Uh, his came first? But you knew that already, so I don't know why you even typed that.
When I read your posts I see "I wish this was Dota 2, Jr." when Dota 2, Jr. already exists and it's called League of Legends. This game is like League of Legends, Jr. Jr., and the overwhelming majority of it's player base and customer base are here for that very reason. Pining for this game to implement heroes, designs, and redesigns to more closely align with the hardest of the three MOBAs is all well and good, but you might as well piss in the wind for all the chances of it happening.
Those games are popular esports in large part because they have good design. If competitive DOTA2 was filled with Skeleton Kings and Svens everywhere it wouldn't be anywhere near as enjoyable to watch. And even then, those heroes with outdated and simplistic kits can still be brought to relevance and have potential for exciting moments with blink daggers/force staffs/etc. HOTS doesn't have that type of design and isn't built around it, which in my opinion
even more exemplifies the need for great core kit design. HOTS doesn't have purchased items to make up for kit deficiencies, so Blizzard has to make things happen with talents and the base kit. But I do think that HOTS should attempt to bring the good design from those games (specifically with regards to support hero kits) without ruining the core elements that make it fun and different (exp share, no last hit, quick games, multiple maps).
At this point, even if it did happen it would only serve to alienate the base they have while simultaneously being too late to the party to matter on a competitive level. I'm not even certain LCS-style seasons can "save" competitive - and by save I mean grow it to the point where we have at least two or three times the number of people watching stuff like qualifiers and regionals - because they've simply beat around the bush for so long. I'm not even sure it can reach the level it was at last fall.
So first you talk about my complaints about their hero design and relate it to how I compared some things to DOTA2, and now you're talking about their competitive format. Which one do you want to discuss? I agree with everything you've said here. But I don't think they can do the DOTA2 "major" format, because they don't have an International. Blizzcon is really just another "Major." If a random HOTS tournament sprung out of no where with a $10million prize pool, you bet there'd be hype around it. They need one or the other: a league system for consistent content or a huge tournament with a massive hype mill.
You literally play at a lower MMR level than Milly. Like, what does his play level even matter, though? You play on the same level as me, last I checked. Familie and kirblar play at a lower level than all three of us and they understand parts of this game competitively far better than I do, personally. Not sure what that changes though.
Considering I was Rank 1 for multiple months when I actually played the game actively late in the alpha, I don't think that's the case. I got alpha access to the game in the second week of the alpha in March 2014, played through the entire alpha, through when they introduced ranked, for a few months after, and then stopped until I played extremely sporadically on a new BNET account towards the end of the beta. It's changed a lot, but the core gameplay is the same and the spectator experience is the same. I don't see why that invalidates anything I say? It doesn't.
And it's not like any of us are on some "high level of play". We may be top ~10-15 percentile in this game, but that again says more about what you're asking the devs for than it does about how good or bad we are. There are way less people like us than there are those bronze league facerollers you're looking down upon that actually pay the bills. That's also reflected in the viewership numbers.
Me throwing shit at his play level was just a response to him throwing shit at the fact that I don't actually play the game. Neither of them matter, and that was the reason I said that. We all have valid opinions. I was trying to say something just as ridiculous as he did to make it obvious how stupid the whole thing was. I don't get why he has to throw a tantrum every time I post an opinion in this thread. If you don't like it, fucking ignore it. I don't actually care at all about his or anyone's level of play.
That's common in esports from Hearthstone to League to whatever. My question is when you dislike nearly every step the game takes, have not played in some time, and you don't find it entertaining, why do you still watch it? I mean it is the inferior product to Dota 2 and League as an esports medium, after all. I've learned that first hand as I've branched out because there's just not enough HOTS esports going on this year. Even if you do love watching it, why would you want it to replicate something you can already see on a regular basis elsewhere?
I guess I've made myself look like I hate the game, and I definitely didn't intend that. I really like the core gameplay elements of this game, and I think it has potential to grab an audience that prefers the shorter game that isn't focused on economy and farming. I think there's an audience for that, but HOTS is failing to grab it.
HOTS should be able to do championship BO7s on all kinds of maps with evolving metas in that series and finish it in the time it takes DOTA to do a BO5 (if not faster), and yet the only place that does BO7s is Korea.
I think there's so much potential there, which makes it irritating that the hero design hasn't been up to snuff. There's so much else about this game that is awesome, but hero design should be of #1 importance in a game like this, and considering how much time they spend developing each character it's really a shame that they have had so many characters with messy and/or uninteresting kits. They've redone talents on certain heroes so many times that you wonder if they really have any idea what they're doing when they make changes.
I really do think the majority of their new characters are quite solid (Auriel, Medivh) but some things they've done really just make you scratch your head (Gul'dan, the Kael'Thas changes, how long it took them to fix Jaina, etc.) and some feel like massively disappointing missed opportunities for something great (Dehaka, Artanis).
Well, to be honest, we hardly see you in this thread period until you pop up with a soliloquy about something every month or two. Frankly I'm surprised you're even here and responding, because typically you are not. Kudos for that I guess.
I understand your desire to stand up for your buddy, but even the most incompetent of idiots would understand the idea that if you don't like somebody's posts, ignore them rather then attempting to nonsensically shit all over them any time that person posts.
My concerns regarding Alarak weren't even close to "whining". It was simply speculation based on the video like everyone else is doing. I literally just came to post my thoughts on the new content. Is this not a community thread? Then he shitposts my opinion with
absolutely no basis whatsoever. What the fuck is that?
I appreciate you actually making a sensical post and bringing up some good points rather than just whining like a baby. Hopefully I've explained myself better and we can all just move on. If he doesn't like my posts, he needs to ignore them
