I’m sorry that I keep bringing up League of Legends (LoL) from the makers of Riot, but it made me realize that there has to be some good reasons why myself and many others have chosen this game as their favorite MOBA style game out right now.
As of January 2014, over 67 million people play league of legends per month and on average there are over 7.5 million currently playing during peak hours. (http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/01/27/player-tally-for-league-of-legends-surges/)
In another post a student had commented on the learning curve of DOTA 2 and found it very frustrating. Even as an experienced MOBA player, I myself found myself to be overwhelmingly frustrated when I first played it. This in my opinion is how DOTA 2 comes short compared to LoL. Many in the community have criticized LoL for being a children’s game, but in my opinion that is a complement to how successful the game’s learning curve is. Even though DOTA 2 is extremely well designed, it won’t matter if you can’t get new gamers to continue playing it.
It’s also free to play like DOTA 2 which is a very good business model if you want to get people to try your game. This is assuming that there are no pay to win scenarios that are going to discourage gamers who don’t want to pay. Even though it’s free it’s still making a ridiculous amount of money.
I think much of Riot’s latest success comes from their highly publicized tournaments from their highly invested e-sports; this is quickly turning video games into an international spectator sport. The championship in October 2013 sold out in the Staples Center in Los Angeles and was watching online by over 32 million people. These games get peoples attention and makes players (http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/01/27/player-tally-for-league-of-legends-surges/).
The main issue with DOTA 2 in my opinion, is that the game has a high learning curve for all the wrong reasons. Yes, there are cool combos – but those exist in league as well. Yes, there is a high degree of micro and macro management, but the same exists in league. Where DOTA 2 falls flat is in its adherence to DOTA 1. DOTA 2 feels limited by the warcraft 3 engine, which it isn’t even programmed in. The ability to de-select your hero is completely unnecessary – as is having the minimap be color coded NOT by team, but by individual players. Both of these were implemented in WC3 due to the nature of how armies worked and necessary due to the fact that WC3 was an RTS, but they have no place in DOTA 2 except for sentimental value for players who want to feel “hardcore” and “#nostalgic”.
Another annoying point in DOTA 2 for me, was that many champions had multiple passive abilities on their skill-bar, which for the most egregious cases, meant that skill with that character hinged entirely on how well you could position a unit and right click. Which, at least to me was somewhat boring.
I understand why people like DOTA 2, but a high skill-cap game does not make a better, or deeper game, if the skill-cap is in-place due to adherence to decrepid design.
I have to fully agree with what Dan has said. Although I have not had any experience with either game, I have spent a good deal (read 4 years) of time playing Eve Online. Although I do not think you can compare an MMO with a MOBA, I feel Eve is comparable to DOTA 2 with respect to learning curve, requiring about 3 months commitment in order to become familiar with game mechanics (and much, much more to be “useful”). The complexity involved in such games, and therefor the learning curve create a overwhelming experience for new players, and overcoming this initial learning curve becomes a daunting task. However, this same complexity makes for a game with enough depth to allow dedicated players to continually experiment, play, and enjoy the game for a much longer time than a game with lower complexity. This difference will almost certainly lead to slower growth due to a lack of new players, however, it is effective at creating a loyal user base who will stick with the game long term.
I feel that League of Legends has just more popularity than DOTA. You mentioned that there was heavily publicized events and simply exposure to the game is something that makes everyone feel the game is actually worth something. Combine that with generally an easier to adapt to game and League looks so much better than DOTA for a money standpoint. Even though the users do not have to pay anything in DOTA or League it just feels more when you purchase a champion on League after doing hard work grinding games for it, where in DOTA you get mesmerized by the choices.
Another thing, and this is only because i used to play a lot of WC3 customs, is that DOTA always felt to me as very intimidating. Back in WC3 days you couldn’t get into a DOTA lobby without having you account registered for ELO stats and simply made it hard for me to ever get into a game (i played maybe one game of the original dota). On top of that the game was about 2/3rds of the WC3 custom lobby matches made it frustrating to even play anything else. So this, in my eyes, made DOTA just a game i never really liked just because of it being marketed.
Now i can’t say this is why League is considered more popular today, but surely influenced many opinions of people in my similar situation. All of these reasons and surely more is why either side of the debate can go either way.
As someone who has played a large number of both games, I agree completely with your claim that the brutal learning curve is where Dota 2 falls short of LoL. In order to be an “average” Dota 2 player, you need at least 750-1000 hours. I would venture to say that is the largest number of hours required to be average at a game out of any game I’ve ever heard of (Except maybe QWOP). I think its important to realize that while learning hundreds of heroes, items, and strategies can be frustrating and overwhelming, the trade off is an extremely deep game. I would estimate I’ve played over 8000-10000 hours of dota 1 and dota 2 combined, and I still sometimes find myself saying things like “Wow thats a great combo I’ve never thought of” or “That pro play was so impressive I would have never thought to do that”. In my opinion the complexity and depth of Dota 2 is its biggest weakness and its biggest strength.