This is not the big "balance realignment" patch S2 talked about in the news letter.
Version 2.0.13
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- New Monitor game feature
* Right click a friend or clanmate who is ingame to Monitor them, getting basic stats that update every minute
- Casual Mode changes
* Decreased creep bounty to normalized Normal Mode values, down from 1.25x
* Hero bounties to 2x of Normal Mode values, up from 1.5x
* These changes are aimed at addressing the dominance of carries by reducing creep farming rate and increasing the gap between killer and victim so early game power is more significant
- Added a new Alt Avatar for Soul Reaper, the Grim Reaper
- There are now keybinds in the options menu to level up each of your skills
* Default bound to ALT+Z, ALT+X, ALT+C, ALT+V, and ALT+O for abilities and stats
- Fixed a bug where mousing over the minimap would sometimes turn the cursor into a targeting cursor
- Fixed bugs with many of the models in the game. Results in a small performance increase
- Predasaurs no longer have evasion, now have additional Armor (same effective HP against attacks)
- Vagabond Assassins will no longer automatically purge nearby players
- Sporespitters no longer has +15 free damage per attack
- Antlore Healers will no longer heal themselves
- Empath
* Range on Illusory Veil changed to 800
My take:
The new "Monitor Game" feature is definitely a cool add, which is the closest we have to adding a free spectator system with in-built delay - which would definitely take a lot of time and effort to implement. Regardless of all that, a nice feature that's always nice to have.
The bulk of this patch seems to focus on the general randomness factor in the game. In the previous patch, tower damages were stabilized to their average values, a change that was received well by the competitive community as it reduced the element of the luck factor. With that in mind S2 decided to take it one step further with neutral creeps, removing the random purge that occassionally dooms fleeing players as well as the innate evasion of Predasaurs, compensating it with additional armour.
Casual mode changes were definitely needed, nerfing carries which were unintentionally overpowered in the mode. The changes definitely make rice farming seem unprofitable and it would be interesting to see if traditional ricers would come out of their comfort zone and find ganking more profitable in the new CM.
Nothing much to comment about the Empath nerf but it was definitely called for. Despite being fairly balanced in a trilane, her presence as a solo mid or dual lane are very strong, providing she gets the levels. It's still way too early to decide how she fairs in the pool of competitively viable heroes so let's just wait and see.
The new "Monitor Game" feature is definitely a cool add, which is the closest we have to adding a free spectator system with in-built delay - which would definitely take a lot of time and effort to implement. Regardless of all that, a nice feature that's always nice to have.
The bulk of this patch seems to focus on the general randomness factor in the game. In the previous patch, tower damages were stabilized to their average values, a change that was received well by the competitive community as it reduced the element of the luck factor. With that in mind S2 decided to take it one step further with neutral creeps, removing the random purge that occassionally dooms fleeing players as well as the innate evasion of Predasaurs, compensating it with additional armour.
Casual mode changes were definitely needed, nerfing carries which were unintentionally overpowered in the mode. The changes definitely make rice farming seem unprofitable and it would be interesting to see if traditional ricers would come out of their comfort zone and find ganking more profitable in the new CM.
Nothing much to comment about the Empath nerf but it was definitely called for. Despite being fairly balanced in a trilane, her presence as a solo mid or dual lane are very strong, providing she gets the levels. It's still way too early to decide how she fairs in the pool of competitively viable heroes so let's just wait and see.
Aside from all of that, [S2] DivA released a Dev Blog couple of days ago hinting the arrival of the big realignment patch in the near future along with some teasers of it's contents:
Hello my HoNeys! As we approach Valentine's day and bask in the glory of pink stuff and chocolates, we here at S2 figured we'd share some love with you guys and give you some insight into the upcoming "realignment" patch. As we've stated previously, the realignment patch will be a large list of minor adjustments aimed to bring everything in the game more in line with each other in terms of balance. This dev blog will reveal how it is we're going about this process, as well as some hints as to what realignment entails.
Step 1: Houston, we have a problem
As with alcoholics and chocolate addicts, the first step of correction is always the acknowledgment that a problem exists. We've always known that a game as deep and expansive as HoN would be extremely difficult to balance, and the realignment process is the result of us listening to the community's input regarding the current state of balance and prioritizing its improvement.
Step 2: Finding the problem child(s)
We realized that if we are to "realign" the game, we needed something to realign to. That is, there needs to be a baseline to which we can bring up the underpowered and nerf down the overpowered. To ascertain the baseline and what lies above and below it, we quizzed our competitive players on the relative power and pick priority of each and every hero. After normalizing and pooling the data we gathered, we were able to come out with a neat little list ordering heroes by power and priority- and establish a baseline with which to proceed.
Step 3: I'm all about solving problems, baby
Having identified the problem areas, we needed to come up with solutions. Once again, we heavily involved our competitive players as we gathered suggestions on how to patch up the problem areas. These suggestions sparked a dialectic process in which we the developers and the competitive players went back and forth until we came up with a list of realignment changes that we're all happy with.
Step 4: Testing, 1 2 3
What looks good on paper doesn't always look good fully fleshed out. Just ask any catalog shopaholic. As with everything else we put into the game, we've immersed our realignment changes in extensive testing by both our beta testers and competitive players. With these tests, we hope to analyze whether our specific changes have had their desired effects and also if said effects do indeed "realign" the game.
We are currently in the testing step, and hope to be ready to release the realignment patch into retail soon- but not before we and the competitors are totally happy with it! To tide you over, though, here are some hints as to what's included in realignment- obviously these are subject to change and not anywhere near comprehensive .
Stay tuned for the big realignment patch, coming soon™. Special thanks to all of our competitive players who have dedicated so much time and effort toward making this possible.
Step 1: Houston, we have a problem
As with alcoholics and chocolate addicts, the first step of correction is always the acknowledgment that a problem exists. We've always known that a game as deep and expansive as HoN would be extremely difficult to balance, and the realignment process is the result of us listening to the community's input regarding the current state of balance and prioritizing its improvement.
Step 2: Finding the problem child(s)
We realized that if we are to "realign" the game, we needed something to realign to. That is, there needs to be a baseline to which we can bring up the underpowered and nerf down the overpowered. To ascertain the baseline and what lies above and below it, we quizzed our competitive players on the relative power and pick priority of each and every hero. After normalizing and pooling the data we gathered, we were able to come out with a neat little list ordering heroes by power and priority- and establish a baseline with which to proceed.
Step 3: I'm all about solving problems, baby
Having identified the problem areas, we needed to come up with solutions. Once again, we heavily involved our competitive players as we gathered suggestions on how to patch up the problem areas. These suggestions sparked a dialectic process in which we the developers and the competitive players went back and forth until we came up with a list of realignment changes that we're all happy with.
Step 4: Testing, 1 2 3
What looks good on paper doesn't always look good fully fleshed out. Just ask any catalog shopaholic. As with everything else we put into the game, we've immersed our realignment changes in extensive testing by both our beta testers and competitive players. With these tests, we hope to analyze whether our specific changes have had their desired effects and also if said effects do indeed "realign" the game.
We are currently in the testing step, and hope to be ready to release the realignment patch into retail soon- but not before we and the competitors are totally happy with it! To tide you over, though, here are some hints as to what's included in realignment- obviously these are subject to change and not anywhere near comprehensive .
- Plague Rider's ride is getting an upgrade so that it zooms faster
- Hammerstorm will no longer cry every time an enemy buys a Nullfire Blade
- Pandamonium will no longer be a masochist
- Sand Wraith is getting the nerf bat
- Booboo's leash is being extended so he may run more freely in Wildsoul's yard
- Rampage will be more rampant
- Ophelia buffed to Prophelia status
Stay tuned for the big realignment patch, coming soon™. Special thanks to all of our competitive players who have dedicated so much time and effort toward making this possible.
Links
HoN Forums - Source
