Heroes of the Storm

[Minos]

Anyone interested post their battle.net emails here (email, not battle tag) and region and I'll add you to the list

 

(please don't spread this around, I have a very limited amount of invites)

[Deh0lise]

Anyone interested post their battle.net emails here (email, not battle tag) and region and I'll add you to the list

 

(please don't spread this around, I have a very limited amount of invites)

Thank you Minos! ¿do you mind PMs? bots search for emails in open forums, and then they send pill offers to last longer and get bigger, and we don't need em... we're mapcorians you know.

[Skjalg]

I just got a key last week, but thank for offering Minos

[Minos]

 

Anyone interested post their battle.net emails here (email, not battle tag) and region and I'll add you to the list

 

(please don't spread this around, I have a very limited amount of invites)

Thank you Minos! ¿do you mind PMs? bots search for emails in open forums, and then they send pill offers to last longer and get bigger, and we don't need em... we're mapcorians you know.

 

 

Yeah sure

[Izuno]

In related MOBA news, EA cancelled Dawngate.

 

Notice as of now at http://www.ea.com/dawngate there is no mention of that.

 

But then http://www.ea.com/news/an-update-on-dawngate

 

A bit off topic from HotS but still is is related given how hard it is to compete in MOBA now. Very few operators in the space have the resources to compete with LoL and Dota 2. As I have said Blizzard is likely the only one who can really pull something off and EA, in theory, is another given they do at least have money and a lot of smart people but shit, MOBA ain't easy to compete in from a product development perspective.

[Minos]

Some new stuff coming soon. Including... the Lost Vikings!

[holiestcows]

Yeah Blizzcon was pretty great.

[holiestcows]

Played a few versus matches today. I have to admit, it is quite a refreshing take on the MOBA genre and its super smooth, so thats cool. I do sometimes get overwhelmed in team fights, but I believe thats due to me not knowing what all characters do yet.

[Sjonsson]

I've sat down with HoS for about a week and a half now. Finished about 30 matches and I have to agree it's actually refreshing.

There is something I have mixed feelings about, that is the complete removal of individual progression. What do I mean by that? Well, in HoS there is global experience, no items and in that sense no personal economy - every gain or loss is for the team. This is something that definitely makes HoS stand out in comparison with other MOBAs where individual progression (or regression) is even encouraged by gold loss on death, EXP loss when you're not in range for XP gains et cetera.

In my opinions HoS take on this is mostly better except when you are playing Solo Queue, that is getting matched up with random players as randomized teams always have weaker communication and teamplay overall. When you cannot get individual gains you cannot carry the matches and therefore HoS take will hinder you as a solo player.

Another thing I don't like about HoS is the lack of items since that removes a layer of personalizing your way of playing a character and adapting to the match on the fly.

My view of HoS is that Blizz have wanted to streamline the design and remove layers that does not facilitate teamplay. Also it is clear that the design does not contain very many rubberband mechanics, it is driven by snowball mechanics - if you lose a fight, you're gonna lose a tower or even a fort and it's irreversible which leads to shorter matches.

I'm not sure whether EXP gain is based on how big the EXP gap between the teams are but I haven't noticed anything so far.

I really like that HoS is objectives driven and not frags-driven.

All in all, I like it even though I miss certain extra layers from other MOBAs I played.


TLDR; I like HoS but I'm missing the extra layers.

Yes, I take my MOBAs very seriously.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Sjonsson

[Erratic]

everyone heals, everyone can teleport, everyone can dodge and if they can't do any of that shit they go invis. Battles are mostly incoherent and too fast and most of your decisions don't matter until about midway through the game. Did I mention that everything heals

 

also the game somehow managed to be less transparent than dota in terms of hero capabilities. The perk system is probably too granular and none of it is identifiable in game. you can check other player skills in the scoreboard but I can't remember any of that shit and it takes up the whole screen.

 

i appreciate short matches though

Edited November 20, 2014 by Erratic

[Sjonsson]

Also this happend. Valla (me) and Diablo wombocombo. It was super coool!

[Deh0lise]

Ok, I've been able to play it (thanks Minos!), and got a positive first impression, but there are few aspects I'm not sure about.

 

The game seems to follow the "easy to play hard to master" Blizzard approach to games, though it seems like it is more casual oriented as it doesn't seem to take that much of knowledge and time to get into the mastering part of the learning curve, it ends up being more about basic skills and teamplay.

 

This last part is not bad as it opens to a bigger amount of audience, not just hardcore gamers, and enforces a less individualistic and bad behavioured attitude. One example is the experience system, that seems to be global (no last hitting), or blocking the ability to chat with the other team (I miss that). The closer camera + the progressive revelation of heroes and their abilities seems to be a good strategy to engage new players (specially casuals), but I'm worried about retention of good old players, mastering the game seems easier (as Sjonsson said, there are not even items to pick up, so there are less variables).

 

The strong point are the levels, they can add those lacking variables I mentioned, though currently most of them feel a bit the same (go kill special creeps till you win) ,besides the mines one (opens more playfield) and the canons one (you can actually steal and the ship is overpowered). I think it could be a hit if they actually work on making the levels more interesting and harder to master. For example interactive game mechanics with the environment like actively breaking a path to encourage a certain strategy, maybe activate traps (flamethrower?, spikes? air pushing players?) to make micromanagement interesting to compensate the lack of items, or stuff like that. By now, despite they're greater than the plain dota like level, most of them kinda share the same feeling. Damn, I'd love to make such levels! this is what I like about mapping, dota was a turn off for me in that respect.

 

If I had to classify this game not using the new MOBA denomination, I'd call it third person action game. It moves away from other game mechanics: the rpg diablo like games (studying a massive amount of items to get the perfect combination) and rts ones like warcraft3 (many stuff to manage, fast paced games with multiple variables). It is more of a simple action game with few spells. I like it, I'll play it more, but needs more complexity to suit me (harder levels?).

 

My two cents.

 

P.S I solo queue, so my experience is not "full" right now.

[FrieChamp]

I've never said 'thanks' for the key, Mino, so here goes: Dankeschön!! I've played 30+ matches, even bought a hero and haven't played LoL since. To be fair, even though both are MOBAs, they play very different. HOTS is a good example of Blizzard innovating an existing game formula by removing everything tedious and too complicated and giving it a slightly different spin. Arguing over who takes what hero is eleminated by choosing before game matching. Walking long distances isn't fun, that's why they added mounts. Skill trees are more accessible and straightforward than item shops. I like the mercenary camps, but I'm not decided on the map-specific gimmicks yet. Often I feel like there is too much going on at a time, but man, prototyping these map ideas must have been fun  The game feels pretty polished already for an "Alpha" but I'm sure there's still plenty of work on the balancing to be done.

 

I even installed the game on my Ultrabook that I took to my parents over Christmas. Sadly that didn't run so well, so I downloaded Hearthstone on my iPad and I'm back to that for the time being. Looking forward to what the Closted Beta Phase will bring though!

[Vilham]

I should probably play this now I have access to the beta.

[Puddy]

Anyone at blizcore who still has a little key for Puddy?