Step by Step Stabilization Measures

General Discussion
1

I’ll try to keep this brief as it isn’t the first time I’ve brought it up. The game lacks money and of course players while being in an advanced stage of development. The trick is not only to increase revenue while attracting more players but also doing so with little effort due to the minimal support given to the game at present.

Improved Monetization of Heroes

Heroes = gameplay. They are the most valuable and attractive objects the game has to offer. Fortunately there are now many of them in a developmentally mature environment. It is exceedingly easy - i.e. maintenance mode is no excuse - to extensively broaden access to them at affordable prices.

  1. Choose Your Own Bundle
  • fixed discount percentage (e.g. 75%)
  • hero content number is a range (e.g. 20-35)
  • buy button is a choose button
  • following screen same as now, rectangular fields containing heroes
  • initial field number corresponds to the minimum hero number of the bundle
  • clicking a field utilizes the existing quickmatch hero selection screen
  • at the end of the bundle there is a Select Another Hero field until the maximum number is reached
  • once the minimum number of heroes have been selected the purchasing option is enabled

I think that allowing players to choose the heroes as well as the number of heroes greatly increases the appeal of bundles. A 20-35 heroes with a 75% discount bundle and a 5-15 heroes with a 60% discount bundle would give extensive access to players as well as accommodate returning players.

  1. Coin Purses
  • Contain Gold, Silver, and Shards. Provide temporary access to the heroes of your choice through Silver as well as permanent ownership of heroes and cosmetics through Gold and Shards.
  • Silver is a new currency used for unlocking any hero for 30 days. It’s as simple as another coin drawing with an amount. Every hero costs 1,000 silver and silver expires seven days after being obtained. As far as I can tell there are three screens where the Hero currencies appear. So just put another field with Silver there. Put a 1,000 Silver field in the top right corner of where Heroes are listed with their models. On their individual pages you obviously just put Silver next to Gold, plenty of space. On the hero selection screen in Quick Match put Silver above the shopping cart icon. Just like with Gems if you don’t have enough Silver you’re redirected to the acquisition page.
  • Offered on a separate page like Boosts with a similar icon at the top right of the screen and/or through clicking on Silver at the top bar. Obviously the page would be under Collection.
  • Optionally would be opened in Loot and there would be redirection under Loot.
  • Purchasable directly, not with gems.

Common Coin Purse - $1.99

2,000 gold
3,000 silver
100 shards

Rare Coin Purse - $4.99

5,000 gold
10,000 silver
250 shards

Epic Coin Purse - $9.99

10,000 gold
25,000 silver
500 shards

Legendary Coin Purse - $14.99

15,000 gold
50,000 silver
750 shards

The point of this idea is to provide controlled, reliable access to heroes at affordable rates while not doing so as a mere subscription. The Coin Purses yield ownership and act as a bridge for time/activity-based gold accumulation. The math doesn’t work out to replacing Gems with more expensive items.

Comment on Battlepass

People have a tendency to replace problem-solving with copying. It’s much easier to copy an idea from other games than it is to develop a targeted idea. Battle passes in other games tend to be about cosmetics, correct? Certainly a compulsory battle pass to play won’t fly. You can see how slowly any new content is introduced in this game. A battle pass would not address any underlying problem and creating the content for one is a challenge. Furthermore, how would a battle pass be more profitable than the direct delivery of cosmetics? How many players would buy it if it’s relatively overpriced?

This is a lazy idea that people suggest out of not thinking.

Reining in Abusive Chat Penalties

  • wipe of current penalties
  • reset of penalty durations
  • penalty only silences accounts, does not exclude them from any mode or deny account access
  • maximum penalty of six months

I won’t repeat how deeply flawed the current system is. Suffice it to point out that many players who have spent money have been lost to it and the most engaged and passionate players are the ones most likely to be affected by it. Its loose application may be unrivaled by competitors and other popular multiplayer games. The system is quite possibly the most extreme attempt to keep game communication subjectively inoffensive and not coincidentally quite possibly has had the most detrimental effect on a game’s population. It turns out gamers aren’t flowers.

Targeting the penalty of Abusive Chat is the easiest way to contain the damage.

Present Situation

The time to listen to the average poster or player is over. Streamers and other more prominent “community” members are average as far as their ability to deal with big matters is concerned. They are merely players. The game is dying and it isn’t making money. Its course will remain unaltered unless clever and bold measures are undertaken, which may not guarantee success but can give the game a fighting chance, give it some breathing room.

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We’re back to doing this again. lol Here’s the dirty secret about HotS’ current playerbase. It’s a dead-end. A disproportionate number of the remaining players are veterans who have accumulated content over years. Not just content but currency too. The introduction of new content has slowed to virtually a standstill. It’s clear that this game cannot sustain any reversal by introducing new content to the current playerbase. Furthermore, the current playerbase is not in a state of organic growth. It’s arguably cannibalizing itself as free-to-play smurf accounts degrade competitive integrity.

HotS needs to focus on where it has failed with players who aren’t here. Those are the players for whom there is plenty of content to spend money on. Those are the players who potentially represent growth.

What is so difficult to understand about easy tweaks to the game that have significant implications for players who aren’t here? Only little faith in the game itself renders this a waste of time, which is ironic. Amusingly, I’ve seen evidence that even these simple ideas are too complex for many to understand. I don’t know how.

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I think both Blizzard and whatever developers oversee this game may have just given up. Maybe they think that if they can’t figure out what to do no one can.

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I’ve been told privately by a seemingly credible source that there are neither the budget nor the resources (whatever the latter means separately) even for these simple ideas. I fail to understand how this is possible and I also don’t understand the lack of dynamic thinking to make available whatever little budget and resources are necessary to increase the likelihood of making money. I always figured for professionals the implementation should be extremely easy.

5

Activision prioritizes revenue. They want newer players to spend money. That’s why. They don’t stay of course because the experience is horrendous, but they give you a free 7 day boost at level 5 or 10 and all the sudden you start unlocking new hero rotations and you are gaining xp fast and it feels good (you don’t know how to play at this point so you don’t care or know that the teams are stacks and unfair). You then see all these heroes you cannot use and the amount of time required to get them all is seemingly unachievable. BUT then you have thousands of cosmetics , stickers and emojis, mounts and all of that requires you to get loot boxes or buy with shards.

The game pushes new players to want to buy stuff. Veterans know that buying anything with real $ in this game is a waste because you can get it eventually. But for the new player, he might not know as much and spends 50$. 2.0 was all a money grab for new players, under the illusion of getting stuff for free that you will almost never use.

6

Right, this is the fundamental problem I’m trying to address, something that should have been done a long time ago. Cosmetics are irrelevant to gameplay but factor in financially when players are engaged. Heroes are the key. They are the game. Providing deep access to them - opening up the game - at affordable prices serves a dual purpose. Players are more likely to join, stick around, and grow the population when a relatively low, justifiable expense gives them a large number of heroes. Unrestricted choice is essential. Quantity and choice foster engagement. Suddenly a player doesn’t need to be concerned with slow grinding or dumping hundreds of dollars just to get to play the game at its potential. The large hero pool becomes a source of excitement rather than frustration. The other purpose is, of course, making money. Meet the customer in the middle. Sell your stuff in a manner people could want to consume it. You’re not making any money as it is, you’re just letting the content sit unbought.

It’s so basic I’m literally shaking my head at everyone’s stupidity, most of all Blizzard’s. Such simple ideas to execute targeting the core of the game and its two biggest issues, leveraging all that valuable content they’ve created to attract players and money. Yet it’s like there are no actual human beings around. That’s why I wonder what sorts of people follow these communities and what sorts of people are employed by this company. Forget exceptional aptitude, there’s no common sense. I don’t get it. I really don’t. I literally don’t understand how thoughtless people can be. Damn, Minky’s like, “I’ve got my own idea. Let’s just give all the heroes away for free except the last 10.” I’m sitting here like -_-'. Pffffffffffffff. Does anyone at Blizzard have a real triple digit IQ? Lol, this is the one place where all of their “iconic” characters are! The Nexus.

7

This is why I find the amusingly called “HotS 2.0” changes beside the point either way. A lot of posters on this forum claim that making every item obtainable for free damn near drove a stake through this game’s heart because people conceivably didn’t have to spend money anymore and got stuff for free. Except there’s so much stuff I genuinely thought the intention of this game’s lootboxes was to drive eyeballs to the “Collection”/Shop. Only veteran players with unlocked hero rosters, usually quite a few unlocked cosmetics, and a lot of accumulated currency can break their gold into shards and avoid spending money for stuff they want.

What stands out to me is Blizzard’s ineptitude, their inability to think. It’s like their idea of a smart person is someone who knows something within “the industry” and puts their idiotic spin on it. Does anyone really understand what the hell they were thinking with “HotS 2.0”? It’s laughable because change was needed, but as opposed to addressing a problem they did something that defies explanation. Needless to say that something accomplished jack squat.

8

It seems the point of HotS 2.0 was to be more “generous” while introducing more hopeful content. They did reduce the price of the most expensive tier of heroes and opened cosmetic content for purchase with gold via shards, albeit not at a good ratio. Loot boxes also give content freely, albeit a lot of dilution went into their introduction. Very confusing what they were thinking offering them for money initially and then pulling that. Given Overwatch continues to rely on them for revenue it’s not a simple case of possible legislation. They were not worth it from the start, which Blizzard must have known. Who knows, maybe Blizzard totally lost touch and were confused.

The thing is their actions were relatively aimless. They made a predictably marginal difference, possibly for the worse as little changed for new players whereas veteran players now didn’t have to spend money for cosmetics and the new type of content was filler. The people behind this game never appreciated the serious problem putting gameplay content behind a tall item-by-item paywall poses and didn’t think of how to bypass it. Yet it’s so easy to implement a solution, much easier than the crap they did. Drives me crazy. An inability to think, nothing more. I hate how these companies pretend they do what they can.

9

For whatever reason Blizzard never understood the concept of affordability with this game.

10

Money matters only to them apparently.

11

The financial people’s thinking is pretty on point. It’s a 6yr old game (well, more if you count alpha/beta) built on a 10+ yr old engine and the one that failed. They know not to dump any more money into it, it’s pointless, kinda like doing a reno on a house that sits on a sinkhole edge. What most people keep ignoring is that Blizzard failed to create a positive experience with HOTS (there are several key factors to that with matchmaking and report system probably being the biggest). It’s not a monetization issue. There are dozens of monetization schemes out there that can work, but it requires a playerbase. HOTS has no playerbase and when there are no players it’s pretty hard to extract money out of them no matter what scheme you take. HOTS lost a ton of players long before they shut down the development, it wasn’t because of monetization, why would people leave if everything is free? It’s because of crappy experience in general.

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Yeah, I really have no interest in giving trolls an easier time. It takes a LOT to have an account suspended or banned. I don’t want those people in my games.

If people have anger management issues, that’s not a problem with the game.

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I have a feeling this might have happened a lot to the OP.

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If they think at the basic fallacious level that you do perhaps they believe the same excuses. Both League of Legends and Dota 2 are much older than Heroes of the Storm. LoL continues to thrive, Dota 2 is chugging along. Clearly this type of game does not innately wear off. As far as the engine is concerned I’m unaware of a single major drawback. The game looks and functions on par with and even beyond the competition.

Create a new account and see how free heroes are. It’s mind-boggling that people can’t get past this level of thinking. The free hero rotation is unreliable; it’s a gimmick. People want to make a connection with characters and have a strategy. The cheap heroes are relatively few, old, and may not be what people want to play. Nearly half the roster is at the highest price tier.

People would leave because it becomes apparent to them that they cannot access much of this game’s gameplay under reasonable terms. Contrary to degenerate gamer culture most people do not want to grind like absolute monkeys, and they do not want to toss hundreds of dollars at a game to get to play it at its potential. The free to play model is the most deceptive and predatory business model in the industry. This game arrived too late and did not do enough to make itself compelling for this model to work in its traditional form.

No kidding. That’s why you attempt to grow it if there’s an easy way to go about doing so.

The report system is promptly addressed here. Wipe and revert the penalty for abusive chat. Quickly ensure account security against a flawed system while continuing to remove the truly problematic behavior (you just don’t take out the players with it).

People have been whining about matchmaking forever. I’m skeptical Blizzard has really mishandled it. Matchmaking is a symptom, not a cause. Quickmatch sucks. It has always sucked. A larger population can enable them to implement helpful restrictions and I don’t think when the game was more popular quickmatch matchmaking undid it. Maybe it’s something I should explore further but I’m under the impression what can be done has been, but I am curious how it may be handled elsewhere.

What everyone keeps ignoring is that core gameplay should be expanded in an attempt to take this game to another level, but that’s not something to talk about at this point. Clearly everyone here struggles with the lowest of basics.

We disagree on two points.

  1. The game being a sinkhole. I see it as an abandoned gold mine, on the optimistic side. The actual game itself is at a zenith in its development. Many heroes, many maps, many balance changes, many issues that have probably been addressed. The population or standing of a game is not equivalent to its intrinsic state.
  2. These Blizzard dummies don’t really have to dump more money into it. They just have to make the game work for them. Obviously they lack the business sense and purposeful creativity to even think of such a thing but I’ll be damned if they can’t even follow basic instructions.

Any executive with even half a brain would look at a comment like this, put it in context of what has been happening over the last however many years, give you not one but two middle fingers inside his or her own mind, and then proceed to have someone else gently explain to you why a change is being made that is simply going to be made for the greater interest of the game. Kid-minded people like you would rather ban “trolls” with carpet-bombing levels of collateral damage and jeopardize the game because people make you feel uncomfortable even when you’re armed with a mute function. There’s a reason why leadership matters. I think we’ve been watching what happens under poor leadership - look at what’s left.

I’m not sure I’ve ever contested a silence. The difference between me and you is that I can think on a much larger scale than you can. For instance, I didn’t have a problem with heroes because I dropped the hundreds of dollars. Nonetheless, I quickly realized this is a potentially serious and unnecessary vulnerability.

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I find the people who have a problem with the system are usually those who can’t keep themselves in check.

Either way, I don’t see these people spending money on the game if they get silenced instead of suspended.

I rest my case. You’ve obviously been silenced and/ or suspended with just cause. No company is going to risk alienating and losing players, to give an easier time to the trolls costing them those players.

Your imaginary executive would not care about the guy yelling insults. He would care about the potential 20+ players that could stop playing due to the bad experience caused by that idiot.

How many is that?

The game does revolve around it players.
What a revelation!

Serial killers think the justice system is unfair. So sad. Enjoy your cell.

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You’d be surprised how many people who get silenced are more passionate and spend more than you do.

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That is a because you cannot contest a silence.

Yea I am not surprised you get silences.

TBH do you want toxic people spending money on a game? I would rather not appeal to them.

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lol

Is that how it is now? Lol, what could POSSIBLY go wrong!!??

You just have to be amazed by the abysmal reasoning abilities of some people.

It’s funny how you think the game revolves around you.

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Maybe no perma-bans, but this is stupid as phaseshifter points out.

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Nothing stupid about it. The infraction is abusive chat. A silence prevents it. If you want to talk about stupid discuss how the current system works.