[Suggestion] Gameplay Mechanic: General's Command Radius

By Evanescent on January 13, 2009 7:00:32 AM from

This is just an idea i had for making the Generals more unique in gameplay compared to Assassins. Positive and Negative Feedback is welcome.

General's Command Radius

Introduction: It seems a main problem at hand is having 2 seperate "classes" of Demigod, supposed to have completely different gameplay mechanics, but at the moment play almost identically. What we have gathered is that changes need to be made to Generals to give them a more strategical feel instead of the typical action style gameplay. Suggestions have been made to give the Generals no direct abilities and to have auras and passives that will buff their troops while they sit back in the base and control their minions. This will give Generals a very RTS style feel to them but at the same time will leave the general as sort of a statue in the base just handing out aura's and point and clicking your minions around leaving your Demigod doing nothing most of the time. This idea is a middle ground to that idea but not to that much of an extreme that will leave them out of the gameplay altogether.

Command Radius Definition: Generals are not front line fighters as the assassin's are but at the same time leaving them to be statues in the base while controlling their minions around the map will leave them to be pratically useless other then having some passive abilities. The idea of the Command Radius is to give each General a "field of control" or local influence that will expand outwards from them in a circle. The power of this radius, in the mind of a General is basically the influence they have over that area of the battlefield. Based on each General, the core abilities of the Demigod should be mostly limited to the range of their Command Radius. Having such a limitation can have both a positive and negative effect on controlling a General Demigod. Although they would not be able to spread their influence as a General directly over the whole battlefield, their presence will greatly influence the immediate area around the General based on the size of the radius. This being said, the size of the Command Radius should have the ability to be increased by the level of the General and perhaps Skill upgrades and General specific items.

Possible ideas for Command Radius influence:

Within the Command Radius some of these possible effects can occur.

The General's Aura's can be taken into effect, or an increased effect.
The Demigod himself can be powered by the amount of minions inside his local influence
Minions that are fighting along side of the General can be given increased damage
The Generals could have a type of "Targeted AoE" ability they can use to the maximum range of their radius, for example a small AoE Fear or Empowering Roar ability that will allow the Demigod to have some direct abilities to use within this area, that will assist their minion's in battle.
All minions in the radius can be given a minor health regeneration (A suitable ability for Oak)
All enemy minion in the radius can be given an Armor penalty, minor life degeneration or other negative effect (A suitable ability for Erebus)

Minion's outside of the General's Command Radius can suffer these penalties.

General Aura's may not effect minions outside of their influence, or the Aura may suffer a large penalty
The General itself will be weakened without the power of controlling minions nearby
Minions specifically summoned by the General, outside of the General's influence can suffer from not being in direct control of the General that summoned them, making them weaker in battle or perhaps have their life slowly drained away over time.
The General may not be able to assist a battle outside their influence, not being able to cast spells or abilities that can assist their minions or hinder their enemies.

Benefits/Changes due to the addition of the Command Radius:

Will allow for General Specific Items and skills that can benefit the size of the Command Radius and the influence of power within it (for example: increase Aura effect within command radius by 10%).
Give's the Generals a more differentiation compared to Assassins, although not a major change that completely rewrites how a General is to be controlled, but will allow the General to be just that, a General on the battlefield that spread's his influence and has the ability to increase the chance of victory for his minions if they are nearby to lead them.
Just by having a Command Radius, many comparisons between Assassin and General are removed as the Assassin does not have a need for spreading of his influence, only his own personal abilities compared to a General's overall control of a battle that they take place in.
An enemy Demigod will have to take into consideration of their Rival General Demigod's field of influence when planning to enter battle with them or if they wish to keep themselves safe from harm.

Conclusion: Many of us have different opinions on how much Generals should be changed. Some people think they are fine the way they are and only need minor tweaks and some people think they need a major overhaul. I agree more on the side that the need an overhaul although i can understand that people don't want such a major change because they like the gameplay mechanics of an Assassin with more passive abilities and being able to summon minions. With the implementation of the Command Radius it gives some to both sides of the arguement. Mostly they will keep the same control and mechanics to the Assassins but with this key feature implemented, will make the people who play a General have to think differently to what they will have to if playing an Assassin. They will have to be more passive and keep in mind how large their influence is over the map and move their General accordingly. This gives them more of an actual role of a General, allowing the player to influence battle's with their presence, instead of just being an Assassin with different abilities.

Thank you

Evanescent

+10 Karma | 22 Replies

Sounds like a nifty idea, but I'd reduce the radius by 25% or so and make it slightly more powerful instead. Obviously that would be making it less "stand in base and summon shit" and more "almost assassin but not quite".

nicely presented, and streamlining several ideas from the massive "Generals" threads in a way that could work well. We really need to get away from the idea that the General gets to sit cozily in the base but still be effective.

I agree with Heavenfall that the radius will need tweaking, but it's a minor detail in a good mechanic

Abilities and items that affect the "flavor" of the command aura would be cool as well (attack speed, movement speed, armor, etc.)

Quoting Ke5trel,

reply 2

Abilities and items that affect the "flavor" of the command aura would be cool as well (attack speed, movement speed, armor, etc.)

Yep i agree, with this gameplay mechanic implemented, it opens up many more strategic development paths for a General. Depending on the other players on a team, a General could choose to enhance his Command Influence with Items or Skills that can focus on increasing a certain aspect such as Weapon Damage or Mana Regeneration, or a combination of several stats to benefit his fellow Demigod's and minions. The result will leave the player much more open-ended control over the development of his Demigod during a game.

great idea, I think it could use some work and balancing but i think in the end it would do alot to change the gameplay mechainic that are the generals.

Currently we have Assassins with pets, and some people want to go in the total opposite direction and have old fashioned sit-in-your-base-building-units RTS gameplay. I always thought that the ideal situation was for the General to be on the field doing most of his damage with his minions and providing support auras.

The Command Radius (Command Zone?) is an excellent way to impliment such a mechanic. It would force the General to go out into the field but it would still require him to focus on summoning and supporting his minions. Some of the finer points are debatable (actual effects, size, etc...), but the idea on a whole is excellent. I like the idea of, instead of having a bunch of generic auras, having a specific zone of influence that deals with all your abilities.

I also agree that you should be able to "flavor" the Command Radius. Many items specifically geared toward this would be possible and useful, and current abilities could be reshaped to further this idea. For example, Erebus's broken Mist could turn into an area buff/debuff inside his Command Radius, Vampiric Aura would work in the radius, and Coven would only work in the radius. I'm not sure how big the Conversion Radius is, but it could be the same as the Command Radius. More generic things like movement speed, health, damage, etc... could be handled by items. Frankly, all the items buffing aspects of the General alone are (or should be) rather pointless. He should focus on improving his minions and items should be reworked to that end, at which point their effects would apply to all allies within the Command Radius.

I reallly like this Idea and You presented it very well. It would really widen the gap between the playstyles of assassins and generals without adding much. Also it doesn't render the General useless bench warmer.

Although its would take some balencing to get right it would be a great addition once it was.

I like the idea

I dont agree with the 25%, thats putting the General too close to the combat in my opinion. YOu have to figure that if your troops are fighting, your going to be at the halfway point. Basically that puts you slightly behind the archers some, which seems realistic. Your far enough to not be in direct danger, but close enough for a smart Assassin to wtfpwn you.

I think oak out of all the generals is not a sit back and direct his men. I personally think the generals should have only a little health but practicly no damage but their troops take dcare of it. When oaks fighting and killing units his units should get better or as gpg put in nearrby units get healed. thats what i think of when I imagine Oak or just a general. Someone who leads and inspires his men but like real life they may be better than all the normal troops when it comes to the long run what they do themselves means nothing but since they are fighting their troops are healed. hence oak fighting indirectly helps push the tide of battle. this could be put in for all generals maybe not as much as Oak but still. To tell the truth none of the generals really strike me as people who woukld direct their armys from behind their soldiers except sedna.

Quoting The_Syv,

reply 6

Yeah it would be awesome if we could have it implemented for some beta testing in one of the upcoming patches. I'm not sure on what the requirements are to get such a mechanic implemented whether a Dev has to read this thread or has to go through some vote from the community. Either way it would be great to have this in for some testing.

Calling a Developer!

Good basic idea, I think there can be argument about the nitty gritty but overall seems like a good way to try to go. The little thing I would add is that maybe the closer the general is to his units within the radius the more boosted stats they get. If the general attack the same units as a friendly unit is attacking they get bonuses. I don't know there are so many possibilities with this idea, good one.

Quoting SlipperySnake,

reply 10

I like the idea of how close the general is to the action, the greater the buffs to the units. This would give the player who controls the General the double-edged sword of power and safety. With this mechanic i know i would try and stay the closest to the action to make the most of my passive abilities for my minions but there will also be a group that would choose to be safer and keep in further proximity to the action, which is fine as well giving players more direct influence over commanding minions.

Nice idea SlipperySnake

After playing a bit of Senda this patch, i was thinking how to relate her abilities to using this Command Radius/Command Zone mechanic.

Her Healing/Regeneration aura's can reach to the edge of her command radius and the range of the aura's will grow as the radius expands due to levelling/items etc.
The Yeti's should only be able to live inside her command zone, unlike normal minions that would be able to roam outside of it and just be weaker for it, the Yeti's seem to be slightly too powerful at the moment. Limiting them to the size of the general's field of command is a good way to keep these powerful yeti's a bit more balanced, forcing them to stay within range of the general or they will degenerate/die.

As mentioned the abilities of the aura's and yeti command range can be increased of the player chooses to focus on items or skill points to increase the range of the command zone... just thinking out loud

Good idea! However I think it would be best if the player-summoned minions simply couldn't leave the CR, so if the general retreats the minions are sort of pulled with him/her (run away! Run away!). Reducing the size of the CR would make it too small, that picture is perfect. That being said, the CR shouldn't grow with levels/items/skills, it doesn't make sense that a stronger general sits back further. Instead, there should be a small number of map-spawned minions that can be directly controlled from within the CR, and that number increases with levels/items/skills, or something like that. That would fix one thing that bugs me, I always feel like I'm controlling too few minions at a time (mainly because of the 45 second cooldown and big mana cost on the totems).

This totally reminds me of warlords battlecry. Even the picture of the command radius

Quoting PushStart,

reply 13

the CR shouldn't grow with levels/items/skills, it doesn't make sense that a stronger general sits back further.

Well i was thinking that the player could have more of a choice for the General to upgrade a few aspects with items/skillpoints:

His combat abilties (Direct damage skills or other support abilities)
Power of his influence (How much being in the Command Radius will effect friendly units, perhaps increasing the effect of aura's or making creeps fight much better)
Range of his influence (How far the General's influence and command spreads across the battlefield, the size of his Command Radius)

It isn't really necessary for this idea, although adds to the discussion of having more variety for the Demigod.

Right, I agree with the CR's effects getting more powerful, but I meant I don't think the actual size of the ring should grow. That would give the generals an excuse to stay further away from the fight, which makes them seem weaker. If the ring is too big, the general is at less risk for damage and can stay completely out of a fight; he would turn from a statue at the base to a statue standing just outside of a battle. With the size it's at, there's still a good chance the general will personally be involved in the battle.

To help with giving the RTS feel to generals, the damage they do also has to be reduced. They must be able to defend themselves very adequately, but should never (even with really good combat upgrades) be able to take on an assassin one on one and win. We could possibly even have it that they do a specific type of damage (assuming this works in the same was as the SupCom engine) that causes them to do significantly less damage to other demigods but normal damage to other units.

Experience gained by minions should also go to generals.

And thus a general, with a good complement of accompanying minions, should be able to take out an assassin of equivalent level. But never without accompanying minions.

Excellent idea. And of course the generals without minions should be easy targets for assasins.

This will require a whole rebuilding of the generals, but I think it's absolutely neccesary.

Quoting JinxOfSin,

reply 14

This totally reminds me of warlords battlecry. Even the picture of the command radius

Well yeah, Warlords Battlecry was a great and very underrated game which had many good idea's that were stolen for use in games such as Warcraft 3. It was pretty much my inspiration of using this idea for Demigod, as Warlords Battlecry used this type of mechanic flawlessly and im sure that yourself and those who have played Warlords Battlecry will agree that this mechanic would be a great implementation into the Generals of Demigod

I like the idea of command radius but, I think it shouldn't be very big about the size u have it in pic is fine. I thinik this because since generals can kill assasins with minions than assasins should have a chance to kill generals.

After a month of inactivity, I am curious to know if people's opinions on Generals have changed, if they like how they are now or if different mechanics such as this one should be taken into consideration?

Personally i like Oak and Erebus alot their my style, and i think their pretty much fine and i love Oak's spirits.

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[Suggestion] Gameplay Mechanic: General's Command Radius