Fixing Troubled Battlegrounds - GoT, BhB, HM

General Discussion
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One of the things this game has going for it are the various battlegrounds. Not only do different settings evoke different feelings, there are gameplay differences too. Battlegrounds bring a refreshing quality to the game as a whole.

Garden of Terror

  • Revert map to “original” state.

I haven’t kept track of how many different versions there have been and what changes were made. The point is to return the map to a decentralized state where shambler camps and shambler bosses spawned at the beginning of the night phase. This diffuse dispersal of the objective is an important gameplay element allowing for a different and potentially more flexible experience in terms of picking fights that has ironically played out as the most boring and detached experience between two teams. Not coincidentally all three battlegrounds discussed here have diffusely dispersed objectives. As opposed to effectively altering these battlegrounds and holding their ground as bozo “professional” players condemned them the developers have struggled for years. Garden of Terror was essentially standardized, Blackheart’s Bay is ignored and detested (is it pulled from ranked?), and Haunted Mines was removed from the game altogether.

The player-controlled Garden Terror is to return too. Only two other battlegrounds I believe have a “vehicle” and the Garden Terror is an interesting one, not to mention the root battleground-crossing animation seems poor.

  • Seed counts reset after each night phase.

There were 90 seeds on each side of the map, 100 were needed for the Garden Terror to be grown. Lazy and passive professional players would split the battleground (frankly I’m not even sure how as the seeds were not symmetrically distributed around the vertical axis but the horizontal one) and then get a Terror simultaneously during the next phase, making for lame gameplay.

  • Potential shambler camp spawn locations are increased and a random element to number of shamblers in different spawn camps is applied.

This is an optional change but perhaps for the better. It would stand to reason that with an insufficient number of seeds available without conflict players would be opportunistic and dynamic, looking to outwit and outplay their opponents to seize the power of the objective. After all, Dragon Shire requires three separate points of control across the entire map that can only be controlled by succeeding in conflict and from what I understand works. But perhaps the laziness and passivity of professional players is not to be underestimated. Maybe even the big brains at the dizzying heights of the ladder decide to be “smart” and still split the map just to deny the objective to the opposite team.

In such a deplorable scenario it’s time to call upon RNGesus to save the battleground and redeem the sinners through torment. Through His power shambler camp locations will not be evenly or at least symmetrically distributed and/or their compositions will range in unit number from two to four. It used to be that there would be three shamblers per camp for a total of 30 seeds. Now the camps will range from 20 to 40 seeds. Bosses remain the same. There could still be two camps per half but their locations and/or sizes would vary. You could go nuttier and have the number of camps itself be dynamic with a range of 10 to 60 seeds. The total number of available seeds will remain at 180. It would still be possible, depending on chosen parameters, to end up with 90 seeds in each half even if not evenly distributed. If this is deemed undesirable then there could always be a seed imbalance between the halves.

These variations and imbalances will force players to think on their feet and greatly increase the chances of or ensure conflict as naturally teams at minimum try to deny the objective to their opponents. If they succeed they are likely to reach the 100-seed threshold themselves. It’s about having some more variety and flexibility/dynamism in gameplay. The battleground design will not hand a team a Garden Terror, rather it would induce fights or a fight as different opportunities arise or passively splitting the battleground will do one team no good.

  • The Overgrowth pot plant withers if a Garden Terror is outside a particular radius.

No more dropping pots and sprinting away as the optimal choice of play.

Blackheart’s Bay

A bright and fanciful battleground, one of the most uplifting in the game. It’s a shame it’s so disliked due to its gameplay state.

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The troubled story on this battleground is that somehow teams don’t fight. I confess that I don’t understand how this is so but the narrative goes, and I recall watching this “professional” style of play, that a lot camp clearing would go on. Sonya, Illidan, whatever. Somehow teams would then turn in without fighting. An even more obvious problem, in my opinion, quite possibly contributing to the lack of fighting, is that with doubloons (coins) dropping from slain heroes for anyone to pick up you win a team fight and get a disproportionate objective benefit. The losing team should be able to contest a second turn-in but if death timers are too long, there is a talent tier advantage, or lanes need to be cleared the situation snowballs. Chests can also spawn at a bad time. So what to do?

  • Mercenary camps give no doubloons

There’s no compelling reason for camps that push to also yield two doubloons. The skeletal pirate camps have no other function but their yields could be halved - optional change. Highly uncertain about reducing the yields of the skeletal pirate camps considering the following changes.

  • Once picked up doubloons are only recoverable by teammates of slain heroes and expire after some time period of not being recollected

Reduction of the snowballing nature of this battleground. Similar “mechanic” to Tomb of the Spider Queen but the doubloons can be initially picked up by either team.

  • A third treasure chest with five doubloons is spawned along with the current two.

To induce team fighting the obvious spot is right behind the turn-in location/Blackheart presumably. The bridges/walkways from the middle lane can be altered for quicker access, optional. Another spot is right in front of the barrel at the front of the boss area at the top lane. This would really change the dynamic from group fights to individual contests. Not sure I like the idea, for this battleground at least, but it is an option.

I’ve seen some criticism of the manner of the Bombardment but have no opinion at the moment.

Haunted Mine[s]

A classic battleground featuring a cool variation. This is the single most troubled battleground in the history of the game, pulled out altogether for years I believe. On this battleground high level players would apparently ignore or neglect the objective (skulls in the mine) and push lanes instead, do mercenary camps. Sylvanas, for instance, was an insta-lock. Now I see that there was actually an unsuccessful rework of it, which complicates things.

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  • Dramatically increase the area of the middle 2/3rds of the top level.

If you recall playing on this battleground the top level is quite small. You could get more work done pushing, especially with a hero like Sylvanas who could relatively quickly devastate an area. The four mercenary camps are close too. If you were to dramatically expand the area of the map beyond the Keeps you slow down potential pushes as it takes heroes longer to reach structures and there is more time to react to their presence on the mini-map (minion waves are further out from structures and without minion waves heroes can’t push too effectively), which favors focus on the objective. Sylvanas can ignore the objective and push a lane on any battleground, she seems to disrupt only one tremendously.

  • Undead army bones/corpses are scattered at all mercenary camps. One minute before the undead army rises in the mine it rises at all mercenary camps. It slays all mercenaries, disabling the camps [until both golems are destroyed?]. Uninteractive, cannot be stopped, animation.

Mercenaries overriding the objective problem solved. Based on the youtube video of the rework it seems the developers intended for there to be a choice but the map being pulled again suggests that in practice there was a worst choice being taken too often.

  • Either a third type of mercenary camp (two camps symmetrically) or a boss is placed in the middle of the map.

Because why not? It’s a two-lane map, there might not be enough to do in between the objective. I actually started getting crazy with the idea of a boss (dormant boss who could be subdued without fighting back to introduce a more fluid dynamic, areas of control, guardians to kill) but started veering into a fully-fledged battleground objective so backed off. A bruiser camp may suffice.

I had different notions about the entrances but let’s leave them alone. I’m not sure about the idea of having four spaced out entrances but don’t have too strong a feeling. Lastly, I don’t know if there was something wrong with the way the pushing golems scaled or their general strength. This may also need to be adjusted.

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I like GoT, I would only add more of those critters across the map.

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So initial good ideas ruined by wanting to make stuff more complex for n I real reason.

Yes.

Stupid, and leaves teams once a team gets 100, does the event end?
The team who lost gets nothing.
What about when both teams get <100.

This is just making changes for the sake of it.

Just make it only disable structures instead of deal damage?
Seems an easy way to change it without people bickering over what the range should be, how fast extra decay can be, etc.

Don’t mind decay, just making it not deal damage seems an overall simpler solution.

Cool.
As someone who likes the map… this sounds like it would be ruining it.
Or at least make it less fun.
And I don’t think it fixes the problems that players who dislike it have.

It’s largest issue is the strength of the objective.

Why?
No one had any issues with the size of the map in any of it’s forms that I ever saw.

Maybe I missed tons of those complaints?

Or just making the camps vanish when the mines open… instead of going out of the way to add a complex manner which destroys merc camps.

Also, did you play the map? Capturing siege giants after golems summoned to aid defense was a part of knowing timings on the map for defending golems.

You need a WHY to add something.
Adding things is increasing complexity, and without good reasons, it is generally bad to add complexity.

This doesn’t solve any of the balance issues of the map, or the bugs that are part of what keeps the map from being played.

An in between of how golems worked originally versus after it’s rework might be something to look at.

When golems spawned where they died, could be OP.
And spawning from same location could be too weak.

Maybe they spawn halfway between where they died and initial spawn?

Doesn’t hurt to play with when they spawn. And if the map comes back with balance issues, that is something to look at adjusting in various patches I think.

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Are you suggesting something, or thinking about current state of the map?

Because it reads both ways to me. Hard to tell.

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Yes.

Correct, as the battleground currently works and as many battlegrounds work, although some mitigate the objective.

The night phase ends without either team having a Garden Terror or progress toward one. The subsequent suggestion and the discussion focuses on this possibility being reduced or eliminated. You’re just calling something stupid without bothering to read, which helps you least of all.

It explicitly isn’t, unless someone isn’t reading or can’t understand mildly to moderately complex writing. I certainly see a tragic pattern.

Valid alternative. Was using the reverted state. I presume this version would also incapacitate minions. The possible criticism of this is that it would make the pot ignorable as it decays and focus hero damage on the Terror. Or the placement of the pot will always be behind the Terror if it’s more valuable to have it up. The Terror may also become a lot more effective against undefended or weakly defended structures as it and the accompanying minions don’t sustain damage, which may again lead to the run around gameplay. So perhaps a similarly “bickering” situation.

So not cool.

Based on a detailed response of another poster matching my pro play recollection the largest issue is camp clearing and the avoidance of fighting. I noted the bombardment being a potential issue but it’s certainly not why the battleground is in trouble. I think you misunderstand the battleground.

Generally it’s a good idea to withhold the ‘why’ question before you’ve read the ‘why’ explanation that was expressly included after the bullet item to answer the ‘why’ question. The issue with the map is that pushing is too effective to the point of superseding the objective. I believe the small size of the level largely accounts for this effect.

Maybe I imaginatively and efficiently solve many complaints people have without them understanding what they’re really complaining about. Also, on the rework youtube video I saw one comment refer to the size so maybe others thought similarly.

It’s called a Blizzard level of immersion and attention to detail. It’s clearly wasted on you, but it’s something the company is known for and others appreciate. Also, the player has nothing to do with it so the dreadful “complexity” doesn’t affect you.

So the camps return immediately after all skulls are collected.

The height of irony.

The issues were solved by this point, no idea why you think I would be solving bugs.

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Sure, most of all of these I support is GoT, make the terror feel like the teams have to actually strategize around it.

Personally, for me, I’d just like less of the “spawn dumb thing in every lane” objectives. They’re lame and just kind of as low interaction as there can be, in a way.

I think BHB deserves its whole own thread, though. There’s going to be a lot of opinions about it, and it would be really helpful to collect them in one place if you were out to posit ideas.

Also recommend cross-posting to Reddit, if you aren’t already, and you want to potentially signal boost the idea(s) and discussion. Allegedly blues also take posts from there into consideration (though I’ve never seen it personally).

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I really dislike reddit for sustained discussions and attention. You’re immediately on a brief timer due to the sequential display of threads that gets even briefer when people don’t read and promptly downvote when they come across something their first reaction is to dislike. The comment organization really gets in the way of consolidating and focusing things. The lower effort type posts and featherbrained stuff are more promising there. Big positivity bias too. When you don’t really intend much it’s also okay for a thread to pass through quickly.

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If that means you want the new GoT map being removed yes, then no. I don’t like maps being removed, but I would like to add the old one to the game.

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facedesk

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Yes, and the objectives with the losing team getting something are the ones I at least tend to find more enjoyable

Winner takes all Is not as fun.

And winner takes all was also not part of the original Garden Terror map.
Which is part of the reason that the rework doesn’t capture the spirit of the map in my opinion.

Opinions of course, by their nature, vary.

Uh, except you didn’t comment on if it functioned that way?

And what you wrote doesn’t really justify the change.

All you really said is you personally don’t like how it worked and some waffling on.

I would contend if you want to capture the spirit of the original map, stripping it of the ability of seeds to carry over and allowing a scenario where the objective literally does nothing for either team is extremely poor design.

Part of the “fun” of objectives is the payoff.

The only manner that such a system could work, in my opinion, is if you had the terrors spawn at a singular point of battle, akin to Infernal Shrines.

You’ll note other “winner take all” maps either;

  1. Have a singular point of contention that directly gives the reward (Volskaya, Eternal Shrines, Alterac Pass)
  2. Requires winning multiple “sub-objectives” to get the objective. (current Garden of Terror, Cursed Hollow)
  3. Has fixed capture points (Dragon Shrine)

Imagine if on Battlefield of Immortals, if the winning team got the full shield on their immortal if they won the race by any amount. That’s akin to what making Garden Terror only able to spawn for one team does.

Sorry, I’ll say “cool (this is sarcasm)” best time?

Would you mind linking or telling me who the poster was so I can try to track it down?

Also why is pro play relevant here? ???
If we want to make the makes more fun, and keeping their spirit, not sure why pro play has anything to do with it.

Also making the objective weaker directly addresses the issue of mercenaries and camps being incentivized. If the objective is weaker, the coins provide less value.

Making the objective weaker accomplishes nerfing just taking camps the whole game without completely making players relearn to play the map.

It’s the KISS principle. And why while I—who loves complexity—will push for simpler changes/solutions.

I read it.

But you’re fundamentally not understanding the symmetry of the battleground when you suggest it.

Try watching a video of how the map plays. You’ll figure out why the change you suggest is a “Why?”.

I can try to explain it clearly without getting into rant territory if you want. I just think I would probably get into ranting territory.

Fair enough.

Thanks for explaining it.

Uh, nope. Not solved.
Bug part—yeah. That was just stupid of me to write.

Also I’m guessing because I added it on in a second post it was missed, just wanted some clarification, so “re-quoting”:

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Developers read both.
Generally the overall feeling on reworks/ability changes are what mostly can influence changes.

But Reddit gets more interaction from them as:

  1. Art and the artists on the team
  2. Their tend to be a lot more good discussions/silly discussions.
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Also I realize I misread something.
Doh.

But while it changes the criticism angle, doesn’t believe if changes the actual impact the change would make. AKA my reasoning for my criticism is wrong, but it still wouldn’t fix the map in a meaningful way. Or solve the overall problem the suggestion is meant to solve.

(Widening haunted mines above ground map).

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So your solution for GoT to be balanced and fair is… RNG? Not a good design choice TBH.

Also the 90 was one flaw of GoT the other is how the bosses were openers for ambushes constantly that the terror vehicle was very weak to do anything before reaching its targeted fort/keep from walking from point A to B, which were addressed with terrors spawning based on the front minion waves on each lane, unlike Dragon Knight which is in the center, Terror just spawns at your base, post level 20 heroes can deal so much damage before it can even do anything.

I don’t see these specifically addressed which were the major flaws of GoT in the first place, you can’t backtrack like this.

?

Define running away, do you mean as running away from the hopeless structure with an almost 10k~ HP? Because that’s just a terrible play in the process.

Garden Terrors deals a large boost of damage to enemy structures stunned by the potted plant BTW.

The devs themselves even addressed that a hit and run tactic like this wasn’t fun.

Have you actually done your research over this before making the thread?

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Predictable tbh. :slight_smile:

Should’ve been 100 so that both teams would get a Terror every cycle without fighting.

Adjustable, if necessary. I don’t recall this being a major issue, but if the Garden Terror was very weak [at particular points in the game?] you obviously buff its HP.

:slight_smile:

Here’s someone who has no clue what he or she is posting. Garden Terrors at pro play would routinely drop pots and move around. You trying to show me up or something? lol

Or did you perhaps not read the first couple of sentences of the second and third paragraphs of the opening post?

Little twerp. If the developers had already come up with a satisfactory change to this aspect of the player-controlled Garden Terror then simply substitute it for my suggestion.

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Your attitude suits reddit which you’ve complained upon, I’ve read that GoT paragraph multiple times.

If change is a necessity then there’s no need to go back to an era in which can get as irrelevant as is, the last iteration of garden of terror before the rework was very flawed anyways and yes there has to be a change, backtracking to a similar design is not especially when the game needs to make the objective environment fairly balanced on symmetrical stand point, which means RNG should not be considered, at all in the process.

The potted plant I remember playing and experiencing was back when it caused to make all terror melee attacks deal 2x damage which was fair from in concept, but the question why revert back to such change in the first place? clearly they don’t agree with it that they had to replace it with 2x iteration, why not replace the whole potted plant concept with something else entirely and instead buff the terror to have similar attributes like dragon knight? In which case it deals more damage to structures than heroes, allowing the potted plant to become something else differently like making heroes get polymorphed by dropping a seed similar to the one the core does or summon shamblers to help in the push.

While at it, make the Terror in the center of the map and it should be far more balanced while not prolonging the game for any pushing value from moving from point A to B which was an issue too, the terror dies so fast post level 20 as it tries to go from one point to another and barely can do anything either before its too late, this in comparison to other vehicles… they don’t.

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Bad idea that will make this map ever more snowbally.

Oh yeah, another idea that will make BHB more snowbally.

No, they’d better make both chests have 8 coins instead of 5.

Well, another ideas that will only ruin good maps, bruh.

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Curious how you’ve read the few paragraphs multiple times yet are clueless as to why going back is a necessity, e.g.:

Perhaps I wasn’t explicit regarding my fundamental premise. Centralized objectives induce full team fights at a particular location. That’s good, but there is more potential gameplay and variety is the spice of life as they say. It’s crucial. The value in decentralized objectives is that fights can be picked at multiple places involving different numbers of players. These battlegrounds are in a way more dynamic, players can be rewarded for thinking on their feet and making decisions they wouldn’t make as often on other battlegrounds.

What has happened with Garden of Terror is centralization, effectively standardization or a similarity to many other maps. Big no-no in my book. The widely dispersed objective at the moment is basically absent from the game for no good reason, and that reduces gameplay variety. No, no, no as the song goes. Bad. Foolish.

I have to go to bed but I encourage you to reread and try to understand. Futile, I know. I’ll restate things later. I thought I made it fairly obvious but I need to learn better patience. I suppose this stuff somehow passes for advanced concepts.

No need for further comment on the potted plant and the scandal of where the Terror spawns.

Jesus Christ.

Literally suggested to make the battleground less snowbally as the winning team can’t pick up the opposing team’s doubloons, you goon.

It’s either another idea or other ideas. What are you doing in school, bruh?

Two of these three “good maps” you can’t play in ranked mode, unless I’m mistaken, and the third was standardized - turned into filler.

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Backtracking entirely to an iteration is not advanced, its lazy since you are literally going into a copy paste of ideas the devs themselves thought of instead of coming up with something else that goes into alternative solutions, you seriously need to chill with the narcissistic attitude because it makes you look terrible, this is a discussion, not a presidential debate, try not being the words you are muttering (p.s it’s “clueless”).

The seed collection causes the terror to spawn in the middle of the map, causing one team to push whilst other to stop it after mounting the vehicle, that’s fundamentally fair as it gets, if not, you can make the terror simply spawn near the a player based on their states, roles, and number values or nearest to the center of the map, and then go from there.

Your argument whether its boring or not is a very subjective line and thus it has no place in the main topic at all.

Whilst RNG allows more dynamic playing in alternative locations from time to time, there has to be a limit, little RNG does very little and keep things to acceptable rates while allow a variety, like Cursed Hollow does, which has been considered a very fair and balanced map too.

Spreading out RNG not in one location but everywhere is not, and we are going into similar flaws again of why was the map even reworked in the first place to this iteration.

You also never addressed the bosses which have been also a partial of the problem, causing gangs, a lot of macro pushing and one sided snowballs all because people had to take the boss, resulting in chances of lane pressure or being ganged, thus disallowing any upcoming chances of come backs for the most part because they are now in control and engaging bosses forward in the game is a higher risk.

GoT has a lot of issues back then which a lot of these were addressed, yet you want to backtrack this hard and bring it to a very similar state is just not right.

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I honestly pity you with such attitude, don’t make threads if you all you do is belittle people who are adding to the discussion in things you are seriously clueless at and it shows.

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You certainly got it right that I’m clueless with respect to what you just wrote.