DOTA2

[Kail]

Lack of mana bars?

Under the HP bars that hover over the character, I assume.  In LoL, you can see your HP, mana/energy/rage/whatever, level, and XP without having to look away from your character, but in Dota, it just shows your HP.

[K9]

Weird, all the replays I have watched had visible mana bars; maybe you can toggle it?

[Kail]

Weird, all the replays I have watched had visible mana bars; maybe you can toggle it?

Hm, you're right, I appear to be full of shit.  Weird, I could have sworn it wasn't there.

Not sure what the mana bars thing means, then, sorry.

[Lounge]

DOTA2 embraced a design flaw of the previous engine as a design choice in the new iteration, simply by that measure, one can't say it is better than LoL in any capacity because it was flawed from the word go.

Where you see design flaw I see gameplay.

[Nonentity]

Dota 2 is a prime example of purposely not embracing modern streamlining for the purposes of kind of following what the community is doing. The pro leagues and players liked and embraced the weird oddities, and rather than patch it out, they embraced it.

[HaemishM]

Too bad they didn't embrace the modernity of UI design.

[Ingmar]

I have no idea. You can't see enemy mana bars, but ... that's good?

[MrHat]

Too bad they didn't embrace the modernity of UI design.

My only complaint right now.  I even don't mind the 9 minute Queue because I can spectate while I wait.

But seriously, give me a 90% UI option and get rid of the fucking empty space.

[schild]

What the community embraced is largely irrelevant. DOTA, as it originally stood, was a pale imitation of what a Valve game could be. Making a modern title with a streamlined design that focused on the gameplay, rather than - ahem - embracing things that were design flaws, no matter how much you call them or anyone calls them <BULLET POINT> FEATURES - is just poor design.

Also:

It embraced bugs from the original beyond denial like creep stacking.

Wow.

[Fordel]

I seriously don't understand the point you are trying to make? What is streamlined design? What is gameplay in this context? Why is stacking a flaw?

[schild]

DOTA, for a while, was the only thing that did what it did. It was your only option for a MOBA. You *had* to accept the flaws in the design in order to play a game in the genre as there was only one game in the genre. Then League of Legends came out and said, "Man, this shit is stupid, fix it." And they did, and they were wildly successful.

Valve, or rather the team within Valve, said "we want to make DOTA2, but since people already accept things that were flaws, we're going to go ahead and make that part of the game." Which is the exact opposite of what I expect from Valve. However, due to Valve being Valve and Steam being Steam, the success of DOTA2 was nearly guaranteed. Success would have been guaranteed if they had decided to fix things that were "unfixable" in DOTA due to limitations of the platform.

I legitimately don't understand what you're saying you don't understand. What part of "embracing flaws as features is stupid" is confusing to you?

[schild]

Those last 2 sentences are gross and I hate them but I'm not editing that post.

[Ingmar]

I'm not really sold that denies and stacking are flaws.

[schild]

You don't need to be "sold" on it. Unless I'm mistaken, which I don't believe I am, denial could NOT be removed from the original DOTA. From everything I heard about it, it was simply a remnant from the WC3 engine. The first time I played DOTA, it was a fairly young game, but any time anyone explained anything to me about the game, or talked about it, they'd have to step out of the obvious flow of the game to describe denying, stacking, and such and how to deal with that in gameplay terms. It pretty clearly went against the tide of the core gameplay, but they were there and you had to deal with it in order to play right.

Needless to say, I played my first few games of DOTA, said "that's stupid" and quit. Shit like that slowed down games (to an uncomfortable level) and made things wildly swingy (which some people say is good, yeaaaaaaa, I don't really buy that - but I'm a Magic player at heart, so wildly swingy is everything I hate). The completely logical removal of it in LoL is what actually got me to play LoL in the first place.

Vestigial engine bits probably shouldn't be described as design flaws, but they most certainly are when a sequel is made that keeps those things in there like it was on purpose the first time through.

[Ingmar]

I understand that they are (well, were) bugs. Bugs that lead to at least arguably interesting gameplay and are retained as features in the next version would seem to have shed the label of 'flaw'.

The big thing for me here is how godawful boring the laning phase of LoL is to watch, compared to DOTA, a situation to which lack of things like denies seems to contribute.

[Rasix]

Stacking is just part of how the dota jungle works.  Creeps spawn at fixed times.  The LoL jungle works on death + timer.  Very easy to remove, but a very large change for the competitive scene to absorb.  The better teams stack better. 

Denies are.. eh, not my favorite.  They are more of a design decision.   

I think DOTA2 would be fine without either.  The strengths are in champion/item design, meta flexibility, and the map.

LoL laning is more boring because the map is smaller. Many champs have built in escapes and almost everyone has Flash. You die less. While dota has runes, DOTA has dust, DOTA relies less on a jungler sitting in his jungle farming, and there's a lot more powerful CC.  This leads to more deaths in DOTA.  Ugg, plus there's a trend in LoL champ design toward rebirth passives.  God, I fucking hate rebirth passives.

[schild]

And better players deny better.

Being better at a game due to being better at taking advantage of flaws that have become design decisions is basically absurd and as someone who has worked in game design, I hate it.

[Fordel]

How is it a flaw though?

"We had to do it this way before, but we can fix it now, but we still feel the original way is superior."

Unintended doesn't automagically mean broken/wrong.

[Bann]

Ive gone back and played some LoL recently. The Laning phase in LoL sucks. If your a carry, you last hit. If your a support, you drop some wards. Dota gives many more choices that lead to a more interesting early game then League.

[Kail]

Ive gone back and played some LoL recently. The Laning phase in LoL sucks. If your a carry, you last hit. If your a support, you drop some wards. Dota gives many more choices that lead to a more interesting early game then League.

I dunno, I disagree with this personally.  I kinda see Dota 2 as more interesting strategically (what your long range plan is and how you're going to execute it), while LoL is more interesting mechanically (what you're doing moment-to-moment) and when you're playing the laning phase, it's almost pure mechanics in either game. 

Especially as a support, early game in Dota 2 is shit boring.  You can't cast anything.  You earn less than you do in LoL (no GP/10 items or runes), so you can't buy anything.  Most of what you're doing as a support is playing around with the most awkward and ugly mechanics in Dota 2 (stacking/pulling creeps, preventing the enemy from stacking/pulling creeps, denying minions, etc.).

[Bann]

Ive gone back and played some LoL recently. The Laning phase in LoL sucks. If your a carry, you last hit. If your a support, you drop some wards. Dota gives many more choices that lead to a more interesting early game then League.

I dunno, I disagree with this personally.  I kinda see Dota 2 as more interesting strategically (what your long range plan is and how you're going to execute it), while LoL is more interesting mechanically (what you're doing moment-to-moment) and when you're playing the laning phase, it's almost pure mechanics in either game. 

Especially as a support, early game in Dota 2 is shit boring.  You can't cast anything.  You earn less than you do in LoL (no GP/10 items or runes), so you can't buy anything.  Most of what you're doing as a support is playing around with the most awkward and ugly mechanics in Dota 2 (stacking/pulling creeps, preventing the enemy from stacking/pulling creeps, denying minions, etc.).

As a support, what are you doing in LoL that I'm not though? The reason I like supporting specifically in Dota 2 over LoL is that I have the options to do stuff besides stand around and babysit the carry. think 4 of the 5 games I've played recently were as Janna, so perhaps she skews my perception a bit, but all I was really doing was warding river, warding bushes, standing in bush and shielding the ADC when they were either going to take or dish out some hero damage. Even if the mechanics are ugly, I like having more options available.

[Kail]

Sorry to bruce this, two things I wanted to say, though:

As a support, what are you doing in LoL that I'm not though? (snip)

Fighting, generally.  I generally play fairly active supports, and while the carry is last hitting, I'm poking the enemy carry every time he gets in range, trying to zone him, or set up ganks.  The same thing when I do when I lane support in in Dota, generally, but in Dota, this is way more just right click auto-attacks because of mana limits.

Even if the mechanics are ugly, I like having more options available.

That's kind of the thing I was trying awkwardly to say in my first paragraph... as a support, I have more options in LoL moment-to-moment because I can cast my spells more often, and LoL abilities are often more synergistic/tricky than Dota abilities.  But as a support in Dota I have more strategic options: I can mess up the enemy jungle, I can stack creeps, I can deny runes, etc.  It's just that in terms of the actual gameplay, it all just boils down to walking or autoattacking.  It's hard for me to say which is more boring or interesting as a whole.

[Hoax]

Ive gone back and played some LoL recently. The Laning phase in LoL sucks. If your a carry, you last hit. If your a support, you drop some wards. Dota gives many more choices that lead to a more interesting early game then League.

I dunno, I disagree with this personally.  I kinda see Dota 2 as more interesting strategically (what your long range plan is and how you're going to execute it), while LoL is more interesting mechanically (what you're doing moment-to-moment) and when you're playing the laning phase, it's almost pure mechanics in either game.  

Especially as a support, early game in Dota 2 is shit boring.  You can't cast anything.  You earn less than you do in LoL (no GP/10 items or runes), so you can't buy anything.  Most of what you're doing as a support is playing around with the most awkward and ugly mechanics in Dota 2 (stacking/pulling creeps, preventing the enemy from stacking/pulling creeps, denying minions, etc.).

This is straight up 100% wrong. Just saying. The 4/5 roles in Dota need to do a lot of things in the early game, much more active and more decisions than anyone else really. Way more active than anyone in LoL except the jungler. You have way less gold is probably true but you need to be much much more active and proactive.

[Samprimary]

Creep stacking and denying are, indeed, embraced flaws. Original DOTA finally owned up to the fact that a denied creep providing nil experience was just too ridiculous and was shrinking up the viability pool something fierce, and they worked out a way to retain portions of XP for denied creeps, and give double this retained portion to melee heroes.

If DotA 2 had come out before this change, I doubt they would have even advanced this concession.

In the current state of the game, though, creep denying does keep the lane jockeying pretty crazy at all times and I'm more in favor of it now than I used to be.

Fighting, generally.  I generally play fairly active supports, and while the carry is last hitting, I'm poking the enemy carry every time he gets in range, trying to zone him, or set up ganks.  The same thing when I do when I lane support in in Dota, generally, but in Dota, this is way more just right click auto-attacks because of mana limits.

Man I dunno, being a support in DotA has never been something I have seen done passively. It's brutal forwardness through and through. Try support with Lich? You're megadenying with sacrifice and using your vast reserves of sacrifice mana to pester the shit out of anybody who gets close to your lane partner. Then you murder people with frost nova combos.

[Kail]

Man I dunno, being a support in DotA has never been something I have seen done passively. It's brutal forwardness through and through. Try support with Lich? You're megadenying with sacrifice and using your vast reserves of sacrifice mana to pester the shit out of anybody who gets close to your lane partner. Then you murder people with frost nova combos.

True, but I'd argue that Lich is more of an exception to the rule than the norm for Dota 2.


Edit:

This is straight up 100% wrong. Just saying. The 4/5 roles in Dota need to do a lot of things in the early game, much more active and more decisions than anyone else really. Way more active than anyone in LoL except the jungler. You have way less gold is probably true but you need to be much much more active and proactive.

No, I agree that's true, but it's all on a strategic level.  What I'm saying is, on a purely mechanical gameplay basis, with how you're doing what you're doing, LoL has more going on because of the weird ways it's spells and character resources interact.  Like, in both games, you gotta farm creeps, but how you actually get last hits in LoL is different than it is in Dota.  You may have other higher (strategic) level options and stuff in Dota, I'm not contesting that, but what I'm referring to is the mechanics involved in how you do all that stuff.

[Fordel]

Nah, you just buy a clarity on everyone else.

[ezrast]

Being a bad support in LoL is boring. I imagine this is true in DotA as well. Support is about the art of doing more with less, and if you don't know what "more" means for the game you're playing all you see is the less.

Kail is right that putting pressure on the enemy laners should be your default state, especially as a ranged support like Janna. Any time you don't feel like you're doing anything it's because you're not zoning and harassing correctly.

[Johny Cee]

Being a bad support in LoL is boring. I imagine this is true in DotA as well. Support is about the art of doing more with less, and if you don't know what "more" means for the game you're playing all you see is the less.

Kail is right that putting pressure on the enemy laners should be your default state, especially as a ranged support like Janna. Any time you don't feel like you're doing anything it's because you're not zoning and harassing correctly.

The difference in DOTA is that abilities are much more powerful and there are a ton of supports who, once they hit 5-7, can show up to a lane and get kills solo.  Harassing and lane pressure is great and all, but I'd rather play a position where I can effectively gank a lane and get a kill or two even with zero money and no boots.  Playing a support is actually fun because you are an early to mid game monster who can roam the map and set up the big plays while your farmers last hit creeps.

Really, your "babysitting" of the carry is more along the lines of getting them a good early game and then taking off when they have a level/item advantage on the enemy off-laner.

[Malakili]

The difference in DOTA is that abilities are much more powerful and there are a ton of supports who, once they hit 5-7, can show up to a lane and get kills solo.

People also often seem to forget that abilities don't scale with items in DOTA 2 (with some exceptions).  So, your level 4 "Q" is as powerful as it is regardless of your items.  Because the game is balanced this way, it means that supports can remain powerful casters with very few items.  The same just isn't really possible in LoL because of the way the game is so balanced on scaling abilities with AD/AP.

[Johny Cee]

The difference in DOTA is that abilities are much more powerful and there are a ton of supports who, once they hit 5-7, can show up to a lane and get kills solo.

People also often seem to forget that abilities don't scale with items in DOTA 2 (with some exceptions).  So, your level 4 "Q" is as powerful as it is regardless of your items.  Because the game is balanced this way, it means that supports can remain powerful casters with very few items.  The same just isn't really possible in LoL because of the way the game is so balanced on scaling abilities with AD/AP.

Yep. 

A support in DOTA is really making his money off of kills and assists, and it can actually snowball to mid-game pretty hard sometimes (though you will always fall off end game)....  I've had a few Lion and Lina games where it's been completely out of hand by minute 12 or 15 and just rolling into a lane means at least one enemy dies and everyone else runs back to base. 

Also, the abilities on some supports are just flat out broken.  Wisp porting in with a tethered bruiser, or KOTL recalling in a carry at the start of the enemies tower dive, or the crushing that is Warlock or Tide or a (good) Sand King ult.

[Job601]

I main support in LoL and I disagree that the laning phase is passive.  In fact, that's the time you have the biggest impact on the game, because supports, not ADs, are the key to winning the 2v2 matchup.  You're constantly poking and zoning, and for a support it's the most interactive part of the game.  Once you get to mid and especially late game, you're pretty much a walking ult who drops wards.

I don't think DOTA players are wrong that there's emergent strategy from mechanics like denying and creep stacking, but I agree with the decision of League of Legends made to eliminate them.  Denying in particular distracts from the core gameplay and creates more pain for the loser than it does pleasure for the winner.   MOBAs are complex enough that they should really be reduced to the most streamlined level at which they can still function, not add on more and more mechanics just for the sake of having more stuff.  

There are ways DOTA is different from LoL which are legitimate design choices, like the focus on strategy instead of tactics somebody points out above, or the way a fed carry can scale far above everyone else in the game, but these legacy mechanics seem to be there just to pander to the hardcore audience, which over time has become more and more conservative and resistant to change.

[Hoax]

I main support in LoL and I disagree that the laning phase is passive.  In fact, that's the time you have the biggest impact on the game, because supports, not ADs, are the key to winning the 2v2 matchup.  You're constantly poking and zoning, and for a support it's the most interactive part of the game.  Once you get to mid and especially late game, you're pretty much a walking ult who drops wards.

A support in Dota does everything a support in LoL does in addition to being the most important moving piece of the team for much of the early to mid game. The roles aren't even comparable in terms of how much you get to do.

I understand that because in LoL everyone spends much of the time in full vision in a small lane that you trade more auto attacks and because abilities have low cooldowns and low costs you trade lots more abilities but in terms of making actual plays that are guaranteed to make an impact on the game one way or another its just not even remotely close between what a support in LoL and a support in Dota is asked to do.

I'm getting the definite feeling that many of you just haven't spent a lot of time with both games. I have and I just can't understand some of the viewpoints in this thread they just fundamentally are not correct. I realize its not cool to be that guy but seriously what several of you are saying about supports just doesn't jive at all with reality.

[Lounge]

Keep in mind that all of the things you are describing about what supports do in LOL are all viable things you can do in DOTA as well.  Just also know that there are MORE things you can be doing than in LOL.  I cant see how diversity in playstyle is a BAD thing.

As for denies its way less about removing experience or gold and more about controlling the position of the lane from the towers.  A well played game will put the creeps where they want be it pushing a tower or keeping it static so the carry can safely farm. 

[cmlancas]

We need to splinter the last few pages of this thread into a DotA2 v LoL thread. 

Bann and I just played a game of DotA2 that reminded me of why I play this game.  Two people quit, and a Lina, Bane, and OD go 61 minutes and throne.  Just one of those games that you get done, smile, and say, "Fuck, this game is so much fun."  Not a single mouthbreather to be found.  Just a solidly played, solidly executed comeback.

Oh, and it didn't hurt that he and I were a combined 38-16-41 with a ridiculous amount of items.  :)

[Thrawn]

We need to splinter the last few pages of this thread into a DotA2 v LoL thread. 

Every thread on either turns into DotA vs LoL eventually.  They are both fine games depending on what you are looking for, DotA is just much better. 

I think I managed to finally convince the few buddies who were keeping me playing DotA that it's not worth the wasted time and hour long games that leave you pissed off.  Actually had it uninstalled Sunday until I remember I had a match for a crappy league I'm in to play...where the other team didn't show up anyways.  Trying to quit cold turkey and I think we're taking up a NWN2 campaign instead.