Author Topic: Moba balance comparison, please comment  (Read 183076 times)

Offline Misery

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #345 on: February 05, 2014, 07:24:04 pm »

You mentioned that you play competitive fighting games sometimes. Well in those fighting games, does the better player not usually win? If one player is ahead in a match (say by 50% of the healthbar), doesn't he have a huge advantage? Why shouldn't he have a huge advantage, he earned that lead. Sure, there may be small mechanics like a bigger "super" bar for the losing player, but ultimately, the player which has a large lead in health is going to have the advantage. Playing from behind is always going to be more difficult, but in the end, the better player typically wins right?

Actually I think this bit kinda helps explain the point I was trying to make.

In a fighting game, the player who has 50% more healthbar..... actually is NOT at a fundamental advantage (and I say this as someone who has played the genre utterly to death and is at a very high level... some other players may disagree with me on this "advantage" bit, but I've decided I'm correct, therefore I am, of course).  They're closer to the goal, but that's it.  No increased attack power, no special something that they've magically gained the ability to use by going further than the other guy, nothing.  The currently-losing player doesnt need to do anything extra to harm their opponent and bring them down.  And that's the big problem that I tend to see in Dota and in mobas as a whole:  When you're ahead in one of those, you DO have not just a "closer to the goal" situation, but also a "definitely more powerful than the other guy" situation.  And that's a HUGE difference.  And Dota's problem, as I see it, is that it pushes this idea a bit too far. The "power gulf" expands further and further as one team gets closer and closer to the goal.  And the lack of skillshots in the game actually hurts this quite alot, now that I think about it.  You cant just go into a fight against a stronger opponent and kick some major ass by awesomely dodging all this oncoming stuff to make a dramatic attack of your own.... because you cant dodge any of it to start with.   If you're in range of the enemy's attack, and they fire, well, for most of the spells in the game.... you WILL get hit. It's either that or waste a BKB charge or something (and as you know, there's plenty of attacks that go through that..... is it me, or is "magic immunity" kinda not the right term sometimes in that? Though it might be a tad OP if it blocked literally everything...).   I think that's one of the things that gets me about Dota VS the other mobas; I do like being able to dodge things, and defend by reaction, and have to deal with aiming and such.   Granted, Dota's focus on positioning is interesting in it's own way, but still.


As for the bit about supports in LoL being a joke, THAT one I dont believe.  This being because I tend to focus on a supportive role in any of these games, as my extremely-reactive playstyle fits well to a defensive role.  Honestly, if someone is playing that role and not being effective.... they probably arent very good at it, and should be doing a different role.  Even I can change the direction a teamfight is going in that game, and I'm not exactly a high-level player.... but I generally DO know what to do with whatever spells I have as the character I'm playing, and I'm capable of actually hitting with them and knowing when to use them (as well as building equipment properly to make sure that when they hit, they'll DO something). 


Smite is kinda the exception to that one for me.... something about the different viewpoint/controls knocks me out of that defensive mindset, and back into my usual hyper-aggressive style that I use in every other genre ever, like the fighting games.  Granted, this can be a bit of an issue at times, since "randomly go totally berserk" is my usual way of doing things in most games, but when it works it's satisfying....   I think it's the WASD controls that end up getting me to do it, in that game.  I'm fine with mouse controls but I wish these games would do things differently more often.


There's more to say overall but I'm still not entirely awake here.... feh.



Feel free to add me as well, for Smite.  I am Enchu on there.  Ah, I aint been on in ages though.... I really should fire that up later tonight and start getting used to all the changes.

Offline tigersfan

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #346 on: February 06, 2014, 08:28:37 pm »
Feel free to add me as well, for Smite.  I am Enchu on there.  Ah, I aint been on in ages though.... I really should fire that up later tonight and start getting used to all the changes.

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Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #347 on: February 09, 2014, 03:05:28 pm »
Well, Smite *was* fun until I guess I was winning too many games, and the matchmaking system must promoted me to "god tier" or whatever. The system must have though I'm the Dendi of Smite because the past solo 15 games have been full of leavers, feeders, and teams that are so bad I can't even carry them. This isn't every once in awhile, this is every single game:

Exhibit A:



I don't mean to complain. I understand that the matchmaking system has to adjust your rating after you go 19-1 for your first 20 games, but forcing you to lose is not my idea of fairness. Unfortunately I think I'm going to have to play with friends for this game to continue to be enjoyable for me. I've lost my desire to try my best while my team feeds miserably.
« Last Edit: February 09, 2014, 03:07:25 pm by Wingflier »
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #348 on: February 09, 2014, 03:13:02 pm »
So it looks like it the matchmaking figured that " team composed of good player(s) + bad players" is comparable to "team composed of average players"?

Is that a common matchmaking assumption?

Or not what's going on here?
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Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #349 on: February 09, 2014, 04:20:46 pm »
So it looks like it the matchmaking figured that " team composed of good player(s) + bad players" is comparable to "team composed of average players"?

Is that a common matchmaking assumption?

Or not what's going on here?
I'm really not sure what the formula is. I would hope that all the matchmaking ratings being used would be comparable, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

It seems silly to me that it would put someone decent on a team of bad players, against a team of say average players, and expect anything good to come of that.
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Offline Misery

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #350 on: February 09, 2014, 09:08:04 pm »
Dontcha hate when that happens?

Usually that's just a sign to walk away from it for a few days, at least for me in these games.  Lest I break something.  Though I'm still pretty low level in a general sense so I cant really complain too much.

As it is though I STILL havent gotten back on, since Comcast has been all "DUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRR" for the past 4 days or so.  You know, standard operating procedure for them.

Did you know it's possible to have 80 connection fails in 15 minutes?  I sure didn't.  Now I do.

It aint acting too bad today so far, at least.  I did at least get the game patched....

Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #351 on: February 10, 2014, 12:14:56 am »


I'll give you one guess which two are my friend and I.

In all seriousness though, apart from a couple bad games, everything went okay as long as I had a decent friend with me.

There was one game in particular where we were placed against a "Golden Bakasura", who was ranked Level 9 on that character, and had upward of 800 kills according to his picture. On our team we had a Ymir for whom it was his first game. He ended up leaving.

Once again, the Smite matchmaking system remains a total mystery to me.
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #352 on: February 10, 2014, 03:38:15 am »
Yeah, the matchmaking *is* one of Smite's weak points, but generally it does work decently. But then and again it gets a giant hickup and pits a team with an average of 3 masteries against a 40+ mastery team. It's like "WHAT?"
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #353 on: February 10, 2014, 09:29:16 am »
Yeah, the matchmaking *is* one of Smite's weak points, but generally it does work decently. But then and again it gets a giant hickup and pits a team with an average of 3 masteries against a 40+ mastery team. It's like "WHAT?"
The characters you don't pick revert to their normal literary roles: setting up absurd and disastrous situations for others in order to get a laugh ;)
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #354 on: February 10, 2014, 09:32:36 am »
I might also have to add that if you intend to play Smite competitively together with and against competent people, you really need to get into league games and at least progress up to and above gold league. Only there does the actual "meat" of Smite competitive games happen. Below that you have a lot of people either being too bad to progress, or good people still progressing through the league. And casual (called Normal in Smite) is, well, casual.
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Offline Misery

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #355 on: February 10, 2014, 11:05:08 am »
I might also have to add that if you intend to play Smite competitively together with and against competent people, you really need to get into league games and at least progress up to and above gold league. Only there does the actual "meat" of Smite competitive games happen. Below that you have a lot of people either being too bad to progress, or good people still progressing through the league. And casual (called Normal in Smite) is, well, casual.


So how do these work exactly?

I aint familiar with this aspect of the game.  Typically with any of these games I play unranked matches (regardless of win/loss ratios) until I feel like I'm getting somewhere with it and know some of the characters well enough.  It can take awhile, particularly as my memory is so bad.... remembering what all of the blasted items do is the hardest part.  Figuring out what to build and why is the OTHER hard part, in any of these.

And of course nobody I know around my area plays ANY of these, which doesnt help.  And the occaisional friends I meet online who play these tend to have schedules that are the opposite of mine for the most part; asleep while I'm awake, not intersecting all that often.

In other news, Comcast is still screwing up.  I would like to hit whoever is responsible.  With a moose.


Really though, the ONLY online game I've played in the last week is Hearthstone, and earlier in the night it was too messed up even for that.   Most interested in Dawngate right now.... really enjoying the heck outta that one even if I dont quite grasp the overall strategies yet (those circle things with the workers complicate everything.... as does the regenerating towers).  And Smite since I hadnt been on in so long, and it looks like alot of favorable changes have occurred.  Not to mention the character roster having improved, and theoretically less wonky glitches on my machine (which was a problem before, or I mighta played it more). 

Hm, and Infinite Crisis to a slightly lesser degree.... they FINALLY added their three-lane map, and it looks quite good.  Aint gotten to try it yet though.... I only JUST got a key for it (that map is a closed-beta sort of thing as they test and balance it to death) but..... yeah, that whole "Comcast screwing up all week" bit.  Argh.

EDIT:  Aaaaaaaand I probably wont be playing any for a few days either.  Bah.  Back is acting up and my hand is going all tingly again (this winter has been abnormally bad for this sort of thing).   Yay, more therapy!   Just having the best damn week ever here. Bah. 
« Last Edit: February 10, 2014, 11:07:54 am by Misery »

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #356 on: February 10, 2014, 12:14:46 pm »
I might also have to add that if you intend to play Smite competitively together with and against competent people, you really need to get into league games and at least progress up to and above gold league. Only there does the actual "meat" of Smite competitive games happen. Below that you have a lot of people either being too bad to progress, or good people still progressing through the league. And casual (called Normal in Smite) is, well, casual.

So how do these work exactly?


In short: Every win gains you a certain amount of league points. Winstreaks increase the points recieved by one every win, losses gain you half the win points and you go down one point for the next match. The top 20% of the current league gets promoted to next league up when the season is over. (usually 2-4 weeks)
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Offline tigersfan

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #357 on: February 10, 2014, 12:38:17 pm »
I might also have to add that if you intend to play Smite competitively together with and against competent people, you really need to get into league games and at least progress up to and above gold league. Only there does the actual "meat" of Smite competitive games happen. Below that you have a lot of people either being too bad to progress, or good people still progressing through the league. And casual (called Normal in Smite) is, well, casual.

So how do these work exactly?


In short: Every win gains you a certain amount of league points. Winstreaks increase the points recieved by one every win, losses gain you half the win points and you go down one point for the next match. The top 20% of the current league gets promoted to next league up when the season is over. (usually 2-4 weeks)

If you want an in-depth explanation of how it works, you can watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl7a6ZDOAxc .

Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #358 on: February 10, 2014, 09:17:14 pm »


WHAT?!!!!!






Our two randoms left at 10 minutes. Like seriously, this is insane.

Game was over before it even began.
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #359 on: February 11, 2014, 06:09:02 am »
To be fair, the actual total number of masteries (the lightning bolt) were fairly equal. The other on your team might have legendary rankings in the other masteries they have for all you know. That said, it's not that fun getting matched up against people of equal skill, only to have one team pick new gods to experiment with and have the other team pick gods they were very comfortable with.
 
You should rarely, if ever, look at the specific god they have mastered, unless they are rank 6+. It's rather meaningless. What does mean something is the amount of total god masteries they have. Someone with a large total of masteries have a MUCH better grasp of the game, other gods and potential counters, than someone with rank 10 in one god.
 
Also you seem to be having a LOT of bad luck with matchmaking :P I rarely ever get leavers, even in bad games.
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