Why does it take a long time for heroes?

Me and my friend were having a discussion where he mostly jokingly flamed LoL.

But then I brought up a point. League of legends makes heroes/champions quite frequently (another one is already poised to come out), and they do it from scratch every time.

Dota, on the other hand, takes a much longer time even though they already have the skills, the name, the lore (sorta).

I know that Riot has the ability to focus EVERYTHING they have on league, as it's their only game, and dota has to divide it's attention and money between everything else.

It could also be because they don't want to release any new heroes this close to porting it all to source 2, as it would mean one or two extra heroes to re-code in source 2.

What are your thoughts?

In LoL you need to buy tha champions which means tou either need to pay real money or play the game to get the points needed. That the way riots makes money.

More new champions, more people playing/pay real money to get the champ, the more money riot gets.

i think the later.

they want to improve and improve upon dota for years and years to come. that requires being able to graphically compete.

riot wont be able to. yes they release heroes but when was their last major graphical update?

dota has undergone i think 4 or 5 since beta.

now they want to build into the system redundancy with source 2. a stable platform for building and improving for years to come.

bring it on.

Tbh, i dont mind, that there isnt a hero released every few weeks.

2 or 3 years back, i have played LoL quite a lot and i have to point out - without bashing intentions - that this "new hero every few weeks" also brings a few major problems:

1. Older heroes, altho they have nice mechanics and whatnot, get completely replaced by new ones and pushed out of the meta (at least for pubs) ...you literally are getting flamed for picking a hero thats not "meta" atm.

2. general balance issues occur on a regular basis in LoL. Personally however, i have to admit, that i always found it hilarious, how Riot would release a far too strong hero, w8 1-2 weeks until a bunch of people have bought said hero, and then "balance" it.

3. There is very little room/time for general "gameplay updates", like we get them. I dont say, that riot doesnt do them at all....but dota gets such updates much more frequently, which is a good thing (as underpowered/underplayed heroes get much more attractive again and so forth).

Now...as initially mentioned, this is my opinion over a game, i havent played in years, so i dont know, if this is accurate anymore. Also: i am not bashing LoL here (except maybe for the the second part of my "2." comment).

Creating new Heroes and balancing them to fit in with the existing 100+ Heroes is not an easy thing to do. Besides, we just got several new Items for the game. This is probably the reason why we haven't had any new Heroes since Oracle + Earth Spirit. These Items have probably been tested behind the scenes for months before they were fit for release.

Seeing the absolute ******** level of brokenness that was... Earth Spirit, Terrorblade and now Glimmer Cape...I hardly think that's the case.
Not to mention the obvious issues raised by buffing a certain hero's meta AND buffing the hero himself at the same time, like happens in a lot of patches...Storm and Troll for 6.83, Undying and Gyro for 6.84...
Dota pubs are Icefraud's testing grounds to instantly try out his beer-induced inspirations, deal with it :)

Map has been rehauled thrice since the beta and mass texture rehauls have been appearing every once in a while (only recently have they become documented)

Because the all new champs in League of Legends create powercreep. The new stuff is going to be better just because it has better scaling than the old stuff. Then the new gets nerfed into the ground, then years later reworked into balanced stuff. This is why Riot can't keep the game in complete balance, hence in each championship the "pro picks" are based from a pool of around 30 champions.


Now compare to Dota 2.

I have to comment a few things on this :P

Ok earth spirit was INSANELY OP at first. But was TB really OP? The only ******** thing about him was That reflection lasted 5 seconds at level 1.
When he was released in CM he wasnt even picked that much and jankind of a bad winrate. The only team that kicked major *** with him was C9. And so he was nerfed hard unneeded, and then some more with tye illusion damage on buildings, which didnt need to happen to him, but it was probably aimed at naga.
Besides he wasnt a new hero, even with his new skills he was around for a pretty long time.

Also, now storm suddenly isnt OP anymore? Even though his pro winrate is a lot higher? I dont really get hamsterlogic. :P


OK onto the topic.
I just dont think valve is in much of a hurry, considering that pit lorc has been hidden in the game for over a year. Yes he is actually in the files, i remember seeing hin with a replacement model along with terrorblade that used NS's model.

Pit lord is a pretty old hero i believe, so how much balancing tests do there have to be?
I just think they arent commiting a large amount of resources to completing the hero roster, especially with them working on source 2 (which is probably close to or completed, they just dont want to risk bringing it out yet with TI around the door) and working on TI, and HOPEFULLY something that makes it easier for people to make/play custom maps. They have a lot on their plate.
Besides, there arent any missing roles since TI3, in TI1 and 2 there were less heroes and therefor choices for players and teams, now every position and role has multiple heroes to choose from.

Also, our lord GabeN works in mysterious ways ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

The very day he was released in CM, he was instantly first banned in every pro game.
Literally. Every game game it was either first pick TB or first ban TB. No exceptions.
Far, far worse than 6.83 Troll. Literally instalock autowin pick.




Did I say he's not OP anymore? I don't remember saying that :)
He's still broken.
His "nerfs" from the patch changed literally nothing. The only nerf he got is from the meta, since deathball is now viable, so now there's a way to counter Storm (deathball push) that doesn't require picking 3 hard counterpicks to the hero.
So now there's two ways to play against Storm...the first being picking Doom, Disruptor and Lion...and the second being trying your hardest to play deathball in solo queue pubs or 2-stacks...good old 6.81 memories :)




The only thing that's in the game right now for Pit Lord is half-decent looking icons for his skills and a ****py looking giant flying rat model (no other way to say it xD), that's a placeholder which has nothing to do with what the hero is going to be.

So no, he's not in the game. Anybody can make icons with paint, that's really all we have right now. There's no model, no animations, no voice lines...nothing.

Essentially it makes sense to put time between each hero release, and they're working on other stuff right now.

Besides...who cares about Pit Lord in pubs. He's a 5-stack hero like Io anyways. Pit Lord in CM is the only interesting thing so that you can see Bulldog play him and rat all day long...and that's just not happening :)