ITT: We come up with arguments to convince our non-dota friends to play this game

[Yossarian]

Here's a nice comment I found from this RPS article.

Ofcourse, The rules are a bit more complicated than something like LoL but unlike LoL you don’t have to spend years to get runes or champions. There is no rune system and every champion is unlocked for everyone. People can only buy vanity items.

So while it may take a causal player a bit longer to learn than something like LoL, you also get to go to a much more even playing field straight away instead of having to grind IP for years just to get a rune page or buy that new overpowered champion. No more finding a champion you enjoy on free to play week then having to grind out the IP for that champion by playing another champion you don’t enjoy. The only difference between you and the enemy in Dota 2 is skill level. LoL rewards people who play more by giving them currency to essentially buy an advantage making it fairly anti-casual.

I will likely get murdered for blasphemy by the Dota 2 community for saying this but, despite popular belief I’d say DotA 2 is a lot more casual friendly than a game like LoL. The rules are a bit more complicated but there is no advantage for having played longer than someone else. Playing the game more will not guarantee you’re better at it.

You can watch tournaments from within the client, which is a great way to learn tactics. Plus the game already has proper information pages about each champion that gives you a good bit of information on how to play them. Dota 2 is something that you can get enjoyment out of by knowing just the basics but also has further enjoyment the deeper you dive and you can do this all at your own pace.

I know it seems like I am bashing LoL, but I think LoL is a great game it just has some major flaws when it comes to evening the playing field.

[Lavicz]

I always felt like there was no need to argue either one. The friends I have that don't play dota and play LoL instead have stated that the game has too much of a learning curve and they want to continue with the one they already know how to play. I feel like most arguments to either side end up having generalizations on the game they're arguing against a lot of times. An example would be in that post it says that it takes a really long time to get yourself on par with others. It does take a while and I'm not taking away from that but I played for around 2 months and in that time I got level 30, rune pages for all of the heroes I enjoyed and bought the heroes that I wanted to play. I prefer dota because it's what I played originally and I will always have a bias to it but both games have their advantages and disadvantages. For a new player in LoL, the first game they play they will get a good idea of the basic mechanics rather quickly because it's a lot more basic than dota. Dota is a lot more confusing in your first game and that turns people away. The only way I have been able to get friends to prefer dota over LoL is if I get to them before they try LoL. The friends I had that I showed them dota as the first option much preferred it after learning it even after trying LoL. But for the friends that played LoL first, they just end up going back because they enjoy the game being the same format every game with no versatility.

[Yossarian]

So basically you say it's whatever game that you try first, you'll stick with..

LoL was my first game of the genre. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was addicted. But when I realized how much money I had to pay for champs and the terrible comp scene (does anyone remember the 5v1 Udyr stomp in season 1?) I wanted to play something else.

Anyhow the best way to get someone to play with the game, I think, is to force them to play with you or their friends.. never solo. But if Valve makes actual in depth tutorials for each hero then that'll significantly bring the skill barrier down.

ps. Lavicz bro wall of texts hurt my eyes ~_~

[Legato]

Think the quote in OP doesn't understand what drives casual interest in games

[Lavicz]

So basically it's whatever game that you try first, you'll stick with..

I wasn't meaning that for everyone just saying in my experience.

I haven't been able to convert any friends who played LoL first, although I've tried. I just think that arguments towards both end up leading to generalizations a lot of times which I saw in the post you quoted.

[Stonererer]

I am happy that i got someone to like dota more than LoL. Though, he played HoN. But i think he stopped and played only LoL for a while. Now he seems to play LoL. But everytime he sees me on, he asks to play dota. Which makes me happy i got someone to like dota. I can only hope once the game gets out after TI, player numbers will boom and stomp LoL as it rightly should .

I don't get why you talk about casual players liking LoL more. Dota2 gives you all the heroes at the start, you get levels for playing, you even get loot for free even, I don't see how LoL's system works better. For a casual perspective, look at TF2 by valve. How that game is still played a lot even after so long is because they tapped into that casual market. I have no doubt valve knows how to get into the casual market, they've already got their dota2 store based on the tf2 one, even the loot system is exactly the same.

What I would tend to agree with is what lavicz said, people will most likely stick with the first game they played. But i would encourage you to invite them to play with you. Even if they're bad and you rage a bit, imo it's worth it to play a few games with them, teaching them a bit, telling them "see, that's how you should use your spell to have the maximum effect" and other. At least, that's how I work on people, show them how to play so they don't feel so confused. That's how you get people to enjoy the game. At least for dota i would expect it is the best way. Of course if they play alone, get flamed, they'll probably go back to LoL.

You gotta invest time to get people to like the game.

[Yossarian]

Well here's what I would think Valve would do, actually I want to make this another topic but here I go..

Valve made Mann vs Machine mode for TF2 which is fun as hell. But for some maps you have to buy a .99$ key to play and you're guaranteed an item upon completion of map. After that you can keep playing that map without having to use a key.

So for Dota2 I think Valve will allow the community to design different maps/game modes that could be very casual and fun (Pudge Wars) but you just need to pay like a dollar to play it infinitely. It's a great business strategy but who knows.

I just really hope Valve does custom maps HoN really fucked it up on that one

[NengLM]

i have friends trying to convince me to play HoN or LoL more than i convince them to play dota 2.
i aint trying to carry them, i can barely win games.

[Yossarian]

well if you learn the basic mechanics in LoL you can dominate because for some reason they have terrible map awareness

[GranDGranT]

Well here's what I would think Valve would do, actually I want to make this another topic but here I go..

Valve made Mann vs Machine mode for TF2 which is fun as hell. But for some maps you have to buy a .99$ key to play and you're guaranteed an item upon completion of map. After that you can keep playing that map without having to use a key.

So for Dota2 I think Valve will allow the community to design different maps/game modes that could be very casual and fun (Pudge Wars) but you just need to pay like a dollar to play it infinitely. It's a great business strategy but who knows.

I just really hope Valve does custom maps HoN really fucked it up on that one

The Problem is Dota was a custom Map and always will be. As Much as I agree with what you are saying I doubt Dota 2 will ever have "World Editor" or whatever shit its called. thus Why Dota is still more enjoyable then Dota 2. You can always take a break and have 12 friends play madballs and Warlocks while on Dota 2 you gotta pay 20$ to get worms.

[Orrin"I make girls wet"Xu]

spellsy plays lol

[Yossarian]

well, until Valve officially announces no to custom maps, I'm still hoping

[Lavicz]

I think a big thing people are wanting and this goes even past dota is a game like wc3 was for most of us where you can play a game seriously while still having fun side games to play as well. Starcraft 2 custom games bombed pretty hard and a lot of people want Dota 2 or even HoN to try it out just because a lot of people don't want to go back to wc3 to play custom games. I think it would be great to have a world editor system just because that was a lot of my childhood just sitting in clan channels in wc3 and playing snipers and TD etc. but I don't know how well it would work out in the end.

[Risk]

If you convince RL friends to Play dota, you'll be stuck to play with noobs and you can't dodge them cause they're irl friends

[Stonererer]

Just a quick check in the dota folder, you can find the dota.bsp map in the maps folder. Dota still uses valve's model of games, they make mods from an itterative half-life 2 "game". So i'm pretty sure you'll be able to fully mod dota2, actually i'm pretty sure you can already use custom skins in dota2, like tf2, etc. Every source engine game gets mods and server scripts, and most everything. In my opinion, if valve doesn't let dota2 be like every other game they've released from recent memory, they'll be shooting themselves in the foot.

In the end, I'm pretty sure you'll be able to customize pretty much everything like every other valve game.

lots of pretty sure in there rofl, sorry about that.

[changeofpace]

since im actually a good person i tell my friends not to play dota

not joking

[MrSoada]

If you convince RL friends to Play dota, you'll be stuck to play with noobs and you can't dodge them cause they're irl friends

It's painful and I am ashamed to say I lacked the foresight to realize this. They all still love Dota 2 though, even though they are really bad at it.

[MrSoada]

im actually a good person

[Yossarian]

It's painful and I am ashamed to say I lacked the foresight to realize this. They all still love Dota 2 though, even though they are really bad at it.

haha you can always say youre busy

and there is a great joy when they finally learn something you
its like being a teacher in the 4th grade.

[nickyh]

tl:dr thread (srs)