Henroid Posted April 28, 2015 I love the changes to Legion Commander so much. The Agh's ability on her is gonna be great. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
taterdactyl Posted April 28, 2015 taterdactyl - Yeah I mean, when people say they want to play quicker games that is fair enough. DOTA can't be all things to all people. But if it is any consolation a lot of the changes are going to make the games shorter. There were some significant changes to buybacks, comeback gold, and T3 & 4 towers got a big armor reduction. These changes aren't in the main client yet though, just FYI. Great! When does the patch go live? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jutranjo Posted April 28, 2015 Great! When does the patch go live? Hopefully this thursday, if they get all the rubick bugs worked out. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jennegatron Posted April 29, 2015 My bf is so super into Dota 2 & watches pro Dota all the time, so I spend a lot of time Dota 2 adjacent. I don't play, but I think about the pros & community a lot. The fact that so many of the pro scene is kids around my age (23) who dropped out of college to go professional in esports is really fascinating to me, and everyone else is like high school students. I don't know if the pro scene demographics are an accurate reflection of the community at large, but I assume the toxicity comes largely from the immaturity? There aren't older mature players the way there might be in traditional sports. Like there's no Tim Duncan to guide and shape the 15 year olds. Fear is considered 'old' at like 27. Everyone is clumped around adolescence/young adulthood in a way that is unique to the newness of esports at large, but also just Dota/LoMas specifically. I am not sure where I'm going with this but it's something I've been kicking around in my head the past couple days. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dewar Posted April 29, 2015 I know that as I get older, I am less willing (and also less able) to jump into games that require really quick reaction times like Dota 2. These days I prefer strategy games that I can take my time in like Civilization, Banished, or XCOM. On top of that, I'm much less willing to deal with other people's bad attitude. I'd imagine, if a significant number of my peers feel the same way, that Dota 2 will always have those demographics. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sclpls Posted April 29, 2015 I'm in my 30s, and my reaction time is pretty bad, and I don't feel like reaction time is that important to DOTA to be honest. I mean, it matters, but not as much as good decision making, and so I feel like there are aspects of the game I'm better at than these dumb kids! It certainly isn't as demanding as multiplayer shooters or RTSs at any rate (though obviously more demanding than a turn based game). Anyway, jennegatron's intuition is correct I think. There was some reddit survey asking about demographics, and the majority of people that responded were not in their 20s yet. Obviously I can;t know for sure if that reflects that demographics at large, but I think it is reasonable to assume that it does. So there is a ton of immaturity, and that is an important thing to keep in mind when you encounter all the absurd bravado in pub matches or whatever. That's also probably part of the reason that so many people are convinced they should be at a higher MMR just because we're talking about a lot of people that still lack a fair amount of self-awareness. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pkirkner Posted April 29, 2015 I'm in my 30s, and my reaction time is pretty bad, and I don't feel like reaction time is that important to DOTA to be honest. I mean, it matters, but not as much as good decision making, and so I feel like there are aspects of the game I'm better at than these dumb kids! It certainly isn't as demanding as multiplayer shooters or RTSs at any rate (though obviously more demanding than a turn based game). Yeah, I agree. I find Dota much more demanding on my quick-decision-making skills than my reflexes. It may be that at the professional level reflexes matter more, but I'm not convinced of that. I think that's more of a case of the lifestyle, at least along the path to becoming a pro, appealing to a younger demographic. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dewar Posted April 29, 2015 I guess I would consider the whole time between seeing a thing, making a decision about the thing, and then reacting to it all bundled in my idea of "quick reaction times." I actually have pretty damn good reflexes, but my decision making time has somewhat lengthened since I was younger. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
natellite Posted April 30, 2015 I think reaction time is important in the most marginal cases - a game-winning teamfight at minute 70, really high-level pro play, things like that - but it's the last 1% of a formula that needs so many other things to go right before it ever comes up. I think the thing you're talking about is more, like... game sense, which is a nebulous and hard-to-define thing and has as much to do with the people whom you're playing with as it does about your individual contribution. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
n490 Posted April 30, 2015 I had that general discussion with one of my online steam friend (they count as friends, right?) about how age changes reaction time. Closing in to 30yo, he mentioned that while he understood the argument, he said he didn't feel like this was that big of a deal in his personal experience, still topping tf2 server scores, among other games (not the most skill demanding game, but still something). Conversation went on to "game sense" as I asked him if his time spent playing games might make up for any loss of physical activities, being able to identify patterns and predict movement/team players depending on the flow of the game. I think Dota's a great exemple of this (and possibly any other Loma). You can already predict some sort of flow to the game depending on your picks and ennemy picks. When you see who has which lane, you can take a wild guess if your prediction was correct or not. Being able to communicate clearly also helps, as well as map awareness, skills that could be seen as refining themselves with age. As natellite said though, with the current gold on kill mechanics, not losing that teamfight 35+ mins when everyone has access to many spells and abilities can be so important (Force Staff just out of the Ravage). When it comes to the demographic, I wonder how much of it is due to Lomas being the big thing right now (i think) and coverage of big events being more readily accessible with Twitch's success. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sno Posted April 30, 2015 I feel like the emphasis people put on reaction time as a reason why they can't play competitive games is a little misguided, you can get quite far with just a slightly different mindset. I definitely no longer benefit from youthful quickness, my reaction times are noticeably sluggish and terrible, but i've got other ways i can cope. I mean, I have friends who jump into a new game blind and do things on reaction that just astound me, the kind of stuff i was never able to do, but I never fail to make up the distance by instead trying to have a very present and nuanced understanding of the mechanics. Sort of have a little flowchart in my head so that i'm playing out on a series of canned responses to specific events i can recognize as pivotal moments, instead of trying to react to everything equally. I've been able to apply this thinking to most competitive games i play, and despite feeling like i'm handicapped by terrible reactions, i generally keep pace and do actually quite well. Competitive games are so much about getting in the head of the other player, reaction time only gets you so far. You might know the other player's optimal path to victory, but you don't know if they'll deviate from it for a less optimal strategy that might catch you off guard. Recognizing these strategies, recognizing the deviations from them, and knowing how to respond in any of those situations, that is far more valuable than that being able to click faster than the other player. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sclpls Posted April 30, 2015 I think natellite gets it exactly right - where reaction time matters are for those team fights that have a ton of super complicated interactions, and that's where split second reactions can turn the tides. But it's worth pointing out that before that even becomes a thing there are usually a million things you can do to improve at the game, so the odds are that's not the thing that's holding you back. For the majority of players you will be in a MMR bracket where team fights consist of people just spamming all their spells and item abilities randomly and hoping for the best. The cool thing about DOTA is there are so many different ways to get better at the game, so even if your reaction time is shit you can still go really far even if you will never be a pro as a result (meaning you're not in the top 0.01%). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dewar Posted April 30, 2015 I should note that I was doing fairly well when I was playing, I got up to a 70% win rate and often had pretty good stats. I just found the whole thing stressful so I eventually stopped. I'll probably play some more once the next International comes around. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sclpls Posted April 30, 2015 Yeah I mean that's totally fair. I love DOTA, but there are millions of good reasons not to play it, and I definitely watch more DOTA than I actually play because of the stress factor. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Henroid Posted May 1, 2015 The Compendium for TI 2015 became available yesterday apparently. It's already nearing the $2,000,000 mark. The stretch goals this year have been plotted out up to $15,000,000. I just bought the "get to level 50 immediately" version because I got a Compendium for free last year and enjoy it that freaking much. Still gotta buy one for the guy who got me that. Anyway, it begins. On the first pages (at the moment) you'll be given a prediction page for what teams will be directly invited to the International. There's a challenge page where you get 3 challenges assigned. Completed challenges are cleared after 5 days. Each slot can be replaced with a randomly rolled challenge every 3 days. One of mine is to purchase Radiance before the game clock hits 25 minutes, for example. They also have a coin system going this year, and your compendium level can affect the rate at which you earn them. I'm gaining them at a rate of 125% I guess. You get the coins by completing the challenges, and they're spent on items and sets (100 for items, 1000 for sets). No context at how fast those are earned just yet. There's a couple pages for your Immortal Treasures earned throughout this whole thing, but these are locked behind the grand total wall. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Henroid Posted May 1, 2015 Oh yeah there's only 4 days to go on predicting who is invited directly. They have the following teams available to choose from in the pool and only 10 will get direct invites. Since I know shit-all about the pro scene and only follow The International, I just chose who I know from last year. Americas - Complexity - Evil Geniuses - eHug - Void Boys - Not Today - Pain Gaming - Team Tinker - Union Gaming - Wheel Wreck While Whistling China - CDEC Gaming - Team DK - EHOME - HyperGlory Team - Invictus Gaming - LGD Gaming - Newbee - TongFu Team - Vici Gaming Southeast Asia - Team Malaysia - Execration - First Departure - Invasion - Mineski - MVP Phoenix - Signature.Trust - Rave Europe - 4 Anchors and a Sea Captain - Alliance - Virtus.Pro - Hellraisers - Team Secret - Cloud 9 - Team Empire - Natus Vincere - Ninjas in Pyjamas Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dewar Posted May 1, 2015 Hmm, I wonder if I can get tickets this year. I'm not sure if I'm up for camping a website for another set of tickets. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BusbyBerkeley Posted May 1, 2015 You already missed ticket sales for TI this year, sorry. I'm really underwhelmed by the compendium rewards this year and hate how they are tied to leveling it. I think I made it to level 20 last year? Just feels like they are getting more and more stingy with it each year, which sucks. Meh. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jennegatron Posted May 1, 2015 Even if you hadn't missed them going on sale it's fairly unlikely you would have gotten one anyway because they sold out pretty much instantly, even people who were frantically refreshing didn't even get a chance to see them on sale because the ticketmaster website is such garbage. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
natellite Posted May 1, 2015 Even if you hadn't missed them going on sale it's fairly unlikely you would have gotten one anyway because they sold out pretty much instantly, even people who were frantically refreshing didn't even get a chance to see them on sale because the ticketmaster website is such garbage. My group had four people trying to buy them and not one of us got a batch. We were heartbroken. We might go up to Seattle and crash with one of our buddies anyway and just have a giant twitch watching party - depends on how PAX tickets shake out. The biggest uncertainty in my mind in those predictions is Na'vi. I wonder if they'll be invited... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Twig Posted May 1, 2015 I managed to grab a ticket but still not sure if i'll even be able to go. We'll see. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dewar Posted May 1, 2015 Wow, I don't know how I missed ticket sales. Well that's one less thing to worry about and if people are that concerned I guess I'll let them have at it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Henroid Posted May 1, 2015 You already missed ticket sales for TI this year, sorry. I'm really underwhelmed by the compendium rewards this year and hate how they are tied to leveling it. I think I made it to level 20 last year? Just feels like they are getting more and more stingy with it each year, which sucks. Meh. Rewards were tied to leveling your Compendium last year as well. As for the tickets for TI 2015, there wasn't exactly a big-huge announcement of them being available. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
undermind9 Posted May 2, 2015 Rewards were tied to leveling your Compendium last year as well. As for the tickets for TI 2015, there wasn't exactly a big-huge announcement of them being available. The 2013 compendium had significantly less to unlock and had to complete all those team player cards to get all smeevils. I spent hours just in trading channels trying to get the last rare member of a team knocked out from qualifiers. After the super success of the compendium they did release the 4 or 5 immortals to everyone Not that paying to unlock levels is any more satisfying, in 2014 at least every level was an item drop and with a high level compendium could accumulate more for the market to sell Its something to note that last year the squawkins and pudge courier upgrades were tokens that were saleable. If its the same this year can get wyvren, armadillo, or enigma effect without dumping lots of money Same with the immortal treasures, for less than $8 got all the items were missing from levels We'll see how the market changes affect that as well Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
