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[RumblingRosco]

Nothing about this affects endgame.

Each death early on lasts longer which should result in players playing more conservatively. A conservative player pulls back sooner and pushes more slowly.

I'm not expecting this to ruin the short game we have now or anything like that, but I expect game time to increase slightly. 0:30-1:00 range.

 

[Turdburger]

All of these changes are exactly what the game needs and I'm surprised it took them so long.

What this all means is that the game will play almost exactly the same post-level 16 where game-decisive team fights happen as at this level and beyond the death timers and stats will basically be exactly what they are now.

The difference in gameplay is obviously levels 1-13, where death timers are increased but stats are much more even between levels so a team that is facing, for example, a level-12 vs level-10 deficit has a better chance to win a team fight and make a comeback.

In essence, death timers increasing will make it easier for the winning team to acquire early-game objectives. This means the winning team's "lead" will imprint itself on the game more in terms of structural advantage than stat advantage as the objectives help to kill structures but the acquired level advantage will mean significantly less.

Blizzard is hoping two things: (1) that this provides more perceived meaning to the early game, as kills will lead to more objective captures and (2) that this will provide the losing team at, say, level 11, a better chance to take a team fight at an objective and get back into the game going into the decisive post-16 phase.

At the competitive level, the winning team will end up with a greater structural advantage via increased objective control. This gives them better control of the map and freedom to make decisions to control the tempo of the game. However, the statistical advantage of being 1 or 2 levels ahead will be nearly meaningless.

As a spectator, the games should feel more entertaining as a result of these changes as early kills will seem more impactful as they will lead to more objective captures. However in reality the only thing they will garner for the winning team is a structural advantage. But it's the perception and entertainment of the spectators that is important.

 

[brian!]

it's still a pretty low window since power spikes are every 3 levels and it's ostensibly easier to get ahead w/ this, I love the emphasis on early game and laning because of this tho I totally agree w/ you on all this stuff

kenma did some patch note coverage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMqWILeCykk&feature=youtu.be

didn't know he was still affiliated w/ c9, also I haven't watched the whole thing and he's wrong about stuff prtty often so take w/ grain of salt duh

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

If this makes it into live Tempo will really have to step up their game

 

[brian!]

yeah after playing stitches on ptr, he's overtuned lol, dunno about him in comp.

 

[kirblar]

You know that "if you're 2+ levels down, you're fucked" thing I mentioned a week or two ago? This totally blows that up by making the stats for L5 v L7 much closer in relative value to L15 v L17. You should be able to take fights you couldn't before, at least in the early games.

 

[Alur]

If this makes it into live Tempo will really have to step up their game

Shouldn't it actually help Tempo Storm, not hurt them? After all it makes snowballing early harder unless I'm misunderstanding and that's pretty much the only way they lose.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

So stellar lotus picked up 2 players from Korea

https://www.reddit.com/r/StellarLotus/comments/3n69xi/stellar_lotus_adds_woojae_and_wiz/

why do they have their own subreddit?

Shouldn't it actually help Tempo Storm, not hurt them? After all it makes snowballing early harder unless I'm misunderstanding and that's pretty much the only way they lose.

How often do teams actually manage to really snowball Tempo, they do fall behind in XP often but structurally they keep up or relinquish little.

If this really results in more structural advantage but less advantage in teamfight then I think it'd hurt TS more than it helps. TS rarely has issues bouncing back from a level advantage already and they don't really outclass C9 when it comes to teamfights anyways. Tactics like roaming with Zagara early game would end up in a tangible advantage even once Tempo caught up in XP.

and let's not forget Zuna.

 

[kirblar]

This makes team fight more important not less.

 

[Alur]

and let's not forget Zuna.

I think the Zuna thing is little more than a Twitch meme. He's had bad games, as have many players, but everyone completely forgets the numerous times he's done something "Zuna feed" and secured a game or objective for them. He is feast or famine, for sure, but what he does compliments what they do. The qq about him isn't much more than Twitch and reddit being Twitch and reddit the majority of the time. Every death he has is "ZUNA FEED LOLOL".

And I disagree on C9 outclassing or equaling Tempo in team fight. If they didn't outclass them on team fight, then C9 wouldn't have spent ~4 months getting bodied by them in decisive team fights after leading early off of rotation ganks. They have basically spent months getting incremental leads off great rotations only to fall apart once the actual 5v5 fights happen, outside of two tournaments. One of which they still lost more games than they won against Tempo, though they did win the tournament because of when they won.

 

[Yoshichan]

I just read about the death timer change

I really want to try it out

Also, this makes Murky even GODLIER

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I think the Zuna thing is little more than a Twitch meme. He's had bad games, as have many players, but everyone completely forgets the numerous times he's done something "Zuna feed" and secured a game or objective for them. He is feast or famine, for sure, but what he does compliments what they do. The qq about him isn't much more than Twitch and reddit being Twitch and reddit the majority of the time. Every death he has is "ZUNA FEED LOLOL".

And I disagree on C9 outclassing or equaling Tempo in team fight. If they didn't outclass them on team fight, then C9 wouldn't have spent ~4 months getting bodied by them in decisive team fights after leading early off of rotation ganks.

Zuna feed is indeed exaggerated and it's annoying when he gets all the blame for a loss but whether it is tilt or just trying something risky he sometimes dies a lot.

As towards teamfights, Tempo dominated because of shotcalling and consistency they won matches where they lost next to every teamfight, not devastatingly, but were able to outrate their opponent long enough they could capitalize on a mistake. This was most evident on DS and Sky Temple.

Even if they fell behind in XP because of early ganks they didn't lose many structures or were able to push equally and keep going until they won a decisive teamfight and end from there.

 

[RumblingRosco]

I just read about the death timer change

I really want to try it out

Also, this makes Murky even GODLIER

Have you gotten Murky to level 20 yet?

 

[Hemi-PoweredDrone]

So stellar lotus picked up 2 players from Korea

https://www.reddit.com/r/StellarLotus/comments/3n69xi/stellar_lotus_adds_woojae_and_wiz/

why do they have their own subreddit?

Well, it looks just about as active as Jesse's sub, so maybe that has to do with it?

I think the Zuna thing is little more than a Twitch meme. He's had bad games, as have many players, but everyone completely forgets the numerous times he's done something "Zuna feed" and secured a game or objective for them. He is feast or famine, for sure, but what he does compliments what they do. The qq about him isn't much more than Twitch and reddit being Twitch and reddit the majority of the time. Every death he has is "ZUNA FEED LOLOL".

And I disagree on C9 outclassing or equaling Tempo in team fight. If they didn't outclass them on team fight, then C9 wouldn't have spent ~4 months getting bodied by them in decisive team fights after leading early off of rotation ganks. They have basically spent months getting incremental leads off great rotations only to fall apart once the actual 5v5 fights happen, outside of two tournaments. One of which they still lost more games than they won against Tempo, though they did win the tournament because of when they won.

It's totally a meme. It's been a meme since he and the rest of XDG were shitting the bed in Season 4 of the LCS, and even if Zuna were to suddenly become a god, it'd still be a meme. If he switched to playing chess, it'd still be a meme.

 

[Nirolak]

Death timer changes (early game increase, reduce the trickle issues on maps like Mines/CH) and stat-per-level changes coming, they are asking for people to test on PTR.

Well, good to see they noticed the snowball issue and are taking a stab at fixing it.

I'm not sure I understand what the following means:

Alongside the overall stat changes, we’ve taken the additional stats you’d earn from leveling and directly ingrained the numbers straight into the heroes themselves. These changes will go a long way in helping heroes feel more appropriate in the roles they were designed for. Assassins, for example, output much more damage but are easier to pick off with their low health pools.

 

[Hemi-PoweredDrone]

I'm not sure I understand what the following means:

Sounds like they're saying that base stats will be higher on average. League did a similar thing in a little under a year ago to try and curb early game snowballing, but I can't really say how effective it was. It doesn't feel like the change did much. Don't know what the extent of the change in HotS will be, though.

 

[brian!]

You know that "if you're 2+ levels down, you're fucked" thing I mentioned a week or two ago? This totally blows that up by making the stats for L5 v L7 much closer in relative value to L15 v L17. You should be able to take fights you couldn't before, at least in the early games.

i think it's good that they are trying to curb the level difference in fighting power (esp since it's a teamwide thing), but unless you run an engage heavy comp there's no real reason for the team that's ahead not to wait for their power spike, which is how things are right now anyway

 

[Dice]

I'm not sure I understand what the following means:

sounds to me like they're finally admitting that tanks weren't tanky until they leveled up to around 10.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Seriously they got Solid Jake, I assume just for the streams, as a caster for prague but not Khaldor. We want HoTS to succeed as an esport but let's not get the single most watched caster from Europe who usually has more viewers than the official HoTS channel during the same tournament.

And wasn't it Kaelaris they bashed on THH after MSI MGA, well guess who's back.

I do like ToD though and Grubby of course.

 

[Alur]

That's an ESL thing. Solidjake is ESL talent, so he gets to go. Khaldor isn't ESL affiliated. Don't think Blizzard had much to do with this one.

And that was Kaelaris. He's good, think he did a bit with Khaldor for a while. He's been around. It was Teknolink that did MSI MGA and didn't know WTF he was talking about.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

That's an ESL thing. Solidjake is ESL talent, so he gets to go. Khaldor isn't ESL affiliated. Don't think Blizzard had much to do with this one.

And that was Kaelaris. He's good. It was Teknolink that did MSI MGA.

They do work together though from time to time, Khaldor just streams until games don't run simultaneously anymore. They also got Grubby who isn't affiliated, he's no rival though. If Solid Jake makes it to the main event physically that'd be a bit of a joke though.

Must have mixed them up then, Teknolink will be streaming some matches though that aren't covered by the hosts according to his reddit posts in the thread though. Khaldor will be attending Prague as a viewer trying to get some interviews.

 

[Alur]

I think Grubby is loosely affiliated? I'm not sure, maybe they just chose him over Khaldor. Who knows.

It is pretty weird how Khaldor has gotten literally no play in any of this official stuff, ESL or not, though. He and Jake have invested the most personal time into getting this thing going and growing, so it's sad he's seeing no benefit or inclusion from it.

And re: Jake, why would it be a joke? Because he's American or because you don't like him as a caster?

 

[Rhaknar]

Alur you dropped off the Morales train quite fast, what happened? Kept waiting for more impressions that never came :/

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I think Grubby is loosely affiliated? I'm not sure, maybe they just chose him over Khaldor. Who knows.

It is pretty weird how Khaldor has gotten literally no play in any of this official stuff, ESL or not, though. He and Jake have invested the most personal time into getting this thing going and growing, so it's sad he's seeing no benefit or inclusion from it.

And re: Jake, why would it be a joke? Because he's American or because you don't like him as a caster?

Yeah because he's american and you don't invite, affiliation or not, someone from overseas when there's still someone wildly popular available nearby. Even leaving Khaldor out of this it'd be better to push more local talent, guess that's what Kendricsswish is there for, than someone who just was at the NA regionals.

I'm sure some of the casters handling casting in different languages would have a salvageable enough english to be featured too and while they don't get nearly as many views there's probably a lot of people that would appreciate the inclusion. There's a lot of HoTS streams in other languages many pros stream mainly or partially in their mother tongue, every EU event has a bunch of casters casting the cleanfeed into these languages.

I like him as a caster I just don't think it makes sense for him to be there. He doesn't even sound very interested in EU on THH.

 

[Alur]

Alur you dropped off the Morales train quite fast, what happened? Kept waiting for more impressions that never came :/

I haven't played much, lots of that MMO called real life lately and our times milly, proto, and I can play together are less and less. I solo'd a bit in HL but now that I rank 1'd on both accounts I don't wanna solo anymore lol..

On medic - I love playing her, she's pretty fun. While she is great with the new OP Sonya, or Illidan/insert melee here, if they dive in with no regard for how squishy you are you'll get absolutely destroyed.

I've played like 6-8 games with her and it's happened at least a time or two in more than half of those where the enemy team would have a ton of dive or Milly or Proto or the tank would just get in so deep and I'd have to leave them to die or pray we killed the enemy before they wrecked me. She's super vulnerable even with the W skill and W talent at 1.

Outside of trying to keep up with (and keep away from) diving melee heroes, her healing output is pretty ridiculous. I feel like the Stim Drone was a little overhyped. The 90 sec cooldown is kind of prohibited and unless the person knows you're putting it on em it's often wasted to some degree. The Medivac is insane though, both for shits and giggles and for actual strategy/usefulness. One of the neatest ults they've came up with.

Yeah because he's american and you don't invite, affiliation or not, someone from overseas when there's still someone wildly popular available nearby. Even leaving Khaldor out of this it'd be better to push more local talent, guess that's what Kendricsswish is there for, than someone who just was at the NA regionals.

I'm sure some of the casters handling casting in different languages would have a salvageable enough english to be featured too and while they don't get nearly as many views there's probably a lot of people that would appreciate the inclusion.

You have a point. To me I don't have an issue because outside of Khaldor, no one else has put as much in HOTS and getting the scene to grow as Solidjake. If Blizzard or whoever wants to hook him up for that, it's fine by me. I'd venture the vast majority of HOTS viewers NA or not know recognize Solidjake and Khaldor as the top two most active/visible/whatever.

I agree on passing over other homegrown (or at least regionally more relevant) talent, but unless my count is wrong aren't there less casters period for the EU event? I don't think anyone would mind if Khaldor and Jake were there, and not just Jake, for example. But having an equal or smaller number of casters + it being a bigger event stage wise and money wise + missing the most relevant regional talent is a bit of a pill to swallow.

 

[kirblar]

Raynor is probably the best Day 1 Medic char, her positioning will be rough with Illidan's playstyle, for instance.

 

[Alur]

Yep that's exactly what I was talking about. She's super strong keeping those melee divers up, but it's just not a viable place for her to be unless everyone is incredibly mindful of protecting her. She's very Sgt. Hammer like in that she needs to be protected and if she gets that protection, she is ridiculous.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

You have a point. To me I don't have an issue because outside of Khaldor, no one else has put as much in HOTS and getting the scene to grow as Solidjake. If Blizzard or whoever wants to hook him up for that, it's fine by me. I'd venture the vast majority of HOTS viewers NA or not know recognize Solidjake and Khaldor as the top two most active/visible/whatever.

I agree on passing over other homegrown (or at least regionally more relevant) talent, but unless my count is wrong aren't there less casters period for the EU event? I don't think anyone would mind if Khaldor and Jake were there, and not just Jake, for example. But having an equal or smaller number of casters + it being a bigger event stage wise and money wise + missing the most relevant regional talent is a bit of a pill to swallow.

The schedule is pretty messed up by hosting all the Blizzard european finals, like Sunday there's literally only the Grand Finals. Semi finals and up are Bo5s though so that's nice.

Jake is definitely the face of HoTS competitive scene overall and he earned his place I also don't think the meta is that different he'll feel out of place. They also got Grubby who's just a really likeable guy and who goes back all the way with Blizzard. It's not all bad.

 

[Maledict]

Khlador isnt invited because ESL Europe are truly dreadful andBlizzard doesn't give a shit as it isn't the states. We have seen this time and time and time again with Europe, and they still haven't stepped in to do anything at all which indicates how much concern they have.

Maybe European players spend less at the store or something, because I have no other idea why they would continously let their largest player base get shat on by what is obviously an incredibly crap organisation not able or suited to running these events.

 

[Ketch]

maybe they just dont have enough people/time to give it the attention it deserves

 

[kirblar]

The translation for one of the indecipherable blizzard phrases on the test game is that essentially, class differences in HP/attack power/etc will now be just as big at l1 as they are in the end game. Right now everything's kinda squished early on- the relative differences are much smaller in the early game and grow as the game progresses. Now they'll be relatively static - this should probably help make early brawls feel a lot more like late-game brawls.

edit: ran half a custom with randos, holy shit there are going to be a lot of bad medcs who don't understand that class's job to be a squire.

Definitely feels a lot different, more consistent.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

and production is horrible already, late, sound cuts off, Jake regurgitates a lot of what grubby says for some reason,... we're not even an hour in. Well if it's just those early troubles it might end up fine.

Really hope the venue tomorrow will have more fluff though, this is so low key considering what's at stake.


Funny enough I thought whom I now was reminded is Jake was Cooby and vice versa, I like Cooby more.


Edit: not sold on the pairing, Jake and Grubby are both calmly analysing the game neither adding any intensity. And there they are again the technical difficulties.

 

[Lyng]

maybe they just dont have enough people/time to give it the attention it deserves

It's not only in Hots though. Hearthstone EU servers are shit too.
Really strange that they shit all over the European players like that.

 

[Syf]

This is such a giant step down from the NA production, dang. Maybe tomorrow will be better with a live audience. It is in the O2 Arena.

 

[Alur]

Edit: not sold on the pairing, Jake and Grubby are both calmly analysing the game neither adding any intensity. And there they are again the technical difficulties.

I am not either, but it's mainly because I've not seen Grubby do HOTS casting very well any time he's done it. Just not his thing IMO.

It is ironic that you feel that they are "calmly analyzing the game", though (and they are). Hasn't most of the QQ here been the over the top enthusiasm and GEEEE GEEEE and all of that from several people here? "The ESPNification" of HOTS by ESL is what kirblar calls it. This is definitely the opposite of that.

EDIT: Grubby does seem more competent than he has in the past IMO.

This is such a giant step down from the NA production, dang. Maybe tomorrow will be better with a live audience. It is in the O2 Arena.

It is that indeed. If this was all they had it definitely should've came first and Americas Championship last because they shouldn't be doing regression in production when trying to build a viewership.

 

[kirblar]

It is ironic that you feel that they are "calmly analyzing the game", though (and they are). Hasn't most of the QQ here been the over the top enthusiasm and GEEEE GEEEE and all of that from several people here? "The ESPNification" of HOTS by ESL is what kirblar calls it. This is definitely the opposite of that.

What they're describing is a different issue- it's the Jake/Cooby thing where you have too personalities who are too similar on commentary together.

The "GEE GEE" thing is the difference between Tastosis's Korean commentary and NA commentary- one is fine, the other makes you want to hook them out of the venue, and its totally how they're being told to cast by production.

 

[Alur]

Haha, to each his own. Too similar, too hype, /shrug.

To me, the majority of it is just nit picking as I have no issue with either approach so long as the commentators know what they are talking about.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I am not either, but it's mainly because I've not seen Grubby do HOTS casting very well any time he's done it. Just not his thing IMO.

It is ironic that you feel that they are "calmly analyzing the game", though (and they are). Hasn't most of the QQ here been the over the top enthusiasm and GEEEE GEEEE and all of that from several people here? "The ESPNification" of HOTS by ESL is what kirblar calls it. This is definitely the opposite of that.

EDIT: Grubby does seem more competent than he has in the past IMO.



It is that indeed. If this was all they had it definitely should've came first and Americas Championship last because they shouldn't be doing regression in production when trying to build a viewership.

I hate the Geee Geee but I do want some excitement, Jake isn't bringing it and they continue pairing him with analytic types.

Grubby was out of place at Heroes of The Dorm since it wasn't the meta he was used to but with Jake and Grubby in EU, Grubby brought much more to the table.

Dunno how often Jake ended up saying basically the same thing as Grubby the second before.

 

[Alur]

Jake would definitely benefit from a more enthusiastic pairing on the whole.

Still the more I've listened to these two together in this VP game I haven't minded it. It's not unlike what I hear on LCS/LPL/etc League casts during the majority of the game (laning phase, etc), just it's minus like 70% of the excitement those guys have for engagements and ganks when they happen.

 

[kirblar]

Jake would definitely benefit from a more enthusiastic pairing on the whole.

Still the more I've listened to these two together in this VP game I haven't minded it. It's not unlike what I hear on LCS/LPL/etc League casts during the majority of the game (laning phase, etc), just it's minus like 70% of the excitement those guys have for engagements and ganks when they happen.

Jake/Gilly was a really good pairing at Americas.

 

[Alur]

Where is the bracket? I'm not even sure what I missed earlier.

 

[Syf]

I usually use liquipedia. Don't have a link, I'm at work on my phone but if you go to teamliquid.net and then to their Heroes section it should be visible.

There's a thread on reddit talking up Blizzard's esports plans for 2016. I'm pretty excited to hear what they have in store.

 

[Alur]

Here's the bracket for the EU Championship.

Thanks Syfadious.

 

[Ketch]

The thing that bugs me the most is when the commentating is just like round robin play by play. Like it feels like they think someone has to be talking at all times, and in order to make that happen they take turns

ie. First jake talks, then cooby, and when cooby is talking jake is thinking about what he's gonna say next and he picks up immediately as soon as cooby is done. And there's no down time between because that would be bad somehow.


It just creates forced commentary on nothingness and an unnatural rushed feeling to their dialog.


Not everything is worth pointing out. Like they've literally commentated on individual creep waves getting cleared before. "Looks like tempos just one creep wave behind in xp.. aaannnd now they got it!"

It's almost parody at some point.

Just talk about the match. Have one guy be the play by play hype man and one guy do the analysis between the big moments. And then just talk about the game. No "rules" required.

Maybe I'm just spoiled by how good the commentary is in dota.

 

[Turdburger]

Jake/Gilly was a really good pairing at Americas.

gilly is objectively not a very good caster

 

[Turdburger]

Jake would definitely benefit from a more enthusiastic pairing on the whole.

Still the more I've listened to these two together in this VP game I haven't minded it. It's not unlike what I hear on LCS/LPL/etc League casts during the majority of the game (laning phase, etc), just it's minus like 70% of the excitement those guys have for engagements and ganks when they happen.

Hype/voice guy + Analyst is the formula that works for every commentated sporting event in the world. Heroes needs to start trying to emulate it as much as possible.

These "casters" need to pick a niche and stick to it.

Babael, for example, is a hype guy. Put him with an analyst and you're good.

ToD does the analyst thing very well in my opinion.

 

[kirblar]

gilly is objectively not a very good caster

No, she's not the best, but she and Jake together were way better than Anna/Gilly or Jake/Cooby or Gilly/Jester. Energy level was up, you didn't have the "two PBP people" issue, and big things weren't slipping past them.

 

[Turdburger]

I'm not sure I understand what the following means:

Less stat changes per level, and the differences are baked into the starting stats.

For assassins, they gain attack damage more than health so when you bake a bunch of base stats into the assassin archetype, they will deal more damage but feel squishier relative to the other heroes who are also getting their own stat boosts.

In all honesty the game should basically feel the same because they're not messing with the actual scaling of the stats, rather simply adjusting when they are applied to a hero in the course of a match to create less of a stat differential from a level advantage.

 

[kirblar]

Less stat changes per level, and the differences are baked into the starting stats.

For assassins, they gain attack damage more than health so when you bake a bunch of base stats into the assassin archetype, they will deal more damage but feel squishier relative to the other heroes who are also getting their own stat boosts.

In all honesty the game should basically feel the same because they're not messing with the actual scaling of the stats, rather simply adjusting when they are applied to a hero in the course of a match to create less of a stat differential from a level advantage.

The one big thing it's affecting is non-Conjurer's stack talents like Seasoned Marksman, Taste for Blood, etc- there's far less initial marginal impact on those talents, they're now all very late-game oriented because of the new relative values.

I really like that the game plays more consistently, and that talents are much more emphasized here as what gives you a leg up on your opponents.

 

[Nirolak]

Less stat changes per level, and the differences are baked into the starting stats.

For assassins, they gain attack damage more than health so when you bake a bunch of base stats into the assassin archetype, they will deal more damage but feel squishier relative to the other heroes who are also getting their own stat boosts.

In all honesty the game should basically feel the same because they're not messing with the actual scaling of the stats, rather simply adjusting when they are applied to a hero in the course of a match to create less of a stat differential from a level advantage.

Oh, so "ingrained" means they essentially took the stat gains they removed from the levels and put them in the initial stats.

Like, the overall goal was making sense, but I wasn't sure where the "ingrained" part was coming from.

Thank you.