Author Topic: Silly item names/icons in DoTS  (Read 15644 times)

Silly item names/icons in DoTS
« on: October 05, 2014, 02:34:26 PM »


A lot of the items in DoTS are based on touhou directly, but there are
quite a few that I would label as 'silly', based around internet memes, or word jokes. They seem
more like placeholders for 'real items' where the real item simply hasn't been thought of yet.
They ruin the 'immersion factor' for me, brother sharp is some random real person,
what's that got to do with Touhou and Gensoukyou?
Since the inception of dots there have been a few more iterations of Touhou,
and we are quite at the point now that it should probably be possible to get a full
complement of items just from things in the touhou universe, without having to
add those silly items to fill out the missing 'gaps'. I believe that's mainly the reason they exist.
I would want to pose a suggestion to the developers to shuffle things around a bit so these are not needed,
but I ask for additional expertise on all things Touhou to really make this as good as it can be a
suggestion.

Important: This has very little to do with game balance and is a purely cosmetical thing. I believe the
only balance-related thing in here is switching around the buildup of the bloodstone equivalent so it's
more natural.

I want to create a proposal with the help of others to fill the gaps, and submit this as a suggestion
to the developers, so the silly items can get replaced by touhou ones.

I propose to replace the following
items with equivalents from the TH universe. (I.e. don't get rid of any actual
gameplay logic / balance, just change names and icons to fit better). 

Silly item list (using the translated names from touhou wiki, everything with a star
has a suggested replacement so far):

- Jiao Shao's Mask *
- Tacticus *
- Brother Sharp *
- Go home and get married *
- Green Dam Youth Escort *
- Internet Addiction Eliminator (IAE) *
- 3D Escapade *
- Newbie Detector B *
- HJ's Bug *
- Xiao Yushen's Adamantine *
- You sure that's enough Armor? *
- Red Llama *
- Green Llama *
- Blue Llama
- God's Right Hand *
- Wooden Stool
- Concordia *
- Gum *
- Yuri/Lily *

Those are the most silly items. Suppose all of these managed to be replaced. Then we can repeat
our procedure for the items that now seem silly, iteratively, until there are only in-universe things left.
For example, the second round might pick out:

- ZUN's glasses *
- Recipe of Oz *
- Paper mask *
- Sin Pouch *
- Tiny Scissors *
- Small Hammer *
- Little Screwdriver *
- Birdy *

So, what to replace the items with? There are quite a few touhou items not yet in the game. Why not see if
some of these can be introduced instead of the silly items, which seem like temporary placeholders.
Walking through the touhou games from 6 to 14, we have the following things that don't
have an equivalent in DOTS, that could be an inspiration for new items.
Touhou chars who already have their signature item(s) in are not listed. When I couldn't think of
something to replace, I listed a dota item which it could copy instead (one which isnt' in the map yet),
or it says ??? which means unclear:

Series
   Character
      Item                     Replaces (suggested dota equivalent)
PC-98 games
   Mima
      Lunar staff                  ???
   Alice
      Forbidden Grimoire            ???
6 (Embodiment of Scarlet Devil -- EOSD)
   Koakuma / Remi / Flan
      Devil's soft shoes OR           Red Llama   
      Bat Wings                  Red Llama
   Sakuya / Marisa
      Apron                     Sin Pouch
7 (Perfect Cherry Blossom -- PCB)
   Generic
      Cherry blossom               (Tango)
   Prismrivers
      Ghostly Trumpet               ???
      Ghostly Keyboard            ???
   Youmu
      Roukanken                  (Sange)
      Hakurouken                  (Yasha)
      (both)                      (Sange & Yasha)
   Ran
      Fried tofu                   ???
7.5 ()
   Suika
      Oni Chains                  Yuri/Lily   
8 (Imperishable Night -- IN)
   Generic
      Time orb                  ???
      Rabbit ears                  Recipe of Oz, switch with basics of wind magic.
                              (so we have two kinds of ears as +6 items)      
   Mystia
      Grilled Lamprey Eel            ??? [one of the foodstuffs]
   Tewi   
      Rice mashing mallet            Small hammer
   Reisen
      Lunatic red gun               Internet Addiction Eliminator
   Kaguya
      Five Impossible Requests      ???
9 (Phantasmagoria of Flower View -- PoFV)
   {Everything seems to be in from this game}
10 (Mountain of Faith -- MoF)
   Nitori
      Kappa cloak generator         (Shadow Blade / Lothar's)
   Momiji
      Tengu Shield               You sure that's enough armor
      Tengu Sword                  Paper mask
   Momiji/Aya
      Tengu Sandals               Green Llama
   Kanako
      Magic Mirror               Birdy
   Suwako / Ichirin
      Golden Ring                  Jiao Shao's Mask
10.5 (Scarlet Weather Rhapsody)
   Tenshi Hinanawi
      Hisou Sword                  God's Right Hand (Reaver)
11 (Subterranean Animism -- SA)
   Kisume
      Bucket                     ???
   Orin / Rin Kaenbyou
      Hellcart                  Newbie detector B [Summon ghost fairies instead]
12 (Undefined Fantastic Object -- UFO)
   Nazrin
      Dowsing Rod                  ???
   Toramaru Shou
      Polearm                     Tiny scissors
   Hijiri Byakuren
      Sorcerer's Scroll            Go home and get married (sheepstick)
   Nue Houjuu
      Trident                     Tiny Screwdriver
      UFO                       ???
13 (Ten Desires -- TD)
   Yoshika Miyako
      Zombie Amulet               Tacticus (Heart of Tarrasque)
   Seiga Kaku
      Ghostly hairpin               3D escapade
   Mononobe no Futo
      Enchanted Plates            ???
   Toyosatomimi no Miko
      Headphones                   ???
      Shichi-sei Sword            Brother Sharp
14 (Double Dealing Character -- DDC)   
   Shinmyoumaru Sukuna
      Miracle Mallet               Lunar weapon
   Raiko Horikawa
      Taiko Drums                  Green Dam Youth Escort
   Mamizou Futawa
      Notebook                  ???
      
Other official works
   Forbidden Scrollery         
      Necronomicon /Demon (oni) Book   Concordia
                  
   
      
GENERIC
   Yokai Cape                  Zun's Glasses
   Fairy wings                  Blue Llama
   Frilly dress               Recipe: Birdy, Gum, Fruit basket. Replace HJ's Bug
   Frilly garments               Recipe: Frilly dress + ZUN hat. Replace Adamantine      
   Various hats               ???
      Keine's Hat               Green Dam Youth Escort
      Hair ribbon               Gum
      Frog hat               ???
      Tengu hat               ???
      Nurse hat               ???      

      
Some  notes:

Of the items left with question marks, it would be especially nice to somehow
get the Dowsing rod, Headphones, and UFO in there, as these are prominently
featured on the relevant character(s). In general it would be adviseable to have more
'major' items in Gensokyo as the final items in the buy chain, or those items with actives / auras.
This improves the immersion factor as these items are then also more 'notable' in this game. For example
the onbashira feature more prominently in the design of Kanako than her mirror, and the former
should be a final / complex item while the latter is not.

We can replace the Llamas either by actual boots (like is common in DoTA, although for consistency's sake
this means also replacing the magic broom with boots and having this item become something else (a force
staff like thing maybe, like marisa uses in the fighters?). The alternative would be replacing the Llamas
by various flying implements, such as fairy wings, bat wings, (etc). Unfortunately this alternative would
then question what to do with the phoenix wings. It would be nice for the mod if there was a
consistent set of 'boots' equivalents. Another option is to use various 'hats' as boots, which would allow
various 'wings' to replace the current 'hats' as HP/MP items.

Seiga can pass through walls. It would make sense to give her item the ethereal modifier.
Another alternative is to include one more Yuyuko-themed item and give it to that.

Since Roukanken is the Youkai sword, so it makes sense to have this sword focus around strength.

The Yokai cape is a reference to capes used by Sekibanki, Utsuho, Miko, and others.

The upgrades for the ZUN hat (the BUG and adamantine) might possibly become more elaborate hats.
The frilly dress / garments suggestion is also a good solution, though it means swapping some recipes
around for it to make some more sense.

There's no item to cut down trees like the Quelling blade. Of course a 'chensaw' would do the trick but
that would commit the same fallacy the items that are removed here are doing only in English. There are
no replacements for the blue llama and wooden stool yet. Maybe some shuffling around might have those
included...

Helepolis

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Re: Silly item names/icons in DoTS
« Reply #1 on: October 06, 2014, 06:44:47 AM »
A lot of the items in DoTS are based on touhou directly, but there are
quite a few that I would label as 'silly', based around internet memes, or word jokes. They seem
more like placeholders for 'real items' where the real item simply hasn't been thought of yet.
They ruin the 'immersion factor' for me, brother sharp is some random real person,
Hey, Smoking Dude item is quite awesome and has useful attributes. And it isn't really a random dude yo. In fact it is a famous person. His nick name is actually Brother Sharp.


Rest is honestly TL DR for me because I prefer to see Game Balance over Item names. You know, that some girls don't become stupidly overpowered (which some truly are).

what's that got to do with Touhou and Gensoukyou?
Nothing. The point is the developers added both fun (El Shaddai) and "plausible" items (Peach, Yatakarasu,etc). to make the game fun. This is about having fun and not taking it too seriously.

PS:
I want to create a proposal with the help of others to fill the gaps, and submit this as a suggestion
to the developers, so the silly items can get replaced by touhou ones.
DotS2 got released so I highly doubt DotS is subject to development, since the original lead dev got booted out for turning the game into League of Maidens (0.977+).
« Last Edit: October 06, 2014, 06:49:23 AM by Helepolis »

PX

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Re: Silly item names/icons in DoTS
« Reply #2 on: October 06, 2014, 06:55:33 AM »
Are you saying QBs aren't the best item ever? Get out >:(

FFMaster

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Re: Silly item names/icons in DoTS
« Reply #3 on: October 06, 2014, 06:59:48 AM »
That's all fine and dandy, but of all the things you forget to mention, you forget about PAD and the metallic bra and such items? These are also injokes and have as much to do with "immersion" as the other items. Sure, they may be jokes about the Touhou universe or rather, ZUN's art, but they have no meaning at all to the canonical story of the series. Fun fact: I've noticed that Meiling is actually named China in the game.

Since you also mentioned Dota, I'll be quick to point out that it has a billion outside world references too. Itemwise, I can quickly name Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse and Eul's Scepter of Divinity. These names have about as much meaning as HJ's Bug, who is iirc a DotS developer (at the very least, he made the imba version). As far as hero names go, that gets even worse. Referencing famous people (Clinkz Eastwood, Jackie Chen) to pro players (Merlini, X!!, qwerty-) to brand names (Gilette) or just plain silly (Weird Ball). I can go on even further, but referencing things in the real world isn't a bad thing.

DotS may have gone way off the scale in terms of silliness, but I would rather put it as low priority compared to complete unbalance that it has.

Just as curiosity, what about hero skills and stuff? For example, pretty much all of Cirno's abilities reference the number 9, like her intelligence value. Another easy example is the HELP ME EIRIN skill from Kaguya. There are plenty of other skills that also have said silliness to them. Would you remove them and replace with new skills?

Captain Infinity

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Re: Silly item names/icons in DoTS
« Reply #4 on: October 06, 2014, 07:01:55 AM »
tl;dr

« Last Edit: October 06, 2014, 07:05:02 AM by Captain Infinity »

Amraphenson

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Re: Silly item names/icons in DoTS
« Reply #5 on: October 06, 2014, 03:39:02 PM »
tl;dr



I sorta miss the days this image was relevant to the meta
Sugoiiii~
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Re: Silly item names/icons in DoTS
« Reply #6 on: October 06, 2014, 05:14:14 PM »
Whoops, I certainly didn't expect so much of a backlash  :ohdear:

First and foremost, this thread is probably mainly made because of the release of DOTS 2 or DOTS for dota 2. Certainly because of the much smaller userbase this game has compared to DOTA I do not expect to see any further development on the warcraft map either, it would be silly and far better spent on working with the source engine instead. So you can read the 'changes' as to happen to DOTS 2, naturally.

Now it is imperative to understand that game balance is best served if the game becomes widely played. Due to the rather large amount of variables in a DOTA style game the only real way to properly balance the game, e.g. make any hero a viable choice to build a team around and have a reasonable chance at winning that is as close to 50% as possible, is to gather actual play data. As you are probably aware not every hero gives you the same skill/reward curve, and this is by design. If you want to know more about the reasons for this, I'd recommend watching the relevant Extra Credits video. So in general, the statistics to be used for game balance should be those of the upper N% of games in organized gameplay on a standard map with the standard prevalent tourney format. For DOTA, you would translate this as 'Captain's mode', while for Starcraft it would be 1v1 on a selection of approved ladder maps. In general, optimizing N is a tough question in itself, it needs to be big enough to prevent statistical bias from creeping in, yet small enough so that all games reviewed are significantly relevant to the metagame. What all of this means is that more players is great for actually objectively balancing things out. As an example, in 19x19 ko, black's advantage (komi) has been well established at 6.5 stones, yet only in recent times. About 100 years ago, a more usual value was 2.5 stones. The actual rule got adjusted to what is probably the correct value through many millions of games being played.

Now with the introduction of DOTS2 to the steam workshop,  there's a unique opportunity here. I suspect that within one year the steam workshop for DOTA 2 will leave its alpha state and perhaps even offer server access for custom games in order to host public matchmaking of these alternate game modes. In other words, there is the potential of a far greater audience than the few dozens of people that regularly played the warcraft III map. As for its side in china, I suspect it was bigger there, but not by more than one or two orders of magnitude. Even if only 5% of current dota players tried out this mod, that would still be 40,000+ players, a very sizeable potential playerbase. Some of these will be highly skilled at the game and have the ability to define a competitive metagame for it whereupon the authorities can base balance decisions. 

But let's not go on a tangent too much, the notion that more players = good for the game should be clear. Now in order to appeal to a wide audience, you need to understand that the 'appearance' of a software product is highly important, perhaps even moreso than its functionality. End-users are weird like that, speaking from a programmer's perspective. Little things like UI looks that can be changed in no time at all receive a lot of undue attention from clients. It needn't appear fully finalized, but sufficiently detailed to 'look' completed and professional. A very big part of that is internal consistency. And all I'm saying there is are large gaps in consistency between item pictures and names for various items. There are some that just clearly stand out as being downright too silly or low quality compared to the rest, and just 'feel like' placeholders. There's a difference between the rather nice looking hakurei amulet with all its backstory and the MS-paint blue llama that seems to have randomly been dropped in for lack of imagination by comparison, and it's about as big as the difference between the blue llama and a  plain blue square ITEM_001 would be. And hey, I'm suggesting helping the developers get rid of these rather 'ugly' quirks, but at least with something that is more appealing, 'the eye also wants something', polish and consistency.   

Now I'm not saying that 'ANY' reference and fun material is bad, I'm supposing that there is a difference in how you can still do this. The 'brother sharp' reference is basically thrown in your face. It's about as relevant as a picture of Albert Einstein, W.A. Mozart, or C.F. Gauss would be for an intelligence item, and really begs the question why. Sure those are famous people, but they're still random real people that quite frankly aren't something I'd expect to see as a video game weapon, armor, dress, or other piece of equipment, meme or no meme. Now if 'all' the equipment was like that it would make some sense in a sort of Salvador Dali-esque fashion, but it's not, and that's exactly what appears 'jarring' in a way.

On the other hand going to an example from DOTA itself, Eul's Scepter of Divinity does not present you with something unexpected compared to the rest of the item set, even though it contains a reference, nor does, say, Youmuu's Ghostblade in League of Legends, even though that as well contains a reference. The item still appears to be consistent with the rest of the item set, and finding the reference is an actual implicit 'exercise for the reader'. In other words a new person would not be bewildered by the item, and if not acquainted with Touhou be able to 'miss' it instead of feeling bewildered. Even now that I've researched the reference I still don't really see the clear correlation between a homeless man that happens to look like a model and a melee slashing weapon. Your reference becomes far more 'clever' by being able to pass it off as a normal item, and arguably this should be the only way to reference something from outside the game's scope. 

Aa lot of the DOTS items are not like the ghostblade at all. Items are highly inconsistent with eachother, and 'historical reasons' do not really hit the mark to let this slide. On the other hand, certain subsets of the DOTS items do have this consistency to them, and these subsets happen to be far easier to memorize as well, for example the 'Cat mint / Cat Ears / Cat Claws' set that makes you more agile. It's nice and coherent with eachother, which aids memorization. They also have recognizable pictures of decent quality, and are arguably related to the subject matter (touhou contains several catgirls). Or say the jeweled pagoda, which is an actual item from Touhou in being a sort of magical focus, which has an arguably fitting effect in the game as well. Now compare that to the 'HJ bug', probably the worst offender. The icon appears to be either some badly drawn mutant creature in MS paint, a drawing by a small child, or a drawing by a postmodernist painter. Looking just at the picture and title you would have no idea what it does if we left out this item and its descendants from the collection and gave you all the other items to compare it to, nor give you an idea why this bug would greatly improve health and mana, the bug could've given 20 armor instead. Why not have a consistent line of hats or something along those lines instead? There's plenty of material there, for sure.

Then there is also the issue of 'Quality!', e.g. the 'polish' part. Concordia is the main example here, it's a red MS paint star. Really, for the equivalent of the divine rapier?  :wat:
Can't we at least have some 'legendary' touhou item instead? I suggested a 'demon book', in particular the 'Necronomicon' because of its association with the Cthulu mythos, which is why it could be the most powerful item, as well as the most dangerous one (you drop it if you die). And for bonus points it's an actual Touhou thing as revealed in Forbidden Scrollery. Other examples of items with graphic quality issues are the 'cards' and the llamas, which both look like they were done as quick scribbles as well. Last time I checked about half of japan was making touhou images, most of it for fun too, so there just might be some better quality stuff available... It's just so sad we have these weird things instead of something that looks awesome like say the mask of madness does, ever seen it on drow?  ;)

And, last but probably not least, there's some issues maybe with 'copyright' on some of these images. Taking direct imagery from another video game for your item (even if done badly at a pixelated resolution such as the armor item) might not be the best idea with this in mind.

As a sidenote: I like the quelling blade and the tangoes in dota 2. I'd love them in dots 2 as well. The first post gives an idea of what could be a tango-equivalent (the cherry blossom things from PCB), but haven't thought of a tree-cutting implement that would be touhou-ish. That's partly what this thread was actually originally for you know, seeing if we can get some better 'ideas' for the silly items.  I'm certainly not satisfied with the suggestion as-is, some of the possible suggestions are maybe a bit bland, that's why more input is definitely needed for the betterment of the game.
« Last Edit: October 06, 2014, 05:22:42 PM by Aphid_MOTK »

helvetica

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Re: Silly item names/icons in DoTS
« Reply #7 on: October 06, 2014, 05:50:25 PM »
I sorta miss the days this image was relevant to the meta
Inorite. Although the hyper late game carry is coming back at least. Too bad rat doto died to get it.


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Captain Infinity

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Re: Silly item names/icons in DoTS
« Reply #8 on: October 06, 2014, 08:48:00 PM »
GIANT WALL OF TEXT

First off, DotS2 is no where near ready. It isn't complete, there's still a lot of work to do and there's a lot of room for improvement (t'was so in the WC3 map too). A good programmer wouldn't prioritise aesthetics over functionality (not that I think the devs are great programmers).

Secondly, you're taking this way seriously. DotS wasn't exactly ever serious and it never really took itself seriously. It'd be less fun if it did.

Thirdly, let us remember that the original mask of madness in WC3 DotA was a Captain America mask. Lest we forget. Also HJ Bug is a distorted Doraemon.

Fourth, if you're going to talk about copyright, Touhou itself isn't exempt from copyright y'know, as are the Touhou images that half of Japan make, which you talk about.

Fifth, I'm fine with DotS/DotS2 not being a direct DotA clone. If we were going to do that, why don't we just replace models, icons, names and be done?  They were always moving away from being a DotA port (at some points bringing in a lot of things from LoL).

That said, DotS is still a WIP, and the way I saw it, they were adding a lot more serious items as the game developed further.

Helepolis

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Re: Silly item names/icons in DoTS
« Reply #9 on: October 07, 2014, 07:26:37 AM »
As long as there is some decent balance and doesn't turns into League of Maidens with skills and items, I could personally care less what silly item got introduced into dotS2.

In fact a lot of awesome silly items got removed in the past D:  RIP Primaterator

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Re: Silly item names/icons in DoTS
« Reply #10 on: October 09, 2014, 05:12:05 AM »
Are we no longer allowed to take in nutrients from up to 6 feet underground  :ohdear:

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