It is the candid and often controversial takes Félix “xQc” Lengyel provides during livestreams that make him the most watched streamer on Twitch. XQc found himself involved in a similar situation during a recent livestream, where he was seen defending Dota 2's complex gameplay against League of Legends, a rival esports title, while bantering with former Riot Games employee, Nathan “Blautoise” Blau. In addition to defending Dota 2’s mechanics, xQc poked fun at Blautoise, asking him to stop talking in the middle of the discussion since he had previously worked for Riot Games, the company behind League of Legends.
XQc speaks in favor of Dota 2’s complexity while talking to a former Riot Games dev
The debate between the complex gameplay of Dota 2 and League of Legends began during a livestream on 25th Dec 2021 by popular livestreamers such as xQc, Thomas "Sykkuno", and others who were playing Mario Kart and also discussing various MOBA titles.
Following the mention of Warcraft 3 and DotA, xQc went on to speak in favor of Dota’s gameplay, saying players who are stupid do not know how to calculate turn rate and other aspects and their brains stop functioning while playing the game. This talk about turn rate seemingly prompted Blautoise to respond by criticizing Dota 2's gameplay.
“That is the worst design ever. It’s an awful design. People think just because something makes the game more difficult that it makes the game better,” said Blautoise.
After a couple of people in the discussion asked Blautoise to stop giving his "developer's take," xQc mocked League of Legends. “Listen, look League had like three actionable items and they had to remove them, because people couldn’t activate them properly like a bunch of soy boys. Five buttons! Oh my God, I can’t! I am so tired.”
The retort by Blautoise was to take a different approach to showing why League of Legends is superior to Dota 2, as he said, “And how many people actually play Dota vs League?” This reply seemed to bore xQc as he commented, "Wow! Popularity contest andie" and tried to point out that popularity is not directly proportional to quality.
The other people in the banter also seemed against Blautoise's take and, to this popularity remark, one of them pointed out that Dota 2 has the biggest tournaments in the world. However, Blautoise did not intend to give up, as he stated, “Dota has the biggest tournaments in the world because they are crowdfunded by a bunch of fu**ing…”
The discussion then shifted back to the gameplay angle when xQc mentioned, “It is not hard for the sake of being hard, it is hard for the sake of complexity. That’s why League is so dog****. It has no complexity, no depth. It’s absolutely garbanzo.”
Blautoise did not agree, saying that League of Legends is “plenty difficult” while “Dota is a trash game” because in games like it, developers have added unnecessary complexity.
As the livestream progressed, both sides stuck to their stance, and the topic of banter gradually changed - the most common outcome of Dota 2 and League of Legends debates.
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