Dota 2 Discussion (~Boston Majors & Road to TI7~)

[Rpgsaurus]

I'm talking about basic champion design. The whole strength/intelligence/agility schtick is an unintuitive mess that is mainly tolerated because the people who defend DotA2 are the people who played HoN/DotA for ages and are used to the obfuscation.

I don't get it... is there something wrong with heroes being STR/AGI/INT based?

The litmus test of whether or not I consider someones opinions coloured by nostalgia or not is if they try to defend denying. Getting rid of that was the smartest thing RIOT ever did. What players lost in obsessively clicking minions they gained in being able to harrass other players and making laning less of a ricefest.

You sound very opinionated... Well, try to at least consider this. There are several things you are doing when in lane. You're trying to keep your lane as close to your tower without your tower hitting the enemy creeps - at least when you're trying to farm the lane as safely as possible (unless you're playing, say a 1v1 veno/slither and want to push the tower ASAP). Denying your own creeps at half health when the lane is pushed helps you achieve that. Sometimes you have a choice of denying/pushing back your lane and getting more last hits in, or more harass on your opponent. These choices add depth to the game.

 

[Zed]

Ulminati You're a bro when it comes to food. But at Dota you're a big noob. The fact that you refer to Dota games as "MOBA" and that you think denying is a bad mechanics is very telling where you come from.
You raise a valid complaint about the UI however. I hope they iterate on it. Don't forget the game is in beta. The minimap bug you have has never occurred for me for example.

 

[Kane]

i agree with ulminati, dota is just a mashup of bad game design and terrible ideas. i have no idea why so many people play this "game", but then again there are 12 million WoW subs and Skyrim is a 10/10.

 

[Excidium]

My game is much better than yours.

 

[Castanova]

i agree with ulminati, dota is just a mashup of bad game design and terrible ideas. i have no idea why so many people play this "game", but then again there are 12 million WoW subs and Skyrim is a 10/10.

People play it because it has some compelling and, at the time, unique elements. It's a team-based strategy game with RPG influences that came out of WC3, which had a massive built-in playerbase, and it was free. A lot of the bad elements were excused because they were forced by the WC3 custom map engine. A lot of the other bad elements were excused because of inertia.

The design choices revolving around an ever-expanding hero pool and ever-expanding item pool meant that the "insiders" were reinforced while the "outsiders" were pushed away. However, this lent the game a certain mystique because, to become an "insider," you don't need much actual skill. Rather, you just need to spend the time memorizing heroes and items. It's MMO-esque in the sense that it rewards raw time investment more than offering a compellingly high skill ceiling.

As with anything, though, there's an audience out there. And, I think the greater point is that, even if you made a "MOBA" game that fixes all the blatantly obvious design issues, it still probably wouldn't be all that good of a game. So, why not stick with what's popular?

 

[Wulfstand]

Man i love the amount of details that Valve adds to each new patch. Bounty Hunter has, like, a line for each hero he kills, for example: 'Alive or dead skeleton king, pick one' or 'Not stealthy enough, Mirana'. I mean sure, they're borderline bad, but still, it's that sort of level of polishing that make me go all

 

[Excidium]

I need a key.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

So I got in on the beta for this a few days ago and have played a few games. Haven't played DotA since pre-TFT WC3, so the game is a complex shitpile with donkeys and tons of heroes and item combining and people getting really angry about last hitting and/or auto attacking monsters and/or not denying.

Still kinda fun though. Been enough years it's kind of a kick to try it again. And it's fun when you have a guy on your team screaming at you for an entire hour long game.

 

[hoopy]

I was going to try the beta, then I remembered that DOTA is supposed to have the absolute worst community in the history of Internet multiplayer, with players having complete meltdowns if anybody does even the tiniest mistakes.

I guess it might funny to just troll players and try to ruin their games.

 

[desocupado]

I need a key.

Me too bro. I've been playing League of Legends but it's shitty beyond imagination.

 

[Metro]

When is this coming out already? Jesus, how much beta testing does DOTA need? The game was already designed years ago.

 

[Castanova]

Anyone with an extra invite feel like being generous? I'll be very grateful.

 

[Dr.Faust]

http://blog.dota2.com/

The primary reason we haven’t allowed everyone access to the game is because we don’t yet have enough server capacity to run all the games it would require. Our server deployment team has spent the last few months flying around the world setting up new server clusters to increase that capacity.

Judging from the latest blog post it seems like they're going to hand out a buttload of new keys (or go open beta) so if you've signed up for it you'll probably get in soon enough.

 

[HanoverF]

Got a stealth key a few days ago, was clearing my library and saw dota2 listed. After a few games not really sure I want to even bother anymore, terrible community, terrible ui, terrible graphic presentation, zero documentation. Lifers must love it.

 

[Malakal]

As a long time player of DoTA I cant say I look forward to the 2 part. I think I liked it more as a mod.

I dont especially like the new focus put on competitive play (which is boring and draws in the worst human scum imaginable, who are mainly asian or russian/ukrainian, coincidence? you decide) and gameplay changes. Gotta learn what everything looks like once again...

 

[Malakal]

Ah yes, but if anyone has a spare key you can hit me with it. Cant bitch about something I havent tried yet.

 

[Mystary!]

Ah yes, but if anyone has a spare key you can hit me with it. Cant bitch about something I havent tried yet.

Then you're in the wrong forum.

 

[Castanova]

Judging from the latest blog post it seems like they're going to hand out a buttload of new keys (or go open beta) so if you've signed up for it you'll probably get in soon enough.

But... where do you sign up for it?

EDIT: seems like signups are permanently closed?

 

[Average Manatee]

I was going to try the beta, then I remembered that DOTA is supposed to have the absolute worst community in the history of Internet multiplayer, with players having complete meltdowns if anybody does even the tiniest mistakes.

I guess it might funny to just troll players and try to ruin their games.

To be fair, if I was playing UT deathmatch and every time a player on my team died the entire team got a permanent +25% damage upgrade, I would be pretty fucking pissed too.

Its just bad game design all around. Fun for a few custom maps with friends, laughably horrible when you try to pretend that it's its own great standalone game.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Beta signup was/is http://dota2.com/login/auth/?goto=beta there, Castanova. Dunno if it's still active or not. You have to log in to your Steam account, then there should be a short DotA related questionnaire, then you should be signed up.

 

[Castanova]

Its just bad game design all around. Fun for a few custom maps with friends, laughably horrible when you try to pretend that it's its own great standalone game.

That's true. The snowball effect in these games is excessive and because the games last an eternity it makes it even more painful.

Thanks MHC. I went to that link but when you sign in it just takes you to the DOTA 2 blog site and there's no sign up available.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Snowball doesn't always end up ending a game, though. The other day I played a game where my team was losing for the vast majority, until we hit our stride and turned the game around and won. Enemy had knocked down all our towers on the bottom, and we only had the towers in our base for top and middle IIRC.
Still, I sorta wish the game was more laid back and simple like it was when I used to play. With SO GODDAMN MANY HEROES and items and item crafting/mixing/whatever it's easy to get overwhelmed and not have an idea of what the fuck you wanna do until you've played dozens of hours. Also all these items that can be activated, sheesh. IIRC when I played there was basically none of that except for "Activation only" items like potions and scrolls and shit.

And hopefully since they don't have beta signups active any more that means they'll be doing open beta and/or launching the game (Which I assume will be free to play) soon.

Edit: Oh yeah, does anyone know why creeps still spawn in bases when barracks are taken out? I thought the whole point of knocking those out was to stop enemy creep generation, but it seems to have 0 impact in DotA2.

 

[Dr.Faust]

Edit: Oh yeah, does anyone know why creeps still spawn in bases when barracks are taken out? I thought the whole point of knocking those out was to stop enemy creep generation, but it seems to have 0 impact in DotA2.

Knocking out the enemy barracks makes your own creeps stronger and give less gold to the enemy. If it stopped spawning creeps completely the game would be pretty much over after the first barracks kill.

 

[Average Manatee]

Edit: Oh yeah, does anyone know why creeps still spawn in bases when barracks are taken out? I thought the whole point of knocking those out was to stop enemy creep generation, but it seems to have 0 impact in DotA2.

Knocking out the enemy barracks makes your own creeps stronger and give less gold to the enemy. If it stopped spawning creeps completely the game would be pretty much over after the first barracks kill.

So instead of killing a barracks to make your spawns stronger comparatively you kill the barracks to make your spawns stronger comparatively. OK.

 

[Dr.Faust]

Edit: Oh yeah, does anyone know why creeps still spawn in bases when barracks are taken out? I thought the whole point of knocking those out was to stop enemy creep generation, but it seems to have 0 impact in DotA2.

Knocking out the enemy barracks makes your own creeps stronger and give less gold to the enemy. If it stopped spawning creeps completely the game would be pretty much over after the first barracks kill.

So instead of killing a barracks to make your spawns stronger comparatively you kill the barracks to make your spawns stronger comparatively. OK.

Lane creep farm is a big source of income and completely cutting that off for your team would actually make raxing stupid before you're sure you can get the ancient. Also the creepskipping protection uses your own creeps to detect if you're allowed to destroy a tower so having none would make it hard for the raxed team to make a comeback. The current system allows for more diverse strategies in the picking phase.