One of the reasons that Relic's RTS games consistantly impress me is because clever strategy is far and away more important than micro, and the game is both expansive and deep enough to make determining a perfect strategy essentially impossible and to reward risk-taking and creativity. There is still micro present, and using it can give you an edge, but unlike, say, Starcraft 2, where unless you are at the very highest level of micro play there is no room for creative strategy, in a Relic game out-thinking your opponent, tricking them, or overwhelming their ability to keep track of your strategy are all valid. When is the last time you saw somebody truly get tricked in a game of Starcraft?
The last time I played I was tricked. All nubs get tricked against people who know how to play simply because they aren't fast enough to see what's going on. Also because they simply don't know what's possible. I specifically remember being tricked by the Zerg that come from underground. It looked like I was actually winning, so I sent in a big attack at his base. Of course I didn't micro. I just selected a ton of guys and clicked attack on his base. Then as soon as my guys were away from my base a bajillion zerg came from underground. I didn't even know that was something that they could do.
Not knowing it's even possible kind of takes some of the awesome out of tricking somebody like that... At that point, it's not even tricking you for the win, it's just toying with you. The other person wasn't playing to win at that point, because he could have beaten you much more efficently. He was griefing you.
If you find yourself underlevel, it's obvious that you will quickly die to a higher level character in a one-on-one fight, but you aren't absolutely useless. You can stay close to creeps when pushing for added protection or lure a stronger hero to a tower for additional damage, etc.
Regardless of how much higher level an opponent is, they are still susceptible to your snares, traps, stuns, paralyzing effects, debuffs, etc. You definitely shouldn't be running around alone anyway. Coordinate a gank with a teammate, or stay close to your tank and help him with your spells. A level 1 stun still works on someone that is level 20, so you can use that to benefit a teammate's attack, which levels you up and evens out the difference.
Plus, there are jungle monsters that you can fight to level yourself up as well. If you keep dying to the opposing heroes because they are over-level, you might want to go into the forest and catch up by killing forest monsters. It's pretty effective.
There are so many things that you can do if you don't just run into a confrontation. Half of the game is knowing when to retreat and when to strike.
No he wasn't. He played to win the game. To grief he would have had to been trying to do something other than win.
But at that point, he was trying to do something other than win. He was trying to humiliate you. Unless you beat the other player the moment you can as best you can, you are not playing to win.
A burrow ambush is a legitimate strartegy, especially if the opposing player doesn't have any units to detect the attack. I doubt the other player was trying to humiliate Scott. He/she probably scouted that Scott had a lack of detectors and was vulnerable to a burrow ambush.
No he wasn't. He played to win the game. To grief he would have had to been trying to do something other than win.
But at that point, he was trying to do something other than win. He was trying to humiliate you. Unless you beat the other player the moment you can as best you can, you are not playing to win.
Exactly. Technically, Goonswarm plays EVE Online to win. They have huge Titans and a very successful corp. They also are known for encouraging people to register free accounts and swarm people's Titans with base level ships in order to choke their guns and destroy months of work.
A burrow ambush is a legitimate strartegy, especially if the opposing player doesn't have any units to detect the attack. I doubt the other player was trying to humiliate Scott. He/she probably scouted that Scott had a lack of detectors and was vulnerable to a burrow ambush.
I would have done the same thing.
I'm not saying it's not a legit strat. But it sounds like Scott was being toyed with, rather than played against.
I'm not saying it's not a legit strat. But it sounds like Scott was being toyed with, rather than played against.
It's not like the other guy knew I was a nub. It was some random game. And he didn't poke me or wait. He killed me extremely swiftly wasting no time in achieving victory. Toying with me would have been killing everything, but then retreating and intentionally leaving on SCV left alive.
So yeah. There are plenty of ways you can contribute to your team when you are under level in a MOBA game.
You can contribute, but do you actually have a chance of winning? Let's say it's 5v5. Every player on both teams is great, but one team has a guy who is very low level. Let's say he stays level 1 the whole time. Can that team possibly win? Maybe if the other four players are really really good, but that low level player is a huge handicap is it not?
Also, you are assuming here the case where there is just one player on the team who is low level. What if the entire team is low level? You have one team with 5 masters of strategy who are extremely low level, because they can't last hit. The other team is all very high level masters of fiddly bits, but have crap strategy. Can the low level team possibly win? No, they can not. The high level team just has to click once on the low level enemy player to kill them instantly. They will just casually walk to the goal and destroy it without any serious interference.
If there is any strategic gameplay to be had in a MOBA game, it can only emerge if most, if not all, players on both teams have already mastered the fiddly bits. If every player is roughly equal in the fiddly bits department, then strategy will make the difference in determining victory. But if one team is deficient in the realm of the fiddly bits, then strategy will not make any significant difference in determining which team wins.
Yes you do. Specially if your character's main ability is support, like healing and other area team effects like armor increasing, speed, mana regeneration etc. It's a question of in game sociability, that's why I play with friends. Some times a team is 15 kills ahead overall, and they still loose. It depends on the the characters and teamwork. A basic thing is that once you are past half of the game, like 20 or 30 minutes in, you should never push a lane alone. Always with the rest of the team. That way you don't feed, and it doesn't really matter if you are low level.
Are your friends all masters? If your friends are all just about as good as you, then that anecdotal evidence doesn't work. Also, 15 kills ahead is not the same as level 1 vs level 20+. I distinctly remember playing in games of HoN during beta where the other team would be so good at fiddly bits that they would be 10+ levels ahead of anyone on our team. Even if we all ganged up and used our most powerful bits, we would all die pretty much instantly. Sometimes everyone would be roughly equal, even me, but one player on one team would be 15+ levels ahead and would just kill our team on his own.
I challenge you to try it. Get a game together with your friends. One team is completely banned from denying, last-hitting, orb walking, or doing anything else that a nub would not know to do. When you want to walk somewhere, you click once on the spot you want to walk to. You don't click a zillion times like a nut job. If you go down a lane, just use auto attack on the enemy creeps like a nub. The other team is allowed to do whatever the hell they want. Here's what will happen. They will level so much faster than you that you will have no chance. Because in reality, the other team isn't a bunch of no-strategy morons and you aren't a bunch of strategy geniuses. The difference in level will be so enormous that it will easily be much greater than the difference in strategy. You won't be able to win no matter what strategy you use, unless the other team lets you win.
The game also seems to boil down to standing around next to automated goons doing nothing (except micro), occasionally trying to plan a paper-rock-scissors ambush of the other players or rock-paper-scissors allocation of players to lanes.
The games are very boring to me, and the micro that you all use to fill the time while you level up is doubly boring.
Here's what will happen. They will level so much faster than you that you will have no chance. Because in reality, the other team isn't a bunch of no-strategy morons and you aren't a bunch of strategy geniuses.
This just isn't always true. Unless you're just standing around doing nothing, you will generally adequately level by auto-attacking and casting your spells regularly. Again, there are plenty of ways to deal with over-leveled opponents (especially if they are strategically stupid), and facing them one-on-one is NOT one of them.
Last-hitting/orb-walking only provide a certain degree of advantage that is easily mitigated with proper coordination and well-timed attacks. Of course, execution is still a pretty big factor in your success, but this will always be the case in PC games that aren't turn based.
Ultimately, DotA is a self-contained microcosm of a PvP-centric RPG. If you don't like these types of RPG's, especially combat RPGs, then you won't like MOBA games.
If there is any strategic gameplay to be had in a MOBA game, it can only emerge if most, if not all, players on both teams have already mastered the fiddly bits. If every player is roughly equal in the fiddly bits department, then strategy will make the difference in determining victory. But if one team is deficient in the realm of the fiddly bits, then strategy will not make any significant difference in determining which team wins.
This is probably true, and I understand what Scott is saying. If one team has no fiddly execution skills but optimized strategy and the other team is the opposite, I'd put my money on the latter team winning. While strategy is vital, the bonus levels and gold you get from winning the lane through fiddly bits it likely a large enough advantage to make up for any lack of strategy.
What I dont understand is why this is a problem. Pretty much every competitive game has this dichotomy of skill division. In SC, you can have perfect strategy and tactics but If you cant do the micro you won't win. In fact, someone with perfect clicking skills could easily win by just making units at optimal speed and do nothing but send all his units to the other enemy without any strategy. The other player could know perfectly how to beat this other player with strategic elements but if he can't click fast enough it wont matter. This is the same in Streetfighter. You can know exactly what attack to do and when, and how to trick your oponent into leaving himself open, but if you can't execute your moves you will lose. Same for Natural Selection, CS, Team fortress, everything.
So yes, you are very unlikely to win if you cant do the fiddly bits in Dota, regardless of the strategy. However, the effectiveness of this fiddlybit to winning is similar to a logarithmic function. Being able to do it well enough to get by increases your chance to win a lot, while any more improvement over the basics has less and less effect. So explain how the "fiddly bits" of Dota is worse than that of any other competitive game. IMO, it is much less demanding of a skill than most other games. It only takes a few games to get a hang of it enough so that strategy becomes more important, as apposed to starcraft and streetfighter.
Also, I think I understand what Rym is saying too, but I dont understand why it matters. Dota isnt pretending to simulate anything. If, instead of attacking and killing your own units, you throw them a teleporter and instantly portal them to a hospital for the rest of the game. Would that make it better because it now fits into the context? I can argue that the skill required to save your own units before they are killed fits with the narrative of a battle as presented by the game.
While strategy is vital, the bonus levels and gold you get from winning the lane through fiddly bits it likely a large enough advantage to make up for any lack of strategy.
Strategy beats out just last-hitting any day, especially since all those "fiddly" bits are only really necessary (or encouraged) early in the game. Coordinated attacks end up providing you with most of your XP and Gold anyway.
Here's the thing you are missing. Let's say that you have one player called Scott. Suppose Scott has the best strategies. He's the strategy master. You have another player. That player is Rym. He's the technique master. He has bad strategies. However, he is very good at all the fiddly bits. What will happen if these players fight? Will Scott's strategy make up for the advantage of Rym's fiddly bullshit, or the reverse?
Would you expect someone who's memorized every character's frame data and combos and matchups without out ever having played to be better at Street Fighter than someone who's played 1000 matches and has only learned the mechanics through inference and trail and error? Should they be?
Yes MOBAs require execution as well as a solid strategy and, yes, people who are better at the game tend to win the game. When did that become a bad thing?
Strategy beats out just last-hitting any day,
This is true to an extent; someone on the other team, in the same role and situation as you, having 25% more last hits but just buying items at random will definitely lose out if you have a solid build that you are working on. You do, however, need gold to enact strategies thus you do need to have a basic level of competence in execution.
I think I have found the key difference between the MOBA and something like Street Fighter.
Yes, they do both have fiddly execution. Yes, a focus attack dash cancel might as well be the same as orb walking in terms of secretness and fiddliness.
The difference here is that the fiddliness of a fighting game occurs as a direct execution of your strategy. You have a plan to do X combo. All the complicated buttons you press work towards making that thing happen directly.
In a MOBA your strategy might be to fake the bottom lane, then hit the middle hard. Well, the fiddly button presses aren't directly executing that strategy. They are monotonous and repetitive things you do to level up while you are leveling up and not even executing your strategy at all.
You know in Street Fighter the part where you smash the car? Imagine if there were a couple cars on the screen during a real fight. Players could smash the cars to get more power. So sometimes player stop playing the actual game and just sit there smashing the car with some quirky repetitive button presses to make it happen most efficiently.
How would a MOBA be if there were no XP or gold? That would be something.
Well it is sort of like a mini RPG. You have to make choices. Yes you can sit and level through the game and not do anything, or you can plan combos and attacks with your teammates.
You went a little bit over the top by using auto-attack. I don't see the problem of trying to calculate the best times to be in battle, but you can auto-attack all the time if you have a range attack character. As an example, in a real battle, you start by getting rid of the easiest targets, so it kind of makes since aiming at the mobs with the least hp. As a capable person you also can look at the mini map, and see where the visible players are at, then calculate the possibility of finding others in the woods, either to kill or be killed if you will.
I know you think the game is simple, but I don't. To be a good player you have to know a bunch of things about the game, but that is much like many other games, it takes time to enjoy it, because it takes time to get the hang of it.
My friends are not all masters. Of the 12-14 people there is 1 amazing, about 8 okay, and the rest are terrible. But even them are valuable because they can help a combo with stun, silence or other group skill.
What you refer to, is typical of Internet games with random people. Online, usually, people play much less of a team game, and much more like an individual game. But if you look at championships you can see that most chosen characters have area effect skills either to attack or to support the team, and it makes for a much more efficient team.
I know exactly what you feel, and why you don't like the game, I have felt the same way before. I respect that, but I still think you are hanging on a really superficial and shallow notion of the game, that you had in a few moments of playing it.
I completely agree with sucrilhos. Sitting next to mobs waiting for levels is only one option out of many and entirely depends on what hero you pick and what your role is. There are heroes where its optimal to start roaming the map and try to disrupt the team from level one.
Also, Bloodline Champions is a fun game. It is basically the team fights aspects of MOBAs without the leveling and item buying. The game is completely stateless and the only knowledge needed to play optimally is just the spells on the few heroes (20ish atm). It is very easy to pick up. The combat is also different, every attack is skill based where you can dodge or miss any attack and nothing is based on a RNG.
See, I think my problem with MNC was that I went in to it thinking it was going to be more like TF2 than DotA. Now that I know what it is, I think that it has more appeal to me.
The problem I have with Bloodline Champions is that it's heavily trenched in Europe, but not so much in the states. Oftentimes I'll open it up, only to find no games with a ping of less than 175.
Comments
Regardless of how much higher level an opponent is, they are still susceptible to your snares, traps, stuns, paralyzing effects, debuffs, etc. You definitely shouldn't be running around alone anyway. Coordinate a gank with a teammate, or stay close to your tank and help him with your spells. A level 1 stun still works on someone that is level 20, so you can use that to benefit a teammate's attack, which levels you up and evens out the difference.
Plus, there are jungle monsters that you can fight to level yourself up as well. If you keep dying to the opposing heroes because they are over-level, you might want to go into the forest and catch up by killing forest monsters. It's pretty effective.
There are so many things that you can do if you don't just run into a confrontation. Half of the game is knowing when to retreat and when to strike.
I would have done the same thing.
I'd have done the same thing, and it wouldn't be about humiliating the opponent.
Also, you are assuming here the case where there is just one player on the team who is low level. What if the entire team is low level? You have one team with 5 masters of strategy who are extremely low level, because they can't last hit. The other team is all very high level masters of fiddly bits, but have crap strategy. Can the low level team possibly win? No, they can not. The high level team just has to click once on the low level enemy player to kill them instantly. They will just casually walk to the goal and destroy it without any serious interference.
If there is any strategic gameplay to be had in a MOBA game, it can only emerge if most, if not all, players on both teams have already mastered the fiddly bits. If every player is roughly equal in the fiddly bits department, then strategy will make the difference in determining victory. But if one team is deficient in the realm of the fiddly bits, then strategy will not make any significant difference in determining which team wins.
A basic thing is that once you are past half of the game, like 20 or 30 minutes in, you should never push a lane alone. Always with the rest of the team. That way you don't feed, and it doesn't really matter if you are low level.
I challenge you to try it. Get a game together with your friends. One team is completely banned from denying, last-hitting, orb walking, or doing anything else that a nub would not know to do. When you want to walk somewhere, you click once on the spot you want to walk to. You don't click a zillion times like a nut job. If you go down a lane, just use auto attack on the enemy creeps like a nub. The other team is allowed to do whatever the hell they want. Here's what will happen. They will level so much faster than you that you will have no chance. Because in reality, the other team isn't a bunch of no-strategy morons and you aren't a bunch of strategy geniuses. The difference in level will be so enormous that it will easily be much greater than the difference in strategy. You won't be able to win no matter what strategy you use, unless the other team lets you win.
The games are very boring to me, and the micro that you all use to fill the time while you level up is doubly boring.
Last-hitting/orb-walking only provide a certain degree of advantage that is easily mitigated with proper coordination and well-timed attacks. Of course, execution is still a pretty big factor in your success, but this will always be the case in PC games that aren't turn based.
Ultimately, DotA is a self-contained microcosm of a PvP-centric RPG. If you don't like these types of RPG's, especially combat RPGs, then you won't like MOBA games.
What I dont understand is why this is a problem. Pretty much every competitive game has this dichotomy of skill division. In SC, you can have perfect strategy and tactics but If you cant do the micro you won't win. In fact, someone with perfect clicking skills could easily win by just making units at optimal speed and do nothing but send all his units to the other enemy without any strategy. The other player could know perfectly how to beat this other player with strategic elements but if he can't click fast enough it wont matter. This is the same in Streetfighter. You can know exactly what attack to do and when, and how to trick your oponent into leaving himself open, but if you can't execute your moves you will lose. Same for Natural Selection, CS, Team fortress, everything.
So yes, you are very unlikely to win if you cant do the fiddly bits in Dota, regardless of the strategy. However, the effectiveness of this fiddlybit to winning is similar to a logarithmic function. Being able to do it well enough to get by increases your chance to win a lot, while any more improvement over the basics has less and less effect. So explain how the "fiddly bits" of Dota is worse than that of any other competitive game. IMO, it is much less demanding of a skill than most other games. It only takes a few games to get a hang of it enough so that strategy becomes more important, as apposed to starcraft and streetfighter.
Also, I think I understand what Rym is saying too, but I dont understand why it matters. Dota isnt pretending to simulate anything. If, instead of attacking and killing your own units, you throw them a teleporter and instantly portal them to a hospital for the rest of the game. Would that make it better because it now fits into the context? I can argue that the skill required to save your own units before they are killed fits with the narrative of a battle as presented by the game.
Yes MOBAs require execution as well as a solid strategy and, yes, people who are better at the game tend to win the game. When did that become a bad thing? This is true to an extent; someone on the other team, in the same role and situation as you, having 25% more last hits but just buying items at random will definitely lose out if you have a solid build that you are working on. You do, however, need gold to enact strategies thus you do need to have a basic level of competence in execution.
Yes, they do both have fiddly execution. Yes, a focus attack dash cancel might as well be the same as orb walking in terms of secretness and fiddliness.
The difference here is that the fiddliness of a fighting game occurs as a direct execution of your strategy. You have a plan to do X combo. All the complicated buttons you press work towards making that thing happen directly.
In a MOBA your strategy might be to fake the bottom lane, then hit the middle hard. Well, the fiddly button presses aren't directly executing that strategy. They are monotonous and repetitive things you do to level up while you are leveling up and not even executing your strategy at all.
You know in Street Fighter the part where you smash the car? Imagine if there were a couple cars on the screen during a real fight. Players could smash the cars to get more power. So sometimes player stop playing the actual game and just sit there smashing the car with some quirky repetitive button presses to make it happen most efficiently.
How would a MOBA be if there were no XP or gold? That would be something.
I have no desire to sit next to mobs waiting for levels.
You went a little bit over the top by using auto-attack. I don't see the problem of trying to calculate the best times to be in battle, but you can auto-attack all the time if you have a range attack character. As an example, in a real battle, you start by getting rid of the easiest targets, so it kind of makes since aiming at the mobs with the least hp. As a capable person you also can look at the mini map, and see where the visible players are at, then calculate the possibility of finding others in the woods, either to kill or be killed if you will.
I know you think the game is simple, but I don't. To be a good player you have to know a bunch of things about the game, but that is much like many other games, it takes time to enjoy it, because it takes time to get the hang of it.
My friends are not all masters. Of the 12-14 people there is 1 amazing, about 8 okay, and the rest are terrible. But even them are valuable because they can help a combo with stun, silence or other group skill.
What you refer to, is typical of Internet games with random people. Online, usually, people play much less of a team game, and much more like an individual game. But if you look at championships you can see that most chosen characters have area effect skills either to attack or to support the team, and it makes for a much more efficient team.
I know exactly what you feel, and why you don't like the game, I have felt the same way before. I respect that, but I still think you are hanging on a really superficial and shallow notion of the game, that you had in a few moments of playing it.
Also, Bloodline Champions is a fun game. It is basically the team fights aspects of MOBAs without the leveling and item buying. The game is completely stateless and the only knowledge needed to play optimally is just the spells on the few heroes (20ish atm). It is very easy to pick up. The combat is also different, every attack is skill based where you can dodge or miss any attack and nothing is based on a RNG.
It is also F2P.