Now the #1 esport in Korea - Page 5

THe games that have dominated hardcore have been games the majority can play. BW, CS, Quake series all have been very low requirements. I'd guess the same goes when comparing LoL to dota2 with hon being somewhere in the middle.

On March 17 2012 04:07 Etherone wrote: Show nested quote + On March 17 2012 01:40 Dogan0s wrote: im at 1900 eu east but you can watch tons of high elo games and some of the best players on own3d.tv LoL is better than dota/hon and the free-2-play thing is just an illusion since sooner or later you pay for champs/skins. they make tons of money nowdays...and ofc fact they translated in korean its in the "great feedback" part. game has over 70 heros and its pretty balanced.action is fast and accurate, games last 20-30 mins (40 max) i was hating aswell , playing dota for a long time , but when i gave it a chance (like 30 games) i discovered whats going on not comparing with bw or anything , just saying nowdays is the most competitive game other than 1v1 games , and its easy to play aswell. i think the game is here to stay for some years .. you are being a huge hypocrite. Here you come being defensive about LoL because other games have depth and you are tired of people dismissing your game just because it's slightly slower paced or F2P or whatever, and BOOM "light years ahead from dota/dota2/hon shit." hon has insane skill depth, and it's not even fleshed out yet. Warcraft 3 also had loads of depth, but it was slower paced than BW and some people prefer that. LoL and Dota are both slower paced than HoN, and some people prefer that. all of them have sick depth, but different pacing, communities, and mechanic dynamics. General perception is that a faster paced game requires more skill due to shorter margins of error at progressively higher levels of play, which is why a lot of BW people play wc3 and feel like they are playing a watered down game. this is not necessarily true of course. sc2 has higher competitiveness in terms of tournaments, events, leagues, prize money etc etc etc etc than bw ever did, but fuck me if you think bw is shitty or any less of a game because of it. that "argument" is completely baseless, and more a factor of both sc2 and LoL being easy to play ( your own words), and marketing, or ease of access etc. have you even played hon?

dude im not flaming hon or dota/2 and im not defending LoL if you think im doing that.
i played like 50 games hon and tons of dota games and comparing to lol i think they suck.
yea ofc most games including lol nowdays have no depth comparing to bw or even wc3 but times have changed and ppl
love dumb/fast paced/easy to learn multiplayer games like ket said.so~~

You probably hate HoN because you suck at it. LOL CYA.

MIKE MORHAIM, PROLEAGUE MAYBE FOR SC2

On March 17 2012 01:40 Dogan0s wrote: im at 1900 eu east but you can watch tons of high elo games and some of the best players on own3d.tv LoL is better than dota/hon and the free-2-play thing is just an illusion since sooner or later you pay for champs/skins. they make tons of money nowdays...and ofc fact they translated in korean its in the "great feedback" part. game has over 70 heros and its pretty balanced.action is fast and accurate, games last 20-30 mins (40 max) i was hating aswell , playing dota for a long time , but when i gave it a chance (like 30 games) i discovered whats going on not comparing with bw or anything , just saying nowdays is the most competitive game other than 1v1 games , and its easy to play aswell. i think the game is here to stay for some years ..

I'm actually streamer too ;o I'm ~2000 on NA.

Wouldn't say it's lightyears ahead but it's definitely bigger than HoN. Different games really, focusing on different aspects (like HoN players like to point out, there isn't any creep denying or gold loss) but I feel this is actually more important in the actual balancing of the game. If you die once you're not completely out of your lane, and it allows a lot more matchups that wouldn't be available otherwise (i.e. Ranged champs would become MUCH stronger in lane as a result of creep denying).

On March 17 2012 03:48 whamm! wrote: they even got some ex korean pros to endorse it (yellow)

Yea and LoL has a huge tourney system set up behind it now. They're great at marketing, but you can't convince massive amounts of people to play a subpar game if there is a free alternative out there. LoL really IS a great game.

On March 17 2012 12:54 Endo wrote: If you die once you're not completely out of your lane, and it allows a lot more matchups that wouldn't be available otherwise (i.e. Ranged champs would become MUCH stronger in lane as a result of creep denying).

I don't get when LoL players say this, i've played both Dota and LoL and the "snowballing" is a lot worse on LoL, and by far, take for example this week Na'Vi vs GoSu high level competitive game, GoSu was 11-1 on the beggining of the game and had only a 1k gold advantage ending up losing in the end. I have seen LoL games where it was 4-2 and the casters proclaimed the game was over because the difference was too big.

And the matchup thing in my point of view is much more strict in LoL, I mean, how many melees can/are soloing mid these days ? How many AD carries are melee ? Do you seriously see a lot of different laning possibilities ? I certainly don't.

Quick edit: A proof of this is that sometimes you can see a whole lineup in dota and you can't really say what the lanes will be, since there are a lot of possibilities.

Games that require a skill cap but don't punish you for making mistakes or dying isn't balance at all; it's catering to the newb and casual players.

I haven't played LoL but there is a mode in HoN (Casual Mode) that has almost the same game mechanics as LoL (but we don't have infinite town portals). It's so tremendously easy to win. Say you have a team of 1700 MMR (ELO in LoL's case) against an 1800+ MMR in normal match making. More often than not, the 1800 team will rape the 1700 team 8 times out of 10. That's because the 1800 team will usually deny better to prevent gold + exp gain for the 1700 team, and when the latter team's player die, they lose gold and time for doing so. In Casual Mode, the things that completely determine the outcome of the laning phase (creep denies and ganks / kills) don't even matter because there's no penalty. Even if you deny a creep, the team still gets full experience so there's no point in denying. If a hero dies, then oh well. Nothing changed. They can still come back and beat the 1800 team because the nuances that matter so much in Normal Mode don't mean shit in Casual Mode.

On March 17 2012 14:18 Souone wrote: Show nested quote + On March 17 2012 12:54 Endo wrote: If you die once you're not completely out of your lane, and it allows a lot more matchups that wouldn't be available otherwise (i.e. Ranged champs would become MUCH stronger in lane as a result of creep denying). I don't get when LoL players say this, i've played both Dota and LoL and the "snowballing" is a lot worse on LoL, and by far, take for example this week Na'Vi vs GoSu high level competitive game, GoSu was 11-1 on the beggining of the game and had only a 1k gold advantage ending up losing in the end. I have seen LoL games where it was 4-2 and the casters proclaimed the game was over because the difference was too big. And the matchup thing in my point of view is much more strict in LoL, I mean, how many melees can/are soloing mid these days ? How many AD carries are melee ? Do you seriously see a lot of different laning possibilities ? I certainly don't. Quick edit: A proof of this is that sometimes you can see a whole lineup in dota and you can't really say what the lanes will be, since there are a lot of possibilities.

Hm. Let me try to address both of the posts in order. First, Souone's post. Snowballing is pretty much existent in any sort of game of these types; you take an advantage you have in early game, use it to push advantages (such as being stronger in teamfights, being higher level, etc) and gain an advantage in mid-game to set up your lategame. That's true of LoL, HoN, Dota 2, etc. In LoL, the laning phase is just one part of a MUCH bigger game. For example, If I were toplane and I gave up tower to try to force a 5v4 fight at dragon and take dragon, that decision is a very crucial part of how the game will play out. If I leave top, they take the tower and have free farm top (more xp and gold) but I can eke out a small gold advantage for the team overall if we manage to take dragon uncontested. In LoL, games are often "over" because all lanes are losing and they can't push any advantage (they have none!) to try to take the game back into their favor. However, this isn't always the case; recently a team has come out called Moscow 5 where they've not dropped a single game in the last 2 big tournies. In many of the games they've actually been behind by a significant margin but pulled beautiful plays to put themselves back into the game. Other times they abuse little mistakes the other team makes (even at a pro level!) and crush from then on.

Also, when you mention that there aren't many melee's solo'ing mid-- that's simply a matchup question. Does it make sense to put a melee champion against a high burst champion? You take too much free damage when you trade. However, that being said, I often run tryndamere or gangplank against weaker burst champions (and yes, melee against mid). One of the things you have to watch out for is it your team comp; when you run melee (usually physical damage) mid, you run the risk of not having enough magic damage and making it easy for the enemy team to build armor to counter your entire team. For that reason, AP mid is usually preferred.

On March 17 2012 14:41 TheHuHu3 wrote: Games that require a skill cap but don't punish you for making mistakes or dying isn't balance at all; it's catering to the newb and casual players. I haven't played LoL but there is a mode in HoN (Casual Mode) that has almost the same game mechanics as LoL (but we don't have infinite town portals). It's so tremendously easy to win. Say you have a team of 1700 MMR (ELO in LoL's case) against an 1800+ MMR in normal match making. More often than not, the 1800 team will rape the 1700 team 8 times out of 10. That's because the 1800 team will usually deny better to prevent gold + exp gain for the 1700 team, and when the latter team's player die, they lose gold and time for doing so. In Casual Mode, the things that completely determine the outcome of the laning phase (creep denies and ganks / kills) don't even matter because there's no penalty. Even if you deny a creep, the team still gets full experience so there's no point in denying. If a hero dies, then oh well. Nothing changed. They can still come back and beat the 1800 team because the nuances that matter so much in Normal Mode don't mean shit in Casual Mode.

A big part of the game in LoL is the overall understanding of the game. I'm currently ~2000 elo (which is in the top 0.1% of the players of the game) where I play competitively with all the pros you see on streams and broadcasted. Your default rank when you start playing ranked at level 30 is 1200. To give you an idea of how much of a skill level difference there is, I'm pulling some stats from season 1's elo's. It is a bell curve distribution. 1250 (Bronze) is top 25%, 1400 (Silver) is top 10%, 1520 (gold) is top 3%, 1900 (Platinum) is top 0.2%.

Now if I were to ever play against a 1700 player, I should win about 8/10 times. Laning mechanics, rune choices, itemization, teamfight decisions, control of objectives, control of creep waves, warding and counterwarding, setting up baits, and a lot more game understanding are what separates me from that elo. Sure, I can't deny creeps, But that doesnt mean if I set up a kill on him and snowball the lane, I can't zone him away from xp and creeps anyways. Killing creeps isn't as easy as you'd think. Often when you go for a creep, a top-tier player will layer on free damage (whether it be an auto attack and an ability, or otherwise) and when that damage adds up, you soon get zoned from your own creeps.

What I think you're overlooking is that LoL isn't just a simple "kill creeps, get items, win teamfights, win game" sort of game. There is suuuuch a more complex idea of how to win a game, what to do in a very short reactive period of time and that's things people often overlook.

Also, in regards to why denying isn't a feature in League: It gimps melee champions too much. It gives no incentive to play anything other than a ranged champion because especially in early levels where auto attacks do quite a significant % of damage of total health, you can do little tricks like auto attack the other champion and then go into brush to lose creep/minion aggro. It's easier to deny as ranged champions as well, and often forces melee champions out of lane. (This is actually still a trick people use to play against a lot of toplane melee champs in the game, btw. It would snowball infinitely harder if there WERE denying involved). This would, effectively, make most of the melee champions unplayable. To balance the game a bit and allow for more matchups, denying was not introduced as a mechanic to LoL. I'm not sure how minion aggro/melee heroes laning works in HoN, and perhaps they have a solution for it, but in LoL, not having denying actually opens up teh game to a lot more possibilities of interesting choices for doing certain champs.

Oh, also want to point out that the skill difference is pretty immense; even without denying and lane mechanics like that, a 4 man team of 1900's can win against a 5 man team of 1500's 9 times out of 10.

one of the top delevopers of LoL once stated they didnt include deny in the game
so players dont focus in laning and farming forever like in dota which leads in more early action.

endo whats ur name so i can watch some streams of yours ?

On March 17 2012 14:41 TheHuHu3 wrote: Games that require a skill cap but don't punish you for making mistakes or dying isn't balance at all; it's catering to the newb and casual players. I haven't played LoL but there is a mode in HoN (Casual Mode) that has almost the same game mechanics as LoL (but we don't have infinite town portals). It's so tremendously easy to win. Say you have a team of 1700 MMR (ELO in LoL's case) against an 1800+ MMR in normal match making. More often than not, the 1800 team will rape the 1700 team 8 times out of 10. That's because the 1800 team will usually deny better to prevent gold + exp gain for the 1700 team, and when the latter team's player die, they lose gold and time for doing so. In Casual Mode, the things that completely determine the outcome of the laning phase (creep denies and ganks / kills) don't even matter because there's no penalty. Even if you deny a creep, the team still gets full experience so there's no point in denying. If a hero dies, then oh well. Nothing changed. They can still come back and beat the 1800 team because the nuances that matter so much in Normal Mode don't mean shit in Casual Mode.

I haven't played LoL

yea... just stop right there

I would like to see a HoN player to actually address this points instead of so much "blah blah no deny creeps noob game lol".

Would actually be interesting.

On March 17 2012 14:56 Endo wrote: Show nested quote + On March 17 2012 14:18 Souone wrote:   On March 17 2012 12:54 Endo wrote: If you die once you're not completely out of your lane, and it allows a lot more matchups that wouldn't be available otherwise (i.e. Ranged champs would become MUCH stronger in lane as a result of creep denying). I don't get when LoL players say this, i've played both Dota and LoL and the "snowballing" is a lot worse on LoL, and by far, take for example this week Na'Vi vs GoSu high level competitive game, GoSu was 11-1 on the beggining of the game and had only a 1k gold advantage ending up losing in the end. I have seen LoL games where it was 4-2 and the casters proclaimed the game was over because the difference was too big. And the matchup thing in my point of view is much more strict in LoL, I mean, how many melees can/are soloing mid these days ? How many AD carries are melee ? Do you seriously see a lot of different laning possibilities ? I certainly don't. Quick edit: A proof of this is that sometimes you can see a whole lineup in dota and you can't really say what the lanes will be, since there are a lot of possibilities. Hm. Let me try to address both of the posts in order. First, Souone's post. Snowballing is pretty much existent in any sort of game of these types; you take an advantage you have in early game, use it to push advantages (such as being stronger in teamfights, being higher level, etc) and gain an advantage in mid-game to set up your lategame. That's true of LoL, HoN, Dota 2, etc. In LoL, the laning phase is just one part of a MUCH bigger game. For example, If I were toplane and I gave up tower to try to force a 5v4 fight at dragon and take dragon, that decision is a very crucial part of how the game will play out. If I leave top, they take the tower and have free farm top (more xp and gold) but I can eke out a small gold advantage for the team overall if we manage to take dragon uncontested. In LoL, games are often "over" because all lanes are losing and they can't push any advantage (they have none!) to try to take the game back into their favor. However, this isn't always the case; recently a team has come out called Moscow 5 where they've not dropped a single game in the last 2 big tournies. In many of the games they've actually been behind by a significant margin but pulled beautiful plays to put themselves back into the game. Other times they abuse little mistakes the other team makes (even at a pro level!) and crush from then on. Also, when you mention that there aren't many melee's solo'ing mid-- that's simply a matchup question. Does it make sense to put a melee champion against a high burst champion? You take too much free damage when you trade. However, that being said, I often run tryndamere or gangplank against weaker burst champions (and yes, melee against mid). One of the things you have to watch out for is it your team comp; when you run melee (usually physical damage) mid, you run the risk of not having enough magic damage and making it easy for the enemy team to build armor to counter your entire team. For that reason, AP mid is usually preferred.

The first part I meant as a reply to the "losing gold mechanic -> snowballing harder" where you said "If you die once you're not completely out of your lane" supposedly meaning that in HoN/Dota (I never really played HoN, I'm just assuming HoN = Dota/Dota2) it's worse, not really involving any decisions of giving dragon or anything, more accurate would be a case where you are solo top and die to their solo top (or solo top + jungler), my point was that in those situations, in LoL, you get a lot farther behind (even with the not losing gold mechanics) then in Dota or HoN, I think mainly because in LoL there are pretty much 4 carries, while in Dota nowadays there are games with literally 0 hard carries, so in LoL you are always feeding kills to a hero that can potentially win the game, or make the game really really hard, while in Dota/HoN most of the time it's not the case, since hard carries are mostly made to not really be good early game. Just picture an enemy Irelia 2-0ing your Shyvanna on top, and assuming the rest of the lanes are even, how bad is this ?

And I saw the M5 games, the 4-2 game I was referring to was in IEM Kiev, I'm just not sure which one though, I think it was TSM vs someone but I can't remember. I am aware there are a lot of other factors involved, not just the score, but the not losing gold mechanic doesn't really tell the whole story and is not a major factor in the big picture.

Regarding the second part, all I was saying is that the "deny" mechanic is not what really hurts melee heroes, if deny was introduced to LoL I think the same melees that can mid now would still mid, like Sion and Galio, sometimes denying is actually better for the melee since he can't get closer to the ranged hero to harass but if he is build to stay in the lane he can use his faster animation to deny creeps, since the ranged hero will naturally attack slower because of the projectile, plus the melee also usually has higher attack damage. My point is, denying wouldn't add or remove any matchups in LoL, I think in some cases it would actually favor the melee if he has a high lane sustain capability. But I still think LoL matchups are a lot narrower in possibilities, and deny is not a factor.

To sum it up, all i'm saying is that the denying and gold loss mechanics are not a big factor in screwing melee heroes in the lane and snowballing, that is just something I see that for some reason LoL players think would screw the game, I personally don't think it would (not saying they should change it or anything, just saying it's not that big of a deal that LoL players make it to be).

On March 17 2012 15:46 Dogan0s wrote: one of the top delevopers of LoL once stated they didnt include deny in the game so players dont focus in laning and farming forever like in dota which leads in more early action. endo whats ur name so i can watch some streams of yours ?

MagnumXO is my main ;o

I'm currently actually doing a series of videos of how to beat each ELO level; what mistakes to take advantage of, and what people are doing wrong at each level.

My stream link is www.own3d.tv/MagnumXo

I'm on spring break (out partying!) so I won't be playing until I get back ;D

On March 17 2012 15:49 nosoul wrote: Show nested quote + On March 17 2012 14:41 TheHuHu3 wrote: Games that require a skill cap but don't punish you for making mistakes or dying isn't balance at all; it's catering to the newb and casual players. I haven't played LoL but there is a mode in HoN (Casual Mode) that has almost the same game mechanics as LoL (but we don't have infinite town portals). It's so tremendously easy to win. Say you have a team of 1700 MMR (ELO in LoL's case) against an 1800+ MMR in normal match making. More often than not, the 1800 team will rape the 1700 team 8 times out of 10. That's because the 1800 team will usually deny better to prevent gold + exp gain for the 1700 team, and when the latter team's player die, they lose gold and time for doing so. In Casual Mode, the things that completely determine the outcome of the laning phase (creep denies and ganks / kills) don't even matter because there's no penalty. Even if you deny a creep, the team still gets full experience so there's no point in denying. If a hero dies, then oh well. Nothing changed. They can still come back and beat the 1800 team because the nuances that matter so much in Normal Mode don't mean shit in Casual Mode.   I haven't played LoL yea... just stop right there

See, your dismissive attitude holds no water because what do you say to the people that HAVE played LoL and agree with me? Oh yeah, you're an idiot.

On March 17 2012 16:02 Souone wrote: Show nested quote + On March 17 2012 14:56 Endo wrote:   On March 17 2012 14:18 Souone wrote:   On March 17 2012 12:54 Endo wrote: If you die once you're not completely out of your lane, and it allows a lot more matchups that wouldn't be available otherwise (i.e. Ranged champs would become MUCH stronger in lane as a result of creep denying). I don't get when LoL players say this, i've played both Dota and LoL and the "snowballing" is a lot worse on LoL, and by far, take for example this week Na'Vi vs GoSu high level competitive game, GoSu was 11-1 on the beggining of the game and had only a 1k gold advantage ending up losing in the end. I have seen LoL games where it was 4-2 and the casters proclaimed the game was over because the difference was too big. And the matchup thing in my point of view is much more strict in LoL, I mean, how many melees can/are soloing mid these days ? How many AD carries are melee ? Do you seriously see a lot of different laning possibilities ? I certainly don't. Quick edit: A proof of this is that sometimes you can see a whole lineup in dota and you can't really say what the lanes will be, since there are a lot of possibilities. Hm. Let me try to address both of the posts in order. First, Souone's post. Snowballing is pretty much existent in any sort of game of these types; you take an advantage you have in early game, use it to push advantages (such as being stronger in teamfights, being higher level, etc) and gain an advantage in mid-game to set up your lategame. That's true of LoL, HoN, Dota 2, etc. In LoL, the laning phase is just one part of a MUCH bigger game. For example, If I were toplane and I gave up tower to try to force a 5v4 fight at dragon and take dragon, that decision is a very crucial part of how the game will play out. If I leave top, they take the tower and have free farm top (more xp and gold) but I can eke out a small gold advantage for the team overall if we manage to take dragon uncontested. In LoL, games are often "over" because all lanes are losing and they can't push any advantage (they have none!) to try to take the game back into their favor. However, this isn't always the case; recently a team has come out called Moscow 5 where they've not dropped a single game in the last 2 big tournies. In many of the games they've actually been behind by a significant margin but pulled beautiful plays to put themselves back into the game. Other times they abuse little mistakes the other team makes (even at a pro level!) and crush from then on. Also, when you mention that there aren't many melee's solo'ing mid-- that's simply a matchup question. Does it make sense to put a melee champion against a high burst champion? You take too much free damage when you trade. However, that being said, I often run tryndamere or gangplank against weaker burst champions (and yes, melee against mid). One of the things you have to watch out for is it your team comp; when you run melee (usually physical damage) mid, you run the risk of not having enough magic damage and making it easy for the enemy team to build armor to counter your entire team. For that reason, AP mid is usually preferred. The first part I meant as a reply to the "losing gold mechanic -> snowballing harder" where you said "If you die once you're not completely out of your lane" supposedly meaning that in HoN/Dota (I never really played HoN, I'm just assuming HoN = Dota/Dota2) it's worse, not really involving any decisions of giving dragon or anything, more accurate would be a case where you are solo top and die to their solo top (or solo top + jungler), my point was that in those situations, in LoL, you get a lot farther behind (even with the not losing gold mechanics) then in Dota or HoN, I think mainly because in LoL there are pretty much 4 carries, while in Dota nowadays there are games with literally 0 hard carries, so in LoL you are always feeding kills to a hero that can potentially win the game, or make the game really really hard, while in Dota/HoN most of the time it's not the case, since hard carries are mostly made to not really be good early game. Just picture an enemy Irelia 2-0ing your Shyvanna on top, and assuming the rest of the lanes are even, how bad is this ? And I saw the M5 games, the 4-2 game I was referring to was in IEM Kiev, I'm just not sure which one though, I think it was TSM vs someone but I can't remember. I am aware there are a lot of other factors involved, not just the score, but the not losing gold mechanic doesn't really tell the whole story and is not a major factor in the big picture. Regarding the second part, all I was saying is that the "deny" mechanic is not what really hurts melee heroes, if deny was introduced to LoL I think the same melees that can mid now would still mid, like Sion and Galio, sometimes denying is actually better for the melee since he can't get closer to the ranged hero to harass but if he is build to stay in the lane he can use his faster animation to deny creeps, since the ranged hero will naturally attack slower because of the projectile, plus the melee also usually has higher attack damage. My point is, denying wouldn't add or remove any matchups in LoL, I think in some cases it would actually favor the melee if he has a high lane sustain capability. But I still think LoL matchups are a lot narrower in possibilities, and deny is not a factor. To sum it up, all i'm saying is that the denying and gold loss mechanics are not a big factor in screwing melee heroes in the lane and snowballing, that is just something I see that for some reason LoL players think would screw the game, I personally don't think it would (not saying they should change it or anything, just saying it's not that big of a deal that LoL players make it to be).

When I played DOTA (Not DOTA 2) I remember how 1 champion could 1v5 others by snowballing. Is this no longer the case? Right now in LoL there is no instance where a champion could 1v5 under any circumstance (assuming teams weren't trying to lose on purpose).

Regarding denying tho-- a big part of farming is being able to keep your lane at a certain place due to managing creeps in a certain way and being able to farm under tower. If you could be denied that farm under tower as well (for example, imagine a high range champion ...dwarven sniper(Dota)/Caitlyn(Lol)) being able to attack a melee who is coming up to attack creeps under tower, and then denying htem that creep as well...well there is no way they'd be able to survive the lane being gold starved and xp starved. I'd say that game turns into a 5v4 since the other toplaner would be gimped so much.

If what I'm saying is a bit confusing, I'll try to make a short 20-30 second youtube vid illustrating how ranged champs against melee is already strong, and how denying would completely make that lane unplayable as melee.

You're right though that Sion and Galio can still farm as melee, but that's because they have certain spells (as mid or top) that can clear waves of minions in 1 burst. Not all melee champions have that though, and they'd see much less play if denying were introduced.

On March 17 2012 15:10 Endo wrote: Show nested quote + On March 17 2012 14:41 TheHuHu3 wrote: Games that require a skill cap but don't punish you for making mistakes or dying isn't balance at all; it's catering to the newb and casual players. I haven't played LoL but there is a mode in HoN (Casual Mode) that has almost the same game mechanics as LoL (but we don't have infinite town portals). It's so tremendously easy to win. Say you have a team of 1700 MMR (ELO in LoL's case) against an 1800+ MMR in normal match making. More often than not, the 1800 team will rape the 1700 team 8 times out of 10. That's because the 1800 team will usually deny better to prevent gold + exp gain for the 1700 team, and when the latter team's player die, they lose gold and time for doing so. In Casual Mode, the things that completely determine the outcome of the laning phase (creep denies and ganks / kills) don't even matter because there's no penalty. Even if you deny a creep, the team still gets full experience so there's no point in denying. If a hero dies, then oh well. Nothing changed. They can still come back and beat the 1800 team because the nuances that matter so much in Normal Mode don't mean shit in Casual Mode. A big part of the game in LoL is the overall understanding of the game. I'm currently ~2000 elo (which is in the top 0.1% of the players of the game) where I play competitively with all the pros you see on streams and broadcasted. Your default rank when you start playing ranked at level 30 is 1200. To give you an idea of how much of a skill level difference there is, I'm pulling some stats from season 1's elo's. It is a bell curve distribution. 1250 (Bronze) is top 25%, 1400 (Silver) is top 10%, 1520 (gold) is top 3%, 1900 (Platinum) is top 0.2%. Now if I were to ever play against a 1700 player, I should win about 8/10 times. Laning mechanics, rune choices, itemization, teamfight decisions, control of objectives, control of creep waves, warding and counterwarding, setting up baits, and a lot more game understanding are what separates me from that elo. Sure, I can't deny creeps, But that doesnt mean if I set up a kill on him and snowball the lane, I can't zone him away from xp and creeps anyways. Killing creeps isn't as easy as you'd think. Often when you go for a creep, a top-tier player will layer on free damage (whether it be an auto attack and an ability, or otherwise) and when that damage adds up, you soon get zoned from your own creeps. What I think you're overlooking is that LoL isn't just a simple "kill creeps, get items, win teamfights, win game" sort of game. There is suuuuch a more complex idea of how to win a game, what to do in a very short reactive period of time and that's things people often overlook. Also, in regards to why denying isn't a feature in League: It gimps melee champions too much. It gives no incentive to play anything other than a ranged champion because especially in early levels where auto attacks do quite a significant % of damage of total health, you can do little tricks like auto attack the other champion and then go into brush to lose creep/minion aggro. It's easier to deny as ranged champions as well, and often forces melee champions out of lane. (This is actually still a trick people use to play against a lot of toplane melee champs in the game, btw. It would snowball infinitely harder if there WERE denying involved). This would, effectively, make most of the melee champions unplayable. To balance the game a bit and allow for more matchups, denying was not introduced as a mechanic to LoL. I'm not sure how minion aggro/melee heroes laning works in HoN, and perhaps they have a solution for it, but in LoL, not having denying actually opens up teh game to a lot more possibilities of interesting choices for doing certain champs.

The laning phase you describe in LoL is the same in HoN. When a melee hero goes for a creep kill or deny, usually the ranged support of the opposing team will smack him / cast a spell on him to punish him for doing so. But HoN has found a sort of balance in this because the current meta game is melee strength / tank heroes that can withstand the harass and get their creep kills / denies. USUALLY a melee hero can out creep a ranged just because there's no projectile traveling time for auto attacks, like range heroes have. Don't know how it is in LoL, but range heroes in HoN have differing attack animations / auto-attack cast time / traveling time / actual range. How are the range heroes in LoL?

On March 17 2012 15:46 Dogan0s wrote: one of the top delevopers of LoL once stated they didnt include deny in the game so players dont focus in laning and farming forever like in dota which leads in more early action. endo whats ur name so i can watch some streams of yours ?

Current Dota 2 metagame has pretty much 0 farming, just watch Na'Vi playing they are currently the best team and they focus on ending the game early with massive pushing/ganking line ups, sometimes running no hard carry heroes.

I don't know what's the big deal with denying really, doesn't change all that much. I guess LoL developers freaked out because at some point Dota metagame was really focused on farming, mainly because of the Chinese scene, but that had nothing to do with denying.

On March 17 2012 16:09 Endo wrote: When I played DOTA (Not DOTA 2) I remember how 1 champion could 1v5 others by snowballing. Is this no longer the case? Right now in LoL there is no instance where a champion could 1v5 under any circumstance (assuming teams weren't trying to lose on purpose). Regarding denying tho-- a big part of farming is being able to keep your lane at a certain place due to managing creeps in a certain way and being able to farm under tower. If you could be denied that farm under tower as well (for example, imagine a high range champion ...dwarven sniper(Dota)/Caitlyn(Lol)) being able to attack a melee who is coming up to attack creeps under tower, and then denying htem that creep as well...well there is no way they'd be able to survive the lane being gold starved and xp starved. I'd say that game turns into a 5v4 since the other toplaner would be gimped so much. If what I'm saying is a bit confusing, I'll try to make a short 20-30 second youtube vid illustrating how ranged champs against melee is already strong, and how denying would completely make that lane unplayable as melee. You're right though that Sion and Galio can still farm as melee, but that's because they have certain spells (as mid or top) that can clear waves of minions in 1 burst. Not all melee champions have that though, and they'd see much less play if denying were introduced.

I think I understand your point regarding denying, I just don't think it would really change anything for melee champs that can already stand against ranged ones well, sure it would be worse if you wanted to play something like Fizz, Fizz would probably really get f***ed by a ranged champ mid if denying was available, but I don't think champs like Sion or Galio would. Meaning it would probably widen the gap between "bad" soloing melees, but wouldn't really change much for the "good" ones, might even improve sometimes.

In my personal opinion, and my main reason for the replies, is that both LoL and Dota/HoN players blow the denying thing out of proportion (and other things), LoL is fine without it and so is Dota/HoN with it. I think both games have their merits and people just try to pick little things to bash the other game and it's just really silly and most of the time doesn't really matter all that much.

And 1v5 in Dota is probably possible specially in pubs where people are horrible, but in competitive games I don't see how. The big difference in Dota and LoL on this matter is that while LoL you have lineups with pretty much 4 carry/semi-carry heroes (Jungler, solo top, AD an AP carry, all those can potentially lead your team to victory) in Dota you have like 1 hard carry + 1 semi-carry or 2/3 semi-carries or no carry at all + gankers/supports, because the carry hero is usually bad early game, really bad, and pretty much as a rule, the harder carry he is the worst he is early game, some heroes like Spectre can 1v5 the enemy team if he gets really fed, but he is just so bad early game that this is very unlikely, because he just wont get big enough. And in the current metagame, where pushing is the law, you hardly see these massive carries, pretty much only Anti-mage because he is really annoying and kinda immortal, but even he is fading out.