The Art of Ruining Games: Leavers

As I was thinking about what a good DotA game really is, I realized that every game is a good game by default, unless someone spoils it. It's true that some games are more interesting than others, but overall DotA is entertaining all by itself, so I don't usually need anything special to happen in the game in order to have fun playing it. However, there's this group of people, who are sad and miserable in real life and whos only emotional outlet are computer games. These people are known as leavers and without me introducing them, you just won't get a complete picture of the gaming environment.

As the name suggests and as you have probably figgured out, a leaver is just a person who leaves the game before its end. Since in DotA reconnection to the game is impossible once it has started, any premature quit means that one of the teams is left with fewer players than the other one. As I already mentioned earlier, DotA is a very team-oriented game and every player in the team has a role and thus functions in a specific way that contributes to the overall performance for the team. If one of the players leaves, each one of his ex teammates has to adopt some of his functions to fill the gap. With only one leaver and appropriate hero choice this is quite possible. (Note that some heroes are not that flexible and cannot play certain roles well) However, if the leavers become two or your teammates refuse to adapt to the new circumstances the game becomes disbalanced and the enemy team can easily crush you and win.

Now, I'm trying to be tolerant as much as I can. I completely understand that sometimes the game goes bad, and if the player has a bad day already, it's just too much to keep playing - it's neighter entertaining nor fun; it happens to everybody from time to time. In this situation you just apologize, leave and look for something else to do (maybe listening to some music). However, the people I'm refering to usually join another game after they leave the current one (perhaps just to ruin the 2nd one too?) They ruin game after game causing dosens of people to curse and don't even give a shit! This being said, I hope that it's pretty clear that the so called leaver attitude is the plague in DotA. It's observed in more than 50% of the public games and it often ruins the game. That's the greatest advantage of playing with friends - you know you can rely on each-other even if the things get hard.

Here's a short video made by a DotA fan that shows his personal attitude towards the leavers. Hope more leavers see it and realize that leaving might have real and scary consequances if done in the wrong game. ;)