Rival Hero Interactions: wasted potential

[okrane]

I believe the rival hero interactions can be done a bit better. Now the thing is, the idea in itself is brilliant as it adds a good layer of depth into playing the game. Heroes taunting each other by their name and what not. However what is bad is the frequency of this happening.

Example. There are currently 100 heroes in DotA (give or take) if one hero has a rival, the chance of both being in a game on opposite sides is really small. (of the order of 1 in 10 000 - won't do the math right now). Next, in order for the sound to play you need for 1 hero to be the killer of the other. If a hero gets about 10kills per game (which is a lot) we could estimate that the rival lines will play only 2 times per game in average. So you have 2 times per game in 1 in 10000 games! That's not a lot.

Now, in order to improve the this ratio there are three things that can be done:

a) add many rivalries. One hero could have up to 20 rivalries that way increasing the chance of having a pair of rivals in the game.

b) Rival lines can play as Hero interactions not only when Killing the Hero but on multiple occasions that heroes interact.
Examples:
- You are in lane against your rival, you trade hits: a speech line, (like "I'm gonna kill you Kunkka") can pop.
- You are in lane and you deny a creep from your rival. With a certain chance someone can say something. ("You won't get gold while I'm here, Kunkka")
- The rival escapes with low hitpoints after a teamfight ("Oh no, you let Kunkka get away")
- An ally gets a kill on the rival and you get an assist (or not) - "Great Job, you killed my enemy, I am in your debt"

And so on. The idea is that these lines should pop up at a controlled pace, you don't want spamming them so people grow sick but say one line every 5-10 minutes is very good for flavor.

c) add friendship lines as well. If contributing together on an assist, or laning together, or healing someone, etc.
In the same way I have described above, allies can also talk more to each other. Again, it mustn't spam or anything, but a speech here or there can make the speeches seem a lot more flexible.

The great plus is that because you always will have an ally or enemy with which your hero has a special interaction you will hear new sounds nearly every game. This means that the speech can never grow old and boring, as we were used to in Warcraft III with the same lines over and over again. It will help add some variation to stuff we will get used to in the long run.

[1337_n00b]

b) Rival lines can play as Hero interactions not only when Killing the Hero but on multiple occasions that heroes interact.
Examples:
- You are in lane against your rival, you trade hits: a speech line, (like "I'm gonna kill you Kunkka") can pop.
- You are in lane and you deny a creep from your rival. With a certain chance someone can say something. ("You won't get gold while I'm here, Kunkka")
- The rival escapes with low hitpoints after a teamfight ("Oh no, you let Kunkka get away")
- An ally gets a kill on the rival and you get an assist (or not) - "Great Job, you killed my enemy, I am in your debt"

First one would be a little too obnoxious, and the second is almost impossible to code, same for the third. The fourth one, I would agree, sounds kind of cool.

By the way, there are some original rivalries, such as Clockwerk vs Tinker vs Sniper (Clockwerk has different lines for attacking the two, for following them, for dying by their hands and even for hookshotting Tinker) and Lina vs Rylai (same).

Friendship lines are recorded for some heroes, and Omni actually uses them.

[okrane]

First one would be a little too obnoxious, and the second is almost impossible to code, same for the third. The fourth one, I would agree, sounds kind of cool.

By the way, there are some original rivalries, such as Clockwerk vs Tinker vs Sniper (Clockwerk has different lines for attacking the two, for following them, for dying by their hands and even for hookshotting Tinker) and Lina vs Rylai (same).

Friendship lines are recorded for some heroes, and Omni actually uses them.

For the first one, as I said, it shouldn't pop too often. Like a 1% probabiliy when taking or dealing damage to the said hero.
Second one I am sure it is codeable. For example if you and your rival hit the same creep and you manage to deny it this can pop. It it sufficient that it pops only once in the laning phase to get the good athmosphere effect. And don't tell me this situation won't happen at least once in a lane.

[ShadowThanatos]

First one would be a little too obnoxious, and the second is almost impossible to code, same for the third. The fourth one, I would agree, sounds kind of cool.

By the way, there are some original rivalries, such as Clockwerk vs Tinker vs Sniper (Clockwerk has different lines for attacking the two, for following them, for dying by their hands and even for hookshotting Tinker) and Lina vs Rylai (same).

Friendship lines are recorded for some heroes, and Omni actually uses them.

Ordering your hero to attack a rival hero would be easy to detect (detect attacker and target) but may cost tons of time to write tons of lines.
This one, I think it work like: you denied a creep, while your rival is trying to attack it, then the relation between these 3 would be (killer (you), attacked (creep) and attacker (your rival)).
The fourth one might be tricky. Hmmm, they might check the range between you and your friend and check if your friend is taking damage and his health is lower than 25%?
The final one should be easy.

To sum up, I believe these things are possible.

[Geek]

This is kind of late, but one problem: Voice Talent. Valve cannot magic all these people into their studios at the drop of a hat and prodcue AMAZING lines. These kinds of things take hours of rehersal and some lines need to be repeated over and over until its just right.

You've seen how long it takes for movie studios to produce a movie with voice actors. Well its the same with games; there are so many voice actors used by DoTA2 and every time they want to add dialogue they have to get the actor in the studio and get the lines set up etc.

[areid2]

Also their rarity is what makes them so enjoyable. I love the fact that you might here them 100 games in for the first time (or longer). It's something that keeps the game interesting for longer.

[1337_n00b]

Yeah, and sometimes they actually aren't. You know, there was that game where I killed Sniper and almost only Sniper throughout the whole thing. I was Tinker. Good lord, was I fed up with his single rivalry line for him.

LETTING ME OUT OF YOUR SIGHT WAS YOUR FIRST MISTAKE.

SNIPER.

[D2P.Nexus]

Ok, the date of your post is pretty old, but still not so far away(Myb only 6-7 heroes difference), so I am able to say that your statement: 1 from 10000 games isn't valid. If you are looking for an exact quotes, for example when Venom kills Viper, yeah, then you will have them in 1 from 100 games. But if you are looking for any kind of rival quotes, you will get them almost in every game. So the current algorithms are fine.

[Animalgreed]

Also their rarity is what makes them so enjoyable. I love the fact that you might here them 100 games in for the first time (or longer). It's something that keeps the game interesting for longer.

This pretty much sums it up, think of it like easter eggs.