Sean

Dota Today 2: The Lord's Pitch

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Still, I've played plenty of games where well before the 20 minute mark someone goes, "This game is over, surrender at 20." and just dicks around for the rest of the time.

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And I've played games of Dota where someone goes 'gg' and just dicks around in the jungle. I've also had amazing comeback games in League and won 4v5s. It's all just so anecdotal. Only Riot and Valve really have the data to say anything meaningful about this in my opinion.

 

As for me, I prefer to have a functional method to prevent the game from wasting more of my time than it already does when a game is clearly over. The weird game theory method (do I defect, stay in the game and ensure my allies get abandons?) of Dota 2 is just weird if you ask me.

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I've heard a lot about what Dota 2 is like for an absolute LOMA beginner, but I'd be interested in hearing how Brad and Nick, who I think both played LoL a bit, found switching from one LOMA to another specifically. I guess Brad did talk about this a little bit, but I think it's an interesting topic that hasn't quite been exhausted. I've been trying to get my friends to make the switch to Dota 2, but we've just invested so much time in LoL management training that every time we try Dota everyone just ends up frustrated and confused. How do you cross that learning curve resistance threshold without just falling back to Lux or whatever?

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The goddamn courier, having more levels than abilities, 47 shops, default mapping for item use to the... keypad? (this is fixable, but the default for League is number row 1-6 and you apparently need control groups in Dota which map to your number keys. Doubletap 1 centers on your Lord? Ugh.)

 

Plus just the hours and hours to learn what the items are, and what stats are best for whom outside of obvious basics from ARPGs. Character archetypes and just hearing about the game have given me a reasonable grounding in what lords fill what roles but that's still something to learn, too.

 

 

The FUCKING COURIER.

 

 

To see where my perspective comes from, I have about 12 hours into Dota. I expect somewhere between 8-10 of those would likely be actually playing the game since Steam only tracks how long the app is running. I jumped in going "I know what these games are. I got this. Support Lich? No fuckin problem" and the issue isn't that it's SUPER DIFFERENT, the issue is that they're so similar that the differences are maddeningly magnified. I spent some time reading on the proper way to swap Power Treads so you get the most mileage out of them and was like "yup I can do this" but I'm fairly certain I never got to the point where my Treads were sufficiently Powered.

 

 

 

 

e: I also last gave it a shot before there was ANY tutorialization, so no guides, no item suggestions, nothin.

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 the issue isn't that it's SUPER DIFFERENT, the issue is that they're so similar that the differences are maddeningly magnified

 

I agree with this. It feels like you're playing the same game, just inside-out and with the wrong hand. Which is even more frustrating, I think, because you know you have this proficiency with a different, incredibly similar game that just won't seem to translate to the new one.

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I think if I had been at a point in my life where I didn't mind the extra 20 minutes that a Dota match tends to take at my level (sucky) over a League one, I could see myself getting sucked into Dota over League. Whenever I try dotes I can feel the extra complexity tugging at my nerd hindbrain.

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The goddamn courier, having more levels than abilities, 47 shops, default mapping for item use to the... keypad? (this is fixable, but the default for League is number row 1-6 and you apparently need control groups in Dota which map to your number keys. Doubletap 1 centers on your Lord? Ugh.)

 

Plus just the hours and hours to learn what the items are, and what stats are best for whom outside of obvious basics from ARPGs. Character archetypes and just hearing about the game have given me a reasonable grounding in what lords fill what roles but that's still something to learn, too.

 

 

The FUCKING COURIER.

 

 

To see where my perspective comes from, I have about 12 hours into Dota. I expect somewhere between 8-10 of those would likely be actually playing the game since Steam only tracks how long the app is running. I jumped in going "I know what these games are. I got this. Support Lich? No fuckin problem" and the issue isn't that it's SUPER DIFFERENT, the issue is that they're so similar that the differences are maddeningly magnified. I spent some time reading on the proper way to swap Power Treads so you get the most mileage out of them and was like "yup I can do this" but I'm fairly certain I never got to the point where my Treads were sufficiently Powered.

The courier is really not that complicated, click the donkey face, grab all, hit F to deliver. On control groups...I never use them honestly. I just remapped keys like you said. It is going to take time to learn things though, no avoiding that. While the games are similar in a lot of ways, you still have the learning curve you had starting LoL. Learning what heros do and what items do just take time, or a lot of reading if you're crazy. For the most part, the recommended items are perfectly fine, there's only a select few heros where I go in a completely different direction. I basically just dove into dota 2, never read a guide. Kept playing. That said I won my first 10 games or so and then got HORRIBLY MURDERED for a while. I am someone who played LoL for a couple years and then just dove into dota 2 hard when I got my beta invite. It felt like relearning how to walk early on. I think part of what drove me though was my incredible sense of boredom with LoL, where in Dota I was learning new things constantly and was more satisfied because of that.

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To see where my perspective comes from, I have about 12 hours into Dota. I expect somewhere between 8-10 of those would likely be actually playing the game since Steam only tracks how long the app is running. I jumped in going "I know what these games are. I got this. Support Lich? No fuckin problem" and the issue isn't that it's SUPER DIFFERENT, the issue is that they're so similar that the differences are maddeningly magnified. I spent some time reading on the proper way to swap Power Treads so you get the most mileage out of them and was like "yup I can do this" but I'm fairly certain I never got to the point where my Treads were sufficiently Powered.

 

e: I also last gave it a shot before there was ANY tutorialization, so no guides, no item suggestions, nothin.

 

Play a lord you're not familiar with from LoL (probably a ranged hero as they are generally easier), and follow the top rated guide without really worrying about what the items do. Use the quick courier button, and don't click on the thing itself. Its manual controls are overly complicated. You haven't played in a while since the default mapping is now QWER for abilities and ZXCVBN for items. Check it in the control settings. Might want to play co-op against bots because those games are very chill.

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It felt like relearning how to walk early on. I think part of what drove me though was my incredible sense of boredom with LoL, where in Dota I was learning new things constantly and was more satisfied because of that.

 

That's probably the key. I'm not bored with league of legends. There's something at least every other day that has me saying "I MUST TRY THIS". A big group of us even just set up teams to start a friendly competitive atmosphere and we're finally playing. Going back to bot games at the present sounds like a huge bummer.

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Yea I actively avoid playing bots, and force people new to the game to play against humans even. I just find that incredibly boring. Plus they haven't programmed the bots to call me the n-word yet so it doesn't feel like an authentic gaming experience.

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Hey Twig, Fnatic just played a Viper in a game against Alliance and won. They played him mid vs a TA and he did good.

I like how now that there's the popups when players buy items when spectating a game you can see just how disciplined pro supports are because you'll always see both teams picking up wards and smokes at the same time, meaning they're buying them every single time the second they come off cool down.

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Viper is especially strong against a TA. If I ever see a Viper lose against a TA mid, I'll murder him.

 

*suicides*

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Oh how times have changed.  Now Viper is a really common pick and in the next patch he's going to be insane.  It's always funny how time changes things, like how when PL first got that agi gain buff noone thought it would do anything and then he had his period where he was super stupid and now he is still a common pick.

 

Edit: I just realized that this might come across in a douchey told-you-so sort of tone which is totally not my intention, but rather to just say how weird some of the things that happen are.  Like I never would have thought Tree would become a top tier support, he used to be considered such a joke, same with Alch.  And I still refuse to believe that Spirit Breaker is as good as he is as a support.

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Viper's also getting what I think is a huge buff next patch. NO COOLDOWN on poison attack ever? PLEASE. He's already one of the strongest harassers. This just makes him absurd.

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