Do things ever change?

So, I just decided to put on the big boy pants and step up from co-op bot matches to matches with real people. I can safely say after a few matches that it's probably been the worst experience I've ever had in a MOBA.

My very first match, someone on our team immediately disconnects and leaves. Someone on the other team is complaining about how one of their players doesn't know how to leave fountain. Our mid gets killed, he ragequits. Then a third person on my team leaves just because, I guess. So, it was 2v4 and, amazingly, we almost won, being fed with tons of kills, but of course lost due to simply having numbers against us.

Every match after that has either had a leaver (only on my team, of course), people constantly spewing insults and at least 2 out of 5 people spamming chat in a language that is anything but English (despite picking "English preferred" servers), then typically someone going 0/10+ within the first 10 minutes of the match, simply for good measure to assure that we'll lose.

Is it worth sticking out the "beginner" matches, or is this really how the game is?

Its not that bad, slog through low level matchmaking and it gets better when others start caring about the game. Those who flame or ragequit will perpetually be stuck at lower matchmaking or Low Priority pools, so you have to rise out of the muck.
If you have friends who play or meet some good people, party up with them. Its much easier to laugh off stupid things when your with good people, and if their trustworthy that lowers the chance of an abandon on your team. If you have a microphone, use it, as (for me at least) its a big part in finding good people to play with. There are also a bunch of casual beginner clans/guilds advertising in the Matchmaking forum.

Solo matchmaking in general isn't much fun, DOTA is very much a social game in my opinion.

Well, I just won my first match because the entire enemy team disconnected, so at least I know it happens to the other side occasionally.

Also, I don't really understand the loot system. I've gotten maybe two items from it, yet seen everyone on my team except me get an item at the end of a match, and also the same person get multiple items at once. Is it just RNG?

And I would use my mic, but every single time I have so far, the only people on the other end are yelling in Spanish or Portuguese or Russian, or apparently 10 years old and only know the words "noob" and "****ers".

I'd like to join a clan, but I'd be looking for something semi-competitive where I could learn a lot from people with a lot of experience, to avoid bad habits, and also because my experience with "casual" MOBA clans is never getting to group up with people.

hey man what servers you playing on?

and chalkman basically is saying the more u play and the more u lvl up the less and less u will have those types of people, i started and it was **** but eventually after lvl 10 i started getting more and more good games and now they have ranked so i only really play that.

my three steps to having fun in dota..

1) get mates to play/ or have a large friend base... this basically means you know whos on ur team and you will have more fun.
2) dont expect to have fun for your first 50-100 games ... this time period is when u should be watching dota games playing dota games and learning learning learning ...
3) three words... mute, laugh, ignore... some one flaming you, mute them... someone being a ****head on chat ... laugh at them dont respond just type "hahahaha" ... within 5 or 6 messages they will stop i have no idea why but it works... and ignore.. if people leave , rq, rage, flame, play bad any of the above just ignore them and focus on you ... make sure you are doing whatever is required of you as ur role ...

after ur first 50-100 games u will have a good idea of how to play and what is needed in pubs and then it will start getting fun and competitive :)

There also seems to be a serious problem with people smurfing. I've already had three matches with someone playing Storm Spirit and totally dominating everyone on my team.

I'm playing on the NA East Coast server with English selected as the language, but it seems to be more like a "South America/Asia" server than anything :/

Well if it is any help, I am only level 3 in-game but have over 200 hours (mainly versing bots and watching matches to get better) all because of getting the same old each game where someone on the other team would pick either Sniper, Drow Ranger etc and we would get slaughtered because they would get a couple of kills up. Anyway I mainly got through those matches by playing as Warlock who was relatively easy at the time.'

With the language problem, I have it too as I am in Australia and get russian and asian players and can't understand a single thing.

if they pick sniper ... pick spirit breaker and buy dust... same goes for drow.

Loot is entirely random, though it seems that you get rares when you level up. You can go on long streaks without getting anything notable, luck of the draw.

Pubstomp heroes typically have quite simple counters.
Sniper and Drow Ranger both melt up close, so any hero that can close distance and deliver some burst damage ( Spirit Breaker, Tusk, Queen of Pain, anyone with a blink dagger) are good counters to them. Both will build a Shadow Blade due to their lack of natural escapes, so dust is needed to gank them unless its early game.
Bloodseeker, the game is configured to get him fed in a way. Go into your settings, turn off auto-attack. That way when your ruptured, your hero wont keep running off to try and get creeps or enemy heroes. Other than that, if he ruptures you and tries to solo kill,stop and just TP away as he cant stop it.
Riki is annoying no matter how skilled you are. Try not to be alone, always have sentries on the supports in preparation of teamfights (often a riki will wander in among your team waiting for the fight to start, easy kill) and have at least two people carrying Dust. If you get Smoke Screen'd, don't run, just turn and face him. When the smoke clears you can stun/slow and escape or even kill if your powerful enough. Running from Riki will only let him kill you faster.

Sounds horrific. Unfortunately there are a lot of issues with languages, and you do get a certain amount of pot luck there - one game you'll have a great team who chat away in English, have a laugh, and work together. The next you might be grouped with 4 Russians or other non-regional players and have a very hard time understanding them.

The advice about is sound, yes, it does get better. Use your mute button whenever you run into a moron, use it quickly. Don't give them time to really annoy you. Team up with friends, add nice people you meet randomly to your list.

Definitely consider joining the beginner/dotafire guilds etc, playing with nice people who are trying their best is always good, win or lose. As a beginner I'd say it makes a huge difference as you can learn from each other and be understanding/have a laugh when you mess up, rather than having some 13 year old with serious anger management issues ranting at you in a foreign language.

Nope it ain't that bad. They will just get low matchmaking level, low priority. I've played with these kind of players and I don't like them. I remember a Bane sitting AFK when it was our win. He was just sitting there and watching us losing till the end of the game. I've seen other feeding cause of some reasons, actually I only bumped on 4 times on those players. 2 times on Ranked (and I say like: I thought this is supposed to be ranked) and 2 times before there was ranked matchmaking but those 2 times were in closed beta.



Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. ~Albert Einstein