<!--quoteo(post=1870277:date=Aug 20 2011, 03:01 PM:name=Aldaris)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Aldaris @ Aug 20 2011, 03:01 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1870277"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Some people find the higher skill cap of Dota more 'fun', but for most people who just want a pick up and play game? Yeah, LoL beats Dota hands down for that. Don't get me wrong, you can easily have that situation in LoL where a match ends up one sided because someone on your team is feeding or not communicating or really doesn't know what they're doing with their hero, just that it's less likely to happen.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Be careful about that "high skill cap" word. Many would argue LoL has a higher skill cap since it focuses much more on the positioning, teamfights, map control with the 2 different high-value targets, and taking advantage of crucial moments instead of waiting on your carry hero to crush their team.
But, overall, I agree that LoL is much easier to enter. The lack of denying, what many argue is unintuitive, drastically alters the laning phase. The reduced hero selection for new players prevent information overload. The UI is much easier showing the AoE and cast ranges of your spells. Death Recaps let you know why you just died. The obvious brush to beak line-of-sight instead of hard-to-see juke regions in a clump of trees. It's all the little things that add up to a very different feel and a much more gentle entry into what, fundamentally, is a very similar game.
<!--quoteo(post=1870296:date=Aug 21 2011, 02:21 AM:name=spellman23)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (spellman23 @ Aug 21 2011, 02:21 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1870296"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Be careful about that "high skill cap" word. Many would argue LoL has a higher skill cap since it focuses much more on the positioning, teamfights, map control with the 2 different high-value targets, and taking advantage of crucial moments instead of waiting on your carry hero to crush their team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> All those occur in Dota, yet a number of skillful things I've already mentioned do not occur in LoL. Many can argue, but many would be wrong. It is arguable however, that Dota has a higher skill cap because certain things like range indicaters and death recap can't be added to the War3 engine and therefore a number of things just aren't intuitive like in LoL and thus requires more play time and skill building to achieve.
"Skill" is a terribly finnicky word anyway. I've never seen a useful definition of "skill" other than "being better at the game." Meanwhile the word continues to be sorely abused by raging smacktards to whom "lolfighter has no skill" is functionally equivalent to "lolfighter just killed me and insults are the only measure I have to deal with my rising blood pressure."
Aldaris, the things spellman pointed out also occur in Dota, but the game has a different focus. Things like cover occur in all shooters, not just cover-based shooters. That doesn't mean that it doesn't matter in non-cover-based shooters, but it does matter LESS than it does in cover-based shooters, because non-cover-based shooters don't focus so highly on crouching behind chest-high walls. Same with LoL and Dota. By de-emphasizing certain parts of the Dota formula, LoL automatically emphasizes the other parts MORE. That's just basic game design. The argument, then, is about which parts of the game "require more skill" than the other parts, but that's a quagmire that I am neither qualified nor willing to wade into.
Basic game design. A game is the sum of its parts. Some of these parts may influence the game more, others less. If your game de-emphasizes some parts, others become more prominent. If I remove all the pawns from chess, the entire game changes and the other pieces become more important to the game than they are in regular chess. If LoL removes or minimizes features from dota, other features rise to the fore and have greater impact on the outcome of the game. As I said in my earlier post:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The argument, then, is about which parts of the game "require more skill" than the other parts, but that's a quagmire that I am neither qualified nor willing to wade into.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1870300:date=Aug 20 2011, 08:03 PM:name=Aldaris)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Aldaris @ Aug 20 2011, 08:03 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1870300"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->All those occur in Dota, yet a number of skillful things I've already mentioned do not occur in LoL. Many can argue, but many would be wrong. It is arguable however, that Dota has a higher skill cap because certain things like range indicaters and death recap can't be added to the War3 engine and therefore a number of things just aren't intuitive like in LoL and thus requires more play time and skill building to achieve.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1870364:date=Aug 21 2011, 02:59 PM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lolfighter @ Aug 21 2011, 02:59 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1870364"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Basic game design. A game is the sum of its parts. Some of these parts may influence the game more, others less. If your game de-emphasizes some parts, others become more prominent. If I remove all the pawns from chess, the entire game changes and the other pieces become more important to the game than they are in regular chess. If LoL removes or minimizes features from dota, other features rise to the fore and have greater impact on the outcome of the game. As I said in my earlier post:<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> You're saying this, but yet again, you haven't played the games, so therefore how can you say what is and is not emphasised in the games? How can you say that Dota has a different focus without playing it. You're wading into a dicussion on which you've admitted you have no knowledge of.
Spellman, learning something in Dota that does not occur in LoL means you have a skill that people who play LoL don't, wouldn't it?
<!--quoteo(post=1870386:date=Aug 21 2011, 07:13 PM:name=Aldaris)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Aldaris @ Aug 21 2011, 07:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1870386"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How can you say that Dota has a different focus without playing it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I didn't. You and/or spellman did. I'm just extrapolating from that.
<!--quoteo(post=1870422:date=Aug 21 2011, 11:46 PM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Aug 21 2011, 11:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1870422"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm gonna try out LoL and HoN and eventually Dota2 and will report back on exactly what it is that separates these beasts.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Part of the problem for me has been that the games have their separate items and heroes. It's a little like it took you 50 hours to learn how the chess pieces work before you can actually start understanding the actual strategy behind the moves.
It kind of reminds me of WoW on how long it takes to learn how the different classes exactly work even if the interactions are actually quite simple most of the time. It might be just how I approach the learning process though.
If you want to try HoN after Dota (or get ready for Dota2) I made a <a href="http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=323271" target="_blank">mod </a>that converts item and hero names from HoN to Dota.
<!--quoteo(post=1870386:date=Aug 21 2011, 10:13 AM:name=Aldaris)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Aldaris @ Aug 21 2011, 10:13 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1870386"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Spellman, learning something in Dota that does not occur in LoL means you have a skill that people who play LoL don't, wouldn't it?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If said skill was useful, yes. Just because I have skills in RTS games doesn't make me a better RPG player. Denying actually ports over well since it's just like last-hitting, except on your own minions, and vice versa.
@Bascillus: yeah, but luckily most of the archetypes carry over, making life more bearable. But when hot-swapping I do sometimes catch myself thinking in the wrong state of mind. Like one time I for some reason started thinking about buying an Ability Power item for Pyromancer in HoN. There's no such thing in HoN (unless you count Spellshards).
<!--quoteo(post=1870422:date=Aug 21 2011, 10:46 PM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Aug 21 2011, 10:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1870422"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm gonna try out LoL and HoN and eventually Dota2 and will report back on exactly what it is that separates these beasts.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->LoL's addictive. That is all.
Anyone who's interested in understanding <a href="http://www.own3d.tv/video/113955/SoloMid.net_-_The_Rain_Man_Teemo_Gameplay" target="_blank">http://www.own3d.tv/video/113955/SoloMid.n..._Teemo_Gameplay</a>
<b>Summoner</b> How the players in League of Legends are referred to <b>top</b> Top lane (there is only really one map that people play and it's +/- the same layout in all DoTA clones) <b>bot</b> Bottom lane (see above) <b>mid</b> Middle lane (see above). Usually Soloed (i.e. 1v1), while top and bottom lanes usually have 2 champions per team (i.e. 2v2). <b>yordle</b> In LoL lore, little non-human midgets with colourful skin pigmentation or furry skin. (Captain) <b>Teemo</b> awesome speedy, fragile, high DPS pain-in-the-ass character The Rain Man is playing as. <b>Ryze</b> Ranged blue magician character The Rain Man is fighting against in the middle lane. <b>gank</b> When a team gangs up on an enemy player with the sole purpose of taking them out of the game for a while. <b>poke</b> Dealing damage to an enemy Champion in your lane, hopefully to gain an HP advantage that will eventually force them to retreat to heal earlier than you. <b>jungle</b> The wooded area in between the 3 lanes <b>river</b> The river section splitting the map in half from top to bottom <b>Doran's</b>, <b>Madred's</b>/<b>MR</b>, <b>Malady</b>, <b>Wriggle's</b> equipment you can buy in LoL (Doran's Blade, Madred's Razor, Malady, Wriggle's Lantern) <b>'shrooms</b> Teemo's 'ultimate' (4th) ability. A bit confusing in the video because TRM is using an Easter Bunny skin for Teemo so the mushrooms look like eggs. <b><a href="http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Flash" target="_blank">Flash</a></b> A teleportation Summoner spell with dual gank/escape uses. <b><a href="http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Ignite" target="_blank">Ignite</a></b> A damage & debuff Summoner spell used for ganking.
I've started playing Teemo, almost exclusively. I stole my builds from this guy because he's pretty good and has sound reasoning. I'm not going to explain too much that isn't evident in the video, but the key things to look out for if you want to understand LoL (and this generally applies to other DoTA clones) are the following:
The map has 3 lanes. In each lane minions spawn in waves and predictably march down the lane, attacking anything they come into contact with. You generally only leave your lane to gank, to return to HQ to regen HP/Mana or spend your gold, to kill one of the monsters/creeps lurking in the forest. This is because if you leave your lane, your adversary will find it easier to kill your minions without you there, so they'll level up faster than you and get better spells quicker, gain more gold and get better equipment than you, and start destroying the towers on your lane (which can never be rebuilt), losing your team map control. Leaving your lane must lead to a payoff, so doing so is fairly tactical.
The purpose of the game is to stop the enemy team's minions from spawning in their base. To do this you must destroy the towers along the lanes one by one until you reach the enemy HQ. There you can also destroy Inhibitors which are stopping your HQ from producing stronger minions. Killing enemy Champions makes this process much easier.
If you force a retreat on an enemy Champion in your lane, you can quickly focus down the enemy minions in the lane and your remaining minons can be used as cannon fodder to soak up damage from the Tower while you and they attack it.
If you die you must wait to respawn. The higher the level the longer this takes. You generally don't ever want to die, but if you get caught out of position, it can be inevitable.
You gain gold slowly by default. On top of this, you can earn gold by getting the killing blow on (in rough order of reward) a minion, creep, creep 'VIP', Tower, Inhibitor, enemy Champion. You can also gain temporary buffs from creeps in the jungle. In high level play, controlling these buffs is very important. The best buffs (and experience/gold) are to be had from what I'll call the creep 'VIPs'. These VIPs require a number of your team present to take them down.
Finally, it's important to know about gold and equipment. Gold is spent on equipment. Equipment is essentially a tech tree that you unlock for your character as you buy items and combine them to create even more powerful items. Equipment is incredibly important and essentially defines your personal strategy. At high level games it needs to work in synergy with your team's strategy. Deciding when to return to your base to grab equipment is important, since your adversary will be leveling while you're gone. You need to make sure when you return you have enough of an advantage to quickly pull back any lost ground (or experience).
Lastly there's a bunch of other tech trees that also give innate buffs, i.e. you start with them and their benefit stays the same throughout the game (although it can scale with level if it's percentage-based). These tech trees are another level of further-specialising your character, but to be honest my main belief is that these are just here to provide another level of grinding so you have more to work towards.
Anyway, with this in mind, watch the video and you might see why a game that appears to be so simple is actually quite deep and skilled.
Teams can surrender after the 20 minute mark, its somewhat common for teams to surrender when the game is clearly over.
The only victory condition is to destroy 'the main thingy'.
I'll emphasize one point in Crispy's post. One of the most important things to do is 'do not die'. If you die it not only knocks you out of the game for a while, it also gives your killer a significant XP and gold boost. A simple way to try and avoid this is to start out as a ranged hero - as their range means that they naturally stay a bit further back. Also keep in mind sometimes it's better just to stand behind your teams 'creeps' and watch them kill the enemy creeps, instead of jumping straight into the middle of it. You might need a level or two before you are actually strong enough to get into the fray. ...However, don't sweat it if you do die, just be a bit more careful next time, pay attention to what killed you (LoL has a handy 'death recap' function) and try to secure yourself against that particular hero or ability. You are bound to be caught off guard, especially as you're very likely to face heroes you are not familiar with. (ie. you may not be aware of the enemy hero's ability to jump in your face and deal massive damage doing so). but that <i>will get better</i> as you familiarize yourself with the game some more.
Also, there's plenty of people in the games with massive egos. Such players can throw a massive tantrum if they feel you screw up - even in cases where you didn't (or really shouldn't be blamed because you are new to the game). For instance, they might complain that 'you should have supported them in that attack' when it was actually bound to fail whether you helped or not. This doesn't exactly make the games easier to get into, as this is 'false information' that to a newcomer can seem like actual proper information on how the play the game.
Final thing: if you want to get into a DotA game, I suggest you find a person who is already familiar with the game, and play some matches with him with him on voicechat. Simply so he can warn you about the specific enemy heroes you are facing from game to game, and help you understand the game better. If you're going to play LoL (probably the easiest of the DotA games to get into) play some bot matches first to familiarize yourself with the map and some of the heros.
<!--quoteo(post=1871526:date=Aug 27 2011, 06:39 PM:name=Dirty_Harry_Potter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dirty_Harry_Potter @ Aug 27 2011, 06:39 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1871526"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Also, there's plenty of people in the games with massive egos. [...] This doesn't exactly make the games easier to get into, as this is 'false information' that to a newcomer can seem like actual proper information on how the play the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I've actually not met anyone like that so far in about 20+ hours of play. It's probably because I spent the first 7 or so hours playing co-op against bots, but also the matchmaking system has been giving pretty good matchups most of the time so far. So, while this is almost definitely true when you start matching against high level/skill players, it's possibly not something you'll have to deal with while learning the game. I've heard this said of HoN as well, but haven't had any experience with that game or its community yet.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Final thing: if you want to get into a DotA game, I suggest you find a person who is already familiar with the game, and play some matches with him with him on voicechat. Simply so he can warn you about the specific enemy heroes you are facing from game to game, and help you understand the game better. If you're going to play LoL (probably the easiest of the DotA games to get into) play some bot matches first to familiarize yourself with the map and some of the heros.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->One of the better things LoL has going for it compared to other DoTa games is the fact it always has a set of 10 heroes free to everyone. At lower levels, you're likely to come up against the same 10 heroes more often, which makes it a lot easier to learn the characters.
Kouji_SanSr. Hινε UÏкεεÏεг - EUPT DeputyThe NetherlandsJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited August 2011
<!--quoteo(post=1871664:date=Aug 28 2011, 02:48 PM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lolfighter @ Aug 28 2011, 02:48 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1871664"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Crispy, that person whose video you linked to, The Rain Man, he started slinging insults around near the end of the match.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Would be more interested to watch the entire thing, if I could understand the guy when he does talk. He's mostly just mumbling, the music doesn't help either...
Even so, the game footage did show ya how to play...
<!--quoteo(post=1871649:date=Aug 28 2011, 05:18 AM:name=Kouji_San)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kouji_San @ Aug 28 2011, 05:18 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1871649"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And the thing against LoL is that it has too many heroes so balancing is always an issue? :P<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You just described DotA games in general.
Even worse, as the metagame keeps shifting suddenly a certain combo is really good and so the devs nerf it into the ground instead of waiting for someone to develop a counter (a la StarCraft 2 balance, which is admittedly easier to balance).
Kouji_SanSr. Hινε UÏкεεÏεг - EUPT DeputyThe NetherlandsJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
<!--quoteo(post=1871682:date=Aug 28 2011, 05:27 PM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lolfighter @ Aug 28 2011, 05:27 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1871682"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In a nutshell, "get last hits" and "don't die."<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Thats how I play with that tiny evil wizard guy (of which I forgot the name) in LoL. He basically gets more spell power by last hitting, not dieing is quite a thing though with him being a squishy :P
ThansalThe New ScumJoin Date: 2002-08-22Member: 1215Members, Constellation
edited August 2011
<!--quoteo(post=1871697:date=Aug 28 2011, 02:36 PM:name=Kouji_San)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kouji_San @ Aug 28 2011, 02:36 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1871697"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Thats how I play with that tiny evil wizard guy (of which I forgot the name) in LoL. He basically gets more spell power by last hitting, not dieing is quite a thing though with him being a squishy :P<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> VEIGAR
PS: He doesn't get AP for for last hitting, he gets AP for killing champs. If he got AP for last hitting minions he would be horribly OP.
I have been enjoying the heck out of him, he is a tiny little mage assassin with rather good survivability due to Event Horizon. I mean, it's fairly easy to gank him unless you have a nice escape spell.
PS: He doesn't get AP for for last hitting, he gets AP for killing champs. If he got AP for last hitting minions he would be horribly OP.
I have been enjoying the heck out of him, he is a tiny little mage assassin with rather good survivability due to Event Horizon. I mean, it's fairly easy to gank him unless you have a nice escape spell.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Kouji is probably reffering to one of this abilities, that when you use it to last-hit something you get one AP. (For the uninitated: AP = Ability power, a lot of spells scale with the hero's Ability Power, so a higher AP means your spells deal more damage)
ThansalThe New ScumJoin Date: 2002-08-22Member: 1215Members, Constellation
edited August 2011
<!--quoteo(post=1871703:date=Aug 28 2011, 02:59 PM:name=Dirty_Harry_Potter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dirty_Harry_Potter @ Aug 28 2011, 02:59 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1871703"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Kouji is probably reffering to one of this abilities, that when you use it to last-hit something you get one AP. (For the uninitated: AP = Ability power, a lot of spells scale with the hero's Ability Power, so a higher AP means your spells deal more damage)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Nope, his Q has a passive "You get AP when killing a champ", as opposed to Annie who's Q costs no mana when you kill something with it.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Passive: Veigar gains 1/2/3/4/5 ability power when he kills a champion from any source of damage.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Unless you are assassinating people left and right it's not THAT much AP. You get more from the fact that you can lane like crazy with his W after pumping it a couple times (slowing faster acquire of nice big +AP items).
<!--quoteo(post=1871709:date=Aug 28 2011, 08:06 PM:name=Thansal)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Thansal @ Aug 28 2011, 08:06 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1871709"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Nope<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yes. <!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Active: Unleashes dark energy at target enemy, dealing 80/125/170/215/260 (+0.6) magic damage. If the target is killed, Veigar gains 1 ability power.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Anyway! back to the topic at hand: I enjoy playing mages of various sorts in that game. Particular Morgana and Veigar lately. Other than that, Gragas, Cho Gath or Mundo. I still haven't really found a ranged damage dealer I enjoy, been trying a bit of Urgoth and Tristana, and I enjoy playing them, but I haven't really gotten my head around playing them properly - guess I'm too used to playing burst damage mages :x
Also, what region do you play LoL on? I play on EU West.
Comments
Be careful about that "high skill cap" word. Many would argue LoL has a higher skill cap since it focuses much more on the positioning, teamfights, map control with the 2 different high-value targets, and taking advantage of crucial moments instead of waiting on your carry hero to crush their team.
But, overall, I agree that LoL is much easier to enter. The lack of denying, what many argue is unintuitive, drastically alters the laning phase. The reduced hero selection for new players prevent information overload. The UI is much easier showing the AoE and cast ranges of your spells. Death Recaps let you know why you just died. The obvious brush to beak line-of-sight instead of hard-to-see juke regions in a clump of trees. It's all the little things that add up to a very different feel and a much more gentle entry into what, fundamentally, is a very similar game.
All those occur in Dota, yet a number of skillful things I've already mentioned do not occur in LoL. Many can argue, but many would be wrong. It is arguable however, that Dota has a higher skill cap because certain things like range indicaters and death recap can't be added to the War3 engine and therefore a number of things just aren't intuitive like in LoL and thus requires more play time and skill building to achieve.
Aldaris, the things spellman pointed out also occur in Dota, but the game has a different focus. Things like cover occur in all shooters, not just cover-based shooters. That doesn't mean that it doesn't matter in non-cover-based shooters, but it does matter LESS than it does in cover-based shooters, because non-cover-based shooters don't focus so highly on crouching behind chest-high walls. Same with LoL and Dota. By de-emphasizing certain parts of the Dota formula, LoL automatically emphasizes the other parts MORE. That's just basic game design. The argument, then, is about which parts of the game "require more skill" than the other parts, but that's a quagmire that I am neither qualified nor willing to wade into.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The argument, then, is about which parts of the game "require more skill" than the other parts, but that's a quagmire that I am neither qualified nor willing to wade into.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Steeper learning curve != higher skill cap.
You're saying this, but yet again, you haven't played the games, so therefore how can you say what is and is not emphasised in the games? How can you say that Dota has a different focus without playing it. You're wading into a dicussion on which you've admitted you have no knowledge of.
Spellman, learning something in Dota that does not occur in LoL means you have a skill that people who play LoL don't, wouldn't it?
I didn't. You and/or spellman did. I'm just extrapolating from that.
Part of the problem for me has been that the games have their separate items and heroes. It's a little like it took you 50 hours to learn how the chess pieces work before you can actually start understanding the actual strategy behind the moves.
It kind of reminds me of WoW on how long it takes to learn how the different classes exactly work even if the interactions are actually quite simple most of the time. It might be just how I approach the learning process though.
If said skill was useful, yes. Just because I have skills in RTS games doesn't make me a better RPG player. Denying actually ports over well since it's just like last-hitting, except on your own minions, and vice versa.
@Bascillus: yeah, but luckily most of the archetypes carry over, making life more bearable. But when hot-swapping I do sometimes catch myself thinking in the wrong state of mind. Like one time I for some reason started thinking about buying an Ability Power item for Pyromancer in HoN. There's no such thing in HoN (unless you count Spellshards).
Anyone who's interested in understanding
<a href="http://www.own3d.tv/video/113955/SoloMid.net_-_The_Rain_Man_Teemo_Gameplay" target="_blank">http://www.own3d.tv/video/113955/SoloMid.n..._Teemo_Gameplay</a>
<b>Summoner</b> How the players in League of Legends are referred to
<b>top</b> Top lane (there is only really one map that people play and it's +/- the same layout in all DoTA clones)
<b>bot</b> Bottom lane (see above)
<b>mid</b> Middle lane (see above). Usually Soloed (i.e. 1v1), while top and bottom lanes usually have 2 champions per team (i.e. 2v2).
<b>yordle</b> In LoL lore, little non-human midgets with colourful skin pigmentation or furry skin.
(Captain) <b>Teemo</b> awesome speedy, fragile, high DPS pain-in-the-ass character The Rain Man is playing as.
<b>Ryze</b> Ranged blue magician character The Rain Man is fighting against in the middle lane.
<b>gank</b> When a team gangs up on an enemy player with the sole purpose of taking them out of the game for a while.
<b>poke</b> Dealing damage to an enemy Champion in your lane, hopefully to gain an HP advantage that will eventually force them to retreat to heal earlier than you.
<b>jungle</b> The wooded area in between the 3 lanes
<b>river</b> The river section splitting the map in half from top to bottom
<b>Doran's</b>, <b>Madred's</b>/<b>MR</b>, <b>Malady</b>, <b>Wriggle's</b> equipment you can buy in LoL (Doran's Blade, Madred's Razor, Malady, Wriggle's Lantern)
<b>'shrooms</b> Teemo's 'ultimate' (4th) ability. A bit confusing in the video because TRM is using an Easter Bunny skin for Teemo so the mushrooms look like eggs.
<b><a href="http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Flash" target="_blank">Flash</a></b> A teleportation Summoner spell with dual gank/escape uses.
<b><a href="http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Ignite" target="_blank">Ignite</a></b> A damage & debuff Summoner spell used for ganking.
I've started playing Teemo, almost exclusively. I stole my builds from this guy because he's pretty good and has sound reasoning. I'm not going to explain too much that isn't evident in the video, but the key things to look out for if you want to understand LoL (and this generally applies to other DoTA clones) are the following:
The map has 3 lanes. In each lane minions spawn in waves and predictably march down the lane, attacking anything they come into contact with. You generally only leave your lane to gank, to return to HQ to regen HP/Mana or spend your gold, to kill one of the monsters/creeps lurking in the forest. This is because if you leave your lane, your adversary will find it easier to kill your minions without you there, so they'll level up faster than you and get better spells quicker, gain more gold and get better equipment than you, and start destroying the towers on your lane (which can never be rebuilt), losing your team map control. Leaving your lane must lead to a payoff, so doing so is fairly tactical.
The purpose of the game is to stop the enemy team's minions from spawning in their base. To do this you must destroy the towers along the lanes one by one until you reach the enemy HQ. There you can also destroy Inhibitors which are stopping your HQ from producing stronger minions. Killing enemy Champions makes this process much easier.
If you force a retreat on an enemy Champion in your lane, you can quickly focus down the enemy minions in the lane and your remaining minons can be used as cannon fodder to soak up damage from the Tower while you and they attack it.
If you die you must wait to respawn. The higher the level the longer this takes. You generally don't ever want to die, but if you get caught out of position, it can be inevitable.
You gain gold slowly by default. On top of this, you can earn gold by getting the killing blow on (in rough order of reward) a minion, creep, creep 'VIP', Tower, Inhibitor, enemy Champion. You can also gain temporary buffs from creeps in the jungle. In high level play, controlling these buffs is very important. The best buffs (and experience/gold) are to be had from what I'll call the creep 'VIPs'. These VIPs require a number of your team present to take them down.
Finally, it's important to know about gold and equipment. Gold is spent on equipment. Equipment is essentially a tech tree that you unlock for your character as you buy items and combine them to create even more powerful items. Equipment is incredibly important and essentially defines your personal strategy. At high level games it needs to work in synergy with your team's strategy. Deciding when to return to your base to grab equipment is important, since your adversary will be leveling while you're gone. You need to make sure when you return you have enough of an advantage to quickly pull back any lost ground (or experience).
Lastly there's a bunch of other tech trees that also give innate buffs, i.e. you start with them and their benefit stays the same throughout the game (although it can scale with level if it's percentage-based). These tech trees are another level of further-specialising your character, but to be honest my main belief is that these are just here to provide another level of grinding so you have more to work towards.
Anyway, with this in mind, watch the video and you might see why a game that appears to be so simple is actually quite deep and skilled.
The only victory condition is to destroy 'the main thingy'.
I'll emphasize one point in Crispy's post. One of the most important things to do is 'do not die'. If you die it not only knocks you out of the game for a while, it also gives your killer a significant XP and gold boost. A simple way to try and avoid this is to start out as a ranged hero - as their range means that they naturally stay a bit further back. Also keep in mind sometimes it's better just to stand behind your teams 'creeps' and watch them kill the enemy creeps, instead of jumping straight into the middle of it. You might need a level or two before you are actually strong enough to get into the fray.
...However, don't sweat it if you do die, just be a bit more careful next time, pay attention to what killed you (LoL has a handy 'death recap' function) and try to secure yourself against that particular hero or ability. You are bound to be caught off guard, especially as you're very likely to face heroes you are not familiar with. (ie. you may not be aware of the enemy hero's ability to jump in your face and deal massive damage doing so). but that <i>will get better</i> as you familiarize yourself with the game some more.
Also, there's plenty of people in the games with massive egos. Such players can throw a massive tantrum if they feel you screw up - even in cases where you didn't (or really shouldn't be blamed because you are new to the game). For instance, they might complain that 'you should have supported them in that attack' when it was actually bound to fail whether you helped or not. This doesn't exactly make the games easier to get into, as this is 'false information' that to a newcomer can seem like actual proper information on how the play the game.
Final thing: if you want to get into a DotA game, I suggest you find a person who is already familiar with the game, and play some matches with him with him on voicechat. Simply so he can warn you about the specific enemy heroes you are facing from game to game, and help you understand the game better. If you're going to play LoL (probably the easiest of the DotA games to get into) play some bot matches first to familiarize yourself with the map and some of the heros.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Final thing: if you want to get into a DotA game, I suggest you find a person who is already familiar with the game, and play some matches with him with him on voicechat. Simply so he can warn you about the specific enemy heroes you are facing from game to game, and help you understand the game better. If you're going to play LoL (probably the easiest of the DotA games to get into) play some bot matches first to familiarize yourself with the map and some of the heros.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->One of the better things LoL has going for it compared to other DoTa games is the fact it always has a set of 10 heroes free to everyone. At lower levels, you're likely to come up against the same 10 heroes more often, which makes it a lot easier to learn the characters.
Would be more interested to watch the entire thing, if I could understand the guy when he does talk. He's mostly just mumbling, the music doesn't help either...
Even so, the game footage did show ya how to play...
You just described DotA games in general.
Even worse, as the metagame keeps shifting suddenly a certain combo is really good and so the devs nerf it into the ground instead of waiting for someone to develop a counter (a la StarCraft 2 balance, which is admittedly easier to balance).
Thats how I play with that tiny evil wizard guy (of which I forgot the name) in LoL. He basically gets more spell power by last hitting, not dieing is quite a thing though with him being a squishy :P
VEIGAR
PS: He doesn't get AP for for last hitting, he gets AP for killing champs. If he got AP for last hitting minions he would be horribly OP.
I have been enjoying the heck out of him, he is a tiny little mage assassin with rather good survivability due to Event Horizon. I mean, it's fairly easy to gank him unless you have a nice escape spell.
PS: He doesn't get AP for for last hitting, he gets AP for killing champs. If he got AP for last hitting minions he would be horribly OP.
I have been enjoying the heck out of him, he is a tiny little mage assassin with rather good survivability due to Event Horizon. I mean, it's fairly easy to gank him unless you have a nice escape spell.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Kouji is probably reffering to one of this abilities, that when you use it to last-hit something you get one AP. (For the uninitated: AP = Ability power, a lot of spells scale with the hero's Ability Power, so a higher AP means your spells deal more damage)
Nope, his Q has a passive "You get AP when killing a champ", as opposed to Annie who's Q costs no mana when you kill something with it.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Passive: Veigar gains 1/2/3/4/5 ability power when he kills a champion from any source of damage.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Unless you are assassinating people left and right it's not THAT much AP. You get more from the fact that you can lane like crazy with his W after pumping it a couple times (slowing faster acquire of nice big +AP items).
Yes.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Active: Unleashes dark energy at target enemy, dealing 80/125/170/215/260 (+0.6) magic damage. If the target is killed, Veigar gains 1 ability power.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Anyway! back to the topic at hand: I enjoy playing mages of various sorts in that game. Particular Morgana and Veigar lately. Other than that, Gragas, Cho Gath or Mundo. I still haven't really found a ranged damage dealer I enjoy, been trying a bit of Urgoth and Tristana, and I enjoy playing them, but I haven't really gotten my head around playing them properly - guess I'm too used to playing burst damage mages :x
Also, what region do you play LoL on? I play on EU West.
Now now how I play Veigar has changed :D
thanks :P
And NA is where I play (I don't think we have have sub regions), same deal, I have sucked at anything that isn't a mage so far.