I remember reading Part 1 years ago, but never knew there was a Part 2. Thanks for the link.
Very nice articles, i'm sure every player can learn something from it!
I disagree. I can win more if I keep playing Death Prophet or Abaddon in pubs, but I prefer to use a heroes I like more even though I might win less with them. And yes, that means I sigh if the other team is DP/Veno/Abaddon/Zeus/Lich. But no big deal.
Oh god this is just going to amplify the ego of some people here
Ok on the part 2 the guy explains himself better, so i think i actually agree with him
I play to win... but honestly the article disregards the fact the many people have other goals besides a technical win. Or another way to say it: there are many definitions of a win.
For instance, my goal could be purely to win games such that my dotabuff winrate will be the highest possible. If that were the goal I would play only with the best 5 stacks I could get, only when some of them were on smurfs, only play using Chinese language option on the South African server... and play a powerful strat familiar to the team.
However, if my goal was to get max solo que MMR then I would play only my best solo mid heroes. I would play all on USeast for minimal ping. I would snowball and gank every game and never try any of the less effective strategies for pub games.
If I wanted to achieve the highest KDA possible on Dotabuff front page... now the most effective strategy will be to throw games... especially the first few games of a new account to keep my MMR very low. Then I snowball on a ganking hero to get very high KDA, but throw the game at the end so my MMR stays low and I play against nubs.
If my objective is to get to play on page 1 live games then the best plan is to be friends with the best players so I just automatically go to page 1 when I que with them no matter what my MMR is.
But if my objective is to have fun... and I want to play meepo because I like it even though I'm pretty bad at it... well now the oversimplified concepts from the author will determine that I am a "scrub" because I pick meepo when Nature's Prophet would win more.
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Despite that the basic idea of playing to win at all costs... if the means mass Necro 3, and abuse backdoor or whatever... that concept is correct. If the best teams can't beat Navi using fountain hooks... then Navi is #1. Navi' believed Orange could not deal with fountain hooks and beat them with it. Navi believed Alliance could deal with fountain hooks and did not try it. Now fountain hooks are gone... but while they were in the game: If you can use it to win, do it.
^He is talking about getting better at the game and competitive stuff, so high MMR is the only relevant objective. Rest are just numbers.
I do play to win, ultimately, but that is not the be all, end all. I want to get better at the game, period. I'm just as happy with a back and forth, close loss as I am with a win. Or knowing I did some particular aspect a little better than normal.
For example, my two biggest issues are aggressiveness and poor positioning leading to getting caught. If I can go a game without diving and dying to the tower and only have a death or two due to bad positioning, I'm happy. Or working on buying wards. Or TPs. Things like that.
No, I don't play to win every single game. If I did I would always pick certain heroes, either my very best, what the team needs or some really good combo like a dual lich mid (which is awfully dull). I try not to make bad picks that give us a very bad chance to win but I also pick heroes I think are fun to play.
I've found a pure gem on one of the forums about a CCG I use as a frustration vent from Dota 2:
"
I tried playing chess once, but everyone just played the same setups, spamming pawns everywhere and abusing the totally OP queens. I mean, they cost the same as a rook but they have the stats of a rook and a bishop combined, wtf? Even at top level play it's just like "who can trap the king the fastest". And it's totally repetitive, I saw two games where they did exactly the same thing for the first 17 moves!?!"They're clearly all just a bunch of aspy-computer brains, in fact the whole game is dominated by bots now. The other day I tried to do something a bit different and move my pawn and the oppoent was all like "en-passant" and I'm all "what the heck is that French ****? The rules of this game don't even make sense. I read the history and it's supposed to be a battle between opposing armies, where's the blood?". So I just got up and left my chess clock running and went home and had sex with my girlfriend instead and my opponent had to just sit there for 20 minutes before my timer ran out. I was so awesome.
Though indirectly, it still relates to the complaints people have about the game balance and some heroes being OP
I agree - in a game where each match lasts 30+ minutes, you really want some variety. I have a strong belief that one needs to play all heroes at least once in a while just to keep up with the current meta and balance changes - will work out better in the long-run.
It's more fun when winning than losing, so I play to win, but even more fun winning a comeback games (because that is happening very rarely)
I prefer loosing interesting games than winning in stupid stomps that why I never play in this meta OP heroes like gaymother, shitspirit and aidscommander or slarkbitch.
We dont win anything at the end of the matches
I do play to win or so, but I dont do all that bragging stuff because you never know when a game is over until the ancient is dead.
I play for fun only and that's why i always choose high risk type high rewarding heroes (e.g. Pudge). The problem with this is that when you play in a party you can easily drag your whole team down very easily or the other way around. I used to play dota 1 extremely seriously but it was such a loss of time and energy due to a variety of reasons (maphack, unmannered people, not a "recognized" standalone game, bad graphics and very old game engine etc.). I feel the younger generation of gamers are so lucky to have this game and mostly to not have this cursed maphack ruining their experience. GG young bitches..!
the guide its perfect. and all of you assume you will only play 2 heroes and thats it, but this guide assume you play tournament. use only krobe for example, that recks pubs, use it in a tournament. if you win, keep it, if you lose, learn what was wrong and keep going. simple as that, change and keep moving. winning is absolutely everything, if you wanna be a great player
Read this many years ago, actually posted by someone preparing for a Pokemon casual tournament on Gamespot. It never totally sat well in my stomach until I red this;
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr11b
The author of Playing to Win is a Spike, clearly.
"Spike cares more about the quantity of wins than the quality. For example, Spike plays ten games and wins nine of them. If Spike feels he should have won the tenth, he walks away unhappy."
Whereas the Timmy just wants to draft a team of teamfight ults and if it works once and ends in a double rampage, who cares if you win the game after that, right?
And the Johnny wants to build Radiance and Veil of Discord on Batrider in order to make the Radiance burn work with his Q. If it works once in 10 games he is literally the happiest guy around.
Spike calls them scrubs, even when wins and losses are totally unimportant in the non-tournament scheme.
Someone already posted this on dotabuff some time ago :p (a couple of minths ago ~8+)
but its a good read
edit: ahhahahha its this thread (was 5 months ago :D)
People who complain about rat dota kinda remind me of old-school Brazilian national team football fans (and players) who were so concerned with playing "beautiful" or "artistic" football.
I guess this mindset extends to dota too since all the Brazilians I play with just want to kill, kill, kill.
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I have found an interesting article that is almost 14 years old now. I suggest anyone who has questions regarding the game balance, "cheesy" tactics or has interest in self-improvement read it.
Part 1 and Part 2