• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Heroes of Newerth |OT| Free-To-Play [PC /Mac /Linux]

A

Archaon

Member
I started it up for the first time yesterday, joined the GAF channel and got a couple of clan invitations, but never saw any way to actually accept the invitation. I did a search and some message board posts were saying that it shows up in your notifications, but when I looked there the only things showing up were the couple of games I played. Help please! :(

Also, does anyone have any suggestions on heroes for a newbie to start out with? I played a few games with Zephyr last night only to read elsewhere that he was one of the more advanced heroes and probably not a good place to start. To give you an idea of where I'm at, I'm in Diamond in sc2, but have never played a DotA game before beyond a handful of casual games of the wc3 mod with friends. I've watched some videos with last-hitting/denying and understand the concept, but am not any good at it yet.

Is there a glossary of terms anywhere for HoN? It felt like some of my teammates were speaking another language at times.

Thanks!
 
L

Lone_Prodigy

Member
I remember when I first started I would go 1v1 mid wars against my brother. We just picked random heroes. I remember he really liked Defiler because she could push towers really well with her ult. I would also toggle Steamboots, thinking that extra Agi would give more movement speed. Not sure which one of us discovered TP's but I picked Chronos once and kept using his ult to interrupt it. My item choices were usually Staff or Runed Axe because I liked the regen from Sustainer (old Staff used Sustainer + Icon of Goddess).

Don't think I ever knew about wards or denying when I started playing pub games.

Amazing how much I've learned since then. :lol

Best newb hero is probably Plague Rider. Every skill is targeted, he has amazing movement speed so you can practice juking, and his ult is easy to pull off (wait until there are no creeps around).

Other support heroes like Witch Slayer, Voodoo Jester, and Pollywog are relatively easy to play as well.
 
A

Anbokr

Bull on a Donut
Most of the int heroes are a good way to kick off the game. Picking an agi hard carry will almost always lead to disaster for a newbie, because that takes a lot of map awareness, constant ricing and last hitting--and you have to end up carrying the team as the game goes later.

A lot of the strength initiators are also fun for starters--I used to play legionnaire all the time.
 
M

Meeru

Banned
Archaon said:
I started it up for the first time yesterday, joined the GAF channel and got a couple of clan invitations, but never saw any way to actually accept the invitation. I did a search and some message board posts were saying that it shows up in your notifications, but when I looked there the only things showing up were the couple of games I played. Help please! :(

Also, does anyone have any suggestions on heroes for a newbie to start out with? I played a few games with Zephyr last night only to read elsewhere that he was one of the more advanced heroes and probably not a good place to start. To give you an idea of where I'm at, I'm in Diamond in sc2, but have never played a DotA game before beyond a handful of casual games of the wc3 mod with friends. I've watched some videos with last-hitting/denying and understand the concept, but am not any good at it yet.

Is there a glossary of terms anywhere for HoN? It felt like some of my teammates were speaking another language at times.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
http://www.nigmanoname.com/prodex.html

All you new gaffers, this site will help you tons.
 
E

erpg

GAF parliamentarian


The Monkey King stands triumphantly atop the snow-capped peak. Who will challenge this conqueror of the heavens and proprietor of chaos? He has endured a grueling journey to completion, rife with change and sacrifice. Let's see his transformation from a humble harlequin to a peerless disciple of immortals.

-

The Harlequin was one of my first submitted designs as a community member in 2009; an agility hero who manipulated opponents' movement, whose gameplay was not just at the behest of the player, but followed an implied cadence that dictated a forceful, forward flow. Even after I was hired, I had long desired to implement some form of the Harlequin, but ran into a myriad of problems in its practical implementation, specifically with Carousel. Though it seemed innovative on paper, the manipulation of facing direction and turn rate felt unnatural and unintuitive to the affected players. I decided to effectively start from scratch with the abilities, only keeping an activated, targeted version of the Hop passive that eventually become the Monkey King's Heavenly Vault.

(W) Heavenly Vault: The Monkey King plays a game of leap frog on a series of opponents, using their heads as springboards to launch himself further. Unfortunately for his victims, monkey feet are heavy, and they are knocked backwards.

From the start, we knew that this would be the centerpiece of the hero; it was a unique movement mechanic that depended heavily on player reaction and positioning. Landing successive Heavenly Vaults was incredibly satisfying to pull off and rewarded the player with additional movement and displacement. From here, two additional abilities were built that satisfied the original theme of the Harlequin, which was to strike without being struck. Instead of Harlequin manipulating your opponents and causing frustration, the Monkey King would manipulate himself in different ways.

(Q) Illusive Dash: The Monkey King quickly dashes forward a short distance, striking every enemy he contacts. Seconds later, he performs a second dash.

(E) Thousand Jin Slam: The Monkey King brings down his magic staff at full force, causing a mountain of earth to erupt in front of him, thrusting victims into the air before imploding.

Key to these three abilities would be the interplay between them. All three skills synergistically boost each other: you may perform a Heavenly Vault from a Thousand Jin Slam to vault over a cliff that would normally block movement, or use Illusive Dash between successive Heavenly Vaults to cover distance towards your next target. The core gameplay of the hero had been established firmly, which made conceiving a unique, fun, yet impactful ultimate fairly difficult. We toyed with several ideas, including leaving a trail of fire (while playing the Guile Theme for moral support), breaking out of CC in a burst of power (scrapped due to our unwillingness to make an exception to the "silenced/stunned" rule), and various passives that synergized with the Monkey King's playstyle but ultimately failed to fulfill the sense of epicness that the hero deserved. Conceptually, the ultimate had to feel like an ultimate, yet could not steal the show from the basic abilities, making the perfect middle ground very difficult to reach. In the end, we drew from the Monkey King's lore.

(R) Flying Nimbus: Noncombat mount. When not taking damage, the Monkey King may choose to coast upon a magic cloud, gaining movement speed and other bonuses.

Though it's simple, Flying Nimbus served as an out-of-combat foil to the speedy combat design, and was able to be impactful without being overwhelming or unnecessarily adding additional unwanted dimensions to an intricate clockwork of existing basic abilities.

Crucial to the design was the aforementioned rhythm that originated with the Harlequin: the set pace at which the hero glides through battle and the distance the hero travels for each skill have all been timed and tested meticulously, optimized in order to never leave a lull in battle. In psychology we describe a phenomenon called flow, a mental state of deep immersion that results in peak performance during the process. It would be presumptuous to declare that the Monkey King has reached this nirvana, but it is designed to facilitate it. Designing, scripting, and testing the Monkey King has been a labor of love for us, and we certainly hope you will share that enjoyment when you play him.

The Monkey King arrives... very soon

PS: Matt Mercer, who voiced Fei Long in Street Fighter 4, will be performing the Monkey King lines!
Click to expand...
 
G

Guesong

Member
Monkey King sounds pretty awesome, can't wait to try him out

Though at this rate they won't have any more hero slots open. What happens then? :S
 
T

Trasher

Member
Guesong said:
Monkey King sounds pretty awesome, can't wait to try him out

Though at this rate they won't have any more hero slots open. What happens then? :S
Click to expand...
They just add more...lol. The hero screen has gotten bigger and bigger.
 
B

Beads

Member
Guesong said:
Monkey King sounds pretty awesome, can't wait to try him out

Though at this rate they won't have any more hero slots open. What happens then? :S
Click to expand...
Pretty sure it has filled up in the past, and I believe they just added more columns and rows.
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Seems a bit complicated.

But interesting to see if they can get it to work.
 
A

Archie

Second-rate Anihawk
"Monkey King"? Hoo boy. Way to further ignite the MOBA Hatfield/McCoy feud, S2. (Yeah I'm aware both are based on Chinese mythology, but talk about ironic timing)
 
D

delirium

Member
Archie said:
"Monkey King"? Hoo boy. Way to further ignite the MOBA Hatfield/McCoy feud, S2. (Yeah I'm aware both are based on Chinese mythology, but talk about ironic timing)
Click to expand...
People are already saying S2 copied Riot on the LoL forums despite the fact that concept art of him has been shown in 2010 on the internet.
 
S

Sanjay

Member
Anbokr said:
Gotta start using hotkeys bro; they make a huge difference in terms of speed. When I was watching you yesterday, I could tell there was like a 1-2 second delay between when you wanted to use an ability and when it got used, and that's all the enemy needs to juke/kill you.
Click to expand...

I'm in-consistent with my use of hot-keys for heroes. I use them for heroes with AOE skills like pest stun, beh ulti etc but not for direct casting skills like Zeus's skill 1 and 2 nukes. Oddly enough I love using hot keys for Arachna as it actually gives an advantage with not aggroing creeps.

The reason for not always using hot-keys is because I have my hands on the arrows keys moving the camera around a lot of the times. I really need to remap the keys so I don't have to move my hands across the keyboard so much.
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Sanjay said:
The reason for not always using hot-keys is because I have my hands on the arrows keys moving the camera around a lot of the times. I really need to remap the keys so I don't have to move my hands across the keyboard so much.
Click to expand...
Wat.
 
T

Tomat

Wanna hear a good joke? Waste your time helping me! LOL!
There best be some people on for an IH game in an hour. Forget the fact that it's still early in the morning, I need something to spectate.
 
T

Tomat

Wanna hear a good joke? Waste your time helping me! LOL!
Nope, just spectate. I'm still too new/too much of a wuss to actually play.
 
D

delirium

Member
An2x : We heard that S2staff is going to GamesCon 2011 representative, and is that you since you are in Germany and you are a community manager.

S2Nigma : I myself am going to Gamescom on my own time- meaning I probably won't be doing anything official there other than shaking some hands and being impressed. That isn't to say nothing will happen at Gamescom... I guess you'll just have to wait and see.
Click to expand...

Hmmm....

http://heroes-ofnewerth.blogspot.com/2011/07/honblog-interview-with-s2nigma.html
 
K

kagete

Member
Meeru said:
Nigma knows what's gonna happen in Gamescon
Click to expand...

Is he going to rip off his shirt to reveal a Valve/Dota2 tanktop underneath? Or maybe he can run on stage during the Dota2 announcement and knee Gabe in the balls, do a stunner on icefrog then grab the mic : "HON is Free2Play starting today, 10 new heroes (all 100% DOTA ports), custom map editor, 10v10 allowed on default map, Goblin store now sells hats and sexier alternate avatar outfits. GGNORE"
 
D

delirium

Member
kagete said:
Is he going to rip off his shirt to reveal a Valve/Dota2 tanktop underneath? Or maybe he can run on stage during the Dota2 announcement and knee Gabe in the balls, do a stunner on icefrog then grab the mic : "HON is Free2Play starting today, 10 new heroes (all 100% DOTA ports), custom map editor, 10v10 allowed on default map, Goblin store now sells hats and sexier alternate avatar outfits. GGNORE"
Click to expand...
You know what? I would buy gold coins to see that.
 
J

Jenga

Banned
man fuck both hon and lol monkey king designs

i want my light hearted traditionally dressed monkey king who's ult has him yell out "ARE YOU READY FOR OLD MONKEY?!" or something of that sort

he'd also have a stun (because he can freeze people) and wind ranged magic attack because he has a shitload of more powers

the nimbus ult is cool, but they need to utilize his mini monkey hair abilities

anyways im such a big fan of journey to the west i might main him in both games
 
T

Tomat

Wanna hear a good joke? Waste your time helping me! LOL!
kagete said:
Is he going to rip off his shirt to reveal a Valve/Dota2 tanktop underneath? Or maybe he can run on stage during the Dota2 announcement and knee Gabe in the balls, do a stunner on icefrog then grab the mic : "HON is Free2Play starting today, 10 new heroes (all 100% DOTA ports), custom map editor, 10v10 allowed on default map, Goblin store now sells hats and sexier alternate avatar outfits. GGNORE"
Click to expand...

Not gonna lie, I'd be disappointed if this game goes F2P considering I just bought it.
 
T

Tomat

Wanna hear a good joke? Waste your time helping me! LOL!
It's all about the entitlement. (I'm kidding)

Also that's $10 I could still have in my pocket, small amount or no. Not crying about it, just sayin'
 
I

Ikuu

Had his dog run over by Blizzard's CEO
Unless you buy the game the day or week before f2p then you have no reason to be upset, game was well worth the $10 I spent on it.
 
T

Tomat

Wanna hear a good joke? Waste your time helping me! LOL!
Well how sure are we that it's even going to go F2P in the first place?
 
T

Troblin

Member
If HON goes F2P, the game will probably become unplayable. Everyone will create new accounts to smurf, 1500 range will be unplayable. There will also be no reprocussions to leaving, if you can create a new F2P account in 2 minutes...
 
L

Lone_Prodigy

Member
Yeah MM would be destroyed if they went F2P, unless they restrict it to paid accounts only.

Actually I don't see why they couldn't go F2P. Trial accounts have no access to MM, can't earn coins, and only play pub no-stats games. Just extend the trial to forever. Only issue is if the servers can handle the load.

Either way I got my $30 worth. I was reluctant at first when they left beta but it was in beta for like a year and I played a lot. Should've jumped on it earlier to get the shield and taunt, in hindsight.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Concord? Sony is ignoring a potentially great free to play multiplayer shooter that they already own, and that game is Destiny 2.
2
75
3K
LegendOfKage replied
Deadlock |OT|
|OT| Community 2
82
5K
Robot Carnival replied
Free-to-play anime-style hero tactical shooter Fate Trigger: The Novita announced for PS5, Xbox Series, PC, and mobile
News Trailer
42
2K
Spyxos replied
The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak | Preview Thread | Free Demo Available on PS4 and Switch on June 4
Opinion Trailer 2
51
3K
Thick Thighs Save Lives replied
Chernobylite 2: Exclusion Zone – Official Reveal Trailer - Coming to Consoles and PC in 2025
12
960
M1chl replied
Top Bottom