Resolution: Dota 2 is a better game than League of Legends

click="document.location='/Fanboy/photos/album/2561/17690/'" src="../../../photos/albums/1/3/2561/62500-2561-zymzm-a.jpg" alt="" /> i9;k6;k2;m5;l0; l4;l6;k7;l4;m1; k6;l8;m1;k5;m1; I thank my opponent for accepting and hope we have a very good debate. To Voters: I apologize for the terminology in this debate, but if I were to define every term necessary, I would take up much of the space of my argument. MOBA’s: While there are many MOBA’s out there (Heroes of Newerth, League of Legends, Dota 2, Bloodline Champions, Smite just to name a few.) the (arguably) first MOBA in its recognizable state was Aeon of Strife, however the most iconic of these games was a mod for the Warcraft 3 system. This game was so popular it inspired the majority of the most popular MOBA’s today. Because this genre is very broad in its scope, I will attempt to narrow my categories for evaluation, so we don’t argue in stasis. My argument revolves around Dota 2 being a better game in many aspects and any aspects that are to be contended (on the League of Legends) are either irrelevant or comparably unimportant. Accessibility and Depth Truly both games have a certain measure of depth and accessibility but the conventional wisdom would be that Dota 2 has the greater amount of depth and League of Legends has more accessibility. I will be defending the former while attacking the latter. The reason Dota 2 has a greater amount of depth is because it simply has more to manage. For example, the denying is an additional mechanic that the player must worry about in lane. Another mechanic that helps make Dota 2 deeper, is the complex counter picking system, that is nowhere near as prevalent for pub games in League than with Dota. Counter picking is nearly impossible in regular games of League (not including ranked games) because one could simply pick the same hero (champion) which nullifies the counter pick. Further the teamfights are nearly required in League of Legends in the early game (and you are yelled at by teammates if you do not), it is completely optional, laning and team ganking is vital in both games, but in the early game for Dota it is optional to teamfight. Another aspect of depth that Dota 2 has over League is the simply addition of day and night. Vision is extremely limited in the nighttime and provides many threats such as ganks and notably Nightstalker (a hero who gets boosts from nighttime). Positioning is much more important in Dota 2 than League of Legends because of two reasons, many spells are single target (though not all by far) so getting people out of position is really easy. The next reason is due to Towers not being completely safe havens like in League. A talented ganker can easily kill a hero who is ‘tower-hugging’. The last aspect that gives Dota 2 the advantage in depth has two aspects that are fundamentally the same thing. Passive and Active abilities and items are integrated, while in League items are almost always passive and abilities are always active. The claim that League of Legends is more accessibility comes from many of the mechanics in League of Legends, make it ‘easier’. For example, unlike in Dota 2, you don’t lose gold upon dying. What follows is that (besides the lane travel time and possible experience from being out of lane) there is virtually no penalty for dying. But this is simply a mistake for what accessibility is. While League of Legends may be ‘easier’ it certainly isn’t more accessible. While League of Legends and Dota 2 both have tutorials, Dota 2 has one of the most inventive and useful bot systems developed(not only that they were the first ones to develop it). The bots in Dota 2 have many quirks and idiosyncrasies that easily place them above the rival games' available bots. That is to say, these bots are smart and put up a real fight. These bots come with multiple difficulty levels and as you increase the difficulty, the bots begin to emulate players in various ways; warding, ganking, roaming as a team, doing Roshan, baiting, harassing, etc. There have been stories that people who invite their friends to play Dota 2 are completely fooled by the bots and actually confuse them for real players. It is not difficult to believe such a story. Unlike their counterparts in League of Legends, the bots in Dota 2 are programed to emulate players and at higher difficulties, can present a legitimate challenge even to a seasoned gamer via tactics and precision. This allows for the difficulty curve to be lessened by quite a bit. Accessibility is not equal to difficulty. Graphics While Art Style is subjective, graphical quality is not. Dota 2 has immensely better graphical quality with fewer requirements upon the PC. For example, an Integrated Chipset from Intel (as long as CPU is of decent quality) plays both Dota 2 and League of Legends with a small amount of lag upon the game. However, in League the graphical quality is nearly intolerable, the definition is poor and the cartoony style is hindered by indispensable details (often the colors merge in bad ways). However with a medium quality GPU such as Geforce GT 420 will improve the quality of both games. However it can support maximum settings with no lag, at least for Dota 2. However if you attempt to play League of Legends on maximum settings, you experience quite a bit of lag along with only a minor improvement in graphical quality. With a great GPU such as the AMD Radeon HD 7970. You get absolutely no lag on either system and Dota 2 still has better graphical quality. The art style debate is simply frivolous in this type of debate; my opponent cannot argue that because of his personal preference that one is better than the other, therefore I would recommend to voters to make it a non-issue. Another potential issue is that, the abilities of League of Legends seem to lack impact. For example, I wasn’t always aware of when my abilities actually worked, this isn’t a problem for Dota 2 due to the User Interface and the graphical effects of the abilities. Freedom Truly this is best thing that sets apart Dota 2 and League of Legends. Dota 2 and League of Legends both are F2P games (with Dota 2 being in practically Open Beta). However the amount of content you get for your time is much more rewarding in Dota 2. The first aspect of freedom is obviously the champion pick. Heroes are unlimited and Dota 2 has 101 heroes, therefore the options for semi-new completely free player is 101 heroes. However, for League player (in the same context) the options are limited to 10. Surely this is limits the freedom of at least some players on League. This partially explains the stale metagame, even at competitive levels at times. Another limiting factor is because of the underpowering of heroes (they only level to 16 in League(compared to 25 in Dota 2) and they all scale roughly the same due to ability power stat) tri-laning and many other great innovations made by players are not useful. Even in high-levels it is rare to see a tri-lane (if you ever even see it) in League of Legends. Creep stacking, denying, and creep pulling is fundamentally impossible. All of these essential mechanics of Dota 2 reminds of me mistakes that Microsoft has made recently as well. All of this is innovation that nobody asked for, and takes away from the depth and freedom of the game. All of these limitations really show that Dota 2 has stuck to the motto if isn’t broke don’t fix it.