Heroes of the Storm

[Skyblade]

So, I got into the closed beta for this, and I thought I'd provide some thoughts on it for those who are fans of MOBAs.

My experience with MOBAs isn't huge. I did play quite a bit of League of Legends for a while, and I have tried out DoTA2 (I played the original DoTA mod, but very, very little of it). So I'll mostly be using LoL for my base of comparison.

Overall, I like it. It makes some pretty significant changes to LoL's formulae. Some of them definitely help, others are a bit harder to rank.

One of the biggest early changes is the lack of an ability unlock system. This is simply fantastic. One of the biggest problems I had with LoL was how boring it was to play in the early game (especially for Carry characters, who I enjoyed the most overall). You were stuck with such limited utility that the entire first part of the game just felt like a grind to get to the point that you would actually start playing, which was halfway through the match. In Heroes of the Storm, you start with all of your abilities unlocked (except your ultimate), and you simply gain bonuses to them, or change the way they function, as you level up.

The level up mechanics have also been completely revamped. Teams now gain levels altogether. Experience is awarded for every kill within proximity of a hero, but this experience goes to the entire team. This means that you'll want each lane covered to make sure you keep the experience flowing, but you're no longer penalized for covering a lane away from the action, or doing one of the bonus objectives (which vary by map).

Jungling has been massively overhauled, and I definitely like the Heroes system. Instead of fighting creeps for gold, experience, or buffs, you fight creeps for their allegiance. There are far fewer mobs, and they're more difficult. But, when you defeat them, if you stand in their camp for a brief time, they'll join your force, adding their strength to the closest lane. This massively changes the dynamics. If you get down time, rushing to a camp, taking down the foes, and getting back into place has a significant impact on the constant tug-of-war. The camps respawn slower, so you're unlikely to have a hero jungling constantly, but when you can pick up a mercenary camp, it's worth doing so.

Many maps also have bonus objectives. In one map, there's a mine that you can run into and clear creeps from, earning points towards summoning a large undead golem for your team as you do so. It makes that map have a bit of a more traditional "MOBA jungle" feel to it. On another, a temple will temporarily turn on that acts as a powerful turret, attacking minions and even bases while it is active. So capturing it by defeating its guardian is a pretty strong incentive, though it isn't a make-or-break for victory. I still have yet to go through all the maps, but they all look to play differently and interestingly.

One of the biggest changes that MOBA veterans will notice: There is no gear. This actually shocked me at first. I was wondering if it was locked for the tutorial, but it just looks like the gear system is gone entirely. I have some mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I loved the sense of customization and control it gave you over your character, as well as the significant feelings of progression it added. On the other hand, everything else about it sucked. There were so many options to choose from, but there were only a handful that were actually useful for any given hero. There's a reason that half of the LoL community is centered around build guides. There are some pretty clear and defined "best items", and those vastly overruled personalization. It also added to the problem I mentioned at the beginning: Early on, your character was less fun to play because you didn't have those item buffs.

There is a definite gameplay benefit to leveling up in Heroes of the Storm, though. In addition to just doing more damage and having more health, every few levels, you'll get a choice of ability. These abilities are modifications to ones you already have. It can increase the range or AOE of an ability, or add a bonus effect to another. You start with only two choices for most of these, but as you use a particular hero more, you'll be able to get up to four choices, giving you a pretty decent degree of choice. This new system really appeals to me personally. Everything about if keeps you focused on winning. When I played LoL or DotA2, I was playing to fit my hero out the way I wanted, get my gear set and levels up, and I frequently didn't want to win because it would mean starting over in a new match as a boring starter hero again. Heroes of the Storm centers everything around progressing the match, and I find it makes for a much smoother gameplay experience overall. I was enjoying winning far more than I did in LoL or DotA2.


Finally, there's the tutorial. This is brilliant, and it really makes me sad that there isn't a full campaign mode. We have Jim Raynor yelling at Diablo that "it is just not possible to consume or taste fear or terror", and Diablo getting mad when Stitches backs Raynor up on this "fear no have taste". The tutorial is well paced, introduces you to concepts quickly, and is incredibly well written. There is so much potential for a full mode here, it's definitely going to be one of my biggest suggestions to Blizzard when responding to the beta (apart from the bugs and other issues I find, of course).



So, overall, I like it. It is a more noticeable shift in the MOBA standard than I thought DotA2 was, and I personally prefer playing it quite a bit more. I just think it's a bit better structured and focused. Is it enough to keep my playing any more than I do MOBAs overall? Maybe not (unless it gets a campaign mode, in which case I'll be playing it for a long, long time). But it's definitely worth keeping an eye out for if you're a fan of the genre.

[Bolivar]

One of my good friends has gotten sucked into this like crazy. Whenever we queue for Dota matches he can't stop talking about it.

Those changes sound awesome, especially the jungling for allegiance mechanic. The no gear and all abilities seem pretty reasonable and it sounds like they took a page from Call of Duty's book where the metagame's experience points only let you unlock variety, instead of something better.

The only thing that gives me pause about all the changes is that they sound like they're apart of the push in recent MOBAs to make the genre more accessible to newer players and give everybody something to do at each stage of the game, despite their role. I hate that! Haha but seriously, a part of me feels like if you're looking for a game to accommodate you, you shouldn't be playing MOBAs. Steep learning curves and hero diversity is what makes the genre so rewarding to me.

Anyhow, glad to hear you're enjoying it, Sky. If I ever take the plunge I'll be sure to let you know.

[Pike]

I'm in the beta or alpha or something for this but I haven't played it because MOBAs aren't really my thing. I keep thinking I should play it anyway since I'm in the beta but idk.

[Skyblade]

I'm in the beta or alpha or something for this but I haven't played it because MOBAs aren't really my thing. I keep thinking I should play it anyway since I'm in the beta but idk.

Honestly, if you're a fan of Blizzard's characters, at least play through the tutorial. You won't regret it.

If it is, in fact, free to play as I suspect it will be, that'll pretty much be my advice to anyone interested: Play the tutorial, it's worth it, and you'll get a chuckle out of it.

[Spuuky]

LoL has problems, but to me they don't stem from a lack of action in the early game (in fact, I find there's quite a lot of action and the laning phase of every MOBA is by far the most compelling part to me). Limitations on what you can do breed a creativity to accomplish what you can with very little. I also certainly can't possibly imagine not wanting to win because of my character's development; I am good at MOBAs because I don't just "want" to win, I am driven to win. And I certainly don't care much about the state my character is in, except inasmuch as it enables victory. Gaining levels and buying items are a means to an end. Although, you can get all your abilities except your ultimate in about the first 2 minutes of any game anyway; having them all unlocked already is not actually fundamentally different, there will still be abilities that are better early and abilities that are better late, it's just a narrower band.

LoL's biggest problem to me is that it's been driven to a state with very locked-in roles which are hard to deviate from. To some degree the itemization has this problem, but it's mostly the jungle mechanics that drive in that game in my opinion. Or did, when I played it. Dota is much more flexible about both items and lanes/roles, even if people will bitch at any unorthodoxy still.

It's impossible to judge this without playing it, of course, but my initial concern would be that, if there are fewer paths to customization through items, and fewer things to consider (like gold management), the game would become too simplistic for the kind of time I put into them. I want a game that's essentially as complex as is reasonable possible without adding complexity just for its own sake. I want to be able to play a game forever and never stop learning more subtleties and nuances; a game with fewer core mechanics will always lean away from that.

[Bolivar]

LoL has problems, but to me they don't stem from a lack of action in the early game (in fact, I find there's quite a lot of action and the laning phase of every MOBA is by far the most compelling part to me). Limitations on what you can do breed a creativity to accomplish what you can with very little. I also certainly can't possibly imagine not wanting to win because of my character's development; I am good at MOBAs because I don't just "want" to win, I am driven to win. And I certainly don't care much about the state my character is in, except inasmuch as it enables victory. Gaining levels and buying items are a means to an end. Although, you can get all your abilities except your ultimate in about the first 2 minutes of any game anyway; having them all unlocked already is not actually fundamentally different, there will still be abilities that are better early and abilities that are better late, it's just a narrower band.

I seem to recall a certain Spuuky praising LOL for fixing Dota's apparent problem of a "boring" early game! Hahaha but seriously I agree with you about having all abilities unlocked isn't a drastic change. I typically have all my abilities unlocked at level 4, with 2 points in a nuke/stun and a point in each of the others. It still seems like HotS' approach does add in some flavor, though, considering at level 1, no one really does anything but auto-attack, especially for heroes with a defensive passive which makes sense to take first. At the same time, the low mana pool of level 1 heroes also inhibits using abilities, so I wonder if HotS actually isn't different at all from the early game of other mobas. Any thoughts on that Sky?

Even still, I think it's great that Blizzard is messing with these ideas as it joins the MOBA fray. Valve also plays with the her build formula and creep behavior during Dota 2's seasonal co-op events, so I wonder if some of these ideas might make it into those at some point.

[Skyblade]

LoL has problems, but to me they don't stem from a lack of action in the early game (in fact, I find there's quite a lot of action and the laning phase of every MOBA is by far the most compelling part to me). Limitations on what you can do breed a creativity to accomplish what you can with very little. I also certainly can't possibly imagine not wanting to win because of my character's development; I am good at MOBAs because I don't just "want" to win, I am driven to win. And I certainly don't care much about the state my character is in, except inasmuch as it enables victory. Gaining levels and buying items are a means to an end. Although, you can get all your abilities except your ultimate in about the first 2 minutes of any game anyway; having them all unlocked already is not actually fundamentally different, there will still be abilities that are better early and abilities that are better late, it's just a narrower band.

I seem to recall a certain Spuuky praising LOL for fixing Dota's apparent problem of a "boring" early game! Hahaha but seriously I agree with you about having all abilities unlocked isn't a drastic change. I typically have all my abilities unlocked at level 4, with 2 points in a nuke/stun and a point in each of the others. It still seems like HotS' approach does add in some flavor, though, considering at level 1, no one really does anything but auto-attack, especially for heroes with a defensive passive which makes sense to take first. At the same time, the low mana pool of level 1 heroes also inhibits using abilities, so I wonder if HotS actually isn't different at all from the early game of other mobas. Any thoughts on that Sky?

Even still, I think it's great that Blizzard is messing with these ideas as it joins the MOBA fray. Valve also plays with the her build formula and creep behavior during Dota 2's seasonal co-op events, so I wonder if some of these ideas might make it into those at some point.

Mana is a problem based on heroes. With Raynor (the guy you play during the tutorial, a basic ranged auto attack dps hero), I could use his abilities fairly freely as I needed to with no real trouble. While Raynor is a hero who does his damage primarily through his auto-attacks, with abilities buffing them or providing supplementary effects, other heroes work differently. Jaina is a mage whose abilities control most of her raw damage potential. So mana management was a little bit more of a problem for her, so you will want to keep an eye on the healing shrines and such as you go.

That reminds me to mention another feature: Each lane's "turret" is a little more complicated than they are in LoL. Instead of just a single turret, there is a gate flanked by two turrets. Within the gate is a small fort and a healing shrine. The fort can auto attack, but has limited ammunition that regenerates over time. The healing shrine can be clicked by a hero of that team to put a health and mana regen buff on themselves. It regenerates about half of total health or mana, and can be used once every minute.

These changes shift the dynamic a bit. The gate is a hard wall that foes of the enemy team cannot pass through until they destroy it. It will come down with the turrets, or you can focus fire it to take it down by itself (turrets only attack you if there are no minions around, even if you're attacking heroes, so you can stage attacks through a downed gate with a little planning). The healing shrines are preferable to using a hearthstone to return to base, but they don't heal you to full, so knowing when to go all the way back is important. Perhaps more important, though, is that losing a base node can have a bit more significant of an impact on your team. Because you're losing that healing shrine, which means you lose a staging point and have to return to base more often.

[Spuuky]

Well, LoL's laning phase is better than Dota's, yes. But both are the best part of each game.

[Tavrobel]

So far, Hearthstone of the Swarm seems to struggle simply because the player base isn't large enough. The meta would evolve faster, and more people would figure out how to do things optimally if there were more players for the pros to make victims out of.

The biggest complaint about the game seems to be that they removed items as a form of progression and that there is no last hitting. To me, last hitting in lane (only in lane) is a relic of an aged Warcraft III creep system where neutral camps were worth fighting over, and particular amounts of gold from camps were factored into a player's build on each individual map. The way that neutral camps are in HotS makes them worth fighting over without needing money to be the resource reward. Having extra creeps push a lane at the right time is reward enough itself, if you know what you are doing.

Items as progression are replaced by levels as progression, and skill modifications (like Diablo III runes) factor more into how you must play your character. A Valla with Strafe is a very different beast compared to a Valla with stunning-airstrikes.

It's too early to really make a judgment on whether this "casual" game will succeed. I want to see more players and champions. I feel a lot of people have already made up their mind simply because of the previous two complaints. These are the people who you know to avoid. It's because they're bad at video games and they can't stop themselves from being bads.

LoL's laning phase is better than Dota's

I like jokes.

[Spuuky]

Me too. But I also like casting spells. Dota's laning phase is inferior for the following reasons:

1. Creep pulling is an asinine mechanic
2. Denying is still stupid even though it is skill-testing
3. (the big one): Many heroes in Dota can't actually do anything in lane, except sit passively and wait. Is it fun to idle invisibly in the offlane as Bounty Hunter? Is it fun to have 1 or maybe 2 total spell casts with Sven in the first 6 minutes?

In LoL I actually get to interact with the opposing hero. And I say this as a Dota player exclusively these days, because that's what my friends play.

[Bolivar]

Man I really want to derail this thread right now.

[Spuuky]

Please do, all MOBAs are MOBAs and we should discuss how much better they are than other games.

[Tavrobel]

Man I really want to derail this thread right now.

inb4 Bloodline Champions

Me too. But I also like casting spells.

Laning is about control, and anything that gives you more options to exert control (or lose it if you do it incorrectly) is fundamentally more interesting. Taking away options under the guise of it being a counter-intuitive mechanic feels patronizing. And when options to perform in the lane are taken away, that takes away opportunities for me to outplay my opponent.

If your primary argument is that League's laning is better simply because you get to overtly interact with your opponent by throwing spells at them then I can't really help you. To me, I interact with my opponent just as much, but I don't have to use my spells to do it. I accomplish this by playing the lane correctly.

Your example of using Bounty Hunter and "doing nothing" in lane shows to me that you didn't play the game at a high level. Maybe he got in a ton of harass when I went in for a CS. Maybe I just didn't position properly. If I die, it's because I suck and the opponent outplayed me. I don't hide behind the excuse that "it's not fun because I didn't do anything."

I'm never doing nothing, no matter the match up. Just because I didn't use a spell on my opponent doesn't mean that I'm not actively engaged in winning my lane, either by last-hitting properly, by denying properly, pulling creeps, ferrying items via the courier, or roaming to secure control over the rune. These are all opportunities for me to come back into a position to where I can contribute to winning the game. But in League, I don't have these opportunities. And people wonder why League is called "League of Snowballing."

Sven has a point-click stun that lasts for two seconds at level 1. That can win lane by itself, but apparently it's unfortunate that he needs to be gated behind mana costs? Can you imagine if he weren't gated by mana costs? He would win every duo lane. Or perhaps we can consider that his other skills (+armor aura, cleave) give up control because they either keep your creeps alive longer than they should, or you mess up your own CSing. How about Taric from League? He can't use his point-click stun more than three times without burning his mana pool, and his has a random range from half a second to one second.

I like jokes, but it's clear that what makes me laugh is not the same as what makes you laugh.

It's okay. People don't have to understand the brilliance of Jungle Taric.

[Spuuky]

So you're saying that because Sven's stun is poorly scaled we have to gate it with mana costs? No thanks, man. I never said Sven was bad, or weak. It's stupid design. Dota has some serious design flaws with specific heroes and skills, which survive only due to nostalgia and a deep fear of change in the community.

If you think BH does anything in a high-level game's laning phase other than be an experience sponge, then I'm afraid you haven't played the right games. He's a classic offlane sacrifice against an aggro trilane. He has no intention of doing anything in that lane; he's a tactical piece which the team is using to get ahead elsewhere, because he can do OK with just levels initially. I've watched plenty of pro-games. Tri-lanes aren't really in favor anymore, but it was just an example. There are a lot of lane scenarios where your job is largely "don't get blown out" and if you do that, you can win. And there's nothing wrong with that, but that basically never happens in LoL.

Laning is about control, and anything that gives you more options to exert control (or lose it if you do it incorrectly) is fundamentally more interesting.

Says the guy who thinks having fewer spells available makes for a better laning phase...?

I love the laning phase of both games more than any other part of any game ever, probably. LoL's is better, and you have a ton of options with your spells and abilities and positioning, still.

My experience in pub games is this: In LoL, the team with the best player typically wins. In Dota, the team with the worst player typically loses. On the actual subject of the thread, I'd be interested to see which side HotS veers to.

[Skyblade]

I am not one of the standard targets for the MOBA genre. I play strictly co-op vs AI, as I largely hate (and suck at) competitive play. So I probably can't answer those questions.

But, going through the forums and looking at those who are members, a few things have come to consensus.

First, the game has some balance problems. Stitches is apparently by far the best hero, and you won't see a team without him. The talents fall into the same trouble that items and talent trees have in the past. Currently, most heroes do have a set build of "best talents". Which, especially since there is a balance problem with the heroes encouraging particular heroes over others, means that builds are very stagnant right now.

Second, while the competitive players aren't sure how the game is going to turn out long-run, they have agreed that this game has the greatest come-from-behind potential of any other major MOBA.