Heroes of the Storm

Draegan_sl said:

Does HOTS have anything like that?

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No. Not that I see. I think it is going to play out like this.

LoLs laning theory. Create a microcosm of a game in lane, with the wild card of ganks. Your skill in the game is dependent upon managing your last hitting, while harassing your opponent so that they can't manage theirs. The goal is to get ahead by farming up and managing your power spikes to get an advantage to win the lane, or push them back to force them to compete with their tower for kills and limit their impact in other areas of the game. Win your lane now, win the game later.

HoTs laning theory (from what I can tell so far). There are too many objectives for the number of players available on the map. You "win" by making good choices as to where you should go and when, and by being able to bully your opponent back, so that that leaving lane for other objectives doesn't cost your team exp. The best laners will be those that can harass their opponent forcing them to leave lane or farm under the tower so that they have to decide between (1) getting exp for team or (2) helping with objectives.

In LOL, you can tell good laners from bad laners by waiting until the first dragon kill, then looking at two factors: KDA and CS. In HotS, you will be able to tell good laners from bad laners by looking at two factors: the percentage of EXP gained by the team and their mechanics score (both are displayed as individual stats when you die/at the end of the game).

I think that is the theory that Bliz is going for. Rather than micro management of your lane, they are going for more macro-management of, using LoL terms, lane control and objective control. There are way more objectives in HotS than LoL, and those objectives aren't intended to be soloable or 5 mans like they are in LoL. Instead, they are more granular.


The problem right now, is when you have players that have literally never even seen a champ work, playing it, the minor difference of losing a few lane team lane exp compared to getting an objective is completely un-noticable. You wont win or lose by completely abandoning your lane, because someone is likely to just not even click a major button they have that can win them a fight. As players get better, the difference between goods and bads will decrease, so more minor things, like making sure that someone is always there to soak up lane exp will be important.

Dont forget, in LoL, when you miss a wave of minions, it sets you back in lane, but there are still 4 other players there that may be raping their lane, or getting raped, or breaking even. In HotS, if you miss a wave, you set your entire team back a wave, across the board. That will be huge when people arent running into the middle of 5 people sitting in a bush because they had no idea what was going on and because the 5 people really had no business being there but they didn't know wtf was going on.

Anyway, all of this is really rambling to say that there IS something going on tactic wise in the game. I can tell that for sure. I just don't think it is quite enough yet, even once people starting figuring stuff out. People seem to lump the game into EZ mode LOL, but I can guarantee it wont be that. There will be just as much strats and meta as in any other MOBA. The focus will be on what they call "Rolling Lanes" in the pro LoL scene rather than winning lanes in the solo Q scene. I am certain of that. I am just not certain whether it will be fun or not, or any more or less frustrating than LoL.


Edit: Sorry for the hard read, typing on mobile sucks.

ZProtoss_sl said:

Here's the base argument that you're not getting. Ronne's argument was:

"If you don't like League's mechanics, something is wrong with you because of how many people enjoy League."

My argument is: The amount of gamers that don't enjoy league for one reason or another still vastly outnumber the amount of people that enjoy League. It doesn't matter that League is popular relative to other games, the point is that relative to the total base of available gamers, there's a shitload of people who don't particularly care for it.

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He also ignores that just because someone plays LoL and Dota now, doesn't mean many of them wouldn't enjoy a game more that didn't have something like last hit. If you like everything in LoL except for last hit, you are shit out of luck atm, and I basically fit this bill. Now we are finally getting some more choice.

Really sounds to me like MOBA-artahi basin..where the team rotates around to different objectives and tries to do that faster than their opponent... hopefully it turns out better than that.... but sounds very similar to how AB was (at least in vanilla).

That's exactly what it is Lenaldo. The map mechanics are more invovled than just 'take blacksmith' and hold but it certainly has that feel to it. Everything is so new right now it's hard to be sure you are making the correct decision after the first few minutes.

Lets hope not, because that's basically LoL Dominion. That was fun for about a week.

LOL Dominion is boring as fuck too, even more so to watch. I hope this game allows for more than running around, team fighting and taking objectives in a blob.

khalid_sl said:

He also ignores that just because someone plays LoL and Dota now, doesn't mean many of them wouldn't enjoy a game more that didn't have something like last hit. If you like everything in LoL except for last hit, you are shit out of luck atm, and I basically fit this bill. Now we are finally getting some more choice.

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Strife and Dawngate have both removed last hitting (if you want to play that way), where are the millions of people flocking to their games that obviously didn't like Dota/League?

Removing mechanics from a moba can only go so far before you're left with just arena battles, which historically are far less engaging/popular and not really a great recipe for success.

Ronne_sl said:

Strife and Dawngate have both removed last hitting (if you want to play that way), where are the millions of people flocking to their games that obviously didn't like Dota/League?

Removing mechanics from a moba can only go so far before you're left with just arena battles, which historically are far less engaging/popular and not really a great recipe for success.

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Strife has last hitting... you just share the gold with your lanemate.

Draegan_sl said:

LOL Dominion is boring as fuck too, even more so to watch. I hope this game allows for more than running around, team fighting and taking objectives in a blob.

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Yes. I agree. As I said above, my initial thought is that they need to add more to laning to avoid that effect. You shouldn't be able to ignore a lane and still win, yet you easily can as of now. My thoughts are that probably like 66% of the EXP that comes into the game should come in from laning, so that it is a real choice to go after an objective, and going after an objective and failing is painful. Also, ignoring an objective is not a bad idea if the other team sends everyone there and loses a bunch of lane exp. Those are the types of balance issues and decisions that will be required to make HotS' style work.

You need to create 2v2s and 3v3s at objectives to make it interesting, imo.

I still think this comes down to the huge reality that they have stripped economy from the game. There is only one resource that matters, experience. Yes rotations and map awareness and all the shit that is core to a game with a minimap still exist and that's what the game will be about. But it is so far from Dota and League that the comparison hurts HoTS. If you ever told a CS player you were creating a new take on CS but you were going to get rid the economy of the game you'd get laughed out of the room - at that point its not a new take on CS. Economy is a massive defining characteristic of a "Moba".

Additionally last hitting is an absolutely brilliant mechanic when it comes to PvP in a map with PvE. Even in League which has "removed denying" still has denying where it is most impactful. You can smite, nuke and last hit steal the baron, the dragon and the golems. They don't call it denying because you actually get the buff too which is even more powerful than what an in-lane Dota deny is. In lane denying is not nearly so impactful as stealing a dragon or a buff, but it is a small way to interact with your opponents goal of securing last hits. Pro's in league approach the theoratical maximum CS for most of the time in the lane phase, in Dota that theoretical max is less likely to be hit because both players compete for positioning on every minion ally or enemy in a wave. The fact that the resource isn't earned unless the last hit is secured creates great tension when a small amount of power can be gained at every minion death in lane.

Without last hitting, you take out the incentive for a team late to an objective to engage on it with a chance to steal. Does hots use some kind of MMO claiming rule when talking about these mercenary camps or do the last hits matter? How does a team late to event steal it? Only by wiping the other team before the NPC's are dead?

Just got smashed by a 5man premade. 3 ranged, 2 heals. Felt exactly like WoW BG to me.

I really hope there is not any LoL players in here bitching about the removal of last hits.. that would be really ironic considering Dota 2 players bitched for a long time (and still do!) about League being no skill with the removal of denials. Thanks Riot for the pussification of the genre. Soon they'll just remove combat from the game and we can all complete our objective of picking flowers.

Blizz making a moba game is Riot's fault. Insightful.

DeLLy please go back to the Dota2 thread and die there.

DeLLy_sl said:

I really hope there is not any LoL players in here bitching about the removal of last hits.. that would be really ironic considering Dota 2 players bitched for a long time (and still do!) about League being no skill with the removal of denials. Thanks Riot for the pussification of the genre. Soon they'll just remove combat from the game and we can all complete our objective of picking flowers.

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Yeah I didn't want to say anything about that, but it's pretty funny.

I finished my stint in selling characters as BC was being released, did ActiBlizz ever get "official" PvP (Arathi/BSG/etc) to be fun? I know they created another tedium with the arena/pvp seasons, but did anyone ever have DAoC level fun with it?

I know it's a different team, but I think the answer would be relevant considering it's what you're equating this game to now. The people I played with never did. Did anyone else?

One of the things that tells me that this game is going to be massive is the reaction I've been getting from friends who generally hate MOBAs. When a hardcore FPS friend of mine who's mocked DOTA/League/--insertvarianthere-- for years on end is chomping at the bit to play Heroes, it means that the game is somehow hitting a demographic that other games have missed over the years. He also brought up another interesting point...


Ground floor matters in MOBA-style games. Heroes is going to draw in a shitload of people from the beginning because it'll almost be seen as a reset button. Trying to get into DOTA and League in their current forms is an experience in misery for a new player. The games have been out for so long that a new player is faced with the daunting task of playing catch up. Why catch up on years of meta game knowledge with 100+ heroes when you can start fresh in a game where norms are still being developed?

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The only problem with that argument is that Dota and League are attracting new players all the time. Both games manage to be fun from newb day 1 all the way until to plat/diamond or 4/5kmmr. Its more important that you play with people at your knowledge level than anything else. If newbies got matched with pros neither game would grow, that however isn't the case.

If your friend really thinks he's an innovator great, he'd be pleased to know that the same thing continues to happen in league and dota every single day. The suggestion that you need to know what Dota or League was like 2 years ago is not relevant, every patch can change core aspects of both games. Map timings, hero strength, item strength, nothing is sacred. The only metagame that matters is the current one, experience is something that can't be replaced, and anyone who who has played league or dota will be at pretty massive advantage over a newb to moba's when it comes to HoTS. At the very minimum they have experience playing in chaotic 5v5 teamfights in the same style of control/movement environment.

Dandain_sl said:

If your friend really thinks he's an innovator great, he'd be pleased to know that the same thing continues to happen in league and dota every single day. The suggestion that you need to know what Dota or League was like 2 years ago is not relevant, every patch can change core aspects of both games. Map timings, hero strength, item strength, nothing is sacred. The only metagame that matters is the current one, experience is something that can't be replaced, and anyone who who has played league or dota will be at pretty massive advantage over a newb to moba's when it comes to HoTS. At the very minimum they have experience playing in chaotic 5v5 teamfights in the same style of control/movement environment.

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I'm sorry, but this post couldn't be more full of shit. While it's true that the metagame is always in flux in games like DOTA/League, the idea that a 100% new player can simply hop in and pickup those games is absurd. With both games having 100+ heroes now, the learn time for merely figuring out what each of those 100 heroes does is massive. Now try and calculate how many times you need to see each hero in a game before you can feel comfortable in dealing with that heroes spacing and gameplay flow - countless games. The knowledge and experience gap between a 3 year + veteran and someone new to the game is nothing short of gigantic, and the fact that you'd try to hand wave it off in this post shows how out of touch you are with that fact.

Previous MOBA experience in Heroes doesn't really count for as much as you might think it does. It might give you a small headstart on some of the base framework of the game, but the ebb and flow of teamfights/map rotation is dramatically different than what you'd generally see in DOTA/League. If you doubt that, all you have to do is look at some of the League players streaming who still continually fuck up on even simple parts of the game. It's effectively as close to a reset button as you're going to get, and it's certainly a far superior environment for a new player than current DOTA/League are.