Is WoW PVP more complicated than LoL in your opinion?

[Xucuroz]

WoW classes typically have a lot more abilities to juggle than in LoL. To play well with most classes, you need to utilize most, if not all abilities at an individual level. LoL on the other hand has fewer abilities. I would say based on that alone, LoL is less complicated for the player.

That said just because something isn't complicated, doesn't mean it doesn't have depth. LoL has a lot of depth. You don't often see it in normal games, but watching the pro-games and the way teams work together with an almost synergy of using their abilities is awesome. Being aware of where your enemy is on the map is key. They don't typically conform to standard item builds. Same can be said for WoW as well really.

On a personal note, i prefer LoLs approach. Less abilities and more about timing, planning and execution. WoW PvP really has become burst person x down while they are chain CCed and can't do anything. You don't even have to time your CCs right anymore.

Both PvP communities are toxic though. LoL being the worst by far.

[Tya]

The irony here is that on high-end PvP sites like arenajunkies, most are of the opinion that WoW has become pathetically easy.

[Snuggli]

The irony here is that on high-end PvP sites like arenajunkies, most are of the opinion that WoW has become pathetically easy.

Unless WoW got harder, it's players would find it easier. Same with any game. There is a skillcap people will reach eventually, and once more and more people start hitting it, people will say the game is easy. Watch any of the tournament/blizzcon games from BC/Wrath and you'll see what I mean, rank 1 players back then would've struggled against the duelists of this expansion.

In 7-8 years, people will say starcraft 2 and LoL are easy unless they keep pushing out more and more units/champions. The problem then is you completely alienate all the people who try and start the game from the beginning.

WoW is still trying to get new players into playing the game while adding more depth/skillcap for top-end raiders and PVPers, which other games don't have the problems of yet.

[Ealyssa]

LOL = what people play when they aren't good at SC2.

Replace LOL with whatever moba, SC2 with any RTS (if they exist).
MOBA is appealing to the mass because of dumbed down RTS gameplay. What make LOL a success is what "hardcore" wow players are against : casualisation of games.

[Tya]

Unless WoW got harder, it's players would find it easier. Same with any game. There is a skillcap people will reach eventually, and once more and more people start hitting it, people will say the game is easy. Watch any of the tournament/blizzcon games from BC/Wrath and you'll see what I mean, rank 1 players back then would've struggled against the duelists of this expansion.

In 7-8 years, people will say starcraft 2 and LoL are easy unless they keep pushing out more and more champions or more expansions with new units.

StarCraft 1 is in the situation you describe, yet is still regarded as one, if not the, most demanding game in play.

[Yvaelle]

StarCraft 1 is in the situation you describe, yet is still regarded as one, if not the, most demanding game in play.

Yes and no. Most of the people who have been playing SC1 since day 1, know everything there is to know about how the game plays - they aren't learning anything anymore, and haven't learned anything in years: there hasn't been new SC1 tricks in over a decade. In that sense, which is what Snuggli is talking about.

It's still a robust and very complex game for new players, but players who have been playing it since Brood War have been skill-capped for eons now (in internet time). Once you skill cap, games appear simple, because the veil of novelty is removed - it becomes second nature.


@Hammock, et al

Imagine taking your mom (assuming your mom isn't some sort of video gaming savant, in which case use your grandmother) to two tournaments, first take her to the LoL Championship Series and try to explain the game to her - she's going to understand what's going on by the time the match ends, she might not be able to predict the outcome of conflicts - but everything you need to know about every toon on both teams you will comprehend to basic profiency by match end, versus skill-capped LoL players: you aren't skill capped by any means, but you comprehend their capabilities. Now take your mom and watch a top end WoW tournament - she could watch it all afternoon, and I bet she'll still have pretty much no idea what's going on.

WoW's ability bloat is vastly more physically challenging than LoL's - that is a form of complexity. Predicting the interaction of that bloat also makes predicting the behaviour, and therefore the mental maths of WoW more complex. That WoW is more complex doesn't mean that WoW is a better game, but WoW is unequivocally more complex than LoL: it's not comparable.

[Confirm Deny]

@Hammock, et al
Imagine taking your mom (assuming your mom isn't some sort of video gaming savant, in which case use your grandmother) to two tournaments,

I know exactly what you are saying, but I don't care for its implications. It's like... (Analogies are scary... hold on) when Penn and Teller reveal how to do their magic tricks. Yeah... You get what's going on. And, yeah, it doesn't mean it's not the exact same difficulty each time and it doesn't change like games can, but we'll ignore that for now

The point I'm stretching here is that... I get the point if you didn't know how they put the balls in the cup, a smart person could still probably say "Oh, he's putting the ball under the cup <at this time> probably" but the fact of the matter is you still don't see a regular (extremely talented) magician do it before they told you. I get it. I think I've killed it now.

I think the depths of play inside the bolded parts are still being horribly discredited, is all.

Or, alternate, simpler Counterpoint: There are some with way cooler tricks and more proficient at sleight of hand (i.e. possibly more complicated (like most here say WoW is).

I'll get to why I think it's still not that cut and dry

WoW's ability bloat is vastly more physically challenging than LoL's - that is a form of complexity.

I never denied this, of course. However, I think in League that "ability bloat" is "character and item" bloat. To address another "limited ability" point nobody has brought up so far as a detriment for League: Some people say, "League "rehashes" types of abilities for new heroes." So what? What is step 1 for a WoW player each expansion when new CCs are added to the game? You prepare to change your strategy. Same amount of planning happens in League... Step 2 is you find out what the patterns of usage will become by top-end players who will use them in all kinds of crazy ways.

That kind of change happens much more frequently in League, IMO.

If anything I'm still not persuaded the two games aren't equal in separate ways. League is (more) about choices. WoW is (more) about actions. Different kinds of complications, but still complexity all the same. All arguments spoken regarding high end PvP in both games, of course.

[Edited this paragraph because they worked off each other but I assume this one may (hopefully) still get the exact same point across]
Last possible argument I'll edit for now: If you want to take "PvP" in the title to literally mean the gameplay on the map/world... as you heavily analyzed (I thought the 1st post was great, btw).... I think (excluding the other aspects we have argued so far) that is semantic bullshit, as the other parts of League I have mentioned are clearly ALL about PvP. You do not get on League of Legends to change your talents and masteries in order to go down a raid boss.... Pre-game in League is PvP (And I happen to think that one facet is definitely more complicated than WoW even with the way they show you your enemy team these days). (I don't think anybody should doubt that... but just in case things get "semantic" or whatever you want to call it.)

I guess I'll re-implement that little joke I made as an even better summary: Even if BOTH games require strategies changes six ways 'til Sunday, and you think WoW starts on Saturday and League starts on Monday, that doesn't mean you're not working hard throughout the week. If anything, if there's a disagreement on which one of these games is more impressive to play (argued here as "complexity") from that perspective, I can respect people's opinions and say I reject the format, friendly-like.

[Those parentheses... Maybe I'll work on them if needed tomorrow. But really, I would've voted WoW and just wanted to bring League into a closer comparison. That's what I disagree with]

[Dabrix32]

WoW pvp is like rocket science.

People cant heal
People cant protect their healers
People cant assist
People cant fight near objectives

They should just make every single BG a big ass arena match with 0 objectives and have 15 vs 15 in a pit.

[worsthitmanNa]

Unless WoW got harder, it's players would find it easier. Same with any game. There is a skillcap people will reach eventually, and once more and more people start hitting it, people will say the game is easy. Watch any of the tournament/blizzcon games from BC/Wrath and you'll see what I mean, rank 1 players back then would've struggled against the duelists of this expansion.

In 7-8 years, people will say starcraft 2 and LoL are easy unless they keep pushing out more and more units/champions. The problem then is you completely alienate all the people who try and start the game from the beginning.

WoW is still trying to get new players into playing the game while adding more depth/skillcap for top-end raiders and PVPers, which other games don't have the problems of yet.

they have dumb down the game in some ways. Cleansing totem use to take off poisons and blind was a poison. Tremor wasn't as retard friendly as it is now. Everyone had to do things preemptively and now everyone just has a cd that lets them do x while stunned.etc glyph. Dismantling a warrior before wall and taking off his enrage so he couldn't heal himself. A lot of stuff got easier mechanics wise but players skill has increased a ton. Every spell not having a 40 yard range so you could kite a feral as hunter with cheetah up. I mean I don't miss random stun locks and wotlk burst damage but their were some mechanics that just made you feel like a god when you did them right.

In cata fire Mages had a 40 yard range on scorch and a on demand freedom with Mage ward. Frost Mages couldn't ice lance or frost bolt from more then 35 yards away so if you timed your stuff right you could beat a frost Mage naked as fire was pretty legit.

[Deleted]

WoW - it requires some of the highest manual dexterity of all of them, playing my spriest (83 keybinds) and warlock (68 keybinds) in high end pvp is comparable to playing a piano concerto - it's ludicrous how many abilities we juggle, macros and targetting keys we cycle through: in terms of manual dexterity the only thing close is FPS - and that's mouse-twitch, not key control.

Hmmm 83 keybinds. Even if you use 123 dispell shield pom renew swd leap silence and others with included focus which you wouldn't need anyway you couldn't get 83 but I can't imagen someone using 83 keybinds and at the same time backpedeling in arena.

[Myci]

Hmmm 83 keybinds. Even if you use 123 dispell shield pom renew swd leap silence and others with included focus which you wouldn't need anyway you couldn't get 83 but I can't imagen someone using 83 keybinds and at the same time backpedeling in arena.

As a healer, I use a ton of binds. For every Cc you have as a dps, SW: death, targeting macros ect you could have a keybind per arena 1/2/3 and/or focus just from those.
For each heal and dispel you could have a modifier for party member 1 and 2 and yourself. Not to mention macros. This keybind is lonk, this keybind is to kill link. This one is NS, this one is NS hex. This is shadowmeld, this is shadowmeld + swap ect. Now add 30-40 ( or however many) abilities with all these things in mind and you can definitely get that many binds.

[Deleted]

As a healer, I use a ton of binds. For every Cc you have as a dps, SW: death, targeting macros ect you could have a keybind per arena 1/2/3 and/or focus just from those.
For each heal and dispel you could have a modifier for party member 1 and 2 and yourself. Not to mention macros. This keybind is lonk, this keybind is to kill link. This one is NS, this one is NS hex. This is shadowmeld, this is shadowmeld + swap ect. Now add 30-40 ( or however many) abilities with all these things in mind and you can definitely get that many binds.

He's playing shadow, but even if you keybinds all heals + cleanse 123 and SWD silence 123 + focus, target 123, switch focus 123 you can't get 83 unless you count mount keybind, open bag, backpedeling keybind, movement keybinds, open guild tab, open friend list tab then yeah you can get 83. But just to think that someone uses that many keybinds in arena and yet at the same time uses backpedeling button just doesn't bit together. I'd compare it to going to university and not knowing basic calculation

[Myci]

He's playing shadow, but even if you keybinds all heals + cleanse 123 and SWD silence 123 + focus, target 123, switch focus 123 you can't get 83 unless you count mount keybind, open bag, backpedeling keybind, movement keybinds, open guild tab, open friend list tab then yeah you can get 83. But just to think that someone uses that many keybinds in arena and yet at the same time uses backpedeling button just doesn't bit together. I'd compare it to going to university and not knowing basic calculation

This is really just pointless splitting hairs, and the only point of it is to just call a mod a liar? maybe your point was that wow doesnt have that many keybinds. But even still, theres like 36 or so abilities as spriest, maybe abit more. Im sure he could have listed all his binds to show you, but anyone with arena 1-3 and focus variations with party targeting macros ect ect any person could get well into 50-60 binds. He was saying that this is obviously alot to manage physically, compared to what 6 binds in LoL..LOL
So really whats your point, because your just splitting hairs and not saying anything hes saying is actually false.

http://www.wowhead.com/class=5/priest#spells:type=-12

[Deleted]

Yeah it's harder to get good in Warcraft than it is in LoL I played both to top level so I'm saying from the experience. There are just too many abilities and stuff you have to pay attention compared to LoL and in LoL you'll get better insanely fast if you watch streams, the best example is Theoddone, streamers that explain what they do, why and how.

But yeah guy is lying about having 83 keybinds unless he's counting useless ones like I mentioned above.

[gtfo_my_internets]

people who say league is more complex because of champ numbers are out of their mind or have not played wow at any competitive level.

give a good league player 5 minutes to mess around with a brand new champ and they'll be able to stomp on you with it because there is a lot of similarity with abilities and playstyles. not to say each one doesn't have their unique quirks or whatever but when you can play like 6 or 7 champs really well you can probably play just about any champ. the actual difficulty in league is in knowing what the other champs can do. this comes with time, but it's a lot easier to handle unknown champs because of the pace of the game and the ability to recover from a mistake.

then you take WoW and give someone a decked out character of a class they've never played and 20 minutes later they're still working on keybinds and macros. there's some similarity here too between classes, but the sheer amount of things that you need to have hot keyed make learning to play at high levels take a lot longer. you have to spend time to build up the muscle memory for dozens of keybinds. avoiding mistakes in wow is also way more crucial than league. one mistake in arena and you lose. same can only be said for league during late game team fights, and often by then one side has a clear advantage.

[Yvaelle]

He's playing shadow, but even if you keybinds all heals + cleanse 123 and SWD silence 123 + focus, target 123, switch focus 123 you can't get 83 unless you count mount keybind, open bag, backpedeling keybind, movement keybinds, open guild tab, open friend list tab then yeah you can get 83. But just to think that someone uses that many keybinds in arena and yet at the same time uses backpedeling button just doesn't bit together. I'd compare it to going to university and not knowing basic calculation

I last made this list ages ago, but let's try it again shall we:

` - Shadowform
1 - Vampiric Touch
2 - Shadow Word: Pain
3 - Devouring Plague
4 - Mind Blast
5 - SW: Death
6 - Mind Sear
7 - Inner Fire
8 - Inner Will
9 - Power Word: Fortitude
Shift1 - Flash Heal
S2 - Prayer of Mending
S3 - Renew
S4 - Mind Spike (Cancelaura spike)
S5 - Binding Heal
Ctrl1 - Mind Vision
C2 - Mind Vision=Focus(used to be used for visioning rogues/druids/mages before they vanished or restealthed, now nerfed in arenas, but still important for world pvp)
C3 - cancelaura Levitate+Slow Fall+Parachute
C4 - cancelaura Dispersion
C5 - cancelaura Blessing of Protection
Q - PW: Shield
SQ - Healthstone
CQ - Shackle Undead
W - Move Forward
E - Mind Spike
SE - macro for Halo/Star/Cascade
CE - Nitro Boosts
R - Psychic Scream
SR - Shadowfiend/Mindbender
CR - Power Infusion + Int Potion
A - Strafe Left
S - Backpedal
D - Strafe Right
F - Mind Flay
SF - Mind Sear(target=my teams healer)
CF - Life Grip
G - Dispersion
SG - Spectral Guise / Desperate Prayer
Z - macro for Void Tendrils / Psyfiend / Dominate Mind
SZ - Fear Ward
CZ - Fear Ward (target=my teams healer)
X - Fade
SX - Levitate
CX - Goblin Glider
C - Silence
SC - Psychic Horror
CC - Psychic Horror=Focus
V - Dispel Magic
SV - Mass Dispel
CV - (old Abolish Disease/Cure Disease key)
Function 1 - Medallion (PvP Trinket)
F2 - Vampiric Embrace
F3 - Shadowmeld
F4 - Hymn of Hope
F5 - Symbiosis
Numpad_1(side of my mouse) - Target=Arena1
N2 - Target=Arena2
N3 - Target=Arena3
N4 - Silence=Arena1
N5 - Silence=Arena2
N6 - Silence=Arena3
N7 - PW: Shield=DPS Teammate
SN7 - Life Grip=DPS Teammate
N8 - PW: Shield=Healer Teammate
SN8 - Life Grip=Healer Teammate
N9 - PW: Shield=Self
N10 - Void Shift=DPS Teammate
N11 - Void Shift=Healer Teammate
N12 - Mount (you can discount this one if you like

That's 70 by my count, since the last time I counted was pre-MoP, some of the missing ones are likely former access to holy/disc spells to which I've since lost access. Is 70 a less preposterous number to you? Does it invalidate my comparison to LoL's 4(+2), or FPS's 15? I'm not sure I understand your point, but you're right in that it's not 83 anymore.

- - - Updated - - -

Hmmm 83 keybinds. Even if you use 123 dispell shield pom renew swd leap silence and others with included focus which you wouldn't need anyway you couldn't get 83 but I can't imagen someone using 83 keybinds and at the same time backpedeling in arena.

Is it that shadowpriests shouldn't bind their heals? Or that anyone who has a backpedal bind is bad? I've got news for you - pretty much any good melee player is going to use a backpedal rather than spin their camera away, move away, spin it back, move forward slightly - if their target moves too close to them.

As a priest, backpedal is particularly useful during Dominate Mind, which can be quite finicky with camera movement, while key-movement is consistent (if someone is standing on an edge, it's much safer to just backpedal them a step than it is to spin them and walk forward). As anyone in WoW though, movement keys are useful - even ones which are moderately slower. It's kind of pretentious to hate the backpedal key - there are plenty of valid reasons to want to move (but not in a hurry) without wanting to get targetting errors for not facing your target.

[Deleted]

That's 65 without counting moving keybinds. and with those that's 69 but you're missing 15 more but yeah you took effort to write all these down so I'll just stop right there with keybinds but this?

"Is it that shadowpriests shouldn't bind their heals?"
Did I say that? Of course it's good to bind it look I even said "Even if you use 123 dispell shield pom renew"

"pretty much any good melee player is going to use a backpedal rather than spin their camera away"
Any good melee player? Do you see anyone at high raitings backpedel? In BC/Wrath yeah but now no, backpedeling is awful it's same as debuffing yourself with a snare.
There is no reason why you should backpedel instead of right clicking your mouse and dragging it left or right. But calling it that any good melee player backpedels instead of using his mouse if enemy is too close is just wrong and incorrect and I don't know where did you get it from.

[Deleted]

Way, way more complicated than any moba game

[PrairieChicken]

SC1 had new strategies coming out until all the tornies died out (yes it was slower but it did happen)

[Deleted]

Not sure where I stand on this but the end of this thread on AJ is very relevant.

Read the posts by Lolflay and Thaya:

arenajunkies.com/topic/237243-new-shado-pan-arena-and-blades-edge-changes/page__st__100

I would say that to me it feels like wow has a high skill floor but a low skill cap. A good game or even sport should be easy to learn and difficult to master but it kind of seems like wow has gotten that backwards.

I also get the impression from wow's game mechanics that if given enough time any average person could get very good at arena, maybe not R1 but at least gladiator level, and that certainly isn't the case with other games.

The horrendous balance also makes this debate a lot more difficult to argue about. It's not that complicated to play whatever is FOTM and beat people with it.

I also strongly disagree with the statement that wow requires a lot of manual dexterity because you need to press many different keybinds. The GCD in wow gives you time to pause between actions and although it may seem like there are a lot of different buttons to press there just isn't a very high level of fluid interaction between the results of those button presses compared to say a fighting game whose manual dexterity required is on a whole different planet. In fact, I would say that wow requires the least manual dexterity of any competitive game (which wow is not) except maybe the MOBAS.