Heroes of the Storm

Mures · Jun 30, 2014

Draegan_sl said:
The comparison is usually made thinking that you know what a MOBA is and how it's basically played. HOTS is like WOW BGs because of how the game is set up. In WOW, you have a bunch of battlegrounds that people play in where not a single map is standard and all are treating equally in a general way. Same thing in HOTS.

In DOTA2/LOL you have one standard Map. LOL has a bunch of other games, but the standard map is what nearly everyone plays on, it's the single point of reference. This is the first comparison.

The second point is that in HOTS there is no way to customize or differentiate yourself from others outside your talent points. Which is essentially WOW battlegrounds given equal gear. In a WOW BG your individual kill/assist(healing?) score means nothing outside a bragging reference point. Obviously, they more successful you are the better you're helping your team most likely. However in traditional MOBAs, your score directly translates into your personal power level. Gain more kills, you gain more gold. More gold equals more items and power spikes. You can't do that in HOTS/WOW BGs.

That's basically what it comes down to on a high end view point.

Just because the two games have different maps doesn't essentially make it the same game, not even close, and has no bearing whatsoever on the core mechanics of the game, which again are nothing like battlegrounds. It is a really, really bad, simplistic explanation. You, yourself are comparing it to other mobas, which it closer relates to, because it is a moba, which is nothing like wow battlegrounds(in the way that we use the term moba now).

Unless I'm mistaken, your second point is just flat out wrong. Correct me if I'm wrong, but killing people in wow battlegrounds does not give you experience and make you or your whole team stronger does it? Your personal score is no less meaningful in hots than your personal score in lol or dota.

Your other points you don't even attempt to compare to battlegrounds because there is no comparison, you are just saying obvious differences between the moba games. But since you want to bring them up, how do you differentiate yourself in lol? Runes? You either pick the wrong runes or you're smart enough to google a guide. Masteries? Google guide. Those two ways of "differentiating" yourself are nothing more than a gateway holding back new players. Then you have items. Again, you google a guide and most everyone builds the character to the most popular one or two guides with only 1 or 2 items differentiating the two. You have an item list that is so bloated that you have to go in and make a custom item list. Speaking of differentiating yourself, talents, the closest comparable thing to items really can differentiate yourself, as in your hero can be significantly different depending on which talents you took, conversely, no matter what items you build that hero will always play the same. The perception of the bloated item list is that you have so many choices, but in all actuality there are a small number of items you'd want to build for each character. Now I'm not going to pretend one is better than the other, they are just different.

And for your last point substitute the word experience for gold and talents for items. More experience equals more talents and power spikes. This is a common myth from people looking to say anything negative about hots, the myth that you can't carry or outplay your opponent is highly exaggerated. You absolutely can outplay your opponent causing a spike in power. It really isn't that much different from lol in that regard except it can be more of a team effort, but that doesn't always have to be the case, I can't speak for dota2 because I didn't play it past the tutorial. Again, this is nothing like battlegrounds because in battle grounds the two teams are always on equal footing.

So again, your comparison saying the two games are ESSENTIALLY the same thing is the exact opposite of a "high end view point". It is the least common denominator, made for a total ignoramus view point.

Dis · Jun 30, 2014

Most teams, if you turn in, bot lane will come up to protect a turn in. If you have a Zag or Gaz they can have creep or cannons out to protect as well, not to mention detection by map control.

They need more heros focused on map control, which generally need to be weak in certain areas offensively or defensively. Zag should have more creep tumors for maps, or at least make it an ability along the skill tree, also the level 20 nydus canal needs to allow all heros to use it. Just IMO.

Mures · Jun 30, 2014

Draegan_sl said:
HOTS is essentially LOL/DOTA2 with different twists.

Well since battlegrounds are essentially hots and hots is essentially lol/dota2 I guess lol/dota2 are essentially battlegrounds also, see why that comment couldn't be further from the truth now?

Tenks · Jun 30, 2014

Neph_sl said:
That's an interesting point. I've never seen anyone hiding in the smoke or clutter around the turn in. I normally just ping the map to say I'm turning in and someone usually comes along to block.

Oh man that little triangle can be prime camping time for Hammer. She just places mines at the entrances then gains the full effect of her +5 range in siege talent. It can be a really hard place to breech.

Draegan_sl · Jun 30, 2014

Tenks_sl said:
I don't know anything about LoL but there is no hero in DOTA that even resembles Abathur or Murky.

Although now I'm realizing you've never played the game so I'm not sure why you're putting in your opinion about the game as fact so much

They are all MOBAs, I've watched the game being played. I don't know how much else I need to know before making an overarching opinion. I'm not trying to insert my opinion on the meta game, or strategies or whatever. Just on the basics.

I can look at any champ/heroes abilities and tell you whats what. So HOTS has some champs that have abilities that LOL/DOTA2 doesn't have. So? That doesn't make the game any less different or similar.

DOTA2 has champs that control summoned minions as part of their core gameplay. LOL doesn't. That doesn't mean that those two games are so drastically different.

Draegan_sl · Jun 30, 2014

Pyros_sl said:
It's still closer to dota/lol than to wow bgs I'd say, because of the base centric gameplay and gameplay mechanics(how CC interact, how skills are designed, point of view obviously and such).

For sure, HOTS is closer to dota/lol than WOW bgs. But that wasn't the original point.

Tenks · Jun 30, 2014

Pyros_sl said:
Well different heroes doesn't mean you can't make comparisons between the games, there's no heroes like invoker or meepo in either lol yet you can compare them and there's no heroes like akali and ezreal in dota but you can still compare the games. It's a good thing they have original heroes, otherwise it'd show pretty fucking awful design.

I'm just saying that with the absence of items and shared XP it makes heroes like Abathur and Murky possible. You may be able to re-work them and shoe horn them into the two games but it wouldn't be as elegent as it is in HOTS. Like if Murky had access to items suddenly he'd just buy a heart and he'd have too much of an HP pool ot make his mechanics balanced. Abathur possibly could work if the Symbiote gave the hero directly XP instead of sharing XP.

Neph_sl · Jun 30, 2014

Dis_sl said:
They need more heros focused on map control, which generally need to be weak in certain areas offensively or defensively. Zag should have more creep tumors for maps, or at least make it an ability along the skill tree, also the level 20 nydus canal needs to allow all heros to use it. Just IMO.

Tyrande's owl is a pretty underused scouting ability. The most obvious use is for scouting the initial surge on the watch tower on the Pirate map. But in terms of map control, I've seen people use it to scout merc camps or tributes, which is really clutch. A real pro can pop moving Nova or Zeratul out of stealth. I'm terrible at using her owl.

It's not the same as something persistent providing vision (like tumors), but it's incredibly useful if used well.

TecKnoe · Jun 30, 2014

whats taking so long for the buy ins, someon let me use their account for like an hour!

Tenks · Jun 30, 2014

Neph_sl said:
Tyrande's owl is a pretty underused scouting ability. The most obvious use is for scouting the initial surge on the watch tower on the Pirate map. But in terms of map control, I've seen people use it to scout merc camps or tributes, which is really clutch. A real pro can pop moving Nova or Zeratul out of stealth. I'm terrible at using her owl.

Tyranade is a really good hero with a really high skill cap I feel. As a Nova she can make my laning an absolute nightmare between her stun arrow and owl. It is also really good for scouting in bushes.

Draegan_sl · Jun 30, 2014

mures_sl said:
Just because the two games have different maps doesn't essentially make it the same game, not even close, and has no bearing whatsoever on the core mechanics of the game, which again are nothing like battlegrounds. It is a really, really bad, simplistic explanation. You, yourself are comparing it to other mobas, which it closer relates to, because it is a moba, which is nothing like wow battlegrounds(in the way that we use the term moba now).

Unless I'm mistaken, your second point is just flat out wrong. Correct me if I'm wrong, but killing people in wow battlegrounds does not give you experience and make you or your whole team stronger does it? Your personal score is no less meaningful in hots than your personal score in lol or dota.

Your other points you don't even attempt to compare to battlegrounds because there is no comparison, you are just saying obvious differences between the moba games. But since you want to bring them up, how do you differentiate yourself in lol? Runes? You either pick the wrong runes or you're smart enough to google a guide. Masteries? Google guide. Those two ways of "differentiating" yourself are nothing more than a gateway holding back new players. Then you have items. Again, you google a guide and most everyone builds the character to the most popular one or two guides with only 1 or 2 items differentiating the two. You have an item list that is so bloated that you have to go in and make a custom item list. Speaking of differentiating yourself, talents, the closest comparable thing to items really can differentiate yourself, as in your hero can be significantly different depending on which talents you took, conversely, no matter what items you build that hero will always play the same. The perception of the bloated item list is that you have so many choices, but in all actuality there are a small number of items you'd want to build for each character. Now I'm not going to pretend one is better than the other, they are just different.

And for your last point substitute the word experience for gold and talents for items. More experience equals more talents and power spikes. This is a common myth from people looking to say anything negative about hots, the myth that you can't carry or outplay your opponent is highly exaggerated. You absolutely can outplay your opponent causing a spike in power. It really isn't that much different from lol in that regard except it can be more of a team effort, but that doesn't always have to be the case, I can't speak for dota2 because I didn't play it past the tutorial. Again, this is nothing like battlegrounds because in battle grounds the two teams are always on equal footing.

So again, your comparison saying the two games are ESSENTIALLY the same thing is the exact opposite of a "high end view point". It is the least common denominator, made for a total ignoramus view point.

If I'm talking to someone that is a LOL player that knows that Blizzard has a MOBA out but knows nothing about it, I would say the game has aspects of WOW BGs. Obviously I'm not the only one who thinks this. The comparison is inside the assumption that they are all MOBAs and have all the same mechanics from a base point of view. How would you differentiate the difference between LOL and HOTS with a simple reference? WOW BGs are a pretty large common experience that you can use to help that.

Regarding my second point, which I think you misunderstood, is that in WOW BGs your personal KDA means absolutely nothing in terms of your personal power level outside of helping your team win the game. Same thing in HOTS. However in DOTA2/LOL the more kills/assists you get, the more gold you get, the faster you can purchase items which ramps up your power level compared to other players. This is called snowballing. If you open up the game with 5 kills within the first 5 minutes you're going to be a monster and dominate the game. That's my point.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in HOTS dying has no consequence other than keeping you out of the game for whatever the death timer is at that point in the game (and your team suffers being down a man). In other MOBAs dying feeds the other player gold which helps increase their power base along with all the other consequences.

The rest of your post is essentially personal taste, but I think you're missing out on the point with simple handwaving and saying "guides". I'll leave it with this explanation from my point of view. Runes and Masteries are ways to shift the focus of your champion. Now you can compare item builds to talent builds. Both are probably going to be highly iterated with guides and websites so they are essentially the same except for one major difference. Instead of having a personal power curve where your actions directly contribute to increasing that power curve, HOTS is fully team oriented and you have to rely not just on yourself, but your team to pump your power curve and your whole team is riding the same curve at the same time.

I never said you can't outplay your opponent. MOBAs at a core are very skill-based game with both physical mechanics of manipulating your champ along with a heavy reliance on good decision making. None of the games here lack in those things.

I would accept saying gold = experience if either LOL/DOTA had full blown global gold outside objectives; but they don't.

Draegan_sl · Jun 30, 2014

Tenks_sl said:
I'm just saying that with the absence of items and shared XP it makes heroes like Abathur and Murky possible. You may be able to re-work them and shoe horn them into the two games but it wouldn't be as elegent as it is in HOTS. Like if Murky had access to items suddenly he'd just buy a heart and he'd have too much of an HP pool ot make his mechanics balanced. Abathur possibly could work if the Symbiote gave the hero directly XP instead of sharing XP.

Can you explain yourself a little better? It just sounds like heroes are balanced based on how the game is played. Sounds just like any other game is balanced around items that are available. The skills of the two heroes you mentioned have similarities with heroes/champs of other games.

Tenks · Jun 30, 2014

Draegan_sl said:
Can you explain yourself a little better? It just sounds like heroes are balanced based on how the game is played. Sounds just like any other game is balanced around items that are available. The skills of the two heroes you mentioned have similarities with heroes/champs of other games.

I guess I can give a quick rundown on how the two play:

Abathur -- Sits in base and never leaves it for the most part. He lacks any real auto attack and had laughable HP. However his goal is to never encounter another enemy. He has a symbiote ability where he latches onto another PC, NPC or building. When he is attached to the item he gains three ability. Stab, which is a skillshot dealing maybe 150 dmg on a 1second CD. Spike, which is a PBAOE dealing maybe 300 damage on a 10s CD and Carapace which gives a shield. Casting Symbiote is global and really just forces you to stare at the minimap at all points to figure out where you're needed most since your team is basically 4v5. He can also lay down toxic nests which are basically just proximity mines that do modest damage and casts locusts at certain intervals which helps push whatever lane he's closest.

Murky -- Similar to Abathur but with even worse HP. Like 300 HP to start with (a squishy hero has like 700 and a tanky hero around 1300) and doesn't do much damage with his auto attack. His mechanic is he can lay an egg anywhere on the map. Whenever he dies if his egg is present he instead immediately respawns at the egg. This doesn't count as a death and the Murky himself gives modest XP. However if you find the egg he is vulnerable and can die a "real" death. He is mainly a pusher and "rat" player. He has a pufferfish ability that takes so long to charge up it is almost worthless against real heroes but does really good damage to structures. He also has a slime ability to slow heroes and an invulnerability bubble.

What it comes down to is on Murky if you could buy an item that gave him flat +80 damage he'd be overpowered. If you could buy an item that gave him flat +1200 HP he'd be overpowered. The only way he really works is in this itemless game.

For Abathur to work I don't know how you'd handle items. Would the effect the team fight and you're "present" if your attached to a hero? Like if he had Pipe or Mek could he pop it then? Would that be overpowered since your support could be in perfect spot to pop it next to all the tanks/carries? How would +dmg items work? I just don't see how item interaction could be anything but edge cases and one-offs for him.

Amzin · Jun 30, 2014

Tenks_sl said:
What it comes down to is on Murky if you could buy an item that gave him flat +80 damage he'd be overpowered. If you could buy an item that gave him flat +1200 HP he'd be overpowered. The only way he really works is in this itemless game.

This is a pointless statement. League and Dota are similar in mechanics but take almost any hero from either game and put it in the other and they would be either OP or UP. The heroes are designed for the game their in. That's a given. The ACTUAL statement was those heroes do things that can't be done in other games, which isn't true. Any champ from any of the games taken alone is unique, but their abilities rarely are. Murky and Abathur on their own are unique, but similar concepts exist in other MOBAs already, and in a ton of ways Murky is just a glorified split pusher (a big thing in LoL) that can't team fight, so is actually less versatile.

Tenks · Jun 30, 2014

Murky can team fight decently if you build him for that purpose. Obviously your split push abilities will suffer. It is just the split push is a bit more clear cut. With a slime focused build and Octograb he can help out pretty well in a team fight.

I fail to see how just saying his role is split push suddenly doesn't make him non-unique in the overarching genre. Until I see Riot or Valve pull off balancing a hero like Murky given his unique circumstances in their game I'll still think he can only exist in this ecosystem. Many heroes have a unique set of skills but for the most part they're just spin offs and flavors of other skills. Murky as a hero really isn't different. I'm talking about his actual mechanic and definition.

Mures · Jun 30, 2014

Draegan_sl said:
Regarding my second point, which I think you misunderstood, is that in WOW BGs your personal KDA means absolutely nothing in terms of your personal power level outside of helping your team win the game. Same thing in HOTS. However in DOTA2/LOL the more kills/assists you get, the more gold you get, the faster you can purchase items which ramps up your power level compared to other players. This is called snowballing. If you open up the game with 5 kills within the first 5 minutes you're going to be a monster and dominate the game. That's my point.
Of course your kda means something in terms of your personal power, it just also happens you share that power level with your teammates because experience is team based. In battlegrounds there are no power levels so the two do not compare. And there is snowballing, it is just a bit different. Admittedly, early death is slightly less meaningful in hots, but simply put, scoring an early kill may mean you can get an early mercenary camp which in turn allows you to push a lane further in, which in turn allows you to claim that map objective, which in turn wins you the game, so the game has snowballing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in HOTS dying has no consequence other than keeping you out of the game for whatever the death timer is at that point in the game (and your team suffers being down a man). In other MOBAs dying feeds the other player gold which helps increase their power base along with all the other consequences.
Dying in hots feeds the other team experience so its really not any different from dota/lol in that regard.

I would accept saying gold = experience if either LOL/DOTA had full blown global gold outside objectives; but they don't.
You don't have to accept it, it is, the only difference is in hots all experience/gold is shared and dota/lol only global objectives are shared. And I see where you're going with this now, "its like battlegrounds because it is team based" but again that whole notion is flawed because there are no levels in battlegrounds.

.

Tenks · Jun 30, 2014

I wonder how they're going to handle the competitive eSport side of this game. They'll obviously add custom games in where you can select your team and your map but will they add a draft/ban phase? Right now you can have the same hero on both teams. I don't know if that'll persist. I feel if it does you may get stale games where everyone selects the same 5 heroes basically every time.

Draegan_sl · Jun 30, 2014

Tenks_sl said:
I guess I can give a quick rundown on how the two play:

Abathur -- Sits in base and never leaves it for the most part. He lacks any real auto attack and had laughable HP. However his goal is to never encounter another enemy. He has a symbiote ability where he latches onto another PC, NPC or building. When he is attached to the item he gains three ability. Stab, which is a skillshot dealing maybe 150 dmg on a 1second CD. Spike, which is a PBAOE dealing maybe 300 damage on a 10s CD and Carapace which gives a shield. Casting Symbiote is global and really just forces you to stare at the minimap at all points to figure out where you're needed most since your team is basically 4v5. He can also lay down toxic nests which are basically just proximity mines that do modest damage and casts locusts at certain intervals which helps push whatever lane he's closest.

Murky -- Similar to Abathur but with even worse HP. Like 300 HP to start with (a squishy hero has like 700 and a tanky hero around 1300) and doesn't do much damage with his auto attack. His mechanic is he can lay an egg anywhere on the map. Whenever he dies if his egg is present he instead immediately respawns at the egg. This doesn't count as a death and the Murky himself gives modest XP. However if you find the egg he is vulnerable and can die a "real" death. He is mainly a pusher and "rat" player. He has a pufferfish ability that takes so long to charge up it is almost worthless against real heroes but does really good damage to structures. He also has a slime ability to slow heroes and an invulnerability bubble.

What it comes down to is on Murky if you could buy an item that gave him flat +80 damage he'd be overpowered. If you could buy an item that gave him flat +1200 HP he'd be overpowered. The only way he really works is in this itemless game.

For Abathur to work I don't know how you'd handle items. Would the effect the team fight and you're "present" if your attached to a hero? Like if he had Pipe or Mek could he pop it then? Would that be overpowered since your support could be in perfect spot to pop it next to all the tanks/carries? How would +dmg items work? I just don't see how item interaction could be anything but edge cases and one-offs for him.

Sounds like a game that has designed some interesting champs and are balanced around the game they appear in. Nothing more, nothing less. Heroes in HOTS are designed around not gaining additional stats outside of levels/talents. It's silly to think that you can take one dude from a game and plop him into another ecosystem and expect them to be anywhere near balanced. It's the same thing comparing classes in one MMO to another.

Draegan_sl · Jun 30, 2014

Tenks_sl said:
I wonder how they're going to handle the competitive eSport side of this game. They'll obviously add custom games in where you can select your team and your map but will they add a draft/ban phase? Right now you can have the same hero on both teams. I don't know if that'll persist. I feel if it does you may get stale games where everyone selects the same 5 heroes basically every time.

If I had to guess, I would say that HOTS not having a standard map or at least not promoting one map over another, will hurt them in the long run of trying to gain popularity in the esport side. Obviously they have a leg up on other up and coming MOBAs just because it's Blizzard. It would be interesting to see if they can make a highly popular esport out of this without standardizing what map "pros" play on.

Tenks · Jun 30, 2014

Draegan_sl said:
Sounds like a game that has designed some interesting champs and are balanced around the game they appear in. Nothing more, nothing less. Heroes in HOTS are designed around not gaining additional stats outside of levels/talents. It's silly to think that you can take one dude from a game and plop him into another ecosystem and expect them to be anywhere near balanced. It's the same thing comparing classes in one MMO to another.

This conversation is starting to wear on me because you seem so thick headed on the subject. I am not discussing tweaking a variable here or there. In HOTS/DOTA/LoL they all have some similar heroes. Stitches in HOTS performs very similar to Pudge in DOTA. I'm sure there is a LoL equivalent. Sure if you dropped Pudge from DOTA into LoL he'd be terrible because LoL is about quick skills usage where DOTA is about timed and methodical usage. So you'd lower some mana values and CDs and boom -- he's a LoL hero. I'm talking about core fundamental gameplay with the aforementioned two. If they exist in LoL then chalk it up to my ignorance on the game but they don't exist in DOTA.

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