Heroes of Newerth Thread 2: Electrician Boogaloo. Now Free to play!

[Dhsu]

Thought it'd be worth bringing this thread back to notify people that HoN is $10 through Sunday, and you get double coins for matchmaking games you play this weekend (FYI for anyone who hasn't logged in for a while, they now have a store like LoL with stuff like sexy skins for various heroes and a Duke Nukem announcer voice).

Personally I think this would be a great opportunity to get the crew back together and do a little pubstomping. It's a lot easier now with team matchmaking, and it rarely takes more than 3 minutes to get a game. Me, Hemo, Rambo, Bonzai rocked a couple games last night and it was good times. Might even be able to manage an in-house with some Shizzies.

On a side note, they're also coming out with a new hero that seems

for their hero contest a while back...

[Capa Langley]

Yeah, here's a link to Andy's thread for a hero suggestion.

Burrower

[Dhsu]

Ha, nice. I guess going back over it they definitely drew some inspiration from it, but it's still a significantly different hero.

[BardicKnowledge]

Bumping this thread because a number of people are playing again.

Also, EVERY SINGLE TIME we face a Soulstealer, we are doing this:

http://www.justin.tv/reaverxai/b/284008115

[Tensei]

But what happens if the courier is flying.

[Bleck]

play lol instead

[Rambo]

play lol instead

I tried that for a bit. Didn't do anything for me.

[Tensei]

lol more like NO DENIES AMIRITE

[Bleck]

no denies is smart design

[Tensei]

I find it boring because it simplifies what is already the most tedious part of the game even further

[Bleck]

removing the most tedious part of the most tedious part of the game is uhh a pretty good idea

[Kidd Cabbage]

It's tedious BECAUSE it's so boring. At least denying gives you something else to do. Interpretation fail.

[Bleck]

It's tedious BECAUSE it's so boring.

wow you must be some kind of genius

the reason denying makes things tedious is because you can effectively shut down another player entirely which makes the laning phase go from 'sort of boring' to 'I'm not even having fun anymore'

also if you think that not being able to deny means you can't do anything then you must not actually play very much of any dota game

the fact of the matter is that denials was a mechanic left over from the warcraft version of the game that couldn't fundamentally be changed but idiotic purists believe that it adds some "depth" to the game because they can't actually consider the negative ramifications of the concept upon the overall structure of the game because they're too busy being obnoxious assholes trying to build up their self-esteem by being really good at a fucking shitty game that nobody cares about

so I guess what I'm trying to say here is that people who say 'fail' need to suck literally every dick and then choke and die on the very last one

[Tensei]

The way I see it, there's basically three things you can do when laning:

- Attacking/last-hitting enemy creeps

- Attacking enemy heroes (harassing)

- Denying

That's not exactly a lot of options, and removing any of those three out of the equation limits what you can do even further. Denying definitely does NOT allow you to shut down another player entirely, no matter the skill gap.

What causes players who are better at the game to 'win' at laning vs. worse players is that the worse player will usually misjudge his own health, damage or positioning and die, or maybe the more skilled player will be able to take a calculated risk and towerdive, netting him a kill. This is a much bigger factor in shutting down the other player than denying ever will be.

In fact, given enough of a skill gap it's way more beneficial for the better player to be lasthitting everything instead of focusing on denies because he will be able to basically farm freely, which in the long run makes much more of a difference than preventing an unskilled player from farming.

Focusing on denying is an option for a support hero to slow down an opposing carries farm, and it generally just allows for more tactical versatility in the laning matchups.

[zircon]

A better (IMO) compromise would be to tweak last hitting. I think I've brought this up before. You can still have all the tactical options if you just change the last hitting mechanic. eg. Once a creep hits 25% life, it's in the 'kill zone'. If someone does at least 10% of damage to the creep after that point, they get the last-hit or deny. You know? There's a lot of creative ways this could be rebalanced.

[Bleck]

A better (IMO) compromise would be to tweak last hitting. I think I've brought this up before. You can still have all the tactical options if you just change the last hitting mechanic. eg. Once a creep hits 25% life, it's in the 'kill zone'. If someone does at least 10% of damage to the creep after that point, they get the last-hit or deny. You know? There's a lot of creative ways this could be rebalanced.

I agree with this! I just disagree with the idea that it doesn't need to be tweaked in some manner or outright removed entirely.

It all boils down to a matter of opinion on how effective denial actually works in the game, I suppose.

[Garian]

Last hitting is a lot harder in HoN, aside from not being familiar with the attack animations of basically everyone, creeps have a LOT more health in comparison to LoL, making the laning phase last a ridiculously long time to me. Heroes also have miniscule mana pools compared to heroes in LoL, so spell harassment is a no go in the early laning phase for most of the cast. The denying mechanic just seems to lengthen the laning phase needlessly, but that's a take it or leave it kind of thing. It is very nice to be able to do it to just deny gold even if they get experience for it... The other day in like one of my first games in nearly 2 years I randomed BH and the group sent me mid and my opponent was SS, and he effectively shut me down on money even though we were playing Casual mode. I don't particularly care for the design philosophy behind denying, but I can definitely understand the appeal. Snowball, ahoy!

I do enjoy both games, even if I'm horrible at one and average at the other, and I'd love to see more people on both!

[eternal Zero]

Hey guys. Been a while, right? Just popping in to say I've actually shifted entirely to LoL for the greater portion of the last year or so. I definitely think it's a much more laid back and fun version of the game. Sure I still miss denying and being able to do awesome things like share consumables and have extra storage space and a courier...I really do miss that. BUT LoL definitely isn't something to be scoffed at. It's a solid game in and of itself even if I really question how much these developers know about balancing a game like this cause sometimes it's just really dumb and hand-holdy. For example a patch is coming that's going to "band-aid" stealth being an issue when only maybe three characters get access to it and there's no item that will give it to you. But I digress. Denying isn't really tedious if you're better than your opponent. If you're the one getting outlaned then it does get pretty boring to take even longer to level up and get your gold. It definitely doesn't favor the weak. I definitely know what I put other people through when I laned against them in HoN.

Both games are just fine and, well, considering I don't play HoN anymore if you guys want to hit me up on LoL just PM me or something. I'd be happy to show you the ropes and carry you and stuff. Also as a comment about the relative difficulty of the two games I'd definitely put myself above average in both games but it's a lot easier to be above average and win a game by yourself in HoN than it is in LoL due to the denying system and the presence of real hard carries. LoL really doesn't have any solid methods of getting super far ahead without some really awful opponents.

Okay so I thought of more things as I was typing. I haven't actually played HoN since that guy with the water aesthetic was added but I see they added your character, Zircon! That's pretty rad.

[zircon]

I really would like to try LoL, but it took me so long to internalize EVERY HoN hero (and I'm still learning the new ones.) I don't know if I can take memorizing another 50+ characters, common builds, abilities, and so on. Not to mention all the items

[eternal Zero]

To be fair it was a pretty rough transition for me, too, cause with HoN I had all of my prior DotA knowledge to carry me over.

With LoL I was really learning everything from the ground up. What saved me was instantly finding a ranged carry/DPS to have my fundamentals win games for me. "Oh yeah I know how to space and lane properly. I can last hit near perfectly. Oh these are the normal damage items? Right click to attack. Farm up. Get fed. Win game." I was summoner level 8 playing with and against 30s who were teaching me. Summoner levels make a big difference in power, unfortunately, so I had to try really hard to do well, but alt accounts fix that problem most of the time so you're not pitting low levels against high levels where they can get upwards of a free 25% armor penetration that a low level player can't have. In the end having summoner levels allow for a lot of customization in playstyle once you do hit level 30. At level 1 it's like you're playing HoN or DotA where you're pretty much starting at absolute zero with every game.

Recognizing the same ideas they use for building a hero and knowing how they'll play or what their skills mimic from DotA. It's like when you're trying to create a hero. You have a basic concept and skills that stem from that. Skills you may or may not take from previous ideas and iterations to tweak. It's all there. Just with different names in the end. Biggest thing was removing the idea of Str/Agi/Int and allowing spells to scale with items (which is awesome, btw). After playing both games at a high level (well not LoL I guess but considering the guys I used to run with in HoN I can say I played that at the highest level for some time) I definitely prefer LoL as a game but I feel like HoN is definitely more suited for a competitive experience. In the end it has archaic and purist values (which I still love) but LoL seems to be more popular and really listens to its community for better or worse. So things like that are the reasons it's got a spot at Dreamhack and WCG over HoN or DotA.

tl;dr: In the end it's really the same game and like going from one fighting game to another your fundamentals will really allow you to pick it up fairly quickly and have fun with it.

[Garian]

Andy, I feel you there! There's so much for me to learn and it's a little rough being the feeder of the group. I have pretty much all of LoL internalized except for like, the newest 5 heroes, haha. The new items take me a while to get used to, but there are far fewer items in LoL than HoN and only a handful have actives so...

I'll def be there if you want to give it a go!

[Tensei]

I'm really getting the itch to play again, but on the other hand I also know that it's a timesink once I get hooked, so I might as well just wait for DotA 2.

LoL never appealed to me for a number of reasons, and though I like bringing up the denying thing, the most egregious issue for me is the fact that players who have played more get an inherent advantage (beyond skills) with the summoner spells. On the other hand, I heard that the matchmaking system is quite good about that, so who knows.

[Kidd Cabbage]

wow you must be some kind of genius

the reason denying makes things tedious is because you can effectively shut down another player entirely which makes the laning phase go from 'sort of boring' to 'I'm not even having fun anymore'

also if you think that not being able to deny means you can't do anything then you must not actually play very much of any dota game

the fact of the matter is that denials was a mechanic left over from the warcraft version of the game that couldn't fundamentally be changed but idiotic purists believe that it adds some "depth" to the game because they can't actually consider the negative ramifications of the concept upon the overall structure of the game because they're too busy being obnoxious assholes trying to build up their self-esteem by being really good at a fucking shitty game that nobody cares about

so I guess what I'm trying to say here is that people who say 'fail' need to suck literally every dick and then choke and die on the very last one

You're right. I obviously know nothing about HoN. And I never said anything about you not being able to do anything if you can't deny - you're pulling shit out of your ass for the sake of trying to make whatever point that you're going for. All I said is that denying makes the beginning of the game less boring in the same way that driving a manual car is less boring: you have one more thing to do and more control over the situation at hand.

"they're too busy being obnoxious assholes trying to build up their self-esteem by being really good at a fucking shitty game that nobody cares about"

Oh hey, look, a comment about competitive gaming in general. Surely there's no game that you've ever tried to be good at or that would make you a hypocritical ass.

[eternal Zero]

LoL never appealed to me for a number of reasons, and though I like bringing up the denying thing, the most egregious issue for me is the fact that players who have played more get an inherent advantage (beyond skills) with the summoner spells. On the other hand, I heard that the matchmaking system is quite good about that, so who knows.

The matchmaking is pretty brilliant. The only time you'll go up against really higher level dudes is if you're grouping up in a large premade or with guys who are also higher levels. That's why just changing to alt accounts that are lower levels fixes the problem. Also level difference only means so much. I've always said it's a crutch and I stand by that. Some champions can't jungle without a specific rune/mastery setup but that's picking hairs.

Also this is going to be my last comment about denying. It did make a big difference to me at first but now the only thing I miss about it is being able to hold the lane where I want it to be held. Otherwise it was just a thing to do to min/max your advantage in lane. Not a big deal. The other big change it brings about is that if you end up with a mirror match in lane (non-ranked matchmaking is blind pick so only limitation is no repeats on the same team) you actually want to autoattack and then time the last hits so that you get a level advantage over your mirror because you can't control where the lane is positioned anyway.

All of you guys should at least give it a shot if you're not playing HoN as regularly as we all used to. Tensei, Zircon, Bardic: PLAY WITH ME. You know it'll be fun.

[Bleck]

You're right. I obviously know nothing about HoN.

glad we got that out of the way