6.85 and Creep Stacking

Hello all,

There's been a lot of fantasy 6.85 patches going on here on DOTAfire, and I'd like to address one of the most common changes: creep stacking.

The problem is that creep stacking is slowing down games and providing too much reliable gold and comeback. (??) Now, I don't quite understand this, but most people seem to not like creep stacking.

Some suggestions were to give creeps bonus health per times stacked, or even go as far as saying a camp can only be stacked once.

Now I don't like to you use word 'hate' a lot, but I'm going to use it here. I hate that last idea. Not only is it altering fundamental game mechanics, it's also destroying heroes like Medusa, Sand King, Tidehunter, Batrider and others who rely on stacks to get their farm.

I'd suggest one of two remedies:

1. Give all creeps bonus magic resistance.

Or, you could do it the IceFrog way. Instead of simplifying the game, you make it more complicated and you buff Chen.

You give different creeps different auras that increase health, armour, and magic resistance. This means that the more you stack the camp, the more auras there are, and the harder it is to kill. Also, nerf Batrider.

Just a thought.
~TheSofa

The issue isn't that it provides too much reliable gold, it's that the gold it provides is such a safe alternative to roaming around. Like, why would you go wandering for a kill when you can fall back to the jungle instead and get a few hundred guaranteed gold instead of few hundred potential gold. In fact, you probably get more gold from farming through the jungle and your creep wave than you would for a gank, because you only get tick gold in the time you are moving.

I wrote a big piece on efficiency which went into that whole thing in detail.

The change I've always been in favour for has been something that makes stacks harder to farm, like Icefrog did to ancients with the Granite golem. It means that the mechanic isn't removed (And thus crippling more heroes than are needing of them), but it's made less efficient and thus the game can shift in other directions.

Now you can either do this through the introduction of a new creep (Or say buff an existing one like the Ogre, or medium Satyr) that has the effect of adding more magic resistance, or more raw HP depending on which you want to see. Or through Snuggles way of increasing HP per stack.

But we've had about 4-5 ideas across the forum over the past few days. Which is kinda neat, because it shows that a) We all identified the issue, or at least acknowledged it. And b) We all have unique approaches to balancing the game.

Tbh I'm happy are discussing this seriously, even if they don't like my initial suggestion.

The point I would pick you up on though is that "this is a fundamental game mechanic". DOTA was never designed as such, it's a very organic, evolutionary game, with multiple inputs, bugs and complexities that make it what it is.

Creep stacking is a bug. It's a bug that has been embraced and made part of the game. DOTA doesn't have an over-arching design, it's a series of incremental changes built on top of each other. Removing or reducing stacking does not change something which doesn't exist - a fundamental design.

I don't hate creep stacking at all. I like the advantages it gives me as a player, I enjoy the efficiency and skill required to do it properly.

The problem is that people have really cottoned on to just what a safe and effective method of farming it is. Why leave the lane to gank when:

1) You might not get anything.
2) You might even lose what you have if it goes wrong.
3) You could get more by staying put and killing stacks.

It's not a difficult decision, from the player's perspective.

Players will play to win, that's what they do. Good players make rational decisions.

The rational decision is to sit in the jungle killing stacks.

Unfortunately, this makes for pretty boring gameplay when everyone starts doing it. It reduces the viable hero pool substantially. Even if you nerfed the current crop of favourites somehow, a whole bunch of others would be waiting in the wings. You can't nerf every AOE nuke. And while magic AOE is the current problem, if you don't deal with the whole issue, it'll just morph into something else where another kind of hero profits.

I'm not saying that jungle stacking should be destroyed, or made utterly unrewarding. What I'm suggesting is that there should be a good balance between the viability of going to gank, and farming some stacks. Dangerous activities should be more potentially rewarding, safe activities less so. It's what makes for interesting decision making.

At present, even if you make stack farming 10-15% harder and/or less rewarding...it's still a good option. It's a safe option. It'll work 95% of the time unless you happen to get ganked. In which case the opposition got tick gold on 2-3 heroes and a lump sum split between them...they might still be behind overall.

Safe options are generally preferable in competitive play over risky ones - they'll win you a higher % of games. We need to make it so that farming stacks is maybe 60% of the value of a gank (which could return between -50% to 100% depending on result), otherwise the decisions don't stack up.

Sure, we don't want to end up in some snowballing / deathballing meta, but finding the right balance to make all main strategies (farm/push/gank) equally viable and potentially successful. At the moment farm is OP. All we're seeing is a ricing meta where the ricing happens a lot faster and more efficiently.

EDIT: Thinking about this some more...maybe we're being too simplistic in our outlook. If the desired outcome is more fighting between heroes...maybe stacks could be tied to that in some way. Like how runes spawn and are captured - they create a focal place and time where enemies are likely to come across each other. Maybe creep stacks could be controlled or earned in some way that both encouraged battles, but also didn't snowball the winning side too heavily. Perhaps some compensating factor like sides with lots of stacks get diminishing returns.

Yeah, I agree. What if we made lane farming more efficient than jungle farming by generating more creeps a wave?

It would be easier to gank and more risky to farm I guess. Still, nerf the creep clear, buff the creeps, don't touch the stacking mechanic.

That doesn't fix the issue. Like, all these heroes who flash farm stacks are also heroes who by nature can flash farm creep waves; They nuke down a creep wave at the 15s mark say, go in, clear the camp by the next 00, and can be back in lane ready for the next wave, or back in base at full HP and mana - They miss 1-2 waves at most, waves which are usually given to a support to give them some EXP and gold. So it's not even like the waves are missed.

The easier thing to do in my mind, is to make stack farming less efficient through stuff like magic resistance, more HP ect ect, and then make kills worth more gold so that rotating for kills is actually worth it in terms of the gold. Rotations being more valuable means you see them attempted more often.

Of course the second issue is that rotations themselves become predictable to a certain point.

As a Sand King main, stacking is life, and the only reason the hero is viable. Sure it can be changed, and many heroes would do just fine, like SF and Storm.

But heroes like SK, Axe, and Batman will be left in the dust with the most fundamental part of their gameplay wrecked and would need buffs to compensate.

Exactly.

Fair points, it's going to be difficult to balance all this to keep everyone viable, whatever solution you come up with. I just don't think that doing nothing is an option. Maybe a combination of a relatively small % HP increase on stacks, combined with a more punative % reduction in gold depending on the number of stacks in your jungle, or even something really evil like the number of stacks GLOBALLY so that teams can rekt each other :)

Before going into what can be done to "fix" clearing multiple Stacked Camps for Farm, you have to consider the different ways the Jungle is used.

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1st of all (and most obviously), there are Heroes that Farm Lanes, then Rotate into the Jungle to Farm Stacks. Initially they aren't capable of clearing even a Single Creep Camp without major difficulty at lvl1, but by lvl11, they tend to be capable of clearing Quad Stacks in under a minute.

While it is possible to buff Jungle Creeps in order to slow them down, these Heroes inevitably become capable of clearing the Stacks anyway (so long as the buffs aren't to ridiculous proportions).



Next are the Heroes that rely on quickly Clearing Stacks to get a fast 2~3k Gold item (usually Blink Dagger around the 9~15 minute mark. Many of the buffs to Stacked Creeps suggested have a huge impact on these guys, potentially making their Jungling unviable.



The ""kill" one Creep very quickly" Heroes (featuring Hand of Midas), altering Auras or HP indirectly Buffs or Nerfs some of these heroes, for example, imagine if Doom Bringer could suddenly get huge Magic resistance, or if Clinkz could get significantly higher HP + Damage from a Creep.

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So the problem is that Stacking somehow has to be nerfed for the 1st set of Heroes, but buffing the Stacks seems to hugely impact on the other 2 sets of Heroes. So it's fair to agree that touching the Creeps or Stacks themselves can cause unwanted results.

Since the problem lies in creating Stacks, the solution will probably also be found there, so how about we nerf the 1st set of Heroes ability to Stack without touching any other Heroes ability to Farm (well, 1 or 2 can always be buffed to compensate).

There are 3 ways the Camps get Stacked:-

• The heroes themselves leave their Lane for a short time to Stack (usually Solo Mids)
• The Heroes themselves buy Helm of the Dominator and Stack with a Jungle Creep
• Supports are bossed into Stacking for them 8{3

Gentlemen (because Grill gamers are a myth), I suggest to you, that the method to resolving the issue with Stacks can be found somewhere within these 3 methods

I will just ignore this side note for Xyrus well-being :P

Unlike with the Glimmer Debate, I do agree completly with the change to the stack and farm mechanic. Heroes like SS are now safely farming in their jungle instead of ganking, which makes for boring games. Of all of what was said here, I think Xyrus is closest to the truth: you want to "nerf" the ability from the first set of heroes to do that, but not cause too many problems with that to the other sets.

What I don't get, however, is what are the 3 suggested methods to do it (where are they?). Are they in relation with the 3 ways there are of stacking? If so, I can't see a way of going around them - supports can always be bossed to make stacks, even if you change Helm of the Dominator or the creep waves. Explain these better, please.

The only way I can see this changing is, unfortunetelly, to affect the stacks as a whole indeed, in one of the various ways suggested, like dimishing gold per stack. Let's be honest, maybe a change in the way heroes like Axe and Sand King are played isn't a bad thing either, because instead of passively farming until they get their Blink Dagger they would be forced to participate in lanes more. I do love Sand King, but if he isn't viable without farming stacks, then something should change in that regard as well.