The map was standardized/homogenized, which isn’t a good thing. The roots going into each lane don’t look good either. The interesting thing is that Dragon Shire is similar to what it was but wasn’t changed. Was this a reaction to pro teams splitting the seeds and avoiding fighting or what?
4 Likes
That map had several issues, and the main thing was that the objective often enough wasnt rewarding the way it should. And this was caused by general player behaviour:
- If 2 teams both got the objective at the same time, instead of using that to push lanes, they would battle each other, and both teams wouldnt get progress.
- If a team decided to push while the other one was collecting, the boss wasnt rewarding enough progress.
But the rework itself completely changed the mechanics of the map, and made the reward waaaay to powerful to what it used to be. So a lot of things were destroyed that actualy made the map interesting.
- People liked the slower map pace
- People liked the potential double reward situation (even if it was used poorly)
Its just that competetive players didnt like it. But the worst part was, even after the rework, they still didnt like it. So not only was the map destroyed for them, there was no gain.
And this is why it has many names like “Gardens of Error” or “Gardens of the alterac spider queen”. The map lost its primary unique feature.
6 Likes
There’s nothing wrong with this, unless they were just splitting the seeds.
What in the world?
This. What was the reason they didn’t like it, and why would Blizzard listen to them to the point of changing the nature/identity of the map? They clearly had something in mind that made more sense.
- Chasing seeds during night mode up to 2 times before a team got 100
Making the objective fight very uninteractive and boring, much of the time both teams would just collect 90 from their side (30 from boss Shambler, 30 from each small Shambler camp) and not bother invading the enemy side, then both teams got 1 terror during the next cycle
- Dropping plant pots behind a gate then running away
They used to deal damage on their own. A lot of damage. You could simply avoid the defenders by throwing a pot so it strangled their towers and fort, then run to the next fort and repeat.
The only way the enemy would damage your Terror is chasing you while moving. Not easy, as the Terror even had a speed boost ability on E (Fortunately later changed so that the pots only disable structures, no damage)
- Heavily favored TLV (though given how niche they are, this might be good or bad): A must pick in higher MMR, as Erik goes into the Terror and the other two push with the rest of the team gaining huge macro momentum
Then later on it was changed to a Cursed Hollow clone with an Alterac type reward where you channel 3 "tributes "(seeds) to send out 3 non-controllable Garden Terrors down each lane.
The objective itself hasn’t felt very competitive in any of the three iterations. The current one is somewhat tolerable, but people in competitive tournaments still don’t like the map.
11 Likes
This one should be easily fixable by having the plant in the pot wither if the Garden Terror is not in proximity.
Right, something was happening here. Teams were splitting, not fighting. Why not just reset the seed counts after every night? The threat of the opposing team grabbing ten extra seeds would create an interesting dynamic. Nights could be ended after a period of time with uncollected seeds spoiling, or not.
Imagine you also added some randomness to seed source spawning.
That would literally force teams to fight if they wanted to unlock a Terror (as getting 100 would only be possible within a single night), which would be good, but it might also lead to games where the seeds keep spoiling and nobody gets an objective.
In a way, it shares some characteristics with BhB in why it was unpopular or permanently banned in pro play: You could grab and/or activate the objective without ever really fighting the enemy team. That doesn’t make for fun to watch eSports at least for the general public.
Haunted Mines wasn’t too far from this dynamic either: Both teams killing the small golems and avoiding the boss as long as possible, then spawning 40-60 strength golems each. Making it more lucrative to even ignore the golems and push with a Sylvanas or other macro hero and get camps during objective.
2 Likes
It could also create scenarios where players are clever. Then the opposing side would be forced to look for a fight, or there would be more interesting splits predicated on conflict. If players still decide to evenly split the sides that is up to them. After all, no one forces teams on Dragon Shire to control both shrines and channel into the dragon. The possible asymmetry being there invites players to capitalize on it by outwitting or outplaying an opponent to get ahead. Given 100 seeds are needed and any less do not carry over it’s not like one team could just not mind the objective.
Adding a degree of randomness like a camp having two shamblers while another four, for instance, or more possible spawn locations than active number of spawn locations would complicate intentions to avoid conflict.
I think a possible set of improvements they could make would be taking a bit from both iterations for the objective collection, and then bring back the Vehicle objective with some significant changes to its kit and playstyle.
First off, slow down the Seed spawn rate. Currently, it is way too fast, barely giving enough time after each fight for the losing team to respawn, depush lanes, and get to the next Seed. This is part of what makes the map so snowbally, because you’re always so time-crunched to make up lost ground. Slow it down a whole lot.
Second, weaken the Shamblers that guard the Seeds and make 3 Seeds spawn at once. Collecting 3 Seeds gets you a Garden Terror (Vehicle), and because there’s 6 Seeds total in the first 2 rounds, it’s possible for both teams to have Terrors at the same time, just like before the rework.
Garden Terrors should be modified so the “Chase the Terror” game, just running away from altercations when you’re piloting the Terror, isn’t a viable strategy.
- Terrors should lose Sprint. No more throwing down a Queen’s Curse (the Polymorph) in a chokepoint and just hightailing it out of there. You’re big and slow, stand and fight.
Perhaps as compensation for losing Sprint, Terrors could gain a short burst of movement speed from attacking enemies, to make them more aggressive?
- Terrors’ health should decay over time, probably at about 0.83% of its max health per second (which would take 2:00 minutes to decay if it takes no other damage). Overgrowths (the potted plants) tie into this.
- Overgrowths should go dormant if the Terror that planted them leaves their radius, though their health will continue to decay while dormant. This means that throwing down a plant and then bailing no longer gives any value. If you aren’t staying with the Overgrowth, it’s basically good for nothing more than blocking skillshots.
From there, either bring back Overgrowth’s damage or cause it to reduce buildings’ armor while strangling them. Additionally, Overgrowths should halt the health decay of allied Terrors within their radius, meaning you’re further encouraged to stick close to and defend your Overgrowth instead of bailing on it.
3 Likes
Yeah, this should have been in the game since launch. Would have made people a lot more tolerant towards that map.
If the vehicles are brought back under those rules, they’re no more a threat than a DK or Protector.
Still powerful, but not obnoxious to play against (also, removing the pot damage was a step in the right direction, so at least they acknowledged the problem).
3 Likes
I think Overgrowth’s damage was fine in a vacuum. It was the fact that you could throw it down and then just run off that made it a problem, since that was basically guaranteed value – enemy players had to choose between chasing you or killing the pot, and either way you were getting damage done. No skill, no real counterplay.
I think if you can’t just run away and have the Overgrowth do the work for you, it would be fine to bring back its damage, or at the very least add an armor reduction effect to make the Terror hit affected structures harder.
I want the Terror and its Overgrowth synergizing with each other.
3 Likes
My guess is that someone high up decided that because if didn’t fit their tourney play, they had to change it.
Instead of just not having the map be used for ranked/tourney play.
It certainly is more balanced now, but it is also a lot less fun.
1 Like
Another possibility, once all seeds are collected the team with the most seeds gets a terror, or if that leads to dragging out because of a few stray seeds than you could go full BoE and make it a race to 100 seeds where there are 200 available and each one you collect weakens the enemy terror if they beat you to 100.
Then you just have to have a few central seed clusters to convince players to actually compete over middle seeds, while not forcing them too since you still can slip out a bunch of seeds if fighting isn’t an option at the moment.
That said, I currently like the dynamic of the map with the relatively large number of camps. IMO, if you want to make the map more unique then lean even harder into the mass camp aspect of the map.
1 Like
When a map stalemates more often, its generaly more balanced as a result. This is because the stalemate gives equal process, and requires both teams to equaly defend, which in turn slows down that progress.
The current objective is very often causing a landslide effect instead, which makes the team that gathers the first objective get such advantage, that comeback potential becomes less.
Sure, often want to give the team that wins an objective to get an advantage, but the old mechanic already did this anyway. Its only that in stalemates, the reward was equaly stalemate giving.
I would not call the current version more balanced at all. The current version is far more objective oriented, and weakened laning, while the old version was more PvE oriented, but even for the PvE part, it was possible to trigger fights on that. So this made the old version involve a high part of PvE as element in it, but PvP would generaly still decide wins. By that i would even say the old version is more balanced because of the combat diversity it allows.
For tournaments they obviously only look at flashy kills and fast paced matches, which the old version didnt, but the old version was definitely more balanced.
Note that i do not say how much more balanced it is, it just is more balanced. Objectives are part of a design to cause an off balance, which can be intended, but strictly this makes a map less balanced as a result, because in theory, that objective requirement is already required by killing the cores anyway, its just a subphase that they added in the new version, it does not aid balance on there.
2 Likes
This map has become my least favorite because of this mechanic. It needs something added to give it that unique feeling. It seems too generic.
3 Likes
Blackheart’s Bay is one of my favorite maps to get. Uplifting, bright and “fanciful” design on which fights can always be picked. How did pro players screw it up?
While we’re at it, how was Haunted Mines being played in a problematic way exactly?
1 Like
By picking Sonya or Illidan, then farming camps all game. If the enemy camped your coins at turn in - they farmed more camps forcing the enemy to defend them (during which you paid). Games would often end without a kill on either team.
Professional players protested and it eventually got removed from HGC, along with Garden of Terror and Haunted Mines.
how was Haunted Mines being played in a problematic way?
It didn’t really pay off to go down the mines. It paid off to do mercenary camps and push the Golem’s lane with Sylvanas while the enemy was down in the mines (especially in early game).
You could strengthen the Golem from 0 to 100 by collecting skulls. But the early Golems, even at 100 strength, barely made a dent against a fort with 5 defenders. The Sylvanas who pushed in the meanwhile might have destroyed the entire lane.
There are also buggy interactions with the Mine Shaft and some heroes, for example it is possible for Rexxar’s bear to get stuck outside while he is inside if he or Misha get crowd controlled during the transition.
2 Likes
There is one and a half bruiser camp and one siege camp on each side of the map. Two coin camps on each side that don’t apply pressure. That’s not much pressure and can be countered by the symmetrical camp. Are we sure that pros weren’t misplaying this map or getting stagnant on it and blaming their passive play on design? I’m not even sure what the problem is. Why were these goons not fighting? I think the snowballing of the coins may be an issue, the fact that you drop them upon death. It might be helpful to just have them be lost upon death or temporarily recoverable by a teammate similar to the Spider map. Other than this I don’t see an obvious problem.
Obviously the early Golems can be buffed.
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Look at the layout of this map. The distances are very short, you can get a lot done on the surface in little time. I imagine minion waves spawn correspondingly quicker on it? What would happen if you dramatically expanded the middle 50% of it? Maybe the middle 25% of it? Then place two gateways a la Towers of Doom from the spawn areas near the mine entrances, perhaps two pairs of two, that are only active when the mines are open. Sylvanas pushing is a general option that can be countered.
I don’t like vehicles. It takes away a member of your team. I prefer pure teamfighting
I only like chocolate ice cream but it turns out people like variety too.
1 Like