DotA vs LoL...which is better?

[VladG]

Sorry but as a closed LOL beta player I can tell why you are having a much better time. You are playing support. Sure when you get flak you get a ton of it but since damage is the driving force in the game playing with randoms and being that dps source and dying will get you more reports than anything else. Which is the reason why LOL is a worse game than DOTA. The report system and riot's self created rhetoric of "toxic".

It's been about four years now since LOL came out and yet for their head psychologist Lyte the best solution he has come up with to deal with the "toxic" rhetoric he created was emulated the US prison system. And this is coming from a guy who actually when described the system to family who were police officers said just that. There is no real reform or system of reform. It's 100% focused on the negative and the driving force is based on accusations without any actual hard evidence to proves one's innocence or guilt. No replays for the tribunal to watch, no timeline showing when players died in accordance with the chat, no evidence at all. All you get is a testimony from players who are biased and will quite literally make shit up and report the moment a guy doesn't do what they want them to do.

Even IF you took Pendragon's advice and played with friends I still had friends who were on the line and took his advice. Still got permabanned. When he showed the final report the only person who reported him was from the enemy team. Yet when you looked at the tribunal case, NO ALL CHAT from my friends. Yet Riot still upheld the ban because of "previous toxic" behavior.

At the end of the day though Riot's game is nice but can easily snowball due to champion saturation(not to mention certain champions are becoming mechanically outdated) as champions will mechanically hard counter others but on the social side and riot's own "justice" system is what really makes it a terrible game to play. One of the biggest complaints I hear is that people feel like cause of the nebulous summoner's code that people feel like they are working a job while they play instead of actually enjoying the game as part of their leisure. So after a shitty 9-5 or even 12 hour work shift a guy who wants to enjoy his hobby of video games basically still has to keep the stick up his ass because what might actually be his method to get all the stress out of his system has to now keep it bottled up even more. In what is designed to be a COMPETITIVE game. LOL just becomes a lot less fun. I'm not even talking about the grind that where by the purest of F2P models you would currently need 5 years to unlock all of the games content.

Most of what you've just said here is complete, uninformed bullshit. While it's true that the Tribunal system does not always provide enough information, this reflects on the system being, if anything, too lenient. Not to mention that in most cases the information provided is very conclusive. I don't need a replay when a player spams "get cancer ******" in chat to ascertain his guilt. In over a year of being involved with the whole Tribunal process, I have yet to see a single wrongful ban, let alone a perma-ban. There are too many counters in place. And currently Riot's focus is on positive and passive re-enforcement rather than punishing abusive players.

As for champions becoming "mechanically outdated"... what? You clearly have no clue what you're talking about. Look at the statistics for this year's world tournament and you'll notice that there is a very even distribution of the release dates of the most played champions. Champions like Shen, Sona and Corki are among the most contested champions and have been in the game since some of the earliest full builds. Yes, some champions hard counter other champions. The whole game revolves around that, it's a core mechanic of the game and pretty much has been since forever. And it's fucking the same for Dota. There ARE counters in Dota.

 

[VladG]

Character gameplay-wise, LoL tends to have more consistent action, with a greater focus on using abilities to harass and a prevalence of "skillshots" - abilities that you have to aim and can be dodged, while Dota is pretty much the opposite

What is this craziness? DOTA is veritably brimming with skill-shots. This is hardly unique to LoL. Indeed, the fact LoL telegraphs your skill-shots makes them less "skill shots" and more GTAE's with colored overlays to show where they land.

In general I agree with your "simpler doesn't necessarily mean easier" philosophy, and realistically no one in this discussion would reach the skill cap for either game, so the fact DOTA's is higher is somewhat irrelevant, but I cannot comprehend how anyone could play DOTA and come away with the impression the game had no "skill shots".

Where exactly did I say it has no skillshots? I said they are far more prevalent in League as a general rule. And they are. There are very few champions in League with no skillshots, and very few with passive abilities, which falls under the same general "more active, more fun" design philosophy. While in Dota, there are more passive and targeted abilities, in general, than there are skillshots, which, as stated in my original post, is very much the opposite of League.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Where exactly did I say it has no skillshots? I said they are far more prevalent in League as a general rule. And they are. There are very few champions in League with no skillshots, and very few with passive abilities, which falls under the same general "more active, more fun" design philosophy. While in Dota, there are more passive and targeted abilities, in general, than there are skillshots, which, as stated in my original post, is very much the opposite of League.

You did rather imply there was a nigh total absence of them in DOTA, which is ludicrous, as I'm dodging them every bloody game. I also take umbrage with your "more active, more fun" assessment, although it's completely subjective. I'm not sure how spamming more constant but weaker abilities = "more fun", or is more "active", as both games REQUIRE constant juking/movement and near constant vigilance...even at low levels of play.

It's fine to have preferences, but "LoL has FUN as a design philosophy!" smells faintly of bullshit. Both games have strengths and weaknesses. Which are "fun" is going to depend largely on the player. For example, I find the absence of denying and death penalties in LoL to be the antithesis of fun, as one tears a level of strategy/skill out of the laning phase and the other significantly reduces the tension of dying and the explosive momentum swings deaths can cause. That doesn't mean creep denying and death penalties are MORE FUN though. It just means *I* like them more.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Personally, I'm going to have to go with LoL.

At their core, they're the exact same game. In many cases, you can find an exact duplicate of your character if you switch between games - largely the early set of LoL characters since they were rather shamelessly lifted from DOTA. By and large, the fundamental skills and concepts are identical between the two games and the only variation is cosmetic.

BUT, the games are not, in reality, identical. DOTA is, in a word, more complex than LoL and, to be frank, that complexity doesn't actually serve the game in the slightest. Requiring either walking back to a vendor or using a teleport scroll or waiting on a courier to get an item for example has more or less the exact same decision tree that it does in League - of balancing the risk of leaving lane (leaving your opponent free to farm, push towers and roam) with the benefit of getting healed and coming back to the lane stronger. The added layer of complexity does not alter the fundamental decision being made in this case. This is generally true across the board with the various system changes in the game as well. In general, DOTA's system will be more complex than the one in League but at the heart of each of them is the same decision, the same skill requirement, and the same set of considerations. It makes the game harder to player without actually making the game any deeper. By contrast, League has a set of systems that DOTA does not, namely, runes and masteries that, in many cases, actually does increase depth of play. Twisted Fate, a fairly staunch mid lane assassin mage, can be transformed into a surprisingly effective ranged carry by investing heavily into attack speed and AD runes and masteries which unlocks a role he'd otherwise have no claim to. Functionally, the system serves two purposes: to further specialize into a given role (a support will tend to have mana regen, cooldown reduction, heavy armor and added gold runes and masteries for example) or to unlock a new role (Twisted Fate being a Carry, for example).

And, because adding meaningless challenge to a game seems like the absolute height of silliness especially in a competitive game is folly in my book, League is the clear winner in terms of play.

That leaves other features - namely, aestetics and payment models. DOTA generally wins on the payment model front given all meaningful improvements are given for free. By contrast, in League, everything must be purchased either by grinding or with cash (With the exception of Runes which must be purchased with points earned by playing). The LoL system isn't nearly as bad as some people might say, however. Lots of viable champions are incredibly cheap and can be purchased with only a few games under your belt. Ashe and Tristana are both excellent Carries, Morgana is a fantastic Mage, and Garren is an eternally popular top lane Bruiser and each of them can be purchased with points earned before you even know how to play the game. It is readily possible to keep yourself in new champions as you learn the game leaving more expensive (and not necessarily better) champions for down the line until you have an idea of what you want out of a character. That said, DOTA remains the clear winner simply because everything that matters is given to you out of the box.

On an Aestetic front, I'd also have to give the torch to DOTA. I simply prefer the art style of the game.

But, were I forced to choose (and I was forced to choose), my vote goes to League. In the ways that matter as far as the game is concerned, it is simply more refined and unnecessary complexity has been stripped.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

And for the movement responsiveness thing, while I haven't actually played League for a variety of reasons, I imagine that it's more of a matter of what you're used to than anything.

DOTA characters have turn speeds. LoL characters do not, they snap instantly. 9 times out of 10 when a LoL player complains about DOTA characters feeling "sluggish" it's because they're struggling to adapt to the existence of turn speed.

This explains so much. Thank you. I had no clue this happened. I now know why I will never be able to play Dota2, my love of clicking random places rather than pressing force stop.

You just won't know until you get kinda good at both and can actually compare them. Looking at just the surface elements like how you get characters or skins will always be less of an impact on your enjoyment than the feel of the different tower ranges and losing gold on death.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

It's fine to have preferences, but "LoL has FUN as a design philosophy!" smells faintly of bullshit. Both games have strengths and weaknesses. Which are "fun" is going to depend largely on the player. For example, I find the absence of denying and death penalties in LoL to be the antithesis of fun, as one tears a level of strategy/skill out of the laning phase and the other significantly reduces the tension of dying and the explosive momentum swings deaths can cause. That doesn't mean creep denying and death penalties are MORE FUN though. It just means *I* like them more.

A death penalty does not, in the slightest, alter the game. Dying in League denies you gold from creeps, which in turn denies you items which makes it more likely you're going to die again. Death in either game serves to make you weaker with respect to your laning opponent. Stacking a direct penalty on top of the natural penalty of being out of lane doesn't alter this; it simply makes a single death more meaningful.

Hell, all told League's Death Penalty is often substantially greater than in DOTA. Getting killed in a team fight means you're out of that fight until it wraps up as respawn timers can approach a minute or longer as the game drags on and the only option to get back into a fight involves walking there.

Functionally, the one difference between the two systems is that a single death in League is unlikely to cost you the lane or the game where in DOTA it can. This does not make the game better; it serves to make it more random. Winning a lane in League requires you to be consistently better than your opponent. DOTA lanes can swing on the power of a single gank. Setting the penalty high, in fact, has the exact opposite effect; it enforces a highly conservative style of play. Having a lower penalty leaves one free to perform various high risk moves.

 

[Marcus Kehoe]

As a mostly league player for years and someone that is learning dota2, dota 2 is the better game league is just funner. Dota has a much better way of doing thing's and handling it's players in my opinion and a much better market system, leauge is just more simple and brain dead to play, therefore it usually funner but less satisfying.

 

[VladG]

You did rather imply there was a nigh total absence of them in DOTA, which is ludicrous, as I'm dodging them every bloody game.

I also take umbrage with your "more active, more fun" assessment, although it's completely subjective. I'm not sure how spamming more constant but weaker abilities = "more fun", or is more "active", as both games REQUIRE constant juking/movement and near constant vigilance...even at low levels of play.

It's fine to have preferences, but "LoL has FUN as a design philosophy!" smells faintly of bullshit. Both games have strengths and weaknesses. Which are "fun" is going to depend largely on the player. For example, I find the absence of denying and death penalties in LoL to be the antithesis of fun, as one tears a level of strategy/skill out of the laning phase and the other significantly reduces the tension of dying and the explosive momentum swings deaths can cause. That doesn't mean creep denying and death penalties are MORE FUN though. It just means *I* like them more.

I'm pretty certain that you are just being contrary out of fanboyism or for the sake of it since you are completely misrepresenting my post. Either that or you lack basic understand of the English language.

Character gameplay-wise, LoL tends to have more consistent action, with a greater focus on using abilities to harass and a prevalence of "skillshots" - abilities that you have to aim and can be dodged, while Dota is pretty much the opposite: Abilities are most often passive or targeted, and usually quite expensive to the point that you have to use them frugally. It creates a different resource management dynamic, coupled with the more powerful regen items. Both games have resource management gameplay, it's just quite different.

Notice the use of "most often" when referring to Dota's non skillshot abilities? This is 100% accurate since the MAJORITY of the abilities in the game are NOT skillshots. I'm not sure how you translated that to "no skillshots". The previous statement that this is opposite to League also stands true, since the majority of League abilities ARE skillshots.

I'm not even going to go into the fact that you purposefully focus on a single part of a 3-part argument and completely ignore the follow-up clarification.

I also take umbrage with your "more active, more fun" assessment, although it's completely subjective. I'm not sure how spamming more constant but weaker abilities = "more fun", or is more "active", as both games REQUIRE constant juking/movement and near constant vigilance...even at low levels of play.

You don't understand how having more abilities that you literally have to activate as opposed to completely passive abilities makes for more active gameplay? really? And again you misrepresent my post. Nowhere have I mentioned that the games require different amounts of movement or vigilance. In fact I never even touched on the issue, since, as you mention, there isn't a significant difference. That's what we call a "straw man" argument, and having to resort to such pretty much means you have no real arguments.

It's fine to have preferences, but "LoL has FUN as a design philosophy!" smells faintly of bullshit. Both games have strengths and weaknesses. Which are "fun" is going to depend largely on the player. For example, I find the absence of denying and death penalties in LoL to be the antithesis of fun, as one tears a level of strategy/skill out of the laning phase and the other significantly reduces the tension of dying and the explosive momentum swings deaths can cause. That doesn't mean creep denying and death penalties are MORE FUN though. It just means *I* like them more.

Feel free to take umbrage with Riot, for the "more fun" part, it's their stated design philosophy. I have repeatedly mentioned in my original post that all of these differences are very much subjectively fun. Which, again, you ignored and used the lack of as an argument against my post. Which, you know... smells faintly of bullshit.

 

[IllumInaTIma]

I've been playing Dota for about 8 years now, so you can say I know a couple of things.
What i really love about Dota is that this is kind of game that rewards experience. To be successful on higher levels you MUST know your shit. You must know your and enemies manacosts and cooldowns. You must know where and when to pull. You must know where to put a ward to block a camp and you must know where to put a sentry ward to counter ward that ward without blocking the camp.
I also think it's mostly balanced. MOSTLY. I still cringe whenever I see a Huskar with Ghost Sceptre. Although Dota is known to fix them quite quickly.

I never played LoL, although there are couple things I really admire about it. Like ranking system and the fact that leavers can't start new game until old one ends. Dota still have to figure out their matchmaking.

Although what I don't like about LoL is it's character design. It's so fucking inconsistent! In one game you have little furry pokemon, a god damn Zerg experiment, a Joker, and some dude that was teleported straight from StarCraft or any other sci-fi universe.
<spoiler=This pic, although it's really exaggerated, explains it well><img src=http://imagehaul.com/thehauls/fae9871c748415a86497d8d6bc42019f.jpg>

 

[BloatedGuppy]

A death penalty does not, in the slightest, alter the game. Dying in League denies you gold from creeps, which in turn denies you items which makes it more likely you're going to die again. Death in either game serves to make you weaker with respect to your laning opponent. Stacking a direct penalty on top of the natural penalty of being out of lane doesn't alter this; it simply makes a single death more meaningful.

Hell, all told League's Death Penalty is often substantially greater than in DOTA. Getting killed in a team fight means you're out of that fight until it wraps up as respawn timers can approach a minute or longer as the game drags on and the only option to get back into a fight involves walking there.

Functionally, the one difference between the two systems is that a single death in League is unlikely to cost you the lane or the game where in DOTA it can. This does not make the game better; it serves to make it more random. Winning a lane in League requires you to be consistently better than your opponent. DOTA lanes can swing on the power of a single gank. Setting the penalty high, in fact, has the exact opposite effect; it enforces a highly conservative style of play. Having a lower penalty leaves one free to perform various high risk moves.

Oh good. I was going to reply to you anyway! Particularly this...

By contrast, League has a set of systems that DOTA does not, namely, runes and masteries that, in many cases, actually does increase depth of play. Twisted Fate, a fairly staunch mid lane assassin mage, can be transformed into a surprisingly effective ranged carry by investing heavily into attack speed and AD runes and masteries which unlocks a role he'd otherwise have no claim to.

All DOTA heroes have a range of potential roles they can fill that can be dramatically altered by item choice. Items that are far more diverse and functional than League's selection of stat sticks. This is not a "set of systems" that one game has and the other does not. I am rather beginning to suspect you've never actually played DOTA, and just don't like it based on the principle that it is the primary competitor to your game of choice. It's the same weird tribalism that plagues MMO fans. 10 games that are all extremely similar mechanically, yet we're to understand one rules the universe and the other 9 are a blight on all mankind.

Anyway, moving on...

No, I disagree with your assessment that "all death penalties are functionally identical", or that making them higher makes for a more conservative game. Allowing for single kills to mean more makes KILLS as valuable as deaths are undesirable. Swashbuckling plays might net your team first blood or essential ganks, or it could leave you caught out and easily killed. Why would that ENFORCE conservatism? Unless, of course, you just don't like the game.

And really this same kind of thinking seems to be at the heart of all your comparisons, most particularly your befuddling assertion that having a multi-factorial teleport system is somehow "no more complex" than the single factor one in League. Forget that the courier can be killed, giving the opposing team a massive gold haul. Forget that scrolls cost valuable money, so you have to weigh speed of return vs potential income lost. Forget that scrolls have cooldowns, so you have to weigh using one to get back into your lane after dying vs using one to reinforce a team fight. Forget all those considerations. It's the SAME, only LoL is better, because fuck DOTA, or something.

Again I am FINE with LoL fans preferring LoL for whatever reasons, it's these bankrupt comparisons and, in some cases, hilarious misrepresentations in order to make one's SUBJECTIVE preference look OBJECTIVELY superior that is turning this thread into a total headache to read. Seriously Dreck, this is just CRAZY. Your death penalty objection is almost SINGULARLY nonsensical. You deny that it changes the game, except in the ways that it changes the game! Whup whup. I get it. You don't like DOTA.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Hostility!!!! Name calling!!!!

Ooooookay then.

Feel free to take umbrage with Riot, for the "more fun" part, it's their stated design philosophy. I have repeatedly mentioned in my original post that all of these differences are very much subjectively fun. Which, again, you ignored and used the lack of as an argument against my post. Which, you know... smells faintly of bullshit.

Yes, I will take umbrage with any developer stating "More fun" as a design philosophy because it's hilariously stupid and utterly devoid of meaning.

You don't understand how having more abilities that you literally have to activate as opposed to completely passive abilities makes for more active gameplay? really? And again you misrepresent my post. Nowhere have I mentioned that the games require different amounts of movement or vigilance. In fact I never even touched on the issue, since, as you mention, there isn't a significant difference. That's what we call a "straw man" argument, and having to resort to such pretty much means you have no real arguments.

No, I really don't understand how it's "more active". Check the APM of your average DOTA player vs a LoL player and I think you'll find that, barring differences of individual player skill, they are virtually identical. I don't think spamming a weak ability more frequently makes one game demonstrably "more active". You are apparently working with a VERY different definition of the word "active" than I am, since you are veritably SIMMERING with outrage at my conflation of "activity" with "movement" and "vigilance". Which...my bad, yo, I consider those things "actions", but I guess not, and this is now a straw man I guess? Because I'm a fanboy? And have problems with English? I dunno I can't keep up.

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

I realise that a number of people have their preferences on this subject, but honestly the quality of some people's arguments here is just appalling. To summarise quite a number of posts: "Oh I've never played [one of them], but [the other one] is clearly better" because "I've heard" (from who?) that "[insert one] has [hyperbole or sweeping generalisation]" so therefore you should play that. There are so many outright lies and fallacies.

I am a fairly frequent LoL player, but having not played DOTA, I honestly do not feel able to compare the two. Which is better than spouting some nonsense opinion that doesn't help the OP.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

All DOTA heroes have a range of potential roles they can fill that can be dramatically altered by item choice. Items that are far more diverse and functional than League's selection of stat sticks. This is not a "set of systems" that one game has and the other does not. I am rather beginning to suspect you've never actually played DOTA, and just don't like it based on the principle that it is the primary competitor to your game of choice. It's the same weird tribalism that plagues MMO fans. 10 games that are all extremely similar mechanically, yet we're to understand one rules the universe and the other 9 are a blight on all mankind.

Ah, opening with rhetorical fallacy! My favorite sort of post to respond to.

No, I disagree with your assessment that "all death penalties are functionally identical", or that making them higher makes for a more conservative game. Allowing for single kills to mean more makes KILLS as valuable as deaths are undesirable. Swashbuckling plays might net your team first blood or essential ganks, or it could leave you caught out and easily killed. Why would that ENFORCE conservatism? Unless, of course, you just don't like the game.

Simply put, having a high penalty for death means a player is less likely to engage in a high risk endeavor. This is such a universally true principle, it transcends video games altogether. In Fencing, for example, the Epee discards rules of right of way (a rule that says the person who first attacks has the right to make a touch - that is, if you begin an attack, and the other person counter attacks, only the first attacker's touch counts) and target area (the entire body is a target). This functionally means that any offensive action has an inherent risk to it and thus the style of fencing is characterized by extreme conservatism precisely because of the high risk.

And really this same kind of thinking seems to be at the heart of all your comparisons, most particularly your befuddling assertion that having a multi-factorial teleport system is somehow "no more complex" than the single factor one in League.

Actually, I said it was more complex but indicted that this did not alter the calculus of play.

Forget that the courier can be killed, giving the opposing team a massive gold haul.

It is just another high risk target in the jungle to kill, effectively no different than the Dragon or Baron Nashor.

Forget that scrolls cost valuable money, so you have to weigh speed of return vs potential income lost.

Leaving lane costs you money already since you aren't getting CS. Adding an arbitrary additional cost to rapid return does not alter this fact. Basically, leaving lane costs money, either in CS lost because you weren't there or in gold lost to a scroll.

Forget that scrolls have cooldowns, so you have to weigh using one to get back into your lane after dying vs using one to reinforce a team fight. Forget all those considerations. It's the SAME, only LoL is better, because fuck DOTA, or something.

I never said it was the same. If you'd note, I said DOTA inevitably has the more complex system. My argument is that this complexity does not improve the depth of the game. To use an Analogy, Monopoly is a relatively complex game with lots of special rules governed by cards and the like. By contrast, Chess is a very simple game with a handful of unique movement types and core rules. But complexity does not make monopoly a particularly deep game nor does simplicity deny chess the opportunity to have incredibly deep levels of play.

Again I am FINE with LoL fans preferring LoL for whatever reasons, it's these bankrupt comparisons and, in some cases, hilarious misrepresentations in order to make one's SUBJECTIVE preference look OBJECTIVELY superior that is turning this thread into a total headache to read.

First, you misunderstand what the words you use mean.

I'll clear this up for you. When I say DOTA has more complex systems and then provide a demonstration of that complexity in action (say, the whole leaving lane thing), that's objective reality. When I then point out that the fundamental underlying decision tree behind what you do remains the same between the games, that too is objective reality.

What is subjective (and I explicitly noted it was subjective) is my preference for the less complex system. I'm not presenting my preference is objective reality; indeed, I completely understand while someone would prefer DOTA. While I don't think inclusion of a system like Denies actually alters the game in any substantial way, it does give a player another thing to manage during a lane phase and helps foster a more active style of play.

 

[WendelI]

Apples and oranges bro, do you wanna just bite into it (lol) or do you wanna have to peel all the skin that you dont want to eat to find a thoroughly enjoyable and juicy insides(DOTA).

DOTA is more complex, hence it brings a more strategic gaming experience. league in the other hand is more inclusive and very easy to get into.

 

[NathLines]

I have played both, but I main LoL because that's what all my friends play and I prefer the gameplay of it.

My suggestion is that you try both and see which game's gameplay you fancy more. If you don't mind either, go with Dota 2. As someone who's played LoL for a long time, I can safely say that Dota 2 is better in every way.

You get all the heroes for free, skins can drop and the engine supports crazy nonsense like holiday events/gamemodes. Also, Valve was prepared for Dota to become an E-Sport, the latest Dota 2 international was a joy to watch. Even all my friends who are die-hard LoL-fans say that they enjoy watching Dota 2 more than LoL.

Anyhow, a lot of the things that makes the game better comes down to Dota 2's engine just being better and able to handle more stuff. But as I said before, it really comes down to which game's gameplay you prefer. Not gonna comment on communities, turned off all-chat in LoL as soon as I had the option. Never turned it back on. It's up to luck how many assholes you come across anyway.

 

[Do4600]

I've played both, but I've played LoL more. I think LoL is better, it's just more balanced, for the most part 2 v 1 the one will never win unless they pull some really good tactics and do some seriously well timed combos. I distinctly remember playing a game of DOTA II where three of us ganged up on a single enemy that was a level higher than we were and twice he instantly rejuvenated his life from near death and managed to kill all of us. That's just some bullshit.

I've also found that DOTA II players to be even more abusive than LoL players. Also DOTA II players give up at the drop of a fucking hat, I can't count the number of times where after a couple of deaths people have just spewed out a string of insults and then just sat in base for the rest of the game. It probably has to do with the mechanics in DOTA being incredibly unforgiving, but if that's the case why not just call the match at first blood like you do in fencing?

In LoL I've had games that last an hour and 20 minutes because each team was really well matched, I've never had that experience in DOTA, it seems like one team always steam rolls the other. You don't even have the option to surrender.

 

[Quarik]

I don't have a huge amount to add here, as I've only played a couple games of DOTA and got scared the hell off because I'd been playing League and the DOTA shop is cryptic as fuck. However, something a lot of the DOTA advocates have been saying is that melee champs in League are terrible and that's why turnspeed is such a necessary thing... In the current meta (which can be broken easily and effectively with plenty of champions as long as you aren't in professional play), ranged champions tend to get obliterated. They're important, don't get me wrong, but standard comps nowadays are 4/3 melee and 1/2 range because melee champs are more common, tend to have better kits than ranged champs, have BETTER stats to help with the range disparity, and typically have a gap closer to deal with almost any range distance. There are very few champions in the game that can actually sit back and autoattack, because chances are the enemy team will have a bruiser melee that just walks through and destroys you, and if the ranged carry is someone that excels at kiting, like Vayne, you can always get a Randuin's Omen to effectively negate the kite. The champions that do have such exceptionally high range, like Caitlyn and Tristana, have substandard kiting, so if you can get on top of them they're probably dead.

Also, again speaking from inexperience with DOTA, I think the League champion personalities are just tons more fun. The newest champion, Jinx, and an older champion, Vi, are incredibly well designed thematically, have kits that are tons of fun to use, and have truly EXCELLENT voice acting. The whole grinding for currency to buy champs is something I really don't mind. It's incredibly rewarding to unlock a champion, and it means you have a while to learn the champion, rather than having 116 options laid out for you to be terrible at all at once, because, chances are, if you have a bad game with one champ you won't play it for a while, and that's not as much of an issue in League. That's all subjective, but there's also 10 free champions every week that typically fill every role, include new champions, and give you a nice way to preview champions without spending all of your hard earned stuff. I also think that Riot is a bit more active with the community, with very frequent patches, a new champion every month or two, and the whole World Championship thing. They sent loot to people that were setting up viewing parties for the Finals just to make the party better (and to advertise, obviously), and I don't care what advertising, moneygrubbing scheme is behind it, that's goddamn awesome.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Ah, opening with rhetorical fallacy! My favorite sort of post to respond to.

I'm unclear where the fallacy is. Perhaps it is unfair of me to accuse you of bias, but your bias appeared evident.

Simply put, having a high penalty for death means a player is less likely to engage in a high risk endeavor. This is such a universally true principle, it transcends video games altogether. In Fencing, for example, the Epee discards rules of right of way (a rule that says the person who first attacks has the right to make a touch - that is, if you begin an attack, and the other person counter attacks, only the first attacker's touch counts) and target area (the entire body is a target). This functionally means that any offensive action has an inherent risk to it and thus the style of fencing is characterized by extreme conservatism precisely because of the high risk.

I'm still uncertain why you are of the opinion that "High Risk High Reward" encourages conservatism in DOTA. I am not familiar with fencing, therefore I am ill equipped to have a debate about fencing. I would like, however, a demonstration of this conservatism in action in DOTA. My anecdotal experience does not support it. High level competitive play does not support it. Can you support this theory with DOTA examples, as opposed to fencing examples?

Actually, I said it was more complex but indicted that this did not alter the calculus of play.

Indeed you did, my error.

It is just another high risk target in the jungle to kill, effectively no different than the Dragon or Baron Nashor.

It is a ZERO risk target if it happens to hove into view. It also takes all of 1-2 auto attacks to dispatch, as opposed to the Dragon, or Nashor, or Rosh. It's an ENTIRELY different animal than a neutral or jungle creep. This is a bizarre assertion.

Leaving lane costs you money already since you aren't getting CS. Adding an arbitrary additional cost to rapid return does not alter this fact. Basically, leaving lane costs money, either in CS lost because you weren't there or in gold lost to a scroll.

And again, this is really, really strange reasoning. Oh sure, it costs you more money, and creates additional decision points, but it's no different! More IS different. Adding a tangible cost to an opportunity cost IS different. It's another example of how DOTA features far more aggressive swings than LoL does.

I never said it was the same. If you'd note, I said DOTA inevitably has the more complex system. My argument is that this complexity does not improve the depth of the game. To use an Analogy, Monopoly is a relatively complex game with lots of special rules governed by cards and the like. By contrast, Chess is a very simple game with a handful of unique movement types and core rules. But complexity does not make monopoly a particularly deep game nor does simplicity deny chess the opportunity to have incredibly deep levels of play.

We're not talking about a case of simplicity vs needless complexity though. If your complexity adds decision points, as opposed to just making something needlessly fussy, then it could be described as "good complexity" that adds depth to the experience. You're attempting to argue that everything that LoL has streamlined out added nothing in terms of decision points or depth. I disagree VEHEMENTLY with that assertion. And I am very, VERY much a proponent of streamlining away pointless fussiness.

First, you misunderstand what the words you use mean.

Hey cool, this is the second "Lol you must not understand english!" attack I've had in one thread! Excellent form, especially from someone who opened up complaining about fallacies.

I'll clear this up for you. When I say DOTA has more complex systems and then provide a demonstration of that complexity in action (say, the whole leaving lane thing), that's objective reality.

Yep.

When I then point out that the fundamental underlying decision tree behind what you do remains the same between the games, that too is objective reality.

Nope. That's you presenting your subjective opinion as "objective reality". It's an obnoxious way to frame an argument, and it's the entire reason we're having this ludicrous debate instead of just cheerfully agreeing to disagree.

What is subjective (and I explicitly noted it was subjective) is my preference for the less complex system. I'm not presenting my preference is objective reality; indeed, I completely understand while someone would prefer DOTA. While I don't think inclusion of a system like Denies actually alters the game in any substantial way, it does give a player another thing to manage during a lane phase and helps foster a more active style of play.

Laning is such a simple and repetitive stage, I do enjoy having the additional ball to juggle. I'd have a hard time taking anyone seriously who promoted "denies" as a singular reason why DOTA was "better" than LoL though.

As stated earlier, there isn't a person in this discussion who would hit the skill cap for either game, so it's irrelevant how many more tasks DOTA gives you to do. It will pleasure people who enjoy tons of decision points, vs someone who enjoys few. Mechanically the games are very similar experiences, but I do take significant umbrage with implying that, say, something like the courier system is needless complexity that changes NOTHING about the decision making involved. One game is cleaner, simpler, crisper. One game is chunkier, fussier, deeper. They are both MOBAs. They are BOTH highly demanding, and very deep, and very rich PvP experiences.

 

[Vigormortis]

Yeah there is no ranked system...

Actually, there kinda is. It's just not an 'advertised' ranking system. As in, you can't actively check on a persons personal ranking. However, matchmaking is based on each players ranking.

I actually prefer this kind of system. It doesn't publicly advertise everyones "ranking", which means new or inexperienced players are less likely to be ridiculed or harassed pre-match.

Also there's wtf mode, where everyone has infinite mana and no cooldowns, which is just ridiculous(ly funny).

Yeah it is. Until someone goes "hardcore" and rushes a Hand of Midas.

If they do that, and it's easy to get one well before minute two if you jungle right, they can get a blink dagger within the next creep wave. Once they have both of those items, it's maybe four minutes later and they'll have a BKB/Linken Sphere and just about anything else they want, as they can just Blink around the map and clear every jungle camp every minute. That's at least 5500 gold a minute, not counting forays into lanes to clear creep waves.

That, and they'll be in the double digit levels already. All before minute 5.

Seriously, that damn Hand sucks the fun right out of WTF mode. XD

 

[RandallJohn]

This discussion usually annoys me because it always comes with fanboys of either game firing shots at the other side, so I'd take everything with a grain of salt (especially if someone seriously declares that every aspect of one is strictly better than every aspect of the other.)

My opinion is this: You'll probably like DotA more if you're a fan of the RTS genre (Starcraft, C&C, etc,) as the pacing and the way you control and itemize your characters are similar (for obvious reasons. You'll probably like LoL more if you're a fan of Dungeon Crawlers (Diablo, Gauntlet, etc,) as the action and character control are most like that. Both are good but they simply have drastically different play styles. I think it's really just up to what you like and what kind of gameplay you gravitate towards (and if you're a very visual person, what art style you like. ^_^) But to me it's really not a matter that can be settled with STRICTLY better or worse.

Personal note: People say LoL is "simpler," which implies a more casual take, but it seems to me like "Streamlined" is the better word. I feel like it took some concepts from the original DotA and sharpened them to make them work better and be less cluttered. So it certainly is simpler, but not in a bad way. But that's a personal opinion which, as I said before, deserves a grain of salt.