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Some of my opinions on the current state of Arcanas:
The reason why the CM arcana was my favorite, was because it did what I believe all arcanas should do... take a hero that looks ehhh average on its own... and then completely transform the hero into the most amazing looking hero you've ever seen. Emphasis on completely transform how the hero looks, moves, and casts spells (I think its super important that the arcana complements the spells that the hero casts, the CM set did this almost perfectly imo):
I thought the CM and PA arcanas did very well and are easily the most appealing and I would buy them in a heartbeat. They look almost completely different, they act differently, and they look better. What more can you ask for?; Honorable mentions to the Lina and Legion Commander arcana, they look cool but they are not on the same level as the CM and PA arcanas. They look kind of different, they do act differently, but I'm not sure if they look that much better; The SF and TB sets look more or less like their original sets with particles, which is not really "arcana" enough for me. TB has more other sets that look better than the arcana in my opinion and I would probably not buy it unless I had money to throw around... which I don't;
The Zeus arcana was little bit disappointing to me... not because it was bad or anything, but because I just expected something a little more... electrifying lol and was another arcana set that doesn't really transform the hero like the CM and PA arcanas do (it kinda looks like the same hero but this time on a cloud...). I think the reason why a lot of people voted for the Zeus arcana in the first place was because the original Zeus set looked incredibly plain and boring for a hero with such awesome spells and personality, and this was only partially remedied in my opinion; oh... and nobody likes techies (I actually think the arcana was pretty well done, but I'll refrain from purchasing it because I have very little interest in playing the hero).
What I'd like to see in the future are heroes such as Lion, Bane, and Slardar, which I believe are the 3 most terribly ugly looking heroes in the game (unfortunately these are also some of my favorite heroes to play, I just have to avoid looking directly at the hero so my eyes don't burn), and completely makeover the heroes in their arcanas so that they look at least 70% different from their original set (I'd give CM and PA both around 75% just as a frame of reference). Honestly, with the spells that Bane has, I can visualize many different ways that ugly hero can easily become the coolest looking arcana in the game.
The sets coming out during these majors that are looking increasingly more visually appealing and the gap between the visual appeal of sets and arcanas seem to be closing, but I still feel like the progress of the Arcana is very important in the game. For people like me who enjoy DOTA 2 because of the graphics and visual effects going on in the game, we would want to see the concept of the Arcana continue to push the boundaries of what we can see a hero be in a MOBA game and fulfill the excitement of entering the map with our newly purchased godlike apparel.
I guess we'll just have to see what Valve goes with next!
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We are polar opposites - In a perfect world I'd have no cosmetics in the game, and everyone would use the standard models, and everything would be easily recognizable (though how'd Valve get money then).
That said, for a long time now, I've kept having the same feeling that more isn't better, and I worry that the market will over flood, and just the sheer volume of cosmetics will get people disinterested. A hero imo shouldn't have more than 5 sets (and I hope never more than 1 Arcana either), I just think it's information overload or something. Once there are 6 sets, the oldest set should imo become unusable, untrackable, and completely retired.
Anyway, I have Valve is looking to the long term when deciding their Arcana + Cosmetics strategy, and also hope they don't go overboard and make it even more intrusive to game play.
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I think the CM arcana took a hero that looked good on its own, and made it awesome. Same with PA and Lina (though Lina's arcana doesn't give you any good spell effects).
I totally with you about SF particularly because his model looks/looked pretty poor. When they redesigned him, it seems like they went halfway and made that the base model, then finished strong and made it the arcana. That's also why Zeus feels underwhelming to me, sure the arcana looks cool, but I thought we were going to get a cooler redesign. Instead it's just cleaner and then we have the arcana.
I think arcanas are good for the game and I like when heroes have different effects that change things up. I don't like muddled sets and ones that don't stand out on their own...like I had a game with a Kunkka and an Omniknight in it and I kept mistaking the heroes because they had similar sets. CM or PA's arcanas look different than the original hero but they also look distinct from other hero designs.
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On March 28 2016 23:28 FiWiFaKi wrote: We are polar opposites - In a perfect world I'd have no cosmetics in the game, and everyone would use the standard models, and everything would be easily recognizable (though how'd Valve get money then).
That said, for a long time now, I've kept having the same feeling that more isn't better, and I worry that the market will over flood, and just the sheer volume of cosmetics will get people disinterested. A hero imo shouldn't have more than 5 sets (and I hope never more than 1 Arcana either), I just think it's information overload or something. Once there are 6 sets, the oldest set should imo become unusable, untrackable, and completely retired.
Anyway, I have Valve is looking to the long term when deciding their Arcana + Cosmetics strategy, and also hope they don't go overboard and make it even more intrusive to game play.
I actually agree with you almost completely. My main topic in my post was about Arcanas specifically and not really concerning regular workshop sets.
I would agree with you in saying that everyone should use standard models IF the current standard models were.... good. But I actually think the current standard models on average for all heroes are fairly plain or just simply kinda ugly, and having unique sets around allow people like me to do something about it if we choose to do so. There are some good standard models (FV, Phoenix, weaver, invoker, oracle, and others)... but there are even more unattractive standard models imo(bane, slardar, lion, undying, viper, lifestealer, NS, SK, etc.), and I kinda feel like that was done on purpose to an extent so that workshop sets would be more appealing for purchase. So for me, having sets allows me to take heroes that I don't like to look at and turn them into something that I am happy with cosmetically, and therefore I play them more often. Yes, I can see how over-crowding of sets can be an issue and probably should be limited to an extent. Yes, I also think there should be only 1 arcana per hero to preserve the integrity of each arcana's uniqueness, then if new arcanas are to be made after each gets one, it should probably replace the older arcana (but it better be an upgrade in terms of quality).
Think of my post as more of a qualitative assessment on only arcanas, and not necessarily a quantitative assessment of all sets. You bring up a lot of good points though!
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I'm okay with cosmetics but I'd rather they stick to the original color scheme... so often I try to mix and match from different sets but it never works cuz every set wants to be special with a different hue.
In terms of arcanas, I agree SF arcana kinda sucks. Not a fan of LC or Techies arcana personally.
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Dunno, honestly the only arcana I've ever wanted was the sf arcana. I agree that the normal hero looks kinda unfinished/plain, he just looks cooler with the flames everywhere.
I think the CM arcana is decent except for the dog (I find those pet things really annoying, same thing with the armadillo). It looks too potent for such a slow and fragile hero, but I guess that's a matter of taste.
I like the Lina arcana except for the fact that it's old and the flame looks clunky as a result. It's not that big of a change and the hero was supposed to look like this anyways.
I don't agree with you on the PA Arcana. Imho it looks very plain, the only cool thing about it is the crit animation imo. It's like what you criticized about zeus rework, pa essentially got glowing eyes and a littlebit different coloring (zeus got abs) and that's it. Also the hip area looks very plain and the daggers imo look bad. Floating weapons never look good unless they are floating in thin air (like tbs).
I'm surprised Zeus arcana didn't go far enough for you, because for me it went too far actually. They just took all the remarkable points from Zeus away and put red abs on a cloud. I mean he isn't small anymore, he lost his white clothing and his Mario beard. His skin color is different and his hair is different as well. If you'd put the two right next to each other I'd barely recognize them as the same hero (in fact I didn't when I saw him the first time ingame).
I agree about slardar, the tb arcana being plain and viper being ugly. I don't get your hate for bane, I like his model. He looks creepy and a bit cocky, which is exactly what his voice lines and his abilities are about. He isnt pretty, but he's not supposed to.
On a side note: I still think that there should be an option to just disable sets. Like show every hero's basic model.
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On March 28 2016 23:28 FiWiFaKi wrote: We are polar opposites - In a perfect world I'd have no cosmetics in the game, and everyone would use the standard models, and everything would be easily recognizable (though how'd Valve get money then).
That said, for a long time now, I've kept having the same feeling that more isn't better, and I worry that the market will over flood, and just the sheer volume of cosmetics will get people disinterested. A hero imo shouldn't have more than 5 sets (and I hope never more than 1 Arcana either), I just think it's information overload or something. Once there are 6 sets, the oldest set should imo become unusable, untrackable, and completely retired.
Anyway, I have Valve is looking to the long term when deciding their Arcana + Cosmetics strategy, and also hope they don't go overboard and make it even more intrusive to game play.
In 2800 hours of dota registered on my steam account I never had any trouble recognizing a hero instantly. Your idea of less than 6 sets is completely arbitrary though, I don't see a point. If there's no new cosmetics DotA dies and people don't want to lose items they paid for so you can't make old items disappear.
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On March 28 2016 23:28 FiWiFaKi wrote: We are polar opposites - In a perfect world I'd have no cosmetics in the game, and everyone would use the standard models, and everything would be easily recognizable (though how'd Valve get money then).
That said, for a long time now, I've kept having the same feeling that more isn't better, and I worry that the market will over flood, and just the sheer volume of cosmetics will get people disinterested. A hero imo shouldn't have more than 5 sets (and I hope never more than 1 Arcana either), I just think it's information overload or something. Once there are 6 sets, the oldest set should imo become unusable, untrackable, and completely retired.
Anyway, I have Valve is looking to the long term when deciding their Arcana + Cosmetics strategy, and also hope they don't go overboard and make it even more intrusive to game play.
I agree with your first point. Some of the stuff in game doesn't fit. The Spirit Bear has especially strange looks compared to the default.
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On March 28 2016 23:28 FiWiFaKi wrote: We are polar opposites - In a perfect world I'd have no cosmetics in the game, and everyone would use the standard models, and everything would be easily recognizable (though how'd Valve get money then).
That said, for a long time now, I've kept having the same feeling that more isn't better, and I worry that the market will over flood, and just the sheer volume of cosmetics will get people disinterested. A hero imo shouldn't have more than 5 sets (and I hope never more than 1 Arcana either), I just think it's information overload or something. Once there are 6 sets, the oldest set should imo become unusable, untrackable, and completely retired.
Anyway, I have Valve is looking to the long term when deciding their Arcana + Cosmetics strategy, and also hope they don't go overboard and make it even more intrusive to game play.
I find that point odd. I've seen it used before but the idea that you can't pretty much instantly recognize heroes even with their cosmetics is strange to me. I have NEVER had that problem.
In HoN it was more of an issue because they totally changed the avatars in a lot of cases. In Dota the base model is still there and even Arcanas are obvious. The cosmetics are barely intrusive as it stands if really at all.
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Pretty much agree with everything, although I feel that there should be a bit of a surprise in arcanas as well, that is an opposite to or contradictory to the normal hero. Eg: If pa's arcana had some touches of pink and purple, very slightly hidden but noticeable, and still maintained the fierce voice and look it'd be a great plus point to me. One of the reasons I loved that red skywrath set, it was just different.
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there could be a checkbox that players can tick when participating in tournie games to disable all cosmetics
even the game host could have this button so its not the responsibility of individual players
i remember there was a slark set that made him look like riki (shark blue)
otherwise, i love cosmetics. being able to reskin 100 heroes in a game you play for 1000 of hours is really awesome if you're into art and stuff. i don't tend to buy arcanas tho coz there is always something about their design or animation that isn't good enough for me
and in sf's case i love his black model anyway :p
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On March 28 2016 23:28 FiWiFaKi wrote: We are polar opposites - In a perfect world I'd have no cosmetics in the game, and everyone would use the standard models, and everything would be easily recognizable (though how'd Valve get money then).
That said, for a long time now, I've kept having the same feeling that more isn't better, and I worry that the market will over flood, and just the sheer volume of cosmetics will get people disinterested. A hero imo shouldn't have more than 5 sets (and I hope never more than 1 Arcana either), I just think it's information overload or something. Once there are 6 sets, the oldest set should imo become unusable, untrackable, and completely retired.
Anyway, I have Valve is looking to the long term when deciding their Arcana + Cosmetics strategy, and also hope they don't go overboard and make it even more intrusive to game play. yeah I'd agree. I barely use cosmetics at all, and it used to be decent when they were distinguishable enough, but I've lost a game because a drow and a venge had sets that merged their appearances, each one went more towards the others look and instead of jumping a drow in a fight a jumped a venge. It's just stupid how much cosmetics alter people. The blademail cosmetic for axe always throws me off too, I can never remember if its blademail or crimson guard.
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The CM puppy makes the set
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AA arcana leggo. The immortal helm was fun to change up his ulti but the dude still looks like a goddamn ice cream cone
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