[Megathread] DotA 2

[Kuntantee]

The UI is bad anyway

Agreed. UI is not bad, its SHIT!. I know... people with absolutely ZERO human-computer interaction knowledge will pop and tell me(and told me in official forums when I was suggesting a minor change in UI) how awesome the UI is and how okay it is and how I should go play another game but the fact is its not okay. If there is a reason why UI is the same its because world is full lazy people who dislike changes even its logical and more efficient. DotA comm. is pretty sensitive about UI. Go suggest UI needs to change in official forums and witness the shitstorm

The current UI is full with useless texture which occupies half of screen scape. Abilities are huge as fuck. It's like its designed for almost-blind people. Scaling will solve this issue. The hero portrait is useless piece of screen spaces. Allow players to remove it. A toggle for inventory may be good(well at least I would use it). IN essence, the more customizable UI is, the better gaming experience will be. It's time for MOBA/Action-RTS to evolve its UI. The modding for UI is must in 2012 but this is just my opinion. I have to say I was totally disappointed when I see bad-old interface ported to DotA 2...

[Longview]

The current UI is full with useless texture which occupies half of screen scape. Abilities are huge as fuck. It's like its designed for almost-blind people. Scaling will solve this issue. The hero portrait is useless piece of screen spaces. Allow players to remove it. A toggle for inventory may be good(well at least I would use it). IN essence, the more customizable UI is, the better gaming experience will be. It's time for MOBA/Action-RTS to evolve its UI. The modding for UI is must in 2012 but this is just my opinion. I have to say I was totally disappointed when I see bad-old interface ported to DotA 2...

There's a reason for this, just as you can't play on odd resolutions, zoom out further or change the field of vision.

edit: to clarify my last post, I was talking about the UI outside of the game itself, not the one inside games.

[Deleted]

I don't really know how to say it simple. There are many things that don't generally do good either from bad decision or from legacy reason.

For example one minor problem - for legacy reasons every player have unique color, and this is advertised in all game UI, including his onscreen name. You can imagine how useless that thing is, and how it causes problems.
Some of the main menu problems might be just because I don't use steam social features, I DON'T WANT TO. If it's broken without them, it's still bad design.
As for non-technical issues, many of the features were relatively hard to find, despite being quite important. Even the play button is not very well visible, despite being like the most important thing. To be honest those buttons are looking like non-interactive banner if you don't look closely and read the text.

[Longview]

For example one minor problem - for legacy reasons every player have unique color, and this is advertised in all game UI, including his onscreen name. You can imagine how useless that thing is, and how it causes problems.

This one I do not understand. The colours are always the same, in every game, on every team. If you are dire/scourge, and the enemy player in the first slot plays a hero (let's say Invoker) - then by simply glancing at the mini-map (where you should be looking frequently) you can with ease see what heroes are where on the map. Blue X in your forest? Invoker coming to gank you. You can even turn this feature off and instead display hero portraits if that's easier for you. This is (to me) a huge advantage over not having colours.

Some of the main menu problems might be just because I don't use steam social features, I DON'T WANT TO. If it's broken without them, it's still bad design.
As for non-technical issues, many of the features were relatively hard to find, despite being quite important. Even the play button is not very well visible, despite being like the most important thing. To be honest those buttons are looking like non-interactive banner if you don't look closely and read the text.

Would you complain over having to use battle.net to play WoW? The friends list is nothing but convenience, but if you somehow don't want to use that - you can either create a new account (free of charge) or simply log out of the friends function. Again, I do not see the issue. The user interface is identical for a player using steam with lots of friends compared to someone with none (except for their friends list being empty).

I understand that some people might find the tabs at the top confusing. However, hardly does this hold true after playing more than two games. The "FIND MATCH"-button is the largest button inside the entire user interface. Press the "PLAY"-tab, press "FIND MATCH". If that's difficult or somehow not straight forward to you, I guess that's just where our opinions differ.

Additionally, you needed to "look closely" and "read the text"? What resolution are you running? The text is clearly readable for me from across the hallway, which is pretty far away.

I'm not trying to talk down to you or make you look bad, I just want you to back statements like "Valve can't do anything right" with concrete examples of people who, in your opinion, do it "right". I'm trying to see where you're coming from - but I can't.

[Lysah]

I would get pretty mad if they changed anything about the UI. I signed up to play DotA, I'd go play LoL if I wanted a different UI. The colors are also necessary, adding to what Longview said, they're used massively for quick team communication in public games. "Wards pink" and its many variants you should see quite often. I even call my friends by their colors instead of their names quite often.

[PizzaSHARK]

I would get pretty mad if they changed anything about the UI. I signed up to play DotA, I'd go play LoL if I wanted a different UI. The colors are also necessary, adding to what Longview said, they're used massively for quick team communication in public games. "Wards pink" and its many variants you should see quite often. I even call my friends by their colors instead of their names quite often.

Ditto. I always refer to players by color and not by hero name or player name. Blue, teal, pink, oj, yellow, etc.

[Lysah]

Lost three games today that I started out beyond godlike in....

#matchmaking

[Deleted]

Lost three games today that I started out beyond godlike in....

#matchmaking

Carry harder, slacker!

[PizzaSHARK]

Lost three games today that I started out beyond godlike in....

#matchmaking

Play more Dirge! Walk into teamfight, drop Tombstone, die horribly, win anyway. 8/11/43 in a 50 minute game where I did pretty much exactly that. I had Bloodstone and I would gain charges from dying. Tombstone is such a fucking stupidly powerful skill for teamfighting.

And oh hey, it's your old avatar.

[Lysah]

Play more Dirge! Walk into teamfight, drop Tombstone, die horribly, win anyway. 8/11/43 in a 50 minute game where I did pretty much exactly that. I had Bloodstone and I would gain charges from dying. Tombstone is such a fucking stupidly powerful skill for teamfighting.

And oh hey, it's your old avatar.

Enchantress, 16-0 before our level 10 Dirge at 45 minutes decides he has to go and abandons the game. Next game I get a CM jungle who buys no items the whole game. Later on I would go 12-0 as Kunkka in the first 20 minutes only to have my four allies work together to achieve 60 deaths.

[Hermanni]

Lost three games today that I started out beyond godlike in....

#matchmaking

I know the feeling, but isn't it a bit ludicrous to presume that having the best score means you're not at all responsible for losing the game, or that it makes you better than your teammates?

[Lysah]

I know the feeling, but isn't it a bit ludicrous to presume that having the best score means you're not at all responsible for losing the game, or that it makes you better than your teammates?

You don't average a kill every 60 seconds for the first 20 minutes of a game and it be your fault. There aren't any circumstances where that is even feasible. The Kunkka game was the best, our razor didn't know how to get past the hero select screen for a while.

Oh well, extremely typical day of DotA for me.

As an aside, I can guarantee I am far better than my teammates. There aren't enough players on this planet to make a fair game with me in it any given time of day. Matchmaking ends up trying to find them for ten minutes before the search range gets big enough that it can, instead, balance the game by giving me a team full of allies who are below average. Unfortunately, when 4/5 of your enemies are better than 3/4 of your allies, the game ends up being 1v5. Matchmaking never accounts for that one.

[PizzaSHARK]

I know the feeling, but isn't it a bit ludicrous to presume that having the best score means you're not at all responsible for losing the game, or that it makes you better than your teammates?

I've had exactly one game this entire week where I didn't feel like I wasn't clearly the most skilled player on my team, and that was my most recent game, where everyone on my team played well. Well, not counting when I queue with friends, anyway.

I'd say it's rare to play a game so perfect that you can honestly say the loss had nothing to do with you - though those happen and I have had a few of those - but like Lysah's saying... when you completely dominate the game for 25 minutes and your team still loses because your teammates couldn't be dragged to the win (or because they're running around basically undoing all the good you've been doing), it's not really fair to assign equal blame to yourself.

Honestly, I'm not sure what's more frustrating - playing a flawless game (6/0/8 Windrunner at 45 minutes with stellar CS) and losing anyway, or basically 1v5'ing the enemy team most of the game and dragging people to a win they probably didn't really deserve to get. I guess it'd be more bothersome if rewards were tied to winning/losing, but thankfully they aren't.

Regardless, it still makes me at least feel a little dirty for winning a game and thinking "man that (usually Brazilian or Russian) Anti-Mage really doesn't deserve to have this as a win..."

[Hermanni]

You don't average a kill every 60 seconds for the first 20 minutes of a game and it be your fault. There aren't any circumstances where that is even feasible. The Kunkka game was the best, our razor didn't know how to get past the hero select screen for a while.

Oh well, extremely typical day of DotA for me.

As an aside, I can guarantee I am far better than my teammates. There aren't enough players on this planet to make a fair game with me in it any given time of day. Matchmaking ends up trying to find them for ten minutes before the search range gets big enough that it can, instead, balance the game by giving me a team full of allies who are below average. Unfortunately, when 4/5 of your enemies are better than 3/4 of your allies, the game ends up being 1v5. Matchmaking never accounts for that one.

Not saying you were necessarily at fault, but there's always something you could have done differently. Gonna skip the BS part and suggest that maybe you should try to queue on EU servers instead.

[PizzaSHARK]

Not saying you were necessarily at fault, but there's always something you could have done differently. Gonna skip the BS part and suggest that maybe you should try to queue on EU servers instead.

I thought Lysah and the rest of y'all were EU players, anyway. You're having these kinds of troubles on US servers, even at high MMR? That's a fuckin downer, man... I was under the impression I'd escape all the asshats if I worked hard and pushed my MMR :-/

[Kuntantee]

There's a reason for this, just as you can't play on odd resolutions, zoom out further or change the field of vision.

edit: to clarify my last post, I was talking about the UI outside of the game itself, not the one inside games.

field of view has nothing to do with GUI itself.

---------- Post added 2012-11-10 at 01:12 PM ----------

I thought Lysah and the rest of y'all were EU players, anyway. You're having these kinds of troubles on US servers, even at high MMR? That's a fuckin downer, man... I was under the impression I'd escape all the asshats if I worked hard and pushed my MMR :-/

I suggest go find some friends playing DotA and enjoy with them even you lose. DotA comm. is %99 asshats and I don't see how high MMR would change their behaviour.

[Sackman]

and what if I am a russian guy with a fair bit of good knowledge in Engrishe, willing to play with english-speaking people?
pass some test unto me?
deny me such an opportunity?

English and yes.

You can play with other Russians, and communicate with them freely as any other. We cannot, however we can play with any other person in Europe, because practically every single European country learns English in their first school and learns enough to understand all that is needed (simple verbs).

[Morally Grey Storm]

English and yes.

You can play with other Russians, and communicate with them freely as any other. We cannot, however we can play with any other person in Europe, because practically every single European country learns English in their first school and learns enough to understand all that is needed (simple verbs).

Engirsh and no.
I will play where I want with whom I want.
restrictions do no good.

[Demidov]

Engirsh and no.
I will play where I want with whom I want.
restrictions do no good.

Then at least learn the language.

Not directed at you, but at russians in general.

[Sackman]

I'm not certain, but I recall reading that it was possible to enable smartcasting even now through console commands. I'll see later if I can't find it.

Smartcasting means using abilities with a single button, like if you'd press W to land a Fire Strike Array it would be cast where your cursor is at the moment you press W, there wouldn't be need to use left mouse button. I got somewhat used to it in the short time I played BLC, but in Dota I'm too stuck to old-school habits, I still even a-click everything.

Can't see why anyone would want to not a-click. My most clicked buttons in a game are a and s lol, s particularly as pudge "oh shit the hooks gonna miss" /click s. I am in love with them.

---------- Post added 2012-11-10 at 01:20 PM ----------

On smartcasting, you're all wrong.

Both DotA and LoL are very, very slow games. Go play railgun freezetag in Quake 3 and come back and tell me how fast you think you need to be to play these games. Improve your reaction time? Give me a break. These games are so mind numbingly slow you can play one handed and click all of your spells and still keep up.

Whether or not you like playing the game that way is one thing, but to pretend you NEED it, well that's just silly. Most spells don't actually require aim at all, the ones that do you can take your time with. Especially in DotA, if you never fake cast split earth you're going to get dodged repeatedly by good players because if someone is paying attention moving you literally cannot cast quickly enough to hit them unless you lead them somewhere.

I agree, after several years of my childhood playing iCTF on UT GOTY, I rhink "smartcasting" would provide no benefit, at all.

To virtua - Dota, is a lot "faster" in a sense of user input, than LoL. Dota has a much more complicated laning and jungle phase, with just denying meaning you are doing atleast 2x as many things as you are in LoL at any one time. I would say zoning is also a lot more complicated - and the fact that all hero's are available all the time makes for a much more balanced experience too.

And I bet I could play Eeasy-real with one hand AP or AD. I stopped playing LoL because of how easy it was in comparison to Dota2, LoL is a very easy to jump into fun to play game, but it doesn't have anything on the more complex Dota, which has a lot greater depth - tailored to a more particular audience.

I couldn't even imagine how they would add hero's like Invoker, Meepo, Visage, Lone Druid or Techies to LoL. I can't do without complicated hero's, so much more fun to play and rewarding for doing so.

I believe Lysah was comparing the slowness of the two a-rts titles compared to an FPS, which is miles and miles faster.

Don't get me wrong, LoL is a great game, but if we are talking difficulty, even LoL players should know not to compare them both.

---------- Post added 2012-11-10 at 01:22 PM ----------

Europe*
Pretty sure LoL is Europe's game. The US and Asia are in love with Allstars/soon DotA2 last I checked.

Anyway, I never played HoN so I can't really compare it to the other two, but, DotA is one of the easiest competitive games I have ever played. The skill ceiling is extremely low, what matters is not being a 400 APM prostarcraftworldchampion gamer with tremendous micro and killer mouse aim. All that is important is experience, and lots of it. What makes it hard to master DotA is the ridiculous mountain of information you have to know just to start being average at the game.

I won't comment much on LoL, the fact that people still consider it a serious/competitive game is the joke of the century in my opinion.

I agree, Dota2 is a great team game though, and fun to boot. I'm good at Dota2, however if I pick up SC2 :\ See you in Gold League lol.

---------- Post added 2012-11-10 at 01:22 PM ----------

Engirsh and no.
I will play where I want with whom I want.
restrictions do no good.

Exactly the attitude that makes all the English speaking Europeans hate the Russians joining them.