Blizzard has a huge opportunity

General Discussion
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I think Blizzard-Activision-Microsoft, whatever company that is in charge of HoTS right now, has a huge opportunity to make the Blizzard world MOBA into a top competitive game. I don’t think they are gonna let this game as it is right now to let it be their best try to compete with League of Legends. I mean, they are Blizzard.

They need to make a huge announcement about a complete rework of HoTS, even his name. They need to catch every potential new player in function of Blizzard games, and there’s where the main change has to be. They have to hook them from the name, and not trying to make a “Nexus” stuff anymore, like those heroes Orphea and another one. The whole interface as well, colors, textures, everything has to be related with Blizzard games, the players coming in don’t need to see anything new besides the games they already know, because that is gonna make them feel like in home.

As interface need changes, the in-game needs them as well, there are a lot of very interesting maps, with very fun mechanics, and very straight forward, not hard to understand and play around them. But, they are not blizzard-games related. They need to replace the theme around those maps (Garden terror, shrines, etc.) into either WoW, Diablo, Overwatch related maps. There are some, but we need everyone to be like that, because players feel involved. Can you imagine instead of the dragon knight map, it’s about Hellfire Ramparts and once you control both towers (just like in Wow, those pvp areas), you can control the Fel Reaver? Can you guys imagine how many people would die of hype if they watch any announcement like that? WoW or Diablo have infinite content to put into Blizzard MOBA game that you would never run out of updates. You can’t let this game die and leave no track.

How is this game gonna end up in the trash can? You can play as Varian, Garrosh, Diablo, Jim Raynor, man we’re talking about REALLY iconic videogame characters. If we think about it, how many games have huge videogame characters which are globaly known by any player around the world? Not much, to be honest. This game can’t end up like this. This game is huge.

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but then it wouldnt be heroes anymore

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Trying that was one of the issues that lead to the game not being as successful as it could have been in the first place.

I agree, and therefore i do not like any of those suggestions.

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And that’s why the game it’s dead already, no one is willing to try something new in MOBAs. You have to hook players using all the content that Blizzard already have. No one will come to play a game with new nexus characters or maps.

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OP, have you watched this?

If not, you should. It’s quite interesting in its own right, and much of what you are advocating was tried. (For example, to your point about hooking people with iconic heroes, the game used to be called “Blizzard All-stars”.)

I happen to agree that the “Nexus” and corresponding maps and heroes (Orphea, Quira) don’t really add anything worth breaking immersion over. But I suppose we need some kind of construct, however flimsy and contrived, for bringing multiple universes together.

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At that point, you’d need to make a brand new game. Changing the name of an existing game isn’t a great strategy.

That’s the opposite of something new actually.

That can’t be true, since people do buy and love games with characters they’ve never heard of before. Catering only to Blizzard fans is part of the reason the game had a hard time. People who didn’t have the Blizzard Launcher would never know the game existed.

Though, more immersive levels with easter eggs from each games can’t hurt. I’m all for that.

But there are a lot of people who love Orphea.

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My point is, would’ve more people come to play HoTS if instead of Dragon Shire, Towers of Doom, Cursed Hollow, Sky Temple, Garden of Terror, Haunted Mines, Tomb of the Spider Queen, Blackheart’s Bay, those would’ve been exactly the same map but with Blizzard games environment, camps, bosses, structures, etc? I really think so.

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I’m not sure, people who are in the game for the characters were already drawn in by the mix of Blizz chars together in one game. At that point, you already have them. I mean, it can’t hurt, but the people that enjoy it would be the people already playing the game anyway.

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Why does it need to compete with anything?

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You don’t need all this rebranding bs or any massive changes. All you need to do is fix the issues the game has and add on to it. The addition of a story mode is something I think would be beneficial because it doesn’t affect the current aspects of the multiplayer game while adding something to the game that both benefits users because they can experience new content and its a avenue for making money off the game. Its not like multiplayer games haven’t ever been free while the story modes cost money.

But changing the game from its roots will most likely hurt the game more than improve it. In my mind there’s limited options on how to handle this game.

  1. Microsoft can just burn it and possibly make something new from the ashes (a faint phoenix silhouette on the logo would be cool here if they did lol).
  2. Microsoft can allocate funds/personnel to either add content to the game or simply keep it running, which may not even require additional funding/personnel.
  3. Microsoft can change it to compete with other games in its genre (Dota 2 and LoL) and risk having the game become a shell of its former self, gutted and without its initial fire.

None of these outcomes looks particularly bright tbh, but that’s what happens when things aren’t managed properly from the start. There’s nothing we can do except continue to play it if we enjoy it. With some luck, maybe it can be revived without losing its heart, but I wouldn’t put money on that.

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People did always return when new heroes are added.
Balancing those heroes was always a difficult story, also there is a point where you just forgo bans - or require everyone to master 30+ heroes. Either way, draft dies.

Much of the game is about understanding your opponents, Grubby explained it takes about 500 hours to pick up DotA2, and in similar fashion I can’t imagine having 150 heroes in the Nexus. So at some point it has to stop.

There are things they could add, but they don’t want to, such as maps, map skins, seasonal challenges, like the board game.

The game already is different from other games. It has multiple maps, objectives, talents instead of items to adapt, faster pacing. Quick Match is also unusual (me likey).

Some maps could use some rework, two lanes are just too few. Playing a couple five minute matches can be disheartening. Like you roll Braxis and you most likely can’t do anything but win, or lose, depending on whose math works better to hold the point and then win the with the first objective. In any event, you can call those fun games.

I do believe that the game could be lucrative if marketed, at this point even for its stability (a couple changes to the permaban heroes), I generally think Blizzard is in its aging cow phase though.

Recreating Heroes in a new engine could be nice, though.

By the way for average Joe, most of these heroes are irrelevant. Iconic heroes like Raynor?! You mean the Conscript from Red Alert 2? What matters is an interesting in-game profile, as most players who would pick up the game aren’t WoW / D2-D3 / SC2 fans, it’s getting quite impossible. Qhira and Orphea are really cool for different reasons.

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It potentially could be a decent time to release “Hots 2”.

As far as I can tell Dragonflight is a well received expansion.

The Diablo franchise is attracting a lot of attention with Immortal and upcoming 4.

Overwatch 2 hasn’t been out long.

Could release Starcraft 3 and Hots close together.

Depends what the appetite is out there for a new moba.

I remember when the fight genre was pretty dead then sf4 resurrected it for a while.