I love you guys. lol.
Hey suyon, you got a bigger version of your pic I could have? :3
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HoN is more like DotA but with differences here n there, many different heroes, and a lot of dota heroes not in it.
LoL is a spiritual successor to DotA, but there are many differences between them.
LoL is free to play, and if people want...they can buy an advantage. No matter how much LoL's fanbase wants to deny it, in any and every game there are tiers. There are those heroes/characters/classes which are hard pressed to defend/beat others. That means those who pay to get other heroes faster than unlocking them via ingame money earned via playtime will have an advantage over those who slowly buy heroes and have to use the public 'cycle' (a randomly changing list of heroes usable by those who don't own any) You can buy increased money gain %'s, you can buy increased xp gain %'s, and you can buy money to buy the heroes and runes for the summoner system. LoL has a system that stays in effect across games. A lvl 30 will have far more advantages than a lvl 1 in terms of what they have. There are runes to give increased armor, armor over levels (more than a flat amount, but it takes more levels to get better than it, get it? a lot of things are like that), magic res, health, mana, mana regen, health regen, cooldown reduction, etc. etc. They create an advantage, even if they think it doesnt...it does. A lvl 30, if they chose, could have close to 1k starting hp or 800 or so starting mana. More than enough to nuke someone to death at lvl 2 or 3. It's a great idea for a system, but the problem is they never balance it. They only balance the heroes, which is like trying to cure the symptoms of a disease without trying to cure the disease. They refuse to balance both aspects, and I honestly have no idea why. LoL boasts some former people who helped on DotA. IIRC it's uh...guinsoo and 1 other. Cant remember who, but it's not Eul.
HoN boasts 'permission' from icefrog (As if it's his decision...he didn't create it) some dota ports, reimaginings, and a host of original heroes. In terms of which plays closest to dota, it's hon. in terms of what has the most interesting new ideas/experiments, it's lol.
They both have good and bad parts of the community, just like LoL. They both have mid game reconnection if you're DC'd, they both have a match making ranking system, they both have an in game store now (something lamented and loved in HoN, and like TF2, I can only see it getting worse from here) There's more than that, but I'm trying to keep it short ^^;.
EDIT: Runes are the things that summoner levels allow you to use. As you level up, you get more slots to fit. It's an attempt at a persistent system in the game meant to increase it's depth, but in my opinion? It just creates a lot of balance issues, and it's one of the game's aspects I've never heard of them even attempting to change/balance. The gameplay of hon/dota was not created with persistent effects across games in mind. The idea was every game, everyone started equal; at nothing. You had to build yourself up while fighting off enemies. That was the idea. The runes create a problem with that equation by starting you off with vastly more hp, or hp regen, or cooldown reduction, or this or that. In the case of some heroes (mundo only uses hp. no mana or agil. his spells cast hp. stack on hp n hp regen for the most part and bam...he's got an 80 damage nuke that is spammed for 30-60 hp that can be regenned and used indefinitely at lvl 1-3 range for a ton of damage) the inbalance is more obvious and more immediately damaging than others.
Don't get me wrong, the game has a lot of great ideas, and it's definitely an interesting experiment. Try it if you want, and if you like it, hey go ahead n enjoy; it's a game, that's what it's there for. I personally just believe it's horribly unbalanced, and them refusing to touch the runes will ensure they never truly balance anything. Not my cup o tea...*shrug* I also dislike some of the gameplay changes. Different strokes I suppose...
Oh! HoN also has a map editor. LoL does not. It's a beta map editor, and who knows if S2 (developers of HoN) will ever actually finish it, but it IS there and usable.