EotA--false appearance of depth...

[Dekar]

You never played Inf, did you?

Sabotage easily kills 50% damaged towers on lvl 2 and requires even less damage to them with lvl 4.

With mass agility your attack speed is incredible fast ( but I guess you never went agi builds because AoO sucks ofc ), mines deal some hundret damage to to towers and waves, smoke cloud disables towers but that isnt even neccesary and after some seconds you can already blow up the first tower.

She is not exactly slow at soloing bases but she is very hard to stop once she starts as she plant mines while killing the base and with Blitz and AoO its really hard to stop her without 2+ heroes as she just explodes / AoO porting heroes, blows up spawned waves and mercs or blinks / blitzes until they are out of the base.

[Hammel]

RK can go into a base, Rune Shell on, Grand Rune, whack the towers, whack the units, walk out.
Gravel can do that, too...
Scarab also walks in and kills.

So there ARE heroes that solo bases without ANY spawn support... lean to play or at least watch good people play sometimes, Demon, before you continue posting -.-

[Storamin]

It would be nice if infilt's sabotage was uncapped so you COULD go and singlehandedly stomp a base

So you want EotA to be more like DotA?
Great idea.

It already *is*.

[BLUEPOWERVAN]

It would be nice if infilt's sabotage was uncapped so you COULD go and singlehandedly stomp a base

So you want EotA to be more like DotA?
Great idea.

It already *is*.

I don't know why so many dota haters hang out here... Why is every proposed change reduced to LIKE DOTA, NOT LIKE DOTA? If you really are looking for a map that is as much unlike dota as possible, go play a tower defense. Obviously, DotA does a lot of things very well, and frankly I wish that, at the least, EotA tried to be as accessible as DotA.

[Tehw00tz]

I don't hate DotA, I play it a lot. What I hate is when people compare EotA to DotA and say "In DotA you can backdoor towers." Well in EotA towers are a lot more tough, there is more than one, and there is spawns coming from it. Now, if a hero killer can knock two (not including a cannon tower) arrow towers that have 2500 health and deal about 75-90 damage per hit, a base that makes spawns, heroes can teleport there in 5 seconds, and can be upgraded to heal other heroes.
If someone can knock that down then theres a deffinate balance issue.

[Demongod86]

You don't get it, do you? If there's only one way to play, if you can't pull a low blow, then the game becomes stale. It means if you're in a losing situation, you can't with an infilt go and smack that tree of woe for 2000 damage over time and then blow it up. No, instead you have to keep smacking it because of sabotage's silly cap.

[Tehw00tz]

Sludges, skeletions, coordinated hero attacks, and seige generators.
Learn to use them and stop asking for infiltrator to be a God.

[ashwa]

Imho infil is allready a god... she can do everything and shes good at it.. it takes alot of hard work for the other team to counter infil effectively..

but I would like input on my suggestion on page 4...

[LordSuzaku]

(I think I'll jump in, as EotA possesses the highest amount of depth on Bnet [to me at least])

To address Demongod:

The true concept of EotA is to prevent rather than cure (i.e. You need to outmatch your opponent early on, rather than let his power grow and deal with a greater threat later.) Build your own obelisks, use a command tower to throw creeps at their offroad obelisks, and undermine all of their attempts at building and destroying your own.

Personal Views of Depth:

EotA has some exceedingly strange items that can be used in obscure circumstances to great effect. (i.e. The termite jar while backdooring, sappers packed into a zepplin, etc.) That have not been used often enough to discover thier true potential. Just ask some of the people here for advice.

On backdooring heros:

During the late game, some heroes are capable of backdooring. Notable ones I've seen are the Tactician and the Infiltrator used by my ever sneaky little-brother. The Infiltrator hung out in an backwater outpost and proceeded to plant mines and sabotage until the enemy arrived which caused him to blitz. Once he left, he repeated the tactic and backstabbed the workers... Late game with the tactician, he attacked a gloomreap base from the back, inwards using termite jars and a build focusing on her "great bow".

Morales of this post:

-Be Creative
-Ask for Advice
-An ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure.

[Storamin]

-An ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure.

[Demongod86]

Suzaku, here's the problem with prevention vs. cure:

This "ounce of prevention" takes up less than half the map. And when you lose that first base (probably with spawn towers), you keep losing and fighting a losing battle for a VERY long time.

The biggest problem with EotA is that the point at which victory is assured and the point at which a victory condition is met is so far apart that it's sickening. That's not good for any sort of game.

If EotA had ways of coming back, then the -surrender option should not even be in the game, yet these days, that's how every inhouse ends. -surrender x5, rather than artifact to base or last castle dead.

[Tehw00tz]

Who wants to defend a base for 45 minutes? If my team refuses to surrender I just grab a blinkstick and hide somewhere and go and do something else.

[Hammel]

Demon, those people building spawn towers in forward bases deserve losing them... if you really play IHs and do that, people should have flamed you to death by now...

Apart from that, some bases are not important to the least (top and bottom forward), as long as you hold the backward base.
Btw, there is enough artefact wins, and some people still play to the end and even HAVE FUN (someone wanted to post a replay of that)...

And when you cannot turn a battle around by all means, you've done nothing for too long (your fault), or the balance of the team is wrong (your fault, too, in a way, you could have changed that before the game)... nothing about the map...

There are also ways of coming back, or at least doing something except defending although you might lose. When you can't do that, it is because of your lack of skill as a player, also nothing about the map...


Demon, usually I am a very patient person, but you really make me lose my temper if you go on like that >_<

[LordSuzaku]

In theory, you have teammates that are inclined to help you defend the map from your enemies, unless you repulse people when you meet them or command no respect at all, you can tell them to destroy and attack any obelisk towers. It's half the map divided by the amount of people you have, which is about one lane per person.

Forward bases are nothing unless you were stupid enough to build all of your spawn towers there.

Lastly, EotA can still be interesting even if the tides are turning against you, it depends on the amount of synergy you have with your team and if you can think of something to work together against the other teams advances.

[mianmian]

sappers packed into a zepplin,

Sappers/Sludges cannot be put into a zeppelin (Yak made it so they dont fit)

I forget who first used the Sapper thing Siege comes to mind

I know Im the reason that Sluges dont fit into zeppelings,Sludge Stormt aking down 3 expos withing 5 minuets ~~ good times.

[LordSuzaku]

Well, I guess i should start expirimenting with sappers, I haven't tried them eprsonally.

[Demongod86]

Who wants to defend a base for 45 minutes? If my team refuses to surrender I just grab a blinkstick and hide somewhere and go and do something else.

That's the exact problem, don't you think? The fact that between "okay, we won" and when the game says "you are victorious" is such a long time means that there is something HORRIDLY wrong here. IDEALLY, a game should have the moment when it's acknowledged that one side will win and that they actually DO win should be ONE AND THE SAME. To this end, it is my opinion that EotA needs to try and come as close to this ideal as possible.

Basically, the case is this: if the -surrender option was removed in the next patch, would it make eota more fun to play to the end?

Oh, and for the record, the middle lane HAS no "back" base. It's just the one tier 2 hall and then it's your main on the line if you lose that. Only the top and bottom lanes more or less have "two layers" of bases to knock down, and that's the first forward base and then the second largest base for the side in the game next to the main in lower left for blue and upper right for red. Of course, the problem there is that should EITHER lane connecting to that base lose its "first" base, you're getting beat down.

Oh, and guess what, aside from top and bottom lanes, if they smash a base, they ALSO take more obelisks with that, meaning not only are you down bases, you're also down OBELISK CONTROL. And thanks to the fact that obelisk towers are MAGIC IMMUNE, you have to slowly suffer losing to obelisk control WITHOUT being able to fight out via dispatching them in several seconds via heroes that specialize in building killing (like infiltrator).

The way I see it now, everyone here thinks that EotA needs to be a game all about teamwork and everyone working together to push the tides into their opponents' territories and eventually bowl them over. Any other way to win is frowned upon. Case in point? Tactician and her flank maneuver are very efficiently able to dispatch obelisk towers, so rather than push with the rest of the team, the tact can be an obelisk tower dispatcher. And guess what? PEOPLE WANT THAT NERFED. Simply because it's an effective tool that doesn't involve simply pushing the masses and changes the way the game is played!

Frankly, at the heart of it, obelisk towers need to be far more frail. For something that so decidedly guarantees victory, it should have to be defended day in and day out, and a price should be paid for slacking, rather than have a cheap 500 gold tower have 1500 HP and be IMMUNE TO THE BIGGEST BUILDING KILLING SPELL (SABOTAGE).

The problem is that EotA has one best way of playing, and people know this and despite this are trying to NERF ANY ALTERNATE STYLE OF PLAYING.

[LordSuzaku]

So you're saying, you hate EotA, yet you play it anyway? You aren't trying to listen, you just want to point out personal flaws and imperfections. I'll respond when/if you decide to think rationally and maturely.

[Dekar]

The biggest building killing skill is geyser at the moment.

You know, towers need workers to be build, so you can slow down the building by killing the worker. Inf can blitz in, kill it, deal some damage to the tower and lay mines to kill the next worker. Termite jars should also work against magic immunity, so the tower takes some good extra damage and should go down like nothing.

[Tehw00tz]

Demon I'm saying this and leaving this topic alone.
I want EotA to stay as I have played it for the last 2 and half- 3 years. If you want it to be like DotA in the fact that you want heroes that can take down bases, so be it, but I for one want EotA to stay the same as it has always been, and hopefully always will be.

[Demongod86]

Except it isn't the eota it was 2-3 years ago. 2-3 years ago, there were disadvantages to building spawn towers, and there were upgrades to differentiate strategies.

Now, there aren't. So other changes need to be done.

And I AM thinking rationally, BTW. After playing inhouses (and only inhouses--I can't return to pubs), I'm disenchanted. When there's one strategy that works best at the top level, the game needs to change.

[BLUEPOWERVAN]

Your perspective is stupid and fatally flawed. The pacing of every single aos is such that it's all about the accumulation of advantages over time. Given the length of the games, that's the only way it can work. If you could outplay the other team completely in half an hour, and some skill or trick by the other team could easily make you lose, that would pretty much make the first 30 minutes completely wasted.

The principle is known as "the accumulation of small advantages". And its not only present in such awesome games like DOTA, but poorly designed games like "chess" where at the highest levels the games always end in resignation (often 20+ moves before mate would be forced) and never in checkmate.

If you are arguing about how long a won game takes to win, that is another issue, and a matter of degree. The only satisfaction of that desire would be to make the game snowball FASTER AND HARDER, so that once the game is won, it's won quickly. Frankly, I'd support moves in this direction.

Moves to a game opposing the "snowball effect" are fundamentally against the entire genre.

[mianmian]

the middle lane HAS no "back" base

By this logic, Rock lane for Blue, and Inn lane for Red dosen't ether, since there bases are inside the HQ zone ~~

would be to make the game snowball FASTER AND HARDER

Now, this makes sense in your argument, and i agree to a certain point, I find that once you kill EVERY expo and you only have your HQ *Island* left, there should be a consequence because theres basicly nothing you can do once this happens,

However, I am opposed to it snowballing faster and harder if you only lose a couple/few bases, because comebacks from these are possible

awesome games like DOTA

Wrong forums! http://forums.dota-allstars.com/

there were disadvantages to building spawn towers

Wrong, Spawn towers were even more powerfull before

here were upgrades to differentiate strategies.

Correct

After playing inhouses

top and bottom lanes, if they smash a base, they ALSO take more obelisk

Thats why these lanes are mostly unimportant.
HOWEVER, the strat that I've found to win the game the fastest possible, downing HQ in 16-17

minutes, uses Top/Bottom lane ~~

What level were the people playing thsee IHs? If its a IH of pubs... its basicly still a pub game

PEOPLE WANT THAT NERFED

refering to Tact, its because its TOO good atm, its basicly unstoppable, thats why people want it nerfed, from the discussion in the thread, like you yourself mentioned....

[Demongod86]

If tact was stoppable by a 100 gold teleport, she'd be worthless. The fact that it actually is effective is reason it should stay in.

And actually, if forced mate is foreseeable in chess, then it's around 6-7 moves ahead that the resignation is given, where one move is actually when BOTH sides make one figure movement. Most chess games last WELL over 40 moves.

EotA's snowballing is more like this chess analogy: after the opening setup, your opponent takes your bishop with a pawn. You concede.

Also, about the analogy if a team could win with a trick 30 minutes later then your first 30 minutes were wasted: incorrect. Those 30 minutes went to making sure your opponents didn't win conventionally but had to resort to a trick. Your better play early game should not simply give you the right to say "we win, GG".

Furthermore, if they do win by some trick 30 minutes later, then one of a few things is possible.

1) They played better after the first 30 minutes than you guys did.
2) Your team tried to win conventionally and got outplayed via a trick.
3) The opposing team *planned* to bide their time and win with a trick later on.

By your logic, BPV, you say that "well we played better the first minute, so we should have it easier the second, and so on".

In other words, whoever gets the ball rolling their way first should be the clear-cut winner.

Also, here's another thought:

If the game is decided in 30 minutes but takes 1 hour and 30 minutes for a victory condition to be met, doesn't that make the next one hour meaningless? I'd rather the first 30 minutes be made less meaningful by tricks available later on rather than the game decided in a fraction of the time it takes to achieve an actual victory condition.

[BLUEPOWERVAN]

Uh, I said it was a matter of degrees. And the game being decided by the first 30 seconds of momentum is not in line with the general time taken in the genre.

If you had real knowledge of high level chess, you'd know resignation does not generally occur because forced mate is foreseen. In fact, a good many grandmasters in tournaments have been known to concede in just such a situation as you proposed, blundering a pawn in the first 10 moves, even though an average match takes likely more than 60 moves to play to completion. In fact, resignations frequently occur before any material loss has been achieved, on the basis of position alone.

If you play better the first minute, the second minute IS easier for you. If you play better the first minute, but worse (than your opponent(s)) the second minute, it can be easier for them, in spite of your first minute's success. Pretty ignorant to assert my proposed game mechanics are ridiculous, when they are simply examples from popular games. If you get a lot of last hits, you get more gold, and hence more items making the future easier to win (but far from already won)... if you beat a hero up in the lane, you at least drive them out starving them of exp, making it easier to win against them in the future (but far from assuredly winning in the future). You can't simply reduce every argument into either A or B, just because I support people being able to help or hinder their future situation by either making a good or bad move, is not the same thing as saying I support reducing the whole game to whoever makes the first right move wins.

You are not helping your argument by blowing the whole situation out of proportion, especially once it's agreed snowballing is the nature of the game, and we are arguing about degrees more or less snowball oriented. I grant a game of eota is often decided in the first 30 minutes, but it takes more like 50 minutes to see it to conclusion, not 90 minutes... and it can be done faster if the winning team goes for the kill instead of diddling around.

How can a team playing poorly for 30 minutes, in a 50 minute game, be considered "biding their time". These aren't synonyms, and they aren't even close. Biding ones time, could be considered saving a bunch of spawn towers up, and surprise spamming a lane -- letting the other team control all the obelisks, getting your lanes outpushed and your heroes outkilled, that is nothing like "biding ones time".

The game pretty much never ends in 30 minutes, so in your super 30 minute scenario, the first 30 minutes are wasted. If 2 teams are anywhere remotely close in skill, both teams can be assured of spending those 30 minutes "making sure your opponents didn't win conventionally"... If suddenly one team or another, particularly a clearly losing team, could just win, it would completely waste the first 30 minutes. The game would reduce to 2 phases, 1, "spend 30 minutes proving everyone on your team isn't moronic", phase 2, "win or lose in the next 30 seconds depending on whether you or your enemy had stupid trick heroe(s)"