Tutorial Creating a decent hero

[MagnaGuard]

Creating a decent Hero

Chapters
I. Introduction
II. Hero Creation Simulation
III. Abilities
IV. Synergy
V. Balancing
VI. Final Note

I. Introduction
It almost every map, it's important to have a hero or some kind of main character. Not everyone can design the heroes so that their properly skilled or balanced with the rest of the game. With the help of this guide, you should be able to make more fun and unique heroes to add to your maps.

II. Hero Creation Simulation
When starting to make your hero, you obviously need the model which is probably the most important tool in making a good hero. Once you picked out a fun model for whatever you want, look at the model intently, and notice what makes the model unique.

Look at these screen shots below. Notice what makes them unique.

Lets start with the Blademaster. First notice his sword, a nice 2hander if you ask me. Maybe we should give him a nice bonus to attacks or some special attack. Also, he has green skin like all other orcs, and orcs are usually all very tough and not afraid to get dirty. We should use that to our advantage. Let's see, he has a banner behind him, perhaps to support his troops? or for moral? His face gives us the impression he is an experienced war hero and has fought many battles, we could use that as well.

There is also the Keeper of the Grove. He has four legs!? He should definitely have some mega stop or charge skill. He has antlers as well, with a bit of research, we now know that fully grown antlers show age which in fantasy land means intelligence and wisdom. Obviously he seems like a nature guy who probably loves the outdoors. Thus, he most likely has some special connections with it that he can use it in battle.

Each model has unique physical features that can give us help in developing skills for said hero. This will make the heroes easier to make and more unique with a variety of different skills.

III. Abilities
The abilities basically define the hero. Using the unique features we discovered while examining the hero, we make abilities based around it. Lets use the Blademaster, we noticed his nice weapon. We could make a skill that is basically cleaving attack that each have a chance to crit. We cant stop there though, people like heroes that are the most fun to play. That being said, we should add a special effect when he cleaves. One of the possibilities is adding the phoenix fire as an attachment to make a nice red arc when he swings. Don't forget to add some nice big, red crit marks when he crit's!

One of the most important things to keep in mind while making an ability is what animation this will fit with. It's important to make the abilities based on the model but you need a balance between. No one will want to use a hero such as Keeper of the Grove while he throws a hammer using his spell animation. The ability should seem smooth so a spell the Keeper of the Grove casts with his animation could be something like a spell that launches thorns or shoots out a vine to rap up an enemy.

IV. Synergy
To make your game more fun, you need synergy between heroes. Would anyone like a game with all melee brutes? No, that would make the fight completely boring and one sided. If we add some casters in, it already makes the game a bit more interesting because now you have to worry about big nukes coming your way. To make the game with the best potential, you generally need:

Melee
Casters
Healers
Ranged

Each of those "classes" add something different to the game. Without synergy though, those classes are pointless. If two friends are playing, their going to want to pick classes that work well together, making a powerful combo.

When making a map, make the heroes flow nicely together. One example is to make a melee that has lots of lockdown abilities, while having a ranger at a safe distance sniping the enemy. Thus, the game is already fun for the two people because they feel a sense of overpowerness which makes people want to play the game. They want to feel powerful.

There is another thing to consider that isn't just for the team. More for the individual hero, meaning, make the hero to have abilities that flow well together. A Blademaster with an ability to blink and then one to go invisible doesn't work at all. He already has one escape ability, why not make him have an ability to gather all the enemies in a circle, then bladestorm and BAM. One dead crowd.

V. Balancing

Balancing. Thou heartless-bitch. This should be the second most challenging part in making your heroes. All the heroes should have an equal chance against each other and not one should completely dominate unless he outgears the other. There's only one thing I can emphasize here, TEST. You must press the test button every time you make a change to a hero. It may be tedious but it will make sure that your heroes are equal in strength and the more skillful player should win.

However, you don't have to if you don't want to. Make the game how you like it because thats why you wanted to become a map maker. Don't let anyone tell you your game sucks because so and so does so much more damage then the melee guy up in the front taking all the damage. There are, of course, ways to make your map successful to entertain others if that is your goal. Don't forget thought..

Have fun!

 

[Viikuna]

Int > Early game
Str > Mid game
Agi > Late game

Fail.

Seriously, This is just explaining how DotA works or something. You are map makers for Gods sake. If you want to do a map where Int heroes are imba in late game and agility pwns in early game, you damn sure can do it.

These kind of tuotrials are nice and everything, but they should not limit peoples imagination and accidentally create some weird "rules" like: agility heroes ( should ) pwn in late game.

edit. That stuff about getting ideas from studying hero models is good, though. I usually think abilities out of models animations.

I think you should write more stuff about that, because gameplay stuff can be so different in different games. Some map might be built around executing moves that when correctly done, kill target instantly or something. That really changes balance, since heroes die easily and stuff like that. It kinda makes that int - early game stuff to loose its purpose.

For me the most important thing is that Hero feels cool. People focus too little on visual side, and Im not talking about spamming special effects.

Check these Flying Dutchman spell, from Tides of Blood, the bottom of the first post in this thread: link

 

[Viikuna]

Actually, thinking hero role out of its model is a good idea, even if Blizzard doesnt do it always. Unless Blizzard heroes are what you consider perfect or something.

Or I dont know. Im not sure. But how the Hero feels is really important anyways.

 

[uberfoop]

The only reason the attribute -> game part thing exists at all is largely due to circumstances in many maps whereupon:
-Intelligence heroes have nukes that max out early on despite needing to work all game long even as the other heroes growing more powerful, thus resulting in uber power early on with abilities meant to work all game long.
-Agility heroes have too much focus on the damage + attack speed aspect of agility whereupon they become consistantly more powerful nigh indefinitely, particularily when late-game super-items and passives like critical strike come into play together, resulting in them dominating after everyone else maxes out.
-Strength heroes fall in between, thus being most significant mid-game.



This is a symptom of a set of circumstances which aren't necessary good for a map.

 

[MagnaGuard]

Seriously, This is just explaining how DotA works or something. You are map makers for Gods sake. If you want to do a map where Int heroes are imba in late game and agility pwns in early game, you damn sure can do it.

>> The "rule" I put should be reworded. It is mostly the case, as uberfoop explained.

For me the most important thing is that Hero feels cool.

>> That's definitely the most important thing, which that feeling is achieved by the flow of the spells and the relationship they have with the hero.

 

[Bloodcount]

MagnaGuard, you know I am right.

>Unless Blizzard heroes are what you consider perfect or something.

Well, you got me here. I am not saying that they are perfect. I am just saying that Blizzard are a computer company, with quite a fascinating creative team. I just don't think that it is common (or even possible) to make something better then them. For example: I got inspired by their spells when trying to creating spells for spirit wars. True, the effects are totally different, but some of the spells are totally inspired by Blizzard

 

[MagnaGuard]

Added new chapter
III. Abilties

 

[black.sheep]

What about sygenergy? We can't have heroes that don't work together, or even have abilities that dont.

 

[Pineapple]

Int > Early game
Str > Mid game
Agi > Late game

No. Bad.

If you do this you are doing a little something called "It wrong"

All heroes should be balanced throughout the game. From start to end.

 

[cleeezzz]

generally using the wc3 standard abilities, thats usually how it is, (dota as an example)

but if you want to make it balanced throughout, it will probably require skills that do dmg based on stat attributes.

 

[MagnaGuard]

Unless Blizzard heroes are what you consider perfect or something.

I believe they are completely wrong. The heroes they make are skilled based on lore.

For example, how many of you played arthas with frostmourne and wished he had more fun, powerful skills?

What about sygenergy?

Thats a good point I'll add something.

No. Bad.

but if you want to make it balanced throughout, it will probably require skills that do dmg based on stat attributes.

Balancing so a hero is even throughout the game will require stat based damage. For example, with a caster you need to give him extra damage based off int.

The problem is no matter what, agi heroes will be very strong late game. Then you would have to make really strong int weapons.

So lets say you do make spells do extra damage based on int. If you add to much multiplier, the hero is overpowered. If you don't add enough, the hero is underpowered. The reason people bother playing int heroes is to get the feeling of overpowered, that of which cannot be achieved through extra damage without being too powerful.

However I will change it since most people disagree.

 

[Pineapple]

>>If you add to much multiplier, the hero is overpowered. If you don't add enough, the hero is underpowered.

Your right. No one said balancing is easy. But guess what? There is a sweet spot in there...

 

[Viikuna]

You should not understant "balancing heroes" wrongly. In normal ladder Blademaster always pwns weak casters like that keeper of grove guy.

Game must be balanced. And it is more important that all heroes are useful and can always do something nice and smooth in larger scale.

If your caster hero becomes useless in lategame, and cant just do anything to help your team or army or whatever, then you have designed your game wrongly.

 

[Rainther]

Examples on Int heroes with abilities that doesn't really grow weak in the late game is:

Death and Decay (Lich, Kel'Thuzad) which hurts based on Max HP. This is an endgame solution, but it's horrible really cause it counters everything str heroes stands for in my opinion and I remember some maps they have this ability and I simply kick the ass of the last boss using it.

And Dota have some int abilites that do good in the end too, but even they are boring and could be called overpowered, like:
Arcane Orb - Autoattack (such as Searing Arrows) but bases it's damage on the casters current mana. This ability is god damn sick really, the only thing that limits it is that the hero doesn't have long range and is rather slow in attack and movement speed by general.

Reaper`s Scythe - Single target attack that damages based on the amount of health loss on the target. This ability can be improved through items and is able to instant kill enemies with half HP left.
I know Dota can't be counted as late game if you now think of the fact it lasts for about 1 hour and can't reach over the 25th level. But if abilities such as these would be in longer maps they'd suck badly and making the Reaper ability unaffected on bosses would simply enrage the players.

I also remember and ability that damaged based on the current amount of health the hero didn't have. It was also horrible cause I ended up getting all the Strenght I could possibly get though I were agility based and simply used this ability to conquer anyone who stood in my way.

Abilities based of stats works a little I guess, but for some reason I don't really fancy them. One other method is to have abilities with low mana and cooldown and the hero needs much mana in order to often use this abilities then the Int hero can use funny abilities instead of auto attacking, which I honestly believe is the reason people choose int based heroes to begin with.

 

[Viikuna]

DotA is all about disable. If endgame int hero cant keep you hexxed and stunned 24 hours in a day, he most likely sucks. There are ofc some exceptions, like those Rainther mentioned. ( Reapers Scythe and that Mana guy )

 

[MagnaGuard]

Thoughts? Concerns? Confessions? Questions? Problems? Criticisms?

 

[LurkerAspect]

I like this tutorial, but I feel it's lacking a lot of depth. Each section has a few lines or a short paragraph to it.

For example, when I design a hero, I first think of the primary attribute. In this case, it's Strength. I then consider the secondary attribute for my hero, which in this case is again Strength. Thus, this hero would be a tank, with slow speed, high health and damage, and some powerful but no precision abilities.

I might also start by picking a race, and then a model. Those two give my hero a theme, which his abilities are then based off. If he is undead and has the model of a ghoul, then maybe he'd have an ability to consume corpses, and maybe he's light and agile? The result is a hero with a fitting model for his role, and a thematic hero to give individuality, so it doesn't bore the player.

A hero turns into a project; and every feature of that hero is dependant on something else. Each ability and stat must reflect the Hero's intended role, and each ability must adhere to or shape that hero's characteristics.

For example, my tank hero has an ability that gives him a chance to block x damage. This means that he can soak up more damage, and reinforcing his role as a tank. Because of this, he is likely to be surrounded by melee enemies from time to time. Therefore, he needs an area of effect ability, and so on. Each ability ties in with another. He might also need an ability to give him more defense from quick, ranged attackers, or if you so wish, you can leave that as his weakness, but in this case, this is a weakness that could prove imbalanced and fatal, making the hero a sitting duck for other ranged heroes.

I design a hero, always conforming to the laws of cause and effect. Hero has blink ability = weak hero, needs to avoid combat.

That to me is the key to achieving balance and uniqueness in every hero.

 

[Romek]

Could you change that lime green to ordinary green please?
Lime is frying my eyeballs.

 

[GooS]

It's a good start, but a bit short and has little depth.

I also remember and ability that damaged based on the current amount of health the hero didn't have. It was also horrible cause I ended up getting all the Strenght I could possibly get though I were agility based and simply used this ability to conquer anyone who stood in my way.

You should take this up aswell, some heroes, since everyone uses it as an example, such as in dota requires itemization. Items can be a part of balance, lets say that a hero has abilities, abit beyond avarage very early on, but their power drops as levels are gained because what they depend on, lets say health, isn't something your hero gets from just levels, not enough to keep him at the same level as his opponents.

So he must think outside the box of primary attributes being all one should spam, he could go for strength for that health boost, maybe there's a pure health boost item, maybe the ability is percentual, not depending on max but on percent lost. Meaning that he has to drop hp to do dmg, making health regeneration a good alternative to keeping health at an all time low in combat but still not dying.

IMO these are the fun kinds of heroes, much better than a blademaster whirlwinding around in all his boredom.

Not the best of examples perhaps, but it is something one has to think about while balancing a map.

//==GooS

 

[black.sheep]

When I said syenegy, I ment within the hero, not just his team.
Probally the best hero I have seen that uses this is the pudge. Firstly, his hook is his bread and butter, he is totally dependant on that. Rot then helps with damage/slow, his passive is meh, but helps with rot being on. Finally rot and his ulti go so damn well together.
Just an idea.