Moba balance comparison, please comment

[Lancefighter]

xin is ember spirit's name.

[Wingflier]

xin is ember spirit's name.

I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for clarifying.

[Mánagarmr]

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.

[Aklyon]

Search box atop the page gives only a quartet about the spell Smite. If it missed something, I'm not interested enough in the thread to go looking either.

[Lancefighter]

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.

[Wingflier]

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.

[Misery]

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.

I dunno when you tried it, but they've changed *alot* recently.  Such as the entire damn map, for instance.  This is one of those developers that is not at all afraid to dive in and make even drastic changes.... frankly I wish the others were more like that at times.

As for the gold thing, never had a problem like that. 


And the new Dota update sure is interesting.... havent had a go at it yet myself.   The lane picker sure sounds like a good thing though.

[Lancefighter]

Want to say it was around april.

[Mánagarmr]

I wasn't really going to discuss Smite as such here, I was mostly curious whether it had been mentioned at all, or it if it was mostly Lol vs Dota But thanks for the replies!

[Misery]

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.

[Mánagarmr]

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.
 
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.

[tigersfan]

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.
 
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.

[Mánagarmr]

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

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.

[Aklyon]

Dueling a norse goddess sounded like a bad idea as-is, you're just making it sound worse

[Wingflier]

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

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.

I can see how, even given the absurd nature of her ability to kill anybody ever 1v1, she would still be balanced.

In DotA Troll Warlord was, for a long time, the most insane 1v1 hero in the game. Yet he was never played because despite his ability to lock somebody down completely for an infinite amount of time (and kill them), his team fight presence and ganking ability were both pretty lackluster. Spirit Breaker and Huskar also fell under this category for quite a long time as well. Even though they were absolute monsters in 1v1 combat, and decent pubstompers, good teams in competitive play just stuck together and shut them down.

Changes to all 3 of these heroes to make them more "team-oriented" have, over a long period of time, made them viable; but it just goes to show how heavily these games favor teamplay over 1v1 dominance.