Chapter 715 - 715: Don't Overestimate Players' Understanding

Zack and Hannah were chatting while simultaneously opening Dota, which had already been downloaded to their desktops. The icon was a red square with openings at the top right and bottom left, and a horizontal bar in the middle resembling the Chu-Han border on a chessboard.

Double-clicking the icon, Zack entered the game.

Upon entering the interface, the overall UI remained very clear and concise.

At the top, there were options for Heroes, Shop, Spectate, New Player Training, and sub-options like Inventory and Right-Click.

On the left was their personal user interface and the friends list. In the bottom right was the option to start the game.

In the middle was a hyperlink to "Dragon's Blood."

For the overall UI layout of Dota, Lucas had largely followed the Dota from his previous life.

Compared to typical online games, Dota's UI interface was considered very streamlined.

Zack clicked on the hero interface and was stunned.

"My goodness, there are so many heroes!" Zack clicked his tongue, looking at the dazzling array of heroes.

Although Lucas hadn't included all the Dota heroes, such as Marci, Mars, Pangolier, Grimstroke, Hoodwink, Snapfire, and others, they were not yet included.

However, the current number was more than enough to surprise players who had never experienced this type of game.

Zack also noticed some details: the heroes were divided into three different categories.

Intelligence, Agility, and Strength. Zack was familiar with this, as the attributes clearly indicated that Dota was designed based on Warcraft's heroes.

Three-dimensional attributes, six item slots, three basic abilities, and one ultimate ability.

The only thing Zack found particularly interesting was that under the hero interface, there were many tags.

These corresponded to: Core, Support.

A quick glance made them easy to understand.

Core, in simple terms, meant they became powerful with money, while Support were the workers.

Additionally, they were further divided into subcategories like Tank, Control, Push, Outlast, and Burst.

Tank was easy to understand, similar to the main tanks in World of Warcraft.

Control, as the name suggested, meant heroes with crowd-controlling abilities. Push heroes had abilities like healing or summoning. Burst heroes could deal a massive amount of damage instantly. Outlast referred to heroes with movement skills, like a Mage's Blink or a Warrior's Charge.

As a player of Warcraft and World of Warcraft, Zack quickly imagined corresponding scenarios based on these descriptions and had a general idea.

The only thing left that intrigued him was how the game was played and what type of game it was.

"It feels a lot like an RPG. Isn't it just controlling a hero to farm gold and then buy items?" Hannah said, having quickly read the in-game text descriptions, just like Zack.

Hannah hadn't played much RTS content from Warcraft, mainly because she found controlling too many units overwhelming and easily got flustered.

So her Warcraft experience mostly consisted of starting with a base, building units, encircling the enemy, and then attacking.

This was her "all-in" strategy. While she wasn't good at RTS, she had a lot of fun playing the various Warcraft RPG maps later on.

"Don't worry about it too much, let's just play," Zack said, not dwelling on it. In fact, many players had a similar mindset.

Some players hadn't learned much about Dota beforehand. They simply downloaded it out of trust for the name Nebula Games, and the fact that the game was free also played a significant role.

After downloading the game, these players estimated the gameplay and, whether they were interested or not, were ready to try it out since they had already downloaded it.

Zack and Hannah clicked the "Start Game" button in the bottom right, and several sub-options popped up.

These were: "Training," "Co-op Bot Match," "Normal Match," and "Create Custom Game Room."

The ranked system mechanism was actually complete at this point.

However, Lucas had no intention of releasing it yet. It was still in the testing phase, and at the initial stage, players' understanding of the game would certainly be insufficient. Everyone had brand new, blank accounts. Win rates and statistical performance alone would be enough to match players of similar skill levels.

Once most players had a basic understanding of the game, the ranked matchmaking would be updated and opened to players, with certain prerequisites.

Players would need to complete 100 normal matches.

At present, new players were required to complete a mandatory beginner tutorial that could not be skipped.

As for smurfing, Nebula Games had always strictly prohibited such behavior in competitive games.

For high-skilled players, simply leveling up a new account from scratch had a limited impact on the game environment.

Under the matchmaking system, if a new account's win rate and KDA were exceptionally high, they would be quickly moved up several tiers, allowing them to escape the lower player brackets sooner.

However, players who intentionally smurfed were different. They didn't aim to climb ranks but would deliberately stay in a certain bracket, then intentionally lose to drop back down.

This back-and-forth had a detrimental impact on the game environment. Therefore, an operational team at Nebula Games would be specifically responsible for handling reports of malicious content that disrupted the player experience.

Entering the game, it was not significantly different from what they had imagined.

The main difference was in the visual presentation. The primary perspective was an overhead, god-like view, similar to Warcraft.

At the same time, a female narrator began explaining the game's beginner tutorial.

"Welcome to the world of Dota. Here, you will transform into heroes of the Scourge and the Sentinel. The first team to destroy the enemy's Ancient will win the match..."

As the tutorial voiceover played, the game screen continuously switched, showing players information about the World Tree, towers, fountains, and heroes.

This beginner tutorial had also been adjusted by Lucas.

It included basic game operations and other content. Lucas had also designed the game's perspective to be either fixed or movable.

Simply put, the movable perspective allowed players to move the camera to locations other than their hero's to observe other areas.

The fixed perspective, on the other hand, was centered on the hero.

Players who had played Warcraft would almost always use the movable perspective, as a fixed perspective was akin to playing with blindfolds, and gathering information was crucial in this type of game.

However, this was only for Warcraft players. For players who had only played RPGs, when they first started, they might have trouble finding their hero in the midst of battle.

Although there was a button to instantly switch to their hero, for many players, they might simply forget it existed.

In such a situation, the fixed perspective became a good solution.

Some players complained that the fixed perspective limited their potential, but these players didn't consider that without the option of a fixed perspective, new players might have such a bad first experience of not even being able to find their hero and might quit immediately, not even getting to the point of understanding the difference between fixed and movable perspectives.

Zack efficiently completed the beginner tutorial and had some thoughts.

As a player, he clearly didn't understand the purpose of these tutorials. For him, who had played Warcraft, the lessons on perspective and movement felt like reinventing the wheel.

However, it was still very necessary. Everyone has areas they excel in and areas they don't. Overestimating other players' understanding is a very common phenomenon.

It's like players on Steam in his previous life, thinking that anyone could understand how to use Steam.

But in reality, it's not easy for new players. Not to mention registering an account and purchasing games, many players who heard about it and used certain search engines downloaded a fake platform called "Game Assistant" that was at the top of the search results, instead of the real Steam, and lost their money. Of course, someone who downloaded HSteam instead of Steam might not be a complete beginner but was definitely a seasoned pervert.

Dota was similar. Players who had played Warcraft and many other games might feel that these tutorials were a waste of time.

But for newcomers who had never encountered such games, these tutorials were very necessary.

Of course, it was impossible to dump all overly detailed beginner tutorials at once.

Lucas had divided the game's beginner tutorial into different sections.

Because if everything were presented together, it would be too lengthy.

The reason for separating them, besides the length, was primarily to use phased rewards to incentivize players.

(End of Chapter)

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