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Alright, the title was a little bit of an attention grab, but I want to get some opinions on this topic. I will make some anti-Dota arguments in this thread, but don't get me wrong, I like Dota, I'd just like to be a bit critical for a bit.
To me, it seems like if Dota doesn't get a patch every 3 months, people will get cranky because something is overpowered, or they don't like the repetitiveness. Whether that was troll/sniper last patch, terrorblade and naga the time before, etc, etc.
Is a game good if people can't manage playing it for a couple months without it changing? Is the game that simple that the game is figured out in 2 weeks to a month and nothing can be done to counter certain strategies once they get figured out in that time frame? Is not enough time being spent not patching the game, to allow counters to develop?
I originally come from a SC:BW background, where there wasn't a balance patch since 2001, and new revolutionary stuff came around 7-8 years later, like the forge FE by Savior for example.
The reason I ask these questions is because I believe a game that is constantly changed has really poor longevity. I simply can't stop playing Dota for only one or two years, and then come back, and know what is going on. It makes it that only the really active players are able to have a coherent conversation about the pro scene, or really just the game in general.
I can't go discuss Dota 2 with someone who plays now, if I played Dota 3 years ago if we just met, much like you could discuss an old movie or TV show. It makes it so that people who leave for a bit have a much more difficult time to come back. For example, when a big boxing or chess match comes on, people who were into the activity before, can just come back, that is not possible in Dota 2. Like geez, I play Dota quite sparsely, but even patch 6.84 was just so overwhelming for me. Makes me not even want to queue another game because there is so much to learn. Even like 6.83 was quite significant for me, and for someone who doesn't play, it's completely overwhelming.
I just wish the balance of the game could remain constant for long periods of time, yet still keep the interest of people. Anyway, thoughts, input?
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AFAIK, the balance of SC was heavily affected by maps.Whenever a race was perceived too strong/performing too well, tourneys would switch up the map pool, and add maps that were not good for the dominant race.So I don't exactly accept the sentiment that there were absolutely "no patches" when the meta was clearly being affected by external factors.
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Completely different games every time you play a pub is part of what attracts everyone to Dota, that also makes people play more different heroes. But with ranked play and sites like dotabuff showing heroes with 60% win rate you feel like playing games with them will make you rank up.
So a shit load of people start to play them, and last patch was just too much. Sniper was close to 50% pick rate in pubs.
It's not about heroes being OP in competitive play, it's about variety in pubs. This isn't like a fighting game were people main stuff, here people pick wtv they feel like playing except when they feel like picking a broken hero is easy MMR, Sniper was OP and easy to use. I would argue that a good Meepo player is much stronger in pubs, but playing Meepo is hard so that spam doesn't happen.
People just want something different to play every time they queue up, and heroes being spammed just prevents that.
Also, most people enjoy those WTF ICEFROG PATCH, and figuring out what new thing to try out, Dota is a lot about experimentation, and a new patch brings more fuel.
PUBS!=COMPETITIVE.
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On May 09 2015 09:57 Piledriver wrote:
AFAIK, the balance of SC was heavily affected by maps.Whenever a race was perceived too strong/performing too well, tourneys would switch up the map pool, and add maps that were not good for the dominant race.So I don't exactly accept the sentiment that there were absolutely "no patches" when the meta was clearly being affected by external factors.
Yes, the game was balanced by maps for most part, but at the same time, if we look at the common maps, you do have things like Destination, Heartbreak Ridge, and Fighting Spirit that stayed around forever. And even now, for lower level players, the most commonly played map is the one that has been the most commonly played forever, and that is Python.
At the end of the day though, yes, the terrain changes, but you can still go watch now, if you watched 10 years ago, and understand the game as well as your memory serves you.
Meanwhile, you go to Dota... Okay, great... Roshan timer is now random, oh, there's bounty runes, and there are two runes every two minutes. Oh, you get a free glyph for T1 now. Oh, lots of come back gold now, the amount of money for killing tower changed completely, which changes how game is approached. Oh, a few heroes completely reworked, okay. Denying creeps now denies experience too, hmm. New items, recipe costs completely changed, some item build-ups changed. Not to mention how much changed are made to a hero just in a typical patch.
I think they could make the changes a lot more subtle, but people always want something "fresh".
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On May 09 2015 10:03 TMG26 wrote:
Completely different games every time you play a pub is part of what attracts everyone to Dota, that also makes people play more different heroes. But with ranked play and sites like dotabuff showing heroes with 60% win rate you feel like playing games with them will make you rank up.
So a shit load of people start to play them, and last patch was just too much. Sniper was close to 50% pick rate in pubs.
It's not about heroes being OP in competitive play, it's about variety in pubs. This isn't like a fighting game were people main stuff, here people pick wtv they feel like playing except when they feel like picking a broken hero is easy MMR, Sniper was OP and easy to use. I would argue that a good Meepo player is much stronger in pubs, but playing Meepo is hard so that spam doesn't happen.
People just want something different to play every time they queue up, and heroes being spammed just prevents that.
Also, most people enjoy those WTF ICEFROG PATCH, and figuring out what new thing to try out, Dota is a lot about experimentation, and a new patch brings more fuel.
PUBS!=COMPETITIVE.
My argument is kind of opposite of what you're saying. I know that people like the "fresh" feeling, always having something new, etc, etc.
But my argument is that this is bad for longevity of the game, and is there no other way to go about patching the game, without making it feel like you're playing a completely new game.
I dunno why I use the chess and SC:BW example so much, but even though very little changes with time, there is almost an endless combination of openings and variations.
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Icefrog disagrees with you
In a hypothetical situation where the game were 100% perfectly balanced, he would still change things season after season
reinvention is the key to longevity
what I dislike about dota is that brokenness is available to both parties, and if something is _really_ broken you just ban it outright, so it's not as important to get it right in the balance,
which to me is unfortunate
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You are right in that the metagame will evolve forever, even if Dota were never patched again. Metas always ebb and flow, or consolidate and disperse, and I too believe that the patches come so fast that they out-pace the speed with which a meta would organically go through one cycle of consolidation and dispersion.
But the thing is, people still complain that the next patch "can't come fast enough". As a former SC player myself, I think it's attributable to a very big change in games in general. It's not just Dota. Back in the days of Brood War, there wasn't nearly as much of an expectation of new content in games, not just so many big patches, but stuff like DLCs, and the overall degree of massively multiplayer interaction, social media elements, etc.. The internet itself hadn't quite become the beast we know today. So I think Dota is just carried away in the bigger trend of more dynamic content and shorter attention spans.
I will add that I think the patch philosophy of Dota contributes to the problem. Allegedly Icefrog doesn't even attempt to patch for balance. He buffs ignored things until they are OP and nerfs things that have been established OP to the point of oblivion. It might be different if over the years every progressive patch worked more and more toward a total state of balance. Instead, this whole time has simply been spent changing the skew of the game around. To me, the design philosophy is recipe for creating over-powered, over-picked, fad heroes and items.
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On May 09 2015 10:57 Evander Berry Wall wrote:
I will add that I think the patch philosophy of Dota contributes to the problem. Allegedly Icefrog doesn't even attempt to patch for balance. He buffs ignored things until they are OP and nerfs things that have been established OP to the point of oblivion. It might be different if over the years every progressive patch worked more and more toward a total state of balance. Instead, this whole time has simply been spent changing the skew of the game around. To me, the design philosophy is recipe for creating over-powered, over-picked, fad heroes and items.
not only that, but he never undoes things, he just nerfs somewhere else
like juggernaut was more or less fine before the buffs, he never needed to be buffed in the first place
Now his active ability Q, which used to be 30 seconds CD is 42 seconds
so anti-fun
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On May 09 2015 09:44 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I can't go discuss Dota 2 with someone who plays now, if I played Dota 3 years ago if we just met, much like you could discuss an old movie or TV show.
Actually I stopped playing/watching Dota 1 in 2008, and picked up watching competitive Dota 2 in late 2013 (I may have looked at some competitive dota 1 after 2008, but I don't think so). It took a while to recognize the heroes/items/etc., but the major elements of the game were the same (carries/supports/most items). Obviously there were some new heroes (I don't remember slark or batrider in Dota 1, for example), and item buildups were different (e.g. aghanim's used to be mystic staff + soul booster, arcane ring existed). Also when I left dota 1, everyone was still mostly playing 2-1-2 lanes and trilanes were super exotic.
When I came back to Dota 2, the competitive scene was cool because a lot of old players were still around. When I first followed Dota 1 competitve, SK (Loda Akke Tompa Bogdan) and MyM (Misery Demon Maelk Merlini Fear Mania LevenT kky?) won everything; there was a competitive SEA scene with teams like KingSurf but I didn't follow them as much. Then I think DTS was pretty good, and DTS turned into Navi IIRC. From China, I only knew ZSMJ.
So I followed Alliance because I was a fan of Loda from the SK gaming days. In particular, I remember he played a sick Terrorblade mid when TB still had the life drain (like pugna's ulti except not as good).
Obviously patches changed the game, but I think the biggest change was that everyone became way better. Back in the day (before I started watching competitive) Vigoss used to just outplay everyone. Then in the SK/MyM days, usually the best player would get the most farm priority and just kill everyone (at least that's my interpretation). I wasn't watching competitive dota in the EHOME era, but apparently that was another advance in specifying roles and farm priority. The only patch changes that really affected the game that I remember in dota 1 were (i) the blink dagger cd on attack change after the "everyone got blink daggers patch" and (ii) smokes.
So anyway, I think you could still talk to people who had only seen dota 1, but you'd have to explain how the game had developed. And I think the farm priority/tri-lanes changes were bigger changes than the patches.
A separate point to consider is that you have 3 races in BW2 whereas you have, pragmatically speaking, an infinite number of combinations of heroes that can be in a dota 2 game. So the question of balance is quite different. Perhaps a fairer comparison to Dota would be LoL, where they patch more frequently and less drastically to my understanding.
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Man i feel old that I instantly have an image of the BW maps talked about here despite not touching that game for almost 6 years.
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American Football, Football, and baseball get "patched" (rule changes) on a very regular basis. Hardly ded gaem
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balance is boring and overrated
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forge FE by Savior for example
booo
Also I like the patches !
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On May 09 2015 09:44 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I originally come from a SC:BW background, where there wasn't a balance patch since 2001, and new revolutionary stuff came around 7-8 years later, like the forge FE by Savior for example.
But if Savior's forge FE really was so revolutionary, wouldn't they have nicknamed him something appropriate like "the revolutionist"? But they didn't, they gave it to Bisu for his dominant Sauron style, so really, I'm going to use this point to bury my head in the sand and ignore your entire blog 
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On May 09 2015 13:13 syw651 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2015 09:44 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I originally come from a SC:BW background, where there wasn't a balance patch since 2001, and new revolutionary stuff came around 7-8 years later, like the forge FE by Savior for example.
But if Savior's forge FE really was so revolutionary, wouldn't they have nicknamed him something appropriate like "the revolutionist"? But they didn't, they gave it to Bisu for his dominant Sauron style, so really, I'm going to use this point to bury my head in the sand and ignore your entire blog
Sauron style applied to zergs. Nice try though.
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On May 09 2015 09:44 FiWiFaKi wrote:
Alright, the title was a little bit of an attention grab, but I want to get some opinions on this topic. I will make some anti-Dota arguments in this thread, but don't get me wrong, I like Dota, I'd just like to be a bit critical for a bit.
To me, it seems like if Dota doesn't get a patch every 3 months, people will get cranky because something is overpowered, or they don't like the repetitiveness. Whether that was troll/sniper last patch, terrorblade and naga the time before, etc, etc.
Is a game good if people can't manage playing it for a couple months without it changing? Is the game that simple that the game is figured out in 2 weeks to a month and nothing can be done to counter certain strategies once they get figured out in that time frame? Is not enough time being spent not patching the game, to allow counters to develop?
I originally come from a SC:BW background, where there wasn't a balance patch since 2001, and new revolutionary stuff came around 7-8 years later, like the forge FE by Savior for example.
The reason I ask these questions is because I believe a game that is constantly changed has really poor longevity. I simply can't stop playing Dota for only one or two years, and then come back, and know what is going on. It makes it that only the really active players are able to have a coherent conversation about the pro scene, or really just the game in general.
I can't go discuss Dota 2 with someone who plays now, if I played Dota 3 years ago if we just met, much like you could discuss an old movie or TV show. It makes it so that people who leave for a bit have a much more difficult time to come back. For example, when a big boxing or chess match comes on, people who were into the activity before, can just come back, that is not possible in Dota 2. Like geez, I play Dota quite sparsely, but even patch 6.84 was just so overwhelming for me. Makes me not even want to queue another game because there is so much to learn. Even like 6.83 was quite significant for me, and for someone who doesn't play, it's completely overwhelming.
I just wish the balance of the game could remain constant for long periods of time, yet still keep the interest of people. Anyway, thoughts, input?
6.82 that introduced the comeback mechanic broke the balance of Dota. The balance of Dota was forged over a long period of time with small chains of counter links keeping everything in place. As long as the fundamental rules of Dota stayed the same, no matter how powerful a hero change, item change, or interaction change it was to see how those changes interacted with the game. The comeback mechanic changed something at the fundamental level that altered the foundation of balance Dota has built over time.
Any patch before 6.82 could last a significant amount of time. 6.84 and beyond will likely have the same potential once they reduce the comeback mechanic to non-existence.
Little changes all the time just keeps the game fun and fresh. A majority of the people you see complaining about the game don't actually understand the game.
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On May 09 2015 10:09 FiWiFaKi wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2015 09:57 Piledriver wrote:
AFAIK, the balance of SC was heavily affected by maps.Whenever a race was perceived too strong/performing too well, tourneys would switch up the map pool, and add maps that were not good for the dominant race.So I don't exactly accept the sentiment that there were absolutely "no patches" when the meta was clearly being affected by external factors. Yes, the game was balanced by maps for most part, but at the same time, if we look at the common maps, you do have things like Destination, Heartbreak Ridge, and Fighting Spirit that stayed around forever. And even now, for lower level players, the most commonly played map is the one that has been the most commonly played forever, and that is Python. At the end of the day though, yes, the terrain changes, but you can still go watch now, if you watched 10 years ago, and understand the game as well as your memory serves you. Meanwhile, you go to Dota... Okay, great... Roshan timer is now random, oh, there's bounty runes, and there are two runes every two minutes. Oh, you get a free glyph for T1 now. Oh, lots of come back gold now, the amount of money for killing tower changed completely, which changes how game is approached. Oh, a few heroes completely reworked, okay. Denying creeps now denies experience too, hmm. New items, recipe costs completely changed, some item build-ups changed. Not to mention how much changed are made to a hero just in a typical patch. I think they could make the changes a lot more subtle, but people always want something "fresh".
You are over reading the changes. None of the changes you mentioned other than the comeback gold affect how teams approach the game. The big picture is the same.
Control the creep equilibrium. Take fights when you have the advantage. Kill Buildings.
I believe the IceFrog philosophy is to prioritize making the game fun for everybody. He said something to that effect in a blog post in the past. Nobody notices subtle changes.
Competitive Dota will constantly evolve even without a patch (pre 6.82).
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There's nothing wrong with changing a game to keep it interesting. There's value in exploring what new ways of playing are favored in each installment in DotA or MtG as much as there is value in high depth exploration of strategy and technique in a more static game like BW . Whether the game will evolve with or without patches is not really an issue imo, just something that favors different skillsets in players.
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Two things:
One, dota's state of balance is actually pretty ridiculous. In my own circle of dota buddies, the FotM OP first ban this patch is Windranger. When we play as or against her, we won't make it through the game without someone commenting on how ridiculous the hero is, how much damage it can output and how unstoppable it can feel. What changed for WR this patch? The cast point on Shackleshot got reduced 0.15 of a second. That's it.
When THAT "small" of a change can (apparently) impact the power of a hero so much, it's hard to consider the game imbalanced. Even though in that case it's largely because a consecutive stacking of buffs, when you can consider a relatively minor change to a hero (like CM's -1 second CD on frostbite) a big deal for the balance of the hero it suggests to me that the game's as balanced as it is going to get. Considering that, it makes sense to patch for flavour as much as balance.
Second point: We've made our own market.
Back in the day, even the best games were 50% shit. You didn't get to make a forum post for a bug fix or complain anywhere in particular with a reasonable expectation of results. Today, thanks to everyone ever having the internet and using it always, if something goes wrong and enough people bitch about it, it'll get fixed. Diretide, for example. We as a collective of gamers are in a market where we've come to expect what we demand.
I don't think we'll change the market back.
I took a sleeping pill halfway through that and cant think anymore, so here:
It's not so bad. Patches are less about balance and more about flavour, and even though we'll always have FOTM heroes and shit, I don't think it'll hurt a spectator's ability to enjoy the game, unless you're someone who needs to know everything of what's going on to appreciate the plays.
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I really think people need to stop comparing games like SC2, LoL and Dota 2 to chess, it's such a bad comparison.
Chess has 16 pieces ( 32 total ) and they are mirrored to your opponent, so balance is always there regardless of how you change the rule per piece.
Dota 2 has 105(?) hero's right now with 3 unique stat growths, 4-6 abilities, different attack speed, armour and magic resistance. In what way does that compare to the "basic" ruleset of chess.
Besides that, in the process of speeding up the game, things will break really fast, and we are now on the way to getting a faster paced game, while still getting not too many OP hero's in the pool.
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and new revolutionary stuff came around 7-8 years later, like the forge FE by Savior for example.
i'm a little confused
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On May 09 2015 10:12 FiWiFaKi wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2015 10:03 TMG26 wrote:
Completely different games every time you play a pub is part of what attracts everyone to Dota, that also makes people play more different heroes. But with ranked play and sites like dotabuff showing heroes with 60% win rate you feel like playing games with them will make you rank up.
So a shit load of people start to play them, and last patch was just too much. Sniper was close to 50% pick rate in pubs.
It's not about heroes being OP in competitive play, it's about variety in pubs. This isn't like a fighting game were people main stuff, here people pick wtv they feel like playing except when they feel like picking a broken hero is easy MMR, Sniper was OP and easy to use. I would argue that a good Meepo player is much stronger in pubs, but playing Meepo is hard so that spam doesn't happen.
People just want something different to play every time they queue up, and heroes being spammed just prevents that.
Also, most people enjoy those WTF ICEFROG PATCH, and figuring out what new thing to try out, Dota is a lot about experimentation, and a new patch brings more fuel.
PUBS!=COMPETITIVE.
My argument is kind of opposite of what you're saying. I know that people like the "fresh" feeling, always having something new, etc, etc. But my argument is that this is bad for longevity of the game, and is there no other way to go about patching the game, without making it feel like you're playing a completely new game. I dunno why I use the chess and SC:BW example so much, but even though very little changes with time, there is almost an endless combination of openings and variations.
Both you and the dude you quoted have very valid points. I honestly believe SC:BW was the most balanced popular game in the world which games like SC2 and even Dota2 can't even hold a candle to it. In terms of longevity yes I agree that some people may be turned off from the fact that every year or so there is a "new game" patch like 6.84, which honestly changed the game that is dota. But I think that's what draws millions of people to play the game. They enjoy that sort of thing, they want a "new game" every couple of months because they're getting bored of the current meta and want to try out new hero's aghs and spells and reworked items or brand new items. It's crazy, annoying and exciting all rolled into one and honestly I think the day Icefrog announces he's never going to patch Dota2 again is the day the game will start to loose lots of it's player base. I don't think Dota2 will ever be "complete" or similar to chess/BW and I kind of like that.
On May 09 2015 17:25 Orome wrote:Show nested quote +and new revolutionary stuff came around 7-8 years later, like the forge FE by Savior for example. i'm a little confused
lmfao ya i dont think savior came up with a protoss build
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i have to agree with TMG26. people get accustomed to constant changes and because of site like dotabuff and mmr people tend to pick the "op" heroes in every game. i think that the "metagame" would evolve over time just like in the other games you mentioned. i mean just look at the chinese scene right before starladder...sniper was worth a firstban but troll was often banned in the second phase or ignored completely.
comparing it to sc:bw is not really possible imo. just compare it to csgo or sc2...both games get patched on a regular basis because people complain about stuff all the time
isnt chess kinda imbalanced? i mean sure the pieces are the same but only one player can move first
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On May 09 2015 13:24 Crimson wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2015 13:13 syw651 wrote:On May 09 2015 09:44 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I originally come from a SC:BW background, where there wasn't a balance patch since 2001, and new revolutionary stuff came around 7-8 years later, like the forge FE by Savior for example.
But if Savior's forge FE really was so revolutionary, wouldn't they have nicknamed him something appropriate like "the revolutionist"? But they didn't, they gave it to Bisu for his dominant Sauron style, so really, I'm going to use this point to bury my head in the sand and ignore your entire blog Sauron style applied to zergs. Nice try though.
no no no, I'm pretty sure Sauron is a Terran strat (seeing as Bisu is a well known Terran player) where he gained air superiority with his valkyries and then dominated using cloaked ghosts. Hence his nickname "ninja Terran". I think he was most famous for beating Savior's Forge FE in the 2006 MSL final.
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On May 09 2015 21:21 syw651 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2015 13:24 Crimson wrote:On May 09 2015 13:13 syw651 wrote:On May 09 2015 09:44 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I originally come from a SC:BW background, where there wasn't a balance patch since 2001, and new revolutionary stuff came around 7-8 years later, like the forge FE by Savior for example.
But if Savior's forge FE really was so revolutionary, wouldn't they have nicknamed him something appropriate like "the revolutionist"? But they didn't, they gave it to Bisu for his dominant Sauron style, so really, I'm going to use this point to bury my head in the sand and ignore your entire blog Sauron style applied to zergs. Nice try though. no no no, I'm pretty sure Sauron is a Terran strat (seeing as Bisu is a well known Terran player) where he gained air superiority with his valkyries and then dominated using cloaked ghosts. Hence his nickname "ninja Terran". I think he was most famous for beating Savior's Forge FE in the 2006 MSL final.
Hyuk's 14CC was unstoppable
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Unlike sc/bw it's hard to compare it to dota 2 since there is one thing that exist on dota that doesn't on sc2/bw, That's being unable to use the same hero on a standard game and the bans on CM. Which is pretty much a really big factor.
Also while i do complain about dota becoming "easier" it does improve the quality of the game per patch. Dota patches like makes the game better and better pretty much. I believe there's no perfect game at the beginning everygame needs to go through patches and testing. For sure if dota was never patched ever if players manage to survive a few years i'm sure there will counters that will be founded to the most efficient and effective strategies/draft in the game just like bw who needed a few years till counters were seen.
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On May 09 2015 11:22 greebosnabble wrote:
So anyway, I think you could still talk to people who had only seen dota 1, but you'd have to explain how the game had developed. And I think the farm priority/tri-lanes changes were bigger changes than the patches.
Yup, the biggest changes to the game were actually something the players optimized, not the actually patches.
I play dota since 2008, and I admire Icefrog patches. Dota only broke on 6.82 with the ridiculous comeback. 6.83 was fine, sniper spam was just too annoying, but you played the game the same way you did every patch. Every common strat was viable, some better than others.
While heroes items and numbers change, the game actually stays the same. It only trully changes when players learn more things to be more efficient, and normally those things could also be done before, they were just never exploited. The flash farm patterns, Trilanes, dynamic farm allocation, this new stuff changes the pubs and competitive approach more than Icefrog patches.
Another thing nice about Icefrog, is the "no patch talk", no explanation, no justification nothing. It's like "here is your present, discover, enjoy it"
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On May 09 2015 22:42 trifecta wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2015 21:21 syw651 wrote:On May 09 2015 13:24 Crimson wrote:On May 09 2015 13:13 syw651 wrote:On May 09 2015 09:44 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I originally come from a SC:BW background, where there wasn't a balance patch since 2001, and new revolutionary stuff came around 7-8 years later, like the forge FE by Savior for example.
But if Savior's forge FE really was so revolutionary, wouldn't they have nicknamed him something appropriate like "the revolutionist"? But they didn't, they gave it to Bisu for his dominant Sauron style, so really, I'm going to use this point to bury my head in the sand and ignore your entire blog Sauron style applied to zergs. Nice try though. no no no, I'm pretty sure Sauron is a Terran strat (seeing as Bisu is a well known Terran player) where he gained air superiority with his valkyries and then dominated using cloaked ghosts. Hence his nickname "ninja Terran". I think he was most famous for beating Savior's Forge FE in the 2006 MSL final. Hyuk's 14CC was unstoppable
this sent me over the edge
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I am sure if we went into TI5 with the last patch we would not see sniper and troll every game. As teams get better at dealing with strategies they will evolve. Naturally.
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On May 09 2015 09:44 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I originally come from a SC:BW background, where there wasn't a balance patch since 2001, and new revolutionary stuff came around 7-8 years later, like the forge FE by Savior for example.
Savior was a Zerg player mate 
HE surely didn't come up with forge expand builts.
If I remember correctly it was Bisu who came up with it.
At least he came up with Corsair harrass (it was versus Savior we saw that built first though. So you were right with that part.) into DTs. The forge FE might have been around before though, not sure anymore.
*edit
just saw all the sarcastic posts on page 2.
forget what i said
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On May 10 2015 01:35 sCuMBaG wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2015 09:44 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I originally come from a SC:BW background, where there wasn't a balance patch since 2001, and new revolutionary stuff came around 7-8 years later, like the forge FE by Savior for example.
Savior was a Zerg player mate HE surely didn't come up with forge expand builts. If I remember correctly it was Bisu who came up with it. At least he came up with Corsair harrass (it was versus Savior we saw that built first though. So you were right with that part.) into DTs. The forge FE might have been around before though, not sure anymore. *edit just saw all the sarcastic posts on page 2. forget what i said
Yep, thanks to the about 15 people for pointing it out.
I don't know how I didn't realize when writing it, I guess I was just thinking about who fell to it (the 3-0 in the finals, Savior with no response) instead of who created it, yeah it was Bisu. I'm not such a layman to not know that Savior didn't create protoss builds 
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On May 10 2015 01:33 Spicy_Curry wrote:
I am sure if we went into TI5 with the last patch we would not see sniper and troll every game. As teams get better at dealing with strategies they will evolve. Naturally.
See, I wish this was the case, but it's difficult to say, it did feel like the meta was starting to stagnate, or just have little progression. I wholeheartedly would wish that what you say is true though.
On May 09 2015 23:33 TMG26 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2015 11:22 greebosnabble wrote:
So anyway, I think you could still talk to people who had only seen dota 1, but you'd have to explain how the game had developed. And I think the farm priority/tri-lanes changes were bigger changes than the patches.
Yup, the biggest changes to the game were actually something the players optimized, not the actually patches. I play dota since 2008, and I admire Icefrog patches. Dota only broke on 6.82 with the ridiculous comeback. 6.83 was fine, sniper spam was just too annoying, but you played the game the same way you did every patch. Every common strat was viable, some better than others. While heroes items and numbers change, the game actually stays the same. It only trully changes when players learn more things to be more efficient, and normally those things could also be done before, they were just never exploited. The flash farm patterns, Trilanes, dynamic farm allocation, this new stuff changes the pubs and competitive approach more than Icefrog patches. Another thing nice about Icefrog, is the "no patch talk", no explanation, no justification nothing. It's like "here is your present, discover, enjoy it"
I don't think so. I haven't Dota for long along, so pardon me (only started with TI3), but the key to have continuity with time is the game has to have the same physics, if that's the right word for it. Meaning the environment is the same, a change in strategies, like having different laning and etc, is something that can be picked up quickly. It's like if you were watching badminton, and before they used to play doubles side and side (hypothetical), and now they play front and back. It's a natural change in progression.
Meanwhile, I don't see sports "patched" like how people mention. In Hockey, the goalie pads might change in size every several years... Maybe a new penalty or something very very little. I mean at the end of the day, it's quite easy to track. In ping pong you might have the ball size change, or the net be a couple mm higher. But just by watching one game, you can quickly get accustomed to it, especially because these changes are so periodic.
In Dota, every hero gets 3 changes every 3 months, some minor, some major. Not to mention how the flow of the game is completely changed every single patch due to other reasons. In Hockey you could make a timeline of what changes were introduced since the 1950s, and summarize it in 2 or 3 minutes. If you tried doing that with Dota, you'd be leaving out vital information.
Anyway, at the end of the day, yes, it still is Dota, but I feel the changes are so significant, they are a detriment long term.
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BW had stagnation for long periods of time in lots of matchups. ZvZ hardly changed in the Entire time besides that weird stent with the lurker defiler build. It just depends on the context of the game. Look at old fighting games for static or evolving metas. You will see that most of them stagnate pretty hard, with maybe one character rising up as top tier to mid tier when some tech is found, but most of the time it feels like the games get figured out.
A dota versions top tier CM pool would probably be overall figured out in 2 years, doesn't mean the game still wouldn't be a good game, it just might get stale.
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On May 10 2015 02:39 FiWiFaKi wrote:Show nested quote +On May 10 2015 01:33 Spicy_Curry wrote:
I am sure if we went into TI5 with the last patch we would not see sniper and troll every game. As teams get better at dealing with strategies they will evolve. Naturally. See, I wish this was the case, but it's difficult to say, it did feel like the meta was starting to stagnate, or just have little progression. I wholeheartedly would wish that what you say is true though. Show nested quote +On May 09 2015 23:33 TMG26 wrote:On May 09 2015 11:22 greebosnabble wrote:
So anyway, I think you could still talk to people who had only seen dota 1, but you'd have to explain how the game had developed. And I think the farm priority/tri-lanes changes were bigger changes than the patches.
Yup, the biggest changes to the game were actually something the players optimized, not the actually patches. I play dota since 2008, and I admire Icefrog patches. Dota only broke on 6.82 with the ridiculous comeback. 6.83 was fine, sniper spam was just too annoying, but you played the game the same way you did every patch. Every common strat was viable, some better than others. While heroes items and numbers change, the game actually stays the same. It only trully changes when players learn more things to be more efficient, and normally those things could also be done before, they were just never exploited. The flash farm patterns, Trilanes, dynamic farm allocation, this new stuff changes the pubs and competitive approach more than Icefrog patches. Another thing nice about Icefrog, is the "no patch talk", no explanation, no justification nothing. It's like "here is your present, discover, enjoy it" I don't think so. I haven't Dota for long along, so pardon me (only started with TI3), but the key to have continuity with time is the game has to have the same physics, if that's the right word for it. Meaning the environment is the same, a change in strategies, like having different laning and etc, is something that can be picked up quickly. It's like if you were watching badminton, and before they used to play doubles side and side (hypothetical), and now they play front and back. It's a natural change in progression. Meanwhile, I don't see sports "patched" like how people mention. In Hockey, the goalie pads might change in size every several years... Maybe a new penalty or something very very little. I mean at the end of the day, it's quite easy to track. In ping pong you might have the ball size change, or the net be a couple mm higher. But just by watching one game, you can quickly get accustomed to it, especially because these changes are so periodic. In Dota, every hero gets 3 changes every 3 months, some minor, some major. Not to mention how the flow of the game is completely changed every single patch due to other reasons. In Hockey you could make a timeline of what changes were introduced since the 1950s, and summarize it in 2 or 3 minutes. If you tried doing that with Dota, you'd be leaving out vital information. Anyway, at the end of the day, yes, it still is Dota, but I feel the changes are so significant, they are a detriment long term.
If you have only played since TI3 I can see why you feel this way. They ramped up the volatility and knee jerk reactions since TI3. 6.79 changed a lot then stabilized in 6.81 then 6.82 threw everything awry with the comeback mechanic that has been almost reduced to non existence now. I would say patches were much more conservative before 6.78 since 6.1x or whenever IceFrog took over.
Also, if you played Dota 1, patch numbers would have a higher significance to you. A lot of people still remember exactly which patch big changes occurred and how the game evolved over time. Someone can probably list all the important changes over the last 10 years in a few minutes. Outside of the comeback mechanic, the core of Dota has remained pretty much the same over the years.
The balance of Dota is shaped by the players not the developer unlike conventional game development where the dev team dictates how the game should play out. IceFrog sets the stage and players are free to use anything they can find: nuances, "bugs", weird interactions, and etc. There is so much pro players know that typical players don't and they will never share until it has been changed.
If you have only been playing since TI3, that means almost half your playing experience has been with the comeback mechanic in place which is completely different from any patch of Dota in the last 10 years. They never gave out handouts. Depending in when you started playing you either started with 6.78 or 6.79. I believe all the x.x9 patches are usually major so you probably felt a big change there too if you started playing before that patch came out. It was unfortunate timing of your experiences that makes you believe that Dota is driven by patches and change drastically from patch to patch.
edit: 6.79 was the first patch to not be a parity patch where changes were made directly to Dota 2. A lot of things changed and we are likely still riding out the ripple effects of those changes and adjustments are still being made. Again, timing is the root of why you feel this way about Dota.
For reference:
wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/Version_6.79
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/Version_6.76
-a more typical patch with no mechanics changes.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/Version_6.74
-a normal patch with gameplay changes
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When a game is free, patches exist to maximize profits and consumption. People will buy new sets for hero's that they play alot, so a change in the overpowered hero-pool helps maximize profits. There exist alot of games that never got big patches every 3 months, but were popular for years anyway. But these were paid games.
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On May 10 2015 04:52 govie wrote:
When a game is free, patches exist to maximize profits and consumption. People will buy new sets for hero's that they play alot, so a change in the overpowered hero-pool helps maximize profits. There exist alot of games that never got big patches every 3 months, but were popular for years anyway. But these were paid games.
I think you can make this argument for MMOs where patches are literally expansions of content, but it doesn't feel like it fits that well with Dota 2's model. I honestly don't think that Valve does that much to "maximize profits" aside from being sure that there is always content available for potential buyers to purchase. Again, we as consumers very much create and control this market.
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On May 10 2015 08:31 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On May 10 2015 04:52 govie wrote:
When a game is free, patches exist to maximize profits and consumption. People will buy new sets for hero's that they play alot, so a change in the overpowered hero-pool helps maximize profits. There exist alot of games that never got big patches every 3 months, but were popular for years anyway. But these were paid games. I think you can make this argument for MMOs where patches are literally expansions of content, but it doesn't feel like it fits that well with Dota 2's model. I honestly don't think that Valve does that much to "maximize profits" aside from being sure that there is always content available for potential buyers to purchase. Again, we as consumers very much create and control this market.
They have economists tailoring/creating their own fictional monetary hatsystem, valve is the biggest hatseller in the world as far as i can recall. Its all varoufakis' fault! haha. Valve doesn’t do charity, valve makes money and makes alot of it.
Besides that you control as much as you control in nonfictional life. When your government raises taxes on gasoline, more people will start using the public transportation system. Action / reaction or to put it simple: they nudge you to do what the government wants the populus to do. And valve wants their users to spend some bucks on hats in their fictional world and so they shall nudge you just a little bit!
Edit: Dont get me wrong. I love valve, i love that they give away dota2 for free and that it is not pay to win. im not flaming, its just my view on the reasoning behind patches in a free game like dota2.
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I'm a die hard BW fan, but you can't look at it with rose-tinted glasses. For the absolute longest time, PvZ was such a crappy matchup because P was behind so much. It took years before the Revolution (and better FE maps) ushered in the "modern" era and made BW as balanced as we know it (minus a certain genius named Lee Young Ho who destroyed balance statistics).
Dota patches keep the game fresh and alive. It ensures that some heroes rise out of obscurity and become relevant without some kind of revolutionary change in the metagame, which is incredibly hard to achieve given the diversity of skills and heroes.
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On May 10 2015 08:48 govie wrote:Show nested quote +On May 10 2015 08:31 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 10 2015 04:52 govie wrote:
When a game is free, patches exist to maximize profits and consumption. People will buy new sets for hero's that they play alot, so a change in the overpowered hero-pool helps maximize profits. There exist alot of games that never got big patches every 3 months, but were popular for years anyway. But these were paid games. I think you can make this argument for MMOs where patches are literally expansions of content, but it doesn't feel like it fits that well with Dota 2's model. I honestly don't think that Valve does that much to "maximize profits" aside from being sure that there is always content available for potential buyers to purchase. Again, we as consumers very much create and control this market. They have economists tailoring/creating their own fictional monetary hatsystem, valve is the biggest hatseller in the world as far as i can recall. Its all varoufakis' fault! haha. Valve doesn’t do charity, valve makes money and makes alot of it. Besides that you control as much as you control in nonfictional life. When your government raises taxes on gasoline, more people will start using the public transportation system. Action / reaction or to put it simple: they nudge you to do what the government wants the populus to do. And valve wants their users to spend some bucks on hats in their fictional world and so they shall nudge you just a little bit! Edit: Dont get me wrong. I love valve, i love that they give away dota2 for free and that it is not pay to win. im not flaming, its just my view on the reasoning behind patches in a free game like dota2.
Yeah but the patches aren't related to the hatsystem like at all. Unless you want to go into conspiracy theory Terrorblade was overpowered because Arcana release, I don't see where the connection between constant patches and hat updates is. Sure Valve does stuff to make money, but they make money directly proportional to the value we place on cosmetics and tournament content. They might set that value superficially, but they don't actually set the demand. I'm not saying we should wake up and realize we're spending money on digital cosmetic items (because hey man they look cool sometimes) I'm saying Valve doesn't control this market, the consumers do.
It isn't like real life where the government can raise taxes to push for change. Our demand is as much as our demand.
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I'd say the reason why the meta becomes stale is because of poor captains that choose to conform to the meta, rather than find something that suits them. Most are unwilling to experiment, and only use the most common strategies. Look at how empire changed the offlane hero pool because they were willing to experiment with putting Rubick Pudge es SK etc there.
Look at Vici against IG in star ladder. They got stomped 1 game, then they switched up their entire draft style. Suddenly they picked Invoker cm tide.
The game needs more good drafters, rather than those willing to experiment, or those fixated on a certain combos that they ignore the balance of the draft (eg. Techies draft with tiny venge Pudge).
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On May 10 2015 12:41 DucK- wrote:
I'd say the reason why the meta becomes stale is because of poor captains that choose to conform to the meta, rather than find something that suits them. Most are unwilling to experiment, and only use the most common strategies. Look at how empire changed the offlane hero pool because they were willing to experiment with putting Rubick Pudge es SK etc there.
Look at Vici against IG in star ladder. They got stomped 1 game, then they switched up their entire draft style. Suddenly they picked Invoker cm tide.
The game needs more good drafters, rather than those willing to experiment, or those fixated on a certain combos that they ignore the balance of the draft (eg. Techies draft with tiny venge Pudge).
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I somewhat agree. I think the reason why drafter dont mix up things to much is because their players play only a limited hero pool and they themselves are only accustomed to drafting around certain heroes. Change is often bound to more work and higher risk, so captains shy away from it.
@topic: Tbh I dont agree. I cant speak about bw, but for me sc2 always was a stale game, people played more or less the same three matchup strategies over and over again. Only the maps brought some change. I think the fact that dota constantly changes keeps it fresh and interesting.
That aside I think most patches actually make the game better. I liked f.e. the comeback mechanics and thought it was a great idea and I'm happy that we have such a mechanic in the game. Sure there were some patchs like the ti4 one which created rather dull games, but I think IF uses trial and error and thereby makes the game better every year. Blizzard always seems to worried about balance to make patches that create a better game.
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SC:BW was balanced by the maps. The counter example given, about certain maps being used for a long time, doesn't take away from this point. Some maps are just really really good. And some maps turn out to be shit (either unbalanced, or predictable strategy). Kespa didn't change up the maps enough though, as the typical complaint went at the time.
In Dota, the drafting mechanic helps to bring balance. And some people mention that there are always OP heroes that make drafts monotonous. With the increased overall balance that patches bring, making more heroes viable in more situations, a change to drafting seems a good idea to me.
Drafts are based around which heroes seem to be really strong, AND the ability of their players to play those heroes. The first point is worked on by patches, which should make the game more balanced as time goes on. Or Icefrog is trolling. The second is part of team strategy. It doesn't make sense to practice many heroes that never see the light of day. So a changed drafting method could force teams to practice a wider variety.
Tournaments could start using the captains draft mode (which the XMG tournament does as a novelty, which worked out really well in my opinion). Alternative draft ideas:
Option 1: Randomly ban a bunch of heroes (like 5 str, 5 agi, 5 int heroes) at the start, continue as normal (with perhaps some extra thinking time).
Option 2: Give every team 5 bans at the start, instead of the current 2.
Option 3: No bans? Forcing OP heroes into the game might make teams more creative looking for a specific counter.
Under any circumstance though, as long as there are obvious goto heroes and heroes to avoid, Dota needs patches. It's not a perfect game yet. But it ain't bad :D
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On May 10 2015 02:23 FiWiFaKi wrote:Show nested quote +On May 10 2015 01:35 sCuMBaG wrote:On May 09 2015 09:44 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I originally come from a SC:BW background, where there wasn't a balance patch since 2001, and new revolutionary stuff came around 7-8 years later, like the forge FE by Savior for example.
Savior was a Zerg player mate HE surely didn't come up with forge expand builts. If I remember correctly it was Bisu who came up with it. At least he came up with Corsair harrass (it was versus Savior we saw that built first though. So you were right with that part.) into DTs. The forge FE might have been around before though, not sure anymore. *edit just saw all the sarcastic posts on page 2. forget what i said Yep, thanks to the about 15 people for pointing it out. I don't know how I didn't realize when writing it, I guess I was just thinking about who fell to it (the 3-0 in the finals, Savior with no response) instead of who created it, yeah it was Bisu. I'm not such a layman to not know that Savior didn't create protoss builds
Heh, the reason your sentence sounded so funny is because you also got the time wrong. FFE was around long before 2008 and Bisu had nothing to do with inventing it. What he invented was a specific corsair dt build off of FFE, not FFE itself.
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I'm pretty sure prior to Bisu's OGN title, FFE was really just a gimmick and not something you go BO3 with.
After Bisu, it went from gimmick and something that selective pros do to the default opening from D+ to pros.
As a protoss player those were the times man... gone are the days you open 2 gates and hope to god you can defend that hydra push.
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On May 10 2015 15:03 Badjas wrote: So a changed drafting method could force teams to practice a wider variety.
Tournaments could start using the captains draft mode (which the XMG tournament does as a novelty, which worked out really well in my opinion). Alternative draft ideas:
Option 1: Randomly ban a bunch of heroes (like 5 str, 5 agi, 5 int heroes) at the start, continue as normal (with perhaps some extra thinking time).
Option 2: Give every team 5 bans at the start, instead of the current 2.
Option 3: No bans? Forcing OP heroes into the game might make teams more creative looking for a specific counter.
There has been a lot of changes to draft order. A while the game was balanced around one side of the map being stronger while the other team had the better draft order.
3 bans was what we had before the 2 in the first phase. That made the meta more stale since nothing very strong got through, making for a lot of generic drafts that didn't really need to take into account what the opponent picked. (Exaggerating a bit.)
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On May 10 2015 12:41 DucK- wrote:
I'd say the reason why the meta becomes stale is because of poor captains that choose to conform to the meta, rather than find something that suits them. Most are unwilling to experiment, and only use the most common strategies. Look at how empire changed the offlane hero pool because they were willing to experiment with putting Rubick Pudge es SK etc there.
Look at Vici against IG in star ladder. They got stomped 1 game, then they switched up their entire draft style. Suddenly they picked Invoker cm tide.
The game needs more good drafters, rather than those willing to experiment, or those fixated on a certain combos that they ignore the balance of the draft (eg. Techies draft with tiny venge Pudge).
.
Drafters are not entirely wrong to do this.
It is true that at any given time there are other viable drafts that aren't the ones being done over and over again. But the thing is, finding those drafts is an investment. Unless you think you've found a perfect counter pick in theory, breaking from the meta means exploring, which is a slow, inefficient process. When you are a competitive player, that investment could really hurt you by taking a why the time you spend maintaining/developing your skills on the drafts you've established as effective.
Some analogy to this applicable to pretty much any game. These periods of so-called staleness are what I referred to as consolidations in my first post in this thread. What eventually causes consolidation to end organically (that is, even in a game with no patches), is that all of the participants conform so much, that everyone does the same thing and learns to do it almost equally well, meaning that no competitor can gain any further advantage of the others by continuing to do it, so there's no hope for advancement other than exploring something new. In addition, the more consolidated the phase of the meta is, the easier it is to counter, because it is predicable and narrow, so the folks who go exploring new strats have a good chance of finding something that completely disrupts the present consolidation.
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On May 10 2015 15:03 Badjas wrote:
SC:BW was balanced by the maps. The counter example given, about certain maps being used for a long time, doesn't take away from this point. Some maps are just really really good. And some maps turn out to be shit (either unbalanced, or predictable strategy). Kespa didn't change up the maps enough though, as the typical complaint went at the time.
In Dota, the drafting mechanic helps to bring balance. And some people mention that there are always OP heroes that make drafts monotonous. With the increased overall balance that patches bring, making more heroes viable in more situations, a change to drafting seems a good idea to me.
Drafts are based around which heroes seem to be really strong, AND the ability of their players to play those heroes. The first point is worked on by patches, which should make the game more balanced as time goes on. Or Icefrog is trolling. The second is part of team strategy. It doesn't make sense to practice many heroes that never see the light of day. So a changed drafting method could force teams to practice a wider variety.
Tournaments could start using the captains draft mode (which the XMG tournament does as a novelty, which worked out really well in my opinion). Alternative draft ideas:
Option 1: Randomly ban a bunch of heroes (like 5 str, 5 agi, 5 int heroes) at the start, continue as normal (with perhaps some extra thinking time).
Option 2: Give every team 5 bans at the start, instead of the current 2.
Option 3: No bans? Forcing OP heroes into the game might make teams more creative looking for a specific counter.
Under any circumstance though, as long as there are obvious goto heroes and heroes to avoid, Dota needs patches. It's not a perfect game yet. But it ain't bad :D
i dont think the proscene needs changes like this because they are too volatile. you can ban most of the op heroes in -cm and dont ahve to deal with them. imo the problem why people cry for patches are the pubgames they are playing and since we only have -ap in ranked games you always see the op heroes.
im a big fan of radom draft and would love to see this mode in ranked
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I think Dota is completely unbalanced in every patch iteration. It works, because you have a large number of bans, so you can simply ban out stuff, that is too OP. But every patch has some ridiculous ban ratios on certain heroes, which is a clear indicator, that these heroes are broken. Patching always follows the same pattern. Nerf what has a ridiculous high ban/pick ratio and buff whatever is never picked/banned.
The real consistency in my opinion is, that the heroes work always in a similar fashion. They might fall out of favor because they are weak in a certain patch or don't fit the current dominant style, but unless they are reworked, which happens rarely, their function doesn't change. With function I mean in which part they are strong in the game and their overall purpose in the game (control, push, etc.). I also think the game is more cyclic, everything comes back eventually. Gyro was gone, now they changed his barrage and he is back, because laning is so strong on him. Visage was gone, they made the birds really strong and he is back. And it will be nerfed, when people pick it a lot and buffed if people don't play it, to be eventually nerfed again.
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On May 10 2015 18:05 haduken wrote:
I'm pretty sure prior to Bisu's OGN title, FFE was really just a gimmick and not something you go BO3 with.
After Bisu, it went from gimmick and something that selective pros do to the default opening from D+ to pros.
As a protoss player those were the times man... gone are the days you open 2 gates and hope to god you can defend that hydra push.
It was the most standard build long before that. OGN casters used to make fun of P who went 1 gate gas, and that was back in 2005. If anyone should be credited for popularising FFE, it's Nal_rA.
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On May 10 2015 15:03 Badjas wrote:
SC:BW was balanced by the maps. The counter example given, about certain maps being used for a long time, doesn't take away from this point. Some maps are just really really good. And some maps turn out to be shit (either unbalanced, or predictable strategy). Kespa didn't change up the maps enough though, as the typical complaint went at the time.
In Dota, the drafting mechanic helps to bring balance. And some people mention that there are always OP heroes that make drafts monotonous. With the increased overall balance that patches bring, making more heroes viable in more situations, a change to drafting seems a good idea to me.
Drafts are based around which heroes seem to be really strong, AND the ability of their players to play those heroes. The first point is worked on by patches, which should make the game more balanced as time goes on. Or Icefrog is trolling. The second is part of team strategy. It doesn't make sense to practice many heroes that never see the light of day. So a changed drafting method could force teams to practice a wider variety.
Tournaments could start using the captains draft mode (which the XMG tournament does as a novelty, which worked out really well in my opinion). Alternative draft ideas:
Option 1: Randomly ban a bunch of heroes (like 5 str, 5 agi, 5 int heroes) at the start, continue as normal (with perhaps some extra thinking time).
Option 2: Give every team 5 bans at the start, instead of the current 2.
Option 3: No bans? Forcing OP heroes into the game might make teams more creative looking for a specific counter.
Under any circumstance though, as long as there are obvious goto heroes and heroes to avoid, Dota needs patches. It's not a perfect game yet. But it ain't bad :D
I was talking to a friend about this recently when they had asked me if starcraft:bw was the most balanced RTS, and so I started talking about the maps and how they played a pretty big role.
Like someone else mentioned here, I also think that some maps had a pretty long stay because they had some good balance across all matchups as results or players opinions would agree with.
When a map creator sits down and makes something that professionals will be testing and playing for an upcoming season they have a long list of ideas for things they need to keep as well as other things they want to experiment with.
I'd put emphasis on the things they need to keep, being that certain strategies involving high ground or rush-distances were kept in check. Even if players don't do the research or practice necessary to understand why their style doesn't work well on a given map, the map creators must account for it and make enough adjustments so that the majority of the players don't lose to something apparently strong right off the bat.
Spectators love close games.
So, I think throwing a wrench into the mix every once in a while is a great way to keep the gameplay fresh.
I'd love that even after years into the game, I'd have to change with it.
I think it keeps the scene of amateurs and professionals fresh as well as give the more experienced players something to do at all levels.
Just throwing something out there, but Korean LoL used to make blind pick a thing on deciding games in a best of X.
This means that everyone picked however they liked and there were often duplicate heroes and such.
Seemingly, it worked with the game because mirror-matches are already common in casual play.
This wouldn't work with DotA but I think it helps to show that the community aspect of a game can carry it through perceived imbalance. At the core of it, everyone just wants to play and watch something that creates a story line and looks fun.
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On May 09 2015 17:25 Orome wrote:Show nested quote +and new revolutionary stuff came around 7-8 years later, like the forge FE by Savior for example. i'm a little confused
Yeah me too tbh
Nice clickbait title by OP to get the discussion going as well, just gonna say that I've been playing dota for 9 years and at this point I don't really get jittery with patches changing the game, it's just more stuff to learn, DotA has always been like this, new stuff coming into the game, which gets richer and richer. Obviously DotA has the depth to be left untouched and thrive but key to DotA's gameplay is how it's based on variety and novelty of interactions partially because it's always the same map, so, yeah, people like to have new stuff to play with, I'm pretty ok with that, hero tweaks for me just seem like trying to push the most amount of heroes possible into competitive viability while most of the cases mantaining the hero's identity, so that's cool too
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Northern Ireland22208 Posts
On May 09 2015 23:33 TMG26 wrote:
Another thing nice about Icefrog, is the "no patch talk", no explanation, no justification nothing. It's like "here is your present, discover, enjoy it"
agreed, everytime i see a league changelog it's like a (meme-filled) paragraph for each change as they try to explain and justify it.
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Variety is the spice of life and there is no such thing as perfectly balanced dota. If people want the game to remain fresh and interesting, there need to be patching.
On May 09 2015 23:33 TMG26 wrote:
Another thing nice about Icefrog, is the "no patch talk", no explanation, no justification nothing. It's like "here is your present, discover, enjoy it"
Its also nice because he is clearly aware of the issues facing the community, but feels on need to comment on them beyond dropping a patch. And also changing things like how gold is earned without justifying them and just letting people figure it out or leave if they hate it.
More games should go down this road.
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On May 10 2015 18:16 Yurie wrote:Show nested quote +On May 10 2015 15:03 Badjas wrote: So a changed drafting method could force teams to practice a wider variety.
Tournaments could start using the captains draft mode (which the XMG tournament does as a novelty, which worked out really well in my opinion). Alternative draft ideas:
Option 1: Randomly ban a bunch of heroes (like 5 str, 5 agi, 5 int heroes) at the start, continue as normal (with perhaps some extra thinking time).
Option 2: Give every team 5 bans at the start, instead of the current 2.
Option 3: No bans? Forcing OP heroes into the game might make teams more creative looking for a specific counter.
There has been a lot of changes to draft order. A while the game was balanced around one side of the map being stronger while the other team had the better draft order. 3 bans was what we had before the 2 in the first phase. That made the meta more stale since nothing very strong got through, making for a lot of generic drafts that didn't really need to take into account what the opponent picked. (Exaggerating a bit.)
what you call "generic drafts" was, imo, realistically more variety
if more strong things get through, then those strong things are always P/B, and when they get through you have to tailor them. a great example is Sniper > Troll/SF > Axe / Jugg from last patch. The same heroes always show up cause they're too strong, and their best counters keep showing up too.
but if the balance is flatter, and you have more bans to ban out the too-strong heroes, you are freer to play your own styles, or to play more styles. the immediate trade-off is, strong heroes never see the light of day, but you end up seeing more variety overall, and imbalanced heroes are anti-fun anyway
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Russian Federation1132 Posts
I can share a bit of personal experience.
Me and my friends were playing a lot of dota allstars for years, but around year 2012 we all stopped playing for different reasons. I was watching big tournament finals and TIs, but none of them were. Eventually, a year or so ago we all started playing again and it was kinda fast to catch up, took us like 50 games probably to get to the same okayish feeling.
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I don't think you can compare 10-15 year old games with games right now.
Things get figured out much faster because the player base is generally bigger, a lot of people earn money ( or try to make some money ) by gaming, streaming, writing, casting so there's much more research going on.
On top of that gamers have been getting better and more experienced, they adapt to new mechanics and ideas a lot faster.
I remember when I first started playing games competitively UT and CS ( beta 5 ) there was very few knowledge of mechanics, you played on servers and ladders of some local community, there weren't big communities and teams usually played only against teams of the same country ( ping/server issues ). You only learned stuff from other people you played with or against or accidentaly. Nothing was on youtube and very few reliable guides were available.
Same for World of warcraft if raids like MC or BWL were released now they would be cleared so much faster because players have more information and experience. I remember being stuck for weeks on several raid bosses despite them having really simple mechanics.
tldr:
Games get figured out much faster nowadays because of youtube, experience, higher stakes, coverage,...
Patching is done to keep a game dynamic or more interesting but doesn't inherently mean it was a bad game before.
I don't think any game could stay competitive and gain a big interest without changing now and then.
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EPT
