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OFFICIAL Heroes of the Storm (Review)

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Introduction

Heroes of the Storm is a MOBA, one of many largely based around the concept of the Warcraft III mod, Defence of the Ancients. It has been developed by Activision Blizzard, and its main goal was to breach the MOBA scene with something fresh and different, allowing players to see how it differs from the mass stockpile of Free to Play MOBAS. The scene is currently dominated largely by League of Legends, followed closely by DotA and with championships still going on for SMITE. One of the key areas Activision Blizzard developed around was the quest-like objectives on the various maps. Currently LoL and DotA run a single map pool for 5v5 matches, but HotS has a slew of maps, with more to be included, all for 5v5 play. Not every map has 3 lanes for instance, and not every map develops as you might think. The game is largely developed using the Starcraft II engine.

Storyline

This has been shoehorned in, and is made quite clear that it’s been shoehorned with the first two tutorial missions to ease players in. Heroes from across all lands (and franchises) are chosen by the nexus to fight in the arena in an endless battle for glory. Or just for funsies basically. The video below should make that evident.


Gameplay

In general, the gameplay objectives are identical to that of every MOBA. Push lanes, kill towers, and then kill the big shiny tower at the end to win the game. There is of course, a little more to it than that, and Blizzard takes it a step forward in terms of mechanics. You’ve got your standard creeps, you’ve got bush sight and fog of war, as well as towers similar to that found in Starcraft II that provide sight over an area. Towers are not normal towers however, as they have ammunition that replenishes very slowly over time. That means you can’t leave your lane and allow the enemies to simply creep push all day. You have to conserve the ammo for the right time. In addition to this, towers aren’t quite as helpful as they are in other MOBAs. Typically a tower will auto attack creeps, and will re-target to any hero that damages a friendly hero. This is not the case in HotS, towers will not help you unless there are no creeps to blast down, so you can’t hide next to your tower when stuck on low health in a sticky situations, you can and will get sniped within tower range, and that damn thing won’t so much as bat an eyelid.

Between each tower is a wall that enemy heroes and creeps can’t pass. It can be damaged, and destroyed however. This stops crazy tower diving tactics in the early game, and allows you to escape to health fountains places by each fort so you can replenish health and mana(assuming your hero uses mana and not fury). It is possible however for a hero to jump over or pull themselves through a wall, as well as fire ranged artillery abilities through it. Sure, they might die horribly from tower and fort damage, but they can still kill you if they need you out of the fight for some time, or to allow a mercenary camp or objective creep to push the lane hard for them.


On the subject of mercenaries and objective creeps, this is one of the key areas Blizzard looked into in order to make their MOBA different. Mercenary camps are one of two types typically, or in very specific maps, one of three. You have your bruiser camps, mainly melee with a single caster, that are like your normal lane creeps but on crack. They can push enemy creeps hard, and break through forts, but they’re susceptible to tower fire, they do however take a hell of a lot more damage to kill. The other main creep type is the siege mercenaries, basically two ogres with a sack of large boulders. These guys can outrange turrets, and deal significant siege damage to buildings, but aren’t so great at pushing lanes and dealing with creeps, heroes, or soaking too much damage. Certain maps with have a third type of creep, which is a mini-boss of some sort, that when destroyed and captured, is like an extra player that simply focuses on pushing lanes. It’s usually a Golem, which can periodically stun enemy heroes, root heroes, and take a tonne of punishment while obliterating a lane entirely if left unchecked. It usually takes a hero and a lot of tower fire to bring these guys down. Additionally, there are objective creeps, this includes Golems on the mines map, the Dragon Knight, the Garden Terror, The Ghost Ship and the Curse. Each of these require players to battle out with other enemy players to capture or reach a certain objective stage first in order to take control of one of those objective creeps and push a lane so hard, the enemy is forced to deal with it head on or risk losing substantial ground. The idea around these objectives is to allow a team to turn the tide of a losing battle with one fell swoop of a smart objective attainment, and to use it wisely. I’ve come back from losing a 25 minute long game and decimating the enemy in a very unexpected turn of events.



One of the excellent features of levelling up in HotS is that it’s done as a team. Unlike other MOBAs, where a single hero can spiral out of control and severely put the enemy team at a huge disadvantage, the levelling system levels up all players of a team at once. Experience is gained over time from killing creeps, towers, walls, as well as capturing objectives and mercenaries, and of course killing enemy heroes. Every few levels you unlock a choice of talents to take, which usually provide some form of passive bonus to existing skills, or unlocking a special ability. Unlike other MOBAs, it doesn’t force you to level up skills either. You have all skill bar the special ability available at level 1, and your damage scales with level only, as well as any additional bonuses provided through talents. You might think of it as a gimmick, but it allows you to play the character how you see fit.

In terms of the options available outside of a battle, you obtain daily quests which reward you substantial amounts of gold (the in-game currency). Each battle rewards gold, as well has character experience and player experience. Gold is used to unlock more heroes and certain skins, and is reward in a much higher quantity than IP in LoL. Player experience gains levels, which mostly provide gold rewards or free character rotation slots (an additional two maximum). Character experience levels up characters you play with, unlocking extra talent options, characters portraits, skins, skin colour alterations and other bonuses.



Controls

The controls are largely standard to any old MOBA. You have your attack-move command from Starcraft II, mouse buttons move around and attack, and your ‘Q’W’E’R’ keys are you skills, along with Special Hero Ability. Some characters have a few different keybinds for additional abilities and skills unlocked through the talent trees. These usually combine the ‘D’ key as well as numbers ‘1’ through ‘4’. One of the keys I find marginally irritating is the use of the ‘Z’ key for mounting up. It’s one of those keys that are very easily missed and in general just awkward to reach during any kind of intense play. You can use ‘TAB’ to toggle on and off your view of the team status page. Here it lists takedowns, and you can switch it to see what talents your team or enemy team have opted to take - Something quite interesting when considering how best to counter a certain engagement. The ‘CTRL’ key to toggle your talents, but it isn’t persistent in battle, so it disappears when the key becomes released.

Video Settings

Blizzard certainly knows what they’re doing when it comes to game options. The interesting aspect of the game is that it incorporates nice little ragdoll physics, which make for an interested death or two. You’ve got all the wonderful options you could imagine for fine tuning the settings to fit in with whatever framerate you’re aiming for on a low end system. Maxed out its got that wonderful cyber Starcraft II art style, but I’d say it’s a little more colourful than the grey and blue tones of the RTS. There are no nasty FPS caps hidden anywhere either.



System Performance

CPU: i5 4670 (Stock)
GPU: MSI GTX 970 (Stock)
RAM: 16GB 2133mhz
Storage: WD 1TB 7200RPM
Display: 2560 x 1440

In terms of general performance, it runs extremely well for a Technical Alpha build. Framerates are largely acceptable for a game in its state, although for my system I expected a little more from what is essentially a pleasant engine. I expected the Starcraft II engine to be so well optimised by now that the Technical Alpha build would be ridden with bugs, but have no performance issues. I’m unsure how this would run on particularly low end systems (which I imagine most of their potential audience will be using), but the options are there to tone things down a bit. Maxed out, LoL runs in excess of 250 FPS, whereas HotS at the same resolutions, runs closer to the 60 mark. It’s worth noting, if you zoom in, the LoL textures and general graphics are completely awful, but that hasn’t affected its popularity. I just hope HotS can look better and at least perform similarly.

Beyond the general performance, there were a number of rather odd server issues. Games would never load, once they did load you didn’t have control of your character and were forced to reload the game again. One of the key problems is the way they currently handle reconnections. You actually have to “catch up” to the server time in order to rejoin. That means if a net connection issues leaves you stranded for a minute when you’re already twenty minutes in, it takes you about three to four minutes to reconnect and “catch up” again with the server time. It’s a little bit strange, and is in dire need of addressing.

1440p





1080p





Conclusion

The Free to Play model is possibly one of the best I’ve seen for a game of this type. While I admire DOTA for the ability to play any hero regardless of experience, I can see why many publishers opt for the alternative option of in-game currency unlocking heroes, as well as paid versions. Simply the game is there to make money, but as long as they offer players the ability to unlock champions through sensible means, and not endless dubious grinds that are purposefully made to be bland and long to make you pay instead, and then it’s almost OK. That doesn’t mean it is OK. I’d prefer it if they unlocked all heroes to all, but the free champion rotation almost solves that small issues in terms of free characters with a variety. Typically skins in almost every game cost money, and they cost a significant amount. £7.49 is quite frankly a joke, but you almost have to reason that nobody needs those skins. Another very pleasant thing Blizzard have done in this case, is unlock colour variations of heroes as you level them up, as well as unlock legendary type skins once you hit level 10 on that particular character, so I have to give them kudos for that. Along similar lines are mounts that can be purchased, some costing rather excessive amounts, but there is currently a single in-game currency purchasable mount.



In terms of gameplay, it cuts out the entire item aspect of most MOBAs, and I think it’s for the better. I’ve dropped hundreds if not thousands of hours in LoL, and you always run bread and butter items in almost every case. There are a number of areas when you might switch something out, but everybody tends to reach for the same items, and it makes the ability to choose as pointless as the old WoW talent system in BC – Lots of choices, but a clear advantage is gained through specific ones. The Talent system within HotS is actually quite nice. After playing a number of characters through two free rotations, I found that most of the talents weren’t necessarily better than others, but they were an acceptable choice based on how you wanted to play, and what role you wanted to fill within your team. Some melee characters could go all out tanks, or play a more assassin style role, or even fill a supporting role. The Talent system definitely did what it was set out to achieve.

All in all it’s been a very positive experience. I can certainly see it becoming my replacement for LoL, simply because the toxic community and bland choices haven’t arrived into the game yet. Yet. The game is very easy to learn, and has a very acceptable skill curve. The map objectives need to be adjusted somehow, as many players simply ignore them because they think they’re a waste of time, others think very differently. Following similar lines, there’s no real baseline for how hero splits should be on various maps, and there are evidently some very clear balance issues with some heroes.

If you don’t have the time or patience to step into DotA or LoL after all this time, HotS is a very good potential candidate to get into a relatively fair F2P model MOBA and actually enjoy yourself, instead of getting hurled with abuse and hate.

Heroes of the Storm is currently in Closed Alpha Development.
 
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My name is Skia#1743 if anyone wants to party up.

I really like that I don't have to b back to buy items but that I can still go b back to at least heal.

Not having to worry about items makes you focus on the fun factor instead of the grind factor. That coupled with shared xp really makes this a team oriented MOBA. I tired getting my serious LoL friends to play some of this to increase our team work in LoL but of course its either LoL or nothing.
 
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Just got a spot for Closed Beta. ID is Tsukiyomi91#1899 if those who needs a teammate.
 

Ahhzz

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Still not sure I want in on this..... LoL is nothing but troll bait for someone who doesn't breathe the stuff, and I prefer to find my way into my own style, not be expected to pick the same cookie cutter design or risk the wrath of my team and all their noise...
 

AlienIsGOD

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i have 4 closed beta keys if anyone wishes to try this out, 1st come 1st serve :D
 

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I'd like to try :)
 

AlienIsGOD

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3 keys left :D

sorry for hijacking review Rcoon feel free to delete if needed. Ive been holding these keys for awhile tho :p
 
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3 keys left :D

sorry for hijacking review Rcoon feel free to delete if needed. Ive been holding these keys for awhile tho :p

No worries, the more players the better! I'm busy most of this week with review and NPU article prep, but I'd join a few gents on HotS at some point for some TPU funions
 
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AlienIsGOD

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2 keys left :)
 

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got an email from Blizzard for 4 MORE KEYS :D these keys include Valla the Demon Hunter along with access.

So 6 keys are left :D
 

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got an email from Blizzard for 4 MORE KEYS :D these keys include Valla the Demon Hunter along with access.

So 6 keys are left :D

I've never played a MOBA in my life (except some Starcraft maps that worked the same way), toss me one!
 

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Ahhzz

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Had some time in last night and played my first three matches this morn, won all three. In my second game, got an a$$hat "So-and-so (I forgot the name of the starter merc character) doesn't know how to capture a f'ing temple!! F'ing noob!!" etc, etc, etc. I told him that Maybe this was my second game, and maybe you're a whiny ¢unt. We still won, and I had most hero and siege damage. I was actually enjoying myself, even with the jerk in the game, but that kinda hints at the type people that are going to be playing. If you've got that sort of attitude in a beta, when it's obvious people are just learning the game, I wince at the stuff I expect to see in a few weeks....
 
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Had some time in last night and played my first three matches this morn, won all three. In my second game, got an a$$hat "So-and-so (I forgot the name of the starter merc character) doesn't know how to capture a f'ing temple!! F'ing noob!!" etc, etc, etc. I told him that Maybe this was my second game, and maybe you're a whiny ¢unt. We still won, and I had most hero and siege damage. I was actually enjoying myself, even with the jerk in the game, but that kinda hints at the type people that are going to be playing. If you've got that sort of attitude in a beta, when it's obvious people are just learning the game, I wince at the stuff I expect to see in a few weeks....

As with most games, those people exist. I keep saying there aren't that many people in HotS, the mouthy edgy douchebag kind, however I get the impression that's because it's closed beta, so they can't sign up willy-nilly. Still, I see less bad mouthing in HotS than every other MOBA combined. That and if you ever mess up, you always know it's you're own fault, and not because some guy has snowballed out of control and become disgustingly OP (except Illidan. Screw that guy). Those people just sadly exist in online games.

Get Sgt. Hammer. Highest Siege damage in any match I've ever played, because attack range increase over time is OP as hell early game.
 

Ahhzz

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True, true.... I haven't played either of the big boys in years, but I do remember a lot more vitriol in those games than just the one time in mine.... Guess I'm over sensitive heheh :)
 
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Software Win 10 Pro
True, true.... I haven't played either of the big boys in years, but I do remember a lot more vitriol in those games than just the one time in mine.... Guess I'm over sensitive heheh :)

Strangely enough, if you play URF or ARAM in League, 99% of the players are super nice people. Just seems to be standard 5v5 and ranked where all the angry teenagers live. Couple of friends of mine finally got HotS access the other day, so I might join at some point soon. This week's a busy one though.
 
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