Potion of Greed - First economy item in deadlock?

[JisBeanGaming]

Inspired by Dota's hand of Midas item, the item grants souls advantage to players playing from behind. The item should be balanced in a way that YOU DO NOT WANT TO BUY if youre in an advantage, and YOU WANT to buy it if youre in a disadvantage.

Concept Art Icon

Name: ​	Potion of Greed (Spirit Item)
Cost: ​	3000
Tier:​	3 (Base: +12 Spirit)
Components:​	N/A
Attributes:	+ 5% Magic Resist + 100 Bonus Health + 2.5 Health Regen
Active ability:	Throws the potion at a small target area, anything killed in the area grants you 100 extra souls, maximum of 500 souls gained per use. Cooldown 90 second.
	Cannot be used if you are the highest networth hero in the game.

Other variation concept of ability can be,

Active ability: Allows you to store souls in your potion. Stored souls cannot be used (is untouched) until item is activated. Upon activation, doubles and grants you the souls you stored in your potion. Max of 500 souls stored per ability use. Cooldown 90 second.

OR

Active Ability: Grants you a buff that allows you to gain souls per enemy killed during the duration. Maximum of 500 souls per usage duration. Duration 10 second. Max 500 souls gained. 90 second cooldown.

 

[BuLb]

I play potion of greed, which allows me to gain 500 more souls.

 

[Myling]

Interesting concept though I feel you would want to tweak the conditions for it being useful so that it can't snowball the winning team ahead more. Maybe something along the lines of when activated you get (Base Soul Value + ((Enemy Team Soul Average -Your Soul Count)/Ratio).

So if the average of the enemy teams souls was 17k (Add all the enemy souls together and divide by 6) and you as a player had 14k souls:
17k -14k = 3k. If the Ratio 100 then 3k/100 = 30. So you would get 30 additional soul per kill.

As your soul count gets closer to the enemy teams average the benefits would diminish and if you are ahead of it you would get no bonus at all. Numbers are placeholders and could be tweaked until it was balanced of course.

 

[pakshin55]

Most plausible is just ability to clear waves or camp better. Shouldnt be possible to generate anything from nothing, bad design, the only possible trade off is loss of stats in short distance.

 

[JisBeanGaming]

Interesting concept though I feel you would want to tweak the conditions for it being useful so that it can't snowball the winning team ahead more. Maybe something along the lines of when activated you get (Base Soul Value + ((Enemy Team Soul Average -Your Soul Count)/Ratio).

So if the average of the enemy teams souls was 17k (Add all the enemy souls together and divide by 6) and you as a player had 14k souls:
17k -14k = 3k. If the Ratio 100 then 3k/100 = 30. So you would get 30 additional soul per kill.

As your soul count gets closer to the enemy teams average the benefits would diminish and if you are ahead of it you would get no bonus at all. Numbers are placeholders and could be tweaked until it was balanced of course.

Yeah i was thinking along that line as well, but i was afraid that if i made it too complicated that no one would read it haha.

I like your difference in networth idea though i just think raw numbers are better for balancing. Bear in mind that you only need to use the item 3 times to break even, since you can resell the item back for 1.5k souls.

 

[JisBeanGaming]

Most plausible is just ability to clear waves or camp better. Shouldnt be possible to generate anything from nothing, bad design, the only possible trade off is loss of stats in short distance.

You ever been in a game where you cant go out of base, or your other teammates have cleared your jungle? When there is literally no option for you to farm, this might be the alternative.

Also the other team wouldnt really need to buy this item since
A) It requires an active item slot, which is quite competitive with other greater items.
B) They already have the option of farming their own jungle or other team jungle.

Also note that you DO need to find creeps/minion within that 90 second window, , when all waves have been pushed out, there can be a situation where you cant find any creeps to use it on.

Something out of nothing? IDK thats just a weird argument. What does that even mean

 

[pakshin55]

You ever been in a game where you cant go out of base, or your other teammates have cleared your jungle? When there is literally no option for you to farm, this might be the alternative.

Also the other team wouldnt really need to buy this item since
A) It requires an active item slot, which is quite competitive with other greater items.
B) They already have the option of farming their own jungle or other team jungle.

Also note that you DO need to find creeps/minion within that 90 second window, , when all waves have been pushed out, there can be a situation where you cant find any creeps to use it on.

Something out of nothing? IDK thats just a weird argument. What does that even mean

Since this is 6x6 game, they are taking a big risk of hoarding all resources to themselves, but its a viable strategy. Also why wouldnt you sell this item later to clear up a slot? Finding lane creeps is really not a problem since there is 4 lanes and neutrals. Situation you describing doesnt come out of nowhere, its a result of combined effort you have to face. If there is always bail out option (like splitpush or funny items like ethereal), there wont be balance and weight to almost any decision.
Other team may attempt raising odds with this item after getting the lead on your team. Which will result in stat checking, and without something game changing that works from basic setup and doesnt require items to make it viable (like dynamo ult), you are almost sure to lose.
Everything that generates something from nothing or giving additional resources without trade offs is bad design.

 

[JisBeanGaming]

Since this is 6x6 game, they are taking a big risk of hoarding all resources to themselves, but its a viable strategy. Also why wouldnt you sell this item later to clear up a slot? Finding lane creeps is really not a problem since there is 4 lanes and neutrals. Situation you describing doesnt come out of nowhere, its a result of combined effort you have to face. If there is always bail out option (like splitpush or funny items like ethereal), there wont be balance and weight to almost any decision.
Other team may attempt raising odds with this item after getting the lead on your team. Which will result in stat checking, and without something game changing that works from basic setup and doesnt require items to make it viable (like dynamo ult), you are almost sure to lose.
Everything that generates something from nothing or giving additional resources without trade offs is bad design.

But Dota 2 has hand of midas, are you saying Dota 2 has bad design?

I also have trouble understanding your point. Sorry.

 

[pakshin55]

But Dota 2 has hand of midas, are you saying Dota 2 has bad design?

I also have trouble understanding your point. Sorry.

It is bad design, it came as ragtag from community ideas when no one cared about balance, just fun. In midas case its not too strong due to game dynamics and you getting fixed amount of gold which is not that good as game progresses. I am presenting fundamental problems which they will have to solve after releasing said item. Such designs is either too good or nerfed too much. They cant just exist and be always viable as flat damage reduction (armors, shields, actives.) or some other item that occupies core mechanic interaction. We are talking about resources spawning, not player earning it. This item in theory would be fine if it just increased amount you get from earning for damage trade off or survive ability instead of damage.
Same doesnt apply to said armors - armors occupy one mechanic and doesnt touch others, which doesnt require to have penalty for that. You take less damage but you dont do more damage(slight number increase as with spirit or bullet armor is fine). Weapon upgrades not only gives you better numbers, but ways to deal damage(point blank, headshots or straight resistance cut), if they made enemy deal less damage to you, while you getting a way to deal more damage to him, this would also be a bad design.
This item will allow you to get other items faster while not being a burden you. It treads on everything at once. It would be only balanced by its direct counter, which will steal recources or decrease amount you earn, which will make it a sidecoin situation. If you have this item, enemy shall have opposite item or this item too, he cant ignore you if odds are even.

In dota this item is either used for griefing, bug abuses, intended interaction (double or triple midas with one purchase) or getting money before late game on heroes that dont require items to work at base level.

Nothing that exists is perfect right now, in most cases it was temporal but wasnt so bad to just remove it, removing anything needs reasoning. There are no reason to remove anything if you can just nerf it to ground and try to think of a method to make it viable next patch. Some people likes said midas, if devs to make it viable, then certain people would be happy, and remember that, attaching yourself to a game.
In game like this, they will probably make another midas, but will just change it between patches to appease people and manipulate loyalty and all that.
If there are no problem you have to create it, and get profit from it - whole business scheme of world.
So yes you are right, this item have to be in game, developers are really fond of those endless problematic items. But it wont be good for players in general.
I Hope it came out not too complex.

 

[Abandoned]

This is a very interesting item that also leads to a very interesting discussion. I think Hand of Midas might be the number one most divisive item Dota has ever seen (even more so than Boring King Bar). Hand of Midas is an item that "promises" eventual resources by sacrificing them right now. It's an extremely toxic item in soloqueue and will often be purchased too often and on the wrong heroes - effectively making them much weaker than if they had picked up something else. This is a big detriment to the team's ability to contest objectives or gain map control (and in low skill games ironically also takes away from farming heroes' ability to farm, as people don't understand how weak Hand of Midas is as an item).

This item has a very similar effect: it makes you weak now (honestly not really, because for some reason you also gave it good stats - but let us assume it had been better balanced for the sake of argument) with a promise that it will make you much stronger later. I am not entirely seeing how this item would work for those that are economically "behind" either. This very much feels like another Hand of Midas only with a very ugly conditional edge-case rule to it.

Personally I don't think I would like to ever see an item inspired by Hand of Midas. That item has caused me an immense amount of grief as a soloqueue player.

 

[toafloast]

An item that automatically claims creep souls within a large cone on use might be more interesting.
If it lasts for a duration, acting like Warden's ult, it would be more useful than an instant-use burst of stealing souls.
I think, as a 3000 item, giving it a 70% sale instead of 50% would also useful, to encourage it as a temporary item.
With two players using it at once, it should prioritize the one with the lowest souls, so it can't be used for free denies.