Just something I felt like doing.
We’re just two weeks away from the next Spring Season for Vainglory after all.
Overall, this thread would be just opinions and off-hand thoughts I have had at the time of writing this.
Feel free to give your own opinions too I say.
- Opinions on Game Modes.
For weekdays, the game modes available to us are mainly Casual 5v5, Ranked 5v5, Ranked 3v3, Blitz, and Rumble.
For weekends, the rotational game modes can be either ARAL, OFA, and ARAM.
In my experience from playing these modes, here is the amount of time it usually takes me to complete them:
- 30 to 40 minutes: Casual 5v5, Ranked 5v5
- 20 to 30 minutes: Ranked 3v3, OFA
- 15 to 20 minutes: ARAL
- 10 to 15 minutes: Rumble, ARAM
- 03 to 05 minutes: Blitz
Currently, I only play Rumble and Blitz. If ARAM is available, I’ll play that mode too.
As you can see from my list of game modes with the time taken to complete them, I’m playing game modes that fall below 15 minutes to complete.
Do note that the listed time doesn’t take into account the time that is consumed during queuing (dodging, off-hours matching etc.).
The opinions I have for these game modes are simple:
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Casual 5v5, Ranked 5v5 and Ranked 3v3 is necessary for the game. Vainglory with these modes stays true to its roots for being a MOBA and the roots of the game’s early days where there was only 3v3. I wouldn’t mind if they axed Casual 5v5 though. Get everyone used to the idea that these lengthy game modes are something worth playing. Or alternatively, you can view the axing of Casual 5v5 as a way to comb out truly casual players and funnel them into other modes.
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OFA is ok but boring. It’s mainly due to the selection of heroes, the “one for all” aspect instead of “one for one team”, and the game time. I am not motivated to play this game mode beyond the amount needed to complete Event Quests. Since I’ve completed the Battle Pass earlier in February, I have not incentive to really play the mode.
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ARAL is not to my liking because Talents, the game time and the play style people adopt when they play it. Blitz is slightly tolerable due to the game time being very short but is otherwise a pain to go through when the enemy team went the “Blitz meta” comp a.k.a. rush objective and/or suppress your team to death. I really only play Blitz when I want to just scratch my Vainglory itch a bit and do Quest Chests. I want Blitz to be removed to be part of Rotating modes, but that isn’t possible without causing a different game mode to have Talents. More on this in a later section.
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Rumble and ARAM are my favorite game modes. They’re short, is 5v5, no Talents, and have elements that make them fun. They do have slight flaws here and there but are otherwise ok. These game modes after much-recollecting feel like what I have been looking for when I first got interested in League of Legends but was looking towards more mobile/handphone options.
- San Feng.
When I first saw the stats he has, especially on his B, I thought he was going to show up everywhere and be super influential in shaping the meta.
Turns out, that isn’t truly the case. While strong, his impact is more than he’s one to be aware of but not be too afraid of.
I think aside from maybe some slight adjustments to his B ability’s numbers, the rest of him functions well.
His design feels what a bruiser should be:
- High base damage but poor scaling with items.
- Tanky naturally with exploitable windows of weaknesses.
- Good CC that is mainly conditional and easy to not trigger.
I think if most bruiser heroes are adjusted accordingly to the above philosophy with some quirks of their own, they might just increase in viability and reliability.
- Heroes I Play and What I’ve Come to Realise in 4.0.
Prior to 4.0, I was mainly playing Blitz and running with Lyra almost every game. It was a bit cheesy and abused her Rare Talent’s insane damage output to just delete enemies.
Aside from Lyra, I haven’t really played any other heroes. Maybe Flicker, Fortress or Vox on occasion, generally ending with me losing the Blitz matches I decided to run them in.
I sort of listed that Ardan, Flicker, Fortress, Lyra and Vox were my mains prior to 4.0 because they were my selection for my “Talents to Glory” project. This project in its simplest form is to max out the number of Talent coins that the above selection of heroes has for the Talents, mainly their Rare and Epic Talents. When a Talent’s coin count is maxed out (the Talent does not have to be mastered/leveled up), the Daily Talent Chest will give Glory in place of the Talent coin, with the amount varying based on the amount and rarity of the Talent coin that was supposed to drop.
Come 4.0 and the past few weeks that it has been active, I’ve played around with some other heroes since Rumble was a place that allowed it a bit more than another game modes and is less punishing to experiment.
From this, I’ve come to the conclusion that:
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My true mains I feel currently are Fortress, Lyra, Varya, and Vox. These are the ones I enjoy playing the most when not taking Talents into consideration. Not only that, the skins I have for them are nice to see and use almost all the time. Note that I have all of Fortress’ and Vox’s skins, all but Dear Diary Lyra for Lyra, and I have only Winter War Varya for her.
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I seem to play heroes that rely on their abilities moderately that are up often enough to not have to rely on basic attacks alone and mainly rely on me stutter stepping. This is particularly true for most of the mains I’ve listed. Fortress’ bleed (be it from his B and his C’s wolves) rely on attacking affected targets fast to proc it, especially when alone or taking a jungle boss monster. Lyra mainly relies on her abilities, but her slow on her secondary basic attack does require finesse to not lock her up in one place too long and I’ve have been able to read her stutter stepping animation pretty well. Varya and Vox are self-explanatory as they need to stutter step to make their AoE damage hit often and reliably. Heroes that have an even mix of basic attacking and using abilities are manageable for me, but I feel more in tune with those that fit the criteria I have mentioned above for my mains. With that in mind, I think Gwen fits this category. Maybe I’ll get her a try again.
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Heroes that have 136.3% or more base attack speed, coupled with at minimum additional 40% or more attack speed from other sources (items and ability passives), I feel are the most comfortable to stutter step with. Fortress has the best attack speed at 144%, which usually bumps up to higher numbers when he ults (add on 30%/45%/60% attack speed per ult level). I could also pick up Shiversteel if I feel like being less reliant on the ult for attack speed buff and want to be even more annoying. New Shiversteel is pretty good I tell you. This Shiversteel pick up can also be applied to Lyra. Makes her basic attacks easier to work with and do more slows than having to rely on the secondary empowered basic attack with the slow. Vox I feel has stayed comfortably as a weapon carry because his weapon item pickups generally total more than 40% additional attack speed. Sure, it isn’t the most damaging build, but Breaking Point does enable it to be good. As for CP Vox and Varya, I feel Alternating Current having a 40% attack speed increase is a blessing. If it was as low as say Breaking Point which only gives 20% attack speed, I don’t think they’ll be that comfortable to play with. Varya would work, considering that she goes up to 155% attack speed with her ult’s passive at max level despite having a 115% base attack speed naturally.
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“One Tricking” I feel is the best option for playing Blitz. I’ve decided to only really play Lyra in Blitz because her Talents and power curve have remained relatively unchanged over the past year and investing into the “meta Talents” feels a bit too late and a chore to do, especially the newer ones like Ylva’s Epic Talent (of countless traps of annoyance). With that, I only really farm Lyra’s Talents from the Daily Talent Chest, while the other four slots are occupied by max Rare and Epic Talents whose coin count have been maxed. I do occasionally play the other four that I’ve put the time to max their Rare and Epic Talents coin count. Not often enough though. They don’t really stand a chance against the meta in Blitz.
Other heroes are ok, but I generally don’t play them for their own multitude of reason. It does narrow down my pool of viable heroes, but hey, enjoying and being good at which heroes you choose to play is half a game won already, no?
- Vainglory on Steam.
Personally, I think the improvements from when the PC Version was a stand-alone is substantial. Being on Steam not only enforces a certain quality to be achieved but also enables easier updates and a stable platform to work with.
However, I do agree with the sentiment that the PC Version has launched poorly.
I do think that Vainglory can be somewhat decent on Steam, but they really have to make strides to improve it over the coming months. I for one want to see some additional stuff like key binds for buying items quickly and custom builds feature.
A few good things that I feel has come out of the Steam release are:
- The Key Binds for Vainglory’s PC version. Finally!
- The free stuff that, for the most part, are ok.
- PC player base tracking. (Sure, it’s low, but hey, it’s a start).
- The sudden presence of the benevolent pressure against loot boxes. I’ll explain this in a later section possibly.
- Easier recording platform for making videos and such. And lots of zoom in pictures, hehe.
My take on this is to give it time and also if possible, review it in a positive manner with valid and solid criticism rather than just straight up saying “Bad game” or “Dead game” and giving the review an immediate negative one.
- Talents.
The sentiment still stands true and is shared by a good majority of the community - they’re imbalanced, not unique and some prevalent Talents have that pay-to-win element.
I personally just use them to generate Glory from the Daily Talent Chest and play Lyra with Talents 90% of the time.
Now, I’m not gonna harp on about them and how their imbalanced and what not. What I want to talk about is the possible future I imagine could happen to them and some other stuff.
Now that Blitz is the only game mode that enables the use of Talents on a regular basis, with ARAL occasionally being in the rotational game mode cycle to enable an extra mode to play with Talents; I feel that:
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Blitz’s meta seems to have stabilized even more and also becoming stale towards the 2400+ range. This is good and bad in a way cause it makes the game mode easier to understand and play, but also makes it repetitive and boring in the sense that you will see the same heroes and Talents picked.
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I feel that the guaranteed hero Talents bundle for heroes other than San Feng have all but disappeared. I haven’t seen them at all. I thought these bundles were better than the random rolls one can get from the standard random Rare, Epic and Legendary Talent chests. The guaranteed Talents bundle does feel like pay-to-win if the OP ones are available to be bought. Though, you can say it’s better than the loot box style of Talent Chests, no? Both are still bad and eh though.
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I feel that with 4.0 being the officially PC launch, there is now an underlying current to move away from loot box style of monetization and a pay-to-win monetization. Mainly the latter rather than the former, considering that we still have loot box style of purchasable stuff. I do have to say that the loot box stuff for non-Talent stuff seems less egregious than before since they now rebate with ICE rather than Essence most of the time.
However, I feel that SEMC are at an important crossroad when it comes to Talents as of now.
Some thoughts that weigh on my mind currently for Talents are:
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Talents I feel need to go before they become embedded any further into Vainglory. They are already embedded quite deeply in the sense that Talents get shoved in players faces from daily chests, quest chests, event rewards, Battle Pass rewards etc. I know most players if not all have Talents sitting in their inventory doing nothing of value. However, I also feel it’s not too late to reimbursed all players and remove Talents altogether. Sure, it would be a huge undertaking with severe long term consequences, but I think it’s healthier for the game overall.
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Talents I feel are also hard to remove due to how groups of players base their game time for Vainglory around Talents. They are literally high-level guilds that invest time and money to get the best of the best Talents, which is evidenced by viewing said guilds and their members ranking on the Blitz leaderboard. If SEMC removes Talents, it’s a big slap to these kinds of players cause all their time and money are definitely wasted.
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Another reason I feel Talents should go away is from the code aspect and the potential bloating Talents overall has on the game. Talents surely have some codes for their own functions and certainly, have graphical assets to match for most of them. Nothing much I can say from this side of things really.
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Talents only have one (or two) modes they can be played in. Doesn’t this feel boring? The Blitz meta has no shake up for quite sometime already and limited avenues to use them means there’s really no incentive to collect, upgrade and use them at all.
These are just some thoughts I had in mind. Can’t write them all out without it feeling repetitive, no?
- A.P.I. Stuff.
I think ever since they introduced rotational game modes, the API side of things that services like VGPro and VainAura use have been struggling to keep up.
I really wish SEMC makes it easier to update the sites easier since I want to see what my stats are for modes like Rumble and ARAM.
A short section, but I feel is important for those that like to see the stats.
- What I Want from Things to Come.
Quick list style wishes:
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Bruiser overhaul to be akin to San Feng - tanky with either good tankiness or sustain, good base damage, poor scaling,
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Captain damage nerfs across the board. Be tanky with CC, but moderate damage and poor to moderate scaling. Exceptions are needed such as the likes of Fortress and Lyra.
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New skins for heroes I main.
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Better keybinding options.
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Custom builds.
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Talents balancing or removal entirely.
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A werewolf hero, a musical/bard hero, and more heroes that fit my playstyle of stutter stepping first, ability secondary or fluidly incorporates stutter stepping.
Break.
This was a long one. Feels a bit rushed towards the end. Let’s get the discussion rolling for the next two weeks until the next patch arrive I suppose.