DOTA 2

I don't watch sports either. This spectator type of entertainment is foreign to me. If it's not participatory I want nothing to do with it.

nu_11 said:

I used to play. I don't any more. I used to watch. I don't any more.

If I were to get back into DOTA I would watch it and I sure as hell wouldn't start playing again. Too much toxic dumbasses and regular dumbasses to deal with. Not worth my time.

For instance I learned that the worse thing to do as support (Ancient ranked) was to dominate early game, because your cores would become cocky idiots and just end up throwing the game doing dumb shit in the mid game thinking the game was in the bag. DOTA is entirely uninuitive when you take into account human psychology.

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I regularly take months-long breaks because this game gives me anger issues due to toxic players. But I always come back for more.

Talos said:

I don't understand the appeal of watching vs playing. Sounds like cuckoldry.

edit: Cybsled I started playing back in '04 when it was a wc3 custom map. Moved on to Dota 2 when it came out. In all that time, nearly 20 years now, not once did I ever think "This would be more fun to watch than play."

I don't get it.

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Did you ever play baseball or soccer growing up and now you just watch the pro games on TV?

Even if you don’t but you might can see that for the rest of the world this is a pretty popular activity. Best part of pro DOTA is that there are no bullshit calls by the refs! It’s honestly made college football hard to watch.

Edit: now I am realizing instead of bullshit Umps we get bullshit patches! Wtf with that Radiant win rate?!

Kyougou said:

Do you really find no enjoyment in watching someone else doing anything at all in any kind of way?
I find that hard to believe.

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Maybe occasionally but I could never be one of those guys who sits for hours everyday (or even once a week) watching sportsball. Holy shit that sounds awful. Like if the home team makes it to the world series or whatever then I might watch it.

I generally only watch people doing things when I'm trying to learn how to do it myself. Then I stop watching and just do it.

I'm really tired of this host's voice, mannerisms, and accent. She might be nice to look at, but it's hell on my ears.

Fight said:

I'm really tired of this host's voice, mannerisms, and accent. She might be nice to look at, but it's hell on my ears.

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I feel the same way about Sheever except she's not even nice to look at.

Jesus, that game 2 of Betboom/Talon.

Dark Willow is so fucking broken as a carry.

Gaben should have reached into his own pocket and stepped up the prize money after Valve completely fucked up this year.

This TI has been a crazy time investment for these teams, and the average take home for teams placing 20 through 9 is $46,645. They all have parent organizations that probably take 30% off the top, then they have 5 players and a coach. So, individually they might be taking home $6,000 for an entire years worth of build up, qualification, practice and work.

In years past, I heard that most of the hosts, commentators and casters were putting $15-$20k in their pockets for their work at TI. Can you imagine, if they are making more than most the players??

Gaben and Valve may have killed their own game by getting lazy and greedy. The pro scene is very important to the overall health and longevity of the game, by keeping the visibility, interest, and excitement up. If you lose all of that (and you will if over half the players that go to TI don't even put $10k in their pocket) and the game will start to slowly die off.

No games last forever, but Valve's CS and Dota have had incredible staying power. It is sad that they might have killed Dota by their own laziness rather than getting surpassed by a better product.

I was thinking this was a relic of covid, but apparently last year was still $18M and 2021 was $38M. Not sure why this one is so shit at $3M? Did they not do a pass or something?

Team Secret’s social media account threw some shade by saying the lower placement teams could pay 1 month rent and buy a McChicken with their TI winnings

Needless said:

Yeah theres no real "TI battle pass" anymore, it was just a shitty "esports" pass that had the same crowd funding aspect with absolutely zero juice to it so nobody bought it

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Passes used to have cosmetics and voice lines and shit you could unlock and keep that were pretty baller. This year there have 'gone in a new direction' and there are no permanent voice lines or cosmetics. Just some fantasy football prediction type shit and some 'win with this pro players favorite hero' quests.

First year I haven't bought the pass, and I know a lot of people who haven't either. Valve totally missed the mark on this years TI Compendium pass.

Also, if that 'annoying chic' is Sheepsticked, be careful. It ain't a chic.

This game has been so mismanaged its almost criminal. An absolute money making machine reduced to this... so sad.

Spirit vs Liquid final game has been the only game I've watched of this TI so far.

These fucking drafts take way too long man

Kiroy said:

can someone give me a tldr

why does dota suck now
who's the best teams
who we rooting for
where da fuck they find these desk girls

that kinda thing

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Couple of things. As a pub player, patch feels really bad to play in for me and I hear a lot of other people complaining about it as well. Very brawly, and really not well balanced feeling. There has been changes to a lot of items (BKB for one) that changes the way the game plays. There are some heros that are so broken you see them in pretty much every game and its forced a meta of big tanky heros with blademail and regen that is really kinda boring. Build big strength heros with heart and BM, and counter by building regen blocking heros. Thats it. Thats the meta and is stale.

Second, Valve really fucked up with the compendium. No one is buying it, its boring. Nothing exciting about it at all and so you can see the TI prize pool being the lowest its been since near the beginning. Valve really needs to step in and put money into it. People used to complain that TI was the only tourney that mattered in Dota. Considering the money to travel and prep for this, lots of teams are going to prolly come out losing money if they don't place top 3.




Those figures there should give you a clue how much Valve fucked the dog on this one.

Teams? No real idea. All the old players are gone (or irrelevant) and none of the new people seem to have the presence and story of some of the old people. No real big rivalries and stuff that I can recall. That might also be because I haven't been following it as much. Just not as interesting as it used to be. See above reasons.

Desk girls? Sheever is a fan favorite. She has been around forever and had a battle with cancer. She survived. Not to be mean to her, but it definitely took a toll on her and it shows, but she is still rather beloved and a fan favorite for her story. Sheever at least plays and knows the game. Sheepstick is a tranny. Says stupid tranny things, but representation or whatever. Someone somewhere has to like s/he/it I guess. I don't know who the other desk girls are.

Intrinsic said:

Ephey or whatever there? She was some random streamer that talked all sexy ASMR so got noticed and pulled in to a lot of events at some point. Never cared much for her or any insight she had. There were a couple others I cannot remember.

I’m a Sheever fan bc she’s been around forever and actually grinded that shit out in the TI1 days. Doing as many gigs as she could and playing as much as she could. Then got made fun of constantly bc of her play and the whole Sheever Ravage meme. And still kept trying. That is pretty meaningful and seemed like she was really in it bc she loved it. And she came off genuine. Her cancer and thing with OD Pixel added a lot of story to it all as well. Bring back Bruno and 2GD.

I went to 3 TIs in a row and was there when EG won but haven’t even bothered to watch in the last two years. Sad to hear about the Compendium. Even when I wasn’t playing I’d buy it to support TI and because the betting / surveys were fun. Fantasy was kind of entertaining too. I probably still have a couple of in person only cosmetic drops on my account.

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I like Sheever and have watched her play and stream. She really has grinded it out and learned the game and players, even if she personally isn't skilled she understands whats going on.

Something else I realized after reading your post and watching some of today's stream is the casting and stuff around the game feels safer, and it reminds me of a talk from one of the cast some time ago about how people were trying to make Esports more 'safe' for public consumption and advertising and all. We prolly all remember older tournaments where there was foul language, trash talking etc. The casters (I think it was Redeye and ODPixel) talked about how sanitizing it would kill Esports. It was the irreverence and shit talking that made the game interesting to younger people and separated it from your more traditional sports.

Anyway. The casting just feels less hype. The panel just feels sorta inane. I wonder if there really has been a push to sanitize the experience for wider consumption. Especially as the #Metoo thing apparently took out some of the old popular casters/hosts (Redeye I believe was one of them). I miss people talking shit, and having Puppey and PPD for instance just throwing salt and shade all around.