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[Maledict]

How the hell do you balance 68 characters? That sounds like a nightmare.

League of Legends and Dota have 100+ characters. And heck, games of agic are played in environments with literally thousands of cards being playable at once.

The aim isn't to perfectly balance everything (you can't). It's to make sure nothing is overwhelming overpowered, and then rely on the natural meta-game to keep things balanced. Make sure there are safety valves - if one strategy or hero gets too powerful, make sure there's another hero who can counter it.

I'ts not like a fighting game or RPG where yo need really precisely balanced stuff. Having more heroes in some ways makes it easier to balance, not less.

 

[Weebos]

Might do the classic install -> login -> logout -> uninstall.

 

[BlisterBrown]

Wow this is insane. I play this when I get sick of league, but I might start playing it more now! Tank/Brusier bundle gonna be so much fun :3

 

[Prelude.]

Holy shit, and I thought 5 free heroes for the first Nexus Challenge was a lot.
The bundle is gonna be tough to choose, the tank and support ones only have 3 characters that I own, so those would have the most value for me. The assassin one is super good but I already own 7. Hmm. I'll probably go with the tank one.

 

[mullet2000]

So is flex the way to go for a new player?

It's the only one without Overwatch characters. 😭

 

[Kasper]

I've just reinstalled the game so this is perfect timing.

 

[Maledict]

So is flex the way to go for a new player?

It's the only one without Overwatch characters. 😭

Nah, choose the one that has the heroes you think you'l like playing. Id suggest trying the game and seeing what role you prefer the most first.

 

[SRTtoZ]

The Assassin mega bundle will be MINE.

 

[hampig]

Wow, really awesome. This might help some people who think that the F2P model is too steep get their foot in the door. With that many heroes you can definitely carry yourself into getting all the heroes you'd be likely to be interested in for free.

And as far as the best pack for a new player, I'd say any but Assassin would be fine. Try to stick with Muradin, Johanna, Arthas, Lili, Valla, or Raynor if this is your first time to a Moba for at least a few games. They'll help you get the basics down, and then you can move on to more interesting characters which I'm sure you'll find through teammates and enemies.

 

[Arkeband]

That's a lot of free characters. It's not nearly DotA's level of fairness, but it's a damned nice gesture.

They must have stats showing that as the pool of locked characters grows larger, players spend less money attempting to get them, whereas the fewer locked characters remain, there's a willingness to spend money to get them unlocked.

Blizzard basically weaponizes human psychology to get every last dime out of your wallets.

 

[OneUh8]

Nice. I am in!

 

[Moff]

very nice, I don't play it regularly anymore but I'll log in and get the specialist bundle, I tend to enjoy those the most

ok the support & specialist bundle seems to have tanks instead of specialists? I'll just take the bottom one then

 

[Karsticles]

Either Assassins or tanks for me. I love ganking, but Diablo, Anub'arak, AND Ragnaros in one pack is pretty tempting.

 

[The Lamonster]

uh, this is amazing.

Fuck yeah, Blizzard.

 

[QuixoticNeutral]

Back-of-the-napkin tallies of the gold value at current prices, for those interested:

Assassin
8x 10k, 7x 7k, 3x 4k, 2x 2k = 145k gold

Flex
6x 10k, 5x 7k, 5x 4k, 4x 2k = 123k gold

Support/Specialist
7x 10k, 5x 7k, 5x 4k, 3x 2k = 131k gold

Tank/Brusier
8x 10k, 5x 7k, 6x 4k, 1x 2k = 141k gold

(Heroes not included in any bundle: Cassia, Cho'Gall, Genji, Gazlowe, Jaina, Murky, Sgt. Hammer, Tyrande, Zagara, and whoever is being announced next Tuesday.)

Obviously, every veteran player will need to subtract accordingly for heroes already owned and heroes you know for certain you have zero interest in ever playing. This will not be reflective of the relative values of the bundle for you as a player.

Keep in mind, too, that if you are a veteran you will be logging in to a pile of loot boxes that may also contain heroes. Since you are being awarded these mega-bundles via the intermediary currency of gems (which you could just as well spend on skins if you already own everything), you could pursue one of two strategies:

- Open loot boxes first, then recalculate which bundle is the best deal for you.
- Buy a bundle first, increasing the chance of loot box redundancy, which translates into shards you can craft into skins.

I'll be going with the Assassin bundle, myself, as for my current roster it presents both the best value and the least redundancy, and also fills in multiple characters that were already on my shopping list.

 

[SRTtoZ]

Back-of-the-napkin tallies of the gold value at current prices, for those interested:

Assassin
8x 10k, 7x 7k, 3x 4k, 2x 2k = 145k gold

Flex
6x 10k, 5x 7k, 5x 4k, 4x 2k = 123k gold

Support/Specialist
7x 10k, 5x 7k, 5x 4k, 3x 2k = 131k gold

Tank/Brusier
8x 10k, 5x 7k, 6x 4k, 1x 2k = 141k gold

(Heroes not included in any bundle: Cassia, Cho'Gall, Genji, Gazlowe, Jaina, Murky, Sgt. Hammer, Tyrande, Zagara, and whoever is being announced next Tuesday.)

Obviously, every veteran player will need to subtract accordingly for heroes already owned and heroes you know for certain you have zero interest in ever playing. This will not be reflective of the relative values of the bundle for you as a player.

Keep in mind, too, that if you are a veteran you will be logging in to a pile of loot boxes that may also contain heroes. Since you are being awarded these mega-bundles via the intermediary currency of gems (which you could just as well spend on skins if you already own everything), you could pursue one of two strategies:

- Open loot boxes first, then recalculate which bundle is the best deal for you.
- Buy a bundle first, increasing the chance of loot box redundancy, which translates into shards you can craft into skins.

I'll be going with the Assassin bundle, myself, as for my current roster it presents both the best value and the least redundancy, and also fills in multiple characters that were already on my shopping list.

Good point. I have no idea which one I'll do first but I'm probably leaning towards buying the bundle first and then opening the lootboxes because those shards are harder to come by. The Assassin bundle for me seems to be the one that has the most characters that I don't have and actually want especially Zeratul and Valeera.

 

[Gator86]

Might do the classic install -> login -> logout -> uninstall.

This is my plan. I'm not sure my laptop can even run this right now.

 

[zerokoolpsx]

That assassin bundle looks good. Any bundle would be good, I only have 3 heroes lol.

 

[Domstercool]

Great stuff! Shall grab the bundle with the most characters in that I don't own yet.

2.0 is going to be exciting!

 

[Steiner]

You know what? This promotion worked because I've never played this game, but I think I'll jump in on the 25th and see what's going on.

 

[mas8705]

Honestly as the on again off again player of HOTS, I honestly can't say which of the four packs intrigues me the most. It is one thing to know what each pack offers, but another to figure out which set of heroes I could get the most out of and not one that I already own.

Might be a good idea to log in before this event starts since for all we know, the game could force you to pick the moment you log in.

 

[KLoWn]

I don't play anymore, but I'll log in for this and play a few matches.

 

[Rizific]

wow awesome! someone please bump this thread next week so i dont forget.

 

[Mesoian]

Neat.

Gimmie dat support bundle

 

[Mupod]

interesting....

If you've never played a MOBA before in your life, what's it like? Do you level up? Is it all PVP, or is there some PVE content?

I've never been interested, but I like free characters.

Well, it's easier to explain if you've ever played Warcraft 3. The gist of it is you get control of a single hero which plays like your typical RTS but with only one unit (with some exceptions like the lost vikings). There's 5 players on each team, and the objective is to push forward past enemy players, defenses, and waves of weaker AI enemies to destroy their base. You level up mid-match by killing stuff, either enemy AI, players, structures or neutral enemies (creeps). As you gain levels you get more abilities for your hero. The levels do not persist between matches.

HOTS in particular has a big focus on occasional objectives, like for example a pirate wants you to gather coins from specific points on the map. Once he's all paid up he fires his cannons at the enemy of whoever gave him enough coins, doing huge damage to their structures and possibly turning the tide of the battle. Every map has its own unique kind of objectives.

There is persistent player leveling but everything is changing in the new update to be kind of like Overwatch with loot crates. There used to be leveling to unlock hero abilities but they threw all that out because it was dumb.

As for going in as a new player, HOTS is about as friendly as these games get. I'd still recommend playing with friends, I hate these games with randoms.

 

[Spukc]

Might do the classic install -> login -> logout -> uninstall.

This can i play offline against bots so i dont have to deal with toxic shitheads ?

 

[The Technomancer]

Wait you buy heroes? Why the hell is any MOBA doing this other than LoL clinging to their archaic model?

 

[Clunker]

This is pretty fantastic. I haven't checked out HOTS in roughly a year, but between hearing about a lot of the changes coming soon and this login bonus, I'll definitely reinstall and spend some time going back in.

Even as strictly a bots and co-op comp stomp, this has been the only MOBA that's clicked with me.

 

[wicko]

This can i play offline against bots so i dont have to deal with toxic shitheads ?

You can, but you can also mute everyone by default.

 

[TheSadRanger]

Everyone new should pick the first bundle because it has Chromie.

You don't need to know anything else. Just trust me on this one. Chromie is love, Chromie is life.

 

[Mupod]

I never saw any reason to get upset over unlocking heroes in HOTS. Unlike DOTA you don't need 4000 hours and a PHD on a specific single character to avoid being harassed by teammates. I always had fun just playing the weekly free ones, it only takes a match or two to figure them out. I barely ever bothered unlocking new ones as a result.

 

[KarmaCow]

Wait you buy heroes? Why the hell is any MOBA doing this other than LoL clinging to their archaic model?

HotS is much more beginner friendly and more importantly, it's about playing as Blizzard characters. Not to mention with this update, there's even less of an incentive to go all in with one character rather than change it up every game.

 

[Mechazawa]

Bundle 1 is pretty much the worst one to get if you want anything approaching variation. That's Assassins all the way through, versus Bundle 3 which gives you some support and tanks and Bundle 4 which gets you some tanks, tanky-assassins, assassins and at least a Kharazim for support.

I wouldn't necessarily assume Bundle 2 is best for newbies. It's got a good all-rounder feel, but heroes like Greymane(for me at least), Kerrigan, Abathur, Vikings and Rexxar can be on the harder end to use. And Morales is a pretty tough as a support in terms of dealing with people constantly on you and having no escapes. If I was personally recommending, I'd say pack 4 which has some of my favorite heroes(Leoric, Artanis, Kharazim, Alarak

Spoiler

(don't use Alarak)

) and some really nice hard-hitting fuckers like Sonya, Thrall and Varian that give you a little wiggle room to fuck up.

And yeah, this is a fucking awesome promotion.

 

[kirblar]

Wait you buy heroes? Why the hell is any MOBA doing this other than LoL clinging to their archaic model?

Because Heroes puts out a new hero every 3-4 weeks.

 

[hampig]

Everyone new should pick the first bundle because it has Chromie.

You don't need to know anything else. Just trust me on this one. Chromie is love, Chromie is life.

Don't trust this man.

 

[Zackat]

Everyone new should pick the first bundle because it has Chromie.

You don't need to know anything else. Just trust me on this one. Chromie is love, Chromie is life.

Lol nooooo

 

[Lifeline]

I'll take whichever has the most overwatch characters and then uninstall the game again.

 

[GruntOfAction]

I like having the biggest selection so I'll probably pick whichever set has the least amount of heroes I already have..

 

[truestatic]

Is gold going away? Should we spend any we've accrued before 2.0 hits?

 

[PandaPandaPanda]

probably will install (just enough to login), claim this and logout

I played a long time ago for the hearthstone card back(lol) but I don't think I can stomach playing again

 

[MaxVarEmreis]

Everyone new should pick the first bundle because it has Chromie.

You don't need to know anything else. Just trust me on this one. Chromie is love, Chromie is life.

Trikslyr??

Unfortunately I have all heroes so only 100 gems for me, but I'm glad that so many people would benefit from this.

 

[FieryBalrog]

Wtf, that's awesome. I was just considering seriously getting into HotS for the first time ever (I'm a very long time League and Dota player, with hundreds of hours in each, but gotten a bit sick of MOBAs for a few years now).

 

[The1Ski]

I hope the game lets you know which bundle you own the least heroes in. I want to get back into Heroes of the Storm, I really enjoyed playing it.

That's what I was thinking. I have maybe a third of the characters without a very specific play style. I do lean assassin but in this case I will want to get as many new characters as possible.

But this really is a great deal!

 

[kirblar]

Is gold going away? Should we spend any we've accrued before 2.0 hits?

Nope. They just put in a DE currency for cosmetics and a RM currency so they could avoid CC processing fees on every microtransaction. Gold works the same still.

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

That's a great offer.

 

[truestatic]

Nope. They just put in a DE currency for cosmetics and a RM currency so they could avoid CC processing fees on every microtransaction. Gold works the same still.

Neat! Thanks!

 

[QisTopTier]

Welp time to pick the pack that fills in the most blanks for me lol

 

[Pejo]

Well, it's easier to explain if you've ever played Warcraft 3. The gist of it is you get control of a single hero which plays like your typical RTS but with only one unit (with some exceptions like the lost vikings). There's 5 players on each team, and the objective is to push forward past enemy players, defenses, and waves of weaker AI enemies to destroy their base. You level up mid-match by killing stuff, either enemy AI, players, structures or neutral enemies (creeps). As you gain levels you get more abilities for your hero. The levels do not persist between matches.

HOTS in particular has a big focus on occasional objectives, like for example a pirate wants you to gather coins from specific points on the map. Once he's all paid up he fires his cannons at the enemy of whoever gave him enough coins, doing huge damage to their structures and possibly turning the tide of the battle. Every map has its own unique kind of objectives.

There is persistent player leveling but everything is changing in the new update to be kind of like Overwatch with loot crates. There used to be leveling to unlock hero abilities but they threw all that out because it was dumb.

As for going in as a new player, HOTS is about as friendly as these games get. I'd still recommend playing with friends, I hate these games with randoms.

Thanks for the explanation! What the hell, might as well give it a try when this goes live, I like that objective based stuff. Is a lot of the player skill in this game leaning more towards how many clicks you can do per second and how many resources you can manage at all times, or is it more about taking smart chances and understanding the flow of the game and the options available to you? I tried Starcraft before as my only other RTS PVP game, and I just did not enjoy it at all.

 

[Ploid 3.0]

Holy crap, I really like the game and only play with AI. The main reason I get gold during those game times is to unlock characters. This is big, thank goodness I took a long break. I think I have only unlocked 4 characters. Oh my gosh!!!

 

[Alur]

Free bundle with Zera, Nova and Valeera? Quickmatch is gonna be fun.

We're already dead.

Everyone new should pick the first bundle because it has Chromie.

You don't need to know anything else. Just trust me on this one. Chromie is love, Chromie is life.

This man is sick. Someone alert the authorities before he hurts us all.

Thanks for the explanation! What the hell, might as well give it a try when this goes live, I like that objective based stuff. Is a lot of the player skill in this game leaning more towards how many clicks you can do per second and how many resources you can manage at all times, or is it more about taking smart chances and understanding the flow of the game and the options available to you? I tried Starcraft before as my only other RTS PVP game, and I just did not enjoy it at all.

No you're not really managing resources per say. There are lanes to soak (especially before level 10), mercenary camps you can capture, and of course objectives which are the main catalysts to win the game. For me, I got into it because it's a bit like far less complicated MMO PVP. There's only 4 buttons for most heroes (as opposed to 2 to 4 bars worth of buttons back in the days when I played WoW), and the objectives draw you together into teamfights. Probably be easier to watch a video of a match than to have it explained, but think slower paced MMO PVP with less buttons but more strategy than simply hit "x" when enemy hits "y".