How I will save wc3

[feRfe]

I came up with an idea recently to revive wc3 1v1 and 2v2. For anyone who has followed the scene all the way to the present, you should know one thing if nothing else.

The meta is dead. The game is stale and boring - the same games are being played over and over and over again. This is because there are only a couple of choices for each race if you are playing to win consistently.

I'll fix that for you in several critical steps, and even go beyond eventually perhaps to really make wc3 into truly the greatest game ever.

STEP #1:
Yosh of tft.w3arena.net told me he will support this idea and try to implement it into the w3a ladder for at least 1v1 if he can get a high quality map from someone like Doodads. It would be alongside regular 1v1, rather than replace it (at least for now... )

This is the idea, though the form is to a certain degree still tentative. The form as I show you here is already pretty refined though to allow for the most possible complexity and freedom:

1v1 with vetoes

2 hero vetoes, 1 unit veto in this order: hero, unit, hero. Hero vetoes can be racial or tavern, and units obviously racial. Worker units (wisps, peasants etc) are immune from vetoes. For Undead, this means ghouls as well. Also, obsidian statues for Undead are immune from vetoes for balance reasons. Destroyers, however, can be vetoed. Because of the nature of the gametype, the races of players choosing random will necessarily be revealed at the start of the game.

This will rejuvenate the meta-game of wc3 drastically and give us new games and possibilities. The idea behind vetoes is not to close doors but to open new ones. I tried doing two hero vetoes first and unit veto last, and unit veto first and hero veto last before settling on this current order. The other formats aren't enough to really change the meta. Unit vetoes, as the biggest commitment, must come second to keep things exciting and allow for the most possibilities. I've already tested it with personal friends; I'm not sure if you guys know, but I'm pretty good at wc3. I'm 85%+ on w3arena in 1v1 with 350 games on account a.cute.girl, so hopefully you buy it when I tell you that the game remains balanced in this system. However, I'd be happy to run some theorycraft tests with you and even show you some games played this way if you need more convincing!

As for the desired format, Yosh and I were thinking of something like a popup interface before the game starts with relevant unit icons for each race that players can click on to veto. I think it'd be best to include the invulnerable units (workers, ghoul, obsidian statue) in the icons grayed out and if possible with a tooltip that says "this unit cannot be vetoed because of balance" when someone clicks the icon for that unit. So new players can learn the exceptions and understand why they can't ban some units more readily.

As an aside, to get into the nitty-gritty, summon units like skeleton warriors are not vetoable - only trainable units are. Hippo riders are not vetoable since it would be silly (One would simply veto either hippogryphs or archers to nullify that possibility - two birds with one stone. It would be nice to have a grayed out icon for the hippo rider as well)

The vetoes are simultaneous - 30 seconds max for each round of vetoes. Once both players finished vetoing in a round, the vetoes of that round are revealed to both players via text on screen, and the next round of vetoes begins. After the last round of vetoes, there is a 30 sec pre-game thinking time alloted. It can be skipped before time is up if both players agree to begin the game. Finally, an expandable/minimizable scoreboard on the side of the screen that shows the veto choices in icons might be a nice touch. It'd be great if it can add the icons during the veto process itself as well. Total possible pre-game time with 3 rounds of vetoes and 30 seconds pre-game thinking time is 2 minutes.

I don't want to spoil ANYTHING. But I already have figured out many, MANY cool strats that are made possible by this change. Everything still remains balanced as well and there are many different ways to counter a given strategy. Try to use your creativity or test this with someone you know to figure out new strats yourselves!

The challenge is to make vetoes at all tiers (hopefully even tier 3) viable so we dont see the same vetoes all the time. It will take quite awhile though and many games before one can really decide whether a veto choice is 'unviable' at a competitive level though because this changes the game so much.

Why it'll be balanced:
1. Cuz I said so
2. wc3 has several methods of countering units. There are unit counters, of which there are at least two but usually three answers for each race to every type of 'threat' (air, caster, mass ranged kiting etc) There are also hero counters, of course, that can shut down strategies all by themselves. There also timing counters, when you try to defeat your opponent before he can execute his strategy should it be one in the later tiers of the game.


As a side note, there will also be different strategies and metas to vetoing.
1. Noobs and whiners can now veto the things they cry about the most. I call it the noob strategy
I.e., ud/elf noobs veto tanks, orc haters veto blademaster, etc...... For giggles, veto hunts vs starshaped (and kotg to add insult to injury)
2. Control/reactive vetoing. You try to veto as safe as possible to weaken the broadest amount of strats of your opponent in your first hero veto. Then you analyze his veto and try to shut down what you think your opponent is going for in the second and third vetoes.
3. Aggressive vetoing. You try to veto heroes and the unit that would harm the strategy you are determined to do the most, at full risk of getting it read and countered by control/reactive vetoers. If it goes through though, this strategy may pay off.
There are actually more subtleties and mixing possible between control and aggressive vetoing in different rounds of vetoes but I won't go into that here.

STEP #2:
3 words
Tome. Of. Power
99% of solo and 2s games, no hero ever hits lvl 6. In the 1% of games that do have heroes reach level 6, by the time it happens, the game is already over in 99% of that 1%. Ultimates are AT LEAST half the fun in all of wc3, and yet we never see them regularly in any gametype except ffa (Which is a great game type btw, I encourage you all to try it if you haven't already. Despite complaints about teaming, fact is if you are good and understand how to play the gametype, it's not a problem. I mean.. it's to be expected. A player like htrt managed to have something like a 33-1 record in one of playffa's seasons)

Back to the tome of power
Make new maps and add a tome of power to most of them, the most standard way being to place it in the hardest camp of the map equidistant to all starting locations. There, you will see the craziest battles break out in the fight to snatch level 6. On some other maps, 2 tome of powers can also be interesting, though it would not encourage the intense and glamorous fights as much as a single one would.

They're not just pure fun either, when you add this element in the game adds on a whole new level of depth. No one atm theorycrafts about wc3 and says to himself, man I'd be screwed if he hits 6 and gets his ultimate though. Now, they will have to take that into consideration.

History lesson: In ROC it was possible to creep to 6. I didn't play competitively back then so I couldn't tell you for sure but I heard top players just crept to 6 before even fighting each other. Blizzard didn't like this so they changed creeping limit to lvl 5 in TFT. Tome of Power however does not have this problem - Placed in the center of the map, it will be most vigorously contested spot and finally let us see the ultimates we deserve to see in more games in the middle of the most intense battles/creepjacks the game has yet to see to boot.

STEP #3
SCOUTING. IT'S NONEXISTENT.
There's nothing to scout in wc3. You send units to the enemy base and that's pretty much it. Why is this?

Notice that all wc3 maps that ever was in circulation never had pure clear open space. The only map that ever had anywhere to proxy anything on was basically TM, in between the lab and expo spots.

Everything is either a path to a creep camp or the enemy base. Creeps aggro onto buildings, so there was never much proxy potential. Also, most player bases are sealed off in the back after the forest block the player will use for lumber.

It's not just proxies either, it's hiding tech buildings to make it harder for your opponent to read and counter your build in time. It's also keeping your tech buildings alive! Orcs I'm sure can particularly sympathize with having a hard time getting their t2 buildings up sometime. Well I say: Hide them if you can't defend them!

Example 1: proxy a rax near opponent's main. If they only scout your base and see no rax, they may think you're teching. Instead you show up with tinker foots and tower rush him.

Example 2: Orc vs UD. Tier 2 build a beastiary in base and hide your spirit lodge elsewhere. Opponent may be tricked into thinking you will do grunt raider t2 expo build. Instead you tech up to t3 and surprise him with berserker walker tri hero.

Solution:
Make maps with clear areas behind a player's base without creep camps to allow for potential proxy. Create little pockets of open space that are sidepaths of main routes so that unless one was scouting specifically for buildings, you would never have vision of that area in walking to any strategic location. Probably keep all creep camps to the minimum acquisition range of 200. Add vision blocked areas in unique parts of the map.

Add more gold mines that are NOT guarded by creeps too. This will make scouting for expansions more important and more challenging.

In general, this will take maps up a notch in size. It's a good thing; wc3 maps are too small atm to allow for many different possibilities. Some small maps are nice sometimes too, but I think mostly larger maps would keep the most possibilities open. It would not be hard to edit existing maps to implement these ideas though.

Step #4
Tome of Retraining rework
Change it to a permanent item, with ard 90 sec cooldown.

Some abilities just never see light of day - far sight, owl scout, etc...
This would let those abilities be used, and open up different complexities. If far sight was used, then you know you have a 90sec window where you can engage the opponent and he won't have chain lightning or spirit wolf to use.

DK's can pact more often, beastmaster summons definitely a big one as well. Alchemist can be important for healing after battle and before the next one switch back to rage/bomb etc..... Not to mention sick micro moves in battle with retrain.
It just brings that much more out of the game. We all want to see more elements and more complexity in the game. That's what's exciting.

Step #5
Minor Balance changes I propose:
Mana shield to only block a % of the dmg at a time, the rest is deducted from health. Half is probably a good starting point. Would make the skill actually not useless nor imbalanced and appropriate in certain situations.

Tornado is kinda shitty too. Buff it/rework it. Who the fuck ever uses tornado in battle? The slow unit effects and cyclone are pretty much useless as its always better to let the naga continue doing damage/casting forked lightnings. It ends up being a purely anti-building spell (and a bad one at that). It probably tops the list as the worst ultimate in the entire game.

Shops to carry two boots of speed. Inevitably, wc3 is played where one player will have a ping advantage over the other. One ought not cry about it more than necessary. However, missing out on boots is really too much in my opinion as that can easily mean TP if it's blade/dh vs am/fs, and it's really unfair if both players decided to go to shop before/just as boots become available so I think this is a good change. If the player with better ping wants to forcefully deny it still he will have to commit 125 gold to buy and sell the second pair of boots.


Step #6
Yosh and Pad were actually working on something on their own that can help bring some life to the game and community as well, but that project has stalled for the moment. Hopefully they pick it back up because it can really help. I leave it undisclosed here cause I'm not sure they want me to reveal it.

Step #7
I'll leave it undisclosed for now, but if all goes well I have some really ambitious plans. I really think wc3 with these changes and more can become the greatest game there ever was.


Thanks for reading!,
feRfe

[MyLifeForNerZuL]

That sounds like a fun gametype if the balance works out.

[Shadotwist]

#1: Sounds like a really good idea. I'd imagine this would hit Elf and Human will be hit the least hard. I don't understand how Orc would play without SH + Walkers without resorting to lame strategies. Overall it is a really good idea and I like it a lot.
#2: I like it, though it might be an auto-win in some cases which could be lame ~_~
#3: I'm not sure about adding area behind bases and stuff the current maps are already pretty well done I don't see a lot of room behind them.. But I think the more goldmines thing is a good idea. Its both hilarious and sad coming from an FFA perspective watching a solo player at tier 3. They have no idea what the hell they are doing and their micro/hero levels/good judgement carry them through, while their unit composition is sad.
#4: Good idea, but I don't know why you mention death knight when no Undead will be allowed to use him
#5: Yeah keep this really minimal imo. The changes I was working on for an FFA patch had both of the same Naga changes. I really really liked our idea of rebalancing manashield better than yours though. Your idea keeps it unused as a terrible ability compared to her other 2 excellent ones. Ours was something like "Mana shield is now a passive ability. For every 200/150/100 remaining mana, she gains 1.5 armor and 5% magic resistance." I don't remember the exact values but I did the math so it was a little stronger than spiked carapace/evasion when at max mana, and when at low mana was only a little bit of a shield. This made it so mana shield did exactly what it was intended to do: Grant her extra survivability based on her high mana pool, rather than render her completely useless after taking damage. It was really easy to trigger too. The idea I had for tornado was basically just change it to the crushing wave ability (basically a glorified carrion swarm/breath of fire), but reduce the speed of it, make it travel a little further, and keep the animation as a tornado still. I tweaked it down and it actually looked pretty cool and definitely useful. I think we had it still do double double damage to buildings and like 200 to units. I might mention some other changes but a lot I cut until the change list was rather small and they were also FFA oriented (they are at my home in another state atm).

But yeah. Great ideas. Keep us posted. Would this include some of the extra stuff that doodad added to his maps? Like seeing how much dmg things hit for, extra visuals for observers, mana bars for units/heros, spell effects with added effects and stuff?

[feRfe]

On balancing naga: dota 2 balanced a mana shield ability this way and it works fine. The problem is You don't want a naga without mana at full health, nor do you want a naga at 0 health but full mana.. If naga simply has that passive added, shes probably OP in late game and it doesnt do enough for her early game to make it viable. 1.5 armor isnt a lot... More would be OP as well, since it doesn't cost mana itself, just requires that she stay above a certain mana thresh. Consider that she has low base stats to begin with for survivability health/armor wise.

I think I have a cooler idea for Tornado. Keep it as a channeling spell and make it a pretty large aoe and reduce vision of all units caught in it to a very small amount, have it reduce movement speed drastically as it already does I think. This will protect the naga in many cases as the opponent wont have enough vision to target her and the units will move too slowly to get to her. It can be used in battle then after an initial forked, like panda - haze fire then split

Once people get over the ban the primary heroes every time just because, I think death knights can be let through depending on your strategy. First of all, realize that many heroes people cry about like blademaster are actually strongest in a combo with SH, so if you ban SH that cripples choosing blademaster massively. Same with dk - ban lich, dreadlord. Again, it just depends on what you're going for. If anything, AM is probably going to be the most often banned... he really is versatile.

If any hero ends up just 'out of the game' because of the vetoes, then it will need to change. I want to keep everything as viable as possible. I expect that certain hero combos might more or less permanently be out of the game, but individual heroes will all have a role to play still.

The Doodads stuff can be nice but unnecessary so Idk. Depends on what happens and how open he is to publicizing the code. If anything though, I really want to be able to see the vision that a player has at any time as an obs like in replays with fog of war turned on.

[Shadotwist]

Its your idea and any change is probably a good change, though with the dota2 idea it will almost certainly remain entirely unused as it currently is now, so I don't understand the point of changing it at all.
Tornado rework might not work as easy as you think. Its a cool idea but some things are extraordinarily difficult to trigger due to limitations in the editor. You might need someone to code it in using the war3 programming language, which might be very hard to find someone willing to do it, and when they actually get it done they won't do a good job/it might look really lame/or it might turn out the idea just doesn't work like you planned at all. And if it needs balance changes it will be hard for people to go in an edit. Usually changing something simply is often the most wise course of action, which I am sure you will find out quickly enough after some time trying to work on your maps.

[feRfe]

Alright, Tornado is better tha nI thought actually so I won't fix it. Mana shield updated to 1.5, 2, 2.5 and mana cost to activate removed.

Eventually I also want to add an ability to knights called charge that deals micro damage (5-10) and a brief no collision with prob ard 30 sec cooldown.

Orb of fire to be an actually exciting orb that players buy

[Mox Sapphire]

Oh to dream.

[Orange]

Are you doing this JUST to make your MG strat vs orc work? Because if so, that's pretty weak ferfe...

[Bushismyhomeboy]

i agree with u that wc3 is now dull and boring because u see the same strat over and over. my suggestion to "save wc3" would be a diffent, i would recommend doing a community patch rebalancing stuff so new metas could be played and so on. it would be refreshing for the player and the spectacor.

[GlaiVe_MasTeR]

It's an interesting idea for sure, but if your goal is to bring people back, you will need more than just game changes. You will need to do some very aggressive advertising if you have any hope of getting more people in the game.

[feRfe]

I've attached the map. If any of you test play the map I would appreciate it if you upload the replays. It's a work in progress but here's what I have so far:

Patch notes:
Balance:

Items:
NEW:
Eye of True Sight: Reveals invisible enemy units in a 900 radius around the hero; the true sight follows the

hero and lasts 15 seconds. Cooldown is 30 seconds. Cooldown is not shared between heroes.

Observer Ward: Observer Wards are essentially Sentry wards that do not detect. They are sold at the Goblin Merchant now, max stock = 1 and 1 charge per buy at 75 gold.

Scroll of Mana: 200 gold, 60 mana aoe mana instant regen

Neutral:
Tome of Retraining now a permanent item with a cooldown of 60 seconds.

All Critters now have 800/600 day/night sight, up from 350/350. (Reference: 800/600 = skeleton warrior sight)

Goblin Merchants now carry two boots of speed.

Naga Sea Witch Mana Shield ability no longer costs mana to activate, and now scales as 1.5/2/2.5 damage to mana

up from 1/1.5/2.

Circlet of Nobility, Periapt of Vitality, and Scroll of Protection, and Dust of Appearance removed from Goblin

Merchant. Newly added are Scroll of Mana (R), Observer Ward (W), Anti-Magic Potion (A), and Eye of True Sight (D). WARNING: Beware of hotkey

conflicts with old items for those with customkeys. If you're not sure, click to buy to be safe.

Human:

Staff of Sanctuary no longer has a 5 second delay before starting to heal. This also removes the 5 second

"stun" on units at 100% hp that are cast on. Hp/sec reduced from 15/sec to 13/sec.

Orb of Fire replaced with Orb of Disruption (325 gold), which adds +5 physical damage and combusts 30 mana of regular units and 6 mana of heroes for extra damage per hit.

An Upgrade called Charge has been added to the Barracks. It requires Castle and allows Knights to use the

Charge ability, which lets them charge over enemy units at maximum movement speed for a short amount of time.

Mechanical Critters replaced with Vision Tap Tech, a 50 gold 60 sec cooldown item which gains shared vision of

critters upon cast without gaining control of the critter.


Undead:
Potion of Greater Rejuvenation (G), which heals 400hp/100 mana over 45 sec to hero units added to the Tomb of

Relics for Undead with a Halls of the Dead tech requirement.

Dust of Appearance Removed from Tomb of Relics; replaced with Eye of True Sight.

Night Elf:
Dust of Appearance Removed from Ancient of Wonders; replaced with Eye of True Sight.


WINTERGREEN VALLEY MAP FEATURES:
Tome of power in the center of the map, held by a level 10 dragon.

[feRfe]

I have to catch up on real life so I can't work on this project for a few days, but I will host a $100 tournament on this map with the hero+unit vetoes on w3a in the near future (should be within a month), so start preparing!

I'll also decide on a project name right now I guess

Project Title: Wc3 Version feRfe
Subtitle: The Game We Deserve
Patch Name: F1.0, etc

Members:
feRfe (Designer)
strOut (Consultant/Map Terrainer)
Yosh (Consultant/W3A Manager)

Positions that need to be filled:
Coder (To code various features into the maps within the constraints of the wc3 engine)
Melee Map Designer

Email me at (74ferf at gmail.com) if any of you think you can help. If you can't but you know someone else who can, please talk to them about it!

[feRfe]

Also thinking of fixing lawliet/moon zepp abuse mechanics and tree of life scroll of town portal perma invul hero abuses, but that's on the backburner since they aren't urgent

May consider swapping anti magic potion out from goblin merchant for another one esp if it turns out to be imba. I really want to add a diff item as well.

May remove scroll of healing from UD shop (in goblin merchant anyway) and replace w another item

[ag3ntik]

Hello, ferfe.
>I'm 85%+ on w3arena in 1v1 with 350 games
Sorry, I'm not as good as you, but I will tell you my opinion.

1. I really like the idea of 2 boots, very good for maps with 1 shop like EI.
2. Also veto system is very interesting/fun etc, but not allow to ban ghouls and statues look suspicious. May be it should be able to ban ATTACK for ghouls (so if one player ban ghoul -> opponent ghoul cant attack)?
3. Does vetoing heroes/units affect myself? For example, if I veto panda it would be removed from opponent tavern choice or for both of us? I think it should be removed only for my opponent. Same for units.
4. I hate the idea about tome of power. You told about ping and boots. But invisible/invulnerable hero can steal tome of power because of better ping. Also limiting creeping to lvl5 made for reason - so players should fight between each other to make lvl6, not creeping!
5. How about 2x2, 3x3, ..., FFA? I have no idea for FFA, but for 2x2 may be it should be TEAM veto: one unit for each of opponent race + just 2 heroes?
6. Dust of Appearance removed from Goblin. I dont like this idea at all. I would prefer to make it 2x item like boots.
7. I dont understand and dont like "Charge" upgrade.
8. One man (ferfe) to decide all the balance is may be too much?
PS. «high quality map from someone like Doodads» - what is it?


I think you want to change TOO MUCH. Just vetoes + 2x boots would be perfect.

[feRfe]

Hi ag3ntik, are you ag3nt the Russian?

With the addition of the rejuv potion I think I'll let statues be vetoed - It is either impossible or a pain in the ass to remove the attack from them though so statues will be able to attack, but cannot cast essence of blight or spirit touch. So you can still build statues if they are vetoed, but their spells will be removed. Maybe I will remove their mana periodically with triggers too so no absorb mana from destroyer, but maybe not as well.

As for ghouls, I thought about it. One, it seems impossible (again, to remove atk in wc3 editor not possible with trigger) Second, even if it was possible, for Undead who goes fiends the lumber ghouls actually count as the designed base defense mechanic and also serve a similar function to militia, so I think it's fine as is.

As for the things you don't like, hopefully we'll see what happens and if balance issues arise I will address them accordingly. Remember that dust was replaced with a reveal item that works differently. Tome of Power cannot be stolen from a level 10 flying frost dragon... They will only be on lvl 9-10 creeps ever. Players will still fight each other... But it'll be at the Tome of Power camp for an epic showdown, where we'll get to see ultimates as well.

[WhenPeonsAttack]

I haven't played in 1-2 years, but this sounds like a possibly fresh and interesting idea. Banning ghouls offensively is an interesting idea. Sorry if I missed it somewhere else, but would it be an instant loss for elf if hunts and archers are vetoed and 2x crypt ghoul rush happens? Especially with vetoing DH and Warden. Of course, DK gets vetoed, but it would probably work with some available hero.

I mean, Ted had decent results with 2 crypt ghoul rushes vs NE near his retirement (before comeback) and that was obvioulsy vs archers, warden/dh, etc, and sometimes with DL first.

Not trying to undermine you here, but it's unlikely I will reinstall war3 and I just find the theorycraft interesting. I think it's a creative idea that could be fun to watch/play with.

[dbqinsa]

unit veto sounds like a stupid idea for a game like wc3. Hero veto sounds more interesting to me though. i'd be more interested in just a community driven patch. your balance talk looks polluted with a lot of ferfe-isms though, may want to take a backseat to someone else on actually trying to balance all the changes you are talking about.

FYI - UD/HU vs. Elf games will just turn into tower rushes basically every game on small maps. Elf is forced into vetoing footies or ghouls (granted you posted ghouls can't be veto'd) if they have to veto the unit first. If the HU/UD veto first and they veto archers, elf has to veto footies or ghouls. It's practically a guaranteed loss for elf otherwise.

[Shadotwist]

Yeh I don't think you should really change anything really after seeing your change list. It just seems too random. I mean who cares if human doesn't have an Orb that has a big effect, they are still the most dominant race by far atm and the orb lets mk and pal hit air. I had the same idea of charge before but for foots as well and messing with multiple units collision sizes does NOT work as well as you think it would. Maybe on another game engine but not on this one. Circlets and periapts are fine. If games go longer and you wanna survive a nuke, a periapt is what you buy if you have a lot of gold. Its a usable item no need to toss it. Just leave it at your other suggestions like unit/hero veto.

Potion of Rejuvination would be the only thing really necessary as you could potentially be cutting coil and heal from their race entirely.

[Inst]

I don't understand why you'd want to buff knights further, because they're already one of the strongest tier 3 melee units in the game.

[ag3ntik]

>Hi ag3ntik, are you ag3nt the Russian?
Hi, yes.
>if balance issues arise I will address them accordingly
That's what I'm saying. You are addressing now (for example Naga shield, change of items etc etc)

Just vetoes = easy to understang to new player. Look at FFA with random heroes (with summon random hero icon at altar). They didn't change balance things like items.