[0dayz]

The problem was the timing, Starcraft 2 mechanics wise is fine even if they made some really whimsical balance changes that plagued the esport scene until it was almost pulled off life support (similar to how Overwatch couldn't balance itself to the point where the developers gave up).

If like HotS and Diablo 3 it came out much earlier it would've kept the RTS genre most likely alive (only revived interest in AoE 2 started to get the ball rolling for RTS again).

Not only that but Blizzard had since WC3 tried to create their own MOBA and stalled time and time again, they announced Blizzard All-star while announcing SC2, only for HotS to be announce after Dota 2 had left beta & LoL was already moving away from static MOBA design to the more "skill based" design they currently got.

Especially if the rumor that icefrog (last dev of Dota) approached Blizzard and Blizzard said no, it's the most obvious act of stupidity Blizzard did.

By the time HotS was out it was dead in the water because it had no competing feature setting it apart from the competition:

* if you wanted micromanaged static MOBA: Dota 2

* If you wanted a 3rd person shooter MOBA: Smite

* If you wanted a "skill based" dynamic and more casual MOBA: LoL

HotS tried to mimic LoL which meant an already watered down MOBA being further watered down.

Hearthstone is a good example of how Blizzard's games could have looked have they timed their releases better and stopped with "fold it 3000 times", since you can only do this if the game's budget is a typical 90s game budget or you've got alternative income sources & isn't publicly owned i.e. Valve.

[properpopper]

> * if you wanted micromanaged static MOBA: Dota 2

Static? Dota 2 is not a dynamic game? Not why wdym by "micromanaged" - Meepo, Nature prophet?

> * If you wanted a 3rd person shooter MOBA: Smite

Paragon?

> HotS tried to mimic LoL

Completely different games, hots feels more like a team based game compared to Dota 2 or Lol because it has shared experience + no gold + no items - so the gap between a good and a bad player is not that visible compared to Dota2/Lol where you can abandon your team for 20-30 minutes and then destroy everyone

[0dayz]

>Static? Dota 2 is not a dynamic game? Not why wdym by "micromanaged" - Meepo, Nature prophet?

Dota 2 afaik still relies heavily on static effects such as on click effects rather than LoL where it's mostly just a matter of "skill" based abilities.

>Completely different games, hots feels more like a team based game compared to Dota 2 or Lol because it has shared experience + no gold + no items - so the gap between a good and a bad player is not that visible compared to Dota2/Lol where you can abandon your team for 20-30 minutes and then destroy everyone

HotS is a watered down version of LoL, it doesn't mean it's bad it just means it could never compete to garner the same audience when we already have "Dota 2 for big brain people, LoL for casual people".

[bluescrn]

MOBA is a strange genre. Seems to take the worst bits of of RTS and the worst of ARPG, and combine it with the worst of the gaming community and a multiplayer-only design that's very hostile to beginners.

Never got on with them or really understood the appeal, despite loving RTS and ARPGs.

[invalidOrTaken]

The goofy thing about all this is that HotS is really good if you judge it on its own merits. I played DotA for a long time, switched to HotS, and never looked back.

[properpopper]

Hots feels great because it has multiple maps, you don't have to farm/ buy items, but it can feel boring comparing to Dota2/Lol

[pdimitar]

As a casual player who was deeply invested in the Blizzard-verse me and my wife absolutely loved HOTS, regardless of timing et. al. that you mentioned.

Our problem with it ultimately became the drudgery. We wanted more game modes, some wacky whimsical arcade-like stuff. It's been a while and my memory isn't great in terms of the timeline but I think eventually they did add something like that? Can't remember but basically we gave up on the game because there was no gameplay experience diversity; stuff was more or less the same.

...and then they abandoned it... :(

HOTS is still a beautiful and well-made game though. To this day.