When the company revives this game they need to do one thing. They need to market this game as a Team Online Battle Arena (TOBA). If they do this, then they will not only revive the game to it’s former glory, but they will bring a new energy to it. The term TOBA is no lie. This game distinctly differs from a MOBA in that in a MOBA you have designated carry heroes, solo play, and individual gold/item farming. This game also plays much faster than a MOBA. In this game, there are no designated carries. You have to work as a team in order to achieve success. That is, you have to build a compilation of heroes that works well together in a team setting against an objective. TOBA is fitting for HotS.
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I don’t see reason in calling it anything niche.
MOBAs are not selfdefined by having carries. That’s just a prominent aspect of the most famous ones, setting up expectations.
HotS isn’t different than other MOBAs. It is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. It’s emphasis on teamwork and its mechanics which support it, are, which makes it a unique moba. It’s what partially makes it my fav. But Team games are still Multiplayer ones. Moba players still expect their games to have teams and teamwork.
The “Team Brawler” would also be a bad name, because there are cases when you shouldn’t do that.
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I’m going to be real with you Karabars. You’ve been patrolling this forums being a straight up contrarian on every post since the very beginning. Who are you?
The opinion is not bad one. I’m literally just trying to breathe some life into this game and I think other people could welcome it. What I can’t welcome is just straight up contractive opinion that is “I don’t like this.”
You even contradict yourself in saying that it’s not different, but it’s unique. Like are you just tired after damn near 15000 posts?
We are going to have this discussion right now.
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I use my voice when I think it’s needed. When I agree with something, a Like/Heart is more than enough, I don’t need to voice that “Yes, good thought!”.
Disagreements, other perspectives (if civil) should be welcomed, instead of calling someone a contrarian just because they oppose your suggestion.
There’s also no contradiction. HotS is a unique moba, but it’s still a moba.
Nothing in it that differentiate it enough from the general term “moba” to be something truly new, worthy of a new genre-name. Tbh, Smite is the most unique moba with its game-view/perspective being third-person instead of birdview.
When HotS was advertised not as a Moba, but a Hero Brawler, I commonly saw ppl laugh at it, because “it’s still a moba”. I don’t want to make that mistake again.
I also dislike that ppl think that mobas = hypercarries. I rather have HotS as a fresh air that shows that teamgames should focus on the team-aspects instead of enabling players for solo-glory.
So answering your question, I’m not tired or bored. I just think your proposition is ill-thought-out.
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MOBAs don’t necessarily need to follow the same rules as LoL, DoTA or Smite to be considered a MOBA. I mean Smite is considered a MOBA even though it’s not exactly the same as the others. They’re all the same at their barest. Smite was able to remain a MOBA even though it does’t have an isometric view, and it has gametypes that are not your cookie cutter MOBA with lanes experience. Yet those are all still considered MOBA.
I think ultimately hots is given a genre based on what target audience it wants to grip the attention of. I see a lot of people who didn’t like the big mobas out there and gravitate to hots, me included. I was a heroes of newerth player. The game was dying so I needed to find another moba. I looked up other moba options. If hots was categorized as anything but a moba, I’m not sure I would have found it. I mean let me know. Is TOBA a famous enough term to bring new audiences in?
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TOBA is not, but if marketed by Microsoft, then it could be. This is a team-based game. You can’t show up solo and play the same way you can with a coordinated team and this game is based around coordinated play. This game is distinctly different from a traditional MOBA.
To be honest, MOBAs are getting old. HotS died fast enough that they could revive it in a new genre based around purely team coordinated play. This game plays fast. Communicating through voice creates better outcomes in matches because it plays so fast. You don’t need voice communication in other MOBAs because they play slower. That’s part of the team aspect right there. If you are typing messages in the game, then you are wasting valuable clicks you should be using against your opponents.
Lemme ask you this, how would you market this game to be different from other MOBAs other than calling it a MOBA? This game is nothing like any of the others. And don’t just say you wouldn’t. Put some thought into it please.
What’s the point though? People are not gonna play this game more just because it is called TOBA. All it would accomplish is some marketing value, which could very much backfire as well, a meme to make fun of.
So, what’s the point? I don’t think that kind of publicity stun is necessary. Normal Microsoft marketing thing should be enough, if any.
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You’re right in that even the popular ones are quite stale and are very stubborn in keeping questionable mechanics.
But here’s the thing, genres have bounced back in popularity before. Look at the horror game genre. It faded into almost nonexistance until Amnesia dark descent hit the market. MOBAs might have a comeback, but it’s definitely not going to be through its current popular games.
Idk. That its fun and is a unique MOBA in that it let go of the unfun mechanics that other popular games of its genre refuse to let go of? I’m not a marketing expert. Not sure where you’re going with this one.
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If Hots was more popular, Forums were more active + old Tassadar existed, I would also have more posts.
But I stopped carrying.
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“TOBA” wouldn’t really do much for the game.
“MOBA” doesn’t really mean much as is, and visually, HotS doesn’t look different enough for a ‘new’ player to care about the label. If you hit up Steam for a “MOBA” you’re going to get Battle Arenas, Shooters, Brawlers, a few fighting games, and even poker. The term was bad when LoL used it to not be regulated to a “DotA-like” as only a couple of genres really stand out without people just making a comparison to another game as the model for the “genre”
eg. Rogue-like, Souls-like, Metroidvania.
Just about any online game is a “multiplayer” “arena”. Compared to actual “arena” games, LoL and Dota 2 are terrible so having a slight shift in the acronym for a “team” isn’t going to set the game apart and revive interest in it.
It has level-based progression, npc units that drop resources, and 5 players vs 5 players in 3 lanes of action; that’s already too much of a similarity unless they decided to turn HotS into an adult parody of genre with “TOBA” standing in for ogling so-called cake.
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“Mario kart is not a racing game, it is a kart racer”
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It would just be better for Blizzard to leave it as is. Any type of change would most likely be taken negatively due to Blizzard’s history regardless of how well meaning the change would be.
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Correction.
They need to market this game, period.
I miss Monday Night Combat 
HotS didn’t die. Every stat of the game was up when they shut down development. They never lost money with it, and it was doing well. They just decided that not having the same stats as LoL was bad. (For a game they didn’t advertize, go figure)
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Drop the redundant ''O" so it’s MBA. Compete with huge sports networks. AI gameplay commentary fed to cortana. It’s the only logical move. The goal being to be popular enough to charge for watching game streams.
Spoiler.
Cortana eventually gets renamed Skynet.
Any marketing outside of Twitch or the B.net Client would be a step in the right direction, no matter what genre you wanted to shove Hots into.
I don’t mind your idea, as you intended, “team” features prominently in the title and Hots is best played when a team is on the same page. I don’t agree that Hots is completely unique, as there are a few heroes you can “soft carry” on, but I get where you’re coming from.
Likewise, I’d be happy if Hots receives any kind of positive attention from MS, even if it was only the occasional balance patch to help refresh the meta. So long as they don’t slap a new predatory monetisation system on the game, do no further changes and then call it Hots 3.0, I won’t complain.
Perhaps all the promotion they need to do is throw Hots up on Steam. A big problem with Hots is that most people have never heard of it, as it was never advertised.
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What are you talking about? This game has carries, they are called ranged assassins. The fact that you think other games lack team play or coordination is exactly why you are playing HotS: you are just… lesser. Stay in HotS bud. You’d be 5 levels behind with 0 items in DotA cause there’s no group exp and you are incapable of interweaving independent gameplay decisions with supporting/working with your team.
Lesser? Behavior like this is the reason why the MOBA genre is dying.
Well both silly people who take the games too seriously and archaic concepts. Lets be fair.
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What has his post count to do about this topic ? Does his argument get less valid just because he posted more than you ?
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Just moving the game to Steam will result in renewed interest. What they should do after, or preferably before, is get a team onto the game to start adding some new content to prove to everyone that they are back up and running.
Nothing serious: an announcement of “I’m back!” in the form of a public announcement with maybe a skin or two released soon afterwards. Maybe a revival of an old event just to draw attention. Maybe actually advertising the game for starters instead of relying on word of mouth. I cannot tell you how many blank expression I got from individuals who had played Blizzard games when I brought up Heroes of the Storm.
Again, renaming would most likely draw unwanted attention. Overwatch is getting grilled, rightfully so, for the choices Blizzard made. World of Warcraft has been torched a few times for story as well as in game decisions (to the point they unlisted some cutscenes on youtube due to the backlash) and that is just with the games not what has been going on.
A good chunk of the community surrounding Blizzard is just begging them to do something stupid, no matter how miniscule, just to roast them further. Changing HotS from MOBA to TOBA, while does not amount to much thought to you OP, could potentially be sufficient ammunition to light up the company and once more put them under scrutiny they may not want.
As of this post, they are currently getting thumped (shockingly justified) for their latest patch in Diablo IV.
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