Heroes of the Storm
- Thread starter Mures
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Both DOTA and LOL can be played casually. DOTA just started their ranked structure and LOL can be as casual as you want it. You don't even need to play in a ranked setting and stick playing against Bots all day if that's something you enjoy.
You can't compare a physical TCG and a free to play online TCG that way, that's just a stupid question.
The only comparison you would be able to make is if Magic Online wasn't a piece of shit and Hearthstone was out of beta. Hearthstone doesn't really have any competition in the online arena right now unless you want to count HEX, but HEX is behind Hearthstone in development. If HEX were to become popular, and I can see it becoming so, I can see Hearthstone players getting tired of the game and moving to HEX (or MODO if again, it wasn't shit).
Sulrn
Deuces
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Looking at the stats, it comes off to me that I was right in the fact that no one really can get picked off due to health gain quickly offsetting any sort of burst dps that's in the game. So gate/team kiting is very much an apt term for the basic strategy involved in lane play. Dance around and draw someone into overstepping so 3+ hero's/tower can punish them and backing off to heal when they fail to take the bait.
Explains to me why we saw it so much in the released videos.
Also, customization/strategic elements seems to be lacking after seeing that almost everyone has 3-4 custom traits and then shares the rest with everyone. So where is the depth of skill and strategy coming into this?
Explains to me why we saw it so much in the released videos.
Also, customization/strategic elements seems to be lacking after seeing that almost everyone has 3-4 custom traits and then shares the rest with everyone. So where is the depth of skill and strategy coming into this?
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The skills were datamined a while ago, but guess it wasn't linked here. The new stuff seems to be the mounts and shit, and compared to the early leaks they have screenshots and shit now too so I guess they found how to launch a game at least.
Anyway this is definitely not deep Sulrn, that's just not the point. Point is it's fun and quick to play, that's all they're going for. It has very minimal customization and I wouldn't be too surprised if they also didn't have too many heroes just so "people don't get confused" or whatever the fuck. It'll be the game you play when you want to play something LIKE lol/dota, but you only want to play 20mins. Probably won't have all chat, if it has chat at all(wouldn't be too surprised if they went with only chat wheel and no actual chat to prevent "toxicity"), probably won't have visible rating etc. Basically the casual experience of a moba/arts/whatever.
Anyway this is definitely not deep Sulrn, that's just not the point. Point is it's fun and quick to play, that's all they're going for. It has very minimal customization and I wouldn't be too surprised if they also didn't have too many heroes just so "people don't get confused" or whatever the fuck. It'll be the game you play when you want to play something LIKE lol/dota, but you only want to play 20mins. Probably won't have all chat, if it has chat at all(wouldn't be too surprised if they went with only chat wheel and no actual chat to prevent "toxicity"), probably won't have visible rating etc. Basically the casual experience of a moba/arts/whatever.
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Well it's dota-lite(to an extent), but it's not really the most casual experience you can get no. Dominion mode in lol or most of the dota seasonal events maps for example are a lot more casual than normal lol, and that's what Blizzard is aiming for, they're not competing with lol, they're competing with the casual "for fun" modes in these games. The recuring factor on these maps though is people get bored of them pretty fast, so not sure how they're gonna hold people with theirs but I guess we'll see. Hearthstone is also incredibly shallow on many aspects but it still had a lot of people playing, part of it is the collection aspect so maybe they'll try to do something similar here.
Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
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I'm putting money on their matches lasting 10-15 minutes. LoL matches while often shorter can last like 45 minutes. Even a blowout loss forces you to hang around for 20 minutes iirc? A match taking 12 minutes on average is a huge difference both in getting away from frothing, hateful tryhards if you're a casual that's in over his head, and getting in a quick game when you only have half an hour or under (no guarantee you can complete a LoL match in that time).
Blizzard stripping away the grognard bullshit from a genre and polishing the core gameplay until it shines? But thatneverworks!
Yeah, I dunno I always thought last-hitting was a kinda dumb mechanic as well. More tedious than anything really. But then I never got into DOTA clones. I've tried them all though for a week or two maybe, before losing interest.
Why does every competitive game have to be the next great esport? If the game is fun people will play it.
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I don't think the removal of last hits is the main issue, the removal of items is. Items aren't like a super complicated system, you have gold(that you get from doing things, don't have to be last hitting, killing buildings, killing creeps, collecting map objectives items, killing players etc) and you spend it to buy items that give you stats and effects. Warcraft 3 had items. Diablo has items. Wow has items. It's not a foreign concept really. If they said "ok well we're removing trinkets from wow cause they're too complicated people get confused they have to choose 2 items and equip them and then even have to click them to use them for the listed effect", you'd think it'd be a great idea that would make wow a much better game?
Removing items is the main issue I have with this, not the last hit. Last hitting is an interesting mechanic, in my opinion, but the removal of it makes perfect sense. Gold could simply be assigned for being in range, like Dawngate does it(iirc), or it could be generated automatically over time as well as for completion of map objectives(to promote doing these instead of deathmatching in the middle of the map).
Items are simply a parallel progression path to levels and xp, that let you customize heroes further by giving them more abilities and reinforcing their strengths further or countering their weaknesses. Removing items removes a lot of depth, for no real gain whatsoever. It didn't need 50items either. Even just like a dozen of items, which isn't hard to learn. No recipes, no smaller items with no stats combining into bigger items, just a simple selection of full items with a specific effect. One to teleport, one to blink, one to become CC immune/remove CC, one to increase damage temporarily, one to absorb damage, a couple of team items like aoe heal and aoe speed, and you're done. You count on people getting 2 to 3 items max(maybe you limit the item slots to that), 2 is fine even, like wow trinkets, and people customize these however they want to fill their role better. Add special custom effects to it as part of the cosmetics monetization stuff.
Oh and that has nothing to do with competitive gameplay either.
Items are the biggest part of the learning curve when playing a new moba/arts. Nothing is more frustrating than first starting up a new game, you pick your hero based on the skills (you know the hotkeys are qwer) and then you're faced with the decision of what starting items to buy + you're on a 1 minute timer. If there's one reason I haven't given LoL a fair shot, it's the item learning curve that I can't be bothered with.
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Which is why I mentionned not having 50items and instead having a dozen of full directly buyable items(no complex recipes) with simple effects on them. You wouldn't buy anything at the start because you don't have any starting gold anyway, you'd just be able to buy an item at say 5mins then at 10mins(roughly, based on gold gain of the team, shared gold gain similar to xp).
You would have recommended items but since there's only a dozen and they have simple obvious uses, you wouldn't be confused about them. If you play a hero that is tanky, you'll buy the item that buffs your defenses, or maybe you'll buy an item to increase your mobility, or your damage, it's very fucking simple really. There's only one item for each category too, it's not like lol/dota where you have a couple dozen of damage items and you need to figure out if attack speed, armor penetration/reduction, crit, straight up damage or proc is better for your hero. No here you get the "Double Damage Trinket". That's it.
The concept didn't have to be removed, it only had to be simplified and would still allow a lot more depth than just picking your hero and playing it pretty much the same everytime(only thing that changes is what ultimate you use, out of 2). Maybe you make a blinking damaging tank to initiate and outright kill badly positionned people, maybe you make a team support tankier tank to just zone the enemy team by running at them when they can't focus you efficiently, maybe you make a pushing teleporting(as in teleport to another lane) tank where you use your tankiness to tank the creeps/towers to push harder while your team gets objectives.
There also wouldn't be a bad item with a generalist system like this. Every item provides the same effect for every hero and the effects are large enough that they are in some way like having additional skills, but that you can customize.
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No it is not. At least not the way it is currently. Currently the only customization is what PASSIVE you take, and what of TWO ultimates you get. If they go and add actual full talent trees-like system, similar to the new wow talent where you get to pick 1 out of 3 skill for every skill slot, then yeah I totally agree items would be excessively redundant. From the way it looks atm, the talent tree stuff is just bullshit and there's pretty much no customization other than the ultimate, which is kinda meh as a customization since most ultimates are also long cooldowns.