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[Watno]

Anyone here playing Dota 2? I just started again after taking a break from it.
I also have lots of spare invites if anyone its interested.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Dota 2?

[Ozle]

Dota 2?

Yeah, its the sequel to Dota 1

[Drab Emordnilap]

Dota 2?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dota_2

[theory]

I just got into League of Legends.  Dota continues to scare me for now.  But if you're interested in getting into a MOBA like LoL or Dota, I highly recommend this series of articles:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-07-10-the-dota-2-experience-part-one

I get it now.

Here's your reason to play Dota 2, a reason Dota 2 players don't articulate because they're too busy playing Dota 2 and, frankly, the last thing you want on your team is more noobs.

Dota 2 is fencing.

That's the skill, and the appeal. I finally see it. You're fighting back and forth down these lanes, looking for an opening in the other heroes' defense. The other guy's too close to your tower, or too far from his friend, his ultimate skill's on cooldown, his health is low. Fights in other games last seconds. Fights in Dota 2 are dramatic; entire minutes of feints and narrow escapes. Duels that can span forests, roads and rivers without coming to an end.

[Grujah]

Played DotA years ago, was quite active, was a beta tester too, and so on, but sucked a lot.

Took a looooong break.

Now, started playing recently (few weeks ago), I am still a noob, fairly decent in automaches as don't get all that good players on my/opposing team.

grujah is my nick there, add me, I'd like to play

@Avatar is Chaos Knight's passive ability.

Dota is miles better than LoL, which my brother plays and I know that game very well just from watching it for months (years?)

[Ozle]

PVP in UO used to be like that, some times the battles would take ages with attacks and counters if the players were prepared. Took real skill and timing.

[Grujah]

I just got into League of Legends.  Dota continues to scare me for now.  But if you're interested in getting into a MOBA like LoL or Dota, I highly recommend this series of articles:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-07-10-the-dota-2-experience-part-one

I get it now.

Here's your reason to play Dota 2, a reason Dota 2 players don't articulate because they're too busy playing Dota 2 and, frankly, the last thing you want on your team is more noobs.

Dota 2 is fencing.

That's the skill, and the appeal. I finally see it. You're fighting back and forth down these lanes, looking for an opening in the other heroes' defense. The other guy's too close to your tower, or too far from his friend, his ultimate skill's on cooldown, his health is low. Fights in other games last seconds. Fights in Dota 2 are dramatic; entire minutes of feints and narrow escapes. Duels that can span forests, roads and rivers without coming to an end.

Article is pure awesomeness

[theory]

Explain why Dota is so much better than LoL.  My impression is that Dota has a significantly more toxic community, a steeper learning curve, and is a lot less popular.  The main draw for me in LoL is that I already have over a dozen friends that actively play it, whereas I have far fewer that play Dota.

[Watno]

sent you a friend invite grujah, maybe we can play a bit later.

@Dota vs LOL: Well, basically all Dota players agree that Dota is better, so it must be true
Tbh, I've never actually tried LOL, always been content with Dota.

[Grujah]

Wall of text incoming.

tl;dr - Dota is more skill intensive, punishing and things aren't granted but need to be earned.


First, I disagree on toxicity of community. What I've actually seen so far, LoL has a way bigger problem with "decline of civility" than DotA. Mainly because playerbase is younger. As for popularity, DotA did lose quite many players in this Dota -> Dota 2 transition, while new players hopped onto LoL-train. Old DotA players seem to be getting back, though, me included. I do not follow LoL pro scene, but I DotA one is very, very active.

Steeper learning curve is true, but, I don't see that as only a bad thing.

First, LoL has way more grinding outside the game. You can't play any hero unless you pay, same goes for runes and Masteries - as a noob, you are, for some reason, already handicapped going after a more veteran player, just a game start. But, once you get most of hte things unlocked, it vanishes. Still, I don't see why Masteries and runes need to be grinded for.

But, more importantly, it's the game itself. To me, sometimes it's like DnD 3.5 vs 4.0. DotA is way more punishing, and LoL has too many things given for granted. Also, I do think DotA is more skill intensive.
Like, in LoL, every hero has a access to Flash ("Blink" in DotA) - which is almost always taken - and another skill, whichever you think fits the best and fixes one of your weaknesses usually (also runes). Plus, many more heroes actually have inherit flashlike abilities, and couples with brushes - getting in and out seem much easier and is kinda taken for granted.
In DotA you can get any hero a Blink Dagger which costs resources and inventory space. It makes it a way more fearful and unique ability when you really need to work for it and not everybody can access it easily.
It is like that with many other stuff, this is an example that irks me the most.

Mana management is a breeze in LoL. The sheer relation between spell cost and amount of mana is MUCH, much tighter in DotA (for example, most Strenght heroes cannot cast more than 1 or 2 spells without depleting their mana pool) - again, this makes using your abilities only when needed and not wasting then a skill that is much more valued in DotA. Too many heroes take it for granted and can just spam spells with little consequence (some don't even use mana at all).

Dying is punished harder, as you lose gold in progress. It might be a bad thing, might be a good.

Laning is, I believe, harder. You actually need to deny your own creeps, I am not sure but last hitting seems a bit harder (or maybe I'm just bad at it) and generally it is much more easier to keep a lane given the surplus mana and also free abilities that save your butt.

I am not completely sure on LoL items, I know that DotA actually has a lot of activated ones - .which, to extend, make up for "Masteries" and actually need to be worked for. I think LoL's are mostly passive. I did dislike this creep of activated items that happened, but I do support it now.

I am not too thrilled about their skill system either, I didn't play much so I don't know heroes too well, but I believe there are too many slows, blinks and nukes among heroes - and many heroes that wouldn't get such abilities in DotA - do. Also, there are some skills that certain heroes have in DotA that they lack in LoL (creep conversion/sacrificing, for example) and usually I like DotA's choices better when it comes down to it. Not that all of LoLs are terrible, they have a fair share of great/unique ones that DotA perhaps misses (though, they aren't adding any till they convert the whole DotA 1 to new engine first).

Generally, there are many more things to manage in DotA, making it harder, but way more rewarding.


The thing that I dislike about DotA 2 the most is that, out of legacy reasons, they retained too many of WC3 engine quirks that make DotA work unintitively sometimes. I.E. too many spells or abilities break some game rules, most about what can go through magic resistance, magic immunity, armor, damage reduction and so on. There are too many of these "Well, it works like that, but this skill and that skill still circumvent that and work differently in a small, but sometimes very relevant way."

[theory]

See, to me, your arguments seem like arguments in favor of whichever one you prefer already.  I think denying is lame, but probably if I were a Dota player I'd think it essential.  Similarly I think LoL has the right mana balance, since your enemies now pose more of a threat to you if they can spam you, and you still have cooldown to think about.

I do agree that the outside-the-game grinding is objectively a little annoying.  But TBH, it's nice to have a different rotation of free champs each week.  It's not like I plan to play > 100 different champions each week, and forcing me to focus on some different ones is kind of fun.

[Grujah]

See, to me, your arguments seem like arguments in favor of whichever one you prefer already.

Well, this is true, this is why I think one is better. I dunno how or if I can be completely objective, those are 2 different games, each person has it's own preferences.


In similar manner I can argue with M:tG is much better than Yu-gi-oh, (though, difference in quality here is MUCH bigger), some avid Yu-Gi-Oh player will still always prefer their, much worse system.

Oh yeah, and I actually have way more friends playing DotA than LoL.

[Grujah]

Similarly I think LoL has the right mana balance, since your enemies now pose more of a threat to you if they can spam you, and you still have cooldown to think about.

In both game they pose a threat, it just than in LoL i think with most heroes you can harass constantly with spells and not worry too much. (It seems like so, esp when my bro plays, let say, Oriana,Diana, Ezrael or Cho-Gath, for example) In DotA, you can easily run out of steam and need to balance harassing vs conserving mana more, or get a way to ensure you can spam like an idiot. 

[theory]

Well it would be like saying, "BSG is better than The Resistance because their traitors don't know who each other are".  It's not actually a reason that BSG is better, it's just something different between the two.  If you play lots of BSG you probably think that the Resistance mechanic is bad for the game, and if you play lots of Resistance you probably think the BSG mechanic is bad for the game.  The games are fundamentally different because of that difference, so it's comparing apples and oranges.

So for example, the out-of-game grinding, that's a 100% objective reason why Dota is better.  And the fact that LoL has a better tutorial, that's a 100% objective reason why LoL is better.  You won't find anyone who prefers Dota because it has a crappier tutorial.  But for example, the fact that Dota has hypercarries where LoL does not, well, that depends on whatever game style you are used to.

[Watno]

Note that the Dota 2 tutorial is still being developed.

[eHalcyon]

@Grujah #10, The lol pro scene is very active.  The community is not actually so bad because Riot is very actively working to improve it with various initiatives.

As far as grinding goes... I suppose that is kind of true?  But runes and masteries don't matter THAT much, and the heroes are unlocked just by playing more.  It actually doesn't take that long.  Rotating free roster helps.

I don't know about lol giving things for granted.  You use Flash as an example, but the cooldown on it is immense.  I looked up Blink Dagger and it has a 14s cooldown?  The cooldown of Flash is 5 minutes.  You have to use it with care.  Not to mention, if it is easier for players to get in and out, then you have to be that much more careful about catching out another player so that they are unable to escape, and you have to be careful about getting caught yourself.

On mana, a compelling argument is that having a larger mana pool (relative to cost) makes the game more fun.  You have these special abilities, you want to use them.  They are still significant enough that most cannot just freely spam, at least until the late game.  It's a matter of scale, anyway.  You say in #13 that DotA's system means you have to balance harassing vs conserving mana.  It's the same in league -- you can't just press every button immediately when a spell comes off cooldown.  You WILL still run out of mana.  But because you CAN use spells more often, there is interaction in the lane in the way you harass each other.  I suppose DotA gets more lane interaction via creep denial?

LoL has a fair mix of active and passive items.

I think theory has the right of it in post #11.  There are differences between the games and they can be pros or cons depending on the player.

[Watno]

Well, you don't need spells to harrass.

[Grujah]

On mana, a compelling argument is that having a larger mana pool (relative to cost) makes the game more fun.  You have these special abilities, you want to use them. 

I think theory has the right of it in post #11.  There are differences between the games and they can be pros or cons depending on the player.

First line, IMO, this is like DnD 3.5 vs 4.0 comparison.

Blink dagger is actually quite an investment, as it is an item that gives no other bonuses and is fairly expensive. You really need to need it bad to get it. It's different.

But we can argue this for hours, the bottom line is:
"There are differences between the games and they can be pros or cons depending on the player."

[eHalcyon]

Here's a pretty interesting back and forth:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/02/27/face-off-league-of-legends-vs-dota-2/

Not done reading through it, but it seems to lay out differences very reasonably to help completely newbies decide which game is more their flavour.

[Watno]

Just out of interest: does flash get disabled when you take damage like blink dagger?

[eHalcyon]

Just out of interest: does flash get disabled when you take damage like blink dagger?

No.  But I think the blink distance is much smaller.  I'm not sure because I don't know how the units work with dota.  With flash, if you want to use it as an escape by blinking over a wall, you usually have to be right beside it or your flash won't carry you over.

[RTT]

Yes i am playing Dota2. Not as frequently at the moment but from time to time. I like it very much 

[Grujah]

I think it flashes you in direction you are facing, kinda like Force Staff.

[mcmcsalot]

As a 4 year league of legends player I can say quite a bit about the game.

I think one of the most important thinks is toxicity I the community. I have heard that Dota is worse and I think 2 years ago that would have been true. Now as ehalc said, riot has but a lot of effort into the pro scene, it is the largest esport in the world with the largest prize pool/viewership/and sponsors. With this, the game has exploded in popularity and stolen the "less dedicated" player bases of Dota and Starcraft, this is mainly the reason for the community decline as less dedicated players are more likely to rage or quit. So I would say Dota community is friendlier to newer players but league has a great community if you can find friends to play with, everytime you meet someone who was nice or played well friend them, and ask them to play agai some time, soon enough you will have at least 3 people to play with all the time and the community problem is solved.

Next ill address the learning curve. Lol has made it its goal to be as open to new players as posible. This makes the game simpler then Dota and for the very dedicated gamer especially Starcraft crossovers, you may find lol to be to simple. The thing that counters that is the idea that you must buy champions and runes. Runes are a bit of an issue, you need them to play at a top level, but I have played for three of my four years using 2 rune pages which doesn't take long to get. The fact that you buy champions is a direct counter to higher skill level I Dota. Dota you play to learn and perfect your key combos, lol you play to unlock new content and collect all the champs. Much like a
Fighter/shooter vs. rpg/adventure both are great and appeal to different players. I personally have 3 of the 110(could be off) left to buy and am so excited to get to that landmark.

I think the last thing to address would be play style specifically. Dota is heavily key/skill intensive. Lol is heavily counter/thought intensive. Dota punishes much harder for mistakes and really tests your skills in when to use abilities when to cs vs when to deny. League allows for many mistakes, and yes has quite a few manaless champions that require you to just spam abilities to farm, I will use the example of katarina. She is a high damage burst Mage with no mana who can farm very easily and is not punished for using any skills wrong. When you want to fight someone you press q,e(on them), w, r. However, where league makes its impact is countering. Katarina's damage comes from her ultimate which you press r and she begins to spin dealing damage to 3
People around her for a few seconds. If she is stunned or displaced in any way, her ultimate cancels and stops dealing damage. Basically if you see a kat on the other team simply pick a character with a stun and you stop all her damage every fight. Now as the katarina player you must wait till you see the stun has been used and you are safe, or combine your power with another champion that has an aoe stun. That one tiny example of one champion that has a direct and simply counter. Many champions have much more complicated ways of countering that involve very reactive play.

I'm summary I would say league I legends has a very low learning curve with a poor community, but can become a great community if played with a group of friends, and becomes extremely skilled at high levels of play due to counter play and reactivity. Dots has a steeper learning curve involving highly skilled play and a more dedicated player base/support system. Both have strong deturrents to new players as well as high rewards for players that dedicate themselves to the game.

That being said I love league to death and play nothing but it, my summoner name is mcmcsalot and I play on NA server. I absolutely love helping people to learn the game and adding intelectual friendly people to my usual group of about 12 people who play regularly. Look forward to seeing you all out there on the rift!

[Watno]

I'm not sure whether you're trying to imply this, but the existence if counters plant unique to LOL.

[mcmcsalot]

I think you mean "the existence of counterplay is unique to LOL"

I am not implying that it is unique to LOL but I believe counterplay and counter picking is much more important in LOL. Simply because outplaying your opponent is less of an option. At a certain skill level(top 50-80% of players) champion selection is about 60% of the game. I was actually implying that while different I do not believe one to be superior.

[Grujah]

I do know that counterpicking is important in LoL. Such thing exists in DotA too, I am not sure how much influcental it is(I do not play competitively, and I've watched a little of pro-play). I do know that, unlike in LoL (i believe), pro-DotA has 5 bans, then 5 picks, then 5 more bans, then 5 picks - this gives me an opinion that it matters a lot, too. Probably not as much as in LoL, though.

And you have the same Kat example in DotA too (Let's say, with Crystal Maiden being Kat). Though, CM could buy a magic immunity item to counter-coutnerpicks, and so on.

[Watno]

Actually, it goes 4 bans, 6 picks, 6 bans, 4 picks.

Btw, I don't think a game being 80% decided after the picks sounds very interesting.

[mcmcsalot]

I believe it is actually 2(4)bans 3(6)picks 4(8)bans then 2(4) picks each(total)
In LOL there is 3(6)bans 5(10) picks
They both follow the pattern of 1 pick 2 picks(alternating) 1 pick with first ban/first pick going to one team and last pick/ban going to the other.

The main difference being 8 bans come after you have picked 3 of your champions in dota. This allows for more disruption of team comps and forces players to play more specific counters as in X champ counters Y champ versus X team counters Y team. Again, different but neither is superior.

My understanding, is that as you pointed out items counter quite a bit of things in dota and item advantage gained through early wins via individual skill and play is more important than in LOL where counters through champion skills. This is what creates the difference of skill in the two games. Dota requires more champion specific knowledge and early skill to gain items and counter through to mid and late via that route. LOL requires more overall knowledge of every champion and ability to counter team strategies late game with proper teamwork and decision making.

[Watno]

Dota goes:
Ban A -> Ban B -> Ban A -> Ban B
Pick A -> Pick B -> Pick B -> Pick A -> Pick A -> Pick B
Ban A -> Ban B -> Ban A -> Ban B->Ban A -> Ban B
Pick A -> Pick B -> Pick A -> Pick B

I don't get what you mean with "Dota requires more champion specific knowledge and early skill to gain items and counter through to mid and late via that route. LOL requires more overall knowledge of every champion and ability to counter team strategies late game with proper teamwork and decision making." First of all, please stop using "champion" when talking about Dota heroes. Significant early advantages are seldom gained via superior individual skill (though of course that's possible if the skill differnde is large enough, but rather is a result of strategy and decisionmaking. You won't stand a chance if not knowing the abilities of all heroes in the game. I don't get what you mean by "hero specific knowledge" that is required.

[mcmcsalot]

I mean that the way you work as an individual has more impact in dota than it does in LOL, hence the steeper learning curve and more punishing game play of dota. The way you work as a team has more impact in LOL than it does in dota. Note I am not saying blah blah blah teamwork isn't needed in dota, I am pointing out what I believe to be the minute differences between the two games that lead them to be very equal games but enjoyed by somewhat different people. Apologies for calling heros champions, I know they are called that I assumed using champion was fine as the two names stand for identical things. If you want specifics LOL has
BAN A -> Ban B -> Ban B -> Ban A -> Ban A -> Ban B
Pick A -> Pick B -> Pick B -> Pick A -> Pick A -> Pick B -> Pick B -> Pick A -> Pick A -> Pick B
This is exactly what I said, 1 pick followed by 2 picks(alternating A & B) then 1 pick, team A gets first pick/ban and team B gets last pick/ban.

Do you disagree with anything I am saying specifically? It seems as though you are just trying to discredit the things I am saying.

[Watno]

Regarding picks: i just wanted to correct what you said (because it actually is slightly different) and didn't find a quicker way to put it. I agree it doesn't matter that much.

I'm diasgreeing with you saying that Dota requires much hero specific knowledge (at least in comparison to other things required).
It's hard to discuss how important idividual aspects are on the outcome of a game, it always depends on how hig both sides skill in these areas.

BTW: Have you actually played Dota and/or Dota 2?

[mcmcsalot]

Oh, I see where I was wrong involving bans, sincere apologies. I have played dota but not for some time, I watched my friend play dota 2 when deciding whether or not to get it. But I do watch dota 2 pro streams, I love the professional esports scene and watch almost all pro esports, Starcraft hurts my head a bit(its very hard for me to grasp)

I simply meant that dota players benefit more from being really good with there hero where as LOL players benefit more from being really good with shot-calling(knowing when to take different objectives and guiding your team to do that)

Have you played LOL?

[eHalcyon]

I have not played dota or dota2, but my understanding was that counterpicking is MUCH more important in dota.  The heroes in dota have much more powerful and varied abilities than those in lol -- real game changers like super long aoe stuns and such.  The balance comes from the ability to counterpick with real hard counters.  Correct me if I'm wrong!

In lol, I'm not sure there are any actual hard counters.  There are always ways to counter play, even with weaker picks.

[Watno]

I haven't played Lol.
with shot calling are you referring to "stun that guy now!" or "let's go gang that lane now" types of calls? I think both are quite important in Dota, but not really qualified to compare.

[mcmcsalot]

From my understanding you are correct ehalc, this is why I believe individual hero knowledge and skill are important in Dota where knowledge of team comps and counter play are more important in LOL. As you said there are no hard counters but take this example. A dive comp(burst damage gap closers) is supposed to counter a poke comp(long range) but a dive comp is often week at taking objectives due to low sustained damage and the poke comp with enough vision can take advantage of that easily killing the dive comp. I could be wrong and similar scenarios may exist in Dota but I have felt from watching that individual players can have a lot of affect on the game in Dota. Also I don't know the difference between pro play and casual play on Dota at all were as I can speak of the differences in LOL.

For shot calling I mean more of what I described above, knowing what your team should do in different scenarios depending on where you are at in the game and whether your team has more or less gold.

[Watno]

In what situation can the dive comp kill the poke comp?

[mcmcsalot]

The dive comp wins open teamfight and wins when defending a siege. You would typically take a poke comp when you felt the other team is more skilled than you, you use range to poke them down and win drawn out siege battles. The dive comp is picked as a counter because it doesn't allow the poke comp to get into a long siege, the minute the poke comp begins sieging the dive comp can use gap closers to "dive" into the poke comp and kill them. Hence why the poke comp has to adjust and take advantage of objective control as I showed earlier. The dive comp would respond by removing vision for the poke comp on objectives and rather than take the objective wait for the poke comp to come and force a teamfight. This is an example of two of the many team comps and how they interact. Being aware of what your team should be doing and what the enemy team is trying to do is the single most important thing in LOL.

[Watno]

What exactly are objectives?

[eHalcyon]

What exactly are objectives?

Oh right!  That's probably one of the bigger differences between lol and dota.  Objectives are just things on the map that both teams want to take advantage of or control.  Objectives that I think are also in dota would be the towers in the lanes.  Taking down towers gives you more map control as well as earning your team a nice boost in gold.

lol has additional objectives.  The two major ones are Baron Nashor and the Dragon, which are large neutral monsters.  The dragon gives a significant amount of gold to the entire team while Baron grants gold, experience, and a major buff to all living players (extra AP, AD and regen) on the team.  The boosts are quite significant so the objectives are highly contested. 

Other objectives include smaller neutral camps that also give buffs, albeit only to a single player.  There is one in each of the four jungle quadrants.  Two of them are the blue buff, which grants the holder CDR and enhanced mana regen.  The other two are red buff, enhancing the holder's auto-attack with a slow and a true damage DoT.  Early on the buffs are usually taken by the jungler.  Later on, blue buff is usually given to the mage and red buff is taken by the AD carry.  Players will sometimes sneak into the enemy jungle to steal these buffs.

[mcmcsalot]

What exactly are objectives?

objectives are the important minions/structures(usually excluding towers which can be sieged/defended)

Golem & Lizard: So each team has a blue buff(mana regen&cdr) and a red buff(bonus damage&slow) these are a large minion that spawns at 1:55 and and when killed grants the buff for 2:30, the monster respawns after 5 min. This is the lowest tier objective as it is least important though stealing it at lvl 1 can destroy an enemy team. An invade comp can successfully pull this off against almost any team but is generally weak throughout the game.

Dragon: a large minion that spawns in the middle of the map(lower side) that spawns at 2:30 sec and has a 6 min respawn time. It gives the killing team 190 gold to each player. It is rather strong but can be killed early depending on how many players of a team come to help. This is considered the main objective early game. Vision on it is important and ability to get your entire team there is necessary can both secure it for your team and scare the enemy team off of it.

Towers: I will include these as later into the game towers do give the team aoe gold and backdooring/split pushing is a strategy. This is when a single champion on a team excells at escaping from enemies or winning in a 1v1 scenario. To make it easier allies have a split push strat enemies do not. The player then stays in a lane attempting to take a tower regardless of what the rest of the allies are doing, this makes an enemy come to stop him forcing a 4vs4 fights or better yet 4v3(2 enemies often have to leave to stop the split push) The shot-calling that comes from this is knowing what team will benefit most. Often times if the allies are split pushing the enemies can group up and fight 4vs5. If they win the fight and kill all 4 allies not split pushing they come out on top. If the enemies have at least 2 people left alive from the 4v5 fight they can push down the allies tower faster than the one ally split pushing.

Baron Nashor: This is the primary and main objective late game. It spawns at 15 min and has a 7 min respawn time. It when killed it gives the entire team 300 gold and a buff that lasts 4 min and gives AP/AD HP/Mana regen. The baron is extremely powerful as is its buff. It is located in the middle of the map(top side) and is heavily contested as it can make or break a game. This is the objective I was speaking of when I was talking about poke vs dive comp.

Inhibitors: these are located in the base at the opening to each lane and are guarded by a tower. Killing them causes your team to spawn stronger minions for 5 min. These are most often sieged but can be susceptible to splitpush/backdoor strats once the tower is killed. Backdooring is simply sneaking your way undetected through the enemy jungle to take the inhibitor you often die for this but it can be worth it if your team can take advantage of the 5 min of super minions.

ppe: thanks ehalc now I feel like an over explanatory dick!

[Grujah]

You mean Runes,  Roshan, Towers and Barracks, right?   

[Watno]

Ancients are not that different from normal creeps. They're not that different from other creeps. But if one team has an advantage in map control, they can easily farm all the creeps and get an economical advantage.

[Grujah]

I promptly changed that to Runes as I realized it too. Runes are mostly like blue/red buffs.

[mcmcsalot]

Yea, barracks obviously = inhibitors. But ancient creeps, runes, and roshan are very different than dragon, buffs, and baron.

Heres what I think and correct me if I am wrong on anything.

Red buff and blue buff in league are really like the ancient(maybe large) camps in dota. There is a red and blue buff on in both teams jungle. They cannot be killed at lvl one without 2 allies and an ability smite(long cooldown damage to minions) Runes can simply be picked up and are not really points of contest, especially as there is one on the map every 2 min. Blue and red buff have a 5 min respawn and so especially at around 7 min in the game, stealing away the enemy teams red or blue is a really strong tactic(having two blue buffs on your team and none on the other is huge)

Roshan is VERY different from baron. How easy is roshan to kill?(I actually am not sure of this) Roshan drops aegis, one hero, one use ressurection. This has some impact but the hero with it can still be caught alone/focused, or the enemy team can force it out and disengage. Main point being it has no map effect, it helps the team but mainly one hero. After being killed three times it also drops cheese(So how often does this come into play) cheese is again one champion one use sorta a super potion. I see how a team with both can be very strong in a team fight but again aside from a single teamfight these items don't do much.

Baron is killed once or twice a game, I have rarely seen baron killed 4 times in my 3000 games played. So for reference, baron can almost never be solo'd by any champion. Depending on team comps during a normal game an attempt to get baron will leave an entire team around half heath which is why fighting while a team is trying to take baron is so good. The buff baron gives is team wide, at least all living teammates. It gives ad and ap which makes everyone on the team stronger. Once a team has baron buff the enemy team can almost never win a team fight and are forced to hide under towers. On top of that baron gives a health and mana regen buff to the entire team. This allows a team to group up and siege a tower, they can just hit it a few times each minion wave comes and heal up any damage they take due to the buff.

So baron, buffs, and dragon are a bit more important and game changing then in dota. This is why I believe individual skill has a greater effect in dota.

[Ozle]

Sounds like WOW battlefields......*runs*

[mcmcsalot]

Sounds like WOW battlefields......*runs*

Warcraft 3 and heros of newerth. They are all the same game. We are discussing the interestingly minute diferences that cause the player bases to be quite different

[Ozle]

Not Warcraft, World of Warcraft battlefields...

[Watno]

Warcraft 3 is not the same as Dota, though Dota was originally a custom map in Warcraft 3. But saying that they are the same is comparable to saying that Checkers and Chess are the same because they are both played on a chess board.

Runes are contested early in the game, especially cause most mid heroes use a bottle, which gives them hp / mana regeneration and can be refilled by picking up a rune.

Roshan is quite easy to kill starting from the midgame, but it usually takes a a while. Also the area were you fight him is quite narrow, which makes teams attacking him an easy target for attacks from the oppnent team. Therefore, Roshan is mostly only attacked if you have an extreme mapcontrol advantage, or just won a teamfight or picked off an imprtant enemy hero. The aegis he drops can often make the difference between being able to break into the opponent's base are not.

There are some lineups that allow you to take out roshan at lvl 1, and some heroes who can solo him at 10 minutes into the game with the right items. Howver, that will rarely work out outside of low-level games, since your opponents will notice this.

[Grujah]

Roshan also nets gold for every teammate, FWIW.

[Watno]

Yeah, but I think that's rather insignificant.

[eHalcyon]

Baron Nashor's name is actually a reference to Roshan.  Anagram.

[Watno]

Totally unrelated fun fact:  Nashorn (nose horn) is the German word for rhinoceros.

[Ozle]

Totally unrelated fun fact:  Nashorn (nose horn) is the German word for rhinoceros.

Wow, thats a coincidence because Rhinos have a massive horn on thier nose!!

[mcmcsalot]

Warcraft 3 is not the same as Dota, though Dota was originally a custom map in Warcraft 3. But saying that they are the same is comparable to saying that Checkers and Chess are the same because they are both played on a chess board.

I wasn't saying they were the same, I meant warcrat 3, dota, lol, and hon are essentiall the same game idea.

[Watno]

I disagree. Warcraft 3 is an real time strategy game, where you gather resources, build a base and control an army. Also, it is a solo game, not a team game. The special hero units differentiate it from other RTSs, still I'd say it's a very different game idea than Dota.

[Watno]

A LOL fan and a Dota fan walk into a bar.
The Dota fan says: "Dota is better than LOL".
The LOL fan can't deny.

[mcmcsalot]

Hahaha at first I was like offensive! Then I got the joke.

But actually you could creep deny in lol up untill somewhat recently. The champion gangplank could until recently kill an allied minion, cdr and following the wave would let you clear half the wave befor it got to the middle of the lane. That was taken out though as he was the only champion that could do it.

Now you just bring a healer and heal your allied creep just as the enemy goes to last hit. It makes them go crazy and miss the creep.

[Awaclus]

I used to play a lot of LoL, then it got too repetitive and boring for my tastes. I tried Dota 2, and it wasn't refreshing enough.

[Saucery]

A few points or tidbits to make since i've played Heroes of Newerth (the 3rd major game), Dota, and play Dota 2 now:
- Dota and Dota 2 are essentially the same game, although Dota 2 is missing a few heroes
- Original Dota is still gigantic in popularity, bigger than LoL, which is bigger than dota 2, followed by HoN which is quite small.
- HoN was supposed to be the sequel to Dota 1, until IceFrog had a falling out with S2 (the developers), leaving HoN with a bunch of 'classic' dota heroes mixed in with their own creations. HoN is a much faster paced version of Dota, with a lot more clicking and skill-shots and emphasis on individual skill than hero drafting (many of the new heroes are jack of all trades), and a number of annoying features removed (secret shop gone/start off with a courier: but you could argue they are more layers). I like it quite a bit still but noone plays it and everyone i know plays dota.
- Most hardcore gamers gripe with LoL (and now HoN) is the F2P/grinding system where payment or time is required to achieve a fair playing field. Dota gives complete access to the whole hero pool, which makes it the most balanced system for hero drafting easily. (HoN used to do the same but then switched to F2P)
- Second hand knowledge suggests that LoL has removed a number of features, archaic or not, like denying, pulling, runes, TPs, bottles, juking, mana management tactics, and has fewer items you have to activate (in the other 2 games your inventory could easily contain 6 activated items). LoL is considered the easiest to learn which is great, but I like the extra strategic/tactical layers that those features provide in HoN/Dota.
- Most sources also say that the consequences of dying or being out of position are much lower in LoL. Again, Dota is team fencing, and death can easily be the result of being out of position more than anything else. LoL seems to have a number of ways to make positioning less important including items which reduce the effectiveness of disables, and in HoN most heroes have escape abilities. The apparent result is that dying has the biggest consequence and is also the easiest to do in Dota, which drags your whole team down as the enemy gets gold and exp. The increased consequence of having new players on the team leads to more raging.

For me the ideal game would be dota with a few of the hon heroes i sorely miss like parasite, chipper, and engineer 

[edit: article i linked is probably not worth it given its from 2011]

[Watno]

Are you sure about Dota 1 being more popular than LoL? Where do you live? China?

[Saucery]

I was including china in an overall comparison yeah. Keep in mind there are some conflicting stats out there, but the main thing to note when comparing stats is that dota has a gazillion free platforms outside of battle.net. 

http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/10i3sx/so_you_thought_dota2_was_getting_large/

Also, a huge part of the asian dota culture is to go to lan shops and play in groups which aren't recorded online. So its probably an even bigger difference than given in the link above.

[Watno]

Wow, I had never seen this. Thx for the link.

[mcmcsalot]

Sorry, none of those statistics are backed up by facts. I won't argue but I believe that league recently surpassed Starcraft in most active players for an online game.

[Watno]

Just as the number of LOL games, it's from a statement of someone running the client. I don't see how one can be a a fact while the other isn't.
Though I am a bit skeptic about both numbers.

[mcmcsalot]

Just as the number of LOL games, it's from a statement of someone running the client. I don't see how one can be a a fact while the other isn't.
Though I am a bit skeptic about both numbers.

Oh yes, I don't think any of those numbers are correct

[Saucery]

You can believe what you want, but aren't the statistics facts? 5 billion games played in 1 year for one of the 3 major chinese dota clients vs 1 billion games played over 3 years for LoL. Even if the numbers (on either side) are fudged, when you extrapolate to include (a) the other chinese clients (b) the lan culture and (c) the rest of the world, there is nothing to suggest LoL is anywhere near the vicinity of dota 1.

Not that any of this really matters.

[mcmcsalot]

You can believe what you want, but aren't the statistics facts? 5 billion games played in 1 year for one of the 3 major chinese dota clients vs 1 billion games played over 3 years for LoL. Even if the numbers (on either side) are fudged, when you extrapolate to include (a) the other chinese clients (b) the lan culture and (c) the rest of the world, there is nothing to suggest LoL is anywhere near the vicinity of dota 1.

Not that any of this really matters.

I don't believe the numbers are fudged a bit. I think they are no where near correct, and the statistics are not facts, there is no proof that that is in fact the amount of games played on that server. Also that picture is from 2011

[theory]

5 billion seems way beyond the realm of reason. 

[Saucery]

A quick look around reveals nothing really supporting or going against it. It might very well be true, or the truth misrepresented in some way (leaver games and remakes).

[Razzishi]

DoTA is a "better" game.  LoL is more fun.  Which do you care about more?

[Watno]

What makes you think so? I don't think LOL would be more fun for me than Dota is.

[mcmcsalot]

DoTA is a "better" game.  LoL is more fun.  Which do you care about more?

Neither game is better, that is subjective. As is which game is more fun.

[Razzishi]

I suppose I meant LoL is more fun for mostly the same reasons that everyone cites when claiming DoTA is better.  That is, the DoTA game mechanics claimed to make it a better game generally make the game less fun for me.

[mcmcsalot]

I suppose I meant LoL is more fun for mostly the same reasons that everyone cites when claiming DoTA is better.  That is, the DoTA game mechanics claimed to make it a better game generally make the game less fun for me.

ahh, I see what your saying, I think a more objective way to say it is dota has a higher learning curve and skill cap. That can be much more fun for some people. Personally I agree with you, I like the simplicity of lol and I love the "catch em all" unlock style where I would get bored with dota.

[TheMunch]

LOL doesn't have bristleback.  0/10 wont play.

[Watno]

It's not like Dota 2 has had Bristleback for that long yet.

[TheMunch]

It's not like Dota 2 has had Bristleback for that long yet.

True.  I had been waiting sooooooo loooonnnngg!!!!

I half jest.  I played HoN much more back in the day and I basically played armadon (their bristleback port) almost exclusively.  Now bb has been ported to Dota 2 so I can stop playing centaur and chaos knight and just play bristleback exclusively.

But in terms of the LOL vs Dota 2 think, my comment was only half in jest.  I played LoL, I tried, but I was too used to the HoN/Dota style of laning and hero interactions, and I'm too old to learn all that AP/whatever the stats are in LoL, so I just stuck with all I know.  Hell, I could be missing out on a hero in LoL that works like bristleback but is a million times better, but I'll never know. 

I'm just sad HoN messed up the good things they had going for them.

[mcmcsalot]

It's not like Dota 2 has had Bristleback for that long yet.

True.  I had been waiting sooooooo loooonnnngg!!!!

I half jest.  I played HoN much more back in the day and I basically played armadon (their bristleback port) almost exclusively.  Now bb has been ported to Dota 2 so I can stop playing centaur and chaos knight and just play bristleback exclusively.

But in terms of the LOL vs Dota 2 think, my comment was only half in jest.  I played LoL, I tried, but I was too used to the HoN/Dota style of laning and hero interactions, and I'm too old to learn all that AP/whatever the stats are in LoL, so I just stuck with all I know.  Hell, I could be missing out on a hero in LoL that works like bristleback but is a million times better, but I'll never know. 

I'm just sad HoN messed up the good things they had going for them.

Sounds like rammus, a year ago I would have said rammus does all that but better, rammus has a move speed boost that colides with enemies and slows them, he can taunt enemies into attacking him, he can takes reduced damage and gives return damage, and he creates a ground pound damaging all enemies around him. Now he does all that, but his taunt duration and damage were reduced to oblivion, he's useless.

[Watno]

Sounds more like Axe.

[mcmcsalot]

Ability wise I see where you get that, but we have a champion called Darius who is pretty much a straight rip off of axe.

[TheMunch]

I'll explain what I like about Bristleback and maybe you can find me a better lol counterpart (I believe I played rammus... Hes the guy that charges people with his rolling move, right?  To me that feels more like bara.)

I generally like tanks.  I like being able to take a great deal of punishment.  But tanks need to be focused in order for their tankiness to really shine.  So particularly, your tanks need to have some way to instigate people to fight them.  In dota, this is sometimes accomplished by buying a radiance (which I think there is a weaker analog in LoL).  But what I find frustrating about spending your money on instigating is that this replaces money that could be spent making yourself even more unkillable.

Bristleback combines all of this into his abilities so that he is one obnoxious hero that, if left undealt with, can kill your whole team given enough time, through his quill burst.  But then his bristleback ability, if used correctly, means that even when the enemy team wants to take care of the quill burst threat (since prior to the team fight I've been running around bursting quills on people), this only causes them to be in even more trouble.  Lastly, the snot is the icing on the instigation cake.  If BB isn't dealt with, the goo lets him go in for the kill.  It gives a definite reason to kill bb before he has a chance to put insurmountable dmg on you.  And this is all without his ult which gives you the position and bonus dmg to really seal the deal.  All this means that you can spend all of your money on all of the tankiness you could ever want, turning yourself into an unkillable powerhouse with the dmg necessary to kill anyone you want and no one can get away.

Does LoL have a counterpart?  A hero that has in its skills both means to tank, and reasons for enemies to focus him, while being able to take advantage of gold (more tankiness equates to more dmg).  I want to be a tank and force people to fight me, and then be unkillable when they decide to fight me.

[mcmcsalot]

Alright well, if you want a broken champion that kills people without building damage darius is your man. He's our copy of axe. His passive is every auto attack or ability applies a stack of hemmorage(deals some damage over time, caps at 5) His q spins in a circle dealing damage and applying stacks, his w is a auto attack augment which deals damage and slows, his e pulls people near him. Looking at this hes not all that great, hes gotta get close and doesnt deal that much damage unless you build it. His ultimate however is broken so do not fear, he executes an enemy dealing damage that is multiplied by the number of stacks of hemmorage on them, if he kills the enemy with his ulti the cooldown is refreshed and you can do it again. So you just build darius all tank, and become unkillable, wait untill you have 5 stacks on the enemy and execute them, rinse and repeat untill the entire team is dead. If they let you stick around long enough to apply stacks on everyone you pretty much win, regardless of your damage items.

[theory]

Maybe Nasus, based on what you (mcmcsalot) were describing to me the other day?  Extremely high potential damage on his Q depending on how well you farm; can build pure tank because he gets all his damage from his Q farm; has a terrifying ultimate (engage beast mode!).

[mcmcsalot]

Maybe Nasus, based on what you (mcmcsalot) were describing to me the other day?  Extremely high potential damage on his Q depending on how well you farm; can build pure tank because he gets all his damage from his Q farm; has a terrifying ultimate to engage beast mode.

Haha, this was actually the other champion I was going to mention but ran out of time to type up stuff. Yes, nasus becomes a beast without any damage items(save for a few augmentors which provide utility) The reason I didn't think of nasus immediatly is because I am used to nasus being a poor champion as he was in the past. It is actually only recently that nasus has become very popular. The item icebourn gauntlets has really improved his overall kit imensly, previously you had to get trinity force(builds out of sheen and has the same damage multiplier after spell) which had attack speed and crit strike in it. That as well as the increase in dive champion strength in season 3. Previously nasus had very poor initiation(enemies would just avoid nasus untill he was the only one left), wither was not enough to catch champions because teams were often built around defensive cc. Now that assassins and dive champs are popular, wither is enough to let your team dive in or even get in yourself.

[eHalcyon]

What about Olaf?  His W scales off of max health and his E deals true damage (ignores resistances).  His R makes him pretty much unstoppable, and his passive makes him more dangerous the lower his health is.  He's hard to kill but he can do a lot of damage even without damage items.

[Watno]

That sounds like Huskar except huskar isn't really hard to kill usually.

Btw, it's really fascinating how LoL players always refer to skills with their default hotkeys. That's almost never done by Dota players.

[eHalcyon]

That sounds like Huskar except huskar isn't really hard to kill usually.

Btw, it's really fascinating how LoL players always refer to skills with their default hotkeys. That's almost never done by Dota players.

[Watno]

In dota you mostly use a short descriptive name ("stun", "slow", "ulti"). Isn't using hotkeys incredibly confusing for people who don't play that champion often, or haven't played it all?

[mcmcsalot]

In dota you mostly use a short descriptive name ("stun", "slow", "ulti"). Isn't using hotkeys incredibly confusing for people who don't play that champion often, or haven't played it all?

Well q/w/e/r is the set up, so its the normal way of referring to each one of those spells. R is reffered to as ulti often. Though if you notice I explained what each ability did when referring to qwer. I mean I could have said decimate(q) crippling strike(w) apprehend(e) and noxian guillotine(r) but honestly does that say anymore than q/w/e/r.

[mcmcsalot]

What about Olaf?  His W scales off of max health and his E deals true damage (ignores resistances).  His R makes him pretty much unstoppable, and his passive makes him more dangerous the lower his health is.  He's hard to kill but he can do a lot of damage even without damage items.

4 months ago this was true, olaf was broken you built straight tank and destroyed. Now they nerfed him and nasus has taken his place as the op tank that gets to one shot squishies late game. Olaf's true damage does way less damage, viscious strikes(w) has always scaled terribly and doesn't give you enough sustain to be helpful. His r also no longer gives him as much utility. He now has to build damage to dish it out, and max his axe toss, then he gets exploded in teamfights.

[Watno]

Yeah, but what extra information do the hotkeys add?

[mcmcsalot]

it was a way to say this ability, saying he has an ability that does this and an ability that does that, just say q does this, w does that. Its easier.

[theory]

Yeah, but what extra information do the hotkeys add?

Well there's no easy short way to summarize all of the abilities.  For Nasus, his W you can succinctly describe as "his slow", but his Q would be "his targeted basic attack amplifier that adds damage permanently when you kill units".  So you just say Nasus's Q and assume they know what the ability is instead of referring to it with a label.

[Titandrake]

Yeah, but what extra information do the hotkeys add?

Well there's no easy short way to summarize all of the abilities.  For Nasus, his W you can succinctly describe as "his slow", but his Q would be "his targeted basic attack amplifier that adds damage permanently when you kill units".  So you just say Nasus's Q and assume they know what the ability is instead of referring to it with a label.

Depends on the board. (I mean, uh, champion.) For instance, people never say Nidalee's Q, it's always "the spear". Similarly, people interchangeably use Olaf's Q, the axe, or Undertow. My guess is that it has to do with how iconic/visible the skill is. Skills that give passive effects are usually by hotkey, while damaging skills can go either way.

It can be confusing if you haven't played the champion before, but that's what the LoL wiki is for.

[eHalcyon]

My favourite champion is Maokai.  I refer to his skills as:

his Q  {arcane smash}
his snare  {twisted advance}
his sapling  {sapling toss}
his ult  {vengeful maelstrom}

So, umm... mixed bag.

[mcmcsalot]

My favourite champion is Maokai.  I refer to his skills as:

his Q  {arcane smash}
his snare  {twisted advance}
his sapling  {sapling toss}
his ult  {vengeful maelstrom}

So, umm... mixed bag.

Huh, I've never thought about this. I rearely play maokai, so I would describe his Q as his smash, but only because I did not know which ones were which for him.

Renecton who I play frequently I would say his Q (actually don't know the name) his stun, his dash, and his ulti. So I guess I really only use Q,W,E,R when I know I will be explaining what it does. Because then I feel I am describing the ability completely, how to use it and what they do.

[eHalcyon]

I sometimes call his snare his w, but I never call sapling toss his E.  Probably because it's so iconic.

[mcmcsalot]

A quick look around reveals nothing really supporting or going against it. It might very well be true, or the truth misrepresented in some way (leaver games and remakes).

Okay finally got around to looking up some actual game trending statistics.

http://www.gametrics.com/?nxid=15

This website is a korean trending website that tracks game popularity, Lol has been the number 1 for 37 weeks, apologies if your computer cannot translate the page it is all in korean.

[Watno]

And what makes this Korean page a reliable source?
My computer indeed can't translate it, what do they even claim to measure?

[mcmcsalot]

It's a third party company that tracks game and player data for a game to help with marketing and monetary panning. So it probably doesn't have reliable data on private dota servers.

[Ozle]

Also, it only seems to be monitoring Korea if you go to the full ranks page

http://www.gametrics.com/rank/Rank02.aspx

Area: Nationwide


Also, unsure what this conversation was about,can we not just all meet in a parking lot and everyone dresses as favourite character and LARP out which one is better?


*EDIT*
Hmm, LARP It Out. That has got a good ring to it, i shall use that as a suggestion to end all geek arguments in future.

[Watno]

I do believe that LoL is probably way more popular than Dota in the world except China. However, Dota is way more popular in China. The question is wether Dota in China is enough to make up for Lol in the rest of the world.

@Ozle: Go 1v1 SF only mid.

[Ozle]

@Ozle: Go 1v1 SF only mid.

I don't know what this means but im hoping it means I get to dress up as Princess Peach again right?

[Drab Emordnilap]

I think it's like FONIFD.

[Watno]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-04-10-dota-2-passes-league-of-legends-as-most-played-pc-game
Further stats. The report it's based on apparently costs $6000 though. If there are actually companies paying that, that makes it look somewhat trustworthy in my eyes.

[theory]

The report it's bassed on apparently costs $2000 though. If there are actually companies paying that, that makes it look somewhat trustworthy in my eyes.

As someone who works in an industry with plenty of expensive reports ... lol

[Watno]

So you're buing reports for thousands of dollars without knowing wether they are actually valid?

[Ozle]

So you're buing reports for thousands of dollars without knowing wether they are actually valid?

Lawyers probably buy reports for thousands of dollars knowing full well they are not valid! Sneaky people these laywers!

[mcmcsalot]

The thing that bugs me with most of these figures is Starcraft is nowhere to be found, and I know that was the most played game before league.

I would believe that worldwide the largest pc games have gone in an order like this:

World of Warcraft(first majorly played online pc game)
Starcraft(overtook world of Warcraft due to competitive popularity in Asia)
League of legends(eruption of NA and EU competitive scenes made it the most played game)
Dota2(release took many of the Starcraft players as it is closer in feel then lol and became huge in Asia)

I think that is accurate with game releases as well which would make sense.
I am excited to see what riot is going to do to get back in the top. I doubt they will make a new game, and think they are going to attempt to grow the competitive scene even more. Though without opening up the competitive play to minor leagues I doubt it will increase their player base in the long run.

[Watno]

I think Riot will answer with making a new statistic, like they're probably all doing^^

[mcmcsalot]

I think Riot will answer with making a new statistic, like they're probably all doing^^

Haha yea I remember they released a year end chart saying league was played more hours than the top 100 most played games on steam. Then in little fine print, the steam games were tracked for on single day, and the league games were and average of an entire month of summer play time. So it's clearly skewed

[theory]

So you're buing reports for thousands of dollars without knowing wether they are actually valid?

No -- I am constantly barraged by emails advertising extremely expensive reports that aren't worth the electricity they're sent on.

[theory]

I think Riot will answer with making a new statistic, like they're probably all doing^^

Haha yea I remember they released a year end chart saying league was played more hours than the top 100 most played games on steam. Then in little fine print, the steam games were tracked for on single day, and the league games were and average of an entire month of summer play time. So it's clearly skewed

This one?  http://blogs-images.forbes.com/jasonevangelho/files/2012/10/League-of-Legends-infographic.jpg

They're comparing single day to average per day, which is acceptable if the single day isn't an outlier, but it's deeply misleading to compare an October day to an average July day!

[mcmcsalot]

I think Riot will answer with making a new statistic, like they're probably all doing^^

Haha yea I remember they released a year end chart saying league was played more hours than the top 100 most played games on steam. Then in little fine print, the steam games were tracked for on single day, and the league games were and average of an entire month of summer play time. So it's clearly skewed

This one?  http://blogs-images.forbes.com/jasonevangelho/files/2012/10/League-of-Legends-infographic.jpg

They're comparing single day to average per day, which is acceptable if the single day isn't an outlier, but it's deeply misleading to compare an October day to an average July day!

exactly, I mean its clearly skewed and I find it funny that they wouldn't just choose to make the statistic more realistic and fair.

[Watno]

You can actually play OMG mode in Dota 2 via this site: http://d2ware.net/lobbies

[Watno]

Dota 2 has now been officially released: http://www.dota2.com/thebetaisover (not that it was a problem getting a beta invite before, but getting in is more straightforward now)
Also, there is a comprehensive tutorial now, so getting into it should be easier than ever.

[Grujah]

Do I need to reapply if I had beta access?

[Watno]

No, all beta accounts still exist and continue to be useable.

[Watno]

The International 3, the most awesome tournament ever is about to start.
I'm so hyped.

[theory]

It looks amazing!

[Watno]

The really amazing part hasn't even started yet.

[HiveMindEmulator]

If only there were some good way to do slow-mo or instant replay... Otherwise dota is really hard to watch.

[Watno]

If you're watching the replay in the ingame client, you can do all that quite easily.
Live it's harder, but one of the streams actually did it during the qualifiers by recording their own stream and replaying the relevant parts. It's quite a lot of work, but they might do it again for the main event.

[HiveMindEmulator]

If you're watching the replay in the ingame client, you can do all that quite easily.
Live it's harder, but one of the streams actually did it during the qualifiers by recording their own stream and replaying the relevant parts. It's quite a lot of work, but they might do it again for the main event.

Yeah, live is what I'm talking about. Dota is not really a viewer-friendly esport. So I think it's important for whoever is broadcasting it to put a lot of work into the production. Back when I played dota, I always preferred to watch replays compared to vods, because then you can see what you want to, and slow/pause at big fights (even though you couldn't rewind back then, if you anticipate, you just watch it slow). With live broadcast, the production is really important.

[Watno]

Now the awesome part has started.

[theory]

It was nice/smart/savvy/respectful of Riot to suspend their LCS for this week.  Unlike, say, Blizzard >_>

[mcmcsalot]

Alright, how do I watch this thing?

[Watno]

It was nice/smart/savvy/respectful of Riot to suspend their LCS for this week.  Unlike, say, Blizzard >_>

I'd go with smart.

@mcmcsalot: Go here: http://www.dota2.com/international/mainevent/watch/ (once it's live in 6 hours).
If you want to watch VODs, go to schedule tab, select a day in the past, and click view at a game of your choice.
Assuming you have Dota 2 installed, you can also watch the games with the client, but you'll miss out on the pre- and postgame discussion, player cams and interviews.

[Watno]

Now would be a good time to tune in. Great game just happened.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Now would be a good time to tune in. Great game just happened.

Ooh, I think I watched this one. Alliance vs LGD? Great for being close, well executed, and really highlighting European (kill towers) vs Chinese (don't die while you get one hero really farmed) style. On the downside, made my "lunch break" take forever...

[Watno]

Yeah, that one was it. The ending was far from perfect, but very entertaining.
Be happy you didn't see game two of ig vs dk, that was the most boring game ever, and it took 98 minutes.
Some more awesome games coming up now.

[Saucery]

Last game of the grand finals was heart attack inducing; highly recommend. The production looks great too.

VODS: http://www.youtube.com/user/dota2/videos
Final Game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8HBr1EGX1I

[Watno]

I stayed up till 6 am for that. Absolutely worth it.

[Jorbles]

So I started playing dota 2 a couple weeks ago at least partially because this thread made it sound interesting. I will check in, in a month or two, when I will lose to you guys in a way that won't embarrass me. 

[Watno]

You'd be amazed by how bad one can be at this game after having played it thousands of times.

[mcmcsalot]

So I started playing dota 2 a couple weeks ago at least partially because this thread made it sound interesting. I will check in, in a month or two, when I will lose to you guys in a way that won't embarrass me. 

Play league it's easier to learn!

[Jorbles]

So I started playing dota 2 a couple weeks ago at least partially because this thread made it sound interesting. I will check in, in a month or two, when I will lose to you guys in a way that won't embarrass me. 

Play league it's easier to learn!

I don't necessarily want what's easier, I'll admit the complexity is part of what draws me to it.

[() | (_) ^/]

Last game of the grand finals was heart attack inducing; highly recommend. The production looks great too.

VODS: http://www.youtube.com/user/dota2/videos
Final Game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8HBr1EGX1I

I just watched the final game.

I have literally no knowledge of DotA at all.

Obviously they kept using terms that I don't understand.  Constantly.

But I stuck it out, and my hair was standing on end during the final pushes, especially when they were attacking each others' bases.  I think a big part of that was the casters -- superb job as far as I can tell.

Pretty cool.  Might try DotA out now.

[theory]

Last game of the grand finals was heart attack inducing; highly recommend. The production looks great too.

VODS: http://www.youtube.com/user/dota2/videos
Final Game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8HBr1EGX1I

I just watched the final game.

I have literally no knowledge of DotA at all.

Obviously they kept using terms that I don't understand.  Constantly.

But I stuck it out, and my hair was standing on end during the final pushes, especially when they were attacking each others' bases.  I think a big part of that was the casters -- superb job as far as I can tell.

Pretty cool.  Might try DotA out now.

I got into League for the same reason   Especially this 3v5 moment from the All-Star tournament earlier this year.

So I started playing dota 2 a couple weeks ago at least partially because this thread made it sound interesting. I will check in, in a month or two, when I will lose to you guys in a way that won't embarrass me. 

Play league it's easier to learn!

I don't necessarily want what's easier, I'll admit the complexity is part of what draws me to it.

I think what mcmcsalot means is that it's easier to get to the interesting complexity in LoL than in Dota.  By that I mean, it is easier to get through the tactics (mechanical skills, turning speeds, creep stacking, etc.) to get to the strategy (counterpicking, team compositions).  It's still very difficult to master the mechanics (no one in the world plays Lee Sin like Insec or Zed like Faker), but you get to a more interesting part of the skill curve faster.

[Watno]

I disagree, theory. You don't need to master tactics before you can use strategy. Why would you need to know about turnrates to think about which heroes would combine well, for example?
I don't know much about turnrates myself (pretty much only that Batrider's sticky napalm slows it), and I don't believe that contributes much to me being terrible at this game.

Also, I'd say creep stacking is rather a part of strategy than of tactics.

Especially after already having played Dota for several weeks, the setback from starting anew would make switching ridiculous.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I think theory's point about turn rate is that it's different for different heroes in dota, but like the same for everyone in LoL (I think). So there's not really anything know about turn rate and attack animation in LoL. You just pick up a new champion and use the different spells rather than also having to get used to their animation timings. In dota, you may struggle a bit last-hitting and denying the first time you use a new hero. Turn rate in particular isn't that noticeable a lot of the time except that SF (and apparently bat now) turns really fast. But animation matters a lot.

[Watno]

You don't need perfect lasthitting for strategy either.

[() | (_) ^/]

Wow. Played the tutorial. Looked up copious amounts of online material about how to get into this game. (Lots of Purge's stuff mostly.)

Played against the bots.  Always won except when I put them on hard mode.

Just played my first game against human beings.  Pretty crazy!  One of the other noobs like me picked the one and only hero that I know before I got to it, so I just randomed and had fun.  Went 7/6/15 (k/d/a) while trying to be the middle carry.  I didn't do well in the early game.

[Watno]

So, did you win? More importantly, was it fun?
What heroes have you been playing?
I really need to get back to my computer that's able to run dota 2

[Jorbles]

I've been trying to learn heroes so I've been practicing a lot against bots with randoms. I tried playing Death Prophet for awhile against humans, and lost a bunch.

I then tried playing Timbersaw and enjoyed that a lot more. I've played a few games with that character now. I even won a game, admittedly it was against a team who had absolutely no idea what they were doing. They would run at us and autoattack one at a time. At the end of the 22 minute game we had 70+ kills. It is nice to know there's worse players out there though.

[() | (_) ^/]

So, did you win? More importantly, was it fun?
What heroes have you been playing?
I really need to get back to my computer that's able to run dota 2

I did win -- now I've played 6 games versus humans, and I've been on the winning team with 4 of them.

In the pub games, I have only played Witch Doctor and Viper.  I'm open to learning others, but I'd hate to be in a real game with a hero I know nothing about.  So I'm playing medium level bots and randoming.  Pretty crazy.

I really right now know absolutely nothing about the strategy of picking for team composition.  There is so much to learn, I'm kinda overwhelmed.

[Jorbles]

So I'm necroing this thread to let people who were on it know that I'm still playing. PM me if you want to add my steam profile. I find the worst part of the game is playing with a bunch of randoms. It'd be nice to have a few more people listed on my profile so I can minimize the people I play with who just shout "LOL NOOOB EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVE" or only speak Russian.

[() | (_) ^/]

Actually, I'll do the same... Except I'll just post my steam profile. 
http://steamcommunity.com/id/p4ddy0d00rs Add me for dota goodness.

I would rather not just play solo games -- a lot of my games recently have been against 4 or 5 person parties, and it's frustrating because they are obviously more coordinated.

That being said, I really really love playing dota.  Seriously thanks to those who encouraged me to try it.

[Watno]

I'm.only playing every once in a while at the moment, because I'm trying to.spend more time on other stuff (not that that's working too great though). Maybe I'll play some games again in the next couple of days.
@paddydoors: You can set your matchmaking to matching you with other solo players only in the language preference selection of the matchmaking tab (no idea why they put out there of all things)

[() | (_) ^/]

...
@paddydoors: You can set your matchmaking to matching you with other solo players only in the language preference selection of the matchmaking tab (no idea why they put out there of all things)

Thanks!  I didn't know that.

But I'll probably still not check it... I'm not opposed to playing with groups of 2 or three... it's just annoying when the other team is 4-or-5 man coordinated. =(

And yes, you should play some more =).

[Jorbles]

Played a game with Watno, he's a beast on Slark! (I am a middling support on Lich.)

[Grujah]

I haven't play in a while (damn Hearthstone) but I'm up for a game here and there. So add me!
Grujah

[() | (_) ^/]

Just played a game with Jorbles and three of his friends last night.  Seriously good people.

I really enjoy this game a ton.  We had a game (or two?) last night when we had a blast even when we were losing.  Lots of fun. 

I have yet to play a game with Watno or Grujah -- hopefully our paths will cross soon?

[() | (_) ^/]

I just got into League of Legends.  Dota continues to scare me for now.  But if you're interested in getting into a MOBA like LoL or Dota, I highly recommend this series of articles:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-07-10-the-dota-2-experience-part-one

I get it now.

Here's your reason to play Dota 2, a reason Dota 2 players don't articulate because they're too busy playing Dota 2 and, frankly, the last thing you want on your team is more noobs.

Dota 2 is fencing.

That's the skill, and the appeal. I finally see it. You're fighting back and forth down these lanes, looking for an opening in the other heroes' defense. The other guy's too close to your tower, or too far from his friend, his ultimate skill's on cooldown, his health is low. Fights in other games last seconds. Fights in Dota 2 are dramatic; entire minutes of feints and narrow escapes. Duels that can span forests, roads and rivers without coming to an end.

FYI, theory, thanks for sharing this article.  I've asked several potential dota players to read it before trying, and now each one loves the game.  I think something like this helps people steel themselves for the steep learning curve before starting to learn the game.  It helps curb the tendancy for one's "overwhelmometer" to top out.

Also, of a huge help and encouragement to me was Purge's new player page: Welcome to Dota, You Suck.

A few snippets from that page...

However, I promise that once you get the basics down, and you start playing casually with your friends, that you are going to have a TON of fun.

You are going to feed. You are going to ruin games, and someone is going to be happy to tell you why. DotA was originally played in Warcraft 3, and they had the most bad mannered, whining, assholes on the gaming internet. The only thing that comes close is Xbox Live. Luckily, with Dota 2, Valve has been making some really great strides to create a better environment for all players involved. The people playing the game are better than they used to be, but you are still playing a TEAM game that requires your allies to not be idiots for you to succeed. There will almost always be some levels of disappointment, and frustration between your aliies, and you.

My #1 tip to playing Dota 2, is that if someone flames you, or is freaking out about your play in an OVERLY(key word) critical way, press the mute button on them immediately, and then enjoy the rest of the game from your peaceful, but mysteriously quiet ally. Ignoring them doesn't work. Let them say 1 mean thing, and let that be it. Your day will be much better this way, I promise.

The last and best piece of advice I can give you is the reminder that DotA has a huge skill curve. I have been playing for about 3+ years. I have played THOUSANDS of games of dota. Every month that goes by, I think about how good I thought I was at dota a month or two ago, and it amazes me how much I’ve learned since then. Even players with good k/d(kills per death) need to realize that there is room for improvement on their game.

Jerks in pubs will tell you how pro they are and that their builds are the best. They are probably wrong, but THERE IS NO CONVINCING COCKY PEOPLE THEY ARE BAD. DO NOT ARGUE. Just know that with hard work and critical analysis of your mistakes you will someday pass their skill level. The greatest strength of ANY DotA player is knowing that there are always things to work on with your game play.

[Jorbles]

I gotta agree with Paddy. That Eurogamer article convinced me and then I showed it to my friends and it convinced them as well. It's a really compelling piece that explains the early game experience, but also what you can look forward to later. Some of my friends burned out on it eventually, but about half of them stuck with it and now we've got a bunch of regular players who try to play every week.

I discovered that Welcome to Dota, You Suck article on my own, but can vouch for it. It's a really good thing to read after you've gone through the tutorials and maybe played your first disastrous game.

[Lekkit]

So, now that I've started playing. Does anyone here still play? I kind of like the games you have to immerse yourself in. This might be one of the more demanding games, though. I still think it's pretty fun. Have played some with friends that are kind of experienced, and that actually helped me getting over some kind of threshold. I'd like to think I have a basic understanding of how the game works. Now I'll just have to put it to the test.

If anyone is interested, hit me up on Steam.

[Grujah]

I still play, and I also see Watno and Paddy online semi-regularly.

[Watno]

I'm playing pretty much every night atm.

[silverspawn]

for me dota has kind of been replaced by dominion, but i used to play alot... still play sometimes

[Jorbles]

for me dota has kind of been replaced by dominion, but i used to play alot... still play sometimes

It actually kindof went the opposite way for me. dota has replaced dominion. I barely play on goko, still play IRL sometimes though. I'm mostly here for the forum games.

[Watno]

I've been pretty much alternating between the two of them for some years now.

[Watno]

i think Valve just may have gotten to spend real money to look better in a virtual world for the first time.

[Watno]

To elaborate: They have released a "compendium", which gives you some goodies related to the upcoming "The International 4"-Tournament. It allows you to participate in a fantasy league and make predictions on the winners. A quarter of the money you spend on it goes to the prizepool of the tournament, which started out at 1,6 million $ and has reached 2,200,000 in less than 8 hours it's been available, with these hours being mostly night/morning in Europe and America. Last year they got to  $2,874,407 in several months, which was already considered huge.

That means Valve has made already sold $2.4 million worth of these things, and are likely to make a lot more. I really like this business model working out.

[Watno]

So they're introducing a Dota 2 Fantasy League: http://blog.dota2.com/2014/05/introducing-fantasy-league-season-one/
How about forming an f.ds league?

[Jorbles]

I'd be in! Paddy?

[() | (_) ^/]

Not spending real world money on dota yet (if ever), sorry.  No compendium or fantasy league for me (fantasy league requires compendium, yes?).

Reading the recent posts in this thread for the first time: I've been away from f.ds for quite a bit.  Lekkit, what's your steam handle? Hit me up I'm happy to play dota with you man. Grujah and I have played like two games together and he's way better than me. Wagon and I played a ton together for a while and he's better than me too. Jorbles and his people are super fun to play with too, and they are also better than me except they have a newer guy in their group who is still learning obv.  Basically, if you're okay hanging with a noob, let's play. :-)

[Lekkit]

@Watno: I'm not really interested. Or rather, I am kind of interested, but I don't have the time for it.

@() | (_) ^/: It's "Lekkit". I'm usually the worst in the partys I play with. So I think we'd get along.

[Watno]

Not spending real world money on dota yet (if ever), sorry.  No compendium or fantasy league for me (fantasy league requires compendium, yes?).

You need a Fantasy ticket, which comes with the compendium, but is also available at the Steam community market for ~20ct.

Anyway, doens't look like we have enough people who are really interested anyway.

[Lekkit]

How many people are needed, and how much time do you think it would take?

[Watno]

I'm not really sure about all this, butt I think 4 would be the absolute minimum and 6 would probably be good. Then again, I don't think it's really a good idea if half the players only play in order to allow it to fill up.

I guess it takes maybe 30 minutes for the draft and then time daily/weekly depending on how commited you are to update your lineup.

[Lekkit]

Inspired by the League of Legends thread, can we get a 5 man team going?

[Jorbles]

Inspired by the League of Legends thread, can we get a 5 man team going?

How often do you think you'd want to play? I'm interested, but I already have a scheduled night that I play with friends regularly.

[Watno]

I'm afraid we don't have enough people and too much tiem-zone difference.

In other news, The International 4 is starting.
If anyone new to the game is interested, there's a special stream for people unfamiliar with the game at http://www.twitch.tv/dota2ti_noob

[Lekkit]

I didn't mean it like, let's be a team that plays regularly, but like a one time thing. If it's fun we could try it out again.

[Watno]

First match was pretty good, but due to peer pressure I'm heading out to watch less interesting sports now. Good thing there's a liveticker.

[Lekkit]

I didn't catch the first game of the first match. But the second game was pretty good.

Watching less interesting sports sounds unfun. I'll be sitting at home watching e-athletes duke it out!

[Jorbles]

digital sports are best sports.

Anyhow yeah I'd be interested in some sort of meet up to beat each other up or to beat others up together.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Ti4 is also on watchespn! Hooray for esports!

[Ichimaru Gin]

Just picked this up about 2-3 days ago. And I can already tell how addictive this is going to be. Played a few matches against bots and trying out some of the different heroes (Warlock is one of my favorites). I'm open to playing with anyone willing to suffer a total noob. And I'm very much open to advice or any tips that you have. With the number of heroes and strategies--this is going to keep me busy for a long time (probably forever).

[Lekkit]

I'll gladly play with you. I was completely new to the game a couple of months ago too. And playing with people that wasn't just random was what kept me from doing what I did when I tried DotA Allstars out back in the WCIII days. Play two games, then decide that it's too difficult to learn and people yell at you.

[Ichimaru Gin]

I'll gladly play with you. I was completely new to the game a couple of months ago too. And playing with people that wasn't just random was what kept me from doing what I did when I tried DotA Allstars out back in the WCIII days. Play two games, then decide that it's too difficult to learn and people yell at you.

Thanks! I'd definitely be down for that.
So far, I've only played bots because I'm afraid of exactly that--messing up and getting raged at which would kind of ruin my experience. The more I watch videos, read guides, and play-- I'm reaching more of that "know what you don't know" point I think. I really want to get good at it, but I feel like playing pub matches with random people is not something I'm terribly up for at this point (at least not all by myself). Bots are ok, but they don't seem to represent playing with other humans that well (which is kind of expected I guess).

[Lekkit]

I've been raged on a couple of times. Even though I don't consider myself the best of players, but I get the feeling that most of the angry players are either not as good as they think they are, or they are for some reason matched up with people that they think should be better. My point is that most of the time, people will rage at you for stuff you cannot do anything about. So generally, you should just shrug any rage off.

Also, once you unlock ranked play, there's MMR on the line and people become even more stingy.

[Ichimaru Gin]

I've been raged on a couple of times. Even though I don't consider myself the best of players, but I get the feeling that most of the angry players are either not as good as they think they are, or they are for some reason matched up with people that they think should be better. My point is that most of the time, people will rage at you for stuff you cannot do anything about. So generally, you should just shrug any rage off.

Also, once you unlock ranked play, there's MMR on the line and people become even more stingy.

I see, so they'll probably me more ticked if you mess up when it's ranked. Yet hopefully you'd be at comparable levels of skill?
I appreciate the advice though as that's been one of my main concerns about the game is the reputation (perhaps blown out of proportion?) the community has for raging. Also, is voice chat very important in most pub games? Because I very much dislike talking and hearing random voices of strangers. Although I know coordination is very important.

[Lekkit]

I've only played one ranked game. I've yet to get my initial MMR, so currently it matches me with people of kind of random skill. I assume. So before you actually get your MMR you can be matched with people that are better or worse players than you.

I don't really think DotA 2 players rage more than people playing other games. But you play with 9 other players every game. So you get a ton of players at the same time. Also, as in any co-op game with randoms, you are more easily annoyed at the randomness of your matchmaking. "Oh, no. I got matched with a noob again!".

I mostly play on the European servers where people speak a ton of different languages, so in game voice chat isn't super common. It's VERY useful if people understand you, though. The few games I've played on NA servers have been more voice chatty, though, since people expect you to know English. And usually those games become more team oriented.

I personally don't get why talking with strangers would be weird, but I understand that people think it is. I think getting used to hearing others would be kind of good, in my opinion. Whenever I play I feel constrained when I can't voice chat with my team mates, but you don't have to do that. I know people who mute the ingame voice chat.

[Watno]

People will rage independantly of skill level. They just like having someone else to blame if they lose. Apparently, it's actually better at a beginner level though, because there people are much more busy trying to control their own hero. If someone gets mad at you, just remember they most likely have no clue themselves and just want to believe they aren't responsible for something going wrong.

Unranked matchmaking doesn't match you up with random people. There's a hidden rating that is used to match you up with people of similar skill, though of course in the very beginning, this is kinda hard to estimate. Ranked matchmaking unses this hidden rating as a starting point, and the only differences between the 2 matchmaking systems is that ranked allows you to see your rating, restricts the game modes you can play, and people get even more worked up about that number.
I have only playe ranked games when friends wanted to do that and a m quite happy this way.

Ingame voice chat is hardly ever used on European servers. I don't use it at all, but when playing with friends mostly use Skype or Teamspeak.


In other news, I'll be heading out to watch the Grand Finals of The International  in a bar soon. Quite curious how that will turn out.

[Lekkit]

I'm jealous of you. I'll be watching it in front of my computer. Will still be pretty fun, though.

[silverspawn]

I'll play with you too. all this talk has made me want to play dota2 again... though I most likely won't play as much as I used to.

[Lekkit]

Does that make it 5?

Me, Jorbles, Watno(?), Ichimaru Gin and silverspawn, the valiant f.ds-troopers!

[Jorbles]

I'd be in to play. And I will chime in that I played about 6 ranked games but decided I really didn't care about playing with people who care so much about their mmr and went back to unranked (my favourite mode to play solo Random Draft isn't available in ranked anyways.) The game does a good job of matching you up with equally skilled people. I, like most people, end up winning about 50% of my games, which is apparently what the hidden skill system is designed for.

[Ichimaru Gin]

Awesome! I'd love to play with all of you guys. And maybe we could even pull together two f.ds teams that play each other! (or not  ).
I'm Pacific Time Zone, but we should definitely make this happen soon. I have a fair amount of free time at the moment and also stay up fairly late--so we could probably find a good time when we can all play.

[silverspawn]

howaboutnow? im just running out of stuff to do.

[Ichimaru Gin]

howaboutnow? im just running out of stuff to do.

Sure. I'm free right now and definitely for 1-2 hours. Anyone else?

[Jorbles]

Sorry at work. Have fun guys!

[theory]

In other news, I'll be heading out to watch the Grand Finals of The International  in a bar soon. Quite curious how that will turn out.

I watched this.  Sad how it turned out. 

[Jorbles]

In other news, I'll be heading out to watch the Grand Finals of The International  in a bar soon. Quite curious how that will turn out.

I watched this.  Sad how it turned out.

Yeah, I didn't even mind that those teams made it even though they weren't my favourite (they both played really well up until that point so they deserved it), but god was that finals boring.

[Watno]

Yeah, it was a really anticlimatic ending, and the fact that I wasn't really emotinally invested in either team didn't help as well.

Still a great event overall in my opinion.

[Lekkit]

I really like NewBee, and I'm glad they made it to the Grand Finals. But I'll also agree that the games themselves weren't that exciting. Not like last year.

[Ichimaru Gin]

I still can't believe what a scrub I am. I mean, I understand how difficult this game is, but I feel like I'm making 0 progress. I've watched approx. 20 of Purge's videos ranging from generalized strategy to pub castings and his hero specific games. Also been on Dotafire a lot reading up on character builds.

Earlier, silverspawn helped me out with 2 pub games (still my only 2 against real opponents). First, I went Warlock and we ended up winning--though I didn't help much I think. Second, I played Dragonknight and we kind of got crushed. He gave a lot of helpful advice that I really appreciated though.

I've played a number of bot matches, but after the laning phase, I feel like I enter a mindset of "acquire item x" and if I'm close to it, I will often miss teamfights. So I probably need to work a lot more on roaming after I'm stronger instead of continuing to farm.

Anyway, still trying to improve as best I can. And from what I understand and read online, I think practicing with bots for quite a while before entering real matches is probably a good idea. I really don't want to ruin anyone else's fun by messing up and/or have my fun ruined knowing that I'm not much of an asset to my team.

Normally in most games that I play, what I need to do at any given time is a little more apparent to me. However, (and this is probably a contributing factor to it being such a great game) I feel like decisions in Dota 2 are difficult yet also of extreme importance. Like when one should gank, push, retreat, farm, rosh, etc. is not intuitive to me at all. I often just end up continuing what I'm currently doing because I'm not sure if I'm making the right decision by doing anything else. Of course, the answer to being able to make the right decisions quickly and effectively is obviously experience, but I feel like there's still more I could be doing to improve my in-game decision making skills.

[Watno]

I think you shouldn't be worrying so much about ruin other's fun by messing up.
Unless you queue up with a more experienced player, your opponents should be just as clueless as you are.
Playing to much with bots might teach you things that don't apply in real games.

[Ichimaru Gin]

I think you shouldn't be worrying so much about ruin other's fun by messing up.
Unless you queue up with a more experienced player, your opponents should be just as clueless as you are.
Playing to much with bots might teach you things that don't apply in real games.

Thanks. So perhaps just jumping in and playing games with real players is the best way for me to learn. I agree about the bots, as stuff like low aggro, bots always buying courier, limited hero pool to play against, etc. might end up hurting my game if I become too used to it.

[Lekkit]

You'll still see a lot of Drow, Riki, Sniper and Pudge. And people picking super item dependant heroes and not farm. It's pretty much the same as people buing tons of Villages when they start playing Dominion.

[silverspawn]

i definitely wouldn't worry about ruining anyone's game. if you are support and you don't buy a courier; then you ruin the game. if you're new, you're just new.

[MarkowKette]

I used to play a lot of HoN. I tried out Dota2 and liked HoN more because it's faster paced and i liked the laning mechanics and gameplay more.
Now that i returned most of my friends stopped playing and i hate playing random match making because there is so much flaming going on and people ruining
the teamplay just to piss off their teammates that they don't like. I cant imagine this being worse in any other moba. So right now i'm considering to switch to Dota2.

[Lekkit]

Do it!

Play with us!

[() | (_) ^/]

Doing my once-every-six-months drop in on f.ds, good to see there are some more dota players.

Silverspawn, Ichimaru, and anyone else who wants to: add me on steam (just search p4ddy0d00rs, you'll see a funky name but with the same "Incredibles" avatar).

I try to play with Jorbles and his friends as often as I can.  Watno and I play during the day sometimes (during the day for me, prob evening for him).  I'm East Coast US but work odd times so I am on pretty randomly.

I also love learning from people who are better and teaching those who know less, so please just add me so we can play!  Jorbles recently enlightened me about something I was tending to do in a lot of our games -- I have begun adjusting my playstyle accordingly and it has made my games SO much better.  F.DSers have been very fun to play with, IMHO.

[Jorbles]

Yeah, feel free to add me as well:
My steam name is Manasaurus Rex and I have an icon of a mouse. manasaurus.rex might be what you need to search as that's what I used originally.

Playing with Paddy has been great, I played with Watno once, but the timings are a little off for us to be on at the same time often. I'm on US West usually, but US East is fine. It is really great to get advice from people on builds and playstyle. Talking to people has improved my play a lot so it's fun to play with people who know more about this incredibly complex game. (I may have given paddy some advice on when to rat vs not-rat, but he taught me how to build tiny and some other heroes.)