Area Domination
Area Domination
Looking into the future of EotA, one big problem i'd like to fix is the nature of dominating/conquering locations in EotA. This was obviously intended to be a big part of the design, with outposts and obelisks and such. I think outpost takeover for the most part works fine, so I don't intend to address it much (yet). Obelisk control, however, is pretty damned clunky imo. Besides baby sitting the thing till it builds, it also costs gold (not a necessarily bad thing), makes you risk a peon (more gold), and can be difficult to keep around. These aren't really bad things individually, but together they are discouraging. But it often turns into you only build an obs if you intend to stay in that lane to defend it, and ifyou're willing to make a sacrifice for the overall team. Again, these aren't really bad things, but they make individual players take on additional responsibility and expense. Luckily, for 3 lanes they generally correspond to what you're doing anyway: pushing the lane. And it works quite well there.
It does not, however, work at all with the other four obelisks people only see once at the start of game. Oh, i know, there have been various times in the past where people come up with strats to mess with them. And they have other issues, such as being a bit too hard to take and at least 2 of them are too far out of the way. And, once taken, they're damn near impossible to hold without spawn backups and/or hanging out near them. And they're not a part of what you're doing already. Now, these have some other issues I don't want to get into (location primarily), but the big thing that will be a problem no matter what is their difficultly/cost in setting up, and difficulty to hold once taken.
A big chunk of the problem would be removed by getting rid of the tower building requirement for conquering a resouce area. The extra cost may be justified in some cases (outposts in particular), but not so much something that takes extra time and effort to get rid of. Thus, I'm looking for other options. Here's some common ones:
#1 Automatic switching (tied to either killing all defenders or similar): This sort of works, assuming you want it always controlled by one side or another, but it leaves little or no room for a neutral/contested status. The Candleburg lumbermills (which currently do nothing) are like this. Not really appropriate for obelisks
#2 Timed switching (hold it for a certain amount of time): Similar to some WoW battlegrounds, effectively requires you to hold an area for a certain amount of time. Sorta boring as hell, especialy in EotA, as it would mostly require you to just stand around to capture something. Probably a bad idea
#3 Tagging: Again, similar to WoW (and similar to above), but slightly different in that you don't actually have to hang around, you just have to do something (hitting the flag) and then prevent the other team from recapturing it before it switches. Still, effectively the same as #2, but less relient on a king of the hill mechanic.
All of these are slightly problematic also because they're all 2 state (red/blue) instead of 3 (red/blue/neutral). The current EotA is much like #3, with sort of an extra trigger step (first, destroy anything there, second spend money building a new one and protecting it). As the destruction part is almost certainly needed to go with the whole theme of things, the real problem is the second step. I guess it needs to be either less troublesome, more automatic, or... I don't know. I suppose one possible option would be to provide a limited free item at a shop which could be used to try and take something over (ex. have it with a 10 minute restock timer, so someone could buy it and try once every 10m).
Effectively my goal is to make taking over obelisks (and potentially other stuff), less cumbersome, particularly when its off in the middle of nowhere.
(Note: This post is mostly me ranting to myself and trying to come up with an answer, and throwing it out there for anyone else to contribute should they have something)
DarnYak
It does not, however, work at all with the other four obelisks people only see once at the start of game. Oh, i know, there have been various times in the past where people come up with strats to mess with them. And they have other issues, such as being a bit too hard to take and at least 2 of them are too far out of the way. And, once taken, they're damn near impossible to hold without spawn backups and/or hanging out near them. And they're not a part of what you're doing already. Now, these have some other issues I don't want to get into (location primarily), but the big thing that will be a problem no matter what is their difficultly/cost in setting up, and difficulty to hold once taken.
A big chunk of the problem would be removed by getting rid of the tower building requirement for conquering a resouce area. The extra cost may be justified in some cases (outposts in particular), but not so much something that takes extra time and effort to get rid of. Thus, I'm looking for other options. Here's some common ones:
#1 Automatic switching (tied to either killing all defenders or similar): This sort of works, assuming you want it always controlled by one side or another, but it leaves little or no room for a neutral/contested status. The Candleburg lumbermills (which currently do nothing) are like this. Not really appropriate for obelisks
#2 Timed switching (hold it for a certain amount of time): Similar to some WoW battlegrounds, effectively requires you to hold an area for a certain amount of time. Sorta boring as hell, especialy in EotA, as it would mostly require you to just stand around to capture something. Probably a bad idea
#3 Tagging: Again, similar to WoW (and similar to above), but slightly different in that you don't actually have to hang around, you just have to do something (hitting the flag) and then prevent the other team from recapturing it before it switches. Still, effectively the same as #2, but less relient on a king of the hill mechanic.
All of these are slightly problematic also because they're all 2 state (red/blue) instead of 3 (red/blue/neutral). The current EotA is much like #3, with sort of an extra trigger step (first, destroy anything there, second spend money building a new one and protecting it). As the destruction part is almost certainly needed to go with the whole theme of things, the real problem is the second step. I guess it needs to be either less troublesome, more automatic, or... I don't know. I suppose one possible option would be to provide a limited free item at a shop which could be used to try and take something over (ex. have it with a 10 minute restock timer, so someone could buy it and try once every 10m).
Effectively my goal is to make taking over obelisks (and potentially other stuff), less cumbersome, particularly when its off in the middle of nowhere.
(Note: This post is mostly me ranting to myself and trying to come up with an answer, and throwing it out there for anyone else to contribute should they have something)
DarnYak
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Re: Area Domination
I actually really enjoy the current mechanic of capping obelisks. Yes, they do take a long time to cap, and yes, you do have to support them, but that's what makes it so interesting.
In general, for any contested obelisk, I will always plop down a tower or two before actually capping it. It's part of the accepted tradeoff for grabbing a contested obelisk. After I cap it, I might even build a generator or two to help defend. As it is, the team with more obelisks is that much more likely to win, so I see it as a welcome trade, since your entire team benefits from your time and your gold.
As you said though, this is a huge investment, costing a lot of time and gold, and a lot of babysitting too. There are also certain heroes who are ridiculously good at doing it. Incarnation is amazing at it since he gets more gold than other heroes, and has an unlimited supply of HP and mana. He's especially powerful in the middle lane since he has a wall of creeps protecting him from melee hero killers. Arcane Archer has meteors, which wipe out entire waves, as well as Ice Wall, which will basically give you enough time to build a full tower provided your opponent doesn't call for backup.
Balance-wise, I think the gold cost is perfect right now. The build time could use a little work though--I think you have to protect the worker for two waves at least, maybe three. If multiple workers could be used to build, that would help too, without necessarily imbalancing it, since each worker is +100 gold, and building with multiple workers incurs additional gold penalties as well.
If you're hellbent on changing it though, you could also consider Kedge-style artillery capping, where a neutral control tower must be capped by either an AI or (preferably) player-controlled engineer, then damaged sufficiently before the other team can cap it.
In general, for any contested obelisk, I will always plop down a tower or two before actually capping it. It's part of the accepted tradeoff for grabbing a contested obelisk. After I cap it, I might even build a generator or two to help defend. As it is, the team with more obelisks is that much more likely to win, so I see it as a welcome trade, since your entire team benefits from your time and your gold.
As you said though, this is a huge investment, costing a lot of time and gold, and a lot of babysitting too. There are also certain heroes who are ridiculously good at doing it. Incarnation is amazing at it since he gets more gold than other heroes, and has an unlimited supply of HP and mana. He's especially powerful in the middle lane since he has a wall of creeps protecting him from melee hero killers. Arcane Archer has meteors, which wipe out entire waves, as well as Ice Wall, which will basically give you enough time to build a full tower provided your opponent doesn't call for backup.
Balance-wise, I think the gold cost is perfect right now. The build time could use a little work though--I think you have to protect the worker for two waves at least, maybe three. If multiple workers could be used to build, that would help too, without necessarily imbalancing it, since each worker is +100 gold, and building with multiple workers incurs additional gold penalties as well.
If you're hellbent on changing it though, you could also consider Kedge-style artillery capping, where a neutral control tower must be capped by either an AI or (preferably) player-controlled engineer, then damaged sufficiently before the other team can cap it.
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Re: Area Domination
I like # 1. Too, isn't really the whole point NOT to have a contested obs? Seems kinda pointless to argue that as a countermeasure.
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Re: Area Domination
I think they are fine how they are now!
Re: Area Domination
Oh so you were just screwing with me when we were talking on bnet, k.ToXiK wrote:I think they are fine how they are now!
On a related note, i moved the fountains to where i mentioned for shits and giggles. If it doesn't work out i'll move them back.
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Re: Area Domination
I like killing hill obes with 2 spawn waves from top / bottom with tac as soon as I turn 15.
Not having to build a tower would certainly encourage me to capture more obelisks.
Flying heroes should not be able to mess up the capture process with little effort.
Not having to build a tower would certainly encourage me to capture more obelisks.
Flying heroes should not be able to mess up the capture process with little effort.
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Re: Area Domination
I don't think ob holding is a huge problem, it's mainly what you get out of it and what that entails.
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Re: Area Domination
I like the current system. It's true that obelisks in late game are vulnerable, but so are outposts. If someone's going for your (corner) obelisks, they're not attacking your outposts.
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Re: Area Domination
Also, Yak, work on capture mode kthx. You haven't touched it in like 2 years.
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Re: Area Domination
I should add the reason for this post isn't purely about obelisks, but also future node holding in general (ex. when upgrades return)
DarnYak
I actually want to, its just low ass priority.Also, Yak, work on capture mode kthx. You haven't touched it in like 2 years.
On the lanes, obviously not. The 4 wilderness obs though, really? Even when trying to hold an enemy obs?I don't think ob holding is a huge problem, it's mainly what you get out of it and what that entails.
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Re: Area Domination
I think the wilderness obs just add to the overall strategy, they arn't easy to get to in order to attack, but it makes them unlikely to be defended as well. Those that go for them are putting out extra effort true, but I don't see any issue with it as it is. I personally like these system as is.
Re: Area Domination
When I said this I wasn't talking about wilderness obs I meant cores and how you use them but I'll save it for another thread.I don't think ob holding is a huge problem, it's mainly what you get out of it and what that entails.
A Kedge-like system with neutral obs would make it so we don't have to spend gold on anything but an engineer.
Another way of doing it would be to give each outpost a purchasable and free Ob building item. It would be available every x minutes in the game and would recharge from then on. This makes sure that each team, regardless of farming, can pick up a free ob at the very least every x minutes. In addition, you could have it so that if a team loses an ob under some threshold (y) a free purchasable ob will come up. This is like a mercy subsidy. However, to make sure the game eventually ends, you could have it so after n minutes in game the subsidy can only come once every z minutes, etc.
Ion.
Re: Area Domination
My only problem are the wilderness obelisks.
Keeping your current properly defended takes extra money. Claiming the others and keeping them properly defended takes money and time. Then you have to consider the usefulness of all your heros vs the usefulness of your opponents heros for attacking and defending obelisks. Then you have to get to them to defend them, which requires warping, which isn't always convenient, and can be broken. Warping is also one at a time unless everyone uses an item to warp with, so you may not even be able to adequately defend them.
Now, if you destroy an obelisk of course there are risks of losing other structures, so massing a whole team to one spot has that downside, but it wont always play out that way.
This doesn't even cover properly defending spawn towers either, which are also at risk to being ganged up on.
How much money and time should I spent to try and keep things defended?
Keeping your current properly defended takes extra money. Claiming the others and keeping them properly defended takes money and time. Then you have to consider the usefulness of all your heros vs the usefulness of your opponents heros for attacking and defending obelisks. Then you have to get to them to defend them, which requires warping, which isn't always convenient, and can be broken. Warping is also one at a time unless everyone uses an item to warp with, so you may not even be able to adequately defend them.
Now, if you destroy an obelisk of course there are risks of losing other structures, so massing a whole team to one spot has that downside, but it wont always play out that way.
This doesn't even cover properly defending spawn towers either, which are also at risk to being ganged up on.
How much money and time should I spent to try and keep things defended?
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Re: Area Domination
I like the system now, but if you feel like changing it, that's fine. I'd like to know where you've moved the fountains.
As for wilderness obs, I usually take em out wiht a command tower as soon as we down an expo.
Btw Disco, Capture mode works perfectly, me, Siege, Reborn and Sparda or Rofl used to do 2v2 capture modes before the host bots were around. I'ts really fun (anything more then 2v2 isn't as good IMO).
Though some heroes are OP in capture mode, and some suck balls.
As for wilderness obs, I usually take em out wiht a command tower as soon as we down an expo.
Btw Disco, Capture mode works perfectly, me, Siege, Reborn and Sparda or Rofl used to do 2v2 capture modes before the host bots were around. I'ts really fun (anything more then 2v2 isn't as good IMO).
Though some heroes are OP in capture mode, and some suck balls.
Re: Area Domination
No! Do what I mentioned on B.net!DarnYak wrote:Oh so you were just screwing with me when we were talking on bnet, k.ToXiK wrote:I think they are fine how they are now!
On a related note, i moved the fountains to where i mentioned for shits and giggles. If it doesn't work out i'll move them back.
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Re: Area Domination
I don't have any objections to the current obelisk system. However, I would welcome something that would make it less of a financial burden. All too frequently I end up shelling out gold on tower repairs, obelisks, and any other team purchases, leaving me without any personal funds. Maybe some kinda gold related generator would be cool.
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Re: Area Domination
I have 2 suggestions that I think would make things smoother and more efficient- one would be a way to get more tiny obelisk towers! It is wonderful to have something so smooth to slip down that doesn't take much time. Also, i fully support cooperative building in every way possible- not just for obelisks. It takes long enough for some generators to upgrade without having to also spend much time building them. I should also add that I like the fact that ob towers are difficult to acquire- eota games are games of attrition and spawn towers shouldn't be popping up like candy. They are a rare treat!
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Re: Area Domination
I've been pondering this too. Here is what I was thinking:
Obelisk Capture-
Obelisks are captured with rituals. The basic capture process would remain the same... unit goes, constructs for a time, and obelisk is captured by team.
Obelisk Usage Options-
At this point, player who captured obelisk gets the following options:
Recapturing an obelisk would involve destroying it's magical barrier (killing it), which would then turn it neutral.
Generators-
Generators would still continue to work, and would probably become more important since the amount of energy given for a linked structure is considerably larger than normal (using the previous example of the inn/rock square, adding a linking diagonally as an X would create 3 links per ob, for a total of 44 energy for 4 obelisks).
Obviously this would increase the necessity of teamwork, as teams would be internally competing for obelisk captures to link themselves, and would also increase the micro that each team would spend on obelisks. However, I think it would make them a much more central, dynamic, and interesting part of the game.
Thoughts?
Obelisk Capture-
Obelisks are captured with rituals. The basic capture process would remain the same... unit goes, constructs for a time, and obelisk is captured by team.
Obelisk Usage Options-
At this point, player who captured obelisk gets the following options:
- Hero Link Ritual
Hero link connects your hero to the obelisk, giving you primary control over it, this takes a small amount of money and crystal, and a brief time.
Obelisk Power---The linked hero's actions (creep kills, player kills) give the obelisk a sort of power increase to an internal energy pool, while the obelisk in return gives the hero various powers and effects, sort of like a generator.
Hero Bonuses---Some examples would be the hero gains x stats every 500 energy added, or +5 movement, etc.
Obelisk Bonuses---The obelisk could also be set to power up itself, adding additional attacks to defend itself, armor, or attract it's own defense creeps.
Obelisk Link Ritual
Obelisk Link gives up the Hero Link option and basically makes the obelisk more of a team tool.
Obelisk Links---The obelisk can be linked to other obelisks for weak AoE effects based upon the link shapes. For example, controlling all 4 rock and inn obs and linking them could make a square, covering all of mid.
Link Area Effects---Each obelisk could then be set to a certain effect, for example 1% damage reduction for all of your creeps, 1dps dot on all creeps, -1 armor, etc, with the effects of each obelisk stacking (so for example, 4dps dot if all obs were tuned the same way).
Obelisk Power---They would get power, to a lesser extent, from kills in their area of effect, and the power could be used to upgrade obelisks to handle more links [default is 2], upgrade defenses, etc.
Link Energy---Additionally, for each link an obelisk creates, 1 additional energy is given to the team's pool per obelisk. So linking 2 obelisks would give 18 energy, 3 would give 30. This would give teams an incentive to work cohesively instead individually, however, the option is there to work individually.
Recapturing an obelisk would involve destroying it's magical barrier (killing it), which would then turn it neutral.
Generators-
Generators would still continue to work, and would probably become more important since the amount of energy given for a linked structure is considerably larger than normal (using the previous example of the inn/rock square, adding a linking diagonally as an X would create 3 links per ob, for a total of 44 energy for 4 obelisks).
Obviously this would increase the necessity of teamwork, as teams would be internally competing for obelisk captures to link themselves, and would also increase the micro that each team would spend on obelisks. However, I think it would make them a much more central, dynamic, and interesting part of the game.
Thoughts?
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Re: Area Domination
Fascinating idea. Reading it in a format like this I can easily understand it, but would it translate well into the smaller format needed in game?
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Re: Area Domination
Well in-game text doesn't stick around for very long without really getting in the way, and there's no way in hell anyone would actually read the quests menu information, as no one does that now. I'm not even sure people read that on-screen text.Lanthis wrote:How do you mean smaller format?
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Re: Area Domination
I think the in game implementation would be a lot more intuitive than the explanation. Granted, help options could probably built in, right? Like clicking a help button for linking obs would ping any available obs to link, etc.
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Re: Area Domination
I really like the concept of obs being used for something more than just gaining energy, and i think it would be cool if it was implemented. Just my thought
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Re: Area Domination
I always adored the mechanic in Heroes of Might and Magic of splitting your army and being able to leave a small (or large) group at a mine or other resource node to prevent your opponents from simply walking up to take it back. They would have to kill the troops you left there before being able to reclaim the resource supply and take it from you.
What about something similar here, where you could devote a tower core to an obelisk and it would spawn an initial group of guards (like in the old versions with fixed obelisks, the ones for each team to initially claim) and an additional guard every other wave. It could also provide an additional defensive tower. Just another option for tower cores other than pushing a lane. Those early cores could be used to fortify existing obelisks and make them much more difficult to take away.
What about something similar here, where you could devote a tower core to an obelisk and it would spawn an initial group of guards (like in the old versions with fixed obelisks, the ones for each team to initially claim) and an additional guard every other wave. It could also provide an additional defensive tower. Just another option for tower cores other than pushing a lane. Those early cores could be used to fortify existing obelisks and make them much more difficult to take away.