Design Primer

Updated 2017-12-05

General design principles

The following list of design principles should apply to all functional designs (general gameplay including bosses and items):

Design should aim to increase the number of viable builds/strategies. We wish the meta to be as healthy as possible, and this means a diverse ecosystem of strategies and builds. Something which completely neuters a currently viable strategy at negligible cost, or is so good nothing else is viable, is bad design.
Designs should provide incentive for players to act as intended Assume people will go for the optimal play. If a mechanic stimulates players to do something which is against how we intend the game to function (say, it makes fountain camping an optimal late game strat), then it is bad design.
Design should promote the core gameplay. This goes hand in hand with the previous point. Each game has a draw, something players get out of it. In our case, it's a combination of ridiculous teamfights, challenging bosses, and the power trip value of heroes way more powerful than they are in Dota. Designs which reinforce these feelings are good designs. Designs which go against these - say, by reducing player agency, or making a boss fight boring or repetitive, are bad designs.

In addition to the general design principles, here are some things to keep in mind when designing Bosses:

Boss fights should last 2 minutes or less (assuming players are of appropiate power level).
Bosses should rely on a very small number of active abilities
Try and avoid passive abilities for bosses when possible.
When employing passives make them easily noticeable.
Successfully completing Boss encounters should require learning new mechanics
The mechanics should be taught during the battle with either:

Highly visible/audible cues. (these cues should be clearly outlined in the design document)
The use of easily recognizable unaltered dota 2 mechanics (like stuns or knockups).

Proper boss encounters are 3-stages, becoming increasingly difficult each stage.
Each stage adds on top of the previous stage, teaching players the Boss's mechanics in the early stages before becoming difficult later.
Players should understand Bosses' abilities without having to read them.

In addition to the general design principles, here are some thing to keep in mind when designing Items:

Try not to design items which are simply an existing item blown out of proportion. This is the opposite of filling a niche.
Items should not simply be mergers of existing items because, instead of forcing players to choose between two different items, they will always choose to get the one with both effects.
New items should be on average more powerful than the highest level vanilla dota 2 items.
New items should have progression through multiple tiers.