Is Heroes of the Storm for casuals?

[Thimagryn]

Heroes doesn't emphasize lane ganks. The most you can do is deny the opponent of EXP very briefly, considering the low respawn timers and the shared EXP from all lanes. Abathur and Murky would also not be possible if last hitting were to exist, they're characters that absolutely break the formula.

Heroes has a very specific design philosophy. It plays very differently from DOTA and LoL in many respects. There are less perceived options available due to the low level of complexity, but it can not be directly compared to other games that simply don't have the same meta game as Heroes.

This is on the level of comparing WoW Arenas to WoW Battlegrounds. The metagame is completely different, with very different goals. DOTA's progression is not the same as Heroes. In effect, you have to learn to play Heroes as its own game, not as a variation of DOTA or LoL. It has a very different meta that promotes late game team engagements and denying the opponent of the objectives. Lane ganking is not heavily emphasized, and Blizzard would need to make changes to how EXP is gained or the respawn timers to make it more effective.

[PizzaSHARK]

Well if only way to get gold is to level chars and then do daily quest, you pretty much only need to login to do daily, you cant hardcore your way to more gold.

I mean gold as in the resource you use in DotA (and League) to buy items and other stuff with, not the gold F2P currency HotS uses to let players buy heroes/skins

This is what a lot of people don't realize. They think last hitting creeps is just purely a way to test individual skill. It's not. It's a way to get heroes out of position and vulnerable for harass/ganks. When you get in range to last hit, you're also putting yourself in a position to be hit with spells and auto attacks. Maybe you even have to cross the river to get in last hit range and now the vengeful spirit who's been lurking just out of vision can stun you and kill you. There's a lot of mindgames and map awareness and positioning that goes into last hitting not just "her dur dota is all about if you can last hit a creep or not". All of that is missing in HotS because you can just sit back and get xp, and half the time even if they do gank you unless it's a 3v1 or more you can just walk away.

Mindgames is a good way of putting it and it's one thing that separates the truly good pro players from the "average" pro players. When all enemy heroes are missing, or important heroes are missing, how do you know if it's safe to cross the river or enter your jungle or go after those creeps? I mean, those scary heroes could be minding their own business on their side of the map, but you'll see players hiding by their tower or staying close to their teammates because the possibility exists that those missing heroes are setting up a trap.

The "good" players will more often be able to correctly guess what the enemy team is doing, even when they're missing from the map, and as a result are not as likely to get caught out as less experienced players. This also exists to an extent in many other competitive game formats - a Terran player anticipating the proxy Dark Shrine in SC2, teams in CS correctly guessing what strategy the enemy team will pursue this round, a Magic player correctly guessing what the opposing player is trying to do with his or her deck and/or guessing what sorts of cards they have sideboarded and can expect to see in the second and third rounds, etc.

I'm sure this exists in HotS, too. But it's important to note how much goes into DotA's gold system, and that items are just one of a great many elements of it.

[MixelPlx]

Heroes doesn't emphasize lane ganks. The most you can do is deny the opponent of EXP very briefly, considering the low respawn timers and the shared EXP from all lanes. Abathur and Murky would also not be possible if last hitting were to exist, they're characters that absolutely break the formula.

Heroes has a very specific design philosophy. It plays very differently from DOTA and LoL in many respects. There are less perceived options available due to the low level of complexity, but it can not be directly compared to other games that simply don't have the same meta game as Heroes.

This is on the level of comparing WoW Arenas to WoW Battlegrounds. The metagame is completely different, with very different goals. DOTA's progression is not the same as Heroes. In effect, you have to learn to play Heroes as its own game, not as a variation of DOTA or LoL. It has a very different meta that promotes late game team engagements and denying the opponent of the objectives. Lane ganking is not heavily emphasized, and Blizzard would need to make changes to how EXP is gained or the respawn timers to make it more effective.

I wanted to comment on this subject but this pretty much sums it up.

Well put, Thimagryn.

[trips25]

The towers seem really weak in Heroes as well, I assume it's to make the little bit of lane phase the game has be a little more forgiving/action packed

[PizzaSHARK]

The towers seem really weak in Heroes as well, I assume it's to make the little bit of lane phase the game has be a little more forgiving/action packed

I think the ammo mechanic is an interesting thing they did with them. Towers that hit very hard, but can only fire a limited number of times in a given time period.

In general, everything in HotS is "weak" compared to DotA, but that's probably because Blizzard doesn't want the average pub to be a 40-60 minute slugging match, but something that's over in 20-30 minutes max.

[Charge me Doctor]

The towers seem really weak in Heroes as well, I assume it's to make the little bit of lane phase the game has be a little more forgiving/action packed

Well, there is two towers actually, if you get hit by them at level 1 you lose half of your health. Off course it scales in favor of players through the game. If you manage to siege forts to run them out of ammo - then you did good job, and enemy team made bad job at defending it and you are rewarded with low DPS from towers. Seems fine for me.

[Dudemanguy]

I wouldn't say necessarily, but in comparison to dota and lol, yes. Which is not a bad thing at all. I also see it for Blizzard fans, and people who hate dota style mobas. I just got into the alpha, I definitely enjoy it more than dota 2 and lol so far.

[Caddo]

Well if only way to get gold is to level chars and then do daily quest, you pretty much only need to login to do daily, you cant hardcore your way to more gold.
If this is true that is?
If you get gold for wins against other players than you can hardcore grind all day long. But I dont know if you do?
Just wish they would add solo queue to play against players, in chat noone wants to team with low levels :P

You get 10g for winning a co-op match. (PVE)
You get 30g for winning a VS match. (PVP)

You can grind these to your hearts content.

[Deleted]

If having fun with friends is 'casual' then consider me casual. I really can't be arsed with games that are more like a job.

[kendro1200]

Easy to pick up for sure.

Level 40 matches with 5v5 premades are so far from casual it's not funny though. I've had to knuckle down and improve my rapid decision-making with regards to strategy and tactics far more with HotS than I ever did with LoL.

I think this is the best part of the game. In an uncoordinated pug, the game is pretty casual. In a full premade it can get pretty involved. That means the game has an organic/natural depth instead of an artificial depth. This also complies with the Blizzard design philosophy of easy to learn but hard to master. Having something be easy to pick up is not a bad thing. Having something be easy to master is a bad thing. The quick pace of the game means that players are often engaged and the nature of most maps means that players quickly change from lane pushing to team fights, meaning that no particular phase of the game is dull. The switching of items with talents also gives players all of the relevant information they need, within the game, and lets each enhancement be properly tuned. I think my least favorite thing in the original dota was learning the recipes, having to relearn them whenever they change, and having to constantly struggle with my self control on not just sinking my gold now into something instead of waiting to get what I should 'really' go for.

So far the only downside I see to the game is that early on gold can be a bit hard to get if you are playing solo, which should be expected of most players. Like someone else has already said, the biggest attraction to this game for people that play Blizzard games is to play Blizzard characters. That means that some players are going into the game specifically wanting to play one character. The costs for most characters are prohibitively high in both gold and cash. I really feel like the first 20k or 30k gold should be given to players rather quickly, because switching between heroes is fun. Eventually they'll burn out of the characters they initially liked and they'll either start the grind for new heroes or they'll pay for new ones. The key point is to let them initially play what they came to play so they can decide they want to play more, and then use the current model to let them work out how they want to get new heroes.

[Deleted]

If having fun with friends is 'casual' then consider me casual. I really can't be arsed with games that are more like a job.

Unless you are really really REALLY good at esport games i dont see how any game could become like a job

[Deleted]

Unless you are really really REALLY good at esport games i dont see how any game could become like a job

Hard work and pressure. I play games I want to play, not because I want to win. Winning is a bonus.