Tomorrow will see the release of the Monolith update for Epic's MOBA Paragon, and, as the name suggests, it's going to be a big one. "Everything changes," as Epic puts it, with "faster, more action-oriented gameplay" on a smaller map, and updates to every hero in the game.
At the top of the Big List O' Changes is the size, lane structure, and "meta gameplay" of the map. "We want to more solidly deliver on the promise of what we felt Paragon should be, and when we looked at the game in its current live state, we didn’t feel that we’d quite nailed it yet," lead hero designer Cameron Winston wrote. "The first major change is that gameplay is faster. Specifically, we’re talking about faster movement speed, ability and attack execution speed, and overall game lethality. We feel this direction will help Paragon truly achieve the goal we’ve always had: The MOBA that puts you in the action."
Player speed has been increased to the point that Epic warned "it's going to take a few matches for many players to get the feel of things," and damage, armor, health, and mana calculations have been changed as well. New damage types will give players the ability to "better itemize armor against incoming damage," and the "Physical" and "Energy" categories have been ditched in favor of a unified "Power" stat that will increase basic attacks and abilities.
Cooldowns have been dramatically reduced, "to help hit our gameplay goals of faster ability usage," while mana costs have been increased for some abilities, forcing players to choose between more, or more effective, activations. Every hero in the game has been rebalanced as well, "with an eye toward both faster speeds and faster kill times." That means reduced ranges for most abilities, and faster activation animations "across the board," with movement speed buffs and slows adjusted accordingly.
"The goal of all these changes is very straightforward—we are confident that this new version of Paragon will deliver a faster, more visceral gameplay experience that you’d expect from an action game while retaining all of the meta game and strategy of a competitive MOBA," Winston said.
This isn't the first time Epic has overhauled Paragon: "Radical new changes" were introduced over the summer, which we said at the time brought it "closer in line with the high expectations of the MOBA genre." A full breakdown of the current round of changes (which I would urge you to dig into if you're a player—there's an awful lot to digest) is up at epicgames.com.
