Unrelated subject:
I just started judging in the Tribunal.
Punishing feels good.
I mean, I played DOTA as well and I understand the frustration about buying champions.
But let's be honest with ourselves. They are a business.
That being said, the minute they let you buy power (runes/masteries) I will jump ship.
Someone please post the PUNISHPUNISHPUNISH pic
Yes I know
However I would argue that champions are a form of indirect power, since choice = power. Since the balance assumes you have access to all runes, masteries and champions. You're effectively playing an imbalanced version of the game, though the effect is so slight as to not matter all.
Still, it bugs me to no end not being able to try out the latest shit.
What if DOTA2 releases and they only cash shop they offer is cosmetic (which is the way it's looking so far.) I don't think any of the info datamined from DOTA2 points to Valve charging for champions.
If that truly is the case, I think Riot and S2 (lol) could be in some trouble.
The problem with Riot's F2P system is the bullshit rate at which you accumulate IP. They could bump it up a bit all while keeping the "pay cash and get this champion RIGHT NOW!" still appealing.
Also $10 a champ is still pretty god damn ridiculous especially considering they've pretty much given up on releasing non-6300 champs (Not sure if this is still the case, been a couple months since I have played).
What if DOTA2 releases and they only cash shop they offer is cosmetic (which is the way it's looking so far.) I don't think any of the info datamined from DOTA2 points to Valve charging for champions.
If that truly is the case, I think Riot and S2 (lol) could be in some trouble.
Exactly, that is part of the problem as well. Riot has released OP (and UP) champions in the past.
You mean 100 games of 50 to 80 IP would get you a new champion, not 1000. Also, it's more than 50 to 80. Winning a 60-minute game nets you 138, plus 150 for the first wotd. Still very low, but it means you could get a 6300 champion every three weeks by winning one match every day.It's anything from 50 to 80 IP per game right? (non ranked at least) So about 1000 games and you have enough for a new champion and maybe some runes
I just wish that DOTA2 will come out with a map editor, that way Riot will finally release theirs so people wouldn't have to wait years of begging just for a ARAB map.
DOTA will not be as big as LoL, only fanboys believe that.
It will, however, be the superior game.
/troll
but I imagine a lot of what people would design would revolve around something not based on MOBA gameplay.
I'm just saying, it's nothing compared to the fact that rune pages and champions cost 7.50 USD each. You can't seriously be okay with that, yet concerned about leftover RP.
You mean 100 games of 50 to 80 IP would get you a new champion, not 1000. Also, it's more than 50 to 80. Winning a 60-minute games nets you 138, plus 150 for the first wotd. Still very low...
Yes I know
However I would argue that champions are a form of indirect power, since choice = power, especially in Draft. As the overall balance assumes players have access to all runes, masteries and champions, you're effectively playing an imbalanced version of the game without every champ, though the effect is so slight as to not matter all, especially in lower level brackets.
Still, it bugs me to no end not being able to try out the latest shit. The anticipation of a new hero is really dampened by the fact that I have to ask myself "can I afford this with IP/do I want to spend $10 on this?" every damn time. Ironically, their uninspired champion design actually alleviates matters somewhat. Now when I do buy champions, I only buy waifus.
Yes, and we do, but what started this discussion was someone saying they were okay with the prices, but not the RP system.Well, we can dislike both of those things.
The spirit of competition demands that you want your game to be as balanced as possible. Mind you when I say balance I don't mean "every champion needs to be as good as every other champion", but "every strategy needs to have risks proportional to its rewards". So you can release a champion that can instakill someone else at level 6, as long as that champion is some mix of:
1. Really difficult to play
2. Requires lots of farm
3. Really fragile
And I don't think anyone really enjoys blatant imbalance. Like release Vlad. Or release Xin Zhao. Or release Irelia (which was kind of a time delayed imbalance because it took a month or two for people to realize she was really good).
The spirit of competition demands that you want your game to be as balanced as possible. Mind you when I say balance I don't mean "every champion needs to be as good as every other champion", but "every strategy needs to have risks proportional to its rewards". So you can release a champion that can instakill someone else at level 6, as long as that champion is some mix of:
1. Really difficult to play
2. Requires lots of farm
3. Really fragile
When I see Riot selling champions, I don't really care about its impact on my enjoyment of the game (because as you say, it's negligible). However, I do care that Riot is willing to compromise balance in order to turn a profit. This is, above all else, an inexcusable mentality in a designer who is trying to sell their game as competitively balanced. It's more of a matter of principles than pragmatism.
And I don't think anyone really enjoys blatant imbalance. Like release Vlad. Or release Xin Zhao. Or release Irelia (which was kind of a time delayed imbalance because it took a month or two for people to realize she was really good).
Talon pubstomps Dominion.I am sitting on 32k IP right now, though. I've been thinking about picking up Fiora and Talon for Dominion, they seem fun.
Xin was pretty much the most op. 25% on ult. Massive damage. He was guaranteed FB just by himself.
See for yourselfWas that the only OP thing about him? Or were there other things?
After the discussion about champs equaling power since having more champs = being able to fill more roles and being able to counterpick and avoid being counterpicked yourself, I have been trying to do the math to figure out how your odds of having a bad team comp change in relation to how many people in your team of 5 are willing to flexible in what role they play. Unfortunately, I am not very smart, so I may have made terrible errors in the math.
First, let's start with the situation where right when they queue up, each of the five members of a team has one specific role in mind that they are going to play NO MATTER WHAT, and they are all assholes who won't change their minds. Let's assume that we're talking about the standard five roles of top, AP mid, AD carry, support, and jungler (leaving out variables like team comp and the fact that the roles are not equally popular).
The first person to pick would have a 100% chance that their role wasn't already taken, the second person would have an 80% (4/5) chance their chosen role was free, the third person 60%, the fourth 40%, and the fifth 20%. Since they are independent events, multiplying them out should give the probability that no two players want the same role.
(1)(.8)(.6)(.4)(.2) = .0384, i.e., your team has less than a 4% chance of having all the roles filled and a 96.16% chance that you are fucked.
If just one person is completely flexible and willing to play any role, you get:
(1)(.8)(.6)(.4) = .192, i.e., you've improved your chances of having a proper team comp to nearly 20 percent, so even if every other player on your team is an inflexible douche, by just you being flexible, you've increased your chances of having a standard team comp from four to nearly twenty percent.
If you figure it out for each number of flexible players, you get:
No one willing to change: ~4% chance of good team comp
1 willing to change: ~19% chance of good team comp
2 willing to change: ~48% chance of good team comp
3 willing to change: ~80% chance of good team comp
4 or 5: 100% (obviously)
Therefore, assuming you as an individual in solo queue is able and willing to play any role needed, and you allow all other players to pick first, you always bump your probability of good team comp one notch up into the next better probability bracket. So assuming the other random 9 people (between both teams) are equally likely to be ass hats, you being flexible significantly improves your odds for solid team comp and thus improves your winning percentage in solo queue. This also helps explain why duo-queueing can improve your chances or victory greatly because if both you and your friend are flexible with your roles, your odds of having a proper team are vastly better than if you were just flexible by yourself. If you duo-queue, if at least one of the three randoms you're with is willing to do whatever, you're already up to an 80% for a good team, if the other two people absolutely unwilling to bend.
That's if you assume everyone can only played one role. The only important role that take unique set of skill are jungler and support. Jungler need to know how to balance farm vs gang, and control/time dragon/buff/baron. Support need to know how to baby sit their ad carry, prevent gang, help escape, time jungle, ward, clear ward, surviving/contributing with welfare item.
Top, mid and AD basically is farm farm farm farm, kill enemy more than they kill you, and group up in team fight. If you know one you know how to do them all.
The spirit of competition demands that you want your game to be as balanced as possible. Mind you when I say balance I don't mean "every champion needs to be as good as every other champion", but "every strategy needs to have risks proportional to its rewards". So you can release a champion that can instakill someone else at level 6, as long as that champion is some mix of:
1. Really difficult to play
2. Requires lots of farm
3. Really fragile
When I see Riot selling champions, I don't really care about its impact on my enjoyment of the game (because as you say, it's negligible). However, I do care that Riot is willing to compromise balance in order to turn a profit. This is, above all else, an inexcusable mentality in a designer who is trying to sell their game as competitively balanced. It's more of a matter of principles than pragmatism.
And I don't think anyone really enjoys blatant imbalance. Like release Vlad. Or release Xin Zhao. Or release Irelia (which was kind of a time delayed imbalance because it took a month or two for people to realize she was really good).
1. I have not played LoL for a few weeks now, though I always come back for a game or two to check out the latest waifu.
2. I'm not sure how that relates to what I'm saying at all. I'm talking about Riot favoring profit over purity of competition.
3. Imagine if, every three months, Blizzard released a new Talent tree for every class, and let's ignore the impracticality of this for the sake of argument. However, you could not access those trees unless you played a few hundred Arena/BG games, OR, if you pay them $10.
In this hypothetical situation, Blizzard does PVP balancing under the assumption that every Talent tree is available to every class. So, maybe Feral would get nerfed because of its synergy with a new tree, let's call it Dragonform. However, you do not have Dragonform, so basically if you were a Feral druid, you either respec or play with an explicitly disadvantaged class.
An extreme exaggeration sure, but that is effectively what Riot is doing.
That is what I have trouble with. No responsible designer should do that, because it shows that they care more about profit than the health of their community/competitive scene. This is especially insulting because during the early stages of the game, Riot made a big deal about "not selling power". Well guess what? Choice IS power. Rune pages are proof of that, yet why are champions held to a different standard?
I dunno, I think DotA2 is going to be fucking massive, and I love LoL.DOTA will not be as big as LoL, only fanboys believe that.
It will, however, be the superior game.
/troll
Aware of this, and I know that ultimately selling champions does not affect the game at all, because what really matters is what happens at the pro levels. Even though Riot, for some reason, does balance for casual play (another thing I disagree with).The mere fact that one competitive player can buy a champion has no advantagous effect because it takes a large amount of practice to play them at a competitive level anyway.
I think it suffers from accessibility issues. Valve, so far, has shown no plans on how to ease new players into the genre. So until they do, I'm going to assume that DOTA will be harder to get into the later you join the party.I dunno, I think DotA2 is going to be fucking massive, and I love LoL.