First of all, I can see the influence that PoxNora has had on these kinds of games... Second of all, I can see that LoL is a VERY different beast from Pox - LoL is not turn based, LoL is a progressive power-up, direct combat, real-time strategy game, whereas Pox is turn based tactical/strategy. Both incorporate board control elements. There are a couple of things that I really, really like about LoL that I feel like Pox could adopt or adapt: 1) Starting off at level 1 each game: All champs start at base, and progressively power up over the course of the game by doing things. This would be a very interesting mechanic in the PoxNora universe -- champ that captures font, picks up nora globe, kills enemy champ, finds enemy trap, challenges enemy font gains CP. CP can then be used to access higher levels of ability. 2) Requiring champs to head back to base to do their leveling/healing, except in the case of special abilities - another interesting way to modify the board control aspect: Keep the territory, keep the pressure up is the reward, but the risk is that your champ is lower level/lower health. Timing and pace become even more important, as does deploy rate. 3) Bigger maps, hidden areas (fog of war) -- MAKE THE MAPS BIGGER!!! Make areas away from your champs and control invisible to you except for basic terrain features. Place "powerups" or "CP-boosts" in those areas (like the LoL jungle). Make detection/stealth/terrain abilities more meaninful. 4) Non player characters: neutral creatures that confer benefits at the potential expense of lost initiative/map control. The above are things that LoL does that I think are really cool, and that Pox could do in the future. There are some things that LoL does (or is) that I do not like -- it's much more of a "key masher" game - run forward, hack and slash, gain experience, run back, level up, get powerups, and go hack and slash some more. I don't like that kind of game... too much "pew pew" for my taste. I like pox better because I like chess more than I like space invaders... but there are some things about LoL that are VERY cool... I'll never be enough of a keyboard/mouse masher to be good at LoL... but the big maps, the ingame leveling, and the tweaks to board control strategy are really sexy, imo. Thoughts?
Level up - nope Go back to base - absolutely nope Bigger maps, hidden ares - hell yes NPCs - could be a nice idea, along with more interesting campaings (like Warcraft III)
I am interested to hear your reasoning on the first two (I think bigger maps/hidden areas is actually a no-brainer). The NPC implementation could be interesting, even if it's just as a nora-booster.
in old forums there was idea to make font's kind of bases - not based on faction bonus but fonts could have bonus themself's NPC's kinda yes - for egzample you gain X font and X champ is spawned under ur control until u control X font Hidden Areas - hmm yes each game at random squere X relict is spawned that both players benefit from something like cleaning aura things / healing / etc or relicts that dmg both players. or fortified font's - you cant contest it b4 doing 40 dmg for egzample.
I would like to see some sort of benefit conferred when the font is immediately captured, or turned from your opponents control. Could change the font bonuses into active bonuses, that are activated by sacrificing the Nora generated for a period of time (or made neutral). Could make fonts destructible. Could have global terrain effects as active font bonuses, as described above. Lot's of fun things could be done, but first maps need to be addressed, and more mechanics added to them.
1) I did think about that when we were all discussing potential paths for the upgrade system and was considering to bring it up as an idea, but eventually decided that I didn't like it. The reason is that this would be one more case of "the strong get stronger" (the winning player gets an advantage so they win faster, aka positive feedback system) and Pox really already has enough of those. Units leveling up during the game is a pretty typical feature for TBS games, I just don't think it's a great fit for Pox Nora. 2) Healing at the shrine could be interesting, as it would facilitate more tactical retreat options. Keep in mind though that the base in MOBAs is way behind the ancient (shrine), so you can't camp in your base and defend your shrine. Having both shrine and base at the same spot would be pretty lame. Creating a new base object just for this purpose would seem like overkill to me though, so again I don't see this as a perfect fit for Pox. 3) The game can already be pretty slow, I can't really picture it on (considerably) larger maps. Fog of war would enable scouting themes which is always interesting, but it would be a massive change and something that should probably have been decided from the start. There is something to be said for having full information on the battlefield, so I would be very surprised if Pox would make a 180 in that design decision. 4) I think that's mostly a gimmick. If champs don't level up during the game there is little reason to have those. Sure you could come up with some special benefits when you kill them, but that's becoming way too gimmicky for my taste. I like MOBAs, but it's a very different genre. I personally don't think those ideas mix very well with the design of Pox Nora.
