I'll start from far away to give you a better perspective.
Here is the imaginary scrollbar that any developer at pretty much any strategy game have to somehow balance:
If you allow early snowballs -> fast deathballs, the late-game part of your game becomes irrelevant, which is not what you want. And vice versa.
For a long time, IceFrog's had the intention to speed up the game - which he still does with a great success, unfortunately it led to this:
State of the game at TI4
And shortly after TI4 IceFrog adjusted the bar. Slightly.
I mean he had to: if you remember how huge was the outcry of the community about early push starts a.k.a. “Pick early game heroes and roll through your opponents” it can persuade any person that something is indeed wrong with the game.
So here it comes: 6.82 - the patch where you get a radiance on Spectre at 40 mins and win the game become you won a skirmish that made 25k gold swing. That was adjusted rather quickly because the issue was as apparent as mud on one’s brand new white shoes.
in other words
The Comeback Mechanic is aimed to provide to the losing side a much better chance to catch-up, providing a "clutch" game as the result. Along with other changes like glyph replenishment and flat-out nerfs, it prevents snowballiness (to an extent) meaning you play a more "even" match throughout the game.
After several tweaks of TCM everyone finally became quite content with the results of it: after all the logic behind it is actually okay and makes total sense. It hasn't been apparent how the change might still negatively affect the game after all those number tweaks, however today we can easily see the issue(s) that emerged with the advent of such mechanic: the ability to endlessly defend a high-ground because you can’t get as ahead as it is required to being able to break the high-ground and to finally make usage of your advantage.
representation of my thesis
High-ground is notably hard to push onto - that’s the defender’s advantage right there. It is kind of supposed to be like that, because this is the barracks or even the throne we are talking about. The advantage is actually so drastic it might sometimes be bigger than, let’s say for our imaginary situation - 30k gold. Due to several reasons it is almost impossible to exceed beyond a certain amount of “advantage” as the winner side and thus that advantage is practically negated as you ascend onto enemy’s HG.
well memed my friend
In terms of difficulty the fight will be “equal” meaning you are supposed to trade “evenly”. However when you trade 5 heroes for 5 heroes, the defender gets way more gold out of it due to rubber band, and pushing into the defender becomes nearly impossible, therefore teams avoid this situation in the first place by farming instead and not actually pushing / trying to end the game because the risk is not worth the effort.
Sometimes you can't push even if you want. The real flaw is when your enemies can't push either.
This is not because of The Comeback Mechanic alone. The problem is that the losing side still gets "enough" gold and experience from lane creeps pushing into them to be able continue their item progression, while abandoning all the map control whatsoever.
when map control look like this the game is close to be done
This is the most important part of a strategy game - map control. In Starcraft when a player gets contained he is going to lose the game eventually, because he’ll run out of resources. If you've ever played TvT you should know what I mean. Check out this wiki page to read some more if you aren't familiar with the concept.
However because in Dota there are lane creeps that give gold every 30 seconds regardless where they are killed - be it at their spawn point or at your barracks line - this situation is weird to say the least: there can’t be enough contain to actually contain.
After a certain point the winning side’s cores reach their maximum potential - farming don’t make them stronger anymore, whilst enemy still has a room to grow. Therefore the “real” Networth of the winning team stops being relevant to the items they have, because that gold stops being put into items.
With time, that gap between teams only shrinks even if the gold/exp discrepancy increases on the graphs. Add to this the fact that the defender’s advantage is still there AND the risk of a fail push skyrockets due to potentially disastrous rubberband gold/exp transfers.
I'm honestly so proud of these pictures
It all comes down to map control, or rather how pointless it might be in some specific situations.
Let’s list what does having full map control provide: 1) Roshan - aegis, cheese. 2) Access to both jungles and ancients. 3) Runes.
If I were to suggest something in hopes to avoid the main problem [that is giving up on map control and still getting resources]:
1) Jungle creeps give more gold with time / with Roshan kills / as you sacrifice your aegis or cheese to the shopkeeper / whatever reason.
Point is, with the entire map control should come bigger dominance than it is right now to exceed “the gap” [that consists of the risk of rubber band + defender’s advantage + actual networth difference] allowing your support heroes to acquire late-game items for themselves which ultimately will lead to victory faster than 2 hours of resets. “Useless gold” is no longer present, but being transferred straight into support slots such as hex, bkb, halberd, diffusal(!) or even damage items.
Update: The side with map control is going to farm both the jungles plus Roshan and thus farming 3-4 times as fast items that actually matter. Lane Creeps do scale, while Jungle Creeps do not, meaning support heroes are going to have much easier time farming them.
On average there are 533 gold in one Jungle (wiki), so ideally ~1100 gold at the moment. However the amount of Lane Creeps is increasing with time and thus the amount of gold they give away. Therefore Jungles are worth less in comparison = controlling jungles worth less as the game progresses. I want to put higher emphasis on jungle creeps: that way in a 2 hour game the winner side with complete map control will get more gold out of the map so "the gap" will be increasing instead of shrinking.
2) Sellable cheese with increasing cost similar to bounty runes.
Same idea basically - to get additional items for the winning team to increase “the gap” and to finally break their defenses. I mean something really ridiculous like 4k for a cheese at 80 minutes might be actually a great thing for the game.
The Roshan, being a contesting point, gets way higher emphasis in the late-game where aegis and cheese value is usually goes down because your cores run out of slots.
The losing team knowing that will be drawn out of their base to contest this. As you might already understood - the change should lead to exactly this if you want to address the problem I'm stating.
Update - F.A.Q.
1) Make Aegis a buff/aura like in LoL I had the same idea, but disregarded it almost instantaneously because I wanted to make support heroes stronger and more fun to play in such circumstances rather than buffing a 6 slotted Medusa.
2) Rubber band has to go! Keep in mind, the rubber band doesn't come into play if nothing happens or the winning team finally wins
3) Lane creeps dying in proximity of their HG are worth less gold This change essentially destroys their barracks once you get rid of tier 2s which can be done relatively early in the game. That said you remove half of the objectives from the game to contest for: Tier 3s, Tier 4s, 3 lanes of barracks and throne along with negating all the defender's advantage (you just don't push anymore) and making the game ridiculously boring to play.
4) Buyback to resurrect with 50% hp / mana It also affects all the stages of the game and several heroes such as Spectre and Furion, while doesn't really address the problem of not pushing / pushing, only changing the dynamic of a fight. I would prefer asking a pro about this one.
5) Remove Cooldown on buyback This encourages core heroes to endlessly farm while supports of both teams stay afk
Summary: If a team abandons all map control whatsoever for a long period of time their disadvantage should be increasing.
Thanks for reading. [Dota 2] The Winner's Advantage by etofok
Correct my grammar and suggest better wording if you have time. You can read some other my posts there if you're interested.
Second of all ,i completely disagree with your solution. Your solution would only make the game go longer, since every single gold on the defenders side is worth much more then on the attackers side, so you need to increase every single jungle creep + ancients every single minute as much as that difference in actual gold worth.
I think a more simple solution would be in order, to not overcomplicate things, such simple things like decreasing T3 tower hp, make highground sieging items a little bit cheaper ( heart, vangaurd, pipe ) and simply nerfing the highground specialists ability that makes them the HG specialist ( snipers schrapnel slow, headshot slow ).
The current meta is one of physical damage, and to stay alive you need to do alot of damage and have lifesteal, so buying more then 1 defensive item actually makes your survivability worse then another damage item
Your solution would only make the game go longer, since every single gold on the defenders side is worth much more then on the attackers side, so you need to increase every single jungle creep + ancients every single minute as much as that difference in actual gold worth.
Update: The side with map control is going to farm both the jungles plus Roshan and thus farming 3-4 times as fast items that actually matter. Lane creeps do scale, while Jungle Creeps do not, meaning support heroes are going to have much easier time farming them.
On average there are 533 gold in one Jungle (wiki), so ~1100 gold. However the amount of Lane Creeps is increasing with time and thus the amount of gold they give away. Therefore Jungles are worth less in comparison = controlling jungles worth less. I want to put higher emphasis on jungle creeps: that way in a 2 hour game the winner side with a complete map control will get more gold out of the map so "the gap" will be increasing instead of shrinking.
I love the idea of being able to sell the cheese for a large amount of gold lategame. I have also thought that killing rosh loses meaning late and that it should be worked to reduce long games. Something like making Aegis number 3-5 stronger than the first 3. I'd love to see an aegis that scaled in a way that there is no way a 6 slotted carry doesn't pick it up. Maybe something like +2000 hp or maybe make it a buff/aura like in LoL
I think Rosh already gives a lot. Making him even more important doesn't seem like a great solution, however scaling the jungles might be a good idea. One thing your analysis ignores is that the winning team also gets more gold from lane creeps because they are able to farm them pretty much anywhere, and so no lane creeps are 'lost' killed by an enemy creep giving no gold or exp, because no hero is there.
The game right now definitely feels better than a year ago in terms of fun during gameplay, even though I liked Faceless Void in pubs a little bit more than I like Troll Warlord, and I liked the more 'roaming' meta supports had at the time. However, the high ground/comeback mechanics are still a little bit too much. Maybe controlling key points on the opponents side could lead to some spawning of extra good catapults that only go for structures, or you could just buy them. Situations where both team just sit back, too afraid to do anything should certainly be avoided.
Yeah, I had the same idea, but disregarded it almost instantaneously because I wanted to make support heroes stronger and more fun to play in such circumstances rather than buffing a 6 slotted Medusa.
I wonder what impact modifying the gold rubberband to ignore tower and roshan gold would have. I think that might also help, as right now towers are almost liabilities.
if you are thinking outside the box (stuff besides tweaking rubber band numbers), I think a penatly for being down outer towers is probably the best bet. Something like double the fortification cooldown, or -2 seconds duration, or something like that. Basically, forfeiting your outer towers gives up map control and makes base defense a touch tougher.
This would still make high ground holds viable and possible to pull off, but not having a reliable fortification would make base breaking builds doable.
a very interesting read. i think i agree with all of your points.
mid game lineups suffer because of what you mention. you almost have to draft with the intent of being pushed into a corner waiting for a good high ground engagement.
On April 09 2015 06:40 etofok wrote: However because in Dota there are lane creeps that give gold every 30 seconds regardless where they are killed - be it at their spawn point or at your barracks line - this situation is weird to say the least: there can’t be enough contain to actually contain.
There is a way around this, but nobody actually does it.
1) Shove mid continuously at their base so they can't leave as 5 without being obvious about it. 2) Farmed carry takes ancients periodically, but otherwise stands ready to assist the team 3) A support freezes the offlane where the enemy T2 used to be while transitioning towards a carry or aura-wagon. 4) The position 3 is in his own jungle, pulling his own creeps into a stacked small camp to keep the safe lane away from the enemy base. He has Boots of Travel to join the frozen/shoved lane if there's a fight. 5) The remaining two heroes occupy the enemy jungle, farming it while being ready to fight if the enemy goes on mid during the shove or the lane-freezing support.
Result: The high ground defenders have 1 lane of income, compared to 2-3 plus a full jungle. And the team with map control is positioned so that there's no obvious way to initiate an advantaged fight.
horadric cube, requires one 5k component from each secret shop, merges with aegis and any 2 items to form 1 item with combined attributes of both items.
Really like the idea of jungle creeps scaling with time, about cheese though, instead of making it worth more gold later, why not actually buff the aegis and cheese the more times you kill Roshan.
Cheese for example, after xth Roshan kill, Cheese can now be used on allies and have x range, which increases with more kills. This way the non 6-slotted players can pick cheese and then give a burst of heal to their carry when he needs it in a team fight.
With Aegis, after xth Roshan kill, Aegis now provides its restore buff in an x range area around the dying player, it restores 10% hp and mana per second for 5 seconds, buff is removed if the hero takes any damage for that duration.
Roshan gold bounty could also scale with time/times killed, that way teams will have an extra incentive to kill Rosh later, since it will benefit the supports and less farmed heroes more.
I can suggest another solution for this situation. Based not on gold but on base structures armor. What if, team that feeds hard, gets their base structures armor lowered? For example, team that has disadvantage in kills, gets minus 0.5*(their kills disadvantage) armor removed from all base structures. If you get some kills, you get some armor back. So, early game feeding gets punished with weak base.
On April 09 2015 06:40 etofok wrote: However because in Dota there are lane creeps that give gold every 30 seconds regardless where they are killed - be it at their spawn point or at your barracks line - this situation is weird to say the least: there can’t be enough contain to actually contain.
There is a way around this, but nobody actually does it.
1) Shove mid continuously at their base so they can't leave as 5 without being obvious about it. 2) Farmed carry takes ancients periodically, but otherwise stands ready to assist the team 3) A support freezes the offlane where the enemy T2 used to be while transitioning towards a carry or aura-wagon. 4) The position 3 is in his own jungle, pulling his own creeps into a stacked small camp to keep the safe lane away from the enemy base. He has Boots of Travel to join the frozen/shoved lane if there's a fight. 5) The remaining two heroes occupy the enemy jungle, farming it while being ready to fight if the enemy goes on mid during the shove or the lane-freezing support.
Result: The high ground defenders have 1 lane of income, compared to 2-3 plus a full jungle. And the team with map control is positioned so that there's no obvious way to initiate an advantaged fight.
I've considered similar ideas before, maintaining lane creep equilibrium far away from the enemy high ground to further starve them, but your specific idea is tailor-made for being smoke ganked. One hero can farm the mid wave while the other 4 are out of sight. Maybe they're just sitting behind their mid farmer, but maybe they're smoking into their woods or through their offlane. If smoked units were still revealed by true sight, this wouldn't be an issue as the winning team could just litter the map with sentries, but alas, 6.79 happened. Maybe this change will be reverted, as early smoke ganks don't seem very impactful anyway.
Furthermore, relying on Boots of Travel to react to enemy movements is so unreliable. Even if you tp the instant you see the enemy make their move, the channeling time could easily make you too late to make a difference, and who knows how far the action is from the nearest creep.
I really like this line of thinking, though. Maybe it'd be feasible with Chen or several Helms of the Dominator.
I think a good idea would be to have 1-2 controllable neutral building(s) on the map that gives the controlling team (1) +x gold/time, (2) super creeps that push well, or (3) team creep bonuses (e.g. magic resistance, additional armor, or reduced bounty).
Clearly there needs to be another avenue for the winning team to close outside gold and exp, and that might be it.
actually this bring me to think of something. When teams are strangling other teams in their base, why don't they constantly pull and deny top/bottom lanes to jungle creeps? Wouldn't this effectively deny 1/2 the turtling teams resources?
Something really need to be done about buybacks. Generally gives defending team to big of a advantage. Think there should be a 3-5 sec delay after someone buys back and they actually spawn. This gives attacking teams a bit more time to react instead of having to suddenly scramble to make a retreat often losing a hero or two in the process. Could also modify this idea and have the base buyback delay at 0 seconds and then have it increase by 0.5-1sec for each tower your team have lost. Would be a pretty nice but not gamebreaking advantage for the team with map control.
Another thing that could be done to make breaking base easier is severely reduce the damage tier4 towers do. A big problem with heroes like sniper is that they can defend while standing under their two bodyguard towers. Think reducing the damage tier4 towers do to 25% of their current value would be a good change. Currently they are to much of a crutch for defending teams. Could increase the hitpoints if concerned about this making rushing the throne easier.
Cheese for example, after xth Roshan kill, Cheese can now be used on allies and have x range, which increases with more kills. This way the non 6-slotted players can pick cheese and then give a burst of heal to their carry when he needs it in a team fight.
I can already imagine artists drawing pictures of Crystal Maiden and Clockwerk trying to ram a cheese down the Sven's throat while he is being punched by the entire Spartan legion
Cute graphs, I'll applaud you for that. Let's tap the brakes on this choo-choo train a bit, and have some discussion. I come from SC, and I know some DotA as well.
I'd like to ask an honest question OP. Given that 6.81b was Early-Snowball
Was the comeback mechanic necessary in 6.82 to in order to bring about balance to the meta like Luke was to bring balance to the Force? Because what we got was far from balance.
Let's take a look at the very beginning.
First, I'd like for us to ignore TCM (The Comeback Mechanic) for one moment. + Show Spoiler +
Chronosphere area of effect reduced from 450 to 425 Chronosphere flying vision area reduced from 1000 to 425 Chronosphere no longer disables passives Chronosphere's effects no longer linger for an extra 0.5 seconds (like normal auras do) at the end of its duration
Shapeshift no longer grants 1.5 Base Attack Time Shapeshift cooldown increased from 100/70/40 to 120/90/60 Shapeshift speed increased from 522 to 650 Shapeshift now has a 1.5 seconds transformation time
Plasma Field minimum damage from 60/100/140/180 to 30/50/70/90 [?] Static Link no longer ignores Linken's Sphere Static Link mana cost from 20/30/40/50 to 50 Eye of the Storm no longer lingers through aegis reincarnation
- Strong in Deathball/Push, well deserved hero nerf
Concussive Shot movement slow rebalanced from 40% to 30/35/40/45% Concussive Shot is now disjointable Mystic Flare damage is now dealt over 2.2 seconds instead of 2 seconds
Counter Helix chance to activate increased from 17% to 20%
- Buff to Axe means another slight nerf to Void (Axe being a counter to FV); slight nerf to NP and Push strat in general because of his wave-clearing anti-Push ability.
Slark is no longer visible inside Chronosphere during Shadow Dance
- A buff to Slark that is a slight nerf to Void - As Slark is a good ganker, he's naturally useful in picking off Push strat, especially when they start sieging away from the safety of their own towers.
Enabled in Captain's Mode Sunder cast point improved from 0.5 to 0.35
- Closet OP, yet buffed (another hero I was using 6.81b) - Sinister comeback-mechanics abuser, that received a swift and ending nerf maybe directly as a result of such
Nether Swap range increased from 650/925/1200 to 700/950/1200
- Could be considered as another nerf to push, since easier to swap out the 6.81b meta-heroes with their big Ultimates ala razor/DP, or for Faceless Void.
- Could be considered a nerf to Push, as it's fairly good against lots of little hits from creeps, and it's a natural buildup for Axe, a beneficiary of 6.82.
Base movement speed increased from 350 to 430 Flying Courier now takes 50% extra damage from melee heroes Flying Courier Speed Burst cooldown increased from 40 to 90 Flying Courier Speed Burst duration reduced from 20 to 4 Flying Courier Speed Burst speed increased from 522 to 650
- Nerf to Bottle Crowing - Alleviated a bit by double rune spawn, but affected the mid rotations a lot as a side effect (good and bad); another contributor to our current situation
Glyph of Fortification cooldown is now refreshed whenever you lose a Tier 1 tower Tier 2 Tower's armor increased from 20 to 25 Tower bounty gold for destroying Tier 1/2/3/4 reduced from 264/312/358/405 to 160/200/240/280 (denied is 50%)
- Nerf to Push/Deathball strat - Nerf to Push/Split Push heroes - Buff to Late Game strats / well-scaling into the late game heroes; easier to survive early game that used to prevent strat from coming to fruition
Reworked terrain surrounding the Roshan area Reworked terrain around the Dire bottom lane Reworked terrain below the Top Radiant Tier 1 Tower Reworked the area to the left of the bottom Dire Tier 2 Tower Moved Dire bottom Tier 2 Tower back very slightly Added an alternate path to the north of the bottom lane Side Shop Added an alternate path to the right of the bottom Dire Tier 1 Tower Added a new ward spot near the bottom Dire Tier 2 Tower Added a new ward spot near the top Radiant Tier 2 Tower Added a new ward spot between Roshan and the Dire bottom lane Bottom Lane Dire creeps now arrive slightly closer to the Dire Tier 1 Tower Top Lane Radiant creeps now arrive slightly farther from the Radiant Tier 1 Tower
- Many balance changes, and extra warding spots - Possibly making late-game vision and map control too easy?
COMEBACK MECHANICS
So finally we get to the famous "Elephant in the Room" (ahem...hotbid kekek), TCM, the Comeback Mechanics.
So with all those changes of 6.82 mentioned before...
1) 6.81b standouts that everyone called for nerfs, nerfed ✔ 2) Hero-Counters of said 6.81b Push Meta standouts buffed / Hero-Counters of Push Strategy buffed / Closet-OP heroes buffed ✔ 3) The prevailing strategy of said 6.81b standouts, Push/Deathball, nerfed (T1 Fortification Reset, Tower Gold Reduced, T2 Armor Buff)✔
...we needed COMEBACK MECHANICS for what now?
6.82 contained a plethora of changes that looked to push the game toward a nice balance
Balance = Good, might it have turned out like this? Who knows?
How about revert all hero kill + creep XP and Gold changes to 6.78 or whatever it was called and keep the tower changes.
Forget that, let's throw Rubberband/Comeback Mechanics right about here, should be okay?
So yes, Comeback Mechanics aren't only the reason for the high ground frustrations of current, but what were they even introduced for? Icefrog went down the list and knocked off nearly everything that he could nerf Push with, but then a Comeback Mechanic was to be thrown on top? What do ya guys think?
Disclaimer: My opinions/observations are as anecdotal and factual as OP's. I'm not to be quoted in confidence. I personally would love to keep all the Tower/Buillding Changes, Terrain Changes, and Hero Changes but without the xp/gold changes.
So yes, Comeback Mechanics aren't only the reason for the high ground frustrations of current, but what were they even introduced for? Are they even necessary given 6.82 looked to severely temper Push/Deathball meta and it's heroes along with it?
That's kind of the point: TCM along with other changes is a clear overkill. TCM has been nerfed several times to the state where it is "fine", however it led to this specific scenario that was hard to predict beforehand.
I believe the nerfs after TI4 were done because of TI itself, while TCM was added to make a huge gameplay change to freshen up the game. Personally I think TCM is good to have in a game, and I did suggest changes that would be okay for the game in general, not only for this specific patch. I didn't touch TCM at all as you might noticed.
Heroes are to be rebalanced and numbers are to tweak, however the global gameplay changes are always good.
That's kind of the point: TCM along with other changes is a clear overkill. TCM has been nerfed several times to the state where it is "fine", however it led to this specific scenario that was hard to predict beforehand.
This is actually my point. If it's been nerfed several times to a point where it's deemed "acceptable," then why introduce it in the first place when the problem it was meant to fix was already fixed Push/Earlygame Deathball got nerfed in many ways.
Again I originally asked, was all the other changes in 6.82 not enough to fix 6.81b? Comeback Mechanics were a necessity on top to fix 6.81b? Yet the situation we haven now is the result of how the game is played accounting for the fact that Comeback Mechanics are present in the game.
And of course they got tuned it HAD to be, it was ridiculous at release. What it is now does seem acceptable compared to 6.82, but in the grand scheme of things, I don't think it should be even in the game as a mechanic at all. Thanks for highlighting my point, what did Comeback Mechanics even hope to solve or achieve given it's not even close to the same mechanic? Yet people can say it's "fine"?
Heroes are to be rebalanced and numbers are to tweak, however the global gameplay changes are always good.
There were many global gameplay changes, but introducing a mechanic that forces a rebalancing on top of your rebalance for no good reason, seems odd. I can see where you're coming from, only it seems you feel that the mechanic WAS fine to add because it is NOW tuned. The situation is now you must play accounting for Comeback Mechanic, just because it's there...not that this is a difficult thing to do, as my hero pool is wide enough to survive any meta; but i'm speaking from the point of view of the game as a whole, not a specific hero set.
Comeback Mechanic/Rubberbanding was not the solution we needed to solve 6.81b, we got the solutions that were needed in the Tower/Building changes & 6.81b Superstar Hero Nerfs; suddenly now Comeback Mechanic is an acceptable mechanic because it's been "tuned"? My english isn't my 1st language, I hope I'm piecing together some decent thoughts. I don't think OP denys the influence of Comeback Mechanics or anything, but I think the effort to rationalize it's presence/existence in the game is unnecessary given its introduction was also not needed.
If we double the price of Buy Back for the player every time he used it we could get rid of the buyback timer (obsolete) and the farming advantage goes back to the team w the map control.
The biggest issue with the current come back mechanic from where I see it, is its relation to buy back when pushing high ground. Because the team that is behind is most likely the one defending, they are have huge incentive to use their buy backs to get kills and make risky plays. In some cases, they can earn back the entire buy back amount and more, plus gain much needed levels.
If the comeback mechanic were adjusted to not provide its benefits to heroes under the “buy back” state, it would go a long way to making pushing high ground easier. Even if you killed someone and they bought back, they would still be robbed of the buyback gold and XP that they need to get back into the game.
That and some other adjustments(mostly around XP) to the system could make it much more reasonable and allow the team that is ahead to take advantage of the lead they have obtained.
wont getting rid of buyback timer just bring us back to the old times of chinese teams not going highground until they have 5 buybacks 10 cheese and aegis?
On April 10 2015 00:18 ahswtini wrote: wont getting rid of buyback timer just bring us back to the old times of chinese teams not going highground until they have 5 buybacks 10 cheese and aegis?
I would think so. Also you could end up with these nightmare games with 6 slotted heroes and people saving for buy back after buy back.
I would rather just limit the gold intake of players that buy back to a smaller amount to make it more risky and something that you do to save an objective. Rather than a way to boost your economy. Your first life should be the most valuable.
LD should consider recruiting you as a opinion article writer for LD or something.
in reference to buyback - best soultion I have come up with is to limit teams to a hard number of buybacks (10 is the one I've been bouncing around) - this prevents mega super lategame situations and punishes highground defending teams a bit more.
On April 10 2015 00:36 ahswtini wrote: what do people think about hon's buyback limit of 2 per champion??
Seems a little limiting. I would just increase the cool down to 10 minutes or so after the first use. And limit the comback gold and XP you can get while under the "buy back status".
I think buyback is in a fine state with the high cooldown, no unreliable gold, and additional respawn time. No tweaks need to happen there.
I think the meta shift could have been enough to make the comeback features irrelevant since they were reduced so much anyway. You don't need to artificially juice other parts of the game to get around what you consider an unnecessary mechanic, you just tweak the lever that you think is broken. No need to overcomplicate matters.
High ground is notoriously difficult to push into but that's a big part of why VS, Axe, Troll, Sniper and Jugg are in the meta now. They have the ability to neutralize single problem heroes (VS, Axe blink/taunt, Omnislash) and turn the fight into a 5v4 or they accelerate pushing (troll ult)), Vengeance aura) or simply have the abilities the sustain pushing (sniper range and healing ward). Messing with the comeback element or introducing additional winner's advantage components only makes these already-powerful heroes stronger.
On April 09 2015 23:18 Plansix wrote: If the comeback mechanic were adjusted to not provide its benefits to heroes under the “buy back” state, it would go a long way to making pushing high ground easier. Even if you killed someone and they bought back, they would still be robbed of the buyback gold and XP that they need to get back into the game.
I remember seeing this idea on reddit some time ago, and it seems pretty reasonable. Maybe extending the buyback penalty to not just comeback gold, but reliable gains in general.
On April 09 2015 23:18 Plansix wrote: If the comeback mechanic were adjusted to not provide its benefits to heroes under the “buy back” state, it would go a long way to making pushing high ground easier. Even if you killed someone and they bought back, they would still be robbed of the buyback gold and XP that they need to get back into the game.
I remember seeing this idea on reddit some time ago, and it seems pretty reasonable. Maybe extending the buyback penalty to not just comeback gold, but reliable gains in general.
I think it is one of the main issues with the system right now. There is a large window in the high ground push where defending players can get huge injections of gold and XP instantly, even if they lose rax. The attacking team will not get this option until it makes sense for them to invest in boots of travel.
And the XP gains are likely to much across the board. Supports can score like 2-3 levels off of a good high ground defense and if that gets them to 11 or 16, its game changing.
As well thought out as your post was, the same problem remains with all these ideas to "change the game" to go in a certain way. Manipulation.
Dota is unique solely based on its origin and it's community inclusive idea generation based development. As least in the IceFrog era, he was the aggregator of information, judge of quality, and programmer but he was never the only game developer. The development model of Dota can not forcefully be recreated by any company and thus makes it near impossible for a game developer company to create something unique like Dota.
Manipulation and planned development will create a MOBA like LoL where heroes are designed to fit a certain function to fill a certain lane. The developer tells you so. The objectives are highlighted so you know what steps to take to progress and win the game. Kill Dragon and/or Baron get some buffs. You win games in LoL by following a prescribed methodology given to you by the developer.
Now compare that to Dota, there is no right way to win in Dota. You are only given an objective which is to kill the enemy Ancient. You can only storm down mid the whole game and ignore all other towers and win the game. You can use the strength of the common soldiers (creeps) to your advantage and get them to help you destroy buildings without your presence. You can kill Roshan to get a temporary item that gives you a second life to try to get an advantage. You can win early or win late. All the options are open. There is no artificial boost that magically assists you for no reason. The game was fair. (Oops I forgot about the garbage comeback mechanic that implemented an artificial boost for losing)
Sure LoL is more popular as a game but that is because there are more people that want to play a GAME. They want artificial progress such as levelling up and getting better runes that make you artificial stronger than other players. They want Diablo Style RPG spell spamming to kill "minions". They want to be able to play the game without knowing anything or learning anything before playing (Burden of Knowledge) because they are just "playing a game". They want instructions on how to win the game. They want to be told how to succeed. They want to be told what their correct "job" is in each "role". As a Dota player I want none of this.
Dota was a game where everybody begin each game equally. No professional player has any innate advantage over any average player. Everything that separates them is what is executed during the game. If those two players sat at a LAN cafe next to each other, they will have the exact opportunities to execute. A quick comparison to a real life sport like Basketball where 6" 6 220lb player has a clear advantage over a 5"5 150lb person. Another comparison to LoL where a lvl 30 account with runes will have a clear advantage over a lvl 1 account with no runes. Dota is fair every time. It doesn't matter how much time and money a player has put towards the game, they will have a equal opportunity when the game begins.
But we are on the path of losing this fairness, the comeback mechanic is a reward for losing and a punishment for winning. How can this concept be fun in any pub game where coordination is not expected. Cooperation is expected but we would be hard pressed to find coordination even in high level games. We as the players must think of both the pro games and pub games. Icefrog's mantra as posted in his blog has always been to make the game fun. Of course he will weigh the thoughts of pro and high level players more because they know Dota the best. A common game developer company mistake is to listen to the majority which is almost definitively the less knowledgable group.
The ideal solution is to reverse the manipulation now. Remove the comeback mechanic before every single balance that comes after it has taken it into account. If we try to solve it in any other way, we will only be implementing more and more manipulation into the game. If the majority gets what they want, buybacks and high ground will be changed next to compensate for the fact that a losing team is rewarded for accomplishing the exact same thing as the winning team. Buyback and high ground changes are suppose to punish the losing team to compensate for the punishment to the winning team caused by the comeback mechanic. The cycle of manipulation of the game will never end.
Leave the direction of the game alone and let the players (which is everybody playing the game) determine how they believe the game should be played. I hope for Dota to remain a proving ground where winners win and losers lose. I hope that as players of this great game that everybody has had a hand in creating you want this too.
P.S. Early push Deathball was what Navi used to gain the majority of their success. When Navi was rolling with that strategy pre TI2, there were no complaints. They were complimented as "aggressive" and "daring" to try to finish the game early.
On April 09 2015 14:57 Baozi wrote: ✔ Graphs ✔ Starcraft references ✔ Dank memes ✔ Well-reasoned and informed analysis with proposed solutions ✘ Srapnel, ha-ha hee-hee
4/5 nice post, commended
I didn't notice any starcraft references.
On April 09 2015 06:40 etofok wrote: This is the most important part of a strategy game - map control. In Starcraft when a player gets contained he is going to lose the game eventually, because he’ll run out of resources. If you've ever played TvT you should know what I mean. Check out this wiki page to read some more if you aren't familiar with the concept.
On April 10 2015 06:08 Reson wrote: @etofok
As well thought out as your post was, the same problem remains with all these ideas to "change the game" to go in a certain way. Manipulation.
Dota is unique solely based on its origin and it's community inclusive idea generation based development. As least in the IceFrog era, he was the aggregator of information blah blah dota rocks lol sucks blah blah.
I feel kinda bad saying this, because you seem to have put a lot of effort into it, but this post seems to consist mostly of irrelevant nonsense.
On April 09 2015 06:40 etofok wrote: This is the most important part of a strategy game - map control. In Starcraft when a player gets contained he is going to lose the game eventually, because he’ll run out of resources. If you've ever played TvT you should know what I mean. Check out this wiki page to read some more if you aren't familiar with the concept.
As well thought out as your post was, the same problem remains with all these ideas to "change the game" to go in a certain way. Manipulation.
Dota is unique solely based on its origin and it's community inclusive idea generation based development. As least in the IceFrog era, he was the aggregator of information blah blah dota rocks lol sucks blah blah.
I feel kinda bad saying this, because you seem to have put a lot of effort into it, but this post seems to consist mostly of irrelevant nonsense.
No need to feel bad. In a way it was a drawn out version of saying whatever solution OP or anybody comes up with to solving the current "problem" is irrelevant cause they would be solving the wrong problem.
I get why someone may think what I was wrote was irrelevant but I am interested in what parts you thought made no sense. I noticed you summarized most of my post as "Dota rocks and LoL sucks" but that's not my point. My point is that if Dota follows along this path of manipulating the game to fit a certain mold it would be inevitable that it becomes like LoL. It is evident in the way people discuss how things "should be" in Dota like game length, degree of strategy, and how close games are.
I feel you, I get what you're saying, and it's a pretty shitty path to go down. But what can you do, people love comeback mechanics, it's not going anywhere. At this point I just always account for comeback mechanics in every decision I make.
On April 10 2015 09:21 Acetone wrote: I feel kinda bad saying this, because you seem to have put a lot of effort into it, but this post seems to consist mostly of irrelevant nonsense.
Yea was hard to understand but I can kind of see what he's trying to hint at. Just the notion of adding a comeback mechanic to solve a non-existant problem was really weird, like why add it for no reason. Push/Deathball had already been nerfed 2 times in one patch. Why weren't all the 6.82 changes allowed to come to fruition without the random unnecessary addition of Comeback Mechanics? As I asked before, given all the other changes of 6.82, were comeback mechanics necessary to fix 6.81b? I hear this really stupid argument right now that goes like this...."it doesn't matter if comeback mechanics are unnecessary, they were added and OP, but they were tuned to a shell of it's former self, it's here to stay so suck it." What kind of logic is this? And for the most part I think everyone that ladders has learned to account for it by now unless you're brain dead.
On April 09 2015 14:57 Baozi wrote: ✔ Graphs ✔ Starcraft references ✔ Dank memes ✔ Well-reasoned and informed analysis with proposed solutions ✘ Srapnel, ha-ha hee-hee
4/5 nice post, commended
I didn't notice any starcraft references.
On April 09 2015 06:40 etofok wrote: This is the most important part of a strategy game - map control. In Starcraft when a player gets contained he is going to lose the game eventually, because he’ll run out of resources. If you've ever played TvT you should know what I mean. Check out this wiki page to read some more if you aren't familiar with the concept.
On April 10 2015 06:08 Reson wrote: @etofok
As well thought out as your post was, the same problem remains with all these ideas to "change the game" to go in a certain way. Manipulation.
Dota is unique solely based on its origin and it's community inclusive idea generation based development. As least in the IceFrog era, he was the aggregator of information blah blah dota rocks lol sucks blah blah.
I feel kinda bad saying this, because you seem to have put a lot of effort into it, but this post seems to consist mostly of irrelevant nonsense.
No need to feel bad. In a way it was a drawn out version of saying whatever solution OP or anybody comes up with to solving the current "problem" is irrelevant cause they would be solving the wrong problem.
I get why someone may think what I was wrote was irrelevant but I am interested in what parts you thought made no sense. I noticed you summarized most of my post as "Dota rocks and LoL sucks" but that's not my point. My point is that if Dota follows along this path of manipulating the game to fit a certain mold it would be inevitable that it becomes like LoL. It is evident in the way people discuss how things "should be" in Dota like game length, degree of strategy, and how close games are.
I don't think we need to worry about Dota becoming like LoL. League was molded around its monetization model which is why new heroes -- which you have to purchase -- feel so powerful and capable of handling a variety of situations (these are termed "toolbox heroes"). An effect of this design, whether intended or unintended, either stagnates or streamlines the evolution of the game depending on your perspective. You don't want to spend money on a hero that obviously sucks or is weak in the current meta, and obviously Riot doesn't want that either.
Dota comes from a more classic and cavalier school of design where order emerges from chaos. It's a style any player of Brood War or Marvel vs Capcom 2 or Counter-Strike will immediately recognize: when everything feels overpowered, nothing is overpowered. Icefrog has been pretty good about sticking to this design philosophy and adding and changing stuff generally because "it would be cool" (and only sometimes because a hero is actually too strong), which is fine because stuff has a way of working itself out.
Good post It's obvious these changes are still very up in the air despite how long they've been around and will no doubt continue to need changes.
There is one thing that is (at least in my opinion) very good about the rubber band mechanics: it helps prevent games from becoming zombies... you know, those ones that are over but don't end for another 25 mins. It's something dota has struggled quite a bit with in the past. It is in many ways an elegant way to deal with the issue since a highly vocal minority of the community is vehemently against surrender in pubs and this solution also prevents boring endings in pro games. Instead of ending games that are over, it makes it so the game isn't over--this is a very good thing that any change needs to preserve.
Also, it's fine--actually good--if a game snowballs and ends as long as it isn't every game. I think we're seeing too few games ending early personally. I think they should shoot for an even mix of games that end in any given 10 minute period between 20 mins and 70 mins. If the game can't end early, there isn't much point in early game heros.
The problem is it makes it so the early game doesn't matter so much.
As an unintended consequence it also seems to amplify the importance abilities that can get you kills even when far behind amplifying the power of those heros (see laguna blade, sonic wave, finger of death). These abilities make it so you'll eventually be able to cash in those enemy streaks.
I do really like the idea of scaling jungle creeps. Not sure if they need to give more gold but if they give the ability to deny the waves, that'll be a huge improvement.
Currently, I think there's a lot you can do to work around the issue and even the pro scene has only scratched the surface on mitigating technique, I think. Even simply controlling creep wave balance is not typically done at the pro level outside the early game and it could make a huge difference late. Coming after a lane of rax from another lane after you've opened one is another under-used technique that removes the high ground issue, though exposing you to more towers. The problem is that while this may balance things at the pro level some time in the future, things will stay seriously out of whack for the vast majority of players because the solutions are subtle and technical.
Here are a couple ideas I think could help: 1. Aegis doesn't take a slot, it's just a buff on whoever took it 2. Remove the high ground advantage from a lane. I'm thinking the enemy jungle lane. Just make it strait from the high ground by the ward hill strait into the base. Maybe constrict the opening a little to preserve a bit of defender's advantage. 3. Make the base larger - just more spread out so it's harder to stop split push and you get bigger dark patches when lanes start to fall. 4. A once per 10 mins extra strong creep wave cooldown, like the glyph, that is enabled when all the enemy's outer towers are destroyed.
I was thinking about using the secret shop a bit more. Add an ability that can be activated if you have a hero at both secret shops at the same time and both pay X amount of gold. It could be to stop all creeps from spawning, both allied and enemy for X amount of minutes. It could be to remove enemy glyph. Maybe buy a super creep wave for your side etc.
If an enemy heroes goes to a secret shop they can instantly disable what was bought for free.
There's one major problem that you fail to address.
Heroes are now more than ever at serious risk of 6-slotting. This means that there is a realistic point in time where no amount of farming will increase your advantage, and that carries especially have been reaching that lately. It used to be that you would literally only max out on Antimage and Alchemist, with Tinker occasionally making an appearance or whatever hero Burning was playing that day, but now it's almost every game that you say "well, hero X has finished his item progression."
The real issue is not that farming the whole map gives you too little. In fact, the The problem is that turtling gives you too much, along with everything else in the game.
It's too easy to get items in this game, and that makes the items worth less. To restore the balance, income needs to be nerfed or items need further progression (which probably also ought to come along with stronger towers).
@Acritter, the second graph with the "useless gold" label and the paragraphs it follows address that. It says a similar thing that you do, in that there's a point where you get 6-slotted and then you have a bunch of gold giving you nothing, while your NW increases, and in the meantime the enemy heroes are still getting stronger.
Imagine the gold scaling for all jungle creeps, starting from min 1. i would see this as a very interesting change since it could both nerf and buff certain junglers like enigma and axe would get their items slower while chen and enchantress would be encouraged to push earlier and get that map control while feeding their creeps wouldn't be as bad.
an early advantage (in any game) does not necessarily have to lead to a "snowball" effect
(in much the same way a later blunder does not necessarily have to result in a "rubber-band" effect)
should or shouldn't is one thing, but it is not a law of nature that things must be or are that way
light of heaven once said that dota is a simple game--you make a series of correct moves, and then you win. there are some of us who still wish it could be so simple.
Rubber-band is mostly to keep teams through mid-game and not to fall off in 20 minutes. It keeps early/mid-game entertaining, however that might lead to retarded late-game in some rare circumstances
you make a series of correct moves, and then you win.
On April 14 2015 04:45 etofok wrote: Rubber-band is mostly to keep teams through mid-game and not to fall off in 20 minutes. It keeps early/mid-game entertaining, however that might lead to retarded late-game in some rare circumstances
you make a series of correct moves, and then you win.
This can be said about everything
That's my point. You assume that developers, and people want an "interesting" game throughout mid to late. You think that this is how it should be, and that everyone already agrees.
I am saying that it doesn't have to be that way.
To give some examples:
In Starcraft, if you greedily fast expand and then get proxy rushed, you will be crippled going forward.
In Warcraft 3, if you lose an early footman, you will be at a disadvantage. Your opponent will not "snowball" from a one-footy advantage though.
If you play aggressively, you will probably be a unit behind because of the supply line, but through skill you can win.
If you get outdrafted, or if you make a gamble and go for late and your opponent goes for early, maybe some of the time your opponent's early game will pay off and you lose. Maybe there was no "interesting" mid and late game; but it was, in my opinion, interesting that there was option to choose between early and late lineups.
When the rubberband patch first hit, obviously it was extreme, but immediately we saw heroes like QOP fall off dramatically in win-rates. Your late game is more interesting, but is the game more interesting overall?
I agree with you that there is a balance. I disagree that having one-sided games, or a lack of a late game is a bad thing, necessarily.
In Starcraft, if you greedily fast expand and then get proxy rushed, you will be crippled going forward.
You assume that developers, and people want an "interesting" game throughout mid to late.
The very advent of photon overcharge / siege-queen buff / bunker build time / 12 worker start (lotv) are directly aimed to carry a player into mid-game, where the actual game starts.
I see the point you are making there, although it fits into the first picture (snowball <-> rubberband) so there are can't be any arguments: it is clearly a balance "problem". The reason I put that in quotation marks is because the real balance is almost impossible to achieve due to players inventing and discovering new ways to play the game.
Even if you can do that, and it happens, after some time it will lead to stagnation and gameplay being boring (because everything is expected) meaning developers are forced to introduce new mechanics / new stuff basically to keep it fresh. And the cycle continues.
On April 13 2015 02:20 Fencar wrote: @Acritter, the second graph with the "useless gold" label and the paragraphs it follows address that. It says a similar thing that you do, in that there's a point where you get 6-slotted and then you have a bunch of gold giving you nothing, while your NW increases, and in the meantime the enemy heroes are still getting stronger.
You partially misunderstand my point. It's not just that 6-slotting is a problem now, but also that 6-slotting is more of a problem now. The game has developed in such a way, mostly thanks to the vast expansion of ways to get gold without any comparable expansion of the net worth ceiling or ways to limit the farm of the opposition, that 6-slotting is a realistic concern on 3-4 heroes out of the 10 in any game that goes late, instead of it very rarely being an issue on one or two heroes.
The logical extension of this is that leads become more and more difficult to maintain, thanks to the leading team capping out extremely fast and thus creating room for the losing team to catch up. As a thought experiment to demonstrate the concept: if every team got infinite money, it would be impossible to maintain a lead. We aren't currently that far along, but we are getting closer to the absurd situation, and it's definitely getting harder to maintain a lead. The increased income can account for some of this.
a lot of people for some reason, je ne sais quoi, don't feel like playing dota anymore
I thought I was alone/just my friends who all switched to CSGO or something, but it seems there are others who feel the same
I still maintain that dota is not as rewarding to play or watch at the moment, and I think one factor is the so-called comeback mechanic
for me personally, the trend started much earlier with the nerf to farming during buyback, and I think since then it's been more and more of an anti-fun streak
I don't actually know if that's true. I was just learning the game when Anti "Antifun" Mage was a thing.
In all seriousness, I do feel like when I play midlane, I'm gimped if I don't pick heroes that scale well into the lategame (SF, Sniper), or really secure the early game for heroes that do while still being useful late (Lina, and also Pudge... Very occasionally). Anything that seems falls into a middle ground, like Invoker or Puck, are among my least played despite Invoker and Puck being my favorite heroes to play mid.
Interesting read. I definitely think the TCM was supposed to make games more exciting by increasing the potential for visible game-shifting plays, but given this set of circumstances it's wound up doing the opposite.
Seems to me that the problem with the TI4 meta was sort of similar---if you were against a pushing team, you usually couldn't make a dent in the course of the game.
When 6.82 came out, I felt like it was an attempt to give Dota 2 some of the suspense factor you see in, say, a CSGO match, where each frag can be a big, potentially match-changing event, and where there's no real snowball advantage (even if you've lost 10 rounds in a row, you have a very reasonable chance of winning your next buy round). But again, the recent patches kind of did the opposite---whereas in CSGO any unanswered frag can snap a round shut, in Dota stellar blink dream coils, clever ganks, and quick-thinking body blocks don't really amount to much.
On April 16 2015 04:26 RuiBarbO wrote: Interesting read. I definitely think the TCM was supposed to make games more exciting by increasing the potential for visible game-shifting plays, but given this set of circumstances it's wound up doing the opposite.
Seems to me that the problem with the TI4 meta was sort of similar---if you were against a pushing team, you usually couldn't make a dent in the course of the game.
When 6.82 came out, I felt like it was an attempt to give Dota 2 some of the suspense factor you see in, say, a CSGO match, where each frag can be a big, potentially match-changing event, and where there's no real snowball advantage (even if you've lost 10 rounds in a row, you have a very reasonable chance of winning your next buy round). But again, the recent patches kind of did the opposite---whereas in CSGO any unanswered frag can snap a round shut, in Dota stellar blink dream coils, clever ganks, and quick-thinking body blocks don't really amount to much.
That's not true at all. In the late game, respawn times are so high and damage output is so high that killing one enemy core hero (and sometimes not even a core hero) in a pickoff or teamfight initiation and forcing a retreat can land you t2, t3, rax and throne. Buyback is the most valuable resource of all in the late game. When the enemy Sniper is dead for 100 seconds because you smoke ganked him while he was farming jungle, you pretty much win the game right there if he doesn't have buyback. Even if he does have buyback, if he so much as shows his face within 6 minutes and isn't surrounded by all 4 teammates at all times, he immediately dies again and his team loses because now he's dead for even longer. The stakes are so high in the late game and the game itself is so fragile, that element really can't be understated.
That's not really a commentary on the comeback mechanic per se, it's just how games tend to play out most of the time.
On April 16 2015 04:26 RuiBarbO wrote: Interesting read. I definitely think the TCM was supposed to make games more exciting by increasing the potential for visible game-shifting plays, but given this set of circumstances it's wound up doing the opposite.
Seems to me that the problem with the TI4 meta was sort of similar---if you were against a pushing team, you usually couldn't make a dent in the course of the game.
When 6.82 came out, I felt like it was an attempt to give Dota 2 some of the suspense factor you see in, say, a CSGO match, where each frag can be a big, potentially match-changing event, and where there's no real snowball advantage (even if you've lost 10 rounds in a row, you have a very reasonable chance of winning your next buy round). But again, the recent patches kind of did the opposite---whereas in CSGO any unanswered frag can snap a round shut, in Dota stellar blink dream coils, clever ganks, and quick-thinking body blocks don't really amount to much.
That's not true at all. In the late game, respawn times are so high and damage output is so high that killing one enemy core hero (and sometimes not even a core hero) in a pickoff or teamfight initiation and forcing a retreat can land you t2, t3, rax and throne. Buyback is the most valuable resource of all in the late game. When the enemy Sniper is dead for 100 seconds because you smoke ganked him while he was farming jungle, you pretty much win the game right there if he doesn't have buyback. Even if he does have buyback, if he so much as shows his face within 6 minutes and isn't surrounded by all 4 teammates at all times, he immediately dies again and his team loses because now he's dead for even longer. The stakes are so high in the late game and the game itself is so fragile, that element really can't be understated.
That's not really a commentary on the comeback mechanic per se, it's just how games tend to play out most of the time.
Good point, I guess what I was saying in that last paragraph was more about the early to midgame. Once you're at the point where towers start falling in a tenth the time it takes a hero to respawn, then yeah, someone getting caught out is a total game changer.
How about making the bounty on lane creeps change with the diference of buildings between teams on that lane.
For exemple: Radiant has all towers mid and Dire only has tier 3 left, so when Dire heroes kill mid creeps that try to go HG they get less gold. When Dire destroys Radiant tier 1 and 2 mid, the creep value increase again because the lane is equal to Radiant's.
This way, a team which has map control and more standing buildings get more gold when killing lane creeps. Forcing the other team into low ground to take buildings if they want to keep up. Becoming more vulnerable in the process.
I think this method would give equivalent results to Starcraft's sieging and camping outside one's base. It kinda emulates resource depletion...
a lot of people for some reason, je ne sais quoi, don't feel like playing dota anymore
I thought I was alone/just my friends who all switched to CSGO or something, but it seems there are others who feel the same
I still maintain that dota is not as rewarding to play or watch at the moment, and I think one factor is the so-called comeback mechanic
for me personally, the trend started much earlier with the nerf to farming during buyback, and I think since then it's been more and more of an anti-fun streak
i stopped playing during 6.83c because the game basically makes doing anything with risk -ev. that's the essence of fun when you play a game, i think, never taking risks. (not being able to farm during buyback is most certainly anti-fun too)
(1) support issues:
one thing seldom talked about is that dual roaming support was the optimal support play during ti4, whose success and failure directly leads to stomp games either way. you could see some western supports switch to this style prior to ti4 and noticeably struggle to have an impact. the chinese had always played this style more than the west, and it was quite obvious of this disparity during east vs west games
now, supports get 100 less gold per tower, significantly less per aoe assist, and if your team gets ahead, gives up significantly more gold.
if you're a support you lose money if you successfully rotate and kill an enemy hero because of the utility cost (gold gained, enemy gold lost in the kill, smoke cost, loss of jungle camp income for pulling supports, loss of safe lane income, gain in offlaner income, loss of income due to respawn time and tps force, etc) and 45 aoe gold bounty. on average, you need something like a 60% kill rate no deaths for a gank attempt to be net positive for your team. support rotations in lane are mostly not about getting an advantage but redistributing team's net worth onto your cores.
i think this is the major reason heroes like sniper, sf, storm, lina are so insane mid this patch. you used to be able to just sit on them for the first 15 minutes if the other team didn't have a lineup that could protect them and they'd go 0-3 and lose the game. now, it's extremely difficult to punish a greedy mid laner while not falling behind overall.
(2) equation issues:
huge dumb teamfights are the major point of contention re: rubberband but 3 4 5 man ganks on a single hero yield nearly double the gold what they did in 6.81. i mean that used to be just bad play most of the time.
it's been a long time since i've taken a math class but this seems pseudo-exponential to me, especially considering v correlates positively with o and negatively with k.
so you have a pseudo-exponential gold and xp mechanic in addition to kill streaks (itself a comeback mechanic, albeit the effect is unpredictable and chaotic), three regression mechanics.
i mean i don't even know why a "NWFactor" even exists and why team networth is even involved other than for the sake of complexity. whats wrong with having the enemy hero just give out like 2% of his networth as aoe gold???
I like this post. My personal solution is a relatively simple one:
Add a consumable item worth, say, 5k gold that refreshes in the shop every 5 minutes or so. What it does is grant the user the ability to make an item "shareable." In this way, you don't get 6-slotted carries with 10k+ gold banked. They can use that gold to help out their supports and provide a massive boost in teamfight that can combat the defender's advantage in such a way as to still retain a bit of a lead during clashes. This requires the defender not only to do everything in their power to break out of their base and contend with farm, it also requires them to outplay not just the enemy carry but the supports because the latter are suddenly so much stronger.
A fine post (I particularly liked some of the funnier pictures), but I hope you're okay with some friendly criticism.
I think there's more depth to it than what your sliders would imply. Well of course there are... but anyway, I'd like to elaborate by making my own slider.
Let's just call it "<- Mutually passive end-game with one team farming the map for fear of pushing high ground <---> Exciting and close lategame without boring passivity <---> Pointless last 20+ minute late-game farming before inevitable gg push -> "
The first part of the slider is what you seem to want to avoid. I hate the other side of the spectrum more, which is when with complete map control you can achieve victory without too much issue so long as you just farm the map over and over and starve your opponent. It's not just boring in the sense that the game is passive, as when the team in the lead avoids pushing for fear of the comeback mechanic, but it's also boring because the game at that point is basically over but both teams need to go through the pointless last X minutes of farming before LGD the team in the lead wants to end the game.
It's a matter of uncertainty vs certainty. If you offer the team with map control an additional income you're moving closer to certainty. What is the purpose? With the comeback mechanic in the game, adding more income to the team in the lead does nothing to incentivise pushing high-ground. All it does is help the team in the lead to close out the game, eventually. If you try to balance it by not increasing jungle gold too much, you might just increase the time it takes to build the advantage LGD the team in the lead needs to push high ground comfortably.
It sounds to me like what you should really want is to make the defender's advantage not quite so strong. That would be lowering a threshold, as opposed to introducing an acceleration type mechanic which can be used over (boring) time to overcome a threshold.
I think giving the winning team an option to spend their surplus money on something that directly helps to break high-ground would be great. For example allow a team to spawn a megacreep that pushes down a lane. This would also remove the problem of getting your creepwave cleared to bullshit like shrapnel and thus losing vision to siege the enemy high ground.
My group of five dota friends and I have all stopped playing since 6.83c. There are mitigating factors but the main reason is that the patch is not fun. 6.81 was not fun either, when games were over before 15 minutes like 70% of the time, but right now the game is way too far in the other direction.
Really strongly agree with the person who said risks are now -ev. You can't take even minor risks in 6.83c lategame without putting your entire game on the line. This is exactly what PPD and others have been complaining about--it takes so long to make it safe to take the risk of going highground that the game becomes really excruciating to play.
It sounds to me like what you should really want is to make the defender's advantage not quite so strong.
I explained the problem that emerged recently under the 6.83c circumstances just for the sake of awareness. I proposed some ideas that would [in my personal opinion] be nice to have in Dota in general and they collaterally help with any late game stalemate situations providing slightly more meaningful and fun gameplay.
I'm essentially pointing out: "This + that + these = we got this".
My group of five dota friends and I have all stopped playing since 6.83c
There are a lot of games that appeared on radars during 6.83: CS:GO got 1m viewers and got a spike in popularity, MK10 and GTA5 have been released, Dark Souls update, Amplitude games free weekend on steam - I really enjoyed Endless Legend for example. However the game on Endless difficulty I expected to be harder as I was able to get the achievement during 2 days of playing, but I've had an amazing time. Plus I played some Stacraft 2 arcades with friends and several games were surprisingly great.
It's certainly a fair description of what frustrates you and certainly many other players, though I honestly know nothing of how widespread your frustration is (to the point of hating/leaving the game). Has there been a significant decrease in the amount of players in Dota 2, or just an increase in whining on reddit? I haven't done any research on that.
Anyway, although I'm sure you didn't mean it in the literal sense I don't see many stalemate situations at all in Dota 2. I think we simply view what's happening differently. Let's compare Dota 2 to a tug of war. Just because neither side is advancing, regardless of how close or far they seem to be to be able to win, doesn't mean it's a stalemate. Someone's gonna tire eventually. In Dota, someone is gonna mess up eventually, or mass BKBs come out or something like that.
To me, when I watch a professional dota game, my enjoyment hinges on not knowing the outcome of the game and whether I like it or not I continually evaluate who will win and once a state has been reached after which there is no reasonable chance of a team coming back I often lose interest. So even in extended periods of farming there is still tension because the game isn't over yet.
I will concede that most games these days aren't perfect from a viewing experience, but I think suggestions such as those you propose may have very undesirable side effects and I don't even think much would be gained other than a very different game.
Perhaps I'm just more of a cautious person, but...
On April 09 2015 06:40 etofok wrote:I mean something really ridiculous like 4k for a cheese at 80 minutes might be actually a great thing for the game.
That seems completely insane to me. I mean, if you want to make sure the team with map control wins then yes, you have found a solution. Would it be interesting? Heck no. Why not? Well, a multitude of reasons but e.g. why would LGD the team with map control want to push high ground and risk losing their advantage when they can build a bigger advantage? They could wait for 2 roshans, 3 or 4, heck why not 5? If there's a sniper on the other team why risk it you know? Jungle camps drop a complete Daedalus at 120 minutes into the game, what's the hurry?
Okay I got a bit carried away there, but you get my point. The team with the advantage needs to be under pressure to keep the game interesting. Well, interesting for me anyway.
I think some minor changes to the game might be in order... like not counting unspent gold when calculating rubber band gold for kills, or something like that. And other than that I'm sure we'll see heroes like Sniper take some hits from Icefrog after Starladder.
It actually doesn't in the slightest because I'm not a competitive dota player. When I play I just have fun with friends.
Well, a multitude of reasons but e.g. why would LGD the team with map control want to push high ground and risk losing their advantage when they can build a bigger advantage?
Point is, in the late game, where all towers are gone, and runes are not that important anymore the only contest points that are still in the game are barracks, thrones, Roshan and neutral camps (kind of). By adding some late-game value to Roshan and Jungle - because sometimes you physically can't go and contest the first two - we are increasing value of these "open world" contest points that creates impending "soft-enrage" which encourages defenders to be drawn out of their base. This is the logic I have.