Author Topic: Moba balance comparison, please comment  (Read 183378 times)

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #315 on: January 30, 2014, 04:26:26 pm »
I'm with Tigersfan on that. The modes are great and sounds a lot of fun, but I just can get over the fact that it's DotA and have ingrained mechanics that I just can't stand. :(
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Offline Misery

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #316 on: January 30, 2014, 08:30:55 pm »
I'm with Tigersfan on that. The modes are great and sounds a lot of fun, but I just can get over the fact that it's DotA and have ingrained mechanics that I just can't stand. :(

I can understand this one myself (the deny mechanic, ugh).  I like Dota but there's times when I dont feel like playing it because of this sort of thing.  I'm still a beginner in it though so that may change, but I do tend to be impatient about that type of mechanic.

BUT, there is the fact that pretty much the entire genre uses the last-hitting mechanic to some degree.  Usually, unless you're a support, you have to be popping at least some minions/creeps/whatever or your never going to get any gold.... and of course you need gold to buy cool stuff.  I think the one big difference with Dota about that mechanic that bugs me is the fact that you cant really use spells/skills to pop multiple creeps at once.... that's something I like doing in the other games, it can speed things up a bit and has a bit more of a satisfying feel to it.  Popping one minion for full gold is nice and all, but popping 5 at once is even better.

What Wingflyer says is true though, only the carry needs to be super-obsessed with gold and last-hitting in Dota.   There's still going to BE a bit of a laning phase for the other roles, but it's not the same as that of the carry.  Other roles can get gold via other methods to a degree.  Ganking is important of course, you can get major gold by participating in that, or you can just do jungling, which works pretty much the same as in any other moba.  Stuff like that. 


As for that new mode, I might give that a go later tonight myself if I dont forget about it.   About bloody time they added something genuinely different to the game, and it looks hilarious.


Offline tigersfan

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #317 on: January 31, 2014, 05:45:10 am »
Well, as has been discussed before, Smite has last hits, but the emphasis on it is WAY less than any other MOBA I"m aware of.

That said, there are other things about DOTA that I don't like, one of the big ones being that there is no surrender option. I've played some DOTA, and after three games in a row where my team was getting crushed, but the enemy team drug out the game as long as they could... I was done.

Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #318 on: January 31, 2014, 09:01:21 am »
Well, as has been discussed before, Smite has last hits, but the emphasis on it is WAY less than any other MOBA I"m aware of.

That said, there are other things about DOTA that I don't like, one of the big ones being that there is no surrender option. I've played some DOTA, and after three games in a row where my team was getting crushed, but the enemy team drug out the game as long as they could... I was done.
I completely agree with you. Waiting until the end of the game most of the time is just RIDICULOUS. What's even worse is that the enemy can just sit there fountain diving you over and over ad nauseum. It's enough to make you wanna cut yourself.

The problem is, DotA *HAS* no mechanic which forces the game to end quickly once you begin losing. If the enemy team is already strong enough that it's basically impossible to beat them, that isn't going to suddenly make your towers begin self-destructing, and even waiting for the enemy creeps to do it by themselves is a disaster. It would take forever. Meanwhile, in pretty much every game the winning team thinks it's hilarious to just sit outside the fountain and kill their hapless opponents over and over.

I mean *technically* there is a surrender option. If all 5 people on your team disconnect within 5 minutes of each other, the game automatically ends a few seconds later. But seriously, this is unrealistic. Most the time you'll be playing with people you don't know, and even if you do the honorable thing and leave first, hoping that other people will follow you, there's usually that one hero guy at the end who thinks he's fighting for the ****ing Alamo.

Whenever I'm winning games, I do my absolute best to finish as fast as possible. I'm usually pushing towers and finishing the base while the rest of my team is just fountain camping. I feel that if I hate being fountain camped, why do it to other people? I mean it would be different if it was like LoL's Dominion mode which basically forces the game to end quickly if a team is losing bad enough, which is a brilliant mechanic by the way.

I'm not proud to say it, but in order to combat this situation, there are things you can do alleviate your pain. Each time an enemy kills a courier, it gives their entire team a sizeable amount of gold. When you realize it's over, selling all your items and spamming couriers, then sending them all out into battle is one way to end your misery more quickly. Another thing you can do to save yourself some grief is to buy blink dagger, go to a remote area on the map, and blink into the trees where the enemy is extremely unlikely to find you.

Often when you use some of these techniques, one or many members on your team will begin raging at you, threatening to report you, urging that you can still win. It is during these times which I find the aforementioned tactics most satisfying.

The only good aspect that has come out of this *RIDICULOUS* mechanic is the fact that it forces your team to continue playing games you would have otherwise left in the other MOBAs. I've had comebacks I never expected to happen, and experiences I couldn't believe, simply because they removed my option to give up. Wow, no wonder this game is so popular with the Russians.
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #319 on: January 31, 2014, 09:16:15 am »
I've had comebacks I never expected to happen, and experiences I couldn't believe, simply because they removed my option to give up. Wow, no wonder this game is so popular with the Russians.
The game has run for over 40 minutes, now when you enter the losing team's side of the map you take a progressively worse movement debuff alongside attrition damage.

Mind the snow.
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Offline tigersfan

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #320 on: January 31, 2014, 11:52:50 am »
...
The only good aspect that has come out of this *RIDICULOUS* mechanic is the fact that it forces your team to continue playing games you would have otherwise left in the other MOBAs. I've had comebacks I never expected to happen, and experiences I couldn't believe, simply because they removed my option to give up. Wow, no wonder this game is so popular with the Russians.

Sure, but, in all honesty, how often does that happen? For me, it doesn't happen often enough to justify playing it. THere are so many other games out there that I enjoy playing more that I just don't see the point.

Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #321 on: January 31, 2014, 01:18:42 pm »
...
The only good aspect that has come out of this *RIDICULOUS* mechanic is the fact that it forces your team to continue playing games you would have otherwise left in the other MOBAs. I've had comebacks I never expected to happen, and experiences I couldn't believe, simply because they removed my option to give up. Wow, no wonder this game is so popular with the Russians.

Sure, but, in all honesty, how often does that happen? For me, it doesn't happen often enough to justify playing it. THere are so many other games out there that I enjoy playing more that I just don't see the point.
It honestly doesn't happen that much, but that may also be because I give up easily sometimes. DotA is about *having fun* for me, if I have to literally put all my effort into the game to the point that I'm stressed out afterwards, it kind of defeats the purpose. That's the kind of focus and concentration it would probably take to succeed in a game in which you're extremely far behind.

Incidentally, my first and only ranked game lasted for 70+ minutes, not including the 10 minute picking/banning phase, and it took everything out of me. Yeah, we won, and in large part to my personal contribution, but it kind of left a sour taste in my mouth.
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Offline Misery

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #322 on: January 31, 2014, 08:26:12 pm »
...
The only good aspect that has come out of this *RIDICULOUS* mechanic is the fact that it forces your team to continue playing games you would have otherwise left in the other MOBAs. I've had comebacks I never expected to happen, and experiences I couldn't believe, simply because they removed my option to give up. Wow, no wonder this game is so popular with the Russians.

Sure, but, in all honesty, how often does that happen? For me, it doesn't happen often enough to justify playing it. THere are so many other games out there that I enjoy playing more that I just don't see the point.

Aye, this.   That's part of my problem with it as well.  Dota..... isnt structured so that comebacks are really viable.  If anything, it's structured AGAINST the idea.  It's why other devs lately have been trying to come up with changes that can allow comebacks to happen more frequently.   Dota's mechanics/balance/everything tends toward extreme snowballing.   Once that's started happening for one team.... chances are if you dont stop them VERY QUICKLY, within just a couple of minutes you'll hit a point where a comeback simply isnt a realistic idea anymore.  The other guys are too strong, and the stronger they get, the faster they then gain further strength.   League of course does this too, and I think it's one of the biggest reasons why the surrender option is so important there.  Because when you hit this point, what's the purpose of going further?  Theoretically comebacks can still TECHNICALLY happen..... but it's so phenomenally rare in that situation that it's usually not worth thinking about too much.

Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #323 on: January 31, 2014, 11:01:10 pm »
...
The only good aspect that has come out of this *RIDICULOUS* mechanic is the fact that it forces your team to continue playing games you would have otherwise left in the other MOBAs. I've had comebacks I never expected to happen, and experiences I couldn't believe, simply because they removed my option to give up. Wow, no wonder this game is so popular with the Russians.

Sure, but, in all honesty, how often does that happen? For me, it doesn't happen often enough to justify playing it. THere are so many other games out there that I enjoy playing more that I just don't see the point.

Aye, this.   That's part of my problem with it as well.  Dota..... isnt structured so that comebacks are really viable.  If anything, it's structured AGAINST the idea.  It's why other devs lately have been trying to come up with changes that can allow comebacks to happen more frequently.   Dota's mechanics/balance/everything tends toward extreme snowballing.   Once that's started happening for one team.... chances are if you dont stop them VERY QUICKLY, within just a couple of minutes you'll hit a point where a comeback simply isnt a realistic idea anymore.  The other guys are too strong, and the stronger they get, the faster they then gain further strength.   League of course does this too, and I think it's one of the biggest reasons why the surrender option is so important there.  Because when you hit this point, what's the purpose of going further?  Theoretically comebacks can still TECHNICALLY happen..... but it's so phenomenally rare in that situation that it's usually not worth thinking about too much.
Unfortunately I disagree with this entirely. DotA is designed for comebacks much more than any other MOBA I've played or done research into.

This guy at the LoL forum has a pretty good explanation of why. Sure he got downvoted, but what he said was absolutely true.

Two experiments were done using the biggest tournaments for LoL and DotA respectively. The method was simple. The researchers looked and saw what team was ahead in gold at the 12 minute mark. If the gold difference was larger than 10%, they then fast forwarded to the end to see which team had won. If the team which had been behind at the 12 minute mark had won, it would be considered a comeback.

The tournament used for LoL was MLG Anaheim 2012, and the tournament used for DotA was The Defense 2012. Not surprisingly, the comeback chance for a team that was ahead in gold at the MLG tournament for LoL was only 18 percent. How, another study found that if you looked for the team with the gold lead at the 15 minute mark, that team had a 90% chance to win. So basically, a 10% chance to comeback after the 15 minute mark, for the team that is even slightly behind.

However, the statistics for the DotA 2 tournament (INTL 2012) were much different. Overall, a team that was 10% behind at the 10 minute mark still had a 26% chance to comeback. 26% is pretty fair in my eyes. If the number of comebacks was higher than about 1/4th of the time, being ahead would almost be pointless.

However, I think you also have to take into consideration all the mechanics that DotA has added since the 2012 tournament to make comebacks even more likely than before. Such as:

1.Nerfing buybacks:
* Buyback prevents gaining unreliable gold (creeps, neutrals, etc) until your normal respawn time finishes
* When buying back, 25% of the remaining respawn time will be added to your next death
-This is important. Buybacks give the winning team an advantage. They usually have a lot more left over gold than the losing team (obviously). This means that they can buy back into the game much more often, making it exceedingly hard to win from behind. However, buybacks were nerfed hard in the 6.78 patch, which severely punishes the player using them. This happened AFTER The International 2013 ended by the way.

2. Roshan mechanics changed
* Roshan will respawn at a random time between 8 and 11 minutes after death
* When Aegis expires unused, it heals the hero fully over 5 seconds (regen dispels on damage from players or buildings)
-Roshan no longer respawns at a set time. The winning team can't just go into his pit every 10 minutes like clock work and keep killing him for an uncontestable snowball frenzy. Instead, they would have to hover around the pit for several minutes around the time it's supposed to respawn. If the enemy team does choose to do this, they're wasting valuable time and resources during which the losing team can be farming, pushing, or doing various other things around the map. However, once the winning team begins to Rosh, the losing team can still usually respond in time if they're paying attention.

3. Aegis time reduced from 10 to 6 minutes.
-This means that the person with the aegis is forced to use it much earlier than before, allowing the enemy team to simply hold out until the aegis ends, or having the defensive advantage of the team with the aegis tries to push. Before, the team with the aegis was very difficult to deal with for 10 minutes.

4. Kill streak ending hugely buffed
The rewarding for stopping someone with 10 kills in DotA is now 1000 gold. For 9 kills it's 875. For 7 kills it's 750. Compare this to League for which the number never increases about 500, even after 10+ kills in a row.

And tons of other small changes that have happened since that 2012 tournament. The number of comebacks in The Defense 2013 were absolutely insane. If you haven't watched the Grand Finals of that tournament, I highly encourage you to do so.

Sources used:
http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/utge5/the_snowball_experiment_day_2_charting_mlg/
http://lol.gamepedia.com/Articles:Snowballing_in_the_Group_Stages_of_the_S3_World_Championship
http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/yo1k6/how_often_do_comebacks_happen_in_pro_dota_2_with/
« Last Edit: January 31, 2014, 11:07:14 pm by Wingflier »
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #324 on: January 31, 2014, 11:40:01 pm »
It's funny, because I've seen SO many comebacks in Smite. Every other game there's a huge comeback in Conquest games. All it takes is a few good engagements, a Fire Giant (ie Roshan) and you can make a HUGE push. Even backdooring is fairly common in Smite.
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Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #325 on: February 01, 2014, 12:13:13 am »
It's funny, because I've seen SO many comebacks in Smite. Every other game there's a huge comeback in Conquest games. All it takes is a few good engagements, a Fire Giant (ie Roshan) and you can make a HUGE push. Even backdooring is fairly common in Smite.
Awesome, can't wait to try it.
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Offline Misery

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #326 on: February 01, 2014, 06:54:05 am »
...
The only good aspect that has come out of this *RIDICULOUS* mechanic is the fact that it forces your team to continue playing games you would have otherwise left in the other MOBAs. I've had comebacks I never expected to happen, and experiences I couldn't believe, simply because they removed my option to give up. Wow, no wonder this game is so popular with the Russians.

Sure, but, in all honesty, how often does that happen? For me, it doesn't happen often enough to justify playing it. THere are so many other games out there that I enjoy playing more that I just don't see the point.

Aye, this.   That's part of my problem with it as well.  Dota..... isnt structured so that comebacks are really viable.  If anything, it's structured AGAINST the idea.  It's why other devs lately have been trying to come up with changes that can allow comebacks to happen more frequently.   Dota's mechanics/balance/everything tends toward extreme snowballing.   Once that's started happening for one team.... chances are if you dont stop them VERY QUICKLY, within just a couple of minutes you'll hit a point where a comeback simply isnt a realistic idea anymore.  The other guys are too strong, and the stronger they get, the faster they then gain further strength.   League of course does this too, and I think it's one of the biggest reasons why the surrender option is so important there.  Because when you hit this point, what's the purpose of going further?  Theoretically comebacks can still TECHNICALLY happen..... but it's so phenomenally rare in that situation that it's usually not worth thinking about too much.
Unfortunately I disagree with this entirely. DotA is designed for comebacks much more than any other MOBA I've played or done research into.

This guy at the LoL forum has a pretty good explanation of why. Sure he got downvoted, but what he said was absolutely true.

Two experiments were done using the biggest tournaments for LoL and DotA respectively. The method was simple. The researchers looked and saw what team was ahead in gold at the 12 minute mark. If the gold difference was larger than 10%, they then fast forwarded to the end to see which team had won. If the team which had been behind at the 12 minute mark had won, it would be considered a comeback.

The tournament used for LoL was MLG Anaheim 2012, and the tournament used for DotA was The Defense 2012. Not surprisingly, the comeback chance for a team that was ahead in gold at the MLG tournament for LoL was only 18 percent. How, another study found that if you looked for the team with the gold lead at the 15 minute mark, that team had a 90% chance to win. So basically, a 10% chance to comeback after the 15 minute mark, for the team that is even slightly behind.

However, the statistics for the DotA 2 tournament (INTL 2012) were much different. Overall, a team that was 10% behind at the 10 minute mark still had a 26% chance to comeback. 26% is pretty fair in my eyes. If the number of comebacks was higher than about 1/4th of the time, being ahead would almost be pointless.

However, I think you also have to take into consideration all the mechanics that DotA has added since the 2012 tournament to make comebacks even more likely than before. Such as:

1.Nerfing buybacks:
* Buyback prevents gaining unreliable gold (creeps, neutrals, etc) until your normal respawn time finishes
* When buying back, 25% of the remaining respawn time will be added to your next death
-This is important. Buybacks give the winning team an advantage. They usually have a lot more left over gold than the losing team (obviously). This means that they can buy back into the game much more often, making it exceedingly hard to win from behind. However, buybacks were nerfed hard in the 6.78 patch, which severely punishes the player using them. This happened AFTER The International 2013 ended by the way.

2. Roshan mechanics changed
* Roshan will respawn at a random time between 8 and 11 minutes after death
* When Aegis expires unused, it heals the hero fully over 5 seconds (regen dispels on damage from players or buildings)
-Roshan no longer respawns at a set time. The winning team can't just go into his pit every 10 minutes like clock work and keep killing him for an uncontestable snowball frenzy. Instead, they would have to hover around the pit for several minutes around the time it's supposed to respawn. If the enemy team does choose to do this, they're wasting valuable time and resources during which the losing team can be farming, pushing, or doing various other things around the map. However, once the winning team begins to Rosh, the losing team can still usually respond in time if they're paying attention.

3. Aegis time reduced from 10 to 6 minutes.
-This means that the person with the aegis is forced to use it much earlier than before, allowing the enemy team to simply hold out until the aegis ends, or having the defensive advantage of the team with the aegis tries to push. Before, the team with the aegis was very difficult to deal with for 10 minutes.

4. Kill streak ending hugely buffed
The rewarding for stopping someone with 10 kills in DotA is now 1000 gold. For 9 kills it's 875. For 7 kills it's 750. Compare this to League for which the number never increases about 500, even after 10+ kills in a row.

And tons of other small changes that have happened since that 2012 tournament. The number of comebacks in The Defense 2013 were absolutely insane. If you haven't watched the Grand Finals of that tournament, I highly encourage you to do so.

Sources used:
http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/utge5/the_snowball_experiment_day_2_charting_mlg/
http://lol.gamepedia.com/Articles:Snowballing_in_the_Group_Stages_of_the_S3_World_Championship
http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/yo1k6/how_often_do_comebacks_happen_in_pro_dota_2_with/

The thing about all of the stuff that guy said in his post though is that they're all just concepts.   Concepts which make sense on paper, but in practice, they never quite work that way.   There's a reason why Dota has a reputation among many people for crazed snowballing being stupidly common.  Items that are less worthy at higher costs, for example.  That's great and all, but if the carry on the other team is already super-fed, he probably doesnt care too much.... and will probably more than make up for the item's expensiveness due to all of the gold he gets from slaughtering your team. AND, every time he kills one, that player then LOSES gold, while he GAINS it.  Suddenly, he's taken a large leap towards even MORE power, while his enemy has just been knocked back from whatever they were intending on buying by a significant amount.   And typically, when snowballing is occuring, it's not like the carry player is only getting one of these kills every now and then... chances are, he's wrecking you in rapid succession.  The faster he does this, the more ridiculous the gulf between power levels becomes.  And that's JUST considering the carry.  Every time the snowballing carry kills, he makes things easier on his teammates to do what they're trying to do.... which often involves getting money as well.  And of course, the carry is often not the only one dealing damage to his target, which means assist gold as well for the others.  And when the enemy team is all smashed up, the snowballing group is free to pop more towers, or maybe go smash Roshan, snowballing even further.   This continues to get more absurd as other, similar concepts begin to show themselves.

Typically, even in tournaments, STOPPING the crazed ball of snow generally means one thing:  Someone on the enemy team made a colossal mistake of some sort, creating an opening or a weak spot that wouldnt be there otherwise.  When I'm watching matches, either tournament-level, or otherwise, and a comeback occurs, this is usually the sort of situation that led up to it.   Someone on the winning team made some really bad mistake, got their entire team wrecked (in many cases this needs to happen more than once to shorten the distance between power levels enough to work), and gave the losing team a sudden chance to run amok and pop towers and whatever.

And of course this isnt just restricted to Dota, but happens in varying levels in games across the genre.  Depends on the game.

I forgot what else I was gonna say.

Offline Wingflier

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #327 on: February 01, 2014, 11:07:39 am »
Quote
There's a reason why Dota has a reputation among many people for crazed snowballing being stupidly common.
Typically the people who say things like this, in my experience, are people whom come from LoL who played for a week or less, gave up, and went back to their game. I've never met a single person who has been playing DotA for years that will tell you that comebacks are uncommon. It does take a certain understanding of the game, and a certain level of competence of your teammates, but comebacks are very possible if you really want it.

Quote
Items that are less worthy at higher costs, for example.  That's great and all, but if the carry on the other team is already super-fed, he probably doesnt care too much.... and will probably more than make up for the item's expensiveness due to all of the gold he gets from slaughtering your team. AND, every time he kills one, that player then LOSES gold, while he GAINS it.
Looking at this another way, however, lends a very different view. The person that keeps dying didn't have that much gold anyway, so he's not really losing that much. In addition, the "reliable gold" mechanic gives you gold that you can not lose on death, regardless of how many times you die. On the other hand, when members of the enemy team die, they're losing a LOT of gold since they have it to lose, and if you're ending their streaks, giving you even more than normal.

In addition, it's difficult to discount the items in DotA which are extremely cheap and cost efficient. Ghost Scepter is a 1400 gold item that gives the user 7 to all stats, and the ability to become immune to physical damage for 4 seconds. In other words, it doesn't matter how much farm the carry has. Once a squishy hero buys this, the carry could have 10x his amount of farm but can still do absolutely nothing to him for 4 seconds. Nothing even remotely like this exists in LoL. The squishy hero can still even use his spells during this time, stunning, disabling, or nuking the opponents. Yeah, he can't use his autoattack anymore, but if you're that behind in farm, it likely wouldn't make much of a difference anyway right?

However, the 4 second attack immunity lasts even more than just 4 seconds, and I'll tell you why. Team fights typically last about 10-15 seconds in DotA before there emerges a clear victor. If a carry begins attacking you, then you turn ethreal, he's not going to just sit and follow you around for 4 seconds, he has to switch to another target. If he just sat and waited for you to become vulnerable again, he would waste so much precious time and DPS while your allies were free to run amok. So basically, after he switches targets, who knows how much time you get before you become the target again. It is EXTREMELY cost efficient in this situation, and I've seen it turn games around many times.

Then you've got items like Cyclone Stick which put yourself or an enemy hero out of the battle for 2.5 seconds. It costs 2700, but it's separated into smaller, easily buildable pieces, and it's something I love to buy on casters/supports. Sure, LoL has Zhonya's, but it's even more expensive, and can only be used on yourself, not an opponent.

You've also got Heaven's Halberd, an item typically built for STR heroes. It isn't that expensive, and yet it offers amazing benefits against carries. 20 Strength (equivalent to 380 health), 25 damage, 25% evasion from attacks (in other words, enemy attacks miss you 1/4th of the time), and an amazing active ability, which shuts down a carry's ability to attack for 4 seconds.

On top of that you have items like Sheepstick, which admittedly is pretty expensive, but is core on many casters, and takes enemies out of the battle for 3.5 seconds, during which they are unable to attack, cast spells, and can barely even move.

This is even including all the heroes in DotA whose abilities are designed to shut down or counter carries, of which there are many, and many whose abilities go right through BKB as well. The amount of ways to shut down a heavily farmed carry in DotA are numerous, and you can completely any amount of farm with the right items and good teamwork.

Is it easy to do? Absolutely not. It shouldn't be either. The carry earned that farm and gear by playing smart and getting ahead through legitimate means. It would be ridiculous if he didn't have the advantage in battle by sheer virtue of being able to right click you to death, after an entire game's worth of hard work getting up to that point. That's what it means to be playing from behind though. Yes, you're at a disadvantage. Yes, it requires better teamwork than the team is ahead. Why wouldn't this be the case?

Having said all that, I do agree that using these items effectively does require a decent understanding of the game. In lower level matches, carries are certainly king. It kind of reminds me of my Homeworld 2 days. I was never very good at the game, but sometimes I would venture online to play it in multiplayer against other people. I enjoyed playing multiplayer team matches because I wasn't very good on my own. Well the most commonly used strategy was to rush a "late-game" tech, massive warships called Battlecruisers. They took awhile to get and required a lot of money and research, but once you had them, you could basically unleash unbridled destruction against your foes that was difficult to stop. They had a lot of health, did a lot of damage (understatement), and their slow speed hardly mattered because you could warp them wherever you needed them to go. Most of these matches ended one way or another in a BC war, with the team who built the most BC and used them the quickest, always coming out the victor.

Fast forward a couple years, and I decide to play HW2 again on a whim. Most of the newer players have already left the game and moved on to something else. I get into a game with what seems to be fairly experienced players, and they laugh at me as I try my typical BC strat again. They simple disable my Battlecruiser, take it out of the battle, then capture it with marine boarding parties. I was completely baffled. Afterwards they told me how noob that strategy was. I began to realize that these guys were on a whole different level than me, and looking back, I'm sure that had always been the case.

In terms of comebacks, I see those all the time in high level play. The International 2013 was just amazing with how many comebacks and upsets there were. I mean you could just see how *BADLY* some of those teams wanted to win. They were willing to defy the laws of ****ing nature to win those games, even when they were impossibly behind. I'll see if I can find some examples, but that tournament in particular was extremely impressive in that sense.
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Offline Misery

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #328 on: February 01, 2014, 08:34:36 pm »
 Yeah, I know all the items and what they do.  Every moba has very similar things to all of that.  All those items are great and all.... but the enemy team has access to the same efficient gizmos that you do.  It's not like they hit a point of snowballing and suddenly the game locks up their store, to prevent extremely practical things like those from being bought.   If they're that far ahead, chances are they already HAVE alot of stuff like that.  It's pretty much guaranteed, in fact.  That's a huge part of the concept of snowballing.  It's not about them buying expensive items:  It's about them buying GOOD items. 

And specifically, when I mention all of this stuff, I'm talking about it in an overall sense.  It happening differently at a few tournaments doesnt change the fact that it's very rare.  It simply means that it's happened in some well-known matches.

And yes, I know it requires good teamwork and all of that.... but in addition to everything related to it, this is a game that uses alot of stats and numbers and calculations..... there's only so much you can do when your spells.... the ones that never scale..... BOUNCE OFF of the enemy team.  Because they're just too powerful to get wrecked at that point.  And that's the thing here.  Chances are, when this situation is taking place, it's NOT just the enemy carry who's gone berserk.  It's probably the entire enemy team by that point....  I only mentioned the carry repeatedly because it's usually the best example, so it makes it less likely that I'll just confuse the points I'm just trying to make but it's rare that in this situation the enemy carry is the ONLY one who is snowballing.  I've been mostly referring to the entire enemy team being ahead like this, not JUST their carry.   

And if this is an enemy team that ISNT dumber than a sack of hammers, chances are they're well aware of any potential remaining weaknesses that could be used against them, and have made preparations to handle those.  Which goes along with the other bit I said:  If a big comeback happens from as far behind as I'm describing, chances are the other team had a major mistake. If you're that far ahead, and you're using teamwork that's just as good as or better than the team that's trying for the miracle win from behind, without any incredible mistakes, well.... you've got quite the high chance of keeping your win chance very secure.

Though why exactly anyone from LoL would try to bring this up in relation to Dota and NOT LoL is baffling to me.  The problem is pretty much the same in LoL.... the only difference being the pleasant inclusion of a surrender mechanic.  It has all the same issues though, if not to the same extremes.  It's more of a genre problem, not just a Dota problem.   Thinking otherwise is kinda silly, really....


As for examples in other genres, the only other game type I do competetively is fighting games, so stuff from other genres dont make too much sense to me. 

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Moba balance comparison, please comment
« Reply #329 on: February 01, 2014, 08:44:38 pm »
Btw, in case anyone is interested, this Twitch video (at the 5 hour mark almost exactly) shows a typical high-level game in Smite. It's from the north American tournament qualifiers. It's the finals between Cognitive Gaming and Snipe. You can of course watch the entire 5 hour tournament, but if you just want the finals, check at the 5 hour mark and to the end. It's about 30 minutes.
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