Love MMO Arenas? You Need To Be Playing Battlerite - Michael Bitton at MMORPG.com

MikeB

Love MMO Arenas? You Need To Be Playing Battlerite - Michael Bitton at MMORPG.com

Battlerite, a new team arena brawler by Stunlock Studios, entered Early Access last week and quickly shot up the Steam top sellers list. The game is basically a remake of Bloodline Champions, a game the team developed under publisher Funcom. Bloodline Champions found some niche success, but never quite blew up. This time around, self-published, along with a new art style and some design tweaks, Stunlock Studios hopes to truly break through.

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Panther2103

I've actually put a lot of time into Battlerite since it launched in EA. It's what I wanted Bloodline Champions to be, and so far it's garnering them way more attention than BLC ever did. It's pretty balanced, the only feature I really want is a voice chat, since this game is all about communication, and I only have like two friends who also play it that I can get on my team speak, I kinda wish I could tell my team mates who we should focus or try to work together.

blbeta

I may try it once it is released. The top down camera isn't my preference. First person or a close third person is what I prefer. I believe it makes watching opponents more difficult which is fun.

jmcdermottuk

MMO Arena? Really? Kind of a contradiction of terms. 2v2 or 3v3 is so massively multiplayer, or course. No wonder everybody gets the term MMO wrong so often when even MMO journalists apparently have no clue what MMO means.

giberelina

Don't like arenas really, I wish some other MMO had warzones like SWTOR, with fun objectives like Huttball.

lewkaj

I really enjoyed bloodline champions in its early stages. Game seems exactly the same except now it has LoL'ish graphics. I liked the gore way more, it felt so satisfying when i killed someone

Nasa

If you like these kind of games you can look forward to tomorrow where AGS will reveal their new game Breakaway.
From the twitter pictures Breakaway look like same kind of game.
https://twitter.com/PlayBreakaway/media

winghaven1

Yeah this game is pure awesomeness. At first when I purchased it I wasn't too hopeful and figured it'd be something to keep my mind off for at least a few hours. Man, was I wrong. Everytime I try to boot up my favourite mmorpg I can't stop scratching that itch "Maybe I'll do one game of battlerite" and then it turns to several.

For an early access game it is very polished and from my matches the champs appear balanced. I'll be keeping a close watch on this promising take on a moba. But mark my words, even though it is an moba, it will surprise you. It's all skill-based and intense! No longer do you need to farm mobs, gold or items and get mad when someone steals your blue. It's just you and your friends vs them and nothing else. Brutal fun.

sludgebeard

jmcdermottuk said:

MMO Arena? Really? Kind of a contradiction of terms. 2v2 or 3v3 is so massively multiplayer, or course. No wonder everybody gets the term MMO wrong so often when even MMO journalists apparently have no clue what MMO means.

Its saying it has MMO Arena style Combat. Not that its an MMO. Theres many reason why the term MMO has deflated since the 90's but this article and game have nothing to do with it. Your attributing an issue to something that isnt there because you didnt read the full article.

Wizardry

Well what exactly is mmo arena style combat because imo no such thing exists and even if it tried to exist it would never work.
Seriously,you wouldn't stick 100's,thousands of players in a single arena and call the game good,not by any stretch.

Arena style combat works by far the best with `1 on 1,as introduced by the two legendary games Quake and unreal.They then later added the 2 on 2 and 3 on 3 and 6 on 6 but anymore than even 2 on 2 just looked messy,sloppy,spammy,not good skillful combat.

Aeander

BLC was held back by excessive progression, bad balance, and ugly character designs. If Battlerite is an improvement in that regard, I'll buy it.

laxie

Aeander said:

BLC was held back by excessive progression, bad balance, and ugly character designs. If Battlerite is an improvement in that regard, I'll buy it.

The only progression is cosmetic. You get coins for quests and wins, which you then spend on cosmetic "Overwatch" chests. All characters and spells seem to be unlocked.

Environments look improved, as do characters. The theme is quite similar to BLC though - if you did not like that, you might not like this.

Balance I can't comment on. Have played too little for that.

Your character "evolves" with each new round, empowering an ability of your choice. You can sort of form builds as the match goes on. A nice mechanic that was missing for me in the other arena brawlers.

mgilbrtsn

giberelina said:

Don't like arenas really, I wish some other MMO had warzones like SWTOR, with fun objectives like Huttball.

Huttball is fun.  I remember the gnashing of teeth when they started it.  You would have thought that the whole game was gonna implode.  Here we are.  still doing reasonably well, and huttball is part of the scenery.  Amazing how we stress over minor things.

sayuu

sludgebeard said:

jmcdermottuk said:

MMO Arena? Really? Kind of a contradiction of terms. 2v2 or 3v3 is so massively multiplayer, or course. No wonder everybody gets the term MMO wrong so often when even MMO journalists apparently have no clue what MMO means.

Its saying it has MMO Arena style Combat. Not that its an MMO. Theres many reason why the term MMO has deflated since the 90's but this article and game have nothing to do with it. Your attributing an issue to something that isnt there because you didnt read the full article.

you can call an apple a orange all day long it does not make it so. . .

. . .you can call a MOBA a MMO all day long but it does not make it so.

MikeB

Wizardry said:

Well what exactly is mmo arena style combat because imo no such thing exists and even if it tried to exist it would never work.

Seriously,you wouldn't stick 100's,thousands of players in a single arena and call the game good,not by any stretch.



Arena style combat works by far the best with `1 on 1,as introduced by the two legendary games Quake and unreal.They then later added the 2 on 2 and 3 on 3 and 6 on 6 but anymore than even 2 on 2 just looked messy,sloppy,spammy,not good skillful combat.

The MMO arenas bit refers to arena game modes found in MMOs. For example, World of Warcraft's popular arena PvP.

Dareberry

It's not new, reworked BLC..

Panther2103

Aeander said:

BLC was held back by excessive progression, bad balance, and ugly character designs. If Battlerite is an improvement in that regard, I'll buy it.

I put another 5 hours into it yesterday and had a little bit more insight on balance. It feels like 90% of the champions are super balanced. Most melee counter another melee, most ranged can counter a ranged, if you are playing well you can counter pretty much anything it's kind of nice. There is one champion that I'm pretty sure is going to get nerfed though called Poloma, that seems to be the only real imbalanced champion. Her heals are really high, her mobility is insane, and she has a skill that if you cast any spell you get feared away while it's on you. It just is a way better setup than anyone else right now. But other than her the game feels really balanced. Way more so than BLC ever did.

TheHavok

Aeander said:

BLC was held back by excessive progression, bad balance, and ugly character designs. If Battlerite is an improvement in that regard, I'll buy it.

I agree in a lot of ways and its one of the reasons why I liked BLC but never really played it much. Battlerite seems to have fixed that stuff.

Phry

If something looks like a MOBA, plays like a MOBA, chances are, it is in fact a MOBA.
MOBA playerbase is already entrenched, breaking into that scene will be very difficult.

Veexer_Nui

It's the pvp arena Diablo 3 should of had. In a stand alone game.

Panther2103

Veexer_Nui said:

It's the pvp arena Diablo 3 should of had. In a stand alone game.

I don't know if they could have made it work in D3 though just because of gear and things like that. I wish they would have at least released some form of it prior to the beta version they had for a small amount of time.

MikeB

DMKano said:

I disliked Bloodline Champions. I guess I'll stay away.

Any particular reasons you disliked BLC? I know the team's made some significant changes to the design with Battlerite. May have solved whatever issues you had with BLC.