BloatedGuppy said:
Eclectic Dreck said:
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.
The fallacy was Ad Hominem.
BloatedGuppy said:
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?
Mid lane players are less likely to leave lane to gank other lanes, top lane players are less likely to roam, etc. Functionally, where roaming is incredibly common in League, my experience with DOTA was that it was less common during laning phase.
BloatedGuppy said:
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.
The target will generally be inside the opposing jungle ergo the high risk/reward scenario. By contrast, Dragon is high risk because of it's location in neutral territory and the length of time it takes to dispatch. In each case, risk is assumed (staying in neutral territory close to three to four other players for dragon, being in the opposing jungle for the Courier) in exchange for a potential massive gold payout if you pull it off.
BloatedGuppy said:
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.
My experience with DOTA is that there was no increase in decision points. Leaving lane was leaving lane - altering the precise payoff to leaving the lane doesn't alter the balance of leaving (and risking gold) with the payoff (getting an item, healing, ganking, etc).
I'll give you two examples during laning phase.
In League, leaving lane presents several risks: it leaves your opponent to farm freely, it puts your tower at risk, it lets your opponent roam (putting other lanes at risk), and it undercuts your gold supply (no CS, obviously). By contrast, it comes with several potential advantages: you will restore your mana and health, you have an opportunity to purchase an item, and you could spend the time ganking another lane or killing a neutral monster. This risk can be mitigated to a degree with items (Boots or other move speed items) or summoner spells (Teleport for example).
By contrast, in DOTA, you add a wrinkle. Leaving lane for an item or health is no longer strictly necessary thanks to the courier but calling the courier, simply put, engages a high value target of opportunity for your opposition. This risk is functionally identical to several of the risks undertaken by leaving lane in either game in terms of the actual impact on the game itself.
The second is the Deny system in DOTA which is not present at all in League. Functionally, it serves to reduce enemy gold acquisition directly. League, by contrast, has a system to do this but it involves effectively taking actions against the player themselves to keep them from getting last hits. The end result is the same (less gold for your opponent).
In each case, it is absolutely true that DOTA gives you more options for how you engage a problem. My assertion is that those options don't actually affect the underlying decision making process in a particularly useful or notable way.
BloatedGuppy said:
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.
I can understand why you'd enjoy the addition of Denies. It's an interesting wrinkle that can add a great deal actual "play"to the game. League has plenty of champions that simply don't do a great deal during laning phase. Morgana, for example, has a fire and forget way of farming and from there all you can really do is poke half-heartedly. Against another fairly passive champion, laning phase becomes an endless bore spiced up only by the occasional gank attempt.
The complexity of the systems in DOTA does, in many cases, give you as a player more to actually do - there is no denying that. Its just that those systems don't add to the actual core decision making of the game; they serve to confuse it. And, as a rule, I simply prefer the distilled version. You could look at my post history defending, for example, the reduction of complexity of Mass Effect 2 to see this isn't a purely tribal trend. When I started playing MOBAS, I had friends who played League and Friends who Played DOTA and my time can only allow for one such time sink. League eventually won me over.
I will not assert that DOTA is an inferior game - it is a game that is very
slightly different. I like denying purely by zoning, I like having the freedom of high risk activities that league's death system allows and I like that the choice to buy or grab more CS is an either/or affair. The extra trappings of DOTA, simply put, don't alter the core game enough for me to want to bother with them.