Dota Today 3: A Rising Tide Lifts All Lords

[Chris]

Dota Today 3:

 

 

A Rising Tide Lifts All Lords

What happens to a lord unmanaged? Telltale's Pierre Shorette joins us to discuss the purgatory that is the leavers' queue.

 

Game Discussed: Dota 2

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[Brannigan]

Listening now, on being insulted: I love when people try to call you a nerd as an insult. It's gorgeous. I'm supposed to be hurt when being called that when we're both playing not only a video game, but a ridiculously complicated one that is on a pc. You can't get nerdier than that.

[Twig]

I ironically call everyone a nerd. It's my favorite thing to do.

 

Get outta here, nerd!

[Brannigan]

While I haven't actually seen it, they gave omni an agh's upgrade, making his ult global and affect buildings. Seems like a huge one

[melmer]

Did the Maris piper get an upgrade?

[TheLastBaron]

It's not getting experience for 5 minutes that gets you an abandon.  I remember seeing a pro stream (I think it was EG.DeMoN) a long time ago where the players were mad at a Windrunner on their team for something so they pushed her up on the ward spot by the Dire ancients and trapped her there.  It was probably over a year ago so I don't remember what the specifics were, but they said they wouldn't let her down until she apologized and she refused so they proceeded to pull the ancients away and kill them so that she couldn't slowly kill them with powershot and eventually they forced the player to get an abandon.

 

As for the not having a concede function to prevent crazy comeback games, a few days back I played a game with Sean and Nick Herman where we were so sure the game was completely over.   We were down a rax with no tier 3 towers left and the other team had either all their tier 2's still or 2 of them.  Over voice chat there was a conversation that went something like "'Okay I think it's time to just wait in the fountain' 'yeah this game's over there's no way we're going to win this'", yet somehow we managed to just keep them from getting our other two raxes and by farming the waves (we literally couldn't leave the base) we eventually got enough items up that we could win a teamfight and push.  I just looked at the replay and we were down over 20k gold and exp.  If anyoe wants to take a quick look at teh replay and just skip around or something http://dota2://matchid=215163825&matchtime=2615 is the game right around the time it went from us thinking "this game is pretty much over" to "this game is over".  It might not be the most interesting to watch since it's just turtling, but it's easily one of the most fun games I've ever played and when it was over at 2AM I was so pumped that I couldn't sleep for an hour.  I would rather have to play out a bunch of losses without being able to concede if it means I get games like this.

 

In regards to the people in low priority being really nice, on H4nni from Fnatic's stream a few months back he got put into low priority and played a game with this guy who was one of the nicest people I've ever seen and it was totally like a prison movie cause they were talking on voice chat and H4nni was like "You don't seem like you belong in here, what are you in for?"

 

When I played WoW and people would use "nerd" as an insult most of the time I would respond with "aren't we all playing an online fantasy role-playing game here?" which was usually met with "stfu faggot".  The insult that I find the most weird is calling someone a kid.  

 

I'm going to go walk my dogs and finish listening to the cast which means I'll probably have more to say in an hour.  

 

Edit: It's worth pointing out that part of the thing with the Bloodstone change is that the benefit isn't just being able to deny yourself, but also the heal that it gives.  In regards to the small 5 movespeed changes that happen every patch like the one on Death Prophet, to give some perspective on how much of a difference it makes, having 10 more movespeed than another hero means that when you're chasing them you can attack them at the same time.  If you have less than ~10 then the time it takes for you to stop and do the autoattack animation means they will be able to get away from you.

[metuk]

At risk of beating the surrender topic into the ground, I wonder if this is something Valve can solve with the monumental amount of data they're collecting (and data-science minions they presumably employ).

 

If we know, for example, that in 99.99% of games where team A is winning by X towers; Y kills; and Z levels they go on to win, then offer team B a surrender in that situation. I expect it would be more nuanced and use more signals, but you get the idea. The button available all the time, or much of the time, but accelerating through the absolute stomps would be nice.

 

I think that comebacks (such as TheLastBaron's anecdote) are the main counterargument to a surrender button, but with a sophisticated enough approach using past data, we can reduce the harm in this direction.

 

I'm not sure that Nick's point that you're denying the winning team their coup de grâce holds true for me - I'd rather get into another game than go through the motions. How does everyone else feel? Do you enjoy killing the ancient, or would you rather get into the next game when it's obviously a done deal?

[TheLastBaron]

  On 6/14/2013 at 1:15 AM, metuk said:

At risk of beating the surrender topic into the ground, I wonder if this is something Valve can solve with the monumental amount of data they're collecting (and data-science minions they presumably employ).

 

If we know, for example, that in 99.99% of games where team A is winning by X towers; Y kills; and Z levels they go on to win, then offer team B a surrender in that situation. I expect it would be more nuanced and use more signals, but you get the idea. The button available all the time, or much of the time, but accelerating through the absolute stomps would be nice.

 

I think that comebacks (such as TheLastBaron's anecdote) are the main counterargument to a surrender button, but with a sophisticated enough approach using past data, we can reduce the harm in this direction.

 

I'm not sure that Nick's point that you're denying the winning team their coup de grâce holds true for me - I'd rather get into another game than go through the motions. How does everyone else feel? Do you enjoy killing the ancient, or would you rather get into the next game when it's obviously a done deal?

I do enjoy seeing the Ancient die, but of course there's also the counter to this which is a lot of people don't even kill it and just fountain farm which is no fun.  

 

I don't really like the idea of only offering the surrender option when you've met certain criteria for losing hard enough.  For one thing, once the game goes late enough things like kills, towers, and levels start to become unimportant and especially when you consider that this is a game where Divine Rapiers exist.  The other thing is if you're losing, but you aren't being given the option to forfeit I think it might just serve as an incentive for players on the losing team to feed or try to throw the game in other ways in order to get the button to pop up.  I don't know, I just don't think it would have the intended effect if put in the game.

[metuk]

  On 6/14/2013 at 1:27 AM, TheLastBaron said:

I do enjoy seeing the Ancient die, but of course there's also the counter to this which is a lot of people don't even kill it and just fountain farm which is no fun.  

 

Agreed, it's when I'm being fountain farmed that I long for a surrender button the most.

 

  On 6/14/2013 at 1:27 AM, TheLastBaron said:

I don't really like the idea of only offering the surrender option when you've met certain criteria for losing hard enough.  For one thing, once the game goes late enough things like kills, towers, and levels start to become unimportant and especially when you consider that this is a game where Divine Rapiers exist.  

 

Sure, and I wouldn't want the button offered in this situation. In my suggested reality the button wouldn't appear because the "surrender algorithm" would say, hey, it looks like 30% of teams comeback in similar scenarios - so don't offer the option.

 

Hopefully it would catch the case when you've lost 2 rax, they've still got all you're t3s, and they've been fountain farming for 5 minutes. 

 

Honestly I don't think the current situation is really that bad, especially once you've ascended out of the bowels of MMR - it's just an idea that's been knocking around my head.

[TheLastBaron]

In regards to the Valve documentaries, here's a similar documentary made for the G-1 League which focuses on iG (the team that won TI2), specifically YYF.

 

[CaptainFish]

I feel like all kinds of surrendering just makes every player worse. Yes sometimes you get that huge deficit, and you're down to tier 3 towers. But with that close positioning and some good play you can turtle those towers like mad. Get a couple pick offs and that's a tower. Instead, you give up, and the aggressors don't learn how to properly push into a base even with an advantage, and the defenders don't learn how to come back from a bad position. That means that later on, when you're in a higher skill bracket, and it comes down to a slight advantage that means more at that level, you will have fewer of the skills you need to either push in and win or defend and comeback. 

Dota is essentially a learning exercise, and sometimes you're gonna be behind. It's important to use those situations to try strategies that can get you back in the game. Maybe you've just gotten enough gold for that major item past boots that can actually delay their combo from ensuring an early kill. I'd honestly rather play it out in every case.

[metuk]

  On 6/14/2013 at 1:38 AM, CaptainFish said:

I feel like all kinds of surrendering just makes every player worse. Yes sometimes you get that huge deficit, and you're down to tier 3 towers. But with that close positioning and some good play you can turtle those towers like mad. Get a couple pick offs and that's a tower. Instead, you give up, and the aggressors don't learn how to properly push into a base even with an advantage, and the defenders don't learn how to come back from a bad position. That means that later on, when you're in a higher skill bracket, and it comes down to a slight advantage that means more at that level, you will have fewer of the skills you need to either push in and win or defend and comeback. 

 

This makes sense, but perhaps you're not considering the opportunity cost. In those 15 minutes where I was being fountain dived I could have been playing a really good, tight early game somewhere else. Which scenario are my skills being improved the most?

 

Thinking about it, the surrender debate is a great example of the tension that exists between dota as a Video game and dota as a team sport. I couldn't imagine "conceding" a game of football, but being unable to walk away from a PC game when I'm not having a good time feels alien.

[Twig]

Comebacks are a legitimate counterargument to a surrender button. Those are literally my favorite moments. The highest high I can get from the experience that is the Dota rollercoaster.

 

But to be frank: I don't fucking care. I very rarely reach the point where I actually want to give up, but when I do, it's the most miserable experience. It's the lowest low of Dota, to counterpart the highest high that is the comeback. But, I'm sorry, I've reached a point where I can tell if I'm going to have a chance of a comeback. Sure, I'll bitch and moan about how far behind we are if I've lost too many games in a row, but I can still tell we have a chance, and will still keep trying. Then there comes a point where NOPE. Chance gone. We lost one team fight too many.

 

Just make it unanimous. That solves 90% of the problems with a concede option. Eurgh. Please.

[Gormongous]

  On 6/14/2013 at 1:51 AM, Twig said:

Just make it unanimous. That solves 90% of the problems with a concede option. Eurgh. Please.

 

I think that hits it on the nose. Every anecdote about amazing comebacks involves one, maybe two players thinking the game's sunk, which is bound to happen, but if every player on a team, each with their own experiences, have lost all hope, is a comeback even possible?

[Karmarot]

I think the surrender option is a bad idea it leads to too many undesirable scenarios I believe. In league of legends I've been in many games where at the 20 minute mark players immediately hit the surrender button. Occasionally not all the players agree with this idea and it leads to constant bickering and insults between players. Plenty of times I've seen these games turn around. I don't know if the benefits outweigh the penalties

[TheLastBaron]

The thing is that even if it requires 5/5 players, I can still see a lot of games where someone has already given up on the game and just does nothing and spams the surrender button as often as possible.  Or maybe one person wants to keep playing but the other 4 don't and they just do the same thing and spam all-chat saying  "REPORT THIS FAGGOT HE WONT SURRENDER GG".  I dunno, there's definitely  times where all players on a team can amicably agree that the game is over and a surrender button would be good, but there's also all the other times wen it could just become a mess.

[voxn]

notta be a rudevoxn, but this episode wasn't great. You guys don't yet have the depth of knowledge to make a patch note rundown interesting & surrender chat is pretty tired.

 

the first 2 episodes were white hot podcast fire though, so please come back swinging !!

[Twig]

Hey, I agree, but to be fair, they did acknowledge as much. I think it was just people asking them to do it, if I didn't misunderstand, that kinda forced their hand.

 

The first two episodes were great, though, so no worries!

 

  On 6/14/2013 at 4:02 AM, TheLastBaron said:

The thing is that even if it requires 5/5 players, I can still see a lot of games where someone has already given up on the game and just does nothing and spams the surrender button as often as possible.  Or maybe one person wants to keep playing but the other 4 don't and they just do the same thing and spam all-chat saying  "REPORT THIS FAGGOT HE WONT SURRENDER GG".  I dunno, there's definitely  times where all players on a team can amicably agree that the game is over and a surrender button would be good, but there's also all the other times wen it could just become a mess.

I predicted this counterargument and preemptively prepared a countercounterargument!

 

People like that - people colloquially known as "dickheads" - are going to be dickheads regardless. Having played both League and Dota for extended periods of time, I can safely say that having the surrender button very rarely led to someone acting like that, but when it did, it was someone who'd been acting like that the whole game, anyway. More often than not, they would say something to the effect of, "aw damn you guys" and then keep trying because they had a modicum of sportsmanship in their greasy little approximation of a heart.

 

I'm not convinced by your defense!

[metuk]

  On 6/14/2013 at 4:15 AM, voxn said:

notta be a rudevoxn, but this episode wasn't great. You guys don't yet have the depth of knowledge to make a patch note rundown interesting & surrender chat is pretty tired.

 

the first 2 episodes were white hot podcast fire though, so please come back swinging !!

 

I think they mentioned somewhere that this one was recorded remotely, so maybe that was a factor. But yeah, they should leave the patch-note type analysis to elsewhere.

 

Writing some good mail would probably help them out.

[UltimateHurl]

Great episode, I kind of like that there isn't an assumed in-depth knowledge, because that's what can make Dota discussion so dense, in that Dota academics (if I can call them that) will just throw out things like "armlet toggle"  or other more obtuse tricks without any explanation, while ye are actually taking the time to explain things people might not understand, which I can appreciate a lot  

 

It's weird that the prison comparison was drawn so quickly in the low priority talk, I have three abandons, two of which were because I have a crappy internet connection and couldn't get back in 5 minutes (that crappy). I wonder if the view of the low priority queue as a prison forces all these unfortunate abandoners to be ultra-nice when really they are just mild-mannered innocents who were wrongfully imprisoned. In this way being ultra-nice could be like beating up the tough guy on the first day of actual prison.

[Cleinhun]

  On 6/13/2013 at 9:27 PM, Brannigan said:

Listening now, on being insulted: I love when people try to call you a nerd as an insult. It's gorgeous. I'm supposed to be hurt when being called that when we're both playing not only a video game, but a ridiculously complicated one that is on a pc. You can't get nerdier than that.

Probably my favorite moment in dota 2 so far was when our weaver had an unusual build, and someone called him bad for it (or something along those lines, I don't really remember). When he explained why he was doing what he was doing, the other guy, seemingly drunk guy proclaimed loudly in voice chat "are you a fuckin' nerd? You guys, this weaver's a FUCKIN' NERD!" I feel like amusement is not a normal reaction to having asshole teammates, but for some reason I find it hilarious.

[AaronChance]

I really hope Valve adds a majority vote surrender option. Because I've been in games where my side has clearly lost and there's no hope of a comeback, but instead of just ending it the other team decides to camp and kills anyone who comes out instead of getting it over with. I've also been on the winning side where the other team has just given up, and we're slogging through their racks to end the game. There's no fun in there. I haven't played a ton of games, but there is almost never any fun in the very end game. Even in pro matches, most games reach the tipping point 10-20 minutes before the end, and the dragging end brings down the experience for me.

[Roderick]

This podcast scared me a little, since from it spoke how utterly awful players on DOTA seem to treat each other. I rarely engage in online gaming, so I have no idea how ugly it is out there. But if I was playing a game and it entailed having to put up with verbal abuse, I would choose to play another game. I don't think I'd be willing to take it just to play a game, no matter how good.

[Brannigan]

In my experience it's not as bad as your cods. Both lol and dotas report features seem to be working as far as less people being total dicks. It happens occasionally, but it's not rampant.

[Traumahound]

For Pierre, Captain Kidd from SNK's World Heroes 2.