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[Thexor]

Super Monday Night Combat (SMNC) is a free-to-play, DOTA-esque third-person shooter. It's been in beta for the last few months, but today was released to the general public.

The game plays out similarly to a round of DotA or LoL, mixed in with considerable amounts of TF2. Teams of 5 battle it out across the field while waves of robots spawn and mindlessly charge towards the opposition. Your goal is to push your bots towards the enemy base, destroying towers and slaying enemy Pros on the way as you approach your ultimate objective: the opponent's Moneyball.

Unlike other shooters, bots play a major role in the game. Enemy turrets, along with the Moneyball, are protected by durable shields that negate all player bullets. A single shot from a robot, however, will drop the shields and allow players to attack. Likewise, gunning down opposing robots is the fastest way to gain money and levels, turning you into that unstoppable, overlevelled killing machine that everyone aspires to become.

Unlike other MOBA games, you play from a third-person over-the-shoulder perspective, raining down a hail of bullets (plus the odd banana peel) at the enemy. Aim and reflexes are valuable but not essential, as with twitch shooters. In SMNC, players have remarkably high health, and it's not uncommon to watch a nearly-dead foe re


Best of all, the game is currently available, and as mentioned before it's free-to-play. Real money can be used to purchase Pros (a few are available for free, rotating each week), as well as skins, taunts, and other cosmetics. Pros can be unlocked either with real money or with in-game currency, while items that affect gameplay (such as products and endorsements) are only purchasable with in-game currency, so the game is decidedly not pay-to-win.

So: is there anyone else out there who plays, or is interested in playing, this game? I've been in the beta for a few months, and I'm interested to see what happens now that it's open to the general public. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(Fun fact: it was released a day in advance. The dev team screwed up with the invite system, the game became available to the general public, and the devs said "#$%^ it, we're doing it live.")

[ductape]

if this is anything like the original Monday Night Combat, I think it's nothing like DoTA at all. Its a lot my like any other arena FPS but in 3rd person instead of 1st. These sorts of arena shooters have been around quite some time on all sorts of engines.

DoTA and LoL you dont directly steer your toon, you just click like in Warcraft, since thats where all those started. I think.

Anyway, I am not expert, I just dont feel like this game is in the same genre as DoTA and LoL.

I will say that  did like Monday Night Combat quite a bit and will likely check this out as well.

[Frumple]

From what I've heard, it's definitely an AoS style game, of which DotA-types fall under. AoS doesn't really dictate movement/attack method or perspective -- there were arrow-key controlled and first person AoS maps back during WC3 days. The big defining factor is the "heroes among armies" thing, a clash between opposing (mostly computer controlled, at least for the fodder mooks) armies with the major deciding factor being the efforts of extraordinary individuals and leaders influencing the flow of battle.

Honestly, you could have a ASCII turn-based AoS without any problem, as an example. What makes an AoS an AoS isn't form, exactly, it's formula. First person direct control is fine, too.

[Endymion]

if this is anything like the original Monday Night Combat, I think it's nothing like DoTA at all. Its a lot my like any other arena FPS but in 3rd person instead of 1st. These sorts of arena shooters have been around quite some time on all sorts of engines.

If it hasn't changed much since I played the beta a few months back, it isn't like MNC at all. Think of MNC but with everyone slowed down heavily, given a lot more health, almost all the instant-kills removed, cash for arena triggers being separated from skill-leveling, and about a dozen more changes. They basically sacrificed the part that made MNC a good shooter with interesting mechanics in order to make it more rigidly adherent to the DOTA style.

I actually hate SMNC heavily because I loved MNC and this 'sequel' threw out all the good parts of it. Cash being used for skill upgrades, for instance, was a really good part of MNC: it made cash an important resource since you had to choose if you wanted to use it on upgrades, towers, jump-plates, trap-plates, save for the annihilator, or save for juice. Taking the character upgrades out of that list really reduces the demand on money, as it was the main demand previously. Then with everyone being tankier and slower it takes out a lot of the twitch-skill and hectic interesting gameplay. In MNC snipers could max out flak and go offensive short range, getting easy kills on unsuspecting targets with flak's good AoE DPS, throwing down traps to be even more destructive. Meanwhile assaults would often fly by on a flank and drop unsuspecting targets quickly a mid-range with their gun, or go for a charge off the map if things were brought in close. Pretty much every class could kill any other in a second if they had a better position for the engagement. This was well balanced by the fact that most classes could exit or modify engagements quickly if they did see the threat coming.

All that fast interesting stuff has been thrown out in SMNC. The gameplay has become a lot slower, the old situation where everyone had a few trump cards is gone. It feels like a game they balanced by nerfing everyone-- which just isn't my style of game. MNC was the opposite: a game balanced by all sides being buffed.

They did keep one good thing though: Mickey Cantor. I've always thought more games need announcers.

[LASD]

In MNC snipers could max out flak and go offensive short range, getting easy kills on unsuspecting targets with flak's good AoE DPS, throwing down traps to be even more destructive.

Thia was the only thing I did in MNC and really the only way I enjoyed the game. I had a better first impression and more fun with SMNC than I did with MNC. This one is more about pressure, tactic and running away than twitch-shooting, which somehow makes me happier. Or it might be that I've lost 2 matches out of 15 or so.

They did keep one good thing though: Mickey Cantor. I've always thought more games need announcers.

Actually, in the latest Rule Changes they took him out to replace him with two inferior commentators. It seems like they couldn't get the voice actor on board or something.

[Haschel]

I've invested quite a bit of time (and admittedly, money) into this. I've got mixed feelings for it, though. I like the core game idea and they've done a pretty decent job of ironing out the pacing of the game, though they make some questionable buff/nerf changes due to the fact that the developers look more at player statistics than player opinions. What I mean is, this game has a slight learning curve... Not a huge one, but enough that a new player will be at a constant disadvantage compared to a seasoned player, and this affects the overall statistics with which the developers are making their gameplay tweaks. When seasoned players bring up valid arguments of mechanics that need to be changed, they generally get ignored unless the statistics match the argument. The other half of that is that it's probably difficult for the developers to gauge serious reactions from players due to the community being a tad bit immature.

I think I've invested upwards of 300 hours at this point, but I haven't played in weeks as my interest seems to have faded. Part of it is that I just don't find any of the Pros enjoyable to play as, with Combat Girl being the only thing I can stand to play anymore. I'd really like to see this game succeed but it probably won't ever have more than a cult following... Unless it was free to play, I guess. Wouldn't be too surprised if that were the case.

Edit: Almost forgot, I've still got two invites if anyone is interested.

[Enzo]

Unless it was free to play, I guess. Wouldn't be too surprised if that were the case.

Edit: Almost forgot, I've still got two invites if anyone is interested.

It's free to play, was always designed to be so, and also already released so your invites aren't worth much.

Tried it tonight, just a practice match. Seemed pretty slow moving, but I didn't know what the hell I was doing and I was the only Pro on the field, so I'll have to give it a legit match sometime to know if it's interesting.

[Neonivek]

Well that means Haschel is that the main audiance of the game, at least the percieved one, are casual players who won't delve into the strategy of the game.

I can understand making it so all characters are great for new players to pick up but who do have access to a high level of strategy later on... even if it makes the midgame somewhat suffer... but still.