They say a watched pot never boils. I say a watched developer never makes overdue changes. Stop watching, people, and Riot just might make a few changes. It looks like Lee Sin is finally going to get a decent nerf in the upcoming patch. It isn’t huge. It’s isn’t tiny. It is a moderately-sized nerf that could actually slow down his jungling and hurt his damage a little bit. I know, I can hardly think of anything to say.
In the patch preview, Morello categorized the Lee Sin nerfs thusly: “We want Lee Sin players to build damage to get damage.” A revolutionary concept. I’m just happy to see one of the longest-standing top-tier junglers finally get a light tap to the genitals. He’ll still be strong, but he won’t be quite so easy.
For the rest of the patch, Jax is getting some new survivability on Counter Strike and Riot is changing the critical chance mastery into attack damage per level. I’m actually really happy about that second change. I’ve had several games in which an opponent — sometimes even an AP carry — gets an early two crits in a row and just screws me out of lane. Nice to see that kind of stuff disappearing.
Yesterday, Valve added Clinkz to the DotA 2 lineup along with a few minor bug fixes. You might think it would be difficult to get into a Thursday evening update schedule, but Riot patches were late often enough that I feel right at home. I kid, I kid. You would know if you could see my adorable yet handsome winking face.
ANYWAY, I’m not overly thrilled to see another invisible hero added to the mix, but Clinkz is soft enough that I usually find him easy to counter. He has a very weak early game and, with a little coordination, can be nothing more than a nuisance. I still wonder why invisibility was ever thought to be a good thing in MOBA games. I understand to a degree that DotA was built on the Warcraft engine, and since Warcraft allowed for the mechanic, DotA designers could add a little variety by including those kinds of mechanics. We’re so far past that point, though, I would think developers had come up with a better way to handle stealth.
But enough about all that. For now, Clinkz is in the DotA 2 beta. Huzzah. It’s another hero on the list. Valve did mention in the Clinkz blog post that they will “change the way we ship new content to you every week,” beginning with next week’s patch. I wonder if that means we’ll start seeing more hero releases at smaller intervals, or if it is truly just a new content delivery method (though I don’t know what that would be – the current system is just using Steam).
One of my absolute favorite features from DotA 2 is the ability to drop in and watch in-progress games that my friends are playing. I always thought this would be a little strange, but when I’m waiting for them to finish or we’re just hanging out in vent, it’s weirdly enjoyable to watch their games play out. For competitive players this also has obvious benefits. There are downsides, like having friends heckle you for events that transpired two minutes in the past. All the same, I think it’s a great feature and the fact that it can be so easily accessed via the Steam buddy list is awesome.
It sounds like Riot’s own spectator mode will host the same feature. RJCombo said on the official forums, “Yes. The feature currently on PBE allows you to drop-in to normal and ranked games in progress (on your friends list) as a spectator.” Good on you, Riot. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t expect Riot to get spectator mode right, and I gave up on waiting for it to release a long, long time ago. I am glad to know that they see the value in this kind of functionality though and that it might be closer than we all think.
Riot has posted both the art spotlight and the sneak peek for Ziggs, the Hexplosives Expert. I really feel like they missed an opportunity for “Hexpert” but since he doesn’t actually hex anything I suppose I’ll let it slide.
I don’t know if it’s just my distance from League of Legends these days, but this guy looks awesome. I love the splash art, and I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t some sort of homage to my good friend from DotA, Techies, going on here. Keep an eye peeled for his skill list some time this upcoming weekend. I’ll definitely be interested to see what he can do, even if I don’t have the IP to pick him up on release day.
I’m not sure where I heard about Overgrowth but I haven’t been able to stop watching combat videos ever since. Overgrowth appears to be a forthcoming action/adventure title from indie dev Wolfire Games. The star? A ninja bunny. Sounds like a win if you ask me.
I have a serious soft spot for slashers, particularly slashers that don’t take themselves too seriously. This game looks like the perfect blend of crazy kung-fu antics and super silly shenanigans. I mean, you play as a bunny.
Be sure to head over to the Wolfire Games page to check out development progress. By pre-ordering the game you can get access to the Overgrowth beta.
There is a fairly serious, or at the very least vocal contingent of players who have been anxiously awaiting the release of Ezreal’s legendary skin, Pulsefire Ezreal. The skin is a pretty clear homage to the Mega Man series and, from the splash art, looks pretty cool. The above video popped up today, showing a player using the skin in game. The video only shows off his ult, but you can tell the animation has been given a healthy spark.
It seems almost foolish to have to dedicate an entire post to the shop differences between LoL and DotA but trust me, it’s necessary. Again, this is one of those things I thought League did really well, and for the most part I still prefer League’s shop, if only for its organization. The DotA system does have some perks, though, which I’ll cover a bit later.
It’s impossible to talk about the DotA shop system without first discussing the differences in gold, which is where the shop differences really originate. In LoL, your gold is your gold unless you spend it. In DotA, gold can be lost on death, depending on a few different factors. Gold is divided into reliable and unreliable gold. Unreliable gold, as you probably guessed, is the gold that gets lost when you die. Reliable gold is yours no matter what. As you save more and more gold for more expensive items, more of your gold becomes unreliable. However, when you buy items you buy with your unreliable gold first, which is why shopping frequently is important.
In DotA, players can use the main shop anytime, anywhere. Yes, you can shop from your lane. Items that are purchased remotely go to each player’s individual stash. Those items can then be retrieved by either visiting base or sending a courier to retrieve them. In most games, each team will purchase a courier for the purposes of hauling items to remote locations. It’s a nice system, and it can keep you in lane for a very long time.
DotA also has a “secret shop” hidden in the same place in each team’s jungle. The secret shop contains different items from the main shop and can only be accessed by standing next to it or sending a courier to do the same. Each side lane also has a “side shop,” which contains a mix of items from both the main and secret shops. This can all be a bit confusing, but that’s the DotA way. At the very least, Valve has tried to make the experience a little less frustrating by placing a small “S” symbol on the icon of any item that is only purchasable via the secret shop. If a player tries to buy an item from the secret shop while out of range, Valve implemented a “shop not in range” error that also pings the map so the player knows where to go to buy the items.
The only other significant difference in my mind is the presence of actual recipe items. When a player buys Madred’s Bloodrazor in League of Legends, there is no 775g item that combines the components into the actual item. It is simply a combine cost that automatically happens. With DotA, there are actual recipe items. This is important because it allows the player to spend unreliable gold on a recipe though they might not be able to afford another component. It’s also important because it is possible to accidentally buy duplicate recipes, which is just no good. As in LoL, where I occasionally buy double boots, I sometimes find myself with double Yasha recipes in DotA. Be aware of this.
As with any MOBA, your best bet for understand the shop is to simply look through it. Play a bot game or find a functioning web tool that works like the shop so you can learn which items are purchased at which shop. For me, I always learned best by playing a couple characters that I really enjoyed, trying a few different builds and stumbling across items that way. Once I’ve seen them in shop a few times it gets much easier to remember how to find them.
Since I got started with the DotA 2 beta, my time in League of Legends has dropped off significantly. At first I thought it was just that DotA 2 was a new game and that I might someday reach a point at which I was splitting my time between the two. That hasn’t happened yet, and I honestly don’t see it happening in the near future.
Every time I’ve gone back to League over the past couple weeks, I’ve been sorely disappointed. My games have been quick and unenjoyable, whether winning or losing. Those same kind of games have been happening in DotA on occasion, but with DotA I’m playing enough to balance the bad games with plenty of good. With LoL, that’s just not the case.
I think this is a core part of the MOBA experience, and something MOBA developers may have to address over the next couple years. Though I go into each play session hoping for a hard-fought, drawn out battle, I would bet the majority of games tend to be shorter and fairly one sided, at least to some degree. Once the lopsided game has played out, my inclination is not to walk away; it’s to stay and play until I get the game I was looking for.
This situation isn’t totally unique to the MOBA genre. RTS players have long dealt with a protracted gaming curve, wherein they might spend as much as 70-80 minutes developing a strategy only to be wiped off the map in 90 seconds. In a lot of RTS matches, though, there are things to be learned. Maybe I should have had more resource nodes. Maybe I needed more unit diversity. Maybe my micromanagement needs work. Most competitive RTS matches provide an immediate and actionable feedback loop. That is, the player knows what he/she can do in order to improve their next experience.
With MOBAs, it’s more like two teams of five people trying to throw darts at the same dartboard, all at the same time. If they all get a bull’s-eye, the game is a success. As players start to miss, the game deteriorates. A few people from a team may be playing well, but when there are two people who can’t even hit the board, the game gets dramatically skewed. That actionable feedback loop from RTS games is all but gone. It often doesn’t matter if I’m hitting the bull’s-eye every time (and let’s be clear, I don’t); the failed efforts of my teammates have a dramatic effect on the outcome of the game.
So back to the question at hand – is it possible to play MOBAs casually? I can’t do it. I’ll own that. I can’t just jump into one game, unless that one game is the 50+ minute back-and-forth that MOBA dreams are made of. How do you guys do it? Do you focus in on a small subset of champions? Do you save up your playtime for one long play session every so often? Do you even bother? Sound off in the comments.
I was browsing around Riot’s forums this morning and stumbled upon an interesting comment that got a few upvotes. The thread was a discussion of Kayle’s current status and whether or not she should receive another remake. Here’s the comment that caught my eye:
“Evelynn too, while you’re at it. I dislike how I spent IP on the champ and RP on her skin only for you to literally make her unplayable to the point where I will be reported for playing her.”
This is not a new concept – far from it, I know. It is, however, an issue that has never really affected me. I’ve been writing about the game for almost as long as it has been a game. I’ve had every champion for probably a year, and I play enough that I have the IP to buy new champions every time they release. At least, I did until now. Now that my time is spread between a wider variety of games, I don’t have that luxury. Champions I buy will be the result of a long, slow IP grind, and you can bet I won’t be spending RP on them. At this point, too many champions have stagnated, in desperate need of a remake. When I had a seemingly endless fountain of IP this was no big deal – I always had another champion I could be playing.
But what about people who spend cash to unlock champions as they go. When those champions get nerfed beyond viability, it’s essentially a hit to their pocketbook. Again, this isn’t anything new. Players of all kinds of games have seen potential “investments” deteriorate as the result of nerfing. Any MMO player knows the pain of putting a couple hundred hours into the class, spec and gear that goes behind a character just to have it wiped out by developers. A game like LoL seems unique though, because while I may still be able to participate in large portions of an MMO with an underperforming character, most of the lower-tier champions in League can’t hope to compete with any reliable success. The options those players have to enjoy the game diminish far more quickly than those of an MMO player in most cases. Sure, there are always the free champions, but players don’t pay for access to free champions. The champions that have been purchased should have some viability.
So what do you think? Should Riot be spending more time and resources on remaking underplayed/unplayable champions or does the current method suit you just fine?
I was never one to enjoy Minecraft mods, at least not at first. The modding process was lengthy, often frustrating and totally unsupported. When I first started playing Minecraft, most mods were single-player-only, so as a multiplayer fanatic they just didn’t hold much appeal. I recently started playing Minecraft again just to see what all had changed. In browsing some of the forums I stumbled upon something called the Technic Pack, a group of mods that had been compiled to be distributed as one pack. The mods mostly focus on industrialization of the Minecraft world, introducing machines, new redstone recipes, alchemy, advanced minecart systems, and so on. Yeah, it added a lot. The best part? It was all available for multiplayer.
I wasn’t quite ready to jump in with all the mods, but Buildcraft, a long-standing mod from the community, caught my eye. The mod is pretty simple – it adds machines that, with a bit of planning can automate many of Minecraft’s tasks. The most notable is the use of quarries, which mine out giant chunks of the world when attached to an engine. There is also a very cool pipe system that allows for transportation of goods and liquids. It’s capable of supporting a player-built power grid. That’s right. Power grid.
After playing a mod like Buildcraft, I can’t believe Mojang hasn’t spent more time with a real modding API. The modding system just needs to get easier. For all that Notch loves about Bethesda, how has he not picked up on this part of the business model. People will improve your game for free if you just give them the tools to do so. Granted, they’re already doing that, but imagine if mods didn’t break the client with every update. Imagine if they could all interact reliably for both multi- and single-player. Wouldn’t it be a beautiful, blocky world?
