Dota 2: The Boston Major Experience

Last year Valve implemented their Major Championship Series, hosting three, three million dollar events as a supplement to The International. Valve's intention seemed to be to enforce a semblance of order and consistency on Dota's competitive scene while improving the quality. Initially a few critics expressed concern that the Major season would eliminate other cherished tournaments, but by the conclusion of TI6 these fears were gone. The lingering worry was with the tight schedule between all four events, and for 2016/2017 season Valve has reduced the Majors to two, winter and early spring events.

It was with great surprise, Valve announced the winter Major would be in the United States. Since The International is in Seattle every year, it had been supposed the Majors would be spread across the globe to allow each region to host a series (Europe, Russia, China, and South East Asia). But the Boston Major occurred live at the Wang theatre (a location I used to see the Nutcracker when I was younger) from December 7th through the 10th. Living twenty minutes away, I bought a ticket ($29 for a 10am to 10pm event) for Friday's quarterfinal and arrived around three. Compared to the International's unusual playoffs (an upper and lower bracket, where losing in the upper knocks a team to the lower, and a loss in the lower results in elimination) Boston's was a common best-of-three single elimination.

Prior to the four day live event, the sixteen teams had been split into four groups and each team played the other members of the group. This was called the Group Stage, and its purpose was to seed the playoffs, but Valve needs to choose a better method. Even if talent is equally spread across the groups, playing three opponents is not an effective manner of determining positions in a bracket. Fans understand there is only so much time to be spent in pre-playoff games, but if Valve isn't going to change its format, it should be transparent about how it creates groups. Currently they do not publish how they determine the teams in a group. It seems unlikely they use a random determination, but undoubtedly fans would like to know.

This insufficient format produced a disturbing result. With most teams playing only four or five games, a few strong teams under-performed, and found themselves third in their group. In one corner of the bracket (four of the sixteen teams) resided three teams with a significant chance of victory at the Major; Wings (2016 TI winners), Virtus Pro (the hot team), and Evil Geniuses (perennial favorite). Expanding to include the entire left side of the Bracket (half of the sixteen teams), would add OG, two time Major winner, and favorite entering TI6. Prior to the group stage (whose sample size is insufficient to producing accurate results), these four teams would have been considered to be the top 5 teams. The right side included only two strong teams, Newbee and Digital Chaos.


For those wondering whether going to a game is different than watching online, the experience is similar to professional sports like baseball or football.

Standing at the top of the aisle, one's greeted by the mixture of sounds; fans cheering, announcers, and the game itself. Everyone's acting as if it's a party. Tickets for the event were general admission, and people are spread across the room, not concentrated near the stage. Some viewers are relaxing in the rear seats, talking and joking with friends, while there are still a sprinkling of open seats even in the front row. The Wang is full but not packed, with about every tenth seat open at 3pm on a Friday. A mammoth screen, with a resolution which puts my 1980 x 1080 to shame, stretches from stage left to stage right. After standing unconsciously, but upon reflection, awkwardly, in the middle of the aisle, staring, I slump into an open seat. After another moment, the eyes slide from the screen to the two, ten foot high boxes on stage. Inside each of these soundproof (or at least word-proof), sit five young (oldest player was 27, average age 21), men. One of these teams is going to take home one million dollars to split between them. And finally, in the orchestral pit sit three duos, casting (commenting) the game in English, Russian, and Chinese (The theatre can only hear the English, but the others are for viewers online).

As sight settles into a semblance of reality, the ear begins to rehear the jumble of sound as individual parts. While the whole experience, sight and sounds, incredible, the single thump of Omniknight's hammer hitting a creep stands out. The simplest sound, and yet the most stirring aspect of the event. It seemed to reverberate throughout the theatre, a thump as if it was the most solid object in the universe smacking into firm resisting flesh. In a strange way there's isn't anything which better represents the quality of the Boston Major.

The games themselves, NP vs Digital Chaos and Ad Finem vs LGD Forever Young, were satisfactory. One wouldn't expect them to be the best match-ups (only DC was considered a champion contender), but I had higher expectations for NP then they were able to uphold. Their series was the quickest of the bracket, the most one-sided of the playoffs. The Ad Finem/LGD series was significantly better. Though Ad Finem won the first match easily, and LGD beat Ad Finem without much difficulty in the second, the third was a contentious back and forth.

In between matches (half an hour between sets, fifteen minutes between games) analysts, commentators, and entertaining personalities kept the talk flowing. The screen was always occupied by someone of reasonable entertainment value (assuming you'd want to be at one of these events to begin with).

I was glad to go, especially as I doubt I'll have the opportunity again. Boston is an unlikely location to receive a second visit. And considering the life of any individual video game I would be surprised if Dota 2 survives another five years.

A quick note on the patch which came out today. The main impact, aside from reinventing the map, is the introduction of the talent tree. In addition to the normal abilities, each hero now receives bonuses at level 10,15, 20, and 25. The unique twist is that at each of these plateaus, the player can choose from one of two options. This adds decision and diversity to the game. Players will ask themselves questions such as, “Would having more health or quicker movement as Wraith Kinghelp against the enemy?”

The overall effect will be to make heroes more deadly (while a few will have greater survivability). The problem is: though the developer has reduced the amount of experience necessary to reach each level, support players are going to suffer a double disappointment. Support players are strong early in the game, but by the ten minute mark fall behind cores in both items and levels. At minute ten, some supports will be lucky enough to have reached level six, but cores will be around eight or nine. As soon as enemy heroes reach level ten, they will experience a surge in power. When they reach fifteen, another boost, even stronger than the first. Some supports will have finally reached ten when the cores are fifteen, some not. Supporting heroes will be weaker, comparatively then they are now. Maybe cores will adapt to allow supporting heroes to gain levels quicker, but if you've ever played public games, you'll understand why this idea is unlikely.

The other factor is more of a disappointment, than a weakness. Supports will never reach level 25, never unlock the last upgrade. And this is frustrating, because each heroes level 25 upgrade is the best one. All the other traits boost health, or damage, or move speed, or some general trait. But the level 25 upgrades boost the abilities. They are the personalized traits. And supports (even with the lower exp cost) will never get there, so they're more for show than use.

At least this is my intial impression, and I hope I'm wrong.

Titan Souls next Monday.




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