Upcoming XP Changes

[Nerraw]

Upcoming XP Changes
Following this week's PTR update containing some changes to the experience system, Blizzard has made a short post to address concerns.

Hello Heroes -

We wanted to take a moment to address some of the concerns from our community about the experience updates on PTR this week. As with all of our balance changes, the Heroes team spends months internally playtesting and iterating before bringing these changes to PTR for further feedback from our players. Now that PTR is live, our team has been hard at work monitoring the new 2019 experience updates and listening to feedback. Based on this feedback and data, the team is currently exploring making some revisions to the 2019 experience updates to include more incentives for taking Forts and Keeps. We are currently iterating on these changes internally and plan to release an update to the 2019 experience changes in next week’s patch. While we don’t have additional information to share about these changes just yet, know that we are listening and that your feedback is incredibly valuable.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to try out these changes on the PTR and provided feedback. Keep an eye out for more information next week.

[The Stormbringer]

Hopefully they at least partially revert the change. As someone who loves laning, this was a real downer.

[Triceron]

Hopefully they at least partially revert the change. As someone who loves laning, this was a real downer.

Agreed.

I play vsAI almost exclusively. I relish being able to 'game the system' and get ahead in the game by denying the AI experience and getting advantages for easy kills. I feel that these balance changes will also affect the vsAI games and make a simply comp stomp be more drawn out for no reason. Even if the AI is super stupid, it's going to have a better chance of making games last longer for the sake of less snowball in competitive mode.

But what is really wrong with the snowball? Isn't that the reward for early game good play?

[Charge me Doctor]

I dislike the passive exp bonus as compensation for removal of exp for turrets and forts. They basically removed a part of decision making for early game situations, when you are behind and are able to skip objective in favor of taking down a fort. Now i have no excuse to make my team stall in a 4vs5 situation on a curse to quickly get fort down and get that sweet sweet level 7 talent.

It's just disappointing change.

And all things considered - hanamura scout camp will be a beast exp-vice, i'm very concerned about early game oriented setups abusing this shit to the maximum (aka, your team is behind and incapable of taking scout camp for desperately needed vision, because enemy will instantly retake it while mopping said camp with your face for kill exp AND camp exp again)

[bigbleach]

Agreed.

I play vsAI almost exclusively. I relish being able to 'game the system' and get ahead in the game by denying the AI experience and getting advantages for easy kills. I feel that these balance changes will also affect the vsAI games and make a simply comp stomp be more drawn out for no reason. Even if the AI is super stupid, it's going to have a better chance of making games last longer for the sake of less snowball in competitive mode.

But what is really wrong with the snowball? Isn't that the reward for early game good play?

Sooo... you want your bot games to be easier..? Which is almost exclusively play..? I really don't get it.

[Triceron]

Sooo... you want your bot games to be easier..? Which is almost exclusively play..? I really don't get it.

I want it to stay the same? Not sure what there is not to get.

I like having options for quick games, options to comp stomp. If I want longer games, I pump up the AI. If EXP is more equalized, then it raises the lower bar, potentially making quick games take longer than normal.

This already happened when they boosted the AI of games, but that can be worked around by gaming the AI. But if EXP is being changed, then there's less ways of getting a strict advantage. There's no real workaround to that.

For perspective, I used to play HOTS more competitively but since I got married my gaming time has dropped dramatically. I limit myself to about 4 hours a week, and I spend that efficiently on completing quests so that I can still unlock new characters that become available. Many days, quick games to complete quests is all I can afford to do, or sometimes I want to get stuff done quick so I can squeeze in a weekly Brawl. Quick match is easily 25-40 minute time investment, and any other league spends too much time picking comps than actually in the game.

Time is the biggest issue for me, not challenge. Good Elite AI games can squeeze in fast 5-6 minute games, but often harder AI games tend to either have players wanting to soak EXP or players who may not be as good as they think pushing game lengths into 20+ min. I don't even bother LFG vsAI in chat, it wastes too much time when there's no events.

[NoiseTank13]

But what is really wrong with the snowball? Isn't that the reward for early game good play?

Because Blizzard marketed the game heavily with the 'comeback' mechanics and even made the "6.5" meme from the idiot IGN reviewer, but lately what the reviewer said had become more and more relevant. If for any reason the enemy team got two or more levels above you, you are pretty stuck on relying not on your personal or teams skill, but relying on the chance the enemy team makes a big boo-boo, which is not likely to happen and doesn't make for compelling gameplay to have to rely on the enemy decisions to do anything. And, if they do manage to make a mistake, or an opening shows up, it's still in their favor because of the added HP, damage, healing and even talent tier advantages will allow them to disengage, or worse, make your team wipe, compounding the snowball even further.

I always sort of felt like my team was mostly done for if they were level 18 to their 20, because soaking lanes to get to 20 while trying not to get into a teamfight felt excruciatingly long and slow, putting you on the defensive for too long is really demoralizing, especially since the enemy team can mostly ignore your fortifications to pick people off trying to get exp.

Was what Blizzard trying to do with this exp changes the way? I don't think so myself, I think the problem is really a lot more complicated than that. Objective strength, fortification strength, hero scaling, etc.,

But at the moment it really does feel like the moment a team gets three levels ahead that the game is decided barring a derp contest among the enemy team. You can argue that it's the reward for being skilled, but it does fly into the face of Blizzards whole "there's always a chance, theres no need for a surrender option" mentality.

[The Stormbringer]

Agreed.

I play vsAI almost exclusively. I relish being able to 'game the system' and get ahead in the game by denying the AI experience and getting advantages for easy kills. I feel that these balance changes will also affect the vsAI games and make a simply comp stomp be more drawn out for no reason. Even if the AI is super stupid, it's going to have a better chance of making games last longer for the sake of less snowball in competitive mode.

But what is really wrong with the snowball? Isn't that the reward for early game good play?

My friends and I like to do bot matches too when we're having more relaxed nights, so I definitely agree.

[Triceron]

But at the moment it really does feel like the moment a team gets three levels ahead that the game is decided barring a derp contest among the enemy team. You can argue that it's the reward for being skilled, but it does fly into the face of Blizzards whole "there's always a chance, theres no need for a surrender option" mentality.

I don't know if this is the way to go about it though. Catchup mechanics are good for making comebacks a thing, but there's not enough punishment to capitalize on early game advantages as it is. In most competitive cases, the follow up to a successful team fight is.. pressing the advantage by taking mercs. Play it more safe. Either case, this isn't enough to secure an advantage knowing how the game can hinge on a late-game team fight where lvl 20 heroics are involved.

And that's kind of why I think these changes affects my personal play because these balance changes seem to be made to ensure the end-game is balanced, but inadvertantly will make all games last longer by equalizing team levels and reducing the early game level gap. I don't intend to reach lvl 20 in my games and I don't see any alternative to gaining early game advantages other than choosing heroes good at taking merc camps or pushing towers.

[Charge me Doctor]

I want it to stay the same? Not sure what there is not to get.

I like having options for quick games, options to comp stomp. If I want longer games, I pump up the AI. If EXP is more equalized, then it raises the lower bar, potentially making quick games take longer than normal.

I'm making a wild guess that AI games won't be changed much by this, since you have uncontested access to all merc camps in those this may be a buff overall

- - - Updated - - -

For perspective, I used to play HOTS more competitively but since I got married my gaming time has dropped dramatically. I limit myself to about 4 hours a week, and I spend that efficiently on completing quests so that I can still unlock new characters that become available. Many days, quick games to complete quests is all I can afford to do, or sometimes I want to get stuff done quick so I can squeeze in a weekly Brawl. Quick match is easily 25-40 minute time investment, and any other league spends too much time picking comps than actually in the game.

Pile up your quests and do 3 ranked games - done for next 3 days if those are that important to you. Not teaching you how to do stuff, i just realize that not everyone know that you can complete quests faster in ranked games, since you complete all those "play 3 games a a support/tank/diablo" quests all at the same time

- - - Updated - - -

But what is really wrong with the snowball? Isn't that the reward for early game good play?

Quick answer - opponent should have a chance to fight back, or it's HoMM3 multiplayer all over again, when you lose/win with your main army and your cities get ran over / you run over all enemy cities, because enemy have to spend 4-6 weeks of recruiting to get his stuff back, while you also get these weeks of recruitment.

You really don't want snowballing get out of hand, and i don't believe that in current iteration of hots there is a problem with snowballing. There is still a problem with all this post-ammo and "specialists are no more!" thing that they desperately try to fix, but snowballing is kinda contained at this point, and you get roflstomped only be being counterpicked HARD or simply outplayed.

[Deleted]

(disclaimer: I read about the planned changes, was disgusted, but didn't touch PTR)

Meh.

Reddit is such a filter bubble, where a few accounts spamming the same shit again and again and again can leave the impression of a divided community.

On the other hand when the hive mind tends to agree on stuff, more often than not, reddit is right. Like in this case. Hopefully they listen in the face of overwhelming complaints, but don't set a precedent for letting reddit design their game.

[Charge me Doctor]

If for any reason the enemy team got two or more levels above you, you are pretty stuck on relying not on your personal or teams skill, but relying on the chance the enemy team makes a big boo-boo, which is not likely to happen and doesn't make for compelling gameplay to have to rely on the enemy decisions to do anything. And, if they do manage to make a mistake, or an opening shows up, it's still in their favor because of the added HP, damage, healing and even talent tier advantages will allow them to disengage, or worse, make your team wipe, compounding the snowball even further.

That's a nature of dota-like games. If you manage to get an advantage and keep it - you win. Without it these games become a 100 minute slogfest of push-pullback (dota 2 reference inb4 people yelling at me that hots games don't get to 100 minutes).

If your team managed to get 2 levels behind by making wrong decisions over and over again (because in current system if your Genji eats the "abbatur bait" and dies at level 14, then instead of pulling back you decide to dive in 4v5 and die) enemy team gets an advantage, then does nothing with it - they basically throw it out of the window, because you'll catch up in an instant, but if you keep doing that and enemy team capitalizes on your mistakes by making right calls for pushing/mercing/objective'ing -you're screwed, like you are supposed to.

Add in there a various power spike points for various heroes and hero combinations you get a lot of variables.

- - - Updated - - -

I always sort of felt like my team was mostly done for if they were level 18 to their 20, because soaking lanes to get to 20 while trying not to get into a teamfight felt excruciatingly long and slow, putting you on the defensive for too long is really demoralizing, especially since the enemy team can mostly ignore your fortifications to pick people off trying to get exp.

Maybe these sorts of games aren't for you, if losing puts you down so much. Losing is part of a game, you can't play a game and expect to not-lose. At some point you'll be the underdog and thankfully you are able to get out of this situation.

Pick vulnerable heroes who travel alone trying to reinforce lanes.
Don't be afraid to teamfight on your terms. Aka, don't get baited and murdurrd, force enemy presence to lanes opposing those where your siege mercs are marching. Force enemy presence to lanes where bruiser mercs are marching (those 30% spellshields easily beat HP advantage of two levels).
Actively seek for opportunities, don't just fall back 1/3/1 on lanes and hope for the best (protip, your 1/3/1 this late of the game will become a 0/3/0 and 0/0/0 a bit later. Or dead core.)
There are very limited amount of characters that able their team to ignore fortifications (johanna (D-skill), arthas (ultimate), blaze (ultimate), probius (cannon) comes to mind first), so unless people you are talking about weren't picked before retreating to fortifications (which is the case most likely, they've got into Li Ming orb + missile face first, then thought "OH SHIT", tried to run away and got intercepted under fortifications at 10% HP on their way to the well). If enemy managed to kill you under forts - they properly measured theirs and your strengths, made a decision and got rewarded for it. If they would measure it wrong (say, trying to dive unwounded probius at level 10 with cannon build - good fucking luck with getting away from that as soon as your tank will start crumbling) - they would get punished.

- - - Updated - - -

But at the moment it really does feel like the moment a team gets three levels ahead that the game is decided barring a derp contest among the enemy team. You can argue that it's the reward for being skilled, but it does fly into the face of Blizzards whole "there's always a chance, theres no need for a surrender option" mentality.

I've personally won multiple games from being behind (not getting an advantage back, but literally winning 20 lvl against 22 lvl by outsmarting opponent, sacrificing players and dropping permanent gates as probius to put enemy into a fork situation where they force a fight and lose a keep or retreat to defend keep and lose objective/mercs) and i'm 100% sure there are multiple examples of the same happening in your experience, you just don't remember them because that's how our brains work

- - - Updated - - -

I don't know if this is the way to go about it though. Catchup mechanics are good for making comebacks a thing, but there's not enough punishment to capitalize on early game advantages as it is. In most competitive cases, the follow up to a successful team fight is.. pressing the advantage by taking mercs. Play it more safe. Either case, this isn't enough to secure an advantage knowing how the game can hinge on a late-game team fight where lvl 20 heroics are involved.

It's not always the case of lvl 20 heroics. Some heroes have gamechanging heroics pre lvl 20, when you are 2 levels behind (6 vs 8) and everything is doom and gloom, but suddenly its 7 vs 8 lvl and you roflstomp enemy on next objective, because your Li Ming got Calamity.

And that's kind of why I think these changes affects my personal play because these balance changes seem to be made to ensure the end-game is balanced, but inadvertantly will make all games last longer by equalizing team levels and reducing the early game level gap. I don't intend to reach lvl 20 in my games and I don't see any alternative to gaining early game advantages other than choosing heroes good at taking merc camps or pushing towers.

I agree on that, early game will be worse because of that change. You won't be able to close "gaps" in exp by taking down forts anymore. Mercs are new forts and it's almost impossible to fight for them when enemy has an advantage.

[caervek]

Because Blizzard marketed the game heavily with the 'comeback' mechanics

Blizzard also designed and marketed the game as a non-competitive alternative to LoL/DotA focused on Quick Match play, then later decided they wanted some of that sweet sweet E-sport cash.

HotS 2.0 isn't the same game as HotS, and 2019 HotS is going to be different again. This is the sad end result of anyone who stands out being promoted to work on a more important IP, leading to game design/direction changing on an almost annual basis

- - - Updated - - -

I'm making a wild guess that AI games won't be changed much by this, since you have uncontested access to all merc camps in those this may be a buff overall

Elite AI are actually much more skilled than the "average" player you see in HotS. That's why DC'd players are replaced by Adept AI so not to give the team who lost somebody an advantage.

[Nerraw]

(disclaimer: I read about the planned changes, was disgusted, but didn't touch PTR)

Meh.

Reddit is such a filter bubble, where a few accounts spamming the same shit again and again and again can leave the impression of a divided community.

On the other hand when the hive mind tends to agree on stuff, more often than not, reddit is right. Like in this case. Hopefully they listen in the face of overwhelming complaints, but don't set a precedent for letting reddit design their game.

It's not just reddit, it's the pro players as well. I haven't seen a single professional player who's in favor of the changes.

[Charge me Doctor]

Elite AI are actually much more skilled than the "average" player you see in HotS. That's why DC'd players are replaced by Adept AI so not to give the team who lost somebody an advantage.

I can't agree with that. Elite AI is incomparable to human players and i didn't found it to be much smarter than whatever the smartest AI used to be before that

[Deleted]

I can't agree with that. Elite AI is incomparable to human players and i didn't found it to be much smarter than whatever the smartest AI used to be before that

indeed Elite AI is still terrible, they always hit their skillshots and reaction times are inhuman yes. but the decision making is still so bad that losing vs AI is nearly impossible no matter if nova hits all snipes and you get insta pollied dashing in as genji.

[caervek]

indeed Elite AI is still terrible, they always hit their skillshots and reaction times are inhuman yes. but the decision making is still so bad that losing vs AI is nearly impossible

You're agreeing with the guy disagreeing with me, but backing up what I said xD

They have the same decision making as the average human player you will encounter in 2018, but don't miss as much, that makes them better :P

[TEHPALLYTANK]

You're agreeing with the guy disagreeing with me, but backing up what I said xD

They have the same decision making as the average human player you will encounter in 2018, but don't miss as much, that makes them better :P

Imenion is not not backing up what you said; you're claiming that the average human player is just as poor when it comes to decision making as the AI is. They only criticized the AI's capacity for decision making, they said nothing of the decision making of players.

[DesoPL]

This is changes for no one asked for.

[therealstegblob]

HotS is a mess at this point and while I maintain it's the most playable of all the MOBAs, even Dota 2 seems more coherent than it anymore.

HotS has a lot of comeback potential (out of all the MOBAs I've played it's the one where you can end matches the fastest and even though almost every objective sucks ass compared to raw pushing, you can always manage to win an objective even when you're behind in levels, unless the enemy team is both ahead in levels and does nothing wrong, which is a rare anomaly even in the highest levels of play) but there is a huge issue with how big of a problem being behind is levels is. In other MOBAs, if the enemy team is doing well but one of their players is performing poorly you at least have a weakest link in the chain to exploit. In HotS, there's no such thing as being underleveled or underfarmed. The enemy team is one mono-leveled blob.

Laning in HotS is stupid and I'm for any change that gets rid of it. The game is simply not designed to play like LoL or DotA, outside of hopping into a lane to absorb some xp. Then the brainless HotS drones have the audacity to whine that a hero like Mal'ganis or Yrel is SO BROKEN SO OP because "they're a good laner" in a game where you barely lane. What a miserable game and an even more miserable playerbase.