On June 14 2012 10:47 G_G wrote: Even if you don't know what each unit does in SC2, you can still see things like economy (worker count/number of bases), army size and movement. The commentating is much more new viewer friendly because even people who have never played an RTS can see that when a player's army is on the other side of the map from where they're being attacked, it's bad, etc.
In MOBAs, even once a new viewer understands the aspects of heroes, teams, and creeping, it's still a big blur to watch. I've played DotA, HoN, and LoL, but watching the video in the OP is just random nonsense to me, and will continue to be until I play the game myself.
This is a terrible argument. Every game is like this. To many, SC2 is a complete wash to watch because of all of the effects + the fact that it isn't necessarily intuitive who's ahead based purely on number of units, number of workers, number of resources, etc. It's significantly more complicated than that. Others find DotA more confusing because of all of the special effects on screen (a problem that SC2 also suffers from at times). Hell, even normal sports suffer from this. Watching EURO 2012 with my g/f over the weekend, she had no clue what was going on. I had to explain why players were doing or not doing certain things, what offsides is, what is considered a foul, and this happens in other sports too (American football, basketball, etc). It happens in any competitive event, except maybe fighting games.
On June 14 2012 18:50 Kreb wrote: My one very big complaint is whats been mentioned before: the initial farming can be waaaayyyyyy too long and free from action. ------------------------- Theres other lesser complaints which have mostly been mentioned, mainly that games can drag on for quite some time even though theres a "clear" winner and that its quite hard know about all different abilities and heroes and what they do.
Talking strictly about Dota 2, I'm not sure what games you've seen, or if you've seen any games that didn't have Chinese teams in it, but there is pretty much no "initial farming" phase in the current metagame. There is almost always constant ganking, action, etc. I guess it could look sort of boring if you have 0 idea what is happening at all, but it's far from passive. Personally, the early game of Dota is a lot more interesting than early game of SC2, which currently is pretty much "everyone fast expands while my zealot attacks your 4 zerglings".
Admittedly I dont watch random Dota2 shows, so my experience comes from major tournies/LANs which run multiple games where I often tune in to several games to check them out. If theres been some huge metagame shifts, I might have missed them.
That said, the "constant ganking" you refer to isnt really that interesting in the grand scheme of things. Using SC2 analogy, it seems like its about as interesting as a conc shells marauder tagging a stalker and killing it in the early game. Sure, it matters and it gives commentators something to talk about, but in the grand scheme of things that stalker wont matter that much. And those random ganks seem to be somewhat similar. You're probably gonna argue about how important those things are, and maybe my analogy was bad in your opinion, but you can in no way argue them to be game defining in any way.
And I agree the SC2 openings arent that interesting. But thats the big thing. You get out of the "boring opening stage" of most games in a good 8-9min gametime (which is like what, 6-7real minutes something?), then interesting things starts to happen. Things that really matter. In dota (and LoL), that phase seem to be 15-20min, or sometimes even longer (dota minutes are real minutes, right?). And that I do think is a huge problem and I know many people agree with me.
And yes, I know there are long and boring macro games in SC2 too, but those tend to be less common than their counterpart in MOBAs from what I see. Not enough to see them turning into a huge point of concern at least, if you read about what people dont like about SC2.
Not really looking into arguing about whats more enjoyable or the other, just explaining the reason why I never got captured by a MOBA yet. Its entirely subjective. Maybe someones gonna voice the same complaint to someone else who actually can influence how these games are made, and maybe some day some company will attempt to do something about them. Who knows?
Edit: A point about game time too. I really think its a somewhat psychological thing too. I think generally its much better to have a 20min game with a 7.5min boring buildup time than a 40min game with 15min boring buildup. Having to sit through extra long buildup, even if you could argue its more interesting time towards the end (that is, if you can actually make sure those last 25min actually are exciting, which is a challenge in itself), is likely going to deter a lot of people from watching.
On June 14 2012 21:08 Zealos wrote: I'm sorry. I just can't watch and enjoy Dota's. There is simply too much going on in a short space of time for casters to be able to explain it as it happens. For instace, the video you show, it just looks like a bunch of fireworks going off with a man shouting in the background. I don't know why people are doing what they are doing, I don't know the effect that each player is having, and I can't even understand what the caster is saying. I imagine it's entertaining for people "in the know" but I just simply don't get it.
From a spectator point of view, if you think of most spells simply as "CC" (stun, slow, disable) it simplifies things a lot.
Taking that video, for example:
1. Green reaper guy gets swapped out of position. Sort of like a Viper abducting. 2. Red fish guy stuns. 3. Green tauren counter stuns. 4. Green wolfrider walks in to try and assist. 5. Red spirit-thing casts blackhole catching them both. That's the big play.
The reason why that moment is exciting is because the Red team forced an engagement with their swap (should be pretty visible that the green guy got swapped into a shitfest), and with their better positioning could win with the black hole (should be pretty visible that 2 green guys are getting sucked inwards while not moving).
It happens pretty fast, but no faster than a PvT lategame clash, I would say.
Though I guess having to explain the fight at all means it's too complicated xp just try playing!
Cheers, I mean, I try to watch it sometimes, but its all very loud and flashy for my tastes. The thing I find with stuff like pvt, is there is enough time when you can see the fight coming, for the casters to explain what is going to happen, instead of trying to get through everything at once while it happens.
In all seriousness, what's the difference between LoL and Dota? I've never watched either one, nor do I ever really intend to, but unless I'm very misinformed, they look the same. Two teams of a handful of little dudes, each with a handful of unique spells, running around on a map trying to take out the other team. Or the other team's base, or both, or something. Gameplay is focused around coordination/teamwork and micro. Is that about right?
On June 14 2012 22:44 Kreb wrote: That said, the "constant ganking" you refer to isnt really that interesting in the grand scheme of things. Using SC2 analogy, it seems like its about as interesting as a conc shells marauder tagging a stalker and killing it in the early game. Sure, it matters and it gives commentators something to talk about, but in the grand scheme of things that stalker wont matter that much. And those random ganks seem to be somewhat similar. You're probably gonna argue about how important those things are, and maybe my analogy was bad in your opinion, but you can in no way argue them to be game defining in any way.
Killing the opponents carry is about as meaningful as killing half the workers at an expansion with a drop and then getting away safely. You lose both gold when you are killed and you lose the gold you would have farmed instead of waiting for a respawn, each death is a 1-3 minutes setback in his farm depending on how early/late it is. Then we haven't even mentioned that your own team gets large gold and experience rewards for killing that hero.
To understand dota from a starcraft perspective you can think of the creeps as expansion places. If you aren't by the front lines you aren't having any income which is lethal, if someone is pushed from the lane it is like chasing away all his workers, if you do that for a minute it sets back his entire game a minute.
So in essence if you think that killing off expansions and such is interesting in starcraft then you should think that those ganks are interesting in dota. The biggest difference here is that in dota you don't win when you wipe the enemy team like you do in starcraft, instead you need to push down the enemy base which takes quite a while if you aren't overwhelmingly stronger.
On June 14 2012 23:32 Iranon wrote: In all seriousness, what's the difference between LoL and Dota? I've never watched either one, nor do I ever really intend to, but unless I'm very misinformed, they look the same. Two teams of a handful of little dudes, each with a handful of unique spells, running around on a map trying to take out the other team. Or the other team's base, or both, or something. Gameplay is focused around coordination/teamwork and micro. Is that about right?
What's the difference between starcraft and redalert?
On June 14 2012 23:32 Iranon wrote: In all seriousness, what's the difference between LoL and Dota? I've never watched either one, nor do I ever really intend to, but unless I'm very misinformed, they look the same. Two teams of a handful of little dudes, each with a handful of unique spells, running around on a map trying to take out the other team. Or the other team's base, or both, or something. Gameplay is focused around coordination/teamwork and micro. Is that about right?
What's the difference between starcraft and redalert?
Strategic depth? I don't know anything about C&C, but I imagine that's the reason only one of those games is taken seriously.
On June 14 2012 10:31 casualman wrote: MOBAs aren't good spectator sports because of the amount of foreknowledge required to actually understand the game. If you don't understand all the abilities, core items, and functionalities of each of the 10 heroes in the game it is absolutely unwatchable. Combined with the large amount of farming that takes place and the ability for already decided games to drag on because teams don't want to risk a bad teamfight, it isn't really very good to watch.
You realize you can say the exact same thing about sc2 right?
No, you really cannot, sorry.
In starcraft 2, a tank shot looks like a tank...thats doing a shot and baneling looks like a walking bomb exploding acid on marines and them dying.
In MOBA games, there is no way for a casual watcher to tell one blue beam of light from the other blue beam of light or how they are different from the red beam of light.
In starcraft 2 , you see a base with buildings and turrets set around(pretty self explanatory), and then a flying ship with units in flies into a turret and gets shot down. and that's what people who understand the game see as well.
In MOBA, you see the elf thing, surrounded by other random things, get flashy for a minute and its red bar goes lower. and then the elf thing is suddenly next to the horse thing and the massive horse thing looks like it hits the tiny elf but then the little elf looks like it exploded and the horse thing is now not there. And only people who understand the game know that Curkin used Beam Of Deception on the level 4 Kurass and it took double DoT allowing Jun to DPS it down.
Please don't tell me you can't tell this difference.
On June 14 2012 23:32 Iranon wrote: In all seriousness, what's the difference between LoL and Dota? I've never watched either one, nor do I ever really intend to, but unless I'm very misinformed, they look the same. Two teams of a handful of little dudes, each with a handful of unique spells, running around on a map trying to take out the other team. Or the other team's base, or both, or something. Gameplay is focused around coordination/teamwork and micro. Is that about right?
What's the difference between starcraft and redalert?
Strategic depth? I don't know anything about C&C, but I imagine that's the reason only one of those games is taken seriously.
The point is that two games can be radically different even if they are from the same genre. The mechanics in the C&C series just doesn't provide as deep multiplayer games as Starcraft does. Now Dota and LoL are more alike than Starcraft and C&C but dota is still a deeper and more varied game, as it is all pro LoL players basically play in the same way. AD carry + support bot lane, AP carry mid, a roaming jungler and a good solo top. If you don't play this way you will not win the fights by the dragon, and getting the dragon kills is vital since each kill sets your entire team more than a minute ahead in terms of farm. If you look at dota games however people will do all sorts of strange things since there are no extremely rewarding monsters like the dragon there. In starcraft terms imagine if they dropped a thousand minerals in the middle of the map for anyone to pick up every five minutes. It would force a lot of fights which could be fun but it would also remove most strategies which don't depend on picking up that box.
On June 14 2012 10:31 casualman wrote: MOBAs aren't good spectator sports because of the amount of foreknowledge required to actually understand the game. If you don't understand all the abilities, core items, and functionalities of each of the 10 heroes in the game it is absolutely unwatchable. Combined with the large amount of farming that takes place and the ability for already decided games to drag on because teams don't want to risk a bad teamfight, it isn't really very good to watch.
You realize you can say the exact same thing about sc2 right?
No, you really cannot, sorry.
In starcraft 2, a tank shot looks like a tank...thats doing a shot and baneling looks like a walking bomb exploding acid on marines and them dying.
In MOBA games, there is no way for a casual watcher to tell one blue beam of light from the other blue beam of light or how they are different from the red beam of light.
In starcraft 2 , you see a base with buildings and turrets set around(pretty self explanatory), and then a flying ship with units in flies into a turret and gets shot down. and that's what people who understand the game see as well.
In MOBA, you see the elf thing, surrounded by other random things, get flashy for a minute and its red bar goes lower. and then the elf thing is suddenly next to the horse thing and the massive horse thing looks like it hits the tiny elf but then the little elf looks like it exploded and the horse thing is now not there. And only people who understand the game know that Curkin used Beam Of Deception on the level 4 Kurass and it took double DoT allowing Jun to DPS it down.
Please don't tell me you can't tell this difference.
No, you are wrong on that. People see the elf thing and the horse thing clashing, then they see that the elf thing wins since he is the one alive afterwards and thus conclude that the elf was stronger. It is the same as when they see siegetanks and immortals clashing and afterwards they see that the immortals won. They don't have any clue of the underlying mechanics to why the immortals beat siegetanks, they only see that one units win. Also how would the noob spectator know that there is units in the dropship? I mean, they don't even know what a dropship is.
On June 14 2012 23:32 Iranon wrote: In all seriousness, what's the difference between LoL and Dota? I've never watched either one, nor do I ever really intend to, but unless I'm very misinformed, they look the same. Two teams of a handful of little dudes, each with a handful of unique spells, running around on a map trying to take out the other team. Or the other team's base, or both, or something. Gameplay is focused around coordination/teamwork and micro. Is that about right?
What's the difference between starcraft and redalert?
Strategic depth? I don't know anything about C&C, but I imagine that's the reason only one of those games is taken seriously.
The point is that two games can be radically different even if they are from the same genre. The mechanics in the C&C series just doesn't provide as deep multiplayer games as Starcraft does. Now Dota and LoL are more alike that Starcraft and C&C but dota is still a deeper and more varied game, as it is all pro LoL players basically play in the same way. AD carry + support bot lane, AP carry mid, a roaming jungler and a good solo top. If you don't play this way you will not win the fights by the dragon, and getting the dragon kills is vital since each kill sets your entire team more than a minute ahead in terms of farm. If you look at dota games however people will do all sorts of strange things since there are no extremely rewarding monsters like the dragon there. In starcraft terms imagine if they dropped a thousand minerals in the middle of the map for anyone to pick up every five minutes. It would force a lot of fights which could be fun but it would also remove most strategies which don't depend on picking up that box.
Quoting my gf to the question "Hey, when it comes to LoL / SC2 / DotA 2 streams you saw, which would you watch again and why?"
"DotA. It looks like armies marching across a river trying to kill each other and everything looks dangerous and scary and anything can happen at any time."
"League has a child-like flair, it's all colorful and cuddly and even the creeps are cute, it's like watching a huge bowl of sweets doing stuff."
"SC2 is probably cool if you're into that strategy stuff but I don't enjoy watching chess either."
On June 14 2012 23:32 Iranon wrote: In all seriousness, what's the difference between LoL and Dota? I've never watched either one, nor do I ever really intend to, but unless I'm very misinformed, they look the same. Two teams of a handful of little dudes, each with a handful of unique spells, running around on a map trying to take out the other team. Or the other team's base, or both, or something. Gameplay is focused around coordination/teamwork and micro. Is that about right?
What's the difference between starcraft and redalert?
Strategic depth? I don't know anything about C&C, but I imagine that's the reason only one of those games is taken seriously.
The point is that two games can be radically different even if they are from the same genre. The mechanics in the C&C series just doesn't provide as deep multiplayer games as Starcraft does. Now Dota and LoL are more alike than Starcraft and C&C but dota is still a deeper and more varied game, as it is all pro LoL players basically play in the same way. AD carry + support bot lane, AP carry mid, a roaming jungler and a good solo top. If you don't play this way you will not win the fights by the dragon, and getting the dragon kills is vital since each kill sets your entire team more than a minute ahead in terms of farm. If you look at dota games however people will do all sorts of strange things since there are no extremely rewarding monsters like the dragon there. In starcraft terms imagine if they dropped a thousand minerals in the middle of the map for anyone to pick up every five minutes. It would force a lot of fights which could be fun but it would also remove most strategies which don't depend on picking up that box.
On June 14 2012 10:31 casualman wrote: MOBAs aren't good spectator sports because of the amount of foreknowledge required to actually understand the game. If you don't understand all the abilities, core items, and functionalities of each of the 10 heroes in the game it is absolutely unwatchable. Combined with the large amount of farming that takes place and the ability for already decided games to drag on because teams don't want to risk a bad teamfight, it isn't really very good to watch.
You realize you can say the exact same thing about sc2 right?
No, you really cannot, sorry.
In starcraft 2, a tank shot looks like a tank...thats doing a shot and baneling looks like a walking bomb exploding acid on marines and them dying.
In MOBA games, there is no way for a casual watcher to tell one blue beam of light from the other blue beam of light or how they are different from the red beam of light.
In starcraft 2 , you see a base with buildings and turrets set around(pretty self explanatory), and then a flying ship with units in flies into a turret and gets shot down. and that's what people who understand the game see as well.
In MOBA, you see the elf thing, surrounded by other random things, get flashy for a minute and its red bar goes lower. and then the elf thing is suddenly next to the horse thing and the massive horse thing looks like it hits the tiny elf but then the little elf looks like it exploded and the horse thing is now not there. And only people who understand the game know that Curkin used Beam Of Deception on the level 4 Kurass and it took double DoT allowing Jun to DPS it down.
Please don't tell me you can't tell this difference.
No, you are wrong on that. People see the elf thing and the horse thing clashing, then they see that the elf thing wins since he is the one alive afterwards and thus conclude that the elf was stronger. It is the same as when they see siegetanks and immortals clashing and afterwards they see that the immortals won. They don't have any clue of the underlying mechanics to why the immortals beat siegetanks, they only see that one units win. Also how would the noob spectator know that there is units in the dropship? I mean, they don't even know what a dropship is.
No. I've watched DotA/lol before and I can assure you that it makes zero sense to me. As for the dropship, they know that it has units in because they can see units in it, they can see units come out of it, and the casters say it has units in. The fact is that OVERALL sc2 is far more watchable for new people. 2 Armies fight. Bigger army usually wins. If it doesn't, you see the electrical storm on the infantry before they explode and it still just simply MAKES SENSE. There is no marine doing more damage than a thor and there's no zergling that beats a stalker 1 on 1.
Sc2 is inherently FAR more easy to understand on that level because its basically based on the real world mechanics. Fire burn, acid melt, electricity fry, bullets damage, Tank shells explode, etc. MOBA is red light DoT, Yellow light from small green guy medium AoE, wolf blue streak Ensare if orange Man has rainbow circle around him, etc. A tiny dwarf guy will just suddenly kill a massive demon for no apparent reason to the average onlooker.
I don't see how you can argue against this... sc2 = real time, generally scaled damage, generally realistic considering what is on screen and uses mostly real world things and dynamics. Moba games are just a totally different realm...they almost might as well be trading card games when it comes to it.
On June 14 2012 23:32 Iranon wrote: In all seriousness, what's the difference between LoL and Dota? I've never watched either one, nor do I ever really intend to, but unless I'm very misinformed, they look the same. Two teams of a handful of little dudes, each with a handful of unique spells, running around on a map trying to take out the other team. Or the other team's base, or both, or something. Gameplay is focused around coordination/teamwork and micro. Is that about right?
What's the difference between starcraft and redalert?
Strategic depth? I don't know anything about C&C, but I imagine that's the reason only one of those games is taken seriously.
The point is that two games can be radically different even if they are from the same genre. The mechanics in the C&C series just doesn't provide as deep multiplayer games as Starcraft does. Now Dota and LoL are more alike than Starcraft and C&C but dota is still a deeper and more varied game, as it is all pro LoL players basically play in the same way. AD carry + support bot lane, AP carry mid, a roaming jungler and a good solo top. If you don't play this way you will not win the fights by the dragon, and getting the dragon kills is vital since each kill sets your entire team more than a minute ahead in terms of farm. If you look at dota games however people will do all sorts of strange things since there are no extremely rewarding monsters like the dragon there. In starcraft terms imagine if they dropped a thousand minerals in the middle of the map for anyone to pick up every five minutes. It would force a lot of fights which could be fun but it would also remove most strategies which don't depend on picking up that box.
On June 14 2012 23:47 EneMecH wrote:
On June 14 2012 10:36 Zapdos_Smithh wrote:
On June 14 2012 10:31 casualman wrote: MOBAs aren't good spectator sports because of the amount of foreknowledge required to actually understand the game. If you don't understand all the abilities, core items, and functionalities of each of the 10 heroes in the game it is absolutely unwatchable. Combined with the large amount of farming that takes place and the ability for already decided games to drag on because teams don't want to risk a bad teamfight, it isn't really very good to watch.
You realize you can say the exact same thing about sc2 right?
No, you really cannot, sorry.
In starcraft 2, a tank shot looks like a tank...thats doing a shot and baneling looks like a walking bomb exploding acid on marines and them dying.
In MOBA games, there is no way for a casual watcher to tell one blue beam of light from the other blue beam of light or how they are different from the red beam of light.
In starcraft 2 , you see a base with buildings and turrets set around(pretty self explanatory), and then a flying ship with units in flies into a turret and gets shot down. and that's what people who understand the game see as well.
In MOBA, you see the elf thing, surrounded by other random things, get flashy for a minute and its red bar goes lower. and then the elf thing is suddenly next to the horse thing and the massive horse thing looks like it hits the tiny elf but then the little elf looks like it exploded and the horse thing is now not there. And only people who understand the game know that Curkin used Beam Of Deception on the level 4 Kurass and it took double DoT allowing Jun to DPS it down.
Please don't tell me you can't tell this difference.
No, you are wrong on that. People see the elf thing and the horse thing clashing, then they see that the elf thing wins since he is the one alive afterwards and thus conclude that the elf was stronger. It is the same as when they see siegetanks and immortals clashing and afterwards they see that the immortals won. They don't have any clue of the underlying mechanics to why the immortals beat siegetanks, they only see that one units win. Also how would the noob spectator know that there is units in the dropship? I mean, they don't even know what a dropship is.
No. I've watched DotA/lol before and I can assure you that it makes zero sense to me. As for the dropship, they know that it has units in because they can see units in it, they can see units come out of it, and the casters say it has units in. The fact is that OVERALL sc2 is far more watchable for new people. 2 Armies fight. Bigger army usually wins. If it doesn't, you see the electrical storm on the infantry before they explode and it still just simply MAKES SENSE.
Sc2 is inherently FAR more easy to understand on that level because its basically based on the real world mechanics. Fire burn, acid melt, electricity fry, bullets damage, Tank shells explode, etc. MOBA is red light DoT, Yellow light from small green guy medium AoE, wolf blue streak Ensare if orange Man has rainbow circle around him, etc.
The skills you talk about sounds more like lol than dota. Dota skills are usually really straightforward. Like magina, all you need to know to understand is that he is a melee carry that can teleport, he kills mana with his standard attacks, he is resistant to spells and his ultimate deals good damage on people low on mana. Or rahsta, he can hold your enemy with a rope, he can turn them into a frog for a while, he can shoot lightning to deal damage and he can place down a fuckton of wards that shoots at nearby enemies. Very clear on what happens. I think that you are biased since you are used to starcraft but not used to dota.
Also if you accept dropships with units in them then you need to accept items. Like if earthskaer bought a blink dagger so he can teleport the commentator can say that. The noob viewer will understand that having the ability to teleport is really important and can then see during the game how that ability helps the earthshaker kill people. Anyone who have played any form of RPG will have no more problem watching dota than watching starcraft (Unless of course they are like you and have a lot more experience with starcraft than dota).
"all you need to know to understand is that he is a melee carry that can teleport, he kills mana with his standard attacks, he is resistant to spells and his ultimate deals good damage on people low on mana"
Did you read that back to yourself? "melee carry" Carry?. "he kills mana with his standard attacks" Standard attacks? Mana? Resistant to spells? Ultimate? Low on mana? All of those need in-depth explanations and I still don't understand what it is or how it affects the game. and unless the blink dagger is an item that is clear to notice in the hands of whatever person you're talking about and then you can see how it is used to do whatever it accomplishes as opposed to not having a blink dagger, then you can't compare it to seeing marines dissapear into a ship and then the ship's empty boxes fill up and you can see 8 marines in the UI and then you see 8 marines fall out of the ship and shoot.
AND I DIDN'T EVEN TALK ABOUT HOW YOU KNOW WHO THAT MOBA CHARACTER IS OR HOW TO TELL HIM APART OR TRACK HIS MOVEMENTS FROM EVERYTHING ELSE Somebody trying to make Moba simple:
"all you need to know to understand is that he is a melee carry (moba term) that can teleport, he kills mana (we don't know how this affects the game or how to see the affects) with his standard attacks (explain?), he is resistant to spells (spells? Resistant to them makes what affect?) and his ultimate (ultimate?) deals good damage on people (meaning any of the strange things on screen?) low on mana (which we see how?)"
Somebody trying to make sc2 simple:
"all you need to know about the siegetank is that it gets in position then blows up enemies" (which is literally what it does... you'll see the tanks get in position and then shoot and then other stuff dies.)
No more in-depth understanding than that is needed to watch.
On June 15 2012 01:29 EneMecH wrote: "all you need to know to understand is that he is a melee carry that can teleport, he kills mana with his standard attacks, he is resistant to spells and his ultimate deals good damage on people low on mana"
Did you read that back to yourself? "melee carry" Carry?. "he kills mana with his standard attacks" Standard attacks? Mana? Resistant to spells? Ultimate? Low on mana? All of those need in-depth explanations and I still don't understand what it is or how it affects the game. and unless the blink dagger is an item that is clear to notice in the hands of whatever person you're talking about and then you can see how it is used to do whatever it accomplishes as opposed to not having a blink dagger, then you can't compare it to seeing marines dissapear into a ship and then the ship's empty boxes fill up and you can see 8 marines in the UI and then you see 8 marines fall out of the ship and shoot.
AND I DIDN'T EVEN TALK ABOUT HOW YOU KNOW WHO THAT MOBA CHARACTER IS OR HOW TO TELL HIM APART OR TRACK HIS MOVEMENTS FROM EVERYTHING ELSE Somebody trying to make Moba simple:
"all you need to know to understand is that he is a melee carry (moba term) that can teleport, he kills mana (we don't know how this affects the game or how to see the affects) with his standard attacks (explain?), he is resistant to spells (spells? Resistant to them makes what affect?) and his ultimate (ultimate?) deals good damage on people (meaning any of the strange things on screen?) low on mana (which we see how?)"
Somebody trying to make sc2 simple:
"all you need to know about the siegetank is that it gets in position then blows up enemies" (which is literally what it does... you'll see the tanks get in position and then shoot and then other stuff dies.)
No more in-depth understanding than that is needed to watch.
But you miss out so much on that description as well, because siegetanks are artillery units and not tanks, with that description they would think that siegetanks are still liek real life tanks. Real life tanks aren't squishy, you'd rather that the enemy shoots at your tanks than your infantry but in starcraft that is reversed. Also how do you explain where all of these units are coming from? In any real life battle you never train soldiers or build anything, you use what you got. Also dropships never pick up marines. Marines just disappear under the dropship, they are never picked upp, and since there are many things on screen how would they be able to tell that this was what was important? Maybe they looked at the workers gathering minerals instead or the buildings producing troops? Most likely they missed the dropship completely since it doesn't really stand out that much, to them it could just have been an addon to a barrack or something. Starcraft isn't easy to read, your mind have just adapted to identify everything in it.
Now, I added a few extra things on magine. But the short and very good version is this: "This is magina, he can teleport and he is good at hitting people in the face", basically explains as much about magina as your description of the tank. I mean, you didn't mention what the tank is vulnerable against, that the tank can go into siegemode and how it changes when it goes into siegemode or anything about the unit at all. You just told them what they can already see, your sentence explains nothing at all. My short version of magina covers it better than your explanation of the tank.
ARTS will always appeal to spectators more than ERTS.
Mining and building isn't interesting (inherently, the mining and building leads to more interesting events than not mining and bulding, but who knows that besides us?), first blood and towers down before 3 minutes is.
DotA2 is a far more visceral spectator experience than SC2, and fightan games even more so. And as people have mentioned, a lot of excitement is up to the casters. And as people have mentioned again, you don't get more exciting than Tobi in English.
I played dota for several years and HoN for around 6-8 months and I can say that when I went back to watching hon/dota on a few streams, I could understand all of the older heroes but had little to no understanding of the new heroes that had come out. When someone with a ton of experience with MOBA's struggles to understand hero mechanics or abilities on a stream, I can't even imagine how a new viewer even begins to watch a MOBA type game.
This is why pudge will always be the best hero! Fun to play and pretty easy to understand as a spectator.
On June 15 2012 01:29 EneMecH wrote: "all you need to know to understand is that he is a melee carry that can teleport, he kills mana with his standard attacks, he is resistant to spells and his ultimate deals good damage on people low on mana"
Did you read that back to yourself? "melee carry" Carry?. "he kills mana with his standard attacks" Standard attacks? Mana? Resistant to spells? Ultimate? Low on mana? All of those need in-depth explanations and I still don't understand what it is or how it affects the game. and unless the blink dagger is an item that is clear to notice in the hands of whatever person you're talking about and then you can see how it is used to do whatever it accomplishes as opposed to not having a blink dagger, then you can't compare it to seeing marines dissapear into a ship and then the ship's empty boxes fill up and you can see 8 marines in the UI and then you see 8 marines fall out of the ship and shoot.
AND I DIDN'T EVEN TALK ABOUT HOW YOU KNOW WHO THAT MOBA CHARACTER IS OR HOW TO TELL HIM APART OR TRACK HIS MOVEMENTS FROM EVERYTHING ELSE Somebody trying to make Moba simple:
"all you need to know to understand is that he is a melee carry (moba term) that can teleport, he kills mana (we don't know how this affects the game or how to see the affects) with his standard attacks (explain?), he is resistant to spells (spells? Resistant to them makes what affect?) and his ultimate (ultimate?) deals good damage on people (meaning any of the strange things on screen?) low on mana (which we see how?)"
Somebody trying to make sc2 simple:
"all you need to know about the siegetank is that it gets in position then blows up enemies" (which is literally what it does... you'll see the tanks get in position and then shoot and then other stuff dies.)
No more in-depth understanding than that is needed to watch.
All you really need to know about magina is he benefits a lot from getting gold, is hard to kill, and fucks up spell casters in particular.
I don't know why people overcomplicate these ARTS heroes when explaining to new players. Lycan summons wolves and moves fast. Lina has a lot of burst damage early on. Tinker teleports everywhere, spams spells, and pushes lanes. Engima has a stun and later can suck a bunch of heroes into a black hole. Syllabear has a bear which can carry items. Faceless void stops time in an area and benefits a lot from getting gold. Nature's prophet teleports wherever he pleases and pushes or ganks. Rhasta disables heroes and summons wards that shoot people or towers. Ursa kills one guy really fast. Vengeful spirit helps out team mates by swapping players and stunning. Pudge grabs people with his hook and chews their face off. Dazzle makes his team harder to kill and makes the other team take more damage. Sven stuns and hits like a truck. Queen of pain blinks in and unloads a lot of burst damage in an area. Morphling can create a copy of a hero and can switch between being hard to kill and doing a lot of damage. Earthshaker has a long range stun and can do a lot of damage when he's near a lot of enemies. Zeus does some burst damage and can hit heroes anywhere on the map with lightning. Juggernaut spins around and hits people with his sword.
Sure, these descriptions miss a lot of nuances that these heroes have, but so does your siege tank description. Some important details about siege tanks which you might leave out if you are explaining to new players are that they do friendly splash, they have a minimum range, and they range longer than they can see, so you usually want to have a spotter unit.
On June 15 2012 04:06 KingDime wrote: I played dota for several years and HoN for around 6-8 months and I can say that when I went back to watching hon/dota on a few streams, I could understand all of the older heroes but had little to no understanding of the new heroes that had come out. When someone with a ton of experience with MOBA's struggles to understand hero mechanics or abilities on a stream, I can't even imagine how a new viewer even begins to watch a MOBA type game.
This is why pudge will always be the best hero! Fun to play and pretty easy to understand as a spectator.
You don't need perfect understanding to be able to enjoy watching a game. Just to explain, I have never played HON or watched it before and have no clue of what the heroes do, but I still got the hang of most that happened in this game:
I don't know what the skills, I just see that there are particle effects going out and when hit the heroes takes a bit of damage/stops or something like that. Basically I can see when people die and what killed them. That is all that is needed for a viewer to be able to watch a game. You don't need to understand why they take as much damage as they do etc, in the same way as you don't need to know how to read notes to be able to enjoy music. It is about players that kills each other by hurling tons of shit in each others way. All the thing about the towers, the creeps, the exp, the gold etc, is just to give an incentive to go out and kill each other. The actual game is the killing, understanding why or how is not important unless you want to be good at the game.
On June 15 2012 00:00 r.Evo wrote: Quoting my gf to the question "Hey, when it comes to LoL / SC2 / DotA 2 streams you saw, which would you watch again and why?"
"DotA. It looks like armies marching across a river trying to kill each other and everything looks dangerous and scary and anything can happen at any time."
"League has a child-like flair, it's all colorful and cuddly and even the creeps are cute, it's like watching a huge bowl of sweets doing stuff."
"SC2 is probably cool if you're into that strategy stuff but I don't enjoy watching chess either."
EPT
