How my MOBA turned into a game where you don't play
When I started this, it was a normal MOBA. It was called GloryDay. You picked one hero, connected to a server, and played 5v5 in real time, clicking abilities and last hitting like you would in League or Dota. I do not have any footage of that version left, which is honestly fine, because the interesting part of this story is not what it looked like. It is why I threw that whole idea out.
The problem showed up fast, and it was not a code problem. It was a "who is going to play this" problem. A real time online MOBA needs ten people in a match, a server, and matchmaking, and that is a rough thing for one person to fill. I could not even test it properly on my own. I would sit there controlling one hero while nine slots stood empty. And every time I did get a match going, I kept noticing the part I actually cared about was not the clicking. It was the decisions. Who to pick, who to ban, where to be, when to fight, when to take the objective. The macro, not the mechanics.
So I asked a dumb question. What if you did not control a hero at all?
That one question changed the whole game. Instead of playing a hero, you coach the team. You draft five, you ban the enemy's best pick, you set the game plan and each hero's role, and then you watch it play out. The heroes play themselves now. I wrote the AI that makes them fight, rotate, contest objectives, and read the enemy. Your job is to make the calls before and during the match, and to adjust with timeouts when the read changes.
The moment I did that, everything that was hard about a solo MOBA got easier, and a bunch of things got better.
One person can play a full 5v5 now, because you are the shotcaller, not one of ten players. The server full of strangers stopped being required. There is still a two player mode if you want to go head to head, but it is manager versus manager, one person a side, not ten. And because you are watching instead of playing, I gave it a broadcast camera that follows the action on its own like an esports stream, so watching your plan work (or fall apart) is actually fun.
From there the game grew into its own thing. There is a front line you push by capturing zones next to ground you already hold. There is a pit boss in the middle that you have to commit into the pit to fight, where the last hit steals it, and killing it opens a rift that spawns a wave of creeps that go siege the enemy base. Your heroes push in behind them while the creeps soak the tower. It reads like a real match, but every meaningful choice in it was made by you before the fight started.
It is still a work in progress. I am balancing it constantly, and some of it will change. But the core is here, and it finally feels like the game I actually wanted to make, which is a MOBA you coach instead of grind.
If you want to try it, it runs right here in the browser. I would genuinely love to know what you think, especially what feels good and what feels off. That feedback is what I am building the next update around.
play here: https://thomasng.itch.io/shot-caller
