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Battlerite |OT| Bloodline Champions Redux

T

Teknopathetic

Member
battlerite_logo_backgo5suk.png


no crazy infographics.


What is it? Battlerite is a spiritual succesor to Bloodline Champions, a multiplayer team arena game. Many heroes currently in Battlerite are adaptations of characters from Bloodline Champions.

Why? I'm not actually sure. If I had to guess, it's their attempt at taking Bloodline Champions (A great game, btw) and giving it life by making it a more palatable product. A lot of characters have been redesigned. The production values overall are *much* better. And since they're self-publishing they shouldn't run into the same problems they had with Funcom who seemed to be pressuring them into making the F2P aspects of BLC very grindy.

How Much? It will be free to play when it leaves early access. Currently it's 19.99USD (17.99 launch sale). If you purchase early access you'll get all heroes that are released in the future, forever. It's unclear if they'll offer a similar bundle in the future after early access is over (perhaps at a higher price).

How does it play? If you look, it might initially seem very similar to Heroes of the Storm or League of Legends, but though it uses the MOBA moniker, there are no lanes, no creeps, no jungle, no items, etc. The maps are small and focused on direct team vs team battles. All abilities are skillshots and because there's more damage than there is healing, being able to predict and counter or dodge abilities is a core aspect of playing the game.

In the arenas there are runes that spawn in the middle that give health or energy, which encourages players to control the center of the map. Energy is similar to a "super meter" in Street Fighter. There are 4 stocks and each character has "EX" abilities that will use one stock of meter and an ultimate ability that will use the entire meter.

In this game, your maximum health is 40 hp more than the lowest health you've reached. If your character has 210 health and you take 50 damage you can then only be healed up to 200 health.

New to Battlerite are the eponymous battlerites. Before each round, you choose a new Battlerite which is essentially a trait that alters your abilities. These are tiered, similar to Heroes of the Storm's traits, so you can only get one from each set of three.

Characters As previously mentioned, a lot of characters currently are direct remakes from Bloodline Champions.

capturegwse4.png


Screenshots

img-ss1.jpg

img-ss5.jpg


Gameplay Trailer
 
D

Dantero

Member
This looks pretty nice. Like a MOBA but without the 30 minutes of boredom at the beginning.
Is it "at" or "in"?
Getting a new mouse today, so this might be a good way to test it.
 
K

Keasar

Member
birdman-hand-rub.gif

Aw yes, as a fan of Bloodline Champions since it was a school project here in Skövde, been looking forward to a sequel that ripped off the stuff that I think ruined it for me after Funcom picked it up.
 
E

Eridani

Member
I've played the beta and spent a lot of time playing Bloodline Champions back when it was still a thing (the games are really similar) and the game is just really, really fun. The basic idea is simple - a 2v2 or 3v3 arena style fight similar to a MOBA or WoW arena, except with much better execution.

First of all, every skill needs to be aimed (like skillshots in League of Legends), which immediately introduces a cool dodging/aiming/zoning aspect to the game, similar to fighting games. The game is also designed in a way that makes every move matter, with a lot of really high impact skills that can quickly turn the game around. This keeps things constantly exciting, since you have to carefully dodge or counter important skills from the enemy team, make sure your own skills land and use good positioning/zoning to ensure you won't get overwhelmed by the enemy team. The MOBA comparison seems a bit unfair really, since no teamfight in DOTA or LOL even comes close to being this fun. Fighting games are probably a better comparison. Something like Marvel or Gundam Versus is perhaps a better comparison, but the game is just really unique.

The characters/champions are also really well designed and diverse in how they play (they are actually all (edit: nearly all) remakes of Bloodline Champions characters, but that can't really be counted as a negative when they are this fun). Ranged characters play completely differently from melee characters, and even characters within the same class play completely differently. For example, most characters have a mobility/escape skill that helps them get out of bad situations, which is especially handy on support characters as they tend to get focused a lot. However, one of the healers doesn't have that, which forces you to rely on a crowd control skill to get people away from you, and missing that skill can get you killed really quickly. Another support character has weak heals but compensates that with good melee damage that needs to charge up, which means that you have to constantly switch up between being aggressive and supporting your teammates, constantly teleporting in and out of action while using your crowd control to ensure you don't die the moment you get into melee range. Basically every character has their own playstyle, which is great.

The business model is also really good at the moment. $20 for all characters and early access seems like a good price, and you can't buy an advantage in any way. And considering how everyone knows that Bloodline Champions was ruined with shitty pay to win monetization I doubt the devs will repeat that mistake in Battlerite.

I just can't praise the game enough. It's fun, it's unique, it has a high skill ceiling and it's one of the best multiplayer games I've ever played.
 
M

Mechazawa

Member
I remember always wanting to try out Bloodlines, but the No One Actually Playing It part always (rightly) stopped me.

Will definitely be checking this out.
 
E

Eridani

Member
Teknopathetic said:
Are they all remakes? I couldn't put my finger on which characters Pearl or Oldur were supposed to be.
Click to expand...

Pearl is Herald of Insight, sort of - the bubbles are there, and they play similarly enough. Oldur is interesting though, since I don't see a direct comparison. I guess I should have played the beta more, but it's weird that out of all of them only one doesn't seem to be a remake. Especially when the newly released character for early access was a remake.
 
S

StrangeRoboMemory

Member
Hmm, this might be cool! I'm not sure how I feel about the character designs yet. I'd say:

Best
------
Poloma

Good/Good-ish
---------------------
Bakko
Tarya
Croak
Ashka
Oldur

Inoffensive but Generic
--------------------------------
Sirius
Shifu
Pearl
Lucie
Jade

Bad
-----
Freya
Iva

What's interesting is that there's actually a case of a really good design next to something awful. I think Poloma looks really cool, but then her pet...

battlerite.jpg


This thing is begging to be put out of its misery. The 3D model isn't even properly posed, it's like they just ripped the model and then splashed it on Photoshop without any other thought. It's a shame, because I wouldn't mind playing as Poloma, but I don't want to interact with that creature, haha.
 
M

Mechazawa

Member
Weirdly light discussion up in here for this being the top selling steam game, but uh...

Yeah, I'm really enjoying this. I ended up being surprised how straight forward/simple it is. I knew it was an arena brawler, but I thought there were going to be objectives or point controls or something. But nope, this is pretty much just TDM with the occasional power up in the middle. Great for a quick MOBA-esque fix though, and the quick matches lend themselves to you getting stuck into a "just one more" kinda loop.

The lack of teammates to lean onto really makes the shit-for-brains stand out, though.
 
C

Clearos

Member
Bias as a BLC fan but this game has been amazing and I am hoping it continues to be successful to get a strong following. Being able to get a few matches in under an hour or even a quick 10 minute play session is great.

*WASD is king
*Really enjoy following smite's route of $20 for all future content
 
G

GuitarAtomik

Member
Probably going to take the plunge on this. The main things that got me in to Smite were direct control and skill shots, and I've always really enjoyed the Arena mode there so this sounds up my alley. Also they have some crazy VR spectating stuff planned.
 
S

Speely

Banned
This looks great!! I have literally been waiting for a game pretty much just like this. Seems to hit all the right notes.
 
J

jon bones

hot hot hanuman-on-man action
sounds neat, i have recently been turned onto MOBAs thanks to Vainglory and this looks right up my alley

how long is the avg match? i never enjoyed lol or dota both because of the farming phase and match length. this seems to address both issues!
 
B

bizzarewars

Banned
Wait...

It's a MOBA without creeps and lanes and whatnot and it has an SF style super meter...

This might be the only MOBA I'd like. I'm gonna keep an eye on this one.
 
C

Clearos

Member
jon bones said:
sounds neat, i have recently been turned onto MOBAs thanks to Vainglory and this looks right up my alley

how long is the avg match? i never enjoyed lol or dota both because of the farming phase and match length. this seems to address both issues!
Click to expand...

It is a best of 5 and each match last around 2 minutes (from my experience) after a set time the match area does begin to shrink where it is impossible to avoid each other.
 
G

GuitarAtomik

Member
bizzarewars said:
Wait...

It's a MOBA without creeps and lanes and whatnot and it has an SF style super meter...

This might be the only MOBA I'd like. I'm gonna keep an eye on this one.
Click to expand...

To be fair, I don't think you can call this a MOBA. Not any more than you would call Diablo 3's PvP mode a MOBA at least.
 
T

Teknopathetic

Member
"Fun game
Any well known players (like ex-blc) that stream?"

I've seen Teldo, Jackazzm, Hafu, and Mr2Tal streaming. Teldo in particular has been streaming a lot.
 
J

jon bones

hot hot hanuman-on-man action
Clearos said:
It is a best of 5 and each match last around 2 minutes (from my experience) after a set time the match area does begin to shrink where it is impossible to avoid each other.
Click to expand...

interesting. how do "battlerites" work? are they all available from the start or are they unlocked like paragon styled cards?
 
Saoshyant

Saoshyant

Member
How does it compare to BLC? I rather liked BLC when I used to play years ago (like in 2012?) and wouldn't mind investing on their new game if it's better.
 
J

jon bones

hot hot hanuman-on-man action
alright, this is pretty great

glad i got the EA lifetime price, i can see this blowing up once it goes f2p... needs more waifus though for that real $$
 
V

voOsh

Member
piratepwnsninja said:
Are people going to get all angry at me for being new and learning the game?
Click to expand...

I've played like 20-30 matches and can only remember 1 instance of someone talking shit. The quick 10-15 minute matches go a long way to reducing salt level compared to something like LoL or Dota. Although, I expect it gets worse as you rise the competitive ranks.
 
B

bounchfx

Member
bought this based on the word of mouth plus being a fan of pvp games

the character designs almost look as bad as league but if it's fun that's what matters. will give it a go tonight. Really hope I dig it!
 
T

Teknopathetic

Member
"interesting. how do "battlerites" work? are they all available from the start or are they unlocked like paragon styled cards?"

They're all available from the start. There are 5 tiers, each tier has 3 battlerite, except for the 5th which only has 2. At the beginning of each round you pick a battlerite from that tier.


"How does it compare to BLC? I rather liked BLC when I used to play years ago (like in 2012?) and wouldn't mind investing on their new game if it's better."

It's nigh identical. Characters have one less ability than in BLC and I believe they made it slightly easier to land skillshots. If you don't mind that the game is only 99% like BLC and not 100%, you'll probably enjoy it a lot. And thus far, it's better than BLC in the most important way: People are actually playing it.
 
A

Alur

Member
Picked this up a few days back and have been enjoying it in 10-20 minute bursts. It's definitely not a game that plays to my strengths, but I find myself in the top 2 on the scoreboard at the end of most matches. It's very fun and intense.

Matchmaking is super quick, too. Maybe a tad too quick. I often encounter melee/ranged vs ranged/ranged or melee/melee vs ranged/ranged and the melee heavy group nearly always wins with dive. Granted I'm probably among the scrubbiest of the scrubs, but that's how it's felt so far. The matches aren't exactly stomps, just feel a little unbalanced if you have someone like Lucie who relies on charge/long cooldown for mobility and the like.

Also 9 of 10 games have at least one Shifu, if not two. People love that dude for whatever reason.
 
T

Teknopathetic

Member
"Matchmaking is super quick, too. Maybe a tad too quick. I often encounter melee/ranged vs ranged/ranged or melee/melee vs ranged/ranged and the melee heavy group nearly always wins with dive. Granted I'm probably among the scrubbiest of the scrubs, but that's how it's felt so far. The matches aren't exactly stomps, just feel a little unbalanced if you have someone like Lucie who relies on charge/long cooldown for mobility and the like."


Lucie in particular can be pretty hard to play against melee focusing, because you absolutely need to hit with your abilities to defend yourself. Likewise, you need to be extra vigilant on not hitting trances (counters) and you also need your partner to peel for you as much as possible. Just tunneling people works if players aren't able to use their abilities to defend themselves, that can't be helped.
 
A

Alur

Member
Yeah that's been my experience. It placed me at grade 7, which is not very good I'm going to assume. There is just a tunnel fest. Whichever team has the most brute force just pummels the weakest link til they either figure it out or die. It's fun, though, don't get me wrong. Just seems like it's a bit easier to run roughshod with the melee at my rank.
 
S

Son of a Witch

Member
I think it's the first time I've enjoyed playing only supports in a game. Everyone of them is very fun and hectic, except Poloma (fuck Poloma).
 
N

ncslamm

Member
Didn't hear about this game until today when I was browsing steam. I had $20 that's been sitting in my steam wallet for months so I decided, "why not?" Absolutely no regrets. I started the tutorial and what seems like 10 minutes turned into 3 straight hours of playtime. This game is going to be great.
 
T

Teknopathetic

Member
As someone who really enjoyed BLC, I'm surprised and pretty stoked about the response the game has gotten. Though part of me is also like "Well, why didn't you guys check this out 5 years ago?" but that was a different time. Plus, I'm glad that Funcom didn't see any of this success with it, fuck them.
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
I played Bloodline Champions during one of the very early betas and didn't like it much, but find this game fantastic.

I'm not sure if it's me or the game that has changed more.
 
T

Teknopathetic

Member
"I played Bloodline Champions during one of the very early betas and didn't like it much, but find this game fantastic.

I'm not sure if it's me or the game that has changed more."


There are only some very slight alterations to the formula in this game. Though the overall aesthetic and experience of the game is much improved. I didn't mind the sort of darker, tribal style of BLC, but it definitely was not as polished an experience overall as Battlerite.
 
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