Is Dota Too Hard?
My friends and I often talk about teaching our parents how to use new technology. Ten years ago it was how to create an e-mail account. Today it’s how to play mobile games, which is so, so much easier. It’s not long until we get Candy Crush updates from our parents.
In 2010 Ian Boghost developed a satirical game called Cow Clicker. It was a pared down take on the state of mobile and social gaming at the time. The two word title itself was the instruction guide. You click on cows. The more you click, the more the cows moo, and eventually you were rewarded by purchasing new, fancy cows with “mooney.” It was deceptively simple, and what started out as a joke became a cult and viral hit.
If mobile and social gaming lies at one end of the “accessibility” spectrum, then Dota lies at the other end. For mobile games, everyone at the dinner table, from toddlers to their parents could play. You could squeeze a quick game in while waiting for coffee or ignoring an awkward conversation. Dota, on the other hand, requires your full concentration and a time commitment on average from 30 mins to an hour, and you are punished for failing to do so. It’s an insular community where 1000 invested hours can be considered the minimum for an experienced gamer.
A Game of Exceptions
The de facto introduction to Dota 2 has been Purge’s 15,000+ word behemoth of a guide, “Welcome to Dota, You Suck.” The document is a comprehensive breakdown on all facets of the game, from starting builds to the intricacies of illusion and item damage mechanics. Dota is filled with these “did you know” facts that can never be comprehended at once. There is no complete document for Dota’s minutiae and exceptions. It’s like learning English. It has to be learned through self discovery, word of mouth, and persistent correction. Did you know Manta Style has a longer cool down for ranged heroes? I didn’t either, until I saw a Reddit post about little known facts on Dota. Are you familiar with debuffs that can be dispelled by strong dispels, and debuffs that can not be dispelled by normal dispels? Wait until someone criticizes you for trying to avoid Oracle’s False Promise damage with Eul’s.
The largest hurdle isn’t even these details, but you do with them. Dota isn’t a game that you can jump into and figure it out as you go. You don’t even know where to go. It is like a game of Chess where a novice plots his next five moves, and the first one is already in the wrong direction. In Dota, there are enough aphorisms to fill a spinoff treatise of Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War.
“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.” (Avoid fights. Farm the map)
“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.” (Baiting the enemy)
“When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.” (Don’t dive the T3s)
“Treat your men as you would your own beloved sons. And they will follow you into the deepest valley” (Don’t flame)
The Reward
At first glance, Dota’s reward is superficial in its cosmetic items. Other than our MMR, which may waver, there’s no other way to display our prowess. Part of the fun of investing in a game is to see our progress (and show it off), like an expansive culture in Civilization or a geared out character in World of Warcraft. However, in Dota, every game starts out from scratch. Every player starts with the same set of tools. The game doesn’t reward us by unlocking new features from game to game. Our heroes don’t level up and become more powerful. We can’t showcase our MMR. The only way to show off is by doing it. The secret of Dota’s reward is seeing yourself improve. The game doesn’t reward us—we reward ourselves.
It’s those same details and exceptions that gives Dota its learning curve but also its depth. Without this, we would never get those moments where we used our knowledge of cooldowns to exploit a window to push. Or when we recognize that their weak offlaner enables our two supports more freedom to pull, roam, and pressure other lanes.
Experience in Dota can culminate into what the community describes as "game sense." It's like a sixth sense. A player with high game sense will know where enemy players are, without much vision. He can feel the ebbs and flows of a game, and he'll know when it's best to retreat before a gank is in motion. He outwits his opponents with experience, knowledge, and intuition. It's up to us to decide whether it was worth it.
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@.. Really? It's not an article for racists like you, when you have time making racial comments, you should have time to improve yourself.
i didn't know what i didn't know...even when i thought i knew what i didn't know...
Great writing, and so true! :D
After winning a consecutive 8 ranked matches with my teammates, reading this made me even feel great. I love to read this kind of articles. Great post. Thanks!
Welcome to dota 2, enemy team has picked troll warlord, u have lose the game, game is safe to leave fuck dota dont play it until icefraud grows a brain
I see so much people bragging about w3 skills compared to Dota 2. Let me tell you, wc3 is a baby game compared to SC. I used to be a fulltime SC player and ofc SC2 when it was released. I used to think Dota 2 was for babies as well until I tried it. This is not a game you will understand by playing solo and getting started in pub matches. That will give you the false idea of the game being easy. You won't even know 1/4 of what this game is about.
Dota 2 recquires a lot of time, research, and experience to get started. If you are alone, with no friends, it will be probably harder.
If you are a casual player, you will never know what Dota 2 is about, and will probably think it's just about breaking the ancient and pushing with your hero as much as you can, and killing other people and creeps as much (and fast) as you can.
But if you get by the first impressions, and you get into the game, start watching pro matches, looking for info, you will realize this game has so much to offer. And it's different from RTS since you actually need to have coordination with the rest of your team. You need to Draft the heroes, to counter other lineups, and pay attention to what the other 9 people is doing.
It recquires a different type of skill than an RTS, but it recquires a lot of it as well, and it's nothing easy. Plus, it adds the teamplay and communication with other people of the team, which is never an easy task. For me, it's much more fun than RTS and that' s why since I fell into DOta, I never got back to SC or RTS...and I was good at it.
Am i the only one who hasnt had problem with learning dota? Might be because i watched so much purge before i got the beta key
DOTA 2 aint hard, the community that make it hard. As a SEA server casual player, playing dota 2 always giving me headaches. and now since this retard HOHO HAHA patch, my play time decreased significantly.
Dota is really hard since it requires years of experience to master due to all of the data and information needed to master it. You'll eventually get the skills along with time (exceptions are really noob players). I'm glad that I started playing this game when I was around 13-14 yrs old, that was around like 2003-2004. I still can't believe how this once custom map game have grown into. It really amazes me.
good article!
Dota is hard. We know that. A lot of this makes it more interesting. But some parts are really just in DotA 2 because too many people from DotA 1 are nostalgic:
-To stack a camp you have to time it within one second of xx:53. This could be done automatically when you click a button and it would be much more clear and easy, without taking any less strategy. But nope, that's too casul for tru DotA fans.
-Same thing for pulling.
-Mana bars don't show on enemies. Bothering to click on ppl is real skillz.
-Same thing for items. There should be a screen that shows what you last knew like LoL.
love those quotes of Sun Tzu’s. glad to know that i'm not the only one (sick bastard xD) who's read it to improve his play))
For me, dota is all about greed.
Great Text !! Totally agree..
And ...... nice Art of war Quotes ..... haha they fit as a glove. :)
No..having russians in your team makes the game hard
to sum DoTA = Never Go Full Retard