League of Legends and DOTA should not be called strategy games

[Ferisar]

Well we can't change what the majority identifies with, I use the term moba only to be sure everyone understands what I mean.

I have no problem with people using the term. I have a problem with people stating that, and I quote, "Nobody ever called them strategy games. They're MOBA's.".

They are MOBAs alright. In the same sense that Mortal Kombat games are MOBAs, multiplayer FPS are MOBAS, everything is a MOBA.

YER MOM IS A MOBALOL /s

But seriously. What's a real-time strategy game? I know a lot of games that are realtime and have strategy in them.

I think the only term(s) that I would call as very self-defining are FPS/TPS. Because that's literally what they are. x)

 

[AmberSword]

The only reason I even went in this thread is for the potential DotA/LoL fan-fight, because the premise of the thread is utterly goddamn silly, only helped by not having played either of the games before. Sheesh.

I'm glad your wish didn't come true then , and I certainly hope it doesn't in a few pages, please guys, I don't care which army you're from, sometimes we have to unite when we have a common cause.

 

[Ferisar]

The only reason I even went in this thread is for the potential DotA/LoL fan-fight, because the premise of the thread is utterly goddamn silly, only helped by not having played either of the games before. Sheesh.

I'm glad your wish didn't come true then , and I certainly hope it doesn't in a few pages, please guys, I don't care which army you're from, sometimes we have to unite when we have a common cause.

NO, LIKING A GAME AND GETTING ALONG WITH ANOTHER OF THE SAME GENRE IS A SIN. Besides, all the "real" gamorz are playing SC2 for the 1337 APM (that's the actual number obviously bro, do you even click?).

-is totally not trying to incite anything-

 

[Elijin]

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!

So to start the tone, you're implying that anyone who disagrees with you is just picking apart points in some scarce defense of their beloved game. Thats a great start.

With that in mind, I absolutely loathe MOBA/DOTA/ARTS games.

But even as someone who hates them, lets do a quick little checklist...

Finite resources that need to earnt and managed on the fly? Check.
A top down map, which fog of war leading to situations where map control and knowledge are essential? Check.
Various unit roles and abilities which need to be micromanaged at an intense level for success over their counterparts? Check.
RPS unit line ups? ...Maybe check? I dont play them much but I understand there are unit types that match up poorly.
Macro on a map scale, being able to keep track of and adjust plays on the fly relevant to the game state? Check.
Intense and varying strategies for different units and player counts, as well as game states? Check.



Well, sounds like strategy games to me. Awful ones, but still, strategy ones.

Its cool though, you already demonstrated you're going to accredit anyone who disagrees with you to be a fan trying to justify themselves, so I dont expect anything from my post.

 

[SomeLameStuff]

Spoiler

Alliance, the current world champions (winner of the International 2013) vs Cloud 9. The first game in a best of 5. Alliane drafted for global presence and mobility, C9 drafted for teamfight. How I expected the game to go based off the draft: A close match if both teams don't make glaring mistakes. C9 hat both scary midgame and lategame, Alliance hat better pickoff potential and initiation. If I'd hat to place a bet I'd said that C9 would win but very close.

What actually happened: Because of some early aggressive skill uses by Alliance they managed to get a kill and tower lead which looked scary in the score but it was expected. Then, around minute ~15 (end of laning phase, early game / early midgame) C9 decided to take Roshan. Roshan is a valueable objective. Aside from a big exp boost the whole team gets gold and one player, usually the carry, gets the Aegis of Immortals, an item that revives a player once when he dies (it stays for 6 min and disappears after that if not consumed). The idea was that they felt like they could fight better in close spaces at that time (which is technically true) and that they would scare Alliance into a position where they would fear an engagement on the player holding the aegis (because it gives the whole enemy team enough time to react).

What happened was that they simply underestimated Alliances power to fight them when initiated. A perfect initiation of Alliance.S4 made 4 players of C9 unable to do anything for 3 seconds + they were confined to a close space for another ~4 seconds after. This gave their global heroes (they had three heroes that were able to come into a teamfight anywhere on the map at any given time) the time to come into a position where they would pick off the one hero not caught by S4 and setting up the kills of three other members of C9.

This was a big hit for their economy. Alliance, while blowing all their cooldowns (and C9 not using half of theirs), could not follow up with any objectives like towers because it was still early in the game and the fight took their toll on their HP as well. It was nothing that C9 would not have been able to recover from. But because Alliance used all their CDs C9 decided to go into the pit again, thinking that Alliance was in no shape to react. They were wrong. Combined with the previous Rosh attempt they fed 11 kills and the Aegis to Alliance before minute 18. Aside that it were ~4 minutes where the core heroes of C9 did literally nothing except losing gold through two deaths.

The game took another 10 minutes to finish with C9 looking quite strong at some occasions, taking a teamfight and even some more towers. But due to bad positioning and early game execution they gave Alliance such a big lead that they were not able to recover quick enough, resulting in C9 first loss in the series.

That was seriously all on Envy. He loves going for the super-greed drafts and plays and it completely backfired on him and his team that game. It was less Alliance making big plays and more C9 throwing the whole thing in the toilet. EE-Sama better straighten up before the International if he wants to be in the money.

OT: But yeah, a LARGE amount of strategy goes into a game of Dota, and most of it is even before the game starts. I've drafted for a competitive team before, and I'm telling you, it's no walk in the park. Who do you ban? When do you ban them? What heroes are the enemy team comfortable with? Can you counter their heroes? What are your team's strengths? What are your team's weaknesses? What about the enemy? You can spend ten minutes alone on the drafting stage, and more often than not, it can decide the entire game.

And even after that, how do you set the lanes? Safe trilane with a solo mid and offlaner? Or maybe offensive trilane? You can have a dual mid, or you can go for a 2-1-2, or 1-1-2 with a dedicated jungler. And after the first ten minutes or so, what do you want to do? Group up and take towers? Just back off and static farm? Smoke up and gank someone? Play a "Rat" strat? How about the enemies? Are THEY smoking to gank? Maybe they're trying to take Roshan. Maybe they're looking to push down towers and break high ground. Did they place wards? Do they have vision? Do YOU have vision? How much gold does the enemy team have? Should you buy your big item now, or wait in case you die and need to buy out of death? All these are questions that run through a competitive player's head.

Maybe from first glance there doesn't seem much strategy besides "kill stuff, get gold, buy better stuff to kill stuff faster" and granted, that's probably how most pub games turn out, but the competitive scene is something else entirely. As someone with competitive experience with Dota, I can tell you from personal experience that competitive Dota is completely strategy heavy.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

they are "My First RTS" as far as im concerned

 

[Easton Dark]

They are MOBAs alright. In the same sense that Mortal Kombat games are MOBAs, multiplayer FPS are MOBAS, everything is a MOBA.

In what game is there no action. In what game do you not use strategy. In what game do you not play a role.

Genres are meaningless. Come up with more descriptive and specific terms or throw them out.

 

[Zhukov]

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.

Uh huh.

30mins each, eh? And you would have been playing at the entry level too.

Fact is, you are simply not qualified to comment on these games. At all.

It's comparable someone watching half an hour of a schoolyard soccer match then dismissing the whole sport as "just a bunch of guys kicking a ball around." (EDIT: Wow, got ninja's on that example, almost word for word.)

And I'm not even saying this to defend the games. I don't particularly like DOTA or LOL. But you so obviously have no idea what you're talking about, and you're banging your own drum so very hard, and getting so snobbish over genre differences that I feel compelled to comment.

 

[Carrots_macduff]

...who calls them that? They're MOBA games.

indeed. i've never heard dota or league colloquially referred to as strategy games.

the thrust of this thread seems to be the usual "why do so many people like the game i didnt like, and why is my favorite kind of game not more popular."

also OP, your claim that the only strategy in mobas comes from item builds speaks to your lack of knowledge of the genre.
the real complex strategies are based on positioning, map control, coordination and timing

 

[AmberSword]

Theoraticaly, every game

They are MOBAs alright. In the same sense that Mortal Kombat games are MOBAs, multiplayer FPS are MOBAS, everything is a MOBA.

In what game is there no action. In what game do you not use strategy. In what game do you not play a role.

Genres are meaningless. Come up with more descriptive and specific terms or throw them out.

Not to be offensive here, especially if you were just being sarcastic, but here is my opinion.

Theoretically, every game is unique, and even similar games like sequels are still too many, so instead of trying to come up with thousands of terms to describe every game as close to perfection as possible, we just categorize them roughly by their main focus. Sure Portal has action in it, but are people going to remember the game for that? That is why its mostly touted as a puzzle platformer. There is strategy in Call of Duty, same logic applies. Role-Play is truly the most illogical genre, but even that has its roots. As far as I know, it probably spawned from the days of old before we even had digital games/during their early years where board games like D&D were king, in these games the main focus was really you playing a role, the entire game was built around that, and most early RPGs copied this concept just in digital form. The RPGs of today have really detached themselves from this formula, but the name stuck.

 

[mindfaQ]

Flamebait post?
Yes, the games are more tactical than strategical, the most strategy actually happens when the teams get picked + what you plan to do with your picks then (at least in Dota 2). The strategy portion is how you divide the ressources (gold, exp, time)
Thus the ARTT is probably a more fitting genre description than ARTS, but meh, since people also seem to accept the idiotic MOBA term, one could argue that genre terms can't be taken too seriously.

 

[legend forge]

There is a difference between "strategy" and "tactics". MOBAS are tactical games, not strategic.

 

[SomeLameStuff]

That was seriously all on Envy. He loves going for the super-greed drafts and plays and it completely backfired on him and his team that game. It was less Alliance making big plays and more C9 throwing the whole thing in the toilet. EE-Sama better straighten up before the International if he wants to be in the money.

Like I said, it was bad decisionmaking and estimating of the situation. Going in the second time ~10s before the last ultimate of Alliance is up again, positioning themselfs perfect for S4 to jump in, silence and Dreamcoild everybody TWICE in a row which allowed Sven to do what Sven does when 4 people stand in perfect line.

Alliance executed their draft like expected. C9 played too greedy too early and paid for it.

They kind of buggered up with the draft too, banning out the Chen. I mean, with both Darkseer and Jakiro, you almost WANT them to group up and try to take towers, because between Jakiro and Darkseer, their creep wave is going nowhere. Plus the Alch they picked up later on? Anti-push up the wazoo.

The Alch pick was a mistake though, waaaaay too greedy. They should have stuck Ember in mid, and last pick a Luna or a Gyro for Envy. But I suppose it's Envy's hallmark, being too greedy.

 

[Easton Dark]

Theoretically, every game is unique

Every game is unique. I said a long time ago that I wish people would describe the mechanics rather than compare them to thousands of other games. "What's the game like?" "Well, it's an action game like Call of Duty and Lollipop Chainsaw." "You have said nothing."

The wide categorizations make the categories meaningless to me. Since like you say, there's too many variations, just get rid of 'em.

There are plenty of games that lack action. Especially slow, real time strategy games. Fighters, racing games, RTS have you not 'playing a role'.

The best description for this game would be DOTA-like of "ASSFAGGOTS" (Aeon of Strife Styled Fortress Assault Game Going On Two Sides). Like Roguelike. But thanks to marketing and shitsmearing campaigns a certain company started calling this genre MOBA.

I'd argue otherwise because action and role-playing are such broad terms, but that's for another time, another thread.

And if I had to pick one for Dota contemporaries, I agree MOBA is by far the worse descriptor. Perhaps Overhead 5v5 PvP Action RPG Last Hit Tower Battle would be better.

 

[legend forge]

There is a difference between "strategy" and "tactics". MOBAS are tactical games, not strategic.

Would you care to elaborate? (I am genuine curious)

Tactics win a battle, strategy wins a war. Games like Civilization or Age of Empires are wider in scope and cover multiple confrontations, as well as including a certain amount of "management", and are thus strategy games. MOBAS and other smaller scale games are tactical due to the emphasis on shorter time frames and individual confrontations.

It's a matter of scope.

 

[kingthrall]

@various posters,


To those who clearly need tissues for my O.P disclaimer, you should actually read page 1 of the discussion before going off in a tangent. Oh and clearly your getting way too emotional over a simple disclaimer because I honestly do not care if you want to argue, that is one way of making a discussion, but keep it civil as I know these two games have an army of fanboy/girls.

Oh and those who laughing at me for playing 30 minutes of each game, I can tell you that it was not that I could not play on anymore I was demolishing enemies with that chiseled jaw dude with the sword who spins, it was the sheer fact the game wasn't for me and boring me, there was 0 excitement involved so I do not see how I have to justify playing a game that I actually took the time to download, register and install on my computer.

I doubt half of the users here posting glorious dota/lol comments have ever played myth 2, empire earth 1, supreme commander, diablo 1-3, sacred, dawn of war or even a fraction of the myriad of games. It cuts both ways which is why half the posters in here clearly are only weighing these two games in terms of qualifying as using tactics against a few AAA titles like Starcraft 2.

 

[Majinash]

There is a difference between "strategy" and "tactics". MOBAS are tactical games, not strategic.

Would you care to elaborate? (I am genuine curious)

Tactics win a battle, strategy wins a war. Games like Civilization or Age of Empires are wider in scope and cover multiple confrontations, as well as including a certain amount of "management", and are thus strategy games. MOBAS and other smaller scale games are tactical due to the emphasis on shorter time frames and individual confrontations

It's a matter of scope.

In regards to the first point. "multiple confrontations" and "individual confrontations" are the same thing, so right there you've already stated Civ and AoE are like Dota and LoL.

To the second bolded part, you seem to have a very specific definition of "management" if you think only SC2 or AoE has it. Dota players manage multiple units, multiple items, along with other people on their team. All you do in AoE is attack-move, I don't understand how having 4 control groups and having them all attack move somewhere is more management than controlling 4 units each with 1-5 skills (gogo chen players)

to the 3rd bolded part. I have no idea how you come up with mobas having shorter time frames. Do you mean match length? pretty sure competitive SC2 and competitive dota have similar match length. Do you mean time spent gathering resorces between fights? SC2 games often start with a mostly passive phase of scouting, resource building and counterplay, in a similar way that LoL starts out in a more passive phase where resorce gathering is a priority, and Dota matches have a cycle of fighting, objective pushing and resorce gathering. Do you mean how long actual engagments last? once again comp SC2 and dota seem to be pretty similar here.

If strategy wins a war then MOBAs have strategy, seeing as each match is comprised of multiple engagements and the team that best manages the engagements and the time between will win. I feel like your understanding of classic RTS games is fine, but you seem pretty uninformed about MOBAs.

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!

So to start the tone, you're implying that anyone who disagrees with you is just picking apart points in some scarce defense of their beloved game. Thats a great start.

With that in mind, I absolutely loathe MOBA/DOTA/ARTS games.

But even as someone who hates them, lets do a quick little checklist...

Finite resources that need to earnt and managed on the fly? Check.
A top down map, which fog of war leading to situations where map control and knowledge are essential? Check.
Various unit roles and abilities which need to be micromanaged at an intense level for success over their counterparts? Check.
RPS unit line ups? ...Maybe check? I dont play them much but I understand there are unit types that match up poorly.
Macro on a map scale, being able to keep track of and adjust plays on the fly relevant to the game state? Check.
Intense and varying strategies for different units and player counts, as well as game states? Check.



Well, sounds like strategy games to me. Awful ones, but still, strategy ones.

Its cool though, you already demonstrated you're going to accredit anyone who disagrees with you to be a fan trying to justify themselves, so I dont expect anything from my post.

For someone who doesn't enjoy (and thus I assume doesn't play) these games, I feel like you've really got this down. The only thing I'd have issue with is the "RPS unit line ups", which dota at least doesn't have. Dota does have a bit of a "RPS mechinic line up", but not individual unit countering other unit. I'd also ask if a game really has to have any kind of RPS balance to be a strategy game? does it have to be horse beats infantry beats spear beats horse?

 

[kingthrall]

@Majinash the thing is strategy games use more than individual units, not 100% heroes, and the heroes are usually support or given on rare circumstances. Even in heroes might and magic there was a balance between your hero's casting ability or the pursuit to have higher grade armies through armorer ability, tactics and offense/defense skills.

Having a sole hero with an inventory really relates to an rpg more so than a strategy game. You still have to think and work out flanks ect in a rpg with a party (similar to dota/lol) and manage your gold (resources) and spells (take Baldurs gate having memorized spells).

Strategy games, usually involve larger armies and Macro, there is no Macro in LOL/Dota because your controlling a single unit, and the hordes that go from the lanes are streamlined controlled by AI.

 

[Majinash]

having a sole hero with an inventory really relates to an rpg more so than a strategy game. You still have to think and work out flanks ect in a rpg with a party (similar to dota/lol) and manage your gold (resources) and spells (take Baldurs gate having memorized spells).

Strategy games, usually involve larger armies and Macro, there is no Macro in LOL/Dota because your controlling a single unit, and the hordes that go from the lanes are streamlined controlled by AI.

Why does having a sole hero relate to an RPG more than a strategy game? Most RPG games I played I controlled a party, a group of people, not a single hero. Why does unit count make a difference? If you played a game of Age of Empires with shared unit control with a friend (I've done it, tons of fun) does that make it less of an RTS because you aren't controlling an army anymore?

If you want RTS to mean "Army vs Army" game why don't we rename that genre ARTS for "Army Real Time Strategy" and call dota and LoL ARTS for "Action Real Time Stragegy". Both games are played in real time, involve a strategy to win, but one has an army and one doesn't, sounds like a good description.

Also the idea that there is no Macro in LoL and DoTA is incorrect, you only played for 30min so you simply didn't encounter people who played meepo, chen, enchantress, invoker, Phantom lancer, venomancer, naga siren, morphling, Warlock, Anyone with a helm of the dominator, anyone with a manta, anyone with a necro book. People control more than 1 unit in DoTA. To a lesser extent in LoL, but I know it's there too.

You seem super hung up on the unit count. Age of Empires 1 had a unit cap of 50, does that really seem like it involed "larger armies" when you compare it to Supreme Commander? After my villager count that means fights really involved 30ish units tops. Is that the cutoff? 30 units? what is "larger armies" and why are they required for a game to be an RTS game?

 

[kingthrall]

Look up what Macro means Majinash and then you will realize why armies are required for it to be considered a real time strategy. It has nothing to do with "numbers", its to do with control, your controlling multiple area's on a map not a single laneway with a few mind controlled units that do "base attack damage" or maybe the one or two summons that do some form of mid-high tier elemental damage.

I am going to take a guess that 0 of these games has summoning units spread over a different lane way while the main hero is fighting another area. I also doubt summons are kept aside as reinforcements or as a ambush unexpectedly in some dark forest patch with f.o.w on. If so I would very much like to see some evidence.