League of Legends and DOTA should not be called strategy games

[mindfaQ]

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.

You can't expect to grasp the strategy portion involved in those games if you have almost no knowledge of them.

DotA/Dota 2 players are comparatively old, meaning they've played a lot of games in the past as well, so you don't have a point about assuming Dota 2 players don't know about other games, on the contrary actually (especially since many of them are PC gamers and strategy games usually were/are at home at the PC).

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

There's at least 5 controlled units per team. So yes, you do control multiple areas of the map. Actually it's one of the most important things in the game, also called map control. You try to see it out of context in a 1vs1 scenario, but that's not what the game is.

 

[Majinash]

Look up what Macro means Majinash and then you will realize why armies are required for it to be considered a real time strategy.

If armies are required for a game to be an RTS, are the games some other genre when a match starts? If I start with 5 villagers, or an MVC and nothing else, am I not playing an RTS?

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.

First: most mind controlled units don't do "base attack damage". The most boring of these is the alpha wolf, who has no active skills but has a massive 30% damage boosting aura around him. Other popular units include the Dark Troll Summoner, who has a net that roots someone to the ground (goes through magic immunity) and can raise skeletons if nearby units die. So now your mind controlled unit has summoned units. The Centaur has an AoE stun along with an attack speed aura. And Chen (a hero who can mind control up to 3 units at once) if played well can keep someone stunned for 6 seconds with these.

Second: all MOBA's I've played rely a great deal on controlling multiple areas on the map. Dota has two rune spots which every 2 min a rune will spawn at one, and much of the early game is spent keeping control of these at ever 2min mark to prevent the enemy from getting access to them. The Rosh Pit is an important area to keep control of, or the enemy might get access to the aegis. there are 3 lanes in most MOBAs (Steller Impact varies greatly by map, LoL has some 2lane play) with objectives in every lane, and most games also have jungles. In smite keeping control of the Jungle is incredibly important because it provides so much XP and gold. If you watch any pro DOTA you'll notice casters constantly talk about "map control" and how much vision a team has, on their side of the river and the other. If one team has no vision on the enemy side of the river and has lost a lot of map control due to the enemy taking objectives, the enemy team is much safer to collect resources on their side of the map, and even venture onto your side to take gold and XP your team needs.

Map control is HUGE in MOBAs, and to maintain it your team is often split up, doing different tasks in different places all at the same time.

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.

Then you would guess wrong. These games almost always involve that. Remember these aren't 1v1s, this is a 5v5 game. The split push (often referred to as "rat dota" by people who are defeated by it) is a strategy that involves using 4 members of your team to pressure the enemy on 1 front so they have to dedicate their focus to defending objectives there, while a 5th member who is either A: very good at quickly taking objectives, B: has a good escape in case the enemy team isn't distracted or C: both, will attempt to take an objective far away on the map on their own.

A great example is Phantom Lancer, who creates copies of himself (up to a dozen) who will send his army foward in 1 lane while he retreats safely to another lane or the jungle. Add this to your other 4 members pressuring another objective and now even if the enemy can defend against the 4 and the PL army, they still have to worry about Phantom Lancer separate from his army getting stronger because they can't pressure him.

Another example is Meepo who is literally 5 people. He clones himself as he levels up until you have 5 of the same unit. They share experience gained so most Meepo players spread them out, getting gold and XP from a jungle and a lane or two. Sounds like an RTS.

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.

This is exactly what Enchantress and Chen use their Centuars and Troll summoners to do. One player will attempt to move the lane back closer to their own tower, to force the enemy to advance foward (into a less safe position) and an Enchantress or Chen (who spent the early game often hiding in the jungle gaining experience there, where the enemy doesn't know their movements) will come behind their enemy, who has advanced into a risky position, and use the troll warlord to net the enemy, rooting them in place so that they cannot escape the attack.

They hide in the fog while a teammate lures the enemy into a risky position in an attempt to flank them. In this specific example they use a summon (actually a mind controlled monster from the jungle) to provide a means to prevent the enemy from fleeing.


You need to understand that even if you control only 1 unit, your team is more than 1 unit. You have an army in these games, you just also have 4 other humans helping you play it.

 

[superdavo]

Strategy -
"A high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty"

Yep, sounds like any MOBA to me.

Further reading:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/strategy

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

 

[The Wykydtron]

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.

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.

Again, amongst the DOTA2 community the term "MOBA" is loathed for certain reasons I already pointed out. ARTS is at least derived from the genre which allowed modders to create Aeon of Strife / Defense of the Ancients. It also implies the more action oriented gameplay which is there thanks to lack of certain RTS characteristics.

Edit: Again, my problem is with people yelling that no one calls this genre RTS. This is simply not true. MOBA is a marketing term by Riot. Valve calls DOTA2 an ARTS. Plenty of other people refer to other terms for this genre.

No one calls it an RTS? You lie.

Fighters don't have you playing a role? Do you even play any multiplayer fighting games? Sorry, I wasn't going to post here because everything has already been said but i'm really shocked by that one. Allow me to take a single character as an example

This is Makoto from BlazBlue.

Spoiler

As you can see all she has is her fists and questionable dress sense. She has the role of a fast rushdown beat them to death character and I doubt you'll see anyone who has a brain in the community who says otherwise.

It is impossible to play her as a keepaway character or a zoning character as her one projectile is god awful. She ain't a grapple character as she has no grabs aside from your usual one there is nothing to do but punch things, utilizing her fast movement speed, built in dashes and highly damaging supers. Punching things in close range is all she can do and is what she is designed to do.

The fact is people like playing certain character types and will gravitate to their favourite roles. Someone likes zoning characters? I'll point them to Lambda-11 and Mu-12. Some people like grapple characters? I'll tell them to fuck off because I don't need another Tager playing dickhead clogging up the online space.

 

[ExtraDebit]

There isn't a single game that doesn't require strategy, even teris require strategy.

Games that emphasize on strategy more than other are appropriately labeled "strategy games". Both Dota2 and LOL emphasized heavily on strategies from picking characters to equipment to skills when leveling up. Yes they require execution as well but that doesn't make the games any less strategic.

 

[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.

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.

I don't know where you get the idea of individual and multiple confrontations being the same thing, that plain doesn't make sense. MOBAs cover a single battle between two or more factions, grand strategy or RTS can cover an entire war spanning multiple contacts and interactions. MOBAs might have more then one match determining who the ultimate winner is, but the game resets in between those matches. MOBAs don't cover an entire war, they cover a small number of single units battling each other tactically. Yeah you reposition units (if anyone listens to anyone else) but that does not make it strategy in and of itself.

By management I mean more "empire management" instead of your definition of management, which is. The collection and distribution of resources, researching of techs/abilities, production of units, building your base, and many other factors.

MOBAs have shorter match times then your typical SC2, AoE, or Civ5 match. Some competitive circles may get the time or the two former down to something similar, but certainly not in a Civ game. That's just how the games are. I've never seen a MOBA match last as long as even the shortest Civ game, and most players would not be able to finish an RTS game in the time frame of a MOBA.

I'm not trying to argue that there is no thought to a MOBA game. Just the opposite. It requires quick thinking and reflexes, as well as co operation. There even may be some strategy at the meta level, outfitting your character or what have you, but that isn't the focus of the actual gameplay. We are basically arguing semantics here. Think of it as the level of "zoom" applied to the conflict. In a MOBA you get one character, and you co ordinate with others. Some specific MOBAs of which I am not personally aware might theoretically give you control over multiple characters, which would blend some RTS in there and maybe change that games scope enough to matter. But MOBAs are too "zoomed in" to really be strategy.

 

[DoPo]

I don't know where you get the idea of individual and multiple confrontations being the same thing, that plain doesn't make sense. MOBAs cover a single battle between two or more factions, grand strategy or RTS can cover an entire war spanning multiple contacts and interactions.

No, you somehow describe two things that are the same as if they are different. In, say, StarCraft, you would have (maybe) several confrontations with the enemy until one of you gets their base destroyed. Heck, it might finish with a rush, but still. In DotA, you would proceed the same way - several confrontations, until one gets destroyed.

MOBAs might have more then one match determining who the ultimate winner is

Why do you assume "one match" to be "one fight"? Why is not an SC match one fight?

MOBAs don't cover an entire war, they cover a small number of single units battling each other tactically. Yeah you reposition units (if anyone listens to anyone else) but that does not make it strategy in and of itself.

"Yeah, shooters are really no different than whack-a-mole, you see"

By management I mean more "empire management" instead of your definition of management, which is. The collection and distribution of resources, researching of techs/abilities, production of units, building your base, and many other factors.

How is that different if you have it distributed? A DotA game would require a cohesive distribution of your team to achieve your goal - you can have a team specialise in, say, turtling or hunting and killing other heroes, you can further specialise how exactly you do that, or how to counteract the enemy's choices. But whatever you do, it's a team effort. 5 people running off and doing their own thing, as you seem to assume things go, is not actually how things go. In pubs, maybe, but even then, it'd be lower ranking pubs when you can safely dominate the game with Rikimaru.

MOBAs have shorter match times then your typical SC2, AoE, or Civ5 match.

Shorter than AoE or Civ5 for sure, but those ARE made for longer games. Shorter than SC2 - definitely no. Since I haven't played 2 (mostly watched a friend of mine play it) but have played 1, I just double checked to see if they made the matches really longer. But it seems the average SC2 match is roughly the same - 20-ish or so minutes. According to this [http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2013_Global_StarCraft_II_League_Season_1/Code_S_Statistics], there were only three matches over 30 minutes, and even then, they were 30:18, 31:46, and 32 - most were between 15 and 25 - average game length seems to be around 20. Or have I been mislead and SC2 actually ramps up normal matches to over an hour?

You will rarely see a DotA match end in under 30 - even an utter one-sided match typically ends after half an hour - 40-50 minutes is the typical length, with some games tretching more than that.

I am curious to know where you got your idea of what DotA is like - sounds like you're describing a Counter-Strike round rather than a DotA game.

Some competitive circles may get the time or the two former down to something similar, but certainly not in a Civ game. That's just how the games are. I've never seen a MOBA match last as long as even the shortest Civ game, and most players would not be able to finish an RTS game in the time frame of a MOBA.

Except for Warcraft and StarCraft games, right? Because they can and do finish faster. Oh, also Red Alert 2, which typically took 20-30 minutes. RA3 should be similar. Heck, I'm fairly sure and C&C titles don't stretch over an hour all the time.

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.

Erm...you are wrong.

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.

And you are wrong.

Can you stop being wrong, please? Thanks.

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.

Furion, lycanthrope, Chen, enchantress. There - sufficient evidence provided for all your points here, happy?

And you still haven't answered who are these many, many people who keep calling DotA and such "a strategy game".

 

[Majinash]

I don't know where you get the idea of individual and multiple confrontations being the same thing, that plain doesn't make sense. MOBAs cover a single battle between two or more factions, grand strategy or RTS can cover an entire war spanning multiple contacts and interactions. MOBAs might have more then one match determining who the ultimate winner is, but the game resets in between those matches. MOBAs don't cover an entire war, they cover a small number of single units battling each other tactically. Yeah you reposition units (if anyone listens to anyone else) but that does not make it strategy in and of itself.

By management I mean more "empire management" instead of your definition of management, which is. The collection and distribution of resources, researching of techs/abilities, production of units, building your base, and many other factors.

MOBAs have shorter match times then your typical SC2, AoE, or Civ5 match. Some competitive circles may get the time or the two former down to something similar, but certainly not in a Civ game. That's just how the games are. I've never seen a MOBA match last as long as even the shortest Civ game, and most players would not be able to finish an RTS game in the time frame of a MOBA.

I'm not trying to argue that there is no thought to a MOBA game. Just the opposite. It requires quick thinking and reflexes, as well as co operation. There even may be some strategy at the meta level, outfitting your character or what have you, but that isn't the focus of the actual gameplay. We are basically arguing semantics here. Think of it as the level of "zoom" applied to the conflict. In a MOBA you get one character, and you co ordinate with others. Some specific MOBAs of which I am not personally aware might theoretically give you control over multiple characters, which would blend some RTS in there and maybe change that games scope enough to matter. But MOBAs are too "zoomed in" to really be strategy.

First line of business. The whole thread is about MOBAs being labeled as RTS games. How you can figure Civ 5 into the discussion is confusing. Civ 5 is not an RTS.

Your point on "empire management" is weirdly specific. If I load up a skirmish in a Total war game, there is zero researching, production of units and base building. It would be hard to describe a skirmish in a total war game as not an RTS. WC3's story mode had quite a few missions that had zero base building, resource gathering, or unit production. The game started you with some units and you did your RTS thing. Where in "Real Time Strategy" does it mention "construction simulator". I'm not saying you can't have that element in an RTS, but why do you think it is required?

Also going to call BS on MOBA's having a shorter match time than SC2 and AoE (I'll leave CIV out because that isn't an RTS and a single game can last me days). I could only find some outdated times on Liquidpedia (2012) but if you check youtube for pro SC2 games none really seem to last more than 30min (first page), many far less. If you check youtube for pro dota 2 matches not a single one is less than 30min (first page), most videos are 45min-1hour. Even if you don't include the draft as part of the game (you can, its very important) pro dota games last much longer than SC2 games. I don't think there is a pro AoE scene so there isn't a good metric to measure against. But if we want to use anecdotal evidence, my average SC2 game is 20-30min, my average dota game is 40-50min and my average AoE(2) game is 20-30min. Comparing "match length" is silly. CIV lasts much longer than Starcraft... is Starcraft not an RTS?

And about individual and multiple confrontations...

If you say "individual confrontations" that means there are multiple confrontations, thats how the language works. The term "individual (insert word here)" means that there is more than 1 of something. If you say an RTS has "multiple confrontations" but a MOBA only has "individual confrontations" you're saying the same thing in different words. If my zerg rush doesn't kill the enemy team, I'm going to have to try something else in our next "confrontation", if my attempt to take the enemy tier 3 tower and rax fails I'm going to have to back up and try again in our next "confrontation". In fact if you take a confrontation to be a packet of conflict which ends when units are no longer engaged in combat (for example, zerg rush, kill some units, destroy some workers, zerglings die thus no more fighting is happening until the next time one of us attacks) Then most DOTA games involve more individual confrontations than SC2 games, lots more.

If I play SC2 the game is going to cover one battle, I'll pick Terran and spam marines, someone else will pick protoss and A-move to my base and one of us will lose. Then I'll play again and the game resets... just like you say MOBAs do. Does this make SC2 any less an RTS?

I also find it silly that you could say MOBAs are "too zoomed in" to be RTS. What is the right amount of zoom? Supreme Commander? Command and Conquer is tiny compared to that game, you're fighting over like, 2 square miles in C&C. What about AoE? those maps were less than a mile across and had a unit cap of 50? is 49 units too zoomed in to be an RTS? Why are you putting arbitrary classifications on what an RTS game is?


Most of what I see in this thread are people coming up with some odd things games "must" include to be an RTS. Certain match lengths, certain numbers of units, construction, research, "zoom". But I really can't find any of these requirements that "classic" RTS games ALL fit. Also a massive amount of confusion about the material (outfitting a hero in a MOBA is on the meta level?) that shouldn't be a part of the discussion. And tons of misinformation, like the average match length for a game. Really I just have a problem with the confusion and misinformation, I feel it does a disservice to the discussion.

 

[Hagi]

Wouldn't call them strategy games, then again they're usually called MOBAs as far as I'm aware.

To note, there being strategy involved in a game does not make it a strategy game. Just like roleplaying being involved in a story-based shooter does not make that a RPG. Just like racing being involved in an open-world action game doesn't make it a racing game. Just like there being shooting involved in a RPG doesn't make it a shooter.

I'd say they're a genre on their own which shares elements with other genres without immediately being that genre. I feel they're distinct enough to warrant their own genre and label or sub-genre at the very least.

Let's not get into a situation like MMOs where everything with more than 5 players online simultaneously suddenly deserves that label...