League of Legends and DOTA should not be called strategy games

kingthrall

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Before people start writing a wall of rant text, this is not a flame thread its a serious discussion as its something that itches at my skin when people call these games stratergy.

Now I understand there is a tiny % of strategy involved in picking items and build of character but is this not more MMO RPG than strategy because the game revolves around heroes with an inventory similar to Diablo,Torchlight,Sacred ect.

The second point is that you have a single unit, there are no armies in which you control, only what are called "lanes" which suggest grinding a process that should never be associated with any strategy game as strategy is all about thinking ahead and proceeding with a plan, if armies are clashing in three predetermined lanes, there is no thought process of reducing casualties ect, they are merely fodder for hero's similar to any rpg.

Thirdly there is no serious long term consequences in these games, in a sense what I am trying to say is that for instance in a game like the total war series, paradox games or even starcraft. Taking a territory, blocking trade routes or moving an army away exposing your territories to be occupied by an enemy can impede your progress long term in the game. In DOTA/LOL your hero dies from a "tactical" ambush at low health, note the word tactical, you re-spawn and can quickly come up with your buddies to defend an area with no long term damage.

I am sure spending too much money at the start can damage you long term however in LOL/DOTA but you still can use what you have unlike starcraft for example that if your command base is destroyed and you have only 1 mineral area farming, it can damage your economy.

Finally, there is no Macro in LOL/DOTA. argue as you might, you are using one unit, there isn't an army you control. If you don't believe me , keyboards are designed to have macro keys and I would love to know how people utilize these keys designed for large army usage. Even Might and magic with its turn based strategy has armies and turn based combat that involves flanking and dire consequences if you leave your castle. With LOL/DOTA the paths are set, there is no large body of sea to float across and travel some far world or go underground.

Anyway have fun picking the pieces out of my post about how you all adore these two highly over-rated games in my opinion. Look forward to the replies!
 

General Twinkletoes

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.... How much of them did you play? Planning, trying to reduce deaths, and lasting effects from dying are definitely part of the game.

For example, you die. The enemy can now push into your jungle, ward it safetly (which they couldn't before cause you'd warded and would kill them if they came in), and take the tower. Now, your jungle is off limits! Good luck doing shit in there without getting seen and murdered. Map control is definitely a part of those games, and is an incredibly and difficult part of it. Good map control separates good from great teams.

"you re-spawn and can quickly come up with your buddies"

I wouldn't call 100 seconds at level 25 in Dota "quick" when an entire team can TP mid and take 2 towers in about 30 seconds if they're coordinated.

Finally, I'm not sure what your last point is. How are the paths set any more than in Starcraft for instance? Also, Meepo has tons of micro. You're controlling 5 of him.

Actually finally....
this is not a flame thread its a serious discussion
Anyway have fun picking the pieces out of my post about how you all adore these two highly over-rated games in my opinion. Look forward to the replies!
srsly
 

kingthrall

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TheKasp said:
*sigh* This again?

My take on this:

Those games have strategy. It is not the kind of strategy you want but to say there is none (or a minimal amount) is a straight lie.
You got a point, but Im saying they are the kind of tactics an rpg uses like the Assassin character in Diablo 2 and your using a "party" not an army like a online rpg has a raiding party ect, rather than lets say Empire Earth or Age of Empires. Only difference being that in diablo your following a linear squarish map section by section.
 

General Twinkletoes

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kingthrall said:
General Twinkletoes said:
I don't appreciate being made fun of when I was trying to lay some legit disclaimers for my thread.
Saying "no flaming" and at the end of your post including a sentence that sounds an awful lot like "the games you like are shit and your arguments will be obnoxious" is a little contradictory.
 

Smooth Operator

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I'll agree that they should by no means be called RTS because that is a completely different genre, but strategy is involved in a huge way. And if you still aren't convinced go look up a tutorial on how to play even one of the characters, the amount of information you need to get things right is absolutely insane.
 

kingthrall

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TheKasp said:
kingthrall said:
You got a point, but Im saying they are the kind of tactics an rpg uses like the Assassin character in Diablo 2 and your using a "party" not an army like a online rpg has a raiding party ect, rather than lets say Empire Earth or Age of Empires. Only difference being that in diablo your following a linear squarish map section by section.
I don't see how this takes away from the strategy aspect of drafting, using the finite ressources and defending your strategic valueable structures.

I also don't see the comparison. Unlike in the MMO(RPG) party you don't fight NPCs. You fight players who, like you, try to hide their gameplan from you while disrupting yours. And yes, on higher levels there is a gameplan.

While I agree that the ARTS genre name is a bit... strange. I don't like both the MOBA title (because Multiplayer Online Battle Arena includes everything) and frankly, I don't like the Action Real Time Strategy title. Even in the community there is plenty of joking that both titles are rather misleading which resultet in the genrename "ASSFAGGOTS" (Aeon of Strife Styled Fortress Assault Game Going On Two Sides).

Like before, I see strategy as a big part of the game and I've had my fair share of exposure to it. I agree that if you are used to certain types of strategy games you might have trouble to see it. I've watched hundreds of games of professional DOTA2 (I really enjoy it) and I've seen teams lose for many reasons. A bad strategy is one of the more frequent ones.

I don't know if you have the iterest in reading up a bit on the strategy involved in certain phases of the game. My favorite is the drafting phase where both captains try to play the other team.

Here [http://7ckngmad.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/draft-analysis-starladder-finals-alliance-vs-iccup-final-game/] is draft analysis from a professional player, 7uckingmad. He also has analysis of the plays in different stages of the game and how the decision making of the teams affected the final result.
The thing with the bans is actually quite interesting and does make sense strategy wise. I dunno It just seems bad categorizing this game with other titles as it is its own genre, and like you said MOBA doesn't cut it, cause its unique even though I find both games to be highly over-rated I can see why this game has its appeal.
 

Elfgore

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delta4062 said:
...who calls them that? They're MOBA games.
My first thought as well. The only people I've heard call them actually RTSs are people who've never played the games.

1. Those items either make you or break you. They are really damn important. If you do not strategically manage them, you're going to lose.

2. The amount of units you control in no way changes anything about the game.

3. I would say this depends on the game, but you then mentioned Starcraft as an example, which I've never played. But I don't think losing one battle will screw your entire long-term play. In Total war it can. The point I'm getting at is, if you suck early at MOBAs you are going to have to do one hell of a comeback. Trust me I know.

4. You can never spend too much money in these games. You can only spend them the wrong way, which will totally fuck you over.

5.Look to number 3.

Alright, since I answered your question, how about you answer one of mine? How long did you play DOTA and LoL? If you only played to level five, then of course there is no strategy. None of you know how to play the game. At level thirty, if you purchase the wrong item, you're dead. Forget to ward the important places, dead. Hell, don't properly locate your skill points, dead.
 

kingthrall

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Elfgore said:
delta4062 said:
...who calls them that? They're MOBA games.
Alright, since I answered your question, how about you answer one of mine? How long did you play DOTA and LoL? If you only played to level five, then of course there is no strategy. None of you know how to play the game. At level thirty, if you purchase the wrong item, you're dead. Forget to ward the important places, dead. Hell, don't properly locate your skill points, dead.
not going to lie, spent like 30 min each game and thought they were some of the cheapest trashiest games ive ever played. I kind of still think that too in comparison to the plethora of games I have played. For me all it was, was world of warcraft on steroids with hotkeys to exploit your enemies when they are less than 5% to jump out of the bush and kill them for that big boost of experience. I am sure there is team work and the like at the later levels, which is odd because most games have a early, mid and late tier all tied together to make it more enjoyable.

Anyway these two games seem seriously repetitive with little or no variation in comparison to lets say WarThunder where your plane gets shot and you actually feel the turbulence on the wings cause of the damage, there is variation or an X factor involved. for me these games have no X factor or luck involved, that is what made my most favorite game the myth series (myth II soulblighter) so addictive because even the super pro's at the game when they use their powerful units turtle uphill to force the opponent to attack, sometimes if an enemy rushes to obtain a objective due to time running out the explosives wont detonate and the rush will actually work miraculously instead of obliterating the attacking force.

Stuff like that, which makes it interesting cause when it happens to you, you have to prepare and setup a new tactic that you did not see coming, which is what LOL and DOTA sorely lack.
 

AmberSword

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TheKasp said:
Gankytim said:
Nobody ever called them strategy games. They're MOBA's.
Only Riot, on whose terminology I take a big steaming shit, calls them MOBAs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplayer_online_battle_arena

Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), also known as action real-time strategy (ARTS) or DOTA-like
I don't call this genre MOBA. Because MOBA is an utterly stupid name.
Well we can't change what the majority identifies with, I use the term moba only to be sure everyone understands what I mean.

On Topic though, there is a lot of strategy in any of the top mobas out there, we can't change your personal opinion on how you'd like to define strategy though, so I believe just stating this is enough.
 

DoPo

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kingthrall said:
Now I understand there is a tiny % of strategy involved in picking items and build of character but is this not more MMO RPG than strategy because the game revolves around heroes with an inventory similar to Diablo,Torchlight,Sacred ect.
So, this is wrong, for the strategy is more than that.

kingthrall said:
The second point is that you have a single unit, there are no armies in which you control, only what are called "lanes" which suggest grinding a process that should never be associated with any strategy game as strategy is all about thinking ahead and proceeding with a plan, if armies are clashing in three predetermined lanes, there is no thought process of reducing casualties ect, they are merely fodder for hero's similar to any rpg.
And this is wrong, for if you die a lot, you lose. The thought process is there, it's way, way more than what you suggest, even at the laning stage (which passes, but you didn't account for that).

kingthrall said:
Thirdly there is no serious long term consequences in these games, in a sense what I am trying to say is that for instance in a game like the total war series, paradox games or even starcraft. Taking a territory, blocking trade routes or moving an army away exposing your territories to be occupied by an enemy can impede your progress long term in the game. In DOTA/LOL your hero dies from a "tactical" ambush at low health, note the word tactical, you re-spawn and can quickly come up with your buddies to defend an area with no long term damage.
And this is wrong, because very rarely is a game won because one team just went and raized the other team's base in one go. It's a patient focused process of managing your resources to destroy the other team's in order to beat them, while doing smaller hit and runs earlier as that cripples them in the long run.

kingthrall said:
I am sure spending too much money at the start can damage you long term however in LOL/DOTA but you still can use what you have unlike starcraft for example that if your command base is destroyed and you have only 1 mineral area farming, it can damage your economy.
And denying the enemies their forest can destroy them. Even the single act of dropping an observer ward and denying them stealth damages their prospects and can, very well, lead to losing the game. OK, maybe on lower-tier matches, but not dewarding in higher tier one is something like a suicide.

kingthrall said:
Finally, there is no Macro in LOL/DOTA. argue as you might, you are using one unit, there isn't an army you control. If you don't believe me , keyboards are designed to have macro keys and I would love to know how people utilize these keys designed for large army usage. Even Might and magic with its turn based strategy has armies and turn based combat that involves flanking and dire consequences if you leave your castle. With LOL/DOTA the paths are set, there is no large body of sea to float across and travel some far world or go underground.
This is not wrong but...irrelevant. Utterly irrelevant. Not that the others really weren't, but the were also wrong.

kingthrall said:
when people call these games stratergy.
And when do they do that? I mean, not only were your points wrong (and irrelevant) but seems the initial premise is, too. I have very rarely seen them described as "strategy", growing less and less over the past 5 years, and even then, it's mostly when the describer tries to think of something to approximate them to, rather than going "This is what it is and nothing else".
 

hazabaza1

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Oh look.
Someone who didn't play the games he's talking about and wants to feel superior.

Have fun with that, hope this made you feel better.