Yes... I am a noob

I am that kind of poor guy, that's not born with ultimate embedded dota knowledge. I started playing this game (and generally that type of game... never played LoL) three weeks ago and enjoyed bot practising. After one week of practising it seems like my percentage of wins grows over the 60% mark and I decided to try some coop matchmaking games. This was the first time I met the dota community.

Let me tell you: you suck!

I started playing pc games since 1992... Monkey Island, Doom and stuff like that. The first multiplayer games have been Duke Nukem 3D and the inconceivably genious and revolutionary Quake 1. There was no good internet availability in germany that time, so we (me and 4 other guys) bought NE2000 compatiple IPX network cards, put our PCs together after school and startet the first "lan parties" (this term appeared a few years later)... this was 1996 or something like that. I remember Quake 1 has been published in that year.

So... about 20 years later after playing my first game, I still love to settle in the evening when my child felt asleep (finally!), boot up my gaming PC and playing some games. Gameplay hasn't really changed in the last 17 years... 3d-graphics did, of course, but generally the games are still almost the same. But something changed dramatically: the gamers.

During playing online multiplayer games you usually meet people that take the games faaaaaar too seriously! And the worst and most hatefull community I ever met is you... Dota. There's only angry shouting, battle of stereotypes. Experienced players are *****ing about young, fat noob-children, that ruin gameplay, acting in bad faith, because they hate experienced players... And noobs (like me) simply have the feeling, that they are only playing with.... well... young, fat nerd-childred, that have nothing else to to than wasting their time with computer games instead of moving their fat and flat ***es out of the house, doing some real sports (... okay... actually... like we did... but we did some sports... seriously!)

Have you noticed it?

Why do you always think, that other persons are evil (and being fat childs)? Maybe they just try to get used to the game? This is a very difficult game... I studied the rules.... tactics... and after that I studied the glossary just to understand the rules and tactics... and to understand the ingame chat, of course. And still I get flamed as noob even before game started... What the hell am I doing wrong? Do I choose the wrong character? Okay.. what IS the ****ing right one?? There are plenty of nice char-pictures... Can't I simply choose the nicest one? (okay... just kidding. But in fact I don't know other rules that sound logically to me than choosing just one carry per team...) Is it my nickname? Or the way, my nickname popps on the screen of a experienced user? Does Dota add a red exclamation mark to my nick, branding me as a noob?

Dear experienced players...

I understand you. You have to play with teammates that suck... I usually also hate this. So I think you have a couple of possibilities... Grab four friends (eh... you DO have friends... maybe real ones... don't you?), form a team and .. voila... you know your teammates and can enjoy the game. You could also try matchmaking with normal bots... not the easy ones, that silly noobs like to choose as opponents. This should also reduce your gaming frustration. But.... there's a third option. Well since thousands and thousands of years, mankind often spawned people that had been different... wiser... better than the others. Guess what they did? No... not talking about dominating the stupid ones... They became teacher! To bring mankind to the next level.... you should try that. Noobs don't like to be noobs... So teach them the principles of Dota and you will have grateful teammates in later matches... promised.

Its some sort of an initiation in the world of every game you play.Battlefield,LoL.DotA,any newer game.That's how it works.

This is a known issue, almost in any game you'll find people who take the game too serious, like Call of Duty and League of Legends, not only DotA.


I also flame sometimes, it's normal, at a point, you get mad and you start flaming.. every one does it sooner or later.

Also, single thing you can do to stop this, is find more friends to play with, which won't flame you and you can have fun with. :)

I daresay that despite the fact that this happens very often, mostly its the minority that's the loudest. So the 'pro' players that call you a 'noob', are usually not as pro as they think. The actual pro players are very often a lot less talkative, and usually come with constructive criticism rather than outright flaming.

I will also say this; I'm sure you feel this is the worst in Dota 2, but really, its everywhere. Battlefield 3 has it. Call of Duty has it. (EVEN WORSE!). Etc. So, I agree with you, the online community has changed. Since LAN's in the 90's, people have gained anonymity, and with that the ugly beasts of a few people come out. Welcome to the Internet I guess.

As for the game, the one thing about Dota is that its very team-based. But reading up a few guides on the net fixes most obvious things you might do wrong, and as you mentioned, you did check stuff out about the game, so to be blunt, I wouldn't worry too much. Play the game. Enjoy it. Ignore the 'pro' players. It is hard, I agree, but the principle stands. ;P

Maybe, maybe...

I think one problem is, that there might be no other game where you can do SOOOO many things wrong. I would like to read an ultimate guide.... something like "How not to be called Noob - in 10 days" or something like that. Guides and tactics I already read didn't help that much.

A lot of things people would say you are doing wrong might just be what they think you should be doing, and not necessarily wrong. =P

There's a few things that stack up that make MOBA type games seem worse than some other types for this kind of thing:

- The game is very reliant on team work

- There's a very steep early learning curve

- You're "locked in" with your 5 man team for the duration (usually 30mins or more)

Remember though that games are skill matched, so the people you're in with are just as nooby as you, or more experienced but terrible players. As you play more, you'll make it into higher ranked pools where you get fewer idiots.

Best advice I can give you is to just to keep your head down and develop a thick skin - most of the flamers want your attention and response, ignoring them is often the best option.

There's a shallow learning curve in Dota.

I never had a problem with the community, my interaction with everyone has been positive. I'm curious what's happening that is causing you to be flamed so much. Mind if I watch some of your games see what's going on? I need your dotabuff or steam id.

Well nowadays this is a very common situation in pretty much any multi player games especially via online. Named it; it's been there such as Counter Strike, Battlefield, Call of Duty, League of Legends, Street Fighter, or even Starcraft/Warcraft. Whether through either XBL/PSN or normal internet required game, it will happened and I also went through this at a certain point of my life. Nonetheless, the presence is much more significant in MOBA games that usually requires teamwork and coordination.

I have to agree that learning Dota takes a very long time, depending on your own pace as well. There are lots of things that you have to digest in order to play properly even on the basic parts such as basic survival, lane control, jungling and warding. On competitive level there are even higher degree of learning curve such as body blocking, heroes drafting in Captain's Mode and constructing lane for specific heroes.

Regarding to the experienced player, sometimes some of them are not as 'pro' as you think because they only care about themselves. You can call it a "pseudo-pro". I'll give you some examples:

1. In pubs, most people prefer to play carries because they don't want to be that unsung hero. Why? Their mindset is lot of kills = lot of skills which is not very true. They feel like playing as a support roles is ******** and does not indicate skills. Hell then there is even people building support heroes as carry nowadays in public match making. They totally have no idea at all.

2. They feel like they are the best player in the game, when in fact they only played against people who are just new to the game or trying to learn it, not players that are better than them. They feel good dominating weaklings and boasting themselves (keyboard warrior); usually with pubstomper heroes. If they played with top tier players that are out of their league; trust me they will start crying ---> "X heroes too overpowered, need nerf asap".

3. Top tier pubstomper player with competitive experience (the legit pro players) does exist in public. These breeds are very rare in normal public matchmaking but they are also the most quiet one. They do not flame, moan or ranting in the chat box while playing. They know that to do and they adapt to the situation extremely well. If you manage to play with one of them in your match, these are the guys that you can look out for to teach you the game. It's very hard though because of their different nicknames every time.

As a closer, the best solution for your situation right now is to play with friends that you actually know (or still learning the game as you are) so that they understand the ideas that you are trying to do or pull off. This will allow you to communicate and interact better rather than random anonymous player. Btw, sorry for the long post. XD