It's been made official that the pro scene at least as far as HGC is concerned is canceled. Heroes of the Dorm is also gone for 2019 and they are shifting some. developers from HOTS to other projects.
We’ll continue actively supporting the game with new heroes, themed events, and other content that our community loves, though the cadence will change. Ultimately, we’re setting up the game for long-term sustainability.
There has been lots of speculation about this, but none of the major organizations believed it. In fact Tempo Storm coach Kala said he spoke to high up Blizzard reps at blizzcon and they said everything would be at least as big if not more support coming this year. As of 2 days ago this was his outlook on the prospects of HGC being canceled. And here is his rant after the news today:
It's hard to see a path where this won't lead to a dead game in a year or two. No pro scene, less competition at the top of the hero league scene with no pros, less content, and less incentives to fix problem areas. Those issues are only likely to further decrease the player pool. That in turn makes it even less profitable to support the game and so on...
Too bad, because it really is a great game at it's core. Not without issues, but lots of great times. There is a lot more to go into when I have more time, but wanted to get the initial post visible for people.
I don't really like HOTS that much but the people that are into it seemed pretty content with the game.
I get it. It's better to kill off competitive circuit and downscale the game from a business standpoint but this is a pretty brutal way of killing your game. If Starcraft 2 didn't have it's second wind as of recently, you could see a world where Blizzard shoots down WCS too, not that WCS is remotely safe from getting what I would call the J Allen treatment.
me as a casual player expected this to happen, the queue time just keeps getting longer. The peak didn't even feel that significant in team of exposure.
Also thought the game becomes less unique when they removed quite a lot of elements like tower bullet counts etc.
While the alpha and beta truly felt great, this game, much like all the other Blizzard „live games“ constantly declined in terms of quality and fun over the years, mainly due to their inability to maintain proper balance while adding new content (started with the introduction of OW heroes).
Nevertheless the official announcement is just terrible and I feel sorry for the people invested in the esports scene of the game, kinda worries me when I look in StarCraft‘s direction.
I guess it shows more than anything that esports around a game is mostly marketing platform and it's livelyhood depends on that context. Apparently someone mishandled the situation, although I can imagine that there was massive miscommunication at BlizzCon on Blizzard part
HoTS was never going to be a top tier esport. It came to the scene too late, and everyone that actually gave a damn about MoBA esports was already invested in one of the other two big games.
HGC from the very inception was unsustainable. Every penny from it came directly out of Blizzard's pocket, and they were broadcasting 3 weekend streams from every major region plus major LAN tournaments. They were paying SALARIES for every tournament team in all regions. All for a game whose popularity was stuck in somewhere near mediocre levels from the get go due to the timing of its release.
That said. I still play HoTS, I still play it and I don't play DOTA or League of Legends. I play it, because it's fun. I find HoTS fun, I don't find those other games fun.
While I did enjoy HGC while it lasted, I never had this delusion that it was going to last forever while the game itself never increased in popularity. It was too big, too ambitious for that to happen.
I also don't see Overwatch league lasting long the way IT is set up. That game's popularity has also plateaued and OWL suffers from the same overreach of too big too fast that HGC was.
In the end. Not every game is going to last as an esport. Starcraft has stood the test of time, because quite simply, there is nothing else like it. HoTS was directly competing with DOTA2 and LoL for views, Overwatch is directly competing with FPS games, MoBAs (to a degree) and now Battle Royale games which are the new fad.
Does that mean that HoTS itself is dying? No, because as long as people continue playing it and content keeps being produced for it, it is alive and well. Is it dying as an esport? Well that's a different question and I think it's easy to argue that it was BARELY alive as an esport in the first place.
On December 14 2018 17:43 Ej_ wrote: ^SC2 is also almost exclusively sponsored by Blizzard.
Reminder they haven't announced anything about WCS yet either
There's a lot of importance in that "almost."
IEM already announced SC2 will be at IEM Katowice. So long as independent tournaments still pop up for Starcraft 2 the game will continue to do fine as an esport even if it means the overall pool of players it can support will shrink.
Is it bad that Blizzard is clearly looking to cut back on expenses related to esports? Well yea, that's obviously bad for all of their esports scenes. But does it mean that every game will suffer the same fate as HoTS? Not necessarily.
With the recent patch, it feels like an intentional suicide
Ah well, time to move on I guess. Was fun while it lasted. Maybe I'll play the occasional QM but I will not pay an additional cent for this (though I really need the new Stitches and Dehaka skins ^^')
EDIT: Big thank you for all the interesting content created by our beloved TL writers, you did an awesome job!
Not unexpected, but even after a string of questionable design decisions in the last ~18 months undeserved.
Still going to play and occasionally pay for this game and Warcraft III, but my overall attitude towards new Blizzard releases will be a strict 'not touch with a ten foot pole' after buying everything from Warcraft II till Cataclysm on release. And I do have a phone fuckers...
And let me echo Harris with a thank you to our writers here and TL for sponsoring the HotS team.
On December 14 2018 19:24 Sjokola wrote: Fucking shit. I really enjoy this game...
So do I, and nothing about the removal of HGC changes that.
If anything, without HGC the game can change directions again and really focus on creating fun and interesting heroes instead of trying to cater to a competitive traditional moba metagame.
There's a lot to be said for the influence that HGC had in hyping up and marketing the game, but I think people are deluding themselves when they believe that it was more important to the game than it actually was.
On December 14 2018 19:24 Sjokola wrote: Fucking shit. I really enjoy this game...
So do I, and nothing about the removal of HGC changes that.
If anything, without HGC the game can change directions again and really focus on creating fun and interesting heroes instead of trying to cater to a competitive traditional moba metagame.
Fun interesting heroes like Vikings and Cho'gall :DDD????
On December 14 2018 19:24 Sjokola wrote: Fucking shit. I really enjoy this game...
So do I, and nothing about the removal of HGC changes that.
If anything, without HGC the game can change directions again and really focus on creating fun and interesting heroes instead of trying to cater to a competitive traditional moba metagame.
Fun interesting heroes like Vikings and Cho'gall :DDD????
Vikings are my favorite hero, just saying.
Was trying to get a draft game going where I could play them with the new XP changes, but jerks kept making me tank or heal based off of where I was in the draft.
On December 14 2018 19:24 Sjokola wrote: Fucking shit. I really enjoy this game...
So do I, and nothing about the removal of HGC changes that.
If anything, without HGC the game can change directions again and really focus on creating fun and interesting heroes instead of trying to cater to a competitive traditional moba metagame.
Fun interesting heroes like Vikings and Cho'gall :DDD????
Vikings are my favorite hero, just saying.
Was trying to get a draft game going where I could play them with the new XP changes, but jerks kept making me tank or heal based off of where I was in the draft.
They are fun to play and probably the least fun hero to play against in the entire game.
On December 14 2018 19:24 Sjokola wrote: Fucking shit. I really enjoy this game...
So do I, and nothing about the removal of HGC changes that.
If anything, without HGC the game can change directions again and really focus on creating fun and interesting heroes instead of trying to cater to a competitive traditional moba metagame.
Fun interesting heroes like Vikings and Cho'gall :DDD????
Vikings are my favorite hero, just saying.
Was trying to get a draft game going where I could play them with the new XP changes, but jerks kept making me tank or heal based off of where I was in the draft.
They are fun to play and probably the least fun hero to play against in the entire game.
Depends honestly. For me, nothing is worse than playing against Chromie. Not even that it's difficult necessarily just that it's annoying.
But that CAN be true of any hero really, so long as they have a strong quirk of one variety or another.
Junkrat is another hero I hate facing off against, long range, super strong and consistent displacement, irritating heroics. But I bet he's a blast to play on the other side.
I'm more worried about the game feeling streamlined and generic than I am worried about how much or rather not fun it is to face certain heroes as opponents. Not every hero needs to be as outlandish as Cho'gall and The Vikings, but what we've gotten so far in 2018 have all been very standard and even boring hero archetypes. Yrel and Mal'Ganis have strong tools in their kits but there's very little that really separates them as unique or interesting heroes. Blaze at least has his Bunker. Whitemane is as generic of a healbot as Morales except at least Morales has an interesting Heroic.
I'm just saying. We've been caught in an extreme "cater to the stable pro meta" design philosophy this year both in terms of new hero releases and the reworks to existing heroes. If there's no pro scene to cater to, then that doesn't need to be the case for 2019, we can vary it up some more.
On December 14 2018 19:24 Sjokola wrote: Fucking shit. I really enjoy this game...
So do I, and nothing about the removal of HGC changes that.
If anything, without HGC the game can change directions again and really focus on creating fun and interesting heroes instead of trying to cater to a competitive traditional moba metagame.
Fun interesting heroes like Vikings and Cho'gall :DDD????
Vikings are my favorite hero, just saying.
Was trying to get a draft game going where I could play them with the new XP changes, but jerks kept making me tank or heal based off of where I was in the draft.
Yeah, I liked TLV pre-rework, like most other heroes. I really liked Thrall, Dehaka, Kerrigan, Sylvanas, Khael’Thas, Medic... Pre-rework. Their “keeping things fresh“ approach paired with power/mobility creep sadly made the game worse and worse over time and that’s exactly what I dislike about the annual balance patch in SC2, although I hope this year’s really was the last major one.
On December 14 2018 19:24 Sjokola wrote: Fucking shit. I really enjoy this game...
So do I, and nothing about the removal of HGC changes that.
If anything, without HGC the game can change directions again and really focus on creating fun and interesting heroes instead of trying to cater to a competitive traditional moba metagame.
Fun interesting heroes like Vikings and Cho'gall :DDD????
Vikings are my favorite hero, just saying.
Was trying to get a draft game going where I could play them with the new XP changes, but jerks kept making me tank or heal based off of where I was in the draft.
They are fun to play and probably the least fun hero to play against in the entire game.
Nope, that spot is reserved for Valeera. I fucking hate her with every fiber of my body
It's not just HOTS pro scene being removed that has people worried about the future of the game, it's the comment in the same post that they are moving developers away from the game to other projects. Now the remaining Devs say they are still working actively to make the game better, but it looks like the goal is more "moving towards sustainability" and suggests a slow and steady decline towards minimal updates.
Most pros will be forced to move on to other games financially even if they would prefer to stay. There will be less community created guides and content and streamers with these pros gone. GM level play will decrease even more in quality with most pros gone.
The reduction in devs will mean less balance patches, reworks and new heroes.
The game isn't dead today, and I'm not even suggesting that it will truly die to the point that they close the servers for good. However if queue times continue to increase, along with a reduction of content, then the player base is much more likely to decline than grow. With less players, making new content, becomes less profitable and less regular new content risks even more players leaving, so it can be a vicious cycle.
The concern is that eventually the queue times get to the point that many people won't bother even if it's their preferred game. Anyway we shall see. There is a lot of stuff to love about the game, but the support from Blizzard looks like something that is going to be steadily decreasing.
Maybe a non-blizzard sponsored scene will grow out of the ashes of HGC?
I mean, there is a huge pool of viewers out there with nothing to watch, and some group could come in, organize that and probably turn a profit. Won't be as big production as HGC, but I'm sure there is a business model out there for turning a profit on an established situation like this.
This makes me really sad. Hard to see how this doesn't become the death spiral karazax alludes to. Will probably keep playing until waiting times become silly.
Hard hit for pro-players/casters and other folk professionally invested. Hope they get out OK.
On December 15 2018 02:48 Garbels wrote: This makes me really sad. Hard to see how this doesn't become the death spiral karazax alludes to. Will probably keep playing until waiting times become silly.
Hard hit for pro-players/casters and other folk professionally invested. Hope they get out OK.
It's weird situation in which online game has to have esport or is dead
I've followed HGC a little, mainly through watching VOD's. I've noticed some increased time in queue for Quick Match. I don't necessarily think switching focus from HotS as an eSport means HotS is dying. I've found the game fun throughout, despite some heroes/changes that I felt weren't that great. Overall the game has been a fun one for me and friends to just hop on, and have some fun. To me it doesn't have as competitive a feel to it as other MOBA's, so even while following the HGC was interesting, I never found the games to be as fun to watch as LoL. I'm still going to play and enjoy the current new content they released, and look forward to seeing what they'll bring next year.
Yesterday, we announced a difficult decision—the HGC will not be returning in 2019 and we’ll be transitioning some Heroes of the Storm developers to our other game teams. While our extended Blizzard family working on World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch, and our unannounced projects will be getting an influx of much-needed, extremely talented Heroes devs to help them achieve their goals, it also means that we’ll need to change the cadence of support for Heroes going forward.
So, I’m sad. I’m sad because I love this team and this game that we’ve built together, with all of you, and this past year has been such a great one for Heroes of the Storm. The HGC had its best year yet and I was so looking forward to the 2019 season. On the game side, we’ve had a steady stream of some of the most sought-after heroes, amazing themed events, and impactful reworks. We also made meaningful progress on improving core systems and features across the game. We truly hit our stride in 2018, so I’m disappointed that some of the exciting plans we had for 2019 will have to change.
But all is not lost. The team that remains dedicated to Heroes of the Storm is a veritable Who’s Who of developers who have been driving every facet of the game from the very beginning—from people you know and have seen speak publicly about the game for years, to those who have poured their hearts into it from behind the scenes. In short, we’re continuing to develop the game with an incredible team that has the experience and passion required to support Heroes of the Storm well into the future.
The Heroes of the Storm team and I also have a unique opportunity to rethink things and reprioritize. Because now more than ever, our charge is to focus on taking care of you, our players, and to channel all our energy into keeping the game dynamic and fun. This means we’re still committed to regular hero reworks, themed events, and even new heroes. We’re setting our sights on the new goals and timelines for what we want to do with the game from here on out and we’re eager to share those plans as soon as they’re finalized.
So, I’m also excited. I’m excited for my teammates to bring their hard-won experience from making this game to the other teams at Blizzard to help their games be even better. And I’m especially excited for Heroes of the Storm to continue evolving with a renewed focus and purity of purpose.
Thank you for joining us on the journey so far, and please bear with us through these changes. Your feedback is as critical as ever, and continues to guide our priorities and decisions while helping us be better along the way.
On December 15 2018 02:48 Garbels wrote: This makes me really sad. Hard to see how this doesn't become the death spiral karazax alludes to. Will probably keep playing until waiting times become silly.
Hard hit for pro-players/casters and other folk professionally invested. Hope they get out OK.
It's weird situation in which online game has to have esport or is dead
It's also not true.
You can log into 10-12 year old online titles and still find a match as long as the servers are still running.
The entire incentive of a FTP game is that as long as people keep spending money on it, the company has every incentive to keep the servers up and keep making new stuff for it.
The whole esports or dead game thing is just a product of some weird nerd inferiority complex that needs every game they play to be popular and "relevant" whatever that means.
Not every game is meant to be an esport. Not every game needs to be.
I didn't follow the HotS competitive scene, but i've been playing the game on and off since the beta, reaching Diamond 1.
Last break was like a year ago, and came back 4 months ago... and to be honest, the sate of the game these last months has been awful. HL queue times are higher than ever (I usually queue for like 4-5 min before getting a game), feeder/trolls/afk are present in a solid 25% of the games (let's not speak about flamers...) and the moderation system is an absolute joke. I've played it because it's what I look for, fast 20 min games with music/videos in the background and alt-tabbing frequently... but right now the game is a bit of a mess.
On December 15 2018 02:48 Garbels wrote: This makes me really sad. Hard to see how this doesn't become the death spiral karazax alludes to. Will probably keep playing until waiting times become silly.
Hard hit for pro-players/casters and other folk professionally invested. Hope they get out OK.
It's weird situation in which online game has to have esport or is dead
It's not necessarily the lack of esports, but I've always felt that mobas depended on the perpetual addition of content to hide a lack of real depth to the game. If this were true, then I can't imagine the game going on for long if Blizzard stopped releasing new heroes and maps.
I get a similar feeling about StarCraft 2's yearly balance overhauls.
But that's just my impression, I don't really know anything about the issue.
On December 15 2018 08:12 Elmonti wrote: I didn't follow the HotS competitive scene, but i've been playing the game on and off since the beta, reaching Diamond 1.
Last break was like a year ago, and came back 4 months ago... and to be honest, the sate of the game these last months has been awful. HL queue times are higher than ever (I usually queue for like 4-5 min before getting a game), feeder/trolls/afk are present in a solid 25% of the games (let's not speak about flamers...) and the moderation system is an absolute joke. I've played it because it's what I look for, fast 20 min games with music/videos in the background and alt-tabbing frequently... but right now the game is a bit of a mess.
Isnt this the copy/paste complain they use since League of Legends?
On December 15 2018 08:12 Elmonti wrote: I didn't follow the HotS competitive scene, but i've been playing the game on and off since the beta, reaching Diamond 1.
Last break was like a year ago, and came back 4 months ago... and to be honest, the sate of the game these last months has been awful. HL queue times are higher than ever (I usually queue for like 4-5 min before getting a game), feeder/trolls/afk are present in a solid 25% of the games (let's not speak about flamers...) and the moderation system is an absolute joke. I've played it because it's what I look for, fast 20 min games with music/videos in the background and alt-tabbing frequently... but right now the game is a bit of a mess.
Isnt this the copy/paste complain they use since League of Legends?
I don't know about any copypasta or whatever. This is my experience in the EU server for the last 3-4 months.
On December 15 2018 02:48 Garbels wrote: This makes me really sad. Hard to see how this doesn't become the death spiral karazax alludes to. Will probably keep playing until waiting times become silly.
Hard hit for pro-players/casters and other folk professionally invested. Hope they get out OK.
It's weird situation in which online game has to have esport or is dead
It's not the online game has to have esport....problem is all the devs are being moved to othe rprocjets. There won't be any new maps, heroes or balance patches.
Thats why people say the game is dead, not because there is no esport scene.
On December 15 2018 02:48 Garbels wrote: This makes me really sad. Hard to see how this doesn't become the death spiral karazax alludes to. Will probably keep playing until waiting times become silly.
Hard hit for pro-players/casters and other folk professionally invested. Hope they get out OK.
It's weird situation in which online game has to have esport or is dead
It's not the online game has to have esport....problem is all the devs are being moved to othe rprocjets. There won't be any new maps, heroes or balance patches.
Thats why people say the game is dead, not because there is no esport scene.
Well this is just not true at all...
Yes some developers have been moved but they are not just stopping all patches and new content.
On December 15 2018 02:48 Garbels wrote: This makes me really sad. Hard to see how this doesn't become the death spiral karazax alludes to. Will probably keep playing until waiting times become silly.
Hard hit for pro-players/casters and other folk professionally invested. Hope they get out OK.
It's weird situation in which online game has to have esport or is dead
It's not the online game has to have esport....problem is all the devs are being moved to othe rprocjets. There won't be any new maps, heroes or balance patches.
Thats why people say the game is dead, not because there is no esport scene.
Isnt it insane how many people are Insider? You can pretty much say whatever made up bullshit you want and its totally cool.
On December 15 2018 02:48 Garbels wrote: This makes me really sad. Hard to see how this doesn't become the death spiral karazax alludes to. Will probably keep playing until waiting times become silly.
Hard hit for pro-players/casters and other folk professionally invested. Hope they get out OK.
It's weird situation in which online game has to have esport or is dead
It's not the online game has to have esport....problem is all the devs are being moved to othe rprocjets. There won't be any new maps, heroes or balance patches.
Thats why people say the game is dead, not because there is no esport scene.
Just for the record, Blizzard made it 100% clear that that is *not* true.
I've had extensive experience in LoL, DOTA2, and HoTS, with high competitive ranks in LoL and HoTS (after a thousand hours of DOTA I still get confused about what's happening on the screen). Over the past decade I've oscillated from game to game enjoying the highs and complaining to anyone who will listen about the lows; DOTA is mentally taxing to play constantly, playing the same map every game in LoL gets boring, and HoTS...well every time I stopped playing it for any extended period of time I had issues with the community.
Which brings me back to the article linked above. When players in LoL or DOTA play a ranked game at a reasonably high level, they will typically try to emulate professional play. I did not notice this same trend in ranked HoTS games in master/GM games I played.
For example, I found many players didn't understand getting value out of soaking an extra wave on BoE with a good poke/defensive comp holding 4v5 at the Immortal. It's common enough for professional solos to play a game of chicken in the top lane before rotating to the objective. To me, this seems like an obvious good move, especially if you're close to leveling, but in my experience I'd get flak from teammates if I stayed to soak an extra wave or if I told them to stay in their lane while we poke at our Immortal. I could understand complaining about the execution if I just derped and blindly farmed, but complaining about the concept of a clearly viable (and basic) strategic idea to grab an extra wave was offputting.
As the author of the article points out, the game was designed around QM as its core. It seems like the transition of ten assassins fighting to the death in mid at the start of the game to responsible, strategic play, just wasn't there. I never saw much in the way of innovation from players, which I'm sure is partly because the damage output of heroes in HoTS is comparatively lower to LoL and DOTA and partly because talent trees are not as versatile as buying items.
The small playerbase also caused me frustrations in the game. Ranked queues could feature players of wildly different skills. Whether a team has dead weight on their premade or matchmaking is slow in solo queue and gives you some bricks and some good players, it's never fun to lose playing a 4v5, and it isn't very satisfying to win a 5v4 when the enemy team gets the brick. This seemed to be an issue early in LoL as well (though it was more a disparity in skill, not rating), but was much more frustrating in HoTS.
A related issue is how hard it can be to carry a game of HoTS when you're teammates have flubbed the early game. Even if your teammates are decent players and just caught rough breaks early, your two kills in a solo lane probably won't snowball you into showing up at an objective and doing fed carry things. In addition, the outplay potential a single character has against several characters is comparatively low in the context of other MOBA's. To a competitive player it's frustrating to feel like you have (compared to alternative MOBA's) less control converting your great game into a win.
It's not like any of these things are singly damning about HoTS; and indeed there are a lot of great parts of the game: having multiple maps to play is refreshing, shared experience is interesting, and constant objective fights can create intriguing dynamics. But in order for a casual game to be fun over a long period of time for a wide audience, it needs high-level, innovative play to trickle down through the ranks. If it doesn't, competitive players become frustrated and leave for a more reliable experience elsewhere. When people who can pass the knowledge of competitive plays down to lower ranked players leave, the tools to make the game novel and enjoyable diminish. And when those tools disappear, viewership (people who are entertained and/or people who want to get better) declines and it makes it hard for Blizzard to justify paying every player's salary and footing the bill for all the tournaments.
EPT
