People's fascination with MOBA games

[Shinzai]

It's also not very skill based at all. The best team in the business does not consist of the best players in the world or
even close. Obviously they are very good at the game, but having good player synergy and coordination is far more superior
than having the best players.

That doesn't really make sense though. To have good team synergy, you need to have high skill levels. Even if each person is only focused on one task, that means the team will therefore have a higher skill level than another team. Having a perfect group of all rounders will not lead to being the best team.

I agree it can sometimes be hard to focus, but in the end it normally comes down to 1 lane being pushed hard while harass attacks happen elsewhere, then a sudden push much in the way that American Footballers have to choose a play to make and a side to make it on.

[Deleted]

I really dislike them, when I was younger when there was only dota and everyone was more casual it felt fun. But right now I dislike the over the top/click to move mobas. Smite is pretty fun but when Awesomenauts came I have had no need of it anymore.

[Deleted]

You should watch an event like LCS3 for league of legends, with professional commentators and professional teams, it's very fun to watch, and you'll understand more as to why it;'s so popular.

[Shanseala]

Mobas are terrible spectator sports and even worse as an e-sport. It's difficulty to keep track what's going on
in the game as there is no single objective that the casters can focus on. [ie. hockey or football, there is the ball...]
Having to keep track of 10 players on 3 different lanes and possibly jungle is very challenging and you are bound to
miss stuff as a caster.

I'm not entirely sure I agree with this. It definitely seems like it would be harder to START casting a moba. But if you think about it, most of the things to track in the lane phase has to do with where the jungle guy is, who is missing from lane and is about to gank, and who is pushing lane. Things you can really just watch the minimap for to see where conflicts are gonna happen. And after you get out of the lane phase, it's a bit easier because a lot of the time the team will be together for teamfights.

My main dislike of the genre is how things can snowball. Lose an early teamfight or two? Your enemies just got a bunch of gold, and xp, which means they are getting better gear and faster levels, AND they can go farm some creep while you respawn, or prepare in some other way. Your players are dead and waiting for respawn, so you can't farm, which means you are getting less xp and gold, which makes you weaker.

Early gank of a jungler? Well, now whoever ganked the jungler got some good money and xp, and setting him back of farming the jungle a lot. The opponent jungler gets a head start, which means he will be better geared, higher levelled, gank better (probably), which means the other teammates will be stronger, and more able to counter YOUR jungler's ganks, who is already behind on levels/gear, and he'll be unable to catch up.

Plenty more examples.

[Repefe]

Mobas are terrible spectator sports and even worse as an e-sport. It's difficulty to keep track what's going on
in the game as there is no single objective that the casters can focus on. [ie. hockey or football, there is the ball...]
Having to keep track of 10 players on 3 different lanes and possibly jungle is very challenging and you are bound to
miss stuff as a caster.

It's also not very skill based at all. The best team in the business does not consist of the best players in the world or
even close. Obviously they are very good at the game, but having good player synergy and coordination is far more superior
than having the best players.

EDIT:
a lot of people above are talking about moba skills having a high skill cap and such. Mobas are not about skill, they are about
knowledge. Generally if you are a semi decent player if you know what you want to do, executing it isn't difficult. But if you take
a game like Counter Strike or Starcraft, you have stuff that is 100% about your skill. Like if you are perfect CS player you will
win every single time as you can always hit people in the head and there is absolutely nothing they can do about it.

One of those I don't like this game but I am so expert about it pros don't know what they are talking about. Pro players often mention that when they take a break from the game they lose their touch at very fast rate. They don't lose their "knowledge" of the game ... they just become rusty. Their mechanical skill deteriorate and you can't play without it. And LoL is often mentioned as the most spectator friendly MOBA game because it's quite clear what's going on in the game even to somebody who never played the game. Not to mention thanks to the variety that MOBA games have every game is different unlike for example SC2 or CS where the variety is pretty minimal. That makes it even more suited for spectating.

[juzalol]

I'm not entirely sure I agree with this. It definitely seems like it would be harder to START casting a moba. But if you think about it, most of the things to track in the lane phase has to do with where the jungle guy is, who is missing from lane and is about to gank, and who is pushing lane. Things you can really just watch the minimap for to see where conflicts are gonna happen. And after you get out of the lane phase, it's a bit easier because a lot of the time the team will be together for teamfights.

Well, situation like this happens almost every game:

Supports rotate to other lane to setup a gank, suddenly someone dies mid in a 1v1 fight. It gets completely missed
by the casters as they are focusing on the 3v2 or whatever gank happening on the side lanes.

LoL is bit more forgiving on this than Dota 2 as early game kills are pretty hard to rack up and it's not uncommon to see
games having total 5 kills during the first 20 minutes of the game. Majority of the kills in LoL seem to happen when the 5v5
flailing around happens, which is pretty straight forward for the spectators as all 10 players are in relatively close distance.

In Dota 2, the lanes are a lot longer and it's super easy to get caught up in an awkward position. The towers are not as deadly
either so diving is more acceptable in the first 3-5 levels.

One of those I don't like this game but I am so expert about it pros don't know what they are talking about. Pro players often mention that when they take a break from the game they lose their touch at very fast rate. They don't lose their "knowledge" of the game ... they just become rusty. Their mechanical skill deteriorate and you can't play without it. And LoL is often mentioned as the most spectator friendly MOBA game because it's quite clear what's going on in the game even to somebody who never played the game. Not to mention thanks to the variety that MOBA games have every game is different unlike for example SC2 or CS where the variety is pretty minimal. That makes it even more suited for spectating.

You have 4-6 buttons and only a single character to control. It's not mechanically very taxing, especially when they are usually cooldown based.
After I stepped back into the moba scene from SC2 I was simply bored in terms of button smashing and multitasking. It's just easier, there is nothing
else to it.

This is why moba games are easy to pick and this is also why they are the most popular e-sports. You can get to a semi competent skill level
very easily. After that point no matter how many thousand games you play you aren't significantly better than below you.

I personally dislike watching moba games simply because I honestly think I can perform on a same level with the players, at least mechanically. I'm not
impressed of the "big plays" the crowd cheers to. Because in my eyes they are the most obvious things and you should always be able to perform in that
way.¨

But when I see Happy's marine micro and then go try it myself, there is just no way even tho I have like 3000 starcraft II matches on my back. And then
he does it while maintaining his production and possibly harassing the opponent on different locations. It's just beyond my skill level by far.

[Repefe]

Yeah Dota2 in that regard is a bit worse ... I tried to watch it a few times, but it looks a bit unorganised. That's why professional productions should use 3 ppl. 2 commentators and one camera man. + With replay it shouldn't be hard to get all the action.

---------- Post added 2013-02-01 at 01:16 PM ----------

You have 4-6 buttons and only a single character to control. It's not mechanically very taxing, especially when they are usually cooldown based.
After I stepped back into the moba scene from SC2 I was simply bored in terms of button smashing and multitasking. It's just easier, there is nothing
else to it.

This is why moba games are easy to pick and this is also why they are the most popular e-sports. You can get to a semi competent skill level
very easily. After that point no matter how many thousand games you play you aren't significantly better than below you.

I personally dislike watching moba games simply because I honestly think I can perform on a same level with the players, at least mechanically. I'm not
impressed of the "big plays" the crowd cheers to. Because in my eyes they are the most obvious things and you should always be able to perform in that
way.¨

But when I see Happy's marine micro and then go try it myself, there is just no way even tho I have like 3000 starcraft II matches on my back. And then
he does it while maintaining his production and possibly harassing the opponent on different locations. It's just beyond my skill level by far.

To each his own I guess ... the core of MOBA gameplay is not those few buttons, but proper positioning, paying attention to everyone on map, being able to outtrade ppl in line etc. For me problem with SC2 games is there is not much variety. I feel like if they took a month of SC2 matches, shuffle them up and looped them whole year most ppl wouldn't notice it.

[juzalol]

Yeah Dota2 in that regard is a bit worse ... I tried to watch it a few times, but it looks a bit unorganised. That's why professional productions should use 3 ppl. 2 commentators and one camera man. + With replay it shouldn't be hard to get all the action.

---------- Post added 2013-02-01 at 01:16 PM ----------



To each his own I guess ... the core of MOBA gameplay is not those few buttons, but proper positioning, paying attention to everyone on map, being able to outtrade ppl in line etc. For me problem with SC2 games is there is not much variety. I feel like if they took a month of SC2 matches, shuffle them up and looped them whole year most ppl wouldn't notice it.

That's 100% exactly my point.

Mobas are a game of knowledge and teamwork.
FPS are a game of teamwork and skill.
SC2 is a game of skill.

The more skill is involved with the game the less appealing it will be for the casual majority which reduces
the amount of active players which reduces the amount of viewers which reduces the amount of money on
the scene.

[Enkidulgaa]

To each his own I guess ... the core of MOBA gameplay is not those few buttons, but proper positioning, paying attention to everyone on map, being able to outtrade ppl in line etc. For me problem with SC2 games is there is not much variety. I feel like if they took a month of SC2 matches, shuffle them up and looped them whole year most ppl wouldn't notice it.

Nobody claimed it didnt require some amount of skill, but it still pales in comparison to arena shooters and maybe RTS
Just watch some quake game where players juggle someone with rockets over half the map and then watch LoL where some guy presses 3 buttons in the most obvious way possible while the crowd goes wild, and tell me that these games require the same amount of skill

[Shinzai]

Nobody claimed it didnt require some amount of skill, but it still pales in comparison to arena shooters and maybe RTS
Just watch some quake game where players juggle someone with rockets over half the map and then watch LoL where some guy presses 3 buttons in the most obvious way possible while the crowd goes wild, and tell me that these games require the same amount of skill

That's the thing though. As someone who played Quake 2 professionally, I see a lot of similarities in how LoL plays out compared to FPS games. Gathering up at the right time to shut down any railgun/armour stacking play was a big thing, or leaving someone in control of the rocket launcher area, essentially a lane and having the rest spread out and hold other lanes, while a couple move back and forth, doing the equivalent of jungling.

That's 100% exactly my point.

Mobas are a game of knowledge and teamwork.
FPS are a game of teamwork and skill.
SC2 is a game of skill.

The more skill is involved with the game the less appealing it will be for the casual majority which reduces
the amount of active players which reduces the amount of viewers which reduces the amount of money on
the scene.

I'll absolutely agree that it requires less technical ability/skill, due to happening on a 2D plane and all, but the team aspect is the big thing. The big plays aren't as obvious as made out. Often it requires not having the whole team in a play and having people know when to switch back to their lanes/positions mid play. Also countering big plays or mitigating/avoiding damage is a huge part. If the big plays were easy to do, they'd pay off every time without question, but they don't always work or get countered hard and flip the game around.

Starcraft 2 I'll also agree is in a different ballpark of sheer skill and ability as well as some ingenuity as to playing against certain builds or pressuring specific weaknesses/using timings to break down your enemy. But this is also part of what plays against its popularity - it's hard for newcomers to even fathom why a 10 pool, 15 expand is going to be effective against someone doing a 14/15 timing, but also why this will be advantageous to the 14/15 timing user in the long run, if they survive the initial aggro mostly unharmed.

[Repefe]

That's 100% exactly my point.

Mobas are a game of knowledge and teamwork.
FPS are a game of teamwork and skill.
SC2 is a game of skill.

The more skill is involved with the game the less appealing it will be for the casual majority which reduces
the amount of active players which reduces the amount of viewers which reduces the amount of money on
the scene.

Actually in SC2 the knowledge is not something to ignore ... there is a lot of precise timing attacks that win games. And some players have pretty good ability to beat their opponents mentally with clever strategy rather than raw skill.

Nobody claimed it didnt require some amount of skill, but it still pales in comparison to arena shooters and maybe RTS
Just watch some quake game where players juggle someone with rockets over half the map and then watch LoL where some guy presses 3 buttons in the most obvious way possible while the crowd goes wild, and tell me that these games require the same amount of skill

But what's the point of this. So the ratio of knowledge:skill is more screwed towards knowledge in MOBA games when you compare it to shooters ... and ?

[Tripping]

I play HoN. I have played LoL a bit too and here is my view:
Heroes of Newerth is skill based. Whereas other games require gear, or paying for weapons or whatever, each game of HoN is a fresh start. If you are skilled, you will do well. If you have no skill and try to faceroll, you will fail. This difficulty aspect is so refreshing compared to the PvP on WoW where its just a case of gear and grinding.
Another plus about HoN, is that if someone is doing well on the enemy team, you can do something about it. Killing them causes them to lose gold, and you can deny creeps, and ward the map so they can't farm efficiently.

League of Legends is too casual. That does end up being who payed for the most OP hero and what not. After playing HoN, LoL was a joke, winning all my games against level 25-30s because I had gained some skill when playing HoN. I think that is why LoL is more popular, because it is easier. There is no gold loss for dieing, no creep denies and it really is very simple. HoN released a game mode called Casual mode, which plays very similarly to LoL.

[Enkidulgaa]

But what's the point of this. So the ratio of knowledge:skill is more screwed towards knowledge in MOBA games when you compare it to shooters ... and ?

That was the point of the discussion. Someone said they are more popular because they require less skill, and I agreed with it.

[ohshift]

Never managed to find what is so funny about this type ot stuff, and thats in good part thanks to the cancerous community around it.

[wynterlyn]

For quite some time I've been trying to understand what is up with the popularity of MOBA games and why are they so popular and mostly, how did this become the most played/popular genre for eSports.

I've even been forcing myself to play Dota2 for the past few days, trying to get a good view at how this became so popular... And yet I still do not see it or understand it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's a bad game or something, or that it can't be fun but this popular? I can't imagine how - the slow pace, one game session is way too long and the first half of it is basically getting the last shot on the creeps (speaking Dota2 here), which imo is extremely boring. Then there's PvP, sure, that can be fun, but again it mostly boils down to who grinded the most last shots, bought the best gear and learned the abilities of others. As for the actual combat.. not very appealing due to slow pace and click to move - strategy type of game - movement.

I know everyone has their own taste in games and I'm one of the people that try A LOT of games and I'm really really not picky - so I thought I'm sure I'll be able to notice at least what others see in MOBA games... but I didn't.

Neither do I understand how this genre became a standard for "pro gaming", looking at what used to be the standard (Quake 3, CS, etc). Sure it takes some skill to play, but it's mostly knowledge. It's knowing the ability of your hero and the abilities of your enemies. But that is knowledge, not skill (I count hand motorics, reflexes, etc as skill) - IMO.

I was always able to notice what made games popular, even if I didn't find the game good myself. But this time I'm giving up, I do not understand how MOBA is so popular. I'm going to just put my MOBA popularity theory as "casualization", due to the way MOBAs are played in the sense that they require more knowing and less skilling.

Good day

I wonder the same thing well about LoL. I can't really understand how someone can sit for an entire 40+ mins without moving. Even during my days on WoW I've never had such confined movement.

I've tried the game out and given my best effort to actually enjoy the game but I can't really seem to enjoy it. A lot of my friends play it and I know a lot of other people that play it too.

I was looking into it, and I realise it all comes down to Free 2 Play. I mean LoL has one of the best F2P models out there over all. You ain't forced to spend real money and champions, skins, runes, etc are all still purchasable with in game points, its only a longer grind. So that attracted a lot of people at the start and it also had to do with the popularity of DOTA as well. However, I noticed one thing and its with most games really. Well you can't really restrict it to games per se but hear me out.

So a couple friends of mine never actually played LoL and only started recently. Now he started cause a bunch of other friends got into the game before him. And LoL gives you the opportunity to play with friends. So when he was asked to join in with them he decided to take a chance and the game itself has a very addictive design probably a bit more so than WoW's design. However, its the long average game rounds, trolls at the lower levels, AFK scrubs and brasilians that have basically stopped me from e even playing the game. I tried it out over 2-3 weeks but couldn't really deal with all that crap. And the stupidest thing is that they actually ban your account for leaving games.

But the success of these games basically come down to that its F2P. I mean when games are F2P.

But these games have the worst community of any game I've played. In fact its worse than the COD "fag" calling boys and even WoWs community. That is what happens usually when you have a F2P game and people still want The Elder Scrolls online to be F2P.

The thing with LoL is that there is no accountability. Nothing is stopping anyone from creating alt accounts and trolling everyone. a

[Deleted]

one of my biggest gripes was that eventually 90% of the custom games on war3 were dota. couldn't even find any other custom maps to play

yeah, i stopepd playing WC3 because of this, DOTA players are the biggest jerks ive ever met on WC3, it pretty much killed the game for me.
i enjoy LoL a little bit, the community seems to have got a bit better since the WC3 days.

---------- Post added 2013-02-01 at 02:38 PM ----------

I play HoN. I have played LoL a bit too and here is my view:
Heroes of Newerth is skill based. Whereas other games require gear, or paying for weapons or whatever, each game of HoN is a fresh start. If you are skilled, you will do well. If you have no skill and try to faceroll, you will fail. This difficulty aspect is so refreshing compared to the PvP on WoW where its just a case of gear and grinding.
Another plus about HoN, is that if someone is doing well on the enemy team, you can do something about it. Killing them causes them to lose gold, and you can deny creeps, and ward the map so they can't farm efficiently.

League of Legends is too casual. That does end up being who payed for the most OP hero and what not. After playing HoN, LoL was a joke, winning all my games against level 25-30s because I had gained some skill when playing HoN. I think that is why LoL is more popular, because it is easier. There is no gold loss for dieing, no creep denies and it really is very simple. HoN released a game mode called Casual mode, which plays very similarly to LoL.

i always though LoL was the most popular just because its free.

[Enkidulgaa]

I was looking into it, and I realise it all comes down to Free 2 Play. I mean LoL has one of the best F2P models out there over all. You ain't forced to spend real money and champions, skins, runes, etc are all still purchasable with in game points, its only a longer grind. So that attracted a lot of people at the start and it also had to do with the popularity of DOTA as well.

You probably didnt play the game long enough to realize this, but that statement is somewhat erroneous. It takes about 1000-2000 games to unlock all champions and to have a runepage for every position. I know I played 800 games and spent quite some cash to buy champions, and I was still missing 20 or so.
Also theres some stuff if you look at the pricing which is somewhat unsavory, so I'd say LoL actually has some of the worst F2P systems (if you ignore blatant P2W games and only count the ones that are somewhat reasonable)
Just because you are not forced to pay doesnt mean its good, considering there are many games that are also F2P and dont have any grind-skipping through microtransactions whatsoever (only cosmetics)

[Deleted]

I dream of a world where element tower def is at the place of the MOBA

You and me both friend, you and me both...

and a hint of gem TD

[Kuntantee]

For quite some time I've been trying to understand what is up with the popularity of MOBA games and why are they so popular and mostly, how did this become the most played/popular genre for eSports.

I've even been forcing myself to play Dota2 for the past few days, trying to get a good view at how this became so popular... And yet I still do not see it or understand it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's a bad game or something, or that it can't be fun but this popular? I can't imagine how - the slow pace, one game session is way too long and the first half of it is basically getting the last shot on the creeps (speaking Dota2 here), which imo is extremely boring. Then there's PvP, sure, that can be fun, but again it mostly boils down to who grinded the most last shots, bought the best gear and learned the abilities of others. As for the actual combat.. not very appealing due to slow pace and click to move - strategy type of game - movement.

I know everyone has their own taste in games and I'm one of the people that try A LOT of games and I'm really really not picky - so I thought I'm sure I'll be able to notice at least what others see in MOBA games... but I didn't.

Neither do I understand how this genre became a standard for "pro gaming", looking at what used to be the standard (Quake 3, CS, etc). Sure it takes some skill to play, but it's mostly knowledge. It's knowing the ability of your hero and the abilities of your enemies. But that is knowledge, not skill (I count hand motorics, reflexes, etc as skill) - IMO.

I was always able to notice what made games popular, even if I didn't find the game good myself. But this time I'm giving up, I do not understand how MOBA is so popular. I'm going to just put my MOBA popularity theory as "casualization", due to the way MOBAs are played in the sense that they require more knowing and less skilling.

Good day

First of all, let me state that everything you write about DotA2 is wrong but I am not shocked as you are new in DotA2. Different games require different kind of skills. Precision(or aiming?) is important in FPS games while timing and prediction is important in ARTS(MOBA) games. My theory about why ARTS games are so popular is this: They are evolved from RTS games. RTS games are hard to play well because good macro-managing requires lots and lots of practice and it's not guaranteed that you will be controlling units fluidly(some people just can't do it). ARTS games emphasize on one character only and it's way more easy to control. Also, these kind of games involve many intense action in a game session. Finally, adding items into game brings decision and progression. It's like magic combination. A game which got rid of unit-management problems of RTS genre and put more action to it. I think this is why they are so popular.

[Duronos]

@juzalol Alright... LoL has no skill hmmm? I would fully disagree. Have you ever been in the soloqueue? Reach 1900+ and you can say whatever you want because soloqueue is highly skill based. You don't have a team over voice chat etc. So that's all that teamwork element gone just about, tell me why pretty much every pro player who makes a smurf account can get right back up to that elo and i can't get past 1500. Reason I can't is because I'm not skilled enough.

I have an extensive knowledge of this game but my brother is still better than me and has barely any knowledge of compared to most at his skill level. Please, since the ladders have changed, please try to reach championship tier and I'll make sure you can go to the moon or something if you do.