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Heroes of the Storm |OT| Pretty sure that Abathur is AFK
- Thread starter Nirolak
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RumblingRosco
Member
I've spent <$10 on this game but have been playing since November. I bought Rehgar to obtain the Billie mount and bought a skin for Azmodan because it looked awesome. I appreciate the spending by the rest of you though, because that allows this game to grow and for me to be a cheap-ass.
Similarly, I think I spent about $15-$20 total on Hearthstone since I started playing in fall of 2013.
Similarly, I think I spent about $15-$20 total on Hearthstone since I started playing in fall of 2013.
I feel a bit better about how much I've spent. 
Not close to Milly in spending yet.
Something around £100, maybe, but it's spread over this year. I think that's fine considering the amount of hours I've gotten out of the game though. I've got like 1600 games on it.
Spent maybe the same on Hearthstone over the past year. Some of which because of the expansions and other of which was due to trying to buy some packs when I first started out. I started out relatively late, so I was pretty damn behind. Was crushing at first trying to beat people with basic decks when I didn't exactly have much experience myself.
Blizzard makin' money.
Not close to Milly in spending yet. Something around £100, maybe, but it's spread over this year. I think that's fine considering the amount of hours I've gotten out of the game though. I've got like 1600 games on it.
Spent maybe the same on Hearthstone over the past year. Some of which because of the expansions and other of which was due to trying to buy some packs when I first started out. I started out relatively late, so I was pretty damn behind. Was crushing at first trying to beat people with basic decks when I didn't exactly have much experience myself.
Blizzard makin' money.
Well looks like my wallet is safe this week.
jaundicejuice
Member
Just wait for Overwatch's beta.
King Gilga
Member
Is there any reason to not /afk and let them win fast goldwise if it's an obvious loss.
Basically is there any reason to keep prolonging a loss?
Also, what's with these long ass load times? Also nobody has ever talked in any of my games.
Basically is there any reason to keep prolonging a loss?
Also, what's with these long ass load times? Also nobody has ever talked in any of my games.
RumblingRosco
Member
Gold-wise? Nope, no reason. It exposes you as a dick though.
super-famicom
Member
Lol who's gonna get a Chen skin?
King Gilga
Member
In a game where noone talks does that really matter?
RumblingRosco
Member
My opinion is that if you AFK intentionally because you're losing, you're being a jerk. I'm not saying you have to go into super try-hard mode, but at least put in some effort. HoTS games are notorious for having more comebacks than just about any other MOBA, so giving up doesn't make sense to me. I've played hundreds of matches and never given up an AFK'd. I just don't see the point.
I'm not trying to tell you what to do, I'm just saying, it's shitty to AFK because you're losing.
King Gilga
Member
I get you, I haven't actually afk'd yet, it just feels like I'm wasting time and effort 90% of the time.
Yep. I gave them the what for on the forums and on reddit about it.
Disable US10 after one day of Verizon FIOS users complaining...meanwhile TWC/Cox/etc customers have been suffering through this every night on ORD1 since early June and the first instance was in May yet no disable of ORD1. Which ones are the bigger ISP? Not the ones that got the help that's for sure.
I hope they have already re-enabled US10 and don't plan on keeping it offline. That would be par for the course with some of us and our luck with this game.
jaundicejuice
Member
They've got two free two play games and they're rolling out a third this year on top of WoW, Diablo and Starcraft. They need to get their back end infrastructure sorted out quick-like.
The biggest reason to not give up and AFK in fountain is because you can turn the match around and win. I have come back from games being down 4 levels, with the core being at 4%, with stealing a boss, or winning an objective. This game, even if it's a little more snowball-y now that it was back in alpha and closed beta, is still pretty damn see-saw-y.
What you need to do is realise that when two teams enter the match, one is going to win, one is going to lose, if you're a toxic or defeatist player, guess which team is more likely to lose. You're not going to turn around every match when you're playing from behind but you won't turn around any by AFK'ing in fountain.
Also just know that eventually that's who you will be playing with, the other defeatist players who afk in fountain at the first sign of adversity. Blizzard will match you up with other AFK'ers in your own queue. So don't AFK.
The biggest reason to not give up and AFK in fountain is because you can turn the match around and win. I have come back from games being down 4 levels, with the core being at 4%, with stealing a boss, or winning an objective. This game, even if it's a little more snowball-y now that it was back in alpha and closed beta, is still pretty damn see-saw-y.
What you need to do is realise that when two teams enter the match, one is going to win, one is going to lose, if you're a toxic or defeatist player, guess which team is more likely to lose. You're not going to turn around every match when you're playing from behind but you won't turn around any by AFK'ing in fountain.
Also just know that eventually that's who you will be playing with, the other defeatist players who afk in fountain at the first sign of adversity. Blizzard will match you up with other AFK'ers in your own queue. So don't AFK.
dmosher
Member
The peering "agreements" between ISPs in the US and the gaming of the border gateway protocol to force packets to route longer ways around is the ultimate source of all this.
You'd think net neutrality regulations would help somewhat but it's a pretty crappy state of affairs still. I don't have any such issues with my current ISP, Cogeco, nor have I with any other Canadian ISP but I also haven't suffered through a subscription to the large incumbents (Rogers, Shaw, Bell).
I think the biggest problem is, that customers can't really do anything about it.
A bad peering unfortunately isn't a reason to cancel your contract. I tried it once.
And even if you are aware of the problem, it is almost impossible to inform yourself about it before picking a new ISP. And of course that situation might change everyday.
From what I hear and read between the lines, many people in the U.S. don't even have a choice between ISPs, right?
dmosher
Member
There is a very real problem with lack of choice, it's also an issue of infrastructure at a technical level. Canadian ISPs started later and installed dark fiber even before it was really feasible to use it. Much of the US is still stuck on copper wiring to the local loop and to each house
jaundicejuice
Member
I can't help but compare Blizzard to Valve. They're the two largest PC gaming developers and publishers, they've both invested heavily in online gaming, both are shifting to or have already shifted heavily towards free to play and Valve simply does not these issues. I've never seen anyone complaining in NA about how various US ISPs hand off each others traffic or pointing at dated local infrastructure as cause of problems playing Dota 2, CS or TF2. Valve has spent over a decade building up a back end to support their client, store and games, they have server clusters in many states and pretty much every province. You would think Blizzard was doing the same with battle.net and WoW alone.
I've never personally spent any amount of time on a Valve technical support forum trying to figure out why I couldn't play DoD, CS, CSS, DoDS, TF2, L4D, L4D2, Dota 2 or CSGO online. Hell, I haven't spent anytime in a technical support forum trying to figure why I can't play WoW, Diablo 3, Stacraft 2. Only Heroes of the Storm. It's not even necessarily Blizzard games or battle.net in general, it's just HotS.
I've never personally spent any amount of time on a Valve technical support forum trying to figure out why I couldn't play DoD, CS, CSS, DoDS, TF2, L4D, L4D2, Dota 2 or CSGO online. Hell, I haven't spent anytime in a technical support forum trying to figure why I can't play WoW, Diablo 3, Stacraft 2. Only Heroes of the Storm. It's not even necessarily Blizzard games or battle.net in general, it's just HotS.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
Take the opportunity to get better at something, or get some more xp for the time you are having to spend in there. That's what I usually do.
ORD1 renders TWC/Cox and whoever else gets routed through XO Communications on its way to Blizzard's servers nearly unplayable during peak time. It also completely wrecks other users but I haven't seen a unifying theme.
US8 causes high latency for virtually everyone else on the East Coast except those affected by the ORD1 TWC issue.
US10 (apparently a new dedicated East Coast server - the first East Coast server I might add) gives the ORD1 users and most East Coasters awesome ping - like 20-50ms - compared to the usual 60-100ms even at non peak times...unfortunately it has issues with Verizon FIOS and they disabled it last night the very first night I saw it in use.
In short it's a bit of a cluster and an RNG fest depending on where you get placed. My hope is US10 is gonna be back up sooner than later so at least those of us longest affected have some alleviation.
US8 causes high latency for virtually everyone else on the East Coast except those affected by the ORD1 TWC issue.
US10 (apparently a new dedicated East Coast server - the first East Coast server I might add) gives the ORD1 users and most East Coasters awesome ping - like 20-50ms - compared to the usual 60-100ms even at non peak times...unfortunately it has issues with Verizon FIOS and they disabled it last night the very first night I saw it in use.
In short it's a bit of a cluster and an RNG fest depending on where you get placed. My hope is US10 is gonna be back up sooner than later so at least those of us longest affected have some alleviation.
jaundicejuice
Member
A lot of these issues would probably be resolved if you could choose which region you queued for and played on.
dmosher
Member
Last 6 quickmatches I played as random; all 6 wins.
https://cloudup.com/crUUPBk6_qk
Hammer, KT, Azmodan, Sonya, and Stitches!
The stitches game was on haunted mines and was a lengthy match, our lineup was:
Stitches, Nova, Abathur, Butcher, Malfurion
vs
Vikings, Zagara, Tassadar, Falstad, Tychus
They had a ridiculous lead early game, but I was able to hit 90% on hooks in the game and isolate Zag and Falstad pretty much every time in the little corner bushes that aren't escapable. Also, our nova was on point and Abathur did pretty well. We came from behind to win at the 30 minute mark
https://cloudup.com/crUUPBk6_qk
Hammer, KT, Azmodan, Sonya, and Stitches!
The stitches game was on haunted mines and was a lengthy match, our lineup was:
Stitches, Nova, Abathur, Butcher, Malfurion
vs
Vikings, Zagara, Tassadar, Falstad, Tychus
They had a ridiculous lead early game, but I was able to hit 90% on hooks in the game and isolate Zag and Falstad pretty much every time in the little corner bushes that aren't escapable. Also, our nova was on point and Abathur did pretty well. We came from behind to win at the 30 minute mark
Complistic
Member
Yeah, when it's a legit lost cause, i usually just start clearing lanes.
There is a very real problem with lack of choice, it's also an issue of infrastructure at a technical level. Canadian ISPs started later and installed dark fiber even before it was really feasible to use it. Much of the US is still stuck on copper wiring to the local loop and to each house
Are you talking about the "last mile" to the customers (that's what we call it in Germany), or the backbones and peering connections?
Anecdotal evidence ahead:
There is one Gaffer who plays CS:GO from Europe on U.S. servers. His ping used to be 20 or 30 ms (or maybe even 50) more than it should be, because Comcast apparently wasted time on the packets. When I played on the same servers, my ping was always a lot lower than his, because my packets weren't routed to the U.S.
In my experience, I had more problems with CS:GO, than I ever had with SC2 or HotS.
But it isn't a fair comparsion, because Valve's servers have a lot more to do during games than HotS or SC2 servers, which seem to almost only relay (and record?) traffic during gameplay.
Anyway: Valve's service may feel a lot better to players than Blizzard's, even if it isn't actually Blizzard's fault.
But I am not sure, how that can be communicated. In the current debate about ISPs trying to become service providers and net-neutrality Blizzard and co. could actually become big forces to lobby for net-neutrality, if they aren't already.
Because they are powerful enough to have a voice, while customers almost don't have one.
Lend me your internets please.
The first time it happened in May it was solved in 2 days time for me. Sometime in early June it came back once or twice a week. By mid June it was every night during peak time and has continued that way until last night when our team got put on US10 repeatedly.
Apparently you can block ORD1, but I'm sure you knew that. Then we'd get US8 and I don't think that would help as much either. Not sure how it would go about placing you if we were in a group either and you had it blocked.
Orochinagis
Member
I wish there were more groups doing HL in the Gaf channel
It works solo but if you're in a group that is more predominantly ORD1 (which would be us, everyone is East Coast) it'll just continue failing to make a game over and over.
If you're solo it fails a few times and then puts you in one on US8 eventually at least, but I don't solo much so sadly it won't help. I looked into it hard once that first went up on reddit but it's useless for me at least.
a quick update on the ban wave (any my ban as well)
apparently, someone over at reddit has found out that a great number of banned people have the following 3 things in common (or, of course, only claim to have those things in common):
- using a 64 bit operating system
- playing the 32 bit version of HotS
- using an Asus Xonar sound card
apparently, the asus xonar sound card driver hooks to a certain hots.dll of the 32 bit client only in order to enhance the sound and might have been responsible for the banwave
question is, why would it only hook to the HotS.dll and not to any other dlls of other Blizzard games? If it did, it must have already been approved and whitelisted by them.
all those 3 aforementioned things are true for my system but I am unwilling to use this "hookshark" tool mentioned in the reddit thread to find out whether the driver's dll actually hooked into my HotS installation while playing
Blizz has yet to reply to my appeal ticket - will keep you posted!
-----------------------
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
I just received an email - my account has been reopened and I received a 7 day stimpak "As a token of appreciation for your patience and understanding"
everythingwentbetterthanexpected.jpg
apparently, someone over at reddit has found out that a great number of banned people have the following 3 things in common (or, of course, only claim to have those things in common):
- using a 64 bit operating system
- playing the 32 bit version of HotS
- using an Asus Xonar sound card
apparently, the asus xonar sound card driver hooks to a certain hots.dll of the 32 bit client only in order to enhance the sound and might have been responsible for the banwave
question is, why would it only hook to the HotS.dll and not to any other dlls of other Blizzard games? If it did, it must have already been approved and whitelisted by them.
all those 3 aforementioned things are true for my system but I am unwilling to use this "hookshark" tool mentioned in the reddit thread to find out whether the driver's dll actually hooked into my HotS installation while playing
Blizz has yet to reply to my appeal ticket - will keep you posted!
-----------------------
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
I just received an email - my account has been reopened and I received a 7 day stimpak "As a token of appreciation for your patience and understanding"
everythingwentbetterthanexpected.jpg
Robottiimu2000
Member
Finally Nazeebo sale! yey!
Hoorah
Many people in general chat are reportingly getting stim packs. Looks like everyone, who was wrongly banned, is getting one.
EDIT: clarification
I'm leveling up my alt so I have witnessed a lot of horrible horrible games and players now. This last game our Abathur was his first time taking garden terror, we got terror first and it was just wasted on the middle of the map doing nothing and I had to give a crash course right there....
So the game continued to be miserable, they got 24 kills we had 7 and they were 2 levels ahead, they weren't all that good either because our team was horrible and thye got just that?. Still their Abathur and Zeratul combo'd up and dealing with two Zeratuls was a nightmare for me (Kael'thas). Our Abathur just went and cleaned their bot all the way to the core, I got the terror and typed 'yolo, lets push bot' and all rushed at about 20 percent we were all almost dead (they had their terror defending) I exited terror then and sent the phoenix and 2 living bombs and it was gg. Everyone was lol.
So the game continued to be miserable, they got 24 kills we had 7 and they were 2 levels ahead, they weren't all that good either because our team was horrible and thye got just that?. Still their Abathur and Zeratul combo'd up and dealing with two Zeratuls was a nightmare for me (Kael'thas). Our Abathur just went and cleaned their bot all the way to the core, I got the terror and typed 'yolo, lets push bot' and all rushed at about 20 percent we were all almost dead (they had their terror defending) I exited terror then and sent the phoenix and 2 living bombs and it was gg. Everyone was lol.
King Gilga
Member
You know, I get what you guys say about massive comebacks from hopelessness territory, feels good (they were like 3-4 levels up on us and and a lot closer to our base midgame, nevermind the kills).
Also is it me or is seismic slam a bit janky to pull off sometimes? Even when you have the rage feels like there's a delay or it just doesn't.
Also is it me or is seismic slam a bit janky to pull off sometimes? Even when you have the rage feels like there's a delay or it just doesn't.
jaundicejuice
Member
Blizzard better become staunch advocates and supporters of net neutrality in the US because if these shit-tastic cable providers win it will adversely impact their business. I've stopped spending money in HotS and when Overwatch comes out I won't spend any money in it either if the quality of the online is the same as HotS or worse. I'm expecting worse. I'm not spending money in their games because of Time Warner Cable, AT&T and friends. And going through my transaction history on battle.net I've blown over 300$ on this game since getting in to the alpha. I started going ham once they started doing sales and added stimpacks. Now I'm just going to rely on gold purchases. Bought The Butcher with gold and I've already got enough gold for Leoric.
The only thing I found is looking at replay of past games to see where I could have been better. Did I focus the right guy in that team fight ? Was my positionning ok ? Could have I steered the team toward a better outcome ?
I don't know what to say either because we're around the same mmr qm wise. I'm also currently at a plateau right now since I win around 50% of my games but I haven't soloq'ed in a while.
tylerf
Member
The most infuriating thing about SoloQ is that no one listens to the call for retreat. Everyone is so greedy and doesn't want to run away with the gains they've already made. Something about being near the core that makes people want to keep fighting forever until you get overrun by players fresh off the respawn timer.
Yup. No one watches respawn timers.
I haven't even been able to find a QM group in a while, been stuck on solo queue all week.
Me too! But in Tennessee. Fuck you, Ketch.
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