I think people might disagree with your “good” list; however, you’ve nailed the main “bads”.
MMR, being matched with people you’ve blocked, smurfing (which is a symptom of horrible mmr), and lack of anyone listening to real issues - is what kills this game.
Although I don’t necessarily agree with the details of why you think HoTs isn’t competitive, I completely agree that the reason HoTs didn’t cut it is - it’s geared toward snowflakes and casuals.
I’m not sure last hitting is a huge issues, but I know for a fact that a game that bans anyone who speaks up and asks others to perform, is a game doomed to never be competitive. Most good players in HoTs have learned that you keep your mouth shut - and for try hards, sitting back and doing nothing just isn’t fun.
If you are competitive, you leave this environment. Is it less “toxic”, yeah maybe, but it’s also so overly protective of kids and casuals, that they will ban people instead of just telling the casuals to use the mute button.
And guess what type of people are fans? Yep, the same competitive types you are banning from HoTs.
I think these core issues are a result of Blizzard making HoTs. Blizzard is known for dumbing down a genre, and making it more accesible and light. Hearthstone worked, because it made Magic easy and cute. BUT that doesn’t work in a competitive combat game. They tried to do hearthstonish LoL, and noone cares.
So yeah, HoTs fails for lack of interest. At least interest from the type of people who will support and participate in eSports.
Yeah this post is a couple monts old. When I said less toxic. I was in diamond 1.
I created a smurf acc to learn a friend of mine tye basics (just qm/ur)
And newer people are really toxic. If something doesnt go as planned. They are like the nukes on warhead junktion.
Copypastable the shard master brightwing of hots
Agreed. All the “toxic” players either get banned and start new accounts, or have several low level accounts on which they can rant endlessly without any fear of consequences.
It’s a result of the “punishment” system. It’s basically just making low level play a living hell (filled with every troll and chronic abuser).
But, the poor reporting system is another item people have complained about for years, and nothing is ever done about it.
Instead, we get reworks and skins ![:slight_smile:](https://d3rakab8gpdsa3.cloudfront.net/en/heroes/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")
I honestly be happy to if they gave us rights of the reporting system. Like in league of legends. It saves blizz money they need, and its fairer because more then 1 person is in controll
I’ve argued for a long time that a better system is:
Let people have a list of 20 never match players. The worst of the worst will simply never find a game. And the kind of bads will have longer queue times (a disincentive to be toxic).
That system is self policing and easy.
Doesn’t work at every level.
If I was high GM for example, I would block GM # 1 to GM # 20 so I would never be matched with them.
In bronze it probably wouldn’t matter who you blocked considering how many trolls there are.
The two games you described are the same games and people will just stick with whatever they happened to start playing first. People are not going to start over in a new game with a new ladder, new hero unlocking grind etc because you slapped a new coat of paint on it. You do not beat the competition by being the competition the people that want what your competition is offering already are getting that from them you need a unique selling point that the competition isn’t offering.
Good point, but if you are at 20, then maybe disable it. I mean if you are rank 2000 disable it. Maybe only use it QM or unranked, . . . just anything to help the experience be better, and to get rid of the current poor reporting system.
The issue is, for most players being matched with someone you’ve blocked is a baaaaad idea, and being able to select no match, is a good one.
Many companies beat the competition by being them, only slightly better. MySpace - Facebook . . . Yahoo - Google . . . McDonalds - In and Out
Actually, doing exactly what your competition is doing, but adding inovation, is how most compaines suceed.
Shared XP, no last hitting, no gold, no shop etc. is innovation. It’s streamlining the process. All the examples you gave took what the competition was doing and streamlined it and made it better which is what they did with HotS. The fact that you don’t like the way they chose to differentiate themselves is immaterial.
By far the biggest failing of this game was being slow to market in a genre that increasingly favors sticking with what you already are playing than branching out and playing as much as possible within a genre.
I never said I didn’t like it, I just pointed out that doing something different than the competition seems like a good strategy, but often it just means there is no market for you product/game.
I hear people blame HoTs failure on slow to market, but I personally think HoTs just never commited to competitive play. HoTs was the MOBA for everyone (read; teens and casuals). They thought that would create a new breed of eSports fan/league. It didn’t, noone cared.
That’s the kind of mentality that has doomed this game from the start. The aim isn’t to get people to switch games. You don’t need to grab LoL players over to succeed. LoL doesn’t need to grab players from Dota to succeed. The longevity and success of a game, depends entirely on its ability to ATTRACT NEW PLAYERS.
This game has very simply failed to attract any new players, simply because its core gameplay design pales heavily in comparison to the others in the market. It’s dying not because it couldn’t win over all the LoL players. It’s dying because new players are trying out all the different MOBAs and nobody is choosing this game over the others.
Do you not see the inherent contradictions in what you just said? If someone is entirely new to the genre this game is hands down the best choice for someone to start with as it strips out a lot of the complexity and difficulty that make games like LoL and DotA so much harder to get into.
The scenario you describe would much more likely result in someone playing this over other MOBAs simply because it is by far the most new player friendly game. That said your scenario is also likely a small minority of players looking into the genre. What’s much more likely is that people simply pick up and play what their friends are playing or what their favorite streamers/youtubers are playing rather than trying out a wide variety of games in the same genre. This makes being late to the market a big problem since people tend to stay with what they’ve already started investing time and money into.
If this is true then this game wouldn’t be in this situation right now dude. Like your opinions are fine and all, but the facts simply speak for themselves.
Just because the learning curve is steeper for certain games, doesn’t mean they are less popular for new players. You have to get that kind of bias out of your head. It’s the same mistake Blizzard made and they’ve paid for it dearly with this game’s failure.
Because the number of entirely new players to the genre is actually quite small (as I already explained in the post you partially quoted) that this hasn’t worked. Someone entirely unaware of the genre isn’t going to know that last hitting, gold, shops, etc. are supposed to be there or are there in other variations and there’s no real selling point for those features beyond “other games in the genre have them”. All that adds to the completely new player is extra levels of complexity to what is already an intimidating genre to get into. Again though the number of people that this actually represents is a very small segment of the market.
The much bigger influence is that people play what their friends or favorite streamers/youtubers are playing and league and dota got their large following faster and as a result they’re more likely to keep attracting more people. Things that are big will get bigger and last longer and things that are new or smaller will have a much harder time getting big because the market is already saturated and the huge majority of people interested in the genre already have their game of choice.
Blizzard’s general modus operandi is to take something that already exists, make it more user friendly, add a strong cohesive aesthetic theme to it and sell that to fans of the genre. There are some exceptions like Diablo (to an extent) and Overwatch but the rest of their big IPs follows that formula. The formula allowed their games to dominate the genres they’re in for a long time thanks to the accessibility and strong presentation. The problem for HotS is that this doesn’t work in a game heavily dependent on streamers and the esports scene as both those value mastering what you are already in over spreading out and trying new things.
I don’t see them.
He’s correct. Not only does this game have to compete well against others like it, but it ideally has to attract from similar games.
HoTs didn’t succeed cause HoTs wasn’t good enough for the type of player who plays the genre. For me, it’s because the game isn’t geared toward excellence. It’s a “feel good moba for cassuals”.
I kind of agree that HoTs is stripped down and accessible, but appearently the die hard fans don’t want stripped down and accesible. I think you are assuming that players need an easy game . . . but only non competitive types need an easy game. At least, it seems that way from HoTs’ failure in the highest levels of play.
I think the biggest example of why your “stick with what you know” theory is incorrect, is that most everyone in HoTs who is competitive starts a smurf account. They don’t care about their time and investment, they care far more about a decent mmr that matches them into good games. They dislike the rut, and playing with player way below their skill level.
HoTs wasn’t good at all the things that peolple have complained about for years.
But they have great skins!
Based on player numbers, it seems they are perfectly accessible to the masses of the moba market.
As those games have more players, seems accessible to me.
Again just because some people can’t understand it doesn’t mean the rest of the world can’t figure it out.
HoTs failed because there were other similar games before it.
Really? MySpace came before Facebook. Yahoo came before Google. Nasa came before SpaceX.
People switch from PUBG to Fortnite then from Fortnite to Apex.
All of these companies had competition, and all beat their competition.
This genre is fundamentally exceptionally hardcore. It is magnet for tryhards that are looking for complexity and depth.
Even if you make a casual moba people that are looking for a casual and quick game aren’t generally looking at ARTS(MOBAs) and they won’t find HotS. They have other alternatives.