Dealing with those with less understanding of the game (in a constructive manner)

hello all.

i'm relatively new to playing dota, about 150 hours or so, but I've known the game and followed the scene for quite some time before that. as such, I feel as though I have a pretty solid understanding of the game and the current meta. however, those at my skill level do not seem to understand these things. I find it very hard when these people who I play with (most of which I have on my friends list and play with regularly) not only have strange and twisted ideas of the game's inner working, but also refuse to listen and are stubborn in such thoughts. my main question is how to go about helping these people "get it" without speaking out of frustration or doing something else to ruin the morale of the team. let me give you a recent example:

this evening, I played a game of single draft. our lineup consisted of a viper, tide, tusk, venge, and a warlock. (keep in mind this is far far below a professional skill level IE drow owns still for no reason, and ursa is GG). our lanes at the start, on the radiant side, were a lock tide top, viper mid, and venge tusk on bottom, I am on the tusk. I asked to carry, since our viper wanted mid, and everyone agreed. at this point things were cool. our venge had never played the hero and asked for advice. I replied along the lines of "she's a very good support, just harass and deny creep." what followed was me having to out last hit the enemy's clockwork brood dual lane (we're talking about my team though) AND my "support" venge. I repeatedly asked him to quit attacking the creeps, and the early game went okay anyway.

at one point later in the game, we were being carried by our warlock who managed to farm an agh's refresher, which eventually won the game. tidehunter suddenly complains about warlock not playing support, to which I reply "well we have two supports, you and venge, both of which are better support heroes." this turned into an argument that's opposite side was "if you have heal or buff you are support, that's it". I eventually had to drop it.

It took until almost the end of the game to realize that our venge had not only neglected to purchase a single ward, but hadn't actually supported at all and had items like a butterfly and desolator, which explained why she was never in fights and there was never anywhere to farm. I am embarrassed to say that this really set me off. we were going to win the game, and I hadn't farmed as well as I could in the situation, but the situation took almost all chance to farm from the person that was told to carry. our team had no mek, no pipe against a zues, and the most support we had was ME with an urn from 3 minutes into the game.

I feel silly for going off on the venge for this, but at the time I felt like I was asked how to play the hero, and I told him. he then chose to do the complete opposite in turn severely hurting the team, mostly the viper and I who ended up being nearly useless, we only won due to tide and lock refreshers. however, if this weren't a very low skilled pub single draft game none of this would have worked. when your carry can't get a solo kill and you support is bragging about "being able to one, no wait, two shot creeps" and doesn't believe they are a support because they don't have a heal, what can you do instead of getting angry?

Hmm... This is a hard question. I guess you could politely tell them to research on the hero a bit more and then ignore any other negative comments. It might aggravate some players, but if they insult you, you can just report them.

Unfortunately you cannot legislate for people not listening ! I am only 60 odd hours with 50+ pub games (50% win rate) but it is amazing the number of games I play where I seem to know more then higher lvl gamers - I guess it is what you put in and how serious you are about the game. It is an intimidating game to jump into and learn with a high learning curve, not all want to understand it properly and not all are bothered about learning the roles.

For me, it is currently my addiction and given I have limited gaming time in a week (2 sessions of 4-5 hours) I make up for that by reading the guides, wiki, watch gameplay/guide videos etc in my lunch - so I feel I have the basics down, understand the mechanics and have a number of heros understood (and for new heros I have to play through single draft I have a number of times played them in a way, read some guides afterwards and got it right - because i understand the mechanics).

To be honest from the sounds of it there is not much you could of done - he asked for help, you provided it and then they ignored you - probably because he wanted to be ultra agressive buy lots of shiny stuff and kill things.

Usually it's a case of Ignorance + Ego = CARRY SUPPORT

So these people you're playing with are regular friends? If so then they obviously don't listen or know much about the game - if they won't listen then it's very hard to get anything across. Your choices are pretty much limited to playing Support yourself (so it gets done properly), putting up with it until they learn for themselves, or finding some different people to play with.

I find myself having to play support very often, because my team either all pick carries or the support tries to carry. ;P

The easiest way to get past this is to play with friends in 3 to 5 stacks. This way you know that they will at least play fairly responsibly.

This is what you do. You solo queue with your best hero for a while and get into a higher skill bracket, ie High or Very High. Then you queue with these friends again, and they'll get roflstomped and flamed to no end. They're more likely to listen to you then.

But if you're a lot better than them at that point, maybe you wouldn't want to play with them anyway since they only bring you down. You're in a pickle.

I know that feel bro. I dream of the day i am able to pick spectre in a pub and not have to fight for lasthits with sniper.

This might not be the best solution.Try making them play some bot games against unfair bots,by either tricking them that there are more item drops there(which might be true) or just convincing them.If they don't really understand their role in the game,they will ****-up against bots.

The hard part comes where you will be giving advice to them.Try being calm and keep your voice-tone down.They might be willing to learn from their mistakes.Also,as you are friends,you could also take the harder path in teaching.There is no greater humiliation than losing in a BOT game,if you know what I mean.

thanks for all the help guys, I considered taking this post down this morning because I felt like it was a bit of a rant fest. everything is helpful though, I appreciate it. as I mentioned, these are people I play with regularly. I never play alone, I find solo queue such an unpleasant experience, and I usually have a 3 or 4 stack going at least. most of the problems came from a guy we met in a game that I invited to the party for the night. I found it really odd because the game I mentioned came right after I game when the guy playing venge played a simply AMAZING semi support undying game that we ended up losing due to being out played. perhaps he personally felt like the farmers on the team in that game caused our loss and decided he would be the carry? who knows.

I think another part of the problem comes from that fact that I, like some of you, have probably watched a hell of a lot more dota than we've played. I knew about the original dota when I was a kid, my older brother was really into RTS and dabbled in it. I had also been following dota 2 since early beta until I got a key early this year. Thus, and I really don't like saying things like this, but, I feel like I know significantly more about how the game works than most people in my skill bracket. I know this to be true, but to my dota friends who have played a couple dozen more games than I have, I must just think I'm smart right?

either way, I usually tend to handle giving out advice and, for lack of a better word, "orders" on the battlefield in a very business like manner. I try to just say "we should-" and so on in a pretty emotionless voice. I get that if I'm playing with a 4, chances are that random pub 5th isn't going to listen to someone, and i'll just let that go 9 times out of 10. I like to win though, and when our team comp is flat out better, with more carry potential, and our supports take farm and go super aggressive we lose. If it wasn't my friends, and I didn't tell them what we had to do to win, it wouldn't make me upset.

Another example would be drafting a Medusa, and then the rest of the team wanting to fight constantly through the mid game no matter how many times you say "if we just turtle and let me farm, they can't win the game". Things like that where I'm treated as if I'm just talking out of my rear, when I know what I'm saying is true can be frustrating.

Anyway, thanks again. if anyone has anything else they think will help, I'll definitely have a read.

I hear you. Most people on this site have a good knowledge of the game. I try to play with my friend I met when I was just first starting out in December. Ive probably played about 200 games but he has 600 but I still feel like I hold my own in higher play. My advice would be to find a higher level friend to team up with. In a party the match making takes the highest level and finds matches for them in case you were wondering.