Fling (tier 1 weapon item)

[gibnewitems]

Weapon still doesn't have an 500 souls active item. Let's make one.

Fling
cost: 500 souls
tier: 1
shop bonus: 6% weapon damage
+1m/s sprint speed
+6% fire rate
Passive: Gain a small chance (33%) to find a junk item after breaking a crate, golden statue, or killing a trooper. Junk items take up an active slot, but don't take up an item slot.
List of junk items:

Coin
junk item
Active: Fling a coin towards your crosshair. Returns back if it secures a soul or last hit.

Worn spring
junk item
Active: Fling a spring. Spring causes whatever it hits to bounce upwards. Can be used on allies or yourself.

Old bottle
junk item
Active: Fling an empty beer bottle. Shatters on impact.

Little bell
junk item
Active: Rings. Cancels heavy melee.

Thoughts?

 

[areisul1]

Fun idea! Reminds me of spare parts from Hearthstone

 

[nathanieljbrill]

I really like this! The Coin and Old Bottle don't seem to have a point but Worn Spring and Little Bell are both good ideas. As it stands I don't think anyone would be justified in buying it but if the items were better on average I could see it. Also there is the difficulty of when you have one junk item and you want to keep it then how does finding more junk work? Does the item turn off the junk finding after you get your first item or does it keep finding junk and you can't keep what you want?
My proposal to fix its current issues:
Rename to Mystery Box
It comes with a random gift be it the Coin Spring Little Bell or Beer Bottle. Each time you buy it it is random what you get so you can sell-buy-sell-buy to randomly get what you want and then you keep that until you sell it.

The Coin does a low about of damage but ricochet's with no limit. Eventually (it would take awhile if it's a big one) it could kill any farm and you could go do other things. Should the coin scale? Maybe maybe not.

beer bottle could share the quality with Warden's flask of removing a stamina but does not damage.

 

[gibnewitems]

I really like this! The Coin and Old Bottle don't seem to have a point but Worn Spring and Little Bell are both good ideas. As it stands I don't think anyone would be justified in buying it but if the items were better on average I could see it. Also there is the difficulty of when you have one junk item and you want to keep it then how does finding more junk work? Does the item turn off the junk finding after you get your first item or does it keep finding junk and you can't keep what you want?
My proposal to fix its current issues:
Rename to Mystery Box
It comes with a random gift be it the Coin Spring Little Bell or Beer Bottle. Each time you buy it it is random what you get so you can sell-buy-sell-buy to randomly get what you want and then you keep that until you sell it.

The Coin does a low about of damage but ricochet's with no limit. Eventually (it would take awhile if it's a big one) it could kill any farm and you could go do other things. Should the coin scale? Maybe maybe not.

beer bottle could share the quality with Warden's flask of removing a stamina but does not damage.

I made the junk items with the aspect of being one-time use disposable items in mind. As long as you have open active slots, you can pick up junk items.

I'm kinda surprised that you'd think the coin would be the most useless. I thought that it would be the best junk item by far, especially for the heroes that struggle with securing souls either through low clip sizes or slow bullet velocity.

 

[nathanieljbrill]

I made the junk items with the aspect of being one-time use disposable items in mind. As long as you have open active slots, you can pick up junk items.

I'm kinda surprised that you'd think the coin would be the most useless. I thought that it would be the best junk item by far, especially for the heroes that struggle with securing souls either through low clip sizes or slow bullet velocity.

Nah the coin doesn't sound helpful that way. It would take longer to do the not-muscle-memory active item to shoot an orb than the low velocity bullet would. How much health does a small camp have 200? Yea if the coin did 20 damage and had unlimited ricochet until there wasn't anyone to bounce to that would be much cooler. Something like 10 seconds to kill a small camp. Maybe it ramps +1 damage per boon you have? the idea would remain you just throw it into a group of npcs and eventually it will get them and you don't need to worry about them.

Except now that I say that I realize base guardians would be in trouble. It can just have the caveat that it disappears if it hits an objective.

 

[gibnewitems]

Nah the coin doesn't sound helpful that way. It would take longer to do the not-muscle-memory active item to shoot an orb than the low velocity bullet would. How much health does a small camp have 200? Yea if the coin did 20 damage and had unlimited ricochet until there wasn't anyone to bounce to that would be much cooler. Something like 10 seconds to kill a small camp. Maybe it ramps +1 damage per boon you have? the idea would remain you just throw it into a group of npcs and eventually it will get them and you don't need to worry about them.

Except now that I say that I realize base guardians would be in trouble. It can just have the caveat that it disappears if it hits an objective.

It's literally just pressing one button to fire an extra bullet that can deny and last hit. That would definitely be useful in the laning stage. That ricochet idea would unironically be the most broken item in the game. A big part of jungle (and waves to a certain extent) balancing is the time and attention dedication required to clear it. Making an item that can automatically clear waves and camps while you go out to do something else would hurt and dumb down the overall macro gameplay of deadlock.

 

[nathanieljbrill]

It wouldn't change much at all. You could give a little more attention to Lane, then there's probably a few more times in a game where you'd use it because you have the damage to clear thenm so much faster. You'd probably keep using it on the little camps as you pass by so you don't have to spend 10 seconds walking in there.

 

[gibnewitems]

You could give a little more attention to Lane

That's the problem. You'd be forced to buy this item on practically anybody who wants to farm the jungle. Jungle would have to be immediately nerfed in soul value and respawn time if you could just toss it on a camp and get souls passively.

 

[nathanieljbrill]

It's not that strong dude. Your activated item that doesn't contribute much to Lane but helps you farm small camps passively isn't going to be a must buy.

 

[gibnewitems]

It's not that strong dude. Your activated item that doesn't contribute much to Lane but helps you farm small camps passively isn't going to be a must buy.

I don't think you understand just how broken this ricochet concept would be, especially if it works infinitely as you said. Cold front is incredibly strong right now because of it's interaction with camp clearing and waves. Cold front, but 500 souls and you also get to walk away from the camp to go gank somebody? That would be easily a must buy.

 

[Geneva]

This is an interesting idea, but it would be the most complicated item in the game and incredibly strong in this state. If my opponent has this item and goes to break a box somewhere, they could come back with:

1. An extra bullet that can save two bullets per minion & soul confirm (partial Ammo Scavenger)
2. A one-time use Holliday bounce pad
3. A shrapnel grenade? (Unclear what "shatters on impact" means in this context)
4. An item that can fake a heavy melee to bait a parry or give a large burst of speed if they also have Melee Charge (80% of players would not even think of these as possible actions)
5. Nothing

To be honest, I started typing this out without realizing you also said these could drop from troopers, meaning any and all of these items could drop within a single wave. Even if these effects were weak, they would create way too much variance in what a player is capable of doing at any given time.

(Also, Rapid Rounds already gives +1m/s sprint speed & +11% fire rate, which is nearly identical to this item's base stats.)

 

[Stakhanov]

As posted above , it would be the most complex item in the game - it would be impossible to fit a complete description in a hover popup , leaving players guessing what it may or may not do. Imagine the confusion when it would have some of its sub-items reworked.

 

[ziz4030]

imo would make more sense if it just flung the ‘old bottle’ as the active. like it could combine all four effects by dealing damage, interrupting enemies, and securing souls it hits. and any pickups you find power up its damage permanently

 

[Geneva]

I also just don't see why we even need a 500 cost weapon item with an active. There's already 8 weapon items (compared to vitality and spirit's 7) and half of them have powerful passive effects that give situational or periodic benefits, which suits the category since you are constantly using your weapon. I don't think we're lacking in options for cheap weapon items, there's no niche to be filled.

 

[gibnewitems]

This is an interesting idea, but it would be the most complicated item in the game and incredibly strong in this state. If my opponent has this item and goes to break a box somewhere, they could come back with:

1. An extra bullet that can save two bullets per minion & soul confirm (partial Ammo Scavenger)
2. A one-time use Holliday bounce pad
3. A shrapnel grenade? (Unclear what "shatters on impact" means in this context)
4. An item that can fake a heavy melee to bait a parry or give a large burst of speed if they also have Melee Charge (80% of players would not even think of these as possible actions)
5. Nothing

To be honest, I started typing this out without realizing you also said these could drop from troopers, meaning any and all of these items could drop within a single wave. Even if these effects were weak, they would create way too much variance in what a player is capable of doing at any given time.

(Also, Rapid Rounds already gives +1m/s sprint speed & +11% fire rate, which is nearly identical to this item's base stats.)

(tldr philosophical design bs feel free to skip) I know it would be pretty strong in it's current state. That's the point with designing new content in general. They have to be stronger than average in order to convince people to start interacting with new content, which will lead to the item getting pushed into a balanced state later on from nerfs and hot fixes. Content that releases even slightly weak tends to stay weak for longer than content that releases in a strong state. If it releases really weak, then it could gain a stigma that causes players to avoid it regardless of it's relative power level, even long after it gains buffs or changes. (end of philosophical design bs)

That said, I think you misunderstood a little bit on how these items would work (can't blame you since I could've done a better job explaining them).
2. Spring isn't a bounce pad style deployable. It's a projectile that bounces player entities upwards on a direct hit.
3. "Shatters on impact" as in the loch n load from team fortress 2 (deals no damage or pushback if it doesn't hit a direct).

Nothing about stats, proc chances, or means by which it could drop are final.

I don't think adding more complexity is all that much of an issue.

 

[Geneva]

(tldr philosophical design bs feel free to skip) I know it would be pretty strong in it's current state. That's the point with designing new content in general. They have to be stronger than average in order to convince people to start interacting with new content, which will lead to the item getting pushed into a balanced state later on from nerfs and hot fixes. Content that releases even slightly weak tends to stay weak for longer than content that releases in a strong state. If it releases really weak, then it could gain a stigma that causes players to avoid it regardless of it's relative power level, even long after it gains buffs or changes. (end of philosophical design bs)

That said, I think you misunderstood a little bit on how these items would work (can't blame you since I could've done a better job explaining them).
2. Spring isn't a bounce pad style deployable. It's a projectile that bounces player entities upwards on a direct hit.
3. "Shatters on impact" as in the loch n load from team fortress 2 (deals no damage or pushback if it doesn't hit a direct).

Nothing about stats, proc chances, or means by which it could drop are final.

I don't think adding more complexity is all that much of an issue.

I agree with your philosophy on balance design. Releasing new content overtuned is almost always better than releasing undertuned. I've seen this in nearly every live service game I've followed.

Adding complexity to the game in general is fine. The problems come when adding complexity that is based on random chance, not player skill, and is accessible to every hero within the first minute of a game. It wouldn't matter what each item did or how strong they are, the base mechanic is still an opt-in Diablo loot table, which I don't see fitting in a MOBA.

I think the coin idea has potential. I could see an active that was just the coin that went on cooldown if it doesn't last hit or soul confirm/deny. Thinking about coins also makes me want a hero with the bullet-bouncing coin from ULTRAKILL...