Eve of the Apocalypse: Twilight

One of the things discussed in the balance thread is hero killing. And well, every succesful hero kill means another player (ignoring ai) dies. I currently consider the punishment pretty light (just a small timeout, more or less). Still, we all know pubs leave the game after one or two deaths, and even i know if you're dying repeatedly it can get annoying fast.

So if I'm to address hero killing, specifically making it more tactically appealing, I also need to balance it against the penalty to assume players will be dying more frequently. So part of this thread is to address how it is now, and the other is to comment on what you guys think should be done, if anything.

DarnYak

I think that it's alright as it is, pugs just need to lose the mindset of DotA. Perhaps, in order to allow them to get used to EotA, have a mode (or just don't even have the option, just enable it) that makes the first hero death not count anything, no crystal or gold given, and when players die, just pop up a little, "That was your free death. Nothing happened because of it other than that you had to respawn. Now you'll start giving them resources."

As for making it more tactical in a full game of competent players, maybe spawning a "captain" mob for the other side when a player dies in that lane. It would encourage people to balance out: "How easily do I die?" with "How much does that lane need help?" and help pushes build up from exclusive hero-killers.

Just my $0.02.

For experienced players it really isn't much of an issue, but for new players it can get to be an issue pretty fast. I don't agree with Cryptlord's idea, it seems like punishing decent hero killers is the wrong way to go about it and I think we all know how much popups get read by most players. One idea might be to tie respawn time to hero level (which would sort of punish good players I suppose, but they've had it too easy anyway :P). I'm not really sure how good of any idea that is, but I thought I should contribute one at least.

Siege_Lord wrote:For experienced players it really isn't much of an issue, but for new players it can get to be an issue pretty fast. I don't agree with Cryptlord's idea, it seems like punishing decent hero killers is the wrong way to go about it and I think we all know how much popups get read by most players. One idea might be to tie respawn time to hero level (which would sort of punish good players I suppose, but they've had it too easy anyway ). I'm not really sure how good of any idea that is, but I thought I should contribute one at least.

Uhm, the way I see it, the adding of the captain mob wouldn't punish the hero-killer; on the contrary, the captain would spawn for the person doing the killing. Also, I believe that people would read text that pops up if they have very little/nothing to do (read: waiting for the respawn).

And as far as I know, the respawn times are tied to your level.

I agree that Hero killers (particularly good ones) are annoying to deal with, especially when your a noobie. However, it would seem to me that repeatedly killing a poor player would get....redundant and just plain boring. Fighting and successfully defeating an equal-skilled opponent seems to bear alot more pride than ganking some poor fool whose crazy enough to get in your way in the first place. Also, EotA is, as Darnyak said, pretty forgiving when it comes to dying. While DotA can be a very nasty experience. A: Because the entire game is based around you getting as much gold as possible, and B: Players of DotA tend to be merciless assholes and rarely shrug you off when you repeatably die. Deaths in DotA also bear alot more punishment all around.

To my point. I think the current system is fine.

[Reaper] - The rest of this paragraph is unneccesary.

CryptLord1234 wrote: Uhm, the way I see it, the adding of the captain mob wouldn't punish the hero-killer; on the contrary, the captain would spawn for the person doing the killing. Also, I believe that people would read text that pops up if they have very little/nothing to do (read: waiting for the respawn).

And as far as I know, the respawn times are tied to your level.

I was fairly sure respawn was tied to amount of deaths, I could be wrong. I must have misread the captain part, even so i disagree with it because it seems like removing opposition is enough.

Respawn time is tied to amount of deaths.

In general, there should be less gold/crystal gained from killing enemy heroes. 10 crystal for the whole team seems a bit much

Now that I think about it, the reward for hero killing should be a formula based on hero levels and death counts, where you get less gold if you repeatedly kill someone, or if there level is much lower. In addition to this formula just lower crystal to 5 per kill

In taking away some of these resources, you could summon a captain or something similar. This would also help encourage the teamwork aspect (instead of gold/crystal hoarding) for inexperienced players

But half of the time the captain would need too long to reach the frontline, ending up in the counterpush and getting killing without doing anything useful. Even more so when there is a AoE hero that is not killed by the hero killer for whatever reason (Too strong, went to heal, switched lane to kill easy target / defend).

Respawn time is currently something like 5 seconds per total deaths, limited by you're level (or level * 2). The gold/crystal reward for killing someone is going to get changed eventually (thinking e, since that'll be the balance version) so no need to discuss that.

DarnYak

Make death permanent.

Reaper wrote:Respawn time is tied to amount of deaths.

In general, there should be less gold/crystal gained from killing enemy heroes. 10 crystal for the whole team seems a bit much

Now that I think about it, the reward for hero killing should be a formula based on hero levels and death counts, where you get less gold if you repeatedly kill someone, or if there level is much lower. In addition to this formula just lower crystal to 5 per kill

In taking away some of these resources, you could summon a captain or something similar. This would also help encourage the teamwork aspect (instead of gold/crystal hoarding) for inexperienced players

With talents, weapons, and armor the amount they are currently? Yeah right. If anything, it's too little.

For the most part, I think we need to leave it how it is. However, Reaper does have some good points. If a new player is repeatedly being killed, less gold and crystal rewarded would seem appropriate, or if the player is at a way lower lvl. This would make a good INf less likely to repeatedly gank players without mercy, or any uber hero-killer for that matter. I agree with Reaper's first proposals, the last half is ridiculous however, crystal is hard enough to come by, unless you've got control. And even then.

How about this:

10 crystal 400 gold for hero kill if 0-7 lvls below you.
7 crystal 300 gold for hero kill if 7-12 lvls below you.
5 crystal 200 gold for anything below that.

Or something along that line.

Or you could higher the cost of lvl tomes and lower the cooldown. That would seen even more fair instead of punishing a good player. Why punish success and reward noobieness imo. Give a new player more incentive to use tomes to catch up, leave the rest to fate. It really isn't that bad.

Similar question on a similar topic:

What if death were nearly no punishment and almost all reward? Talking something like instead of having to sit out for a time, you enter ghost form where you deal half damage and can't attack heroes, or something (don't take the example literally). This of course, would imply an increased bonus for the killing team, but there's no need to discuss that.

Would this actually be a bad thing? As I see it, it would be less harsh on newbies, would permit hero killing to be more of a focus while being less obnoxious on the receiving end.

I expect most people to react "but that's too easy and no reason to change it from the status quo", or that they want the game to be hardcore. But, try to think past that please and focus on more rational arguements.

DarnYak

One thing I would like to suggest is a [300 + (x * GameTime)] health mark warning suggesting the player go heal or use extreme caution, or in general state they're in danger period. The biggest problem I see with newer players is they have no idea when to run, or perhaps the idea of running does not exist with them, either way it's problematic. I know they probably won't see it as they don't notice the noob message, but maybe with red text, a warning with the word ban in capitals which could be spun off as "Feeding can result in players applying a BAN on you," could grab someone's attention. Usually people notice red text and/or ban, and put them together and you got quite the combination.

Perhaps wrote:One thing I would like to suggest is a [300 + (x * GameTime)] health mark warning suggesting the player go heal or use extreme caution, or in general state they're in danger period.

I've actually considered that in the past, problem is I don't know what could get their attention reliably. Similarly, i suspect not knowing you can teleport makes them say "shit i dont want to walk back there again, its so fucking far".

DarnYak

I've always felt that the walking contributes to them leaving on death; they dont want to walk back to their lane.

An incomplete death is an interesting idea and given the complexity of EotA's combat triggers, could be done very well. The devil is in the details of course about the limitations and powers thereof but it would be a good way to set a kind of base limit on the power of hero killers since worst case scenario they still have the benefits of whatever ghost mode/instant respawn/etc instead of just zero heroes.

One of the things about EotA that is fun is that even when dead there is plenty to do in merc spawning, gen construction and so forth but the obvious problem is that people most annoyed by death are unable to utilize these things.

Especially at higher hero levels it would be interesting to see a situation where killing a relatively helpless hero (such as the blazing priest) would give the other team a significant advantage instead of rather complete control of the area.

An interesting consequence of the ghost mode example even would be the chance of escaping by running away versus staying with the troops to be more immediately useful in ghost form.

I would feel kinda cheated if I kill 2 AoE heroes in a lane, and their ghosts keep pushing with half powered spells. I imagine in that special case with ghosts, pushing will become incredible hard because your spawns will get permanently killed, without a chance to prevent it. Spawn cap works a bit to balance that though, because waves can only reach a certain size and earlier killed spawns will get replaced anyway.

The ghost thing was a for instance, not an idea to be debated. By focusing on it you guys are missing the point of the question.

DarnYak

You can include in a smoothing text color, "For a small price of 100 gold, you may warp to a friendly Town Hall, Keep, or Castle."

One thing that'd be nice, is respawn and bounty scaled based on the hero's survivability level. So heroes who need to be in the fray more wouldn't be as worth as much and have a lesser respawn time. A hero like Gargoyle would have a decent respawn time and would be worth the most.

Perhaps wrote:One thing that'd be nice, is respawn and bounty scaled based on the hero's survivability level. So heroes who need to be in the fray more wouldn't be as worth as much and have a lesser respawn time. A hero like Gargoyle would have a decent respawn time and would be worth the most.

When I get around to rewriting bounties it'll probably be based off time since last death, and possibly hero kills since last death or similar.

DarnYak

How about this, if you die in the game, you die in real life? How hard do you think that would be to code?

My point is, that the enemys influence should be removed from the lane when he is killed. Thats what hero killers are for after all.

Dekar wrote:I would feel kinda cheated if I kill 2 AoE heroes in a lane, and their ghosts keep pushing with half powered spells. I imagine in that special case with ghosts, pushing will become incredible hard because your spawns will get permanently killed, without a chance to prevent it. Spawn cap works a bit to balance that though, because waves can only reach a certain size and earlier killed spawns will get replaced anyway.

Half-powered spells are the key here Dekar, in other words, half as effective.

Ghost idea is retarded, in fact, any major change/idea is, why? Because its fine how it is. Death isn't a huge issue in EotA, why change it now?

You've said yourself that you don't play online so I'll give you a little narrative of how things go down.

Some dude will join the game thinking he's the most badass thing since Patrick Swayze, he'll walk into his lane like nothing can stop him and his bad self. He'll walk straight into the creeps because that's what he wants to do. He'll get taken down by the creeps in no time whatsoever. He's dead, this game isn't worth his time and he leaves.

I've seen this happen many many many many times to noobs. They get killed by creeps and just leave on the spot.

Damn DarkNemesis... Dekar is German and he knows better English than you.

I think that the death rules are fine as they are.