1. #3401
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    Quote Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK View Post
    It's less about numbers and more about mechanics. I don't like how easy some of the most powerful skills and abilities are to use - too many skills are "press button, click target, collect gold," and aren't particularly demanding on player input. When those abilities are also tied to a disable that completely prevents the victim from acting, and those abilities can be effortlessly stacked on top of each other with zero drawback to continually prevent the victim from doing anything, it gets stupid. I compare this to the shooters I've played competitively in the past, or even Brood War (which I didn't stick with long enough to really play competitively, but which I've watched quite a bit), and I just feel like these kinds of mechanics are holding the game back from being really skill-based.
    How do you propose the game is handled then? There is no "aiming" to learn like CS, there is no micro like SC

    Quote Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK View Post
    There are a lot of RNG mechanics that don't really seem to add much, and could be replaced with something consistent - random chance to miss attacking uphill with a ranged attack, random chance to crit, random chance to dodge, Chaos Bolt stuns and damages for a random amount within set limits, and so on. Over the course of an entire game or several games it evens out (otherwise the mechanic would deemed broken in some way and I'd assume something would've been done about it), but that's not really much consolation when you might win a game you should've lost because you rolled a 20 instead of an 18.
    Random keeps it interesting. I personally am glad it's there. I can use my uphill advantage mid to harass and say "eh the 50/50 chance (or whatever it is) of him striking back is worth it to get a few attacks in on him to harass". Are crit items bad as well? They are all random

    Quote Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK View Post
    I'm not a fan of how carries can often grow to become virtually unstoppable after a certain point. I agree that it's possible to delay that point, and I've seen professional teams pull it off plenty of times, but I still don't feel that's an acceptable mechanic for a game that's purportedly a skill-based game... especially when the majority of the gameplay for a carry consists of "right-click a target, continue right-clicking until all targets are gone, and then right-click to somewhere else."
    I'm curious how else a carry should scale then

    Quote Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK View Post
    I'm just disappointed that, after close to 400 hours in Dota 2 (and however many hours of Dota back in ~2004-2005), the game still seems to be mostly about spamming disables and less about real, skill-intensive actions, especially when you compare it to a proper shooter like Quake or UT, or even the more indie-style ones like Nexuiz (haven't looked at the new version, talking about the old one) or Warsow, where it's literally your skill against their skill and nothing else.
    You still can't compare a game like DOTA2 to a shooter like CS or quake. they are two entirely different games requiring entirely different skill-sets
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  2. #3402
    Quote Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK View Post
    Game design is not hard. The issue is that these mechanics are in the game to make it "exciting," given that the way the game is designed doesn't really allow for excitement based purely off of watching a player's skill showcase something truly special.

    Tobi, for example, flips his shit when Dendi disjoints a projectile with a blink dagger or whatever, and while it's impressive compared to the average player, it's just a standard twitch reaction, the kinds of which happen dozens of times in a single match of Quake or UT.

    Honestly, taking a step back and looking at it, I'm seeing a hell of a lot of similarities between WoW's PvP and Dota - garbage mechanics (lol, you don't get to play for X seconds!) in place to make up for the inability for the game to showcase actual talent or skill. Whether that's intentional or because Dota was originally built on the much weaker War3 engine... who knows? It's irrelevant, either way.

    Dota's fun as a casual game, I guess, but the sheer amount of information you have to have memorized just to not feed already makes it really hostile to newbies, which seems like it defeats the purpose. I sure as hell can't take Dota seriously as a competitive game.
    I really hate this "I can't take x game seriously because of RNG mechanics". Or "I hate games that take away control from the player, it's so unskillful".

    The problem is not the mechanics themselves, it's the player. You will blame your death's, and your own faults on RNG, or the fact that someone used a flat cc, when in actuality the problem is your own. It, like in any other game, is an obstacle, that you learn to deal with - and play with. It's like saying "I only died because PA got a massive crit off"... what you really mean is, I didn't anticipate that I might die because of a variable which I apparently knew, yet gambled at the expense of my team anyway.

    Regarding your stun complaints, I really don't know what to say.

    If you don't like that, as I have already said, try SC2, there is no RNG there, it may be more enjoyable for you. With that being said, I can imagine you being a bronze leaguer complaining about force fields, drop harass or stealth mechanics.

    And for the record, if you have played any game at a professional or semi-professional level, you will know that the difference between semi-pro's and pro's in multiplayer games is generally one thing - teamwork. Individual skill in the games, between the top 5%, is often identical, with a few players being exceptionally gifted, while most being the same.

    Teamwork is present in dota2 massively, in fact, it is the core of the game. Which is why I can take the dota2 competitive scene seriously.
    Quote Originally Posted by Lugo Moll View Post
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  3. #3403
    Quote Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK View Post
    It's less about numbers and more about mechanics.
    If you ever expected anything else, you've effectively wasted 400 hours.

    Quote Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK View Post
    I compare this to the shooters I've played competitively in the past
    Out of curiosity, what shooters have you played competitively?

    Quote Originally Posted by Hermanni View Post
    On the eggs, I'm betting they hatch when the patch hits, if not sooner. If anyone has a spare Quas essence, I wouldn't mind trading it if I have something you'd like. profile
    I've some spare essences I don't care for, you don't have anything I want - added you.

  4. #3404
    Any of you guys up for a match or two, drop me a PM.

  5. #3405
    No game is more demanding than Brood War and BW had plenty of random mechanics, like the uphill miss chance that was an important tactical mechanic also in WC3 and DotA. Reaver Scarabs were another thing that was fairly random and made your hold your breath when watching tournament play.

    @Pizza you keep saying things like "game design is not hard" "drafting isn't that complex" "mechanics are garbage and game isn't skillful" but they haven't really resonated with anyone so far, and you're far from being the most experienced or skilled player in this thread. I've disputed your rants more than I can remember, but when pressured you always either change subject or go on a baseless yet agressive rant about said "garbage mechanics" or whatever Icefrog might have snorted this week.

    Again you're only making aggressive statements that only have base in your opinion, and like I warned you, you're not being taken seriously. Maybe it's about time you just accepted that maybe skill means something else than just aiming skillshots, that carrying means something else than farming and a-clicking, that drafting means something else than just picking imba heroes, or that you're still much further from understanding the game than you think.

    Like I said before: if you want perspective on where Dota's balance is right now, go check out HoN, it's free. Meanwhile just either try to enjoy the game without getting angry, or if you can't, play something else.
    Last edited by Hermanni; 2012-11-14 at 06:40 PM.

  6. #3406
    @Pizza, @Lysah

    I don't know if I understand you guys. I think I've rarely seen someone complain about something for so long and continue to do it. I've been following this thread for quite some time, and every time either of you post, I put on my best "Here we go again" hat.

    Is dota2 100% balanced in each and every possible way? Probably not. But thats why they continue to make updates as best they can. If you don't enjoy the game or watching competitive play, then don't play it. I happen to think dota2 is extremely fun, I'd say in only about 10% of the games I'm in do I find it painful. That's usually do to myself playing poorly and we end up losing, or lousy teammates. And tbh, I don't even mind bad teammates that much, the worst thing is teammates that are assclowns, but that's inevitable in any online game I suppose.

    Pizza, you claim that dota competitive players do things that any skilled FPS player does regularly. Then why are you still watching dota competitive games. No one is forcing you to. If it isn't up the unbelievably high standard you might have, then just move on from dota. There are plenty of other games out there. For example, I played GW2 for a little bit. I didn't care for it. But I didn't keep playing it and repeatedly post on their message boards about how awful the game is and how bad pro players are (if there even are pro GW2 players, I'm not sure). That would be foolish.

    If dota2 is as simple to master as the two of you make it seem, why don't you go pro? Apparently CM picking so easy, and playstyle is so easy, and all you need to do is chain stuns, and all carries need to do is right click things... Then man, you should be playing in next years TI3, right? And maybe this game is so easy, that you don't even want to be bothered, well then why aren't you playing something that's more on your skill level and flooding that game's message boards up with whining?

    It's just a shame that 50% of this thread's posts are either "OMG XYZ IS SO OP, NERF THIS AND NERF THAT", "ICEFROG IS A MORON", etc etc.

    If you don't enjoy this game, don't play it. Not sure why this is a difficult concept.

  7. #3407
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tommo View Post
    Sooo..

    We allowed to talk about this, http://www.reddit.com/r/DOTA/comment...stored/c70dlon

    >_>
    I'd rather not because I have a feeling it will turn into a circlejerk bash-fest, but there's nothing stopping you from it

    The backstory for those who don't know:
    Pendragon (currently a Riot employee) owned and ran the dota-allstars.com website back in the day. He was going to move the website to a new server and said the site was going to be down for a week while they migrated the database and everything (a week is a long time for a database migration).

    This was ~2 years ago. A year ago, someone asked him about what happened to the site and he said he ran out of time and was working on getting it back up just for the archives and such. He, again, estimated it'd be down for a week. Well, that was a year ago and just yesterday the database files were released. Reliable chap, eh?

    The thing that makes the story such a big deal was that dota-allstars.com was THE go-to place for DOTA material and chatting. It was like the mmo-champ for dota. Some people only had friendships there (this wasn't steam, mind you) and no other way of contacting those people. An entire community was killed off in one fell swoop.

    Pendragon then had the bright idea of replacing the dota-allstars.com landing page with a big LoL advertisement because he went to work there, and later on he wrote a letter that tried to blame Icefrog for something, but I didn't read this letter and don't know much about it. Recently he tried to make a big positive PR stunt by releasing the database files of dota-allstars.com but people basically just shit all over him
    "I'm glad you play better than you read/post on forums." -Ninety
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  8. #3408
    Legendary! llDemonll's Avatar
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    Well, any MOBA-style game is going to have similar heroes, there's absolutely no way to get around that. It also greatly helps people jumping from one game to another. I started playing LoL once or twice a week with friends who play and having the ability to explain heroes in that game and relate them to heroes in DOTA helped immensely
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  9. #3409
    Quote Originally Posted by Keyzz View Post
    why don't you go pro?
    The game is already fairly boring, when you stop playing for fun how much worse do you think it's going to get? I played "seriously" in CAL once, as I've said before, and I quit after about six games because it just is not fun. Maybe if esports were even relatively where they need to be to make a living doing it I would consider it, but to dedicate my life to something that I won't even have fun doing and make a few hundred bucks a month, no thanks. I'd have a better career at Wendy's.

    Though I'm still not sure why your post is directed at me.

  10. #3410
    Quote Originally Posted by Keyzz View Post
    It's just a shame that 50% of this thread's posts are either "OMG XYZ IS SO OP, NERF THIS AND NERF THAT", "ICEFROG IS A MORON", etc etc.
    .
    and %100 of those posts belong to Pizza. He needs a rest and enjoy the game.

  11. #3411
    when I'm watching Na'vi games I dont see them permastunning enemy team.
    Guess its either their goldike skill, or Pizza is just blowing it out his.. head

  12. #3412
    Quote Originally Posted by Lysah View Post
    Though I'm still not sure why your post is directed at me.
    .


    Quote Originally Posted by Lysah View Post
    The game is already fairly boring
    .

    This is why the post was directed at you. If the game is already boring, why are you still playing it and/or posting messages here about it and how much you dislike it. I wasn't a big fan of LoL, so i stopped playing it. It would be ludicrous for me to continue to play a game I didn't enjoy, and then go on the LoL message boards and tell them why I don't like the game. (Not comparing LoL to dota, just an example). There are SO MANY games out there, why would you waste your time (and ours on these forums) playing one you don't like? Maybe a different MOBA is what you need, or maybe a game where everyone is identical and you can base it on pure skill instead of complaining so and so picked Centaur, gg.

    It's like when I play WoW (mocking is expected). There are so many people who will complain in trade chat about how terrible WoW is, yet theyre still spending $15 a month on it and spending time on it. Easiest option is to move on imo.

    Also, my question about why you aren't going pro was mostly rhetorical. It's easy to armchair quarterback something and say how easy it is, and all you need to do is X, Y, and Z. But actually doing it is likely much harder.

  13. #3413
    Because the actual game is fun as hell, it's the meta and team play aspects I can't stand. Losing a game because of other people, and even winning a game because of other people, not very interesting.

    I have never complained that someone won because they picked Centaur. You're still confusing my arguments. Trying not to sound too arrogant here, but I could very easily fit into coL or EG as far as American pro teams go. I was actually invited to coL already. It is virtually impossible to have more experience with this genre than me, I have played DotA since the earliest versions and I played games like AoS before that. Even back in the infant years of WC3 when "MOBA" was just "hero arena," I was there.

    I think of myself like chess grand masters. It's not so much supreme intellect or massive skill that makes me the best, it's just pure experience. After some tens of thousands of games over the majority of my lifetime I really have seen or thought of any possible situation for the game. The biggest issue here is that I'm still playing with new players because it is a team game, chess GMs don't have to get frustrated like this because their game is 1v1.
    Last edited by Lysah; 2012-11-14 at 10:40 PM.

  14. #3414
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    So the game is fun, but you don't like losing because someone (or some peoples) on your team repeatedly make stupid mistakes? Understandable, I think most people are the same way, I know I am.

    But you don't like winning when someone (or some peoples) on your team are making great plays?

    Basically, you think the game should revolve directly around your play? This seems exactly like what you're trying to portray by saying you'd fit into the team and bragging about being invited to a pro team but declining the invite. Something tells me that you don't "belong" (for lack of a better word) in team-based games
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  15. #3415
    Quote Originally Posted by llDemonll View Post
    But you don't like winning when someone (or some peoples) on your team are making great plays?
    Sorry, I won't disagree with this, but what I was aiming for was "I don't like winning when my enemies make stupid mistakes."

    Actually, if you go through my recent history, I have a bunch of losses where I was godlike or better with nothing but feeder allies. I have a bunch of wins where my team was losing the entire time and should not have won, but someone on the enemy team got picked and that was that. It's not fun to win or lose like this, but this is 95% of DotA matches.

    What I want is to be bad at the game again, to have room to grow and something to look forward to. To be able to look at my losses and pick out things I could have done better that would have *mattered.* To be able to look at my enemies' mistakes and be grateful I was able to exploit them, instead of just accepting it as an inevitability.

    I actually appreciate young player perspective on this issue, because they have a more pure and realistic view of the game since they are not biased by experience and knowledge. Trixie herself has admitted that the game is only interesting for the lane phase, and why is that? Because once team fights and pushes start happening, one team is clearly the winner already, and the only way the game plays out in any other direction is a big mistake by one person. This is how DotA is for me, I can call the winner of a game by 15 minutes and be right 90% of the time, the other 10% are just dumb mistakes someone makes that lose the game for his entire team. It's the "got free farm top - bought divine rapier" effect, except more profound. Why do you think pros stack power lanes now instead of playing for late game?


    DotA will change, it always does, and it will be more interesting when it does. Until then, the most fun I've had are games where I get a colletive agreement from my team not to care about winning. My favorite games have been games where we did 5 as a lane or 4 man ganked mid three times in a row at the start of the game.
    Last edited by Lysah; 2012-11-14 at 10:52 PM.

  16. #3416
    Most people don't realize that playing MOBA's competitively means focusing on one role exclusively (carry, roamer, jungle etc...) with couple different heroes at most, 8-10 hours a day for months, no wonder burnout rate is so high. Also, considering it's a team game, money gets split on equal shares, while blame is probably not.

    Also, think of team as a chain, chain is as strong as it's weakest link, it's really demoralizing to give your best only to have someone destroying all your work through incompetence or maliciousness, I'd say losing a close game is more satisfying than just destroying opponents. Sadly, I haven't played many close games of dota, it's either stomp or get stomped, and most cases your own performance doesn't matter because some players literally don't belong in the same game. In my opinion, matchmaking system either needs to be greatly improved or completely reworked, this one just doesn't work.

  17. #3417
    Quote Originally Posted by cudomix View Post
    Most people don't realize that playing MOBA's competitively means focusing on one role exclusively (carry, roamer, jungle etc...) with couple different heroes at most, 8-10 hours a day for months, no wonder burnout rate is so high. Also, considering it's a team game, money gets split on equal shares, while blame is probably not.
    Yes, my time with a team during CAL was warlock, warlock, warlock, warlock, warlock, warlock, okay I'm bored.

    And yes, the matchmaking system is a huge problem for me. When I queue with a brand new player (literally zero MOBA experience) and we get a page 4 out of 700 game, people who are only barely worse than what I get when I solo queue WHILE I HAVE A BRAND NEW PLAYER ON MY TEAM, why even play? It doesn't matter what I do, they will abuse the skill difference in her lane and it will win them the game, hands down, every time.

  18. #3418
    Legendary! llDemonll's Avatar
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    ^ make a nub account and use the mouse with your left hand; problem solved!

    I see what you're saying. Really good games like that are maybe once or twice a week for me (depending on how much I play). Games where it's a tossup as to who will win and it comes down to the last teamfight. Those games are definitely more rewarding than going 25-4 with void and the end score is 56-21 or something (though 25-4 is still possible on the close games if your carry is good at surviving)

    But yea, the laning phase in the first 15 minutes I'd say is a pretty accurate (maybe 80%) representation of who will win the game, at least in the normal/high brackets (though i'm probably 80% in normal bracket), especially playing pubs. with premades and captains mode the comebacks are more likely, but still don't happen super often

    doesnt make me enjoy the game any less =P
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  19. #3419
    Quote Originally Posted by Lysah View Post
    people who are only barely worse than what I get when I solo queue WHILE I HAVE A BRAND NEW PLAYER ON MY TEAM, why even play? It doesn't matter what I do, they will abuse the skill difference in her lane and it will win them the game, hands down, every time.
    This is probably the most infuriating aspect of DotA 2 for me. I've started flat out refusing playing -ap with friends of my friends (who are so new it hurts). I don't have an issue with people being sub-par if I don't know them. However, if it's someone I'm communicating with through Skype, and they just blame their mistakes on something completely unrelated - I can't handle it.

    I do play with newer friends of mine through a mule account, but that's different.

    The laning phase is probably what I find the least interesting: draft > midgame > lategame > teamfights > killing roshan > laning phase

  20. #3420
    @demon
    Ironically I just played a good game for the first time in a while. We got badly outmatched (lina ogre against centaur VS) in our lane so we went roaming and got some ganks up. We had drow + support against WR farming and they had syllabear jungling, bane/lesh mid. As far as team comp went it was pretty even and the game turned out that way as well. No one on either team particularly stood out as being out of place, it actually felt like a fair game for once.

    @longview
    I don't mind playing with new players like Trixie as far as trying to teach her the game and all. The big issue is that the matchmaking system really does not seem to care that she is so new, we get games that are still relatively my level and she just gets stomped every time. When you average 0-10 every game and enemies players are WAY above you in lane control it's really hard to learn anything. And it's not particularly fun for me to try to save 0-10 allies every game, either, of course.

    I don't know what a good fix is. For sure, if we played against people in her bracket I would just go 30-0 every game and it wouldn't be fair to the enemy team. My solution has always been a non-rated league with no stats and no matchmaking, first come first serve. The amount of goods and bads on each team should average out somewhere.

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