DotaStrategy.com - How to make a GOOD Hero Idea.

Ghost

Imperator Posts: 7817 Joined: 01 Jan 2007 gold

How to make a GOOD Hero Idea.

Posted on Wed Feb 25, 2009 8:18 am

KAPOW!
your not so friendly Blueman has struck again, this time bringing you a guide to Hero Making.

Yes there is already, what some might call a perfectly good guide out there, stickied in the forums, however it was made for an internet community, while not so dissimilar to us, that takes a slightly different approach to hero making.

also, I think they left stuff out.

Without further ado, lets get on with it.

Index

Getting it right the first time

Quick Checklist

Brainstorming
As the other guide says, brainstorming is ESSENTIAL to the making of a hero, if you don't put sufficient thought into a hero, the inevitable result is a bad and thus unpublished idea.
To avoid this, please, think about the hero before...

Random Dude/Dudette wrote:
Right, I'm going to make a Hero Idea!

Concept and Theme
In the index I listed these as separate items and in their own rights they are.
For the purpose of this guide, let us pretend that they are almost exactly the same. You may use either of these to get a hero started, just make sure you have one as it makes your hero unique.

So what is the difference?

Well a theme is exactly what you think it is. Should your hero have a FIRE theme, the abilities it can learn will be largely fire based.

What it boils down to is that once you decide on your theme, you will build your hero around it.

A concept is where ideas generally get more complicated, it can be almost anything.
Generally your concept will be an ability that drifted into your head and you thought...

Random Dude/Dudette, back again wrote:
That would be awesome

or

Random Nerd/Nerdette? wrote:
I wish I could....

Needless to say, you had an idea, now you need to think up the rest of the hero to support the idea.
Fortunately for you, the initial conceptual idea, will generally result in you thinking up a theme.

Role
Your next big question is...

Ghost wrote:
What the f**k is my hero going to do?

Well one of the following ~General Categories~ can help for picking out a role.

True Tank
Hunter
Support
Disabler
Nuke
Healer
Sniper
Assassin
Battlecaster
Warrior

You can create a Hybrid, but be careful as it stands to create imbalance.
Upon choosing, you should have some idea of the core stat, a True Tank will have a HUGE health pool, a mana puddle and attack speed to rival one of the slower animals in our wonderful kingdom. While an assassin will thrive on surprise factors and a Hunter just attempts to destroy anything it finds.

Starting
You have come as far as to have a basic idea of where your hero is going and you have a role, should you have not done this much, turn back, I don't want to read another crappy hero idea.

Naming your Hero
First off, do not just go and type something random in, making sure to have a couple of apostrophes. A name like Shan'dalaji isn't of much value.
sure, if you have made a demon, this can work, but think about it...
How many DotA heroes have a name like this?
and
How many have a hidden meaning?

So hidden/obvious meaning is clearly the way to go, how are you going to do this?
well Google is your friend, you can find this rather hard to locate site here .
Get a word translated into an obscure language
Get a list of names that mean...
Get a name randomly generated...
Just make sure it LINKS back to the THEME or ROLE.

Stats
I'm going to keep this section brief.
I highly suggest using the Hero Idea maker that is found under my strategies to input the stats, it will churn out the starting health and mana when you finish, it provides the rest of the stats in a neat layout making everything easier to read later.
Most heroes get between 6 and 6.5 stat points per level, and have base stats adding up to be close to 60 (~55_.
this does not mean you should strive for balance with...
int:20+2 ang:20+2 str:20+2
this makes for what will most probably be a boring hero. throw the stats around and see what happens, once again keeping the THEME or ROLE of your hero in mind.

The problem with Stories.
The main problem with writing your story at this stage of the process is that you can't hint at the heroes abilities.
I would advise that you do not write a story until after you finish making the rest of the hero UNLESS the story was the original concept.

Abilities

The Essentials.

Make spells visually appealing
Try to theme your icons
Makes most spells original
Ultimate must be original
Strike a balance between actives and passives (no more than 2 passives)

Creating Abilities.
Time for another rather odd hypothetical situation...
I want you to pretend you are playing with Lego.
Each different block is a marker, one is a Timer, one is damage, on is exponential growth, all of them can be found in a variety of different colours.

when you put these together you create abilities.

Damage on its own is a Damage spell, adding Time you get a Damage over Time spell, if you add Exponential growth to this, the damage gets bigger over time, if you go further and add the damage taken by % block, you get maledict.

Back to the real world where abilities are in fact not Lego.
you take a few interesting base effects and merge them into something more then you add flair by specifying visual effects.

Balance
Most people care only about balance when they come to look at your hero, they do not give a flying.. anyway.
if they think your hero is imbalanced when they look at it, they will give it almost an instant thumbs down.

Getting it right. The first time.
so take a look at the damage you do relative to your health.
huge manacosts are not a way to create balance, it needs to be combined with something else, be it cast range or cast time.
If this hasn't done it, take a look at other heroes that already exist.
if one hero can do a 2k damage combo to a hero from a range of 500 in less than 2 seconds.
you can probably get away with doing a 2.5k combo in 4 seconds from melee range.
provided that you are a battlemage.
before posting an idea you should make sure it is largely balanced yourself, as long as it isn't too imbalanced you should be able to get away with it.

A completed hero.
congratulations, you have finished your hero.
should you have followed all these steps, you can probably PM me about the hero without getting a reply along the lines of...

Ghost wrote:
Why do you make heroes?
I mean, to put it nicely, you suck at it.

because generally people decide that I am wrong, then they go onto the users squished list.
you don't want to be there.

Checklist

[ ] Do I have a good story?
[ ] Is my heroes name good?
[ ] Does my hero have a role?
[ ] Are my skills original?
[ ] Do I have less than 3 passives?
[ ] Is my hero balanced?
[ ] Does it all come back and relate to my theme/concept/idea?
_________________

Immortality is fun until your sun decides to supernova.

Last edited by Ghost on Sun Mar 01, 2009 2:08 am; edited 1 time in total

How to make a GOOD Hero Idea.

How to make a GOOD Hero Idea.

I rant because I care.