So Heroes of the Storm has become my new favorite MOBA, at least for now.
I think it has the best hero designs of any MOBA game, and the massive formula improvements such as the complete removal of last hitting, the mitigation/destruction of the oh-so-boring laning phase, the divergence from the selfish solo-farming encouraging mechanics, the countless unique and interesting maps for the main game that are mandatory to play, and the objectives/mercenary camps which always keep the game fast-paced and exciting has pushed it over the top for me.
Pros:
*No last hitting
*No gold
*No items
*Almost non-existent laning phase
*Selfish play is not rewarded
*6 different maps (not optional)
*Incredibly unique and diverse hero design
*Team objectives
*Very balanced
On the point of balance, I feel Blizzard has done an extremely impressive job. I can't really point to anybody who seems particularly overpowered or useless, except for Murky, who will probably need to be redesigned at some point. Everybody else seems solid and well done. The hero designs are what really makes the game shine for me. The character designs are very reminiscent of their original lore and concepts, and yet still somehow remain powerful and relevant when combined into the same universe. For example, one would wonder how to make Diablo, lord of the underworld himself, and one of the most notorious villains in video game history as powerful and unbeatable as he was portrayed in the games. Well, they did a pretty dang good job, all things considered.
One other notable improvement that I've noticed is that, when my team loses, I never feel as though we were robbed or beaten by the game's mechanics. It's always a battle of skill in this game. There's never that one player who chose a hard carry and farmed for 45 minutes until he became unstoppable. There's never several members of your team neglecting to buy teleports or building their items completely incorrectly. The game has a "slingshot" effect so that, even if your team falls behind on levels, a couple ganks or a good teamfight will catch you right back up. So what really determines who wins or loses is, quite frankly, which team is better. When I see that my team is quite clearly inferior in skill to theirs, I don't fret whatsoever like in the other games. I know that no amount of gold or items will ever make me the superior force which carries the rest of my team to victory. I see my team is inferior to theirs and I realize it was a game well played. It usually ends within a few minutes and I go onto the next one, no fuss and no frustration. Which isn't to say there aren't close games where the teams are incredibly evenly matched, but that's usually when you have friends who know what they're doing and can work with you to clutch out a victory.
Cons:
*Boring as all heck to watch
*Must own 10 heroes to play ranked
*Gain the game's "money currency" (IP) very slowly
So my biggest problem with the game is that you have to be level 30 and own 10 heroes to play ranked. I can see why they do this, but the issue is that you're going to reach level 30 LONG before you unlock ten heroes, which is I'm assuming, Blizzard's plan to make money. So far I've spent $15 on the game, and I don't plan to spend more. I bought myself a 'Stim Pack' (IP boost) which will hopefully allow me to farm the gold required to get my ten heroes and get into the competitive aspect of the game by the month of April.
Also, the game may be fun to play but I predict it may not perform as well as an e-sport as some of the other titles. I think the reason why it's so boring to watch is that, like a movie, any good form of entertainment has to have suspense, build up, character development, and then a climax (or several climaxes depending) to keep the audience interested. Heroes of the Storm is just a 20-30 minute climax from beginning to end. There's very little suspense or build up, it's just battle after glorious battle. In that sense the audience probably becomes a little polarized with endless explosions and flashy effects hitting them in the face nonstop the entire time, without much of a 'story'. This is the reason why DotA does e-sports so well, because it has a lot of build up and suspense, then erupts into those epic teamfights where the 5-man blackhole or clutch Wisp relocate can really get your adrenaline pumping. Also because kills in HOTS don't seem to make that much of a difference. Imagine if killing a main character in an action movie made little to no difference on the outcome of the film. That's essentially HOTS in a nutshell, where in DotA, killing a character definitely has the biggest impact of all the MOBAs I've seen so far.
Anyway, HOTS wins the gold medal for me, as far as I'm concerned, at least for now. We'll see what happens when Valve moves DotA over to their brand new Source 2 engine which they've just announced, and adds custom game support.
