General DiscussionA Question I asked over at PD

tl;dr version:

why would people spend so much time on something when they're clearly not suited to the activity

"I myself started playing in 2008, but I didn't play/meet high skilled players from NA inhouses until late 2011, so almost everything before then was pretty meaningless in terms of skill improvement. "

I think the same goes for a lot of 3,5k player. I just played with friends tried to improve for 2 years (never played dota1 ) but didn't really tryhard.
Key to actually improving was mostly the mindset, that I have to play another dota than everyone in my bracket and lots of my friends I used to play with. Actually learning the game, which may sound stupid after 1k games, but it was true, helped me to improve.
And I made more improvement in one month, than 2 years, sadly.
If you don't seperate yourself from the players you play with, you don't improve.
Many people don't do this, because they enjoy playing with their friends.
And i think thats the point. You cant really improve by playing with a group of people, unless they all have the same dedication, which often times they won't and then you just adjust to their play. So from seperation, comes success imo.

"What I can't wrap my head around is why anyone would devote > 20 hours a week to playing this game if they've been playing for several years, including time spent on dota 1, and are still sitting below 4k, where people can barely last hit properly."

Well, wave says i have autism so it must be that

I dont know man i like the game but i am not always in the mood of playing ranked, why ? because i like to win in ranked, and so i like to pick mid and try my best, but i am not always in the mood of doing that, sometimes i just wanna pick some ramdon shit and be useless all game.

Why ? i dont know ... probably because going mid all games is boring for me, sometimes i have more fun losing with something fun that winning with the typical mid heroe.

Now lets talk about a friend i have, he only plays ranked, he loves to win, he plays a lot more than i do, still he is 3,3k. Why ? well he refuses to listen to any kind of tips you give him, his mindset is just wrong.

Anyway what you are saying here is that 4k and less are literally people who is new to the game, i think you dont realize how hard dota is as a game and how much effort YOU have put into the game to get to 5k mmr.

One think I'd like to add:
"This is literally 500 points above the bracket where Valve puts new dota 2 players with *some* experience in other MOBAs"

Yes it is, but there's actually a very large difference.
A 3700 player will stomp 3k games with 80-100% and gets where he belongs.

As a 5k player you just think that 3-3,7k must be the same shit. Which may be right from your perspective, but you just see the difference, when you are really there.

"why would people spend so much time on something when they're clearly not suited to the activity"

This is so wrong ..... is like saying that playing football when you are a bad player is a waste of time.

@ Emotional Empire

It did take me a while to realize that I should be playing with/against people of higher caliber (as you graciously pointed out), but that's the thing that started the whole process: the realization. Yeah, I did get flamed a lot for being complete shit in those inhouse leagues, (maybe I still am complete shit) but that's OK.

I think anyone who puts enough time and effort will be above 4k easily. 5k isn't hard (it's just a grind), being able to make good decisions, having the patience to deal with unscrupulous and whiny teammates (this one is huge, I threw so many games at 4.7-4.8k months ago and delayed my MMR increase) and having decent mechanics. 6k is beyond the capability of 99.9%+ of the playerbase but that's OK, you don't need 6k (professional level) to enjoy the game at a decent level.

So that being said, what triggers this realization? That I can't answer, so I invite anyone with some ideas to pitch in.

"Many people don't do this, because they enjoy playing with their friends.
And i think thats the point. You cant really improve by playing with a group of people, unless they all have the same dedication, which often times they won't and then you just adjust to their play. So from seperation, comes success imo."

Well this is a problem, because i dont see how someone can rate being better at the game higher than playing with friends.

> Well this is a problem, because i dont see how someone can rate being better at the game higher than playing with friends.

And that's why I think so many people are stuck. When my friends stopped playing dota, I suddenly had time to focus on myself.
It's so fucking hard to actually implement something into a game, what you have learned, when someone is talking in voice to you.
After I focused on playing better and thinking when playing, things worked out a lot better.
You just get distracted when a friend is talking about his game-thoughts, it mixes up your thinking and leads you to do decisions you shouldnt do.

You just have to prioritize.

just played with a 2/3k friend whom i havent played with for about 7 years

his attitude is "fuck shit i just want to have fun, who cares so much about winning"

he doesn't care about support, about roles, about optimal item or skill builds, he just wants to have his subjective experience of "fun"

now this is all fine and dandy if such players only play with such players and those who want to win only play with those who want to win but matchmaking can only do so much (for solo) - for party, > I immediately regret my decision.

i also met some guy irl who is pretty normal but when i watched him play dota HOLY SHIT
he has like 500+ games of sniper played and 40+% win rate, doesnt really bother putting effort into the game, flames his teammates all day, scolds "those fucking pinoys" while not bothering to introspect

http://www.dotabuff.com/players/1810197

it bothers me that adults are often these kind of palyers

@ Dorkly

According to your Steam Profile, you have 22 hours in the past 2 weeks, which is 11 hours/week (very little time spent playing). Your MMR is between 3500-4000 if I recall correctly. In that case, I would not lump you in with the people who play "seriously," so to speak. So my question isn't directed to you (and people like you).

What I am talking specifically about are people who dedicate a lot of time playing/watching streams/etc., either can't or are unwilling to improve, and continue to spend so much effort. What is the point of that?

As for your comment on how I don't realize how hard it is to get 5k, I myself have had a rough road. I was calibrated at 4700 in December, dropped to 4300 like two times (and I uninstalled the game for in at least three instances because I was annoyed), and eventually I decided to stop flaming teammates and just play better/high impact heroes.

Your football analogy doesn't apply, cuz people who play football casually spend like what? 6 hours a week? 10 hours at most? On the other hand, I see a bunch of dota players with 50+ hours every week and are 3k after 2 years.

tl;dr i can't fathom the idea of people who suck AND spend so much time. if you're below 4k but don't play often then that's another story altogether

"It's so fucking hard to actually implement something into a game, what you have learned, when someone is talking in voice to you."

True, but i am never going to drop my friend to get better, so unless he stops playing dota ( which i doubt ) things are going to be the same.

theres some guy posting on these forums with 4k games 6k hours in dota 200 hours in 2 weeks (100 hrs/week) with 3,5k mmr and he thinks he is good and believes in elo hell its fucking hilarious :DDD
cant find him he has some retarded name danil-dendi-ishutin-da-wurld or some shit

I get your point, well i have met a lot of people like that

I can answer you and i am pretty sure i am right, they do not realize how bad they are and they do not realize that they are playing the game wrong, even more, if you say something to then they will get mad at you.

IF someone takes time to explain to them why they are bad they might chance, but believe me that is hard.

My friend ( the one i was talking about in my first post ) is LITERALLY the guy you are talking about, he plays A LOT of dota but he doesnt improve for shit ( or he does very slowly ), he refuses to read any theorycrafting or anything like that because when he has free time he likes to spent it playing the game instead of reading or whatever, so he goes queue for a match, he does the same stupid shit again, he loses and he queues again.

By the way i would like to play dota more i just dont have time to do it :/ ( i guess i could stop posting in this stupid forum to start with but ...... meh )

I think there are 5 phases to become a good player.

1. Getting to know the game
- You just play the game, know the heroes, know the items.

2. Just playing the game [~3,5k] without effort.
- You know how to play the game but you don't think about improving, you just play the game, automatically get better at camera movement, lasthitting getting some experience about the game itself, but never learn the critical mechanics which may lead to winning your games from your current bracket.

2.5 Thinking you are better
- Watching streams and just thinking "oh yea, thats smart, I understand why he does that"
and never actually implementing this to your game, therefor you can't understand why you still lose, even though you think you are smarter, maybe you are, but you are not implementing this to your game.

3. Getting good at the game with effort [~4,2-4,5k]
- You learn the game and it's elements, focus to implement them into your game.
This step might kick in automatically after performing a long time in Phase 2.
Might take 5 years or so, or 2 month if you have a plan, talent and dedication.
Swiftending once said he knows players at 6k who haven't even played dota1.
I think these people are the ones, who had a plan and dedication AND played with 5-6k players already from the start OR alone.
I hardly think they ever played a long time with someone, who started the game with them from scratch!
All other people are just people who played the game for so long, they just got naturally good, and Phase 3 just kicked in automatically. (I'm not talking 1000games, I mean 6-7 years).

4. Repeating Step 3 until you reach your best.

5. Networking, getting to know people, maybe make money.

@emotional empire
u a sadboy man?
and yes improvement is possible if u actually want to improve. in 5 months i got from 3,1k to 4,8k and slowly moving towards 5k. got that with like 40 hrs in dota per week during school. (except last 2 months where the school factor didnt exist)

indeed

nice nice i grind bitch i grind

When I was 12 I started taking tennis lessons on and off. I was still really awful after like a year and I stopped playing afterwards (except literally just for exercising purposes/when someone asks me to play).

What a shocker.

i fukin love tennis

i love putin

Lots of people play golf even though they suck at it and never get better.

Lots of people go to jobs they suck at even if they pay is shit too.

I guess the question isn't really directed at me since I play < 20 hours a week (I play like 1 or 2 a night on average) but it's really condescending. I mean I don't look at all the activities in your life and go hey you really suck at that why do you even bother? If dota was completely about what your mmr is anyway then why do some people play ability draft and 1v1 exclusively and why did anyone play before ranked was introduced?

People play dota because it's fun. And no, that is not an excuse to say don't try hard to win. Winning is fun. But losing, it must be fun to, or at least tolerable enough to reach the fun moments when you do win.

Let's get real here. What is actual the significance of being 3k vs being 5k? I know your answer is going to be something like at 5k I play better people which means higher quality of matches which is more fun. But fun is completely arbitrary. And if winning is what's the most fun, what's the difference between a guy winning 50% of his games at 3k and one winning 50% at 5k? Neither player is ever going pro and at the end of the day you're both playing the same damn video game. There is no real life difference between you, just one in your head to make you feel superior and like you are getting something more out of the game.

^ur so wrong

people play golf to fit in with rich people, people do shit jobs to pay their bills. dont compare these two to players who willingly don't want to improve on a video game they play on their spare time

@Timber

OP means people who plays a lot AND wants to improve and win and still suck and doesnt try to get better.

The people you are saying likes to have fun while playing but they dont really care about improving so its not the kind of people OP is talking about

I did the same mistake

@OP, the problem why you cant understand this is you have a different mindset about everything than those people youre talking about. Thats the same reason why you stopped tennis after being bad at. You are doing a hobby to be good at it. But in other people's opinion, youre doing your hobby couse you enjoy doing it. Doesnt matter how good you are compared to others, as long as you have fun doing it. I like hand-crafting stuff, one of my first polymer clay figures was a cat that came out looking like a fucked up dog-bunny hibrid... :( soo many stuff like that. But I still enjoy it, so why not. I quickly got to a still bad but decent level, compared to people never trying it or having literally no talent at this (dexterity can be the word for this, not sure... whatever). Same goes for dota.

Game starts to get to a decent enjoyment level above 3k for players who have an idea about dota but arent that good/talented themselves. It annoys me sometimes to play around this level, I enjoy my stacking games with 1-2k higher teammates, those games make a lot more sense... But I played some games on my small (i fed some of my early games to get shit mmr to stack with new-to-dota/moba friends) acc, and those prob around/below 2k games are seriously retarded. I watch looots of streams or just friends play, friends above 4.5k and streams whatever but those are almost always 5k+ or higher... And some pro games, depends on my mood if more pro games or more pubs... I can tell the difference, but theres a higher gap between my "de-smurf" fulllnoob-mmr acc and my 3-3.5k games than between my 3-3.5k and random 4.5k games. People at 3k are trying to play dota. They still cant, but at least they usually have an idea. I never hear anyone say trax, lanaya, etc in 2k gams but they do above 3k, they pick at least one support, they dont autoattack in lane, they can pick reasonable lanes sometimes... 3k not all the time but 3.5k is ok. Everyone sucks at being optimal, but they know what they are trying to do. And they are trying to do something. They have tunnel vision, I have tunnel vision too so I dont even notice that they havent noticed something... :D But nowdays I have a lot better map awareness than before, but still slow to make a decision with it, so i can see their mistakes and usually when i call out something they have no idea what happened, they dont even notice... so that means im getting better at seeing the map but still cant utilize it... Guess more practice and id get slightly higher...

Dont jugdge me from my past some weeks, I had irl stuff, but there were weeks when I spent 8-10 hours with dota (lets say 6-8 hours in game and some hours streams/watching/reading/forum etc), I wasted soooo much time.. I have around 1300 games played and at the very least 400 spectated but thats just a guess, can be more... And I still suck.

This makes me somewhat sad, couse I used to be good at World of Warcraft. Im still mad about starting last summer instead of guild wars, but its too late, I dont have time to start learning a new game from the basics, so im stuck with dota... Thats another possible reason why lts of people dont quit. You need around a year to get good, but if you have a year exp, you only need 1-2 months of active practice. I guess even I could reach 4k with a good and active coach and the necessary mindset in 2-3 months, and im really not good at this. But I still enjoy playing with my friends of any mmr, I dont mind stomping noobs as PA that I clearly cant play at all in below2k games, and im okey as my feeding crystal maiden or ultrakill-stealer wd when stacking with 4-5k players, or sometimes just simply playing my 3k solo ranked games, but I enjoy those the less...

What I clearly miss compared to wow is leading groups, this game is sooo fucking complicated :( I have to be really good at it to lead a group, and I was quiet good at leading groups, but I dont have the required knowledge. This is the other thing that makes me sad about dota. Was probably a bad decision to start this game instead of another mmo. Whatever, now I wanna be good at this shit. Not today but ... some day.

Ah and what i forgot is, I learn more and more about the game to enjoy spectating it more. I definetly prefer watching dota over playing it, couse I have a better knowledge than talent.

----

tl;dr
-ppl do hobbies to enjoy not to be good at compared to others. who the fuck cares about others as long as i have fun
-bad choise of game, but killed soo much time learning basics, not worht it to start a new game, maybe thats not gonna work neither, gotta work with what we have already
-im gonna be good at one day, i just dont have the commitment. obviously its not couse i suck, no way, its just couse ive never tried hard enough
-at least enjoy watching pro games / good streams with that knowledge

Average and decent can't be determined

You probably think you're decent with 5k rating because that's top 0,1% or whatever, however that's still awful for me because 5k player can't compete with me or any played I consider decent, he's gonna get outplayed every second. For me what's decent is if you can keep up with the best players on equal footing, obviously other people don't look at it like that. For a 5k player 4,5k looks decent, a 3k player might consider 2,7k decent. For me there's no difference between 2k and 5k - you're not close to playing the game on a competitive level, so why does the difference in level of play matter? Whether you're 3k or 4k matters only to yourself and nobody else.

So a 3,5k player thinks he's decent, just like a 4,5k player thinks he's decent since they're both above average. From my perspective there's no difference, the enjoyment in the game is derived from playing against people of equal skill. For some players ranked mm showing them where they're at was disappointing and they quit, the majority didn't care enough.

The big majority of the playerbase plays just for the sake of playing with no intention to improve. Otherwise everybody would get to 5k at some point. Nobody thinks they're terrible at the game because they play against equal people. They don't get stomped every game, they lose 50% and win 50%. And that makes the game competitive enough and keeps them playing

i don't think it works the same way as your analogies, OP. i mean if there was no matchmaking and as a consequence i was getting stomped every game i'd probably quit but that's not the case. im not really being compared with players as a whole, only players at my own skill.

i mean yeah, i'm pretty embarrassed about my mmr after what would be a combined ~2300 games in dota 2 (i never played dota 1 though, if that helps my case) and i wish i was better, but i still have fun playing, learning new strats, trying new stuff, etc. mobas are unique amongst games in the sense that every game is different (even in the current patch lol) and it never gets boring, so i like playing it. i also like playing with friends, even if i only really know one of them irl. this probably means i'm a pathetic loser in dota but ... there you go.

i think i understand why people play dota now casually for fun

as for what makes dota fun in the first place, this would require some deep probing of why the mind derives pleasure from clicking buttons (mechanical) and the visual graphics and animations (perceptual)

edit: ugh, this is almost like an ontological screening: WHY DO PEOPLE PLAY DOTA? I can't help but ask such questions sometimes.

I dont even know why i keep playing man seriously

I would like to quit but i cant

^I get that. I tried getting into Civ and heaps of other games but they get so boring!

Yeah man i tried path of exile but i got bored really fast, actually every game i tried after dota got boring really fast.

try FEZ, it's a great platformer (i got it on a discount at $2)

i haven't played dota in 2 weeks and it feels great

nice nickname faggot

That actually happened to me too.

The fact that you don't find other games enjoyable has more to do with the instant gratification (sigh...brave new world) that dota brings, a quality that is lacking in most other games.

"Yes it is, but there's actually a very large difference.
A 3700 player will stomp 3k games with 80-100% and gets where he belongs."

No, he won't. Probably 75% max. The game gets very easy (aka almost auto win) when you're over 1k ahead.

As Swiftending and others mentioned each group of players face people on their team and against them who are, at least as a group, close to their skill level.

While in one particular game a player might be 500 MMR above or below the average for that game, over many games they will see players about as good at dota as they are. It's only if you play with people far above or below you in MMR that the skill differences really stand out. When I have played in games with and against pro players I seem almost paralyzed I am so slow to react. When I have played with and against new players I appear to be invincible.

Most people are not capable of accurately perceiving what is happening in real time in a dota game or taking appropriate actions even if they can perceive it. If you are a player who has the talent to reach a high MMR, it is probably not possible for you to comprehend the experience of the typical dota player... just how many misclicks they really do, just how long it takes them to process the visuals, just how much extra time is required for them to decide what to do next. In dota tiny factions of a second really matter and very few people are physically capable of executing techniques and tactics that were balanced for use by professional gamers. Dota is not LoL (which is balanced for pubs). Most people really cannot become good at Dota by practice; it just won't happen.

But most pubs do not care about the fact that they cannot achieve such and such MMR. Most are very happy to win or lose 50% of the time and do not ever seriously reflect upon how to improve, or intentionally practice or study the game. Those who do might be discouraged when they realize they do not have the talent to become excellent. Perhaps that is the group you find hanging around in the 3k MMR range complaining about ELO hell. If people thought they would eventually become pro-like after a long time, maybe they get delusional about it. But reality is, most people can't become excellent at dota despite a deep understanding of the game, or years of practice, etc.. because they are just not fast and accurate enough to execute the moves.

Relentless wasn't dead after all.

We love you Relentless, please don't leave us :(

I'm sorry, a new job and new girl friend have consumed nearly all available time. I'll check in now and then.

go away

The haters man

Please god take Sampson away and give Relentless back

Dorkly how bout you get off relentless' old ass

This post is actually pretty retarded and sounds really obnoxious. I have no idea how you not see the fault in your entire proposed 'discussion'.

Its too wrapped around your idea of how this game should be enjoyed, which can be grotesquely summarized as "its only fun when you become good and win". You will then proceed to argue how many people share similar mindsets. I will then proceed to argue how there are many more people who don't agree with it.

Its a game, man. Some people don't want to dedicate effort into something they do for leisure. Like, if you like playing basketball (not on official team) and have been playing it for years, does that mean you go run around laps and do dribbling drills and shit?

omggg srsly, reflect it from an unbiased view.

"I'm going to be lenient and not say everyone below 5k is trash"

Level of arrogance and obliviousness is too dayuum high. You sound like the nobles of ages past who when walking past the towns go 'How do these plebs take living like this? I would kill myself blablabla" when said farmers were probably enjoying their lives (assumed no warring state).

I can't imagine anyone who retains enough interest to play basketball for years refusing to do basic drills/running laps to make some effort to improve.

Oh well, I'll just accept what Relentless and Swiftending said.

Not gonna start a new back and forth debate but I'm gonna give some closure on what I said earlier.

Regarding the basketball thing? You'd be surprised. Ex-school team players who would happily agree to any basketball session. They might try tricks shots here and there but are they gonna practise? No. Its a leisure thing, especially when you're doing it with friends. What the hell are you gonna do when you're much better? Find new friends or keep stomping your current ones?

There a bunch of subconscious reasons why training relentlessly or putting effort to improve might not seem appealing to most people. Clearly for you and honestly, me, improving and competitiveness make it fun. However, thats our concept of fun, not others.

"^ur so wrong

people play golf to fit in with rich people, people do shit jobs to pay their bills. dont compare these two to players who willingly don't want to improve on a video game they play on their spare time"

Some people play golf for that reason but most don't. There are tons of people who play regularly and still suck at it.

And the job thing does apply. Cus you can almost always switch jobs. If it's a shitty job you are bad at why wouldn't you? But it's the same with dota, people get comfortable with where they are.

I can't recommend any alternatives to dota because it's an extremely unique experience. I can throw out a ton of games I've played and enjoyed along side dota the past few years- Tomb Raider, Mass Effect 3, Walking Dead, Skyrim, some good indie ones like FTL, Bastion, Bionic Dues. But at the end of the day I have no clue what types of games you enjoy or would grab your attention. For me usually my preference is to play dota but I play other games when I can't devote an hour uninterrupted or I want to chill out. Dota is not a relaxing game so I'll choose something else when winding down.