I should be studying right now. I’m only writing this because I’m such a dumbass lol.
A game I used to play (a lot).
This game is called vainglory. It’s a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena). Yup, games have many genres if you didn’t know already lol. MOBAs are strategy games; they require you to think and come up with a strategy to win. There are a lot of very popular MOBAs around, such as DOTA2, and the legendary World of Warcraft.
However, Vainglory was a relatively new game back in 2016. It was a very special game in the sense that it was designed to be played on smartphones and tablets instead of the traditional PC. This was a HUGE deal. To make a MOBA work (and work well) on mobile platforms was a new concept; It had never been done before. But SEMC (Super Evil Mega Corp), which is the company behind Vainglory, did it (and they did an awesome job at it).
I’ve been playing this game since grade 9.
It’s quite a complex game. It’s kinda like chess, but a lot more.
So, guess I’ll try to explain it to you all lol.
The aim of the game.
So, this is the map. It’s huge.
The blue circle area is where you, and your 4 other online teammates will start the game. Each team has 5 players. 2 teams compete at a time. At the center of the blue circle in the picture, there is a Vain Crystal. Remember the Vain Crystal, it’s the most important part of the game.
So, at the opposite part of the map, there the enemy team’s base (shown as the red circle in the picture). It too, has its own Vain Crystal like your own base.
So, the goal of the game is to: Get to the enemy base and destroy their Vain Crystal.
Yup, that’s it. The moment your team destroys the enemy’s Vain Crystal, the game ends and you win.
But… to get to that point, there are a lot of things you need to do lol.
The map.
Let’s take a closer look at the map. After all, this is where all the action happens.
So, this is the map.
There are a lot of details in it, but I have shown the most basic ones only.
So, to get to the enemy base and destroy their Vain Crystal, there are 3 lanes (shown by green arrows in the picture) which you can use. Your whole team can get into the enemy base through any of these 3 lanes. But…
There are enemy turrets (shown in yellow circles) in each lane. And these turrets hit you and they hurt! Hence, you cannot get to the enemy base with out destroying all the turrets the lane (otherwise, the turrets will hit you and you will die).
The way to destroy these turrets will be explained later.
Now, another feature of this huge map are objectives (shown in white circles). So, while in the game, if your team captures one of these objectives, your team will get a huge advantage for a limited amount of time.
The remaining areas in between lanes is the jungle. The jungle has lots of interesting things in it (which I will discuss later).
So, that’s the basic overview of the map.
Minions.
These cute little creates are Minions.
These are your best friends in the game lol.
Remember Turrets? I mentioned above that in order to get to the enemy base, you have to destroy all the turrets in the lane.
But the turrets are too powerful and they hurt!
So, how can you possibly destroy them?
The answer is: Minions.
See, at fixed time intervals, your base will spawn a group of these minions for each lane (there are 3 lanes remember?) So, these minions move along each lane and help you fight the enemy turret; that is, they will take hits from the turret (and die) while you can continuously damage it. So, that way, you can destroy turrets without getting hurt.
However, the enemy base will also spawn its own minions. So, the enemy team can do the same to your turret. Hence, it’s important to defend your own turrets and try to destroy enemy turrets.
Also, if you kill an enemy minion a certain way, you will get gold (which is the primary currency of the game). It’s the most common way of earing gold in the game. The process of killing enemy minions and getting gold is called farming. See, games have their own vocabulary!
Heroes and team combinations.
So, in every game you will choose a character/hero (there are many characters in the game). You will play the whole game as this hero.
As heroes, you will fight against the enemy heroes (enemy team).
Each hero completely unique character. Each hero has its own abilities, passive abilities, strengths, weaknesses and a completely different way of playing. So, choosing a hero is the most important step in wining a game. If you choose the wrong hero, then you will have a really hard time winning (you will prolly get your ass kicked by the enemy lol).
Some heroes are ranged ie; they can hit you from afar. While other heroes are melee ie; they have to get close to hit you. Whereas, some heroes are in between, they can hit you from near and far!
Some heroes play generally in the lane, whereas others play in the jungle. The possibilities in this game are endless lol.
These heroes can be classified into many different groups based on their general play style.
- Mages: These are heroes that usually have a really long range. They do a lot of damage to large groups of people from afar (AOE: area of effect damage) with their abilities but, they are very weak (can be killed easily).
- Bruisers: These are tank heroes. They are really strong and can stay in fights for a long time without dying. They also do a fair amount of damage; however, they are mostly melee heroes, hence need to get close to do damage (which can be really hard!)
- Assassins: These are also melee heroes but they are quite fragile. They do a lot of damage! Especially to a single target. They are generally fast heroes so that they can get in and out of battles quickly without dying.
- Snipers: These are ranged heroes but with a moderate range (less than mages). They can do massive damage to single targets (unlike mages which can do AOE damage). They are also fast (unlike mages) so they can chase down enemies quickly. They are however, fragile and can be killed easily.
- Support: This is a very large category of heroes whose primary job is to protect their teammates and help them in fights. They are usually tanks who can take hits from the enemy without dying while protecting their teammates. They have special abilities that support their teammates instead of themselves.
- Utility heroes: They are a sub group of Support heroes. They provide utility to the team, such as slowing the enemy and blocking enemy advancements.
Note that these categories are flexible. There are many heroes which are combinations of these categories as well as exceptions.
Each team ideally has a combination of different types of heroes who perform specific functions. The types of heroes you choose depends on what your team combination is about. Some team combs are designed to aggressive and finish the game quickly, whereas other team combs are designed to play defensive early game, get stronger and then fight with the enemy late game.
Hence, there are so many combinations possible in the game and each hero in the team influences the character of the whole team.
Hence, while choosing heroes, paying attention to what your team wants to do in the game is crucial. If your hero doesn’t fit with the team comb then you will have a hard time being impactful in the game.
Also, since each hero is unique, you must be familiar with your hero’s capabilities as well as what your enemy hero is capable of doing. Having a detailed knowledge of the enemy is absolutely crucial to winning. Without knowing your enemy’s strengths and weakness, you cannot win. Hence, being familiar with all heroes in the game is mandatory to be good at this game.
It’s kind of complex lol. But wait, there is more…
The Shop.
Weapon power and Crystal power.
This is the shopkeeper.
Remember I mentioned that, when you kill an enemy minion a certain way you get gold.
But what do you do with all that gold you earn in the game?
Well, you can go to the shopkeeper in the map and buy items in exchange for gold. These items make you stronger in the game and can even give you special abilities!
There are a LOT of items to buy in the shop, each item giving the player special advantages. Items can also be classified into categories:
- Weapon items: These increase the strength of your basic attacks. These include, increasing your attack speed, giving life steal etc.
- Crystal items: These improve your abilities. These include, slowing enemies down with abilities, inflicting mortal wounds on your enemies, reducing your ability cooldowns etc.
- Defense items: These items improve your hero’s health and provide protection. These include, armor (to protect from basic attacks), shields (to protect from enemy abilities) etc
- Utility items: They improve other aspects of your character. These include, teamwide shields, slowing enemies down, increasing your movement speeds etc.
The way you play your hero and how effective you are in the game heavily depends on the items you choose. If you choose the wrong items; items that don’t fit your hero, then you will be useless in the game. Hence, it’s important to learn which items to buy and in what order to buy them.
The items you buy also depend on what your hero does. Like if you are a support hero, you will probably buy utility and defense items, where as if you are a mage hero, you will probably buy crystal items.
Counter building – The items you buy should also reflect the items your enemy is buying. For example; if the enemy team is buying more shield, then your team should invest more on shield piercing items. That way, you can counter your enemy’s items.
If your hero uses basic attacks to do damage, then you should buy more weapon items. Such heroes are called weapon powered WP heroes. Example: mostly snipers.
If your hero uses abilities to do damage, then you should buy more crystal items. Such heroes are called crystal powered heroes CP heroes. Example: Mages.
Some heroes are compatible with both CP and WP routes. Hence, their playstyle depends heavily on what items you buy.
Jungle.
So, we haven’t talked much about the jungle, have we?
So, the jungle covers a large portion of the whole map (see the map above). The jungle provides many opportunities for players who want to keep to themselves instead of farming in the lanes.
The jungle has jungle monsters. The players can kill these jungle monsters and gain gold and XP. Some jungle monsters also have buffs (temporary enhancements) such as the Weapon monster. Killing these special monsters give you temporary wp or cp advantage.
The enemy has their own jungle. At times, the enemy might sneak into your jungle to kill your monsters and gain gold themselves. This is quite common strategy. Hence, while playing in jungle, the player must be mindful of enemy invaders. While this is a disadvantage for some players, if you can successfully steal the enemy’s monsters yourself then the rewards can be worth the risk going into enemy territory.
The players who play as jungle heroes have the responsibility to help the nearby lane heroes by killing the enemy lane heroes – a process called ganking. They are also responsible to take the map objectives; although it’s usually a group endeavor.
OTHER STUFF.
I have only scratched the surface of the game.
There are SO MANY other things that I have not covered here, it’s already 2000 words! There are advanced strategies, and play-styles. I’ve not even discussed concepts like kiting, lane freezing, crowd control, ace, power spikes, hyper carrying, mechanics vs strategy, last hitting etc. It would take another 2000 words or more to explain it all lol. This game is too complex to explain it all.
Hence you get the idea how complex this game is. And what’s more, it’s relatively simple in comparison to its PC counterparts such as DOTA.
Conclusion.
I’ve been playing this game since grade 9 and I still haven’t learnt how to use all the heroes or all the strategies possible in the game. There are simply too many possibilities with this game. Too many strategies to master.
The reason I wrote this whole thing is, I am deeply fascinated by the sheer creativity and genius of people who design such amazing games. I mean, playing this game takes years to master; imagine what it took to design it. From complex strategies to infinite team combinations, this game has it all.
People are amazing. It’s crazy how they can build amazing things.
Unfortunately, due to financial reasons the game developers decided that they could not continue to support this game; hence they declared that they would stop updating the game in January of 2020. This was a shocking news for the game community; and many people were saddened by it. SEMC decided it will gradually shut down the servers for the game and the game will slowly die. People loved this game.
Holy fuck, it sounds so emotional lol. I’m not crying deep inside.
Cheers!
= )
Honestblogs 