For almost three months, the MOBA Paragon has been in its early access phase and in just a few weeks it will enter open beta. With the last patch, Epic Games is changing quite a bit and has even more in store. What to expect, you will find out here.
Once upon a time…
…a studio was formed in 1991 to bring titles such as Jill of the Jungle, Jazz Jackrabbit, Unreal Tournament, Gears of War, and others to life. This traditional studio, which is unleashing creativity in its 25th year, announced an ambitious new project at last year’s E3 that was received very positively from the start: Paragon.
In the coming months, they set out to create a third-person MOBA in a quiet chamber that was to be both a graphical feast and highly competitive. In mid-March, early access began for this title, thus flooding the battlefields with new, interested players.
Since then, countless matches have been played, new heroes have been released every three weeks, and a huge amount of data has been collected. And after almost exactly three months of continuous development and analysis, it is time to tackle some major issues and thus pack the most comprehensive changes into an update to send it on its way to the fighters of Agora.
…an ogre
But these problems had to be identified and understood before one could address corresponding ideas and solutions. Because often it is not as simple as it seems. Some nuts are as layered as an onion – only when you delve into the core do you recognize the truth.
But without further ado, let’s get right to the hard facts.
Problem and solution
A core problem that caused long waiting times before the actual match was player search. To address this and make a first step towards ranked games, from today the Draft Mode is available.
Only after your entry will the characters of both teams be chosen, which naturally allows for better composition and coordination. However, you must be proficient in several heroes, in case a teammate snatches your favorite away from you or he is banned by the opposing team. But that is part of the business as usual in MOBAs.
With the passive ability of all tough fighters and the upgrade of the standard attack within a match, Epic hoped for a depth and strategic component that ultimately turned out to be significantly less than expected. Therefore, both things are largely being discarded.
The passives have now been integrated or transformed into the existing character abilities, and increasing the standard attack now occurs automatically with rising level. Furthermore, your first three abilities can be upgraded four times, and the ultimate ability three times.
The balance
Regarding the individual heroes, all have undergone re-evaluation and adjustment. Please have mercy if we cannot go into every detail here, as that would exceed the scope and you would still be here tomorrow. And torture is of course also prohibited here.
Additionally, she will be available to you faster again, and by breaking stealth with her standard attack, she now deals minor bonus damage to her targets. But that’s not all. “Blood Dagger” is now “Mutilation Dagger” and slows its targets on hits instead of causing a bleeding effect.
And finally, “Death Sentence”: With this, you mark all opponents for you and your entire team for up to 7 seconds, can teleport directly to a target of your choice, and deal up to double base attack damage.
Goodbye Deathball or: “Get out of my jungle”
Since we’re already on Kallari and thus junglers, let’s go directly to the next, and most unpleasant problem of how Paragon is played, especially in the early game, by some individuals, which is a greater thorn in the side of Epic Games: The so-called “Deathball”.
If you have not yet fallen victim to it, or do not use such tactics: Congratulations. My condolences to all others. This involves early roaming, usually in a complete 5-man team, through the jungle and across the lanes. This was quite effective, as everyone benefited from the experience gained up to that point and thus the enemy was often completely overwhelmed.
However, if you are among the Kallari pros, a complete overhaul awaits you with the update. Her base damage has been reduced, and the cooldown of her backward leap has been increased by 6 seconds. But before the outcry begins, read on. Because now your Shadow Run lasts at least 18 seconds and, when fully upgraded, a whopping 36 seconds.
However, this should now belong to the past, as the distribution of map experience is now different. Basically, the one who gets the kill receives 100% of the experience. Now for the difference. If you’re two on the lane, the killer and his helper each receive 100%. However, if another teammate joins in, as mentioned, the killer still gets the full amount.
But the two others have to share 100% and thus only get 50% each. Consequently, this means that with a full team presence on the lane, only one really benefits. The remaining 4 helpers would then only receive 25% experience each (since 100:4=25).
And in the jungle, there is now only one ruler. Helping hands no longer receive any share; they come up completely empty. Only the one who gets the kill will receive the corresponding points and can then choose something nice in the shop with sufficient points.
This restructuring of map experience is also intended to help clarify roles during the game. The jungle will thus be left to the jungler.
Furthermore, there were changes to minions regarding number, composition, health points, and damage, the inhibitors no longer respawn automatically after their destruction and received more health points.
“Open Beta” weekend & Future plans
To properly test all these innovations, the next “Open Beta” weekend is already on the horizon. This will take place from June 16 to 19 inclusive. If you have not yet registered for such events, you can still do so by June 15.
However, even in the long term, there are already some more concrete ideas for optimizing Paragon. Thus, the inhibitors will only be resummoned upon successful delivery of the main orb if one decides to do so. Additionally, the travel mode is to be completely abolished. Instead, every hero can teleport across the fields to allied towers after a short activation period.
However, this naturally has a cooldown after use, so undisciplined team jumps to a single lane can potentially have dire consequences, as they may not return quickly enough to their original position and possibly lose towers themselves.
Phew, so far the most important things. Whoever of you has made it this far deserves my respect and can now watch a small summarizing video of the developers again in a compact form.
And if you have a little more interest in Paragon, and you want to thoroughly and understandably digest the current and already known future changes in German, I recommend our YouTube friends from GameAholiX TV, who have taken it upon themselves to build a solid, friendly, and competitive German Paragon community.
