I do like how the criticism you take the most time to elaborate upon is some of the character models being fanservice-y, when that affects the game's quality about not at all, and instead of going more in depth with your other criticisms, you just take an entire paragraph to talk about how Dota 2 is just oh so much better in every way, shape, and form.
Well, it is.
Anyway, the game's by no means horrible. I should probably change the title. My point was that its a waste of time compared to Dota and (shock, horror) Ho N, both of which are completely free to play. I blew ten bucks trying to like this game before I found Dota so I'm just trying to help other people consider other (much, much better) choices.
Lo L is also free to play...
illegitematus non carborundum est
His point was that, since all of them are free-to-play, it's not a good idea to spend time with League because the other two are so much better, in his opinion.
That said, I don't see why you think the Dota heroes have that much more personality than the League champions. All of them - all of them - have the same repetitive dialogue and infodump description.
And one thing you don't talk about, and where I think League is definitely superior to Dota, is the UI. Every button in League has a very clear meaning and description (except the difference between AD and AP, and all that requires is a little experimentation). It's very difficult to find what you're looking for in the Dota in-game store, because it's only sorted by a couple different categories.
While many of the champions have cool designs, the devs stoop to an almost insulting degree to make almost every single woman fanservice.
I just looked at the DOTA 2 website and every female character I saw had giant bewbs and a large patch of visible cleavage in their character portrait.
Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.
^^^ But you have to pay for champs, except for the eight or so free ones. Once Dota 2 is released all the heroes are going to be free, the only thing you have to pay for is cosmetics.
^^ But heroes in DOTA have lines when they kill rivals and meet allies, which is a big thing for me. Wouldn't it be cool for Diana to say something to Leona when she kills her, or for Zed to mock Shen?
I agree, I much prefer the Lo L in-game shop.
^ Never said that Dota was better in that respect. MOB As really need to stop with the pandering shit. I'll write a full review on that page for Dota 2 because I don't think the game is perfect, just that its much better than this game.
One of the most glaring drawbacks that League has compared to Dota2 or Heroes Of Newerth is the complete and total lack of a PAUSE function or a REMAKE function or some other way to compensate for the inevitable case when someone either needs to go afk for a minute or two or just plain disconnects. League doesn't give you control of leaver characters, it doesn't terminate them and let the rest of the team have their gold and items. Even tournament games don't have them! Once the game starts it just stops giving a shit if something goes wrong. This game has been going for years and Riot still hasn't rubbed together the braincells necessary to implement these BASIC functions. It took them how many years to implement a spectator mode, not to mention replays still rely on a community-made client.
This is, of course, not to mention the various differences in the overall dynamic of the game, as those are simply a matter of personal preference, but you can't really say that you're playing League because you like it better until you've at least tried the others. They're free, you know. Getting a beta key for Dota2 is incredibly easy right now.
@orcus: That would be interesting. (I vaguely remember Kha'Zix and Rengar having something like that, but I've never encountered it.) So far I've only heard the same canned kill/death lines from the heroes, but maybe I'm just playing the wrong ones.
@McSomeguy: The LoL tournaments I've seen have PAUSE enabled, but that's not really relevant to the argument. I agree the lack of a PAUSE button is frustrating, But so is the ability to abuse it, so it's a trade-off.
(I have tried all three big MOBAs. I couldn't get into Newerth, and I'm having trouble getting engaged in Dota 2, although being honest with myself I'm not sure if it's because I like LoL more or if I'm just used to it.)
FYI nobody ever abuses the pause function. People have no interest in waiting when it's not necessary, even for trolling purposes.
Ok, I'll try to address all the issues you pointed at: 1) I agree about graphics, but I like that they're not resource-hungry. Yes, music is kinda stale, but that's not the case for Dominion, music changes pace on some turning points. And login screens are little masterpieces. But yeah, SR music needs to be remade. 2) As said before, Dot A 2 also has this hawtness, and not ALL of females look like porn-stars. Exceptions include yordles and Annie (for obvious reasons), Lux, Leona, Diana, Karma, Vi and that's not the end of list. 3) I disagree at " little personality" part. Even if lore isn't the selling point, it's interesting to explore, which Riot helped with Judgements and Journal of Justice (well, not anymore, but I think it's temporary). And though at first sight it seems like typical fight between good and evil, to me it seems like Game of Thrones: many faction, much more personalities, and oh so many shades of gray. 4) They try to fix it with recent champions and reworks having additional lines, but if we find it - it's secret stuff, and not so often. 5) To me more powerful towers mean more caution during planning ganks if I jungle and more thinking 'bout map awarness when laning. And also trying not to be pushed, 'cuz tower will eat all your farm. And that also means that unlike Dot A, gameplay doesn't depend on kills, and you can make a comeback if you sucked early-game, which is always cool :) 6) Flash is bullshit, lolwut? Then Blink Dagger is also bullshit, and it's cooldown is even lower that Flash! (yeah, I looked it up). 7) Buying champs makes you pick your favourite Champ and master his gameplay. You can buy them using in-game "money" and "First Win of the Day" makes getting them easier. And Dot A 2 has freaking pay-to-open-crates. I hated them at TF 2, and I hate them there. 8) Works for stream commentators, and for me. Had same stuff on Dot A 2, 'till I looked it up :D
While you go in depth, this is just the usual biased opinionating regurgitated by all the Fan Haters, as outlined on the YMMV page. LoL and DotA 2 have different mechanics, but you just come out and cite all these differences as proof that DotA 2 is better, even though a lot of these mechanics are stale, unbalanced and obsolete. And a lot of your claims are just biased nonsense, especially your ridiculous rant about how you feel "condescended" to by the Fan Service.
Duelling Games are to be expected, but you really did nothing more than trot out the usual Fan Hater nonsense LoL has been shrugging off ever since launch.
Always expect the worst and you can only be pleasantly surprised.
While your assessment of the review is accurate, it really looks kinda hypocritical when you say things like "a lot of these mechanics are stale, unbalanced and obsolete", which are criticisms on the same level of subjectivity as what was said in the review, except less in-depth.
^^^ Flash is bullshit because every hero has access to it at the start of the game, and you don't have to do anything to get it except assign it at the start. Yes, Dota has the Blink Dagger, but you have to spend money to get it and you usually can't get it during the laning phase. Anyway, money is incredibly tight in Dota so you probably aren't going to get one unless you're an initiator. Heroes like Anti-Mage and Queen of Pain have blinks, but that's because it's a key part of their gameplay. Flash just makes every champion able to escape situations.
^^ So? This is a review. A review is someone's opinions. I think that the difference between Dota and Lo L's mechanics makes Dota the better game, I am insulted by how they try to pander to me with all the fucking fanservice just like I am when Dota does it, and I think people should try all options before paying money for champs. I'm not trying to be some authoritative source, I'm just saying what I think. You know, the point of a review. Should I have said "these are just my opinions, don't get mad lol"? I would assume people would get that.
@gentlemanorcus1 If you're gonna review anything, (games, books, cars, etc) always expect hate mail/replies/comments. It's unavoidable. Doubly so in the internet.
As for me all I can say is, I don't feel DOTA 2 gives enough justification to make the jump from old DOTA. It doesn't help I see next to no one where I live play it either.
And if you're gonna review something, review "that" thing, not just compare it to something which you think is better, it would had been better to just make a review on DOTA 2.
Am I the only one who's most annoyed by the statement of the early game as being passive? The only passive early game is bottom lane in my experience and even that can be subject to change when you have an aggressive duo or some good ganks down there... If towers were any weaker they'd be no threat whatsoever, and while you may not lose gold when you die, it's a huge gamble and if you fail to kill your opponent in exchange you will be handing them a ton of gold while you're dead and they farm. If you screw up at the wrong time and they're fast enough you might even be giving their team a bonus if they take your tower with the push.
Passive this game is not. And flash has such a long cooldown it's not terribly practical, even if you have it from the start of the game one good catch is enough to force them to use it so that you can go in for the kill next time.
Admittedly, I speak entirely on my experience with the game and my opinions on it. I haven't played Ho N but I have played DOTA and in my mind they're both pretty good games. My only issue with DOTA is that it's basically Dwarf Fortress to League's Minecraft in terms of difficulty, made it quite hard for me to get into the game when I couldn't really learn for having my face beaten in so much by the more experienced players.
Sorry, just my two cents.
^ I don't know if passive would be the right word but it is definitely more grindy in the sense that league has a problem with something that is very intrinsic to Riot's design philosophy, and that is champion durability. Without items, abilities in league do about as much damage as they would in Dota 2 or hon, but champions have about twice as much health as heroes of equivalent level would have in either of the other games. Because every ability is built to scale with items, it takes about half the game for league champions to become as mutually damaging as heroes would be by default and even then many champions are still way more tanky than heroes would be. This only changes if someone gets horribly fed. Also health items are way cheaper and way more abundant, to the point where even the squishiest champions generally have about 2k health by the 20 minute mark, whereas squishy heroes tend to have about 1k health at that point. This makes the game into much more of spamfest that relies on slows more than anything while you slowly grind down someone's health as he's walking away and hope he doesn't have Flash ready.
Why Riot refuses to make Flash only usable if you've been out of combat for like 4 seconds, I don' t know.
Flash lets you make big plays. Flash hooks, flash lee sin moves, etc. It's really only bad players that see it as only a free get out of jail button.
^ Those moves rely one flash being used to initiate so they would still work even if it wasn't usable as an escape mechanism.
Ugh, typos. Why can't we edit comments anymore?
Because if you have to respect flash being used to initiate on you, without being able to counter-flash that, then it would be pretty dumb. The only counterplay to a guy suddenly blinking 400 units to get in range of a targeted stun is highly reactive play to flash against that. Like, if Blitzcrank could flash over his creep line and hook you, without worrying about you anticipating it and reacting to it... that'd be pretty op.
And even then, forcing a flash without using your own, is easy enough. One Jarvan EQ and good positioning can force it, and highly neuter their ability to make plays or react to them... so then you can walk back to that lane, and try again, knowing that they can't flash your gank this time.
See, that reasoning is why I hate Flash being so overused. You say "the only counterplay to a guy suddenly blinking 400 units to get in range of a targeted stun is highly reactive play to flash against that", and I don't blame you because that's what the metagame has been growing around since the game launched, but it's not true. You have teammates, and your champion has abilities of his own to counter with. And there are other Summoner Spells that nobody uses because Flash is just too useful. There are countless ways that counterplay can be done in a situation where Blitz Flash-hooks you(ignoring the fact that if he Flashed then he's the one who's out of position now, instead of pulling you to his side), not the least of which is using Cleanse, but people have grown so used to using Flash to get out of everything that they don't even consider it. Flash needs to be nerfed and some other spells need to be buffed to diversify the plays that people make, because right now what we have is stagnation in that regard.
Dude, you can't cleanse Blitzcrank hooks. It's a displacement. Moreover if a Blitz flashes to hook you over a creep, it's because he wants to take advantage of you think you're safe behind creeps/outside his 1k pull range to set up a 1v5 burst or a gank. He's not 'putting himself out of position.' Do you even play this game, or are you just backseat reviewing it?
Honestly, there's no point in discussing this with someone who thinks he knows game design just because he plays the dotos and hons.
As opposed to you, who clearly does know game design because he plays the lols? Cut the condescension.
If Blitz flashes then he's jumping away from the range of his lanemate and towards the range of yours. If you can't capitalize on that then you played your cards wrong, but that doesn't even matter, because it's beside the point. The point is that there is an optional ability in the game that is considered so useful that practically everyone uses it, meanwhile more than half the other spells are never used at all. That's like a textbook example of something being unbalanced.
I never claim to be know anything about dota2 or hon design, because surprise surprise, I dont play dota2 or hon. I do however, play lol, so I do know something about how this particular game is designed.
But, you didn't answer my question. Do you actually play the game, or are you running backseat designer because you watched a few games, and think "eh, I play dota(2) and hon, I know what I'm talking about!"
cleanse that hook lol
also idk, if it's so easy to subvert a flash-hook then I dunno why pros like to do it all the time
Of course I play it. I wouldn't care enough to argue about it if I didn't.
The Cleanse would not be meant for the hook but for whatever CC gets dumped on you after you get hooked, so you can make a counterplay without being inhibited. I thought that was obvious so I didn't elaborate.
In competitive play people generally have enough awareness to dodge or out-position most regular hooks on lane so flash-hook is pretty much the only thing that lands, provided Blitz isn't banned of course.
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A good MOBA, but there are better
The graphics are only okay. The music is one repetitive loop. While many of the champions have cool designs, the devs stoop to an almost insulting degree to make almost every single woman fanservice. I mean, am I the only one who feels condescended when a game constantly releases "hawt" female characters, thinking I'm supposed to get aroused by a bunch of textures? And the game is willing to completely ruin any sort of consistent art style just to give more fanservice.
Other than that, the champions have little persoanlity. They only have a few lines. The voice acting is good.
The gameplay is the best part, but its still not great. First of all, the early game is way too passive. You don't lose gold when you die, which means that the towers have to be buffed to absurd levels to stop rampant tower-diving. That means there's almost no tower-diving. Also, Flash is complete bullshit. Almost everyone uses it and it means every single champion has an escape. That makes the early game even more passive; why tower-die when the enemy an just flash away?
The particles lack any sort of characterization, if that makes sense. In a teamfight I have no idea which champion is activating which abilities.
It's said the game is free, and technically it is, but you are most likely going to spend money on this game. Most champions cost a ridiculous amount of in-game money. Oh, and the community is horrible but that's par for the course of any MOBA.
So overall, the game isn't very good. Just play Dota 2 when it comes out (or buy into beta). The graphics are better, the music is better, the characters have more personality, all the heroes are free, there's actually some aggression in the early game, and not every champion has a bullshit escape mechanism (just a few- looking at you, Anti-Fun). It's a bit harder to learn but not much, really. Learn to creap-stack, creep-pull, deny, block creep waves, animation cancel, and orb walk (and none of those are as hard as they sound), and you can transition to the much, much better Dota 2.