Moba balance comparison, please comment

[KingIsaacLinksr]

On a side note, did they remove a mode here at some point?  I coulda sworn there was a Domination-style mode in there somewhere, though it had been awhile since I'd logged back in again somewhat recently.  Can definitely already see plenty of other changes.

Domination mode was removed before SMITE was released. Hi-Rez stated they wanted to focus on getting the other modes (and the game in general) ready by launch. It's still used once in a while for a mode-of-the-day but is otherwise not playable on. It needs an art and game balance overhaul, as the mode has a lot of bugs and issues. It was one of the least popular modes that needed a ton of work done to it, so I can understand why they shifted their priorities away from it. So far, Hi-Rez hasn't indicated if it will be coming back and I have my doubts it will. At the very least, we have Siege which I think is a much better mode from an enjoyment and balance aspect.

League Arena was also removed because nobody played on it according to Hi-Rez. Arena really isn't suited to a League system anyway, it just doesn't have a lot of depth/strategy to it.

[Misery]

Hm, yeah, arena indeed doesnt seem very deep at all.  I get bored with it kinda quick.  Smash some minions, attack enemy player, smash minions, attack another player, die or return to base.... repeat.  Mostly I just use it to get the hang of gods I havent tried much before (which is most of them), to learn how their abilities work and whatnot.  Other than that....

[Mánagarmr]

Siege was a much better thought out idea than Domination. Dom can probably work, but it'll need a new map and possibly a few refined mechanics.

[Misery]

So it has occurred to me that players using "Smurf" accounts are REALLY FREAKING ANNOYING.  Doesnt even matter what team they're on.  The match stops being any fun the moment one pops up, and usually becomes a match I dont learn much from. 

Trying to learn new gods here, but pretty much all night, just one blasted smurf after another.  Just....argh. 

[keith.lamothe]

Maybe you need to play Gargamel.

[Misery]

Maybe you need to play Gargamel.

Hah!  I made pretty much that same joke when rambling about it at my cousin earlier.

He followed this up by asking who Gargamel is.  I couldnt tell if that was funny, or just depressing.

[Mánagarmr]

So it has occurred to me that players using "Smurf" accounts are REALLY FREAKING ANNOYING.  Doesnt even matter what team they're on.  The match stops being any fun the moment one pops up, and usually becomes a match I dont learn much from. 

Trying to learn new gods here, but pretty much all night, just one blasted smurf after another.  Just....argh.

I wasn't aware that was such a problem. I didn't encounter barely any smurfs on my way up in Smite.

[Wingflier]

I know that in DotA, making a smurf is like a death sentence. I think Valve has pretty powerful smurf detection software since they can already tell when somebody is making multiple Steam accounts from the same address. It's in their best interest to track that sort of thing. If they catch you making a DotA smurf using that method, you are punished HEAVILY. I mean, pitted against people who have played 3,000+ games heavily.

At one point, I made a smurf to play with my ex-girlfriend because she was really new to the game and I felt that pitting her against people at my level would be disastrous, but the people we got using my smurf to queue were probably even out of my skill league, and I've been playing for over 10 years, if that tells you anything.

[keith.lamothe]

Is there a particular reason you couldn't have created a new email address for the purpose?  Could they still have detected it?

[Mánagarmr]

I know that in DotA, making a smurf is like a death sentence. I think Valve has pretty powerful smurf detection software since they can already tell when somebody is making multiple Steam accounts from the same address. It's in their best interest to track that sort of thing. If they catch you making a DotA smurf using that method, you are punished HEAVILY. I mean, pitted against people who have played 3,000+ games heavily.

At one point, I made a smurf to play with my ex-girlfriend because she was really new to the game and I felt that pitting her against people at my level would be disastrous, but the people we got using my smurf to queue were probably even out of my skill league, and I've been playing for over 10 years, if that tells you anything.

Well, that's what happens naturally in Smite. Since you'll be DESTROYING people the first few games, your matchmaking rating goes through the roof and suddenly you are faced with Platinum level players instead.

[keith.lamothe]

Welcome to the Tartarus bracket.

[Wingflier]

Is there a particular reason you couldn't have created a new email address for the purpose?  Could they still have detected it?

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Yes. It's much more sophisticated than that. For the record I meant "IP address", not email address. But even if you were using some kind of firewall to mask that, it might still be able to read your computer's MAC ID or recognize that you have all the same Steam friends etc. There are various ways to tell.

[keith.lamothe]

If they go by IP and/or MAC address then wouldn't it hammer someone else playing from a different steam account on the same computer?  Like, say, someone you were trying to introduce to the game.

[Wingflier]

If they go by IP and/or MAC address then wouldn't it hammer someone else playing from a different steam account on the same computer?  Like, say, someone you were trying to introduce to the game.

Well, let's say that person had already owned the Steam account for a long time, had a ton of unique Steam games that they had paid for (say over $100 worth), and had played on many different computers during their account's lifetime. In that case, it's probably pretty obvious that it's just a coincidence.

However, if somebody just made a new Steam account, installed DotA the very same day, has no other games on their account whatsoever, skipped the (pretty long) tutorial completely, and started winning games by a landslide with an extremely inflated K/D/A, it's much easier to assume that there's something going on.

[keith.lamothe]

At which point Azrael gobbles up the smurf and puts him in a 1v5 against NaVi.  Fair enough.