“... there will be more heroes, more brawls, and more maps.”
September 25, 2017 1:08 PM   Subscribe

On its Second Anniversary, Heroes of the Storm Has Finally Turned a Corner by Kat Bailey [USGamer] “You could hear the Overwatch fans moaning as they were dragged kicking and screaming into Heroes of the Storm a couple weeks ago: "Oh, I have to play this lousy game just to get a D.Va skin?" The irritation shown by a broad swath of Overwatch fans is symptomatic of the general attitude toward Heroes of the Storm. On one side, you have DotA 2 and League of Legends fans insisting that Heroes of the Storm is too basic and too casual. On the other, you have people who seem to consider the entire genre to be poison. Such attitudes have resulted in Heroes of the Storm being seen as something of a red-headed stepchild in the Blizzard family. While Overwatch has received all the criticial acclaim and success over the past year, Heroes of the Storm has been quietly motoring along in the background, building up bit by bit. Now that hard work is starting to pay off. ” [Cinematic][Gameplay]

• Does Heroes of the Storm need saving? by Chris Thursten [Eurogamer]
“Heroes of the Storm succeeds because Blizzard identified a few things about the genre that they were interested in - specifically, map-wide team strategy and fast-paced PVP - and made a game entirely about those things. Most new MOBAs do this to some extent, but Blizzard's clarity of thought is evident in how brutally they excised everything that was not interesting to them. [...] Heroes of the Storm has found its niche not as a top-tier esport like League of Legends or Dota 2, but as one of the industry's most reliable sources of Cinderella stories. Whether or not the game is a success - whether it needs 'saving' - depends on how you're judging success. Heroes of the Storm hasn't overthrown the old order, but it has found its own voice. Heroes of the Storm's successes are too subtle and its ambitions are too specific for it to ever match Overwatch's impact. Yet if it's a success in the eyes of the people who are playing closest attention to it, does that matter? Its talent system and mana wells have subsequently shown up in Dota 2, and its jungling mechanics and per-player quest system have drawn the eye of Riot. It has influenced the giants of its genre but, unlike other Blizzard games, it hasn't knocked them out of the way.”
• Blizzard on the game's overhauled progression system, new Overwatch-themed map and Loot Chests. by Kosta Andreadis [IGN]
“Taking place in the Nexus, a fictional dimensional plane where characters from throughout the Blizzard universe can get together and battle it out, there’s a sense now more than ever that if you love Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, or Overwatch, then there is something in Heroes of the Storm for you. Or someone. “For all the different properties we have at Blizzard, Heroes is the place for everyone to come and play with their favourite heroes,” Travis explains. “And we literally have lists that are hundreds long of favourites we want to bring. So there's always a chance for somebody's favourite, no matter how strange it is, to be in there.” That core idea, of a diverse and growing cast of heroes from the Blizzard multi-verse (where new additions happen monthly) has been there since the beginning. It’s just that Blizzard’s interpretation of the standard MOBA formula took some time, and multiple revisions, to nail down.”
• Should You Give Heroes of the Storm Another Try? by Izo Lopez [Mineski]
“Over the course of its history, Heroes of the Storm has really grown from that first "What the hell, this isn't Dota" game that turned so many people off. It's innovated a lot of new MOBA mechanics such as quests, or a hero becoming a raid boss in the middle of the game (Ragnaros), or a hero that casts all of its meaningful abilities through allies (Abathur), and so much more. Hell, the new Hanamura map features opposing payload-pushing on a MOBA map. That's honestly impressively creative. Hell, Dota 2 adopted the talent tree system and in-base shrines, as well as the ability to queue solo and not get matched against queued parties. League of Legends also got the idea of base gates and the new lane-pushing Rift Herald objective from HotS. The trick to appreciating it is not to go into it thinking that the Dota style of MOBA is the end-all be-all of MOBA design. Blizzard's design of Heroes of the Storm is very deliberate and informed by good game design philosophies: increase depth, decrease complexity, make decisions meaningful, and focus hero flavor. Go into it with the openness to wonder what other ways can MOBAs be played, and appreciate how HotS has at least tried to answer that. It wouldn't have lasted so long if it weren't genuinely fun for enough people.”
• Heroes of the Storm: 2,490 matches later, here’s why I can’t stop playing by Tom Mendelsohn [ArsTechnica]
“Not quite an RPG, not quite an RTS, MOBAs are fierce, fast games that combine swift fingers, strategic thinking, and uproarious bursts of skill. Two teams of five players duke it out to destroy each other's base with the assistance of computer-controlled units that march forward along set paths, or lanes, as the terminology has it. It's a simple concept that allows for a huge amount of depth, and when two teams are in full flow, firing on every cylinder, it's a joy to watch and play. But there's a precipitous learning curve at every level of skill, and it can just as easily become an exercise in frustration and self-flagellation, especially if your teammates aren't up to snuff—or if you're the rube but you don't know it. I've played Heroes of the Storm for two years, starting just after it left beta. In that time I've played 2,490 games. Each game takes an average of 20 minutes, though a game can last anywhere from about 12 minutes during an outright stomp to upwards of half an hour, if both sides consist of woeful morons. By my calculations, that's exactly 830 hours of furious mouse-clicks and grimaces of anguish or just over 34-and-a-half full days of gaming. That's a lot. [Pfft, I had over 700 days of World of Warcraft play time! -Ed.] These things, if you let them, have a way of taking over your life.”
• Why You Should Care About Heroes Of The Storm by Yannick LeJacq [Kotaku]
“In spite of the game’s RTS-style top-down perspective and its RPG-like levelling system for all the playable characters, it reminds me of Super Smash Bros. more than any other game in this regard. Some people, especially diehard MOBA fans who’ve grown attached to League of Legends or Dota 2 over the years, might take that as a slight against Heroes of the Storm. But I mean it as a compliment. The game has captured that special kind of gameplay magic I normally associate most closely with Nintendo titles: Blizzard makes it feel fun and crazy whether you’re winning or losing. This is particularly exciting to see in a MOBA because, as fun as these games often are, they’re also prohibitively intense and difficult for many people. Heroes of the Storm is solving the genre’s longstanding accessibility problem, and that’s a wonderful thing to see. I mean: I’ve actually managed to convince my gamer friends—even ones who refuse to go anywhere near League of Legends—to give Heroes a shot. [...] More than anything else, then, I appreciate the fact that Heroes of the Storm feels like a substantially different piece of work that Dota 2 or League of Legends—the two titles that are seen as its closest competitors. It would have been so much easier for Blizzard to try and copy-paste the formula that Valve or Riot have applied games their work. Instead, the Heroes developers gave gamers something genuinely unique and interesting to look forward to.”
posted by Fizz (23 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
It's funny, I have been playing Heroes of the Storm on and off even in Beta, and it's lower skill level is one of the reasons why I come back to it. I love MOBA's, Heroes of Newerth more specifically, but man can they be toxic and matches can take an hour. HOTS is generally quicker, and I don't have to prepare for a situation where one missed gank can snowball out of control. Plus there's less chat which means less people flaming and less hateful speech.
posted by Carillon at 1:35 PM on September 25, 2017


I enjoy HotS. I would argue it succeeds because the barrier to entry is relatively low, but there's enough depth to keep people playing. The game is certainly simpler than DOTA or LoL, but I think the Chris Thurston piece is right that this is a strength for HotS. I have no interest in DOTA, especially because one or two bad mistakes early on can result in an impossible to save situation where your team gradually loses and you waste 40 minutes and get abuse rained on you by frustrated teammates. HotS weighs the way it gives experience to heavily favor whoever is losing, so it's much easier for a losing team to rally together, win a big teamfight, and be on an even footing again. And when you do get a stinker of a team comp, you lose faster and you've only lost 15-20 minutes.

As an aside, my favorite HotS streamer is mfpallytime. Check him out on Twitch or YouTube for a great intro to the game and entertaining commentary with a positive attitude.
posted by Wretch729 at 1:44 PM on September 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


Oh also, no voice chat in HotS. Saves a ton of vitriol. Sure people get salty in chat, but it's so different than jerks screaming in your ear. I know lots of players want it and say it's easier to coordinate with than pinging the map and typing, but I hope Blizzard continues to resist implementing that particular "feature."
posted by Wretch729 at 1:48 PM on September 25, 2017 [5 favorites]


I would argue it succeeds because the barrier to entry is relatively low, but there's enough depth to keep people playing.

Agreed. I only recently started playing and have mostly played AI. But I'm enjoying that it's very lowstakes and I don't have to feel all this pressure to be perfect. That threat of being piled on by other players and getting harassed. It eases you In gently. And there's a little bit for every style of player.
posted by Fizz at 1:57 PM on September 25, 2017


One thing too is that I've found the nature of the quest and fights tends to encourage everyone grouping together and essentially going as 5 most places. I don't know if that's the case at higher levels, but it definitely means there's less going off and getting killed solo.
posted by Carillon at 2:19 PM on September 25, 2017


I fit the first article: I downloaded and played Heroes to get the D.Va skin. Which I don't use anymore.

But I've kept playing. I love Overwatch more, but Heroes is precisely what I wanted in a MOBA: it's League of Legends Lite. I put about a year into League, but quit when I realized that I wasn't really getting better. There's too much to learn, and a bad game is up to an hour of toxicity and frustration.

Both Heroes and Overwatch are excellent examples of improving a genre by taking things out. Items and last-hitting, for instance.

In my limited experience, a Heroes game starts with a ridiculously abbreviated landing phase, and then it's mostly teamfights (or partial teamfights over the per-map objectives). Which is pretty much the fun part anyway! (See: ARAM.)
posted by zompist at 2:26 PM on September 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


(Should be laning phase. Frigging autocorrect.)
posted by zompist at 2:46 PM on September 25, 2017


I guess I'm not the target demo, but what is the appeal in general of MOBAs? Who cares if Blizzard has a MOBA with their content? Everyone is mentioning the low-stakes, which appeals to me as someone who only games a couple hours a week, but whats the upside? I enjoy fighting games, but I just play story mode on easy so I get the appeal of a breezy version of a normally technical game genre but I just don't understand MOBAs. Why not play an RTS? Maybe I've never gotten into online play, because I'm really only thinking about single-player genres and a lot of the appeal here seems to be playing with other folks, but if the folks are so toxic that you mute them what is the point? The last online game I played was Andromeda multi-player which was totally pointless but I enjoyed for the movement mechanics, so I get the appeal of a game doing one thing right. I just don't know what MOBAs do right. Why not play Path of Exile or Diablo, which seem to have the same general look and controls and you can save at any time?

TL;DR You favorite game genre sucks/I am old.
posted by kittensofthenight at 3:09 PM on September 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


I just don't know what MOBAs do right. Why not play Path of Exile or Diablo, which seem to have the same general look and controls and you can save at any time?

Honestly, as someone who likes Path of Exile, and bounced off League before finding Heroes reasonable, it's the bite-sized nature of it for me. I can jump in, play a couple quick rounds of a game against people, and be done.

Like, I wouldn't really put those two as things to compare. Path I like because it's a Diablo-like with good multiplayer, but it's also a *long* game, where you have to spend multiple days getting through to the endgame where everybody talks about the "Real Game" starting, and even though I tried most leagues to get through, there'd be some other game or life thing which'd come up as distraction and we'd peter out before reaching that point, and then there's a new league/season and it all resets. (The Labryinth was one of our most-common breaking points, not because it was undoable but because it was so annoying to run and yet so valuable you felt like you couldn't avoid it)

As for what the upside is as a genre... it's a fun style of game? I mean, I'm not sure what else to say here, since "Why not play an RTS?" sounds kinda equivalent to "Why not play a racing game?" or "Why not play GTA?"
They have different things going for them.
posted by CrystalDave at 3:26 PM on September 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


Moba's also follow a 'narrative' arc in 30-50 minutes that you might only get out of a full game over 40 hours. You start out squishy and easily defeatable by even the creep wave, but level up and become powerful over the course of the game, gaining abilities and items (though no items in HOTS's case). You have big team fights that are chaotic and flashy, with more and more powerful effects taking place before ending as a more powerful character. You have a bit of a lot of different games added in and there's a lot of decision trees about talent build order, team coordination, item build order at a strategic level, while still having to perform tactically in terms of last hitting/denying, positioning your hero in the right place, etc. There's a lot of different pieces here and getting good at them together can take work and time, but is incredibly rewarding when it works out. Plus when you get 5 strangers to coordinate well it's a blast.

If you're asking why multiplayer is fun though I can't really help you. Competition scratches some peoples itch more than others, and moba's are great fun to me. If you don't like that I can see not liking multiplayer games, but it's odd to ask why people like to compete.
posted by Carillon at 3:53 PM on September 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


Count me in the I-don't-get-it category. I tried Heroes of the Storm, League of Legends, and a couple other clones in the category and they're just... bad? Gameplay seems to consist of clicking to to move your character, and then clicking on an enemy and then waiting. Wait for the attack, or wait for the attack to regenerate. There's some part of that loop that doesn't scratch the itch that a game where your input more immediately determines what your character does scratches.

The weird thing is that I love games like FTL or ONI, where you're essentially managing more or less independent groups of little dudes. I guess it's the resource management that is enjoyable, but the MOBAs don't seem to have that.
posted by runcibleshaw at 4:14 PM on September 25, 2017


I look at games like this and Overwatch, and I love to watch excellent play-throughs, but there is no way in hell my reaction times are up for it. In RTS's you can get a breather and put your tactical ducks in a row before acting on your defensive/offensive strategy. At the elite levels, yes, it's all about the ability to micromanage units, but at the mere mortal levels, riding herd on a well assembled and organized army as they do their thing is a very satisfying exercise.

In OG Starcraft, I loved playing Terrans for missile turrets, bunkers and Siege Tanks. A good defensive strategy could actually win the game, when zergling and zealot rushes came up against a bunch of fully manned bunkers early-game, and as you turreted and tanked secondary bases, and ran towards a full key of battle cruisers with all the resources. I had similar "defense-first, overwhelming firepower last" strategies for Zerg and Protoss, but the Terrans did it with styyyyyyle. I didn't need the finger dexterity of a concert pianist or the situational awareness of a Secret Service agent to do well. I needed a sound plan, and the flexibility to adjust it to meet unexpected conditions on the field of battle.

I still watch tons of Overwatch and HoTS and Fallout and Destiny and Dark Souls vids, but I know I can't play them.

To be honest, I only play deck building games based on actual, buy-it-at-the-game-store card games on my phone these days, but Hearthstones looks very appealing.
posted by Slap*Happy at 4:25 PM on September 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Yes, but when is Diablo IV coming out?


Sorry.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 4:38 PM on September 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Played HOTS when it first released and I was Rank 1 pre-season / top 1% ranked player and I quit HOTS because of some huge issues which they have never fixed and likely have no desire to fix.

1. Inability to choose your server makes a mockery of the ranking system. I have lost high ranked matches where my team had 250ms ping because the matchmaker decided to put my Australian team on a US server to fight a US team who had 30ms ping. The way it works in League of Legends is that your account is locked to a server (if I'm on Oceania, I will NEVER be put in SEA or US or EU). The way it works in DOTA is that you can dynamically select every server you want to queue on and it will tell you what ping you have to each server, so if you want shorter queue times you can select the 3-4 nearest regions, if you want the best ping you select just the nearest server. The way it works in HOTS? Total gamble what server you get, which is utter nonsense if you're playing competitive and have a lot riding on the next ranking match. This happens as well in Overwatch (I sometimes end up on a far away server) but it's fine because games nowadays handle latency pretty well....well, except HOTS, which uses -

2. Deterministic lockstep game engine - it didn't handle high latency well at all. The frames are locked to the game's state so the frame rate itself suffers during periods of high latency, which looks and feels awful. The game itself is also very sensitive to network drop outs - when my modem was getting old, it would sometimes freeze for a few miliseconds, most other games would just ignore inputs for that fraction of a second (like I would give a command to my champion in League and it would not acknowledge me for a moment before coming to their senses) but in HOTS due to their engine, the entire game would stop rendering, freezing the frame in that moment, and sometimes just kick me out of the game entirely. And once you got kicked out, the reconnecting process... my god... again, deterministic lockstep model means that the game has to render every single player and NPC action from the start of the game to about 20 minutes before you can reconnect, which takes a slow PC maybe 5-10 minutes to fully compute ... while other games have a "state aware" network model which means you can jump into the game directly after a reconnect.

... anyway. It's not even the worst network / game engine ever envisioned paired with an otherwise great game. Dawn of War 2 had an even more extreme implementation of the lockstep model which was pretty much the same as a 2D fighter, where the frame rate IS the game engine - every player's frame rate was locked to the slowest player in the match, and if the frame rate dropped below a certain level, the game ITSELF slowed down like the time dilatation in EVE online. Some matches would slow to 1/3 speed and we would laugh at the person who was playing on a wooden toaster. And let's not even talk about how bad For Honor was, with a peer-to-peer and host migration issues leading to the highest non-completion rate of any major multiplayer game I've seen, on bad nights over half the games would just dump everyone out before finishing due to network issues.
posted by xdvesper at 7:20 PM on September 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


Gameplay seems to consist of clicking to to move your character, and then clicking on an enemy and then waiting. Wait for the attack, or wait for the attack to regenerate. There's some part of that loop that doesn't scratch the itch that a game where your input more immediately determines what your character does scratches.
posted by runcibleshaw


The inputs do generally immediately result in a character action, unless it is gated by start-up or recovery frames. Even Street Fighter, for example, when you use a heavy kick, there are start up frames that delay the kick from landing, and you can't hit heavy kick 10 times in a second to land 10 attacks, as there are recovery frames after each attack, so you might only get to heavy kick once per second. The difference in a MOBA is that you can additionally have the ability to give delayed / more complex actions (go there, or go there then perform this special move, or keep attacking until I tell you to stop). If the MOBA required you to hit a button continuously for movement or for every single attack, it might fit your definition of "input immediately results in character action" but I don't think it would result in a better game.

The gameplay is itself pretty fluid - this is a typical 5v5 teamfight I recorded where the blue team lies in wait in the bush / vision circle and baits the red team into stumbling into their trap. The action is very fast paced and fights are won / lost on fractions of a second.

I just don't know what MOBAs do right. Why not play Path of Exile or Diablo, which seem to have the same general look and controls and you can save at any time?
posted by kittensofthenight


I do really enjoy Diablo too! I guess the main difference in MOBAs is the feeling of fighting against an intelligent enemy, alongside other intelligent allies. One day when game AI improves, maybe? Having your companion in Diablo or Mass Effect fight alongside you is a pale imitation of working alongside an actual player... And fighting against Azmodan or Diablo himself, while meant to be an "epic" boss fight, is also a pale imitation of fighting against an actual human who learns from his mistakes yet makes other mistakes of their own you can exploit. I mean, I enjoy Diablo, but after the 30th time I've killed Azmodan there's not really any excitement to it - so MOBAs have almost unlimited replayability as well, which is important for sustaining a community - many single player games can't sustain players interest for longer than a few months, but the communities around League / DOTA have lasted years, or over a decade now.
posted by xdvesper at 8:18 PM on September 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


If you want an interesting take on MOBAs, but, you know, in SPAAAAAAAACE! check out Fractured Space. It can switch from chill to frantic and back, is very pretty, and the learning curve seemed pretty decent to a old games like myself. Also, it is being regularly updated.
posted by Samizdata at 8:19 PM on September 25, 2017


I dunno if I'd find this fun to play, but when visiting family and watching HotS matches, I sure had fun watching.

Brightwing is the best announcer, btw.
posted by ShawnStruck at 10:06 PM on September 25, 2017


I've played a whole lot of League of Legends and finally quit because of toxicity / too long games / friends quitting. I've tried HotS a couple of times and it never quite clicked for me. Not sure why, it should be a game I like even more than LoL. I like the simplifications they've made like removing last hitting, I like the encouragement for team play. But somehow it's never quite as fun as LoL used to be. A lot of it is the game feels less responsive, like my inputs aren't processed as quickly. (I don't know if this is actually true). Also I decided I don't like how every map has a gimmick for winning, I prefer LoL's single map and game goal.

A big thing that's kept me interested in LoL is the professional scene. Riot does a great job producing excellent fun esports broadcasts. Speaking of which, Worlds just started this week...
posted by Nelson at 1:16 AM on September 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


I've played a whole lot of League of Legends and finally quit because of toxicity / too long games / friends quitting.

That was the biggest barrier for whenever anyone would try to get me into League. Having to deal with all this negativity that surrounds that particular game.

And I've had some really kind friends who have taken time to play private games with me and who are patient at explaining how MOBAs work, what I should be doing, how the team works, teaching me, etc.

I'm ok with these private matches but once I start playing other people (even if I'm on a team with friends), I found that the toxicity of online gaming for League was just too much. And also, I felt very pressured to always be the best and to be perfect.

Heroes though, it never feels that way. Even when I mess up, I'm having a good time. I like that. It's very much like Overwatch. Maybe its the cartoonish friendly nature of the game. It makes it feel light-hearted and I'm not so worried or stressed out.

As was mentioned above, no voice chat is a godsend.
posted by Fizz at 5:27 AM on September 26, 2017


I was absolutely an Overwatch scrub slumming it in HotS just to get skins.

Could not get the appeal of the game at all. Just not enough hook to get me past the "What the Hell do I do now phase?"'

It was amusing when people would flip out on me for not knowing what I was doing. I mean, I was pretty up front in LFG about being only in it for the skins and people would still be upset that I didn't have the maps memorized backwards, forwards, and upside-down.
posted by davros42 at 9:24 AM on September 26, 2017


One of the appeals of MOBAs is that you're essential playing an adrenaline-fueled "you versus them" tower defense game. I suspect the excitement of defending against invaders is a common human thing.
posted by crysflame at 8:40 PM on September 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


I've played a truly ridiculous amount of hots over the past 2 years, and I usually get bored of a game after 3 months or so (sometimes returning years later, sometimes not). There's just so much there, I never get bored.

People say it's casual, and from a hand-eye coordination perspective that's pretty true compared to other pvp games, which is my second-favourite thing about the game, as someone who's clumsy, easily overwhelmed by multitasking, and terrible at shooting games.

My favorite thing about the game? Its insane strategic complexity. Each of the 70ish heroes has a unique set of skills meaning unique gameplay style, strengths, etc. Each of the 12ish maps has a unique layout and objectives, meaning a unique optimal strategy. Once you start combining these factors, with the 10 different heroes on the 2 teams on the randomly rolled map (adding a new level of strategy, picking an ideal hero for the map+your team so far +enemy team so far) each game becomes very different.

And every game you win or lose, you can go back and look at the replay and easily find many strategic decisions that helped win or lose the game. It's not at all just about playing your chosen hero well, although that's certainly another important skill. It's also about adjusting your hero to the situation you're in, which includes how your team and the enemy team are playing.

I think the people who call it casual never play long enough to realize how much strategy is involved - they get frustrated at the "randomness" of each game because they don't see how the thousands of decisions by the 10 players throughout the 15-30min game influenced the outcome. Once you learn more about the strategy, it becomes a lot more fun, and far, far less "casual".
posted by randomnity at 1:35 PM on September 27, 2017 [2 favorites]


this sounds like the kind of online game i would like, in that its chat features are limited, doesn't reward the kind of skills that take obsession to develop, and its implementation is sufficiently bad that the outcome of every match is sort of unfair.

each of those knocks out one of the things that makes online gaming typically so toxic.
posted by vogon_poet at 8:59 PM on September 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


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