This year, the summer slump is particularly severe, as more has been postponed in the gaming market than when a partner moves into their own apartment. MeinMMO author Maik Schneider has a simple and inexpensive recipe against gaming boredom: he plays a MOBA.
The warm season is a test of patience for many MMO players, and the summer of 2020 sets new standards in terms of slump due to major release delays. Poor August is particularly hard hit.
Personally, these slumps no longer bother me for a long time, as I play a MOBA on the PS4 – SMITE.
But if you feel the dry spell and think “What should I play today?”, I can only recommend downloading a free-to-play MOBA today – it can pay off for you over the years, and there are several good reasons for that. But first, let’s talk about the genre itself.
MOBA is the top filler genre
What are MOBAs? In full, MOBA means “Multiplayer Online Battle Arena”. You fight with a hero, champion, or “whatever” in intense PvP battles for victory.
All playable characters come with unique abilities that you use to your advantage. The goal is usually to destroy the enemy base. The matches are rather short, and after 15 – 30 minutes the winner is determined. Additionally, the perspective is notable, as classic MOBAs are played in an isometric top-down view where you look down at the playing field from above.
A simplified game field looks like this:
You need to level up your hero like in an RPG and equip them. However, you start each match with a “fresh” character at level one. Instead of loot, you get gold or something similar, which you collect over time and together with your accumulated experience points forms the second pillar of character development. The better you play, the faster you can become stronger, buy better equipment, and overwhelm your enemies.
You normally start relatively weak and build yourself a specialized warrior throughout the match who takes on a specific role in the team. Ideally, you play with a full team and can coordinate your tasks. There are many different roles that can be chosen based on the respective tactics. Some basic roles are:
- Support – Can take a lot of damage, protects fragile team members, and can support team fights
- Carry – Players who deal a lot of damage but are initially rather weak and easy to eliminate (squishy)
- Jungler – An aggressive role that roams the “jungle”, farms the monsters here, and/or helps on the lanes
- Bruiser – A balanced role where you can take a lot of hits but also deal damage
- Mid-Laner – The player on the middle “lane”, usually can deal a lot of damage and has good escape abilities to survive enemy attacks
Why should I play a MOBA? If you enjoy PvP action and have the motivation to keep getting better at a game you love, MOBAs might be for you.
The game concept is fully geared towards PvP and allows for a lot of room for individual tactics. Individual actions can be crucial to the game, but teamwork is key for successful MOBA strategies. Among the biggest and most well-known MOBAs are:
- League of Legends (LoL) by Riot Games
- Dota 2 by Valve
- SMITE by Hi-Rez
- Heroes of the Storm (HotS) by Blizzard
The appeal of MOBAs is their enormous replayability. At the level of “normal” players, you can achieve victory with countless tactics and team combinations, and no game is the same as the other. The game field and the conditions of a match change very rarely, yet MOBAs can provide hundreds of hours of play & fun. Here you will find our LoL beginner’s guide that explains the basics of the game in detail:
Slump be gone, I’m on the lane
Why do MOBAs fit so well into summer slumps? A MOBA gives you a lot to do and can keep you occupied for a few minutes or hours at any time. The big genre representatives have been running for many years and are still very successful, so you don’t have to worry that your new filler will suddenly disappear from the market. But there are even more advantages:
Pleasant comeback
Once you have established yourself, you can always return and quickly get back into the game. While sometimes new characters are added or the developers adjust values for better balancing, generally, you can return quickly and reach your previous level.
Cheap long-term engagement
The major MOBAs are based on free-to-play and finance themselves through the sale of in-game currency. In SMITE or “League of Legends” (LoL), you can unlock everything important that gives you advantages in battle without spending money. Due to the crazy effects of some skins, there are occasionally pay-to-win accusations, but generally, MOBAs are a cheap affair – if you’re not caught up in the skin craze, as MeinMMO colleague Jürgen Horn. They only cost a lot of playtime, which you probably have enough of right now.
Easy to learn, hard to master
OK, easy to learn might be a bit too easy to say. Getting into a MOBA can be tough, as one of the key rules is not to die needlessly – and at the beginning, you usually die quite often. However, once you have the basics down, the fun begins, and from that point on, you will continually improve:
- Learn the equipment and look for builds for your favorite heroes
- Remember the abilities of other characters to better act against them
- Get familiar with play styles and how roles interact with each other
You will discover something new even after 100 or 1,000 matches that can give you an advantage in certain situations. It is important to persevere, even though the community is unfortunately not particularly nice to beginners, as MeinMMO colleague Philipp Hansen has already noticed.
Events and new game modes
In addition to the major “real” MOBA mode, the big representatives of the genre offer modified game modes. Sometimes you get randomly assigned heroes who battle against each other on just one lane, sometimes you play a 3vs3 on smaller maps, and through matchmaking, you can also tackle everything solo. There are also occasional events that temporarily introduce special modes into the game, where you can earn skins that are usually paid.
Few glitches in the game
Another major advantage of MOBAs is their relatively low error density. For example, LoL, SMITE, and Dota 2 maintain extensive esports programs, and bugs or glitches usually disappear as quickly as they came into the game. Well, recently a bug that remained undiscovered for 10 years was removed from LoL, but generally, MOBAs more often face balance issues than technical difficulties.
Mechanical and mental improvement in PvP
In MOBAs, it’s about victory and concentrated teamwork. If you have not ventured into PvP content before, MOBAs provide a strong introduction to the world of competitions against real players. The precision required in your actions and the concentration demanded will also help you get better at other games. But don’t fall into “tilt”, or you’ll soon be just like the players who constantly “flamed” you as a beginner.
MOBAs – The genre for everyone… or is it?
Sounds pretty good so far. So why doesn’t everyone play a MOBA? There are a few strong arguments for the genre, but the competitive foundation does not appeal to everyone.
If you are not exactly in respawn because you moved two steps too far forward, you need full concentration and a good mindset all the time. If something goes wrong, it can quickly become frustrating, and some intrusive teammates do not improve things with their chat noise.
When you can already see within the first minutes that the generic team is clearly at an advantage, it can quickly darken your mood. Especially if, as a beginner, you’re not good enough yet to do anything about it, it can often feel demotivating.
The entry represents a significant, if not the biggest hurdle of the genre, which technically belongs to real-time strategy games. However, if you have the perseverance and maybe even a few teammates, you can adopt a new hobby that provides you with a lot of fun and can challenge you to your limits.
Which MOBA should I start with? For your start, choose one of the big titles, as you can find many guides and instructions here. There are countless videos and texts with tips on the individual characters and playstyles. The big genre representatives offer the following features:
- League of Legends – The largest MOBA basically sets the standard
- Dota 2 – Offers more tactical depth than LoL, therefore a bit harder for beginners but even more challenging
- SMITE – Here, you play in a “third-person” perspective
- Heroes of the Storm – Considered a bit more beginner-friendly, but does not offer the complexity of LoL
There are still many other, even smaller titles that pursue the MOBA approach, but with the big titles, you can almost be sure they will still be running in the next summer slump. And if it doesn’t work out the first time, there are even gaming coaches these days who can teach you how it works. How individual coaching for shooters works has been discussed with a pro by MeinMMO.
