League of Legends: I finally updated the player list in the OP!

[eternal Zero]

Cho would destroy Corki if both were build complete.

You assume that Cho manages to land his full combo all at once and Corki doesn't get to fully kite Cho. You all should really stop having any arguments of this sort cause in the end it comes down to what happens in an individual fight. Being fully built is important, yes, but it makes small difference when your team is real behind. It's much more important to get 2-3 pretty farmed heroes rather than a single super carry because those just don't exist in LoL.

[Bleck]

also the concept of 'build complete' doesn't really make much sense because it implies that every character has a single viable build which is definitely not the case

[Tensei]

You assume that Cho manages to land his full combo all at once and Corki doesn't get to fully kite Cho. You all should really stop having any arguments of this sort cause in the end it comes down to what happens in an individual fight. Being fully built is important, yes, but it makes small difference when your team is real behind. It's much more important to get 2-3 pretty farmed heroes rather than a single super carry because those just don't exist in LoL.

That's my point. It doesn't really matter which champion it is, because as long as they're farmed they can all carry to a degree, which in turn kinda makes the whole idea of a distinct 'carry' type champion obsolete. I'm not saying that literally every champion scales equally well, but the differences are so much less pronounced than in Dota/HoN.

Edited September 1, 2011 by Tensei

[kitty]

You assume that Cho manages to land his full combo all at once and Corki doesn't get to fully kite Cho. You all should really stop having any arguments of this sort cause in the end it comes down to what happens in an individual fight. Being fully built is important, yes, but it makes small difference when your team is real behind. It's much more important to get 2-3 pretty farmed heroes rather than a single super carry because those just don't exist in LoL.

My assumption was that Zircon was stating than in fully built items, whatever they may be, 1v1 head on battle between the two would result in Corki winning.

And yeah of course each individual fight and each individual player would factor in but it is in my opinion, in the case of Cho vs. Corki, given what I took as Zircon's assumptions listed above, that Cho would win out more often than Corki. Winning doesn't necessarily entail killing.

This is the general starting point, or template, of deciding when to engage, chase, run, or stall. You stress unique details in every fight. They indeed are important, in combination with generalizations. Humans use heuristics and shortcuts to make decisions and use the small details to fill in the gaps. My general thinking is that I can win in a fight versus Corki.

[zircon]

Oh I didn't mean 1v1, I meant in terms of the champ's contribution to the game. If your team has a 5k gold Corki and 14k gold Cho, that will be less useful 45 minutes in than a 5k gold Cho and 14k gold Corki. Cho can always disable and silence regardless of his items. Corki heavily relies on items to do.. anything.

[SynthesizedStampede]

I've had games where I basically ignored my team and just farmed the whole time. From experience, I can tell you it doesn't work that well if the other team is actively ganking and pushing. Passive farming as a strategy kind of only works if everyone is doing it, including the other team. The games where I've made the most difference have been when I ganked often enough to create more map control for my team and create a big gold advantage.

Hmm...I think you underestimate the power of free-farming or just farming in general. If the other team is actively ganking/pushing a 5v4 lane, it's not all that bad unless your team is inadequate or has horrible team composition or the other team has an awesome composition. Eh, I guess what I'm saying is that there's a lot of factors to consider to just assume that a 5v4 push or even 2v2/3v2 lanes are lost while you're farming. A lot of it, IMO, really depends on everyone else over the passive-farmer.

Yes, they get gold for towers and team members killed while you're passively farming. But if your team is decent, they won't get them easy, and they might not even get those towers at all. If they're carry is occupied with this engage, then they're not last-hitting while you are. If your team is good their carry will walk away from the push without much gold due to not being able to get a kill, the tower, or a decent farm. Yet this whole time you're last-hitting to the best of your ability, pushing your lane, and are closer to that IE than the carry who didn't choose to farm.

I agree with you that gold advantage plays a big component in winning games, but if both teams are about equal in skill level and aggression, then not a lot of gold are going to be made from careless kills/ganks and easy mistakes. Think about it: ten minutes in and somehow everyone is 0-0. The player with the most gold at this point would be the player with the highest CS.

Mid or late game, however, I agree that farming isn't all that important IF everyone's doing pretty darn okay. If you have a player that's going 0/5/1, and is 2 levels behind the lowest level champ on the other team and your carry isn't 17/3/12 facerolling at this point, best be sure to tell that player to farm. Nothing else they can do. Especially if you're the carry. What the heck: are you doing trying to gank without your IE yet? You're not doing any damage because they've already bought Funfires and Warden's Mails to counter your currently-pitiful AD. Don't jump in there without your Deathcap. Oh, but that's right, you got Tibbers stun! Shoot, but they've farmed up to Banshee's and Merc. Treads. All of a sudden that one stun becomes obsolete and your skills barely scratch. Farm doesn't matter late game, but that seems to only be if you've already gotten your core and are doing pretty well.

I guess if I was to make a point, I'd say that I agree that making gold is a big game-changer, and farming is the most reliable and safe way to do it.

[k-wix]

In my experience, carries definitely exist in lol - and im glad its not to the 'extreme' of classic DOTA (which I never played, so yea.) As a player though, I just don't really like the concept of the 'carry'. A set of characters who scale harder then the rest just screams imbalance to me for some reason. I get the logic behind it, adds another layer of strategy and all that, just not a fan. Jax and Tryn are two of the scariest carries in the game that ive seen, If Ashe gets huge, you at least still have a respectable shot at killing her. I've seen Jax get so obnoxiously big that no one really has any hope of stopping him.

On the subject of carries - I've recently purchased Olaf and really have no idea how to build him, People seem to say any high HP/Damage items are the general way to go. Any suggestions?

[Tensei]

In my experience, carries definitely exist in lol - and im glad its not to the 'extreme' of classic DOTA (which I never played, so yea.) As a player though, I just don't really like the concept of the 'carry'. A set of characters who scale harder then the rest just screams imbalance to me for some reason.

Why? The existence of hard carries in Dota is balanced by the fact that they are way weaker earlygame, and that gankers and supports can dominate early and midgame almost as hard as carries do lategame. There aren't any hard carries that have such a ridiculously easy earlygame as a champion like Caitlyn in LoL.

[BardicKnowledge]

In addition to Tensei's comment, note that hard carries in DotA/HoN can actively be kept without items by repeatedly ganking them, causing them to lose gold. If you think an AD carry without their Infinity Edge is terrible, imagine having to play with boots and nothing else because you went 0/6 early.

[k-wix]

Why? The existence of hard carries in Dota is balanced by the fact that they are way weaker earlygame, and that gankers and supports can dominate early and midgame almost as hard as carries do lategame. There aren't any hard carries that have such a ridiculously easy earlygame as a champion like Caitlyn in LoL.

I agree that they are balanced, I wasn't really trying to say they weren't - but as a player though - I just don't like the idea behind the concept. In general I just don't like it when one player has a large advantage over another. This is probably why I favor LoL to HoN/DOTA. The penalties for death aren't quite so severe and I feel as though its easier to make a comeback. Additionally - the games can last a really long time, In a match of Street Fighter, if i get blown out - or I end up with an unfavorable matchup, the game is only going to last a few minutes. There are some cases where a lol game can last an hour - and that can get tedious, especially if you have this gut feeling like you've already lost. More of a nitpick with the genre itself though - rather then lol and carries, they just sort've help create that atmosphere.

This is one of the reasons im so excited for Dominion though, the faster pace and shorter games is something i'll be a huge fan of.

[BardicKnowledge]

This is one of the reasons im so excited for Dominion though, the faster pace and shorter games is something i'll be a huge fan of.

Now this I can agree with -- I am absolutely pumped about Dominion. Gotta pick up Kennen permanently for it...

[prophetik music]

More of a nitpick with the genre itself though - rather then lol and carries, they just sort've help create that atmosphere.

there's also the point that bleck had where he said that any game design based around denying your opponents the ability to play the game - or, more accurately, a game designed around not playing it for half the players - is poor design.

[k-wix]

there's also the point that bleck had where he said that any game design based around denying your opponents the ability to play the game - or, more accurately, a game designed around not playing it for half the players - is poor design.

I never really thought of putting it like that. That's kinda what im getting at though.

[Dhsu]

If it's fast pace and short games you want ya'll should play TF2.

Edit: And Bloodline Champions.

[Tensei]

there's also the point that bleck had where he said that any game design based around denying your opponents the ability to play the game - or, more accurately, a game designed around not playing it for half the players - is poor design.

I still don't understand this notion. If you die, you aren't playing for 40~ seconds. This isn't exclusive to the Dotalike genre but exists in most FPSes. Does this mean that the entire concept of getting punished for death in videogames through a respawn timer is poor design?

In that sense, even a dotalike with NO crowd control at all would still be based about 'denying your opponents the ability to play the game' by making sure you kill them more than they kill you.

Edited September 2, 2011 by Tensei

[Bleck]

I still don't understand this notion. If you die, you aren't playing for 40~ seconds. This isn't exclusive to the Dotalike genre but exists in most FPSes. Does this mean that the entire concept of getting punished for death in videogames through a respawn timer is poor design?

dying and having to respawn isn't poor design

dying (because somebody walked up to you and used a thing that made it so you could not move or act and then losing gold so as to make it so you will have an even shittier time dealing with the same thing a second time and so on and so forth until badda bing the game is already lost) and having to respawn is poor design

[prophetik music]

exactly. it's crowd control, not death timers, that make DOTA-like games somewhat poor design.

now, it's FUN to make your opponent unable to do stuff, but since LoL's matchmaking system is so damned broken and doesn't take skill into account, just time investment and your recent string of wins or losses, more often than not your opponent's team is better at doing that than you are.

[zircon]

I dunno, having played a ton of HoN I don't think the crowd control is a big deal at all. You guys are judging it harshly without putting any real time into it. Tensei, Bardic and I have all played a ton of both games.

The things that make HoN less fun (for me) are the gold loss on death, extremely slow regeneration (making even tiny bits of harass annoyingly powerful) and much lower HP/mana numbers with higher ability costs on average. On the other hand, the graphics are better, the engine is much smoother, teleport stones make it more of an active game and the champion design is better.

[Mirby]

I'm not sure about HoN having never played it, but I know that I never thought I'd be able to play a game at 6fps. Which I have with a fair amount of success.

Until lag freezes me and when it unfreezes me half my team is dead and all the enemy champions magically materialize on top of me.

[Bleck]

I dunno, having played a ton of HoN I don't think the crowd control is a big deal at all. You guys are judging it harshly without putting any real time into it. Tensei, Bardic and I have all played a ton of both games.

there's a phenomenon with gamers where the more people actively play a game, the more they tend to downplay bad design choices in a game; I'm not trying to sweep away your opinions here of course but I've seen this happen too many times to think that my opinion of crowd control is just because of a lack of exposure to it

the champion design is better.

do you mean visual design? because last I checked they were still emulating Warcraft style (read: fucking retarded and ugly)

[Tensei]

dying and having to respawn isn't poor design

dying (because somebody walked up to you and used a thing that made it so you could not move or act and then losing gold so as to make it so you will have an even shittier time dealing with the same thing a second time and so on and so forth until badda bing the game is already lost) and having to respawn is poor design

I get that you dislike the snowballing effect from gold loss on death, but I still don't see the difference between being CC'd and waiting to respawn. In both cases you are not playing the game. If you look at the hypothetical Dotalike example without a CC mechanic I gave, you still deny your opponent the ability to play the game for 30-60 seconds every time you kill them, and I don't think that at that point it really matters whether that happened because of chain stuns or because of pure burst damage.

I'm pretty sure that zircon refers to HoN champions having better design in terms of original skills and concepts (i.e. not a blinkstrike and a your-next-attack-does-something-extra skill on every new hero)

I like LoLs champion design more on a visual level actually, and there are some cool concepts skillwise as well (Orianna).

[prophetik music]

I dunno, having played a ton of HoN I don't think the crowd control is a big deal at all. You guys are judging it harshly without putting any real time into it. Tensei, Bardic and I have all played a ton of both games.

The things that make HoN less fun (for me) are the gold loss on death, extremely slow regeneration (making even tiny bits of harass annoyingly powerful) and much lower HP/mana numbers with higher ability costs on average. On the other hand, the graphics are better, the engine is much smoother, teleport stones make it more of an active game and the champion design is better.

i'm judging the genre in regards to what i've played of LoL, that's true. although i've definitely put more time into playing actual matches in LoL than any of you three, having played over 250 games

[k-wix]

dying and having to respawn isn't poor design

dying (because somebody walked up to you and used a thing that made it so you could not move or act and then losing gold so as to make it so you will have an even shittier time dealing with the same thing a second time and so on and so forth until badda bing the game is already lost) and having to respawn is poor design

It's another balancing mechanic, really. You need to be able to have someone who can shut certain champions down for small windows. It adds a huge layer of strategy and depth to the game, it allows for champions like Master Yi and Leona. If CC didn't exist, Yi would be rediculous because no one could turn him off. Leona couldn't really control anything, tanking in general would be less about control and more about raw numbers, and just overall a lot simpler.

What I was getting at before though - on the subject of taking away someones ability to play the game. I wasn't talking about death, respawning, or CC. I was talking about the fact that once a player (especially a newer player) gets killed a lot, the other players are essentially taking away his ability to fight back. He stops playing the same game and essentially needs to go farm in an attempt to build himself back up to a respectable state. In an FPS or Fighting Game, even if im at an extremely low health level, I still have the capacity to win, therefore i am contributing to the game.

[eternal Zero]

I have a hard time deciding what side to take on a discussion like this. On the one hand I'm one of those players that will absolutely shut down my opponent in a game like DotA/HoN and never give you a snowball's chance in hell to beat me. That being said I've also played with the pros like Jolly who will do the same to me and it's not fun to be on the receiving end. The only thing that kept me going with games like that was the knowledge that I could do that to other people...not so great for fostering good will but it was a thriving competitive environment which I really enjoy.

I agree with CC being a flawed concept in general. It's just that considering how old this game is (DotA-type as a whole) I simply cannot see it being any other way. There's no solid substitute. Removing CC would make every normal carry into a hyper carry like Twitch or Kog'Maw (way back before when things like Innervating Locket (RIP <3) still existed) or like Razor or Viper back in....5.XX I think. A big part of getting into DotA back in the old days was using the old school gaming mentality: You're given a setting, tools, and constraints. Make it work.

This mentality still holds to an extent today and this is definitely what Bleck is seeing. He's just less ready to accept it as it's his nature when he sees something he doesn't like. (Not calling you out just pointing it out.) Personally I tend to overlook flaws as long as I personally can overcome them or know that at some point I can.

Also I've really come to like HoN's art direction less and less. This is partly why I'm super excited for DotA 2. You can clearly see Valve's influence in some of the character design and detail and I really enjoy that. There is no arguing that HoN's graphical engine is much better than LoL's though. It's much prettier to look at.

Edit: Sidenote: In terms of seniority with these games I think I take the cake by far. Just sayin'

[Bleck]

If you look at the hypothetical Dotalike example without a CC mechanic I gave, you still deny your opponent the ability to play the game for 30-60 seconds every time you kill them, and I don't think that at that point it really matters whether that happened because of chain stuns or because of pure burst damage.

I believe it does matter! It's the same thing as the difference between playing Halo 3 and dying to somebody who outmaneuvers you, takes you by surprise and uses superior skills to kill you with the Assault Rifle, or somebody who walks straight up to you and uses the Battle Rifle to kill you almost instantaneously. Both of these things end in death, but one of them feels a lot more frustrating to most players because of how inherently unfair it seems to have all of these weapons if only one of them is actually worth using. Compare that to LoL, where we have all of these mages with different attacks and spells and stuff, but why would you use any of them except the ones with instant/homing stuns?

This mentality still holds to an extent today and this is definitely what Bleck is seeing. He's just less ready to accept it as it's his nature when he sees something he doesn't like. (Not calling you out just pointing it out.)

Don't worry, I agree. I believe that game design still hasn't moved past the "here's a broken game, have fun" mentality, and I think that it's silly for anyone to imply that it can't. Tensei and Zero are right in that removing CC specifically from the structure of DotA wouldn't really work, but I believe all that means is that DotA itself is generally flawed. I'm not arguing that we should crack DotA in half or all stop playing it forever, but I do believe that trying to justify bad design elements will only continue to slow down game design, especially competitively.

Edited September 2, 2011 by Bleck