MOBA is an acronym for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena based games.
Not only do players in 2 parties compete for resources and kill points, but they are confined in a limited space (hence the term arena).
Now the 2 MOBA games I want to discuss are Heroes of Newerth and Valve's upcoming Dota 2.
I've been playing HoN since 2 years ago and I've played Dota 1 since roughly 3 years ago. Last year in late November, I was invited into Dota 2 beta.
And here's my insight on how both games are. To put it short, its my personal opinion on both games from a HoN player's perspective and Dota 2 Beta tester perspective.
With the recent release of ANOTHER NEW HERO in HoN, I've decided to say a few words bout it.
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With all the shortcomings of Dota 1, especially the notoriety of its extremely foul-mouthed and leaver community, Valve has certainly taken into account all of these problems when developing Dota 2 with Icefrog taking the helm. They wasted no time in tackling the issue at its source. But the solution was definitely not an instant perma-ban for leaving a few games. Tbh its quite an improvement really, and I'm not sure if any other company has thought of this already.
1) If u leave a game in Dota 2, u'll get an "Abandon". What that basically means is that u will be placed in Low Priority Matchmaking and will take longer times to find a game compared to the rest. If a person in LPMM (Low Priority Matchmaking) is invited into ur party to join a game, then the whole team would be notified that the average time to find a game has increased due to that person.
Basically this system helps keep ur leaver status in check. With the time increased, it discourages u to play, and sit out of a game. Or if u are patient enuf, u can try and wait for MM. But beware, the more u leave, the longer it will take and repeated offenses are not taken lightly. The status automatically resets after some time (If I'm not wrong, it resets after 1 day/longer depending on how severe the offense is) and u will be able to MM like normal again. This way a person is not penalized heavily incase his net service provided decided to dc on him. There are bound to be unintentional dc when playing and Dota 2 certainly doesn't penalize heavily on this.
2)When u join a game and arrive at the loading screen, if the player dc, the match wudn't continue and instead u are placed back in High Priority Match making. Whereas in HoN if a player dc at the hero pick screen, he is basically screwed. Dota 2 introduces an extra connection screen in which it ensures all players have successfully connected before allowing them to choose their heroes. This way it is pretty much fair and no one loses out.
3)Keeping the community in check.
In HoN, the only way to report a person is :
(A) U have a GM as a friend, and I know someone who does have a GM as a fren. He goes as far as texting him the game ID and tells him in H/p text msg that he will email him the screenshot.
(B) U take screenshots ingame and load them up to the forum with the ID, and pray to god he is banned for life.
What Valve did in Dota 2 was implement the Rate/Complain system ingame itself. That way u don't have to go to the forums, create an account just to report the player. Heck, u might be too lazy to even create the account in the forums.
Pressing the TAB button loads the Players name, the hero they chosed and their K/D/A (Kills/Death and Assist). It is much like the Counter Strike score board. By pressing the players name, u will see the Report button. U can click on Intentional feeding if he is feeding, or if Tiny wudnt stop tossing u to the enemy, u can click on Skill abuse and fill in the comment section. Then click sent and ur done. A msg will be received : Thank you for making the Dota 2 community a better place.
If many reports have been filed, the game will lock the player out and he is unable to login until the duration of the punishment is over. And depending on severity, u might even have the game removed from ur Steam list.
To make things even more interesting, if the player u reported has been banned, u will receive a msg the next time u login stating that he has been removed and punished for his wrong doing.
If u had a great time and enjoyed ur last game with a "Pro", u can comment on him for being a great leader by clicking the Leadership button. Or if he was kind to u and helped u, u can write sumthing nice and comment on him.
This system essentially helps snuff out bad attitude gamers and game spoilers, and encouraged mutual relationships among the community gamers. Infact there is even a column called Socialize where gamers might be able to group up and talk bout the game in the near future.
4) Leaver status.
In HoN, if u have left more than 5% of the games, u are deemed a "leaver" and can either play enough games to unblock ur account or purchase the Stat reset option to reset ur stats. Normally the number of games needed to be played is of a ridiculous amount especially if u previously played very little on that account. It is a strict and yet profitable way to milk the community at the same time. But penalizes heavily when a person unintentionally dc due to patch issues or server maintenance problems.
Dota 2 handles the game more lightly by allowing shorter and much lighter punishments that increases with weight if the offense is repeated or much more serious. This creates an environment that encourages learning and tolerace at the same time.
To put it simply, HoN does have its plus points, since it introduced the Reconnect system and Alternate announcers to substitute the Vanilla version. And the early developers did come up with amazing concepts (My fav being Puppet Master, an Intel hero with the capability to carry or Midas, a strength hero played much like an Intel hero). Hybrid concepts of an Intelligence hero played in a different way makes it interesting. However it seems such good creations and the brain power in the team has reached rock bottom.
people need to realize that the S2 team basically took a game developed on an outdated and expired engine (Dota 1) and merely added certain improvements to it. They were doing well, but not for long as they seemed to have sidetracked a lot especially in the Goblin shop department. Nowadays, a patch is less about balancing, and taking in feedbacks from the community; But rather, a marketing opportunity to sell new "Early-access heroes" and other special cosmetics available through the use of ingame coins. They can be earned by playing or purchased using real money and honestly I have done both. This system doesn't really benefit the community. It was still the same, as how S2 left the game around the patch when Nomad came out. Ntg much has improved, and the last good hero I rmb they created was probably Salforis. Nowadays the newcomers are either lousy and remade heroes or it is another agi carry hero.
The PSR system, while good during the early days placed too much emphasis on the Kill:Death ratio of a player. Such details when revealed to another player can have a major impact on the psychology of the team, essentially demoralizing them before the match has even begun. It is rather stressful trying to maintain at a certain Player Rating Skill (PSR) level, and seeing the points go up and down can be very depressing.
It was way too serious for my liking and I found the Win : Lose ratio in Dota 2 much more interesting. Only u can see the Win : Lose ratio and the number of abandons u have. If another player views ur stats, they can only see the number of games u won. This let players judge one another based on the number of games they played (Letting the experience and win rate speak for themselves) and is much more relaxing in my opinion as opposed to the PSR ratio where it is detailed. In my opinion, players shouldn't be stereotyped by the K/D/R as it penalized those that like to support, or it hammers down on those that sacrifice for a team victory.
Anyways, its just my 2 cents on the whole issue,
and I'm getting rather bored of ranting.
Dota 2 ftw,
Till then,
1) If u leave a game in Dota 2, u'll get an "Abandon". What that basically means is that u will be placed in Low Priority Matchmaking and will take longer times to find a game compared to the rest. If a person in LPMM (Low Priority Matchmaking) is invited into ur party to join a game, then the whole team would be notified that the average time to find a game has increased due to that person.
Basically this system helps keep ur leaver status in check. With the time increased, it discourages u to play, and sit out of a game. Or if u are patient enuf, u can try and wait for MM. But beware, the more u leave, the longer it will take and repeated offenses are not taken lightly. The status automatically resets after some time (If I'm not wrong, it resets after 1 day/longer depending on how severe the offense is) and u will be able to MM like normal again. This way a person is not penalized heavily incase his net service provided decided to dc on him. There are bound to be unintentional dc when playing and Dota 2 certainly doesn't penalize heavily on this.
2)When u join a game and arrive at the loading screen, if the player dc, the match wudn't continue and instead u are placed back in High Priority Match making. Whereas in HoN if a player dc at the hero pick screen, he is basically screwed. Dota 2 introduces an extra connection screen in which it ensures all players have successfully connected before allowing them to choose their heroes. This way it is pretty much fair and no one loses out.
3)Keeping the community in check.
In HoN, the only way to report a person is :
(A) U have a GM as a friend, and I know someone who does have a GM as a fren. He goes as far as texting him the game ID and tells him in H/p text msg that he will email him the screenshot.
(B) U take screenshots ingame and load them up to the forum with the ID, and pray to god he is banned for life.
What Valve did in Dota 2 was implement the Rate/Complain system ingame itself. That way u don't have to go to the forums, create an account just to report the player. Heck, u might be too lazy to even create the account in the forums.
Pressing the TAB button loads the Players name, the hero they chosed and their K/D/A (Kills/Death and Assist). It is much like the Counter Strike score board. By pressing the players name, u will see the Report button. U can click on Intentional feeding if he is feeding, or if Tiny wudnt stop tossing u to the enemy, u can click on Skill abuse and fill in the comment section. Then click sent and ur done. A msg will be received : Thank you for making the Dota 2 community a better place.
If many reports have been filed, the game will lock the player out and he is unable to login until the duration of the punishment is over. And depending on severity, u might even have the game removed from ur Steam list.
To make things even more interesting, if the player u reported has been banned, u will receive a msg the next time u login stating that he has been removed and punished for his wrong doing.
If u had a great time and enjoyed ur last game with a "Pro", u can comment on him for being a great leader by clicking the Leadership button. Or if he was kind to u and helped u, u can write sumthing nice and comment on him.
This system essentially helps snuff out bad attitude gamers and game spoilers, and encouraged mutual relationships among the community gamers. Infact there is even a column called Socialize where gamers might be able to group up and talk bout the game in the near future.
4) Leaver status.
In HoN, if u have left more than 5% of the games, u are deemed a "leaver" and can either play enough games to unblock ur account or purchase the Stat reset option to reset ur stats. Normally the number of games needed to be played is of a ridiculous amount especially if u previously played very little on that account. It is a strict and yet profitable way to milk the community at the same time. But penalizes heavily when a person unintentionally dc due to patch issues or server maintenance problems.
Dota 2 handles the game more lightly by allowing shorter and much lighter punishments that increases with weight if the offense is repeated or much more serious. This creates an environment that encourages learning and tolerace at the same time.
To put it simply, HoN does have its plus points, since it introduced the Reconnect system and Alternate announcers to substitute the Vanilla version. And the early developers did come up with amazing concepts (My fav being Puppet Master, an Intel hero with the capability to carry or Midas, a strength hero played much like an Intel hero). Hybrid concepts of an Intelligence hero played in a different way makes it interesting. However it seems such good creations and the brain power in the team has reached rock bottom.
people need to realize that the S2 team basically took a game developed on an outdated and expired engine (Dota 1) and merely added certain improvements to it. They were doing well, but not for long as they seemed to have sidetracked a lot especially in the Goblin shop department. Nowadays, a patch is less about balancing, and taking in feedbacks from the community; But rather, a marketing opportunity to sell new "Early-access heroes" and other special cosmetics available through the use of ingame coins. They can be earned by playing or purchased using real money and honestly I have done both. This system doesn't really benefit the community. It was still the same, as how S2 left the game around the patch when Nomad came out. Ntg much has improved, and the last good hero I rmb they created was probably Salforis. Nowadays the newcomers are either lousy and remade heroes or it is another agi carry hero.
The PSR system, while good during the early days placed too much emphasis on the Kill:Death ratio of a player. Such details when revealed to another player can have a major impact on the psychology of the team, essentially demoralizing them before the match has even begun. It is rather stressful trying to maintain at a certain Player Rating Skill (PSR) level, and seeing the points go up and down can be very depressing.
It was way too serious for my liking and I found the Win : Lose ratio in Dota 2 much more interesting. Only u can see the Win : Lose ratio and the number of abandons u have. If another player views ur stats, they can only see the number of games u won. This let players judge one another based on the number of games they played (Letting the experience and win rate speak for themselves) and is much more relaxing in my opinion as opposed to the PSR ratio where it is detailed. In my opinion, players shouldn't be stereotyped by the K/D/R as it penalized those that like to support, or it hammers down on those that sacrifice for a team victory.
Anyways, its just my 2 cents on the whole issue,
and I'm getting rather bored of ranting.
Dota 2 ftw,
Till then,
