CTF works a little differently than traditional CTF. There's two artifacts (flags) which need to both be held by a team in their base for 45 or 60 seconds for a victory.
While the artifacts are still going back and forth, it's enjoyably chaotic but it can be difficult to prevent a win if the flagholders really turtle up though that's a pretty common theme with CTF in most games.
Capture Point mode is fun in its own right but I feel like it's not was well balanced with the presence of runes (substantial individual power buffs) and the capture of all 3 points preventing the other team from respawning, it feels like a pre-emptive death knell for the losing team.
Arena is the real meat of the game, and I think it's extremely well done. There's nothing but your team, the other team, and the map which I think it's just as it should be. There can be a slight issue of balance when a team fields multiple of the same character but it's far from insurmountable.
There's enough characters for a huge variety of team comps but not so many that any characters fall by the wayside. They're all viable and valuable (though some definitely have higher skill caps) as long as you play to their strengths and use all their abilities; be they for control, healing, soaking, initiating, damage, peeling, etc.
All in all I think it's one of the best game platforms to allow skill to shine but on that same note I don't see it 'making it' because so many people will be put off by it's supposed lack of 'depth'. People just love big numbers too much.
While the artifacts are still going back and forth, it's enjoyably chaotic but it can be difficult to prevent a win if the flagholders really turtle up though that's a pretty common theme with CTF in most games.
Capture Point mode is fun in its own right but I feel like it's not was well balanced with the presence of runes (substantial individual power buffs) and the capture of all 3 points preventing the other team from respawning, it feels like a pre-emptive death knell for the losing team.
Arena is the real meat of the game, and I think it's extremely well done. There's nothing but your team, the other team, and the map which I think it's just as it should be. There can be a slight issue of balance when a team fields multiple of the same character but it's far from insurmountable.
There's enough characters for a huge variety of team comps but not so many that any characters fall by the wayside. They're all viable and valuable (though some definitely have higher skill caps) as long as you play to their strengths and use all their abilities; be they for control, healing, soaking, initiating, damage, peeling, etc.
All in all I think it's one of the best game platforms to allow skill to shine but on that same note I don't see it 'making it' because so many people will be put off by it's supposed lack of 'depth'. People just love big numbers too much.
Well there's no mashing involved, though I understand it's hard to get out of the habit. You can press and hold any button in order to use an ability repeatedly.
Fairly big patch just came out, and the game is officially out for pre-order with the open beta beginning in early December I think, including the addition of 4 champions. Not sure when the microtransaction store is coming, but it's going to be very similar to League of Legend's store as far as having a free champion rotation, and two different kinds of currencies (in game points and store points).
I'm mostly ok with this, but the pre-order prices are kind of garish. The 'basic' package is $30 which some people will call high though I'm mostly ok with it, but the "Titan Edition" is $80 and I really don't think it's worth all that when I don't see all that much more value in it.
I love the patches though, Thorn just got a pretty big overhaul and they're regularly tweaking champions to find the right balance. There have been some big changes as it's still in beta to make certain champs more attractive or effective, but all in all they have a very light touch when it comes to patches and are willing to make small changes and weigh the impact rather than making big, sweeping updates all at once and hoping it works.
- Jul 20, 2001
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i really hate their pricing model. you can play free but you only have 4 heroes on rotation. or you can spend a crapton of money for the 16 + 4 new heroes.
quite lame when you consider you can be playing games with people who don't have access to all the heroes that you do. on top of that, i find it quite expensive for a game with few people playing it (1,000+ online at peak? will go down significantly once it goes live i'm sure)
once this goes live next month i'm just gonna go back to HoN. BLC is certainly fun, it was a good break.
Yea the "free" champion setup works with LoL because they have such a saturation of characters. BLC will need more than 4 free per week for it work imo, 6 or 8 would probably work out. As much as I want the game to succeed, I think it's going to be difficult for it to make it largely because they really aren't catering to the microtransaction model and they're just trying to 'make it work' by limiting it almost exclusively to cosmetic alterations. Which I think is the best fit for a PvP game, but also doesn't rake in the cash like LoL's rune/runepage/boost/too many champions model.
I think one of the best things about BLC is once you play one bloodline the others feel very intuitive and fluid, yet still completely unique and effective. I really think the 'lack' of champions works very much in its favor.
I think one of the best things about BLC is once you play one bloodline the others feel very intuitive and fluid, yet still completely unique and effective. I really think the 'lack' of champions works very much in its favor.
FYI, this is now in open beta until it is released in mid January. Some new updates were also made including:
- 4 new champions: Blood Priest, Stalker, Guardian, and Seeker (total is now 20)
- New game mode (Capture the Artifact)
- Game optimizations and a graphics improvement for high end systems
I gave the game another shot and it's starting to grow on me. Unfortunately, the champion rotation is now in effect so unless you've pre-ordered the game you're stuck using only the 4 free champs of the week.
- 4 new champions: Blood Priest, Stalker, Guardian, and Seeker (total is now 20)
- New game mode (Capture the Artifact)
- Game optimizations and a graphics improvement for high end systems
I gave the game another shot and it's starting to grow on me. Unfortunately, the champion rotation is now in effect so unless you've pre-ordered the game you're stuck using only the 4 free champs of the week.
Bump / mild brag thread.
Love this game to death. 34-13 in ranked so far this season, I play a pretty mean Inhib/Alch/Astro. I just wish my friends were more interested in it lol, hard to pull them away from LoL/WoW. I just love the pace though, more and more LoL's game length and long stretches of 'poking' and inactivity bore me. I think BLC manages to keep gametime short while still rewarding both twitch style players and chess style players.
Love this game to death. 34-13 in ranked so far this season, I play a pretty mean Inhib/Alch/Astro. I just wish my friends were more interested in it lol, hard to pull them away from LoL/WoW. I just love the pace though, more and more LoL's game length and long stretches of 'poking' and inactivity bore me. I think BLC manages to keep gametime short while still rewarding both twitch style players and chess style players.
I'll bump this up for the new update. New champ and a new map. Plus you can buy a champ pack and 100% of the proceeds go towards a Japanese aide fund.
I've been slowly easing into this game over the last month. Part of the problem with these games is that there's so many champs to learn and what they each do. Once you've learned one game (LoL for me), you find it very hard to want to go and spend the time learning an entirely different game. It's not like hopping from FPS to FPS where the general gameplay is the same and the differences small and nuanced.
That being said, I agree with you darkewaffle. The fact that there's no laning, no towers to kill, and no items is very nice. The game starts and you have all your abilities and you just start maneuvering against your opponents. A first team to 3 wins match doesn't take more than 8-10 minutes at most. I haven't ventured into ranked play yet. Still not nearly comfortable enough with all the champs.
I've been slowly easing into this game over the last month. Part of the problem with these games is that there's so many champs to learn and what they each do. Once you've learned one game (LoL for me), you find it very hard to want to go and spend the time learning an entirely different game. It's not like hopping from FPS to FPS where the general gameplay is the same and the differences small and nuanced.
That being said, I agree with you darkewaffle. The fact that there's no laning, no towers to kill, and no items is very nice. The game starts and you have all your abilities and you just start maneuvering against your opponents. A first team to 3 wins match doesn't take more than 8-10 minutes at most. I haven't ventured into ranked play yet. Still not nearly comfortable enough with all the champs.
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All champions freely playable until May 16th and bloodcoins (ingame currency for skins/emotes/etc) doubled until then. They're also starting to make some headway in the competitive circuit, some tournaments coming up with real cash prizes ($5-10k) and they hold smaller scale tourneys every couple days with big bloodcoin prizes; additionally you can watch them from the ingame "BLCtv" and the observer mode is quite good.
Over the last few months they've added some new, bigger domination maps and a new CTA (ctf) map, a new champion and made some pretty significant re-designs to Glutton, Vanguard, and Guardian as well as a constant evolution to balancing all champs through smaller tweaks and ability updates.
Over the last few months they've added some new, bigger domination maps and a new CTA (ctf) map, a new champion and made some pretty significant re-designs to Glutton, Vanguard, and Guardian as well as a constant evolution to balancing all champs through smaller tweaks and ability updates.
Evidently everything in the game is 30% off for a week from now, including the Titan and Champion game editions, lowering the effective cost of buying the game to something like 20$ I would think? Dunno, just got the email and can't see for certain from work.
Coming down the pipe come this fall there's going to be another big update which should coincide with the game being released on Steam; there hasn't been much activity over the summer in terms of gameplay but there's been a lot of expansion in the gamestore at least. Loads of cosmetic weapon enhancements as well as costumes, and I think in general they're really quite good.
Player base is still an issue but fortunately replayability is high so playing with many of the same people is still enjoyable. US ranked has also petered out, but EU ranked it still active, just the ping times are worse for US. Supposedly part of pushing the game this fall is also going to include some new servers to accommodate South American and Asian players.
Balance is as always imperfect but I still think it's as good as any game has gotten so far. A few abilities here and there could use some changes but they pale in comparison to everything this game does right.
Coming down the pipe come this fall there's going to be another big update which should coincide with the game being released on Steam; there hasn't been much activity over the summer in terms of gameplay but there's been a lot of expansion in the gamestore at least. Loads of cosmetic weapon enhancements as well as costumes, and I think in general they're really quite good.
Player base is still an issue but fortunately replayability is high so playing with many of the same people is still enjoyable. US ranked has also petered out, but EU ranked it still active, just the ping times are worse for US. Supposedly part of pushing the game this fall is also going to include some new servers to accommodate South American and Asian players.
Balance is as always imperfect but I still think it's as good as any game has gotten so far. A few abilities here and there could use some changes but they pale in comparison to everything this game does right.
At long last an update, details of the upcoming 2.0 patch were released yesterday. A lot of good ideas but one real glaring flaw, sadly I figured it was coming eventually. Supposed to be the biggest update since the initial release.
The good:
- Complete UI redesign, hopefully should make it more intuitive and less "back and forth" trying to find something.
- Automated matchmaking in both custom and ranked. More games more often, can't go wrong there.
- Multi-region ranked games
- Re-designed "progression" for players (levelling up your "Summoner" as it were)
- Starter quest, a tutorial-like scenario to unlock a bloodline for free
- Bloodline balancing, a lot of people are going to be glad to see some balancing done to Grimrog and Ravener. Herald/Guardian/Seeker updates incoming as well.
- Spell effect and combat text revisions, streamlining so it's less overwhelming I'd guess
The bad
-Traits and Medals. These are going to be BLC's "rune pages" and "skills" I'd suppose. I was really hoping it wouldn't come to this, the best part of the game is the purity of the PvP that comes from putting everyone on completely even footing. Sadly people care more about the carrot on the stick than the gameplay itself so their fun comes in the form of rewards and not actually playing for fun.
Maybe it'll be alright, I just don't see any good coming from it aside from it possibly enticing people to stick around long enough to actually get into the game.
If they can time this with a Steam release (fingers crossed) and maybe boost Bloodcoin gains from matches or reduce the cost of the actual Bloodlines I think it'd give it a real shot in the arm. The game is incredibly well designed, it just lacks players because it lacks players, just need to get over that 'hump'.
The good:
- Complete UI redesign, hopefully should make it more intuitive and less "back and forth" trying to find something.
- Automated matchmaking in both custom and ranked. More games more often, can't go wrong there.
- Multi-region ranked games
- Re-designed "progression" for players (levelling up your "Summoner" as it were)
- Starter quest, a tutorial-like scenario to unlock a bloodline for free
- Bloodline balancing, a lot of people are going to be glad to see some balancing done to Grimrog and Ravener. Herald/Guardian/Seeker updates incoming as well.
- Spell effect and combat text revisions, streamlining so it's less overwhelming I'd guess
The bad
-Traits and Medals. These are going to be BLC's "rune pages" and "skills" I'd suppose. I was really hoping it wouldn't come to this, the best part of the game is the purity of the PvP that comes from putting everyone on completely even footing. Sadly people care more about the carrot on the stick than the gameplay itself so their fun comes in the form of rewards and not actually playing for fun.
Maybe it'll be alright, I just don't see any good coming from it aside from it possibly enticing people to stick around long enough to actually get into the game.
If they can time this with a Steam release (fingers crossed) and maybe boost Bloodcoin gains from matches or reduce the cost of the actual Bloodlines I think it'd give it a real shot in the arm. The game is incredibly well designed, it just lacks players because it lacks players, just need to get over that 'hump'.
2.0 is here
Patch notes
PC Gamer first-look/interview
I'm looking forward to getting home and checking out the whole medallion/trait thing, I'm hoping they're not too significant but from the sounds of it it'll average out to about a 15-20% power gain from levelling, which I'd rather see closer to 5-10% but I know I'm also in the minority there.
The gameplay changes almost all sound really good, except for the little Inhib nerf lol which I'm a little biased against. I'm really interested in seeing some of the new spell effects and the in-game HUD/GUI, hopefully they haven't changed all that much but just have become more refined.
Also one free bloodline for all new players after completing a short 'quest'. As well as some changes to the in game shop, you can now earn more bloodcoins (in game currency) from games as well as obtain "boosts" for them.
As long as the bloodline customizations are kept under control I'll live, and the rest of the changes all sound very positive.
Patch notes
PC Gamer first-look/interview
I'm looking forward to getting home and checking out the whole medallion/trait thing, I'm hoping they're not too significant but from the sounds of it it'll average out to about a 15-20% power gain from levelling, which I'd rather see closer to 5-10% but I know I'm also in the minority there.
The gameplay changes almost all sound really good, except for the little Inhib nerf lol which I'm a little biased against. I'm really interested in seeing some of the new spell effects and the in-game HUD/GUI, hopefully they haven't changed all that much but just have become more refined.
Also one free bloodline for all new players after completing a short 'quest'. As well as some changes to the in game shop, you can now earn more bloodcoins (in game currency) from games as well as obtain "boosts" for them.
As long as the bloodline customizations are kept under control I'll live, and the rest of the changes all sound very positive.
I got the email and considered coming back, but after reading this no thanks. I never bought it, played it a ton in beta. Bottom line is the good players are way better than me and this will just put me at a bigger disadvantage as f2p. I remember almost getting 1v2'd (talking all three of us at 100%) by a Thorns in a 2v2 tourney. That may have been the last time I played upon the realization of how bad I am compared to others even with 50+ hours of play.
Hearing the US queue still sucks doesn't help either.
Well the queues are still a work in progress, they've basically done away with the dedicated regions and thrown them all into one queue with automated game making. It's kind of nice but I do miss the custom pickup games where you get a decent group of people together and just play round after round, that's kind of gone unless you form one with friends.
The traits/gems really aren't as bad as I thought they might be, but so far the 'medallions' (usable abilities) feel a little out of place/clunky and I'm not sure the controls for them are even working correctly yet. I definitely notice a difference having stacked a ton of cool down reduction in my setup. I'm still against it on principle but they could have done a lot worse.
Not so sure about some of the balance changes now that I've played, Seeker and Thorn both feel a little off, like they have more range than they did previously. Some of the visual effects I would term as downgrades as well, and differentiating some AoE effects from some medallion effects is a little hard to tell. I swear Thorn is smaller now too.
The new UI is pretty good, though its a little unintuitive after coming from the last one and joining the custom queue seems like it takes too many clicks.
Still tons of fun though.
The traits/gems really aren't as bad as I thought they might be, but so far the 'medallions' (usable abilities) feel a little out of place/clunky and I'm not sure the controls for them are even working correctly yet. I definitely notice a difference having stacked a ton of cool down reduction in my setup. I'm still against it on principle but they could have done a lot worse.
Not so sure about some of the balance changes now that I've played, Seeker and Thorn both feel a little off, like they have more range than they did previously. Some of the visual effects I would term as downgrades as well, and differentiating some AoE effects from some medallion effects is a little hard to tell. I swear Thorn is smaller now too.
The new UI is pretty good, though its a little unintuitive after coming from the last one and joining the custom queue seems like it takes too many clicks.
Still tons of fun though.
Now on Steam! Login through Steam and you get a free 7day XP boost and a free weapon, they're some pretty good looking ones too.
Though I had taken a break for a few weeks and now I can't land any of my shots lol. All in all the changes from the last big patch were not too bad, and I'm actually more annoyed with some of the changes to visuals they made than anything else. Particularly with the Ranid ult and the Seeker ult and some of the ground targeted AoEs, they look less distinct and simply more dressed up for no reason. Also evidently you can't unsocket gems, which are fairly expensive, and I could see that being a problem for new players, I've got plenty of coins thankfully.
Though I had taken a break for a few weeks and now I can't land any of my shots lol. All in all the changes from the last big patch were not too bad, and I'm actually more annoyed with some of the changes to visuals they made than anything else. Particularly with the Ranid ult and the Seeker ult and some of the ground targeted AoEs, they look less distinct and simply more dressed up for no reason. Also evidently you can't unsocket gems, which are fairly expensive, and I could see that being a problem for new players, I've got plenty of coins thankfully.
Nice, Dreamhack has $10k for prizes for the BLC tournament this year. Not a lot relative to some other games but I think thats like double or triple what it was last year at least.
Also new champ coming in the "Metal Warden", kind of a Samus type character. She's a little fragile and a little too much damage emphasis on her RMB ability but I'm looking forward to giving her a try.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ4F32RFqkk
Watch the trailer for the Metal Warden, it might get to 50k views and give everyone a free Bloodcoin Boost
Been a fair bit of bitching lately supposedly about how good the "Power" stat is on 'hybrid' champs (mostly tanks who almost all have damage and not insignificant healing potential) as it increases both damage done, healing done, and shield capacity, but I haven't really considered it a big problem yet. I've gone with pretty stacked cooldown reduction and I've been real happy with it across pretty much all characters.
I think a lot of people are put off by the amount of "bloodcoins" needed to obtain champions, which I sort of understand since a lot of them are probably using LoL as the comparison. LoL having champs available from 450 IP (2-3 games) all the way up to 6300 (40-60 games?) gives new players something to obtain easily right off the bat at least. To me the problem with that system is what distinguishes them, I think one of the best features of BLC is that all the champions are on relatively even footing, where LoL has a much more severe "counter" mechanic in place as well as kind of unspoken rule that the more expensive champions are going to be more capable. But if you look at the amount of time needed for a BLC champ, I would say it's about on par with the time needed to get yourself a 4150 (or whatever it is) IP champ. Frankly seeing as most people earn enough to simply 'purchase' the game in 2-3 hours working, that's probably the most economical option.
Also new champ coming in the "Metal Warden", kind of a Samus type character. She's a little fragile and a little too much damage emphasis on her RMB ability but I'm looking forward to giving her a try.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ4F32RFqkk
Watch the trailer for the Metal Warden, it might get to 50k views and give everyone a free Bloodcoin Boost
Been a fair bit of bitching lately supposedly about how good the "Power" stat is on 'hybrid' champs (mostly tanks who almost all have damage and not insignificant healing potential) as it increases both damage done, healing done, and shield capacity, but I haven't really considered it a big problem yet. I've gone with pretty stacked cooldown reduction and I've been real happy with it across pretty much all characters.
I think a lot of people are put off by the amount of "bloodcoins" needed to obtain champions, which I sort of understand since a lot of them are probably using LoL as the comparison. LoL having champs available from 450 IP (2-3 games) all the way up to 6300 (40-60 games?) gives new players something to obtain easily right off the bat at least. To me the problem with that system is what distinguishes them, I think one of the best features of BLC is that all the champions are on relatively even footing, where LoL has a much more severe "counter" mechanic in place as well as kind of unspoken rule that the more expensive champions are going to be more capable. But if you look at the amount of time needed for a BLC champ, I would say it's about on par with the time needed to get yourself a 4150 (or whatever it is) IP champ. Frankly seeing as most people earn enough to simply 'purchase' the game in 2-3 hours working, that's probably the most economical option.
Holy crap this game is coming up on 4-5 years old lol. And seeing a bit of a resurgence!
I still play here and there and there's actually been some interesting news after a really long period of inactivity. The game was originally started by Stunlock Studios (under a different name iirc), then picked up by Funcom, Stunlock moved on to develop Dead Island Epidemic, Funcom abandoned BLC and now it's back in Stunlock's hands.
Stunlock has migrated the game to Steam completely (the standalone client no longer connects) and old accounts can now be bound to Steam accounts for authentication and carryover. Bloodcoin (in game currency) gain has been massively boosted for champion/cosmetic purchases and a few real money bundles containing a ton of stuff have become available for relatively cheap if you actually like a bunch of alternate weapons/skins/want all the champs/etc. Also they've migrated the game to "new servers" but I can't say how that's impacted latency in general, mine's always been fine. Some players are having issues with being disconnected but they're working on it.
In turn, there's been a little bit of renewed interest in the game - to the point where it's just recently seen over 1000+ players online at peak compared to less than 1/10th of that in weeks/years prior. (admittedly part of that is probably due to just everyone logging in through a trackable client in Steam).
With it so readily accessible in Steam now (and maybe even enough new players to improved match making for the newbies), I'd recommend anyone try it that enjoys the MOBA genre or WoW "arena" type PvP, or even just something polished and fun to play a few minutes at a time. It's kind of a mashup of the two genres - it's always always always been one of the most purely fun games to play to me.
I still play here and there and there's actually been some interesting news after a really long period of inactivity. The game was originally started by Stunlock Studios (under a different name iirc), then picked up by Funcom, Stunlock moved on to develop Dead Island Epidemic, Funcom abandoned BLC and now it's back in Stunlock's hands.
Stunlock has migrated the game to Steam completely (the standalone client no longer connects) and old accounts can now be bound to Steam accounts for authentication and carryover. Bloodcoin (in game currency) gain has been massively boosted for champion/cosmetic purchases and a few real money bundles containing a ton of stuff have become available for relatively cheap if you actually like a bunch of alternate weapons/skins/want all the champs/etc. Also they've migrated the game to "new servers" but I can't say how that's impacted latency in general, mine's always been fine. Some players are having issues with being disconnected but they're working on it.
In turn, there's been a little bit of renewed interest in the game - to the point where it's just recently seen over 1000+ players online at peak compared to less than 1/10th of that in weeks/years prior. (admittedly part of that is probably due to just everyone logging in through a trackable client in Steam).
With it so readily accessible in Steam now (and maybe even enough new players to improved match making for the newbies), I'd recommend anyone try it that enjoys the MOBA genre or WoW "arena" type PvP, or even just something polished and fun to play a few minutes at a time. It's kind of a mashup of the two genres - it's always always always been one of the most purely fun games to play to me.
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