Are my fears of Dota well founded?

[DoPo]

Unfortunately, you are correct. As others said. But here are some tips to help you, if you really want to start playing a MOBA:

1. Get a friend or two with you to teach you. That's probably the best thing you can do - the tutorials are OK, but you really want to get a bit of practice outside them, they introduce you to very basic mechanics only - having somebody help, is going to make your life easier.
2. Start by playing against bots. No need to rush in against other players, as I said - just get some practice. And try medium bots first (if playing Dota 2) - the hard ones are a ***** and teammates may still shout at you, unfortunately.
3. Communicate with your team. This moves away from how to play into other areas of advice - just communicate with your team - tell them you are new, ask them for advice, listen to the advice they give out, tell them your plans ad coordinate. If somebody is using a microphone is sounds like they know what they are talking about, try to follow the suggestions. I've found most people with microphones use them because they want to help the team. Well, except if they are speaking Russian or other language, that's not really helping. Or if they just insult you. Just mute them in that case and don't bother (in Dota 2 - press ` and to the right of their name, there is a mute icon). Muting works for chat, too.
4. Be friendly. Please don't be one of the people you fear - act friendly, congratulate your team when they do well and such. It does warm people up to you.
5. Back to how to play - start learning heroes one by one - move on when you get a decent grasp on one (though you may need to try several to find one you like).

 

[SlaveNumber23]

Yes people will let you know that you have screwed up, the trick is to grow some thicker skin. If someone calls you a noob/calls you out on making a mistake, politely ask them what you can do to improve, if they offer nothing constructive in response to this then dismiss them entirely. There are always going to be assholes who will give you a hard time in every competitive community, but understand that their opinions are literally worth nothing to you, you can even mute them if you are having a hard time ignoring them/laughing at them making a fool of themselves.

Basically, yes you are overreacting, just play the game and enjoy it, who cares what some random stranger thinks of you? Especially when they are evaluating your skill from a sample space of a single game, which is plain retarded, its like rolling a dice once, getting a 4 and then making the assumption that 100% of dice rolls will be a 4. Dismiss these idiots.

 

[SecondPrize]

Let me tell you a secret about random strangers you meet on the internet... Fuck 'em.
That being said, Dota is a game wherein all the members of a team need to do their jobs or everyone is stuck in a game they can't win for 45 minutes, so you should do a little reading of basic guides. Just a little understanding of the basics (don't auto attack their creeps, just last hit) will go a long way.

 

[Phasmal]

Just play easy bots with a really easy hero, learn that. Nobody'll yell at you.
I've talked a few people through their first game, so if you admit you're not sure what to do, there might be someone there who will help.

 

[Vladimort]

I've played dota since, I don't know I was very young. The immense rage I got from there if I fucked up once, was freaking fantastic. There was something about old dota, that made people feel really special in some kind of way. There was only supposed to be pro players, otherwise you can back the fuck off and play warcraft.

That little special feeling, making you feel inclined to yell at the top of your loungs when someone does something bad, and then light it up like a pixel tree in the all chat is freaking wonderful.

Somehow I have managed to become blind to all the bigotry, and ragers in the game. I generally laugh them off and continue playing with the same level as I did before. The worst "hatred" I got was when someone said they would do suicide if I continued killing them, that actually made me feel quite bad.

Hostile enviroment in any MOBA game? Yes just like any other game really, but in these games, you rely a lot on your team-mates. Therefore when a team-mate lets you down, you feel kind of betrayed, for 20 to 30 minutes of the game.

 

[Jandau]

Hmmm, not sure how a totally new player would feel about it...

I came to DOTA2 after 2-3 years of LoL, so while I had a lot to learn, I know the basics already (lanes, lasthitting, hero roles, ganking, and so on and so forth) and this smoothed out the transition.

One thing I will say is that I've found the DOTA2 community to be less obnoxious than the one in LoL. That's not to say that it's populated by kindly old ladies and puppies, plenty of morons there too, but I've encountered a noticeably smaller number of them than in LoL. So in that regard, DOTA2 gets a thumbs up from me.

However, if you've never played a MOBA before, DOTA2 has a steeper learning curve. It's simply a harder game than LoL, with more room for failure. That being said, there's more room for success as well, with the game offering a broader range of strategies and playstyles than LoL (which by this point has become extremely formulaic in how the game is played). Also worth noting is that DOTA2 has a fairly extensive tutorial and an assortment of game modes that allow new players to not get crushed quite so badly.

If you don't mind a bigger upfront challenge, I'd suggest DOTA2. If you just want to dip your toes in a MOBA casually, go for LoL.

 

[Foolery]

Play it with friends, that's my advice. Anytime I played it online I got called a retard. I tinkered the game mechanics with bots before I tried playing with people.

 

[Denamic]

I have well over a thousand games played, and I still often screw up like a noobtard asscake. Like many others have stated, play with friends, or even join 4chan's /v/ chat in the game and ask for a premade. Just tell them you're an asscake and you'll get a decent and usually forgiving stack going. Or just do what I did. Throw caution to the wind and jump straight into the solo queue, and pick a random hero. I did the same thing with SC2. It's going to be difficult either way, so why not jump in head first and get the worst part over with?

 

[Glongpre]

Don't play with friends. Play solo queue and develop a thick skin. You are welcome, it will help you through out the rest of your life. But yes a lot of people are assholes, especially on the internet. Also, don't be a hypocrite and act like the assholes.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Hostile enviroment in any MOBA game? Yes just like any other game really, but in these games, you rely a lot on your team-mates. Therefore when a team-mate lets you down, you feel kind of betrayed, for 20 to 30 minutes of the game.

Much worse than the average online game, in my experience. A lot of that goes to the nature of MOBAs and the snowball effect of feeding leading to a lot of blame throwing and swift identification of the weakest link. And some of it could be attributed to the fact MOBAs are competitive PvP games so they tend to attract highly competitive/highly strung people.

I've had my share of friendly, happy games, but the ratio of raging assholes to normal folk is significantly worse in MOBAs than other online games. Makes me nostalgic for MMO communities.

 

[crimson sickle2]

DOTA communities have an awful reputation, but it's the same as any other group of people. Some of them will be vocal jerks. Sometimes you'll have an entire team of pleasant people. I agree with Zhukov's estimate though, one person every three games will probably cause trouble. Bringing friends can't really harm your experience at all, so just bring some of those if you get nervous.

 

[miketehmage]

So what if you screw up? Fuck 'em. You have to learn somehow. Maybe read up on the basics before playing but other than that what else can you do? If people are being dicks to you while you are learning, it isn't worth trying to please them.


EDIT: Though I will say don't join ranked queue's until you can play every role comfortably. That shit drives me insane.

 

[teebeeohh]

There is a mute button, use it on assholes. Nothing they say will have any significant impact on the game anyway. You will also fuck up a lot but that's OK, just keep muting and reporting the assholes so they can play each other

 

[thesilentman]

I have a fear of playing real competitive games like Dota 2 online because I'm afraid I might majorly screw up and get yelled at by everyone; and what I've heard of Dota community has made my fears even worse. Am I overreacting or should I be worried?

The thing about Dota's community is that one part of it is made up of straight up assholes, one part is made up of really nice people, one part is made up of people who really want to improve, and one part is made up of people who have a raging inferiority complex. The assholes and raging inferiority complex people aren't mutually exclusive.

I used to be afraid of matchmaking in Dota, but very occasionally do I find a raging jerk. If I do, I mute him and move on to play the best I can. I've also noticed that if you're nice to other people, they'll usually stand up for you when there is a raging jerk in the game, but I do have to point out that this only works if you are really into the game and are playing to your best.

All I have to ask is this: can you take some wins and losses, see where you went wrong, and attempt to improve those mistakes? Then the Dota community should not even be able to dent you. The fact that the MOBA genre is toxic is really more a fact of life than a fact of the MOBA genre. Don't let a select group of people ruin what could be a fun pastime.

In the end, I recommend you play with some friends as you go online. I play with people from the Escapist a good number of times, and I certainly don't mind playing with any more. If you are interested, just go ahead and ask. I extend this to anyone in the thread if they so choose, just either PM or quote if you are.

 

[Worgen]

You wont really start meeting asses till you get higher rank, at low levels no one really expects anyone to be good, or at least that was how league worked back when I first started playing it. Really if you want a moba type game, I would suggest smite, I found it much easier to play and get into that a normal one. Smite is 3rd person and feels a bit more like a shooter.

 

[Headsprouter]

Well, being scared of screwing up is why I play tutorials or on the lowest difficulty on my first time. I don't play Dota because I suck at it and dislike how it looks to the point where really I have nothing attracting me to actually learning how to play it.

The best thing about MOBA games is winning and dominating other players, if I can't do that, why should I bother?

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

There is a steep learning curve, since you have to learn about all of the hundreds of heroes. Fortunately, you can start off online with a limited selection that are apparently good for newcomers.

You will get called a noob and told off for 'feeding' enemy players (i.e. dying to them so they gain gold) even when there's nothing you could have done to defend yourself. Dying a lot in general will screw up your chances of winning, since you won't have as much time to level up and gain gold.

 

[Comic Sans]

Just go for it. Play the tutorials and then play games versus bots so you can learn. Then when you start matchmaking, just mute anyone who is vocally aggressive.

 

[Windcaler]

IMO yes your fears are rational. I havnt played dota 2 for very long and I never played the original dota, however I have played a lot of other Moba's such as League of legends (really who hasnt played that?), super monday night combat, smite, Hero's of newerth, and I got to briefly try out Infinite crisis. The amount of toxicity of the player base will vary based on personal experiences, time played, and the individual game but IMO Dota 2 is the worst one. If I was to rank those games in most to least toxic it go like this: 1. Dota 2 2. LoL 3. HoN 4. Smite 5. IC 6. SMNC

Generally the way to fix that toxicity is to just play with friends but sometimes not even that helps when frustration builds in one of your friends or even yourself. You really just need to know when to walk away or know how to effectively release frustration while you play.