seadonkey

I guess then I would say I would rather play with people that are better than me. In most things that is the way to improve at something (sports, art, almost anything really). But that aside, I am probably not confident enough in my skills to take a game on my back and pull us all to victory. I feel like both situations are not always as much fun as other situations.

Not sure this answers your question Badfingers, but I think I would rather have a decent game of dota and lose honorably to superior play / item / decision making. Most often I feel like if I lose it is because someone doesn't know what they are doing or we are just less worse than they are so they win. Then they talk big about how good they are and you have to mute them all even though their item choices were junk.

I completely agree about the magnitude of the issue and the reality is if there was a simple solution valve probably would have implemented it a long time ago. Maybe we should just be thankful that something like DOTA can organically arise at all and that we can ever have fun playing it. Then what would we complain about on the internet? To Brad's point about stomping someone, I can see both sides of that. There is something to be said for wanting to take a victory lap or enjoying the moment. Let me build a huge luxury item and stomp around a bit. If I have to be a grown up and lose with dignity then they should as well. I think it takes a good amount of self control to not rage quit when you are getting stomped and someone else has eaten the abandon. Even asking the question "how did they do so well?" or going back and watching a reply can be a learning experience. Too many people want to gg at 15 mins when they are down by 5 kills.

I do wish there was some way that MMR had more to do with basic game knowledge as opposed to Kill / Death ratio or however it is created. I dream of a day when you could pass a "meta game test" or something in game where you have to get 25 last hits in 10 mins against a bot or move the lane position back and forth in front of the tower by denying creeps. Even just having people know how not to push the lane would be nice. I also loved your discussion of Centaur, he is my personal favorite right now. He is the perfect counter to glass cannon carries like drow and sniper that people get used to owning with. You can just jump on them and blow them up early on and shut them down which is way too much fun. I also like that you can play the #4 support role, buy some support items but still get enough farm from support gold to semi-carry and have a bigger impact mid game to either set up a late game carry or just push early and end it. I also agree that Centaur doesn't fall off late with his "return" and ulti being based on his strength you can still dish out decent damage or send it back.