MOBA/'Lane Pusher' thread

[Trelliz]

I've been watching/reading more information about the highly unusual genesis of the MOBA genre - Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas - a massively popular mongrel of other genre staples that is beginning to become an important element of online gaming - League of Legends now has more registered players that World of Warcraft - however it is something that I have no experience or great knowledge of.

I've watched a number of vids of League of Legends, as well as Valve's upcoming DOTA 2, and I have an understanding of how the game works and terminology - jungling, creeps, towers, lanes etc, as well as how apparently toxic, elitist, rude and insular the community is towards anyone who is not ultra-hardcore, especially as matches can last a hell of a long time.

I was wondering what the general mood/attitude towards them on here is. As I say, it is something I have never tried, and feel that I should at least have a go at. I know there's a huge schism betwee League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth, so am unsure which one to try first - I think LoL is comparatively noob-friendly compared to HoN, but I'd rather give Valve's efforts a go, as they have yet to do wrong, just waiting for a beta invite which, given my complete non-experience of the genre, could be at the bottom of the heap, or at least until they add the social/tutorial functions.

[False]

[melatonin]

Haven't really paid attention to it much since the days of Lemar and Ms Dynamite. Heard Rihanna did well this year though.

[Mogster]

I've been watching/reading more information about the highly unusual genesis of the MOBA genre - Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas - a massively popular mongrel of other genre staples that is beginning to become an important element of online gaming - League of Legends now has more registered players that World of Warcraft - however it is something that I have no experience or great knowledge of.

I've watched a number of vids of League of Legends, as well as Valve's upcoming DOTA 2, and I have an understanding of how the game works and terminology - jungling, creeps, towers, lanes etc, as well as how apparently toxic, elitist, rude and insular the community is towards anyone who is not ultra-hardcore, especially as matches can last a hell of a long time.

I was wondering what the general mood/attitude towards them on here is. As I say, it is something I have never tried, and feel that I should at least have a go at. I know there's a huge schism betwee League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth, so am unsure which one to try first - I think LoL is comparatively noob-friendly compared to HoN, but I'd rather give Valve's efforts a go, as they have yet to do wrong, just waiting for a beta invite which, given my complete non-experience of the genre, could be at the bottom of the heap, or at least until they add the social/tutorial functions.

I've briefly tried HoN, and have played about ten games of LoL. LoLi definitely the more noob friendly, with bots to practice against and slightly more streamlined mechanics. It's just introduced a whole new, faster paced game mode too. As I understand it, HoN was designed to be very close to the original DOTA.

DOTA II actually looks like it's gunning for the established hardcore fanbase, and looks closer to HoN (and indeed DOTA) than LoL. It's certainly no TF2! Surprisingly I'm finding the idea of Blizzard DOTA more appealing as it's going in completely the opposite direction.

As for the gittish userbase, it's probably not as bad as you've heard but you do get some idiots. To a certain extent you can understand why people get like this while playing though, as games can last a good 45 minutes, a poor player can effectively lose the game for a team and some people take things far too seriously. I'm not exactly amazing myself incidentally, but the only time I got yelled at was in my first HoN game where I glitched out and wasn't able to control my character.

[Bigerich]

[Exodist]

My first moba was League, and since then I've dabbled in HoN, and Im hoping to get into the Dota 2 beta. I love League of Legends, I mean it has loads of problems but has some good features, the masteries, rune pages and the summoner spells are pretty good. There are loads of champs and the game is completely free, you can buy everything in the game with in-game earned currency, bar cosmetic skins. Its what really makes me keep coming back, its a fantastic game, yet you won't get bent over for not paying either. Its definitely more noob friendly than Dota, however it doesn't mean it isn't skill based either. I play League a lot any rate, I'm a big fan and will continue to play (done about just over 1000 matches of it I think).

HoN was basically meant to be Dota, just with the advantages of its own game engine and client, rather than a mod. It succeeds quite well, it is extremely like Dota, more hardcore. However there are significantly less players than League, its much harder to understand and get into, and I find it a lot more frustrating than League. At anyrate, HoN is still a blast to play, but I think your best bet is League for your first moba.

Meanwhile, Valve are making Dota 2, which is basically going to ruin HoN. Dota 2 is doing everything HoN was made to do, just probably better and with more support, and well, its Valve. Personally I can see myself moving over to Dota 2 once it comes out, quite excited about it, but I'd recommend playing a moba first before deciding whether you want it or not. Ultimately though, as an actual free to play game, League is much better.

As for the community, its awful any game. As long as you're not a pussy and can ignore all the gooseberry fool that goes around you'll be fine. Since its so heavily team reliant though, I can guarantee at one point you'll probably rage at players for making you losing a game, its pretty frustrating but thats the way it is. Trash talk and blame comes naturally, just ignore it or better yet just join in (basically every match everyone will trash talk, they say gooseberry fool, I say gooseberry fool back), can be pretty funny sometimes.

[Trelliz]

This is the best video tutorial ever:

[randomguy]

League of Legends is good fun but it has the worst community of ANY game on the internet including Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. I've played very little of HoN but I'm guessing it's very similar in that sense.

[Trelliz]

Downloaded and signed up for LoL last night, too late to actually get some games going. However, if you go from their facebook and youtube pages and like/subscribe, you can unlock two champions for free with "exclusive" skins, a big-ass minotaur and some tiny gnome-ish gal with a big gun.

I like how some champions are relatively cheap in terms of earnable currency, providing a clear and relatively easy unlock path. Of course the funky skins are only available for real money pounds, but the actual models are so small, cel-shaded and far away that they don't really seem worth it.

[Irene Demova]

Watch out for the in game community Trelliz, every game's like playing against 4 Captian Kils who are only able to communicate through text chat

[Trelliz]

I've heard many things about the foul pit of humanity that is the LoL community, I'm trying to come up with some truly inventive insults and retorts should the need arise. Plus I'm going to have a fair bit of practice against bots first to at least understand the game first.

Plus at least if they only talk through text chat it's easier to ignore than kil gobbing off over mumble. Plus, it could be amusing to screencap/fraps for amusement, ala MLG Pro Piping vids/pics.

[Exodist]

Its also really satisfying to report people after, I dunno why but me and my friends do it all the time. This said, I've said plenty of gooseberry fool over chat and had bad scores and been threatened by reports, but I've never actually been banned/suspended. As for the characters, well, some of them are cheap in terms of IP. However the 6300 ones take absolutely forever. You'll earn on average 50-100IP per game, I think it depends on how long it is and if its win or loss, and every single new champion released is 6300. That said, don't be fooled in thinking all the OP champs are the 6300 ones, in fact, a lot of champs they've released in the past few months have been awful: Shyvana for example. Some of the really great champs are pretty cheap, but I will warn you there are some awful, awful champions. If there's one thing Riot lack in, its expert game balance. Some champs are pretty OP and stay OP for ages, some are awful (Twitch for example) and just stay awful. Stay away from Karma, she is without a doubt the worst champion in the game.

My suggestion is to practice one champ in particular for a while, learn their role and what they're meant to do (apparently you've researched, so maybe you know the 5 standard roles of a team, although whether you get them or not is unknown), and just amass loads of IP. Stick to the good but cheap champs, then when/if you hit level 20, you can buy the level 3 runes. Getting runes is really important as they really help, for example you can't really jungle without them. Check websites such as Solo Mid for guides on champs too: what runes to have, masteries and items. Good luck on it anyway.

[Trelliz]

Cheers exodist. Like I say, I've got the minotaur and tiny gun-wielding gnome woman from liking their Facebook/youtube, so might start with those as I have permanent access to them, rather than the ones on rotation. Might get Master Yi as he's only around 460 IP, based purely on the humour of that vid I posted

I have an idea about player roles, pushing, jungling, lanes etc, but no experience of actually doing it. I'll actually give it a go later. It's almost a new genre that has sprung into popularity over the last year or so, so I'm very interested in seeing what it's all about, although I must say that if Valve weren't doing Dota 2, I probably wouldn't be interested tbh

Tbh I'm not that bothered about name-calling "uninstall and kill yourself" comments, it's just white noise to me, even more so in text format. Report threats are equally empty, really.

[Exodist]

I'm not sure how I got into it really, I mean I'd heard of League of Legends but I didn't actually know it was free, tried it with some friends (highly recommended) and it all came from that. You seem really interested and into it though, so I'm sure you'll be able to play well. I do recommend practising with bots, but the matchmaking is fairly good and when you're level 1 you'll still get other new players, so I wouldn't advise spending too much time on bots, since they're fairly retarded and easy. For reference the five roles usually are: Solo top, jungler, AP Mid, Ranged AD, and Support. Alistair, the minotaur guy, is a support, and Tristana is a Ranged AD. Examples of junglers would be Amumu, Nocturne, Lee-Sin, other ranged AD are like Ashe, Caitlyn, Graves, Miss Fortune, AP mid are champs like Annie, Ryze, Orianna, Xerath, Zilean, Morgana. Solo top are the tanky champs like Singed, Cho Gath, Irelia, Garen, and other support (and this is literally the entire support roster) are Sona, Soraka, Taric and Janna. Just to give you an idea of the different roles.

[Trelliz]

Cheers for the heads-up, may pester you on steam with further smaller questions etc.

I'm curious about the price system for Dota 2, something valve haven't announced yet. I suspect it may be F2P/microtransactions looking at how they've done TF2 - letting you get almost anything in game the slow way or buying for real money, which seems to fit with how things are done already. Although I doubt they'll go so far as to add tf2-style item crafting, but i'm expecting a whole load of TF2 promo items for it though

[Trelliz]

Well, this is a turnaround. Tried a match against bots, ended up fairly bored. Quit.

[Exodist]

Bored how? Too easy or just think its a gooseberry fool game?

[Mogster]

Yeah, bot games are pretty dull for anything other than learning characters, as the AI tends to stick to very basic tactics (lane, lane, lane a bit more). You get far more going on in proper matches.

[Trelliz]

There was a lot of lane action going on. I guess I'll have to just jump into an online game tomorrow, hopefully as I set myself to the "utter nooblord" setting when creating my account, I should be with vaguely similar persons.

[man-eater chimp]

Karma's underrated, play it right and she's an absolute beast.

I play League of Legends, but I haven't really had a chance to play it since I've moved, I'll be back on it at Christmas though. Its a fantastic game! Especially considering that it is completely free.

The reason that the community seems so bad in these games is that if you play badly then you aid the other team considerably with things such as experience and gold, which in turn leads to your team losing, which in turn leads to frustration. I'd say it's definitely worth a try though, and if you can get a few friends together to play (for a 5v5, which I've never managed) then you'd enjoy the game at its best.

For those new to the game, champions like Ashe (The Ice Archer woman) or Annie (The red-haired girl who can summon A GIANT FIREY BEAR) are both very good starters.