RageMonkey
10-02-2011, 04:12 PM
It's new, so there will always be kinks to work out. But here is what I have noticed after playing for a couple hours so far.
Playability is nearly identical to LoL. There's nothing unique whatsoever here. LoL is a great game, perhaps that's why RoI doesn't try to "reinvent the wheel" in this area.
Customization for each champ is cool. Each champ has their own set of skills that can be trained and leveled. It's an interesting idea with potential, but in practice, as it is implemented, it just doesn't work very well because of point #3.
Diversity is highly discouraged. Players are highly discouraged against playing multiple immortals (champions in LoL). Instead of leveling your player (or Summoner in LoL), the immortal you choose to play is directly leveled. The problem with this is that leveling is truly a grind. It takes several games to gain a level. Systems like LoL are great in that they allow the player base to move between champions freely. Often times players will stick with a champ for several games, but then want to move on to something different while having the benefits of playing so many games. You are "punished" in this respect. Played 200 games as one immortal? Tough luck when you try to play a new one. All the skills leveled for that 200 game experienced immortal do not carry over to other immortals. It's highly discouraging and frustrating to start over with each champ and go through the grind each and every time. It's one of the biggest drawbacks for me personally in this game and as such, I'm not motivated to spend any money here.
Graphics are good (I don't know why people complain about graphic quality here), but but not optimized. I run nearly every other game out there using the highest settings on my i7 920 (quad) with a Radeon 4850 vid card. But RoI seems a bit choppy, not nearly as smooth as it should be for a game like this. I find myself having to decrease settings to get it to run a bit smoother, which I shouldn't have to do.
Ping alert is both too low in frequency and volume. It is difficult to distinguish between pings and other sound going on in game.
No unit collision. I was very surprised to see this. Immortals and minions move freely through each other. You can be thinking you are attacking 1 minion when in fact there are 2 (happened twice to me). You can freely move right through both enemies and their minions (as well as your own). This just seems out of place in a proper MOBA
Extremely poor match making. This definitely needs work. Queues are 2-3 times longer than what they are claimed to be (although, on rare occasion I've waited only as long as it said was the average wait time) and there is no compensation for skill of players, only levels apparently. I've lost so far, I think 5 in a row. 3 of them are due to level 1 leavers on my team. It's a new game, leavers are going to be abundant. But I get matched with an enemy team 3-5 levels above me in almost every instance, so it makes it challenging to take competitive play serious here (as serious as a video game can be).
Lack of content. There are what, maybe 10-12 immortals to choose from and only 1 map for each type? It's a new game so content isn't expected to be abundant. But there needs to be a greater diversity in immortals at the very least IMO. Although, this may be a moot point due to the game breaker explained in #3 above.
In conclusion, it's an ok game. I like seeing alternatives in this genre, but there just aren't many strong leaders out there. LoL and potentially DOTA 2 seem to be so far ahead of the competition that it's going to take a very creative team to come up with something that can truly compete (in the areas of fun/interest, longevity, loyalty and financially).
Playability is nearly identical to LoL. There's nothing unique whatsoever here. LoL is a great game, perhaps that's why RoI doesn't try to "reinvent the wheel" in this area.
Customization for each champ is cool. Each champ has their own set of skills that can be trained and leveled. It's an interesting idea with potential, but in practice, as it is implemented, it just doesn't work very well because of point #3.
Diversity is highly discouraged. Players are highly discouraged against playing multiple immortals (champions in LoL). Instead of leveling your player (or Summoner in LoL), the immortal you choose to play is directly leveled. The problem with this is that leveling is truly a grind. It takes several games to gain a level. Systems like LoL are great in that they allow the player base to move between champions freely. Often times players will stick with a champ for several games, but then want to move on to something different while having the benefits of playing so many games. You are "punished" in this respect. Played 200 games as one immortal? Tough luck when you try to play a new one. All the skills leveled for that 200 game experienced immortal do not carry over to other immortals. It's highly discouraging and frustrating to start over with each champ and go through the grind each and every time. It's one of the biggest drawbacks for me personally in this game and as such, I'm not motivated to spend any money here.
Graphics are good (I don't know why people complain about graphic quality here), but but not optimized. I run nearly every other game out there using the highest settings on my i7 920 (quad) with a Radeon 4850 vid card. But RoI seems a bit choppy, not nearly as smooth as it should be for a game like this. I find myself having to decrease settings to get it to run a bit smoother, which I shouldn't have to do.
Ping alert is both too low in frequency and volume. It is difficult to distinguish between pings and other sound going on in game.
No unit collision. I was very surprised to see this. Immortals and minions move freely through each other. You can be thinking you are attacking 1 minion when in fact there are 2 (happened twice to me). You can freely move right through both enemies and their minions (as well as your own). This just seems out of place in a proper MOBA
Extremely poor match making. This definitely needs work. Queues are 2-3 times longer than what they are claimed to be (although, on rare occasion I've waited only as long as it said was the average wait time) and there is no compensation for skill of players, only levels apparently. I've lost so far, I think 5 in a row. 3 of them are due to level 1 leavers on my team. It's a new game, leavers are going to be abundant. But I get matched with an enemy team 3-5 levels above me in almost every instance, so it makes it challenging to take competitive play serious here (as serious as a video game can be).
Lack of content. There are what, maybe 10-12 immortals to choose from and only 1 map for each type? It's a new game so content isn't expected to be abundant. But there needs to be a greater diversity in immortals at the very least IMO. Although, this may be a moot point due to the game breaker explained in #3 above.
In conclusion, it's an ok game. I like seeing alternatives in this genre, but there just aren't many strong leaders out there. LoL and potentially DOTA 2 seem to be so far ahead of the competition that it's going to take a very creative team to come up with something that can truly compete (in the areas of fun/interest, longevity, loyalty and financially).