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So I played a lot of HoN for the past week and grinded 1800+ points (I tried solo searching and people are still fucking bad, gotta aim for 1900 next) and here's my second impression/disappointment of MM in HoN.
Looking past the the bad item choices and far-from-ideal lineups, I think the biggest incompetence I see is lack of management. A few years back, I remember a post here on TL that introduced the term 운영 (management) as a skill factor in BW on top of macro, micro and strategy. It was something about controlling the pace of the game as you choose fit. At the time I didn't follow the scene too closely so I had no idea wtf that meant. Being only a D+/C- player on PGT at my peak, all I could see and feel was the latter three: macro (so many goons), micro (MMM) and strategy (fucking DTs).
As I played competitive DotA, I slowly learned what this 'management' business was about. You have games where you did decently or well in all lanes, sometimes even gaining the upper hand, but then you get crushed mid game, take down 1 tower to their 5, KD overturned, and scratch your head going 'where did things fall apart?'
A lot of players I see in HoN who watch pro replays and are up to date with the recent picks think they know what should be done but they don't. People are too focused on results without putting much thought into how they're going to get it done. 'Gank him, ward up, push that.' Comments like these aren't untrue in many cases but when people just keep repeating those phrases because things aren't looking so good, they don't mean shit. You might as well say 'let's play better.'
In my first impression of HoN, which I posted however many pages ago, I mentioned that I hated people QQ'ing and trying to get their team to concede even when there's a chance of winning, however realistically small that is. I couldn't explain why I hated premature concedings myself other than the obvious explanation that there are others who might want to keep playing. But now that I think about it, I look back to how our team grew in DotA and we learned most from games we struggled most.
When we first started playing as a team, shit teams took a shit on us. We had people who didn't know important mechanics like chain frost interrupting channeling even if you're immune and such. Laning sense was bad, bad team fights etc. Then as we played more, everyone slowly got better at the details: when to harass in lane, chain stunning, targetting, positioning and so on. We started winning more because of obvious improvements to our game. But winning when you rape all three lanes or because your spectre has a 20 minute vanguard radiance doesn't mean much.
We learned a lot more when we kept playing when the score was 3-16 in our opponent's favor + 0 towers taken down and in the end, made a crazy comeback. Because if you're really that far behind, you have to do better than farming faster and having sharper map awareness. Being in such a bad position forced us to come up with plans to 'somehow' get things done. For example, a basic (and obvious) but common tactic we started using was I'd be pushing/farming alone as something near ungankable (like morphling) and I'd tell the other 4 to fake a mid tower push but not to engage at any costs. Then our goal would be to
A) get the other team to jump for our team who has no intention of fighting head-on and escape with minimal casualties while I push the tower
or
B) get them to split up to defend both towers and pick the more vulnerable side of the split and attack
or
C) simply repeat the process until we have what we need to fight head-on
You might be thinking 'well, the other team must have played like shit to let you guys win that one.' Yes, maybe... but that is almost always the case whenever there is a comeback. You see big comebacks in the pro BW/SC2 scene too, where the skill level is undisputedly higher than your average comeptitive DotA/HoN game. So my point is that every time you concede prematurely, you're potentially passing an opportunity to learn how to control the game.
There's different ways to control the game and you slowly build an understanding between teammates on how to approach the game in X or Y situation if you keep playing together. That's my explanation for teams that don't look strong on paper but perform well (usually a team that stayed together for a long time) or teams that look all-star but fail. I don't buy that 'too many carry players' crap.
I guess when you're swapping teammates so often, or getting random teammates sometimes, it's hard to expect the will to improve your game in such a manner. Well, this post isn't meant to put blame on any of the people I've played with, especially since I had my fair share of fails (I've played too much that I'm afraid the 'sry I'm new to HoN' excuse won't work for long T_T), just a thought for people who have a similar mindset.
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Nice post. Went through almost the same experience with my team/friends.
Once you learn the right mindset, a lot of things follow really easily. Decision making, details, team fight tactics all have to be learned by grinding games.
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Just installed HoN and having a problem. The animation starts skipping frames every 3-4 minutes for about 4 seconds.
My FPS and Ping all seem well during that time. I tried lowering settings but nothing seems to work. Any help would be appreciated!
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On March 27 2011 18:13 Heen wrote: So I played a lot of HoN for the past week and grinded 1800+ points (I tried solo searching and people are still fucking bad, gotta aim for 1900 next) and here's my second impression/disappointment of MM in HoN.
Looking past the the bad item choices and far-from-ideal lineups, I think the biggest incompetence I see is lack of management. A few years back, I remember a post here on TL that introduced the term 운영 (management) as a skill factor in BW on top of macro, micro and strategy. It was something about controlling the pace of the game as you choose fit. At the time I didn't follow the scene too closely so I had no idea wtf that meant. Being only a D+/C- player on PGT at my peak, all I could see and feel was the latter three: macro (so many goons), micro (MMM) and strategy (fucking DTs).
As I played competitive DotA, I slowly learned what this 'management' business was about. You have games where you did decently or well in all lanes, sometimes even gaining the upper hand, but then you get crushed mid game, take down 1 tower to their 5, KD overturned, and scratch your head going 'where did things fall apart?'
A lot of players I see in HoN who watch pro replays and are up to date with the recent picks think they know what should be done but they don't. People are too focused on results without putting much thought into how they're going to get it done. 'Gank him, ward up, push that.' Comments like these aren't untrue in many cases but when people just keep repeating those phrases because things aren't looking so good, they don't mean shit. You might as well say 'let's play better.'
In my first impression of HoN, which I posted however many pages ago, I mentioned that I hated people QQ'ing and trying to get their team to concede even when there's a chance of winning, however realistically small that is. I couldn't explain why I hated premature concedings myself other than the obvious explanation that there are others who might want to keep playing. But now that I think about it, I look back to how our team grew in DotA and we learned most from games we struggled most.
When we first started playing as a team, shit teams took a shit on us. We had people who didn't know important mechanics like chain frost interrupting channeling even if you're immune and such. Laning sense was bad, bad team fights etc. Then as we played more, everyone slowly got better at the details: when to harass in lane, chain stunning, targetting, positioning and so on. We started winning more because of obvious improvements to our game. But winning when you rape all three lanes or because your spectre has a 20 minute vanguard radiance doesn't mean much.
We learned a lot more when we kept playing when the score was 3-16 in our opponent's favor + 0 towers taken down and in the end, made a crazy comeback. Because if you're really that far behind, you have to do better than farming faster and having sharper map awareness. Being in such a bad position forced us to come up with plans to 'somehow' get things done. For example, a basic (and obvious) but common tactic we started using was I'd be pushing/farming alone as something near ungankable (like morphling) and I'd tell the other 4 to fake a mid tower push but not to engage at any costs. Then our goal would be to
A) get the other team to jump for our team who has no intention of fighting head-on and escape with minimal casualties while I push the tower
or
B) get them to split up to defend both towers and pick the more vulnerable side of the split and attack
or
C) simply repeat the process until we have what we need to fight head-on
You might be thinking 'well, the other team must have played like shit to let you guys win that one.' Yes, maybe... but that is almost always the case whenever there is a comeback. You see big comebacks in the pro BW/SC2 scene too, where the skill level is undisputedly higher than your average comeptitive DotA/HoN game. So my point is that every time you concede prematurely, you're potentially passing an opportunity to learn how to control the game.
There's different ways to control the game and you slowly build an understanding between teammates on how to approach the game in X or Y situation if you keep playing together. That's my explanation for teams that don't look strong on paper but perform well (usually a team that stayed together for a long time) or teams that look all-star but fail. I don't buy that 'too many carry players' crap.
I guess when you're swapping teammates so often, or getting random teammates sometimes, it's hard to expect the will to improve your game in such a manner. Well, this post isn't meant to put blame on any of the people I've played with, especially since I had my fair share of fails (I've played too much that I'm afraid the 'sry I'm new to HoN' excuse won't work for long T_T), just a thought for people who have a similar mindset. you make me feel warm and fuzzy inside remembering how worth it it is to play crazy comeback games
i only bother to concede when all of our team is 4 levels behind their lowest or 2 rax are down and we dont have a sizeable un*-advantage
oh yeah and pheonix is so fucking fun to play damn i love him now
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England197 Posts
I'm up for some games @ HoN, been playing on/off since beta (not very good), MM is about 1300 and normal rating is 1600, I usually just play support.
Nick is AlZU (small L)
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I've picked up HoN 2 days ago, and I'm also up for games. ID: LoboMuzenza
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On March 27 2011 18:13 Heen wrote: --Beast post-- You're right, of course. However, I don't even think it's as deep as the "management" you describe. In pub games, it's honestly just a lack of strategy. Sometimes it's due to the fact that you're stuck with players you don't want to "try" with and, therefore, you lack communication and teamwork. Usually it's simply due to the fact that you play with new people each game (play with repeats more at higher MMR or at slow times), people have different ideas and lack coordination, and you can't conciliate that from game to game.
I think it might get better at higher MMRs as I've only been up to like 1850. Again though, that's probably just because the player pool gets smaller and people get slightly better at the strategy part of the game. A better plan to get "good" games like that is to form a team imo.
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If anybody wanne do some pubstomps add my name on hon is ghoswalker5
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@Heen
Amazing post, pretty much spot on of something I've been trying to articulate for some time. I used 'harmonizing with my team' as a metaphor. Does anyone have any tips about how I can do so with my team and throw my opponents off better? I sometimes find it very difficult, and it does lose games.
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On March 28 2011 03:33 Klimpen wrote: @Heen
Amazing post, pretty much spot on of something I've been trying to articulate for some time. I used 'harmonizing with my team' as a metaphor. Does anyone have any tips about how I can do so with my team and throw my opponents off better? I sometimes find it very difficult, and it does lose games.
Well, you gotta be decisive and determined in your play calling and in-game leading. Tell them explicitly what needs to be done at a certain point and then explain why you are telling them to do it afterwards, either post-game or immediately afterwards. That's assuming you are comfortable enough with game states to correctly judge what's going on.
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Looking for some people to play with, 1705 mmr. whisper/add me jeefzors is my name
mod edit
User was temp banned for this post.
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I really hope that's not a referral link in your post.
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I know it does, but people have been dropping that around on here since the sale...a few threads/blogs were banned already.
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The referral thing is cause HON has some $10 sale over the weekend and some guy made a thread in the HON forums about how he posted his referral + some info on the League of Legends forums and made like 10,000 gold coins from how many people used his code. So now everyone is spamming every forum/stream/whatever they know trying to get coins.
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Lol becuase i need to buy the skin for rainbow rampage!
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about icity: expected ccm to win the whole thing they are a beast team, but scythe got 2nd place without playing lgd? wtf?
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On March 28 2011 06:20 rabidch wrote: about icity: expected ccm to win the whole thing they are a beast team, but scythe got 2nd place without playing lgd? wtf?
Brackets dude...why would Scythe play for 2/3 when LGD lost in the round prior?
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On March 28 2011 10:20 Judicator wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2011 06:20 rabidch wrote: about icity: expected ccm to win the whole thing they are a beast team, but scythe got 2nd place without playing lgd? wtf? Brackets dude...why would Scythe play for 2/3 when LGD lost in the round prior? single elimination sucks -_-
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Heen, so you're saying past a certain point you need a team to improve?
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