I know I'm going to sound like a shill with this thread, but the reason I'm posting this is because Heroes of the Storm might be my favorite game of all time (certainly my most played, at over 3000 games with an average of 20-25 minutes each, far exceeding the hundreds of hours I've put into SC2, DotA2, CS, WoW, Diablo, PSO, etc), and it saddens me so much to see such an incredibly creative, unique, and all-around excellent game either get lazily compared to and dismissed/belittled as a lesser game to the likes of DotA or League, or worse, simply overlooked outright. So, with this thread, as the major fall event for HotS --Machines at War-- is underway, and after a year of frequent and numerous updates and improvements, I would like to make the case as to why now is the best time to try the game since it hit alpha, for both new players and those that initially wrote it off, and implore anyone with even a passing interest in real-time strategy or MOBAs to try this wonderful game.
For people who haven't played it before:
Great! If you've ever been curious about a MOBA before and have never tried one, HotS is largely considered the most accessible for a few reasons, foremost of which being that instead of a labyrinthine codex of purchasable items that modify your character ala an RPG, HotS has a talent system where each hero simply has a choice of 3-5 perks you can pick at levels 1, 4, 7, 10, and so on, all of which are specifically designed to synergize and fit your hero's role or playstyle. The result is that most heroes have around two to three "builds" that synergize well for varying playstyles and map or composition strategy.
There are numerous other quality of life/accessibility features and clever game design implementation to make this game feel as welcoming to new players as possible (in typical Blizzard fashion), such as shared experience, no need for town portal scrolls, no courier management, mounts for faster map rotation, no runes/masteries homework, RTS-style map objectives, etc, but rather than getting too in the weeds on the minutiae in what will surely be a long post, I'd rather just get into more of the great unique features that make HotS so fun..
[ Trailer | Content Overview | Official Site ]
I'll start with the major fall event, Machines of War, which just started this Tuesday. It follows the tradition of last year's event which was centered on the Diablo franchise, but this time brings StarCraft into the Heroes world (called the Nexus), in the form of two new StarCraft-themed maps, two new heroes, StarCraft-themed skins and mounts for multiple heroes, and two event quests that tie into a before-match mini-game.
[ Maps Overview ]
The two maps look amazing, and if you're a fan of StarCraft, they are a love letter to SC from the HotS team (many of which came directly from the SC team). Braxis Holdout has already been released, and Warhead Junction will be coming in the next week.
[ Hero Trailer ]
The first hero of the event is Alarak, highlord of the Tal'Darim. Whom, if you've played StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void, or have any fondness for Q/John de Lancie from Star Trek (and if you don't, what are you doing with your life?), you will likely agree he was the best new character in the StarCraft 2 story arch. Take a look at the trailer for a taste of his mischievous/diabolical personality and playstyle.
And coming next week, Zarya enters the fray from Overwatch. She makes for the second hero added from Overwatch (the first being Tracer), and her kit comes fully intact, which should make her a very unique tank, with a make or break ult.
Moving on, the most interesting and compelling reason to look at HotS, in my opinion, is its creativity in hero and map design. Maps, plural, more specifically. One of the things that makes HotS unique in the genre is that it features multiple maps, each with unique lanes and objectives and strategy, that favor different hero compositions and roles.
But for me, even more fun than the variety the maps offer, are the uniqueness and creativity of many of the game's heroes. Probably the most unique hero in the entire genre, for example, is Cho'Gall. He is unique for many reasons, but first and foremost because he actually is played by two people. Yes, one hero, with two roles (Cho being a tank, Gall being a high-damage mage), entirely different talent trees which synergize together, controlled by two people, each controlling one of the two-headed Ogre's.. well.. heads. He takes up two slots on a team's five man roster, and has the HP pool and damage potential to match. To give an idea of how dedicated the HotS team is to making weird and interesting ideas work, when Cho'Gall was released, they literally re-balanced every single hero in the game so that Cho'Gall's scaling wouldn't ruin the game, and also in doing so improved the feel of the game as well by making each hero feel closer to what you would expect in terms of their role (ie how squishy or tanky they are).
A few other examples are the Lost Vikings, who are actually three heroes in one, each controlled individually with number keys or via drag and drop. They are somewhat similar to Meepo from DotA2, but the goal with them is very different, in that generally you want to control each individually soaking experience in all three lanes, which is a huge strategic benefit when combined with the game's shared experience system. So the Viking player would be soaking all of the lanes while the rest of the team rotates as a group for ganks, map objectives, or momentum.
Then there is Abathur, who is a feeble, fragile slug-like character that would lose to any other hero in a straight up engage (save for MLG no scope 420 plays), but who is able to "symbiote" other heroes, giving them shields, buffs, and adding your own attack abilities to their hero from afar, while pushing lanes with minions he spawns, symbioting other minions, and laying mines as traps or to split push multiple lanes at once.
There is Murky, who is a Murloc with a very small health pool, but who is very annoying to play against as he can respawn in seconds from an egg he places anywhere on the map. To truly kill Murky requires finding and destroying his egg, and then killing him before he is able to place it again. Another very unique hero recently added was Medivh, whose "mount" form turns him into a raven ala WarCraft lore, which makes him invulnerable and able to fly anywhere on the map, even over terrain, revealing everything even well beyond enemy lines. He can also significantly manipulate the battlefield by casting portals that let he and his team instantly teleport large distances, creating many opportunities for creative plays.
If you're coming from experience with DotA2 or League, HotS is a very different game than either. I personally think it's counterproductive to always compare HotS to the other two, because it is much more different from them than the two are from each other. That said, experience with them (or other tactile RTS games like StarCraft 1/2, WarCraft 3, C&C Generals, etc) will certainly make you feel immediately comfortable here. I personally find HotS' mechanics to be the most enjoyable to actually play with of the big MOBAs, simply because there is much less of a feeling of animation delay; though perhaps I am biased as HotS is an evolution of the SC2 engine and I personally find the more 1-to-1, tactile feel to be preferable over staggered animation timing. To me, baseline HotS feels like what ranged DPS heroes in LoL or DotA2 are like once you've got most of their key attack speed items and are in late game.
Lastly, if you're completely new to HotS, this is the best time to be getting in for another more tangible reason, as well; there are multiple promotions available to get you started very quickly with a sizeable roster of heroes. To start, with the MoW event, they're just straight up giving you a free hero for logging in. You will get the choice of six heroes, almost all of which are very solid picks (I personally like Thrall, though he might not be the best hero to start with). After that, along with the event is a pre-match mini-game which grants you a one-day stim pack for every day you "win" the mini-game. The stim pack gives you a significant XP and gold boost per game, so on top of the increased gold just for playing, it also makes leveling your heroes and account much faster, which rewards you with larger caches of gold at frequent intervals. Finally, you can still take advantage of the recruit a friend promo, which nets you Raynor (who is the easiest hero for beginners) and a 5-day stim pack right off the bat, and Sylvannas (one of the most versatile heroes for almost any comp/map) and a portrait when you hit player level 10 (which is a very small time commitment). This all amounts to three free heroes, and by the time you get the third you'll have amassed enough gold for around 3-4 more of the cheaper heroes (many of which are among the best, as well), and a very easy path to many more with all of the stim packs. If you'd like to use me as your recruit a friend, feel free to PM me and I will give you my link, and I'm happy to help you with any questions you might have with the game as well.
For people who have played HotS before:
I know it is easy to write a game off, and if you played HotS in the alpha, or even the beta, I could totally understand why one would do so, especially if you're already heavily invested in League or DotA. I could understand that you saw a game with very crude, inconsistent UI, a lot of ugly or reused assets from other Blizzard games, and unrefined direction. But to come back to the thread title, I implore you to give it another chance. This game has seen more updates, reworks, and added content than any game I have ever played in the span of just over a year that I've played it.
The UI is now polished and consistent and wholly it's own; all of the old generic WoW/War3/SC icons have either been changed completely or redone with HotS' aesthetic. There have been multiple major patches that have buffed, nerfed, and completely reworked almost every hero in the game. Talents have been made much more unique per hero, so almost all previously generic talents that multiple heroes possessed (ie bribe, relentless, imposing presence) have now either been removed, or made into hero-specific variations that fit their kit and lore better. Many talents are now quest talents, which have goals you need to work toward over the course of the game to build their power, which offer greater power spikes in the late game when those quests have been fullfilled (or having the opposite effect if the other team picks off one of your team just before they fulfill the quest, and have their progress reset).
For competitive players, the draft UI was completely reworked to make it much easier to use, bans were added (which was shameful that they were ever not there, to be fair), and preseason finally ended a few months ago with the introduction of the league system (bronze through grand master, just like SC/LoL) and season one of ranked play. Many people consider that to have been the"real" end of the beta, as opposed to the "official" launch. We're now in season two, and each season offers gold, mount, and portrait rewards for the higher you can rank.
Other recent additions are the MVP system, brought over from Overwatch, which rewards a player with MVP as well as four others as significant contributors for unique things like most damaged tanked, most camps captured, most turn ins toward the map objective, etc. And there are so many "small" changes to the core game design that in aggregate make for a much more refined, strategic, and fulfilling experience. For example, health globes now reward you with a larger percentage of health and mana, but also disappear from the map quicker, so good players will try to fight for and bully their lane opposition away from globes to win the lane, which gives depth and rewards skill in a way that feels less like arbitrary busy work than say denying creeps in DotA, and keeps the focus on combat mechanics.
Mount speed was reduced to give split pushers more value and make team rotation decisions more meaningful/deliberate. Minions and catapults were buffed to make map presence more vital and make it so you always have to respect split pushes and the value of camps. Death timers have been adjusted so that mid and late game deaths have significant impact on win conditions.
All of this before even talking about the sheer volume and quality of content that has been added within the past year. 15 new heroes, with multiple new mages making mage choices no longer a binary of one team getting Kael'Thas and the other getting Jaina; now you have multiple choices depending on the kind of damage your comp and team want, be it AOE, burst, zoning, versatility, or DOT. Multiple new supports and melee assassins that give variety to what kind of utility and dive you want. Five new maps: two from Diablo; one original with a map objective and win condition unlike any in the genre; a map specifically made for playing ARAM (only available in custom games), and the first StarCraft map (with the second coming next week).
Also, I mentioned it before, but Blizzard has given significant, entirely reworked talent trees to many of the older heroes, and have continued to refine each character into fitting interesting and useful roles and niches. For example, Tychus was reworked to be a strong tank-killing assassin, with his trait revolving around percentage-based damage. Zagara was reworked to fit the role of her character better, and now nydus split pushing is a very strong and viable playstyle. Anub'arak was reworked to be a strong back line diver that can disrupt mages. Many other heroes have had their roles and playstyle changed dramatically, such as Nova, Arthas, KT, Jaina, Butcher, and Illidan, among many others.
So, I say all this with the simple plea of asking that you give my favorite game a shot. If you love Blizzard games, HotS is every bit the Blizzard game that Overwatch or Diablo or WarCraft or StarCraft are. It has the same high standards of polish and laser focus of playability and replayability, and the same combination of accessibility and depth. It has the same game design sensibilities, and the same sense of humor and creativity. It didn't always have all of these things, and it didn't always feel like it belonged in the same breath as those other franchises, let alone its foremost competition in the genre, but now it does. And I really hope more people give it a chance, and come to love it the same way I do.
For people who haven't played it before:
Great! If you've ever been curious about a MOBA before and have never tried one, HotS is largely considered the most accessible for a few reasons, foremost of which being that instead of a labyrinthine codex of purchasable items that modify your character ala an RPG, HotS has a talent system where each hero simply has a choice of 3-5 perks you can pick at levels 1, 4, 7, 10, and so on, all of which are specifically designed to synergize and fit your hero's role or playstyle. The result is that most heroes have around two to three "builds" that synergize well for varying playstyles and map or composition strategy.
There are numerous other quality of life/accessibility features and clever game design implementation to make this game feel as welcoming to new players as possible (in typical Blizzard fashion), such as shared experience, no need for town portal scrolls, no courier management, mounts for faster map rotation, no runes/masteries homework, RTS-style map objectives, etc, but rather than getting too in the weeds on the minutiae in what will surely be a long post, I'd rather just get into more of the great unique features that make HotS so fun..
[ Trailer | Content Overview | Official Site ]
I'll start with the major fall event, Machines of War, which just started this Tuesday. It follows the tradition of last year's event which was centered on the Diablo franchise, but this time brings StarCraft into the Heroes world (called the Nexus), in the form of two new StarCraft-themed maps, two new heroes, StarCraft-themed skins and mounts for multiple heroes, and two event quests that tie into a before-match mini-game.
[ Maps Overview ]
The two maps look amazing, and if you're a fan of StarCraft, they are a love letter to SC from the HotS team (many of which came directly from the SC team). Braxis Holdout has already been released, and Warhead Junction will be coming in the next week.
[ Hero Trailer ]
The first hero of the event is Alarak, highlord of the Tal'Darim. Whom, if you've played StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void, or have any fondness for Q/John de Lancie from Star Trek (and if you don't, what are you doing with your life?), you will likely agree he was the best new character in the StarCraft 2 story arch. Take a look at the trailer for a taste of his mischievous/diabolical personality and playstyle.
And coming next week, Zarya enters the fray from Overwatch. She makes for the second hero added from Overwatch (the first being Tracer), and her kit comes fully intact, which should make her a very unique tank, with a make or break ult.
Moving on, the most interesting and compelling reason to look at HotS, in my opinion, is its creativity in hero and map design. Maps, plural, more specifically. One of the things that makes HotS unique in the genre is that it features multiple maps, each with unique lanes and objectives and strategy, that favor different hero compositions and roles.
But for me, even more fun than the variety the maps offer, are the uniqueness and creativity of many of the game's heroes. Probably the most unique hero in the entire genre, for example, is Cho'Gall. He is unique for many reasons, but first and foremost because he actually is played by two people. Yes, one hero, with two roles (Cho being a tank, Gall being a high-damage mage), entirely different talent trees which synergize together, controlled by two people, each controlling one of the two-headed Ogre's.. well.. heads. He takes up two slots on a team's five man roster, and has the HP pool and damage potential to match. To give an idea of how dedicated the HotS team is to making weird and interesting ideas work, when Cho'Gall was released, they literally re-balanced every single hero in the game so that Cho'Gall's scaling wouldn't ruin the game, and also in doing so improved the feel of the game as well by making each hero feel closer to what you would expect in terms of their role (ie how squishy or tanky they are).
A few other examples are the Lost Vikings, who are actually three heroes in one, each controlled individually with number keys or via drag and drop. They are somewhat similar to Meepo from DotA2, but the goal with them is very different, in that generally you want to control each individually soaking experience in all three lanes, which is a huge strategic benefit when combined with the game's shared experience system. So the Viking player would be soaking all of the lanes while the rest of the team rotates as a group for ganks, map objectives, or momentum.
Then there is Abathur, who is a feeble, fragile slug-like character that would lose to any other hero in a straight up engage (save for MLG no scope 420 plays), but who is able to "symbiote" other heroes, giving them shields, buffs, and adding your own attack abilities to their hero from afar, while pushing lanes with minions he spawns, symbioting other minions, and laying mines as traps or to split push multiple lanes at once.
There is Murky, who is a Murloc with a very small health pool, but who is very annoying to play against as he can respawn in seconds from an egg he places anywhere on the map. To truly kill Murky requires finding and destroying his egg, and then killing him before he is able to place it again. Another very unique hero recently added was Medivh, whose "mount" form turns him into a raven ala WarCraft lore, which makes him invulnerable and able to fly anywhere on the map, even over terrain, revealing everything even well beyond enemy lines. He can also significantly manipulate the battlefield by casting portals that let he and his team instantly teleport large distances, creating many opportunities for creative plays.
If you're coming from experience with DotA2 or League, HotS is a very different game than either. I personally think it's counterproductive to always compare HotS to the other two, because it is much more different from them than the two are from each other. That said, experience with them (or other tactile RTS games like StarCraft 1/2, WarCraft 3, C&C Generals, etc) will certainly make you feel immediately comfortable here. I personally find HotS' mechanics to be the most enjoyable to actually play with of the big MOBAs, simply because there is much less of a feeling of animation delay; though perhaps I am biased as HotS is an evolution of the SC2 engine and I personally find the more 1-to-1, tactile feel to be preferable over staggered animation timing. To me, baseline HotS feels like what ranged DPS heroes in LoL or DotA2 are like once you've got most of their key attack speed items and are in late game.
Lastly, if you're completely new to HotS, this is the best time to be getting in for another more tangible reason, as well; there are multiple promotions available to get you started very quickly with a sizeable roster of heroes. To start, with the MoW event, they're just straight up giving you a free hero for logging in. You will get the choice of six heroes, almost all of which are very solid picks (I personally like Thrall, though he might not be the best hero to start with). After that, along with the event is a pre-match mini-game which grants you a one-day stim pack for every day you "win" the mini-game. The stim pack gives you a significant XP and gold boost per game, so on top of the increased gold just for playing, it also makes leveling your heroes and account much faster, which rewards you with larger caches of gold at frequent intervals. Finally, you can still take advantage of the recruit a friend promo, which nets you Raynor (who is the easiest hero for beginners) and a 5-day stim pack right off the bat, and Sylvannas (one of the most versatile heroes for almost any comp/map) and a portrait when you hit player level 10 (which is a very small time commitment). This all amounts to three free heroes, and by the time you get the third you'll have amassed enough gold for around 3-4 more of the cheaper heroes (many of which are among the best, as well), and a very easy path to many more with all of the stim packs. If you'd like to use me as your recruit a friend, feel free to PM me and I will give you my link, and I'm happy to help you with any questions you might have with the game as well.
For people who have played HotS before:
I know it is easy to write a game off, and if you played HotS in the alpha, or even the beta, I could totally understand why one would do so, especially if you're already heavily invested in League or DotA. I could understand that you saw a game with very crude, inconsistent UI, a lot of ugly or reused assets from other Blizzard games, and unrefined direction. But to come back to the thread title, I implore you to give it another chance. This game has seen more updates, reworks, and added content than any game I have ever played in the span of just over a year that I've played it.
The UI is now polished and consistent and wholly it's own; all of the old generic WoW/War3/SC icons have either been changed completely or redone with HotS' aesthetic. There have been multiple major patches that have buffed, nerfed, and completely reworked almost every hero in the game. Talents have been made much more unique per hero, so almost all previously generic talents that multiple heroes possessed (ie bribe, relentless, imposing presence) have now either been removed, or made into hero-specific variations that fit their kit and lore better. Many talents are now quest talents, which have goals you need to work toward over the course of the game to build their power, which offer greater power spikes in the late game when those quests have been fullfilled (or having the opposite effect if the other team picks off one of your team just before they fulfill the quest, and have their progress reset).
For competitive players, the draft UI was completely reworked to make it much easier to use, bans were added (which was shameful that they were ever not there, to be fair), and preseason finally ended a few months ago with the introduction of the league system (bronze through grand master, just like SC/LoL) and season one of ranked play. Many people consider that to have been the"real" end of the beta, as opposed to the "official" launch. We're now in season two, and each season offers gold, mount, and portrait rewards for the higher you can rank.
Other recent additions are the MVP system, brought over from Overwatch, which rewards a player with MVP as well as four others as significant contributors for unique things like most damaged tanked, most camps captured, most turn ins toward the map objective, etc. And there are so many "small" changes to the core game design that in aggregate make for a much more refined, strategic, and fulfilling experience. For example, health globes now reward you with a larger percentage of health and mana, but also disappear from the map quicker, so good players will try to fight for and bully their lane opposition away from globes to win the lane, which gives depth and rewards skill in a way that feels less like arbitrary busy work than say denying creeps in DotA, and keeps the focus on combat mechanics.
Mount speed was reduced to give split pushers more value and make team rotation decisions more meaningful/deliberate. Minions and catapults were buffed to make map presence more vital and make it so you always have to respect split pushes and the value of camps. Death timers have been adjusted so that mid and late game deaths have significant impact on win conditions.
All of this before even talking about the sheer volume and quality of content that has been added within the past year. 15 new heroes, with multiple new mages making mage choices no longer a binary of one team getting Kael'Thas and the other getting Jaina; now you have multiple choices depending on the kind of damage your comp and team want, be it AOE, burst, zoning, versatility, or DOT. Multiple new supports and melee assassins that give variety to what kind of utility and dive you want. Five new maps: two from Diablo; one original with a map objective and win condition unlike any in the genre; a map specifically made for playing ARAM (only available in custom games), and the first StarCraft map (with the second coming next week).
Also, I mentioned it before, but Blizzard has given significant, entirely reworked talent trees to many of the older heroes, and have continued to refine each character into fitting interesting and useful roles and niches. For example, Tychus was reworked to be a strong tank-killing assassin, with his trait revolving around percentage-based damage. Zagara was reworked to fit the role of her character better, and now nydus split pushing is a very strong and viable playstyle. Anub'arak was reworked to be a strong back line diver that can disrupt mages. Many other heroes have had their roles and playstyle changed dramatically, such as Nova, Arthas, KT, Jaina, Butcher, and Illidan, among many others.
So, I say all this with the simple plea of asking that you give my favorite game a shot. If you love Blizzard games, HotS is every bit the Blizzard game that Overwatch or Diablo or WarCraft or StarCraft are. It has the same high standards of polish and laser focus of playability and replayability, and the same combination of accessibility and depth. It has the same game design sensibilities, and the same sense of humor and creativity. It didn't always have all of these things, and it didn't always feel like it belonged in the same breath as those other franchises, let alone its foremost competition in the genre, but now it does. And I really hope more people give it a chance, and come to love it the same way I do.
Thanks! This is the entire goal of this thread, I hope you're the first of many! Post back after you've played some and let people know if you liked it (or if you didn't).