Anyone playing Battlerite?

[Nebu]

Been watching Battlerite and wondered if anyone here was playing.  It looks like a fun little arena combat game.  Unless I'm mistaken, I think it launched today.

Input or reviews welcome.

[Bann]

I played 3ish hours over the last weekend. It seemed nice, but did not really grip me. I mostly played 2v2, although other options existed (3v3 and vs. ai.) Each match was a best of 5, and each round lasted maybe 3-5 minutes. No Items, no creeps, no buffs (well, some little health globes on the ground you can pick up.) Before each round you get a choice of 4 semi-random augments for one of your skills. It seemed to me that most/all characters were either ranged dps, melee dps/tanky, or support. I never really got comfortable with the controls. WASD to move, mouse to aim. Everything was a skillshot, and landing your basic attack is how you charge up your ultimate.

[ezrast]

I always wanted to like Bloodline Champions but just couldn't be arsed to get past the learning curve. Battlerite is basically the same thing, but more accessible - slower pacing, fewer buttons, larger hitboxes; all slight changes but they add up. Of course the twelve diehard fans still playing BLC find all this offensive; I took this to be a good sign and bought the game.

It's fun, in a straightforward way - you and 3-5 other players are dumped in an arena and you hit each other until one team falls over, and that's pretty much the game. It's nicely put together; controls feel smooth, tooltips have actual information, there's no RNG, and matches are just about the right length. Balance needs a little work but it's assumed that the devs will be making adjustments.

I'm maining Freya, chucking hammers to CC opponents and then hopping on their faces and button mashing to victory. I still lack a lot of knowledge about mechanics but the matchmaking isn't terrible and I'm getting a lot of close games while slumming it at rank 10. My biggest issue is that there are a couple support champions who are really slippery and I don't have enough awareness/knowledge yet to track their peel cooldowns like I need to, but those are the characters that probably have nerfs incoming anyway.

I'm only a few hours into it, but for 18 bucks I'm having a lot of fun. It's also fun to watch and seems to be easier to track than, say, a LoL team fight. If you enjoy the streams and don't mind twitch gameplay I'd recommend it. The only thing that annoys me so far is the HotS-style daily quests that ask you to play as a certain class or faction of champion; individual heroes here take more investment than they do in other MOBAs (it's closer to an arcade fighter in that regard) so I'm not happy about being asked to switch away from my main(s) for rewards. Then again, early access purchasers get all the champions unlocked forever, so as far as I know quest gold is only gating meaningless cosmetics anyway.

I'm ezrast in-game if anyone wants to party it up.

[Druzil]

So if you buy it now you get all the champions but if you wait until it's out of early access they are going to sell them to you piecemeal?  That seems like

I kind of have interest but I am really leery of games where you have to buy individual champions after spending a small fortune on LoL.

[Threash]

This is fun and well done and I hope it becomes popular.  Probably needs more heroes though.

[Viin]

Playing this a bit. I find the heroes a bit boring - they are all basically the same with new skins. Only a few seem "unique". They are also boring because the art is boring. I'm not excited about a single one.

It does seem well executed, didn't have any problems and the matches seem to be *mostly* balanced well. Just missing some heart/soul.

Probably won't play much more after putting about 8hrs.

[Nebu]

Playing this a bit. I find the heroes a bit boring - they are all basically the same with new skins. Only a few seem "unique". They are also boring because the art is boring. I'm not excited about a single one.

It does seem well executed, didn't have any problems and the matches seem to be *mostly* balanced well. Just missing some heart/soul.

Probably won't play much more after putting about 8hrs.

Thank you for this.  I enjoyed the 'newness' of the game, but it really lacks any kind of intangibles that would make it more sticky as a game.  I played it a bit and then went back to HotS.