“Do you really have zero wins?”
That’s one of my teammates in “Dota 2,” Valve’s technically in beta but also for sale MOBA, or multiplayer online battle arena. At the time we were two to three minutes into the game and hadn’t even engaged the enemy. As I looked at his words on the screen I felt shame, anger and like deeply sighing. No, I haven’t won any games despite putting in roughly 40 hours of play time.
A MOBA is a five versus five player battle on one map. The genre evolved from player mods for “Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos,” a game released by Blizzard Entertainment way back in 2002. There are several popular PC versions of the game with titles like “League of Legends” and “Heroes of Newerth” and the original “Dota,” short for “Defense of the Ancients.” In addition, Blizzard is developing "Blizzard All-Stars" although no release date is set. And while I briefly tried League of Legends a couple of years ago it never stuck.
I decided to give “Dota 2” a chance when Valve, which developed the game, began giving out free keys to Steam users. The game is completely free but players can buy an ever expanding list of cosmetic items such as outfits or pets.
“Dota 2” is one of those games that is so blindingly difficult to get into that its players take a perverse pleasure in mocking newcomers. And while the hazing is not as bad as Riot’s “League of Legends,” which is so toxic the company has taken to banning even professional teams that act like schoolyard bullies, it’s still off-putting. With a hundred-plus characters and a seemingly endless amount of items that each have their own effect on gameplay, the game is built for people who have a lot of time on their hands.
One of the foundational texts recommended to new players, “Welcome to Dota 2. You Suck,” gleefully notes that even after three months of constant playing, you might not be terrible at the game. But you probably will be.
What makes the game so hard? Each of the characters has roughly four powers that can each be individually leveled up. Each power is different and each power can sometimes be more or less useful depending on if it’s the beginning, middle or end of the game. Add in two stores on the map which sell different items that do different things and you have the possibility of spreadsheet nirvana.
And that’s before you even start wondering about the meta game. In “Dota2” part of the strategy is picking characters that can effectively counter the opposing force. So not only do you have to know your own character's skill tree and optimal item build cold, you have to know your opponent’s as well.
This can be intimidating.
But I keep playing. Mostly against bots set to easy and I even win occasionally. Those wins, though, don’t count in your win/loss ratio. To get better I watch Purge Plays, a fantastic player who does commentary for his own matches and offers insight into why he went with certain builds and what he thinks the other team is going to do. I downloaded and used the “Dota 2” app, which has all the characters and their preferred buildouts.
But when my mouse hovers over the option to play against real people, I still think of how many wins I have.Since it’s still zero I just go back to the bots. It’s easier that way.
