Nicht im Vent, aber Spielen DOTA Zwei

or "Not in Vent, but Playing DOTA 2"

I never liked DotA. DOTA 2 is somehow managing to eat up most of my gaming time. How has this come to be? DOTA 2 is pretty much just a clone of DOTA. What's the difference that makes it so much better? Is is just my mind rationalizing the time I've spent playing a game I might not even like? Just what's going on that I suddenly find myself enjoying something that is near-identical to something I despised? There's actually a multitude of reasons, but let's get with the negativity and assign some blame, much like your pub teammates will do when you're losing!

I place the blame firmly on these three:

This Guy Right Here, Obsessed with Improving His Rating.

This Guy for Giving That Guy on the Left the Key.

This is Me. I Should Have Known Better.

You see, DOTA ain't really a game you play alone unless you like suffering. Without some buds to play with, you're stuck with whoever matchmaking throws you in with, and thanks to human biases, you'll always feel you're being thrown in with the monkeys while the enemy team is filled with people who actually know what they're doing. This may or may not actually be true, as theoretically, your presence in the group of monkeys could make the match even: however, against even a team of dudes with similar (but even significantly lower) skill levels, your simian friends may snowball the match in the other team's favor (theory: I'm not particularly stellar at the game). The point is, that without some buds to keep you interested and play with you while you're sucking, you're probably never going to get into it: The only payoff is the sweet, sweet taste of victory.

Said victory will most likely come after a string of defeats. A string of terrible horrible defeats in which your team will curse at you for your uselessness, threaten to report you, and in general, using negative reinforcement to encourage more people to join in the hobby. The basic effect of this is that without some buds to help you out, there is basically no incentive to continue playing: normal people generally don't like being yelled at. But a certain percentage of the newbie population may hang onto through this, and perhaps even feel at home. I presume it is this segment that ends up being most vocal about their displeasure at the performance of their (and the enemy) team and ends up taunting as a basic reflex. This may be the reason that the general MOBA/Action RTS/AoS community seems to be a epicenter of caustic maggots festering and trying to burrow into the competitive scene. Perhaps that was a bit harsh, but I believe it stands (and may be slightly more creative than the insults you're gonna receive, which is likely just to be a string of expletives).

Someone carrying the weight of their team. Maybe.  The ball looks pretty heavy, anyway.

Although those curse-filled games those are the ones you'll probably remember most: for every one of those there were plenty that just involved a bunch of dudes trying (and possibly failing) to coordinate disparate actions in mixture of chat, pings, and voice. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. You can try and help out, but who knows whether they'll take any advice (or even speak your language). Even if they're pretty chill about things, it doesn't mean they won't sometimes do stupid things that'll make your blood boil. Having your friends take their place at least somewhat guarantees that they'll listen to your advice, and if you're kind of shy, make you more comfortable using your mic for greater coordination. There's even the rare game where everyone even kind of cheery or takes things in stride. 

On the other hand, if your friends are extraordinarily competitive, you might want to just avoid playing with them so they don't get riled at you for dragging the team down (i.e. your own rating obsessed buddy). They may or may not subscribe to the theory that at least playing with you is better than chancing the wilds of soloqueue and calm down. If not, don't contribute to their apoplexy and stop playing with them: you'll probably both be happier that way.

The point of this rather long, meandering spiel is that I did have some buds to play with, even if it was mostly just that rating obsessed dude and I duoqueuing through much of the those first 50 games or so (He's actually lost more games than I've even played, just as a measure of relative experience, with a roughly 50% win rate). And without those dudes around I probably wouldn't care enough to continue playing: I have no love of watching pro matches as a spectator sport and no aspirations to turn pro or even semi-pro myself. The reason I'm in the game is to play with friends and win or lose, together (winning preferred). These days we got enough guys around that we can usually set up a 5-man and throw ourselves into queue with significantly less risk that our teammates will end up being a Russian or Brazilian that we can't speak to (those real Chinese players tend to be a boon more often than not). 

But the bros aren't the only reason I feel that DOTA2 manages to capture my interest.  One of the other, (shallower) reasons is that it's much prettier than the original. That's too be expected really, Warcraft 3 literally came out 10 years (and 6 days) ago. I've upped the settings on my computer pretty high and it doesn't look much better or much worse than the other MOBA I've played (though it's much less... TECHNICOLOR than League of Legends).

Adorable Necrolyte is not actually in game... YET.

The basic theme of why I enjoy DOTA2 more follows this theme: It's the little things that getcha when you weren't payin' attention. They revamped the shop interface, making it much simpler to find and get everything you need for items. You can see what items build into what.They implemented a suggested item list for people new to heroes, which are generally at least okay, and makes for some orthodox builds while you learn about items to make your own decisions and altered builds later.. My favorite little thing however, is the new voicing and lines from the heroes. They don't change game play in anyway, having the heroes have their own lines and react to things really adds a measure of immersion no present in the original. You no longer have to hold at to show life bars. Heroes have tick marks denoting increments of life to make it easier to judge when to use certain abilities. Hero ability hotkeys are streamlined to the QWER keys used in current MOBA settings (with an option to use the old ones if you're an old player). It's all these little tweaks that build into a game that just generally feels better than the original, despite being a clone, gameplay wise.

But the little big thing is denying, as I like to call it, terrorism. DotA had denying and last hitting as one of the core mechanics of the game. You get gold if your attack on creep (one of those mindless drones that just rush forward and hit the nearest opposing thing) kills it dies. You can also do this this on your own creeps: you want to do this on your own creeps, as it negates a huge portion of the experience your opponents receive when your creeps die and it stops them from gaining gold. Last hitting was always its own reward: a cha-ching tone and more money for you, and it was already an enemy. However, denying just felt wrong to me in the original (and it's not like anyone actually bothered to explain this to me, I learned from reading random guides on the internet and that assumes a level of interest a starting player may not have) and it still felt wrong until I actually denied a creep: an exclamation point will appear over the creep (in whatever color the denying hero is) and a small quip with play, usually some variation of 'Denied!". It's a small thing, but the small reward (even if it's merely a short taunt) and satisfaction gained from a successful deny encourages its practice and negates the bad feel of killin' your own dudes.

So despite being the same game, presentation and company makes all the difference. That's the take home message, really.