with this system is that this separate resource seem to be separate from the rest of the game. One solution would be to allow Stat points purchase this resource, or allow Minerals to be traded for this resource. Another solution that I'm leaning towards is that we can use Minerals purely as a means to upgrade both the Armor/Weapon AND the Abilities.

- Last thing I want to talk about are Passive Abilities. Yes, there will be passive abilities, b/c it's just more fun that way =D
- At first, the eziest thing to do is to have Passive abilities upgradable similar to Abilities (with stat pts). But after reading DoLLe's post, I had a brainstorm.
- What if Passive Abilities are FREE, but you only get to choose ONE per 10 Levels? (oh yeah, and I'm currently imagining that each hero will have around 3 passives. I think Jack objects to this a bit)
- The Pros for this is that Passives will not affect the progression of gaining HP/Attack/Armor/Mana/Abilities, so we can mostly keep everything the same in terms of balance. Also, it creates a Clear separation between Early-Mid-Late game. Lastly, players will be able to easily try out all the passives.
- The Cons is, of course, a decrease in customization.

What do You think?

So you have to spam abilities to upgrade them?
Make sure there is nothing that effects mana regeneration then. But I think the Temple healed only, if I remember it correctly (I stopped playing it after everyone was a pro).

You may even have spells that aren't used often in some matchups. So you will more likely never be able to upgrade them because you use your mana for the other spells and only rarely need to use the other one which is weak because it didn't level up?

Must.... Learn..... SC2.... editor......and make..... a good..... AoS.....

That's actually pretty unique. FF7 proves this can be fun if done right.

I think all of a player's spells should progress slowly based on the player's exp + using a spell will progress it a bit more than normally + similar spells get a slight progress boost + you choose where most of your progress points go.

for example:
You're mutant, and just killed some stuff with your L2-
10% exp goes to L1 NV (to ↑ duration or something)
25% goes to L2 Fury Swipes (↑ attack rate and/or dmg)
10% goes to L3 Hyper Claw (↑ lurker dmg)
10% goes to L4 Chaos Mutation (↑ duration and/or dmg)
+5% goes to L4 for being a melee attack [or perhaps, 5-10% goes to all damage spells for using a dmg spell]
+40% goes to L3 for choosing to progress it faster

Using NV while killing someone could also give some exp to NV for using it, and additional exp to NV for killing with it.

Actually, the "Ability Resource" can be used for any abilities, and will be gained from using any abilities. At least, that's the plan.

Wouldn't extending the duration of some stuns be completely imba though? Imagine a 10 second volt l3 combined with his l4...

Upgrading stun could increase the degree of their stun, rather than the duration. In the current TS, stunning is imperfect with certain heroes who can still manually step or attack- so perhaps in TS2, it would be less biased, and all heroes could manually attack and run; then upgrading stun would require more clicks to manual an action. For example, if stunned it would normally take 4 clicks to manually do 1 attack/step, upgrading would require 8 clicks for 1 actions, and final upgrading may not allow for manually at all. (Also, Volt's L3 drains mana, so that could be modified instead of the stun) Or some combination of those upgrades could makeup the overall upgrade.

Terrible idea. Ruins pacing.

Forcing someone to needlessly grind skills is just enforcing boring gameplay. TS is a fast game, not a slow grindfest. All abilities arent immediately usuable in a practical way on activation scrap this idea.

-Needless Grinding
-Wasting Mana
-Leveling your ultimate would be a chore


Three passives @ 4v4 is a bit overwhelming. At the start you choose a passive out of a pool of three unique to each hero, this makes it easy and still makes it easier to try all passives. I think each expansion should fall into each category Attack/Defensive/Team expansion. This would easily identifiable and accessable. It encourages strategic thought and is just not a "level and forget type of ability


Just increase the cooldown of items to 4-5 minutes. The items arent gamebreaking they are supposed to give you an edge @ one slot per hero. They are oneshot clutch X factor that can provide you with an immediate advantage.

In fact, speaking of cooldown, the cooldown should be the equivalent of one day if its a consumable. One shot effects, that can give you an edge once a day is no way gamebreaking. So if i recall a day is equivalent to what 6-7 minutes?

This would prevent any type of abuse, if it so happens the item to make a clutch save so what? Thats what its for. The items are going to be a POTENTIAL sporadic clutch save, not a guaranteed mainstay of the match.

Post has been edited 6 time(s), last time on Feb 26 2011, 11:35 pm by DoLLe.

"Using NV while killing someone could also give some exp to NV for using it, and additional exp to NV for killing with it."

You level your spells simply by using them in some correct way, which would encourage player-vs-player interaction in many cases (landing stunning spells, curses, etc.) rather than grinding. Also, landing spells on heroes could give more exp than grinding, further encouraging player attack, rather than grinding. Of course it doesn't make sense that you would be using mutant L4 to kill a wave of spawns, therefore killing heroes or smashing bases could level it up (even so, it's only 15% more exp than your other spells get). Also, just by exping with your other spells, you can put %50+ of your exp to a spell you aren't using, which means you still ultimately choose what progresses. LESS needless grinding, NO wasting mana, and you still don't need to level your ultimate- but it still makes sense that using it would level it slightly faster.

There is already enough PvP interaction. I believe its called: laning, ganking, opening cap scramble, night ganking, temple busting...I think you get the point.

You should NOT get experience for failing to kill an enemy hero. This is just plain imbalanced. Just because I landed a stun doesn't mean I should get exp for it, this encourages bad play and gives crutches to noobs. When the hero is dead, thats when you get EXP and cash. If I am laning with an enemy hero, screw the creeps I will just attack my lane enemy for exp.

Bad analogy abecause L4 was used to kill/tank/escape tactical spawn/Hydras, and using L4 to level up L4 is still bad,bad,bad.

Honestly, there is no point to this idea because the player interaction is already there. You are talking as if it was stagnated or we need more. This is TS, not HoN. When you use your spells in the correct way, it nets you a kill, bonus minerals, and bonus exp. That is enough. You also realize it will also be near impossible to level some spells effectively like assassins L3.

I'd have to spend my entire L3 killing a cannon, pylon, or some other structure. Trying to capture something futilely when its something that might be uncappable. In the case of DM, landing L3 can be difficult trying to level this would be insanely hard.

The reward is already there, using your spells correctly nets you a killa and an advantage. The PvP is there already, because they lane. Trying to mesh PvP w/ spell leveling just isnt an efficent idea. Needless complexity isn't needed in a game like this.

Keep the four spell system, keep it simple and fast, but still complex. If you want to upgrade spells, use minerals to upgrade the attack type of the spells or something like that.

Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Feb 27 2011, 12:21 am by DoLLe.

You don't have to PvP. You could just grind instead and put most of your grinding exp points into lvling your spell. However, if you are someone that doesn't like grinding, you can just go for PvP and still exp without falling too far behind (so long as you land your spells). Grinding will still give more points, and enemy heroes are generally smart and will not be hit by spells so easily— so if they are protecting themselves, the aggressor will lose out on exp. Attempting to kill an enemy hero nets you no exp (or almost none) if you don't make the kill- and if you stunned an enemy hero while another player finished them off, you should get some credit for it. If helps the the support player, or just general attacking/warding off enemy players. It's better than a player doing nothing, but probably not as good as grinding. Once again, it's only 15% exp, so it's not really something you would go out of your way to do, it's just if it fits your play style.

Assassin's L3 could be done easily... progress the spell simply using it next to computer comps, more for killing buildings, some for attempting to capture, more for successfully capping, and exp for attacking a player in range of computer defenses— everything you normally do while using L3 (what could you really level with assassin's L3 anyway? Just duration?). If you don't land DM L3, you are only missing out on 15%+ extra exp, if you wanted it lvled up just put MOST of your exp into it then. Complex mechanics are fine as long as it works simply. A television is extremely complex, and continues to get more so, they function better every generation and yet all you have to do is turn it on and watch it. People don't need to know EXACTLY they level up— the system just needs to be designed for an intuitive lvling up so they don't even have to think about it, it just works.

"Bad analogy abecause L4 was used to kill/tank/escape tactical spawn/Hydras, and using L4 to level up L4 is still bad,bad,bad."

You aren't using L4 for the purpose of lvling it, you are using it to kill with, which also lvls it slightly in the process.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Feb 27 2011, 12:44 am by FlashBeer.

Right in this case the "T.V" was TS1. It worked, it was complex but it provided simple yet deep fast paced fun.

You said your system would encourage PvP, now which is it? "You don't have to PvP" or "which would encourage player-vs-player interaction in many cases (landing stunning spells, curses, etc.) rather than grinding"

"Also, landing spells on heroes could give more exp than grinding, further encouraging player attack, rather than grinding"
"Grinding will still give more points, and enemy heroes are..."

Another contradiction and this system encourages bad player behavior. Roaming around the map randomly trying to hit people with spells, now that they know they can get more exp (or can they?) from this than griding it will exacerbate the problem. Again keep it traditional.


"Assassin's L3 could be done easily... progress the spell simply using it next to computer comps, more for killing buildings, some for attempting to capture, more for successfully capping, and exp for attacking a player in range of computer defenses— everything you normally do while using L3"

Sometimes the assassin will let them cap all three if his main intention is to base rush with L3, at 10atk he can start solo'ing the temple. He lets them have the caps so they aren't readily able to defend base. This is a extremely fast strategy. Doesn't involve killing spawn, or capping. The fact I would have to use this 3-4 to get it to respectable levels is a time waster and runs counter intuitive to what TS is about: fast paced gameplay keep this spell at 30 secs across the board.


We don't need to gain experience for spells, what you are suggesting is just redundant, doing what you are supposed gets you spell levels.

What you also fail to realize here is that if you don't land spells easily (DM, Ling, Archer) the individual spell-leveling gap among hero spells can become easily imbalanced. Just scrap this idea. Unless you can work out your contradictions and come up with something more intuitive than this. Otherwise waste of time.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 27 2011, 1:02 am by DoLLe.

"You said your system would encourage PvP, now which is it?"
In cases where it would fit one's playing style— and if you don't want to, you don't have to.

"Also, landing spells on heroes could give more exp than grinding, further encouraging player attack, rather than grinding"
"Grinding will still give more points, and enemy heroes are..."

"Another contradiction and this system encourages bad player behavior. Roaming around the map randomly trying to hit people with spells, now that they know they can get more exp (or can they?) from this than griding it will exacerbate the problem."
I should have said, more exp than grinding for a particular spell you are working on. Grinding will still give more overall exp for all spells in general. If you want to go hard on stuns, you use them as much as you can— however, they still won't be weak if you didn't want spam them. This is only to emphasize play style, just as your mana regen rate skyrockets when you go pure mana, or you get +6% hp instead of +4% after some hp ups. It's not that much of an advantage for stuns to go just stun, but it's still a slight. It's enough to let you PvP if you want to, but not enough for you to go out of your way to do it— you won't be roaming the map to randomly cast spells on heroes, unless if it was your intent to kill them anyway.

"Sometimes the assassin will let them cap all three if his main intention is to base rush with L3, at 10atk he can start solo'ing the temple. He lets them have the caps so they aren't readily able to defend base. This is a extremely fast strategy. Doesn't involve killing spawn, or capping. The fact I would have to use this 3-4 to get it to respectable levels is a time waster and runs counter intuitive to what TS is about: fast paced gameplay keep this spell at 30 secs across the board."
I was just stating that there's nothing much to upgrade on Sin's L3, not actually recommending that it changes the duration. If there were something to upgrade on a spell as such, it could have been done through those usage methods I stated earlier.

"We don't need to gain experience for spells, what you are suggesting is just redundant, doing what you are supposed gets you spell levels."
"what you are suppose" (to do) is vague. I'm stating how you could have new ways of achieving your goals.

"What you also fail to realize here is that if you don't land spells easily (DM, Ling, Archer) the individual spell-leveling gap among hero spells can become easily imbalanced."
15% isn't that big of a gap from your other spells. Now add in your +50% of your exp to your "hard-to-level spell" and you can level it fine. Now looks at TS's current upgrading system- you currently choose where 100% of your minerals goes, now what kind of imbalance does that create among spells? 5 missle attack/40 melee attack? 45 protoss ground weapons/0 reaver upgrades?

""what you are suppose" (to do) is vague. I'm stating how you could have new ways of achieving your goals."
Its TS/TS2 and it's an AoS type map, what is so vague about this? Get Your spells 1-4, coordinate your team, eliminate enemy players or temple.

Again, your system isn't clear, it's seems to be adding something for the sake of adding something. Also encourages bad play by giving the excuse to pubs to run around to "Grind out my spells!".

Why not just make it simple. What actually sounds vague is "using spells in certain situations to upgrade them". Doesn't get too much more vague than that.

"15% isn't that big of a gap from your other spells. Now add in your +50% of your exp to your "hard-to-level spell" and you can level it fine. Now looks at TS's current upgrading system- you currently choose where 100% of your minerals goes, now what kind of imbalance does that create among spells? 5 missle attack/40 melee attack? 45 protoss ground weapons/0 reaver upgrades"

Sorry, I had to lol at this statement.

LM can easily level both since he can tri feed from first day. His farm is ridiculous when in full swing, also forgot to mention that he denies most of his lane opponents feed. What this means is the gap grows more and more and more.

Once marines come around Mutant can level anything to his hearts desire. Most people don't go missle first on him simply because if the other team isnt noob they arent going to feed a lone mutant w/o a stun. When marines roll around then people will most definitely start leveling missle or when L2 is in guaranteed oneshot range (around 10-12 upgs or so)

Sometimes it's better to all in on one stat. For example LM should always go ground attack vs a team scuh as Volt, Mech, Hydra. Thats why you will see gross exaggerations.
Speaking of split upgrades, Archer can farm all three lanes all he wants after a certain point mid game. This is also not factoring any assims they may have amassed. I think every hero in this game that has split upgrades has some sort of insane farming mech at one point or another.

I was just stating that there's nothing much to upgrade on Sin's L3, not actually recommending that it changes the duration. If there were something to upgrade on a spell as such, it could have been done through those usage methods I stated earlier.

Oh ok so basically your system is useless for Sins L3 spell. No problem.

So you want a system that puts emphasis on a particular playstyle you say? I got one for you:

-No vagueness, straightfoward
-No encouraging bad play
-Other Heroes expansions can synergize with others
-Intuitive
-Simple

Any questions?

""what you are suppose" (to do) is vague. I'm stating how you could have new ways of achieving your goals."
Its TS/TS2 and it's an AoS type map, what is so vague about this? Get Your spells 1-4, coordinate your team, eliminate enemy players or temple."
That's because that's obvious and covers basically the entire game, and to reiterate "I'm stating how you could have new ways of achieving your goals", not stating the goal of the gmae.

"Again, your system isn't clear, it's seems to be adding something for the sake of adding something. Also encourages bad play by giving the excuse to pubs to run around to "Grind out my spells!"."
What isn't clear about it? I have stated that it was to cater to another style of play more involved in PvP, while not subtracting any previous experiences. Giving the player more options of which they don't have to think about, is a good thing. It's not about casting spells for the sake of casting them, nor is it for the sole purpose of getting exp for using the spell. It's about how you get exp on top of landing your spells. You try to assist an ally, make a kill yourself, or just harass because you can, either way- you are helping your spell a bit. If a player is stealing all the lane's spawns, then sometimes you can only harass- so you might as well get some exp for it, but you probably wouldn't choose this over normal grinding.

"Why not just make it simple. What actually sounds vague is "using spells in certain situations to upgrade them". Doesn't get too much more vague than that."
For using spells correctly, as I thought implied.

"LM can easily level both since he can tri feed from first day. His farm is ridiculous when in full swing, also forgot to mention that he denies most of his lane opponents feed. What this means is the gap grows more and more and more."
First, TS2 will probably have different grind mechanics, as 1/3 exp or so would only be given from killing allied spawns- so probably no tri feed.
Even if he does get 15% more exp for his reavers, he can still put +50% exp into ground attacks, so there would be even less of a gap, since some exp goes into reavers.

"Once marines come around Mutant can level anything to his hearts desire. Most people don't go missle first on him simply because if the other team isnt noob they arent going to feed a lone mutant w/o a stun. When marines roll around then people will most definitely start leveling missle or when L2 is in guaranteed oneshot range (around 10-12 upgs or so)"
It's not as if this couldn't be done with my system. You still choose where +50% of of exp goes, and the system would also naturally shift more to lurkers since you are using them more anyway. At the beginning too— since you used more melee, it's going toward melee as well.

"Sometimes it's better to all in on one stat. For example LM should always go ground attack vs a team scuh as Volt, Mech, Hydra. Thats why you will see gross exaggerations.
Speaking of split upgrades, Archer can farm all three lanes all he wants after a certain point mid game. This is also not factoring any assims they may have amassed. I think every hero in this game that has split upgrades has some sort of insane farming mech at one point or another."
You could pretty much do the same thing here, just with less of an exaggeration. You can put 65%-80% of your exp into your attack if you are using it and putting your exp into it. You're other spells just won't be completely at starting level.

"Oh ok so basically your system is useless for Sins L3 spell. No problem."
Not just my system, any upgrades for Sin L3. My system just coincides with the spell upgrade system. If we couldn't find an upgrade for Sin's L3, you couldn't upgrade it no matter what other system you used. Also, Sin's L3 may come with active cloak during the day, and that could maybe be upgraded.

"So you want a system that puts emphasis on a particular playstyle you say? I got one for you:" etc...
We pretty much have a concept spell tech system similar to that. I was discussing an exp system that would synergize with the spell system, perhaps determining the strength of said expansions and/or initial spell abilities.

"Any questions?"
Not with your sarcastic undertones.