This is a pretty overdone topic, but I’ll try to speak good and bad for both having acquired enough experience within these games. So to start off for the average joe, what is a ‘MOBA’?
A Massive Online Battle Arena(MOBA) is where two teams of players compete with each other in discrete games, with each player controlling a single character through an RTS-style interface, to destroy each other teams bases.
Where does it start?
Okay, so there are currently the two MOBA’s out there with some hate between both communities is League of Legends (LoL) and Defence of the Ancients 2 (DOTA2). League of Legends (2009) being the most successful with over 5 million concurrent players, as to DOTA 2 (Expected 2013) with just 330,000 concurrently players. Its already 2013, League of Legends has been released for almost 4 years, so it’s quite obvious that it would have more players.
But what’s with the popularity of DOTA 2? It is the stand-alone sequel to the Defence of the Ancients mod for Warcraft III since 2005, and is still in the development of ‘porting’ heroes to DOTA 2. Because of the amount of people that did play the prequel, it is unknown to how well Valve (DOTA 2) can cope to the amount of people that can play the game.
How about some Stats?
I’ve had experience with all these 3 games within the last 6-7 years (if I recall correctly) and have played most of them quite alot, here’s what I have to say on the differences between them – ups & downs of interface, gameplay, accessibility and a generalisation of each game. So without further ado here are some account statistics of each game. I’ve included Heroes of Newerth as this was similar to DOTA and most of the player base have moved onto DOTA2.
League of Legends
I would say this is currently my most played game out of the three. Being unable to check the losses makes it hard to count how many games I have played in total.
DOTA 2
I may only have a total of 70 games, however this doesn’t count the number of custom games I’ve played.
Heroes of Newerth
O gosh, these statistics are horrendous. But if I recall correctly as I stopped playing HoN, I lent this account to a friend of mine to boost their stats. Quite lame of me, and was at the time quite abusable to stat whoring.
User Friendliness and Accessibility
Both games are free-to-play and has their own approach on letting new players experience how to play the game, League of Legends being the one more friendly to new comers. Players will get a pool of champions to start off with, about 10, from here they are able to play tutorials and bot games to learn some of the mechanics. With only 10 champions per week, it is able for the new player to ease into slowly learning/trying new champions every week, currently there are about 108 champions.
Each players account has a level, which in a way measures the process of how experienced a players skill/knowledge of the game can be. Level 1 being completely new, Level 30(max) of knowing adequate knowledge of the game. With only 10 champions per week, it is able for the new player to gradually learn or try new champions every week, currently there are about 108 champions. To acquire new champions the player would need to purchase Riot Points(microtransactions) or gain Influence Points (gained from playing games) to buy champions, all from the store.
I currently own 33 champions including the 10 free champions
As for DOTA 2, its currently unreleased and the only way to play this to get a BETA access which you can request. This also uses a free-to-play model but the main difference is that DOTA 2 provides the player with all available heroes, ALL 101!(so far). If you’re a new player and you see the hero selection screen, you are going to get intimidated, you may not know which one to choose, and your choice could completely ruin your experience of the game. With only 1 tutorial available, this still doesn’t help with the basic mechanics to play a ‘decent’ game in multiplayer, as the matchmaking system is currently not being worked on. Its much more harder to get into DOTA 2, unless you are willing to play to understand.
ALL THE HEROES!!!
If you’ve already played the orignal DOTA or Heroes of Newerth, stepping into DOTA 2 will have a steep learning curve to undertake. League of Legends on the other hand is much more friendly to pick up and play whilst gradually learning new aspects in the game.
Hero/Champion Design
Most people don’t know that the designer for heroes and balance for the original DOTA subsequently stopped designing and went onto being one of the co-founders of Riot Games, which is where League of Legends stands today. Most of the initial champions in League of Legends had the same skills and ‘roles’ as most DOTA heroes, most were mixed together for the different champions but a long-time DOTA player would recognise where their influence from.
The hero variability in DOTA 2 is more unique, each hero has its own play style. Whereas in League of Legends, there are champions that share the same play style. Although both are influenced from the same predecessor, the spell/ability set for both hero/champion pools are quite similar. Some heroes/champions will have multiple slows, however some may slow more/slow less + deal damage, but I feel like the League of Legends champions are too generic, on how their abilities work.
Spells in DOTA also use a lot more mana than in League of Legends. There are also some champions that do not use mana, instead they use energy, which cannot be increased and has a faster regeneration as to mana.
Take Drow Ranger and Mirana from DOTA, mix up the spells a bit, suddenly Ashe was born into League of Legends. I could probably make a table/list of all the similar skills in both games and compare the heroes, for those interested to try League of Legends or DOTA 2.
Drow Ranger (DOTA) and Ashe (LoL)
Hero/Champion Progression
In both games, Heroes and Champions increase power through their levels. League of Legends with a max level of 18, and DOTA 2 with 25. Upon leveling up a skill point will be rewarded to be set to increase the level on their skills(and stats for DOTA). In League of Legends you would have 3 skills with a max level of 5 and the ultimate with 3, so with a level 18 limit, you’ll be able to maximize the potential of all skills on the champion.
For DOTA, the max level for the skill is 4, besides the ultimate which is also 3. This makes a total of 15 skill points, so at level 15 you should be able to maximize the potential of the skills. As the Level limit is 25, 10 skill points are also used for stat gain, creasing the base stats for the hero.
It’s quite common for a normal game in League of Legends to reach the max level, basing this from an average game time of 30-40mins. Even though the level cap for DOTA is high, it is quite normal to not reach this within 30-40 minutes of the game, so it does take longer to reach the level limit. Its also less punishing if you stay a few levels behind in League of Legends, because you will equate your opponents sooner thanks to the lower cap.
Here’s Drow Ranger’s stats;
Each hero in DOTA will have a different primary attribute, and the values differ for every hero. For every hero, points in the primary attribute increases the heroes base damage by 1. There are three different attributes, Strength, giving more health points(HP) and health regeneration. Agility, giving more attack speed and armour. Intelligence, giving more mana points(MP) and mana regeneration.
Comparing it to Ashe;
Each champion in League of Legends will have gradual increase of all their base stats every level, besides attack range and move speed. These values are increase from items purchased to increase damage/health/ect.
Items
Items change the flow of the game, as this is an adaptive game, it is best to aim to get something counters or benefits your hero or champion. Starting with League of Legends, you’ll have 6 item slots, on where you’ll be able to carry a maximum of 6 items. When playing a certain hero, core items purchased will benefit the damage output of your hero or champion. Potions and other supportive items are also available to be purchased, although in League of Legends these can only be used for yourself. In DOTA, these can be used on other players.
As the items in DOTA have active skills, these provide the hero will more versatility on what they can do. You can buy a Blink Dagger, and this allows you to teleport short distances or trees and hills. Obviously with this, you’ll have 1 item slot taken up, which could have been used for another item that increases your health or damage. The costs of items are also higher, it is quite common to be unable to fill your invent with just damage and armour items, it is better to aim for the core items, then with the extra cash get supportive items. Items can also be disassembled, to give back the item used to combine instead of repurchasing.
Blink Dagger
For League of Legends, most items increases your damage, health, armour ect. Some also have active skills and passive bonuses. As the gold gain is much more than in DOTA so it is easier to get items, to fill out your inventory. Even though it’s less item dependent than DOTA, it doesn’t mean building the same item set every game will make you win, you would still need to adapt to the situation.
Tons of Damage
Roles and Farm Dependency
Starting with League of Legends, there are 5 Roles each player undertakes. The Attack Damage Carry(ADC), Ability Power Carry(APC), Bruiser, Jungler and Support, pre-game the 5 members in the team will designate a role to play and stick to these throughout. This is also, as of the time, the ‘best’ set-up following the current meta-game. So on a scale of 1-5, 1 being highest priority it goes like this;
- ADC – Bot Lane
- APC – Mid Lane
- Bruiser – Top Lane
- Jungler – Jungle
- Support – Bot Lane
Keep in mind, as this is a competitive game the meta can change at any point due to balance changes, new champions ect.
For DOTA 2, Chinese team’s have developed a system, where a player would follow a position measured from 1-5, 1 being the carry and 5 being the hard support. As mentioned somewhere above because of the different approach of hero design and gameplay, each position builds into items for that role
- ‘Hard Carry‘ – Often on the safe-lane, deals lots of damage end-game, builds into damage items.
- ‘Semi Carry‘ – Usually on the mid-lane, good at ganking and fairly agile, and builds toward initiation and survivability items.
- ‘Ganker‘ – Roams around the map to gank lanes and is item independent for most damage, builds toward team fight/support items.
- ‘Secondary Support‘ – Builds towards the cheaper team fight items, and helps the Pure Support item’s when they cannot afford it.
- ‘Pure Support‘ – Uses money on pure support items, purchases teleports and potions for other players.
The positioning does not always correspond with the role as some heroes may drop after reaching a certain level or obtaining their item. Some heroes will rotate out of their position and another takes its place for the experience and gold. Obviously this is not the only way to play DotA, and should not be taken as such.
Map Differences
DOTA vs LoL
Chances are if you’re new, you probably think both map’s may look the same. They have the 3 lane’s, 2 bases, all these neutral creeps and a Boss (Roshan/Baron). The League of Legends map is mirrored. But looking closely at the lanes of DOTA 2, 1 side of the lane stretches longer than the other, one known as safe lane being longer and the other as suicide for shorter.
The environment in League of Legends is static, so the other way to get to the other side is only by walking around, or teleporting to the location. There are ‘brushes’ where the player can hide which removes all sight. In DOTA 2 tree’s can be cut or destroyed to create new paths to juke as tree’s block vision, being in the river provides no vision to higher elevation. The day and night cycle would give all players more vision in the day and reduces vision in the night, besides Night Stalker, which is the opposite.
The DOTA2 map is scaled much larger, so it will take longer to get to another side. New players would think that this slows down the gameplay, but this forces teamwork as it does take longer, and requires the whole team to be more map aware, and holding the key locations such as high-ground would provide a huge advantage.
Game Differences
There’s just so much to talk about soooo….Imma just list them.
Stuff in League of Legends:
- In League of Legends, pre-game, you get a choice to use 2 summoner spells to use in-game.
- Runes purchased, increase your damage/health ect, at the start and throughout the game.
- Killing Baron(boss) gives a unique buff and gold to the team
- No Gold is lost upon death
- Neutral creeps grant 2 buff’s, one which increase mana regeneration and reduces cooldown times, the other which slows the enemies movement speed and deals damage over time
- All Champions have a passive
Stuff in Defence of the Ancients 2
- Upon death you lose 30*(Level of your Hero) gold
- When dead, you have the option to buyback reviving your hero
- Neutral creeps can be dragged away from spawn into lanes to stop lane from pushing
- Lanes have different lengths
- A rune will periodically spawn on either side of the river, providing regeneration, invisibility, haste and illusions
- You can buy items on lane, and these will be stored in your stash
- High ground-Low ground vision
- Deny towers, minions and allies stops the enemies from getting experience and gold
How difficult can a game be?
Since its a Player vs Player game, its hard to scale how difficult a game can be. I would say both are difficult as competitive games revolves on how ‘active’ a player can think and how they adapt to situations within the game. It all depends on the skill of the opponent. However, a players skill will only gradually improve depending on how accessible a game could be. For League of Legends, starting with 10 champions and understanding the roles would be much more faster than having to play through all heroes in DOTA 2 to have a basic understanding. From my point of view, I would say that DOTA 2 would have a higher skill cap(acity), and would recommend this to all over-ambitious gamers.
Why the community sucks?
Both are equally as bad as each other. You will always find elitist jerks(I admit I am one) within these games and get flamed down to hell for being a bad player. Looking at how matchmaking works now I think its okay as you’re matched to someone on your own level.
In League of Legends there is a system which sorts players into different leagues based on their games played(Win/Loss ratio), from Bronze to Challenger. Within the League of Legends community people have mentioned what is known as ‘ELO Hell’, where the player will have a hard time of trying to break out of bronze into another league. As Bronze is the lowest league, you will be matched with other people in the same league. If you think you’re good then maybe you’ll get out, but it is a team game and one person cannot carry the game. Cause of this, everyone complains about being stuck in ‘ELO Hell’, which does suck if you wanted to progress.
Currently as DOTA 2’s matchmaking isn’t final, there are no leagues or solo ratings. To be honest, I don’t even know how it works. But in a normal ass game, you might get the occasional toxic player that hates pretty much everybody on their own team. If you’re really unlucky they’ll all hate you.
The Verdict
League of Legends is for those that like focusing on a single strategy and no creativity in item builds or skill combos. With the time I’ve been playing there’s quite a big difference on how a player would progress in-game, everyone will be farming most of the game, and sometimes relying on your jungler or roamer to help you push or get kills.
DOTA 2 makes players to adapt in many situations so player would need make specific choices. Its quite daunting for new players, but if you give the game a chance and play it till you understand the game completely chances as how the first thought was.
More thoughts to come in my next post leading slightly from this.
Here’s a vid:
Don’t forget to check out my About page to find me in-game and stuffs.
Made by Melvin 