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I'm a newbie with no DOTA/RTS experience and just started to play HoN recently. In most forum posts that contain any talk about EM mode a vast majority of players seem to frown upon this option.
If the gold and experience percents are raised with the same ratio wouldn't the only difference between EM mode and normal mode be the amount of time the game takes to finish?
I think normal games would be more beneficial for both newbies and seasoned players. Newbies get to experience the different aspects of each game phase for a longer period of time and seasoned players get to exploit the mistakes of their opponents for a longer amount of time but other than that aren't the 2 modes essentially the same thing minus the time per game?
EM Games have boosted exp and gold gains as well as worse deny reductions (reduced to ~10 in a real game, reduced to ~35 in EM), making it easier than a normal game. I'd imagine that people frown upon this idea because A) It makes the game much easier than the traditional DotA that the game is based on, B) It creates much more room for error and allows for much less skill playing (denies and the such), C) The amount of gold is kind of outrageous relative to a normal game.
Pretty much, if that was confusing, normal games can be varied much more by skill whereas EM games are only affected slightly by really skillful playing.
Personally, I like playing both EM and normal, but I never really was into DotA. Just my opinion.
Its been shown that em games dont even make matches end quicker. On amore important note in HoN there is a clear early game, mid game, and late game. Heroes with a strong early game get the short end of the stick in em because their glory is much shorter than it usually is. Additionally even if they play early game really well it doesn't matter cause those late game heroes will still pretty much get whatever item they want cause that mode is so brainless. Its very hard to outlevel people even if you kill them repeatedly just because you can res and kill an imp and gain 5 levels.
My average game is 30 minutes and i dont play em.
Last edited by Mister_Regem; 10-19-2009 at 08:16 PM.
Ah ok, I heard of games lasting upwards of 50-60 minutes before. I just assumed that was a standard amount of time for non-EM games. I haven't played a non-EM game yet and most EM games are always around the 30 minute mark.My average game is 30 minutes and i dont play em.
If non-EM games also end in 30 minutes then I can see how it's a problem.
Last edited by antelopes; 10-19-2009 at 09:28 PM.
Yeah, to make long things short, the problem with EM is that the game is balanced around the normal game. It means every hero, skill, and item was thought with the purpose of being played in normal mode.
So essentially EM is not actually HoN, it's a deviation.
Why not to play -em:
Game is not balanced around that game mode (ie intelligence heroes because almost useless).
It cuts out important lane strategies like denying.
You get way too much gold from em, you have to learn to last hit and em does not encourage this important part of the game.
The towers are completely stupid in em, legionnaire at level 1 can just run in and autoattack the tower until it dies, if you go near him he will spin you to death. Also a single creepwave will bring the tower down 30% health, 45% if it has a siege weapon.
Scaling xp and gold up by the same amount is not really relevant because other factors are not also scaled up, such as movespeed for example. So heroes that dominate around 7-9 when they get 2 skills fully maxed (or even one great nuke maxed -- see Thunderbringer) have much less time to control the game.
I've never had an EM game over 45 minutes. I've had many Normal games lasting over an hour.
Would you stop playing altogether if a balance change made every game last another 15 minutes?
You end up getting out of early game way quick in EM.
The biggest problem with EM is that it detracts from early game laning, last hitting and denying, which is a critical component of the game.
It also shortens the ganking phase and makes it more difficult because the lanes gain XP faster, making it much harder to make a ganking strategy profitable.
Both this changes make the game very farm and push centric, but non-EM games and especially competitive games are very laning/ganking focused, so EM is teaching you lessons that are actively bad
chose madman/magebane
profit
towers are also a lot weaker in EM and it makes the good jungling heroes almost pointless
EM allow stong Carry heroes (Pest and Dark Lady) to dominate very easily. Because in EM it is much harder to keep an enemy hero down as long as they are smart and dodge ganks. Farming in EM is very easy, you can farm some of the end-game items in a very short amount of time, thus any carries left unchecked for 10 minutes, regardless of how badly they were doing before, will come and wreak havoc among the opposing team. Because of the exp gain it's also very hard to keep heroes down in terms of levels, in a team fight it isn't uncommon for someone of the winning side to gain 3 level at once.
EM overall favours Carries and almost reduces all INT heroes to walking sheepsticks 30 minutes into the game.
Pretty much, after playing countless EM games (Cos no one hosts anything else and waiting for a game to fill is too harsh on my impatient self), then playing a non-EM, you see how much longer the phases last. It dragged on, but after a few matches, I find I quite enjoy it.
Seeing people swear their heads off after you kill them as they almost buy the item they need is just...perfect ^^
The bad thing is that it makes you worse overall as a player. If you keep playing EM, you become dependent on the extra EXP and gold that EM grants and you collapse when you move to non-EM games. Skills like last-hitting and ganking and lane control are not as important and so are not encouraged in EM, so you will never learn these vital skills properly if you only play EM.
Such a QQ thread. And this game is practically an offspring of Dota so saying you were never that much into Dota then why are you playing HoN? Dumb.
But anyway, I prefer EM games over Non-EM because it's shorter, easier to farm items. EM games last about 45-50 minutes depends. A really good EM game will last nearly 1 hour with good balanced team.
A normal Non-EM games takes me at least 50mins to 1+ hour to play. A really good Non-EM game will take me +- 1 hour 30 minutes to play. Which I can fit 2 EM games into it. For me and some people which are restrictive on time because of Real Life aspects, EM is perfect pertaining its short, fun and quick money games.
Last hitting and denying is somewhat less important in EM games compare to Non-EM but I found that doing these in Non-EM become very mundane after a while and frankly, boring.
So, by playing 2-3 games of non-EM it would take me about 3 hours already. And if those games turned out to be bad, that's a waste of 3 hours. Whereas you can fit 5-6 EM games into the same time frame.
Your EM's must be pretty stacked. Mine usually go for 40 - 70 mins.Originally Posted by RocKai
I play EM games because I have fun playing EM games.
Just uncheck EM from the options when you're searching games. That's what I do. That way it's like they don't even exist.
Also, I see lots of people saying EM games are always shorter. Non-em can be short as well. I've been in lots and lots and lots of <30 min non-em games. It really is more about how well your team ganks/wins team fights/pushes.
the problem with normal mode for new players is that the early part of the game is not only the hardest, but the most important.
if you're down three levels and have nothing but marchers and maybe a nulls, while the opponent scout has enhanced marchers, bottle, 2 soulscream, and is wrecking your face in, this is not fun.
in EM, in the exact same situation, the same person being wrecked would at least have a couple items, and thus not ~feel~ as worthless.
em is also fun for learning how a hero scales with items, since you can often grab a few luxury items and try them out.
EM has it uses for new players, but as a 'utterly new' player ascends to a 'knows the ropes but still isnt that great' player, they should probably go to normal mode, where things like denying and lane harassment matter a lot (and int characters are a lot better)
edit: EM does not make games shorter, they still last just as long
Last edited by chaosmongler; 10-22-2009 at 09:58 AM.
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