Hindsight is 20/20. Deadlines aren’t! Let’s see what I did wrong…

Tremble was the first hero of mine to be implemented, and was rife with problems. We selected him for the interactivity of the Mounds and teleportation, but the rest of the design was largely unfinished, as he was my newest and least thought-out design (coming after Midas, Sylph (unreleased), Cerberus (scrapped), Astaroth (scrapped), and Nomad). His development occurred during a painful transition process, as he was the first hero to fall into the new “one hero per two weeks” schedule. The original intent of the design was to create a proxy for DotA’s Broodmother, but incorporate some unique mechanics, primarily in the addition of teleportation between webs. I’d long had a fascination with semi-permanent summons, especially structure-like summons, which create a very interesting dynamic of dependence between the character and his summons, making positioning and planning extra important. I’d always perceived Broodmother’s webs to be problematic due to their lack of direct counter, but this perception led to a particularly fatal design decision with Tremble’s Terror Mounds–they were given health. This sank Mounds into a balance quandary, as destructible summons must be more powerful than indestructible summons simply due to an availability of a counter. Terror Mounds needed to be useful early, but not completely phase out later when teams roamed together and were able to quickly destroy them. During the laning phase, the presence of the powerful destructible Mounds created a psychological calling that invited players to constantly try to kill them. The problem induced here was largely in the mind of players, as they would spend so much time trying to kill it that they ignored harassment, creep kills, or the more direct counter: Wards of Revelation. I learned an important lesson here about summons:

I: Invisible and destructible: Summons in this category are the most annoying to the player, as a clear, hard counter exists (detection). This typically means the summon has to be fairly powerful to accommodate for players countering it a portion of the time.

II: Invisible and indestructible: This is slightly less annoying than the above, as they are only partially countered by detection. However, the fact that they have two layers of strength makes this combination the strongest.

III: Visible and destructible: Visible and destructible is the weakest combination of properties, and generally these summons must have a strong passive, lingering effect. Tremble’s Mounds fall ionto this category, and they were hence given plenty of health.

IV: Visible and indestructible: On the other hand, a summon that is visible and indestructible is perhaps the least annoying for an opponent. They see it and understand that they can do nothing about it, so therefore accommodate their play around it.

In terms of player annoyance, from least to greatest: IV, II, I, III

In terms of post-balance power, from least to greatest: II, I, IV, III

Not only are Tremble’s Terror Mounds the most annoying to players, they must also be very powerful to accommodate for their visibility and destructibility. In retrospect, Tremble’s Mounds should have been visible and indestructible to alleviate frustration, then balanced from there. While the ability to counter his teleportation is important to his current form, the amount of time required to track down his Mounds ends up reducing overall action in the game. It’s about taking the lesser of two evils in order to foster a well-designed game.

Here’s what I would do now:

Terror Mounds: now invulnerable and unselectable, movement bonus reduced slightly

Terror Port: reveals you for the duration of the channel, tunneling effect plays at the destination Terror Mound during the channel