Man, you can really carry in HL with Ana. I just poop on people with this hero.
Think the dart quest at 1 should only be sleep range/pierce. Make heal pierce baseline, maybe remove range? There's simply no competing with that talent.
He'll just toss you if you walk towards him. So, whether or not his Q actually pulls you, the result is the same. You end up closer to him and often in range to be tossed. It sucks.One thing i dont see ppl do much is walk towards him when he qs
Sounds nice in theory, but its borderline impossible to get away with walking towards garrosh. He'll throw you 90% of the time.He's not in range to toss you unless you walk up to his body
https://youtu.be/s-_qEVW9I_A
I dunno how to generate timestamps on mobile but check out where mura is standing during the q demonstration, a little past 1:10. Chromie should be ok too in that spot assuming she walked in and starts walking out while garrosh raises his arms
Not trying to downplay his oppressiveness (sp?), just noting that i dont see ppl trying to dodge it often
Ironically, the League engine is the oldest of all major MOBAs, and Riot has spent the past several years trying to improve it piece-by-piece.Just watch some league videos or someone playing it IRL, it's a tangible difference in response and smoothness.
Churn refers to players quitting the game, and it's a metric that developers look at to determine player retention.I don't understand what you mean by high churn or how hots' brand of MOBA leads to high churn
If by "don't make up for a low skill ceiling" you mean "don't make up for having to grind out micro-advantages out of game".Churn refers to players quitting the game, and it's a metric that developers look at to determine player retention.
By design, HOTS is a flatter experience than other MOBAs, meaning there's lower highs and higher lows. The overall skill ceiling is also considerably lower. This leads to HotS players hitting their personal skill ceiling much faster than in other MOBAs, as there aren't enough auxiliary systems in place for them to grow.
This is why HOTS 2.0 was focused entirely on retention mechanisms--it was a desperate attempt to improve their retention and reduce churn. It did not work as well as they'd hoped, because their designers don't understand that retention mechanisms don't make up for a low skill ceiling.
League of Legends doesn't have voice chat or clans, has less onboarding, less retention features, and a more aggressive monetization, yet it has much less churn and much higher retention.The social features are the biggest churn problem. Not having Voice Chat for so long, no clans, etc.
If by "don't make up for a low skill ceiling" you mean "don't make up for having to grind out micro-advantages out of game".
Pretty much this. Blizzard reacted way too slow to the WC3 DOTA mod. Instead of doing what they did, they should've done what Valve did and bought out Icefrog.The problem with HOTS is that it came out 3 years late, and was like.. 20% of what it should be. Turned everyone off and they never came back, first impressions are everything. Also MOBA players stick with their MOBAs, so idk who Blizz was hoping to pull into this game but it failed miserably.
Yes and no. HOTS is probably a wash as far as a profit-making venture goes, especially compared to the Hearthstone/Overwatch cash cows. I'm saying this based on how large their development team is, compared to my (limited) understanding of their metrics. The development overhead required to sustain a content pipeline like theirs is huge, and while I'm sure it's still pulling in respectable revenue, it's unquestionable that their resources would be better spent elsewhere. I personally think any other company would've pulled the plug years ago.Where are the metrics coming from?
Honestly think blind boxes are more about making money then player retention.
If Jason Schreier ever did an exposé on the MOBA genre, there'd be a lot juice in the politics of why Blizzard didn't make a MOBA earlier.Pretty much this. Blizzard reacted way too slow to the WC3 DOTA mod. Instead of doing what they did, they should've done what Valve did and bought out Icefrog.
Was this the era when Vivendi wouldn't let them actually invest anything? Because that fucked them for a long time until they finally got the leech off their body.If Jason Schreier ever did an exposé on the MOBA genre, there'd be a lot juice in the politics of why Blizzard didn't make a MOBA earlier.
I'd say more but frankly I don't remember if I was under NDA when I was told about it.
Sorry, it's really all I can say. I don't doubt that Blizzard could've put out something amazing, but the cards seemed stacked against the HOTS team from the beginning. I'll just say that it's very much an old boys' club and politics rules everything.Was this the era when Vivendi wouldn't let them actually invest anything? Because that fucked them for a long time until they finally got the leech off their body.
Yep. Just want to caveat this by saying I'm not a Blizzard employee, just a guy who worked on some MOBAs previously and hears things from friends currently/formerly at Blizzard working on HOTS.thanks for sharing Nome, blizzard has been really tight on anything hots business related which can only lead you to assume it's doing bad or mediocre.
Yep, I remember LeagueGAF :) Fun times.Nome, as an ex-lol player i def agree with you w/r/t retention. I came from league probably a low diamond player but got to top 100 in alpha really quickly. In 3 years i dont think the skill level or knowledge in this game has improved meaningfully. I've always chalked it up to blizz being unable to reconcile their attempts at dumbing the genre down w/ the innate conplexities of the genre, and then advertising it as a dumbed down moba. This allows veterans of the genre to do very well just based off of stuff like effective use of time or a desire to optimally game the system vs. many who will pick the game up just to brawl.
Leaguegaf in general took advantage of how the social aspects of the client was laid out, the chat channel was popping and playing games felt like more of an event.
Ugh i just remembered who you were too lol
Sorry, I don't want to dwell too much on the financial aspect because (1) I can't bring up any data to show you, and (2) everything I'm saying is surmised from their development trajectory and hearsay from Blizz employees that I know.Are you saying that hots is not making money, or it's not making hearthstone/overwatch money?
It must be profitable. Otherwise why would they keep up the developement like they have been? Unless their plan is to keep working on it waiting for it to turn some corner and become huge. But that seems like a really bad plan. From the outside it looks like it's getting more and more popular, not less and less.
Unless there's some actual data on their churn, or unless they start to slow down/stop development, I have a hard time seeing hots as something that's losing them money. Sure it's not bringing it in like hearthstone...but what is?
Is the argument it's not as popular as HS or OW therefore it's a failure, or just plainly the game is a failure?
And then the bottom line actual question I care about is, what does where it falls on the failure spectrum mean for the future of the game? Bus right now it seems like it's moving forward just fine. Are you saying thats going to stop sometime in the near future?
I can't remember if I was told this particular piece of information during a job interview (which would be NDA'd) or during a conversation with a friend (which wouldn't). So, staying on the safe side :)What the hell... how are there NDAs for stuff that was 10 years in the past?
When you say design do you mean overall game design or do you not like the heroes they've made?Yep. Just want to caveat this by saying I'm not a Blizzard employee, just a guy who worked on some MOBAs previously and hears things from friends currently/formerly at Blizzard working on HOTS.
I also want to say that I didn't mean to just come in here and crap on the game, I ended up playing it for a year and genuinely enjoyed it, but I'm not optimistic on the talents of their design team.
Pretty much this. Blizzard reacted way too slow to the WC3 DOTA mod. Instead of doing what they did, they should've done what Valve did and bought out Icefrog.
Overall design, with gameplay systems being the biggest culprit, and UX being their biggest strength.When you say design do you mean overall game design or do you not like the heroes they've made?
I thought the devs this year in particular have knocked it out of the park with the heroes they've added to the game.
Lack of voice chat is why i stopped trying to play the game outside of team league.How the trivialization was received was the key thing imo. Hots, imo, relies heavily on condensing the moba experience into a tight quick package; i find it very hard to play any other moba now because ive skipped the early game experience so much. But the odd thing about hots to me is that while stuff like split pushing, vision, pressuring parts of the map, and early game were trivialized they were still incredibly core to playing the game correctly; the population however has never adjusted to these things. How rare is it to see giving up an objective and grouping to trade for a keep? Without items to supply counterplay the draft is even more important but why do ppl still draft primarily based off roles? Why do ppl simply not engage with a map's mechanics, at all levels of play? Things like not nuking mid on warhead or prioritizing boss, why is this not standard? Win conditions? There are a lot of reasons a person can come up with for sure, and a bunch of it points back to decisions from blizz imo. But mainly im trying to say that the reduction in skill and complexity is not something id look at because the game is quite complex; it's just never been in a place where the population at large has played the game as if it were, for various reasons