DOTA 2

[Henroid]

Yesterday I played a (losing) match of DotA 2. Today, I decided I should get back into the swing of things regularly as I once did.

 

Then I got rolled into a Spanish-speaking team despite choosing "English" as my only choice. And the only English my team was capable of speaking was to talk shit at me.

 

I think I've had my fill of playing DotA 2 already!

[Jutranjo]

You get Russians/Serbs/etc. with a Cyrillic name and typing in Cyrillic on all the EU servers but often they're just enthusiastic to play aggressive dota. I still block them often but they play fine even when blocked.

[Nox Beta]

Got 11 caches; 2x compendo points, no courier

P.S. Skywrath set is dope. The headpiece and weapon have alternate styles.

[dibs]

So my buddy who i play Hots with had a baby so i decided to dabble back into dota a little bit (i have 380 hours, ain't played in over a year). I didn't really enjoy it. It was too complicated, to slow and then bit in the middle where the carry farms and everyone else wanders around doing pretty much nothing was sort of soul crushing. I don't remember it being like that, is that a new meta? All the games i've played the last few days have been 40 mins +. Also, that thing that bugs me about most games with skins seems to be happening and i had trouble telling which hero was which sometimes.

 

Also, legion commander looks rad with her flags. And browsing the store some of the skins are pretty spectacular.

[n490]

Also, that thing that bugs me about most games with skins seems to be happening and i had trouble telling which hero was which sometimes.

Fun thing: Silencer used to be red instead of having his purple hue. They changed him so he wouldn't be mixed up with Dragon Knight.

[ewokskick]

So my buddy who i play Hots with had a baby so i decided to dabble back into dota a little bit (i have 380 hours, ain't played in over a year). I didn't really enjoy it. It was too complicated, to slow and then bit in the middle where the carry farms and everyone else wanders around doing pretty much nothing was sort of soul crushing. I don't remember it being like that, is that a new meta? All the games i've played the last few days have been 40 mins +. Also, that thing that bugs me about most games with skins seems to be happening and i had trouble telling which hero was which sometimes.

 

Also, legion commander looks rad with her flags. And browsing the store some of the skins are pretty spectacular.

 

Actually the new meta tends to end a bit faster than the last meta because they nerfed comeback gold.  Either way, 40+ minute games are pretty normal.  I'll say this, one thing I've learned is that if your team is wondering around doing nothing while your carry farms you can buy a smoke of deceit.  For some reason, pub teams instantly group up with you ping a smoke and are impossible to group up without one.  So I recommend buying them and invading their jungle or somewhere you think you can find someone to pick off. 

 

The other thing you can do if you want faster games it to pick a pushing hero.  Just get a pugna and force towers or something.

 

Also, don't take this the wrong way, but if you feel like you're not doing anything it's probably because you don't know what you should be doing.  I am guessing it has a lot to do with getting back into the swing of things after time off.  Also, coming from HotS where you should pretty much always be doing objectives DotA is a lot less guided.  As a support you can either be ganking in lane, pulling, playing lane support, jungling, stacking, grabbing runes.  Then mid game, you can think about grabbing a lane when a core goes into the jungle or trying to coordinate smoke ganks.  As a core, you generally need to get a couple items then you can fight or if you're a late game carry you can just get farming items.  Either way, there is an awful lot you could be doing to make your team win.

 

Personally, I much prefer it to the 20 minute HotS game where you basically just fight over an objective then whoever wins that fight wins the game.  To me, the freedom that DotA provides makes it a lot more appealing than HotS.  However, HotS is a very simple and clear experience.  You always know what to do and it doesn't require much investment.  I think that's an okay design philosophy even though in practice I don't have any fun with HotS.

[Reyturner]

I often feel rudderless in the Dota 2 mid game, so I'll fall back on the following heuristic: 

1. If the enemy is grouping and pushing, split push or farm (depending on your role).
2. If the enemy is scattered because they are jungling or split pushing, group up and pick some of them off. 
3. If the enemy is rolling around your jungle looking for kills, group up and push a tower. 

Having vision up will help with this decision making.

 

Naturally, if you're playing with pubs, you'll need to try to convey your wishes with chat, pings and chat wheel and you'll probably be disappointed, but at least you'll know what your team SHOULD be doing

[Dewar]

I played my first game in quite a while tonight. It was a train wreck, but we managed to stay close until one of their players dropped out and that ended up handing us the win. i am very rusty, and really didn't have a good idea where I should be most of the game. Other players on my team wandering a lot didn't help either. We didn't really have a laning phase. As a plus, I did get to hit my Zeus ult with Ag's and Refresher toward the end of the game and score a double kill.

[undermind9]

i've been playing at night solo to hit compendium challenges & 10-hero challenges - AP/RD modes.  i'd welcome a team-mate, no matter experience/last played.  Busby and I rolled a very weird team w/a techies trying to mine rosh @ level 1; our own team wasnt without issue - specifically two meks that were cast very sparingly

 

steam: undermind9

[Nox Beta]

I often feel rudderless in the Dota 2 mid game, so I'll fall back on the following heuristic: 

1. If the enemy is grouping and pushing, split push or farm (depending on your role).
2. If the enemy is scattered because they are jungling or split pushing, group up and pick some of them off. 
3. If the enemy is rolling around your jungle looking for kills, group up and push a tower. 

Having vision up will help with this decision making.

 

Naturally, if you're playing with pubs, you'll need to try to convey your wishes with chat, pings and chat wheel and you'll probably be disappointed, but at least you'll know what your team SHOULD be doing

 

The beauty about Dota (and horror, for some) is that everything depends. This means that the team that can make quicker and smarter decisions, and more importantly, execute them well, will usually win. In a nutshell, experience accounts for a lot. In saying that, sometimes the theoretical best course of action is not necessarily the most practical, feasible or executable due to skill deficits, for example. Knowing the practical limits of what can or can't be achieved is a skill in and of itself.

 

My basic decision-making process is usually:

 

a) What are my team's strengths and weaknesses now? How strong will/can we be later?

What are the opponent's strengths and weaknesses now? How strong will/can they be later?

 

The answers to the above questions will inform the way I play. The tricky part is that the answer(s) will depend on a bunch of factors; not all of which you can control, and not all of which are necessarily identifiable e.g. draft, lane allocation, individual skill, teamwork propensity, map awareness etc.

[pkirkner]

The answers to the above questions will inform the way I play. The tricky part is that the answer(s) will depend on a bunch of factors; not all of which you can control, and not all of which are necessarily identifiable e.g. draft, lane allocation, individual skill, teamwork propensity, map awareness etc.

 

Yup, a huge part of the early game any time I solo queue is trying to evaluate the other 9 players strengths and weaknesses on the fly. It reminds me more of pickup basketball than any other video game I've played.

[BusbyBerkeley]

Whoa this new update looks slick as hell. I'm just totally, thoroughly impressed. Can't wait to get some customs going.

 

http://blog.dota2.com/2015/06/dota-2-reborn/

[Twig]

That stat tracking though!!!! (Check the Friends Only video for a peek.)

 

So excited. Can't wait to hear more. Can't wait to start using the new client.

[Salacious Snake]

It all sounds so good. I expect it'll be a little more snappy on crappy lappies after the update.

[Nox Beta]

I'm personally really excited about the new stat tracker feature; hero specific MMR looks very intriguing.

 

The sleeker shop interface and hero demo/previews will be dangerous for my wallet

 

P.S. I can't wait for the desert terrain compendium stretch goal to be implemented 

[Jutranjo]

Finally a DOTA2 update Jake can care about!

[Reyturner]

Next Dota Today guest star???

[sclpls]

Man, I don't think anything announced at E3 is gonna top my excitement for this UI update. Everything about it is so good.

[Henroid]

Getting info on playstyle / role for each hero is just... That is very, very useful. Sometimes seeing that kind of info is an eye opener to folks so they'll know to adjust their focus. I probably swing into farming too much when I'm in a losing game, no matter what character I'm on.

[Dewar]

i've been playing at night solo to hit compendium challenges & 10-hero challenges - AP/RD modes.  i'd welcome a team-mate, no matter experience/last played.  Busby and I rolled a very weird team w/a techies trying to mine rosh @ level 1; our own team wasnt without issue - specifically two meks that were cast very sparingly

 

steam: undermind9

 

Just sent you an invite. I won't be playing tonight, but wanted to do it before I forgot again.

[Jutranjo]

If you run the beta client through steam, it'll open the 32 bit client. Go to Steam\steamapps\common\dota 2 beta\game\bin\win64 to find the 64 bit executable and run that. The 32 bit one had frame drops for me.

[Twig]

Yo this shit is so slick, though.

 

I didn't play much last night 'cause I had a headache, but man everything was just so smooth and quick. Also the overthrow game mode is fun. I don't like the free-for-all as much (I pretty much universally prefer team-based games), but yeah it's nice. NICE.

[Jutranjo]

There's a 10 man solo mode, a 2v2v2v2v2 and a 3v3v3 mode. Lots of other custom maps got broken but hopefully they'll fix em. Enfos with the dumb custom heroes, spells, creeps was just like I remember hero defence maps!

[Nox Beta]

Yo this shit is so slick, though.

 

It's so darn slick, I could lick it.

 

I was a little anxious the new layout would be unintuitive and confusing but I grasped the UI surprisingly quickly and easily. Some features that really stood out to me include:

- Forming parties is much more convenient and functional imho

- The 5 axes playstyle breakdown is so darn kool (http://imgur.com/tSsaqHw).

 

However, Reborn still has some issues that need ironing out, e.g.

- The 'Heroes' section of your profile is bugged and doesn't actually show your favourite/most successful heroes, nor the correct individual MMR

- I have a feeling some of the stats that are shown is not entirely accurate (I swear I've eaten more than 1 cheese before ... lol).

[Reyturner]

A ton of my hats are missing.

Game is literally unplayable.

That Demo map is cool as hell though.