Blizzard became like EA and became greedy. Why do you think they removed xp from towers. So you would get less xp in the match, so you wouldn’t level so fast. Then they also added in the catapults after the first fort to make the game end faster, which also lowers your xp. This is in hope of getting you to buy their boosters. Just look at WoW. The only MMO, with an purchase fee, sub requirement and a cashshop. No other mmo that i know of, has all 3. Atleast not at the current stage.
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I disagree about the art and graphics. HOTS has terrible graphics that are done in a cartoony lame kind of way. The art is the same. There isnt a single skin in the game that I thought “oh I wish I had that”. The game is fun and the mechanics are good, design and the horrendous music make it a harder sell.
because people did not like the game
because it is designed by none gamers. Just look at what they did with leavers. Now the AI does nothing unless you ping it. Afk’ing and leaving pretty much dosen’t punish people, so people don’t care about doing it. Matchmaking is the biggest joke. The pickphase in brawl is garbage
While matchmaker and other things mentioned here were responsible to a degree, I think the most critical, non mentioned issue is lack of character build depth.
For example, lets take the most popular MOBA out there, League of Legends. Before the game, I can select custom Rune Page for my Champion and 2 summoner spells. Every champion has a unique passive + 4 skills that I can choose in which order to level up, EACH LEVEL. I can choose between 200 items (some even have unique active skills) that directly affect the strength of my skills, and of course, buffs that come with monsters around the map.
All of that customization adds a depth, a uniqueness to every game I play. It makes me feel like I am doing something new every time, as I have a choice to change a lot of things to make it fit the game I’m playing.
HotS on the other hand, you pick a Hero and all you need to do is make ONE choice every 3 levels. Thats it. Finito. 2 ults, nice, LoL doesn’t have that. Thats it.
Its just TOO SIMPLE. It could well be a mobile game with this kind of simplicity.
Someone mentioned that they streamlined all of the choices so you can focus more on combat and strategy. I don’t agree on that. The thing that makes people focus on combat and strategy in this game is collective exp, no farming resources for items, AND constant fighting for objectives. All of that would remain the same IF we had another layer of customization on top of what we already have.
I know there were items in the early days of the game. Maybe those could’ve been implemented differently, in the spirit of the game. Or maybe this whole pick 1 passive every 3 levels system needs an overhaul. IDK. All I know is, that this game is too shallow to make people stick to it. I kill an enemy hero, I don’t feel the reward. Something is missing.
What I said, plus the fact that you can STILL toggle an option so no one other than your friends can PM you, while you can PM everyone else. Thats just a one way street harassment, nothing more and nothing less.
as an old League player, the customization in League is not good.
The runepages, which is just passive stats, was never a way to build your hero.
You had to make 3-4 like pages of runes that would fit into each role you played, so what you did was just put on a standard page and run that for your role.
There were a FEW unique Champs that ran other pages like Akali forexample, besides that every page was standard, and messing with them gave little to no results.
When it comes to their items, you don’t have the choice with 200 items.
Not even sure if there are that many in the game, more like 50 or 60 i think.
When that is said, it is narrowed down even more after picking your champ, since most champs couldn’t be buildt around much, just standard builds there aswell.
There was like 1 or 2 items you would change with every match, and that was usually the boring defensive item.
Also if you were a jungler you were FORCED into taking jungle items.
If you were a healer/support you were FORCED into barrely having items and those few you had were there for everyone else, and those few pieces of gold you got were mostly used for wards.
The skills you leveld up were just the same skill, the only difference was a SLIGHT buff in dmg and or duration of effects, which is insanely boring compared to talents.
In HOTS when you learn to build according to your match, then you can build however you want.
If anything HOTS has a more forgiving system for building how you want, it offers more choices on how to play your match, also each choice you make has a good impact forward, compared to League where it didn’t feel great to upgrade my root from 0.1 to 0.2 and have the dmg increased by 4%.
League was fun, but almost every match were the same thing over and over and over.
HOTS even has other maps, what we got in League was Winter season during christmas, and that was it.
There are around 180 items in League to be precise. I knew someone would bring the point you made. Lets ignore the high ranks where the choice is much narrower, in both League and HotS, and lets focus on where majority of matches happen, so normal, quick match, or silver to plat rank.
I honestly cant understand how you think HotS has more choices to build. It just blows my mind, when that clearly is not the case.
Rune pages certainly have an impact on how you build your char. I hope you were talking about the new rune reforges system, and not the old one. There are 5 rune paths to take, a lot of choice within each path. Just look at the guides and variations for just one champion, let alone 140 champions (HotS has only 89).
If you ran 3-4 standard pages for each role, then you certainly didn’t get max out of your game and must be a very casual player. Yeah sure they are passives, but not all of them are generic passives that give x stat boost, but also things like a cookie that you can use to heal, more gold at the start, free boots at 12th minute, upgrade for summoner spell etc, essentially very thoughtfully crafted passives.
Of course the choice for items is narrowed based on the match up. So is in every single MOBA out there. I mean, you dont HAVE to take jungler items when you play jungler lol, but thats only 1-2 items which you can sell later and it helps you clear and outfarm laners. The rest 4-5 slots are free, so you can build either dmg, tankiness, both, and/or utility items. There is certainly choice. Doesn’t matter how small that choice is, when you combine runes, summoner spells, build order, items, it gives a feeling of uniqueness, unlike something you can get in HotS by making a choice every 3 levels (also, some talents in HotS are so bad you wouldn’t pick them 99% of the time).
In HotS, you have 7 choices in total (1,4,7,10,13,16,20).
In LoL, you have 6 items slots you fill throughout the game. Imagine how shallow would LoL be if there were ONLY items, and no runes, summoner spells, build order etc. Items also have more of an impact than talents. They usually give direct boost to skill damage + unique passive and sometimes even an active component, all in one item.
Support is support. If you want to be the definition of support, you take items that reflect that. You call it “forced”, I call it playing your role. You can always diverge and take some AP/tanky or mana stuff, but utility is usually the best way to go. You have the same thing in HotS. Pick a support and take offensive ult or passives in higher ELO. You will get raged at and reported for throw if you lose the game.
Oh, and you can play many champions in different roles, Olaf, Trundle, Wukong and even champs from mid, for example can be played top/mid and jungle, which totally changes their skill order and items to a degree.
Maps are the one and only reason HotS is still floating and not completely sunk.
But LoL even with the ONE 5v5 map, still manages to attract and keep millions of people interested. You tell me the things I mentioned have no connection to that.
HotS even has great cosmetics, on par with LoL, but thats not what makes players stay, that just makes money.
I am speaking for Diamond 3+, but even in Plat the items choices were not much of a choice, you had a spesific way to build until the defensive items were to be buildt.
Yea well i can see that it is 170 items if you count the consumables, i would assume you left them out since they are not actually a partof your build.
If anything the consumables drag the game down.
It was a bloody relief coming to HOTS after spending years upon years in League.
I have no idea how the new rune system is, i was so tired of the game overall, it was pretty unbalanced aswell.
Each patch offered a champ so outscaled it was mad, and with each release of a new champ, they were even more broken.
In league people scale so hard when killing others it’s mad, so whenever something is outscaled there, they snowball out of proportions.
There’s a very good documentary of why HOTS failed.
You should check that out rather than speculating.
I don’t speculate. I speak from experience and after talking to my friends who tried HotS, some for few weeks, some months, but they didn’t stick cause the game is too dumbed down. There are mobile MOBAs with more depth than HotS. This is coming from someone who would love this game to succeed because the universe and potential is there. The execution on the other hand, leaves something to be desired.
You are commenting about how runes are bad in LoL, but you didnt even know they got reworked into something classes better than it was. Sure, there are stuff to hate about LoL, but customization of your champion isn’t one of those things.
Not saying other factors mentioned here didnt contribute, that only after years did we get something you can call a polished product. But all of that was built on shaky foundations, and I think that is the main reason it failed.
Well the keyword here is THINK.
You are speculating, because as i said, there are documentaries about what happend and why it happend.
Having your friends opinion doesn’t change the fact that the community loves the game the way it is, else we wouldn’t be here.
Your friends is just 5 out of however many people there are in the world, so having 5 people tell you “This is why we don’t play this game” is not the reason as to why the game failed.
Like i said to you, League was a game that had NO customization, the rune pages were standard, i did play League for however long, whatever happend to the game NOW is irelative to how well HOTS did, because back when that actually mattered, League didn’t have a new rune system.
We can go into all the faults of League aswell with the new horrible loot system, those keys and boxes and that whole mess.
Whatever we “Speculate” on about faults in the games, that is not why HOTS failed.
If we are to speculate in anything, we can speculate on why people hate on it, because those people have the same mindset of those that hate League while playing that aswell.
Alot of them struggle to rank up, if it is because of personal skill, mindset or whatever it is, so in League it is mostly personal skill, because you can snowball there like no other game, to a ridicolous point.
While in HOTS, carrying is a term i wouldn’t use, carrying in this game is more of a mindset, taking advantage of your team mates poor/good plays.
Actually being a teamplayer without having to guess and predict what’s gonna happen in 0.01 seconds, i mean things in League go so fast that unless you predict a skillshot before it happends, your not gonna be able to juke it.
In HOTS your given the opportunity to predict while also being given the chance to juke it as it happends.
After playing i believe it was 7 seasons from season 1 or so in league, could have been less.
I have been WAY more happy playing HOTS since Beta.
I watched the 800k views “documentary” you speak of, and one of the points made was “the e-sport scene probably failed because THE GAME IS TOO CASUAL”, tying with what I was saying. Have you watched a game of HotS while the e-sport scene was active ?
It was boring to watch. They had to have 3 or maybe 4 people to comment to inflate the hype around what was going on. Yeah I know, forcing e-sports is one of the reason HotS failed.
I already know most of the main reasons mentioned in these “documentaries” (just people tied to the game sharing their OPINIONS about why it failed, like I am doing right now, but you wont accept my opinion because I have nO tiTLe).
Even Richard Lewis, a streamer, journalist and involved with Blizzard in the past, pointed out that people like to follow a GOD, someone who can carry, but due to the design choices in HotS, that wasnt possible to the same extent. But I guess when he says it in a “documentary” it has more credit.
Do you honestly think that someone who was involved in the creative process of the game would admit “yeah the game is too shallow, probably why it failed”, or would they say things like “timing, strong competition” or similar excuses, which obviously did damage, but cmon, if the game is truly awesome, it would trample all those obstacles and attract players.
You even said it yourself. League had less customization in the past then it did now, and it attracted and kept many players. Besides, runes reforged came out like 3 years ago, not rly yesterday.
Also, you act like there is some sort of consensus for reasons HotS failed. Everyone is more or less GUESSING, even people in those documentaries. Seems like you look up too much to authority when looking for answer to something, instead of listening and processing yourself everything you hear.
It also seems like you take personally the critiques I share about HotS. This community you speak of is merely a fraction of its size now. I am also a part of that community, as I have invested 500h+ in this game and have played other popular MOBAs and have a strong base for comparison.
I said it before and will say it again, just in case you misinterpret me again and think I hate the game. I don’t, I like the game, but I strongly believe it could’ve been much more, had the core gameplay, namely the part where we customize our beloved heroes, had more DEPTH.
I wouldn’t like this game to be just another MOBA with economy, farming, last hitting etc, just a better version of what it already is.
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Or people actually doing research, do you think someone would make a whole documentary on opinions?
“Hi, welcome to this murder documentary, this is a murder i THINK happend enjoy!”
Yea… no…
Also And no i don’t speak of the point that E-sports was too casual, the e-sports scene was actually watched by quite alot, though the casual scene did drag it down quite abit.
I am speaking of the fact that HOTS lost their rights to MOBA for some years, since blizzard didn’t utilize on DOTA who topped the charts on W3.
Hence Steam tok over with HoN and RIOT tok over with LoL, and i can’t remember which one of them, but Blizz got denied the rights for years to create their moba.
Had they taken their chance early, they would have capitalized on the audience and lead the whole community, hence being able to build their game in the direction of a proper audience.
The launch of HOTS got mixed feedback with this lack of players that slowly got higher, but not fast enough for it to get any hype around it.
I mean your basing your whole “facts” upon “Me and my friends”, rather than people who do actual reasearch around these things, who obviously cares for the game much like i do.
Also i looked into the rune forge, it is quite littearly the same bloody concept as the previous one.
It’s just minor stat changes, i think like the first rune slot was an effect of some sorts, after that it was just minor increases in stats.
So nothing new, theres just fewer choices than previously.
Also on the point of it being 170 items, NO champion ingame would EVER be buildt around more than like 10 of them, talking about customization.
I don’t mind HOTS having more customization at ALL, but with each game we already have quite alot, also think about the oposing team who actually needs to get that info through to be able to counterplay it.
If we had like 320483908 items and talents and spells and what not, it would be a nightmare to play at high ranks.
You’d be exhausted after each and every match.
I agree with you, you know what you talking about. I’ve also played a lot of the other moba, Dota was the thing back in war3 and then LoL and now Hots
There is awesome outplays you can see in Dota and LoL, but not in Hots. Hots esports is boring to watch it is a brawler not a moba in the end. Just brawl tank and heal. Not much flashy dodges nor highlights.
They should’ve promoted more individual duels, like setup certain points on a map where you need to contest but the more people you have the lesser damage or heal you do or have less armor. Something that encourages 1v1 duels.
I’m in the same position as you I really like Hots I haven’t touched Dota nor Lol for the last 5 years only play Hots. But I still really enjoy watching Lol Esports it is so much more entertaining. For me Hots esports was very painful to watch, but I think there is a thing with blizzard games it is usually about numbers and less about outplays or flashy plays or skill shots. Focused more on cooldown and damage or heal or reduction numbers. The WoW Arena competitive sports is also very similar boring for me to watch, not to mention the M+ invitational is also boring. It doesn’t get you hyped. It’s just about numbers and less about skill shots.
My personal opinion is Hots is made too casual focused, not saying it is a casual game, but saying the developers mindset was to make it easy to pick up, meaning casual focused. Which put less emphasis on skillful or flashy mechanical outplays. It essential became a numbers game, which hero has more sustain or tankiness or healing output or damage output and brawl it out on a head on clash.
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lol, just a passionate guy who compiled opinions from clips and articles and made a video about it, sharing his own conclusion in the end. It’s not rly rocket science, or a murder trial, or murder documentary, like you think it is.
I even mentioned a point from the documentary itself that confirms what I am saying, good job ignoring that.
What I say doesn’t really contradict any of the points from that and other documentaries. It just complements those points, adding another reason why the game might have sunk.
Yeah I guess just because me and my friends didn’t made a popular documentary our voices don’t really mater. I think thats called appeal to authority, and all of your comments reek of it.
You keep repeating points from those videos, like I don’t know it already. You base all of that on your (or maybe game designers) opinion that HotS would’ve succeeded and rose to the heights of LoL and Dota 2, only if it were released sooner and didn’t have the naming trouble it had.
In the state the game is in (or was), I honestly don’t think it had much of a chance.
Active player numbers tell only part of the story. What do you think, how many people who like MOBAs and actively played LoL or Dota 2 at that time, gave HotS a chance ?
Well we don’t rly have that number, but knowing people around me who to this day still play LoL and Dota 2, I know all of them gave HotS a chance, and eventually they got back into their main MOBA game. HotS needed something else to KEEP those players invested in the game, but it never had it, and the player count today reflects that.
I actually LOLed at your comment about popularity of HotS esports. Are we talking about the same game ? Those “quite a lot” numbers you mentioned, were just that, numbers, not real interest. Blizzard went to lengths to raise the viewer numbers, partnering with twitch to offer in-game rewards, promoting competitions every way they could and hyping everything up with the help of famous streamers that were mostly HotS players.
So please, I remember at the peak, a HotS championship had less views than popular LoL streamers playing casually.
Also, you are obviously downplaying LoL rune system, saying its the same as before, so I can’t really take anything else you say seriously anymore. You either did absolutely no research, or you are just writing anything, no matter how incorrect, just to spite my points.
Deceptive and incomplete statement. Most champs can play 2 roles. Each role fundamentally changes the rune path you take, items built, and even summoner spells taken. Items have a progression. It’s not just buy a full item and forget about it, it’s building up to that item, component by component, often consisting of smaller useful items, and completing your endgame item which affects your stats, gives unique passive(s) and sometimes having even an active component, that gives enjoyment and sense of progression. And doing that for 5 items (not counting boots, which also have upgrade path).
As opposed to what exactly ? Taking a passive every now and then, with choices mostly being percentual increase on a skill stat. Please.
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Now let’s go back and think… why do you think that is?
Why do they go back to the game, it’s like those DOTA 2 players that came to LoL trying it out, yet they went back to DOTA 2, same goes for HoN, and why do you think that is, what does the first game they played offer?
I went to League first, i tried HoN, i tried DOTA 2, why do you think i fell back to LoL?
I played WoW first, i tried tons of other MMOs, i fell back to WoW, why do you think that is?
I played Battlefield first, i tried Call of Duty, i tried whatever else FPS, i fell back to battlefield, why do you think that is?
Ohh look, here it is, you are right he did, just like you do before a documentary, you do research, you take info from several sources.
Remember most of HOTSs team was moved or removed by the time this one(I think we speak of the same one though there are several) came out, hmmm what other valid sources could he have pulled out information from.
Ohh i remember, hence again proving my point.
Yes i do, i downplay your 4 slot customization as something unique that made all LoL players drop HOTS, especially since it didn’t exist at the release of HOTS and for a good while after the release.
Calling it a HOTS killer is the least serious thing in a discussion about “why HOTS failed”
So go through this then.
Every round you take boots right?
If you are a DPS it’s rarely any change in boots, so let’s take Akali as an example.
You go with what? Swiftness Boots? or CD Boots?
You ALWAYS go Hexblade, you ALWAYS go that item that slows on spell hit, you ALWAYS go for those 2 other Mixed stats items, and you ALWAYS go for that thing that hit’s based upon your Ability Power, atleast that is how it has been since forever.
Now what’s left here?
Where’s the amazing customization, you just vent from having 170 different choices, to having, what? 1 left?
Which is usually based on 1 thing, does the enemy team have tons of Ability dmg? or do they have stacked up Attack dmg? cuz you gotta mittigate that late game dmg somehow depending on who got fed on the other side.
Leaving you with the choices of like Banshees and something else i can’t come up with whatever kind of names the items has.
So all in all, even WITH the rune system, your sitting with more choices at the moment in HOTS than you do in League if your calling the strict path of Itemization a choice for “Customization”.
Though i will give it back to League, you are able to build “troll” builds like AD Jaina or AD Nami or whatever thing we killed scrubs with back in the days.
Which is a fun path to derive from when playing League, but then again, your coming into late game that won’t work so your eithe rwinning super early, you lose, or your last choice which is to just go for the standard builds with 1 change or 2.
Also summoner spells?
Please, EVERY DPS goes for the same boring thing every round, unless you are playing Sion or another special role.
It’s Flash + Exhaust or Ignite.
That’s not even a choice, or hey you COULD go for whatever but then again you’d be hated and probably won’t do much good for the rest of the match.
And again no, you and 4 friends opinion is not facts, it’s you and your friends opinion.
So yes i would much rather listen to someone who has done their research taken into account whatever source he could find to then make a documentary about something over “You know my buddy Carl said god was real, so in conclusion he can’t be wrong, because Bob said so aswell meaning i have 2 friends who now said he was.”
That’s the same madness that creates religion and wars.
It’s just non-sense.
If you wanna speak to me about something you actually CAN have an opinion about with your friends, like “Should i go Banshee in this match?” and your friend Bob who is now a Diamond 1 player goes “Yes you should, they got plenty of Ability Power on the enemy team” then sure the opinion of your buddies matter."
Why would you ever think that your buddy would be a valid source into why a whole game failed to get proper hype.
I understand why you love Hots with the all the macro and high level thinking of gameplay instead of snowballing with gold farmed from the moba like LoL or Dota. I get it.
But after reading your replies and Pathfinder you seem to be too biased towards one side. Same as the so called facts research you talk about, it is all biased. You can’t have facts when it is biased towards one side. Documentary are interviews and interviews can be biased. You can’t take it as facts. There is a documentary on American Illuminati so do you think it is facts and true? It is all biased towards one side, have you ever tried checking or researched on facts of people who played LoL and tried Hots and then went back to LoL? I know I seen a lot of pro players from LoL or dota for them they don’t like the ability to not being able to carry. This in itself can also be biased as they have a long history from either Lol or Dota. But can’t be ignored if you want opinions you need it from both angles to be fair.
Probably the easiest question for you is, why do you think LoL is so much more well received compared against Hots, you keep stating the negatives of LoL and not the positives, and you keep stating the positive of Hots and not the negatives. Both games have their good and bad. And I can tell you because of this Hots wasn’t able to pick up.
I am curious what you think. Hots being late to the party did impact it but if the game was appealing to the masses it should still at least have an Esport scene.
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I used to love LoL aswell, so it’s not that i don’t see positives in it.
Also the new cinematics are great.
But we are talking about customization, and that only, atleast that’s where my head is in this discussion.
I don’t mind jumping into a game of LoL now and then, so it’s not like i hate it, also i speak from experience myself after 7 seasons of the thing.
I mean true, but let’s use that as a proper source rather than “My 5 buddies”.
I mean atleast the guys who make those videos do their job before creating it.
They also had several previous pro-players in it explaining several situations relating to it, there were a couple of reasons as to why it didn’t rise as it should have, the main point being the release they got for it.
Had they capitalized early, we wouldn’t have had LoL and HoN as standard forms for the MOBA genre, HOTS could have settled the foundation for how MOBAs outside of W3 was buildt.
The original HOTS had items, but that was removed early in the development.
For a good reason, because it felt like passive stats, which nobody cared much for, much like in League where you spend gold on passive stats, these passive stats will then increase your power, which then more than often means more kills, which means more power, which means more kills, and this whole thing snowballs out of proportions.
And so the HOTS got an ok following early in the e-sports scene, but when the masses were so few, fewer and fewer people stayed for the party.
The less viewers, the less people playing and the lesser the events are.
In the end HOTS fell behind.
I’ve played alot of MOBAs so far, and i stuck with HOTS; that’s just how its been.
I played Smite, HoN, DOTA(W3), DOTA2, 2 different mobile MOBAs and the LOTR MOBA that came out for consoles for some wierd reason.
So the question stil remains… somehow… what would be a more credible source.
A guy and his buddies, or someone who does research, interviews and finds sources within the previous community about the topic?
Ok yeah I do agree with you on these points you made. That might be true that team focused hots will be the standard if they were the first, but I still think with Dota and Lol being on that individual mechanic gameplay the flashiness might still become more popular on the esports scene. But nobody knows for sure, maybe Hots would’ve had more time and budget to change slightly to cater to the flashiness, who knows. The what if’s are difficult to talk about.
The customization part is really just taste, vanilla or chocolate. cause with every system there will always be optimal meta cookie cutter builds. With minor tweaks. I don’t see any system better or worst than the other. I personally like hots system, the talent variation does feel more different, and with the different maps, but every hero is stuck to that role: damage dealer is only damage dealer, healer can only be healer, tank is tank. Lol you can have one champion that can play top or mid or support or jungle. and this can change the way you rune and buy items and the way you play. The current lol season there is a lot of flex picks. This makes pick and ban so much more interesting. There really isn’t a clear winner I’d enjoy watching Lol pick and ban phase, but prefer playing hots with the talent variation and map variations.
But I do agree with Pathfinder on the viewership of the esports scene, Hots isn’t a game designed for flashy individual plays which kind of hurts the viewership, when we watch sports we always like to see some crazy individual plays of skills. Hots is a game designed of macro gameplay and team work, these things aren’t exciting to watch. Cause normal people can’t understand high level macro plays. They want to see that flash dodge and skill shot, delete the opponent. or some outplay chase.
Hence why I think Pathfinder point is valid, you can’t deny the game design of hots hurt the esports scene. I personally enjoy playing Hots over Lol or Dota 2, but I would rather watch esports of Lol or Dota 2 over hots. Even though it has been years since I last logged on both.
Like you said less viewership resulted in less of everything. The esport scene really put a bad title on Hots, everyone thinks Hots failed cause of the shutting of the esports, and everything else that followed.
But I personally think the game is still going well, as long as players enjoy and play it is all that matters. But I still think with Hots current design it isn’t really suited for esports viewership.
I’ve played original WC3 Dota, then 500h+ in Dota2, then 4 seasons of LoL, then got into HotS and to this day I still play HotS, although to a much lesser degree.
Your point being ? So you think that people ONLY stick to the first game they played and NEVER move onto something else ???
Or do you think that first games in a genre get all the people and games that come later can never compete ?? Rly ? Ever heard of H1Z1 and PUBG ?? You know, games that came out way before Fortnite, and now have mostly fallen of the radar.
If the game is GOOD ENOUGH, the people will migrate to it from other games. It will find ways to attract new people. The industry is full of such examples, and not just gaming industry, but every other industry.
lol, your point was that HotS Esport had A LOT of views, I merely pointed out how actually small and inflated that number is.
Again with the lack of research. Why am I even arguing with you when you do no research before writing stuff. This drags everything else you say trough mud.
There are 5 rune paths. You can pick 2 of them, one as your primary, and one as secondary.
It’s 9 choices from runes alone.
4 from the primary path, 2 from secondary path and 3 more stat buff choices.
These stat buff runes are the only generic runes there are. The rest of the choices are all unique and well thought out and they are much more situational, for example: huge buffs when x condition is met, situational shield, move speed and no collision, bonus gold, free boots, new skill while x summoner spell is on cooldown etc.
Game development isn’t frozen in time. Of course I will mention LoLs new rune reforged system, as HotS had 2,5 years up until runes reforged to do something equally nice or even better, that would help its cause. Games evolve, why would I mention only a snapshot in time when HotS got released, when majority of content in such games gets released with time ?
And thats what it’s all about, layers. Runes alone of course aren’t enough to give depth to a game, but combined with other elements, they sure contribute a lot in creating choice, or at least illusion of choice, as obviously, once you figure out whats best, you will be limited in your choices. This holds true for any game with choices, even HotS, as very few build paths are actually viable.
Akali is a slave to Hextech gunblade because of her design. So what ? Yes, there are 170 items to choose from, but I never said they were viable for everyone.
Sure, there are 7-10 viable items per champ if you play seriously, but it is up to you to decide in which order to buy items, and item components, and that mostly boils down to how the game progresses and what are your priorities.
There is also the vision game. Everyone competes for vision with wards, control wards and oracle lens. You can be a great player but if you dont ward properly or regularly, ganks can break you. This also adds a new dimension to the game.
I never pointed a finger at only 1 element of LoL and said “see, if HotS had this, it would succeed”, but instead I am pointing to a system as a whole, with all it’s elements, dimension, that work on giving players a sense of progression, a deeper touch of uniqueness, even if those choices boil down to a handful of viable options per element (runes, summoner spells, items, build order, even wards), they are layered in such a way that simply keeps you invested in the game.
On the other hand, your main argument against what I am saying, seems to be “well, LoL came first to the scene, thats why it’s so popular derp” is simply easily dismantled when you think about it and look at examples that prove that isn’t true.
LoL had/has MILLIONS of players more than HotS. Could it be due to more immersive and interesting game mechanics, or because it released first ?? Hmmm, a tough one. /s
When you hear a voice from one of those documentaries say “the game is too casual”, have you ever stopped to think what that means ?? Could that have anything to do with what I am trying to point out ?? Think about it.
You have a point there. One of the reasons I don’t play LoL anymore is because of Flash. I seriously thought they were gonna remove that cancer of a spell once they introduced that jumping plant in the jungle and started to nerf every insta gap closer skill out there, but naaah. So basically there is only 1 real choice out of 2 summoner spells. The second one is situational. Yeah, DPS usually takes ignite or exhaust, but teleport, shield, cleanse and ghost are also viable, depending on the champ. From the top of my mind, most top laners take teleport. Also some mid and bot laners like Corki, that depend on farm so much they cant miss one wave, take teleport as a viable option.
Because I value my and my friends opinion, unlike you, who seem to value only information coming from authority. We ARE part of HotS community (or most of us used to be), we played other MOBAs and have a base for comparison, we know what we are talking about and just because none of us was interviewed in some video, doesn’t make our opinions worthless.
You know that “why hots failed” 800k views video, and at the end the guy summarized points made throughout the video ? Well, notice how none of those points conflict one another. They are a bunch of probable causes that all contributed.
You wont say “focus on teamwork is an issue” conflicts with “too many name and design changes” (both points from the video), because they dont overwrite each other. Both are contributing factors, along with other points. Some points to a lesser degree than others, but all probably had a play in it.
What me and my friends think is just one more thing to add to that pile of reasons.
Only thing I would argue against in that video, and a point you made, is the importance of “coming first to the party”. Examples such as Fortnite, Valorant, prove that being first is just a temporary advantage, and that with good enough product/service, you can beat any competition.
You’re talking about the community part of HotS, not the actual developer part of it… That isn’t the reason that it “died” or that there is barely any development on it.
Here’s 2 articles on how and why HotS didn’t do well:
https:// venturebeat. com/2018/12/15/heroes-of-the-storm-eulogy-for-once-blizzard-couldnt-balance-the-casual-and-competive/
https:// www.invenglobal. com/articles/9757/former-blizzard-employees-open-up-about-hgcs-cancellation-unsustainable-workload
(Copy and paste the link and then remove the spaces between the “// www.” and “. com”, copy and paste. I can’t add links for some reason)
I do agree that the reporting system does need work however with little staff behind the screens, you can’t expect them to have people actively replying and taking care of reports so it’s normal that an algorithm is made for it.
Smurfing is an entirely different problem… And im pretty sure that it’s not the only game with that problem… Every game practically has the problem of smurfing.
I agree on the “bad matchmaking” part however it’s not that simple to fix.
Also bear in mind that this is a free game so don’t expect blizzard to do much on a game like this whereas they could focus on a game like WoW where its a monthly subscription thing.
P.S.: This isn’t just for the person I replied to, I’m saying this for anyone who reads this.
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