Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Yeah and XiaoT is retiring.
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Heroes of the Storm |OT2| Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
- Thread starter Nirolak
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Maximus.
Member
I understand people are learning, but then you are surrounded by toxic conversation, people playing on their own, not listening to their teammates. The same can be said for rank.
I don't expect people to be amazing all the time, I just think people should be open to play as a team and work together to try and win. There seems to be a lot of selfish egos or arrogance that is unneeded and toxic.
Yes, you can say that about any game, but I am specifically directing that to this game. Same could be said about Overwatch too though haha.
I think the next month will be grim until the ranked patch hits. Overwatch is the news thing on the gaming scene and it's going to dominate conversation and mind share for a while.
I do agree that in many ways it feels like Overwatch was developed by watching the initial flaws and mistakes HotS made. It will be interesting to see how it plays out in the long run - when Overwatch first hit twitch it had ridiculous numbers, but dropped off rapidly. Personally I find it utterly incomprehensible to watch (but then I'm too old to be good at fps games nowadays).
As long as Blizzard keeps supporting and improving the game I think it will continue to grow. Now we are getting a proper ranked mode, the next things I want to see are:
1) spectate mode in client
2) tournament links in the client to twitch
3) swaps in draft so tournaments can be run in the client
4) smaller, more regular tournaments. The current scheme is great, but we need content every week if possible - leagues, amateur tournaments, stuff like that. Whenever I log into Starcraft they have another quick tournament showing on the dashboard for me to join, hots needs the same.
I think the biggest sign of hots strength will be their plans for next years tournament schedule. They sank a huge amount of cash into this years regime, has it paid off and will they do the same again?
I do agree that in many ways it feels like Overwatch was developed by watching the initial flaws and mistakes HotS made. It will be interesting to see how it plays out in the long run - when Overwatch first hit twitch it had ridiculous numbers, but dropped off rapidly. Personally I find it utterly incomprehensible to watch (but then I'm too old to be good at fps games nowadays).
As long as Blizzard keeps supporting and improving the game I think it will continue to grow. Now we are getting a proper ranked mode, the next things I want to see are:
1) spectate mode in client
2) tournament links in the client to twitch
3) swaps in draft so tournaments can be run in the client
4) smaller, more regular tournaments. The current scheme is great, but we need content every week if possible - leagues, amateur tournaments, stuff like that. Whenever I log into Starcraft they have another quick tournament showing on the dashboard for me to join, hots needs the same.
I think the biggest sign of hots strength will be their plans for next years tournament schedule. They sank a huge amount of cash into this years regime, has it paid off and will they do the same again?
brickwalker0
Member
despite getting OW & Uncharted 4 on PS4 (love Uncharted MP) and Battleborn on PC, i've been playing more HoTS than i have in awhile. ranked is just a lot of fun after having stopped paying attention to my rank.
drafting is fun, no mirror matches is fun and im having a blast with Artanis and Anub lately. Artanis for the anti melee, Anub for the anti mage.
drafting is fun, no mirror matches is fun and im having a blast with Artanis and Anub lately. Artanis for the anti melee, Anub for the anti mage.
Dropped off rapidly? I guess it depends on your perspective.
Dropped off from launch day numbers of 175-200k? Yeah, definitely. But every game does that when the "I stream every new game" personalities go away. HOTS even had some of them last summer. Every evening I've checked pretty regularly since launch though and OW been in the top two at some point which is pretty impressive. It was number two yesterday evening all three times I checked and peaked at 68k viewers. It's number 3 right now with 7 streams having significantly more viewers than any of our regular streamers and like 8 more hovering in chu8/mewnfare numbers land. The game is still rolling on Twitch one week in and I'm as surprised as you are. If it's still at 20k plus at the end of the month, it should probably stay around so long as the personalities who've made their bones in it do. Blizz has to be pretty damn excited about that after failing to make headway there with HOTS.
HOTS will be fine, it's just in an awkward phase for another two weeks or so as half of the game is getting a huge upgrade and if you've already gotten your rewards secured there isn't a huge incentive to keep going til the revamp hits. No matter how many times Isaccard keeps bringing it up incredulously like he doesn't believe it, it's hard to deny its taken a great deal of HOTS mindshare for the past week. When I've checked my b.net friends list, most of the regulars (and former regulars) here from GAF in NA have been on HOTS considerably less than usual. Often playing OW. That's anecdotal, but the movement of this thread and Reddit have slowed as well. Perhaps Browder and co will have wished they pushed out ranked pre-OW instead of post-OW once all is said and done, but for now I think most regulars will return. Ranked update should get a few old timers back as well IMO.
I do find it a little amusing that HOTS had unfettered access to the casual landscape of players for this type of game, but created another game with the same kind of approach and but more initial polish and enough crossover in style that it's conceivable that 6 months from now we're talking about how they cannibalized one player base for another. It's also quite possible that OW will become for a lot of HOTS gamers what it is for me - just something fun to do for 30 mins or an hour that's less frustrating than HOTS in short bursts because you can be a star regardless of your team.
I'm pretty fascinated with what the next 6 months will bring for both games. It's a pretty critical period of time for both franchises. HOTS devs must continue to add features and grow after this revamp, while OW devs must make something out of this hype and sustain it. I'll keep playing both and hopefully both groups will deliver.
Wok
Member
If people play more OW than HotS these days, it is to my opinion due to a psychological effect: OW is new, hyped, and you pay for it so you want to get your money worth. Let time flows a bit, and things will settle.
I like HotS for the funny objective-based games that I don't find in other MOBAs. I used to think the game would go to oblivion, but nowadays, I can see it be played longer.
I like HotS for the funny objective-based games that I don't find in other MOBAs. I used to think the game would go to oblivion, but nowadays, I can see it be played longer.
jaundicejuice
Member
I get better quality matches and team compositions in Quick Match in HotS than I do in Quick Play in OW. I have little to no hope about unranked draft in HotS and pray that they don't outright remove Quick Match when they add unranked draft in that patch that's coming out in some bleak and distant future.
I also exclusively queue as Chromie and play more HotS than OW because of Chromie. I hope I enjoy Medivh as much.
I also exclusively queue as Chromie and play more HotS than OW because of Chromie. I hope I enjoy Medivh as much.
So you're the damn Chromie I keep getting in quick match... ;-)
In terms of liking Medivh, he's going to be an odd fish in Quick Match. He entirely relies on team communication and teamplay. He does incredibly little damage himself, but sets up kills and attacks in ways no other hero can. I suspect he'll be quite weak in quick match overall just because the stuff he needs to work won't be there (and in a no tank / melee dps game, he's going to do very little full stop).
LOL, damn. I honestly cannot even fathom this with the swapping. I don't know how MMR works in OW or if it has even been long enough for it to take effect yet, but it seems unlikely that your team could be that incompetent without the opposing team doing the same thing just as often...kind of like in HOTS. It happens in the games I play/we play as well from time to time, but it's over with so fast in comparison and you can do so much by yourself in comparison to HOTS that I haven't minded too much. Sometimes you're the hammer, sometimes you're the nail.
Him being an issue in QM is kind of what I'm afraid of. They took the necessary step of removing him as sole support by classifying him as specialist, but the amount of coordination will likely be an issue.
Sadly, that also applies to hero league. If he's not blatantly OP like the initial reactions to his kit suggested, he's going to be in that Tyrande/Tassadar pre-rework spot where even when he's the smart pick your team will flame you for picking him...which means you could potentially not be able to play him without grief in either mode. That makes me sad, cause I main support.
In QM you can at least try to adapt w/ talents and such.
I don't think talents are quite as adaptable as an entire hero, but YMMV. At it's core one game benefits from flat out killing people, the other benefits more from coordination due to it's heavy reliance on objectives. When you can swap to something that flat out kills whatever you're up against, that seems more useful to me, and at the very least more enjoyable as a solo player whereas when you get down 3 levels in HOTS you are simply just fodder in most fights.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
The hots streamers playing OW seem to attract even less viewers that way.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Who's that seagull guy he's hogged like a 1/3rd of the viewers total.
Seagull was in the beta. He seems to be a really cool dude, very laid back. Super good at the game, former TF2 pro. I remember when he first got big in beta with several thousand views and he was just flabbergasted. Was pretty cool. I hope he continues the success, he deserves it.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
So the closest comparable thing would be grubby in HoTS?
I guess so, since he's our biggest. Seagull's actually an OW pro, such as there are at this point, though I forget the team he plays on (Luminosity I presume?). Right now they are kinda in the early phases and I'm not sure how much sponsorship there is, though I do know C9 sponsors a team already.
There were 3 or 4 other notable pro player + streamers in the beta that kind of made up that games "core" streamers, but I unfollowed them a while back so I can't remember their names unless I see them.
There were 3 or 4 other notable pro player + streamers in the beta that kind of made up that games "core" streamers, but I unfollowed them a while back so I can't remember their names unless I see them.
jaundicejuice
Member
It's possible, there are literally dozens of us. Dozens!
dang I wrote this whole post thinking about casualness and genre and hots and ow but it died
ima freestyle one real quick
the contextual baggage of hots from it's genre, what it's trying to do w/ the genre, and the lessons it did not learn from other entries in this pretty new genre contribute to it's base numbers, but overwatch not only has more space to maneuver but exists in a space that is just more casual by nature. that and holy shit the hype around launch was night and day. like some pros are asking for at least one ban in ow, but there is no real precedent for that kind of thing and any eventual implementation of that would be seen in a different light than hots implementing bans/swaps which has years of ppl having that kind of thing as a given.
it's def difficult for me to see qm in hots as at all better than qm in ow, esp since team comp is way more important in the former. ow also hasnt had time to let the higher meta begin to dictate the sheeple (like a lucio and mercy seem like they should be a given on most maps for ex.), so it's also in a honeymoon phase, but I mean do we really expect to see something like dbl winston dbl mcree dbl lucio transfer over to the majority of games? probably not something on the level of pick/ban rates that kael and li ming have seen at least. but i dunno that's in the future. qm in ow feels like a completely different beast than qm in hots though.
like consider the scope of the problems both games have w/ supports. in both games they exist as these necessary picks, but (no shade to hots support lovers) it's pretty fun to play supports in ow because they don't just do one thing over and over. ppl were talking about uther in state of the league and it's like yeah he's strong but there is pretty much no reason to focus him in a team fight; you don't see that kind of thing w/ supports in ow yet like supports are doing stuff besides healing. healing in mobas also, moba ppl just know it shouldn't be a thing, this thing will mess your game up.
not to mention just thinking in terms of how skill affects both games. like personally it's hard for me to ever blame team comps for a loss cuz I know I'm booty and I know if I wasn't we would have won lol. that really shifts qm for me, that and the switching. though ow does have the unique "ugh no support, but also I'm not switching to support" thing going on.
the main thing though for me if ow does end up eclipsing hots and stealing ppl away permanently, is that it feels like a fukkin brand, like I know a new character will be unique and playful and fit in the world they built, jake gets all excited for chromie and I'm just struggling to get excited for any new hero because I know it's going to be some variation of existing characters and they've pretty much got all the ones I care about. I was thinking about this the other day, if blizz released hots as a standalone thing on a new client, w/ new worlds/characters, holy shit I really don't think they would have gotten some of the backlash they have gotten. atm that feels like the main thing I would have wanted from hots; no existing blizzard characters. they wouldnt even have to be limited to building the heroes based on preexisting themes and stuff.
but ofc it's all the things that hots has had to reckon w/ that'll make it really interesting to see how they proceed. the communities are really different currently too, hots community is basically like any moba community but a little more down on their own game probably, and overwatch is still in this look at this potg gif I made style of existing. I don't think hots will see a significant resurgence w/ the ranked changes, but maybe arena could be the shit + it's something that appeals to the market they were after in the first place. also pretty interested in what ow looks like in a couple of months and whether the visibility of it's pro scene will start shaping the game.
blizz did prtty good w/ these two games imo, they grapple w/ huge ass ideas for both of them. the one big error w/ hots was translating the casualness and streamlining to places outside of the actual game (and to an extent doubling down hard on their vision for the game and wonky balance). ow still too new for deep set problems to reveal itself, they def have to watch out for supports though
oh one last thing about mobas, league reinvents itself every year and dota changes really significantly w/ it's larger and rare patches, I wonder if a big switch-up is in order for hots soon esp. w/ the amount of ppl being hired
I think the last big one was the scaling changes, but wouldnt be surprised if in a year the mercs were completely different or if there was a new rotation of maps or something I dunno.
ima freestyle one real quick
the contextual baggage of hots from it's genre, what it's trying to do w/ the genre, and the lessons it did not learn from other entries in this pretty new genre contribute to it's base numbers, but overwatch not only has more space to maneuver but exists in a space that is just more casual by nature. that and holy shit the hype around launch was night and day. like some pros are asking for at least one ban in ow, but there is no real precedent for that kind of thing and any eventual implementation of that would be seen in a different light than hots implementing bans/swaps which has years of ppl having that kind of thing as a given.
it's def difficult for me to see qm in hots as at all better than qm in ow, esp since team comp is way more important in the former. ow also hasnt had time to let the higher meta begin to dictate the sheeple (like a lucio and mercy seem like they should be a given on most maps for ex.), so it's also in a honeymoon phase, but I mean do we really expect to see something like dbl winston dbl mcree dbl lucio transfer over to the majority of games? probably not something on the level of pick/ban rates that kael and li ming have seen at least. but i dunno that's in the future. qm in ow feels like a completely different beast than qm in hots though.
like consider the scope of the problems both games have w/ supports. in both games they exist as these necessary picks, but (no shade to hots support lovers) it's pretty fun to play supports in ow because they don't just do one thing over and over. ppl were talking about uther in state of the league and it's like yeah he's strong but there is pretty much no reason to focus him in a team fight; you don't see that kind of thing w/ supports in ow yet like supports are doing stuff besides healing. healing in mobas also, moba ppl just know it shouldn't be a thing, this thing will mess your game up.
not to mention just thinking in terms of how skill affects both games. like personally it's hard for me to ever blame team comps for a loss cuz I know I'm booty and I know if I wasn't we would have won lol. that really shifts qm for me, that and the switching. though ow does have the unique "ugh no support, but also I'm not switching to support" thing going on.
the main thing though for me if ow does end up eclipsing hots and stealing ppl away permanently, is that it feels like a fukkin brand, like I know a new character will be unique and playful and fit in the world they built, jake gets all excited for chromie and I'm just struggling to get excited for any new hero because I know it's going to be some variation of existing characters and they've pretty much got all the ones I care about. I was thinking about this the other day, if blizz released hots as a standalone thing on a new client, w/ new worlds/characters, holy shit I really don't think they would have gotten some of the backlash they have gotten. atm that feels like the main thing I would have wanted from hots; no existing blizzard characters. they wouldnt even have to be limited to building the heroes based on preexisting themes and stuff.
but ofc it's all the things that hots has had to reckon w/ that'll make it really interesting to see how they proceed. the communities are really different currently too, hots community is basically like any moba community but a little more down on their own game probably, and overwatch is still in this look at this potg gif I made style of existing. I don't think hots will see a significant resurgence w/ the ranked changes, but maybe arena could be the shit + it's something that appeals to the market they were after in the first place. also pretty interested in what ow looks like in a couple of months and whether the visibility of it's pro scene will start shaping the game.
blizz did prtty good w/ these two games imo, they grapple w/ huge ass ideas for both of them. the one big error w/ hots was translating the casualness and streamlining to places outside of the actual game (and to an extent doubling down hard on their vision for the game and wonky balance). ow still too new for deep set problems to reveal itself, they def have to watch out for supports though
oh one last thing about mobas, league reinvents itself every year and dota changes really significantly w/ it's larger and rare patches, I wonder if a big switch-up is in order for hots soon esp. w/ the amount of ppl being hired
I think the last big one was the scaling changes, but wouldnt be surprised if in a year the mercs were completely different or if there was a new rotation of maps or something I dunno.
Swaps freeing up your hero for use by the enemy team (due to no dupes) creates a neat tension as well.
Your insistence on ban/draft/limited swap for a class based shooter is really not a good idea. You have to, have to, have class swapping in games like OW especially in competitive play. If you don't have hero swapping or allow for bans then you'll either end up with games that instantly stalemate or games that end in 3 minutes. It's not a moba, there's no resources or advantage to build up, spawn timers are static, you only win by switching heroes or out skilling the other team. Draft doesn't work for attack/defend or payload, especially in competitive, It would not be fun to watch and it's not fun to play either (think of every time people don't change heroes on your team in OW, it just doesn't work).
@brians wall of text
I agree with a lot of that, especially healing in a moba. It's so fucking broken. No tanks/healers in pub hots is much harder to win with then in overwatch. You don't NEED a healer in OW like you need a healer in hots. Even in competitive mercy and Lucio are mostly OP because the Rez and speed boost.
Again, because it's not about accuring an advantage, not having a healer isn't as impactful, where as in a moba having a healer is OP.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Why do y'all think they made Kaelaris the host #1. He's been to every single EU/NA regional.
I was thinking though, limiting swaps seems pretty realistic and something that might happen soon, but my ideal for the game is that everything is balanced so nicely that ppl are just swapping nonstop
healers are pretty important in ow, but yeah in ow you can just play better and it affects the game pretty significantly
I think kaelaris is a pretty good host, I don't remember what his casting is like.
Yea this^
Draft/bans won't fix anything about fotm picks/static meta, look at hots or other games, only balance updates fix those issues.
Bans are there in part to deal explicitly with the "solved meta" problem.
I'm not sure. It's not his knowledge, but I think more his personality. He has great rapport with some of the guys. He seems cheerful, he has a good voice for it. Americans in general are absolute suckers for English accents in their broadcasting, whether that be sport or otherwise. We just can't get enough of it, so maybe that helped too.
It does ultimately just lead to the next set of heroes, though. You trade a couple picks for another couple picks, basically. The bans have been pretty much the same across the board in HOTS since it came out, for example.
jaundicejuice
Member
Heroes of the Storm is sort of the red-head step-child of Blizzards games. I mean Blizzard Dota (and, later, Blizzard All-Stars--B.All.S.!) was originally going to be something that came along with Heart of the Swarm. It was going to be a sub-game within Starcraft II.
Look at this shit...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6SFTbDh8tQ
Are you not hyped!?
Look at this shit...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6SFTbDh8tQ
Are you not hyped!?
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
I've been out of the game for months (last thing I got was Amazon Nova tho I wanted Buccaneer Falstad as well) because I didn't have my desktop and now there are a dozen new heroes. I have 10k and I'm so lost as to who I should get lol.
I'm amazed that they finally gave Jaina a nice skin that you don't have to wait till Christmas to pick up. I was really getting good with her before the break but her ridiculous default outfit was always so annoying. Christmas outfit in blue is still suits her best tho. Azmodunk is probably the greatest thing that ever happened to this game. Artanis seems pretty badass still but I'm unfamiliar with what the others are capable of doing. Across all promotions Blizz seems to be pushing Tracer harder than Mario but I'm not getting the appeal.
I rest in good faith that Murky da Sea God can still ease me back into the game.
I'm amazed that they finally gave Jaina a nice skin that you don't have to wait till Christmas to pick up. I was really getting good with her before the break but her ridiculous default outfit was always so annoying. Christmas outfit in blue is still suits her best tho. Azmodunk is probably the greatest thing that ever happened to this game. Artanis seems pretty badass still but I'm unfamiliar with what the others are capable of doing. Across all promotions Blizz seems to be pushing Tracer harder than Mario but I'm not getting the appeal.
I rest in good faith that Murky da Sea God can still ease me back into the game.
I'll be back once that ranked update hits. For right now though I am getting that OW action with all my friends because that's what they want to play. I have not forgotten our maligned step-child of a vidya game. When will Medivh drop any ways? I may actually buy him because I like those kind of heroes.
Nah, just rank 1 on the 50-1 ladder they currently have.
I need to do 20 TL games in the next two weeks.
Rank 1 in the old system of 50-1. The Bronze/Silver/Gold/Platinum/Diamond/Master/Grandmaster doesn't start til the update hits. All the rewards are for whatever the highest rank is that you've hit before then.
jaundicejuice
Member
I think I have to leave general match chat in HotS just like I exit every other public chat channel in a Blizzard game. Unless I'm playing with friends and/or guildmates, it's just not worth interacting with the general populace.
I enjoy playing all of these cooperative and competitive games but I pretty much hate people.
I enjoy playing all of these cooperative and competitive games but I pretty much hate people.
brickwalker0
Member
Next two as in Medivh + whoever is after him, or Chromie + Medivh?
That's only because Tracer was already known.
Chromie Buffs Inc- http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20131418/
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