by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

I’m a long time player of MOBA games ranging from the WC3 version of Aeon of Strife, Defense of the Ancients, Some “buy infinite tomes from the vender to become an invincible god” mod, preschool wars (that counts right?), League of Legends, Dota 2, and now Heroes of the Storm.

Now I wasn’t a pro player by any means but I enjoyed my time with these games immensely.

The Heroes in Heroes feel really good simply because of the versatility of talents and team levels. While you don’t become a self god that dominates when you get all those perfect last hits and quick back to buy that Best Friend sword, you really are attuned to your abilities and how that helps the team. A good Diablo won’t dive in and Hero mode 4 enemies without his team there to back him up. If Diablo knocks a Zeratul and CCs him with his (E) while your entire team rains down hell, then he is doing it right. I think over time we will see some awesome plays by people who didn’t have the absolute best start as even if they get owned, they are not entirely crippled since team levels and objectives play a huge part.

I feel a majority of Heroes really feel like they are what they are. Malfurion really feels like a druid, Nova like a Ghost and the Siege Tank as a Siege Tank. Blizzard really captured what these Heroes are and on top of all that, made them FUN.

The talents are essentially replacing items, making your picks based on the situations at hand. Some may feel really over powered for one situation, but think about other situations where the other set of talents you didn’t pick come into use. I find when I am playing Nova I pretty much always pick “Ambush Snipe (Q)” which allows Snipe to do more damage coming out of stealth as it really fits my play style of being a sneaky bastard.

As you continue on, you will continue to get talent picks that either do things such as add an ability that you activate, increase things such as mana regen, or affect your current abilities making it so you get more out of them.

And of course there are the Heroic Abilities (Ultimates), on top of completely new maps and style of play, each Hero has 2 Heroics to pick from. These abilities really make your one Hero very versatile instead of static as they allow you to do nearly completely different things. Now they will be in the range of what your Hero does as a core but they can really change the game in your favor based on how your team picks their Heroics. Also keep in mind, with shared XP, your entire team is picking up Heroics at. the. same. time. Your enemies will be able to see what you pick via the TAB scoreboard as well.

With the system on how it is set up now, they will be able to expand infinitely in any direction, having a choice between two really game changing skills is a really nice feature and I can’t wait to see how it plays out.

This will be my biggest gripe and I am not entirely too upset at the system, I just feel the best way to learn about a Hero is to play them in a live action game. Try mode lets you pew pew a half minded bot but you really don’t get the feel of the classes shortcomings and how to overcome those. The Heroes are pretty pricey for USD and I feel it takes too much time to get the gold needed to acquire multiple of Heroes, especially if you are wanting to keep up with the amount of Heroes they will be releasing over time. I feel this system works ok as it stands now for simple VS, but with Ranked not so much.

Here are a few ideas I think would be cool to see:

• If you own Diablo III, then all those Heroes are half off. Have a WoW Sub, Sc2, etc. But for Heroes like Malthael then you need to own the expansion to get half off (or just a discount)

• If/when there are sales for Heroes, for the gold price to also go on sale. (Instead of just USD)

• A pack where you can get every Hero and future Hero of a franchise. I don’t foresee Blizzard doing this though as companies that have done this in the past did it because they had to, not because they wanted to. Blizzard is by no means in that position.

• Have all the Heroes be free in co-op games

• Just a much better pacing of gold gain to Hero cost.

One thing Heroes has on me over LoL or Dota2 is that I simply care more about these Heroes. I love Diablo, the Demon Hunter, Nova, and much more. I feel this system is a decent middle ground between the 2 games when it comes to acquiring Heroes. You will be able to unlock Heroes at a more comfortable pace over time instead of game after game, and that is because of the daily system. You will be able to stack 3-4 dailies, log in and knock them out in a night and get up to 1500 goldish, do this enough times and you are unlocking a Hero you want to play by doing the quest not from grinding 40-60 minutes for one games worth of IP, now you get XP from playing and from quest/dailies and from simply playing the game. So if you want to play more games in one day then you will get a lot less gold per time spent overall than playing a couple games a day. This works for me personally as I have always only wanted to play MOBAs (Hero Brawlers) for a couple games a night.

I love the battle pace, that whole 15-20 minutes to farm items section is gone and some will not like that on paper but I feel once they play then they will understand. The whole end part of the game is still there and winning feels fantastic. This will make watching the game much more exciting when it comes to e-sports with real money prizes on the line. Stuff like the Mercenary camps and map quest is what really dictates the pace of the game, if you are unable to stop the enemy team from controlling key points in the map, then you are going to have a bad time.

The only times you really need to go back to town are when you are extremely low on hp/mana or when you are dead. There is no going back to shop, you are always in the action and always making things happen. The Map quest are what really set the pace and I will get into that in this next section.

I LOVE stealth in this game, as a stealthy player and as someone who wants to kill the stealthed the system works really well. Blizzard was right when they say that you really have to be looking for it to be able to see them. You could be super focused on finishing off that Tyrael and suddenly out of no where you get tripple tapped by Nova, or blinked on by Zeratul. If a Malfurion is really good at spotting stealthed he can really ruin your day by hitting you with his (W) Moonfire. Heroes have the tools with dealing with the situation at hand, you just need to not get caught with your pants down.

Without the ability to buy wards, having a reactionary way to deal with stealthed is really crucial and I feel Blizzard nailed it.

Dragon Shire:
This one has been my favorite. Classic 3 lane but top and bottom need to control the shrines so whoever is in mid can become God. You are pretty much guaranteed a tower kill, but unlike the Pirate in Blackheart’s Bay that auto targets buildings, you have actual control over what you want to do with with the Dragon Knight. Of course, if you charge into their base and your team is no where to be found, then it won’t go over super well. If you team coordinates with what you are doing, then you will be able to wreck some major havoc.

Blackheart’s Bay:
I love the feature of them dropping coins when you kill them, I popped a stealthed zeratul with little to no health and he just rained down 8 coins. When your team works together (see a pattern here?) you will be able to control the chest and turn in location. Supports get a talent for spotting through fog of war and Heroes like abathur can place traps for Heroes looking to turn in. Map awareness is more crucial in this than any of the other maps because if Blackheart gets paid, then you can kiss a fort and tower goodbye.

Cursed Hollow:
My least favorite but still awesome as I don’t have much bad to say about for any of these maps. Simple King of the Hill for the favors and once you get enough, their minions are dropped to little to no HP and towers stop firing. If you time it with a mercenary camp push then your team will do massive damage to the base. The cursed rain looks awesome as well.

Haunted Mines:
Two levels, in my MOBA?! People either love or hate this map, I personally like the constant tug of war. There will be many times when both teams will be pretty even on the skull count and it will come down to how you handle the golem, push with yours or defend and kill theirs as quick as possible? Stealthed Heroes will have a blast hunting prey in the mines, or you could be gazlowe and simply just mass up mercenary camps while everyone is busy.

I really like how you get a lot more bang for your buck with the skins as they are currently implemented. You still have to do that Heroes quest to unlock the extra tints and you are pretty much getting 3 skins for the price of 1. That being said, I really hope to see ways to obtain these skins through other means, be it feat of strength or doing really well in a Ranked season. Or by random drop chance after a game, like how Dota 2 does it. It would be awesome to have announcers at some point as well (Abathur)

The mounts are pretty fabulous as well. All in all I don’t care too much about skins being money only as they are only cosmetic.

I’m probably the only one who wants Leah Diablo, but I am buying that as soon as it comes out.

Games have been fun, and people are really not laying into each other (yet) as the Alpha is in a very selective state. I am more looking forward to the chemistry and gameplay that will happen when more people start to play. I feel this game is extremely solid and is ready for as many people as it can hold as the feedback will become more and more apparent. I still have seen some people get annoyed at players, even me sometimes, and it can be frustrating but I also feel it’s the learning process of a Hero Brawler.

Without the ability to talk to the other team, I am scared that infighting will happen more and more and I really hope it doesn’t as we have all had that one guy who will sit in base and only chat about how we all suck. At the very least I want a way to say GG to the other team, I don’t care if it is a giant red button that yells it with confetti shooting out, just some way of congratulating good plays.