its just dumb because that way players never get to truly learn the game

chicken + wards gives team a tremendous advantage, especially for mid solo. that's how i stomped most of my games. superior play mid + having chicken and maybe wards up gave me massive advantage over their solo, allowing me to take mid lane early then roam and shut down all the enemy heroes.

now every player gets that advantage. its just making the game more noob friendly, like LoL. DotA is meant to be a game with a steep learning curve. that's what makes it fun for players who are good, and it also makes it fun for new players because there is always a challenge to learn more aspects of the game and improve.

taking that away is just making HoN more of a joke competitively than it is already. it's also lowering the overall quality of the game, and the overall skill level of players

This post was edited by sMACKTRiCKz on Aug 19 2011 07:30am

ricing is merely a phase in DotA
there are many other styles
MyM has shown their healer-disable-push shit just yesterday

there's a different mid-game heavy style, where antimage farms for vanguard and yasha (helm of black legion + firebrand), and then the focus is on fighting and ganking

the metagame has to evolve, and that's just how it is
you can't continue to push a game in different directions, you have to set one direction and allow the competitive scene to build its way in that direction

it's the same with anything
SSF4 had sagat as the OP character, but people developed the proper playstyles and sagat players were no where near the top other than Mago
smash bros brawl (yeah it's a joke cuz of tripping but using as an example) has metaknight in god tier due to his capabilities, and has been banned from italy tournaments, but players finally learned how to play diddy kong and now he's np

if they had patched any of those, the metagame wouldn't have had the chance to evolve

imo it's best to make fewest changes possible
that being said, releasing new heroes so frequently certainly does not help the competitive scene


from a casual standpoint, yes, the free courier is amazing and is fantastic to have
but as someone who views the quality of a game based on its potential in the competitive scene, this is ghey

they've already done so much to reduce the average skill level of players

stats system, so people only care about winning and KDR. won't take risks, won't play different tactics, won't die even if it means your team winning a teamfight. people play purely for their stats page, not to improve at the game. they just do the same "safe" play every game where they are too scared to initiate aggressively or to do anything out of the "norm". people also become super selfish and don't even bother playing as a team because it might force them to play support and have bad KDR.

now with this change, people will have even more trouble understanding the importance of support. support is like 50% of the game at the moment, but most kids treat it like 0%. most average (1600ish) players who play now will not even think twice about playing a supportive role because its "already done for you" with free courier.

if they keep adding changes like this the game will just become worse and worse. nobody plays to be good anymore. they just play to grief / flame / get KDR / get stats / whatever. nobody really wants to improve, thats why so many people are "stuck" in 1500s.

so you want to say that in comp/high tier games the enemies had no courier? oh cmon dude, srsly
and if you talk about your 1500mmr smurf stomps your argument sucks even more, because it won't make a difference if the enemies have a courier there or not (and unless you play with mates you won't get a courier in 80% of the games anyway)
and saying that the free courier would harm the steep learning curve is complete bs or do you think you get good at this game by buying a courier?

oh and another awesome change made by s2: buyback limited to 2. everyone was crying about it when it was added and now everyone is happy when they saw the shitty 10 bbs in dota2 games



agree on that, i hate this "a new hero every 2 weeks" shit and i hate the EA crap aswell, but beside to those 2 things i like 80% of s2's decisions

This post was edited by The_Darkness_II on Aug 19 2011 07:42am

I want to improve but I'm stuck anywhere from 1675-1800

it does matter in 1500 games. playing at 2 people max, you really think its easy to go 50-0 or whatever stats? every little bit helps, including having courier / ward advantage. knowing to buy courier / wards is part of being a better player, now that aspect is slowly being taken away.

as for the buyback, dota's system is still better. 4 minute cooldown is much more fair. you can buyback aggressively early game and still be able to buyback lategame if you are getting pushed. in HoN you have to save buybacks early, not allowing for aggressive buybacks and counter ganks. also, lategame you can buyback fucking 2 times in a row if you had saved all the buybacks, thats dumb as hell. 1 buyback every 4 mins is more than enough





Banana_lover Multi

This post was edited by sMACKTRiCKz on Aug 19 2011 07:42am

i've gone from 1750+ to 1675, feels good mans

the way i learned this game was in dota leagues / publics with NO STATS

i just watched competitive games (MYM was #1 at the time), and saw how they did things. then i tried them in pub games. didn't care if i won or lost, just tried to play well.

i feel like you can't really do that in HoN because

1) stats system makes players think they have to win every game rather than lose and learn from it. so, when people lose, they just rage / crY / report other players, they never analyse their mistakes and try to get better
2) community is even worse due to stats system and elitist players, so people have harder time learning since they just get flamed. dota is kind of bad for this too, but nowhere near as bad in pubs. especially like 5 years ago, pubs were pretty chill
3) competitive scene in HoN nowhere near as good

e: also i learned alot back in HoN beta when you could just make new acct free

me and my friend who was way better than me just played alot and tried to own as hard as possible. we didn't care if win / lose, cause could always make new account for fresh stats

This post was edited by sMACKTRiCKz on Aug 19 2011 07:49am

exactly
i know it was a problem in SC2 as well, which is why blizzard has chosen to hide W:L scores for anybody not in masters league
that way, people are willing to mass ladder games and really try to improve

as for hon,
i remember when it was just stats, and that was a pain in the ass to see a pebbles reluctant to initiate on what would be easy and free kills, but due to his inability to calculate on the spot and greed for his stats numbers, he'd rather choose to give up 2 kills and wait for a better opportunity with less risk of him dying and losing a potential immortal

which is the other thing
when tracking streaks was added, it worsened it


though it doesn't affect anybody TRULY wanting to improve and who would be playing with 5, it was one of my earliest complaints
i know very many people who refuse to play support or even try to learn how to because they need to be happy with their KDR number to fall asleep at night


now that being said, i wouldn't mind if dota 2 had stat tracking (though would greatly prefer nothing but a rating and W:L)
but i know valve won't shit the bed like S2 has
there won't be useless and garbage heroes everywhere who have the reach-level-6-and-be-effective-until-late-game style, they won't flood the hero pool weekly with garbage, and they certainly won't make core changes like removing courier and shifting the support metagame

quote from tobi that he just said under 30 seconds ago

"kills don't matter in dota, it is just about who wins"