Are our standards too high?

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Kurogamon
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Are our standards too high?

Post by Kurogamon » Wed Nov 18, 2009 8:14 pm

For updating the map?
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Oxygen
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Re: Are our standards too high?

Post by Oxygen » Wed Nov 18, 2009 8:33 pm

no, dusk has too little time

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Kurogamon
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Re: Are our standards too high?

Post by Kurogamon » Wed Nov 18, 2009 8:51 pm

Well, not even for adding things to the map, or even thinking about it. Just for approval and personal favor, and not just by Dusk either.
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Oxygen
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Re: Are our standards too high?

Post by Oxygen » Wed Nov 18, 2009 9:27 pm

wasnt it updated like, a week ago?

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Rising_Dusk
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Re: Are our standards too high?

Post by Rising_Dusk » Wed Nov 18, 2009 11:39 pm

Wait, what is this even talking about? What in the world does this even have to do with DoE? :|
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Rising_Dusk
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Re: Are our standards too high?

Post by Rising_Dusk » Thu Nov 19, 2009 10:43 am

I'm deleting the off topic/repetitive posts because I'd actually like to know what the heck Kuro is talking about and we don't need 5 people asking the same question in one thread; It's spammy.
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Kurogamon
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Re: Are our standards too high?

Post by Kurogamon » Thu Nov 19, 2009 6:01 pm

[All of this also applies to AotZ, though it's not updating and not in need of it. Also to some degree OD.]

It seems to me that the standard we hold any new heroes or ideas to, even outside considering them for adding to the map, is too high. I see some heroes in DoE that would not come close to standing up to the scrutiny we give new heroes. At the moment it's not the time to add new heroes, but there's no work on interesting skills beyond utterly balanced and interacting gameplay. If there's an unhealthy amount of focus on making everything interconnected, the game isn't as fun as it could be.

I like DoE, it's good to have a system for interacting skills that put some emphasis on teamplay and opportunity instead of hitting a button regardless of situation (Like AoM). But it's getting to be too much srs bsns. What happened to themed heroes? It's just in the names and selected condition now, not the effects and visuals of the skills.

Finally, a trend I see is skills focusing too much on condition interaction. Twister is an excellent example for how this was avoided, but a lot of skills are just "Inflict X condition for Y seconds with Z prerequisite met and add condition O and do P and..." or variants and parts thereof. If that's how things work, sure, the game is fun as it is. But why not some truly creative things?

Ideas:
-There's a jillion trees on the map, why not make use of them? For that matter, why not more terrain fun? Why do the lanes have to be totally clear?
-Break the symmetry between the computer sides some, I'm aware this is really, really hard to balance and bring about, but some thought on it would be better than leaving it totally alone.
-Too... Small. Not in the sense of size, but in the sense of scope and the feeling of a big game. It might not be DoE's place, but I liked those skills that made you say "WOW" the first time you saw them, instead of having to take a long time to appreciate them.
-More later, maybe.

tl;dr Too much fastidious focus on perfect, balanced gameplay and not enough on "dumb" entertainment value.


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Re: Are our standards too high?

Post by Rising_Dusk » Thu Nov 19, 2009 6:33 pm

Kurogamon wrote:It seems to me that the standard we hold any new heroes or ideas to, even outside considering them for adding to the map, is too high. I see some heroes in DoE that would not come close to standing up to the scrutiny we give new heroes. At the moment it's not the time to add new heroes, but there's no work on interesting skills beyond utterly balanced and interacting gameplay. If there's an unhealthy amount of focus on making everything interconnected, the game isn't as fun as it could be.
Maybe you don't listen to me at all across the forums, but the focus of 1.15 is improving those old heroes. You see me make topics like "Arro Kree" and "Caliga" and somehow don't catch onto the fact that I'm trying to bring some of those lackluster heroes up to par.

Your blathering about the game not being fun as a result of this really isn't true, and I'm on a tight schedule so I won't address it further.
Kurogamon wrote:I like DoE, it's good to have a system for interacting skills that put some emphasis on teamplay and opportunity instead of hitting a button regardless of situation (Like AoM). But it's getting to be too much srs bsns. What happened to themed heroes? It's just in the names and selected condition now, not the effects and visuals of the skills.
I don't know what the heck you're talking about. In my experience at this site, we've been focusing on themes, names, effects, etc. all combined. The reality is that you do need to provide a coherent theme, but you need to leave the special effects, icons, textures, etc. up to me and the art crew. We know how to make a hero fit a theme and make effects that fit. That is my job as mapmaker and has nothing to do with the community's suggestions. If you have a complicated visual mechanic you need to explain for a hero, then by all means, do it. Clarification is never turned down.

In a nutshell, I kinda think the above quoted paragraph reveals that you need to pay more attention to how I work and how I nudge others to work (in suggestions).
Kurogamon wrote:Finally, a trend I see is skills focusing too much on condition interaction. Twister is an excellent example for how this was avoided, but a lot of skills are just "Inflict X condition for Y seconds with Z prerequisite met and add condition O and do P and..." or variants and parts thereof.
Just because people submit a bunch of stuff with fifty million condition interaction possibilities doesn't mean I endorse them. Actually, quite the opposite, I tell them when enough is too much and when nothing is too little. The reality is that condition interaction is the crux of the whole bloody map, so yeah, it better play a significant role in suggestions or gtfo.
Kurogamon wrote: If that's how things work, sure, the game is fun as it is. But why not some truly creative things?
You need to realize that not everyone is a good hero designer. It's actually very hard to merge simplicity with condition interaction and a proper theme to result in an awesome hero.

Anyways, if you want to have more creativity in the suggestions, lead by example. Go ahead, I'd like to read your hero ideas.
Kurogamon wrote:Ideas:
-There's a jillion trees on the map, why not make use of them? For that matter, why not more terrain fun? Why do the lanes have to be totally clear?
-Break the symmetry between the computer sides some, I'm aware this is really, really hard to balance and bring about, but some thought on it would be better than leaving it totally alone.
-Too... Small. Not in the sense of size, but in the sense of scope and the feeling of a big game. It might not be DoE's place, but I liked those skills that made you say "WOW" the first time you saw them, instead of having to take a long time to appreciate them.
-More later, maybe.
  • There are two extremes to lanes in an AoS. Either they are very clear and allow players a lot of maneuverability or they are very narrow and hinder escapes, dodging, and movement as a significant factor in combat. I feel that having sufficient space is critical to many skills being fun. Things with big area of effects lose a lot of coolness in narrow lanes and projectile skills lose a lot of their novelty if lanes are too narrow.

    Needless to say, DoE's terrain isn't changing. I have made it as it is to be well-calibrated to maximize dodging, maneuverability, and AOE happiness while still keeping the rough shape of lanes.

    If you want to interact with trees in a skill, fine, so suggest it in a hero where it makes sense. Nothing about the map suggests that you cannot.
  • 99% of the balance of a map comes from shape symmetry of the game. If you wholly change areas to have different pathing and chokepoints then you inherently bias the game one way or another. This is only balanceable by making certain teams have either better creeps or better heroes, which takes away from both teams having an equal chance of making players enjoy themselves. Players want to be powerful no matter which side they pick, and if one side is stronger because of terrain imbalances, well, that's retarded.

    If you're just talking about visuals, like lanes looking different but retaining symmetry, that's fine. DoE is a desert, though, and so there's not a lot of terrain variation. It actually looks pretty great this way as a desert. Aot3, for instance, has a much greater amount of terrain variation while retaining symmetry. You'll see what I mean if/when I reveal the terrain.
  • DoE, because of focus on subliminal systems, team interaction, and so forth, will never have the wow spells. It will always have the skills that are fun to use and cool-looking, but never the wow, epic ones. Deal with it, that was a choice of mine when making the map.

    This is again a design decision. There are two ways to make heroes for a map. Either you make it so that every hero has the standalone capacity to destroy and obliterate everything and handle themselves perfectly in nigh-all regards (AotZ, ToB, AoM) or you make heroes focus into niche roles and work as a cluster hivemind (DotA, DoE). Yes, I just put DoE in the same category as DotA, because it is. There are pretty spells in DoE, but they focus more on helping the team towards a specific metagame goal than on blowing up the universe individually. Don't like that? I'm sorry, there are other AoS maps you might like more then.
Kurogamon wrote:Too much fastidious focus on perfect, balanced gameplay and not enough on "dumb" entertainment value.
What you mean to say is that there isn't enough focus on the type of entertainment that you like, and too much focus on the type of entertainment those like me garner from simplicity and fast-paced metagame-driven combat. I said it before in this post and I will say it again here; DoE may not be the AoS for you, and not because it's poorly made, but because it was designed to appeal to an audience that apparently does not include you. (It includes me, in case you were wondering)

Thanks for your comments.
"I'll come to Florida one day and make you look like a damn princess." ~Hep

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