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Heroes of the Storm |OT| Pretty sure that Abathur is AFK

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kirblar

Member
The issue is QM matchmaking treats main healers and hybrid supports the same, and it's warping hybrid support design in a bad way.
 
Guys what do I do. I just started playing this over the weekend and it's my first moba. I'm playing Tassadar as I enjoy healing/support roles. Is quick match really the only option available to play? Apparently for ranked I need to be like a pro. This is weird since Hearthstone doesn't gate ranked behind anything. So I just grind quick match forever until I get 10k from the level up rewards and I can buy a real character?

I was in the middle of replying and then you go get yourself banned. Damn bruh, RIP.
 

TDLink

Member
Tassadar has shields and a healing totem though. Also wall is amazing. If this isn't a support char, what is? o_O

I wasn't saying he wasn't support, I just don't think he is a very good one compared to the alternatives.

Dunno how you got yourself banned (that sucks) but if you read this I highly recommend giving the other supports a shot as well. You will see why I think Tassadar isn't all that comparatively.

That said I'm also only two weeks into the game and I don't know everything yet either.
 

jon bones

hot hot hanuman-on-man action
how much stock do casual players put in tier lists?

i've never cared for them while playing SF - even at high levels - but as a team game i'm not sure if they are more important here. considering i'm not playing ranked (yet) and continual patches change tier lists regularly, should i even look at them? or continue to play the characters i enjoy (ie, Li Li) regardless of how effective they may be in higher level play?
 

brian!

Member
It's fine as a reference
this current patch has probably the largest pool of good heroes out of tge patches ive been a part of
if you're starting out it's important to just figure out the game and what heroes do, then you can start figuring out what certain hero combinations mean

if you google like "team liquid heroes 101" and "team liquid hero league 101", youll probably find 2 guides for the game that i think are great for beginners
 

kirblar

Member
Knowing basic synergies (especially with healers) and the Bonkers/Trash far ends is very helpful. Beyond that, you don't need to much, especially with them getting the balance to a relatively good spot.
 
Mobas are a genre where I feel learning by failure is extremely important. Yes, you can just read someone's analysis of why you should pick a certain hero, talent, ultimate, etc, but actually doing it for yourself and struggling with the pros and cons helps build your contextual knowledge of the game and its many interactions. Playing LiLi for 5 games straight is going to instinctively teach you more about the kinds of comps she's good and weak against much better than a guide that just says 'don't pick her against X comp'. That said, it's always good to supplement that experience with informed analysis because you may not always understand why something is effective or vulnerable.

Like whenever I get wrecked by something, my first instinct is to try to replicate that strategy myself because I'll probably fail at doing it. And by failing I learn what its weaknesses are in a useful and intuitive way.
 

Zafir

Member
how much stock do casual players put in tier lists?

i've never cared for them while playing SF - even at high levels - but as a team game i'm not sure if they are more important here. considering i'm not playing ranked (yet) and continual patches change tier lists regularly, should i even look at them? or continue to play the characters i enjoy (ie, Li Li) regardless of how effective they may be in higher level play?

Well, it's worth noting even with the worst heroes, you can still win if you're good at them. If you aren't trying to be competitive and just play QM all the time, then just play what you enjoy.

At first you're better off just trying to learn all of the heroes, and what they can do. Getting all of them to level 5 is a good way to do that. Then you can start focusing on specific ones to "master". By then you'll have probably found some heroes or types that you enjoy playing too which makes it easier to figure out which ones you'd want to focus on.

If you ever want to go into Hero League, then it is worth learning the stronger picks. If you can get good at them, then naturally it'll increase your chance of winning by playing heroes which are more likely to influence the game in a bigger way. Of course, if you aren't very good at some of the heroes which are considered strong, then you are better of just picking what you're good at.

It's also worth noting that the different tier lists are based on different things. Heroes that are good in tournament level play, aren't necessarily going to be fantastic in solo play. So keep that in mind when you look at all the different tier lists people put out. They generally state what they're basing it off.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
just want to add that I love all you new heroes players
 

brian!

Member
Normally id recommend just diving in, thats what worked for me but i had previous moba experience and i can usually sus out correct and efficent things to do

I had a pretty good winrate, but a lot of ppl post horror stories about how their earlier matches put them at an mmr range that they are finding needlessly difficult to crawl out of, like that's the only reason i would have for researching/watching streams from ppl like dreadnaught who explain things. But yeah it's a lot better if you can experience and understand why certain things you're doing are working or not

Yeh the guide you found was the one im talking about, dunno if they are updated but the general stuff in it is valuable
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
dumb and pathetic
 

jon bones

hot hot hanuman-on-man action
just want to add that I love all you new heroes players

love you too, b

as it turns out mobas can be real fun stuff

Well, it's worth noting even with the worst heroes, you can still win if you're good at them. If you aren't trying to be competitive and just play QM all the time, then just play what you enjoy.

At first you're better off just trying to learn all of the heroes, and what they can do. Getting all of them to level 5 is a good way to do that. Then you can start focusing on specific ones to "master". By then you'll have probably found some heroes or types that you enjoy playing too which makes it easier to figure out which ones you'd want to focus on.

If you ever want to go into Hero League, then it is worth learning the stronger picks. If you can get good at them, then naturally it'll increase your chance of winning by playing heroes which are more likely to influence the game in a bigger way. Of course, if you aren't very good at some of the heroes which are considered strong, then you are better of just picking what you're good at.

It's also worth noting that the different tier lists are based on different things. Heroes that are good in tournament level play, aren't necessarily going to be fantastic in solo play. So keep that in mind when you look at all the different tier lists people put out. They generally state what they're basing it off.

yeah, i'm going through and getting characters to 5

i own a few who i really enjoy playing (Jaina, Zagara, Li Li) and have my eye on some others to purchase when i get the gold (Johanna, Kharazim)

i'll start reading some guides and brush up on my game, very much enjoying the learning process

Normally id recommend just diving in, thats what worked for me but i had previous moba experience and i can usually sus out correct and efficent things to do

I had a pretty good winrate, but a lot of ppl post horror stories about how their earlier matches put them at an mmr range that they are finding needlessly difficult to crawl out of, like that's the only reason i would have for researching/watching streams from ppl like dreadnaught who explain things. But yeah it's a lot better if you can experience and understand why certain things you're doing are working or not

Yeh the guide you found was the one im talking about, dunno if they are updated but the general stuff in it is valuable

MMR stuff only gets tracked post-30, right? i'm still a long ways away from that, i think.
 

brian!

Member
It tracks every game except ai and the earlier matches act as placement matches where wins and losses are counted more heavily. The mmr amount eases up when the system begins to think you are where you belong, which happens more quickly if you begin showing strings of losses

Im not sure if it's really so significant or easy to get stuck somewhere, but i havent experienced it so i cant really speak on it

I want to recommend just doing whats fun to you but yeah i dunno how wack the system is really
 

Alur

Member
There's definitely something to be said for prior MOBA or MMO PVP knowledge being a big thing for getting a leg up in this game IMO. As the game plays very similarly like a mish-mash of both via the way skills are used and the style of objectives, it makes it easier to adapt once you see each map and hero in action.

I wouldn't worry about the tier lists so much. The higher you go the more it can benefit you (by eeking out an extra bit making victory easier), but starting out and just playing in general you can play literally just about anything if you can create a competent build.

You should be able to quickly identify (in < ~5-10 games) whether a hero is right for you and you can succeed with it or not, or at the least whether you can succeed with it after more practice.

If I had a caution for playing new heroes it would be simply be "pay attention". Upload your games to hotslogs or keep track on pen and paper - if you're rocking a 33% winrate after a bunch of games on that hero do some research and figure out why. Maybe your build is wrong, maybe the hero is combo oriented and you aren't landing it, etc etc. It's kind of a disservice to your own game experience and your team if you don't make any effort to change or improve if you're set on playing that one hero.

MMR stuff only gets tracked post-30, right? i'm still a long ways away from that, i think.

And yeah, @jon bones, your MMR was being tracked from the first game you played in QM. If you're at ~50-100 games played in QM already, you are already narrowing pretty quickly on your bracket.

Im not sure if it's really so significant or easy to get stuck somewhere, but i havent experienced it so i cant really speak on it

I would argue that you do know how easy it is to get stuck somewhere. If I look at your hotdogs, you were ~3700 within your first 50-75 games. Basically a full year later you are still ~3700. At a few points you climbed ~200-300 MMR and got in the 3900's but have since fallen back and at one point fell to ~3500 but climbed back. That's just basically backing up what folks are saying. It's hard to go beyond your MMR threshold without a shit-ton of games.

We've seen from the Blizzard MMR charts that Hotdogs is actually pretty accurate with the placements (ie: you belong in Master or Platinum or wherever), just not the order of players on the Hotdogs leaderboard since players only need to play like 5 or 10 games across two months to remain on hotdogs leaderboard whereas with Blizzard's monthly chart they must play 50 games EACH month, so I feel pretty confident saying that it mirrors the system decently enough to be considered.
 

Alur

Member
Haha, that's convenient to say. I mean, maybe, but then you should go down not maintain. After all, your friends are lower MMR than you so the games are being carried to some degree by your play.
 

brian!

Member
Im not saying i wasnt at my cap or anything, just that i stopped things that helped me go up like communicating, playing sober, evaluating things i was doing wrong and fixing it, etc etc when i was ~3900, stopped playing solo too, so im like not feeling the struggle or anything even tho my mmr has floated around the same range for months

Also its qm mmr which i dont really put much stock into
 

Alur

Member
lol, in general I struggle to find things you do put stock into. You say that a lot about a variety of topics but ayy lmao.

EDIT:

yiEYGR4.png


Been missing this since the death recaps left in Alpha. Would definitely be great to have. The death recap was fun back then with the timer.
 

brian!

Member
Mainly put stock into pro play lol
Qm mmr was always booty to me because qm is the chronicles of ridic. kind of like how the sats judge how good you are at taking the sats, qm mmr just kind of judges how good you are at getting qm mmr, which has little to do with the actual game (no mirrors, real comp building, etc.)
 

Alur

Member

Wow son. Move over liquidneo.

What exactly was a death recap? I mean, it seems self-explanatory, but how was it implemented?

I forget all it encompassed in Alpha, but it was something like this:

You killed "x" amount of players and were alive for 15:32 and did "x" damage and/or "x" healing in that time.

It was just a neat little thing to see after you died.

A more traditional one just tells you what killed you Oregon Trail style, though I fail to remember if that one did or not. I'd have to check my old screenshots.

Mainly put stock into pro play lol

Fair enough I guess, but considering none of us are pros and the majority of our game experience is outside of it and unable to replicate that environment...seems like the other end of it would be just as - if not more - important.

Qm mmr was always booty to me because qm is the chronicles of ridic. kind of like how the sats judge how good you are at taking the sats, qm mmr just kind of judges how good you are at getting qm mmr, which has little to do with the actual game (no mirrors, real comp building, etc.)

I would say you were right...if the majority of players didn't play QM, but they do. So therefore it IS the real game for most people for better or worse.
 

brian!

Member
I understand where you are coming from, and im not trying to say qm isnt an important part of the game atm

But i def disagree that they should in any way use qm for balance changes (qol changes sure), even if the majority of the base plays that. I think the same to a lesser degree of statistics like winrates or talent choice. Thats what i mean about putting stock into stuff, i totally think the qm experience should be cared for and be fun to play. I think my wording is pretty shitty tho
 

Alur

Member
I never said or implied they should balance around QM. I said that's what the majority of people play so it is the game to most people, meaning what comes out of it on a personal level (via your hotdogs mmr, hero winrates, map winrates, etc) is just as reliable and viable as any other mode. It's not a perfect ground for testing, sure, but with the amount of sample size we have and hotdogs has it's certainly not something to be looked at as unreliable once you've played a decent amount of games.

It's also kind of telling that it seems like a good bit of the people I've ever bothered to look up have a QM and HL MMR that are relatively close to each other too, even with there sometimes being a huge difference in games played. So even when mirror matches and random comps are removed, people are still ending up near the same level of skill by both measures.
 

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Wow son. Move over liquidneo.

Wow, that's impressive. I don't even have a single 10 yet. Hammer will be my first 10 though, just a few more games and she'll be my first level 9 hero, and then it's just an ungodly amount of more games to level 10. And then.....the rest of the heroes..... o_O
 

Alur

Member
Wow, that's impressive. I don't even have a single 10 yet. Hammer will be my first 10 though, just a few more games and she'll be my first level 9 hero, and then it's just an ungodly amount of more games to level 10. And then.....the rest of the heroes..... o_O

If you don't mind me asking, how many games played do you have total Mengy? Sometimes it's better to just salt it around. I like hyper focus on one hero, though. Think I'm up to 23 level 10's across my accounts and 15 still on my main. I regret maxing/getting to 10 some of my favorites because I have less desire to play them now.

It'd take some dedication and tribulation to do all the heroes, though. Some you are inevitably gonna hate or be bad at.

What's more surprising, someone did it...or that it wasn't Yoshichan first? C'mon Yoshi you slacker. You are letting GAF down! /s
 

Alur

Member
It's just a hair under 700 games I think. I don't play as much as some of you guys do!

That's quite a bit too, though. How long ya been at it?

Feels less like ts tilting/zuna being sick and more like ts getting exposed

Think so too.

IMO it seems to be the way of the competitive scene in this game. No one seems to dominate for more than 3-4 months without taking a dip for a bit. Happened to TS before. Then C9. Happened now to TL and again to TS it looks like. One could argue maybe it has happened to MVP Black but that was just one series.
 

davepoobond

you can't put a price on sparks
Only have a single 10 and that's Zeratul (11 now)

Other than that A bunch of 9s and 8s I can't be arsed to get to 10.

i have a couple of 10s. kt is almost 11.

azmo will be my next one to hit 10, i think.

after i buy the 20k dubloon mount i can start buying the heroes again. i'm lacking some alternates for hero league
 

kirblar

Member
Morales' HP buff is going live tomorrow:
Medic starting life increased to 840 (Up from 700).
Medic health regeneration rate increased to 1.75 (Up from 1.457).
Medic health gained per level increased to 130 (Up from 110).
Artanis has been added to the list of playable heroes.
A portrait has been added for Legacy of the Void owners.
 

Alur

Member
Ok, THH listeners. Finally got around to listening to a little of the latest episode.

C9 are going to a Chinese Pro League with Korean teams as well? Sounds fucking awesome. I mean it sounds awesome and great for C9, though part of me also thinks that for a team that doesn't even have a team house and have only met in person a few times, talk about being a fish out of water experience both living together and spending ~2 months in a foreign country. On the plus side if they can remain cool with each other this will be great for chemistry and maybe help them get that team house.

bkb's Virtus Pro team sounds like a bigger disaster than the Cleveland Browns. Which is amazing.

Also lol @ Glaurung being the sole drafter for Cog. I mean, we kinda knew that, but it makes everything they do and their reliance on playing only one way make so much sense.

That's about as far as I've gotten.

A portrait has been added for Legacy of the Void owners.

Noice.
 
bkb was really depressing that episode. VP are truly doing their best and they've recently started off performing great but then just all apart the following games.

Gela is a great addition to their team.
 

Alur

Member
KT's starting HP is 740 + 130 per level. So it's higher than his.

Jaina, Zag, Valla, Tyrande, Tychus, Sylv, Tassadar, Raynor, Nova, and so on are all lower.

Lili's HP is 835 + 135 per level so that's about as close as we get.

She's gonna have more HP than all the squishies now, and the HP regen thing will definitely be nice considering what she already has built in via trait. ~340 extra health at level 10. Seems like a pretty decent buff, dunno that it fixes her though.
 

brian!

Member
all i know is she has 300+ health at 10 and dats a lot of money
that is pretty much the extent of the math i will do for this game
(am capable of)
 
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