DotA 2

And you learn something new everyday, it turns out Valve actually did include tower range indicators in the game by using carefully placed foliage or other terrain features. I never realized this until I saw these albums and now it just looks so obvious that I'm embarrassed I didn't :)

Radiant: http://imgur.com/a/tiQC1#0

Dire: http://imgur.com/a/UMGYD#0

Super helpful for new and old players alike

I had no idea! Talk about subtle.

Does everyone have codes for this game that wants one at this point? I just got an email saying I had some to share.

I'd like a code since people seem to be sitting on them. Also since I downloaded the game after being told by the shop that I own it, only to find out after launching that it's a "Spectator-Only Version" and would I like to maybe spend thirty euros to play this F2P game.

Post your steam handle/profile, or email to ensure that someone can actually gift it to you. Also when receiving the Dota 2 invite, take heed of this forum post http://steamcommunity.com/app/570/discussions/0/882965239636857387/

Finally, so much hate against Australians on the new Australian server. I think I'm going to have to go back to the SE Asia server again where I can play in bliss, not understanding a word being said.

Oh, whoops, I just figured it was a code. This is my profile.

Fwiw posting an email is easier, since you have to be friends to receive the things directly through steam. (Which is why I just shot you a friend request there.

Well, I got it now in any case. Thanks a lot, Turin!

I also have invites spare.

I have six codes to spare, let me know if you or anyone you know wants one after Jam has run out.

Edit: I now have eleven, and worry that more are on the way.

I have five codes.

I have two codes.

Eleven. I win.

So, 'win' is the new 'lose' ?

I have a DotA 2 key if anyone wants it

Valve needs to make time spent in your fountain not count towards abandonment if the enemy is in your base, farming people at your fountain.

I've been playing this on and off over the last month (Thanks again, Turin!) and just realised I have like 16 beta invites sitting on my Steam account, which I guess means the cycle is complete and I am now a Jedi like my father before me.

It's a pretty revelatory experience for somebody whose introduction into the genre was LoL. Admittedly, I've pretty much only been playing bot games, but even those are fun when you're playing heroes for the first time. I can't even count the times when I hit the level where a kit comes together and thought that no, surely this hero has to be irredeemably overpowered. The support hero gets a high damage nuke as an ult? PL's illusions' autoattacks can make their own illusions? Rearm has no cooldown? Hahahaha, Invoker.

Of course, then you get into all the exceptions that come with such a volatile ruleset. Getting Fiend's Gripped through BKB sucks.

I'm never going to be good at this game, but I'm glad I've grasped enough of the basics to parse a tournament match with decent commentating. There seems to be so much more going on than in the LoL meta and that stuff is just fascinating.

Yeah, this is something that annoys me about Dota. HoN at least made it explicit by tagging those things as "Superior Magic," although you just have to memorize what's considered Superior (ults usually); Dota I think you just have to know. As a general rule of thumb, magic damage will usually be stopped by BKB -- even from ults (not all ults are classed as "magic" though! Just gotta know) -- but disables and the like will still go through. Usually.

Glad you're liking the game. It can be super exasperating but it's also really fun.

If your team is getting farmed at your own fountain, you've pretty mch lost the game as it is. I'll settle for a concede option for when you know you're going to lose and don't want to spend the next 20 mins watching it happen.

What? Still no concede option? Yay, go DotA 2. Whooo. So evolutionary.

There are ups and downs to the concede vote, especially given the quality of the MOBA community. I've had some great comebacks and victories in games I was sure we'd lost. And when playing HoN I've had whiny babies spam concede votes constantly after minor setbacks. Opinions vary on whether it's a good idea to include the option for concession, but portraying it as an oversight in need of correction elides the debate.

Yeah. Right after I posted that. I had a game where the opposing team came from a 40 - 12 kill difference, to match it with a 45 - 45. The game got definitely drawn out further than we thought since we didn't end it fast enough and all their carries got fat and powerful.

DotA2 is never going to have a concede vote. I'll settle for not getting an abandon just because the other team is being a bag of dicks.

Every fucking game against stupid people, at least. You don't have to be a supergenius to realize that you have a late-game team.

There are team comps that could absolutely wreck the other team in early game, but generally fall apart in late game.. Venomancer, CM, Chen, Undying, Night Stalker, Bane, Zeus... If there were a concede option, they would win EVERY FUCKING GAME.

Never played an online game with a concede option, huh?

Except in the vast majority of games that doesn't happen, because an early game steamroll isn't conducive to any comeback. A late game team still needs farm, and that usually means turtling for the next half hour to catch up. I'd rather have a 20 minute loss than a 50 minute win.

I have, and there are a lot of stupid people out there. But I don't think it would be as bad as you're suggesting.

If you can't enjoy a 50 minute comeback win, you should not be reading this thread. Your opinions here are invalid.

Are peoples' opinions also invalid in the case of not enjoying an enemy team literally farming kills at the fountain for minutes?

Respectfully, Pogo, you do not know what you're talking about.

If you can get a carry to farm up effectively, then it is enough to swing a bad game into a win. I've played a number of games now where I and three other players just turtle up when the game is looking dire, hold as many towers as possible while someone who might be playing Anti-mage or Void or some other carry like that farms the jungle endlessly. From there, we turn the game around - the carry will have some crazy items, be levelled high and able to melt the opposition who were too busy pushing towers slowly compared to backing off and either warding the jungle to shut down the carry, or farming up themselves.

Aaron, it isn't fun being in that position you are in. However, I think the frequency of that event (being farmed in the fountain) is less than cry baby whingers who even lose first blood for instance and call gg and demand a concede. Maybe a better concede option would be to make it available when a party of 5 is in game. That would work with both competitive matches (rather than the boring gg and exit) as well as the typical discussion amongst the whole team that should be happening to determine if it is worth a game to continue.

Well, no, a solid concede option is one that can be made 20 minutes after the start of the match.

I have no idea how you could even prove the statement I made as false.

Fact: The majority of games where you're steamrolled are losses. You think I need to do research for this shit?

Alternatively, you could play games that don't last more than twenty minutes. I'm not going to say what's a better game (well, yes I am; Dominion is probably the worst of the LPGs since Riot doesn't, you know, balance champions for it), but Dominion is the best LPG for me, since I never have the opportunity to rage for forty fucking minutes after the match is clearly over. Still has epic comebacks, but I rage much, much less than I did in SR or HoN or Doates.

You never really played Dota though? You didn't like the fact you needed to learn things, etc and went back to the game you knew how to play (similar to what happened when you played HoN funnily enough). I mean each to their own, I'm certainly not going to try and tell people what to like. I just know you like simple stuff you don't have to try too hard at.

Pogo: I think you are confusing League with Dota, I think I'm about 50/50 on games won when it looked like we were horribly behind due to better team comp and late game decision making. I've also lost games where my team has been so far ahead I didn't even entertain the idea the enemy would catch up nevermind win. These are not isolated incidents either, although I nearly always play Dota with a team of 3-5 people I know so maybe there's something in that either.

I'm also completely behind having a concede vote but this particular point you are trying to campaign is fucking pointless. There is far better indisputable ones you could easily use, instead I'm just sitting here cringing and defending a position I don't agree with.

Sure, but I wasn't about to go off on another tangent about all the horrible things DotA2 does. I think they've all been covered in this thread.

Or you could take your god damn Ritalin. :)

Buy smoke of deceit and hide in the woods.

Ahh, involuted workarounds to easily solved problems, how I have always loved thee. Ever since I tried to play a Necromancer in Dark Ages of Camelot, in fact!

It's not "easily solved". Adding concede to DOTA2 would turn it into a very different game. It would make things like buying Midas pointless, because the rest of your team is going to vote to end it.

Having the "abandon" timer stop ticking when enemies are inside your base is easy and there's basically no reason not to do it.