I did try Smite actually. I did enjoy it, but sadly my friends aren't quite as much of a fan, and the community is just too rubbish for me to put up with playing solo. It honestly has by far the worst community I've seen playing a game. I haven't played LoL though.
Honestly, I've been playing Dota 2 more than anything recently. Playing HotS kind of made the jump into Dota 2 a bit easier, and I know a load of people who play it so it was a natural progression I guess.
Yeah I tried that on Win10. It seems like it'll be pretty fun. I personally haven't put much time into it because of it being a bit barebones at the moment. Such as the lack of party system. The fact it's weekends only doesn't help. I like to be able to play when I want. x.x
To EU GAF: Prepare for a huge change come Nov/Dec month
To the rest: if this game was a bit more optimized and I could take advantage of my new monitor, the passion might've been there. I still can't fathom how shit this game looks like on low and how I'm despite graphics quality not getting at least 150fps during 5v5s.
To EU GAF: Prepare for a huge change come Nov/Dec month
To the rest: if this game was a bit more optimized and I could take advantage of my new monitor, the passion might've been there. I still can't fathom how shit this game looks like on low and how I'm despite graphics quality not getting at least 150fps during 5v5s.
Yeah I tried that on Win10. It seems like it'll be pretty fun. I personally haven't put much time into it because of it being a bit barebones at the moment. Such as the lack of party system. The fact it's weekends only doesn't help. I like to be able to play when I want. x.x
Yeah, I was only able to push in a couple matches myself because of that and the long queue times but the lack of content doesn't hurt because it takes time to learn the characters and game again. Really love Aisling so far, wish there was a summoner in HoTS.
The things that I've planed for next month or December won't change anything for you if you've lost all the passion. If you however have something left burning for this game, then you won't regret joining/contributing to what I'll be doing. That's all I can say for now
The things that I've planed for next month or December won't change anything for you if you've lost all the passion. If you however have something left burning for this game, then you won't regret what I'll be doing. That's all I can say for now
this does leave a support-sized hole in my roster, though. while i originally had fun playing as Li Li, i've become a little bored with her. i've got a decent amount of gold stacking up, so i may give Kharazim a shot.
Oh i meant youll probably see more of those. He heals in an aoe and melee heroes are more likely to clump, and 7 sided strike has more value on high hp heroes too. Going against less burst is good for him too. Grood night
Tassadar is really interesting now. Not sure whether he can be a solo healer, but we tried two games (one with him and medic, one without) in quick match and won both, and his healing was serious. Equal to or greater than the medic in both games.
Possibly a comp with tyrande makes the most sense, or Brightwing?
(And force wall is a hoot, such a powerful ability when used right).
I like conjurer's pursuit with leeching shields and shields last indefinitely talents.
makes an even harder counter to zeratul.
best feeling in the game has got to be KT. When that flame strike is under the target or when pyro is on the way, and you know that they know that they're fucked and you just turn around and walk away. mmm too good.
I think just most everyone who is a regular here plays less (or maybe not at all) compared to what they did previously. I feel like it's kind of the nature of these online games (MMO and MOBAs being the most similar). They require so much time investment and I feel like most gamers have goals they set, or heroes they want to get, or whatever it may be...and then you get it and it's like now what?
I was talking to Milly79 the other night and realized I have been playing for a solid year straight with no real breaks, and other than the artifact debacle which put me off the game for a month or two, I played for another 4-5 months before that. I have every hero on one account and every hero but Johanna on another account (and I have the gold to get her, just haven't). That's a lot of time investment. Just about anything will get stale to some degree when you've put that much in.
I'm at one of those stale points now. I love the new patch and what it brought, but the heroes I want to play now may or may not be the most beneficial to us actually winning games at the pace we normally do. I feel guilty playing them, and feel like I'm wasting time not playing them. I got my rank 1's, etc etc, so I dunno what my next "goal" should be. I play now mainly to hang out with Milly and proto and whoever more than I play because it's as fun as it used to be.
I don't think that approach is that uncommon, the only reason I played WoW as long as I did was because it was how my friends and I hung out regularly. I think a lot of social circles cycle through flavor of the month games together, but you almost always have some kind of staple go-to game, not because it's the most fun for you by yourself, but because it's the most fun you can consistently have together with friends. I find my gaming time is divided between single player "as fun for me as possible" games and multiplayer "this is just a vehicle to shoot the shit with friends" games.
I think just most everyone who is a regular here plays less (or maybe not at all) compared to what they did previously. I feel like it's kind of the nature of these online games (MMO and MOBAs being the most similar). They require so much time investment and I feel like most gamers have goals they set, or heroes they want to get, or whatever it may be...and then you get it and it's like now what?
I was talking to Milly79 the other night and realized I have been playing for a solid year straight with no real breaks, and other than the artifact debacle which put me off the game for a month or two, I played for another 4-5 months before that. I have every hero on one account and every hero but Johanna on another account (and I have the gold to get her, just haven't). That's a lot of time investment. Just about anything will get stale to some degree when you've put that much in.
I'm at one of those stale points now. I love the new patch and what it brought, but the heroes I want to play now may or may not be the most beneficial to us actually winning games at the pace we normally do. I feel guilty playing them, and feel like I'm wasting time not playing them. I got my rank 1's, etc etc, so I dunno what my next "goal" should be. I play now mainly to hang out with Milly and proto and whoever more than I play because it's as fun as it used to be.
Well, it's not even just getting to goals, it's also getting sick of trying to get there.
Like I'd have liked to get to rank 1 in Hero League. I have faith that I could probably get there. But frankly, I just can't be bothered to grind it out.
I don't think that approach is that uncommon, the only reason I played WoW as long as I did was because it was how my friends and I hung out regularly. I think a lot of social circles cycle through flavor of the month games together, but you almost always have some kind of staple go-to game, not because it's the most fun for you by yourself, but because it's the most fun you can consistently have together with friends. I find my gaming time is divided between single player "as fun for me as possible" games and multiplayer "this is just a vehicle to shoot the shit with friends" games.
I think most people who have played MMO's have probably experienced that. That's pretty much what happened to me by the end of my time with both WoW Classic and SWTOR.
Edit:
I think the tragic part about all of this for me is, I still bought the Raynor and Medic Bundle. :L
I think just most everyone who is a regular here plays less (or maybe not at all) compared to what they did previously. I feel like it's kind of the nature of these online games (MMO and MOBAs being the most similar). They require so much time investment and I feel like most gamers have goals they set, or heroes they want to get, or whatever it may be...and then you get it and it's like now what?
I was talking to Milly79 the other night and realized I have been playing for a solid year straight with no real breaks, and other than the artifact debacle which put me off the game for a month or two, I played for another 4-5 months before that. I have every hero on one account and every hero but Johanna on another account (and I have the gold to get her, just haven't). That's a lot of time investment. Just about anything will get stale to some degree when you've put that much in.
I'm at one of those stale points now. I love the new patch and what it brought, but the heroes I want to play now may or may not be the most beneficial to us actually winning games at the pace we normally do. I feel guilty playing them, and feel like I'm wasting time not playing them. I got my rank 1's, etc etc, so I dunno what my next "goal" should be. I play now mainly to hang out with Milly and proto and whoever more than I play because it's as fun as it used to be.
When you put it that way it does sound bad. For me, I like the in game stuff and being able to see it cause w/ kids I'll never be able to attend. I guess you could argue it would make sense to stream it free, but then the people who pay to attend might not be happy.
I don't think that approach is that uncommon, the only reason I played WoW as long as I did was because it was how my friends and I hung out regularly. I think a lot of social circles cycle through flavor of the month games together, but you almost always have some kind of staple go-to game, not because it's the most fun for you by yourself, but because it's the most fun you can consistently have together with friends. I find my gaming time is divided between single player "as fun for me as possible" games and multiplayer "this is just a vehicle to shoot the shit with friends" games.
Late reply but yeah I understand. I took a break myself for a few weeks. Now I'm back, refreshed, and lots of new heroes and content to enjoy. I'm just starting up Hero League though. Not really interested in rankings whatsoever but I'm finding the quality of teammates to be vastly superior to Quickmatch so far (at least the ranked player seem to want to win while in Quickmatch I wonder if they're bots sometimes)
Maybe it was just a natural progression for some people, but for me it seems like there was significant drop-off in players after the HL/TL group rules were changed.
I think just most everyone who is a regular here plays less (or maybe not at all) compared to what they did previously. I feel like it's kind of the nature of these online games (MMO and MOBAs being the most similar). They require so much time investment and I feel like most gamers have goals they set, or heroes they want to get, or whatever it may be...and then you get it and it's like now what?
I was talking to Milly79 the other night and realized I have been playing for a solid year straight with no real breaks, and other than the artifact debacle which put me off the game for a month or two, I played for another 4-5 months before that. I have every hero on one account and every hero but Johanna on another account (and I have the gold to get her, just haven't). That's a lot of time investment. Just about anything will get stale to some degree when you've put that much in.
I'm at one of those stale points now. I love the new patch and what it brought, but the heroes I want to play now may or may not be the most beneficial to us actually winning games at the pace we normally do. I feel guilty playing them, and feel like I'm wasting time not playing them. I got my rank 1's, etc etc, so I dunno what my next "goal" should be. I play now mainly to hang out with Milly and proto and whoever more than I play because it's as fun as it used to be.
I played Witcher 3 almost exclusively for a month and it helped a lot. I also lose more now, but ymmv on that end
Video games are the only hobby I've stuck with my whole life, and I think it's actually better to only play a handful of games a year rather than 20+, I honestly think forcing yourself to fit things into your available time makes it worse. Best solution for burnout I find is to not play anything for a day or two, then switch to something completely different for a week. If the itch comes back, you'll know it was just you, if it doesn't, it really means you're done with the game.
That's how I realized I was done with WoW, I played other things for 2 months and never even thought about WoW afterwards.
how is the population in this game? i'm very much enjoying my time with it but i wonder about it's longevity as the vast majority of the MOBA market is tied up in DOTA/LoL
Your first opportunity to secure this portrait is quickly approaching. Tune in to the Americas Championship on September 19 and 20, and you’ll be among the first to receive the new portrait. After watching the Americas or other regional championship events, the portrait will be awarded to qualifying players starting in October, when it will appear in your in-game portrait collection.
how is the population in this game? i'm very much enjoying my time with it but i wonder about it's longevity as the vast majority of the MOBA market is tied up in DOTA/LoL
The only metrics we have to gauge it are hotslogs.com and reddit.
reddit sub has twice as many subs as Smite, a little less than half as many as Dota 2, and 1/7th of League. Clearly Dota 2 and League have way more players than HOTS, but for actual activity from players seeking content outside the game it seems to be doing well for 4 months into launch. It's an active sub, and from there we've gleaned more info on population from barrett777 who runs hotslogs.
IIRC his last update several months ago had 1.2 million active European hotslogs "accounts", ~950,000 NA accounts, and I forget the numbers on the other regions (Korea/China/etc don't really use hotdogs). Think this was based on uploads including an account in the last 30 or 60 days but I'm not 100% certain on that, and "accounts" was any b.net account that had at least 1 game uploaded to hotslogs in that timeframe.
The most recent quote from barrett is this:
hotdogs is a voluntary MMR tracker and is used far more by players like us (active with the game outside of the game/engaged/often much higher mmr than average) compared to the vast majority of players who are in the lower brackets.
barrett777 says that based on his hotdogs formula "Plat / Gold / Silver are each 20% of the population, and Bronze is 30%", however when I ran the numbers in August the number of accounts in QM in Bronze was 40.4% and in Silver were 21.37%. So either 70% of the population is Gold or below, or 61.77% of the population is Silver or below...either way, it's the majority
Completely anecdotal, but any time I've started a new account or had an account bracketed in a mode below Gold league I find that only about 1 in every 7 or so of my games is uploaded. At Diamond where I typically play, nearly every single game shows up eventually no matter if I solo or group w/ Milly who auto-uploads all games he plays. Most people who just start out playing HOTS or play at a bracket Gold or below seem to notice this same trend if they decide to upload, though, so I think it's fair to say that hotdogs misses a larger portion of entry level games where the greater amount of the game's population is located.
All this to say the game is healthy population wise. It's Blizzard. They have hooks to bring in players from all their different games, and then the hook of "casual moba" for those who can't be arsed or can't hack the long games/much more complicated systems in League and Dota. Ultimately Blizzard isn't aiming for existing moba players who are hardcore into League or Dota, they are aiming for those casual players who like Blizzard games or are seeking a less intensive moba/multiplayer experience which is why there's really no need to worry about long term IMO.
I feel like hots is doing pretty well
it's model is great, it's a hyperactive moba where the average game time is like 18 minutes or something
Longevity will depend on how much the company will support it and i think a lot of ppl think support will spike after sc2 comes out (overwatch tho?), they are already making an effort with pro play which is heavily important too. They might have a bit of a retention issue atm, a lot of the conversation about the game has to do with frustration about really basic things and higher lvl players (in na) have already kind of disavowed the ranked mode
I feel like hots is doing pretty well
it's model is great, it's a hyperactive moba where the average game time is like 18 minutes or something
Longevity will depend on how much the company will support it and i think a lot of ppl think support will spike after sc2 comes out (overwatch tho?), they are already making an effort with pro play which is heavily important too. They might have a bit of a retention issue atm, a lot of the conversation about the game has to do with frustration about really basic things and higher lvl players (in na) have already kind of disavowed the ranked mode
Retention is the big thing. Fix the issues (matchmaking, snowballing, soloqueue experience) and you keep that in line. VoIP will be huge as well, chat just doesn't cut it with the pace of the game.
thanks for your thoughts guys, i really appreciate it.
i am time-poor these days, so as i begin to commit more time to learning the game (and building up the courage to go from ai to pvp) it's good to know that the game will be around for a while. i know blizz still has d2 servers up someplace so i doubt this is going anywhere, i was more concerned about the community becoming full of high level players and not many casual bros like myself.
Are they? I can't wait to be called some homophobic and /or racist slur over voice chat. That'll be great!
Hopefully it's opt in for hero league only or party members only or something. Nothing will drive away a casual faster then toxic voice chat.
What would be really neat is if they expand the reputation system in the opposite direction from silencing a toxic player to requiring commends from teammates to get access to voip. Not gonna happen tho
If you want to know who the target audience is go back and watch the giant bomb quick look for hots. There's a guy who hates mob as finding out why mobs are actually good (even tho he sucks at them) and then super almost getting hooked by the leveling/gold system and the "cool skins for your favorite heroes!"
