Well, probably only the dev team could say what they intend the patches for.

I personally think that they seek a little bit of both. Balance and novelty.

They are connected anyway, since modification of the actual content will bring novelty, and sheer novelty should be brought with respect to the notion of balance.

Adjust a bit actual content, and try new things. Both can be achieved in the same patch, especially when you see the number of modifications in each major patches.

Johnnyq

Germany21 Posts

October 15 2014 12:38 GMT

#2262

On October 15 2014 21:31 Murlox wrote:
Both can be achieved in the same patch, especially when you see the number of modifications (6.82).

Both could be achieved, I agree. But look at the list of changes. If something turned out to be overpowerd, nobody could say why. They reworked 3 heroes and touched almost every other. That just is not the "dota"-way for me.

Laserist

Turkey4269 Posts

October 15 2014 12:44 GMT

#2263

On October 15 2014 21:23 Johnnyq wrote:

Show nested quote +

C'mon... Laserist's argument was "no a patch is smth else". He is entitled to his opinion, yet I simply diagree.

By that train of thought, you could keep changing the chess pieces' move patterns in a regular fashion in order to keep the played strategies in rotation. That is not what I want.

As I said, the job of a patch is to achieve perfect balance in small iterations. Of course bringing a new hero to the game creates the need to revisit "balanced" heroes. However your change of the metagame is merely the result of balancing as weak heroes might get playable again and highly prefered heroes can be replaced in lineups.

If hero A is always picked over hero B it is not a problem of the meta that needs to be changed, but a matter of balance, as that is the only reason why you would pick A over B - because you have a higher chance of winning.

I didn't say "patching should be dis." rather I tried to describe the why frog and Valve's overall approach to patching.

It is not game balance or meta or whatever converges into a point where all strategies or heroes becomes equally valuable in every consequent patch. Rather what I saw is, game continually changes(map, heroes, items etc..) so that something becomes better on something others(midas gaming at one time, 20 min gg fast push, razor-dp-void-sm-shaman era). Dota is not converging to ideal stale balance like SC2 did before.

I understand what you expect from a patch, which is valid, but the approach is not accepted by Valve in general.

Churrass

573 Posts

October 15 2014 12:47 GMT

#2264

On October 15 2014 21:38 Johnnyq wrote:

Show nested quote +

so you lied about playing dota for the last decade ? because it has always been this way
god this reminds me the reactions to the 6.79 patch
"ITS FAKE, IT CHANGED TOO MUCH, THIS IS NOT ICEFROG WAY"
and icefrog is changing the entire game upside down since 6.01 and people never learn
and just one last thing...patches are not meant to bring perfect balance because that would be impossible, they exist so the game dont became stale, eventually you became bored of the game if every game you face is 6.81 tinker, 6.72 lycan, 6.59 krobelus and necrolyte, 6.52 terrorblade and luna, etc

Murlox

France1699 Posts

October 15 2014 12:55 GMT

#2265

I'm sad that you didn't enjoy the last patch.

I personally loved it, very refreshing.

Also I think there's another factor in the patch equation nowadays : the fact that there is so much exposure of the competitive scene. People tend to... mimic what they see, and tunnel vision on some heroes. "Meta" I guess.

It could explain why the dev team would try to insist on the "novelty" part a bit more than it did before. Need to shake things up harder now, because the "standard" is fed to us (basic players) on a daily basis.

I mean, I don't know about you but it's very common in my games when people just start a flame spam that often leads into certain defeat, when someone dares to buy an item that they didn't see a pro use, on twitch. ("OMG dude* you can't buy that, GG, report" and all that good jazz). But this is way off topic, and I'm just rambling now.

*read : TARD / SHITNOOB and the likes

Murlox

France1699 Posts

October 15 2014 13:52 GMT

#2266

To be fair this phenomenon also has its bright side. I get to play a shitload of medusa in 6.82 and very few people get totally mad when i pick her in solo queue.

I don't think the general response would have been so... lenient if medusa wasn't used in competitive play. That said, I'm really surprised/disappointed by the itemization some pro chose on her. Except for kuro, but he didn't really get to play long, team won it for him on their own.

nojok

France15845 Posts

October 15 2014 15:41 GMT

#2267

My main concern with this patch is that I'm bored of seeing DP, brew, SM and SK in progames. Most of naga games are boring too. Concerning my own games, I would like a tweak to bonus XP, bonus gold is fine now imo.

FakeDeath

Malaysia6060 Posts

October 15 2014 16:54 GMT

#2268

Well my average game time was 25 minutes pre-6.82.

Now my average game time is 45 minutes in 6.82.

I still think the implementation of the comeback mechanic was not needed.

More glyph usage to protect tier 1 tower/nerf of tower gold/buff to tier 2 armor was enough to stop the previous meta of 5 man deathball push style.