We had a huge turnout this week, the Mumble was filled to the brim and we ran three or so games simultaneously!

As we are all aware it gets kinda messy trying to organize everyone into games without downtime, and as our community grows we need to figure out a better way to organize games, so I'm hoping some of you have a few amazing ideas?

Hit me!

I spoke to a few of the new guys and asked what they thought and what could be changed and a few of them either wanted captains mode and the others wanted not so serious games so I think we need to have waiting rooms for each of the game types and lots and lots of free channels to use with inhouse titles on each.I do not mind helping out at all but we also need to remind people to join on mumble on other days not just sunday. Also some kinda way to report C**unts to people so everyone enjoys a nice relaxed time playing dota.

From a new guy perspective......

I like Captains mode in a sense that it does seem to create a bit more balance for the more experienced players, i.e...Anti-Mage is not just stomping around on people, I get a chance to learn a bit of strategy.

At the same time, I am not familiar with all the characters, so its hard to be put in a position where I have no idea what I am doing with someone. Granted, maybe its probably a good thing to play some characters I would normally not choose, but it is disheartening to just bring the team down, no matter if its a serious game or not.

I agree, I think a Captains Mode lobby and an AP/AR/SD lobby would be a good idea. You had a really good idea of adding the PW to each lobby in the name of the lobby. But other than a hiccup or two...Yoda...last night was super fun!!




That AR game. That was rough . Silencer was possibly the worst pick in that line up. You were a good Luna though!

Edit #3: Last night we had about 40 people on the server at one point. It looks like we might be getting close to hitting that 50 person cap, any way to increase that, esp since Alverez hinted at some special guests possibly coming in the next few weeks?

First of all, thanks for some really nice games yesterday guys; I certainly had a lot of fun .
I think with yesterdays turnout being so high, we might consider two days of inhouses per week or maybe a coaching day, where new players could get help with the nitty-gritty of their favorite hero.
I am not the biggest fan of randomizing the teams as it tends to lead to very one-sided games, especially when one team doesn't have an experienced captain and the other does. I much prefer captains drafting players (maybe with Irish players being auto-banned ) like we've done in the past to alleviate this problem.
To zap_brannigan456 and all the other new players who might be a bit anxious about captain's mode, don't worry about letting your team down, as long we communicate and have fun, it's all good

Ook typing on shity ie6 comp right now so i can't see what i'm writing. I like playing against palyers that are better than me because it forceces me to play better, but I can see where this is a it pof a disadvantage when starting out. I think that we should do a CM game with 2 experienced players being captins and going hard support and explaining their picks to new guys. I'm looking at the 2 europeans in this thread. Shane was awesome yesterday when we did AP and he went Chen. I think a CM lobby, an AP, lobby and a CM (learning) lobby ould be a good idea, that way we get the best of all worlds.

I worked with our host this morning to combine my smaller old SWTOR server with ours, this bumps our seat limit up by about 30 slots. ~80 or so and we'll go higher if we need to.

The games were fun yesterday. I like the idea of different lobbies for different game types.


In theory, randomizing teams should balance out in the long term, but potentially just making sure the obvious highest-skill players are on separate teams, then randomizing the rest, could be a fair compromise. Drafting players would almost certainly be the most balanced, but if one were to find themselves last-picked every game, it could be demoralizing and lead to people not wanting to play at all. Who wants to be explicitly told that they are the least valued player on the team? (*cough* As the person who has the fewest games here, I already know I'm one of - if not the - lowest skill member *cough*)


I also like the idea of coaching. However, as a potential coach-ee, rather than coach-er... obviously, however higher skilled players want to spend their time is up to them.

I agree with what this man says

I had a lot of fun yesterday and I hope everyone else did as well. My only complaints were maybe that sometimes communication took a backseat to chatting but that in it self did not ruin a single moment of a game for me.

As for the game modes I really have no preference. I just join up and play what everyone else wants to play. Though I have to admit the Reverse Draft yesterday was quite fun.

Personally i had a lot of fun playing the games, the atmosphere was really competitive which i love, coming from a competitive scene of sorts. More often than not though games were sort of stompy, so maybe a more effective way of balancing teams could be worked on over time. Im not sure about how the other games went, but that was the case for the games I played in. One other cool idea we could do is an inhouse of all newer players. Getting carried by experienced players is fun but what if the newer players want to carry or play that new hero theyve always wanted to play in a fresh enviornment. Then those of us who wait for the game watch the newer players play the Doobie Inhouse and give some feedback and tips or tricks to the players.

It works in 2 ways
New players get to try out new stuff in a care free enviornment, AND get pro tips and tricks.
PLUS
The more experienced players can take an analytical approach to the game, and from my experience breaking down play of yourself or someone actually helps you figure out where you stand and where you can improve your own play.

Just a few ideas

TL;DR Doobie Inhouse with all newer players to promote a carefree stressless game to learn and try new things. Experienced players watch and give tips and tricks to the players for those characters they want to try.

I think the biggest benefit of inhouses is getting the new guys mixed in with the more experienced players. When I first started, laning against shane or gambit was probably the best thing for me, since they punished me brutally for every mistake I made. When it comes to randomizing teams, I think those of us that have been around a bit need to look at the teams and make sure that they're somewhat balanced. Having 4 new guys against say, Suicide, Bear, and Walmart, isn't exactly fair.

I think just having 3 lobbies, 2 for learning/goofing off games and one for more "competitive" CM games might be best since everyone wins.

I was around for several fun games, with different amount of stomp vs. even. Overall I would say that I had fun.

First of all I must say that I fully support the idea of the Captain's Draft for choosing players. A lot of us already have an idea of general skills levels of different players, so people will pick teams to balance. Making the most competent or experienced players the captains rather than players to draft would be a good idea as well.'

Also I think when it comes to Captain's Mode for new players, they should be led by a captain more experienced than them that they talk through strategies and heroes they want to or can play. Thus making newer players take suggestions and advice while also getting to play what they want to play. It will take some games for them to learn but they will learn. This can act as a sort of coaching lobby or game I suppose.

More lobbies are a definite must, so we can run more games at the same time. I don't know if different waiting lobbies for different game modes should be implemented, seeing as there are players like me that will play almost any game mode at any time. Perhaps a way for newer players letting us know that they are new to the game through the lobbies would be an idea, though.

I also agree with Shane's idea that people that are, as he so eloquently put it, "cunts" should be somehow reported. Sometimes people forget that this is a group for people learning the game or just trying to enjoy it. Flaming someone for making a mistake is a big no-no, instead advice and constructive criticism is what's important. At the same time, if there are stubborn people that just won't take advice or won't listen to someone trying to help them, thus ruining the playing experience, they might be deserving of a report as well.

I'm also having a hard time deciding whether the serious way people take Captain's Mode is a good or bad thing. People ban and pick pro level heroes and then expect people to play them. I'll seriously say that while say, a Dark Seer is a better pick than Razor, I'm much more likely to play well with Razor, seeing as how I'm more familiar and comfortable with him. But you kind of just get sucked up into the groove of the seriousness, because half of your team (2-3 people) are all "Note Serious Face". This is more of an overall gripe than exactly what happened yesterday, but it's a gripe I feel necessary nonetheless.

Here's to hoping that we manage to improve DotaNoobs further and make it a great place to be, hang out and play as well as learn the game of Dota 2.

I will start my post by saying that I was not aware that everyone playing last night was so new. To be honest I didn't know we were getting all this started under the Dota Noobs name again. I just figured these were all friends of friends who happened to be on. That being said I was a little impatient with the people I was playing with and I apologize because I was not aware that several people were new players and I would have been more helpful if I had known.

Anyway, we just need to work on balancing out the skill. Having players like myself, shane, gambit, etc. playing is fine we just really have to be careful about how we balance it. If you put all 3 of on radiant the dire is going to have a bad time. I know it's obvious what i'm saying but we we really need to work on it. That brings us to the obstacle of knowing exactly how "new" a player is. Obviously some people catch on quicker than others and a player with 50 wins could easily already be better than someone with 100 wins. I don't really see an easy way to accomplish this aside from just getting to know the players, except maybe establishing some sort of skill rating system. Maybe on a scale of 1 - 5.

1 - Few matchmaking games under belt, comfortable with a support hero or two. Comfortable enough to consistently win bot games.
2 - Knows the ins and outs of maybe 5 or 6 heroes. Understands how to ward, beginning to know how to farm consistently.
3 - Understands how to carry, good map awareness, consistent positioning in teamfights, etc
4 - Can effectively play a wide range of heroes, knows how to play every lane/jungle, can hard carry
5 - Can effectively play most if not all heroes, ability to coach and draft, extensive hero/item knowledge.

This is a really rough description but I'm sure you guys get the idea. It wouldn't even have to be a publicly known thing. We could just have a group of more experienced players that rates the players in order to establish more fair inhouse games, and not need to make everyone's ranking known. They would just split of the teams evenly based on the information they have at hand. Obviously it wouldn't be a perfect system but It might be useful. Let me know what your thoughts are.

Also, I think more experienced players need to support more. We all know I love to play anti mage and shane likes to play lone druid. And gambit rapes with pretty much any hero you give him, but I think we need to support. I think new players will learn a little better that way. It doesn't need to be all the time but the more experienced players tend to take up the carry role too often.

Also for the record I know I used me, shane, and gambit as an example but that doesn't mean I think I'm better than everyone else. There are several others just as good if not better

Yeah, this is a really great observation. A lot of good ideas being thrown around as well.

This might work out, I think we'd have to try it out a few times to actually know how this would work out in practice. I don't know how I feel about a few players secretly rating everyone else, seems practical but also might feel a bit elitist and non-inclusive to some players, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong about that. There is also the possibility that new players could rate themselves and more experienced players would be rated by those who know them, then again that might hurt the feelings of certain people. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this as I am somewhat ambivalent on all the options presented so far.

Oh and by the way, I think you are focusing too much on carrying, having a really good semi-carry or ganker or utility team fight (enigma, sand king) can be just as game-breaking as a good AM.



I understand where you are coming from, but the problem is, that supporting correctly can quite frustrating when the player you are supporting doesn't know their roles. For example, you can play most perfect venomancer, secure 3 kills for your AM and win the lane completely, but if the AM can't last hit, it doesn't really matter in the end. There is also the fact that a lot of the newer players are more comfortable playing support and specifically request those heroes quite often. I also think that the more experienced players have been good about not going hard carry every game, at least that's been the case in the last games I've played, there have been quite a few games though, so maybe you experience have been different.

I've been thinking a bit while at work (my job just gets more and more boring by the day) and think that it might be a good idea to have a "mod" in each of the lobbies. A "mod" doesn't necessarily have to be a good player, just someone who has been in the community for a while, i.e. myself, bear, gambit, essem, shane, ranshin, binary, etc, who just kind of knows everyone. That way, when teams are radomed, they can make sure that's it not too stacked to one side. I also think reserving one or 2 lobbies for "competitive play" might be a good idea, rather than the other suggestion I made before. "Competitive play" would be more of a comfort setting. You're expected to know what you're doing for the most part. Obviously still rage free, but these games would be more focused on , well, being competitive over learning.

I think rating system can become a bit elitist and might make newer players shy away from the group. I was thinking that the best way to possibly enact this though, might be to have people rate themselves. I think most of us can be pretty honest with ourselves. For example, I'd probably put myself at like a 2 (not using essem's scale) out of 5. I know what I'm doing with most hereoes,m and am pretty good with 5 or 6. I know where good ward spots, how to build a decent amount of heroes, but still have a lot to work on. We could have everyone just put a number in front or at the end of their name in mumble and could build teams lioke that. I still don't think it's a particularly good idea, but it could work.
I'm not sure what the best solutiuon is.

I think we should do another inhouse like this Thursday and just kinda test a few of the ideas presented today. Maybe spend the first couple of hours using a ton of different lobbies, another couple with "mods," and others with a "rating system."

Also, essem, you're the most polite rager I know Are you just annoyed we beat you

It was just rather unbalanced hence my post .

I'm thinking the "rate yourself" system is probably a good idea. The more experienced of us could agree on a solid 1-5 rating system, and when new players join, just show them the list and let them chose for themselves. It won't be perfect but it's better than nothing.

I also like the idea of the Mod. It will be easier to do that, however, if we definitely have more than 10 players. When we barely scrape together 10 people it's hard to have someone focus on being the moderator when they're trying to play as well. I think it's important for the mod to not be a player in that match to remove any bias.

I agree with the mod not being a part of the match. the past few sundays we've had 35+ people hanging around palying matches, so I don't think filling matches is a problem.

The only problem with a rating system is it's so hero dependent. For example, a good support player has completely different criteria than a good carry/semi carry/ganker, etc. If we kept it pretty general, kind of, how do you see yourself in relation to other doobs? Like Shane, gambit, yourself, being 5s, suicide, bear, walmart being 4s, etc.

From my personal noob perspective, i would not mind tagging a number to myself.

I could see that helping the process, as someone would be more likely to give a 1 ranking some more helpful tips if they/I am doing poorly/incorrect. If a 5 is making some big mistakes, they more likely know what they are doing right/wrong. Maybe what I am trying to say is, people would be a bit more understanding of why people are messing up if they know exactly where their skill level lies.

At the same time, i would think a number system would be hard to develop. I do feel as though I have a much better handle on what I am doing when I am playing Dazzle for example, because I have poured my time into him. When I play a Carry character, I feel completely lost. That could be the difference between a 1 with some characters, and a 3 with my main character, or something along those lines.

I think as long as a good number system is developed it could show what people need to work on what, and would not come off as elitist. I think if you just assign arbitrary numbers without any of the individual input, that is when it could possible come off as elitist.

A solid number system would also work well for us noobs; as we would know who to talk to about things, who we should direct questions to, ask for help..ect...

It goes both ways I think.

EDIT: Sorry for the book, my job can also get quite slow....