DOTA2

[Chimpy]

Are these local or online?

This is all at the LAN, just not in front of the crowd. Main event starts Sunday.

[Chimpy]

Group stages just ended. Pretty wild results even if you have been following the game for the last month or so.


The Arteezy curse is still in effect, Secret only managed to win 1 game so they get put in the lower bracket with a Bo1 first round

If you want to watch the most action packed 90+ minute game ever, Na'Vi vs DC game 2 was definitely that.

And the last game of the group stages was pretty crazy (and also pretty short): Alliance vs Fnatic game 3 that one is worth a watch.

And the production values have been extremely good. Nothing like Shanghai at all.

Main event starts on Tuesday at 10am Manila time.

[Rasix]

Why is the map so damn bright now?

[Kail]

Why is the map so damn bright now?

They're showing off the new map terrain you get from buying the International Compendium thingy I believe.

[Fordel]

The production is legitimately top this event. I love all the little split screens and window in windows.

[Azuredream]

The split screen is nice, but that new battle view needs to just go away. I guess it's nice that they tried something new but it looks terrible.

[Chimpy]

Production value outside of the map being shit for being able to see anything has been top notch.

Also, Secret and EG both are going to have to go through the open qualifier gauntlet for TI6

Valve is probably kicking themselves for making the roster lock go through both Manila and TI.  

[K9]

An interesting stat I saw, this major set a record for the number of unique heroes picked. Apparently 95/111 were picked, and 98/111 were either picked or banned across 70 games.

Meanwhile in the most recent complete season of LoL only 72 unique heroes were picked in total, across 90 games. The current season has only seen 44 unique heroes picked.

[Azuredream]

I almost feel like that's by design. They purposely make a small amount of heroes they know are overtuned and that vastly shrinks the pool of what's viable.

[HaemishM]

LOL has a very narrow viable champion pool. I'm ok with that.

[Chimpy]

An interesting stat I saw, this major set a record for the number of unique heroes picked. Apparently 95/111 were picked, and 98/111 were either picked or banned across 70 games.

Meanwhile in the most recent complete season of LoL only 72 unique heroes were picked in total, across 90 games. The current season has only seen 44 unique heroes picked.

While that number is amazing, a lot of it was down to this patch. It was really balanced where no one hero was guaranteed first ban/pick.

And LoL "balances" their game by adding new OP characters to the game once a month and then nerfing them/buffing others so that there is only a handful that are viable. That way they make more money from people buying the new character/skins. The game also only has 6 total bans per game, all of which are pre-draft. The ban, ban, pick, pick, ban, ban, pick, pick, ban, pick method in DOTA2 leads to more situational counter-ban/drafting.

And onto more stuff on the wacky "Arteezy is cancer" thing, as I mentioned above, Universe left to go back to EG. Then Secret picked up Bulba. Now, EG booted Aui AGAIN to bring in Zai and are moving Fear back to the carry role for Open qualifiers for TI. It is funny, because I think had EG just told Fear to play carry and had Aui play support at Manila they probably would have done ok in Manila.

Veggie E-Sports might get to skip the Open qualifiers with a direct qualifier invite as the rest of NA did a bunch of roster shuffles since the Manila qualifiers lol.

[Margalis]

At any given time, for any given role, there are a few chars who are just better than the rest in LoL. Part of this is because abilities tend to fall in narrower ranges, so you can directly compare one character to another and find that one is almost strictly better.

There's also the issue that if players pick something off-meta and lose they get flamed to fuck, which means they tend to only practice / play the the champs conventional wisdom dictates.

[Rasix]

The reasons for LoL's character stagnation are numerous and probably not worth detailing in a DOTA2 thread, but I'm bored so I will anyhow.    Same 10 champs every game is a pretty often complaint of high level competitive LoL.  

1. Meta is more rigid. There is jungle, two solo lanes, and a dual lane (one ranged carry (very few exceptions) and a support). This rarely ever changes and it's only situational depending on current rotations or champion viability.  
2. Pick/ban phase as mentioned.
3. Champion reworks take a long time for Riot and there are a lot of champs that are not viable in high level LoL as currently designed.
4. New seasons usually mean a jungle or item rework and that tends to completely shift the meta making more champs in dire need of reworks.  
5. New champs used to shift meta a lot more easily, but champion releases are down to a few a year. However, most seem to push the mobility creep farther forward. This invalidates a lot of older champs.
6. Tightly structured leagues control the invites to the two major yearly tournaments.  Everyone's goal is making it to worlds and the high pressure of these leagues stifles some strategic innovating.  This is mostly an opinion, but like Margalis said, going off meta has some serious repercussions.
7. Everyone scales. There's no glyph. There's no dust. There's more vision. Kills mean more. The game snowballs faster and it's harder to stall.  
8. Korea is so dominant that they usually push the meta. This kind of flipped on its head at the MSI where the rest of the world had to adjust to the NA support style.  
9. Anything gets too OP and Riot nerfs the shit out of it fast.

As an aside, I really hope they don't use that map skin again for DOTA2.  God it looks awful. I wasn't able to catch much of Manilla due to the time.

edit:
10. LoL's code is apparently completely shitty. This hinders change at a more rapid pace as they are always fighting the spaghetti.

[Margalis]

Agree on that map skin. Was too bright, looked awful to me, and I sometimes had trouble telling where on the map the camera was exactly.

[HaemishM]

LOL stopped releasing new champs every month at least 1 1/2 years ago or more. Their last release, Taliyah, is not powerful at all, and has already had a few patched buffs to try to get her to be useful in normal people's hands. I've actually been surprised how much off-meta stuff I'm seeing in even ranked play since I came back. You'll still have the top/jungle/mid/ranged carry/support most of the time, but the variety of characters in some of those roles has actually increased and support especially has had a lot of variations I never saw in s3 and early s4. One of the streamers I watch regularly said they stop balancing and just decided to make everybody overpowered as fuck and it's produced a kind of crazy balance. But yes, the pro play meta is pretty rigid and I expect it to be based on how much money is out there. Competition for prize money tends to breed cloning not innovation.

Korea tends to dominate the meta because they understand that farming, leveling and scaling mean a fuckload more than pointless early game fighting and kills.

[Chimpy]

Agree on that map skin. Was too bright, looked awful to me, and I sometimes had trouble telling where on the map the camera was exactly.

I had to look over at the minimap to see where each color was half the time. Not to mention the shitty mishmash of real trees/fountains/cubist trees was annoying.

[Chimpy]

TI6 invites are done.

http://www.dota2.com/international/announcement

Valve learned from their "let's invite more teams" mistake from Manila and only invited 6. Though I am sure part of the reason was they wanted to make sure EG and Secret have more chances to get there with the open qualifier runs they will have to do. 

[Trippy]

How did Na'Vi get an invite?

[Chimpy]

How did Na'Vi get an invite?

Top 8 at Manila, lost to OG in the grand finals of the two most recent LANs outside of Manila (Dreamleague and ESL ONE Frankfurt).

As much as people give them shit, they deserved the invite as much as LGD.

[Trippy]

Okay, I guess that makes sense. The Wikis were lacking their recent tournament history which is why I asked. It does seem like, though, that Valve strongly favored the recent results rather than considering the entire season's history when granting invites. Obvously if you allow late season roster changes you'll tend to do that but it does make things like winning an early season Major mostly meaningless in terms of getting an Invitational invite.

Edit: it

[Chimpy]

Okay, I guess that makes sense. The Wikis were lacking their recent tournament history which is why I asked. I does seem like, though, that Valve strongly favored the recent results rather than considering the entire season's history when granting invites. Obvously if you allow late season roster changes you'll tend to do that but it does make things like winning an early season Major mostly meaningless in terms of getting an Invitational invite.

Well, the only teams that have won events since Shanghai that didn't get direct invites that have won a premier level LAN since Shanghai were Wings and ViciReborn. Wings looked terrible at Manila and while ViciReborn got top 8 at Manila they didn't look all that great and the tournament they won they did with their coach as a standin.

But the Valve TI invite process needs to change. Hopefully next year it will be Major winners + TI champ only (roster lock issues not with standing) then qualifiers for everyone else.

[Chimpy]

TI main qualifiers started today.

They have gone with a "play everyone once" round robin group stage where the winner goes straight to TI and then the 2-5 placed teams go to a double elimination bracket where the winner goes direct, second goes to the wildcard.

I think this format is going to prove to be much better than the GSL groups we have been seeing at recent tournaments.

[K9]

That sounds pretty sensible

[Chimpy]

So one ridiculous thing about the round robin was that they ignored initial head to head and made tied teams play each other in another round robin.

That forced TNC to play (and win) 2 games against teams they had already beaten. It also allowed Secret to end up winning the group even though one of the two other 6 win teams had beaten both. And it let EG win by beating the team that had already beaten them.

[Chimpy]

TI Wildcard is going on now, group stages start tomorrow.

Looks like the winners will take home over $8million.

Should be some good DOTA the next couple weeks, we shall see if an Eastern team takes it and continues the east/west flip flop.

[K9]

OG vs LGD Game 1 getting the tournament off to an exciting start 

[Chimpy]

Group stages have been amazing so far.

Not even to the main event yet and 96 heroes have been picked (1 more than was picked at Manila the entire tournament which was the previous record.)

[Megrim]

... and in a shocking twist that surprises no-one, a team with ee and rtz shits the bed.

[Chimpy]

... and in a shocking twist that surprises no-one, a team with ee and rtz shits the bed.

As someone who has been rooting for DC I am torn. While I am happy that the Arteezy curse is still in full effect, LGD is going to be a harder matchup.

Aside, with one game left on the first day of the main event there are only 7 heroes in the game that have not been picked 

[Megrim]

I have to admit, I squealed a little when Pudge + Techies got picked.

[Chimpy]

I have to admit, I squealed a little when Pudge + Techies got picked.

Shit, even Misery cracked a smile when those two were picked.

[Trippy]

DOTA 2 forums hacked:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/08/10/change-your-pa55word-dota-2-forums-hacked

[Azuredream]

Holy fucking shit.

[Chimpy]

Holy fucking shit.

There have been a lot of moments that make that statement come out this tournament. Though that one was definitely the biggest.

[Chimpy]

This tournament has been downright amazing.

If you have not had a chance to watch any so far, the two matches tomorrow should definitely deliver.