I just don't get DOTA

Tek7

Tek7

CGA President, Tribe of Judah Founder & President
Staff member
DOTA. League of Legends. Heroes of Newerth. SOTIS. Bloodline Champions. Whatever. I just don't get it.

I played the second LoL tutorial and I quit halfway through because I was so bored. Attack, retreat, attack, retreat, attack, retreat.

DOTA is crazy popular. Even when I don't like a game--let's use Counter-Strike as an example--I at least understand why it's popular. When it comes to DOTA games, I just do not get it.

What am I missing? Someone please explain this to me.

And no, this isn't rhetorical or rage-y. I'm just feeling like an entire community of gamers understands something that I just don't get.
 
Keero said:
It's like Halo, that's why.
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Except I understand why Halo is popular. Vehicles + deathmatch = fun. Granted, UT2004's Onslaught mode is vastly superior, but to each their own.

With DOTA, though, I'm just left scratching my head.
 
Watch some videos by our own ColdTurkey49. The tutorials really are nothing like actual game-play. Some well done videos describing how strategy works will shed some light.

What you describe, attk, attk retreat is just the laning phase of the game. That is just the initial phase (first 1/4 maybe) as you level and gear up, then the game gets radically different as you leave the 2 man lanes and start the roaming 5 man ganking.
 
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Dude, wow, Cold Turkey has A LOT of views. That's awesome!

Miss his WAR commentary though, was always fun. :p
 
Tek. When i played LoL for the first two days, I was on the verge of uninstalling it several times. I thought it was the most boring and pointless game as well. If all you have done is played the tutorials, then of course your going to hate the game. You need to hook up with some TOJ members and ask questions as you play. The game does require you to know about spells and special abilities. I think the biggest learning curve for me was learning how each champ works and when I could get the kill or when I should get back before I die. Just talk to danny about this game and hang out with us on teamspeak. We'll play some games with ya and help you.



The Mighty Gerbil said:
:) Tek sounds like me when I asked why Starcraft:Brood War is/was popular so long.
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I call for an excommunication from our forums! : P SC BW to me is still the greatest RTS ever. The game is just hard, that's all.
 
The Mighty Gerbil said:
:) Tek sounds like me when I asked why Starcraft:Brood War is/was popular so long.
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Now let's not say things we'll regret.

And the difference is immediately obvious: A new player can jump immediately into play StarCraft (and moreso into playing StarCraft II) and learn the game through the single-player campaign. Gameplay is immediately varied--not just attack, retreat, attack, retreat, attack, retreat, attack, retreat, so on, and so forth.

Mostly_Harmless said:
Tek. When i played LoL for the first two days, I was on the verge of uninstalling it several times. I thought it was the most boring and pointless game as well. If all you have done is played the tutorials, then of course your going to hate the game. You need to hook up with some TOJ members and ask questions as you play. The game does require you to know about spells and special abilities. I think the biggest learning curve for me was learning how each champ works and when I could get the kill or when I should get back before I die. Just talk to danny about this game and hang out with us on teamspeak. We'll play some games with ya and help you.
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I probably could learn the game, but I'm not motivated to invest the time. I participate in five game events nearly every week (Unreal Monday, TF2sday, Left 4 Wednesday, Battlefield Friday, and Straturday) and also own several single-player Playstation 3 games--some of which I haven't even started yet.

I just don't see any point to learning a game with a steep learning curve that is, at least at first glance, not very fun at all.

It also doesn't help that when I do attempt to play the game, it feels like I'm the only person in the Western hemisphere who doesn't already have a Masters degree in DOTA Studies. Player communities for strategy games tend to be among the most insular and unwelcoming (with the possible exception of the Quake community), though I'm sure there's a few friendly people willing to help.

Now for those who enjoy the game, enjoy it. Don't let my aversion to learning curves and shouting for kids to get off my lawn sway you from a game you enjoy.
Mostly_Harmless said:
I call for an excommunication from our forums! : P
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We can ban users, but I'm pretty sure we can't excommunicate them. And we don't ban people for expressing opinions.

Even when those opinions are so obviously wrong.
Mostly_Harmless said:
SC BW to me is still the greatest RTS ever. The game is just hard, that's all.
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I think the entire nation of South Korea and most of the rest of the world would agree with you.
 
I like LoL because:

1) It's a fast game. Matches usually last less than an hour, and if your team is good you can win in 20 minutes (15 tops).

2) I can play a match and log out and come back <insert time period here> later and still be competitive. The only thing you gain from playing repetitively are mastery points (think of spec trees from your WoW character and more or less copy and paste them exactly into LoL). Mastery points aren't nearly as important as spec trees are in WoW, however.

3) It's free.... duh.

4) I love to play Sivir. She's high-damage and ranged... my favorite.

Ultimately what you need to do is find a character you like and practice with it. I played many (including Ashe who is very similar) until I finally found what I wanted.

Also, playing random games isn't bad either... people usually behave themselves.

Friend me... I'm Osirys.
 
Odale said:
Friend me... I'm Osirys.
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I think you're already on my LoL friends list. :) My ID is gummyzergling (if I remember correctly). If it's not gummyzergling, it should be Tek7.
 
Tek7 said:
Now let's not say things we'll regret.

And the difference is immediately obvious: A new player can jump immediately into play StarCraft (and moreso into playing StarCraft II) and learn the game through the single-player campaign. Gameplay is immediately varied--not just attack, retreat, attack, retreat, attack, retreat, attack, retreat, so on, and so forth.
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Hey I'm not comparing the games themselves (as I have not played LoL) I'm just saying I didn't understand why SC is so popular in a similar way. Like you many games I understand why players like but I may not like myself, SC was an exception like LoL was to you. I did understand why SC was popular originally I just didn't understand why it was still popular until you guys explained it to me...

1. It's in space.

and

2. It came before other RTS games doing innovative things first thus getting it's shoe in the door first... even if the ones that came after were better.

and

3. Did I mention it was in space?
 
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The reason I like DOTA style games is that it gives me a way to play an intense team-based strategy game without the EXTREMELY (to me) boring economy side of RTS games. Because I can forget about building a base, I get to focus on action. I can sorta remember what being new to DotA was like. I just didn't see the grand team strategy as clearly as I do now. Every decision you make should be about what furthers your team's changes of victory and hurts the other guys. attack-retreat-attack retreat might even be what you need to do... you just have to learn to do it at the best times. Retreat to pull them into your tower range while teammates who are in the jungle or other lanes can pull in behind them for the gank. Sweet! No need to go mine some minerals, killing stuff gets you gold, wheeeee!
 
If that's true, should check out Dawn of War 2's demos. :p Minimal resource management, plenty of skill-based micro.
 
I played DoW2 a little. Very little. I'm not good at micro-ing multiple units. One is about all I can handle :p It was better than SC, though.
 
The Mighty Gerbil said:
Hey I'm not comparing the games themselves (as I have not played LoL) I'm just saying I didn't understand why SC is so popular in a similar way. Like you many games I understand why players like but I may not like myself, SC was an exception like LoL was to you. I did understand why SC was popular originally I just didn't understand why it was still popular until you guys explained it to me...

1. It's in space.

and

2. It came before other RTS games doing innovative things first thus getting it's shoe in the door first... even if the ones that came after were better.

and

3. Did I mention it was in space?
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Conquest: Frontier Wars is the best RTS I have ever owned/played/heard of.

This thread reminds me of a game I don't understand - Team Fortress 2. How much fun can one really have by essentially killing enemies over and over and over and over with no rewards? Sure, in LoL you repeatedly kill others over and over, but when you do you get more gold and can buy equipment that enhances your character. This enhancement doesnt exist in TF2. I don't get it.
 
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Just not as repetitive as any other RTS :p

Do I want 3 races with about 3 main ways to build them, for a total of 9 variations, or 75 heroes times approximately 3 legitimate builds for each which means 225 variations?

I do know what you mean though, I recognize what some people find repetitive about a dota style game. But really most games are repetitive... it's just that different people find different kinds of repetitiveness as boring. Another example: (UT/Quack) vs (BC2/most class based FPS). Some people would find doing all Deathmatch games in UT to be very boring: everyone has access to the same weapons, they have the same run speed, etc. I on the other hand find the class shooters more boring: there's only a few number of classes to choose from, and once i do only a couple weapons to use... same "variety" over and over again at the expense of not having a dozen weapons available for me to use based on the situation and area of the map, and hardly any variety in the ways you can traverse the maps.

Well it's a good thing that there are a lot of quality PC games out to cater to us all!
 
Lol, someone's obviously a little biased in favor of Starcraft.

Tek7 said:
It also doesn't help that when I do attempt to play the game, it feels like I'm the only person in the Western hemisphere who doesn't already have a Masters degree in DOTA Studies.
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Honestly, I would say the same thing about pretty much every RTS I've started playing long enough after it came out. You may have a campaign to learn in, but you still find that you get your tail kicked when you try to compete with players. Now, I haven't had a ton of experience with Starcraft specifically in that area, but I did have that experience playing Warcraft 3 online. As Gerbil was saying, it is certainly impressive that SC has remained popular for so long. I can see plenty of reasons why that might be in addition to the ones he mentioned (such as low computer requirements and low cost to keep playing the same game instead of buying new games/computers), but it is still unusual.

Part of what would make it difficult for me to understand why SC is such a big deal is because I was too young to really be into video games when it came out. SC was released in early 1998, so I would have been 8 at the time. Barely old enough even TRY to play the game, certainly not old enough to be any good at it. I was lucky to get 30 minutes a day for computer time back then. When I first had real access to SC was years after that, and it was old news by then. I never got into the game and never saw it in its original glory, which means that I wouldn't even list it among my favorite games of all time, let alone at the top of any specific gaming list.

Another difficulty with getting into RTS games in general is that they almost always have a harder learning curve than other games do, because RTS skills don't transfer as smoothly into each new RTS game. If you don't get into it early on, chances are you won't be able to because of how far behind everyone else you get (unless you have massive amounts of time available to you). In more recent years I haven't had the money or the time to get good at RTS, so instead I've kept my focus on games where my skill can transfer more easily to newer games some day when I have money to get them.

Tek7 said:
Now let's not say things we'll regret.

And the difference is immediately obvious: A new player can jump immediately into play StarCraft (and moreso into playing StarCraft II) and learn the game through the single-player campaign. Gameplay is immediately varied--not just attack, retreat, attack, retreat, attack, retreat, attack, retreat, so on, and so forth.

We can ban users, but I'm pretty sure we can't excommunicate them. And we don't ban people for expressing opinions.

Even when those opinions are so obviously wrong.
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The point of that whole thing was to say that I disagree with your whole statement there. The opinion you are referring to is not wrong and has many reasons why it may be valid. I'm neither a fan of LoL nor of SC, but I would certainly have liked to be good at them if I had time to get that way. I don't really know understand either of them is popular, but that's due more to me not spending enough time to learn than due to any inherent problems with the games.
 
I'm not sure why you're comparing StarCraft with LoL.

Not to mention that I don't think you understand StarCraft very well, if at all, based on your posts here.
 
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