Author Topic: Moba balance comparison, please comment  (Read 183075 times)

Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #330 on: February 01, 2014, 09:08:42 pm »
Btw, in case anyone is interested, this Twitch video (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.
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #331 on: February 02, 2014, 01:20:16 am »
And this is apparently the views of a DotA2 player that recently got into Smite:
Quote
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.
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!
Thanks for the awesome game, Hi-Rez! Hope the game goes on as far as you wish it does!
Funny though that he takes screenshots of the ugliest map to show off Smite :P
« Last Edit: February 02, 2014, 01:27:55 am by Moonshine Fox »
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Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #332 on: February 02, 2014, 01:44:30 am »
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. 

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.
Just got finished watching a 60 minute game between Empire and Sigma in the Shock Therapy Cup. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UicwFDctso

The game was actually played and recorded today, so it's safe to say that it's fairly recent :P

The thing is, Sigma completely crushed Empire early on. Empire lost all 3 lanes according to the casters. At the ~12 minute mark Sigma had double the kills and a 10,000 gold lead. They basically had double the gold of Empire at that point.

To make matters worse, Sigma *had* the better late game as well. Sigma had 2 hard carries, where Empire had none. So with Sigma, the better late game team comp crushing Empire early on, it looked like there was no hope for the losing team.  Sigma kept their gold advantage for most the game.  They killed Roshan 4 times, getting the aegis of course, and the cheese the 3rd and 4th time. They had destroyed Empire's bottom set of rax around the 30 minute mark.

I'm sure you know where this is going...Sigma lost the game. It wasn't like you said either, they didn't make any massive mistakes. They played a pretty solid game from beginning to end, Empire was just better. There was no glaring mistake that Sigma made that simply lost them the game. In fact, by all appearances, they should have won. The casters were sure they would win for 75% of the game, then finally began changing their minds at the end.

Comebacks like this happen all the time in competitive DotA. Ultimately, the game rewards the better team. I think that's what really matters. We get into these discussions about the chance of comebacks, mechanics designed to facilitate that, etc., but in the end, I think the most important factor is that the better team wins. In DotA that is almost always the case.

In League for example, I often see the better team losing. For example, let's say you have 3 better players than your opponent. You have a better top, a better support, and a better jungler. Well if the mid and carry lose, you're probably still going to lose the game in LoL. The thing is, top lane is so isolated from the rest of the game. Even if they're winning, they have to leave their lane to help anyone else, and without items like scroll of teleport, they're just giving the opposing top player a chance to take their tower and get back into the game.

Supports in LoL are like jokes. It doesn't really matter how good you are, your contribution to a team fight is usually pretty lackluster. Where in DotA you have supports like Earthshaker, Ancient Apparition, and Silencer, which can change the outcome of the fight single-handedly, LoL supports are really there more for the laning phase than anything. So even if it's a good player, their contribution to the game is very limited.

Having a good jungler is nice, but 1 player probably isn't going to change the outcome of the game if your mid and carry are failing.

This is just one example. The mechanics in DotA facilitate the better team by giving them the tools to stay ahead if they are winning, or get back into the game if they are losing. Individual players can make huge differences and turn the entire thing around. I was completely baffled in this game at how much Doom and Storm Spirit carried their team back from the gates of hell into victory. Some of the plays had me holding my breath the whole time.

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?

That's the whole point. Good game design ensures that the better team wins, and in the end, I think DotA does that well.
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Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #333 on: February 02, 2014, 01:49:57 am »
And this is apparently the views of a DotA2 player that recently got into Smite:
Quote
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.
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!
Thanks for the awesome game, Hi-Rez! Hope the game goes on as far as you wish it does!
Funny though that he takes screenshots of the ugliest map to show off Smite :P
You've definitely got me interested.

I'm going to wait until my best friend (and cousin) has decent internet to try it, we've both decided we'll try it together. I think it will be a perfect fit for my cousin. He loves first person games, but also the strategic and tactical appeal of the MOBA genre. He also *HATES* last hitting lol, which is one of his biggest problems with DotA, even though we've been playing it together now on and off for about 10 years. Unfortunately he currently he lives in a rural area of Colorado in which they don't offer internet o_O. As soon as he moves somewhere new this Summer though, we're going to be playing it a lot I'm sure.

That reminds me, I've got to watch the game you recommended. I'll get back to you!

Edit: Was a lot of fun to watch. I LOVED THE QUACKEN. Was a pretty one-sided stomp but I guess many tournaments are.

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
« Last Edit: February 02, 2014, 02:14:51 am by Wingflier »
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #334 on: February 02, 2014, 02:48:50 am »
Edit: Was a lot of fun to watch. I LOVED THE QUACKEN. Was a pretty one-sided stomp but I guess many tournaments are.

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
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.

And yeah, the Quacken is hilarious. Poseidon has stolen the Kraken from the Norse pantheon and that's usually what comes up, but when he has the Poolseidon skin, it's instead his bathing Quacken :P


But you could at least see how fast paced and fluid the Smite gameplay is. People are constantly rotating, camps in the jungle are regularly cleared, there's poking and fighting in the lane all the time, since you don't have to focus so much on the minions themselves. So I just love it. Another favourite moment was at 5:14:36. That Ra ultimate coming from deep into the jungle and just barely hitting the escaping Sun Wukong. As someone who has played Ra substantially, I know that the delay on that shot is huge. There's at least a 1,5 second "spool up" before Ra actually fires the beam, so being able to predict that movement, at that range and still hit is just freaking amazing. That's Tribes levels of awesome :P
« Last Edit: February 02, 2014, 03:02:42 am by Moonshine Fox »
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Offline djgreenhill

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #335 on: February 02, 2014, 04:44:05 am »
And this is apparently the views of a DotA2 player that recently got into Smite:
Quote
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.
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!
Thanks for the awesome game, Hi-Rez! Hope the game goes on as far as you wish it does!
Funny though that he takes screenshots of the ugliest map to show off Smite :P

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!

Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #336 on: February 02, 2014, 10:57:48 am »
After I watched a few videos about it and doing some research, here are the things I *do* like about Smite:

1. Free-to-play.
2. Awesome selection of heroes considering it's still "beta".
3. The Gods seem very appropriate and faithful to their original lore. They even sort them by Chinese, Egyptian, Norse, etc. (very cool)
4. Skillshot based FPS spin on the genre, sorely needed.
5. Graphics look very nice.

Things I don't like about it at first glance:

1. Not all the Gods are unlocked at the beginning. I think both DotA and HoN have shown that if your game is good, you can do pretty well (understatement) even with all the important content being unlocked to every player. $30 isn't too steep considering my perceived quality of the game (without actually playing it), but what happens when the "sale" ends and it becomes $200? At that point, I'll be pretty miffed about it.
2. Many of the mechanics seem quite "LoL-ish". Hearing them talk about health per 5, red and blue buffs was so disappointing.
3. The jungle camps seem utterly uninspired... Hi-Rez Studios had SUCH an opportunity here after 10,000 MOBA games to make the jungle unique and interesting. For example making neutral camps that were so difficult (aside from the Roshan) that they actually required skill and coordination to beat. Or making defeated camps fight for you. Or making jungle camps somehow buff your minion armies. Or jungle camps that take *FOREVER* to kill, leaving one of your Gods out of the lane, but if they are successful, they get a huge buff temporarily, etc. Instead, they opted for the most basic, most boring, most dumbed down neutral camps possible, that can be cleared by (what seems like) anybody in just a few seconds, do almost no damage, and simply serve to give you a little extra EXP and gold. While it was obvious that obtaining these camps was a major goal for both teams, literally waiting until they spawn so you can kill them just a few seconds later was the silliest mechanic I've seen in awhile. Oh well, I guess I'll wait until Heroes of the Storm to see some innovation on this front.
4. The weekly hero rotation mechanic (blegh). Heck, at least they give you a basic set of Gods for free, that's more than LoL does.

Anyway, excited to try it soon.
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Offline tigersfan

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #337 on: February 02, 2014, 11:42:33 am »
What is wrong with HP5 and MP5? These are mechanics that can have HUGE effects on the game.

Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #338 on: February 02, 2014, 12:07:09 pm »
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.
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #339 on: February 02, 2014, 01:02:00 pm »
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.
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Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #340 on: February 02, 2014, 03:10:12 pm »
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.
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #341 on: February 03, 2014, 05:01:40 am »
And this is apparently the views of a DotA2 player that recently got into Smite:
Quote
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.
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!
Thanks for the awesome game, Hi-Rez! Hope the game goes on as far as you wish it does!
Funny though that he takes screenshots of the ugliest map to show off Smite :P

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!
Sweet! Cool that you dropped by here! ^_^
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Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #342 on: February 04, 2014, 02:00:58 am »
So I couldn't wait and I tried Smite.

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
« Last Edit: February 04, 2014, 02:07:05 am by Wingflier »
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #343 on: February 04, 2014, 04:50:48 am »
So I couldn't wait and I tried Smite.

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
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Offline tigersfan

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #344 on: February 04, 2014, 06:09:38 am »
Feel free to add me as well. I'm Riabi there.

 

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