DOTA2

[Fordel]

 

[Trippy]

Those are some old school Oakley's

[Fordel]

Alliance vs DK Game 2 was really great to watch.

Conversely, game 3 is a lesson on why you ban Batrider.

[K9]

Yup, exactly.

Na'Vi are ridiculous. As far as I can see, Pudge (+Mirana) aren't even close to the current meta, but if you don't spend a ban on Pudge Dendi is going to make your life hell. What a scary team.

[Fordel]

I think what I enjoy most about those picks, is they can't use them in online tourneys. The timings are just that tight that you need the LAN connection or it's shit and you miss everything.

[Rasix]

This fountain hook maneuver is fucking hilarious. 

[Fordel]

Navi be trolling.

[Azuredream]

I just.. I'm watching this, and I'm like.. how is that allowed? It's so hilariously cheesy.

This match is awesome to watch, though.

[Fordel]

It's incredibly hard to actually do. Try it yourself!

-edit- Like, landing Pudge Hooks alone is extremely difficult. To do it inside the timing window on the recall from chen.

[Ceryse]

I don't play this genre, but.. god damn. Na'Vi was phenomenally entertaining to watch against Tongfu.

But yeah. Fountain hooks were.. hilarious.

[Rasix]

It's incredibly hard to actually do. Try it yourself!

-edit- Like, landing Pudge Hooks alone is extremely difficult. To do it inside the timing window on the recall from chen.

Yah, that timing and coordination is a bit insane.  I think I only saw one that didn't go off and that was just because Dendi didn't even try to throw the hook. They've got what, maybe a half second window to do that? If he lands the hook at the start of the delay, does it pull the target back or leave it there? Because if it pulls regardless, then they've got a few more seconds to work with at the start.

Pretty impressive win, I didn't think they would pull that one out.  Luckily with the pickoffs, they were able to stall out just long enough.

[Fordel]

Not sure on the precise mechanics, I want to say any moment when the hook is actually traveling will result in success... but I haven't landed any fountain hooks myself 

[Flinky]

Yah, that timing and coordination is a bit insane.  I think I only saw one that didn't go off and that was just because Dendi didn't even try to throw the hook. They've got what, maybe a half second window to do that? If he lands the hook at the start of the delay, does it pull the target back or leave it there? Because if it pulls regardless, then they've got a few more seconds to work with at the start.

Fordel is right, you have to have the hook connect and be traveling back with the victim as you are sent home or it doesn't work. If you throw the hook too early and it completes its travel time you disappear and the victim is left where the hook was thrown from.

Dendi missed a hell of a lot of hooks though. The end game stat they popped up reported 7 fountain hooks and there must have been at least 20 attempts. He landed some pretty important ones though. That game was, and I say this in terms of endearment, complete and utter bullshit.

[Fordel]

Glorious bullshit!


It would be like connecting with half a dozen Hail Mary passes back to back in a game of football.

[Bann]

Glorious bullshit!


It would be like connecting with half a dozen Hail Mary passes back to back in a game of football.

but it only worked because TongFu just put their safeties  30 yards deep and played a shitty prevent defense instead of a blitz to win the game after one of the many missed hooks happened.

[Fordel]

Chinese Dota, is what it is.

I particularly enjoy watching them try to use wisp. 

[Trouble]

The sad part is I really do enjoy Dota 2's core mechanics when played with a group of friends. I get that in other competitive games people are shitheads too, but the importance of one player on your team is way more significant in Dota 2 than it is in Battlefield. Shitting all over the people you need to work with to win isn't going to thrust you to victory and I don't understand why people think it will.

Maybe if there were 10 or 20 lane games, where you could learn and lose and it wouldn't ruin everyone else's day on your team. I mean, that's what you mean talking about Battlefield right? You can be #19 or whatever on your team, suck ass all day long, and it doesn't really matter. The worst dude doesn't make or ruin the team. In DOTA the worst dude DOES make or ruin the team, more often than not (if it matters at all). Also when shit goes wrong, it's way easier to defusely blame "my shitty team" than "XspecificDudeGuyY". DOTA is an angry horrible game because there's never any place to be the shittiest guy on the field and learn, without being angrily berated by 4 slightly less terrible people.

[Trouble]

(and to clarify, I agree, and wish there was this learning ground with 10-20 lane games, and feel the community and noob treatment is completely ridiculous)

[Fordel]

Just play the Co-Op ladder against bots, people there are way way more mellow in my experience, since everyone is in the same noob boat.

[cmlancas]

The international has been supremely entertaining so far.  I think DotA2 is still my favorite e-sport.

[Hoax]

Honestly Dota is a bit more forgiving than League in that the 4 others can carry dead weight a lot easier but at the same time if you are the weakest player you need to make that adjustment as early as possible. Its the person who isn't as good but insists that they should be given farm priority or insists on traveling places with no vision because it seems safe to them or goes back to a lane where they have given up two kills to give up another three. If you are behind you must adjust your playstyle, goals, item build and role within the team.

 Everyone has games where they aren't going to be the star that's part of the genre but when that happens you need to adjust accordingly not wait for some inevitable abuse and then smugly tell yourself its your cancer teammates that caused this by being such bad teammates and they deserve this loss so fuck them.

I do love the idea of 20 lane training Dota, there's something there.

[Samprimary]

Fuck, I'm having fun.

[MediumHigh]

The international has been supremely entertaining so far.  I think DotA2 is still my favorite e-sport.

How long are the games?

[cmlancas]

Maybe 30-50m tops?  I haven't seen many super long games (although I know they are out there).

[Fordel]

Games on average are 30-40 minutes, but they can be short as 10-20 or as long as 60-90+ minutes.


-edit- I'll be damned if I can remember the specific game at the moment, but they just had the longest competitive game at Ti3 in the earlier rounds, 95+ minutes.

[MediumHigh]

That doesn't sound too different than LoL competitively.

[Bann]

timewise I find the biggest difference is that their is no surrender option.

[Kail]

timewise I find the biggest difference is that their is no surrender option.

In terms of games you'll personally play, I think Dota runs a fair bit longer on average.

In terms of pro games, there are a lot of early surrenders in Dota when the losing team realizes they're not going to be able to make a comeback, but in LoL teams almost never surrender in pro games, so the duration seems pretty similar in the two games.

What's the deal with starting off with the short lane farming the ancients?  Is that new?  How exactly are you supposed to do it, I assume there's some strict timing involved since they seem to stack them while farming them?  It's something I haven't seen before this tourney, and it seems like you could conceivably use it to run three solo lanes with two junglers or something in the scrub leagues I inhabit.

[Fordel]

Ranged Offlanes have been doing that for awhile, it's not very good farm, but it's better then zero farm sitting in a bad lane would be... and yea, ideally you want to stack as you kill. The clearing of the trees to farm from that specific spot is sorta new, and it's kinda annoying to stop.

[Rasix]

I'd say competitive LoL is averaging maybe 35-40 minutes a game, at least on the NA side.  I imagine Korean games are a bit quicker due to their lower econ, more objective based game.

Playing DOTA compared to LoL is probably about 15-20 minutes longer of an affair on average (if you're comparing the two base maps).  I'd say the games run a bit longer and the match making wasn't quite as quick, at least when I was playing.  I'd still budget at least an hour per game of DOTA2 or Summoner's Rift on LoL.  DOTA2 just tends to fill it up a bit more consistently.

[Flinky]

Games on average are 30-40 minutes, but they can be short as 10-20 or as long as 60-90+ minutes.


-edit- I'll be damned if I can remember the specific game at the moment, but they just had the longest competitive game at Ti3 in the earlier rounds, 95+ minutes.

iG vs DK UB Round 1 Game 2 set the record at 98:58. In the same game DK.BurNing also set the record for the most money earned in any pro DotA 2 game with 62.5k on his Lone Druid.

The last stat I saw reported that they'd had only 7 games that went for over an hour so far in TI3, including the prelims.

[Pezzle]

I tried to watch this.  Unfortunately you need an understanding of Dota to appreciate anything about it.  Since I have no real knowledge of Dota it was an undecipherable mess.  I have played WC3 and similar games, but that was not enough.  How long until they can bridge that gap?

[Malakili]

I tried to watch this.  Unfortunately you need an understanding of Dota to appreciate anything about it.  Since I have no real knowledge of Dota it was an undecipherable mess.  I have played WC3 and similar games, but that was not enough.  How long until they can bridge that gap?

I think this genre is the hardest to watch.  There is a ton going on, the teams are different all the time and not easily differentiated (except by health bar color), etc.  It just requires a lot of info to watch and understand.  The massive viewer totals reflect the massive player bases.  I don't even know how you'd approach trying to make it accessible to a complete novice.

If there is one advantage fighting games or SC2 have, it is pretty easy to watch Street Fighter and understand it (even if you can't appreciate all the subtleties).  Same with SC2 - the armies are colored, you can watch a battle and sort of see who is winning and why.

Still, most sports are equally undecipherable - it is just that we have a culture which teaches children how to watch them, that is what we really lack when it comes to eSports at the moment.

[Ceryse]

As a complete novice I've found it fairly easy to follow, even if I don't have a clue about a lot of the things the announcers are talking about item-wise, or even ability-wise. I've never played or watched the genre before... but it just isn't that complex to follow as a novice if you pay attention.

Shit, it was easier to follow than cricket which is a baffling sport.

[Trippy]

It is hard to follow with all the jumping around on the map and eight players. With SC II there's only two players typically so it's easier to keep track of what each player is doing.