New series again! Will I ever write #2 of anything!? This one is the laziest, because it’s where I copy/paste RAW UNCENSORED INTERNAL DESIGN EMAILS. Only mine though. It wouldn’t be ethical to paste anyone else’s.In this edition, we explore my original proposal and reasoning for why patch 2.0.23 just made a bunch of item tweaks. Obviously not everything went through. We ended up not tweaking Broadsword because there wasn’t much reason to tweak it. Major Totem also ended up being untouched.
TOPIC: Reducing item choices while simultaneously increasing strategic choices
Reducing item redundancy increases item diversity. Right now, your base items telegraph your intended item build. The purpose of these changes is to increase the level of “item confusion” in the game such that when you see someone with a certain basic item, you don’t know what they’re going to get. Meanwhile, players should be able to obtain certain base items with the intention of tricking their opponents, playing mind-games with intended builds.
- Remove: Bastard Sword (1400 gold, 21 damage)
Tweak: Broadsword (1200->1300 gold,18–> 19 damage)
Affected items: Barbed Armor, Riftshards, Runed Axe, Assassin’s Shroud)
These two items are only 200 gold apart, are used in very similar items in terms of role, and feature very minor bonuses. Combining them, and reworking the recipes such that it uses the single new Broadsword would add a lot to potential build diversity. - Remove: Halberd (1500 gold, 21 damage, 15% chance to deal 40 damage)
Affected items: Brutalizer, Savage Mace
There is no point to this item being in the game. In fact, it used to not be in the game at all, before it was added by IceFrog to be in a single item: MKB. It wasn’t until much later that it was added to Cranium Basher as well. Currently Brutalizer is one of the worst items in the game, while Savage Mace doesn’t see much use either. If Halberd were the base component for every RNG-based item in the game, then it’d make sense, but it’s not. As of right now, this is just a filler item with the sole intention of making your intended item build more obvious, which is a bad thing considering the items it builds into. - Remove: Major Totem (540 gold, 3 all stats)
Affected items: Nome’s Wisdom
No-brainer here. The item serves no purpose. Replacing the Major Totem with something like Talisman of Exile would make the buildup much stronger, and help towards our plan of making support more useful with better item buildups.
nomeswisdom.wordpress.com 
You forgot about Major Totem now being on Tablet of Command!!! OH NOES!!!
Good post though :O.
This was written and sent before Major Totem was re-added to Tablet.
But Major totem wasn’t removed
Yeah, it ended up staying. I personally would like to remove it, but I’m gettin’ some resistance on this one 😀
Ironically, it was me that lobbied to save the Major Totem over a year ago.
Any chance of the promised Tremble dev blog soon?
why did you add invisible mines back
did you learn nothing from dota
Was it written when major totem only gave 3 stats too? 🙂
Major Totem is AWESOME, much better than Bracer in my opinion. I think it should stay in, but maybe give it some love in future recipes and reworks? 😉
I like Major Totem, if only for the icon.
I’m disappointed that you didn’t touch on:
– opportunity cost for certain items (shieldbreaker in particular) being drastically lowered
– higher-priced component pieces being drastically reduced in effectiveness as an intended stepping stone
Did anyone mention this in the series of chain emails about the subject?
christ when are you going to fix the RAP textbox
Replacing major totem with Talisman of Exile in both nomes wisdom and tablet of command sounds like a great idea. It gives support heroes a nice build progression.
In practice, more item confusion is potentially a very good thing, but it has some very serious implications for one item in particular, namely Warhammer.
This is now the safest item pickup in the game, since virtually all the generic carry items have it in the recipe. There is no opportunity cost to buying it at all, since it is now in the recipe for the two most cost efficient carry damage items, as well as the most integral carry survival item. This item already built into either Shieldbreaker or BKB, but now going for a shieldbreaker carries far less risk, since if your farm gets slowed for a portion of the game you can turn it into a lategame DPS item instead of a midgame dps item and still have commensurate impact.
That’s really silly. In broad terms I quite like this decision, but I think the specifics were a spot hazy.
I think it’s true, to an extent. Broadsword will remain popular for Runed Cleaver (which is still core on a lot of melee carrys) and Assassin’s Shroud (also core on certain heroes like Gladiator). The bigger problem really is just the “lack” of diverse item choices, which is something we’re working on. So in the long run, this will work itself out.
Good initiative on Token.
It got me thinking though, considering there is no anti-backdoor mechanic in place, don’t you think having inventory for a Homecoming Stone and Token is a little bit redundant.
Making token a buff rather than an item would solve this issue. When Kongor is killed it would drop a rune granting effects of token for 7 minutes?
We thought about making it a buff. I actually prefer it as a buff. The counterargument is that keeping it as an item keeps a “cost” on it.
Surely there are other ways to balance the cost. If there truly ‘needs’ to be a cost, increase respawn delay, reduce total life granted, reduce the timer to 5 minutes ect.
There are, but you’re preaching to the choir here 😛
You want to change the cost:benefit by reducing the benefits, which actually reduces the tactical effect of the gameplay factor. Would it be better for the game to have a new effect on the item to bring the cost:benefit into line, or to alter the overheads of the item to bring the cost:benefit into line? Or would it be better for the cost:benefit to be way out of line to fundamentally change what effect the item causes – eg. the team with it to win the next teamfight no matter what?
I think the changes to Roshan were amongst the more questionable in recent DotA history. Control of the big guy is a far larger gameplay factor than it should be since he’s been easier to kill without bringing commensurate benefits to interaction, length of game, or pace. Reducing the uptime on Token is a good start, but I personally question if Roshan is even a broadly positive thing to have in the game since the sort of heroes who benefit from it are precisely the ones that slow the game down.
Why don’t you copy the Icefrog tp delay mechanic? Isn’t that what all the comp players want?
How much does S2 actually trust that shady Honwars site?
AFAIK they are legit. [S2]JohnnyUtah is working with them, and [S2]MsPudding is helping them with the site. They’ll need to organize a bit better though!
Looking forward to the emails on trebble balance discussion, ie how to get him balanced w/o having another fadye. Ty for the insight btw Nome alot of developers worldnt do this.
There won’t be any emails on that unfortunately, as most of that discussion has been in person. We’ll see how the current wave of nerfs and buffs affect the hero. It might be all that was needed, it might not be. If not, we do have some other ideas in mind that should ease player frustration.
Considered remaking him like practically every person with a long background in DotA and an interest in Balance/Design wants you to?
What about looking at nitch iteams and either expanding them or tweaking them so there not quite so nitch. Refreshed orb, Sac stone, and null to name a few, with the removal of the mana burn on illusions this lift be a time to buff the iteam( and change it to a attack mod to keep it on check). Sac stone is just meh with iteams like SoTM, frostfield plate, and spellshards why would I go sac stone. And refesher is one of those iteams that’s crazy on some heros and just useless on a majority of them. I would leave the mind games to the pros or youll have another warhammer( one thing makes like 8 iteams)
How on earth is SotM more ubiquitous than Sac? How is Nullstone confined to a niche when it’s one of the most picked up items in the game? And how exactly is refresher being in a niche a bad thing?
Your post has some serious credibility problems.
why did blackhertz get fired?
(plsdontbanme)
Is there any reason there has been NO dota ports at all since the Gladiator? (i think?) Not even cooldown on buybacks, or staggered TPs. S2 seem to implement their own take on things even though DotA had it exactly right on certain things, that boggles the mind as to why it wasn’t initially just ported over.
Read between the lines. It’s been posted enough on the forums.
On the other hand, does Nome have any more shitty design for us, or is he content that he’s already inspired enough of us to quit now instead of waiting for DotA 2?
boy are you going to be disappointed by dota 2
Initially, yes. Nothing is perfectly polished at release.
Icefrog’s decisions have been almost universally better than S2’s. I don’t agree with all of them, and there are worrying trends, but fundamentally he’s developing the game much better than they are.
Prior to HoN 2.0 the opposite was true.
It’s cool, HoN got the uninstall treatment. After 8 years, my love affair with this genre is over. I might go back when DotA 2 is released, or if Nome suddenly works out wtf he’s doing, but probably not. I was glad to hear about the ranged Strength hero this friday. Good to see you’re determined to increase the quality of content over dumping more content onto broken systems.
doesn’t the new hero’s ult pretty much counter any positioning skillz