Originally Posted by
PizzaSHARK
It really is "that" bad, man. How to jungle, how to counter-jungle, how to ward and where to ward, how to counter-ward and where to place those counter-wards, 118(?) heroes' worth of skills and abilities and playstyles multiplied by multiple item build orders for each hero, tricky uses of common items (Armlet toggling, etc), what items to get and when, what items not to get and when, and on and on and on and on and on.
And it's not like you need to know this in passing, you need to have it freaking memorized so you can call it up at will, because it IS going to matter.
As I'm sure Hermanni, Lysah, and the other players that play at the high end of the MMR scale can tell you, the difference between good and bad below their level is almost wholly related to knowledge of the game, not actual player skill. There is a simply enormous amount of information to be memorized, digested, and regurgitated on command just to be able to play the game at an "average," level. It's a MASSIVE barrier to entry and I'd put it up there on the same level as games like Dwarf Fortress and Rogue.
Compare this to a game like Starcraft II. Yeah, there's definitely build orders to learn and information about units and upgrade timings and whatnot to learn, but you run out of "you must know this to not die," information fairly quickly and it becomes working on your execution - working on getting that APM up so 3 infestors can't fungal 40 marines to death with 200 energy, on maneuvering units into good engagement positions, etc.
And then you have games like QuakeWorld on the opposite end of the scale - there's very little information to memorize, mostly just medpack and armor respawn timings and map layouts, but a staggering amount of raw skills (APM) that you have to learn to do in order to reach and compete at that "average" level of play.
And of the three, I'd say Dota is the most difficult to get into, because until you have all that knowledge, your APM isn't going to matter a whole lot - if you don't know that Juggy can spin to prevent you from nuking him down, you're going to feed and feed and feed regardless of your APM being higher than theirs.