Structures are still pitifully weak in HOTS. Macro is overemphasized and shoved down players’ throats. Stronger structures would be easily implemented as it’s not a graphical overhaul. Simply multiplying (as a start) all structures’ health by 5 would be a good start. Leave core as is since it’s the finale and tbh by the time you get to the core later in the game it’s time for the game to end. At most the core would be okay with double health but it’s not needed.
People love the short 10-20 minute range in game duration in hots but a 20-30 minute or more wouldn’t be that bad. Even a 30-40 minutes (hard to imagine x5 health of structures would do that when objectives exist, towers suck in offense, and global heroes who can just soak and damage towers anyway…) would be okay of a game length. It’d still be a far cry from hour+ matches which ISN’T what this change would likely bring.
The impacts of more health on all structures (even walls) would be 1. Obvious slowing of the game. 2. Counter the “macro macro macro” emphasis on the _____ game. Abathur and tlv already break the game but with these changes they’ll be still the same (hopefully nerfed but you don’t always get everything you want). What will change is that even though aba and tlv will still be able to dual soak/global soak and damage towers, the slower gameplay means they won’t free rampage push lanes along with other problem macro pushers like Zag or Azmodan. Imagine if 20 minutes in Zagara or other macro heroes finally took tower the fort instead of pushing the keep heavily. Now an argument would be “OMG they’re so USELESS now!”. Actually, they wouldn’t be useless. Those heroes can still generate creep to stall the tower when diving said tower with the team to secure a kill, they aren’t useless in teamfights like people think, and getting global/far-range xp is always useful. Imagine azmo last hitting the minion wave from another lane while the opposing team has to send someone there since they don’t have any macro hero.
It’s a testament to how weak towers are (walls are just a nonfactor in health) when in Braxis Holdout you can get a whole fort on the FIRST zerg wave and potentially get keep chip damage. The only map that x5 health on structures and x2 health on core might be a problem is on Alterac Pass as its core is the STRONGEST core right now due to its regenerating health and massive aoe damage potential against the waves. Luckily health boosts can be tweaked and as I said earlier the core health might be fine as is.
Would beefier structures cause a whole change to laning? Would HOTS laning (1-4 or 1-3-1) turn into LoL with 1-2-2 more common? It’d be interesting to see the aftermath if anything changes.
Reiterating the point at the beginning, raising the health of towers would require very little dev effort in coding. Whether it would be liked by the playerbase is less clear but… that’s my take on how to improve the game without making complicated armor on structures (even walls), armor plating that gradually gets less as structures take more damage, effects when minions attack structures, etc. Overemphasis on macro sucks as are weak structures. Getting rid of heroes is very unlikely to happen so more health on structures would be the next best option. For all we know this amount of health increase might not even be enough to make macro a balanced thing. That’d be crazy
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Personally I don’t think the forts need to be stronger, games are a good length already, if you buff structures too much it will make games too long.
I would like if they added back a version of the slow that once was present before they added the armor reduction. The whole idea with that was to make tower diving more punishing, but for heroes like Genji and Illidan the slow hurt them more than simple armor reduction.
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As someone who likes macro heroes I don’t feel they are OP. Even with mindless pushing and avoiding teamfights (still a valid way to win sometimes) games still often take 15-20 minutes and most methods of backdooring have been patched years ago.
I don’t want 30-40 minute games that would inevitably happen if Forts, Keeps, Cores, and the Towers in structures got a 2x buff or worse. Got enough of those in the old Garden of Terror and it didn’t fit HotS in my opinion.
Its mostly your responsibility to defend lanes not the forts/keeps. They only bring minor support to your team when you defend it like giving enemy players a stacking armor debuff when they dive you
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I don’t feel that structure health is an issue on its own.
It takes a while to destroy them. Some heroes are awesome at it, others aren’t.
My peeve is how different heroes are under the towers:
- Orphea: stay away from towers or splat.
- Tassadar: as soon as my beam hits a tower, it focuses me.
- Illidan: Build E, solo core and minions together. (Takes some damage, heals back.)
- Imperius, Artanis, …: It’s maybe 5% health per shot. Who cares.
- Everyone’s favorite Azmodan: you know what he does.
I’m worried that increasing tower health might actually emphasize this effect, as instead of being able to achieve results in short bursts, you’d really need heroes with excellent macro focus.
My match duration was also super random these days, with emphasis on level 26-30 matches. Wasn’t really a matter of macro, more like some heroes are afraid / unable to push the core.
Last, but not least, I’ve been annihilated under my tower in DotA2. Many heroes can take a lot of shots as well.
But, as you implied, it’s super easy to test. Especially if you don’t want objectives to increase in power.
Tooton ITT:
“5x health multiplier surely won’t lead to 2-3x game lengths!”
If you’re bad at defending, BoE Immortals, IS Punishers, AP Cavalry, etc can all steamroll your Fort and reach your Keep.
Helping their team push lanes is kind of what Objectives are for.
The Generals on AP are the weakest Cores in the game if you kill more than 1 Keep; even more so if you kill all 3 Keeps, then they’re basically lame ducks.
They have lower health than normal Cores, they have less consistent waveclear than other Cores, and their single-target damage isn’t terribly impressive either.
Of course you’re saying this because you want HotS to be more like LoL.
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Doesn’t seem to be working, because all most players care about is fighting and kills.
Personlly I think that would be stupid. Games would last forever. A fort with 65 000 HP? I mean, seriously, that would make no sense.
30 more minutes not that bad? I’m starting to wonder if this is trolling. I’ll have to stop here. If you ever design a game though let me know. I’d love to see what you do.
Did the slow apply to Illidan when he evaded the shots?
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17 minutes, which is the average in master, is perfect.
Getting to lvl 20 first should be meaningful, as it is currently.
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No, but it also slowed down attack speed, so he wasn’t able to take them as easily as he can now.
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I’m waiting for the part where 2-Tonne cries about the entire community saying, “No” to any idea.
Max… WHY? 
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I don’t think they should have more health but I think they should do more dmg or bring back the slow.
I think it’s ridiculous how easy it is to fight under an enemy fort. “oh, I’m being targeted? No worries, I’ll walk out at full speed and drop the debuff so it can build up again on someone else”
We’re out here holding dance dance revolution contests under forts, it’s that ridiculous.
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The biggest problem in my opinion is how easy it is to overwhelm the building with npcs, and follow up on the player who is attempting to defend or simply seek refuge. This could be fixed with an debuff aura that reduces either the movement speed or attack power within a small radius so passive npc push isn’t affected.
Example, it’s 15min into the match and minions deal significant structure damage. Two of your waves are attacking the enemy fort and you willingly move slightly ahead of it to catch the enemy minion wave so yours does not get distracted. Your goal isn’t to clear them but to tank while assisting your npcs, because it is a higher priority target. It’s a simple and effective action which would be made unattractive if you moved slower or for example weren’t permitted to mount up in mentioned radius of the standing structure.
A slightly different concern is rushing of small towers, especially when playing against premade teams. Almost guaranteed to lose something before your team reacts and moves to defend. Also the positioning of moonwells top lane of dragon shire and bottom lane of infernal. Losing either very early can significantly lower your chances of winning. Both are extremely vulnerable to mobile heroes and coordinated groups.
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Healing well on top/bot lane on AV map are also easy destroyed casue it sits so close to the open area away from towers.
That could be countered in a way if towers got more range.
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At least when attacking the east side, you are guaranteed to draw fire from either the small tower or the keep on bottom, while you can casually find a dead spot on top and destroy it with a ranged attacker. I’m not sure how reliably this mirrors for the opposite end, lets assume it doesn’t.
The attention to detail is horrible, when I remember them being so meticulous in sc2 map design where a single second in terms of rush distance meant everything.
I miss the old tower beside the fort with ammo in it.
This is like too accurate of a statement. Qm has become just a large aram.
Every game, I have to soak multiple lanes unless I get lucky with decent players who actually takes cares of laning.
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Yes, 30 minute games are fine for a game length. Right now forts, walls, and any structure are just too flimsy. The fact that one good push basically means they fall is just terrible. Fast gameplay? Yes. But that just encourages macro macro macro whether in picks or strategy as once you get rid of a keep in a lane there’s not even another line of towers before you’re at the enemy’s keep area. Since adding another line of towers would be too much coding work, and there isn’t any space to add them on the maps as is, the best solution would be to x5 the health by easy coding.
I wish there was a sandbox mode because even with x5 health I bet one objective win would still mean a fort falls in the mid game. Early game first objective it might not fall, but 2nd and beyond for objectives it definitely will go down. On Braxis a x5 health buff might still not be enough to keep that fort up as the zerg wave is just way too strong
I miss the days without True Sight so stealhers actually could do something againts Aba
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If we drastically buff the structures, the games lasting way longer disproportionately benefit late game heroes at the cost of early game heroes, requiring massive balance passes. So it isn’t quite as simple as tweaking a few numbers and things just miraculously working out.
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