Heroes of the Storm

HOTS is a terribly dull esport to watch, IMO. The reason I like SC2 is because sure the action is fun to watch and the in-battle micro sometimes is on an ungodly plane but most of the action happens in-between the action. The plays of if Player A is going greedy but will Player B see it in time to punish? Player A is stalling upgrades to strengthen his timing attack. Player B is slipping his macro during the harass engagement. The same happens (but to a lesser extent, IMO) in a game like DOTA as well. But in Heroes there is no action between the action. Because there is only one resource, it is shared and it is automatically spent. There is very little decision making in this game outside of in-battle decision making. I just don't find it fun. The answer for "Why did Team A win?" is always "They won more fights." But in SC/DOTA you can point to "They won more fights" but the reason they won these fights is complicated. Which is why it is actually fun to watch.

I have no prior experience spectating esports to compare it to and I have also never played any other MOBA's (or RTS games for that matter) so I can only speak from a completely new or ignorant point of view but the more I watch HotS games the more I can appreciate some of the complexities to it.

I do agree that (generally) the team that wins more fights wins the game, this doesn't always happen and there have been some crazy games that I have played and watched where one team got shit on for almost all team fights but won that one important late in the game and parlayed that into the win. There is also a side of the meta that is developing (some teams more than others) that focuses on either an early game team (map specific obviously works best on the temple or mines if it gets through, even blackhearts to an extent) that grabs like say a Kerrigan and combos that to just wreck early game. There are also the teams focused on super late game that lose fights until they hit 20 then they are unstoppable.

I have really liked some of what has been coming out of the NA scene the last couple of weeks, some real change up in Heroes being played and synergies being exploited to the fullest, even from teams some consider subpar, EG for example who played a fucking incredible series last night (that literally no one watched I think, looked like 2 viewers ha, which is a shame) against HFD - the same team that embarrassed them less than a week ago in an ESL final.

C9 Vortex played some crazy crazy shit for exhibition matches against Barrel Boys, and did well despite obviously not being "serious". Barrel Boys plays fun things, C9 Maelstrom challenging Tempo Storm now. I am excited for the way things are moving forward but I can also appreciate that I don't know any better and that regardless there will be plenty of people this won't resonate with at all.

The revamp of level 20 really helped with some heroes having greater lategame potential than others. But DOTA does it far better.

Neph_sl said:

Two things I didn't realize while playing ETC:

1. Rather than spamming abilities, wait for both ticks of Echo Pedal to pulse before you hit your next ability.
2. Guitar Hero resets your auto attack, so if you wait until just after ETC swings to trigger Guitar Hero / Guitar Solo (E), you'll get 300% auto attack damage.

Click to expand...

Those things are only true if you take those talents.

They're two of his most popular talents to take, though

My only complaint is that the lvl am playing at, like others said, a come back is near impossible. If the other team is one or 2 lvls haed, its a garanteed loss. A loss that can drag for over 5 minutes.

I got into the beta about a week ago, and I like to think i try pretty hard to see the upside of new MOBA games. Although I prefer Dota to them all I enjoy the time I play Strife or League what have you and take them for what they are. It's really hard to see the upside of this game though. There's just nothing here, it's team fighting from MOBAs with heroes that aren't particularly interesting and nothing else. Map mechanics are very hit and miss, and I can't speak to other mechanics because there honestly are no other mechanics.

Even though the games are so short losing in this is somehow worse than any other game, probably because there's just no way to come back because every aspect of the genre that lends itself to come backs has been removed

I have the complete opposite experience with comebacks, they happen a lot where we get down early and end up winning games. Mures has the right idea in his scenario (and is also right that the general public doesn't get it yet) but you are much better off pushing objectives if you are behind. You play objectives - or you soak/push lanes. I would say 90%+ of the time you are down the enemy team gets cocky and starts to spread to try and do multiple things at once. If you are moving as a team this lets you get pickoffs (player kills give a shit ton of bonus xp if you are behind, get 1 or 2 and you are back to even) which lets you even the level difference and then have an advantage on map objectives, or if you get a really good engagement and get 2-3+ of them dead you can just core it and win.

Some maps can counter this (Sky Temple is one, Mines is the other) because they are super snowball but it can happen even on them.

Sky, Mines and Blackhearts are all really hard to make a comeback mostly because they turn into PvE to win maps

Agree on that, Blackhearts is my least favorite by far and also seems to be the most PvE map out there as well.

It is constantly banned in competitive games for that reason. Once you get a lead you can avoid fights and the other team can never catch up. Then you just keep turning in and eventually win. Mines is similar where the game is often times decided with who wins the first engagement inside the mines. But at least with that map you are forced into taking fights later.

I'm almost positive you are better off skipping the first mines run and just pushing as 5. Even at 100%, the first golem isn't that strong and you'll end up ahead. I actually played one game where we skipped mines 3 times in a row and ended up destroying the other team.

In that scenario the best thing to do is collect 99 skulls and B back and deal with the push. The longer you delay the first golem the strong and stronger it will become.

Sylvannas looks really sick, they didn't give a release date yet though oddly at their PAX East panel.

And they're finally adding a score screen after the game!

I played about 260 matches and stopped for a while, now I'm trying to get back into it but have run into a big roadblock. Every night I come home and think I want to start playing again, I take an epic loss that just blows my fucking mind and makes me not play anymore. Take last night, I had the stupid specialist quest and the only one I can play is gazlowe. I end up with, most kills, least deaths, most siege damage, most hero damage, and most exp contributed, on a talent gated gazlowe..... I had more hero damage than our valla.

I love the fact that matches generally last under 25 minutes, but it's what you said. If you absolutely kick ass, it still may not be even remotely close to enough for your team to win. Teamwork is always a factor in winning any games in general, but the fact that your best can sometimes be barely enough to sway the battle is enough for me to also not want to log in. If I'm going to lose, I want at least part of it to be because I did a poor job. If I'm hauling ass as much as I can and still lose because one or two people are derping around across the map, it just becomes way too discouraging to play.

That's definitely true, but there have been moments where I pull off that clutch Ancestral Heal / Void Prison / Devouring Maw. I once Maw'd two people to grab a late game Dragon Knight, push the core, and win a game we were behind. Chasing that feeling has been pretty addictive even though my win % is pretty terrible.

I'm like 1-6 on Rehgar in Heroes League, but dammit I love to play him even if the rest of my team picks 4 super squishy assassins and nothing I do will help when they just keep diving in one by one over and over.

Feel free to add me if you want to group for games, I haven't been in HotS in the evenings lately but I'm on BNet or in Hearthstone or D3 and I'd gladly pop over to group for some games. I can definitely relate to what you guys are saying but I think it would help if we can put together a group, even if we start out poor we can get better and I think it would go a long way to alleviate that feel of I'm trying but people are just fucking off.

Archaleus#1384

This game needs to double the size of the or maps and make positioning and map awareness more of a thing.