From my experience playing HoN competitively, this is pretty much completely wrong. We've ended games in under 15 minutes before. Not regularly, I'll grant you, but it happened. If a team gets a lead, isn't incompetent, and is playing for serious, you can get shut down hard.
That's only possible if you organize an push oriented strategy. Playing with and against randoms and it's pretty much impossible.
From my experience playing HoN competitively, this is pretty much completely wrong. We've ended games in under 15 minutes before. Not regularly, I'll grant you, but it happened. If a team gets a lead, isn't incompetent, and is playing for serious, you can get shut down hard.
That's only possible if you organize an push oriented strategy. Playing with and against randoms and it's pretty much impossible.
Push strategy is fun and intense, and I find that most people tend to understand what to do when you have a lycan + death prophet on the same team. I don't often use fully though since it requires a lot of coordination, and I rarely get a full team of 5 people to pull it off to its full strength.
You can always organize pubs by just pinging towers. Everyone knows you gotta defend your towers. There's more of them than you in the same lane? Ask for backup. You see them organizing on the other side of the map to take down a tower? Teleport there and defend it. Teammate is dying? He's probably pinging his own tower to get your attention, so you teleport there and rescue him.
Teammate is dying? He's probably pinging his own tower to get your attention, so you teleport there and rescue him.
You mean teleport there and get killed along with them.
Also, I learned today from the tutorial that a lot of the times I die are because I stupidly go too close to the enemy towers. For example, I'll move in and cast a spell. Then my last creep dies and the tower is gunning for me! Why is my health going down so much? OH SHIT. I also learned that if an enemy gets within range of your tower, stun the fuck out of them. Keep them near that tower so they die.
You mean teleport there and get killed along with them.
Also, I learned today from the tutorial that a lot of the times I die are because I stupidly go too close to the enemy towers. For example, I'll move in and cast a spell. Then my last creep dies and the tower is gunning for me! Why is my health going down so much? OH SHIT. I also learned that if an enemy gets within range of your tower, stun the fuck out of them. Keep them near that tower so they die.
Yes, towers hurt, unless you are really beefy after which they hurt less. Just remember to make sure that you have creeps around when you are closing in on tower. Basically if I remember right the tower aggro algorithm goes. First attack closest enemy that attacks at hero on towers side. Secondly attack closest thing hitting the tower and third attack closest enemy there is. Also using skills doesn't count as aggression, so if you are near tower and the tower is attacking your creeps, you can use skills on enemy hero and the tower won't care.
Actually, there's a really stupid dota rule about tower targeting you might not know, but helps a ton:
If a tower is attacking you, a-click an allied creep or hero within range of the tower. This forces the AI to reevaluate its target and attack something else within range.
Actually, there's a really stupid dota rule about tower targeting you might not know, but helps a ton:
If a tower is attacking you, a-click an allied creep or hero within range of the tower. This forces the AI to reevaluate its target and attack something else within range.
That is exactly the kind of bullshit that needs to be removed from the game.
Also if you have an orb effect skill like drow ranger's frost arrow you can harass heroes without drawing aggro by using it like a targeted ability; this is called orb walking (totes bullshit)
Alternatively issue a move command close to the enemy hero and then attack. If you issue the attack command from far away enemy creeps and towers will target you right away and hurt you (also bullshit)
Aha. Ok, so I've never played any character with orb, or bought an orb-granting item even once. I notice a few of those grant lifesteal. I've played Skeleton King a bunch, because skeletons, and he has built-in life stealing. Why isn't that on the orb list?
Aha. Ok, so I've never played any character with orb, or bought an orb-granting item even once. I notice a few of those grant lifesteal. I've played Skeleton King a bunch, because skeletons, and he has built-in life stealing. Why isn't that on the orb list?
That's because Skeleton Kings lifesteal is an aura, it doesn't affect just him it gives lifesteal to every friendly unit around him. Auras can have same effects as orbs, but they are not same. You can have both lifesteal from aura and some other orb effect from some other source affecting the same attack.
That also means that you can get MORE life steal on Skeleton King (Satanic or something) and just never die since his lifesteal aura isn't considered a UAM. That is usually overkill unless you're balling out of control and decided to buy a refresher (lets you remove cool downs on abillities, like resurrection) and a Divine Rapier (massive damage bonus but drops when you die for real).
It should also be noted that you can only orb walk with ability marked as "auto-cast" on that list. (no passives, nothing from items). With those you can either point and click to modify a single attack or right click on them to have every attack use the UAM (which is usually not recommended when you're last hitting creeps as it will drain your mana, BUT it might help you get more last hits if you're having a hard time, so YMMV).
Setting the orb to autocast does mean that you are no longer "orb walking" and will draw creep aggro as per usual.
So even with all this playing, I still have ZERO wins. Either I drag my team down so much they can't win, or I am literally always put on the crappy team.
So even with all this playing, I still have ZERO wins. Either I drag my team down so much they can't win, or I am literally always put on the crappy team.
This game...
To be fair, considering the people you'll be playing with at your profile level, I'd bet that everyone on your team is thinking one or the other.
If you can't play with friends, play solo queue; it takes a bit longer to get a game but you're not going to be up against a stacked team at least.
Also, include Single Draft, Random Draft and All Random as well as All Pick in the games you're looking for. It'll give you forced exposure to a lot more heroes and, in my experience at least, you run into a higher quality of player in games that aren't All Pick (both socially and mechanically).
I learned two new things today that are wrong with this game.
First, there is a serious problem with abilities that have a range greater than the size of one screen. In say, Street Fighter, your opponent is always on screen. Imagine if Ryu could shoot a fireball at you, but you didn't find out he did it until the fireball is already shot and right next to you. It's literally impossible to react.
To make it even worse, these abilities with such great range cause you to be stunned or dizzy or whatever. That prevents you from reacting even if you survive the hit. Basically, if you get hit once, you are dead. If one attack hits, you are dead. That's a problem I already knew about, but it stacks with this newly discovered flaw to create a double whammy.
Now, yes. I could technically move the camera anywhere on the map and maybe see it coming, but that's only if my creeps or teammates are in range of the enemy. These fuckers can use those attacks from the dark woods or while invisible and shit.
Here is the other problem I discovered. This game is loaded with tons and tons of hard counters. Just earlier I tried to shoot my ultimate attack at a guy who was almost dead. He was just standing there. I would have killed him for sure. Instead it just said "can't do it. Immune to magic." So he's rock and I'm scissors, end of story? Good games like NS2/Netrunner, etc. do not have any hard counters.
If you are the guy who is all about being invisible, and nobody can reveal you, you will just dominate easily. At the same time, if they have the thing that counters invisibility, you're fucked. Now your abilities are worthless, and you may as well just kill yourself. If you're all about magic, you can blow shit up. But if they do whatever it is that makes magic simply not work at all, now you're completely useless.
In a good competitive game, human skill should be able to save you from any situation. A level 1 guy should be able to kill a level 25 guy if they push the right buttons. It will take some incredibly amazing superhuman button pressing, but there are a few people on earth who have the ability to press buttons like that. I've watched fighting game tournaments, they exist. When you have hard counters and attacks that kill you before you even see them happen, it becomes literally impossible to react or use any of your skills, no matter how skilled you are.
To give an example of all this BS combined. There was a guy in my last game who was some sort of charging monster. He was two screens away. I knew he was there. I'm moving back to my tower as quickly as I go. Suddenly he's already next to me. He had some crazy fast charging maneuver that lets him rush in faster than I can possibly move. As soon as it hits, which is unavoidable, I can't do anything. I tried pressing every button I had, but none of my abilities triggered. Then I was dead. He attacked from a screen away, it was literally impossible for me to avoid it. None of my skills worked as his charge attack was a hard counter to my entire character. Even if I could have somehow hit him before the charge hit me, I can't see the charge starting since it is off screen. What am I supposed to do, spend the whole game with my camera pointed at the enemy instead of myself?
Another example. I was walking in the water. This dude is there alone with low health. I shoot him and then run away. He comes close to dying, but not quite. Next thing I know he transformed into some dark cloud like Nightmare Moon. This cloud is next to me. I can't do anything at all. I can't hit it. It's effectively invincible. It does a crazy amount of damage. I can't even move. I'm dead. Bullshit.
Here's my ideas to fix this:
1) Obviously remove all hard counters. Instead of immune to magic, magic damage reduced by Y% for X seconds with a Z second recharge time. This way you can enable it to attack a magic user, but they can still do something about it. Same thing for every other hard counter in this game.
2) No attack has a range greater than one screen. If you are going to use an ability on someone, they will ALWAYS see the entire animation from beginning to end. If you are in the woods or invisible, you will be revealed. If you are more than one screen away, you are out of range and your attack will either not fire or not hit. If they run out of range while you are casting because you were exactly one screen away, well you were stupid.
3) No attack is so fast that there can't be a reaction to it. Any attack that causes someone to be stunned and unable to use their abilities should be slow enough that they can at least use one ability before it hits. Any attack that makes a character move crazy fast such that it allows them to catch up to someone running away can not also stun and will do relatively low levels of damage.
4) Everything should be aimed manually. No homing attacks or attacks that automatically hit when you click on the victim. You aim with the mouse, just like geometry wars. If you hit, you hit. If you miss, you miss. If a friendly is between you and the target, they get hit. Good job friendly fire. This also brings in an element of dodging. This is what can allow someone of high skill to win. Even if you have high levels or items to kill them easily, they can dodge all your shit with their amazing real world human dexterity dodging skills. Likewise, they can kill you with their amazing aiming skills.
5) My last change might not be necessary in a completely revamped game with no leveling and such, but it would be great in current MOBAs. No gold/XP rewards for killing enemy heroes. The benefit of killing the enemy hero is that they are out of play for a time period, and they are not getting XP/gold while they are out of play. This opens you up to push hard. The huge rewards for killing heros create an awful snowball effect. In every game I've played, the team that starts killing heros first ends up winning. They get so much XP and gold from those early kills that they can not be stopped. Now they have better items and levels to get more and more kills and the other team is less and less able to do anything about it.
The game needs to be more like Pong. Even if the score is 9/0 It is possible to come back and win it 9/10. In Tetris, even if your board is almost full and theirs is empty, it's possible to clear it and come back. It's not over until it's over. In Tennis, even if your opponent is on match point, you can come back to win it. In MOBAs, that is the opposite of true. For a game that typically lasts 30+ minutes, every one of those minutes needs to be meaningful. At all times during the game both teams should still have a chance to win. If one team no longer has a chance to win, the game should end immediately. The combination of snowballing with a time consuming win condition makes it particularly excruciating. Even the one game I won got really boring standing around waiting to finally destroy the ancient minutes after we had clearly proven we had dominated.
If you are the guy who is all about being invisible, and nobody can reveal you, you will just dominate easily. At the same time, if they have the thing that counters invisibility, you're fucked. Now your abilities are worthless, and you may as well just kill yourself. If you're all about magic, you can blow shit up. But if they do whatever it is that makes magic simply not work at all, now you're completely useless.
Objectively wrong. I'm pretty sure the only thing that stops invisibility and can't be countered in any way is standing within range of Towers, and why are you standing under a tower when you want to be invisible anyway?
Tip: If you want to know if an enemy has broken your invisibility with a ward or item, wait for a creep to go past, if it doesn't attack you, you're invisible to the enemy team.
Sentry wards are able to break invisibility but are more expensive and last less time, as are things like revealing dust and radiance (The latter revealing you by the flame coming off you.).
The weird one is that Zeus's lighting-the-entire-map-in-the-face thing doesn't do any damage to you if you're invisible, even if it does momentarily reveal you.
First, there is a serious problem with abilities that have a range greater than the size of one screen. In say, Street Fighter, your opponent is always on screen. Imagine if Ryu could shoot a fireball at you, but you didn't find out he did it until the fireball is already shot and right next to you. It's literally impossible to react.
To make it even worse, these abilities with such great range cause you to be stunned or dizzy or whatever. That prevents you from reacting even if you survive the hit. Basically, if you get hit once, you are dead. If one attack hits, you are dead. That's a problem I already knew about, but it stacks with this newly discovered flaw to create a double whammy.
There are very few abilities with this range, and most of them are global skillshots that are easy to dodge. I'm fairly certain there isn't a single stun with a range >1 screen.
Later you talk about Spirit Breaker (the charging dude), but he only stuns when he actually reaches you. There's plenty of ways to deal with a Spirit Breaker charge --- just teleport back to base, or get teammates to come over and kill him when he goes on you, or (if you can) stun him when he gets close enough.
Instead of immune to magic, magic damage reduced by Y% for X seconds with a Z second recharge time.</blockquote
There is no permanent magic immunity. The longest magic immunity you can get is a BKB on its first activation, which lasts like 10s and has 80s cooldown. The more times you use it, the shorter it lasts.
It sounds an awful lot like you're just listing off a number of abilities that you've had trouble playing against because the appropriate responses are non-obvious, and calling them bad mechanics.
Later you talk about Spirit Breaker (the charging dude), but he only stuns when he actually reaches you. There's plenty of ways to deal with a Spirit Breaker charge --- just teleport back to base, or get teammates to come over and kill him when he goes on you, or (if you can) stun him when he gets close enough.
Ok, so he charges from over a screen away crazy fast and it stuns when it hits. To teleport back to base, I would have to do that before the charge hits me. How can I teleport if he charges from off-screen? Town portal scroll takes a few seconds. The charge takes a fraction of a second. Even if he's not off-screen he can do it from the woods with effectively no warning whatsoever. How can I dodge it when he charges in that fast? Also, a stun is basically an instant kill because the duration of the stun is long enough that he can kill me even if I have full health. Preventing someone from moving or using any item or ability is effectively an instant kill shot. I think I might just remove all stunning from the game entirely.
At the very least, it should be like dizziness in Street Fighter. It lets them start a combo on you, but usually won't let them kill you. Also, as soon as that first hit lands, the dizziness goes away and you can act immediately. I remember in the old days there were combos you could do against a dizzy opponent that would make them dizzy again at the end. Mortal Komba 2 had the same sort of thing. That was widely considered to be broken, but apparently in MOBAs it's standard operating procedure.
Ok, so the BKB has a timer. 10 seconds! 10 seconds is way more than enough to kill somebody. You can get one of those, find a magic user, get in the woods near them, activate it, then kill them GUARANTEED because they can't do anything about it. Considering characters can die in maybe 2 seconds, 10 may as well be forever. Just run and hide for the cooldown period then come get another guaranteed kill.
If you want to have something like that with the hard counter power, it should have a high skill component. For example, make it a directional shield that lasts a fraction of a second, and must be aimed. If someone is casting a big magic attack at you, can you activate the shield with the right timing and/or aim to block it? If so, they just wasted their big attack and it's cooling down. This introduced lots of interesting skill-based stuff, like faking someone out that you are going to cast in order to get them to waste their shield and such. Way better than rock/paper/scissors
Lastly, what heros are fast? Like really fast. I keep picking heros that are way slow they walk around like molasses. Who is a guy that nobody can run away from and can always run away without being caught? Apparently when I play, everybody on the other team is that guy.
I think a lot of these problems could also be solved just by giving heros way way way more HP than they have now. How about just taking the game as is and multiplying everyone's HP by a factor of 3 or 4? Now when they rush in and do that crazy unstoppable team attack, you've lost a big chunk of your health, but not %100. They would actually have to get you with that shit several times to actually kill you, and you would always be able to counter-attack. Battles would be much more interesting with a lot of back and forth, instead of just attack and instant death. You have to do several combos to actually win a round of a fighting game unless it's Killer Instinct.
It also brings in the opportunity for lots of drama. Someone who is finally about to die busts out and gets a last second win. It would also really fit thematically. In the real world, fights are over in two seconds, but why go for realism? We like our wizard battles slow and crazy with a lot of back and forth. Make everyone really tough, and the tough guys even tougher. If the teams want to slug it out, it should be a good 30 seconds before someone is dead.
Think D&D combat, but real time. If people are high level, it takes a lot more than a few guys teaming up to bring them down instantly. They will get at least a few rounds of actions.
Maybe also part of increasing everyone's HP is to make HP regeneration much more expensive, difficult, or even impossible. No more going to the fountain and getting nearly instantly healed.
You know that feeling of when you fight a big boss in a single player game? You can't kill the boss in one shot, you have to whittle it down. Likewise, they can really fuck you up, but usually have to hit you at least 2 or 3 times to kill you, not once. That's how it should feel to fight in a MOBA. Like in every battle you are the hero, and the enemy is a boss. Even if you use Metal Blade on Bubble Man, I think it takes 3 hits to kill him. Even if you die from sucking, you get a few hits in there. Most importantly, you can always beat any boss with the mega buster plus skills.
Honestly maybe you should swallow the f2p bullshit and try out LoL. It has "solutions" to many of the grievances you have presented in your various posts. The stuns are shorter and generally magic is weaker, but one is able to spam spells a lot more. There are less targeted spells and lot more directional skillshots. With summoner spell Flash anyone can have "get out of a jail free" -card.
It doesn't do everything just the way you like it, but it is the more accessible moba.
Obviously if I'm for serious about making the second generation of MOBA I have to play the insanely popular LoL. My plan is to just do DotA first. That way I will be able to see all the bullshit of DotA through nub eyes. Then I'll be able to see LoL's supposed easiness through DotA eyes.
From what people have said it seems like LoL takes the route of polishing the same way that WoW polishes Everquest and other MUDs/MMOs. Keep the fundamental core intact, but just changes numbers slightly to remove enough bullshit that more people play.
I'm hoping to make what almost might be a new kind of game. Maybe they'll call it a second generation MOBA. I think of it as when FPS were transformed from 2d to 3d. It's obviously the same kind of game, but it's also completely new.
Comments
You can always organize pubs by just pinging towers. Everyone knows you gotta defend your towers. There's more of them than you in the same lane? Ask for backup. You see them organizing on the other side of the map to take down a tower? Teleport there and defend it. Teammate is dying? He's probably pinging his own tower to get your attention, so you teleport there and rescue him.
Also, I learned today from the tutorial that a lot of the times I die are because I stupidly go too close to the enemy towers. For example, I'll move in and cast a spell. Then my last creep dies and the tower is gunning for me! Why is my health going down so much? OH SHIT. I also learned that if an enemy gets within range of your tower, stun the fuck out of them. Keep them near that tower so they die.
Basically if I remember right the tower aggro algorithm goes. First attack closest enemy that attacks at hero on towers side. Secondly attack closest thing hitting the tower and third attack closest enemy there is. Also using skills doesn't count as aggression, so if you are near tower and the tower is attacking your creeps, you can use skills on enemy hero and the tower won't care.
If a tower is attacking you, a-click an allied creep or hero within range of the tower. This forces the AI to reevaluate its target and attack something else within range.
Alternatively issue a move command close to the enemy hero and then attack. If you issue the attack command from far away enemy creeps and towers will target you right away and hurt you (also bullshit)
http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Unique_Attack_Modifier
It should also be noted that you can only orb walk with ability marked as "auto-cast" on that list. (no passives, nothing from items). With those you can either point and click to modify a single attack or right click on them to have every attack use the UAM (which is usually not recommended when you're last hitting creeps as it will drain your mana, BUT it might help you get more last hits if you're having a hard time, so YMMV).
Setting the orb to autocast does mean that you are no longer "orb walking" and will draw creep aggro as per usual.
This game...
Also, include Single Draft, Random Draft and All Random as well as All Pick in the games you're looking for. It'll give you forced exposure to a lot more heroes and, in my experience at least, you run into a higher quality of player in games that aren't All Pick (both socially and mechanically).
First, there is a serious problem with abilities that have a range greater than the size of one screen. In say, Street Fighter, your opponent is always on screen. Imagine if Ryu could shoot a fireball at you, but you didn't find out he did it until the fireball is already shot and right next to you. It's literally impossible to react.
To make it even worse, these abilities with such great range cause you to be stunned or dizzy or whatever. That prevents you from reacting even if you survive the hit. Basically, if you get hit once, you are dead. If one attack hits, you are dead. That's a problem I already knew about, but it stacks with this newly discovered flaw to create a double whammy.
Now, yes. I could technically move the camera anywhere on the map and maybe see it coming, but that's only if my creeps or teammates are in range of the enemy. These fuckers can use those attacks from the dark woods or while invisible and shit.
Here is the other problem I discovered. This game is loaded with tons and tons of hard counters. Just earlier I tried to shoot my ultimate attack at a guy who was almost dead. He was just standing there. I would have killed him for sure. Instead it just said "can't do it. Immune to magic." So he's rock and I'm scissors, end of story? Good games like NS2/Netrunner, etc. do not have any hard counters.
If you are the guy who is all about being invisible, and nobody can reveal you, you will just dominate easily. At the same time, if they have the thing that counters invisibility, you're fucked. Now your abilities are worthless, and you may as well just kill yourself. If you're all about magic, you can blow shit up. But if they do whatever it is that makes magic simply not work at all, now you're completely useless.
In a good competitive game, human skill should be able to save you from any situation. A level 1 guy should be able to kill a level 25 guy if they push the right buttons. It will take some incredibly amazing superhuman button pressing, but there are a few people on earth who have the ability to press buttons like that. I've watched fighting game tournaments, they exist. When you have hard counters and attacks that kill you before you even see them happen, it becomes literally impossible to react or use any of your skills, no matter how skilled you are.
To give an example of all this BS combined. There was a guy in my last game who was some sort of charging monster. He was two screens away. I knew he was there. I'm moving back to my tower as quickly as I go. Suddenly he's already next to me. He had some crazy fast charging maneuver that lets him rush in faster than I can possibly move. As soon as it hits, which is unavoidable, I can't do anything. I tried pressing every button I had, but none of my abilities triggered. Then I was dead. He attacked from a screen away, it was literally impossible for me to avoid it. None of my skills worked as his charge attack was a hard counter to my entire character. Even if I could have somehow hit him before the charge hit me, I can't see the charge starting since it is off screen. What am I supposed to do, spend the whole game with my camera pointed at the enemy instead of myself?
Another example. I was walking in the water. This dude is there alone with low health. I shoot him and then run away. He comes close to dying, but not quite. Next thing I know he transformed into some dark cloud like Nightmare Moon. This cloud is next to me. I can't do anything at all. I can't hit it. It's effectively invincible. It does a crazy amount of damage. I can't even move. I'm dead. Bullshit.
Here's my ideas to fix this:
1) Obviously remove all hard counters. Instead of immune to magic, magic damage reduced by Y% for X seconds with a Z second recharge time. This way you can enable it to attack a magic user, but they can still do something about it. Same thing for every other hard counter in this game.
2) No attack has a range greater than one screen. If you are going to use an ability on someone, they will ALWAYS see the entire animation from beginning to end. If you are in the woods or invisible, you will be revealed. If you are more than one screen away, you are out of range and your attack will either not fire or not hit. If they run out of range while you are casting because you were exactly one screen away, well you were stupid.
3) No attack is so fast that there can't be a reaction to it. Any attack that causes someone to be stunned and unable to use their abilities should be slow enough that they can at least use one ability before it hits. Any attack that makes a character move crazy fast such that it allows them to catch up to someone running away can not also stun and will do relatively low levels of damage.
4) Everything should be aimed manually. No homing attacks or attacks that automatically hit when you click on the victim. You aim with the mouse, just like geometry wars. If you hit, you hit. If you miss, you miss. If a friendly is between you and the target, they get hit. Good job friendly fire. This also brings in an element of dodging. This is what can allow someone of high skill to win. Even if you have high levels or items to kill them easily, they can dodge all your shit with their amazing real world human dexterity dodging skills. Likewise, they can kill you with their amazing aiming skills.
5) My last change might not be necessary in a completely revamped game with no leveling and such, but it would be great in current MOBAs. No gold/XP rewards for killing enemy heroes. The benefit of killing the enemy hero is that they are out of play for a time period, and they are not getting XP/gold while they are out of play. This opens you up to push hard. The huge rewards for killing heros create an awful snowball effect. In every game I've played, the team that starts killing heros first ends up winning. They get so much XP and gold from those early kills that they can not be stopped. Now they have better items and levels to get more and more kills and the other team is less and less able to do anything about it.
The game needs to be more like Pong. Even if the score is 9/0 It is possible to come back and win it 9/10. In Tetris, even if your board is almost full and theirs is empty, it's possible to clear it and come back. It's not over until it's over. In Tennis, even if your opponent is on match point, you can come back to win it. In MOBAs, that is the opposite of true. For a game that typically lasts 30+ minutes, every one of those minutes needs to be meaningful. At all times during the game both teams should still have a chance to win. If one team no longer has a chance to win, the game should end immediately. The combination of snowballing with a time consuming win condition makes it particularly excruciating. Even the one game I won got really boring standing around waiting to finally destroy the ancient minutes after we had clearly proven we had dominated.
Sentry wards are able to break invisibility but are more expensive and last less time, as are things like revealing dust and radiance (The latter revealing you by the flame coming off you.).
Later you talk about Spirit Breaker (the charging dude), but he only stuns when he actually reaches you. There's plenty of ways to deal with a Spirit Breaker charge --- just teleport back to base, or get teammates to come over and kill him when he goes on you, or (if you can) stun him when he gets close enough.
At the very least, it should be like dizziness in Street Fighter. It lets them start a combo on you, but usually won't let them kill you. Also, as soon as that first hit lands, the dizziness goes away and you can act immediately. I remember in the old days there were combos you could do against a dizzy opponent that would make them dizzy again at the end. Mortal Komba 2 had the same sort of thing. That was widely considered to be broken, but apparently in MOBAs it's standard operating procedure.
Ok, so the BKB has a timer. 10 seconds! 10 seconds is way more than enough to kill somebody. You can get one of those, find a magic user, get in the woods near them, activate it, then kill them GUARANTEED because they can't do anything about it. Considering characters can die in maybe 2 seconds, 10 may as well be forever. Just run and hide for the cooldown period then come get another guaranteed kill.
If you want to have something like that with the hard counter power, it should have a high skill component. For example, make it a directional shield that lasts a fraction of a second, and must be aimed. If someone is casting a big magic attack at you, can you activate the shield with the right timing and/or aim to block it? If so, they just wasted their big attack and it's cooling down. This introduced lots of interesting skill-based stuff, like faking someone out that you are going to cast in order to get them to waste their shield and such. Way better than rock/paper/scissors
Lastly, what heros are fast? Like really fast. I keep picking heros that are way slow they walk around like molasses. Who is a guy that nobody can run away from and can always run away without being caught? Apparently when I play, everybody on the other team is that guy.
It also brings in the opportunity for lots of drama. Someone who is finally about to die busts out and gets a last second win. It would also really fit thematically. In the real world, fights are over in two seconds, but why go for realism? We like our wizard battles slow and crazy with a lot of back and forth. Make everyone really tough, and the tough guys even tougher. If the teams want to slug it out, it should be a good 30 seconds before someone is dead.
Think D&D combat, but real time. If people are high level, it takes a lot more than a few guys teaming up to bring them down instantly. They will get at least a few rounds of actions.
Maybe also part of increasing everyone's HP is to make HP regeneration much more expensive, difficult, or even impossible. No more going to the fountain and getting nearly instantly healed.
You know that feeling of when you fight a big boss in a single player game? You can't kill the boss in one shot, you have to whittle it down. Likewise, they can really fuck you up, but usually have to hit you at least 2 or 3 times to kill you, not once. That's how it should feel to fight in a MOBA. Like in every battle you are the hero, and the enemy is a boss. Even if you use Metal Blade on Bubble Man, I think it takes 3 hits to kill him. Even if you die from sucking, you get a few hits in there. Most importantly, you can always beat any boss with the mega buster plus skills.
It doesn't do everything just the way you like it, but it is the more accessible moba.
From what people have said it seems like LoL takes the route of polishing the same way that WoW polishes Everquest and other MUDs/MMOs. Keep the fundamental core intact, but just changes numbers slightly to remove enough bullshit that more people play.
I'm hoping to make what almost might be a new kind of game. Maybe they'll call it a second generation MOBA. I think of it as when FPS were transformed from 2d to 3d. It's obviously the same kind of game, but it's also completely new.