Honor of Kings

''Honor of Kings'' (, unofficially translated as "King of Glory," or alternatively transliterated as Wangzhe Rongyao) is a multiplayer online battle arena developed by TiMi Studio Group and published by Tencent Games for the iOS and Android mobile platforms in Mainland China.

Released in 2015, it has become one of the most relevant MOBA games in mainland China. An international adaptation, titled ''Arena of Valor'', was released in October 2016; it utilizes the same game engine and UI design but with greatly altered heroes to accommodate the Western market. As of November 2020, ''Honor of Kings'' had over 100 million daily active players, making it one of the most popular games in the world, as well as the highest-grossing mobile game of all time with over $13.4 billion in revenue generated. Additionally, it is one of the most downloaded apps globally.

In June 2022, Level Infinite, the publisher of ''Arena of Valor,'' announced that ''Honor of Kings'' would be released globally by the end of 2022.

Overview

''Honor of Kings'' (HoK) is a quick-match (15-20 mins) mobile multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game, one of the first of its kind inspired by ''League of Legends'', a video game for PC of the same genre by Riot Games, a subsidiary classified under Tencent Games.

Either a Tencent QQ account or a WeChat account is required to play the game. If two players use the same account type on different mobile platforms (for example both have WeChat accounts, but one player uses an iOS device and the other uses an Android device), cross-platform multiplayer is possible and with the latest update on September 24, 2020, a player can add friends and invite people from different platforms to guilds. Different account types—QQ and/or WeChat—cannot access the other's matchmaking queue, and their online status, even when using the same platform.

In February 2021, Honor of Kings was the second highest-earning mobile game worldwide for February 2021 with $218.5 million in gross revenue, which represented 57.2 percent year-over-year growth from February 2020. About 95.6 percent of Honor of Kings' revenue was from China, followed by 1.6 percent from Thailand.

Gameplay

The basic gameplay across all game modes involve controlling a character with unique abilities to kill non-player characters and opponents to gain experience and gold, with experience used to unlock their character's abilities or further augment the ability's power, and gold used to purchase items at the shop (which change specific attributes depending on the item bought). Players then coordinate to knock down enemy's defensive structures called turrets, and victory is achieved by destroying the core building, located within the enemy team's base. Specific gameplay mechanics vary depending on the game mode chosen.

Experience and gold are also earned across matches, which are applied to player accounts. Accounts start at level 1, with level 15 being the maximum level. Upon leveling up, users receive bonus in-game awards. Leveling up also unlocks certain summoners' abilities that can be applied to every hero the summoner uses. Gold can be used for a variety of purposes, such as purchasing new heros.

Types of Damage

Physical Damage

It is the most popular damage in the game, it appears with red-colour damage numbers. Physical damage can be decreased by armor.

Magical Damage

It appears with purple-colour damage numbers. Magical damage can be decreased by magical resistance.

Critical Damage

It deals massive damage in crit chance(percentage %), it can be physical, magical or real damage.

Real Damage

It is the most powerful damage. This damage cannot be reduced by armor, it can be only decreased by damage-decrease buffs or skills.

Game modes

''Honor of Kings'' has a variety of game modes, with a majority of them focused on competitive matchmaking. When there is no network connection, players can choose stand-alone mode. When there is a network, players can choose a variety of battle modes. Players can either face off against each other in player versus player matches (including 1v1, 3v3, 5v5) or participate in various player versus environment adventure modes.

In each of the player vs player modes, there are options to battle AI players, otherwise known as computers. The AI could be set on easy, normal, or hard modes. Also, players can open 'rooms' where they can invite a friend or someone that they had recently battled with or against to battle with them. There is also an option to open a 'draft room' to do a 5v5 where everybody was invited by someone else in the room.

Rift of Kings (5v5)

Rift of Kings is the most commonly played game mode, this mode is used in KPL competitions the Ranked game mode using the same game map (see Ranked below). Ten players, each controlling a hero, are split into two opposing teams of 5. The teams start on opposing ends of the map, with the victory conditions either being to destroy the enemy's defense turrets in order to reach and destroy the enemy nexus base. To destroy the enemy nexus base, teams must destroy defense turrets, which are situated on the 3 main routes/lanes (top(rival lane ��抗路middle(middle lane ��路, and bottom(growing lane ��育路used to reach the enemy's nexus base, nexus base can restore healthpoints slowly but defense turrets cannot.

As the turrets deal damage to heroes without the protection of minions which are periodically sent from the team's base, players must attack the turrets with minions by their side. Turrets prioritize enemy minions within their vicinity, but will immediately target enemy heroes if they attack allied heroes within the turret's range. Each player can increase their hero's level and gain coins by killing enemy minions, heroes, or wild creatures situated between lanes (also known as the 'jungle'(野区)).

Some creatures in the wild area also have certain status effects benefits (also known as 'buffs') which increase their hero's attributes. There are 5 kinds of buffs, blue, red, tyrant, juggernaut, and dragon(the strongest). For example, the blue buff is used to regenerate mana(MP), which many mages and assassins use to decrease the waste of mana and the cooling time of their abilities. The red buff is used to decrease the moving speed of the enemies, it also deals a few ‘real damage’(cannot be blocked by shield and defense points) this is must be given to the warrior or the archer. Both types of buffs last for 80 seconds.

Ranked Matchmaking (5v5)

Once a player's account reaches level 6 and owns at least 5 heroes, they are able to participate in ranked matchmaking. Players are able to join matchmaking either solo, in groups of 1,2, 3, or 5. Groups of 5 will only be matched with other groups of 5, and the same applies for groups of 3. The game's matchmaking system will match appropriate teammates and opponents according to the player's rank and win rate.

There are a total of 7 large matchmaking tiers, namely Tough Bronze, Order of Silver, Glory of Gold, Noble Platinum, Eternal Diamond, Master Star, Super King, and King of Glory in ascending order. Each large tier is further subdivided into several smaller tiers, denoted by their respective Roman numerals in descending order. In the Bronze and Silver tiers, there are 3 smaller tiers each (called Bronze III - I and Silver III - I); the Gold and Platinum tiers have 4 smaller tiers each (called Gold IV - I and Platinum IV - I); the Diamond and Master tiers have 5 smaller tiers each (called Diamond V - I and Master V - I); and the King tier uses a star system to determine rankings. If King players reach 50 stars, they are automatically up to King of Glory, where these players’ heroes mostly have a ‘National Rank’(国服）.

In each ranked game, stars can be gained or lost depending on the outcome of the match. Winning the match grants the player 1 star, while losing deducts 1 star. There are 3 stars in Bronze and Silver, 4 Stars in Gold and Platinum, and 5 stars in Diamond and Master in each smaller tier. If a player wins a match and max out their stars, they will be promoted to the next smaller/larger tier; losing with no stars in a small tier will deduct more stars.

Top Match

This mode is full of expert and high-technical players as they need to increase their rank to above ‘Super King’ star one to participate in the game. Top Match is not allowed to group with other players in the whole game, the nickname of players will be disabled and replaced by ‘Top Player’ 1 to 10.

The Match seasons, Honor-point system and Eagle-Eye Players

The Honor-point system introduces a secondary system to stars: Points may be earned in every match for ratings not disconnecting in the middle of matches and others. If the point is earned full, points will automatically be used to prevent the deduction of a star once, the point will return 0 after star protection. In other cases, the player could be promoted to an ‘Eagle-Eye Player’(Check for other players' in-game performance and give punishment) by maxing out points in the Honor system and doing a few tasks.

Matchmaking rankings are reset periodically, with every reset being known as a competitive 'season'. Each season lasts approximately 3–4 months, with season awards being awarded to players according to the highest tier achieved. Each season has 2 out-of-print skins that need to pay for the VIP award. Season points in the season portal will grant players season tokens(buy chests or skin chips, only usable in single-season), free skin chest, diamonds, and other special effects are in-game. The rank achieved at the end of a season is also used to calculate the starting rank for the next season. The rank will drop depending on how many stars they have.

Battle of Changping (3v3)

The basic rules are similar to other game modes, with a total of 6 players (3 on each team). However, unlike other 5v5 game modes, the nexus base is unavalible to restore health points and there is only 1 lane/route to the enemy's base, with two wild areas to either side. Each team has two defense turrets, different from three in normal 5v5 mode with the victory conditions being the same as normal 5v5 game modes.

Mo Zi’s Lane of Gear 1v1, (no wild area, except river soul)

This is a single combat mode with only 2 players facing against each other. In this mode, there is only one defense turret, players only need to destroy the turret to win.

Arcade Modes

In this section, there are multiple game modes containing interesting buffs and playing methods.

Infinite Brawl (5v5)

The basic rules are similar to Valley of Kings, however, this game mode has a faster pace. The defense turret has lower health, and the minions move faster. Every hero starts at level 2, and can gain gold and levels faster. The average game time is ten minutes. There are several buffs that are created randomly every two minutes, including cooling down time of abilities shorten by 40%, damage of abilities increased by 30%, movement of heroes increased by 150 points, attack speed of turret decreased by 50%. Additional ability of a hook that could drag the opponent to one's side, and invisibility which is removed when the player fights or goes near an opponent. This game mode requires players to adjust playing methods according to buffs to achieve victory.

Dreamland Clash (5v5)

In this mode, the game randomizes heroes. Players can spend diamonds to reroll a new random hero, putting the unchosen one into a selection pool from which their teammates can choose. If the player leaves the spawn area, they will not allowed to buy weapons until respawn. The arena only has one middle lane and a path that can generate healing or buffs. As time goes, the path will collapse and there will be one main lane to fight on. The minions are slightly different as well. Some minions has a healing sign. If it killed by a hero, it would drop a healing prop. when a player destroys their opponents' second turret, special minions will be generated with more attacking damage.

King Chess (8 players)

In this mode, there are eight players in total. Each turn, players are presented with five random cards representing different heroes, for which players can pay gold to purchase the heroes and place them on their own chess board. More powerful heroes cost more gold. Each hero starts with one star, and three same heroes would grant this hero two stars. The maximum star level is three. After each player places their heroes on the board, there will be fights of heroes between two players, with the defeated player losing health points. The fights take turns until the last player stands. The ranking system is similar to Ranked Matching (5v5).

Fiery Mountain Battle (5v5)

This arena is circular and divided into 3 main lanes (top, middle, and bottom). Each player will spawn in either location A or B randomly. Each player starts with 800 initial gold, level 2, and an additional ability of fireball. Location 1, 2 and 3 will spawn jungle creatures. The outside of each lane is filled with lava which will make players lose health points and decrease movement speed. Each game has a time limit of ten minutes while the first team that reaches thirty kills will win immediately.

The additional ability of fireball causes no damage, but a knockback effect. This game mode has three kinds of random buffs, including 30 seconds of control-free effect, increasing movement speed, and increasing cooldown speed by 40%. The respawn time for each player is 15 seconds and the respawned player will be placed randomly within the arena.

Clone Fight (5v5)

The clone fight opens from Friday to Sunday. A few heroes will be banned to make the game fair. The basic rules are similar to Rifft of Kings, however, the hero selection stage is different. In each game, the five players will vote for heroes, with the hero with the most votes being the one that the whole team uses for the entire game. If there is a tie, the system will choose one hero randomly. The two parties could use the same hero as well.

Special Modes

Some modes are rarely appear in arcade modes such as awakening brawl, snow race track. These modes are only playable in special days, 55 Gaming Day or 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Characters

Players may choose between a wide variety of heroes, each with special abilities, cosmetic skins and backstories. There are a total of 111 heroes and they are generally classified as: Tank (close/long range epends_on_what_you_use,_for_example:_Zhuang_Zhou,_is_long_range_but_King_Arthur.html" "title="Zhuang_Zhou.html" ;"title="epends on what you use, for example: Zhuang Zhou">epends on what you use, for example: Zhuang Zhou, is long range but King Arthur">Arthur