HotS is alive and really well

General Discussion
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ARAM has sub 15 second queues. Why are you guys missing this? The games are ~25min long and all the players in the game are legitimate, so what am I missing? I haven’t played any other game that has lower queues. Ever. I think the longest queue I’ve had all week was at like 2am pacific time when the queues were around 35 seconds. I don’t get it. The matchmaker is pretty damn good. People don’t understand you have to win fast. That mean’s fewer deaths and playing with urgency. You will lose, but it’s how you lose that measures a player’s true MMR. And there definitely is an MMR in ARAM cause I can feel it. Most players tell me they are or were in diamond league at some point.

Why is this game being treated this way? It definitely is not dead. You wanna play a quick, 25min, adrenaline rushing, team-oriented battle arena (TOBA), this is it. Everybody is playing it. It hasn’t budged though for awhile in the development department. As an investor, people should be watching this space.

You got something here with ARAM. It feels better to be playing in a gauntlet with these heroes. The average player loves this game. If you dropped a load of heroes on the environment and balanced the game around ARAM youd really have something here. Perhaps you even add APAM. I genuinely wanna see Hammer, Leoric, Abathur, and TLV in a single lane environment. This game that could be your flagship enterprise. This is your super smash bros. Come on make it better. Remake it if you have to. Just do it, please.

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Freakin ranked queues are estimated at around 8 minutes for me right now. I know ranked probably isn’t as popular as ARAM but still, it used to be lower. Its not too bad of a deterrent for me though. Now if the queue’s took like 20 minutes on average, well that’s a different story.

I just think people attribute higher queue times to = dead game. It is not getting updated or developed regularly, but its still not dead.

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When ARAM was introduced, this (see below) video heavily implies there is no MMR in ARAM. Some blues have posted on Reddit and confirmed there no MMR is used for ARAM, which is, in part, why queue times are almost instant.

A good way to check the validity of this statement is to check profiles and filter by season to verify their statement. Even if they were Diamond in 2017, doesn’t mean they still have those skills in 2023. I’ve seen many accounts of players who are now Silver/Gold or even Bronze rank, who were once Diamond players long ago.

You may want to see Hammer back on a one lane map, but personally, I don’t want to see one billion “remove Hammer from ARAM” complaint threads again, same goes for TLV, Abathur and Leoric.

Speaking of Leoric, it’s an old joke around here that Hots isn’t dead, but rather undead. Joke be funny, or not, it is quite apt, as queue times for ranked on the EU and US servers aren’t too high unless you’re Diamond+, likewise for QM. Really only small servers like Oceania/Brazil/ANZ are struggling, where essentially QM is the only mode with reasonable queue times.

Queue times for all modes will no doubt get worse the longer Hots languishes with no development. I’ve said it before, I’m honestly shocked I can find a game in Ranked on the US server, with only slightly longer queue times compared to, say, 2019.

Say what you will, but it seems Hots has retained a core of loyal players, despite it being mistreated, ignored and shelved by Blizzard.

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I agree. Did my post give off the vibe I think that or something?

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No, not at all, that was directed more to the OP.

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No kidding. Blizzard did everything in their power to make me not play their games anymore, up to and including permabanning me, and I just said “screw that”.

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This is exactly the same as the “deadgame” posts but with the opposite tone. It’s not true. Game is not dead, but neither is alive, no one should lie, not even to themselves (even if it’s not intentional).

And Aram has no MMR, so it can have quick queues even when really few ppl play the game. It’s nowhere near an indication of how well it’s doing.

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QM has quick queues as well. However, the competitive portion of HotS is kind of dead. The queues are long no matter what time of the day you queue up. I assume the same holds true for UD.

I only really play QM or Aram so the game still functions to my wants.

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I suspect that the decision to keep maintaining this game also hinges on other factors, such as:

  • are people happy with the updates?
    short term people are returning, but they leave after a week
    medium term people are upset about balance
  • revenue
    most people are looking to gain some returns from development time
    it even applies to “small” things such as skins or seasonal map variations
    if people don’t buy stuff, then this is a hobbyist game
  • the engine
    usually when developing a map or hero, there were mentions of coding a lot
    sounds like the engine is either too basic or overcomplicated
    either way, it’s about 15 years old technology and might be a struggle to find developers
    they didn’t even manage to figure out some configuration causing fake updates
  • the nuances
    when Grubby was streaming about body blocking in W3 working in a specific way because latency and else… people apparently care about tiny details
  • playerbase
    with games launching every week, players will be split
    as long as we keep multiplying like rabbits, it will be okay, except we will starve and boil
    otherwise, it’s just natural for games to go extinct, particularly multiplayer

Overall, the game can be very fun, but there is a chance it needs a hard reboot, meaning same heroes and all, but a new engine underneath.

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I may have been wrong about the MMR, but that doesn’t detract from the feeling that the game does feel better. Perhaps playing with different ranks and MMRs in players is a good thing. From the way I’m speaking, you can tell genuinely that I didn’t even notice. I guess, I’m actually having more of a blast without MMRs. I’m able to feel good beating certain poor opponents, I can pinpoint exactly who on the other team is actually good and play against them appropriately based on their gameplay next to someone who is not that good. I can give other lesser players advice on how to play better with their heroes, something they cant get in modes with MMR playing with people who are as bad as they are all the time.

The game feels alive because it just feels better to play in a mode with no MMR. I guess that’s the conclusion I’m drawing.

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