Dota isn't Dota anymore. Here's why.

[@drmoga]

Baumi thanks for telling us what a Necronomicon is. :D

[@Baumi]

a what?

[@TZAR_POTATO]

@@Baumi Creates level 3 necronomicon units... Oh, book of the dead description, please be updated this year...

[@jorgefreitas5983]

You clearly were not paying attention. He told us wha a Necronominon WAS, not what it IS. This is still a mystery to be solved, perhaps worth another film-like video? :P

[@iamaperson7545]

Or maybe the real necronomicon is the friends we made along the way

[@kaiwen1735]

I remember my Lycan Necronomicon build. 0 kill but we won because of the split push 😂

[@ronrivero1039]

I agree, this is not about Defense of the Ancient anymore. It's just who's the stronger hero in a fight.

[@KindredSpiritASMR]

Thank you so much for having me narrate those bits, this era of dota was actually around the time I started playing dota 2, so it felt very nostalgic to revisit that TI, it’s will always be fascinating how this game evolved into how it is now

[@HowardSkub]

I thought you were Nfkrz

[@vinscorner]

Great work man! Its good baumi found someone who loves dota to narrate it with him

[@Kolbiathan]

Dude, your recap of those games is amazing! I was at TI4 and hearing these re-caps really had me so excited!!

[@McJethroPovTee]

you have a very cool voice.

[@IamBaum]

Fantastic narration Kindred.

[@BlindVoid]

dota is really fascinating from a design perspective and im surprised there isnt a whole lot of content exploring dotas design out there honestly. this was a great video and id love to see more hella long dota design videos eventually, i am all about it

[@Xanthopathy]

omg hey boid

[@HadirUntukAnda]

yeah dota really need content creator for this,

[@WhitefoxSpace]

I made some dota videos 2-3 years ago; the community always knows better- I think that's why anyone who isn't a TI Winning pro steers clear from criticizing it

[@KitsuneFaroe]

Did you found more videos like that on these 6 months?

[@gutsglory3625]

dota2 hero design is super trash compared to its original dota1 counterpart.

[@DRourk]

Have played it since 2003-4. It's hey day is definitely many years ago. There was a golden age between '04-'06, then a lesser golden age from '12-'14. It's been slowly downhill ever since, with a massive jump off a cliff with this latest patch. The once great game, is now a freakish shadow of what it once was.Anyone thinking otherwise, hasn't played all of the MOBAs that existed in the WC3 era. Currently Dota is a resurrection of many old ideas that other MOBAs used, some of which predated DOTA, and were supplanted with good reason by dota. Edit: Many of us made fun of you -apem players haha... -ardm was where it was at back in the day. Very fun times. Thanks for the video.

[@SnekNOTSnake]

agreed. last time i thought dota 2 was an amazing game was back when they introduced monkey king. last year i came back as a veteran but only had a little fun and mostly negative experience.

[@p3tiny]

I can personally identify with that. TL;DR: Dota 2 almost caused the end of our traditional LAN party, and everyone left extremely pissed off and upset this year. I'm one of the lucky few who has similarly minded friends around me. Every year we have a weekly LAN party, at our age it's not really a hardcore LAN anymore, but it's mostly about taking a break from families, responsibilities, and just relaxing and having fun, we're all in our mid thirties and forties. LAN parties have always been about Dota and Quake. We all used to play Quake at a professional level, and I introduced my friends to Dota about 12 years ago. Now Quake is 30 years old (jesus....) and we can keep up with it just fine because that muscle memory and hundreds, thousands of hours are canon and burned into our brains. But not for Dota at all. It's now a game that 2 people in our group play regularly (circa 2k hours) and the rest of the guys (8-10) just don't have time to play anymore, so the skill gap is so freaking wide we have to build teams around those 2 people, and the rest are completely lost. The meta has changed so drastically and the skillgap is SO damn wide and deep that the rest of the guys are just cannon fodder for those 2, unable to catch up in any of those 60-ish games we manage to play. Plus, the meta changes every year, so those who actually managed to play a few games during the year are screwed because by the time LAN comes around, it's different again. This year, it got to the point where we were all so pissed off with the game that we came to the conclusion that we won't be playing it again next year (that is, if we even do the LAN again...). It just doesn't work anymore, it's such a struggle to win and the losses are so sour that it just doesn't fit the concept of "having fun" anymore. I wish to forget this year's LAN, honestly. Never ever has it come to point where lifelong friends were shoting DO SOMETHING M-FER, YOU F-IN SUCK to each other, out of desperation.

[@WhiteWolf126]

Quake is a dead game and Dota 2 is alive and being actively developed. If you want to play Dota as it was back in the day at your LAN I don't understand why you don't just install WC3 and do custom lobby.

[@p3tiny]

@@WhiteWolf126 you have missed the point of my comment.

[@WhiteWolf126]

@@p3tiny No. You missed the point of mine. Also, imagine getting mad because you lose a game in a LAN party.

[@p3tiny]

@@WhiteWolf126 no, and no. Again, my comment wasn't about getting mad at LAN, but about the sheer desperation sorrounding the circumstances of inevitable loss, or un-enjoyable gaming experience. Both of which are very precisely described in this video. And of course we are running W3 with cusom maps, but not Dota - there's simply no going back to Dota 1 after Dota 2 core gameplay adaptation, especially for people who struggled in Dota 1.

[@WhiteWolf126]

@@p3tiny Dota 2 is very enjoyable and way more accesible than Dota 1 ever was so I have no idea what you are even trying to say. You just don't like the game anymore, which is fine, but this video suffers from viewing it through delusional nostalgia glasses.

[@sagittarius5466]

I imagined myself reading the changes you suggested as actual patchnotes from valves and I got so incredibly excited to play dota again.. you did a good job with this video baumi, much love

[@trevorpierson6965]

BAUMI. Been ages since I saw one of your videos recommended to me. Miss the old Dota 2 days a lot.

[@julianbarzana5821]

A great solution for the Ancient problem could be a similar one to the Roshan. Let the Ancient have a scaling system just like the Roshan one. So for every 5min or 10min the ancients gets 500+ hp and 5 armour lets say. In that way, the Ancient is still destroyable at early levels for early strats and also for late game.

[@baldassarre9572]

It should have a cap tho. A game that lasts 2 hours would be unwinnable since the hero stopped getting stronger at around 50, you risk to ran into an ancient too strong to be killed, unless you win the fight 5 to 0

[@MrMihaiii]

Let's buff chen/lycan/beast , who doesn't like that

[@maltebergman5242]

It could also be linear to the amount of total networth in the game. So 200k total maybe becomes 40 armor 20k HP or something like that. Or maybe each team's ancient stats is based on the other team's networth..? Then if you win a fight when you are behind it's as easy for you to take their ancient as it would be for them to take yours. But you still wouldn't be able to throne in 4 seconds with a 50k networth Tiny.

[@korana6308]

It's the solution, but I don't think it would be that fun. Baumis idea is definitely more fun. Having a throne Armor and HP regen scale with the amount of buildings inside the base. So every building is now worth destroying... And you would have try to calculate if you could finish the game with that amount of buildings or you would have to destroy a few more (also building reducing armor spells and skills would be more valuable... It would lead to more fights inside the base, more variety and more chances of a comeback... and overall more even game... As seeing a team just rushing t3 and finishing the game in 15 seconds is just plain s. pid , and not fun to watch.

[@scottbeale1825]

Definitely disagree. The ancient should be harder to take earlier in the game and become comparatively easier as the game goes on, otherwise you get stagnant games. I think Baumi's suggestion of a buff for the T4 towers (and buffs to super and mega creeps) is really all that's needed. Have each standing barracks give a significant armor boost and minor damage boost to the standing T4 towers.

[@Dotown]

This is truly a masterpiece which brings us back to good old memories of fun and excitement and thank you Baumi for letting us be a small part of it! We agree at the end there that TI7 was the primetime of Dota 2, even thinking about it gives me chills, and we really hope Dota becomes like that someday in the future again. Some of your ideas would be a great example of how we could achive that prime again and even exceed it! Well done and much love from Dotown

[@Necroneer]

Thanks for recommending this video.

[@Gibran_Alcantar]

You guys are amazing !! Love your vids : )

[@apuloachumi8538]

What's wrong broskie?? Been waiting for yo clip ya sick broke up with yo girl??

[@keeperofthelight9681]

Yo dotown!!!

[@John-li6sk]

Ay

[@emmetstanevich2121]

The most surreal part about modern dota 2 (for me, at least) is just how much closer it feels to the old dota 2 than some of the intermediate patches do. For example, there was a period in which your primary attribute gave you a specific bonus (aside from determining what your base damage scales with), such as int heroes getting spell amp, or strength heroes getting magic resistance, a change which seems to have since been reverted (it was cool in theory, but it kinda sucks for, say, non-int spellcasters like venge and veno whose "pseudo-int" designs already give them enough to worry about without also missing out on free spell amp). Similarly, tiny's tree was turned into a basic ability with limited swings per cast, and while that's still the case, the addition of his shard upgrade lets him partially revert that nerf while still keeping it perfectly reasonable for the early game (the limited swings probably weren't as bad as I imagined, but it would still probably suck to run out during a late-game teamfight). Also, apparently lifestealer's feast lost its damage component for a hot second, which I can somewhat understand (I think it was around the time the heal component was buffed to be based on max health, rather than current health, so a trade-off may have been warranted), but his identity has always been (at least partially) defined by his tank-shredding capabilities, so I'm glad he got it back. I guess what I'm trying to say is that dota 2 doesn't seem to be afraid of experimentation. Not just in the sense of constantly adding new stuff, but also accepting that not every idea ends up working, and that's ok. There have been many neutral items that have come and gone, recipes that were changed (*cough* silver edge *cough*), and upgrades that have flipped between scepter, shard and talent, and even an entire ancient camp that has since vanished (then again, I don't think anyone enjoyed getting rooted/disarmed when trying to farm ancients).

[@commonhistory9800]

Shit I can’t stand getting rooted and disarmed while fighting regular neutral creeps

[@raygrenade1697]

and imo, i think dota is just played differently, as in much more efficiently . more optimized gameplay, which may make it appear different

[@chrisrafel]

Modern Dota2 is Dota Imba not DOTA

[@exoaable]

Man such a boring vid

[@rafaelhaueisen4822]

Didn`t think I`d watch the whole video because of it`s lenght, but damn... That was good! Did not skip a single part. Well done Baumi!

[@AlanChatham]

I think Valve has been pretty clear in their design for the last 5 years: let supports get resources. I think that's been a key part of trying to preserve the playerbase, along with role queue, since "aspirational brown boots" turns off a lot of players. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that part of the metagame, the changes they've made (free wards, limiting shared regen, more gold), and how you balance giving supports gold vs. enabling hypercarries

[@BruhMeme85]

As a support main I highly agree Pulling became easier, wards are cheaper, and much more importantly most tier 1 items for supports give stats or health So now I don't need to worryso much about and it makes it so that I can actually buy arcane boots

[@Valdious]

I wish they bring new player base cos it's boring when everyone's skill level is too high

[@QWERTY-gp8fd]

@@Valdious yea. i smurfed in crusader and saw them buying sentry right at start, smoke ganks, creep deny, creep aggro pull. like wtf isnt it supposed to be low skill.

[@grade3328]

@@QWERTY-gp8fd congratulations you played yourself Want to stomp newbies > meet player with the same exact mindset > ended up playing with player on the same or higher bracket skill

[@deeman010gdj]

I like it, support is much more fun nowadays compared to ages ago. Plus with all the save items you can buy, I feel like they have more impact now.

[@illegalgiant_]

I feel 'old' playing this game now and its nice to see it all lined up like this. Theres just a lot of stuff to wrap your brain around these days, which I think is ok, but you HAVE to consider every heroes entire item tech tree, talents, laning power, push potential, etc at nearly all points of the game. Dota2 feels like its suffering from the success at this point to me and I've had to put it down. DIdn't think I would but I somehow miss having just brown boots at 13 minutes as a support and having to consider if wasting half my mana on a camp is worth it.

[@morisan42]

Yeah.. i've been playing RTS games recently and it scratches the same itch dota used to for me without all the stress and complexity. That's somewhat ironic because one of the reasons why MOBAs got popular as they took the RTS formula and made it more approachable for newer players. I just feel like such a boomer whenever I boot up a dota game, I can't keep up with the meta anymore and I continue to play like it's 7.29 :P

[@jammo7370]

feature creep is a real problem

[@Stormkrasher]

This was a nice look back at how things used to be and what they've developed into. I first got into Dota 2 in early 2014 and then ended up meeting a great group of people while solo queuing for matches (never played ranked). TI4 rolled around and that was a memorable summer of watching games with them and playing matches in between, just running meme comps and having good times when things were simpler. I dabbled a small amount in the custom games when those first came out and remember the move from Source 1 to Source 2. I stopped keeping up with competitive Dota after TI5 as the group of friends I had made started going their own ways as we played less and less but the times I had with them are still memorable during my time when I kept up with what the meta was and just running a Lina + Crystal Maiden safe lane to shut down the early game of opponents (granted though this was 2014/2015). Maybe I'll hop back in for matches after all these years and see how things are but it certainly won't be the same without the old friends to play alongside.

[@longphan4691]

Holy shit, thats a PhD worth of content and analysis. Great work Baumi. Totally worth a watch, I even dare to guess that the TI contestants would watch this right now for reference.

[@gzdiggadanke]

i miss old dota

[@blazearmoru]

I haven't kept up enough to know if it still has the massive freedom dota used to have. Back then you could make 2/1/2 work but also 1/1/2+jungle, 1/1/3, 3/1/1, 1/1/1+2roamers, and some more quirkier games even had viable multiple mids. Edit: 51:27, I remember specter getting a 7th item refresher to use upon buybacking so she could refresh the ult and go right back into the fight. Edit 2: I miss the asymmetrical design of old dota. I had explained that both teams could win mid if both mids had different goals in mind (tower push vs side lane ganks for example). I didn't notice such big changes since I stopped playing dota so much due to college picking up and just played casually using easy heros like lich or warlock and can play without much focus. Feels bad. I used to be super invested in the pick ban phase of the game, thinking about pushing/counterpushing/timings/power ceilings/ combos/ gameplans, win conditions etc. I also miss suiciding into rax. I vividly remember when I started playing support and I could go 0/20 but if I tanked smokes & set up wards then I was mvp. The changes to comeback gold was very upsetting. The old balancing was everything was OP and so much of the game of dota was trying to make the opponents play your game. I thought the game got stale because I started to be casual, but if it really got tunnel visioned into LEAGUE OF THE LEGENDS then that's actually so sad.

[@DynamyteTV]

This video made me realize why I'm "bad" at DotA now relative to where I used to be (win rate is steadily on the decline, regressing towards 50%), because the modern design direction of the game is suited towards a playstyle that is different to mine: I started while TI4 was happening, though at the time I had no idea what TI was. That era's meta shaped how I understand the game and now it's an outdated mindset.

[@verde4337]

Another thing that contributed to towers being an even bigger risk with an even smaller reward is how glyphs evolved over the years. Initially, it only had a cooldown, then they made it so that it reset when a T1 is down, then they buffed it to affect creeps and give the towers multishot, then they made it refresh the first time you a take a tower of a tier... All of these changes increased how much risk you had to take a tower, since glyphs are more powerful, and reduced the reward since some pushes were giving the enemy team a free glyph too.

[@DvineDragoon]

Great video Baumi. I hope that it gets the traction and discussion it deserves.

[@damonblack1495]

I used to play actual old school dota in war3. I just recently got into dota2 because of Grubby's a-z series. Of course, there was next to no professional play of dota during my hay day. But I can remember how a lot of games played out. And based on what you talked about in the video on what you think to be old school dota, but I will call middle school dota, the way the game was played had shifted a lot from how it was played in war3 already. In old school dota farming up was pretty meta. Hero kills were important to snowball. Nightstalker, as one example, was a very popular pick. If you could not get at least one hero kill during the first night on NS your game was so much more difficult. And ideally you wanted more than one. If you died during the gank attempt just leave the game cause you would be utterly worthless. Pushing was strong too because towers had big value. But it was risky because of how likely it was to get ganked. Usually it was just better to try and take the tower after a gank. But the meta was to farm up to max or near max faster than the enemy team and even your allied team then 1v9 and end. Laning was also 2/1/2 in old school dota. To me, it almost feels like they are trying to recapture some of actual old school dota and mix it with dota middle school. Except now it seems like there is no max on how powerful you can make a hero. And one person in lane not only accepts the fact the farm is not for them but picks accordingly. Old hat to you guys at this point but that is wild stuff to me lol. I been having a lot of fun playing that style since I got into it too. But they just are not there yet in finding common ground.

[@Tintelinus]

Honestly if nothing else Baumi can just make this a game design channel

[@jirehtheprovider]

so, just like Masahiro Sakurai and his KZbin channel too? cool idea

[@mearsite]

Masterpiece! Baumi is such an underrated Dota 2 channel IMO. Never play ranked, only custom games. However much sharper than most of us who grind ranked everyday. You have an eagle eye for game development, Sir. Much Respect & Love!!

[@asmodean7239]

I really agree with how Dota became unforgiving for any mistakes past 30 minutes. I have felt it in my own game performance. Before, about 5 years ago I took risks, forced enemies to do something about me, won time, suicided into barracks, died to get kills, just to get more gold. I was 4200. Now as soon as I try to “have fun” by trying to test the limits and take risks I get punished to the infinity. I am only 2850 now. Risk is never worth it. Damn, this game just turned into fencing match and I suck at it 😢

[@GojokeSatoru]

Try playing at SEA server where your offlane farms while you 3v5 with morph mid. It's so excruciating

[@pepega8198]

same, cant goof around anymore. cant consistently win without being serious even in archon.

[@hamster1169]

I'm glad I quit before they Nerf pudge It was either a clear loss Or 50 and 0

[@DUKEHadToDoItToEm]

It's because of the rubberbanding mechanics Valve introduced. Used to be that if you lost the lane by 5 minutes, you lost the game, because even if you managed to kill the other guy you only got a normal bounty and he respawned in normal time. In new Dota if you kill the guy who has a godlike past 20 minutes your whole team gains 5 levels each splits a 2000 gold bounty and the guy is dead for 2 full minutes, basically resetting the game to the point where that whole laning stage meant literally nothing

[@a.39886]

@@hamster1169 pudge is actually S to A+ tier right now due to changes

[@Lonespark]

I thought Baumi was just a smiling dude goofing around with Dota. Turns out he was a full blown professor of Dota.

[@IsThisHandleTaken]

I really like the changes they've made over the years re: items / shard / talents / aghanims for everyone etc. because it makes the game so much more dynamic. I also like the elimination of trilanes because whoever gets the suicide lane just has a terrible time, and at some level the game should be about a fun enjoyable experience which evening out the lanes delivers. I don't think the game should be optimised purely for professional teams of 5, because the vast majority of players don't fit that demographic and play for fun. All that is to say I like the current state, but I do agree with limiting buyback to 1 per game.

[@TheAcerstarcraft]

While I applaud the effort put into the video the spirit of giving suggestions instead of simply criticising, I must object to a few of your proposed changes. A cap on hero bounties just doesn't make much sense to me, because to begin with hero kills aren't worth much in the early phases of the game since there hasn't been enough time to snowball. While reducing the average hero's GPM to reduce the power creep is certainly needed, this just strikes me as a needless change that could have serious ramifications on the game's economy in certain cases. Buffing tower gold is also quite needless in my opinion, as towers are already enough of a priority in the first place, particularly in the higher skill brackets of Dota. Players are already grouping up to push towers down whenever possible and forcing fights as it is. I think adding a fatter gold bounty would ironically worsen the power creep, as you'd start seeing pushes happen even EARLIER, and cheese push strats being incentivised. Lastly, I honestly thought you were kidding when you suggested mega and super creep buffs. Downing racks is already a high enough priority for teams. Super and mega creeps are intentionally kept 'weak' (though in my opinion they are not) because they should not be a game winning advantage. They are a strong advantage to be sure, but downing racks should simply be a side goal to smashing down the ancient, not a de facto substitute for throne pushes. To begin with, the advantages they give in shifting lane equilibriums are sizable as they are. Overall I really think it's great that you're trying to value add to Dota, and I do agree with some of your proposed changes, these are just my thoughts on those I disagree with.

[@BrunoMattei97]

Finally it's here! I was so excited for this, thank you for the hard work!

[@benjaminmiller3620]

Finally it's... wait a minute! -_-

[@Happymouth1]

45:30 Remember when ET got +100% lifesteal, Cleave, and free BKB from aghanims? So you could run an echo sabre/Daed/Aghs on him and just 1-2shot the enemy team? No? Just me? Ah well it was fun while it lasted i guess..

[@faultline3936]

Looking into that old Dota map gives soooo much nostalgia.

[@fieryfox5486]

This is a video very well done! You really captured the main changes from patch to patch well and it gave me a better understanding of the changes. I'm still a DotA 1 player and I play a version on reforged that is between 6.85 and 6.86. So it's a version without the base stats of heroes getting stronger, but with more opening up of the map and more items added. Furthermore, pushing strats were still viable like before (not only drow ranger), but there were also counters against it and you could also choose to go for a strong lategame as long as the other team didnt go for a hard early push strat. I think this version is really good and I remember back when I played dota 2 that I played a lot during 6.85, meaning it was probably the most enjoyable patch on dota 2 for me. What turned me off from dota 2 is the powercreep. Items took a main role in the power creep, but I think new items were good additions if they were not too strong (like iron talon for example). The real problem what I think was that heroes got stronger. This is in the form of base mana and hp getting higher with stronger scaling, but also that items scaled with and became stronger. Then abilities slowly scaled with this as well, but definitely since patch 7.00 at the introduction of talents abilities became much stronger. So in practice how it felt to me was that pre 6.87 supports were called ward-b1tch3s, while from 6.87 onward they could single handedly kill a slightly underfarmed carry in the midgame with only 1 item. So supports got much stronger while carries got a little bit stronger. The reduction in gold of towers and raxes, and the buffing of towers resulted in meta changes, as pushing strats were less rewarding. I would not call this a major problem, cus meta changes are fine.

[@3dmikster776]

Dota 2 became the dota 2 Imba from before

[@cheeromatic]

i'm gonna put it here before this videos explode. this is a really great quality content, i hope this get to be the reference for understanding dota meta in the future

[@betahunter]

The legend, the myth! It is finally here! Jokes aside, great vidio boomi! Very interesting perspective on things and great highlighting of the new and old dota. Keep up the good work! Would love to see more of this :D

[@Absolute_Zero7]

Baumi, as someone who used to be an avid watcher of yours, and am coming back after 3 years, I have to say this a very well done video and I have to say I mostly agree with what you have to say... with 1 exception. While I'm not sure about setting mega creeps to be "mini-roshans" (although I do agree that Mega Creeps should be at the very least threatening, and it would be a change that I'm willing to at least play a patch with to experiment), your suggestion about limiting buybacks to 1 per game... concerns me. By far the biggest issue is I wonder if it goes against every other change you're proposing. Heroes in this game have very long death timers, 100s at max level, and up to 130s if we include Necro Ult. When we compare Dota to other competitive multiplayer games or even other MOBAs, this is a very long deathtimer. This mainly due to A) How big the map is, but more importantly B) the existance of buybacks allowing users to invest in shorter death timers. Immediately if we get rid of buybacks, we have to address the issue of death timers. Say we're in a late game scenerio where we have a team fight mid, and the result is a complete wipe, the entire dire side is down, and radiant maybe lose a support. The dire is now at 100s cooldowns and radiant has that entire time to do whatever they want, including pushing, and a lot of damage could be done in 100s, including quite possibly ending the game there and then. Sure each player has a buyback, but when we look at how pros have used buybacks not just recently, but even back in '15, major skirmishes happen all the time which require the defending team to buyback, and all that single buyback is just delay how long until duying becomes overtly punishing. The obvious solution to this problem is to reduce death timers, make it so that instead of the cap being 100s, it's 60s, but that introduces another problem - how safe it is to defend? For this point I'll bring another MOBA, League of Legends, as what can go wrong. What happens in that game is you have a teamfight, 1 team gets wiped, and by the time the winning team reaches the enemy base, the enemy has already respawned and is ready for another teamfight. The problem here is the complete opposite of what I described earlier, and that winning teamfights ends up feeling sorta redundant other than making you gain a slight advantage. You can't really take objectives other than maybe fight the boss, and this often ends up stalling games as there is no decisive way to use whatever momentum you have. Also, since death timers are consistent, this can go on forever. You win a fight, then you push, enemy team respawns at the base, if they win you go back to step 1, if they lose they lose the whole game. This goes on at infinitum as death timers stay similar and the next person who wins a teamfight in the middle of the map will still have to face the enemy team at their base when they reach there. What buybacks bring is something beautiful, it gives the defending team a chance to defend, however it also makes it so that it's an advantage they can't use forever. Let's take the league of legends fight example and apply it to Dota's system of buybacks. The Radiant win a teamfight and push the base. The Dire buyback to try and defend, and let's say the Dire win that defense. What happens next is interesting because unlike League we don't go back to Step 1. Sure both teams are free to engage tha map as before, but now the Dire have a problem, they can't buyback for another 8 mins. What this means is if the radiant get into another teamfight within the next 7 mins, they could win, and the issue with games just stalling doesn't apply. However the Dire still have the option to hold out for the next 8 mins to not be forever stuck under the threat of losing to a bad engage, unlike in your scenerio where the Dire will forever have to play around the fear of getting wiped and having everything fall apart there and then. So the question then is, what exactly are you trying to solve, and how can we potentially solve the problem while keeping the purpose that buybacks bring to the table in tact. The major problem from my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) is that you have is how since there is so money floating around, the importance of buybacks is stressed where players can just keep enough gold for buybacks, seemingly removing any real costs associated with them. I see 2 ways to solve this: First we can do as you suggested and remove the buyback cost altogether, however keep buybacks on a cooldown. In exchange, we can further emphasize buyback exhaustion detractions such as reducing amount of gold you generate even harder to deter players from overusing the feature in the early game, or maybe have an effect where you hero is more physically exhausted such as reducing stats, an effect that deminishes in power over time (this is so that the earlygame meta doesn't devolve to people constantly buying back for free everytime they die in lane). The other and more interesting idea I have is to replace buybacks altogether with a scaling death timer system. We keep deathtimers increasing per level as usual, however there is also a penalty for dying in close succession (this would be paired with a global decrease in deathtimers altoghether). So for instance, say you die at Level 25, you will be dead for 60s. If you then die within the next 2 minutes after respawning, the death timer increases by an additional 10-20s, and the penalty decreases for every additional minute you stay alive until it reaches the baseline 60. Depending on how we implement it we can have it so it stacks, ie any decrease in death timer must be a continuous period of staying alive, and if we really want we can implement your idea of having 1 full buyback per game, however make buying back apply the death timer limit (say 110-120s). My only issue with this idea is it might make teamfights in the mid game a bit shorter and more stompy as you won't be able to prolong midgame fights with buybacks anymore, and I also fear that this implementation might be a bit too punishing for supports who are far more likely to frequently die in the late game. Other than this 1 minor part about your video, this video as a whole is excellent and I can't wait to see what you produce next. Well Done!

[@theonlykiloe8620]

Wow you really put time into this, sad that not many people will read it

[@SnekNOTSnake]

@@theonlykiloe8620 yeah :( i'll give him my like though :)

[@Yanoor]

Super good, thx for this video Baumi, i never exepted it, but i really need it. Keep doing videos like this, it's very fun too watch))

[@Corey91666]

Why is "back in the day" tied to ti4 meta? Ti4 meta was a huge outlier. It was the period with the shortest games and was probably the worst dota has been. We had farming metas before that revolved around roshan. The real problem to me is the loss of hero peaks and unique team strats. Meaning that heroes had specific ceilings and timings were they are strongest. Ti3 for me was close to peak dota. In general dota always had 4-5 basic strats: - team fight - Push - gank - lategame - split Push (obviously a lategame strat but more focused on avoiding the opponent even in lategame scenarios and lategame Trades) I played for 11 years from 2008-2019. I was pretty decent. Top 2% at the very least. But i am afraid to touch the game after all the changes.

[@juliang8676]

Brilliant, 10/10 video i really enjoyed this. Would happily watch more and recommend this and similar videos to my friends

[@Marco_Onyxheart]

This explains what I've already instinctively felt. Dota feels formulaic, there is no longer any strat diversity and it all feels kinda the same. There's pretty much one strat with some nuances.

[@gungrave10]

i dunno. Tundra not only beat Secret formulaic pick, they dominate the entire tournament by doing that.

[@xenxx1192]

​@@gungrave10 naga and mirana same old picked because these heroes can control team fight , aura item abusing(wraith pact + pipe)-> Tundra

[@romankhamov6229]

I think an important distinction is also how the updates change the meta game vs the individual experience. The effect on the team vs on the individual. "Nobody wants to play support, but everybody wants to win" is a quote from one of my announcers. But this is no longer the case. The hero power creep is directly connected to trying to make the support role more fun for solo-ques.

[@submijiru]

I disagree. Playing support was may more fun in old dota, even without boots, because the objective mattered, not the core.

[@edmis90]

with lotus pool, it's even more important now to fight for lane control

[@MKSiringOne]

Hoping this video reaches some of the most popular figures in Dota so they can recommend it to their fans and to other big names

[@valmal-g3x]

Great video. Cool editing and having the pros input as well made it feel very legit.

[@likenahbro]

Banger of a video!

[@dahvish7726]

I hate what dota turned into

[@sama.jlouis_official]

Commenting for the algorithm. Keep grinding baumi

[@jeremylakeman]

While your points make sense for team based competition, I think the design of DOTA has been pushed in the current direction based on more casual ranked games. So maybe the right answer is a 5x carry game mode with more power and resources. Vs a 5 man team mode with more of an objective focus.

[@rouyzaki3758]

Modern dota 2 are just more rewarding and balancing on those 2 roles.

[@tessh3938]

This was an absolutely wonderful video. I will be sure to link it the next time someone asks me what Book of The Dead does. Also I was waiting for some greenscreen Baumi to jump scare me telling me to like the video the entire time. Still left a like tho.

[@phoenix221298]

A really nice video and a great journey. Thank you for this video baumi

[@XSlicecoX]

I can honestly say that Baumi taught me how to play dota 2 - I used to watch a lot of your content to learn how to play heroes. Thanks!

[@aliyehya6953]

i was watching u on twitch and just wanted to watch this video because you said you make effort and it was worth it very nice video thank you❤

[@Boromosel]

Did someone already make "Dota2 but Baumi's wishes came true"?

[@LuckyFox_42]

I got a bit away from dota recently, but still this is fascinating dig into the history and all the changes made. Thanks for it, Baumi)

[@Wyrobas]

You are MEGAGIGACHAD Baumi, what. a. LEGEND.

[@nhangeocon5450]

Hi Baumi. I watched your first video for a long time ago. I sometimes watch your dota 2 videos from time to time. I thought you just a normal youtuber playing dota among many other dota youtubers. But what you did in this video, changed my mind. You are fucking talented. What you have done is amazing and professional. Keep up the great work.

[@AlrycaAeveaHexendias]

I think it's better to change the title to something more akin to educational and direct (e.g. "History of Dota 2's systemic changes"). People are getting all the wrong impressions that you're just reminiscing on the olden days. Especially the Dota people on Reddit... brrr... they already sound like gatekeeping karens over there.

[@OstadPapa]

And they would be right. This is a bad title, as a long time baumi fan I didn't even know this was his video when I saw the post on reddit. The video itself is very good though.

[@Orkomania]

Great Video! Now I understand, Why dota feels so different. Started Dota around 2005 until 2015. After that, changes happend too fast and too strong. Really looking back to the old mechanics and hope there will be a middle way.

[@zemljajeravna5336]

I think they just wanted to make Dota 2 more like Blizzards moba that died so that Dota 2 can die too

[@envixity8884]

This is by far one of the best videos I have ever seen on KZbin Amazing work you did.

[@Keybetta1]

love the video I gotta say i really do miss the days of roaming support. as a support player I find pulling and warding feel more like a chore then a strategy at this point i almost wish they would go the LOL route and give everyone wards for free or at least remove blocking a camp with a sentry I AM SO TIRED OF BUYING 20 sentries just so my carry has a chance at getting some last hits.

[@korana6308]

You can actually fix it by just not allowing sentries to block camps, as that is indeed quite s. pid. So you would have to physically stand at the camp in order to block it. Imagine then their support running from offlane to try and block the camp, and then CM comes out from behind a tree and freezes or slows you , so you can't block it. That would actually be more fun, that just buying 20 sentries and having a sentry war.

[@Mary1337]

@@korana6308 Sentry wars... Lmao. Makes the role of support much more boring imo:(

[@dota2classic]

dota2classic welcomes you

[@maodebo3301]

Nice video dude! very interesting! I personally no longer play the game but it's fun to see how it evolves, how the mechanics change and the new heroes n items. Good job :D

[@Paprika_Gaming]

Awesome video. Very informative and thoughtful. Great job :D

[@pnoodl3s775]

It’s a really good video. Unfortunately reddit dota 2 players aren’t quite as open minded to criticism and academics with regards to dota 2 design. It’s an amazing video and I’d love to see more, with regards to other aspects of dota, like neutral items, new hero designs, impacts of changes to match length, supports, and how dota may become more casual friendly with more RNGs

[@nikitalvov40]

I've been subscribed to you for like 5+ years and the last thing I expected is a long analysis video holy shit, time to DIVE DEEP away from sleep

[@Corpomancer]

Baumi isn't Baumi anymore, quite the summary going on. Following you on the daily over many years I'm starting to feel really old now. although you have improved the quality of your content greatly. Never stop becoming something else.

[@mikelezhnin8601]

Listening to Baumi at 1:30:30 I got a dumb idea regarding buybacks - what if instead of trying to limit buybacks to 1 per game per hero and make it free; we disable buybacks entirely, but instead pretty much allow heros to buy aegis - for something like 2K gold, and have a shop cooldown on it (kinda like it is with gem/smoke/wards). Ofc buying aegis after you died would not cause you to revive, so you need to do that in advance. That would solve the "keep your money for buyback" problem, and would still be quite balanced imho (it's kinda money spent for nothing, taking up an item slot). F.e. in LoL they got an item like that (guardian angel), it is permanent (doesn't dissaper of death) and has a cooldown of 5 minutes, and nobody ever complained about it.

[@gabenewel7383]

Thank you Baumi. Awesome documentary. I like your idea about throne gaining survivability per barrack alive

[@lonewolf975]

This was a delightful look back on dota's history and how we got where we are at now. as an admitted dota super-casual, It's hard to tangibly notice all the changes over the years without the full perspective in front of me. It's remained a game I keep coming back to even with all the changes, so maybe theyre still doing the right thing with it in the end, even if its not the exact same it always used to be.

[@Stefan-xt5sk]

I didn't expect to watch this for long, especially because I haven't played real Dota in years, but I stuck around until the end because this video is so well made. Very interesting.

[@homeboy8389]

dota 2 is a fake dota game. play the original in wc3 or a mod in warcraft reforged

[@OstadPapa]

@@homeboy8389 that's the most non sense take I've ever heard

[@Mary1337]

This video is the perfect crossover between my interests. Mini docs or "commentary channels", youtubers making videos on relevant irl or online stuff. The editing is very similar! (and dota ofc) I struggle watching any sports and streamers. Not much long form content to consume 😕

[@AdiManSVK]

Finally, all your thoughts you talked about piece by piece in the last months expressed in one video. Great job Baumi!

[@demonicgalaxy]

loved the longer video format, great work!

[@DerGamerChaot]

Very good and interesting video. I hope this gets picked up by the mainstream dota player and beyond your general viewer.

[@mariusandrei1897]

Very nice video Baumi. I am a long time lurker on your channel, I never say anything but I had to leave a comment this time. Gotta give you some support and incentive to do more of these.

[@sensai1983]

First time watching your videos. Really well done mate! Dota is a game I really enjoy and it's quite evident you love it too in order to make such an elaborated video about its history! GGWP

[@carlesmolins3269]

I was just coming back to this video to see how it did since it was a big difference from your normal content and WOAW! Congrats, you deserve every one of these views!

[@imranzahidmiko]

When you started describing the current metagame, a large number of games I've played in the last few months just flashed through my mind. It was eerily accurate, and I had never consciously thought of the decisions that led to this metagame. It was just the natural play style that seemed optimal. Just played a game yesterday that played out nearly exactly as you described the metagame, except in low tiers (crusader here) we still think mega creeps matter lmao and go for it even if the opponents have no buyback

[@imranzahidmiko]

Just reached the end of the video and yeah the metagame hasn't changed due to 7.32 lmao And I feel like the fatigue is due to the sameness, and the sameness is because of the attempts to become more "competitive"

[@biobio2658]

Mega creeps do matter. Because it makes sure all lanes always push in and the oppontents need to deal with it. Its not gg like it was 6-7 years ago, but getting megas still gives you a big advantage.

[@imranzahidmiko]

@@biobio2658 I meant when the opponents are 4 heroes down with no buyback for nearly 100 seconds Monke brain still want megas, then go to end

[@dom7899]

Ye, getting megacreeps is just a victory lap at this point

[@Quixote3]

You’ve really outdone yourself on this one, Baumi. I quit playing Dota a few months ago. It became incompatible with my work and lifestyle. But I definitely felt fatigue and disappointment before I made the decision. It wasn’t that I couldn’t win, I felt a lot of satisfaction at seeing my rank slowly climb. But I couldn’t win the way I wanted to. I had a lot of special little strategies and builds like Venomancer Mid, but controlling towers and space just wasn’t worth enough. I used to play League and saw a similar transition away from ZZrot portals, Banner of Command and other anti-tower playstyles. For me, sieging towers and playing around the map was always more engaging than farming or forcing linear teamfights.

[@thegamingclassroom]

What an excellent video. Thank you for advancing and documenting the history of DotA 2 Baumi and team! Big thumbs up to the editor too!

[@JustinJets]

This OUTSTANDING video describes in masterful fashion everything I hate about modern dota 2. THANK YOU!!! For making this, hopefully it makes a difference.

[@Fathomorg]

I started playing Dota right before TI4, so this video kind of acts as a fun time capsule for me. Also as someone that has been studying game design for the last few years, I highly value this analysis as it draws connections between the adaptation of incentives and player behavior. Well done!

[@duelme1234]

Got really into thinking about game design about 1.5yr ago and want to ask some questions. How often do you tackle/discuss game design (especially retaining to balance) for competitive pvp games (that's just what I call it as a non game designer guy trying to differentiate it from party games)? And do you know anywhere that frequently have these discussions? Everywhere I went, it's either just people discussing game design from a single player point of view (and failing horribly/being too generic for a pvp context), or specific to a singular game (community discord and all that) and doesn't explore outside of that game's assumptions/structures. While balance is certainly dependent on the games context, I feel like just saying "it depends" everytime without connecting certain patterns (even across different genres) is a bit unfair.

[@Fathomorg]

@@duelme1234 I will say starting out in video game design, you typically steer away from anything related to multiplayer. This is because the knowledge and infrastructure it takes to output a product is substantially higher than a single player game. That said, any game regardless of the number of players, whether it's co-op or competitive, relies on an intricate system of motivations, expected behaviors, and conditioning. It's very similar to studying economics, which also has its own branch of game theory that is related to it. To put it simply, motivations help a player decide what games they pick up, and how they will behave with those games. Sometimes these behaviors are in line with how the developers intend for a game to be played, and other times they go against it. By conditioning players, you can encourage behaviors that you believe are beneficial to the experience, and discourage behaviors that hurt it. Balancing competitive games uses some of this philosophy. Are your players abusing a mechanic so hard that fewer people are enjoying your game? Introduce a patch that disincentivizes that mechanic. Does a particular character have a particularly low pick rate and win rate and players that enjoy this hero are upset? Introduce a patch that empowers their kit to make them viable and tell players "we hear you, and you should be able to play the game like this". At the end of the day, you simply need to ask yourself a few questions: Who is the player? What does the player do? How does the player win? And what are acceptable strategies the player should be allowed to employ?

[@duelme1234]

@@Fathomorg thank you for your answers (holy shit that was fast), altho I can't say that I'm not disappointed (even if understanding) with how sp focused game design is (truth hurts :( ). I very much like how interconnected the FGC is when it comes to comparing fg game mechanics and just wanted somewhere to discuss pvp game design topics with others. Seeing how themes like broken checks broken, "simplification" of games, and polarization occur in different games and connecting those dots just feel so satisfying. anyways sorry for the ramble and again thank you for answering :D

[@Fathomorg]

@@duelme1234 Ian Schreiber gave a good talk at GDC in 2017 on game balance I would recommend checking out if you haven't. It's mostly on the mathematical models of game balancing, but he has a brief segment on PvP balance.

[@KyU433]

I really like this format of a video for dota. Something similar for patches/big tournaments during those patches would be really nice to see!

[@quizzerscotch4670]

Thank you for making this video! I always felt that every dota game was becoming more and more formulaic. I remember having team fights over outposts, bounties, shrines and those felt very impactful and fun. The current bounties and outposts we have are just there. It's cool to have them but it's not as important before so most players ignore them and just farm all game. Roshan I think still gives too many things. They could spread the things Roshan drops(except aegis) to different objectives on the map. Like from a mini-Roshan that is located on the opposite side of Roshan. Neutral items I think still feels weird in dota. It just randomly drops from creeps and feels very unrewarding. If you wanna introduce items that has unique actives and possibly impact the game in a big way they should be obtained in a different and more meaningful way. They could be obtained by destroying certain buildings on the map or could be crafted by some crafting station on the map. Any kind of way to obtain it that doesn't favor the stomping team would be more interesting. Idk how I feel about 1 buyback per game. I think it should have a long cd instead. And buyback being free I totally agree with.

[@godblessknight]

I don't think a once per game buy back is that crazy. A too long cooldown (10 minutes or so) would be not much different from a once per game cooldown since a game can quite easily be decided within 10 minutes, while a too short cooldown means that you are giving everyone an Aegis.

[@toanao1894]

Man, i love your work ! Detail and dedicated but i wish i can see it as 2 part video :)

[@oguntanagard1670]

Finally the 'video' !!!

[@scootyplus]

A video that will be remembered for very long time.

[@KreepKii]

I remember when going timber jungle with an iron talon and a tango lvl1 was a viable strategy(at least at 2k mmr). Iron talon unquestionably the most broken item lol. I wonder what would dots look like if they kept it🤔

[@payaso216]

In 2020, they did bring it back as a neutral item, but as it was still broken, it was once again taken out.

[@doomlord101-d1y]

Honestly, that "piecing it all together" bit helped me way more than all of the other dota education videos I watched. Thank you, I know it wasn't the intent, but I feel like I finally understand how dota plays

[@0bliviongaming454]

❤ brought me back to so much good memories of dota. Hope that it does go into the direction that you predicted. I want Dota to be more interesting and feel different every game and not this formularic game where every game is set in stone

[@Thegingerbass1]

this was amazing content baumi, commenting to push it into the algorithm.

[@palmon8973]

history class with boomi

[@Mashinimo]

The Dotown fam is here to support you:3

[@StormyMusic9]

What an awesome commentary!

[@mauriciorossi8477]

I think macro play is more interesting than ball up play. There is more decision and an interesting balance of wanting to be spread out but really really dont want to die.

[@chouoodamarasengan00]

Icon and legend. Thank u for entertaing me for over 10 years boomi!

[@ratdoto2148]

Having only one buyback per game is pretty extreme. I think a better solution would be to increase their cooldown as the game goes on, maybe by 1 minute for every 10 minutes on the clock. As buybacks currently stand, using them early is very costly, and you really have to capitalise off of them. Later into a match, they are almost a given and are not even really a risk. This change would be an intuitive way of being able to buy back early which isn't an issue, but effectively only having one buyback in the late game.

[@carlesmolins3269]

Man, you’d make such a great analyst in live commentary. Also, I feel you could better play with sound dynamics in these kind of videos, bringing the music up or down more drastically to reinforce key moments without commentary and help it move forward. Best wishes, you make killer content!

[@carlesmolins3269]

Also, I think if you found a way to break this into three 30min videos it would have worked better for the algorithm (and finding myself time to watch it), but I am no expert 😂

[@haxstat]

Dude, stfu. It's a dota 2 community video. It's not about the professionality, it's a about the state of dota