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You could just swap caltrops for a new multishot talent instead of making a bunch of other changes to a popular hero that didn't need to change. Doesn't make any sense to me. I'll also quote their justification for the changes: quote:Our resident Demon Hunter has one of the most diverse Talent Trees in the game, so our main goal with these changes were to inject some new cross-synergies and brighten up the design of some of her blander talents. As with the other reworks, we are testing a new Loan Talent, so please send us your feedback on them! I just wouldn't touch this hero, but whatever. No Wave fucked around with this message at 20:20 on May 12, 2021 |
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May 12, 2021 20:15
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it wouldn't have been that simple - multishot build has several points of contention and is overall kinda a pain in the rear end to build for on several tiers. but you're right that they definitely didn't need to shake up everything the gently caress else considering that she's the gold standard for ranged DPSes also i just realized that gazlowe got zero balance changes which makes me lol, and also lmao
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May 12, 2021 20:19
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Suicide push Raynor 
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May 12, 2021 20:32
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More importantly will we have Christmas in July?
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May 12, 2021 20:38
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alsoKalko posted:And I've never understood the 'they ruined my fave' complaint. resurrecting an old discussion to point out that it just happened here, in this very thread: No Wave posted:Why would you rework Valla, she's always so popular... the new design is sleeker in a lot of ways and definitely more enticing to new players because it has clearer build paths, but for old players that liked what was already there, it's jarring and offputting i have no hard numbers on how HOTS's player population is doing these days but changes like this can actually be very detrimental if there aren't enough new players to fill the void
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May 12, 2021 20:43
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No Wave posted:My guess is most of these will be defensive in nature because offensive ones have more potential to hit weird breakpoints. Like you're not going to see one that increases Li Ming's damage by 20%. Ayyyy Veteran Marksman [Trait] New Functionality: Loan: Increase the damage of Give ‘Em Some Pepper by an additional 60%. Every death reduces this bonus by 15%. LMAO Creed of the Hunter [Trait] Moved from Level 4. New Functionality: Loan: Gain 20% increased Attack Speed. Every death reduces this bonus by 5%.
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May 13, 2021 01:09
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Kith posted:also I know people quit the game because their favourite hero got changed, I've just always found it hard to relate to that mindset. For one thing, it if you quit the game specifically because you feel your favourite hero changed for the worse, were you really only playing the game at all because you enjoyed that hero's mechanics? And, to be clear, we are only talking about mechanics here because these reworks almost never change any other part of the character (let's, uh, not get into how mechanics influence aesthetics). Like, do you not enjoy the game Heroes of the Storm itself? Or did you only ever enjoy it in the specific context of playing as that particular hero? I just find it hard to appreciate that approach to the game, because while I do have a favourite hero it's not purely because of mechanics, and there are a lot of others I also enjoy playing and playing as (those are two distinct things!) And I love the whole objective-based brawler/MOBA/whatever package of the game itself. I guess I can understand if a hero rework was the final straw in a long list of grievances you had against the game, but at that stage you would probably quit sooner or later for another reason anyway. I would accept that dissatisfaction with hero reworks is one of the more compelling reasons for uninstalling but I'm not sure what Blizzard can do about it except to not do them? I've always felt they hit more than they miss with the reworks even if I don't always agree with every individual change, so I would prefer they keep doing them even at risk of alienating some players. With regards to new players for this or any other game, I feel like the biggest factor in attracting them is advertising. Even when this game was in its prime they weren't willing to spend much on that, and with the cancellation of its Esports scene (which was essentially its entire marketing budget) that pretty much sealed the deal. This patch will get me to play again, and for what it's worth as someone who enjoyed playing Valla I think her changes look great on paper. I don't like the idea of the loan talents (and I really don't like the word 'loan' for them) because, psychologically, playing to avoid losing something creates a very different kind of tension than that from playing to gain something like you get with quests. I dunno, it just seems like it will be frustrating? From a pure numbers point of view I wonder if the loan part takes up some of the talent budget or whether it's treated as a bonus. I hope it's the latter otherwise you're just compounding the feelsbad and I don't think the risk/reward is enough to justify it.
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May 13, 2021 09:41
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Valla is popular, everyone likes playing at her she has a place in the game and people don't mind playing against her. You want to make the rest of the game more like Valla, not rework her. Idk what kind of baby brained decision making made her somebody's priority to change.
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May 13, 2021 12:13
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No Wave posted:Valla is popular, everyone likes playing at her she has a place in the game and people don't mind playing against her. You want to make the rest of the game more like Valla, not rework her. Idk what kind of baby brained decision making made her somebody's priority to change. It's not like Valla's perks were perfect, though. She probably was just the next hero up in their internal tracker for "we haven't looked at this one in a while". It's not like they're removing her core identity as with some other reworks of the past... and on the plus side she has not one, but two infinite ding quests!
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May 13, 2021 13:49
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I feel like the loan talents would work better if they decreased as you level up instead of when you die. Would give a similar power spike but I think death is already its own penalty.
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May 13, 2021 13:58
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_LwtB04nPE all of the overwatch skins got datamined if you're into that kinda thing
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May 14, 2021 02:53
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Why on earth did they go Reinhardt with Johanna instead of Bridget. What an odd choice
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May 14, 2021 05:26
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Watching Roadhog gorge someone raises a lot of questions.
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May 14, 2021 05:33
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NoEyedSquareGuy posted:Watching Roadhog gorge someone raises a lot of questions. i will answer none of them
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May 14, 2021 06:05
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Kalko posted:Like, do you not enjoy the game Heroes of the Storm itself? Or did you only ever enjoy it in the specific context of playing as that particular hero? That doesn't seem particularly bizarre to me. There are definitely people who only really preferred playing as one particular character in Super Mario Bros 2. Kith posted:i will answer none of them the people have a right to know!! 
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May 14, 2021 06:55
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Kalko posted:I know people quit the game because their favourite hero got changed, I've just always found it hard to relate to that mindset. For one thing, it if you quit the game specifically because you feel your favourite hero changed for the worse, were you really only playing the game at all because you enjoyed that hero's mechanics? And, to be clear, we are only talking about mechanics here because these reworks almost never change any other part of the character (let's, uh, not get into how mechanics influence aesthetics). It's all about the context. For example: I love watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail with my dad, because it's basically the only real bonding we did for the longest time. If my dad ever says "Hey, let's put on Holy Grail", I will drop what I'm doing to watch it with him and shoot the poo poo and have a good time. I also hate Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I've seen it so many times that I can quote it from start to finish, doing all of the voices and acting out all of the scenes. It's an obnoxiously silly movie and I totally burned out on it years ago. I will not watch it alone, and I will not watch it with someone else unless me specifically being there means something to them. I used to love HOTS on the whole: I'd play any hero for any reason with any person. Bronze, Master, I didn't give a gently caress. Give me a role to fill and I'm there. Many, many friends of mine used to be the same way. But I'm tired of it. So are they. Nowadays I only play HOTS if I'm getting to do so in a specific way - Quick Match so I can pick my gimmick, or ARAM so I can shrug off the loss if I get a hero I don't like. If I can't play the way I want to, then I just don't want to play period. Playing someone I'm uncomfortable with isn't fun, and I'm spoiled for choice when it comes to fun. Why bother struggling with a hero I don't completely enjoy when I could be playing Destiny 2, or Deep Rock Galactic, or Noita, or HADES, or SYNTHETIK, or Pillars of Eternity, or replaying Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for the umpteenth time? There's gameplay that HOTS offers that I can't get anywhere else, which is why I still play it. However, if the context through which I enjoy that gameplay changes so much that I don't enjoy it anymore, then there's nothing keeping me here.
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May 14, 2021 09:07
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All of that is natural and understandable, I didn't mean to give the impression I'm all beep boop what is emotion, I was really just questioning the specific idea that hero reworks represent a significant threat to the game's player base. And while it might be fair to say Blizzard shouldn't take any risks at all these days because the game's population is in a precarious enough position already (I too wish we had some hard numbers on this), I think if they stopped taking any risks at all that would probably lead to a worse outcome for everyone. The context under which I stopped playing had nothing to do with the game itself, by which I mean how it plays. I bought every new hero on release and leveled them up to 10; I played every hero in the game and bought the year-long boosts and played a lot of solo while my friends were raiding in WoW. Looking forward to new content was a fun part of the overall experience of playing HotS. But then they stopped making new content, which led to people quitting in droves (including my friends) which led to match quality suffering, which led to a huge decline in interest in the game everywhere, including on this forum, which was one of my favourite places to read about it. Now every time I stick my head back in to check out a new patch I can't stop thinking about what could have been. Then I go play some Apex Legends or something.
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May 14, 2021 13:51
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The skin video at least answers the question of why they reworked those specific heroes even if they didn't need one.
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May 14, 2021 13:54
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Kith posted:There's gameplay that HOTS offers that I can't get anywhere else, which is why I still play it. However, if the context through which I enjoy that gameplay changes so much that I don't enjoy it anymore, then there's nothing keeping me here. man, I'm right there with you. I'm gonna be playing HOTS til I get banned or they shut the game down. Other MOBAs just don't do anything for me - maybe because teamplay in HOTS feels so much better to me. I was never able to get over hard carries and jungling and micromangement stuff like last hitting. 
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May 14, 2021 15:34
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cmdrk posted:man, I'm right there with you. I'm gonna be playing HOTS til I get banned or they shut the game down. HOTS is the only MOBA out there that doesn't require micromanagement of minions and it also includes mounts, which is the thing I missed the most when I tried LoL. It's agony to just.... wait 10 seconds to B back, then you have to refill (and shop, I guess???? I also do not like the shop) and then it's... a lot.... of walking....,, to get back to the lane, unless something has gone horribly wrong. The map is enormous and a lot of it is just walking. More walking. The map thing is a double-edge (I guess), because if the map is always the same, you can do some cool stuff with physically changing the map with abilities. I don't see it actually pop up often, however. If I'm stuck playing the same map all the time, I'd want to have more chances to gently caress with it, but whatever. I guess there's map skins too? But eh. A lot of other MOBAs also seem to do the 'level up to unlock your abilities' thing. One thing I've really come to appreciate about HOTS is that I don't have to wait X minutes to actually use all my character's skills. I have QWE(D) right off the bat. Ults being level-gated is fine, but it feels really janky for QWE. Also every other MOBA I've seen so far is even worse at explaining the game and how to play it than HOTS is. The games are also a lot shorter, which is great. Way less time-investment.
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May 14, 2021 18:49
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Kalko posted:All of that is natural and understandable, I didn't mean to give the impression I'm all beep boop what is emotion, I was really just questioning the specific idea that hero reworks represent a significant threat to the game's player base. And while it might be fair to say Blizzard shouldn't take any risks at all these days because the game's population is in a precarious enough position already (I too wish we had some hard numbers on this), I think if they stopped taking any risks at all that would probably lead to a worse outcome for everyone. It's not so much that they're taking risks as they're making disruptive changes. Hero Reworks in and of themselves are fine, and even cool and good - I'm legitimately excited for every rework happening in the upcoming patch, for example, and pretty much everyone I know that still plays is too. What the original discussion was about (which I think we lost sight of a little bit) was characters changing so much that they no longer resemble their former selves (Gazlowe, Malfurion, Tassadar, Sylvanas) or no longer fulfill their original role effectively despite being more or less recognizable (Azmodan, Nazeebo, Zagara). Of course, any change is going to upset someone somewhere, but when you start getting into territory where the shape of the experience changes so much that it no longer resembles what it used to, that's where the problems start. Kith fucked around with this message at 22:28 on May 14, 2021 |
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May 14, 2021 20:46
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Karma Guard posted:HOTS is the only MOBA out there that doesn't require micromanagement of minions and it also includes mounts, which is the thing I missed the most when I tried LoL. It's agony to just.... wait 10 seconds to B back, then you have to refill (and shop, I guess???? I also do not like the shop) and then it's... a lot.... of walking....,, to get back to the lane, unless something has gone horribly wrong. The map is enormous and a lot of it is just walking. More walking. The best thing HOTS did in comparison to other MOBAs was jettison a bunch of the mechanics that existed in the first DOTA as a quirk of the underlying game engine. I never got the impression that things like last hitting or the courier were consciously added to the game because it was fun, but rather that the designers were making a custom map in the WC3 engine and were stuck with its inherent limitations. Those annoying mechanics then became synonymous with MOBAs so they propagated to other games like LoL even though it was an entirely new game that didn't need to be bound by the same design restrictions, HOTS took all that poo poo and threw it out the window save for a few echoes like bribe stacks and Azmodan's trait quest.
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May 14, 2021 21:00
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For me the #1 thing about HOTS that fucks every other MOBA for me is just the game time. 20 minutes is a real sweet spot. Losing games in League that last 45+ minutes because your team won’t surrender is just so miserable. Also committing to potentially a one+ hour game is tough for me. Also team fights are cool and good and HOTS has more of them in 20 minutes than league does in 60.
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May 14, 2021 21:07
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HOTS has so many intuitive mechanical innovations that set it far and beyond other MOBAs that anything else feels like poo poo by comparison. I tried going back to League once and I just couldn't stand it - it was neurotically demanding and ploddingly slow at the same time. Spending half an hour loving around in a lane and clicking on low-health mans isn't something I can tolerate anymore.
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May 14, 2021 22:32
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At the same time some of the rock-paper-scissors matchups and the lack of an item shop hold HOTS back. Some heroes can change up their gameplay and adapt with talents, but many have a defined role you can't easily escape. TBH I'm not a big fan of the item shop in league (adds way too much complexity), but it does give you a lot of room to adapt your character build to the situation. I think there's a sweet spot possible where the characters have individual builds but there are systems in the game to get around hard counters.
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May 15, 2021 15:36
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The item shop extremely sucks poo poo, amongst the many things LoL does that sucks poo poo, I'm so glad HOTS doesn't have that. In a game full of unfun mechanics compared to how HOTS does things, the shop is up there right next to last hitting for me.
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May 15, 2021 17:00
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I hate the item shop too. Ideally the talent system would allow for flexibility, but not every hero has the ability to flex significantly enough to deal with those rock paper scissors match ups
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May 15, 2021 21:18
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That's a problem with the hero designs, not the game on the whole. During the Alpha/Beta before the ESPORTS focus hosed things up, almost every hero was a generalist that could flex playstyles with their build - Raynor, Valla, Falstad, and Tychus all had caster builds, for example. Of course, some were better at it than others, but the spirit was there. Then someone ripped a huge line of coke and was like "dRaFtInG iS tHe MoSt ImPoRtAnT pArT oF tHe GaMe" and we started getting these narrow, hard-counter designs where rock paper scissors is the name of the game and you have a much higher chance of losing the game if you don't win the draft. Of course, this ruined Quick Match, the most popular game mode, because you can't counter-draft an enemy team that you can't see, but Blizzard developers know better than us, so I'm sure it'll all work out fine. Anyway, that particular design choice is why Valla has always been the most popular Assassin - her only real weakness is that she's fragile. For everything else, she can easily flex into a number of roles: Hungering Arrow for single target DPS, Multishot for AOE burst, Basic Attacks for DPS/Hypercarry. She's got versatile damage output and she's got good mobility in the form of Hatred's movement speed bonus and Vault's... well, vault. She's the most flexible Assassin in the game and fits in to pretty much every team comp imaginable. Greymane and Falstad are in similar states, and basically always have been - there's a good balance of physical and ability damage and their kit gives them enough mobility for escape potential. It's also why Assassins like Raynor and Zul'jin never caught on in the same way - they have healing instead of mobility, and you're a lot more likely to survive a powerful skillshot if you simply never get hit by it instead of trusting that you'll be able to walk it off. Also, the item shop sucks poo poo and the talent system is infinitely superior. Allowing the player to make any number of huge mistakes that results in literally worthless choices is not a feature. Sure, you can sell back items, but you can also read the room and plan ahead with your talent choices.
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May 15, 2021 21:48
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Kith posted:snip 100%. Esports ruined so many games 
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May 15, 2021 23:00
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The last time I stopped playing was when they took the Esports scene behind the shed, I remember it feeling like a bafflingly lovely thing to do and an even shittier way to do it. I'm glad I started playing again recently because, like everyone else says, HoTS just does poo poo massively better than functionally every other game in the genre.
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May 15, 2021 23:24
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I want bits from them all, tbh. DOTA Heroes are the most interesting bunch, and all Heroes are baked into the entry fee but the Item Shop sucks poo poo (and keeps increasing in complexity for some baffling reason) and various legacy mechanics are fetishised to the point of silliness League has the best curve to introducing and retaining a player, but has boring mono-Heroes and a horrid art style HOTS has the best 'items' solution in the Talents, Team XP and Mounts, but no Watch capability, Replays suck rear end, penalises players for being on a team with a Leaver and has by & large quite 'basic' Heroes (and when they do add one more interesting, they're timid with them, so the strongest picks are all the most basic, too) There's the Master MOBA in there somewhere, and nobody has ever hit on it.
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May 16, 2021 05:25
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On one hand, HotS has Murky and Abathur. On the other hand, League has Fiddlesticks and Rammus.
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May 16, 2021 05:32
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Back in alpha Blizzard introduced the Artifacts system, which was a grindy way to customize a hero outside the game similar to LoL's runes (a game I had never played at the time). I remember reading about Artifacts with a sinking feeling, which thankfully was short-lived because there was a huge backlash and they cancelled the idea almost immediately. HotS dodged a bullet that day, and it was one of the early signs for me that this was going to be A Good Game. I think the closest we could get to the perfect MOBA right now would be HotS running on the Dota 2 engine and incorporating all of its features. I tried LoL once and agree with everything that's been said here. I have no idea how it's as popular as it is, and yeah its art and presentation are godawful. That doesn't get mentioned enough.
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May 16, 2021 06:29
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wow, weekday hots and late night weekend hots are completely different ball games. I mean, I still lose every match but the weekday players are more semi-AFK not really doing objectives or focusing anything in particular, while the late night weekend hots players are dropping hard Rs and getting upset at advice. e: in quickmatch. cmdrk fucked around with this message at 06:45 on May 16, 2021 |
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May 16, 2021 06:41
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Kalko posted:I have no idea how it's as popular as it is Combination of being in the right place at the right time and sunk cost fallacy. League basically had no competition outside of Demigod (why pay for a MOBA when you could play League for free) and Heroes of Newerth (literally just Copyright Friendly DotA, almost everyone abandoned it once DotA 2 happened) for a few years, so it had plenty of time to establish itself as "the" go-to MOBA. Additionally, and it was also the first major deployment of the F2P Roster: unlocking everyone you wanted to use and forging all of the Runes you'd want and hashing out your Masteries all took a long loving time, and learning all of the item metas and build orders and all of that other poo poo also took just as much time. By the time that alternatives started cropping up, LoL already had a massively invested fanbase that wasn't ready or willing to let go of all of the time and effort that they'd dumped into it.
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May 16, 2021 10:38
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I mean it's also a good game (with an awful playerbase)
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May 16, 2021 11:05
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I will accept that League of Legends was a good game for its time because it innovated in such a way that made it more accessible than DotA ever was. However, after HOTS showed up and refined the core experience far beyond what League did, I'd struggle to call League "good". I'd say it's closer to "okay", trending towards "held back by archaic design decisions".
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May 16, 2021 11:30
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I could never get into either but had a lot of fun with smite. The lore theme and the different perspective made for cool fights and made some of the legacy mechanics like last hitting and item shop worth learning to me. I think HoTS is overall a better game but jiving with a hero in smite was way more fun than any single experience I’ve had in HoTS.
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May 16, 2021 15:17
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Kith posted:I will accept that League of Legends was a good game for its time because it innovated in such a way that made it more accessible than DotA ever was. However, after HOTS showed up and refined the core experience far beyond what League did, I'd struggle to call League "good". I'd say it's closer to "okay", trending towards "held back by archaic design decisions". given all of that, I can't imagine HOTS is all that beyond #3 or #4 as far as player counts go, with League and Dota 2 taking the top two spots. rando internet site suggests SMITE and Arena of Valor are more popular than HOTS - are they at all worth trying? it kind of boggles my mind that Blizz/Activision refuses to put any effort/time into their games seemingly unless they are the #1 game. It could be.. if they invested in it. Frustrating.
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May 16, 2021 20:04
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cmdrk posted:given all of that, I can't imagine HOTS is all that beyond #3 or #4 as far as player counts go, with League and Dota 2 taking the top two spots. rando internet site suggests SMITE and Arena of Valor are more popular than HOTS - are they at all worth trying? They did for a bit. That's why you ended up with all this esports junk. Blizzard hasn't been too smart as of late as there's been a slow brain drain over the years. There's so many small startups now from ex blizzard, riot, valve people I imagine another fun moba will pop up at some point. I wouldn't put too much hope into the AAA companies.
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May 16, 2021 20:10
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