On December 01 2014 11:38 Excalibur_Z wrote: Supposedly you have a separate MMR for each hero played, but I haven't done any research at all on Heroes matchmaking stuff.
Yeah, I think this is right. I see completely different types of players skill wise when I play a level 10 hero vs a level 1 hero.
On December 01 2014 11:44 xDaunt wrote: Been going through some of the other free heroes to get them to level 5. I think Azmodan is in a decent place given what he specializes in. He can wreck a lane better than anyone. Only catch is that he is pretty awful in hero combat. I doubt that this is a problem in unorganized play, but competitively, it may be a fatal flaw. ETC is a hero that has a decent kit on paper, but all of his skills are just underpowered -- particularly his damage. The one change that really needs to be made is that his Q needs to have its range hugely buffed. It is stupidly short as is. It will be interesting to see what changes are made in this week's patch. Aside from Nova and Arthas getting beaten with the nerf bat, I hope that some of the underpowered heroes like ETC are given some love to make them more competitive.
His Q range is fine, just his W damage and autoattack need to go up a bit, then he's fine.
On December 01 2014 11:38 Excalibur_Z wrote: Supposedly you have a separate MMR for each hero played, but I haven't done any research at all on Heroes matchmaking stuff.
Excalibur plz, your MMR stuff from SC2 was beyond amazing and useful.
On December 01 2014 11:38 Excalibur_Z wrote: Supposedly you have a separate MMR for each hero played, but I haven't done any research at all on Heroes matchmaking stuff.
Yeah, I think this is right. I see completely different types of players skill wise when I play a level 10 hero vs a level 1 hero.
I don't think it's so straight forward. I can queue with two account level 40s with diamond / platinum hotslog MMR with level 9+ heroes and we will consistently run into 1-2 talented gated people per game. This is towards the end of the free rotation week. At the beginning, I don't queue without a full group because it's so bad I'll get 3-4 talent gated people in games.
I think the game heavily prioritizes just getting people in playable games atm and MMR is very low on the priority list and specific hero MMR is even lower.
In some mix, they probably have counteracting measures of queue length, latency compatibility across players, team composition with further emphasis on hero matching, probably some type of behavior based adjustment for afkers / toxic players, and then you have individual MMR and then hero MMR.
i see you guys over there talking about matchmaking and specific hero MMR and im just languishing (as always) in my little SEA corner being matched with any tom dick and harry who happens to be queueing at whatever godforsaken hour i choose to play at
On December 01 2014 14:41 nyxnyxnyx wrote: i see you guys over there talking about matchmaking and specific hero MMR and im just languishing (as always) in my little SEA corner being matched with any tom dick and harry who happens to be queueing at whatever godforsaken hour i choose to play at
Well, if it makes you feel better, the US population base isn't high enough to allow for perfect matchmaking, either. I get stuck in games with people who have no business being in the same game as me all of the time. That said, I've seen enough of the tendencies of the matchmaking system to get an idea for what it will do come release.
On November 30 2014 11:28 [SXG]Phantom wrote: But im kind of worried about that hearthstone rank.
Yes, its better to give a sense of progretion, but, it has the problem that, lets say, a rank 10, could be actually worse than a rank 15, but he just plays more.
You don't rank up in hearthstone just from playing a lot.
Yeah you do. You'll find wins eventually.
You'll hit rank 20 because you don't lose ranks prior to that point, but you won't maintain anything past that merely from playing a lot. You might peak a few ranks higher than your true skill, but after a lucky win streak you'll start losing more games than you win and drop back down. Oscillating around your true skill is how the system works.
gotta see it in other perspective.. two players of same level, the one that plays more games will be higher rank for sure with the hearthstone system, cause you need lot of games to progress through the ranks.
so maybe you will be in a lower rank than you normally would if you could play more games
He said a player could be rank 10, but only have the skill of a rank 15 player. A player being rank 10, but only rank 15 because he hasn't played enough games to reach rank 10 isn't a bad thing. Do you think your Elo should magically be placed without playing games? Your other perspective isn't the same situation at all.
You can be wary of the season length or how the ranks reset, but his initial complaint had nothing to do with that.
You never investigated or read anything about Hearthstone ranking as it seems ... The vast amount of bots and players have shown that ranking up in hearthstone can be done by massing games ...
On December 01 2014 16:57 Chexx wrote: Former Startale coach Kim Gwangbok will be the new heroes of the storm coach for MVP
I expect/hope something along the lines of: General: Resurgence of the storm and rewind nerfed/changed. These talents are too strong and especially being generic that's stupid. Almost any hero that has these will choose them barring some talent they only have that is even stronger. Increased timers for both is the obvious change. Then some tiny nerfs to the stronger heroes: - Nova hot shots talent removed or reworked. The hero is not that overpowered to begin with but that talent is stupid and another one of those non-choices, there simple isn't a case ever I think you wouldn't pick it. Along with the rewind change would be more then enough of a balance change for her, perhaps even buff holo a bit in return to have some random ai movement from the get go giving her less rediculous burst but a bit more trickyness to survive. - Abathur nerfed somehow, for example taking away the heroic on the clone. That provides some rediculous double heroic combo's especially with azmodan. Overall he is just too strong now but his talents are nice, you see varied builds for him. - Arthas and tassadar some talents nerfed. These heroes are too strong now and have very little variation in their builds. Tassadar overload, archon and second strike could use a little nerf I think giving more real choices for these tiers. Arthas probably needs envenom removed, the talent is fine but on a tanky warrior like him it's out of place as there is no risk/trouble in getting close as there is with other envenom heroes, frost aura radius increase talent could be tinkered down slightly too. - Tychus some nerf to Odin (hp lower?) and/or maybe damage tuned a little bit - Uther numbers slightly tuned down, maybe stuns a little shorter.
Then some buffs to weak heroes: - Muradin, Diablo, Murky, Sgt. Hammer and ETC perhaps some slightly better numbers. - Lili complete rework, bland hero and extremely weak.
Of course it's not going to happen all but some tweaks to Abathur,Arthas,Uther,Tychus and Tassadar are needed I think. Nova not even for higher level play but typically blizz listens to the mass of frustation from lower level play and if tassadar and arthas are no longer in nearly every game she might be a little too strong.
Nerfing hot shots is probably the best way to go about changing Nova. Maybe tone it down to 220% damage / 200% cooldown instead of 330%/300%. I also agree that rewind needs to go. Those two changes are probably enough for nerfs.
I think for Abathur, the way to go about changing him is to nerf his global presence as opposed to his ultimate. Symbiote is the real offender. Maybe it should be changed such that there's a higher cooldown associated with using it on champs as opposed to minions. Right now, it is too easy for Abathur to pop in and out all over the map.
For Arthas, envenom definitely needs to go, but I think that he probably needs another nerf beyond that. He's just too damned strong overall. The biggest offender is probably his undead army ultimate.
Tassadar's support-oriented talents kinda suck. They need to be meaningfully buffed, otherwise players will keep playing him as a mage. I don't think anything too drastic needs to be done to his psi-storm oriented talents and skills. Maybe just tweak the damage a little bit. I think that the bigger problem with him is his E, which is too easy of an escape. The cooldown should be increased on it.
Oh, and resurgence of the storm needs to have its cooldown hugely increased. At 2 minutes, it is a no-brainer pick 95% of the time.
Lili have envenom, shrink ray and mule. Just exchanging her W for something more useful (and maybe her E too) can fix her. She is pretty much the consensual worst hero, but i think she is not THAT bad with this 1, 2, 3 build :^) But im not good, so maybe im trippin.
On December 01 2014 19:54 Markwerf wrote: Azmodan is not the problem, abathur is.
I expect/hope something along the lines of: General: Resurgence of the storm and rewind nerfed/changed. These talents are too strong and especially being generic that's stupid. Almost any hero that has these will choose them barring some talent they only have that is even stronger. Increased timers for both is the obvious change. Then some tiny nerfs to the stronger heroes: - Nova hot shots talent removed or reworked. The hero is not that overpowered to begin with but that talent is stupid and another one of those non-choices, there simple isn't a case ever I think you wouldn't pick it. Along with the rewind change would be more then enough of a balance change for her, perhaps even buff holo a bit in return to have some random ai movement from the get go giving her less rediculous burst but a bit more trickyness to survive. - Abathur nerfed somehow, for example taking away the heroic on the clone. That provides some rediculous double heroic combo's especially with azmodan. Overall he is just too strong now but his talents are nice, you see varied builds for him. - Arthas and tassadar some talents nerfed. These heroes are too strong now and have very little variation in their builds. Tassadar overload, archon and second strike could use a little nerf I think giving more real choices for these tiers. Arthas probably needs envenom removed, the talent is fine but on a tanky warrior like him it's out of place as there is no risk/trouble in getting close as there is with other envenom heroes, frost aura radius increase talent could be tinkered down slightly too. - Tychus some nerf to Odin (hp lower?) and/or maybe damage tuned a little bit - Uther numbers slightly tuned down, maybe stuns a little shorter.
Then some buffs to weak heroes: - Muradin, Diablo, Murky, Sgt. Hammer and ETC perhaps some slightly better numbers. - Lili complete rework, bland hero and extremely weak.
Of course it's not going to happen all but some tweaks to Abathur,Arthas,Uther,Tychus and Tassadar are needed I think. Nova not even for higher level play but typically blizz listens to the mass of frustation from lower level play and if tassadar and arthas are no longer in nearly every game she might be a little too strong.
I too think Abathur is the problem.
I've been playing every day lately, and out of 10 games, I'm encountering the dreadful Abathur/Azmodan combo in 6-7 of them.
It's quite obnoxious too. People who play this avoid teamfights completely, and sometimes avoid fights altogether, only to distract you into doing something (an objective, or whatever) to double Azmodan and power-push you. I understand that this is a valid strategy, and it's something we've seen variants of in Dota/SC2/WC3 etc (i.e. focusing on destroying the enemy's base rather than his actual forces), but in HotS it's honestly disgusting. I personally feel that this goes against the core concept of the game.
HotS is all about small skirmishes here and there for objectives or towers or experience, and the game definitely revolves around fighting a whole lot. This particular strategy allows people to ignore this aspect almost entirely to core the opponent without them having too much room to react. A team shouldn't be allowed to essentially ignore the enemy heroes and still win.
A mate of mine generally plays supports or wave-clearing heroes, and when there's an Azmodan involved (even without Abathur), he's pretty much playing a PvE game. He's killing creeps more than anything else. I can't imagine how boring that is.
I think the concept of Azmodan is fine, it's a niche hero who focuses on pushing and so on, but he should probably be tweaked a bit so that he's more hybrid and actually viable in teamfights.
As far as Abathur goes, I think he should have his ultimate either seriously nerfed (as in, make it so that his ultimate deals 75% damage as opposed to 100%, and takes 150% more damage) or just reworked completely. Some aspects of it are quite broken. Double Odin is reaaaally strong, and so is double Archon or double Shock and Awe with Falstad. Double Azmodan has already been discussed, so we know where that stands. Another thing is that he can also contribute to game mechanics he should be zoned out of while in his ultimate. I understand that Abathur essentially becomes another hero, but he has all the perks without any risk.
For instance, Abathur should not be able to gather doubloons, seeds or skulls in his ultimate form. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if he collects doubloons on Blackheart's Bay and you kill him in his ultimate, he doesn't drop them. He just retains them on the "real" Abathur.
Anyway... Game is great and I'm loving it more and more. It's a total blast when you're at least three people, and even more awesome as five. They do need to make quite a few tweaks though, mostly with talents (Promote and Resurgence are so damn strong!) and the heroes themselves (looking your way, Abathur, Arthas, Nova and Tychus).
The problem with Tassadar isn't that his support isn't strong enough so that people go damage with him. Damage is a meta thing. His support is incredibly strong, too. The reason why Tassadar is OP is because he is good at everything and incredibly flexible in terms of talents. You can talent him into pure damage and do good damage. As a support healer, his shield has high healing efficiency because you don't over-heal and you can pick up healing ward for further healing support and shrink ray to help peel / finish people off. You can just as easily pick up mule if your team doesn't have it elsewhere at better value. You can also just as easily pick up promote to help with split pushing.
To be honest, Tassadar doesn't need a nerf. His kit a long with Arthras's are actually what heroes should look like. Strong overall with actual choices and versatility that you can adjust based on the team composition, map, and in-game circumstances.
Abathur is another story. He's toxic and needs to be changed. None of the other heroes limit potential design as much as Abathur does. Whenever you design a hero, you need to limit your design based around the possibility of there being 2 of said hero on a team (double Odin, double Azmodan). The fact that people are calling to nerf Azmodan, who is probably perfectly fine, based on his synergy with Abathur is proof enough that something is very, very wrong.