Concerning what you said about DotA earlier, I agree with you to some extent. Some of the mechanics are incredibly frustrating, unintuitive, and downright boring. In many ways it's like a chess game, in which all of the major pieces have a mind of their own.
In terms of the slowness of the laning phase, I think that's something which just improves with experience. Of course by experience, I mean hundreds or thousands of hours of play time. I've been playing for nearly 11 years now, and I'm just recently discovering new and awesome things that I've never done before.
For example, in many games, I'll opt to skip the laning phase completely. What do I mean? I mean I can literally roam around the map from level 1 as a certain hero (usually Vengeful Spirit when I do it) and simply gain almost all of my gold and experience from kills alone, while helping my allies immensely. Name another MOBA where this is possible.
Now do classical, boring lanes exist in DotA 2? Absolutely. That doesn't mean you have to use them. I basically refuse to play in that fashion anymore because I agree, it's boring. But that's the awesome thing about DotA, it allows you to innovate and try anything you want to. There *is* no set lane setup, it's not like League where all the roles/positions have to be the same 99% of the time. Tri-lane, dual lane, solo lane, roamer, jungle, even abandoning a lane altogether to push towers quickly, or any combination of the above. DotA to me is amazing because it belongs to the innovators. The people who try new things and change the game or throw their opponents off balance by presenting them with something they'd never expect, those are the true masters of the game.
I agree with you, classical laning is DotA is awful, so I stopped doing it. When playing with my friends we do funny or interesting combinations which either results in us killing them over and over or losing the game within 20 minutes. Either result is better than falling asleep at the keyboard. Sure, there is certainly a place for those who like to play in a traditional style, but also an option for those who like to try insane new things as well (like creep skipping, or in other words going behind an enemy's first outer tower and killing the creep waves before they hit the lane. Yes, this actually works).
Granted, being able to come up with interesting and innovative new strategies requires a certain level of experience and understanding of the game. To those who haven't played it very much, I'm sure it probably seems like an inferior "whatever MOBA you're coming from" that includes silly mechanics like denying, creep pulling, and losing gold on death, etc. However, stick with it long enough and you begin to have these epiphanies which completely change your perspective on what the game, or even what any MOBA, actually is. I can take my DotA skills to any other MOBA and apply them there, but I can't take what I've learned from other MOBAs and apply them to DotA, because quite frankly I haven't learned anything. They've only simplified the formula and made it more streamlined, they haven't added any nuance or complexity to the game.
Ultimately complexity is what enables innovation, this is why you'll never be able to innovate as much in Checkers as you will in Chess, and you'll never be able to innovate as much in Chess as you will in Starcraft, etc. etc. It doesn't work in reverse. You can't create a simpler Chess with more innovation. You can create a simpler Chess that appeals to more players, as simplicity often does, and while that may make it more 'fun', it also creates limitations.
Having said that, of all the MOBAs I've tried, I think Strife is the best alternative to DotA 2. Often people cite League as being better because it's simpler, more streamlined, more accessible to new players, more intuitive, and removes a lot of the silly mechanics which exist in DotA simply because they evolved to be there. Strife does all of that, even better. It's even simpler than LoL, more streamlined, more accessible to new players, more intuitive, and removes some of the silly mechanics that even League copied over. For example, in Strife, one never needs to return to town for anything. The laning phase is actually more exciting in Strife as well because, well A. No Flash. That in itself is a 10,000% improvement. However, the out-of-combat regen allows the mechanics to let players throw spells and attacks at each other willy nilly, engaging in skirmishes constantly which would typically force one side or the other to have to go back to town sooner or later, creating a noticeable lull in the action at some point. None of this is necessary in Strife. In addition, the ability to share last hit gold means that one player literally can devote all his attention to harassing with almost no drawback whatsoever.
In addition, it's more objective-based. It removes warding (which, in addition the shared last hit mechanics, effectively means supports have been removed from the game) and allows you to play and build your character however you like according to the situation, instead of falling into a cookie-cutter role which never changes from game to game. It's also more balanced and fair to the player because all the heroes are unlocked right from the start.
That's just my opinion though, but if we're choosing between *ultimate fun and accessibility* and *ultimate competitive value*, I don't see much middle-ground. I still haven't tried Dawngate, I need to. Some of the mechanics seemed interesting there as well, such as the "role picker" at the beginning of the game. But once again, I'd like to think that as the genre evolves, we'd be getting further away from these solidified, unchanging roles, not more reliant on them.
