Raging MOBA players, a plague that needs to stop.

Feb 18, 2009
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CAUTION: LONG RANTS AHEAD!
tl;dr summary: Tips and help, good. Abuse, bad.

I have been a player of the MOBA genre (yes, its a genre now, deal with it) for a while now, and although I was never around for DotA, I feel I'm a capable player with plenty of room to improve.
So, why does every loud-mouthed, wanna-be pro insist I'm a "noob"!?
Not much gets me really riled up but loud, stupid people and bad sportsmanship do. It's simply uncalled for.
Huh? I'm sorry? "MOBA games involve a lot of meta-game and teamwork; the latter of which is hard to find in a public game. If a team member isn't pulling their weight, it ruins the match." eh? Bull. Shit. Well, they do inherently involve a lot of meta-game, fine, but that's something you can only really learn through experience playing the game. Not enough teamwork? If you don't like public games, don't play them. It's not rocket science. On the second point, does it REALLY RUIN the match? If still yes, will the odd bad match RUIN your life, or general experience of the game? EVEN SO, is useless, repeated abuse gonna help? No, no, and no. I get hit by a good gank and you blame me? YOU get ganked and you blame me? They stick together, have good combos and you run off into the jungle alone, and yet their clinical executions are somehow my fault? Please, good sir, enlighten my. How the fuck do I attain your status as the almighty un-touchable? How do I become the apparent god that your claim to be? What knowledge must I be born with to be an oracle of your standards?
Getting angry is fine, I get angry too, but learn to control it like an adult. Have the balls to accept your fault, and learn from it. If someone actually does something wrong or is not performing well in one area, tell them how to improve. If you can't say how they could do better, don't say anything.
People have tried to fix this sort of thing. Take for example the Summoner's Code in LoL. A simple, and apparently naive approach, simply outlining explicitly good and bad behaviour for the community to self police with. It used to work quite well. 'Twas a rare occasion that anyone was insulted in a LoL match, but since I left, it's become just as much of a shouting contest as HoN. The slightly more rigorous approach by Valve in Dota 2 doesn't seem to do much good either. I reported many people for their inappropriate attitude, but only one has been reprimanded so far. I don't even know what the punishment is for such a crime. I know it happens anyway, but even the inter-game arguments are just as stupid (Awesomenauts IS a MOBA, it's just 2D and has a sense of humour)

I'm not sure what good ranting about this will do, but I need to get it off my chest. Am I the only one?
In a perfect world, I would like this sort of behaviour to be treated with contempt by the majority, and be shouted down and punished swiftly. How to make that a reality is beyond me. One little (or large) rant on a largely irrelevant forum is not going to get much traction, but every little helps I suppose. Please, if you play these games, don't be a dick.
 
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Fruity Snacks

Creator of blackholes & memes. Destroyer of forums
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Sep 5, 2010
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I tried DoTA2 once. Played as Enigma. did pretty bad, I'll admit. But I had 1 guy who was helping me out, which was nice.

Then there was my lane mate who was playing Zeus (iirc). Man, he was tearing me a new behind. Just like you say, he dies, I get blamed. I die, because he pulls enemy creeps on me? My fault. I get a good gank (only kill on the match, and it was killing the guy who had basically be farming me. Felt good to pull off that black hole and get a good gank in) ... But a good gank, and the other guy gets credit (who was on the other side of the map, lane hopping).

Basically this guy made me not want to try DotA2 again. haven't opened it since.

It's one of those games I'd like to try, since my cousin will probably play it. But it's hard with people like that constantly in games.
 
Feb 18, 2009
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Exactly my point. Everyone sucks on their first go (and for many matches after as well) because there is so much going on and almost everything about it is new. Having some douche-bag screaming at you doesn't do the psyche any good, at any level. A game should be liked/disliked on how good it is, not how much you have to suffer with abusive morons.

EDIT: P.S. If you wanna still try and get into MOBA games, try Awesomenauts or Super MNC then move to LoL. They're all a little more forgiving (the games, the communities may still be douche-baggy at times).
 
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grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
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Mar 4, 2008
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I always saw Dota2 being a game with a non-casual learning curve. And with that comes a player base who are entitled twerps. Or maybe it's just something seen in games with low team player counts. It's certainly an occasional issue in KF and Space Marine Exterminatus where team numbers are 6 and 4 respectively.
 

Freyja

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Jul 31, 2009
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This attitude, the one you're complaining about, will never change. It can't, no amount of coaching systems or commendation systems will change that. Not when you can't leave without penalty. A game can be an hour out of someone's time, one person can ruin that, and they can't leave to try again.

All the modern MOBA's have ignore features, and blacklists so you never have to play with them again. I don't know about you, but in my last 200 games of dota, bad teammates aren't that common, maybe 1 in 5 at the worst. If you want to play these games you're going to have to learn to deal with it, and be a better person yourself. Or find a regular group of friends to play with to minimise the chances you get matched with an idiot.
 
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Feb 18, 2009
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I'm not looking for complete eradication of the problem, that is impossible, but is having a level of common human decency too much to ask? I'm also aware that this happens virtually everywhere, it's just that MOBA games seem to be awash with this attitude, and it's stifling the growing genre. I'm not personally affected by the abuse, but beginners are. If anything, the steep learning curve should promote a pleasant learning environment (in the right situations of course) but the fact that it often does the opposite is infuriating to me. If a "noob" was joining high level matches, yeah ok, maybe be polite about it, but they need to be informed of their mistake. If you're a "good" player joining a random group of people, that's the risk you take. There's no need for the abuse.
I these abusive people often forget 2 things about MOBAs. EVERYONE makes mistakes sometimes and some things in MOBA games can only be learned by doing them again and again. Videos and guides are fine and all, but experience is the key.

Also...
I don't know about you, but in my last 200 games of dota, bad teammates aren't that common, maybe 1 in 5 at the worst...

More like 1 douche in almost every match for me. :/
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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Didn't Valve claim they had some big secret planned for Dota 2 that would remedy this? I haven't heard anything about it since then. Did they already put it in and have it turn out to be something so lame nobody even thought it was worth talking about?