We had a chinwag here -> <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=111242&hl=" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...=111242</a>
So far the slight complaints I have are some difficult to read graphics and clunky default key settings. The rare occassions where you're forced to control multiple units are also far less precise than they were with WC3 engine.
Oh and the European servers seem to be full of badmannered Russians, at least on low level games.
Otherwise I've had great time. Looks like this is where I'll be putting my multiplayer gaming hours for now.
One of the mouse side buttons shows the blink range when held down, the other acts like HoN when a single press (and hold) makes the camera follow you. The usual HL/CS/NS1 net commands make the game more responsive.
<!--quoteo(post=1908891:date=Mar 1 2012, 11:06 PM:name=sherpa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (sherpa @ Mar 1 2012, 11:06 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1908891"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If this is any help;<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Ahh, awesome!
For some reason I was thinking the whole game through as if it was running a standard RTS engine and I didn't really expect any finer configuration possibilities. Many thanks, I'm pretty sure those tweaks will be great use for me.
On a side note for the first time in my gaming life I'm actually a bit disappointed that my mouse only has the wheel and 2 buttons. I've been very comfortable with that kind of setup through CS, NS, Quake Live, Brood War and SC2, but those range binds actually seem something I could have in my mouse. I probably have to figure out some good key layout for that.
When you ask that question about any MOBA game it'll always end up in a flame war!
For me, I prefer Dota 2 over HoN because (1) the heroes were designed for that slower pace; e.g. Rikki's smoke is pretty huge where as in HoN you can right click away and be out of it in a tenth of a second and (2) although Dota 2 has its share of OP heroes (invoker) they don't have the range of ######head heroes HoN has (Rampage magic immune at level 1 vs Spiritbreaker who can be stunned out of his charge)
The items in HoN are a bit hit and miss: it's good they found a better use for sange then just s+y but skadi was/is too strong and mystic vestments is insanely good for its cost (imo). IIRC dota copied HoN's mana battery for the magic stick (good item).
True strory- when the dota servers were taken offline last week I gave HoN a go and couldn't cope with its pace anymore even though I learnt the genre with HoN.
<!--quoteo(post=1909170:date=Mar 2 2012, 06:46 AM:name=sherpa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (sherpa @ Mar 2 2012, 06:46 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1909170"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->For me, I prefer Dota 2 over HoN because (1) the heroes were designed for that slower pace....True strory- when the dota servers were taken offline last week I gave HoN a go and couldn't cope with its pace anymore even though I learnt the genre with HoN.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I feel like this is a really accurate summary and while Sherpa likeS DOTA 2 for these reasons they're the exact reasons why I think DOTA 2 sucks when compared to HoN. The pace of the games are different with DOTA 2 being, in my opinion, much slower. To be fair I did only play like 3 games of DOTA 2 but it was enough for me to never want to play it again.
One of my favorite characters is Omniknight (Jeraziah in HoN) and in HoN when I select a heal spell it nearly instantly goes off on my target. In DOTA my character actually has to stop moving, then the cast time is something super slow in video game time (half a second to maybe a second and a half), and if the target was borderline in range they probably ran out by the time the heal is suppose to land.
Playing HoN is like driving a speedboat and playing DOTA 2 is like operating a crane. Granted, there's probably pros and cons to both points, but I just prefer the faster gameplay.
Well said, Steve. I pretty much hated the first couple dozen Dota 2 games because of the syrup response time, and only stuck with it as I thought it'll have a brighter future than HoN. Hand on heart I don't even notice these issues now- though (embarassingly) I've clocked up over 300 games in a 6 month period.
Haven't played much Omni but damn if Clockwerk (Pharoh) isn't gimped in Dota. The cast times on his Q and W are so long that the only way you can trap an enemy/catch them in the ministuns is to stun them with your ult or get a team mate to stun them. FWIW these are more balance issues than engine/netcode things.
A little late, but after several games I've gotten used to the lag in DotA2. The extra turn times, animations, and all that take getting used to, and I'm sure the "pros" will argue that they "increase the skill cap" or something. Meh. The only silly thing I think is the input lag to simulate BNet. That's just plain stupid. Although I'm not sure if they've removed it or I've just gotten used to it.
I just find Dota 2 really boring to watch. It's so slow, and the fights don't seem to have any build-up to them. It's like: 'Oh, someone died'. Even for the highest level matches the commentators sound bored.
Compare that to LoL, and you can feel the tension before each fight, and you'll see split-second reaction times as it all kicks off and the commentators up the tempo to try and keep on top of what's happening (similar to Husky and StarCraft 2).
I wanted dota 2 to be good, but its really not I cant live with the delay the terrible spell fx and bad animations ( not the models they are good) the annoying voices and clunky UI, Ill be playing Hon and skipping dota 2 completely, which is a shame because I put alot of time into Dota.
What's this I'm hearing that you're not allowed to concede games (instead being forced to keep fighting long after the game is decided)? That sounds absurd.
<!--quoteo(post=1915267:date=Mar 20 2012, 12:20 AM:name=Align)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Align @ Mar 20 2012, 12:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1915267"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What's this I'm hearing that you're not allowed to concede games (instead being forced to keep fighting long after the game is decided)? That sounds absurd.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> It's kind of manageable because disconnects make the game free to leave and most games finish pretty quickly after the meaningful fights are over. I'd certainly like to see things improved, but I think it's running much smoother than you'd expect.
I think the lack of KDR tracking and concede voting make lost games a lot more bearable as people are usually much more willing to just keep playing the game even if it looks rather hopeless. There's much less of endgame team bashing and all that.
<!--quoteo(post=1915379:date=Mar 20 2012, 12:43 PM:name=Saj)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Saj @ Mar 20 2012, 12:43 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1915379"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->except people dont keep playing they afk in well. its retarded.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I've had surprisingly little problems with this. The first AFK makes the game safe to leave pretty quickly. I know the logic is a bit wonky, but I've had less endgame frustration than I had in HoN. I think I might have more trouble once I understand the game better and see when it's no use playing, but for now it's working surpringly good.
I got into the beta. I've not played a dota-esque game in about five years. I started it up in an offline game against bots and got mauled pretty badly. I'm not very good at the dotas.
<!--quoteo(post=1916172:date=Mar 21 2012, 08:32 PM:name=LV426-Colonist)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (LV426-Colonist @ Mar 21 2012, 08:32 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1916172"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Don't mess with the bots.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I feel the need to second this. They just aren't dumb enough, the singular attack pattern for enemy bots seems to be a flawlessly synchronized barrage of stuns and snares topped with insane nukes. The only difference found between difficulties is how often they decide to completely humiliate you. Even more frustrating is they seem to be powered by Geth AI, as the greater the number of bots, the more intelligent they seem to be. While the enemy team of 5 bots can move as a group, set up ambushes and organize mass attacks.
The players AI teammates on the other hand, lacking the 5th part of their hive mind, will spend 40 seconds running back and forth in base or teleport to lanes not currently under attack, only to run back to where they were before. They also don't really like working as a team, often opting to run or teleport single file into a group of 3 or more enemy heroes to die.
Of course, at other times the enemy bots are pretty stupid too. The newest hero, Lone Druid has most of his dps and utility in his Spirit Bear pet. The bots do not attack the spirit bear, and the bear remains effective up to 1100 units from the Druid.
Comments
We had a chinwag here -> <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=111242&hl=" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...=111242</a>
Agreed.
So far the slight complaints I have are some difficult to read graphics and clunky default key settings. The rare occassions where you're forced to control multiple units are also far less precise than they were with WC3 engine.
Oh and the European servers seem to be full of badmannered Russians, at least on low level games.
Otherwise I've had great time. Looks like this is where I'll be putting my multiplayer gaming hours for now.
---
If this is any help;
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->dota_minimap_hero_size 600
con_enable 1
dota_force_right_click_attack 0
cl_updaterate 101
cl_cmdrate 101
dota_disable_range_finder 0
alias "+range" "dota_range_display 1150"
alias "-range" "dota_range_display 0"
bind "mouse4" "+range"
cl_interp 0
cl_interp_ratio 1
rate 80000
alias +single_follow "+dota_camera_follow; -dota_camera_follow; +dota_camera_follow"
alias -single_follow "-dota_camera_follow"
bind "mouse5" +single_follow<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
One of the mouse side buttons shows the blink range when held down, the other acts like HoN when a single press (and hold) makes the camera follow you. The usual HL/CS/NS1 net commands make the game more responsive.
because
because
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is why you can't have nice things.
Ahh, awesome!
For some reason I was thinking the whole game through as if it was running a standard RTS engine and I didn't really expect any finer configuration possibilities. Many thanks, I'm pretty sure those tweaks will be great use for me.
On a side note for the first time in my gaming life I'm actually a bit disappointed that my mouse only has the wheel and 2 buttons. I've been very comfortable with that kind of setup through CS, NS, Quake Live, Brood War and SC2, but those range binds actually seem something I could have in my mouse. I probably have to figure out some good key layout for that.
Also, how is HoN better?
For me, I prefer Dota 2 over HoN because (1) the heroes were designed for that slower pace; e.g. Rikki's smoke is pretty huge where as in HoN you can right click away and be out of it in a tenth of a second and (2) although Dota 2 has its share of OP heroes (invoker) they don't have the range of ######head heroes HoN has (Rampage magic immune at level 1 vs Spiritbreaker who can be stunned out of his charge)
The items in HoN are a bit hit and miss: it's good they found a better use for sange then just s+y but skadi was/is too strong and mystic vestments is insanely good for its cost (imo). IIRC dota copied HoN's mana battery for the magic stick (good item).
True strory- when the dota servers were taken offline last week I gave HoN a go and couldn't cope with its pace anymore even though I learnt the genre with HoN.
I feel like this is a really accurate summary and while Sherpa likeS DOTA 2 for these reasons they're the exact reasons why I think DOTA 2 sucks when compared to HoN. The pace of the games are different with DOTA 2 being, in my opinion, much slower. To be fair I did only play like 3 games of DOTA 2 but it was enough for me to never want to play it again.
One of my favorite characters is Omniknight (Jeraziah in HoN) and in HoN when I select a heal spell it nearly instantly goes off on my target. In DOTA my character actually has to stop moving, then the cast time is something super slow in video game time (half a second to maybe a second and a half), and if the target was borderline in range they probably ran out by the time the heal is suppose to land.
Playing HoN is like driving a speedboat and playing DOTA 2 is like operating a crane. Granted, there's probably pros and cons to both points, but I just prefer the faster gameplay.
Haven't played much Omni but damn if Clockwerk (Pharoh) isn't gimped in Dota. The cast times on his Q and W are so long that the only way you can trap an enemy/catch them in the ministuns is to stun them with your ult or get a team mate to stun them. FWIW these are more balance issues than engine/netcode things.
A little late, but after several games I've gotten used to the lag in DotA2. The extra turn times, animations, and all that take getting used to, and I'm sure the "pros" will argue that they "increase the skill cap" or something. Meh. The only silly thing I think is the input lag to simulate BNet. That's just plain stupid. Although I'm not sure if they've removed it or I've just gotten used to it.
Compare that to LoL, and you can feel the tension before each fight, and you'll see split-second reaction times as it all kicks off and the commentators up the tempo to try and keep on top of what's happening (similar to Husky and StarCraft 2).
It's kind of manageable because disconnects make the game free to leave and most games finish pretty quickly after the meaningful fights are over. I'd certainly like to see things improved, but I think it's running much smoother than you'd expect.
I think the lack of KDR tracking and concede voting make lost games a lot more bearable as people are usually much more willing to just keep playing the game even if it looks rather hopeless. There's much less of endgame team bashing and all that.
I've had surprisingly little problems with this. The first AFK makes the game safe to leave pretty quickly. I know the logic is a bit wonky, but I've had less endgame frustration than I had in HoN. I think I might have more trouble once I understand the game better and see when it's no use playing, but for now it's working surpringly good.
--Scythe--
I feel the need to second this. They just aren't dumb enough, the singular attack pattern for enemy bots seems to be a flawlessly synchronized barrage of stuns and snares topped with insane nukes. The only difference found between difficulties is how often they decide to completely humiliate you. Even more frustrating is they seem to be powered by Geth AI, as the greater the number of bots, the more intelligent they seem to be. While the enemy team of 5 bots can move as a group, set up ambushes and organize mass attacks.
The players AI teammates on the other hand, lacking the 5th part of their hive mind, will spend 40 seconds running back and forth in base or teleport to lanes not currently under attack, only to run back to where they were before. They also don't really like working as a team, often opting to run or teleport single file into a group of 3 or more enemy heroes to die.
Of course, at other times the enemy bots are pretty stupid too. The newest hero, Lone Druid has most of his dps and utility in his Spirit Bear pet. The bots do not attack the spirit bear, and the bear remains effective up to 1100 units from the Druid.