I don't think Heroes of the Storm is a good enough game to support an eSports community.

[Worgen]

I am a fan of Blizzard's stuff, but I don't think its characters are iconic enough for the SSB-style crossover treatment.

Blizzard better hope you're wrong, because from what I've seen that's literally the only thing HotS has going for it.

It's got more than enough characters for HotS to have an endless number of heroes, but only people who are way into the lore of wow are going to know who any of them, past like 3 or 4, are.

 

[Truth Cake]

But lastly, the characters in HotS are actually really bloody fun. In LoL, your characters consist of: Someone who uses mana. Someone who uses an alternate type of manner. Someone who can shape change. And that's about it. There's a few differences but in the end, all of the characters play the same.

Ummm... have you actually played League or are you just trolling? Because not all champs play the same... that's just not true.

'someone who uses mana'... oh ok, so Taric and Varus play exactly the same because they use mana. Boy did I have that all wrong, better gear up my ADC Taric. And Udyr, better start building him as one builds AP Carry Lux, since they both have mana they must obviously play the exact same, right?

I was with you until you made that totally absurd argument, at that point it just felt like you were just senselessly bashing League for something it just doesn't do (not sure why, there's plenty of other legitimate complaints to throw at it, the toxic community that Riot does nothing about being a particularly legendary one) It's like saying all the classes in TF2 play the exact same because they all have guns of some sort, or because they're all male (probably)... obviously that is not the case, at all.

Back OT, I've played a few games of Heroes with friends who like it much more than I do, overall found it meh. Maybe in a couple of months once it's refined a bit more I'll come back to it, though since I played League first I'll probably just wind up defaulting to playing League.

Heroes is getting it's own eSports event already? Yeah, that's probably just by virtue of it's maker being Blizzard and therefore it's instantly popular. Oh well, other people can enjoy that.

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

I am a fan of Blizzard's stuff, but I don't think its characters are iconic enough for the SSB-style crossover treatment.

Blizzard better hope you're wrong, because from what I've seen that's literally the only thing HotS has going for it.

It's got more than enough characters for HotS to have an endless number of heroes, but only people who are way into the lore of wow are going to know who any of them, past like 3 or 4, are.

Well, that's part of the reason to make a cross over game, so people can learn about the character and gain an interest in Blizzards properties.

For example, before I started watching TB play Heartstone, I had no idea who the hell Sylvanas Windrunner was, but I realized that she was a pretty awesome card in that game so I took an interest and I learned about the WoW canon around her, now I'm more interested in WoW and I never even played the game.
Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 was used by Marvel the same way, introducing Nova and Rocket Raccoon in the updated version a few years before Guardians of the Galaxy, as well as Capcom giving Spencer from Bionic Commando a whole new fan base. ("Bionic--ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!")
Even the biggest Cross Over game, Smash Bros., does this, there is a reason why "Marth Debuted In Smash" is a actual trope now.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

While I don't take issue with a few dampeners on players' ability to go lone wolf in what should be a team oriented game, I don't take issue with standout players being the difference between winning and losing.

Consider any sport and likely the first thing one thinks about are the star players who garner fame for their skill and performances. If I say football, people will think of Ronaldo, Bale, Rooney, Messi and so on. DotA2 is every bit a team sport, but spectacular plays by individual players can change the course of games. In DotA2 there are players like Dendi, Admiral Bulldog, Fenrir/iceiceice, Loda, Zai and others who are renowned for their skill.

I don't like the idea of a team game that makes it impossible for an individual to make a difference, tho confusingly and conversely, a good team should beat a great individual. I'm not on the fence on this one, honestly I'm not. The design mentioned in the OP strikes me as a poor one; even if it's Blizz and a MOBA, unless players can shine I don't think it'll be as popular as DotA2 in the e-sports arena.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

I think Heroes is interesting enough for its own Esports. While not as fun to play as League or Dota, Heroes makes it own little niche and it can be very fun to watch and play when the whole team works together. For example, I remember watching a collegiate game that they were sponsoring and noticing how the whole team would wait for the perfect Zeratul bubble before positioning themselves for a wombo combo (Which, as we can tell from League players, is the only thing anyone cares about anymore.)

Its got its problems, such as the talent system not working very well, but it has potential as well and they've already made some interesting unique heroes without having to rehash whats already been done.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

It's going to do fine. Like Hearthstone, it's not going to take down the big dogs of e-sports (LoL, DOTA2, CS:GO, etc.), but it'll pull in respectable numbers, have its own following and bring in the money for Blizz. It's a good game, it's supported by one of the biggest developers on the planet (who are in turn backed by one of the biggest publishers), it draws from a number of popular and beloved franchises. Seriously, how's this even a question?

I'm arguing that it's not a good game. I don't feel like my individual play has enough impact on the overall match, it takes too long to unlock new heroes without paying for them (although they did change some prices, I'll give credit there), I have to unlock all of my hero's abilities over the course of several matches, and I don't think there are significant differences between the different maps, just different objectives to take. Mechanically, it's fine (although not as smooth as League or as pretty as DotA), I just don't feel like the game was designed particularly well.

Yeah, the game's gonna be fine for a while with Blizzard supporting it. But I think that the game has a serious risk of not catching on with the fanbase.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

But lastly, the characters in HotS are actually really bloody fun. In LoL, your characters consist of: Someone who uses mana. Someone who uses an alternate type of manner. Someone who can shape change. And that's about it. There's a few differences but in the end, all of the characters play the same.

Ummm... have you actually played League or are you just trolling? Because not all champs play the same... that's just not true.

'someone who uses mana'... oh ok, so Taric and Varus play exactly the same because they use mana. Boy did I have that all wrong, better gear up my ADC Taric. And Udyr, better start building him as one builds AP Carry Lux, since they both have mana they must obviously play the exact same, right?

I was with you until you made that totally absurd argument, at that point it just felt like you were just senselessly bashing League for something it just doesn't do (not sure why, there's plenty of other legitimate complaints to throw at it, the toxic community that Riot does nothing about being a particularly legendary one) It's like saying all the classes in TF2 play the exact same because they all have guns of some sort, or because they're all male (probably)... obviously that is not the case, at all.snip

Ok, forgive me for generalizing, but I wasn't talking about skills or anything like that. I meant the literal overall control of the character. Things like Murky who is entirely meant to die every few seconds, things like the Lost Vikings or Siege Tank. The kind of Heroes that control completely differently to a standard hero/champ (say Arthus, Garren etc.) My point was more that all characters played the same way while Heroes actually mixed it up. Really, as far as League gets in that sense is the shape changing ones. It just kind of makes me sad there aren't better mechanics in place for more advanced characters. As cool as it is to have another 4 flashy animations that do different things, I'd rather buy a new character and have them do something very different, actually changing the game itself.

If I was complaining about skills and the like, I would have said that Heroes does it best with talents, because again, they actually change the way an ability, skill or passive works. This means that each character has a very different playstyle (with literal changes, not just stat) depending on which talents you go for. Things like railgun Nova, maxing that out means you basically snipe the whole time with your Q due to the AOE and extra range, but your decoy is no where near as useful as it could be.

However, with League, when you go AP or AD or whatever has you, all that really happens is you deal more/less damage with certain abilities or you deal more auto damage etc. There's no real changes to the actual character beyond numbers. Believe me, I've played my fair share of LoL mainly because my mates only played it and nothing else for a while, so if I wanted to chill and play games with them it was League or nothing. I just don't get they excitedly talk about how they should go AP Warwick this game because it'll be sooooo hilarious and so different to normal Warwick! Which, sure, it is. You just use a different ability combo, you use your Q more than anything else and it does more damage because you gave up damage for other things (or tankiness or utility etc.)

But at the end of the day, play what game you want, I don't really care. League is an ok game, it's mainly the fact that people get so deeply into something like it that kind of confuses me when other, better alternatives exist for something like that.

Like DOTA.

ba dum tish.
captcha: oh, you

 

[Truth Cake]

Stuff

See, now I agree with you... mostly.

Even overall champs don't control the exact same as each other... unless you consider 'Try not to die while killing the enemy team' to be all the same, I guess... in which case most characters in most games will feel the same to you (I said MOST). But I mean compare say Varus and Fiora, both ADC's (though you don't see Fiora in bot lane unless they're either confident as hell or trolling, or both I guess), but they don't play remotely the same. One's ranged and the other is a bad Master Yi.

And yeah, people take League way too seriously... in other news the sky is still blue.

Heroes does mix it up, yeah, but I don't know. Personally I find the grinding in Heroes to be vexing... not that that's a particularly strong argument since League does require a lot of grinding to buy the non-free rotation champs, but eh, I've done my grind in League so that's not an issue for me unless I decide to make an alt so I'd rather not go through it again for another MOBA... I'll stick with what's familiar, took all this time to learn all these different champs and their abilities, I'd rather not just throw it all away and start over.

Juse eh, different strokes I guess. I like my cozy comfort zone and I don't think I'll be leaving it for the cold outside world anytime soon... until my friends finally stop playing it, I guess.

 

[sonofliber]

Deleted

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Deleted

I'm reporting you for low content, sir! =P

Seriously though, uh...I agree? I played a lot of HOTS during the technical Alpha, and...well...it's a pale imitator of better games. Normally I very much appreciate Blizzard's attention to mechanical polish and ease of entry, but this is a genre where they threw the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[theNater]

There is also the fact that you have to level up your hero (outside a match) to actually unlock all their abilities (inside a match). I don't know how much this takes, really, but it's something that annoyed me when I first realised it. Then again, I played a single match with a hero for the first time (plus a friend) and that gave me 3 hero levels + almost a fourth one in XP. I'm not sure how much this is, but if the heroes have, say like 10 levels, it may not be too bad.

You get all the abilities at level 4. There are more levels after that, but they reward gold and cosmetics, not in-game abilities.

 

[theNater]

The grinding part of HotS is quite insane too actually (7-10k gold for many of the heroes and you get like 50-70 per game) so it feels a bit pay to win.

The primary gold source in HotS is dailies, so measuring gold per game is non-optimal.

You can reasonably assume between 300 and 350 gold per day, meaning you can get a 10k hero about once a month.

 

[Elijin]

Not only does a MOBA which has much more focus on teamwork sound like a far better eSports candidate, but hopefully a MOBA which is less prone to the lone wolf success will mean the toxic community might have to finally bump it down a notch an make nice.

 

[Rattja]

The grinding part of HotS is quite insane too actually (7-10k gold for many of the heroes and you get like 50-70 per game) so it feels a bit pay to win.

The primary gold source in HotS is dailies, so measuring gold per game is non-optimal.

You can reasonably assume between 300 and 350 gold per day, meaning you can get a 10k hero about once a month.

Hm yes, I forgot about that but still that is a bit much I think. Played a bit LoL and you seem to earn enough to buy even the new heroes faster than that, although I think that too takes way too long there as well. I get why it is like that, but it is one of those things that really puts me off the whole thing. It just does not seem fair to me.

While the dailies are all well and good, it sort of brings another problem up where it's like "play 3 games with a support" and you only have 1 support available. Being forced to Play 3 games with a character you suck at or just really hate is not much fun.
Maybe they could change it later since it's still in beta, like allowing you to choose freely between the hero class of the daily or something?

 

[DoPo]

While the dailies are all well and good, it sort of brings another problem up where it's like "play 3 games with a support" and you only have 1 support available. Being forced to Play 3 games with a character you suck at or just really hate is not much fun.
Maybe they could change it later since it's still in beta, like allowing you to choose freely between the hero class of the daily or something?

Can't you dismiss daily quests to get another one? I assumed you could because that's what happens in Hearthstone.

 

[theNater]

Hm yes, I forgot about that but still that is a bit much I think. Played a bit LoL and you seem to earn enough to buy even the new heroes faster than that, although I think that too takes way too long there as well. I get why it is like that, but it is one of those things that really puts me off the whole thing. It just does not seem fair to me.

Sure, I get that. I just want to make sure the data is accurate.

While the dailies are all well and good, it sort of brings another problem up where it's like "play 3 games with a support" and you only have 1 support available. Being forced to Play 3 games with a character you suck at or just really hate is not much fun.
Maybe they could change it later since it's still in beta, like allowing you to choose freely between the hero class of the daily or something?

You can save up to 3 daily quests indefinitely(though if you have 3, you stop getting new ones), and you can't get a quest you already have. So if it's support and you don't like the support in the rotation, you can just work on your other quests for a week; you'll get the same gold total in the long run.

 

[theNater]

Can't you dismiss daily quests to get another one? I assumed you could because that's what happens in Hearthstone.

Currently, no. Wouldn't surprise me to see that added at some point in the future, though.

 

[Grumman]

The primary gold source in HotS is dailies, so measuring gold per game is non-optimal.

You can reasonably assume between 300 and 350 gold per day, meaning you can get a 10k hero about once a month.

But the dailies take more work than in League of Legends. In LoL, if you win a single game with any champion, even against easy bots, you get your daily IP bonus. HotS expects you to win multiple games per day, and they don't count if you use the wrong hero.

 

[DoPo]

The primary gold source in HotS is dailies, so measuring gold per game is non-optimal.

You can reasonably assume between 300 and 350 gold per day, meaning you can get a 10k hero about once a month.

But the dailies take more work than in League of Legends. In LoL, if you win a single game with any champion, even against easy bots, you get your daily IP bonus. HotS expects you to win multiple games per day, and they don't count if you use the wrong hero.

Play. You just have to play the games - winning is not required. Also, you can play the over several days, it's not necessary to be one.

I'm not saying I like the system, but it's milder than the one in Hearthstone (where you do have to win games).

It's still rather annoying, in that you most probably have to play every day or so in order to complete them. You can't, for example, play 20 games on a Saturday and get as much gold as playing the same throughout the whole week. And I don't intend to play that much every day - I barely did 3 games today and the quest I got when I logged on was to play 8 (with any hero) so I'd estimate finishing that in 3 days. The other quest I have is to play with a support hero but...guess what - I CAN'T! I need level 12 account to get one of the one that's currently on rotation. And I'm level 7. I'm stuck with this quest for a now. Well, I suppose I could use that "Try this hero" thing but I seriously don't think this is how things are supposed to go.

 

[Grumman]

But the dailies take more work than in League of Legends. In LoL, if you win a single game with any champion, even against easy bots, you get your daily IP bonus. HotS expects you to win multiple games per day, and they don't count if you use the wrong hero.

Play. You just have to play the games - winning is not required. Also, you can play the over several days, it's not necessary to be one.

I'm not saying I like the system, but it's milder than the one in Hearthstone (where you do have to win games).

Point conceded. It looks like there's only one quest that actually requires that you win the game.