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Supernova: An Alpha Preview
I have a strange love-hate relationship with MOBA’s. I play quite a bit of them, yet love very few . For me DOTA 2 is the only MOBA I enjoy enough to put in a signficant amount of time into, other than the daily win requirement of games like Smite. For the longest time, I’ve yearned for a MOBA with a more sci-fi twist, and by sci-fi I mean robots. Well finally that time is now.
Bandai Namco came almost out of nowhere with the alpha release of their MOBA, Supernova. The same day they officially announced it, the alpha servers were open. The second I saw the trailer full of robot goodness, I knew I had to have it. Over the last few days I’ve spent some time with the fledging game, kicking the tires and getting a sense of what the game is. I’m happy to report that Supernova definitely has something, but only time will show what.
Supernova is set in a distant time in the future where robots and aliens what to murder each other for some reason or another, that was all I needed hear. With the game set in alpha, there is currently no story set out, so its hard to say what forces are at work. The bulk of it seems to rely around a Human and Cyborg faction and a number of unnamed alliances. So with that out the way, let’s get into the core of what makes the game, gameplay!
The Supernova alpha currently only has one map available, Desert, which luckily suggests at least a different number of physically diverse maps. The only mode available currently is the standard 5v5, either against people, or A.I, so for the moment it’s a standard MOBA. After selecting your mode it will do the matchmaking and then you pick your commander. The first thing you will notice is that not only do you pick your commander but the faction of your creeps, alliance powers and accessories for your commander.
As mentioned earlier, the two factions are Humans and Cyborgs. This not only changes their looks, but their abilities as well. From what I played I didn’t see any imbalance between each, as they seem to have similar concept of units. The Human faction is very futuristic looking tanks and robots while the Cyborg faction is almost alien looking with lots of curved shapes and bug like walkers. Within each faction there was also three different loadouts. At the moment the loadouts are not configurable, and it’s unclear as whether they will be or not. The loadouts change the units that appear in the army, so yes there are more units than you can field at one time. You can also change the color/scheme layout of the army, a very nice bit of customization.
The Alliance powers are not unlike the Summoner powers in League of Legends, as in abilities that you buy and equip outside of the game itself. The alpha gives access to all of them, though it’s obvious that they will be gated between Alliance levels once the game goes live. The Alliance powers are broken into a number of categories; Combat, Damage, Economy, Protection, Reconnaissance, Utility. Each category contains a number of powers that are suited for that type. Combat powers seem to be things like gap closers and single damage spells. Damage is wide-ranging explosions that can take out a number of units. Economy has powers that can increase resource gain and such. Protection has heals and shields for you and friends. Reconnaissance has just a single ability currently that allows you to spy anywhere on the map. And Utility has some of the most interesting powers, such as the ability to temporary turn off an enemy tower. The powers don’t seem so powerful as to imbalance the game, their extremely long 300 second or more cooldown helps that. I see Alliance powers as more of a way to boost an army that may not complement a Commander, or even as a 5 Man Premade strategy. At first glance I was a little annoyed because I thought it was going to be like Summoner powers where certain builds and/or Heroes are useless without them, but currently that doesn’t seem the case. Also, there are 40 Alliance levels, with the strongest abilities being level 20 or above. In the alpha, everyone starts at 40, so once again no clue as to the difficulty of leveling them.
Accessories are by far one of the most interesting, and potentially, gamebreaking of the loadout options. Accessories are a number of passives that you can add together in different loadout schemes that any Commander can equip. How it breaks down is this, each loadout has three tiers that contain three damage accessories and special accessory. The damage accessories are all things like, extra 1% attack speed, or +1 armor penetration, etc. The special accessories are a bit different, they all have more interesting effects such as; Commander Kills increase Weapon damage by 2, stacks 10 times. While the damage accessories can all affect similar stats, each special accessory is as stated, special. There are over 100 accessories currently available in the alpha, so choosing a layout is no small task. Though luckily the game has already prepared and labeled some loadouts for easy use while you learn the game. It seems that accessories are created using materials that are given at the end of the game. How many of these it takes to craft an accessory is unknown, and that shall be a big factor as to its ease of use.
Once you get into the game you will notice that your lanes are already partially determined for you. Each base, called an Auger, has 5 spawn pads circled around its front. As the game opens it will show your own mini base flying down (in a very interesting animation at that), being linked up to the Auger and showing which pad you spawn on. That pad will lead directly to the lane you will be in. Well, what if I want to pick a different base, you ask? That’s because your army that you partially control will only ever go to that one lane. Though really with how the mechanics work, there is no Safe Lane, Hard Lane or anything of the sort. The bottom and top lanes are the same length regardless of which side you start on. But there’s a better reason for this fixed lane strategy, which I’ll get into shortly.
Each Commander in Supernova has an upgrade system in lieu of using items to become stronger. A Commander has 6 different attributes; Weapon Damage, Attack Speed, Toughness, Armor, Power and Cooldown Reduction. Depending on which Commander you pick will change how important each stat is. As one may assume, Weapon Damage and Attack Speed are important for any Carry, while Toughness and Armor is a must for a Tank. Power is a little deceptive as its more like Magic Power, and applicable only to the damage of certain Commanders. Cooldown Reduction is simple and reduces the cooldown of all abilities, with the exception of Alliance Powers. Those cooldowns do not seem to be shortened by any means. Every time you level you get an Attribute Point. You also gain an Attribute Point with each enemy Commander kill you get. Each Commander has a softcap of its Attribute based on its current level. So you may not be able to down 10 points into Weapon Damage at level 5 on Blaze for example.
Then we have Masteries to add-on another layer to an already complex Commander. For every 5 Attribute Points you acquire, you gain 1 Mastery Point to spend. The Masteries in Supernova are almost like the things you’d expect to see in damage passive skills in League of Legends or DOTA 2. They each have three levels and belong to one of the 5 Attribute types. For instance in the Weapon Damage masteries we have Life on Hit. It increases Max. Attack Speed by 2, Increases Max. Weapon Damage by 2, +8/16/24% Attack Speed, +2/4/6 Armor, and each attack restores 10/20/30 health. Very potent indeed if you are focusing on an Attack Speed build. You can only have up to five different Masteries slotted, which given how many Attributes Points you’d need to max any of them out, it’s more than enough. However it should be noted that you can only do your Commander Upgrades on the spawn pad at your base. Luckily the Evacuation skill that all Commanders get, takes you back to your base after a slight delay. On a side note, the little touch they put on Evacuation is quite nice. If you pick the Human Faction a dropship actually launches from the base to swoop in and beam you up. If you pick Cyborgs, you do a sort of futuristic teleport back to the base. Either way the delay it takes for you to be sent back is based on how far away you from your Auger. The farther away, the longer it takes. It’s a nice touch really.
The Masteries and Abilities display
Each Commander has three basic abilities and one ultimate ability. Every ability has five levels it can gain. You gain one point per level to put into your three basic abilities, there is no option to skip or put a point into stats. At level 5 you automatically gain your Ultimate move, and it levels up automatically and without you needing to put points into it. One interesting thing of note is that every Commander ability in Supernova is an active skill. But almost every single one those has a passive effect added to it. And those passive’s are effects and not stat bumps. This change in particular made each Commander far more interesting than I expected. In other MOBA’s of this type, you often have to juggle the usefulness of a passive versus the immediate benefit of an Active ability. With this there is far less of that and more about whats useful in your lane right that instant. There is no sort of mana on any of the Commanders in Supernova. Instead they all have a Stamina pool which does refill over time. The size and regeneration speed of the pool is determined by the Commander chosen.
Experience is gained by the true honored tradition of killing every enemy creep that falls before you. Experience is gained regardless of if you are the one who killed it or not, so last hitting is not a requirement. Though you do gain ADDITIONAL xp if you were the one who last hit it. I gained 90 xp when a basic creep died, and 120 xp if I slayed him myself. A bit of a difference indeed, but not so bad as to be totally behind on farm either. There is no ability to deny the enemy creeps like there is in DOTA 2, so your only option to kick them out of lane is with harassment. The Jungle that separates the lanes is populated with Neutral Creeps. Doted through the forest are Cloaking Fields which are functionally identical to the tall grass in League of Legends. There are several different camps of neutrals, each of which gives a large amount of XP upon death. At certain points in the forest there are small nodes where stronger Neutrals guard key locations. Once the guarding neutrals are killed your team will gain whatever bonus the node had. This can be extra sight, or increased resources for your army. Some of the bigger nodes like the research one, has to actually be captured after the Neutrals are killed. Lastly we have the big bad of the jungle, the Mechadon. He’s a large named neutral which requires almost a whole team of Commanders to kill. Once murdered in his own home, a spawn of him will come and fight with you in lane, giving you a signficant advantage.
Where you spawn is where you lane
While a bit of that sounds different, it’s not totally unlike big name MOBA’s like League, right? Well remember I’d talk about the Army later? This is the part where Supernova takes an interesting turn from its competition. Each Commander has his own personal Army that spawns in waves to the lane the game assigned at the start of the match. What spawns is completely up to you the player. There are 10 different units you can have slotted in your army, these units are chosen outside of the game and are displayed in the Army loadouts during the Commander choosing phase. Supernova goes back to the RTS roots of every MOBA and introduces a rock, paper, scissors approach. You gain resources passively and gain some bonus resources through Neutral camps, but that’s about it. The amount you gain goes up a little as you level, but you have a finite resource gain. The resource points are only given to you when each wave spawns every 60 seconds. You spend resources to research the unit and then spend more to create it. Each unit cost a number of unit points, with bigger units costing more unit points. It caps out at 50 points however, and with basic troops costing 2 to 3 each, and heavy units 7, you definitely have to balance your army. So remember when I said the Lane locking was important earlier? Well here’s why. If you are in the top of bottom lane, each wave is phased so that only one players creeps will meet an enemy at a time. This is done so as to create another interesting level of battle, Your Army vs. The Enemy’s. There is a menu that shows you against the enemy the game has assigned to you and the power distribution. If your army is better equipped or balanced it will begin to show that on the chart. This is where the Rock, Paper, Scissors aspect kicks in. Much like an RTS, each unit is strong and weak against another. For instance troop choices are strong against walker types, but weak to the infantry killer type tanks. In the opposing army’s chart it will also reflect that and show you where the enemy has an advantage over you and vise versa. As you notice gaps and strengths you can sell the troops and buy new ones, always keeping in mind the 50 unit cost cap.
Victory Screen in Supernova
The combination of your Alliance powers, accessory loadout, commander upgrades and army layout is what will lead your lane to victory. Supernova is no doubt a bit complicated, putting it somewhere between League of Legends and DOTA 2 in difficulty. However in the matches I played, they were never short of fun. For those looking for quick games in the vain of newer games such as Heroes of the Storm, this is probably not the game for you. While Commanders cap at 15 levels, you can continue to gain Attribute points through Commander kills which can help aid a flagging team, or cause a winning team to become unstoppable. Though at no point did my army ever end up feeling totally useless as it does in some MOBA’s. If you cluster around your army during major fights, they can really help you keep an edge. Additionally the towers do a significant amount of damage, even toward the end of the game.
There’s some other small things of note such as a very rich sci-fi themed soundtrack. I don’t see myself ever really putting the game music on mute. The voice-overs of the Commanders are very well done and bring some life into characters that could easily be one-dimensional. Graphically the game is very pretty, the unit and commander detail is great and brings a strong sense of Supreme Commander mixed with Starcraft. Controls were exactly what any veteran MOBA or RTS player would expect with no real surprises. I was immediately able to get in and play with no controlling learning curve. The only question that remains is what the monetization will be. There are no prices shown in the alpha, and the shop is closed as well. If the price of Commanders, Units, and Accessories are fair then we may finally have a MOBA ready to join the ranks of League of Legends, DOTA 2, Heroes of the Storm and Smite. Only time will tell and I can hope that Bandai Namco has watched and learned from some of the failings of others. I’ll personally be playing this game throughout alpha and beyond (hopefully).
Also, please Bandai Namco, add in some Gundam-ish units. Seriously. Please. I will play whatever price you want to have some Custom Gouf action in this game.
