General Discussion - Page 217

On March 13 2012 01:39 dragonborn wrote:
picture of the most entertaining DotA/sc casters!
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On March 13 2012 01:39 dragonborn wrote:
picture of the most entertaining DotA/sc casters!

On March 13 2012 00:18 Two_DoWn wrote:
That is a very good point. But then again- remember that for all the sucess BW had in Korea, it was, for all intents and purposes, dead everywhere else. Not to mention that our idea of fun- trying very had to come as close as we can to pro play, is very different from someone who doesnt even know who Idra is.

This is a competitive SC2 site after all- the people who congregate here are VERY different from the typical cross section of people who will pick up a computer game.

Take the example of your friend. If she cant adjust quickly enough to drow's auto, she wont be able to last hit, and she wont be able to buy any items in Dota. I doubt very much she would find the game as fun in that case.

Remember- unlike SC2 and BW, which really didnt have any decent competition in the genre- Dota is staring right at LoL. And while they are both different enough games to where each will be able to thrive without cannibalizing the other, Dota has a long way to go in terms of being able to make new players feel as though they are being effective. There are already a lot of punishing game mechanics that make Dota what it is- long cc, longer map, ect- Im not sure that you want one of the biggest and longest lasting to be the first thing that someone notices and has to get over.

And as weird as this may seem to say- one of the best examples of this is the idea of Elo hell that persists in the LoL community. If you are unfamiliar with the term, it basically refers to the idea that people think that they are much better than the ranking they have attained, and are simply being held there by moronic teammates who throw every game. LoL is VERY good at making casual players feel as though they are gods.


All that being said, there may not be a way to change that for the better. Again, I dont think they should change it just for the sake of changing it. I'm just trying to look at a problem and see if there is a solution that fixes that problem but doesnt impact balance or the way the game is played at a competitive level. But if there really is no way to change it, there probably does need to be some sort of training mode, and much more in depth than just "here is a row of creeps, last hit them." Make it a timing game like guitar hero with visual cues.


Those players are going to be the ones who separate the game from a cult following to an actual force.

For better or worse, the massive presence behind lol is what make the game the most watched at every event. I dont think the right thing for dota 2 is to say "screw it, we dont need them, its too hard anyway."

On March 13 2012 00:16 cilinder007 wrote:
I dont see why you would change the atack anmations, if you dont like an animation on a specific hero you just dont play that hero, I dont see how that's a problem for casuals since there are over 100 heros

you would change something that would be super hard to actualy achive but it wouldnt actualy have much of a difference for players that dont want to dedicate the time to learning the game anyway

On March 13 2012 03:18 Warri wrote:

So many people watch lol because it is easy accessible. Iirc streams to major tournaments are linked directly in the launcher/client?
The recent iem finals had about 33k peak viewers for the sc2 finals, but 210k for the lol finals, yet LoL pricepool was barely more, but had to be shared between 5 people. So just having a bigger playerbase/more viewers doesnt mean its good for the competitive scene.

On March 13 2012 03:51 PHILtheTANK wrote:


Can you imagine if they changed the attack animations and made it so that there was no turning speed. Nobody would ever play a melee hero again. There's a reason why in LoL they have to give all of the melee heroes ridiculous gap closers.

On March 13 2012 03:52 Two_DoWn wrote:

What? You're telling me that you DONT want to have 210k people watching something? That 33k peak is better just because the prize money was higher?

I dont want to get into a which scene is better argument, just cuz its pointless. But sufice it to say, if SC2 tourney organizers could reverse those numbers, they would. In a heartbeat. The viewers are how tournaments are going to sell the product to advertisers going forward, or where companies like MLG are going to try to draw subscriptions from.

I hate to break it to you, but the viewer counts DO matter. Its why I laugh every time someone says that Dota doesnt need to be more accessable. Why would you WILLINGLY throw away an audience? 210K people are watching a moba. Why wouldnt you try to attract that veiwership to YOUR moba?

Dota 2 and LoL can both survive at the same time. The games are sufficiently different. But you need to ATTRACT casual fans, not try to scare them away. A competitive game cannot survive without them. Yet for some reason the vast majority of the Dota community either disparages casuals, or worse, tries to chase them away.

On March 13 2012 04:17 dragonborn wrote:
CLG vs Infused

http://www.joindota.com/en/livestreams/596-starladder

Pajkatt time!

On March 13 2012 04:09 Numy wrote:
I don't really see how people think removing attack animations = more people playing game. Seems a rather gross oversimplification.

On March 13 2012 04:03 Warri wrote:

Im telling you, that as a pro player, you dont care if its 210k or 30k watching, if the price money stays the same/even less and less tournaments all aroundm, why should you care? Do you think the guys playing lol wouldnt immediately switch to 30k viewers but 5x the price money like in sc2?
My point is you dont have to dumb down a game just for the sake of getting more viewers ... to have no impact on the competitive scene at all.

On March 13 2012 04:09 Numy wrote:
I don't really see how people think removing attack animations = more people playing game. Seems a rather gross oversimplification.

On March 13 2012 04:23 Two_DoWn wrote:"You dont have to dumb down a game." Who said anything about dumbing down a game? The whole point of making a game accessable is to make the game easy to pick up without changing, or minimally changing, the way expeirenced players play. Making a game that is hard just to say "oh this game is hard" does not make it a good game, or a competitive game. What makes a game competitive is that there are enough people willing to play and watch to see who is the best at that game. And the more people you bring into that experience, the better your competitive scene is. Hell, if there were 200K+ watching a tic-tac-toe tournament, that would be a competive scene.