Heroes of the Storm

I burmed out on HON a long while back. Recently started playing LOL..... don't like it. Good art but seems less polished game with little bugs andUI annoyances. Seems dumbed down. Doesn't make me positive from this thread on HOTS either...

I suppose, but I dunno. I just feel like we are arguing over something that at the end of the day doesn't really change things drastically. Ya the gold prices may be a bit high but in the end you can still unlock everything for free and we are still in Alpha. When they have shit loads of people on the servers for beta if their stuff isn't selling then we may see a change. No other MOBA that I play offers you a chance to actually fully try out a char unless it is their free week. That is already an advantage so you should know exactly which heroes you want to buy so there shouldn't be any wasted gold anyway.

As I said before though, I am probably the completely wrong person to be talking to about this as I bought every hero I wanted with real money because I hate to wait for things which makes me sound hypocritical I suppose. Just wanted to state that though since that probably sways my opinion in to caring less about it than I should.

The main objection I have is that a huge part of the depth of the game is the cast. If 90% of the playerbase has access to like 5-7 total heroes and that's it, the games are going to be full of the same picks over and over. Additionally if the heroes you have arn't good for a certain map, or perhaps just arnt good right now at all (that could be due to future nerfs) It creates a really unfortunate ecosystem. I think we don't know what league would be like with an unlocked cast, but I guarantee there would be more variety of champions you never see regardless of their relative meta balance. Dota 2 does not lock its heroes at all - only cosmetics cost money - the game is massively better for it. Locked cast is just a huge turn off for me personally. I doubt they will change it regardless.

"in the end?" really? that end is a long way away.

Alot of people will burn out and get bored with free heroes at the current pace. rewards are too slow.
But yes, Alpha.

Again, part of the problem is incomplete systems. the matchmaking is too small.
Artifacts were removed. As I noted traits and unlocked them is also screwed up. I am pretty sure that is only still in the game, because if they removed that, there would be no progression at all.

And yeah, dandain is on point with the cast list problem.
1. there overall cast is still small. 35 heroes atm.
2. slow gold rate, means most players are still using free rotation heroes..
3. end result is everyone playing the same heroes.

Of the small hero pool even a smaller percent are truly good and viable heroes. I don't know if they're accepting the LoL approach of having a huge cast of characters but only a handful are actually good or what.

The "LoL" approach is somewhat incorrect. something like 95% of LoL champions are good, and I think 100% have a dedicated player that are in the highest tier of the ladder. The image of a smaller "good" pool comes from pro games playing so safe - in a lot of cases players will get skilled at a champ so they can pick it away from enemy players who are known for being good at that champ, not because of the champ itself. If the ban number was higher I think you'd see a lot more diversity but as it is well over half (I think closer to 80% but I forget the number) of the champs saw play in the official LCS matches last season, and the variety appears even higher going into this next season.

My point with all that is: Blizzard is not known for stable balance in anything except Starcraft and Starcraft alone. Applying their WoW class balancing habits to HoS, with the heavily gated hero access, is just asking for disillusionment. Again, I think they are really missing part of the appeal of the game by making it so hard to play different heroes that you want to play. The smaller hero pool just makes it seem more like it should be Smash Bros: Blizzard edition, not less. Maybe X hero from Y game isn't great but if I like that hero and just feel like playing them on a whim it's either $8 or a few weeks of casual play. Not very whimsical at all, in fact.

oh man that is a scary thought. Yeah, Blizzard is horrible at balancing.
They NEVER iterate on that fast enough. I wonder if they have learned anything from LoL, etc balancing?
That said, I do hate Lol's homogenization of champs. Seige tank? murky, Abathur? yes please. more of that.

Oh, and my 35 hero count was off the wiki, where I am now noticing included heroes not in game yet. so its 30-32 atm. not sure.

But the person in charge of balancing SC is also in charge of balance for HOTS. I have no clue who is in charge of it for WoW.

I guess one my concerns with balancing in HotS is that it's supposedly in Alpha right now, which should mean extremely fast and varied changes hitting every week. As opposed to the patch notes once every what - couple months? - that are comparable to a fully released MOBA.

I agree with having the cool, unique champs like HotS has. DotA has a few closer to that weirdness, LoL has some champs that definitely aren't homogenized (especially past year and a half) but maybe don't stand out the same way the HotS do.

When it was in new alpha changes were pretty quick and fast. It has slowed down significantly now that it is preparing to enter beta. My assumption is they feel like they fleshed the game out enough at the start of early alpha and focued mostly on backend and technical changes to make it production ready.

I'm pretty excited about seeing the of the Dota heroes that were ripped from Warcraft in a different game. There was mention of goblin techies and how his gameplay ideas got put into Murky. I think having a long MOBA background will make HotS even more interesting.

Warning: Rambling

The problem I have with the slow pace of earning gold is next month when HotS goes into beta and ranked mode comes out, you'll have to own 10(?) heroes to play. I assume the 7 free to play counts towards that and you'll have to be rank 30, but its basically forcing you to spend gold or money on heroes. Currently at rank 18 without spending any gold I have 13000, so assuming I get to rank 30 I might have.. 20000? At least if I hit several more level 5s on heroes for the 500 gold I will hit that mark. So if I decide to be bad at math or don't know how the ranked system works because I'm a noob, I buy two 10000 gold heroes because the boring heroes all cost 2000-5000. That means at rank 30 I'd be a hero short and forced to spend money or wait. Guess I'll never be able to buy skins with gold!

Not to mention if the 7 free to play do count towards the 10, not all 7 are going to be optimal for the map you're playing on(which you do get to see the map you're playing before you draft) or possibly even fun for that matter. Which if you're playing ranked, you would think you have an ounce of giving a damn and want to play a hero that works well for the map.

I just purchased a few bundles. Think it cost me like $40 and I don't have to worry too much about a limited pool. Though most of those bundles have since been pulled.

Tenks_sl said:

I just purchased a few bundles. Think it cost me like $40 and I don't have to worry too much about a limited pool. Though most of those bundles have since been pulled.

Click to expand...

I didn't even think about that, but I purchased the 5 dollar bundle. What if all 3 of those are in the free to play that week? Means I only have 7 heroes towards the 10. Even worse!

Gotta assume when it hits beta they're going to have a bunch of bundles available to get started.

Beta = January 13. Was this date known? I'm already in alpha and not playing much anyhow. Might be new

StarCraft on Twitter:

Its been known since Blizzcon, a month or so. Probably just promoting it so people can bang their head against the wall while they want to get in, once it comes time to get into the beta their brain cells will be long gone and they'll buy all the things.

I am perfectly fine with Delly's scenario if he has to buy a hero or 2 for ranked since I feel he will care more as opposed to getting them all free? Then again I could make an argument the opposite way as well, so what the fuck do I know.

I certainly see a problem with their balance and every current hero isn't viable but yet we have new maps coming out that I think they believe are going to suddenly make those heroes viable. As others have said I don't think they are capable of making changes fast enough to properly balance the game. This is what I fear the most and care about the most personally. Rest doesn't bother me as much as others.

Just got in last night and I sent out a ton of requests. Looking for people to play with. Vatic#1848