As much as we hate change around here - how would you fix this?

So since the beginning, this game has had an issue with stomps, and Blizzard realizes this. Sometimes we get blindsided and find a team player to blame, sometimes we look at the hero kits themselves. Most of the time, it is the XP.

If you stop to notice the XP differences in games that seem like “stomps” you will always notice a fairly large gap, with talent tier differences including heroics.

Looking at it hastily, I hated the XP changes, because I naturally hate change and even though I’ve been dealing with stomps since the game started, I’m somehow cognitively dissonant of what the real issue is.

So do we really want change here or should we continue down this love/hate relationship?

I will tell you an example:
This is a team based game. We have 5 member in a team. I will call them A/B/C/D/E heroes.
A player had a bad day today in school, and at home he didn’t recieve any emphaty, so he thinks it’s tottaly fine if the playerbase in this game feels what he feels.
B player is a regular player, who have a family alredy and he have NOW time to playing 2 matches.
C player is a hardcore player, who deffinetly the best player in the team, he dosen’t say anything, but if you ask something he probably could help you. Of course he try to give you advice in the matches.
D player is a beginner. Everything new to him. He knew the diablo game and he love valla, so he give a try in this game to valla.
E player: It’s a bot…

Can you immagine this situation? One player deffinetly will not talk. 2 of this probably don’t want to talk. 2 player so-so. Communication is probably bad.
How can they get advantage? If the other team have worse communication or worse team, then they can win this match. So they don’t have to be good players, they have to be better players like the other team.
So this is the situation. This is bad, because: If the beginner hero playing with her D Valla badly (what tottaly acceptable from a beginner), the communication will not being better, but the enemy team will have an advantage.
E The bot perhaps that kind of bot, what always die, or don’t do any kind of teamfights. I don’t know wich one is the better.
C The hardcore player try to do 3 thing at once, and at the end he dosen’t do something really usefull (nobody can do 3 thing at once)
B player the dad, perhaps will think about the holidays and what he have to buy to his children.
A player insult everyone… because he had a bad day and why not.

The today team-based game mode not good for team at all. The teamwork will not be better, because you have to being better. The best change what i can immagine is the death number change.
If the bot is a selfkiller and have 6 death, he should wait much more like the Hardcore player with his first death. This is the best suggestion what i can give. If your team bad from the begining , perhaps better if they don’t playing at all.

ps.: I’m very-very sorry for the long reply, i hope you read it.

2 Likes

Well, I thank you for your reply and I did read it. I understand where you’re getting at and it makes sense and it’s true for a team-based game. It’s always been this way for other games that rely heavily on team play, it didn’t just start with Heroes. I think Blizzard looking at ways to help mitigate heavily one-sided matches by giving more opportunities for comebacks is a good thing. I understand now changing the XP dynamic is really the only way to even things out unless you want to make things worse.

1 Like

How do you go about making a sensible, logical solution to how the game progresses? By reducing the flat, guaranteed statistical advantage one team earns over another, so team fights are more even. How does the winning team gain an advantage? By taking structures and controlling the map.

98% of this community, including the pros, have a severe tunnel vision problem with level advantage. They look at a game where they’re up 6 forts to 0, and all they say is, “oh man, the other team is the same level as us.” As if controlling the entire map and having cata pressure in every lane is somehow not meaningful :thinking:

The thing is, level doesn’t matter as much as you think it does. People are just conditioned to think that way, because that’s how it’s been for a very long time. Talent advantages make a difference, and it’s ok to have temporary numerical advantages. They shouldn’t just the be the one thing everyone hungers for.

It’s possible to look at this game differently. It’s possible to completely change how the game is played. To make it more map-focused so team brawls and ensuing level advantage aren’t the deciding factors in games anymore.

Will Blizzard get it perfect the first week? Nope. Will they get in right in time? Sure. Probably within a few weeks to a month at most. Will it improve the game? Most definitely. Will it suddenly change everyone’s mind? Nope. But that’s where the biggest change can happen. Think about the larger picture.

2 Likes

While I agree with your sentiments, I would add that having a level advantage does affect gameplay through higher damage numbers, more health, etc. It matters in a team fight where that small difference in health means a wipe for your team over the other. Most of the games I play in, up to the highest league levels for me (plat) people make the same mistakes team fighting when they aren’t equal levels…

1 Like

Even with the XP changes there will be stomps due to bad players and bad drafts.

Mostly only teams that change their playstyle from the early game or contain late game heroes make a comeback right now and it happens all the time.

XP lead is not the cause but just an effect for getting murdered the early game and the team that manages to get a lead kinda deserves to haveit because they played better and get rewarded for it.

Reward is making them a bit stronger and more likely to win the next teamfight unless the enemy changes their way of playing and if the team that is behind keeps making mistakes the lead will grow.

Most of the time the reason isnt XP but the bad early game play, enemy wont get an XP lead unless the other team has made considerable mistakes.

Edit: The reason for the snowballs is that to make a comrback you have to take forts or keeps or use the only true comeback mechanic of the game and get kills (its the only XP that gets scaled when youre behind) .

To take a fort or a keep means you have to fight for it when you are weaker so it basically makes the comeback possible only by fighting a talent tier or a couple of levels down.

Maybe the comeback XP mechanic should just be expanded to minions and scaled right, so soaking those minions could be a more viable, i know it is viable already but it still takes more time than to brawl and in the games we are on a timer for the objective.

Edit 2: TL;DR if you want comebacks and the only way to do so right now is by fighting when you are weaker, instead of making them equally as strong and making early game not matter you should give other ways to make a comeback like soaking correctly and things like that.

So if the team thats ahead and the team that is behing both soak as much the team behind will be able to catch up faster and to stop them from catching up the team that is ahead has to actively stop the enemy from doing it instead of just not dying and doing whatever.

This way teams ahead keep their lead by keeping up their good play actively instead of just rolling with it.

Sorry for writing an essay.

but-but … but I thought we had something special :disappointed_relieved:

I think the biggest problem that leads to huge stomps is a mix of matchmaking + game knowledge + people want to just play heroes they like from other games.

1 Like

I already know how people wanting to just brawl are going to react. After they win a fight. They are going to ask why are they are 1-2 levels down against an enemy after they just won a fight.
I just feel the anti snow ball is overtuned and the conditions for victory make it more plain and boring strats until late game.

2 Likes

And unfortunately, since we cannot change the playerbase, we must work towards failsafes…whether we like it or not I suppose.

Yeah, even when those heroes are just horrible in the current state of the game. Some people simply don’t soak well and this leads to huge gaps in levels as well, happens at all skill levels too. “Why are we down a level and a half already?!?!” Oh idk maybe because they have someone who’s been soaking efficiently while you guys continuously brawl over nothing.

You know when you are playing Genji and you have to be constantly off in another lane soaking to try to keep your team in the game all while trying your best to be there for important fights that you are going to have a bad time. Enough people have given them feedback at this point on how to make it better to where I don’t have to as I’d just be repeating them but dumbing it down like they wanted to do isn’t the answer.

https://heroeshearth.com/b/cavalierguest/read/the-experience-changes/

1 Like

I remember last year when they introduced the battleground change that lead to snowbally games, they were a lot of discussion on reddit about it, pro and cons.

What I noticed right after the changes is that the game became more toxic, particularly at mid-low level (i am support main in gold/plat). When you lose map control and are way behind in xp after 5 min, people didn’t believe in comeback, literally stopped playing and just thrash talked their teammates trying to find the culprit of the defeat. This environment leaded eventually to massive ban waves of veterans who had difficulty to adapt to the change.

I am happy with the current proposal. I think it will help a lot to reduce toxicity and chance afk/leaver in a game. Games might feel less competitive for somea or unfair because of a loss late game teamfight, but does it really matters? Hots historically has been a game catering to casuals. An easy to pick up game that forbid players mistakes. The esports focus after 2.0 transform the game into a competive ones. New players or noobs aren’t welcome anymore, and are considered “scrubs” like a popular topic was title this week. Hots loss is identity last year and choose a wrong path.

I had literally this last night. We were on cursed hollow and 2 teammates didn’t want to soak at all. When the first tribute spawned we were behind 1 level already and then the enemy team just kept snowballing from there, because those 2 kept not soaking and dying all the time right before the objective. Later in the game they both blame the rest of the team and say exp is not important at all, just fight all the time. Like… idk how people can have such a lack of knowledge about how the game works…

I play a lot of genji and I’m really good at him, but I’m stuck in a lane because and I can’t rotate to get siege camp + kills, don’t blame me for not “having hero damage”. That tilts me so much lmao.

1 Like