Heroes of the Storm: The Good & The Bad

January 5, 2016 8:47 ( Articles, F2P News ) 0

Heroes of the Storm: The Good & The Bad

Heroes of the Storm is a free to play MOBA from Blizzard where players get to step into the Nexus and fight in a lane-based classic battle where two teams of five go against each other to destroy the enemy core. With a selection of famous faces from the different Blizzard franchises and some unique mechanics across different maps, the game is aimed towards a more casual MOBA player with quicker match times. Here’s what we think is the Good & the Bad that HOTS has to offer:

The Good

• Play As Your Favourite Blizzard Characters - With characters from World of Warcraft, Diablo, StarCraft and... The Lost Vikings... there's a wide selection of well-known Heroes to play


• Multiple Maps with Unique Map Objectives - There are currently 10 maps available and each map has different sub-objective to help destroy the enemies core, from capturing Shrines to turn into a powerful Dragon Knight, or handing in Doubloons to get a Ghostly Pirate to shoot his pirate ship cannons at the enemy structures


• Heroes Added Regularly - New Heroes are introduced to the game roughly every 3 weeks, giving players a constant stream of new characters that changes the pro-meta


• Reporting Players - The game has a built in report feature for toxic/abusive players, with enough reports players are "Silenced" so that they can't talk in chat


• Quick Match Times - The games last an average of 20 minutes with scaling effects that make victory easier to grasp ensuring matches don't drag on for too long


• Extremely Diverse Hero Mechanics - Ranging from The Lost Vikings where a player controls three characters at the same time (and can split them), to the two headed WoW Ogre Cho'Gall where two players play ONE character; one player controls the Cho head who controls movement and has abilities of a tank and Gall has mage ranged abilities but is moved by the Cho!


• No Items - No confusing item combinations, instead there is a more streamlined talent system, choosing one of four new talents every 3 levels


• Murky - Gotta love that Murloc. Mrglrglmrglmrrrlggg!

The Bad

• Heroes Are Expensive - The $$$ price of Heroes from the store are some of the most expensive prices of any MOBA


• No Clan Options - There are no options for creating an in-game Clan or Guilds, a shame given that both StarCraft and World of Warcraft have similar systems


• No Map Selection - Unless making a pre-made organized custom match with friends and having two teams of five, the maps in the game are randomly chosen meaning you can and up on the same map a few times in a session


• Sketchy MMR Matchmaking - It's not uncommon for high ranked players to get randomly matched with mid and low ranked players, which is hard for low players but also results in high players being on bad teams that might lower their rank with a loss
  Quick Match Times - Quick matches aren't for everyone, and so it's really something that should be in both columns; some players like 40+ min matches ala DOTA2 and League of Legends


• Team Based XP - Players earn XP for the team with a single Team level and acquire new talents at certain levels collectively (resulting in power spikes). However, player deaths give the entire enemy team XP so you are only ever as strong as your worst player...


• Silenced Player Ping Spam - Whilst reported toxic players are silenced in chat they can still ping on the map... a lot... which unfortunately can't be muted...


• There is no Banning in Draft Mode - The game currently lacks the ability to have a ban mechanic during Hero League draft mode, even pro-teams rely on an external site/program to choose a draft and ban

Do you have any thoughts with the article? Do you have any of your own Good & Bad points you think should be added? Give us your feedback in the comments!

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By: David Puig

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