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NOTE: this is not a LoL VS DotA thread. It's not a competition, both games are awesome, and no fan of either is a bad or inferior person because of that.
So, I'm a DotA player. Mostly it has to do with me having familiarity with the game back in the days when it was a Warcraft 3 mod, so by the time LoL came out I already had familiarity with all the DotA heroes and didn't feel like getting accustomed to hundreds of new ones. Plus, the aesthetics of LoL were less to my taste (though I have to say, the new DotA game is kinda ugly).
All in all I think dota is a more punishing game (you lose gold when you die, supports have less money, it's harder to last hit, etc.) which normally wouldn't be my style... but since I started out with DotA I now enjoy it more - it feels more natural, and I like how many of the skills are far more overpowered than in LoL - it feels like each spell has much more of an impact.
What are your opinions and experiences with LoL and DotA?
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Played LoL a lot.
-Early game (low levels, not ranked), victory is pretty much decided on the start with choice of champions and players, because most of them are so criminally bad that they should never play again.
-Late game (ranked), very fun, but so immensely repetitive that i quickly got very very bored with it and stopped playing.
Dota....eh, never liked it from the get go.
Anyway, MOBA games are boring to me.
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-Late game (ranked), very fun, but so immensely repetitive that i quickly got very very bored with it and stopped playing.
I never found DotA repetitive. I assume this might be about the number of avilable heroes to play - one of the major downers in LoL is that you only get to play some of the heroes. In DotA I pick a random hero each game, and I get a pretty varied experience.
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No, what I mean is that the strategy is pretty much the same and people are incredibly predictable.
Never was much of a fan of mulitplayer anyway.
I can see what you mean - DotA is the only multiplyer game I even consider playing, the rest DO bore me to tears by being repetitive and focused on competitions of skill instead of creating a fun experience. I just find that DotA has enough strategic depth and multitude of options to remain fresh even after hundreds of games - every composition of 10 heroes (and there are too many of those to ever play through all of them) creates a match different enough from the others to feel unique.
Kind of like chess, though in a completely different way.
I prefer DotA myself, but I've generally lost my interest in the genre in general.
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I don't play either and I'm having a great time not playing them.
Demigod
Seconded! Demigod was (is!) great.
So, I haven't played DoTA yet, but from what I hear DotA is a better casual game but the breadth of heroes and the imballance in their abilities makes it much less of a competative game for hardcore players. Personally, I've gotten so used to LoL at this point I don't really feel like switching over.
Demigod was a decent game, but they did a horrible job with their ballance (it probably would have gotten better if the game survived longer) and their connection protocol caused the game clock to opperate a different speeds, sometimes unplayably so.
The atrocious community of both put me off of either of them.
The DOTA 2 community is slightly less terrible so I guess that one if I had to pick.
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So, I haven't played DoTA yet, but from what I hear DotA is a better casual game but the breadth of heroes and the imballance in their abilities makes it much less of a competative game for hardcore players. Personally, I've gotten so used to LoL at this point I don't really feel like switching over.
Really? my impression was completely opposite to yours. DotA is far less of a casual game than LoL because
a) considerably more playable heroes at every level of the game, as well as more complicated mechanics, as well as the game being far more punishing, create a higher barrier of entry for DotA than for LoL, making it a far less casual game.
b) DotA is VERY balanced, and I'm saying this as an avid watched of the DotA 2 E-sport. True, some (about 20 I'd say) of the 105 heroes are not competitive (either being a bit too weak or just easily countered by strategies a pro could pull off easily), but generally speaking the professional DotA scene is an ever shifting meta game with numerous powerful options to chose from (Plus, Captain's Mode in DotA is better than in LoL imo because there are 5 bans rather than 3, meaning that you can actually use bans to restrict certain strategies). While some skills of certain heroes in DotA 2 are obviously more powerful than others, most heroes are *very* good at doing their thing - some heroes are capable of filling numerous roles but even those that aren't are still usually very good at least in a single role.
However in LoL, I heard that whenever a new hero is released they make him/her totally imbalanced (way to strong) to get many people to buy it, and then they tone down things in later patches.
In DotA, a hero that comes out is available to everyone so there are no such considerations. Plus, a hero has a cooling period of several months before it's available in Captain's Mode, meaning it will only impact the competitive scene after it has been balanced.
I don't play either and I'm having a great time not playing them.Then why are you posting in this thread?
For laughs.
Also, to echo Rynjin, the community prevents me from playing the games.
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I am a DotA player myself, though I have experience playing with LoL. I personally prefer DotA because I know the game well and when I play LoL it feels like it's the same game every match. This is probably because I don't have enough experience with the game though. I think both games are pretty awesome though. I find DotA to be more competitive and LoL a bit more casual, as opposed to Caineach's view. I am curious why you consider DotA unbalanced to be honest. What abilities do you consider imbalanced?
Lord Snow, do you consider supports to be poorer in DotA only because of the fact that you lose when you die?
So, I haven't played DoTA yet, but from what I hear DotA is a better casual game but the breadth of heroes and the imballance in their abilities makes it much less of a competative game for hardcore players. Personally, I've gotten so used to LoL at this point I don't really feel like switching over.
Really? my impression was completely opposite to yours. DotA is far less of a casual game than LoL because
a) considerably more playable heroes at every level of the game, as well as more complicated mechanics, as well as the game being far more punishing, create a higher barrier of entry for DotA than for LoL, making it a far less casual game.
b) DotA is VERY balanced, and I'm saying this as an avid watched of the DotA 2 E-sport. True, some (about 20 I'd say) of the 105 heroes are not competitive (either being a bit too weak or just easily countered by strategies a pro could pull off easily), but generally speaking the professional DotA scene is an ever shifting meta game with numerous powerful options to chose from (Plus, Captain's Mode in DotA is better than in LoL imo because there are 5 bans rather than 3, meaning that you can actually use bans to restrict certain strategies). While some skills of certain heroes in DotA 2 are obviously more powerful than others, most heroes are *very* good at doing their thing - some heroes are capable of filling numerous roles but even those that aren't are still usually very good at least in a single role.
However in LoL, I heard that whenever a new hero is released they make him/her totally imbalanced (way to strong) to get many people to buy it, and then they tone down things in later patches.
In DotA, a hero that comes out is available to everyone so there are no such considerations. Plus, a hero has a cooling period of several months before it's available in Captain's Mode, meaning it will only impact the competitive scene after it has been balanced.
I have never seen a character in LoL that was intentionally overpowered. There have definetely been some that were reigned in, but there have also been a number that have been powered up in the first patch. Usually most of the complaints about OP in the first week comes from people not actually knowing how to play against it. They frequently get nerfed in the second patch after they are out (after the free week), and then buffed in the 4th. Also, every hero that comes out is available 2 weeks after release durring the free champ rotation, so it isn't like it is that much of an advantage to buying it right away.
I would not be suprised if LoL starts giving more bans once season 4 starts. They didn't need as many when they had fewer heroes, but I agree there should be a few more.
Now, all my info about DotA is second hand, but from the descriptions my friends have given me DotA is ballanced around the idea that if you make every character OP they are all ballanced against eachother. This tends to lead to heavily luck based victories at high skill levels. LoL aims for ballance at a lower power level.
As for the reason I think DotA appeals to more casual gamers, that has to do with which game the people I know who have tried both prefer. The more casual gamers I know prefer DotA, while the more competative and anal ones prefer LoL.
I really don't understand why people find the community in LoL bad. I have been playing it for 3-4 years now, and can count the truely negative experiences I have had on 1 hand, and annoying players maybe 1 out of every 20 or so games. And I play almost exclusively in random games.
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Lord Snow, do you consider supports to be poorer in DotA only because of the fact that you lose when you die?
Not really - supports are poorer (I think - this is a theory based entirely on my personal experience) because:
1) last hitting is harder
2) passive money gain per second is less significant
3) you lose money when you die
4) you are expected to haul around more consumables - the most major example is that any support worth her salt in DotA will carry a teleport scroll or two at all times, to enable jumping to another lane to help out in a team fight. Those scrolls can accumulate to costing about 800 - 1000 gold per game, and that's not even counting the opportunity cost of not getting better items better because you have to spend money on scrolls. Other two major examples are dust of appearance and smoke. Also, wards are much more expensive, and you don't have trinkets.
Now, all my info about DotA is second hand, but from the descriptions my friends have given me DotA is ballanced around the idea that if you make every character OP they are all ballanced against eachother. This tends to lead to heavily luck based victories at high skill levels. LoL aims for ballance at a lower power level.As for the reason I think DotA appeals to more casual gamers, that has to do with which game the people I know who have tried both prefer. The more casual gamers I know prefer DotA, while the more competative and anal ones prefer LoL.
Well, yes, heroes in DotA are very much overpowered compared to LoL, and there is a certain amount of rock-paper-scissors syndrome going on in public games (where usually one team of russian players would all pick carries and the other would pick good heroes that counter those carries and win easily). However, in high level of play the heroes are all picked in Captain's Mode, which is a mind game draft of picks and counter picks. While it can't be said that games are won on luck, it can be said they are won on drafting - in my opinion that makes the game more interesting and skill intensive, not less. When every single spell is swingy enough to change the tide of battle, players are forced to play better, and luck is less of a factor. Just like in LoL, it's all about manual dexterity, strategic thinking and split second decisions.
About the casual or not question - the funny thing is, I'm a pretty casual player myself, and most of my hard core gamer friends play LoL... but that always felt like a coincidence for me. By the way, LoL would actually be harder for me than DotA because every single friggin character has 4 activated abilities AND a summoner spell AND activated items AND the latest additions, trinkets. My fingers are as clumsy as fingers get and I usually try to play heroes that will not force me to regularly use more than 3 hot keys, and in LoL that's literally impossible.
All communities are mostly comprised of horrible people.
Fixed the bold part for you ;)
Anyway, yes, encountering the communities of both games can be a very vexing experience. Most of it is negated by playing with friends, though, and even when I don't I just keep things calm and focus on being positive myself. Some lost cases would just cuss and troll and whine anyway, but you'd be amazed how many people would be shamed into smarting up and quit trolling if you talk with them in a patient, positive way. Just yesterday one guy in my team, who was super good and had like 5 million kills, got angry at the two noobs we had with us and started to troll them, while telling everyone to report said noobs on account of them "feeding on purpose". I told him that they obviously weren't, that being less good at the game than he is is not a bad thing (I added that he is probably much better than average - which was probably true given how well he was doing but also worked to placate him), and that there's a huge difference. I asked him to just try to relax and try to do the best he could in a losing game - an experience that will make him a better player and help everyone enjoy the game more. He actually listened... and it wasn't all that unique. It's actually quite wonderful to manage to make trolls stop and look at what they are doing. Ever since I decided to adopt this mentality I have been enjoying my games much more and had much more fun with the fractured, whiny, annoying community.
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I actually believe supports in DotA earn more money than in LoL due to the nature of supports in each respective game. Now, I have limited experience playing LoL, but when I play with friends who frequently play the game, the supports just sit in the lane with the carry for the entire laning phase, and don't really have a way of getting gold short of passive money and kills in lane. In DotA the supports can be a lot more mobile, and most of the early game is determined by movements and plays made by the supports. Supports spend their time ganking/pressuring other lanes, and can always farm the jungle for extra gold when wards/vision is needed. I believe because DotA supports are not attached to the lane they start in they can earn a lot more money.
I would agree that DotA is the less casual game. While there are stronger abilities in DotA, it does not make them unbalanced. There are counters to just about everything a hero can do, and items can be bought to counter most abilities or plans. The cool-downs on these abilities are also much higher in Dota, so correctly using your abilities becomes more important. In a competitive game you have to coordinate each ability to make sure you get the most out of it to win. The game is basically impossible without a high level of communication. It's coordination and positioning, not luck. If the enigma gets a 5 man blackhole and your team dies, it's probably because your support lich was out of position to chain frost and interupt the channeling.
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I actually believe supports in DotA earn more money than in LoL due to the nature of supports in each respective game. Now, I have limited experience playing LoL, but when I play with friends who frequently play the game, the supports just sit in the lane with the carry for the entire laning phase, and don't really have a way of getting gold short of passive money and kills in lane. In DotA the supports can be a lot more mobile, and most of the early game is determined by movements and plays made by the supports. Supports spend their time ganking/pressuring other lanes, and can always farm the jungle for extra gold when wards/vision is needed. I believe because DotA supports are not attached to the lane they start in they can earn a lot more money.
I never thought about that point (mostly, I'll admit, because i don't have enough experience in LoL to know what exactly are supports supposed to do there), however it's a bit tricky to gauge the effect this has compared to the previous points I mentioned - supports in DotA lose money when they die (which happens rather often with most of them), and are expected to spend more money on consumables. When you get down to it, there's also the difficulty that all the numbers (item prices, passive gold gain, gold per creep/per kill/per assist, etc.) are different. I guess comparing is really hard.
And I think you said it exactly right when you described why DotA is less casual- it's far more swingy, and entire teams can be punished because of one mistake. That might make the game seem luck based to a more casual player, but to a pro that just means more strategy and intense skill.
I play LoL. Mind you, I haven't played DotA2 much, maybe 4-5 hours worth, the learning curve of most MOBA games is too much to invest in more than one IMO. I'm not a very good LoL player either, so I still have a lot of curve to cover in general.
Things I like about LoL
1) I like the art style better, the contrast of colors is much more obvious to me. I don't have color-blindness issues, but I like the more vibrant differentiation in LoL.
2) Slightly faster. It's not uncommon for matches to be 30-40 minutes. I've had a match go 60+ minutes once in a while, but it's rare. It also feels like the pace of the game is faster.
3) I like the less punishing aspect. Or at least feeling like I'm less punished. I think statistics bear out that both games are pretty similar in regards to gold leads at the 12 minute mark resulting in an 80% win rate. Riot has tried to address this some, haven't seen any season 4 statistics to see if it's worked though.
I don't think this makes one game more based on luck over the other, but rather the final 50% of the games more or less interesting. If a game is 48 minutes long, but what happens before the 12 minute mark determines the winner 80% of the time... that's not that interesting.
I've had lots of comebacks (and been the victim of them) to feel that snowballing, while an issue, doesn't completely dominate the amateur scene.
4) I also personally dislike the concept of the denial mechanic. I think it's dumb and counter productive. I prefer game mechanics that push forward instead of maintaining a stalemate. From a game design standpoint (across mediums, video, board and RP) I dislike mechanics that produce no result, like a tie that just cancels out the interaction.
I'm a DotA player, personally, mainly because of the business model. No champions to buy, no rune pages, just cosmetics which don't affect the gameplay. I've heard a lot of arguments from people saying that it's possible to get all the content in LoL without spending money, but it's clearly designed to be so time-consuming to unlock stuff without real money that it's impractical. It also irritates me that I can go into a game and be at a concrete mechanical disadvantage (albeit a minor one) because I don't have the runes that another player does.
I do like the rune (and mastery) mechanic though. Runes and masteries affect low level play mostly, I set things up different for the same champion depending on what I'm planning to do. Plus I like the added layer of theorycrafting: are these runes better than those runes and for which champ, etc.
After a couple levels though, runes become largely irrelevant to the outcome of fights, they're just too minor in stats. For example, I can have all my seals be bonus health (9 seals, +8 hp per) for 72 bonus HP. If I'm a squishy carry, late game without those seals I'll have 1800-2000 hp. Those 72 HP aren't nothing, but they're pretty small. If I'm playing a tank I'll likely have around 3500-4000 HP.
Also, you can't buy runes directly with money. You have to play. You can buy a boost, so that you earn points faster to buy runes, but you still have to play to get the runes.
It is a valid complaint though and it takes a bit of grind to get everything you might want.
I sometimes play LoL in domination mode, the regular moba playstyle is too slow paced for me, I lose focus and get bored way too quickly, and I dont like to have to commit 40+ minutes of undivided attention to a game. For one thing because of attention span limitations for the other because I often have conversations up on my other screen when gaming.
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@Irontruth, a couple of things:
1) About the statistic where 80% of the games where a team has a gold lead by the 12 minute mark, that team wins that game - bear in mind that such a statistic is skewered naturally by the fact that often, there's a reason one team accumulated an advantage over the other in the first 12 minutes - the team's playing better. I'm pretty confidant that a similar statistic could be shown for games that have nothing to do with snowballing - like basketball or football or whatever.
2) About the deny mechanic - I find it hard to understand why you dislike it so much. It's just another way to prevent your opponents from getting stronger, and such ways are to be found both in LoL and in DotA. How is denying creeps all that different from, say, harassing a champion out of lane? these are both legitimate ways to stump your opponent's development.
I do like the rune (and mastery) mechanic though. Runes and masteries affect low level play mostly, I set things up different for the same champion depending on what I'm planning to do. Plus I like the added layer of theorycrafting: are these runes better than those runes and for which champ, etc.
After a couple levels though, runes become largely irrelevant to the outcome of fights, they're just too minor in stats. For example, I can have all my seals be bonus health (9 seals, +8 hp per) for 72 bonus HP. If I'm a squishy carry, late game without those seals I'll have 1800-2000 hp. Those 72 HP aren't nothing, but they're pretty small. If I'm playing a tank I'll likely have around 3500-4000 HP.
Also, you can't buy runes directly with money. You have to play. You can buy a boost, so that you earn points faster to buy runes, but you still have to play to get the runes.
It is a valid complaint though and it takes a bit of grind to get everything you might want.
You can buy a starter set of runes in a bundle with a bunch of champs and skins. It has tier 3 runes I believe, so it is better than you could buy before rank 20. AFAIK that is the only stat-affecting thing you can buy with actual money.
That being said, runes affect early game a lot. For instance, a few points of defense on mid is huge for how much they can be bullied by their opponent with auto attacks at level 1-3. I get mana regen runes on a lot of characters so I don't have to buy items to do it.
2) About the deny mechanic - I find it hard to understand why you dislike it so much. It's just another way to prevent your opponents from getting stronger, and such ways are to be found both in LoL and in DotA. How is denying creeps all that different from, say, harassing a champion out of lane? these are both legitimate ways to stump your opponent's development.
This is a very fundamental dislike.
Removed from the context of this game, and put into all types of games (board games, video games, RPG's, etc), I dislike mechanics that encourage a resolution of zero-gain for either side.
Denial is such a mechanic. The creep is low, I kill it first and neither of us gets anything. It's literally a result of zero change. I dislike that. I like mechanics in the game to push forward.
Harass does push forward. If I harass you, I'm "denying" you the ability to farm creeps, but I'm doing so by pushing you out of the lane, giving myself the opportunity to farm up. It results in a change happening, instead of maintaining the situation.
I'll give an example from an RPG (it's close, but not quite). In Fate you can spend a Fate Point to get a bonus. The GM can spend a Fate Point to cancel it out. If the mechanic stopped there, I would consider it to be a boring mechanic (and thus bad IMO), but both sides are allowed to up the ante and keep bidding until one side folds. Plus, even if the GM does cancel your Fate Point spending, you GET the points he spent to do it. It's been forever since I've played Fate, so I'm sure I got specifics wrong (please don't correct me on specifics, they aren't the point of the analogy).
Game mechanics that have a net result of 0 are boring to me.
There hasn't been a lot of statistical analysis, but the little bit I've seen shows about a 50% correlation between leading at the end of the first quarter and winning the game in the NBA. Leading at the end of the 3rd quarter has about a 60% correlation.
I also don't think that LoL has fixed the problem of an early determined winner any better than DotA2 has. Both games are basically decided prior to the 15 minute mark (or at least 80% of games). I'd be super interested if a developer comes along and solves that to make mid and late game more meaningful, than just the early winners looking for their opportunity to strike and finish.
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@Irontruth,
O.K, I see your point, though I guess I still can't agree with it. Adding the ability to deny does several important things, in my opinion:
1) added decision making - just the added layer of complexity enabled by denies is fun - you have to plan the timing of your movements and attacks with even greater precision, because not only can you also deny creeps from your opponent, your oppoennt is also trying to deny you. This creates an increast contest - now you have to care about the possibility that the enemy will finish off a low health creep before you have the chance. Simply said, this makes early movement and gameplay even more competitive and fun.
2) It allows supports to get a slice of the last-hitting pie. In LoL, a good support never ever attacks a creep. In DotA, it's actually good to let the carry focus on last hitting, and the supports to deny as many creeps as possible. So now support players get to share some of the fun of last hitting
3) The specific ability to deny towers is VERY important I think - it makes the entire process of besieging a tower all the more tense. Denying a tower is a HUGE deal, and you really want to make sure that someone from your team is the one to last hit opposing towers. Again this adds decision making - leaving the tower in deny range is a very bad thing, which forces you to time your commitment to the push.
In addition, from the way you describe things it appears there's something you don't know about denying in DotA - it only denies the gold, and every opponent in range still gets the XP. Additionally, denying a tower only denies some of the gold from the opposing team (most of it) but not all. So you are getting something even if your opponent made a successful deny.
Again, I see your point, but I think in this specific case the added fun to the game FAR outweighs the problem of using a mechanic that's not beneficial to anyone. Simply put, while you are not really advancing the game by denying a creep, the ability to do so makes the early parts of the game more fun, and that's good (especially considering how you claim that the game is decided in the early parts, which are the part where denying is most relevant).
Personally, one of the best changes I think LoL did over the WC3 DotA was removing denial. I thought it was a terrible mechanic then and still do, for many of the reasons Irontruth mentioned. In addition, I dislike how it favors characters with fast attack animations.
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d. In addition, I dislike how it favors characters with fast attack animations.
But how is that different from normal last hitting?
Yes, a quicker attack animation is an advantage. So is a high armor, a large mana pool, fast health regen, or powerful skills. Why does the fact that one of the game mechanics favors one of the stats champions can have problematic? on the contrary, I find that it increases variance.
Again, I see your point, but I think in this specific case the added fun to the game FAR outweighs the problem of using a mechanic that's not beneficial to anyone. Simply put, while you are not really advancing the game by denying a creep, the ability to do so...
It's one of those things that's personal preference for me. I will never find stalemate mechanics fun. You can tout their strategic/tactical importance to me for hours and hours, but the final result is that I will still find them fundamentally boring.
It's like trying to convince someone who doesn't like the color orange that they should wear orange shirts.
You're going to have strategic/tactical decisions happening whether this mechanic exists or not. There is no denial mechanic in LoL, even though I play support role for the carry quite often, I still find myself constantly busy. I don't just stand there doing nothing, I'm putting down wards for vision, watching for enemy movements on the map, using my positioning to try and zone the enemy carry/support (either out of position to prevent them from last hitting/harassing my carry or so that we can jump them and score a kill).
Just because a mechanic isn't present doesn't mean that the game suddenly becomes empty, other things are taking place and things still happen.