Life Outside PLT1

The Battle.net archives Part 2: A summary of game modes (bonus replay at the end)

January 28, 2007 on 9:32 pm | In Dota | | Sicopath

Staying up till the wee hours of the morning hammering away at the keyboard. That’s correct. I have a keyboard. Apologies to those people who were under the assumption that I click up letters in charmap or draw letters with eye movements like Stephen Hawking does.

Here’s a quick summary of DoTA game modes. And somehow there will be a reasoning behind why I hate apem games.

-apem
Ok, let’s start off with the most popular game mode in public DoTA games. This is the most popular because it surpasses all other game modes by way of number of games. “Why is that?” You may ask; well I have to tell you I have no fucking clue. If you want a good game with at the most 1 leaver per side and competent teammates and skillful opponents, stay away from apem.
apem games tend to attract retards because it is by it’s very description; “easy mode”. You don’t have to wait for items and levels, which works great for ADHD sufferers and due to the huge disparity in experience and gold gains as compared to non em games; game hosts and their friends love to cheese people for easy wins by
waiting to see which heroes your team picks, picking heroes to counter and ganking in teams all throughout the early game - while you’re waiting to revive and missing out on huge amounts of gold and experience, they will simply ride their lead to victory.
I don’t play apem games anymore and you shouldn’t either. They’re complete crap.

-arem
arem games are bearable. Often i’ll have to settle for arem games rather than wait for someone to host an ar, ap or ardm games. arem is a decent mode, it’s more skillful than apem since teams can’t counter-pick but luck plays a large role since late game killers will always dominate with a good player; for instance, if I get ganked early in my lane as a late game hero; i’ll just plant observer wards and farm neutrals to catch up.
These games attract a few retards, but less than apem. The amount of good players in arem games is decent and games will often go on to completion.
Please note that repicking is frowned upon in -arem games since you’re more likely to get a good hero if you repick a crap one (defeating the purpose of an all random game), it’s not outright banned but sore losers will complain about it if you kick their asses too much(backdooring on the other hand, is always banned by implication in public or friendly games).
arem is probably my most played mode, tied with -ap (non em).

-ap
ap games are interesting. First of all, -ap games have the least amount of retards out of any public game mode and hero balance is often alot better, good players will usually -random since there are no useless heroes in a non em game; poorer players will pick heroes they’re good with. Counter-picking can be a problem, but smart players will aim for a good mix of heroes on their side, so they will be more difficult to defeat with a counter-picking strategy.

-ar
ar games are good. Good players populate ar games and if you’re tired of bad teammates, leavers, hero imbalance and counter-picking strategies; play ar.
Once again; please note that repicking is frowned upon in -ar games. It’s less about getting a good hero (as it is in arem) than it is about getting a good hero for the matchup. Not outright banned, but it does go against the spirit of “all random”, so sore losers will complain if you kick their asses.

-ardm
ardm games are my absolute favourite. It’s a very rare game mode nowadays and when one does pop up, it takes a long time to fill.
This makes me sad in the pants; since the nature of ardm adds new game dynamics such as item balancing and placing higher priority on ganking strong players until they random something crap.
The relative rarity of ardm makes it so that most players who play should have experience, or are guys who have no idea what dm is and simply thought the host misspelt “arem”.

Now that’s done. I leave you now with a replay (If you’re wondering why every replay has myself owning, it’s because I keep the replays where I suck ass and get yelled at away from prying eyes).

There are lots of good things to learn from in this replay, i’ll be discussing them in detail in a day or two.

IT’S HERE! NO WAIT, IT’S HERE