Vainglory devs lost their servers and released a Community Edition, which is currently on pause development-wise. The game has been pulled from Steam, Samsung, and Amazon platforms, and is only available on iOS App Store and Android Play Store. Developers intend to get back to the game in the future, but there's no definite timeline.
For a mobile MOBA having 32 characters to choose from is not too shabby, which gives a nice level of choice to the player as well as stretches the content of the game for those that want to learn and customize each one.
Tablets, with their larger screens allow for a good sense of control over the game, which makes Vainglory something that plays best on larger screens devices due to how much is happening on the screen.
Vainglory is available for Android devices through the Google Play Store, and the App Store for iOS tablets and phones. Users on both platforms are able to play together.
Due to how difficult it is to communicate with other online team members the easiest method to get that communication working is to just play together in person. Of course this gives an advantage to those that do so.
Instead of having to continually tap ones screen to move units, the game has implemented swipe controls, which may make the game easier to control for some as well as cut down on how much tapping one needs to do.
Queue times may be longer than expected because the game isn't marketing that much for NA and EU, which makes for less players when compared to other popular mobile MOBAs.
Players can purchase slight advantages if they use real world money. Harder swings that cause more damage or faster movement in general are purchasable upgrades found in the in-app purchase store. This creates an unbalanced playing field as players with more money to waste will have an advantage.
There are three maps available to play on that allow solo play where the user plays with a team of bots or online play where the player can play with two other real players vs 3 others real players and then a five vs five made up of real players on each team. If any one team does not find enough live players bots will be used in their place. This allows for not only a good way to practice, with the solo play, but also good medium and large matches.
Not even some PC MOBAs have 52 heroes in game, this is quite a large amount, which creates a good bit of longevity to the game for those that want to learn each one.
While not the highest amount of heroes in a mobile MOBA, nine heroes is not too shabby and gives a modicum of choice to the player and adds some longevity to the game for those that want to learn all 9.
This can give an advantage to those that are playing in a group together in the same room or are communication over a phone or voip, as they will be bale to sync up their efforts easier than those playing with random partners that have no way of communication.
This can definitely be a problem when matches last 15 minutes, as it is a time investment that can be completely lost if a crash or game breaking bug occurs.
This is a simple version of a MOBA in that it is a middle lane only game, meaning that the user only needs to worry about what is going on in one single path. This works out well for mobile as the controls will never be as precise as playing a MOBA on PC or with a controller. It is also a good way to get more casual players to the genre as it is not overly complex to understand single lane gameplay.
For those that do not pay for the in-app-purchases to get new minions it will take a good while of grinding to unlock any new characters, which can lead to frustration due to doing the same thing over and over again with little changing up in looks or play.