Day/Night Discussion

[Reldnahc]

So this thread is to discussion the design and implications that occur from having a time based day/night system in Heroes of Newerth. A mechanic carried over from Dota, the day cycle provides some interesting and often overlooked mechanics to the game. Currently, the time changes every 7:30 in game.

The main differences between Day/Night are:

DAY:
1800 Vision Range for Heroes.

NIGHT:
800 Vision Range for Heroes.
Neutrals are not aggravated unless damaged.

These simple changes between the two time periods creates different playstyle adjustments depending on the current time. Less vision means ganking is more effective, wards are more effective, Flint/Artillery can't safely outrange towers, etc. The Neutral sleeping makes it harder for melee to stack and harder to sacrifice yourself to them to deny kills. There are plenty of underlying strategic elements of the system that often seem to not get enough credit.

What would the advantages be of exploring this system? Previously the vision of a hero in Night and Daytime was considered a balancing element, but ever since patch 2.5.12, it is clear that S2 does not wish to explore differing vision ranges at Night.2.5.12: The Night Vision of the following heroes have been changed to 800: * Bombardier (had 1200) * Bubbles (had 1200) * Deadwood (had 1200) * Keeper of the Forest (had 1200) * Torturer (had 900) * Tremble (had 1200) * Valkyrie (had 1200)

What would be the implications of designing heroes around this system? Would it be an element that is impossible to balance in hero design? Could the system become a determiner of when teamfights/ganks/pushing are done or would this cause turtling/rushing? Could the duration of times be adjusted and what would be the possible effects?

To reiterate, this is a simple discussion on the possibilities of the feature and what all it could entail and currently does entail. I'm sure I don't have to say it, but I'll remind you not to post useless suggestions(PORT NIGHTSTALKER PLZ LOL). If you have a suggestion about the system, make it well thought out and analyzed with thought behind it and its intention.

[Gorb]

Approved for topic and subject interest.

I will hopefully get more into this later, got a thousand things to do now. However, I would say that the primary reason why the day/night vision was standardised is also the primary reason you don't see many/any heroes balanced around this concept. It's another layer of complexity in a game with an arguably-steep skill (and learning) curve.

If you keep the effects minimal, but noticeable (range decrease and neutral attention) and consistent across the board, it remains an extra level of immersion that adds a small amount to the game, but doesn't detract from it. In my opinion, of course.

[PzKw]

The largest barrier to using the day/night cycle as a design and balance tool is that the UI doesn't adequately show the time of day properly.Previously, I'd argue the extra vision wasn't on the right heroes. Additionally, no one had any day penalties, which meant that only one side of the coin was being investigated. Relative amount of information available to players is one of the most interesting areas for shaping how heroes and strats are used, and I'm strongly in favour of fleshing out this aspect of the game a lot more with a detailed overhaul of vision ranges and accessibility of clearvision.What needs to occur before this is an update to the UI to make information about the day/night cycle more prominent at least in line with the standards set by WC3 and DotA 2.

[PzKw]

I'm still really sorry about my phone. I don't know why it's doing this paragraph thing .

[Farosarg]

I will hopefully get more into this later, got a thousand things to do now. However, I would say that the primary reason why the day/night vision was standardised is also the primary reason you don't see many/any heroes balanced around this concept. It's another layer of complexity in a game with an arguably-steep skill (and learning) curve.

Biggest deal about this is infact the portion of how little attention to the whole mechanic there is both in the UI design and game-design in general, making the whole thing that much harder to grasp for the new players. More experienced players can and do take advantage of the day/night time cycle by timing their pushes for daytime when it is safer to do so, and ganks for nighttime when it is easier to do so. But if we had further mechanics around it, not just Balanar style but in general, it would be a lot easier for the new players to grasp the significance. As is, if we just want to lower the learning-curve we could just do away with the whole thing at the moment because of how 'mysterious' it appears to be for so many players.