30 replies to this topic

[IanD967]

plasmatorture, on 19 April 2012 - 10:13 AM, said:

Also on the topic of porting heroes over, there's a LoL hero who heavily utilizes a fairy, whose abilities include shrinking an enemy, making an ally larger, and shielding allies. Which, by the way, is exactly how they described SoaDA's Fairy hero... so there certainly are some major similarities being shown already.

LuLu. HAte that sodding Yordle ;p always shrinks me and hitting me from a bush that for some reason doesn't reveal her.
Difference is that LuLu is actually more of an offensive support. Her shield also grants an attack, her shield if cast on an enemy is a DOT nevermind all the others of shrinking enemies and enlarging allies (which also heals them)

Wheras I think the SoaDA fairy-champ would be more defensivein terms of power (though I haven't heard anything at all about her abilities)

Edited by IanD967, 19 April 2012 - 11:58 PM.

[CWheezy]

plasmatorture, on 19 April 2012 - 10:13 AM, said:

Bolded where you're really wrong.

I do agree LoL would be better if you could pay a flat fee, have all champs, have all runes and be level 30 from the get go. However, besides runes and masteries the game is otherwise the full game from the get go. By the time you can play ranked you still will be really shitty compared to most people who are playing ranked. These games (like SC and SF) require massive amounts of timesink to be competitively viable.

While LoL doesn't have an ideal system, it is years better than SF's "sit in training mode for 500 years before you can compete with anyone" system. At least LoL you get better and learn how to play by actually playing the game.

This post shows you do not have very much understanding on how extremely valuable runes and masteries are, and how much they really change the game. Try jungling at level 1, with any character. Can you even do it? Is it really great in league of legends, where maybe the most important role is the jungler at high level, that is not even possible with many top tier junglers at level 1!
It also shows you do not understand how to become a good street fighter player, and that you think you can learn how to play league of legends optimally by just playing!
The best street fighter players become better by playing the best, that is all there is to it

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I get the feeling you are one of those people who never learnt patience as a virtue, you want to get ranked immediately even without learning how to play a specific character, the difference between playing an RTS that is predominantly 1v1 and a MOBA that is predominantly 5v5 is that there are 4 other people who have to put up with the fact that you don't know how to play your character and that can be the difference between winning and losing.

You are basically just using personal attacks in lieu of a real argument, which sucks. You are also avoiding the point you made before, probably because that was mostly personal attacks and the regutation made you look bad, haha.

Anyways if your claim is "You should have to grind for a year before you can play ranked, otherwise you will be bad", I would like to point out the fact that time does not equal skill. The best baseball player in the MLB is not the one who has played the longest, the best sc2 player is not the one who has played the longest, the best sf player is certainly not the one who has played for the longest

Also, you say that I might not know how to play the specific hero in ranked. Let's say I have done the grinding that you wish for me to do, but have done all my grinding with Hero B. Ranked gets unlocked, and I don't know how to play Hero A at all, but I decided to pick him. The exact same effect happens to the other players! Does that mean I have to grind each individual hero to level 30 or whatever, in order to pick them in ranked? It seems in your world, this would be the optimal solution

[Astorax]

It all comes down to intent and what kind of player you are...

The serious players about ranked, the ones that want to be competitive, don't diversify like you're describing CWheezy. They don't grind up with one champ, and then suddenly decide to swap to another one for grins and giggles. Look at all the top teams in LoL right now. Each player knows MAYBE 5/6 champs total. The reason is, that all play differently...just because you're amazing with one style of champ, you're not going to be great at another. I'm fantastic at AD carry, I'm TERRIBLE at jungling.

To whomever said playing an hour a day for a year gets you lvl 30 is insane. It takes maybe a month or two at a game a day since they introduced the win of the day mechanic. You get double IP and XP each day you get a win (only the first win). With the amount of IP you get from that, you'll also then have plenty of points to buy a champ or two you want to focus on, as well as enough runes to fill out a page for them. No, you won't have enough to own all the champs and all the runs you want, but that's the f2p model world round.

In the same vein, the comment about ranked games and the multiplayer aspect is spot on as well. Just because you WANT to hop into ranked games instantly, doesn't mean you should, given that your choices affect 9 other people in this genre of game. The XP curve is pretty solid (I think) in terms of "forcing" the player into a certain number of game hours before they're permitted into ranked games. It's enough time for them to get a handle on mechanics, and figure out which style of champion they enjoy playing (even if you haven't bought a champ, they rotate which champions are free to play every two weeks so you can play a variety of them easily) before they can affect other players' ranks.

SoaDA is actually gonna be worse in that respect from an experience standpoint because not only do you have different champions to wrap your head around, you have a commander to work with (or be). That means not only do you have to learn the mechanics of the basic game, you have to figure out how best to work with a player that's not even playing another champion, but is playing your commander. How to deal with a bad commander and compensate to still win, how and when to ignore their commands. You have to learn to trust your good commanders and NOT ignore their commands. Learning how to tell when a commander is good or not...all these things contribute to the complexity level of the game which need to be learned before hopping right into a ladder IMO.

[CWheezy]

Astorax, on 20 April 2012 - 08:04 AM, said:

To whomever said playing an hour a day for a year gets you lvl 30 is insane. It takes maybe a month or two at a game a day since they introduced the win of the day mechanic. You get double IP and XP each day you get a win (only the first win). With the amount of IP you get from that, you'll also then have plenty of points to buy a champ or two you want to focus on, as well as enough runes to fill out a page for them. No, you won't have enough to own all the champs and all the runs you want, but that's the f2p model world round.

I've actually calculated it out at around 160 hours of play, or 80 hours if you spend money.

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In the same vein, the comment about ranked games and the multiplayer aspect is spot on as well. Just because you WANT to hop into ranked games instantly, doesn't mean you should, given that your choices affect 9 other people in this genre of game. The XP curve is pretty solid (I think) in terms of "forcing" the player into a certain number of game hours before they're permitted into ranked games. It's enough time for them to get a handle on mechanics, and figure out which style of champion they enjoy playing (even if you haven't bought a champ, they rotate which champions are free to play every two weeks so you can play a variety of them easily) before they can affect other players' ranks.

Again, you are confusing time with skill. You know what happens when a new game is released for street fighter? There are Day 1 tournaments! For money!
You can literally go online and play ranked, and lose all you want until you learn what is what. The league of legends curve is actually horrible, because it is literally a different game at level 1 compared to high level 30. A lot of champions cannot be played even close to properly, especially because they are tested and balanced around level 30.

Also you say that I affect 9 other players if I am not very good at the start, what about in ranked street fighter? If I play 9 matches I have affected 9 other people who get a free win off me.

One of the best ways to learn is by playing. If there is a proper matchmaking system, you will be put to your proper elo quickly.

I don't see a difference between someone being bad and losing, vs someone being incredibly awesome for their elo and crushing the oppoents, therefore giving 4 other players a win they shouldn't have

[Astorax]

CWheezy, on 20 April 2012 - 11:41 AM, said:

I've actually calculated it out at around 160 hours of play, or 80 hours if you spend money.

That sounds like you're not taking first win bonus of the day into consideration? The leveling curve has changed since I did it at launch, so I could for sure be wrong, but I thought it was 80 hours without money if you're maximizing your time (i.e. playing one or two games per day and getting your first day win bonus). It's diminishing returns as you play more hours because you lose the bonus. So it's definitely not as cut and dried as n hours to hit x level.

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Again, you are confusing time with skill. You know what happens when a new game is released for street fighter? There are Day 1 tournaments! For money!
You can literally go online and play ranked, and lose all you want until you learn what is what. The league of legends curve is actually horrible, because it is literally a different game at level 1 compared to high level 30. A lot of champions cannot be played even close to properly, especially because they are tested and balanced around level 30.

No, skill is definitely a factor, but a new game brings with it new techniques, new skills. Transitioning from one street fighter to the next is a MUCH smaller gap than switching from say, Tekken to Street Fighter. It's a totally different consideration. To compare apples to apples it would be like going from Street Fighter 1 to 2 versus LoL version 1.0 to 2.0. Or going from Tekken to Street Fighter versus HoN to LoL. There are different mechanics in play, and while some street fighter transitions DO add a new mechanic into play (power meters, etc) the frame rate of all the players' moves doesn't change, so if you have skill with a given character in one, it will be virtually identical to the next.

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Also you say that I affect 9 other players if I am not very good at the start, what about in ranked street fighter? If I play 9 matches I have affected 9 other people who get a free win off me.

Absolutely, this is an argument in favor of NOT allowing day 1 ranked play though. For the same reason. If there's no adjustment time for the noobs to catch up, a player that happens to have very high natural ability is disproportionately skilled, and SHOULDN'T be playing with the newer players in a ranked situation. Giving a waiting period adjusts for that naturally, levelling the playing field at least a little. While yes, elo or some other matchmaking eventually evens that out, it won't fix it, and it often turns new people off from playing the game because they assume matchmaking is fubar and don't want to play. Matchmaking is broken enough without hamstringing it more.

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One of the best ways to learn is by playing. If there is a proper matchmaking system, you will be put to your proper elo quickly.

Yes, but that's relying on a good matchmaking system.

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I don't see a difference between someone being bad and losing, vs someone being incredibly awesome for their elo and crushing the oppoents, therefore giving 4 other players a win they shouldn't have

There isn't. That's yet another argument in favor of a waiting period before playing ranked/tourny games. So those wins the player shouldn't have, or the losses a player shouldn't have, don't happen in ranked on a ladder.

[Jearbear]

I like how this thread went from being about pay to win and original heroes to incredibly long posts about ranked games in LoL. Honestly, I think it varies from person to person on when someone is ready for ranked matches. Some people are ready at level 5, others still aren't ready at level 30. We also don't know if SoaDA has an account (summoner) leveling system, or how matchmaking will work, so debating LoL's system doesn't really apply to this game.

For the pay to win, I doubt SoaDA will be. Ironclad seems determined to only have cosmetic items available for purchase. If there is account leveling, I wouldn't mind if there were experience boosters in the shop. Also, if there aren't runes or a rune-like system, being able to buy point boosters wouldn't affect power at all.

[Astorax]

Jearbear, on 21 April 2012 - 11:43 AM, said:

I like how this thread went from being about pay to win and original heroes to incredibly long posts about ranked games in LoL. Honestly, I think it varies from person to person on when someone is ready for ranked matches. Some people are ready at level 5, others still aren't ready at level 30. We also don't know if SoaDA has an account (summoner) leveling system, or how matchmaking will work, so debating LoL's system doesn't really apply to this game.

For the pay to win, I doubt SoaDA will be. Ironclad seems determined to only have cosmetic items available for purchase. If there is account leveling, I wouldn't mind if there were experience boosters in the shop. Also, if there aren't runes or a rune-like system, being able to buy point boosters wouldn't affect power at all.

The reason it did that is because pay to win ties totally in to how you prepare your game for eSports. if you can't unlock the entire game at day one, you can't (likely) really be tournament ready (or ranked/ladder ready) on day one without some sort of mechanism by the game to allow for full unlock for tourneys. It was just a natural extension of the discussion.

I think it's fair to say most of us are vehemently against buying power directly.

[Jearbear]

Astorax, on 22 April 2012 - 09:19 AM, said:

The reason it did that is because pay to win ties totally in to how you prepare your game for eSports. if you can't unlock the entire game at day one, you can't (likely) really be tournament ready (or ranked/ladder ready) on day one without some sort of mechanism by the game to allow for full unlock for tourneys. It was just a natural extension of the discussion.

I think it's fair to say most of us are vehemently against buying power directly.

I can see the connection now that you point it out. I've changed topics on less. I definitely see the point about not having everything unlocked at first in a competitive game, especially if it means not being able to fill a major role like jungling.

[CWheezy]

I wonder what you mean by buying power.

If you mean buying a level 30 account in league of legends, That is sort of buying power, but it isn't going beyond the maximum, if that makes any sense. It is only buying up to the level of competition, where the game really begins. This is actually totally fair, especially for a free to play game. You can grind or not, up to you.

If you mean something like, pay 5 dollars for a potion that gives you +20 strength in game, or +5 gold per second, or pay 5 dollars for an exclusive product only a certain amount of people can get, I think this kind of paying for power is horrible

[murdeoc]

the thing is cwheezy,
i trust you on knowing how to play, but the option makes it just as interesting and maybe even more to people who dont know how to play and they will do so as well. you will have noobs buying into the ranked games because they can afford it, not because they can handle it. i think thats where the metaphorical poop will hit the ventilator.

[CWheezy]

Here is the thing

Bad players will be bad regardless, there is no time when they wont be bad. They will lose right away and drop to their elo, while good players will win a lot and get to their elo.

Remember that getting to the proper elo takes many many many games, hundreds even, so that each individual game becomes less and less value. So having someone lose the game for you maybe 1/10 games because it was their literal first game will basically not matter.

Also as a bonus, if you are a good player, the otehr team has statistically a higher chance of losing because of a leaver/ new player, because your team has only 4 unknowns, and the other team has 5