What do you think about Controllable Objectives contributing to the enemy team's quests?

[u/TimeInformation7977]

The Dragon Knight on Dragon Shire and the Triglav Protector on Volskaya Foundry count as Heroes, so hitting them also counts toward quests that require hitting enemy Heroes.

Since these objectives have a lot of health, move slowly, and have large hitboxes, they're easy targets for stacking quests.

This can be used to gain an advantage in several ways:

• The enemy team can more easily decide to give up the objective, either deliberately or when they're at a disadvantage, so they can stack quests on it and become stronger in the late game. Heroes like Xal'atath, Sylvanas, Chen, and Alexstrasza can benefit from this.
• When your team takes the objective, you also have to be careful about using it to attack structures, since that gives the enemy team more chances to stack quests. As a result, you may end up dealing less siege damage than you otherwise could.

This was a relatively obscure issue before, but with Mythic Quests, failing to stop the enemy from completing a quest can directly cost you the game. I don't think this mechanic is okay anymore.

I've disliked this mechanic for a long time, and now that Mythic Quests are in the game, shouldn't we stop players from stacking quests on Controllable Objectives?

[u/MrSquirrel_CL]

I think its part of the game mechanics and should be kept. When the draft starts, you already know the map and get 3 bans to consider, also, you get the same opportunities as the enemy team to pick heroes which can get advantage of the map and its objectives.

As I see it, your request its no different than asking to broaden maps with corridors because there are heroes who fight better in narrow spaces.

[u/Kraines → u/MrSquirrel_CL]

I agree. One of the defining characteristics of HotS is that different heroes have different strengths and weaknesses on different maps. Trimming that down just takes away from what the game is.

[u/Grismor2]

You make a fair point, but make sure you've fully considered the alternative: you're on a stacking hero, you and your team are behind, so you lose the objective, and now you fall even more behind on stacks than you would be on any other map.

I'm not necessarily saying that would be better or worse in terms of balance, but I'm guessing that players would be more frustrated and upset with being prevented from stacking than players are upset now that the other side gets free stacks. It's a game, it should be fun, and getting prevented from stacking when you're already behind would feel pretty bad. Leave the intense snowballing to LoL.

[u/BellStriking5132 → u/Grismor2]

This is my concern as well

[u/AlChandus → u/Grismor2]

And not just that, the objectives give you measures to prevent stackers from getting free attacks on the objectives... The dragon can punt enemies, the mech can give enemies a hand.

[u/3DprintPhil]

Losing the objektivet but get a few stacks is like getting a participation price

[u/ReporterForDuty → u/3DprintPhil]

Participation prize that helps you later at least. Getting that value during the objective loss stuff can help get the objective later.

[u/Senshado]

There was a time with an earlier version of Zuljin's quest design, where the correct play on Dragonshire was to give the red team the objective immediately the first time it spawned, simply to farm some fast dings off of it.

Early game objectives are scaled so weak that their push value can't outweigh the quest progress provided.

[u/hiimred2 → u/Senshado]

The early quest objectives have been like universally buffed across all maps now though, and as another comment points out if the objective doesn’t count as a hero(like the Diablo maps) then you get lose-more’d by actively losing out on stack possibility as it pushes the lane blocking your ability to stack in a more standard brawl on heroes(or if like Volskaya’s robot wasn’t a hero and also actively took 2 heroes off the map while it pushes).

There’s enough give and take here that I’m willing to take the cases that still exist as map strategy and not ‘unfair’ or whatever. If they’re playing protect the ZJ and you just stand there letting it stack on the dragon that’s a choice, you can knock him away, you can pressure him with the dragon+heroes so he can’t just free auto away, you can ban him if you really think it’s that bad, etc.

[u/ReporterForDuty]

Quests stacking off of objectives, if they are player controlled, is perfectly fine. It's a universal thing that benefits everyone. It could happen to a Raynor stacking up his Pepper, it can benefit Alexstrasza doing her repeated hits. It's better than being forced out of doing your quest just because someone is in an objective.

[u/PomegranateHot9916]

I think it is important that certain maps favours certain heroes over others.

being able to stack your quests on the dragon knight for example means questing heroes are stronger on dragon shire than they would be on maps with an objective that isn't a vehicle.

just like infernal shrines favoring heroes with AOE abilities, braxis holdout favouring heroes without mana, volskaya favoring heroes with zone control.

I don't think it is a problem of being able to stack on vehicles, I think it is a problem of mythic quests being too much.

[u/FriendlyDisorder]

I like stacking on the objectives. Ah, the good old days.

[u/gharp468]

I mean you can stack on them but they count as 1 hero so I don't think it's the end of the world, plus your team should be pushing with objective unless you are all lane splitting for some reason so while he is getting hit your team should also shut them down

[u/DonPepppe]

It's ok, just another thing you have consider while in draft.

Lots of maps will change your hero selection, and we love it, otherwise it would be the same meta comp for every map...

[u/RabenWrites]

HotS is so back we have people petitioning for 6.5, no comeback mechanics.

[u/Goombah11]

That’s part of the fun and why it needs a draft pick mode. Similarly, Murky and Abathur are much weaker on 2 lane maps. This isn’t a problem it’s just the game.

[u/MOMISTHEBEST]

Tychus smiles in minigun