multiplayer online battle arena subgenre of strategy video games moba redirects here for other uses see moba disambiguation part of a series onstrategy video games subgenres 4x multiplayer online battle arena realtime strategy time management tower defense realtime tactics tactical roleplaying game turnbased strategy turnbased tactics artillery game wargame history chronology of 4x video games chronology of artillery video games chronology of grand strategy video games chronology of massively multiplayer online strategy video games chronology of multiplayer online battle arena video games chronology of realtime strategy video games chronology of realtime tactics video games chronology of tactical roleplaying video games chronology of turnbased strategy video games chronology of turnbased tactics video games more info portalstrategy games vte typical map of a moba genre game yellow lines are the lanes where action is focused blue and red dots are the defensive towersturrets that defend them lightcolored quarter circles are the teams bases and blue and red corners are the structures whose destruction claims victory multiplayer online battle arena moba also known as action realtime strategy arts is a subgenre of strategy video games that originated as a subgenre of realtime strategy in which a player controls a single character in a team who compete versus another team of players the objective is to destroy the opposing teams main structure with the assistance of periodicallyspawned computercontrolled units that march forward along set paths player characters typically have various abilities and advantages that improve over the course of a game and that contribute to a teams overall strategy moba games are a fusion of action games roleplaying games and realtime strategy games in which players usually do not construct either buildings or units the genre largely began with aeon of strife aos a custom map for starcraft it was followed by the two spiritual successors league of legends and heroes of newerth and eventually a sequel dota 2 as well as numerous other games in the genre such as heroes of the storm and smite by the early 2010s the genre had become a staple of the emerging esports scene history the roots of the genre can be traced back decades to one of the earliest realtime strategy titles the 1989 sega mega drivegenesis game herzog zwei in 1998 computer game company blizzard entertainment released its bestselling realtime strategy game rts starcraft with a suite of game editing tools called staredit the tools allowed members of the public to design and create custom maps that allowed play that was different from the normal maps a modder known as aeon64 made a custom map named aeon of strife aos that became popular in 2002 blizzard released warcraft iii reign of chaos wc3 with the accompanying warcraft iii world editor both the moba and tower defense subgenres took substantive shape within the wc3 modding community a modder named eul began converting aeon of strife into the warcraft iii engine calling the map defense of the ancients dota eul substantially improved the complexity of play from the original aeon of strife mod shortly after creating the custom dota map eul left the modding scene with no clear successor warcraft iii modders created a variety of maps based on dota and featuring different heroes in 2003 after the release of warcraft iii the frozen throne a map creator named meian by 2008 the popularity of dota had attracted commercial attention gas powered games also released the first standalone commercial title in the genre demigod riot began to refer to the games genre as a multiplayer online battle arena moba also in 2009 icefrog who had continued to develop dota allstars was hired by valve corporation in order to design a sequel to the original map in 2010 s2 games released heroes of newerth with a large portion of its gameplay and aesthetics based on dota allstars gameplay the halcyon fold map from the mobile moba vainglory features a single lane connecting the two team bases and the jungle underbrush beneath the lane there are two opposing teams whose goal collectively as a team is generally to destroy their enemys base to win there are typically 3 lanes that are the main ways of getting from one base to another in between the lanes is an uncharted area called the jungle a player controls a single powerful ingame unit generally called a hero when a hero stands near a killed enemy unit or kills an enemy unit it gains experience points which allow the hero to level up when a hero levels up it has the ability to strengthen its abilities of which it typically has four when a hero dies it has to wait a designated time which generally increases as it levels up until it revives at the teams base heroes typically fall into one of several roles such as tanking damagedealing or healing support each individual hero is unique with its own abilities that it does not share with any other character even those which share its roles also typically there is a large starting pool of heroes league of legends for instance began with 40 and has added at least one new one every month for its entire lifespan reaching 100 in 2012 this adds to the learning curve of the game as players must not only learn the games goals and strategies but also find at least one hero they excel at playing not to mention familiarize themselves with the remaining roster additionally each hero is deliberately limited in the roles they can fulfill no one hero is ever supposed to be powerful enough to win the game without support from their team this creates a strong emphasis on teamwork and cooperation each player typically receives a small amount of gold per second during the course of the game moderate amounts of gold are rewarded for killing hostile computercontrolled units and larger amounts are rewarded for killing enemy heroes gold is used by heroes to buy a variety of different items that range in price and impact for the most part this involves improving the combat viability of the hero although there may be other items that support the hero or team as a whole in different ways as the heroes of each team get stronger they can use multiple strategies to gain an advantage these strategies can include securing objectives killing enemy heroes and farming gold by killing ai units the stronger a team gets the more capable they are at destroying the enemy team and their base members of the genre do not generally feature several other elements traditionally found in realtime strategy games notably base management and army building some video games have certain heroes which control a few specialized units the moba genre has more resemblance with roleplaying games rpg in gameplay though the moba genre focuses on multiplayer battle in an arena while rpg typically revolve around a single player story roles in most mobas players assume specific roles such as carry support and ganker the number and type can differ depending on the game list of multiplayer online battle arena games media related to mobas at wikimedia commons vtevideo game genres listaction beat em up hack and slash fighting maze pacman clone platform shooter firstperson thirdperson light gun shoot em up tactical survival battle royale actionadventure grand theft auto clone immersive sim metroidvania stealth survival horror psychological horror adventure escape the room interactive fiction interactive movie visual novel mmo mmofps mmorpg mmorts mud roleplaying action roleplaying dungeon crawl roguelike tactical roleplaying simulation construction and management business city government life simulation dating sim digital pet god social simulation sports strategy 4x multiplayer online battle arena realtime strategy tower defense time management realtime tactics turnbased strategy turnbased tactics wargame vehicle simulation flight simulator amateur combat space racing kart racing sim racing submarine simulator train simulator vehicular combat other genres artillery breakout clone digital collectible card game eroge exergame incremental music rhythm nongame party programming puzzle sokoban tilematching related concepts aaa game advertising arcade game art game audio game casual game christian game crossover game educational game fmv gamification indie game multiplayer video game nonlinear gameplay open world nonviolent video game online game browser game multiplayer online game online gambling socialnetwork game pervasive game serious game toystolife twitch gameplay video game clone 