DotA 2 Beta discussion thread of sorts?

Higlac

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So yeah, couldn't find another Dota 2 thread, nor a more appropriate place to put it. So here goes.

First impressions:

Well, I never played the original Dota, so I couldn't compare it to that, but I have played a lot of League of Legends, and from all of two matches I've played, I think I prefer League of Legends. I do, however, like how Valve included a built in voice chat system. This does lead to the expected 12 year olds though, even before it's released, there's idiotic, unhelpful asses in games. Might just be the MOBA genre though.

As the game is still in beta, there are some bugs. Namely, alt-tab breaks the game sometimes. I haven't noticed any in game as of yet though. Unless the general unresponsiveness of my character is lag or bug induced, more on that later.

Visually, the game looks nice, though the character models look a little muddy and blocky and the colors and textures don't seem as crisp as they did in (screenshots of) the original, and it looks like the visual team was stolen from TF2.

The controls are pretty normal, right click to do everything, qwer to do anything that isn't done by right clicking, and left click to look at things/use items. Everything is remappable though, so if you absolutely must have your item backpack on left hand keys rather than the keypad, you can do that.

The gameplay is what I find most frustrating so far, Dota 2 is incredibly unforgiving when it comes to any mistakes, especially during the early game If you ever-extend at all when you're out of recovery items, the quickest way to get back into the action and experience is to die, awarding the other team gold and XP. You can walk back, but by the time you get back to the shop/spawning pool and back to the front lines, you're going to be down by two levels, and you'll stay that way for the rest of the game. From what I've seen, you can not be aggressive, or else you're punished for it. Like I said before, the casting is somewhat unresponsive (could have been my character), but it seems that you will not be able to rely on fast reactions or twitch gameplay in Dota 2, everything must be planned out ahead of time.

The item trees and shop system are not very clear, nor are they well explained, it took me a good two minutes to figure out that right clicking on an item buys it. There is no visible "buy item" button, nor is it explained anywhere. I do like how the suggested items are clearly visible for different stages of the game, though everything beyond the "core build" is almost prohibitively expensive if you're new to Dota and can't hold on to gold or get a decent farm.

The map seems absolutely enormous compared to League of Legends, it takes forever to get anywhere, and the jungle is so large that the chances of seeing any other players in there by chance is rather slim. I think that the size of the map in combination with creep denying and heavily defensive gameplay leads to a slow, boring early game, no inter-lane interaction, and long, unsatisfactory games.

One thing that League has which Dota lacks, is any system of persistent meta-game. League has the summoner system and player combat logs. The summoner system gives you rewards to keep playing and experiment by allowing you to create entirely new playstyles for each individual character, while summoner profiles can help you see how that one good player from the last match owned you so hard. I'm sure that it is possible in Dota 2, but it's just nowhere near as intuitive.

Learning about the game from within the game is fairly difficult at the moment, as the tutorial mode is not yet available, leaving you high and dry as to what the controls are, and unclear tooltips leave much to be desired. The first time you cast a spell, you won't be sure as to what it does until you actually use it. Normally the tooltips will tell you if it's meant for friend or foe, but not how the spell actually acts (again this is from experience with one champion). For example, I played my two games with Earthshaker, and his Q ability creates a wall of rock, which does damage and stuns enemies. Granted, the tooltip says just that, but the circle indicating the range, is only available when you ready the spell, and doesn't actually show how the spell is cast. In this case, it creates a wall from directly in front of the character and extends to the edge of the circle, no matter where you click to place the wall. Perhaps a straight arrow would have been a better choice of graphic. Then again, might just be that champion... Will update later after more experimentation.

One thing that I absolutely love though is how you can watch every game being played live. This, I think, and not the Combat log or actual time in-game will be the biggest source of information for anyone getting into the game. Speaking of the combat log, it seems to be a powerful tool to tell you what abilities and debuffs cause you the most trouble, however it takes too much time to go over when you're in game to be useful during the early game against new opponents.

One last note, the matchmaking engine is somewhat schizophrenic. You could be waiting for five minutes for a match, get up to use the restroom, and come back 30 seconds later, only to find that "you were too slow to respond to accepting the matchmade game, would you like to be placed back into the queue?"

Anyway, it's 2:20 A.M. here and that's all I've got to say about that.

I'm going to keep playing until I get good enough to pull a positive score, but with these first impressions, I'm not sure that Dota 2 will be able to pull me away from League of Legends.
 
If anyone has a key to share, I'd love to have it.
 
First things first! Plz gief key asap lol

Jelly :<
 
Yeah, that. Heh.

Anyways sounds reasonable enough given the relative state of development between LoL and DotA2.
 
I have a key for Taviow next time I see you on steam.

As for Dota 2, I like it. I feel like it makes a lot of improvements from the original. However, most of these features are already standard in other similar games. LoL/HoN.
I love the heroes of Dota. It's nice to play some old favorites after playing HoN for a while.

I have two issues with this that make it really hard for me to play.
Delay/lag and clear visual and audio clues for unit attacks.
There is a noticeable delay that feels like network lag in Dota 2 games which makes it feel like I'm playing DotA all over again. The reason I started playing HoN in the first place was because it got rid of this issue. When I issue a command and it takes between a quarter and a half second for the game to respond it makes it incredibly hard to last hit or do anything that requires finesse. And Dota is a game about finesse(at least in the early game)
The second thing that goes hand in hand with the first is the weak animation/sound system for attacks in the game. If I'm a melee hero there is no solid cue for me to use to time the point to when I'm actually doing damage. It really puts me off and with the added delay it makes it all the more difficult to land those precious last hits to collect gold.
The hitpoint bars for creeps are funny too. It's like there's buffer space at both ends so when you think a creep has two hits left it only has one and you end up missing it. :|

I'd like to see some voting options in game. Having to wait a whole game when you're clearly not going to be winning from 15 minutes in is really dull and they need some options for conceding or remaking or kicking afk players.
Pre and post game chat would be nice too. There are odd spots where it locks chat so you can't type to anyone.(while people are still loading and once the ancient is destroyed)

There are some other things that need to be refined and I hope things will get sorted out over time.
I really want to like Dota 2. I feel it has the potential to be the best game of it's type out there. (HoN is imbalanced and LoL...not even going there)

It's really hard for me to enjoy it though because of those two issues I have mentioned.
 
Just got in, I got two keys I'll give here. Though you need to be someone who actually posts around here, looking at you randomguy82910389 join date 2011 o_O
 
I'll go ahead and shamelessly ask for a key, but I know you'll say no :p This is my 3rd account here, keep being banned due to inactivity. I lurk, lol.

The DotA community is dead, so I've been playing LoL... But I want DotA 2 so bad >.>
 
My god, the GUI, it's terrible... Can't see shit - Stevie Wonder style. And the game is so damn quiet, in HoN there was always some sound or something, it's like we're in space or something. Plus feels like a slow motion movie after HoN. But for a beta it seems good. Need to play more games.
 
I gave Higlac his key, and he's too noob to play Dota 2 well. I'll post some of my first impressions on it soon, coming from a guy who played Dota maybe 5 times ever, and kicks a lot of ass in League of Legends

Also, don't you dare play 1 or 2 games and stop using that key. I gave you that key over a bunch of other people because I thought you'd play the heck out of it. Its really making me quite sad to see it unusued while I have friends begging for one :-(
 
I gave Higlac his key, and he's too noob to play Dota 2 well. I'll post some of my first impressions on it soon, coming from a guy who played Dota maybe 5 times ever, and kicks a lot of ass in League of Legends

Also, don't you dare play 1 or 2 games and stop using that key. I gave you that key over a bunch of other people because I thought you'd play the heck out of it. Its really making me quite sad to see it unusued while I have friends begging for one :-(

I'm trying, I just have exams and such.
 
This is the best game in the genre imo and I've played all the big ones. It might be frustrating if you don't know the basics, this isn't League of Legends, it is very different and much more unforgiving to newbies.

The gameplay is what I find most frustrating so far, Dota 2 is incredibly unforgiving when it comes to any mistakes, especially during the early game If you ever-extend at all when you're out of recovery items, the quickest way to get back into the action and experience is to die, awarding the other team gold and XP. You can walk back, but by the time you get back to the shop/spawning pool and back to the front lines, you're going to be down by two levels, and you'll stay that way for the rest of the game. From what I've seen, you can not be aggressive, or else you're punished for it.

First off, you're never supposed to go back to your base in early game. If you run out of regen items you use the courier to ferry some to you so you can stay in the lane without too much disruption. Also, you can definitely be aggressive in the laning phase (a lot of lane combos rely on it) but you need to know the limits of your hero and the opposing heroes to be truly effective. And you need to make sure not to tank the creeps cause they turn on you if you autoattack opposing heroes. Some heroes are not very good at playing aggressive at all in the early game aswell.

I have two issues with this that make it really hard for me to play.
Delay/lag and clear visual and audio clues for unit attacks.
There is a noticeable delay that feels like network lag in Dota 2 games which makes it feel like I'm playing DotA all over again. The reason I started playing HoN in the first place was because it got rid of this issue. When I issue a command and it takes between a quarter and a half second for the game to respond it makes it incredibly hard to last hit or do anything that requires finesse. And Dota is a game about finesse(at least in the early game)
The second thing that goes hand in hand with the first is the weak animation/sound system for attacks in the game. If I'm a melee hero there is no solid cue for me to use to time the point to when I'm actually doing damage. It really puts me off and with the added delay it makes it all the more difficult to land those precious last hits to collect gold.
The hitpoint bars for creeps are funny too. It's like there's buffer space at both ends so when you think a creep has two hits left it only has one and you end up missing it. :|

I don't have these lag problems you speak of. For me it runs smooth. Is the delay you talk about the attack animation? How different heroes have different delays between starting the attack until it does damage. If that's what you mean then that's supposed to be there to make different heroes have an easier or harder time last hitting.

Quixoticism said:
I'd like to see some voting options in game. Having to wait a whole game when you're clearly not going to be winning from 15 minutes in is really dull and they need some options for conceding or remaking or kicking afk players.

Some people give up way too early if there's been a tough early game even if you have the hero composition and ability to make a comeback. I quite like the system with no concede for now because more people try to play it out and see if it can be turned around which leads to some really fun games. Of course people can still leave and afk and it can be a waste of time at times.
 
I've been super excited to try out Dota 2 being a big fan of LoL and having played a bit of the original WC3 mod. If someone is lucky enough to have a spare key I would be very grateful for the chance to try it :) *looks at Bakurei sheepishly*

From what I have been hearing it sounds like it is fairly unforgiving when compared to League of Legends. How is the community, is it same old, same old from that perspective?
 
Bob IM me your email/steam name, I'll send you the invite.

U better play it *shakes fist*
 
If anyone has an invite, I'd be super happy to get one. You'll never guess my Steam ID.
 
Can this be a discussion thread and not a thread begging for keys, please?
 
Yes please.

So today I learned that Lina and Earthshaker sharing a lane rapes some face.
 
I tried Skeleton King for the first time, man is he sick... Granted the opposing team wasn't that good, got a good 600gpm and 800xp/min.

I haven't really noticed the latency issues anymore, it's not as smooth as HoN, but smooth enough. Except with Lina, the attack animation just feels so wrong.

Despite the looks, this game is surprisingly heavy. Especially some of the spells.
 
Definitely feels like dota. Rocked it up as ez-mode venomancer twice yesterday. Lost my previous two games due to people disconnecting when the other team got first blood.


.... yeah that's dota alright :p
 
They really need to get the concede option to the game... I mean it's really frustrating to play when you know there's nothing you can do to win. Instead of 20min you have to play 50min since the other team just wants to get kills.

Oh and be careful about leaving. I've left a like 1 or 2 games when I thought it was legal to leave (one left before) and I think I've been put to some leaver queue. Matchmaking takes like 15min now...
 
I'm getting better slowly. I'm not dying so much and I'm getting more kills.
 
Oh dear. Just finished a game where we steamrolled the opposition - they let Huskar farm mid un-harassed, he ended up with 25 killing blows and 1 death and was 8 levels higher than anyone else.
 
This game is much harder than LoL. I forsee myself spending a long time in bot matches until I can improve my skills in... well just about everything.

Got a few multi-kills with Tidehunters ult though, man the stuff he says after each level up is funny.
 
I expected this to be fun (like LoL) but it's actually pretty horrible. Yeah, I can tell it's really trying to stay true to the original... a cheapass Warcraft III mod, which is exactly what this feels like.

It really makes me appreciate what League of Legends has done for this game type... trying to play DotA 2 is like trying to play some sort of weird, clunky, devolved version. The whole stat, ability, and item system is just an absolute nightmare and does next to nothing for the fun of playing the game (which is pretty much nonexistent). Stats are confusing, abilities are weak, unresponsive and hard to use, and there are far too many "usable" items to keep track of along with using the stupid courier because you actually have to buy an item to teleport back to the base. It's all just one giant chore. Don't even get me started on the complete lack of character of all these "heroes"...

I really expected Valve to make an effort to make this game fun, friendly, and easy to learn, but they pretty much went the opposite way on that. Such a failure.
 
They should really change the shop, it's le terrible. Plus someone should make a mod to rename everything to same things as in HoN. "U BUY VLADS" "buy what now?"

The more I play this, the more I like it. I still feel HoN is better in it's own ways but there's something in Dota2 that keeps me playing.
 
Any love for me for a key? :p
steamid : tomemozok e-mail:[email protected]
now to my point of this reply:
Dota for WC3 was,and still is an awesome map (more of a mod) for warcraft.It's just insane if you play it on HLR 1 or 2 on garena:D
Dota 2 should be the same expiriance,but with better graphics,and more options to expand after the port is complete:D
If anyone wants to play some dota,just say it:D
 
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