Author Topic: Moba balance comparison, please comment  (Read 205633 times)

Offline Misery

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #630 on: November 09, 2014, 09:35:41 am »
Yeah, I can understand basic greed... lots of publishers do THAT one.

But EA ends up compounding it by also doing things that really dont seem to make a whole lot of sense.  "Out of touch with things" is often how I hear some of their actions described, and yeah, I can agree with that.  I can certainly agree with it for THIS incident.... people on Reddit were pointing out all sorts of things that really made the decision seem nonsensical (more nonsensical than it was to begin with, anyway), and alot of them were very good points.  The sort of things that most publishers WOULD consider... but EA for some reason just doesnt, lately.

And they keep doing things like that over and over.

I mean, really, even Activision doesnt pull some of the loopy crap that EA does.

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #631 on: November 10, 2014, 12:39:49 am »
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).
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Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #632 on: November 12, 2014, 02:36:18 pm »
"Inner peace is the void of expectation. It is the absence of our shared desperation to feel a certain way."

Offline Aklyon

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #633 on: November 12, 2014, 03:02:22 pm »
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.

Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #634 on: November 13, 2014, 02:19:24 am »
Welp, a Korean team broke the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj3bncQBtsU
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Offline Misery

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #635 on: November 14, 2014, 01:10:35 am »
Have I yet mentioned my absolute loathing for smurf players?  I'd ban the lot of them if I could, frankly.

At this point, kinda losing interest as a result... the matches are just so bloody boring.  Especially when the team I'm on, with a score of 2-30, doesnt see the value in just surrendering.... ugh.  I find myself just leaving outright simply to do something else with the time I'd otherwise waste by staying.  And normally I never do that in a multiplayer game... it has to be getting *bad* for me to go and do that.

I dont think I've seen even remotely close to this amount of smurf accounts in any other moba I've ever touched.  I couldnt remember entirely why I'd left the game awhile back, only recently popping back onto it, but there's a good chance that this was the reason.  I seriously dont put up with this sort of thing very well.  If a match is happening where we're generally just actually losing to the other team, that's fine.  Nothing wrong with that, and it doesnt bug me.  Much can be learned from a proper loss.  But the smurf matches?  No.  When one guy is getting 30 kills and the rest of his team (who might be every bit as bored as I am) isnt doing all that much because he keeps wrecking everyone before they get a chance, it's not a match anymore.  It's just some jackass trying to show off.  Ends up kinda feeling like I"m merely watching a rather crappy match happen on Twitch, rather than actually playing the game.  I get the exact same feeling if the player is on my team and causing a win... it really doesnt matter which side they're on.

Might be time to switch to something else, feh.  Dunno what though, particularly with EA's asshattery having destroyed Dawngate. Hmm.  Not Dota, I gave that a try again for a time but I just get bored with it so fast.
« Last Edit: November 14, 2014, 01:18:41 am by Misery »

Offline Misery

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #636 on: November 15, 2014, 06:43:42 am »
And then when in a not as horrible mood, went back into it, and the Smurf String abruptly ended.  Thus wins OR losses stopped being boring.  Close matches are SO much more exciting.

I swear, I always say things like "BLARG I HATE THIS GAME SO MUCH" and then inevitably return to it anyway. 

Though I'm still gonna find a second one to mess with. Originally woulda been Dawngate, but noooooooooooooo.  Probably Strife, then.

Offline Misery

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #637 on: December 22, 2014, 08:30:23 am »
Well, I've gotten into Heroes of the Storm finally, after waiting a bazillion years.  Ah, this one is quite fun, it is.

Definitely does alot of things different.  No items, for one thing, instead you get all these perks that do who knows what, most seem to have pretty major effects and there appear to be alot to pick from.  Has the same feel as getting items actually, just without the gold, and at set intervals.  Each hero gets different ones.  Gonna take me freaking forever to memorize these for even just one hero to start with.  I'm liking this mechanic so far. 

Levelups are not done individually, but instead the team as a whole has a level, instead of heroes.  Any XP gotten goes into that team pool.  Gaining levels does pretty much what you'd think, including getting you to the points where you unlock new perks.  Skills however do not have levels; instead, various perks will do a variety of different things to them.  Seems to be all sorts of loopy effects. Your ultimate however still does not unlock until the team hits a certain level.  It looks like there is more than one ultimate to choose from for each hero.

The maps, now, the maps are interesting.  There appear to be multiple 3-lane maps, and multiple 2-lane maps, as opposed to a single 3-lane type and then a bunch of totally different non-lane types like other games do.  Layout is different in each, but more importantly each has different special things going on.  Which all appear to be quite unique.  I'm not going to bother trying to explain them here; if interested, there are full explanations and the ability to look at each map on the game's main site.  Suffice it to say though, they're all very different, and it's nothing so simple as just "go kill this Roshan/Baron/whatever type boss".  There are currently 5 maps with 2 more announced. 

The maps also seem designed to keep players moving alot, so that there's plenty of reason to not JUST stay in lane.  Every map has jungle camps called Mercenary Camps, and if these are defeated and then captured, they'll constantly spawn merc creature things that'll help assault lanes.  It looks like they can be stolen as well.  This part of the game seems to be designed in such a way so that instead of just one dedicated jungler, everyone can interact with the jungle stuffs when it seems necessary. 

The idea of constant movement is also emphasized with mounts, where you can hit Z and charge for a second or two to get on a horse or whatever, and you move dramatically faster this way.  Get hit or fire off an attack and the mount instantly vanishes. 

That whole bit, I really like, the emphasis on making use of the whole map.... the direct opposite of League's tendancy to have everyone stay in a lane for waaayyyyyy too long.  So it's more like Dota or Smite in that regard.  Lots and lots of tactical reasons to go to all sorts of different spots on the map.


For the game being in alpha, there's also way more heroes to choose from than I expected.  There's not AS much emphasis on "roles" as there is in other games, but the concept is definitely still there.  I've already found a pure support character I'll probably be using alot, for instance.   And yes, you do have to unlock heroes just like in every one of these games that isnt Dota or Strife.  If you want to pay real money, ahhh.... that seems PRICEY with this one.  I've barely started on it, so I dunno how long it'll take to start unlocking heroes, will find out as I go along I guess.  There's the usual rotations and whatnot here as always.


So, yeah.... that's that.  I love what I've played of it so far, though I've done only a few bot matches right now (I only tried it for the first time maybe like, 2 hours ago).  I think this one has a ton of potential if Blizzard does it right.  And it's one of those games that's technically still in alpha, but it looks and feels like a finished game. 

Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #638 on: December 23, 2014, 10:08:59 am »


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.
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Offline Misery

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #639 on: December 23, 2014, 07:49:55 pm »
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.

....someone thinks it's SLOW?   

As character movement goes, it's.... basically the exact same speed as every other game in this genre.... when they're actually walking.  The part about getting on a mount rather removes any concerns about slowness in the game as a whole.  AKA, it's faster than most of the rest.  I dunno where anyone would be getting "slow" from.  I personally wouldnt be playing it if things were slow, I dont deal with that very well.  Or at all. Hell, the whole point of the game almost seems to be that it's anti-slow.

The bit with the perks is interesting; there's already guides with full builds and things going up for the game (on the same site network as "Dotafire" and "Mobafire"), and it's exactly like with item builds:  Nobody ever completely agrees that such-and-such method is clearly THE best way to do it.  Blizzard seems to be going for something similar to items, in that there's all sorts of possible builds you can set a target for, but that you also need to be learning to choose and modify those builds during the match (instead of sticking to a strict setup), as you would with item-builds in other games.  Like in other games, you can open up the tab menu and see what skills everyone else in the game is grabbing.  ....UNlike those other games, every individual character has a seperate set of skills/perks/talents/I-forget-what-they're-called, so.... good luck memorizing all of those, hah.


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.

The skill will come in a few major ways:  1, the constant combat, as there really arent much in the way of moments during a match when you ARENT fighting.   If you arent fighting, you're probably on your mount, on your way to some point on the map where you will indeed soon be fighting.  Major part number 2 comes from the maps.   The more I mess with the game, the more I'm loving the hell out of this part.  Dota itself gives usually the most reason to, you know, actually USE more of the overall map.  Gives players reasons to GO places.  Yet even that game, most players will find that they spend the most time in lanes.  Which is fine... most of these games do that, some being like LoL where you spend WAY TOO MUCH time in lanes.  This one is extremely focused on making the ENTIRE map have a point, and importance.  I dont think I've played a single other game in this genre where I have to be so mobile, and paying so much attention to other parts of the map, and the team has to make huge amounts of strategic decisions on what to do next, where to go, who will do it.... and so on.  There's really not much in the way of waiting between these bits.  And of course then things like talent/perk/something builds and synergy and whatnot add to all of this skill stuff.


Lessee... what else...

The reason for the linked experience is simple:  You dont get into situations where your entire team essentially has a big hole in it, with one player having been killed like 20 times, so they're 5 levels less than the rest of the team.  In HotS, yeah.... it's still definitely a detriment, as if they've been killed that many times over, well.... yeah, the enemy team is still gonna be boosted by that just like in other mobas. They'll run over you just as much if allowed to.  BUT, it means that that player can actually still contribute to future teamfights and such, which is something that often WONT happen in other games because they'll just be too low.  Comebacks are actually a thing in this one, which cant be said about the entire genre, that's for sure.  That fact, I'm liking alot. 

There are some instances where this idea breaks down a bit;  on the dragon shrine map, for instance, if you get both of the shrines and thus the central statue activated, and the player that takes the dragon form DOESNT know what to do with it (or how to use it well).... THAT is going to hurt.  Alot.  Simple working together wont solve THAT one.  The moment someone gets one of those "alternate forms" that exist in a few places in the game (and they're super-important on maps they appear on), that player's importance on the team skyrockets for as long as they hold that form.  If they make an idiot of themselves with it.... you just took a HUGE loss.

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.


So yeah, them's some current thoughts on it as I mess with it more.  Things are of course very subject to change, so definitely none of it is finalized.   I expect the current meta to outright warp over and over again as development progresses, among other things.



....also I love "Control-alt-delete", that comic series is absolutely hilarious.   I dont normally bother with webcomics.... but I bother with THAT one.  Had already seen the HotS one there :D
« Last Edit: December 23, 2014, 07:51:51 pm by Misery »

Offline Mick

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #640 on: December 24, 2014, 09:44:41 pm »
Been playing HotS for a few months. Absolutely love it for the reasons it's different from Dota and LoL, both games I always wanted to like, but never really could.

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I expect the current meta to outright warp over and over again as development progresses, among other things.

Oh no doubt, I've already seen it. Before the last patch a lot of various push strategies were nerfed, and it caused people to go into a bit of a frenzy figuring out how to play again. (Pushing strategies still work fine, but the meta in any game tends to overreact hard to nerfs.)

One player isn't going to carry a whole team, but of course someone's individual skill matters, it's just that a team is more than the sum of its parts. Some people get really bent out of shape about ending up with a bad player on the team, but I just figure there's a fair chance the OTHER team is dealing with their own issues in the game as well. I see plenty of games swing more or less by attitude. Lost the first objective? Some players want to gg immediately, others double down the effort and turn the advantage around. A game isn't over until the core is broken, period. Some players think it's a problem that come backs are possible, but I think it's good that the winning team is not allowed to be lazy. You can't just get a two level advantage and coast to victory, you have to press your advantage all the way to the end.

I've had my share of watching the dragon get wasted, but I just figure at least denied the dragon to the other team. After all, I've seen the enemy team putz around with the dragon as well (people seem to forget that the other team can be bad too...)

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The perks system sounds neat but I wonder if that wouldn't get old fast once you found your favorite combination.

I definitely have favorites I play, but I think any player who always chooses the same talents every game isn't a very good player. You really should be basing such decisions on the compositions of your team, the enemy team, the talent choices of both, and the general flow of the game.

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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.

Deciding "what should I do?" I think is a HUGE part of the game. One half of the general skillset is figuring out the best strategy of where to be at any given time, and the other half is the execution of whatever you do when you get there. Of course playing with random teammates means you'll be herding cats. I generally follow the "idiot rule" (it's real name is quite a bit more offensive). But it basically comes down to the fact that doing the wrong thing with your team is generally better than doing the right thing by yourself (and getting killed). Playing with friends helps get around this problem of course.

I think the biggest problem at the moment (which will be fixed in Jan.) is that the versus match is essentially a random assortment on each team. The matchmaker has restrictions on how many of each role is allowed, but those restrictions are verrrrry loose, so you can sometimes end up with team compositions that are a bit heartbreaking. Jan is adding ranked/draft mode which will let you choose your hero based on what others in your team and the other team has taken (and on the map choice). That will make some of the matches feel like a lot less of a coin flip. Then again, it's not like I haven't seen strange team compositions do very well. Like I said - attitude. A team willing to take a shot at it has a much better chance than one who sulks in the base. And I'm not going to say I haven't seen any sulkers/ragers/whiners yet in my games, but they've been quite rare.

Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #641 on: December 25, 2014, 12:35:17 pm »
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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.
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Offline Misery

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #642 on: December 26, 2014, 01:23:07 am »
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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.


See, I have a hard time with that stuff about the skill ceiling being risen by things like what you mention, and fighting games like Smash are EXACTLY why.

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.

Now granted, it's a bit different in games like these, that are so stat based with attacks that are often NOT dodgeable (games like Dota and League often having alot of "targeted" attacks that *will* hit if used when in range).  Yet still, the mechanics of this nature tend to just bother me for exactly the same reason.  The denying thing, for instance.  It's.... just last hitting.  If you can last-hit, you can deny.  I've never seen the challenge to it.  It's a timing-based mechanic.  If it were in OTHER games, it might actually seem more interesting to me.... but it's in Dota, the one with by far the slowest laning phase.   If it were in a different game, where there's usually constant back-and-forth attacks and spells being fired between lane opponents, THEN it might get interesting, to have to weave in amongst all the chaos to try to do that.... that'd be interesting.  But that simply doesnt occur, due to Dota's combat style.

A good example of my problems with Dota actually IS the support role.  Normally, I rather like playing this role.  Using my speed to yank my team's carry out of the crushing jaws of an enemy's ultimate attack at the last possible second, completely confounding their efforts at making what looked like a sure kill... ahh, what fun that is.  Not just ultimates of course, but many things can nearly bring about a teammate's defeat.  I defend them CONSTANTLY in most mobas, because there's always some danger, some crazy attack being tossed their way.  The fight begins quickly, and rages on for a long time.  Dota though... the combat style and overblown costs of abilities utterly cancel all of this.  And here's the thing:  You're right, some of the mechanics in Dota give the support something to do.... but by my account, they SHOULDNT HAVE TO.  Denying as "something to do" seems like grasping at straws to me.... it feels like they just couldnt think of something better, so it's simply a mirror of normal last-hitting.  And really, things like warding just arent very interesting, even if there's a tactical decision to make.  That there's typically next to nothing else on the map to interact with (a problem I see in pretty much EVERY moba; if I'm not the jungler, and I dont want to be, there's little purpose for me to use the jungle as a destination instead of a path to somewhere with something to do) just makes this even worse, moreso in Dota than other games due to the reasons I list here.   

Now, as for the bit about it being easy to get a kill as a carry and support working together.... that, not attractive to me.  Why?  Because it's BORING.  It's exactly the same to me as it is in a fighting game, if I'm playing that against people, and utterly erase a lower level player.  What fun is that?  There's no challenge there.  The fight is pretty much over before it even started.  I dont WANT "easy", I dont like "easy".  Make me actually FIGHT for it.  Give the enemy a chance to use skill to defeat me in an actual battle.  Give ME a reason to put my skill to the test, as opposed to just outright assassinating them instantly due to superior position or surprise.   Again, that's dull.

Addressing also the bit about the teleport scrolls:  Now THAT is a mechanic I hated from the start.  Absolutely hated it.  To me, it merely pulls into the limelight the problems with the combat.  Yes, it allows you to get to other lanes quickly to make it in time to help.... but it shouldnt HAVE to.  It's only necessary because of the "over nearly instantly" nature of the combat.  It exists entirely because there's just no time to simply MOVE there.  The mechanic simply isnt necessary in any other game.  My teammate, in need of help, can use skill and cunning against a prolonged siege to hold off the enemy until help arrives.  Which is also more satisfying.  ....not to mention that the bloody scrolls take up an item slot that could be used for something more interesting. I never liked that part.   And yes, one could make the arguement of "well, it tests your ability to react quickly!".  That one is sort of up to the individual;  in my case, I'm way too fast for that to add any challenge whatsoever.  Others though, yes, they might find it does add something.

And one of the core things that just bugs the hell outta me with that game, and is possibly the central reason why I have issues with it, is the view that everyone takes on it.  This idea that complexity of mechanics creates additional proper difficulty.  The same as a comparison between Smash as a series, VS something like Guilty Gear as a series.  I tell you though, this isnt the case.  And not because of my experience with fighting games.  No, I actually say this because of the shmup genre.

The shmup genre contains not only some of the most difficult games that exist, but also THE most difficult game that exists.  The one that nothing else has ever come close to.  This game is Mushihime-sama Futari.  Specifically, the mode named "Ultra".  When you select this mode, the game actually brings up this red warning screen, with text that translates to:  "You will absolutely meet your death here.  Are you sure you want to continue?".  It doesnt do this just to be flippant or amusing;  the question is actually relevant. 

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.

That game though... it has no complexity of mechanics.  At all.  No shield levels to manage, no weapon switching to use enemy weakness to your advantage, no weird sword things to knock bullets out of the way, and not even any real powerups.  You shoot (constantly, there's never a reason to stop), and you dodge.  That's it.  It couldnt be easier to learn how to control your ship to it's fullest.  There's no goofy special commands, or weird almost-glitchy tricks that exploit an engine quirk.... none of that.  None of it at all.  It's you, against the unending purple doom.  But the game will EAT YOU.  If I had to make an estimate based on everything I know of the genre (which includes expert players I've seen), I'd say that less than 15 people in the world have ever beaten it.

Yet it needs no added complexity of mechanics to do this.  PLAYING the game isnt hard.  At all.  There's zero difficulty there.  LEARNING the game's mechanics isnt hard, because there barely are any.  You shoot the.... everything, and you dodge.... well, also everything.  The difficulty lies in the design of the game's content, the things that it throws against you.  It's able to become THAT insanely absurd with just that.   And that's how competetive games are to me.  Complexity of PLAYING the game?  Not the real challenge.  It's that way in fighting games.  Wether the game mechanics are super complicated... as in GG.... or supremely simple, as in Smash... that matters not.  The true challenge is that which you go up against.  The skill of your opponent.  It's not about how the mechanics WORK, or what they ARE, be they complicated as Dwarf Fortress, or simple as Space Invaders.  It only matters what you DO with them. 

And that to me is where Dota's problem lies. It throws in all of these things, not because they truly add to anything, but because of a misguided idea as to what "difficulty" actually is.  PARTICULARLY in a competetive game. Now, understand:  I'm not saying that complexity is a bad thing. Not at all.  But some games try too hard to go down that route, to the extent where things start to get arbitrary, or weird, or whatever, and Dota launches down that path.  I can get very high challenge out of all of the other mobas.... while keeping the action CONSTANT, and thus interesting.... so I find myself going to those games insead.


Understand here, I dont actually think Dota is a bad game... far from it.  I still end up rather liking it. It's a good game!  It's so damn popular for a reason.  My interest in it lately has come back a bit, since I'm not feeling as burned out by the whole thing as I was before.  But so much of the hype and such surrounding it just seems way off the mark to me and just BUGS me.   Also note, I'm not making a direct comparison to just LoL with all of this either.  Yeah, most people tend to do exactly that.  I am not most people.  I know full well LoL has it's problems.  Oh yes, it has them.  That character roster, for example.  WHY in the bloody hell do they NOT BALANCE THE DAMN THING?  What's the point of having 2000 characters if only 30 of them ever get used?  Why even ALLOW any to be totally irrelevant?  Ugh.  I loathe that aspect of that game.  All of the OTHER mobas can do that bit right.... why cant that one?  I could ramble on for some time about the issues I have with that game.  I still like it though.  Smite is the same, and I'll find things to rant about with Heroes of the Storm as well.  Just give me some time, and I'll have an irritable list to show, guaranteed  ;D


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...

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #643 on: December 26, 2014, 09:41:48 am »
HotS is probably great. But it suffers the same issues as every other MOBA out there: The freaking perspective and sluggish gameplay. That is, however, just a personal opinion obviously.
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Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #644 on: December 26, 2014, 02:11:12 pm »
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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.

That game though... it has no complexity of mechanics.  At all.
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.

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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

But that's all just my opinion anyway. Each person has a different take on every game's mechanics. I will say though, that like your Futari game, it really requires quite a devotion of time to ultimately grasp the DotA mechanics before you start to understand how to make them work for you instead of against you. To a player who has only played it a few dozen times, it may seem a bit stupid and overwhelming. I'm lucky that I started playing the game as a young teenager with too much free time, because by the time things really started getting competitive, I had already played the game for over half a decade and thousands of hours. I don't envy players entering the scene as things are, even with all the newfangled tutorials and teaching systems.

Having said all that, I still haven't seen how complex of a game HOTS is, and though it does seem it has simplified a lot of the average MOBA mechanics, some things may have become a little more complicated as well in the process. I'll hold my opinion until I can give it a try, but I'm pretty excited.

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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!

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