Arcen Games

Other => Off Topic => : TheVampire100 December 11, 2016, 11:50:19 PM

: Dota 2- 7.00
: TheVampire100 December 11, 2016, 11:50:19 PM
Dota will release tomorrow their all-new major patch 7.00. This features a LOT of core gameplay changes, including new mechanics, a new hero, sadly no new items but tweaks to all heroes (no exceptions) and some other stuff.

The official page is here: http://www.dota2.com/700
Some stuff of this might still change till tomorrow.

A small summarization of the biggest changes. First, the map will get (again) a complete make-over. The map will now be divided on each side in two jungles instead of one, a bigger one and a smaller one. Both sides will have more creeps, including a second ancient creep camp. Bounty runes will also now spawn only in the jungle, not in the river anymore. Neutral camps will now respawn after two minutes instead of one. Happy stacking then, if you mess up you mess up good.
Roshan will now be located on the other side of the map (left side instead of right). I think he was there already in the earlier phases of the game but I don't remember.

Heroes cannot gain stats anymore from level ups. That is, the "stat gain bonus" that you can use instead of leveling up an ability. You still get the normal bonus depending on your hero. Instead you gain now talents at certain thresholds. These are at 10, 15, 20 and 25, so you can have 4 talents. At each point you can select between two different talents, for example you can select between a +10 stat bonus or a cooldown reduction for all your skills. The most powerful talents are of course reserved for level 25 and these are most of the time fitted for their hero. Wraith King does not need any Mana for his ultimate ressurraction anymore or a bigger boost on his vampiric aura.

Additionally to this some heroes get now scepter upgrades. One is really cringeworthy and that one is Slark. Already one of the most hated, most annoying heroes int he game he can now be even a bigger pest with a scepter. He can now apply his ultimate on allies around him. Also halves the cooldown of his ulti.
You can check all the talents and tweaks to heroes and items here: http://www.dota2.com/700/gameplay/

Illusions will now give gold and xp depending on the level of the hero. Phantomlancer and Chaos Knight can ow be lucrative farming ictims if they are not careful enough with their illusions.

They also add a new backpack that allows you to carry three additional items that don't work there but can be swapped out at any time (however, with a small cooldown until the item works). Great possibilities there in the pro scene. Also nice for supports that can carry there wards in there until they need them.

The new hero is no other than the Monkey King. His abilities seem a little off. He can jump on trees, I don't know if he is invulnerable or invisible there but at least he can easily cross the map and escape from enemies that way. He also can disguise himselfs as trees, runes and other stuff on the map, to confuse his enemies. This makes it really hard to get a grip on him I guess. Even more annoying than slark?
His ulti is rather underwhelming, it is Rikis Ulti all over again, basically he creates an areay where he attacks all enemies at once but in his case with illusions instead of backstabs.



Also, the players for some reason don't like this patch at all. The rage is very real in the official forum, it is so toxic, you need to take a gas mask in there.

I'm actually a little excited. And a little scared because the most annoying heroes int he game just got a lot more annoying. But hey, that's Dota ina nutshell, you will always find that one game where you get curbstomped by a powerful hero that is hard to counter because you and your team picked the wrong items and heroes and realize too late what you actually need.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Misery December 12, 2016, 12:48:41 AM
Also, the players for some reason don't like this patch at all. The rage is very real in the official forum, it is so toxic, you need to take a gas mask in there.

Ah yeah, I heard about that.

From what I understand, the basic reason for much of the rage is that the thing like the "talents" bit is *ahem*  "dumbing down the game!  Making it for casuals!".  Because, you know, accessibility is a terrible, sinful thing.  As usual, I reiterate that most gamers don't actually know what "hardcore" really means.  I saw a video from TB that had a lot to do with this, and he made a good point:  The whole "stats upgrade" bit is busywork at best.  In other words, utterly devoid of A: skill or B: tactical choices.  It's the sort of thing that's already super-optimized by the playerbase, so all you ACTUALLY do is memorize it and then input the correct choice at the correct moments.  That's not interesting or strategic, and it's not something that feels important like grabbing a new item or getting a new power.  And this game is STUFFED with things like that.  Making them less bloody arbitrary doesn't reduce the damn challenge or depth.  It just makes things less pointlessly annoying.  That sort of thing is "fake difficulty" as it's finest.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: TheVampire100 December 12, 2016, 01:23:35 AM
If anything at all, the new talents give the game even more depth, not less. It's the usual "This is new and I don't like it" attitude that long-term players have. Because they play the game for years they mean they own the game and have to decide what has to be in it and what not. They think they know better than the developers.

I don't aggree on all design choices but I think talents are the least harmful thing here. I still am glaring at Slark and his unecessary buff. He is not in a bracket where is overpowered or underpowered but he is annoying to deal with and if he has a good streak, he spins out of control really fast and all you can do is give up. But because Dota does not allow this, you have to sit through and let you kill multiple times. And Slark players like to dominate you, they use their ulti to kill you in your fountain which should be the only safe place left. They really want to humilate you, I never have seen toxier players than Slark players. Pudge is in a simliar spot but Slark is the uncrowned king of the dicks.
And the new changes give him just another good reason to be a dick to the enemy team. As if loosing wasn't bad enough, no, you have to bear all the taunts fromt he enemy team and that they chase you all down to the fountain. UGH!

Also Sniper get's an AOE Ulti, this is in two ways annoying. For the enemy team this is annoying because he can now group-snipe you, dealing big damage too fleeing players that cluster together.
For your own team it is annoying because he can now steal more kills at once with his ultimate. Normalle I say there is no thing as "killsteal" in a team fight but Sniper reserves a special spot because he does not have to be in the figth at all and can still get all the kills. Also he gets another range buff with the talents, so even more camping from afar. As Slark, Sniper is not one of the top tier heroes, he gets rarely picked in pro teams because he has a low teamplay value, so I guess the change is there to appeal the pro players. If he can hit multiple heroes at once with his skill, he can play better with specific heroes like Magnus or Enigma. This makes him now viable. But for the casual players this is another annyoing tweak, one of many.


I do however like the new strategic pre-game. Basically you can decide what heroes to pick even before the game begins (during the loading screen). This helps to flesh out better what heroes you should choose against the enemy group, decide what counters you need, what lanes you should take. I think this could help public games a lot.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Mánagarmr December 12, 2016, 02:05:11 AM
Because lowering the skill floor without really affecting the skill ceiling is clearly "dumbing down". I'm not really sure the DOTA community understands how much bloody busywork and unnecessary obtuseness there is in DOTA compared to other games in the same genre, and it IS absolutely hurting the game.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Mánagarmr December 12, 2016, 02:06:44 AM
TotalBiscuit's analysis. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUQEtluKKI4)
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Misery December 12, 2016, 03:24:56 AM
Because lowering the skill floor without really affecting the skill ceiling is clearly "dumbing down". I'm not really sure the DOTA community understands how much bloody busywork and unnecessary obtuseness there is in DOTA compared to other games in the same genre, and it IS absolutely hurting the game.

Yeah, pretty much.   Sadly, LOTS of gamers see their "hardcore" games in this very light:  Lower the skill floor and it's suddenly for "casuals".  This is idiotic.  Which is something I repeat FREQUENTLY but outside of this forum, nobody bloody listens.

Hell, that obtuseness and busywork is exactly WHY I stopped playing Dota.  It really, really is just full of it.  The last-hit thing is the worst of it for me, but.... it really was all sorts of elements.   Which is really too bad, as all of the OTHER stuff is so interesting.  If I wasn't so easily irritated I might have stuck with it.   Even despite the poisonous community.   But those elements sucked a lot of the fun out of it.  At some point I'd like to dive back in, but it hasn't happened yet, though I still have something of an interest.

I can think of fighting games and such that did this too... much as I love Guilty Gear, X2 pulled this crap with it's cancel system.  Two types:  Normal cancels, which eat half of your meter, and nonsensically-named "false" cancels, which only take 25%.  The normal ones made sense.... during any move, at any point after contact had been made, you could hit the button to cancel out of the animation.  It made a lot of special combos possible, and is still used in Arc's fighting games today.   The false cancels, however, were all sorts of stupid.  Only very specific moves could do them.  And you had to time it at EXACT points during the move.  These were like, a couple of frames long... that's the window in which you had to do them.  And then, you were expected not only to do this during heated combat, but ALSO to do them as part of long, complicated combos.  They were so stupidly difficult that even most high-level players could not do any.  I learned to do them, but it took ages and honestly, never felt like it added a damn thing to the game.  It was this bizarre, frustrating element that seemed shoehorned in just so that the developers could say their game had super advanced features (and this series is already EXTREMELY hard to learn to start with, probably moreso than any other fighting game).   And developers of hardcore games just tend to do this sort of thing.  They put something like that in because it carries the "advanced" or "hardcore" label, NOT because it's a genuinely good or deep addition to the game.    And plenty of singleplayer games pull this crap as well.  I could rattle off pages of examples of the roguelike genre doing this.

Honestly, the reactions that people have to this sort of crap always baffles me.  It's moreso just a bizarre form of blind loyalty than anything else.... except it seems more a loyalty to their own stupid pride than to the game or it's developers.  Like the players themselves wont be seen as amazingly skilled/hardcore if ANYTHING in their game is dumbed down.   Despite that, as Vampire puts it, something like this talent system is likely to only add MORE depth to DOTA.  It's a GOOD idea.  More specifically, it's the right kind of depth, instead of the totally pointless type that creates what could be called fake depth.


And all of this in a multiplayer game, where the majority of the challenge comes from the opposing players, not the game mechanics.  Even MUCH more casual titles can be equally difficult, when you're going up against players of real skill.  They don't NEED all of that obtuse stuff to do that.

A lot of interesting psychology as well as game design aspects/concepts at work here, really.

: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Mánagarmr December 12, 2016, 04:05:29 AM
I could rattle off pages of examples of the roguelike genre doing this.
What? What do you mean? Isn't it fun to have a "red potion" that, in one game heals you, and in another it's a lethal poison? Or why not a "weapon" and you can't even tell if it's a mace or a sword. But let's use it! Oh no, apparently it's shitty, lowers all your stats AND is cursed so you can't remove it. Enjoy your ruined run because of stupid mechanics.

Yeah...
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Misery December 12, 2016, 05:11:10 AM
I could rattle off pages of examples of the roguelike genre doing this.
What? What do you mean? Isn't it fun to have a "red potion" that, in one game heals you, and in another it's a lethal poison? Or why not a "weapon" and you can't even tell if it's a mace or a sword. But let's use it! Oh no, apparently it's shitty, lowers all your stats AND is cursed so you can't remove it. Enjoy your ruined run because of stupid mechanics.

Yeah...

I could rant on and on and on and on about just that ONE mechanic.  The whole "unidentified everything" bit.  Just.... so.... freaking.... stupid....

Granted, I HAVE seen the occaisional game that can manage to do it in a good way... I'm playing Unexplored recently (fantastic game, that) and the way it's designed and balanced, it's not too hard to find a RELIABLE and thought-out method of identifying scrolls and potions (pretty much everything else is identified to start with). So it doesn't feel like a broken mess based purely on RNG.  It actually feels like it ADDS SOMETHING, simply because the devs took the time to think it out.  It does have unidentified enchantments on equipment (but the equipment itself is identified) but actual curses are rare, and by the time you run into any of that, you've probably got the tools to deal with or avoid the bad ones entirely.  This is of course provided that your character doesn't auto-identify the thing, which happens randomly.

But most roguelike developers don't think it out even a bit.  There's no truly reliable strategy that you can come up with in something like Nethack (which I think is a bloody awful game in pretty much every way).  And then people just go on and on about how "Well I guess you just cant handle a REAL hardcore game, that's what it is" and I facepalm/desk/tree.  I just don't get how in the world that sort of thing could ever be considered good game design.  I mean, seriously, how does that add depth or enjoyment?

I just don't get things like that.  In any genre.  I know sometimes super-arbitrary elements of that sort can end up in a game kinda accidentally, but often they're on purpose, and it's like... what were they thinking here?


: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Mánagarmr December 12, 2016, 05:16:34 AM
I understand the idea behind unidentified items but the problem lies in that it becomes unnecessary busywork. Because all that's going to happen is that you will bring a pile of unidentified crap with you to town, mass identify them for a small amount of currency, and most likely sell the lot because loot-drop games love to shower you in useless crap.

I much prefer something like say Path of Exile, where crap is really plentiful but you can safely leave it on the ground, and magic and rarer items are unidentified in what specific bonuses they give, but the item type is readily visible. And most of the time in PoE you can ignore everything isn't a Rare item type you want, or a Unique. Just leave everything else.

The whole "everything is unidentified" is just busywork and REALLY dumb if there is no town mechanic and the only way to identify is to try it and spend your entire run's luck on RNG. How about NO?
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Misery December 12, 2016, 05:44:48 AM
Sadly, most games that go the "unidentified stuff" route do not use a system like that.  No paying in a town or anything in most roguelikes.  It's JUST that mechanic, by itself, no way around it, ever.

So one way or another you MUST use trial and error, usually in ways that absolutely can kill you even if you know what you're doing.  Somehow, this is apparently okay and doesn't diminish the quality of a "masterpiece" like Nethack.

That it's so freakishly common in the genre just makes it that much worse. 
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Wingflier December 12, 2016, 04:49:13 PM
For the life of me I can't understand why anybody would be resistant to these changes. It's what DotA has needed for an inordinate amount of time, and it's a been a long time coming.

Can you link some of the toxic forum posts Vampire100? I'm interested in reading the objections to these wonderful changes.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: TheVampire100 December 12, 2016, 05:17:25 PM
Link to posts? All I have to do is show you the Dota 2 forum at this moment: http://steamcommunity.com/app/570/discussions/
The whole page is full of these threads.
There is currently a trend of two types of threads. One are those that say that this changes are cancerous and will ruin Dota because elements of an "inferioir" Moba are used in Dota.

The other site tries to defend the changes and calls out the complainers and tell them to stop.

This was probably the worst one until it got closed: http://steamcommunity.com/app/570/discussions/0/1843493219425725603/
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: TheVampire100 December 12, 2016, 11:37:21 PM
The patch is now live, I'm currently downloading it. I'm a little excited about it. If anyone ever wants to play with me, just send me a message either here or on Steam.
Would be interesting if we could form an Arcen forum team.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Mánagarmr December 13, 2016, 02:36:26 AM
Link to posts? All I have to do is show you the Dota 2 forum at this moment: http://steamcommunity.com/app/570/discussions/
The whole page is full of these threads.
There is currently a trend of two types of threads. One are those that say that this changes are cancerous and will ruin Dota because elements of an "inferioir" Moba are used in Dota.

The other site tries to defend the changes and calls out the complainers and tell them to stop.

This was probably the worst one until it got closed: http://steamcommunity.com/app/570/discussions/0/1843493219425725603/
Too bad he's just a troll. There's no way anyone is that stupid. The absolutely most weird part is that he spent all that time raging over the game, yet when I visited the thread, guess what he was playing?
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Wingflier December 13, 2016, 04:24:37 AM
Steam clocks me at having played DotA 2 for over 2,000 hours. However, the amount of time I played DotA 1 in my childhood (started around 16, I'm 29 now) probably puts the total time playing DotA between 15,000-20,000 hours of my life.

Having said that, I hope I've imparted to you the graveness of my honesty when I share that within the past year, I had essentially decided I was never going to play DotA again. Because after nearly 15 years of playing, the game had not changed or improved in any meaningful way, in a market of MOBA games which thrive off of interesting and inspirational improvements on the original formula.

I never expected anything like this to happen. I would sooner have believed a miracle than if someone had told me a few months ago DotA 2 would have changed this radically. I'm amazed that people could be upset about that.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: TheVampire100 December 13, 2016, 09:25:27 AM
People call it now already Dota 3 mockingly. I've played one match so far and looking at the map that might not be so far from stretch.

It feels weird but that's because I'm not used to it. You get the same feeling to any Moba when you play it for the first time. The new sop HUD looks... weird and isn't intuitive to use. Will need some time to get around that. But what's good now, you can add your own items to the recommended page of the shop, so you can decide in game what you want to buy at what stage at the game.
Also it's now devided into start, early game, mid game and late game plus situational instead of only early, mid and situational.

I played only one match as Sand King so far but all I have to say is, Bots are now even worse than before. Looks like they didn't redo the bot behaviour for the new map, you can clearly see that they are overwhelmed by it. They cannot find paths and often simply stand at one single point. Even if you attack them, they won't move very far, they simple go back and forth. That explains why players can now design and download their own bots, Valve simply didn't care anymore and said Okay, do it yourself if you want good bots, we're out."
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Wingflier December 16, 2016, 07:52:31 AM
So I played my first game of DotA 7.0 the other day and at first I was a little worried. It didn't feel like DotA anymore. The screen was way zoomed out, making me feel like I was playing an RTS (which I actually enjoy, I hate it being zoomed in, but that's also part of what makes DotA, DotA). There were 6 rune spawns up from 2. There were 6 fountains up from 2. The entire layout of the map had changed. The talents, the pacing, the neutral camps, Roshan, the shops. Everything just felt differently, like I wasn't even playing DotA anymore, and while I enjoyed all the improvements, it made me a little sad.

But then after all my teammates started verbally abusing each other and raging over trivial things, and there was still no concede option leading to pointlessly prolonged and frustrating games, I breathed a sigh of relief. It's still the same game I know and love.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Misery December 16, 2016, 08:34:48 AM
On a whim, I went and looked at the store page for the game and the "reviews", sorta having an idea as to what I might see there.

And yep, I was right.  Nothing but thumbs down, and ALL of them were "OMG 7.0 RUINED IT"  or "Now it's LEAGUE OF THE ANCIENTS, not DOTA anymore!!!" or other truly brilliant comments.

I mean, seriously... it's expected, but still brainmelting anyway.



On a side note, I wonder if anyone will ever manage to come up with bots that aren't horrible.  A friend of mine really likes this game, but utterly refused to play VS others due to the fact that the community was so loathesome... he played it a lot with bots but of course that meant his experience was limited since the things are just so freaking stupid.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: TheVampire100 December 16, 2016, 11:54:44 AM
Yep, it's still Dota. I admit that I get irritated a lot by the new style. Since the 7.0 update I lost a lot of matches. But I also won some. Since I'm so confused on the new map and the HUD and everything I blame myself for those losses. The stats basically say the same, my death rate is a lot higher.
I also had one good game yesterday as Sven but I think this was more because of my team. It was a really good team. Stacking Ancients is still possible, even witht he new timers. That is, if there is not this new Satyr Ancient present. This thing auto-roots you on its first hit, ruining the stack. Having a ranged creep or a ranged hero will make this easier but tough luck if you are a melee hero. They should have thought about this better in my opinion, especially since you now have to wait two minutes to stack again.

Also, about negative opinions and that: I really wish these people would take their words more seriously. A lot of these people that complain play the game anyway, just to complain even more about it. I had an Axe in one of my matches that pointed the lack of his counter helixes to 7.0 and said the patch ruined the game. 7.0 didn't change anythign at th chance of counterhelix, it's the typically ignorant hate that players have.

On the theme of bots: Players can now design their own bots and even before that was a thing people tried to come up with ideas for better bots. The current bots are just... terrible. I think Valve missed the opportunity to fit the bots to the new map and everything. They are clearly unable to cope with the new map, they walk around in an erratic manner. Some of them just stand at one spot and don't move at all.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Aklyon December 16, 2016, 03:07:09 PM
On a side note, I wonder if anyone will ever manage to come up with bots that aren't horrible.
People do occasionally lose to bots in World of Warships Co-op. But its a rare sight and usually involves heavy sighs.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Wingflier December 16, 2016, 05:29:49 PM
On a whim, I went and looked at the store page for the game and the "reviews", sorta having an idea as to what I might see there.

And yep, I was right.  Nothing but thumbs down, and ALL of them were "OMG 7.0 RUINED IT"  or "Now it's LEAGUE OF THE ANCIENTS, not DOTA anymore!!!" or other truly brilliant comments.
*Quickly scrambles to the DotA review page.*

(5 minutes later)

Holy shit.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Wingflier June 19, 2017, 11:41:44 PM
I know, Necro and all that (technically we're still on the front page but anyway)

This is why I think DotA is the original and still the best MOBA out there:

https://www.theflyingcourier.com/2017/6/19/15831478/virtus-pro-unique-heroes-picked-81-dota-summit-7

In a recent tournament, VP picked an entirely new roster of heroes...16 games in a row, and did well. That's not a feat that I believe would be possible in any other MOBA, simply because of the way most of them are designed where certain heroes are just objectively better than others at specific roles. It's the fluidity and dynamic flexibility of hero roles in DotA that allows them all to have a place, instead of a select few that excel in a very narrow role.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Misery June 20, 2017, 12:47:14 AM
Wow, a necro all the way from December.  We get all sorts of derailments on this forum, but a major necromancing of a topic is oddly rare.

Actually the genre as a whole has been on my mind a bit to be honest, as I've lacked much in the way of a good challenge outside of shmups and whatever you call Isaac-ish games.  I might give HotS a try again, the main draw being that super direct communication (talking) isn't as needed there.  Which is really the main thing keeping me from retrying any of the others.  Well, that and a lack of bots that present something of a threat.  If these games had GOOD and challenging AI, I'd already be playing them.... in singleplayer fashion.  But they don't.  Feh.  Same with every other multiplayer genre ever. 

Without that though I'm just as reluctant as ever to try to do much of anything involving multiplayer.  Just... ugh.  Not exactly a fan of having to interact with people directly.  Particularly when the people I'd be interacting with are pretty much made of poison.  Otherwise, I might consider giving Dota another go here.  Granted, chances are the last-hit thing would still push me away, but who knows. 

I've totally forgotten where I was going with any of this. I had a point to make, related to the topic at hand, but now I cannot recall what it was.  Which means that I've done my job, clearly.

: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Mánagarmr June 20, 2017, 03:13:31 AM
I was reading this as a new post, then noticed I'd replied twice and went "what?" Checked the date.

That's some world class necromancy there.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: TheVampire100 June 20, 2017, 10:05:16 AM
Wow, a necro all the way from December.  We get all sorts of derailments on this forum, but a major necromancing of a topic is oddly rare.

Actually the genre as a whole has been on my mind a bit to be honest, as I've lacked much in the way of a good challenge outside of shmups and whatever you call Isaac-ish games.  I might give HotS a try again, the main draw being that super direct communication (talking) isn't as needed there.  Which is really the main thing keeping me from retrying any of the others.  Well, that and a lack of bots that present something of a threat.  If these games had GOOD and challenging AI, I'd already be playing them.... in singleplayer fashion.  But they don't.  Feh.  Same with every other multiplayer genre ever. 

Without that though I'm just as reluctant as ever to try to do much of anything involving multiplayer.  Just... ugh.  Not exactly a fan of having to interact with people directly.  Particularly when the people I'd be interacting with are pretty much made of poison.  Otherwise, I might consider giving Dota another go here.  Granted, chances are the last-hit thing would still push me away, but who knows. 

I've totally forgotten where I was going with any of this. I had a point to make, related to the topic at hand, but now I cannot recall what it was.  Which means that I've done my job, clearly.

No offense here, but HotS is a piece of crap. Played it multiple times, bounced off multiple times. The game lacks any strategic depth that make Mobas so great. Blizzard decided to ban all items on their Moba and the result is, the outcome of the match pretty much relies on the heroes you pick.
The reason why Dota is so awesome and still the supremacy in the genre is simply because no other Moba has such a balance with so many heroes. Literally everything is viable (hell there are even videos about crazy attempts that still succeed). The reason for that is how the item system works.
Heroes counter each other in specific ways, just like in other mobas, but that does not mean you are screwed, because you are countered or have no counter for the enemy team. Dota has item counters for everyone of the 112 heroes. If you screwed up and didn't get a counter against a strong Anti Mage or a annoying Slark, you can buy an item, that fixes the problem, like Rod of Athos, to keep anti Make from escaping all the time.
Items are very important in Mobas because they not only fledge out what your hero can do but also can make up for weaknesses or even entirely new strategies. Most other Mobas have only items, that enhance the natural abilities of the hero (Smite is a very good example of this) but Dota manages it with its item system to give entirely new ways to play a hero.
HotS lacks any of this and they thought some sort of RPG talent system would make up for that lack. It doesn't. It could, if you had actually big choices between multiple talents instead of "Choose this or this". Blizzard screwed this game up so much in favor of casual players.

Also, the "M" in Moba stands for Multipalyer. There is no point to search for one, that favors singleplayer or even remotely tries to make a really good one. If you want to play a Moba, you just have to swallow it and paly with others. Simply mute everyone rigth at teh start of the match for no reason and you are good to go. Communication is really overrated in Dota, a lot of people they it's necessary and that's of course true in a way but the fact is, people abuse communication more for their personal vendettas instead of actually making important, strategic discussions. And if you need to tell somethign important, pings and chat commands (which are translated in every language) are always aviable, even muted. So you can just use that to tell others what to do or what your intention is.
A big problem with dota or in general any Moba, is, that people forget, what the objective is. It's to bring down the buildings with the end goal to bring down the ancient. People play this like their general shooter or deathmatch game, where you just kill everyone on sight if you can. And they get aggressive, if they die in fights. People stop attackign a tower just to chase another player right into their base or across the map. Its really gross, how people think that another kill is more important than to destroy a tower, whic stays permanent, while a player simply respawns.

Anyway, if you really want to have no problems in Dota (or any Moba), you should look for people that play with you, even if that seems totally out of this world for you. Playing with at least one person you know is better than playing with 4 random strangers you never seen before and will never see again. That way you have at least one perspn, you can remotely rely on.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Misery June 21, 2017, 07:33:21 AM
I probably wouldn't play Dota anyway though.

The last-hitting obsession that the game has:  I ended up totally loathing it.  I actually consider it one of the worst game mechanics I've seen in the past few years, period.   There's soooooooooo many other ways a game can add in skill-based concepts to improve the depth and difficulty.  Instead they chose.... that.  And then pushed it to a ridiculous degree.  Even when I was getting past the multiplayer bit, I was then shoved away by that mechanic.  It was enough to do that.  It gave me the *exact* same feeling as grinding in a bad JRPG.  And for me to say that, is basically the biggest single negative comment I can conceivably throw at any one game, and one that is very rare to hear from me.  I'm aware I can be pretty darned negative at times, but to get THAT negative is rare even for me.

The item system now, on one hand I kinda agree. On the other hand, I kinda don't.  I always really liked the idea of that in that genre as a whole.  But the way it tended to work was... usually a little irritating and stale.  There tended to always be a "best" way to build, and everyone everywhere just copies that.  Kinda like playstyles and techniques in a fighting game:  Nobody comes up with their own, just... because.   And Dota's items in particular, I found very confusing.  I was never sure what in the bloody hell to do with them half the time, provided I could even remember what they did.  Which was rare, no matter how much of the game I played or watched.  Note that I'm the same one that has put 400 hours into Isaac, yet I still need the mod that displays item effects on screen because I *still* cant remember what probably 60% of them do despite having seen them all as often as I have.  So that was a problem I ran into very quickly and very often.  Not just in Dota, but in the other games too, albeit to a slightly lesser degree.  But yeah, trying to learn the items in that game was like trying to learn Dwarf Fortress all over again:  Even 50 separate videos on the topic would only just get me started.  Except then I'd forget a lot of that since the very nature of it confuses me.

And honestly, I'd be terrible at coming up with builds of my own anyway.  I don't have the undying patience to theorycraft, cant do math of any sort whatsoever anyway, and even if I did those things, I wouldn't be able to remember what the build was after coming up with it.  Now yes, you can change things up on the fly and not go off of a static build, but.... doesn't work if you cant remember what things do or what use they may have overall.  Trying that usually ended up making for a random jumble of items that likely made no sense together.

But yeah, beyond those two things, just..... ugh.  I hate having to deal with people THAT much. I'm an autistic misanthrope, which isn't exactly a social combination.  I'm aware that I can mute everyone, but one way or another, I'm still dealing with other players, and in a game that's already bloody irritating, that pushes it a bit too far.  In some other multiplayer games like, say, Overwatch?   I can put up with the stupid, simply because the game itself is a blast.  It can be aggravating to watch someone do something super dumb and ruin stuff, but it didn't ruin the game.  But in Dota?  Too much.  PARTICULARLY in a game where the matches are so.... freaking... long.  When the frustration train gets going in that game, it tends to last for a bloody hour.

And you're right, many players tended NOT to play the damn objective like they should have.  They just wanted TEH KILLZ all the time.  Like they never played the tutorial or anything and didn't learn the win condition.  Or they'd just do all sorts of seriously stupid stuff.  Hell, one reason why I ended up almost entirely playing support characters was to save other players from their own idiocy.  That's pretty much what my actual role was.  Waiting for someone to do something stupid, and pulling them back from the edge of the cliff they were about to walk off.  Considering the sheer complexity and difficulty of the game, MANY players acted like that.

All of that is why I always wanted competent bots.  The damn things, if done right, would at least know their roles and always stick to them. Hell, there's someone I know that loves Dota but just outright *refuses* to play non-bot games, for all the reasons listed here, even despite how dumb the things are.   

And nobody I know, outside of the one guy that plays the bot matches, would play something like that with me.  Everyone I know is, well... very stereotypical AAA gamers.  All they do is the latest shooter or major JRPG or stuff like Fallout.  The closest any of them come to breaking from that mold is that ONE of them does play fighting games with me, but that's it.  It's gotten to the point where I don't even discuss gaming with them anymore, because it's a bloody waste of time.  I'll chat with people on Steam sometimes, sure, but that's about it.  And even there, it's hard to find anyone with similar interests.


As it is, to some degree I can understand why Blizzard went with an easier approach.  The rest of the genre is just so.... obtuse.  LoL and Smite are a lot less brain-melting than Dota, but still extremely complicated.  And they still had issues that pushed me away really.  LoL's combat was great fun, but had huge balance issues, and Smite had.... er.... something.  I cant remember what it was, it's been quite awhile. 

I mean, I get why a lot of players hate it when things like this dumbed down.  But after so much time with the genres that I am into, like fighting games (specifically, the extremely hard to learn ones), roguelikes, and shmups, I've grasped some of the reasons for accessibility in game design like that.   Particularly in multiplayer games.

Going into something like HotS, I wouldn't expect massive amounts of depth, anymore than I would from a typical Overwatch match.  But to me, at this point, that's just fine.  I've got the other genres I'm into when I want major depth, complexity, and challenge.  Dialing it down in a multiplayer game has turned out to be something I don't actually mind too much, as long as it's not in a fighting game (where I just get bored fast).

Of course, that's all provided I decide to give that a go at all.  Havent chosen one way or another yet.  Particularly as games like Isaac, Caveblazers, and 20XX are constantly gobbling up my time lately.  Addictive genre, that.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Wingflier June 21, 2017, 07:51:48 PM
The last-hitting obsession that the game has:  I ended up totally loathing it.  I actually consider it one of the worst game mechanics I've seen in the past few years, period.
Okay but realize that it isn't a mechanic that comes from the past few years, it's a mechanic that's over 15 years old.

It stands as one of the core fundamentals of DotA, and it's taken straight from the gameplay of the Warcraft 3 engine in which the player who received the last hit on any neutral enemy would receive the gold and experience from that enemy, regardless of who did more damage to it. This, in Warcraft 3, opened up a lot of strategy for sniping and stealing another player's hard work, and was translated, as-is, to the DotA formula. But Warcraft 3 came out in 2002, so it's not like a new and inventive "feature" by any stretch of the imagination.

It would be like someone complaining about dribbling in Basketball. Yes, maybe it's stupid and it shouldn't be there but it's become such a fundamental part of the game now that it's unlikely to be removed for reasons of tradition and the fact that everybody grew up playing that way.

In any case there are plenty of other MOBAs out there that have removed it completely (Heroes of the Storm) or altered it (Smite), and your mileage may vary on whether it was a positive or negative change.

: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: TheVampire100 June 21, 2017, 08:38:26 PM
As Winglfier already said, it's a fundamental aspect of the game and by no means "outdated". Last hitting is important, so players can distribute farm between them while the oppsite players have a way to destroy farm outside of killing the enemy player. I know that when I was a new player, I kegleted this mechanic, as most new players do. It's simply easier to auto-attack. Some people still auto-attack in my bracket and this weeds them out as worse players compared to the rest of the team because they simply cannot get any farm at all.
As I played dota for longer, I started to practice last hitting in bot matches. dota had last hitting training back then which they removed int he Reborn client. Eventually you pretty much get used to it to the point,t hat you don't even focus on it anymore. It's simply instinctive, you don't focus and can do it just fine. Depends of course on the hero but on ehroes, that you paly regulary, it's easier to hit last hits passively because you know the mechanics already and get a feel for when to hit. It was annyoing when i started Dota but isn't anymore, in fact, this is the smalles issue I would have with this game. It annoys mer way more if I see people that don't last hit and just auto attack 8 a friend of mine, who is a terrible player, does this regulary, mostly when he looses patience).

Also, there are farm items, items that help you get quickly farmw ithout focusing much on hitting the right moment. desolator, Battle Fury, Maelstrom. Many of these items are useful in fights too and that's why most carries build these first. It speeds up the farm for their more prctical items while giving them also a nice edge in team fights.

About builds: There is this term "cookie cutter build" and practically means that a player just uses a pre-made build for his character without thinking on his own. New players do this, inexperienced or pretty much bad players do this very often (my friend I mentioned before for an example rarely strays away from the default build or builds he saw on the internet).  The default build is there to give players a geneal direction on what the hero needs in most games or, more importantely, what items are good with him. They help to get a general grasp of how the hero is played and what his purpose is. Sniper, simply the easiest hero to play, is a perfect example of this. All his items in his default build help him to enhance his natural abilites but the better you get, the more you get a feeling what other items might work on him.
Especially in the lowest tiers people buy Shadowblade on him. Which is good, because these people don't have a feeling when to withdraw from battles and realize int he last minute, that tehy have to escape. Shadowblade works always int hese situations, because invsible means, no one can hit you. The better you get, the more people you will meet, that know however, how to counter invisibility. Snipers only chance to get out is practically useless now. Experienced palyers than discard Shadowblade for a more practical item, like Hurricane Pike or Blink Dagger, to get out of danger before its too late.

Getting a feeling for items takes a long time too, in general Mobas take a lot time to learn. It took me huge amounts of time to learn every single item in the game but now I know what everything does. I canot tell you the exact amount of stats, that an item will give you, but I can give you a general purpose/use of an item. This helps me to speed up my decicions because I don't have to look up first, what an item does. I simply know I need more attack speed, so I know what items I have to look for.
Not remembering stuff in Mobas (anyone, even HotS) places you in the lowest bracket of the playerbase. These games are mostly aroudn memorizing stuff and what looks impossibly first, eventually gets into your brain until you realize it. I never thought I would learn all of them but I did. And they stilla re adding new ones to the game. After you knwo the items (or at least the most important ones) all you have to do is figure out, what kind of hero you want to be.
And in this case you don't have to follow strict lines. Bristleback can be a tank, a nuker and even a carry. And depending on what of the 3 you want to play, you simply aplly your items to it. Tank means lot of items that increase survivability, HP, armor, magic resistance and all that stuff. that way you can take huge amounts of damage. Nuker means, you focus on his natural ability to deal out tons of damage in short cooldowns (whcih he has plenty to offer). Add items to your build, that buff the damage of his abilities, in his case he deals physical damage, so everything that reduces armor is a great item for him.
Carry means you work more on his ultimate passive that increases his damage as long as he casts his abilities. If you combine this with big attack speed, you can punch enemies into a pulp.
Getting familiar with what a hero can do and what you want him to do is a lot of fun, you can experiment with it a lot in Dota and you would be surprised, how much of this stuff still works fine. Not everything works or at least not that great compared to other stuff but it's part of the fun to find this out yourself. That and of course dominating and humilating your enemies to the end.

: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Misery June 22, 2017, 11:00:00 AM
One way or another, to me, all of that is totally irrelevant as long as the last-hit mechanic is in place.  There's a reason why I say it's as bad as I phrased it above... I'm not exaggerating when I said that.  It's *that* bad to me.  Even the #*(%&-ing "unidentified crap" mechanic in roguelikes doesn't irritate me even close to as much, and THAT is saying something.  I could do a 5 page rant on why I hate that one.  But yeah, one way or another, I just hate it.  The really major thing that kept me playing at all was simply that I almost exclusively played support heroes, and THEY don't last hit a bloody thing.  Too busy warding and pulling the carry's face out of that wall of chainsaws that he just walked into.  However, it DID keep me from wanting to do other roles, and any time I did, I tended to just get overly annoyed.

Yes, maybe it's stupid and it shouldn't be there but it's become such a fundamental part of the game now that it's unlikely to be removed for reasons of tradition and the fact that everybody grew up playing that way.

Yes, many players in games get used to stuff like.  *I* have gotten used to things like the godforsaken unidentified crap in roguelikes for instance.  I've played too many of these now, and my skill level is at the point where the "potion" type items cannot end my run in whatever game it is (not counting traditional roguelikes like Nethack, I don't really play those).  But that doesn't make it any less bloody stupid, and it sure doesn't mean that future games should use it.

Something like basketball doesn't work for comparison.  Why?  That's not a simple videogame:  That's a form of entertainment of monstrous size that has become it's own entity.  Kazillions of dollars get spent on that sport constantly.  Of *course* they aren't going to change it, and in that case, I cant blame them.   But when it comes to a video game aping an old one simply because "that's how the previous ones did it", that seriously doesn't work as a good reason.  These games are created anew each time, and each time the developers have a chance to do things in a new way.  Simply choosing a mechanic for that sort of reason isn't a good thing.

Obviously, the mechanic isn't going away in Dota even if it should.  I know this.  The game is too huge now for something as ingrained as that to change.  It'd be like Street Fighter switching to a four-button control scheme for attacks; it might make more sense in many ways but it's just too big now.


As for items?  Honestly, it doesn't matter how much time I spend playing a game like that:  I wont remember what the items do.   I know this bit is hard to understand, everyone always assumes that if I do something enough I *must* be able to eventually remember it, but.... no, that's not the case.  Even in fighting games, ones that I have *thousands* of hours in.... I cannot remember combos.  Never could. Not even in Guilty Gear, which has gotten a couple thousand hours out of me on it's own.  So my combos end up coming out all jumbled every single time (and I don't have to be "rusty" for this to happen).  I have to make up for this with sheer speed in order to win.   That's why, like I said, I need that item explanation thing in Isaac; because otherwise I alt-tab out of the game half the time when I walk into an item room to go check PlatinumGod and see what the blasted thing does.  After 400 hours in Rebirth, and who knows how many in the original.  I cant remember what half the stuff in Starward does either, and I'm on the freaking dev team.  I cant remember what *my* stuff does until it's started firing at me sometimes.  Yes, this is as stupid as it sounds.  I can say that it makes the job of balancing difficulty a bit harder than it needs to be.  Makes all the shmups harder too.

Now granted, standing around in the, er, core area in a moba, you can read item descriptions and such without getting attacked, just like I'd do in a roguelike. However it depends on the game as to how effective this is, since you need to not spend too much time doing this. In Smite for instance, it was a good bit easier, as some elements of the game caused items to be a bit simpler, and I didn't have to spend as much time examining them to see where they might fit. Their use was a bit more obvious and a lot of "purchases" were actually simply upgrading something that you'd already bought, which was a very direct process. It'd still take me longer than it would any other player, but it worked out.  Dota though?  There's too much complexity there for my way to work.  It took me ages to buy anything, and I *never* used the courier because that was basically suicide (as I learned quickly).  Cant just stand in the combat zone for 20 minutes staring at the items.  So that was a problem.  Which is frustrating, since as I said I like the concepts behind the whole idea of items in any of these games. I really do think it's a very interesting part of the genre for the same reason that I like the concept of shops in roguelikes.  I cant change how my memory works though (or doesn't work, as the case may be).


But.... eh.  Even with all of that, the fact of having to deal with idiots still is there.  Because it's true that I could just go into the game and go back to support role like I always did (which lessened damn near every problem I have with the game otherwise), but.... seriously, watching teammates walk into deathrays and then blame it on the guy who was 20 miles away just... got old.


I've forgotten where I was going with any of this, bah.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: TheVampire100 June 22, 2017, 12:32:26 PM

Something like basketball doesn't work for comparison.  Why?  That's not a simple videogame:  That's a form of entertainment of monstrous size that has become it's own entity.  Kazillions of dollars get spent on that sport constantly.  Of *course* they aren't going to change it, and in that case, I cant blame them.   But when it comes to a video game aping an old one simply because "that's how the previous ones did it", that seriously doesn't work as a good reason.  These games are created anew each time, and each time the developers have a chance to do things in a new way.  Simply choosing a mechanic for that sort of reason isn't a good thing.
Uh, you do realize that Dota is probably the most massive Esport/professional Moba to date 8aside from LoL) and the prices for tournaments rank among the millions? The current prize pool was at 16 million already when I last checked and it's still growing. Prize pools from teh international are even financed by the playerbase, that spends money on cosmetics and stuff. A good amount of this money goes directly to the prize pool, contributing to the winning prize for participants. And they still constantly change the game in different ways, 7.00 threw off all the pro players because it changed the game fundamentally.
The last hit mechanic is simply int here because it gives the players a good way to influence the outcome of the game besides simply killing other players or destroying towers.
I don't even think this should go away but I can see,w hy other people would be annoyed with it. It constantly forces you to concentrate on the game and not making any mistakes.
However, since 7.000 it has become ridiculousy easy to get last hits, they even changed the name now to "CS" (creep score) I think this was the term int he old DotA). Quelling blade, blight stone and of course talents give you such a big boost against hitting creeps, I don't even have to focus on this anymore.

As for items?  Honestly, it doesn't matter how much time I spend playing a game like that:  I wont remember what the items do.   I know this bit is hard to understand, everyone always assumes that if I do something enough I *must* be able to eventually remember it, but.... no, that's not the case.  Even in fighting games, ones that I have *thousands* of hours in.... I cannot remember combos.  Never could.

I guess you simply have a bad memorization. Some people can do this better than others. It's simply like that. And Mobas, all of them, even HotS (but to a lmuch lesser extend) require to memorize stuff, that's why I never recommend people, that simply cannot do it, to play them. Of course they still can play and might still get some amount of fun out of them but they miss the big point of the game and migth never be good players. Reflexes in Mobas bring you only so far. This more for somethign like shooters.
Problem is, if you don't remember stuff, you don't know what soemthing does and don't know what could work against that. It's a chain that grows with every segmet that you don't remeber and gets only worse. And since they add new stuff, you will get more and more problems to react.


Problem with the Dota community is, people tend to overestimate their own power. They think they have a strong character and are unkillable, which they aren't. And then they blame it on the person that didn't walk into a five man team stack to die liek them and say, they died because no one healed them or anything other stupid like that.
People like to dive towers a lot just to chase a single person with 5% health. They might get them but they might also die int he process, loosing gold anyway. And you can bet that tehse people won't move a single finger to get on your lane to help you (if they even have a tp scroll, that thing is so freaking cheap right now and still no one buys it) if there are 5 people. And, oh dear, pushing their lane, which would otherwise be also good, is also not in the program. Nope, they tend to go in the jungle because it's way easier to auto attack a creep there isntead of the lane, because they cannot beat a creep in last hitting. Genius. I even ban Legion Commander on almost all my games because of this because I'm so tired to see LC palyers directly wandering into the jungle. when I play LC, I go into the lane and are already ten times better than them. I rarely see a LC player who even understands what LC makes good.

Anyway, the problem really is, people don't udnerstand how a game liek this is played. they simply play it like a RPG deathmatch where it only depends that you kill the enemy team. Which is bullshit, you kill them, so they don't interrupt you while you attack the tower. If they cannot stop you anyway, just keep going for the tower, but nope, let's dive the entire lane to their base where the rest of the team already awaits you. Let's ping the people that didn't save me and destroyed the tower instead.

I would have won my last game for an example if the Weaver player would have attacked the tier 4 towers of the ancient (the final towers) but instead wandered of to pus the lane towards the barracks, so he can destroy the tower 3 tower and the barracks there. I destroyed one tower bt got killed by the respawned enemy team whiel weaver still tried to destroy the barracks before dying himself. We lost eventually despite having multiple chances to end the game. It are these moments, that are very fristrating, especially if you knew you made everything correct. I can only do so much as tank Bristleback with zero damage build. I was lucky I could even destroy ONE tower. End points even showed, I had more building damage than Lifestealer who was a carry and therefor should attack towers. People honestly think carries are the role, that kills the enmy team. And this is true in some sense but the main focus is, that a crarry can chip through a tower very quickly with their high attack speed.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Wingflier June 22, 2017, 03:20:51 PM
I would say that it probably won't be long before Esports overtakes actual sports in terms of both popularity and monetary gain.

Exercise, fitness, and physical activity certainly isn't getting any more popular in the most obese country on Earth, while the popularity and profit of video games continues to rise like clockwork.

It is in the best interest of games like DotA 2 to maintain their popularity as probably the most profitable E-Sport in the world, and if they changed the last hitting mechanics chances are they lose a HUGE percentage of their playerbase.

Like I said there are tons of alternative MOBAs that have altered or removed that mechanic completely (one which I'm going to make a new thread about in a bit), but it doesn't seem like MOBAs are your thing anyway, which I can't blame you for but yeah.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: TheVampire100 June 22, 2017, 05:45:45 PM
The problem with Mobas is also, if you select one to paly regulary, there is almost no chance, that you can play a second one. These games are so complex and require such a big amount of knowledge, that its hard to maintain two games regualry.
Learnign Dota took me like forever and while I branch out here and there and look up other Mobas, I bounce off because it would require me a lot of time to learn them too and this would take me additonally away from Dota.
HotS is somehow in an extra spot because... there is not much to learn there. Once you learn the heroes, you are done. It's a casual game that is made for casual gamers. Ideal fi you don't have the time or motiviation to learn such a game but not ideal for people that like something more complex. The strategy possibilities in HotS are very limiting.

Battleborn had a nice concept and a similiar casual nature like HotS and Smite but the developers failed in multiple parts to make the game mass appealing and even the f2p launch failed so hard, that the game will never recover.

Smite is a cool action concept but the controls are terrible unless you decide to change them. Then it's okay. But Smite has the problem, it's hard to look up, what the other heroes do during a match. between amtches, no problem but you have no chance to look it up during the match itself unless you are willing to sacrifice time/your focus. This means you have to learn these between matches and remember them all.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Misery June 23, 2017, 03:48:16 AM
When it comes to the whole last-hit thing, indeed, I never thought Dota would ever be free of it, which is why it's mostly pointless for me to have a go at it.  Yes, other games like LoL technically have it, but in THAT it could be totally ignored due to the nature of the combat.  In Dota, you poke everything to death with basic attacks, dramatically increasing the focus on that last hit.  In LoL, you use spells/abilities that are good at lane clearing, simply frying piles of creeps in one hit while hopefully smacking your opponent with them.  Exact timing stops being an issue, poking at things REALLY SLOWLY stops being an issue, and the whole thing ends up playing into a constant back-and-forth battle between you and your opponent, dodging constant lasers and energy waves and whatever, instead of what I always saw in Dota, which was just two sides competing in who could do the poking better and who could anti-poke creeps to stop their opponents from poking them, while firing off a spell once every 20 years.  It was boring.  Very boring.  LoL and Smite basically said "screw that, use these huge creep-blasting fireballs instead", and for me that made them playable.  It was like going from the rather dull "footsies" of Street Fighter to the wild, berserk fighting of Guilty Gear. 

As for the basketball analogy, it still doesnt work.  Why?  Because there havent been 10000 billion sequels and new versions in a genre called 'basketball".  It's like the potions in roguelikes that I think are horrid and arcane.  There's no excuse for them because every time a new game is made, developers have a chance to improve, to step AWAY from the obvious crappy, busted bits, and change things.  Really good developers know this.  Simply giving the player the same bloody thing over and over again is pretty much what I'm going to call Grey Shooter Syndrome.  They CAN change things.  Every time, they have the opportunity to change things.  And most times, they simply dont, because "that's how such-and-such did it before".  With something like basketball, we're not going to get "sequels" every two years that are totally new versions.  There's not going to be a "Basketball 5: Orange Sphere of Doom".  But in gaming, it's CONSTANT totally new games.  So when they stick to really bad mechanics in a new product, there's.... not much excuse for it.  To a very large degree, I think this is part of why HotS has done so well: Because it's FINALLY something that says "screw it" to the things that players like me hate so much.

Now as for that game's complexity.... eh, it doesnt matter too much to me to be honest.  Complexity has never equaled challenge in my mind.  Some of the absolute most difficult games you could possibly find are braindead simple.  Robotron, for instance.  Couldnt get more simple:  Shoot robots. Save humans for points.  Dont get hit by things.   The basics are braindead.  However the difficulty is so stupidly high that MOST players will lose within 2 minutes, if that.  This, too, is how I look at competitive games.  The challenge doesnt come from how bloody convoluted the mechanics are: It comes from the skill of the opponent.  And in games that push that aspect forward, the opponent's skill can shine through even if they HAVENT mastered the actual mechanics.  The fighting games, for instance.  I dont remember combos.  I dont use the training modes, because it's boring.  I dont theorycraft or look up statsheets or blah blah blah.  But I'm still going to trash even opponents that are very good at those things, simply due to sheer overwhelming speed. The fighting genre is very good at making sure that there's more to it than just the complexity (which is something alot of fans of the genre seem to miss).  I think HotS partly appeals to me because it seems to do that exact same thing.

It's an interesting facet of game design to think about, actually.  I could probably rant about it for some time. interesting when looked at in the roguelike genre also.  Something like Isaac, or Starward, or Gungeon, you could technically not even bother picking up items or weapons, and still win, simply via sheer skill in avoiding damage while wearing opponents down.  To some degree, I suppose that's part of what keeps me engaged with many games. 


And yeah, Battleborn really did crash and burn, didn't it?  I remember hearing about the game originally, seeing that it was releasing at basically the same time as Overwatch, and wondering: "Why in the bloody hell are they doing that?  What moron made that decision?  Who thought that they could compete with a new release from freaking BLIZZARD?"   it could have been an absolutely fascinating game with incredible depth, and it still would have burned up immediately.  Inevitable, and they should have realized this.  What were they thinking?

I'd love to hear the reasons behind that.  It's probably hilarious. 

: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: TheVampire100 June 25, 2017, 05:15:07 PM
Dota is at best a gloryfied farming Simulator. For soem this is a really cool game (like me) for some not so. The true gameplay shines actually in the endgame, when all heroes are ready and the big teamfights start, spells flinging left and right, combos work. It's very staisfying if you can pull of a great combination of skills and items and everything fits together like a puzzle. Problem for many is, Dota is simply slow paced. It has been faster with 7.00 but now Valve tries everything to pull it back more and more towards the old slow paced sytsem it was before, changing mechanics that made the game suddenly so fast. The early stage of the game is, what you descibed as "poking". Players hit creeps for money and try to compete for the gold. They fling spells at each other to see, how much they can aggro their foe until he finally tilts and comes for them, running directly into a trap. or until he retreats annoyed. The mid game is more targeted towards "okay, let's bring down soem towers but carefully because we are still not so powerful". Team gather at tight spots and look for opportunities to start a fight but are still careful because at that time both teams are still very close in terms of power. At the end game it shows, who had better farm during the game, the team that has the gold/level advantage can pretty much steamroll over their opponents unless the other team finds a way to prevent it. This does not mean that team a is unstoppable, but htey have it easier because the other team still has to be careful and wait for the right time. Depending ont he roster and what items you have, this may be different but many games favour toward this scenario.
You either like it or hate it, its a thing that you need to have a taste for to enjoy it. Especially the first 10-20 minutes of the game are mostly boring because nothign happens unless you play a roamer/ganker and target other lanes all the time. However, because the meta shifted, these became rarer and they now have to be a lot more careful than before.


The thing is, you try to make the analogy up with Moba, as Genre while you actually shoudl look it as sport in general. Moba=sports whiel dota is simply a type of sports. The analogy still does not fit 100% but Dota ahsn't changed that much in its release if you don't count the minimal balance changes. the only thing, that affected the gameplay massively, was 7.00 with the introduction of talents. This really shifted the meta a lot. Also, you cannot compare Mobas to each other as sequels. They are independet games that simply share the same genre. that's like comparing basketball and football (or soccer, if that's what you want to call it). They are both sports that use a ball. That's where the similiarities end or at least most stuff isn't related to each other. Mobas have som egeneral gameplay mechanics, that suits them as Mobas but htey are still totally independent games that invent each other a new.
Plus, there ARE different types of basketball. As there are with other sports. They simply aren't that big advertised and in many cases aren't professional.


Yeah, the thing with Battleborn and Overwatch is, they are two different games. Like, not even in the same genre. At all. But the problem is, it DOES look liek Overwatch and it was even announced BEFORE Overwatch, so whiel Overwatch wasn't even known, Battleborn was, but then Overwatch got announced and overshadowed everythign and as it is with big publishers, especially Blizzard, they tend to tend to make their ads appearent literally everywhere, you cannot NOT see the game. Battleborn on the other hand got evry little attention and not many people saw it and the people saw it, said it was an Overwatch clone.
But Battleborn is a Moba, similiar to Smite. It's more close to Smite than to Overwatch, if any, it's a clone from that game. It's some weird mix ob Moba, shooter and rpg progression. It also featured a long story campaign with big lore backgrounds for each character.
Liek in other Mobas, there is a base (a huge robot) that you have to destroy with towers inbetween (another huge robot) and your characters level up for killing minions and other heroes. There is only one lane but some hidden side paths that you can use to flank your opponent. Creeps figth each other and can be easily killed by heroes. With a recent change, hero roles now also influence the damage dealt to and taken from minions. Tanks simpyl take less, attacker simply do more.
Leveling up gives you access to talents, like HotS and you can increase your skills or normal attacks that way. Additionaly heroes had passive abilites and an ultimate ability. The similiarity to Overwatch was quickly drawn because they both use shooter elements, have a hero focused team system and have abilties, that you can use. However, Overwatch is pretty close to TF2 in that regard, it's still a shooter and just that, you just have different classes with different roles in the game isntead of having everyone doing the same, like in CoD and other war shooters.
In Battleborn you can even attack neutral creep camps, to hire them as "Mercenaries", so they fight for you. Defeating a neutral camp allows you to conquer it and summon your own version of these creeps. Additionaly there are crystals scattered around the map, that can be collected to activate your items (that you get while playing the game and opening lootboxes) and build some structures ont he map, like traps and attack towers or support towers to heal your allies. Its a lot more complex than Overwatch but a lot less than Dota. But it also lacks any kidn of stuff, that woudl make it shine out. Plus, huge performance problems. Game kidn of fall right under the radar for everyone and th epeopel that got notice of the game, were underwhelmed by it.


I've played today the beta of an upcoming Moba from Nexon. Hyper Universe. It was just a quick tutorial play and first impression, so I keep this as short as possible and will try to get into detail, once I know more.
Hyper Universe is a side scroller Moba, just liek Awesomenauts, instead of having a top down map or a first/third person perspective.
Hypers (the heroes of the game) sue a complete item set at teh beginnign of the match, you can select your item set from your loadout and you can customize these sests between matches. Every hero starts out with a recommended item set but you can build more if you want. The item set cannot be changed during your match. Heroes in Hyper Universe are more specialised towards there role as, for example, in Dota, where you can specialise one hero in multiple directions. Your items can somwhat change or improve on the natural abilities but it is recomennded, that you use recommended items for the hero. Heroes have one passive skill, four active skills and an ultimate ability.The skilsl are rather straightforward in their description and are simply different types of attacks in different directions but supports might have heals and other stuff for an example. A unique mechanic is the way, how AoE skills work. If you hit only one target with it, you deal all the damage to it, if you hit multiple enemies, you deal less damage to all enemies in the area, for example two damages take 80% damage each isntead of the full effect unlike in other mobas. The same applies to your normal attacks.
Skill damage is influenced by your level, your attack damage (there are no other stats except hp, mana, attack and defense) and of course the base damage of the ability.
The map is a little designed like a Metroidvania with multiple corridors and ladders and other stuff to access the different floors of the map.
Godl is divided equally amoong all players, no last hits here, if you kill something, the gold is added towards the total of your team. You can use gold to upgrade any of the items in your set, the max level depends on the item itself, but if you reach the max level of the item, it gets a special effect.
There are typical roles int his game, like in any other moba, a support for buff/debuff and heal stuff, a tank to take up most of the damage, assassins to dispatch single targets and other roles.
The game seems to be very casual friendly but migth be a little chaotic at first, because it's hrd to follow the movements of all the heroes/players at the screen, if you are unused to it. This is somewhat true to all Mobas however.
Plus, the game has Monkey King, like any Moba. Seriously, the guy is at this point a Moba cliché.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Mánagarmr June 26, 2017, 02:06:46 AM
Dota is at best a gloryfied farming Simulator. For soem this is a really cool game (like me) for some not so. The true gameplay shines actually in the endgame, when all heroes are ready and the big teamfights start, spells flinging left and right, combos work. It's very staisfying if you can pull of a great combination of skills and items and everything fits together like a puzzle.

To me that just means that DotA would be better as an arena game. Start at max level with and item build and have at it. Skip the soul-crushing 40 minute farmville routine.

You either like it or hate it, its a thing that you need to have a taste for to enjoy it. Especially the first 10-20 minutes of the game are mostly boring because nothign happens...
Here's another problem with DotA. Most other games matches are over by this point. To use an old, tired quote: "Ain't nobody got time for that!"
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: TheVampire100 June 27, 2017, 01:34:55 PM
Here's another problem with DotA. Most other games matches are over by this point. To use an old, tired quote: "Ain't nobody got time for that!"
Most other games aren't mobas.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: Misery June 28, 2017, 01:05:47 AM
Here's another problem with DotA. Most other games matches are over by this point. To use an old, tired quote: "Ain't nobody got time for that!"
Most other games aren't mobas.

This is true, but the problem isn't so much the amount of time: It's what it's filled with.  I understand the point of farming and such in this, but nothing really HAPPENS during these phases.  LoL and Smite have the same issue, but it's offset quite a bit due to the constant back and forth combat between you and your lane opponent, something totally missing in Dota.  In other words, even DURING farming in those games, there's still stuff happening to keep the player engaged.  However, the problem is definitely still there nonetheless.

Which is part of the problem as a whole, honestly, when it comes to the genre, is simply keeping players engaged, when that player isn't into grindy aspects of gaming.  There's too many moments of "stuff isn't happening" in these.  Whether you're just brainlessly poking creeps or running around slowly dropping wards, it often just seems like there should be more to do, but there isn't.  It might not seem so empty if these individual activities didn't take as long as they do, or didn't have such slow pacing.
: Re: Dota 2- 7.00
: TheVampire100 June 28, 2017, 01:50:38 AM
Actually, there happens a lot in these phases but it's kind of complicated. However, with the recent changes, that heroes take longer to level, these phases also get a little stretched.
It laso depends, on what kind of tier you are in Dota. The pro tiers play a lot safer and less daring then the lower tiers. Pro players know, if they try to make a step too early, they moght ruin the whole match, that's why you see more "poking on each other" int hese games. Casual games or the "pub tier" how it's often called, tend to be more dynamic and a lot more chaotic. Why? People don't talk to each other there and if they talk, it's most often insults. Pros talk to each other all the time and manage what they wanna do, casual gamers don't even care about this srtuff, they just want to play "their game". that's also the reasonw hy they are so pissed, if they loose or die, because they truly believe, the other teammates caused this, not they and they ruined the experience of this player. This is in soem cases even true but in most cases it's the fault of the person himself.
Anyway, I have a lot of dynamic casual games that rarely are boring. Teh games, that tend to go longer, are mostly the games were both teams are equally strong and both teams need a momentum to get the upper hand. they can do this thorugh one of two things. Either they win abig fight or at least kill an important enemy hero while not loosing one on their team. the other thing would be, farm 'til you have an item, that gives you another power spike. Looking for kill opportunities is hard, even more so if you are not coordinated with the rest of the team (and honestly, in pub tier NO one is this). Farming is way easier, you just have to kill creeps and collect gold. so they farm.

What a lot of people seem to underestimate, Dota is a game of mind fucks.  Players in Dota get pretty fast paranoid, more so, if you deny them vision from wards and deny them gold. Players will be very nervous, if they don't get their items and they get scared by the most triial things, Dota heavily relies on the fact, that your opponent looses his nerves. it's kind of crazy how much psychological this game is but it is.

I got a little carried away, but the thing is, people like this fact about Dota. A lot. The times, where "nothing happens" are actually very eventful, you just don't see it. It's more of a head thing. I'm more busy in doing stuff int he firstz minutes of the game as I am in the last minutes in the game. And even in the late game, when you wait for a big opportunity, you always are busy with anything.

Now, about Hyper Universe, I played it a little more and got a better feel for it. The beta is ending this friday, I don't know if the game launches for the public right after that or some time later but just some heads up when the earliest date might be.
There are six classes that are inspired by classic rpgs/mobas.
Let+s start with the easiest ones, Tank and Support. Tank is pretty much what you except, lot of helth, can take punches, lot of defense etc.
Support fills the typical role to cast buffs and heals on your team and gives a little indirect control over the flow of the battle.
Other classes are Bruiser, Striker, Specialist and Assassin.
Bruiser is a mobile frontlien fighter, similiar to tank but a lot more versatile. Whiel tank can take damage and only that, a bruiser also deals a lot of damage and casts nasty debuffs on the enemy to take over the control of the battlefield. Most of the time they have a lot of mobile skills to get in or out of battle fast. A good exampel of this is Jennifer, who can simply break through the ground or roof of floors to get to another level.
Specialist rely on quick spells and are identical to nukers/mages. They got a lot of low cooldown spells to deal damage to a lot of enemies at once and most of the time purely damage with little control. They can kill minions faster than other heroes and are great to farm the neutral camps for the team (because gold is shared) while also getting items from the creeps that permanently boost their stats. They can also quickly push the lanes that way and bring down towers faster but "pushing" is in this game kind of underrated.
Assassins act similiar to specialists but their spells are for single targets and dish out huge damage to a target. They roam the map to look for lone targets and kill them quickly. Since the map isn't so big to begin with and players tend to fight more on the tower/siege floors, assassins are probably the most underrated class in this game but I might be wrong.
Striker are basically the "carries" in this game. They do their damage mostly with their basic attack and all their skills just support this in one way or another. Because they rely on their basic attack, to dish out damage, they have the smallest impact in the early game but have a great impact during the end of the game, when other players run out of skills but they still can keep up the pressure with their basic attack. They heavily rely on items, more so than any other class (except maybe the tank class) because they need to boost their basic atatck. All other skilsl are pretty much worthless because they either do only little damage or just enhance the base attack in some way.

Matches in Hyper Universe are very fast paced and the early, mid and end game phases merge seamless together unlike in dota, where they are clearly visible. This game is actually really nice in the way, that I don't have to put much thought into it, which I have to in Dota (and want to) and can jsut have a big bral arena with tons of fun. So, if I want to have soemthing mor edeep or stratetgic, I play Dota but if I just want some arena mayhem, I play Hyper Universe. Matchmakign however takes foever, but this is most liekely because of the closed beta, there aren'tthat many players and probably even less in my region.

I think this could or could not fall intot he kind of "moba" section, which Misery looks for. I don't know, it simply removes everything, Miser disliked about Dota.