What are some of your ideas to save Hots? Please don’t just say just develop it or something generic etc.
For me the top 2 :
I would like custom games like SCII and WCIII. Allow the fans to make their own maps, customize the heroes to give them cool spells, create new interesting maps and modes like Tower defense etc.
Reworks for some healers heroes to have a dps build or full on healing or 50/50, similar to Kharazim.
Im a big proponent of mod support in literally any game. Id love to have an editor.
I don’t really think the game needs to be saved.
I think they just need to maintain. This means, first creating a content release schedule, and then doing their best to stick with it.
I don’t need new maps, or even new heroes, but having an event with some skins every 3-4 months, with some balance here and there, would go a long way.
They have to get consistent with it, though. Their biggest issue is how random everything is. I legitimately didn’t even realize there was a patch downloading because I was so used to logging in and getting that annoying update every day that I just thought that’s what it was.
Consistency and communication is all the game really needs. I don’t think there’s anything they could really do at this point to massively replenish the player-base outside of adding a bunch of new heroes and maps. Which we all know isn’t happening.
In truth it is difficult to say because in my opinion, HOTS does not have anything that is so poorly designed that it is causing its downfall. Unlike other games like Hood Outlaws, Avengers, and Back 4 Blood. Where poor or flawed system(s) caused these games to fall.
HOTS I feel is not like those games, while it has its flaws, it is still a very well designed game overall. However HOTS’ situation is more so similar to games like Prey, Brigador and Mirror’s Edge. Like those games I even consider HOTS to be the best in its category just like them, and yes I think HOTS is the best MOBA, Prey is the best Immersive Sim and etc.
However HOTS is biggest issue now is neglect from Blizzard, not the development team itself but the higher ups. You see while HOTS is a MOBA its a very different kind of MOBA with it focusing more on teamplay. This did sadly turn some people off. It also didn’t help that it was once called Blizzard DOTA, making everything a little more confusing. On top of all this, its marketing could have been better too.
Yet what caused it to cut funding from the higher ups is its E-Sport scene. HOTS’ E-Sport scene was very rushed and brute forced in. Which is a mistake Blizzard did with Overwatch too. In order for an E-Sport to be successful its competitive community needs to grow over time. Which is a route Jeff Kaplan even wanted to go for OW’s competitive scene until it was ignored. In short HOTS’ E-Sport scene did not bring the payoffs Blizzard wanted and so they cut its funding.
I know you do not want a generic answer, but truly I do not even think HOTS needs saving as if its in an urgent state of death. However to improve it, it would need more funding and a larger dev team, something Blizzard does not want to provide.
I can also go more into these aforementioned games if you are curious, as well as how they relate to HOTS in terms of their situations.
Honestly, I think even on maps the game is good on. We have so many, from so many locations, with so many unique gimmicks, that I think we’re fine on that. But for the most part otherwise, I agree. There’s already plenty of heroes, so I don’t think we strictly need a boatload more, maybe one or two per year. Maybe focus more on balancing, and bringing older, weaker, neglected heroes up a peg or two, so they FEEL new. Just have a small, but substantial team working on skins & little events to keep new content flowing, but I’m actually kinda happy with where the game is overall, gameplay wise. Playerbase wise, it could use some advertising, or something like that.
I will admit, Qhira feels like she’s been in the game forever and if you look, she was the 4th most recent hero added. Which is wild to think about.
Custom Map and Hero editor would be great. Like SC2. Something that allows us to make our own modes/games/heroes etc.
I think it would be cool if they had a system where people in the community could set up their own tournaments with prize pools and specific specifications (like for amateur play and so on) and impliment it directly into the game itself. It sounds cool to me on paper but idk… for what little i know, idea could be terrible.
HotS just needs marketing. I have never not once in my entire life seen an advertisement for Heroes of the Storm. It’s like Blizzard wanted this game to fail.
Also OP, if you were the Ana in that last game on Volskaya, I was Jaina. I’m very terribly sorry for how much of a brutal stomp that was.
Yes I’m playing the game again. I can never escape.
Honestly? The first thing the game needs ir a full rework of its gamemodes and a decent mmr and ranked queue.
Make Microsoft invest into the game and it prob gets saved.
It’s probably too late for advertising to work now, but like you, I never saw a single advertisement for Hots. I’ll just assume they thought the HGC was all the advertisement Hots needed. If that was the case, I hope they fired that particular marketing team.
Advertisement, proper maintenance, and actually listen to the community!
Those 3 things should bring players to the game, keep players happy with their time spent playing, and they will feel like their voice is important.
Sadly they failed in all 3 of these areas.
Allow players to make and add content by themselves to the game (after some mod checking or voting by players).
Custom maps lobbies like in wc3 or Dota 2 reborn.
Indeed, if I consider how many ads e-mails Blizzard sended me for Hearthstone while I can’t even remember one for Hots. Their Twitter or Youtube channel for Hots seems like they used them rarely… Never saw twitch ads and such… It’s just weird. On the contrary their youtube clips for Hots were good, but it seems it wasn’t enough to advertise this game.
This is why I always said they should copy Dota 2 shop model like Valve did… it was basically the best idea Valve had for Dota 2. People love creating stuff/hats and such and it would be a great amount of income to the game.
Great ideas guys, I hope the developers see this post and implement some of what the Community is asking for.
Imagine a HOTS with custom maps, an Arcade section for people who want to goof off playing them, and also Community-run tournaments with full support for prize funds and custom map implimentations.
Blizzard wouldn’t even have to throw too much money at the game - just support it and keep the word going around after that point.
It would be like LittleBigPlanet but for MOBAS but with community support.
When’s the last time Microsoft saved anything?
Age of empires 2 is still going pretty hard right now.
You may not want a “generic” answer like actually developing the freaking game, but that’s still a valid answer. The near complete lack of development is basically the reason HotS is in the shambles it’s in now.
In over two years the game has added a whopping three heroes. Holiday events are gone. We have Christmas chests for half the year, and Summer chests for the other half. We get maybe a dozen new skins each year, for 3-4 heroes.
If you aren’t already invested enough in the gameplay to love it, or enjoy refining it, there’s just nothing to draw people in, much less on a regular basis. Even for those still here, the game is stagnating with the lack of changes to keep even the existing gameplay fresh.