House Rules for Experienced Players

By Ke5trel on July 29, 2009 7:44:04 PM from

I ran into a situation the other day where the group I was playing with joined a game of premade experts and a couple on my team asked that the opponent Sedna not use the 30% High Priest bug, since we were going to play without a Sedna of our own. The other team didn't agree to this and it was their host, so everyone on my side left the lobby.

In custom games it is host's game, his rules, no worries, but it would be cool if we could reach a common ground in pub games when it comes to glitches and broken mechanics.

What I'd like to do if it's possible is put together a set of standards which exclude the easily identifiable exploits. You can put it in the title of the game or someone joining a game could ask "House Rules apply?" and if the answer is yes then he knows that his opponents won't be using the following:

Disallowed per House Rules 7/29/09

1. Drop and re-equip hp and mana buff items for the bonus

2. Sedna Healing Wind + Level 3 idol Priests/High Priests

3. Horn of Battle

4. Minions inside Enemy Citadel Exploit

The flip side is that there are some things which *might* be imba or cheezy but aren't actually broken. These things will not be excluded from House Rules because the counters are broader:

Allowed per House Rules 7/29/09

1. Duplicate DGs on the same team

2. Backdoor flaglocking on Crucible

3. Minion Blitzing

4. Item feeding

These rules are absolutely up for debate, addition, and revision, but there are a few things I'd like you to consider before this turns into a "YES! NO!! You Dummy!!" thread:

- it is possible to beat a team which is using most or all of the disallowed mechanics, but it becomes very difficult to do so if you are not at least as good as they are and playing very specific Demigods and builds. The rules are designed to open up playstyles and teambuilds, not undercut the people who know how to play. Conversely, it's important that we don't make rules about things that work as intended but need tweaks to improve balance - only those mechanics which can be widely acknowledged are broken should be excluded from play

- creating arbitrary rules of play is less desirable than having a perfect game or having the devs remove the loopholes. Hopefully most of the issues will be resolved in 1.2, but until then there are enough mature and experienced players to make something like this work. Any attempts to turn this into a l33t vs scrub conversation will be missing the point.

- No one is saying you have to play by these rules unless they are specifically referenced in the game title or by the host. But if you join a game with "HR" or "House Rules" in the title or the host calls it in lobby before the game then you have a list of things you know are allowed or not, and it doesn't all have to be spelled out every time.

- Noobs and randoms probably don't even read these forums, so this list is for those of us who know how to play and want to play others who also know how to play. I'm not going to call House Rules in a random game and get pissed when LittleNewbie29 doesn't know what that means and you shouldn't either.

KK, if you guys have objections or additions bring them in

Thanks for reading,

Kestrel

+118 Karma | 106 Replies

Quoting Obscenitor,

reply 100

Why not just enjoy the process of getting to that point. Demanding that people continue to play a game past a point where they're having fun seems silly to me.

How exactly would you define "that point"? When do you decide it's over? I once had a comback when our enemies were higher level war rank and gold, they took out all our front towers, kept flag locking our portals hitting our citadel with giants (we only had catas) until it was at about half health. We, however managed to raise gold from killing creeps and also level up, fought desperatly untill we managed to make the enemy dg-s retreat, then we kept pressing our advantage, got giants, and crushed them.

Lots of people would have conceded when they saw that giants were destroying the citadel, hell, lots of people would have conceded when the enemy got giants before them. I am simply saying that you can never know 100% when your time is up. And passing up on a chance for a comback by conceding is just not good for a fun game.

How exactly would you define "that point"?

Seriously? It's when the other team stops having fun. They quit when they don't want to play because it's not a job, it's a video game.

Quoting Obscenitor,

reply 102

How exactly would you define "that point"?Seriously? It's when the other team stops having fun. They quit when they don't want to play because it's not a job, it's a video game.

Look, if people want to play casually and quit before the game ends that is fine by me, I sometimes do it myself. Those are casual games for people who just want to have fun without over-complicating themselves with rules and stuff. The whole point of this thread is to make some rules for people who DON'T compete just casually and that want to have a good game, with no exploits and no rage quitting. I just thought it would be nice not to concede. If one team starts to loose a game they should not run with their tails between their legs. Instead, keep fighting untill the game is over. That is called being a good sport.

Besides, some of the house rules do not apply now. I see a new patch came that fixed the sedna exploit, that "minion inside the citadel bug" and the HoB so I don't see the point of the House Rules anymore.

Quoting wraid,

reply 103

If one team starts to loose a game they should not run with their tails between their legs. Instead, keep fighting untill the game is over. That is called being a good sport.

*groans*

"Running away like cowards" would imply that they play defensively. Saying "You won, good game" when there is no chance of making a comeback is being a good sport by admitting defeat.

We're not referring to dying once and ragequitting. If someone are still walking around with banded armor and level 2 minions while the entire other team is romping around with 20 kills each and their multiple artifacts, it's just no fun for either side unless the winners are of a narcissistic nature, which is arguably a worse sport than the losers admitting defeat.

It's more about preference. But as I said, most of the issues the house rules were made for have been fixed by this new patch so unless someone can come up with some other exploits, there is no point to argue here.

They actually fixed all of the issues, which means these rules have no bearing any more Couldn't have asked for a better conclusion to the thread

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House Rules for Experienced Players