Oh god, remember Heroes of Newerth? They have a fan server revival version called Operation Kongor now.
If you think you've seen toxic MOBA communities...holy shit. People actually screaming at you over voice chat from very first pick.
From there it's screaming every single play.
But wait, the fun doesn't stop there! Their Discord channel is also the same toxic flavor! Every 4th chat line is the most anti-social turd dump. Every other line is about banning turd dumps. Just a toxic waste dump.
+2
KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
Sad, but expected. HoN was a great original sequel to Dota 1, but it really lost it's flavor after charging for access on release and for new heroes as they came out. Should have been F2P and just charged for cosmetics and it would probably still be popular.
Just waiting for the great conflux to merge some heroes from HoN into Dota 2. :pray hands:
KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
So yeah, Dota 2 is now a completely different game. Same general mechanics and familiar spells/items, but just huge changes overall. https://www.dota2.com/newfrontiers?v=2
It is a large enough change that the game feels completely different and that might be fresh and new and fun and it might also be the impetus I need to stop shooting up with it and play something else.
At a minimum I'm gonna have to wait a while for the bots to get re-calibrated for the new map, and that's assuming the parts of the bot scripts that rely on Valve actually got adjusted by Valve. Last time there were major map changes, that didn't happen for over a year.
So Ogre Magi with the new harpoon is basically Pudge + Dark Seer
It's kinda silly
My friend is working on a roguelike game you can play if you want to. (It has free demo)
+1
KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
So I played a couple unranked games, and I'm reading through the hero changes now. It's a lot but it only takes a game or two to get a handle on it. Biggest differences to focus on would be the additional structures like the watchers/TP gates/extra-boss areas for shards, wisdom runes which take the place of tome of knowledge for extra XP (probably for supports), and the new items/neutral tokens.
I haven't seen big hero changes in action yet since the people I've played with are more focused on map changes and BLOOD GRENADE currently. So I'll see how heroes shake out after more games.
The map is probably the biggest hurdle for me at this point. I tooled around for about 10 minutes last night before going to bed, and man, it's a bit of a mess to figure out. The dynamics of being able to teleport from bot to top and top to bot freely like that during the laning phase feels like the biggest change, to me. It makes managing the creep wave even more important now, because if you give the other team access to the portal, it's suddenly a 4v2 on the other side of the map.
The map is probably the biggest hurdle for me at this point. I tooled around for about 10 minutes last night before going to bed, and man, it's a bit of a mess to figure out. The dynamics of being able to teleport from bot to top and top to bot freely like that during the laning phase feels like the biggest change, to me. It makes managing the creep wave even more important now, because if you give the other team access to the portal, it's suddenly a 4v2 on the other side of the map.
There's also an outpost next to each of the portals that can't be taken over, even after tier 2s go down. So there's just always a threat of ganks when you push past river in this patch compared to last patch. That's why there's watchers that are available next to the gates, but even then those are easily taken over or destroyed so vision is probably really important for gates & rosh pits in general.
It seems like a massive nerf to casters and support?
Heroes that relied on that CC to be relevant got hit with a 13-20% reduction. And it seems like there's no buffs to compensate. BKB still makes them useless later on. Sure the magic damage reduction is now 50% instead of 100%, but even then that's still a wasted cast if used on an avatar'd hero. CC immunity is still in place.
And auto attack carries seem like they got another buff with the new universal class of heroes. No more wasted stats with item purchases. Every single point now goes towards attack damage.
Am I missing something? Are they banking it all on carries being more vulnerable to ganks now?
0
KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
It seems like a massive nerf to casters and support?
Heroes that relied on that CC to be relevant got hit with a 13-20% reduction. And it seems like there's no buffs to compensate. BKB still makes them useless later on. Sure the magic damage reduction is now 50% instead of 100%, but even then that's still a wasted cast if used on an avatar'd hero. CC immunity is still in place.
And auto attack carries seem like they got another buff with the new universal class of heroes. No more wasted stats with item purchases. Every single point now goes towards attack damage.
Am I missing something? Are they banking it all on carries being more vulnerable to ganks now?
I think it got to the point where disables were so potent and overbearing that it led a lot of the meta for a long time. Essentially just the result of power creep and disable buffs over years of patching. So in a sense you're right, but since it is across the board it's actually not that bad in practice (at least for me). Supports are usually the ones that get a free shard at 20 and 30 minutes due to the Tormentors, and now they can pick up wisdom runes (possibly steal the opponents too) for even more XP than tomes. A lot of people read BKB change as basically killing the item, but it's still really good because CC is still a problem, it's just less of one.
It's still too early for me to shake out, but the combination of the above with Gates to gank side lanes easier makes for some interesting changes to the meta. I saw a safe-lane Mirana with Octorine/Aghs the other day just killing it because it was 3-5s arrows all the damn time.
Note: I 10000000% understand why we don't have bots that handle the new mechanics yet. I don't even think it's a good idea to start working on bots until you've seen players play the game with the new changes and establish a meta.
I really wish we had bots that handled the new mechanics. I'm bummed that the tormentors and gates and lily pools and wardstones and xp runes are just not picked up or used at all by the bots. It'll probably be months to maybe a year or more before I get to enjoy the mechanics, or I suppose I could play multi and get screamed and pinged at for not being a pro gamer.
Note: I 10000000% understand why we don't have bots that handle the new mechanics yet. I don't even think it's a good idea to start working on bots until you've seen players play the game with the new changes and establish a meta.
I really wish we had bots that handled the new mechanics. I'm bummed that the tormentors and gates and lily pools and wardstones and xp runes are just not picked up or used at all by the bots. It'll probably be months to maybe a year or more before I get to enjoy the mechanics, or I suppose I could play multi and get screamed and pinged at for not being a pro gamer.
I think just play unranked and mute everyone when you get in. It's unranked so people's expectations *SHOULD* be lowered, but you'll always have a better team interaction with real people and not bots.
Note: I 10000000% understand why we don't have bots that handle the new mechanics yet. I don't even think it's a good idea to start working on bots until you've seen players play the game with the new changes and establish a meta.
I really wish we had bots that handled the new mechanics. I'm bummed that the tormentors and gates and lily pools and wardstones and xp runes are just not picked up or used at all by the bots. It'll probably be months to maybe a year or more before I get to enjoy the mechanics, or I suppose I could play multi and get screamed and pinged at for not being a pro gamer.
I think just play unranked and mute everyone when you get in. It's unranked so people's expectations *SHOULD* be lowered, but you'll always have a better team interaction with real people and not bots.
I've played ranked maybe once in my entire life. I only play unranked. It's completely the same in terms of people and whether they're shitty.
EDIT: I shouldn't make it sound like they're always monsters. They're not. I've had good games of multi. But I'd say there's a 25% chance of having assholes ruin a game, and then I'm just...done. I'm frazzled when that happens and I'm just fucking done.
Bots don't say much, some of the scripts (which I've been helping with and is lots of fun!) say stuff like lane positions and when they're going in for a gank and stuff but otherwise they don't just scream that I or someone else on our team is trash and then just pout and throw the game.
Plus you can, with a little bit of scripting, get bots to play Captains Mode, which is a treat, because picking an entire team to be themed or goofy can be fun.
Man, this patch is wild. I don't even play anymore, but I saw it was up on Reddit, glanced at the notes, saw the map changes and just Nope'd right back out.
This is something to be savoured with the dulcet soothing tones of Purge, and he isn't disappointing.
11.5 hours of patch note analysis, the man is a machine.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Mark your calendars: The International returns to Seattle this October. The world's best Dota teams will once again compete for the Aegis of Champions, this time in Climate Pledge Arena, welcoming the largest audience in the event's history.
This year, the group stage kicks off on Saturday, October 14th, with the playoffs to follow. Both of these events will run under one banner, The Road to the International, which we'll be talking more about in the coming weeks.
The International itself will commence on Friday, October 27th and run through Sunday, October 29th.
We'll be announcing ticketing information and more details on The Road to the International as we get closer to the event.
The playoffs only being 3 days long caught the eye of Reddit in the threads I saw on the topic.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
I saw people were upset about it being in Seattle because Visa issues. I would imagine it will be difficult because our government is slow af with that stuff.
I could swear that TI's and other high tier tournaments are always played on the 'live' patch or something very close to it. Which is part of why major patches don't usually happen until after a Major has concluded, and are unlikely in the weeks leading up to TI itself, barring something horrifically game breaking that must be fixed.
I'm more of a watcher than a player, so I'm open to being corrected if that's untrue, but it's the impression I've gotten over the years.
So yeah, it could be a glorious mess.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
I hadn't played dota in years but this patch got me to poke back in and I've been having a lot of fun. I'm still really terrible, especially having not played in so long and seeing so many new heroes I am totally oblivious on but it's fun!
The UI for chests and stuff seems worse than I remember but there's a TON of cosmetic stuff so maybe that's why
You can go to the Steam Marketplace and buy entire sets very cheaply. Individual items that have been around for years might only be a few cents apiece, and unless you're looking for extremely rare/highly sought after pieces, you can dress up a hero or ten pretty cost effectively.
Then there's things like the Battle Pass for The International, which should be coming up, which is full of random odds and ends for heroes, lootboxes of several flavours giving out older sets or new Immortals (usually just a single piece that has particle effects and might change the appearance of a skill) that aren't marketable for a year, but can be gifted.
There are also treasure chests you can buy that may require a key to unlock, but as a casual observer they seem to have moved away from that approach, maybe? Or at least it doesn't seem as common, but I admit that most of my DotA loot interactions are tied to playing a little and spending more money than I should be during the TI season on the battlepass.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
I giggle at the prices of items sometimes. Like if you want a weapon with a cool red aura? That's 12 cents. You want the gold aura one that isn't as cool but clearly more rare? That's $358.
And there are some items that go for really ridiculous prices, I've seen >$700 items on there, and I swear I once saw something going for 4 digits.
Yeah, if you sort by most expensive DotA2 items, there are a bunch that are up for literally thousands of dollars, but they mostly seem to be gags/hopes that someone buys it accidentally or something.
Things that are both rare/highly sought after and have actual sales listed seem to be more in the $600'ish range, and then there's roughly a gajillion other items that rapidly fall down to the couple of bucks or cents range.
A bunch of the higher ones seem to be essentially one of a kind in the sense that they're the only "Corrupted _____" on the market at the moment so the seller figured 'fuck it, let's see if someone will buy this for a grand?'
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Tooled around a bit with the new stuff for the first time.
The teleport gates are big, but I don't think the bonkers broken everyone was predicting. They're a bit of pain to get to and take time to channel, plus dump you in a pain spot.
Those consumable grenades are nuts. Seems mandatory to max those out right away, and all during early laning.
Those lotus pools seem like a big deal, and I'm not sure I like them. That instant heal is huge, and who picks up the lotuses from the pool is extremely swingy (a 400/400 instant heal item at the 5 minute mark???). I think the channel time to pick them up could be a lot longer. Like, triple.
Just a reminder that there's a 10 year anniversary event going on to get 13 'free' treasures of legacy items
1 treasure per win, turbo counts as 1/2
event ends on 7th sept
Posts
If you think you've seen toxic MOBA communities...holy shit. People actually screaming at you over voice chat from very first pick.
From there it's screaming every single play.
But wait, the fun doesn't stop there! Their Discord channel is also the same toxic flavor! Every 4th chat line is the most anti-social turd dump. Every other line is about banning turd dumps. Just a toxic waste dump.
Just waiting for the great conflux to merge some heroes from HoN into Dota 2. :pray hands:
https://clips.twitch.tv/SuspiciousAcceptableHippoNerfRedBlaster-BJlliZc57bfCIqKg
https://www.dota2.com/newfrontiers?v=2
At a minimum I'm gonna have to wait a while for the bots to get re-calibrated for the new map, and that's assuming the parts of the bot scripts that rely on Valve actually got adjusted by Valve. Last time there were major map changes, that didn't happen for over a year.
It's kinda silly
I haven't seen big hero changes in action yet since the people I've played with are more focused on map changes and BLOOD GRENADE currently. So I'll see how heroes shake out after more games.
There's also an outpost next to each of the portals that can't be taken over, even after tier 2s go down. So there's just always a threat of ganks when you push past river in this patch compared to last patch. That's why there's watchers that are available next to the gates, but even then those are easily taken over or destroyed so vision is probably really important for gates & rosh pits in general.
Heroes that relied on that CC to be relevant got hit with a 13-20% reduction. And it seems like there's no buffs to compensate. BKB still makes them useless later on. Sure the magic damage reduction is now 50% instead of 100%, but even then that's still a wasted cast if used on an avatar'd hero. CC immunity is still in place.
And auto attack carries seem like they got another buff with the new universal class of heroes. No more wasted stats with item purchases. Every single point now goes towards attack damage.
Am I missing something? Are they banking it all on carries being more vulnerable to ganks now?
I think it got to the point where disables were so potent and overbearing that it led a lot of the meta for a long time. Essentially just the result of power creep and disable buffs over years of patching. So in a sense you're right, but since it is across the board it's actually not that bad in practice (at least for me). Supports are usually the ones that get a free shard at 20 and 30 minutes due to the Tormentors, and now they can pick up wisdom runes (possibly steal the opponents too) for even more XP than tomes. A lot of people read BKB change as basically killing the item, but it's still really good because CC is still a problem, it's just less of one.
It's still too early for me to shake out, but the combination of the above with Gates to gank side lanes easier makes for some interesting changes to the meta. I saw a safe-lane Mirana with Octorine/Aghs the other day just killing it because it was 3-5s arrows all the damn time.
I really wish we had bots that handled the new mechanics. I'm bummed that the tormentors and gates and lily pools and wardstones and xp runes are just not picked up or used at all by the bots. It'll probably be months to maybe a year or more before I get to enjoy the mechanics, or I suppose I could play multi and get screamed and pinged at for not being a pro gamer.
I think just play unranked and mute everyone when you get in. It's unranked so people's expectations *SHOULD* be lowered, but you'll always have a better team interaction with real people and not bots.
I've played ranked maybe once in my entire life. I only play unranked. It's completely the same in terms of people and whether they're shitty.
EDIT: I shouldn't make it sound like they're always monsters. They're not. I've had good games of multi. But I'd say there's a 25% chance of having assholes ruin a game, and then I'm just...done. I'm frazzled when that happens and I'm just fucking done.
Bots don't say much, some of the scripts (which I've been helping with and is lots of fun!) say stuff like lane positions and when they're going in for a gank and stuff but otherwise they don't just scream that I or someone else on our team is trash and then just pout and throw the game.
Plus you can, with a little bit of scripting, get bots to play Captains Mode, which is a treat, because picking an entire team to be themed or goofy can be fun.
This is something to be savoured with the dulcet soothing tones of Purge, and he isn't disappointing.
11.5 hours of patch note analysis, the man is a machine.
The playoffs only being 3 days long caught the eye of Reddit in the threads I saw on the topic.
I'm more of a watcher than a player, so I'm open to being corrected if that's untrue, but it's the impression I've gotten over the years.
So yeah, it could be a glorious mess.
The UI for chests and stuff seems worse than I remember but there's a TON of cosmetic stuff so maybe that's why
SniperGuyGaming on PSN / SniperGuy710 on Xbone Live
Even if I wanted to spend money, I don't even have the beginning of half a clue how any of the stuff would work.
Then there's things like the Battle Pass for The International, which should be coming up, which is full of random odds and ends for heroes, lootboxes of several flavours giving out older sets or new Immortals (usually just a single piece that has particle effects and might change the appearance of a skill) that aren't marketable for a year, but can be gifted.
There are also treasure chests you can buy that may require a key to unlock, but as a casual observer they seem to have moved away from that approach, maybe? Or at least it doesn't seem as common, but I admit that most of my DotA loot interactions are tied to playing a little and spending more money than I should be during the TI season on the battlepass.
And there are some items that go for really ridiculous prices, I've seen >$700 items on there, and I swear I once saw something going for 4 digits.
Things that are both rare/highly sought after and have actual sales listed seem to be more in the $600'ish range, and then there's roughly a gajillion other items that rapidly fall down to the couple of bucks or cents range.
A bunch of the higher ones seem to be essentially one of a kind in the sense that they're the only "Corrupted _____" on the market at the moment so the seller figured 'fuck it, let's see if someone will buy this for a grand?'
The teleport gates are big, but I don't think the bonkers broken everyone was predicting. They're a bit of pain to get to and take time to channel, plus dump you in a pain spot.
Those consumable grenades are nuts. Seems mandatory to max those out right away, and all during early laning.
Those lotus pools seem like a big deal, and I'm not sure I like them. That instant heal is huge, and who picks up the lotuses from the pool is extremely swingy (a 400/400 instant heal item at the 5 minute mark???). I think the channel time to pick them up could be a lot longer. Like, triple.
Harpoon seems absolutely busted.
1 treasure per win, turbo counts as 1/2
event ends on 7th sept
Streaming 8PST on weeknights
Lots of great QoL updates to Item Armory as well as Reporting. Also a little graphical update to color tones, lighting, and shadows.
https://www.dota2.com/newsentry/3692442542242977036
Banned 90k accounts, and also are applying penalties to main accounts associated with them.
Valve on a roll.