SMITE - Why I fucking hate DotA based games.

I don't like these games, and don't really play them. However, a friend of mine is an oldschool DotA player, and according to him LoL is casual filth, so there you go. I'm personally more of a Quake Live/Starcraft bro.

 

Knowing where the guy behind you is isn't situational awareness if you can't see him. It's dumb luck. Whoever happened to attack with the better situation (that they were unaware of) is going to win most engagements.

I'm sure the game can be fun, but it's about as competitively compelling as mario party. Not seeing behind you works in a fps because guns don't stop working if they're 2 feet further back. The equivalent change to the fps genre would be having everyone only able to stare at their feet and trying to coordinate where to fire by sound alone.

 

A good player in an FPS knows where allies are by looking around. Hard thing to understand, I'm sure.

 

Yes. Clearly many battles will be won in smite by people turning their backs on the enemy to check where their teamates are in the middle of fights.

 

Actually if team is working well together he doesn't even need to look around to know where his mates are (also voicechat and minimap). Happens a lot in actual team sports, you know formations and stuff. As for enemies attacking from behind... do I really need to go there?

 

Yeah, all those team sports where you can only throw the ball precisely 11.5 meters.

The closest analogue I can think of for Smite would be WoW PvP, only faster paced with less view distance. Enjoy your glowing company.

 

You do know what a mouse is, correct? You can use it to look around?

Nevermind that as a third person game (not first person), it looks like you can direct the camera to view teammates anyway.

 

While I think the current argument going on in the thread is kind of dumb, this is a silly thing to say. Why is it one "measly" unit? I don't see any sort of rational connection between only having one unit (which isn't true in many cases, as an aside) meaning an overhead view is bad. If you can't keep track of your hero then I'm afraid you need more practice, bro, because the failure is on your end.

You're making the argument that a static third person camera is strictly superior to an overhead view, which is dumb because it's not true. It's just different.

 

So DamnedR you think that half a meter in this or other direction is meaningless in sports? Interesting.

As for kingcomrade. I could argue that 99% of arguments on RPGCodex are dumb, would certainly fit with rest of them. If you'd read my posts again you'd notice I actually used same word before: different. I don't know if ultimately one view is "better" than other (doesn't mean I don't prefer one). As for the whole "measly" thing. You are right, there is no rational connection. Problem is I'm not saying top down view is bad because of that or that it's bad at all. Still wording is pretty unfortunate so my fault, "made little sense" is biggest offender I think, I tend to stream-o-conciousness my posts too much. Anyway it's about preferences, so yes in a way it's like arguing whose favourite color is better. Doesn't make it any less entertaining.

 

I don't see a basis for the argument that one perspective is better than the other, and so far no one has offered any. As different camera view applies to both teams the whole meta-game changes likewise. If you are not making a case for the complexity potential or any other qualitative characteristic of each of perspectives (e. g. emphasis on voice communication), it all boils down to personal preference.

DamnedRegistrations offers accurate criticism of the limitations of this particular game (as far as we can tell from the gameplay vids), but there is much more that TPP MOBA can offer than SMITE shows. The most distinguished example in my opinion is, hold your laughter, WoW's Arena. The over the shoulder view restriction can be circumvented with 360°-free-look, independent of the direction of movement (achieved with e.g. auto-run, sticky camera and the like). As is the case in WoW (or was, my experience is limited to the Burning Crusade expansion) mind-numbingly huge range of mods and macros helps evade camera's (relative) 'shortcomings'. Tables and other audio-visual aids with numerous stats such as cooldowns, ranges, prefered targets and ability queues (personal, teammates' and enemies') are readily displayed and instantaneously updated if needed, applicable regardless of any other player's position in (or out of) your POV.

You basically equate not having a perfect knowledge of the state of every possible variable in the game at any time with relying on luck. And theoretically speaking that might be the case, but that means every competitive game ever made is based on luck. And on these grounds we can dismiss every game ever made as being (to use your own words) as competitively complelling as mario party. That is, if we accept the standard you unknowingly propose - DotA gameplay (presumably) being the perfect model for competitive games. I am willing to be convinced but you need to provide some argumentation first.

 

DotA is by no means perfect, but it's further in the right direction than this. The reason being simple: UI should get the fuck out of the way of the gameplay. The more awareness of the game state a player has (based on the rules of the game, not the interface) the better. Playing DotA while blindfolded would be possible by sound alone if you had some practice. And, if both teams were blindfolded, it would be fair. But it would be a stupid fucking game that would swing heavily on luck because people would land/avoid all sorts of attacks by sheer fluke, and taking the blindfolds off would only improve it.
Some shit you can do in dota because of the free camera that a minimap wouldn't supply (though you can obviously toss in an unlimited number of UI elements to display crap) include checking player equipment, health, mana, and knowing when they've cast spells, even if only creeps or a tower are around to see them. This allows you to plan around those things and attack someone during windows of vulnerability, instead of just attacking someone you saw on the minimap and hoping they've already spent a bunch of their mana or have a spell on cooldown. Hell, there's an entire subgame built around vision wards because extra fog of war clearing is so hugely important. It makes the game far deeper and enhances the potential for ambushes and deception.


Having a camera locked on to your hero is somewhere between blindfold and free camera. If you're going to argue that blindfolded dota wouldn't be strictly worse, but merely 'different' I'm not going to try convince you otherwise.

 

Why? That's just personal preference. One could argue that briefing lots of information (which traditionally can only be derived from watching unit or environment animations for a certain amount of time) in a form of efficient tables within UI allows for introduction of further game features (as freed player attention, a limited resource in itself, can be directed elsewhere). This is kind of like SC1 vs SC2 argument where one person likes the unit limit within a group and the other doesn't - since it applies to both players you can't argue either way without first establishing a standard under which you rate the subjects.

You need to provide a standard under which you assess, as well as argue its validity, in the first place, else it doesn't differ from just raising your hand and shouting: '+1 for X'.

That's a slippery slope argument. I commented this 'luck' thing you talk about in my previous post and indicated a flaw in your logic. A 'chance' is a given in any competitive game's mechanics, you can count on that. You arbitrarily say that 'X' amount of 'luck' in game mechanics makes 'a stupid fucking game'. Well, okay, but that's just, like, your opinion, man (as long as you continue to disregard providing actual arguments for your standard).

Personal preference. One might like the idea of competing blindfolded or controlling the gamepad with their ass cheeks. I suggest we give up those unlikely, extreme examples.

Why crap? Why not actual, useful information, like in the example I provided, of great TPP implementation of MOBA-like team combat: WoW Arenas.

Check, check, check and check. It's been done - in WoW Arenas.

All above is (was?) a part of WoW Arenas gameplay.

Uhh... Okay..

But wait a second, weren't you just arguing (in the previous fucking sentence) that from my position one would actually argue something between the two extremes?

 

Worry about luck. Play an RTS in which 99% of units are under AI control. lolwut?

 

Pretty much all I needed to hear from you.

 

Absurd example. Neutral unit behaviour is completely deterministic to the point that you can transcribe every unit's life-cycle beforehand. They react to player input in a predetermined, unchanging, well-defined manner (which knowledge of plays a vital role in mastering the game). Unlike player controllable units.

That's quiet a cop-out.

 

Just got a pentakill as Artemis, feels good man.

 

21 kills 1 death 6 assists with Artemis (seperate game from the pentakill one). REAL HARD GAEM.


Funnily enough this game has literally copied almost all of its items directly from League of Legends. To the extent that both games feature a blue hammer that gives +HP and +attack and the final form gives you a slow on each attack.

In all seriousness though, Smite is a fun game, but in its current state it needs a lot of work before it can be taken seriously competitively. You can circlejerk about how League of Legends is "casual dota" all you want but at the end of the day, as of writing this, LoL is currently the largest "e-sport" in the world. (yes it surpassed starcraft)

 

It's funny to see all these wowfags bitching about isometric top down view current dota games have. I can bet you my left lung, that people will be playing this game at the maximum possible zoom-out anyway, since in a competitive team pvp game that relies heavily on ganking and positioning, vision is everything. Pro streams will be unwatchable camera-spinfests.

And what's with the piss yellow graphics?

 

warhammer online: wrath of heroes by Bioware. http://wrathofheroes.warhammeronline.com/

I played that and now i hate ttp dotas. It takes 5 keys to control movement, another five for skills and the mouse for aiming. There is a 5v5 battle and I am playing the melee character. I jump in and instantly cant see my team nor, after a few moments, half of the enemy. This is exactly the problem with guildwars pvp. Finally, I try to do damage but don't know the area of effect nor who i hit. Aiming when enemies are so close they move 130 degrees from my perspective with every hop while i also have to control my champ is a pain. Some of my complaints are entirely EA's fault and others can be mitigated by good design and tweaking. BUT! What does it add? Really? From what i saw in the Smite video the Ra guy plays like Ezreal. The third dimension adds nothing to the aim.

Anyone play Loco or that vehicular combat dota?

 

shit man, how have people been playing quake arena. must be some kind of magicians.

 

Or maybe you aren't forced to melee people in quake? I'm not much of an fps fag but I'm pretty sure they usually have guns. Effective ones.

 

TB explaining smite:

 

Anyone still playing this?

They've implemented some pretty dramatic changes with the latest patch released a few days ago. Most notably de-emphasizing jungling by removing the health and defense buffs, and adding a point(gold) buy system for buffs that you usually get from item purchases.

The buff buy system is interesting, but has more of an impact on late game due to the high cost. It's still more efficient to max out your buffs from items first.

I can send beta invites if anyone's interested.