A quick, top down, general description of the game would describe it as a tug-o-war style game between two sides with equal amount of players on each side. The goal is to conquer
the other team by successfully destroying the main artifact (structure). Each player controls a hero selected at the start of the match. During the course of the match, the hero gains gold and experience to enhance their heroes with items and leveling up skills.At every multiple of 30 seconds since the start of the match, monsters - known as "creep" - spawns from the base of each side. These "creep" cannot be controlled by the players directly, and will attack (rather unintelligently) in a direction in each of the three distinct paths (commonly referred to as "top lane", "middle lane", and "bottom lane").
Killing enemy creep will result in experience and gold for the hero. It is also worth noting that gold will only be awarded to the hero if and only if the hero is the true killer of the creep by executing what is known as the "last hit" on the creep.
The goal of the game is to earn gold to buy items which grants different attributes and abilities, and experience in order to defeat the enemy team. Killing enemy heroes will result in more gold bounty than killing creep, and also result in much more experience depending on level of the hero killed.
In the most general sense, the goal of the game is quite simple. However, the level of mechanics involved in this game is far too complex to comprehensively describe in this blog post.
Mechanics
To start off, I will be discussing some of the main mechanical details of the game.
Hero Attributes
Each hero has three different values for attributes: Strength, Agility, and Intelligence. A hero also has a primary attribute, allowing the hero to gain 1 point of damage per attribute value. Each attribute also corresponds to different statuses of the hero: Strength to Max HP and HP regeneration, Agility to Attack Speed and Armor, Intelligence to Max Mana and Mana regeneration. Other attributes include Movement Speed and Attack Range.
Controlling Your Hero
In order to control your hero in a DotA game, the interface, keys, and controls are similar, if not equal to a typical Real-Time Strategy game. You select your hero, move with right click and have commands such as Attack, Move, Stop, Hold Position, as well as other skills.
Hero control is crucial in playing the game well, and plays a large role in survival, acquiring "last hits" on creep, and timing.
Purchasing Items
Each hero is able to purchase items from the shop at their base. Each items have unique abilities and grant the hero different attribute bonuses, special effects, or even skills. Generally more powerful items require much more gold to purchase, which is why it is important to gain plenty of gold.
Using Skills
Skills are unique to each hero, and each skill can be either "Active" or "Passive", with the difference being Active skills require user input to function, while Passive skills are always in effect once leveled. Most Active skills require Mana to cast and have different cool downs (periods of which the skill cannot be recasted).
Dynamics and Metagame
DotA gameplay is complex due to the the level of metagame required to be understood before graduating from the "novice" level of play.
Multiplayer
DotA is a multiplayer 5v5 game, requiring 10 players to play. As a result, in order for a decent match to be played no player should leave the game. The skill level of each player should be equal to ensure a fair game. Due to the competitive nature of the game, flaming other players, insults, and rants are often rampant across the DotA community. Hence, DotA is dubbed as one of the most hostile environments for novice players, and a breeding ground for bad mannered players.
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