Dota 2- 7.00

[TheVampire100]

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."

[Wingflier]

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.

[Misery]

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.

[TheVampire100]

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.

[Aklyon]

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.

[Wingflier]

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.

[Wingflier]

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.

[Misery]

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.

[Mánagarmr]

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.

[TheVampire100]

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.

[Misery]

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.

[Wingflier]

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.

[TheVampire100]

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.

[Misery]

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.

[TheVampire100]

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.