I mean, I know who he is, I was just perplexed that someone said EE isnt a pro when plays dota for a living, and has won one of the more prestigious tournaments of dota.
i mean, he IS crazy unreliable, but he IS per definition a pro
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
So why does League of Legends still have a larger playerbase than Dota 2?
- Thread starter ScOULaris
- Start date
I mean, I know who he is, I was just perplexed that someone said EE isnt a pro when plays dota for a living, and has won one of the more prestigious tournaments of dota.
i mean, he IS crazy unreliable, but he IS per definition a pro
Big... But not LoL/Dota2 big. It was still a mod. It never got mainstream attention like LoL/Dota2 did. It was still very much a Lan Cafe oriented game. Heck I remember using 3rd party Online clients to play like GGclient. But it never had the same feel as an actual product that had everything integrated into it. Also when you look at Korea,China..etc Waifus > Janky WC3 models. How many casual gamers really care about gameplay?
If Dota2 and LoL released at the same time , Maybe there would have been such a big disparity in userbase.
Valve never tried to push TF2 in asian markets or as an esport. Waifus are distant to that. Cant win the game if you aint even playing it.
I swear I heard the same arguments when League was getting popular.
I'm not saying that it being more complex makes it better, however IMO I believe that complexity introduces a level of strategy into the game that is not found in other games like LoL, Smite, etc. It's clear that LoL ended up being as big as it is due to marketing, simplicity, and being able to run on a wide variety of machines. It really is the McDonald's of MOBAs.
old manatee
Banned
League of Legends is like travelling by cruise ship, and Dota 2 is like taking a zeppelin to Mars with your lover.
right, but I do consider Overwatch as a TF2/FPS hybrid of sorts
anyway I'm convinced that's where the player base is heading to. DotA 2 and LoL are the old horses
Except both are on fire.
Imperfected
Member
China actually will go for the non-waifus (see also: CrossFire).
The problem there is more that Valve was never willing to invest more than $55 in Chinese localization, advertising, and support for their entire Steam ecosystem, much less TF2.
Dota 1 gave a huge headstart. It was bigger than LoL in the early years until Dota 2 firmly took over.
Plus it still wouldn't explain LoL in China, which was Dota country.
Abilidebob
Member
It was a cute little joke about how his team is doing terribly and how he does a truckload of "pub" mistakes every single fame.
PeskyToaster
Member
Because harder and more complex don't equal better and more fun.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Being a different game gives it different strategies. Yes. That is included when I say 'DotA 2 is more complex.'
And saying that LoL got big for this or that reason without is well..just an excuse. LoL is simple and fun. You can jump in, and in 5 games learn the basics of the game fast enough to start enjoying it.
Like...if the excuse to League being popular is 'It came out first and it had marketing' well...HoN is a pretty dead game, I remember there being HoN ads everywhere, and it came out around the same time League did.
Seductivpancakes
Member
Are people really "casual" if they play League for hundreds/thousands of hours?
It's not like league is as simple as Candy Crush Saga. As someone pointed out, a game doesn't need to be complex to be a better game or in this case a hardcore game.
It's not like league is as simple as Candy Crush Saga. As someone pointed out, a game doesn't need to be complex to be a better game or in this case a hardcore game.
zombieshavebrains
I have not used cocaine
I am dota till I die. It absolutely changed my life and I feel like i'll always be a fan.
But LoL is more accessible and just like overwatch, if you appeal to weaboos it will automatically become more popular.
Its so funny to read in r/dota2 the threads of people who switch over from LoL to Dota and read how their eyes have been opened to the differences between the two. Dota for sure isn't for everyone and that's alright. If LoL wants to try to be for everyone, that's alright too.
But LoL is more accessible and just like overwatch, if you appeal to weaboos it will automatically become more popular.
Its so funny to read in r/dota2 the threads of people who switch over from LoL to Dota and read how their eyes have been opened to the differences between the two. Dota for sure isn't for everyone and that's alright. If LoL wants to try to be for everyone, that's alright too.
Tencent explains LoL in Dota country.
He said simpler, came out first, and had marketing. I'd add waifus to the list.
LoL had 4/4, HoN had 2/4 (timing and marketing if you are to be believed).
Isn't Dota 2 still huge in China? An american game that has little marketing push wouldn't have the amount of popularity as a local Chinese game imo
ugh i wasnt sure if you were joking or not, sorry
i just realized it is 1:38 am here, i'll blame it on me being tired
dota 2 is pretty huge in china yeah, dont think it is as huge as lol though
nephilimdj
Member
League has the smarts to license out to Garena early on a realise how bad it was then make a better contract when it came to South Korea, then Valve sold the rights to perfect world which was another Garena. Ofcourse League was to blame to how bad China scene was.
old manatee
Banned
I hear what you're saying. I'm a hardcore tic-tac-toe player and no one takes it seriously because the meta game is so shallow.
Where's the lie though? It's not an excuse if literally that's how it got big. I remember the insane word of mouth when LoL first came out among my friends and I sat there like, "Ok." It sounds like LoL players want people to think LoL was some mysterious miracle anomaly like the Wii that exploded when it was just a game that hit all the right notes at the right time. It's just not my cup of tea. Hell, I don't even play Dota 2 that much anymore. I'm more into Smite and Paragon at the moment.
You know, judging by posts here, you'd think LoL was some kind of simplistic game that requires no thought or skill to play. Do you really think that?
Also, anyone else catch that post that complained that LoL players were obviously bad at their game because most were ranked at Silver or below? What the heck? Rankings are percent based. Is everyone supposed to have a 50%+ win rate?
You know, a met a DotA player in real life and asked him what he thought of League. He said that he didn't like league because the same pro teams kept winning every year, and he claimed that was boring and evidence of the game being less strategic on the whole. I don't really understand that.
Also, anyone else catch that post that complained that LoL players were obviously bad at their game because most were ranked at Silver or below? What the heck? Rankings are percent based. Is everyone supposed to have a 50%+ win rate?
You know, a met a DotA player in real life and asked him what he thought of League. He said that he didn't like league because the same pro teams kept winning every year, and he claimed that was boring and evidence of the game being less strategic on the whole. I don't really understand that.
Chronospherics
Member
It's probably a lot of factors but the initial popularity shouldn't be underestimated.
You could argue the same with Call of Duty, Battlefield has arguably provided a higher quality of game in recent years, with Battlefield 3 and 4 offering more than the typical Call of Duty game, but they don't perform as well. I guess many people are just rather attached to the first franchise of that type that they played.
You could argue the same with Call of Duty, Battlefield has arguably provided a higher quality of game in recent years, with Battlefield 3 and 4 offering more than the typical Call of Duty game, but they don't perform as well. I guess many people are just rather attached to the first franchise of that type that they played.
I started playing DotA in high school. By the time Dota 2 came around I had nearly a decade of muscle memory and a background of RTS games to rely on, so I've stuck with it for the same reason
As to the topic at hand I think it's really all the factors to varying degrees. Generally a more streamlined and broad market game is going to do better, and combined with the fact that Valve couldn't get there first I think that explains the majority. Inertia has done the rest.
Having played both Dota 2 and League for unreasonable amounts of time, League has, by far, more appealing and cuter characters than dota. I think Urgot is the literal exception, here. They're just more interesting, appealing and much nicer to look at than the average pudge or lifestealer.
That said Dota 2 has it's charming characters as well.
That said Dota 2 has it's charming characters as well.
Doctor Ironic
Member
Momentum and waifu bait.
None of them are as repulsive as your avatar though.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
It is an anomaly, though. I mean, it's the biggest game in the world. It has been the biggest game in the world for the past few years. There are people arguing about console game this and console game that and which one is more popular, but the fact is that League of Legends is just this anomaly that is incredibly popular. No other game has reached it's popularity, and the closest thing we've gotten that may match its popularity is Overwatch. And they both share a few things in common-
They're both Hero games
They're both simple yet can get complex
They both feature low entry barriers, as well as a colorful cast of characters that really 'pop' out.
Now you can say, 'Marketing! It came out first!' But, whilst true for Overwatch on the former, Riot never had heavy marketing like people think they did. They were an upstart company, that created their own engine(Which is pretty spaghetti sometimes), and their marketing was neither here nor there. If you ask any of the founders of the company, they are all probably surprised League blew up like it did.
It's fair to call League an anomaly, when no other game in history has blown up like it has. And that's a combination of many factors. To boil it down to 'Well it came out first' 'Well it was simple' is a crass misunderstanding of it.
Imperfected
Member
As this is a personal pet peeve of mine:
Complexity =/= Depth
You can increase complexity with no accompanying increase in depth. A good example of this is ConnectFour, which is essentially a more complex version of tic-tac-toe (or noughts and crosses, or morris, whatever your home region calls it). However, when making a ConnectFour video game, the designers found that their initial stand-in for AI--literally having the computer player make completely random moves unless a winning move was possible on the turn in question--had a 53% winrate, suggesting little to no greater depth was present in the game compared to tic-tac-toe.
Now, look at Go. Go has inherent similarities to tic-tac-toe, and is only actually about an order of magnitude more complex. However, Go has several orders of magnitude more depth, to the extent that it's harder to create a perfect program to play Go than it is for Chess, a game with considerably greater complexity due to the variety of unit movement types and special-case rules.
To put it another way, I can make a game where you hit for 1-6 damage, or I can make a game where you hit for 1-12 damage and then divide the result by 2. The second game is more complex, but is not going to be more fun except for the (spoiler: extreme minority of) people who enjoy division. I had damn well better be doing something strategically interesting with the fractional remainders if I decide to use the second system.
TL;DR:
A game can be more complex without having greater strategic depth.
A game can have greater strategic depth despite being less complex.
Depth is always the design goal, complexity is an incurred cost/compromise sometimes required to obtain it, that should always be viewed critically with the simple question, "Is this making the game deeper, or just more complicated?"
terencecah
Member
how long is he average league and dota match in today's game?
Couldn't get into Dota 2 primarily because of two things. Controls and the sheer volume of mechanics and systems. I'll go over each.
1.) Controls - First off I will preface that I played League before playing Dota 2. I'm sure that had some influence on my preference. That being said, the controls for Dota 2 are laughably annoying. I've seen many posters in this thread saying that the characters taking their time to turn is an essential and integral part of the game. Alright, I won't argue against that. However, when you play League of Legends and how instantaneous movement is compared to the slow and somewhat clunky feeling that Dota 2 gives, there is no argument that one is more superior than the other. Perhaps it's not realistic. Who cares. It feels like the game has put an arbitrary layer of complexity into the game just for the hell of it.
2.) Complexity - Which brings me to my next point. Is adding new mechanics and systems to make the game complex great? Yes. I agree wholeheartedly. However there is a fine line between adding a good amount to increase the skill ceiling and adding more just to say the game is "complex for the better." If no one can operate at maximum capacity or even close to it then what's the fucking point? So your skill ceiling is high, who gives a shit? Granted, I'm not saying League is perfect with this. In fact the game has made a lot of changes throughout the years to actually remove some complexity. In all honesty I think it removed some of the competitive aspects that differentiate player skill. Adding shit to a game to make it complex is not good and if you're just layering one on top of the other it just feels like a mish mash of stupid shit that designers that circlejerked each other around a fucking round table.
1.) Controls - First off I will preface that I played League before playing Dota 2. I'm sure that had some influence on my preference. That being said, the controls for Dota 2 are laughably annoying. I've seen many posters in this thread saying that the characters taking their time to turn is an essential and integral part of the game. Alright, I won't argue against that. However, when you play League of Legends and how instantaneous movement is compared to the slow and somewhat clunky feeling that Dota 2 gives, there is no argument that one is more superior than the other. Perhaps it's not realistic. Who cares. It feels like the game has put an arbitrary layer of complexity into the game just for the hell of it.
2.) Complexity - Which brings me to my next point. Is adding new mechanics and systems to make the game complex great? Yes. I agree wholeheartedly. However there is a fine line between adding a good amount to increase the skill ceiling and adding more just to say the game is "complex for the better." If no one can operate at maximum capacity or even close to it then what's the fucking point? So your skill ceiling is high, who gives a shit? Granted, I'm not saying League is perfect with this. In fact the game has made a lot of changes throughout the years to actually remove some complexity. In all honesty I think it removed some of the competitive aspects that differentiate player skill. Adding shit to a game to make it complex is not good and if you're just layering one on top of the other it just feels like a mish mash of stupid shit that designers that circlejerked each other around a fucking round table.
Doctor Ironic
Member
That's because turn rate actually matters in Dota. It's not that it didn't register your click, it's that your hero has to turn to the direction first. It makes the chase game significantly better.
I don't know if it's changed - I stopped playinh about a year ago because all my friends did too and I despite pubbies - but heroes actually did have different turn rates that affected things. Faceless Void could instantly snap to a direction in his ult AoE.
There are cast times on most spells and every hero in dota has a turnrate stat for balancing purpose
League will feel more responsive since champs dont have turnrates and most spells are instant
Dota these days seems to be 35-45 minutes, with more above that than below. At least in the potato tier I hang out in.
Damn. Is turn rate really that big of a deal breaker?
I wonder if one day we will just get free TPs since icefrog just keeps lower its price every patch.
Didn't know that. It might make sense balance/gameplay-wise but I don't like it.
agreed. some people just want to pop wheelies on their tricycles in front of the mailbox while others want to smash tour de france stages. people like different things.
You are making a lot of assumptions and putting words on people who explain why they think LoL retained a larger fanbase, sounds like rather than there being a "LoL defense force" you have a vendetta against LoL.
Don't think anybody has even argued that LoL was a mircale of Mobas and an anomaly, they're just saying of all the dota clones it got popular.
And, from all your posts, you seem to equate the complexity argument with an attack, which is stupid, this thread is not arguing about which game is better, it's about why one managed to retain a wider audience, saying DotA is more complex doesnt mean it's neither worse nor better than LoL, it does means that more people will be put off by the complexity or will give up faster on the game compared to LoL or HotS.
I think it comes down to accessibility. DotA's barriers to entry are mich higher than LoL's, and even when you've got a good feel for the game, learning all of the ins and outs is going to take a lot more time and dedication - something that many casual players are short on.
I can't play true MOBAs anymore because they make me hate myself (and videogames as a whole, really), so I don't have much in-game perspective, but this is the impression that I get from friends and general knowledge about both games (I have played both in the past, but never on the level which would give me any kind of authority in the matter).
I can't play true MOBAs anymore because they make me hate myself (and videogames as a whole, really), so I don't have much in-game perspective, but this is the impression that I get from friends and general knowledge about both games (I have played both in the past, but never on the level which would give me any kind of authority in the matter).
Obviously.
Also maybe its just me but Dota isnt a particularly dark game. Its very vibrant. Especially on Radiant. Just because it isnt a technicolor dream doesnt mean its dark.
shira
Member
Marketing strategies highly different.
Ragnar Blackmane
Member
Well, there we go again with the good old allusions that "League is for children, Dota2 for REAL grown up and competitive men!"
Same as the good old League = CoD/for weeaboos argument, never gets old. Though I did expect better on GAF.
Character uniqueness and memorability highly different.
At this point, people can't seem to allow people to "like different things" without insulting them.
Can we get a mod to close this thread?
That's not marketing though, it's the way they're presented in the game to the player. Drow Ranger or Wisp are never going to be as interesting.
It's like comparing Hydra Soldier to Captain America.
These threads always end up like this. Surprised this one made it past 2 pages.
SecretMoblin
Member
League is very powerful. It's the Elder Titan of MOBAs.