I will admit that before The International 3, I have never watched Dota2 beofre for more than 15 minutes. But I do know the basic concepts of MOBAs (or whatever they are called) from League of Legends.
I got into LoL with the Season2 NA qualifiers for S2 Worlds and watched it ever since.
These are the main things I observed at the International"
The good (about dota2): - the drafting system: I just thought it was better (don't ask me for logical reasons) - the ingame statistics - fight seemed more spread out and seemed to last longer - everything (mainly abilities) seemed so strong, bordering overpowered - the map: it was nice seeing trees being destroyed and the style differences between dire and radiance side - i heard the client is a masterpiece compared to the LoL one (and it's not hard to believe)
The bad (about dota2): - the graphics style: not being used to the style, I sometimes had trouble distinguishing heroes from minions (some heroes seemed really really small) - the commentators: they commentary was not targeted to people like me who wanted to get into dota2. I had to keep a tab open just to search who OD was, what BKB was and other stuff. - again this is just me not knowing about Dota, but I didn't understand the metagame at all: what is the off-lane, freefarm lane, why going offensive tri-lane is better than going duo-lane + jungler (as in LoL). I would have liked to have something that explained this to me - maybe it's just coming from LoL, but heroes teleporting all over the place was pretty confusing
The interesting (about dota 2): - the buyback system although it wouldn't fit into LoL at all (would be overpowered in the late-game) - the courier system (would also be a broken feature in LoL) - denying: I don't consider it good or bad
These are my thoughts. Although I didn't watch every single match, I watched about 20% of the prelimineries and 80% of the playoffs.
I installed and played both LoL and Dota2 last week, to see what the fuss was about. I have to say, Dota2 is a lot prettier. I liked LoL "training" more. But overall, Dota2 kicks ass. No need to buy Heroes.
I watched my first ever MOBA now during TI3. Mostly because I read alliance was kicking ass. What disturbed me was how hard it was to see where on the minimap the screen was centered. The white box-thing that tells you this is very very hard to see compared to Starcraft.
On August 13 2013 22:34 MaxViktory wrote: I watched my first ever MOBA now during TI3. Mostly because I read alliance was kicking ass. What disturbed me was how hard it was to see where on the minimap the screen was centered. The white box-thing that tells you this is very very hard to see compared to Starcraft.
huh I can see that being a big pain for someone not very familiar with the game. Once youv played enough you can just look at any part of the map and now exactly where you are and whats around you since the map never changes.
Nice blog, I love reading peoples first thoughts on watching/playing dota, especially if their first moba experience was with LoL like mine was.
The reason I made the switch was because of free heroes primarily but also because abilities are, as you say, more overpowered in a sense which made it more fun for me to watch. Normal abilities in Dota can look like ultimates in LoL. And ultimates in dota can look completely broken xd
My roommate has played LoL for years, and has played a few games of Dota 2 with me. His biggest complaint was that he couldn't see enough on the screen. I think the map is a lot bigger in Dota 2, but I'm not 100% on that one.
It's funny to see that everything you listed as a con for DotA was just that you aren't familiar with the game. Play a couple of games, get flamed really hard for being bad, don't start boots/pots, and it'll all fit eventually!
Buyback is kinda overpowered in Dota as well Icefrog nerfed it recently (the cooldown) but it is debatable how much that helped.
I'm not sure what the courier system would unbalance in League, but couriers would be very vulnerable when everybody has flash.
PS: League graphics are a disaster. Dota's are (in comparison) excellent. "I don't know what is going on on screen" is a knowledge issue not a graphics one.
LoL is just a "neutered" version of Dota. Even Dota 2 was dumbed down a bit, at least with the courier system.
LoL has no couriers, no denying, no buyback system, no runes. Also the fact that in LoL you can check the creep kill and inventory of anyone on the map via the score board is broken.
In Dota 2, key items on some heroes are "not revealed" until they can initiate with them. And the players from the other team have to constant check the opposing heroes inventory.
It's funny that everything listed under "bad" are things that you are not familiar with because you have no experience playing the game.
On August 13 2013 22:34 MaxViktory wrote: I watched my first ever MOBA now during TI3. Mostly because I read alliance was kicking ass. What disturbed me was how hard it was to see where on the minimap the screen was centered. The white box-thing that tells you this is very very hard to see compared to Starcraft.
TI3 was my first time watching a dota game and I felt absolutly the same, was always disoriented/confused of what was going on mainly because I had no idea where I was. Cool experience nontheless...
I've played maybe 2 games of LoL, maybe 5 of Dota in WC3, 0 of HoN and 0 of Dota2.
As someone who's never played, the commentators in between matches were pretty useless. They used so much jargon/acronyms and so few explanations of why they held whatever opinions they had made it pointless and it might as well have just been ads in between matches. I also felt they didn't showcase the items enough during matches. All they ever mentioned was when someone picked up blink daggers and BKBs (which I still don't know what they are, besides being awesome). I'm sure other items are important too and can affect what's coming up, even if it's to a lesser degree.
Why's a trilane better than two dual lanes? Why is the early Roshan so important when it seems that no one ever used the Aegis before he respawned anyway? Why is killing the barracks so important when everything you read always says not to push the creep line further towards their tower unnecessarily? Did people ever go back to heal up at their fountain? The stream never showed/mentioned that.
I guess I just felt that they didn't make it very accommodating for newer viewers/players, of whom the marquee tournament of the year is bound to cause a large influx.. Other than that, it was pretty entertaining, even without knowing most of the heroes. Felt like everyone thinks Batrider and Wisp (Io?) are overpowered but I have no clue why.
What I hated most in LoL was the Champion rotation, and why some would be more expensive then others?
In Dota 2, you can pick anything you like in the first game, you won't have any cosmetic items, but those are not important anyway. But in LoL, you have to play with the Champions that are in the rotation for that specific week, then you have to gather points to buy your own, and on top of all there is the shitty leveling system that adds up, and basically you will want to get to the max level as soon as possible to have access to small buffs that adds up very quickly.
Even if LoL is Free to play, it's not a fair free to play system. Riot has chosen that system so that they can milk as much as they can from their players. But in Dota 2 the system is fair and it doesn't force someone to play many games just to achieve highest level on their account to have access to specific abilities and starting "runes".
LoL cosmetic system only works with "full skins", while in Dota 2 you can use different items for each slot.
And on top of this, in Dota 2 you can create your own cosmetic items, and submit them through the steam workshop system, it's a really nice system, that allows 3D artists from around the world to submit their own creations, while in LoL, Riot has it's own artists that sketch the 2D portraits for the new skins and then create the 3D models.
They have created a lot of items and full sets, and most of them have been added to the game already. You can see the full workflow to create a 3D model for Dota 2 from scratch (you will need 3D modelling software, and most of them are pretty expensive, but you can use free software like Blender to achieve similar results)
On August 14 2013 00:03 psychopat wrote: I've played maybe 2 games of LoL, maybe 5 of Dota in WC3, 0 of HoN and 0 of Dota2.
As someone who's never played, the commentators in between matches were pretty useless. They used so much jargon/acronyms and so few explanations of why they held whatever opinions they had made it pointless and it might as well have just been ads in between matches. I also felt they didn't showcase the items enough during matches. All they ever mentioned was when someone picked up blink daggers and BKBs (which I still don't know what they are, besides being awesome). I'm sure other items are important too and can affect what's coming up, even if it's to a lesser degree.
Why's a trilane better than two dual lanes? Why is the early Roshan so important when it seems that no one ever used the Aegis before he respawned anyway? Why is killing the barracks so important when everything you read always says not to push the creep line further towards their tower unnecessarily? Did people ever go back to heal up at their fountain? The stream never showed/mentioned that.
I guess I just felt that they didn't make it very accommodating for newer viewers/players, of whom the marquee tournament of the year is bound to cause a large influx.. Other than that, it was pretty entertaining, even without knowing most of the heroes. Felt like everyone thinks Batrider and Wisp (Io?) are overpowered but I have no clue why.
Well at ti3 they kind cater for the older generation of dota players so its pretty understandable that you find them useless.
And about bat and io, in dota, positioning wins games. Both heroes mess up positioning so theyre both pretty valuable
I think dota 2 is just better in every way. The only thing I had a complaint about is that if you are a new player people get really pissed instead of wanting to help you.
I have about 500 games of dota2 played and to be honest sometimes i don't understand what the casters are saying but it's interesting none the less.
The production value of the international is soooo much better than anything else out there at the moment, i tried to watch some LoL and WCS and they are sooo boring in comparison.
The international is doing wonders promoting the game.
On August 14 2013 01:05 HeeroFX wrote: I think dota 2 is just better in every way. The only thing I had a complaint about is that if you are a new player people get really pissed instead of wanting to help you.
That's the same in every game though.
Hell, in BW if you are new, people avoid to play you lol or only play you to get some free iccup points.
On August 13 2013 23:43 n0ave wrote: LoL is just a "neutered" version of Dota. Even Dota 2 was dumbed down a bit, at least with the courier system.
LoL has no couriers, no denying, no buyback system, no runes. Also the fact that in LoL you can check the creep kill and inventory of anyone on the map via the score board is broken.
In Dota 2, key items on some heroes are "not revealed" until they can initiate with them. And the players from the other team have to constant check the opposing heroes inventory.
It's funny that everything listed under "bad" are things that you are not familiar with because you have no experience playing the game.
LoL's scoreboard only updates when you have vision of an opponent, so key items are still hidden in a manner similar to DotA.
On August 13 2013 23:43 n0ave wrote: LoL is just a "neutered" version of Dota. Even Dota 2 was dumbed down a bit, at least with the courier system.
LoL has no couriers, no denying, no buyback system, no runes. Also the fact that in LoL you can check the creep kill and inventory of anyone on the map via the score board is broken.
In Dota 2, key items on some heroes are "not revealed" until they can initiate with them. And the players from the other team have to constant check the opposing heroes inventory.
It's funny that everything listed under "bad" are things that you are not familiar with because you have no experience playing the game.
LoL's scoreboard only updates when you have vision of an opponent, so key items are still hidden in a manner similar to DotA.
Still having to remember it is a skill unto itself though. If its past midnight, I'll start forgetting what items each hero on the enemy team are building
You can't expect the casters to accommodate 100% information for new players in their casts when they're casting live to a venue of a couple thousand (+1mil-ish online). Just FYI, I saw Firebolt145 advertising himself streaming The International targeted for new players specifically due to how many people said they were inexperienced with Dota in the build up to TI3, perhaps you guys should have caught that (heck, if you'd asked for a new player-friendly stream in one of the LR or GD threads, someone would have pointed it out eventually).
On August 13 2013 22:34 MaxViktory wrote: I watched my first ever MOBA now during TI3. Mostly because I read alliance was kicking ass. What disturbed me was how hard it was to see where on the minimap the screen was centered. The white box-thing that tells you this is very very hard to see compared to Starcraft.
You can customize the minimap =) Heroes can appear as dots (you choose the size) red vs green, or each player its color, or as the hero icon (too confusing for me but some use this) or dot + name of the hero (I use this) and you can resize everything. It's pretty awesome.You have t odo this with the console tho, but there are guides everywhere and even a .cfg generator somewhere.
On August 13 2013 23:43 n0ave wrote: LoL is just a "neutered" version of Dota. Even Dota 2 was dumbed down a bit, at least with the courier system.
LoL has no couriers, no denying, no buyback system, no runes. Also the fact that in LoL you can check the creep kill and inventory of anyone on the map via the score board is broken.
In Dota 2, key items on some heroes are "not revealed" until they can initiate with them. And the players from the other team have to constant check the opposing heroes inventory.
It's funny that everything listed under "bad" are things that you are not familiar with because you have no experience playing the game.
LoL's scoreboard only updates when you have vision of an opponent, so key items are still hidden in a manner similar to DotA.
Still having to remember it is a skill unto itself though. If its past midnight, I'll start forgetting what items each hero on the enemy team are building
Perhaps, but that's a debate on the "probe micro" level that I don't want to start here.
On August 14 2013 01:39 ReignSupreme. wrote: You can't expect the casters to accommodate 100% information for new players in their casts when they're casting live to a venue of a couple thousand (+1mil-ish online). Just FYI, I saw Firebolt145 advertising himself streaming The International targeted for new players specifically due to how many people said they were inexperienced with Dota in the build up to TI3, perhaps you guys should have caught that (heck, if you'd asked for a new player-friendly stream in one of the LR or GD threads, someone would have pointed it out eventually).
If you're trying to reach a mass audience you can't expect the new/inexperienced/potential players to jump through hoops. If the simple, easy thing isn't catering to them most will simply tune out rather than stumble about trying to find something that caters to them. I'm not saying that TI3 should have dumbed it down, just that you're expecting too much from new players who aren't sold on DotA 2 yet.
well, opinions on this board are mostly those of dota2 fans.
I play league, but i watch dota 2 from time to time. The main difference between both games are that abilities in dota 2 are more powerful. Especially stun durations in dota 2 are at least doubled. loL abilities are not as powerful, but instead are used more often.
Other than that the gameplay is roughly the same with each game emphasizing sligthly different skillsets in each area.
But i liked the casting of the big tournament, the casters generally were able to explain to me most things. But of course i dont know of they were right or just making things up like some casters do.
LoL's scoreboard only updates when you have vision of an opponent, so key items are still hidden in a manner similar to DotA.
Didn't knew that, haven't played LoL in over 2 years. I just followed some streams and didn't knew this.
I have played around 50 hours of LoL, and around 40 of Dota 2.But I have played a lot of Dota, maybe that's why I adapt better to Dota 2 and I spot so many flaws with LoL.
Overall it's pretty sad to see that this genre has such huge success, I always preferred War3 over Dota and Sc2 over Dota 2. But in the last year I stopped playing and become mostly a spectator, and I find Dota 2 tournaments much more entertaining then Sc2 or LoL tournaments.
On August 14 2013 00:03 psychopat wrote: I've played maybe 2 games of LoL, maybe 5 of Dota in WC3, 0 of HoN and 0 of Dota2.
As someone who's never played, the commentators in between matches were pretty useless. They used so much jargon/acronyms and so few explanations of why they held whatever opinions they had made it pointless and it might as well have just been ads in between matches. I also felt they didn't showcase the items enough during matches. All they ever mentioned was when someone picked up blink daggers and BKBs (which I still don't know what they are, besides being awesome). I'm sure other items are important too and can affect what's coming up, even if it's to a lesser degree.
Why's a trilane better than two dual lanes? Why is the early Roshan so important when it seems that no one ever used the Aegis before he respawned anyway? Why is killing the barracks so important when everything you read always says not to push the creep line further towards their tower unnecessarily? Did people ever go back to heal up at their fountain? The stream never showed/mentioned that.
I guess I just felt that they didn't make it very accommodating for newer viewers/players, of whom the marquee tournament of the year is bound to cause a large influx.. Other than that, it was pretty entertaining, even without knowing most of the heroes. Felt like everyone thinks Batrider and Wisp (Io?) are overpowered but I have no clue why.
I was thinking about this and the only decent solution I could think of is to have some kind of pre or post day discussion for people not familiar with the game.
It really wouldn't be very good to add this type of basic knowledge to everything they discuss during the tournament because it would bore a lot of people. Do they do it every time? It would take up so much of the actual discussion time. It would be like going to watch a chess match and every time they discuss some opening they go over how the pieces involved can move.
to anyone confused about the laning "meta" of dota: it would take probably an entire guide (or several) to just cover all bases. the why is just answered with jungling + certain hero abilities that make killing heroes or the jungle a lot easier in dota at low levels, plus the map terrain (in lol, very equivalent distances from one tower to the next, and dota almost has a straight flanking side where heroes can hide and juke, something similar to the brush but a lot harder to deal with)
On August 14 2013 08:28 rabidch wrote: to anyone confused about the laning "meta" of dota: it would take probably an entire guide (or several) to just cover all bases. the why is just answered with jungling + certain hero abilities that make killing heroes or the jungle a lot easier in dota at low levels, plus the map terrain (in lol, very equivalent distances from one tower to the next, and dota almost has a straight flanking side where heroes can hide and juke, something similar to the brush but a lot harder to deal with)
I've followed a bit of DotA and apparently all the types of meta that can be used in a pro-game is staggering. In lol there are about 3-4 choices that are all pretty standard, but no one has ever really popularized the try lane, and no one has ever been able to do away with the jungler. Ever.
I've played quite a bit of both LoL and DotA2, and here are my pro's/con's.
LoL
Pros -Very easy to get into and understand -Visuals are pretty easy to understand (for a MOBA) -The game has a very distinct and fun theme/feel/atmosphere to it. Characters have great personalities/flavor, the game actually has some fluff to it, with lore/backdrop actively playing into the game. -Graphics aren't great, but they are stylistic (similar to how Warcraft graphics aren't great, but are stylistic) -Several game modes -Gigantic population, meaning it's easier to get a game and there are more people to meet -Lots of things to work towards and do -Runes/Masteries lets you customize a lot -Items/tooltips very easy to understand
Cons -Community is horrible -Metagame is incredibly stale. Competitive LoL sees the same few heroes every game -Costs a lot of money and/or time to get all of the heroes -Runes/Masteries creates a pretty large time/money-related barrier to entry into higher level play -Higher-level play tends to be quite dull; less fights, games are usually dominated by one team, little you can do to come back from deficits. Whereas almost every DotA game I watched this past week was incredibly exciting and dynamic, the vast, vast majority of LoL competitive games are rather boring, one-sided stomps
DotA2
Pros -All heroes available initially -Full range of different game mechanics (couriers, denying, etc) -Games are quite dynamic; metagame doesn't clamp down on innovation and creativity quite as much -comebacks are easier -far more fights against enemy players -Graphics are pretty sweet -Higher skill cap
Cons -Very hard to understand what's going on on-screen compared to other MOBA's -Tooltips, items much harder to read/understand -Extremely unforgiving when first coming into the game -Very little flavor/feel to the game. Who are these heroes? What do they do? What is this world I'm in? There is almost no atmosphere in DotA. The hero names are really generic and the characters have no significant personality or flavor. -Games tend to take FOREVER. At least 10-20 minutes more than my average LoL game. Sometimes a good thing, often times it's just annoying, because this is simply caused by the game being significantly harder to lock down and finish out your win
Essentially, DotA2 is Brood War and LoL is SC2. DotA2 is much better as a competitive game, but LoL is better to enjoy as a simply fun experience.
The sheer bulk of raw information involved in being familiar with DOTA2 makes it impossible for a commentary to be hype/entertaining as well as strategic enough to cater to the core audience while explaining basic stuff to newbies on the side. Simply not feasible, sorry, LD and Luminous simplified their commentary a bit for the finals but there are too many decisions and too much strategy to talk about even during the times when there are no real fights happening to take the time to hold the hands of people who just happened to wander into the room.
An accessible spectator experience is just not what the game is, the lack of translucency has always been DotA's and DOTA2's weakness no question about that, hardly lessened by the fact that a lot of it is simply knowing numbers and mechanics by memorization, but obviously for a rather massive amount of people that is countered by the fact that it's actually fun to play so we don't mind learning. Unlike some other games.
On August 14 2013 09:49 Bash wrote: The sheer bulk of raw information involved in being familiar with DOTA2 makes it impossible for a commentary to be hype/entertaining as well as strategic enough to cater to the core audience while explaining basic stuff to newbies on the side. Simply not feasible, sorry, LD and Luminous simplified their commentary a bit for the finals but there are too many decisions and too much strategy to talk about even during the times when there are no real fights happening to take the time to hold the hands of people who just happened to wander into the room.
An accessible spectator experience is just not what the game is, the lack of translucency has always been DotA's and DOTA2's weakness no question about that, hardly lessened by the fact that a lot of it is simply knowing numbers and mechanics by memorization, but obviously for a rather massive amount of people that is countered by the fact that it's actually fun to play so we don't mind learning. Unlike some other games.
LoL isn't much better for anyone who doesn't play the game. SC2 is slightly better, but still not.
FPS games are really the only ones that you can just turn on a stream and understand the basics of what is going on.
On August 14 2013 09:49 Bash wrote: The sheer bulk of raw information involved in being familiar with DOTA2 makes it impossible for a commentary to be hype/entertaining as well as strategic enough to cater to the core audience while explaining basic stuff to newbies on the side. Simply not feasible, sorry, LD and Luminous simplified their commentary a bit for the finals but there are too many decisions and too much strategy to talk about even during the times when there are no real fights happening to take the time to hold the hands of people who just happened to wander into the room.
An accessible spectator experience is just not what the game is, the lack of translucency has always been DotA's and DOTA2's weakness no question about that, hardly lessened by the fact that a lot of it is simply knowing numbers and mechanics by memorization, but obviously for a rather massive amount of people that is countered by the fact that it's actually fun to play so we don't mind learning. Unlike some other games.
LoL isn't much better for anyone who doesn't play the game. SC2 is slightly better, but still not.
FPS games are really the only ones that you can just turn on a stream and understand the basics of what is going on.
In general, MOBA's are some of the hardest games out there for a spectator to just turn on and understand, but LoL is definitely the easiest one to understand out of them.
On August 13 2013 22:34 MaxViktory wrote: I watched my first ever MOBA now during TI3. Mostly because I read alliance was kicking ass. What disturbed me was how hard it was to see where on the minimap the screen was centered. The white box-thing that tells you this is very very hard to see compared to Starcraft.
Again, it's a lack of familiarity to the game. The entire game is played on the same map, so after a while, you should know exactly where the camera is, without having to look at the minimap.
I've played both games I enjoy both, but prefer dota, here are some of the biggest sore points: Save for a few heroes,the rest feel very generic, most of the time it felt they were very place holder. I liked twisted fate,riven,lee sin, tryndamere,ezreal and lux (free win :p),shaco and a few others. The rest felt like they were just there to make the numbers, and really had nothing interesting. I felt this especially with the carries, most of them felt like a modified sniper, and were really boring to play. Another part of this is the itemization, the items again didnt really feel interesting to me.
The other is the art style, this is obviously down to personal taste, and I just didnt like their art style, it felt very bland and cheap. I think in terms of getting an "evovled war3 style" HoN did the best job, but I really like dota's art style too.
But some things that LoL does do well are things like matchmaking: I actually had decent matches more often than really one sided ones. This might be due to the slighly less snowbally-ness of LoL, but on an average, once you levelled up I felt the people I played with actually had some idea of what they had to do instead of clueless feeder teammate#2 in Dota 2.I still did have the random idiots on the team, but the frequency of it was way higher in dota 2. I actually like that people are made to play a huge number of matches before they are allowed into the more serious matchmaking mode, and also the hero locking part helps in people valuing their purchased heroes, and perhaps makes them invest more time into learning that hero as they've spent either some money or time farming points.
On August 13 2013 23:43 Sn0_Man wrote: PS: League graphics are a disaster. Dota's are (in comparison) excellent.
Okay so a few people have said this now and my opinion is the opposite. I like the fact that League uses very bright colors and everything is easy to distinguish; whereas in Dota2 the colors are very dilute and this makes it harder to watch. I tell developers all the time to stay away from flashy graphics and to avoid such colors because it makes it harder for people to watch. You need contrast. Keep in mind, this is coming from someone who enjoys both and really I don't think we should be comparing the two gameplay wise because they're world's apart and there are good reasons for this.
i started playing dota1 in the days of wc3. I played many matches vs the ai and like 5 vs real players, so i was hardly good at the game. I started playing lol like 2 years ago after stopping sc2, but i have to say that i didnt like the fact that everything was less deadly, that there was so much pay2win (/play 500 hours) and the graphics. Especially the lower damage and stun durations made the game feel slowed down to me and the spells felt uninspired, like switching from ut to a chibi version with reduced weapon damage. I switched to hon after like 30 matches and played hon for some time with friends, until dota 2 happened. I switched again and never looked back.
Dota 2 is seen by many players as the elite of esports for the elite to watch. The potential knowledge of dota is immense and i doubt that even the best captains understand the game fully. Trying to address the people who dont have a basic understanding of the game and make them understand how a player plays is just not possible, the complexity is both the biggest strength and the biggest weakness of dota. On the other hand one of the reasons why i stopped watching sc2 when i stopped playing is that no caster ever seemed to explain the details, like why player x is going for that build, where he strays from standard and why. Following sc2 barely hold any value for me as the caster didnt help me to understand the players decisions.
Somebody wrote that the heroes have no fluff etc, which is not true, every single hero has a background-story and i think that valve did an amazing job with their voice actors.
On August 13 2013 23:43 Sn0_Man wrote: PS: League graphics are a disaster. Dota's are (in comparison) excellent.
Okay so a few people have said this now and my opinion is the opposite. I like the fact that League uses very bright colors and everything is easy to distinguish; whereas in Dota2 the colors are very dilute and this makes it harder to watch. I tell developers all the time to stay away from flashy graphics and to avoid such colors because it makes it harder for people to watch. You need contrast. Keep in mind, this is coming from someone who enjoys both and really I don't think we should be comparing the two gameplay wise because they're world's apart and there are good reasons for this.
Tbh i dont like lol's graphics, it's to colorful for me. To me it looks like a game for very young children, it hurts my eyes, the colors bite each other. Personal preference. I know what you mean by contrast though and i wished there was a way to do it without killing my eyes.
On August 13 2013 21:51 CreationSoul wrote: I will admit that before The International 3, I have never watched Dota2 beofre for more than 15 minutes. But I do know the basic concepts of MOBAs (or whatever they are called) from League of Legends.
I got into LoL with the Season2 NA qualifiers for S2 Worlds and watched it ever since.
These are the main things I observed at the International"
The good (about dota2): - the drafting system: I just thought it was better (don't ask me for logical reasons) - the ingame statistics - fight seemed more spread out and seemed to last longer - everything (mainly abilities) seemed so strong, bordering overpowered - the map: it was nice seeing trees being destroyed and the style differences between dire and radiance side - i heard the client is a masterpiece compared to the LoL one (and it's not hard to believe)
The bad (about dota2): - the graphics style: not being used to the style, I sometimes had trouble distinguishing heroes from minions (some heroes seemed really really small) - the commentators: they commentary was not targeted to people like me who wanted to get into dota2. I had to keep a tab open just to search who OD was, what BKB was and other stuff. - again this is just me not knowing about Dota, but I didn't understand the metagame at all: what is the off-lane, freefarm lane, why going offensive tri-lane is better than going duo-lane + jungler (as in LoL). I would have liked to have something that explained this to me - maybe it's just coming from LoL, but heroes teleporting all over the place was pretty confusing
The interesting (about dota 2): - the buyback system although it wouldn't fit into LoL at all (would be overpowered in the late-game) - the courier system (would also be a broken feature in LoL) - denying: I don't consider it good or bad
These are my thoughts. Although I didn't watch every single match, I watched about 20% of the prelimineries and 80% of the playoffs.
Dota2 is incredibly complex and even after more than 500 hours of play i am still learning. The commentary is targeted to people who know the game in and out, which can be considered as a bad thing or as a good thing, depending on how you see it. I will try to answer some of your questions, since there are a lot i will try to make it short. -off-lane is the lane where the jungle is on the enemies side of the river (top for radiant and bot for dire). -Freefarm-lane is the opposite one, the safe lane. -Three heroes with nukes are enough to burst most heroes down even without long duration stuns, while two need some auto-attacks in between. That's why tris will usually win against duals and duals are really uncommon. Offensive tris main purpose is to shut the enemies carry down, who will farm in the lane where he gets more exp and gold. Therefore they stay in the lane. The second advantage of offensive tris is that you can get some farm on an additional core/carry, one in your safe-lane and one in the offensive tri. -Depending on the resolution understanding what's happening can be quite the task even if you know every ability.
On August 14 2013 00:03 psychopat wrote: I've played maybe 2 games of LoL, maybe 5 of Dota in WC3, 0 of HoN and 0 of Dota2.
As someone who's never played, the commentators in between matches were pretty useless. They used so much jargon/acronyms and so few explanations of why they held whatever opinions they had made it pointless and it might as well have just been ads in between matches. I also felt they didn't showcase the items enough during matches. All they ever mentioned was when someone picked up blink daggers and BKBs (which I still don't know what they are, besides being awesome). I'm sure other items are important too and can affect what's coming up, even if it's to a lesser degree.
Why's a trilane better than two dual lanes? Why is the early Roshan so important when it seems that no one ever used the Aegis before he respawned anyway? Why is killing the barracks so important when everything you read always says not to push the creep line further towards their tower unnecessarily? Did people ever go back to heal up at their fountain? The stream never showed/mentioned that.
I guess I just felt that they didn't make it very accommodating for newer viewers/players, of whom the marquee tournament of the year is bound to cause a large influx.. Other than that, it was pretty entertaining, even without knowing most of the heroes. Felt like everyone thinks Batrider and Wisp (Io?) are overpowered but I have no clue why.
bkb is black king bar, an item that makes you immune to most spells and almost all spell damage. It's the thing that gives the golden effect around the hero: http://i.imgur.com/FceHw.jpg .
@tri see above. @rosh: rosh equals the gold of a tower, so picking it up is always 1000g (200 each) for your team. While you dont always use the aegis, often the team without aegis will try to stay away from fights if you have one, giving you map control and sometimes free towers. @rax: you dont want to push the creepwave when you are farming them for an extended period of time, which is mostly in the early game. Having the lane pushed gives you lots of vision and an eminent threat to the enemies base if they push. Besides killing a rax cuts your creeps gold value in a half, effectively taking 1/6th of the enemies lane-farm. It also buffs your creeps according to the rax you killed, which is why killing the melee-rax is favored, as there are more melee-creeps so the lane pushes faster. You will need to clear and push back the lane where you lost rax constantly or the creeps will kill your throne, so pushing and smoke ganking becomes significantly harder. @fountain: People sometimes go back to heal up at their fountain, but in most pro matches they get enough regeneration items like tangoes or salves for the laning phase or just play more defensive. Loosing out on exp might mean that you are easy to kill, so the drawback might end up higher than the one from getting less gold by playing defensive. @bat and Io (=wisp, he was renamed recently to Io): bat adds the possibility of easily separating a single enemy, which creates favorable 5v4 scenarios. Io is able to teleport an allied hero to any place on the map which creates lots of map-control and forces the enemies to stick together, reducing their farm. It also means that it is very easy to create situations where you have superior numbers.
On August 14 2013 09:49 Bash wrote: The sheer bulk of raw information involved in being familiar with DOTA2 makes it impossible for a commentary to be hype/entertaining as well as strategic enough to cater to the core audience while explaining basic stuff to newbies on the side. Simply not feasible, sorry, LD and Luminous simplified their commentary a bit for the finals but there are too many decisions and too much strategy to talk about even during the times when there are no real fights happening to take the time to hold the hands of people who just happened to wander into the room.
An accessible spectator experience is just not what the game is, the lack of translucency has always been DotA's and DOTA2's weakness no question about that, hardly lessened by the fact that a lot of it is simply knowing numbers and mechanics by memorization, but obviously for a rather massive amount of people that is countered by the fact that it's actually fun to play so we don't mind learning. Unlike some other games.
LoL isn't much better for anyone who doesn't play the game. SC2 is slightly better, but still not.
FPS games are really the only ones that you can just turn on a stream and understand the basics of what is going on.
In general, MOBA's are some of the hardest games out there for a spectator to just turn on and understand, but LoL is definitely the easiest one to understand out of them.
"Easiest" still means spending dedicated time playing the game, or spending every game reviewing a wiki every time an unfamiliar phrase or term is said.
Honestly, it's a pointless comparison. Both have such a high threshold of required knowledge that you won't understand either unless you're willing to dedicate the time to do so, even if you've played other MOBAs. And the amount of time required to understand one game (even at a basic level) means both are completely impossible for anyone to just tune in and watch.
The most annoying thing about League is that I can't play it with friends properly unless I dedicate a fuckton of time or money on it because I lack the IP/RP/Runes/Runepages whereas you can easily do it the other way around with Dota.
I had to borrow a friend's account to play with friends at a LAN party.
And on the note of personality, I think its hard in general to give personality to any hero in MOBA's but I think Dota does a decent job at it with incredible voice acting. The way heroes interact with each other when they get kills or get killed is really fun.
I just reached lvl 30 in LoL on Saturday (wahoo!), and my two biggest complaints are the lack of heroes available and the lack of disables available. I really hate saving up 6300 IP to purchase a new hero that may or may not cater to my playing style. And watching videos, imo, doesn't seem to really help.
But a big thing for me is the lack of disables. There are few heroes who have stuns, and I think only one (lulu?) who has a short transformation disable. There are a wack ton of slows, it seems like everyone has a slow of some sort. I just hate that end game if you've chosen an int based hero, not a thing I know but I'm trying to put in terms for dota ppl, end game you have no chance against an attack damage carry. There's nothing you can purchase that can disable them. There's no item that renders you invisible, or gives you a blink, or allows you to stun/sheep/cyclone/force staff the enemy hero. I can't stand it.
However, I have some friends who hate Dota, and love LoL for exactly the same reason.
Overall I prefer Dota 2. There's more skill involved IMO.
Pros -The game has a very distinct and fun theme/feel/atmosphere to it. Characters have great personalities/flavor, the game actually has some fluff to it, with lore/backdrop actively playing into the game.
Huh? Heroes in Dota have lore aswell, aswell as a large number of voice responses pandered towards other heroes (ie. When a Treant Protector and a Timbersaw are picked in the same match, the responses can vary depending on whether they're allies or against each other.
(Just for background, Timbersaw's lore makes him scared of tree-people after they came and destroyed the city he lived in)
Ally: There's...a giant...tree-person...right next to me. Stay calm. Ha ha ha ha. Just stay calm. Enemy: If you fall in the woods, and I laugh, will anyone hear me?
Not to mention that LoL lore changes whenever Riot deem fit
I play a lot of LoL and I've got to say I really love it. I have so much more fun with it than I did in SC2. I tried out Dota 2 a while back and it seemed really hard. I know that sounds wimpy but I really just play games for fun and it was just as stressful as starcraft. I raged a lot and just couldn't get into a god spot mentally. In LoL I can do ARAM, normals or ranked depending on my mood. I'm not going to argue as to which is the "better game" between LoL and Dota, I certainly would say Dota is more complex but as I play for fun, and league is more fun for me, I gotta say I prefer league.
Pros -The game has a very distinct and fun theme/feel/atmosphere to it. Characters have great personalities/flavor, the game actually has some fluff to it, with lore/backdrop actively playing into the game.
Huh? Heroes in Dota have lore aswell, aswell as a large number of voice responses pandered towards other heroes (ie. When a Treant Protector and a Timbersaw are picked in the same match, the responses can vary depending on whether they're allies or against each other.
(Just for background, Timbersaw's lore makes him scared of tree-people after they came and destroyed the city he lived in)
Ally: There's...a giant...tree-person...right next to me. Stay calm. Ha ha ha ha. Just stay calm. Enemy: If you fall in the woods, and I laugh, will anyone hear me?
Not to mention that LoL lore changes whenever Riot deem fit
its mostly because all LoL characters are some kind of humanoid archetype concept, while much of dotas are tied to wc3, many some kind of crazy animal or weird race, and also suffered from the sped up development time for TI1. what LoL has in "personalities" are a lot more boobs, badass knight or assassin guy, or cute yordle archetypes that valve tends to avoid.
as for graphics, i assure you whether things contrast or not doesnt really make a difference for knowing what happens in teamfights as much as experience.
You can't expect the casters to explain every single item and every single strategy in detail for every newbie watching the stream. That issimply not possible in a complex game likee Dota. You should have probably read the viewers guide here on team liquid before attempting to watch Dota without ever really having played it.
I don't really understand the complaint people keep saying about how unforgiving dota is when you first start off. I played 50ish bot games before jumping into real queue, just so I didn't suck. For the first ~30 games I was playing with people who didn't even know what the main objective was, how to last-hit, what the courier does, etc. I don't understand how people can complain it's too hard to start off when they would be playing with completely new players.
I think for the most part TI3 did a good job of explaining why some drafts were better than others, and why certain items were good (or should have been picked up.) You can't expect them to explain everything every game, it'd piss off "normal" players who just wanna watch. I feel Ayesee did a pretty damn good job casting for new players; when I first started watching I had no idea what anything was, but his casts always helped ease me into my first real moba/arts/whatever game.
Only real complaint I can agree with is that the tooltips are too congested and need to be shortened down somehow. It shouldn't take 3 sentences to say that your character stuns another person, at least imo.
Contrary to a lot of the talk here; I find it really hard to see what's going on in LoL teamfights, because abilities are so flashy and don't do as much as DotA abilities I don't really see the difference between moves and just watch the healthbars drop.
On August 14 2013 14:16 Fumanchu wrote: I just reached lvl 30 in LoL on Saturday (wahoo!), and my two biggest complaints are the lack of heroes available and the lack of disables available. I really hate saving up 6300 IP to purchase a new hero that may or may not cater to my playing style. And watching videos, imo, doesn't seem to really help.
But a big thing for me is the lack of disables. There are few heroes who have stuns, and I think only one (lulu?) who has a short transformation disable. There are a wack ton of slows, it seems like everyone has a slow of some sort. I just hate that end game if you've chosen an int based hero, not a thing I know but I'm trying to put in terms for dota ppl, end game you have no chance against an attack damage carry. There's nothing you can purchase that can disable them. There's no item that renders you invisible, or gives you a blink, or allows you to stun/sheep/cyclone/force staff the enemy hero. I can't stand it.
However, I have some friends who hate Dota, and love LoL for exactly the same reason.
Overall I prefer Dota 2. There's more skill involved IMO.
??? LoL has a ridiculous amount of disables. People regularly complain about the fact that almost every new champion that comes out has some kind of hard CC and that you can make entire team comps that just stun you until death.
Oh, and that's another nice thing about LoL: continuing new content. Unfortunately, it also causes some really weird balance problems.
And on the personality/fluff side, yea, DotA's voice actors/voice interactions are pretty awesome, but DotA's character backgrounds are incredibly vague and offer no actual depth. LoL has a very active world that is pretty well-presented to players, and each character has a much more interesting and telling backstory. Fluff is NOT DotA's strong point. Just do a comparison of almost any champion from DotA to almost any hero from LoL and it's pretty obvious. As far as I can tell, DotA doesn't even have a cohesive and thorough world that is explained like LoL does, not to mention a comparison of individual backgrounds.
On August 14 2013 14:16 Fumanchu wrote: I just reached lvl 30 in LoL on Saturday (wahoo!), and my two biggest complaints are the lack of heroes available and the lack of disables available. I really hate saving up 6300 IP to purchase a new hero that may or may not cater to my playing style. And watching videos, imo, doesn't seem to really help.
But a big thing for me is the lack of disables. There are few heroes who have stuns, and I think only one (lulu?) who has a short transformation disable. There are a wack ton of slows, it seems like everyone has a slow of some sort. I just hate that end game if you've chosen an int based hero, not a thing I know but I'm trying to put in terms for dota ppl, end game you have no chance against an attack damage carry. There's nothing you can purchase that can disable them. There's no item that renders you invisible, or gives you a blink, or allows you to stun/sheep/cyclone/force staff the enemy hero. I can't stand it.
However, I have some friends who hate Dota, and love LoL for exactly the same reason.
Overall I prefer Dota 2. There's more skill involved IMO.
??? LoL has a ridiculous amount of disables. People regularly complain about the fact that almost every new champion that comes out has some kind of hard CC and that you can make entire team comps that just stun you until death.
Oh, and that's another nice thing about LoL: continuing new content. Unfortunately, it also causes some really weird balance problems.
And on the personality/fluff side, yea, DotA's voice actors/voice interactions are pretty awesome, but DotA's character backgrounds are incredibly vague and offer no actual depth. LoL has a very active world that is pretty well-presented to players, and each character has a much more interesting and telling backstory. Fluff is NOT DotA's strong point. Just do a comparison of almost any champion from DotA to almost any hero from LoL and it's pretty obvious. As far as I can tell, DotA doesn't even have a cohesive and thorough world that is explained like LoL does, not to mention a comparison of individual backgrounds.
I would disagree that their isn't any lore. The game was just released, and I'm sure more of it will be shown/developed in the coming months.
Seriously, why care about lore? The game is about killing shit, earning money, using money to buy shit, and killing the enemy heroes, eventually destroying their base.
The hero interactions between each other can be quite hilarious, but I don't see why people are looking for a fully fledged out story with lots of details.
On August 14 2013 14:16 Fumanchu wrote: I just reached lvl 30 in LoL on Saturday (wahoo!), and my two biggest complaints are the lack of heroes available and the lack of disables available. I really hate saving up 6300 IP to purchase a new hero that may or may not cater to my playing style. And watching videos, imo, doesn't seem to really help.
But a big thing for me is the lack of disables. There are few heroes who have stuns, and I think only one (lulu?) who has a short transformation disable. There are a wack ton of slows, it seems like everyone has a slow of some sort. I just hate that end game if you've chosen an int based hero, not a thing I know but I'm trying to put in terms for dota ppl, end game you have no chance against an attack damage carry. There's nothing you can purchase that can disable them. There's no item that renders you invisible, or gives you a blink, or allows you to stun/sheep/cyclone/force staff the enemy hero. I can't stand it.
However, I have some friends who hate Dota, and love LoL for exactly the same reason.
Overall I prefer Dota 2. There's more skill involved IMO.
??? LoL has a ridiculous amount of disables. People regularly complain about the fact that almost every new champion that comes out has some kind of hard CC and that you can make entire team comps that just stun you until death.
Oh, and that's another nice thing about LoL: continuing new content. Unfortunately, it also causes some really weird balance problems.
And on the personality/fluff side, yea, DotA's voice actors/voice interactions are pretty awesome, but DotA's character backgrounds are incredibly vague and offer no actual depth. LoL has a very active world that is pretty well-presented to players, and each character has a much more interesting and telling backstory. Fluff is NOT DotA's strong point. Just do a comparison of almost any champion from DotA to almost any hero from LoL and it's pretty obvious. As far as I can tell, DotA doesn't even have a cohesive and thorough world that is explained like LoL does, not to mention a comparison of individual backgrounds.
That is just your (uneducated) opinion. The dota lore is just spread through hero responses, heroes lore texts, abilitiy texts, item texts etc. No depth/vague? Please tell me how many LoL heroes react to each other. In dota, most heroes are in a relation to each other, be it family, friend or foe. The timber/treant combo was mentioned earlier, but Queen of Pain, who is known for her screaming HATES silencer, and she regularly wonders if crystal maiden really is.. As i said, the lore is there, its just more subtle and spread. Just look at the wiki list of hero response, here for qop: http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Queen_of_Pain_responses http://hydra-images.cursecdn.com/dota2.gamepedia.com/2/2b/Pain_rival_11.mp3 http://hydra-images.cursecdn.com/dota2.gamepedia.com/d/d3/Pain_rival_10.mp3 Here is the lore on the dota world/setting.
loLs lore is crap, they even changed a lot of the champions lores years after they released, what the hell.
And dota definately has more CC, but league is balanced around the lower CC from mages with ability damage scaling and typical carries not being as devestating as in dota. Plus no BKB.
On August 14 2013 14:16 Fumanchu wrote: I just reached lvl 30 in LoL on Saturday (wahoo!), and my two biggest complaints are the lack of heroes available and the lack of disables available. I really hate saving up 6300 IP to purchase a new hero that may or may not cater to my playing style. And watching videos, imo, doesn't seem to really help.
But a big thing for me is the lack of disables. There are few heroes who have stuns, and I think only one (lulu?) who has a short transformation disable. There are a wack ton of slows, it seems like everyone has a slow of some sort. I just hate that end game if you've chosen an int based hero, not a thing I know but I'm trying to put in terms for dota ppl, end game you have no chance against an attack damage carry. There's nothing you can purchase that can disable them. There's no item that renders you invisible, or gives you a blink, or allows you to stun/sheep/cyclone/force staff the enemy hero. I can't stand it.
However, I have some friends who hate Dota, and love LoL for exactly the same reason.
Overall I prefer Dota 2. There's more skill involved IMO.
??? LoL has a ridiculous amount of disables. People regularly complain about the fact that almost every new champion that comes out has some kind of hard CC and that you can make entire team comps that just stun you until death.
Oh, and that's another nice thing about LoL: continuing new content. Unfortunately, it also causes some really weird balance problems.
And on the personality/fluff side, yea, DotA's voice actors/voice interactions are pretty awesome, but DotA's character backgrounds are incredibly vague and offer no actual depth. LoL has a very active world that is pretty well-presented to players, and each character has a much more interesting and telling backstory. Fluff is NOT DotA's strong point. Just do a comparison of almost any champion from DotA to almost any hero from LoL and it's pretty obvious. As far as I can tell, DotA doesn't even have a cohesive and thorough world that is explained like LoL does, not to mention a comparison of individual backgrounds.
1) There are several unique voice interactions between champions in LoL. Yea, DotA's VA'ing is definitely better, but the VA'ing doesn't make up for the vague and empty background stories.
2) Almost every LoL champion has a significant relationship with another one, and this knowledge is actually available as well.
3) You are simply proving my point. Even if it is there, DotA lore is very spread out and not presented at all when you play the game or when you're on their website. You aren't immersed in it whatsoever.
Seriously, why care about lore? The game is about killing shit, earning money, using money to buy shit, and killing the enemy heroes, eventually destroying their base.
The hero interactions between each other can be quite hilarious, but I don't see why people are looking for a fully fledged out story with lots of details.
Yea, cool, good for you. Fortunately, there's more than one type of person, and many people do care about lore/immersion. Just because the genre is all about killing for you (which can be said about any game genre, if you want it to be) doesn't mean that's the case for everyone. I am simply pointing out that LoL is a better experience for players that like that side of the game more, while DotA is a much better competitive/challenging experience.
On August 14 2013 14:16 Fumanchu wrote: I just reached lvl 30 in LoL on Saturday (wahoo!), and my two biggest complaints are the lack of heroes available and the lack of disables available. I really hate saving up 6300 IP to purchase a new hero that may or may not cater to my playing style. And watching videos, imo, doesn't seem to really help.
But a big thing for me is the lack of disables. There are few heroes who have stuns, and I think only one (lulu?) who has a short transformation disable. There are a wack ton of slows, it seems like everyone has a slow of some sort. I just hate that end game if you've chosen an int based hero, not a thing I know but I'm trying to put in terms for dota ppl, end game you have no chance against an attack damage carry. There's nothing you can purchase that can disable them. There's no item that renders you invisible, or gives you a blink, or allows you to stun/sheep/cyclone/force staff the enemy hero. I can't stand it.
However, I have some friends who hate Dota, and love LoL for exactly the same reason.
Overall I prefer Dota 2. There's more skill involved IMO.
??? LoL has a ridiculous amount of disables. People regularly complain about the fact that almost every new champion that comes out has some kind of hard CC and that you can make entire team comps that just stun you until death.
Oh, and that's another nice thing about LoL: continuing new content. Unfortunately, it also causes some really weird balance problems.
And on the personality/fluff side, yea, DotA's voice actors/voice interactions are pretty awesome, but DotA's character backgrounds are incredibly vague and offer no actual depth. LoL has a very active world that is pretty well-presented to players, and each character has a much more interesting and telling backstory. Fluff is NOT DotA's strong point. Just do a comparison of almost any champion from DotA to almost any hero from LoL and it's pretty obvious. As far as I can tell, DotA doesn't even have a cohesive and thorough world that is explained like LoL does, not to mention a comparison of individual backgrounds.
1) There are several unique voice interactions between champions in LoL. Yea, DotA's VA'ing is definitely better, but the VA'ing doesn't make up for the vague and empty background stories.
2) Almost every LoL champion has a significant relationship with another one, and this knowledge is actually available as well.
3) You are simply proving my point. Even if it is there, DotA lore is very spread out and not presented at all when you play the game or when you're on their website. You aren't immersed in it whatsoever.
Seriously, why care about lore? The game is about killing shit, earning money, using money to buy shit, and killing the enemy heroes, eventually destroying their base.
The hero interactions between each other can be quite hilarious, but I don't see why people are looking for a fully fledged out story with lots of details.
Yea, cool, good for you. Fortunately, there's more than one type of person, and many people do care about lore/immersion. Just because the genre is all about killing for you (which can be said about any game genre, if you want it to be) doesn't mean that's the case for everyone. I am simply pointing out that LoL is a better experience for players that like that side of the game more, while DotA is a much better competitive/challenging experience.
1) I played like 50 games, but i dont remember any voice interaction at all to be honest. At least nothing that stood out as funny or witty or whatever. 2) Ok i cant argue with that. 3) I dont get that at all. What exactly do you want? 10 page essays on each hero in their description? What do you mean not presented? You can read the lore in the ingame client by going to the Library tab, or on http://www.dota2.com/heroes/ . It's just a very small portion that is actually written down in the heroes description, the rest is done through voice acting and you only find out if you actually play the game, or if you go to the site i linked and play all the responses. Also, each ability has a short lore text that describes how the hero obtained the ability, where the hero came from etc. How exactly is this not "presented at all when you play the game"? It is exactly that. Most responses may not be that "deep" but if you watch the video i linked, there is a lot of subtle stuff that you can find out. Oh btw, you know what the ultimate "not presented the lore while playing" is? Not having the heroes playable in the first place.
Commentators are not there to teach you about the game. As someone else mentioned, most of the cons you have listed for DotA are just you being unfamiliar with the game. I've watched and played both LoL and DotA fairly extensively, and neither game truly has the depth of some of the casters/personalities from SC (I'm looking at you, Day[9]) but DotA's casters, IMO, are much much better than LoL casters. If you are unfamiliar with the game, watch Purge's videos or Merlini's videos on YouTube, play the game (it's free-completely free, none of that buy stuff with IP bullshit) or just read about stuff on Liquipedia or DotA2Wiki. Once your initial unfamiliarity with things wears off (the fastest way for this to happen is to actually play and learn to play well, to recognize you are bad and to improve that) things become a lot easier to grasp.
The graphics thing is a bit weird for people coming from LoL. Before LoL I used to play SC2 and before that WC3-I can say that I like the comparative sizes of things in LoL more than I do in the other two games. WC3 for the most part is pretty good about distinguishing heroes and regular units but the original DotA uses unit models that can make the game look really confusing. Also, the spells in the original DotA are sometimes hard to recognize, especially when many are used simultaneously. LoL does a good job in distinguishing champions from things that are not champions, but overall the graphics are really messy and it's much harder to tell what's going on in fights than in DotA2, IMO. In this respect it has that same problem as WC3 DotA. In DotA2 everything seems crisper. Once you have played and/or watched DotA2 for a few days it becomes easier to tell what's going on because you start recognizing more things on an instinctual level.
As someone who's only watched a few LoL tournament games, with no actual knowledge of the game itself, I literally cannot tell the difference between heroes. I think it's because tournaments use team colours or something, so you have 5 humanoid red things and 5 humanoid blue things, and if I'm lucky one or two will have big-ass weapons so they stand out among the crowd.
Colour contrast is meaningless when you still require a massive amount of game knowledge.
On August 14 2013 23:27 Stratos_speAr wrote: And on the personality/fluff side, yea, DotA's voice actors/voice interactions are pretty awesome, but DotA's character backgrounds are incredibly vague and offer no actual depth. LoL has a very active world that is pretty well-presented to players, and each character has a much more interesting and telling backstory. Fluff is NOT DotA's strong point. Just do a comparison of almost any champion from DotA to almost any hero from LoL and it's pretty obvious. As far as I can tell, DotA doesn't even have a cohesive and thorough world that is explained like LoL does, not to mention a comparison of individual backgrounds.
The bolded is extremely wrong. And the lore is easily available, but hey i guess if you're not looking for it it can be hard to find, then again when i'm just playing LoL occasionally because friends asks me to i am also not shown any lore seeing that i'm not looking for it. When just playing the game i run into zero lore in LoL while in dota i hear plenty of lore from hero interaction.
I mean have you even read the comic or the achronicus? Easily available for anyone looking for lore. There is definitely a lot of good and deep lore in DotA and DotA most definitely has great fluff.
Heck valve created a unique language for their demons.
On August 14 2013 14:16 Fumanchu wrote: I just reached lvl 30 in LoL on Saturday (wahoo!), and my two biggest complaints are the lack of heroes available and the lack of disables available. I really hate saving up 6300 IP to purchase a new hero that may or may not cater to my playing style. And watching videos, imo, doesn't seem to really help.
But a big thing for me is the lack of disables. There are few heroes who have stuns, and I think only one (lulu?) who has a short transformation disable. There are a wack ton of slows, it seems like everyone has a slow of some sort. I just hate that end game if you've chosen an int based hero, not a thing I know but I'm trying to put in terms for dota ppl, end game you have no chance against an attack damage carry. There's nothing you can purchase that can disable them. There's no item that renders you invisible, or gives you a blink, or allows you to stun/sheep/cyclone/force staff the enemy hero. I can't stand it.
However, I have some friends who hate Dota, and love LoL for exactly the same reason.
Overall I prefer Dota 2. There's more skill involved IMO.
??? LoL has a ridiculous amount of disables. People regularly complain about the fact that almost every new champion that comes out has some kind of hard CC and that you can make entire team comps that just stun you until death.
Oh, and that's another nice thing about LoL: continuing new content. Unfortunately, it also causes some really weird balance problems.
And on the personality/fluff side, yea, DotA's voice actors/voice interactions are pretty awesome, but DotA's character backgrounds are incredibly vague and offer no actual depth. LoL has a very active world that is pretty well-presented to players, and each character has a much more interesting and telling backstory. Fluff is NOT DotA's strong point. Just do a comparison of almost any champion from DotA to almost any hero from LoL and it's pretty obvious. As far as I can tell, DotA doesn't even have a cohesive and thorough world that is explained like LoL does, not to mention a comparison of individual backgrounds.
Sorry I wasn't putting it into correct words. What I meant was, that if you don't choose a hero with a disable then you're boned, because there is no purchasable disable.
Oh one more thing I'm not a fan of, is that a lot of the spells can be seen by the enemy, thus giving them a chance to dodge the attack. And a lot of the time it seems unnecessary. For instance with Caitlyn's ult, it's fine to put a marker above the intended target's head, but do we really need a line also, so that any brain dead moron can decipher its trajectory?
Although despite this, I still play the game every so often, and will continue to do so with my friends who enjoy it.
On August 14 2013 14:16 Fumanchu wrote: I just reached lvl 30 in LoL on Saturday (wahoo!), and my two biggest complaints are the lack of heroes available and the lack of disables available. I really hate saving up 6300 IP to purchase a new hero that may or may not cater to my playing style. And watching videos, imo, doesn't seem to really help.
But a big thing for me is the lack of disables. There are few heroes who have stuns, and I think only one (lulu?) who has a short transformation disable. There are a wack ton of slows, it seems like everyone has a slow of some sort. I just hate that end game if you've chosen an int based hero, not a thing I know but I'm trying to put in terms for dota ppl, end game you have no chance against an attack damage carry. There's nothing you can purchase that can disable them. There's no item that renders you invisible, or gives you a blink, or allows you to stun/sheep/cyclone/force staff the enemy hero. I can't stand it.
However, I have some friends who hate Dota, and love LoL for exactly the same reason.
Overall I prefer Dota 2. There's more skill involved IMO.
??? LoL has a ridiculous amount of disables. People regularly complain about the fact that almost every new champion that comes out has some kind of hard CC and that you can make entire team comps that just stun you until death.
Oh, and that's another nice thing about LoL: continuing new content. Unfortunately, it also causes some really weird balance problems.
And on the personality/fluff side, yea, DotA's voice actors/voice interactions are pretty awesome, but DotA's character backgrounds are incredibly vague and offer no actual depth. LoL has a very active world that is pretty well-presented to players, and each character has a much more interesting and telling backstory. Fluff is NOT DotA's strong point. Just do a comparison of almost any champion from DotA to almost any hero from LoL and it's pretty obvious. As far as I can tell, DotA doesn't even have a cohesive and thorough world that is explained like LoL does, not to mention a comparison of individual backgrounds.
Sorry I wasn't putting it into correct words. What I meant was, that if you don't choose a hero with a disable then you're boned, because there is no purchasable disable.
Oh one more thing I'm not a fan of, is that a lot of the spells can be seen by the enemy, thus giving them a chance to dodge the attack. And a lot of the time it seems unnecessary. For instance with Caitlyn's ult, it's fine to put a marker above the intended target's head, but do we really need a line also, so that any brain dead moron can decipher its trajectory?
Although despite this, I still play the game every so often, and will continue to do so with my friends who enjoy it.
Yea, that's one of the things a lot of people complain about now; so many champions are being rendered obsolete by not having any hard CC.
I dont get that at all. What exactly do you want? 10 page essays on each hero in their description? What do you mean not presented? You can read the lore in the ingame client by going to the Library tab, or on http://www.dota2.com/heroes/ . It's just a very small portion that is actually written down in the heroes description, the rest is done through voice acting and you only find out if you actually play the game, or if you go to the site i linked and play all the responses. Also, each ability has a short lore text that describes how the hero obtained the ability, where the hero came from etc. How exactly is this not "presented at all when you play the game"? It is exactly that. Most responses may not be that "deep" but if you watch the video i linked, there is a lot of subtle stuff that you can find out.
The bolded is extremely wrong. And the lore is easily available, but hey i guess if you're not looking for it it can be hard to find, then again when i'm just playing LoL occasionally because friends asks me to i am also not shown any lore seeing that i'm not looking for it. When just playing the game i run into zero lore in LoL while in dota i hear plenty of lore from hero interaction.
I mean have you even read the comic or the achronicus? Easily available for anyone looking for lore. There is definitely a lot of good and deep lore in DotA and DotA most definitely has great fluff.
Heck valve created a unique language for their demons.
Again, pretty much the only lore you can get either A) in-game or B) from the official website for the game is the vague hero backstories. There is very information on the world, why we are fighting, anything like that. Voice interactions only do so much, and they definitely do not fill in half as much fluff as what is openly present in the LoL game client/official website. LoL presents maps of the world, why we are fighting, various conflicts/factions/etc., much more detailed backstories for every champion, what each unique map is about, and so on. Sure, there might be a lot of lore out there for DotA, but it is dispersed between several available mediums and you truly have to search for it, as opposed to it being readily available like most games.
Really, all I am seeing here is butthurt DotA fans that can't take criticism to save their damn lives. This is like one of a grand total of TWO things that LoL does better than DotA (the other being clearer spell tooltips), and even then you DotA fanboys can't let it live. It's kind of pathetic. It won't kill you to admit that DotA was designed with competitive multiplayer in mind and lore as a convenient side attraction, whereas lore took a relatively (for MOBA's) prevalent role in LoL's design.
same genre, but different design philosophies for their games
on paper, can say DotA is the more complex, difficult game compared to LoL, but the games are different enough to emphasize different skill sets and 1 player being good at one of the games does not mean they will be good at the other
I think having a secondary stream or something that focuses on a new players would be a great idea for an event like TI3. Its obvious a huge tournament like that will attract a lot of new faces. I remember when I was new to dota too and I really got somewhat frustrated trying to get a hang of who was who and what was what when all I heard was that the DK activated his BKB and punched the TA in the face while QoP used his orchid on the OD and SD died to PA. It was quite impossible to understand back then.
Granted, theres no easy solution for a single set of commentators to make it understandable for new players without probably annoying more seasoned players. But another set of commentators which focused a lot more on explaining how things work, how heroes interact with each other and why the teams decisions make sense etc could be a good idea.
As for right now, I dont think theres any good solution other than playing the game. And playing a lot. Not very encouraging if you arent into it, I know, but I dont really see another way.
On August 14 2013 14:16 Fumanchu wrote: I just reached lvl 30 in LoL on Saturday (wahoo!), and my two biggest complaints are the lack of heroes available and the lack of disables available. I really hate saving up 6300 IP to purchase a new hero that may or may not cater to my playing style. And watching videos, imo, doesn't seem to really help.
But a big thing for me is the lack of disables. There are few heroes who have stuns, and I think only one (lulu?) who has a short transformation disable. There are a wack ton of slows, it seems like everyone has a slow of some sort. I just hate that end game if you've chosen an int based hero, not a thing I know but I'm trying to put in terms for dota ppl, end game you have no chance against an attack damage carry. There's nothing you can purchase that can disable them. There's no item that renders you invisible, or gives you a blink, or allows you to stun/sheep/cyclone/force staff the enemy hero. I can't stand it.
However, I have some friends who hate Dota, and love LoL for exactly the same reason.
Overall I prefer Dota 2. There's more skill involved IMO.
??? LoL has a ridiculous amount of disables. People regularly complain about the fact that almost every new champion that comes out has some kind of hard CC and that you can make entire team comps that just stun you until death.
Oh, and that's another nice thing about LoL: continuing new content. Unfortunately, it also causes some really weird balance problems.
And on the personality/fluff side, yea, DotA's voice actors/voice interactions are pretty awesome, but DotA's character backgrounds are incredibly vague and offer no actual depth. LoL has a very active world that is pretty well-presented to players, and each character has a much more interesting and telling backstory. Fluff is NOT DotA's strong point. Just do a comparison of almost any champion from DotA to almost any hero from LoL and it's pretty obvious. As far as I can tell, DotA doesn't even have a cohesive and thorough world that is explained like LoL does, not to mention a comparison of individual backgrounds.
Sorry I wasn't putting it into correct words. What I meant was, that if you don't choose a hero with a disable then you're boned, because there is no purchasable disable.
Oh one more thing I'm not a fan of, is that a lot of the spells can be seen by the enemy, thus giving them a chance to dodge the attack. And a lot of the time it seems unnecessary. For instance with Caitlyn's ult, it's fine to put a marker above the intended target's head, but do we really need a line also, so that any brain dead moron can decipher its trajectory?
Although despite this, I still play the game every so often, and will continue to do so with my friends who enjoy it.
Yea, that's one of the things a lot of people complain about now; so many champions are being rendered obsolete by not having any hard CC.
I dont get that at all. What exactly do you want? 10 page essays on each hero in their description? What do you mean not presented? You can read the lore in the ingame client by going to the Library tab, or on http://www.dota2.com/heroes/ . It's just a very small portion that is actually written down in the heroes description, the rest is done through voice acting and you only find out if you actually play the game, or if you go to the site i linked and play all the responses. Also, each ability has a short lore text that describes how the hero obtained the ability, where the hero came from etc. How exactly is this not "presented at all when you play the game"? It is exactly that. Most responses may not be that "deep" but if you watch the video i linked, there is a lot of subtle stuff that you can find out.
The bolded is extremely wrong. And the lore is easily available, but hey i guess if you're not looking for it it can be hard to find, then again when i'm just playing LoL occasionally because friends asks me to i am also not shown any lore seeing that i'm not looking for it. When just playing the game i run into zero lore in LoL while in dota i hear plenty of lore from hero interaction.
I mean have you even read the comic or the achronicus? Easily available for anyone looking for lore. There is definitely a lot of good and deep lore in DotA and DotA most definitely has great fluff.
Heck valve created a unique language for their demons.
Again, pretty much the only lore you can get either A) in-game or B) from the official website for the game is the vague hero backstories. There is very information on the world, why we are fighting, anything like that. Voice interactions only do so much, and they definitely do not fill in half as much fluff as what is openly present in the LoL game client/official website. LoL presents maps of the world, why we are fighting, various conflicts/factions/etc., much more detailed backstories for every champion, what each unique map is about, and so on. Sure, there might be a lot of lore out there for DotA, but it is dispersed between several available mediums and you truly have to search for it, as opposed to it being readily available like most games.
Really, all I am seeing here is butthurt DotA fans that can't take criticism to save their damn lives. This is like one of a grand total of TWO things that LoL does better than DotA (the other being clearer spell tooltips), and even then you DotA fanboys can't let it live. It's kind of pathetic. It won't kill you to admit that DotA was designed with competitive multiplayer in mind and lore as a convenient side attraction, whereas lore took a relatively (for MOBA's) prevalent role in LoL's design.
Why are we fighting? Hmm..let's see. Because someone decided to create a map called Defense of the Ancients in Warcraft 3 Map Editor, and through the colloboration of a tight-knit community and people who want to contribute, the game became popular and created a completely new genre of gaming (excluding its prototype AoS in SC) .
What makes Dota good is its dynamics and its gameplay. It's not a game that's played for its story, lore and side information about heroes can be interesting to read, but it's just that, nothing more. In that sense Valve did a pretty good job already for immersion, especially through voice acting. Lore isn't important, lore isn't what made Dota popular or what makes it a great game.
On August 15 2013 13:14 Stratos_speAr wrote: Again, pretty much the only lore you can get either A) in-game or B) from the official website for the game is the vague hero backstories. There is very information on the world, why we are fighting, anything like that. Voice interactions only do so much, and they definitely do not fill in half as much fluff as what is openly present in the LoL game client/official website. LoL presents maps of the world, why we are fighting, various conflicts/factions/etc., much more detailed backstories for every champion, what each unique map is about, and so on. Sure, there might be a lot of lore out there for DotA, but it is dispersed between several available mediums and you truly have to search for it, as opposed to it being readily available like most games.
Really, all I am seeing here is butthurt DotA fans that can't take criticism to save their damn lives. This is like one of a grand total of TWO things that LoL does better than DotA (the other being clearer spell tooltips), and even then you DotA fanboys can't let it live. It's kind of pathetic. It won't kill you to admit that DotA was designed with competitive multiplayer in mind and lore as a convenient side attraction, whereas lore took a relatively (for MOBA's) prevalent role in LoL's design.
Bolded is still fucking and extremely wrong. But hey, keep on ignoring what i asked you and then claiming that it's dota fans that can't take criticism. And LoL lore isn't more readily available at all, when i play both games with the mindset of that i am just here to play the game i am not presented with more lore in one compared to the other.
Edit: I'm also not going to continue this argument, it's pointless to discuss something with someone that ignores questions and statements made by others.
On August 14 2013 14:16 Fumanchu wrote: I just reached lvl 30 in LoL on Saturday (wahoo!), and my two biggest complaints are the lack of heroes available and the lack of disables available. I really hate saving up 6300 IP to purchase a new hero that may or may not cater to my playing style. And watching videos, imo, doesn't seem to really help.
But a big thing for me is the lack of disables. There are few heroes who have stuns, and I think only one (lulu?) who has a short transformation disable. There are a wack ton of slows, it seems like everyone has a slow of some sort. I just hate that end game if you've chosen an int based hero, not a thing I know but I'm trying to put in terms for dota ppl, end game you have no chance against an attack damage carry. There's nothing you can purchase that can disable them. There's no item that renders you invisible, or gives you a blink, or allows you to stun/sheep/cyclone/force staff the enemy hero. I can't stand it.
However, I have some friends who hate Dota, and love LoL for exactly the same reason.
Overall I prefer Dota 2. There's more skill involved IMO.
??? LoL has a ridiculous amount of disables. People regularly complain about the fact that almost every new champion that comes out has some kind of hard CC and that you can make entire team comps that just stun you until death.
Oh, and that's another nice thing about LoL: continuing new content. Unfortunately, it also causes some really weird balance problems.
And on the personality/fluff side, yea, DotA's voice actors/voice interactions are pretty awesome, but DotA's character backgrounds are incredibly vague and offer no actual depth. LoL has a very active world that is pretty well-presented to players, and each character has a much more interesting and telling backstory. Fluff is NOT DotA's strong point. Just do a comparison of almost any champion from DotA to almost any hero from LoL and it's pretty obvious. As far as I can tell, DotA doesn't even have a cohesive and thorough world that is explained like LoL does, not to mention a comparison of individual backgrounds.
Sorry I wasn't putting it into correct words. What I meant was, that if you don't choose a hero with a disable then you're boned, because there is no purchasable disable.
Oh one more thing I'm not a fan of, is that a lot of the spells can be seen by the enemy, thus giving them a chance to dodge the attack. And a lot of the time it seems unnecessary. For instance with Caitlyn's ult, it's fine to put a marker above the intended target's head, but do we really need a line also, so that any brain dead moron can decipher its trajectory?
Although despite this, I still play the game every so often, and will continue to do so with my friends who enjoy it.
Yea, that's one of the things a lot of people complain about now; so many champions are being rendered obsolete by not having any hard CC.
I dont get that at all. What exactly do you want? 10 page essays on each hero in their description? What do you mean not presented? You can read the lore in the ingame client by going to the Library tab, or on http://www.dota2.com/heroes/ . It's just a very small portion that is actually written down in the heroes description, the rest is done through voice acting and you only find out if you actually play the game, or if you go to the site i linked and play all the responses. Also, each ability has a short lore text that describes how the hero obtained the ability, where the hero came from etc. How exactly is this not "presented at all when you play the game"? It is exactly that. Most responses may not be that "deep" but if you watch the video i linked, there is a lot of subtle stuff that you can find out.
The bolded is extremely wrong. And the lore is easily available, but hey i guess if you're not looking for it it can be hard to find, then again when i'm just playing LoL occasionally because friends asks me to i am also not shown any lore seeing that i'm not looking for it. When just playing the game i run into zero lore in LoL while in dota i hear plenty of lore from hero interaction.
I mean have you even read the comic or the achronicus? Easily available for anyone looking for lore. There is definitely a lot of good and deep lore in DotA and DotA most definitely has great fluff.
Heck valve created a unique language for their demons.
Again, pretty much the only lore you can get either A) in-game or B) from the official website for the game is the vague hero backstories. There is very information on the world, why we are fighting, anything like that. Voice interactions only do so much, and they definitely do not fill in half as much fluff as what is openly present in the LoL game client/official website. LoL presents maps of the world, why we are fighting, various conflicts/factions/etc., much more detailed backstories for every champion, what each unique map is about, and so on. Sure, there might be a lot of lore out there for DotA, but it is dispersed between several available mediums and you truly have to search for it, as opposed to it being readily available like most games.
Really, all I am seeing here is butthurt DotA fans that can't take criticism to save their damn lives. This is like one of a grand total of TWO things that LoL does better than DotA (the other being clearer spell tooltips), and even then you DotA fanboys can't let it live. It's kind of pathetic. It won't kill you to admit that DotA was designed with competitive multiplayer in mind and lore as a convenient side attraction, whereas lore took a relatively (for MOBA's) prevalent role in LoL's design.
But i just posted the video describing WHY radiant and dire are fighting each other two posts ago? Just watch it jeez. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT1dKTqXrPw Yes, its not all written down in one text so you can read that, instead its spread over several hero bios and responses. That is not a downside, its just personal preference how you want the lore presented.
On August 16 2013 06:56 Warri wrote: But i just posted the video describing WHY radiant and dire are fighting each other two posts ago? Just watch it jeez. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT1dKTqXrPw Yes, its not all written down in one text so you can read that, instead its spread over several hero bios and responses. That is not a downside, its just personal preference how you want the lore presented.
It is written down in one text though, in the Archronicus which is an ingame item containing all this knowledge and more which is something you can read INGAME. It's a book anyone can access. The comic also somewhat elaborates a bit on it, although it mostly contains information about the shopkeeper and roshan.
On August 16 2013 06:56 Warri wrote: But i just posted the video describing WHY radiant and dire are fighting each other two posts ago? Just watch it jeez. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT1dKTqXrPw Yes, its not all written down in one text so you can read that, instead its spread over several hero bios and responses. That is not a downside, its just personal preference how you want the lore presented.
It is written down in one text though, in the Archronicus which is an ingame item containing all this knowledge and more which is something you can read INGAME. It's a book anyone can access. The comic also somewhat elaborates a bit on it, although it mostly contains information about the shopkeeper and roshan.
Didnt you have to play the tutorial missions to unlock the pages for that though? Where do you find that thing ingame? Edit: yeah you have to unlock it first and its only been added a short while ago. anyway you can read some of the lore here: http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Archronicus
On August 15 2013 13:14 Stratos_speAr wrote: Again, pretty much the only lore you can get either A) in-game or B) from the official website for the game is the vague hero backstories. There is very information on the world, why we are fighting, anything like that. Voice interactions only do so much, and they definitely do not fill in half as much fluff as what is openly present in the LoL game client/official website. LoL presents maps of the world, why we are fighting, various conflicts/factions/etc., much more detailed backstories for every champion, what each unique map is about, and so on. Sure, there might be a lot of lore out there for DotA, but it is dispersed between several available mediums and you truly have to search for it, as opposed to it being readily available like most games.
Really, all I am seeing here is butthurt DotA fans that can't take criticism to save their damn lives. This is like one of a grand total of TWO things that LoL does better than DotA (the other being clearer spell tooltips), and even then you DotA fanboys can't let it live. It's kind of pathetic. It won't kill you to admit that DotA was designed with competitive multiplayer in mind and lore as a convenient side attraction, whereas lore took a relatively (for MOBA's) prevalent role in LoL's design.
You sound mad.
You also happen to be wrong, which makes it even funnier.
Also, "clearer spell tooltips"...wat? You can't even tell what subsequent ranks of a spell do in LoL unless you've just leveled up and haven't placed a point. Most of the time when I was learning LoL I would alt-tab to find out what spells did what several times during a game. I would do the same for my opponent's champion after dying or after suffering a severe asskicking, because the death recap would not be enough generally and you can't tell (or it's hard to tell) what spells the guy has by clicking on him.
In DotA if you can see a hero you can see his/her spells. You can even see what invoker currently has invoked, for example. When I started playing DotA2 this made it so much easier to learn things because I had to alt-tab a lot less.
In almost every objective category DotA2 handily trumps LoL. It's only really in gameplay or game design choices in which you can find differences worthy of a preference toward LoL, as the client is probably the single worst piece of software I have ever used in my life, and that type of subjective preference is completely subjective and strongly dependent on the amount of time you have invested in the game.
e: this is pretty apparent when (on reddit in particular) you see people defending Riot's business strategy of making the player spend time/money to obtain all the champions in the game. "It's better than having everything for free because you actually have something to work for!" People have invested so much time and energy into LoL that they've convinced themselves that an objective con for LoL is actually somehow a pro.
About this argument over flavor, the source of conflict seems to be the idea that, when it comes to lore, less is always less and more is always more, but I don't think that's the case. Giving a game world an air of mystery, like in Dark Souls, can be just as if not more immersive than drowning the player in minutia like in Mass Effect. Stratos_speAr calls the hero backstories vague, and in a lot of cases they are. Here's Tiny's.
Coming to life as a chunk of stone, Tiny's origins are a mystery on which he continually speculates. He is a Stone Giant now, but what did he use to be? A splinter broken from a Golem's heel? A shard swept from a gargoyle-sculptor's workshop? A fragment of the Oracular Visage of Garthos? A deep curiosity drives him, and he travels the world tirelessly seeking his origins, his parentage, his people. As he roams, he gathers weight and size; the forces that weather lesser rocks, instead cause Tiny to grow and ever grow.
But to me that's highly flavorful, and not a word too short.
Lore delivered in walls of text doesn't really matter. That just doesn't work in games of any genre anymore.
The only thing that matters is what you can convey to the players during the actual gameplay, and what you can tie-in with the actual mechanics.
In both games discussed here, it mostly comes down to the in-game voice lines. IMO Dota has done better when it comes to voice acting. The humour and a generally light-hearted tone in the writing works really well too. The game just oozes character without taking itself too seriously.
EPT
Icefrog nerfed it recently (the cooldown) but it is debatable how much that helped. 
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