The Stereotypes

Living between two continents, I’ve played on servers in all the three regions and have experienced the different play-styles first-hand.  It might be subtle, but the stereotypes we’ve come to know exist for a reason. 

Between Heroes of Newerth and DotA 2, I’ve been playing games in this genre for about 4-5 years now.  When I’m in Lancaster, I play on European, Russian and sometimes USE servers; back in India I play on Japanese, SEA and sometimes USW servers.  There is a significant shift in play-style whenever I move regions, which inevitably results in loss streaks for the first few days as I get used to things.  So I decided to try and summarise the differences I’ve noticed.  I’ve never met anyone else who has played on all the servers, so I don’t have a way of confirming what I’ve noticed, but I think I’ve managed to get an overall understanding over the last few years of moving back and forth. 

I mostly play solo, regularly fluctuating between very high and high in terms of matchmaking placement.  I don’t queue for solo matchmaking, however, as I feel stacks don’t really matter as long as you know what you’re doing.  I don’t use voice chat a lot either, and mostly stick to the chatwheel both because it’s comfortable and because I’ve been told I tend to get a little flame-y from time to time, but I’ll admit that’s mostly when I’m on a ridiculous loss streak that I can’t seem to break even with my best heroes.  My position of choice is either mid or solo off-lane — as long as I can control the lane the way I see fit, I’m fine with it.  All in all, your average DotA player.  Maybe even above average (!). 

That said, let me break down each region. 

Americas

Skill: 9, Attitude: 3

My experience on USE/USW servers has consistently been the worst of all three regions.  Their high skill at the game is almost completely offset by how bad they are as people in general.  Part of the reason for both — the high skill and awful behaviour — is because voice communication is so high on those servers — pretty much everyone will speak and communicate on the team.  The upside is some of the best co-ordination I’ve seen in pub games, but the downside is that they’ll let you know when they aren’t pleased with something you’ve done and they’ll be very emphatic about it.  Attacks get personal, and very quickly you’ve forgotten where and why it all started in the first place.  It just leaves a bad taste in the mouth, and that’s not what a game is about. 

As a personal rule I tend to avoid American servers if I can help it, and the last time I played on one was when EU servers were down a month or so back. 

Europe and Russia

Skill: 7.5, Attitude: 7

The big stereotype of Russians being bad at this genre is not true.  I’ve run into more Germans and Swedish stacks that have been absolutely terrible to play with, either because of their lack of skill or just general behaviour.  Or maybe it’s just easier to ignore someone’s flaming when they’re not speaking English.  I found a couple of Ukranian buddies to play with every once in a while, and they’re a pleasure to play with even though there isn’t a lot of communication.  Communication in general isn’t very high on EU servers, and I’d mostly attribute that to the language disparity.  I think the chat-wheel was a great addition for this region, and pretty much satisfactorily gets the point across. 

EU players are more prone to the “big play” syndrome, which for some translates to picking a hard carry and farming till the cows come home or at the other extreme, Pudge.  They also tend to experiment more than others with item builds.  I don’t mind the occasional Battlefury Doom, but I start drawing the line at SnY OD (“Because OD is a carry and needs survivability, attack speed and movespeed”). 

Overall, other than the rare egotistical stack, EU’s play-style, attitude and general skill is great for the average casual DotA player. 

SEA and Japan

Skill: 8, Attitude: 8

The difference in playstyle between EU and SEA is huge.  And while transitioning from SEA to EU is easier, the other way around is much harder.  I attribute that mostly to my aggressive playstyle, which barely seems to exist in SEA DotA. Again, that’s not to say they aren’t aggressive, but those games are very few and far between.  There is a higher chance of seeing a Gyrocopter, PL, or even a farming Spirit Breaker who actually ends up doing well, than on other servers.  I’ve lost more games because of repeated overextending because I thought it was a fight worth taking but my team disagreed.  That’s why I tend to jungle or solo the off-lane, because that way I don’t get to set the pace of the game. 

Communication is always, almost completely, in a language that I don’t know.  But again, I’ve found that it doesn’t get in the way as long as everyone knows what they should be doing.  However, it probably affects me more than others because of the clashing play-styles.  On EU, if I ping a few times on a hero and jump in, I know I’ll get some follow-up.  Not so much on SEA servers, unless it’s late game and everybody thinks they have enough items to take fights. 

I don’t know how things will change now with the Chinese players being separated out, but the EU to SEA transition will be one I’ll always be uncomfortable of.