PROJECT

Dota 2 Chatbot: Homie

BACKGROUND

DotaHomie is a voice assistant chatbot designed to assist new players in starting their journey in Dota2.

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As one of the most popular MOBA(multiplayer online battle arena) games in the market today, Dota2 is facing a decline in players due to its level of difficulty and worsening community environment for beginners.

For this project, I developed a chatbot that is targeted at new users and beginners.

Process

Observations
Interview

Survey

Persona

Brainstorm

Sample utterances

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Scripts that shows bot's key capabilitieses

Set of flows & prompts

Prototype

User Testing

Research

Survey

Using Google Form with 9 questions | Total of 47 participants

Recruit from: Pratt listserv, Dota chatbox, friends, Linkedin,

44%

45%

67%

67%

66%

play with friends

train to improve

play game often

communicate with teammates

often

think chatbot is useful tool for their game

Observe a group

I collected the players’ feedback from Reddits, in the game, DotaFromZero, and reviews. All reviews and feedback are by the Dota players. There are a lot of great feedback from Steam’s Dota review because it also displayed the amount of time the players have played. I also observed the DotaFromZero forum to understand the questions that are most often asked by the new players. I participated in the game to fully grasp the gaming atmosphere to know how players communicate with others and the pace of the game. 

Interview

Interview (1) Dota player in-person for the insights of the game with 3 questions

Dota2 does not attract as many new players as for example its competitor League of Legends due to the incredibly difficult entry and underwhelming new player experience.

Insights

Fans have criticized the lack of a good introduction and better tutorials for years. The community partly tackled the problem themselves, giving beginners a platform to learn with projects such as the Learn Dota 2 League or DotaFromZero, where they could gather, play against other newbies and get help from more experienced players.

Many players comment that the game itself is a good game but the community is not friendly, especially if you are not that good at it. 

Online Comments

Meet our Homie

DotaHomie is a chatbot that is designed for Dota2. The goal is to assist beginners to quickly understand the game and provide recommendations both within the game and out of the game; also, a quick information-gathering tool. 

Benchmark

Fast

It is a very intense game; the chatbot is there to provide a quick solution for beginners and those who are unfamiliar with the interface.

Direct

The assistant is very streamlined. There is not much option but confirmation. 

Always available 

It’s always around for new users to use when they are in or out of the game.