heroes Six Aspects of HotS That Need Improvement (The Aftermath)

[Leadblast 28]

3 minutes ago, mada7 said:

I disagree with how you feel about QM. As someone who plays almost exclusively QM (and maybe half a dozen unranked and 0 ranked despite playing for over a year) I think it is absolutely a mode worth keeping and should at least partially be factored into balance changes. 

The types of quests the game gives is a major reason for keeping QM around. If I have quests to play let's say 3 games as a support and 2 games as a starcraft hero I would be best served playing as either Stukov, Morales, or Tassadar but then if one of them gets banned, another picked by someone else that could leave me either playing a character I am not good with or a character that does nothing to help me progress my quests but does help the team comp so I have to try my luck in another game to see if I can get a character that helps me complete my quests efficiently. Quick Match lets a player hop into a match with whatever hero they want and get the quests done quickly. There is matches against the AI but that does even less to prepare for the modes with drafts. The quests would need to be more play X games or win Y games and less forcing specific franchises or roles and/or the AI matches would need to give the same experience as playing with humans for this game to work without quick match 

The thing is QM is so horribly balanced, it can't be called "balanced" at all. It's not uncommon for me to see in QM a team made of 4 assassins + a Sylvanas or something that doesn't play very different from other assassins. When you pretend that kind of mode be the "foundation" of the game as a whole, only bad things can happen. Look at all the people calling Nova borderline broken when the truth is, she's one of the WEAKEST assassins in existence right now. And Blizzard keeps nerfing and nerfing her (2 buffs + 10 nerfs just equates to a big nerf in the long run) into oblivion, just because she has highly INFLATED pick/winrates in QM.

I realize there needs to be a PvP mode for training purposes, and QM may well be it, but this can't be the cornerstone of HotS. Honestly, if QM gets to go, I think HotS can only improve from it. People will NEVER be trained to draft if they keep playing a mode where drafting is nonexistent.

VS AI mode is enough to learn the basics about your hero and how it works, and is very much sufficient for your daily quest needs as well.

[mada7 29]

26 minutes ago, Leadblast said:

The thing is QM is so horribly balanced, it can't be called "balanced" at all. It's not uncommon for me to see in QM a team made of 4 assassins + a Sylvanas or something that doesn't play very different from other assassins. When you pretend that kind of mode be the "foundation" of the game as a whole, only bad things can happen. Look at all the people calling Nova borderline broken when the truth is, she's one of the WEAKEST assassins in existence right now. And Blizzard keeps nerfing and nerfing her (2 buffs + 10 nerfs just equates to a big nerf in the long run) into oblivion, just because she has highly INFLATED pick/winrates in QM.

I realize there needs to be a PvP mode for training purposes, and QM may well be it, but this can't be the cornerstone of HotS. Honestly, if QM gets to go, I think HotS can only improve from it. People will NEVER be trained to draft if they keep playing a mode where drafting is nonexistent.

VS AI mode is enough to learn the basics about your hero and how it works, and is very much sufficient for your daily quest needs as well.

The problem with AI matches is that you get less experience from them than you would VS human players and you get less of the importance of teamwork from it. As the original article mentions I think most QM players would prefer having longer queues and enforced team comps than what we currently see. Having that sort of enforced comp of say 1 warrior, 1 support, 3 assassins/specialists would send people to the draft with the minimal understanding that teams should be laid out a certain way. The difference between bruisers and tanks is something else but at minimum a team would be able to function decently well if all players understood that's the basics of how a team should look. After that players can learn over time the difference between tanks and bruisers and a support vs a healer.

I agree QM shouldn't be the be all end all or cornerstone of this game even with that as drafts seem to be the way mobas are best played so there should be greater incentive to play the draft modes perhaps more gold or experience by playing those modes. That would also have the side effect of having a player's level be a bit better indicator of skill as players that draft a lot more will level faster than QM players

Edited December 28, 2017 by mada7

[Leadblast 28]

22 minutes ago, mada7 said:

The problem with AI matches is that you get less experience from them than you would VS human players and you get less of the importance of teamwork from it. As the original article mentions I think most QM players would prefer having longer queues and enforced team comps than what we currently see. Having that sort of enforced comp of say 1 warrior, 1 support, 3 assassins/specialists would send people to the draft with the minimal understanding that teams should be laid out a certain way. The difference between bruisers and tanks is something else but at minimum a team would be able to function decently well if all players understood that's the basics of how a team should look. After that players can learn over time the difference between tanks and bruisers and a support vs a healer.

I agree QM shouldn't be the be all end all or cornerstone of this game even with that as a drafts seem to be the way mobas are best played so there should be greater incentive to play the draft modes perhaps more gold or experience by playing those modes. That would also have the side effect of having a player's level be a bit better indicator of skill as players that draft a lot more will level faster than QM players

QM in itself is partly responsible for those impossibly long queue times. What happens if, by chance let's say a 95% of players some day wake up willing to play as Varian? a single QM match can only have 2 Varians, 1 in each team so far. All the others who are queueing should stop searching with Varian and choose another hero, or stop searching for a QM and play something else. 95% is already exaggerated, but do you see that if I raise the percentage to 100%, then no goddamn QM match whatsoever is created at all?

In modes where you get to draft, that "predicament" is completely out of the question, you simply search and the game only has to group up 10 searching players together for a match to happen. People WOULD learn to draft, they would learn that there are other heroes besides Varian. They WOULD learn that having that team composition of 1 warrior + 1 support + 1 assassin + 1 specialist etc is valuable and FAR better than having 5 assassins. But here, they won't learn that at all because there is a mode that allows them to play with their favorite hero and ignore all the others.

Edited December 28, 2017 by Leadblast

[Valhalen 1,486]

1 hour ago, mada7 said:

I disagree with how you feel about QM. As someone who plays almost exclusively QM (and maybe half a dozen unranked and 0 ranked despite playing for over a year) I think it is absolutely a mode worth keeping and should at least partially be factored into balance changes. 

The types of quests the game gives is a major reason for keeping QM around. If I have quests to play let's say 3 games as a support and 2 games as a starcraft hero I would be best served playing as either Stukov, Morales, or Tassadar but then if one of them gets banned, another picked by someone else that could leave me either playing a character I am not good with or a character that does nothing to help me progress my quests but does help the team comp so I have to try my luck in another game to see if I can get a character that helps me complete my quests efficiently. Quick Match lets a player hop into a match with whatever hero they want and get the quests done quickly. There is matches against the AI but that does even less to prepare for the modes with drafts. The quests would need to be more play X games or win Y games and less forcing specific franchises or roles and/or the AI matches would need to give the same experience as playing with humans for this game to work without quick match 

QM is the "For Fun" mode where you can experiment with crazy compositions like running with 5 Supports because why the fuck not. I don't want it to be removed either.

[mada7 29]

 

17 minutes ago, Leadblast said:

QM in itself is partly responsible for those impossibly long queue times. What happens if, by chance let's say a 95% of players some day wake up willing to play as Varian? a single QM match can only have 2 Varians, 1 in each team so far. All the others who are queueing should stop searching with Varian and choose another hero, or stop searching for a QM and play something else. 95% is already exaggerated, but do you see that if I raise the percentage to 100%, then no goddamn QM match whatsoever is created at all?

In modes where you get to draft, that "predicament" is completely out of the question, you simply search and the game only has to group up 10 searching players together for a match to happen. People WOULD learn to draft, they would learn that there are other heroes besides Varian. They WOULD learn that having that team composition of 1 warrior + 1 support + 1 assassin + 1 specialist etc is valuable and FAR better than having 5 assassins. But here, they won't learn that at all because there is a mode that allows them to play with their favorite hero and ignore all the others.

I would not call the queue times impossibly long. I'm playing in NA and I typically don't see queue times longer than 3 minutes and those are quite rare. Id gladly take longer queues if the matchmaking enforced certain team structures. The kind of environment you're suggesting would never come up and is actually why QM is so popular. You can pick whatever hero you want and jump into a match. The bigger problem with QM is that the team making portion doesn't factor hero roles into the equation enough to keep matches fair.

QM is as popular as it is because it is the most efficient way to play the game. You get the increased experience from playing with humans, you don't have to spend time in a draft, and you can play the hero that makes the most sense for you to complete your quests or level up most effectively. Until that can be said about the draft modes they won't be as popular as QM. Taking it away would only annoy people as it would make quests that take less than an hour to complete take several hours to complete instead. If QM enforced certain team comps players going from that mode to one of the draft modes would likely look to make those same comps once drafting

[Leadblast 28]

7 minutes ago, Valhalen said:

QM is the "For Fun" mode where you can experiment with crazy compositions like running with 5 Supports because why the fuck not. I don't want it to be removed either.

Be honest about it. When was the last time 5 supports, 5 assassins, or 5 heroes of the same kind worked? I don't remember 4 assassins working, let alone 5 of them.

[Leadblast 28]

24 minutes ago, mada7 said:

QM is as popular as it is because it is the most efficient way to play the game. You get the increased experience from playing with humans, you don't have to spend time in a draft, and you can play the hero that makes the most sense for you to complete your quests or level up most effectively. Until that can be said about the draft modes they won't be as popular as QM. Taking it away would only annoy people as it would make quests that take less than an hour to complete take several hours to complete instead. If QM enforced certain team comps players going from that mode to one of the draft modes would likely look to make those same comps once drafting

Even if I conceded that the QM queue times are not retardedly long (and I'm not saying you are right on that, because you simply aren't) QM would still be the most stupid way to play the game. It's as retarded as trying to play a soccer game where all players of the same team are goalkeepers, or all forwards, or all midfielders.

You are willing to wait 500 seconds of queue time, but not 20 seconds of a draft phase before the real game commences. That can't be called smart.

I don't know of any other MOBAs that have an equivalent to HotS' QM. That doesn't seem to work for their detriment as you suggest.

Edited December 28, 2017 by Leadblast

[mada7 29]

1 hour ago, Leadblast said:

Even if I conceded that the QM queue times are not retardedly long (and I'm not saying you are right on that, because you simply aren't) QM would still be the most stupid way to play the game. It's as retarded as trying to play a soccer game where all players of the same team are goalkeepers, or all forwards, or all midfielders.

You are willing to wait 500 seconds of queue time, but not 20 seconds of a draft phase before the real game commences. That can't be called smart.

I don't know of any other MOBAs that have an equivalent to HotS' QM. That doesn't seem to work for their detriment as you suggest.

I have never seen queue times 500 seconds long. It is usually at the absolute high end half that for me when playing quick match. The drafts I've been in are never 20 seconds. In my limited experience those tend to be closer to the 500 seconds you're describing as players love to take their sweet time making picks and at least one person can be counted on being afk when their turn comes up. I'd estimate that at worst the queue time for QM and the queue + draft time of ranked or unranked is about the same though I am inclined to believe that less time is needed to setup a QM than a drafted team. The difference is that in QM each player is guaranteed the hero they most want to play as whereas in draft you often have to choose between playing what the team needs or playing what helps you the most. If you don't get a hero that's useful for your quests you're then locked into a 20+ minute match that rewards you basically nothing which is far more than even your worst queue times for QM.

QM is the way you describe it because it doesn't enforce any team comp rules. If it did queues would be a little longer but the matches would be a more enjoyable experience and be closer to the intended experience.

I can't speak for how other MOBAs operate but given that the primary way of getting new heroes for free in this game is through completing quests at least one of the following are needed: a pvp mode where you can select whatever hero you want, equal experience when playing against AI as when playing against humans, or quests that don't require you to play as a certain subset of heroes.

 

Edited December 28, 2017 by mada7

[Leadblast 28]

23 minutes ago, mada7 said:

QM is the way you describe it because it doesn't enforce any team comp rules.

The drafting part is just a part of those "rules" as you call them. Without it, a MOBA makes as much sense as a game of chess where all the pieces on the board are pawns, all knights or all rooks.

I will leave it at that because no matter how I put it, you simply don't seem to grasp the concept of roles in a team. And yes, I have waited 500+ seconds for a queue. That is definitely "anormal" in my books.

Edited December 28, 2017 by Leadblast

[taff 5]

The most annoying for me is inability to mute pings made on players. I don't understand why there is no such option if you can mute pings on map and chat.

[mada7 29]

4 hours ago, Leadblast said:

The drafting part is just a part of those "rules" as you call them. Without it, a MOBA makes as much sense as a game of chess where all the pieces on the board are pawns, all knights or all rooks.

I will leave it at that because no matter how I put it, you simply don't seem to grasp the concept of roles in a team. And yes, I have waited 500+ seconds for a queue. That is definitely "anormal" in my books.

 

I do get the concept of roles on a team which is why I keep repeating that the matchmaking in QM should enforce those roles rather than abolish the option as a whole in favor of forcing all matches to start with a draft causing the quests to be dragged out as a result of not being able to get the subgroup of hero you need to optimally complete your quests. If the matchmaking were to do that it'd give people the freedom to play the hero they want and not waste time playing a hero that gets them nothing because that's what the team needs. A 500 second queue is not typical at all.

If quick match became unavailable what you'd see is people just picking whoever they want in the draft in unranked mode instead and disregarding the draft as anything other than a waste of time. If I didn't have QM I'd go into unranked and if I had say play games as specialist and starcraft hero quests I'll play hammer, probius or abathur regardless of whether they're what the team needs because the quests don't care if I win or lose and those guys complete my quests faster.

That's why I keep saying they either need to make the AI matches worth the same as human ones, enforce group comp rules in the QM matchmaker regardless of increased queue times which are not nearly as bad as you make them out to be, or overhaul the quests so that players benefit most from actually learning how to draft well. Enforcing group comp rules to have well balanced teams and slightly increase queue times in QM seems like the most sensible way to do things. If in testing queue times are proving way too long then if there's a role that is being underrepresented give bonus gold/xp/shards/gems if a player chooses that role. This is similar to what they do in WoW where if you queue in LFG or LFR as a healer or tank you get bonuses at the end of it

[gamerk2 20]

On 12/27/2017 at 12:26 PM, Valhalen said:

I wouldn't really say that is trolling. I have been "forced" to solo lane as a Main Tank many times because the rest of the team simply gives no fucks to waveclear. When the Tank is forced to waveclear because the Specialists are not paying attention, we have a serious problem.

Cosigned.  You don't know the number of times I've had to solo clear a camp pushing a keep because my team wouldn't help clear it out 15 secs before OBJ spawn (despite my MANY furious pings).  There are teams that really give no fucks about laning or taking camps, and *someone* has to get stuck depushing, even if it's at the expense of map objectives.

Quote

Additionally, I think at a bare minimum they need to UP the ranked requirements.  People should not be allowed to play level 6 heroes in ranked.  There needs to be a higher baseline on experience with a hero to use it.  If they want to play it in Unranked, sure.

Up it to what though, 14 level 10 characters?  That takes a while (I've got four, though I generally play my lowest ranked characters in QM in order to get better with them).

I think the *real* problem is how meta dependent certain heroes are, and how some people refuse to change.  I've literally played as many games with Nazeebo as all my other heroes combined, but I stopped playing him ages ago; he simply isn't good anymore.  Most people don't do that.

[gamerk2 20]

8 hours ago, Leadblast said:

Be honest about it. When was the last time 5 supports, 5 assassins, or 5 heroes of the same kind worked? I don't remember 4 assassins working, let alone 5 of them.

So something like Khazarim (Damage), Tyrande (Damage), Brightwing (CC), Uther (Tank/CC), and Rehgar couldn't work?

Bad idea sure, but this team highlights another issue: Even among the same class (Healer/Support) there is a VERY wide variance in abilities and use cases.  And I think that's becoming one of HotS biggest issues: Heroes matter more then their players.

[SteveFrost 97]

On 12/27/2017 at 7:26 PM, Valhalen said:

 

Mouse-over glow in low resolution settings: that green/red highlight is something I've always found very handy, as it makes targetting a lot easier. The problem is, it is disabled if you run on low settings, which is my case (I play on a shitty 7 year old Macbook).

 

From toaster user to toaster user, I can sympathize and relate to that pain. Bro hug no homo :3

[SteveFrost 97]

The reconnecting is most definitely a royal pain in the (censorship). I guess Blizzard isn't 100% keen on improving HotS as best as they can since it's not their ONLY project and certainly not the most profitable. On the other hand, if they don't want it to die, it simply won't since they can draw resources from elsewhere.

About the classes thing, I believe Assassins really need a split from the sheer number; you can have Mages, 'normal' Assassins (quick burst, target access, get in and get out) and basic attack users.

About the newer players being confused with drafting, roles, team comps and stuff; since Blizz isn't shy on sharing similarities in various things between their games (like the loot system) and since HotS and Overwatch do have some similarities in their core (most important here being both are designed to play and end relatively fast) why not make it like when you're drafting in OW where, depending on how each player hovers on a hero you get various popups such as "No Healers-Support Heroes/Too many Offense Heroes" which gauge how well structured the composition looks like?

Vs AI matches can't teach you how to play a hero properly imho (and this comes from someone who does mostly that to get quests done quickly) because many times they end rather fast or you're forced to go to a 1v2 lane and many heroes can't really cope with that. QM helps better with that. For drafting, there is unranked draft (I know it's not that popular but it does exist). One can also watch competitive play to see how pros draft.

And yeah, I don't see how not showing your MMR is a problem (it's called hidden for a reason duuuh). If it shows, we'll get into "don't talk unless you're high elo (1500 MMR-default value?)" 'discussions' with splendid display of cosmetic adjectives and rich vocabularies Kappa

[Leadblast 28]

11 hours ago, gamerk2 said:

So something like Khazarim (Damage), Tyrande (Damage), Brightwing (CC), Uther (Tank/CC), and Rehgar couldn't work?

Bad idea sure, but this team highlights another issue: Even among the same class (Healer/Support) there is a VERY wide variance in abilities and use cases.  And I think that's becoming one of HotS biggest issues: Heroes matter more then their players.

I see what you did there. That team appears solid on the surface. However, upon closer inspection, none of the heroes there is particularly capable of pushing, so it would have a hard time in maps where early pushes or split-pushing ability is important.

Also, Kharazim's "bruiser potential" appears at level 13. It kind of sucks for damage early.

Edited December 29, 2017 by Leadblast

[Leadblast 28]

52 minutes ago, SteveFrost said:

About the classes thing, I believe Assassins really need a split from the sheer number; you can have Mages, 'normal' Assassins (quick burst, target access, get in and get out) and basic attack users.

I would keep the 4 classes, however I would make only summoners including turret specs like Gazlowe fall under the specialist class. So that would mean reclassifying Sylvanas as an assassin (but still keeping all of her abilities including her structure-disabling trait) and Abathur and Medivh as supports, etc.

Or make the "multi-class" more significant as only Varian is in it now. Abathur for examply could be a good candidate for multi-class hero (spec or support depending on whether he chooses Monstrosity or not).

Edited December 29, 2017 by Leadblast

[ArtVandelay 24]

you guys are totally missing my point.  I am not talking about a warrior having to soak.  I am talking about tanks that literally solo lane the entire game and never help with objectives or team fights.  They soak dmg, so the stats lie and make it look like they participated.

That is trolling.

[gamerk2 20]

16 hours ago, Leadblast said:

Or make the "multi-class" more significant as only Varian is in it now. Abathur for examply could be a good candidate for multi-class hero (spec or support depending on whether he chooses Monstrosity or not).

The sad part is there are good candidates for almost every multi-class.

Uther: Warrior/Support

Tyrande/Kharazim: Assassin/Support

Nazeebo: Assassin/Specalist

Medivh: Specalist/Support

Sonya: Warrior/Assassin

And so on.  Blizzard just needs to implement skillsets for these heroes to push them along specific paths, upgrading one side of the tree at the expense of others.  Basically, you choose between versatility, or overloading one side of the talent tree at the expense of hte others.

[Valhalen 1,486]

21 hours ago, Leadblast said:

I would keep the 4 classes, however I would make only summoners including turret specs like Gazlowe fall under the specialist class. So that would mean reclassifying Sylvanas as an assassin (but still keeping all of her abilities including her structure-disabling trait) and Abathur and Medivh as supports, etc.

Or make the "multi-class" more significant as only Varian is in it now. Abathur for examply could be a good candidate for multi-class hero (spec or support depending on whether he chooses Monstrosity or not).

 

5 hours ago, gamerk2 said:

The sad part is there are good candidates for almost every multi-class.

Uther: Warrior/Support

Tyrande/Kharazim: Assassin/Support

Nazeebo: Assassin/Specalist

Medivh: Specalist/Support

Sonya: Warrior/Assassin

And so on.  Blizzard just needs to implement skillsets for these heroes to push them along specific paths, upgrading one side of the tree at the expense of others.  Basically, you choose between versatility, or overloading one side of the talent tree at the expense of hte others.

Varian is a multi-class because his Heroics affect his stats directly, something you don't see on the other hybrid Heroes mentioned above. This would mean reworking those Heroes where one of their talents completely changes the way they are played. The closest candidate to this is Kharazim as his Trait impacts directly his gameplay, although he can solo heal even if Iron Fists is picked.

Edited December 30, 2017 by Valhalen

[CyberDVonaven 82]

On 12/27/2017 at 3:43 PM, Plergoth said:

More loudout slots as well might be nice. 

O_O! Damn! I completely forgot that there even is more then one loadout slot for each hero to begin with! I been switching my skins and such to a different 'loadout' in the same first slot for the hero I'm about to play before I ready up for a match ever since 2.0 came out. I totally gotta remember that there's multiple loadouts slots for each hero and set several up for them all in the game tonight before I get to playing. Thanks for reminding me! (I wonder how many other people completely forgot too that that is a thing you can do?) :D

[gamerk2 20]

On 12/30/2017 at 8:23 AM, Valhalen said:

This would mean reworking those Heroes...

Which is what I'm advocating.

[locke107 1]

As someone who's got extensive time playing from the Rank 1 preseason to Diamond in various seasons:  I feel like one of the game's greatest challenges stem not from Blizzard (although I'd love to see better MM and transparency myself), but from relying on sites like Icy-Veins elusively; without reading further into the details to figure out why builds are made the way they are - and in what situations they work for. Let me explain.

Oxygen and many of the authors put countless hours into detailing these guides, the inner-workings of heroes, their strengths and weaknesses, who they pair with and who the fall apart against, etc. to use as a guide to figuring out team compositions and bettering yourself as a player. Unfortunately, far too often - and not at the fault of IV - these builds are cookie-cuttered right into the match without any thought.

When Kael'thas enters a match and sees that his enemy team consists of Cassia, Butcher, Artanis, Chromie and Mura (QM MM, lol), never in his mind should be believe that 'Convection' at level 1 will ever get completed. Yes, it's a very strong talent if you're a good player and can position well, however his team consists of solo an Arthas for melee. Warning signs should be going off in his/her head that picking a talent he won't complete is going to worsen his chances to win. After all, that's all HOTS is really about - giving yourself the best chance at victory, given that you're only 1/5 of the team and there's only so much you can control.

Ignoring all learned mechanics (when to siege, when to retreat, optimal camp-taking times, rotation, proactive vs. reactive, etc.), copy-and-paste builds are, in my opinion, what kills the playerbase the most. More than the reconnect system or knowing their MMR numbers, learning how to give yourself the best build/playstyle for the match you're presently in is the biggest key to victory that you can contribute as a sole player.

In conclusion, I know that this isn't 100% related to what Oxygen is saying, since his thoughts are geared towards Blizzard themselves; but it's worth noting that until players learn why a hero operates the way they do, the same issues the game currently has will always be present... or at least until MM can become reliable.

Good read, Oxygen. Lot of great comments, too.

Thanks!

[ArtVandelay 24]

I don't understand why if I am MVP in back to back games (and carry hard) in Hero League...but win first and lose 2nd...I am at the same points every time.  This happens over and over.  I thought you were supposed to move up/down more based on your play?  WTF?

[Oxygen 446]

5 hours ago, ArtVandelay said:

I don't understand why if I am MVP in back to back games (and carry hard) in Hero League...but win first and lose 2nd...I am at the same points every time.  This happens over and over.  I thought you were supposed to move up/down more based on your play?  WTF?

They disabled it after 2 days because it proved to be abusable, on top of some other issues. I wrote about it here.