For reasons that are not important, I was unable to play League for a while. I decided to give Hots a try as a possible replacement until i could play League again. At first it was exciting and fun, but as I leveled up and got more familiar with the game and it's champions, I started realizing that Hots could never replace League for me. Hots is not a bad game. It's actually a good and fun game, but don't expect to like it for the reasons you like League.
The number one problem for me is that carrying is impossible. In League, you get a shit team, you can farm up, get strong and murder everyone. Or maybe you're a good support, in which case you can get one of you carries fed through good play. In Hots, everyone on your team shares XP and there are no individual levels, the whole team levels up at the same time ensuring that no one person on either team is stronger than his team mates. You get a garbage team in Hots, it's GG. Nothing you can do. There is no concept of individual performance. You can only pray that your team is better than the enemy team.
The next frustrating thing about Hots is broken champions. You have Tracer, who is like Ezreal with Lucian's dashes and no cooldowns. She just darts around killing everyone and there is nothing anyone can do to stop her. You have Varian who has a Kayle ult every few seconds and does a lot of damage. You have Butcher who gets as tanky as Sion while doing assassin level damage. As a matter of fact, he is classed as an assassin. You have Genji, who is just like Tracer, non-stop dashes and blinks but like Varian, gets a Kayle ult every few seconds. After playing Hots, I realized that there is no such as a broken champion in League. You want to see broken shit, play Hots. Riot would never design champions like Tracer or Varian.
On the flip side, there are champions that apparently are shit. I got chewed out for simply picking Raynor, not even a hour before writing this post. According to my more seasoned team mates, Valla does what Raynor does but better and I got snide remarks all game for the pick. Even bad/weak/non-meta champions in League are viable in all but the highest levels of play.
Another thing I found annoying was the grind. Champions are super expensive compared to League and gold gains(Gold is the equivalent to IP/Blue essence) in Hots are very very small. It's a hell of a grind, even to buy the cheapest champions. There are daily quests which give large payouts so it helps but it still feels like a grind.
One other interesting thing about it is that they players are far less toxic than League players. Though I can't speak for ranked play. But my experience so far in it's version of norms is that everyone is friendly. You get toxic people from time to time but no where near as bad as League. Personally for me, it doesn't make a difference. I don't care one iota about toxicity, so this is a neutral point for me. However, the thin skinned people who get bent out of shape over some nobody calling them names on the internet would probably enjoy Hots better than League for that reason.
Hots is really not a bad game and I still play it but I play it more casually. I stopped caring about winning or losing. I don't really care to learn it's more complicated meta. When I'm feeling to play more competitively, I play League. Hots is all about team play which sounds good on paper but the reality is, you will get shit teams more often than not in ANY team game, be it League, Hots or whatever. You need to have some kind of ability to impact the game as an individual. Hots doesn't offer that.
Play it, but play it as it's own game. Don't expect to like it just because you like League. It's a totally likable and fun game but it's not League of Legends. Just remember that and you will enjoy it.
