Dota is at best a gloryfied farming Simulator. For soem this is a really cool game (like me) for some not so. The true gameplay shines actually in the endgame, when all heroes are ready and the big teamfights start, spells flinging left and right, combos work. It's very staisfying if you can pull of a great combination of skills and items and everything fits together like a puzzle. Problem for many is, Dota is simply slow paced. It has been faster with 7.00 but now Valve tries everything to pull it back more and more towards the old slow paced sytsem it was before, changing mechanics that made the game suddenly so fast. The early stage of the game is, what you descibed as "poking". Players hit creeps for money and try to compete for the gold. They fling spells at each other to see, how much they can aggro their foe until he finally tilts and comes for them, running directly into a trap. or until he retreats annoyed. The mid game is more targeted towards "okay, let's bring down soem towers but carefully because we are still not so powerful". Team gather at tight spots and look for opportunities to start a fight but are still careful because at that time both teams are still very close in terms of power. At the end game it shows, who had better farm during the game, the team that has the gold/level advantage can pretty much steamroll over their opponents unless the other team finds a way to prevent it. This does not mean that team a is unstoppable, but htey have it easier because the other team still has to be careful and wait for the right time. Depending ont he roster and what items you have, this may be different but many games favour toward this scenario.
You either like it or hate it, its a thing that you need to have a taste for to enjoy it. Especially the first 10-20 minutes of the game are mostly boring because nothign happens unless you play a roamer/ganker and target other lanes all the time. However, because the meta shifted, these became rarer and they now have to be a lot more careful than before.
The thing is, you try to make the analogy up with Moba, as Genre while you actually shoudl look it as sport in general. Moba=sports whiel dota is simply a type of sports. The analogy still does not fit 100% but Dota ahsn't changed that much in its release if you don't count the minimal balance changes. the only thing, that affected the gameplay massively, was 7.00 with the introduction of talents. This really shifted the meta a lot. Also, you cannot compare Mobas to each other as sequels. They are independet games that simply share the same genre. that's like comparing basketball and football (or soccer, if that's what you want to call it). They are both sports that use a ball. That's where the similiarities end or at least most stuff isn't related to each other. Mobas have som egeneral gameplay mechanics, that suits them as Mobas but htey are still totally independent games that invent each other a new.
Plus, there ARE different types of basketball. As there are with other sports. They simply aren't that big advertised and in many cases aren't professional.
Yeah, the thing with Battleborn and Overwatch is, they are two different games. Like, not even in the same genre. At all. But the problem is, it DOES look liek Overwatch and it was even announced BEFORE Overwatch, so whiel Overwatch wasn't even known, Battleborn was, but then Overwatch got announced and overshadowed everythign and as it is with big publishers, especially Blizzard, they tend to tend to make their ads appearent literally everywhere, you cannot NOT see the game. Battleborn on the other hand got evry little attention and not many people saw it and the people saw it, said it was an Overwatch clone.
But Battleborn is a Moba, similiar to Smite. It's more close to Smite than to Overwatch, if any, it's a clone from that game. It's some weird mix ob Moba, shooter and rpg progression. It also featured a long story campaign with big lore backgrounds for each character.
Liek in other Mobas, there is a base (a huge robot) that you have to destroy with towers inbetween (another huge robot) and your characters level up for killing minions and other heroes. There is only one lane but some hidden side paths that you can use to flank your opponent. Creeps figth each other and can be easily killed by heroes. With a recent change, hero roles now also influence the damage dealt to and taken from minions. Tanks simpyl take less, attacker simply do more.
Leveling up gives you access to talents, like HotS and you can increase your skills or normal attacks that way. Additionaly heroes had passive abilites and an ultimate ability. The similiarity to Overwatch was quickly drawn because they both use shooter elements, have a hero focused team system and have abilties, that you can use. However, Overwatch is pretty close to TF2 in that regard, it's still a shooter and just that, you just have different classes with different roles in the game isntead of having everyone doing the same, like in CoD and other war shooters.
In Battleborn you can even attack neutral creep camps, to hire them as "Mercenaries", so they fight for you. Defeating a neutral camp allows you to conquer it and summon your own version of these creeps. Additionaly there are crystals scattered around the map, that can be collected to activate your items (that you get while playing the game and opening lootboxes) and build some structures ont he map, like traps and attack towers or support towers to heal your allies. Its a lot more complex than Overwatch but a lot less than Dota. But it also lacks any kidn of stuff, that woudl make it shine out. Plus, huge performance problems. Game kidn of fall right under the radar for everyone and th epeopel that got notice of the game, were underwhelmed by it.
I've played today the beta of an upcoming Moba from Nexon. Hyper Universe. It was just a quick tutorial play and first impression, so I keep this as short as possible and will try to get into detail, once I know more.
Hyper Universe is a side scroller Moba, just liek Awesomenauts, instead of having a top down map or a first/third person perspective.
Hypers (the heroes of the game) sue a complete item set at teh beginnign of the match, you can select your item set from your loadout and you can customize these sests between matches. Every hero starts out with a recommended item set but you can build more if you want. The item set cannot be changed during your match. Heroes in Hyper Universe are more specialised towards there role as, for example, in Dota, where you can specialise one hero in multiple directions. Your items can somwhat change or improve on the natural abilities but it is recomennded, that you use recommended items for the hero. Heroes have one passive skill, four active skills and an ultimate ability.The skilsl are rather straightforward in their description and are simply different types of attacks in different directions but supports might have heals and other stuff for an example. A unique mechanic is the way, how AoE skills work. If you hit only one target with it, you deal all the damage to it, if you hit multiple enemies, you deal less damage to all enemies in the area, for example two damages take 80% damage each isntead of the full effect unlike in other mobas. The same applies to your normal attacks.
Skill damage is influenced by your level, your attack damage (there are no other stats except hp, mana, attack and defense) and of course the base damage of the ability.
The map is a little designed like a Metroidvania with multiple corridors and ladders and other stuff to access the different floors of the map.
Godl is divided equally amoong all players, no last hits here, if you kill something, the gold is added towards the total of your team. You can use gold to upgrade any of the items in your set, the max level depends on the item itself, but if you reach the max level of the item, it gets a special effect.
There are typical roles int his game, like in any other moba, a support for buff/debuff and heal stuff, a tank to take up most of the damage, assassins to dispatch single targets and other roles.
The game seems to be very casual friendly but migth be a little chaotic at first, because it's hrd to follow the movements of all the heroes/players at the screen, if you are unused to it. This is somewhat true to all Mobas however.
Plus, the game has Monkey King, like any Moba. Seriously, the guy is at this point a Moba cliché.
