What do you enjoy in an AoS styled map? Please answer upon these subjects that i list here. Any additional comments are welcome regarding maybe things that you would like to see that are not mentioned in this post.

1.Terrain- How big or small should the playing field be? How detailed should the terrain be? Should it be strait forward, or terrain that has a lot of tactical elements such as cliffs, water, gaps, and passages?

2.Spawns- How big of a role should spawns play? Are they better as feed, or serious threats? Is PvP better, or PvSpawns? Should there be spells that specifically aim to affect spawns in some way?

3. Controls- Gateway is a good spell casting building right? How fitting are the following gameplay concepts:

1. Alternate forms for all players?
2. Weapons with ammo?
3. Outpost control?
4. 4spell system, or up to 6 spells from one building(gateway had 3 spells for each form a player takes)?
5. "SSJ" Mode: should players be able to earn a limited time super powerful form?
6. Items? Are they welcome to be used in the world of AoS?
7. Is 3lane the standard? How would a single or double lane map compare? Maybe 2 lanes and a middle section meant for pvp action?
8. How well liked is the day-night system from TS? Would a similar system be welcome in other AoS's?
9. How many heroes should there be? Is it better to have 12 or more heroes, or would you prefer to have perhaps 8 heroes with more spells, more depth and balance?

4. Story - Is it needed? Does it add anything to the experience?

5. Leveling up - How versatile would you like character builds to be? What kinds of things should players be able to upgrade. ex. HP- Spells- MP- damage- special?? - spawn strength?

6. Focus - Should AoS always be about taking down the enemy base? Would a mainly PVP AoS be accepted? Should players have a limited number of lives? Should a team share lives?

That's all for now. Input is appreciated.

Terrain: 192x192 or 256x256 would be the best size. Terrain should be somewhat sophisticated, but how much is up to you.
Spawns: Either. Personally, I prefer spawns that actually pose a threat, but TS-style spawns are fun, too.
Controls: Gateway is my favorite system.
Alternate forms for all players: No. Weapons with ammo: Could be fun, but probably would just be annoying.
Outpost system: ??? More details, please.
Number of lanes: 4 is a good choice, it's enough to make the map interesting without being too complicated; 6 spells probably would be too hard to keep track of.
SSJ mode: You could use it as a spell for a character, but doing it for all characters probably wouldn't work. (That being said, it could also be really cool if you did it right.)
Items: Go ahead, just don't make them more important than spells.
Lanes: 3 lanes is a good choice, 2 lanes would be kind of boring.
Day/night: Works in TS, idk if it would work in your map.
Heroes: As many as you can do. Just don't do what I did in the first draft of my map and start making retarded heroes just to make more heroes.
Story: If you want one, go ahead. But TS doesn't have a story (or even make sense), and it's fun.
Leveling up: TS seems to be doing it rite. I don't like leveling spawns, though, but that's me. HP, mana, damage, and armor for sure. I'm doing a system in my map where you can upgrade each of your spells, as well.
Focus: Up to you.
Lives: I don't like limited lives, that's one of the few things I dislike about TS. In my map, I set it up so that it takes you 5 seconds to respawn, +5 seconds for each previous time you've died.

1. Terrain should have height and areas where ambushes can occur and traps set, that's important. As for it being aesthetically pleasing, I'm not one to care. Passages magnify this effect, but you need to be careful that they don't ruin spawn's pathing.

2. Spawns being purely feed is my biggest complaint with Temple Siege. I'd rather the main goal be to kill the enemy base. Each "nested victory" such as winning a battle, killing an enemy hero, or destroying an enemy team's cannon should push towards this effect.

3. Gateway is good for me.
- Alternate forms for all players would get annoying. All characters should be visually identifiable immediately, and having multiple forms leads to HP problems like the Mech currently has; for most purposes it gets +12% HP per level up put into it, to a max of 300%.
- No weapons with ammo, please.
- Outposts are an interesting feature, but not necessary.
- 4 spells seems to fit nicely. It's enough that you can learn a character quickly, but not too few that you're stuck going in one direction with the character.
- SSJ mode for everyone would be kind of dumb. It would end up being like the Medic's L4 in a 3v3, where once that is cast you need to counter with an equally overpowered spell or you'll lose. In small doses, such as the ultra and archon in TS, it is a useful feature.
- I would definitely not want to see healing items, and to be honest any items makes an already somewhat complex system really hard for most.
- 3 lanes works, but I wouldn't mind seeing a 2 lane map with a more PvP focused middle, perhaps controlling a sole warp. The lanes definitely need to have a few routes between them, though, that's a feature of major importance in order to emphasize teamwork.
- Day/Night works well in TS, mainly because the newb has some time to get adjusted before getting ambushed. Teams really have not yet begun to abuse 3v1 flanking during the night like they do in DotA. A good team with a stunner should be able to dominate.

4. Stories are for RPG's, focus on gameplay.

5. I've always thought that being able to upgrade your spells would be a useful addition, but not excessively (3 levels per spell, maybe). Other than that, HP, Mana, and Money are all that's needed. One very nice feature about TS is that depending on how you customize your character's level ups, you can be a completely different hero. For example, you can have a stun-happy Assassin, or you can focus on L3/damage and effectively base raid. Combinations between spells to allow versatility help.

6. Limited lives is an issue. It focuses the game on PvP and often teams don't even bother to assault the base except when an opponent starts to play pure defense. The spawns being feed doesn't help the problem. Having a respawn delay is an obvious fix, and another fix that I'd like to see is a delay for healing. Temple Siege suffers from this because if you have just ALMOST killed someone, but don't actually finish the kill, you've gained next to nothing, and you've probably wasted most or all of your mana. DotA solves this issue by healing at a set rate, the more damage you've taken, the longer it takes you to heal. Unless every character is a bio, or can be manipulated with Shield Battery/Scv Repair to not take forever, you'll have this problem. That prevents you from allowing HP upgrades though, because there's nothing stopping a player from healing to full.


Happy to help. =)

1.Terrain- Medium Size... 128x128.. if u have it any bigger, minimap'll be useless... And definately put more tactical stuff, like cliffs and such.. If u can pursuay a good terrainer (like MNX XD) to do a better terrain.. then DO IT!

2.Spawns- Spawns should feed AND be a threat depending on how players play.. ^.^ .. so i didn't ans ur question

3. Controls- Gateway is good.. But u can also use Starport (which has 5 units) so u could use 5 spells.. A dropship system is good too and allows you to use 8 spells but will use up 8 small units..

1. Alternate forms for all players? - I don't know what you mean

2. Weapons with ammo? - Nah fuck it.. This would limit your hero themes to nil.

3. Outpost control? - Sure, why not.. But be innovative and figure smth else >:O

4. 4spell system, or up to 6 spells from one building(gateway had 3 spells for each form a player takes)? - Use one building/dropship ... having multiple ones makes it frustrating

5. "SSJ" Mode: should players be able to earn a limited time super powerful form? - May be able to work.. But again, that takes up units... And it's not very necessary... it depends on how many heroes u want//how different their themes are

6. Items? Are they welcome to be used in the world of AoS? - Of course... A Dropship Inventory system is always cool... But you'd be shit outta luck to figure out good items that works into play... and also it'll again take out some unit space.. U may want to look into Deep Blue RPG.. it's Inventory system is excellent .. (But AoS ppl don't expect these)

7. Is 3lane the standard? How would a single or double lane map compare? Maybe 2 lanes and a middle section meant for pvp action? - 3 lane kinda became standard.. but if u could make units wonder around into multiple paths randomly, then it'd be awesome.. Make sure there're multiple paths for heroes to sneak around//escape

8. How well liked is the day-night system from TS? Would a similar system be welcome in other AoS's? - I think I'm the first one to implement that.. and I did it without knowing DOTA had the same system .. It depends on how you use the system.. Since sm of my heroes can use it as an advantage, it works well.

9. How many heroes should there be? Is it better to have 12 or more heroes, or would you prefer to have perhaps 8 heroes with more spells, more depth and balance? - 6 is fine, as long as they're good.. 8 is probably best.... any heroes above that is being ambitious .. but we are ambitious people, aren't we?

4. Story - Is it needed? Does it add anything to the experience? - maybe.. i'm planning to add it.. It makes it feel better..

5. Leveling up - How versatile would you like character builds to be? What kinds of things should players be able to upgrade. ex. HP- Spells- MP- damage- special?? - spawn strength? - figure this out urself

6. Focus - Should AoS always be about taking down the enemy base? Would a mainly PVP AoS be accepted? Should players have a limited number of lives? Should a team share lives? - If u can find a perfect balance between taking down enemy base and pvp, then u win.. .Although it's really really hard to.. IMO it's safer to focus on PVP.. buutt, it's your call..


Remember to not copy XD... Creativity is good.

Thanks so far for the feedback everyone. I think for the lanes i'm going to have the spawns travel in 2 directions circularly and have the middle area focus on PvP. And I do not intend to copy Urine, i just made some comparasins to TS because many people here are familiar with it.

So, I'm thinking about having 8 highly customizable heroes- Will this be enough? I'm thinking of making it 9, but definitely no more than 10.

Just on the subject of spawns: I'd like to see some sort of system where it's not just just an issue of the spawns being a threat to the hero, but where how far the spawns get before they die actually matters in some way, so you have an incentive to actually help your own spawns stay alive rather than just fighting the enemy spawns with no regard for your own.

I plan on having a system in my map that's sort of like that. Each of the three lanes is divided into 10 sections, and spawns get stronger each time they exit one section and enter another section, sort of like how heroes get XP as they fight. (What happens is that spawns get invulnerability for 1 second periodically, with the time between invulns decreasing the farther they get from their base.) Was that the sort of thing you meant?

Well, what I have in a map that I'm probably not going to bother completing is a line of pylons along each lane. Pylons are captured by spawns (and only spawns, not heroes!), and each one increases your team's mana regeneration slightly. If you help your spawns to gain territory, you'll be more powerful...at least until your hero gets worn down and you have to run and heal, at which point, the enemy team pushes back. You can also set up defenses along the line, to slow down the enemy team's recapturing of the pylons, send higher-powered single spawn units along the line to push, etc. The idea is that the actual progress of your spawns matters; it's not just them traveling all this way just to die.

Well, doesn't the fact that your spawns can eventually wear down the opposing base count? I don't know- I will brainstorm ways to do this.

On another note- how in depth do you guys like heros?

Examples:

1. A special passive ability unique to your hero? (Bonus $ for kills, Faster MP regeneration, Damage Bonus, Enemy Detection?)
2. Heroes able to interact with the environment? (Bonus for being on high/low elevation, Day/Nighttime bonuses, interactive objects available to a certain hero, access to certain areas?)
3. Would you like heroes to be meant for specific things such as Base Assaulting, Hero killing, Support OR have them able to build diversely so that any hero can fulfill any function if built right?
4. I was considering having the heroes have a light/dark affiliation. And maybe they could have differentiations based on that?


Another another note:

I decided that each team will have lives instead of each player having lives. This is a good idea because players that are new to the game will be able to die more than (3) times and still play. More experienced players can hold a team up by not dying and reserving the team's lives that way.

Regarding Objectives: If a team loses all lives they lose, If the team's main base is destroyed they lose. However, in order to prevent turtling I'm considering having an option where a team can construct something and if it stands for a certain period of time they will win. This way, games can be prevented from being too drawn out. I remember one time i was playing TS and the game ended up going on for about 3 and a half hours. This was incredibly boring and I think this new victory condition will prevent boring and dragged out matches.


Questions/Comments on these new ideas? Thnx.

I can't see that hurting your map, unless the passives are really imbalanced. It's basically giving each hero a 5th spell, but without increasing confusion.

Day/Night bonuses: Already done in Temple Siege (Assassin, Medic, Dark Mage, Mutant). High/low elevation: Maybe. Interactive objects: ??? What sort of objects? Access to certain areas: Kill it with fire, players shouldn't be blocked from parts of the map because of their hero choices.

Split the difference; make the heroes pretty specialized but able to fulfill other roles to an extent. But don't make them too versatile or they would get generic.

More details please?

About the lives thing: Sounds good, but I think it would be better if there were no lives, period... That's just me, though.

1. I would not mind passive abilities. For instance, the Magi could have extra mana regeneration in Temple Siege, the warrior have less mana regeneration, etc. It opens up lots of doors if you have less things constant to all characters, but one of those doors is imbalance so you have to be careful.

2. Destroyable neutral buildings would be cool, but I think the natural bonus for being on high ground is plenty. Having certain passageways that only work for certain characters could be interesting if done well, I think.

3. Absolutely allow diverse hero generation. Classes that are hard counters or can only do one thing are BORING and allow little room for innovation or interesting games.

4. That would really limit the amount of games you could have. If you only have say 8 heroes total, almost every 3v3 game is going to look pretty much the same if you make 4 light side heroes and 4 dark side heroes. That makes it really stale and significantly lowers the replayability value of the game.


I don't particularly like the idea of team lives. I'd much rather see a game where there are infinite respawns and the ability for a team to gain decisive advantages over time, partially by killing heroes but also by coordinating with their teammates and forcing a lane. It would also really suck to be coupled with a newb teammate and end up with only one life yourself because he wastes them all then quit. At least in Temple Siege your team has a chance 2v3, with team lives you'd be pretty much guaranteed to lose if someone on your team is a battle.net newb.


The "win shrine" is an interesting thought, but depending on the power and price of static defenses, I could see this being either useless or very overpowered. That will change turtling to a different sort, where people turtle around their shrine instead of attacking. The solution is the same I've given many times, nested victories. If a team is sitting in their base, the team with map control should be getting a huge advantage because of it. There are many ways to do this, but the simplest is to make spawns powerful enough to inflict significant damage to the base over a period of time.