Paragon (lane pusher)

[clyde]

I just spent 4-5 hours playing Paragon for the first time. I was relieved to see that I could play cooperative vs bots for as many matches as I like. We won every time. They recommend four or five heroes for beginners, I tried all of those and played as Gideon three times to get familiar with a character.

I like it. I expected it to be more similar to Super Monday Night Combat than it is. Shooting doesn't require a lot of accuracy, the 3rd-person shooter perspective is just for people like myself who are uncomfortable with top-down action-rpgs and not being able to jump (even when it does nothing). Paragon feels satisfying. There are optional buffs and resulting pushes.There is an archer who can do a piercing shot and since range is far more important than accuracy, you can halve the health of a whole wave of creeps in your lane; that feels great. Gideon has an ability to suck all the enemies towards him in a stun. Steel has an ability to ram and knock-back enemies. The two of them could work together really well.

It's really pretty and I could see myself playing this for a while. I tried the Battleborn beta and didn't like it much at all. It seemed like they watered down the leveling and that made the pace of the match feel sluggish. Paragon on the other hand feels well balanced to me (after just a few matches this morning). I'm probably going to play more cooperative versus bot matches until I can navigate the jungle reliably. I also want to try all the heroes before I go into competitive matches. I was surprised that the cooperative versus bot matches were fun for me; we never lost, but double and triple kills are encouraging during practice.

I am starting to understand the general idea of how the card system works and the difference between towers and ...intercepters(?) If anyone else is playing, it would be fun to discuss it.

[melmer]

I played one round in the first ps4 beta like a month ago, took me by surprise at how in 'shootery', I was expecting it to handle like gears of war. I got the hang of what j was doing somewhat thought the round, levelling up throughout each game to unluck bigger and better abilities is a cool idea, I don't know if that's how all Lords Managements play? This is litterally my first game at anything like this. I enjoyed it! I'm glad it going to be free to play later, I'll give it a shot when it's out.

the movement speed of my guy was ridiculously slow, but I've heard they changed that and made the game faster did feel like I had absolutely no chance going toe to toe with spear dude (I was two gun dude) but I guess thats where team work comes in.

[clyde]

Indeed, in Paragon the idea seems to be that teams who kill creeps (and collect the orange orbs they drop), kill opponents when they extend too far, and don't die very much will be rewarded with accumulative buffs to speed, damage, armor, and abilities for their patience in order to eventually outclass the other team.

As far as movement speed goes, the current system is that you can basically activate a running-state that is not instantaneous. Any use of an ability or attack takes you out of the run-state. If you are damaged while in the run-state you are stunned and vulnerable for a few seconds. Movement speed during combat is treated as a character-stat that balances the capabilities of the hero and can typically be improved by leveling up during the match. Often a character will feel sluggish during the beginning of the match because of this. Also, a lot of the characters have cooldown-abilities which allow them to move out of the way or towards an enemy; others have the ability to slow opponents to make them more vulnerable.

---------

Yesterday, I showed my wife how incredibly badass the healer (Muriel) is. When I told her that I was on a team of people playing against a team of bots she showed interest in playing it. Three matches later she asked if her laptop can run it. It can't run it, but I'm going to go ahead and try and build a vr-machine and put our GTX460 back in this one so we can play together.

[clyde]

Even though this video is about a build for a specific character, it really gives a good idea of what playing feels like (though it's heavily edited; the pace of the game is much slower).

 

[Dewar]

I saw the Giant Bomb video and am actively looking and purchasing. One thing that was unclear is the real money currency. Approximately how much does it cost to buy a mastery track for a new character? What about card packs?

[clyde]

It looks like the mastery challenge things are 75,000 reputation points (I've earned about 22,000 so far with somewhere around 10 hours of play) or 1,300 coins (coins are basically pennies, so that's $13). Card packs (of five) are 10,000 reputation points; it doesn't look like you can directly spend real money for those, but you can buy boosts that increase the rate at which you earn reputation points.
I don't really know what the master challenge thing offers beyond new skins. Cards on the other hand allow you to build your character out in specific and variable ways. Also of note: I seem to have been earning card-packs automatically. I think I've probably received about 5 or 6 packs without intentionally using any points on them.

[Dewar]

Interesting, that's pretty expensive for a mastery track. I guess that's an ongoing problem in the F2P space, I'd love to buy new ships/characters/skins/etc, but they seem to be priced around $10-$15 which is just too much for me to justify the purchase.

 

Edit: Wait, did the price of Paragon founder's packs just drop? I could swear it was 20$/60$/100$ yesterday.

[clyde]

Edit: Wait, did the price of Paragon founder's packs just drop? I could swear it was 20$/60$/100$ yesterday.

 

You are right. They are having some sort of double XP weekend. Maybe that has something to do with it.

 

 

 

Interesting, that's pretty expensive for a mastery track. I guess that's an ongoing problem in the F2P space, I'd love to buy new ships/characters/skins/etc, but they seem to be priced around $10-$15 which is just too much for me to justify the purchase.

 

Just in case there is any confusion, there is no cost to be able to play any character; they are all free to play as.

[clyde]

I just read on neogaf that Paragon is having a free-weekend currently.

[Salacious Snake]

I expected it to be more similar to Super Monday Night Combat than it is. Shooting doesn't require a lot of accuracy, the 3rd-person shooter perspective is just for people like myself who are uncomfortable with top-down action-rpgs and not being able to jump (even when it does nothing).

Smite could be described with the same words.

I'm a little surprised, too, I expected it to be more shootery.

[Dewar]

I bought in at 10 dollars and have had fun so far. Definitely people getting in that have no interest in team work, which kinda bites when you're ahead all game, but then when it gets to team fight time, only three folks show up. But that's a LOMA for ya.

 

As for "owning" a character, yes you can play a character for free, but the top-end 30% XP boost you get for the mastery means that once you get off the bottom rung of matchmaking, you'll be seriously behind using one you haven't paid for.

[clyde]

As for "owning" a character, yes you can play a character for free, but the top-end 30% XP boost you get for the mastery means that once you get off the bottom rung of matchmaking, you'll be seriously behind using one you haven't paid for.

Can you explain a bit more? I still don't understand why people who don't do the master-challenge thing (whatever that is) would be at a disadvantage.

[Dewar]

First level of the master challenge gives you a 5% xp bonus, and then I think it's every other level after that?

 

Edit: Nevermind, I'm an idiot. I saw that it was 5% character XP, and I assumed that was in game, but it's actually character XP toward the mastery path, which is a weird sort of cyclical that makes no sense.

[clyde]

My wife and I played our first game of Paragon together this morning (still only playing cooperative vs. AI.) It was a blast; lot's of her yelling "Stop jumping around, I'm trying to heal you!" and me coming back with "Stop putting the healing bubble in an enemy's area-of-attack!". It was really fun. We haven't figured out how to invert the y-axis on a controller though; she is stuck in her ways.

[Dewar]

I played a lot of Paragon this weekend. I'm not very good at the non-LOMA parts (aiming mainly) and I lost a lot. Like crazy against the odds how many times I lost, and not all of them my fault.

 

I'm getting better though.

[clyde]

We've been having a great time playing a coop vs. A.I. match about once a day. My wife is pretty happy playing as Gadget and I've started getting into Feng Mao. I'm not a very good jungler, but I enjoy trying. I still get lost in the jungle a lot. Usually my wife finds a lane she doesn't have to compete for XP on and I run around the jungle if there isn't an empty lane. Then when she sees an opportunity for a gank, push, or needs to escape she will call me over. It's fun. We are winning these A.I. matches around 25 minutes in if everyone on our team is playing. We just got to the point where we are starting to really think about our custom decks.

[clyde]

I just found out that if you last-hit minions, then you get 100 cardXP rather than 20 (if they are killed by minions or towers) and that all that cardXP is shared equally with teammates nearby.

[Dewar]

I thought it was just character XP that was shared, not CardXP? I definitely haven't noticed getting any +100s on my screen when someone next to me last-hits.

[clyde]

Maybe the stuff I was reading is out of date? Betas, amirite?

[Dewar]

Yeah, I've found it extremely tough to find accurate Paragon information out there. I guess that's a good sign that they're actually working on the beta and changing things.

[clyde]

Not sure if this is still relevant, but here's a break-down of how how sharing cardXP broke down in early April and what it meant for team-strategies.

https://www.epicgames.com/paragon/blog/card-power-sharing-and-the-deathball

[clyde]

I initiated the master-challenge for Dekker because I am going to be rolling as her for a while and I had the reputation-points to do it. So I'll have the low down on what that does eventually.

Also, last-hitting is hard. I made a deck focusing on damage, but now I'm thinking of focusing on attack-speed so I have more chances to get the last-hit. It's a neat little mini-game. Optimization seems like it would feel like work, but oddly I'm enjoying my inner-debate between damage, attack-speed, and critical-hit chance.

[Dewar]

Apparently, not having the master challenge prevents you from getting:

1) Costumes

2) XP Boosts which effect the 1-10 character level associated with the master challenges, not in game XP

3) Anything above level 5

 

So nothing all that bad. I can definitely confirm that I got card packs from hitting level 2 with a character, which is the important thing.for me.  Losing out on that extra XP is a bit of a shame, but not critical.

[YoThatLimp]

So I started playing this on Friday and it seems pretty cool? Is anyone still playing this?

[feelthedarkness]

I bought an EVGA 1080, so I think I get a free copy. I'm not typically a LOMA person