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I agree with suggestion 1
I agree with suggestion 2
I agree with suggestion 3
I agree with none of your suggestions.
I spent some time thinking about a title for my thread, since there are three suggestions I had to sum them up and at the same time make it sound interesting. Here we go:
1: Make Casual Mode the standard selection
Pro's: This introduces newer players to the more relaxed environment that is casual mode, and makes newer players able to enjoy the game more.
Con's: None really.
2: Re-name Casual Mode to Normal Mode, and re-name Normal Mode to Hardcore Mode.
Pro's: This makes sure players that are not looking into getting competetive in this game will stick with casual mode, as it is the more enjoyable one when playing - you guessed it - casually. It also makes the hardcore-players feel more hardcore, which is nice.
Con's: I guess it could be confusing at start, but I also want the description of hardcore mode to be something along the lines: "This is the gamemode in which competetive play is fought" or something like that. That also tells newer players that there is a competetive scene for this game, thus giving it some commercial.
3: A win in Normal Mode increases your Casual Mode mode rating by half of the win. A loss in Normal Mode does nothing to your Casual Mode rating, UNLESS it makes your Normal Mode rating drop lower than your Casual Mode rating, in which case your Casual Mode rating adjusts to you new Normal mode rating.
Example 1: My Casual Mode Rating is 1700, and my Normal Mode Rating is 1600. I win a game in Normal Mode, and get +5 Normal Mode Rating. This means I also gain + 2.5 Casual mode Rating. My new ratings are 1702.5 and 1605.
Example 2: My Casual Mode Rating is 1700, and my Normal Mode Rating is 1702. I loose a game im normal mode, and get -5 Normal Mode Rating. My Normal Mode rating is now 1697. This is less than my Casual Mode Rating, so it adjusts to my new Normal Mode rating. Both my ratings are now 1697.
Pro's: All this does is making sure that the newer players will not get stomped by some pro 1900 mmr gamer who decides to play with his 1500 casual mode mmr. This in turn makes the experience for newer players more enjoyable, since I myself know for a fact that the 1500 casual mode bracket is a complete random set of players. The drop on Casual Mode rating also makes sure that you will not fight with players a lot better than you in Casual Mode.
Con's: The option to "semi-smurf" in the Casual Mode matchmaking will be removed, sort of, which some players might not enjoy.
With these three changes, I believe HoN will be:
- More friendly to new players.
- More enjoyable for new players.
- Give the more competetive players people of their own caliber to fight with, making their game more enjoyable as well.
- Make casual mode even more friendly due to the change in the mmr-cmr system.
S2 has stated many times that they want to welcome newer players, and I think this is a great way to do it as they wont have the experience most new players have in normal mode: First few games consist of people screaming at you that you are bad, and you will en up loosing, giving you horrible stats and low motivation to keep on playing. Since HoN is now free to play and it's main sorce of income is through the altarnate avatars and early access, which relies on having players stay, I think this will not only be good for the game itself, the community and the players, but also for S2's wallets.
This is the way to go with HoN, it will solve the current problems this game has as a whole, and will cause HoN to grow as a game. Vote yes to all these suggestion to help improve Heroes of Newerth.
Last edited by Rkey; 05-08-2012 at 05:21 PM.
Please post if you are here to vote, an increased number of posts means an increased number of readers. I think that, despite these changes being so minor, they will improve gameplay for everyone a lot.
People play casual to troll around and normal for a balanced game the suggestion is bad it promotes unbalanced game mode.
Ok, uhm.Originally Posted by BaneElement
1: Yes, people play casual to troll around. Yes, people play normal for a serious game.
2: Which suggestion?
3: It does the opposite by making sure that you cannot "semi-smurf" with you casual mode rating, as I said before.
4: Did you even read this?
So far it seems that most agree wholeheartedly on making casual mode the standard selection in matchmaking though, which makes me happy. This on it's own will indeed welcome newer players to HoN in a much more relaxed and beginner friendly way.
Last edited by Rkey; 05-13-2012 at 06:28 PM.
I like idea behind #3, but i have a better suggestion:
1: Remove Casual Mode entirely.
2: Remove PSR and stop displaying K:D for public games.
3: Implement all the nifty little awards from Mid Wars into public games and record them all on a players stat page. (For Epeen purposes, since we killed PSR and K:D)
4: Don't let new players/accounts use matchmaking until they've played 10 Public games, have your systems analyze their stats from those 10 games, and then drop them into a bracket. (As low as 1300 or as high as 1700 at either extreme. Then, to add the last touch of smurf poison, give bonus MMR based on KDR in your first few Matchmaking games if you're on the sub 1500 side of the spectrum.)
That right there would stomp out smurfs, make public games far more relaxed/entertaining, AND we'd finally be rid of Casual Mode! Three big changes that would greatly benefit Heroes of Newerth.
Last edited by GrymM; 05-14-2012 at 05:49 AM.
"finally get rid of casual mode"? Casual mode rocks man.
All of those are terrible suggestions, for one reason and one reason only: casual mode. The mode should be removed from hon completely. It teaches people to play bad, they don't have to know how to lasthit/deny, what items to buy in which situation. Then they come to normal mode, get stomped on the lane, rage to other blaming them etc. Nothing but harm coming from that mode. (Also supports are pretty much useless in casual pub games since there isn't really mid game)
Good supports are useful throughout the whole game.
Casual mode teaches people to play the game in a lot of ways. How do I move my character? What is the objective of the game? How does the map look like? Which heroes are there? What do they do? etc. etc. etc. There are a huge ammount of knowledge you and I have on this game that takes weeks if not months to get right, all of which has nothing to do with denying. Also, I would say that you DO learn which items to buy in which situations. In casual mode, some items are way better than others compared to normal mode, however I do not see this as a problem.
You have to realize that people who know NOTHING about this game will probably not go to the tutorial, but go instantly to a game. They should be allowed to also, and by making casual mode the standard selection I think this will be achieved.
relatively "minor" details such as getting the exact right item or learning to deny is nothing when you compare it to the question "What do you do in this game? What does that hero do?". You shuold be allowed to do those things first before learning things like denying.
No, people should not be allowed to go straight into the game without playing the tutorial first. Also, as GrymM said, new players shouldn't get straight into "normal" matchmaking, but they should first play "practice (not placement, practice)" matches, let's say public games, before they are allowed to join matchmaking.
All those things, "how do I move my character, what's the objective" etc. should be learned in the tutorial, not in actual games. When it comes to what do heroes do, players just have to learn and memoritize what skills heroes have, what do they do, how long/much/when (how much damage at which level), what are their cooldowns, ranges, manacosts? In the practice matches should only be the free heroes (which will be stable after a while), so players could learn how to play against them/with them/using them.
Also one big thing for starting players, and why do they "suck" in their first games, are the smurfers/stompers. Their number could be drastically lowered by making every new account go through a tutorial (which should last atleast 30 mins (so new players learn that games aren't over at 15 minutes, and smurfs wouldn't be created)). I doubt many experienced players would want to go through a very basic tutorial just for 50 silver and stomping.
I really don't feel like casual mode teaches anything normal mode does, neither does it better. You can learn all the very same things in a normal mode game than you can in a casual game. Plus a lot more.
Although the intention is good what you really need to do is to somehow make the first few normal mode games friendlier. Although you can't say that there is a definitive way to play I must say that normal mode is the what the whole game is balanced around. It would be sort of counterproductive to finely balance the whole game around normal mode and then endorsing casual mode to newbies. To give some perspective hardcore mode is, well, hardcore, but it is like casual mode probably also unbalanced in a way. In hardcore mode denies take all the experience away from enemies, there is no static gold gain and it's just all around more punishing than normal mode. This amounts to that heroes with stronger lasthitting are at a definitive advantage, and there are probably tactics that are "too" strong here, just like how carries get too big too quickly in casual mode due to the higher gold gain. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's bad to make players think that the mode that was never meant to be the primary focus is the "actual" way to play, and that normal mode -the game's actual core and foundation- is something for people who think they are "hardcore".
I think suggestion 3 is actually pretty good, the only people who would complain are the smurfers.
Also they really need bot matches.
Well thought out suggestions, although I personally don't agree with any of them. The reason is that I loathe casual mode. I want my kills and deaths to mean something. If I die, the enemy gains an advantage while I'm set back a bit. Vice versa ofc.
I love the implementation of midwars however, since it gives people a means to relax from the normal "hardcore mode" as you want to call it. If I want a more casual, relaxed and cd-lacking moba I'll go troll around in LoL instead. This game is balanced around the normal mode. The heroes, items and map setups are made around normal mode.
This is just my opinions ofc, but I'm well for the fact that people come with suggestions like this, since it let's the game evolve. Best suggestion I've seen here though is the one about removing KD and those other juvenile stats. The awards from midwars are way more fun and will certainly satisfy people's epeen needs if they were implemented in normal / casual mode aswell.
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