League vs Dota Megabrawl: Arcen Games Edition

[RCIX]

Basically, LoL dumbed down DotA, made it easier for casuals, then sold it as a competitive game.  We can definitely have a discussion about this in OT, but you can't win because all the evidence is on my side; so you should probably think twice before you open that can of worms. 

Challenge accepted!

Which is what needs to be tackled Consider League of Legends: The basic premise and primary means of playing is easily grasped (pick champion, buy stuff, fight), and the twists come from the champions and items that you learn. Or consider a more conventional RTS: there's a bit moreup-front complexity but it's easy to understand find resources > build stuff > club enemy over head with said stuff.

Well, maybe this is the wrong place to have this discussion, but League of Legends sacrifices a lot of depth by being so simplified and user-friendly.

It took the game it came from (DotA) and stripped down the formula to its basics.  It removed many of the most deep and interesting mechanics from the game such as elevation differences, trees, teleports, denying, mana burn, gold loss on death, runes (in the river), magic immunity, and many more things.

Yes, it made the game easier for casual players, but removed a huge amount of skill, depth, and complexity in the process.

When comparing LoL to DotA 2, I liken it to Homeworld 2 and AI War.  Homeworld 2 is much easier to get into, much easier to understand, has more basic mechanics, you can learn most of the important things in like 10 minutes, but in the end, you sacrifice a huge amount of depth and player skill in order to do so.

So I'll start and say that there are things I like in Dota. Trees are cool, Runes could possibly come to League in some form, etc. However, I'm going to disagree with other points.

Please start with the realization that League was created with the intention of removing mechanics that are either massively unfun to play against or just aren't all that interesting/satisfying. This is, after all, a game, and everyone should have fun playing it.

mana burn

Not only does it not work effectively on the people it's primarily targeting (in Dota at least, mages get very large mana pools), it's basically a mechanism that directly says "I don't want you to play". Percentage burn sorta solves this, but then it's just a giant middle finger to everyone on the other end.

teleportation

Recall, and Summoner teleport. :S

elevation differences

I'm pretty meh here, it doesn't feel like all that important of a mechanic IMO. And League got bushes in return.

denying

Again, another mechanic that is "I don't want you to play". I never quite understood why people loved mechanics that ruined enemy games more than pushed them towards a win. Though to be fair, it's not something you see a ton in your average dota pub.

gold loss on death

I get that it's a counterbalance to carries farming up expensive items, but still doesn't change that it's another "I don't want you to play" mechanic. This would be somewhat analogous to, every time you scored points in a basketball game, tying weights on the enemy players and removing some (if any) that you have on. At least the basketball equivalent of league is just being able to go faster after each point.

If you find AI War too difficult to get into, and think DotA is too complicated, then you're simply a casual gamer.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but let's call a spade a spade.

I'm working on AI War (problem is mainly HOW to get into it), but I don't find Dota too complicated. I find that it has way too many stupid mechanics that are overly focused on ruining one side's time, and I also dislike balance by OPness

Also, what say you to all of the mechanics League has that Dota doesn't? Most of the more interesting skill mechanisms, something better than "click targeted nuke with stun" as a default ability, scaling mages, the class of "mark and consume" abilities, pretty sure Dota has no recover mana on hit, spell vamp as a stat, a non-obtuse on-hit system...

Chall-ange!

[Wingflier]

Please start with the realization that League was created with the intention of removing mechanics that are either massively unfun to play against or just aren't all that interesting/satisfying. This is, after all, a game, and everyone should have fun playing it.

Fun for a casual and fun for a pro are two completely different things.

If you want to argue that LoL is more fun for a casual player, you would have a great argument.  Its mechanics are much simpler and more streamlined, and the game is much easier to get into.  However, when it comes to depth and skill, DotA wins hands down, at the cost of a much higher entry fee.  DotA is the more competitive game.  There are more strategies, deeper mechanics, and a much higher skill ceiling than in LoL.

I 'll concede that LoL is the better casual game, but if you want to say that LoL is the better casual AND competitive game, you're going to lose the argument.

Now in terms of certain mechanics being "un-fun", this is just an opinion.  What may be "un-fun" to a casual may be extremely fun to a hardcore player.  Take Starcraft 2 - a very hardcore game.  To a casual, that amount of micromanagement, scouting, building, attacking, using abilities, knowing timings and build orders, counters, and race matchups for every map is NOT FUN.  However, to a competitive player all these things make the game more interesting, deep, and skill-based.

Here are some mechanics in DotA that hardcore players like but which casuals find revolting:
-Denying
-Teleport Scrolls
-Mana Burn
-Magic Immunity
-Long stuns
-Gold on Death
-Costly invis counters (can't just buy oracles and be done with it)
-Tree juking
-Complex items
-Hero Attributes (STR, AGI, INT)
-Dozens of lane setups
-Buybacks
-Much more..

Here are some mechanics in LoL that casuals love:
-Flash
-Ghost
-Cleanse
-Free teleport
-No losing gold on death
-Shorter respawn times if you're feeding
-No denying
-No juking (at least it's a very nerfed version of it)
-Towers that do insane damage early on
-One-dimensional heroes

Not only does it not work effectively on the people it's primarily targeting (in Dota at least, mages get very large mana pools), it's basically a mechanism that directly says "I don't want you to play". Percentage burn sorta solves this, but then it's just a giant middle finger to everyone on the other end.

Lol this is a terrible argument.  If taking all someone's mana is a mechanism that says "I don't want you to play", then what is taking all of someone's health?  You're telling me that waiting to respawn for 30+ seconds is less of an "anti-fun" than mana burn?  Mana burn is just one way of disabling somebody.  Silence is another way of disabling somebody.  In both scenarios you can't cast spells.  Stuns are another way of disabling somebody.  DotA has more ways to disable people, and less ways to escape disables (such as Cleanse or Quicksilver Sash).  Instead, the player is expected to be pro-active and either pop magic immunity beforehand, "dodge" the disable with several items and skills, or disable your opponent first.

This is the difference in design philosophy between the two games.  DotA is pro-active, LoL is re-active.  It doesn't take much skill to react to a certain circumstance every game, it takes much more to prevent that circumstance from ever happening.

Again, another mechanic that is "I don't want you to play". I never quite understood why people loved mechanics that ruined enemy games more than pushed them towards a win. Though to be fair, it's not something you see a ton in your average dota pub.

Denying, especially towers, is an extremely important part of a professional or competitive DotA game.  In DotA, supports do more than just sit in the lane "herp derp" spam click my spells on the enemy; they are responsible for that, but also responsible for denying and creep pulling as well.  Denying makes the laning phase much more active, it gives you more things to do than click spells whenever they're off cooldown.  Tower denying is another beast altogether.  It gives you the opportunity, with excellent timing, to deny the enemy team a HUGE amount of gold, often at great risk to your own life if the whole enemy team is at the tower.

I get that it's a counterbalance to carries farming up expensive items, but still doesn't change that it's another "I don't want you to play" mechanic. This would be somewhat analogous to, every time you scored points in a basketball game, tying weights on the enemy players and removing some (if any) that you have on. At least the basketball equivalent of league is just being able to go faster after each point.

Once again, it's the difference between pro-active and re-active design philosophies.  In DotA, if you're pro-active you can gank the enemy carries over and over until they've become a non-threat and you win the game.  In LoL it's just a farm fest, and it's much less gank-oriented, since ganking somebody only slows down their farm in a minor way.  In other words, you're punished more for dying in DotA because the design philosophy is:  Don't die.  Or if you do die, make sure the exchange was worth it.  When supports and nukers die it's not that big of a deal because they don't need that much farm.  However, when the carry dies, it can set them back quite a bit.

So what I'm saying is that losing gold on death opens up a whole new style of play in DotA that doesn't really exist in LoL:  Ganking teams.  Literally, you can have teams whose only purpose is to go around the map assassinating heroes all game.  The enemy team may have a much better late game, but it never gets to late game because you keep them down so long that you win.  In LoL, ganking teams really don't exist.  The payoff isn't worth it, and with mechanics like Flash and towers that do massive damage, it's better to just farm for the majority of the game and participate in teamfights later.

I'm not a big fan of the boring, passive play that LoL promotes.  It's great for casual players, but not people who want an exciting, action-packed game the whole way through.

I find that it has way too many stupid mechanics that are overly focused on ruining one side's time, and I also dislike balance by OPness

What is "balanced by OPness"?  I've heard this before, and it doesn't make any sense to me.  Do you mean that LoL's balance is so homogenized that nothing seems any better than anything else?

Also, what say you to all of the mechanics League has that Dota doesn't? Most of the more interesting skill mechanisms, something better than "click targeted nuke with stun" as a default ability, scaling mages, the class of "mark and consume" abilities, pretty sure Dota has no recover mana on hit, spell vamp as a stat, a non-obtuse on-hit system...

I'm not sure what you mean by "more interesting skill mechanisms".  In terms of that, I think DotA wins hands down.

For example, what about a hero who plays something like Magicka (the indie game), that when you combine 1 of 3 elements you can make up to 10 different spells?  LoL has nothing like that.  What about a hero who can "steal" any spell in the game from his opponent, replicating it for his own use?  LoL has nothing like that.  What about a hero who gives his entire team physical damage immunity for a certain period of time?  These are all really neat, game-changing mechanics; I think they are much more interesting than anything I've ever seen in LoL.

In terms of getting mana every hit...I mean that's interesting?  I'm not sure how that's neat or anything, just sounds like another way to regenerate mana.  Of course mana management in LoL is much easier than in DotA because your natural pool regenerates much faster, you can build runes to give you extra mana, or take Clarity, or buy cheap items (like Chalice) to make sure you never run out.  But that's a whole nother can of worms I don't want to go into.

So like I said, LoL is better for casual players.  It has more simple, streamlined, casual mechanics.  Riot's motto is, "We can't do anything anti-fun".  IceFrog's motto is, "If it improves the game, it's going in there".  Most LoL players probably think a 150 gold item which makes the whole team invisible and not appear on the minimap would be a HORRIBLE mechanic, but IceFrog doesn't care because he'll do what it takes to make the game more pro-active and action-packed. 

They're definitely both good games, I just think people should realize the audiences they're each targetting.

[Volatar]

Poking my head in to explain the "balanced by OPness" thing. What I am pretty sure he is trying to say is that DotA has a much higher level of lethality. Everything does more damage or everything has less health. My personal estimation is that DotA2 has 2-2.5 times the lethality of LoL.

For other examples see the comparison between say, CS:S and Blacklight. The latter takes a lot less bullets to kill someone, regardless of the weapon. Or AI War on the faster paced combat mode.

[RCIX]

Now in terms of certain mechanics being "un-fun", this is just an opinion.  What may be "un-fun" to a casual may be extremely fun to a hardcore player.  Take Starcraft 2 - a very hardcore game.  To a casual, that amount of micromanagement, scouting, building, attacking, using abilities, knowing timings and build orders, counters, and race matchups for every map is NOT FUN.  However, to a competitive player all these things make the game more interesting, deep, and skill-based.

I also own starcraft 2 (indirectly, it got me hooked on MOBAs actually), and I dislike the main game because it was a "strategy" game but it had so much emphasis on telling your units how to do everything but breathe that I never could concentrate on the strategy parts. Oh, and zerg rushes. I hate those.

Not only does it not work effectively on the people it's primarily targeting (in Dota at least, mages get very large mana pools), it's basically a mechanism that directly says "I don't want you to play". Percentage burn sorta solves this, but then it's just a giant middle finger to everyone on the other end.

Lol this is a terrible argument.  If taking all someone's mana is a mechanism that says "I don't want you to play", then what is taking all of someone's health?  You're telling me that waiting to respawn for 30+ seconds is less of an "anti-fun" than mana burn?  Mana burn is just one way of disabling somebody.  Silence is another way of disabling somebody.  In both scenarios you can't cast spells.  Stuns are another way of disabling somebody.  DotA has more ways to disable people, and less ways to escape disables (such as Cleanse or Quicksilver Sash).  Instead, the player is expected to be pro-active and either pop magic immunity beforehand, "dodge" the disable with several items and skills, or disable your opponent first.

This is the difference in design philosophy between the two games.  DotA is pro-active, LoL is re-active.  It doesn't take much skill to react to a certain circumstance every game, it takes much more to prevent that circumstance from ever happening.

Let's put it this way. Would you rather be dead, or alive but unable to do anything? (in a moba ofcourse)

Again, another mechanic that is "I don't want you to play". I never quite understood why people loved mechanics that ruined enemy games more than pushed them towards a win. Though to be fair, it's not something you see a ton in your average dota pub.

Denying, especially towers, is an extremely important part of a professional or competitive DotA game.  In DotA, supports do more than just sit in the lane "herp derp" spam click my spells on the enemy; they are responsible for that, but also responsible for denying and creep pulling as well.  Denying makes the laning phase much more active, it gives you more things to do than click spells whenever they're off cooldown.  Tower denying is another beast altogether.  It gives you the opportunity, with excellent timing, to deny the enemy team a HUGE amount of gold, often at great risk to your own life if the whole enemy team is at the tower.

I agree, but none of that changes that denying is primarily a mechanic used to remove power from the enemy as opposed to trying to get power of your own.

I find that it has way too many stupid mechanics that are overly focused on ruining one side's time, and I also dislike balance by OPness

What is "balanced by OPness"?  I've heard this before, and it doesn't make any sense to me.  Do you mean that LoL's balance is so homogenized that nothing seems any better than anything else?

People mean that most, if not all, characters have incredibly broken mechanics (hello Dazzle's targetable tryndamere ult on a 15 second cooldown), and it's assumed to be fine by the fact that all characters have more-or-less the same level of brokenness. Possibly true, but that just means every character is a giant pain in the butt to fight in some way.

Also, what say you to all of the mechanics League has that Dota doesn't? Most of the more interesting skill mechanisms, something better than "click targeted nuke with stun" as a default ability, scaling mages, the class of "mark and consume" abilities, pretty sure Dota has no recover mana on hit, spell vamp as a stat, a non-obtuse on-hit system...

I'm not sure what you mean by "more interesting skill mechanisms".  In terms of that, I think DotA wins hands down.

Thinking of things like Diana's curved skillshot, Fizz fish (?), Xin Zhao rework (challenge passive which interacts with cool ult), etc. Something other than another point-and-click stun, autoattack bounce a la old Sivir, random passive aura, and ult that is "cast Q automatically on targets around you X numbers of times" (Luna, which AFAIK was a fairly recent addition to Dota).

For example, what about a hero who plays something like Magicka (the indie game), that when you combine 1 of 3 elements you can make up to 10 different spells?  LoL has nothing like that.  What about a hero who can "steal" any spell in the game from his opponent, replicating it for his own use?  LoL has nothing like that.  What about a hero who gives his entire team physical damage immunity for a certain period of time?  These are all really neat, game-changing mechanics; I think they are much more interesting than anything I've ever seen in LoL.

I like Invoker and pretend I can play him well now and then, but the reason no Invoker exists in LoL is because if you want a 10 spell hero you may as well just give the character 10 spells, which throws the fun part passive bonuses out of the window. IMO something could be worked out where he just has one way to cast a spell and then his orbs grant effects to the spells, but I digress.

Rubick is cool, and I believe the main reason they don't do that is because of the sheer maintenance effort required for having a hero like that (mainly either storing custom spell effects for 400+ spells or messing with tech to allow usage of existing assets which then imposes more plumbing requirements on all the new heroes, etc.)

(heh, I'm familiar with pretty much all of the released heroes in Dota as well as the mechanics associated)

So like I said, LoL is better for casual players.  It has more simple, streamlined, casual mechanics.  Riot's motto is, "We can't do anything anti-fun".  IceFrog's motto is, "If it improves the game, it's going in there".  Most LoL players probably think a 150 gold item which makes the whole team invisible and not appear on the minimap would be a HORRIBLE mechanic, but IceFrog doesn't care because he'll do what it takes to make the game more pro-active and action-packed. 

They're definitely both good games, I just think people should realize the audiences they're each targetting.

I just dislike the general tone and intent of Dota players that it makes Dota superior because it "doesn't cater to casuals". I don't like a lot of the hardcore mechanics in Dota; does that make me a casual? Maybe. There's a bunch of stuff I dislike about League too. I just don't think that there's anything superior about how punishing it is to players that make mistakes or don't understand how to fight stuff.

[Wingflier]

I just dislike the general tone and intent of Dota players that it makes Dota superior because it "doesn't cater to casuals". I don't like a lot of the hardcore mechanics in Dota; does that make me a casual? Maybe. There's a bunch of stuff I dislike about League too. I just don't think that there's anything superior about how punishing it is to players that make mistakes or don't understand how to fight stuff.

Well I don't think its superior, I mean isn't that just an opinion anyway?

I think it's a superior game competitively because the skill cap and stakes are so much higher.  I think it's much more exciting to watch because ganks and kills happen so much more often.  The lane composition isn't always the same 1-1-2+jungle; literally you have endless lane compositions in DotA, even trilanes, double mids, and double junglers, so it keeps things a lot more fresh and exciting.  I like how Int, Str, and Agi are so different from each other.  In LoL, even the casters can become carries with enough AP, so it really blurs the roles of each hero, where in DotA each different hero seems to have a distinct role.

Poking my head in to explain the "balanced by OPness" thing. What I am pretty sure he is trying to say is that DotA has a much higher level of lethality. Everything does more damage or everything has less health. My personal estimation is that DotA2 has 2-2.5 times the lethality of LoL.

For other examples see the comparison between say, CS:S and Blacklight. The latter takes a lot less bullets to kill someone, regardless of the weapon. Or AI War on the faster paced combat mode.

Well I would agree with this.  However, it contributes more to the pro-active instead of re-active design philosophy.  In DotA if you get caught out you're dead, where in League you have time to react or Flash away often.  In DotA you always have to be on your toes, predicting the next possible moves of your opponent, where in League you can play in a very formulaic, reactionary way and win.

[RCIX]

QQ wheres the hyperbolic arguments, the insults to one side's ancestry? The thrill of a flame war? I can't even get a good fire bath on these forums!



It does seem you're a bit more mellow than the usual Dota player, which is a good thing I agree it makes a higher skillcap and also is more fun to watch. I wouldn't want to try and play it anything near competitively though, no more than I'd want to join MLB or pro basketball or anything. Just not worth my time for the fun returned.

[Wingflier]

I'M more mellow than the average DotA player?!

I've never heard a LoL player say DotA is more fun to watch in my life! That would be considered heresy and high treason in the LoL forums, even if it were true! 

I think we both just enjoy a different kind of game, I'm just glad we can agree about each game's strengths and weaknesses.  I'll admit that DotA has one of the highest learning curves of any game I've ever played. I just started 9 years ago when everybody was still a scrub (including me), and nobody had any idea what they're doing. I would definitely recommend LoL to players who didn't have the time or determination to learn DotA. My sister saw me playing HoN and asked me how to play. I showed her LoL and she loved it.

[chemical_art]

I played LoL for about 3 months everyday. I had almost reached my peak and was ready to try DoTA 2. I knew a newb like me to that game would just be a travesity, so I waited for the beta to come out into full game so there would be a wave of scrubs like ,e.

Now, even if it does come out, I may not play it because I haven't played in of those kinds of games in months. I just may make a new LoL account and bash newbs once or twice, since my favorite character in the game you can unlock almost from game 1.

[keith.lamothe]

You mean I wake up the next day and I don't even need to bring the firetruck in here?

The AI's pacification emitters must be working better than expected

[Cyborg]

I think the mistake being made here is thinking that League of legends doesn't have a high skill ceiling. The major difference between the two games is Defense of the ancients is way more offensive and chaotic, and League of legends allows you to play defensively, as support, and offensively.

Look at chess, easy to learn and a high skill ceiling.

Okay, go back to throwing poo around the thread.

[madcow]

Having never played any of these styles of games before. I think awesomenauts looks quite well - awesome!  That's the moba-type game I'm most likely to try out anyways.

[Wingflier]

I think the mistake being made here is thinking that League of legends doesn't have a high skill ceiling. The major difference between the two games is Defense of the ancients is way more offensive and chaotic, and League of legends allows you to play defensively, as support, and offensively.

Look at chess, easy to learn and a high skill ceiling.

Okay, go back to throwing poo around the thread.

Well yeah, I guess the skill ceiling of LoL high, I just think (being someone who has been playing these games for so long), that it's rather low for my tastes.  I hit a plateau after playing it for less than a year, and most professional DotA players would probably feel the same.

You used chess and it's a good example.  Comparing League and DotA is like comparing Chess to Starcraft.  In Chess, you need to have a good strategy, predict your opponent's moves, and know some good "build orders", or popular/effective openings.  In Starcraft, you need to have good strategy, predict your opponent's moves, know good build orders AND in addition, know the map's strengths and weaknesses (Chess all happens on the same map), have good micromanagement, have good scouting, know what counters to build when, keep your supply depots up, keep constantly rebuilding your army, etc.

So yeah, I think you could play LoL for your whole life without ever hitting the skill cap, but you're definitely going to hit a plateau that it's hard to move past much faster than if you play DotA.  I've played DotA for 9 years and I still feel like I have worlds of improvement to make.

[chemical_art]

I think the mistake being made here is thinking that League of legends doesn't have a high skill ceiling. The major difference between the two games is Defense of the ancients is way more offensive and chaotic, and League of legends allows you to play defensively, as support, and offensively.

Look at chess, easy to learn and a high skill ceiling.

Okay, go back to throwing poo around the thread.

Well yeah, I guess the skill ceiling of LoL high, I just think (being someone who has been playing these games for so long), that it's rather low for my tastes.  I hit a plateau after playing it for less than a year, and most professional DotA players would probably feel the same.

You used chess and it's a good example.  Comparing League and DotA is like comparing Chess to Starcraft.  In Chess, you need to have a good strategy, predict your opponent's moves, and know some good "build orders", or popular/effective openings.  In Starcraft, you need to have good strategy, predict your opponent's moves, know good build orders AND in addition, know the map's strengths and weaknesses (Chess all happens on the same map), have good micromanagement, have good scouting, know what counters to build when, keep your supply

See, analogies are funny like that. By end game in starcraft victory is assured, but unless you have a one sided chess match victory is not assured. In chess you can almost always aim for a draw, and in end game it is almost skill and not pre set strategy, so for that reason I can argue chess is a higher test of skill.

[Wingflier]

I think the mistake being made here is thinking that League of legends doesn't have a high skill ceiling. The major difference between the two games is Defense of the ancients is way more offensive and chaotic, and League of legends allows you to play defensively, as support, and offensively.

Look at chess, easy to learn and a high skill ceiling.

Okay, go back to throwing poo around the thread.

Well yeah, I guess the skill ceiling of LoL high, I just think (being someone who has been playing these games for so long), that it's rather low for my tastes.  I hit a plateau after playing it for less than a year, and most professional DotA players would probably feel the same.

You used chess and it's a good example.  Comparing League and DotA is like comparing Chess to Starcraft.  In Chess, you need to have a good strategy, predict your opponent's moves, and know some good "build orders", or popular/effective openings.  In Starcraft, you need to have good strategy, predict your opponent's moves, know good build orders AND in addition, know the map's strengths and weaknesses (Chess all happens on the same map), have good micromanagement, have good scouting, know what counters to build when, keep your supply

See, analogies are funny like that. By end game in starcraft victory is assured, but unless you have a one sided chess match victory is not assured. In chess you can almost always aim for a draw, and in end game it is almost skill and not pre set strategy, so for that reason I can argue chess is a higher test of skill.

End game Starcraft victory isn't always assured, though there aren't very many draws, I'll give you that (I don't think this is a bad thing, draws are boring).

Comebacks actually happen very often in Starcraft 2. 

I remember a game in the GSL with MarineKing vs. an old Starcraft veteran, Nada.  Nada is actually known as one of the best and most consistent Starcraft players of all time btw.

Anyway, basically Nada had a massively superior force than Marineking of like 20 Siege Tanks, and a small group of Marauders/Marines.  MarineKing knew that he would never tackle Nada's force head-on because all he had were a group of massively inferior marines, so instead of fighting him toe to toe, he went for a base trade.  Well, after they destroyed each other's bases, it seemed like Nada had the game in the bag because his army was so much more powerful.  However, Marineking kept waiting for the perfect moment to strike, when the Siege Tanks were sieging or unsieging, and picked his opponent apart with his massively inferior force until finally he won the game.

Things like that happen all the time in Starcraft.

[chemical_art]

That sounds...boring.

At least you like it.

I remember in Tiberian Sun there was an option that the game would end if all of the structures in a game were destroyed to prevent the hopping around and the games where it comes down to who gets mad and attacks first on unit to unit combat.

Because although to describe your game's situation, if I had heavy units that had to deploy (speaking great generalities here because I only played the first starcraft) I would camp in a corner and wait if I had the greater unit strength. Hell, I'd watch netflix if I had too.