BIGGEST IN E-GAMING: DOTA 2 Tourny @ ONE MILLION euro prize!

[TheUnk]

Not exactly. I said I don't want to play enough to actually play or obtain every champion. Which has little to do actually learning about them, as that is done with relative ease after actually playing versus them once or twice. Hell I only ever played a handful of champions with any regularity, but that doesn't mean I didn't know what to expect from my opponents anyway.

You can get an idea of their abilities from playing against them, but it's not enough, especially after "once or twice".

Knowing exactly how each of their abilities/passives work, range, cd, mana cost, gives you a big advantage. Sure you can guess at that stuff from what you see, but I really don't believe it's enough just to play against them a couple times.

 

[RPD]

Darkwaffle, I'm done trying to convience you. You either are trolling at this point, are ignorant to what skill at a video game actually entails or are ignorant to how high skilled players differentiate themselves vs. typical every day players. I'm leaning towards the latter because of you comment that you know how to play against a hero after playing them a few times.

If you play a hero twice them jump in one of my games (not vs Bots), I'd probably report you for trolling my game. Players HATE when this happens. Why? Because that person has now put a handicap on the entire team and it's always obvious when someone is on new to a hero. (Edit - It's obvious because you won't know a typical item or skill build, probably won't know how to customize the item build vs. the opposing team, or what lane they'd be best or if they'd be better off in the jungle given your team's hero selections.)

I know all the rules in Chess, I've played against a few people, thus I know what to expect. By using your logic, the skill cap in Chess is low.

Sorry, once again your logic when applied to a skill cap towards games (esp LoL) fail horribly.

 

[Arkaign]

I had to google what DOTA was, watched a couple youtube clips. Does not look fun at all to me, but happy that some people are having a good time with it.

 

[Dumac]

Too many variables? If you can't compensate for all possible variables, guess what? That means you are NOT at your skill cap.

No, it has nothing to do with a skill cap. You could play a game perfectly, but lose to a random dice roll, which many games (competitive or not) still have.

"Poor" mechanics? Give an example.

Here is an exaggeration.

Take your tic tac toe example. What if when you picked a spot, you had to flip a coin to decide whether or not you can really go there.

This has nothing to do with skill or your skill cap. It is just a variable you have no control over, and a poor mechanic.

If the "worse" player can use poor mechanics to beat the "better" player, maybe the "better" player isn't actually as good as he thinks he is.

So lets say you play a perfect game of tic tac toe, while I don't remember the algorithm to win. You try to move to your spot, lose the coin flip, and can't. I then win because you can follow the winning algorithm.

Does this have anything to do with skill? You are the better player; you know the algorithm. I just want due to a coin flip.

Luck is really a minor factor in most games. If you lose a game due to "luck", the majority of the time that really means you put yourself into a situation where you had a non-zero chance of losing or dying. If you were a better player, you would avoid those situations. In a game with vorpal weapons with a small chance to instantly kill, I'll give you luck would be a factor, but I don't think any competitive games have mechanics like that.

Tons of games have random factors, from spawn points, crits, misses, ranges on attack damage, range of gold dropped, uncontrollable external and internal variables. The list goes on and on when you really analyze a game - there is a chance element that prevents you from always causing a draw.

 

[Dumac]

Case in point, hold'ems poker. The game mechanics are basically completely random, yet through skillful play a professional poker player minimizes the negatives of this random environment. Would you say poker has a low skill cap? If so, how do you explain the same people winning repeatedly and reliably enough to make a living, or even make much more money than you or I?

This is the worst example you could give. You just said yourself that

Until you are good enough to force a draw worst case scenario, you are not at the skill cap of your chosen game. Fact.

This would imply that at a high enough sill you could always win/draw in poker.

But where is this skill element? How is that possible?

It simply isn't. No matter how good you are at poker, you cannot guarantee a win/draw. You can make it likely, but that is far from "forcing" it. It is out of your hands.

 

[darkewaffle]

You can get an idea of their abilities from playing against them, but it's not enough, especially after "once or twice".

Knowing exactly how each of their abilities/passives work, range, cd, mana cost, gives you a big advantage. Sure you can guess at that stuff from what you see, but I really don't believe it's enough just to play against them a couple times.

It gives you a mild advantage, but what are you looking at if you can't tell how a champion works after watching him or playing against him for a game or two? I mean for god's sake it's not like there's anything else to do when you play, 80% of the game is more or less downtime and good lord are they ever long

At least as far as anything with a visual goes, for a passive ability it's less evident but it's not like most passives are that important to how you approach a character, Leblanc and Anivia perhaps some exceptions.

But even if it takes you more games than that, so be it, the point still stands that for each champion you really only need to be aware of their abilitiy to do (at most) 3 or 4 things at any given time. Is that really so difficult to keep track of? Not to mention that once the game progresses further than a few minutes, resource management is minimal for most champs, most non-ult CDs are something in the way of 4-9 seconds long, and if you've ever played Trist/Irelia/Akali/Jax/Amumu/Corky/Kat or others I'm sure you have at least an elementary understanding of about what sort of range you can stay at relatively safely as few abilities extend beyond the range of their gap closers.

Darkwaffle, I'm done trying to convience you. You either are trolling at this point, are ignorant to what skill at a video game actually entails or are ignorant to how high skilled players differentiate themselves vs. typical every day players. I'm leaning towards the latter because of you comment that you know how to play against a hero after playing them a few times.

So make your case. I've tried to lay out point after point of objective analysis regarding the game's design as well as my own anecdotal evidence of why the game is not a skill heavy game, but all I'm getting back is that I don't know what I'm talking about.

What can an 'uber' player do that a merely good player cannot? They play more defensively, make more last hits, and lay more wards and probably make a better % of their skill shots. But that hardly constitutes the "WTF how'd they do that" factor you seem to recall. I think what separates them is patience, a 'great' player is more willing to wait for a chance rather than force a conflict and take a risk. Like I've said, I think teams beat themselves by making mistakes more often than the other team actually beats them.

If you play a hero twice them jump in one of my games (not vs Bots), I'd probably report you for trolling my game. Players HATE when this happens. Why? Because that person has now put a handicap on the entire team and it's always obvious when someone is on new to a hero. (Edit - It's obvious because you won't know a typical item or skill build, probably won't know how to customize the item build vs. the opposing team, or what lane they'd be best or if they'd be better off in the jungle given your team's hero selections.)

Again, not what I said. My point was that after playing against a champion you've never seen for a game or two, you should have a fairly clear idea of each of their abilities and of what they can do with them. Builds aren't that difficult to figure out. There's plenty of easy choices for any character archetype.

I know all the rules in Chess, I've played against a few people, thus I know what to expect. By using your logic, the skill cap in Chess is low.

Except you don't know what to expect, so I surmise, and nor do I. Because a chess player has more than four abilities to use. I'm not a skilled chess player because I haven't played nearly enough to recognize what an opponent's strategy might be, how they might couple their pieces together to form an attack or defense, how they may sacrifice a piece as a distraction.

Each piece is it's own 'cooldown' for use each turn, most of them able to be used aggressively or defensively, able to be moved in nearly any direction, it leaves a lot of room for the player to create his own strategy.

Actually that gives me an interesting idea. LoL is like a chess game. Each player is a piece, and describing a player as the "most skilled" is like saying one pawn is the most "skilled". They may have different capacities for vision and some will stay alive longer than others, but for the most part they all behave the same. The hand the guides the players is where the true capacity and strategy comes from, except in LoL's case it is not a player but a team. As such I guess it may serve as a decent representation of team vs team, but like I also said you can get that from most any team game.

And when you strip that away, I don't think much is left without it.

 

[RPD]

So make your case. I've tried to lay out point after point of objective analysis regarding the game's design as well as my own anecdotal evidence of why the game is not a skill heavy game, but all I'm getting back is that I don't know what I'm talking about.

Quote:
If you play a hero twice them jump in one of my games (not vs Bots), I'd probably report you for trolling my game. Players HATE when this happens. Why? Because that person has now put a handicap on the entire team and it's always obvious when someone is on new to a hero. (Edit - It's obvious because you won't know a typical item or skill build, probably won't know how to customize the item build vs. the opposing team, or what lane they'd be best or if they'd be better off in the jungle given your team's hero selections.)
Again, not what I said. My point was that after playing against a champion you've never seen for a game or two, you should have a fairly clear idea of each of their abilities and of what they can do with them. Builds aren't that difficult to figure out. There's plenty of easy choices for any character archetype.

Again you counter your own case with play a few times and you get an IDEA of what they can do. I can go play basket ball a few times and have an IDEA of what to expect, doesn't mean I suddenly am less impressed with Tim's killer cross over.

Except you don't know what to expect, so I surmise, and nor do I. Because a chess player has more than four abilities to use. I'm not a skilled chess player because I haven't played nearly enough to recognize what an opponent's strategy might be, how they might couple their pieces together to form an attack or defense, how they may sacrifice a piece as a distraction.

More of the same, you just keep pushing past my last anology of the heros in a vaccum, face to face, no items etc. If LoL only has 4 abilities (which you seem SO fixed on) why doesn't the game have just 4 buttons? Please explain this to me. You continuely try to boil the game down to 4 buttons (4 skills) and thats that. THAT ISN'T THE CASE. Holy shit how many times do I have to state this?

What can an 'uber' player do that a merely good player cannot? They play more defensively, make more last hits, and lay more wards and probably make a better % of their skill shots. But that hardly constitutes the "WTF how'd they do that" factor you seem to recall. I think what separates them is patience, a 'great' player is more willing to wait for a chance rather than force a conflict and take a risk. Like I've said, I think teams beat themselves by making mistakes more often than the other team actually beats them.

An uber player has enough knowledge of the game, whether through repetetion, memorization or just being plain crazy with numbers to know EXACTLY how much damage his/her combo will do after reductions, know when someone else's CD is up, when a respawn will happen. When a jungler (varies by hero type as well) will be finished with their rounds to gank. They don't have an IDEA, they can play it out, do the math in their heads to determine if their tower dive will be successful because they have enough life, the target's spells are on CD (hero OR summoner), if they are positioned correctly.

When you see someone do this all the time in the game, when you are like Oh I got this guy and he some how kills you, it makes you go wtf. Apparently you've never seen something like this take place. Btw so called "skill shots" in the grand scheme of skill in LoL, are anything but.

 

[SpicyTime]

So make your case. I've tried to lay out point after point of objective analysis regarding the game's design as well as my own anecdotal evidence of why the game is not a skill heavy game, but all I'm getting back is that I don't know what I'm talking about.

That's because you really don't know what you are talking about. The point by point "objective" analysis that you give of the game's design is simplistic and does not show a deep enough understanding of the game.

And now you're trying to make it seem like people are just brushing off your arguments without any consideration. Wrong. Your arguments have been considered, and the conclusion is still the same: you don't know what you're talking about.

In fact, you're the one who's brushing off other people's arguments and arrogantly sticking to your own. You say that there are 4 abilities and there's not much more to it. I gave one example of cooldown management (there are many more, such as mana management, ability range, ability damage output, combinations with allied or enemy abilities,...). And how did you respond?

I don't agree with the complexity of cooldown management. You have, at most, 6 buttons to press and that's assuming a character has a full 4 abilities and 2 summoner spells ready.

You basically shrug it off, then go back and harp your original (and incorrect) argument. And now you're trying to pass yourself off as the ignored victim with good arguments.

You said so yourself that you don't play LoL enough, and hence it's safe to say that you play the game casually. Are you seriously arrogant that you're going to argue so hard on a game that you don't even play that much?

 

[Chiropteran]

This is the worst example you could give. You just said yourself that

This would imply that at a high enough sill you could always win/draw in poker.

But where is this skill element? How is that possible?

It simply isn't. No matter how good you are at poker, you cannot guarantee a win/draw. You can make it likely, but that is far from "forcing" it. It is out of your hands.

Well actually...

Maybe you have never played hold'em poker for real money, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. When you play, there are positions around the table that effect the gameplay. The small and big blind are required to put in the blinds, which are sort of like an ante in other poker games. Any other position, you do not put in anything until after you see your cards.

In professional poker, you do indeed see a lot of "draws". When looking at the initial 2 cards dealt, many professionals will fold immediately unless the cards meat some minimum level, or if there is a good reason to attempt a bluff. If you fold before matching the blind, you neither win nor lose any money, it's exactly what would be considered a draw in an other game.

No, it has nothing to do with a skill cap. You could play a game perfectly, but lose to a random dice roll, which many games (competitive or not) still have.

Here is an exaggeration.

Take your tic tac toe example. What if when you picked a spot, you had to flip a coin to decide whether or not you can really go there.

This has nothing to do with skill or your skill cap. It is just a variable you have no control over, and a poor mechanic.

So lets say you play a perfect game of tic tac toe, while I don't remember the algorithm to win. You try to move to your spot, lose the coin flip, and can't. I then win because you can follow the winning algorithm.

Does this have anything to do with skill? You are the better player; you know the algorithm. I just want due to a coin flip.

Tons of games have random factors, from spawn points, crits, misses, ranges on attack damage, range of gold dropped, uncontrollable external and internal variables. The list goes on and on when you really analyze a game - there is a chance element that prevents you from always causing a draw.

Ultimately, I agree with you that there are elements that prevent games from boiling down into draws. The biggest one, that you didn't even mention, is that many computer games simply don't have a mechanic to allow for a draw- the game will simply go on until one player or side wins, no matter how long it takes.

I admit that was a poor point for me to base my argument around. Still, I don't feel that any mythical "skill cap" is really casing problems in any game. Even taking into account "luck" and random elements such as you described, the superior player will win more often than not- for each time luck works against him or her, there will be other games where it works in that players favor, ultimately just adding noise without changing the end results.

I see that it is tough to prove that this skill cap doesn't exist, but I also don't see any evidence that it does exist. Can you give me an example of a competitive computer game that is adversely harmed by having a low skill cap? How could you even show it? It just sounds to me a lot like something some professional players would make up to justify a failure, "well yeah we lost but those noobs were just playing classes with low skill caps, they weren't nearly as good as us", and somehow it stuck.

 

[Dumac]

Still, I don't feel that any mythical "skill cap" is really casing problems in any game. Even taking into account "luck" and random elements such as you described, the superior player will win more often than not- for each time luck works against him or her, there will be other games where it works in that players favor, ultimately just adding noise without changing the end results.

I agree with you. My disagree wasn't with your overall point, but a minor feature of it.

I see that it is tough to prove that this skill cap doesn't exist, but I also don't see any evidence that it does exist. Can you give me an example of a competitive computer game that is adversely harmed by having a low skill cap? How could you even show it? It just sounds to me a lot like something some professional players would make up to justify a failure, "well yeah we lost but those noobs were just playing classes with low skill caps, they weren't nearly as good as us", and somehow it stuck.

I don't follow many competitive gaming scenes. The only one I really follow is SC, BW, and then SC2.

I've yet to hear of a video game being effected by low skills cap. The best evidence would be, in my eyes, random players winning every tournament. If there aren't favorites who win often and are shown to have a higher skill set, and instead the winner of each matchup is a complete guessing game, then I would think that perhaps that game has such a low skill cap that there isn't enough room for stratification of professional skill.

Like I said, though, I've yet to see any competitive eSport where this is the case.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Whoever wins this "easy,low skill cap" game has some serious cash for doing pretty much just twiddling their fingers according to some. Just sayin. I would guess more money than most if not all the naysayers are making for playing their higher skill cap games.

 

[Firsttime]

The top Dota teams are pretty much the same top teams from when I first got into Dota 5+ years ago (although the Asian scene wasn't very prominent back then cause their pings sucked) if that says anything about the skill cap of the sport.

 

[darkewaffle]

Again you counter your own case with play a few times and you get an IDEA of what they can do. I can go play basket ball a few times and have an IDEA of what to expect, doesn't mean I suddenly am less impressed with Tim's killer cross over.

That's the thing though, where is the "killer cross over" in LoL? What amazing things are the 'elite' players doing to separate them? What kind of concrete examples can you provide?

More of the same, you just keep pushing past my last anology of the heros in a vaccum, face to face, no items etc. If LoL only has 4 abilities (which you seem SO fixed on) why doesn't the game have just 4 buttons? Please explain this to me. You continuely try to boil the game down to 4 buttons (4 skills) and thats that. THAT ISN'T THE CASE. Holy shit how many times do I have to state this?

Rather you ignore what I've reasoned. Discussing the skill cap takes place in a vacuum because it is a theoretical cap, just like when you discuss an engine's theoretical power or wireless' theoretical speed. In practice you never reach it, but in order to have a sane discussion you have to discount those exterior variables lest you get caught in a morass of forever trying to account for things that simply cannot be measured.

The game does only have 4 buttons, Q W E & R. Well six if you count summoner abilities I guess. More if you buy on-use items, but most of them really aren't that influential. And most champs either have a passive and/or a long ult CD (as well as summoner abilities having long CDs) so I think that most of the time the game is played with 3-5 abilities available.

This matters because of the way it limits how much thought can go into their use. If a champion has 6 abilities (best case scenario), A B C D E F, there's only so many possible ways to organize those abilities. Actually if a champion had a full complement of 6 abilities fairly readily available, I think it'd be a pretty good middle ground. However, none do. Summoner spells and ults are very long cooldowns, leaving you more often with as few as 2-4 abilities which becomes much less thoughtful because you have so few choices to make. Then take into account the logical elimination of certain abilities (eg: healing when nobody is hurt, using a buff when no enemies are present) and it narrows it down even further. My point is, fewer abilities force fewer choices to be made which homogenizes game play which makes for a low skill cap as different players playing the same champion end up doing the same things.

An uber player has enough knowledge of the game, whether through repetetion, memorization or just being plain crazy with numbers to know EXACTLY how much damage his/her combo will do after reductions, know when someone else's CD is up, when a respawn will happen. When a jungler (varies by hero type as well) will be finished with their rounds to gank. They don't have an IDEA, they can play it out, do the math in their heads to determine if their tower dive will be successful because they have enough life, the target's spells are on CD (hero OR summoner), if they are positioned correctly.

If someone memorizes a thousand digits of pi, it makes them a skilled memorizer. Not a skilled mathematician. A brute force attack doesn't make someone a skilled hacker, and knowing the date of every war doesn't make you a historian. I think skill is about creativity and prescience more than just drilling something into your head, but the way the champions play in LoL doesn't allow for much of that because the properties of each champion and each ability are so static. It's kind of like the difference between knowledge and intellect.

I think what skill is present comes from decision making and team playing, which as I said, you can experience in any game.

When you see someone do this all the time in the game, when you are like Oh I got this guy and he some how kills you, it makes you go wtf.

That's mostly true. I have to listen to my friends play on Vent a lot, and I mean a lot lol. But I rarely hear "Did you see that!? Holy shit!" whereas I hear "Oh man that was stupid of me." and "Man he's so dumb! Look where he is!" all the time. When they lose, they beat themselves. Which I think is fair, they're pretty smart guys but they get greedy and bored and impatient easily and make mistakes. Not their lack of skill or the other team's prowess.

You say that there are 4 abilities and there's not much more to it. I gave one example of cooldown management (there are many more, such as mana management, ability range, ability damage output, combinations with allied or enemy abilities,...). And how did you respond?

By explaining that not too many minutes into the game resource management is a non issue for the majority (if not all) of champions (mana) and team fights are decided so quickly that even energy/rage/whatever champions will have had little issue with it by the time the dust settles. I played a lot of Akali (energy) and a lot of Sion (heavy mana usage and small mana pool), these are not unfamiliar concepts but runes/items/masteries/levels compensate for it so much that it's just barely a consideration beyond the earliest laning phase.

Range? Play any of the many champions with a gap closer and you'll have a pretty quick grasp on what one might consider the 'danger zone'. Just as I said already. With exceptions made to a few (predictable) skillshots there isn't much that reaches beyond that radius. Not to mention the white visual cues when readying an ability, I mean it shows you precisely where you are in relation to your opponent.

Damage? Simple enough as paying attention when you hit them or even just checking out your tooltip and their armor. Particularly considering how buggy the health bars can be.

You said so yourself that you don't play LoL enough, and hence it's safe to say that you play the game casually. Are you seriously arrogant that you're going to argue so hard on a game that you don't even play that much?

Are you even reading the posts? I said I played a lot of LoL and quit, I had a few hundred games under my belt since it and WoW are about the only thing my friends play so I chose the lesser of two evils to play with them

Eventually I got tired of the monotony and how long it took to play even one game and frustrated with the game's design. I think it's bad PvP, simple as that.

Just because there's a lot of money behind it doesn't make it good. It just means it's popular. And I think you'd be hard pressed here in the PC gaming of all places to really argue that popularity equates to quality

 

[RPD]

Whole bunch o'shit

So again you continue to ignore previous informaiton presented. Not going to repeat it for a 4th time.

Then you try to change topics and bring up balance or if the game is good or not. Just like your past posts, it's 100% meaningless to this discussion. You've brought nothing new. Your opinion of the game, if it's good or popular means fuck all for this discussion.

Just give it a rest already. You've fully convienced me you have a learning disablity. If I call you retarded it's not because I'm making fun of you, it's because you should have a handi-cap parking pass in your car, if you god forbid even have a drivers liscence.

 

[Juddog]

That's the thing though, where is the "killer cross over" in LoL? What amazing things are the 'elite' players doing to separate them? What kind of concrete examples can you provide?




Rather you ignore what I've reasoned. Discussing the skill cap takes place in a vacuum because it is a theoretical cap, just like when you discuss an engine's theoretical power or wireless' theoretical speed. In practice you never reach it, but in order to have a sane discussion you have to discount those exterior variables lest you get caught in a morass of forever trying to account for things that simply cannot be measured.

The game does only have 4 buttons, Q W E & R. Well six if you count summoner abilities I guess. More if you buy on-use items, but most of them really aren't that influential. And most champs either have a passive and/or a long ult CD (as well as summoner abilities having long CDs) so I think that most of the time the game is played with 3-5 abilities available.

This matters because of the way it limits how much thought can go into their use. If a champion has 6 abilities (best case scenario), A B C D E F, there's only so many possible ways to organize those abilities. Actually if a champion had a full complement of 6 abilities fairly readily available, I think it'd be a pretty good middle ground. However, none do. Summoner spells and ults are very long cooldowns, leaving you more often with as few as 2-4 abilities which becomes much less thoughtful because you have so few choices to make. Then take into account the logical elimination of certain abilities (eg: healing when nobody is hurt, using a buff when no enemies are present) and it narrows it down even further. My point is, fewer abilities force fewer choices to be made which homogenizes game play which makes for a low skill cap as different players playing the same champion end up doing the same things.






If someone memorizes a thousand digits of pi, it makes them a skilled memorizer. Not a skilled mathematician. A brute force attack doesn't make someone a skilled hacker, and knowing the date of every war doesn't make you a historian. I think skill is about creativity and prescience more than just drilling something into your head, but the way the champions play in LoL doesn't allow for much of that because the properties of each champion and each ability are so static. It's kind of like the difference between knowledge and intellect.

I think what skill is present comes from decision making and team playing, which as I said, you can experience in any game.



That's mostly true. I have to listen to my friends play on Vent a lot, and I mean a lot lol. But I rarely hear "Did you see that!? Holy shit!" whereas I hear "Oh man that was stupid of me." and "Man he's so dumb! Look where he is!" all the time. When they lose, they beat themselves. Which I think is fair, they're pretty smart guys but they get greedy and bored and impatient easily and make mistakes. Not their lack of skill or the other team's prowess.




By explaining that not too many minutes into the game resource management is a non issue for the majority (if not all) of champions (mana) and team fights are decided so quickly that even energy/rage/whatever champions will have had little issue with it by the time the dust settles. I played a lot of Akali (energy) and a lot of Sion (heavy mana usage and small mana pool), these are not unfamiliar concepts but runes/items/masteries/levels compensate for it so much that it's just barely a consideration beyond the earliest laning phase.

Range? Play any of the many champions with a gap closer and you'll have a pretty quick grasp on what one might consider the 'danger zone'. Just as I said already. With exceptions made to a few (predictable) skillshots there isn't much that reaches beyond that radius. Not to mention the white visual cues when readying an ability, I mean it shows you precisely where you are in relation to your opponent.

Damage? Simple enough as paying attention when you hit them or even just checking out your tooltip and their armor. Particularly considering how buggy the health bars can be.



Are you even reading the posts? I said I played a lot of LoL and quit, I had a few hundred games under my belt since it and WoW are about the only thing my friends play so I chose the lesser of two evils to play with them

Eventually I got tired of the monotony and how long it took to play even one game and frustrated with the game's design. I think it's bad PvP, simple as that.

Just because there's a lot of money behind it doesn't make it good. It just means it's popular. And I think you'd be hard pressed here in the PC gaming of all places to really argue that popularity equates to quality

We get it - you don't like the genre because you lack skill. So why are you still trolling the thread? I never understand why people like you like to spoil threads on games they don't like, and don't play - it seems like you're just whining for the sake of whining.

 

[SpicyTime]

That's the thing though, where is the "killer cross over" in LoL? What amazing things are the 'elite' players doing to separate them? What kind of concrete examples can you provide?

I don't play much LoL so I can't provide much insight here. But there's "killer cross over" plays made in DotA and HoN all the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krJV0b4QKNw

There's over 60 more volumes of this, each released weekly. This is a concrete example; I'm not posting this for you darkewaffle, but for others in this thread. You don't seem to have the ability to identify a "killer cross over play" when it happens. From the way you're arguing, you make it seem like things don't exist just because you don't see it.

Yes, decision making and estimation play a role. But they do in all games. And I think instead of giving all games credit for it, rather you exclude it and examine what is unique to a game instead of what is constant among all games.

This is seriously the worst thing I've ever read in my life. You want to talk about skill by disregarding decision making? In MOBAs, the two terms are almost synonymous; what separates an uber player from a good player is the decisions he makes. You might as well have said "hey, let's judge this political debate, but don't consider any words stated. Words are present in all debates, so we need to disregard the words find what's unique about this debate."

Just because there's a lot of money behind it doesn't make it good. It just means it's popular. And I think you'd be hard pressed here in the PC gaming of all places to really argue that popularity equates to quality

This is the first logical thing I've read in any of your posts. I completely agree that popularity does not equal good. I personally don't think LoL is a good game (but I can't deny it's popularity). However, you've been making a judgment about the skill cap of the entire MOBA genre. Any DotA/HoN player can tell you that the skill cap is definitely not low.

 

[LumbergTech]

I had to google what DOTA was, watched a couple youtube clips. Does not look fun at all to me, but happy that some people are having a good time with it.

Dare you to give it a good try

I said the same exact shit..I just didnt get it...It actually is quite addictive and fun

 

[darkewaffle]

We get it - you don't like the genre because you lack skill. So why are you still trolling the thread? I never understand why people like you like to spoil threads on games they don't like, and don't play - it seems like you're just whining for the sake of whining.

I never understand why having a discussion is trolling just because you disagree with what's being said. It's a thread about competitive DotA style games, and what was being discussed was... skill in LoL, a DotA style game. Sorry for derailing the thread and making so many unnecessary personal attacks, I know it was wrong of me.

So again you continue to ignore previous informaiton presented. Not going to repeat it for a 4th time.

Then you try to change topics and bring up balance or if the game is good or not. Just like your past posts, it's 100% meaningless to this discussion. You've brought nothing new. Your opinion of the game, if it's good or popular means fuck all for this discussion.

Just give it a rest already. You've fully convienced me you have a learning disablity. If I call you retarded it's not because I'm making fun of you, it's because you should have a handi-cap parking pass in your car, if you god forbid even have a drivers liscence.

Touchy touchy.

Change topic? All I'm doing is trying to summarize my points because it seems like most of what I say is skipped and all I get back is "Clearly your claims are incredulous, and my evidence of this is that you don't know what you're talking about."

You bring up all these talking points about how much there is to manage; cooldowns, resources, positioning and the like, and then when I try to explain why I don't think managing them really requires that much thought, suddenly "Retard!" and deflection. Come on, there's nothing wrong with arguing this but you'd think I was assaulting your religion or something.

More possible actions simply means a greater depth of knowledge and decision making is required, that's all, and whenever you limit 'what' you can do significantly enough, it removes the need for much of that.

This is seriously the worst thing I've ever read in my life. You want to talk about skill by disregarding decision making? In MOBAs, the two terms are almost synonymous; what separates an uber player from a good player is the decisions he makes. You might as well have said "hey, let's judge this political debate, but don't consider any words stated. Words are present in all debates, so we need to disregard the words find what's unique about this debate."

I'd agree to a point, the difference being the decisions you have to make are not difficult ones, at least in LoL. Champions almost always attack the same way, take the same paths, gather in the same places, buy many of the same items, and generally behave in repetitive ways. I've made it no secret that I've only played LoL, so just maybe DotA and HoN are completely different, I can't say. I would guess that, to me at least, they suffer from some of the same problems such as simple mechanics, long games, and matches feeling very similar to one another, but it's simply a guess.

You're over simplifying. If I'd said "all games use buttons, so let's ignore those" then yea, that's a valid comparison. What it's more akin to is disregarding any questions that the debaters have the same answer for. If all nominees think "China is bad" is their policy on China really going to be a deciding factor?

That's the thing though, where is the "killer cross over" in LoL? What amazing things are the 'elite' players doing to separate them? What kind of concrete examples can you provide?

I don't play much LoL so I can't provide much insight here. But there's "killer cross over" plays made in DotA and HoN all the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krJV0b4QKNw

There's over 60 more volumes of this, each released weekly. This is a concrete example; I'm not posting this for you darkewaffle, but for others in this thread. You don't seem to have the ability to identify a "killer cross over play" when it happens. From the way you're arguing, you make it seem like things don't exist just because you don't see it.

We're not even talking about the same games anymore, I don't know much about DotA/HoN and you don't know much about LoL. I'm interested to watch some of the clips when I get home, maybe DotA gives the player that kind of control, hell if I know.

And a more accurate description is I'm trying to provide reasons why it doesn't exist. The problem is everyone sees these tournaments and cash prizes and huge player bases and they're already under the assumption that it must be skilled, right? Money and users only mean something has mainstream appeal, and as so many are quick to point out when discussing music/books/movies and yes even games, a lot of the most successful media is just something thats comfortable.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I think the original point was someone saying there is very little skill required to play these type of games, which is just wrong. Any competitive game requires skill. Ultimately that skill comes down to the person playing, not the options given to them (be it limited or infinite). One game can come natural to someone while another person needs a lot of practice.

The disconnect here is rather than just saying "I don't like the options given to me in this game" you are trying to say it takes little skill to play. Over and over it keeps getting said "but i only have 4 buttons to use" as the backing for that argument when in reality, there are many things to account for.

I can say basketball takes little skill because the only options are, run, stand, and throw the ball. I can do all of those things, and pretty much predict when someone is going to do any of the 3, but I know I would get my ass handed to me by someone who does it better.

If your opinion is that it takes no skill then so be it, but unless you are at the top of the ladder, then how can you truly know?

 

[RPD]

Darkwaffle do you just type just so you can read it back to yourself? You've literally added nothing to this discussion in the last 3 posts.

We get it, you don't think the game has a high skill cap, you obviously weren't very good at the game and don't care for it. Got it. Duely noted.

Btw

We're not even talking about the same games anymore, I don't know much about DotA/HoN and you don't know much about LoL. I'm interested to watch some of the clips when I get home, maybe DotA gives the player that kind of control, hell if I know.

LMAO at this comment. This clearly shows you don't even know what the fuck you are talking about. I'd love to explain why, but you'd just make some nonsensical post about some random tanget that agains adds nothing to the conversation at hand.

Finally

And a more accurate description is I'm trying to provide reasons why it doesn't exist. The problem is everyone sees these tournaments and cash prizes and huge player bases and they're already under the assumption that it must be skilled, right? Money and users only mean something has mainstream appeal, and as so many are quick to point out when discussing music/books/movies and yes even games, a lot of the most successful media is just something thats comfortable.

The POINT of the contests with money rewards was if the game had such a low skill cap, everyone and their mothers 3 legged dog would be at these events making money as, you imply one can simply slam their head into the key board ftw!

I _eagerly_ wait your nonsensical reponse to this.

 

[Beev]

The POINT of the contests with money rewards was if the game had such a low skill cap, everyone and their mothers 3 legged dog would be at these events making money as, you imply one can simply slam their head into the key board ftw!

This statement is useless. There can only be one winner. Also, someone would be the "best" low skill cap or not.

 

[RPD]

This statement is useless. There can only be one winner. Also, someone would be the "best" low skill cap or not.

Don't be obtuse. You can come up with a variety of reasons of why typically the same group of individuals compete and win said contests (they are the only ones entering etc etc), but at the end of the day it's because they are far and away better then your typical gamer.

You can't be far and away better at a game then someone else if the skill cap is low ala tick tac toe.

 

[darkewaffle]

Darkwaffle do you just type just so you can read it back to yourself? You've literally added nothing to this discussion in the last 3 posts.

We get it, you don't think the game has a high skill cap, you obviously weren't very good at the game and don't care for it. Got it. Duely noted.

Btw

LMAO at this comment. This clearly shows you don't even know what the fuck you are talking about. I'd love to explain why, but you'd just make some nonsensical post about some random tanget that agains adds nothing to the conversation at hand.



The POINT of the contests with money rewards was if the game had such a low skill cap, everyone and their mothers 3 legged dog would be at these events making money as, you imply one can simply slam their head into the key board ftw!

I've never implied any such thing. A good player will still beat a bad player, I just think it takes little to go from being a bad player to a good player and most good players will be fairly indistinguishable.

The point was that the only reason there's these big tournaments is because there's such a large player base, and the reason for such a large player base is the fact the game has such mass appeal. I believe the reason for the mass appeal is because it is not a difficult game to play and people like the faux RPG elements.

I can say basketball takes little skill because the only options are, run, stand, and throw the ball. I can do all of those things, and pretty much predict when someone is going to do any of the 3, but I know I would get my ass handed to me by someone who does it better.

I see where you're coming from, the difference is in basketball there's almost infinite variations to how those actions can be performed however. You can pass the ball 2 feet or you can pass it 20 feet. If, say, basketball only allowed players to shoot the ball from 6 to 12 feet away, how would the game change? I think it would require less skill; the job of defending would get easier because you would have less area to cover and the shots would be more predictable, and offense would be simplified because you would have fewer decisions to make and you wouldn't need to know how to layup or dunk or shoot from distance. That's how LoL abilities play out to me, because you know when someone goes to act they can only do it in this relatively small, static range and it's more than likely that you can predict how each champion will attack or behave, if for no other reason than they have so few logical possible actions.

Limiting your abilities, to a point, makes sense. You cant have players using regular abilities on people halfway across the map or anywhere/anytime they please; it would feel out of place and just be a chaotic way to play. The problem to me is the abilities are so static, and there are so few of them that the way a person plays a champion is going to intuitively be very similar to how most people play it.

Maybe that's the point, so that what you play has less of an effect than what decisions you make. I just prefer to see more balance between the two, with characters you can play more stylistically and with greater depth; because I think you can play any game and have that particular mental aspect.

 

[Firsttime]

The point was that the only reason there's these big tournaments is because there's such a large player base, and the reason for such a large player base is the fact the game has such mass appeal. I believe the reason for the mass appeal is because it is not a difficult game to play and people like the faux RPG elements.

0_o. That logic. By the same reasoning Soccer has a low skill cap and would benefit from allowing the use of hands, because you know, more abilities. Mass Appeal /= simple.

 

[Beev]

Why do you guys keep twisting his words like that? He is ONLY talking about DotA. He isn't talking about soccer, or basketball, or anything else. Just because he's applying a logic to DotA doesn't mean it can be used for everything. Every counterpoint that tries to say X is played on a wide scale, so it must be low-skill is wrong and only makes it worse for you...

DotA is a low skill game. That doesn't make your experiences with it any less valid, fun, exciting, etc. Stop acting like darkwaffle is shitting directly on you personally and get over it. The whole point is that it can still be fun. It doesn't need to be a high-skill game to matter.