Well it's not like this is something new. Peoples do have different talents, that's a common knowledge.
Yes, this is common knowledge but everyone seems to assume "if [x] player just did [y], he could get [z] MMR." If this is as common as you stated, then that contradictory statement wouldn't arise all the time.
might be genes though? for example koreans dominate starcraft XD... their mind is like capable of multitasking.... or maybe they are just pure geniuses... for me decision making is the basic concept that differentiates the player from the other players
peniel it might be epigenetic + environmental factors as well, not just genetic ones.
and koreans dominate starcraft cuz they play it the most...lol.
It also depends on your state of mind or how to say it... so if you are 100% focused on the game, without thinking about anything else (and i mean really nothing, not that your leg is in an uncomfy position, not that your palms are sweaty, not that why the fuck are ppl making noises, not that your cat just changed position or when will you have to go to work tomorrow and anyways you are hungry.. just the game, and not your mmr, your past fucked up decisions, but the exact situation...) then you will perform better. There was a dotabuff blog post about it too, so im not going into more useless details, but its definetly a big part of it. Ofc you cant act that fast if you use half of your brain to do something else... Also, train your brain to multitask by playing retarded multitasking flash games, you will see a difference, may not be significant in-game for a long time, but you can make a change.
Or try this... play a flash game, can be any, that is getting faster with time, and have scores and somehow rewards streaks and have some kind of "dying" option that means game over. So your priorities are not "die" > get streaks > well.. get any kind of points. They usually have music going faster and bigger score numbers for streaks... so play a game of this kind for a while, i mean weeks... not every day and not for more than 20 mins a time, just play it for a while, so you will know it rly well. Then see the difference in your state of mind when you hit a better streak than ever, most probably lets say you had lots of 8-10 streaks in that game, but when you will hit something like 15, thats not gonna stop at 15 it will be 20-25, couse your state will change, you will see and think faster for a short time. I definetly believe that pro dota players can do it in dota. I cant do it in dota, soo many other things are distructing me... But its something I believe you can train.
I recently figured out that playing a "warm up" 10 mins of flash game before doto time makes me perform better in the first game that day. So I can see a chance that I could train my brain to be more concentrated on dota, but not exactly by playing more dota.
I just got a retarded idea, making a game that requires you to look at the places where you have to look in dota, like actually having some colors/forms/number of dots showing up on "minimap" for a second and you have to click on the middle of your screen dependent on what you have seen, etc. Also youd need to do certain things at certain times (clock at the top just as in-game), so playing this game would make it automatic a lot faster then trying to do it in game.
i was playing with some > 5k players 2 days ago, and i noticed how slow my reactions were compared to theirs. i wasn't distracted or anything - i just didn't have the ability to anticipate certain moves. there was a clinkz who constantly tried to pop heroes and a furion who dagoned people to pick them off (and i often didnt even see those coming, even though in retrospect they were fairly obvious)
here's the game if anyone's interested (it's a page 1 game, which i was a bit ill-suited for to be perfectly honest) and basically i made a bunch of mistakes that made the game a lot harder to win
http://dotabuff.com/matches/547679666
the lycan pick didn't help either (lycan sux ass against naga siren) but i'm not even sure i can "improve" my reaction time
I don't agree. I think anyone can achieve 5k MMR, but some people will have a harder time doing so than others, exactly as anything in life. Maybe you're not good at math, maybe you actually suck at math, but if you study hard you can be an engineer.
Of course if you are a dwarf you'll never be a professional basketball player, and if you don't have fingers you'll never be a 5k dota 2 player, but except for these cases you can achieve what you want.
It's not that people can't do it. Most people just lack the willpower to put in effort to practice and train. And stick to the same level.
@ sano, I love your analogies.
I'm currently a language teacher and one thing I have to study is the difference between aptitude and attitude when it comes to language learning techniques and let me tell you the exact same thing is true to dota play. I learned Spanish almost fluently in 5 months and that's because I have a good aptitude (and a great attitude) to language learning. I believe my attitude to dota is healthy (not as good as to languages but still better than most) but my aptitude is not as great, sure it's still better than most but it's not that impressive. Almost all pros will have an insanely high aptitude to dota and that's what enables them to be good. Some people, no matter how hard they try, will never be as good as that. But that's life, you'll have skills elsewhere it's just up to you what you do with it.
You can practice 10 hours a day at full concentration yet there will be someone in the world who is better than you who only practices a few hours a week. It's almost guaranteed the same for everything unless you're the superlative of your respective field.
Lol Sano that's not true at all. Some people simply don't have the reaction time to rank up in dota, I know I don't. You sound like a 3rd grade teacher telling his students they can be an astronaut or president if they just learn their multiplication tables.
And you think anyone can be an engineer? Please, do you know how engineers actually have to think and approach problems? It's hard, not everyone's brain can do it. I'm a software developer, it takes a lot of abstract thinking and mastery of abstract concepts, many people cannot conceptualize on this level no matter how much they try. That's why jobs pay different amounts, cus not everyone can do certain ones.
^While i sort of agree, there seems to be a ton of bias to your answer for obvious reasons. lol.
Ok well fine, use any example you want, let's talk brain surgery then. Do you think everyone is capable of being a brain surgeon if they simply keep at it long enough? Hell no!
Or more esoteric, to be a famous painter. Why do you think there's only one Mona Lisa? Cus there's only one leonardo da vinci, you can't simply start painting like him just cus you practice enough. Sorry, people have varying levels of skills. That's life, learn to maximize yours.
I won't ever be a 5k dota player and I'm fine with that. Sano is wrong thinking anyone can eventually reach 5k.
You probably won't because of your attitude.
I believe that one and a half year ago I was a 3-3.5k player (of course I can't measure this, but I was a normal-high bracket player, never playing in very high). Eventually I started playing in very high. Ranked MMR came and I had 4.4k solo. Now I have 4.7k solo. I do believe I will reach 5k in a matter of time.
My reflexes aren't great and I'm not an awesome player. I'm just a good player who tries to get better whenever I play.
Talent is 60%. The rest is probably lots and lots of practice to know the mechanics. Some people who play alot and is stuck at low mmr don't have the talent. What they have is knowledge, and it doesn't convert into anything but theory-crafting etc. Although there are some veterans who played alot in dota 1, but like me, stopped playing as much in dota 2 and kind of fallen off the charts.
most players are no where near there natural limits.
When LD was referring to dota being 80% talent and 20% practice, i think he was referring to the top players ability to turn pro. He isn't talking about 3.5k players not being able to get to 4.5k
@ Harmonica
I think one important aspect that is often overlooked is the value of experience. Some mediocre players have played a few thousand games from dota 1 days to now. There are innumerable variables that come into play in someone's skill, even a highly experienced player.
For example, most of the games I play I am stacking with a few friends that I have played pc games with for years. Most of the time we don't even play ranked, we just casually fool around. On the other hand, a few games I have played we have a full 5 stack, and we create a few potential lineups that focus on our strengths as players, that also create a solid team fight potential. The value of my experience from games where I am not completely focused on improving is far far lower than the value of the games where I play ranked MMR in a 5 stack and we go into it with a plan.
Another example is even when I play solo unranked, if I am focused on improvement, i.e. practicing specific skills/techniques, then I am much more likely to improve. Decision making is just another skill. Someone who has never played DotA once will be guaranteed to make awful decisions. Someone who has seen virtually every combo possible and who has played against players of great skill will be more likely to predict the opponent's actions correctly. These are extreme examples, but they illustrate my point at a basic level.
I used to play Call of Duty (the very first one) competitively. We held practices daily where we would sit at certain spots and practice throwing our grenades so they bounced just right and blew up in a specific spot at a specific time. We would practice where to go and where to look while heading there so that when we did it in a real match we were prepared. These aren't just mechanics, and aren't just skills. It's a combination achieved through actively trying to improve.
In DotA 2 we often, myself included, are held back by several things:
1) Not critiquing our own mistakes and striving to correct them; (This one is huge! How often have you made the same mistake game after game after game? I have died warding blind as a 4-5 position in many games. I can blame my team by saying, "You yelled wards wtf gg?!?! so I tried," but is that really why I died? No. I died because I chose to try and ward blind with zero teammates with me and no opponents on the minimap. That is just stupid. I know it's stupid, but I choose to be lazy and make the same mistake in more than one game.)
2) Not communicating with our team; (This can be hard when not in a stack due to the nature of selecting "English" and ending up with 4 people who don't speak a word of English, unless you count "me mid." I still try, at the very least use the chat wheel, pings, and don't flame. Another key is identifying players who are more perceptive than you, and learn to listen to them. I can't tell you how many times I've warned someone, they got ganked bc they ignored me, then they said, yeah...you were right. I'm guilty of thinking I have time for one more last hit, then died bc of it.)
3) Focus; (If you practice paying attention to the minimap, you will start to improve in decision making. This can help you initiate ganks, avoid initiation, counter-initiate, warn your teammates when you see them about to get ganked, etc. If you're a support, learning where you want wards, when to de-ward, when to lane pull, these are all mechanics based actions, but they also have a decision making element. If you get distracted you are far more likely to make a mistake, and mistakes in dota can often snowball.)
There are more, but I've already created a blob of text.
I think the limits of the brain aren't the key here. I think it's the false notion that playing a lot = should improve. Once you hit a certain threshold you have to actively try to get better, it won't just happen.
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I was doing the typical "replay watching" routine, and something came across my mind. There were many instances of the player (let's just use Arteezy as an example, cuz he's one of the players whose games I sometimes spectate) doing a bunch of moves that wouldn't have occurred to me. I might think "well this is too dangerous, so it isn't wise" but he's somehow able to calculate that beforehand and take the risk. He usually makes the right decisions, and if it were me, I would have missed out on those opportunities.
Which got me thinking about this possibility: not everyone is going to make it to 5000 MMR, let alone 6000, even if they play for several years (with "competitive experience"...which doesn't mean much since most teams are just bad). There seems to be a simple reason behind this, even though I don't have a background in biological psychology/behavioral neuroscience: some people's brains are simply unable to process multiple bits of information. Or, they might not process them quickly enough and then make the incorrect choices.
Everyone talks about "hard work," "dedication," and "attitude," but why is there so little talk on the physical limits of the human brain?
I advise everyone who is aiming for a higher MMR and is below 5k, to take any 6k player's replay, and analyze what that player is doing. Think "would I have done this?" at every possible opportunity you see a discrepancy between what the player did and what you would have done. Chances are, 9 times out of 10, your decisions are going to be "worse." By "worse," I obviously mean netting you fewer kills/gold/exp. I'm not talking about mechanics (last hitting is easy to practice), but what they choose to do at any moment (such as if an Earthshaker blinks in and Echos....would you have walked in blindly or stayed back? Obviously many cases are going to be far more subtle than that, and most people who aren't completely awful at dota will recognize these cases)
And then comes the inevitable follow-up: "Well how can I improve myself at this?"
That is the heart of the problem: I can't conceive of a way to "train" your brain to make better decisions on the spot. You can watch all the replays you want, which grants you lots of insight on the way the game works, but that has little bearing on any individual game where the situations are going to vary (either slightly or greatly). You can't possibly anticipate everything in a game, no matter how experienced you are. You don't know if your mid/offlane is going to feed, etc.
You can think "Well, I should have done [x] instead of [y]" but what if the basis for that decision-making is simply insufficient for very high level play? Being able to recognize mistakes is one thing...being able to correct it and then consistently do so afterwards is another.
A lot of dota players have been playing since the early days of dota 1, and they simply lack the natural talent. Many of them, to be sure, at in the low 5k's ranges by now (5000-5300) which is already really good in my opinion, but I wouldn't be surprised if some plateaued at around 4k. These are usually the people made fun of - ever hear this phrase: "How do you suck so much even after playing dota for so long?"
I used to be on that bandwagon as well, making fun of people who were worse than me yet played the game for much longer, but that doesn't seem very logical/palatable after giving it some thought.