Queuing in the US East region and then being teamed up with a South American 4-stack who endlessly ridiculed me for not understanding Portuguese is something I’ll never forget as a testament to the toxicity factor.
I played in pretty much every server except South Asia and Australia. While South Americans were outstandingly toxic even for a dota community, solo ranking in Russia was and is the worst experience of my life. Nothing could beat the mental torture these guys put you through.
I've faced the same in EU and NA servers where I am mocked by english speakers for my accent and suddenly my accent becomes the reason we are losing and not the gameplay itself
Thanks my dude! I'm glad you enjoyed it - it's a bit of a strange video but I really think the idea of loving and hating a game at the same time is very real! I've had such a crazy relationship with the game over the years so it was fun to track it all and put it into a little essay!
I absolutely understand what you're talking about, because I've been there but for a lot more. 8600 hours now on Dota, tried to tryhard around the years of 2016-2020, I was mad, I was angry, I was happy, all emotions went in. I had some breaks from Dota like a half a year or following up to the latest which was 1,5 year, but I always came back. I'd say I came back to play turbo games with friends, then another friend came and told me to play ranked, so I did, but I'm older now, more wiser and of course losing hurts and seeing smurfs or people who are not good at the game or griefers - it sucks, but I just play calm and try to enjoy the game, from 70% I don't even care about the rank anymore and I gotta say I used to be toxic before leading me to such a low behavior score of 2800 points. Since I came back, I made it back to 7000 and I'm on the way of getting more just by simply not texting, pinging or talking anything at all, immediately muting toxic players, if you have griefer who flames you for one mistake the entire game. Just don't be angry about it (I know it's hard), let him ruin, he's gonna be punished, play your best, maybe after 20 minutes you'll show him you can carry the game with your 3 other team mates without him. I always said that I love Dota as a game, it's something magical combined with the pro scenes and stories of OG, Team liquid, NaVi etc., the game just has the one of the most toxic community out here and you cannot do anything about it since newcomers are not really gonna happen in Dota. Really great video and as a fellow Dota player I really appreciate the summary why we love and hate this game!
It's funny how we all have this common experience - it's a truly toxic place but the game just keeps sucking you in. That being said I've really not enjoyed the last few patches and it's put me off playing in a more permanent way recently. That being said I think if they released a pre-7.00 Dota classic patch I've be sucked right back in!
This game is like being in a drug cartel. Its a lifestyle, takes hold over every aspect of life, will give you a rush like you've never had at its best, will reduce you to the day you were born at its worst. If you manage to get out of that life, stay out.
Outstanding work, dude! This is basically how I felt towards dota 2. I played it between 2013 - 2015 (never touched it since) and I hated it and loved it at the same time. I’d grown so accustomed to the toxicity that at one point I wrote “i’m a fuckin idiot i’m sorry” in all chat and then went on a rant targeted at myself for my bad play (so I was effectively verbally abusing myself myself lol). It was a small mistake on mid, it was really not that big a deal. And someone wrote “it’s okay dude, it’s only a game”. My jaw dropped. No random Dota 2 player had shown me that level of kindness lol. That moment stuck with me for some reason
I'm glad you enjoyed the video and vibed with the point of it! It really is such a strange game - so utterly impenetrable but at the same time incredibly alluring and addictive. I've seen so much self flame playing the game over the years as well so your story doesn't surprise me (although it is nice haha) I had a friend who would get so frustrated with himself he eventually had to stop playing. Such a crazy headspace for a game to get you into! Anyways thanks for watching as ever my dude!
Idk if the community is just different now or unranked is different but i'd say basically theres only a toxic player every several matches nowadays usually everyones just having fun and even at the end we all just say gg that was a fun match and move on. I'm sure in higher ranked matches ppl get more toxic though I just play unranked mostly.
I'm so happy you feel the same! It's such an oddly unique video which I think only really a certain kind of Dota player will "get" but I'm really happy I made it and that other people have found it relatable!
I've never played Dota, but I have dabbled in the MOBA genre with Heroes of the Storm and Pokemon Unite. I can completely understand this love/hate relationship with the game. This is exactly why I can't play ranked Starcraft 2 anymore. I was never any good, but somehow, I got good enough to get into gold (which I'm still proud of). But spending 30 minutes a match to only lose is very disheartening. I think I should start taking it easy on games that have ranked modes. It is truly exhausting at times. AND NOT EVEN THAT GOOD. lol Awesome video. I'm glad I recently discovered your channel a few days ago. It's going to be a fun binge to watch!
Frankly dropping out of the multiplayer grind and throwing myself back into single player games completely resparked my love and now I'm here running a YT channel! I couldn't recommend giving the ranked games the boot more
I found your channel by random algorithm chance but this is a fantastic video. I played about 3k hours between TI3-6 but stopped cold turkey and haven’t come back. I even attended TI 4,5,and 6 back when they’re in Seattle. I know the names, most hero’s/skills, but the changes over the years feel like a completely alien game. I just don’t have the mental bandwidth to keep up. So happy that Pyrion and Purge are still apart of the community. Their videos brought so much joy and knowledge.
It's crazy to think that Purge is probably responsible for so many people coming to grips with the mechanics and actually being able to enjoy the game. I owe him a lot!
5,000+ hours played since 2016, currently a 5900 mmr player. I just absolutely agree with so many things from this video. My friend sent it to me to watch, and I am astonished. I had a very similar relationship with Dota, with the difference of learning it from scratch by playing bots and single draft for 1000+ matches before I was confident enough to move on to ranked. Immersing into constant loop of being happy about my wins and feeling sad from loses. Eventually, I found a hero and gameplay I fell in love with. Spamming Earth Spirit mid made my mmr spike from 2k to 5.5k within a year, and I learnt tons of useful information along the way. Now I just pick and learn whatever I like, recently spamming Beastmaster, Doom and Leshrac. Though my very first signature hero was Invoker. Despite playing Dota rarely, I still queue ranked, but now rather than spamming the same heroes and following the same strategy, I pay attention to what new I can learn or try and my game experience has improved dramatically. I just really appreciate the video you made. From bringing TI8 flashbacks to my mind to just having a great time watching the video and recalling memories of how I started, how I watched others progress, and how I brought myself back to enjoying the game and not being anxious over potential mmr lose. I am yet to see your other videos, and although this video is one of the most unpopular on your channel, I can clearly see that you are a talented individual, I was amazed how quickly you described the game, and how natural your storytelling is. Keep up the good work!
I'm glad to hear that this video resonated with you! It's a tricky thing trying to write about multiplayer games but I think Dota really is such a unique case that I had to make something about it! Thanks for taking the time to comment and I hope you enjoy my other videos too!
@@Drizzit57 touch some grass internet goblin. if you've got nothing positive in your life and can only spread your negativity then better get some help
I started playing dota in 2007. I still play dota in 2022. I had to take a few breaks, some long, some short, some willingly, some by circumstance. I really am not certain why I keep coming back to the game. After the tens of thousand of hours played, the trolling doesnt hurt less, the absolute breaking down of cohesion baffles me still. I can say it is an absolute thrill, and when it feels like a fair fight, I really dont mind losing. I do mostly play Ability Draft nowadays, I mean... for the past 8 years... but I still play ap with friends, and I still school fools where the opportunities lay. It is funny that in 2016 you (the video creator) had a moment of tryhard, because it was during this time I too took everything way to seriously and really suffered for it. The toxicity is more than grating, there really is something unhealthy to a lot of it. Over the past 6 years I have lost pretty much all of my past friends but I have also learnsd how to handle it better. That said, there are still.absolutely crushing moments that feel like a constant, where I feel abused or even tortured by toxic team mates. I at least now have learned how to keep my behavior score up at 9-10k but I can hardly go a game or two withouy running into someone who wants to bring out the worst in me or completely and utterly deny my existence. I dont get it, but I keep playing it. My best advice is to find people to play it with, especially people who are supportive and friendly, and take a break. Chaining 8 games in a row is its own zen but cam often result in a fatiguing slog of loss after loss. maybe play one or two, hell even three, but step away or even the briefest of moments, touch grass, get some standing and stretching and walking in, go do something else, then maybe play one or two or three more.. 😉
Completely agree 100% and thanks for taking the time to write that out! I now only play with a few friends and it's always just for fun rather than with a real sense of competition. I still very much play to win but I think I've finally beaten that demon that says "you HAVE to win" - a loss can be just as enjoyable if it's hard-fought and well thought out! Now a throw when your 1 and 2 go T4 instead of taking the rax and going rosh - that's harder to swallow lmao
@@IFinishedAVideoGame dont worry, they will blame you for the loss. I just recently had a game like this... but our third front split to a third rax and we died because we didnt coalesce(sp.?) 3 of my team muted me even tho I didnt talk too much, they just dont like to recieve criticism. after muting me they blame me citing a reason like 'ur build sucks' hen theirs actually makes zero sence and they picked ignorant to draft. I am trans, so I get the added benefit of being disliked for my 'gay voice'... but I keep queuing...
Thank you for reminding me of the TI8 OG run. It was the perfect story and I doubt it will ever get topped. Everything about it is like out of a movie. Genuinely that grand finals game 4 was the most hyped I've ever been.
This video is a little out of the ordinary for me - usually you can find me making feature length retrospectives about strange and interesting video games like this - th-cam.com/video/tsjkAraZkco/w-d-xo.html - it's a full exploration about the history of PANZER DRAGOON and how Sega went from the top of the industry all the way to the bottom. It was a real passion project to put together - hopefully you enjoy it!
Thanks so much for the kind words and for watching! Honestly I just enjoy getting my thoughts out there and seeing what people think - when people say stuff like that it's all the reward I need!
I've never played this and it looks absolutely crazy but always love your commentary and insights my dude. Learnt a lot about Dota 2 today. Congrats on 400 subscribers! 👏
Man thank you so much and thanks for all the support! You're a king amongst men! Yeah it's a pretty bonkers game and I'm definitely in the midst of a bit of an addiction phase haha
Oh boy this is gonna be a hard one to swallow. I used to be one of the DOTA 1 OGs, started playing it back in 2009. The game was already pretty complex and competitive back then, and I had no TH-cam tutorials to lean on since TH-cam was still a relatively new thing. It was a trial by fire, learning by sucking at the game. The switch to DOTA 2 wasn't that hard since it was more or less just a graphical and engine upgrade with a few tweaks and changes made here and there. I enjoyed it for a few years, but then they just kept adding mechanics we didn't ask for, items we didn't need, and a lot of the time these stuff were added all the while there were tons of balance issues with the old meta. So the new addition will either miraculously fix the meta (which was a rare occurrence) or just completely break the game in a new way. I threw in the towel after around a whopping 1600 hours logged in, at which point I just wanted to move on to something that valued my ever shortening gaming time way more. It was a game the kid me loved, but as I grew up, had to pick up my studies, get a job, the game became a second job that didn't pay, and I just wasn't enjoying the way I did when I started. Now, DOTA has basically become it's own separate community. You normally don't hear people talk about it in the general gaming community like they used to back in the day. MOBAs simply aren't a thing anymore. The game is extremely unwelcoming to new players, so all it can hope to do is retain the playerbase it does hold.
You're spot on with how segregated Dota has become. Personalities in the community really just stick to Dota and I swear I saw a graph years ago saying that people who watch Dota on Twitch almost exclusively watch that game and nothing else! I know just from the response to this video that there just really isn't much interest in the game in mainstream circles anymore! Still I love that I made this ode to a game that took so much of my life (for bad and good). I love seeing comments like yours because I feel like we all have this fellowship about our feelings to this game haha! Thanks for watching!
I've been playing exclusively ability draft in dota since it was released in game. It definetly maintains the no serious all fun aspect that dota used to be. Its way less stressful and super fun to make weird ability builds. I'd highly recommend giving it a try!
@@IFinishedAVideoGame give er a go! It's got a lot of depth as well, since your given your hero randomly but it still retains it's talents and stats (strength/agi/int) so you've got a good starting point to build around. Plus some combos are Hela fun and broken ( eg ES aftershock + plagueward = Perma aoe stun)
I think I ended on 6000 hours played time on Dota 2. Me and a friend group actually played in a few small tournaments back in the day! I fell away from it due to the toxicity, and also partly due to taking a break at some stage and coming back to what you were saying about the mass of changes that are hard to keep up with. I went to Frankfurt to watch ESL live in person and man, It was one of the best trips I've ever taken! Incredible atmosphere. Great video as always. Watched it start to finish and you have covered the top perfect. Great job as always!
Ah man I'm so jealous! ESL Frankfurt was always such a good tournament! We should definitely look at organising something for ESL Birmingham when it's back as that's always been a real highlight of the calendar and I'd love to go! Anyway man thanks watching and I'm insanely happy that someone with such a large amount of time in the game could relate to it!
I remember playing a game with my friend and I was just so so bad. He was like yeah you can’t keep playing because no one on his friends list wanted to ply again with me because I was so bad. I asked how to get better and he told me about the online walkthroughs. I don’t remember laughing so hard at advice in my life. I’m happy this game is there for the many people who love it, but I will never be among them.
18:15 This segment of the video (and the next) speaks to why I somewhat have a disdain towards esports. Most PvP games these days seem to always be geared towards the hardcore pro player to get a piece of that esports pie. In my opinion, making your game more geared towards the competitive scene just ruins it. It just makes these games less fun, gives you less room to experiment or make mistakes, players become too serious, the game itself becomes too serious. Now, I still enjoy watching esports. I just love watching competitions and all that. But there's always that sad feeling at the back of my mind that these games just aren't made for people like me.
I've very much come around to that way of thinking. I just don't have the energy these days for the grind that esports require but I'm more than happy to watch someone else!
I've sank 13,000 hours into this game plus maybe one or two thousand more with the original DotA (I started playing in 2010), and you've perfectly encapsulated my feelings for this game in one video. Sleepless nights through college and adult life playing the game, the mad streak with ranked games and falling out of the game only to come back again, and the pro scene. Thank you.
well, the thing most ppl dont understand and causes them frustration when grinding mmr is that until you get to some high point mmr, you NEED to spam 3-5 heroes every single match, and when you loses too much you NEED to understand that even if you are playing with 4 monkeys on your team, it is still your fault, it is what it is, thats why the heros you NEED to spam have to be strong independent ones that can flash-farm, take towers easy, have easy escape or easy kill-potential without a supp on your lane. Finally, understand that those meta videos on yt dont work until you reach the high mmr point that depends 100% of the region you are playing. Aim to win your lane every single time by picking knowing enemy who you are dealing with on the lane and snowball from there.
Definitely the right take - when I was at my highest I was spamming literally 2 cores and 2 supports which I knew would never get banned and I knew I could solo carry as. It's a shame in a way because variety is one of the joys of the game but if you want to climb - that's the only way
I started Dota 2 in 2020 with the pandemic and my friends trying to find games to play together. As someone who likes to study videogames and an "innovator" kind of player, I fell in love with the complexity of it all. I play most heroes and LOVE to explore all the weird builds. I find myself to be tired of the game and .. I find another hero that can play differently and end up grinding them for a while. I would say that playing with others is a different experience than playing with randos in pub. There is a weekly Saturday-only tournament that happens and playing it with 4 other friends was magical. We would talk strategy and such before the game even starts and end up with many cool wombo-combos. And .. I love the artstyle? As someone who grew up with WC3 and other old PC games, There is some charm to the game that is much more beautiful to me than many others now.
Well hopefully everyone likes it! It's been a rollercoaster playing Dota and it was a rollercoaster video to make haha! Thanks anyway for the support my dude, it's always appreciated!
Pre watch comment. I have watched probably 20 hrs of your content so far and love it. I always love when you bring up dota 2, I love Dota and am looking forward to this upload I jist stumbled upon!!!!
I hope you can relate to my experience! It's such a strange game and I think even as the game has changed from when I wrote this - much of it is still relevant!
I still remember the days of grinding this game for 10-12 hours straight to get my rank up. I destroyed my old PC while raging after a lost game in a tournament. This game has given me so many good memories that I look fondly upon and so many bad memories I would rather forget. Thank you for making this amazing video summarising all of my feelings towards this game. I stopped playing it months ago, but still follow the pro-scene like you do and it's as glorious as you said.
It's such an odd one isn't it! Hours and hours of pain and misery but really great memories that I wouldn't have traded for anything. It's why I love the title - a love letter to a game I hate. It's a complicated relationship that I don't think I'll ever break!
I watched this video in a darkened room on a large OLED screen (important detail). The video effects you started using at 21:40 made me think I was experiencing an actual hallucination lmao. If you've never used an OLED screen it's hard to explain but I literally thought my TV was shrinking and warping for a moment.
I have thousands of hours in both Dota1 and 2. Been 7 years away from Mobas (I refuse to play them now ) and moved on from the addiction and the FOMO. Co-op games like DRG is the cure for the Toxicity of MOBAs. I used to mute everyone for my own sanity...
I've actually been on quite a big break myself. I really wasn't a fan of the latest two patches which just seemed to add even more pointless abilities and variables without actually adjusting the core strategy. Still excited for TI but I highly doubt it'll cause a relapse now!
I played the game once in the original one where the game is based on, altough it was on godmode and nothing else more. I'd been a league player and I don't think I'll ever play a game of this one. I don't know why I expected a guide on this one watching this so don't ask me. Still, great video. I was interested in the game and I loved to hear it from someone I'm watching as a league player. I can't believe that rival thing happened in a real life scene.
not to mention the crazy skill progression, improve or get left behind >be 4k mmr when the person with the highest mmr is with 6k >stop playing for some time >come back and find out that your 4k mmr back then would be equal to 2k mmr now and that the highest is 12k
This is so so true! I have actually since recalibrated my rank since I finished this video and I was actually shocked at how much it had fallen despite actually feeling like I'm a much better player now. I guess it's exactly what you say - the oldies at 3.5k are now 2k haha! I just can't face the grind to get back to 4k so it's back to unranked for me (even if it is often a complete mess haha)
Enjoyed your video about Mortal Shell, a game I love. Decided to watch a video about a game I know nothing about... equally entertained. You've earned a sub, sir.
21:50 I went through the same thing around the same era. Except not 3 hours a day, more like 14 hours a day. When I wasn't sleeping I was playing, or watching vods, or reading guides. I dropped out of uni and just played all day for like 2 years straight. I even paid for lessons and premium accounts on stats sites. Had to quit cold turkey, too. Luckily, to me the game is dead now. The post-7.00 Dota 2 is just not the same game. If it were, I'm sure I'd relapse, ignore responsibilities and just play all day again. But I have tried, and it just doesn't appeal to me. Sometimes that makes me sad, when I reminisce about my favorite game of all time, like an ex-addict about all the "good times" they had on drugs. Knowing I can never again experience that game I fell in love with even if I wanted to. That's probably what has saved me, though. Maybe if I enjoyed unranked all the recent changes wouldn't be such a big deal, but you couldn't pay me to play unranked. Not then, not now.
I'd say keep it that way my dude! I have such a better time watching pro games these days than actually playing myself and the amount of time and stress I've gained back is amazing!
@@IFinishedAVideoGame You're right about the time. I can't watch pro games either. It's just not the same. Dota 2 used to have this Starcraft 2-like purity to it, where a skilled player could account for every variable and know exactly what is happening at all times. "If I stay behind this tuft of grass on the bottom lane, there is no possible way ES can fissure me from the fog" or "the last black hole was at 12:30, we have exactly 15 seconds to Roshan" or "I have 225hp, lina can't kill me with one spell and has no mana for two." In an effort to chase "making players feel more powerful" there is now an endless amount of variables and RNG and not even the best of pro players can account for all of it. Does enigma have 12.5% CD reduction and what does that work out to exactly? Does the support hiding in the bushes have extra magic damage or range? Did the forest creatures drop an RNG item? It's all "best guesses" and "playing the odds", where as in the olden days there were very few unknown variables. Few enough that players could mentally prepare for them, such as "Tide hasn't been showing on map, does he have blink already?". An experienced player could stay on top of everything in real-time even in busy team fights. No one that exists anymore. Ironically adding too many variables in effect lowered the skill ceiling, because even at best a player gets lucky or is rewarded for their bravado. It's no longer "he KNEW he would walk away with 2hp".
The highs are high and the lows are... worse. I can really relate to a lot that has been said in here and this is from someone that has only played for a short amount of time! (ish). The best bits about this game is the pro-scene/e-sports for me and the game itself is an amazing addition... which can't be said for many game/s out there. Lose together, win together, slay together, slay together, slay together.
Since everyone is telling their DOTA story, here's mine that no one asked for! I was 15 when I first introduced to DOTA, I remembered hating it when my friends played because I had no idea what was happening and all I could hear was the incessant mouse clicks. Fast forward to TI5 later that year, I was invited for a sleepover by another group of friends (unknowingly they planned to watch TI5). Having nothing else better to do, I watched along. Tobiwan's commentary and EG's iconic roshpit fight shifted my whole perspective on it. 2016, I started delving into the world of DOTA. I was just enthralled by the lore and the strategy behind the game, that's when I truly realized "It's not just clicking". Having 0 experience with any kinda MOBAs, learning the mechanics was the toughest for me. Also didn't help that I was playing on a Mac. My friends helped me out a lot though, back then there were no tutorials for new players. Even now the tutorials are severely lacking. After a number of games, I calibrated at 1.7k MMR. Back when it was based purely on numbers, and not the shiny medals that we now have! I remembered thinking back then, wanting to match the MMR of one my friends who was the best at the game in my friend group - he was 3.2k MMR. That was my primary goal because I considered him a really good player. Over the years we continued playing and playing, highs and lows, arguments with each other, staying up late at night just to duke out 70 minute games, stomping noobs and being toxic for the sake of it. Eventually I managed to surpass my friend, when I reached 4k MMR - I was now the highest MMR in my friend group and I lost my motivation. And pretty soon all of us shifted to other games/priorities. Even though I would have hiatuses now and then, DOTA would always be my fallback game. When they introduced the medal system, I had a new goal - Divine. Now, 2022, my entire friend group has stopped playing DOTA. Only me and the other that I mentioned earlier, I'm now at ranked Immortal (3300~) at 5.6k MMR. And honestly it was when I didn't care whether I lost or won the game that I had truly started to win a lot more (I plateaued at Divine 3 for a few years). I didn't carry the toxicity or negativity as baggage when I clicked the search button. It's been a real journey, from hating the game to absolutely loving it, and sacrificing hours just to understand and get decent at the game, to now - not quite at the top but I'm content. Watching TIs with my friends and playing in competitions and staying up late at night to play with them will always be among my fondest memories. :)
That was an absolutely awesome read! Thanks so much for taking the time to tell your story! It's an utterly crazy game and I find it so insane that we can all have these such varied journeys with it. We're like a combination of an avid fan and an addict - oscillating between hating it and loving it, always trying to work out new ways to define the relationship and keep it healthy! Hopefully you are feeling in a good place with it and are looking forward to this years TI - I can't bloody believe new OG won the last major!
@@IFinishedAVideoGame Thanks for sharing yours as well and actually taking the time to read mine ahhaha! I don't really catch the majors/pro games anymore since I'm not really a fan of any teams right now, be it playstyle or personalities. Last teams I rooted for was Ramzes' & Noone's VP and Team Spirit last TI. I did watch the Semis of the last major tho, was very fun! Makes me super excited for next TI, shame it'll be super expensive considering it's during F1 season in SG. That's why I'm really envious that you got to go to these live events! Went to a screening of like 50 people once and that already an insane experience, I would love to experience it live one day. :)
OG fully deserved their win, I wasn't a huge fan of Ceb due to the True Sight and how he seemed like the stereotypical arrogant Frenchman 😂 but honestly I came around after his reaction to True Sight, and realized how it's just psyching him and the team up!
I Feel the same, couldn't get into the game today. Even back in 2012, with around 50 heroes and much less stuff, it took me hundreds of games to understand what is happening in the game. Now, i am on a break for a year now, part of me wants to come back and play again, but the other part is afraid to relearn dota (again).
I played Dota since 2008 and stoping playing it in 2021. The game stress me so much. But i keep loving it and love so much the beauty of the Profesional Dota. The only game that is close to Dota in entertaiment and epicness is CSGO.
Absolutely! I have no idea why I keep coming back to this hyper stressful but somehow incredibly fun and satisfying game. I think the Pro scene does a great job of keeping peoples attention long term!
Honestly my dude it is so different to when I first started! It's virtually a completely different game now (if you ignore that the map heroes and gameplay are all still the same haha)
I started playing in 2005 via LAN parties and I barely recognize the game anymore. I still remember when Puck was introduced by ice frog from a community contest and when Mirana was new and her ult chased down a hero and it couldn't be canceled. I still remember when SA threw down a stasis trap as well. I miss when the game had a dark atmosphere. How it feels too "cutesy" and marketed towards children.
Funny how dota is just in its little corner of the internet. I did not even know it was that big of an esport and that the game was still going on strong. As a league player, everything in the video is really understandable. The part about knowledge, taking things seriously and ranked toxicity really resonated
Thanks my friend! Yeah it's a funny little video because it really can only be truly understood by people who have had similar relationships with online games but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The comments from people who have had the same experience are all really great to see!
@@IFinishedAVideoGame Yeah I too found it really relatable as someone who played dota2 for almost 5000 hours and I droped the game arround the same time as you did ^^ Keep up the good work currently watching Your LOTR Marathon ^^
Been playing all my life. Ever since dota 1. This is a lifestyle game. I'm very happy for it to exist. Btw, the first learning site was dota commentaries where people would make VODs of pro player matches. Back in wc3 days. Also, you shouldn't play ranked if you never played poker. It's the same in a lot of ways. You do your best every time, but still can go on a massive downstreak. Just not tilt and go on. Eventually you will climb rank.
Thanks so much Simon! I do really enjoy making these videos and honestly it's really nice to see that people enjoy them too! I'm currently at the tail end of an absolutely huge project which I've been working on for about 2 months. Just starting to record it now so I really hope it can be done in the next few weeks!
Such a great retrospective! As someone who played a similiar amount of hours in the past I can confirm - the lack of humanity that you can experience in this game something else. I don't even know if some of those people can be considered human. I remember the time when I really liked Cloud 9 when NoTail was still playing there. I think they have the record for the longest Dota 2 match ever played.
I absolutely loved that old Cloud9 team! Bone7 in the offlane was someone who I copied all the time! Blademail + 3 null talisman Natures Prophet was bonkers stuff but actually worked!
The thing with dota is that the highs are really high and the lows are really low,it's sort of like gambling. Specially if u make a comeback win because your random team just clicked for that 1 team fight that turned a loss into a win. Had a comeback like that once and one of my team mates said "what kind of magic is this??" And it was, it looked liked some voodoo shit the way we turned that around lol
Man that is completely spot on - it's like a drug you get addicted to that wanes in strength but every now and then delivers that same high that got you hooked in the first place. I can't believe I've been playing it for 10 years and frankly still have as much fun now as I did back then (albeit with huge doses of frustration mixed in)
As someone who never played Dota 2 for a long amount of time, but instead played LoL to suffer a similar fate... I can relate a lot to your experiences with how negatively it can affect you. Just that League doesn't seem to have a bright side nowadays.
I played a bit of original DotA at the tail end of its time, then a few thousand hours of HoN before Dota 2 came out. I poured so many hours of my early twenties into Dota 2 before quitting and I have the same complex feelings about it. After almost a decade away, the rose tinted glasses kicked in and I started playing again a bit over a year ago. I was determined to relearn the meta with a few friends and start climbing. I think the big change between now and then is that I'm so much more in touch with my feelings now, so I can really recognise how upsetting an 'unfair' loss is. At the same time, each loss is a teaching moment in non-attachment and accepting that I can only control my behaviour in the match. Sure, you can try and be the team psychologist at the beginning of every match - but it's not sustainable. The key is playing with friends and having a clear mission statement. The highs are soaring, no other game compares in that way. When you make a coordinated play or read and turn a game around, there's nothing else like it. Thanks for this video, it was awesome ❤️
It's honestly been very refreshing to see replies like yours and to feel like there is at least a subsection of the Dota community who have "grown-up" and now just enjoy the game for what it is - free from the intensity and toxicity that was so defining of it in the early days! Glad you're enjoying it - keep that fire burning!
Before watching competitive dota I wasn't a big fan of sports overall, like, how can you watch football when you could just go play it. I get it now, I've never played a single match of dota but I never miss watching TI, it's something really special.
Yeah it's funny how you can become so invested in something without ever having played it! I'm quite a big cricket fan but I've never thrown a ball or swung a bat in my life!
Love the video dude, eloquently covered why MOBA's require rose coloured glasses. I am a LOL main played HON and DOTA2 in therly 2010's and all them seem to have unintentional gatekeeping, the best version of a tutorial is LOL's because you have to buy the champions so you can't get overwhelmed as easily. I got back into it recently and man do feel the toxicity seeping back in.
I can never really get entirely away from it even if I try. I've just finished watching The International for the 12th time and even now - I'm feeling the pull of the game!
Dota 2 is just the best online game to date. Period. However, I have to disagree with your overcomplication take. Actually, as far as I am concerned, new mechanics and overall change to how the game flows made it simpler for newbies to play it, with talents, cheap ags shard, neutral items there is always something useful your hero can do, rather than being stuck in a hopeless effort of getting enough gold to make your hero start being useful.
I'm not sure they make it simpler but they definitely make it more engaging. You're right in that you always have something to be doing which makes the game a lot more fun but in terms of the amount of information there is to learn - it really is quite a lot for someone with minimal MOBA understanding!
Dota always has a special place in my heart. I dedicate a lot of hours in it more than 20k hours in dota 2 and countless hours in dota 1 where me and my friends always played for 3 years straight in my college days. I had so many great memories good and bad in it. Left the game playing but still I follow tournaments, videos patches.
This here is the game that made me quit online gaming, sorta shattering their illusion for me. I have over 2500 hours of Dota on Steam. After spending hundreds of hours on research (exactly as described in this video) I finally realised how futile it all was. All that time and effort and I both wasn't improving enough and had to constantly find some rando to say "GG" at the first three minutes of the game where (like stated) matches last around 40 + mins and tower dives yelling "it's everyone else's fault" when I swear to Zeus, no one had mistreated the guy at that point AT ALL. It's soul crushing. Why am I even doing this? What's the end goal of Dota? Why do I legitimately get punished so hard for trying to play well and politely? Why do I get into teams like this or against teams like this when I'm not in low priority playing casually? It's not fun to win against a team where someone just throws the game for no reason either. I would say to improve is the fun in the game, but in a game where you depend on callous others that takes hundreds of hours off your time in and out of game, it is just not worth it. I could've beaten more games. Done more drawing. Instead, I played an online game.
It's a sad thing that binds us together - but I sort of love that this video draws in people who have a similar hate/love relationship with this game. I've never experienced such crushing lows and this game has brought me and it's nice to meet people who know exactly how I felt! Honestly - giving up online multiplayer games and focusing again on single-player really revived my love for games massively
Man your experience is so much like mine, down too getting borderline if not outright depression, stopping playing but keeping engaged with the competetive scene and coming back, calmer, taking it less seriously. Also there is such a lack of this kinda analytical content in Dota and its a damn shame
Yeah it's annoying isn't it - it's such a complex game that prompts such a range of emotions so you'd think it would make for fascinating subject matter for video essays. Instead, we just get 30,000 identical takes on Dark Souls which is a shame as I feel like there is real potential in discussing multiplayer games!
@@IFinishedAVideoGame Yup, and Dota also has some fascinating gameplay quirks that is unlike so much else today. Legit have had ideas of making Video essays on the game
I just read the title and laughed. I played dota for years and I hate it. I just my teammates. They suck, so did I. It just made me so angry. I rarely had fun. Haven’t played in years.
I got in the game in 2012. Definitely know what you mean by feeling depressed by it. Went to college without my PC and slowly fell off it since I couldn't play. Kinda glad it did because it is just such an intense game. I've considered dipping back in but it's just too much. That being said I still love reading patch notes and watching those funny moment videos sunsfan makes. Also TI3 was such an amazing tournament. Navi clutching the win in the loser bracket from the pudge hook teleport to go onto a 5 set final with Alliance was incredible.
Sounds like you got out at a good time! I sometimes think it's crazy to think that I'm still somewhat regularly playing the game 10 years after I first played it (I should be so much better than I am) - it puts Dota in a category with Street Fighter and Smash Bros for games that feel like "all timers" for me. Honestly I would say between reading patch notes, enjoying the odd YT video and watching TI - that's all the Dota you could possibly need! Only jump back in if you're totally sure because it can suck you in hard!
I know there's a bit of a feid btw lol and dota players but as a pol player i had a similar relationship to lol. In fact the part about you being able to play it with your friends gives me hope i can have a realthier relationship with the game eventually.
Grew up playing dota, been playing on and off for 17 years since version 6.27. I was in 4th grade when my cousin introduced this to me, I feel bad for the new players trying this out in this time since it will be mostly smurfs, I was lucky when I started because no one really knows how to play Dota properly back in mid 2000s, everyone just kills creeps for 40 minutes and push towers, there was no concept of support and cores.
Haha you know it my dude - I've also had them against old Naga and Terrorblade as well! It's just agony especially when you're desperate to go to bed lmao
@@IFinishedAVideoGame aside from matthewmathosis I haven't seen anyone cover dota with anything above a 20 minute mark It was nice seeing these kinds of essay on a game like dota Not to mention the funny af reviews on steam And yea just like you, I only play turbo nowadays xD
@@yuan5154 it's surprising as there is so much to talk about! Honestly it's a shame that more video essayists don't challenge themselves to talk about multiplayer games - we don't need another essay on Deus ex lmao
@@IFinishedAVideoGame I mean, it's a few thousand hours of investment :o I definitely agree that this game is brutal to newcomers, the first few hundred of games are basically trial and error. Getting hands on experience on how the hero hits, attack animation, lvl 1 armor, movement speed orb walking There's quite Abit to learn, and like u said, its definitely like getting a degree lol
It's a 5v5 chess where the players are either very good or literal manbabies. The game itself is hard to learn but the toxicity is just another level. I don't know if I will still be playing if it weren't my childhood game.
Yeah it's absolutely brutal for newcomers. I would say it's very much not worth it unless you're a masochist who wants to spend 100 hours to understand a game you still won't be good at!
ah DOTA, it have special place for me because it one of few online games I enjoy on Net Cafe play along with friends. 2009~2011. we fooling around, cry, laugh, learn, make mistakes, share joy and sadness together then irl hit we separate. such experience kinda make me feel this game more about team so kinda funny see people spit each on random matchup. for me the allure of DOTA is the friends I make back then so without them most interest toward online game on general kinda lost. with them I never feel like play alone. anyway it fun to see crystal maiden and slayer spit each other lol
This video kind of makes me want to try it. For the longest time, my friends and I have played league together, some of us playing purely for fun and others chasing a rank. All of this sounds very familiar! Though I can tell we starting to get very bored of League after 2 years. I have always been curious about other MOBAs. Though LoL and DOTA are the only ones left... Maybe its time to give DOTA a chance.
All I would say is prepare yourself for a massive undertaking in terms of education! I still play this all the time but I now have about 10 years worth of experience to be able to make sure I have fun with every game, taking it on without that is a big task! It's similar to League in some ways and also very different in other ways - things like denies, turn rate and a very very loose meta might really throw you off but you could find it extremely liberating!
Played Dota 2 since it was freshly launched. Now only play custom games. Ranked games are just not worth enduring the stress and after I tried Turbo mode I would never play normal mode ever again. I am very happy Valve followed the footsteps of the old Blizzard Warcraft 3 model of giving the community freedom of creating on their platform. It took a long time, but now custom game makers are thriving community in Dota 2
It's great that custom games were finally added although I do wish they were more prominent in the game - they really should be on the front page along with a list of most played etc. I can't lie - I still enjoy playing the game but frankly I couldn't imagine getting started now.
Excellent video dota 2 was the game that i spent thousands of hours playing thats even ignoring the time i watched tournaments analyzed pro players gameplay and it eventually made me quit competitive multiplayer games back in 2017, when it comes to gameplay mechanics, game design and depth dota 2 is simply minblowing in that regards however with that comes some of the most toxic community in gaming history and a game with such depth can also encourage toxic behavior where you can easily lose a game because one person simply refuses to do his job, i was slowly turning into a toxic person not only in dota 2 but irl aswell and worst of all it was slowly taking over my life and priorities, i simply had to stop, i switched back to single player games and never looked back and it was one of the best decisions i had ever made.
It is absolutely mad isn't it how we can become utterly consumed by the need to get better at a game! Looking back I can't believe how obsessed I was and I'm so glad I got to a much healthier place about it!
Ti 1 got me hooked to. I played a bit of HON And some other Mobas. Dota2 hit me different. 10 years later and almost 4000 hours spend. And i still suck. Getting called a kid with my 40 years of age. i find it quite funny. Mostly play ability draft these days..
That's amazing - the amount of insults and things I've been called while playing Dota just blows my mind. Such a hive of scum and villainy but just so damn addicting. That rush when you win a hard game really can't be matched
Its crazy how your experience with dota almost perfectly mirrors my experience with overwatch. The moral of the story is to not play game’s competitively, just play to enjoy it and have fun and don’t worry about rank or wins.
I couldn't agree more! I've actually been able to go back to dota a few times and enjoy it a lot more since this video too - it's all about just not taking it too seriously
I must agree, dota have changed way to much. Stopped playing it january this year, one thing for me that brings me back time to time is the lore. Tbf be best thing they ever had was slithbreaker.
I do sometimes really pine for the more simple but strategic game it used to be. More mechanics doesn't always mean more satisfying decision making. Something like Chess doesn't need tons of mechanics to be a deep game!
XD I used to play Dota every year during international season. Till adult responsibilities made it impossible. Love the game. Can't play it anymore at all.
I never actually knew that Dota 2 was a hard game. I used to play games like Warcraft, Command and Conquer, Age of Empires etc. It was until I had shown a friend of mine the game I realized that people actually donno where to look in the game. Their eyes kept wandering all over the place. It was hilarious to watch them play and yell 'where's my hero! where's my hero!'
Yeah exactly! I was recently watching the Stockholm Major and my girlfriend came in to sit with me and literally couldn't even understand what she was looking at. Even simple things like which side is which, what the score is and what is going on are completely obscure to someone outside the complex world of Dota! I'm happy I already know how to play it because I'd have no chance getting into it now!
I distinctly remember wanting to get into DOTA 2 years back and then being instantly turned off by the game once I learned about Denying. Denying can be done on allied creeps, structures and heroes. Once they're low enough health, you kill them yourself, so you can prevent your opponent from getting a little extra gold and experience. It's one of the best examples of the game's absurd complexity. Nevermind having to research tons of different heroes and their abilities (which is the case with every MOBA), but now I can't even turn my brain off during creep farming. The amount of micro-managing in order to stay at even a viable competitive level now's ridiculous. I get the appeal of DOTA 2, but there's no way I'm going to dedicate hundreds of hours of my life, just to get good at a single video game.
Oh absolutely - I have played the game for thousands of hours and now denying is something that I don't even need to think of but you're completely right - the amount of time it asks of you to get to a point where you can CASUALLY enjoy it is just ridiculous. It shows as well - there is currently a trend where the lower ranks are starting to increase in skill as more casual players drop out of the matchmaking and all you're left with is people who take the game somewhat seriously. It's ironically having the effect of making the game EVEN harder to get into. If you're just starting out now your chances of playing against people who are just starting has never been lower! It's a game I absolutely love but goddamn if it isn't the most impenetrable thing ever made
DotA 2 is the epitome of Chaotic Strategy game . This Game should remain as the hardest game ever. Because it's a test and a challenge to all human being and it Rival or better than chess. They put a lot of Creativity and complexity into this game so it shouldn't be like league. And in addition to that there's no end for learning this game (no exception.) btw I'm tired of playing FPS games to where it's too repetitive to me, MMO or MMORPG also time consuming for never ending farm for materials. 3rd person shooter or Adventure game takes a lot of money to begin playing in which you need console and game itself. And This Game? I can handle all the stress and always at ease with both winning and losing because I know it's all part of the game. so that's how I enjoy it.
That's definitely a fair enough point! I've had some hideously long miracle rouge Vs Reno lock games back when I used to play. I think at the very least that's the exception in HS and you are sort of in control depending on what deck you chose - in Dota there isn't really any way to guarantee you only play for half an hour!
Queuing in the US East region and then being teamed up with a South American 4-stack who endlessly ridiculed me for not understanding Portuguese is something I’ll never forget as a testament to the toxicity factor.
Welcome to the Dota experience!
I played in pretty much every server except South Asia and Australia. While South Americans were outstandingly toxic even for a dota community, solo ranking in Russia was and is the worst experience of my life. Nothing could beat the mental torture these guys put you through.
tem que saber português mano
I've faced the same in EU and NA servers where I am mocked by english speakers for my accent and suddenly my accent becomes the reason we are losing and not the gameplay itself
Muting chat in options menu is a meta to enjoy this dumpster fiee
This was an incredibly well thought out and entertaining video. As someone who doesn't even play DOTA I'm still glad I watched.
Thanks my dude! I'm glad you enjoyed it - it's a bit of a strange video but I really think the idea of loving and hating a game at the same time is very real! I've had such a crazy relationship with the game over the years so it was fun to track it all and put it into a little essay!
I absolutely understand what you're talking about, because I've been there but for a lot more. 8600 hours now on Dota, tried to tryhard around the years of 2016-2020, I was mad, I was angry, I was happy, all emotions went in. I had some breaks from Dota like a half a year or following up to the latest which was 1,5 year, but I always came back. I'd say I came back to play turbo games with friends, then another friend came and told me to play ranked, so I did, but I'm older now, more wiser and of course losing hurts and seeing smurfs or people who are not good at the game or griefers - it sucks, but I just play calm and try to enjoy the game, from 70% I don't even care about the rank anymore and I gotta say I used to be toxic before leading me to such a low behavior score of 2800 points. Since I came back, I made it back to 7000 and I'm on the way of getting more just by simply not texting, pinging or talking anything at all, immediately muting toxic players, if you have griefer who flames you for one mistake the entire game. Just don't be angry about it (I know it's hard), let him ruin, he's gonna be punished, play your best, maybe after 20 minutes you'll show him you can carry the game with your 3 other team mates without him. I always said that I love Dota as a game, it's something magical combined with the pro scenes and stories of OG, Team liquid, NaVi etc., the game just has the one of the most toxic community out here and you cannot do anything about it since newcomers are not really gonna happen in Dota.
Really great video and as a fellow Dota player I really appreciate the summary why we love and hate this game!
It's funny how we all have this common experience - it's a truly toxic place but the game just keeps sucking you in. That being said I've really not enjoyed the last few patches and it's put me off playing in a more permanent way recently. That being said I think if they released a pre-7.00 Dota classic patch I've be sucked right back in!
This game is like being in a drug cartel. Its a lifestyle, takes hold over every aspect of life, will give you a rush like you've never had at its best, will reduce you to the day you were born at its worst. If you manage to get out of that life, stay out.
The most ultimate and honest take on Dota 2 the world has ever had
A very fair and balanced review.
I completely empathize with you on this, I had a horrendous for honor addiction (I know, I deserve to be dragged for this )
Outstanding work, dude! This is basically how I felt towards dota 2. I played it between 2013 - 2015 (never touched it since) and I hated it and loved it at the same time.
I’d grown so accustomed to the toxicity that at one point I wrote “i’m a fuckin idiot i’m sorry” in all chat and then went on a rant targeted at myself for my bad play (so I was effectively verbally abusing myself myself lol). It was a small mistake on mid, it was really not that big a deal. And someone wrote “it’s okay dude, it’s only a game”. My jaw dropped. No random Dota 2 player had shown me that level of kindness lol. That moment stuck with me for some reason
I'm glad you enjoyed the video and vibed with the point of it! It really is such a strange game - so utterly impenetrable but at the same time incredibly alluring and addictive.
I've seen so much self flame playing the game over the years as well so your story doesn't surprise me (although it is nice haha) I had a friend who would get so frustrated with himself he eventually had to stop playing. Such a crazy headspace for a game to get you into!
Anyways thanks for watching as ever my dude!
Idk if the community is just different now or unranked is different but i'd say basically theres only a toxic player every several matches nowadays usually everyones just having fun and even at the end we all just say gg that was a fun match and move on. I'm sure in higher ranked matches ppl get more toxic though I just play unranked mostly.
I don't think I could ever describe my feelings about Dota any better. Thanks for the amazing video!
I'm so happy you feel the same! It's such an oddly unique video which I think only really a certain kind of Dota player will "get" but I'm really happy I made it and that other people have found it relatable!
I've never played Dota, but I have dabbled in the MOBA genre with Heroes of the Storm and Pokemon Unite. I can completely understand this love/hate relationship with the game. This is exactly why I can't play ranked Starcraft 2 anymore. I was never any good, but somehow, I got good enough to get into gold (which I'm still proud of). But spending 30 minutes a match to only lose is very disheartening.
I think I should start taking it easy on games that have ranked modes. It is truly exhausting at times. AND NOT EVEN THAT GOOD. lol
Awesome video. I'm glad I recently discovered your channel a few days ago. It's going to be a fun binge to watch!
Frankly dropping out of the multiplayer grind and throwing myself back into single player games completely resparked my love and now I'm here running a YT channel! I couldn't recommend giving the ranked games the boot more
I found your channel by random algorithm chance but this is a fantastic video. I played about 3k hours between TI3-6 but stopped cold turkey and haven’t come back. I even attended TI 4,5,and 6 back when they’re in Seattle.
I know the names, most hero’s/skills, but the changes over the years feel like a completely alien game. I just don’t have the mental bandwidth to keep up.
So happy that Pyrion and Purge are still apart of the community. Their videos brought so much joy and knowledge.
It's crazy to think that Purge is probably responsible for so many people coming to grips with the mechanics and actually being able to enjoy the game. I owe him a lot!
5,000+ hours played since 2016, currently a 5900 mmr player. I just absolutely agree with so many things from this video. My friend sent it to me to watch, and I am astonished. I had a very similar relationship with Dota, with the difference of learning it from scratch by playing bots and single draft for 1000+ matches before I was confident enough to move on to ranked. Immersing into constant loop of being happy about my wins and feeling sad from loses. Eventually, I found a hero and gameplay I fell in love with. Spamming Earth Spirit mid made my mmr spike from 2k to 5.5k within a year, and I learnt tons of useful information along the way. Now I just pick and learn whatever I like, recently spamming Beastmaster, Doom and Leshrac. Though my very first signature hero was Invoker. Despite playing Dota rarely, I still queue ranked, but now rather than spamming the same heroes and following the same strategy, I pay attention to what new I can learn or try and my game experience has improved dramatically.
I just really appreciate the video you made. From bringing TI8 flashbacks to my mind to just having a great time watching the video and recalling memories of how I started, how I watched others progress, and how I brought myself back to enjoying the game and not being anxious over potential mmr lose.
I am yet to see your other videos, and although this video is one of the most unpopular on your channel, I can clearly see that you are a talented individual, I was amazed how quickly you described the game, and how natural your storytelling is. Keep up the good work!
I'm glad to hear that this video resonated with you! It's a tricky thing trying to write about multiplayer games but I think Dota really is such a unique case that I had to make something about it! Thanks for taking the time to comment and I hope you enjoy my other videos too!
This is the saddest thing I’ve read today. Do something with your life. Because currently it’s completely sad and pathetic.
@@Drizzit57 touch some grass internet goblin. if you've got nothing positive in your life and can only spread your negativity then better get some help
I started playing dota in 2007. I still play dota in 2022. I had to take a few breaks, some long, some short, some willingly, some by circumstance. I really am not certain why I keep coming back to the game. After the tens of thousand of hours played, the trolling doesnt hurt less, the absolute breaking down of cohesion baffles me still.
I can say it is an absolute thrill, and when it feels like a fair fight, I really dont mind losing. I do mostly play Ability Draft nowadays, I mean... for the past 8 years... but I still play ap with friends, and I still school fools where the opportunities lay.
It is funny that in 2016 you (the video creator) had a moment of tryhard, because it was during this time I too took everything way to seriously and really suffered for it. The toxicity is more than grating, there really is something unhealthy to a lot of it. Over the past 6 years I have lost pretty much all of my past friends but I have also learnsd how to handle it better.
That said, there are still.absolutely crushing moments that feel like a constant, where I feel abused or even tortured by toxic team mates. I at least now have learned how to keep my behavior score up at 9-10k but I can hardly go a game or two withouy running into someone who wants to bring out the worst in me or completely and utterly deny my existence.
I dont get it, but I keep playing it.
My best advice is to find people to play it with, especially people who are supportive and friendly, and take a break. Chaining 8 games in a row is its own zen but cam often result in a fatiguing slog of loss after loss. maybe play one or two, hell even three, but step away or even the briefest of moments, touch grass, get some standing and stretching and walking in, go do something else, then maybe play one or two or three more.. 😉
Completely agree 100% and thanks for taking the time to write that out!
I now only play with a few friends and it's always just for fun rather than with a real sense of competition. I still very much play to win but I think I've finally beaten that demon that says "you HAVE to win" - a loss can be just as enjoyable if it's hard-fought and well thought out!
Now a throw when your 1 and 2 go T4 instead of taking the rax and going rosh - that's harder to swallow lmao
@@IFinishedAVideoGame dont worry, they will blame you for the loss. I just recently had a game like this... but our third front split to a third rax and we died because we didnt coalesce(sp.?)
3 of my team muted me even tho I didnt talk too much, they just dont like to recieve criticism.
after muting me they blame me citing a reason like 'ur build sucks' hen theirs actually makes zero sence and they picked ignorant to draft.
I am trans, so I get the added benefit of being disliked for my 'gay voice'...
but I keep queuing...
Thank you for reminding me of the TI8 OG run. It was the perfect story and I doubt it will ever get topped. Everything about it is like out of a movie. Genuinely that grand finals game 4 was the most hyped I've ever been.
It was probably the peak of Dota 2 for me! Such an exciting period of time!
This video is a little out of the ordinary for me - usually you can find me making feature length retrospectives about strange and interesting video games like this - th-cam.com/video/tsjkAraZkco/w-d-xo.html - it's a full exploration about the history of PANZER DRAGOON and how Sega went from the top of the industry all the way to the bottom. It was a real passion project to put together - hopefully you enjoy it!
Great video!! I can't believe it doesn't have more views. Come on algorithm, do your job..
Thanks so much for the kind words and for watching! Honestly I just enjoy getting my thoughts out there and seeing what people think - when people say stuff like that it's all the reward I need!
I've never played this and it looks absolutely crazy but always love your commentary and insights my dude. Learnt a lot about Dota 2 today. Congrats on 400 subscribers! 👏
Man thank you so much and thanks for all the support! You're a king amongst men! Yeah it's a pretty bonkers game and I'm definitely in the midst of a bit of an addiction phase haha
Oh boy this is gonna be a hard one to swallow. I used to be one of the DOTA 1 OGs, started playing it back in 2009. The game was already pretty complex and competitive back then, and I had no TH-cam tutorials to lean on since TH-cam was still a relatively new thing. It was a trial by fire, learning by sucking at the game. The switch to DOTA 2 wasn't that hard since it was more or less just a graphical and engine upgrade with a few tweaks and changes made here and there. I enjoyed it for a few years, but then they just kept adding mechanics we didn't ask for, items we didn't need, and a lot of the time these stuff were added all the while there were tons of balance issues with the old meta. So the new addition will either miraculously fix the meta (which was a rare occurrence) or just completely break the game in a new way. I threw in the towel after around a whopping 1600 hours logged in, at which point I just wanted to move on to something that valued my ever shortening gaming time way more. It was a game the kid me loved, but as I grew up, had to pick up my studies, get a job, the game became a second job that didn't pay, and I just wasn't enjoying the way I did when I started.
Now, DOTA has basically become it's own separate community. You normally don't hear people talk about it in the general gaming community like they used to back in the day. MOBAs simply aren't a thing anymore. The game is extremely unwelcoming to new players, so all it can hope to do is retain the playerbase it does hold.
You're spot on with how segregated Dota has become. Personalities in the community really just stick to Dota and I swear I saw a graph years ago saying that people who watch Dota on Twitch almost exclusively watch that game and nothing else! I know just from the response to this video that there just really isn't much interest in the game in mainstream circles anymore!
Still I love that I made this ode to a game that took so much of my life (for bad and good). I love seeing comments like yours because I feel like we all have this fellowship about our feelings to this game haha! Thanks for watching!
Kinda sad that quality videos such as this dont get attention
I've been playing exclusively ability draft in dota since it was released in game. It definetly maintains the no serious all fun aspect that dota used to be. Its way less stressful and super fun to make weird ability builds. I'd highly recommend giving it a try!
I'll have to check it out - it's a mode I've always been interested in but never consistently played!
@@IFinishedAVideoGame give er a go! It's got a lot of depth as well, since your given your hero randomly but it still retains it's talents and stats (strength/agi/int) so you've got a good starting point to build around. Plus some combos are Hela fun and broken ( eg ES aftershock + plagueward = Perma aoe stun)
I think I ended on 6000 hours played time on Dota 2. Me and a friend group actually played in a few small tournaments back in the day! I fell away from it due to the toxicity, and also partly due to taking a break at some stage and coming back to what you were saying about the mass of changes that are hard to keep up with.
I went to Frankfurt to watch ESL live in person and man, It was one of the best trips I've ever taken! Incredible atmosphere. Great video as always. Watched it start to finish and you have covered the top perfect. Great job as always!
Ah man I'm so jealous! ESL Frankfurt was always such a good tournament! We should definitely look at organising something for ESL Birmingham when it's back as that's always been a real highlight of the calendar and I'd love to go!
Anyway man thanks watching and I'm insanely happy that someone with such a large amount of time in the game could relate to it!
They'd have to pay me to play this game. Looks like work with toxic coworkers. Masochism.
That's pretty much a perfect description of it
I remember playing a game with my friend and I was just so so bad. He was like yeah you can’t keep playing because no one on his friends list wanted to ply again with me because I was so bad. I asked how to get better and he told me about the online walkthroughs. I don’t remember laughing so hard at advice in my life. I’m happy this game is there for the many people who love it, but I will never be among them.
It really is a closed shop by this point. I have no idea how you'd ever catch up to your friend (or why you'd want to!)
Can't imagine learning to play dota solo, luckily I had a group of 5 where we all picked up at the same time in the final year of high school.
18:15 This segment of the video (and the next) speaks to why I somewhat have a disdain towards esports. Most PvP games these days seem to always be geared towards the hardcore pro player to get a piece of that esports pie. In my opinion, making your game more geared towards the competitive scene just ruins it. It just makes these games less fun, gives you less room to experiment or make mistakes, players become too serious, the game itself becomes too serious. Now, I still enjoy watching esports. I just love watching competitions and all that. But there's always that sad feeling at the back of my mind that these games just aren't made for people like me.
I've very much come around to that way of thinking. I just don't have the energy these days for the grind that esports require but I'm more than happy to watch someone else!
I've sank 13,000 hours into this game plus maybe one or two thousand more with the original DotA (I started playing in 2010), and you've perfectly encapsulated my feelings for this game in one video. Sleepless nights through college and adult life playing the game, the mad streak with ranked games and falling out of the game only to come back again, and the pro scene. Thank you.
You're welcome - I think this is the sort of experience that only us seasoned vets can understand. Did you enjoy playing Dota? Well yes and no haha
well, the thing most ppl dont understand and causes them frustration when grinding mmr is that until you get to some high point mmr, you NEED to spam 3-5 heroes every single match, and when you loses too much you NEED to understand that even if you are playing with 4 monkeys on your team, it is still your fault, it is what it is, thats why the heros you NEED to spam have to be strong independent ones that can flash-farm, take towers easy, have easy escape or easy kill-potential without a supp on your lane. Finally, understand that those meta videos on yt dont work until you reach the high mmr point that depends 100% of the region you are playing. Aim to win your lane every single time by picking knowing enemy who you are dealing with on the lane and snowball from there.
Definitely the right take - when I was at my highest I was spamming literally 2 cores and 2 supports which I knew would never get banned and I knew I could solo carry as. It's a shame in a way because variety is one of the joys of the game but if you want to climb - that's the only way
I started Dota 2 in 2020 with the pandemic and my friends trying to find games to play together. As someone who likes to study videogames and an "innovator" kind of player, I fell in love with the complexity of it all. I play most heroes and LOVE to explore all the weird builds. I find myself to be tired of the game and .. I find another hero that can play differently and end up grinding them for a while.
I would say that playing with others is a different experience than playing with randos in pub. There is a weekly Saturday-only tournament that happens and playing it with 4 other friends was magical. We would talk strategy and such before the game even starts and end up with many cool wombo-combos.
And .. I love the artstyle? As someone who grew up with WC3 and other old PC games, There is some charm to the game that is much more beautiful to me than many others now.
It's been up a minute I can already confirm this is gonna be fantastic
Well hopefully everyone likes it! It's been a rollercoaster playing Dota and it was a rollercoaster video to make haha! Thanks anyway for the support my dude, it's always appreciated!
This is basically exactly me but with LoL except I have played something around 10-15k hours in the past ten years.
It's the curse of the multiplayer games!
@@IFinishedAVideoGame curse of MOBAs in particular
Pre watch comment.
I have watched probably 20 hrs of your content so far and love it.
I always love when you bring up dota 2, I love Dota and am looking forward to this upload I jist stumbled upon!!!!
I hope you can relate to my experience! It's such a strange game and I think even as the game has changed from when I wrote this - much of it is still relevant!
I still remember the days of grinding this game for 10-12 hours straight to get my rank up. I destroyed my old PC while raging after a lost game in a tournament. This game has given me so many good memories that I look fondly upon and so many bad memories I would rather forget. Thank you for making this amazing video summarising all of my feelings towards this game. I stopped playing it months ago, but still follow the pro-scene like you do and it's as glorious as you said.
It's such an odd one isn't it! Hours and hours of pain and misery but really great memories that I wouldn't have traded for anything. It's why I love the title - a love letter to a game I hate. It's a complicated relationship that I don't think I'll ever break!
I watched this video in a darkened room on a large OLED screen (important detail). The video effects you started using at 21:40 made me think I was experiencing an actual hallucination lmao. If you've never used an OLED screen it's hard to explain but I literally thought my TV was shrinking and warping for a moment.
That's absolutely hilarious - sorry for the trip!
A video essay about a game I never played and will never play, Yet, here I am, love your essays!
I have thousands of hours in both Dota1 and 2. Been 7 years away from Mobas (I refuse to play them now ) and moved on from the addiction and the FOMO. Co-op games like DRG is the cure for the Toxicity of MOBAs. I used to mute everyone for my own sanity...
I've actually been on quite a big break myself. I really wasn't a fan of the latest two patches which just seemed to add even more pointless abilities and variables without actually adjusting the core strategy. Still excited for TI but I highly doubt it'll cause a relapse now!
I played the game once in the original one where the game is based on, altough it was on godmode and nothing else more. I'd been a league player and I don't think I'll ever play a game of this one. I don't know why I expected a guide on this one watching this so don't ask me. Still, great video. I was interested in the game and I loved to hear it from someone I'm watching as a league player. I can't believe that rival thing happened in a real life scene.
Oh it was really amazing to see in person. It was like a 1980s sports film playing out in real life - in a video game tournament!
Dota and a One Tree Hill reference?! Oh my childhood. Great video mate.
Haha you know it! Where else are you going to see those two things together!
not to mention the crazy skill progression, improve or get left behind
>be 4k mmr when the person with the highest mmr is with 6k
>stop playing for some time
>come back and find out that your 4k mmr back then would be equal to 2k mmr now and that the highest is 12k
This is so so true! I have actually since recalibrated my rank since I finished this video and I was actually shocked at how much it had fallen despite actually feeling like I'm a much better player now.
I guess it's exactly what you say - the oldies at 3.5k are now 2k haha! I just can't face the grind to get back to 4k so it's back to unranked for me (even if it is often a complete mess haha)
Enjoyed your video about Mortal Shell, a game I love. Decided to watch a video about a game I know nothing about... equally entertained. You've earned a sub, sir.
21:50 I went through the same thing around the same era. Except not 3 hours a day, more like 14 hours a day. When I wasn't sleeping I was playing, or watching vods, or reading guides. I dropped out of uni and just played all day for like 2 years straight. I even paid for lessons and premium accounts on stats sites. Had to quit cold turkey, too.
Luckily, to me the game is dead now. The post-7.00 Dota 2 is just not the same game. If it were, I'm sure I'd relapse, ignore responsibilities and just play all day again. But I have tried, and it just doesn't appeal to me. Sometimes that makes me sad, when I reminisce about my favorite game of all time, like an ex-addict about all the "good times" they had on drugs. Knowing I can never again experience that game I fell in love with even if I wanted to. That's probably what has saved me, though. Maybe if I enjoyed unranked all the recent changes wouldn't be such a big deal, but you couldn't pay me to play unranked. Not then, not now.
I'd say keep it that way my dude! I have such a better time watching pro games these days than actually playing myself and the amount of time and stress I've gained back is amazing!
@@IFinishedAVideoGame You're right about the time.
I can't watch pro games either. It's just not the same. Dota 2 used to have this Starcraft 2-like purity to it, where a skilled player could account for every variable and know exactly what is happening at all times. "If I stay behind this tuft of grass on the bottom lane, there is no possible way ES can fissure me from the fog" or "the last black hole was at 12:30, we have exactly 15 seconds to Roshan" or "I have 225hp, lina can't kill me with one spell and has no mana for two."
In an effort to chase "making players feel more powerful" there is now an endless amount of variables and RNG and not even the best of pro players can account for all of it. Does enigma have 12.5% CD reduction and what does that work out to exactly? Does the support hiding in the bushes have extra magic damage or range? Did the forest creatures drop an RNG item? It's all "best guesses" and "playing the odds", where as in the olden days there were very few unknown variables. Few enough that players could mentally prepare for them, such as "Tide hasn't been showing on map, does he have blink already?". An experienced player could stay on top of everything in real-time even in busy team fights.
No one that exists anymore. Ironically adding too many variables in effect lowered the skill ceiling, because even at best a player gets lucky or is rewarded for their bravado. It's no longer "he KNEW he would walk away with 2hp".
The highs are high and the lows are... worse.
I can really relate to a lot that has been said in here and this is from someone that has only played for a short amount of time! (ish). The best bits about this game is the pro-scene/e-sports for me and the game itself is an amazing addition... which can't be said for many game/s out there.
Lose together, win together, slay together, slay together, slay together.
Me when the ad money finally comes in on TH-cam - EASIEST MONEY OF MY LIFE
Since everyone is telling their DOTA story, here's mine that no one asked for!
I was 15 when I first introduced to DOTA, I remembered hating it when my friends played because I had no idea what was happening and all I could hear was the incessant mouse clicks.
Fast forward to TI5 later that year, I was invited for a sleepover by another group of friends (unknowingly they planned to watch TI5). Having nothing else better to do, I watched along.
Tobiwan's commentary and EG's iconic roshpit fight shifted my whole perspective on it.
2016, I started delving into the world of DOTA. I was just enthralled by the lore and the strategy behind the game, that's when I truly realized "It's not just clicking".
Having 0 experience with any kinda MOBAs, learning the mechanics was the toughest for me. Also didn't help that I was playing on a Mac. My friends helped me out a lot though, back then there were no tutorials for new players. Even now the tutorials are severely lacking.
After a number of games, I calibrated at 1.7k MMR. Back when it was based purely on numbers, and not the shiny medals that we now have! I remembered thinking back then, wanting to match the MMR of one my friends who was the best at the game in my friend group - he was 3.2k MMR. That was my primary goal because I considered him a really good player.
Over the years we continued playing and playing, highs and lows, arguments with each other, staying up late at night just to duke out 70 minute games, stomping noobs and being toxic for the sake of it. Eventually I managed to surpass my friend, when I reached 4k MMR - I was now the highest MMR in my friend group and I lost my motivation. And pretty soon all of us shifted to other games/priorities.
Even though I would have hiatuses now and then, DOTA would always be my fallback game. When they introduced the medal system, I had a new goal - Divine. Now, 2022, my entire friend group has stopped playing DOTA. Only me and the other that I mentioned earlier, I'm now at ranked Immortal (3300~) at 5.6k MMR. And honestly it was when I didn't care whether I lost or won the game that I had truly started to win a lot more (I plateaued at Divine 3 for a few years). I didn't carry the toxicity or negativity as baggage when I clicked the search button.
It's been a real journey, from hating the game to absolutely loving it, and sacrificing hours just to understand and get decent at the game, to now - not quite at the top but I'm content.
Watching TIs with my friends and playing in competitions and staying up late at night to play with them will always be among my fondest memories. :)
That was an absolutely awesome read! Thanks so much for taking the time to tell your story!
It's an utterly crazy game and I find it so insane that we can all have these such varied journeys with it. We're like a combination of an avid fan and an addict - oscillating between hating it and loving it, always trying to work out new ways to define the relationship and keep it healthy! Hopefully you are feeling in a good place with it and are looking forward to this years TI - I can't bloody believe new OG won the last major!
@@IFinishedAVideoGame Thanks for sharing yours as well and actually taking the time to read mine ahhaha!
I don't really catch the majors/pro games anymore since I'm not really a fan of any teams right now, be it playstyle or personalities. Last teams I rooted for was Ramzes' & Noone's VP and Team Spirit last TI. I did watch the Semis of the last major tho, was very fun! Makes me super excited for next TI, shame it'll be super expensive considering it's during F1 season in SG. That's why I'm really envious that you got to go to these live events! Went to a screening of like 50 people once and that already an insane experience, I would love to experience it live one day. :)
OG fully deserved their win, I wasn't a huge fan of Ceb due to the True Sight and how he seemed like the stereotypical arrogant Frenchman 😂 but honestly I came around after his reaction to True Sight, and realized how it's just psyching him and the team up!
It was funny hearing the final words of the video and being sugested a video with "Dota 2 changed" in really big letters in its thumbnail
I Feel the same, couldn't get into the game today. Even back in 2012, with around 50 heroes and much less stuff, it took me hundreds of games to understand what is happening in the game. Now, i am on a break for a year now, part of me wants to come back and play again, but the other part is afraid to relearn dota (again).
I played Dota since 2008 and stoping playing it in 2021. The game stress me so much. But i keep loving it and love so much the beauty of the Profesional Dota. The only game that is close to Dota in entertaiment and epicness is CSGO.
Absolutely! I have no idea why I keep coming back to this hyper stressful but somehow incredibly fun and satisfying game. I think the Pro scene does a great job of keeping peoples attention long term!
Played Dota a whole bunch when it first game out but haven't really for years. Guess it's changed a lot
Honestly my dude it is so different to when I first started! It's virtually a completely different game now (if you ignore that the map heroes and gameplay are all still the same haha)
I started playing in 2005 via LAN parties and I barely recognize the game anymore. I still remember when Puck was introduced by ice frog from a community contest and when Mirana was new and her ult chased down a hero and it couldn't be canceled. I still remember when SA threw down a stasis trap as well. I miss when the game had a dark atmosphere. How it feels too "cutesy" and marketed towards children.
Funny how dota is just in its little corner of the internet. I did not even know it was that big of an esport and that the game was still going on strong.
As a league player, everything in the video is really understandable. The part about knowledge, taking things seriously and ranked toxicity really resonated
Great Video!
You deserve way more Views on this bad boy ^^
The amount of work you put in this is inspiring
Thanks my friend! Yeah it's a funny little video because it really can only be truly understood by people who have had similar relationships with online games but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The comments from people who have had the same experience are all really great to see!
@@IFinishedAVideoGame Yeah I too found it really relatable as someone who played dota2 for almost 5000 hours and I droped the game arround the same time as you did ^^ Keep up the good work currently watching Your LOTR Marathon ^^
Came for the alpha protocol retro, stayed for the direct mirror into my life as a dota player. Thank you sir 😅
I feel like we all have this Dota story inside of us. It's a virus we just can't shake off!
I quit League and needed this today, thank you
Glad you enjoyed it!
Never have I resonate with a video so much that it hurts.
It's actually been quite cathartic to see all the responses. It looks like so many people have this same love/hate relationship with online games
Your history with the game and the experience of the stunning OG win is very similar to mine. This video resonated with me on a personal level.
It's a crazy game and I have a crazy history with it - it's always great to hear people have walked the same road!
Enjoying your content so much I'm leaving a comment just for the algorithms. The LotR video was fantastic too.
Thanks my friend! Glad you're enjoying it!
Been playing all my life. Ever since dota 1. This is a lifestyle game. I'm very happy for it to exist.
Btw, the first learning site was dota commentaries where people would make VODs of pro player matches. Back in wc3 days.
Also, you shouldn't play ranked if you never played poker. It's the same in a lot of ways. You do your best every time, but still can go on a massive downstreak. Just not tilt and go on. Eventually you will climb rank.
You're so fucking insane at making videos. This was just beautiful. I get hooked into these videos the same way I do with a top tier show.
Thanks so much Simon! I do really enjoy making these videos and honestly it's really nice to see that people enjoy them too!
I'm currently at the tail end of an absolutely huge project which I've been working on for about 2 months. Just starting to record it now so I really hope it can be done in the next few weeks!
@@IFinishedAVideoGame I look forward to watching your new videos
a comment for the algorithm! Keep doing what you are doing, i love this long form videos, cheers!
Will do my friend - got another coming soon!
Such a great retrospective! As someone who played a similiar amount of hours in the past I can confirm - the lack of humanity that you can experience in this game something else. I don't even know if some of those people can be considered human. I remember the time when I really liked Cloud 9 when NoTail was still playing there. I think they have the record for the longest Dota 2 match ever played.
I absolutely loved that old Cloud9 team! Bone7 in the offlane was someone who I copied all the time! Blademail + 3 null talisman Natures Prophet was bonkers stuff but actually worked!
Somehow it makes total sense after watching all your other videos to find out you’re a dota player 😌
Oh god I hope that's a good thing! I've outed myself!
@@IFinishedAVideoGame I know exactly how you feel ha ha ! ☀️
The thing with dota is that the highs are really high and the lows are really low,it's sort of like gambling. Specially if u make a comeback win because your random team just clicked for that 1 team fight that turned a loss into a win. Had a comeback like that once and one of my team mates said "what kind of magic is this??" And it was, it looked liked some voodoo shit the way we turned that around lol
Man that is completely spot on - it's like a drug you get addicted to that wanes in strength but every now and then delivers that same high that got you hooked in the first place. I can't believe I've been playing it for 10 years and frankly still have as much fun now as I did back then (albeit with huge doses of frustration mixed in)
As someone who never played Dota 2 for a long amount of time, but instead played LoL to suffer a similar fate...
I can relate a lot to your experiences with how negatively it can affect you. Just that League doesn't seem to have a bright side nowadays.
It's a real shame. Dota is in my opinion the greatest multiplayer game ever made but oh boy it's been mismanaged hard over the last few years!
I played a bit of original DotA at the tail end of its time, then a few thousand hours of HoN before Dota 2 came out. I poured so many hours of my early twenties into Dota 2 before quitting and I have the same complex feelings about it. After almost a decade away, the rose tinted glasses kicked in and I started playing again a bit over a year ago. I was determined to relearn the meta with a few friends and start climbing. I think the big change between now and then is that I'm so much more in touch with my feelings now, so I can really recognise how upsetting an 'unfair' loss is. At the same time, each loss is a teaching moment in non-attachment and accepting that I can only control my behaviour in the match. Sure, you can try and be the team psychologist at the beginning of every match - but it's not sustainable. The key is playing with friends and having a clear mission statement. The highs are soaring, no other game compares in that way. When you make a coordinated play or read and turn a game around, there's nothing else like it. Thanks for this video, it was awesome ❤️
It's honestly been very refreshing to see replies like yours and to feel like there is at least a subsection of the Dota community who have "grown-up" and now just enjoy the game for what it is - free from the intensity and toxicity that was so defining of it in the early days!
Glad you're enjoying it - keep that fire burning!
3:39 yeah, this looks ridiculously complicated 😅 I can see why people would love / hate it
Working out all of it's systems becomes like an addiction - satisfying but so self destructive!
Channel won't stop appearing in my feed
I'm a bit surprised this video would be. It's not exactly a popular one
I've been looking forward to this since it was mentioned. The Dota 2 days were certainly a rollercoaster of highs and lows
Haha it always has been! Long may the highs of winning and the lows of feeding continue - cheers for checking it out dude!
You know the toxicity of the Dota community is one of the reasons why I never got into it
Oh it is certainly toxic asf - luckily it looks like Grubby coming into the community has changed things quite a bit!
Before watching competitive dota I wasn't a big fan of sports overall, like, how can you watch football when you could just go play it.
I get it now, I've never played a single match of dota but I never miss watching TI, it's something really special.
Yeah it's funny how you can become so invested in something without ever having played it! I'm quite a big cricket fan but I've never thrown a ball or swung a bat in my life!
Love the video dude, eloquently covered why MOBA's require rose coloured glasses. I am a LOL main played HON and DOTA2 in therly 2010's and all them seem to have unintentional gatekeeping, the best version of a tutorial is LOL's because you have to buy the champions so you can't get overwhelmed as easily. I got back into it recently and man do feel the toxicity seeping back in.
I can never really get entirely away from it even if I try. I've just finished watching The International for the 12th time and even now - I'm feeling the pull of the game!
Dota 2 is just the best online game to date. Period.
However, I have to disagree with your overcomplication take. Actually, as far as I am concerned, new mechanics and overall change to how the game flows made it simpler for newbies to play it, with talents, cheap ags shard, neutral items there is always something useful your hero can do, rather than being stuck in a hopeless effort of getting enough gold to make your hero start being useful.
I'm not sure they make it simpler but they definitely make it more engaging. You're right in that you always have something to be doing which makes the game a lot more fun but in terms of the amount of information there is to learn - it really is quite a lot for someone with minimal MOBA understanding!
Dota always has a special place in my heart. I dedicate a lot of hours in it more than 20k hours in dota 2 and countless hours in dota 1 where me and my friends always played for 3 years straight in my college days. I had so many great memories good and bad in it. Left the game playing but still I follow tournaments, videos patches.
Absolutely the same for me - I hope you enjoyed Arlington!
This here is the game that made me quit online gaming, sorta shattering their illusion for me.
I have over 2500 hours of Dota on Steam. After spending hundreds of hours on research (exactly as described in this video) I finally realised how futile it all was.
All that time and effort and I both wasn't improving enough and had to constantly find some rando to say "GG" at the first three minutes of the game where (like stated) matches last around 40 + mins and tower dives yelling "it's everyone else's fault" when I swear to Zeus, no one had mistreated the guy at that point AT ALL.
It's soul crushing.
Why am I even doing this? What's the end goal of Dota? Why do I legitimately get punished so hard for trying to play well and politely? Why do I get into teams like this or against teams like this when I'm not in low priority playing casually? It's not fun to win against a team where someone just throws the game for no reason either.
I would say to improve is the fun in the game, but in a game where you depend on callous others that takes hundreds of hours off your time in and out of game, it is just not worth it.
I could've beaten more games.
Done more drawing.
Instead, I played an online game.
Note: And I never played ranked.
Yeah.
It's a sad thing that binds us together - but I sort of love that this video draws in people who have a similar hate/love relationship with this game. I've never experienced such crushing lows and this game has brought me and it's nice to meet people who know exactly how I felt! Honestly - giving up online multiplayer games and focusing again on single-player really revived my love for games massively
I Played Dota 2 for about two weeks then I send yup to complicated for this brain.
What a banger video dude. This video deserves more attention from the community.
Thanks very much! Honestly I just think it's nice to have a place where people can share their love and frustration with the game as the same time!
Man your experience is so much like mine, down too getting borderline if not outright depression, stopping playing but keeping engaged with the competetive scene and coming back, calmer, taking it less seriously.
Also there is such a lack of this kinda analytical content in Dota and its a damn shame
Yeah it's annoying isn't it - it's such a complex game that prompts such a range of emotions so you'd think it would make for fascinating subject matter for video essays. Instead, we just get 30,000 identical takes on Dark Souls which is a shame as I feel like there is real potential in discussing multiplayer games!
@@IFinishedAVideoGame Yup, and Dota also has some fascinating gameplay quirks that is unlike so much else today.
Legit have had ideas of making Video essays on the game
I just read the title and laughed. I played dota for years and I hate it. I just my teammates. They suck, so did I. It just made me so angry. I rarely had fun. Haven’t played in years.
It is a punishing stockholm syndrome experience isn't it
I got in the game in 2012. Definitely know what you mean by feeling depressed by it. Went to college without my PC and slowly fell off it since I couldn't play. Kinda glad it did because it is just such an intense game. I've considered dipping back in but it's just too much. That being said I still love reading patch notes and watching those funny moment videos sunsfan makes. Also TI3 was such an amazing tournament. Navi clutching the win in the loser bracket from the pudge hook teleport to go onto a 5 set final with Alliance was incredible.
Sounds like you got out at a good time! I sometimes think it's crazy to think that I'm still somewhat regularly playing the game 10 years after I first played it (I should be so much better than I am) - it puts Dota in a category with Street Fighter and Smash Bros for games that feel like "all timers" for me.
Honestly I would say between reading patch notes, enjoying the odd YT video and watching TI - that's all the Dota you could possibly need! Only jump back in if you're totally sure because it can suck you in hard!
I know there's a bit of a feid btw lol and dota players but as a pol player i had a similar relationship to lol.
In fact the part about you being able to play it with your friends gives me hope i can have a realthier relationship with the game eventually.
Grew up playing dota, been playing on and off for 17 years since version 6.27. I was in 4th grade when my cousin introduced this to me, I feel bad for the new players trying this out in this time since it will be mostly smurfs, I was lucky when I started because no one really knows how to play Dota properly back in mid 2000s, everyone just kills creeps for 40 minutes and push towers, there was no concept of support and cores.
Otherwise known as the glory days! I used to play Luna mid and rushed daedalus and thought I was absolutely elite lmao
And we all know that 1hours plus games has techies written all over them
Haha you know it my dude - I've also had them against old Naga and Terrorblade as well! It's just agony especially when you're desperate to go to bed lmao
@@IFinishedAVideoGame aside from matthewmathosis
I haven't seen anyone cover dota with anything above a 20 minute mark
It was nice seeing these kinds of essay on a game like dota
Not to mention the funny af reviews on steam
And yea just like you, I only play turbo nowadays xD
@@yuan5154 it's surprising as there is so much to talk about! Honestly it's a shame that more video essayists don't challenge themselves to talk about multiplayer games - we don't need another essay on Deus ex lmao
@@IFinishedAVideoGame I mean, it's a few thousand hours of investment :o
I definitely agree that this game is brutal to newcomers, the first few hundred of games are basically trial and error. Getting hands on experience on how the hero hits, attack animation, lvl 1 armor, movement speed orb walking
There's quite Abit to learn, and like u said, its definitely like getting a degree lol
It's a 5v5 chess where the players are either very good or literal manbabies. The game itself is hard to learn but the toxicity is just another level. I don't know if I will still be playing if it weren't my childhood game.
Latest update seems to work wonders on toxicity.
Tries Dota once because a friend wanted me to play. Got bullied so hard for being confused that I quit within 5 minutes 😂
Yeah it's absolutely brutal for newcomers. I would say it's very much not worth it unless you're a masochist who wants to spend 100 hours to understand a game you still won't be good at!
you can be carried to the tip of the everest without knowing what you are doing, that is like dota
That's a beautiful analogy
ah DOTA, it have special place for me because it one of few online games I enjoy on Net Cafe play along with friends. 2009~2011. we fooling around, cry, laugh, learn, make mistakes, share joy and sadness together then irl hit we separate. such experience kinda make me feel this game more about team so kinda funny see people spit each on random matchup.
for me the allure of DOTA is the friends I make back then so without them most interest toward online game on general kinda lost. with them I never feel like play alone.
anyway it fun to see crystal maiden and slayer spit each other lol
love Ur commentary!
Thanks so much!
This video kind of makes me want to try it. For the longest time, my friends and I have played league together, some of us playing purely for fun and others chasing a rank. All of this sounds very familiar! Though I can tell we starting to get very bored of League after 2 years. I have always been curious about other MOBAs. Though LoL and DOTA are the only ones left... Maybe its time to give DOTA a chance.
All I would say is prepare yourself for a massive undertaking in terms of education! I still play this all the time but I now have about 10 years worth of experience to be able to make sure I have fun with every game, taking it on without that is a big task! It's similar to League in some ways and also very different in other ways - things like denies, turn rate and a very very loose meta might really throw you off but you could find it extremely liberating!
Played Dota 2 since it was freshly launched. Now only play custom games. Ranked games are just not worth enduring the stress and after I tried Turbo mode I would never play normal mode ever again. I am very happy Valve followed the footsteps of the old Blizzard Warcraft 3 model of giving the community freedom of creating on their platform. It took a long time, but now custom game makers are thriving community in Dota 2
It's great that custom games were finally added although I do wish they were more prominent in the game - they really should be on the front page along with a list of most played etc. I can't lie - I still enjoy playing the game but frankly I couldn't imagine getting started now.
By that accents, we finally found the 5th guy from UK who plays/interested in dota 2.....
We are a rare breed! Hopefully, ESL Birmingham can reignite some love for it (if it ever happens again)
24:35 I saw Gothic in your library. I demand, no - I INSIST - you make a video about Gothic 1 and 2, the greatest RPG's of all time.
I really need to get around to playing them! Maybe one day I'll do a stream of Gothic 1 if I can ever get it to work on my PC
Excellent video dota 2 was the game that i spent thousands of hours playing thats even ignoring the time i watched tournaments analyzed pro players gameplay and it eventually made me quit competitive multiplayer games back in 2017, when it comes to gameplay mechanics, game design and depth dota 2 is simply minblowing in that regards however with that comes some of the most toxic community in gaming history and a game with such depth can also encourage toxic behavior where you can easily lose a game because one person simply refuses to do his job, i was slowly turning into a toxic person not only in dota 2 but irl aswell and worst of all it was slowly taking over my life and priorities, i simply had to stop, i switched back to single player games and never looked back and it was one of the best decisions i had ever made.
It is absolutely mad isn't it how we can become utterly consumed by the need to get better at a game! Looking back I can't believe how obsessed I was and I'm so glad I got to a much healthier place about it!
Ti 1 got me hooked to. I played a bit of HON And some other Mobas. Dota2 hit me different. 10 years later and almost 4000 hours spend. And i still suck. Getting called a kid with my 40 years of age. i find it quite funny. Mostly play ability draft these days..
That's amazing - the amount of insults and things I've been called while playing Dota just blows my mind. Such a hive of scum and villainy but just so damn addicting. That rush when you win a hard game really can't be matched
The story of every moba ever.
FUCK YOU LEAGUE I WILL NEVER EVER REINSTALL IT.
I think I must have uninstalled and reinstalled Dota 100 times lmao
Such a great homage to such a big part of both of our lives 💜
I think making this video might have finally made me sick of it haha
Its crazy how your experience with dota almost perfectly mirrors my experience with overwatch. The moral of the story is to not play game’s competitively, just play to enjoy it and have fun and don’t worry about rank or wins.
I couldn't agree more! I've actually been able to go back to dota a few times and enjoy it a lot more since this video too - it's all about just not taking it too seriously
I must agree, dota have changed way to much. Stopped playing it january this year, one thing for me that brings me back time to time is the lore. Tbf be best thing they ever had was slithbreaker.
I do sometimes really pine for the more simple but strategic game it used to be. More mechanics doesn't always mean more satisfying decision making. Something like Chess doesn't need tons of mechanics to be a deep game!
XD I used to play Dota every year during international season.
Till adult responsibilities made it impossible. Love the game. Can't play it anymore at all.
I never actually knew that Dota 2 was a hard game. I used to play games like Warcraft, Command and Conquer, Age of Empires etc. It was until I had shown a friend of mine the game I realized that people actually donno where to look in the game. Their eyes kept wandering all over the place. It was hilarious to watch them play and yell 'where's my hero! where's my hero!'
Yeah exactly! I was recently watching the Stockholm Major and my girlfriend came in to sit with me and literally couldn't even understand what she was looking at. Even simple things like which side is which, what the score is and what is going on are completely obscure to someone outside the complex world of Dota! I'm happy I already know how to play it because I'd have no chance getting into it now!
I distinctly remember wanting to get into DOTA 2 years back and then being instantly turned off by the game once I learned about Denying.
Denying can be done on allied creeps, structures and heroes. Once they're low enough health, you kill them yourself, so you can prevent your opponent from getting a little extra gold and experience. It's one of the best examples of the game's absurd complexity.
Nevermind having to research tons of different heroes and their abilities (which is the case with every MOBA), but now I can't even turn my brain off during creep farming. The amount of micro-managing in order to stay at even a viable competitive level now's ridiculous.
I get the appeal of DOTA 2, but there's no way I'm going to dedicate hundreds of hours of my life, just to get good at a single video game.
Oh absolutely - I have played the game for thousands of hours and now denying is something that I don't even need to think of but you're completely right - the amount of time it asks of you to get to a point where you can CASUALLY enjoy it is just ridiculous.
It shows as well - there is currently a trend where the lower ranks are starting to increase in skill as more casual players drop out of the matchmaking and all you're left with is people who take the game somewhat seriously. It's ironically having the effect of making the game EVEN harder to get into. If you're just starting out now your chances of playing against people who are just starting has never been lower!
It's a game I absolutely love but goddamn if it isn't the most impenetrable thing ever made
DotA 2 is the epitome of Chaotic Strategy game . This Game should remain as the hardest game ever. Because it's a test and a challenge to all human being and it Rival or better than chess. They put a lot of Creativity and complexity into this game so it shouldn't be like league.
And in addition to that there's no end for learning this game (no exception.)
btw I'm tired of playing FPS games to where it's too repetitive to me, MMO or MMORPG also time consuming for never ending farm for materials.
3rd person shooter or Adventure game takes a lot of money to begin playing in which you need console and game itself.
And This Game? I can handle all the stress and always at ease with both winning and losing because I know it's all part of the game. so that's how I enjoy it.
Song used at the start? :)
I don't know if hearthstone is the best example considering some games can last half an hour
That's definitely a fair enough point! I've had some hideously long miracle rouge Vs Reno lock games back when I used to play. I think at the very least that's the exception in HS and you are sort of in control depending on what deck you chose - in Dota there isn't really any way to guarantee you only play for half an hour!
Wonderful video ma friend.
Thanks so much for watching and enjoying it!
Me and my buddies would play fish team with you brother
Sounds amazing! I shotgun pos 1 naga because I'm a terrible person
Yeah its a good game, Nothing really feels the same as moba's the highs are so high and the lows are so low.
It's the meth addiction of video games
I genuinely thought you were TeaGoverner since you both are British and literally sound similar.
Amazing video though!
Thanks very much! It's funny to hear we sound the same - I'm pretty sure we're from opposite sides of the country!