Valve should care more about dota or it will die soon.

hello pepperoni hater toger

Hello Mr. Steam friendship hater :'(

I actually agree with everything you said (except for parts of the balance stuff which I'll get back to), because I think we're making different points. When I say "casual play", I'm talking about the MMR region between, say, the 10th percentile and 90th percentile, where the large majority of players live. You mentioned that "it's fine" for 99% of the community, by which I'm guessing you mean that in basically that same range, any given player could have executed better to a significant enough degree that their improved play could've outweighed virtually any draft disadvantage. And that's totally true.

But, the question I'm asking is how much someone at those levels has to improve their play in any given matchup in order to overcome that disadvantage. For instance, if someone has to play at a level that's 500-1000 MMR above their current rank to win, I'd argue that that's unreasonable and disheartening in the context of casual play. And I'd also argue that because heroes are now so good at what they do, that "needed MMR" gap has only widened as time's gone on.

Dota's sort of in a tricky situation when it comes to balancing casual vs. competitive play. With the exception of random pub nerfs like Riki, the vast vast majority of changes serve to directly improve the competitive and high-level (top 5%) scene. That's not necessarily a bad thing at all, since historically a lot of Dota's appeal to the remaining 95% of players is the competitive drive to get better at the game.

But, if the journey there is bereft of enough enjoyment, that 50th percentile player who previously wanted to make it to the 75th percentile will just give up, even though he was completely capable of getting there. And of the many people I've known who have played Dota near my MMR, most of them have quit; when I ask why, it's always something to the effect of "losses are too miserable and they're not worth the matches that are actually fun anymore". And, from what I can tell, a lot of that boredom in a match comes from the notable strengths every hero has over others, which can often make you feel like you're not playing a fun game anymore once the enemy reaches a certain item or timing.

As one example, it's that feeling of playing against a mid-to-late game PL in a draft with little AoE; yes, you can execute to overcome that, either by doing a good job picking him off or just by playing fights better and identifying the real one quickly (or by winning early enough). But, having played on both sides of that battle, I can tell you that people at my MMR (myself included) aren't good enough to consistently do that, and the losses are so boring and miserable that afterwards, you'd just rather stop playing than try to spend time watching replays against various PLs (either in your games or pro games) or similar carries in order to improve. Those matches eventually add up and make some people want to stop playing.

It's not necessarily a bad design, because I think it's the reason Dota has firmly established itself as such a competitive/esports powerhouse. But, I do think it's a design that'll cause player counts in those MMR brackets to decline much more rapidly as time goes on. Maybe it's for the best, as it keeps only the truly hardcore people playing, but it seems to me like it's a natural consequence.

This is already way longer than I expected so I won't go into the buff/nerf thing too much (other than saying that by "buffing strengths", I don't mean that the tanky heroes just get tankier or the carries just do more damage, but they're generally all much more effective at fulfilling their specific niche, whether that was achieved by giving them new tools or via some other means; the end result is that they're better at doing what they were good at before, with some exceptions here and there), but I think it's sort of encapsulated by responding to this:

the way ive interpreted the balance in dota is that it strives to make every hero feel unique and interesting compared to others, not necessarily grant specific weaknesses or strengths to certain heroes

I'd argue that the latter is a necessary consequence of the former. By making a hero's design unique, you're making them good at specific things, and those things are inevitably going to clash against other heroes' weaknesses, which are due to their unique design. There's a spectrum of give and take there, and Dota clearly lies super heavily on one side while something like LoL sits all the way on the other.

Anyway, this was long enough, sorry. I wrote it before/between games for EG v Fnatic, so I didn't realize how much I'd written. I just really like talking about game design, and it's nice to get the perspective of someone who's super good at Doter 2. Hope you're doing well and have alarming amounts of pepperoni!

/r/DotA2 Thread Parent