Mapp vs Dota 2 Waffle: The Second Stage
Disclaimer: Emotions and feelings are dull, computer games are awesome. Let's talk about games.
When you first start playing Dota 2, victory feels like it's decided by the team that makes the least mistakes. Everyone is learning, getting to grips with the mechanics and focusing on trying to master their role within the team. The errors accumulate on each side until, finally, one team has made enough errors that the other team can win.
The trouble is that this strategy - waiting for the other team to lose - stops being effective. Once everyone is playing to a reasonable level, and not making too many game-throwing mistakes, a team needs a plan, a strategy, to win. A few days ago, I played a string of three games with some folks I don't usually play with.
In the first game, the other team played aggressively, grouping up as a four while leaving their fifth player to farm their jungle. We lost tower after tower, our map control was reduced, and we didn't attempt to keep tower balance. At the end of the game, someone on our team commented that it was just because they had picked an aggressive set of characters to play. I disagreed, and we went to the next game.
At the end of the second draft, our talkative friend declares that their line-up won't be as aggressive as the last one. Fifteen minutes in, and the other team have once again started going as a group, pushing down towers. The game goes exactly the same way as the previous game, with us giving up map control and tower after tower. Nobody wants to group up to defend, nobody wants to split-push, nobody wants to try and punish the other team for their aggressive strategy - the strategy that, apparently, couldn't work because they didn't pick the right heroes for it.
The third game goes down in exactly the same way as the second, except for the fact that we gave up first blood. So the carry player spends the whole game - and some time afterwards - demanding to know why we died on our lane. He refuses our explanations ("Tusk snowballs in with Axe, Axe taunts me. Rubick is made of paper, and is the only control on the lane, that's why I died first." "But you shouldn't have died!"). This is the problem; we've gone past the point where simply keeping your head down will eventually let victory fall into your lap. Hoping that the other team will make a mistake isn't a strategy.
And the best thing to do against a team that plays like that? Group up, take towers and be aggressive. If the other team aren't going to try and stop you, or even punish you, for doing it, then the strategy will work regardless of what heroes you pick.
When you first start playing Dota 2, victory feels like it's decided by the team that makes the least mistakes. Everyone is learning, getting to grips with the mechanics and focusing on trying to master their role within the team. The errors accumulate on each side until, finally, one team has made enough errors that the other team can win.
The trouble is that this strategy - waiting for the other team to lose - stops being effective. Once everyone is playing to a reasonable level, and not making too many game-throwing mistakes, a team needs a plan, a strategy, to win. A few days ago, I played a string of three games with some folks I don't usually play with.
In the first game, the other team played aggressively, grouping up as a four while leaving their fifth player to farm their jungle. We lost tower after tower, our map control was reduced, and we didn't attempt to keep tower balance. At the end of the game, someone on our team commented that it was just because they had picked an aggressive set of characters to play. I disagreed, and we went to the next game.
At the end of the second draft, our talkative friend declares that their line-up won't be as aggressive as the last one. Fifteen minutes in, and the other team have once again started going as a group, pushing down towers. The game goes exactly the same way as the previous game, with us giving up map control and tower after tower. Nobody wants to group up to defend, nobody wants to split-push, nobody wants to try and punish the other team for their aggressive strategy - the strategy that, apparently, couldn't work because they didn't pick the right heroes for it.
The third game goes down in exactly the same way as the second, except for the fact that we gave up first blood. So the carry player spends the whole game - and some time afterwards - demanding to know why we died on our lane. He refuses our explanations ("Tusk snowballs in with Axe, Axe taunts me. Rubick is made of paper, and is the only control on the lane, that's why I died first." "But you shouldn't have died!"). This is the problem; we've gone past the point where simply keeping your head down will eventually let victory fall into your lap. Hoping that the other team will make a mistake isn't a strategy.
And the best thing to do against a team that plays like that? Group up, take towers and be aggressive. If the other team aren't going to try and stop you, or even punish you, for doing it, then the strategy will work regardless of what heroes you pick.