[jb_s]

This is it, right here. Good games are fun to lose as well. Otherwise it's just a competition where you occasionally beat people and feel amazing about yourself, or lose to people and feel terrible. The variable reward system in ranked LoL messes with our brains, gambling machines and pay-to-win games have exploited this for years.

League, at least for me, didn't seem like a fun game (at least in like 2010 or whatever it was?). Most of the time was hitting hapless minions and waiting for some timer to finish so you could finally fight a human or go jungle/dragon or whatever it was. But that would be over in a few seconds and then back to grinding away at some shitty NPCs. Maybe some people enjoy the actual gameplay enough but 99% of my LoL friends played either for social purposes or were hyper competitive.

I found SC2 way more fun, pretty much every game was fun unless the opponent themselves did something boring like cannon rushing. I would routinely come up with interesting builds/strategies and test them out on people (fun to figure out if it worked or not). Mass marines, weird timing attacks, anti-meta. I didn't see that flexibility in LoL. The mechanics (for me) were far more involved and enjoyable anyway but that's my shitty opinion.

[grog454]

> pretty much every game was fun unless the opponent themselves did something boring like cannon rushing. I would routinely come up with interesting builds/strategies and test them out on people

I've never understood why so many people have this value judgement for long macro oriented games and against short micro oriented games. To me, most macro games look like the same fundamental thing over and over with slight variations, and end on a small mistake that has a drastic effect. On the other hand, I'll never forget the game where Maru got canon rushed and floated his entire base and SCVs through the canons to his third (I think). And won easily.

Coming up with builds is a completely valid thing to enjoy about sc2, but to me what makes the game interesting is the interactions with your opponent. It doesn't get much more interactive than a game with early, non stop aggression.

[me_me_me]

As ex dota player, the highs you get from those outlier games are incredible.

You overperform, outplay other players. Your team starts to move together and work as one. It feels amazing, you feel like a god for an hour.

But this is one of maybe 100 games, the rest of those games is subconsciously chasing that next amazing game where all stars align you get a good teammates and opponents that are slightly below your skill level. But instead you get toxic team that make you loose hope in humanity.

Its like slots, just each pull lasts 40 minutes :)

Dota is one of most amazing and horrible games ever made. i am glad i am out of it