BloatedGuppy said:
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.
BloatedGuppy said:
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.
BloatedGuppy said:
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.
BloatedGuppy said:
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.
BloatedGuppy said:
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.
BloatedGuppy said:
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.
BloatedGuppy said:
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.