DOTA2

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Oh but also LoL's shop UI is like 800% better. Though probably at least 500% of that is me being used to it, I still can't believe DOTA still has recipes and shit. Hidebound, much.

[schild]

I refuse to play it simply because of Denial. Period.

[tazelbain]

I am done with MOBA and the playerbase is vile.

[Rasix]

I just don't want to learn another MOBA and this just sounds a lot more complex than I want.  And denial.. I just don't want to deal with this mechanic. Additionally, I have money invested into LoL (not a lot, but still). 

I can deal with the communities.  Lake of Ill Omen to WoW gen chat has turned bad mannered children into mere background noise most of the time.  But there are days when you wonder why you put up with some kid going apeshit on you because you didn't help top that one time and it totally cost him the game.  Then again, I was pretty high-strung and vile at times as a teenager, so it's easy to put into perspective. 

I'm getting old. 

[Lounge]

Legitimate non trolling question here:
Whats the LOL alternative to denial for lane control purposes?
Like how do you manipulate the point where the creeps crash to push the lane or to pull it back to your tower?  I played maybe 50 or so games of League and I never figured out a way to control the lane to farm safely.

[pxib]

If you want the lane to move forward, kill creeps faster. If you want the lane to move backward, only poke for last hits. If you want to deny the enemy last hits, make them pay for those hits by poking them every time they come within range.

There's no real way to force the enemy to let you fight under your own tower other than not attacking their creeps at all losing the money war. So typically, both sides fight to keep the creeps in the middle until they have the power to make a sustained attack.

[Rasix]

Here's my noobler advice.  Take with massive dose of skepticism, since this is probably one of the least polished parts of my game.

Well, if you want to creeps to push toward your tower, just last hit.  If they opt to do this as well, you're going to have somewhat of a stalemate unless someone is zoned out of last hitting altogether.

Want the opponents creeps to stop a certain point? Tank them until your creeps get there.

Want to push your lane?  Autoattack a lot.  Clear waves with abilities.  Viola.  Some champs like Morde/Morgana/Rumble will naturally push their lane with how they farm creeps.  I tend to push too much in top lane lately and thus tend to get ganked A LOT.  I need to work on this (more intelligent warding and minimap awareness might help here  ).  However, it's nice to push your wave to the turret so they lose CS and are unable to base.

[Rokal]

Mechanics aside, the pace of DOTA 2 just isn't especially fun. The early-game is all about getting as much gold as possible and playing conservatively. You won't have a lot of mana to use abilities early on, so champions just use regular attacks to last-hit or deny. Using your abilities to try and harass will quickly cause you to be out of mana and unable to actually assist if a gank is attempted. The first half of the game is about managing your lane, not managing your opponents.

Since the early-game is drawn out quite a bit more, the entire game takes longer. The average LoL match on SR takes 20-40 minutes. The average DOTA2 match seemed to take about twice as long.

I really can't see DOTA2 catching on in the way that LoL has in the West.

[Thrawn]

I refuse to play it simply because of Denial. Period.

Denial is what keeps me from fully jumping into it.  I'm finding I think I prefer DotA as a whole, but I hate everything about the deny mechanic so much.

[Hoax]

I really can't see DOTA2 catching on in the way that LoL has in the West.

There is almost no chance. Riot would have to really keep fucking up and find some new ways to fuck up and the Dota2 esports scene would have to gain some really high profile exposure and even than I find it really hard to imagine the game almost makes a point of being incredibly unfriendly for your first 20-200 games and a lot of the time its hard to figure out if there is a good reason for it.

Denial is an essential mechanic that adds a lot of strategy and skill to the early game / lane phase.

My current gripe is that when you go to place a ward nothing tells you the range of placing the ward. Sure in X games I'll just know the range and I'll know all the ward spots but given that nothing is gained by making it really fucking hard for newbies to ward. There just isn't a good reason to provide such horrible feedback about how and where to place them.

[Bann]

I saw a party invite from you guys when I got out of a game last night, and peeked in on your game for a moment. You were both wrecking face mid.

Got any champ recommendations? I'm basically just picking whatever seemed completely OP in my previous game. As such, I've played a few as sniper, a few as skeleton king, and I was trying out... shoot. I forget his name. He's kind of like warwick, but he carries double arm blades? He was one my side one game and absolutely melted the other team. I was not able to make him do that yet.

[Thrawn]

I saw a party invite from you guys when I got out of a game last night, and peeked in on your game for a moment. You were both wrecking face mid.

It was my first game not vs. bots, the people we played against were worse than the bots.    Hoax was cleaning house with upgraded Lich ult (very easy character to play) and I was having a great time with Tidehunter ult and Blink Dagger (another easy character to play imo).  I'm just getting to the point where I feel I get the basic mechanics enough that I need to start playing against people before I get too many bad habits from bot games.

[Megrim]

I saw a party invite from you guys when I got out of a game last night, and peeked in on your game for a moment. You were both wrecking face mid.

Got any champ recommendations? I'm basically just picking whatever seemed completely OP in my previous game. As such, I've played a few as sniper, a few as skeleton king, and I was trying out... shoot. I forget his name. He's kind of like warwick, but he carries double arm blades? He was one my side one game and absolutely melted the other team. I was not able to make him do that yet.

Bloodseeker.

[Hoax]

It appears that around the 10-20 win mark you reach a point where nobody knows enough or is coordinated enough to stop carries with great kits like AM, Void, Riki, BH etc from going 20/5 and the entire game devolves into who has the better player on the better hero. This is pretty much how I remember wc3 dota feeling too.

Meanwhile every game of the last 10 or so the team without the guy on the S/A Tier carry has some chucklefuck on fucking Ursa or Juggs or something similarly weak.

PSA for fellow mega noobs: Don't fucking play Ursa unless you are 100% going to gimmick it out and solo Rosh 4 times in the game and jungle while supporting a strong solo laner top or bot. Don't play Juggernaut at all. He's a weak melee carry that is bad in lane doesn't kill combo very well and is ideal for highly coordinated pushing teams that will take advantage of his healing ward. You aren't that good and aren't that smart. There are 5-10 other melee carries that carry harder easier with better all around kits.

[Sophismata]

Juggernaut is great, he delivers a lot of AoE magic damage and is deadly in lane with a stun or slow...? But if you don't push that early advantage, than yes, he's shit. It's all about the first blood, getting some good boots, and chasing people down time and time again for the kill.

[Hoax]

I believe you are wrong. I also find the claim he does lots of aoe magic damage to be highly amusing. Spin should never hit two people and his ult is pretty terrible in most full team fight situations. Compare Jugg's ult to that of AM or Void. Hell even Razor.

[Lounge]

Juggy is very strong earlygame.  He has probably the easiest first blood in the entire game.  The strategy with him is to crush the shit out of his lane with his "i win" buttons and build early momentum to carry through the endgame where he gets weaker.

[Megrim]

Well now, got my invite. Played a few bot games to get the feel for it. Zeus is still hilarious.

[Nonentity]

Current beta players got two invites. Check your Steam inventory.

[schild]

Note, you had to actually play the game. That is to say, you can't have gotten a beta, accepted it, found out there was no mode with Denying turned off, and then proceeded to not play it because clearly Valve wants to limit their audience instead of outright destroying LoL.

tl;dr: I'm in the beta, got no passes to give out.

[Typhon]

I hate denial and thus I lack objectivity on the subject.  /disclaimer

I don't understand how a F2P PvP game hopes to make money by ignoring advancements popular changes in the genre.  I know this has been said before, but I'm still truly baffled - why is Valve solely courting a player base that is currently playing a free game with no shop?  Said another way, why is Valve ignoring the business lessons learned from HoN?

I was actually hoping to see a mode that rewarded pushing from level 1 because LoL SR is feeling increasingly boring for the first 10 minutes (actually, I've stopped playing SR and just play Dominion now).

[Thrawn]

Current beta players got two invites. Check your Steam inventory.

Nope, I got two coupons for 50% off Assassin's Creed Revelations though.  

I was actually hoping to see a mode that rewarded pushing from level 1 because LoL SR is feeling increasingly boring for the first 10 minutes (actually, I've stopped playing SR and just play Dominion now).

This is exactly what got me to give DotA 2 a real chance where I previously didn't care.  I was just getting so bored of "AP Mid, Sustain Bruiser Top, Jungle, AD/Support Bot, farm for 20 minutes." EVERY. SINGLE. GAME.  That and I never cared for Dominion.  The only thing I still really enjoyed was the occasional good game of ARAM.

Now that I've put some time into DotA I barely even notice denial anymore.  That really surprises me because I use to be strongly in the camp that said they'd never play DotA because denial is such a terrible mechanic.

[HaemishM]

If anyone has a beta invite to give out, I'm interested. Steam name HaemishM.

[Lounge]

Denial is an important part of lane control.  Get over the hate, its awesome.

[Rasix]

I just don't like it as a design decision and it's a big, big hurdle for me even giving DOTA2 a legitimate shot. Like it or not, the bored LoL player is a huge opportunity for them and this mechanic is going to turn a lot of people off.

Plus, I'm not even sure we should have that much lane control.  Do your AE abilities hit your creeps as well?

[Lounge]

Deny uses the same exact motor skills as last hitting a creep.  Where is the hurdle?

You cannot aoe deny a creep no.  There are a few skills in the game that as a side effect deny (Enigma's conversions, or Lich's sacrafice for instance).  These would be comparable to Gangplank's old Raise Moral skill back when it used to kill (deny) an allied creep.

[Teleku]

Denial isn't fun, and it makes the game not enjoyable for the majority of people.  That's the reason for all the hate.

Unless I see lots very glowing reviews from everybody here, not going to even try it.  LoL is still very fun for me.

[Thrawn]

LoL is still very fun for me.

I would say that chances are good if someone really enjoys LoL and really likes most things about it, they will hate DotA.

I think I prefer DotA now but I was also getting very annoyed and fed up with many things about League.  (I say think because I'm comparing <20 DotA games to probably close to 2,000 LoL games.)

My two cents would be that if you are looking for a fun casual game to you play League, if you enjoy taking it more seriously and trying to win you play DotA.

[Flinky]

For your average bored LoL player, denial is a non-factor in a standard public game. You'll be looking at around 15-20 creep denials spread across both teams in total for a match.

In my book, the thing that willl cause LoL players to quit in frustration fastest is gold loss on death.

[Thrawn]

In my book, the thing that willl cause LoL players to quit in frustration fastest is gold loss on death.

I disagree, I hardly noticed gold loss in most cases.  For me thing worst thing upon switching was how easily you died.  So often you League you screw up and it just doesn't matter.  Someone pokes you for some damage, you eat a few skills, you flash away, whatever.  In DotA you eat a skill, you are stunned for 5 seconds and you are dead before you can move because the second person in lane also stuns you.  It's a really jarring change to go from being able to take harass and stay in lane to drying horribly in a lane any time you get out of position.

[Teleku]

Oh god, I had forgotten about the gold loss thing.  And 5 second stuns?

This game is as Vanguard is to WoW.  If it pulls away the crazy hardcore raiding cat-asses from LoL, it can only help make LoL better.

I think I prefer DotA now but I was also getting very annoyed and fed up with many things about League.  (I say think because I'm comparing <20 DotA games to probably close to 2,000 LoL games.)

Out of curiosity, what was annoying with in LoL?  Could also just be burn out.  The amount of games you've played is crazy.  I think I'm at 275 wins, and I've been playing it off and on since Beta (obviously with many months breaks scattered around.  I'm over 50% on win ratio).

[Flinky]

In my book, the thing that willl cause LoL players to quit in frustration fastest is gold loss on death.

 So often you League you screw up and it just doesn't matter.

That's pretty much my point. You couple the ramp-up in harass with the realisation that they'll never be able to afford anything to stop it and you have a player that will not be trying again anytime soon.

[Thrawn]

That's pretty much my point. You couple the ramp-up in harass with the realisation that they'll never be able to afford anything to stop it and you have a player that will not be trying again anytime soon.

True, I guess we were just making the same point from different angles.  

Out of curiosity, what was annoying with in LoL?  Could also just be burn out.  The amount of games you've played is crazy.  

I've played pretty solid since beta (obviously).

I'm sick of how Riot handles balance, every patch they make huge often un-needed changes.  Instead of tweaking one skill on a champ that is suddenly doing good, they just sweep in and do a remake and nerf the champ into being useless.  I got tired of after two years we still have no good replay or spectator system, in general PvP.net is a joke considering how big and successful the game is. (Replays and spectating in DotA 2 is a fantastic system).  I'm sick of how often new champs come out regardless of if it's balanced or ready or not.  It seems that the trend is becoming to release a really good champ, let them sell for a week or two and then nerf them in line with the rest of the champions.  As stated before I really, really got sick of playing the exact same SR game every single game.  If anyone starts to play something that breaks that mold or pushes stuff in a different direction Riot has just been taking that as a cue to nerf that champion because obviously they are broken then.

I could see possibly coming back to LoL, I don't think it's a bad game by any means.  But for now I'm just no interested in it and probably wouldn't be playing even if I didn't transition to DotA.

[Lounge]

In my book, the thing that willl cause LoL players to quit in frustration fastest is gold loss on death.

This is a MUCH bigger issue than denial.  There has been some work to mitigate it to an extent.  Somewhere along the way they split the gold out into two categories.  Gold from hero kills/assists, and gold from everything else.  You no longer lose gold from hero kills which helps a bit.

[HaemishM]

I want to try this, but the thought of gold loss on death means I'd probably be penniless and hated by all my teammates.