EotA--false appearance of depth...

[Demongod86]

Is it just me, or has EotA been completely dumbed down over the versions? I remember in the first version, people had to pool for upgrades and items were practically a faux pas. Every decision had an advantage and a disadvantage, but now, it seems that EotA's mechanics practically force only one way of playing and that's offense=>obelisks=>mass spawn towers.

And when one style of play is forced, EotA essentially becomes no better than DotA, which has a forced style of play of 5-man aoe push all the time.

I realize that spawn towers cost resources, the tower cores, which are obtained through map control, and it would be pretty silly if for playing well and obtaining map control and the like, that the extra spawns simply fed gold and experience to your opponents, and then after holding out long enough and being fed enough with 6 level 5 items apiece that their 5 uberheroes just go and win the game on their own.

Except it doesn't work that way. Otherwise, why would people defend outposts with no spawn towers? Oh right, map control. Because it doesn't matter how much gold they're raking in if they're going to be overwhelmed by mass spawns. You can have all of the gold in the game, be stacked out with your 6 level 5 items, and you would still lose to mass units, and their heroes, that although on paper have a lower level than you, probably deal more damage a swing, reduce more damage per hit, and may or may not have higher actual stats. Know why? Because with all of the obelisks, it doesn't matter if someone can go and wipe out the wagon each and every time...those crystal generators will, in the long run, make up for any experience disadvantage that the offensive team will run into, and any outpost built at a gold mine that the defenders lost will further help the gold situation.

The problem with EotA right now is that map control has no price. And because of that, the winning team KEEPS winning.

What do I mean? I mean that if you're up Obs +1, it'll be easier for you to turn that into Obs +2 than it was for you to make Obs +0 into Obs+1, and so on and so forth.

Furthermore, this causes EotA games to end LONG before an actual victory condition is met. I know that in the inhouses I play, all it takes is for 1 or 2 bases to go down and we see "the enemy team has surrendered", long before we're knocking on their main base, or lugging along the artifact home.

The problem is, there are no comebacks in EotA. While it may make the game noob friendly to "wait out" the opponents while they try their damndest to break through your main base while you rake in the cash from your frost spires or grand runes or hell furies or whatever big aoe you want, I'd think that it'd make EotA more strategic if map control had a price and it wasn't just a brainless thought as to "HEY LOOKIT, WE HAVE 3 CORES OPEN! LET'S BUILD TOWERS!"

I would think that for a 1500 HP 50 damage melee unit, that you can pay a small price of 50 gold and 100 exp if you let it die because either A) you don't support it or B) your opponents put up a strong defense.

I think that a team with enough map control to make their opponents need their heroes to defend at every turn would overcome whatever gold disadvantage the defenders get.

And while I know we don't want EotA to become this hero-centric fragfest that DotA is, it would be nice not to have to restart every half hour because the other team had one nice push.

[Dekar]

So ignoring obelisks and pooling every single gold for spawn towers and upgrades is better than fighting abou obelisk control?

And you would rather enjoy to be defensive for the whole game, wait until you are level 80, wait some more hours before the game ends, because the defending players should get rewarded, too?

And heros with 800+ damage aoe skills cant stop a wave with spawn units?
Level 50 heros with 6 +5 items cant raze a base on their own?

What map are we talking about?

I even won my last game with -30% obelisk control through the whole game, and there were 2 regular players in the enemys team vs 1 regular + me.

/you SHUT THE FUCK UP, GODDAMMIT!

I only see you flaming everything in EotA in about every thread i read. Maybe you should try an other map?

[Tehw00tz]

/you SHUT THE FUCK UP, GODDAMMIT!

I only see you flaming everything in EotA in about every thread i read. Maybe you should try an other map?

that was actually Jamn, check his sig

[Strychnyne]

Dekar, I think that's the smartest thing anyone has ever said to Demon, myself included.

Demon, this is the way the game is centered. You are the ONLY person who doesn't like it this way. You're not going to get anything changed they way you are going. I agree with Dekar. If you don't like it, don't play it.

[Shadow.M4L]

Or create your own map...

[Demongod86]

So ignoring obelisks and pooling every single gold for spawn towers and upgrades is better than fighting abou obelisk control?

And you would rather enjoy to be defensive for the whole game, wait until you are level 80, wait some more hours before the game ends, because the defending players should get rewarded, too?

And heros with 800+ damage aoe skills cant stop a wave with spawn units?
Level 50 heros with 6 +5 items cant raze a base on their own?

What map are we talking about?

I even won my last game with -30% obelisk control through the whole game, and there were 2 regular players in the enemys team vs 1 regular + me.

/you SHUT THE FUCK UP, GODDAMMIT!

I only see you flaming everything in EotA in about every thread i read. Maybe you should try an other map?

I am saying that it should not be easier to go from Obs +1 to Obs +2 than it was from Obs +0 to Obs +1.

The real problem here is the *snowball effect*.

Once you're in a bad position, it's harder for you to even things up again. The reason for this is that there is never EVER an advantage to defending. While I'm not saying games should go on for 4 hours, I'm also saying that games shouldn't be "oh well, you guys got that first moontear, GG.", or "Well, we can't find a way to even up the obelisk count. GG."

I'm saying that so many games end prematurely because one team because of the snowballing effect, which is caused by the defense having absolutely nothing going for them.

As one person said, "The defenders are defending because they defended!". So now since they're defending right now, they'll be defending later and so on and so forth.

Because at the moment, EotA isn't about wrecking your opponents' last castle, nor is it about dragging the artifact back to base. It's about having a few players type -surrender long before their main base is even knocked on.

Now is it me, or is EotA the *only* aos in which half the map is unused because the game is decided long before a main base is ever knocked on...

Heck, at this rate, it seems that Candleburg of all maps is probably the map that EotA has the greatest back-and-forths on, and IMO, sometimes it's more fun to actually achieve a victory condition rather than have your opponents type -surrender.

[jamn455]

Cry me a mother fucking river. God damnit, i said it when you made your first post about the AM, SHUT THE FUCK UP. We are all too old to be listening to a little whiny bitch say omg this game isnt the way it used to be. Well if games dont change they get left behind. Have you ever said something like hey this hero is cool or hey this is a cool part of this game, no you just bitch about this hero, and that hero bullshit. Go play ToB, DotA, any other fucking AoS if you dont like this game.

Oh and just like you did,
/you STOP CRYING, GET THE DICK OUT OF YOUR ASS, AND BE INTELLIGENT.

[Demongod86]

Man, you really are a faggot, aren't you? This is the last time I'll reply to your bad mannered ass so here goes:

This is a forum. People have the right to express their opinions. At the moment, EotA needs all the players it can get. It doesn't matter what changes Yak makes if it's not going to make the game more popular. If you can't find a game consistently, the game needs improvement and to take into account the opinions of every single player that takes their time to comment on it. And since people *can't* find EotAs consistently in pubby games, guess what? It needs to improve.

In fact, I find enmity campaign games--a game that the creator has STOPPED working on more than I find EotA games.

People DON'T like snowball effects. EotA has a SEVERE case of snowballing effects. This snowball effect is probably the BIGGEST reason why people DON'T play EotA. If a game is good, it'll be over WHEN IT'S OVER. Here's a nice analogy to EotA's snowballing effect of spawn towers:

We're playing football. Your team scores a touchdown. So now you get to have two more players on the field. Your team scores a field goal with the aid of those two players. So now you get another player on the field.

You call THAT a good game? My ass.

[Something]

For starters.. I may have misunderstood, but did you say something about getting XP and gold from tower spawns? Because.. You don't.

Now, it is time for you to learn to keep up with the game called EotA. Let me ask you, is it fair that somebody AFKs, and comes back and is unable to win because the other team got levels? Is this not the same concept as you're not actually playing it?

Somebody gets an obelisk advantage over you, what is your first thought? Take it out? Ignore it? Build one yourself? How often do you check the obelisks? Do you even think of a way you could have prevented it? Do you work well with your team? Do they work well with you?

In a game of EotA, against players who do know the best strategy (yes, it pretty much exists), then you'll always be forced to play the same way. I've played A LOT of EotA, and rarely has this strategy been played out, in fact, only once, and on Candleburg no less!

The strategy does involve pooling gold, so you can still do that much! It however, requires specific heros, which makes it get old very quick. Plus, since it's so samey, it further gets old!

Now, in a game where both teams attempt such, the team that does it first (and has the better hero for it), will have the upper hand. Anyone ever play Dragoncraft on Starcraft? Same affect.

EotA however allows you to change it up at least, but in reality, you're right. Fake depth. I like the game and all, but the more I play it, the less I see that I can use as a viable way to win with.

However, it's very difficult for maps to change this. As you begin playing a map, it feels new. You can play it for months and it could seem all intricate. The more you learn, the less there is to learn. Eventually, it all comes out to what you see as "best". In a lot of maps, there is a "best", and that can be hard to identify, and even when it's identified, it can be hard to change. And, of course you saw it coming, when it is changed, it could just create a new "best".

But, still, along with that "best" strategy, it doesn't remove the ability to improsive when required, and that is always fun. For the most part though, that kind of thing can get dull. Improvisations become samey even.

I'll say this, the only reason just about I ever lose on EotA is when I let my guard down and play it out lightly. I hate doing the same things every game to keep ahead, it's BORING. Change it up, play it light, risk the loss. Have fun!

[Emufarmers]

People DON'T like snowball effects. EotA has a SEVERE case of snowballing effects. This snowball effect is probably the BIGGEST reason why people DON'T play EotA.

I don't see any evidence to indicate that people are turned off by EotA's snowball effects. Believe it or not, it was just as hard to find a game of EotA 3 years ago. It will probably be just as hard 3 years from now. This has nothing to do with quickly-ending games: It has to do with map size, lack of public relations efforts, distinctiveness from other AoSs, and other factors.

Indeed, the snowball effect isn't unique to EotA: It's a part of virtually every AoS.

[jamn455]

EotA always turns down the dumbass society of Warcraft 3 so I'm not really that surprised.

[mianmian]

the winning team KEEPS winning.

yes, your right Eota does have a snowball effect, and I'm sure if bothers some people, theres no more heroic comebacks of the 1.06 days.

However, games no longer take 2 hours minimum, Yak added the snowball effect on purpose to speed games up, and yes I have argued against it.

Your correct in that holding obs will win you the game, 100%, and for every second you hold extra obs its harder for the other team to take them back.

Anyway, Eota has changed, its something that happened so we have to deal with it.

Btw Jamn you seem to have a bit overboard in your post, Demons response didnt help a bit ~~

Something just curious whats your "best" strat? I wonder if I've run into it/used it.

I do however remember one game me and 4 others co-ordinated to win as fast as possible, one of the new games where we pooled, with specific heroes.

Enemy HQ down in 16-17mins

[Demongod86]

Not so much a single best strat as the game revolving around one key point, and that's the fact that map control costs you something once, but continues to give you a significant advantage. You pay for your spawn towers ONCE, and the moment you put up that spawn tower, it makes it forever that much harder for the opposing team to come back.

Again, I will give you the football analogy. My team gets to your 20 yard line and scores a field goal. Since we scored a field goal (my analogy to securing an obelisk or a moontear), we get another player on the field for both offense and defense.

So now we can score that second field goal even easier, and you have to work through even greater odds than before to even think about evening the playing field again.

I understand that sometimes, without a snowball effect, that games can last for hours. I know that way back when with enmity campaign, due to how long it took units to get from our base to their base, because of the opposing team having their base fountain, even when all of their spawn buildings were destroyed and they were down to their five heroes, the game lasted for at least another hour just trying to take down the one building.

However, EotA has NO NEED for the snowballing effect! Does it matter that the other team is getting X amount of gold from your spawn tower units when you have +8 obs on them? Because even if they have 5 level 80 heroes tricked out with 6 item +5 items in their inventories, it sort of won't matter if those five heroes have to plow through hundreds of units and YOUR five heroes that will NOT be vastly inferior (hello, CRYSTAL GENERATORS), if at all inferior to theirs, just to get to your arcane wagon carrying the artifact back.

Frankly, I think I have a solution to this ridiculous snowballing effect. Here it is.

Every spawn tower your team builds generates some gold every so often, for instance, 1 gold every second for the builder. Say the spawn time is 40 seconds between waves, and killing that spawn tower unit gives the killer 80 gold. So if you simply let your wave autopilot into their defenses, there was 40 seconds to the spawn time, and say it took 20 seconds for your unit to reach their defenses and another 5 for that rune knight to slaughter it with his glyph of syphon. You gained 65 gold, he gained 80. At this rate, your spawn towers will prove to be your undoing.

But...if you keep that unit alive for 40 seconds since its spawn time, you will have broken even on your investment goldwise, and on top of that, your unit will still have served its purpose in doing and taking damage from the enemy.

The problem right now with spawn towers is that they grant a continuous something for only a one-time cost. Here, in order to maintain your map control, you would have to support your new spawn units better than the defenders can defend against them, so if you slack up on your job, then they'll become a disadvantage.

But then someone says "so you want to punish players for securing the map control required to build the spawn tower?"

No. I want to punish the players for letting their spawns die at a rate that allows the other team to make a comeback. You got map control? Great. Now you have a valuable new ally. But now you must *support* your investment to the end, or your investment will prove to be your own undoing.

Basically, I want there to be a constant reward for a constant input.

[Kibiyama]

He is right that EotA has lost a lot. The right way to make a game is that every disadvantage opens the door to an advantage, like a seesaw. The further you get from equilibrium, the greater the force pushing you back towards equilibrium. Planning and judging when to act will make your team win. That's what we want for the large-scale game.

We see it in the small-scale. If you lead a push to an outpost, you'll likely get deadlocked near the towers; your units will dwindle while the enemy's units will clog up under the cover of the towers, stealing your momentum to build their own. A merc purchase at the right time will feed the momentum even further, and the push the other way will be stronger than the push you just made.

There are two ways to play it: steady pushing, bleeding their gold supply dry as they repair the towers; or tracking the momentum and pushing with everything you have at the optimal moment. Either works, but the latter is riskier because it allows for a big reciprocal push if you fail to completely cripple the base.


It's also in the design of the lanes. If you notice, every lane has a counter. (talking about Storm, from the bottom-right side)

~~~

Your top lane has an advantage in that it only has to overtake one outpost to get to their base, but it is very difficult to retake if you lose it. If you lose this lane, the enemy will consume top-middle from the inside out, due to the outpost there that feeds into top-middle.

Your top-middle lane is a counter to middle -- it merges with the middle route past the first base, so if your enemy gets too strong in the middle, you can choke them off if you manage to take this lane.

Middle is the hardest to maintain in most cases, because the merc forces behind it are tremendous. But if you manage to take middle, you will cut off top-middle, making it easier to take or defend that lane.

Bottom-middle is my favorite because, while it is a direct counter to bottom, you can also disrupt the unit flow to middle. If you are losing bottom and this lane is weak, a good strike will take down the outpost and take the fight to the bottom lane, crippling their offenses for that lane.

Bottom is obviously the reciprocal of the top. It requires a lot of attention to maintain, but if you overtake your opponents in this lane, bottom-middle will starve to death.

~~~

As if that isn't enough, there is the well-known rock-paper-scissors relationship of the spawns, which offers another way to undermine your opponent's strategy. Because, you see, the only way to truly take advantage of upgrades is by specializing, but a specialized force is also easily countered.

(this part of the strategy was lost in 1.11, but that's okay because I still refuse to count 1.11 as official EotA)


So you can see that (almost) any disadvantage can be turned into an advantage. So where's the problem!? It's hard to say, since games are very complex equations with many terms, and even the slightest change can have massive consequences. (see: Chaos Theory/Butterfly Effect)

I have a hunch that the fault lies with obelisk control. Obviously control helps you win, but being at a disadvantage doesn't give you any new options to help you win, it just sets you back further and further the longer they have an extra obelisk. Exactly the snowball effect Demon was talking about.

It's nothing against Yak to say that the game has lost some flavor. Balancing a game like EotA is like tuning a piano with a sledgehammer.

Holy shit that's a long post. If anyone reads it all, I will FedEx them a tray of (anthrax-covered) cookies.
Penis.

[Demongod86]

I did read it all, Kibi, though I'll pass on the anthrax-covered cookies. Frankly, I think that a game shouldn't be over till it's over, not because one little piece of the map doesn't go your way. I don't think that losing one base without reciprocation should be a direct pointer of "HEY, YOU GUYS ARE FIGHTING AN IMPOSSIBLE BATTLE! PLEASE TYPE -SURRENDER NOW!"

I mean how many times have you actually fought units after your top lane has been devastated as red or bottom with blue with hope to make a comeback? Very few if any at all. I know at one time in a pub, I had to resort to backdooring with infiltrator and we eventually won the game that way after about 2 hours because we held out at base while I backdoored obelisk towers and spawn towers using smoke and blitz to keep away enemy creeps.

Because honestly, of stormwail peak, the only real parts of the map that see play are the neutral territories between bases. If at any point the game essentially goes beyond those places, whoever is having their grounds figuratively shit on can just type -surrender.

For a map like EotA, that's just a horrible waste of map space and wasted potential, don't you think?

[Discombobulator]

You guys are idiots.

Do you want to play a 6 hour long game every time because the map favors losers and punishes attackers? Learn to play, to counter, and to accept defeat.

As for the claim of there being only several strategies which work, I'll just laugh.



Go back to playing enmity campaign, it appears to suit you far more.

[Tehw00tz]

We're playing football. Your team scores a touchdown. So now you get to have two more players on the field.

That'd be too many players on the feild and you would get penalized.

[Shadow.M4L]

I usally take down the first lane within the first 25 levels with the tactican.
So iam realy fast in the enemy base. That never proved as real disadvantage for the enemy more an advantage for them. Why because i see my Outpost fall faster because the creeps mass up. Which is a problem that is as old as Wc3.

Ofcourse suddenly people show up and defending the lane even harder. However often i just leave this lane and help defending pushin a different lane. And without Heros on this lane there will be mass Spawns. Which will result that our outpost fall because the enemy outpost hast better defends.

That is the so called "snowball" effect?

Also if you come up with something like Obelisk Control, that one Obelisk doesnt help at all. You need to build it up at a unsecure position way to near the enemy base. A good player will take it out withing minutes.


I think this whole thing comes up because we Eota Player speak of our own experiences that are years old. And you talk about your however long experiences without massive inhouses.
You may ask why i think you never played one... well youre haten by the most clan members.

[Tehw00tz]

Someone even more hated than I? I find that hard to believe.

[Shadow.M4L]

Jealous?

[Tehw00tz]

Not really

[Kibiyama]

Do you want to play a 6 hour long game every time because the map favors losers and punishes attackers? Learn to play, to counter, and to accept defeat.

While most of that is willful ignorance, I'll respond to the 6 hour long bit.

An EotA that favors equilibrium more wouldn't necessarily create a longer game. Since I already brought up the word equilibrium, I might as well use a spring metaphor in that it would just require a stronger spring force.

Really, it's all about emergent complexity. Simple rules result in complex patterns. For example, chess. A naive approach would say that on your turn, you should always make whatever move will gain you the highest-ranked piece. However, this doesn't account for the fact that a temporary advantage can become a permanent disadvantage. You might take a knight with your queen, but you may then lose your queen to a pawn.

But, where obelisks are concerned, EotA has a shallow complexity; the naive approach works. Even a temporary advantage comes at the cost of only 500 gold. Essentially, if you're winning, obelisks help you keep winning and make the other team keep losing without a counter. (and don't say the counter is to take back the obelisk; that's like saying the way to win is to not lose)

I'd like to see an EotA with a revamped spawn system that has strategic advantages and disadvantages, stronger momentum for pushes, and more quickly-accelerated hero development.


3 notes, by the way:

1. Should've added to my first post that the reason top and bottom have no obelisks is because they have no counter. (speculative)

2. A quick (but shallow) fix to the obelisk problem is to provide a control penalty when you lose an obelisk. This doesn't help with relatively-secure obelisks stacking units, but it at least discourages risky obelisk placement.

It would also have the unintended consequence of amplifying the noob obelisk placement problem, which is why I think the whole thing needs to be reexamined.

3. w00tz: Your kevinmentor sig is incorrect.
Penis.

[Dekar]

How about this:

Stormwail will get removed anyway, we dont know if we even have a single map with obelisks in 1.12, there wont be any significant game changeing changes in 1.11d ( I bet ), so this discussion is basically useless.


And forwhoever doesnt like the obelisk system, play another map.

And if you really think, some crystal generators make your hero imba: I dont think so.

And yes you can win with obelisk disadvantage, especially if the leading team starts using their cores and thus they can be countered, resulting in an advantage for the defending team *GASP*.

[Fierach]

Demons.

Everything you are saying isn't true.

IE: On Kedges, why do you think its been changed? Both teams now get tower cores when a moontear spawns, and even with a slight disadvantage a team could stay together and do their damndest to fight against all odds.

On the subject of tower cores.

In Stormwail, at any given point, ther e are usually atleast 4 obelisks to fight over.

Don't tell me that with a decent combined push with multiple hero backup can't break through superior creeps. Because I've seen it done more often then you think Demons.

Case in point, that game against you when I was Icespinner and you were Infiltrator.

You had Divine Wizard in your lane constantly, 2v1 against me, and you were usually wailing on our defences more then we were killing yours.
Actually, I'll say more, but I'll try and host the replay so you guys can all see for yourself, it was the very antithesis to what Demons is saying right now.

Now how do I host it here?

[Demongod86]

Funny funny, Fierach. If I'd been RK that game, you would have had your ass handed to you flat out. Infiltrator is like DotA's SA...her effectiveness is inversely proportional to the skill of your opponents.

But that's another story altogether.