Important Feedback - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

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DarnYak
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Important Feedback - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#1 Post by DarnYak »

Ok, everytime this map is selected I hear a lot of bitching and groaning about it and half the time ragequitting. Yet I haven't seen anyone articulate why beyond "it's not stormwail." On other maps I get why people dislike them, but not this one.

I want to know why. Part of the point of making VF was possible map changes going into EotA2, so without proper feedback it's just a worthless waste of time. So I strongly encourage everyone to post whatever they think about this map. If all you can say is "it's not stormwail" at least make an attempt at justifying it.

DarnYak

PS. Please stay on topic and avoid sarcasm, this thread is kind of important and I'll be treating it as such

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Re: Important Feed Back - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#2 Post by BustroQuick »

It's not just Verdant Falls, it's all of the new maps. Stormwail has a depth of gameplay that many of us enjoy greatly, allowing for incredible comebacks and alternative ways to win.

Verdant Falls does not do that. My main reasons for disliking the map are:
  • Games drag on and are ultimately determined by whichever team has the better hero composition. The map is small enough that hero positioning almost doesn't matter; everyone can get a piece of the action without too much transit time. Enemy heroes are an immediate problem in every stage of the game, leading to use of dispels en masse and gravitation towards durable characters or support characters (RK, TC, naga, AA, etc.). The game is decided before it even begins.
  • Shrine fights are randomly chosen. There is no way of telling where they will occur so it's impossible to plan creep pushes ahead of time. Being such an important part of the game I would prefer if they were more predictable or disconnected from the lanes.
  • Many hero builds aren't viable. This shares sentiment with the first point, but I felt it was a big enough problem to warrant its own bullet. Because Verdant has such a high density of heroes, creeps hold a lot less power than they do on Stormwail. As a by-product of this, creep-supporting builds (Kindle/Flame BP, banner tact, etc.) are weaker as well. I dislike the idea of having to play a hero a certain way. Keep in mind this may be more of a design flaw with the heroes themselves.
Stormwail has dynamic states of play. Verdant does not, or if it does, we have not discovered them.

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Re: Important Feed Back - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#3 Post by watermelon »

I don't really dislike this map, but I do end up preferring Stormwail more.

Possible reasons:
  • The randomness of Font capturing. It can become annoying when the opposing team always seems to manage to have a push at the chosen Font's lane. I don't know what you can do with that besides locating the Font to a position not on the lane.
  • The frequent hero clashes can make some heroes perform/look really badly, while allowing others to shine.
  • The font capturing can create a snowball effect in that it's usually harder to counter the team in the lead, unless you have a hero that does better late-game.
  • Lanes are more distanced from each other in Stormwail.
  • The pathing and the trees may get heroes trapped or make it hard for them to get out.

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Re: Important Feed Back - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#4 Post by Dekar »

-The visibility is bad because the lanes are often not very wide and covered by giant trees on both sides. This becomes worse when 8+ heroes meet at the same spot to spam spells, with spawns gathering around them.

-Healers are incredible strong because they will always be at the important battles. Related to Games drag on and are ultimately determined by whichever team has the better hero composition. I think I didnt see any early pushing like the level 15 Stormwail pushes yet.

-Random font battles, especially as you cant push very good with medium level heroes and not everyone is fan of running straight into hostile terrain with no support at all.

-If you die early in a font battle you get punished with an long respawn time = boring. And it doesnt show you how long it takes.
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Re: Important Feed Back - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#5 Post by Emufarmers »

watermelon wrote:The font capturing can create a snowball effect in that it's usually harder to counter the team in the lead, unless you have a hero that does better late-game.
Is this effect stronger than in Stormwail? We lost several fonts in a row on Saturday and then steamrolled the other team.

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Re: Important Feedback - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#6 Post by Sparda963 »

I think the font battles need to take the spawn waves out of the equation somehow. i would like to see the font battles focused entirely on the heros and not involve spawns at all. that could end up creating a disaprity between support heros and pk heros though.
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Re: Important Feedback - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#7 Post by DarnYak »

Sparda963 wrote:I think the font battles need to take the spawn waves out of the equation somehow. i would like to see the font battles focused entirely on the heros and not involve spawns at all. that could end up creating a disaprity between support heros and pk heros though.
That's actually the plan for this weekend. Fonts are going to phase out all spawns that enter the battle range, and it kills off all of those of the losing team's.

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Re: Important Feedback - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#8 Post by watermelon »

Emufarmers wrote:Is this effect stronger than in Stormwail? We lost several fonts in a row on Saturday and then steamrolled the other team.
I should have placed more emphasis on "unless you have a hero that does better late-game"
I've been in at least two games in Verdant when the "losing" team win thanks to their heroes surviving better when they reach higher levels.
Regarding the game you mentioned, Fork is crazy on Verdant and Thunderstrike is just OP. Your team also had two healers and more due to Fork.

Admittedly, Stormwail does have a snowball effect, but I don't think it is as hero based as Verdant. Stormwail also involves more strategy, like building a mini base around the Ob tower, rather than the randomness of Font fights. Strategies are also more easy to counter than randomness and team hero composition.


That no spawn idea is nice but it worsens the problem of Verdant being focused on which team has the better heroes.
It would be an interesting experiment though.

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Re: Important Feedback - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#9 Post by Nick.Scryer »

I have no problem with Verdant Falls. It's just another way to play EotA.

*Hero comps, its not like on any other map you can pick a bunch of supports and win the game easily. Or if you play a team with 3 healer heroes, its going to be hard to kill them on any map(if they play smart).

*Fonts, the "randomness" of which one activates needs to stay, it would be silly if you had a lengthy warning of which one was going to activate. From my viewpoint, if one is not running straight to a Font when it activates one is playing the map wrong.

I know its most likely not possible without a total overhaul of the map but the paths are a bit wacky since the NPCs in the middle lane can venture into either the top lane(for the Top Team) or bottom lane(for the Bottom Team).

I may be the only person who plays EotA who says this, but I actually like every map that is out there, it's nice to have a change of pace. Requiring a different strategy for every map, not simply facerolling.

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Re: Important Feedback - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#10 Post by Sparda963 »

I am curious to see how the font battle phasing out spawns will play out. On another note, i almost think ap should not be an option for vf. i think the ap option breaks the balance on this map significantly more then any of the other maps since this one is so based on hero comp.
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Re: Important Feedback - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#11 Post by SeasonsOfLove »

Nick.Scryer wrote:I may be the only person who plays EotA who says this, but I actually like every map that is out there, it's nice to have a change of pace. Requiring a different strategy for every map, not simply facerolling.
I agree with you here. I do love Stormwail more than anything else, but the change of pace and different mechanics of the other maps are fun. That being said, I think that it's fair to say that all of the maps are on different stages of development, and without us playing and giving Yak feedback, he can't improve the maps. Stormwail has been through so many more iterations and balance changes than any other map, and comparing every map to Stormwail in terms of final balance isn't fair.

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Re: Important Feedback - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#12 Post by DarnYak »

Nick.Scryer wrote:I may be the only person who plays EotA who says this, but I actually like every map that is out there, it's nice to have a change of pace. Requiring a different strategy for every map, not simply facerolling.
I can't agree with both Candleburg and Gloomreap in their present state ;P

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Re: Important Feedback - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#13 Post by BustroQuick »

Nick.Scryer wrote:*Fonts, the "randomness" of which one activates needs to stay, it would be silly if you had a lengthy warning of which one was going to activate.
Could you elaborate on this?

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Re: Important Feedback - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#14 Post by SeasonsOfLove »

BustroQuick wrote:
Nick.Scryer wrote:*Fonts, the "randomness" of which one activates needs to stay, it would be silly if you had a lengthy warning of which one was going to activate.
Could you elaborate on this?
If you have a warning that is too long, you'll just have every hero flood the font lane and not necessarily have to worry about keeping every lane near the middle. The randomness of it makes it so that you do have to keep every lane fighting throughout and have to make a judgment call at the time of activation whether to run to it or to protect your lane and keep pushing. It isn't the easy call you would necessarily think, not always.

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Re: Important Feedback - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#15 Post by DarnYak »

Games are ultimately determined by whichever team has the better hero composition.
So I'm curious, why is this seen as such a negative thing in EotA? Team planning was an intentional part of the design from the start (although admittedly rarely occurs for reasons I've never understood). Obviously it also applies to DotA-varients, but I would also say even applies to Stormwail, granted with a little more flexibility.

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Re: Important Feedback - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#16 Post by BustroQuick »

DarnYak wrote:
Games are ultimately determined by whichever team has the better hero composition.
So I'm curious, why is this seen as such a negative thing in EotA? Team planning was an intentional part of the design from the start (although admittedly rarely occurs for reasons I've never understood). Obviously it also applies to DotA-varients, but I would also say even applies to Stormwail, granted with a little more flexibility.

DarnYak
It does apply to Stormwail, but there are a myriad of other crazy tactics that you can use to win, like the use of command towers or controlling obelisks. The team with the better execution of tactics should win unless their hero composition is poor enough not to support what they are trying to achieve. This is something I never see on the smaller maps because they are so much less flexible.

You're absolutely right about team planning. A major problem is that nobody is playing this game on a high level and that tactics aren't being fully explored; we still play in-house games like we would play a public game. We don't plan which heroes should be on which lanes or even try to use heroes that work well together, at least not on a team-wide basis. I can't really see the game being properly balanced until we have a lot more good players.

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Re: Important Feedback - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#17 Post by DarnYak »

So there hasn't been much playtesting of the new Verdant Falls yet but initial comments were that the killing of spawns may be too much. While I initially agreed with those sentiments, I'm a bit concerned about the result of not doing so. Assuming a reasonable amount of spawns have accumulated on both sides, once they pop out it leaves a giant mass of spawns prime for farming on both sides. Except, by the nature of the of spawn battles, only one side is immediately present, or if they ran away then they are probably in no fighting condition, which gives the winning side a perfect opportunity for tons of gold/xp that the direct kill does not give them. Right now there's actually a gold/xp advantage for the losing team, it just can be a little rough to stop the push.

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Re: Important Feedback - Verdant Falls, PLEASE CONTRIBUTE

#18 Post by watermelon »

DarnYak wrote:Right now there's actually a gold/xp advantage for the losing team
This can be said for any push, but I don't think people really enjoy having to stop a massive spawn push. I think you're underestimating the push too much.

I felt killing off the creeps punished the losing team more since they lost the shrine battle and have a wave of spawns in their face, not to mention that the winning team even gets that special spawn wave.

Either way, It looks like killing or not killing the creeps will leave the losing team at a disadvantage.

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