Pally starts a new A through Z

General Discussion
21

I think you and some others are being very high minded about your perceptions of him. If that’s truly the case, I tip my hat, you all had much better foresight than I did.

But the sad truth is, I did, and the fact that Yusuke thought he was masters, and Flinx low key elevating a pretty rudimentary understanding about soaking, shows that many people do perceive him as a semi competent resource. (BTW, he only publishes his wins generally for those series, having been a part of his test games, he is quite awful)

People want to simultaneously exclaim that he’s just for the entertainment value and then conveniently ignore that his A-Z series actually is a form of teaching about heroes. It’s really hard to decouple that.

And when he was ubiquitous, people often mistake exposure/popularity for actual insight.

I would never tell a friend to watch Pally. I’d rather just heal them in QM and tell them to kill everything and keep dying until you suck less.

22

It’s not really foresight, it is more the odd way I was introduced to HotS, and what I did after that. I started playing solely because I wanted a mount in WoW, and I had to play HotS with friends to get it. I literally had no idea what I was doing, at all, like even the basics of moving my hero. I am probably one of the very few people who actually went through the entire tutorial series (which was actually fairly decent at the time), and paid attention to what it taught.

I then went and sucked in game. Big time. So I went and decided to suck in AI for a bit on Muradin to get my basic awareness and mechanics under control. But most importantly, I asked a friend who didn’t suck (he was Diamond at the time), what the heck I was doing wrong, and what to do right.

So I started to suck less, then eventually made my way into all of the other modes, including HL. Mind you, compared to most people I still suck, but at least I know where and why I suck, and where I need to work on my game.

It was only after all this I decided to look up HotS content on YouTube, and through that, discovered Pally, Nubkeks, Grubby, and the rest. For me at least, it was easy to tell who was actually giving coaching tips, and who was just explaining what was happening as it happened. Some of this is because I already had a grounding from someone who was good at the game, and some of it is because I was already used to analyzing YouTube content for WoW content.

So if I want someone to decide whether or not they want to play, I will send them to some of Pally’s videos as it tends to be better at explaining what is happening, even when what is happening is … not good. If they decide they want to play, I will send them off to CavGuest, NotParadox, or Grubby for actual game play advice.

4 Likes
23

I think Pally is great when you’re literally very very new to the game. If it’s your first time with HotS or if it’s your first time with MOBA. I personally learned a lot from watching his videos. I can see that he’s not the best now, but I still find him entertaining and educative enough for newbies to be something like an early first aid kit for them to learn stuff. He explained quite a great deal to me in his videos like what camps are, what they do, what combos each hero have, but a more thorough guide can be seen in Fan’s videos (though he generally doesn’t explain it and you have to visually take them in yourself)

3 Likes
24

I enjoyed Pally’s A-Z when i was working out which hero to buy next with gold. It was good to see each hero in action in an actual game instead of training mode. The commentary was good too.

3 Likes
25

oh yeah, I completely forgot about this guy, I used to watch him on twich a lot before the game died… er I mean was put on life support.

26

Honestly I just assumed it, because of this thread informations, because I saw the similarity to Fan as an entertainer, who is disliked by others for how he is doing it. I never watched Pally at all.

27

Pallytime is more the gateway drug to hots and an entertainer as opposed to a really high level player for you to really learn to be competitive off, and he himself has stated this. If you’re a really experienced player then you might not really learn anything from him.

These days his heart isnt really in the game anymore as he’s been around for so long and the game has now really slowed down and he’s lost interest. I just watched a video from him today saying that this new A to Z series will be his final big hurrah for HotS before he slowly moves on from the game.

1 Like
28

I don’t understand people’s reactions here. If you wanna see skill, go watch CCL replays and enjoy hours of Cattle smashing people onto walls from half of the map.

Pally was always QM and mostly casual player. He plays for fun and showcase of the game for new, potential audience. He has his segment of the market, while Grubby or Paradox have theirs. When I want to learn something new about the game, I watch overexplained videos of Paradox, but when I want just some mindless entertainment with cringe commentary, I go for Fan or Pally.

It’s that ez.

I feel sorry for him going to drop HotS content completely, but at some point it’s inevitable. I know burnout well. I guess majority of us do.

My Samuro once appeared in one of his videos, still under old nickname - Lateralus. We played together on Braxis. I wasn’t even aware that he’s big Youtube figure o___O. I started watching him about a year later.

Pally is bad, bad, bad Lunara. He knows that… And you know what? That’s why he’s funny :].

5 Likes
29

It’s not surprising that you thought that, because as I said earlier, people mistake popularity/exposure for competence. I mean back then there wasn’t masters, but I just assumed he knew what he was talking about, because a lot of people were watching him, but apparently they just let anyone on YouTube.

What’s not to understand? People don’t like him for various reasons and don’t watch him for those reasons. You’re prescribing a solution to something both you and them already know lol. If anything, it seems you completely understand.

Oh gawd, I had the displeasure of playing with him when Samuro came out. He literally got lowest damage in the game and we still lost even though the enemy team had no healers because PTR matchmaking is so bad. He just literally spent half his time wind walking doing nothing and still die. I think the worst part of it all was when I watched his stream later, and saw how his bad plays fed off with his other streaming allies because “fun”. He would nearly die, scream how he almost died, then the Malf would heal him up to full out of combat with tranquility and say, don’t worry I got you, and then we’d have no ult during combat and die.

Needless to say, it wasn’t entertaining to play, and it wasn’t entertaining to watch after.

30

I loved the humor and yelling from Pally time. I enjoy his A-Z play list the most out his content. Keep up the good work Pally!

2 Likes
31

“I don’t understand” from my side is an irony :stuck_out_tongue: . Yeah, it’s not always obvious in the internet. Perhaps I should state it some different way.

I wanted to say, that despite the fact that it is obvious for majority of people here, that Pally is not being watched for skill, people still point that out. It’s like pointing out that grass is green. Is anybody surprised that grass is green? That’s how some people sounds like in this thread, lel o___O.

I didn’t remember my match with him. I accidentally noticed myself in one of his videos, then figured things out. Apparently he wasn’t doing anything in any memorable way. We even won this one. I was very mediocre Samuro in this one as well.

What I like about him is his attitude. He’s not crazy about him being bad, he’s not crazy about his team being bad, he’s rarely crazy about anything. Even if his team is being stomped hard, he toss silly jokes. He just keeps things chill.

It is what I expect from his content. I think that’s enough.

2 Likes
32
4 Likes
33

I actually like his content overall and he’s part of the reason I played Divinity: Original Sin 2. That being said, I don’t think his skill level makes him bad to watch. I just think sometimes his games wind up being a little awkward because he’ll be complaining about something that’s totally his fault (like walking straight into bushes as a 75%hp Malthael and then crying that the enemy Valeera bushed him and finished him off) and he won’t realize it even when people in the comments try to explain it to him.

Pally ranges from low-plat to low diamond. I think his average play is closer to mid-plat than anything else though. Fan is a former pro and can consistently break into GM top 10 even when facing other actual GM players and does so solo basically every time. The gap in skill is absolutely colossal.

I mean… sort of? Plat is basically above-average (Gold is average for these types of games) so I guess TECHNICALLY speaking, he’d be better than a lot of players. I’m not sure how valuable an above-average player is for educational value though. I feel like I learn a thousand times more watching Fan or NotParadox than watching Pally. Watching Pally, aside from entertainment, largely has me thinking “Why would you do that, Pally?” or “why are you blaming a hero for being too strong when you literally walked into them at half health for no reason?” rather than “wow, I never thought about doing that. Interesting strategy!”.

1 Like
34

I don’t particularly like his personality or the enjoy his videos, but its obvious he has an audience that sees some entertainment value in his work.

Same as with Grubby for example, it has always been a pleasure watching him play WC3 but his brain isn’t really wired for SC2 or Hots, and the glaring mistakes he makes while playing are almost triggering in combination with his expressionless face that he keeps up in an effort to retain stream sponsors.

On the other hand, Hots isn’t the most entertaining observer sport because there is little complexity in it outside of proper timing and proper decision making. What makes Grubby interesting is his post-event analysis and the ability to verbalize the events. Being a pro-gamer for such a long time also allows him to better understand other players, it’s something many other lack.

The blonde lady and the bald man were the primary reasons I regularly tuned into HGC, not the high level of gameplay that they got to talk over for several hours at a time. They did such great job that I listened to their voices in the background while playing myself, without missing anything important.

35

Lol then if I streamed you might as well watch me. But no because my opinions are still “bad” and not respected so no dice :game_die: :game_die:

36
4 Likes
37

I will wait for his Khara/TLV.

38

I will wait since Ana as I represent primary Leaders (others like Johanna have another group first 2 recent there).

39

Yeah, but as Plat scum myself, he makes a lot of bad plays and blames his team.

I stopped watching him after his TLV rant.

There are much better sources of information out there.

He’s entertaining, sure, but a very bad source of strategy.

2 Likes
40

I have never once watched a streamer for information, always for entertainment. If I get information then that is just a bonus.