Attack Ranges

[Jezu]

What is the actual gain here of making 5 possible attack ranges? I mean asides of gutting hero diversity? We might as well make 5 possible starting stats and gains so hero can get 18/19/20/21/22/23 and gains of 2.5/2.6/2.7/2.8/2.9/3.0. Super easy to tweak and consistent and balanced.

Like your mentioned EW has 625 range, reason is that if he catches ranged hero in traps he can attack him without retaliation. If you "normalize" attack ranges then he needs changes to skill set to function properly. And what do you gain in return? Nice number on ranges.

Flint has lower range at early levels to make him slightly worse solo against other 600 ranged solos, same for Artillery. You are removing their design and balance weakness for nice numbers.

Furthermore having same ranges doesn't solve any underlying issues pointed out in first post or mentioned by other posters, it actually make stuff worse since some heroes would require rebalancing(or even design changes) in other parts for no actual gain.

Problem is not heroes having different ranges, problem is 600 being default range. That was covered by others and i'm not sure what further can we discuss at this point, single out heroes that should have lower range?

None of the heroes mentioned are picked (aside from the very occasional corrupted and artesia picks) - And that is partly due to their attack ranges being so low. As for flint and artillery, there is no reason for them to have lower starting ranges than other "ranged solo heroes" as they have nothing to compensate for that.
And as for Emerald Warden, the hero is full of flaws at the moment, and she's going to need massive changes regardless.

And normalizing stats to an extent wouldn't be a bad thing either, but it would require massive other changes, unlike this one, so it's not really worth it.

[Martym]

Pointing out heroes that should/could have lower range wouldn't be a bad thing, as would be pointing out heroes that require longer ranges.

No hero deserve 350 range. That's closer to a melee range than to the "normal" 600 range.
Tb can use a higher range.
Elonia should have a lower range.
Sil has to get a lower range.
VJ should be 550, he already got nice starting dmg and can easily get kills/assists early.

[[IaF]Skyve]

VJ should be 550, he already got nice starting dmg and can easily get kills/assists early.

He also has nothing besides auto-attacks to really harass with, no mobility and no real quick stun with burstdamage.

No hero deserve 350 range. That's closer to a melee range than to the "normal" 600 range.

It's also further away from being melee than being melee.

[[f13]`11411181]

Not to be rude, unconstructive or negative but I've read this thread about 4 times over before attempting to comment on it, and it's garbage. It may have been started with the Best Of Intentions™, but realistically all this is going to devolve into is people screaming "WELL I DONT SEE THE REASON WHY X IS Y, WHY NOT MAKE IT Z BECAUSE OF <INSERT ARBITRARY COMPARISON HERE>"
Or even worse, the mind-numbingly stupid posts (Jezu) that state that everything should be normalized because of a twisted form of "if everything isn't the same, then there are advantages and disadvantages and thus there is RNG and imbalance and blah blah blah", as though the entire game doesn't exist around playing to your strengths and mitigating your weaknesses to the nth degree already.
As for the questions in the OP:

# Are there certain rules to be followed when deciding attack ranges? - The only people who can realistically answer that is s2. Everything else is just pissfarting around with their opinions unless someone can bring up some proper cause-and-effect relationships (and there are only 2 people on this forum who possibly could)

# How does the prevalence of high attack ranges affect the game? - It doesn't. We see melee heroes all the goddamn time.

# Would adjusting attack ranges on the general hero pool to be more diverse make for a better (more balanced) game? - Short answer, no. Long answer, LOLNO.

[Jezu]

everything should be normalized because of a twisted form of "if everything isn't the same, then there are advantages and disadvantages and thus there is RNG and imbalance and blah blah blah"

When did I say this?

[[f13]`11411181]

After that, it would be easier to tweak the attack ranges, and it would be consistent and thus easier to remember, and thus better for everybody.

Consistency for the sake of consistency itself (note that you've stated no other reasons as to why) does nothing but undermine established relative balance for the sake of pretty numbers. Or do I need to dig out and quote the normalization threads currently sitting in the suggestions box in SBT?

[Jezu]

Consistency for the sake of consistency itself does nothing but undermine established relative balance for the sake of pretty numbers.

The changes would have a positive effect on the balance (with the exception of Warden's, who is going to need massive changes regardless, and arguably Moon Queen, who might not need a buff after the latest change to her), so how does it "undermine established relative balance"?

Consistency is a good thing for nearly everything, and if you can achieve it with such little effort while positively affecting the balance, why would you NOT do it?

And last time I checked, the forums are private for multiple reasons, and one of them is to allow privacy for the posters and you're not allowed to spread the threads and posts for people who do not have access to the private forums.

[[GM]Cyber_Kun]

The changes would have a positive effect on the balance (with the exception of Warden's, who is going to need massive changes regardless, and arguably Moon Queen, who might not need a buff after the latest change to her), so how does it "undermine established relative balance"?

The question is, does CD need buffs? Answer is No. Second question is, why would changing a perfectly fine hero positively effect the balance? Answer is lol, it looks nice. If people just balanced on what looked nice, we get the last patch. Mind, I do agree that constancy is good when it only causes confusing or it is too obtuse such as the night vision or .05 stat growth, but attack range does not fall into that in any manner.

[Dominare]

You can't just say:

Not to be rude, unconstructive or negative but...

and then proceed to write a 100% negative and nonconstructive post. If you've got nothing worthwhile to offer the discussion, find another thread, don't come in here telling everyone they're incapable of producing anything useful. Thanks.

--

I agree with the OP that some (not all) of the 600 range heroes seem to enjoy that benefit arbitrarily. If we look at the lower ranged heroes like Myrm, TB, Midas etc and we say, okay well they have reduced attack range because their zone of control is very very good (which it is) then we need to look at some of the other heroes that have similar reach with their skills and ask why they also have 550-600 range.

Once you actually take a moment to look at it, you quickly realize that a great many of the '600 club' have as-good or better reach with spells. To name a few randomly selected examples: Valkyrie, Kinesis, Torturer, Defiler, Aluna, Puppet Master, and of course Silhouette. This makes it difficult to defend the choice to penalize the first group with poor attack range solely for that reason.

Finally, I think people need to be careful when making statements like 'well they're still better than melee' (or indeed 'we see melee heroes all the goddam time') because that ignores the long list of benefits melee heroes enjoy to compensate for their lack of range, such as no uphill miss, full benefit from block sources, better base health regen, etcetera.

[[f13]`11411181]

You can't just say:
and then proceed to write a 100% negative and nonconstructive post. If you've got nothing worthwhile to offer the discussion, find another thread, don't come in here telling everyone they're incapable of producing anything useful. Thanks.

I offered plenty worthwhile to the discussion, including the assertion of several points that you can quite easily formulate an argument to (attempt to) disagree with. Hell, you even mentioned one of the reasons why attack ranges are mostly inferior to skillset, further validating my underlying point.

you quickly realize that a great many of the '600 club' have as-good or better reach with spells.

Pull your hate-blinders off for once, I dare you.

The changes would have a positive effect on the balance, so how does it "undermine established relative balance"?

Says who?

Consistency is a good thing for nearly everything, and if you can achieve it with such little effort while positively affecting the balance, why would you NOT do it?

Says who? Burden of proof.

And last time I checked, the forums are private for multiple reasons, and one of them is to allow privacy for the posters and you're not allowed to spread the threads and posts for people who do not have access to the private forums.

Actually, the forums are private because it contains sensitive product information that people can comment on and reference when posting. Truthfully, the fact that you're so defensive about it implies that you don't even believe it would stand up to public scrutiny without being laughed at.

[GregerMoek]

EDIT: In my opinion, having heroes with an attack range of more than 600 without a skill increasing it should be avoided at all costs. You don't want to further increase the gap between melee and ranged, as it makes balancing that much harder.

No it further increases the gap between the hero with more than 600 range and the melee hero rather than melee and range in general. Sure, if you buff one of 10000000 ranged heroes, the average range of all the 10000000 heroes will be higher, thus somewhat impacting the "Range vs melee" but that's kind of a stat that doesn't matter to balance.

Every hero is balanced individualy and the balance between melee and range in general is more or less restricted to items (hotbl, Bruta, FWS comes to mind).

[Jezu]

No it further increases the gap between the hero with more than 600 range and the melee hero rather than melee and range in general. Sure, if you buff one of 10000000 ranged heroes, the average range of all the 10000000 heroes will be higher, thus somewhat impacting the "Range vs melee" but that's kind of a stat that doesn't matter to balance.

Every hero is balanced individualy and the balance between melee and range in general is more or less restricted to items (hotbl, Bruta, FWS comes to mind).

If you give one hero more than 600 range, soon you will give that to another, then another - And then a large amount of range heroes have a range of for example 700. At that point we kinda come back to the "range vs melee" aspect, as it isn't just about a few selected heroes, but the majority.

I understand your point, and with a single hero having higher range it doesn't really impact the range vs melee, but it's like the person who decided not to drink any alcohol for a year, then drinks once, then another time, until he's drinking it every single day although he first decided not to, but then let it slip. (I know, the illustration was lame, but you get the point)

That's why it's so important to keep some things consistent, and if you really have to make exceptions, do them with VERY good reasons - And don't throw them in all the time. Preferably don't make exceptions though, as it will easily result in the above.

[Zilrax]

If you give one hero more than 600 range, soon you will give that to another, then another - And then a large amount of range heroes have a range of for example 700. At that point we kinda come back to the "range vs melee" aspect, as it isn't just about a few selected heroes, but the majority.

I understand your point, and with a single hero having higher range it doesn't really impact the range vs melee, but it's like the person who decided not to drink any alcohol for a year, then drinks once, then another time, until he's drinking it every single day although he first decided not to, but then let it slip. (I know, the illustration was lame, but you get the point)

That's why it's so important to keep some things consistent, and if you really have to make exceptions, do them with VERY good reasons - And don't throw them in all the time. Preferably don't make exceptions though, as it will easily result in the above.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/falla...ery-slope.html

Might want to read up on this here.

[Jezu]

http://www.nizkor.org/features/falla...ery-slope.html

Might want to read up on this here.

I'm not claiming it WILL happen, but it MIGHT happen, and taking the risk is not necessary IMO. (At least that was my intention, if you however understood it the other way, my wording might've been off).

[GregerMoek]

Once upon a time IceFrog created Invoker, but never again did he create another hero with initially almost 30 abilities, never again did that happen.

I firmly believe that people can do one thing once and then let that feature be special about a hero, at least matter to its playstyle. While Invoker is vastly different to anything ever in any game except perhaps Magicka, which is of an off genre, and the comparison might seem unfair when we're talking about attack ranges, it is sort of a proof that one hero can have several special features and those features won't be seen again.

Yeah, every hero has an attack range while Invoker has a wicked spell-kit together with a "standard" attack range. If another hero would get 625 range (if they for some reason wanted to standardize Lina and Pyromancer's starting stats), I don't think it'll be just to churn out more heroes with massive range, thus kicking melee heroes in the ass.

I also believe that going off from standardized stats can be a good thing for balance in the long run, as well as give heroes different feeling when playing them even if you're not using any abilities. I don't see why it's a must to standardize starting stats of any hero, if we go that far, shouldn't every hero have standard starting armour? Standard str/agi/int gains, standard base damage and base damage ranges?

Attack range is just another starting stat.

[Dominare]

I offered plenty worthwhile to the discussion

Sure you did. Let's look at a couple of your 'valuable contributions':

# How does the prevalence of high attack ranges affect the game? - It doesn't.

# Would adjusting attack ranges on the general hero pool to be more diverse make for a better (more balanced) game? - Short answer, no. Long answer, LOLNO.

Then you have the audacity to quote someone else making identical unqualified assertions with the reply 'says who?'. Well, I put the same question to you - says who? If you don't think diversity in attack ranges would improve the game, tell us why. I can't formulate any argument against your point if I have no idea what logic you're using to arrive at them, can I?

Look, I don't want this to devolve into a pissing contest or a flamewar. Yes, I concede that its unlikely this thread will produce some incredible epiphany that changes MOBAs forever, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth discussing. Now, would you like to try again?

[MikeTAR]

Not to be rude, unconstructive or negative but I've read this thread about 4 times over before attempting to comment on it, and it's garbage. It may have been started with the Best Of Intentions™, but realistically all this is going to devolve into is people screaming "WELL I DONT SEE THE REASON WHY X IS Y, WHY NOT MAKE IT Z BECAUSE OF <INSERT ARBITRARY COMPARISON HERE>"
Or even worse, the mind-numbingly stupid posts (Jezu) that state that everything should be normalized because of a twisted form of "if everything isn't the same, then there are advantages and disadvantages and thus there is RNG and imbalance and blah blah blah", as though the entire game doesn't exist around playing to your strengths and mitigating your weaknesses to the nth degree already.
As for the questions in the OP:

# Are there certain rules to be followed when deciding attack ranges? - The only people who can realistically answer that is s2. Everything else is just pissfarting around with their opinions unless someone can bring up some proper cause-and-effect relationships (and there are only 2 people on this forum who possibly could)

# How does the prevalence of high attack ranges affect the game? - It doesn't. We see melee heroes all the goddamn time.

# Would adjusting attack ranges on the general hero pool to be more diverse make for a better (more balanced) game? - Short answer, no. Long answer, LOLNO.

I pretty much agree with this.

The only proper way to discuss this would be to target the attack ranges of certain things, such as towers or a particular hero.

[[f13]`11411181]

Then you have the audacity to quote someone else making identical unqualified assertions with the reply 'says who?'. Well, I put the same question to you - says who? If you don't think diversity in attack ranges would improve the game, tell us why. I can't formulate any argument against your point if I have no idea what logic you're using to arrive at them, can I?

You do understand what burden of proof is, yes?

[MikeTAR]

Then what do you have to say about my Artesia/Ellonia example? Ellonia gets 75 more attack range for no apparent reason.
.

Then what do you have to say about my Artesia/Ellonia example? Ellonia gets 75 more attack range for no apparent reason.

I can’t answer that question as I didn’t design Ellonia or Artesia.

But ask yourself this

Is there an attack range balance issue with a hero who purely relies on her skill set to harass, farm and fight?

Can’t say I’ve ever got out-played by an auto-attacking Ellonia…

[Dominare]

You do understand what burden of proof is, yes?

Yes yes, you're very clever and everyone's super impressed. Now answer the question.