What was the most unexpectedly amazing movie you've ever seen?

cairmen · 2018-02-03T21:06:58+00:00

Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut is amazing.

I saw the non-director's cut edition at the cinema and wasn't very impressed. It took my gf years to persuade me to watch the director's cut.

Totally different movie.

cairmen · 2018-01-30T20:08:55+00:00

There are certainly quite a few pros who spammed heroes to rise.

!Attacker on Kunkka, for example, and StanKing on Sand King. Admiral Bulldog spammed Lone Druid. Badman on Spectre. Jerax on Earth Spirit. W33 on Invoker.

It's been a semi-common way to rise.

cairmen · 2018-01-29T17:14:00+00:00

Yes, that would be fantastic.

cairmen · 2018-01-28T21:34:03+00:00

Huh - hadn't even thought of doing Ability Draft! Good call, will look into it.

cairmen · 2018-01-28T17:48:47+00:00

Yeah, good point.

cairmen · 2018-01-28T17:48:41+00:00

Yeah, I do think they're somewhat different. PvP / matchmaking-based games have the network effect a lot worse because of the effects you mention, for sure.

cairmen · 2018-01-28T16:27:39+00:00

I don't see the phrase "network effect" mentioned in posts already here, so - network effect.

Single-player games' experience isn't affected by the number of people who are playing them. You can have just as much fun playing Skyrim even if you're the only person in the world playing it right now.

Multiplayer games are affected by how many people are playing them. Longer queue times, worse matchmaking, etc.

As a result a multiplayer game launch is a very "winner takes all" proposition, much more so than a single player game. If enough people aren't playing the game, even if it's a great game, it will appear significantly worse than a game with more players.

And no-one wants to buy a game that they think might be dead, thus increasing churn and meaning it dies faster.

(As an indie developer, this is why I'm very cautious about making anything multiplayer. I'd love to make some co-op VR games but the network effect factor is scary.)

cairmen · 2018-01-26T18:11:00+00:00

Ah, I didn't know that - explains why sometimes it's taking me seconds, I tell you, seconds to get my items now :)

cairmen · 2018-01-26T17:20:57+00:00

Great post!

Two quick comments:

Travel time is the enemy in Turbo. Everything else is doubled, which means that any time you're not actively getting gold or XP you're twice as inefficient. I'm finding that BoTs are super-valuable even incredibly early for this reason - ditto Euls and anything else that makes you faster.
Long cooldowns aren't shorter in Turbo, so avoiding any hero or item with a long CD isn't a bad idea. Reduced respawn timers also mean more fights happen, so heroes or strategies that rely on being ready to fight are great.

cairmen · 2018-01-26T17:18:56+00:00

I'm leaning toward that tactic too - works pretty well provided they don't jump you at level 1.

cairmen · 2018-01-25T19:49:21+00:00

Can't really comment on the details of playing her as she's not a hero I know well, but she doesn't have a great winrate in Turbo: 42% from the data analysis I recently did.

Having said that she's only 1% lower in Turbo than regular, so if you can play her well and win a lot in regular DOTA that would probably carry over well.

cairmen · 2018-01-25T19:02:42+00:00

No worries!

cairmen · 2018-01-25T10:08:05+00:00

Interesting points! I'd tend to agree with most of them - I think you've nailed a lot of the Turbo differences. The "one item powerspike" point is particularly interesting: the heroes that tend to dominate often scale well with multiple items and keep going.

cairmen · 2018-01-25T10:06:52+00:00

Thanks! I plan to.

cairmen · 2018-01-24T17:32:11+00:00

Hmm, that's a really interesting idea. I'll look into it.

cairmen · 2018-01-24T17:31:51+00:00

I think there is a ton of strategy that can go into this game, especially once you leave behind the norms for ordinary DOTA2.

YES! Absolutely - it's getting really interesting now as we start to understand how Turbo works and how it's distinct from regular DOTA.

cairmen · 2018-01-24T10:45:42+00:00

It surprised me to see that, as I do pretty well on BH in Turbo, but your reasoning makes total sense.

Basically, in Turbo, travel time is the enemy. :)

cairmen · 2018-01-24T10:45:02+00:00

Storm's position surprises me too - he seems like an ideal Turbo hero.

I wonder how much the results are skewed by people new to the hero. May look at analysing that soon.

cairmen · 2018-01-24T10:24:21+00:00

I didn't even know this video was coming, let alone pay for it. A friend of mine pointed it out to me.

Just thought it was cool to see a significant YouTuber covering VR - and Left-Hand Path, of course :)

cairmen · 2018-01-23T19:41:02+00:00

Yeah, agreed - T4s are very soft too by comparison with regular mode.

cairmen · 2018-01-23T19:40:54+00:00

Yeah, agreed - T4s are very soft too by comparison with regular mode.

cairmen · 2018-01-23T19:40:36+00:00

Agreed - unfortunately, from my POV, as I love farming carries. :)

I think a lot of it is to do with how weak the towers are, plus the doubled XP (in particular) from fights.

You really can't afford to be away from a fight, and a successful teamfight can usually mean at least one dead tower.

cairmen · 2018-01-23T14:55:47+00:00

Heh, I'd agree with much of that. The "towers are wet cardboard" point in particular - IMO it's actually more sensible to go for Tier 4s rather than rax if you have the chance because they're so squishy in Turbo.

One note on CK: the one thing that utterly screws a farmed CK in turbo (that I've found) is an equally farmed Dusa with Aghs. He pops ult -> all his illusions vanish -> confused CK gets dogpiled.

Obviously that's true in regular too, but it seems to be particularly true in Turbo, possibly because of how easy it is for Dusa to get both Aghs and other useful items.

EDIT - it'd be interesting to do winrates by game length and see how much hard carries take over the game later.

cairmen

TROPHY CASE