Finaika
Member
LoL and Overwatch has a more anime-like art-style, and Asian players (plus Western anime fans) LOVE those.
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So why does League of Legends still have a larger playerbase than Dota 2?
- Thread starter ScOULaris
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LoL and Overwatch has a more anime-like art-style, and Asian players (plus Western anime fans) LOVE those.
Imperfected
Member
This can be deceptive, though. There's a ton of Mario porn out there despite the fact that there are very few female characters and they appear on screen for very little time in a largely non-sexualized fashion in the vast majority of Mario games.
People will sexualize any characters they like enough, even if there's nothing inherently sexual or even if those characters being sexual is a physical improbability (ie, GLaDOS). It's generally more accurate to say that people will create an amount of pornography of something relative to its popularity, rather than something's popularity will grow in relative proportion to the amount of porn that exists of it.
Not accounting for weird fetish stuff, anyway.
Hasphat'sAnts
Member
There's not much difference between succubi and SM queens. One is just allegory for the other.
pretty big difference between normal sex and sm imo, but what do i know? never done both
manfestival
Member
my guess is that league is a more fun game and has better word of mouth than dota 2
Every time somebody says that they don't like denying creeps or how the line of sight works i die a little bit inside. When i played dota it was those two things that made me love the game, every tree was it's own possibility, and with denying there was always something for you to do when playing support. If you weren't ganking, stacking camps or doing anything else you could always deny exp from the enemy team.
Also, turn rates in Dota make the melee carries viable, casters like zeus can't just kite you with their spells because every time they turn it takes time unlike in LoL.
Also, turn rates in Dota make the melee carries viable, casters like zeus can't just kite you with their spells because every time they turn it takes time unlike in LoL.
Dreams-Visions
Member
i think this is largely correct. MOBAS are damn near like consoles: most don't have the time to play both, and investing time and money into the ecosystem creates loyalty. Or at least disinterest in switching to a different MOBA.
Both are also good, fun games. League having a far simpler and less punishing core gameplay experience makes it easier to get into...and once you're in a given MOBA and finally "understand" it, you're probably not going to look to start all over with another MOBA. Dota 2 is the far more technical and punishing game. It also has fewer waifus, which matters for lots of people.
That said, Dota2 doesn't need to be a bigger game (population) to be a better game. It's already that and will always be that. It is more technical, more nuanced, more flexible and more interesting in just about every way. But League has its place in the same way that Marvel vs Capcom has its place next to Street Fighter. Different, more fun to play at times depending on your mood, enjoyable in its own right, with an objectively friendlier community overall (and that's saying something because it has its awful times too).
manfestival
Member
Dota dire side map is depressing way too much gray, no surrender, movement feels a tad sluggish compared to league, camera too close in dota, you can only do like 2 spells before your out of mana early game with alot of heroes, more demanding graphics wise, stacking denying can be confusing at first, no completely new heroes yet, where the hell are the new heros Valve jeez i'd like to see one.league's whole presentation is just more inviting, bright cheery, Riot are kind of masters at e-sports at this point as well. this says nothing about the positives dota has over league tho
SecretMoblin
Member
This is a big part of it, actually, for friends irl who have careers and families. Committing to a game of DotA usually requires setting aside a much larger amount of time and attention, and not everyone has the luxury of an open-ended schedule. It's kept friends sticking to the simpler, more direct experience. DotA is especially bad at it because in most low-ish tier pub games unless you're playing with a 5-stack team coordination is garbage and games end up dragging on way longer than they need to. The lack of a surrender option alone would definitely make the game a ton more appealing to them.
Also the community is straight up trash. ALSO icefraud hates black women, which I'm sure has an impact on the growth of the game. Also global cultural icon and most popular hero in a MOBA, Jayce, is in League.
neurosisxeno
Member
LoL is trying pretty hard to lower their player base. A lot of their changes and lack of adequate balancing is driving people out.
Is there a meme I'm missing here
Jayce is a planswalker (Magic the Gathering) hes on the cover of literraly fucking everything magic AND gets a new card like every set.
Sigismundo
Member
No, Moblin's just weird.
Digital Savior
Member
I'm not a huge fan of MOBAs. But, I enjoyed LoL more than DotA. Not sure why. Just gameplay in general maybe. It is a bit easier.
walking fiend
Member
I rarely ever post here, but I had to respond to this.
I stopped playing DOTA 2 after sinking well over 500 hours into it, only because I had to go through stupidly unbalanced matches without having a vote surrender option.
neurosisxeno
Member
Surrender waters down gameplay. I picked LoL up again a month ago, and do you have any idea how many games we totally could have turned the tide on but people decided to surrender at 15 minutes and gave up? It makes people commit self-fulfilling prophecies left and right.
SecretMoblin
Member
This is a cute writeup
It won't kill the game obviously but it is absolutely a case of Riot making their gameplay philosophy very clear.
killatopak
Gold Member
Coming from 9 years of playing dota 1/2
Lol is just better for me.
I currently don't like lol. Waiting for a few patches to fix ranked.
Lol is just better for me.
I currently don't like lol. Waiting for a few patches to fix ranked.
If I had a dollar for every match I have won that would have been surrendered at 20 minutes if it was an option...
Many more pub matches in Dota are winnable than you might think. This is why there is no surrender in Dota, because it would eliminate a ton of interesting matches.
AnathemicOne
Banned
I play both Dota 2 and LoL and while I prefer the former I play the latter more due to my friends playing it. I've also played DotA and DotA Allstars back in the day on WC3, though I was more into other UMS maps back then and disliked how DotA ate up the entire search list for playing these maps, go figure.
Anyways, I attribute LoL having a larger playerbase due to these factors:
- Earlier release
- Marketing
- Champion design
- Simplification/Game Design
Earlier release and marketing are simple answers but make sense. When LoL released no one knew what the fuck a DotA or MOBA was save the huge playerbase in China and WC3 players. In combination of LoL from the getgo being designed on a simplification of DotA and being F2P, it attracted players over time. After all, why would you pay $40 for WC3 and play the DotA mod when you can download the LoL client and play for free?
However when LoL released it wasn't in direct competition with DotA due to the community, albeit growing, starting off small. I'd say LoL didn't start exponentially growing until Season 2 hit and it was starting to be played in Korea who previously was into SC2 en masse. Blizzard fucked up in e-sports and so alot of Koreans started playing LoL, the "new e-sport". And right then, when Korean players started playing, is when LoL started growing into the juggernaut we have today.
Retention of players, however, I believe is due to the character design and how LoL simplified the genre. Both games I'd label as cartoony or stylistic but Dota 2 grounds its design and art into semi-realism which I enjoy whilst LoL embraces the cartoony aspect. People generally like the latter more. As for simplification, Riot set out to create its own derivative of DotA whilst Valve set out to create a modern and true successor to DotA, and it shows. Dota 2 has only recently been changing up the gameplay in terms of changing terrain and new items whilst before it was continuing to port heroes from the original DotA. LoL, on the other hand borrowed alot from DotA/Dota 2 during development and post-launch patches but eventually started adding their own gameplay mechanics.
However, like I stated originally, I still prefer Dota 2 because while it was direct port from the original DotA UMS mod, it wasn't simplified to repetition. I love vision aspect of high/low ground because it makes sense, limited/small mana pool and cooldowns require the player to be more methodical, couriers make lane dominance a constant thing (in addition to TP scrolls), destructible trees make ganking/peacing out more exciting, and most importantly is ability/spell impact; Faceless Void and Magnus can either secure team fights or fuck it up for everyone, Broodmother and Techies will make their respective lanes their bitches, Spiritbreaker will fuck you up, and so on. LoL, so far, has not replicated any of this and it can't due to the simplification in their game design from the start of its development.
I mean the original DotA mod was based on one of the dramatic/serious-toned campaigns in the game ala the Battle for Mount Hyjal in WC3 with half the map being blighted and controlled by Undead AI. So the while the designs are cartoony and stylistic, it hardly was rainbows of Disney like you are stating.
Anyways, I attribute LoL having a larger playerbase due to these factors:
- Earlier release
- Marketing
- Champion design
- Simplification/Game Design
Earlier release and marketing are simple answers but make sense. When LoL released no one knew what the fuck a DotA or MOBA was save the huge playerbase in China and WC3 players. In combination of LoL from the getgo being designed on a simplification of DotA and being F2P, it attracted players over time. After all, why would you pay $40 for WC3 and play the DotA mod when you can download the LoL client and play for free?
However when LoL released it wasn't in direct competition with DotA due to the community, albeit growing, starting off small. I'd say LoL didn't start exponentially growing until Season 2 hit and it was starting to be played in Korea who previously was into SC2 en masse. Blizzard fucked up in e-sports and so alot of Koreans started playing LoL, the "new e-sport". And right then, when Korean players started playing, is when LoL started growing into the juggernaut we have today.
Retention of players, however, I believe is due to the character design and how LoL simplified the genre. Both games I'd label as cartoony or stylistic but Dota 2 grounds its design and art into semi-realism which I enjoy whilst LoL embraces the cartoony aspect. People generally like the latter more. As for simplification, Riot set out to create its own derivative of DotA whilst Valve set out to create a modern and true successor to DotA, and it shows. Dota 2 has only recently been changing up the gameplay in terms of changing terrain and new items whilst before it was continuing to port heroes from the original DotA. LoL, on the other hand borrowed alot from DotA/Dota 2 during development and post-launch patches but eventually started adding their own gameplay mechanics.
However, like I stated originally, I still prefer Dota 2 because while it was direct port from the original DotA UMS mod, it wasn't simplified to repetition. I love vision aspect of high/low ground because it makes sense, limited/small mana pool and cooldowns require the player to be more methodical, couriers make lane dominance a constant thing (in addition to TP scrolls), destructible trees make ganking/peacing out more exciting, and most importantly is ability/spell impact; Faceless Void and Magnus can either secure team fights or fuck it up for everyone, Broodmother and Techies will make their respective lanes their bitches, Spiritbreaker will fuck you up, and so on. LoL, so far, has not replicated any of this and it can't due to the simplification in their game design from the start of its development.
I mean the original DotA mod was based on one of the dramatic/serious-toned campaigns in the game ala the Battle for Mount Hyjal in WC3 with half the map being blighted and controlled by Undead AI. So the while the designs are cartoony and stylistic, it hardly was rainbows of Disney like you are stating.
The only repulsive thing here is your opinion!
Have you played Dota 2 at all? if so how much?
Okay, but just compare the in-game art (character select, skin select, splash screens etc.) and it's pretty obvious which game is going fuller-tilt on the sex appeal. Dota 2 has characters with boobs sure, but it's much more saturday-morning-cartoon than League.
As an example,
You really don't see a whole lot of this stuff in Dota2. Sort of makes Crystal Maiden look like Marge Simpson. I'm not pro or against either style but to say there isn't a difference between them is a bit naive.
boybrushdRED
Member
I think this is a huge factor because I think the MOBA genre takes a whole lot of time to learn, so players stick to one game than learn a new game. I imagine League players who already know a lot of their stuff like hero matchups will just stick to League than invest a lot of time to learn a whole new cast of characters on Dota 2.
I'm a Dota 2 player, and that is my mentality when my friends and family wanted to play Heroes of the Storm with me when it came out.
Code:
L M A O
M A
A M
O A M LIs there a reason why they don't just do Solo Queue and Team Queue?
Fair enough. I haven't really touched League in years but that's how I remember it.
Honestly the real crime here is that Super Monday Night Combat (which is superior to both games) died in the water while League and Dota went on to make bajillions : )
AnathemicOne
Banned
You'd also have to understand Riot's been designing against that in their female champions for years now. The most recent one?
You'd have to reach back years to find a lady in League of Legends that looks as silly as Janna does from a sex appeal standpoint.
Skins, this was this year
KonradLaw
Member
MOBAs are incredibly hard to master. They're bassicaly sport. If you're going to invest a lot of time into one it's best to do it to the most popular one, which is LOL. And if you've already put effort (and some money) into it starting from scratch with Dota2 doesn't make sense, especially since realistically both are pretty similiar quality-wise.
Also..Riot is simply a lot better at supporting their game. THey have much bigger staff and it directly translates to much better support for the community. Like for example..Valve provides at most text localizations, LoL usually offers local versions with dubbing. LoL is also on a lot more esport tournaments than Dota 2 .
Bassicaly Dota 2 still feels like a game, LoL feels like a mainstream sport.
Also..Riot is simply a lot better at supporting their game. THey have much bigger staff and it directly translates to much better support for the community. Like for example..Valve provides at most text localizations, LoL usually offers local versions with dubbing. LoL is also on a lot more esport tournaments than Dota 2 .
Bassicaly Dota 2 still feels like a game, LoL feels like a mainstream sport.
Imperfected
Member
You'd also have to understand Riot's been designing against that in their female champions for years now. The most recent one?
You'd have to reach back years to find a lady in League of Legends that looks as silly as Janna does from a sex appeal standpoint.
You just don't appreciate Illaoi's... charms. They didn't leave those pythons uncovered by accident.
To clarify, though, when I say "waifus": I don't strictly mean sex appeal. To me, "waifu" is shorthand for a design philosophy for characters where you design to a fantasy. "This character is designed to fulfill the fantasy of... [x]" where [x] could be "... being Toph from Avatar", or "... being Jetstream Sam from Metal Gear Rising", or, yes, "... being a drop-dead gorgeous femme fatale."
Like, my League "waifu" is... Yasuo. No, I don't find him sexy, but promising me I can play as a yojimbo-themed ronin samurai who plays classic Kurosawa tropes straight is pretty much guaranteed to at least get me to try your game, whether it's Warframe or Last Blade. That's what League's character design focuses on: trying to create at least one character for every "type" of player out there that makes them say, "Okay, fuck it, I have got to try that shit out, even if the game sucks."
This is a similarity it has with Overwatch, and a quality that DOTA2 has very sparingly at best with its inherited character designs. Most people want to try DOTA2's heroes based on their pre-existing knowledge of the game and the way their mechanics interact with it, not based on just seeing a picture and being told a concept and saying "oh good fucking god that's rad, put it in my veins". That's good for player retention (players want to keep trying different hero combinations and experimenting with their interactions), but not super great for initial marketing.
SecretMoblin
Member
not a good one lol
to them it makes good business and game design philosophy sense to strongly encourage playing with friends
Dota 2 is HORRIBLE for newcomers. I don't know how anyone could pick this game up nowadays. I've been playing the game for 10 years now (6.2x era) and I'm surprised it's held on as well as at is because of this issue. Riot did a great job selling LoL as an easier to learn version of Dota, which it is.
I think Dota 2's main strength is similar to CS's. The competitive scene is arguably healthier than LoL's. Dota 2 is absolutely more complex/harder, but it also rewards the increased difficulty. But LoL draws in more players with less a daunting learning curve/gameplay
I think Dota 2's main strength is similar to CS's. The competitive scene is arguably healthier than LoL's. Dota 2 is absolutely more complex/harder, but it also rewards the increased difficulty. But LoL draws in more players with less a daunting learning curve/gameplay
Unfortunately, he is wrong.
Dota (AS) came out years before LoL, and it was huge. Dota 2 was a mechanical exact of Dota.
Again this is not the correct reason.
Dota predated LoL by many years, and was massive. Dota 2 was Dota on Steam, exact same gameplay.
LoL got there before Dota 2, it's a lot easier to play and trys to make it as unfrutrating as possible when a player fucks up and the art style is more suited to asian audiences.
I mean Dota 2 had to censor it's heroes for China, leading them to getting rid of the best character in the game and replacing him with a green doughnut man.
I wouldn't say this, I'm relatively new to Dota, I got into the closed beta for Dota2 and I'd never played a moba before and I've been hooked ever since. I've never once felt that something was archaic or obtuse, it's just another system that adds to the dynamism of the game and keeps it fresh and interesting for me.
I just don't get what's supposed to be so hard to pick up the game, I've never once thought any of these mechanics that the Yander seems to be so upset about were hard or obtuse.
When people talk about Dota 2 being overly complex, I always imagine they're talking about spell interactions, purges, spell immunity, immunity piercing spells, items that certain heroes can't buy etc. not the fucking secret shop or denying your own creeps, that stuff is fucking easy to understand once someone has told you about it and adds a lot to the game.
Without all that "archaic" complexity, I probably wouldn't have ended up playing the game for 2300 hours.
I mean Dota 2 had to censor it's heroes for China, leading them to getting rid of the best character in the game and replacing him with a green doughnut man.
I wouldn't say this, I'm relatively new to Dota, I got into the closed beta for Dota2 and I'd never played a moba before and I've been hooked ever since. I've never once felt that something was archaic or obtuse, it's just another system that adds to the dynamism of the game and keeps it fresh and interesting for me.
I just don't get what's supposed to be so hard to pick up the game, I've never once thought any of these mechanics that the Yander seems to be so upset about were hard or obtuse.
When people talk about Dota 2 being overly complex, I always imagine they're talking about spell interactions, purges, spell immunity, immunity piercing spells, items that certain heroes can't buy etc. not the fucking secret shop or denying your own creeps, that stuff is fucking easy to understand once someone has told you about it and adds a lot to the game.
Without all that "archaic" complexity, I probably wouldn't have ended up playing the game for 2300 hours.
inpHilltr8r
Member
riot is srs bzns
valve haz add
valve haz add
KonradLaw
Member
Dota was a mod for expensive game. LoL was free. And LoL was sold to the masses as "Dota, but preetier and free. Made by the same team too" when it launched.
Dota (AS) was huge, popular, e-sports before LoL existed. Very very big. Dota 2 was a mechanical exact of Dota, only bringing a new Steam platform to play the same Dota with better presentation and QoL.
Dota 2 had a big headstart on LoL.
https://youtu.be/vNMWQdalmog
AnathemicOne
Banned
No it didn't, LoL came out first and was already doing official e-sports when Dota 2 officially launched.
Dota was already e-sports before LoL was born.
Remember, Dota 2 was the same Dota only on Steam with new coat of paint. Valve's core mission was to preserve exact gameplay of the mod.
AnathemicOne
Banned
DotA, not Dota 2. And correct if wrong but DotA wasn't prevalent as an e-sport in Korea. Yes it was popular in China but I bring up Korea because so far it is the country to take e-sports seriously ala SC: BW (somewhat SC2) and now LoL.
Since you wanna edit after my response, yes I've acknowledged that earlier. However, preserving gameplay doesn't make a game into an e-sport. When DotA was a mod who exactly was marketing it besides the community via word-of-mouth? By the time Valve had launched Dota 2, again, Riot was already penetrating Korea with LoL in which the original DotA mod never did.
No difference because Dota 2 was the exact same game as Dota mod, just on Valve platform.
Koreans preferred Chaos back then, it was a more hardcore version.
Dota was huge as was its e-sports scene relatively that time. All before LoL was born. Dota 2 inherited that.
AnathemicOne
Banned
Relative to SC: BW? The other major e-sport played in Korea? DotA as a mod back in WC3 was huge I agree but I keep on bringing up Korea because it is a major player in making a game into a big e-sport, which happened with LoL and SC: BW. Saying that Dota 2 had a headstart in e-sports whilst Riot with League already penetrating the Korean market is doing a disservice to both games.
Imperfected
Member
neurosisxeno
Member
While this is true, the exposure of being on Steam GREATLY boosted the number of people aware of the game. Most of the people that played DotA 1 only did so because they already had WC3, and RTS's were a pretty niche crowd even back then. I don't know anyone that picked up WC3+TFT just to play DotA, actually I know like 1 person but it was only after a year or so of pressure from good friends. LoL was more accessible than DotA 1 out of the gates, as it was its own (free) game rather than a mod.
The problem is the game is quite complex and for younger people getting into mechanically demanding PC Games will probably take a couple years to get the hang of. There's also the fact that LoL picked up a lot of steam when MMORPG's started to die out, snatching up a huge player base of casual gamers that were turned off by the complexity of DotA--or before DotA 2 had publicly launched.
I have never played LoL so I can't comment personally and my DOTA tenure dates back to the WC3 days.
But speaking to friends who have played both, LoL is more accessible with a more forgiving learning curve. I know people who tried DOTA2 then tried LoL, and found DOTA too difficult to get into and never went back.
Obviously this is all anecdotal
I do feel that DOTA nowadways, compared to its past, provides a better platform to practice and learn in a controlled environment. Early on this didn't exist to this extent and they likely lost players as a result.
But speaking to friends who have played both, LoL is more accessible with a more forgiving learning curve. I know people who tried DOTA2 then tried LoL, and found DOTA too difficult to get into and never went back.
Obviously this is all anecdotal
I do feel that DOTA nowadways, compared to its past, provides a better platform to practice and learn in a controlled environment. Early on this didn't exist to this extent and they likely lost players as a result.
No no no no no no no. Dota was super mega massive, opposite meaning of niche. Not unlike Counterstrike.
https://youtu.be/AnQfdSEqGDA
https://youtu.be/vNMWQdalmog
https://youtu.be/ecBWMzXPJFc