Sean

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

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That feeling is why most of us keep playing - even after more than a thousand matches.

Yer, the satisfaction of pulling back a losing game with tight solid play cannot be understated. I play regularly as a 5 stack and we've slowly been climbing the skill ladder, at the beginning we used to stomp or get stomped coz we were experienced and coordinated but, tended too mess up the late game. Now we've just gotten really good at grinding it out past the 40 minute mark even if we have a bad start and then capitalising on our opponents poor late game self control. That key fight where you first use that new item or you catch them out position and swing the game back in your favour is just awesome.

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Man, I've been experiencing the most unique learning curve with this game ever.

 

I played the original DotA, so a lot of the game I can definitely remember. But the pace of the game is far different than I remember. Back in those days, I don't recall there being any sort of cease-fire at the start of matches, as lords were waiting to take final-hits. It was just gank fest from the start. The game as it is now though definitely ramps up in intensity in an organic way. I should actually apologize to Sean and say, "You know what, I get it now. You were totally right." Well okay not totally, but I do get it!

 

The thing is, I was never invested in the original to really learn to do better. I didn't want to feed the other team, don't get me wrong, but I just wanted to see what heroes were like at max level wrecking silly shit. Going into DotA 2 my mindset was way different. "Don't fuck this up for anyone." I put a lot of time into the tutorial stuff and reading a wiki article with various tips about how to play lords or what to watch out for. But all of that preparation wasn't as good as just diving in to play. It helped, but not as much as experience.

 

Now, I don't know if this is because of the game's design / leaning in for new players or if it's because of my competency with video games as a language, but I've been able to apply things I learn while playing immediately, rather than having to work on that one thing or wait for the next match, etc. My record for the first 10 minutes of a match has been less kills than deaths, but as the match progresses I come out on top and rack up a ton of assists. Some of the things I'm learning have to do with the game itself; what to expect from this lord or that lord. But the other question I ask myself is how much of it is just my ability to adapt to the other players in the game, be they on my team or the other.

 

I can't remember if I've ever had this experience in any other game I've played. I don't think I have. I think about my years playing Counter Strike and how things were too fast paced to observe and understand why things happened the way they did. Or not with the same depth as in DotA 2. Maybe I'm just better at observing things in general?

 

The most important thing about this learning curve is that I don't feel discouraged, that I desire more. And I don't feel incompetent or like I'm letting people down as it happens. I'm really surprised that I'm enjoying this game as much as I am. I typically don't like competitive online games these days, but something about the pace of DotA 2 fits for me. I appreciate it now.

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Less than 12 hours later I'm shouting at my team about the dumb shit they're doing in-game.

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Don't get too mad though. It makes playing DOTA shit if you keep seeing mistakes others make. You have little influence over random people. Just try to get more last hits or die less rather than getting angry at a nyx building a dagon instead of a blink.

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Some things will just click with you and you can apply it immediately like you said. Some things take a bit longer such as: using creep aggro to secure last hits and denies. (Creep and tower aggro is really weird in dota*). Look at a pro steam, notice how they position their creeps in the lane. Then there is the whole meta level of what to buy given the state of the current game, how to pick a good team of heroes, how to play your role on a team of heroes properly, how to organize your lanes, when to gank who, etc. I don't know a game that is as tactically and strategically deep as dota.  

 

*This is how creep aggro works:

Creeps within a 500 unit range of your hero will attack you if you right-click an enemy hero (the enemy hero can be anywhere on the map, you do not need to deal damage). If you A-click a hero 501 units away from a creep, an aggro check will be triggered and that creep will not attack you. The aggrocheck has a 2 second cooldown.

This knowledge gives you the power to re-position a difficult creep position, harass without taking damage/moving creeps, get "impossible" denies/last hits by moving the enemy creep out of range of your creep. 

This knowledge is however not easily applicable as it depends on other skills to pull of well. 

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I just wrapped up my 50th match and am at the point where I'm almost always one of the strongest players in the match when randoming in limited heroes, so I feel like I'm ready to move on to another game mode. Are any of them particularly well suited to new-ish players? The combination of eight other game modes and almost 90 heroes I've barely seen presents a pretty daunting challenge.

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Single Draft is good, Random Draft is good, All Random is good. Least played is not good, captains draft is not good, captains mode is not good. All pick is meh. 

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Single Draft is good, Random Draft is good, All Random is good. Least played is not good, captains draft is not good, captains mode is not good. All pick is meh. 

 

Why do you recommend against least played?  I think it's a great mode for people looking to experiment with new heroes, as they won't be matched against players who've played all their matches with their hero of choice, which can skew the effectiveness of early players (or even more experienced players).  But exploring the hero pool is one of the most important things in your dota development, so I would strongly encourage it.

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I've never met anyone who claimed to like Single Draft and wasn't lying through their teeth, so now we know nj00s is a big liar.

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I've never met anyone who claimed to like Single Draft and wasn't lying through their teeth, so now we know nj00s is a big liar.

SD is fun...

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Least played has huge queues. It is just AP with some heroes removed. I always have it on, but have never gotten a game for it. Meh. :)

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If you don't have a lot of games Least Played won't be any different as it only removes heroes you've played with past a certain threshold of games.

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How do I get in on this grand old time? Steam user the_great_bundini or just bundini

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I've never met anyone who claimed to like Single Draft and wasn't lying through their teeth, so now we know nj00s is a big liar.

 

i loved Single Draft in dota1 when you could swap around, it was essentially modern random draft but w/o the alternating picking part.  SD has certainly lost its appeal in dota2 since i feel like people can lose the game in the draft more easily

 

Not that you couldnt lose in the draft in dota1, but it didnt feel as competitive in rando-battlenet public games like dota2 matchmaking

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on the topic of modes "-AR DM ID SC" holds a special place in my nostalgic heart, for anyone unfamiliar in dota1 player slot 1 one the responsibility of typing in the game modifiers at the beginning of the match.  and that line breaks down as follows -

 

AR - all random

DM - death match - when you die lose that hero from the pool forever, say 1st hero QoP and die...could respawn as Centaur Warchief

ID - Item Drop - instead of losing money when die drop a random item from slot

SC - super creeps - essentially an Ancient spawns in lane to push with regular creepwave

 

 

i hope valve adds more "arcade" modes to the game after the un-released hero pool dries up.  Ranked doesnt have a strong appeal to me, but i fear that all the polite/not-troll players will exodus overtime to Ranked away from public match making

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That sounds more like what Heroes of the Storm is trying to do. Smaller hero pool but lots of different gimmick matches.

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Im not sure I like what Hero's of the Storm is doing. Us Dota players like to joke that LOL is a dumbed down version but, if were honest its not far off from Dotas complexity. But HotS looks so stripped back i dont think its even the same type of game, it seems like it would have more in common with Worms than Loma's.

Ive really soured on SD, it just seems to encourage the 5Carrylolololol teams that just end up winning because you dont get to counter pick a balanced synergistic team in response. At least in RD you can fight over the Carrys and counter pick them, and get to choose what support heros you get and who plays them.

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Hey do we have an in-game chat channel?

 

There's one called idlethumbs that doesn't see much use in my experience. The guild chat for dotatoda seems to get a little more use, but still not much.

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played first match with DotaToda guild mate today, Tupperward, much fun all around.  he played pugna and was drinking milkshakes...while exclaiming "drinkin the milk shakes" on team voice.  pretty great

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Just got out of a game where our Sniper rushed a Divine. It traded between him and their Dragon Knight and our Zeusfor the rest of the game. Turned a pretty one sided game (in our favor) into a fucking rollercoaster of insanity. We ended up eeking out a win, but man, it was nuts.

 

So basically ARD. A- Always R- Rush D- Divine. ALWAYS RUSH DIVINE. 

 

Wards are for closers. 

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Just got out of a game where our Sniper rushed a Divine. It traded between him and their Dragon Knight and our Zeusfor the rest of the game. Turned a pretty one sided game (in our favor) into a fucking rollercoaster of insanity. We ended up eeking out a win, but man, it was nuts.

So basically ARD. A- Always R- Rush D- Divine. ALWAYS RUSH DIVINE.

Wards are for closers.

Ah! Theres your issue, its actually ARVD, Always Rush Vlads Divine. You need the lifesteal to pair with all that damage.

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