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Sean

Dota Today 10: Dunkin' Bro-nuts

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Awesome episode :D

Has there been a game where you can indicate your preferred role? Maybe LoL? Just treat it like language pref; the system will do its best and leave the rest up to you when it has matched you up.

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I got one of those Jadehoofs. X:

 

I totally exploited it. My friends and I just bought the items and talked for a while. We totally half-assed it. Our fifth was a sniper with no ingots/gold, and that's the one we got the best score in.

 

Don't judge me, okay.

 

No, stop judging me!

 

):

 

Also, for what it's worth, the courier will probably be worth like five bucks at most. 1% of the playerbase is actually a lot of couriers, and it's going to happen, who knows, like seven more times? Also, I'm pretty sure they rewarded the top 1% multiple times yesterday, because they patched a Super Strat twice, and that's how they've handled such things in the past (i.e., Diretide). The first was the Ursa/Skeleton King combo, and the second was Visage's birds. Honestly I really only know this stuff because I have a friend who's super into theorycrafting and I was just along for the ride. We got a lot of free mythicals, too, from the Bloom Bounty.

 

Okay, but now for my actual thoughts on the event: NOT A FAN. I like the idea of it, right, but in the end it really is just a bunch of theorycrafting, like you guys mentioned. I've got nothing against theorycrafting, but I don't want to do it. I just want a fun mode that I can do for fun. I really enjoyed Wraith Night, even if it did get repetitive. I wish they'd put the same amount of effort into balancing the heroes in New Bloom as they did in Wraith Night.

 

...

 

You guys didn't talk about ABILITY DRAFT!

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Hey, that's me!

 

I actually ended up getting the 1% courier (Genuine Jadehoof), but it ended up being relatively worthless, value-wise. (~$30)

 

There was a time in my life when I thought about trying to break pro in Dota, but I was always a little iffy about looking for a team (most high-skill players are asshats), so I stopped practicing and my skills atrophied. At this point, it's probably a good thing that I'm not in the pro circuit, seeing as how only the very top teams ever make any substantial money, but it would be nice to get back to my tryhard roots sometime.

 

As for my job, I used to be a web designer/dev, but gave that up because clients can sometimes drive me batty. I do game design and coding on the side (systems and balance-centric, kind of like Dota), but I never really found a team that I was comfortable working with. Unfortunately, I'm currently unemployed, although some would say I'm a professional Dota-man (you know, where the big bucks are).

 

Also, I don't really think that the Year Beast mode was all that great, either, but what I love is the theorycrafting it brings about. One of the things I wish more players could improve on is critical thinking, rather than relying on cookie-cutter builds. Modes like this incentivizes shuffling through the mechanics of the game, mixing-and-matching heroes and items to find an efficient solution to a problem -- which can come in damn-handy in late-game stalemate situations.

 

P.S. We should totally have a joint "Daily Dota/Dota Today vs. the Community" event sometime.

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Has there been a game where you can indicate your preferred role? Maybe LoL? Just treat it like language pref; the system will do its best and leave the rest up to you when it has matched you up.

As far as I'm aware only MMOs do this at the moment. Most people who want something similar for a LoMa refer to WoW's dungeon finder as an example of what they want.

Riot's thoughts on this are here:

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3220746

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I disagree with Brads opinion about the axe all chat taunt not being in good taste. I really dont feel like that is intended to be mean or make the enemy team mad. A while back me and my firends got blown up by a perfect earth shaker ult and then earth shaker player typed something along the lines of SLAMMIT witch really amused me and my friends even if that ult made the game a lot harder for us, by sharing his excitement of that awesome ult the excitement kinda slipped over on one self even if we were on the receiving end and It gave the feeling of fuck yeah that was awesome now I wanna play earth shaker and blow up people and write in all caps too.

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I'm glad you guys touched on Year Beast. I think it's the wrong direction to go in. I remember when I got to the first Diretide I was still learning the game, still hadn't tried all the characters but felt I had decent fundamentals. It was a blast! It was this accelerated 5 on 5 mode that taught the importance of over extending, the value of crowd control (which was very effective against a lot of the blink heavy strats), how to choose heroes for a early fight, fighting at level 1, what to buy in a late game situation and probably way more. Also, since it was so short, I felt way more comfortable to choose new heroes. I played a ton of it, we always tried to compete and it was pretty much always a blast. Since then they haven't really been able to capture that feeling, even when they brought it back, and a lot of that is because of the Rosh fight aspect and people trying to game it. Now I'm looking at a Year Beast playthrough and it seems as dumb as when I saw people glitch out Rosh so they could feed Pudge a ton of flesh heap stacks.

 

I understand it's difficult to think of competitive modes, but I don't understand why they're so focused on these boss fights where a decent chunk of the abilities don't even matter. I even preferred Wraith Night because they redesigned heroes specifically for it, and there was still that aspect of using a variety of abilities like crowd control and nukes in different situations and choosing builds. Here it seems like it all just comes down to auto attack dps, damage amplification, throwing fireworks and dodging spells which is not only kinda boring, but also not bringing any skills back into the core game. 

 

Then when it comes out it seems as though they didn't even give it the least bit of thought, because Ursa's fury swipes, the thing that makes Rosh so manageable for him, was apparently overpowered and  had to be removed. Isn't Roshan an obvious parallel to the Year Beast? It's kinda hard to figure out what the goal is here.

 

Everything else about the event has been awesome so I don't want to come off as ungrateful about the update. The heroes look great and are a ton of fun, the map is beautiful and the items they've added are great. I just think they might need to go in a different direction for event game modes.

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Hey, that's me!

 

Wow, since I know nothing about Dota, after a while of Brad talking about you I thought, "Wait, is Crispy a Lord in the game or is he a player?"

 

Also, how did we end up with "dotatoda" and not "dota2day"?

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I sympathize with Brad's empathy.  Taunts are fun when playing with friends, especially the repetitious comedic effect of macro-ing the same line over and over again.  But a taunt, even with the silliest most sincere intentions, is still technically provocative.  It's not that there is definitely someone out there that the taunt offends, it's that there could be someone out there that it offends.  Maybe Brad's a bit of an empath?

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Wow, since I know nothing about Dota, after a while of Brad talking about you I thought, "Wait, is Crispy a Lord in the game or is he a player?"

Also, how did we end up with "dotatoda" and not "dota2day"?

DOTA (rearrange!) TODA(Y)

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My email got read! Looking forward to playing with more Dota Today Toads.

 

 

(PS Sean I would love to help out in the guild/Steam group even though I suck at the game itself.)

 

 

As for my job, I used to be a web designer/dev, but gave that up because clients can sometimes drive me batty. I do game design and coding on the side (systems and balance-centric, kind of like Dota), but I never really found a team that I was comfortable working with. Unfortunately, I'm currently unemployed, although some would say I'm a professional Dota-man (you know, where the big bucks are).

Hey, I have a lot of fun watching the GB streams and your solo streams! If you wanna fill your time and sharpening your skill with amateur game making, there's a thread here for you.

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I sympathize with Brad's empathy.  Taunts are fun when playing with friends, especially the repetitious comedic effect of macro-ing the same line over and over again.  But a taunt, even with the silliest most sincere intentions, is still technically provocative.  It's not that there is definitely someone out there that the taunt offends, it's that there could be someone out there that it offends.  Maybe Brad's a bit of an empath?

 

Well said! I don't think I was making my point very well when we were talking about this. I think that interaction on the internet is super difficult because you never know who's on the other side of the screen. Intent is so hard to convey and when you have something that's kind of ambiguous like the "DUNKIN BRONUTS!" exclamation I just think that you should choose to not say it. Just say it to your own team... there's really no need to throw it in the face of a bunch of random people from the internet that might get really offended!

 

Just be nice. That's a great rule. Dota could use a lot more players that are just nice. :D!

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I have, up until recently, refused to solo queue because I had some really poor first experiences. But I've played four games in the past week or so all by myself and all of them have been really great, even though one of them was a complete stomp and we lost horribly. I attribute this to my openly communicating from start to finish and complimenting people when they play well and not saying anything when they make mistakes and acknowledging my own mistakes all over the microphone. Ironically, I've had much better solo queuing experiences lately than I have had with groups. Very strange!

 

Even the OTHER team has been nice, though, and they can't hear me talk, so maybe I've just been super lucky.

 

Then again, part of that might be that one of the guys I play with relatively frequently is completely terrible at the game and I pretty much expect to lose if he's on my team, and I definitely expect whatever lane he's in to lose. And I hate not inviting him because then I feel bad for being a dang jerk and we're all always in Mumble together soooooo hurray.

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Well said! I don't think I was making my point very well when we were talking about this. I think that interaction on the internet is super difficult because you never know who's on the other side of the screen. Intent is so hard to convey and when you have something that's kind of ambiguous like the "DUNKIN BRONUTS!" exclamation I just think that you should choose to not say it. Just say it to your own team... there's really no need to throw it in the face of a bunch of random people from the internet that might get really offended!

 

Just be nice. That's a great rule. Dota could use a lot more players that are just nice. :D!

Absolutely agree with this. You can control your message, but you can never control the interpretation, so why not be on the safe side and say nice things?

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I can fully appreciate clever all chat after doing something legitimately cool. Sometimes you do something awesome, and I think both sides should be able to recognize that. I dunno if the dunkin' bronuts thing qualifies as clever, but I guess I'd maybe accept it one a crucial ult (like one that saves an ally) but not on every single successful one. I'm all for not being abusive, but I think being too sterile isn't great either.

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I generally have good experiences in solo queue as well.

Going into normal queue solo is like going to a bar alone; it's fine but you're going to have to break into some established social circles.

Solo queue is like a mixer. You're there because you don't have anyone else or you're new to the area but everyone else is in the same boat. everyone is on their better behavior since they want to make a good impression.

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Well, actually I think it's partly also because I'm playing ranked. Even if you solo queue in ranked you can still get matched with groups (which surprised me!), but I think precisely because it's ranked, people are willing to be more forgiving with more on the line. I'm just sort of guessing, though. Just played another one and yet again it was a fun time.

 

It ALSO might have to do with the fact that I've won five out of six of my placement matches, and people are generally nicer when winning. But even the other team is usually nice! So I don't know.

 

I still believe the number one reason is that I'm just opening up with a truckload of sugar all over the microphone and so people are almost immediately in a better mood. I used to just be quiet and not say anything when I solo queued, and then when something went wrong, everyone would be yelling at each other. Whether A led to B, I don't know, but C definitely seems to lead to D. Being nice results in nice games. Whodathunkit.

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I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but the "Year Beast" isn't any particular inspired creation by Valve. It's taken more or less directly from a Chinese folk tale, regarding a monster called the Nian (literally: year) that is scared away with fireworks and Lions. Just so you know, before you go around giving out "best naming" awards or anything.

 

It seems like they could do away with some acrimony by displaying MMR only if you're in a guild with that person. Presumably, that wouldn't have too large of an impact on the community at large.

 

Is there a way to create groups of build guides, or anything like that? It'd be interesting to see what kind of build guides the Idle Thumbs community has put together. Whenever I look at build guides, I think about how much better the explanatory text could be (it's typically pretty bad). It'd be interesting to try to but together and "book" of community guides.

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I am a big time Axe player. I may have to start using the DUNKIN BRO NUTS line from the cast.

 

How do you set macros for it to do things like that.

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Nick has a *SICK* Razer keyboard and has it bound to a keyboard macro.

 

Also if anyone knows anyone at Razer, they should sponsor our podcast because we un-ironically love them.

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I generally have good experiences in solo queue as well.

Going into normal queue solo is like going to a bar alone; it's fine but you're going to have to break into some established social circles.

Solo queue is like a mixer. You're there because you don't have anyone else or you're new to the area but everyone else is in the same boat. everyone is on their better behavior since they want to make a good impression.

 

Didn't they yank out solo queue?  I'm not sure why they would have added it then removed it so quickly. 

 

I've come to a weird spot with my queuing. I'm still fairly new to Dota (~200 games), haven't infected any of my friends with the Dota addiction yet, and have been doing Random & Single Draft exclusively. I'm where Brad is with All-Pick. It's way too much to handle and my understanding of how to build a strong team & counter pick is severely lacking. There are only a handful of heroes I feel confident with, so I've been going into normal queues by myself and hoping for the best.  

 

For the most part, I get great games where everyone communicates and I have a good time even if we get stomped.  The biggest thorn in my side is people who disconnect, on either team.  Having a player disconnect is such a huge blow to the game.  It's so demoralizing to be in a good battle at the 20 min mark and have someone DC and not come back. Valve should increase the penalty for abandons in normal matchmaking like they did for ranked. 

 

I wonder if they'll ever add Random & Single Draft to ranked matchmaking.  I'd love to experience the scene that puts in more effort and has less abandons.  

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Didn't they yank out solo queue?  I'm not sure why they would have added it then removed it so quickly.

Wow, looks like. I guess it has been a while since I last played... 

 

They removed it in December. From the dates on the posts I'm seeing it when I was traveling; I missed all the garment rending on reddit. 

 

Consensus seems to be that they did it to avoid splitting up the player base further after they introduced Ranked vs. Unranked match making.

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Consensus seems to be that they did it to avoid splitting up the player base further after they introduced Ranked vs. Unranked match making.

Which is absurd logic on their part because they then added Ability Draft, a complete joke [of a] mode.

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