Problems with DotA on this league in your mind?

[Pixlars]

I played DotA on ENT for a year or something now, a 1000 games maybe. I reached 2k/1,8k ranking on my accounts. I've now moved on to dota 2 and I probably wont be coming back to ENT/WC3 again. Here's a couple of reasons why I think the popularity of this game is fading.

1. Extreme stacking. 99% of the games on this league are extremely one sided. That's because of the emphasis people place on ELO. When you're at the 2K ELO level losing a game or two is devastating, and could cause ELO losses that takes 10-20 games to make up for. Thus, people on this ELO level are extremely cautious and almost always stack or dodge against stronger opponents/what looks like smurfs.

From my point of view the ELO system is flawed in the sense that it doesn't really reflect true skill. If you're familiar with this league and the players, and you're analyzing every game via the website while being cautious you can basically to 99% guarantee that you will be on the winning team, especially if you religiously dodge all smurf-accounts. I've seen many people who are 13-1500 elo play like complete garbage only to upon investigation notice that they have been piggybacking off better players to boost their accounts.

For me personally, the more ELO I accumulated the worse my games became. People would either stack with me, or against me, or leave the game and dodge me. The best games I've played have been on smurfs where I deliberately joined the weakest team.

2. Maphacking. It's hard to appreciate exactly how many people maphack, but from my experience this is a widespread problem on the EU AP bot atleast. Certain heroes isn't viable, and is NEVER played because of this. Nyx assassin, Pudge, Techies, Gondar and a few others comes to mind, these heroes aren't even good on this league because of the extreme prevalence of maphack.

Especially when you have a higher ELO and play a carry you will notice this. Notice how people tell you "be careful" and ping when there is absolutely 0 indication that a gank will happen. (Someone just TP'ed in and used lothars) notice how when you smoke into rosh as a solo ursa 2-3 players will rush there immediately. While, never approaching the rosh pit otherwise even with a Ursa that's not showing is in game.

For a non-maphacker, you can abuse this pretty easily. Just observe your teammates in lane, is he farming a creepwave bot near tower and then backing off and rushing to tower? Despite 5 heroes showing top? Thank you maphacker sniper for telling me furion just tped in with barathrum charging.

Another side effect of this is how much warding is demoralized. Whenever you ward, you can be sure someone is gonna rush there instantly with sentries and deward. I've played 1000 games, I know people dont generally ward/deward anything, they specifically do it when they have to -> because they use maphack to detect your actions.

3. Skill-LVL. In general the skill level is just incredibly low. At times, it's almost as if you're playing a game with 9 people who are mentally handicapped. I ended up with a top 50 rating (2k ELO) and I don't consider myself good, I honestly consider myself mediocre/decent at best. But the majority of players wont be 2K or even 1500, most people are BELOW a 1000 ELO. It's not uncommon to play with people who are at 700.

They wont buy wards. They wont ever get roshan (average rosh kills/game on ent is what? 0.3?), they won't use their force staffs/stuns/disrupts/spells to save you. Only to save themselves or killsteal. In general they won't be cautious, but suicides often to the enemy carry. Additionally, nobody ever cares about taking objectives (rosh/towers/buildings/winning the game) every game is one gigantic "lets get as much kills as I can" party, where winning is just a side effect of your extreme kill advantage.

This is why heroes like LC is so powerful on dota 1. Any decent/mediocre player can pick LC, activate maphack and then run around solo killing the morons and permanently increase their hero strenght in the process. In the end they can 1v5 the entire enemy team. LC is complete garbage in dota 2 because of the prevalence of vision/people constantly taking objectives/no maphack/people use stun for other things than ks'ing/saving themselves.

The most pressing issue is the extremely one sided games. What should be implemented is some kind of automatic matchmaking system in my mind. So that the average score is the same on both teams.

If anyone got something to add to this feel free to post. I'm sure I forgot a lot about the problems, was 1 month since I last played now.

[rewarding]

Well, I get it that you feel flustered about stacking and what not; because the overall skill level is so low, stacking is a natural response. How do you win against stackers? You stack yourself. lol

Personally, I don't enjoy queuing indiscriminately just because of how long a dota game can go. Team play is important, so I'd rather play with a team that knows how to play rather than becoming frustrated over a few teammates not co-operating. Therefore, whether I win or lose, I'd rather spend 30 mins - 1 hr executing plays with teammates rather than typing out instructions or obscenities for the entire game. That being said, I think in order to maximize your happiness in dota, you should be more selective in which games you play and who you play with.

I found that joining a clan helps since they ih every now and then, and those games are quality whether you win or not.