Behind League of Legends, E-Sports’s Main Attraction

I've been to LoL HQ and talked to the founders. The offices were fairly dungeon-esque (to be fair I mostly saw the lower levels), but all the employees seemed to be having a blast. I asked one of the founders about LoL being considered a sport, and he argued fairly aggressively in favor of it. He asked me if I considered NASCAR a sport. I said no, and the conversation ended there.

It's steep if you can consider a tall cliff steep.

Warcraft 3 has a steep learning curve, like RTS games do in general. One mistake can cost you your hero, which can cost you your hero if the death is untimely. (I guess DotA derivatives are more forgiving in that sense.) But there aren't that many units and heroes to learn, so at least after some time you won't be taken completely aback when your hero gets ensnared, critical striked (struck?) hexed and then critical striked again. I mean, it will happen, but the possibility would have already crossed your mind.

There is a ton of finesse and micro to playing a game like WC3, but learning to play the game isn't that hard; there isn't terribly much that you need to memorize, and then you can concentrate on strategy and mechanics. DotA (derivatives), on the other hand, is built in such a way as to be absolutely relentless towards anyone who isn't already experienced.

WC3 is hard to learn, but not unreasonably so for an RTS. It also has a high skill ceiling. DotA (derivatives) are really hard to learn (I won't comment on the skill ceiling, since I don't know). Yet, people - casual players included - have embraced DotA over the humble original game. I just don't understand the attraction, particularly when it comes to the more casual players.

Dota's wards are pretty different from LoL. The reason League of Legends used to devolve into a vision battle was that both teams could just keep placing wards as long as they had gold. So one team's support player would just go around placing wards and removing any wards they found, while the other team's support player would go around re-placing their destroyed wards and destroying the other team's wards that went up in the same place. Basically, it was a giant vision circle. Dota never offered unlimited vision.

Here's a quick rundown of the three systems:

Dota:

Observer Wards: Invisible, last seven minutes and give vision of a fairly large area, but there are only four available to each team at a given time. Cost 150 gold for a stack of 2.

Sentry Wards: Invisible, last four minutes and reveal invisible things in a fairly large area, but don’t grant vision of an area (so you need to find some other way to get vision of the area where the invisible thing you want to see is). Cost 200 gold for a stack of 2. There is no limit to Sentry Wards.

Old League of Legends:

Sight Wards: Invisible, last three minutes, give vision of a fairly large area, take three hits to destroy. Cost 75 gold. Unlimited.

Vision Wards: Invisible, last three minutes, take three hits to destroy. Give vision of the same area as Sight Wards, and also reveal invisible things in that area. Cost 150 gold. Unlimited.

New League of Legends:

Sight Wards: Invisible, last 3 minutes, give vision of a fairly large area, take 3 hits to destroy. Each player can only place three Sight Wards at a time. Placing a fourth will destroy your oldest ward. Cost 75 gold.

Vision Wards: Visible, last forever until destroyed, give vision of the same area as Sight Wards, reveal invisible things, take 5 hits to destroy. You can only place one Vision Ward. Cost 150 gold.

I'm far less familiar with DotA in this regard (and other regards) but I'll hazard a guess.

My not-at-all-certain observations are that 1) DotA's jungle is more complex and perhaps a bit larger and 2) DotA's terrain behavior is more advanced [tree removal, cliffs overlooking the river]. These factors would probably make it more difficult in DotA to place wards in the jungle in a way that is highly likely to yield solid intel — you can get a fairly good amount of safe coverage with a defensive ward on the cliff near river, as well as along the river exit once you've advanced past the river. To the best of my knowledge, you're just not going to learn as much from jungle wards in DotA, because of the sight lines and the difficulty of enemy jungle invasion (and perhaps because of the random invisibility rune spawns, though I don't know how much of a factor that is). Contrast all of that with LoL: accessing the enemy jungle is comparatively easy, and key ward placements on the enemy side (especially tri-brush, blue buff brush, and river junction at wraith camp) are almost certain to be high-information investments.

Additionally, in LoL you have to teleport to a friendly creep, structure, or ward; the secondary nature of a ward as a rally point is something that increases the stakes of ward superiority. In DotA (if I'm not mistaken) the teleport limitation is not the same, so the pressure is not the same. I'm sure there are also itemization and ability factors that I have no knowledge of whatsoever. If I'm horribly wrong on this, I welcome a more experienced perspective!

EDIT: `chc has more specific intel on the wards themselves. The team-wide limit on observer wards is a distinct difference!

I agree that Riot could do more with the spectator experience, but you should be careful comparing Valve's International profits with Riot's Championship Series. For one, the cost of Riot's esports push encompasses the entire scene, around the world. Riot pays player salaries for the players on every professional team in their sponsored series, which have tournaments and matches pretty much every week throughout the year. They have these series in North America, Europe, South America, SE Asia, Korea, China, and Australia, each with many teams of five players each. So, with an armchair estimation, it's easy to see how just the cost of those salaries without any benefits could be in the tens of millions. Then you have to factor in the support staff, facilities, equipment, travel, and much more. Valve sponsors one single tournament a year, and offsets the cost by selling interactive features. Ultimately, they are just different models and I think both could learn from each other.