When comparing Super Smash Bros Melee vs Dota 2, the Slant community recommends Dota 2 for most people. In the question“What are the best competitive multiplayer games with the least toxic communities?” Dota 2 is ranked 14th while Super Smash Bros Melee is ranked 23rd. The most important reason people chose Dota 2 is:
Microtransactions involve only cosmetic items such as custom weapon designs or clothing colors and tickets to view live events.
Specs
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Pros
Pro The Meta
Melee could be thought of as having two phases: the "neutral game" and "punish game." The neutral game is key, being where players poke and prod, attempting to safely secure an opening. This can be nigh on impossible against good players who implement crouch canceling and other techniques. Melees neutral game is complex, fast, and precise: comparing melee to other fighters is like comparing go to chess due to the emphasis of options in play. Once a hit has been successfully landed, the punish game begins.
The punish game is all about maximizing damage and potentially killing the oponent using techniques such as weak hits, chain grabs, tech traps, and ledgeguarding. The metagame in SSBM is extremely advanced because of its age, and deep because of its design. Players commonly use conditioning, deceptive movement, and advanced shield techniques to lure players into unsafe situations and potentially secure a stock, as one mistake may lead to death. With multiple shields, different types of dodge, and DI; melee is intense and satisfying for both aggressor and defender
Pro Reading your opponent is key
"Reading" includes "soft reads" or reactions (eg: reading di from drift or tech chasing), as well as "hard reads," where you must correctly predict and then commit to an option before your opponent to cover said option
Pro SHFFL
The short hop fast fall L-cancel is an advanced technique used to jump and perform an aerial from the ground. It has been removed in later games in the series, but is still able to be used in Melee.
Pro Wave dashing
Pro High APM
Top players reach over 300 Actions Per Minute (APM), not including di. Competitive players routinely play at 200+.
Commands are not input at a steady rate, but instead take on a stoccato pattern with periods of high intensity (eg: mashing, dash dancing, most shield pressure) and moments of respite.
Pro Precision
Melee has a 0 frame input buffer. This means inputs only register on that frame, forcing players to have perfect input timing even for techniques with 1-2 frame input windows. Additionally, many techniques require minute analog stick tilts (eg: shield dropping), which again must be input within potentially small windows. Some techniques require subframe precision. Small adjustments in positioning ("micro" spacing) alter input windows and often changes which options are available to each player. By using ambiguous spacing and timing, the whole game becomes one big mixup.
Pro DI/SDI/Shield DI
Directional Influence (DI) and Smash DI (SDI) add much depth to the game through mindgames, traps, and reading of your opponents inputs; as well as allowing players to escape or otherwise modify their oponents combos, and even survive otherwise deadly moves. Shield DI allows players to make adjustments to their positioning and alter the timing of their opponents moves. When combined with light shielding, Shield DI becomes more significant, adding greatly to the neutral game. DI makes every combo different and makes getting hit an active process, making the "punish game" active on both sides. DI forces players to constantly make split-second decisions and reactions.
Pro Requires frame perfect inputs at 60 fps
Pro Strong community
15 years old, still going strong.
Pro Fair free-to-play business model
Microtransactions involve only cosmetic items such as custom weapon designs or clothing colors and tickets to view live events.
Pro Start with all heroes
You don't need to unlock or purchase characters.
Pro Incredibly deep gameplay
For players who put the time into Dota 2 to get past the early beginner phase, Dota 2 can become an extremely satisfying game. There's a reason it's one of the most popular eSports titles in the world. The amount of strategy, skill, and variables involved make it a very deep game where anything could happen.
Pro A very diverse MOBA
This game has a steep learning curve, but it's well worth it. The games that came after Dota like League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, Smite, and other lookalikes don't even compare to the complexity of Dota 2.
Every hero is unique and valuable in one team composition or another. The amount of versatility of each hero is amazing as well. The mechanics by far destroy any other Dota style game (MOBA) and that's what makes this game top tier in its genre. This game is the highest grossing eSport game in the world and will probably continue to be for a long time.
Pro It's very well-balanced
Gameplay is balanced in the sense that while other MOBAs would have only around 30-60 viable picks for the competitive scene, Dota 2 has heroes and strategies in the game that are more varied, which enables more heroes to be picked in the competitive scene.
Number of Heroes Picked in Dota 2's Recent Major Tournament in the past 4 months (as of July 2016) is 86/111 heroes picked and 100 out of 111 heroes picked.
To compare between Dota 2 and LoL pick diversity, LoL has 64 out of 131 champions picked for LCS.
There are also factors such as the ban/pick phase difference and the more rigid positions in LoL that may limit the viability for different playstyles and hero picks (typically it is 2 (AD, Support Bot) -1 (AP mid) -1 (Tank Off) - 1 (Jungler), with a possibility of double junglers in LoL).
On the other hand in Dota 2, there are a lot more different positions compared to Lol/Smite such as Duo Mid (1-2-2), Traditional (2-1-2), One Jungler (1-2-1-1, most similar to league), One Roamer (1-2-1-1 as well with the difference being the hero roams the map for kills to create space for the mid and safelane rather than farm the jungle which can weaken a lane), Duo Roamer (1-1-1-2, all lanes are weaker in lane presence with the tradeoff being they get solo experience with two aggressive supports roaming), Trilane (1-1-3, Aggressive or Passive Trilane) and Abandoned Offlane (0-1-3-1 where the offlane is completely left empty due to a strong duo or trilane on the opposing team).
More heroes are viable and balanced in Dota 2 partly due to the greater flexibility in laning. This can be attributed the mechanics such as creep pulling and creep stacking which allows the team doing trilane to make up for the shared experience between three heroes. Besides that, the existence of teleport scrolls that allow you to defend your towers or punish a tower dive also allows you to react and assist other lanes.
In pub games, any hero/lane/lineup can work, and it is more about your individual mechanical skills (understanding of hero, combo execution, map awareness, last hitting, timings, item builds, flow) over the lack of coordination and teamwork (on both teams).
Pro Has user-created custom games
Dota 2 includes Workshop Tools that allow users to create custom games as well as other play them.
Pro Moba-leading graphics
When compared to other leading MOBAs, Dota2 has some of the best graphics to be found.
Pro In-game mic
Has in-game mic so you can get toxic with voice chat.
Pro Cross-platform
Available on Windows, OS X, and Linux.
Pro Very active professional scene
Dota 2 has one of the most active professional scenes in eSports today. If it's not the most active, it's certainly got the largest prize pools, coming in at over $20 million in 2016.
Pro Players can trade self-made cosmetic items
The game includes a system for players to create, buy, and sell cosmetic items.
Pro Dota 2 has the world's biggest e-sports tournament
At The International 7 in summer 2017, players raised the prize pool to more than $23 million, one of the largest prize pools in sSports history.
Pro Can be played online and offline
However, you will need to be logged in to Steam either way.
Pro Good for brain
Trains brain hard.
Pro Regularly updated
Dota 2 is regularly patched and changed with new characters being introduced and balance changes made. This can prevent the game from becoming too stale as the tactics utilized by players changes often.
Cons
Con Equipment
This is a 15 year old Gamecube game. While there is an active online community, and there are emulators etc, you need a Gamecube and CRT display in order to properly experience the game. A strong local community is all but necessary, as there is some lag online (minimum 7 frames) and melee is ridiculously precise. In addition to the console and tv, you need a Gamecube controller. While Nintendo is again selling these, controllers often break due to the high intensity of play. Even if you use an emulator, normal controllers are needed for tournament play.
Con It's got a huge learning curve
Dota 2 has 111 heroes, all of which are unique from each other. It will take time and effort to learn which heroes you like to play, and become skilled with them.
Con Rude, toxic community
Many players feel free to flame and insult, especially in the lower ranks and from non-English speaking countries.
Con You can be put into a low priority mode for being bad at the game
Con Matches are too long
The game is great but even just a single match can take a lot of time. And when you get to mid game and realize you already lost, you have no option but to keep dying and literally wait for the game to end.
Con Zero merit goes to good players
If you score, say, a 20 kills 0 deaths but your team loses because 4 people are noobs, you lose -26 personal rank.
Con Miserable community
Takes 100s of hours not to suck, and even then, you're still not going to be good.
Con No SURRENDER option
As ridiculous as it may sound, you are a slave, once you start a game.
You may suffer, you may cry, but you can't concede.
Very much influences an overall toxic atmosphere of game.
Con It's a slow and repetitive game
This might be the most repetitive MOBA game.
Con The controls are terrible
It feels more like SC as a MOBA than an actual MOBA.
Con Waste of time
Con It has voice chat
It boosts rage and toxicity so much it has to be removed.
Con Valve doesn't care about their players
No surrender option and bad teamate can influence your personal mmr even if you perform good. Plus the company seems way too big and the services start to lack and suffer.
Con You love and hate the game
While infuriating at times the addictiveness of the game keeps the players coming back.