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Some Musing and Statistics on Chinese Dota at TI4

Blogs > bearbuddy
Post a Reply
bearbuddy
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
3442 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-07-15 21:20:43
July 15 2014 21:13 GMT
#1
The Chinese style of playing Dota2 has often been described as safe and methodical, to the point that some would consider it boring. Yet, recent developments of DotA 2 have seen increased aggression from the Chinese scene, and nothing has demonstrated this concept better than the games in TI4 thus far. With an average time of 40.03min game-time of the games that the Chinese teams participated in, the time is slightly lower than the average collective game-time of 40.44min. But, this statistic only scratches the surface of a yet more important number: the standard deviation. Sitting at a standard deviation of 15.59min for the games played by at least one Chinese team, the number exceeds the standard deviation of 14.55min of all games played in TI4 so far. Not only are the Chinese teams playing faster, they’re playing differently from each other or just differently from game to game.

If we are to look at individual teams, then number would indicate that they are indeed quite different from each other. VG averages around 32min a game with 13min SD, iG averages around 43min a game with 15min SD, NB averages around 36min a game with 14.5min SD, DK averages 47.5min a game with 17min SD, and LGD averages around 37min a game with 13.6min SD.

This premise flies in the face of the conventional wisdom held by some, and some numbers don’t necessarily paint the whole picture. After all, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. There is less variance with a higher sample size, and comparing just the Chinese teams to the entire TI4 is quite foolish. But if we were to take the 6 European teams—Empire, NaVi-EU, C9, Alliance, Mouz, and Fnatic-- we would get an average game-time of 41.55min and a standard deviation of 14.08min.

Wait. What?

The European teams are less variable, at least in terms of game-time, and they take longer to finish them. This simply cannot be right, but the numbers are there, telling a different story.

So why is such an umbrella term—the Chinese Teams—still being used to describe an obviously very diverse set of teams, as if they are without individual identity, without distinct play-style, and just some juggernaut with interchangeable parts out to just play DotA like a machine. Sure we get some shout outs of regions out of pride or ridicule, but the Chinese and CIS regions are the ones that seem to have a style attached to them (and the pinoy, but that’s another beast to tackle). Unsurprisingly, the CIS and Chinese regions have communities outside of the English speaking ones. Whether this isolation serves as a catalyst to develop different styles or to peg the uninformed for over-generalizing a region is a debate up for another day.

But aggression has to be measured by kills, right? Well, sure, we can pull up some numbers for that too. So far in TI4, teams average 21.14 kills a game. It’s certainly a respectable number, though no doubt inflated by all the games with Arrow Gaming. This averages to about 0.52kills for a team every minute. But how about the Chinese teams?

DK is averaging around 24.5 kills/game, but they have generally longer game-time, so that brings their kills per minute to 0.516.
LGD is averaging around 19.4kills/game, rounding out to 0.519 kills/min.
iG is averaging around 23.8 kills/game, at 0.556 kills/min.
NB is averaging around 20.24 kills/game, at 0.569 kills/min.
Lastly VG is averaging around 22.73 kills/game, bringing in a whopping 0.711 kills/min.
Altogether, the Chinese teams average 21.88 kills/game, at the pace of 0.546 kills/min, a decent size higher than the 0.52 kills/min average.

So I threw a bunch of numbers out there, and there’s really nothing much to say after that. Perhaps people are just not emotionally invested in these teams such that their kills don’t really bring any excitement to their viewing pleasure. My apologies then, if that’s the case. It’s certainly a difficult feeling if a fan of DotA cannot enjoy the biggest DotA event of the year.

PS: thanks datdota for the data.

PPS: feel free to check the numbers. I had to wrestle with excel for a bit.
Sn0_Man
Profile Blog Joined October 2012
Tebellong44238 Posts
July 15 2014 21:32 GMT
#2
Once upon a time the chinese teams actually tried to play no-risk dota. Every dota fan with half a brain knows that that isn't the case anymore.

Few dota fans (or really fans in general) seem to be able to muster half a brain.
LiquidDota StaffSCIENTISTS BAFFLED | 3275929302
trifecta
Profile Joined April 2010
United States6795 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-07-15 21:48:25
July 15 2014 21:46 GMT
#3
dumb meme spread by people who seemingly watch games with their eyes closed. I facepalm every time casters mention it (even BTS people occasionally-even though they've casted 90% of the Chinese dota this year).
teddyoojo
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
Germany22369 Posts
July 15 2014 23:37 GMT
#4
its cuz chinese teams run noskill 5 pubtrain every game
except dk i guess
Esports historian since 2000. Creator of 'The Universe' and 'The best scrambled Eggs 2013'. Host of 'Star Wars Marathon 2015'. Thinker of 'teddyoojo's Thoughts'. Earths and Moons leading CS:GO expert. Lord of the Rings.
RxMidnight
Profile Joined July 2014
United States251 Posts
July 16 2014 04:54 GMT
#5
People will believe whatever they want to believe, facts be damned.
Caladbolg
Profile Joined March 2011
2855 Posts
July 16 2014 08:21 GMT
#6
Cuz dey cheese but euros macro
"I don't like the word prodigy at all. To me prodigy sounds like a person who was 'gifted' all these things rather than a person who earned all these talents by hard training... I must train harder to reach my goal." - Flash
ModernRagnarok
Profile Joined May 2014
Canada148 Posts
July 16 2014 14:41 GMT
#7
On July 16 2014 06:46 trifecta wrote:
dumb meme spread by people who seemingly watch games with their eyes closed. I facepalm every time casters mention it (even BTS people occasionally-even though they've casted 90% of the Chinese dota this year).


Yes and No. There was an old Chinese meta of 4 protect 1 into late game carry farm every single fucking game and that doesn't exist anymore because it got crushed by western aggression and push strategies. It is silly to say but it did have a reason to exist.
BurningSera
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Ireland19621 Posts
July 16 2014 15:15 GMT
#8
a good blogger would have made that into graph!

but ya thats why i like VG, road to the king is crazy! that dk series against c9 (11mins game2) is the best series to shut up the mouths of the inflammatory braindead fans haha.
is 2017, stop being lame, fuck's sakes. 'Can't wait for the rise of the cakes and humanity's last stand tbqh.'
Yurie
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
11810 Posts
July 16 2014 20:43 GMT
#9
Could I ask for a comparison where you remove team names/nations and just call it top 8/bottom 8 and see how that does?

VG at least skews the figures a bit. Just like Alliance at last TI would have made any small sample they were part of different to the total.
TanGeng
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
Sanya12364 Posts
July 16 2014 22:48 GMT
#10
On July 16 2014 06:13 bearbuddy wrote:
The Chinese style of playing Dota2 has often been described as safe and methodical, to the point that some would consider it boring. Yet, recent developments of DotA 2 have seen increased aggression from the Chinese scene, and nothing has demonstrated this concept better than the games in TI4 thus far. With an average time of 40.03min game-time of the games that the Chinese teams participated in, the time is slightly lower than the average collective game-time of 40.44min. But, this statistic only scratches the surface of a yet more important number: the standard deviation. Sitting at a standard deviation of 15.59min for the games played by at least one Chinese team, the number exceeds the standard deviation of 14.55min of all games played in TI4 so far. Not only are the Chinese teams playing faster, they’re playing differently from each other or just differently from game to game.


The problem with this math is when EU teams and Chinese teams play each other, they come away with identical game time stats. Whether it is the Chinese team or the EU team dictating the pace of the game, you can't tell.

One way to highlight the difference is eliminating the common games from the calculations and taking a look at what happens then. There are other ways to look at it too, but you can probably figure it out.
Moderator我们是个踏实的赞助商模式俱乐部
bearbuddy
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
3442 Posts
July 16 2014 23:47 GMT
#11
On July 17 2014 07:48 TanGeng wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 16 2014 06:13 bearbuddy wrote:
The Chinese style of playing Dota2 has often been described as safe and methodical, to the point that some would consider it boring. Yet, recent developments of DotA 2 have seen increased aggression from the Chinese scene, and nothing has demonstrated this concept better than the games in TI4 thus far. With an average time of 40.03min game-time of the games that the Chinese teams participated in, the time is slightly lower than the average collective game-time of 40.44min. But, this statistic only scratches the surface of a yet more important number: the standard deviation. Sitting at a standard deviation of 15.59min for the games played by at least one Chinese team, the number exceeds the standard deviation of 14.55min of all games played in TI4 so far. Not only are the Chinese teams playing faster, they’re playing differently from each other or just differently from game to game.


The problem with this math is when EU teams and Chinese teams play each other, they come away with identical game time stats. Whether it is the Chinese team or the EU team dictating the pace of the game, you can't tell.

One way to highlight the difference is eliminating the common games from the calculations and taking a look at what happens then. There are other ways to look at it too, but you can probably figure it out.


If we have 2 averages, one is high, and the other is low, and we take out the exact same numbers from the two averages, the low one would still be lower and the high one higher. Hence, the European games without the Chinese teams are slower than the games of the Chinese teams without the European teams. But certainly, having individual numbers would illustrate this better and provide more information, and this lack of calculation is due to my laziness more than any other reason.

On July 17 2014 05:43 Yurie wrote:
Could I ask for a comparison where you remove team names/nations and just call it top 8/bottom 8 and see how that does?

VG at least skews the figures a bit. Just like Alliance at last TI would have made any small sample they were part of different to the total.


Sure, give me some time. VG definitely skewed the result significantly, which brought me to my second point. Chinese teams do not really play like each other, and the use of the umbrella term "Chinese Team" to define a specific style of play (or lump all their styles together) is an anachronism, showing little knowledge of that particular scene.
writer22816
Profile Blog Joined September 2008
United States5775 Posts
July 17 2014 01:36 GMT
#12
People are just dumb; whatever dota wins games is the best dota.
8/4/12 never forget, never forgive.
bearbuddy
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
3442 Posts
July 17 2014 02:15 GMT
#13
All right, here's a composition of the teams with top 8 and bottom 8.

[image loading]
jinfreaks
Profile Joined July 2010
United States94 Posts
July 17 2014 05:44 GMT
#14
if the term refers to a bygone age of the "safe" chinese farming meta, or punish mistakes dota, then I would disagree with the term of Chinese dota.

If it instead refers to the current style favored by the meta, then maybe I can agree with that a little, the current meta favors 5-man team fights a lot, and almost every chinese team (with the exception of DK) usually prefer that style. Whereas the western scene is characterized by chaotic teamfights that span screens away from one another, I find chinese 5-manning to be more methodical and sometimes less expansive than the western counterparts.

IG with mid game aggresssion, VG and their impeccable push strats, and newbee with their ult up lets 5 man and kill kill kill
Valhalla44
Profile Joined May 2010
Bosnia-Herzegovina983 Posts
July 17 2014 07:57 GMT
#15
Swear to god, main event gonna be epic. Cheering for DK, crying if they lose. But at end Dota wins, especially this year where we have to be honest best meta so far in dota 2 history.
Yurie
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
11810 Posts
July 17 2014 22:39 GMT
#16
On July 17 2014 11:15 bearbuddy wrote:
All right, here's a composition of the teams with top 8 and bottom 8.

[image loading]


I expected a bigger difference... Oh well I was wrong there.

My point regarding VG wasn't style. More results. Anybody stomping would have short games regardless of style, they simply get a lead and then keep extending it for a fast win. If that is done through farming, killing or pushing wouldn't really matter. Unless the team just extends for no reason as often happens in pubs.
SKC
Profile Joined October 2010
Brazil18828 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-07-18 00:28:41
July 18 2014 00:27 GMT
#17
On July 18 2014 07:39 Yurie wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 17 2014 11:15 bearbuddy wrote:
All right, here's a composition of the teams with top 8 and bottom 8.

[image loading]


I expected a bigger difference... Oh well I was wrong there.

My point regarding VG wasn't style. More results. Anybody stomping would have short games regardless of style, they simply get a lead and then keep extending it for a fast win. If that is done through farming, killing or pushing wouldn't really matter. Unless the team just extends for no reason as often happens in pubs.

Same thing happens to the team getting stomped
bearbuddy
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
3442 Posts
July 18 2014 01:49 GMT
#18
On July 18 2014 07:39 Yurie wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 17 2014 11:15 bearbuddy wrote:
All right, here's a composition of the teams with top 8 and bottom 8.

[image loading]


I expected a bigger difference... Oh well I was wrong there.

My point regarding VG wasn't style. More results. Anybody stomping would have short games regardless of style, they simply get a lead and then keep extending it for a fast win. If that is done through farming, killing or pushing wouldn't really matter. Unless the team just extends for no reason as often happens in pubs.


Naturally, one sided games are faster. But VG plays a style that pushes all your towers and forces fights-- a gank heavy lineup with no push would result in longer games, even if the winner was obvious by the 15 minute mark. Teams will more likely call it a game if a lane of rax is down.

Furthermore, some drafts are simply designed to not "stomp" an enemy within 15 minutes, but to take fights after farming enough items, and that in itself is a stylistic difference. If we were to look at Starladder 9-- DK arguably stomped through everyone, but they didn't do it with that much speed.
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