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It is a widespread belief that games made by Hi-rez are destined to fail. Companies who are doing promotions for it are bound to go bankrupt. I can personally count two companies who promoted Paladins and went bankrupt. Same Hi-Rez curse hangs over all of their projects, ever counting down time until they pull the switch.

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I cannot say that game had a lot of potential, because there was a time when it lived up to its potential. It was fun, balanced and deep. However, Hi-Rez managed ever elusive achievement - to decrease game quality with their continuous efforts. It is a rare case where we should be buying lootboxes in order to keep Hi-Rez from developing this game. Most of what was done after release was mostly either neutral or negative. I highlighted few of those cases in a video:
https://youtu.be/kvYQPJqxL8M

Outaded
• Game maps look horrible. They lack details and seem more like early versions maps meant for testing rather than play. Environment lacks textures as there often just some blur put on them. Then it is simply bland as it lacks elements to make environment lively. Maps are one of the worst I had seen.
  https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3173750683
  This picture illustrates what I'm talking about. Look how washed out colors are even for death screen. Then at bottom right look how text, picture and border overlaps and conflicts with each other. Now look at the terrain, falls. Only most basic texture is applied to them and as a result, game looks horribly outdated.
  
  Even more, all modern maps seem to be badly designed. You want map to have direct progression where enemy can form a frontline and enemy flanks flank you. However, newer maps do not have solid frontline as enemy can easily come over top of your team all of the sudden or approach from every direction without having to spend much time flanking. This creates a terrible feeling of an arcade game where a solid frontline never develops and it feels like Deathmatch with quick respawns as everyone runs around them map. Any effort to push objective gets punished as you get flanked from all sides and ambushed.
  
  Unfinished
  
• After 6 years of development game feels more underdeveloped than it was before release. It is missing music in game. Its interface pops over GUI elements. Transition screens are sudden. Score screen is confusing mess with nonsensical icons, layout and over-abundance of information.
  https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3173751401

Over the years, Hi-Rez just kept adding new heroes. That is a short sighted policy to monetize your game as you cannot create many truly unique, fun and balanced heroes. The more you add, the greater support burden, unless...you do not plan to support them to begin with?

Heroes
• That sadly was the case. Game is notoriously bugged stemming from the fact that developers were vomiting content into the game. Now code is a mess which barely holds up according to youtubers. I'm however far more concerned about hero balance. As developers tried to monetize new heroes, they added ever more powerful heroes which can do...just everything better. Game has too many heroes to ever balance. Most new heroes are incredibly bursty. Most new tanks are insanely tanky. At the same time, old heroes are noticeably weaker. Terminus for example completely outclasses Ferninando to the point it becomes pointless to play him. Skye's bursty nature is no longer an exception. There are plenty of heroes which can burst just as well as her without endangering themselves. This game feels like a cheap knock off or something created by modders. Just because you can add something, doesn't mean that you should. No consideration is made for game's balance or even if hero works within game's engine.
  
  Store
  
• Store is a mess. It never got an update after game's release. Now it looks cheap and outdated compared to Overwatch. More than that, everything in the store is incredibly expensive while veterans rarely need to consider purchasing anything due to gluttony of gold. The experience is horrible. You are hit with countless monetization options which are expensive as hell and provide very little value. That is more, skins are locked inside the 8 euro lootboxes. This means that even if you want to spend money, you cannot. Hi-Rez never invested in their store. In presentation of their content. They never tried to create an appealing monetization system and instead just ramped up content production which in turn ruined the game. Paladins is what happens when game is financially mismanaged.

Trying to play old favourites felt really bad. Skye used to be a lot better. She had similar amount of damage as new heroes, but she has a terrible kit AND she has to go to basically melee range and to unleash her magazine on unsuspecting enemy in order to fulfil her burst potential. Same was with her bomb. On its own, it was really difficult to get value from aware opponents. It takes right timing to get value out of it. Her entire kit did not boosted her damage, only allowed her to flank or to escape. However, every new hero seems to do her levels of damage from any range. Has superior mobility options with something in their kits helping them to deal damage or allows them to deal more damage.

Then there are baffling choices. Skye could perma-stealth. That was fun, but took a lot of skill to really make proper use of it. Especially when you consider that an alternative hero had something which would help them in a fight. Then they took Barik's turret. Now you can only have one and it is so weak that it is barely usable. His ultimate was also nerfed to the ground as your flame turret does same damage, but now comes without a shield thus making it very fragile when you NEED to zone out opponents. Barik is a great example how an old hero with a niche was nerfed over time and power creeped.

Game balance is in shambles. As old heroes with clear strengths and weaknesses are gone. Drogoz could fly, but was clumsy and could not fight aware opponents. Evie's mobility is too clumsy to use in combat and she couldn't duel opponents. Fernando was a great point guardian, but he lacked in mobility and damage potential. A lot of heroes had clear strengths and weaknesses. You could play against or with those weaknesses by choosing how you spend your cards customizing heroes. However, nowadays it feels that every hero can three shot you in a second without even aiming. Game balance feels terrible and it was never properly designed. Everything was power creeped up and TTK (time to kill) went significantly down, chaning how it feels to play Paladins.

Paladins was one of my classical games and it is never easy to say goodbye to one as it is hard to say hello to a new one. Paladins was a great game. It has an amazing vision. It was the best hero shooter on the market. Its passing had left the hole. What other games are out there? Team Fortress 2? Butchered with community content. Overwatch 2? Butchered by Blizzard. Other games? Completely different in nature. There are no other good hero shooters out there and its passing had left hole which won't be filled for many years to come.

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