DOTA 2 and the Million Dollar Professional Gamers

I think it's fair to say that Dota 2 is harder to understand to start with, simply because there is a lot more going on than a beat 'em up or even an RTS. In an RTS, even if you don't know the intricacies it's easy to understand that one side is trying to blow up the other by building lots of tanks. In a beat 'em up, two people hit each other until one falls over.

That said, I don't think there's that much more of a hump to get into Dota. The goal is simple, just blow up the other side's ancient. On the way players level up by being near creeps when they die, and earn money by being getting the last hit on said creeps. Levelling up allows heroes to upgrade their abilities, while money is spent on items that improve stats and add their own abilities. At the same time the teams are trying to kill each other, earning loads of money while the victim loses money. Heroes that die respawn on a countdown, or they can buy themselves back by spending gold if they have enough. The ancient is protected by towers that get progressively tougher, and destroying those gets your entire team a load of cash. Finally, destroying the other side's barracks at the end of each lane allows extra strong creeps to spawn in that lane for your side. That's kind of all you need to know to start with.

It's the items that make things more complicated, but I don't think you need to know much about them to enjoy watching the game. You tend to find the same set of items being used in different games though, so you can quickly pick up what some of them do. The Black King Bar (BKB) for instance makes a hero immune to magic attacks for a few seconds when you use it, so that's obliviously quite popular. Wards are placed on the map to provide permanent vision over an area, and sentry wards also reveal invisible heroes. The Aegis of the Immortal is dropped by Roshan, the toughest creep on the map, and allows the holder to instantly respawn once when they die with no penalty. Roshan himself respawns on a timer after being killed, and will drop another Aegis when he's killed again.

Like physical sports though, different people like different things. I find Dota 2 and Starcraft 2 much more entertaining than SFIV for instance, but then I know a lot more about SC2 and Dota 2 than SFIV.

[iup=3512587]jiggles[/iup] wrote:
[iup=3512496]Fade[/iup] wrote:the commentators do a pretty decent job of describing what's going on

Bullshit. You could watch every single Marvel match broadcast at Evo and still have no idea what's going on.

You don't understand the game.

I think most people just get confused with MVC because there is often more than one character on the screen.

It's pretty simple though. There is always your main character on screen. And you can call in your other two characters to do a pre selected assist attack every few seconds.

Other than that it plays like every other 2D fighting game pretty much.

@Mogster - I enjoy starcraft too because I can appreciate the mind games and skill involved. Maybe I'm just ignorant here but from what I've seen of Dota I don't get the feeling that it has a very high skill ceiling. The combat just seems like team PVP in an MMO. But I'd be happy for you to explain some of the deeper workings, might get me more interested.

I'm probably the wrong guy to explain as I'm no expert, but just by comparing my ability to that of the pros, there's an absolutely huge gap in skill levels. Simply picking and banning the right heroes in Captains mode is a challenge, and don't forget that teamwork is a skill in itself.

In an RTS, the challenge comes from managing a bunch of unit types that all perform a specific task. In a moba, it's about micromanaging one unit as part of a team. There are just as many mind games going on, drawing players into traps and stuff.

The final's just started anyway. There's no better time to check it out if you're going to.

I have no idea what's going on. :lol:

Watch the Newcomer's stream. They tell you what's going on.

Oh my god, there's 'chance' attacks in a competative game? Really? This really is like competative PVP MMO combat.

Well there are critical hits, and you have less chance to hit with basic attacks if you're attacking up slopes. You certainly can't win by chance, if that's what you mean.

Normally attacks will hit 100% of the time under normal circumstances, although some abilities are aimed rather than homing.

no, but surely chance can decide the outcome of some encounters? Or at least heavily influence it. The guy was talking about an attack that had a percentage chance to stun.

I wish Capcom had the money to give these kind of production values to Capcom Cup.

[iup=3512743]Dblock[/iup] wrote:
[iup=3512587]jiggles[/iup] wrote:
[iup=3512496]Fade[/iup] wrote:the commentators do a pretty decent job of describing what's going on

Bullshit. You could watch every single Marvel match broadcast at Evo and still have no idea what's going on.

You don't understand the game.

If it was a Simcity 4 (or Simcity 4 Deluxe) tournament, then you'd be singing a different tune.

[iup=3512817]Fade[/iup] wrote:no, but surely chance can decide the outcome of some encounters? Or at least heavily influence it. The guy was talking about an attack that had a percentage chance to stun.

Well it'll help, but there's likely going to be an entire team there to back up the defender. There are abilities that chuck people out of the way, remove stuns, or you can just attack the attacker of course. Plus you have to actually buy the items that give you that chance, which means not buying something else.

Generally in a Dota fight you're not going to want to rely on a chance to stun, especially when there are so many abilities that are guaranteed to stun. You'll have a hero let off a proper stun attack while others dish out as much damage as they can. In a full team fight there's a heck of a lot more coordination involved.

Like I said, you're never going to see a fight decided by chance, especially at this level.

Puck bringing the 5 million dollar dream coil this year, then.

Well.

That was a gooseberry fool match. :lol:

[iup=3512942]jiggles[/iup] wrote:Well.

That was a gooseberry fool match.

Not the type of match you want to end with for sure.

It was a slaughter. I don't know what happened to Vici after that first game. :lol:

That said, NewBee were pretty faultless. They deserved to win.

It was a bit disappointing as Vici vs Newbee was the first and last game of the tournament.

The beeb had a short article about the tournament.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28404485

DOTA 2 and the Million Dollar Professional Gamers

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