Heroes of the Storm

At this point I think that Heroes of the Storm deserves a place in my top 10 games of all time. I've played over 1100 Hero League games, and if you we estimate each game at 20 minutes, it means that I have clock about 400 hours into the game. And I'm still learning! Granted this was my first MOBA that I really gave a chance, so I had to learn all the basics of the genre and was pretty awful at first, eventually I got good and managed to compete very well. I'm still far away from the top ranks and still have much to improve.

I can't compare it to DOTA 2 and LoL as I haven't really played much of those games to fully judge, but I think the game does everything right. There is no endless laning phases and the action picks up pretty quickly as soon as one of the maps objective shows up. The more I read about those games however, the less I want to play them cause I like combined team experience, lack of items and "last-hit" from HotS. Can't imagine playing a MOBA differently than with those standards. The 4 classes of heroes (Warrior, Assassin, Support and Specialist) are well balanced and all serve their purpose in a team, it's always important to form a good team composition to cover what you need. There is a lot of depth into learning each hero (how to play them, how to counter them) and in what type of team composition they will fit it best and what hero to pick against a certain enemy composition. Actually the Hero selection part is just about as important as playing the actual game, as picking a bad composition might guarantee a lost unless the opposing team is really bad.

I guess that's perhaps one of the faults I can give to the game, is that the game only really start when you reach Hero League. Initially you needed to own 10 Heroes and lvl 30 experience to be able to join, but they've recently changed it to 14 Heroes but with the free heroes of the weeks being counted in there. It can take some time to "grind out" to reach the minimum number of heroes, but if you level up the free heroes of the week to lvl 5 it does give you a quick gold profit. Quick Match doesn't really do the game justice and it just pairs 10 players together with random heroes and none of the fun of drafting, I really can't play that mode anymore unless I need to practice a new hero that I just bought. Team League is the best mode of them all (pairing 5 friends together) as the communication aspect is at its best and creates some of the most amazing moments. It's also the most challenging one as the other team will also have the communication aspect at full synergy. I haven't managed to play many games in that mode cause it's pretty hard to have 5 online friends at the same time that are willing to jump in.

So why is this game so good? It's hard to say. There's the competitive element of always wanting to get better. Then there's the variance of the maps, as each one really plays differently and you must adapt your playstyle to it. There is the variance of the heroes which can be very different, and not just by classes. Even heroes in the same class can be so different, like Diablo and Johanna (both Warriors) play nothing alike, and specialists are pretty much all different. This just gives the game an infinite replay value, as each game is always as good as the last one and feels new. There's nothing quite that matches the satisfaction as winning a close team fight with better positioning and strategy, or slowly coming back from a losing position to winning the game with tiny experience victories here and there. Yes essentially the game always has the same goal of destroying the enemy's core, but there's just so many ways to get there and getting better at it is just really damn fun.

The "F2P" system might throw some traditional gamers off as you can't buy the whole game and have everything (then again in this modern world of DLC, not many games are like that). Each hero must be bought with gold or real money, and the top of the mountain can be hard to see when you are just starting. I haven't spent any money on the game and I own about half the heroes, just getting the gold from level achievements or daily quests but I did spent a huge amount of time on the game, but I can never say that I didn't have fun doing it. Even if you have all the heroes, it doesn't mean that you are going to be good at the game. You really need to be good at the game, so the grinding for gold is just necessary to become good anyway. This isn't "P2W" at all, it's more like a pay-or-grind to be able to compete. But you are going to suck if you don't put in the time anyway. I think it's a fair system and when you start having a decent selection of heroes, you should be able to compete with anyone.

When I start playing HotS it can get pretty addictive. I normally go to bed very late and just sleep 2-3 hours before my real life responsibilities kick back in. This game just wakes me up, and gets the adrenaline going. I could be dead tired and just start one game and suddenly I'm wide awake and fully aware. This is one of those games that I have to stop myself from playing sometimes, or else I don't really want to do anything else. In other words, it's really addictive and just amazing as very few games have that effect on me. I surely would recommend it, but be warned that it might become a big part of your life!

Not sure if I'd like this game if I'd tried LoL first, but I've become loyal to it and have enjoyed it as my main time sink for the past few years. I find this game rewarding and fun, even if I pretty much only play qm and aram. Hard to get into, but in my experience, this game is one of the easiest to get into. All mobas have a high skill ceiling, so a low skill floor is pretty much only a positive.

Highly recommended if you want to play MOBAs. Just download Heroes of the Storm and play if you want to try out a MOBA, it is a good game! The rest of what I want to discuss and get off my chest is inane, hardcore-gaming type rantings. I'm not going to be overly technical and thoroughly research my opinions, I'm just going to lay down where I think Heroes of the Storm fits in the oeuvre of RTS gaming and MOBAs.

But before I do that, I want to say that you should seriously go play this game! Just go download it right now because it's free! No money! That's what "free" means"! It costs no money because money is actually an important factor to having any kind of fun, so the less of it you spend the more fun you'll have! But then maybe you're wondering "how do the high-class computer janitors who code these cartoons eat food after slaving away all day if you are not paying anything to them?"

To which I would say:


"You are playing a free game! Who cares! Go have fun!

"Heroes of the Storm is easy to get into exactly because it is free! How can you say no to a free game? Who cares about those computer janitors! Maybe that seems dubious and heartless to you but it's OK because they're not actually giving you the full game! I forgot to mention that! You can spend your money on cosmetics and new heroes and all that stuff! You can play a small portion of the hero pool (and thus a small portion of the game) for free! You can buy the rest of the hero pool later! You can a portion of gameplay for free and if you like that small portion you can spend a disproportionate amount of money and/or time to access the full portion of Heroes of the Storm's gameplay!

"It's like a Western version of Smash Brothers except you're spending even more money (if you want) and playing for longer (but for an unrealistic amount of time!...probably!...). Have you been to Blizzcon?!

"You're certainly not giving your money and time to a soulless husk of a video-game company/publisher who will probably just want more of your money and time. Y'see they don't really make games so much as create franchises that you must be a fan of and put money into. But you know that is the price to pay for having fun. You should go to Blizzcon, it's coming up soon. Book off some vacation time and sort out your life because pain and anxiety are key elements to how fun works. That anxiety and pain will go away once you are immersed in the corporate, high-fantasy world of Activision-Blizzard. You spend lots of money to have fun and you spend lots of time progressing very slowly to arbitrary goals...like going to Blizzcon and seeing the beautiful women dressed up like Kerrigan. Blizzcon...that convention in the United States somwhere where all things are trademarked Blizzard and you will meet your wife whom you met online.

"Activision-Blizzard, free games, microtransactions within free games, Blizzcon, girls-dressed-in-weird-outfits., you, the other average putzes around you...

"All these things and more are why you are attracted to Heroes of the Storm in the first place! Because it's a free game that you don't have to spend money on, but probably should, and will also spend money on! "


Wait, wait, that sounds a little deragotory, I wouldn't really say that last part let me rephrase:

"You, the average lower-middle-class citizen, are attracted to Heroes of the Storm because it's a free game but you can pay lots of money to experience the full depth of the game! It's the best of both worlds because you get to give Activision-Blizzard your money (because money is the only way to have fun) and you don't have to give any money! Because without giving money you're not really able to have fun! It's the best of both worlds!"

Something like that is what I'd say, yea. In order to convince you that the free, small portion of Heroes of the Storm is worth playing. I'd probably say it better though...with less confusion.

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Maybe whatever words I use to describe Heroes of the Storm will always sound really confusing...? And maybe the game I describe will always seem fraudulent in a way? "It's a free game but really limiting until you unlock a lot of really fun stuff by spending an almost irresponsible amount of time and money"; that sounds almost like gambling. I don't think a lot of people spend their money through gambling addictions right?

Gambling on things: only a small portion of the world's economic activity.
The majority of people invest in companies and products they have confidence in.

In fact, most of the richest companies and people get to where they are by working hard in the "lumber yards" (I think). I'm sure, in my heart-of-hearts, one of the richest video-game companies, Activision-Blizzard, was formed by hard-working Americans who used their hands and stuff. Bobby Kotick, the head of Activision-Blizzard, worked his way through a college degree and found himself a valuable place in the working-class economy buying other companies and retaining those companies in terms of how much profit they would generate over long periods of time. Who wouldn't want to work for Activision-Blizzard and get a piece of the hard-earned working-class dollar this company offers!?

Maybe Activision-Blizzard develop social phenomena, like Blizzcon, and in-universe culture in the form of derivative games, like Heroes of the Storm, more than they do innovative games of the past? And perhaps they shirk this innovative process by creating these derivative games in order to please us in an entirely Pavlovian way?

Who doesn't want to be one of Pavlov's mutts?!

What better way make that hard-earned working-class dollar that they are given to by you (only sometimes and only when you feel like playing the full portion of a game), the average putz? Perhaps this all perpetuates the valuable lesson that spending lots of money and time on derivative products is the way to be a Rich Dad like Terenas Menethil II who lived a prosperous and war-free life reigning over the Alliance until the future when the Alliance suddenly disappeared and everything became StarCraft?

Oh wait, is that my bias coming through? I should stop confusing this game featuring characters of other games with those games themselves. I can't tell what's what anymore and I'm rambling! Oh no! Let me get back to basics here, in effect, my opinion on Heroes of the Storm! That's what I wanted to really talk about!

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I really enjoyed Heroes of the Storm for the first week and found nothing to gain from it after that first week.

This game barely has competitive teeth. More people play and watch League of Legends and Dota 2 because those games produce unique "highlight plays" and team strategies much like physical sports do. You can't really micro complex heroes efficiently in Heroes of the Storm because you can't set custom hotkeys. No one who plays this game fervently would want hotkeys either I suspect; there aren't complex abilities or other units across the map that you need to precisely control. There aren't strategies that require you to be anywhere other than where the game says you are supposed to be: "go stand under this totem", "go down into this mine and fight things", "watch out for these plants!".

Similar to League of Legends, Blizzard presumes most players want less freedom and less dynamism in how their competitive MOBA matches progress. I suppose this presumption is actually fact. A less competitive and complicated game is usually a more fun game.

For instance, "Collect the loot from the pirate ship so that it can blow holes in the enemy base" is a kid-friendly and less oblique interpretation of "Get GOLD and do....SOMETHING WITH IT so that you can ransack the enemy base while killing the other heroes!". League of Legends is developed in the same iterative vein where many of its once complicated game mechanics are becoming less stringent and more overt over time. At one point you needed GOLD to see beyond the classic "fog of war" mechanic I believe that has changed; it is much easier for League players to "ward for vision" to see beyond that classic "fog of war" mechanic.

I suppose what I'm getting to in a very long-winded way is two specific mechanics which Heroes of the Storm lacks that intentionally give the game less dynamism:

1) Heroes of the Storm does not have items which supplement your heroes abilities.

2) Heroes of the Storm also has an overtly linear progression for its heroes/champions

Item builds and the ability to freely choose which abilities your hero has at given points of time during a MOBA match add much more spontaneity and emergent behavior than you think. And understanding why that is the case, has more to-do with an in-depth discussion of other MOBAs, namely League of Legends and Dota 2. It would also thus involve a huge run-down of the history of MOBAs which isn't particularily relevant to the current game we are discussing, Heroes of the Storm

At the end of the day, if Heroes of the Storm wasn't populated with fictional Blizzard characters it would be another run-of-the-mill MOBA with zero influence. The ability to play The Lost Vikings competitively against other money-spending Blizzard fans is the emotional and design crux of Heroes of the Storm; everything else about the game is secondary.

Heroes of the Storm is blizzards attempt at the MOBA market. Since its much more "casual" and easier to get into than the other MOBAs, i actually find it quite a relaxing game. The focus of the game due to the shared experience and map objectives is much more team driven over individual skill. Maybe because of this i find that the community is much less toxic, or at least is more silent.

The heroes are fun to use, albeit simpler than in other games. I find that there doesnt really seem to be such a focus on nukers, and heavy AOE. There's not as much commitment to fights, at least on this skill level.

As odd as it may sound, i find it more enjoyable to play than either Lol or DOTA2, even though in my mind those two are clearly superior games to this one.

I'm a bit disappointed, although not entirely surprised, to see this game getting weak ratings as whilst I think it is a top notch MOBA entry it is easy to be turned off by coming to this with previous MOBA experience.

For better or worse I've been playing MOBAs for over 10 years via DoTA>HoN>DOTA2 and when I initially went over to HoTS I was underwhelmed by the overall stream lining of the game (Removal of last hitting, items, skill picking etc), the shared team level and the "gimmicky" stages. Never the less due to my love of the Blizzard franchises I kept coming back every now and then and after a short time I started to miss the classic MOBA features less and less and love the streamlining of the genre. Nowadays I can't play other MOBAs anymore and I look back at the likes of DOTA 2 and see a game bloated with WC3 RTS hangovers and 10+ years of community contributions and realise that Blizzard made the right move to take a step back, cut out the fat and focus on what really made the game enjoyable. More than anything the fact that the playing time has been cut to ~20minutes while still feeling like it has as much relevant action as a game of DOTA2 is something I just couldn't see myself stepping away from.

I really encourage people to not dismiss HoTS immediately, it's worth it when you get over Blizzards changes to the golden formula. Its also worth mentioning that for whatever reason it's the only MOBA without an utterly toxic community.