Why I Quit DoTA – Or – How to Make DoTA Better

Ok so I'm going to thoroughly break down your post and have a bit of fun dissecting your argument. Going to put your post in spoilers for better readability



Power to you, I've quit this game a few times for a couple of months mostly due to burnout but that's about it.



I don't get it, what problem stems from Dota2 being free to play? The problem of why you quit the game? The problem of why you're not having a great experience? How somebody enjoys anything is subjective to that one person, like how some of my friends like to go to EDM concerts but I don't enjoy it that much. Dota 2 and games that put you in a team environment are inherently competitive and that is what keep players playing past the "discovery phase". Dota 2's free to play system is the fairest for PLAYERS of any game out to date so I don't understand your statement.



Valve have responded to statements like this saying that they don't want to set up expectations due to the crisis they had before the release of Half-Life 2. The reaction to Mass Effect 3's original ending also reinforced that idea to not share anything until it's actually done. When it comes to developments, whether they share what's currently being developed is up to them and changes nothing for them BUT to say they don't incorporate any changes the user wants is false. In terms of features for both the Reborn client and balance changes, Valve does do changes suggested by the community especially on reddit. Valve even opened a thread on their developer forums for specific Reborn features. So I don't understand where you're getting this idea that they HAVE to share their development cycles with anyone and that they don't do changes requested by the community. They don't do ALL requests but Valve does do requests and those requests take time example: Custom Game lobby menu or you know.. the whole Reborn client.



I don't get it, Valve does incorporate features requested by the community and these things take time but they do take in requests. You sending in political quotations is the same as community members providing tips and tricks to see in the loading menu when you're about to load into a match. I'm also pretty damn sure the development for Dota 2 is much larger than Democracy 3. You stating that Valve has a PR department tells me you know nothing about Valve but the way yo speak about them implies you do so please stop spreading false information. Also what ****ty feature are you talking about please elaborate because all you mention that is even close to a feature is a surrender option and a different mmr ladder.



Cosmetic items being developed by the community is NOT a theory, it IS being made by the community. That's how both parties make money, if the game wasn't made in the first place then the community wouldn't have been able to make money. AFAIK, only Valve does this where the community also gets profit so what the **** are you saying? Do you think developing a game is easy and doesn't take a long time? Did you think anybody who makes anything does anything for free? No of course, even artists, youtubers, etc who collaborate with other artists/youtubers without accepting money do it for exposure which is more money for themselves in the long run. In regards to gating items, there has to be some form of content control before accepting an item or they'll be a flood of items and all items will naturally go down in prices thus less money for artists overall. Also the problem of copy-righted items, what makes you think somebody would not steal another person's work and profit off of it? It has happened before with one of Faceless Void's item and some items like the m4a4 howl in CSGO.



What are you saying? Games are not lost until the Ancient is destroyed so until that is down you ideally play until the end. A surrender option only ruins the games, I've had so many comeback games where we thought we lost so if we had the surrender option then it's a DEFINITE lost. In terms of philosophical point of view, Valve sees it in terms of if it's fun for both parties, sure it's fun for the team that's winning to win in 20 minutes but it's not fun for those who want to keep fighting for a win and viceversa. The fairest for both parties is to not have a surrender option.



That's the thing, sometimes you think you lost but after making some plays you are suddenly winning. These circumstances will never happen if a surrender option is up. Some games are impossible to win, some games are easy wins but most of the games you will play are decided by you and your team. If you really think you lost then just leave the game or afk.



How is that Valve's fault? It can be not fun for you but it's definitely fun for the other team since they're just winning so hard. If I was winning that hard or if you were, would you not feel pretty satisfied that you did so well during that game?



I personally hate players that give up where our team is in a disadvantage. You try EVERYTHING possible to gain an advantage and play till the end, never give up. If it happens that there are unwinnable games then so be it, you can't win all of them and if you do think so then you're either insane or at least 6k+ level. If there are teammates threatening to report you or insult you then MUTE them. Not hard at all and if you get reported, so ****ing what? If you get reported every single game then that's ON YOU, i get reported every now and again because of a mistake but at most it doesn't add up on average more than 2 reports over 25 games. (This is based on the report notice you get after 25 games) The most reports I've had was like 4-5 and that's it.



How often does one get fountain farmed? Statistically it's incredibly low and sure it happens but to change a system that affects everybody from low rank players to extremely high rank players is not the answer. One thing that helped negate fountain farming was the high ground but that's about it. Why are they even fountain farming you AT 20 MINUTES, that shouldn't even happen in the first place. Your base will be pushed naturally, but during this time if they happen to dive you, you should be able to kill at least one person to get EXP. If you're getting fountain farmed, you might as well try and put up a fight and try to make a comeback from that.



Sure I agree with this point that if someone disconnected and they came back to help the team win they should at the very least not lose mmr. However what the hell is with you about their tone and how they're off the point? Please explain and provide examples.



What makes you think a surrender option will "fix the toxic community"? It happens in any game and practically any activity that involves another person. It's all about how you do something with a certain mindset. How long someone deals with another is not the main reason someone rages, it's the fact that they're LOSING that they're angry and they have to spend X amount of time. I guarantee you that adding a surrender option doesn't change anything in terms of "toxicity".



Probably just you, sure I get frustrated in some games but not to the point you're describing it. Everybody reacts differently so stop clumping people with yourself if that's how you react.



Surrender option doesn't fix your frustration, it'll only ruin the experiences of those playing to enjoy a full game, win or lose. ROFL, implement in low priority? What you described doesn't make sense, if people surrender then the other team wins correct but it won't be easily applied so why add it at all? You said this yourself so then it doesn't matter if it's implemented or not. It's suppose to be a punishment for repeat offenders, looks like you're one.




You say there are millions but I just checked and at best there at 2000 players, don't get ahead of yourself. WHAT OTHER GAMES? MOST match-making systems are similar to what Valve's match making is, so what the **** are you saying? What's the difference if you make a lobby and somebody has to manually join it? Is there going to be an MMR restriction? If there is then WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE between your suggestion of someone making a lobby and a system that just automatically does it for you? If there are NO restrictions then what you're suggesting is actually WORSE since there will be a huge disparity in skill between players since there will be players that are way better that will join to inflate their mmr in lower level games. So that doesn't make sense.



What other games, please list them. There are only a hundred people so the match making in the first place so the queue should be short, what makes you think the skill between two players are the same? The less people playing the bigger the gap in skills so what's the point in making a fairer match if there are as little as 100 concurrent players? In Dota 2, there is an algorithm to make the best possible match at that moment based on the people available and it's very accurate until you get into the upper echelon of players. A game with only a hundred players doesn't need any algorithms but I'd like for you to list a few games.



What? If you want to play those type of games then just make a lobby and get 10 people or join a community like this one here and setup rules. What makes you think everybody wants to play what you're suggesting? Get off your high horse, you're being no different than what you're trying to belittle Valve for.



I don't get it especially based on what you say later, you want to give players control of the experience but then you want to set rules to how they play? How ironic. Dota is not as simple as saying, mid/hardlane or w.e. Players need to adapt to different roles and the game they play. Dota 2 matchmaking is just that, making matches with various players but where the real game begins is when you start scrimming against TEAMS NOT IN PUBS.




ROFL, you actually have no idea what you're even saying and this statement contradicts your idea of setting up rules. Ironically Dota 2 itself doesn't have "rules", you can play however the **** you want. You don't have to follow what the pros are doing so what the hell are you suggesting?




Dota 2's mmr system is NOT ELO but it's similar. The MMR system is good the way it is for a HUGE MAJORITY of players, like at least 99% of players. The only ones that will have problems are those playing in the 1% where the number of players with the same mmr is so low it's very hard to find a similar skill level game. The MMR system is already brutally honest, you win or lose and that's the main criteria to gain or lose MMR. Adding anything else like how much you heal or do damage will only make the system abusable. How good and how consistent your skills are the main factors of how you'll statistically fall in after let's say 1000 games. You can put any amount of players at say... 1000 MMR. After one thousand games, where would they be? The better skilled and consistent players will be higher than those that are unstable. If you win 60% of your games then you will be consistently better than someone that has a 48% chance if one were to start at 1000 MMR. Same idea applies here, what makes you think Valve or any company that has a large playerbase won't think of an MMR algorithm?



Again it'd only abuse the MMR and frankly that's a hard thing to do, how do you determine how much each players get? You including unnecessary factors into a game when what matters is if you win or lose. Can you imagine if Valve listened to you and added that in the International tournament? There will be a huge outrage, if it wouldn't work in something like that why would you think it'll work in a pub game?



What are the criteria for how well one plays each hero well? What determines that? What if you're playing Omni and just spamming heal to get the number of heals up? It has happened with Oracle and Zeus for calibration games so what makes you think it'd work in the long run? It won't and how anything is determined should be based on if you win or not.



What the ****? Valve doesn't pretend the client is perfect, when Reborn was first launched they had the dev forums up for any client problems. If your game freezes and get an abandon, summit the problem to the dev forums, not on reddit or anywhere else but the dev forums. Are you doing that? If not that please stop talking.



I've responded to everything about but seriously get off your high horse, you take this from reddit that seem to make sense but most and if not everything is fine the way it is. If there are bugs then summit the bug in the dev forums, that's it, nothing dramatic about it. You present solutions that have problems on their own and hypercritically bash Valve on "forcing" players to something when you presented an idea that forces players to certain rules.



You're somehow so far up your *** that you think what you're saying makes sense, there are pro/cons to everything and there are a few people that think they have a solution for everything. There are reasons why people and in this case Valve does the things they way they do but for you a nobody to go here and state things that can be found on reddit is laughable. That system you mention doesn't make sense nor do most of the suggestions. How do you fix something that is not broken? People will always find problems with something but honest there isn't a best one but you can make the fairest system there is. So please get off your high horse.

Honestly, I kinda get where op is coming from, and I also feel Nubtrain is a bit too harsh, but really. Nubtrain is right on most of the points.

Matching different factors to mmr would cause a lot of problems, an example would be in the past when damage dealt and KDA was actually included in your calibration matches. What resulted was many people spamming Zeus to deal as much damage as they can, which is simply system abuse.

For the surrender option and matchmaking, we can actually take a look at LoL. They have had the surrender option for quite awhile, but their community is equally, if notmore Toxic than ours. The reason why it works there is because League is an extremely snowball heavy team, comeback mechanics are almost non existant. Dota 2 is not a game like that, comeback mechanics exist for a purpose.

Riot recently added the new matchmaking,where players pick 2 roles they want to be in, and they get matched according to those roles they play. Again, this is only possible because of the way league is played. Roles are clearly defined, every game has the exact same set up, with 1 top, 1 mid, 1 jungle, a adc and a support. There is rarely any sort of adaptation to this rule. This is the main reason why the system doesn't work. Dota doesn't have any defined roles apart from the mid. You can have solo offlane with a trilane, duo lanes, a jungle with a solo offlane, or even duo mid when you get to a high enough level. Adding the role matchmaking would destroy this flexibility that Dota allows, which would completely ruin one aspect that sets Dota apart from the other Mobas.

Even with that, I can frankly say, the matchmaking only helps supports. Every other role is so high in drmand, and no one likes being the support, that every other role ends up waiting for a much longer time to get a chance to play, with a person even waiting 3 hours to play 1 single match. If it doesn't work for league, Dota, whose roles are even less clearly defined, would never work with the matchmaking.

He is just taking the THREE LANE HIGHWAY and giving it his own twist.
I don't even wanna read this. Please, all members, don't comment on this.

I won't even respond because this guy is so full of himself...
I tried to take him serious but talking to this guy is just like talking to Donald Trump.

So I can pick alchemist, farm the entire game, get 1000 gpm, never take objectives, lose the game, and still raise my mmr?

I don't have any words of wisdom. We're all in the same boat. But I'd like to think that having fun is the most important part, afterall it's only a game, you should be playing this game for enjoyment. Of course concentration is a key part to any video game but if you're not having fun then don't play. That's why you should pick the role which makes you feel good, which you enjoy. For me that falls under offlane and support only, I feel like in those roles I'm not annoying anyone on my team and only serving good.

I think it's more you win some you lose some, even when you're enjoying it. By playing with a 'serious attitude' in my opinion makes no difference to the outcome of the game most of the time.

I actually just created an account just to reply to this topic after i was scrolling throught the forums after one of "those" games. Dota 2 is indeed a great game and can be seriously enjoyable to play at times but more often than not it can be a real nightmare . Dont get me wrong i play dota a lot i have about 2.9 k hours played which i think is more than average. Truth is there are so many issues with mostly the community and matchmaking of this game that it boggles my mind Valve isnt doing anything about it but i guess its like you said it is a free to play game after all. For example the MMR is a conundrum. If you are stupid like me and play the first (i think 5) matches that decide your mmr very early into the game (like 200 hours played in) you are ****ed since your MMR will be low (it was something above 2k in my case i think) and will stay that way and later when you are more skilled you re still at 2k mmr and you just cant climb up because you just wont win with 2k teammates because they are usually (about 90 percent of ranked games for me ) beyond terrible. Hence the conundrum. The only solution is to 5 stack but thats not always an option (at least not for me ).

The next thing is the matchmaking itself. For example why is there even an option for language preference if 85 percent of the time i log a match i play with people who have no business playing on given server (its Eu West for me ). Like my friend said if you re not a racist dota will make you and its true. The Russian problem is a very common one and i know its a bit of a "taboo" because everything just has to be PC now. But how in the seven hells when i have Eu West and English preference ticked i end up playing with 4 Russians and/or Turks who have absolutely no intention of playing together, picking reasonably and logically, communicating in other than their native language. Also since they dont play on their own server they usually lag and/or disconnect a lot. Also most of the time the people i end up with have at least 1- 1.5 k hours less played than me which is just illogical.

Someone said no one wants to play a support and its true and il tell you why. Because stupid people and people that are bad at the game tend to always pick a carry (put very bluntly but also just being honest). Usually when i dont support no one does and i end up supporting idiots for 40 minutes who cant farm/think/react and you just end up supporting a PA or AM who doesnt have battlefury (which is a bad build in many cases anyway) by 35. minute mark. You just struggle because since you are supporting you cant really have that much of an impact to the game (usually, nothing is a 100 percent in dota) because you let the farm for the carries naturally.. and so on and so on.

The next thing is RNG and this is a big one. Considering how Dota is a really competetive game i dont get why rng has so much of an impact on the game. Many times i simply lose because of luck now you might say im a whiner but you havent seen the **** i ve seen then. Passives are too op sometimes in hands of the russians (the notorious russian luck) and im not joking here. I ve had games when i played better and farmed better and still lost because russian pa with 1/10 K/D just decided to crit with every hit. This isnt funny anymore and can be seriously frustrating.

And so is the comeback mechanic. Until it was buffed it was fine but now its seriously ******ed ( i appologize for the harsh language in this hateful reply). I have games all the time when the enemy team just sucks and feed so much that they actually outfarm you by comeback gold and xp when you happen to die a few times. Like this isnt normal when you are 15/0 and die twice and the enemy carry you ve been farming all game is more farmed than you and is a higher lvl than you. That is ******ed and ridiculous and in no way balanced or fair in any way.

There are way more issues with this game but these are the most apparent and frustrating for me so i applaud anyone who had even read this reply to the end.

I am getting sick of this. This is not reddit after all.
If you are stuck with idiots it's because your mmr is as high as the mmr of the idiots.
Without comeback mechanics the game would be over once an enemy has a significant lead 9/10 times.
Dota has almost no Rng comparing it to similar games. Which passives do you consider to be too strong?
The mmr climb thingy is no argument. I climbed from 1k to 3 within 2 months.
I read it to the end but I dunno why.

Michi speaks truth!!

as soon as you make the choice to improve upon "your" gameplay you riseeee!

1.7 to 3.8 to 3.8 to 4.7 then back to 4.3 siighhhhhhhhhhh

honestly self reflection is the best way to get better at this dansgame