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Dota Today 8: Alt-F4 Delete Local Content

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Dota Today 8:

 

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Alt-F4 Delete Local Content

We're back with the lords management commentary that you crave. With Nick Breckon's life consumed by, well, life, we welcome new host Brad Muir of Double Fine where we discuss bad behavior and deep dive on DOTA 2's design. 

Game Discussed: Dota 2

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Glad to see Dota Today back!

 

I'm pretty sure part of that lack of blink on Pudge and Venge is tied to the cliff stuff. With blink it's trivial to put yourself on a cliff, and then you can strand people for free. That patch wasn't for Dota and Dota 2, and I'm not sure if they made a WC3 Dota patch with that content.

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Yay, new Dota Today! Great to have the show back.

I'm pretty sure part of that lack of blink on Pudge and Venge is tied to the cliff stuff. With blink it's trivial to put yourself on a cliff, and then you can strand people for free. That patch wasn't for Dota and Dota 2, and I'm not sure if they made a WC3 Dota patch with that content.

Also, imagine the horror of being hooked into a patch of trees only to cuddle up against a single Pudge with no way to escape. The blink dagger limitations were in place in regards to balance, not engine limitations as far as I've always known. WC3 Dota was patched as well, and usually is at the same time or pretty close to it.

The emergent gameplay from bugs and such has always been a huge part of Dota's history and balance. At this point, a great deal of balance changes occur due to the play pro level as well. The lane and neutral creep changes in 6.79 were largely (if not entirely) in response to the passive meta game within the pro circuit, an extreme focus on support farming through stack/pulling, as well as an extremely unsafe "offlane". By swapping the small and medium camps and forcing the lane's creeps to meet further up, it made a lot more heroes viable and resulted in more action and less passivity.

Hearing the conversation about bugs also reminded me of one interesting example of "bug vs intended gameplay" in Game 3 of the International 3 match between Na'Vi and TongFu. WIth the series tied and Na'Vi on their backfoot against the momentum of Tongfu, they began a

with Chen and Pudge. Pudge would hook a target (for example, Tongfu's carry, Gyro), and by timing it properly with Chen's sendback, the target would follow Pudge all the way to the fountain where the target would be blown up. Na'Vi effectively used this strategy/bug to actually win what looked like an impossible game for them, and eventually advance to the Grand Finals as a result. This was a pretty controversial game, due to the reliance on what seemed to be one hell of a bug. The arguments in favor of Na'Vi were that even if it was a bug, it was extremely difficult to pull off effectively, so while it was a pretty cheesy way to win the game, it still took a great deal of coordination. On the other hand, the idea that these heroes should follow Pudge's hook all the way back to the fountain doesn't seem like an intended mechanic at all, even if it's in the game. Surely enough, after the International fountain hooking was patched out of the game.

PS: RIP, Nick Breckon

PSS: Congrats Nick Breckon

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Hearing the conversation about bugs also reminded me of one interesting example of bug vs intended gameplay is what occurred in Game 3 of the International 3 match between Na'Vi and TongFu. WIth the series tied and Na'Vi on their backfoot against the momentum of Tongfu, they began a

with Chen and Pudge, Pudge would hook a target (for example, Tongfu's carry, Gyro), and by timing it properly with Chen's sendback, the target would follow Pudge all the way to the fountain where the target would be blown up. Na'Vi effectively used this strategy/bug to actually win what looked like an impossible game for them, and eventually advance to the Grand Finals as a result. This was a pretty controversial game, due to the reliance on what seemed to be one hell of a bug. The arguments in favor of Na'Vi were that even if it was a bug, it was extremely difficult to pull off effectively, so while it was a pretty cheesy way to win the game, it still took a great deal of coordination. On the other hand, the idea that these heroes should follow Pudge's hook all the way back to the fountain doesn't seem like an intended mechanic at all, even if it's in the game. Surely enough, after the International fountain hooking was patched out of the game.

The most interesting part about all that is that I'm fairly certain that Valve on the Dota 2 Dev forums stated at one point that they decided to intentionally allow fountain hooking (as it had also been utilized, though without as much impact, in previous pro games (including, I feel like, a previous International, though I must be wrong about that if it was only this game that triggered the slew of complaints)). 

 

I still don't agree with removing it. U: It's such a high risk move. 

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The most interesting part about all that is that I'm fairly certain that Valve on the Dota 2 Dev forums stated at one point that they decided to intentionally allow fountain hooking (as it had also been utilized, though without as much impact, in previous pro games (including, I feel like, a previous International, though I must be wrong about that if it was only this game that triggered the slew of complaints)). 

 

I still don't agree with removing it. U: It's such a high risk move. 

I agree to an extent. In the TI3 game it was pretty clearly abused. But it sure was fun to watch!

Fountain hooking had been in Dota for a very long time. Definitely in WC3 Dota. It's a pretty clear example of how much the pro scene impacts the patching of the game.

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It was definitely abused, but, really, I don't think it would've worked a second time. It's like... you pull out a strategy that people aren't used to dealing with and suddenly they fall over and let it happen. But then they figure out how to deal with it. I think the main reason it worked so well is because Na'Vi pulled it off a couple times, and it threw TongFu off their game. If they'd tried the same thing again, I'm hesitant to say it'd work.

 

I think this was a case of overcompensating for a wild strategy that worked once.

 

On the other hand, the change they made also paved the way for blink dagger Pudge without it being incredibly overpowered - i.e., blinking while hooking). So, there's that.

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Yeah, checking around it seems they patched WC3 dota like a month later, so I guess the engine didn't have anything to do with it. It was still interesting in being the first (definitely) and only (I think) Dota 2 mechanics patch that wasn't just parity from a WC3 Dota patch.

 

Earth Spirit is quite a powerful hero right now. He has so much varied control without any items or channeling. He can do multihero stuns and silences, he can pull enemies into position, or allies away from danger, he can target a hero from far away, and his ulti does great team damage as long as he can stay alive and on top of it. Someone from Neogaf posited that you could take the damage away from his non-ulti abilities, and he might still be op or at least good, and I think he had a point. It'll be interesting to see how he gets changed in the future. I feel like a healer is a decent counter to him, specifically Abbadon. He can not only mitigate the damage you're taking from him, but he can also purge those silences with shield to let key heroes get off abilites, as long as you avoid the silence yourself.

 

I'm having a much worse time against Broodmother, though. As she is pretty much the least fun hero to play against in her current format. 

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Has anyone else run into fatigue with this game? I managed to cram in 904 games this past year or so (spanning part of my junior and senior years in college), and if anyone asked me what my favorite game is I'd instantly reply with Dota 2. But recently I haven't felt the urge to play. I still appreciate the game for all it has, I still have a lot of fun when I do play, but something has led me astray. 

 

I have even more free time now than when I did when I was in college, and I recently got out of a long-term relationship, so this whole situation isn't making much sense. Perhaps it's me subconsciously pushing the game away for whatever personal reason, or maybe I just played too much of this game in such a short period of time. Actually -- now that I think about this more, it has a lot to do with the community (or at least my perception of the community as someone who mostly plays alone). In one of my recent games in Captains Draft someone repeatedly said "pick me drow" at the start of the draft. Of course we all made fun of this person for demanding that his or her need to play a particular hero outweighed the needs of the group as a whole... and also because Drow was the requested hero. The player responds with "ok I'm going to feed all game." And against my wishes the captain gives in to the demands. Well, that wasn't enough to satisfy our Drow. He or she went on to feed the entire game and basically ruined thirty minutes of everyone's time just because we wanted to form a good team composition. This type of experience doesn't happen every game, but it happens enough (especially in solo queue) to make me want to avoid playing the game for a good while. Also when I experience some of the community outside the game, through r/Dota2 for example, the amount of sexism, racism, and jokes about privilege isn't trivial.

 

Now, instead of playing Dota 2 I'm loading up The Wolf Among Us, Bastion, or of all things Madden 25 for the Xbox One. Do I actually enjoy the Madden single-player experience right now more than I enjoy Dota? Well, maybe, but I can't give you a reason why from a pure game play perspective. From an objective stance the game isn't even good. The controls don't respond well, the announcers are repetitive after two minutes, and there are so many infuriating bugs such as the clock occasionally not stopping when a receiver or runner goes out of bounds. The one thing that I do I enjoy about the game is that it's void of community (at least it is for how I play the game), and it doesn't have the potential to ravage a good part of my day.

 

Does anyone else have a similar experience? Did the community eventually push you away from the game?

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I'm having a much worse time against Broodmother, though. As she is pretty much the least fun hero to play against in her current format. 

She's easy enough to stop pushing provided you have any hero with AOE (or, better, cleave) to deal with spiderlings. And if she runs into trees... just ignore her. Most of what makes her strong, in my opinion, is people wasting like two minutes trying to find her in trees before giving up. Waste ZERO minutes! Zero SECONDS, too!

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I was beaten and robbed at knife-point while about halfway through this episode, When the mugger took my ipod I could still hear it playing. The police caught him but they are keeping the ipod for evidence or taking prints off it or something.

 

Due to my head injury's I don't remember where I was up to and will have to start at the beginning, which is really inconvenient.

 

It was a good episode but the violent assault really ruined it for me so I can only give it 5/10

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Wow, Heinlager, hope your recovery goes well!  Hopefully this will not cause a Pavlovian paranoid response every time you hear the voices of Muir and Vanaman.

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Oh it wasn't too bad no permanent damage. The real bad news is that when I gave my official statement the other day they didn't put that I was listening to DOTA Today as the detective said it might be confusing. So no plug for the show in New Zealand district court.

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That's a relief. 

 

I feel less bad about making jokes about map awareness, wards, "no MIA, report mid", etc.

 

Oh god I'm sorry, I'm a monster

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Oh it wasn't too bad no permanent damage. The real bad news is that when I gave my official statement the other day they didn't put that I was listening to DOTA Today as the detective said it might be confusing. So no plug for the show in New Zealand district court.

Hahah, props to you for being able to joke about it. That's pretty great.

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I'm happy these are back!!

 

Maybe I'm crazy, but since I'm trying to play games other than Dota2 like a baby, it's really nice just to hear stories about your matches.  Each episode doesn't need to be jam-packed with all-star guests.  What I'm saying is you don't need to blow us away.  You're both intelligent, funny people (Sean and Brad, obvsly), so even mundane tales of Dota2 matches are fun to hear about.  :)

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Oh my goodness Dotato Day is back! Sad about the Breckon, happy to have more Muir in my life.

 

Sean - I think you're being somewhat unfair in your criticism of already established non-dota lomas. For you (and me), when we got into lomas there were already established retail games in the space. But before DOTA 2, LOL and HON were trying to do what you're talking about what you're now seeing in the patch notes - attach professional game development and make a retail product out of a mod. Those games were conceived and production begun back in 2007/2008, only a couple of years after DOTA became popular. They weren't trying to carve out a weird niche in the most popular game genre in the world, they were trying to be the first/best retail product to market and BE the genre. Also it's funny that DOTA 2 is literally recreating DOTA pixel for pixel to compete with THEM, when what I heard in your voice was something bordering on disgust for that (I could be wrong).

 

I do agree that the next wave, Dawngate, Smite, HOTS, etc are trying to do a different thing from the original 3 and streamline/carve out their niche.

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It seems to me the problem with Sean losing it with the Dazzle in question, and similar events in a great many games of Dota and like games could be solved by suitable application of monocles. Think about it: if you'd been wearing a monocle while playing the exchange would have gone very differently.

 

"I say," you would have said, "that unfortunate little scuffle was rather closer than it appeared. Why, dear Dazzle, had you made use of your heal but twice I do feel that we would have carried the day."

 

"My deepest apologies," the Dazzle would inevitably have replied. "The moment quite overtook me, and I acted without due thought. Next time I shall apply myself appropriately."

 

"Why, think nothing of it!" you would have exclaimed. "I find myself eager for the next scrap. We'll trounce those rotters and win the day!"

 

And so on and so forth.

 

I remember reading some research that Riot (I think) had done on instances of unpleasant behaviour. They expected to find most incidents being perpetrated by a minority of players- trolls and jerks who took spiteful pleasure from taunting their own team. Instead they found that most of it came from otherwise normal, decent players who just had the occasional game where they lost their temper. Tense games, these ones.

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