Quote (sMACKTRiCKz @ May 22 2013 10:20pm)
Ok list of things I don't like about HoN
S2 invests hardly any money into the game - They have like a tiny team for each part of the game: coding, balance, etc. They also put hardly anything into the competitive side. Valve put MILLIONS into the International alone. That doesn't even account for the deals they give streamers, casters, staff, etc. The competitive scene in Dota2 is absolutely epic, and the game is kept really high quality so the competitive players can play in a balanced, exciting environment. If you see how well advertised and marketed the International is, you'll truly have some admiration for Valve.
S2 focuses almost exclusively on prying money away from its customers while giving very little back - The whole "new hero every 2 weeks" thing is when I really decided I was going to quit HoN for good. They just wanted to do that for EA to squeeze money out of the nerds that want to play the newly released heroes that are also conveniently overpowered as fuck when they first come out.
S2 doesn't make enough of an effort to balance - Don't tell me things like MK and EW are balanced. Also, for a while S2 tried to release a new hero every 2 weeks. Icefrog has been working on Dota2 for so many years and is pretty much the world's expert on balancing MOBAs. Even Icefrog requires MONTHS of planning and testing before implementing a new hero or making a small balance change. The result is a really fucking well balanced game. There are still issues, but they get addressed. They may not get addressed urgently, but they are addressed CAREFULLY so they don't fuck up balance even more by rebalancing because the community was crying.
Community is garbage, and it IS S2's fault - Public MMR, stats like KD ratio, GPM, XPM, win % in profile just encourage people to only play carries or mid and think they are better than anyone else if they have .01 more kill death ratio. On top of that, the report system is a joke and the GMs are corrupt as fuck. Valve, on the other hand, has done SO many things to make the community better. For instance: muting players in-game if they talk shit on chat too much for some period of time (like 24h). They can still communicate through a basic chat wheel and ping, but can't type their own shit into chat so they can't flame. Not making MMR public or any stats public at all. Using PAID, professional moderators who are ANONYMOUS to make decisions about people's accounts. Having a SECRET MMR matching algorithm. Implementing a SOLO only queue feature so you don't end up solo queuers vs 5 man stack. All of this shit helps the community alot.
Making the game f2p AFTER stealing a ton of money from people who paid after beta - This is self explanatory. That's a disgusting move. You either choose f2p or p2p at the start of your release. You don't fucking change half way through when the game is still in its prime.
Not allowing any sort of item / coin trading - In Dota2, you are free to trade any item to anyone. You can even trade for real steam $ which can be used to buy games. S2 clearly just want people to only buy shit from their shop so they can squeeze more money.
Fucking up a bunch of the Dota fundamentals - Free courier at start? Can ward inside Roshan? If Icefrog thought these changes would better the game overall, he would have made them. S2's way of implementing balance on general game concepts is flawed, not properly thought out, and actually hurts the game more than it helps it.
Clearly corrupt GMs / Mediators - These guys delete posts / ban people if they don't like them. They give their friends free gold coins and stats resets. They even offered to pay me in coins to boost their accounts. These guys are NOT professionals, they are dumb basement dwelling kids with 0 IRL prospects and alot of free time on their hands so they choose to spend it in the only place they have any power or their opinion is valued - moderating a shitty game.
I havn't played HoN in quite a while, and I was Always defending the game towards all the Dota/LoL players.. But to be honest, I couldn't agreed more.. Its totally shit today.
I thought it was good, very good, when the game was released +few months forwards.
Then it all Went downhill.