“Well, that wasn’t good,” I said. My team had just been defeated in a game of Heroes of the Storm. “Eh,” my friend Alex replied as the colourful mush of the on-screen battle faded into a dark red “DEFEAT” screen. “It doesn’t feel any different if you win or lose in this game.”
Alex was comparing the game unfavorably to League of Legends — the reigning king of the MOBA genre into which Blizzard is only now trying to enter with Heroes of the Storm, it’s up-and-coming title that just went into open beta last night. His observation says a lot about the differences between the two games.
In League of Legends, a loss really feels like a loss. It’s a defeating, often degrading process one must go through as they develop the humility and finely-tuned skills necessary to play the game well. Losing in League doesn’t feel good, then. But the crappiness of losing makes the exhilarating rush of victory in the game all the more powerful.
Heroes, on the other hand, feels like the same sort of brightly coloured jumble of elves and monsters and dragons going at it no matter what happens over the course of a match. In spite of the game’s RTS-style top-down perspective and its RPG-like levelling system for all the playable characters, it reminds me of Super Smash Bros. more than any other game in this regard.
Some people, especially diehard MOBA fans who’ve grown attached to League of Legends or Dota 2 over the years, might take that as a slight against Heroes of the Storm. But I mean it as a compliment. The game has captured that special kind of gameplay magic I normally associate most closely with Nintendo titles: Blizzard makes it feel fun and crazy whether you’re winning or losing.
I’m curious to see where Heroes of the Storm will go from here. It’s hard to picture the game developing a vibrant, fiercely passionate community’s or eSports scene like League or Dota 2’s if Blizzard has prioritised making the casual-friendly. And even though the game isn’t officially out yet, the developer has made some odd, unpleasant decisions for it. They have omitted a surrender option for dubious reasons, for instance. And they have also continued to deny players easy means to communicate with one another before, during, and after matches — something that harms the game’s hugely important matchmaking system.
I’m not as concerned about Heroes of the Storm’s shortcomings as I am excited about the game’s future, though. Flaws like shoddy matchmaking, not having a surrender option, and releasing lame overpriced skins are all things that can be easily improved upon with future updates and additions to the game.
More than anything else, then, I appreciate the fact that Heroes of the Storm feels like a substantially different game that Dota 2 or League of Legends — the two titles that are seen as its closest competitors. It would have been so much easier for Blizzard to try and copy-paste the formula that Valve or Riot have applied to their work. Instead, they gave gamers something genuinely unique and interesting to look forward to.
Comments
12 responses to “Why You Should Care About Heroes Of The Storm”
“The game has captured that special kind of gameplay magic I normally associate most closely with Nintendo titles” Funny you mention that, that’s exactly how I described it to my mate to get him to play it.
The game isn’t my cup of tea, but it’s nice that there is a clear game that people who may hate the repetitive style of MOBAs.
However i really wish Blizzard would stop trying to push it as an E-Sport and embrace the casual side of it, they are spending a lot of money on a game that’s not really fun to watch…
If part of the player base wants to make it competitive, all the power to them. But, just like Smash, Blizzard should really focus on their strengths.
the funny thing is, everyone i know who plays the game admit they enjoy it, but wouldn’t watch it.
and i agree for smash for smash 4 and brawl only, however i fully stand by the entertainment value of Melee, PM and even 64 (total bias as i play melee and PM competitively).
In fact nintendo pushing smash 4 has been good for melee, but horrible for PM, so i’d rather not have them interfering, like the old days.
Counterpoint: It’s a MOBA.
And Smash is a fighting game but it’s a fighting game that appeals to non-fans. Which is exactly what Blizzard is trying to do here.
This sentence hurts my brain.
I’m a DotA guy, though and through (Cosplayed at PAX last year as Shadow Shaman, planning on doing Enigma this year) and until I played it, I thought of HotS as a “Fisher Price, My First MobA” type of thing, but the objective-based maps actually make it really enjoyable.
That said, I have to disagree. about lising feeling the same as winning. In DotA, if you win a couple of team fights, get some gold, you can turn around a loss sometimes. In HotS, it’s very much a snowballing game. Feeling helpless is never fun, and when the enemy team gets a couple of levels ahead of you, it’s basically over. You then can’t win team fights, can’t keep objectives, and when you manage to defend a big push, you see the enemy has just captured some siege creeps in the jungle/started farming seeds/skulls and you’ve already lost the next objective because you had to stop your base from being torn apart.
Unsurprisingly, losing sucks.
The shadow shaman in orange tights?
Yup! 😀
Hah, I was one of the Meepos (but I’ll be Kunkka this year)
Oh excellent! The invoker/Windrunner/Sven/CM/Lina from last year are coming again too (in new costumes)