On August 15 2013 13:14 Stratos_speAr wrote: Again, pretty much the only lore you can get either A) in-game or B) from the official website for the game is the vague hero backstories. There is very information on the world, why we are fighting, anything like that. Voice interactions only do so much, and they definitely do not fill in half as much fluff as what is openly present in the LoL game client/official website. LoL presents maps of the world, why we are fighting, various conflicts/factions/etc., much more detailed backstories for every champion, what each unique map is about, and so on. Sure, there might be a lot of lore out there for DotA, but it is dispersed between several available mediums and you truly have to search for it, as opposed to it being readily available like most games.
Really, all I am seeing here is butthurt DotA fans that can't take criticism to save their damn lives. This is like one of a grand total of TWO things that LoL does better than DotA (the other being clearer spell tooltips), and even then you DotA fanboys can't let it live. It's kind of pathetic. It won't kill you to admit that DotA was designed with competitive multiplayer in mind and lore as a convenient side attraction, whereas lore took a relatively (for MOBA's) prevalent role in LoL's design.
Bolded is still fucking and extremely wrong. But hey, keep on ignoring what i asked you and then claiming that it's dota fans that can't take criticism. And LoL lore isn't more readily available at all, when i play both games with the mindset of that i am just here to play the game i am not presented with more lore in one compared to the other.
Edit: I'm also not going to continue this argument, it's pointless to discuss something with someone that ignores questions and statements made by others.
On August 14 2013 14:16 Fumanchu wrote: I just reached lvl 30 in LoL on Saturday (wahoo!), and my two biggest complaints are the lack of heroes available and the lack of disables available. I really hate saving up 6300 IP to purchase a new hero that may or may not cater to my playing style. And watching videos, imo, doesn't seem to really help.
But a big thing for me is the lack of disables. There are few heroes who have stuns, and I think only one (lulu?) who has a short transformation disable. There are a wack ton of slows, it seems like everyone has a slow of some sort. I just hate that end game if you've chosen an int based hero, not a thing I know but I'm trying to put in terms for dota ppl, end game you have no chance against an attack damage carry. There's nothing you can purchase that can disable them. There's no item that renders you invisible, or gives you a blink, or allows you to stun/sheep/cyclone/force staff the enemy hero. I can't stand it.
However, I have some friends who hate Dota, and love LoL for exactly the same reason.
Overall I prefer Dota 2. There's more skill involved IMO.
??? LoL has a ridiculous amount of disables. People regularly complain about the fact that almost every new champion that comes out has some kind of hard CC and that you can make entire team comps that just stun you until death.
Oh, and that's another nice thing about LoL: continuing new content. Unfortunately, it also causes some really weird balance problems.
And on the personality/fluff side, yea, DotA's voice actors/voice interactions are pretty awesome, but DotA's character backgrounds are incredibly vague and offer no actual depth. LoL has a very active world that is pretty well-presented to players, and each character has a much more interesting and telling backstory. Fluff is NOT DotA's strong point. Just do a comparison of almost any champion from DotA to almost any hero from LoL and it's pretty obvious. As far as I can tell, DotA doesn't even have a cohesive and thorough world that is explained like LoL does, not to mention a comparison of individual backgrounds.
Sorry I wasn't putting it into correct words. What I meant was, that if you don't choose a hero with a disable then you're boned, because there is no purchasable disable.
Oh one more thing I'm not a fan of, is that a lot of the spells can be seen by the enemy, thus giving them a chance to dodge the attack. And a lot of the time it seems unnecessary. For instance with Caitlyn's ult, it's fine to put a marker above the intended target's head, but do we really need a line also, so that any brain dead moron can decipher its trajectory?
Although despite this, I still play the game every so often, and will continue to do so with my friends who enjoy it.
Yea, that's one of the things a lot of people complain about now; so many champions are being rendered obsolete by not having any hard CC.
I dont get that at all. What exactly do you want? 10 page essays on each hero in their description? What do you mean not presented? You can read the lore in the ingame client by going to the Library tab, or on http://www.dota2.com/heroes/ . It's just a very small portion that is actually written down in the heroes description, the rest is done through voice acting and you only find out if you actually play the game, or if you go to the site i linked and play all the responses. Also, each ability has a short lore text that describes how the hero obtained the ability, where the hero came from etc. How exactly is this not "presented at all when you play the game"? It is exactly that. Most responses may not be that "deep" but if you watch the video i linked, there is a lot of subtle stuff that you can find out.
The bolded is extremely wrong. And the lore is easily available, but hey i guess if you're not looking for it it can be hard to find, then again when i'm just playing LoL occasionally because friends asks me to i am also not shown any lore seeing that i'm not looking for it. When just playing the game i run into zero lore in LoL while in dota i hear plenty of lore from hero interaction.
I mean have you even read the comic or the achronicus? Easily available for anyone looking for lore. There is definitely a lot of good and deep lore in DotA and DotA most definitely has great fluff.
Heck valve created a unique language for their demons.
Again, pretty much the only lore you can get either A) in-game or B) from the official website for the game is the vague hero backstories. There is very information on the world, why we are fighting, anything like that. Voice interactions only do so much, and they definitely do not fill in half as much fluff as what is openly present in the LoL game client/official website. LoL presents maps of the world, why we are fighting, various conflicts/factions/etc., much more detailed backstories for every champion, what each unique map is about, and so on. Sure, there might be a lot of lore out there for DotA, but it is dispersed between several available mediums and you truly have to search for it, as opposed to it being readily available like most games.
Really, all I am seeing here is butthurt DotA fans that can't take criticism to save their damn lives. This is like one of a grand total of TWO things that LoL does better than DotA (the other being clearer spell tooltips), and even then you DotA fanboys can't let it live. It's kind of pathetic. It won't kill you to admit that DotA was designed with competitive multiplayer in mind and lore as a convenient side attraction, whereas lore took a relatively (for MOBA's) prevalent role in LoL's design.
But i just posted the video describing WHY radiant and dire are fighting each other two posts ago? Just watch it jeez.
Yes, its not all written down in one text so you can read that, instead its spread over several hero bios and responses. That is not a downside, its just personal preference how you want the lore presented.
On August 16 2013 06:56 Warri wrote: But i just posted the video describing WHY radiant and dire are fighting each other two posts ago? Just watch it jeez. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT1dKTqXrPw Yes, its not all written down in one text so you can read that, instead its spread over several hero bios and responses. That is not a downside, its just personal preference how you want the lore presented.
It is written down in one text though, in the Archronicus which is an ingame item containing all this knowledge and more which is something you can read INGAME. It's a book anyone can access. The comic also somewhat elaborates a bit on it, although it mostly contains information about the shopkeeper and roshan.
On August 16 2013 06:56 Warri wrote: But i just posted the video describing WHY radiant and dire are fighting each other two posts ago? Just watch it jeez. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT1dKTqXrPw Yes, its not all written down in one text so you can read that, instead its spread over several hero bios and responses. That is not a downside, its just personal preference how you want the lore presented.
It is written down in one text though, in the Archronicus which is an ingame item containing all this knowledge and more which is something you can read INGAME. It's a book anyone can access. The comic also somewhat elaborates a bit on it, although it mostly contains information about the shopkeeper and roshan.
Didnt you have to play the tutorial missions to unlock the pages for that though? Where do you find that thing ingame? Edit: yeah you have to unlock it first and its only been added a short while ago. anyway you can read some of the lore here: http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Archronicus
On August 15 2013 13:14 Stratos_speAr wrote: Again, pretty much the only lore you can get either A) in-game or B) from the official website for the game is the vague hero backstories. There is very information on the world, why we are fighting, anything like that. Voice interactions only do so much, and they definitely do not fill in half as much fluff as what is openly present in the LoL game client/official website. LoL presents maps of the world, why we are fighting, various conflicts/factions/etc., much more detailed backstories for every champion, what each unique map is about, and so on. Sure, there might be a lot of lore out there for DotA, but it is dispersed between several available mediums and you truly have to search for it, as opposed to it being readily available like most games.
Really, all I am seeing here is butthurt DotA fans that can't take criticism to save their damn lives. This is like one of a grand total of TWO things that LoL does better than DotA (the other being clearer spell tooltips), and even then you DotA fanboys can't let it live. It's kind of pathetic. It won't kill you to admit that DotA was designed with competitive multiplayer in mind and lore as a convenient side attraction, whereas lore took a relatively (for MOBA's) prevalent role in LoL's design.
You sound mad.
You also happen to be wrong, which makes it even funnier.
Also, "clearer spell tooltips"...wat? You can't even tell what subsequent ranks of a spell do in LoL unless you've just leveled up and haven't placed a point. Most of the time when I was learning LoL I would alt-tab to find out what spells did what several times during a game. I would do the same for my opponent's champion after dying or after suffering a severe asskicking, because the death recap would not be enough generally and you can't tell (or it's hard to tell) what spells the guy has by clicking on him.
In DotA if you can see a hero you can see his/her spells. You can even see what invoker currently has invoked, for example. When I started playing DotA2 this made it so much easier to learn things because I had to alt-tab a lot less.
In almost every objective category DotA2 handily trumps LoL. It's only really in gameplay or game design choices in which you can find differences worthy of a preference toward LoL, as the client is probably the single worst piece of software I have ever used in my life, and that type of subjective preference is completely subjective and strongly dependent on the amount of time you have invested in the game.
e: this is pretty apparent when (on reddit in particular) you see people defending Riot's business strategy of making the player spend time/money to obtain all the champions in the game. "It's better than having everything for free because you actually have something to work for!" People have invested so much time and energy into LoL that they've convinced themselves that an objective con for LoL is actually somehow a pro.
About this argument over flavor, the source of conflict seems to be the idea that, when it comes to lore, less is always less and more is always more, but I don't think that's the case. Giving a game world an air of mystery, like in Dark Souls, can be just as if not more immersive than drowning the player in minutia like in Mass Effect. Stratos_speAr calls the hero backstories vague, and in a lot of cases they are. Here's Tiny's.
Coming to life as a chunk of stone, Tiny's origins are a mystery on which he continually speculates. He is a Stone Giant now, but what did he use to be? A splinter broken from a Golem's heel? A shard swept from a gargoyle-sculptor's workshop? A fragment of the Oracular Visage of Garthos? A deep curiosity drives him, and he travels the world tirelessly seeking his origins, his parentage, his people. As he roams, he gathers weight and size; the forces that weather lesser rocks, instead cause Tiny to grow and ever grow.
But to me that's highly flavorful, and not a word too short.
Lore delivered in walls of text doesn't really matter. That just doesn't work in games of any genre anymore.
The only thing that matters is what you can convey to the players during the actual gameplay, and what you can tie-in with the actual mechanics.
In both games discussed here, it mostly comes down to the in-game voice lines. IMO Dota has done better when it comes to voice acting. The humour and a generally light-hearted tone in the writing works really well too. The game just oozes character without taking itself too seriously.