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Heroes of the Storm Technical Alpha Thread: [Artifacts Removed]

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I would disagree. I think it's a fantastic game *if* you approach with the right mind set. It is not blizzards attempt at Dota or LoL (despite the current artefacts system). It is a very different game, and is in many ways simpler and it does not have the same skill ceiling those games have.

But that's perfect for me and my friends - you could still spend weeks playing and still not discover everything, you just aren't faced with that oft-touted '200 hours play required to average' that dota fans throw around.

It needs a huge amount more heroes (at least double what they have now, and their release rate is very worrying), but as a game I already look forward to getting home and playing it and it feels typically blizzard rock solid.
 
Yoshichan said:
How so? Unfished? Buggy? Unrewarding?
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If I had to pick one of those, I'd go with unrewarding. It has some nice Blizzard polish on it, but it's a giant grind to unlock characters - which will probably be made worse by the introduction of artifacts. As far as real money goes, skins and heroes are really really expensive.

Some of the decisions so far are baffling, like the inability to queue for selected maps only and how you don't know what your team (or the enemy team) will be before you're thrown into the game.

I played until level 10 to unlock hero quests, and don't ever really feel like playing it now.
 
dave is ok said:
If I had to pick one of those, I'd go with unrewarding. It has some nice Blizzard polish on it, but it's a giant grind to unlock characters - which will probably be made worse by the introduction of artifacts. As far as real money goes, skins and heroes are really really expensive.

Some of the decisions so far are baffling, like the inability to queue for selected maps only and how you don't know what your team (or the enemy team) will be before you're thrown into the game.

I played until level 10 to unlock hero quests, and don't ever really feel like playing it now.
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Not knowing team composition is baffling since it enables a team to be made completely out of tanks for example. Heck I had an all assassin team once.

The introduction of gold for wins helps a bunch along with free costumes with hero level 10. Artifacts kind of mute the whole thing though since everyone will play a single hero with a single artifact for the longest time. It goes against eeverything they were building the game to be. As far as selecting maps, I don't mind how they do things. Some heroes have advantages in particular maps and the changes keep you on your toes. personally I like the balance of most maps apart from the tribute map which I find to be a little too RNG heavy.

Fairer pricing on costumes will go a long way in giving Blizzard money as it has with DotA2.
 
You shouldn't get the 'team of assassins' syndrome happening anymore - they introduced a fix in the matchmaking that restricts team compositions to more rational breakdowns. It will create a tea of anything after a certain time has passed though, which is probably still happening as they ramp up the player population.

There are a *lot* of out of game options that clearly aren't present yet - pick your maps, drafting, custom games, match history etc etc. some of that is because we are still so early on there's no point in it (drafting doesn't work with only 24 heroes!), and some of it I guess is coming down the road.

The actual game itself, when you are in it playing, is great fun. I particularly like Abathor and Zagara as characters as they both bring something a bit different to the mix, that probably wouldn't be possible in more serious e-sport games.
 
I don't like gem/artifact system. It's a shady gold dump designed to direct $$ to other facets of the game.

And it's hella grindy.

But the number one thing it promotes is "maining" a hero. The reason I love DOTA over LoL (and HotS, sure) - is the fact that I always felt that I could pick any hero and play him any way I wanted to. The notion of maining a character in this genre is just really, really foreign to me.

It is an essential aspect of the MOBA genre to be able to play multiple characters. Barriers to playing multiple characters just makes very little sense to me within the genre.
 
Nah, an essential part of any asymmetrical multiplayer game is the option to play multiple and diverse characters. That's my main dislike of the system. This genre is one of the rare ones where you're severely punished beyond just counterpicks for wanting to stick to a single character though.
 
I just got news of the Artifacts announcement, so I'm late to the party on that. Like many others, this completely kills my interest in the game. I liked HotS as a unique, low-stress, low-time-commitment take on the MOBA genre. I'm okay with unlocking new heroes, as long as I can do so at a reasonable pace. But grinding just so I can compete on equal footing is not okay. Runes were one of the big reasons I never got into LoL, and it looks like I won't be playing HotS either.
 
Proven said:
Nah, an essential part of any asymmetrical multiplayer game is the option to play multiple and diverse characters. That's my main dislike of the system. This genre is one of the rare ones where you're severely punished beyond just counterpicks for wanting to stick to a single character though.
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This was always one of my pet peeves in LoL, anyone who tried to "main" a hero. The whole DotA genre is balanced around being able to play/pick a diverse group of heroes. If you're only good at one then you're a detriment to everyone you play with after a certain point.

I just don't think this concept is communicated properly in any of these types of games and you see too many people trying to play it like Street Fighter, where they master one hero/champion what have you and don't grasp the wider balance.
 
Artifacts are dumb. League can do it because everyone is trapped in that game.

Progression so people play more and such is okay, but I never liked uneven advantages. Make it cosmetic in various ways or add STATTRAK stuff.
ScepticMatt said:
Funny that this gets repeated, when on average Valve makes more money per user than league of legends.
Of course this doesn't mean Valve couldn't have made even more per user if they were less generous, but then they wouldn't have as many users either.

(Source: http://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/mmo-arpu/ )
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That's because their player base has money and there are more things people want to buy IMO
 
Artifacts?Why would anyone want to implement the rune system? It's a gigantic waste of time to even compete on the same level as some players, it's also an unfair advantage.
 
Yeah fuck this artifact system. It's crazy, and sad, to see Blizzard go the direct opposite route of Valve on this one. So much potential for cool loot for the Blizz heroes... instead we get overpriced skins, pay heroes and, worst of all, this artifact shit.
 
So it costs 5500 to upgrade an artifact to full, the artifacts DO cross over between characters along with the 2000 gold it costs to open the slots. it seems. Hope you guys grinded to 30 before this patch 0.0

Edit 1: Also if you start out with a hero their abilities are now sealed because why would you want options!

Edit 2: LOLOLOLOL. Boots of travel is an artifact.

Edit 3: So is vampiric aura. Keep in mind you can have boots of travel, vampiric aura, and a boost to basic attack damage all on separate slots. PAY2WIN!
 
I played Dota 2 a LOT last year, but have taken a break due to it being such a stressful gaming experience as opposed to just sitting and enjoying games like Dark Souls, Watch Dogs, etc... but I've been getting an itch for some competitive multiplayer. I was going to try this since I got into the Alpha and was pleased at a lot of what I heard initially about the game but I hate the fact that you have to unlock characters alone...

Anything else in the game that might make me want to wait? I have no idea what this Artifact system is that people seem to hate so far. Sounds like a big powerful item that makes you stronger than everyone else easily? Something you can either grind for or pay cash for?
 
Messerschmidt said:
I played Dota 2 a LOT last year, but have taken a break due to it being such a stressful gaming experience as opposed to just sitting and enjoying games like Dark Souls, Watch Dogs, etc... but I've been getting an itch for some competitive multiplayer. I was going to try this since I got into the Alpha and was pleased at a lot of what I heard initially about the game but I hate the fact that you have to unlock characters alone...

Anything else in the game that might make me want to wait? I have no idea what this Artifact system is that people seem to hate so far. Sounds like a big powerful item that makes you stronger than everyone else easily? Something you can either grind for or pay cash for?
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You CAN grind for it, and in fact have to. If you played league of legends it's their relic system.

Basically you have 3 slots to get things like 15% more damage, or movement speed, ext. You have to spend gold (money you earn in-game) to get them. And you eqip them before a match.

The problem is it's both a money sink, not letting you spend gold on new HEROES, and it makes it so veterans have a huge advantage over new players.
 
Nephrahim said:
You CAN grind for it, and in fact have to. If you played league of legends it's their relic system.

Basically you have 3 slots to get things like 15% more damage, or movement speed, ext. You have to spend gold (money you earn in-game) to get them. And you eqip them before a match.

The problem is it's both a money sink, not letting you spend gold on new HEROES, and it makes it so veterans have a huge advantage over new players.
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Pity... I was really excited for something DOTA2-esque with a little more newbie-friendly flair on it while being able to use long-loved Blizzard world characters. Dota 2 will always be around, at least.
 
Raxus said:
So it costs 5500 to upgrade an artifact to full, the artifacts DO cross over between characters along with the 2000 gold it costs to open the slots. it seems. Hope you guys grinded to 30 before this patch 0.0

Edit 1: Also if you start out with a hero their abilities are now sealed because why would you want options!

Edit 2: LOLOLOLOL. Boots of travel is an artifact.

Edit 3: So is vampiric aura. Keep in mind you can have boots of travel, vampiric aura, and a boost to basic attack damage all on separate slots. PAY2WIN!
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To be fair, it's not pay to win because you can't buy them with money. what it is though is pay to actually get a fucking hero you want because you're stuck wasting money on artifacts.

Edit: Also the shop is still absoltuely crushed, fun. Gotta buy them artifacts before you try ot join a game though! c ause otherwise you suck.
 
TheYanger said:
To be fair, it's not pay to win because you can't buy them with money. what it is though is pay to actually get a fucking hero you want because you're stuck wasting money on artifacts.

Edit: Also the shop is still absoltuely crushed, fun. Gotta buy them artifacts before you try ot join a game though! c ause otherwise you suck.
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It's grind to win. Anyone who has maxed out artifacts now has a clear advantage over those who play more casually, defeating the initial premise of this game. In other words, blizzard just introduced items.
 
TheYanger said:
To be fair, it's not pay to win because you can't buy them with money. what it is though is pay to actually get a fucking hero you want because you're stuck wasting money on artifacts.

Edit: Also the shop is still absoltuely crushed, fun. Gotta buy them artifacts before you try ot join a game though! c ause otherwise you suck.
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It's the same as league's pay or spend forever grinding heroes and artifacts (runes) in order to play on a decent playing field. Imagine if they get anywhere close to the same size as dota or leagues hero roster.

For god sakes they even have the equivalent of rune pages but they are per hero. It's like they wholesale copied it from Riot so they can make more moola.

And all of this in the name of 'customization'
 
Holy shit, I didn't defend the system - read up I think it's awful and I've let Blizzard know many times, all I did was correct the notion that it's Pay to win - It ABSOLUTELY IS NOT.
 
Right now it's not even the artefacts that bug me, it's the *ludicrous* amounts of xp required to level up a hero. 475K to go from level 3 to 4 is utterly stupid - that's 10 games on average, which is far far far too long to actually be able to fully play a character.

They should set it up so that the first level can be gained by a trivial amount of xp, so someone can get it just from winning a bot match. The next two should come much faster - win 1 game, and then win 2 more games worth of experience say.
 
After playing the patch for most of the day, I really like the idea of what artifacts can do, but I feel they do mess with balance too much. The new hero introduced today was too mana hungry until I got my level 10 mana artifacts in him, for example.

The best part about this patch is how much more responsive/smooth the game is. Feels like a whole new game now, and not one based on Stracraft.
 
Skab said:
Artifact stuff aside, Rehgar is pretty fun.
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I like him a ton too. Great new addition.

After playing through a few games I have to say artifacts....you were as bad as I thought you were going to be. As Gazlowe I can solo hard camps at level 1 now, it is a mechanic that only scares away newcomers and (worst of all) Blizzard seems completely blinded by money and 'progression systems' to see why this is only a detriment to the game.
 
Rehgar is very FOTM it seems like. His healing and utility seems to be the best in the game right now.

Artifacts... Well, I had enough gold from being level 25 to buy the artifacts I needed, and that was that.

I HATE That talents are locked for heroes on a per-hero basis. People are saying you can just grind it out in practice (And perhaps that's the intention by blizzard) but I HATE That mentality. That's why I stopped playing Hearthstone too.
 
It would take a *ludicrous* amount of practice games to hit level 4. You don't even get enough xp from a practice game to hit level 2 which you would think would be automatic.

You'd probably be looking at 25+ practice games given the numbers I've been getting on my characters to hit level 4.
 
Maybe you're just expected to play some games without your talents. Again, it SUCKS, but it's the same model they used for Hearthstone, so I guess it's a model Blizzard likes for some reason.

Anyway, game is still fun.
 
Nephrahim said:
Maybe you're just expected to play some games without your talents. Again, it SUCKS, but it's the same model they used for Hearthstone, so I guess it's a model Blizzard likes for some reason.

Anyway, game is still fun.
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The problem with that is, you let other people in your team down and you have an unpleasant experience because people in the other team will have those talents (and artifacts). That's not a fun experience.

Plus, because blizzard allow you to play identical heroes on both sides (which dota 2 doesn't and I don't think lol does) you end up in the odd situation where you go one on one with someone playing the same class as you and just *lose* and there's nothing you could do about it. I think that is absolutely toxic for this type of game.
 
Nephrahim said:
Maybe you're just expected to play some games without your talents. Again, it SUCKS, but it's the same model they used for Hearthstone, so I guess it's a model Blizzard likes for some reason.

Anyway, game is still fun.
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Hearthstone only has 9 classes to level up. Additionally, you're always allowed to go into arena and play with random decks without any arbitrary locks. Moreover, you can always get builds with cards from packs so that you're not completely screwed even if you take up a new class at level 1.

Considering that MOBAs usually have 50+ heroes at least (and if successful HOTS will probably get to a 100+), the grind would be insane, especially for newcomers. Locking out talents is like giving you half a Hearthstone deck.

Good news is that the game is not even in Beta, so they can iterate more aggressively on this.
 
Raxus said:
I like him a ton too. Great new addition.

After playing through a few games I have to say artifacts....you were as bad as I thought you were going to be. As Gazlowe I can solo hard camps at level 1 now, it is a mechanic that only scares away newcomers and (worst of all) Blizzard seems completely blinded by money and 'progression systems' to see why this is only a detriment to the game.
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Blizzard has been on a role. First Warlords being a $50 expansion instead of $40 because of the "free" lvl 90 boost, the laughable pricing on the Hearthstone Naxx wings if the first one is anything to go by (yea you can get them all with gold by holy shit at the money they want if you go that route, plus cards are locked behind it), and now this shit with artifacts.
 
TheYanger said:
Except it's not. There is literally nothing paying extra money will do to make you better at the game. It's grindy, but real money has nothing to do with it.
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The artifacts are a gold sink forcing you to buy new heroes instead of grinding for them. And knowing Blizzard, they'll put the artifacts on sale for purchase too.
 
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