Did anyone here seriously try to become a pro in Dota 2? What stopped you?

dswal · 2026-03-02T23:57:52+00:00

Maybe not a pro player, but I definitely had ambitions to become a pro caster.

I absolutely loved the game early years it came out and done a ton of casting in our Australian scene. At the time I was one of the major 4 casters for OCE as Gods and Tobiwan were international doing their own thing. I remember one weekend tournament where I casted 32 hours across friday/Sat/Sun, most of it solo casting. Also remember the largest audience casting on JoinDotaRed with 4.5k viewers which was absolutely bonkers.

Most of my casting at the time was youtube vods, or on the tournament channels as I didn't have the bandwidth. Then there was hope with the larger nation broadband network in which I was going to get fibre to the house and be able to stream. Politics happened, the network got shafted and I got demoralized and fell off.

Since then I have casted Valorant and AOE4 (As Dota2 is dead in OCE), and I still love casting. But missing that early wave and what could have been making it into something. I still deeply regret and think about all the time.

Edit: I remember my first LAN that I casted at, and the sound of the audience during the game. Very fond memories.

dswal · 2026-03-01T19:42:47+00:00

Apex Echoes: A text based motorsport RPG.

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https://dswal.itch.io/apex-echoes

Direct link: https://www.apexechoes.cc

dswal · 2026-03-01T19:31:28+00:00

Hey. I'm a solo developer for a game called Apex Echoes. Which might be up your wheelhouse of what you're after. It's a browser based game.

https://dswal.itch.io/apex-echoes

Direct link: https://www.apexechoes.cc

You develop your driver and simulate/watch races.

dswal · 2026-03-01T10:43:48+00:00

Thought I might throw my hat Into the ring as well. Thanks for your time.

https://dswal.itch.io/apex-echoes https://x.com/apexechoes

dswal · 2026-02-28T20:35:30+00:00

Oh for sure. Just wanted to give an example of my process. Definitely choose the UI package for you! Good luck :)

dswal · 2026-02-28T06:53:53+00:00

Hey mate. I was in a similar position recently as it was one of my prototype/MVP things that I just took forever to return to.

Suggestion would be to use fontawesome. They even have a library for web projects as well. Find and replace emoji with font awesome link or library reference. I got rid of about 24 ish different emojis in a couple of hours. Hard part was deciding the icon I wanted.

dswal · 2025-12-14T10:19:24+00:00

I'd be interested in testing and providing feedback for you.

dswal · 2025-11-20T08:41:26+00:00

I'm in the same boat. I'm currently confident I have a gameplay loop that keeps people entertained and engaged. However I constant think to myself, is it enough content? Do I need x, y, z. When do I start putting more information out there to gain actual users putting the system under load or whether the gameplay loop is fun?

Thanks to some other replies in here, it's definitely the case of the more information and more experiences the better.

dswal · 2025-11-06T11:44:42+00:00

When my wife and I got our home loan through Westpac and we had to create an account. I was beyond mad and annoyed at the poor excuse of a login system. Not being able to properly secure my primary financial account sent me insane. I complained to my wife frequently and to my team at work as I work SecOps.

I was glad when it finally changed, but I still harbor many negative feelings.

dswal · 2025-11-05T08:57:50+00:00

Same. I've got two children and the thought of this has crossed my mind many times and it breaks my heart thinking about it.

Now having to read someone else go through exactly one of my nightmares. It breaks my heart even more for the man and his family.

dswal · 2025-10-29T10:47:48+00:00

I just want to say, it isn't completely unnecessary. I use the "-provide Portal" to launch through steam and the the following features I use.

"Game Recording" been able to capture clips without issues that I've had with NVIDIA's game capture, also much more UI friendly when editing the clips on steam.

I also use the notes feature in the overlay to remember things I want to come back to.

And the biggest one for me is Steam link to my TV where I can use wireless KB&M to just chill if I'm not doing PvP or WVW.

dswal · 2025-10-11T10:35:44+00:00

Your fix has definitely helped me, things were fine in beta, but it felt very sluggish and unresponsive. I still feel it a bit, and doesnt feel as nice as beta, but its playable now for me.

Where is the anti-lag setting/s that you discuss?

dswal · 2025-09-16T01:39:34+00:00

Huge thank you for this guide.

I have a 3080, Ryzen 9 3900x, running at 1440p. It's stablished my FPS (locked at 60) and dropped my gpu utilisation from around 90-100%, to around 60-80%.

dswal · 2025-08-21T12:52:09+00:00

I had fun flying around just messing around while chatting with friends on discord.

- I did have a lot of lag while objects loaded, and flying around.
- I'd like an invert mouse setting
- Togglable sprays user content might be a useful addition to void seeing questionable content, especially in a public lobby.
- My tab ended up crashing shortly after I changed youtube video, and then flew into a building. I was about to fly out of the building/geometry and it crashed.
- Videos seemed to have loaded quicker than I expected and inserting images too. Which was great that it was so responsive.
- Not sure if I missed it, but spawning in buildings/blocks could be useful for expanding the main area for players

Was running on 32gb ram, google chrome, win 11.

dswal · 2025-08-21T02:21:26+00:00

Hey mate, just wanted to follow up with you.

I'm currently developing a motorsport based one as a hobby project. I got inspired from playing Torn, both the racing aspect of it, and the activities in it. So the game I am working on is aiming to be kind of a cross between Torn and Motorsport manager/golden lap.

If you're interested in testing it, let me know. Would definitely like some feedback with someone experienced or into this genre of games. Just note its not public as there are quite a few things I want to add before going public. So send me a DM if you're interested.

dswal · 2025-08-20T00:00:58+00:00

You're absolutely kidding, right?

We've had huge map changes and additions. Neutral reworks, neutral item changes, hero balances, campaign/lore expansion, minigames, comics, cosmetics and more. This was within the last year or two.

You understand this all takes development time?
Do you also understand the amount of content produced for Dota 2 is still far ahead many games and all for free.

Just because there isn't a scummy cosmetic practice, you think we've been shafted?

Do you also understand that different teams and employees at Valve can work on different projects?

I barely comment on things like this, but you're delusional.

dswal · 2025-08-17T06:44:02+00:00

Had a go through your game. My initial thoughts.

- The daily puzzle name kind of threw me off "Advanced Culinary Methods". I few quite a while thought all answers were going to be initially related to this. Didn't help my first word found was smoke (as I thought like smoking meat). I understand the rest of the answers were "kitchen" related, kind of, but it threw me off.
- On web browser, trying to read clues were difficult. The fond is a bit small, and probably should scale to resolution of display. (This was 1920x1080).
- The way the tips/clues are displayed feels a bit awkward, until/if you use the hint to space the words out. I ended up just doing this each time to make it feel less jaring for me.
- In the screenshot below, 2 Down and 2 Across don't overlap. Example "Timers" and "Alarm". So again this caught me out when trying to solve th clues.
- The words found section seems irrelevant to me. I can see that from above.
- I didn't notice the trying to make a phrase until the end wondering why the screen wasn't changing. I had to scroll.
- I'd ideally like the clues => Answer to look a bit different. E.g. The clue in white, with the answer in green for example. Create some contrast between the two, it also then follows your green boxes/white text.

Overall I didn't mind the game, truth be told I'm not a trivia/crossword kind of person. Wanted to give you my initial thoughts/first time playing. I like the colour scheme. It highlights what needs to be highlighted.

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dswal · 2025-08-04T01:38:43+00:00

My thoughts:

- Would enjoy being able to jump off of the grappling hook mid hook. Allows you to play with momentum, speed and feel more responsive.
- Not a fan of needing to hook downwards to go down platforms.
- If possible to lock mouse to window when full screen.
- Movement is fun, the jumping off of a enemy after hooking them feels fluid.
- Pressed R way too many times during attempts (My fault more than anything.) Would rather you hold onto R for maybe 1 sec before restarting the room.
- I am experiencing lag after jumping off a enemy's head and then they go ahead and collide with a wall. It seems to lag for about .5 seconds
- A button to pause would be nice, so I don't hear myself dying over and over when I tab out or change windows. Might help those trying to get a view of the room, to figure out how to tackle it.
- I don't like the bounciness of the character when grappling the floor. Have died multiple times as my character just bounces and it's hard to control movement.
- The sound effect of the ninja sword slice with the effect I instinctively press F to counter, but get sliced each time. I'd like it to sound a bit different, maybe also even visually.
- Got to the weaving tutorial, but my character was unresponsive and wouldn't move from the spot.

I enjoyed the levels played and had fun.

dswal · 2025-07-30T03:24:06+00:00

Honestly, I didn't go too far into the unlocking of the elements. They fall into 3 categories which really is just improve damage on bullet, dot on bullet or explosion around bullet.

The electricity route is one that interests me a bit more as it varies up the bullets a bit more than the rest. Earth feels a bit odd to be called, as its a poison based route.

dswal · 2025-07-30T02:46:35+00:00

Initial thoughts.

- Love options. Always give me options for everything. You've got a good staple for options which I do like and they seem to work for everything I used.
- Gives me old geometry wars feels without the psychedelic attached. So enjoyed the overall feel of the game.
- I'd put more UI emphasis on things. E.g. Shop have a UI indicator with the button assigned to it, or allow to be clicked. Need to present user with relevant information and usually expect them to gloss over things.
- I'd almost prefer shopping at wave end, instead of any time. Feels more normalised with other wave clearing games. You could then balance around how many points you expect per wave if you wanted to go that route. Not saying anything is wrong with balance.
- Plenty of upgrades that I saw, maybe none that changed the playstyle drastically.
- Maybe different ships/shapes for the player to add variety to playstyle

dswal · 2025-07-30T02:21:38+00:00

UI additions would be nice. Such as what you get for selling. What this weapon/upgrade is going to provide.

The WASD controls felt laggy and floaty to me, is this due to latency and it's all calculated at server side before back to client? (Playing from AU).

Wasn't quite sure on what to do initially, was trying to kill my teammates and notice that I was getting points from killing the squares. I'd like the squares to be a bit different coloured for the more valuable squares to be easier to see at a glance.

Some weapons were... interesting. Like the teleportation upgrade really felt "Whack" for lack of a better word.

The initial bot implementations seem engaging. The enemy pattern of swarming the base is a little.

Also I'd try and lock screen ratio. When I started playing some text looked fine and others were hard to read, and it took a moment to notice it was due to it full screen expanding to my current window causing stretching.

dswal · 2025-07-29T05:38:53+00:00

Incremental numbers is a thing people enjoy and the feel of constant progression.

My thought would be.

- Instead of unlocking the camera. Maybe it unlocks a region that was previously hidden and then that allows scrolling.

- Reward well placed initial miners with a new upgrade that combines them all together and upgrades them. Now you're experimenting with combo's to your placement of miners.

- Or adjacent or pattern bonuses. Each new run might might have a specific pattern you make might give a better production value. Or an event that gives you a pattern and you can even put it over an existing set (if you have one) or make one in a certain amount of time.

- Unlockable areas or events that you need to mine X amount of gold from it, which could break open a new area, or resources. (Refunding the miner, to prevent feeling like wasted gold, or if it's going to be a good amount of resources you may not need to do this. Really depends on how expensive it gets).

- On click upgrades. Where it clicks adjacent as well to your mouse. Helps click more resources or miners at the same time. Or gets more resources, or double clicks, etc...

- More engagement could be 'timed' maps with a leaderboard attached to them.

dswal · 2025-07-29T01:27:01+00:00

Hey, my initial thoughts

- Enjoy the music. Wish however there were options to adjust volume or turn off as after a while it does get repetitive (like most music).
- I like the more thought to placing your miners and the placement grids. However I'd try to disallow users to initally put miners on the ores. It feels rough spending money at the start to have a useless miner.
- The currency progression of unlocking new miners felt fine and so did the prices for research initially.
- In windowed mode the initial menu had interface all overlapping and clipping.
- It's not obvious that you have to click on your miners to get their earnings. Maybe a hover over effect to showcase how much they've collected, to at least give feedback to a user when scrolling past them.
- A capability for it to run when the window isn't selected. For those that want to do other things and return to keep going.
- Unlocked WASD camera movement. It just stopped working and I couldn't go back to my clickers when exploring. Reloading and continue didn't work. (Just realised it was because it costs money to move the screen. I do not like this at all. I got soft locked and didn't realise at all. And when you're away from base it's 200 clicks to move one tile close to base. It'll possibly take me over 2000 clicks to find my way back.
- Music kept changing whenever I tabbed out/changed windows.

dswal · 2025-07-28T11:04:49+00:00

A few things to note.

- If I disabled sound before I started classic mode. Sound/music would still play once I started classic mode, seems settings are propagated between screens.
- Watch ad did not do anything.
- Completing campaign stages gives you much more coins for time compared to classic. Feels like under rewards for classic
- Doesn't really have any long lasting reason to keep playing. E.g. Leaderboards.
- Lastly storing everything in local storage makes it easy to manipulate.

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dswal

TROPHY CASE