#249 Diving into MOBA Changes and Updates

Dirk, David, and show producer Skye team up to tackle the third episode in our deep dive into the MOBA genre. This time the group discusses an aspect that’s fairly unique to the genre: its constant changes.  Topics include why MOBAs have such huge casts of playable characters, a digression into the QWER four-ability mechanic, how the cadence of changes can affect their impact and reception, and how character updates are handled in some of the genre’s top games.

Episode Outline

1:08 What is the role of system changes in MOBAs?

5:55 A discussion on how and why games like League of Legends have such a large cast of playable characters

14:39 Exploring the QWER mechanic further, and why it works better in MOBAs than it seems to in other genres

21:00 How do League of Legends, DOTA 2, and Heroes of the Storm evolve over time, and how are characters updated?

35:05 An in-depth conversation about the recent League item overhaul and what the goal might have been

45:46 Talking about when large updates fail, including the example of Season 8 of League of Legends.

52:45 General game design takeaways from this MOBA episode

In this Episode

David V. Heron - @davidvheron
Dirk Knemeyer - @DKnemeyer