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Heroes of the Storm |OT| Pretty sure that Abathur is AFK
- Thread starter Nirolak
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RumblingRosco
Member
This is based on number of unique matches, right? How long is a DOTA2 match compared to a HOTS match? Maybe 30 minutes on average (DOTA2) instead of 18 minutes on average (HOTS)? It's still a good sign that HOTS is rising, but I was at first surprised to see it so close to DOTA2 but I think that's the major reason why.
jaundicejuice
Member
I'd say 45 min average for Dota 2, or at least that was my experience in nearly 2000 hours of play (which is nothing compared to what some of the dedicated Dota 2 players on GAF are probably at). 30 mins or less in Dota 2 is one team getting face rolled early and hard. That's things going badly in all of the lanes.
Probably not that accurate either for some games, I've never even heard of Overwolf overlay before, which is what is collecting the statistics. But, having a look at it, it seems to offer 'addons' for different games in the form of an overlay, so I'd imagine that means more people will use the overlay if the game has a lot of apps for it. There seems to be a lot of Guild Wars 2 apps, so I'd imagine that's how it's above Dota 2. Unless Guild Wars 2 is significantly more popular than I realised.
I'd also imagine it doesn't mean matches, the overlay probably won't be integrated enough in a lot of those games to understand what a match inside the game is. It most likely means just play session, so someone launching the game and playing.
I'd also imagine it doesn't mean matches, the overlay probably won't be integrated enough in a lot of those games to understand what a match inside the game is. It most likely means just play session, so someone launching the game and playing.
Session time is the amount of time someone spends from when they boot up a game until they exit.
Number of sessions is the number of times a day someone boots up a game.
It's more common to discuss this in mobile because people bob in and out of mobile titles all the time, but it's not too uncommon a metric in online games as well.
A good example is EA vastly decreasing the length of a Madden match because their telemetry data showed that people wanted to play shorter sessions, but more of them, so the length of a match was a barrier to them starting a game they'd otherwise be playing more (and spending more money on).
Session preferences can vary though depending on genre and demographics. However, it's also a way to just check how long someone is playing per day (average time per session * number of sessions), but this is the reason it's broken out like that.
For all you Stitches fans wanting that sweet Bikini Skin, seems it may be a tie-in with a plush doll at SDCC followed by the release on the Blizzard store.
https://www.facebook.com/BlizzHeroes/posts/363378107205033
https://www.facebook.com/BlizzHeroes/posts/363378107205033
Holy shit @ it being right behind Dota2.
edit: Hotfix
edit2!: Zeveron teasing a new member (Oddly, came up in my feed via Mike Ross.)
https://twitter.com/Zeverongg/status/618893338310111233
I'm more shocked that SWTOR is in the top 20. I thought that game died a long time ago.
Wave of bans has gone out for the maphacks.
Reading Reddit, they may (or may not) be getting false positives, so make sure to check your account and get an appeal in if necessary.
Reading Reddit, they may (or may not) be getting false positives, so make sure to check your account and get an appeal in if necessary.
seems there has been a ban wave of HOTS accounts (see here)
my account was banned like 20 minutes ago and I have 2 friends who also have had their accounts banned.
I have absolutely no idea what this might be about.
I have only used the hotlogs auto uploader (which does not interfere with the game's memory).
I know, I know, we've all read 'but I'm innocent' posts like this before and smirked a little with that all-knowing "you got what you deerved, kid" smile on our faces, but this time it's me who's affected and it feels amazingly shitty.
I am pretty sure a couple of gaffers I've played hundreds of games with could vouch for me (right, guys....right?)
I have not played a single game for almost a month and only started playing again a couple of days ago
opened a ticked but the email about the account closure clearly stated that they never remove those kinds of bans because they have had some "careful review of the evidence" before
my account was banned like 20 minutes ago and I have 2 friends who also have had their accounts banned.
I have absolutely no idea what this might be about.
I have only used the hotlogs auto uploader (which does not interfere with the game's memory).
I know, I know, we've all read 'but I'm innocent' posts like this before and smirked a little with that all-knowing "you got what you deerved, kid" smile on our faces, but this time it's me who's affected and it feels amazingly shitty.
I am pretty sure a couple of gaffers I've played hundreds of games with could vouch for me (right, guys....right?)
I have not played a single game for almost a month and only started playing again a couple of days ago
opened a ticked but the email about the account closure clearly stated that they never remove those kinds of bans because they have had some "careful review of the evidence" before
This is one of the accounts banned that started a Reddit thread: https://www.hotslogs.com/Player/Profile?PlayerID=300887
Which uh.... doesn't make much sense, at least on the face of it- it's a standard newbie account that's still getting its heros to 5.
Someone over on Reddit suggested they might have gone after people who repeatedly grouped with a cheater as well, which seems plausible, and could explain what appear to be legit false positives.
It's definitely not HOTSLOGS, for anyone wondering.
Which uh.... doesn't make much sense, at least on the face of it- it's a standard newbie account that's still getting its heros to 5.
Someone over on Reddit suggested they might have gone after people who repeatedly grouped with a cheater as well, which seems plausible, and could explain what appear to be legit false positives.
It's definitely not HOTSLOGS, for anyone wondering.
Were you playing near-exclusively with them?
not at all, barely played any games with them (they only just started a couple of weeks ago)
jaundicejuice
Member
All that lost time, progress and money. Ouch.
I will be sad if the skin is exclusive to buying the plushy.
I've queued into games where it was 2v1 and even 2v0 supports. A lot more rarely than before though. It used to be every other game where that happened, it happens less but I think it's also dependent on the free hero rotation and who you're queuing as. I usually pick a non-free support to queue as to get into matches faster and that's when I notice the unbalanced matches happening.
I will be sad if the skin is exclusive to buying the plushy.
I've queued into games where it was 2v1 and even 2v0 supports. A lot more rarely than before though. It used to be every other game where that happened, it happens less but I think it's also dependent on the free hero rotation and who you're queuing as. I usually pick a non-free support to queue as to get into matches faster and that's when I notice the unbalanced matches happening.
Was it a long wait time?
IIRC the limit is 6 minutes
That is probably the case. Best case would probably be, if someone wrote Overwolf apps, that can see when a new replay is created.
I don't know how popular Overwolf is on its own, but right now it is the default overlay for Teamspeak. If you install Teamspeak 3, it will also ask you if you want to install Overwolf, and there is also a button to install it in the Teamspeak client.
In that list of popular games, most games seem to be team-based games, which users would also use Teamspeak. So the list may be skewed.
Still, 10 million people is a lot.
I doubt it'll go down that much. I've seen people picking Nova into Tassadars and Zeratuls in HL many times.
I think I'd remember if it was 6 minutes, I don't really remember it lasting longer than normal which is what, a minute or two.
If you were cheating I'm pretty sure our winrate when grouped would be higher lol!seems there has been a ban wave of HOTS accounts (see here)
my account was banned like 20 minutes ago and I have 2 friends who also have had their accounts banned.
I have absolutely no idea what this might be about.
I have only used the hotlogs auto uploader (which does not interfere with the game's memory).
I know, I know, we've all read 'but I'm innocent' posts like this before and smirked a little with that all-knowing "you got what you deerved, kid" smile on our faces, but this time it's me who's affected and it feels amazingly shitty.
I am pretty sure a couple of gaffers I've played hundreds of games with could vouch for me (right, guys....right?)
I have not played a single game for almost a month and only started playing again a couple of days ago
opened a ticked but the email about the account closure clearly stated that they never remove those kinds of bans because they have had some "careful review of the evidence" before
Shane Goocher got banned: https://twitter.com/ShaneGoocher/
Something clearly went very wrong.
edit: A few posters are stating on the main reddit thread that Blizzard CS is telling them that an overarching manual review is in progress- https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/3clk8b/heroes_account_suspensions_and_bans_july_8_2015/
Also, it appears some of these are due to avoiding AFK detection.
Something clearly went very wrong.
edit: A few posters are stating on the main reddit thread that Blizzard CS is telling them that an overarching manual review is in progress- https://www.reddit.com/r/heroesofthestorm/comments/3clk8b/heroes_account_suspensions_and_bans_july_8_2015/
Also, it appears some of these are due to avoiding AFK detection.
Orochinagis
Member
Why would someone do that in a Moba
It's where you deliberately become a feeding Raynor Raynoring in order to get EXP/Gold while not doing much.
Well, yes, obviously. I was just stating in some circumstances it isn't avoiding AFK.
Of course we don't know what qualifies in their books.
Orochinagis
Member
My team ignored enemy Abathur mounstrousity in HL, like the whole game good lord
jaundicejuice
Member
Some of the bans are for people who tried to circumvent the AFK, that seems excessive.
For Mr. Z.
To start- on almost every heavily reworked hero, Blizzard has royally screwed up the map and FUBAR'd the hero. Happened to Falstad. Happened to Arthas, ETC, Diablo. Now it's happened to BW and TLV. Whatever formula they are using to base this stuff around is completely off, and it's really messing up Hero diversity. This is a consistent problem and something that I really hope they finally address soon, because only having 3 viable tanks is really dumb.
While on the subject of undertuned heroes- heroes like Thrall and Gazlowe are completely boned, at least as far as competitive play is concerned. If a character is a pubstomper, they are 100% going to balance around low level play to deal with it, with high-level play not even beng a concern. This is something that isn't limited to Heroes, it affects any type of game with a meta, from MOBAs to TCGs to Fighting Games. Dhalsim and E. Honda, for instance, are not very good in USF4, the fifth iteration, having been consecutively nerfed since their high point in SSF4, the second iteration. This is because they crush and frustrate new players, as both are hugely defensive and slow the pace of a match down immensely. Because competitive players are a tiny, tiny minority of the population, they have no qualms taking a character like Thrall out to the woods and chaining him to a post if it means more people keep playing the game.
But seriously, F turrets. In my very brief time as a terrible noob playing LoL, Heimeldinger repeatedly bashed my face in, and it just felt awful to play against.
You guys covered the nerf to generics, but they clearly want to make them suboptimal choices in most situations compared to your regular options, aside from passives like Regen Master/Conjurer's Pursuit. This is a good thing going forward- the shared generics cause the same issues that items do in other games, in that it they are very hard to balance since they affect all the heroes differently. Making them all poop helps fix that problem so that they become niche picks with marginal benefit.
And on to the real reason I made this post- Ms. BW herself:
Stats relevant to the next part, on BW: https://www.hotslogs.com/Sitewide/HeroAndMapStatistics
The BW rework/nerf was necessary for multiple reasons. The first, from a design perspective, was that her talent design was absolutely terrible. BW had a few specific talents she'd take like Gust of Healing and her ult, but she had an absurd amount of generic talents in her talent tree that caused her to have more buttons than a TGI Friday's waiter by the time she hit level 20. Her new tree is fantastic, even if her current tuning is complete booty.
The second was both a design and balance issue- Gust of Healing. BW has global presence and the ability to turn any fight into a 2 v 1 near-instantaneously. Her tradeoff from a design perspective is supposed to be that she doesn't actually have burst healing - her trait is the only thing that actually gets your HP back. Much like Malf, her weakness is supposed to be that lack of burst healing. Gust was simultaneously way too good, as SKBakery pointed out, but it was also an example of Death Knight Syndrome - that talent singlehandedly let her eliminate her biggest weakness by giving her access to a large AOE burst heal. However, with the loss of that talent, her regular healing pulses are clearly going to need a tune-up to compensate, and I hope they do get her patched up sooner than later.
The third reason is a simple balance issue- she's been the second or third highest winrate hero in the game for at least 6 months (going back to the TLV patch) and probably much more than that. (Here's the last few months from HotsLogs.) If you look back to last week and the last few before that, she's at about a 56% winrate. Back when she had more blocks on pixie dust and a shorter Z cooldown, it was even higher. It had been odd that they hadn't made more severe numbers changes previously given her consistent numbers, but we finally got our answer when they showed off the full rework in this patch. Despite their lack of moves on her, she had been in need of a general nerfbat for some time.
But no hero deserves the nerf beatdown that these reworked heroes have been getting , and I hope that Blizz gets their act together and gets them off the injured reserved soon.
Stitches wants to play.
To start- on almost every heavily reworked hero, Blizzard has royally screwed up the map and FUBAR'd the hero. Happened to Falstad. Happened to Arthas, ETC, Diablo. Now it's happened to BW and TLV. Whatever formula they are using to base this stuff around is completely off, and it's really messing up Hero diversity. This is a consistent problem and something that I really hope they finally address soon, because only having 3 viable tanks is really dumb.
While on the subject of undertuned heroes- heroes like Thrall and Gazlowe are completely boned, at least as far as competitive play is concerned. If a character is a pubstomper, they are 100% going to balance around low level play to deal with it, with high-level play not even beng a concern. This is something that isn't limited to Heroes, it affects any type of game with a meta, from MOBAs to TCGs to Fighting Games. Dhalsim and E. Honda, for instance, are not very good in USF4, the fifth iteration, having been consecutively nerfed since their high point in SSF4, the second iteration. This is because they crush and frustrate new players, as both are hugely defensive and slow the pace of a match down immensely. Because competitive players are a tiny, tiny minority of the population, they have no qualms taking a character like Thrall out to the woods and chaining him to a post if it means more people keep playing the game.
But seriously, F turrets. In my very brief time as a terrible noob playing LoL, Heimeldinger repeatedly bashed my face in, and it just felt awful to play against.
You guys covered the nerf to generics, but they clearly want to make them suboptimal choices in most situations compared to your regular options, aside from passives like Regen Master/Conjurer's Pursuit. This is a good thing going forward- the shared generics cause the same issues that items do in other games, in that it they are very hard to balance since they affect all the heroes differently. Making them all poop helps fix that problem so that they become niche picks with marginal benefit.
And on to the real reason I made this post- Ms. BW herself:
Stats relevant to the next part, on BW: https://www.hotslogs.com/Sitewide/HeroAndMapStatistics
The BW rework/nerf was necessary for multiple reasons. The first, from a design perspective, was that her talent design was absolutely terrible. BW had a few specific talents she'd take like Gust of Healing and her ult, but she had an absurd amount of generic talents in her talent tree that caused her to have more buttons than a TGI Friday's waiter by the time she hit level 20. Her new tree is fantastic, even if her current tuning is complete booty.
The second was both a design and balance issue- Gust of Healing. BW has global presence and the ability to turn any fight into a 2 v 1 near-instantaneously. Her tradeoff from a design perspective is supposed to be that she doesn't actually have burst healing - her trait is the only thing that actually gets your HP back. Much like Malf, her weakness is supposed to be that lack of burst healing. Gust was simultaneously way too good, as SKBakery pointed out, but it was also an example of Death Knight Syndrome - that talent singlehandedly let her eliminate her biggest weakness by giving her access to a large AOE burst heal. However, with the loss of that talent, her regular healing pulses are clearly going to need a tune-up to compensate, and I hope they do get her patched up sooner than later.
The third reason is a simple balance issue- she's been the second or third highest winrate hero in the game for at least 6 months (going back to the TLV patch) and probably much more than that. (Here's the last few months from HotsLogs.) If you look back to last week and the last few before that, she's at about a 56% winrate. Back when she had more blocks on pixie dust and a shorter Z cooldown, it was even higher. It had been odd that they hadn't made more severe numbers changes previously given her consistent numbers, but we finally got our answer when they showed off the full rework in this patch. Despite their lack of moves on her, she had been in need of a general nerfbat for some time.
But no hero deserves the nerf beatdown that these reworked heroes have been getting , and I hope that Blizz gets their act together and gets them off the injured reserved soon.
Stitches wants to play.
jaundicejuice
Member
I think the higher level meta and pro scene are always going to be a bit limited and the only thing that will make it less worse is a larger hero pool. I don't think Blizzard will ever veer away from using overall winrate as a indicator of balance.
jaundicejuice
Member
The balancing goals of Dota 2 and HotS are different though. Icefrog is making a pretty direct port of Dota while Blizzard is trying to make a super casual MOBA.
Blizzard looks at the aggregate winrate of a hero from all levels of play. From the lowest of the low quick match the the highest ranks of Hero League. The problem with that is pub stomp heroes get nerfed into the ground for low level play and eliminated from high level. Or high level wrecking ball heroes winrate are "balanced out" by poorer play with the hero in low levels. So long as the winrate is 50% the hero is balanced.
Icefrog isn't afraid to make overly difficult to use heroes or let them sit at terrible overall winrates. For the longest time Meepo had a 13% winrate. Absolutely terrible winrate. But those 13% that could play Meepo could be downright scary to play against.
Is Butcher 10k yet? When you're not actively playing you have no idea how long it's been since releases tbh
If he is I might grind all my lvl 8s to 9s for the gold to buy him, the mount bundle (of its even still up) is too much imo, 12 with a Skin was a nice price for the release bundles but 20+ is too much imo.
If he is I might grind all my lvl 8s to 9s for the gold to buy him, the mount bundle (of its even still up) is too much imo, 12 with a Skin was a nice price for the release bundles but 20+ is too much imo.
Next tuesday.
Nice gives me time during the weekend then. Is Leoric next Tuesday?
The one after, if Blizz doesn't make it a 4-week cycle.
I am in such a weird place with this game. Recently I've been getting back into watching videos and listening to podcasts about it at work and I get all excited, but then when I'm actually home it goes away and I don't feel like playing it.
To be fair tho I'm not really playing... anything. Guess it's one of those phases
To be fair tho I'm not really playing... anything. Guess it's one of those phases
yolo Raynor lane pusher plus a Sylvanas picking possession
it actually worked somehow LOL.
Is Envenom that bad now? nobody seemingly picks it anymore. Sylvanas with Remorseless works fairly well still, could do 100k+ hero damage easily.
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edit: I hope stuff like MSI afterburner OSD don't count as cheating or something, so far so good. Actually OSD usually didn't work at all. It's not like I need it, I just have it running for my OC and I forget to close it at times.
it actually worked somehow LOL.
Is Envenom that bad now? nobody seemingly picks it anymore. Sylvanas with Remorseless works fairly well still, could do 100k+ hero damage easily.
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edit: I hope stuff like MSI afterburner OSD don't count as cheating or something, so far so good. Actually OSD usually didn't work at all. It's not like I need it, I just have it running for my OC and I forget to close it at times.
Aquavelvaman
Banned
Ugh, just had a qm with a really toxic player. I muted him but he just kept pinging my character all game. I turned off mute near the end and he was just spamming "fuck zeebo fuck nova fuck sylvannas fuck this team' over and over again, so i reported at the end. What a pain.
jaundicejuice
Member
I had a quick match with a really random line up of Sylvanas, Nova, Zeratul, Abathur and ETC versus a more fight-y, traditional line up. There was no way we were teamfighting them 5v5 with a hit and run/gank-y line up like ours, so I went full on Possession. The silence and nuke wold've been better but I wanted to use Possession a bit more. Tried to help Aba's monstrosity out with massive creep waves or just keep waves pushed out. Basically just never sit on charges and try to convert as many creep as possible.
Possession kinda helped but it just sucks still. They've gotta ditch the point cost and individual unit conversion. I get that they're trying to add some depth by making you choose between regular creeps and a catapult and then later enemy mercs or the majority of a late game creep wave. But Possession just feels like it's a waste, there's literally no situation in a match where you aren't missing Wailing Arrow. Possession needs to be an AoE that nuke converts the creep wave and do something to heroes. Not damage them outright but have some sort of presence in teamfights. Summon a Valkyr, have it AoE nuke convert creeps and slow all heroes with the grave's chill or some such bullshit. Just something, anything other than how it is.
Edit: Tried a couple of matches picking siege damage specific talents that I don't normally choose--Corruption, Mercenary Lord, Unstoppable--in conjunction with Possession to try and make a split pusher build. Win immortal fight, go opposite lane and yolo push while both teams fight over the pushing immortal and didn't feel anywhere near as effective and actually saw a drop in my usual amount of siege damage generated.
The only thing I took away from these last few matches is Unstoppable is fucking great if The Butcher is on the other team.
Possession kinda helped but it just sucks still. They've gotta ditch the point cost and individual unit conversion. I get that they're trying to add some depth by making you choose between regular creeps and a catapult and then later enemy mercs or the majority of a late game creep wave. But Possession just feels like it's a waste, there's literally no situation in a match where you aren't missing Wailing Arrow. Possession needs to be an AoE that nuke converts the creep wave and do something to heroes. Not damage them outright but have some sort of presence in teamfights. Summon a Valkyr, have it AoE nuke convert creeps and slow all heroes with the grave's chill or some such bullshit. Just something, anything other than how it is.
Edit: Tried a couple of matches picking siege damage specific talents that I don't normally choose--Corruption, Mercenary Lord, Unstoppable--in conjunction with Possession to try and make a split pusher build. Win immortal fight, go opposite lane and yolo push while both teams fight over the pushing immortal and didn't feel anywhere near as effective and actually saw a drop in my usual amount of siege damage generated.
The only thing I took away from these last few matches is Unstoppable is fucking great if The Butcher is on the other team.
The stuff is expensive, there's no doubt about that. But it's mitigated by the fact that they've made getting gold easier a few times. And if you want to spend real money, the sales help considerably.
You buy nothing unless its on sale.
I need to chill out or I'll end up banned. I go off on assholes and debbie downers, likely more than is allowed.
Say GG 5 minutes into the game after one mistake? I'll mock you the rest of the game, especially when we're back to winning or tied. I think that is justified.
The borderline cases are against over critical players. Yesterday a player teared into after I died to the classic "I'm almost dead, and Nova is in the bushes outside of so my only hope is to hearth and hope she doesn't check the bushes." She did, and I died, and when my teammate laid into me, I lost it. Too many obscenities, followed by just ignoring him so I was't baited anymore.
If I keep this up, I am going to get banned. Need to dial it down a bit, or a lot, and have more of a hair trigger for adding people to my ignore list.
There's a bunch of Heroes that cost basically nothing. I'm out of the 2k heroes, 4k heroes, and I think about half of the 7k heroes, and a few 10k heroes, without spending anything. There are a lot of sources of gold, and gain/game is high if your focus is on doing Daily Quests every other day.
Say GG 5 minutes into the game after one mistake? I'll mock you the rest of the game, especially when we're back to winning or tied. I think that is justified.
The borderline cases are against over critical players. Yesterday a player teared into after I died to the classic "I'm almost dead, and Nova is in the bushes outside of so my only hope is to hearth and hope she doesn't check the bushes." She did, and I died, and when my teammate laid into me, I lost it. Too many obscenities, followed by just ignoring him so I was't baited anymore.
If I keep this up, I am going to get banned. Need to dial it down a bit, or a lot, and have more of a hair trigger for adding people to my ignore list.
There's a bunch of Heroes that cost basically nothing. I'm out of the 2k heroes, 4k heroes, and I think about half of the 7k heroes, and a few 10k heroes, without spending anything. There are a lot of sources of gold, and gain/game is high if your focus is on doing Daily Quests every other day.
super-famicom
Member
I've played about 25 hours in total so far, and I've only spent $15. I bought the $4.99 Starter Pack and Sylvanas for $9.99. I own more than a dozen heroes now, and used gold to buy the rest.
Aquavelvaman
Banned
No way to mute ping abuse though. Getting your hero ping spammed for 5 minutes is a lot worse than some chat profanity.
Aquavelvaman
Banned
Have your character pinged for 5 minutes straight and get back to me. The spam limiter resets very quickly and there's no way to block pings as far as I can tell. It wouldn't be hard to add a mute ping button next to the mute player button.
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