The Idle Thumbs Lords Management Consortium - Dota 2, LoL, other Lords Managers unite

[osmosisch]

Hey there, doing my semi-annual check in to see if there are active LoL players who want to play LoL in this multi-game thread totally not only about DOTA.

I'm on an ARAM spree lately, you're welcome to join (username same as here, on EU-W)

[Patters]

The only thing stopping it from being the best of the three is lack of community and S2 failure to listen to anyone about anything. I haven't played it in a year though.

 

 

I agree with BenLuke. 

[Badfinger]

Well Dota 2 is still in beta, meaning new stuff is getting added every single week and lots of big stuff is going on so I guess there's more to talk about.  I'm assuming Riot is not still releasing a new champion every other week. 

 

Speaking of new stuff I like the The International 3 Compendium added today, Valve have finally gotten money from me.

 

So far this year it's averaged out to about once a month. There were 19 last year, so it'll probably even out to a similar place. They still do about twice-monthly balance updates, plus game modes, plus professional tournament stuff (which really isn't the realm of a multiplayer thread, fair enough). They just released a dedicated matchmaker for ARAM, which used to be custom only, and it's been incredible.

 

 

It looks like the issue is that many of the active LoL players are on EU, and I'm NA.

[Twig]

I played an ARAM in League (first League game in months) and I was so bored. (ARAMs in Dota 2 do not have that effect on me.)

 

It's almost heartbreaking. I played that game for so long. Then Dota 2 came out and I just stopped giving a fuck. Every time I go back I enjoy it less and less. I wish it was fun again. ):

 

 

 

 

 

Buuuut on the other hand, Tusk is by far the best thing in video games. JESUS CHRIST EVERY GAME AS HIM IS FUN.

[Coods]

I played an ARAM in League (first League game in months) and I was so bored. (ARAMs in Dota 2 do not have that effect on me.)

 

It's almost heartbreaking. I played that game for so long. Then Dota 2 came out and I just stopped giving a fuck. Every time I go back I enjoy it less and less. I wish it was fun again. ):

 

 

 

 

 

Buuuut on the other hand, Tusk is by far the best thing in video games. JESUS CHRIST EVERY GAME AS HIM IS FUN.

 

I feel the same way with Gyro. Dropping that rocket and then forgetting it existed, and then it saves your ass is the best thing ever.

[TheLastBaron]

It's cool that there's official matchmaking for it, and even having the browser for custom game lobbies is a step up on Dota. I've been in the main channel for finding -shom games ever since the qualifiers for aotD 3 and it's usually around 10 people total at any given time meaning that the chances of actually getting a full game going are very small. It'd be cool if Valve added a browser for custom games and maybe even made it possible to submit them to the workshop. Even people adopting standard passwords would be cool, like always making the password aram or shom or whatever so you could type that in and find games easily. I know there's a few more games modes in progress by Valve like em and dm, so they probably have something in the works.

[Twig]

Pfft, Gyro. He's one of the funner carries, for sure, but he ain't got nothin' on Tusk. Especially with the right team.

 

Tusk, Lion, Spirit Breaker, Tidehunter. And Warlock, but he didn't contribute as much to the AWESOME TUSK feeling.

 

 

As my friend put it: SPLOOSH ROLL BOMF TUSKY DUSKY SPLASH SPLASH WHIRRRRR

 

Tusk/Lion lane is deadly. Tusk doesn't have the damage output to kill people on his own, early-game (or late game, really, he's not a carry), but with the right lane partner to nuke stuff down? Yes. Yessssss.

[TheLastBaron]

Just won a 1 hour game where we were down to a single ranged rax 25 minutes in with a score of maybe 15-35.  We had a PL.  I felt so guilty.

[Badfinger]

I played an ARAM in League (first League game in months) and I was so bored. (ARAMs in Dota 2 do not have that effect on me.)

 

It's almost heartbreaking. I played that game for so long. Then Dota 2 came out and I just stopped giving a fuck. Every time I go back I enjoy it less and less. I wish it was fun again. ):

 

 

 

 

 

Buuuut on the other hand, Tusk is by far the best thing in video games. JESUS CHRIST EVERY GAME AS HIM IS FUN.

 

It's funny, I find DOTA boring. Everything just feels so obfuscated. Additionally, and I understand why this is, but most of the game design decisions feel old and bad. Every time I say to myself "I'm going to figure this out", or "I'm going to watch a match because I understand LoMas and I will get into what's going on", I just get turned off again and go play League of Legends, a game for babies where things are straightforward and make some sense. I just don't want to spend the time getting over the EXTRA difficulty hump that's just there for its own sake.

[osmosisch]

I like both but find league more relaxing.

[Twig]

It's funny, I find DOTA boring. Everything just feels so obfuscated. Additionally, and I understand why this is, but most of the game design decisions feel old and bad. Every time I say to myself "I'm going to figure this out", or "I'm going to watch a match because I understand LoMas and I will get into what's going on", I just get turned off again and go play League of Legends, a game for babies where things are straightforward and make some sense. I just don't want to spend the time getting over the EXTRA difficulty hump that's just there for its own sake.

I was with you until you started saying the design is bad, and the game makes no sense, and the difficulty hurdles exist just for the sake of existing.

 

You sound like half of my coworkers.

 

MEH.

 

EDIT: IGNORE THE ABOVE TEXT. Sorry, I realized like a second ago you're probably not being intentionally trollish like a bunch of my coworkers tend to be. I reread it and it's more jokey than I thought. They're all huge LoL fans. For some reason, this is a thing that I deal with on an almost weekly basis where somebody just starts shit-talking Dota for no reason. It's really bizarre and annoying and childish and so it gets on my nerves sometimes.

 

SHUT UP I AM DUMB

[Badfinger]

It is though? I'm not saying you shouldn't like it or it has no merit, or those decisions make the rest of the game have no merit, but Valve has preserved basically all the weird broken details that arose from making a mod in 2005 from a game released in 2002 and codified them in 201X (whenever it's out of beta). It's not DOTA 2 in the same way that Relic made Dawn of War 2 following DoW. It's just DOTA, Again.

 

I'm certainly not going to come into the DOTA thread and suggest someone's wrong for liking it. I also wouldn't suggest it's clear that someone should like League of Legends instead. That's silly. I understand completely why someone would like it, and like it more than the thing I like most. It's not even a new or interesting take on a topic. I just think there's some objectively bad game design in DOTA, and that hinders me from playing it. Valve certainly gets credit from me for making an attempt to tutorialize around those problems. But if they were making a sequel to DOTA in the normal Valve way, I can't help but be sure that many little design choices would change and wouldn't need to be explained around.

[TheLastBaron]

I don't know if it was a result of watching the Dota 2 Staff Cup (a tournament between sites like JoinDota and things like the GD Studio) or finding out that Studio Rumble did a League of Legends tournament.  It might have just been that I'm getting excited for TI3.  Anyways, I had dream last night that there was a Dota 2 game studio tournament and it was awesome.  It didn't actually happen, it was just coming up or something, but it had item drop for spectators in DotaTV like The International does (probably because I got my Compendium that comes with and item drop boost and was thinking about it last night) and the items were for games in typical Valve fashion, like if Gearbox was playing you might Borderlands 2 items, or if Telltale was playing the drops might be Telltale themed TF2 items (this is likely a result of me debating getting Poker Night 2 the past week or so).  The point is, I woke up and have been sad all day.

[TheLastBaron]

It is though? I'm not saying you shouldn't like it or it has no merit, or those decisions make the rest of the game have no merit, but Valve has preserved basically all the weird broken details that arose from making a mod in 2005 from a game released in 2002 and codified them in 201X (whenever it's out of beta). It's not DOTA 2 in the same way that Relic made Dawn of War 2 following DoW. It's just DOTA, Again.

 

I'm certainly not going to come into the DOTA thread and suggest someone's wrong for liking it. I also wouldn't suggest it's clear that someone should like League of Legends instead. That's silly. I understand completely why someone would like it, and like it more than the thing I like most. It's not even a new or interesting take on a topic. I just think there's some objectively bad game design in DOTA, and that hinders me from playing it. Valve certainly gets credit from me for making an attempt to tutorialize around those problems. But if they were making a sequel to DOTA in the normal Valve way, I can't help but be sure that many little design choices would change and wouldn't need to be explained around.

Can you be specific in what design choices you're thinking of (that are objectively bad)?  I'm not trying to call you out to argue or anything, it's just that I played WC3 DotA so I'm really used to DotA and obviously will have a hard time recognizing anything that a new player would.

[Badfinger]

Sure. I should probably load up the game so I can re-remember and not just spew things from bias or imaginary things. It's been months since I played, and it's possible tutorials have smoothed some things over.

 

There are likely some things that are genre specific that I just icing over for other games, as well. But I think things like denies aren't good game design, which has been discussed on the cast. Last hits are probably bad game design, and they're universal. The courier system in itself is understandable, but I found its implementation to be completely nonsensical. I don't think in (some number of) hours of playing DOTA I was ever able to successfully call the courier and also not get it killed.

 

I also don't just want to nitpick a game that I'm not fully comfortable with, although at the same time maybe if I didn't need to I'd be more comfortable? It's a bit of a double edged sword.

[Twig]

Can you be specific in what design choices you're thinking of (that are objectively bad)?  I'm not trying to call you out to argue or anything, it's just that I played WC3 DotA so I'm really used to DotA and obviously will have a hard time recognizing anything that a new player would.

Denying (of all kinds). "Why am I killing my teammates?! THAT'S SO DUMB." That's always number one on the list, in my experience. It's fair until you realize that Dota is a competitive game, and not a story-based game (no matter how much flavor Valve has added to it/stolen from the original).

[TheLastBaron]

The thing with denies, outside of the aspect of denying gold and experience to the other team, is it offers a means to control your wave which is completely absent from League of Legends.  I remember when I first played League Gangplank could deny creeps and it was removed.  Granted there are other ways to control the wave like pulling, blocking, creep aggro, or conversion abilities; but these are also not in League and the only real control you have over your wave comes from pushing into the tower to reset it.  I think in a game about lanes with waves of npc minions attacking and pushing toward the eventual win objective having a game mechanic to manipulate the wave is valuable.  When discussing denying actual player characters I just think of it as being sort of analogous to how people in League would run into towers to suicide if they knew they were going to die anyways (ironically this doesn't work in Dota as the kill just goes to the team as a whole). 

[osmosisch]

That's an overly simplistic view of lane control as regards League. You can do plenty of stuff like draw creep aggro and tank creeps just outside of tower range.

 

My personal least favourite thing to discover about Dota was attacking your own creeps to make a tower dorp aggro from you (wtf)

[Laxan]

Other things like mana-burn and dodge chance were removed from LoL over the years, as they led a crusade against "anti-fun" mechanics. While this removed the insane edge cases brought about by these mechanics, it's arguably a much flatter game without them.

 

By removing denying, LoL passively promotes skirmishes much more than Dota, which arguably leads to decent e-sportsy things. The EU/NA meta scene in LoL pretty much revolves entirely around champion kills, while Asia is much more into straight farming games. But yeah, I agree that the options for controlling a lane are pretty non-existant in LoL.

[Twig]

That's an overly simplistic view of lane control as regards League. You can do plenty of stuff like draw creep aggro and tank creeps just outside of tower range.

 

My personal least favourite thing to discover about Dota was attacking your own creeps to make a tower dorp aggro from you (wtf)

The point is you have no control over your own creeps. You can only control enemy creeps. Drawing aggro is fine... if you want to push the tower, I guess. Tanking creeps just outside of tower range is fine... if you want to prevent your tower from taking damage. But your creeps will creep on creepin' on, regardless of what you want.

 

In Dota you can, as mentioned, deny, pull jungle, block the lane (arguably possible in League, but to no real benefit - believe me, I've tried), or using one of the heroes that can just straight up sacrifice an allied creep for some other benefit.

 

By removing denying, LoL passively promotes skirmishes much more than Dota, which arguably leads to decent e-sportsy things.

Dota games are equally as active in that regard. (Moreso from what little League I've watched, but I can't say that without doubting myself, as I found League intolerably boring to watch, even when I still loved playing it.) It's just that Dota players have a whole hell of a lot more to manage.

[Badfinger]

The point is you have no control over your own creeps. You can only control enemy creeps. Drawing aggro is fine... if you want to push the tower, I guess. Tanking creeps just outside of tower range is fine... if you want to prevent your tower from taking damage. But your creeps will creep on creepin' on, regardless of what you want.

 

In Dota you can, as mentioned, deny, pull jungle, block the lane (arguably possible in League, but to no real benefit - believe me, I've tried), or using one of the heroes that can just straight up sacrifice an allied creep for some other benefit.

 

Dota games are equally as active in that regard. (Moreso from what little League I've watched, but I can't say that without doubting myself, as I found League intolerably boring to watch, even when I still loved playing it.) It's just that Dota players have a whole hell of a lot more to manage.

 

 

:/ Well I apologize, making qualitative statements back and forth about two similar-yet-wildly-different games is what I'd hoped to avoid.

 

The fundamental disagreement we are having, and will continue to have, is that we're having a qualitative disagreement about quantity. You are saying (or I am interpreting you are saying) that having literally more things to track makes the game deeper, and the difficulty and obfuscation is worth that, whereas I am saying that I find it makes it more complicated without necessarily making it deeper and I am willing to sacrifice a little bit of that potential depth for a design philosophy that's not a faithful remake of a decade ago.

 

Out of curiosity, what role or champion did you mostly play in LoL? I find that jungling adds a good bit of complexity in the nature of having 4 buff spaces and two boss monsters to control over just rune spots and Roshan. Some of the difficulty lost from an easier time to kill the monsters is replaced with strategic objective control.

 

I'm also not sure why you should have control over your creeps? They're supposed to be autonomous death minions who willingly throw themselves against each other until death. And denying is absolutely 100% objectively a bad design decision. You don't strategically take a double fault in tennis. You don't strategically swing without attempting to hit anything in baseball. The only thing that comes remotely close to acting against your team's interest for a gain is purposefully missing a free throw in basketball where 1 point isn't useful to you and you need to attempt to get 2 or 3.

[TheLastBaron]

The fundamental disagreement we are having, and will continue to have, is that we're having a qualitative disagreement about quantity. You are saying (or I am interpreting you are saying) that having literally more things to track makes the game deeper, and the difficulty and obfuscation is worth that, whereas I am saying that I find it makes it more complicated without necessarily making it deeper and I am willing to sacrifice a little bit of that potential depth for a design philosophy that's not a faithful remake of a decade ago.

 

For me personally it's not about the number of things you have to manage, it's about what they add to the game.  If they removed the ability to deny creeps but added more things to think about it wouldn't automatically make the game better.  As I said before this one specific mechanic is super important to the game because the game is basically dudes standing in a lane with waves of guys coming and attacking each other, and a game where you have control over what those guys do its so significantly different that one where you can't (in the same way that a game like Starcraft where you can individually micro all of your units is very different than a game where everything is grouped in squads).  I would also argue that this does inherently make the game deeper because it gives you another significant level of control, though that isn't to say it necessarily makes it "better" or more enjoyable.  I should also mention right now that current Dota versions are way different from the early versions (and even the Dota that was around when HoN was made) and that Dota 2 isn't exactly the same as WC3 Dota.  There have been some fundamental changes to Dota like item-muting and Smoke of Deceit which was added not that long ago has a huge impact of the game dynamic.  It's also worth mentioning that the courier system is way different in Dota 2 than in WC3 (whether it's better is arguable).

 

Out of curiosity, what role or champion did you mostly play in LoL? I find that jungling adds a good bit of complexity in the nature of having 4 buff spaces and two boss monsters to control over just rune spots and Roshan. Some of the difficulty lost from an easier time to kill the monsters is replaced with strategic objective control.

 

I guess this is true, but you could also argue that it's another case of "more things to track".  It's hard for me to compare it as jungling is so different between the games (in terms of both the role and the mechanics of jungle neutrals).  It for sure adds more to League, but I don't think it translates to Dota well. 

 

 

I'm also not sure why you should have control over your creeps? They're supposed to be autonomous death minions who willingly throw themselves against each other until death. And denying is absolutely 100% objectively a bad design decision. You don't strategically take a double fault in tennis. You don't strategically swing without attempting to hit anything in baseball. The only thing that comes remotely close to acting against your team's interest for a gain is purposefully missing a free throw in basketball where 1 point isn't useful to you and you need to attempt to get 2 or 3.

 

It's not really about controlling your creeps directly, it's about having control over the dynamics of the wave and the point of equilibrium (worth also noting that the lanes in Dota aren't symmetrical).  This concept exists in League, people know you shouldn't just auto attack everything because your wave will push, there's just less you can do about it.  I don't see how it's objectively bad when it has a clear purpose.  Even if you take away the wave dynamics aspect and argue that denying is unnecessary because things like pulling and blocking are sufficient and you're just left with the actual "denying" part (denying gold and exp) it makes sense.  You are taking something away from the other team, even if you're losing something at the same time.  Think of it like having a remote self-destruct feature in your super cool high-tech invention to destroy it if it falls into the wrong hands, or send an assassin to kill one of your men who's been captured and is being interrogated and about to give away valuable information.  To put it in a sports analogy you can think of it like a "professional foul" in soccer (the only sport I watch a significant amount of) where a player takes out another player about to get away on goal, taking a yellow card and giving the other team a free-kick, but still leaving his team in a better position than if he didn't commit the tackle.  You could say it's a stupid/cynical part of the game and I might agree with you in situations like the World Cup where Luis Suarez slapped away a shot going into the net at the very end of the game knowing he was going to get a red card and concede a penalty to Ghana, the other team (it was tied and if the goal had gone in Ghana would have won, instead they missed the penalty and lost in the shootout that followed).  You're trading something bad to prevent the other team getting something good, though in the case of Dota it's more of a win-win.

 

I want to emphasize that I'm not trying to argue that one game is objectively better or that people that play one game should switch or that League needs to have the same mechanics as Dota.  My point is only in regards to the idea that Dota has outdated and poorly designed game mechanics and instead of address these problems and come up with solutions Valve has lazily just accepted them and forced people to learn them.  I personally find that specifically within Dota these systems serve a purpose and the game is better because of them.  Yes the game is harder to pick up and learn, I totally agree, but I personally find it to be a case of learning to understand complex system in order to play a game which I find incredibly enjoyable and rewarding as a result, rather than having to learn a bunch of convoluted systems to get by in a game that would be better without them anyways. 

[Twig]

You are saying (or I am interpreting you are saying) that having literally more things to track makes the game deeper

I actually never said that. Or even implied it, I think? My only objection was with your implication that Dota is poorly designed. To ACTUALLY say something: It might embrace what some people consider bad design, but as a package, it's a fucking masterpiece. It needs and thrives on those allegedly "bad" design decisions, and it's a better game for it. And in the post you quoted there, I was simply listing differences, because osmosisch didn't seem to understand, and then making an admittedly-(in-that-post-even!)-probably-inaccurate judgment on the early-game-skirmish-ness of LoL compared to Dota.

 

Re: jungling: League has buffs, boss monsters. Dota has stacking, pulling. I wouldn't trust anyone who says Dota's jungling is less complicated. It's just a different kind of complicated. And serves a different purpose. Also to answer your question: Singed is pretty much the be-all end-all of League of Legends for me. I like some other dudes, but he is number one by a million miles. I played the game for almost a year before Dota 2 came out, and he was my number one from the moment I first played him (which was probably a couple months in). Also also: I detest jungling in both League and Dota. It's boring. NOT MY CUP OF TEA. AT. ALL.

 

Re: lane control: I made no judgments regarding which is better in that post. But I vastly prefer to have as much control over the situation as possible when I'm playing a game that can be as intensely competitive as League or Dota. You're absolutely, 100% wrong about thinking that denying is absolutely 100% objectively a bad design decision. I don't even know where to begin when people start talking like this. I RETRACT MY PREVIOUS APOLOGY.

 

I don't think, and am pretty sure I have never said (in a not-obviously-jokey manner), that League is a bad game. I just prefer Dota. Why get so insanely defensive? This is exactly what I was talking about with my coworkers. IT'S WEIRD.

 

Jesus Christ all this because I wanted to express my innocent sadness at no longer enjoying League of Legends. If I'd known it was going to snowball into this shit I would've just raved about Tusk's snowball skill instead.

[Brannigan]

I play both, I prefer dota partially because I'm newer to it so I still have things to learn, and those additional mechanics. I find LoL jungling pretty boring, and a bit frustrating to be honest. Wards are so cheap now that it's usually impossible to gank bottom lane ever. Usually if you pull something off there it's not because your team did something right but because the other team had a shitty support.

I'm not really sure why you consider denying bad, you don't really back that claim up. It's a solid way of decreasing your lane opponents effectiveness without it being total horsecrap. In terms of LoL, I do think it was horsecrap there simply because ONLY gangplank could do it. Laning in LoL I'm generally bored most of the time because I really am just waiting for that last hit and that's it. I admit on my part that I have just played LoL a ton and it got pretty boring, I can pick up any character at this point and do well without even looking up a guide or anything. Granted I still don't look at guides in dota, but there still tends to be a learning period. Do I think dota2 is perfect? Nah, but it's not full of bad design either. I enjoy the new challenges and variety playing dota gives me. At this point a lot of characters feel same-y to me in LoL, especially ranged carries.

WALRUS PAUNCH!

[Sententia]

Dota 2 being essentially a remake of the original Dota does carry basically everything back into it, but I disagree that makes it worse in any objective way.

 

For example: in LoL the Lords have zero turning time which makes the action feel snappier, while in Dota the Lords do have some turning time which sacrifices that more visceral feel for some tactical nuance.  The decision Riot made to remove this turning time is a more modern approach to game design, making everything as viscerally enjoyable as possible, but it isn't objectively better or worse.

 

The existence of the creep deny mechanic allows Managers in Dota to be competing directly with each other at every step in a game, which means that any skill difference directly becomes an advantage for one player.  In LoL both Lords in a lane can and usually do last hit each creep on the enemy side and are not forced to compete directly, though of course both games encourage poking.  On the other hand if you're engaging in role-playing to any degree it feels incredibly wrong to attack your own guys, which is essentially the statement Dota 2 makes: it is not trying to be anything other than a competitive video game.  The rules of the game are abstract like the lines on a soccer field, having no meaning other than to enable better gameplay.

 

The fact that most things are the same as DotA 1 isn't some blind follow-through on Valve's part, they're choosing to keep these things like high spell mana cost, denying, the mechanical differences, they're keeping it all because they've chosen not to take the modern approach, and in doing so I feel they're preserving a lot of what makes DotA great.  To be clear I'm not criticizing Riot for choosing a different path nor am I saying LoL is a lesser game, I don't play either at a high enough level to make that call.  What I'm saying is these choices are not objectively bad, they're aiming at a goal which they hit well.