The problem is you're thinking like Counterstrike, not like Go or Chess. You're in the moment when you need to be three moves ahead. DOTA and Counterstrike are alike in that way - if you make a mistake, you are punished, and most often with death, and most likely it comes for you on swift wings. The difference is in counterstrike, it's because you weren't far enough ahead of the guy by milliseconds, or you were shooting wide by a few pixels, and in Dota, it's because you're two or three mental moves and essentially seconds behind.
For example, that match where I managed to top my team - last I played with you yesterday, playing viper. I looked at it's abilities, and I'm already planning how to attack you halfway through the game five levels down the road, before it's an issue, and thinking how my abilities interact, and making moves to set up moves coming WAY later. I'm farming hard because I know that the faster I get those abilities, the faster I can start rolling you, putting you at a disadvantage for gold and XP. I'm looking at my speed, and thinking that I'm slow, so I should pull up either that or my health, so I can better withstand attacks - I'm not getting away fast, and if you kill me first, well, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. I'm thinking about which items to go for from my recommended list first - Do I grab the boots and gloves to take advantage of my abilities combined with a greater attack speed while raising my move speed? Or do I go for something more expensive that will increase my survivability, meaning I can grab more gold, more XP sooner by staying around fights longer?
Conversely, you fucking stomped me hard in the game before, where I played riki. I didn't plan well, I didn't think to account for counters, I didn't think about my items. I was focused on my Invis keeping me safe, and hoping I could dump out enough damage fast from behind to end a fight before it became trouble for me, and didn't think at all. So, I got wrecked hard, really, really hard - even with a hero that's generally considered to be a pretty vicious one, teleporting in and dealing big damage fast.
You need to carve a new groove in your meat. It's not Counterstrike, and you're not a few milliseconds behind. You're a few seconds behind, if not a few minutes - and that counterstrike groove in your brain simply isn't going to cut it.
Yeah, this is complete and utter bullshit. At any serious competitive level of CounterStrike you have to think four to five MATCHES ahead. You are expected to be extremely proficient at shooting skills at even the basic competitive scene.
Your mistake in that game where you were all invis was that you didn't kill me. You kept popping out of invisibility getting one hit and then running away. So I wasn't really afraid of you. I kinda thought I could kill you if I had the health and could see you. So I asked the team what the anti-invisibility item was, and we laid down some eyeballs. Once I saw you, I just did the obvious using stun attack, then every other attack. And one I get that one kill it snowballs because of the gold/xp bonus from doing so.
I think DotA much like netrunner. You hold the damage cards in your hand. Unless scorched earth or Neural EMP is going to win you the game, hold onto it. Don't pop out of invisibility to attack unless you are going to kill me for sure.
Yeah, this is complete and utter bullshit. At any serious competitive level of CounterStrike you have to think four to five MATCHES ahead. You are expected to be extremely proficient at shooting skills at even the basic competitive scene.
Yeah, except we're not talking about competitive level counterstrike, we're talking about MOBAs that you don't understand, remember? We're talking about something that's the equivalent of said shooting skills in a different game. I'm using something Scott DOES know to try and help him grasp something he so far isn't. But thanks for swinging by and trying to help, even if I already knew that. And it wasn't relevant.
Your mistake in that game where you were all invis was that you didn't kill me. You kept popping out of invisibility getting one hit and then running away. So I wasn't really afraid of you. I kinda thought I could kill you if I had the health and could see you. So I asked the team what the anti-invisibility item was, and we laid down some eyeballs. Once I saw you, I just did the obvious using stun attack, then every other attack. And one I get that one kill it snowballs because of the gold/xp bonus from doing so.
Nope. Not even close.
My mistake came long before that. I knew you were Skeleton king, a tough, strength based damage dealer with a stun. So what I should have done was farmed elsewhere and started pushing agility hard early, build a counter for dust, dumped up my damage as fast as possible. I should have stayed the fuck away from you till I could give you a real scare, peak out your threat meter so that even if I couldn't kill you, it made you wary of me. I also should have been dropping smokebombs on you before jumping on you, so you're slowed and can't cast your stun, while spamming blink strike as much as I could, while keeping you silenced if necessary. If you tried to drop Dust, I'd either stay out of range, or use a dispel on myself from one of my items.
That way, even if I can't take you in one or two hit - hard in the early game, really unlikely even leveled in the late game, at least for me, I can deal a lot of damage, but you've got truckloads of health by that point - the spirit is willing, but the execution is weak. Skele king is durable as hell, and even while I level, so are you - but if I smoke you, can't get away, can't cast on me, and the best you can do is wail on me and try to either beat me down, or back me off for an escape. You turn your back to run, I get a big damage bonus. If you keep standing and trying to fight, I can use my quick blink cooldown to either keep getting behind you, or to run away if it gets hairy.
Instead, I didn't think of much more than trying to confuse and harass, getting in your face early to try and force you back. By the time I was going for what I should have been going for, it was too late, I'd fucked up and was taking the punish. So I shifted focus to harassment, which I couldn't do well, because I'd gone in early and lost the ability to surprise you.
Make no mistake, I fucked up. I fucked up really, really badly, and continued to do so all the way through, and you stomped me by playing better in that match, by a fucking mile. But the point you think I fucked up was already getting towards too late - if I'd have realized right around the point I started on you, I MIGHT have pulled it out and not fucked up quite as bad, but I failed at that too. And you were Moves ahead of me - I was focusing local, you had me cold, with Dust and a plan, even if it was a short-term one.
Your act of being contrarian to everything Scott says or does is tiring. Instead of being condescending, why not try to actually inform him instead of taking cheap shots.
Also, I'd call your use of a false analogy completely relevant. However, I'm sure you'll come up with a super witty reply that makes you superior to everyone in the thread.
I do agree with Churba that he needs to develop a different skill set for Dota, just as specialized and arbitrary as with NS or Counterstrike. I tried to play NS and got as confused as Scott was, the interface was as counter intuitive and the rules were dumb. I also got killed a bunch of times by something I did not see coming, the only difference is that whilst playing NS I got called a Fag and a Noob, something that didn't happen yesterday.
I do agree with Churba that he needs to develop a different skill set for Dota, just as specialized and arbitrary as with NS or Counterstrike. I tried to play NS and got as confused as Scott was, the interface was as counter intuitive and the rules were dumb. I also got killed a bunch of times by something I did not see coming, the only difference is that whilst playing NS I got called a Fag and a Noob, something that didn't happen yesterday.
I do agree with Churba that he needs to develop a different skill set for Dota, just as specialized and arbitrary as with NS or Counterstrike. I tried to play NS and got as confused as Scott was, the interface was as counter intuitive and the rules were dumb. I also got killed a bunch of times by something I did not see coming, the only difference is that whilst playing NS I got called a Fag and a Noob, something that didn't happen yesterday.
All the MOBA apologists are just falling on blaming Scott and his lack of knowledge/skill instead of acknowledging flaws in the game. But hey, if Rym makes the same criticisms it's a revelation.
I'm not blaming Scott, and yes, MOBAs are flawed. It's not being an apologist, I'm just saying there are layers to the game, and the deeper you go, the more satisfying it becomes. When your team lands a good combo on a team fight or you make and uncanny dodge from certain death, you start to get it, and just saying a game sucks or that it's stupid or pointing out this and that is wrong just comes off as bitter. It's like trying to play flamenco diablo from the get-go with just the music sheets, when you only know how to read tablature, you'd be like "this shit is dumb, I don't care about the note I'm playing, just tell me what finger where", then "this shit is counter intuitive, there is so much shit going on here, and they expect me to play this at 120bpm, why not slow that shit down?".
MOBAs as they stand today have the same basic problem that Go does.
They lack good directional heuristics that analogize anything even remotely resembling the real world, and they lack obvious low-order positional heuristics. As a result, play is extremely unsatisfying except at the highest levels of rewarded skill.
Most directional heuristics a player will identify playing the game initially will prove false and misleading. Any explanation of why this is the case will involve mechanics far beyond their current experience, further confusing them.
See Bridge, which has a similar problem: trick taking is the obvious heuristic, but signaling is the true determiner of victory. Signaling (via bidding) is so removed from the core of the game as to be unintelligible to a new player. Most people, when attempting to teach bridge to a new player, focus on it (correctly), but thus dissuade the new player due to the complex and arbitrary nature of good signalling, itself seemingly unrelated to the game as it is presented on the table.
Positionally, noob MOBA players tend to have no idea how well they're doing until they get killed trivially (or kill trivially). The primary positional involves rate of experience gain, but this is not entirely obvious mechanically to new players.
I need time out of work to explain that in more detail.
I'm not blaming Scott, and yes, MOBAs are flawed. It's not being an apologist, I'm just saying there are layers to the game, and the deeper you go, the more satisfying it becomes. When your team lands a good combo on a team fight or you make and uncanny dodge from certain death, you start to get it, and just saying a game sucks or that it's stupid or pointing out this and that is wrong just comes off as bitter. It's like trying to play flamenco diablo from the get-go with just the music sheets, when you only know how to read tablature, you'd be like "this shit is dumb, I don't care about the note I'm playing, just tell me what finger where", then "this shit is counter intuitive, there is so much shit going on here, and they expect me to play this at 120bpm, why not slow that shit down?".
Lots of popular multiplayer games have layers. I'm not sure what makes MOBAs so special. Maybe it's the fact that people don't understand you can have a deep/rewarding experience without make the player jump through needless hoops. Is it a point of pride to say you are good at jumping through hoops? I'm not sure...
Simplifying the interface of the terminal would not be accepted by most users because, as ethnographic studies show, they take pride on manipulating Bloomberg’s current “complex” interface. The pain inflicted by blatant UI flaws such as black background color and yellow and orange text is strangely transformed into the rewarding experience of feeling and looking like a hard-core professional.
MOBAs as they stand today have the same basic problem that Go does.
They lack good directional heuristics that analogize anything even remotely resembling the real world, and they lack obvious low-order positional heuristics.
Sure, and that makes Go extremely inaccessible, but I don't think that means that it isn't worth people spending time on it. I also don't think that Go is necessarily a game that needs to be "fixed".
That said, in the case of MOBAs I do agree that there is a lot of space, both in more abstract areas and in simple interface design, in which better games could be made.
Simplifying the interface of the terminal would not be accepted by most users because, as ethnographic studies show, they take pride on manipulating Bloomberg’s current “complex” interface. The pain inflicted by blatant UI flaws such as black background color and yellow and orange text is strangely transformed into the rewarding experience of feeling and looking like a hard-core professional.
When I read Andrew's comment, I was going to link this, but you got INB4 me.
Andrew, please enlighten me with examples of said good competitive multiplayer games that are simple and not complex, that have layers and don't require you learning mechanics with such great UI design that they barely require a tutorial.
Andrew, please enlighten me with examples of said good competitive multiplayer games that are simple and not complex, that have layers and don't require you learning mechanics with such great UI design that they barely require a tutorial.
Your act of being contrarian to everything Scott says or does is tiring. Instead of being condescending, why not try to actually inform him instead of taking cheap shots.
Also, I'd call your use of a false analogy completely relevant. However, I'm sure you'll come up with a super witty reply that makes you superior to everyone in the thread.
Nah. I already know ahead of time that I'm doing the ill-advised, and responding to you when you're doing your usual thing. Then I act all narky, play-act a little stomping around, fart out a long post you won't read so you'll assume I'm mad from the length of it, and you usually quit pretty quick, presumably satisfied, just like usual. I already know you're talking shit and playing at trying to start something - I don't know why, I usually figure you're just bored at school or work or whatever.
I'll quit before you do for once, I'm just not into it today. Sorry man. And really, I generally know it's going to be a better run when you get a few posts deep before you start with sarcastically implying that I'm narcissistic and desperate for attention or validation. Which, truth be told, always struck me as a little weird - I'm too lazy for that shit. If I wanted attention and validation, or to try and play like I'm superior to people, I'd just troll randomly instead.
Andrew, please enlighten me with examples of said good competitive multiplayer games that are simple and not complex, that have layers and don't require you learning mechanics with such great UI design that they barely require a tutorial.
Tetris Space War! Outlaw
You are telling me a newbie can kick your ass at those games from the first game even if you have a couple of months experience?
Andrew, please enlighten me with examples of said good competitive multiplayer games that are simple and not complex, that have layers and don't require you learning mechanics with such great UI design that they barely require a tutorial.
Tetris Space War! Outlaw
You are telling me a newbie can kick your ass at those games from the first game even if you have a couple of months experience?
Theoretically. Actually the same is true for DOTA because it isn't stateful. The difference is that the newb has a greater chance at say, Tetris because they could come up with heuristics much more quickly. They might not win game one, but they'll at least be able to tell WTF is going on.
You are telling me a newbie can kick your ass at those games from the first game even if you have a couple of months experience?
I don't understand the question. I don't think I mentioned anything about not requiring a tutorial, no complexity, not learning mechanics, or instantly being amazing. I just believe that all of the current MOBAs on the market are needlessly complex. To the point where it's prohibitive for new players to even enjoy the game.
However, this genre is not alone, there are MANY other genres that are the same way (RTS games, I'm looking at you). Yet only the MOBA community is so steadfast in their defense of the barriers their games put up.
Imagine a tug of war. You would never once even consider easing up on the rope. You pull as hard as you can to the end. You are trying to win with all your might the entire time. It makes sense.
MOBAs are a tug of war where you do sometimes, actually often, want to let up on the rope. It makes no fucking sense. Even now that I know I'm supposed to do it, it makes no fucking sense. It's a battle. I should fight as hard as I can the entire time until it's over.
Compared that to Tetris. You make as many lines as you can as fast as you can the entire game until it's over. Even if people don't have the skill to do it, they understand it from the beginning. Nobody would ever not get a Tetris with a line piece.
Lots of popular multiplayer games have layers. I'm not sure what makes MOBAs so special. Maybe it's the fact that people don't understand you can have a deep/rewarding experience without make the player jump through needless hoops. Is it a point of pride to say you are good at jumping through hoops? I'm not sure...
I thought you had some insight, since the claim that it is possible to have a deep/rewarding experience without the needless hoops was made. I just possibly misunderstood you then.
Again, I'm a fairly new player, and enjoyed the game from day one. I really don't see the barrier, but then again, I played starcraft/broodwars/Ages of Empire/warcraft/etc before, but then again, I enjoyed those from day one as well.
One thing is to just expect the game to teach you everything, the other is taking 2 or 3 minutes to read an article or basics on any wiki page, hell there are youtube channels dedicated to teaching the game.
MOBAs are a tug of war where you do sometimes, actually often, want to let up on the rope. It makes no fucking sense. Even now that I know I'm supposed to do it, it makes no fucking sense. It's a battle. I should fight as hard as I can the entire time until it's over.
It's more like sumo: you want to push the other guy out of the ring. However, if you sense your opponent is over committing, a sudden pull can make him lose his footing and his own power will send him out.
So I got a key for this game but only tried it out recently, I've found its easier to learn team games with a team, do any of you guys help noobs?
I already have moderate mechanics from SC2 and I've done the tutorial and a few co-op games. I looked up some guides as well which helped a bit but alternative routes are not really explained.
It's weird I can't find the mouse sensitivity control for this game and when Googled it seems you can't change it unless your mouse can change its DPI.
Comments
The problem is you're thinking like Counterstrike, not like Go or Chess. You're in the moment when you need to be three moves ahead. DOTA and Counterstrike are alike in that way - if you make a mistake, you are punished, and most often with death, and most likely it comes for you on swift wings. The difference is in counterstrike, it's because you weren't far enough ahead of the guy by milliseconds, or you were shooting wide by a few pixels, and in Dota, it's because you're two or three mental moves and essentially seconds behind.
For example, that match where I managed to top my team - last I played with you yesterday, playing viper. I looked at it's abilities, and I'm already planning how to attack you halfway through the game five levels down the road, before it's an issue, and thinking how my abilities interact, and making moves to set up moves coming WAY later. I'm farming hard because I know that the faster I get those abilities, the faster I can start rolling you, putting you at a disadvantage for gold and XP. I'm looking at my speed, and thinking that I'm slow, so I should pull up either that or my health, so I can better withstand attacks - I'm not getting away fast, and if you kill me first, well, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. I'm thinking about which items to go for from my recommended list first - Do I grab the boots and gloves to take advantage of my abilities combined with a greater attack speed while raising my move speed? Or do I go for something more expensive that will increase my survivability, meaning I can grab more gold, more XP sooner by staying around fights longer?
Conversely, you fucking stomped me hard in the game before, where I played riki. I didn't plan well, I didn't think to account for counters, I didn't think about my items. I was focused on my Invis keeping me safe, and hoping I could dump out enough damage fast from behind to end a fight before it became trouble for me, and didn't think at all. So, I got wrecked hard, really, really hard - even with a hero that's generally considered to be a pretty vicious one, teleporting in and dealing big damage fast.
You need to carve a new groove in your meat. It's not Counterstrike, and you're not a few milliseconds behind. You're a few seconds behind, if not a few minutes - and that counterstrike groove in your brain simply isn't going to cut it.
I think DotA much like netrunner. You hold the damage cards in your hand. Unless scorched earth or Neural EMP is going to win you the game, hold onto it. Don't pop out of invisibility to attack unless you are going to kill me for sure.
My mistake came long before that. I knew you were Skeleton king, a tough, strength based damage dealer with a stun. So what I should have done was farmed elsewhere and started pushing agility hard early, build a counter for dust, dumped up my damage as fast as possible. I should have stayed the fuck away from you till I could give you a real scare, peak out your threat meter so that even if I couldn't kill you, it made you wary of me. I also should have been dropping smokebombs on you before jumping on you, so you're slowed and can't cast your stun, while spamming blink strike as much as I could, while keeping you silenced if necessary. If you tried to drop Dust, I'd either stay out of range, or use a dispel on myself from one of my items.
That way, even if I can't take you in one or two hit - hard in the early game, really unlikely even leveled in the late game, at least for me, I can deal a lot of damage, but you've got truckloads of health by that point - the spirit is willing, but the execution is weak. Skele king is durable as hell, and even while I level, so are you - but if I smoke you, can't get away, can't cast on me, and the best you can do is wail on me and try to either beat me down, or back me off for an escape. You turn your back to run, I get a big damage bonus. If you keep standing and trying to fight, I can use my quick blink cooldown to either keep getting behind you, or to run away if it gets hairy.
Instead, I didn't think of much more than trying to confuse and harass, getting in your face early to try and force you back. By the time I was going for what I should have been going for, it was too late, I'd fucked up and was taking the punish. So I shifted focus to harassment, which I couldn't do well, because I'd gone in early and lost the ability to surprise you.
Make no mistake, I fucked up. I fucked up really, really badly, and continued to do so all the way through, and you stomped me by playing better in that match, by a fucking mile. But the point you think I fucked up was already getting towards too late - if I'd have realized right around the point I started on you, I MIGHT have pulled it out and not fucked up quite as bad, but I failed at that too. And you were Moves ahead of me - I was focusing local, you had me cold, with Dust and a plan, even if it was a short-term one.
Also, I'd call your use of a false analogy completely relevant. However, I'm sure you'll come up with a super witty reply that makes you superior to everyone in the thread.
They lack good directional heuristics that analogize anything even remotely resembling the real world, and they lack obvious low-order positional heuristics. As a result, play is extremely unsatisfying except at the highest levels of rewarded skill.
Most directional heuristics a player will identify playing the game initially will prove false and misleading. Any explanation of why this is the case will involve mechanics far beyond their current experience, further confusing them.
See Bridge, which has a similar problem: trick taking is the obvious heuristic, but signaling is the true determiner of victory. Signaling (via bidding) is so removed from the core of the game as to be unintelligible to a new player. Most people, when attempting to teach bridge to a new player, focus on it (correctly), but thus dissuade the new player due to the complex and arbitrary nature of good signalling, itself seemingly unrelated to the game as it is presented on the table.
Positionally, noob MOBA players tend to have no idea how well they're doing until they get killed trivially (or kill trivially). The primary positional involves rate of experience gain, but this is not entirely obvious mechanically to new players.
I need time out of work to explain that in more detail.
That said, in the case of MOBAs I do agree that there is a lot of space, both in more abstract areas and in simple interface design, in which better games could be made.
Space War!
Outlaw
I'll quit before you do for once, I'm just not into it today. Sorry man. And really, I generally know it's going to be a better run when you get a few posts deep before you start with sarcastically implying that I'm narcissistic and desperate for attention or validation. Which, truth be told, always struck me as a little weird - I'm too lazy for that shit. If I wanted attention and validation, or to try and play like I'm superior to people, I'd just troll randomly instead.
However, this genre is not alone, there are MANY other genres that are the same way (RTS games, I'm looking at you). Yet only the MOBA community is so steadfast in their defense of the barriers their games put up.
Imagine a tug of war. You would never once even consider easing up on the rope. You pull as hard as you can to the end. You are trying to win with all your might the entire time. It makes sense.
MOBAs are a tug of war where you do sometimes, actually often, want to let up on the rope. It makes no fucking sense. Even now that I know I'm supposed to do it, it makes no fucking sense. It's a battle. I should fight as hard as I can the entire time until it's over.
Compared that to Tetris. You make as many lines as you can as fast as you can the entire game until it's over. Even if people don't have the skill to do it, they understand it from the beginning. Nobody would ever not get a Tetris with a line piece.
Again, I'm a fairly new player, and enjoyed the game from day one. I really don't see the barrier, but then again, I played starcraft/broodwars/Ages of Empire/warcraft/etc before, but then again, I enjoyed those from day one as well.
One thing is to just expect the game to teach you everything, the other is taking 2 or 3 minutes to read an article or basics on any wiki page, hell there are youtube channels dedicated to teaching the game.
I already have moderate mechanics from SC2 and I've done the tutorial and a few co-op games. I looked up some guides as well which helped a bit but alternative routes are not really explained.
It's weird I can't find the mouse sensitivity control for this game and when Googled it seems you can't change it unless your mouse can change its DPI.