Thank you Unholy-Urine! I'm glad somebody else has the right idea of keeping maps simple, fun and enjoyable. I too, am also sick of maps that are over saturated with unnecessary triggers fancy effects and bullshit. Nobody cares how nice the map looks if its not fun.

That's actually the best solution I've ever heard. =o People have taken up MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) which can describe just about anything, so I hope that doesn't get popular.

I agree with this partially. I think Falkoner is probably missing a lot of depth of Temple Siege, but I have to agree the game is lacking. When comparing it to HoN, one of the biggest differences to me is how team fights happen. In Temple Siege, it's almost ALWAYS by surprise. In most cases it's very obvious who will win a fight and thus there's very little micro required. You fight a few times until you're getting close to the threshold of being able to die, but unless another opponent comes along you're at almost no risk as long as you understand the game. That's boring. This is because not many heroes are capable of stunning. The ones who have stuns are slower than the more popular heroes, and only DM (and now summoner!) have slows, but those heroes are slow too.

In HoN, however, you're at risk every time you try to kill creeps because the vast majority of heroes have a stun, slow, teleport, or multiple of these. And unlike in Temple Siege, creep waves don't just alternately push into cannons when heroes help. If you push in Temple Siege, it doesn't matter because the cannons kill the spawn in like 3 seconds, thus your opponents can't kill them, and then their spawn runs at you. You kill it quickly, repeating the cycle.

Controlling a lane by either pushing it or anti-pushing it (by denying) is one of the most important aspects of HoN at a high level. New players who just auto-attack will push the lane: now they have to go farther out to get experience and creep kills, and thus are more and more at risk the farther they go. However, they also push the towers (which are actually beneficial to take down), so you have to be wary of an assault by someone who is pushing and either counteract their push or attempt to kill them.

In TS, you have characters who are for the most part near equal speeds. If they're slower, they have ways to keep you away, be it disable, stuns, or invincibility (DM, LM, Medic). So in high level TS, no one is ever really a threat unless they have teammates nearby. Oh, you're a Mech? How much damage can you do by kiting me back to my base. 1000? Okay, I have 1100 life, time to heal. The entire game comes down to these simplistic judgments, but they don't add up to much. You went to heal and missed a creep wave? Who cares, it's worth 5 minerals and 4 exp. Woopdeedoo. You can literally stay in lane for entire games as Mech when not ganking and still barely come out with an advantage versus the Warrior or Medic who just sits next to his base, kills my spawn in seconds while ignoring my attacks, then heals every few waves.

There is NO "laning phase" in TS because there's nothing to do during it. You don't even really have to focus on last hitting, though I do, because most heroes just get to the point where they can 1 or 2 hit spawns and then just auto-attack and get 75%+. It's just not worth it to harass your opponent and because lanes are almost always 1v1 the game is dull until mid/late-game, unless your opponents don't realize what your hero is capable of, in which case it isn't really a competitive game.

I think if someone copied the DotA/HoN mechanics and simply used the Temple Siege heroes the game would be much improved. It would be difficult to master, but I have to say that's kind of the point, to me.

Changes in such an alternative version:
- 2 lanes. The map is way too big (DotA is 5v5, sometimes even 6v6 with 3 lanes) and having a 2v1 or 1v2 lane would deepen the metagame majorly.
- An alternative picking mode (1 ban per team, then 1-2-2-1). Leave picking the game mode as the host's decision. This would also serve to prove balance as well as force teams to think about team composition.
- Towers that give rewards for killing, whether it's your teammate or spawns that do it. Encourage pushing, that's supposed to be the point of the game, right?
- Spawns that are more than food. If you're ignoring them, they're beating in your towers.
- Unlimited lives. The 3 life limit in TS makes games quicker, but it also makes them a lot more dull because at a high level it's simply not worth it to take risks (not that I don't try =D).
- Death penalties. Maybe 2 minerals per level and 2 seconds per level respawn timer.
- Healing away from the Temple, so you can actually finish a game in due time without being miles ahead of your opponent.
- Most likely a lot of balance changes.

Anyway, that's just me. I played a few games of Temple Siege yesterday and was bored out of my mind, despite playing mostly Mech who is one of the more active heroes. The games were all the same, either they didn't know how to play and got owned, or they did and sat around killing spawns until they had tons of mana and spells and then tried to gank me and either my micro was up to par or it wasn't. Yawn. I found myself trying to deny a bunch because there's literally nothing to do compared to HoN.

... very informative...
Tho I must say that my focus is on my upcoming exams, and SCII, I want to thank you for your input...
I doubt I will change TS any further in SC1... as i'd probably wait for SC2 .. which'd be a whole other ball game....

hmmm.. I was gonna write what I agreed on, but I really agreed on too many things to list... At least this'll put me in the right perspective... Thnx (I disagree with the 2 lanes.. that's all )

Through introspect, I know I'm not a very competitive person, which is why I made the game this way... I wouldn't have enjoyed that many ways of play.. I focused on the heroes and that's that :\ ... .. It will probably take another PERSON to work with me in order to really balance and include all these gameplay mechanics... A single map maker'd be biased towards one thing...
Yeah..... Thnx Faz- .. ... that was a good review-ish writeup

Also, thnx to mephisto

Someone who knows the maps triggers could probably go through and do all of that in 45 minutes, and then just get someone to slap a new terrain on it, and you're done. The balancing would take a while and I suspect melee heroes would be the most hampered, but I'd definitely prefer it done on M8e than 1.5. Though if that's going to happen, it's probably not a bad time to add in Physicist (which is still a terrible hero name) and a Sniper/Ghost/Phantom hero as a lot of things are going to have to be rebalanced anyway.

So hi Moose/CAFG. =D

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 2 2009, 9:39 am by FaZ-.

Well... then I take back my praise <.< ...

It would definitely be easy to change. Maybe I'll do it for you if you after I'm done with my current map. I might expect something in return though

With all this bashing of TS, I would like to comment on how i actually prefer TS over DotA. The reasons why include the much-less this is serious business attitude, the terrain isn't the same tile-by-tile on both sides (i.e there's a variety in terrain), there are alot more small pathways that connect the 3 main lanes, the awesome gateway/outpost system, the ability of being able to build towers (aka cannons) yourself, the stat-choosing system, etc. (I like a lot about this UMS).

I also would like to comment on some foreign AoS maps that I have played on. They are alright, but they have too much stuff to worry about, and the terrain of the maps I have played on are so bland and small. The abilities of the maps also have little to no explanation as to what they do.