DOTA 2: "Sorry, no new people welcome"

[Keoul]

HoN actually has a tutorial now!

Ah well that just goes to show how much these games are changing to accomodate the new players.
Back when I played (soon after it went free) there where no tutorials and it was pretty much like dota 2 where you had to just jump in.

 

[Tanakh]

Sadly, DOTA 2 lacks the widespread coverage that other big MOBAs like HoN and LoL have simply because the playerbase is so small and typically centers around those who have played the game for a while, or players of the previous DOTA or other MOBAs.

Wait what? Humm, i think you are sorely missinformed.

The peak of HoN paid accounts was around 500k in 2011, even being optimistic I don't think it has now more than 200k active palyers just because LoL and DotA are direct competence and there was a sizable migration from HoN to DotA 2 (just as there was one from Warcraft III DotA to HoN before), his peak concurrent players was around 100k a year ago. God know i miss that game sometimes, but S2 is one of the worst companies i have dealt with and would rather don't have any deals with them.

LoL? Hard to know since it was always free but at least 25 million regular players (not accounts) seem liekly, with a peak of 3 mill concurrent players.

DotA 2 has atm 1 million accounts more or less, probably around 400k regular players, so in the current beta it is bigger than HoN almost for sure, his peak concurrent players was 200k during this winter. That is however not taking into account DotA 1, the problem with dota 1 is that almost all the copies of it are pirated ones, but if we are to belive Dota 1 admins there (http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/10i3sx/so_you_thought_dota2_was_getting_large/) there are 23 million or so regular dota 1 players in china, i think the number is closer to 10 million tbh.

TL;DR. Conservative numbers of each game would be:

200k regular players HoN

10.4 million players DotA2 + Warcraft III DotA

25 million regular players LoL

So... i really don's see how you could say that "DOTA 2 lacks the widespread coverage that other big MOBAs like HoN and LoL"

Ah well that just goes to show how much these games are changing to accomodate the new players.
Back when I played (soon after it went free) there where no tutorials and it was pretty much like dota 2 where you had to just jump in.

Wow... weird, i played it back in 2010 and it had already a tutorial. Humm, there we are, added mar 2010 (http://honarmory.com/2010/heroes-of-newerth-hon-hero-guides/heroes-of-newerth-noob-tutorial-added/)

-snip-

OT: Gl, hf op, pm me if you want someone to give you the basics and play a couple of bots in skype/vent or whatev. Can't guarantee you to have time right away, but sometime in the week we can go and have fun.

 

[Frostbite3789]

To quote steam.

Buy Dota 2: Early Access
$29.99 USD ADD TO CART


Dota 2 is a Free to Play game

Valve is charging for beta access. Of a F2P game.

Boy that's sure...reputable.

 

[Mr Thin]

Look man, that's MOBAs for you. There's no simple answer, no easy way in. If you dived in without any preparation, you were destined to crash and burn.

The best way to get into it is to play with friends; the online community is full of assholes and backseat drivers, I'd stay well away from them until you know what you're doing. If you don't have enough friends, well, that's what bot matches are for.

Failing that, there's an absolute mountain of help for new players on the internet. Give some of that a try before you condemn the game completely.

 

[miketehmage]

You mean you started playing a moba and DIDN'T expect to get the shit kicked out of you at first? Something that might comfort you is that tutorials often do very little to help. Infact, I'll sum it up for you.

Step 1: Farm minions (this is done by getting the killing blow on them)
Step 2: Once sufficiently powerful push the lane destroying turrets.
Step 3: Destroy enemy base.

Secondary objectives include harassing/killing enemy champs and not dying.

Good luck, you'll need it.

EDIT: I'd advise against playing bot matches too often as bots are retarded and real enemy players usually aren't. So you don tend to learn much from stomping bots.

Second Edit: As far as I know DOTA 2 is the most complex moba out there so unless you are hardcore comitted to being absolutely great at it, then might O suggest League of Legends instead? Slightly less complex and slightly more casual friendly. And it has a tutorial as far as I know. The community still sucks massive donkey dick though.

 

[Jasper Jeffs]

To quote steam.

Buy Dota 2: Early Access
$29.99 USD ADD TO CART


Dota 2 is a Free to Play game

Valve is charging for beta access. Of a F2P game.

Boy that's sure...reputable.

I really don't know who buys that shit, you can get keys from anywhere. Right now I have 13, and I know my friends have up to 20 of them each. You can ask pretty much anyone who plays DOTA and they'll probably have shitloads.

 

[Doom-Slayer]

To quote steam.

Buy Dota 2: Early Access
$29.99 USD ADD TO CART


Dota 2 is a Free to Play game

Valve is charging for beta access. Of a F2P game.

Boy that's sure...reputable.

Like Jasper said, they give out buttloads of keys. I have 7, and everyone I know already has Dota2. If you go to the Dota2 key giveaway reddit thing, there are millions of them. Them charging for Beta entry is kind of like saying "Its a closed Beta right now, but if you reeeeeally want to get in, you can. Otherwise just wait a few months until we wrinkle the bugs out then you can for free"

The vast number of keys slightly underemines that but still, thats the thought process I guess. Hardly in bad taste since you know...a ton of free to play games do exactly the same.

 

[eventhorizon525]

Putting in my 2 cents;

For me it comes down to mechanics. DotA 2 has a lot of them. However, I also find most of the mechanics incredibly frustrating and time consuming. Denying, while yes it offers tactical advantage, also doubles the work involved in last hitting (as you have to watch for them trying to deny while still stopping their last hits instead of just last hitting and poking) it also strikes me as something that just makes DotA 2 just that much harder to get into. LoL has a lot of stuff streamlined, at least at the beginner/bots tier (most of the shenanigans only show up when people are doing premades) and is still incredibly difficult for most people to get started on. It isn't easy learning to play a moba, and depending on how much time you have, and how much you want it to go into one game is an important thing to decide before diving too deep.

Hence, I play LoL. I enjoy my other games and activities far too much to try and keep up with DotA.

Also, I just like the champion style/feel in LoL better. Where can you play a character with the single most powerful taunt/bait skill as an emote? That's right, LoL (I'm talking about Lux's laugh btw, sometime around her "totally an ultimate with a legitimate timer").

 

[5ilver]

Wait, people expect to just 'jump in' and play one of the most competetive and complex multiplayer games there is?
That's like walking onto a football field expecting to 'just play'.
WHERE'S THE TUTORIAL IN FOOTBALL, GODDAMNIT!?!

You'll have the chance to learn football before you walk out on the field (in fact, it's pretty much required). Then there's TV, books, even small talk- all containing everything you need to know about football.

The only way to learn Dota is to walk out onto the field and get destroyed again and again- hundreds if not thousands of times.

 

[RN7]

Sadly, DOTA 2 lacks the widespread coverage that other big MOBAs like HoN and LoL have simply because the playerbase is so small and typically centers around those who have played the game for a while, or players of the previous DOTA or other MOBAs.

Wait what? Humm, i think you are sorely missinformed.

The peak of HoN paid accounts was around 500k in 2011, even being optimistic I don't think it has now more than 200k active palyers just because LoL and DotA are direct competence and there was a sizable migration from HoN to DotA 2 (just as there was one from Warcraft III DotA to HoN before), his peak concurrent players was around 100k a year ago. God know i miss that game sometimes, but S2 is one of the worst companies i have dealt with and would rather don't have any deals with them.

LoL? Hard to know since it was always free but at least 25 million regular players (not accounts) seem liekly, with a peak of 3 mill concurrent players.

DotA 2 has atm 1 million accounts more or less, probably around 400k regular players, so in the current beta it is bigger than HoN almost for sure, his peak concurrent players was 200k during this winter. That is however not taking into account DotA 1, the problem with dota 1 is that almost all the copies of it are pirated ones, but if we are to belive Dota 1 admins there (http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/10i3sx/so_you_thought_dota2_was_getting_large/) there are 23 million or so regular dota 1 players in china, i think the number is closer to 10 million tbh.

TL;DR. Conservative numbers of each game would be:

200k regular players HoN

10.4 million players DotA2 + Warcraft III DotA

25 million regular players LoL

So... i really don's see how you could say that "DOTA 2 lacks the widespread coverage that other big MOBAs like HoN and LoL"

I wasn't speaking statistically- plus, as of right now, there are only about 100k to 200k regular players according to the tracking stats provided in game. I was speaking more so of the resources available. If you search for a bit, you could easily find league tutorials in the form of the videos or guides or whatever. Those are more difficult to find for DOTA 2, simply because it's so exclusive and has a relatively low number of active players at the moment. I also wasn't taking into account the DOTA 1 community because DOTA 1 and DOTA 2 are, at their core, different games. The DOTA 1 is mechanically inferior and a bit less convenient than DOTA 2, and some heroes are different in one of the versions, or don't exist in the newer version. Hence, I treated those two communities separately. It's undeniable that DOTA 2 is popular. It's just not as popular as some of the older MOBAs, as one would expect since it is one of the newest MOBA-style games, next to Smite and Forge.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Isn't there a newb-training system where you can opt to become a "teacher" or a "student" and teach/be taught how to play DOTA 2 good? Team Fortress 2 has it, the mentor program. Are they just yet to implement it in DOTA 2?

 

[Tien Shen]

http://dev.dota2.com/showthread.php?t=64215

So, after playing DOTA 2 for an hour, becoming royally confused with...EVERYTHING, and not understanding a single thing in the game aside from the stuff I scraped together from trial and error (And there was a LOT of error), I decided to look online as to why the tutorial wasn't accessible to me, and what arbitrary bull I had to do to unlock it.

Turns out, that's just a placehold, and there really isn't a tutorial or any real help in the game at all.

Now, Valve, as a new player to this game, I have to ask one question:
[HEADING=2]WHY?![/HEADING]

I'm sorry, but in a game as big as this, with passes so widespread that its as accessible as fresh air, why isn't there any kind of system to allow me to learn this stuff outside of the one button which seemingly does nothing outside of coo you in so that it can knee you in the balls most more effectively!

I'd take a tutorial, a guide, a Japanese VCR Instruction Manual over knowing nothing in a game as in-depth as this, especially seeing how this is the FIRST game like this I have ever played (Long story, first gaming computer here). And now, because I was so broken by my first game, I don't WANT to learn now because my brain is so haggard from the ass-whooping I received.

So, people who understand DOTA: Next time a new guy appears and messes it up for everyone, don't blame him, he's just a lamb going into the grinder of his own volition.

And people with no understanding but are interested: Find friends, find a guide, find SOMETHING outside of the game to help you, or else you're in for the longest hour.

Anyway, if you'll excuse me, I need to faint from fatiebgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbgbg-

Why not give LoL a spin instead then since it has an ACTUAL TUTORIAL. DOTA purists keep using the fact that it's easier to get in to (noob-friendly as they derisively call it) as a flaw which is in fact it's greatest asset. It has custom games vs bots and casual modes like Dominion and ARAM (All-random-all-middle) which are very stress free unlike the standard Summoner's Rift map. LoL already has a well establish community and a self-regulating Tribunal system which has proven effective in cleaning out the most toxic of players.

 

[Termagent]

They are working on a tutorial, it's just they don't want to release it until it's fully fleshed out. CyborgMatt who releases content analysis patches every week posts back end changes and they are constantly increasing the stuff going into the tutorial. But there's no point releasing a broken tutorial that isn't fully completed as that would just be even more off-putting when the tutorial bugs out or doesn't explain a mechanic. But be glad that they are putting as much depth into it as possible. This isn't a game where a really basic tutorial will help you at all.

So just be patient, if you're getting destroyed every game, load up a game vs some easy bots and try your hand at that. Read a guide or two, watch a video if need be. Also ignore the community, most of the people who rage at newbs in the earlier games you'll play are usually terrible themselves. If they were any good they would be in the high bracket and unable to play with you. Oh and remember everyone goes through this stage, I highly recommend looking for people who are a similar skill level as yourself and playing with them. The less randoms = the more enjoyable the game is.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Isn't there a newb-training system where you can opt to become a "teacher" or a "student" and teach/be taught how to play DOTA 2 good? Team Fortress 2 has it, the mentor program. Are they just yet to implement it in DOTA 2?

It's still in beta. A mentor program will be implemented later on.

Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Tanakh]

-snip-

Ohh, resources... no, I still don't think HoN has more resources around it than DotA2, but i guess that is open to debate; popularity? Man, you can see that even in this forum (which is not into ARTS) more people have herd of DotA2 than HoN, I think you are underestimating the horrible management that S2 did with his game to be less popular than a beta with 2 years headstart.

LoL is different tough, they do have way more resources around it than DotA2, and will probably keep having them in the western world for the forseeable future.

As for difference between WCIII and Source DotA, it's just that, the engine, Icefrog is doing everything he can to keep both as close as possible but somethings are thechnically not possible in the WCIII game engine and can be done in the Source one, besides that they are exactly the same game and the heroes that "don't exist" are just in development during the beta.

What I never understood from your posts is why you think HoN is bigger than DotA2 or that Smite, Forge and DotA2 have the same size in the market. Just go and do a youtube search of each and you will see that is absolutely not the case.

Beside that, Warcraft III DOTA and DOTA 2 aren't as different as you think in terms of mechanics. For instance, do you know what the pseudo-random mechanic is in DOTA 2? No, you do not, and yet it is one of the most major differences between WCIII DOTA and DOTA 2 you can find strictly in terms of gameplay. It is not something a new player should or needs to worry about.

Yeah, I do and its bullfuckingshit! Pseudorandom my arse, I want my crit chances to be the freaking percentage they say they are from the first hit. Effing efforth to have random shit not proccing on the first couple of hits...

Isn't there a newb-training system where you can opt to become a "teacher" or a "student" and teach/be taught how to play DOTA 2 good? Team Fortress 2 has it, the mentor program. Are they just yet to implement it in DOTA 2?

Also, there are currently communities like http://feverclan.com/forums/65-application-section.html with mentor programs. As a disclaimer i should say i am not part of that place and dunno how good it is, but it seems noobfriendly and has a decent reputation in the dota community.