Hereos of Newerth (beta)
steppin'razor
Join Date: 2008-09-18 Member: 65033Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2008-09-18 Member: 65033Members, Constellation
in Off-Topic
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I heard it was the guys who made dota decided to breakout and make their own fully-fledged version.
I've heard of, seen it in action. Nothing "wow" about it for me, local lan has guys playing it constantly.
I never got into Dota myself.
1. Persistent stats. Yes, they're the mechanism that discourage leavers and ruin games. They also provoke massive team stacking, and generally all the worsrt behaviours from the gaming community.
2. Graphically, I think it's too busy, and many heroes aren't unique enough to differentiate them. As a result, especially in major teamfights it's often difficult to see what's even going on, much less identify who is casting that crucial channelled spell you need to interrupt.
3. It's simply a little faster than DotA, and that can result in heroes that benefit from movement speed (their abilities travel, they're plain hard to target, whatever) are relatively better. This shows in the number of stun/str/gank heroes being the 'best' in HoN.
But overall, I think it's definitely the DoTA clone with the most potential to stand on it's own merits as a game.
edit: Sorry, I have been quite out of it since I lost my serial key for Warcraft 3 and my friends' have been taunting me about their DPS and their AOE and their killing sprees.
Actually, scrap that. The first 3 people to quote the text below receive a beta key.
<i>"I like chicken, I like liver, Meow Mix Meow Mix please deliver!"</i>
It's an old jingle for MeowMix(cat food). They still use it sometimes in commercials with creepy lip-having-talking-cats.
Uber hard learning curve if you have zero DotA experience like me. My K:D was 0.2 for my first 20 games, now I can break even but I play on newbie servers.
My issues with it:
1. The community are asshats. You get no help.
2. Losing is SO boring. You know you're going to lose within 10 minutes but games can take 60+ minutes. Every player on a team needs to click concede for it to work.
3. The game is built around things I, as an FPS/RTS fan, find annoying. There's a random number generator and infuriating keyboard-smashing stuns. You know what I mean if you meet Electrician and Swiftblade in your lane and if you're not experienced enough to keep out of stun range.
4. The ####ing Scout always gets picked by someone on my team and all he ####ing does is level Stealth and get last hits on opponents. And the ####er never uses Electric Eye.
It's a bit like NS before v3 in that winning is incredibly satisfying but losing is a mind numbing experience. Also the balance isn't there yet (Thunderbringer, Arachna, Moon Queen and Defiler totally overpowered) but as it's a beta I don't mind.
Not sure if I'll be buying it- with 10 players of equal skill it can be an amazing game but that doesn't happen often.
Like that? :O
mail: walled gmail com
Heroes of Newerth (HoN) is as DotA cloned as you can get, just with shinier stuff. It's made by S2 Games, the same people who brought you Savage. It's has serious bugs still (if you're pro enough to notice them) and will cost you $30 up front. However, it is very pretty (sometimes too pretty to know WTF is going on, so turn down the settings) and has some nice added features and heroes. One of my favorite additions is in the upper left corner of the screen sits a handy widget that shows the team's health, mana, and which skills are off cool down. Hover over their icon and you can see which skills they've bought and how many points. IMO, I already have DotA, I don't really need a clone, and while it is shiny... there's League of Legends. But, it's free in Beta and I'm playing it recreationally quite a lot right now.
League of Legends (LoL) is being built by Riot Games, the head designer being Guinsoo, perhaps the single most important DotA editor (predecesor of the current Icefrog). They are taking the idea of DotA, and making it, in their minds, better. For example, they've removed denies (a way to kill your own units to deny enemies XP) since they felt it made the game too defensive. Also, their barracks system has been replaced by inhibitors that respawn after a while, making it so that a lucky push into the enemy base doesn't mean insta gg. Plus their item buying system is SO MUCH BETTER. That being said, it's much further behind in development than HoN so there's much less polish and Beta keys are harder to come by. It will be free to play but you can pump in cash to unlock some perks (which may give a slight edge, but are not game breaking, think 15% heroes choice, 15% buying/level grind, 70% skill).
Demigod a while back was made by Stardock. It took only the basic elements of DotA (heroes + towers + NPC minions) and re-built it into their own game on their own shiny engine. I haven't played it, so beyond that I can't comment.
Well, harder to get keys. If you have buds already in the beta, they probably have keys they can give you, and they periodically give out like 50-100 keys on Facebook (which are gone within 10minutes of posting, some ppl have no lives). However, HoN is just spewing out keys left and right and are about to go into open Beta.
My friend could use one, but I will ofcourse let anyone on this forum have before I beg for another.
The thing is that it's mostly your preferences.
If you thought DotA was the best thing evar and want to see it cloned and made shiny, you'll like HoN.
If you thought DotA was good but it could be made better, you'll probably like LoL.
Personally, I'd like LoL gameplay changes, its item choosing system (so much easier to find items, even if the descriptions are kinda funky at times), some of its GUI (like showing range of your spells), it's awesome netcode, and their ability to peruse heroes outside the game. However, I like the shiny in HoN, the fact it has a decent heroes choosing mode, it's team status widget, and its polish.
But other than that it's a great improvement over Dota (No Leaver mode etc.)
Edit: Been checeking out LoL and it seems quite fun. This is a bigger step than HoN. If anyone has a betakey for that I would gladly try it out.
So far I've liked Nymphora, Pharaoh, Wretched Hag and Pestilence the most. Sniping fleeing scouts with Pharaoh's soul is just awesome. The new sword teleporter seems cool in theory too. The newbie level balance is terrible of course, since you don't have access to team based counters and the hero balance is dictated by the easiest heroes to play. For example you see a lot of Arachnas dominating while still doing a lot of obiviously stupid stuff.
The better netcode helps me a lot. I manage to stay sharp better when the control feels more responsive. In DotA I easily went to autopilot mode and played terribly whenever there wasn't much going on.
You see a lot of Arachna's because her damage output is insane even by Viper standards. Hitting level 6 with her on any single opponent lane is basically an instant free kill.
I love the idea of that
So far I've liked Nymphora, Pharaoh, Wretched Hag and Pestilence the most. Sniping fleeing scouts with Pharaoh's soul is just awesome. The new sword teleporter seems cool in theory too. The newbie level balance is terrible of course, since you don't have access to team based counters and the hero balance is dictated by the easiest heroes to play. For example you see a lot of Arachnas dominating while still doing a lot of obiviously stupid stuff.
The better netcode helps me a lot. I manage to stay sharp better when the control feels more responsive. In DotA I easily went to autopilot mode and played terribly whenever there wasn't much going on.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh, Pro Tip:
TURN OFF POST PROCESSING
TURN OFF DYNAMIC SHADOWS
It currently is shiny, but a major hog of resources. The devs have even said it's fairly inefficient code. Plus, sometimes it gets so shiny you can't see what's going on, definitely hazardous to your health.
I play all heroes, but my first love is definitely Voodoo Jester and Pebbles. Zomg spike damages. I'm also mostly a support player, but I do enjoy a good Magmus. Channel your ult, once it starts use blink dagger (Portal Key) to jump into enemy team, oops, did I just team wipe? Even better if you have the rest of your team around to mop up.
Of course, Lanaya is entirely dependant on what their team lineup is (If they have anything with repeated, seperate hits she's screwed, as they devour Refraction charges, but if they rely on single nukes, she's happy as pie) but that doesn't stop her being <i>so, much, fun.</i> Maybe we should get some UWE DotA/HoN going on?
EDIT: I still have 2 more invites, rules for obtaining them are still above...
lasseleed@gmail.com
Would be sweet ass pie, if you could send me one, thank you :)
EDIT: Oops, doublepost.
He's not actually the bane of mages though- he's more effective draining low mana pool, high mana-skills characters such as Swiftblade. A couple of strikes and NO MORE INSTANT KILL ULT FOR YOU. His mana drain is crap in end game though as it doesn't scale. It should be a % not a set value at the highest level :(
If I were to play with a "proper" character I'd probably go with Valkyrie. I do best with Magmus but he's surely due a nerf for retail.
Okay I'll bite since it sounds like the lot of y'all are having fun. Can you just PM it here?
Is there any kind of group/clan/guild support?