Play Log of 0.44 beta

ok, so for those who dont participate in beta tests, and for me to have a sort of collection of notes, i has this thread!

game 1 (0.44_beta4) replay
major notes this version: items stats were halved, some bug and balanc fixes with the new heroes
gameplay:
the line up was Feugan, Harlequin, Grey Knight, and Vindicare vs. Ahriman, Pathfinder, Lord of Change, and Flayed one
team was was mostly gankers and early hero killers, so they had a major advantage early game. fuegan dominated for most of the game, becoming the 'fed one' who couldnt be easily killed. This is partially due to the new mechanism on feel no pain. The harlequin was also able to have an excellent time ganking, being as destructive to the other team problably as much as fugan was. While fuegan and harle killed off enemy team mebers, the Grey Knight was being a pain to Ahriman and LoC who were both middle against him soloing. He was able to gain exp and shut down their casting powers. Vindicare was still being experimented with, being too new to be fully understood, but was viewd to be relativly weak compared to everyone else.
lord of change left early due to connection issues, and arhiman didnt seem to have a good game, weather because of the newly nerfed doombolt and master of sorcerery, or because it was jsut a bad game. Pathfinder was top agaisnt harlequin, and the flayed one was effectivly shut down by feugan early.
pathfinder ended up leaving towards the end of the game, causing fuegan to be switched over, being probably the reason why team 2 won.

notes:
-the new items didnt seem to have a huge efefct on the gameplay and game length; the game still lasted around an hour. it could be said that the item changed helped, because usually beta test games last 1 ++ hours, but the game was clearly over and getting drawn out towards 55 minutes.
-the regenerating base towers needs to be 1: removed, 2: regen slower, 3: make it player chosable. they regenerate too fast for even 2 or 3 heroes to destroy them at all, because creeps lose focus and target the remaining living tower that is attacking them, so the only way to successfully destroy a tower is to kill both at once. once a tower was destroyed, it rebuilt itself, giving the other team another 200 gold per player once destroyed again.
-vinidcare needs to be buffed. 750 => 800 range, precise aim damage 10/15/20/25 = 10/20/30/40%, increasing the maim chance from 15/20/25/30 => 20/30/40/50%. ultimate damge becomming: 50% of current if above X hp, 100% of current below X hp, and kills the hero below Y hp ++OR++ deals x damage to the target based on missing life. and the innate will be changed to: has a x% chance to instantly kill a creep or damage a hero by x% of its max hp
-fuegan's feel no pain is TOO POWERFUL. its dmage thresholds will be lowered (prolly from 65/75/85/95/115/125 min, 200/220/240/260/280/300 max => 40/50/60/70/80/90 min, 150/165/180/195/210/225 max)

conclusion: i (personally) didnt notice the change in the items past nukers rape-facing early game mroe than usual (can be countered with some basic +hp items), once mid game was reached, i wasnt noticing a real difference. the team makup was probably demonstrating an extreme example of how it might affect gameplay

game 2 (0.44_beta5) -no replay as of now-
notes: still testing out items, now base towers dont regen super fast
gameplay:
well, this game sucked... lots. XD it was ahriman, vindicare and lord of change vs. path, gk and some other hero, team one got dominated early, the game was basically over in 20 mintes, but it lasted 35 ish. not a whole lot was learned, and i spent alot of it complaining XD

conclusion: gankers suck!


game 3 (0.44_beta 5) -no replay as of now-
notes: same map as game 2, so no changes here
gameplay:
it was a 4v4 this time, arhiman, vindicare, librarian and lucius vs. mad dok, harlequin, runtherd and psyker.
early game was pretty even, no one team clearly having the advantage, but early-middle team one started pushing, taking a few outposts and gaining the advantage. once again, vindicare proved to be underpowered. team one did more noticable ganking, and eventually pushed into the base. it was early enough for the loss of survivability granted by items to be noticed, as team 2's heroes were being killed pretty easily by burst damage. lucius left, leaving harlequin the only decent dps hero in the game
team 2 managed to defend and push back to team 1's base for a good 20 minutes while team 1 defended with hrieables, and good pushing skills, and some co-ordinated team effort, team 1 managed to push back. around thsi time, ahriman became very powerful through master of sorcerery, and vindicare managed to become actually good, with a full inventory of items. the librarians dps capabilities were also starting to show. with a team full of int and agi gankers/supporters, team 2 couldnt hold for very long against team 1, the harlequin and runtherd proving to be the mot difficulty.
team 1 amanged to push into team 2's base and finish it.

notes:
-burst damage is too powerful now with less survivability granted by items. some basic items that add survivability should be added, such as basic items, or low level cheap armor items
-regenerating towers are still somewhat of an issue. the regeneratino isnt nearly as bad, too much for one hero, but if the team doesnt want to give away 1k gold each time a tower is dead, it should still be an option
-a game with ahriman should not be allowed to go 1 and a half hours... 200 int and 7 seconds of disable, with 10 bolts doing 220 damage ach is too much. plans to nerf: make a limit of 3 focused bolts per unit, chains become .5/.75/1/1.25 + 1% of int
-once the game goes past 1 hour, and everyone has a full inventory, it starts feeling like it used to.

conclusion: the effect the item change has on the game is being noticed, but the same basic principles aplly as game 1.

I am glad to say that I like these new changes, and my fears were *mostly* unfounded.

ha! knew it! XD and this is why im trusted with balance
also, feel free to write/add to more battle reports

<_< Isn't that your job? And as long as huge ass burst damage (FEUGAN AND GRAY KNIGHT) will be handled somehow the change looks fine.

Don't get too cocky now... Remember what this change did to Fuegan, GK, Lelith, etc., which was essentially my main fear though on a smaller scale, and what Vindicaire turned out to be

That being said, it does look good, and even solved a few hero complaints/imbalances I think (Like I doubt with the reduced armor/magic resist gains that Flayed One will tear through int/agi heroes as badly, though I think he'd still really hurt tanks, though I need to try him and find out) though I want to play some more games to get a better idea of this stuff.

Some suggestions though:
-Nerf the damage from illusions on Lelith's ult and line spell.
-All the changes we talked about for Vindicaire.
-Make the soulless automatons weaker, as well as the proposed changes to Ahrimen (They are way too strong for permanent units that essentially make another creep wave. LoC, currently one of the better int pushers, has minions with lesser stats that last only a matter of seconds.)
-Change the prices of certain items. (From just math and theory, some items have lost a lot of usefulness. Most notably among these are the Spirit Stones and Waystones, who now regen 50% and 25% mana respectively, which I believe on non-ints is less than the Design of Tzeneech, or whatever it's called, which still regens the same amount I believe since it was a passive aura, which I believe you said you didn't change those. Bionics also seem like they should utterly suck now.)
-Maybe make part of Fuegan's damage from his ult DoT? Not really sure what to do for him.

I'll add more if/when I think of it.

<.< Wasn't getting cocky. The first tests with this change showed no change on Feugan's and Gray Knights early burst. Grass on Feugan was two shotting most everyone and if not brought to near death anyway making them easy to kill. The other game had it Gray Knight bitch slapping most people by himself. Them being able to do that early made them unkillable cause they were fed from dominating so much so early. I'm saying this because I was the Ahriman in both games. And the part that its even said in both of the play logs up there.

Game 1
conclusion: i (personally) didnt notice the change in the items past nukers rape-facing early game mroe than usual (can be countered with some basic +hp items), once mid game was reached, i wasnt noticing a real difference. the team makup was probably demonstrating an extreme example of how it might affect gameplay

Game 2
conclusion: gankers suck!

Grass Hopper wrote:ha! knew it! XD and this is why im trusted with balance
also, feel free to write/add to more battle reports

I was jokingly saying that to this comment. Sorry about the confusion XD

the burst damage issue is being adressed
(check the new ietms in dev, and certain heroes just need to be nerfed anyway... [mistress/fuegan])

***(oh, and major important part)***
the item change only affects you if you actually bought survivabiltiy items to begin with
for those heroes that didnt buy any str items, they are unaffected, and burst damge is just exactly the same against them
(which is why game... 4? dosent show alot, because the few people that were complaining hadnt really bought a whole lot of survivability items [and losing 3 armor dosent generally help against burst])

Well, I *usually* go MS, then mana or regen, depending on char, then armor. Of course, with Vindicaire I tried a different approach, so I guess that may be why I didn't notice the difference as much as some might.