I get very little lag on West Coast.
It's not graphical lag. It's 100% server/connection/input lag.
Anyone else get an alpha invite today?
I may or may not have gotten an invite. I can neither confirm nor deny those allegations.
I need a new game. Damnit Blizz, give me an invite.
There is no NDA on the Alpha. I got an invite and hopefully will be streaming. I will post here if I do.
Please do, really want to see normal gameplay.
Ok, going to start streaming now. Sound isn't great. I have some background noise that I can't seem to get rid of. If you have any suggestions to make OBS work better let me know.
My twitch name is ringthree.
I think I have the settings right on Twitch to record this if anyone wants to see it later.
Looks like the stream turned out like shit. I will work on improving the quality.
So, there are two champs, Zeratul and Nova, with passive stealth on a 2 second cooldown, and both are burst champs and Zeratul has a blink to escape. There is zero counterplay to them. So I post on the alpha forums about it. I am told that counterplay means its ok to burst a character from stealth as long as they can be killed 1v1. And one of the blues posted in another thread that they don't want to change it. It is obvious to anyone else that has ever played a MOBA that this is a major issue, but balance doesn't seem to be their goal.
This game isn't going to go very far if they can't recognize fundamental gameplay imbalances, and don't really understand counterplay.
Won't pretend to have any expertise at this style of game, but I thought I'd mention that the stealth isn't perfect; there is background distortion for each of them that is visible while they're in stealth. Single-target abilities can't be used to bring them out, but anything with an area effect will.
The distortion is tiny, and bringing them out of stealth with an AoE ability is a crap shoot and worse you have to use a cooldown on stealth detection. Also, neither of these things are counterplay, they are who has better vision (which is inherently imbalanced and also favors those that can play at higher graphical resolutions) and spray and pray basically. I really like how both Dota and League deal with counterplay, where a good player has a chance to deal with other champs strengths. This is not the case with either of Blizzard's champs. How do you deal with stealthed burst with an immediate escape into instant stealth? If you want to make a stealth all-in champ, that is fine, but you don't give them an immediate escape back into immediate stealth.
I retract some of my whining about stealth, though I think it makes an unnecessarily high barrier for entry into an entry level game. When my wife was watching me play Zeratul and I blew someone up, she just said "bullshit champ". I still think it has issues, and the escape still has problems (why use blink to get to a champ while stealthed, when you can use it to escape or gap close?). The visual clue is too small, it needs to distort the background more especially since they use the effect for other things like water and spell effects.
Anyway, first week thoughts:
1. I feel like they are trying to split the difference between League and DOTA. Champs can feel overpowered, but all the abilities have tiny ranges and a AoE.
2. Maps are stupidly small. I think this is just to make up for all the potential shitty players there are and it encourages people to group, but the problem is that it makes it really easy to win if you have just one moron on your team.
3. You don't need to be better to win at all. If you are a skilled player and the other team gets all the objectives you are going to get stomped. This is good and bad. Probably equals the playing field but pretty much makes the game PvE if you are smart.
Thoughts on this week's free rotation:
ETC = Great tank, too many stuns with too much healing.
Zeratul = Too much stealth, good damage, too much escape.
Tassadar = Good balanced support, says very hard to play, actually very easy.
Raynor = Plain boring ranged carry.
Muradin = Can be a good tank, but feels very, very clunky. His jump has a horrible delay on it.
Arthas = Decent tank, but range is too low and no gap closer. Sustain tank but the cooldown on his sustain feels too long to balance how strong it is. Needs to be weaker but available more often.
Witch Doctor = Mage without much damage, but both ults are good.
this is still in closed beta or alpha or whatever, right?
Closed Alpha.
Also, I was wrong about not being able to see the stealth. When you know what to look for its ok if they are trying to gank you, but in a team fight it's still too easy for them to just isolate and kill squishies with no counter to it. And that doesn't deal with the blink > 2 second stealth escape. Also the stealth is a really high frustration point for new players in such a new player friendly game.
One complaint I have is how easily exploited the terrain trash is when it comes to LoS for certain characters. Siegetank can set up right below Blackbeard and be very difficult to target/gap close due to the maze of terrain there, while taking fire the whole time. Just one example, but there are a ton of spots where similar shenanigans can be had.
Finally in, level 10, looking for people to play with for the bonus XP.
Add me: Systolic#1807
Murky is the most annoying little prick in the game. God I hate that little bastard.