While it could be bad, it will definitely be interesting to see how blizzard handles hots moving forward. It was intended as almost a tech demo so getting to this point is actually pretty impressive.
You can't deny overwatch is more popular than hots pretty much across the board. I cannot for the life of me begin to understand why, but it is. I also want think of a one where a blizzard game was performing "poorly" like hots and there was one right next to it blowing very thing out of the water. With the exception of say an aged game being replaced with the new one. I don't know how blizzard will handle this. It is unlikely they would do anything drastic such as try to quietly bury hots but unless I am forgetting something this is a relatively unique situation.
Even having said all that, has the hots esports scene EVER been "healthy"? Sure it existed and assuming blizzard doesn't announce the day after medivh that they are closing up shop it will continue to exist after these changes. heroes never pulled huge numbers and probably never would have if these individuals/teams had stayed for whatever reason you want to point at (and there are tons of legitimate ones) the game doesn't have the huge following others do.
I tend to have twitch on as background noise a lot of the time as I am doing other things. I rarely watch heroes streams because most of the time I don't care. Whether it be certain casters, comps I don't care about, or just the general idea that even the best Moba is still a moba and therefore is a pretty boring viewing experience, I generally find myself watching other stuff. Usually it is normal Kombat, or duelyst or Warcraft 3. Even with my own lack of desire to watch hots streams I still play the game a lot. People have said before that heroes is much more fun to play than watch anyway.
Regardless, it will be weird to be on that C9 mount.
Khaldor is currently casting a fun tournament style - Meta Madness:
All bans made in draft are carried forward into future games, and all future bans are added to that pool of bans. Pretty fun and it puts pressure on teams to really know how to be as flexible as possible.
While it could be bad, it will definitely be interesting to see how blizzard handles hots moving forward. It was intended as almost a tech demo so getting to this point is actually pretty impressive.
You can't deny overwatch is more popular than hots pretty much across the board. I cannot for the life of me begin to understand why, but it is. I also want think of a one where a blizzard game was performing "poorly" like hots and there was one right next to it blowing very thing out of the water. With the exception of say an aged game being replaced with the new one. I don't know how blizzard will handle this. It is unlikely they would do anything drastic such as try to quietly bury hots but unless I am forgetting something this is a relatively unique situation.
I mean yeah. But I don't think it's fair to compare HotS to Overwatch.
Two different kinds of games. HotS was entering a hyper competitive and highly crowded space. Most people didn't even give it the time of day, because League/Dota existed. HotS doesn't need to compete with League/Dota at all, but at the same time, their existence has certainly had a marked impact on the perception of the game.
The Tech Alpha certainly did it no justice either. The Tech Alpha was one of the messiest unfinished unpolished things I've ever seen, and a for a lot of people THAT was the image that was engraved in their minds.
Overwatch is entering a space with virtually no competition. CSGO and TF2, sure, but those games are HELLA old. Overwatch is new and shiny fresh.
Even having said all that, has the hots esports scene EVER been "healthy"? Sure it existed and assuming blizzard doesn't announce the day after medivh that they are closing up shop it will continue to exist after these changes. heroes never pulled huge numbers and probably never would have if these individuals/teams had stayed for whatever reason you want to point at (and there are tons of legitimate ones) the game doesn't have the huge following others do.
I dunno. I do remember it used to be MUCH worse, though. I remember back before we even had custom games, so literally for tournaments teams would have to both queue at the same time and HOPE that they queue into each other. It was the messiest setup I've ever seen.
I do think the esports scene is doing well though. It's growing. HotS has only existed for a year, and the esports scene has had support for even less time.
This is a rough patch. It'll smooth over. I mean, we're seeing the first of what's happened many times over in other esports: The death of the old guard, and the rise of the new guard.
This is perhaps the SINGLE best time for new up and coming teams to get out there and make a name for themselves. Shit, that's exactly what Astral and GFE did. Dark horses no more! They're legit contenders now.
I have utmost faith that the esports scene will continue to grow and flourish over time. Does Blizzard need to be more proactive in terms of promoting esports events and such? Yeah, probably!
Dude, Strafe and Death Blossom are identical. They even use the same graphical look.
You spin around and spray damage at everyone around you.
I hit death blossom halfway across the screen from the enemy team. It does nothing. What, I thought this was the same thing as strafe, what's up?
I hit strafe in the middle of the enemy team. I'm actually doing less DPS than if I was just autoattacking. What, I thought this was the same thing as Death Blossom, what's up?
Yes, being this sarcastic because you see a huge difference in two ranged assassins spinning in similar animations to do damage with no other special effects, both of which are even used in the same situations (not the primary DPS focus of enemy team, can hit multiple targets) just because they have different range / damage tuning is pretty goosey.
It's okay for similar champions to exist, but Blizzard would have to try pretty hard to give Reaper a healthy and unique role. OTOH, I do support near-clones to fill out rosters (i.e. Marth and Roy in SSBM), so that's cool too.
Reaper is, functionally, a melee character with teleports. They'd have no problem differentiating him from Valla.
ALRIGHT FINE I GOT AN AVATAR
Steam: adamjnet
0
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
You lost me at making it a retail game. 100% wouldn't work. Not even blizzard could push a pay-to-play MOBA with DotA and League sitting right there, especially one oft referred to as "babby's first moba" by genre vets because they're not trying it out if it's not free, and all the people who weren't moba players before have no incentive to try it when it has a paywall right there.
Yeah because Overwatch didn't have to compete with free-to-play games, either?
Blizzard do not have to compete with anyone when it comes to getting people to pay for product. They make markets, they don't compete in them.
There are people out there playing Overwatch who have never picked up an FPS in their lives. That's the playing field that Blizzard runs around in. Saying that they have to compete with DotA and LoL is like saying that Bugatti has to compete with Tata Motors.
Nobody gives a shit what some kid who can't afford to buy his own video game thinks. You can have a million of those players and then only make money from the 50,000 who actually buy anything, 1,000 of which are your true whales who spend thousands of dollars. Or, you can create a quality product up front and have a million players who actually spend $60 for your game, and yet are still willing to pay additional money over the long term (much like people who paid for their WoW subscriptions for years even though they only played a few hours a week). More specifically, nobody gives a shit about that one guy who has loyalty to free-to-play games, whether out of principle or poverty, because you can't get that guy to spend money anyway.
This is the exact same mentality that gives rise to stupid shit like the console wars or DC vs. Marvel or Apple vs. Android. The reality is, only a small minority of people actually care about those things, and their loyalty is so fanatical that you can't pry them away anyway. The larger truth is that people will go where quality and/or popularity takes them, and those things are determined far more about your initial investment up front and your initial presentation to the market than anything else. HotS failed there dramatically on both counts, especially in comparison to the rest of Blizzard's lineup, doubly so given the massive Overwatch launch that included both a retail and a cosmetic pay model.
While it could be bad, it will definitely be interesting to see how blizzard handles hots moving forward. It was intended as almost a tech demo so getting to this point is actually pretty impressive.
You can't deny overwatch is more popular than hots pretty much across the board. I cannot for the life of me begin to understand why, but it is. I also want think of a one where a blizzard game was performing "poorly" like hots and there was one right next to it blowing very thing out of the water. With the exception of say an aged game being replaced with the new one. I don't know how blizzard will handle this. It is unlikely they would do anything drastic such as try to quietly bury hots but unless I am forgetting something this is a relatively unique situation.
I mean yeah. But I don't think it's fair to compare HotS to Overwatch.
Two different kinds of games. HotS was entering a hyper competitive and highly crowded space. Most people didn't even give it the time of day, because League/Dota existed. HotS doesn't need to compete with League/Dota at all, but at the same time, their existence has certainly had a marked impact on the perception of the game.
The Tech Alpha certainly did it no justice either. The Tech Alpha was one of the messiest unfinished unpolished things I've ever seen, and a for a lot of people THAT was the image that was engraved in their minds.
Overwatch is entering a space with virtually no competition. CSGO and TF2, sure, but those games are HELLA old. Overwatch is new and shiny fresh.
Even having said all that, has the hots esports scene EVER been "healthy"? Sure it existed and assuming blizzard doesn't announce the day after medivh that they are closing up shop it will continue to exist after these changes. heroes never pulled huge numbers and probably never would have if these individuals/teams had stayed for whatever reason you want to point at (and there are tons of legitimate ones) the game doesn't have the huge following others do.
I dunno. I do remember it used to be MUCH worse, though. I remember back before we even had custom games, so literally for tournaments teams would have to both queue at the same time and HOPE that they queue into each other. It was the messiest setup I've ever seen.
I do think the esports scene is doing well though. It's growing. HotS has only existed for a year, and the esports scene has had support for even less time.
This is a rough patch. It'll smooth over. I mean, we're seeing the first of what's happened many times over in other esports: The death of the old guard, and the rise of the new guard.
This is perhaps the SINGLE best time for new up and coming teams to get out there and make a name for themselves. Shit, that's exactly what Astral and GFE did. Dark horses no more! They're legit contenders now.
I have utmost faith that the esports scene will continue to grow and flourish over time. Does Blizzard need to be more proactive in terms of promoting esports events and such? Yeah, probably!
Things are gonna be okay.
To me overwatch is competing directly with CoD, battlefield, and really any other fps. I am not a big fps fan so really it feels mostly the same. While I can recognize the differences, I don't really agree that it has no competition.
I agree things will be fine for the game. The reports scene will be "fine" as well. It isn't going to up and disappear. Although I have no idea what blizzard will do about it. In StarCraft people threw huge tantrums because blizzard got involved heavily.
Overall I am really apathetic. I have a hard time caring if the reports scene vanishes or not.
We talked a bit about unranked draft last night and I think the discussion parallels a lot of my own thoughts on hots in general. The game has been feature complete (for me) for over a year now, maybe longer. A lot (most?) other people feel differently. As long as the game exists I'll play it, the other stuff existing is a bonus (sometimes).
You lost me at making it a retail game. 100% wouldn't work. Not even blizzard could push a pay-to-play MOBA with DotA and League sitting right there, especially one oft referred to as "babby's first moba" by genre vets because they're not trying it out if it's not free, and all the people who weren't moba players before have no incentive to try it when it has a paywall right there.
Yeah because Overwatch didn't have to compete with free-to-play games, either?
Not really, no. TF2 has had like one gameplay update in the past 3 years that was basically a wash as a balance pass, and not to mention most people are incredibly burned out on it--PA used to fill 3 TF2 servers nightly, from what I've heard, and now we just mostly fill one on Friday nights. People don't want to play TF2 anymore, which means the comparison doesn't draw because DotA and League are still hyper-popular games (with regular gameplay updates). Its other competitors--things like CoD and Battlefield--are 1. inverse F2P, because they're centered on you buying a new version of the game every other year to keep the playerbase up, while Overwatch is expected to have more of a TF2-esque lifespan.
Blizzard do not have to compete with anyone when it comes to getting people to pay for product. They make markets, they don't compete in them.
They make market when they're breaking new ground; WoW, Diablo, and Starcraft were all original trendsetters in their genre. Hearthstone was literally the first digital CCG to like, actually work. They weren't breaking new ground with a MOBA.
There are people out there playing Overwatch who have never picked up an FPS in their lives. That's the playing field that Blizzard runs around in. Saying that they have to compete with DotA and LoL is like saying that Bugatti has to compete with Tata Motors.
This is total apples to oranges. You know why Overwatch is getting so widespread? Because it had an immensely successful free closed/open beta period that showed how incredibly fun the game is and got the hype train rolling. It became a cultural phenomenon, which is how those people who didn't know or care about FPS games before became aware of it. HotS would not have had that effect, because while it is a fun game, it's not the sort of visceral addicting fun that an FPS can bring, that also applies to (what I think is) a much wider swath of gamers (you know, the anti-wingedweasels :P).
Like, in the end, people would ask the same thing. "Hey, I like blizzard, but this is their first venture into [genre]. Can they really pull it off?" In each beta, you'd get very different answers. Most people would give a resounding "yes, buy it" to Overwatch, but HotS would be more along the lines of "yeah, I guess." I don't know... HotS wasn't really wildly successful to begin with even with the Blizz Bump and being F2P. I could not see it doing anywhere near as well on an up-front payment model, because that extra barrier to entry makes it so much easier for people to brush off a game they might have otherwise tried.
Nobody gives a shit what some kid who can't afford to buy his own video game thinks. You can have a million of those players and then only make money from the 50,000 who actually buy anything, 1,000 of which are your true whales who spend thousands of dollars. Or, you can create a quality product up front and have a million players who actually spend $60 for your game, and yet are still willing to pay additional money over the long term (much like people who paid for their WoW subscriptions for years even though they only played a few hours a week). More specifically, nobody gives a shit about that one guy who has loyalty to free-to-play games, whether out of principle or poverty, because you can't get that guy to spend money anyway.
In a MOBA, you do gotta care about those kids who can't afford anything. Because, as we've discussed, playerbase is a HUGE part in making the game fun, because the bigger the playerbase is, the more even matches you'll be able to make with faster queue times, which all make the game drastically more fun. Cutting out a big part of the playerbase--high school and college kids trolling around for free stuff to kill time with--might not do to much to your money demographics, but it'll have a negative impact on the game as a whole which will then disrupt your income because now your MOBA is known for long queues and... well, it was already known for shoddy matchmaking, so I guess that'd mostly be the same.
This is the exact same mentality that gives rise to stupid shit like the console wars or DC vs. Marvel or Apple vs. Android. The reality is, only a small minority of people actually care about those things, and their loyalty is so fanatical that you can't pry them away anyway. The larger truth is that people will go where quality and/or popularity takes them, and those things are determined far more about your initial investment up front and your initial presentation to the market than anything else. HotS failed there dramatically on both counts, especially in comparison to the rest of Blizzard's lineup, doubly so given the massive Overwatch launch that included both a retail and a cosmetic pay model.
Uh... yeah, I mostly agree. And that's sort of my point: HotS would have failed even more dramatically in the popularity department with an up-front cost, because you don't have those college kids spending all day playing, posting about it on reddit and spreading the memes to make it a cultural phenomenon.
It makes sense that hero level would matter a lot to win rate, possibly more than MMR. Anecdotally, I know I would rather play with a level 10 Gaz than a level 5 Li Ming.
Edit: The exception is Nova. Fuck 90% of Novas.
Gachnar on
+1
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
It makes sense that hero level would matter a lot to win rate, possibly more than MMR. Anecdotally, I know I would rather play with a level 10 Gaz than a level 5 Li Ming.
Edit: The exception is Nova. Fuck 90% of Novas.
There's a bit of correlation-as-causation going on here. I also question his use of the full data set (as opposed to grabbing the most recent data, which is more reflective of the current state of the game, or parsing out the data to account for stuff like pre-formed groups). But in general, it's all good stuff and a nice read.
I don't get the Overwatch hype, it seems like the least fresh game Blizzard has put out yet. Granted, I only played in the open beta but it felt exactly like it could've been a TF2 mod
I don't get the Overwatch hype, it seems like the least fresh game Blizzard has put out yet. Granted, I only played in the open beta but it felt exactly like it could've been a TF2 mod
I wanna play Overwatch but I'm broke until... August.
Freelancer life sucks. You spend like 3 months going "Where the gigs at" and then suddenly everyone's like WE NEED YOU TO DO THIS *RIGHT NOW* but due to bureaucratic shit you won't get paid for another 2 months.
I don't get the Overwatch hype, it seems like the least fresh game Blizzard has put out yet. Granted, I only played in the open beta but it felt exactly like it could've been a TF2 mod
I went back to TF2 yesterday with some PA bros and it'd be much more accurate to say "it's a TF2 mod that also vastly improves the visual quality, performance, netcode, hit detection, and generally balanced the classes away from explosive weapons." (tf2's lack of weapons that require aiming having been one of my bigger gripes of late.) I just can't go back to TF2 anymore; it feels awful now having experienced Overwatch. Also, you know, adding in 12 more classes each with their own unique ubercharge is pretty cool, too.
I don't get the Overwatch hype, it seems like the least fresh game Blizzard has put out yet. Granted, I only played in the open beta but it felt exactly like it could've been a TF2 mod
I went back to TF2 yesterday with some PA bros and it'd be much more accurate to say "it's a TF2 mod that also vastly improves the visual quality, performance, netcode, hit detection, and generally balanced the classes away from explosive weapons." (tf2's lack of weapons that requires aiming having been one of my bigger gripes of late.) I just can't go back to TF2 anymore, if feels awful now having experienced Overwatch. Also, you know, adding in 12 more classes each with their own unique ubercharge is pretty cool, too.
I played a game of TF2 between Overwatch beta and release.
My apologies tonight to Lucas and Company. My Router imploded twice and it's never done it before. I can't find a cause for it other than Overwatch was acting strangely as well, so it could have been the servers.
Good games tonight, everyone. The Team League stuff's been really fun. I can't wait for Unranked Draft, although I have a ton of work to do so I may not be around much next week. We'll see how it goes.
Good games tonight, everyone. The Team League stuff's been really fun. I can't wait for Unranked Draft, although I have a ton of work to do so I may not be around much next week. We'll see how it goes.
Yeah, fun stuff even though we lost both TL games last night. Still fun games despite that.
Gotta work out some of those kinks. Seemed to have a solid grasp early/mid game but we fell apart late game. Drafting was also maybe an issue, in some ways. Like for example, we probably should've gone all in on the dive comp that second game, really focused on picking dudes that could blow up their Mages. Maybe Sonya would've been a better pick than Zagara, for instance. Maybe we should've saved our tank pick for later on in the draft too. We picked Mura first, and Mura's good, but after seeing their picks Anub probably would've been better! They very smartly banned out Illidan/Zeratul knowing they could get away with double Mage, cause otherwise Illi/Zera would've picked them apart. They had that plan set in mind from the get-go, it seems. They also secured Tracer right away, which, surprise surprise, is like one of the best counters to Li-Ming/Jaina. It's possible we might've also wanted, say, Uther instead of Rehgar, just to have extra lockdown and a better way to prevent burst.
but those QM games tho, maaaaan 8-)
Edit: I mean I'm pretty garbo at drafting and counters and all that, buuuut this little site is pretty handy, imo: https://www.heroescounters.com/
Good games tonight, everyone. The Team League stuff's been really fun. I can't wait for Unranked Draft, although I have a ton of work to do so I may not be around much next week. We'll see how it goes.
Yeah, fun stuff even though we lost both TL games last night. Still fun games despite that.
Gotta work out some of those kinks. Seemed to have a solid grasp early/mid game but we fell apart late game. Drafting was also maybe an issue, in some ways. Like for example, we probably should've gone all in on the dive comp that second game, really focused on picking dudes that could blow up their Mages. Maybe Sonya would've been a better pick than Zagara, for instance. Maybe we should've saved our tank pick for later on in the draft too. We picked Mura first, and Mura's good, but after seeing their picks Anub probably would've been better! They very smartly banned out Illidan/Zeratul knowing they could get away with double Mage, cause otherwise Illi/Zera would've picked them apart. They had that plan set in mind from the get-go, it seems. They also secured Tracer right away, which, surprise surprise, is like one of the best counters to Li-Ming/Jaina. It's possible we might've also wanted, say, Uther instead of Rehgar, just to have extra lockdown and a better way to prevent burst.
but those QM games tho, maaaaan 8-)
Edit: I mean I'm pretty garbo at drafting and counters and all that, buuuut this little site is pretty handy, imo: https://www.heroescounters.com/
i don't think much of it last night had to do with the draft. granted we could've gotten a slightly better one however i think the comps we ended up with were good enough to get the job done against the opposition. there were several crucial team fights that went south and that cost us a lot. for example in the infernal shrines game their team was difficult to pin down as only really jaina had no escape and whenever we went to dive her she just dropped ring of frost on us and that was basically the fight.
Good games tonight, everyone. The Team League stuff's been really fun. I can't wait for Unranked Draft, although I have a ton of work to do so I may not be around much next week. We'll see how it goes.
Yeah, fun stuff even though we lost both TL games last night. Still fun games despite that.
Gotta work out some of those kinks. Seemed to have a solid grasp early/mid game but we fell apart late game. Drafting was also maybe an issue, in some ways. Like for example, we probably should've gone all in on the dive comp that second game, really focused on picking dudes that could blow up their Mages. Maybe Sonya would've been a better pick than Zagara, for instance. Maybe we should've saved our tank pick for later on in the draft too. We picked Mura first, and Mura's good, but after seeing their picks Anub probably would've been better! They very smartly banned out Illidan/Zeratul knowing they could get away with double Mage, cause otherwise Illi/Zera would've picked them apart. They had that plan set in mind from the get-go, it seems. They also secured Tracer right away, which, surprise surprise, is like one of the best counters to Li-Ming/Jaina. It's possible we might've also wanted, say, Uther instead of Rehgar, just to have extra lockdown and a better way to prevent burst.
but those QM games tho, maaaaan 8-)
Edit: I mean I'm pretty garbo at drafting and counters and all that, buuuut this little site is pretty handy, imo: https://www.heroescounters.com/
i don't think much of it last night had to do with the draft. granted we could've gotten a slightly better one however i think the comps we ended up with were good enough to get the job done against the opposition. there were several crucial team fights that went south and that cost us a lot. for example in the infernal shrines game their team was difficult to pin down as only really jaina had no escape and whenever we went to dive her she just dropped ring of frost on us and that was basically the fight.
I gotta be honest and say that the Greymane pick is probably what cost us. Like, Anub'arak can get away with straight diving the enemy team because he can soak up those hits now, but Greymane is made out of tissue paper. It doesn't matter if they don't have escapes - they had tons of counter-dive (Ring of Frost, Condemn, two teleporters, etc.). You have to wait out those ultimates or plan for them when you dive in, you can't just run in there and expect not to get punished for it. I really didn't like the Greymane pick and I should've been more forceful about it, because it made us as a team way too aggressive and not respect their team just because they were "super squishy". If we had Anub we could've done the exact same thing except he would've stayed alive and just soaked up all their damage while stunning them and preventing their combos from going off. We were up against double-mage and somehow talked ourselves out of taking Anub'arak because of "damage" (even though Anub eats mages for breakfast in terms of damage). There's a reason that double-warrior/double-support is extremely prevalent in the current pro scene, and it has nothing to do with not having enough damage and everything to do with being able to shut down burst and control engagements.
There were two fights where we had both an amazing Maw and a Sunder to follow up, and yet nobody on the other team died but 2+ of our people died, because they were able to literally blow up our front line and/or wait out the dive. During another fight (at the bot mercs) I flanked and dove the backline, killed Li-Ming, and had Jaina running away, and yet our 4v3 in the front ended with 2 people dead and their 3 people at full health even though RoF was on cooldown when that fight started.
Our problem wasn't damage - it was getting killed before them, and that's honestly all on us. There's no reason to die that much so early in fights against a comp like that. We were just not waiting for cooldowns and walking headfirst into Condemn. The only person that should've ever been near that Johanna was Muradin, and yet 3+ of us consistently got pulled into it or tried to play our comp and dive on them (who then proceeded to Condemn while the rest of their team blew up the group).
Also, to be fair, everyone on that team was on point (one Platinum (7-death Tracer who still managed to lead in hero damage), one Master, two Diamonds, one unlisted). This is the kind of shit you run into in TL. If you make mistakes in drafting or you underestimate the level of coordination and expect to be able to just walk headfirst into a team fight while cooldowns are up then you will get punished for it every time, including tanks.
Good games tonight, everyone. The Team League stuff's been really fun. I can't wait for Unranked Draft, although I have a ton of work to do so I may not be around much next week. We'll see how it goes.
Yeah, fun stuff even though we lost both TL games last night. Still fun games despite that.
Gotta work out some of those kinks. Seemed to have a solid grasp early/mid game but we fell apart late game. Drafting was also maybe an issue, in some ways. Like for example, we probably should've gone all in on the dive comp that second game, really focused on picking dudes that could blow up their Mages. Maybe Sonya would've been a better pick than Zagara, for instance. Maybe we should've saved our tank pick for later on in the draft too. We picked Mura first, and Mura's good, but after seeing their picks Anub probably would've been better! They very smartly banned out Illidan/Zeratul knowing they could get away with double Mage, cause otherwise Illi/Zera would've picked them apart. They had that plan set in mind from the get-go, it seems. They also secured Tracer right away, which, surprise surprise, is like one of the best counters to Li-Ming/Jaina. It's possible we might've also wanted, say, Uther instead of Rehgar, just to have extra lockdown and a better way to prevent burst.
but those QM games tho, maaaaan 8-)
Edit: I mean I'm pretty garbo at drafting and counters and all that, buuuut this little site is pretty handy, imo: https://www.heroescounters.com/
i don't think much of it last night had to do with the draft. granted we could've gotten a slightly better one however i think the comps we ended up with were good enough to get the job done against the opposition. there were several crucial team fights that went south and that cost us a lot. for example in the infernal shrines game their team was difficult to pin down as only really jaina had no escape and whenever we went to dive her she just dropped ring of frost on us and that was basically the fight.
I gotta be honest and say that the Greymane pick is probably what cost us. Like, Anub'arak can get away with straight diving the enemy team because he can soak up those hits now, but Greymane is made out of tissue paper. It doesn't matter if they don't have escapes - they had tons of counter-dive (Ring of Frost, Condemn, two teleporters, etc.). You have to wait out those ultimates or plan for them when you dive in, you can't just run in there and expect not to get punished for it. I really didn't like the Greymane pick and I should've been more forceful about it, because it made us as a team way too aggressive and not respect their team just because they were "super squishy". If we had Anub we could've done the exact same thing except he would've stayed alive and just soaked up all their damage while stunning them and preventing their combos from going off. We were up against double-mage and somehow talked ourselves out of taking Anub'arak because of "damage" (even though Anub eats mages for breakfast in terms of damage). There's a reason that double-warrior/double-support is extremely prevalent in the current pro scene, and it has nothing to do with not having enough damage and everything to do with being able to shut down burst and control engagements.
There were two fights where we had both an amazing Maw and a Sunder to follow up, and yet nobody on the other team died but 2+ of our people died, because they were able to literally blow up our front line and/or wait out the dive. During another fight (at the bot mercs) I flanked and dove the backline, killed Li-Ming, and had Jaina running away, and yet our 4v3 in the front ended with 2 people dead and their 3 people at full health even though RoF was on cooldown when that fight started.
Our problem wasn't damage - it was getting killed before them, and that's honestly all on us. There's no reason to die that much so early in fights against a comp like that. We were just not waiting for cooldowns and walking headfirst into Condemn. The only person that should've ever been near that Johanna was Muradin, and yet 3+ of us consistently got pulled into it or tried to play our comp and dive on them (who then proceeded to Condemn while the rest of their team blew up the group).
Also, to be fair, everyone on that team was on point (one Platinum (7-death Tracer who still managed to lead in hero damage), one Master, two Diamonds, one unlisted). This is the kind of shit you run into in TL. If you make mistakes in drafting or you underestimate the level of coordination and expect to be able to just walk headfirst into a team fight while cooldowns are up then you will get punished for it every time, including tanks.
that's what i meant about the play and not the draft. i think greymane was fine and someone who didn't fuck it up like i did wouldve been fine. as anub'arak they likely would have simply dodged all the stuns. granted they got hit with maw a few times so hindsight 20/20 etc etc however pregame i would've said the same thing that we would not hit the stuns because of their mobility and it'd be irrelevant. in this case they allowed themselves to get hit by things so it may have worked.
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You can't deny overwatch is more popular than hots pretty much across the board. I cannot for the life of me begin to understand why, but it is. I also want think of a one where a blizzard game was performing "poorly" like hots and there was one right next to it blowing very thing out of the water. With the exception of say an aged game being replaced with the new one. I don't know how blizzard will handle this. It is unlikely they would do anything drastic such as try to quietly bury hots but unless I am forgetting something this is a relatively unique situation.
Even having said all that, has the hots esports scene EVER been "healthy"? Sure it existed and assuming blizzard doesn't announce the day after medivh that they are closing up shop it will continue to exist after these changes. heroes never pulled huge numbers and probably never would have if these individuals/teams had stayed for whatever reason you want to point at (and there are tons of legitimate ones) the game doesn't have the huge following others do.
I tend to have twitch on as background noise a lot of the time as I am doing other things. I rarely watch heroes streams because most of the time I don't care. Whether it be certain casters, comps I don't care about, or just the general idea that even the best Moba is still a moba and therefore is a pretty boring viewing experience, I generally find myself watching other stuff. Usually it is normal Kombat, or duelyst or Warcraft 3. Even with my own lack of desire to watch hots streams I still play the game a lot. People have said before that heroes is much more fun to play than watch anyway.
Regardless, it will be weird to be on that C9 mount.
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Obviously it's the Necromancer that will bring Cain back.
Godspeed, Ironsides.
All bans made in draft are carried forward into future games, and all future bans are added to that pool of bans. Pretty fun and it puts pressure on teams to really know how to be as flexible as possible.
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I mean yeah. But I don't think it's fair to compare HotS to Overwatch.
Two different kinds of games. HotS was entering a hyper competitive and highly crowded space. Most people didn't even give it the time of day, because League/Dota existed. HotS doesn't need to compete with League/Dota at all, but at the same time, their existence has certainly had a marked impact on the perception of the game.
The Tech Alpha certainly did it no justice either. The Tech Alpha was one of the messiest unfinished unpolished things I've ever seen, and a for a lot of people THAT was the image that was engraved in their minds.
Overwatch is entering a space with virtually no competition. CSGO and TF2, sure, but those games are HELLA old. Overwatch is new and shiny fresh.
I dunno. I do remember it used to be MUCH worse, though. I remember back before we even had custom games, so literally for tournaments teams would have to both queue at the same time and HOPE that they queue into each other. It was the messiest setup I've ever seen.
I do think the esports scene is doing well though. It's growing. HotS has only existed for a year, and the esports scene has had support for even less time.
This is a rough patch. It'll smooth over. I mean, we're seeing the first of what's happened many times over in other esports: The death of the old guard, and the rise of the new guard.
This is perhaps the SINGLE best time for new up and coming teams to get out there and make a name for themselves. Shit, that's exactly what Astral and GFE did. Dark horses no more! They're legit contenders now.
I have utmost faith that the esports scene will continue to grow and flourish over time. Does Blizzard need to be more proactive in terms of promoting esports events and such? Yeah, probably!
Things are gonna be okay.
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582
Reaper is, functionally, a melee character with teleports. They'd have no problem differentiating him from Valla.
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Yeah because Overwatch didn't have to compete with free-to-play games, either?
Blizzard do not have to compete with anyone when it comes to getting people to pay for product. They make markets, they don't compete in them.
There are people out there playing Overwatch who have never picked up an FPS in their lives. That's the playing field that Blizzard runs around in. Saying that they have to compete with DotA and LoL is like saying that Bugatti has to compete with Tata Motors.
Nobody gives a shit what some kid who can't afford to buy his own video game thinks. You can have a million of those players and then only make money from the 50,000 who actually buy anything, 1,000 of which are your true whales who spend thousands of dollars. Or, you can create a quality product up front and have a million players who actually spend $60 for your game, and yet are still willing to pay additional money over the long term (much like people who paid for their WoW subscriptions for years even though they only played a few hours a week). More specifically, nobody gives a shit about that one guy who has loyalty to free-to-play games, whether out of principle or poverty, because you can't get that guy to spend money anyway.
This is the exact same mentality that gives rise to stupid shit like the console wars or DC vs. Marvel or Apple vs. Android. The reality is, only a small minority of people actually care about those things, and their loyalty is so fanatical that you can't pry them away anyway. The larger truth is that people will go where quality and/or popularity takes them, and those things are determined far more about your initial investment up front and your initial presentation to the market than anything else. HotS failed there dramatically on both counts, especially in comparison to the rest of Blizzard's lineup, doubly so given the massive Overwatch launch that included both a retail and a cosmetic pay model.
To me overwatch is competing directly with CoD, battlefield, and really any other fps. I am not a big fps fan so really it feels mostly the same. While I can recognize the differences, I don't really agree that it has no competition.
I agree things will be fine for the game. The reports scene will be "fine" as well. It isn't going to up and disappear. Although I have no idea what blizzard will do about it. In StarCraft people threw huge tantrums because blizzard got involved heavily.
Overall I am really apathetic. I have a hard time caring if the reports scene vanishes or not.
We talked a bit about unranked draft last night and I think the discussion parallels a lot of my own thoughts on hots in general. The game has been feature complete (for me) for over a year now, maybe longer. A lot (most?) other people feel differently. As long as the game exists I'll play it, the other stuff existing is a bonus (sometimes).
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Technically, but it was only like $10 if bought separately from the Orange Box.
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Not really, no. TF2 has had like one gameplay update in the past 3 years that was basically a wash as a balance pass, and not to mention most people are incredibly burned out on it--PA used to fill 3 TF2 servers nightly, from what I've heard, and now we just mostly fill one on Friday nights. People don't want to play TF2 anymore, which means the comparison doesn't draw because DotA and League are still hyper-popular games (with regular gameplay updates). Its other competitors--things like CoD and Battlefield--are 1. inverse F2P, because they're centered on you buying a new version of the game every other year to keep the playerbase up, while Overwatch is expected to have more of a TF2-esque lifespan.
They make market when they're breaking new ground; WoW, Diablo, and Starcraft were all original trendsetters in their genre. Hearthstone was literally the first digital CCG to like, actually work. They weren't breaking new ground with a MOBA.
This is total apples to oranges. You know why Overwatch is getting so widespread? Because it had an immensely successful free closed/open beta period that showed how incredibly fun the game is and got the hype train rolling. It became a cultural phenomenon, which is how those people who didn't know or care about FPS games before became aware of it. HotS would not have had that effect, because while it is a fun game, it's not the sort of visceral addicting fun that an FPS can bring, that also applies to (what I think is) a much wider swath of gamers (you know, the anti-wingedweasels :P).
Like, in the end, people would ask the same thing. "Hey, I like blizzard, but this is their first venture into [genre]. Can they really pull it off?" In each beta, you'd get very different answers. Most people would give a resounding "yes, buy it" to Overwatch, but HotS would be more along the lines of "yeah, I guess." I don't know... HotS wasn't really wildly successful to begin with even with the Blizz Bump and being F2P. I could not see it doing anywhere near as well on an up-front payment model, because that extra barrier to entry makes it so much easier for people to brush off a game they might have otherwise tried.
In a MOBA, you do gotta care about those kids who can't afford anything. Because, as we've discussed, playerbase is a HUGE part in making the game fun, because the bigger the playerbase is, the more even matches you'll be able to make with faster queue times, which all make the game drastically more fun. Cutting out a big part of the playerbase--high school and college kids trolling around for free stuff to kill time with--might not do to much to your money demographics, but it'll have a negative impact on the game as a whole which will then disrupt your income because now your MOBA is known for long queues and... well, it was already known for shoddy matchmaking, so I guess that'd mostly be the same.
Uh... yeah, I mostly agree. And that's sort of my point: HotS would have failed even more dramatically in the popularity department with an up-front cost, because you don't have those college kids spending all day playing, posting about it on reddit and spreading the memes to make it a cultural phenomenon.
It makes sense that hero level would matter a lot to win rate, possibly more than MMR. Anecdotally, I know I would rather play with a level 10 Gaz than a level 5 Li Ming.
Edit: The exception is Nova. Fuck 90% of Novas.
There's a bit of correlation-as-causation going on here. I also question his use of the full data set (as opposed to grabbing the most recent data, which is more reflective of the current state of the game, or parsing out the data to account for stuff like pre-formed groups). But in general, it's all good stuff and a nice read.
nope I don't give a fuck either
we can sit in the corner and not give a fuck
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PFFF FINE
I'LL BE OVER HERE IN MY GIVE A FUCK CORNER
AND I'LL GIVE ALL THE FUCKS
AND YOU CAN'T HAVE ANY NYEHHH
the fucks are all mine
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582
But I could watch speed runs of old games forever, so :so_raven:
Millions of people disagree tho
Freelancer life sucks. You spend like 3 months going "Where the gigs at" and then suddenly everyone's like WE NEED YOU TO DO THIS *RIGHT NOW* but due to bureaucratic shit you won't get paid for another 2 months.
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I went back to TF2 yesterday with some PA bros and it'd be much more accurate to say "it's a TF2 mod that also vastly improves the visual quality, performance, netcode, hit detection, and generally balanced the classes away from explosive weapons." (tf2's lack of weapons that require aiming having been one of my bigger gripes of late.) I just can't go back to TF2 anymore; it feels awful now having experienced Overwatch. Also, you know, adding in 12 more classes each with their own unique ubercharge is pretty cool, too.
I played a game of TF2 between Overwatch beta and release.
I just couldn't do it anymore.
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Yeah, fun stuff even though we lost both TL games last night. Still fun games despite that.
Gotta work out some of those kinks. Seemed to have a solid grasp early/mid game but we fell apart late game. Drafting was also maybe an issue, in some ways. Like for example, we probably should've gone all in on the dive comp that second game, really focused on picking dudes that could blow up their Mages. Maybe Sonya would've been a better pick than Zagara, for instance. Maybe we should've saved our tank pick for later on in the draft too. We picked Mura first, and Mura's good, but after seeing their picks Anub probably would've been better! They very smartly banned out Illidan/Zeratul knowing they could get away with double Mage, cause otherwise Illi/Zera would've picked them apart. They had that plan set in mind from the get-go, it seems. They also secured Tracer right away, which, surprise surprise, is like one of the best counters to Li-Ming/Jaina. It's possible we might've also wanted, say, Uther instead of Rehgar, just to have extra lockdown and a better way to prevent burst.
but those QM games tho, maaaaan 8-)
Edit: I mean I'm pretty garbo at drafting and counters and all that, buuuut this little site is pretty handy, imo: https://www.heroescounters.com/
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i don't think much of it last night had to do with the draft. granted we could've gotten a slightly better one however i think the comps we ended up with were good enough to get the job done against the opposition. there were several crucial team fights that went south and that cost us a lot. for example in the infernal shrines game their team was difficult to pin down as only really jaina had no escape and whenever we went to dive her she just dropped ring of frost on us and that was basically the fight.
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Well, the matchmaker failed. For the enemy team.
Myself, Gachnar, and Ducks queued as three, I don't believe anyone on the enemy team was grouped. They had NO damage at all though. Whatsoever.
Like fuck, that's awful. That should NEVER happen. I feel really goddamn bad for the enemy team. How did such a comp even get put together?
We completely annihilated them, they didn't stand a chance. Jeez.
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582
It was kinda bad before, but something flat out broke with the Chromie patch.
I gotta be honest and say that the Greymane pick is probably what cost us. Like, Anub'arak can get away with straight diving the enemy team because he can soak up those hits now, but Greymane is made out of tissue paper. It doesn't matter if they don't have escapes - they had tons of counter-dive (Ring of Frost, Condemn, two teleporters, etc.). You have to wait out those ultimates or plan for them when you dive in, you can't just run in there and expect not to get punished for it. I really didn't like the Greymane pick and I should've been more forceful about it, because it made us as a team way too aggressive and not respect their team just because they were "super squishy". If we had Anub we could've done the exact same thing except he would've stayed alive and just soaked up all their damage while stunning them and preventing their combos from going off. We were up against double-mage and somehow talked ourselves out of taking Anub'arak because of "damage" (even though Anub eats mages for breakfast in terms of damage). There's a reason that double-warrior/double-support is extremely prevalent in the current pro scene, and it has nothing to do with not having enough damage and everything to do with being able to shut down burst and control engagements.
There were two fights where we had both an amazing Maw and a Sunder to follow up, and yet nobody on the other team died but 2+ of our people died, because they were able to literally blow up our front line and/or wait out the dive. During another fight (at the bot mercs) I flanked and dove the backline, killed Li-Ming, and had Jaina running away, and yet our 4v3 in the front ended with 2 people dead and their 3 people at full health even though RoF was on cooldown when that fight started.
Our problem wasn't damage - it was getting killed before them, and that's honestly all on us. There's no reason to die that much so early in fights against a comp like that. We were just not waiting for cooldowns and walking headfirst into Condemn. The only person that should've ever been near that Johanna was Muradin, and yet 3+ of us consistently got pulled into it or tried to play our comp and dive on them (who then proceeded to Condemn while the rest of their team blew up the group).
Also, to be fair, everyone on that team was on point (one Platinum (7-death Tracer who still managed to lead in hero damage), one Master, two Diamonds, one unlisted). This is the kind of shit you run into in TL. If you make mistakes in drafting or you underestimate the level of coordination and expect to be able to just walk headfirst into a team fight while cooldowns are up then you will get punished for it every time, including tanks.
5 of my last 6 games I was in the single digits but I kept having DCers. Oh well.
that's what i meant about the play and not the draft. i think greymane was fine and someone who didn't fuck it up like i did wouldve been fine. as anub'arak they likely would have simply dodged all the stuns. granted they got hit with maw a few times so hindsight 20/20 etc etc however pregame i would've said the same thing that we would not hit the stuns because of their mobility and it'd be irrelevant. in this case they allowed themselves to get hit by things so it may have worked.
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