Is there any good data on mean and variance on length of pub games?

Ranked and unranked. I have been playing very long games since 7.00 came out in general, but I wanted to know if, even if the average may not have shifted, perhaps the variance has?

I still don't like how the shrines in base delay sieges so much. But that could just be me. Although after so many months of 7.00, I don't really want to deal with long games.

This is at the 3.8k MMR scrub tier.

You are right, everyone agrees that the lenght of games has gone up a lot. Shrines are the main issue, but the new change to towers also contributes: sieging as five makes the towers have way more armor now.

I'm not sure where you can find game lenght, however :(

Surely Valve has some data on this. But all I see are changes to make things even harder to finish out. I know that having better ways to come back is great, but is that the best factor? I remember them saying that they use data on the gold/xp graph swing and time since that swing to determine "closeness" of games. Is what we are seeing an artifact of an over-reliance on this metric?

I think we need to revisit the importance of just having a shorter game in general.

https://www.dotabuff.com/heroes/impact

From 40 to 45 minutes in average.

It has always been like this in pubs. It was 40-45 mins 3 years ago already, no meta change to see here.

In competitive it's more like 30-35 minutes.

It's true that it's harder to break high ground now, but on the other hand the talents make the game far more aggressive and snowbally since an XP advantage can be gamebreaking and the comeback mechanic has been massively nerfed. Matches tend to be pretty one-sided, but still the winning team can't end easily and you see them waiting 10-15 minutes just to break high ground.
Long games exist but that's mainly because the meta encourages rat dota (shrines and tower auras do nothing against lone rats and ratting T3 towers is insanely rewarding beause then you kill shrines).

If you like short games, my best advice is pick Broodmother, the best blitzkrieg hero in dota :)

Cool thanks for the link and insight Hamstertamer (I would quote, but was having issues with blacklisted text?). Techies is really a problem! Almost 3 minutes on average longer (At 48:03 average) compared to the next (Tinker at 45:49). I guess I could play more Broodmother and Lycan to change my average game length a bit lower. But as I said before, while the average has changed, I wonder if the variance has changed as well? So maybe while the average game is 40-45 minutes, the variance may have increase (or decreased). So maybe it was 43 minutes with a 10 minute standard deviation, now its like 43 minutes but with a 12 minute standard deviation or something?

Yeah, most people don't realize that the best item counter to Techies is not Gem of True Sight, it's actually Hand of Midas :)



I don't think the stats are available on that.
Even if the variance did change, what would that show? Both extremely long games and extremely short games are caused by dysfunctional pub teams. Feeders and leavers for short games, and uncoordinated teams that can't push for long games.
For me the variance just measures the silliness of pubs, it has nothing to do with the meta.

Agreed, If they don't know how to deal with you, you can finish the game in 20 mins, If they know how to deal with you, 30 mins. If they pick LC or ES, GG EZ. *sigh*

Yeah I was just wondering if even though the average stayed the same, but if it has been skewed in some way. But yeah you make a good point. I just am starting to get annoyed with the long games I encounter sometimes. I guess there are already lots of mechanics to break stalemates, and the ultra long games are very rare. I wonder if there is a way to get rid of even those ultra-rare situations through some game design mechanics. I'm not sure what though, in order to keep the balance as well and so people don't stall the game on purpose to exploit some advantage in that situation.

It is true that the lenght of games has gone up a lot. All of these postings let me be aware of the importance of having a shorter game in general.