While it's in a different genre, MOBA creators could learn a lot from how Titanfall implemented creeps in a way that rewards last hitting while still encouraging fast paced champion (pilot) on champion action. It also has exceedingly good balance while encouraging specialization as well.
Really, I think a lot of other genres could afford to borrow ideas as well as the FPS genre does. The leveling / perk system is brilliant because it gives long term goals and lets you fill bars (and many people, including myself, love filling bars, if well implemented), but also lets you consistently play with friends without worrying they are, say, level 1, and you're full epic geared max level.
I'm definitely interested to see HOTS change the formula a bit. It could use some shakeup.
it is interesting that the topic of last-hits has been brought up here since i've been noticing more and more advocating their addition on the official alpha forums. i doubt blizzard is going to change their stance regarding that idea, but it is strange how many decry the game (on the official forums) since the mechanic is absent. i am still of the opinion that the team playing better at the team will win and that it is unnecessary in this particular game.
there also seems to be a lack of excitement regarding the alpha, outside of the initial explosion. i can certainly understand because it has been difficult for me in the past to care about a game that i cant play. that being said the "alpha" certainly feels more like a "closed beta" of old and just makes me feel like it is just a marketing buzzword. given that their stance has been to (in an alpha) use the SC2 approach of minor corrections I am at a loss. If this is an alpha I would have honestly anticipated more wild swings in a huge number of mechanics to try things out. Maybe that was already hashed out, but it still strikes me as odd.
The first major patch/update will be shown at PAX East. We'll see how wild the swings will be.
Actually, the "lack of excitement" is an interesting thought. I know Hearthstone had a really big following among streamers early on the beta. Did Hearthstone have an Alpha? How long did it take after it had been released to some people for it to really catch fire?
Actually, the "lack of excitement" is an interesting thought. I know Hearthstone had a really big following among streamers early on the beta. Did Hearthstone have an Alpha? How long did it take after it had been released to some people for it to really catch fire?
I don't have that long of a memory :P
I think it's probably specifically because of Hearthstone that people aren't getting super excited.
They've being through the whole process before and when faced with a situation where the game probably wont be in open access for at least a year and getting in is wholly random it's hard to muster more than a 'well I guess that looks neat'.
I mean that's pretty much my stance. Game looks good but as I'm likely not going to be playing in forever there's no real reason to get hyped over it.
I'm pretty sure the real reason is basically that Hearthstone could and did show up on popular streamers for League, DotA, and other big games in between matches. Comparatively, HotS is only going to be directly competing with those popular streamers. It's a lot easier to get attention to a fun quick game people are streaming between bouts of the main event than it is to draw attention to a direct competitor.
Will stuff like Diablo's Soulstone collection only trigger if you get the actual last hit? Or Bribe stacks?
I've been under the assumption that they do, but I thought I saw my bribe count go up without getting the last hit in one of my games today. Even though I hate farming gold in DotA, I kind of enjoy the idea that getting last hits can be important depending on what hero/talent spec you go with. For one thing, it makes me feel less bad about "stealing farm".
it is interesting that the topic of last-hits has been brought up here since i've been noticing more and more advocating their addition on the official alpha forums. i doubt blizzard is going to change their stance regarding that idea, but it is strange how many decry the game (on the official forums) since the mechanic is absent. i am still of the opinion that the team playing better at the team will win and that it is unnecessary in this particular game.
there also seems to be a lack of excitement regarding the alpha, outside of the initial explosion. i can certainly understand because it has been difficult for me in the past to care about a game that i cant play. that being said the "alpha" certainly feels more like a "closed beta" of old and just makes me feel like it is just a marketing buzzword. given that their stance has been to (in an alpha) use the SC2 approach of minor corrections I am at a loss. If this is an alpha I would have honestly anticipated more wild swings in a huge number of mechanics to try things out. Maybe that was already hashed out, but it still strikes me as odd.
The first major patch/update will be shown at PAX East. We'll see how wild the swings will be.
True, I am very interested. I don't necessarily think that huge swings are a good idea post-live, but as was suggested on the last page*. Why not try a map with no creeps? Or something similarly crazy? As I mentioned this feels more like a closed beta currently and they just want to tweak which in my mind an alpha would be more...open...I guess is the word, regarding off the wall ideas. Then again there could be technical limitations and me attaching meaning to words that aren't that important like alpha or beta. The fact that people are streaming the alpha and talking about it so openly can be a double-edged sword as far as perception.
@matthias00 I think you just need to be close to the minion similar to how XP works. I played diablo a lot and ended up with a filled soulstone pretty quickly, faster than I thought I was pushing creeps.
*I think this idea could work but it would take some delicate balancing. The reason I say that is I could see where if there were too many spread out methods of creating creeps (and assuming that they were the optimal strategy) that players spent more time farming creeps than engaging each other. It may be a fringe scenario, but that'd be my concern at least initially.
Kind of interesting that I don't see any big-name streamers for this any longer. Seems they did their week of streaming it and moved on. Now I see streams with 100-150 viewers at the most.
I think it's basically because HotS is a direct competitor to most of the popular streamed games (and at least competes for the same "chunk" of viewing time as a SCII stream). Hearthstone was able to get popular to a huge extent because popular streamers would just play it in downtime on their stream. Viewers basically passively got "free" hearthstone streaming in the queue times for most high level streams. But for HotS, viewers aren't going to be able to watch it as anything but the main event, and popular streamers can't afford to play it much because it detracts from why fans are watching them to begin with.
I'm sure as it gets released more into the wild streaming will pick up (assuming people like playing), because then it will gain a traditional following of "I want to watch some fun dude play a game I like," but for now it's basically just people who want to watch a gimmick instead of their MOBA of choice.
Will stuff like Diablo's Soulstone collection only trigger if you get the actual last hit? Or Bribe stacks?
I've been under the assumption that they do, but I thought I saw my bribe count go up without getting the last hit in one of my games today. Even though I hate farming gold in DotA, I kind of enjoy the idea that getting last hits can be important depending on what hero/talent spec you go with. For one thing, it makes me feel less bad about "stealing farm".
I think from watching other streams that they don't need last hits. Basically if you got the exp you got the souls/bribe too. Can't be sure though since I've only watched on stream.
I bet the HotS streaming being way down is due to a number of factors: small hero pool means right now every game tends to look the same; many of the original streamers (not all) are big time pro players in other games, and they have probably gone back to the game for which they have sponsorships and an established viewer base; Blizzard seems to have slowed down on the news lately - I have a feeling this is because they're prepping for the big patch at PAX East, but whatever the reason, the flow of information about new things is way down right now; and finally, this is still alpha, and while it's a very stable alpha, it is very apparent that the game is unfinished - the UI is still pretty terrible, they have already announced that a major talent revision is in the works, and at least from what I've seen, the queue times for matches can sometimes take a while, meaning there's a lot of dead air and fill on the streams.
HotS just isn't very interesting to watch, is the problem. Part of it is the UI - it's not very observer-friendly. It's difficult to tell at any given point who's "winning" unless you see a fairly decisive teamfight, and with how damage and defenses are in the game right now it's rare to actually see a decisive teamfight. Objective control is hugely important to figuring out who's winning - merc camps, map-specific objectives - but there's almost no information available to see whether one team is doing better there. On top of that it has the problems all MOBAs have where until you've spent some time with the game teamfights are an unreadable clusterfuck of visual effects. While people can quickly pick up DotA or LoL to get a better handle on the visual language that's not the case with HotS right now.
This is in addition to some of the reasons other people have put forward, between the recent Hearthstone beta and the desire for streamers to play the games people know them for playing.
I think the extremely limited invite pool for the alpha is somewhat curbing people's interest in playing or watching the game. There's only about 1000-1500 people on the alpha at any given time, which is a very very small number for this sort of game. That small number makes matchmaking take a long time, but it also means that because the alpha is so limited your friends probably don't have invites and you can't play with them, which is a problem for a team based game.
I think Hearthstone's initial closed beta had a much larger participant pool, and the fact that it's a 1v1 game greatly helped matchmaking and meant that finding friends to play with was a non-issue.
There's also the fact that visually Hearthstone is a very distinct and fresh looking game. It beats the piss out of every other digital CCG in terms of sheer presentation, and for a lot of people this combined with the somewhat niche genre made it a pretty novel game for watching on twitch. HotS, on the other hand, has the really unfortunate distinction of basically looking exactly like all the other MOBA games at casual glance, so there is very little casual novelty there. People will possibly need to get their hands on the game and try it themselves to really pick up on what makes it appealing.
It will be revealing when the game moves into proper beta and the first truly large wave of invites goes out. If HotS is still not getting any interest at that point, then that would be a bit more worrying.
but Blizzard did this with the Hearthstone 'beta' for ages to no detriment. Plus a lot of people who are in right now are streamers who tend to invest in the game to get variety involved. I'd chalk the lowhero variety down to 'it's a MOBA' more than it's business model.
Blizzard never once charged for Hearthstone beta. The beta was done by random invite during closed beta, and a free client download during open beta. Sure, you could buy packs of cards, but buying packs was not a barrier of entry into the beta.
And they are not charging for entry to Heroes either.
Blizzard has never charged for beta entry, into any of their games.
Maybe if Blizzard wasn't charging people money to access heroes in a closed alpha they'd be getting more variety in the games.
I guess technically they're called champions. Y'all above posters are assuming he's saying here they are charging for Heroes, not heroes (champions). The thing you play in the game, not the game.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Blizzard charged for cards in Hearthstone beta. I bought a ton of them.
I think after PAX East when Blizzard starts sending out more invites the hype will go up. Right now it's a limited alpha with a limited hero pool and very little infrastructure around it.
Just to clarify Page was complaining about having heroes (the characters you play) being behind a rotation and pay in-game currency or real money permanently unlock during an alpha when you already have a small hero pool to begin with is an odd choice. he was not saying that you have to pay to get into the alpha, using heroes as a short form name for hots makes things weird sometimes and should probably be avoided.
And it's something I agree with, You would think that they want all of the heros played an equal amount during an alpha to work out the bugs and balance and weird skill interactions.
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
At the same time, they equally need to test the pay system, play with the gold numbers, decide if this is even the final system, etc. etc. I can see it from both points of view.
I think at the end of the alpha all real money you spent on the HotS Alpha will be reverted straight back into Tricky Dick Fun Bucks (Or is it Blizzard Bucks?). This will let people pay now to try some heroes, and then be able to take that money back and buy different/new heroes or rebuy the ones they got familiar with. I know I donated $15 to a friend's stream so he could try out Abathur, and he fell in love with him. And now in the future, he can buy Abathur again, or try out Mephisto or Chen or something.
If I get an alpha invite, I'll spend like $40 on characters and/or cosmetic shit, because I feel like spending $40 on a "free" game and getting 30 hours out of it is as good as buying a game for $40 and getting 30 hours out of it. And then when the game goes live (maybe even different alpha/beta phases) they will refund the cash to my account and I can spend it again! It's like getting to spend your money twice!
At the same time, they equally need to test the pay system, play with the gold numbers, decide if this is even the final system, etc. etc. I can see it from both points of view.
League just gives everyone unspeakably huge amounts of cash on the test server to test this. I guess that may have problems with blizzard cash, but that is a thing to note.
I'm trying to play this more, but the queue times are insanely long right now. Probably a factor of how few people are in the Alpha.
Anyone wants to play, add me.
To cut down on queue times go random. I am not sure if purchasing a hero and queuing specifically with one that is not in the rotation has any impact or not, but I'd assume it would have the same effect. it doesn't make them instantaneous but certainly does go faster.
So dumb question, but does this go by your blizzard ID or how do you add people? My friends not in the alpha aren't showing up, so I assume something that is not the normal method?
EDIT: has there been something that changed the map algorithm? ALl alst night it was dragon shrine, now it's almost all golems.
At the same time, they equally need to test the pay system, play with the gold numbers, decide if this is even the final system, etc. etc. I can see it from both points of view.
League just gives everyone unspeakably huge amounts of cash on the test server to test this. I guess that may have problems with blizzard cash, but that is a thing to note.
Many closed betas do this, though most of them don't give unlimited money, just a bunch of money (enough to buy a few characters, but not all of them). They claim that it's as useful to find out what players will spend limited money on.
It's also interesting how not random choosing Random is. You get the most unpopular hero like 75% of the time. Which this week appears to be the tank :P
I was just referring to the hero not being picked. So like, with 5-6 free heroes, if you queue up as random it's actually only going to be a choice among 1-2 heroes in most situations.
How many heroes does League include in it's weekly rotations?
I feel like 5 free heroes (6 if you unlock the last one) is a really low number. I think 8 would be a much better free roster, so that you don't end up with identical looking teams.
I mean, obviously people will be buying heroes and picking their favorites, but the weekly rotation always influences the meta and the landscape of team makeup in non-ranked play. Maybe they're only giving 5(6) weekly right now because the roster is so small.
Speaking of roster... did they ever actually get Tychus into the game? They previewed him like 3 weeks ago, but I haven't seen him pop up in any streams yet.
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Really, I think a lot of other genres could afford to borrow ideas as well as the FPS genre does. The leveling / perk system is brilliant because it gives long term goals and lets you fill bars (and many people, including myself, love filling bars, if well implemented), but also lets you consistently play with friends without worrying they are, say, level 1, and you're full epic geared max level.
I'm definitely interested to see HOTS change the formula a bit. It could use some shakeup.
The first major patch/update will be shown at PAX East. We'll see how wild the swings will be.
I don't have that long of a memory :P
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I think it's probably specifically because of Hearthstone that people aren't getting super excited.
They've being through the whole process before and when faced with a situation where the game probably wont be in open access for at least a year and getting in is wholly random it's hard to muster more than a 'well I guess that looks neat'.
I mean that's pretty much my stance. Game looks good but as I'm likely not going to be playing in forever there's no real reason to get hyped over it.
Would love to play some friendly matches and learn the ropes in a situation opposite today's comic.
Will stuff like Diablo's Soulstone collection only trigger if you get the actual last hit? Or Bribe stacks?
I've been under the assumption that they do, but I thought I saw my bribe count go up without getting the last hit in one of my games today. Even though I hate farming gold in DotA, I kind of enjoy the idea that getting last hits can be important depending on what hero/talent spec you go with. For one thing, it makes me feel less bad about "stealing farm".
True, I am very interested. I don't necessarily think that huge swings are a good idea post-live, but as was suggested on the last page*. Why not try a map with no creeps? Or something similarly crazy? As I mentioned this feels more like a closed beta currently and they just want to tweak which in my mind an alpha would be more...open...I guess is the word, regarding off the wall ideas. Then again there could be technical limitations and me attaching meaning to words that aren't that important like alpha or beta. The fact that people are streaming the alpha and talking about it so openly can be a double-edged sword as far as perception.
@matthias00 I think you just need to be close to the minion similar to how XP works. I played diablo a lot and ended up with a filled soulstone pretty quickly, faster than I thought I was pushing creeps.
*I think this idea could work but it would take some delicate balancing. The reason I say that is I could see where if there were too many spread out methods of creating creeps (and assuming that they were the optimal strategy) that players spent more time farming creeps than engaging each other. It may be a fringe scenario, but that'd be my concern at least initially.
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I'm sure as it gets released more into the wild streaming will pick up (assuming people like playing), because then it will gain a traditional following of "I want to watch some fun dude play a game I like," but for now it's basically just people who want to watch a gimmick instead of their MOBA of choice.
This is in addition to some of the reasons other people have put forward, between the recent Hearthstone beta and the desire for streamers to play the games people know them for playing.
I think Hearthstone's initial closed beta had a much larger participant pool, and the fact that it's a 1v1 game greatly helped matchmaking and meant that finding friends to play with was a non-issue.
There's also the fact that visually Hearthstone is a very distinct and fresh looking game. It beats the piss out of every other digital CCG in terms of sheer presentation, and for a lot of people this combined with the somewhat niche genre made it a pretty novel game for watching on twitch. HotS, on the other hand, has the really unfortunate distinction of basically looking exactly like all the other MOBA games at casual glance, so there is very little casual novelty there. People will possibly need to get their hands on the game and try it themselves to really pick up on what makes it appealing.
It will be revealing when the game moves into proper beta and the first truly large wave of invites goes out. If HotS is still not getting any interest at that point, then that would be a bit more worrying.
If anyone's up for some games let me know.
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wra
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
The invites are random.
If they were charging for access you'd have a way, way bigger player pool.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
but Blizzard did this with the Hearthstone 'beta' for ages to no detriment. Plus a lot of people who are in right now are streamers who tend to invest in the game to get variety involved. I'd chalk the lowhero variety down to 'it's a MOBA' more than it's business model.
And they are not charging for entry to Heroes either.
Blizzard has never charged for beta entry, into any of their games.
In fact I'd made the exact same mistake not two posts above yours.
To be honest though I'd take a buy in over RNG invites any day of the week.
I guess technically they're called champions. Y'all above posters are assuming he's saying here they are charging for Heroes, not heroes (champions). The thing you play in the game, not the game.
I think after PAX East when Blizzard starts sending out more invites the hype will go up. Right now it's a limited alpha with a limited hero pool and very little infrastructure around it.
And it's something I agree with, You would think that they want all of the heros played an equal amount during an alpha to work out the bugs and balance and weird skill interactions.
If I get an alpha invite, I'll spend like $40 on characters and/or cosmetic shit, because I feel like spending $40 on a "free" game and getting 30 hours out of it is as good as buying a game for $40 and getting 30 hours out of it. And then when the game goes live (maybe even different alpha/beta phases) they will refund the cash to my account and I can spend it again! It's like getting to spend your money twice!
League just gives everyone unspeakably huge amounts of cash on the test server to test this. I guess that may have problems with blizzard cash, but that is a thing to note.
I actually couldn't find a way to pay for the suit.
TAKE MY DAMN MONEY!
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wra
Definitely! I've got a few AHGL Starcraft games on Sunday, but besides that I'm up for games!
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Anyone wants to play, add me.
PSN = PessimistMaximus
To cut down on queue times go random. I am not sure if purchasing a hero and queuing specifically with one that is not in the rotation has any impact or not, but I'd assume it would have the same effect. it doesn't make them instantaneous but certainly does go faster.
So dumb question, but does this go by your blizzard ID or how do you add people? My friends not in the alpha aren't showing up, so I assume something that is not the normal method?
EDIT: has there been something that changed the map algorithm? ALl alst night it was dragon shrine, now it's almost all golems.
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
WoWtcg and gaming website
Many closed betas do this, though most of them don't give unlimited money, just a bunch of money (enough to buy a few characters, but not all of them). They claim that it's as useful to find out what players will spend limited money on.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
stream
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
Steam profile
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
Steam profile
3DS Friend Code: 3110-5393-4113
Steam profile
Yesterday one dude in our team got barbarian like 4 times in a row.
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wra
WoWtcg and general gaming podcast
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I feel like 5 free heroes (6 if you unlock the last one) is a really low number. I think 8 would be a much better free roster, so that you don't end up with identical looking teams.
I mean, obviously people will be buying heroes and picking their favorites, but the weekly rotation always influences the meta and the landscape of team makeup in non-ranked play. Maybe they're only giving 5(6) weekly right now because the roster is so small.
Speaking of roster... did they ever actually get Tychus into the game? They previewed him like 3 weeks ago, but I haven't seen him pop up in any streams yet.