Episode 227: What's the Deal with Lord Management?

[Rob Zacny]

Idle Thumbs' Sean Vanaman and former Escapist editor Tom Endo join Rob to explain the appeal and hurdles of Dota 2 and lord management.

 

Listen

[Flynn]

One thing I'd like to understand is how Dota can have so many snowballing mechanics, it's notorious for them, but still produce lots of close matches at the Pro level.  Why don't the snowballing mechanics take even minute differences between opponents and magnify them and turn every match into a blowout?

 

I've been watching Ti3 this week -- a few blowouts sure, but plenty of matches where things are tight all the way through.  

 

As an extreme example two hours ago I saw this match ending at TI3

 

 

If the other team was just seconds faster they would have won.  Wow.

[Latrine]

"Maybe I don't want to compete with the company that has an unlimited amount of game development capital, some of the most talented developers in the world, and a five year head start on me." - Sean

 

That didn't stop game publishers from trying to compete with WoW for the last ten years, I don't think they've learned not to do that.

 

Also I dunno about MNC, but Super MNC was definitely a LoMa. 

[tomchick]

Bless your hearts for trying to come up with something less odious than M O B A for the genre, and I could tell you guys were pushing really hard during the podcast.  But I hope "lords management" never takes, and not just because it sounds clunky.  I don't think I've ever played a M O B A where I felt like I was managing lords, much less managing anything.  You might as well go with hero administration games, avatar herding games, or dude control games.

 

I think I'm going to try to float "dude control games".

 

    -Tom

 

P.S  Ah, so you've gone so far as to implement a forum-wide find/replace where anytime someone types M O B A, you swap in Lords Managment, caps and all!  Oceana has never been at war with Eurasia! 

[hexgrid]

P.S  Ah, so you've gone so far as to implement a forum-wide find/replace where anytime someone types M O B A, you swap in Lords Managment, caps and all!  Oceana has never been at war with Eurasia! 

 

Yeah, the autoreplace is kind of creepy.  I'm not particularly happy to have my posts rewritten.

[Gormongous]

Yeah, the autoreplace is kind of creepy.  I'm not particularly happy to have my posts rewritten.

 

I just feel a little left out. The whole "lords" thing is the first Idle Thumbs meme that's really been lost on me, maybe because I'm a medieval historian by trade and therefore the idea of a "lord" isn't this ridiculous video game thing.

[hexgrid]

I just feel a little left out. The whole "lords" thing is the first Idle Thumbs meme that's really been lost on me, maybe because I'm a medieval historian by trade and therefore the idea of a "lord" isn't this ridiculous video game thing.

 

Just wait 'til we have the episode on Rymdkapsel...

[Corelli]

I disagree with the idea that League has been "solved" by the competitive scene. Things are really in flux competitively right now, maybe a bit more so than DOTA. The meta in DOTA has been a lot more stable, I think, especially from watching TI3. I think a lot of this is because League's meta is comparatively younger than DOTA, and also because the Korean scene is so innovative and DOTA doesn't have that yet.

 

Edit: It cracks me up how hard everyone is trying not to insult League/DOTA fans. Like watching ninjas tip-toe over a floor strewn with bells.

[Flynn]

I don't know if things have been solved but certain things in League are fixed that are not in Dota.

 

For example in League, it's just accepted that teams go with 1 top, 1 mid, 2 bot, and occasionally go 2 top.  Compare to Dota where you have every possible combination including 'trilanes' seen even now in Pro matches.

[Codicier]

I've only just started playing Dota2 but I 100% endorse the Soccer\Football comparison, and i'd go further and say in some way's Dota2 actually comes closer to nailing the sort of moment to moment tactics of the modern game than things like Fifa do.

Denying and the idea of controlling the position of creep waves to control where a engagement takes place, comes closer to the modern idea of using possession defensively than anything I've seen.

Add to that the biggest repeat failure of football video games is taking into account just how important positioning is. Using your movement to drag someone out of position, so your team mates can take advantage of it is something that is as key to modern football as it is to getting a gank. 

 

I don't know perhaps it's because i'm so new to lord management but finding a game that actually has constraints on how aggressively you can attack even at low skill levels has meant Dota is really impressive to me, despite the fact i think in terms of my early play experience i kinda preferred LoL.

 

Side note: your wrong about football not snowballing, though i will admit the effect isn't as strong as it is in a LoMa it is still there.

[Snooze]

Wheres the link for the 3 second game changing moment slowed down to run for eight minutes?

[Codicier]

Wheres the link for the 3 second game changing moment slowed down to run for eight minutes?

 

 

think this is it

[sclpls]

Side note: your wrong about football not snowballing, though i will admit the effect isn't as strong as it is in a LoMa it is still there.

 

Totally. The thought that popped into my head as soon as Sean said that was, "clearly he hasn't watched Barcelona in La Liga"!

[Gormongous]

Totally. The thought that popped into my head as soon as Sean said that was, "clearly he hasn't watched Barcelona in La Liga"!

 

I had a similar feeling when Sean talked about the attraction of LoMa games versus straight strategy games. Hasn't he heard of the Chick Parabola, invented on this very podcast? The majority of the fun I get out of strategy games is accomplishing a discrete goal, that's true, but usually the discrete goal is, "How can I better exploit the economic or military systems in this game?" Once I've got a strategy game all figured out, it's rare that I boot it up just to kick its ass a certain way.

[Michael]

I've been watching The International this year and it's been an enjoyable experience for someone who has a superficial knowledge of the game. Regarding come from behind victories: Na'Vi came back huge their final match against Orange:

 

[Codicier]

just been watching that myself, seemed awsome

[Corelli]

I don't know if things have been solved but certain things in League are fixed that are not in Dota.

 

For example in League, it's just accepted that teams go with 1 top, 1 mid, 2 bot, and occasionally go 2 top.  Compare to Dota where you have every possible combination including 'trilanes' seen even now in Pro matches.

 

Honestly, I don't think anyone who has watched pro LoL in the last few months would say this. It's completely not true.

 

However, I actually think Riot *wants* to move League in the direction you're presenting. While it's not true right now, unfortunately by next season I think it might be.

[clyde]

Also I dunno about MNC, but Super MNC was definitely a LoMa.

You have to be even more specific than that, now that Blitz and Turbocross modes have been added. Super Crossfire mode of Super MNC is more similar to a LoMa than it is to a deep competitive shooter (good luck getting into a game to find that out though). I imagine that competing in the LoMa market may have been the motivating factor for how SMNC was originally designed, but the reason I feel the need to compare it to a LoMa is because if your team plays it like any other competitive shooter, you'll lose. New players come in thinking that it's about kill-to-death ratio and then get confused when their attacks do little to no damage mid-game while the other team is eating us. LoMa isn't as accurate as we can get though, it's more of a competitive-leveling team-laning game.

Good show.

[Flynn]

Honestly, I don't think anyone who has watched pro LoL in the last few months would say this. It's completely not true.

 

However, I actually think Riot *wants* to move League in the direction you're presenting. While it's not true right now, unfortunately by next season I think it might be.

 

That's true, haven't seen a LoL pro match since winter.  It's cool that people are doing some different stuff lately.

 

What sorts of things are you seeing?  I know in Korea there were always some different ideas - is it spilling over into other regions?

 

In Dota you can see 1,2, or 3 champs in any particular lane, may or may not have a dedicated jungler, it's got a lot of variety from the little I've seen.  You have the typical one hard carry "4 protect 1" or tri-core (3 semi carries), etc.

[Latrine]

You have to be even more specific than that, now that Blitz and Turbocross modes have been added. Super Crossfire mode of Super MNC is more similar to a LoMa than it is to a deep competitive shooter (good luck getting into a game to find that out though). I imagine that competing in the LoMa market may have been the motivating factor for how SMNC was originally designed, but the reason I feel the need to compare it to a LoMa is because if your team plays it like any other competitive shooter, you'll lose. New players come in thinking that it's about kill-to-death ratio and then get confused when their attacks do little to no damage mid-game while the other team is eating us. LoMa isn't as accurate as we can get though, it's more of a competitive-leveling team-laning game.

Good show.

 

Yeah, I only played SMNC in the open beta and part of the reason I stopped playing is that most people didn't understand that it was a laning and xp game. Also their equivalent of the central global objective was super powerful, if I remember right it was just a control point that would instantly destroy all your opponent's creeps, so you had to contest it or you'd easily lose a ton of towers but no one ever knew to do it or where it was on each map.

[Corelli]

That's true, haven't seen a LoL pro match since winter.  It's cool that people are doing some different stuff lately.

 

What sorts of things are you seeing?  I know in Korea there were always some different ideas - is it spilling over into other regions?

 

In Dota you can see 1,2, or 3 champs in any particular lane, may or may not have a dedicated jungler, it's got a lot of variety from the little I've seen.  You have the typical one hard carry "4 protect 1" or tri-core (3 semi carries), etc.

 

LoL used to be incredibly stagnant, just a long drawn out game of farm and protect the carry. But it's changed a lot. And your intuition is correct about Korea - a lot of the innovation has come from there. Even though there are still "roles" in the way there used to be, they have changed a lot. Mid and top don't really exist anymore - rather, you have two solo lanes, and they can be mid or top or bottom. The other big change is that, even though there is still always a jungler, most of the time there is a 2 v 1 lane swap with the ADC and support facing up against a solo laner. Then the jungler often joins the 2 v 1 lane to make it 3 v 1 (or 3 v 2 with the other jungler's help) for fast tower pushes and objective (dragon early game, Nashor late game) control.

 

There are lots of interesting wrinkles in the meta right now - fast push, poke comps, the Chinese steamtrain comp, lane freeze comps, etc. It's really very interesting. League has progressed a lot competitively as a game. I think League could be a bit boring in season 2, when games lasted at least 50 minutes and it was always a rush to end game teamfighting. It's much more interesting now, I think.

[seamus2389]

Do many people here play both Lol and DOTA2? I play more Lol for the simple reasons that it has shorter waiting times and I am used to playing it solo where DOTA2  is more a game I play with friends.

[Corelli]

Do many people here play both Lol and DOTA2? I play more Lol for the simple reasons that it has shorter waiting times and I am used to playing it solo where DOTA2  is more a game I play with friends.

 

I play both. If I'm short on time - which seems to be often lately - I also choose LoL because it takes 30 seconds to get into a normal game instead of 5 minutes. But a ranked game of LoL takes just as long to get into as a game of DOTA, it seems.

[phunkee]

Dota2 being a Valve-product feels very strange. Valves previous titles are all extremely good at teaching new players the game. Dota2  is terrible from the very beginning where they ask you to chose between 3 different keyboard/mouse configurations (how am I supposed to know that before I even played it???).

 

Valve have done surprisingly little to make Dota2 more approachable. The dark green/brownish graphics might be high-res, but they really suck at communicating whats going on which in my opinion is an essential quality for graphics in a competitive PvP-game (and as spectator for esports).

 

It will be interesting to see how big Dota2 is going to be. Being backed by Valve is obviously huge. 

 

Edit: On League vs Dota, this is essential

You guys briefly touch onto this in the podcast and imo this focus on counterplay is certainly defining League.

[Reyturner]

In theory, I love that Riot is actually asking these questions; how do we design around counter-play, how do we avoid anti-patterns. 

 

But in practice, because the game has been built by professionals and not grown over years of amateurs and crazy people, it lacks the organic fluidity of Dota 2.