Paragon’s latest set of changes make it the MOBA it should have been

I have always been high on Paragon. Combining a third person shooter from the people who made Gears of War with a MOBA effectively sounds like my dream game, but after getting into the closed beta I walked away a little cold. Games felt a little too long and had large periods of inactivity, the character roster wasn’t exactly large, and there were a number of balance issues. I played around 20 or so hours and dropped out for a few months.

However, last week I got to play a pre-release version of the new patch, alongside some other journalists. The new patch includes tons of new changes and even a new character, which makes Paragon the MOBA that it should be.

The first, and perhaps most important, thing, that is apparently fixed in the new patch is the match length. Sure, one of the opening games at the event went for an hour and 20 minutes, but on average most games ended around 40 minutes, with some well before. Previously 50 minutes to an hour would be more common.

This has been done in a number of ways, but one of the most significant is that inhibitors no longer respawn. Before, losing an inhibitor would make teams turtle in their base until it game back up; but now having no respawns means they will have to move out and make plays. The constant pressure makes it much harder to win, and as a result when an inhibitor goes down it usually spells the beginning of the end.

Elsewhere there have been serious changes to XP rewards. The previous system gave equal XP to everyone in the area, which meant roaming as a five man team and getting kills was just as effective as splitting the lanes. Now the last hitter gets all the XP and the other XP is shared between those in the area, so if there are 4 others they will each get 25%. This will mean that roaming as a 5 is less viable in the early game and that splitting resources will be more important.

The long list of gameplay changes continues: auto attacks now auto level, which also means that when you hit the level cap all your abilities will be maxed. Passive abilities have been phased out and useful ones reworked into normal abilities for the hero, and casters now have longer range on most of their abilities. Minions now spawn instantly upon the game start and there are only four per wave, making the lanes less crowded. Changes to the Orb Prime mean that the carrier gets a small buff while carrying, and in future builds will be able to rebuild destroyed inhibitors. And finally, Killari has been reworked to make her more viable.

The star of the new look Paragon is a new hero known as Khaimera. Not too dissimilar to Troll Warlord in Dota 2 in both look and gameplay, Khaimera is a single target brawler who can deal massive damage to one enemy and become insanely tanky. He has a leap to close the gap to his prey, an ability that buffs his auto attacks for a short time and his ultimate which increases the damage done to a single target. However, his most interesting ability is his passive, which increases his health regen every time he hits something. This can stack infinitely, but is reset if he doesn’t hit something every three seconds.

From the two games that I played as Khaimera, it’s safe to say that outside of Muriel he is my favorite hero. His style rewards aggressive play and can function perfectly well alone. The solo nature of the hero suits my personal style, but he can also come up big in team fights taking all the glory. It will take a while to learn the limits of the hero, but when he launches on June 21st I will be first in the queue to play him.

Of course, there are still a lot of other changes to come before launch that Epic only touched on at the event. They mentioned that travel mode is becoming a thing of the past in favour of teleports a la Dota and potential speed boost locations on the map. This also means that a courier system may be implemented, where items can be dropped onto the field, like a care package in Call of Duty, but can also be destroyed by the enemy.

Also, Epic mentioned for the first time that they are working towards making this a competitive eSport. The first step on that journey is to implement a proper draft mode, where players pick their hero after loading into the game and not before joining a team. This allows for better team compositions and potential counters to be picked. Tournament play has also started up and more eSports friendly features are coming soon.

The big news from the event was that the open beta kicks off on August 16th on both PC and PS4, meaning anyone who wants to play Paragon will be able to. Until that happens, you can still buy into the early access period that is going on right now.

From what I played these changes almost make Paragon the exact game that I wanted, and with new heroes promised every three weeks it won’t be long before it gets there. There is still a long way to go before this becomes a top eSport and a regular pastime for me, but I am certainly excited about the future of Paragon once again.