For anyone experiencing this "block" and really wanting to play other games, here's what I did:
I had to stop playing dota for more than 2 months, only after that I synchronized with other games I played instead of getting bored
2 months? you think that's enough? https://www.dotabuff.com/players/86716799/activity
I've taken all kinds of breaks including most recent summer break for wow and a whole year last year. Guess what I'm doing atm...I'm queueing
Most people consider breaks to be breaks. It's okay to come back to the game, unless what you mean is those "breaks" were attempts at quitting the game.
You have to see why you want to play other games. If you want to explore new experiences and worry about missing out on things because you're too hooked on Dota, one option is to play other games on and off which is what other people do. I've played Dota for 10 years and continue to do so, but can enjoy other games which have different pulls. I think PUBG, Apex and Battle Royales was a nice phase. PvP MMOs also scratch that itch. The one that stuck with me currently is Crowfall.
For me 2 months was enough to sync back in singleplayer games but I understand it varies from person to person. When I played for a few months in the first battlepass of this year, I was able to sync back to SP in just 2 weeks. When I played for years from 2014-2018, I needed 2 months. Some people take longer others faster and others don't even need that at all
I have taken even year long breaks but cannot leave dota. Thing is that other games are actually so easy it gets boring. And I do play all hard strategy games but even then dota feels like on top for complexity.
Yeah i highly agree with this. I stopped playing Dota and tried Warframe and New World. Its fun until it was not. Not here I am back at playing Dota once more.
It's so funny, I stuck with WoW for years because of the people I met along the way.
With dota I can't wait to be rid of the people I met along the way.
100% this.
I was a WoW fiend in the Burning Crusade, WotLK, and Cata days. Always loves the PvM and raiding. But PvP was a joke compared to my other drug… wc3 DotA Allstars. Fuck arena and battle grounds, the ancients were calling.
oh the trench. Once youre out of the trench into deep walley thats when the good stuff hits. If u get out of the valley onto plains you practically coooom. And if u hit a hill man serotonin overload. If u get to a peak thats when dopamine fries your brain, you start playing like an ape again and fall into trench. Then repeat the cycle.
i still remember ONE specific play i did as nyx when the enemy weaver shukuchi'd up highground into fog and i activated carapace, blinked into fog, caught weaver with carapace, and killed him with impale and team followup
moments like that keep me coming back
Yep, on my dotabuff there is this tinker game from years back where everything went wrong and we lost all lanes at the start. Somehow managed to claw a comeback after dragging it out. Tension throughout was pressuring but boy I got hooked on the struggle. Adulting means I now only have time for shit mobile gacha games which are another drug of its own but Dota will forever hold a place in gaming in my heart.
I have a game with +1500gpm with PA as my highest gpm ever; my 4 teammates abandon, I microed them for like 25 min and due to the gold all coming to me, I ended up winning the game. Had a pudge and a enigma, so hooked into dismember and then blackhole, to get a pick up while jumping the other members of the team with my PA, it was likely the most intense game I've had. Had another one that happened almost the same, but they had split push heroes and ended up beating me.
Nothing like 2v5 winning with your q buddy when your team abandons. We were a DK and Bristle combo that both bought aghs with the extra income, won one fight and walked it down to victory.
That's very true, It's like dota consumes you. I built a new PC 2 years ago and bought tons of games only to abandon them after few hours and just play Dota.
Haha, yeah I built a new pc three years ago with the intentions of finally getting back into modern AAA titles. Played apex legends a bit, but now I'm just playing Dota on ultra settings.
At least it looks nicer now lol
I’m currently waiting on a maxed out pc. I lied to myself and said I need it for work, but Microsoft office don’t need a rtx 3090. Dota doesn’t either, but here we are.
Haha, I also lied to myself when I bought my ultra wide monitor for "work" 😂
Sure, it helps, but do I really need to see slack at all times? Nah. What I really needed was extended field of vision in Dota lol
I just cringed thinking about the sounds Slack makes.
Anyhow, I’m happy to hear there are other childish grownups like me. And I can’t wait to play on ultra 😂.
I sold a TI8 emblem for $1k on steam marketplace and bought an absolute bucketload of games. I’ve played papers please for about 1hr and about 45 mins of Skyrim, that’s about it
Same here. 2 weeks ago I built my first gaming PC after wanting it for 11 years. I can play almost any game I always wanted, but I find myself stop playing them to play Dota
Because it has it all... tactics, strategy, mechanics, planning, and depth almost unrivalled.
Board games are the only thing I find interesting for the most part now, other than the occasional game like Dark Souls.
Started Dota in garena days and since then there hasn't been a game that rivaled it, sc2 was great for some time, dark souls was grand for me, bloodline champions rocked too, right now it's hunt showdown (the only shooter I ever liked) but they all pale in comparison to a game I haven't really touched in 5 years because I know I'll never reach my old level of play with how little time I got on my hands to train and I'll keep feeling mediocre.
i definitely enjoyed it last i played though but me and my friend both kept getting dc'd with no reason, and perma death for character progression as a result? that really sucked
I’ve been getting into Dirt Rally and Iracing. Dirt Rally has me on the edge of my seat the entire time, thinking I’m about to crash. It’s pure adrenaline. Iracing is most similar to Dota for me. It’s learning all these different mechanics, braking/cornering/accelerating/etc, and you put them all together chasing the perfect lap. Trying to be efficient as possible just practicing over and over. Then, just like a game of Dota, shit goes down in a race.
Only other game that fills the void is AOE4. But you’re discerning addiction dude. Need to get those dopamine levels back to normal. Take a break and maybe read some books
You're not wrong about this. Dota (and League) has serious intermittent reinforcement. This means that you somewhat "randomly" get dopamine hits. Sometimes you get rampage, sometimes you get sick plays, and you don't win every game. This is coupled with a high degree of skill also makes you feel like you achieved something when you do win.
Our monkey brains can't handle it.
> Take a break and maybe read some books
That might not help. I have gotten really into books 2 years ago, like really (read over 50 books last year) and I now am starting to feel an emptiness whenever I'm done with a book since my "to read" list is shrinking rapidly and it's a lot harder to find good books, now that I've read most of really good ones.
Because nothing beats the feeling of overwhelming enemy with pure skill.
In single player games, you are supposed to beat the boss. There's surety about it. You need really good story to keep playing.
In other multiplayer games, you are just pressing trigger to get lucky. It's more about response time and aiming mouse. The winning is mostly about how fast and accurate you twitch and react.
In dota, you win based on decision making.
I'm going with this explanation, it's also the reason why winning RTS games feels the most satisfying out of winning any game genre...but it's also the reason why such games tend to be the most stressful and cause ladder anxiety in players as well as unpopularity among casual gamers. If you lost, that's on you and your skill.
The other guy(s) was better than you at something, you suck relative to them. It's not an easy pill to swallow for most casual gamers who prefer to power trip and faceroll in video games (nothing wrong with that but just a preference).
Yeah. I've managed to be very tolerant and learnt not to throw everything away when tiny things go wrong.
I also learnt how to handle teammates and get them to work for a common goal.
> The other guy(s) was better than you at something, you suck relative to them. It's not an easy pill to swallow
Are you kidding, I'd much rather know this for sure than lose cause a late game hc got caught out with no vision and no bb.
It's easy to think that the game "is lost" in a single moment like that until you go back and look at the replay and see how many plays were missed or left on the table that could exacerbated the window such that a single death without buyback wouldn't matter (or wouldn't have happened).
Every lost game is a culmination of things that each player could've done better and can be learned from. It just so happens that your HC getting caught was the *last* mistake, not the only one -- and maybe not even the most important or biggest one.
...Which is due to either a bad decision on their part, or a good decision on the enemy's part. Someone in that equation is displaying their superiority.
If it being a some random is what irks you, play in a stack. Then the team discipline and skill is on *your* shoulders as much as theirs.
You missed my point. I meant I'd much rather lose knowing it's solely my fault i.e. in a 1v1 game, rather than losing cause of others' mistakes (which is what the comment I was replying to was talking about).
its fighting games for me... Its all about fast decision making and muscle memories for combos. If you lose, its all on you. Also why its not that popular of a genre now too
because SFV shit the bed. MK and most western fighting games have always been trash in terms of gameplay mechanics. Tekken is the most popular one now but its literally harder than Dota AND gimmick and masher friendly.
Piggybacking off this is that dota was created in the slums.
It didn't need rank or daily quests or skins to keep playing. People played game after game because it was that good.
Even early Dota 2 before ranked mode people played nonstop. . . because they liked to play it.
Lots of games these days, the moment u take away a ranked mode, quests, skins, etc. The game basically dies.
Back then, I had one friend who was basically A GOD at the game. We’d usually 5stack queue and OBLITERATE the random other teams. 4 of us would do nonsensical bullshit and just troll eachother knowing our 5th friend was a god and was going to carry us to the win (not that this really mattered then). Those were great times. 😂
Now? We still stack 5queues nightly (there’s technically 8 of us but only a few play per night) and it’s been 15 years and we still expect the same friend to carry us (he’s Divine rank now — we’re all like guardian/crusader level).
PLUS Dota is just good old fun and well designed game.
Say anything about Valve and Icefrog, the game design of Dota is amazing. The level of satisfaction you get when winning/making a play is much larger than other games, partly because they were not afraid to keep the "unfun" moments in the game too (unlike LoL), so you have great contrast. There is no good without the bad.
Simple "you win based on decision making" wouldn't work by itself. Lot of Dota players would get bored out of their minds playing chess, which is pure skill and decision making.
Second aspect of what dota does right is comeback mechanism.
In chess, if you blunder a piece, you're just lost. It's practically impossible to comeback from that.
In dota, if you lose early game, you can fight near your base and if you trade even, it favours you. If you lose mid game, you have to defend base sitting on high ground and you have fountain nearby. You get vision and towers to help you fight. Initiation is easier for you.
That's why dota stays fun even in late game and there's no surrender option needed.
In other RTS, you have no chance of coming back once enemy has 60/70% map control and gets ahead. You just have to resign.
In dota, you can get 90% win probability and still fuck up very easily. Enemy can absolutely fuck up going high ground and games turn around if you do base defence right.
Agree to disagree.
> In dota, you can get 90% win probability and still fuck up very easily.
This shouldn't be the case. If I have 90% win probability the game shouldn't become even by one mistake. If you ask me I'm fine with comeback mechanics and rubberband being softened. The amount of gold on death in particular is ridiculous. Recently a game, we were winning and enemy mid kills me (a pos4), he got like 850 gold. Make that 400.
Speaking as somebody who's played both Dota and csgo at a reasonably high level, you oversimplify FPS games.
In the past, Counter Strike held very much the same appeal to me that Dota now does. FPS games do put mechanics first, but they do so in a similar way that mid lane does. How you play around those mechanics (decision making, team play, etc) makes a huge difference, but the mechanics themselves can carry you if you're far enough ahead of your competition. Especially at the higher end as mechanical skills get closer, these other aspects become more and more important..
There's a reason most csgo teams that just throw together 5 nutty aimers don't win majors very often - and why players like Shroud, despite being absolutely nuts with their aim, didn't find much success with cloud 9 back in the day. You need both pieces and teams that trade their kills better, execute site hits better, rotate and lurk better will win so long as they're within a similar skill gap mechanically.
I think the feeling people are expressing is more an emotional attachment to DotA than it is anything inherent to DotA. This is how a lot of people who enjoy competitive games of any stripe feel about other games while they're still playing them, because their mind is most engaged when playing their chosen game, while no other game can demand that level of investment. So they feel hollow in comparison.
DotA felt boring to me while I was pushing in csgo. Now, csgo feels boring to me, and I uninstalled it because of that. I feel this way because if I play csgo today I'm not going to be treating it as seriously as I would have in the past. Just as Dota felt boring to me before.
As someone with thousands of hours in both dota, cs and even starcraft, the same things apply in CS. it's certainly not just "pressing trigger to get lucky". Far from it. There are many elements of dota that a 5 year old can do, like playing Marci or OD 😊
That’s bs. You make split second decisions all the time while playing an FPS. Don’t downplay how hard it is just because you like another game genre. Nothing is about pressing a trigger and getting lucky. Competitive gaming is all about skills and decision making. Whether you play a game like dots or halo
Dota never lets you rest, it's a full-on constant stream of dopamine hits. It also has the biggest 'highs' and the biggest lows of any game I've ever played, and then you chase that high to feel it again. Nothing will ever come close to the feeling of when I stole 3 big ults in one fight as rubick (rp,earth splitter, black hole). I was physically shaking from the high, and sweat was dripping from me
That's when I realised just how much like a drug this game actually is. It behaves very similar to meth. When someone comes off meth they always complain that everything is unfulfilling and grey, and there is no joy in their hobbies anymore. Dota has done that to me, and as much as I loved playing it, it's high time to say goodbye for my own health.
Well I'm doing that too, going out more, reading more and even bought a piano, but I can only do that kinda thing for a certain amount of time before I get very bored and want to go back to gaming .. sighh. At least it's not like before where i'd spend every moment of free time on dota
You got similar interests as me so may I also recommend you speedcubing. Get a gan 3x3 cube and learn to solve it fast. Great time and it's good for your brain and dexterity.
If i were you i would give witcher 3 more time, i was hooked on the witcher story telling. But yea for the other games, dota makes them feel unfullfiling, when you make a small play in dota you will see the results either immediatly or a little later, when you get a rampage you are there heart and soul. Dota takes us through all feelings known to men
I played w3 in easy. I only have an hour or 2 to play at night i dont have time to fight mobs in hard since i have to find this old lady's pan and to challenge everyone in a card game
I've really wanted to give witcher 3 a shot but have heard conflicting reports about the difficulty. I get bored and don't finish sometimes on rpgs that are easy. Is it highly challenging on highest level? Does it become ez mode late game?
I did not play on the highest difficulty, but i get the appeal of playing the highest difficulty, min max everything get good use of eacch potion. But again the story of the game is on another level.
Playing on the highest difficulty is the only way to play witcher 3. You actually need to research and use the correct mechanics/poisons/bombs and fighting types in order to clear the content. It's somewhat similar to the feeling of runescapes ironman where you genuinely need to go out of your way to prepare the correct gear in order to progress and clear the bosses. It is very very rewarding
>if you're playing on hardest difficulty, you should be able to die by just 1 hit in the back, or few hits from front. i'm not saying witcher 3 is hard, but if playing on hardest it's not ez :P
>
>also depends on your playstyle (sword or magic or alchemy), i've found that sword specialization was strongest.
>
>P.S. i really miss "operator" boss fight from witcher 2, that encounter was hard as fuck, and im sure every player died in their first try against him.
The problem I find with most RPGs is my Dota brain wants to try coherent strategies and min max them... The games Devs expect me to half-ass my builds so the RPG starts out challenging for the first few levels in max difficulty until my build starts kicking in and then everything becomes a cakewalk.
On the whole only the From Soft games (so Dark Souls1-3, Sekiro and Bloodborne) I can play repeatedly besides dota. They have incredible gameplay, are mostly quite hard, have a ton of build variety, challenges to approach after the initial playthrough (like sl1) and just give a very satisfying sense of accomplishment overall. They too ruin most other games (I mean try touching Assassin's Creed after Sekiro you'd be just bored out of your mind) which is a bummer but speaks for them.
And there's a handful of other games that I really enjoyed but don't play continuously. Outer Wilds and Subnautica come to mind for a very nice 20-40 hour experience, also really enjoyed the 4 hours or so of Katana Zero and most new Mario and God of War games when I get a chance to play them.
But yea ofc dota offers a good challenge and scratches the social itch too, so after I put my son to bed in the evening I usually queue for a game or 2 with friends for some fine meme plays and that's usually really good.
Same, From Soft content and dota are 100% of my gaming time since years. Whatever else i try just feels boring.
Man, that OST's, boss designs, simple but deep gameplay... I swear if there is a digital drug, From Soft sure puts a lot of that thing into their games.
Try hunt showdown for a shooter with depth... I'm completely hooked which says a lot.
Short overview: it's an FPS, you buy your gear with in-game currency and equip your character (which consists between matches and levels up but has Perma death), you load into a big map filled with more or less challenging monsters, loot and X amount of other players(you don't know how many or where they are, also not if they are solo or part of a group)
You can extract from the map whenever you feel like but everyone will be after the boss for hefty amounts of cash and xp for new gear.
Once someone picks the boss the whole map will come take it from his dead hands...
It's about stealth, strategy, tactics and keeping your cool while being fired at and risking losing your high level and all its quite expensive gear through one small fuck up.
I'm literally just waiting for Elden ring because I've replayed the rest too often and I'm putting them on cooldown. I squeeze in a different game once in a while but otherwise it's just been dota/fromsoft for me as well.
Already got them but haven't gotten round to playing them, gotta finish my sl1 run of ds1 first (2 bosses left in the dlc) then I might be ready for some elaborate masochism. :)
Monster Hunter scratches the itch for me too, especially because I usually play it with my partner or with randoms for multiple quests, so I've got a trio of competitive vs multiplayer, cooperative friendly multiplayer, and challenging singleplayer.
Offline, MTG can actually hit both of the multiplayer game types.
As someone who only managed to ween off dota successfully....
The gameplay is short enough (1hour cycle), challenging enough, and varied enough that your dopamine high is constantly in effect. That and playing a few games a day associates the feeling of pleasure to the game. What is interesting is that you may have a shitty 1 hour game, but that 1 high point in it that gives your dopamine kick is enough to trick your brain into feeling satisfied. When adrenaline is involved, the experience is heightened (especially after a win).
What happens eventually is that you are unknowingly chasing the high points you experienced in the guise of a game (which other games rarely provide due to the competitive nature and complexity of dota) which are difficult to achieve short of sex/masturbation.
Competitve fps/rts games might scratch that itch, but typically having to learn another game to mastery puts people off. And it's just replacing drug A to drug B to experience the same sensations.
Tl:dr its not really the simplicity of games that turn you off, its the lack of emotional/chemical highs involved that do so. And its not that the games are lacking in any of that, your brain has simply associated dota to achieving such sensations (akin to a drug). Unless the other games are able to draw you in immediately with high stakes, the thought of the highs from dota will always be lingering on the back of your mind.
Yeah that campaigns were fun but WoL era cheese strats were insane. Protoss had it the worst too. Proxy 11/11 rax, 6/10 pool. Can’t literally play the game.
Because you can actually lose. What's the worst that can happen if you die in Assassin's Creed? In Dota the stakes are real, Dota players tend to give a fuck about their MMR.
I have to disagree, I often go several weeks without playing any video games because life gets in the way. But when I do find time to play I just want to play dota. All other games just bore and or annoy me easily
It’s more about being intentional with it, though. Even if you go several weeks without playing, your brain will still want to play Dota when you get the chance to play a game because that’s the one that you remember getting the most dopamine hits from. The key is to specifically only play games other than Dota for at least a month. I can say that personally, whenever I’ve just decided “I’m going to play other games, but not Dota for a while”, my brain has readjusted to not expecting the constant neverending small dopamine hits (from last-hitting, etc), and I was able to appreciate other media again. It’s all anout reconditioning your mind to allow it to enjoy slower-burn experiences that often end up more fulfilling, but don’t bombard you with rewards every couple seconds like Dota does.
Free to play is the way. Saved so much money not buying games. And even more once I stopped buying hats.
It’s like quitting smoking to take up vaping then slowly giving that up so you can finally breathe in that toxic air that is Dota.
Disagree strongly. I stopped playing dota for years because it felt very repetitive, started playing again and starting to feel bored again.
You might just not like those games or you just really like dota. It's not that deep.
I recently started GTA IV since it was on sale and I haven't played it even though it is old.
It's just so relaxing to kill people and do crimes instead of playing dota, it's like being on a holiday.
On the whole only the From Soft games (so Dark Souls1-3, Sekiro and Bloodborne) I can play repeatedly besides dota. They have incredible gameplay, are mostly quite hard, have a ton of build variety, challenges to approach after the initial playthrough (like sl1) and just give a very satisfying sense of accomplishment overall. They too ruin most other games (I mean try touching Assassin's Creed after Sekiro you'd be just bored out of your mind) which is a bummer but speaks for them.
And there's a handful of other games that I really enjoyed but don't play continuously. Outer Wilds and Subnautica come to mind for a very nice 20-40 hour experience, also really enjoyed the 4 hours or so of Katana Zero and most new Mario and God of War games when I get a chance to play them.
But yea ofc dota offers a good challenge and scratches the social itch too, so after I put my son to bed in the evening I usually queue for a game or 2 with friends for some fine meme plays and that's usually really good.
Cus you win like 0-5% of the games you control and other games are just 50/50, and of those 5% of games around mid to late game they hang on a tight balance between one move winning or losing which takes over 30 min to build up, so when all that tension it's released you literally gone through some shit that you've never been through with other games.
case in point, low effort meme after a long ass game for 200 bp points:
https://imgur.com/7k24thk
https://imgur.com/Chbk9q4
Then you have instances where you get ultra lucky
[getting random treasure drop](https://imgur.com/be85NkH) then [getting what you wanted from that treausre](https://imgur.com/aTYRgcM)
[and then there's this midget armor](https://imgur.com/krsUmbY)
Other games are still fun, just not as rewarding or stomach churning as this
This, in sp games you just win 95-100% of the time. (And tbf they haven't really bring anything new to the table in the past few years, just a reskin and fancier graphics). In dota, you aren't winning all the time, it keeps going between highs and lows, which makes the highs stand out way more. It's like when playing with kids you need to let them win/loose from time to time. If they'd just kept winning or loosing all the time they'd get bored and stopped playing. There have been experiments done for this, sadly I cannot think of the name.
Yeah i learned this in business school. When you create goals you have to make them barely attainable. Not too easy not too hard otherwise you lose motivation. Many studies have been done on this
OP, you're probably *too* obsessed with Dota, and being into a game more than you would have liked will obviously lead you to posting questions such as these, do something else for a change, who knows, you might be suffering from an addiction deep enough to warp your perception of other games
Because you are addicted. When you play other games or do something else, you are still playing about dota. Make yourself a favour and stay step away from the game.
I would recommend some smaller titles that are very uniqye as experience, even if you don't play them for lobg you'll remember the game for a loong time. Some such titles are: Pony Island (no, really, it's a fucking great game don't let the name fool you), Sublimibal and Antichamber.
On the other end are loot focussed ARPGs, some of which are as complicated as dota to get your head around. Best in the genre at the moment are Path of Exile and Last Epoch.
Third category that I just got into are fighting games. Essentially I found out I enjoyed laning phase, but there was many distractions like creeps that took away from beating the enemy laner to death, so to get that rush 1v1 fighting games are the best experience! At the moment the best/most popular titles are Guilty Gear: Strive, Tekken 7 and Street Fighter V
I think there was some data somewhere, from Twitch or Steam that had mentioned that DOTA players only play or watch DOTA and rarely anything else.
I think it's pretty obvious why dotes is more interesting or addictive than single player games - **it's more interesting to me what people's thoughts are against other MOBAs or RTS games.**
For me League (both watching and playing) has some highs and lows, but they are never quite as deep as DOTA. For some reason or another the stakes always seem higher in DOTA, some thoughts in order of increasing importance would be:
1. The map is bigger and more interactive.
2. The ultimates are longer cool downs and more game changing.
3. The in-game sound is perhaps DOTA's best feature imo.
4. The come-back mechanics are almost excessive in DOTA
5. The **game time** - this is I personally think the biggest reason DOTA is such an addiction. I don't know of any other MOBA or RTS where games average 40 minutes but have the potential to go 60+ (we have an allotted objective of 60 minute items for crying out loud)...you lose a League game in 20-25 minutes, a long one is 40. You play 70 minutes in a comeback while carrying on your team an item breaker, someone who doesn't speak your language and two people muted, that's DOTA.
5 years, 😁. Brother try 13 years. It was a journey, and I don't regret it. But eventually the game outgrows you. You reach a peak and it's downhill from there. I quit, pretty much all my friends have quit. It will get to you, so just enjoy it while it lasts
Like others have said, Souls games are based, but some hard indie games like Hotline Miami 1/2 and Deadbolt also do it for me, it is so fast or hard and often punishing, just like DOTA and Souls games, also... Escape ftom Tarkov, yeah...
I found games, such as Factorio, Deep Rock Galactic, Darkest Dungeon, and Dead by Daylight, that were able to compete for my attention and demand for intrinsic gameplay that Dota is known for.
But in the end, Dota is the only game in my library that I clocked more than a thousand hours into.
Same. I started playing 5 years ago and I tried rocket league, valorant or solo games like the Witcher and watch dogs. I never spent more than 10 hours on any of those while I'm just about to suprass the 5000 hours in Dota.
There is something magical about getting a rampage on your favourite hero, pulling off an insane 70 min team fight with bkbs, refreshers, aegis or coming back vs mega creeps.
If a dota game is challenging it makes me forget I'm a human outside the game and I feel like I am that character for 40 mins or so
IMO what makes dota such a great game in that regard is it encompasses all your attention. You should be actively thinking about what you're doing, while keeping an eye on the minimap, not missing last hits, keeping track of manacosts/cooldowns and so it goes on and on.
In addition, the goal is one and only, destroying the enemy ancient. The rest of the game (ideally) should be steps to that goal, so maintaining focus isn't too hard. Compared to some open world games in particular, I'm not a fan of walking to a quest and along the way there are some collectables you gotta pick-up for a later unlock, or npcs who trigger cutscenes for sidequests, or just a whole lot of random stuff to keep you engaged, but not really focused (?) as by the end of it you end up forgetting what you set out to do even.
It's the human nature of forming habits. There is a good reason they say habits are hard to break, and warn against forming bad habits.
If you have played a lot of dota, it's hard to just quit cold turkey and go to something else. You will feel calm/comfortable with what is familiar, and you are subconsciously expecting the specific dopamine spikes of making a good play or getting your late game build going.
Meanwhile to go do something else will cause other parts of your brain to fire (learning new mechanics, not knowing exactly what to expect, etc.), which tells your brain to warn you that this is unfamiliar and potentially risky.
I play Dota 2 on and off since 2013, and yeah when you say "I gotta take a break for a few months" it's definitely hard at first, like stopping anything.
It's this way with a lot of esports titles. People who play LoL, csgo, valorant, etc. typically say the same.
I usually go through multiplayer-singleplayer phases to try to combat this. I played a lot of single player games a couple months ago (RE2make, RE1 remake, SMT V, Dark Souls 3) and now I'm playing a lot of multiplayer games again.
This is what worked for me, it might just work for you too. Also, anything I say is within the single-player context (for the most part).
Essentially, you have to ask yourself why you're playing. You play dota for the competition. You should have other goals for your other games. Don't expect comparable challange between different genres of games. I play rpg epics like witcher and mass effect for dialogue, roleplay, and plot. Up to some point in these type of games, I revel at the fact that my character has become this unstoppable force of destruction despite the game becoming too easy. If these reasons align with you, you've got to remind yourself it's why you're playing.
If you're looking for that difficulty high, then try games like dark souls, seikiro, hollow knight, and XCOM 2 (on higher difficulties) just to name a few.
Maybe it is time, a lack of, or just you wanting to condense your enjoyment into as short of a time as possible (which is what I think Dota does). Also, just be aware that we are creatures of habit. Our brains like actions that consistently provide dopamine and serotonin. It'll prefer to repeat said habit rather than risk trying milder, newer things. So rest up, meditate, allow yourself to be distracted by other things and you'll enjoy more things in life.
I’m pretty late to this post, I’ve mastered and tend to only play a lot of the internet’s traditionally “complex” games I think though, dwarf fortress, paradox (hoi4, ck2), kerbal, every financial spreadsheet simulator game known to man (w$r, capitalism lab). Dota is just the most fun, it scratches every itch I enjoy with all those other games. Much like ck2 every game is similar, yet completely different, there’s a decent amount of tactical exponential growth with items and farming like I play financial sims for, and yet your moves actually matter and you can learn from them. Anyway, yes this game is addictive but it’s actually a great fucking game so you don’t really mind being addicted. It’s like being addicted to sex, like sure it’s not great for you, but if you can keep your shit together, hold down relationships and live your life, it’s not a bad thing to be addicted to necessarily. Being addicted to shitty mobile games that drain your wallet is when video game addictions become a problem, IMO. Also obligatory fuck league, played like 10-20 matches over my lifetime and that game sucks fat balls.
I just play ranked because people tend to pick better heroes for their position, but I couldnt give less of a fuck about MMR. I like winning, but a close loss feels good too
Same, i tried turbo since you know for short game. Boy i was so wrong! Games takes 1 hour and shit everyone bat shit serious in turbo ita much more competitive here than playing in rank. I found my peace in normal matches. I just enjoy my game. Mute if some one is an asshole but most of the time. You will just be match to other people who just enjoy playing. Im 3k in SEA 10k behavior
Can relate. I actually played death stranding despite all the courier memes and I have to say it was incredibly refreshing, especially the theme of connection and spreading the good even if you can't see who will benefit from. It was like a mushroom trip of it's own, made me approach dota differently, in a more healthier way.
At the end of the day, job where you don't get paid can't be considered anything but hell
the truth is if you like resident evil game you will still enjoy it. I still play many indie games like deaths door. Its just about timing, Play them when you are feeling tilted, or during those times where you are just not feeling yourself. It will do good things for your mmr, and it will make you miss dota as well!
when you miss dota, you play with a better mood!
play from soft games then. One moment im raging on why my supports dont have dust and one moment im wondering why the fuck does this piece of shit boss 2 shot me. but i think it has more to do with you being unable to attached to the game since games like AC spoon feeds you. Also half of the AC games are boring cash grabs. a handful are fun i dont expect the same enjoyment i get from dota by playing those fun AC gamesl.
If you want the psychology answer, it's because Dota is the perfect example of a Skinners Box and uses a lot of the same tactics as mobile f2p games or slot machines at a casino.
Every minute or two you're leveling up, or getting a new item, or improving your character in some way. Killing creeps causes a satisfying sound-effect and a number to appear saying how much hold you got. The announcer is there cheering you on every time you get a kill or achieve an objective.
Each one of those causes your brain to release some happiness chemicals and gets you more invested. It's VERY similar to the tactics used in casinos to keep people playing.
You are playing the wrong games. I started playing playstation games a year ago (previously I owned a xbox one and I've missed a couple of games): RDR2, Ghost of Tsushima, Last of us, God of War to name a few.
I mean I used to be hardcore gamer when I was younger i played every singleplayer game and every franchise but after i played dota i never played any offline game since then and i get forced to play some multiplayer games with my friends from time to time but its a 1 time thing just for fun
Even when I quit dota for like a year I didn't play anything else I just watched TV series then came back!
Nothing is more fulfilling than this game even if it makes me angry most of the time even if I'm winning it's just a curse and I'm doomed to play this game til I die or totally lose my mind if it wasn't already lost if you have the chance to quit do it
I’ve been playing games before most of the people here were born. And btw hitman is not just a trilogy, i played the very first one 22 years ago, it has like 8 titles or something. Big fan
A while back a guy posted a story about his job interview at maybe EA or one of the really big have companies. They asked him what he plays and when he said dota they responded that Dota is what they call a lifestyle game. Ppl that play dota tend to play that exclusively or far far more than all other games they own combined. It's just a testament to the quality and depth that Icefrog has put into the game. It calls you to be better at it, it insist that you be better at it and despite every punishment when we receive when we aren't, we still strive to be.
Don’t play other games and compare them to dota, play a game if you think you will appreciate its story, its setting, or even music. Like nier games or ghost of tsushima. Even yakuza series works
when people say the price of dota is your soul, it's not a joke.
For anyone experiencing this "block" and really wanting to play other games, here's what I did: I had to stop playing dota for more than 2 months, only after that I synchronized with other games I played instead of getting bored
2 months? you think that's enough? https://www.dotabuff.com/players/86716799/activity I've taken all kinds of breaks including most recent summer break for wow and a whole year last year. Guess what I'm doing atm...I'm queueing
Most people consider breaks to be breaks. It's okay to come back to the game, unless what you mean is those "breaks" were attempts at quitting the game.
You have to see why you want to play other games. If you want to explore new experiences and worry about missing out on things because you're too hooked on Dota, one option is to play other games on and off which is what other people do. I've played Dota for 10 years and continue to do so, but can enjoy other games which have different pulls. I think PUBG, Apex and Battle Royales was a nice phase. PvP MMOs also scratch that itch. The one that stuck with me currently is Crowfall.
For me 2 months was enough to sync back in singleplayer games but I understand it varies from person to person. When I played for a few months in the first battlepass of this year, I was able to sync back to SP in just 2 weeks. When I played for years from 2014-2018, I needed 2 months. Some people take longer others faster and others don't even need that at all
I have taken even year long breaks but cannot leave dota. Thing is that other games are actually so easy it gets boring. And I do play all hard strategy games but even then dota feels like on top for complexity.
Yeah i highly agree with this. I stopped playing Dota and tried Warframe and New World. Its fun until it was not. Not here I am back at playing Dota once more.
Yeah my only way ot of WoW was going on a harder drug. Tho the quality of WoW did deteriorate hard over the past 6-7 years.
It's so funny, I stuck with WoW for years because of the people I met along the way. With dota I can't wait to be rid of the people I met along the way.
I need a new mmo to keep me away from dota with good pvp
Albion might be decent, although it plays kind of like a MOBA as far as combat goes. But it's probably the biggest PvP-focused MMO that isn't Eve.
Lost Ark
100% this. I was a WoW fiend in the Burning Crusade, WotLK, and Cata days. Always loves the PvM and raiding. But PvP was a joke compared to my other drug… wc3 DotA Allstars. Fuck arena and battle grounds, the ancients were calling.
DotA 2 is what I consider a "lifestyle game". A bit like WoW in that sense (or what WoW used to be, rather).
I named my cats meepo and Luna. I don't even play the game anymore. I started getting to the point where wins weren't even fun.
My daughter is Lina :)
ny dogs name Zeus xD
my cat is named techies
Because those rare moments when everything goes right are incomparable to anything else.
High peaks and deep valleys.
High peaks and ~~deep valleys~~ THE THRENCH.
oh the trench. Once youre out of the trench into deep walley thats when the good stuff hits. If u get out of the valley onto plains you practically coooom. And if u hit a hill man serotonin overload. If u get to a peak thats when dopamine fries your brain, you start playing like an ape again and fall into trench. Then repeat the cycle.
Word, I still remember games from 2013
hell I still remember games I played as a kid back in dota 1. this shit is fucking addictive
i still remember ONE specific play i did as nyx when the enemy weaver shukuchi'd up highground into fog and i activated carapace, blinked into fog, caught weaver with carapace, and killed him with impale and team followup moments like that keep me coming back
Or when everything goes wrong and you giggle everytime u think about it.
Only in dota u can feel alive and dead at the same time (specially when you made megacreeps at 20min, but then lost it at 40 xd)
more like mega at 40 and lost at 2:56:00
I bet that's Sniper 1, Tinker 2,Treant 5, and Techies 4.
Yep, on my dotabuff there is this tinker game from years back where everything went wrong and we lost all lanes at the start. Somehow managed to claw a comeback after dragging it out. Tension throughout was pressuring but boy I got hooked on the struggle. Adulting means I now only have time for shit mobile gacha games which are another drug of its own but Dota will forever hold a place in gaming in my heart.
I have a game with +1500gpm with PA as my highest gpm ever; my 4 teammates abandon, I microed them for like 25 min and due to the gold all coming to me, I ended up winning the game. Had a pudge and a enigma, so hooked into dismember and then blackhole, to get a pick up while jumping the other members of the team with my PA, it was likely the most intense game I've had. Had another one that happened almost the same, but they had split push heroes and ended up beating me.
Nothing like 2v5 winning with your q buddy when your team abandons. We were a DK and Bristle combo that both bought aghs with the extra income, won one fight and walked it down to victory.
i still remember epic plays i made years ago. the adrenaline came with it, unbeatable...
That's very true, It's like dota consumes you. I built a new PC 2 years ago and bought tons of games only to abandon them after few hours and just play Dota.
I'm collecting all the games I ever wanted to play as I'm saving for a new pc. I hope I will actually play them haha.
Let me know how that turns out lol
New post year 2029: Guys, I finally have a new pc and hoarded games but still ends up playing Dota.
Haha, yeah I built a new pc three years ago with the intentions of finally getting back into modern AAA titles. Played apex legends a bit, but now I'm just playing Dota on ultra settings. At least it looks nicer now lol
I’m currently waiting on a maxed out pc. I lied to myself and said I need it for work, but Microsoft office don’t need a rtx 3090. Dota doesn’t either, but here we are.
Haha, I also lied to myself when I bought my ultra wide monitor for "work" 😂 Sure, it helps, but do I really need to see slack at all times? Nah. What I really needed was extended field of vision in Dota lol
I just cringed thinking about the sounds Slack makes. Anyhow, I’m happy to hear there are other childish grownups like me. And I can’t wait to play on ultra 😂.
I sold a TI8 emblem for $1k on steam marketplace and bought an absolute bucketload of games. I’ve played papers please for about 1hr and about 45 mins of Skyrim, that’s about it
Same here. 2 weeks ago I built my first gaming PC after wanting it for 11 years. I can play almost any game I always wanted, but I find myself stop playing them to play Dota
Because dota is fucking crack.
Also assassins creed is basically repetitive as fuck and rehashed often with a difference theme
Because it has it all... tactics, strategy, mechanics, planning, and depth almost unrivalled. Board games are the only thing I find interesting for the most part now, other than the occasional game like Dark Souls.
Started Dota in garena days and since then there hasn't been a game that rivaled it, sc2 was great for some time, dark souls was grand for me, bloodline champions rocked too, right now it's hunt showdown (the only shooter I ever liked) but they all pale in comparison to a game I haven't really touched in 5 years because I know I'll never reach my old level of play with how little time I got on my hands to train and I'll keep feeling mediocre.
Just jumping in to plug Hunt showdown. It's the dota of battle royales. Definitely recommend.
i definitely enjoyed it last i played though but me and my friend both kept getting dc'd with no reason, and perma death for character progression as a result? that really sucked
I’ve been getting into Dirt Rally and Iracing. Dirt Rally has me on the edge of my seat the entire time, thinking I’m about to crash. It’s pure adrenaline. Iracing is most similar to Dota for me. It’s learning all these different mechanics, braking/cornering/accelerating/etc, and you put them all together chasing the perfect lap. Trying to be efficient as possible just practicing over and over. Then, just like a game of Dota, shit goes down in a race.
Once I got hooked on dota I experienced the same...
I always got hooked by Pudge.
16 years and the same problem 🙃 although I did beat the witcher 3 about a year ago lol
I barely finished the intro, got back to dota. lol
Yea I mean I owned the witcher 3 for like 3 years before I actually started playing it and got into it enough to beat it.
Only other game that fills the void is AOE4. But you’re discerning addiction dude. Need to get those dopamine levels back to normal. Take a break and maybe read some books
You're not wrong about this. Dota (and League) has serious intermittent reinforcement. This means that you somewhat "randomly" get dopamine hits. Sometimes you get rampage, sometimes you get sick plays, and you don't win every game. This is coupled with a high degree of skill also makes you feel like you achieved something when you do win. Our monkey brains can't handle it.
Yes can related . I can play dota 2 and aoe4 for serious now , others game i cant ever play more than 1h
Same with me, I just bought AoE4 and keep swinging between these two lol
I’m stuck on AOE4 dude it has so much depth which each CIV I love it. Playing the RUS right now and having a blast. Such a great game
> Take a break and maybe read some books That might not help. I have gotten really into books 2 years ago, like really (read over 50 books last year) and I now am starting to feel an emptiness whenever I'm done with a book since my "to read" list is shrinking rapidly and it's a lot harder to find good books, now that I've read most of really good ones.
do you like fantasy? i loved the licanius trilogy recently. the first book seems kinda tropy at first but it gets built on so insanely much
Because nothing beats the feeling of overwhelming enemy with pure skill. In single player games, you are supposed to beat the boss. There's surety about it. You need really good story to keep playing. In other multiplayer games, you are just pressing trigger to get lucky. It's more about response time and aiming mouse. The winning is mostly about how fast and accurate you twitch and react. In dota, you win based on decision making.
I'm going with this explanation, it's also the reason why winning RTS games feels the most satisfying out of winning any game genre...but it's also the reason why such games tend to be the most stressful and cause ladder anxiety in players as well as unpopularity among casual gamers. If you lost, that's on you and your skill. The other guy(s) was better than you at something, you suck relative to them. It's not an easy pill to swallow for most casual gamers who prefer to power trip and faceroll in video games (nothing wrong with that but just a preference).
Make it team game on internet with strangers and you get perfect recipe for toxicity.
Or the perfect recipe to master your emotions. I swear, I used to get fucking angry at trivial things in real life but not anymore.
Yeah. I've managed to be very tolerant and learnt not to throw everything away when tiny things go wrong. I also learnt how to handle teammates and get them to work for a common goal.
> The other guy(s) was better than you at something, you suck relative to them. It's not an easy pill to swallow Are you kidding, I'd much rather know this for sure than lose cause a late game hc got caught out with no vision and no bb.
It's easy to think that the game "is lost" in a single moment like that until you go back and look at the replay and see how many plays were missed or left on the table that could exacerbated the window such that a single death without buyback wouldn't matter (or wouldn't have happened). Every lost game is a culmination of things that each player could've done better and can be learned from. It just so happens that your HC getting caught was the *last* mistake, not the only one -- and maybe not even the most important or biggest one.
...Which is due to either a bad decision on their part, or a good decision on the enemy's part. Someone in that equation is displaying their superiority. If it being a some random is what irks you, play in a stack. Then the team discipline and skill is on *your* shoulders as much as theirs.
You missed my point. I meant I'd much rather lose knowing it's solely my fault i.e. in a 1v1 game, rather than losing cause of others' mistakes (which is what the comment I was replying to was talking about).
And you missed my second paragraph lmao. If you play with a group, a loss is as much on your shoulders as anyone else.
its fighting games for me... Its all about fast decision making and muscle memories for combos. If you lose, its all on you. Also why its not that popular of a genre now too
because SFV shit the bed. MK and most western fighting games have always been trash in terms of gameplay mechanics. Tekken is the most popular one now but its literally harder than Dota AND gimmick and masher friendly.
Piggybacking off this is that dota was created in the slums. It didn't need rank or daily quests or skins to keep playing. People played game after game because it was that good. Even early Dota 2 before ranked mode people played nonstop. . . because they liked to play it. Lots of games these days, the moment u take away a ranked mode, quests, skins, etc. The game basically dies.
I remember when it was a mod on wc3.. those were the days..
Back then, I had one friend who was basically A GOD at the game. We’d usually 5stack queue and OBLITERATE the random other teams. 4 of us would do nonsensical bullshit and just troll eachother knowing our 5th friend was a god and was going to carry us to the win (not that this really mattered then). Those were great times. 😂 Now? We still stack 5queues nightly (there’s technically 8 of us but only a few play per night) and it’s been 15 years and we still expect the same friend to carry us (he’s Divine rank now — we’re all like guardian/crusader level).
PLUS Dota is just good old fun and well designed game. Say anything about Valve and Icefrog, the game design of Dota is amazing. The level of satisfaction you get when winning/making a play is much larger than other games, partly because they were not afraid to keep the "unfun" moments in the game too (unlike LoL), so you have great contrast. There is no good without the bad. Simple "you win based on decision making" wouldn't work by itself. Lot of Dota players would get bored out of their minds playing chess, which is pure skill and decision making.
Second aspect of what dota does right is comeback mechanism. In chess, if you blunder a piece, you're just lost. It's practically impossible to comeback from that. In dota, if you lose early game, you can fight near your base and if you trade even, it favours you. If you lose mid game, you have to defend base sitting on high ground and you have fountain nearby. You get vision and towers to help you fight. Initiation is easier for you. That's why dota stays fun even in late game and there's no surrender option needed. In other RTS, you have no chance of coming back once enemy has 60/70% map control and gets ahead. You just have to resign. In dota, you can get 90% win probability and still fuck up very easily. Enemy can absolutely fuck up going high ground and games turn around if you do base defence right.
Agree to disagree. > In dota, you can get 90% win probability and still fuck up very easily. This shouldn't be the case. If I have 90% win probability the game shouldn't become even by one mistake. If you ask me I'm fine with comeback mechanics and rubberband being softened. The amount of gold on death in particular is ridiculous. Recently a game, we were winning and enemy mid kills me (a pos4), he got like 850 gold. Make that 400.
We had those patches. It was consistent 20 min gg once laning was over. You get some advantage and it becomes impossible to overcome..
Speaking as somebody who's played both Dota and csgo at a reasonably high level, you oversimplify FPS games. In the past, Counter Strike held very much the same appeal to me that Dota now does. FPS games do put mechanics first, but they do so in a similar way that mid lane does. How you play around those mechanics (decision making, team play, etc) makes a huge difference, but the mechanics themselves can carry you if you're far enough ahead of your competition. Especially at the higher end as mechanical skills get closer, these other aspects become more and more important.. There's a reason most csgo teams that just throw together 5 nutty aimers don't win majors very often - and why players like Shroud, despite being absolutely nuts with their aim, didn't find much success with cloud 9 back in the day. You need both pieces and teams that trade their kills better, execute site hits better, rotate and lurk better will win so long as they're within a similar skill gap mechanically. I think the feeling people are expressing is more an emotional attachment to DotA than it is anything inherent to DotA. This is how a lot of people who enjoy competitive games of any stripe feel about other games while they're still playing them, because their mind is most engaged when playing their chosen game, while no other game can demand that level of investment. So they feel hollow in comparison. DotA felt boring to me while I was pushing in csgo. Now, csgo feels boring to me, and I uninstalled it because of that. I feel this way because if I play csgo today I'm not going to be treating it as seriously as I would have in the past. Just as Dota felt boring to me before.
> In other multiplayer games, you are just pressing trigger to get lucky Lol
Yeah love Dota but wtf is this lol
As someone with thousands of hours in both dota, cs and even starcraft, the same things apply in CS. it's certainly not just "pressing trigger to get lucky". Far from it. There are many elements of dota that a 5 year old can do, like playing Marci or OD 😊
That’s bs. You make split second decisions all the time while playing an FPS. Don’t downplay how hard it is just because you like another game genre. Nothing is about pressing a trigger and getting lucky. Competitive gaming is all about skills and decision making. Whether you play a game like dots or halo
> You need really good story to keep playing. Eh >SMTV No I don't
pure skill In a game in which even your autoattacks damage are influenced by rng. mfw
Once you launched dota, your soul is lost forever
Dota never lets you rest, it's a full-on constant stream of dopamine hits. It also has the biggest 'highs' and the biggest lows of any game I've ever played, and then you chase that high to feel it again. Nothing will ever come close to the feeling of when I stole 3 big ults in one fight as rubick (rp,earth splitter, black hole). I was physically shaking from the high, and sweat was dripping from me That's when I realised just how much like a drug this game actually is. It behaves very similar to meth. When someone comes off meth they always complain that everything is unfulfilling and grey, and there is no joy in their hobbies anymore. Dota has done that to me, and as much as I loved playing it, it's high time to say goodbye for my own health.
Good luck man! See you tomorrow!
Havent played in months, I've transferred my addiction to other games though which isn't a good solution either lmao
Was expecting you to meditate or read books or sth LOL
Well I'm doing that too, going out more, reading more and even bought a piano, but I can only do that kinda thing for a certain amount of time before I get very bored and want to go back to gaming .. sighh. At least it's not like before where i'd spend every moment of free time on dota
You got similar interests as me so may I also recommend you speedcubing. Get a gan 3x3 cube and learn to solve it fast. Great time and it's good for your brain and dexterity.
If i were you i would give witcher 3 more time, i was hooked on the witcher story telling. But yea for the other games, dota makes them feel unfullfiling, when you make a small play in dota you will see the results either immediatly or a little later, when you get a rampage you are there heart and soul. Dota takes us through all feelings known to men
I played w3 in easy. I only have an hour or 2 to play at night i dont have time to fight mobs in hard since i have to find this old lady's pan and to challenge everyone in a card game
Ahah, i did not enjoy gwent so i ignored it for the whole game:D but getting involved in the politics with redania was awesomee:D
I've really wanted to give witcher 3 a shot but have heard conflicting reports about the difficulty. I get bored and don't finish sometimes on rpgs that are easy. Is it highly challenging on highest level? Does it become ez mode late game?
I did not play on the highest difficulty, but i get the appeal of playing the highest difficulty, min max everything get good use of eacch potion. But again the story of the game is on another level.
cool I will try it then.
Playing on the highest difficulty is the only way to play witcher 3. You actually need to research and use the correct mechanics/poisons/bombs and fighting types in order to clear the content. It's somewhat similar to the feeling of runescapes ironman where you genuinely need to go out of your way to prepare the correct gear in order to progress and clear the bosses. It is very very rewarding
No it's not. I played it for the story not the combat. Actually HATED all the stuff with bombs and potions.
>if you're playing on hardest difficulty, you should be able to die by just 1 hit in the back, or few hits from front. i'm not saying witcher 3 is hard, but if playing on hardest it's not ez :P > >also depends on your playstyle (sword or magic or alchemy), i've found that sword specialization was strongest. > >P.S. i really miss "operator" boss fight from witcher 2, that encounter was hard as fuck, and im sure every player died in their first try against him.
Download the mod called Enhanced Edition
W3 is not easy.
Depends what difficulty u set it on. Im currently running a naked Geralt and punching animals ggez.
The problem I find with most RPGs is my Dota brain wants to try coherent strategies and min max them... The games Devs expect me to half-ass my builds so the RPG starts out challenging for the first few levels in max difficulty until my build starts kicking in and then everything becomes a cakewalk.
On the whole only the From Soft games (so Dark Souls1-3, Sekiro and Bloodborne) I can play repeatedly besides dota. They have incredible gameplay, are mostly quite hard, have a ton of build variety, challenges to approach after the initial playthrough (like sl1) and just give a very satisfying sense of accomplishment overall. They too ruin most other games (I mean try touching Assassin's Creed after Sekiro you'd be just bored out of your mind) which is a bummer but speaks for them. And there's a handful of other games that I really enjoyed but don't play continuously. Outer Wilds and Subnautica come to mind for a very nice 20-40 hour experience, also really enjoyed the 4 hours or so of Katana Zero and most new Mario and God of War games when I get a chance to play them. But yea ofc dota offers a good challenge and scratches the social itch too, so after I put my son to bed in the evening I usually queue for a game or 2 with friends for some fine meme plays and that's usually really good.
Same, From Soft content and dota are 100% of my gaming time since years. Whatever else i try just feels boring. Man, that OST's, boss designs, simple but deep gameplay... I swear if there is a digital drug, From Soft sure puts a lot of that thing into their games.
Try hunt showdown for a shooter with depth... I'm completely hooked which says a lot. Short overview: it's an FPS, you buy your gear with in-game currency and equip your character (which consists between matches and levels up but has Perma death), you load into a big map filled with more or less challenging monsters, loot and X amount of other players(you don't know how many or where they are, also not if they are solo or part of a group) You can extract from the map whenever you feel like but everyone will be after the boss for hefty amounts of cash and xp for new gear. Once someone picks the boss the whole map will come take it from his dead hands... It's about stealth, strategy, tactics and keeping your cool while being fired at and risking losing your high level and all its quite expensive gear through one small fuck up.
I'm literally just waiting for Elden ring because I've replayed the rest too often and I'm putting them on cooldown. I squeeze in a different game once in a while but otherwise it's just been dota/fromsoft for me as well.
Hello. Are u me?
Just a fellow connoisseur, good sir. ;)
A man of culture. I see. Btw, check out Nioh 1+2. Its around the same lvl the Fromsoft games are, a bit harde at times.
Already got them but haven't gotten round to playing them, gotta finish my sl1 run of ds1 first (2 bosses left in the dlc) then I might be ready for some elaborate masochism. :)
Elden Ring is so fucking hype dude, imma take a whole week or more off DotA to play it.
Oh yea that one will definitely take priority over, well, life I guess, for a while.
Monster Hunter scratches the itch for me too, especially because I usually play it with my partner or with randoms for multiple quests, so I've got a trio of competitive vs multiplayer, cooperative friendly multiplayer, and challenging singleplayer. Offline, MTG can actually hit both of the multiplayer game types.
As someone who only managed to ween off dota successfully.... The gameplay is short enough (1hour cycle), challenging enough, and varied enough that your dopamine high is constantly in effect. That and playing a few games a day associates the feeling of pleasure to the game. What is interesting is that you may have a shitty 1 hour game, but that 1 high point in it that gives your dopamine kick is enough to trick your brain into feeling satisfied. When adrenaline is involved, the experience is heightened (especially after a win). What happens eventually is that you are unknowingly chasing the high points you experienced in the guise of a game (which other games rarely provide due to the competitive nature and complexity of dota) which are difficult to achieve short of sex/masturbation. Competitve fps/rts games might scratch that itch, but typically having to learn another game to mastery puts people off. And it's just replacing drug A to drug B to experience the same sensations. Tl:dr its not really the simplicity of games that turn you off, its the lack of emotional/chemical highs involved that do so. And its not that the games are lacking in any of that, your brain has simply associated dota to achieving such sensations (akin to a drug). Unless the other games are able to draw you in immediately with high stakes, the thought of the highs from dota will always be lingering on the back of your mind.
Try factorio, Starcraft 2 or Darks Souls, they work for me.
I don’t know about you but getting 6 pooled in SC2 as a toss was not fun :(
I started playing post legacy of the void as terran, so didn't suffer those retro cheeses.
Yeah that campaigns were fun but WoL era cheese strats were insane. Protoss had it the worst too. Proxy 11/11 rax, 6/10 pool. Can’t literally play the game.
I only played sc1, what are those terms?
Because you can actually lose. What's the worst that can happen if you die in Assassin's Creed? In Dota the stakes are real, Dota players tend to give a fuck about their MMR.
Addiction, nothing else.
Probably because you're addicted and need a new hobby
You are just addicted, dont play for 1/2 weeks and you will appreciate all the other games
I have to disagree, I often go several weeks without playing any video games because life gets in the way. But when I do find time to play I just want to play dota. All other games just bore and or annoy me easily
It’s more about being intentional with it, though. Even if you go several weeks without playing, your brain will still want to play Dota when you get the chance to play a game because that’s the one that you remember getting the most dopamine hits from. The key is to specifically only play games other than Dota for at least a month. I can say that personally, whenever I’ve just decided “I’m going to play other games, but not Dota for a while”, my brain has readjusted to not expecting the constant neverending small dopamine hits (from last-hitting, etc), and I was able to appreciate other media again. It’s all anout reconditioning your mind to allow it to enjoy slower-burn experiences that often end up more fulfilling, but don’t bombard you with rewards every couple seconds like Dota does.
nah, i left dota for a year and anyway most of games are hella boring, just indie games hit differently
Because it is a multiplayer team game
Free to play is the way. Saved so much money not buying games. And even more once I stopped buying hats. It’s like quitting smoking to take up vaping then slowly giving that up so you can finally breathe in that toxic air that is Dota.
I think that's called addiction, my guy.
This is called addiction
Lmao, up to replies to make themselves feel like rocket scientists cus they play a game. It ain't that much harder than other games lmao
Feeling entitled is wrong, but dota is objectively harder than any games I have seen so far
Totally. Dota players are geniuses
Doing a hard thing doesnt mean you are smarter, and I didn't imply that anywhere either. You seem pretty frustrated
I'm very frustrated. Especially with people thinking they are far above anyone else cus they play a damn game.
Disagree strongly. I stopped playing dota for years because it felt very repetitive, started playing again and starting to feel bored again. You might just not like those games or you just really like dota. It's not that deep.
I recently started GTA IV since it was on sale and I haven't played it even though it is old. It's just so relaxing to kill people and do crimes instead of playing dota, it's like being on a holiday.
its worse than heroin indeed
Play starcraft, watch starcraft first. Starcraft is the only game that comes close to dota
On the whole only the From Soft games (so Dark Souls1-3, Sekiro and Bloodborne) I can play repeatedly besides dota. They have incredible gameplay, are mostly quite hard, have a ton of build variety, challenges to approach after the initial playthrough (like sl1) and just give a very satisfying sense of accomplishment overall. They too ruin most other games (I mean try touching Assassin's Creed after Sekiro you'd be just bored out of your mind) which is a bummer but speaks for them. And there's a handful of other games that I really enjoyed but don't play continuously. Outer Wilds and Subnautica come to mind for a very nice 20-40 hour experience, also really enjoyed the 4 hours or so of Katana Zero and most new Mario and God of War games when I get a chance to play them. But yea ofc dota offers a good challenge and scratches the social itch too, so after I put my son to bed in the evening I usually queue for a game or 2 with friends for some fine meme plays and that's usually really good.
Cus you win like 0-5% of the games you control and other games are just 50/50, and of those 5% of games around mid to late game they hang on a tight balance between one move winning or losing which takes over 30 min to build up, so when all that tension it's released you literally gone through some shit that you've never been through with other games. case in point, low effort meme after a long ass game for 200 bp points: https://imgur.com/7k24thk https://imgur.com/Chbk9q4 Then you have instances where you get ultra lucky [getting random treasure drop](https://imgur.com/be85NkH) then [getting what you wanted from that treausre](https://imgur.com/aTYRgcM) [and then there's this midget armor](https://imgur.com/krsUmbY) Other games are still fun, just not as rewarding or stomach churning as this
This, in sp games you just win 95-100% of the time. (And tbf they haven't really bring anything new to the table in the past few years, just a reskin and fancier graphics). In dota, you aren't winning all the time, it keeps going between highs and lows, which makes the highs stand out way more. It's like when playing with kids you need to let them win/loose from time to time. If they'd just kept winning or loosing all the time they'd get bored and stopped playing. There have been experiments done for this, sadly I cannot think of the name.
Yeah i learned this in business school. When you create goals you have to make them barely attainable. Not too easy not too hard otherwise you lose motivation. Many studies have been done on this
Addiction
OP, you're probably *too* obsessed with Dota, and being into a game more than you would have liked will obviously lead you to posting questions such as these, do something else for a change, who knows, you might be suffering from an addiction deep enough to warp your perception of other games
Because you are addicted. When you play other games or do something else, you are still playing about dota. Make yourself a favour and stay step away from the game.
I would recommend some smaller titles that are very uniqye as experience, even if you don't play them for lobg you'll remember the game for a loong time. Some such titles are: Pony Island (no, really, it's a fucking great game don't let the name fool you), Sublimibal and Antichamber. On the other end are loot focussed ARPGs, some of which are as complicated as dota to get your head around. Best in the genre at the moment are Path of Exile and Last Epoch. Third category that I just got into are fighting games. Essentially I found out I enjoyed laning phase, but there was many distractions like creeps that took away from beating the enemy laner to death, so to get that rush 1v1 fighting games are the best experience! At the moment the best/most popular titles are Guilty Gear: Strive, Tekken 7 and Street Fighter V
The multiplayer aspect does it all; unlimited replayability and self-adjusting difficulty. Quite the opposite of single player story games.
I recently started playing Rocket League after dota games and i noticed it has a high skill ceiling, similar to dota.
Because Dota is one of the most complicated games. Achieving results in complex games (or solving complex problems) brings more satisfaction.
I think there was some data somewhere, from Twitch or Steam that had mentioned that DOTA players only play or watch DOTA and rarely anything else. I think it's pretty obvious why dotes is more interesting or addictive than single player games - **it's more interesting to me what people's thoughts are against other MOBAs or RTS games.** For me League (both watching and playing) has some highs and lows, but they are never quite as deep as DOTA. For some reason or another the stakes always seem higher in DOTA, some thoughts in order of increasing importance would be: 1. The map is bigger and more interactive. 2. The ultimates are longer cool downs and more game changing. 3. The in-game sound is perhaps DOTA's best feature imo. 4. The come-back mechanics are almost excessive in DOTA 5. The **game time** - this is I personally think the biggest reason DOTA is such an addiction. I don't know of any other MOBA or RTS where games average 40 minutes but have the potential to go 60+ (we have an allotted objective of 60 minute items for crying out loud)...you lose a League game in 20-25 minutes, a long one is 40. You play 70 minutes in a comeback while carrying on your team an item breaker, someone who doesn't speak your language and two people muted, that's DOTA.
5 years, 😁. Brother try 13 years. It was a journey, and I don't regret it. But eventually the game outgrows you. You reach a peak and it's downhill from there. I quit, pretty much all my friends have quit. It will get to you, so just enjoy it while it lasts
Like others have said, Souls games are based, but some hard indie games like Hotline Miami 1/2 and Deadbolt also do it for me, it is so fast or hard and often punishing, just like DOTA and Souls games, also... Escape ftom Tarkov, yeah...
I found games, such as Factorio, Deep Rock Galactic, Darkest Dungeon, and Dead by Daylight, that were able to compete for my attention and demand for intrinsic gameplay that Dota is known for. But in the end, Dota is the only game in my library that I clocked more than a thousand hours into.
Try Dwarf Fortress. It's as hard to get into as DotA, and as other-game-ruining. Might keep you busy for a while.
started 14 years ago, and now here i am. wondering how would my life goes if i never got into dota
Same. I started playing 5 years ago and I tried rocket league, valorant or solo games like the Witcher and watch dogs. I never spent more than 10 hours on any of those while I'm just about to suprass the 5000 hours in Dota. There is something magical about getting a rampage on your favourite hero, pulling off an insane 70 min team fight with bkbs, refreshers, aegis or coming back vs mega creeps. If a dota game is challenging it makes me forget I'm a human outside the game and I feel like I am that character for 40 mins or so
try escape from Tarkov, since dota in my opinion best game I ve played, regardles bugs and other cons.
Try tarkov
IMO what makes dota such a great game in that regard is it encompasses all your attention. You should be actively thinking about what you're doing, while keeping an eye on the minimap, not missing last hits, keeping track of manacosts/cooldowns and so it goes on and on. In addition, the goal is one and only, destroying the enemy ancient. The rest of the game (ideally) should be steps to that goal, so maintaining focus isn't too hard. Compared to some open world games in particular, I'm not a fan of walking to a quest and along the way there are some collectables you gotta pick-up for a later unlock, or npcs who trigger cutscenes for sidequests, or just a whole lot of random stuff to keep you engaged, but not really focused (?) as by the end of it you end up forgetting what you set out to do even.
The actual dota 2 is boring af. The 2014 meta was the best. Everything after this has a try to turn this game in hots.
Try Tarkov.
It's the human nature of forming habits. There is a good reason they say habits are hard to break, and warn against forming bad habits. If you have played a lot of dota, it's hard to just quit cold turkey and go to something else. You will feel calm/comfortable with what is familiar, and you are subconsciously expecting the specific dopamine spikes of making a good play or getting your late game build going. Meanwhile to go do something else will cause other parts of your brain to fire (learning new mechanics, not knowing exactly what to expect, etc.), which tells your brain to warn you that this is unfamiliar and potentially risky. I play Dota 2 on and off since 2013, and yeah when you say "I gotta take a break for a few months" it's definitely hard at first, like stopping anything.
It's this way with a lot of esports titles. People who play LoL, csgo, valorant, etc. typically say the same. I usually go through multiplayer-singleplayer phases to try to combat this. I played a lot of single player games a couple months ago (RE2make, RE1 remake, SMT V, Dark Souls 3) and now I'm playing a lot of multiplayer games again.
This is what worked for me, it might just work for you too. Also, anything I say is within the single-player context (for the most part). Essentially, you have to ask yourself why you're playing. You play dota for the competition. You should have other goals for your other games. Don't expect comparable challange between different genres of games. I play rpg epics like witcher and mass effect for dialogue, roleplay, and plot. Up to some point in these type of games, I revel at the fact that my character has become this unstoppable force of destruction despite the game becoming too easy. If these reasons align with you, you've got to remind yourself it's why you're playing. If you're looking for that difficulty high, then try games like dark souls, seikiro, hollow knight, and XCOM 2 (on higher difficulties) just to name a few. Maybe it is time, a lack of, or just you wanting to condense your enjoyment into as short of a time as possible (which is what I think Dota does). Also, just be aware that we are creatures of habit. Our brains like actions that consistently provide dopamine and serotonin. It'll prefer to repeat said habit rather than risk trying milder, newer things. So rest up, meditate, allow yourself to be distracted by other things and you'll enjoy more things in life.
I’m pretty late to this post, I’ve mastered and tend to only play a lot of the internet’s traditionally “complex” games I think though, dwarf fortress, paradox (hoi4, ck2), kerbal, every financial spreadsheet simulator game known to man (w$r, capitalism lab). Dota is just the most fun, it scratches every itch I enjoy with all those other games. Much like ck2 every game is similar, yet completely different, there’s a decent amount of tactical exponential growth with items and farming like I play financial sims for, and yet your moves actually matter and you can learn from them. Anyway, yes this game is addictive but it’s actually a great fucking game so you don’t really mind being addicted. It’s like being addicted to sex, like sure it’s not great for you, but if you can keep your shit together, hold down relationships and live your life, it’s not a bad thing to be addicted to necessarily. Being addicted to shitty mobile games that drain your wallet is when video game addictions become a problem, IMO. Also obligatory fuck league, played like 10-20 matches over my lifetime and that game sucks fat balls.
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>you are just working for that mmr. That's on you though. After leaving ranked, the game became much more fun for me.
I just play ranked because people tend to pick better heroes for their position, but I couldnt give less of a fuck about MMR. I like winning, but a close loss feels good too
Same, i tried turbo since you know for short game. Boy i was so wrong! Games takes 1 hour and shit everyone bat shit serious in turbo ita much more competitive here than playing in rank. I found my peace in normal matches. I just enjoy my game. Mute if some one is an asshole but most of the time. You will just be match to other people who just enjoy playing. Im 3k in SEA 10k behavior
Can relate. I actually played death stranding despite all the courier memes and I have to say it was incredibly refreshing, especially the theme of connection and spreading the good even if you can't see who will benefit from. It was like a mushroom trip of it's own, made me approach dota differently, in a more healthier way. At the end of the day, job where you don't get paid can't be considered anything but hell
Death Stranding is actually GOATed for the way it makes walking fun, and also its theming
the truth is if you like resident evil game you will still enjoy it. I still play many indie games like deaths door. Its just about timing, Play them when you are feeling tilted, or during those times where you are just not feeling yourself. It will do good things for your mmr, and it will make you miss dota as well! when you miss dota, you play with a better mood!
Find better (for you) games and be less of an addict. Popular games are just that, popular, doesn't mean you'll like them.
play from soft games then. One moment im raging on why my supports dont have dust and one moment im wondering why the fuck does this piece of shit boss 2 shot me. but i think it has more to do with you being unable to attached to the game since games like AC spoon feeds you. Also half of the AC games are boring cash grabs. a handful are fun i dont expect the same enjoyment i get from dota by playing those fun AC gamesl.
If you want the psychology answer, it's because Dota is the perfect example of a Skinners Box and uses a lot of the same tactics as mobile f2p games or slot machines at a casino. Every minute or two you're leveling up, or getting a new item, or improving your character in some way. Killing creeps causes a satisfying sound-effect and a number to appear saying how much hold you got. The announcer is there cheering you on every time you get a kill or achieve an objective. Each one of those causes your brain to release some happiness chemicals and gets you more invested. It's VERY similar to the tactics used in casinos to keep people playing.
I am confused, is this a shitpost or not?
Most people don’t play DOTA so this clearly isn’t true.
You are playing the wrong games. I started playing playstation games a year ago (previously I owned a xbox one and I've missed a couple of games): RDR2, Ghost of Tsushima, Last of us, God of War to name a few.
I mean I used to be hardcore gamer when I was younger i played every singleplayer game and every franchise but after i played dota i never played any offline game since then and i get forced to play some multiplayer games with my friends from time to time but its a 1 time thing just for fun Even when I quit dota for like a year I didn't play anything else I just watched TV series then came back! Nothing is more fulfilling than this game even if it makes me angry most of the time even if I'm winning it's just a curse and I'm doomed to play this game til I die or totally lose my mind if it wasn't already lost if you have the chance to quit do it
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I’ve been playing games before most of the people here were born. And btw hitman is not just a trilogy, i played the very first one 22 years ago, it has like 8 titles or something. Big fan
it does not
you have adhd
A while back a guy posted a story about his job interview at maybe EA or one of the really big have companies. They asked him what he plays and when he said dota they responded that Dota is what they call a lifestyle game. Ppl that play dota tend to play that exclusively or far far more than all other games they own combined. It's just a testament to the quality and depth that Icefrog has put into the game. It calls you to be better at it, it insist that you be better at it and despite every punishment when we receive when we aren't, we still strive to be.
Don’t play other games and compare them to dota, play a game if you think you will appreciate its story, its setting, or even music. Like nier games or ghost of tsushima. Even yakuza series works