Awesomenauts' main problems [WIP?]

[b]#1 - Game is being made competitive when it has little competitive potential[/b]

Say all you want, but 'Nauts is NOT a difficult game - you can pick up and learn any 'Naut in as little as a few games to a week (depends, but it's not a long time either way), and mastered in a little longer than that.
The differences between a bad player, a good player and an excellent player are rather subtle - they are there but it doesn't take you a long time to hit most Nauts' skill ceilings.

And that's not a bad thing, except that people try to make it "the next e-sport like DOTA or Starcraft!".

See, when Ronimo designed 'Nauts, they wanted it to be a less hardcore version of DOTA - they wanted it to be less complex.
However, by removing some of the game's complexity they also sacrificed a fair amount of its depth - you need to do less things at once to have a presence in the match, but you can also DO less overall.

You only have 3 players per team (which is both good and bad), you have less characters to play as (which is, again, both good and bad), you only have 2 skills (and a unique autoattack) instead of the usual 4 (or more in some specific cases).
The shop only has passive items tailored to your character, with the exception of the utility row which is somewhat debatable since it also varies slightly for some characters.
The roles are not as diverse as in other games - say all you want but you generally have to build into damage one way or the other if you want to be effective in the match - you don't have any dedicated junglers since the jungle is not really worth controlling as much as it is in other games etc. etc.

I could go on like that for longer, but my point is that the game has far, FAR less depth than your standard MOBA - and depth is something crucial for a game that wants to be competitive.

And at this point it would be really difficult to change that - adding another skill would be a major undertaking in and of itself since it would have to be implemented in a single patch (if only because some nauts having 3 skills while others would have 2 would be imbalanced like hell), it would be a massive undertaking to design meaningful skills that compliment Nauts' already existing roles, they would have to be fully animated for all nauts and their skins and it would be one giant balance mess.

Another idea would be active consumables that can be re-purchased in the shop, but the truth is that the game doesn't really need them - you don't need "potions" since there are healthpacks and creeps almost everywhere, and you can always just teleport back, or heck, even walk back, since the maps are not big enough to require items like that.


In the end though, the game should stop trying to appeal to the competitive side when it's so tiny and will likely remain like that because it doesn't have enough depth to become competitive enough to support a healthy "pro" scene - heck, we don't even have true dedicated 'Nauts pros that live off prize money like the Starcraft, LoL and Dota pros actually do.

Instead the devs should start focusing on the game's casual side because we really don't have enough MOBAs like that (or any, really) - and balance the game around the largest portion of its community - the League 2-high League 3 players, since they are not completely stupid like L4-L9s players (who there are not that many to begin with anyway!) and are generally similarly-skilled to the oh so few "pros" in L1.

[b]#2 - There are few reasons for players to stay around for long[/b]

Gotta give Ronimo credit here, the game is really good at luring new players in, especially during the F2P periods and sales and such, but make no mistake - once you level up and reach maximum level (which takes forever now apparently), you have nothing to do - you can prestige, which gives you a fancy badge and forces you to do the same grinding all over again. And then you can do it again 9 more times if you so desire! And until then you are handicapped in terms of your builds, sometimes pretty heavily even - a good example would be Clunk with Salvo Value Pack - literally every non-prestige Clunk build has this upgrade in it, which is not accessible to Clunks for quite a long while if they want to prestige, which sucks big time for them.

And apart from prestiging, there is not much else to do - due to how the leaderboards work, it's rather pointless trying to reach the #1 spot. There is no real reward for winning which results in players quitting due to lack of incentive that would make them want to actually stay.

It's also why I don't think the game should be going F2P anytime soon - I honestly doubt that Ronimo would be able to sustain the game with only DLCs like skins.

The level progression needs a rework, a big one at that. People quit because they don't feel they'd be leaving that much behind if they did, with the relatively few exceptions of people that already invested a fair amount of money into skins, Starstorm donations and what else have you.

The game feels like a generic MMO - the leveling up phase might be (comparatively) decent but once you reach the lategame there is nothing to really do.
Whether it's Awesomepoints or Ronimo's own implementation, it's badly needed if the game is expected to grow long-term.

[b]#3 - Nerf cycle is continuously killing the game's fun and how to stop it[/b]

To clarify what the nerf cycle is to the unaware bunch - let's say that naut X is nerfed because they feel "too strong compared to the rest of the cast" - even though they were perfectly fine just a few patches ago. Even if X is now considered "balanced", Y is now suddenly becoming strong because they were not touched by any nerfs yet. Y is nerfed but now Z is considered "overpowered" - again, even though they were not buffed recently.
Do so for a few times and you end up at X being overpowered again.

It's extremely frustrating and needs to stop - it's killing the game's fun at a slow but painful pace. Why?
It's pretty simple - the more power players have, the more fun they are generally going to have, because they feel that they can accomplish more. It's the reason why games like Dota are so popular - everyone feels really strong and appealing to play in their own right. Nobody really feels "weak".
Yes, it does make things more difficult to balance right, but it's not impossible, in most cases.

People keep saying that by nerfing the most mandatory upgrades, it will encourage build diversity - NO, IT WILL NOT. AND LET ME TELL YOU WHY.
See, people usually don't go with meta builds like triple damage because the damage upgrades are overpowered (in most cases), it's because other options simply suck - let's look at two examples - Vinnie and Froggy, and their dash rows.

Froggy has a lot of utility on his dash at base - decent range, damage immunity, a stun, piercing, not-horrific cooldown, but very low damage (for a base skill) - and what are his upgrade options? Two of the weakest cooldown upgrades in the game (even when stacked) and a subpar slow? Naturally Frog is going to go full-on damage becuase double clocks+slow would be a joke.
Even if you were to nerf damage, people would still probably go with it, not because it's still too strong, but because you didn't actually change his other options to be more on par with the damage.
Surely after enough nerfs people would probably drop damage in favor of other options, but simply because damage would now suck and they'd be forced to go with other shitty options, effectively lowering Froggy's dash power by a ton and forcing a different meta build.

Encourage poeple to switch their builds by buffing other options and make them go "Oh man, this upgrade looks really good now!" instead of nerfing their current build and making them go "Damn, this upgrade sucks, but my current one sucks more...Welp, I guess it's time to change.".

Exhibit B - Vinnie and Spike, Spike Dive row.
350 AoE damage and a self-displacement. Amazing at base, isn't it? /s
What amazing upgrade options do we have?

A slightly larger AoE? Pretty crutchy.
A % lifesteal? That doesn't require damage stacking, oh no.
Double dive supposed to give you more utility? With such great base utility and horrific damage output, it's a great upgrade indeed.
And three different damage upgrades.

Yes, I am very curious what build I should go with.

...See where I'm going? People don't go with the most meta builds because they're overpowered, it's becuase other options simply suck, and by thinking that the most meta builds are overpowered, they will be nerfed, and the nerf cycle will continue.

It's been more or less like this for a long while now, and it's really annoying.
But, there is a good example of a diverse row where damage is NOT mandatory - Skolldir's Bash row.

As much as I hate Skolldir, his AA has some legit diversity - you can stack double damage, sure, but who does that? You can just triple stack utility (the infamous stunhealrange punch) and it's actually one of the more viable rows. But damage is also a popular pick. What gives? Damage not mandatory? That's crazy talk!

No, it isn't. It's just that no upgrade really requires any other to work - you could argue that range is somewhat mandatory, but it synergizes well with everything else on the row instead of just with damage like most similar upgrades do.

By making utility upgrades appealing, strong and independent, Skolldir's AA does not have the issue of "damage = mandatory". And it was not even that hard. And it can be achieved in a simple way on pretty much any other row, or entire characters even.

BadassKetchup has made a few "diversity mods" with ASM (Awesomenauts Settings Manager) with which he reworked upgrade rows of a lot of Nauts (including but not limited to Raelynn, Vinnie, Sentry and Ted) and made is to that no upgrade is mandatory - all on his own. Not to mention that he also made Raelynn's snipe actually fun to use... But I digress.

The point is that it made the game fun to play, which is most definitely not something I can say after seeing Ronimo's balance changes. Take notes, Ronimo. Please.