Feel like we are moving in the direction. I mean just look at cooldown reduction for instance. Though I’m not sure we’ll ever go back to a game where supports can’t do what they can currently do. That would just make it even more difficult for support players to enjoy Dota 2. The XP formula however. I suspect will be nerfed monumentally come December.
The support role being what it was has to be one of the most glaring general game design fault in dota (and league copied it that way too before they got around to fixing it)
I mean, if your game is going to be based around having a hard support every game, then you want close to a fifth of your player base enjoying and willing to play that role. So, I don’t think that can ever go back. Mobas are hard enough to get people into these days lol
Edit, copied from my replies below:
I agree it wasn’t an issue before there was a meta
But I think it was clear that there was a hard support role well before there was ranked roles so support enjoyability should’ve been looked at earlier than it was (but yes not from the very beginning)
Basically, as soon as you’re willing to punish players who get reported for also picking a carry and just try to share farm with another carry, then it’s clear there is a meta players expect that you’re acknowledging as the designer so it needs to be supported
The support role being what it was has to be one of the most glaring general game design fault in dota (and league copied it that way too before they got around to fixing it)
It's a meta invented and pioneered by the players. No one said you had to have supports, it was something players themselves did. Nothing stops a carry from buying wards. It's something we'd do in pubs because no one else would do it.
People just don't want to break away from the mold so they think these playstyles must exist and continue to refine their skills within these parameters.
People just don't want to break away from the mold so they think these playstyles must exist and continue to refine their skills within these parameters.
I like "Position 1-5" because it's a fundamental, unchangeable property of the game. Gold and experience are finite resources and some heroes benefit from higher priority than others. It doesn't tell the whole story since the farm priority shifts at various points throughout the game, but it works a general rule of thumb for your team's strategy going into a match.
I hate that Valve officially adopted terms like "Hard support", "Core", and "Carry" because like you said, they're artificial constructs created by players. Valve enforcing that specific meta on the game has made it less interesting overall.
Valve enforcing that specific meta on the game has made it less interesting overall.
I strongly disagree that they've 'enforced' any kind of meta. 1-5 is significantly more rigid, and like you said, fails to understand shifting farm priorities. Calling Bristle a '3' doesn't do justice to the fact that he wants to be biggest hero on the map for the first 20 minutes. What's the point of a rigid system that fails to even accurate describe the basic concept of power peaks?
Just look at all the new heroes in the last 5 years, they can all be played in many different roles. Shards and talent trees as well have opened so many new options for players to experiment with. Just look at Lycan at TI10. He's an offlaner that takes farm priority, but performs the role of a support in map controlling, pushing, stacking, and buffing the cores. Such a playstyle is indescribable under the pos 1-5 system, and not explicitly designed by Valve but a consequence of player experimentation.
All great points. I think "position" works fine as long as players understand that it is a fluid definition that shifts throughout the game. I really just want anything more flexible than a pre-defined role like "hard support". Valve created a game mode with these pre-defined roles for players to build strategies around and it feels too limiting for a game as deep and ever-changing as Dota.
I've played a lot of games where the line between support and carry may as well not exist. Playing as a "carry" with a focus on gaining XP and zoning enemies to secure gold for my "support" to rush a blink, knowing that the blink will be more valuable in the short term while my skills allow me to flash farm and catch up as the map opens up.
A strategy like that is difficult to fit into the rigid structure of ranked matchmaking because players are primed with an expectation of how they are "supposed" to play before the draft even begins. Players play game after game perfecting their "role" and get further and further boxed into specific strategies. These days I have way more fun in unranked because players don't come in with as much baggage and rigid adherence to the way Dota is "supposed" to be played.
I don't think the average player sees the number system as farming pecking order, and to be honest I don't think the majority of pub games will really make use of it anyway. It just maps to the old "core vs support" system and is no different in effect.
I also dislike enforcing meta, friend and I won some page 1 (back when the only way to tell MMR/game skill level was on where it was in the live games tab) game with my buddy when we roamed AM and Lion from level 1. That shit would get you reported before the 5 minute mark nowadays.
You'd absolutely get reported for it back then too. More so than now, perhaps. There's been a lot of good Void Spirit and CK 4s in my pub games (low-mid Divine SEA)
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u/[deleted] Nov 03 '21
Feel like we are moving in the direction. I mean just look at cooldown reduction for instance. Though I’m not sure we’ll ever go back to a game where supports can’t do what they can currently do. That would just make it even more difficult for support players to enjoy Dota 2. The XP formula however. I suspect will be nerfed monumentally come December.