EPTHeroes Large General Thread - Page 206
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GizmoPT
Portugal3040 Posts
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ref4
2933 Posts
On November 15 2014 05:34 Kipsate wrote: The reason why people bring up Dota 2 and Steam is that because there is a reasonable chance that Dota 2's intended strategy was to make money via Steam in a market that was still seemingly young(LoL was already decently large though). The Dota name was strong among all of the people who played it before and thus they could captivate a decent amount of the market, its growth has most certainly caused people to buy Steam. In Asian countries where Steam is not as popular Dota 2 has led to an increase of people installing Steam there. However, Valve underestimated the growth and potential of a game as Dota 2(the growth of Dota 2 is vastly outpacing Valve's size as a company) and as such they have begun to make a very large amount of revenue from it, the intended strategy =/ the emergent strategy, namely a completely f2p model with hats. Moreover Steam also has the marketplace and community content generators which attributes to the sustainablity of this model rather then having artists making it inhouse(like in League). And now we are in 2014, the MOBA market is heavily saturated with Dota, LoL and some random clones here and there who have a small share(rip dawngate btw). So now Blizzard has to enter a decently saturated/mature market, this means that the risk of implementing Dota 2's model is fairly large since they have NO or very little fallback on selling the their other IP's. Therefore adepting the LoL model seems more likely as LoL doesn't have any overlapping IPs either, while I do think that he HOTS model should be significantly lower in costs of heroes/champions as I have stated before it is not that weird that Blizzard has chosen to adopt that model. Also they need to sell it to shareholders somehow. A big problem of that model is that it retain a small, loyal customer base with a high % of whom willing to throw money at unlocking heroes, vs. with a DOTA2 business model Blizz will get a much larger customer base with a low to medium % of whom willing to throw money at extra cosmetics. They must have really done their math to be so confident in the first model. Besides, with the first model after you unlock every hero then the in-game currency, gold, becomes useless, until a new hero is released. But knowing Blizz and what the shit they did with valor and justice points in WoW I know they will implement a similar cap on gold and/or reset so players can't accumulate a billion gold and instantly buy the next shiny new hero. | ||
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Big G
Italy835 Posts
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FHDH
United States7023 Posts
1) Dota2 is not cheap. Steam install rate was ubiquitous among PC gamers long before Dota2 and certainly massive compared to the Dota1 base with what you would expect is heavy preexisting overlap. There is synergy to be sure but it is highly questionable whether Dota's benefit to Steam is or could have been expected to represent a worthwhile ROI. 2) The marginal costs associated with thej consumption of a digital product is tiny compared to the fixed cost in producing it. As such the profit-maximizing level of production is going to heavily favor volume. Therefore initially hooking and then retaining players is extremely important. The assertion that the LoL model will generate more revenue in HotS just ignores this over and over. 1/10th of the customers spending 3x the money is not a win in the digital space. I actually don't understand your point about IPs at all, I think cross-product synergy is interesting to discuss but you seem to be saying HotS is more similar to LoL in this regard when if anything HotS is the most synergized and League the least. | ||
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Kupon3ss
時の回廊10066 Posts
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AndAgain
United States2621 Posts
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Hider
Denmark9396 Posts
On November 15 2014 10:01 AndAgain wrote: I'm fine with no last-hitting and no items, but the simplicity of abilities and hero control in general makes it over the top casual. Anybody can play a hero for the first time and become about as good with it as they're ever going to be halfway through the game. In LoL most champions take a decent amount of practice which is what keeps the game fresh. This was my thought too, but have you tried Zeratul? He actually seems like he has a lot of playmaking ability. Illidan on the other hand, is very overrated in terms of difficulty/depht. Too many heroes are also just about QWER or what about abilities you wanna spam. Sure, it requires a modest amount of APM, but the real skillcap comes when you add counterplay in terms of avoiding the skillshots (or landing them). The lack of skillshot-interaction was something two of the C9 members talked about yesterday at the Townhall interview. | ||
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paralleluniverse
4065 Posts
On November 15 2014 05:09 xDaunt wrote: Paralleluniverse is technically correct that the game is "pay to win." The game more or less forces players to purchase heroes if the players want access to all of the heroes on a reasonably timely basis. That said, I think that the practical reality of the system and its alleged problems are grossly overstated. First, if you're going to play competitively, you're probably only going to focus on playing a few select heroes. I don't think that anyone is going to claim that it is unreasonably difficult to acquire ~5 champs or so. Second, the amount of money that one has to pay for a given champ isn't really that much. If you're really into the game such that you're playing it 20+ hours per week, I don't think that it is a bad money/time investment to shell out $10 for a champ here or there. I've already addressed this argument. See Counter to Argument 6: Counter to Argument 6 This notion that people only play a few heroes is simply false and contradicted by Blizzard's own statement: “There's a pretty good mix of people who play only a couple of Heroes, and others who go around and play tons of heroes” (http://www.heroesnexus.com/news/1241-blizzcon-heroes-developer-interview-with-kaeo). It also flies in the face of what happens in reality. For example, in a TI final, NaVi picked Enigma despite having never played the hero before, because it was the best pick for the situation at hand. And even if some people only play a few heroes, it still doesn't change the fact that not having access to more heroes is unfair as explained in Counter to Argument 1 and 2. If it were true that people only played a few heroes, then there would be no reason to not support Suggestion 5 of the OP which makes the game fair by requiring each person to put 4 or 5 heroes into the hero pool in order to play ranked, so that both sides have an equal size hero pool to draft from. Source: http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/forum/topic/13922932182?page=10#185 I certainly get that this kind of economic model is offensive when compared to more traditional models, but I believe that good games are too cheap anyway. HotS certainly qualifies as a good game, and I don't blame Blizzard for charging a premium for it. Happy to splash money at a game if it's not unfair and fun. For example, before I quit WoW, I spent over $1000 on subscriptions and expansions. In contrast, I've never spend even 1 cent on a free to play game, because I haven't found any free to play game worthy of my money yet. | ||
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paralleluniverse
4065 Posts
On November 15 2014 05:16 Hider wrote: I think a very little "pay2win"-factor that can not really be felt is okay. It can absolutely be felt. C9 attributed their 3-0 win in Blizzcon finals to outpicking their opponents. If all heroes were not unlocked, this may not have been possible. No amount of pay to win, no matter how small, is OK. It should be the first prioritiy of Blizzard to make its customers happy, and if players can still have fun despite a little disadvantage, I think Blizzard should opt for the mode that maximizes revenue/earnings. Making the game fair doesn't require Blizzard making less money. Also, see Counter to Argument 9: Counter to Argument 9 This idea that I want the game to be free is nonsense. In fact, I suggested a, possibly optional, $15/month subscription fee for HotS ( http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/forum/topic/14926132619 ). As explained by the 5 suggestions in the OP, making ranked mode fair does not necessarily require changing the business model. As I've said, I strongly support paying money to keep the game fair, i.e. not pay to win, but pay to compete like SC2 and CS:GO. For example, Suggestion 4 in the OP, requiring all heroes to be unlocked to play ranked mode, can be paired with a $30 season pass to unlock all heroes in ranked mode for the entire season or a $15/month subscription that unlocks all heroes for a month. There is no point in playing a rigged and unfair game. That's why ranked mode should be made fair by any means necessary, and a subscription fee to this effect will be very positively welcomed. Source: http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/forum/topic/13922932182?page=10#186 | ||
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paralleluniverse
4065 Posts
That's exactly what he was talking about. You've been banned before, [...] for the things you ended up saying in your "skill ceiling" thread. Nope. I was never banned for that. Stop spreading false rumors about me. | ||
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Cheren
United States2911 Posts
On November 15 2014 10:01 AndAgain wrote: I'm fine with no last-hitting and no items, but the simplicity of abilities and hero control in general makes it over the top casual. Anybody can play a hero for the first time and become about as good with it as they're ever going to be halfway through the game. In LoL most champions take a decent amount of practice which is what keeps the game fresh. perhaps, but you're coming from LoL and a lot of the abilities are very similar, if you know how to hit and dodge skillshots in one game you can do it in another similar game. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9396 Posts
On November 15 2014 12:31 Cheren wrote: perhaps, but you're coming from LoL and a lot of the abilities are very similar, if you know how to hit and dodge skillshots in one game you can do it in another similar game. Not really. League of Legends has a lot more counterplay in its skillshots, where doding skillshots 90% of the time can only be done by moving out of range in Heroes of the Storm. Like these types of plays would you never see in Heroes. | ||
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Cheren
United States2911 Posts
On November 15 2014 12:53 Hider wrote: Not really. League of Legends has a lot more counterplay in its skillshots, where doding skillshots 90% of the time can only be done by moving out of range in Heroes of the Storm. Like these types of plays would you never see in Heroes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrgCoWBl4r8 lol is faster paced but the basic ideas are the same. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9396 Posts
On November 15 2014 12:58 Cheren wrote: lol is faster paced but the basic ideas are the same. It's not about pace. It's about how you control the champion relative to what the enemy is doing. There are just less opportunities for good control because it's not practical to dodge skillshots by moving to the left or right. This is not really related to how fast everything goes, but whether it's actually rewarded. Without this counterplay oppportunity, that's like taking about 50% of the mechanical skillcap in LOL away. | ||
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deth2munkies
United States4051 Posts
On November 15 2014 13:13 Hider wrote: It's not about pace. It's about how you control the champion relative to what the enemy is doing. There are just less opportunities for good control because it's not practical to dodge skillshots by moving to the left or right. That takes about 50% of the mechanical skillcap in LOL away. It's like going from playing terran where you split Marines to playing a race where you can only A-move or move back and cast a couple of spells. That's low less interesting to watch IMO and has a lower skillcap. Individual skill is deemphasized for teamfight control. You can outplay the shit out of people in teamfights. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9396 Posts
On November 15 2014 13:24 deth2munkies wrote: Individual skill is deemphasized for teamfight control. You can outplay the !@#$%^&* out of people in teamfights. Example? Can you show me a video clip of where someone - going into the battle should do decently + doesn't make any gigantic errors, but gets completley outplayed during the engagement? I watched a decent amount of HOTS games by now, and I haven't seen a single example of anything "surprising" occuring. | ||
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ref4
2933 Posts
On November 15 2014 13:26 Hider wrote: Example? Can you show me a video clip of where someone - going into the battle should do decently + doesn't make any gigantic errors, but gets completley outplayed during the engagement? I watched a decent amount of HOTS games by now, and I haven't seen a single example of anything "surprising" occuring. I don't think it's possible with the philosophy of HOTS to have big flashy individual play. I mean they even said it themselves in their trailers "there is no I in Heroes of the storm" because they really are really afraid of individuality and personal power which might lead to toxicity or some stupid shit like that. Everything in this game is team fight team fight team fight, fight as 5, fight as 5, can't kill anybody one on one etc. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9396 Posts
I don't think it's possible with the philosophy of HOTS to have big flashy individual play. I mean they even said it themselves in their trailers "there is no I in Heroes of the storm" because they really are really afraid of individuality and personal powe Yeh, but then they also added the Lost Viking which is intended for good players (I believe that was what Dustin Browder said). Thus, I am inclined to believe that when sayt "there is no individual", they really mean "shared XP + more teambattles". Lost Vikings is more of a "hard to learn, hard to master" hero. When I am thinking of the LOL heroes with counterplay opportunities, that's more of a "somewhat easy to learn, difficult to master"-concept. Therefore, I believe that the llack of counterplay is an uninteded consequences of the low range of skillshots + slow movement speed of heroes. It's understandable that they are setting the bar very low with heroes like Raynor, but I see very few disadvantages of a higher skillcap for the majority of heroes. With Zeratull, the counterplay is a lot more practical due to blink and cloak, which means that you almost can dodge everything as long as you avoid getting stunned. And there is no more satifying feeling than going into the enemy base undetected, sniping a hero and then blinking away. I would also argue that it's ultimate that locks up to five heroes is really well-designed. A lot of thinking needs to go into how you cast it as it's easy for allies to get trapped, and in some situations it's good to delay and in order situatiosn it's not good. Moreover, enemeis also have counterplay opportunities as they can walk into the "stasis"-thing if they are getting target fired. | ||
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Zenbrez
Canada5973 Posts
On November 15 2014 09:09 Kupon3ss wrote: Dota 2 is not cheap, but HotS, a game that is functionally just a number of custom maps in a 5 year old engine with a free-to-pay frontend, certainly is. So would you call dots and league a one custom map game with an almost equally old game engine? I think I'm missing your point. | ||
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deth2munkies
United States4051 Posts
On November 15 2014 13:26 Hider wrote: Example? Can you show me a video clip of where someone - going into the battle should do decently + doesn't make any gigantic errors, but gets completley outplayed during the engagement? I watched a decent amount of HOTS games by now, and I haven't seen a single example of anything "surprising" occuring. It's not flashy and it's really hard to notice. That's why HotS is a shitty spectator sport. Perfect positioning and reading a teamfight well enough to layer ults and keep everyone alive is an art form that's more important in HotS than in LoL where teamfights are usually much shorter or lopsided. You're not going to see someone LeBlanc flashing all over the place, but you'll see the Brightwing at exactly the right range to hit the entire team with the passive, cancelled an enemy ult with the poly, and dropped a massive ult to disengage and set up a reengage off a Valla ult. Just for example. The thing is, in LoL, a late game teamfight is "whose ADC gets zoned/dead" because ADCs can 2 shot people late in the game. Early game is dominated by mages and CC. In HotS, CC is lighter, damage is lower, and health pools are higher. That means more protracted battles and more chances to catch the other team out. | ||
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