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DotA

Calciphoce said:
Current Patch: .71

Smogon DotA Players

DotA, or Defense of the Ancients, is a mod of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. I highly recommend it to...just about anyone. It's just an amazing game, which has arguably become more popular than the game in which it is a modification of. It's kind of a big deal. Millions of people play it. I myself do, and so do some friends at school. If you've even heard of Warcraft III, you'll love this.

I think it would be really cool to have a Smogon DotA tournament. I'm not sure if there are enough people interested in signing up though, as DotA teams require 5 people. Even so, I'm putting the word out that if there are enough people interested, I'll manage the tournament's organization. A reliably host is needed though, as my internet connection is far too slow to host a relatively lag-free game.

Also DotA 2 is in the works, and it looks promising. I know I'm not the only one who can't wait for this game.
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I also think so.
 
today's first game starts in a couple minutes of valve time
vonFiedler said:
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.
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I didn't catch the full game, but given that it lasted so long and it was two pro teams playing, I think it's pretty safe to say you're wrong about it being decided that quickly (unless they had some secret agreement to stretch the game out because it was showcasing Dota2 or something). I took quick looks at two different games from yesterday and neither really snowballed like you're saying either. Games where stuff happens and stuff happens fast are far more entertaining both to play and especially to watch than games like LoL where everything takes a long time to happen (see: how fun is Starcraft to watch vs WCIII), but it seems like this is more of a difference of opinion than anything, where you think longer games = better.


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.
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Engima has an effective 3 second stun, and a 4 second channeling disable in a fairly large AoE. Lion has a 2 second AoE stun and a 3.5 second disable. Rhasta has a 3.5 second disable and a 4.75 second channeling disable. Can any heroes in LoL match that?

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.
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Who's complaining about it? The randomness of runes is very, very limited as they only spawn in one of two locations on the map. And runes in LoL are completely different compared to runes in DotA, not sure why you would even bring that up.

Point is, vision is more important in DotA than LoL and runes are one of the reasons.

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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Denying affects your opponent's actions directly because he's trying to lasthit the creep too, it's not as though you're interacting with the computer more and humans less. Very much the opposite.
 
Fishin said:
I didn't catch the full game, but given that it lasted so long and it was two pro teams playing, I think it's pretty safe to say you're wrong about it being decided that quickly (unless they had some secret agreement to stretch the game out because it was showcasing Dota2 or something). I took quick looks at two different games from yesterday and neither really snowballed like you're saying either. Games where stuff happens and stuff happens fast are far more entertaining both to play and especially to watch than games like LoL where everything takes a long time to happen (see: how fun is Starcraft to watch vs WCIII), but it seems like this is more of a difference of opinion than anything, where you think longer games = better.
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Throughout the whole game that 10 kill lead persisted, and frankly it was really hard to tell why the game took as long as it did because most of it was spent with the teams not interacting and the camera being in odd places.

The two others games I watched weren't as long but were arguably more one sided (albeit in less time).

Engima has an effective 3 second stun, and a 4 second channeling disable in a fairly large AoE. Lion has a 2 second AoE stun and a 3.5 second disable. Rhasta has a 3.5 second disable and a 4.75 second channeling disable. Can any heroes in LoL match that?
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You are confusing power level with importance, and that's also a big problem with the overall balance of DotA. The point is that CC isn't more prevalent in team comps, but the power of individual CC abilities is a good illustration of the same problems I am talking about on a smaller scale. In DotA the first team to get that 3 second stun off wins and you act like that's more skilled. In LoL you have to do really clever things as a team to win, like how at Dreamhack a whole team was centered around Ashe arrowing into a Gragas barrel to secure advantage. I do this with my team as well, using Blitzcrank to pull someone into multiple knock-ups. Our CC does not last 6 seconds, but as a team we can initiate and win through superior tactics and not just by clicking on the opponent first.

DotA is a brilliant and amazing mod that has gotten better over time but it's still very much limited by its early concepts of power level. Spell effects last a long time and some spells have absurdly long range. None of this makes the game more competitive because games aren't more or less competitive, people are. If LoL truly has less tricks then people make more use out of what we have. But the thing is, this ideal DotA game that I hear about in warstories where a group of friends invited some strangers to play and stomped them, this is something my 13 year old brother does with every video game he plays. Winning quickly and easily teaches you nothing, and I a game where I single-handedly force the opponent to surrender at 20 is as bad as a game where I lost just as easily because I learn nothing either way. When this competitive spirit pays off and I can play with the best the game has to offer, I want exciting games that challenge me. And 15 million subscribers want that too. Maybe it comes down to preference but it just does you no good to say its not a competitive game.

Denying affects your opponent's actions directly because he's trying to lasthit the creep too, it's not as though you're interacting with the computer more and humans less. Very much the opposite.
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I was playing beer pong at a friend's birthday last weekend, and maybe I just hate beer but it got me to thinking "why do ever play games like this?". Other than drinking of course. But I mean in general, horseshoes is the same way I think. You're playing against someone else's speed but you aren't actually interacting with them. You might as well be playing by yourself and going for some sort of "high score". This is the level of interaction I see in denying, and last hitting I admit but I'd rather have to do one than both and focus more on the human interaction.
 
vonFiedler said:
Throughout the whole game that 10 kill lead persisted, and frankly it was really hard to tell why the game took as long as it did because most of it was spent with the teams not interacting and the camera being in odd places.

The two others games I watched weren't as long but were arguably more one sided (albeit in less time).
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sounds like the game wasn't really over then!

You are confusing power level with importance, and that's also a big problem with the overall balance of DotA. The point is that CC isn't more prevalent in team comps, but the power of individual CC abilities is a good illustration of the same problems I am talking about on a smaller scale. In DotA the first team to get that 3 second stun off wins and you act like that's more skilled. In LoL you have to do really clever things as a team to win, like how at Dreamhack a whole team was centered around Ashe arrowing into a Gragas barrel to secure advantage. I do this with my team as well, using Blitzcrank to pull someone into multiple knock-ups. Our CC does not last 6 seconds, but as a team we can initiate and win through superior tactics and not just by clicking on the opponent first.
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You can form big team-oriented strategies in DotA as well, it's not in any way exclusive to or required in LoL.

Also I never said more cc = more skill; I brought it up to point out how vision/warding/initiation is more important than DotA than LoL.

DotA is a brilliant and amazing mod that has gotten better over time but it's still very much limited by its early concepts of power level. Spell effects last a long time and some spells have absurdly long range. None of this makes the game more competitive because games aren't more or less competitive, people are. If LoL truly has less tricks then people make more use out of what we have. But the thing is, this ideal DotA game that I hear about in warstories where a group of friends invited some strangers to play and stomped them, this is something my 13 year old brother does with every video game he plays. Winning quickly and easily teaches you nothing, and I a game where I single-handedly force the opponent to surrender at 20 is as bad as a game where I lost just as easily because I learn nothing either way. When this competitive spirit pays off and I can play with the best the game has to offer, I want exciting games that challenge me. And 15 million subscribers want that too. Maybe it comes down to preference but it just does you no good to say its not a competitive game.
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maybe you should stop pubstomping then? (or better yet, stop basing your perception of DotA on pubstompers) Clan wars or even solo queue where both teams are pretty even in skill level are more fun than utter stomps.

I was playing beer pong at a friend's birthday last weekend, and maybe I just hate beer but it got me to thinking "why do ever play games like this?". Other than drinking of course. But I mean in general, horseshoes is the same way I think. You're playing against someone else's speed but you aren't actually interacting with them. You might as well be playing by yourself and going for some sort of "high score". This is the level of interaction I see in denying, and last hitting I admit but I'd rather have to do one than both and focus more on the human interaction.
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horrible, completely misrepresentative analogy; something imperfect but more accurate would be soccer, with more than one player vying for control of the ball (except there are multiple balls and which you go for for depends on your priorities at the time. that, and that harassment thing you keep going on about exists in DotA too).
 
Fishin said:
(or better yet, stop basing your perception of DotA on pubstompers)
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I base my perception on this because they are the people who act as if things like lower cooldowns, no gold loss on death, and other elements that slide games away from pubstombs make the game "less competitive".

It's still funny that you can take elements vital to LoL (warding and initiation) and act as if they can be more important in one game than the other. If you don't ward or have plans for initiation in LoL you lose, same as DotA. It isn't a degree.

You don't vy for control of last hits like you vy for control of a ball in soccer. With one minion it is literally a case of "who shoots first" but with multiple minions it dilutes into something where both players don't even always have the same goal depending on priorities.
 
vonFiedler said:
I base my perception on this because they are the people who act as if things like lower cooldowns, no gold loss on death, and other elements that slide games away from pubstombs make the game "less competitive".
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LoL punishes you less for bad play, and rewards good play less.

It's still funny that you can take elements vital to LoL (warding and initiation) and act as if they can be more important in one game than the other. If you don't ward or have plans for initiation in LoL you lose, same as DotA. It isn't a degree.
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I've provided multiple points as to why they are more important, and all you did was use them to go off on a tangent.

You don't vy for control of last hits like you vy for control of a ball in soccer. With one minion it is literally a case of "who shoots first" but with multiple minions it dilutes into something where both players don't even always have the same goal depending on priorities.
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in LoL you're attempting to to lasthit enemy creeps, and the enemy hero cannot directly interfere with that, nor can you directly stop them from lasthitting your creeps. It's a lot more one-dimensional and dull. In DotA, you can. Harassment exists in both games.
 
Fishin said:
LoL punishes you less for bad play, and rewards good play less.
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Bad play is punished with defeat and good play is rewarded with victory. This is true in any game without wildly random effects, which LoL has less of than DotA. Games are not competitive, people are. If people strive to be good at LoL (and for 5 million dollars they had damn well better), any argument about the game's competitive nature crumbles under scrutiny. It is sometimes called a "good casual game" because it is 30 times more successful than HoN. This is a rationalization, and a pety one.

I've provided multiple points as to why they are more important, and all you did was use them to go off on a tangent.
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You made points and I argued against them. Saying that I went off on tangents is like sticking your fingers in your ears.

To elaborate on runes then, yes vision is important for securing them first. This has nothing to do with team fights, as unlike in LoL you can easily pick up runes rather than commit to fighting a creep. Also unlike LoL, things like double damage and illusion do radically affect team fights but this is not being more skilled at team fighting, this is being more skilled at picking up runes. I brought up Smash Brothers not because of the randomness of items, but because of the notion that they create an environment where player skill is relied on less and the effects of these buffs more. You could say that it is also good to know when not to team fight due to the enemy controlling runes, but as you are so fond of saying this not exclusive to DotA.

in LoL you're attempting to to lasthit enemy creeps, and the enemy hero cannot directly interfere with that, nor can you directly stop them from lasthitting your creeps. It's a lot more one-dimensional and dull. In DotA, you can. Harassment exists in both games.
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Last hitting and denial are alike as I have admitted, the existence of one of these things is not the same thing as having both. This is a degree. I would be a poor player if I let my last hitting slip to harass the opponent more. I would be worse if I let my last hitting and denial slip in DotA. You could probably even make a Moba game in the future without either and if the laning phase was entirely just me and my opponent mano-a-mano then I'd be one happy player. I already conceded that maybe some players just have fun with denial. I do not.
 
stop your moronic arguing, jesus. let us celebrate the potential joy and/or distraught that dota2 will bring us all!!

if you are just here to argue about the superiority of lol / hon / dota / dota2 just stop (i realize i did this in the lol thread a while ago, but i concede my being in the wrong in that case).

who is enjoying these live games???
 
I wish I was, but I'm not. The matches I've seen were one sided AND long, so the worst of both worlds really. Then there is the lag. I really want to enjoy watching this but I don't. Still, I'll check out the beta if I can because it's hardly a finished game.
 
Well, Gabe Newell just said that Dota 2 is going to be out sometime in 2012 (rather than 2011). I think this is a good thing seeing how some of the things are clearly incomplete, and I don't see how they could have a 'successful' beta period in between Gamescom and the end of 2011 because of that.
 
I really hope it's not F2P. Unless they have an extremely robust system to deal with BM and all that other crap, the community will be just as bad as DotA (and that is wishful thinking).
 
Valve could definitely make it work as pay to play, it just feels natural for it to be free as both of its main competitors are and it's effectively a port of a very old game, not something created from the ground up. That plus LoL has shown that the microtransaction model works really well for this type of game and Valve has apparently seen a lot of success with microtransactions in TF2 as well.

mym vs virus match was good as was online kingdom vs whoever which had a pretty excellent finish. One thing that's kind of annoying about these matches though is that since not all heroes are ported to Dota2 yet, you end up seeing a lot of the same picks over and over. I'm more excited for the beta anyways, moba games are a lot more fun to watch than to play.
 
Honestly the heroes picked aren't too different from actual DotA matches (i.e Weaver and Windrunner are usually picked/banned). I just wish we could see some Pudge action. And god do I hate the acronym moba, such a shitty way to describe those kinds of games.
 
play to play might be an issue due to steam issues in China, and China is more than half of DotA's playerbase, lol.

@VonFiedler, a lot of the midgame heroes are not implemented, lycan and some other ones I can't remember. I discussed your opinion with a friend and the games are long for the aforementioned reason. Usually one sided and long are mutually exclusive, but you may have been watching the French team play or something, I mean, jeez, my team could beat them.
 
a lot of the big popular picks are there but many of the less popular but still viable ones aren't. It's also really weird seeing Weaver picked so frequently, the last time I played DotA (which was honestly ages ago) he was a favorite of mine and a lot of fun to play but complete garbage competitively.
 
nah, weaver is top pick / ban material, the combination of spammable low mana cost chasing /nuke / laning / escape mechanism, decent damage, especially with geminate attack and the bugs (which provide vision) and the possible use of medallion, in addition to his being a great radiance carrier and almost impossible to kill make him great.

atm in dota2 a lot of the top picks aren't available, lycan is pretty much the hugest force in the current meta, only thing that can really stand up to it later as a single hero is, like, spectre. otherwise you need bat / bm / clockwerk / vs or any combination thereof. i'm not sure if these are available but shadow demon / naix / invoker / visage / bat / brood / weaver are huge midgame forces that are shaping the current meta that make it more exciting and team battle filled, etc. which goes in way of explaining the current dota2 tournament's lack of fast games. basically, this meta is more similar to that of the 6.48b one, with most teams going 4/1 (4 gank 1 carry) or 3/2 (3 control / solo, 2 support / semi-gank) which makes for longer games, and an arguably less interesting meta.
 
Hero List:

1- Earthshaker
2- Clockwerk
3- Morphling
4- Vengeful Spirit
5- Crystal Maiden
6- Lion
7- Pugna
8- Ancient Apparition
9- Lich
10- Weaver
11- Windrunner
12- Shadow Fiend
13- Spectre
14- Enigma
15- Venomancer
16- Doom
17- Witch Doctor
18- Tidehunter
19- Enchantress
20- Puck
21- Chen
22- Lina
23- Storm Spirit
24- Beastmaster
25- Furion
26- Razor
27- Necrolyte
28- Dazzle
29- Nightstalker
30- Sven
31- Leshrac
32- Sniper
33- Tinker
34- Sandking
35- Rhasta
36- Anti Mage
37- Dark Seer
38- Pudge
39- Drow Ranger
40- Slardar
41- Mirana
42- Zeus
43- Tiny
44- Faceless Void
45- Axe
46- Viper

everyone but Axe and Pudge has been picked so far
 
Alot of leaks have been happening recently (just screenshots, no gameplay footage), so I thought I'd post some in case you haven't seen them already:

dota2_beta_18_09_2.jpg
dota2_beta_regional_matchmaking.jpg

There's also been a leak for hero sounds (and other sfx), not sure if it's legal to post the dl link so I'll just tell you to search for it.
 
Voice acting is generally good, and I love some of the hero-specific lines (Clockwerk saying "Stay right there Pudge, I'll come to you!" is probably my favorite), or how the heroes get progressively more annoyed at you if you try to use a spell that you don't have enough mana for/is on cd.
 
Ya, I'm loving the hero-specific banter (i.e. Lina and CM calling each other bitch and other stuff). I'm disappointed that Razor doesn't say "we are electric" (mainly because people said he did) but Jon St. John as Enigma is awesome.
 
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