Dota 2

http://dev.dota2.com/

Thank you for the link. I suppose I'll make a thread there when I have the time to do so.

Make sure to tell them about your issues and the specs of your computer. It's a beta so things are gonna be wrong, but that's why it's important to bring this to their attention so they can fix most of the problems before it goes live.

This is old news, but I only got 6 points out of 100 for the European qualifiers prediction. I believe I correctly predicted the shortest match length. Also, I was mislead by the category " Aegis Snatches". I assumed it meant the total number of Aegises taken from Roshan. Turns out, it really means the number of Aegises stolen from the team the killed Roshan. I'm not sure if "Aegis Snatch" is a common term with that specific meaning in the Dota fandom.

In more recent news, my enthusiasm for the Reborn game editor was reduced when I found out that it is significantly more difficult to use than the Warcraft 3 World Editor. Guess it can't be helped, due to how modern games are written. Seems I'll just have to learn Lua.

Yeah, whenever a team kills Roshan, but the other team takes the Aegis, the game refers to it as "The Aegis was snatched by [Hero name]!"

I still haven't managed to play any game, or custom game, in the Reborn Beta. It takes more than five minutes to connect, and when I pick my hero, it crashes. And now I'm back at Low Priority. Really? I assumed I wouldn't be able to get on Low Priority during the Beta. I mean, it's a Beta. It's not my fault I can't connect to games >_< /rantend

I still have to post a report on the bugs I've encountered on the Dev Forums.

Pudge Wars: Buggy as hell, regarding the hooks' appearance (they often appear outside of the Pudges, which can get confusing, due to the difficulty of allowing Pudges to move after using Meat Hook) and how far they pull targets. Any kill goal higher than 50 leads to a boring game. It's strange how Earthshaker's Totem places down a fence, rather than a small earthen wall (might be hard to program).

I once played a custom game and during the pre-load, one person said, "RIP [recently dead character from Game of Thrones]". I was angry at this, even though I have no intention of watching Game of Thrones or reading A Song of Ice and Fire.

edited 23rd Jun '15 1:39:20 PM by MightyMatilda

Heroes playing Dungeons and Dragons◊.

So I sucked it up and did some all bot games to try to at least get my laning instincts back (and improve my reflexes a bit) and I forgot just how dumb the bot AI (even Unfair) can be. The first two matches were complete disasters, the very first of which I really should have reset. This, because the bots just absolutely, cannot deal with Riki at all. They'll walk into an area where he was clearly visible on the mini-map just three seconds ago, then stand there waiting for him to backstab them, then run away, letting him backstab them more. Even when I started throwing Sentry Wards everywhere, they refused to target him unless he was the only enemy hero nearby. The feeding was unreal.

The second game ended up somewhat similar, although I was a bit more surprised. I know that a human smartly playing a Sniper will completely break the bots' ability to fight back, but I don't remember bot Snipers being able to roll their peers (barring the presence of Riki and Bloodseeker on the enemy team) so easily. It was, once again, a feed frenzy.

The third an final match was also a feeding frenzy. I don't know what was with the Omni script, but he basically run up and fed the PA bot three times in the first ten minutes of the game. Then he spent the rest of the time dying to Pudge (giving him a whopping 18 stacks and then letting Pudge feed on the rest of the team for an absolutely stupid amount of stacks by the end). He seriously ended the game at something like 0/21/8. I somehow won the gameand by that, I mean that the enemy bot team threw the match by exhibiting the same dumbness they did when my team in the first game refused to target the exposed Riki. I'd spent about 30 minutes split-pushing, since my team seemed generally keen on 1v4ing (I'm not entirely sure why, but PA was often not present when normally the bots would be 5-man deathballing with any other make-up), so I was actually at a point where I was a threatening damage dealer. I got two good team fights where both the PA and Pudge ignored me for whatever reason to kill everyone else. Despite Pudge's absurd tankiness and PA being about 4 levels ahead of everyone else, apparently Agh's-Mjollnir-MKB Focus Fire is still enough to cut them down. Each time they both died with respawn times long enough for my team to push down a set of rax, which caused the enemy AI to do something I didn't quite expect: do a suicidal mad rush down mid for my throne (usually they just super turtle). Which was a mistake, because I was kind of back dooring them.

TLDR: Bots are weird and sometimes traitorous.

Guys, I just noticed that Dota 2 Reborn has brief descriptions for each hero's playstyle if you look at "About" in the Heroes tab.

Do anyone think that it would be good to put on the character pages?

edited 24th Jun '15 2:01:32 PM by Eldrake

Yes, I think that sounds like a great idea. I feel the character pages are a little sparse when it comes to explaining what the hero's role is, with only a handful really having an explanation of their role.

And oh, the stupidity of allied bots. They run around when Ruptured and will often go into a fight one at a time while I'm trying to farm because I'm practicing a hard carry.

edited 25th Jun '15 11:46:04 AM by Pannic

Wow. I just spent an hour trying to play an Overthrow match, and I didn't manage to play a single one. The only one I managed to join kept crashing when I tried to spawn my hero. Simply amazing.

Dota 2 actually used to have those little role icons (what the hero is best at) before they removed those in one of the patches last year, right around the time of TI 4, I believe.

I thought it was annoying how the only way to check what each role means was to die to an enemy Hero. Or go on Gamepedia.

They have them listed on the Heropedia.

The only problem is that the flat designations tend to not really mean much of anything. You have Axe being designated as a Jungler, even though he tends to be way better off in-lane. Or you have Mirana, who's designated as a carry, even though she's more often run as a 4-position.

Funny thing is the old system also had the three-bar thing that's in Reborn now, though they used to designate it with stars instead of bars. Besides, in the Reborn listing Mirana's also listed as a 1-bar Support, and there's no real rating for offlane heroes, though usually those with a good rating in Durable, Escape or Disabler are the offlaners.

@Pannic: I meant to say that the descriptions for each role weren't easily available before Reborn.

I once ran into the problem of assuming that Magnus was a Pusher, due to his Cleave, but a lot of these designations are weird. Fo instance, I consider Tinker to be more of a Carry than Nature's Prophet, due to Tinker's reliance on Mana and MP Regen.

Seems like Abyssal Underlord is coming sooner than expected. That model is clearly WIP though.

And the Arcana Vote updates◊

GO GO ZEUS AND QUEEN OF PAIN!

No, it's just the screenshot uploader's own personal votes.

edited 30th Jun '15 7:36:11 AM by Eldrake

Wait, doesn't that chart show Juggernaut having beaten Qo P? What am I missing here?

The prize pool for The International 2015 has just hit the $15 million mark.

EDIT: D'oh!

edited 1st Jul '15 9:13:17 PM by Pannic

It is said that today was the day where people across the globe gulped as they had no choice but to become professional shoe eaters. Such fate befalls those who predict incorrectly.

edited 1st Jul '15 2:14:38 PM by Eldrake

We won't reach fifteen million, boys. It just won't happen.

I think we hit five million a-ways back, man.

edited 1st Jul '15 2:15:52 PM by MetaSkipper

Na'Vi having Visa problems. The worst part is that Sonneiko is pretty much the reason why they got to TI 5. Goddammit.