I have played League of Legends and Dota 2 quite a bit now and I have to ask, why do certain parts of this game exist? Why is this accepted as the number 1 competitive genre in video gaming? Why are they so popular. And I don't mean this in a "Lol they're so casual only true patricians like me can understand," way, but I have to ask why this specific genre is leading the way for eSports and competitive gaming in general?
Like take any other fucking competitive video game. Fighting games, Quake & UT, Starcraft. The amount of snowballing and completely unrelated tasks that are required in an 5v5 game like this are astounding.
Imagine, if in a fighting game, before you got all your abilities, you had to hit targets on the screen, and if you got enough, you would be able to unlock all of your moves. Imagine if by doing this you could effectively deny your opponent from playing the game later on. Wouldn't that be stupid? Wouldn't that be just fucking braindead?
Another thing that doesn't make sense is the snowballing. Why is the snowballing so intense? I think Starcraft is the only game with this level of Snowballing. The only comparison I can is basically to say that playing these 5v5 games like Dota 2 or League is essentially like playing Soccer, but everytime you block enough shots, you get to remove a player from the other team. Every time you score a goal, your consecutive goals count for double.
The point of playing video games is for fun dude..
League of legends is fun.
Another thing is that this game doesn't seem to have any sense of balance that makes things tense or exciting. At the beginning, nobody can do any damage. The only way to kill someone is have them caught out of their very strict positioning. In the end-game, all damage dealers effectively become nukes trying to kill the opposing team's nukes, and ignoring tanks entirely. There is a mid game where players do moderate amounts of damage but not too much, but that time is generally short and usually punctuated not by fighting the enemy, but by capturing various objectives on the map.
Also the items seem very linear. "He built this, so I will build this." Why not diversify the character's inherent options rather than tie them to universal mechanics? It all seems very complicated for no reason.
Granted, there have been games that have done away with the fluff like Bloodline Champions and try to bring the game to a more action-oriented arena type battle but I rarely see anyone take up on these games.
None of it makes any sense to me.
Please someone explain to me why these games are considered competitive.
dota and its ilk offers almost infinite unique scenarios and matchups, dota is centred around good decision making and working as a team. Quake and other shooters have much less on this end because mechanical skills is much more important and said skill ceiling is practically infinite.
Dota offers the same experience, more or less but individual mechanical skill is way less important. It makes players feel good about pulling off a kill or objective because doing so is almost impossible unless you catch the opponent off guard.
>>319625339
>dota and its ilk offers almost infinite unique scenarios and matchups
I would argue that simply having the items doesn't change the game that much. Even with "infinite scenarios" certain ones are magnitudes more likely than others.
I will agree about mechanical skill though. Mechanics mean almost nothing in 5v5 games like this. However, I don't enjoy clicking to move, it makes me feel disconnected from my character, and since most abilities are used and aimed with the mouse, I find that clutters up control options versus simply using WASD or a control stick to move.
To why it is accepted as the number 1 competitive genre in video gaming, that might be due to how many people play LoL and how that game is pretty accessible for everyone to try to climb the ranking system. Also, once one knows the game, watching it competitively is amusing. Its not exciting, but its amusing. When League is at PAX Prime, I always made sure to go once because they got massive crowds and there was a fuckton of energy. It was kinda sad, but still impressive. For snowballing, its inherently dumb and ruins competition, but over a 20-60 minute game, it provides a slight uniqueness to the game because whomever is snowballing changes each game. League is definitely not the best game in the world, especially competitively, but when you don't actually think about the competitive side technically, and accept it as a more casual side pleaser, it makes sense. I might have a little bit of bias though from seeing the mlg live though, cause that shit is infectious.
is this a copypasta thread?
silly arguments are silly.
>>319624485
a competitive game that includes a sense of progression. where you win because you did good and lose because others did bad. extreme replayability and depth leads to people convincing themselves they like the game if they put a lot of hours into it
>>319625643
That makes a bit more sense to me.
I still think the laning phase is just plain dumb, but games like Heroes of the Storm that have tried to get rid of it are bad, but for other reasons, but because most people are braindead who can't analyze the world around them, they will just attribute it to "it's not exactly like Dota or League."
>>319626557
Most competitive games already exist due to one player doing good and others doing badly. Snowballing and comeback mechanics are what make it seem unfair.
>>319624485
>if you win the laning phase you win the game
Kek, you ever even watched professional dota 2 before? Some of the greatest games have been comebacks and tight games throughout
I keep seeing these same complaints about farming and snowballing. They exist because they exist. The game is balanced around them as an sub-objective. The main objective is ONLY to kill the other team's singular headquarters/nexus/ancient/whateverthefuck. Every other action you take is in service to this objective. The same goes for killing heroes. Your objective is not to kill heroes, it is to kill a stationary object, but the player combat is in service of killing that stationary object.
Now, as for why do they exist as mechanics? Why is anything a mechanic? Who the fuck cares? It's fun. Every game of DotA or Leeg is a mini RPG. You compete against the other team to level up and get equipment. You impede the other team from doing so and help your allies do it faster. This is part of the fun. You aren't passively standing around clicking on creeps unless you are playing with literal babies.
It sounds like you just don't want to play MOBAs. And that's fine. That's totally cool. You don't have to like everything. Quit fucking bitching though. "I don't like thing" is not an argument.
>>319626641
>Snowballing and comeback mechanics are what make it seem unfair.
so you want the game to be over in five minutes? play hots then.
>>319627275
Yes actually. Multiple short intense rounds have always been superior to long slogs.
>>319627391
That's the exact appeal of the games though.
The reason why they have long matches and snowballing is because they combine elements of character progression into an action/strategy hybrid. To win a game, you have to destroy the enemy's base, but in order to that you have to get to a point where you're strong enough to do it. Of course this is where strategy comes into play, like pushing early in order to finish the game quickly or protecting your carry in order to win the long game.
This is also the answer to your argument about snowballing. The games snowball because the rewards you get from outplaying your enemy are that you advance your character faster than them. And to reverse the snowball and beat people with stronger characters is difficult, but not impossible and very satisfying.
>>319627951
Fucking exactly. Complaining about snowballing is like complaining that you don't always have 16 pieces in chess. The whole fucking point is to weaken the other side relative to your side so that you're eventually able to take the real objective. When you start moving elements of the game you start removing variables that make the game so unpredictable and exciting. This is why HotS is a joke of a game, and even it has SOME amount of snowballing.
>>319627951
I don't see why the game shouldn't force you to outplay your opponent at every stage of the game instead of just early on.
>>319628538
I'm guessing you've never run into a scenario where 50 minutes in you pull a clutch move and wipe the enemy team, push through their line of defense and break the ancient? It sounds like you haven't.
>>319628538
>I don't see why you shouldn't always have all of your pieces in chess
Do you have brain damage? Just to be clear, your assertion that only the early game matters is a strawman, and not even a good one. The most cursory of experience in the genre disproves it.
Fuck it, if it's b8, i'll bite
1. It's free. This is by far the most important part. You want to get into Street Fighter? Shell out a couple hundred bucks for a console. Buy the PC version? Spend 100 bucks on an arcade stick. If the price barrier is too high, the playerbase is way smaller.
2. There is a sense of progression. Getting good at FPS, RTS, or Fighting Games is hard to feel. Twitch reactions is something you only develop over thousands of games. RTS requires specific scenarios where you can see if you reacted correctly and things like micro also only develop after many games. Moba games instantly reward you for being better. Hitting skill shots is satisfying. Being able to get every last hit while laning is a definitive measure of how much better you're getting.
3. Player-Character relationships. Personally, I think this is a pretty huge deal. When you play a fighting game, the first thing your buddy asks is who is your main/who do you play. When you identify with a character, you are likely to spend more time playing the game to get better with that character. It's the reason why class-based systems are so popular nowadays. DotA/League have a character for basically everyone.
4. Underdogs can win. This is pretty self-explanatory. The games naturally lend themselves to crazy comeback moments.
5. It hits the "hour-or-so" mark for spectator events. Sporting events that are shorter than an hour usually aren't as hyped up because then you only start caring about the result than the match itself. MMA is notorious with these kinda matches where someone gets knocked out in minutes. Anything longer and obviously it becomes a bore.
6. It's a team game. I feel like only /v/ thinks this is a bad thing. A team game means that a large priority is getting your friends to play and that is just a natural boost to the playerbase overall.
All of these things and more mix into a perfect storm of competitiveness and wide appeal.
>>319628538
Well first of all these things vary depending on team composition and stuff like that. Doing really well early on doesn't necessarily equal a win if your team can't play the late game.
Also, as the game gets longer, the more volatile it gets because of death timers. So even if you're getting fucked, if their carry isn't absolutely unkillable then managing to win a teamfight can set them back a lot more than getting kills early on.
>>319625181
they are played in competitions
>>319628978
One of the few posts I completely agree with on this website. Also the game has a high skill cap for people to keep reaching.
>>319628978
>PC port? Spend 100 bucks on an arcade stick.
>>319624485
dota and moba emerged directly from warcraft 3 where you fight trash mobs to get gold and exp just like in these games.
the reason for that is to turn macroing in traditional RTS like starcraft into fun skirmishes with opportunity to multi task, harass and make the game progression more diversified and interactive.
obviously it's not fun in an RTS to start with unlimited resource because the economy war is the core of the game.
same logic applies in moba, you just don't have to control the units. you still eco and fight for resources. there's plenty of skill in that and in moba the team play element is really emphasized, thus it's really fun as a spectator game once you know a bit of how it works.
Its been a year and a half since i last played Dota 2. Im about to play my first game since then. How has it changed in this time?
>>319638463
There will be a patch in a week or so, it's changed kind of a lot since then too
People have been playing Dota for like 10 years. It is not like it got popular from nowhere. It just built up a community and on it went. Not rocket science
>>319628371
Good chess doesn't snowball
