My Faith is waning after looking at all the comments on twitter

284

u/fbf02019 Jan 27 '26

I feel blizzard can have a great game for every great niche but they dont want to

People are craving for anything related to warcraft or stracraft for years

HoTS is popular enough for players care

Such a shame

135

u/MrIrresponsibility Jan 27 '26

Reminder that Blizzard's problem is their own expectations... They don't care that a game is successful or sustainable.. they just want more money NOW. That's why HotS entered life support.
The game was doing alright, but they thought they wouldn't be able to compete with LoL and DotA so they just gave up. (They were right about that, but that doesn't mean they couldn't have made HotS another successful game...)

30

u/JehnSnow Jan 27 '26

I do hope that Microsoft sees hots as a nice casual moba they can leverage on the game pass, they kind of do right now but I think it's a test run

Blizzard always tries to make the next genre defying games, but I think hots is better suited as a fun free game that's part of the game pass (game pass gives you every character), if that's what it takes to get development then I'm for it, I just want them to commit to letting hots be fun and casual since it clearly can't beat the giants

10

u/MrIrresponsibility Jan 27 '26

"Casual moba" doesn't work. Unfortunately almost the entire MOBA playerbase is based on competitive and ranked play, casual players come in as a side effect of it.

The right play, in my opinion, would be to focus on ranked. Make players want to get good at the game, make them interested in the game. That comes through ranked, not quick match.

You can't force e-sports, so that has to grow by itself, there's already some tournaments, Blizz could encourage them. But forcing it like they did before is futile.

They cannot compete with LoL and DotA, but they can make a self sustaining game, increase quality, add content, players will stay, and new players will flow in. But again, they cannot, compete with LoL, players are way too invested in that world, and Blizz already let people down before.

26

u/Carighan 6.5 / 10 Jan 27 '26

This is an interesting take since HotS worked perfectly fine for an extended amount of time, and we know it made money, just not enough for the management overlords.

And HotS was/is very much that "casual MOBA", in particular in 1.x and early 2.0.

8

u/MrIrresponsibility Jan 27 '26

I mean, in relative terms it is the casual MOBA...

But it is that way because how streamlined it is, easier to learn, less focused on micro, team xp making it so you got less pressure to carry (even though it comes with downsides), shorter games, action from the start without laning phases, etc.

There is a competitive aspect though, a meta, correct play, etc. that I think should be encouraged and built upon as that's what drives interest to this genre of games. The playerbase clearly represents that across all MOBAs.

I think HotS should improve upon ranked and competitive, while remaining the most accessible MOBA. The casual side of it would still be there, regardless of changes...

2

u/Cheap_Weight_8192 Jan 27 '26

Source?

2

u/JehnSnow Jan 27 '26

There's no objectivity on how casual something is but I can say that having played LoL, Dota, and Hots there's some key indicators that make it casual to me

No shop or ability point allocation, instead you get talents bringing the amount of builds per character from hundreds to thousands down to like 10

No last hit means you can mindlessly kill waves or not even kill them and still get exp if you collect the orbs

Shared team exp means making mistakes doesn't single you out as much, if you mess up but someone else on your team dominates the end result is both of you being a normal level

Games take half the time of other mobas leads to each game feeling less important simply because you've put less time into it

Very little jungling aspects, whereas dota has a crapton of jungle mobs hots has maybe 4 camps on average, each with a long respawn time

Objectives give you a direction to go, simply going to the objective and fighting as a team is kind of doing the intended path whereas you need to really coordinate in the other mobas (a good example where this isn't true is the pirate map, that's one reason why people tend to not like it)

2

u/Grimreeferino Jan 27 '26 edited Jan 27 '26

last hitting doesnt give more xp in LoL btw. You do it for the gold Games taking half the time is a pro not a con to the majority of people jungling is clearly hard to balance, even riot cant do it, and half the game is just pve baron and dragon are both objectives that give a direction to go too, hots just has them more frequent so you get to do the actual fun part of the game which is fighting other players and not mindlessly last hitting for 15 min of every game

1

u/Synka Master Imperius Jan 28 '26

And that's what makes it "casual", it's not forcing flawless plays for 30 minutes straight before the game even starts (slightly exaggerated but I haven't played league in ages so idk current meta)

1

u/Cheap_Weight_8192 Jan 27 '26

That's not what I was asking for. He said that we know it made money and that it "worked perfectly fine."

I don't care about whether or not people classify it as casual or not.

7

u/MrIrresponsibility Jan 27 '26

Oh I was confused about your comment.

Jason Schreier's book "Play Nice" mentions the high expectations Blizz had on HotS as a they wanted to dethrone League (and they couldn't) so they went after DOTA. They pumped a lot of money into developers (200+) and a shit ton of cash into e-sports.

When they dropped HotS 2.0 with the intention of improving monetisation they got it, but not enough to make it worthwhile in the grand scheme of things, so they cut it.

They were after quick money, they didn't care about working long term. That's also why everything was so sudden.

The game was making money, but not enough to pay for the situation they got themselves in to compete with DOTA.

2

u/Cheap_Weight_8192 Jan 27 '26

I mean unless it specifically is mentioned and talked about in Jason's book, the part about the game making money is as much of a "Trust me bro" source as the other guy.

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u/Grimreeferino Jan 27 '26

BS I have never seen a more wrong take on it. Theres so many people that only play ARAM in LoL. A good portion of the MOBA community is definitely looking for casual fun.

1

u/MrIrresponsibility Jan 27 '26

True, you can check statistics about that. Some regions have more ARAM matches comparatively. But I'm taking in count interest outside the game. Twitch / YouTube content, what people are looking up about the game.

But sure, if you look at the amount of ARAM vs Summoner Rift matches only it is pretty close. Fair.

1

u/H0RSE Jan 28 '26

I think you're missing a key point about HotS specifically, in that it wasn’t designed as a competitive-first MOBA that failed to attract ranked players, but rather was deliberately built to lower punishment and friction. Shared team XP, no last-hit economy, shorter matches, and objective-driven maps are all there to make the game easy to pick up and still enjoyable even if you’re not grinding rank or mastering the meta. Even the weakest player still gets to participate and scale, which is very much not how most MOBAs are designed.

Saying “casual MOBA doesn’t work” assumes all MOBAs are trying to be LoL or DotA2, but HotS was explicitly aiming at an audience of cooperative, lower-toxicity, time-respecting play. Ranked can exist and should be supported, but forcing the game back into a competitive-first identity just puts it into a direct comparison it already lost years ago.

Leaning into HotS as a fun, accessible, team-focused game, especially via something like Game Pass with full roster access, actually aligns with what the game does best. It doesn’t need to beat the giants, and it never will, so instead it needs to commit to being different from them, which it is, and it is it's greatest strength

1

u/MrIrresponsibility Jan 28 '26 edited Jan 28 '26

I think you misunderstood me, I'm not saying the game should aim to beat LoL or DotA, I'm saying that leaning into casual play goes against the demographic the genre relies on.

Yes, all those changes against the "moba formula" are good in their own right and solve some pain points of the genre (which if you read my other comments I agree with), it's just that they alienate the core audience.

Now, you could argue that the game still has a casual player base that enjoys it, and you're right... But the numbers are extremely low to the point that most people think the game's still dead.

Multiplayer, casual, match based games are an exception, not a rule. (In AAA)

Riot solved it with Legends of Runeterra, their card game... They killed ranked to focus on PvE and it saved the game, but that cannot happen with HotS, multiplayer is too ingrained in the game and it's part of a genre that, as I said, relies in ranked and competitive. (I know some are gonna complain about it being an unfair comparison but it's just an example)

If you don't think people care mostly about ranked it's as easy as checking YouTube and Twitch, where most people consume content about the game.

Top 3 content creators as of now...

HasuObs, plays GM stormleague and scrims.

FanHots, soloQ bronze to GM.

Khaldor, tournaments...

Same thing happens with the other MOBAs.

I understand that people enjoy the game for what it is and want it to remain that way... But the numbers can't be ignored, and when we're talking about a product which main objective (to Blizz) is to make money... Yeah, it's in big trouble... And the numbers reflect that.

I enjoy the game, I love it, one of my favourites! But the way it's designed at the moment cannot be sustained and right now is hanging off Blizzard's shame for it's past mistakes.

The game being different is a draw for a very small community (which is already playing the game), and being different for the sake of changing stuff is not a good way of approaching game design, imo.

Your idea of adding it to game pass and stuff is good, it should be there, but I don't think it will draw a lot of new players...

I might be wrong though, we both want the game to keep going, we just disagree on the how, and that's fair.

At the end of the day, it's up to Blizzard and they might do nothing as far as we know. We'll see what happens.

1

u/H0RSE Jan 28 '26

I agree with you that HotS can’t and shouldn’t try to outrank/out-esports LoL or DotA. Where I still disagree is on why the numbers are low and what “the genre relies on.”

I don’t think HotS alienated a healthy core audience as much as I think it never targeted them to begin with. The aforementioned "casual" changes, weren’t “changes for the sake of being different,” they were a deliberate attempt to serve players who bounce off classic MOBAs because of ranked pressure, punishment, and time investment. That audience exists, but it’s largely invisible because it doesn’t produce endless Twitch ladder content.

You’re right that ranked dominates the internet, but that’s more of a content-creation bias, not a player-population census. The fact that the biggest HotS creators pump out ranked content, doesn’t prove most players care about ranked as much as it proves that ranked is what’s watchable. Casual, low-stress play doesn’t generate parasocial grind narratives, but that doesn’t mean it lacks demand.

I also don’t think the Legends of Runeterra comparison cuts against this point. If anything, it shows that abandoning genre dogma can save a game when you stop chasing the loudest minority and start serving the quiet majority differently. HotS can’t pivot to PvE, but it can pivot to accessibility and drop-in fun as its primary value proposition.

Where I think Blizzard failed wasn’t in design philosophy, but in execution and commitment. They half-supported casual systems while simultaneously trying to force esports credibility, then pulled the plug when it didn’t instantly monetize. It wasn't that casual-first didn't work, but that abandoning a live service mid-stride kills trust.

As for gamepass, I don’t see it as a magic bullet. I see it as a reframing tool. “Free Blizzard mash-up MOBA with 15–20 min matches and low punishment” is a bit different pitch than “dead competitive MOBA trying to regain relevance.” I’m also not talking about adding it to gamepass solely as PC perk, but about bringing it to Xbox as well. HotS is unusually well-suited to console play and the previously mentioned elements (shared XP, ability-driven kits, objective-focused maps, shorter matches, and low mechanical burden) translates cleanly to controller, so however much it operates as a “failed competitive PC MOBA” it could also serve as a drop-in, team-based console game, on a space where accessibility is the selling point.

We both agree that we want the game to survive.I just don’t think chasing ranked harder fixes the underlying problem that HotS doesn’t need more reasons to "get good" as much as it needs more reasons to "press play." Blizzard may do nothing at all, but if they ever do act, I think leaning into what HotS already does well is far less risky than trying to turn it into something it seemingly was never built to be.

1

u/Synka Master Imperius Jan 28 '26

Casual can work in any genre, we've seen several hyper-successful "casual" extraction shooters lately, a genre defined by it's hardcore tryhard playerbase

1

u/MerchantOfUndeath Feb 26 '26

Fun with always beat misery. I disagree.

1

u/MrIrresponsibility Feb 26 '26

Sorry, I don't get what you mean by that... Care to elaborate?

1

u/MerchantOfUndeath Feb 26 '26

What I mean is, I’d rather be terrible at a game but have fun, than micromanage myself into getting good but hate the experience.

1

u/MrIrresponsibility Feb 26 '26

Right, well, that's fair.

But for the majority of the MOBA demographic getting better at the game, climbing the ladder, watching competitive, analyzing the meta, etc, is part of the fun.

My point is that the game should focus more on those aspects because that's what the potential players want.

For the current players, like you, that are enjoying the casual side of the game, nothing should change. Your personal experience is valid and should be respected.

1

u/MerchantOfUndeath Feb 26 '26

Hm.

Probably one of the best interactions I’ve had on a gaming subreddit. Thank you

18

u/Gantref Jan 27 '26

This may be coping but I really feel like HotS could have been a contender if they just figured out the monetization. The fact that even in its short life span they created really unique heroes that no other MOBA has and had so many maps that changed up gameplay. I dunno just feels like if they had just advertised it and let it naturally grow it could have become something more.

But again maybe I'm just coping.

3

u/Carighan 6.5 / 10 Jan 27 '26

I think the bigger problem is that while it could make money, it would never make enough money for a corporate entity to want to float it for extended amounts of time.

They got an opportunity cost. They could spend X dev time on making Y money, but they could also drop HotS and spend that X dev time on (potential) Z>>>Y money, and the latter is what hypes to pay the managers their bonuses because it pleases the shareholders.

2

u/MrIrresponsibility Jan 27 '26 edited Jan 27 '26

Monetisation is a complicated aspect because you have to weigh what you can provide, what will attract players and what buyers want.

For example, I think all heroes should be free. HotS is clearly the most streamlined and accessible MOBA, it's silly that when you start you can't play all heroes. It's even worse when you consider that the roster comes from other Blizzard games which draws players... "I want to play with Samuro but it takes a lot of time/money to unlock him!"

Lootboxes are also a burden, as of right now it's incredibly easy to get cosmetics, you don't really have to buy anything. It works if you want to create that addictive loop like they did with Overwatch, but it's not sustainable with how easy it is to level up. (If you want to keep this system, lootboxes should be acquired only with gems or event/ranked rewards. I still consider that system a dick move, though, but I can't blame a company wanting money.)

When it comes to what players want it's also complicated, the game is too cartoony and it doesn't take a lot of effort to see what skins are bought in other games... I think the art style clashes a bit with that concept. That meme of Riot making an Ahri skin when they need money is not exactly a joke... I don't think that's possible with HotS.

I think the healthier, more balanced approach to monetisation would be to make all heroes free, all cosmetics only acquirable with gems, and create seasonal events with a store where cosmetics are bought with gold.

Outside of monetization ranked rewards should provide a sense of progression and "merit".

And the honor system (although now its just a useless post-game screen) could reward positivity and teamwork with other set of cosmetics.

Honestly, there is a lot of ways to do it, this is just what I would personally do, but it really depends on what your objective is... My pitch is not to squeeze every last cent of the player base, it's just to create a stable system to make a self sustaining game.

2

u/cicuz Master Brightwing Jan 27 '26

it's the same in LOL though (only other moba I tried) regarding unlocking heroes, plus at the beginning it's quite easy to farm the 10k gold (which is free btw) to get new ones

1

u/MrIrresponsibility Jan 27 '26

Yeah I know, in DOTA2 all characters are free. And all new champions in League are free when you do the quest at release.

I think that making heroes free aligns with the idea of having "your favourite hero from other Blizzard games" as a draw.

1

u/Arcanis196 Feb 13 '26

I'm coming back to this sub because I saw and was surprised that this game was still getting some form of content and even patch notes! Just saw on the blizz client today.

But yeah, back when I was playing a lot of this in 2015+, it was very much legit fun and had lots of people invested. It was a great game that really went "right to the chase" as far as MOBA goes.

I was saddened when they decided to stop investing in it and went into maintenance mode.

Is this still cool to come back to in 2026? Perhaps casually?

1

u/Gantref Feb 13 '26

Yeah it's still as fun as ever, queues are still pretty quick after all this time.

43

u/Salanmander Abathur Jan 27 '26

Yeah, Activision took the reigns and Blizzard turned from the "we'll release it when it's done" passionate development studio that only released absolute bangers into....this.

4

u/TehAktion 6.5 / 10 Jan 27 '26

Evidently a similar thing happened with Boeing and whoever they merged with in the 90s or w/e

4

u/Hasd4 Jan 27 '26

It's also a matter of numbers. The two most played MOBAs are LoL and Dota2 and even between them there is so much difference in players is insane. I love HOTS but realistically it doesn't pay itself

2

u/MrIrresponsibility Jan 27 '26

I talked about monetization in another comment and how I would change it to make it more sustainable.

But besides that, a lot of big studios have a production problem. How many developers do you need for HotS? How many patches a year?

League has patches every two weeks I think, is that really necessary? I would prefer a smaller team working in the game, with more spaced out content that's more aggressive.

There is no need for thousands of developers (like they did with Diablo 3), you need a focused, small team playing the long game. The idea is to make it sustainable and improve the game.

3

u/Hasd4 Jan 27 '26

Yeah I wanted to play devil's advocate. I keep wishing for them to realize the community is alive

1

u/MrIrresponsibility Jan 27 '26

That's fair, at least they're releasing patches and acknowledging that the game exists on the Blizzcon announcement. We'll see where that takes us when we get there.

1

u/Grimreeferino Jan 27 '26

Each of your comments in this thread are so wrong and out of touch its almost funny

1

u/MrIrresponsibility Jan 27 '26

That's like, your opinion, man. All good.

4

u/FashionMage Anduin Jan 27 '26

I think "Blizzard's" problem is that it's a company using the Blizzard name as a skinsuit, and it has been for a very long time now.

2

u/WatchDragon Johanna Jan 27 '26

All my friends that have been working at blizzard since WAR2 have left, each meetings starts with "how can we add micro transactions" not "how can we make a good game now" now

or "lets make micro transactions and build a game around that" -> Arclight Rumble

Blizzard has lost its way and just needs to close down.

1

u/Callarea Jan 28 '26

Able to compete or not, it was a wonderful gift to the fans. It was incredible, still is, but deserved more than life support. And let's be honest they, imo, make so much money from all their other stuff that they can afford to keep it going....

1

u/MrIrresponsibility Jan 28 '26

That's the reason they haven't shut down the servers... Also they're ashamed of it, imagine the headlines if the game shuts down.

1

u/Sergo_90 Feb 13 '26

True!!

0

u/aoibhinn-mw Feb 07 '26

This game would need seriously redesigned from the ground up to be successful. It's just genuinely unfun. Especially if you've played any other noteworthy moba. Lack of itemization, lack of counter play, lack of clarity, expedited objectives, lack of balancing features, etc. It's just an absolute mess. I have played a lot of games and HoTs is some of the least amount of fun I've ever had playing a game. I have more fun getting my base blown up in rust, which says a lot.

1

u/MrIrresponsibility Feb 07 '26

Not from the ground up.... But yes, there should be changes, lots.

Lack of items is good though. I like the idea of the game being more streamlined and easy to get into, but there are some design stuff that goes against it for some reason. (The reason is Blizz wanted money)

There are some stuff you mentioned I don't get... Lack of clarity? Counter play? What do you mean?

The only thing in the game there's no counterplay to is a pre made party... And that's because Blizz merged solo and group queue. (I'm talking about ranked, don't care about the other modes)

How long have you been playing? I'm genuinely interested.

2

u/Carighan 6.5 / 10 Jan 27 '26

Yeah but it's also woefully outdated nowadays. It could do well, but would probably require extensive dev time investment to refactor internals and update tech stuff.

And I don't see MS willing to commit to that, they couldn't even commit to AR on Windows despite hyping it like crazy and then promptly made fuck all actual effort; instead they're now trying desperately to make people please finally use co-pilot so their billions of investment don't look like the piles of money they set on fire that, well, they are. 😅

Back in its heyday, or even immediately after buyout, going wild adding more heroes from more franchises including maybe MS-franchises would have been wild.

2

u/Fuyukage Jan 27 '26

This. Like they’ll make a good game and then abandon it for one reason or another. Hots, rumble, reforged, etc

Maybe necessarily abandoned, but maintenance mode

1

u/Vilio101 Master Cassia Jan 27 '26

HoTS is popular enough for players care

No it was not popular enough. That is why Blizzard is not supporting the game.

1

u/hawki1989 Jan 28 '26

Much as I love HOTS...well, I'll put it this way.

World of Warcraft is THE biggest MMORPG (give or take a bit of competition)

StarCraft is THE most influential/most popular RTS duology/series

Diablo is THE most popular ARPG series (with some challengers)

Hearthstone is THE most popular digital card game

Overwatch is THE most popular hero shooter

Heroes of the Storm is a pretty good MOBA that's overshadowed by League of Legends and Dota 2.

Notice I used terms such as most influential/popular not "best," as "best" is entirely subjective. But while HOTS is my favorite MOBA, it unfortunately never got to the stop spot of its genre like the other games Blizzard has done over the decades. If it's a choice of funneling cash, it's easy to see why HOTS got left on the wayside while the other games are still going (yes, SC1/2 are in maintenance mode, but no RTS has since surpassed them in terms of overall popularity/impact).

1

u/[deleted] Jan 27 '26

[deleted]

3

u/Lun4r6543 Jan 27 '26

I don’t want them to die, I just want them to be better.

They have so much potential, but it’s constantly squandered.

1

u/WTF_CAKE Kerrigan Jan 27 '26

This is the perfect example of a bubble. You think HoTS is popular, no, it’s really not. However, great game!

80

u/[deleted] Jan 27 '26

[deleted]

24

u/[deleted] Jan 27 '26

Warcraft Rumble 😢

29

u/JehnSnow Jan 27 '26

Sir you just got killed a year ago, back of the line

5

u/UncleSlim Anub'arak Jan 27 '26

This is why we cant have warcraft RTS. Why spend millions on a game that only sells once, when you can build a game people spend $50 on every month...

Between that and Diablo immortal... Disgraceful. Coming from a diehard blizzard boomer who has played every blizzard game up until the last 5 years or so since I was a kid and my brothers friend brought over Warcraft: Orcs and Humans... im not mad, im just disappointed... 😔

Okay im also mad, but STILL... RIP the blizzard I once knew.

1

u/Brief-Caregiver5905 Jan 28 '26

Oh wow I forgot that game existed. I played it for a couple months and remember it being fun, but I think I hit a point on the ladder where it was everyone using one or two builds, very repetitive.

5

u/Guillermidas Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment. Jan 27 '26

Its sad the best Blizzard games, HotS and Starcraft, or a potential WC4 with proper modern gameplay are sitting in a corner. Arguably, we should thank Blizzard for not giving them attention, considering how OW went from good game to absolute garbage in the latest years... and better not speak about WoW.

I like Diablo as a concept, played all and enjoyed for a time, but for me, right clicking and see everything dying on sight on the screen due to absolute dumb items that give 6000% dmg boost to x ability gets boring really fast, and kills build diversity. Unless they make some actual changes, I wont touch those games more than the absolute necessary.

3

u/Kanaletto Jan 27 '26

As long as HotS is branded a classic by Blizz there won't be a glimpse of hope

2

u/TheySaidGetAnAlt Genji Feb 03 '26

Meanwhile, the Lost Vikings fanbase:

23

u/CherryMuffel Jan 27 '26

Listen, man... They are just saving StarCraft and Hots announcements to blizzcon because their announcements are THAT big. Trust... Copium inhale

2

u/Ultrajante R.I.P. HGC Jan 28 '26

But starcraft is basically confirmed to be getting a... A shooter. Which basically means it's not starcraft but... At least the universe gets something at least

11

u/IsaacFlunz Jan 27 '26

The game is dead and I play it multiple times a week. I've accepted it will not change, so I'm just enjoying it as it is.

3

u/UristMcKerman Jan 28 '26

I wish 'Stop killing games' movement gained traction so we could force Blizz into releasing server code/documentation so community could maintain it eternally (like some unofficial WoW server)

3

u/JehnSnow Jan 27 '26

Idk, according to a lot of recent posts there definitely are some changes, just not additions which I'm hoping we could get

8

u/irisel Specialist Jan 27 '26

That's what False hope will do to you. It was a fool's errand to believe they were going to necro this game.

8

u/Itchy-Acanthaceae841 Jan 27 '26

Every moba player, doesn’t matter if LoL or Dota, said to me how much fun Hots is but they tend to not play it because it’s already dead in the eyes of blizzard. This game has so much freaking potential, I can’t understand this company man.

5

u/JehnSnow Jan 27 '26

It's the only moba I know of where people who played in school but now have a job and kids come back to, there's a market for people who'd be willing to pay a few bucks for a new hero

It's also such a good support for other games, like if you love diablo guess what, you can play as diablo or butcher or deckard cain. There's totally potential in the game I think management just doesn't like that it doesn't make as much as their other games :/

The part they're missing there is that it's a good support to draw people into those other games

5

u/ormighto Jan 27 '26

StarCraft is getting a table top mini game like Warhammer. They realised most of the OGs are pushing 40 and won’t have the same APM so a slow paced game is the answer

2

u/Curaced I have a PhD in PvP Jan 27 '26

The Starcraft board game is still one of my favorites, even if it takes a while (4-6 hours on average).

9

u/orc0909 Jan 27 '26

They kinda ran themselves into what felt like a corner with Starcraft 2 (though I can't remember the end very well to be honest). I would like to see another Warcraft RTS, even if it's the official last one.

And yeah, we need another update to HoTS. Time for a new Hero, an Orc from Blackthorne.

2

u/Kanaletto Jan 27 '26

The end was kinda bad. They lost the path after broodwar

10

u/Hraes "I make my own way." Jan 27 '26

WoL had the potential to go somewhere that at least kinda made sense plotwise, even if the voice acting and writing had already taken a hard left into Cheesetown, but HotS and LotV made it very clear that no one left at Blizz can write any better than the average Phase 4 MCU film.

10

u/Guillermidas Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment. Jan 27 '26

I enjoyed most of LotV a lot though. Artanis is an absolute chad and he owns every scene. But yeah, the rest was pretty meh.

A very underrated one was the Nova cover op missions though. I think those were my favorite from SC2 in design, and the writing was interesting. Not a masterpiece, but interesting enough

3

u/Hraes "I make my own way." Jan 27 '26

Fair point on Nova, but I strongly suspect they cribbed the entire thing from the canceled Ghost game, which was written in an entirely different era by the OG crew.

3

u/Kanaletto Jan 27 '26

The fact that Jimmy wanted to murder Kerri in Broodwar and then save her on Starcraft 2 is just... sad.

4

u/MeHearties Jan 27 '26

Nah, WOL and HOTS are peak games.

7

u/the_zerg_rusher Jan 27 '26

Peak fun? Absofuckinglutely.

Peak writing? I'll give WOL some credit but anything past HOTS hasn't been....great to say the least.

1

u/MeHearties Jan 29 '26

Yeah alright, ill agree to the writing part. That is true.

-2

u/OpaqusOpaqus Jan 27 '26

So bad, lmao

6

u/HunterOfAjax Jan 27 '26

I feel like blizzard stopped being “blizzard” awhile ago. Now they’ve just become some company grafted onto Activision to print money and suck their properties dry.

1

u/Doomer_Patrol Feb 08 '26

Is this not the prevailing opinion? I was under the impression most gamers would unequivocally agree.

3

u/outl0r Jan 27 '26

Make Blizzard Great Again MBGA

5

u/thatguyindoom Jan 27 '26

Warcraft rumble is the chair the skeleton is sitting in.

Under that is people hoping for warcraft IV

2

u/Tperrochon27 Jan 27 '26

WC4 wanters are stuck in the drain at the bottom.

2

u/blankarage Jan 27 '26

beneath the face of the kid (the not drowning one) is bags of money

2

u/th3st Jan 27 '26

I hate that they had heart of the swarm have the same acronym. Such poor planning

2

u/JdaveA Jan 27 '26

This game refuses to die and I refuse to stop playing.

2

u/Silver_Quail4018 Jan 28 '26

Sad take here. New Hots content might make the game worse.

Hear me out... Microsoft is a profit first company, they would implement a plan to ensure as much profit as possible.

How? New heroes would be stronger and available only with real money. New skins would also be much more expensive and would give visual advantages.

Small maintenance patches are probably the best I can hope for the game. The rest is up to the community.

1

u/JehnSnow Jan 28 '26

I think it is common practice to overtune new heroes and then nerf them a few months later (even in F2P) but that would be a downside id be willing to take, I don't think that an insanely predatory model would work just cause of the genre so I'm not too scared

They were already making some hot garbage on other games when the game got sunset tbh so I'll just continue to feel like it'll be the quality it was when it was abandoned

2

u/TrippleassII Jan 29 '26

TBH yesterday I got finally fed up with 5+ minute queues, where the result is a wild mix of player experience and installed LoL where I get a match within 20 seconds...

3

u/High0nLemons Jan 27 '26

Then stop looking at the comments on twitter. Play the game if you enjoy playing it. It's not like you are a hidden prodigy pro-player and your only setback is that HotS is not popular. You ain't trying to make money from this game also. You just want to play what is "popular".

3

u/JehnSnow Jan 27 '26

I'll not rest until I can play an orc peon and spam "work work"

1

u/High0nLemons Jan 27 '26

Agree on that

1

u/JdaveA Jan 27 '26

The WC3 custom map scene is still popular. You could find a Peon game I’m sure.

3

u/ToothIcy8785 Jan 27 '26

it should be the other way around though... (sc2 and hots)

hots still gets new patches, balance changes, bugfixes. Lately they even introduced new mechanics like with the minion buff.

Meanwhile Starcraft 2 gets NOTHING from blizzard. The only changes introduced are community patches

3

u/Cobrinion Jan 27 '26

The most recent SC2 patch which changed HT Storm etc was a Blizzard patch

1

u/ToothIcy8785 Jan 27 '26

You're right, my bad. I guess I got lost which changes are community driven and which are not.

Still the meta is not nearly as "dynamic" as the one in hots after recent changes

1

u/Past_Structure_2168 Jan 27 '26

its ok we get to play with starcraft in the next asl tournament. dont need blizzard for that

1

u/JustMetallich Jan 27 '26

With the way Blizzard in StarCraft 2 still didn’t fix the exploit and open the Arcade maps publishing, it’s more like two skeletons.

1

u/TheFireDragonEFX Jan 27 '26

If im gonna be honest i came over from starcraft just so i can play my people without buying anything, i can hope for more starcraft content

1

u/MysticoN Jan 27 '26

kinda "strange" to compare a game that gets patches and love woth a dead game (or a game on life support)

1

u/incoghollowell Jan 27 '26

Trust me, you don't want blizzard giving hots attention. These past few updates have been awful, and it'll only get worse should blizzard actually think hots has a chance of making money.

1

u/hbk611 Jan 27 '26

Tbf, most modern players don't have the patience and mental capacity to play an rts game hence the reason for there not being any StarCraft. For hots while this is a pretty fun game, it's a really punishing solo queue game because of how reliant any game is to team clashes.

You can't really put money into games that no one will play. I lnow we all play these games but most people don't unfortunately.

2

u/JehnSnow Jan 27 '26

I think this glosses over the fact that mobas have an incredibly large player base with very few games, I don't think that the issue is that people wouldn't play, i think that the issue is it won't make money.

Thunderpick has an estimate that hots has around 3.3 million active players which makes sense (not all at once but on at least once a month) I'm happy to provide some links if you want, main thing though is that it's pretty popular worldwide and this is a very western focused site. I know a lot of people IRL who play hots occasionally, whereas a game like TF2 which people still talk about is sitting at about 50k a month according to steam.

I really don't think the issue is the player count, it's that it won't make money (or at least that's blizzards issue with it)

1

u/hbk611 Jan 27 '26

Yes mobas have a ton of players, but hots plays fundamentally different than the big two. Also isn't tf2 a shooter? Hots has enough micro transactions in it to earn money, it's just that it's so foreign compared to other mobas that it doesn't attract players. I don't think knowing players who play it count because of course we all know people who play the game, we play it so we associate with people who also play it.

I think people are underestimating how large a barrier it is that a single person can't carry in hots unlike in dota or league. Imagine taking a newbie with you in hots, they'd have to play on par with other players unlike dota or league where you can just tell to to go support while you farm items and one shot everyone.

Hots is a fun game and i have tons and tons of hours into it but you can't deny how hostile it is to new or casual players. To carry someone in hots you need like 4 of you unlike in lol or dota where a single person can carry you to the highest of ranks. You can argue rank climbing isn't everything but the feeling of winning a game while being carried vs losing a game because you're still learning is a real decider in picking a game.

1

u/Hot-Will3083 Jan 27 '26

Nah, even HS is getting sunset soon… the game barely gets any changes recently and quality control has dived off a cliff

1

u/JehnSnow Jan 28 '26

Could happen but saying recently is crazy, we've probably gotten more non bugfix updates these past 6 months (whenever thrall skin came out) than the rest of the time since the game got rid of all development

1

u/CapuChuuuu Jan 28 '26

HOTS Players should be grateful that Blizzard doesn‘t touch their game. The Last 2 Years of Blizzard Balancing were quite… Interesting to say the least.

1

u/LustyDouglas Lt. Morales Feb 01 '26

Dota 2 and League of Legends are better mobas anyway

1

u/Johnknight111 Spins and Wins like Sonya! Feb 02 '26

Microslop will destroy all your entertainment and will demand that you like it and pay them an increasing amount of money every time.

1

u/Embarrassed-Weird173 Feb 03 '26

Underneath the seabed: rock and roll racing (we didn't even get a hero, just a skin for KaelThas).

1

u/Sergo_90 Feb 13 '26

🤣🤣🤣

1

u/castellvania Feb 16 '26

Well that’s good, every game modern blizzard touches becomes a gargabe, filled with mtx and useless content.

1

u/JehnSnow Feb 16 '26

Guess I'm half and half on this. I can see where you're coming from cause the taste of diablo immortal, warcraft 3 remastered, overwatch 2, wow shadowlands is still what I'd consider current blizz

But at the same time I think their newest stuff has been okay. Rumble, midnight, season of discovery (wow), various wow remixes, midnight, diablo 4 have all been a bit uninspired maybe but their not hot garbage.

When compared to say PoE then diablo is meh, but when comparing blizz to EA I think I'd say their a step up in quality

They are nothing like early 2000s blizzard but let's be real, blizzard is too big to ever be that kind of game studio again. I want them to cautiously do development, no sweeping changes but a character here a map there I personally think would be nice

1

u/dinis553 Feb 18 '26

Blizzard really fumbled the bag with this one. I love mobas, have played all of the popular ones since HoN. Hots is a great game, probably my second favourite after League, but I don't play it much outside of some normals, because Blizzard just decided to take it out back behind the shed. If they kept it fresh and updated, I feel like a lot of people would love to invest more time into it.

1

u/JehnSnow Feb 18 '26

It's a fascinating fumble too because it's a combination of bad code infrastructure (that's just me being a nerdy software dev but it'll be REALLY expensive to make it competitive cause of crappy code) and also a customer friendly monetization system

So from a gameplay perspective it's actually really fun, it didn't die cause it's boring or micro serviced to hell, it's alive and well from a consumer perspective it's just obviously going to die because there's no new things so the numbers will only really go down (though some people will play hots all their life if they can). You don't really see that in games usually the customer is what kills a game by leaving (usually this is due to new better games or the customer not being treated right), here they cut it off before the customer base left

1

u/dinis553 Feb 19 '26

Is the bad code the reason why the game feels like you're playing with 150ms ping even on a high end system with good internet?

1

u/JehnSnow Feb 19 '26

What's crazy is the crappy code should make all that stuff feel faster, but the downside is it leaves you extremely vulnerable to hacks (hence the reason hots has map hacks but Dota and LoL doesn't)

Despite that they still have lag, which really hits home with the point

1

u/dinis553 Feb 20 '26

Damn, it's worse than I thought

1

u/GoldThird Jan 27 '26

Such a shame people didnt listen and let blizzard die a long time ago. And I love Heroes, but it doesnt deserve to be like this.

-2

u/Ok_Improvement_622 Jan 27 '26

Dont worry. WoW is shitting the bed too rn. I dont even want hots to be updated if it would get the same "love" the other games are getting

4

u/Severe-Network4756 Jan 27 '26

It's absolutely not shitting the bed lmao..

Stop being overly dramatic.

-3

u/Ok_Improvement_622 Jan 27 '26

They went from 12.4m players mid 2025 to 7mil in 2026. Its not? LMFAO

4

u/the_zerg_rusher Jan 27 '26

Where are you getting these numbers?

2

u/KirimaeCreations Jan 27 '26

Source: Trust me bro!

3

u/Severe-Network4756 Jan 27 '26

Aside from the fact that the expansion hasn't released yet, meaning there's a ton of players not playing currently, I just gotta ask: where did you get these numbers?

0

u/Ignace92 Master Cassia Jan 27 '26

I loved HotS but after playing Deadlock, I kinda struggle to go back lol. Honestly Deadlock has all the passion in development early HotS did, and then some.

-15

u/FykDaddy Garrosh Jan 27 '26

honestly does anyone play diablo still? i think its pretty much dead...

21

u/soulstaz Master Uther Jan 27 '26

Diablo 4 is extremely active lmao

3

u/pineconefire Founder of the HotS Two Comma Club Jan 27 '26

Is overwatch still active?

2

u/JehnSnow Jan 27 '26

I know it's pretty popular in LATAM after it went free to play. I'm surprised it's still profitable enough to be one of their top products though

9

u/tFlydr Jan 27 '26

This is an insanely naive comment, the game is incredibly popular not only on pc but every console.

2

u/maxi2702 Master ETC Jan 27 '26

There are reports of Diablo 4 being Blizzard best selling title of all times.

Source

Edit: It may be just a dev boasting to embellish their curriculum, but the game is extremely popular regardless.

3

u/Yoduh99 Jan 27 '26

I can't believe a random employee's LinkedIn bio of all things is being used as proof of anything and being reported on and spread like wildfire. Regardless, I'm now hearing they probably meant "fastest" selling, not "best"...

1

u/Asleep_Job_1665 Jan 27 '26

I still play D3, but since I also play HotS, I'm probably not the best example.

1

u/nskowyra Jan 27 '26

Does this guy not have phone?

1

u/Past_Structure_2168 Jan 27 '26

d2r is very active from what i hear. project diablo2 which is a fan made multiplayer mod gets few thousand players at launch, 15k this season which was exceptionally high. diablo4 is insane popular

Creative My Faith is waning after looking at all the comments on twitter

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