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Open beta starts august 16, next hero arrives soon

Starting Tuesday, August 16 we will be entering Free Open Beta. That means playing Paragon will be totally free, until then our Founder’s Packs and the Essentials Edition still give you an awesome deal on stuff in the game and Early Access. For all the people currently playing in Early Access, we’re working on a whole host of improvements in the coming weeks, and we will never reset your account progress. We can’t thank you enough for helping us get to this point.

Also, new Heroes every three weeks. Like this one.

We’d like to introduce you to the latest Hero. We call this melee fighter … Khaimera. He’s Paragon’s first duelist, a Hero who excels at isolating targets, and also happens to wield dual axes. Get your first look at Khaimera below. You’ll be able to play Khaimera as part of our update on Tuesday, June 21.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usjVZz2cScg

Committing to change: the future of our meta

The first, and most major piece of feedback we want to address (while not often specifically articulated) is the MOBA feel of our game. We know we’re lacking in some key areas - few strong hero roles, aberrant roaming deathmatch strategies (“Deathball”), and most importantly, a lot of the core “feeling” that MOBAs give.

Those things that MOBA players know: understanding how, and when, to trade map position for objectives; how to capitalize on a team wipe; how to rotate; where to be safe and where you’re at risk. We want more of all of this! Everything comes down to one core concept: commitment.

Map Traversal

The main culprit for most of our commitment issues comes from the way that players move around the map. Travel Mode speeds are such that lane commitments are not meaningful, fight commitments are not as significant as they should be, and lane rotations happen too quickly without consequence. The reality is, while it feels awesome to blaze across Agora at breakneck speeds, the net result is that this kind of movement has had a negative impact on the game’s long-term strategic potential and has caused excessive match length.

To address this issue, we’re going to be moving toward a version of map traversal that does not contain Travel Mode, or any other version of on-demand dynamic player movement that does not stem from specific hero kit or card abilities.

When Travel Mode is removed, we’re going to be replacing your ability to zoom around Agora with...the ability to LITERALLY zoom around Agora.

We’re going to be adding a teleport feature to the game that will allow players to rotate to structures they control on a cooldown. This will replace the typical “recall” function, and let players move to where they need to be, when they need to be there. However, since there is a cooldown, players can’t be everywhere, all at once.

That all goes back to the original goal: commitment.

A side benefit of this change will be players having the ability to respond to threats much more quickly, which will help situations where fast rotations are desirable such as a gank on your carry or a sneaky split-push when you win a 4v5 deep in enemy territory. However, this committed choice means you will no longer be able to rotate for free.

This is important for fight engagements and for a lot of the other things we need to fix. These changes mean that fights will actually happen and that players don’t have a free escape (aka Travel Mode) making heroes that have an escape ability more meaningful.

The final element of this change, when it happens, is that players will be able to purchase their upgrade cards in the field through cunning use of their P.O.D. (Power On Demand) modules. These deployable (and destroyable!) objects will let players access the shop from anywhere - but watch where you summon it.

RIP In Peace Deathball

We’ve noticed (as I am sure have you) the rotating bands of 5v5 that have plagued Agora’s gentle forests and disturbed its wildlife. While the movement changes listed above will help to discourage this behavior and give Paragon more of a strategic bent, they aren’t enough to fix a lot of the gameplay incentives that make this desirable in the first place. The two-pronged issue being:

• 100% sharing of Card Power (CP) among allies incentivizes players to always group up.
• Laning (hero matchups and building economy) isn’t presented as a strong incentive for early gameplay.

Unlike the Travel Mode changes detailed above, we’re going to be changing how CP sharing works next week. Currently, nearby people get all the Card Power. Sharing all the monies all the time encourages everyone to do everything together all the time, which leads to white hot balls of anger traversing around the map at Mach 7 claiming your monies and your tower, but that’s a one-way street of fun. To that end, we’re changing it as follows …

Match Length

Switching gears a little - we also wanted to address match times. A lot of the changes we’re making have had positive impacts on our internal tests, which are good! But they’ve also extended our match times. As part of our plan to address this, and improve player experience, we’re changing how inhibitors work.

First, super minion waves will now be a regular wave plus one super minion. This means super minions won’t be quite as punishing as they are now. Additionally, inhibitors will no longer respawn after a set time. Instead, we’re introducing an “active” inhibitor respawn mechanic for players to get back into the game.

Vision

Vision control is one of the cornerstones of the MOBA experience, and we want to make sure it is important in Paragon. We’re expecting players to rely on wards more now than ever before. Harvesters already don’t provide you vision, and players moving at combat speed through the jungle will mean more use for strategically placed vision aids. Your harvester is under attack - should you teleport in? Is it a solo Kallari, or all 5 opponents? Hmm…

Hitting an enemy Harvester now steals 100% of the CP value (instead of the lower % previously returned.) In the future, attacking a harvester will be SILENT and cause no damage (nor activate any “under attack” message) while there is still Amber inside it. Once empty, the Harvester will begin taking damage as normal.

more at the link