Thats odd. Just last night my people on mumble were commenting that they wanted to fp me ashe.Ah okay, thanks! I knew it might just be me then :P
Of course, that goes back to a different thing - WHen I just dont care anymore, I tend to pick ashe. And I tend to stomp people INCREDIBLY hard, despite teams of irelia/darius/leona/graves/etc. (not actually a team, just heros that suck to play against)
See, the thing about ashe is that she has incredible early game strength. She does not *need* ghost and flash all of the time, and can be incredibly aggressive by virtue of abusing her range and slow, incredibly safely.
Its not really about ashe having steroids like trist or nukes like graves - its entirely about her strength in mechanics. As you said, a positional carry must have good positioning.. But must also have amazing mechanics.
Oh, yeah, and i find balance in league to generally be pretty bad, but i could rant for quite a long time on how i believe riot went wrong . and now I'm late. thanks.Could you elaborate more on this when you get the time?
Does League have replays now?
As a non-moba player (the only one I've played is awesomenauts which has less than a dozen heroes), I honestly can't see how there can be as many hero choices in the games as there are and still have balance while keeping them from being clones of each other.This is my general view as well. Even the MOBA I used to play back then (Demigod) had issues with just 8 heroes. Though those were eventually balanced out by patches, and even later, by fanmade mods, there were still issues with as little as 8 heroes.
Seems to me that the more choices you throw in, the harder it is to keep them balanced. Which isn't necessarily so bad so long as there isn't one overly strong (as opposed to being overly weak which is excusable).
Again this is the perspective of somebody that hasn't played LoL, HoN, DoTA, or any of those.
The issue here on your evaluation of LoL is just lack of experience with the game. On Ashe, and ranged carries in general:Definitely could be, it's been a long time since I've last played. Seems to have changed a lot.
Auto-Attack champions are important end-game in LoL, but you absolutely need the rest of your team to protect and support you. You never get to the point of two-shotting everyone on the enemy team back-to-back in a competitive game.It's interesting that you should say that, because I commonly see Vayne, Graves, and Kogmaw basically killing people in a few shots, or at least within a couple seconds late game. In other words, I see carries becoming just as powerful in LoL as I do in DotA.
2) Ashe is all about her ult. You either win or lose by it. It is one of the absolutely strongest initiates in the game. But you really need your team ready to go in the instant you use it or you lose most of its power.Maybe I need to go cooldown reduction then? It seems like it has such a long cooldown. I use magic resist per level blues, and my Masteries are 21/0/9, and don't include any extra cooldown stuff. My item build doesn't really include cooldown reduction either. Is that part of my problem?
4) You absolutely must be able to kite. This is sometimes called orb-walking in DOTA, but it isn't really as much animation-canceling in LoL as in DOTA. But with Q on, alternating Move and Attack-Move to fire arrows behind you on someone chasing is a critical skill, and one you need to be able to do without thinking about it.Well yeah, you couldn't play Drow if you didn't know how to orb walk and kite.
1) She's really weak early game; one of the worst ranged carries. You need to shut her down then. If you let her get to late game, she's particularly rough. You want to crush her farm and ideally deny her some xp through zoning before she hits 4-5. If you can get a one level lead on her, and keep her CS down she's in a lot of trouble. Unlike Ashe, she doesn't bring anything if she doesn't have a ton of gold.I see how you shut a carry down in DotA (there is denying, creep pulling, and everytime you kill them they lose a lot of gold), but how do you do it in League? It seems like no matter how hard you try, eventually carries are going to get farmed. I guess you can try to push and end the game quickly, but that doesn't seem like what teams do in League. Vayne is not that bad in a lane. She's got a good built-in escape mechanism, and if she hits you three times she does a shitload of true damage. Paired with a good support, in my experience it's just as easy for her to get first blood as it is for Ashe, and much safer in the process. I could be wrong though.
2) However, she is best against bruisers. If your team isn't all that beefy, a lot of Vanye's potential is wasted and your team can just burst her down.Haven't really played against a team in League...since well...ever that wasn't full of tanky DPS. Even the mages often build tanky, and still dish out quite a bit of damage. This just seems like a moot point. Show me a team of Veigar, Ashe, Shaco, Soraka, etc. and I'll grant you that sometimes you aren't facing tanky DPS. Tanky DPS just seems like a staple of League balance, for better or for worse. Heroes like Vayne and Kogmaw will always have their place.
A) Jungle ganks are were all the flow is right now. Lanes can't be aggressive because jungle ganks are so strong and fast. As a result, all the action is controlled by and centered around the jungle. Anyone who doesn't have a super-strong gank can't jungle because then his team puts no pressure on the enemy.This is one thing that has really bothered me, and one of the things that makes me uneasy about League's balance.
B) You can basically list out the majority of every champions item build at the start of the game. There is a little variety in most games. Nearly every ranged AD is IE+LW+PD+Boots+Angel+Other (often Bloodthirster). Beyond that, you don't really have the ability to buy items situationally. There are a few, like Quicksilver Sash, but even that is nearly on the BKB-level with some players always buying it.That's another thing that makes me a bit wary too.
So even though LoL and DOTA2 are similar, they aren't the same game. There is a ton of difference between the two. Even really small things have a huge impact. Making balance judgements on a game you don't have a ton of experience with is really tough. Just comparing the scope of abilities (range and AOE) between the two games shows an entirely difference philosophy on team fight balance.This is definitely true, and it's what I suspected it boiled down to. I've played dota since I was 16 years old (9 years ago). I'm so used to the DotA balance that it I'm coming to realize that LoL balance probably isn't that bad, I just don't understand it. That's why I'm having you guys explain it to me a little more so I can understand the game better.
The bottom line is: even with only 10 Hero, there is no perfect balance, and still some people will tell you that the game is balanced exceptionally well.So are you implying that League's balance is good amongst a small pool of overpowered champions? I really don't see what the connection is here.
snipe
I would likely agree.. And counter with - But casters in dota build USEFUL items. Like sheepsticks. Forcestaffs. Cyclone..sticks. Necrobooks. Items that give some sort of utility - After all, a lategame caster's job in dota is to DEFEND THE CARRY.
As opposed to league, where you have 2+ 'carries' on a team.. I dunno. I just dont like it.
The most successful number of carries on a team wasn’t one. It wasn’t two, or even five. It was zero. A team with no carries on it at all tended to win 14.1% more than average.That really defeats the notion coming from inexperienced players that carries in DotA 2 are overpowered I think.
Casters in LoL are the strongest early game. The lose a bit of power slowly, and by end game, they are behind auto-attack carries clearly. They can kill said auto-attack carries, but that's all they can do. The don't have the damage to take out bruisers or tanks because a full spell cycle won't do the job and they'll die before their cooldowns come back in general (even with max CDR).Karthus would like a word with you.
This is Karthus we're talking about; if he wanted a word with you it would have already been had, no matter where you were or what you were doing.Casters in LoL are the strongest early game. The lose a bit of power slowly, and by end game, they are behind auto-attack carries clearly. They can kill said auto-attack carries, but that's all they can do. The don't have the damage to take out bruisers or tanks because a full spell cycle won't do the job and they'll die before their cooldowns come back in general (even with max CDR).Karthus would like a word with you.
Karthus is a bit backwards. He doesn't wreck carries, they wreck him, but then he dies and he wins anyway. I'd argue he's too strong at the moment, especially in solo queue. Specifically his ult scaling. In teams he just needs to get so close, and with drafting the enemy team has a lot of options for dealing with him (besides just banning him). Trist and Lee Sin basically rain all over his parade, both able to punt him out of range.Casters in LoL are the strongest early game. The lose a bit of power slowly, and by end game, they are behind auto-attack carries clearly. They can kill said auto-attack carries, but that's all they can do. The don't have the damage to take out bruisers or tanks because a full spell cycle won't do the job and they'll die before their cooldowns come back in general (even with max CDR).Karthus would like a word with you.
edit, i probably should point out at some time in this thread that I am an ad carry main. So part of this is indeed the whole 'rock is fine, nerf scissors'-paper thing going on.I don't know, maybe not.
Removing Flash comes up a lot on the board. The main problem is several champs are pretty dependent on it.Then rebalance those champions right? I mean there's major balance patches all the time.
But another issue is Flash encourages lane aggression because you have an escape.But the person you're chasing has an escape as well doesn't he (in Flash)? It seems to me like the defensive aspect cancels out the offensive aspect, unless I'm missing something.
Things are a lot more passive without it.Oh, have they tried removing it in the beta builds or something? I hadn't heard anything about that.
Barrier is making an appearance, and Heal getting tweaked. We'll have to see if they can make the underused spells solid enough picks.I'm interested to see. I'm also interested to see how the armor stacking nerf goes. I think if they fix those two things (bruisers and OP flash), I might consider playing again. We'll see.
Yes- somewhat important to note that flash in higher level play seems to be more aggressive. At least, i think so. I havent actually watched higher level league stuff in a very long timeDunno, I watch a bit of higher level League from time to time. I still don't understand the explanation that Flash is an offense-oriented spell, or increases the pace of the game. Not to say that the claim isn't true, I just don't understand it.
Yes- somewhat important to note that flash in higher level play seems to be more aggressive. At least, i think so. I havent actually watched higher level league stuff in a very long timeDunno, I watch a bit of higher level League from time to time. I still don't understand the explanation that Flash is an offense-oriented spell, or increases the pace of the game. Not to say that the claim isn't true, I just don't understand it.
I don't think he would be broken in draft pick.
He's easily kited, he has no escapes or blinks (like most of the cast), and if you shut him down early he has a hard time recovering.
However, in blind pick, against an uncoordinated team, he's an absolute monster. He just snowballs out of control and there's really nothing you can do about it.
Yeah I just get Black Cleaver then build tank. Not only am I really hard to kill, but I still do insane amounts of damage. Hero is so crazy in pubs.I don't think he would be broken in draft pick.
He's easily kited, he has no escapes or blinks (like most of the cast), and if you shut him down early he has a hard time recovering.
However, in blind pick, against an uncoordinated team, he's an absolute monster. He just snowballs out of control and there's really nothing you can do about it.
True damage + a refresh on an ultimate means even an underleveled darius is still a monster. So not only can he snowball quickly, even when underleveled he can just go tank and start slamming.
Currently, top lane has 4 viable camps. Darius is one of them. Since at present your top should only be 1 of 4 champs, Darius isn't pub stomping solo queue in my experience. He's got a 1 in 4 chance of getting countered, a 1 in 4 of countering, and 2 in 4 that things are a bit more up in the air.You're assuming that people in solo queue normal are going to pick 1 of those 4 heroes, out of a pool of what looks to be about 70. Most of the time, they won't pick one of those heroes, and Darius WILL have the advantage regardless.
Non-ranked games can be casual, so while I do see some variety in top lane, I see the 4 core top lane champs a ton. As in, it is unusually to see either side be something other than the four. And I agree, you shouldn't be forced to pick from those 4 champs. It's a bruiser issue that I hope they resolve. I honestly still think Black Cleaver is too strong, but we'll see.Currently, top lane has 4 viable camps. Darius is one of them. Since at present your top should only be 1 of 4 champs, Darius isn't pub stomping solo queue in my experience. He's got a 1 in 4 chance of getting countered, a 1 in 4 of countering, and 2 in 4 that things are a bit more up in the air.You're assuming that people in solo queue normal are going to pick 1 of those 4 heroes, out of a pool of what looks to be about 70. Most of the time, they won't pick one of those heroes, and Darius WILL have the advantage regardless.
Secondly, you shouldn't be FORCED to pick a hero in normal blind pick in order to win; the whole point of blind pick is picking whoever you want and having fun. It's not fun when you're forced into a small pool of champions, in the hopes that you get the right counters for the right situation, based almost entirely off chance.
Thirdly, I don't see how Jax counters Darius. If anything, it's an even matchup. Jax can jump onto Darius, autoattack him, and stun him, but as soon as he tries to run away once his combo has been exhausted, Darius can simply pull him back in and kill him before the stun cooldown is even up again (I think it's 18 seconds at level). If you simply walk up to Darius and attempt to do your combo, then save your leap to escape, you might get away with it, but in that situation, all Darius has to do is walk away from you, Q, and take a 1/4th of your health away because you got too close.
In other words, at best its an even matchup, it's certainly not a hard counter like Darius is to Irelia.
Darius is broken.He has no realistic mobility (you don't get more than 10% MS max without being in the face of and the focus of 5 people), is highly dependent on a short range pull that is long cd till midgame at best, and has no innate defensive steroids to serve as a proper tank. Among other champions, Elise will eat him alive. In return, he's in the top three for dueling and damage output given the chance to stick. It's a very sharp and vaguely binary champion design, but he's actually one of my favorite characters because he doesn't rely on anything but just outdamaging your opponent through sheer force. Darius actually functions as an anti-bruiser, which is also the source of the QQ (omg i cant pick favorite character x who is countered by darius and faceroll, i better whine about it). Whether counters should exist is another topic entirely, and one I'd probably be happy to discuss.
I have never seen a reasonable argument against this.
I've got a question.
The people in this thread say that "carries" can't burst people down as fast in League as they can in DotA, but after playing several games with Rengar, it's to still believe that's the case.
I'm watching Rengar, even in close games, kill people within literally about 1 second. By the time he can click all of his skills (after he ults), they are dead. Even tanks he tears right though almost instantly. No hero in DotA kills people this fast.
Can somebody explain?
RengarIt's definitely a start, but I'm still not convinced this will fix him. Near as I can tell, they A: want him to be a more effective "sustained assassin" (open with large burst, then abuse steroids to finish the job), and B: want him to have a meaningful heal that is independent on his stats so that he's not forced to build tank to use it properly.
Savagery's bonus attack speed duration increased to 4 seconds from 3 seconds.
Battle Roar now heals for ( 40 + 20 health per level ) instead of flat 10% of health
Rengar's stealth delay lowered to 1 second from 1.25
voice chat is honestly a bad idea. In dota I rarely see it used for more than flaming or speaking languages other people dont recognize.That's odd. In higher level play, it's used a lot for coordinating attacks and for giving advice.
No integrated voice chatThis is a bad excuse.
Other companies do it better, so there is no reason for them to re-invent the wheel at this time. Granted, Riot is much larger now, so someday they may reconsider.
Yeah. Or, like me, you could have your own voice chat running elsewhere, and the game sounds (including voice, because the game doesnt want to differentiate the two properly and let them come out of different speakers). So I cant actually hear voice chat most of he time anyway, unless I really try and listen for it.That's your own personal choice though to dampen the game's voice chat with your own chat that you aren't using/aren't using for the game. I use Mumble and it doesn't really hinder the game's voice feature, and if it did I wouldn't use it while playing.
And even then, sometimes their mics are bad, they are quiet, etc. They think they are talking, but actually arent doing anything worth hearing. Then suddenly, 'missing mid' turns into '...' on my end, and when I ask why no missing call happened, I get 'noob player plz leave'.Rarely in my experience are mics too quiet to hear. You've got to think that if a person has been using the same microphone for 100 games, somebody would have told them by now they couldn't hear them. I immediately tell someone when they are too quiet and they usually turn it up.
So yeah, voice chat in IDEAL conditions is really good. Unfortunately, voice chat in dota does not approach ideal conditions.Well it's not ideal when you have another program dampening it or interfering with it for sure ;p, but then, what feature is?
I've never actually found khazix to be particularly strong. I tried to play him a bit close to release (was he buffed?) but he didn't feel worth playing.Well, tell me his weakness and maybe I'll reconsider.
ROFLI've never actually found khazix to be particularly strong. I tried to play him a bit close to release (was he buffed?) but he didn't feel worth playing.Well, tell me his weakness and maybe I'll reconsider.
http://www.twitch.tv/riotgames/b/356059948
In this video (recent competitive game), fast forward to around 7:56:30 (that's 7 hours, 56 minutes, 30 seconds). Show me another hero that can do that much damage, that quickly, with that much utility, and continually jump around every half second so that you can't even escape him.
All he had was a BF Sword and a Brutalizer...
And yet here we are, arguing about a completely insignificant portion of khazix's play (collecting free kills his team set up for him)You keep saying it was a set up, I think he was just late to the battle. You keep acting like any hero could do what Khazix did there, but I think you're completely wrong. With the farm Khazix had at that very moment, NO other hero (including Tryndamere, Kat, Morg, or anybody else) could not do that much AoE damage, while having that much mobility to chase anybody down who tried to get away. This is why Khazix is pretty much permabanned in competitive play, and when he's not, his team usually wins.
If I could permanently remove any one champ from the game, it would be Lee Sin. I hate him with a passion.After the patch (in which both Lee Sin and Khazix were nerfed), I'd still rather face 2 Lee Sins than 1 Khazix. They didn't nerf him enough by a long shot. Lee Sin now has a clear weakness, he tapers off late game. I still don't see what Khazix can't do, or what his weakness is.
Some design decisions of Riot kind of baffle me. Like the decision to give Elise her Spider Form from level one, when Nidalee doesn't get Cougar Form til 6. I don't think there's any doubt that Elise is a better hero than Nidalee over all. She's much better at laning, her ranged nuke isn't a skillshot (and it HURTS), she has a ranged stun, does more damage in teamfights, and is overall a much safer and more reliable pick. And I absolutely chalk a lot of this up to the fact that Elise gets her Spider Form from level 1. If she had to wait til 6 like Nidalee, she'd still probably be a better hero, but only marginally, not overwhelmingly like she is now.Elise is arguably worse at pushing, is entirely short ranged, doesn't have a 40% armor AND mr shred, and doesn't have an ally heal. =p The form change at level 1 vs 6 is A: because Nid is an older design and B: because Cougar form is *really* good at dueling. Nid would be almost unbearable to lane against if she could go cougar to run away from anything or snipe off kills at level 1.
Elise is arguably worse at pushingThey're both decent at pushing so I don't see this as being a huge deal either way. Elise with her Volatile Spider and her Skittering Frenzy + Spiderlings can actually burst down a tower much faster than Nidalee with just her auto-attacks.
doesn't have a 40% armor AND mr shred,Erm, if you're referring to Nidalee's traps, that's a 20% Armor and MR Reduction, not 40%, and that's only if they step on it. Kind of hard to make someone step on a trap in the middle of a teamfight...It only becomes 40% at the highest level, and since most Nidalees max this skill last, it's going to be 20% for most of the game, and once again, it's really not that reliable.
Nid would be almost unbearable to lane against if she could go cougar to run away from anything or snipe off kills at level 1.For one thing, she would have a tough time "sniping" off kills at level one with just Pounce :P
Heimerdinger is a lot of fun, but I only played against bots ;) Still, having the enemy's central inhibitor down before my first recall was pretty entertaining.Which was also why he was nerfed, the game of "lose one or more objectives any time you recall to heal or shop" just kinda sucks =p
But yea, I was disappointed when I realized my then-favorite champ was widely regarded as laughably bad meta-wise.
He was nerfed again? When I played him he was down to two turrets at once (I understood he'd previously been able to do three) and considered a "play for fun" character but not competitive at all.Heimerdinger is a lot of fun, but I only played against bots ;) Still, having the enemy's central inhibitor down before my first recall was pretty entertaining.Which was also why he was nerfed, the game of "lose one or more objectives any time you recall to heal or shop" just kinda sucks =p
But yea, I was disappointed when I realized my then-favorite champ was widely regarded as laughably bad meta-wise.
In the bottom lane engagements, her ult is incredibly strong. It is hilariously more versatile than grave's nuke. It is easier to use than ezreal's channeled ult. It is an interrupt. This is kinda important. It can save allies. And, as I mightve mentioned, it contributes to tristana's hilarious level 6 damage.Her ult in bottom lane, aside from the level 6 burst, which falls off quickly, is good for stopping a potential gank maybe.
If you belong in plat, then you should be able to make it there yourself *shrug*I would make it to plat if the game was 1v1 :P
Saying that duo queue is the only way to advance sounds to me like you are relying a lot on getting carried.
I understand elo hell.And now you understand why I only duo-queue. I'm now in Gold IV and rapidly advancing towards Plat. This would take substantially longer if done solo.
When my bot tower falls while I am supporting, and I have half the cs my carry does (I had 6) and I had the only kill and 1/4th the deaths, there is not much I can do.
EDIT: Also, welcome to league of warmongs
max phoenix, then max turtle, take three in bear, then max tiger. rerwrerereewwqqqqq.Is that onomatopoeia? ;)
My solution? I just play Kogmaw in Ranked games and laugh.
Yeah in Bronze IV, that's going to be a problem.
My solution? I just play Kogmaw in Ranked games and laugh.
I wish I had the same case. In my games, no one wants to be a tank, then gets mad that while I as kog cannot attack anyone more then once before attempting to kite because my front line is dead.
Okay, I'll try to explain why this is necessary, and why Riot made this decision, and why I think it's a great decision.
Most champions in League of Legends use mana. Champions are balanced around the fact that when you cast an ability, you lose some mana, so that over time, you can no longer cast abilities (unless you restore your mana). This system keeps most champions in check from having overly exploitable abilities or mechanics.
Some champions are manaless. Energy champions work on a different system, but that system is still designed to keep those champions in check. The other resource that ALL champs have is HP. When you have a scenario where you can replenish a resource for free, indefinitely, either the ability will be underpowered, or broken (see, pre-nerf Rengar or Pre-nerf Soraka).
Tryndamere's problem is not that Riot doesn't want you to build him AP. It's that they put the fury system in place instead of a mana system. But by that token, you are supposed to acquire fury and then spend it accordingly. The previous ratio they had on Trynd was blatently overpowered. It might as well read, "This champion gains massive amounts of HP every 9 seconds". You could just change Q to "Passive: Increase HP Regen by 100/5" and it would be more balanced than AP Trynd's Q. He gets rewarded with massive amounts of free HP, for doing nothing at all. This type of gameplay is not only broken, but anti-fun. You should be rewarded for successfully playing through a risk. It's the same reason Soraka is considered the plague upon League of Legends. The champion is rewarded for a stalemate.
I like AP Tryndamere. I like that someone took the time to think out of the box. I like the fact that AP Trynd actually loses a LOT of lanes, but has a late game reward in his split push power, creating a viable strategy that does have counter-play. I like the way he works, the way he functions, the thrill of the split push. I like tons of stuff about AP Trynd, and I hope he doesn't get nerfed to unviability. However, I don't like when people get free wins because they exploit a broken and boring mechanic. And I don't mind when something gets used in a way that it wasn't originally intended. However, there is a big difference between "Oh, that's a creative way to use that champion" and "Oh, you're exploiting the fact that the game has been reworked and we've yet to balanced this previously underused champion around the new items."
With this new ratio, Tryndamere will still be able to heal, but he's actually going to have to gather fury to heal, as was intended for balance reasons. Just like it costs mana for other champions to use abilities, Tryndamere is supposed to be rewarded for gathering fury. In his current state, he could have all benefits from fury be removed, and he'd still be overpowered. AP is not supposed to replace fury, just like AP isn't supposed to replace mana. I do hope that the numbers Riot chooses are balanced and successful, and enable skilled Tryndamere players to find success when they outplay their opponents.
tl;dr Trynd doesn't cost mana so heal was overpowered. This nerf makes it so he has to use fury to heal effectively, since he is manaless.
This seemed relevant: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/02/25/ ;)That's pretty much what happens. Though it's partly Riot's fault for catering to the stale lane setup instead of encouraging people to try something new. In DotA there are dozens of different lane setups so nobody is going to rage at you if you don't do 2 bot, 1 mid, 1 top, jungler. It would be quite easy for them to mix it up if they wanted to, but in a competitive MOBA/ARTS people are going to expect you to do what it takes to win, fun is tertiary ;p
Expecting someone to be able to play all 5 roles competitively before playing ranked is ridiculous.I don't think it's ridiculous, it means you have a good enough understanding of the game to perform well in Ranked. That doesn't mean you have to be GOOD at all 5 roles, but you could at least be competent at them all.
Poor madcow, you didn't read the page before this one did you?
On top level play I can see why one would get that impression.Well recent forum debates have shown that Riot refuses to take a stance on this issue, which is a major part of the problem.
But for LoL in particular, when you first start out, you are not against pros. It is very much simply pick up and play. You can send anyone anywhere for the most part, since the jungle doesn't even really exist (due to lack of runes and masteries).
And at every level of play, the bots in LoL on easy really are so. Even the moderate ones, while sometimes brilliant/frustrating, on the whole still results in win for the player.
Every game at some point can reach the point of competitive (real or pseudo), just as some point it can be considered pick up and play.
I'm not saying that at the top that it isn't toxic, or the top meta is very stale. I'm just saying part of LoL's deserved thrashings are in part because it throws many bones to new players and thus is considered "casual"
I agree with all of that Winflier.Agreement singularity collapse imminent.
It is work. It is actual, defined work. You have to learn, train, keep regulations and rules and business language in mind, work in a shuffled together team, and work together to achieve maximum result or lose. The only difference I can find to actual work is that these games don't pay you.Some people enjoy work :)
Which is really why I can't find any understanding why anyone would play these games.
It's like asking me to play Capper in Tribes. I can do it, but it sure as hell won't be pretty :PWe'll just give you a ricocheting spinfusor and the enemy team will keep a safe distance :)
Honestly, I enjoye the sc2 multiplayer for the most part. Ultimately I had to quit because I took losses far too seriously.. which is something i actually liked initially. Turns out, when you are particularly hard on yourself, and its possible to COMPLETELY blame yourself for a loss because of obvious retrospective mistakes, it wears on you pretty quickly.That actually says a lot about you. That's one of the main reasons I play these kinds of games, because it helps me deal with my own insecurities.
Edit: OH, it applies ON HIT effects. Kogmaw BotRK Hurricane here I come!
Hurricane isnt exactly the best ad item nowadays. Or even a particularly viable one i feel.
Though I hear there's a major problem, especially on Kog, in that the range of Runaan's passive effect is not very high, so that most of the time you (being Kogmaw) never actually use the passive effect because you're hitting them from too far away. I must admit, this is a bummer, but I'll still have to try it and see.Hurricane isnt exactly the best ad item nowadays. Or even a particularly viable one i feel.
As Wingflier said, its power is that it applies on hit effects both with its greater AS and through its passive orbs.. BotRK is the king of on hit items, so the two synchronize well.
No offense, but if you have to shoot people as a capper, you are doing it wrong ;) (Aimed at Keith. For some reason the quote button didn't want to work)Don't worry, I think forum posts ricochet.
BoRKSometimes the acronym says it all (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=sY_Yf4zz-yo#t=8s).
Yeah, heros in dota build a gg branch nearly 100% of the time - It needs nerfing.Yeah, and then sell it back (or build it into something else). Besides, the cost of the branch is literally equivalent to a potion in League of Legends. Nowhere did I complain about people buying potions in my previous post, because it's a consumable. For all intents and purposes, GG branches are a consumable. Consumables have very little value past the early game.
99% of the time a team will have a mek - It needs nerfing.In this part you're either misrepresenting what I said accidentally or on purpose.
98% of the time a team will have a donkey - It needs nerfing .
See, that line of logic doesnt actually follow.
100% of the people in the game buy boots - Does that mean boots should get nerfed? (apparently riot thought so, because they nerfed them pretty damn hard)Now wait a minute, which boots are we talking about here? There are lots of boots. You can build Mercury Treads, Ninja Tabi, Gank Boots, Speed Boots, Bezerker Greaves, CDR Boots, etc. Just because they all have the word "boots" attached to them, and all give movespeed, doesn't mean everyone is building the same thing. If everyone in the game ONLY built Mercury Treads, then you would have an argument, and for a long time, Mercury Treads WERE the best boot by far. Fortunately, they've been nerfed several times to the point that they're pretty balanced with the rest of them, so many different types of boots are used.
That weight is actually a pretty big burden, when your only defense is a 300 range blink, that likely wont save you anyway.You're simply fooling yourself if you think this is the case.
ANd yes, the point of my post was to point out how silly your argument was. Just because everyone uses it doesnt mean its op and needs nerfing. For the most part, there are 4 summoner spells - Flash. Ignite. Exhaust. Smite. You see like ~18 combined of these every game. Does that make them op? No, it really doesnt.Speaking from a designer's perspective, if I give you 2 slots in a given category and 10 choices of what to put in those two slots: if 6 of those choices are effectively never chosen by anyone in a large player population, then something is wrong. The problem is not necessarily that the 4-often-chosen ones are OP, it may be that the other 6 are UP. Or it could be a systematic psychological distortion among the player population (I think that's at least one factor in why flash is chosen so much).
For comparison - Nearly every hero in dota builds power treads, arcane boots, or mana boots. You see about as many power treads as you do arcane and phase put together - Does that mean power treads are op? Or do I need to magically cross some other threshold (60%? 75%?)If I give you one slot in a given category and 6 options to fill it with, and one is picked 50% of the time, then it probably indicates that there is room for improvement in the design. But there'd be more info needed: are there statistically-significant cases where each option is preferable? Not every choice needs to be popular, but every choice needs to have some niche at least.
For the most part, there are 4 summoner spells - Flash. Ignite. Exhaust. Smite. You see like ~18 combined of these every game. Does that make them op? No, it really doesnt.I think it's an indication of bad design, yes. I don't see why they can't start nerfing the 4 most popular ones, or buffing the others, until they are all used. There's literally no excuse.
For comparison - Nearly every hero in dota builds power treads, arcane boots, or mana boots. You see about as many power treads as you do arcane and phase put together - Does that mean power treads are op? Or do I need to magically cross some other threshold (60%? 75%?)I think you meant to say phase boots and arcane boots?
In LoL it is the rest of the Summoners are UP. Although Teleport is really more a difficult solo Q summon because of the team work required. It is plenty strong in tournaments.I use Teleport a lot as a top lane in duo queue Ranked. All you have to do is ask your teammates to put a ward in the back bush at bottom lane, and it's typically a free kill. Also teleporting onto Dragon when they're trying to take it can completely turn the fight, or at least make them back off. But yeah, I wouldn't use it in anything less than a ~1500 game and expect any sort of success I guess.
Taking exhaust or ignite can often be the difference in getting those early kills, which mean far too much in league.I find just the opposite to be true. Once the early game passes, Ignite's usefulness drops dramatically, outside of facing a few key champions such as Tryndamere, Swain, Volibear, Mundo, etc. I would rather have Cleanse, on most Champions, which stays useful throughout the game, than Ignite, and get a couple more kills early on. Not to mention that Cleanse counters Ignite, and has the same CD, making it even more superior in my opinion.
Problem is that every bruiser nowadays, and half of the ad carries, have a gap closer, making flash required. I've experimented with taking ghost instead, but for the most part ghost cant replace flash unless I have a reliable escape.. And nothing really compares to am's blink.It's actually just the opposite, I believe Flash helps people with a gap closer MORE than it helps those without.
And yeah, power treads are indeed the common mans boots.. Just as flash is the common man's summonerspell.Finally, Treads are taken on about 50% of everybody, and have 3 different abilities which are all significantly different, and apply to different heroes, almost like making it 3 different items. Flash is taken on 92% of everybody, and is used the vast majority of the time to escape a mistake of bad positioning. These two aren't even comparable. For one thing, Treads aren't bad for the game. They actually have the SLOWEST MS of all the boots, meaning a player who takes them has to have superior positioning than someone who doesn't, where Flash rewards bad positioning.
Flash is taken 50% of the time its offered :pI believe the contention is that it is taken significantly more often than that.
If you mean it only occupies 1 of the 2 slots for each player, then I'd say they'd probably put it in both slots if they could ;)Yep. That.
So if its officially released soonish, what will happen to the infinity-1 amount of dota2 keys floating around?Probably something involving a massive sucking sound and a singularity swallowing lots of database servers. Be prepared! Don't be near any datacenters!
Another cool feature is that spectator mode now includes polls. This means anybody using the spectator client to view a game can vote in interactive polls, whose results will be shown to everybody watching (even people watching over streams). This is a fun way to see viewer favorites and opinions about who will win a series. In addition, referees of the game are able to show interesting pieces of information which appear on the screen as well, good for learning more about certain players, heroes, or items, during inactive times of the game.
I don't know when the last time you played was, but there are four options available now that may appeal to you:Another cool feature is that spectator mode now includes polls. This means anybody using the spectator client to view a game can vote in interactive polls, whose results will be shown to everybody watching (even people watching over streams). This is a fun way to see viewer favorites and opinions about who will win a series. In addition, referees of the game are able to show interesting pieces of information which appear on the screen as well, good for learning more about certain players, heroes, or items, during inactive times of the game.
This is a pretty cool new feature. I tried to get into this game a while back, but I got seriously put off by the attitudes veterans have towards n00bs. I still like to pop in every now and then to watch a match and try to figure out what's going on. This seems like a genre I'd enjoy, if I can ever learn it.
DotA 2 has officially added smartcasting, for those who couldn't live without it.
Well, Riot can welcome to 2013 when they add the ability to resell items for full price that you buy accidentally, or when they add different announcers to the game, or when they add custom HUD skins that you can share with anyone on your team, or when they add the ability to draw on the minimap to give your team specific travel routes, or the ability to pause the game when somebody inevitably disconnects or a personal emergency arises among 10 people in an often hour+ game. Or when they make a model which allows full access to the entire hero pool so that people with more money or FotM champions don't have a huge advantage. Heck, they can welcome to 2006 when they add VOIP to their game ;pDotA 2 has officially added smartcasting, for those who couldn't live without it.
Oh hey, welcome to 2009.
tl;drtldr: Dota 2 changes in far more significant ways than LoL, even though it takes its time adding things like smartcasting. LoL hardly ever changes anything too drastically, to the point where one skill remains the always-pick ever since day one.
Tl;dr Chemical Art is butthurt and doesn't have any good arguments so he acts immature instead and insults his own reading and/or patience capabilities.tl;drtldr: Dota 2 changes in far more significant ways than LoL, even though it takes its time adding things like smartcasting. LoL hardly ever changes anything too drastically, to the point where one skill remains the always-pick ever since day one.
tl;drtldr: Dota 2 changes in far more significant ways than LoL, even though it takes its time adding things like smartcasting. LoL hardly ever changes anything too drastically, to the point where one skill remains the always-pick ever since day one.
Tl;dr Chemical Art is butthurt and doesn't have any good arguments so he acts immature instead and insults his own reading and/or patience capabilities.tl;drtldr: Dota 2 changes in far more significant ways than LoL, even though it takes its time adding things like smartcasting. LoL hardly ever changes anything too drastically, to the point where one skill remains the always-pick ever since day one.
xin is ember spirit's name.I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for clarifying.
I'm not going to trawl through 16 pages of fanboyism and vitriol, but I'm curious if you ever mentioned Smite in any of your discussions here? It's a MOBA, after all, and a pretty damn good one at that.Actually most the thread has been pretty honest discussion without vitriol if you care to look at it. I was thinking about making a new one about the changes to LoL Season 4, and you could mention Smite there.
i played smite a little bit with the intent to seriously play it, but I always ended up with issues. Gold distribution was really dumb (an ally in your lane ALWAYS halved your gold income, regardless of lasthit), jungle was seriously retarded, and in general casters were very strong. In general the feel of the game didn't really seem like something i was interested in, and it was difficult for me to actually enjoy it.
I didn't really take the time to seriously play it, because my graphics card died and it took me almost a month to get a real replacement, and after that I had just kinda given up on it.
As for this thread, I dont think there was any real discussion of it.
Want to say it was around april.
Yeah, map is redone, ARAM was added (and revamped), tiered items and tiered actives were added, several gods redone and jungling was nerfed, but still viable.Want to say it was around april.
Yeah, that was well before the map change, as well as a number of other major changes.
Pretty sure that was before they added branching item paths, and I *think* that was before they started revamping certain gods. And of course there's been a bunch of new ones added since. Also fairly certain that was before the ARAM mode was added.
Casters arent stupidly powerful anymore either. Though there was a period where junglers had a bit too much of an advantage too, I *think* that's been dealt with now.
Yeah, map is redone, ARAM was added (and revamped), tiered items and tiered actives were added, several gods redone and jungling was nerfed, but still viable.Want to say it was around april.
Yeah, that was well before the map change, as well as a number of other major changes.
Pretty sure that was before they added branching item paths, and I *think* that was before they started revamping certain gods. And of course there's been a bunch of new ones added since. Also fairly certain that was before the ARAM mode was added.
Casters arent stupidly powerful anymore either. Though there was a period where junglers had a bit too much of an advantage too, I *think* that's been dealt with now.
Anyways, when it comes to gods (champions) in Smite, they pretty much very strongly adhere to their class. Mages are basically bursty, high damage type characters with some range. They are squishy as balls and if you dodge/counter their abilities they are basically useless. Often highly susceptible to CC and have trouble with high magical protection tanks. Some are more leaned against midlane (good minion clear and sustain) while others are more assassin-like (high burst damage, good mobility and limited CC).
Assassins are most often melee type physical fighters (there are a few exceptions). They excel at ganks, do absolutely absurd damage and often have very high sustainable DPS, compared to mages who basically drop a nuke on your face but have pretty poor followups. Assassins are just as squishy as mages, and tend to have an absolutely HORRIBLE early game with limited minion clear, low damage and very poor sustain/survivability. They are essentially snowball characters that, once they get rolling, they become a huge threat to the enemy team. Often focused in team fights.
Bruisers are something inbetween a tank and an assassin. Not as absurdly damage-focused as assassins, but often have self heals and self-protection abilities to provide better staying power in a lane.
Tanks are...well, tanks. Focusing either on enabling ganks and supporting team fights with disruption, peel or CC. Extremely high survivability.
So, as much as I rave on and on about how a certain god is "easy to play", "stupidly overpowered" etc, that's mostly just frustration speaking. Every god have counters and gods are primarily balanced for Conquest (classic MOBA) gameplay, not 1v1 or Arena. Some gods, like Freya, absolutely DESTROY people in 1v1, leading to most people thinking she's overpowered as hell.
I've never been against a freya 1v1, but, that doesn't sound fun. But a Freya in conquest is useful but not an auto-win by any means.Freya is an assassin with pretty much one thing on her mind: To destroy the opposition in the least amount of time. If you allow her to activate her 1 and 2 and actually hit you, you are dead. In the extremely rare case that you are not dead, she pops her ult and THEN you die.
I can see how, even given the absurd nature of her ability to kill anybody ever 1v1, she would still be balanced.I've never been against a freya 1v1, but, that doesn't sound fun. But a Freya in conquest is useful but not an auto-win by any means.Freya is an assassin with pretty much one thing on her mind: To destroy the opposition in the least amount of time. If you allow her to activate her 1 and 2 and actually hit you, you are dead. In the extremely rare case that you are not dead, she pops her ult and THEN you die.
In a team fight where people actually cooperate, she's not that much of a threat since you can bait out here two and swarm her when it's down. Or if you "know how to play", you'll try not run away from her when she ults, but instead run in UNDER her, where she can't target you. Then you proceed to eat her face when she lands :P
But for someone who doesn't really know how to counter her, or you indeed meet her in 1v1 joust...you're pretty much boned. She WILL devour your soul.
Freya isn't a slouch in team fights, but she's not unstoppable either.It also makes them immune to any new sources of damage. A bad Banish can be the worst thing to ever happen in a teamfight :P I've Had SO many Ao Kuang ults dodged just because a friendly Freya thought it was a great time to Banish half the enemy team :P
Actually, the ability of hers that Fox didn't mention (her banish) might arguably be one of her best team fight abilities. It basically just lifts another player and takes them out of the fight for a few seconds. It doesn't do any damage, but, it stops them from doing any either.
That's how SMITE works, and I feel it's rather elegant. It puts more focus on actual lane brawling, poking and harassing, rather than playing "Farmville" with minions. Of course you have to farm, naturally, but it's less dominant than say LoL or DotA where lasthitting is pretty much mandatory and you should STFU and GTFO if you can't lasthit :P
Incidently, it's that huge focus on lasthitting and denying , in combination with the controls and perspective, that makes me unable to enjoy LoL and DotA.
Yay, this thread is active again! <3
Before I begin my response I have to convey that I know almost absolutely nothing about SMITE. I've played thousands of games of HoN, LoL, and DotA, so those are the only 3 ARTS/MOBAs that I can fairly comment on.
In terms of the LoL laning phase being ideal, I'm afraid I'm going to have to heavily disagree there. The laning phase in LoL is the worst of all 3 of the major MOBA games I've tried. This is heavily evidenced by the fact that in professional play, there are usually barely any kills before the 20 minute mark. It is extremely painful to watch. In fact, without the help of the jungler (in high level play), kills rarely happen in the lane at all. To depend on the jungler just to make kills happen is absolutely crazy. That doesn't mean that there isn't some harassment and back-and-forth. Yes, it's true that whoever pushes their opponent to the tower typically has the advantage by virtue of making it harder to last hit. But that is not exciting. It's still a war of last hits. Last hitting is still important in LoL, I was in Gold II (so top 5% of all LoL players) before I got bored and went back to DotA, and it was absolutely imperative that you were ahead of the other carry in creep kills.
The laning phase in LoL is also made boring by extremely formulaic and stagnated metagame. Where in DotA the players can choose from an abundance of different lane combinations, LoL players are pretty much stuck with the typical 1-1-2+jungler.
Even if you chose to go the formulaic carry+support bottom lane route, the amount of options available to the DotA player are astronomically higher.
What can the LoL support player do?
1. Harass the opponent with his autoattacks and spells
There you go. You've completely exhausted the list of what you can realistically do as a support in the laning phase of League of Legends.
What can the DotA support player do?
1. Harass the opponent with his autoattacks and spells.
2. Deny allied creeps.
3. Stack the neutral creep camp.
4. Pull the neutral creep camp.
5. Walk mid and gank.
6. Smoke mid and gank.
7. Teleport mid and gank.
8. Smoke top and gank.
9. Smoke into their jungle and gank.
10. Teleport top and gank.
11. Help your jungler.
12. Secure rune control.
13. Permanently go mid to support.
14. Permanently go top to support.
15. Temporarily go top or mid to stop a heavy push attempt.
All of these options require different amounts of time, strategy, and financial investment to pull off.
Could a LoL support TECHNICALLY gank mid? Yes, but it's unlikely to work. As soon as a support goes missing for that long it's obvious something is fishy, and ganking mid with a support just isn't that effective. Not to mention that you're screwing your carry over by leaving. DotA carries are much more self-reliant and don't need the support with them all the time to succeed. The towers themselves deal much less damage per hit, which makes last hitting under the tower a much more viable option than in LoL, and is sometimes preferred for safety reasons and to free up a hero to go elsewhere.
This is a recurring theme throughout the comparison of DotA and LoL. In DotA, as a player, you simply have so many more options at any given time than does the LoL player. What I gave you was just one example. I could give you tons of examples just like this. That is to say, DotA's superior strategic depth comes from the multitude of options it presents the player at any given time. Your skill as a player doesn't come from the ability to throw a Nidalee Javelin, it comes from the impossible decision of having dozens of equally tempting options available to you, and being forced to decide which one is the most beneficial.
Many LoL players do not understand this because they do not understand DotA. If you come into DotA with the LoL mentality, then it's probably going to seem rather disappointing. If you want to truly appreciate the depth and complexity of DotA, you simply need to think outside the box.
I hate last hitting. I agree with you, it's a crappy mechanic and it shouldn't be a measure of skill. So what do my friends and I do? We avoid it altogether. We create lane combinations that don't need to focus on last hitting to be effective. Lina + Sand King is a classic example. What need for last hitting when you're killing your opponents over and over? Juggernaught + Crystal Maiden is another extremely nasty one. Bristleback + Venomancer will have your opponents on their knees. With lane combinations like this, last hitting is a tertiary concern at best.
One of my girlfriend and my favorite lane combinations is Keeper of the Light + Leshrac. It is absolute tower demolition. Keeper's nuke kills whole creep waves and Leshrac has an ability which can kill towers in about 10 seconds flat (from full health). Once we've destroyed the tower in our lane we don't even worry about the people there anymore, we just go to the next lane and repeat the process. Pretty soon our team has 3,000 extra gold and is 3 towers closer to victory.
All this is to say that you're simply looking at DotA the wrong way. DotA is not *meant* to be played a certain way like LoL is. You aren't forced into a box. The box you create is self-imposed. If you want to create a boring farm lane, that's certainly a possibility. The Warlock + Faceless Void or Silencer + Spectre lanes will always have their advocates. Many people enjoy these kinds of lanes, and I don't think that option should be taken from them. However, that's far from the only possibility. There are so many good "push" and "kill" lanes that it's not even funny. There are literally thousands of lane combinations, all up to your own imagination, that make last hitting an almost negligible concern. And I'm sorry to say, but options like this simply aren't available in LoL. Stuck in the formulaic structure of the game, last hitting will always be important. Double-bruiser bottom lane might be fun in unskilled pubs, but how effective is it really against a carry and support who really know what they're doing?
When attempting to understand the design decisions implemented by the DotA team, you need to think about strategical depth. You're absolutely right, in DotA, you can't spam your abilities willy nilly. You must prepare, calculate, and time them all correctly, especially early on. So let me ask you, what strategy is there in spamming an ability over and over and over again, as soon as it is off cooldown? What timing does it require to keep pressing the same button again and again whenever you can? How does this contribute to the strategical value of the game? How does it make a person a better player?
You answered your own question with those remarks. The irony is that having more expensive spells means more strategical use of them. There is no strategy in simple point and click. The manaless champions in LoL are the epitome of this point. What skill does it require for me to take Katarina mid and spam my spells while gaining last hits and harassing my opponent like there is no tomorrow?
When I first met my girlfriend, she was a terrible LoL player, and she had never played DotA. When I first introduced her to DotA, one of her favorite characters was Vengeful Spirit. Initially, she would spam her stun on enemy heroes at level 1, as soon as they came into range. Within 2 uses of this, her mana was completely depleted, and she was basically useless, and the enemy hero just ate a tango and was full health again. It took me awhile to break the bad habits that LoL had instilled into her. I had to explain that this was no longer about just spamming her spells on enemy heroes whenever possible, but instead carefully waiting for that precise opportunity to strike, and working with your lane mate to secure a well-earned kill. Because in addition to their higher costs, you can't deny that the spells in DotA are also much more lethal as well. You may be able to kill somebody with Draven and Sona after 5 minutes of heavy harassment (unlikely). We can kill you with Lina and Sand King at level 1 if you get out of position. There is no flash to save your ass.
Mechanics like flash just open up a whole can of worms I don't even want to go in to, but suffice it to say that a Summoner Spell that rewards bad positioning which is so important that it's used by over 90% of champions in any given professional game, is beyond reproach.
After nearly 200 games of DotA, my girlfriend is only average at last hitting, but she is still an above average DotA player. Where she lacks in some areas, she makes up with her knowledge of where to be, when to be there, and what to do. As an example, she always carries teleports on her person, which means that she can assist an ally halfway across the map almost instantaneously as long as she is paying attention. Ironically, when she returned to LoL after not having played it for several months, not only was she much better than her friends who used to be equals, but she began to see how limited the game was. She was no longer worrying about whether she could hit her Dark Binding, but instead looking at the overall strategic options as a whole, and in that regard, LoL is decidedly inferior.
All of this comes at a heavy price, of course, and there are many ways in which LoL is undoubtedly superior to DotA. It all depends on what's important to you I guess. There have certainly been times in my life where LoL was more appealing to me, but overall I have preferred DotA more.
In terms of what was said about the laning phase of Smite, I think that's extremely interesting. I think it would all depend on how common or viable the "kill lanes" you speak of were. My biggest concern would be that once one team began winning a lane it would start to snowball uncontrollably. If every last hit is automatically taken by the pushed tower, I can see the losing side falling into an inescapable gold deficit which continued to perpetuate itself. Like I said however, without actually playing the game there's no way for me to know. It certainly sounds like it could be neat.
Oh, as a second things that I thought of when I read your #2 there:Yeah it gets confusing sometimes. I've had up to 6 active items...sadly I only have hotkeys for 5 of them. It can become overwhelming.
Items! Active items in DotA really threw me off. In a game where split-second decisions can make or break you, I find it extremely infuriating to not only have your abilites, but also "random" items have an active component. I much prefer Smite's way of doing it where you have 4 abilites, 1 passive, 2 active slots (where items with an active component go) and 6 passive item slots. That makes it a lot easier to focus.
I guess you could play DotA that way, and simply keep two actives in the same keybinds as Smite, but it still seems a bit "messy" to me.
1. Warding -
It's true that supports in DotA spend quite a bit of time warding. Once every six minutes (assuming you're perfect, which most of the time isn't possible). However, I certainly wouldn't call it boring. My girlfriend (who plays primarily support) has died so many times warding that she gets frustrated when she has to do it. Warding in DotA is often very dangerous as the ward hotspots are also typically near the runes, which are extremely active areas of the map, especially during the mid-game. Warding can lead to a sudden and unexpected death. Good players can even lie in waiting just for a support to come.
You're right though, when a support goes alone, it's typically a death sentence if they get caught out. That's why you take an escort. It's something my girlfriend has learned to do. She asks someone to go with her. She can even turn a potential gank attempt into a kill. This is where the strategies and mindgames come in. The enemy knows you need to ward. They know having vision of the wards/forest entrances are important. Do they wait in ambush? You expect that they will, so you send an escort for your support warder. Do you use your support as bait to draw out the predator and kill them? What if the enemy expects a trap and sends multiple heroes to do the job. What if you expect this and your whole team is waiting just behind the fog?
These are the kinds of mind games that warding often plays in DotA. Then you also get into counter-warding, counter-counter-warding, smoke ganking (which avoids wards altogether), and everything in-between. In mid to high level play, it can get complicated; but the team which controls the ward vision has a massive advantage that can't be understated.
I agree that it is a big responsibility on the supports, but that doesn't mean that other people can't help them. I try to buy wards whenever I can, regardless of what role I play. I've been on a jungle kick lately, and I usually buy a least a couple set of wards throughout the game. Especially early on, when I'm still weak, I'd rather have control of where they are placed so that when they attempt to gank me I know well in advance. Sometimes you can ask for help if you're way behind on items. Believe it or not, going Hand of Midas on supports has become a popular strategy in professional play lately, and it helps them out tremendously in the long run to buy the things they need, plus also get some luxury items as well.
2. Items -
In general DotA does items much better than does League of Legends. Perhaps it's the fact that most heroes have multiple build paths, or that a large percentage of the items are activatable, or that there's simply a bigger variety of things to build. Mostly however, I think it's the way both DotA and LoL handle items. In LoL, items scale up, while in DotA, items scale down. This means that in LoL, the farther ahead you get (in farm), the more exponential an advantage you'll have over your opponent. In DotA it's just the opposite. The cheaper the item, the more cost effective. This means that even if an opponent has significantly more farm than you do, your items stand a much better chance of competing with his. The more he has spent on any particular item, the less it was worth, cost-effectiveness wise. This allows even supports to buy cheaper items (Urn of Shadows, Medallion of Courage, Magic Wand) that can still make a BIG difference in battle while still being able to afford the mainstream support stuff.
3. Denying -
I'm really pretty neutral on denying. I could take it or leave it. I've seen good arguments on both sides. I highly recommend reading this article (http://nomeswisdom.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/denying/) about it by [S2]Nome. Against it is certainly the fact that it's a non-intuitive mechanic. I hate it when games add non-intuitive mechanics for no reason. Sometimes it's necessary but in this case I feel like it just adds unneeded complexity. However, there are some positives to it as well. It raises the skill gap in the laning phase. In LoL you can harass or last hit. In DotA, you can harass, last hit, or deny. You've increased the potential options/skill ceiling by 33% for each player. It also gives supports something to do, as they are typically expected to deny instead of taking last hits.
In DotA, some heroes are better at harassing, and some heroes are better at last hitting/denying. Often, the winner of a lane (say mid lane) comes from a player's ability to deny vs an enemy's ability to kill them. If a person can deny the "lethal" champion enough, it will cause him to be underleveled/underfarmed to such an extent that he loses quite a bit of his killing power. Conversely, if the aggressive champion can get ahead on kills, the last-hitter can be put in a very difficult position.
Like I said, it's a frustrating mechanic, but it certainly adds depth to the game, at a cost. I simply attempt to avoid it by playing lanes/roles that don't require it much to succeed, and there are plenty of those.
4. Stacking/pulling -
It's not difficult to do, but the strategy appears when the enemy comes to stop you. People don't like their creep waves being pulled, it robs them of a substantial amount of farm and exp. They will stop you if they can, which often causes dangerous fights to break out. Typically though you have the advantage since these fights are close to your tower, and in your jungle.
5. Ganking -
I didn't say that it doesn't work in other games. I said it doesn't work in LoL. As a support, leaving your lane to go gank mid during the laning phase seems extremely unlikely to work. If the enemy calls their lane it should be extremely obvious what's happening. Not to mention that every second you leave your carry is guaranteed to hurt you in the long run. Even if you secure the mid kill, for example, you may have lost even more by the time you get back to the lane.
In DotA it's so much more viable to gank. You've got teleports to be at mid or top lane almost instantly. Can you imagine a support leaving bot lane to help top in LoL? It's just too insane to consider. You've also got smoke at your disposal, which literally cloaks you to all enemy vision now, even see-invis wards. It also gives you a boost of 15% movespeed, and it lasts for 60 seconds. It only ends once you are very close to an enemy hero or tower. With a tool like this, you have ganking opportunities that a LoL player couldn't even DREAM of, and it only costs 100 gold. Not only that, but even if you just walk mid from bottom lane, there's a much higher chance of a successful gank. Supports are often missing from the lane anyway because they may be pulling, warding, or doing any number of things. Ability ranges are also much longer in DotA, stuns are more common, and there is no flash. It's not hard to coordinate a successful gank on mid if you work together, even without paying for a consumable to make it work.
I've had two games recently with two different friends who were playing mid. My friends are good players so they were successfully dominating the mid lane. In both games, the enemy team saw that they were a problem, and through a series of coordinated ganks with supports, killed my friends at mid over, and over, and over again until they had lost most their farm and were neutered as hell. They were effectively camping mid with their supports, waiting for the right opportunity to strike, then taking them down before they got out of hand. It goes without saying that a mid that gets super ahead in DotA is extremely potent.
I'm not saying this isn't possible in LoL. It's just with over a thousand games of experience, I've never seen anything like it. Sure, you have the teleport summoner spell, it's just not that viable on supports and has a considerably longer cooldown than in DotA. DotA ganking in general is just more effective. You have more approach paths (including ones you can make yourself by cutting down trees), more mobility, and more accessibility to every lane. There is no flash to ruin ganks regularly, and more stuns to set them up correctly if the opponent is out of position. Tower diving is much, much more viable, which allows for some crazy gank attempts that can sometimes break out into entire teamfights because of scroll of teleport.
6. Laning -
As I said before, if traditional DotA laning bores you, don't do it. After playing the game for over 10 years, it bores me a bit too as well. My friends and I rarely do traditional laning anymore. Most often we create some kind of obnoxious lane combination that "breaks" the game. (We like to call these "gay lanes", however immature that may be.) Find a friend that you synergize well with and pick a powerful kill lane. You say fighting and killing is rare in DotA lanes, but I assure you, with Lina + Sand King, killing is not rare at all. With CM + Juggernaught you will be killing your opponent(s) over and over again. Sure, they may leave the lane (or leave the game) because they're tired of dying, but you can't possibly complain about that. As I said last time, Leshrac + Keeper of the Light is a blast. We often get complained at because "you're taking two supports bottom lane waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah". Then when we start melting towers like faces, people change their tune. In DotA is a game for innovators. If you try to play traditionally, people who have played more are going to beat you by experience. Don't play their game, force them to play yours. Find your group's favorite heroes and make them work together.
I knew that my cousin likes Skywrath Mage, Dazzle, and Bristleback. Those are 3 of his favorites. I like Leshrac, Slardar, and Pugna.
So? We put them together and were amazed with the results.
Dazzle (http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Dazzle) and Slardar (http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Slardar) wasn't difficult to figure out. It's a combination sometimes even used in competitive play. Powerful in the lane but even more powerful late game. Both heroes have anti-armor ultimates. Combined, they can bring an enemy to -60 armor or more. This means that, in essence, a carry could feasibly kill an enemy player from full health in one hit. Both of their ultimates go through magic immunity...
Bristleback (http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Bristleback) + Leshrac (http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Leshrac) has turned out to be the nastiest, most disgusting, most overpowered lane we've ever devised in 10 years. Early on in the laning phase, Bristlebacks stacking slow makes landing my "skillshot stun" easy, and we can often secure a within the first minute of the game. The laning phase often snowballs and we can take a tower fairly quickly if necessary. However, where the combination really shines is during the teamfight phase. Bristleback is well known as one of the most powerful tanks in the game. Hit from behind (his bristleback), he takes 40% reduced damage and retaliates with a free spray of quills in a large area. This in addition to the skill that does the same allows him to spread physical damage in a large area over a large period of time. Each time an enemy is hit by these quills, they become even more vulnerable to the next, til they get to the point that each new quill is taking an 1/8th of their health or more. Enter Leshrac, whose Pulse Nova deals hundreds of magical damage in a large area every second as long as he has mana (think Karthus Defile, except much stronger). Normally Leshrac is vulnerable when using this ability because he's a squishy intelligence hero, but with Bristleback to tank and draw the fire, it becomes much easier. With the massive amount of magic and physical aoe damage that we're both throwing out, we can kill entire teams in seconds. 2v5, we've done it many times. We have never lost with this combination. Our team can be sleeping and we still win. Nobody ever expects and it never lets up.
Pugna (http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Pugna) + Skywrath Mage (http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Skywrath) is one of the most hilarious troll lanes EVER. Both Pugna and Skywrath have an ability which reduces an enemy's magic resistance quite considerably. They both also have slows. They both also do a buttload of magic damage. Basically, you hit 3, pick a target, and watch them die. Everything melts. It's the most unorthodox, most unexpected, most hilarious face melting lane we've ever devised. NOBODY expects it. It goes against every unwritten rule that DotA players adhere to. Taking 2 solo mid laners and putting them bot together should end in disaster; and it does - just not for the right team ;D
You just have to experiment a bit and practice until you find unorthodox lanes that destroy everything and which nobody expects. That's when laning in DotA becomes a lot of fun.
7. Last hitting -
Like I said, I agree with this. It's a boring mechanic and has absolutely nothing to do with the kind of grand strategy or critical thinking the rest of the game requires. I almost look at it as a kind of 'mini-game within the game', because somebody can be completely horrible at it, yet still be good at the rest of the game. Conversely, someone can be extremely good at last hitting, and horrible at everything else. It's a skill that doesn't really translate to the rest of the game, but as far as I know, all the popular MOBAs use it. Having said that, removing or reinventing it is not as easy as one would think. Nome started an interesting discussion about this a few years ago. At some point, he and his team of designers went about trying dozens of different alternatives to last hitting inside of their own 3rd party MOBA game. They tried everything. They tried gold simply dropping on the ground, spreading gold and exp equally among everyone in the lane, creating different resources for different creep, even removing the mechanic entirely. In the end, no matter what they tried, all the mechanics ended up as inferior to the simple last-hitting mechanic the game was built around.
I believe the next generation of ARTS games are planning to change this formula however. Heroes of the Storm (Blizzard DotA) and S2's new game Strife are removing or revamping this mechanic completely, from what I've read. I'll be greatly anticipating both.
Mildly related but my girlfriend made me a DotA plushie of Axe (http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Axe) for me for New Years!That is quite ridiculously cute. My girlfriend made a similar thing, though she's a painting artist. She painted an Equilibrium of Mankind livre Armageddon (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/File:EOM_Orge.JPG) from EVE for me ^^
http://imgur.com/a/phJiR (http://imgur.com/a/phJiR)
It's very nice.
Thanks ;pWelcome to Reddit. :P
I posted the gallery on the DotA reddit page thinking that people would be impressed. Instead people were extremely jealous and butthurt, replying with comments like "that last picture wasn't necessary" and "somebody looks sick". Can you believe it got about twice as many downvotes as upvotes?
I know it sucks to be a single gamer but DAMN.
Heh. Hate to break it to you, but Schrodinger's not really a philosopher, Physics != philosophy ;) one is real the other imaginary ;)I was thinking more of his impact on the field, rather than his official participation in it :)
Heh. Hate to break it to you, but Schrodinger's not really a philosopher, Physics != philosophy ;) one is real the other imaginary ;)Hate to break it to you but he *was* a philosopher as well as physicist and his philosophical impact was quite significant. He also did do a few philosophical writings. And physics and philosophy is much closer that you would think. In a certain sense philosophy as much real as certain aspects of physics are "imaginary".
That said a game of scientists versus philosophers would be fun! Though Oppenheimer would be OP.
/derail
Take elementary particles - we can't see them with a microscope or experience them in any practical sense, all we have as the theory they fit into. Philosophy is about the same - we have some beliefs about thins around as and what we experience in life fit these beliefs . Same thing, really.Ehhhh...not really.
How....Ult: Derail
How did this turn into a topic on philosophy and science?
Insta-kill is nice, but no one will stand still long enough for that last chevron to engage...Not sure what you mean by insta-kill there. But if you are referring to the OTHER Anubis who tried to escape into their base that I stunned and then ulted with my FACELASER™ then yeah, he pretty much insta-died, but that was mostly due to his low health. Anubis' ult does retarded amounts of damage, but he's self-rooted for the duration, and it only does damage if you actually point it directly at something, so...It's fairly balanced.
I've never played Smite, I was just joiking what it would be like to actually point a SG-1 stargate at someone in a game like that :)OOOH! Iz dumb. Didn't make the connection there. My bad. :D
If you could actually connect, it's all over.
For those interested; this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gON1VRAvIUw&feature=youtube_gdata_player) whole old, gives a very good overview on Smite, its gameplay and its "champions".I'll definitely give it a look!
For those interested; this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gON1VRAvIUw&feature=youtube_gdata_player) whole old, gives a very good overview on Smite, its gameplay and its "champions".I'll definitely give it a look!
Most of the art, several of the gods and the map have changed many times over since then. Even a few items have changed, but the overal mechanics and style is still the same.I'll definitely give it a look!
Keep in mind while you do, that while virtually everything he says about mechanics and how the game works is correct, I think every single piece of art has been updated since then. It's rather a beautiful game these days.
Unchained Key Bind: 1That's a typical example of a physical ability. 80% scaling is HUGE for a physical ability and most tend to hover around 50-60% if they are good. Magic abilities are often around 70-80% and in addition; magic power tends to scale a lot more into the end game. A fully built physical carry may have 200-240 physical power by the end game, while a nuke-built mage may be around 600-650 magical power.
Fenrir leaps forward, dealing damage to all enemies when he lands. At full runes, the leap stuns the enemies hit. If the leap hits a god, the cooldown is halved.
Ability: Line
Affects: Enemy
Damage: Physical
Damage: 95 / 155 / 215 / 275 / 335 (+80% of your physical power)
Stun: 1s Cost: 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 / 85
Cooldown: 15s
By the way, since I haven't played Dota 2 enough, and haven't played LoL since FOREVER, how do abilities scale in those games? As I understand it Abilities (spells) are static in LoL and scale only be leveling them up and by buying items with "ability power" on them, am I correct? Are abilities in Dota 2 completely static and level only by leveling them up?In DotA, abilities typically don't scale with items, unless you include Aghanim's Scepter. A physical carry's abilities indirectly levels up with items, but not in a literal sense (in other words, if you have an ability giving you 100% extra attack speed, the more damage you build, the more effective that will be).
In Smite it works by splitting all gods (champs) into two categories: Magical and Physical. They deal and scale off their respective damage types. Magical users are generally Guardians (tanks) and pure casters, while physical users are Assassins, Hunters (ADC) and Warriors (Bruisers). Now the difference from at least LoL is that all your abilities have a base amount of stats that may either be completely static regardless of level (such as a slow, for instance. It's 20% and doesn't scale at all), or scales with level. So an ability might start off at 100 damage and scale up with level up to say 800 at level 5 (max ability level). In addition most abilites have "scaling" that adds a certain percentage from your physical/magical power stat. Abilities can never crit. Only autoattacks.
So as an example a physical character generally lives off of their auto attacks for damage and use their abilities for utility, CC, support, mobility etc. Some exceptions exist such as Loki who generally deals insane physical burst damage in a short time span with his abilities and finish off with AA.
Magic users tend to be for more bursty and almost all of their damage comes from their abilites, and as such, their abilities generally scale better compared to physical characters.
Naturally, there are several exceptions to this rule. Nu Wa, Zeus and Chronos are examples of very AA-centric mages and Thor, Loki and Hercules are very ability-focused physical fighters.
: Example skillUnchained Key Bind: 1That's a typical example of a physical ability. 80% scaling is HUGE for a physical ability and most tend to hover around 50-60% if they are good. Magic abilities are often around 70-80% and in addition; magic power tends to scale a lot more into the end game. A fully built physical carry may have 200-240 physical power by the end game, while a nuke-built mage may be around 600-650 magical power.
Fenrir leaps forward, dealing damage to all enemies when he lands. At full runes, the leap stuns the enemies hit. If the leap hits a god, the cooldown is halved.
Ability: Line
Affects: Enemy
Damage: Physical
Damage: 95 / 155 / 215 / 275 / 335 (+80% of your physical power)
Stun: 1s Cost: 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 / 85
Cooldown: 15s
Those statistics really don't show much more than what every MOBA player already knows: CC is king.True but in DotA the carries typically don't get the CC ;p
I know it sucks to be a single gamer but DAMN.
Errr, it was really well made and had a lot of attention to detail. I was simply trying to get all the angles, not make people jealous.I know it sucks to be a single gamer but DAMN.
I looked at the gallery. I think that if the topic of your post was about the gift you received, a picture showing the gift probably would have sufficed. The multiple pictures of the same thing and then finally your girlfriend at the end, it seems to me like you wanted to share a little bit more than just the doll. Which opens it up to the usual Internet trolling.
I am not a single gamer (have an awesome girlfriend), so my reply here is not out of jealousy.
Thanks ;preplying with comments like "that last picture wasn't necessary" and "somebody looks sick".
[size=78%]It didn't even look like she was posing or anything[/size]
I guess we can only look at things from our perspective. If I were girlfriendless and somebody made a similar gallery I certainly wouldn't be bothered by it. Then again I know what the average DotA player is like so I guess I shouldn't be as surprised as I was.Thanks ;preplying with comments like "that last picture wasn't necessary" and "somebody looks sick".: Wingflier
[size=78%]It didn't even look like she was posing or anything[/size]
Some disagree with you. Anyway, just giving you an idea of how it may come across.
By the way, since I haven't played Dota 2 enough, and haven't played LoL since FOREVER, how do abilities scale in those games? As I understand it Abilities (spells) are static in LoL and scale only be leveling them up and by buying items with "ability power" on them, am I correct? Are abilities in Dota 2 completely static and level only by leveling them up?In DotA, abilities typically don't scale with items, unless you include Aghanim's Scepter. A physical carry's abilities indirectly levels up with items, but not in a literal sense (in other words, if you have an ability giving you 100% extra attack speed, the more damage you build, the more effective that will be).
In Smite it works by splitting all gods (champs) into two categories: Magical and Physical. They deal and scale off their respective damage types. Magical users are generally Guardians (tanks) and pure casters, while physical users are Assassins, Hunters (ADC) and Warriors (Bruisers). Now the difference from at least LoL is that all your abilities have a base amount of stats that may either be completely static regardless of level (such as a slow, for instance. It's 20% and doesn't scale at all), or scales with level. So an ability might start off at 100 damage and scale up with level up to say 800 at level 5 (max ability level). In addition most abilites have "scaling" that adds a certain percentage from your physical/magical power stat. Abilities can never crit. Only autoattacks.
So as an example a physical character generally lives off of their auto attacks for damage and use their abilities for utility, CC, support, mobility etc. Some exceptions exist such as Loki who generally deals insane physical burst damage in a short time span with his abilities and finish off with AA.
Magic users tend to be for more bursty and almost all of their damage comes from their abilites, and as such, their abilities generally scale better compared to physical characters.
Naturally, there are several exceptions to this rule. Nu Wa, Zeus and Chronos are examples of very AA-centric mages and Thor, Loki and Hercules are very ability-focused physical fighters.
: Example skillUnchained Key Bind: 1That's a typical example of a physical ability. 80% scaling is HUGE for a physical ability and most tend to hover around 50-60% if they are good. Magic abilities are often around 70-80% and in addition; magic power tends to scale a lot more into the end game. A fully built physical carry may have 200-240 physical power by the end game, while a nuke-built mage may be around 600-650 magical power.
Fenrir leaps forward, dealing damage to all enemies when he lands. At full runes, the leap stuns the enemies hit. If the leap hits a god, the cooldown is halved.
Ability: Line
Affects: Enemy
Damage: Physical
Damage: 95 / 155 / 215 / 275 / 335 (+80% of your physical power)
Stun: 1s Cost: 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 / 85
Cooldown: 15s
However, DotA is balanced in this fashion, and I think it allows for much more diversity and individualism among heroes than at least League of Legends.
Why?
Because by making it so that abilities don't directly scale with items, you can have a huge impact on at what time in the game each hero is the most powerful. The problem with League of Legends, at least in my experience, is that basically any champion can carry. Given enough farm, it doesn't matter if they deal AP or AD, they can do insane amounts of damage. Yet, to counter-balance this design philosophy, all heroes typically have to be nerfed to some extent.
In DotA, it's exactly the opposite. If you're a magic dealer, you WILL fall off after a certain point. It doesn't matter how much farm you have, or how many levels ahead you are, your abilities don't scale that well, and you'll eventually be defeated by heroes who do.
So why is this important? Because you can dictate at which time any given hero peaks within the game. Intelligence heroes are the most powerful early on in DotA. That's because, in spite of the fact that their abilities don't scale with items that well, they scale regularly (through levels) incredibly well. With often just 1 point in these abilities, you have a massive advantage of your lategame carry counterparts. With 4 points in these abilities, you can often kill them from full health to zero early to mid game. Strength heroes typically peak and are most effective in the mid game. Agility heroes are usually the most powerful in the late game.
So what's so awesome about this particular system is that you can build a team to focus on a particular part of the game. Do you want to win in the lategame? Pick a team of carries with a couple supports. Want to win the midgame? Pick some good strength initiators and some soft carries to demolish the enemy when your team "peaks". Want to be decent all game long? Build a balanced team of INT, STR, and AGI heroes. Having options like this (the ability to dominate a certain point of the game) is something that simply isn't possible in MOBAs like LoL in my experience. When basically every hero can be powerful at any point of the game, it actually takes away from the potential options your team has to succeed.
People who call DotA a "game of carries", calling carries overpowered and impossible to defeat because they always win in the lategame and casters don't scale blah blah blah, simply don't understand DotA. A full team of casters (so no carries whatsoever) is EXTREMELY powerful, and can win you the game within the first 20 minutes. Don't believe me? Look at the statistics (http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/10/18/dota-2-data-yields-ideal-team-composition/). Of all team compositions in DotA, this is the most effective statistically speaking. This is because intelligence heroes are able to use their early game dominance to shut down the other team so hard that they can't recover before the game ends. Unfortunately, team compositions like this simply aren't possible in any of the other MOBA designs I've seen.
Pugna sounds somewhat broken if he's laned up against a caster. Drop that Nether Ward and have free poke forever. I'm guessing it's just my limited understanding of DotA that makes me think that way though. Otherwise the concept of mana burn is a cool one and not something that has made its way into Smite yet. The most we have are reflective spells or reflective armor yet.
1. Zeri, from DawngateHow is Dawngate by the way? I haven't heard anything about it.
2. Dazzle, from DotaDazzle (http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Dazzle) is surprisingly underused considering how great of a hero he is. His ultimate can change entire team fights if it lasts long enough. It's situational but still amazing if used right.
Ahhh, this one is fun. What really gets me about this guy is his ultimate. Love it. Does something different based on who it hits.... if it hits an ally, it gives them armor. If it hits an enemy, it takes away armor. It does this not all at once, but over the course of a few seconds. Lasts about 20 seconds, which is basically a million years in this game. Hits a really massive size area in an AoE, and is ranged, it doesnt just fire with him as the center or something. Fires instantly and is very easy to land properly.
There's also Shallow Grave, which is a very unique ability. All it does is make it's target utterly unkillable for 5 seconds. They can still be damaged.... but they cannot die. It's a difficult spell to use properly, as while it's extremely effective and useful, knowing when to use it and who to use it on isnt always so simple.
His other abilities are good too; a nice simple but useful slow, which is pretty strong, and a funky heal that will chain to targets near whoever you cast it on. This includes enemies, but when it chains to them it'll deal damage instead. It's pretty hilarious to get a kill with what is mainly used as a simple healing spell.
Dawngate assumes their audience has never held a mouse or played a game in their life.
http://www.waystonegames.com/#/mediaGallery (http://www.waystonegames.com/#/mediaGallery)
To attack, right-click your enemy and you will perform a melee or ranged attack depending on... whether you are melee or ranged. ::)
Move your mouse to the edge of the screen and your camera will move. ???
My mind is blown. >:(
Thank you for treating your customer like we haven't seen a computer since the early 80s. I actually insta-closed that website. Completely turned off. How good can a game be if we are still working on how to move the mouse?
Holy cow, its art style looks just like League of Legends.
By the way, have you ever tried the (relatively) recently added DotA 2 tutorial? I watched a friend play through it and I was pretty impressed. It's very extensive, you can basically go as far as you want with it, but to complete the entire thing I think it would take about 5 hours. It takes about 2 hours to unlock matchmaking for a new account.
Oh God you have Comcast too??
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
By the way, have you ever tried the (relatively) recently added DotA 2 tutorial? I watched a friend play through it and I was pretty impressed. It's very extensive, you can basically go as far as you want with it, but to complete the entire thing I think it would take about 5 hours. It takes about 2 hours to unlock matchmaking for a new account.
Anubis is also neat. I was surprised how he could kill someone from full to zero in one combo. I didn't expect that kind of lethality in SMITE. One of the main complaints of LoL players is that DotA is too lethal, in that a single hero can kill you from full to dead even early on, where in LoL this is much more difficult without the help of teammates (especially with mechanics like Flash). It's nice to see that SMITE made it possible to do this. His squishiness and lack of escape mechanism seems to be the balancing mechanism for this guy, pretty awesome.
Chang'e sounds cool as well. Jack-of-all trades, master of none? I also like her ult, the wide, positionally-based stun that is more effective the more people you hit. Sounds like a great initiation ability or a way to turn teamfights around dramatically. I also like how you say she "dances" in and out of battle. I guess I'd have to play the game to actually understand that but it sounds cool.
Concerning Pugna, Nether Ward isn't particularly broken in the lane, in fact it's usually not even used there. Unlike in LoL (or SMITE it sounds like), a player doesn't typically need to use spells in the lane to survive or do well. A person can last hit simply using their autoattack and still rack up a lot of gold and denies. Spells can sometimes be using for clearing or harassing the enemy, but are not generally necessary for killing minions of you are good at last hitting. In addition, Nether Ward has a period of time between when it ends and when the cooldown comes off, that it no longer exists. (Maybe 15 seconds?) So the opponent can simply use their spells during this time. Also, it becomes much more powerful each level, it's not nearly as strong at level 1 as it would be level 4. Typically, you're much better off leveling your nuke early on for pushing or harassing purposes, or to guard against a heavy push lineup. His aoe nuke is simply an amazing ability.
Kali sounds really interesting, I like her style. "All or nothing" is often one of my favorite design philosophies. It sounds like the player using Kali has to be really careful early on, only engaging when they know they have an advantage, or when they have a powerful ally helping them. However, if she can make it to the mid-late game, she can wreck people in the right situation. I'm not sure how to feel about the random "Marked for Death" mechanic, but it would probably be too powerful if you could choose your target for it. Actually I think I really like that. She's basically got Tryndamere's ult from LoL, which is fine I guess, it's a pretty common ability in all 3 games appearing in various ways. Very cool.
I definitely have a lot more respect for SMITE after I read about some of its heroes and design philosophies.I'm glad you do! It's different than most MOBAs for sure, and not everyone likes the changes to the gameplay and flow. But I certainly do. The higher pace keeps me interested and willing to improve.
Ahem, SMITE disagress with that statement. ;)Holy cow, its art style looks just like League of Legends.
Yeah. That's something I've noticed about pretty much ALL of the mobas I've seen up to this point. They all have that sort of art style. Except that LoL's overall look tends to come out being much "darker", if that makes sense, than any of the others.
The only exception might be Infinite Crisis, which looks a bit different..... but also looks a bit bland. To me, anyway.
By the way, new DotA event: http://www.dota2.com/newbloom/day1/
I'm unsure what all that means, seems like a bunch of bullsh*t to me, but I'm excited to learn more either way :D
Though what I'd like to see even more is an unranked mode, really. But that's a whole other rant.I don't really understand this complaint. Regular matchmaking itself is "unranked", at least in the sense that nobody can see your rating. It just tries to pair you up with similarly skilled people for a fairly casual game.
Though what I'd like to see even more is an unranked mode, really. But that's a whole other rant.I don't really understand this complaint. Regular matchmaking itself is "unranked", at least in the sense that nobody can see your rating. It just tries to pair you up with similarly skilled people for a fairly casual game.
You also have the option of setting up "custom games" with your friends against bots or other people you know. Obviously doing this tends to make more uneven games but the option still exists for "skirmishes" or whatnot. I can't see why one would want to the ability to create "public" custom games outside of the matchmaking algorithm as all it would do is inevitably lead to team-stacking and imbalanced games.
I agree I wish they'd add more game modes. However, I think one difference between the DotA design team and LoL team is that if they make a new mode, they'd probably want all the heroes to be relatively balanced in that mode too. Otherwise, they'd have to rebalance every hero for an entirely new mode which is pretty silly truth be told. Looking at LoL's Dominion or Twisted Treeline, you can see what happens when you take an existing pool of heroes designed for a 5v5 map and attempt to redesign the map without redesigning the heroes. It's fun casually, but what you end up with is a really imbalanced set of heroes and underpowered set of ones as well, with plenty in-between. I know IceFrog is very concerned with hero balance, and with a company that puts so much money into competitive events and advertising, he well should be. The result speak volumes, a pool of over 100 heroes and yet they are all relatively balanced with one another. Nothing hero out at me as blatantly OP or obviously underpowered. That's quite an impressive achievement, even if it comes at the cost of new modes.
I have zero urge to reinstall dota. Being able to jump into the middle of boredom is still boredom, no?No. I'm utterly insulted by this statement. Clearly, it's boredom².
However, by far the most AWESOME change (http://www.dota2.com/newbloom/day3/) this patch, is the ability to jump into any replay at any point now, and make it a live action game. That's right, you can turn your favorite Na'Vi vs. iG game into a reality and actually start playing it with your friends at any point. Doing this not only allows you to finish the game, completely changing the outcome of the original of the match, but also creates a NEW replay for the game that you created from the old one. Then you can replay the match that you replayed from the replay...replay replay replay. Inception anybody?Not to rain on your parade, but Starcraft II added that feature before Dota did, but instead I'd have zero idea of whats going on mid-game dota instead of an idea and slow rts reactions.
Beat that League.
I can see the appeal of that mode, but, ultimately, it's still DOTA2, and it doesn't fix any of the problems I have with it. (like the insane focus on last hits)The importance of last-hitting really depends on which role you play. Supports are expected not to take last hits from their carry. Roamers go around the map early-mid game looking for opportunities to help their lanes secure a kill. Junglers don't have to worry about last hits because nobody is competing with them.
I'm with Tigersfan on that. The modes are great and sounds a lot of fun, but I just can get over the fact that it's DotA and have ingrained mechanics that I just can't stand. :(
Well, as has been discussed before, Smite has last hits, but the emphasis on it is WAY less than any other MOBA I"m aware of.I completely agree with you. Waiting until the end of the game most of the time is just RIDICULOUS. What's even worse is that the enemy can just sit there fountain diving you over and over ad nauseum. It's enough to make you wanna cut yourself.
That said, there are other things about DOTA that I don't like, one of the big ones being that there is no surrender option. I've played some DOTA, and after three games in a row where my team was getting crushed, but the enemy team drug out the game as long as they could... I was done.
I've had comebacks I never expected to happen, and experiences I couldn't believe, simply because they removed my option to give up. Wow, no wonder this game is so popular with the Russians.The game has run for over 40 minutes, now when you enter the losing team's side of the map you take a progressively worse movement debuff alongside attrition damage.
...
The only good aspect that has come out of this *RIDICULOUS* mechanic is the fact that it forces your team to continue playing games you would have otherwise left in the other MOBAs. I've had comebacks I never expected to happen, and experiences I couldn't believe, simply because they removed my option to give up. Wow, no wonder this game is so popular with the Russians.
It honestly doesn't happen that much, but that may also be because I give up easily sometimes. DotA is about *having fun* for me, if I have to literally put all my effort into the game to the point that I'm stressed out afterwards, it kind of defeats the purpose. That's the kind of focus and concentration it would probably take to succeed in a game in which you're extremely far behind....
The only good aspect that has come out of this *RIDICULOUS* mechanic is the fact that it forces your team to continue playing games you would have otherwise left in the other MOBAs. I've had comebacks I never expected to happen, and experiences I couldn't believe, simply because they removed my option to give up. Wow, no wonder this game is so popular with the Russians.
Sure, but, in all honesty, how often does that happen? For me, it doesn't happen often enough to justify playing it. THere are so many other games out there that I enjoy playing more that I just don't see the point.
...
The only good aspect that has come out of this *RIDICULOUS* mechanic is the fact that it forces your team to continue playing games you would have otherwise left in the other MOBAs. I've had comebacks I never expected to happen, and experiences I couldn't believe, simply because they removed my option to give up. Wow, no wonder this game is so popular with the Russians.
Sure, but, in all honesty, how often does that happen? For me, it doesn't happen often enough to justify playing it. THere are so many other games out there that I enjoy playing more that I just don't see the point.
Unfortunately I disagree with this entirely. DotA is designed for comebacks much more than any other MOBA I've played or done research into....
The only good aspect that has come out of this *RIDICULOUS* mechanic is the fact that it forces your team to continue playing games you would have otherwise left in the other MOBAs. I've had comebacks I never expected to happen, and experiences I couldn't believe, simply because they removed my option to give up. Wow, no wonder this game is so popular with the Russians.
Sure, but, in all honesty, how often does that happen? For me, it doesn't happen often enough to justify playing it. THere are so many other games out there that I enjoy playing more that I just don't see the point.
Aye, this. That's part of my problem with it as well. Dota..... isnt structured so that comebacks are really viable. If anything, it's structured AGAINST the idea. It's why other devs lately have been trying to come up with changes that can allow comebacks to happen more frequently. Dota's mechanics/balance/everything tends toward extreme snowballing. Once that's started happening for one team.... chances are if you dont stop them VERY QUICKLY, within just a couple of minutes you'll hit a point where a comeback simply isnt a realistic idea anymore. The other guys are too strong, and the stronger they get, the faster they then gain further strength. League of course does this too, and I think it's one of the biggest reasons why the surrender option is so important there. Because when you hit this point, what's the purpose of going further? Theoretically comebacks can still TECHNICALLY happen..... but it's so phenomenally rare in that situation that it's usually not worth thinking about too much.
It's funny, because I've seen SO many comebacks in Smite. Every other game there's a huge comeback in Conquest games. All it takes is a few good engagements, a Fire Giant (ie Roshan) and you can make a HUGE push. Even backdooring is fairly common in Smite.Awesome, can't wait to try it.
Unfortunately I disagree with this entirely. DotA is designed for comebacks much more than any other MOBA I've played or done research into....
The only good aspect that has come out of this *RIDICULOUS* mechanic is the fact that it forces your team to continue playing games you would have otherwise left in the other MOBAs. I've had comebacks I never expected to happen, and experiences I couldn't believe, simply because they removed my option to give up. Wow, no wonder this game is so popular with the Russians.
Sure, but, in all honesty, how often does that happen? For me, it doesn't happen often enough to justify playing it. THere are so many other games out there that I enjoy playing more that I just don't see the point.
Aye, this. That's part of my problem with it as well. Dota..... isnt structured so that comebacks are really viable. If anything, it's structured AGAINST the idea. It's why other devs lately have been trying to come up with changes that can allow comebacks to happen more frequently. Dota's mechanics/balance/everything tends toward extreme snowballing. Once that's started happening for one team.... chances are if you dont stop them VERY QUICKLY, within just a couple of minutes you'll hit a point where a comeback simply isnt a realistic idea anymore. The other guys are too strong, and the stronger they get, the faster they then gain further strength. League of course does this too, and I think it's one of the biggest reasons why the surrender option is so important there. Because when you hit this point, what's the purpose of going further? Theoretically comebacks can still TECHNICALLY happen..... but it's so phenomenally rare in that situation that it's usually not worth thinking about too much.
This guy (http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2016504) at the LoL forum has a pretty good explanation of why. Sure he got downvoted, but what he said was absolutely true.
Two experiments were done using the biggest tournaments for LoL and DotA respectively. The method was simple. The researchers looked and saw what team was ahead in gold at the 12 minute mark. If the gold difference was larger than 10%, they then fast forwarded to the end to see which team had won. If the team which had been behind at the 12 minute mark had won, it would be considered a comeback.
The tournament used for LoL was MLG Anaheim 2012, and the tournament used for DotA was The Defense 2012. Not surprisingly, the comeback chance for a team that was ahead in gold at the MLG tournament for LoL was only 18 percent. How, another study found that if you looked for the team with the gold lead at the 15 minute mark, that team had a 90% chance to win. So basically, a 10% chance to comeback after the 15 minute mark, for the team that is even slightly behind.
However, the statistics for the DotA 2 tournament (INTL 2012) were much different. Overall, a team that was 10% behind at the 10 minute mark still had a 26% chance to comeback. 26% is pretty fair in my eyes. If the number of comebacks was higher than about 1/4th of the time, being ahead would almost be pointless.
However, I think you also have to take into consideration all the mechanics that DotA has added since the 2012 tournament to make comebacks even more likely than before. Such as:
1.Nerfing buybacks:
* Buyback prevents gaining unreliable gold (creeps, neutrals, etc) until your normal respawn time finishes
* When buying back, 25% of the remaining respawn time will be added to your next death
-This is important. Buybacks give the winning team an advantage. They usually have a lot more left over gold than the losing team (obviously). This means that they can buy back into the game much more often, making it exceedingly hard to win from behind. However, buybacks were nerfed hard in the 6.78 patch, which severely punishes the player using them. This happened AFTER The International 2013 ended by the way.
2. Roshan mechanics changed
* Roshan will respawn at a random time between 8 and 11 minutes after death
* When Aegis expires unused, it heals the hero fully over 5 seconds (regen dispels on damage from players or buildings)
-Roshan no longer respawns at a set time. The winning team can't just go into his pit every 10 minutes like clock work and keep killing him for an uncontestable snowball frenzy. Instead, they would have to hover around the pit for several minutes around the time it's supposed to respawn. If the enemy team does choose to do this, they're wasting valuable time and resources during which the losing team can be farming, pushing, or doing various other things around the map. However, once the winning team begins to Rosh, the losing team can still usually respond in time if they're paying attention.
3. Aegis time reduced from 10 to 6 minutes.
-This means that the person with the aegis is forced to use it much earlier than before, allowing the enemy team to simply hold out until the aegis ends, or having the defensive advantage of the team with the aegis tries to push. Before, the team with the aegis was very difficult to deal with for 10 minutes.
4. Kill streak ending hugely buffed
The rewarding for stopping someone with 10 kills in DotA is now 1000 gold. For 9 kills it's 875. For 7 kills it's 750. Compare this to League for which the number never increases about 500, even after 10+ kills in a row.
And tons of other small changes that have happened since that 2012 tournament. The number of comebacks in The Defense 2013 were absolutely insane. If you haven't watched the Grand Finals (http://www.dotacinema.com/vods/5358#game1) of that tournament, I highly encourage you to do so.
Sources used:
http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/utge5/the_snowball_experiment_day_2_charting_mlg/
http://lol.gamepedia.com/Articles:Snowballing_in_the_Group_Stages_of_the_S3_World_Championship
http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/yo1k6/how_often_do_comebacks_happen_in_pro_dota_2_with/
There's a reason why Dota has a reputation among many people for crazed snowballing being stupidly common.Typically the people who say things like this, in my experience, are people whom come from LoL who played for a week or less, gave up, and went back to their game. I've never met a single person who has been playing DotA for years that will tell you that comebacks are uncommon. It does take a certain understanding of the game, and a certain level of competence of your teammates, but comebacks are very possible if you really want it.
Items that are less worthy at higher costs, for example. That's great and all, but if the carry on the other team is already super-fed, he probably doesnt care too much.... and will probably more than make up for the item's expensiveness due to all of the gold he gets from slaughtering your team. AND, every time he kills one, that player then LOSES gold, while he GAINS it.Looking at this another way, however, lends a very different view. The person that keeps dying didn't have that much gold anyway, so he's not really losing that much. In addition, the "reliable gold" mechanic gives you gold that you can not lose on death, regardless of how many times you die. On the other hand, when members of the enemy team die, they're losing a LOT of gold since they have it to lose, and if you're ending their streaks, giving you even more than normal.
Btw, in case anyone is interested, this Twitch video (http://www.twitch.tv/smitegame/b/499939652) (at the 5 hour mark almost exactly) shows a typical high-level game in Smite. It's from the north American tournament qualifiers. It's the finals between Cognitive Gaming and Snipe. You can of course watch the entire 5 hour tournament, but if you just want the finals, check at the 5 hour mark and to the end. It's about 30 minutes.Cool, I'll definitely watch it.
This game is awesome. As much as I like its simplicity, the skills takes it to a way different level. A game of smite right after a DotA2 game is good for relaxing the nerves as it's more of a go-to game compared to the 1h long, nerve-racking games of the DotA universe. The games scale very well and the strategies are simple yet effective. There are many ways to outplay your ennemies, even though the counters are hard to come by.Funny though that he takes screenshots of the ugliest map to show off Smite :P
I love it, the quality of the graphics are astonishing coming from a "somewhat beta?" game! Since many of the screenshots in here are quite low-quality, I decided to make an album of my latest Arena game with the game running at max settings on 1080p. Enjoy the eye-candy!
Smite is gorgeous! (http://imgur.com/a/rs07Y)
Thanks for the awesome game, Hi-Rez! Hope the game goes on as far as you wish it does!
Yeah, I know all the items and what they do. Every moba has very similar things to all of that. All those items are great and all.... but the enemy team has access to the same efficient gizmos that you do. It's not like they hit a point of snowballing and suddenly the game locks up their store, to prevent extremely practical things like those from being bought. If they're that far ahead, chances are they already HAVE alot of stuff like that. It's pretty much guaranteed, in fact. That's a huge part of the concept of snowballing. It's not about them buying expensive items: It's about them buying GOOD items.Just got finished watching a 60 minute game between Empire and Sigma in the Shock Therapy Cup. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UicwFDctso
And specifically, when I mention all of this stuff, I'm talking about it in an overall sense. It happening differently at a few tournaments doesnt change the fact that it's very rare. It simply means that it's happened in some well-known matches.
And yes, I know it requires good teamwork and all of that.... but in addition to everything related to it, this is a game that uses alot of stats and numbers and calculations..... there's only so much you can do when your spells.... the ones that never scale..... BOUNCE OFF of the enemy team. Because they're just too powerful to get wrecked at that point. And that's the thing here. Chances are, when this situation is taking place, it's NOT just the enemy carry who's gone berserk. It's probably the entire enemy team by that point.... I only mentioned the carry repeatedly because it's usually the best example, so it makes it less likely that I'll just confuse the points I'm just trying to make but it's rare that in this situation the enemy carry is the ONLY one who is snowballing. I've been mostly referring to the entire enemy team being ahead like this, not JUST their carry.
And if this is an enemy team that ISNT dumber than a sack of hammers, chances are they're well aware of any potential remaining weaknesses that could be used against them, and have made preparations to handle those. Which goes along with the other bit I said: If a big comeback happens from as far behind as I'm describing, chances are the other team had a major mistake. If you're that far ahead, and you're using teamwork that's just as good as or better than the team that's trying for the miracle win from behind, without any incredible mistakes, well.... you've got quite the high chance of keeping your win chance very secure.
Though why exactly anyone from LoL would try to bring this up in relation to Dota and NOT LoL is baffling to me. The problem is pretty much the same in LoL.... the only difference being the pleasant inclusion of a surrender mechanic. It has all the same issues though, if not to the same extremes. It's more of a genre problem, not just a Dota problem. Thinking otherwise is kinda silly, really....
As for examples in other genres, the only other game type I do competetively is fighting games, so stuff from other genres dont make too much sense to me.
And this is apparently the views of a DotA2 player that recently got into Smite:You've definitely got me interested.This game is awesome. As much as I like its simplicity, the skills takes it to a way different level. A game of smite right after a DotA2 game is good for relaxing the nerves as it's more of a go-to game compared to the 1h long, nerve-racking games of the DotA universe. The games scale very well and the strategies are simple yet effective. There are many ways to outplay your ennemies, even though the counters are hard to come by.Funny though that he takes screenshots of the ugliest map to show off Smite :P
I love it, the quality of the graphics are astonishing coming from a "somewhat beta?" game! Since many of the screenshots in here are quite low-quality, I decided to make an album of my latest Arena game with the game running at max settings on 1080p. Enjoy the eye-candy!
Smite is gorgeous! (http://imgur.com/a/rs07Y)
Thanks for the awesome game, Hi-Rez! Hope the game goes on as far as you wish it does!
Edit: Was a lot of fun to watch. I LOVED THE QUACKEN. Was a pretty one-sided stomp but I guess many tournaments are.Yeah, whenever Cognitive Gaming is involved, it's usually rather onesided, unfortunately :P But Snipe did good for themselves earlier in the tournament, beating the former favourites of Denial Esports and Dignitas.
I really had no idea what was going on but it definitely looked awesome. If you can find some super close matches and/or comebacks go ahead and send those my way too :P
And this is apparently the views of a DotA2 player that recently got into Smite:This game is awesome. As much as I like its simplicity, the skills takes it to a way different level. A game of smite right after a DotA2 game is good for relaxing the nerves as it's more of a go-to game compared to the 1h long, nerve-racking games of the DotA universe. The games scale very well and the strategies are simple yet effective. There are many ways to outplay your ennemies, even though the counters are hard to come by.Funny though that he takes screenshots of the ugliest map to show off Smite :P
I love it, the quality of the graphics are astonishing coming from a "somewhat beta?" game! Since many of the screenshots in here are quite low-quality, I decided to make an album of my latest Arena game with the game running at max settings on 1080p. Enjoy the eye-candy!
Smite is gorgeous! (http://imgur.com/a/rs07Y)
Thanks for the awesome game, Hi-Rez! Hope the game goes on as far as you wish it does!
What is wrong with HP5 and MP5? These are mechanics that can have HUGE effects on the game.Nothing wrong with it, it's basically just done in World of Warcraft/League of Legends style. I guess the "X per 5" mechanic makes it easier for people to understand or something? I don't know why it can't just be "X per second", it almost feels like they're insulting our intelligence. Then again, WoW is made for the masses so I understand why it's designed that way.
The reason HP5/MP5 is used are generally network reasons. Having health and mana update every 5 seconds rather than every second drastically reduces network calls for ten gods/heroes. At least that's what I've heard.That's certainly fair.
Sweet! Cool that you dropped by here! ^_^And this is apparently the views of a DotA2 player that recently got into Smite:This game is awesome. As much as I like its simplicity, the skills takes it to a way different level. A game of smite right after a DotA2 game is good for relaxing the nerves as it's more of a go-to game compared to the 1h long, nerve-racking games of the DotA universe. The games scale very well and the strategies are simple yet effective. There are many ways to outplay your ennemies, even though the counters are hard to come by.Funny though that he takes screenshots of the ugliest map to show off Smite :P
I love it, the quality of the graphics are astonishing coming from a "somewhat beta?" game! Since many of the screenshots in here are quite low-quality, I decided to make an album of my latest Arena game with the game running at max settings on 1080p. Enjoy the eye-candy!
Smite is gorgeous! (http://imgur.com/a/rs07Y)
Thanks for the awesome game, Hi-Rez! Hope the game goes on as far as you wish it does!
Hey, that's my post right there! Yea, I really love smite from a DotA2 point of view. I hated League of Legends for the reason it was way too simplistic and linear, but Smite feels like a midpoint between the infinite mindboggle that is DotA and the boring strictness of LoL and it's FUN AS HELL. In no way I stopped playing DotA2 for Smite but a game of Smite after DotA2 is a really great mood setter as it doesn't feel bad to lose! I'd recommend Smite for the more easy-going player that doesn't want to invest hundreads or even thousands of hours learning mechanics, strategies and all kind of tricks for a game like DotA and that hates LoL or just wants a MOBA-style World of Warcraft!
So I couldn't wait and I tried Smite.Welcome to the community! ^^ Feel free to add me in game. Same name.
You were right, I absolutely loved it. The jungle camps weren't as bad as I thought, especially with the addition of the Speed Camp that I didn't know about.
Amazing game, feels wonderful. I love how it's all based on skill shots and personal aiming. I love the ragdoll physics.
Possibly my favorite part of the game are the "Gods". It's the first MOBA that actually explains how the players constantly respawn, considering that the Gods are technically invincible according to the lore. The Gods themselves seem very faithful to their theme, and their designs are just freaking cool. I've only tried a few so far but I've enjoyed every single one. I love how they're using Gods from the Greek, Norse, Chinese, Indian, and even Mayan mythologies. I'm really impressed with the sheer number of Gods they chose and created.
To me, Smite is just a better League of Legends. It has basically all the League mechanics, the free hero rotation, buying new heroes with in-game currency, no denying, no buybacks, neutral camps that give powerful temporary buffs, items that are mostly passive, summoner spells, inhibitors that respawn, simplified mechanics, ARAM mode, alternate modes, etc. The difference being that it's a lot more fun than League, it seems more skill-based, and has a 3rd dimension.
I went ahead and paid the $30, thanks for the heads up. This will give me something to play when I don't want to take things so seriously :D
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?
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.
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"?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.
Is that a common matchmaking assumption?
Or not what's going on here?
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 ;)
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.
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 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)
Also you seem to be having a LOT of bad luck with matchmaking :P I rarely ever get leavers, even in bad games.
Woo, team of Russians.And god knows we do hate those terrible Russians! :P
Perhaps the matchmaking doesn't have the goals we think it does.Haha, this might be true. :D
"This player appears to need additional practice dealing with frustration. I know exactly the right team."
Haha well, if that *is* the goal, it's doing a great job.Perhaps the matchmaking doesn't have the goals we think it does.Haha, this might be true. :D
"This player appears to need additional practice dealing with frustration. I know exactly the right team."
I've always had the attitude in these team style games that idiot players end up making things a wash over many games. If an idiot is in a game, you only have a bit less than a 50% chance he'll be on your team (unless you yourself are the idiot, heh).My problem with the Smite MM system is not that it gives me one bad player, but a team of bad players, at least compared to their team. If it was just one "idiot" as you say, then that would be doable.
There's a bit of bias that goes on in categorizing wins and losses. Players win because they are skilled and awesome (not because the other team had a feeder), they lose because of poor luck/bad-teammates (rarely because they were simply outplayed).
Hell, it doesn't even apply just to team games. Card games like Hearthstone. Every win = skill, every loss = opponent got lucky. No one ever wins because *they* got lucky. :D
I try not to let such things get to me. I just play the best that I can and shrug off losing.
I've always had the attitude in these team style games that idiot players end up making things a wash over many games. If an idiot is in a game, you only have a bit less than a 50% chance he'll be on your team (unless you yourself are the idiot, heh).
There's a bit of bias that goes on in categorizing wins and losses. Players win because they are skilled and awesome (not because the other team had a feeder), they lose because of poor luck/bad-teammates (rarely because they were simply outplayed).
Hell, it doesn't even apply just to team games. Card games like Hearthstone. Every win = skill, every loss = opponent got lucky. No one ever wins because *they* got lucky. :D
I try not to let such things get to me. I just play the best that I can and shrug off losing.
Too many players forget what "fun" is, and they forget that it's supposed to be one of the points of gaming in the first place.This. So many times this. I wish more gamers would realize this. I can imagine having a hyper-competitive mindset in ranked games, but when you are in casual, why do you even bother? I mean, even if people on my team screw up to no end, I rarely, if ever, complain in chat. I might swear IRL, but I'll never let that go out over my fellow players, unless I'm having a really bad day and am just incapable of controlling myself.
This. So many times this. I wish more gamers would realize this. I can imagine having a hyper-competitive mindset in ranked games, but when you are in casual, why do you even bother? I mean, even if people on my team screw up to no end, I rarely, if ever, complain in chat. I might swear IRL, but I'll never let that go out over my fellow players, unless I'm having a really bad day and am just incapable of controlling myself.
Mostly I just complain and curse at Timmy, because he's just so funny to berate :D
Not letting "playing to win" get in the way of "playing for fun" is important, but there's another factor involved.Pretty much this.
Generally speaking, tactical situations are most interesting when it's a close fight. Doesn't mean the sides have to be "balanced", in that a vastly inferior force in a great position can do remarkably well in an exciting way. But if it's just a stomp because the battle was won "before it started" then the tactical excitement is much lower.
It's not even a matter of losing not being fun. If you play 20 games and 10 are "we got completely stomped, no contest at any point" and the other 10 are "they got completely stomped, no contest at any point" then it's not nearly as exciting as close fights.
Smite sounds like the kind of game where you can still have fun doing that, particularly early on, but in a genre where people are used to being able to play thousands of matches and still enjoy it... well, the fun of simply-playing-it may not hold out.
Of course, it doesn't sound like it's quite so bad as to have a run of 20 "no contest" games, and I imagine the matchmaking will get better with time :)
If you were looking for a casual experience where you weren't challenged at all, you probably wouldn't be playing a MOBA in the first place.True enough, but "playing to win" STILL doesn't mean "be a douchebag to anyone who isn't MLG level".
Since you are playing a MOBA, chances are you're looking for relatively even games in which both teams have a reasonable chance of winning. People who say "why can't people just enjoy playing the game" don't really seem to understand the mentality behind playing in this genre. If you wanna just play something to have fun, go play Diablo 3, or Sim City, or Tomb Raider or any other of tens of thousands of games that don't require a competitive mentality or the desire to be challenged to win.
If you were looking for a casual experience where you weren't challenged at all, you probably wouldn't be playing a MOBA in the first place.
...
If you wanna just play something to have fun, go play Diablo 3, or Sim City, or Tomb Raider or any other of tens of thousands of games that don't require a competitive mentality or the desire to be challenged to win.
If you were looking for a casual experience where you weren't challenged at all, you probably wouldn't be playing a MOBA in the first place.
Isn't that awfully elitist? I have known more than a few people who are not particularly good at these games who just want to play.It's not elitist. I said nothing about being good at the game. I don't know where you got that from.
I think also what happens with this kind of team game is, people have unrealistic expectations of being the hero that carries every round, how awesome they are, and they break their own wrist patting themselves on the back. This genre attracts narcissist gamers who really need an audience (the other nine people playing) for their own perceived awesomeness. Legends in their own minds. How many people play this game because they want to have nice social gaming session with other people? "Let's go meet the nice people on dota!" Of course not. It's more like, let's dominate and show off for nine other people.I think this attitude is elitist, because you're basically calling tens of millions of people narcissists who need to prove their own dominance over others.
If you wanna just play something to have fun, go play Diablo 3, or Sim City, or Tomb Raider or any other of tens of thousands of games that don't require a competitive mentality or the desire to be challenged to win.Because one can't have fun and take the game seriously (but not too seriously) at the same time. :o
I think this genre attracts people who are intellectually challengedFTFY
and who enjoy working with others to accomplish a team objective.
(http://thefbe.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/league-of-legends-troll-quotes-perma-ban-ezreal.png) | (http://www.newsoflegends.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/singed1.png) | |
(http://thefbe.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/league-of-legends-rage-troll-chat.png) | (http://www.newsoflegends.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/cho1.png) | |
(http://thefbe.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/league-of-legends-bad-manner.png) |
Me big
You small
Me win
You lose
Me report
You n00b
Barf
There's really only one other player base that is worse; Call of Duty.
Call of Duty.http://youtu.be/7Fm5s28CM6c?t=3m14s
As much as Kahuna's post makes me laugh, this DOES happen in MOBAs. Thankfully we're so far pretty spared from it in Smite due to the small player base, but it does happen. Thankfully, most people seem sensible enough to go "Oh, you're an asshole, so just let me report you for harassment" and that gets taken care of. But MOBAs do have one of the most toxic player bases there is. There's really only one other player base that is worse; Call of Duty.I'll admit that the Smite community is pretty nice compared to some of the other ones, though it is still in beta so we'll see what happens once it goes public :P
Alright, after having played a few smurf games and watched a few smurf videos (mostly from people just playing support and HELPING the "noobs" rather than facepwning everything because "lol noobs", leaving seems really common at low levels. Usually when the games starts going south for one of the teams, at least 2 people seem to leave the game, never to come back.I wasn't going to say anything cuz I feel like I've already complained too much about Smite, but yeah, they need harsher punishments on leavers. A 30 minute MM cooldown isn't really anything if you can just leave and do something else for awhile. I'm level ~15 and there are leavers in like literally EVERY game.
If you wanna just play something to have fun, go play Diablo 3, or Sim City, or Tomb Raider or any other of tens of thousands of games that don't require a competitive mentality or the desire to be challenged to win.Because one can't have fun and take the game seriously (but not too seriously) at the same time. :o
I said that if you are playing in this genre (MOBA), then you probably have a desire to be challenged. You probably get some enjoyment out of being challenged. That has nothing to do with whether or not you're good at the game.I specifically said that, in this genre, being challenged is what creates the fun for most people.
The people I was referring to specifically was those who were saying, "Some people just want to have fun." I agree, everyone wants to have fun, but in this genre it's heavily implied that "fun" equates to having an equally balanced game where both sides stand a chance of winning.
By the way, I just got a closed beta key to Strife (http://strife.com/), S2's new MOBA that (from what I've read) looks to bridge to gap between LoL and DotA.
In other words, if those two games are the extremes (too casual and too competitive) then Strife aims to shoot somewhere in-between. Being a self-proclaimed "Second Generation MOBA", it's eighty-sixing some of the more tedious and frustrating mechanics like last hitting, and claims the introduction of new flexible roles will allow people to play their own way.
I think the genre has a lot of room to grow and could be improved on in a lot of areas. Hopefully Strife contains some of that neat innovation we've all been waiting for. I'll let you all know how it goes.
I also have Comcast, and was experiencing some problems with it until I got my own service (previously I was sharing service with about 1,000 other people on my apartment's shared internet, what a headache).By the way, I just got a closed beta key to Strife (http://strife.com/), S2's new MOBA that (from what I've read) looks to bridge to gap between LoL and DotA.
In other words, if those two games are the extremes (too casual and too competitive) then Strife aims to shoot somewhere in-between. Being a self-proclaimed "Second Generation MOBA", it's eighty-sixing some of the more tedious and frustrating mechanics like last hitting, and claims the introduction of new flexible roles will allow people to play their own way.
I think the genre has a lot of room to grow and could be improved on in a lot of areas. Hopefully Strife contains some of that neat innovation we've all been waiting for. I'll let you all know how it goes.
I had never heard of this before, so I went and clicked, and the first thing I saw was what appeared to be a floating superhero cat.... and thus, I did the signup.
Wether or not the signup will accomplish anything is another matter. I do so very much beta testing but I always always hate the signup bit, with the super-random choices of who they send keys to. Did the signup for Blizzard's game as well.
Currently my attention is still almost entirely focused on Dawngate, which is so far living up to my expectations. That is.... when I can play it! Good ol' reliable Comcast (and by "reliable" I mean "no") is breaking new records here. 180+ connection failures in one night is.... a bit absurd. Cant even play Hearthstone or something turn-based when it's THAT bad, which it is most of the time. Aint been able to do ANY online gaming in the last week and a half. Dawngate, Hearthstone, Infinite Crisis, World of Tanks.... I'd love to be messing with these, but noooooooooooo.
Getting a new blasted modem (for like the 8th time or so, I think it is now) in the next couple of days. And if THAT doesnt work.... goodbye Crapcast, hello...... freaking DSL. Ugh. I really dont want DSL. But at this point, a downgrade to DSL is an UPGRADE from bloody Comcast. I'm actually not expecting the new modem to solve anything at all. Even the cable lines (or whatever it is) to the TVs and such are getting wonky, which is new. And their automated phone help line thing glitched out at me at one point. "Welcome to SQUAWK" followed by bubbles isnt what I expect to hear when I call them.
Mostly playing Anno 2070 and Minecraft while waiting for that and for the next update to Last Federation here.
I'll be interested to hear about this Strife game though. Definitely what I most want out of this genre right now is more games like Dawngate or Blizzard's upcoming thing that DONT just super-directly copy Dota/LoL.
I also have Comcast, and was experiencing some problems with it until I got my own service (previously I was sharing service with about 1,000 other people on my apartment's shared internet, what a headache).
The modem they gave me was a giant piece of crap. I had to reset it like every 18 hours because it would slow down and disrupt my service for basically no reason at all.
I ended up buying my own (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JV9LUK/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) on Amazon and I don't regret the decision. My internet service has been much higher quality since I chose to do that, and now I don't have to pay $8 monthly for their terrible modems that they give me.
I don't know if that's the problem in your case, but it could certainly help. Though I think that, if I were in your situation, I probably would have switched to DSL a long time ago. I only deal with Comcast because it's the only ISP in this area. They have a very horrible reputation and it's probably deserved.
But don't worry Time Warner/Comcast users, the terribleness of both providers is soon going to merged into one uber-terrible provider. How that passes anti-trust review is beyond my comprehension.
If Comcast and Time-Warner merge, will they implode into an incompetence singularity and thus get out of our hair?Unfortunately, incompetence * incompetence is simply incompetence^2.
If not, is Enigma available to assist in the process?
Unfortunately, incompetence * incompetence is simply incompetence^2.Alas, the situation is too far gone, then. If the incompetence in question were merely the negative of competence then this formula would give us hope. As it is, their incompetence has crystalized into a palpable substance of its own.
Even Enigma can't help in this situation, I feel that the only sound which will rectify this injustice is "Nuclear launch detected".I fear that, like throwing nukes at an incoming "guided moon", it will result in being struck with the same rock. Only hotter.
The galaxy nuke then, just to be sure.Unfortunately, incompetence * incompetence is simply incompetence^2.Alas, the situation is too far gone, then. If the incompetence in question were merely the negative of competence then this formula would give us hope. As it is, their incompetence has crystalized into a palpable substance of its own.Even Enigma can't help in this situation, I feel that the only sound which will rectify this injustice is "Nuclear launch detected".I fear that, like throwing nukes at an incoming "guided moon", it will result in being struck with the same rock. Only hotter.
The galaxy nuke then, just to be sure.
2. Integrated courier. Each player gets their own (invincible courier) that can deliver items to them from the base, then has a short cooldown before it can be used again.
5. Killing Roshan (Nashor) gives your team a giant Gorilla that goes down a lane and kills things (mostly towers).
Last hitting still exists but gold is automatically split between any allied heroes in the lane. This makes supports vastly more relevant. Honestly it's pretty genius.
2. They keep the LoL "bush" mechanic, it's almost exactly the same.
3. All heroes free to play.
1. There's some kind of mastery/crafting/item system that levels up your power outside the game. I suppose the pet is part of this as well. I obviously hate this kind of thing but I know too little about it at the moment to understand how much of an actual impact that it has.
From what you can tell, how important is last hitting?I haven't played that many games, so you can take this with a grain of salt (you can basically take everything I say with a grain of salt), but last hitting seems moderately important relative to the other MOBAs I've played.
Feh, that's tempting..... but I'll pass on it myself for now.
Cant stand "beta event weekends" and similar things. I just avoid them like the plague. Tend to be a glitchy lagsplosion of laggy lag. Among other problems. And I aint good with time limits and scheduling.
I'll just continue to wait for more info and a proper, full beta account.
Definitely feel free to continue to explain stuff about the game as you play further into it though.
Wingflier I checked your stats today and you have a 55% win ratio in Conquest, which is exactly what the matchmaking tries to achieve. I don't think it's that bad For you ;)The question is whether it achieves that by giving reasonably-evenly-matched battles, or by giving freebies and "where did you dig up teammates this bad?" in roughly equal proportion? ;)
Wingflier I checked your stats today and you have a 55% win ratio in Conquest, which is exactly what the matchmaking tries to achieve. I don't think it's that bad For you ;)Uh, doing it in such a way that the first 20 matches were a wash for my team, then the next 20 matches were impossible to win is not exactly what I would call good matchmaking.
Haha, you guys look at it from an entirely different perspective than I do, which is more akin to: All the noobs are coming, ANNIHILATE!
In all seriousness, after winning my first 4 MM games, things are starting to get a bit more difficult. There is a small bit of lag (so far) on their MM servers, but it's something I'm sure they'll fix relatively soon. They've been running the HoN servers for 3+ years now, so they've got quit a bit of experience with this.
Oh by the way, there's now a popular DotA tournament running Captain's Draft mode instead of the usual Captain's Pick mode. In other words, players have to pick from a randomly selected pool of 24 heroes instead of the default 90 something in the game.
As you can imagine, this makes for intense and epic games where unusual and funny combinations are being used, breaking the monotony of the established metagame.
You can watch Na'Vi using Pudge (http://www.dotacinema.com/vods/7113#game1) in the second set of games in the tournament. HILARIOUS fun.
I still think it's going for a certain ratio of rage and annoyance, and then fitting victory ratios into that ;)
1. No battling over hero picks or roles (these have been removed by the MM system)
2. No battling over last hits
3. You can't see your teammates' deaths until the game is over
4. You can't chat with the enemy team until the game is over
5. Nobody is expected to buy wards or "support"
This one I kinda dont get. Now, I understand it from the point of view related to the toxicity issue, but wont this cause some problems of it's own? If you cant see teammate deaths, how are you to know if you're behind? If you can still see an overall score instead of individual death listings, wont that still cause rage in many cases? It's hardly a bad idea, but just seems a bit odd to me.You need to understand the mind and attitude of an elitist. I should know. I often check the scores when we're losing horribly, and when I see those teammates that are 0-7 or 0-15, I start to get really angry, especially if I'm doing really well.
Feh. I actually like doing the support role. Rescuing important teammates from certain doom at the last second, possibly then causing enemy deaths as a result, is satisfying as heck. Stuff like that. Though, the not-buying-wards bit is a very good thing; Dawngate is currently the only one I know of that does away with that as well.You can still play a support role, it's just not expected of you. There are heroes and items that heal or provide shields/buffs/armor, etc. However, typically when we think of "support", we think of somebody who never has any money, who is buying tons of wards, and who has much less impact on the game in terms of pure fighting power than the other players. This tradition has been removed I think.
You need to understand the mind and attitude of an elitist. I should know. I often check the scores when we're losing horribly, and when I see those teammates that are 0-7 or 0-15, I start to get really angry, especially if I'm doing really well.
If you were looking for a casual experience where you weren't challenged at all, you probably wouldn't be playing a MOBA in the first place.
Isn't that awfully elitist? I have known more than a few people who are not particularly good at these games who just want to play.
It's not elitist. I said nothing about being good at the game. I don't know where you got that from.
Do we really need to go down thatroadlane again? ;)
It's filthy and disgusting human behavior.I fully agree. The concept of a game where I could genuinely give my best, and possibly even do fairly well, yet still be subject to personal abuse from my own team is... well, that's why I don't play MOBAs with anyone I don't know.
4. You can't chat with the enemy team until the game is over
.....why didn't the others think of this?
4. You can't chat with the enemy team until the game is over
.....why didn't the others think of this?
Smite? You can't talk to the other team unless you use whispers directly to someone and they can easily block you if necessary.
Do we really need to go down thatroadlane again? ;)
Yes, because my contribution to this thread is that these games are filled with elitist, toxic behavior that generally make my experience less enjoyable. I routinely turn off chat because of it. In a game where you are supposed to be a team and work together, mistakes are severely punished in a psychological wargame by the people on your own squad. It's filthy and disgusting human behavior. And then there are threads, including part of this one, where you discuss the meta.
I'm that guy that is blissfully unaware of whatever meta you feel I should be playing. Firstly, let's all acknowledge that the moba community is full of toxic, spoiled brats that are only marginally capable of acceptable socialization. The majority of my chat screen is filled with complaints, blaming, finger-pointing, and anything possible to absolve oneself of any responsibility for their own gameplay. These same internet miscreants also firmly believe they are experts at understanding meta. And they "understand" it not because they have any intellectual capabilities worthy of note or actual original analysis, but because they saw a stream, read a blog, or observed it from countless matches of people copying each other. It's little more than copycats playing at being a pro.
I'm here to tell you it's all bull-shitake mushrooms.
Now if the acceptable meta is a solo top, solo middle, support and carry down bottom, and one jungle, I have to say I disagree. That set up requires a few things. It requires having the right combination of champions, an acceptable group leadership structure capable of delegating roles (and people who will accept them), and the kind of cooperation that needs voice chat. You never get those things in random games. You never do. So there's no way that meta is going to work.
Expanded, let's take the "acceptable group leadership structure." How many everyday players in this game are capable of even addressing each other like human beings, much less being a leader? I can't accept orders from a 14-year-old who is only trying to boost his self-esteem by attempting to making himself look good via the scoreboard and making fun of everyone else, even if they are "supporting." And woe be unto you if you are the support, usually the last pick because nobody wants to get no gold, pass off every champion kill, and generally try your best to enable your lane partner (who is probably going to blame you anyway if they die).
Going into every game, almost all of them have complaining before the game even starts. Some of them are premade teams, who expect you to be their servant and take their abuse as they play with their friends. Typical mob mentality ostracization behavior. There is complaining all game long, especially if they are losing. How are we going to have a pro league meta with this kind of behavior? I guarantee you if pro teams treated their members like garbage, it wouldn't work, either. These are the same jackholes that think they are awesome at this game, and they want to be the carry, but all they do is auto attack and act mystified if you last hit. The same guys who relentlessly pat themselves on the back and cry about everyone else, while voluntarily playing a team game.
And there's the separation from reality. Voluntarily playing a team game and abusing your own teammates at the same time. Voluntarily playing a team game and extolling your own performance and putting down everyone else's. If you really want to show how awesome you are as a player, you would be better off playing starcraft or something. I firmly believe that this game encourages protecting your own ego when you suck (blame it on the team) and elevating your own self image when you win (I carried!).
So here is my meta, which I offer as a solution and a throwback to the original League of Legends game when it first came out. Up to two people per lane, and do your best to last hit. This is going to take skill and timing with your character' s attack speed. Try to help each other survive or launch an offensive of your own, but when you die, accept responsibility. No blaming. No crying. In my meta, there may or may not be a jungle. I posit that if everyone could contribute a positive score, you would have a high chance of winning the game. I would also rather have another fully loaded carry in a long game than a support.
I routinely score very well (kills and assists, low death scores if I even die at all), kill plenty of towers, and dominate my share of games. I don't pay too much attention to the chat. I pick a character that I feel is going to be fun to play, and I go wherever I want. And I play to the best of my ability, I don't blame others, and I don't have meltdowns in the chat. Oftentimes I will just turn off chat because all it is, is toxic. The next troll you see who is actually very good at this game but not marching to the beat of your random drum, that's me!
Pro teams are not the same as random teams. Random matchmaking (and didn't you just bemoan public matchmaking?) is not the same as pro league matchmaking. By definition, the meta has to change.
But for now.... it's basically a rage farm. A farm where the cows smell even worse than usual, while leaping around kicking each other randomly while shrieking "MOOOOO!!!!! F#%& YOU!!!!".
I'm not going to respond to Cyborg because it feels like he's just attempting to start an argument with me.
What I will reiterate is that any time hardcore competition is involved, people's aggressive sides tend to come out. They *want* to win. This is pure Darwinian Evolution at work. Nobody is really immune to it, there are certain people who have learned to harness or control it better than others. You will not find a game as intellectually competitive as these MOBAs on the market, and if you do, I'll give you a medal. I don't think that this makes the MOBA community full of "toxic spoiled brats incapable of socialization".
I fully support Strife's attempt to make the community less toxic by removing vast elements of the game which cause people to become angry, or at least trigger that.
It's pickup flag football.If trash talking in DotA had remotely the same potential physical consequences as trash talking in flag football, the difference would be night and day.
I think if you had paid attention to some of the drama that happens to these professional MOBA teams, you may think otherwise. There is a lot of competition, mistreatment, and abuse that goes on behind the scenes, especially if somebody is under performing.I'm not going to respond to Cyborg because it feels like he's just attempting to start an argument with me.
What I will reiterate is that any time hardcore competition is involved, people's aggressive sides tend to come out. They *want* to win. This is pure Darwinian Evolution at work. Nobody is really immune to it, there are certain people who have learned to harness or control it better than others. You will not find a game as intellectually competitive as these MOBAs on the market, and if you do, I'll give you a medal. I don't think that this makes the MOBA community full of "toxic spoiled brats incapable of socialization".
I fully support Strife's attempt to make the community less toxic by removing vast elements of the game which cause people to become angry, or at least trigger that.
You can be competitive and still act like a decent human being. And I strongly disagree that arranged team games are "hardcore competition". It's pickup flag football. If you're playing in the International, that's another thing altogether, but I doubt very many people playing in that treat their teammates like crap.
Just because *YOU* think that it's a bunch of nerdy virgins playing a silly video game
This pretty much sums it up so I won't add anything.
The point is, regardless of how much the game means to you, flying off the handle and abusing people is inappropriate and unwelcome. There is no justification in saying that's just natural human behavior. There's a lot of natural human behavior out there that is equally inappropriate. You even go on to say that it's "Darwinian" to be a jackhole, as if being competitive can justify being a jerk. I disagree. You can be competitive and be a good sport. You can be competitive and be positive with your teammates.
Just because *YOU* think that it's a bunch of nerdy virgins playing a silly video game
Straw man alert, straw man alert!
The point is, regardless of how much the game means to you, flying off the handle and abusing people is inappropriate and unwelcome. There is no justification in saying that's just natural human behavior. There's a lot of natural human behavior out there that is equally inappropriate. You even go on to say that it's "Darwinian" to be a jackhole, as if being competitive can justify being a jerk. I disagree. You can be competitive and be a good sport. You can be competitive and be positive with your teammates.
As I said, that point was just being dramatic.Just because *YOU* think that it's a bunch of nerdy virgins playing a silly video game
Straw man alert, straw man alert!
The point is, regardless of how much the game means to you, flying off the handle and abusing people is inappropriate and unwelcome. There is no justification in saying that's just natural human behavior. There's a lot of natural human behavior out there that is equally inappropriate. You even go on to say that it's "Darwinian" to be a jackhole, as if being competitive can justify being a jerk. I disagree. You can be competitive and be a good sport. You can be competitive and be positive with your teammates.
As I said, that point was just being dramatic.Just because *YOU* think that it's a bunch of nerdy virgins playing a silly video game
Straw man alert, straw man alert!
The point is, regardless of how much the game means to you, flying off the handle and abusing people is inappropriate and unwelcome. There is no justification in saying that's just natural human behavior. There's a lot of natural human behavior out there that is equally inappropriate. You even go on to say that it's "Darwinian" to be a jackhole, as if being competitive can justify being a jerk. I disagree. You can be competitive and be a good sport. You can be competitive and be positive with your teammates.
I completely agree, just because it's in our natures to be competitive, it doesn't justify the kind of behavior often seen in these situations. However, you're creating a straw man argument when you say that most the people who play these games are...let me find it, "toxic, spoiled brats marginally capable of accepted socialization". Most of these are just normal people put into an extremely high-tense competitive situation.
As I said, that point was just being dramatic.Just because *YOU* think that it's a bunch of nerdy virgins playing a silly video game
Straw man alert, straw man alert!
The point is, regardless of how much the game means to you, flying off the handle and abusing people is inappropriate and unwelcome. There is no justification in saying that's just natural human behavior. There's a lot of natural human behavior out there that is equally inappropriate. You even go on to say that it's "Darwinian" to be a jackhole, as if being competitive can justify being a jerk. I disagree. You can be competitive and be a good sport. You can be competitive and be positive with your teammates.
I completely agree, just because it's in our natures to be competitive, it doesn't justify the kind of behavior often seen in these situations. However, you're creating a straw man argument when you say that most the people who play these games are...let me find it, "toxic, spoiled brats marginally capable of accepted socialization". Most of these are just normal people put into an extremely high-tense competitive situation.
As I said, that point was just being dramatic.Just because *YOU* think that it's a bunch of nerdy virgins playing a silly video game
Straw man alert, straw man alert!
The point is, regardless of how much the game means to you, flying off the handle and abusing people is inappropriate and unwelcome. There is no justification in saying that's just natural human behavior. There's a lot of natural human behavior out there that is equally inappropriate. You even go on to say that it's "Darwinian" to be a jackhole, as if being competitive can justify being a jerk. I disagree. You can be competitive and be a good sport. You can be competitive and be positive with your teammates.
I completely agree, just because it's in our natures to be competitive, it doesn't justify the kind of behavior often seen in these situations. However, you're creating a straw man argument when you say that most the people who play these games are...let me find it, "toxic, spoiled brats marginally capable of accepted socialization". Most of these are just normal people put into an extremely high-tense competitive situation.
A straw man tactic is where you assume a different proposition and argue against it, thereby giving the illusion that you have refuted an argument. It's not an opinion, like the one I hold, whereby I posit the community is rife with toxic, spoiled brats. You are saying that most of these people are just reacting to competition, and that they are not toxic individuals.
And we disagree. If a person were to go around acting like a jerk on their favorite game and then claim they're not, in fact, a jerk because they are nice in their everyday dealings, I would say that is just a mask of a part of their true personality. Maybe they are nice in their everyday behavior because that's how they get what they want. They are under some social contract to behave a certain way face-to-face that just doesn't exist online.
Summarized, if you say that they are decent people because part of their personality is decent, and you ignore the part where they are jerks, that is not a wash, for me. You are who you are, and maybe a part of you is something you don't want to see or acknowledge.
Well, I guess according to my understanding your definition, everybody is a jerk, since we all have the POTENTIAL to be jerks, and put into the correct situation, often are.As I said, that point was just being dramatic.Just because *YOU* think that it's a bunch of nerdy virgins playing a silly video game
Straw man alert, straw man alert!
The point is, regardless of how much the game means to you, flying off the handle and abusing people is inappropriate and unwelcome. There is no justification in saying that's just natural human behavior. There's a lot of natural human behavior out there that is equally inappropriate. You even go on to say that it's "Darwinian" to be a jackhole, as if being competitive can justify being a jerk. I disagree. You can be competitive and be a good sport. You can be competitive and be positive with your teammates.
I completely agree, just because it's in our natures to be competitive, it doesn't justify the kind of behavior often seen in these situations. However, you're creating a straw man argument when you say that most the people who play these games are...let me find it, "toxic, spoiled brats marginally capable of accepted socialization". Most of these are just normal people put into an extremely high-tense competitive situation.
A straw man tactic is where you assume a different proposition and argue against it, thereby giving the illusion that you have refuted an argument. It's not an opinion, like the one I hold, whereby I posit the community is rife with toxic, spoiled brats. You are saying that most of these people are just reacting to competition, and that they are not toxic individuals.
And we disagree. If a person were to go around acting like a jerk on their favorite game and then claim they're not, in fact, a jerk because they are nice in their everyday dealings, I would say that is just a mask of a part of their true personality. Maybe they are nice in their everyday behavior because that's how they get what they want. They are under some social contract to behave a certain way face-to-face that just doesn't exist online.
Summarized, if you say that they are decent people because part of their personality is decent, and you ignore the part where they are jerks, that is not a wash, for me. You are who you are, and maybe a part of you is something you don't want to see or acknowledge.
As I said, that point was just being dramatic.Just because *YOU* think that it's a bunch of nerdy virgins playing a silly video game
Straw man alert, straw man alert!
The point is, regardless of how much the game means to you, flying off the handle and abusing people is inappropriate and unwelcome. There is no justification in saying that's just natural human behavior. There's a lot of natural human behavior out there that is equally inappropriate. You even go on to say that it's "Darwinian" to be a jackhole, as if being competitive can justify being a jerk. I disagree. You can be competitive and be a good sport. You can be competitive and be positive with your teammates.
I completely agree, just because it's in our natures to be competitive, it doesn't justify the kind of behavior often seen in these situations. However, you're creating a straw man argument when you say that most the people who play these games are...let me find it, "toxic, spoiled brats marginally capable of accepted socialization". Most of these are just normal people put into an extremely high-tense competitive situation.
A straw man tactic is where you assume a different proposition and argue against it, thereby giving the illusion that you have refuted an argument. It's not an opinion, like the one I hold, whereby I posit the community is rife with toxic, spoiled brats. You are saying that most of these people are just reacting to competition, and that they are not toxic individuals.
And we disagree. If a person were to go around acting like a jerk on their favorite game and then claim they're not, in fact, a jerk because they are nice in their everyday dealings, I would say that is just a mask of a part of their true personality. Maybe they are nice in their everyday behavior because that's how they get what they want. They are under some social contract to behave a certain way face-to-face that just doesn't exist online.
Summarized, if you say that they are decent people because part of their personality is decent, and you ignore the part where they are jerks, that is not a wash, for me. You are who you are, and maybe a part of you is something you don't want to see or acknowledge.
Even that is subjective, though. Most people can end up acting this way if they get angry enough, which is part of the problem. Now, if someone goes into one of these and, with no provocation, starts acting like a jerk and insulting people, that's different. But merely doing it out of sheer anger? I cant see that as meaning much, other than that the person may need to learn better self-control. Doesnt mean they're a jerk or a troll.
Though it DOES mean that maybe also they should step away for a bit, instead of letting it get to them that much....
I'll bet you most of these people are completely nice and upstanding citizens in their everyday lives. I just find it so ironic that you consider jerks to be people who, when removed from the average social situation (so like online anonymity), become cruel or nasty to others when, from my experience, you engage in that behavior all the time.
I don't have a grudge, I'm just a little fascinated by your explanation of when it's okay to be cruel and nasty to others.I'll bet you most of these people are completely nice and upstanding citizens in their everyday lives. I just find it so ironic that you consider jerks to be people who, when removed from the average social situation (so like online anonymity), become cruel or nasty to others when, from my experience, you engage in that behavior all the time.
Actually, I have encountered that precise social situation before, and I jump right in. Whether or not I'm on a forum doesn't change who I am. I consider crazy talk to be a sort of virus, where the very prevalence of it fuels its own legitimacy. If you don't challenge it at the root, if you don't challenge it when it comes out, it just allows the cancer. Take religion. If ReligionX was only believed by one person versus believed by 1 million persons, doesn't that change the legitimacy? Anyway, you bounced back, no need to hold a grudge.
I'm not sure you mean. Even if they're angry, I think you have to look at what they're angry about. A videogame is not a good reason to start pulling out racial epithets, homophobic comments, and an all-out psychological war on your own team. I'm sure we all know the kind of rage I am talking about. I don't see how this kind of a game can provide that kind of... excuse... for the behavior that I'm describing.
Wow, this thread has gotten REALLY off topic. I mean I know it's Arcen, but....
Anyway, any news on Strife?
Anyone looking forward to Heroes of the Storm?
That's kind of ironic, because of all the MOBAs I've played, Smite is probably the most like LoL (haven't played Dawngate).Wow, this thread has gotten REALLY off topic. I mean I know it's Arcen, but....
Anyway, any news on Strife?
Anyone looking forward to Heroes of the Storm?
If it didn't randomly launch off topic a few times, I'd be worried that I had somehow found some fake version of the site ;D
Strife, hmm, I got to see some of it over the weekend, a Twitch streamer that I follow did a bunch with it, though he stuck mostly to players-VS-AI matches (probably for good reason). The game as a whole looks *alot* like LoL in terms of how things work, but.... that only says so much, because damn near every moba (except Smite) tends to look like that to me. Ya really have to dive into these properly to see what really makes them stand out, and I just cant test this one out yet. So mostly Dawngate for me for now, though I did just patch up Smite earlier, after my previous patch attempt apparantly got corrupted, because computers. At least the damn connection is finally repaired.
Heroes of the Storm I'd looooooove to try out, as it's the one that looks really genuinely different even just viewing it while knowing hardly anything about it. They seem to really be going in a different direction with that one. Aint heard much of anything related to a beta with that one, aside from there being a vague signup thing on the Battle.Net site. I'm expecting it to be like Hearthstone where I dont get to try it for quite awhile.
Of course, none of this excuses things like racial epithets and homophobic comments. Those sorts of things rather are a sign of a jackass. Yet even still, that may not always be the case. An angry individual sorta loses common sense, and when not thinking clearly they may do things that normally they would never, ever do (and often will regret later). That's just what anger can do to someone.
Hopefully this post made sense, I've been kinda spaced out all day (more than usual, that is), so it might not.
You mentioned having moments where you go berserk and throw things. I spoke to one of my prior girlfriends about this very thing. What seems normal for you is extremely disturbing for me. I don't understand why people throw things or why people fly into rages. I just don't do those things. Sure, I get angry, I get frustrated, but I don't feel the urge to start punching walls and throwing things. We just have fundamentally separate expectations and assumptions about what's acceptable when you're angry. And for me, epithets are never okay. Ever.I also tend to respond very poorly to some situations; I don't throw stuff nowadays (though I certainly tore stuff up as a teenager) and I was never in the habit of insulting other people (much less via slurs or epithets or whatever), but I'm certainly capable of flying off the handle and just hitting the power button on the computer if something really annoys me. It happens a lot less often nowadays and I don't think I'd do that if some MOBA team were depending on me at the moment, but it's another reason I've not ventured into those waters. FWIW I wouldn't abuse anyone else there, but quitting is a pretty nasty thing to do too.
Of course, none of this excuses things like racial epithets and homophobic comments. Those sorts of things rather are a sign of a jackass. Yet even still, that may not always be the case. An angry individual sorta loses common sense, and when not thinking clearly they may do things that normally they would never, ever do (and often will regret later). That's just what anger can do to someone.
Hopefully this post made sense, I've been kinda spaced out all day (more than usual, that is), so it might not.
You mentioned having moments where you go berserk and throw things. I spoke to one of my prior girlfriends about this very thing. What seems normal for you is extremely disturbing for me. I don't understand why people throw things or why people fly into rages. I just don't do those things. Sure, I get angry, I get frustrated, but I don't feel the urge to start punching walls and throwing things. We just have fundamentally separate expectations and assumptions about what's acceptable when you're angry. And for me, epithets are never okay. Ever.
That kind of "rage" (for lack of a better term, or perhaps it fits just fine) is a great flaw of mine and I certainly don't make excuses for it. I don't want to be that kind of person. I've tried pretty hard over the years to change it, not only for the above reasons but because it ties into my extreme sensitivity to certain noises and distractions (which came into full swing in high school and made it pretty hellish, frankly).This paragraph kind of baffles me. Having an anger problem that you're working on fixing makes you an awful person?
Does that make me an awful person? Depends on the measuring stick, and each of us has a different one. By mine, the answer is basically "yes, but most people are probably pretty seriously messed up in one way or another, so don't beat yourself up about it". I'm grateful to have found a way through life thus far that's led to a happy family and (generally) happy customers. For now, that's the best I can do.
But the problem's still there, and I don't see any particular reason to believe it will go away.
Does that make me an awful person? Depends on the measuring stick, and each of us has a different one. By mine, the answer is basically "yes, but most people are probably pretty seriously messed up in one way or another, so don't beat yourself up about it".
Anyway, on the sorts of MOBA-player behavior you were condemning earlier I agree that it's flatly unacceptable. And for the people doing that who actually justify their behavior as acceptable, and do not seek to right their wrongs... yea, that kind of person, I imagine, is probably a general negative to most/all the people in their lives.
Even for someone who doesn't flaws that serious, there's the matter of dealing with people who do. If offense turns into long-term bitterness it can lead to disease, difficulty in relationships, etc.
in the end, nobody really cares if I smash up a few random things that I personally own (and I only do this if I'm *really* angry, which is rare, otherwise I might just knock things off the desk and bang on it).
This paragraph kind of baffles me. Having an anger problem that you're working on fixing makes you an awful person?It depends on what you mean. I say "yes" (given the degree of the anger problem in question) because I do not want to act as if the problem is excusable or somehow not my responsibility. It doesn't get me depressed or whatever, but if I refused to take responsibility for it (or to acknowledge it as something for which responsibility must be taken) then it would probably become worse rather than better.
In other words, I'd rather make an honest measurement against what I know a well-adjusted person can be like, rather than lower the standard to meet what I actually am :) Others are free to apply different standards, of course.
Are you sure nobody cares? The girl in question thought the same thing, until I told her that I felt personally threatened when items go flying, and it makes me uncomfortable in my own space. It raises the fight or flight reaction of the people around you, whether you acknowledge it or not. Does the person have to defend themselves, even against inadvertent flying objects? Does the person have to defend others, such as children?
You're free to use whatever method you like in order to classify yourself or fix your problems, but overwhelming psychological studies have shown that a negative self-image (i.e., I'm an awful person) is pretty much the exact opposite of the kind of mind state a person requires in order to efficiently deal with their underlying issues.It may be difficult for you to understand or believe, but I don't actually have a negative self-image. I think I'm seriously flawed in some important respects, but I don't think that makes me a net loss (much less a total loss), if I'm careful to play to my strengths.
Noble as it may be, it's ironically counter-productive to the task at hand. Many times, a negative self-image is what causes the anger in the first place.
Aren't children incredibly loud?I related ths conversation to my wife, and we laughed quite a lot over that question.
It may be difficult for you to understand or believe, but I don't actually have a negative self-image. I think I'm seriously flawed in some important respects, but I don't think that makes me a net loss (much less a total loss), if I'm careful to play to my strengths.In the same way, we can't use the tiny experience we have with the average MOBA player to automatically determine that their behavior makes them a "net loss". We have no idea about the strengths or compassion they may display in other areas of their life.
In the same way, we can't use the tiny experience we have with the average MOBA player to automatically determine that their behavior makes them a "net loss".Yes, that's the exact point I was aiming at.
I tend not to believe in "bad people". I think that every person sometimes does bad things, but the whole idea of classifying each person as "good" or "bad" seems hilariously childish and simplistic to me.Certainly there's no cosmic meterstick hanging on some sky-hook out there to measure people. It's not like you're racking up points and penalties in some impersonal disembodied high score list.
Genuinely dealing with the offense or feeling of guilt or whatever, so that it stops poisoning anyone... that's the hard part. But it's the only way to live, as opposed to slowly dying.Well sure, but it doesn't happen overnight :P
I think most people with anger problems likely have a similar story or sordid past, and so attempting to be sympathetic or understanding about where they're coming from instead of automatically labeling them as nasty or vile people, which I continue to see happening in this thread, is probably a better solution.
It's certainly not enough evidence to call them "toxic, barely sociable spoiled brats" or what have you. This kind of attitude simply makes the behavior worse.
I tend not to believe in "bad people". I think that every person sometimes does bad things, but the whole idea of classifying each person as "good" or "bad" seems hilariously childish and simplistic to me.
Further evidence that there is no such thing as a "bad person" is the fact that each person tries to view themselves as good in their own minds. If people really were bad, why do they care so much about keeping a positive self-image? Even Hitler believed he was justified in his actions.
I just read a book called "Hitler's World View" by Eberhard Jackel. Hitler seemed to truly believe he had a divine right to act and command the way he did: "Therefore, I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator: By warding of the Jews, I am fighting for the Lord's work." "If Germany frees itself from this embrace [the Jews], this greatest of all dangers to the peoples can be regarded as crushed for the entire world."
But if self-deception makes you a bad person, then most religious people must automatically be considered bad people. Even if you're religious, you have to concede this, because you believe *your* religion is right, and all the other ones are wrong. So no matter where you're coming from, a large group of people are deceiving themselves about some obvious truth.
It's not necessarily because they want to harm others, maybe it's because they've been mentally or emotionally abused in their life, and they feel that by standing idle while that happens again, they are simply inviting more of it.
I'll use a personal example of why I sometimes blow up in these games. I was brought up in a strict religious environment in where I was taught my own feelings were invalid and had to be suppressed. It was "wrong and sinful" to feel angry, upset, or otherwise vengeful towards others, and Biblical references were used to justify these decrees. Well as you can imagine, suppressing my emotions did little to fix them. In fact, it left me with a lot of guilt, anxiety, and of course anger which I simply pushed down for most of my teenage life because of the way I was taught to believe, bringing me to the point of near suicide many times.
When I finally discarded of these damaging beliefs, I had an irrational but completely understandable fear of EVER suppressing my emotions. So now, when I feel angry, upset, or scared, instead of bottling that up inside, I have a hard time not letting it out immediately because of the deep terrifying knowledge of what happens when I bottle them up instead.
I think most people with anger problems likely have a similar story or sordid past, and so attempting to be sympathetic or understanding about where they're coming from instead of automatically labeling them as nasty or vile people, which I continue to see happening in this thread, is probably a better solution.
If it helps, I think in most cases players of this genre dont really point towards any one specific individual with that sort of thing..... it's moreso that the community, as a whole, is nasty and vile overall. Which is something I can agree with. One way or another, it IS filled with jerks, there WILL be people who insult you just because they get a kick outta it, and so on.
So an adult who responds to "not getting my way" stimuli with "kick-scream-throw-things" doesn't need to feel some kind of cosmic guilt for offending the universe. The universe doesn't care. But that doesn't mean there isn't a very real, very serious problem.
As for the suppressing of emotions (quite common among many religions/worldviews), yea, that can lead to tremendous amounts of bitterness. "Just bottle it up" is over-simplistic and destructive.
On the other hand, "just let it out" can also be over-simplistic and destructive. It can change from "hold it in, make yourself sick" to "let it all out, make everyone else sick too".
Yes, my lack of rage totally makes the behavior worse. Blame the victim, much? You see, I can do psychology 101 grab bag, also. ;DDon't really need to respond to the rest of your argument, because you disprove all of it with this right here.
Firstly, let's all acknowledge that the moba community is full of toxic, spoiled brats that are only marginally capable of acceptable socialization
This genre attracts narcissist gamers who really need an audience (the other nine people playing) for their own perceived awesomeness. Legends in their own minds. How many people play this game because they want to have nice social gaming session with other people? "Let's go meet the nice people on dota!" Of course not. It's more like, let's dominate and show off for nine other people.
These same internet miscreants also firmly believe they are experts at understanding meta...
I enjoy playing these games now and then, but I despise the average personality who plays them.
Also I love the part where this topic got back on the rails for like 2 minutes, and then immediately leapt into a chasm again.While I'm the first to drive trains off the rails with mad-scientist-glee, I think we're actually hitting one of the most important MOBA-related topics. Do we want to improve the MOBA experience? What really gets in the way of the fun more? Old-style last-hitting mechanics or jerks-for-teammates? Both are valid areas for improvement, but the latter is a far more fundamental, difficult problem. So difficult, I think, that it's largely ignored or papered over in favor of tech/balance/etc issues that seem actually solvable.
And I think that point is shown again here: Wingflier, Cyborg, do you have any intentions to find some form of reconciliation or mutual understanding that will allow you to treat each other with decency?
Hard-hitting argument is fine, but is that what's actually happening here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=kQFKtI6gn9Y#t=37)?
And if the two of you, who I know from some experience to be considerably more analytical than the average MOBA player, can't meet halfway, how much less random strangers in a proverbial snakepit?
Let me be clear. My calling the community the pile of dung that it is, is not unique. It's a common fact, acknowledged in this thread, lampooned by countless comics, and is so obvious that the makers have tried to find ways of getting people to behave, such as the tribunal. I'm not making this up, it's an industry-wide problem
* No chat.
My second random thought, if you play against bots, there is literally zero arguing. I have had zero bad experiences playing against the AI (free win of the day points). The people who play that have entirely different motivations, and everything that causes fighting is just not there.
I have no problem with Cyborg, it just seems that he's constantly contradicting himself and attacking large groups of people (as well as other forum members) in attempt to display himself as the self-proclaimed victim.
Obviously I'm going to disagree with these tactics in the spirit of fair debate.
In other words, I have no desire to attack Cyborg personally, but his arguments, which seem completely self-defeating. He is engaging in the same behavior he claims to detest in the MOBA Community.
I thought I have managed quite well to avoid name-calling and just address the points. I have been fair, or so I thought. While it's no secret that wing and I won't be sending each other Christmas cards, it's a far cry from MOBA chat.
The problem is not that people sometimes hurt each other or take their problems out on others (this is human), the problem is when people feel RATIONALLY JUSTIFIED in doing so, and refuse to apologize because they claim some kind of moral right to say nasty things about other people.Well, which of the two is worse:
But putting that label on everyone? Nope, that's stretching it, and it's incredibly insulting to people like me, who have never, to my knowledge, abused anyone in game ever.I was assuming that the labels Cyborg was applying, while intended to be general, were not intended to be exhaustive of every single person who plays MOBAs (that would include him in the blast radius, after all).
In other news, I just tried to install Smite, and it came up with a window asking me if I wanted to install "prerequisite software" without telling me what it is. Because this is free, I'm immediately thinking spyware and adware. So I'm not going to install it.It's just trying to ward.
In other news, I just tried to install Smite, and it came up with a window asking me if I wanted to install "prerequisite software" without telling me what it is. Because this is free, I'm immediately thinking spyware and adware. So I'm not going to install it.Heh, I know that is extremely vague. But it's simply a bundling of the Flash player so that Smite (and Tribes) can play Youtube videos and Twitch streams from within the client.
I think some of the objections to the communication issues are from the 9/11 thread, which is a debate thread. It could be that people are sensitive to disagreeable topics and contentious discussion. In which case could decide that the off-topic forum cannot have controversial topics.I certainly don't think any good would come from our taking a "least common denominator" approach where everything has to pass the most sensitive person's sensitivity filter.
The way I see it, the posting of that topic was inciting the response that it gotThat's a fair point. The pot boiled because it was heated.
Great idea for forum software: an ignore button that hides all postings!While I think it's a shame for any of us to reach that level with anyone else here, the function exists:
To call a community a pile of dung or a bunch of toxic, spoiled brats is not an absolute statement about the human worthiness of every single person playing. It's a statement about the collective value of the community. You might have some very nice players, but the average behavior of the community is toxic. Do any of you read the forums? Do you play these games? These are not pleasant places to be.
Fair enough :P I think most of my experience with MOBA communities come from SMITE, which is friendlier than most, so I guess I don't see it as bad as most others do. We definitely have our fair share of buttheads, but they're not that common. It's kind of the other way around. Whereas you expect to have the occasional game in LoL without someone shouting at you, you expect to the have the occasional game WITH someone shouting at you in SMITE.
I guess it's just a matter of time, though, before the community grows large enough for the toxicity to take over.
SMITE also has that nifty VGS system that you tend to use much more than typing, and the voices there simply provide a friendlier atmosphere. I mean, a "VR2" (Retreat middle lane!) is conveyed more as a warning than "ffs dude, r mid!" which stirs up toxicity.
I dunno, but I think it's a contributing part.
So basically Strife is to Smite what Smite is to other MOBAs? Smite has already been accused of being too "dumbed down" and too "casual". I'm imagining that hardcore LoL/DotA nerds are going to apecrap over Strife, considering how they've treated Smite.Oh yeah, they have.
So basically Strife is to Smite what Smite is to other MOBAs? Smite has already been accused of being too "dumbed down" and too "casual". I'm imagining that hardcore LoL/DotA nerds are going to apecrap over Strife, considering how they've treated Smite.Oh yeah, they have.
I was looking at the user reviews on some of the Youtube videos and it was absolutely incredible the amount of hatred it got from League of Legends players.
Typically though, I find this to be less of a case of people finding the game to be too "dumbed down" and "casual", and more of a case of them not liking the idea of their game being subjected to worthy competition. It's fanboism at it's finest.
You can kind of imagine. It's the same way in which football fans often talk smack about baseball fans, and baseball fans talk smack about hockey fans etc. Now imagine if American football had some actual competition in terms of a sport which could potentially overtake it in popularity? There would be a similar level of backlash I think.
It really says nothing about the quality of the game. If anything, the mere fact that there is such hatred of it means that the developers are doing something right.
I haven't seen as much hatred from the DotA community as the LoL community. I think DotA players don't feel threatened by it, it's clearly focusing on the on the casual crowd. Most the players I've met on there are LoL players as well. Occasionally you'll find a DotA player, you can tell because they're better ;p
Did I mention the part where bot makers need to be kicked? By a giant flaming horse?I personally think this forum is fairly spared. One forum I ran had a bot-maker crack the registration process, and the day after the forum had over 8000 new posts. That was fun.
Because they kinda do.
I do wonder though why this forum attracts so many of them.
Did I mention the part where bot makers need to be kicked? By a giant flaming horse?I personally think this forum is fairly spared. One forum I ran had a bot-maker crack the registration process, and the day after the forum had over 8000 new posts. That was fun.
Because they kinda do.
I do wonder though why this forum attracts so many of them.
Did I mention the part where bot makers need to be kicked? By a giant flaming horse?I personally think this forum is fairly spared. One forum I ran had a bot-maker crack the registration process, and the day after the forum had over 8000 new posts. That was fun.
Because they kinda do.
I do wonder though why this forum attracts so many of them.
Just..... ouch. Geez.
Someday maybe I'll understand the deranged thought processes that lead someone to believe that doing such a thing is a good idea. Today is not that day.
I feel the same way with DotA actually, even though it's primarily the controls and perspective that is the biggest hurdle (and thus why I don't play any other MOBA than Smite). But it's the pacing seems completely off. The laning phase is ardously long and extremely focus intensive in that you have to last hit and deny, leaving little time or energy for poking. Then comes the actual combat which is over in literally seconds and seem more reliant on team composition than individual skills since people just tend to be instanuked.
I dunno, I'm not saying that DotA is bad, I'm just saying that it's definitely not for me.
If you can determine the outcome of the entire match solely on your pick before it even begins...I see that as VERY poor design.There's a difference between determining the outcome and getting a massive advantage.
If you can determine the outcome of the entire match solely on your pick before it even begins...I see that as VERY poor design.
I think Keith understands it.If you can determine the outcome of the entire match solely on your pick before it even begins...I see that as VERY poor design.There's a difference between determining the outcome and getting a massive advantage.
It's just a matter of the skill game starting before the picks are done. If you have way more skill at laning than your opponent in the lane then you can often translate that into a massive advantage. Similarly, if you have way more skill at hero picks than your opponents, you can translate that into a massive advantage.
Determining the outcome is beyond any of that, though. I'm guessing there have been situations out there where it wouldn't have mattered if one team somehow accidentally picked creeps to control instead of heroes, they still could have won :)
And the sheer inflexibility of Dota's heroes compared to characters of pretty much all of the others has always seemed to me to be one of the biggest contributors to that.I guess I don't agree with this either. I think out of all the games I've played, DotA may have the most flexible roles, unless you count Strife in which the classical roles have more or less been removed.
As an example, Mirana can lane mid, top solo, bot solo, bot support, bot carry, makes a great trilaner, or heck, she can choose not to lane at all and simply roam around the map setting up ganks with her arrow. Windrunner is similar in this regard. Heroes like Tidehunter can be played mid, solo offlane, or support. In fact there are too many examples to list of heroes that can fill so many different roles. Recently I've seen several classic "supports" such as Lion, Warlock, and even Vengeful Spirit mid, and do it well.
Compare that to a game like League of Legends where a champion really *is* stuck in their role. Literally in competitive play, you're probably never going to see a Soraka, Nami, Taric, etc. play any other role than the role they were designed for. The same goes for carries, top laners, AP mids, or junglers. Some of these champions MAY be able to fill 2 or 3 roles, but it's extremely rare. Even if they can fill multiple roles, they are typically only used in one, if they are used at all. Compare this to DotA where many different heroes are used in many different roles all the time, and it's hard for me to really understand the point you're trying to make. If anything, mechanics like AP just pigeonhole a champion even further because they're forced down a certain build path, where heroes like Invoker can build for physical damage, survivability, disables, escapes, magical damage, aoe, single target, or any combination of them all.
So I guess Valve is releasing their "Free-to-Play" (http://store.steampowered.com/app/245550/) documentary soon, which can currently be pre-loaded on Steam. I'm pretty excited to see how it turns out.
I'll give them credit for "going out of the box" that is the MOBA genre. But personally I can't stand their art style. They've been hopelessly stuck in their "WoW" art-style forever and done nothing to improve it. :/ But oh well, might have some cool gameplay at least.I too am not a huge fan of World of Warcraft, considering it the epitome of the "pay-to-grind" type gaming model. The game is so mindless that it makes their previous titles, such as Diablo 2, look intellectually taxing in comparison. To me it's the epitome of game design "mass appeal" in the same way the McDonald's is the mass appeal of food and Justin Bieber is the mass appeal of music. It never seems to turn out so well.
I'm just having a really hard time looking past the WoW-influences in its style. Might just be "old bittervet" speaking.
As far as gameplay goes, I absolutely see this as an alternative for people who just cannot stomach the intense strategy and skill needed to play "real" MOBAs such as DotA2, LoL, Smite etc. Heck, even Smite is a "dumbed down" version of DotA2, so why not? If you can be more casual than DotA2, why not be more casual than Smite? There is always a player base that simply doesn't want to bother with the skillcap, hence why I play Smite. Therefore there must be people who don't want to bother with Smite and they can play HotS.Concerning the "dumbing down" of games:
It just didn't interest me at all one bit. But that's more due to the traditional isometric MOBA-perspective control style than anything else. I just can't stand it.
As far as gameplay goes, I absolutely see this as an alternative for people who just cannot stomach the intense strategy and skill needed to play "real" MOBAs
I was more referring to the "team based coordination"-skill here though ;)As far as gameplay goes, I absolutely see this as an alternative for people who just cannot stomach the intense strategy and skill needed to play "real" MOBAs
I haven't heard one person talk about the intense strategy and skill needed. :D
Being a team game, a lot of the individual skill lies behind 20% of the total skill contribution possible.
I'm checking in with this thread just to let you know that the Team Builder league of legends feature is live, and it's awesome. I haven't had one single game turn into an argument or temper tantrum about which lane and who is doing what. It's been the most pleasant experience I've ever had playing this game.
Feh, somehow that doesnt surprise me.Nope.
Now if only they had less of a huge percentage of that group being absolute jerks. I'm doubting THAT will happen though.
In less than 2 weeks, The International 4 Tournament prize pool has been increased to over 5.9 million. With over 2 months left before the International even occurs and with the 6 million dollar stretch goal about to become an imminent reality, who knows how high it can go?
All I know is, this is going to be an EPIC tournament and even the 3-4th place winners are going home practically rich.
.....when in the heck did Dota get an unranked mode???You may be confused. DotA always *had* unranked mode.
http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/19561/article/league-of-legends-player-who-made-terrorist-threats-facing-10-years-in-prison/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_121608
LOL
Gotta give it to Riot, this song, the animation, the theme of the video, it's all freaking perfect. Extremely well done, I hope the tournament is as hype as the advertising! <3
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/esports-event/warriors
Wow I hadn't heard about that. What do you think is causing it?
I can't wait for the LoL Graphics update (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e_N4WpqH5o).If only they'd skip those AWFUL black outlines >_>
I can't wait for the LoL Graphics update (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e_N4WpqH5o).
I can't wait for the LoL Graphics update (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e_N4WpqH5o).
This just looks less colorful to me, really.... kinda looks the same as before otherwise.
I give it a "bah" out of 10.
LOL update comparison (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r-dOKMU0dY) for anyone that cares.
Meh. I was never a fan of LoL's art even when I played it. DotA kinda also looks like tripe. But it's not graphics that makes a game. But down to personal taste, they both look pretty awful.I agree that DotA 2's graphics could be better, though I personally like them, even if they are very stylized to some degree.
The only potential concern I'd have, with what you described Wingflier, is even longer games. If I were playing DOTA2 at any rate. Considering they already seem to average 60 minutes at best from what I've observed, that seems to suggest they'll go even longer. In comparison, SMITE Conquest games go on an average of 30-40mins, with a maximum of 60-70mins at best because the gods become so lethal (and respawn timers so long) that one team fight at 60mins will decide the game outright. But hey, if they want the games to be longer, not up to me to say nay to them, just something I find interesting.http://dotametrics.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/6-82-has-resulted-in-closer-longer-matches/
Okay, Smite-related question:As far as I know, there are NO planned server outages. They've been testing a new queue system lately, but that hasn't affected uptimes.
Do they normally do server maintenance extremely frequently? I've barely been able to do much in it these past few days because the servers are brought down over and over at some point during the night...
Ugh, yes, the new queue thing. I already miss the older one.
Because I have zero patience. Particularly when I have to wait.
With the old system, I could look at it and say, okay, there's 1 minute till this mode fires off. Not so bad. It never seemed to be more than 2 or so. With normal queues, I look at it and say, argh, I'll hit this but it could be six minutes.... AGAIN.... till it fires off, unless of course someone 9/10s it and the waiting cycle starts again. Like with the other games in the genre, while it's using normal queues, I keep the iPad nearby so I dont pass out from boredom trying to get a game going. That's never a good sign. Never had to do that with this game before. I've heard nothing but anger from players in most places I go to that will discuss the game, and I cant blame them on this one. To me it seems like one of those things where it wasnt broken, yet they still "fixed" it.
I'm also playing only during the middle of the night; it's the only time I'm awake. So the queue times extend with this system, and not as isolated events. It's USUALLY longer.
As for matchups VS other skill levels and stuff like that.... I never saw it as a problem, because every single other moba I've played (and every other competetive game type I'm into, usually) has the same issue, without exception. It's annoying, yes, but it really does exist for all of them, different queue systems or not. I hadnt so far seen it as being any more or less common in this one, though I could be wrong. But it wasnt anything new to me at all.
As a rule though I care only about how long it takes, which is typical for me.
Just because a problem exists in every other MOBA doesn't mean we can accept it as a problem here. This is the reason why Hi-Rez made the change, to fix the matchmaking.
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.
Maybe you need to play Gargamel.
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.I wasn't aware that was such a problem. I didn't encounter barely any smurfs on my way up in Smite.
Trying to learn new gods here, but pretty much all night, just one blasted smurf after another. Just....argh.
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.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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There's a difference between putting someone in a higher skill bracket where they belong, which is reasonable, and detecting that you are a smurf. What I'm trying to say is that Valve punishes you HEAVILY if they think you're smurfing. They don't just put you where you belong, they put you against people that destroy you.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.
Just curious, if that happens, don't matchmaking systems do that anyway? Especially with new players?
What I'm trying to say is that Valve punishes you HEAVILY if they think you're smurfing.
Welcome to the Tartarus bracket.Pretty much that.
I never really understood the punishing of smurfs.Maybe it's not so much the developers practicing "community improvement" as it is "recreation".
I never really understood the punishing of smurfs. Like that's some horrifyingly bad thing to do. To me, it's not worse than being a badmouth. Smurfs get put in their proper place soon enough anyway, so what's the fuzz? And as far as SMITE goes, you can't smurf in ranked, where it would matter, anyway.
most people are just going to look at them as a giant asshat with nothing better to do.
What I mean by "I don't see the point of punishing the smurfs" is that if the games matchmaking is working properly, smurfs would rather rapidly be put with people of their own skill, so you'd really only get them 1-3 games where they'll go stompy stompy. I just don't see the need for ADDITIONAL punishment.
I haven't bought an EA or Ubisoft game in.....at least 3 years. Probably longer. Haven't missed a dang thing. Not surprised EA pulled the plug on Dawngate either.
EA tends to cancel anything that doesn't provide a gold fountain instantly, and paradoxially enough, stick to utterly broken and unplayable crap forever while singing its praises. (See Simcity).Is EA still making The game formerly known as Generals 2 but now is something else sorta C&C-related possibly maybe, or did that vanish into the ether? I lost track of it once they changed the title.
Just as a funny SMBC Comic. I'm definitely excited for HOTS. I'll be interested to see what Blizzard can contribute to the genre. Being completely connected to your team's gold and experience seems like an utter hamstring in some ways because it takes away personal skill out of the equation to a large degree (it's sort of like playing a basketball game where both team's set of players are tied together with long ropes) , and makes you even MORE reliant on your team than the genre's games already did. One thing I've noticed is that, in the devolution of the genre's complexity, so too has personal skill become less important. This can be incredibly frustrating when you're personally playing well but seem totally unable to win a long series of games.
Another concern I have is that, I have a friend who is the biggest Blizzard fanboy ever that said the game happens extremely slowly, with your characters feeling like they're moving through molasses. Coming from someone who essentially plays WoW for a living, this is a bad sign.
Having said that, the 7 different and unique maps is a big welcome to the genre. That's an awesome idea and definitely deserved to be in the game. The perks system sounds neat but I wonder if that wouldn't get old fast once you found your favorite combination. The shorter games seems fun too and the neutral camps that fight for you. All in all I think it will be a welcome addition to the genre, I'll be most interested to see if it takes off competitively.
I expect the current meta to outright warp over and over again as development progresses, among other things.
The perks system sounds neat but I wonder if that wouldn't get old fast once you found your favorite combination.
And of course, players not knowing what to do in a general sense will wreck you just as much as in others. That bit hasnt changed at all, and playing or watching matches, you'll see just as much frustration on this point as ever. Particularly with the whole "so many things to DO" concept going here.
As for how skill-based or not it is.... I've no qualms on that one. Aint any less skill-based than any of the others. BUT, this is going to be up to the player as to what is considered "skill-based" or not. I always hear all of that about Dota, about how skill-based it is and blah blah blah, but I dont see it that way. The "denying" bit for existence.... there's no real skill there. It's EXACTLY the same as last-hitting, merely with a different result, and with ALOT less intuitiveness to it. There's the idea of adding complexity for the sake of true depth, and then there's adding complexity to be able to say that you have lots of complexity, and my own thoughts are that Dota does *alot* of that second one (not that other mobas dont, mind you, because most of them do at least some of this as well). As someone that plays fighting games to death.... a genre that's *very* complicated as all hell.... something I've learned 10000 times over is that complexity does NOT equal depth. There's too much more to it than that. Again, that isnt really anything against Dota (and you've heard this from me before anyway)..... all of the mobas do that to some degree.... it's mostly just me trying to make a point. I'm too lazy to think of a better way to explain it, though you've heard this stuff from me before in different contexts, hah.In terms of complexity, that in itself is not really relevant to me as a whole. What does matter in a competitive game is the skill-ceiling. The reason that say Super Smash Brothers Melee is still considered the most competitive over 10 years and 2 sequels is not only because it is more complex, but more nuanced and with a higher skill-ceiling. Sure, it has less characters and is harder to get into (though let's be honest, none of the Smash games are *difficult* to play), but the skill-ceiling is vastly higher than the newer alternatives.
As for how skill-based or not it is.... I've no qualms on that one. Aint any less skill-based than any of the others. BUT, this is going to be up to the player as to what is considered "skill-based" or not. I always hear all of that about Dota, about how skill-based it is and blah blah blah, but I dont see it that way. The "denying" bit for existence.... there's no real skill there. It's EXACTLY the same as last-hitting, merely with a different result, and with ALOT less intuitiveness to it. There's the idea of adding complexity for the sake of true depth, and then there's adding complexity to be able to say that you have lots of complexity, and my own thoughts are that Dota does *alot* of that second one (not that other mobas dont, mind you, because most of them do at least some of this as well). As someone that plays fighting games to death.... a genre that's *very* complicated as all hell.... something I've learned 10000 times over is that complexity does NOT equal depth. There's too much more to it than that. Again, that isnt really anything against Dota (and you've heard this from me before anyway)..... all of the mobas do that to some degree.... it's mostly just me trying to make a point. I'm too lazy to think of a better way to explain it, though you've heard this stuff from me before in different contexts, hah.In terms of complexity, that in itself is not really relevant to me as a whole. What does matter in a competitive game is the skill-ceiling. The reason that say Super Smash Brothers Melee is still considered the most competitive over 10 years and 2 sequels is not only because it is more complex, but more nuanced and with a higher skill-ceiling. Sure, it has less characters and is harder to get into (though let's be honest, none of the Smash games are *difficult* to play), but the skill-ceiling is vastly higher than the newer alternatives.
The skill-ceiling or competitive value of a game basically comes down to one thing: How many choices the player has available to them at any given moment. The reason complexity tends to add skill, is that complexity also usually adds more choices. Compare Checkers to Chess. The games have many similarities, with many similar mechanics. However, the reason Chess is vastly more competitive than Checkers comes down to its complexity. Many aspects of Chess could be considered non-intuitive (the "Castle" mechanics, Knight movement, special "Pawn" rules, Checkmate, end-game draw mechanics, etc.), but in spite of what some may consider needless complexity (indeed, many steps have been attempted to simplify Chess), the fact of the matter is that the activity presents the players with MILLIONS of options PER game, where Checkers presents maybe a few thousand. The higher number of choices available to the Chess player is ultimately what makes it the game with a much higher skill-ceiling.
We can compare this to DotA and League of Legends. A League of Legends support is the most boring job in the entire Universe. There's a reason the role is so difficult to fill often within ranked or the "team finder" (or even normal games). Because few people want to do it. It's boring as all hell. The role basically has one responsibility for the entire laning phase (which lasts a lifetime). They harass the enemy champions. THAT'S IT. They don't last hit. They don't roam. They can't do anything else. They better just stay there and harass. What's even worse is that harassing can be a counter-productive activity if the enemy's combo has better harassment, or say they have a Blitzcrank that it becomes counter-productive to try and harass because if he hooks you, it could mean death. So in those common scenarios, you're not even really harassing, you're just protecting your carry, holding your mouth open while drool runs out waiting for them to go in on him, if they decide to at all. It's mind-numbingly boring and horrible, I've met few people who enjoy it (there are a few exceptions).
In DotA, a support is nothing like that. You mentioned non-intuitive complexities like denying and creep-pulling. And as much as you want to slam on these, they give the support *something to do*. Denying, in essence, just doubles the amount of creeps a player can target. This means the support can still last hit, even though he's not taking anything away from his carry. So already, just with the option of denying, you've DOUBLED what a DotA support can do, as compared to a League support. But wait, there's more. Creep stacking and pulling adds another mechanic which allows your support to deny the enemy experience while bringing the fight to the jungle and snowballing the lane. However, it can be countered by the enemy as well, so even though some players may call it "needless complexity", it actually makes the game a lot more interesting, especially for the support. In addition TO THAT, the support can carry a TP. If they see another lane in trouble (say an ally in a different lane is being dived), they can temporarily LEAVE the lane, be at the allied tower at seconds, and turn a disaster into a triumph. This doesn't exist in League, no support is going to be taking Teleport, and the cooldown on it is outrageous. But that's not all either, the support can also carry Smoke, meaning he can leave the lane and gank another lane fairly easily because he gets invisiblity and 15% increased movement speed. This makes for easy ganks on mid and other lanes that wouldn't really be possible in League (if a support leaves the lane in League it's obvious they're ganking because there's LITERALLY nothing else for them to do). Also the fact that Flash is available in League makes ganking almost downright impossible unless Flash has been burned first. In addition to that, the runes in DotA, sometimes called needless complexity, give the support something to do every 2 minutes, as battles for rune control can literally change the outcome of the entire game. In addition to that, the KILL POTENTIAL within the lane FAR, FAR outweighs LoL itself. In DotA, a support and carry can EASILY get a kill, or many kills within the laning phase, assuming they have a good combo. In League competitive play, kills within the carry/support lane without outside help are extremely uncommon.
So here are all these "un-intuitive", "needlessly complex", "pointless mechanics" that exist in DotA which may seem silly or frustrating to the uninitiated, but the fact of the matter is that these mechanics serve the purpose of giving the player vastly, vastly more options than a League player has, even though the latter game may be more streamlined for casual play. As a result, the skill-ceiling is undeniably higher.
Now does that mean that HoTS (I really hate that acronym because their first SC2 expansion has the same one), in removing even more complexities from the genre than League will be less skill-based? Well, not necessarily. Especially if they added complexity in other areas, such as in the map, the perks, or some of other more subtle game mechanics. But the fact of the matter is that complexity does usually translate to choices. Whether the choices are meaningful is a different discussion, but basically comes down to personal preference anyway. I think the nuanced complexity of Starcraft 2 is freaking annoying and overwhelming, especially when a lot of that "complexity" comes down to how quickly you can press buttons on a keyboard. But nobody can argue that SC2, with its overwhelming complexity, is the crown jewel of the competitive RTS genre, no other game comes close. And so it goes.
I play that genre at an extremely high level. This one is very easy to prove, with videos that I've made. I think some people on this forum might have seen them; I know Chris has, though I dont entirely remember WHY I showed it at that time. They show the absolutely stupid level of difficulty that these games produce. Futari, however, is different. Whatever crazy awesome stuff I do in all of the other videos, which includes Ultra mode in the first Mushihime, mean very little in Futari. I can beat the first game, which is nigh-impossible as it is. The second? It took me a year of CONSTANT play... starting at the high level of skill I already had going into it... to beat the FIRST level. The second? Beyond me. I've no chance. It's too much, way too much. Each stage gets exponentially harder. And the end boss is the worst of all, making the rest of the game look easy.If you go back to what I originally said, my main argument was that a game's skill-ceiling is determined by how many meaningful choices a player is offered at any given second while playing said game. In this game, at least the way you describe it, the player must move their characters in one of ~10 different directions every millisecond, and continue doing this for minutes (which become hours) at a time. In essence, the amount of meaningful choices the player has to make, EVERY SINGLE SECOND, while playing this game, is astronomically higher than in most other games in existence. One wrong choice out of thousands and you're dead.
That game though... it has no complexity of mechanics. At all.
People always say the same thing about games like Guilty Gear, Street Fighter, blah blah blah. How the skill ceiling is way high, and you gotta do all these things, learn all the frame whatsits and combo notations and hitbox somethings and blah blah blah, and that's WHY it's so high....While you are obviously an extremely talented player and naturally good at fighting games, what you've just presented is only anecdotal evidence for your argument. In Super Smash Brother Melee, for example, a player who has mastered all the advanced tech skills (of which there are well over 50), character matchups, and movement mechanics will have a massive advantage over someone who is simply good at fighting games. That's because mastery of said mechanics allows the player to perform many actions that a player who is using only the basic mechanics can not, and to do them much more quickly (significantly higher actions per second). Master of fighting games you may be, I highly doubt you could beat the renowned masters of tech skill such as Mew2King, Mango, Armada, and many others who have devoted tens of thousands of hours to these techniques.
....and I say that's all a load of rubbish. Why? Because I've never met even a single opponent in any of those games (that I actually play alot, I dont do Street Fighter for instance, it's too slow-paced for me) that DID those things.... and yet didn't end up losing to me ANYWAY. And I do none of them, this due to finding them A: boring, or B: irritating, or C: just really stupid. They're all arbitrary, and they seem to be considered necessary as if the people saying such a thing would have to admit that the game in question is actually not as complex as they like to repeat it is. And yes, with these games I know what *actual* high level play looks like.... I'm not saying "Oh, I took down some local guy that's good at tournaments, clearly I'm really great". I mean "I've played them absolutely to freaking death for years, and for the one I play most I knocked out the second-ranked guy in the region awhile back, not just this minor area, and have seen Evo and all that to compare to". It's the genre I'm best at, better than shmups (which should say something, to anyone that's seen me do those) and I do literally not even a bit of that stuff I consider arbitrary. I found that it DOESNT add much of anything to the games, despite popular opinion, and so far, nobody's been strong enough to fully prove me otherwise.
All of this does make for alot of interesting debate though. .....interesting PEACEFUL debate. If I rambled about this anywhere else, I'd just get screamed at...Like I said, this all just comes down to personal opinion for the most part anyway. No reason to get upset about it!
If you go back to what I originally said, my main argument was that a game's skill-ceiling is determined by how many meaningful choices a player is offered at any given second while playing said game. In this game, at least the way you describe it, the player must move their characters in one of ~10 different directions every millisecond, and continue doing this for minutes (which become hours) at a time. In essence, the amount of meaningful choices the player has to make, EVERY SINGLE SECOND, while playing this game, is astronomically higher than in most other games in existence. One wrong choice out of thousands and you're dead.
In addition to that, you've proven my point about complexity. Do you not think that hundreds of thousands or millions of bullets being sprayed across the screen in certain patterns over a period of seconds, minutes, and hours amounts to complexity? To ask the player to memorize every single bullet, moving in tandem with thousands of others at any given millisecond, on every pixel of the screen, and learning these complex and intense patterns are, from what you're describing, something a person could spend a LIFETIME doing and still not be able to beat the game. This kind of intellectual and mental burden is a level of complexity way beyond what most games would ever require of you. Even DotA requires less than a full time undergraduate college semester's worth of knowledge in order to be proficient at, and while some may argue that that's a LOT of learning, it's nothing compared to the intellectual tax and complexity of Futari, the game you've described. You may not choose to see millions of bullets in particular patterns as complexity, but it most certainly is friend, because complexity can appear in many different ways.
People always say the same thing about games like Guilty Gear, Street Fighter, blah blah blah. How the skill ceiling is way high, and you gotta do all these things, learn all the frame whatsits and combo notations and hitbox somethings and blah blah blah, and that's WHY it's so high....
....and I say that's all a load of rubbish. Why? Because I've never met even a single opponent in any of those games (that I actually play alot, I dont do Street Fighter for instance, it's too slow-paced for me) that DID those things.... and yet didn't end up losing to me ANYWAY. And I do none of them, this due to finding them A: boring, or B: irritating, or C: just really stupid. They're all arbitrary, and they seem to be considered necessary as if the people saying such a thing would have to admit that the game in question is actually not as complex as they like to repeat it is. And yes, with these games I know what *actual* high level play looks like.... I'm not saying "Oh, I took down some local guy that's good at tournaments, clearly I'm really great". I mean "I've played them absolutely to freaking death for years, and for the one I play most I knocked out the second-ranked guy in the region awhile back, not just this minor area, and have seen Evo and all that to compare to". It's the genre I'm best at, better than shmups (which should say something, to anyone that's seen me do those) and I do literally not even a bit of that stuff I consider arbitrary. I found that it DOESNT add much of anything to the games, despite popular opinion, and so far, nobody's been strong enough to fully prove me otherwise.
While you are obviously an extremely talented player and naturally good at fighting games, what you've just presented is only anecdotal evidence for your argument. In Super Smash Brother Melee, for example, a player who has mastered all the advanced tech skills (of which there are well over 50), character matchups, and movement mechanics will have a massive advantage over someone who is simply good at fighting games. That's because mastery of said mechanics allows the player to perform many actions that a player who is using only the basic mechanics can not, and to do them much more quickly (significantly higher actions per second). Master of fighting games you may be, I highly doubt you could beat the renowned masters of tech skill such as Mew2King, Mango, Armada, and many others who have devoted tens of thousands of hours to these techniques.
The rest of your argument seemed to come down to personal preference but I'll try to paraphrase each part as not to make this post too entrenched:
Last hitting: You said that denying is just another form of last hitting. Well yes, but it allows the support to last hit, giving him more options than simply right clicking the enemy hero occasionally, and allows him to have a bigger impact on the lane.
Laning: You said that the laning phase of DotA is boring, but also that the lethality of the game is too high. These two statements seem to be in conflict with one another. If the lethality of the game is so high, I see no reason the laning phase has to be boring, and played with the right combination of heroes, it usually isn't. You also made a statement that you don't want to own new players, you want a fair challenge. My cousin and I usually pick a powerful combination of heroes, then go to THEIR safelane (sometimes called the suicide lane for the allied team) to give ourselves the extra challenge of trying to win a difficult lane on their turf. Trust me, pulling off a duo in the 'suicide lane' is never easy, and often results in disaster.
Teleporting: You said you don't like teleporting because the game lethality is too high? Then you brought up some kind of reference about holding down the Alamo alone or something to that effect. Such sentiments aren't relevant to me. Being able to teleport to help an ally is one of the major things that separates DotA from most of the other MOBA games. It takes a high level of map awareness, planning, and decision making to decide when it's worth it to leave your current lane or activity to jump to an ally's aid, and it can completely change the course of the game. It also vastly adds to the amount of meaningful choices available to the player at any given moment. Yes, a TP scroll takes up an inventory slot, because it's so incredibly valuable ;p
All of this does make for alot of interesting debate though. .....interesting PEACEFUL debate. If I rambled about this anywhere else, I'd just get screamed at...Like I said, this all just comes down to personal opinion for the most part anyway. No reason to get upset about it!
Hots was too slow for me. And the feeling of boredom is hard to miss.
Hots was too slow for me. And the feeling of boredom is hard to miss.
I still dont get this one; they all seem to move at the same pace to me. And combat chaos is pretty much non-stop in that particular game...
Am I missing a different definition of "slow" here?
Played Smite? Or any other kind of game? Most MOBAs will feel like you're wading through molasses by comparison.Hots was too slow for me. And the feeling of boredom is hard to miss.
I still dont get this one; they all seem to move at the same pace to me. And combat chaos is pretty much non-stop in that particular game...
Am I missing a different definition of "slow" here?
Played Smite? Or any other kind of game? Most MOBAs will feel like you're wading through molasses by comparison.Hots was too slow for me. And the feeling of boredom is hard to miss.
I still dont get this one; they all seem to move at the same pace to me. And combat chaos is pretty much non-stop in that particular game...
Am I missing a different definition of "slow" here?
DotA requires no more clicking than the rest of them. Turn off auto attacking in the settings, turn on right click deny, and you only need to click for 3 reasons: To move your hero, to attack an enemy, or to target a spell. Which are the exact same reasons you would click in any of the other ones. Occasionally you have to press your keyboard for your spells or items. I don't really see how the clicking is any more intensive in DotA, and it certainly doesn't require a high APM to be a good player.Hots was too slow for me. And the feeling of boredom is hard to miss.
I still dont get this one; they all seem to move at the same pace to me. And combat chaos is pretty much non-stop in that particular game...
Am I missing a different definition of "slow" here?
Well, I would say that as far as movement speed, the amount of clicking expected, and chaos, DOTA 2 is the fastest. It doesn't mean it's the best game or the most fun (it's not, many of the mechanics are specifically in there for no strategic reason, merely to require more clicking). And by the way, that game is also an example of bad strategy design. If the way you make your games "strategic" is merely to overload clicking, that's not deep thought. It's digital whack-a-mole. Don't believe me? Look at a game like Go. Completely turn-based and more strategy than any digital game we are talking about. So don't buy the hype that overloading clicking is strategy.
League of legends is slightly slower about all of the things listed above, but it does do strategy a little bit better. It's true, many players are married to the meta because of the pro gaming scene. But I would argue that positioning and decision-making are stronger in this game because it doesn't have the senseless clicking problem. When you do score points, they are significant in a way that the arcade-y dota 2 is not. Just my opinion.
Hots, I couldn't get into this. I tried. The movement speed is really slow and the multidirectional nature of the game doesn't feel as… organized? Maybe that's the right word. Imagine a disorganized game of soccer where everyone is chasing the ball and there is no positioning. In slow-motion. That's how I feel about hots. Someday, I may install it again out of curiosity or something, but I just can't do it.
So when we talk about the speed of the game, yes it includes the actual literal moving around of the heroes, but as I hope I described, it's more than that.
*misses the point*Bro, I said "feel". It's the very experience that is the matter, not the actual "pixels moved per second".
*misses the point*Bro, I said "feel". It's the very experience that is the matter, not the actual "pixels moved per second".
I still believe that Awesomenauts is one of the best moba's after League.
Yeah, MOBA is a very broad term so I tend to call them Dota style games (due to dota being the first type of game in that genre) and I guess even Titanfall could fit into the MOBA genre.Ehm, DotA was hardly the first "DotA" style game. There were games and mods out there that did the whole laning thing quite a bit before DotA. However, DotA was the first really successful such game.
Also looking to get into a second Dota style game (have played a bit of league of legends), any suggestions?
This is hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfwPUoqzptk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfwPUoqzptk)I. freaking. hate. those. videos.
This is hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfwPUoqzptk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfwPUoqzptk)I. freaking. hate. those. videos.
That shit needs to stop. Yesterday. Those videos are all over Youtube now and they're driving me nuts with their lame ass repeating of every single meme known to man. GEEEZUS
The opening games were pretty darn meh, with the Latam and Chinese teams not at all bringing their game, but the rest of the tournament was pretty darn awesome. Too bad my own team got kicked in the butt in the grand finals, losing 2/3 to Cognitive Prime, but it was still great to watch. Games 1-2 were just Titan running around being confused, games 3-4 were awesome nailbaiters, and game 5 really showed that Cog is, by far, the best team in the world.I never did have a chance to watch it. Gosh last weekend was a freaking gold mine for awesome gaming tournaments.
Game 3 and 4 of the grand finals (Titan vs Cognitive Prime) were great games where Titan really showed that they have potential, taking on the juggernaut that is CogP. I also recommend Day 1, Game 7 (Cognitive Red vs SK Gaming). Day 1, Game 3 (OMG vs Titan) is also quite decent.The opening games were pretty darn meh, with the Latam and Chinese teams not at all bringing their game, but the rest of the tournament was pretty darn awesome. Too bad my own team got kicked in the butt in the grand finals, losing 2/3 to Cognitive Prime, but it was still great to watch. Games 1-2 were just Titan running around being confused, games 3-4 were awesome nailbaiters, and game 5 really showed that Cog is, by far, the best team in the world.I never did have a chance to watch it. Gosh last weekend was a freaking gold mine for awesome gaming tournaments.
There tournaments for Hearthstone, DotA 2, and Project Melee all at the same time and I got so caught up watching those, I never got a chance to see the Smite one. I'll probably go back and watch some of the top 8 games.
Any recommendations?
So the Founder's Pack ($40) is now available for Heroes of the Storm. It gives you instant access to the game including 3 heroes and a few other cosmetic things. I'm considering buying it, though I'm not sure it would be worth it.
The game is still in Alpha yes? (I realize that Blizzard Alphas are like other game late-betas but yeah)
Also, is it free to play when it's released as well?
Those who have played, let me know what you think.
I absolutely DETEST out of game progression. League of Legends has this too with it's retarded Glyhp system. All it does is add unnecessary complexity AND put experienced people even further ahead of new players than they already are (experience and whatnot). I absolutely hate that system.I very much agree with this which is why HotS is pretty much the only MOBA I occasionally play. Leveling a hero takes around 3 or 4 matches and I mostly view it as making sure I try out the different options(first because there are no others and then because I've just unlocked one)
I absolutely DETEST out of game progression. League of Legends has this too with it's retarded Glyhp system. All it does is add unnecessary complexity AND put experienced people even further ahead of new players than they already are (experience and whatnot). I absolutely hate that system.
I can accept Smite's level system that bar people from playing League (ranked) unless they're level 30. I understand that. It keeps noobs from completely screwing up the matchmaking in the lower brackets. But anything beyond that just makes me sick.
I absolutely DETEST out of game progression. League of Legends has this too with it's retarded Glyhp system. All it does is add unnecessary complexity AND put experienced people even further ahead of new players than they already are (experience and whatnot). I absolutely hate that system.I agree with this. Smite's mini-transaction system doesn't bother me for the most part. They more or less charge you $30 to 'unlock' the game, which is a very good deal. By contrast, you would have to spend hundreds of dollars to unlock all of LoL's champions, and that wouldn't include the runes or summoner levels (or the steady stream newly created champions) either. $30 is a respectable fee considering the quality and replayability of Smite, so I had no problem paying for it, then or now.
I can accept Smite's level system that bar people from playing League (ranked) unless they're level 30. I understand that. It keeps noobs from completely screwing up the matchmaking in the lower brackets. But anything beyond that just makes me sick.
Dota 2 gets away with not doing it because it STARTED so bloody huge; there was no way the game was NOT going to make money, so long as they offered SOMETHING, regardless of what that was. They were able to start out with a totally different pay model, and be guaranteed to get away with it.Misery is right about this. Making DotA completely free to play is something only Valve could have probably gotten away with, but since they have, it is currently the only MOBA which starts everyone out on a completely even playing field (all heroes unlocked), without ever having to spend a dime.
So the Founder's Pack ($40) is now available for Heroes of the Storm. It gives you instant access to the game including 3 heroes and a few other cosmetic things. I'm considering buying it, though I'm not sure it would be worth it.
Freya has only her auto attack. That's it. No slows, no stuns, no escapes, and she's incredibly squishy and her range isn't even that great. With the occasional exception of her ultimate, which does ignorable damage until she has higher levels of farm and experience, she's completely ignorable as a character. I don't have to know anything about the game to know that she's one of the least scary junglers and near useless in the lane. Hercules is indeed hard to kill but he can't push the lane at all and once again, is almost completely reliant on his auto attack.
Chaac (which, in lieu of knowing the correct pronunciation, I have chosen to pronounce 'cock') is just as dangerous in a duo lane in my experience as solo. Which combo of adc and support is going to out push that character plus somebody else? He alone could probably outpush most lane combos, without even needing to add a partner. You're also not supposed to engage him for the entire laning phase? That's just wonderful. I guess we'll just sit by our tower and get no gold from creeps until he slowly harasses us to death with axe spam until he's finally ready to jump in with his ultimate and kill us with complete impunity. Maybe the character is balanced for competitive play or 5 man teams where the correct combination of heroes can counter him, but in blind pick he's absolutely stupid.
I don't have to know anything about the game to know that she's one of the least scary junglers and near useless in the lane.
Don't forget her "I'm INVINCIBLE!" turnaround potential in her ult.Like 15 heroes in Smite have invincibility with their ult. That doesn't automatically make them good.
as in when she ganks you she has absolutely no way to slow you
I also realize that Chaac is lower tier in competitive play. But once again, I wasn't talking about competitive play. I'm talking about Blind Pick where apparently, if you're put in the lane against a hero that you didn't specifically pick to counter, the lane is automatically lost. That's a terrible design. Freya as ADC? Almost any combo can deal with that. Freya as jungler? Buy wards and simply back off when she comes to gank. Chaac as "support" with blue buff? You've lost the lane unless you have two heroes that can push UNBELIEVABLY well. If you have a classical duo such as Hunter/Guardian, you might as well concede or hope to god your jungler ganks every 2 minutes. That's just not good design. There's no hero like that in DotA. Well, there's no mode in DotA where you can't see what the enemy team is picking so that couldn't even happen in the first place.
Ah forgive me. I played Freya about a year ago. Back then she didn't have a slow on her second skill so it seems they buffed her tremendously with that. No wonder you keep raving about her.
Alright, well I do see the weakness of blind pick but as you explained, I just have to learn to play around it. Thanks for your help guys! We'll keep trying til we figure it out.
Thanks, but I'm just playing to have fun :PNow see, this I've never understood. Like, at all. Is "huging around" and ruining the game for 9 other people really "just having fun"? Personally, I feel that's extremely egotistical.
If I cared about competitive, I'd play DotA.
You have a valid point, I just don't see it that way. In unranked I feel that people should play to have fun.Well, I agree. Playing to have fun is pretty much the basis of playing games in the first place. But there are also 9 other people to care about, so you can't just ignore them. ;)
Thanks, but I'm just playing to have fun :PNow see, this I've never understood. Like, at all. Is "huging around" and ruining the game for 9 other people really "just having fun"? Personally, I feel that's extremely egotistical.
If I cared about competitive, I'd play DotA.
That said, it's a low level game so I understand that people won't understand how to build their characters yet. But that particular mindset just strikes me as narrowminded and egotistical.
"I don't give a crap about you guys, I'll just trololol, it's just game lol!"
It's not always like that though.True enough. I generally go out of my way to build outside the "popular" builds, mostly because I hate being generic. But there are things you just don't do because they're pointless and directly detrimental. Hastened Fatalis is such a case. It's a scarce number of gods on who it can technically work, and even fewer where it's actually a good idea. Never get it on a hunter, for instance. Most assassins are also ruled out because it hurts their damage output too much. Kali and Osiris can build it to get sticking power, but Kali can just build Sprint, and Osiris has a bajillion slows so he doesn't really need it either.
Some players just dont want to use the "usual" builds for a variety of reasons. Maybe they disagree with the whole thing, maybe they've found a build that works well for them specifically. I think most of the time it's not just done for teh lulz. It's just the player in question doing their role in their own way. It's what I typically do in.... pretty much everything in every genre. I never get anywhere otherwise.
Of course there still are indeed plenty who will purposely choose specific setups that will ruin things, because "HUR HUR DUR THAT'LL SHOW THOSE N00BS", but they're often alot more obvious because they'll be acting like morons in the chat and such.
....and in Wingflier's case here he did kinda get 10 bazillion kills, so it seems to have worked out fine.
I am a fan of stepping outside the meta because... Well the meta is extremely boring, especially in such heavily meta entrenched games such as Smite. As an example, my friends and I like to try unorthodox things such as putting two warriors in the duo lane and an adc mid. We win most of the time too, and when we lose it's usually only because we have a leaver or afker which seems to be a bigger problem in Smite than the others. It isn't punished that heavily which leads to frequent leavers.Understandable. "Breaking the meta" however isn't the same thing as "deliberately shooting yourself in the foot with a bazooka" ;)
Granted, perhaps our opponents just aren't that great, but even if that were the case, it's still more fun to win in a unique way than to run the same old boring combos and lanes that everybody else is doing. Finding ways to break the meta is, in my opinion, one of the most enjoyable elements of playing ANY game, and I jump at the first opportunity to do it every time.
Dots can only be applied before they use their ults and I know of only one ability in the game that deals global damage, which by the way, also gives you near invincibility.Yeah, I do forget them because they're all different even though they're all "fly away"-style ults. What are you going to complain about next: That all gods have basic attacks? :/
I think you're also missing Thor, Arachne, Apollo, Rama... There's probably more. Lets give ten heroes in the game near invincibility with their ults and make them fly up in the air becoming untargetable. It just feels really gimmicky and uninspired.
People obsessing over builds is part of the problem with this genre. I routinely embarrass players in these games who claim to know the meta. Especially in public matches, skill matters way more than build.Noticing that a build is less than suboptimal (no that's not a typo) isn't "obsessing" over builds. Obsessing is when people deviate a single item from the agreed upon "optimal" build and go haywire, harassing your teammates for not building the meta.
I'm not sure what you mean with Smite not having other modes. As far as I know, it's probably the MOBA with the most "non-classic" MOBA modes around. That said, I haven't played every MOBA out there so I might be wrong. But you have Conquest (basic MOBA), Assault (generally known as ARAM), Arena (teamfight clusterf...), Joust 3v3 (single lane+jungle 3 people) and Siege (some odd convolution of Conquest, Arena and Joust with contestable objectives that spawn a mega-minion). Plus the plethora of Modes of the Day. Although I must say I miss Domination sometimes. Broken as it was.
It should be noted that after playing that one mode, they didn't bother to try the others, because "well this mode is already good". Sigh.
It should be noted that after playing that one mode, they didn't bother to try the others, because "well this mode is already good". Sigh.
Used to play with a group of people in L4D2 for months, but they eventually got bored with it and quit playing. They didn't want to try out anything else in the genre because it was "too hard to learn anything new" or something along that line. I tried not to facepalm (because we're talking about First-Person-Shooter arena-styled games here. Not some RTS complex nightmare) but I guess I'm used to constant changes with my games. I guess I'd have to be to switch from AI War to Grey Goo to SMITE to...well, you get my point.
I haven't been able to contact them since we quit playing that title. Never figured out why.
Holy cow, I've been playing for like 10 years and I didn't even realize this was possible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBNI6oTAWYU&feature=youtu.be
Holy cow, I've been playing for like 10 years and I didn't even realize this was possible:Uhm...what was possible? I don't get it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBNI6oTAWYU&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBNI6oTAWYU&feature=youtu.be)
Though, sometimes the "single character is important" aspect of mobas can definitely be a bad thing (if one player is WAY too fed, the rest of the match can be uninteresting for others on BOTH teams, in many games).Well in an unorganized pub game, where you're the player, this usually is a bad thing, as I mentioned. There's nothing fun about facing an opponent who has become so fed that he's unstoppable and impossible to kill. It's a nightmare in which 60 minute games often end in disaster.
Though, sometimes the "single character is important" aspect of mobas can definitely be a bad thing (if one player is WAY too fed, the rest of the match can be uninteresting for others on BOTH teams, in many games).Well in an unorganized pub game, where you're the player, this usually is a bad thing, as I mentioned. There's nothing fun about facing an opponent who has become so fed that he's unstoppable and impossible to kill. It's a nightmare in which 60 minute games often end in disaster.
However, as a spectator sport, it's like watching Michael Jordan thrust his crotch into someone's face while he slam dunks the basketball into the net, shattering the backboard and spraying the enemy team with glass.
It's two very different perspectives.
Yep, supporting has issues in Smite right now. It's extremely snowbally. A support that gets ahead gets AHEAD of the other support, and catching up as support is virtually impossible. Otherwise Smite's in a far better position now than it was in S1.
As far as HotS, well...it's got the same problem as every other MOBA out there: The goddamn perspective.
Aagh!!! I wanna get into Heroes of the Storm so badly, but I probably will not considering I just recently signed up. Does anyone know when it is being released?
It's SO bad that I've decided I now actually like Origin.Gentlemen, we need to stage an intervention.
Now to see if the bloody game will actually run without the computer violently detonating.I'm thinking the "violent detonation" outcome might be for the best :)
DID I MENTION I HATE THE BATTLE.NET LAUNCHER.
Uuuuugh.
It's SO bad that I've decided I now actually like Origin. Why? Because it's not Battle.net. I almost like Windows for the same reason.
Now I know why I've heard so many complaints about the horrid thing. Pretty sure they programmed this by putting a drunken, blindfolded monkey in front of a computer and then having him bash the keyboard with his face over and over until a launcher popped out. Argh.
I did finally get the hellish thing to update. How did I do this? I uninstalled Hearthstone, and then restarted the patching over and over and over and over and over and over and over again until it finally finished. The uninstalling of Hearthstone is the really pathetic part: It was absolutely NECESSARY to make this work at all, because it kept glitching out over "ZOMG THERE IZ ANOTHER UPDATEZ HAPPENING (while Hearthstone is, in fact, not patching), I DUNNO WHAT 2 DO??!?".
This was AFTER it kept telling me that I couldnt have it install the game to a different directory, because the game, which needed to be installed (as I figured I'd try uninstalling and then re-installing it to see if that'd help), was not already installed in that directory. Just think about that for a moment....
Here I'd thought the "Flash isnt updated" reason was dumb. I WAS WRONG.
Now to see if the bloody game will actually run without the computer violently detonating.
EDIT: SURPRISE IT DOESNT WORK. Ugh. I'm going to just exorcise the entire unholy mess from this machine. Even Blizzard's games arent worth that nightmare of a program. May give the laptop a go at it, since the hideous monstrosity is already installed on there, but I dont tolerate that machine very well for gaming.
Oh yeah, one other thing it did: Tried to tell me that the game was "optimal" and ready for play while patching when it had downloaded less than 50 MB of it. Just.... what. I dont.... what.
It sounds like you should just uninstall everything entirely and reinstall it then. I'll admit that I don't use Battle.net too often but wow....
I have yet to install Origin. No account with it either.
Wheras Origin... has it's own issues, that's for sure. EA's selection is kinda slim anyway though; seems to be mostly shooters and Dragon Age.They could probably get some mileage out of a shooter where the enemies are bits and pieces of the Battle.Net interface.
There are plenty of things about Blizzard not to like, I'll be the first to say it. But I've never had a problem with their launcher in my life. I find it to be a really well designed program. I can't think of a single complaint with it. I've used it on multiple setups without a problem, that's why I'm a bit baffled by your issues.
The kind of things you're experiencing remind more of LoL's Adobe AIR launcher, which is world renowned for being a colossal piece of garbage.
Wheras Origin... has it's own issues, that's for sure. EA's selection is kinda slim anyway though; seems to be mostly shooters and Dragon Age.They could probably get some mileage out of a shooter where the enemies are bits and pieces of the Battle.Net interface.
Does anyone here know the ACTUAL way to contact Blizzard's accursed support team?Send a self-addressed stamped envelope to:
Try this:
1. Navigate to the C:\ProgramData folder and delete the Battle.net folder and the Blizzard Entertainment folder.
2. Navigate to the Diablo III/WoW folder and delete the "Updates" folder.
3. Launch Diablo III/WoW as an admin by right clicking on the launcher and selecting "Run as admin".
Allright .. i did everything
activate hidden folders
delete blizzard entertainment folder
delete battlenet folder
deleted cache folder
deleted wtf folder
uncheck/recheck lan options
stop all programs in the background
pray to wow gods
pray to greek gods
pray to nord gods
and then... finally... started ie in the background... and BAM!!!!!!
it worked... :D
i mean really that step should be in the !@#$%^- help features or in blue letters, red letters, green letters, sticked, etc.
IE IN THE BACKGROUND WORKS.
1. Hit Ctrl+Shift+Esc to bring up the Task Manager.
2. Click on the Processes tab.
3. Look for Agent.exe and highlight it.
4. Click End Process to close out any running Agent.exe processes.
Once that is done, restart the Battle.net Application and retry the installation. Let me know how it goes.
If the Blizzard launcher works on another computer in the same household, I would also recommend wiping the computer and starting over.
... your friend/sibling/spouse/dog (hopefully those are not all the same thing)...Nownow, don't be judgemental. :)
I've been playing Heroes of the Storm with a friend, mostly cooperative against AI but occasionally in quick matches. I'm still getting a feel for the heroes, trying out all the different free heroes and leveling them up for gold. It's pretty fun so far. So much better with a friend as opposed to playing solo though. I guess all these types of games are like that.
There are, sadly, any communities online that don't have absolute monsters in it. I think some of the few are more "Intellectual" games that don't really require skill so much as patience. Such as AI War, 4x type games, Dwarf Fortress, roguelikes etc etc.Is there a link between the fact that I read this post and the fact that I play AI War, DF and NetHack?
http://www.dota2.com/balanceofpower
the amazing thing to me is that this thread was made 3 years ago and its still getting commented on.Dazzle put Shallow Grave on this a loooong time ago.
They nerfed Doom too much in my own opinion. I know that he was really powerful with the last bit patch but this is alittle ridiculous. Especially the attack speed nerf. Now he takes way too long to land a single strike. Doom without Moonshard is no viable option 8except you turn him into full support of course).Well, they replaced Level Death, which was basically a useless skill that I've always hated (for about 10 years now), with Infernal Blade. Ironically, I had suggested a Doom remake (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?33232-Satan-(Lucifer-Port)) several years back, replacing Level Death with a similar skill called "Chaos Blade". I don't know if it's just a coincidence that they used something similar to my idea, but overall it's a nice to see it implemented.
I guess now he is *puts facehuggers on* doomed.
Dazzle put Shallow Grave on this a loooong time ago.Heh heh. Your bad jokes are legendary Keith :D
They nerfed Doom too much in my own opinion. I know that he was really powerful with the last bit patch but this is alittle ridiculous. Especially the attack speed nerf. Now he takes way too long to land a single strike. Doom without Moonshard is no viable option 8except you turn him into full support of course).
I guess now he is *puts facehuggers on* doomed.Dazzle put Shallow Grave on this a loooong time ago.Heh heh. Your bad jokes are legendary Keith :D
that was a joke?!.
They nerfed Doom too much in my own opinion. I know that he was really powerful with the last bit patch but this is alittle ridiculous. Especially the attack speed nerf. Now he takes way too long to land a single strike. Doom without Moonshard is no viable option 8except you turn him into full support of course).Well, they replaced Level Death, which was basically a useless skill that I've always hated (for about 10 years now), with Infernal Blade. Ironically, I had suggested a Doom remake (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?33232-Satan-(Lucifer-Port)) several years back, replacing Level Death with a similar skill called "Chaos Blade". I don't know if it's just a coincidence that they used something similar to my idea, but overall it's a nice to see it implemented.
I guess now he is *puts facehuggers on* doomed.
Overall, we'll have to see how he performs with the new skill. It might be that even with all the nerfs to his attack speed and such, the new skill makes up for it. Either way, he needed a nerf.
Let's just hope that with the new skill, it wasn't an overnerf.Dazzle put Shallow Grave on this a loooong time ago.Heh heh. Your bad jokes are legendary Keith :D
If you hate Level Death you didn't use it often enough. Level Death was one of the strongest nukes and it granted Doom kills from fleeing enemies. It had a really low cooldown and 20% max hp damage on the spot. You could spam it in teamfights. the replaced ability is worse in every single way, the only thing it does better is the ministunand that it's an auto-cast ability. But it's also now melee, making it harder to kill enemies that run away. Combining this with his attack speed nerf it seems really useless for me. At least they could've kept the current attack speed (which was already very low) so he can better benefit from the new skill but they didn't.Level Death only did the bonus damage if the target was a specific level, hence the skill being unreliable and always leveled last. At level 4, sure, you have a 33% chance of the skill doing something useful, but at level 1 that chance drops to 16.6%. If you max the skill first, you are hamstringing the hero, because he needs Devour for farming and levels, and he needs Scorched Earth for chasing and escaping. If you skimp on the other two skills, just so you can get an unreliable skill leveled first, you were playing Doom extremely inefficiently.
So why the drastic nerf in attack speed? I don't get it.To doom his farming ability and semi-carry status.
So why the drastic nerf in attack speed? I don't get it.To doom his farming ability and semi-carry status.
That pun >_<.....It's bad luck to disappoint legends.
I quite frankly don't see how anyone finds people like that enjoyable. I mean, sure he might not actually BE an ass in real life, but does that really matter? Who the heck even enjoys bullshit like that?To be fair, people pay good money to see comedians who make jokes just like that, while intentionally insulting their audience and generally being as offensive as possible. But this is one of those "a time and a place" scenarios, and I don't think the increasingly professional world of E-sports was the place. I don't think Valve handled it very well, but it was basically inevitable. Competitive gaming as a hobby for badly mannered children with a lack of social skills is passing quickly.