The Metagame

What is it? It’s a pretty common term you’ll hear in the HoN/LoL/DotA community, but there seems to be a lot of confusion as to what it actually means. When designers in these games speak of the metagame, they are referring to dominant trends in play. The “current meta” in HoN is considered by many to be ruled by farming trilanes–this means that competitive play typically revolves around strategies that employ a 1-1-3 laning strategy, with the tri-hero lane focused on building up a snowball of farm before engaging in teamfights to great effect. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of the trilane strategy is belied by the fact that it often lends to passive PvE-centered gameplay, which understandably results in bored players and bored observers. From an outsider’s standpoint, it may be first impulse to nerf it all to hell in the continuing interest of keeping the game fresh, but this may not be the case after careful consideration. Trilanes have not always been so popular after all; in fact, they used to be considered rare and exciting before they were successfully exploited on a large scale. DotA veterans understand that the metagame has shifted considerably over the course of the game’s development as a mod for Warcraft 3. There have been several changes to the game that forced these changes. What most players fail to see, however, is that almost any major change is the result of a sacrifice. The question then becomes–do we make the sacrifice of something good to potentially make the game even better? Here are some previous changes, DotA 5.84++, that forced players to make the jump.

Removal of global and AoE spells. DotA 5.84b/c will forever be remembered by DotA fans as the last version of DotA that @RiotGuinsoo presided over. For many “MOBA” fans, it was also their first taste of a stable version of DotA. Unfortunately, it was also rife with imbalances–so imbalanced that the collective of imbalanced heroes almost felt balanced. Faceless Void/Chronos at the time had an AoE nuke wave, and his ultimate stunned every enemy on the entire map globally. Morphling’s ultimate allowed him to copy any ally’s spell or item ability. The move from 5.XX to 6.XX caused a huge schism in the community because many elements of staple heroes were nerfed heavily, or remade until they barely resembled their former selves. Looking back however, I doubt anyone misses Medusa with non-ultimate Split Shot dealing 100% damage to 6 targets simultaneously. What I personally miss, however, was the idea that you should never solo mid. Mid was the pushing lane… that’s why you went Faceless Void/Death Prophet for the dual AoE nukes!

DotA 5.84b/c will forever be remembered by DotA fans as the last version of DotA that @RiotGuinsoo presided over. For many “MOBA” fans, it was also their first taste of a stable version of DotA. Unfortunately, it was also rife with imbalances–so imbalanced that the collective of imbalanced heroes almost felt balanced. Faceless Void/Chronos at the time had an AoE nuke wave, and his ultimate stunned every enemy on the entire map globally. Morphling’s ultimate allowed him to copy any ally’s spell or item ability. The move from 5.XX to 6.XX caused a huge schism in the community because many elements of staple heroes were nerfed heavily, or remade until they barely resembled their former selves. Looking back however, I doubt anyone misses Medusa with non-ultimate Split Shot dealing 100% damage to 6 targets simultaneously. What I personally miss, however, was the idea that you should never solo mid. Mid was the pushing lane… that’s why you went Faceless Void/Death Prophet for the dual AoE nukes! Removal of item pooling. The early 6.XX metagame was simple. Sentinel picks Dwarven Sniper, Scourge picks Bone Clinkz. Send them mid to creepscore each other for the Divine Rapier, while the remainder of each team “pools” Aegis components to give to their respective carry. It was a race to the finish, and the finish usually was somewhere between 90 and 120 minutes. Proper pooling may have been dead for years, but some HoN competitors have provided a very interesting nugget of wisdom to consider. Ever since item pooling was disabled, competitive teams have been looking for ways to keep pooling gold to their carry… by buying wards, couriers, and playing support. What used to be active pooling–requiring everyone on the team to maintain good farm–is now passive pooling, with multiple players engaging in “babysitting” behavior, sacrificing their own moneymaking capability to empower the carry. Making Aegis (Kongor’s Token) a non-buildable item also helped.

The early 6.XX metagame was simple. Sentinel picks Dwarven Sniper, Scourge picks Bone Clinkz. Send them mid to creepscore each other for the Divine Rapier, while the remainder of each team “pools” Aegis components to give to their respective carry. It was a race to the finish, and the finish usually was somewhere between 90 and 120 minutes. Proper pooling may have been dead for years, but some HoN competitors have provided a very interesting nugget of wisdom to consider. Ever since item pooling was disabled, competitive teams have been looking for ways to keep pooling gold to their carry… by buying wards, couriers, and playing support. What used to be active pooling–requiring everyone on the team to maintain good farm–is now passive pooling, with multiple players engaging in “babysitting” behavior, sacrificing their own moneymaking capability to empower the carry. Making Aegis (Kongor’s Token) a non-buildable item also helped. Denies now give XP. Whoa whoa whoa! What’s going on here? This game used to require skill! Why is my opponent getting XP when I outskilled him with my superior last hit skills? IceFrog is removing skill from the game! Sound familiar? It should–because this is a prime example of a good change that closes one door but opens two more. After denies starting giving XP, a good player could no longer completely shut out a lesser player. However, melee heroes were suddenly (marginally) useful again, which paved the way for new, vastly different strategies.

Whoa whoa whoa! What’s going on here? This game used to require skill! Why is my opponent getting XP when I outskilled him with my superior last hit skills? IceFrog is removing skill from the game! Sound familiar? It should–because this is a prime example of a good change that closes one door but opens two more. After denies starting giving XP, a good player could no longer completely shut out a lesser player. However, melee heroes were suddenly (marginally) useful again, which paved the way for new, vastly different strategies. Introduction of siege units. This is the change that I cite for my leaving DotA for a year. At the time, competitive DotA was just starting up. The first wave of big name DotA teams–JMC, Pandemic, Complexity–were starting to make waves. Many of the players in those teams continue to play today–much of Team Pandemic is now EG in HoN, for example. One of the big problems for DotA as an e-Sport was that individual matches took too long. A Bo3 set took, at the very minimum, two hours–Counterstrike took maybe half the time at most. The idea of the siege unit was to ensure that even without player interaction–that is, within the predominant farming-based metagame–games would end faster than ever before. For those unwilling to change their ways, however, this meant a decrease of importance in the laning and farming phases–in effect, a removal of what we perceived as skill at the time.

This is the change that I cite for my leaving DotA for a year. At the time, competitive DotA was just starting up. The first wave of big name DotA teams–JMC, Pandemic, Complexity–were starting to make waves. Many of the players in those teams continue to play today–much of Team Pandemic is now EG in HoN, for example. One of the big problems for DotA as an e-Sport was that individual matches took too long. A Bo3 set took, at the very minimum, two hours–Counterstrike took maybe half the time at most. The idea of the siege unit was to ensure that even without player interaction–that is, within the predominant farming-based metagame–games would end faster than ever before. For those unwilling to change their ways, however, this meant a decrease of importance in the laning and farming phases–in effect, a removal of what we perceived as skill at the time. Addition of the Bottle. On one hand, you create interesting fights around a neutral map resource that’s more impactful than ever before while reducing the amount of downtime in the game. On the other hand, you can now outplay your opponent but still lose your lane due to dumb luck. I’m sure that I’m not the only member of the “Bad Rune Luck” club here. The only rune you ever get at 0:00 is regeneration, amirite?

On one hand, you create interesting fights around a neutral map resource that’s more impactful than ever before while reducing the amount of downtime in the game. On the other hand, you can now outplay your opponent but still lose your lane due to dumb luck. I’m sure that I’m not the only member of the “Bad Rune Luck” club here. The only rune you ever get at 0:00 is regeneration, amirite? TP Scroll changes. Sorry, you can’t teleport back to base in the middle of a push, heal to full, then immediately teleport back to the push anymore, because TP Scrolls (Homecoming Stones) now share a cooldown with Boots of Travel (Post Haste). Oh, and if you didn’t have the forethought to carry a TP Scroll while farming, but you’re getting ganked… don’t worry! Just spend the 3 seconds to run to the side shop and buy it there! What we end up with is another difficult tradeoff–removal of the need for foresight, a huge part of the game, in favor of increased mobility.

This is only a small tidbit of the many changes in DotA. Next up, controversial metagame shifts in HoN.