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9 comments
AmOmO

    FIRSTTTTTT

    Blackshot

      Good write-up. I think it's better for the health of pub matches for it to be less freaky. And experimentation (playing a hero in a different role for example) is still present, so it hasn't regressed too far (yet).

      Blessed By Him

        want chaos

        mllcg

          Chaos is good. but not TI4 meta

          Brünk Hüll

            Honestly don't care at all about third party tournaments though. We just aren't large enough to have the ability to be split like that for now. Even having two divisions is a bit of a strain on resources. We keep seeing ourselves as having buckets of money but that's only because we see the huge prizepool for that ONE tournament and completely forget that Baseball players regularly get multimillion dollar contracts and a single NFL game costs more money to run than the entire season for Dota. Stability creates clarity creates interest creates investors creates growth. It's so much bigger than it used to be, but we're SO much smaller than we think. I for one would rather take the survival of the game than the wild west, and strongly believe in the rose colored glasses being worn here.

            I do miss trilanes, but I might pin their death on the growth of understanding the game itself more than on the edges being shaved off. Players know so much more about exploiting things, and trilanes may have simply preyed on ineptitude.

            scales

              Trust me people are still being experimental at Crusader. 😄

              Chawrizaurd

                You guys are just having chaos nostalgia. If you guys want to know what the shadow realm would look like, just watch Jenkins Herald review

                ScottishJabz

                  Personally, chaos is WELL overdue. The current meta and patch has become so unbelievably stale its untrue with the same heroes being picked/banned. Its time to mix things up IceFrog.

                  With the amount of money that Valve make from the various sources (caches, BPs, Dota+, item transactions), I don't think its too much to ask for them to employ some software devs to change the meta at least once a year... let alone do things like fixing known bugs (i hear reddit are pretty good at making a list of those), proper remodels (i hate morph but 100% needs a remodel with an ACCEPTABLE amount of polygons) and further development of cracking down on smurfs/boosters/scripters.

                  Lirael

                    I personally miss the chaos. I played primarily in the 6.78-6.88 era, and while the TI4/6.81 meta of "Pick a prophet and solo rat your way to victory" was fucking awful, as were the perpetual 80 minute games of 6.83, I enjoyed that every patch brought a completely new way of playing the game, rather than just refinements on a theme. From TI4 to TI5 alone it flipped wildly between favouring rat heroes, to Sniper, to pure/magical damage carries like Leshrac and OD, and from reliably 25 minute games, to reliably 80 minute games, to a random selection of both. The current stability is almost certainly far better for the pro scene and for new players, and as people have said above, there's probably some rose-coloured glasses, but for me personally, I just find it harder to stay invested in the game.

                    I'm a chaotic player with ADHD - I don't have the patience to minmax my timings or practice a single hero to perfection. I knew every stat in the game and memorised the patch notes, but my favourite games were when me and my friends deliberately defied the meta to do stupid shit and still win. Crystal Maiden jungle carry was hilarious, baiting people into Techies mines via All Chat was beautiful, trilanes, dual junglers, 5 man mid strats, countering 5 man mid strats, 15 minute fountain dives with Bristleback, Pudge/Magnus fountain teleports, winning a game as solo Ursa after my entire team abandoned, position 1 Enchantress - all of these things would be awful if they were allowed to become meta, but aside from a select few strats, most of them were too unreliable to work 100% of the time, and otherwise they got patched out.

                    The way I summarise the change from early Dota 2 to now is that it used to be an extremely high-risk, high-reward game with 5 individuals on each side and the meta changing every 5 minutes. Now it's a team game with a clear and varied, but stable, meta. For me it was more fun and there was more variety in gameplay, but it was also far more punishing and also countering was a far more rigid affair. It was easier to carry a bad team, but it was also easier far easier to grief a good one. When it was good, it was great, but when it was bad it was soul-crushingly unfair.

                    Basically, it followed the old MW2 philosophy of game design, which is "If everything is OP as shit, then nothing is." - which is fine, but it's a difficult thing to keep balanced long-term. I really miss those Wild West days, and I personally would go back to that style in a heartbeat, but I do agree with most of the other people here that it probably wouldn't be the best thing for the game as a whole, and it was a fucking trial by fire. If it hadn't been the only online PC game my old potato could run when I was 16 and if I hadn't had a group of equally masochistic friends who were more mechanically skilled than me, then I likely wouldn't have been able to stick with it.