Ian On The Red Dot

I first discovered Dota in one of the darkest days (I’m being a bit drama) of my life yet (I’m leaving room for more dark days). It helped me numb the pain, widened my social circle, allowed me to get closer to some people who have become good friends and helped me get an A for my Human Resource project.

Dota is a really interesting game and I feel to a certain extent, it reveals a few things about the people that you play the game with. Of course I’m not saying that it is an accurate predictor of a person’s character but it possibly gives a general guideline.

I will be posting over the next few days some of my thoughts on this.

Risk Adverseness and Risk Assessment

There are some people in my clan that are considered humji. Some of them are the type of players that will also be the first to run in a big gangbang (i.e. major contact with enemy heroes). There is also another type, the ones that suggest to ‘b’ (i.e. back) instead of engaging the enemy. Sometimes there is miscommunication and the other players will engage with one joker backing which will tend to result in the enemy with numerical or hero superiority to rape (i.e. decimate, annihilate …) the team. The following is an example of a typical conversation after the battle.

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Dead Hero: Cheebye lah, why you back?

Alive Hero: What? I already said b.

Dead Hero: B for fuck. Can kill one. Cb. now cannot buy recipe.

Alive Hero: Kill what fuck. You cannot see they got three heroes meh.

Dead Hero: We also got three what. You run got two, of course die lah. Fuck man.
Alive Hero: Fuck lah. I said b. You want to cheong in, don’t come and fuck me now.

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Pardon the expletives, but that is how things are in the chat during the game.

Anyway, the former type of players, the ones that always run first in a gb could be argued to be the kind that cannot be counted on in real life. However true that might be is hard to gauge considering that this is a game.

It is the latter that interests me. The latter group interests me in the same ways as those we call crazy in my clan. They are the type of players who will try to 1v2 enemy heroes. The kind that we say ‘b’ will confirm cheong in and get himself killed (and usually allow the enemy with that momentary numerical superiority to push down one tower).

Why do these two groups of players interest me? It does so because it reveals how people have a different way of assessing risk. I do not think it is a coincidence that the crazy type of player in my clan is the biggest gambler. I also do not think that it is a coincidence that the humji type of player in my clan suffers from analysis paralysis.

Looking at a set of heroes and the items the heroes have, different players will make different assessments on whether it is advisable to engage the enemy. Some players make the wrong assessment on whether a battle will be successful because they do not know enough about the items and heroes abilities. These people tend to become better in assessing the risk of engaging when they go and learn more about the items and heroes.

Players also have a different way of considering what is successful after an engagement. Is killing two enemy heroes at the cost of only ally hero a success? Some people may say it is while others might feel that it is only considered a success and thus worth engaging if it can be 2 enemy heroes killed at zero allied loss. Two players may make the same assessment that engaging will kill two heroes for the cost of one, but different risk appetite will result in one saying cheong while the other says back.

Over the course of many games, it is possible to see the risk adverseness of your friends. It is also possible to see the abilities of people in assessing risk. Helping people improve their knowledge in the game helps align the final risk assessment and ensure that the team stays on the same page. Changing risk appetite is possibly harder but if you understand the risk appetite of the players in your team, it helps in preventing miscommunication and thus less damaging engagements happen.

So why is possibly able to understand the risk assessing abilities and risk adverseness of your friends through Dota important? I’ll discuss that during the last post in this series.