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DotA

Apparently those screenshots are 4 months old, so hopefully we'll see how much it has changed on Wednesday (and throughout the week).

Edit: Apparently you can try to get on the waiting list for DotA 2 beta! Go to DotA2.com and apply (you will need a steam account).
 
fffffffffffffffff trailers are cool but I need my gameplay asap

Besides the obvious question of gameplay (which I'm guessing will be close to Dota with maybe some new modes and tweaks), the other big thing I'm wondering about is the model, whether it will be f2p or not and if so how it'll work etc. I'm not huge on LoL's gameplay but their whole model of letting you unlock stuff slowly but paying to get heroes faster or get skins or w/e is great, though Valve could take it in a different direction.

I'll definitely miss a couple of the heroes unique to HoN, having all the Dota-exclusive ones will make up for it though.
 
LoL's F2P/hero rotation model is a great way to attract newcomers. However that's all it's good for -- newcomers. In general, DotA is a much more skillful (and unforgiving) game. It's because of this that you cannot have your hero selection pool cut down, especially when each hero requires a different level of difficulty to play. It's a damn good thing they're including a coaching system, otherwise most people who are new to DotA would opt to play a more casual and newb-friendly game in LoL.
 
In the history of multiplayer video games, there are so few that can qualify as "more skillful", and anyone who says otherwise doesn't understand the metagame concept. Putting LoL down as a casual game is snobbish and incorrect. DotA is vastly unbalanced compared to other MOBA games and that's why you snowball, not because it is more skillful (and of course it is vastly unbalanced, it was the first and it was made as a mod). Mark my words, if Dota 2 changes anything under Valve it will not be as "unforgiving" as you praise DotA to be.
 
CaptainKishimoto said:
LoL's F2P/hero rotation model is a great way to attract newcomers. However that's all it's good for -- newcomers. In general, DotA is a much more skillful (and unforgiving) game. It's because of this that you cannot have your hero selection pool cut down, especially when each hero requires a different level of difficulty to play. It's a damn good thing they're including a coaching system, otherwise most people who are new to DotA would opt to play a more casual and newb-friendly game in LoL.
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Having played both, this is a load of horseshit.

DoTA, especially if you played the early versions was very simple to learn. Literally the only skill difference I can give to DoTA is denies, which aren't hard to get unless you're playing a hero with a shitty projectile attack. Additionally, DoTA was so badly balanced that it was a fucking joke.
 
Skillful was actually a terrible choice of words, though I do standby the fact that DotA has a higher learning curve. LoL is indeed a more casual game, and I'll quote something I read earlier that pretty much sums up what I think:
Heroes have high HP and spammable low CD spells, which means you can go into a group of enemies like a retard and still survive. And if you miss an attack it's not a problem, you still have 4 other spells to spam and that one is gonna get off CD soon anyway.
That also means that you can have reflexes of a dead horse and get to a fairly high level very easy. That doesn't happen in dota. If you fuck up against a good player in a pub you will either die or escape with very little HP, and fights are over in seconds usually.

There is no creep denying which is one of the most fun and challenging aspects of dota, even if it doesn't make any sense at first glance. It was removed cause devs thought it would be too hard for some players.

Game is not balanced at all, devs said they favor making new heroes instead of making older balanced.
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I could go into other stuff, but I'll use this to defend how "unbalanced" DotA is. First off, I've played DotA ever since it was made in War3 RoC, so I do understand how retardedly unbalanced it was. When IceFrog inheritted the game, it was an awful mess. Games took 60+ mins, heroes were ridiculously braindead, and some were just downright broken (i.e. Gambler). The game now is vastly different now, so I have no idea why you brought up how unbalanced it was back then. Now, what actually makes DotA unbalanced so much more than LoL? In any game, when you re-work or introduce new things (in this case heroes) there are bound to be balance issues. If you're talking about how people getting fed can end the game fairly quickly, that's mainly a player issue -- not something to do with the game itself. If it's something else (or if you disagree with what I said) just respond. Typing on my iPod is messy lol

edit: aw fuck, I mixed up what you were saying about earlier versions being easy to learn. Not gonna make a long reply on my iPod again <_< but what I said still applies I guess
 
CaptainKishimoto said:
Skillful was actually a terrible choice of words, though I do standby the fact that DotA has a higher learning curve. LoL is indeed a more casual game, and I'll quote something I read earlier that pretty much sums up what I think:
I could go into other stuff, but I'll use this to defend how "unbalanced" DotA is. First off, I've played DotA ever since it was made in War3 RoC, so I do understand how retardedly unbalanced it was. When IceFrog inheritted the game, it was an awful mess. Games took 60+ mins, heroes were ridiculously braindead, and some were just downright broken (i.e. Gambler). The game now is vastly different now, so I have no idea why you brought up how unbalanced it was back then. Now, what actually makes DotA unbalanced so much more than LoL? In any game, when you re-work or introduce new things (in this case heroes) there are bound to be balance issues. If you're talking about how people getting fed can end the game fairly quickly, that's mainly a player issue -- not something to do with the game itself. If it's something else (or if you disagree with what I said) just respond. Typing on my iPod is messy lol
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Even well into Icefrogs tenure it was horribly balanced.

One word: Omniknight.

P.s. your ability to charge enemies like a retard is the same in either game really, basically if you do it you will die.
 
I'll be staying with HoN unless DotA 2 has a shit ton of improvements, in additions to the ones HoN already has.

While DotA 2 may have the money, does it have the gameplay that we know and love?
 
vonFiedler said:
In the history of multiplayer video games, there are so few that can qualify as "more skillful", and anyone who says otherwise doesn't understand the metagame concept. Putting LoL down as a casual game is snobbish and incorrect. DotA is vastly unbalanced compared to other MOBA games and that's why you snowball, not because it is more skillful (and of course it is vastly unbalanced, it was the first and it was made as a mod). Mark my words, if Dota 2 changes anything under Valve it will not be as "unforgiving" as you praise DotA to be.
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compared to DotA/HoN, LoL is "casualized"; tons of elements removed or reduced in importance and the game is much less punishing.

also not sure where your claims of DotA being "vastly unbalanced" are coming from (and please, please do not say "snowballing" is the reason; that just means games are decided more quickly instead of being dragged out like in LoL).
 
So you're saying the mark of a balanced and competitive game is the one where opening gambits quickly end encounters? Well in that case go play competitive rock paper scissors.

In a genre where .1 seconds is a considerable amount of time, it's pretty ridiculous to have high cooldowns and low HP. Longer fights (and by longer I mean 5-10 seconds) aren't less skillful they are more fun because you have to be more skillful longer. As I've said before, a game with good players lasts longer and is close. The holy grail of multiplayer game design is the game where players of equal skill level finish the game astoundingly close. In many video games players of equal skill exploit early upper hands to end games in landslides. In a balanced game this exploitation is referred to as scrub tactics and against good players will be beaten by more reliable tactics. This is the case in LoL. In less balanced games, "easy victory" tactics are the best tactics, which lead to landslide victories rather than close ones. This is not more skillful. The idea that this is more skillful is an oddity fairly unique to DotA and if I had to guess I would say it's hubris ("I won a shutout game against pubs so I am a good player"). I win shutout victories from time to time in LoL too. They are not fun. They are not good competitive practice.

Denial is a holdover from the WC3 engine. I am willing to concede that some players just have fun with it but its a metagame concept that only exists due to mod constraints. It is weird, and as hard as it may to grasp nothing should be carried over from DotA just because it was part of the WC3 engine. Finally, denial as a tactic once again is one that does not promote the close game. It promotes absolute dominance due to a skill that is astoundingly simple to master.

At Dreamhack, 2/3 of LoL's 70+ champions were used. I hear people say only one thing when trying to say that LoL isn't balanced, and that is that since Riot makes new champions they do not wish to balance old ones. This is demonstrably wrong (in the last patch they introduced one new champion and made major changes to 2 old ones) and frankly a baffling leap in logic.
 
First of all, denying isn't a holdover due to mod constraints. Why can't you deny heroes at 50%? Setting certain flags in the custom map can prevent denying. In WC3 you can deny your own units at 100%!

Denying is not simple to master, at higher levels of the game Denying is often thought of as a trade off with last hitting. It is almost impossible to deny everything, get the gold from all the creeps, and still not get harassed to death. Denying is a form of lane control, and it has its pros and cons.

Pick poor lanes, and you will suffer. Pick good lanes, and you won't.

Let's see what DotallyRad (fan bigplays site) has to say in regards to the "skill ceiling" of League --

LoL:

It has its good parts, but the truth is, the game is too passive, bad play isn’t punished harsh enough to make it more enjoyable (HoN will straight bury you if you’re trash support and 2 hit death isn’t out of the question), Its metagame is really boring (no denying really promotes excessive farming). Plus the whole instant blink thing is really stupid. LoL players tend not to believe that, and nerds like Chaox still live in a world of LoL dominance from HoN pubdom.

So lets see what the ex-ranked number one player in LoL (Chu) has to say about League of Legends:

seriously though I’m glad I got to try League of Bads, now all my arguments vs LoL will be valid. Well made casual game, donkeyshit competitive game. There is only one way this game can be played at top level and that is passive farm-lane-entire-game, with its metagame heavily reliant on a stupid free blink that probably plagued that game since the beginning of time.
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So Chu said what everyone knows and denies.

Anyway, blink is a very powerful skill that is to be earned, not given to you. ANY chance of a gank metagame is ruined by giving out blink. The safer a player is, the more he or she is prompted to farm. Do you farm when you have no wards or do you play more passive? Exactly. That was my biggest bone to pick with LoL is that it allows players to escape too easily.

Chu basically wrecked nerds’ faces all the way to the VERY top of the Lol scene and was like “this game is trash and here is why.”

===

tl;dr

the mechanic of denying is here to stay, only reason league removed it was to make it easier for incoming players.

Don't get me started on no gold loss on death, that's incredibly retarded (because it's forgiving).

==

HoN has every hero in competitive games, depending on what games are considered valid. HoN also recently went F2P with a Hero Rotation, so those arguments for picking LoL are now irrelevant :P
 
Assuming that Chu is right just because he was a good player is a logical fallacy, and a pretty silly one when you remember that there have been a good number of "#1 players" and they don't all agree with him.

Chu's argument comes down to the passive farming, and maybe you are poorly paraphrasing him but overextending to farm without wards is not a good idea in LoL blink or no blink. Now maybe the metagame has changed since Chu played, but I don't play games where people do nothing but farm and I didn't see those games played at dreamhack. Good players will get 200+ creeps per game, but you work that into constant teamfighting and pushing against towers.

I will say that I think Flash should be removed from LoL, but that's not because it makes ganks impossible. The "no ganking" is a flat out lie. There isn't a game when ganking doesn't happen, and half of the jungler's responsibilities are to apply pressure through ganking lanes. Now I think Flash should be removed because it isn't fun to use but is almost always too good not to. It can prevent deaths but it doesn't prevent ganking from happening or being an important part of the metagame.

Speaking of death, it's already something you get punished for. You give the enemy gold, but more importantly you allow the enemy team a free dragon, tower, baron etc. Gold loss just promotes shutouts.
 
Trax said:
Even well into Icefrogs tenure it was horribly balanced.

One word: Omniknight.

P.s. your ability to charge enemies like a retard is the same in either game really, basically if you do it you will die.
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Diffusal Blade is your friend. Beyond that you have Hexstick, Orchid and plain old disables. Respect Omni's abilities and focus him with CCs before he can use Guardian.

Omni is trending these days as a competitive stable, mostly thanks to MYM/Navi's innovation with using Omni solo versus melee mids such as Doom/Beastmaster. He can easily outlane/outfarm most melee heroes middle without gank interference.

Also the broadcast starts very soon, get hyped.
 
vonFiedler said:
So you're saying the mark of a balanced and competitive game is the one where opening gambits quickly end encounters? Well in that case go play competitive rock paper scissors.
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idiotic troll comments elsewhere please

In a genre where .1 seconds is a considerable amount of time, it's pretty ridiculous to have high cooldowns and low HP. Longer fights (and by longer I mean 5-10 seconds) aren't less skillful they are more fun because you have to be more skillful longer. As I've said before, a game with good players lasts longer and is close. The holy grail of multiplayer game design is the game where players of equal skill level finish the game astoundingly close. In many video games players of equal skill exploit early upper hands to end games in landslides. In a balanced game this exploitation is referred to as scrub tactics and against good players will be beaten by more reliable tactics. This is the case in LoL. In less balanced games, "easy victory" tactics are the best tactics, which lead to landslide victories rather than close ones. This is not more skillful. The idea that this is more skillful is an oddity fairly unique to DotA and if I had to guess I would say it's hubris ("I won a shutout game against pubs so I am a good player"). I win shutout victories from time to time in LoL too. They are not fun. They are not good competitive practice.
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Yes, fights are decided faster in DotA/HoN. There's more emphasis on vision, positioning and initiating on your opponents rather than being initiated upon, which is a pretty significant strategic element. Attacking and using your skills at the right times and on the right targets is still very important; arguably more so because fights are decided faster.

Same deal with...well, the game in general. Matches end quicker for a number of reasons. I guess you could say "less skill is involved per match since games are shorter" but that's to be expected (not to mention you can just play more games since they're quicker) and it's not like every game is over after the first kill. Seems more like personal preference than anything; if you prefer less, longer games then LoL is more up your ally.

Denial is a holdover from the WC3 engine. I am willing to concede that some players just have fun with it but its a metagame concept that only exists due to mod constraints. It is weird, and as hard as it may to grasp nothing should be carried over from DotA just because it was part of the WC3 engine. Finally, denial as a tactic once again is one that does not promote the close game. It promotes absolute dominance due to a skill that is astoundingly simple to master.
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Denial started out as a quirk of the WCIII engine but it could've been removed easily at any time, yet neither Icefrog nor S2 games have done so (though the exp gain was modified for balance reasons).

Denial adds a whole extra element to laning. Instead of only being able to lasthit (gain more gold for your hero) or harass (temporarily weaken your lane enemy), you also have the option of permanently weakening your lane opponent slightly. You can also attack a creep of yours that's nearly dead so that the opposing creeps finish it off and your opponent get exp but not gold. LoL's laning phase always feels like a snooze compared to HoN's because all you have to do is hit the enemy creeps when they're low on health, your opponent can't do a damn thing about it (besides harass you) whereas in DotA if you're playing badly you can be punished hard for it.

Granted it doesn't make any sense from a logical standpoint, but that's not much of an argument.
 
You can make shorter Moba games without encouraging shutout play. You could get rid of the elements that encourage massive leads while also reducing the number of levels in a game and the gold prices for items. I would have no problems with that, I play a great deal of 3v3 in LoL and those games can be close at 30 minutes. The new gametype dominion is supposed to take 20 minutes and looks right up your alley but we'll both have to wait and see if it has shutout gameplay.

There's more emphasis on vision, positioning and initiating on your opponents rather than being initiated upon
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No, there isn't. I can say all these things are important in LoL too and not be wrong. The team that coordinates and initiates better wins. In fact, this is what everything comes down to in LoL. Even in LoL it is very rare that you can farm so much as to play stupid in teamfights and still win. I know that all too well, the games I lose with pubs are the ones where they do nothing but farm and don't function as a team. And I'm not saying this isn't all equally important in DotA, it's just the only people I see simplifying LoL are its detractors.

EDIT: And actually, you might have been marginally correct before Dreamhack but since then the metagame has changed drastically and initiation is no longer a "role" but something done as a team.

Finally, harass is a huge part of laning and it's only a snooze against very bad players. With DotA you have one more groups of minions to click on, that's great for people who like that. I prefer viciously harassing human opponents. Instead of denial, LoL has zoning out. I always try to zone opponents away from experience, and I've had much more fun doing that than I ever did last hitting my own minions in DotA. My skype friends can attest to my evil villain laugh when I lane exceptionally well. But you know what? Zoning people out still doesn't shutout the game, not unless my whole team does it. It's just a bonus that will help once team fighting starts.

Though denial isn't going to be a deciding factor in if I get Dota 2. I just want it to move the genre forward in any way.
 
As an experienced MOBA player (competitive DotA and HoN), this game looks like League of Legends as if it were done to still be DotA.

If feels like Valve was limited by their engine, the graphics totally pale in comparison to the original. HoN has the dedicated engine, and the graphics are from the 21st century not some cell shaded land of casualness. I can hardly watch this shit here.

I forsee DotA 2 is going to get a lot of terrible reviews. Their stream lagged out multiple times, so did the commentators and players.

If I had to play league or dota2, it would be dota2. But I'd still rather play HoN rather than this pile of shit. The HoN forums were overloaded because everybody signed on to laugh together at this game.
 
I expected a lot more from Valve. Having so much lag during the debut of DotA 2 is very disappointing, I didn't even think they'd let that to happen. And the graphics, although sort of pleasing to the eyes, aren't really better than HoN graphics, and it's harder to identify which hero is which during team clashes than in HoN casts.
 
2 hours after the start of the first game at 11 am GMT+2, they still haven't finished.

30% time spent lagged out, 40% sitting around farming, 5% teamfights, 5% ganks, 20% listening to stupid stuff from the commentators.

Not touching DotA2 during the beta phase, maybe not in retail if things stay similar to how they are now. TF2's style was the incorrect style to carry over to the MOBA genre. Now that I've spent 2 hours trying to watch one game after all the hype they manufactured, I'mma sleep!
 
I dunno what to think of the DotA2 stream atm. Not huge on the art style, it seems kind of derivative of LoL though a fair bit prettier. The games need less lag and more commentary, DotA is a bit boring to watch vanilla. Also the fact that player colors appear in the chat log but not on the heroes themselves is weird.

vonFiedler said:
You can make shorter Moba games without encouraging shutout play. You could get rid of the elements that encourage massive leads while also reducing the number of levels in a game and the gold prices for items. I would have no problems with that, I play a great deal of 3v3 in LoL and those games can be close at 30 minutes. The new gametype dominion is supposed to take 20 minutes and looks right up your alley but we'll both have to wait and see if it has shutout gameplay.
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I'm not sure what you mean by "encouraging shutout play"; obviously if you want to win you're going to take the most effective path to that. Can't really comment on the balance of 3v3 since I haven't played it myself but it seems like it'd snowball more than 5v5 since one hero getting more powerful from a kill or weaker from a death affects the game more since there are less heroes total, so games would be decided quicker. I'm betting it would be the same way in DotA/HoN.

I do like the idea of alternate game modes and hopefully DotA 2 will include some, though the heroes will probably remain balanced for the main game.

No, there isn't. I can say all these things are important in LoL too and not be wrong. The team that coordinates and initiates better wins. In fact, this is what everything comes down to in LoL. Even in LoL it is very rare that you can farm so much as to play stupid in teamfights and still win. I know that all too well, the games I lose with pubs are the ones where they do nothing but farm and don't function as a team. And I'm not saying this isn't all equally important in DotA, it's just the only people I see simplifying LoL are its detractors.

EDIT: And actually, you might have been marginally correct before Dreamhack but since then the metagame has changed drastically and initiation is no longer a "role" but something done as a team.
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I didn't say those things aren't important in LoL (far from it) but that they're more important in DotA/HoN, for a couple reasons.

-The team that initiates and gets their big spells off first has a significant advantage in either game, but in DotA/HoN crowd control is much more prevalent, making the initiation matter much more.
-Runes. Early/mid game both the effects of runes and the fact that they refill bottles for free gives an advantage to the team that gets them.
-not a major factor, but in DotA/HoN wards give you more sight time for your money and there are more abilities that aid with scouting.


Finally, harass is a huge part of laning and it's only a snooze against very bad players. With DotA you have one more groups of minions to click on, that's great for people who like that. I prefer viciously harassing CPU opponents. Instead of denial, LoL has zoning out. I always try to zone opponents away from experience, and I've had much more fun doing that than I ever did last hitting my own minions in DotA. My skype friends can attest to my evil villain laugh when I lane exceptionally well. But you know what? Zoning people out still doesn't shutout the game, not unless my whole team does it. It's just a bonus that will help once team fighting starts.

Though denial isn't going to be a deciding factor in if I get Dota 2. I just want it to move the genre forward in any way.
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How does zoning out hurt someone less than denying? If they're past the experience range they're getting zero experience/gold, whereas even if you deny every creep in a wave the hero is still getting some experience from the denies. Also, forcing an opponent out of lane is something you can do only when you have a significant advantage of some sort (as well as the correct positioning) instead of a major part of the laning phase like denying.

Not to mention that you can do it in DotA/HoN as well.
 
Fishin said:
I'm not sure what you mean by "encouraging shutout play"; obviously if you want to win you're going to take the most effective path to that. Can't really comment on the balance of 3v3 since I haven't played it myself but it seems like it'd snowball more than 5v5 since one hero getting more powerful from a kill or weaker from a death affects the game more since there are less heroes total, so games would be decided quicker. I'm betting it would be the same way in DotA/HoN.
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As is stated by LoL detractors, winning early in HoN is equivalent to winning and you say that like it's a good thing. At Dreamhack, we saw amazing games by very good players. As a result, we saw very entertaining games where one team could win early game, but amazing big plays later would allow their opponent to turn defeat into victory. You call this "forgiving". But even watching it is more entertaining than a game where one team wins due to a landslide of early ganks. In the first Dota2 game, the one team had won when they were 12 to 3 within ten minutes. It's absolutely baffling that the game last an hour and a half even without lag. It made the teams look like they had no idea what they were doing past the gank stage, and it was booooring.

3v3 in LoL isn't very balanced because it favors tanky dps like crazy but it almost always ends up being very close and fun games. My team has to really work as a unit to win and that's fun. If games were decided entirely by early ganks, we wouldn't be undefeated but at the same time 75% of the time the game would end in 5 minutes with our victory.

but in DotA/HoN crowd control is much more prevalent, making the initiation matter much more.
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I mostly gotta stop you here because this is very much incorrect. It's extremely hard to place characters in LoL without CC on competitive teams. This is why you have characters like Mordekaiser new players have huge trouble with but aren't seen as much in competitive play, no CC. LoL is very much a CC metagame, to the point where CC reduction boots are almost the only ones used.

-Runes. Early/mid game both the effects of runes and the fact that they refill bottles for free gives an advantage to the team that gets them.
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Isn't this a little like when competitive players complain about items in Smash Brothers (or summoner spells in LoL)? Runes still exist in LoL and they are still important team objectives, but their effects are less game breaking so personal skill matters more.

How does zoning out hurt someone less than denying? If they're past the experience range they're getting zero experience/gold, whereas even if you deny every creep in a wave the hero is still getting some experience from the denies. Also, forcing an opponent out of lane is something you can do only when you have a significant advantage of some sort (as well as the correct positioning) instead of a major part of the laning phase like denying.

Not to mention that you can do it in DotA/HoN as well.
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Zoning is a part of harassing which is a major part of laning. Less minions to click on means you get to put more of your effort into interacting with human opponents. Zoning isn't a core part of winning like last hitting, but an occasional reward for harassing very well. Unless your whole team does it, you aren't shutting out the opponent.
 
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