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

Page 6 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

AyashiKaibutsu

Diamond Member
Jan 24, 2004
9,306
4
81
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.

The problem is just saying it doesn't make his logic or yours true. In fact, that there's an immense differentiation between people who have played a long time and the people that are the best shows it's not a low-skill game.
 

videogames101

Diamond Member
Aug 24, 2005
6,783
27
91
Nothing about this? It's all over the gaming community:

http://www.dota2.com/

*16 best DOTA teams have been play testing beta competitively for awhile
*You can watch the live cast in multiple languages
*Valve + Icefrog = a highly polished game
*Game is slated to be released later this year

There's a lot of rumble in Heroes of Newerth and League of Legend community. They're scared as hell.

Wait, what? 99% of the people in the community are planning on switching, so do you mean riot and s2?
 

videogames101

Diamond Member
Aug 24, 2005
6,783
27
91
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?

Lats hitting, you might say "I can do that", but you can't - not like the pros can.
 

ImpulsE69

Lifer
Jan 8, 2010
14,946
1,077
126
Wait, what? 99% of the people in the community are planning on switching, so do you mean riot and s2?

Actually LOL upped the anti somewhat. They are offering $5mil for season 2. It's getting crazy when there's that much money involved. That's when people start getting beat with a board to prevent them from competing.
 

ImpulsE69

Lifer
Jan 8, 2010
14,946
1,077
126
Lats hitting, you might say "I can do that", but you can't - not like the pros can.

I would go a step further and say, unless you are in that pro area, then you really have no valid argument either. I've played good people, and I've played people who just downright are way above me. There is a definite difference. I know beev doesn't want comparisons, but you can't say something has a skill cap at all if you aren't comparing it to something.
 
Last edited:

videogames101

Diamond Member
Aug 24, 2005
6,783
27
91
I would go a step further and say, unless you are in that pro area, then you really have no valid argument either. I've played good people, and I've played people who just downright are way above me. There is a definite difference. I know beev doesn't want comparisons, but you can't say something has a skill cap at all if you aren't comparing it to something.

what? I can go to a pro's profile and look at their average creep kills and then look at everyone else's average creep kills and point it it's VASTLY superior. Numerically, it's not like, a subjective thing.

Oh yeah, and I'm referring to HoN mostly, which is a better comparison to DotA anyways.
 

videogames101

Diamond Member
Aug 24, 2005
6,783
27
91
Actually LOL upped the anti somewhat. They are offering $5mil for season 2. It's getting crazy when there's that much money involved. That's when people start getting beat with a board to prevent them from competing.

No, 5 million during the whole season(their seasons are LONG) and 90% of it doesn't go to the players.

DotA 2 is one million in one go, and I imagine the players might receive 50% or more.
 
Last edited:

TheUnk

Golden Member
Jun 24, 2005
1,810
0
71
No, 5 million during the whole season(their seaons are LONG) and 90% of it doesn't go to the players.

DotA 2 is one million in one go, and I imagine the players might receive 50% or more.

Yeah isn't the 5 mil to be used for everything involved in multiple tournaments for a whole year? It's not straight up prize money..
 

videogames101

Diamond Member
Aug 24, 2005
6,783
27
91
Yeah isn't the 5 mil to be used for everything involved in multiple tournaments for a whole year? It's not straight up prize money..

"The money will be funding prizing for local, national and international tournaments to foster and grow the League of Legends eSports scene. "

-http://eune.leagueoflegends.com/news/league-legends-season-two-feature-5-million-prize-pool

It is NOT straight prize money.
 

SpicyTime

Member
Aug 9, 2011
44
0
0
The first games for the DotA 2 tournament starts tonight at midnight PST. I believe there will be a livestream, though I don't have the link handy. You can probably find it through google.
 

Mennovh

Member
Jan 29, 2010
62
0
0
Just wanted to chime in about how some are saying Dota is a low skill game. I have been playing the genre since guinsoo was making dota. Played dota all through college playing TDA games and IHL games. For the most part you will never play a very high skilled player if you only play occasionally or at lower levels like pub games.

In IHL I played against the top dota players in the world at the time like Merlini, SK, and other tops clans. There is a very definitive jump in how the players play. You would be lucky to get a creep kill or deny against them and the use of pathing and shadows they know was insane. It took me about 3 years of playing to even be good enough to be invited to IHL and i wasn't even nearly as good as the top players in that league. Some players are just that good though. Even though their are only four abilities, there are sooooo many other factors in the game that determine your skill. Timing is one of the main ones.

To those of you who say the game is low skill wise havent played the game long or havent played against the good players. I will say DOTA is very addicting though. Played Dota then HoN then some LOL. I prefer HoN over LoL very much, but lol can be fun sometimes. Cant wait to play DOTA2 though. Shame Icefrog jumped ship from s2games to valve, but oh well.
 

Necrolezbeast

Senior member
Apr 11, 2002
838
0
0
Been watching the games today... so far I can say, if this is the game they release I won't be picking it up, at least til it gets polished and fixed up.. The graphics are not my style at all, everything looks under detailed with low quality textures that are anti aliased beyond good making everything just seem like a ball of polished fuzzy colored polygons that are now rounded by the amount of anti aliasing they have been tortured with... Spectator mode as shown is rather underwhelming, worse than late beta HoN, no comparison at all to current day HoN...

Not sure if the performance problems they have been having are the game, servers, the internet connection at the LAN, or what... but I sure hope for Valve's sake that it isn't the game, because with the last 5 hours I have been watching I think I've seen more paused time than game play... and yet again what game play I have seen has been a complete turn off... I reckon what they have show cased to me is that they want me to continue to play HoN and that anyone who was waiting for DotA 2 because HoN is not DotA may be changing their minds and either going to HoN or sticking with DotA... because any rational thinking DotA elitist wouldn't give DotA 2 the time of day if they wouldn't dare touch HoN with a 10-foot pole... and as for the LoL crowd, i am thinking they have nothing to worry about...

GJ Valve by showing us an over hyped and extremely underwhelming game, probably the second time I have ever been disappointed in Valve...first time being TF2 not being able to capture any of the greatness TFC had

Anyway, I guess it's time to end my rant and ask if anyone else had the opportunity to watch the games so far and what they think?
 

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
It's still in beta, and I know the live stream was having some issues.

I'm psyched that someone on a pro level team was playing Spectre though.
 

darkewaffle

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2005
8,152
1
81
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.

I explained why it has mass appeal, but I think you're functioning under the assumption that those are the only reasons anything can be popular, which is illogical. Football (american) is popular because it provides the viewer with a lot of action and drama, Soccer is (probably) popular because people all over the world can play it with nothing more than a ball and as such they've grown up with it.

Additionally both games are highly skill based, as almost any such physical endeavor is. What a player can do with the ball is limited only by broad rules, everything else is determined by the player's own creativity, reasoning, and physical ability. Like I said, soccer would not take nearly as much skill if you were only allowed to pass the ball up between 5 and 15 feet; but that's not the case. You can only use the the ball with your feet (not true, but for the sake of argument), but what your feet can do with the ball is different for everyone and practically limitless depending on your skill with it.

I would go a step further and say, unless you are in that pro area, then you really have no valid argument either. I've played good people, and I've played people who just downright are way above me. There is a definite difference. I know beev doesn't want comparisons, but you can't say something has a skill cap at all if you aren't comparing it to something.

Sure you can, at least a large portion if not a majority of sports broadcasters and analysts are just that, broadcasters and analysts; many have never played a sport beyond an elementary level if at all. Yet that doesn't make them not knowledgable on the subject, and it doesn't mean a lot of people don't look to them as experts anyway.


Is DotA2 supposed to be, essentially, reskinned DotA on a more flexible engine (eg: to provide better control of the arbitrary limitations on WC3)? Or is it going to be different in other ways?
 

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
This thread becomes a whole lot better after putting darkewaffle on ignore; too bad his responses still show up when quoted though.
 

Necrolezbeast

Senior member
Apr 11, 2002
838
0
0
It's still in beta, and I know the live stream was having some issues.

I'm psyched that someone on a pro level team was playing Spectre though.

I understand it's still beta, I am just questioning why Valve has built so much hype about this tournament and put the huge amount of cash down as a prize to try to prove something... so far what I've seen is doing the exact opposite of what I'm sure they wanted... The game lacks the polish that any of the top competitors have ever had beta-release. It's not a top-tier game that will steal the oppositions player base nor convince people still sitting on DotA to come and join up... to use the excuse, "it's still in beta" is rather poor given the amount of attention Valve is drawing to their completely unfinished game.
 

PrayForDeath

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2004
3,478
1
76
I just watched a game between MYM and M5. The graphics are not my style (too cartoony), and the hero redesigns are rather uninspired. (should come up with something cool or just keep the old models)

I seriously hope the current in-game announcer is just a placeholder, because it sounds AWFUL (both male and female.)

The game itself plays just like dota, so if you liked the original I don't see why you wouldn't enjoy this one. I've been playing HoN since beta, and I'm not sure if I wanna buy this game yet (especially if they charge 60$+, cause you know, it's Valve)
 

skace

Lifer
Jan 23, 2001
14,488
7
81
I don't play DotA but I actually enjoyed reading the thread argument. I personally don't think having 104 characters to choose from adds "skill" as much as it adds fluff and timesinks. Plenty of people admitted they will never have the time to fully assess all these characters and that makes it silly, knowing there may be a character that much better suits their play style that they simply haven't put enough time into yet. And since most people do not know the 104 characters in any depth, there is absolutely no guarantee of balance.

However, on the flip side, I think all of the subtle nuances, such as denying, is where real skill comes from. Actions that any character you choose can do and benefit from. In my mind, a proper competitive game should start every player off in the same situation and put all of the skill on the playing field.
 

ImpulsE69

Lifer
Jan 8, 2010
14,946
1,077
126
Meh, even if it sucks, competition is good. It got Riot off their butts to do something sooner rather than later, even if from what it sounds like it's just more rehash of old ideas. I don't really care who plays what, they are ultimately the same genre. Some are going to like aspects of one and not the other.

I also agree with you skace. You can't have true equal balance in competitive play if both teams aren't starting with the same team comp (in this case).
ta
 

TheUnk

Golden Member
Jun 24, 2005
1,810
0
71
It's all about decisions. Skill cap is low on how to play a champ and what items to buy.

It takes a lot of time and experience to always make the right decisions though.

You can be an expert at using your 4 abilities and last hitting, but if you run off chasing someone in hopes to get a kill while letting your teammates die, you are bad.

The skill cap on knowing what to do and when to do it is very high and should not be mixed in with the skill cap on how to use abilities or last hitting.
 
Jul 10, 2007
12,041
3
0
No Interest in Dota because its a Team game...
I hate relying on some dudes i don't know...
and its so fucking hard to find players who are as skilled as i am :cool:

that's why i only play with friends.
it's a ton of fun to trash talk the other team as well.
 

SpicyTime

Member
Aug 9, 2011
44
0
0
I am very excited to play this game. Yeah, the graphics could use some polishing, especially with the items. Yeah, the game is essentially a clone of DotA 1. Regardless, I've always thought DotA was an incredibly fun game, especially when played with friends.

When I first played HoN in the beta, it was just essentially a reskinned DotA (only one or two unique HoN heroes). I thought it was so cool to play the same MOBA game on a new engine, and it was exciting to see how S2 Games decided to model all the heroes and effects. I'm looking forward to having this experience again with DotA 2.
 

p0nd

Member
Apr 18, 2011
139
0
71
I also agree with you skace. You can't have true equal balance in competitive play if both teams aren't starting with the same team comp (in this case).
ta

If you wanted to be perfectly literal and say 100.0% balanced then this would be correct, but it is possible to have effectively balanced gameplay with asymmetric factions. This is shown in lots of games, Starcraft, L4D, even dota, because the balancing is based around "rock paper scissors" style of unit and strategy counters.

And who would want to play or watch a game where both sides were exactly the same each time? Yawn! (though it would be neat if you could clone a football team and have it play itself to see what would happen, ignoring the ethics of that of course)
 

Chiropteran

Diamond Member
Nov 14, 2003
9,811
110
106
I just watched a game between MYM and M5. The graphics are not my style (too cartoony), and the hero redesigns are rather uninspired. (should come up with something cool or just keep the old models)

I seriously hope the current in-game announcer is just a placeholder, because it sounds AWFUL (both male and female.)

The game itself plays just like dota, so if you liked the original I don't see why you wouldn't enjoy this one. I've been playing HoN since beta, and I'm not sure if I wanna buy this game yet (especially if they charge 60$+, cause you know, it's Valve)

The "old models" came with warcraft 3, and are owned by blizzard afaik. They can't be used outside of the warcraft 3 engine.

The announcer sounds just like the HoN announcer to me, is there some crucial difference? Hell I thought it was even the same voice actor.

Valve has already stated the game with be free to play, so no worry about $60 retail.