A defining characteristic of Heroes of the Storm the developer Blizzard loves to highlight is the fact that average match lengths are much shorter than those in Dota 2 and League of Legends. While that’s still the case, data compiled by dedicated fans suggests HOTS game times are gradually increasing.
Using data drawn from the influential fan site Hotslogs, Heroes player and Reddit user yutinxiang found that average game length has been steadily creeping up over the course of the summer. With the exception of the two smallest maps in HOTS (which understandably produce the shortest matches), most games compiled now run over twenty minutes:
Previously, Blizzard has told Kotaku and many other sources that the majority of Heroes of the Storm games run under 20 minutes.
Is this a hugely important shift? No, at least not yet. But Heroes of the Storm only left beta at the beginning of the summer. If game length continues to climb the way it has since its official launch, the developer will likely need to account for it in some way — if it wants to maintain its reputation at the quick-and-easy MOBA.
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3 responses to “Heroes Of The Storm Games Are Getting Longer”
I think the match maker is getting better as it builds up more and more data about each player. Also there is a much greater diversity in skill levels etc now than before. In the early days it would dump you in a game with lvl30’s when you were on lvl3 and you’d get wiped. Pretty much every games I played either ended with us absolutely wiping the floor or them, no close games.
These days it seems to match make better so you get closer matches in skill level and therefore the games last a bit longer.
I still sometimes get games when 4 of the other team are rank 1 and i get steamrolled. I really dont understand why they cant spread them out over both teams.
I think it’s due to the player base knowing what to expect. We’ve all played the maps enough now that we know what works and what doesn’t. You can no longer just expect to be able to steam roll lanes either as people will leap on any uncontested specialists.
HotS’s short match length was always an artificially enforced constraint anyway, and something I considered a major flaw in the game. It’s a result of respawn timers increasing MASSIVELY faster than they do in LoL, Smite, or Dota 2, to the point that by the 10-15 minute mark a single death will keep you out of the game for about a full minute- something that doesn’t happen until well after the 30 minute mark in LoL. It’s part of what makes the game so insanely snowbally- if you start to die a lot, your entire team will be crippled and will die more and lose more objectives. It’s a large part of why I find HotS a very disappointing game and don’t bother with it much.
I’m not a HOTS player, but looking at those graphs looks like something happened late June… Was there an update or something around then?