Heroes of The Storm's Pricing Structure is Unacceptable. Here's How to Fix it

[Steven Bogos]

Heroes of The Storm's Pricing Structure is Unacceptable. Here's How to Fix it

Heroes of the Storm is an amazing MOBA with one caveat: It's just too damn expensive.

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[SlumlordThanatos]

Eh..."amazing" is pushing it. "Functional" would be the word I would use for it.

To start, I don't care for Heroes of the Storm. Despite playing carry-type heroes, I never felt like I could actually carry a game like I could in League of Legends. Blizzard is working under the mistaken assumption that a random group of five people is capable of working together to take objectives, so they made that aspect of the game their focus...and it suffers for it. It is much, much harder for one person to win the game by themselves, and I never felt as powerful in this game as I did in League or DotA. Also, I'm not sure why mounts exist when the bonus movement speed they grant is only a small step above walking.

But it was the pricing structure that made me leave. I already give Blizzard $15 a month for WoW, and several times that for booster packs in Hearthstone. They don't need to make their MOBA this expensive, because the game isn't that great to begin with. I expected way better than this from Blizzard when they decided to throw their hat in the MOBA ring, but if they go into this fight thinking they start off equal with the already established powerhouses (by pricing their items worse than their competitors), they are sadly mistaken.

 

[Denamic]

How do they expect to break though the MOBA market when they're up against 2 vastly more popular games that are also cheaper to play?

 

[VanQ]

I agree with everything. What I really love about this game is the real team mentality that drives it. You can not have one especially skilled player carry an entire team like in other MOBAs. A world champion could still lose every match if he isn't playing as a team. The extra PvE objectives on the map make for an incredibly refreshing escape from the usual MOBA style of sticking to your lane or jungling for 30mins while your carry gets strong enough to carry the rest of the team to victory.

With the pricing model, I don't mind grinding out dailies for gold for heroes, it gives me reason to keep logging on every other day to play. And the character levels give a sense of progression with some neat bonus rewards sprinkled on top. The real world price however, is absolutely ridiculous. I don't think I've spoken to a single person that was okay with their real world cash model.

Either cheapen your heroes or increase my gold rewards by, I don't know, 15-20%? Just make it viable for me to be able to unlock a hero every fortnight or so reliably. At the moment, seeing that 800G daily pop up fills me with excitement because it's just such a large amount that shows up so very rarely. I think I saw someone say the internal cooldown on that daily is 2.5 weeks.

The game is extremely fun and I'll keep playing it with my friends but I'll be damned if I'm going to ever spend a cent on it.

[sub]Well, maybe Blood Elf Tyrande when it's cheaper...[/sub]

 

[P-89 Scorpion]

How do they expect to break though the MOBA market when they're up against 2 vastly more popular games that are also cheaper to play?

They all cost the same to play nothing. I've put hundreds of hours into multiple F2P games without spending a penny it's easy.

 

[Demagogue]

I actually got a beta key for HoTS from the Escapist... I still haven't downloaded the game. I'm not a huge MOBA fan to start with but when I went and looked over the different characters, and the pricing model it was just a flat out 'nope, not bothering'

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

Of course, they could always just, you know, lower the prices. To something slightly more reasonable. Even around a 25% flat reduction from what they currently have on offer would be acceptable, considering it looks like Blizzard is going the LoL route by having weekly 50% off sales on Heroes and skins.

I've been playing the game since the Technical Alpha and the entire community agrees things are very expensive. The heroes are totally buyable if you go full F2P, but it takes a tad too long. Gold gain overall is a tad too low. The reason for all of this is that you can buy StimPacks, which are account xp/gold boosters. With a stimpack you get ~75g per win in ranked mode. It's roughly 3 times the amount of gold you make on average, and if you play regularly you'll feel like Smaug.

It's nice to give people options, but the end result is that to reach ranked play you need to either grind for a month or buy a booster. For people that don't have the time, the only options are spend real money or don't play ranked. I honestly prefer unranked play (as most of the MOBA toxicity stays in the dredges of ranked) but for many people leveling your account, your heroes, and buying the 10 needed to be eligible for Ranked is just way too grindy.

Even streamers agree that if Blizz doesn't adjust prices before Open Beta they're shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[VanQ]

I actually got a beta key for HoTS from the Escapist... I still haven't downloaded the game. I'm not a huge MOBA fan to start with but when I went and looked over the different characters, and the pricing model it was just a flat out 'nope, not bothering'

As a fellow non-MOBA fan, I can say for certain that if you don't like other MOBAs then HotS might actually be a good fit for you. It is 100% possible to play the game and enjoy it to its fullest without paying a cent. Failing that, I have a friend that I'd love to get into the game so if you still have that key I could organize a trade with you or something.

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

I actually got a beta key for HoTS from the Escapist... I still haven't downloaded the game. I'm not a huge MOBA fan to start with but when I went and looked over the different characters, and the pricing model it was just a flat out 'nope, not bothering'

It's not nearly as bad is it sounds, unless you expect to jump straight into the Ranked ladder. As a new player you probably won't want to, but I recommend try it out. There's several modes, so not owning every character doesn't matter much (again unless you're going for ranked).

Can't knock it until you tried it! It's 'free' after all.

 

[Denamic]

How do they expect to break though the MOBA market when they're up against 2 vastly more popular games that are also cheaper to play?

They all cost the same to play nothing. I've put hundreds of hours into multiple F2P games without spending a penny it's easy.

Sure, but there's a pay/grind wall blocking you from enjoying all of the game. Lol has it too, but it's way, way cheaper both in terms of money and effort. Dota 2 is just straight up free. Going up against that with this pricing structure is like stabbing yourself in the throat before you even start the race.

 

[Mazinger-Z]

Heroes of The Storm's Pricing Structure is Unacceptable. Here's How to Fix it

Heroes of the Storm is an amazing MOBA with one caveat: It's just too damn expensive.

Read Full Article

I'm going to quibble with how this post was put up. It's not news. This is opinion, but its not being flagged as such. I generally agree with the authors stance and opinions. While the title is clearly positing an opinion, I think this type of thing needs a better distinction between opinion and news.

 

[shadowmagus]

"It's really disheartening to see Blizzard take this route. Blizzard has always been about making its games as fun and accessible to as many players as possible..."

This is wrong. Blizzard hasn't cared about making games "fun" they have cared about getting as many people to play them to make as much money as humanly possible. This is underhanded? What about the Real Money auction in Diablo 3? Hell, what about Diablo 3's launch as a whole? How about them last few WoW expansions?

Blizzard does not care about you anymore. Stop giving them money.

 

[Matt K]

"It's really disheartening to see Blizzard take this route. Blizzard has always been about making its games as fun and accessible to as many players as possible..."

This is wrong. Blizzard hasn't cared about making games "fun" they have cared about getting as many people to play them to make as much money as humanly possible. This is underhanded? What about the Real Money auction in Diablo 3? Hell, what about Diablo 3's launch as a whole? How about them last few WoW expansions?

Blizzard does not care about you anymore. Stop giving them money.

Hell, look at Hearthstone which similarly has a significant real money or time drain when compared with it's competitors.

 

[Schmeiser]

Or you can just switch to the game that has all its heroes for free and brings much more satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment when you learn it.

I did actually give the game a try, i played 3 games and it just feels so watered down, it might appeal to some people but i dont think this game will be a hit or come even close to competing with lol and dota

 

[Mezahmay]

Heroes of The Storm's Pricing Structure is Unacceptable. Here's How to Fix it

Heroes of the Storm is an amazing MOBA with one caveat: It's just too damn expensive.

Read Full Article

I'm going to quibble with how this post was put up. It's not news. This is opinion, but its not being flagged as such. I generally agree with the authors stance and opinions. While the title is clearly positing an opinion, I think this type of thing needs a better distinction between opinion and news.

Yeah you raise a good point. The only distinction I can see between this and a news article is that it's posted in Featured Content instead of the News Room. Its presence on the front page does not reflect this.

 

[ccggenius12]

As a free-2-player, I hadn't really noticed. Some quick math tells me that a month of playing casually will yield enough currency to unlock one of the top cost champs, and that's on par with League. The pricing structure on cosmetics also seems pretty comparable. Mounts aside, you're getting something that roughly equivocates to a 1350 RP skin at (roughly) the same price, and you get two palette swaps for free.
I admit that the game play is less intense than League, but I'd say that's a good thing. As a comparison, I like Magic: the Gathering, but sometimes I don't want to deal with all those fiddly rules, so I also play Cardfight: Vanguard. It's nice to have a game where I can just turn off my brain and turn dudes sideways. HoS fills that role just fine. Plus, being made more recently, everything looks prettier. I like shiny things...

 

[gamerguyal]

The extra PvE objectives on the map make for an incredibly refreshing escape from the usual MOBA style of sticking to your lane or jungling for 30mins while your carry gets strong enough to carry the rest of the team to victory.

If that's all you're doing in Dota then of course it's gonna be boring, but early game aggression, roaming for kills, and tower pushing are really important. It's not just about who can farm their hard carry faster.

 

[micuu]

I'm playing HotS a bit and enjoying it, but ultimately the high prices of everything (even more so because I'm Canadian and have to deal with a nigh-worthless loonie right now) are going to keep me from investing in it. I'll stick to Mechwarrior Online where I can actually earn significant amounts of money through play or Smite for my MOBA fix since I already own every God forever.

 

[StorkV]

I only spent real money on a mount(cyberwolf-$9.99). But I agree the pricing in Hots is awful for heroes and I would never buy them with real money.
The gold problem though is annoying, in alpha you had a better income of gold... till the point you had nothing to do with them once you got the heroes you wanted.
So they needed a gold sink but the artifact system failed miserably, I hope they're gonna raise the gold income again and find a good gold sink... cause the game doesn't feel to satisfying...

 

[sneakypenguin]

Hmm I didn't find it that bad, I've unlocked about 6-7 characters I've wanted i'll try out others when they go free on rotation. Honestly unless you have to have every toon you can get one of each spec pretty much right off the bat.