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Sean

Dota Today 5: With Brad Bot Shoemaker

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DoTA2 may be in beta, but it's not the only LoMa out there.  And I'm still completely flabbergasted at the fact that to the untrained eye, every LoMa appears to be exactly the same game, played on exactly the same board, with exactly the same pieces.

 

How on earth did we get to where "make a carbon copy of this one particular mod, updating the graphics a bit" is apparently an entire and viable sector of the game development industry?

 

I do understand the difference between the way announcers view a match and the way the audience in turn views the cast; that's part of why I'm asking not for instant replay, but for highlights/replays after the match.

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DoTA2 may be in beta, but it's not the only LoMa out there.  And I'm still completely flabbergasted at the fact that to the untrained eye, every LoMa appears to be exactly the same game, played on exactly the same board, with exactly the same pieces.

 

How on earth did we get to where "make a carbon copy of this one particular mod, updating the graphics a bit" is apparently an entire and viable sector of the game development industry?

 

Well, to the untrained eye Hockey, Basketball, and Soccer are all the same game about getting the thing into the net at the other end of the field and getting points (I'm saying this is a perfect analogy as obviously LoMas are still more similar to each other.) 

 

I do understand the difference between the way announcers view a match and the way the audience in turn views the cast; that's part of why I'm asking not for instant replay, but for highlights/replays after the match.

 

A lot of times casters do break stuff down after a game, they'll talk about what went wrong with particular team fights (which they also do after a team-fight happens), but they don't go to the replay and find it and shwo it at the same time.  This is probably largely a budget and manpower thing, and also partly because of time constraints.  If the game is part of a series as soon as one game ends everyone prepares for the next one, so the caster might do an overview of what went wrong for one team or what the other team did right, but right after that they have to talk about what to expect from the next match and such.  They also have to be in the game lobby for the next match so so there isn't a lot of time do download the replay (which won't be up immediately, especially since there's usually a delay between real time and what spectators see either on streams or DotaTV).  Things will and do keep getting better, but for now it's still a work in progress.  I'm sure a lot of the things you (and many other people for sure) want have been considered by the people who cast games and are goals they will try and work towards. 

 

Also you're right, slow-mo replays going over team-fights would be amazing.  When that starts happening I will be so happy.

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They also do frequently try to fit in explanations and discussion during the natural lulls in a game of Dota. Right after a teamfight, when people go back to farming or whatever.

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Hitting a long stint of games where I'm either losing, or carrying my team so hard that it makes everyone's head spin. I don't mean carrying like "Oh but I helped others win lanes", I mean literally the entire game is on my back like fucking Atlas.

 

It's one of those spots too, where I really hate Riot's new system. In Silver 2, a loss is -28, a win is +28. Graduate just to Silver 1, and a win is +2. A loss is -4. Every. Fucking. Time. I can win 12 games in a row in S1- with the largest + being 4. I lose just one, -16.

 

 

In short: I sometimes really, really hate team games.

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Hitting a long stint of games where I'm either losing, or carrying my team so hard that it makes everyone's head spin. I don't mean carrying like "Oh but I helped others win lanes", I mean literally the entire game is on my back like fucking Atlas.

 

It's one of those spots too, where I really hate Riot's new system. In Silver 2, a loss is -28, a win is +28. Graduate just to Silver 1, and a win is +2. A loss is -4. Every. Fucking. Time. I can win 12 games in a row in S1- with the largest + being 4. I lose just one, -16.

 

 

In short: I sometimes really, really hate team games.

 

i really do enjoy the fact that there are clear goals to strive for in League of Lords with the league system, but that does sound a bit harsh. I guess it's just done under the principle that, provided people continue to play games, everybody will be where they're meant to be in the ranking.

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^^^^ The league system will "clamp" you on purpose. It is specifically designed to attempt to keep you in Division 1 rather than moving up to the next league, because once you get promoted leagues you can't drop back down barring inactivity. You basically have to trial by fire and prove your worth to move up from there. I had a lot less frustrating experience with that after I came to terms with it.

 

 

Every time I watch sports I am confused by the specifics, the weird cases, but I'm able to enjoy it well enough just from understanding the basics. I don't see how Dota is any different. U:

The biggest difference between something like DOTA and any professional ball sport is that 1) they've been around for decades to hundreds of years and 2) that means they're in the public consciousness. Even if you have never watched a certain sport, you are 100% certain as a person with the internet to have been exposed to it in some way even if that way is just how every day conversation borrows metaphors and phrases heavily from sports contests of all types. You are also guaranteed to know someone personally who likes a major sport where you live, so if you ever wanted it explained they could do it in person. I don't know a single person not from the internet who plays any sort of LOMA. Another big point 3) is that the people who are on the playing field in a sport are people. You can do the 10 second explanation that the men with blue shorts are going left and the men with orange shorts are going right, whereas you would have to explain to someone that the guy playing a bear this game played a satyr last game and they do sort of the same thing in a completely different way. Newbie DOTEs confession: I was not sure at first if the different champions were locked to one side or another, because they're presented as Radiant and Dire. I think the larger point is getting to "the basics" is much, MUCH harder to do with this than a sport. This is true of any LOMA-type game and probably some other styles of competitive gameplay. I could explain a competitive Counter Strike game way more easily than DOTA.

 

Re: Replays - the League of Legends LCS does replay analysis after games, if you're just looking for some LOMA, any LOMA to try and explain what's going on.

 

 

Re: This cast - I am a big fan of Brad and would love to hear him back with you guys, but I find the cast much more enjoyable hearing about experiences and themes surrounding DOTA "Swing one leg over" rather than having a specific discussion about Remember That One Game We Played?.

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^^^^ The league system will "clamp" you on purpose. It is specifically designed to attempt to keep you in Division 1 rather than moving up to the next league, because once you get promoted leagues you can't drop back down barring inactivity. You basically have to trial by fire and prove your worth to move up from there. I had a lot less frustrating experience with that after I came to terms with it.

 

 

So effectively, to make people not feel TOO bad, but still a little bad, they ruin their own rating system? Cool!

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This is the third time Sean's mentioned the Queen of Pain Feminism Ban. Somebody make that man a client-side QoP mod already! Maybe a tasteful frock (or the old lazy standby: invisible torso textures) and some dubbing over the more ridiculous barks. (I would use that mod too.)

 

You mean a "Queen of Spain" mod?

 

"For Castile!" "Bow to your sovereign!" "Conquistadors, ride!"

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You mean a "Queen of Spain" mod?

 

"For Castile!" "Bow to your sovereign!" "Conquistadors, ride!"

 

Oh golly; that would be ideal.

There are probably a lot of other characters that could stand similar mods to some extent -- you could do a whole monarch lineup. Makes the Lords Management moniker just a shade more literal. ^_^

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So effectively, to make people not feel TOO bad, but still a little bad, they ruin their own rating system? Cool!

 

The real issue is that movement is probably too fluid between divisions 2-4 and clamped in 1 & 5. They could fix the issue by NOT awarding 20+ IP when you're in Silver/Gold/Talc 3, rather than giving you 25-30 IP and then 4 when you hit division I. In other words, when you were in Silver II you probably could have stood to be in Silver III.

 

 

 

So, League of Legends was super laggy last night to the point that I couldn't play it, and it made me load up d... d..  Dota. Changing the item hotkeys to the bottom row of the keyboard is a huge deal. If I'm just going to jump in and play, how should I do it? I'm thinking I'm just going to random heroes, because I cannot imagine that "team composition" is going to matter for the people who have played 3 games. Do all the lords have guides written for them? That seems extremely key in getting me to go back to the dotes. I played Sand King in a bot game. I also played Lifestealer jungle in a "play with bots game"/ That seemed... completely useless? My bots went like 35-0 and killed Roshan and pushed every lane largely without my input. Comfortable enough with the controls now that I could probably jump into a people game with people.

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You can set the keys pretty much as you want. There's also several preset configs. I would just randomly play against all bots. That way if you don't like the lord you can ditch them without being a dick to human players. Every lord has several guides. The problem is sometimes choosing the right one, which is hard without knowing the ins and outs of the items. You can set the difficulty on the bots. Putting them up max and you'll need to contribute or your team will be wiped. Though if you feel comfortable enough, jump into a co-op with bots. Low pressure and very easy to find a match. Though if you abandon any game with other real players you can be penalized and sent to low priority.

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There's a handful of lords I would never try when you're starting out though. Like invoker, or meepo.

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You can set the keys pretty much as you want. There's also several preset configs. I would just randomly play against all bots. That way if you don't like the lord you can ditch them without being a dick to human players. Every lord has several guides. The problem is sometimes choosing the right one, which is hard without knowing the ins and outs of the items. You can set the difficulty on the bots. Putting them up max and you'll need to contribute or your team will be wiped. Though if you feel comfortable enough, jump into a co-op with bots. Low pressure and very easy to find a match. Though if you abandon any game with other real players you can be penalized and sent to low priority.

 

Playing against bots is boring, though. If I wanted to play, why would I abandon? I tried to play... Nature's Prophet, maybe? And there didn't appear to be any guides or items. So I quit immediately (out of an all-ai game) (I don't find this to be hypocritical compared to what I said 3 sentences ago because I'd have not done it with people).

 

Knowing how to choose the right one is precisely the reason I asked the question. I am familiar with enough lords to know which ones to avoid in terms of introductions to the game, and at the same time kind of have complete disregard for caring about that because if the team has 3 hard carries no one's going to know anyway.

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In general, supports are probably the easiest to get a handle of. Initiators for the most part aren't too bad, or ranged carries. Really the melee carries tend to be a bit tougher to do well as, unless you're lifestealer or something. I'm a fan of just jumping into it myself, I can't get interested in playing bots. I dove in without guides and just went by the seat of my pantaloons. Invoker is probably the only guy I'd look up a guide on, but I'm lazy so I just don't play him. On game modes, All Pick tends to be played with wild abandon, but can be daunting because of the sheer amount of heroes available. I like single/random draft because they force you to choose out of a pool, and really look at what the available heroes do. Single Draft will force you to choose out of 3 heroes, and you cannot swap with anyone. Random is a bit like draft mode in LoL, without bans, just take turns choosing out of a pool of 20 heroes. All pick may turn out easier in general though because you're more likely to be matched with newer players.

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I, too, am a non-player of this game, though I suspect my not-playing is rather advanced.

 

There seem to be plenty of resources available for people who want to learn how to play this game; why isn't there even one video out there titled "How To Watch LOMAs"?

 

I was in the same shoes as you (kind of still am). I like watching starcraft and dota but when I sit down to play them I feel the same way I would playing quarterback in an NFL game. That said, I had no idea what anyone was talking about the first match I watched, but what really helped was when I actually played a bot match and went and got a bottle and figured out what it does. From there you can start to pick up on what items do, and I actually just looked up most of it on valve's dota2 item page.

 

I do wish there was a day9 of dota though. Something about the way he teaches advanced mechanics really helps you understand the basics.

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For League of Legends my day9 equivalent is Studio - http://www.leagueofstudio.com/

 

Unfortunately he is now not putting much out these days because he is coaching the Velocity team that just got into the Riot-run LCS tournament series.

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Apparently they added some more tutorials and some new player game modes today

 

They did add more tutorials. For the "not player" demographic, I highly recommend them. I'm afraid they might teach some bad habits, but they do teach some important and useful things as well.

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I've been playing the 1v1 mid tutorial and the bots are pretty bad, so UI agree with Badfinger that they will probably teach bad habbits, but from a mechanical perspective of just learning things like last hitting and denying against another player, checking runes every 2 minutes, using the courier, ect. it seems like it'd be really good for new players.

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The "mid against AI" mode is boring as hell. I played against... Witch Doctor? And I don't even know what that guy does because I just murdered him 10 times and then it was over.

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I enjoyed not giving a fuck and then I played Bounty Hunter in the full practice game with bots and got two divine rapiers before the game accidentally ended and then I turned on sv_cheats to win the next four practice bot games. U:

 

The Limited Heroes mode is pretty nice, though. Small selection of heroes, and pretty much all of 'em quick to pick up and learn on the fly.

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I've been playing the 1v1 mid tutorial and the bots are pretty bad, so UI agree with Badfinger that they will probably teach bad habbits, but from a mechanical perspective of just learning things like last hitting and denying against another player, checking runes every 2 minutes, using the courier, ect. it seems like it'd be really good for new players.

 

 

Yeah, I can confirm this. This relaxed island play has finally gotten me to try and get at least tolerably good at last-hitting in this monstrous game, and it's helped a ton. Plus I got a sniper hat!

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Realized something that was subconsciously bothering me - everything on the top and bottom of the screen is taking up a gigantic amount of real estate and I keep clicking on borders and shit. How do I 1) make the UI way, WAY smaller and 2) How do I get everyone's portraits out of the top of the screen? Things I have lots of: horizontal real estate, while things modern monitors have way less of is vertical real estate.

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