DOTA2

[Kail]

1) Shopping is convoluted for the sake of being convoluted. I can't imagine it being fun for anyone.

I dunno, there are some features I'm liking.  The idea of having a stash, being able to buy stuff while away from base, and the courier mechanics all seem neat.  The ability to right click to buy is nice, I wish LoL had that.  I'm not entirely sure what the point of the secret shop is, though (gameplay wise, I mean, why make the player trek out there to buy things).

Browsing it is kind of a pain, though.  Like 99% of the stuff I buy is from the recommended items list.

[jakonovski]

I used to dream of a system where you could build your own recommended set for each character. Then I lost hope of it ever being implemented anywhere.

[ezrast]

http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/guide/custom-recommended-items-63

[jakonovski]

http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/guide/custom-recommended-items-63

Whoah.

Thanks!

[Fordel]

1) Shopping is convoluted for the sake of being convoluted. I can't imagine it being fun for anyone.

I dunno, there are some features I'm liking.  The idea of having a stash, being able to buy stuff while away from base, and the courier mechanics all seem neat.  The ability to right click to buy is nice, I wish LoL had that.  I'm not entirely sure what the point of the secret shop is, though (gameplay wise, I mean, why make the player trek out there to buy things).

Browsing it is kind of a pain, though.  Like 99% of the stuff I buy is from the recommended items list.

So the enemy team can stop you from buying said things, especially if you are turtling inside your own base. Many a game has been lost because a courier was picked off on its way to the secret shop.

[jakonovski]

Anyone having connection troubles today? I've only gotten one game in today, and even then there were issues.

[Fordel]

It happens when they are fiddling with things. Usually sorts itself out in like 5-10 minutes I find.

[jakonovski]

Got back in, got another non-game. I don't think there's been any tight games so far, all bar one have been decided in the first 15 minutes or so. Kinda bodes ill, really hard to actually learn anything here.

[schpain]

Fur

1) Shopping is convoluted for the sake of being convoluted. I can't imagine it being fun for anyone.

I dunno, there are some features I'm liking.  The idea of having a stash, being able to buy stuff while away from base, and the courier mechanics all seem neat.  The ability to right click to buy is nice, I wish LoL had that.  I'm not entirely sure what the point of the secret shop is, though (gameplay wise, I mean, why make the player trek out there to buy things).

Browsing it is kind of a pain, though.  Like 99% of the stuff I buy is from the recommended items list.

So the enemy team can stop you from buying said things, especially if you are turtling inside your own base. Many a game has been lost because a courier was picked off on its way to the secret shop.

Further to this; you'll notice alot of the most powerful items in the game are made with components in the secret shop - the idea being you can't turtle in your base when you have lost raxes and buy a rapier/butterfly/heart/scythe of vise etc. 

It annoys me as a relic of my LoL days (just buy everything in base) and adds a layer of complexity to item management but is generally something that's been in dota1 so long that people kinda just accept it as given.

[Malakili]

Got back in, got another non-game. I don't think there's been any tight games so far, all bar one have been decided in the first 15 minutes or so. Kinda bodes ill, really hard to actually learn anything here.

DOTA 2 actually has considerably more room for comebacks than LoL in my experience.

[jakonovski]

Got back in, got another non-game. I don't think there's been any tight games so far, all bar one have been decided in the first 15 minutes or so. Kinda bodes ill, really hard to actually learn anything here.

DOTA 2 actually has considerably more room for comebacks than LoL in my experience.

From what I can tell, the seesaw can be wiggled more, but it can slam down on one side far quicker.

[Kail]

Got back in, got another non-game. I don't think there's been any tight games so far, all bar one have been decided in the first 15 minutes or so. Kinda bodes ill, really hard to actually learn anything here.

DOTA 2 actually has considerably more room for comebacks than LoL in my experience.

From what I can tell, the seesaw can be wiggled more, but it can slam down on one side far quicker.

From a newbie point of view, this seems true to me as well.  Fed carries seem a LOT harder in Dota than they are in LoL, and they snowball a lot faster, it feels like.  I'm prepared to concede that this might just be my inexperience with the game, but right now it feels way harder to shut someone down once they're fed in Dota than in LoL.

[Hoax]

Over 500 games of LoL and over 300 games of Dota2.

Its not even close. You can comeback from much deeper holes in a much wider variety of ways in Dota2. LoL is insanely easy to predict a winner in the first 15 minutes and be right at least 60% or more of the time. Dota2 not so much.

[jakonovski]

I'm also observing that noob games tend to consist of nothing but carries, because nobody knows how to play the other heroes. One of them randomly snowballs and that's gg.

[Johny Cee]

Got back in, got another non-game. I don't think there's been any tight games so far, all bar one have been decided in the first 15 minutes or so. Kinda bodes ill, really hard to actually learn anything here.

I think alot of this has to do with Dota not having the LoL set metagame....  Since there are more options and roles, it's far easier at lower player experience levels for your team to completely screw themselves over with bad lanes or bad team comp.  In LoL, everyone does the same thing with only slight variations so you are far less likely to get blown out of the water in early game.  Even new-ish players know you send a ranged ADC with support bot, caster mid, whatever top.  Even if you don't run a jungle, it only hurts you a little bit.

In Dota, you need to balance roles with ranged/melee characters and then again when you find out what heroes you're playing against.  Also, people take a while to figure out that you aren't fixed to your lanes...  there is no reason you can't TP around to support, or switch up to a trilane if you need to shutdown that Antimage, or that it's perfectly fine for you to wander the map and gank lanes as a support hero at early levels if your carry is doing fine.

For instance, one of my games:

Bloodseeker (melee carry) went mid against a good mid champ.  Two melee carries went safe lane.  Axe jungler.  I looked at the team and picked a Windrunner, ended up solo hard lane, which is usually okay...  except I was against a CM/Slardar so if I came anywhere near the creep wave when it wasn't pushed to tower I was dead.  And honestly I couldn't even farm under tower after they had a few levels.

The two hard carries bot got destroyed by a good mixed lane, Axe was a poor jungler, and BS did moderately poorly mid.  I called for help very early on, but by the time BS showed up around 12 minutes my lane was out of hand.  He whined at me, and I said "dude, it's 2v1 in the hard lane with two enemies that have slows disables AND I called for help at 4 minutes...  just be glad I only fed them two kills".

I probably should have abandoned my lane and moved to mid or bot so we could at least win one lane if I wasn't going to get any support, but that game was pretty much lost before minions spawned.

I'm also observing that noob games tend to consist of nothing but carries, because nobody knows how to play the other heroes. One of them randomly snowballs and that's gg.

A game with all carries isn't the end of the world, as long as it isn't a bunch of hard carries with no early game... it also increases the chance of come backs later if you can turtle it out a bit as long as you aren't completely overwhelmed early.  Unfortunately, if your team is all Sniper, Faceless Void, Alchemist then, ummm, yeah.

This is kind of the reason why my favorite two heroes at the moment are Undying and Death Prophet.  Basically good ability heroes, tanky mage types, who have alot of power early to mid and if you are farmed can still be pretty effective late game.  Basically, even if your team is bad, you can put them on your back and delay the game long enough to catch up...  and you provide a serious threat to end the game early on.  God, DP just owns towers.

[Fordel]

Undying is one of the few heroes in game that is both a competitive pro pick AND a total pubmancer. NO ONE in a low skill game has any god damn idea what to do about Undying, it's both hilarious and frustrating.


"KILL THE ZOMBIE HOUSE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD KILL THE ZOMBIE HOUSE" 

[jakonovski]

I feel I am progressing now, and have graduated from Disconnecters League to Ragey Teenagers.

[NiX]

I feel I am progressing now, and have graduated from Disconnecters League to Ragey Teenagers.

Wait till you get a team of both of those plus "So MLGPRO he can shit all over you verbally despite being 0-12-0".

[jakonovski]

I reached the level of "people who have never played a MOBA game and have no interest in learning how to play."

edit: holy shit Undying really is a monster! I basically facerolled the whole game and had no problems.

[Fordel]

"THE TOMBSTONE, KILL THE FUCKING TOMBSTONE, DON'T JUST STAND BESIDE IT WHYYYYYYYY" 

[Hoax]

Its really the best idea to just pick imba pubstomp heros and win with them until it stops working then try another one and once you have run out of pubstomp heros giving you free wins you are at your skill level and its time to figure out what you are genuinely good at playing as.

A rotation of Undying/Ursa/Your favorite stealther should be a good starting point.

[jakonovski]

Last night I tried Brewmaster, he seems unstoppable when combined with ranged dps. His ulti is the fiddliest thing ever, but I love it anyway. Too bad he's not a panda though.

[Fordel]

All of Brewmasters power comes from that ultimate basically. It's a massive reset button in any team fight. It's why he's picked competitively. It's like perfect initiation once you get a blink dagger. Blink in, clap, split, stun one, spin one, burn one, collect XP and mad props from team   


You cause so much chaos in such a short amount of time, it lets the rest of your team work unmolested.



It also helps that he isn't really THAT farm dependent. Bottle, Boots, Blink and you are good to go.

[Thrawn]

Patch notes!  Lots of little but significant things.

- Added Troll Warlord!
- Added All Random to matchmaking!
- Added tournament calendar view to the Watch tab!

GAMEPLAY
- The pathfinder now ignores obstructions that are due to units that are not visible to the pathing unit.
- Crystal Maiden: Fixed Freezing Field channeling ending if you get purged.
- Dazzle: Fixed Poison Touch slow and stun applying if BKB was used after it had been applied.
- Drow: Fixed Drow Illusions carrying the double bonus from Marksmanship
- Keeper of the Light: Fixed Chakra being castable on magic immune allies.
- Keeper of the Light: Fixed Manta dispelling Mana Leak.
- Lifestealer: Fixed Rage not removing certain buffs that BKB does (Empower, Haste, etc).
- Medusa: Fixed Mana Shield happening after Stout/Vanguard damage block rather than before.
- Meepo: Fixed Poof considering dead illusions as valid destinations.
- Morphling: Fixed Replicate dying if Morphling dies with Aegis.
- Timbersaw: Fixed Whirling Death sometimes taking too long to cast when used with Timber Chain.
- Timbersaw: Fixed Chakram cast time behavior.
- Visage: Fixed Attack and Defense type on level 3 Familiars.
- Warlock: Fixed Aghanim Warlock Golems not doing enough damage.
- Fixed MKB dealing bonus damage to towers.
- Fixed ground courier being able to block lanes and surround Roshan.
- Fixed being able to lifesteal more life than the target has.
- Fixed Diffusal Blade cooldown being 12 seconds instead of 8.

UI
- Added Practice vs Bots option in the Play menu.
- Added a privacy setting in the UI so that players can specify whether they want to allow external 3rd party websites to be able to access their match history (defaulted to private).
- Least Played mode now eliminates each players' top 40 played heroes, up from 20.
- Added completion cost to shop item tooltips, displayed if the player has one or more components.
- Added tooltips to the shop category buttons.
- Fixed the Repick option disappearing too soon.
- Fixed bug where buffs would sometimes display an incorrect duration sweep.
- Bringing up the combat log will now hide the killcam.
- Fixed bug where sometimes spectators would, when inspecting a player, not see thier cosmetic items.
- Fixed bug where Dota 2 would not track changes in the Windows default audio device.
- When spectating a game in directed, hero chase, or player view, the mouse will no longer be locked to the window.

STORE
- Added new item sets for Lone Druid and Necrolyte.

BOTS
- Added Necrolyte bot.
- Added Witch Doctor bot.
- Sven will no longer War Cry when doing a casual retreat.
- Fixed Viper bot not harassing with his unique attack modifier.
- Fixed bug in Sandstorm avoidance that always made bots maximalliy avoid it.
- Adjusted the values so that bots are more willing to tanking creeps at high health/tankability ratings.
- Bots now take into account cleaving when determining what neutral camps they're willing to farm.
- Death Prophet bot will now use Carrion Swarm more when laning.
- Fixed bug that would cause bots to fountain-dive sometimes.

WORKSHOP
- Added a "Show Low-Res Model" checkbox that toggles between showing the low & high resolution LODs for imported models when in Loadout camera view.
- Now automatically switches to showing low-res models in the Day/Night camera views, and high-res models in the Portrait camera view (since that's how they're used by the game).
- Fixed "Other" submission type displaying a "failed to find content file" when submitting.
- Fixed Preview not resetting background properly when moving from Portrait to Day/Night view.
- Fixed Preview losing hero rotation when going to and from Portrait view.
- Fixed a case where the Add Wearable slot buttons didn't work for some slots on some heroes (like Sven).

[eldaec]

It turns out I'm up to 18 "copies" of this to "give away". So in the unlikely event anyone is still waiting to get in...


Oh apparently I can't gift you it if you are in China, because, I don't know, some retarded shit I guess.

[Der Helm]

Oh apparently I can't gift you it if you are in China, because, I don't know, some retarded shit I guess.

Skeleton King et al would be my guess.

[Mosesandstick]

Yeah, it's Chinese law.

[Fordel]

Dota2 isn't tied to steam in China or something, I remember reading something along those lines but I'll be damned if I can find it now.


There's no lack of Dota being played in China, I assure you. China to Dota, what Korea was to SC1.

[Ingmar]

Yeah, the reason is because you have to use a Chinese publisher in China, nothing to do with stuff like skeletons or whatever.

[Fordel]

The next patch coming out has the first of the tutorials: http://blog.dota2.com/2013/02/who-calls-the-dragon-knight/

It's cute and honestly sorely needed.

[luckton]

That's...actually pretty nice.  I've been wanting to dive into this, but the fear of presenting myself as a total newb to my teammates has shy'd me away.

[Fordel]

You can also just practice vs the bots too. It will fill any empty spots on your team with bots of your own and the bots will do all the busy work while your trying to figure out last hitting or whatever.

There's also a co-op vs bots ladder, that gives you battle point XP (each time you level you get a random cosmetic item) and a chance at cosmetic items at the end of the games, just like the real matchmaking system. In my limited experience, the people who play the co-op matchmaking are generally nicer and more forgiving.

[Ingmar]

When did they add that?

[Fordel]

The Co-op? Many moons ago.

[Lemming]

Is this game free to play yet?  I logged into Steam this afternoon and it informed me that I already purchased the game, which I didn't.  Regardless of how it happened, it was a nice surprise.