Adding HotS talents to DotA is weird because their original purpose was to replace both items and skill points, which isn't something they do adequately anyway. Layering talents on top of DotA's existing systems sounds like adding complexity for complexity's sake.
Edit: I'm pissed off at the moment because an article I started reading about why Baby Groot wasn't a decision made as a cash grab for GotG 2 randomly spoiled a major plot point.
So simple yet so deep. Like a tornado this song swept the nation in 1993 as a bold repudiation of the dying early 90's PC culture. Her simple message: she judges men on their physical appearance. Which is OK to do. It might not be fair to short men who won't get Ms. Gillette's consideration, but it's fair to Gillette. In fact, if she were to deny her love of large men it would not only be unfair for Gillette, it would be unnatural.
She's very inspirational to me. Similar to her, I don't like girls with tattoos. I try to hold myself to be as strong willed and confident of my opinions as the lovely Ms. Gillette. I really wish Lady Gaga, Iggy Azalea, or perhaps another unknown strong female performer would cover this song and then once and for all we can all come together and celebrate the death of PC culture.
On December 13 2016 00:43 Seuss wrote: Adding HotS talents to DotA is weird because their original purpose was to replace both items and skill points, which isn't something they do adequately anyway. Layering talents on top of DotA's existing systems sounds like adding complexity for complexity's sake.
Edit: I'm pissed off at the moment because an article I started reading about why Baby Groot wasn't a decision made as a cash grab for GotG 2 randomly spoiled a major plot point.
The talent system in HotS is frankly kind of a failure so I also wonder why Valve is implementing the concept but maybe this kind of implementation will lend itself to better results. It's really hard to say. Do agree it adds more complexity on an already complex game. It's also the kind of complexity that I don't particularly like. Adding simple systems that can be used in complex ways always felt a better way then just adding complex systems.
Hearthstone: I'm glad we live in a world where Renolock is a top-tier deck. Pokemon: I'm sad we live in a world where there is no Victory Road before the E4.
Music Monday - new Demon Hunter album next year, nice
On December 13 2016 00:43 Seuss wrote: Adding HotS talents to DotA is weird because their original purpose was to replace both items and skill points, which isn't something they do adequately anyway. Layering talents on top of DotA's existing systems sounds like adding complexity for complexity's sake.
Edit: I'm pissed off at the moment because an article I started reading about why Baby Groot wasn't a decision made as a cash grab for GotG 2 randomly spoiled a major plot point.
The talent system in HotS is frankly kind of a failure so I also wonder why Valve is implementing the concept but maybe this kind of implementation will lend itself to better results. It's really hard to say. Do agree it adds more complexity on an already complex game. It's also the kind of complexity that I don't particularly like. Adding simple systems that can be used in complex ways always felt a better way then just adding complex systems.
I don't even know where this idea that the game needed more complexity came from. Has anyone ever said "man, DotA is too simple and people are figuring it out too fast, we need more complexity to shake up competitive play"?
Not to mention the correlation between a game being complicated and it playing well at a high level is incredibly poor to begin with. Complexity leading to strategic depth is one of those things that always sounds nice in theory but never works in practice because once you pass a certain threshold of what developers can balance or players can figure out, additional complexity is meaningless.
The talents aren't anything more than streamlined stats though. Like instead of +1 all you choose to get like 10 armor maybe or 25 attack speed or flat 20 damage. The next tier might be something else entirely like move speed or cast range.
Personally I honestly think it makes some heroes more viable which is good. I've yet to see a downside but then again we haven't really played any of it. Waga's words on it last night were, "These talents feel way better in every situation for every hero than just +2 all stats, because you get to pick the direction your hero is going. I mean these talents make support CK a thing."
My Priest matches are literally decided by who finds their Drakonid Operative first (eg. whether I get one from Historian since I don't own one) (unless they get some nut sequence of topdecks while playing singleton, obv.). That card is becoming old really fast...
On December 13 2016 04:00 Cixah wrote: Personally I honestly think it makes some heroes more viable which is good. I've yet to see a downside but then again we haven't really played any of it. Waga's words on it last night were, "These talents feel way better in every situation for every hero than just +2 all stats, because you get to pick the direction your hero is going. I mean these talents make support CK a thing."
I don't disagree that they can do something good. I question whether they do something good *that wasn't possible within the original system already*. There are ways to make support CK viable through changing his abilities, base stats, etc. Prove to me that there is something new that is possible with talents that wasn't possible within the existing framework of hero abilities.
To justify the addition of a new feature, it's not good enough to say "this new feature does something good". It has to do something that's not possible with the existing feature set. Otherwise this is how feature creep happens and your game gets bloated by ever-increasing complexity over time. Complexity isn't something you want to increase ad infinitum. It's something you want to keep at the absolute minimum possible level without sacrificing depth of gameplay.
The best games aren't the ones that have a bunch of complicated rules and arcane minutiae. They're the ones that have relatively simple mechanics that have complex gameplay evolve out of those simple mechanics. One of the biggest improvements to DotA as a game since DotA 2 released has been the slow thrust toward simplifying game mechanics and getting rid of the useless minutiae from War3 DotA. But over the last year or so worth of major patches there's been a big shift away from that, which I can't really make sense of or agree with.
The beauty of stats was that it was fundamentally a very simple mechanic. "Every hero has a 4th passive ability that grants 2x skill level to all stats." Anyone who already understands how abilities and the 3 attributes works knows how stats works. But on the flip side there was a lot of depth to it because stats are taken for a lot of different reasons in different situations.
On December 13 2016 04:00 Cixah wrote: Personally I honestly think it makes some heroes more viable which is good. I've yet to see a downside but then again we haven't really played any of it. Waga's words on it last night were, "These talents feel way better in every situation for every hero than just +2 all stats, because you get to pick the direction your hero is going. I mean these talents make support CK a thing."
I don't disagree that they can do something good. I question whether they do something good *that wasn't possible within the original system already*. There are ways to make support CK viable through changing his abilities, base stats, etc. Prove to me that there is something new that is possible with talents that wasn't possible within the existing framework of hero abilities.
To justify the addition of a new feature, it's not good enough to say "this new feature does something good". It has to do something that's not possible with the existing feature set. Otherwise this is how feature creep happens and your game gets bloated by ever-increasing complexity over time. Complexity isn't something you want to increase ad infinitum. It's something you want to keep at the absolute minimum possible level without sacrificing depth of gameplay.
The best games aren't the ones that have a bunch of complicated rules and arcane minutiae. They're the ones that have relatively simple mechanics that have complex gameplay evolve out of those simple mechanics. One of the biggest improvements to DotA as a game since DotA 2 released has been the slow thrust toward simplifying game mechanics and getting rid of the useless minutiae from War3 DotA. But over the last year or so worth of major patches there's been a big shift away from that, which I can't really make sense of or agree with.
The beauty of stats was that it was fundamentally a very simple mechanic. "Every hero has a 4th passive ability that grants 2x skill level to all stats." Anyone who already understands how abilities and the 3 attributes works knows how stats works. But on the flip side there was a lot of depth to it because stats are taken for a lot of different reasons in different situations.
It harkens back to the viability thing I think too though. Yes you could buy support items on ck before but ultimately his stat layout and initiation abilities weren't effected outside of just buying things like euls or arcane lens. Now he has two talents that increase his initiation reliability as well range without having to get items, but instead levels that most characters want to rely on.
The other thing you mention about getting rid of war3 relics may also be in play here when it comes to stat buffs. While in war3 generic stat buffs weren't part of the game, the idea of the whole game being centered solely around them is. I feel like the situations where you'd want to put points into stats early (am and jug for example) felt really bad for new players and fed into that idea of ever increasing complexity. That said, lots of the carry talents aren't accessible until later in the lane phase so it will make carries much less survible early in the game than they already are. I think the new talent system is a better way for 90% of the roster who don't make use of stat talents until 15+ anyway.
Personally I don't feel like there's a significant difference between the stats and talents other than the heroes that truely wanted them can't get them at level 2 like they originally had been. I also feel like talents gives the design space of another knob to tweek rather than constantly reducing dark seers int by 2 each patch, or changing the vac pull distance. The talents will have to be closely monitored however. Currently, out side of the level 25 talents I feel like theres only a handful of situations where in 90% of games you would deviate from the path set before you for your talents. They probably will need another few passes to make them equivalent so that the choice lines are a bit more diverse.
How annoying VR was ended up being directly proportional to how many HM slaves you need to cover every HM in that generation. Having half your active team be HM slaves because you need access to every HM to clear it in one go just felt bad.
It was nice in original G/S(/C?) because you could overwrite surf with either whirlpool or waterfall while you were still surfing, and surf was a great water move anyway, so you didn't need a water HM slave. I stopped playing HGSS at victory road though because it was just too many HMs and I couldn't get the passion for it. I always did like the rival battles at the end of victory road after you're tired and stuff though. S/M hands out so many free team heals though that the games even eventually stop telling you when they do it all the time, that I can't imagine a hypothetical rival battle at the end of a hypothetical victory road would have the same feeling to it.
I'm still absolutely flabbergasted that HMs couldn't be overwritten for quite a while there. I mean, I like the Sun/Moon method of dealing with them (i.e. removing them) but how in the hell could they have thought that was a good idea even as far out as X/Y?
EPT
