HOTS - A Year in and issues still unaddressed

[Muis]

They've been talking about Grandmaster for 6 months or something though, maybe longer? A great example of Blizzard's "soon".

Difference being that they wanted to keep the ranking system as it is now and then have GM status.
Now they just want to revamp 50-1 entirely.

[ophion1990]

Difference being that they wanted to keep the ranking system as it is now and then have GM status.
Now they just want to revamp 50-1 entirely.

All I saw different there was grandmaster because I'm so adjusted to Bronze-Master rankings. xD You're right, sorry. That's definitly good news.

[Slant]

I have no idea how what you just said relates to what you quoted.

It does, actually, since I talked about changes to the HL system and you basically just said you play HL for reasons unrelated to what I talked about. Good for you. No idea who's missing the point in the first place.

[Frozen Death Knight]

They've been talking about Grandmaster for 6 months or something though, maybe longer? A great example of Blizzard's "soon".

Brackets were not on the table until this announcement. It seems that Dustin is indicating a system that is a bit more like StarCraft 2 where you go through Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, and Grandmaster League.

We'll see how many brackets there will be, but this will be an improvement from the 50-1 ladder ranking system we have currently. I am just hoping for an official ladder board where we don't have to rely on 3rd party sources to see how we are placed in each bracket when compared to other players. Basically how StarCraft 2 does it that is. =P

[Slant]

You play games to get a make believe score on an imaginary board so you can show off to all the nobody in the world who cares?

What do you mean money anyway? If I'm playing to unlock heroes obviously that means with gold.

Skins?

/10char

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You said no one does it and asked, "What for?" so I gave a couple reasons. Dunno why you found that objectionable.

Ok, I'll break it down in detail...

I said "LOL, we're still in preseason. Can hardly call that a proper ladder, nothing's happening. Most serious players don't even play HL anymore. What for?"

First, I'm talking about serious players, actually I was thinking of Pros that act as examples to strive for, but I was happy to include just really good non-pros that populate a ladder in the higher ranks with good play. With the question "What for?" I was gunning for some sort of reward system, an incentive that basically every ranked play in every game has. If it's only the number of the rank so you can later say "Yes, I was #17 in 1st season!"

But let's see what you answered:

"I play HL because the queues are faster and you actually get to draft/pick. Not because of the ranking system."

So, you're by your own admission not a serious player. You're just in the HL because you happen to like the pre-game draft/pick. The ranks themselves are not as interesting to you as simply the mere fact that you can draft. I can understand that, but it's hardly "serious laddering". I'll give you that you did answer the general "What for?". I should have specifiied further instead of letting it hang there like a general question open for basically any kind of answer.

Then I proceeded to respond:

"Okay, great. Are you representative for the entire population, though? There are a metric ton of things missing from the game and it's high time Blizzard did something about that instead of just pumping heroes into the game that hey can cash in on immediately."

Here, I am pointing out that while you have a valid point, you're not the group I'm talking about, nor do I think you're part of a meaningful group. I phrase it as a question to give you a chance to enter that part of the debate and to make it a bit less harsh than "I don't care what you do". Then I am again pointing out the underlying issues about Blizzard seemingly getting more results when the cash shop is involved and next to no results when it's not. I am trying to get the discussion back to where I got interested in it, when someone pointed out this discrepancy in development results, because that was an actual insight for me. I kinda knew it before, but this one post a few pages back brought it to my attention more sharply.

"I have no idea how what you just said relates to what you quoted."

Now, this is a bit of a break. You're verbally holding a giant stop sign up to me, telling me I'm missing the point. So I look back! And realise, no I'm not. I'm pretty concise about what I want to say. So....

"It does, actually, since I talked about changes to the HL system and you basically just said you play HL for reasons unrelated to what I talked about. Good for you. No idea who's missing the point in the first place."

Here I tell you exactly what I'm telling you now, what I'm talking about. And then I point out unsuccessfully that I suspect you miss the point and that I'm dismissing your personal anecdote to give you a strong sign that you should get back on my track, since I'm controlling the topic of this tiny back and forth.

"You said no one does it and asked, "What for?" so I gave a couple reasons. Dunno why you found that objectionable."

And that's where we are now.

Sooooo, still got questions? I think it's pointless to talk about the shortcomings of Blizzard at this point, but I found it rather amusing to show you exactly why I don't think I mis-responded. I think you narrowed my concern down to a tiny little thing that concerns you and blew it out of proportion to make your personal experience more important than it is in the context of Blizzard "missing to do stuff!"

The fact that they announced the new ladder system, btw. Kinda nice, but announcements haven't really changed gameplay much in any game. They've "announced" season 1 for over a year now. :P

[Mormolyce]

Skins?

/10char

Hero skins brah :P

I do actually buy shitloads of regular skins though, it's just not relevant to my original comment.

[Slant]

Hero skins brah :P

I do actually buy shitloads of regular skins though, it's just not relevant to my original comment.

So do I. Not saying you can't buy skins. I love the skins and think they're actually worth the money and the price. But... that feeling of "it's worth it, because I'm here long term" is waning more the longer they take with the essential game changes that they need to implement to retain the majority of serious players, be they casual or hardcore. The guys that care about the game.

Things me and my mates discuss frequently:

- Observer cam for matches others are playing live (think watching your friend play while you wait for him to finish his game, or watching the finals on your own computer!)
- A season to start (the preseason tag needs to go, no debate about that)
- Incentives for ladders (like a portrait displaying your bracket or something)
- Tie-in of ladder into competetive play (seeding based on Grandmaster rankings in team league for example)
- Better stat pages
- Ingame information about current eSport events (yes, ingame, not in the launcher, IN THE GAME, so i can watch the game IN THE GAME, see above)
- Ingame tournament system where people can build their own little tournaments for their friends... imagine our very own MMO-C HotS tourney.. with bragging rights on this forum as a reward

Many if not most of those things are considered basic by now in the competitors. And while I share the rebellious sentiment of "doing things differently", those are good things, those are things you don't want to change. They're things that help the community develop as a community.

And the fact that two of the main hosts of the most popular heroes podcast are now quitting (reading between the lines, they see no future in the game) is a bit worrying. Now, for the super casual dude, logging in once a week to play two games this is of no concern... but as I said for WoW a hundred times, nobody is interested much in the opinion of the dude logging in once a week when they're talking about things concerning the people that play every day or multiple times a week, as time allows.

[Mormolyce]

- Observer cam for matches others are playing live (think watching your friend play while you wait for him to finish his game, or watching the finals on your own computer!)

That would be cool.

- A season to start (the preseason tag needs to go, no debate about that)
- Incentives for ladders (like a portrait displaying your bracket or something)
- Tie-in of ladder into competetive play (seeding based on Grandmaster rankings in team league for example)

I get that these things are important to other people than me :P

- Better stat pages

Would also like.

- Ingame information about current eSport events (yes, ingame, not in the launcher, IN THE GAME, so i can watch the game IN THE GAME, see above)
- Ingame tournament system where people can build their own little tournaments for their friends... imagine our very own MMO-C HotS tourney.. with bragging rights on this forum as a reward

Yes that would be nice. I think DoTA2 does a lot of that sort of thing yeah? From what I hear Valve has really mastered the whole community engagement side of things and that's why they have such die hard fans. Blizzard could certainly take some pages from their playbook.

[Strangewayes]

I see a lot of people have been talking about how to fix HOTS while I've been away.

I really don't think Blizz will ever change the current shared XP/no items thing. I mean it's good that you like LoL or DOTA, but I really think at its essence the HOTS version of doing things has potential if the devs ever bothered to do anything about relative power levels and health of objectives vs camps vs towers etc.

But when HOTS first came out I thought Blizz would be able to balance maps, towers, objectives so that everyone grouping up and going for the objective was not always the thing to do no matter what Hero you were. I expected over time that Blizz might allow players to strategise and not always take the objective, or only send 1-2 guys because other things were more important. Perhaps mounts in the game is what really hurt things, since you can get anywhere you need to be in a few seconds, players can't really commit to a part of the map.

Perhaps I just expected too much of Blizzard. Maybe the game was never meant to be that deep. Perhaps they don't even care, who knows?

But the simple fact that this game is running on such an old engine which is apparently so hard to modify that you may not see basic features for years? It's just embarrassing.

And I see a lot of people suggesting ideas for incentives for ladders and such. All great ideas, but I'm just waiting for Blizz to fix some of the most basic things of online competitve gaming.

[Slant]

I see a lot of people have been talking about how to fix HOTS while I've been away.

I really don't think Blizz will ever change the current shared XP/no items thing. I mean it's good that you like LoL or DOTA, but I really think at its essence the HOTS version of doing things has potential if the devs ever bothered to do anything about relative power levels and health of objectives vs camps vs towers etc.

But when HOTS first came out I thought Blizz would be able to balance maps, towers, objectives so that everyone grouping up and going for the objective was not always the thing to do no matter what Hero you were. I expected over time that Blizz might allow players to strategise and not always take the objective, or only send 1-2 guys because other things were more important. Perhaps mounts in the game is what really hurt things, since you can get anywhere you need to be in a few seconds, players can't really commit to a part of the map.

Perhaps I just expected too much of Blizzard. Maybe the game was never meant to be that deep. Perhaps they don't even care, who knows?

But the simple fact that this game is running on such an old engine which is apparently so hard to modify that you may not see basic features for years? It's just embarrassing.

And I see a lot of people suggesting ideas for incentives for ladders and such. All great ideas, but I'm just waiting for Blizz to fix some of the most basic things of online competitve gaming.

While I'm one of the guys poking Blizz for not doing enough, your main gripe seems to be that HotS is HotS. You're complaining about everything that makes it not LoL/Dota. Team XP is good, most people agree. You don't have to take objectives all the time, in fact on Infernal Shrines, many people advocate ignoring the first 1-2 Punishers in favor of soaking xp if the other team is sending 5 people to capture. That's a meta thing at the moment, Blizz doesn't need to fix that. And the main reason they have objectives is to force team fights, which is something most of us understand. If you want a slow paced strategical MOBA with slow buildup, LoL is the game you're looking for, not HotS. It'll never be that slow. The entire point of HotS design philosophy is to have action right out the gate.

[Strangewayes]

If you want a slow paced strategical MOBA with slow buildup, LoL is the game you're looking for, not HotS. It'll never be that slow. The entire point of HotS design philosophy is to have action right out the gate.

Then why do Specialists even exist if the only real game changer is the team fight?

[apepi]

I think you failed to realize for what purpose Hots was made - its objective is to make money. It wasn't for e-sports/competitive play since even comparing it to checkers/chess analogy doesn't even starts to describe how watered down it is.

It's a fun game to fuck around in HL during the weekend - like pounding people who can't even properly stutterstep . That's it. expecting anything beyond that from game like this is just unreasonable. It's all about getting in people who refuse to learn anything more "complex" than right clicking fountain and get them to pay 10$ for that new champion.

But you fail to realize one thing. Esports ends up getting them money from the publicity.

[minteK917]

You expected the game to be anything but a rip off to get a quick buck on fanboys that would suck any dick with a blizzard employee attached to it. Luckily thats not a whole lot of people, when ever i try to queue in America, ranked or unranked its always 10-15 minute queue times lol. This game has the community activity similar to games thats been out for half a decade. In short, who gives a shit anymore?

Infracted

[Deleted]

But you fail to realize one thing. Esports ends up getting them money from the publicity.

Not much of a publicity considering how much money they are pumping in to "marketing". Thing is, the moment Blizz stops the money flow - any kind of competitive scene will die out. Hirez could leave behind Smite, Riot could abandon LoL - and still competitions would live on - THAT'S the difference.

Hots is not going anywhere any time as a casual game though, it can be fun and I guess what drives numbers the most is "Blizz universe" experience - which tbh.. I like also.

[Nikkaszal]

Then why do Specialists even exist if the only real game changer is the team fight?

You misunderstood what you were quoting. LoL is SLOW. Very, very slow. Outside a level 1 invade, you will rarely ever see full teamfight before the 10-15min mark. The first 6-8 minutes of the game are about farming your lane and posturing with your lane opponent, swooping in for a kill if they make a mistake or your jungler swings by for a gank. Then you go back to farming. Then you farm some more.

And you do this veeeeeeery very slowly, not damaging minions much outside of last hits because you don't want to shove your lane too far too early.

Compare to HotS where objectives will come up in the first minute or two. You leave lane, join with your team and most likely have a skirmish fight over the objectives. And that will happen again and again, constantly.

The point is it's a MUCH faster paced game. The laning phase in LoL is so hideously protracted and boring, especially when two very safe lane partners face off against each other. You're stuck there last hitting forever, you don't want to leave unless you're ABSOLUTELY sure you can get a quick kill somewhere because otherwise your counterpart will overtake you on farm. So you sit in lane hitting minions again and again and again until you have enough gold to buy the items you need to start rolling over people.

[Strangewayes]

So you are saying its impossible to have strategy in HOTS because its too fast?

[Nikkaszal]

So you are saying its impossible to have strategy in HOTS because its too fast?

What the hell are you talking about?

[Slant]

Then why do Specialists even exist if the only real game changer is the team fight?

Options. Specialists give you options. And some of them do some mean hero dmg as well, take Zagara. I'm sure everyone has a different opinion about what specialists are supposed to do, but personally, I think they exist to create pressure for the other team. Take merc camps solo, push a tower solo here and there, just to force the opponent into making defensive decisions. Sure, assassins like Ming can do the same, but those classifications are not set in stone anyway. I wouldn't get hung up over what Blizzard considers a specialists or an assassin.

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So you are saying its impossible to have strategy in HOTS because its too fast?

Nobody said that. I said if you want a slow paced strategical MOBA, you're looking at LoL, while HotS gives you action starting at lv 1 most of the times. That doesn't mean there is no strategy involved. But strategy in HotS revolves around objectives a lot more than in LoL, where taking the dragon or the baron is often only done as an afterthought in an opportune moment in early to midgame. It'll be very late in the game when both teams actually posture around dragon or baron with the sole intent to create a teamfight there.

In HotS, you'll have to make that decision before 2 minutes most of the time. Fight or flight? Take objective or ignore it and take towers? Soak lanes instead perhaps? By the time you have teamfights be a majore thing in a typical LoL game, most HotS games are already over.

TL;DR: The word "strategical" is not the crucial bit you should start overanalysing, the main point I was trying to make was the pace of both games.