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MOBA board game combat system

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Sat, 03/28/2020 - 02:43
Milostnik
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Hey everyone,

I’ve got a great idea for a MOBA style board game and was wondering what your thoughts are in Combat systems?
In a board game sense it’s a kinda staple to use Dice it and element of randomness with combat and damage but in MOBAs you generally have a LVL of the team or hero and that influences their damage and abilities.
Would a system with automatic Damage being applied be too simple and with no “thrills”? Or is a dice or random system appropriate for MOBA style combat?

Another conundrum is the XP and Minions. I have thought up a mechanic where the more minions you kill (and heroes) adds more XP into your XP pool which gives you the ability to cast Ultimates or special abilities. Like a currency. Does that seem like a balanced mechanic to reward players who farm minions?

Thanks very much :)

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Sat, 03/28/2020 - 11:56
#1
Juzek
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Personally, I prefer when

Personally, I prefer when dice are used to narrow down your action choices rather than to determine damage. A 6 sided dice can be 6 times it's lowest roll which is a large span, and custom dice could get expensive if you aren't doing a large print run.

I like the fight minions to gain currency to use it to fight heroes. If you put a cap on how much they can hold, players will get to chose when the best time is to be fighting minions vs heroes.

Mobas are fun on a computer cause you are micromanaging a specific character, and the computer takes care of all the fiddly bits of minions and auto attacking. I think your challenge with this is to get the same feel, and not get bogged down in AI and trackers. You will need keep the game moving, and streamline everything.

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Sat, 03/28/2020 - 15:36
#2
let-off studios
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MOBAs in the Real World

Full disclosure: I don't play MOBAs and I am at best passing familiar with them by watching clips and snippets of matches on YouTube every once in a while.

Juzek wrote:
Mobas are fun on a computer cause you are micromanaging a specific character, and the computer takes care of all the fiddly bits of minions and auto attacking. I think your challenge with this is to get the same feel, and not get bogged down in AI and trackers. You will need keep the game moving, and streamline everything.
One way to do this is to further abstract the minions. If the game focuses on the actions of the player, who acts as a leader for the attacking forces, then the success of the minions can be shown on a "momentum track." The player can choose between certain actions, some of which may influence the position of the player's forces on the momentum track. Their opponent is doing the same thing, sometimes focusing on immediate leader-related actions, sometimes attacking or defending with the minion forces.

The result is a reverse "tug of war" for lack of a better turn, where players push their team forward to gain ground, and are pushed back upon to lose ground, on this track. The track represents the "bigger picture" of success for the player, and the player that makes it to their opponent's end of the track is the victor.

I'm also wondering if you can expand on this idea, and have a layout on the map/board between players, showing the position of different command points that need to be claimed.

The challenge with this kind of design, I think, is in allowing for comebacks and rubber-banding so that, even when one player loses too much momentum, there's still a chance they can regroup and come back for a victory. Either that, or just shorten the game so that once the winner is determined, the game ends as quickly as possible.

Regarding dice: I appreciate dice and acknowledge the dramatic spread between a 1 and a 6 (for example). Using Fudge Dice - which aren't so uncommon these days - may be one way to implement fistfuls of dice without having such dramatic differences between the highest and lowest results. I dunno, but if one is dead-set on using such a random factor, it's worth a try.

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Sat, 03/28/2020 - 16:13
#3
questccg
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MOBA Genre = Guards of Atlantis

Arty (@ElKobold) designed a game a while back ago ... Maybe 3 years ago... Not many of us knew what MOBA was and so his concept was very novel. Here's a BGG link to the game:

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/172965/guards-atlantis-tabletop-moba

I didn't read your OP... But I read MOBA and you had questions. So I figured Arty would be the best person to discuss your ideas with since he had a bunch of his own issues with designing something MOBA Genre... Meaning that it is INSPIRED by MOBA games but is an ADAPTATION for physical TableTop Gaming.

If you want to PM Arty, SEARCH "ElKobold" and click the users from the results. From there you should see his profile and you can PM him if you like... Cheers!

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Sat, 03/28/2020 - 20:25
#4
Milostnik
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Thank you all for your in

Thank you all for your in depth and valuable feedback.

And yes this is the idea I’ve kinda settled on developing with that previous post I put up about art and design. Is great example of the tone of game would be the Pc game Awesomenauts

Like you mentioned, I wanted to take a lot of inspiration from MOBA games. In particular the ones that only go for 30 (absolute maximum). The goal for this would be designing something that is quick, fun, super easy to play and hard to master. Hopefully I’m a fairly small and print friendly box.

I guess the whole Randomised dice thing has to be tried before I lean one way or the other.

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