Unofficial DOTA rules *FINISHED*!!!

[t3h_pwnage]

Hi and welcome to the Unofficial Dota Rules thread. This is a compilation of unwritten rules and beliefs of DOTA players. Following these rules won't exactly make you a saint, but if you do, you are sure to please your teammates and to conjure up a good image of yourself.
Whether you are new or old school, check these out and see what people think about certain issues. Enjoy

Notice: You may see a word in green (disputable) next to some of the rules' titles. This means that the general oppinion about that certain issue is split, and the rule may be adhered by either way you choose. The article does note and advice however what you should do in that particular case, assuming you are matching the circumstances.


-No leaving

Leaving creates a shortage of players on your team and may cause your team to lose. Leaving just because you drew a "bad" hero, or leaving because "you're tired of the game," ruins the game not only for yourself, but for 9 other people as well. You should have others in mind when deciding to leave. However if you have to leave, explain to everybody your reason and they will most surely understand you.

-No feeding

Feeding is when you deliberatly decide to kill yourself, whether it is just to aquire deaths for your team, or to overpower your enemy because you "don't like your teammates."
Feeding is just as bad as leaving, if not even worse. It makes the game very unenjoyable and makes it lose its purpouse. Same as leaving, when feeding you're ruining the game for 9 other players. Try to keep these things in mind when deciding to feed.
Some players may call you a feeder if you are new to the game and die a lot. This is different. This is an example of discourtesy, and as long as you did not die intentionally, do not be discouraged by their behavior.

-No lagging

If you find yourself lagging a lot during games, although you may not be directly at fault, you're still disrupting the game. Try to turn off other applications and restarting your computer before playing DOTA so as to create a pleasant gaming atmosphere.

-No maphacking

Maphacking is when you use a third party program to make the entire playing map visible to you. Maphacking gives you an unfair advantage, and YES it is cheating. Maphacking is despicable and doing so will throw you to the lowest level of existing gamers. Maphacking is lame and is considered a weakness of the gamer. Maphacking won't make you better! Maphacking will cause your status as a gamer to decline. Maphacking is officially deemed illegal by Battle.net, and using it may get you banned. If your performance is lacking because you are new or are just having a bad day, don't be discouraged; ask WCR for help, and the community will gladly help you in any aspect of DOTA.

-No backdooring (disputable)

In DOTA creeps are spawned in waves and they run toward each other in order to meet and fight. You can aid your own creeps by killing incoming enemy creeps and moving forward with the goal of getting to an enemy tower and destroying it. In the beginning of the game an enemy tower will kill you in 5-15 hits and you obviousely need the aid of your creeps. As the game progresses however, you get stronger, and you slowly develop the ability to destroy an enemy tower by yourself, and not take too much damage from it. As the game progresses even more and you grow really strong, you can take a tower down very easily and very fast. Because of that, enemy heros usually don't have time to react to your actions and lose the tower. For this reason an unofficial rule that most DOTA players abide by, is to push a tower by advancing with your creeps towards it and thus keeping the starting/beginning standards of the game. This allows enemy heros to notice you and if they decide so, to prevent you from reaching/destroying the tower. Cutting in front of your creeps and going off to kill a tower by yourself is considered backdooring. Backdooring is accepted by some people, and in certain leagues it is allowed to backdoor side towers; in others it is allowed to backdoor all towers outside the enemy base (base ends at the ramp). This rule varies from league to league, but on random custom games hosted on Battle.net the act of backdooring is largely hated, and may cause players on the opposing team to leave. It is advisable not to backdoor any towers in public games on Battle.net.

-No using heros of left allies (disputable)

Some people dissagree with this, and here it can be argued either way ("DOTA is intended for the use of one hero only," or "if it's not meant for you to control a leaver's hero, why does the game give you control of it in the first place?"). Regardless, the general belief in public custom DOTA games hosted on Battle.net is that you should not use the heros of allies who have left the game. In private or lan games, or in certain leagues this rule may vary, and therefore you should check with the host beforehand.

-No custom kicking

Custom kicking is when the host downloads a program that enables him to discontinue communication between his computer and a player's computer. This causes the player to be disconected from the game, or in other words kicked off. Although this may sound like something very useful, it can damage the game tremenduousely if the program falls in the wrong hands. Is very hard to find people who are responsable enough to handle such a tool. Therefore a majority of people agree that hosts should not even be in posession of such a program as this. On top of that, this is a third party program and it is officially deemed illegal by Battle.net, and using it may get you banned!

-No creepjacking your allies

Creepjacking your allies is when you see one of your allies creeping and you deliberatly go to the spot he is creeping at, and try to get the creep kill, or the last hit on the creep. This causes you to get money and experience for the creep kill, while your ally who has done the grunt work of reducing the majority of the creep's health gets nothing.

-No Kill Stealing

Kill Stealing is similar to Creepjacking; you wait until one of your allies brings an enemy hero down to low health, and then you interfere, with the intent to get the hero kill for yourself. The action is referred to as a "KS." The simplest example of a KS is when you use Lord of Olyimpia's Ultimate ability to kill an enemy with 1% percent health when one of your allies killed the other 99% and is about to deliver the finishing blow. It is a wrong thing to do, especially if you know that your ally is capable of getting the kill himself.
Notice that the case is completely different if you help weakening the enemy. Using the case of Lord of Olympia, if you reduced approximatively 50% of an enemy's health, then you have perfect right to get the kill. It may be argued here that even if you reduced the enemy's health by only 20% you still have the right for the kill.
The case is also different if you kill a runaway hero that your ally can't get to, or if you ambush a weak enemy who has just killed one of your allies (who weakened the enemy in the first place).
In conclusion, if your ally is capable of getting a hero as much as you are, and you feel that he deserves the kill more than you do, you should probably let him have it.

-No picking of two heros

This is a bug that allows you to pick two heros at the start of the game. For obvious resons the process of how to do this will not be explained here. If you know it already, keep other players in mind when you are exploiting it because you are ruining the balance and the pleasure of DOTA by doing it.

-No banlisting for stupid reasons

Banlist is a list shared by frequent DOTA hosts that lists the names of players that are known to have disturbed DOTA games in the past (link to ballist: www.banlist.nl) If you are banlisted, you will probably have trouble getting into a DOTA game since hosts will not allow you join their games because of your reputation. Banlist is a useful tool, however if it falls in the wrong hands it can stirr more trouble than necessary. Although hosts don't often abuse the banlist, there is the occasional "bad" host that banlists people for no reason, or for petty, unimportant things (i.e. if the host is annoyed by a better player, or if the host has a grudge on that player, etc.). Banlist is not a toy and its use should not be based on your feelings. If you are a host which posseses banlist, try to keep this in mind when banlisting somebody.

-No taking items from a player who has left the game (disputable)

Here players have mixed feelings as of whether you should be allowed to do this. In custom public games hosted on Battle.net everybody performs this action and the turnout is even. In private games or in leagues it may be implied that taking items from players who have left the game is illegal. Make sure you are aware whether this rule is enforced or not before the game, but if nothing is said, this action should be assumed illegal (except for public custom games hosted on Battle.net).

-No stealing items from a teammate still playing

This is possible to do by picking up an item one of your allies has purpousely dropped in order to purchase something else. An ally will never put down an item he doesn't intend to use in the future, and picking up something that's not yours is stealing. Stealing is stupid because 99% of the time the item will be right next to its owner and your action will be seen. This may and probably will cause the rightful owner of the item to leave, and the game would be ruined.

-No petty/lame jokes intended for the purpouse of annoying your teammates

In life, if you attempt to annoy people on purpouse, the probability that you would get harmed is high. Same principle applies to DOTA. When you purpousely surround your allies with Prophet's "Sprout" ability, or when you try to block them with Earthshaker's "Fissure" ablity, or when you put them to sleep with Bane Elemental's "Nightmare" ablity, or when you imprison them with Obsidian Destroyer's "Astral Imprisonment" spell, or when you send them home with Holy Knight's "Test of Faith" ablity from one corner of the map to another when they didn't ask for it, chances are high that your allies will be very annoyed. The only way they can harm you in this case is to leave the game, and ruin it for you. The problem is that by doing so they would also ruin the game for eight other people; all because of your unthought-of actions. Again, try to keep others in mind before something as purpouseless as this.

-No Trashtalking

Some Warcraft III The Frozen Throne tournaments it is not allowed to behave in an uncivilized manner and throw out insults like a mindless cocaine addict. Doing so may cause you to be eliminated. Same thing applies to DOTA games. Although in public custom games hosted on Battle.net this rule is not severly enforced, it is implied that you should behave properly. By behaving erratically you may cause other players to
a). Be annoyed by you and leave.
b). Ban you
c). Kick you
d). Find you and beat you up
Nobody enjoys an agressive attitute, and if you keep your negative thoughts to yourself, you would be doing everybody a favor.

Make sure to voice your thoughts if you have anything to add or think something should be changed.

Thanks a lot for helping with the thread:
KhamBloodreign
SySShark
OldSlowHand
sammysperm
GuitaristsBane
etherlion
Dzzsky

[candyhyperalert]

what the fuck.
Since hwen are you not allowed to take items from heroes that have left / use them as chicken
and there's no such thing as killstealing (unless you're in pubs)
In ladder is there such thing as kill stealing?
no.
and dota is much more team oriented then ladder so . .
backdooring is allowed but not some of the buildings for tda ( forgot which ones)

[FatherTime]

I have been playing dota for three weeks more or less now, and one of the things I have been realizing these days is that banlists are just bullshit. Any fucking dork in battle.net that hosts can do anything he wants about that (as you stated) according to his level of foolishness, and I find very sad when a public game is about to start and, out of the blue, someone appears and says: "xxxxx is banned because of leaving, backdooring, etc..." and the guy is just kicked. Any prove?, anything solid that says you are not the bullshitter??
Fortunately, it is not like it should a reason for worry, because you can have as many accounts as you want and your IP changes everytime you log onto the net.

[slapper]

ok since when can people tell u want to do like YOU CANT LEAVE THE GAME!!! it gets on my nevrs i mean come on ive gotten banned for dota games cuz family problems and geting called in to work i mean come on its just a game right lighten up it really annoys me that people say no leaving some people like me have good reasons for leaving



just my 2 cents

[Moonflamen]

yea but for the other 4 u just ruined there game. IF u dont have time to play a full game Dont. If u leave cause of something important i understand but if ur losing and go fuck this and leave i hope u die in ur sleep :P my 2 cents

[candyhyperalert]

this is really funny
"no using allies heroes that have left"
"NO kilsltealign"
LOLOLOLOLOL
" no takign a hero's items that have left"
uhh......
"no backdooring"
...

[ShadowDrakeX]

The whole "No Maphacking" thing does make u lower than dirt but your wrong on a little f ur argument. Maphacking in a LADDER game will get ur cd key banned for LADDER only. You can maphack in custom games all you want and get reported a million times w/o getting banned. Thought u might want to know that :P.

[Wraique]

People who complain about kill stealing should be shot. I'm not just gonna micro my hero around like an idiot and wait for someone else to finish a hero, even if they did deal 99% of the damage, especially if they have the ability to blink away, invis, etc.

I don't care if Zues ults to finish someone I'm fighting. As long as they're dead and I'm not then I'm happy. Team game fellas.

[HaNdFisH]

People Kill Stealing in pubs can get VERY irritating, they dont actually help in any of the fighting. They just hang back with full mana and HP and whenever an enemy hero is low they nuke it for a kill.

Theres a difference between them running in and just nuking to help and them hanging around with full mana/hp and not helping unless they can nuke a 20 hp hero.

Good list, this pretty much sums up the unofficial rules most pub dotas go by.

[August23]

This is my Code of Dota Chilvary!!

[wag-Half-Light]

Backdoor is definitly allowed :P But it's still a sort of taboo in the game... amazing how players hate it... even more than mass towers in ladder^^

[Basics]

Originally Posted by t3h_pwnage

-No leaving - Agreed.
-No feeding - Agreed.
-No lagging - Agreed, although sometimes my internet connection just sucks.
-No maphacking - Agreed, 3rd party warez give you an unfair advantage in that you are no longer playing the same game as everyone else.
-No backdooring - Adamantly disagree. I disagree for several reasons. The first is that this is placing absurd restrictions on players, unlike disallowing maphacks, which are not a part of the game, by restricting backdooring, you're banning an intrinsic aspect of the game. In doing so, you prevent game evolution. If you ban everything that seems unfair, then people will never develop the intricate system of counters, and counter-counters which makes the competetive gaming scene so interesting. This rule stifles creativity, and makes for a stagnant metagame. I'm not implying that banning this (relatively) minor thing would change the game, but it's a slippery and arbitrary slope.

Second of all, backdooring is not a powerful strategy. If, for some reason, a tower has been left at 150 HP or something, there's nothing wrong with popping up to finish it, and its overall impact on the game is small. Moreover, and I would like to adamantly stress this, backdooring is very easily countered. How, you may ask? Boots of Travel or TP Scrolls. TP Scrolls are especially effective due to the low teleport time, and the invulnerability granted to the towers for the duration of the TP casting time. If you're quick to react, a backdoor attempt from a Level 17 Clinkz with his DR Aegis could be stifled in a matter of seconds. You can even arrive preemptively with good map sense and ward placement.

I oppose this proposition on principle, and because it is, in practice, absurd. Beastmaster, Vengeful Spirit, and Twin-Headed Dragon are all much more powerful than backdooring. Ban them? No. People can bitch about how I play all day long, but in the end the game only knows winners and losers.

-No using heros of left allies - Disagree. To me this one is just like "lol". Someone left my team so we're a man down. I choose to spread my focus across two heroes, that's my choice. I'm granted control of the hero for a reason. Lol, I'm just picturing someone saying in an RT game that controlling dropped allies is unfair... rofl. This is absurd.

-No custom kicking - Agreed. For the most part. I have a custom kick program just because there are some players with whom I would rather not deal.
-No creepjacking your allies - This is more of a courteousy thing, so sure. Although in a competetive fixture, this may be a good strategy.
-No Kill Stealing - See above.
-No picking of two heros - You could just say "No Glitch abuse." Agreed.
-No banlisting for stupid reasons - If it's my local banlist, I'll ban you for having too many vowels in your screen name, kthx.
-No taking items from a player who has left the game - Again, I'm granted control of dropped heroes for a reason.
-No stealing items from a teammate still playing - Again, a courteousy thing.
-No petty/lame jokes intended for the purpouse of annoying your teammates - This can be annoying.
-No Trashtalking - This is going to make me sound like an asshole, but I get a lot of my fun out of trashtalking in games, I mean bad trashtalking I resent on an almost professional level, just because it gives us seasoned shit talkers a bad name, but a well-executed insult, I don't see how you could have a problem with that. Unless you're a little sissy girl who can't take some name-calling. Lol. That's the problem with today's school system. Back in my day, if two kids had a problem, it was settled Marquis of Queensbury style. Now-a-days, you've got this no-tolerance shit that's probably responsible for the rising gay population. Sorry, I'm getting off on a tangeant here, but my point stands. Whatever it was.

So that concludes what I think of these rules.

[candyhyperalert]

y7eah i agree w/ u
i find it absolutely ridiculous u can't use an ally hero that left or u can't take it's items..

[Turbo164]

I also dispute the 'no use leaver'. As annoying as it is to die to a NPC Zues, it's even more annoying losing a game because 2/5 of your team left for soccer practice and you 'aren't allowed' to use the heros that Icefrog programmed to be under your control.

[N!Jr]

I thought the rules are finished a loooooooooooooooooong time ago. Anyways gotta agree on most of the points stated.
EDIT: ok my bad, checked the post date it was on 2006 if I'm not wrg. Saw the thread was in red so yea. -.-

[ffa.smerbeck]

Hehehe, some of these are silly. Any way to update/edit this thread?

[EnmityOwnsDotA]

Frankly if an ally left, I'll take their items and then use their hero anyway!

If DotA is a team game, it's a team's items, and the team's hero.

[Synapsis]

-No Trashtalking - This is going to make me sound like an asshole, but I get a lot of my fun out of trashtalking in games, I mean bad trashtalking I resent on an almost professional level, just because it gives us seasoned shit talkers a bad name, but a well-executed insult, I don't see how you could have a problem with that. Unless you're a little sissy girl who can't take some name-calling. Lol. That's the problem with today's school system. Back in my day, if two kids had a problem, it was settled Marquis of Queensbury style. Now-a-days, you've got this no-tolerance shit that's probably responsible for the rising gay population. Sorry, I'm getting off on a tangeant here, but my point stands. Whatever it was.

Hmmm, you don't think some may find that offensive...?

[doink]

Most of these unofficial rules are incorrect and do not take into account all aspects of dota. Feeding is the act of giving the other team gold by constantly dying, it has nothing to do with whether it is deliberate. Backdooring is not against any rules, it is a legitimate strategy, the rule is that you cannot teleport into somebodies base and backdoor with heroes such as Furion. The selling leavers items and/or using leavers is a double edged sword, you can sell the items and not use the hero or you can use the hero and leave the items, it doesn't go both ways.

I 100% agree with the rest and especially with the trash talk, it is so stupid, cut it out.

[teapot]

Actually from what i understand you are not allowed to backdoor barracks or the tree with any hero.