I’ve been playing MOBAs for over 10 years, since way before anyone coined the term MOBA in the early days of DOTA on Warcraft 3. I currently play Dota 2 and I have enough Legends of Legends and various other MOBAs under my belt so far. I’m mainly going to discuss my initial thoughts on Heroes of the Storm, but I’ll also touch on MOBAs in general.

Heroes of the Storm is super team oriented, which is cool. Team work is important and I’m used to seeing people who refuse to be team players and generally hurt the team, and that really won’t fly in this kind of game. Capturing creeps to help you push is interesting and talents can be cool too. Not sure how I feel about some of them starting off locked though. That seems like a pay for nonsense tactic. I already have to buy the hero, why do I need to buy his abilities separately. At the same time though, I find it boring that there is no real way to excel by yourself, not as a carry, tank, support or any other role. Everyone levels up the same, and money and items don’t exist. There’s literally no way for an individual to make large plays. At the moment, I can’t see a reason to not always just run around as 5. Which does mean larger fights and action just happening all the time, but when there’s no real amount of diversity, strategy or plays that can be made then what’s the point.

This brings about the last thing I don’t care for, not enough diversity/options/strategy. Right now, the only things we can play with are heroes and talents. However those aren’t 2 different things; talents only change up your abilities slightly. You know 3 of that hero’s abilities immediately and then he’ll have one ultimate which you’ll figure out after seeing it once. I already mentioned how you might as well just all stay together and run around gathering objectives. This means there’s no real lane phase and immediately cuts down on a few possible roles and strategies people can play. A fix could be having in-game items. They can easily add multiple levels of diversity for every match. Different items can be bought depending on how well you or anyone else in the game is doing, because you can buy items to fight/help specific people or the team.

Items however need to be paired with some sort of in-game money making system, and this is where you’ll get the aggravating people who just want to farm all day by themselves and try to lonewolf a victory 2 hours into a game. Total shame, but at least it’s only a chance you get these kinds of people.

HotS is still in its very early stages so there is always time to change, but I get what it’s currently trying to do. They want a super casual game that anyone can pick up and play, but they’ve made like a gateway game to other games. I don’t see how people won’t get bored with it and just move on to the other MOBAs that have greater payoffs and grant more satisfaction with every successful action.

Super casual is what all these MOBA developers are aiming at these days. Main reason is probably because they want more money. More people playing = more money (this actually is not a complaint, just a truth). Secondary reason is to cut down on the toxicity of the MOBA communities. That’s why you start removing things such as roles, or farming, or last hitting; it’s so you try to give people nothing to complain about. Let’s be real though, this is the internet. People are going to be jerks no matter what. Don’t build a mediocre game in an attempt to stop that because it will not work. Your best option is probably to add harsher punishments on flamers, which still won’t stop them, but maybe at least it will get them off your back for a while. The final reason is probably to cut down on game time. I understand, a DOTA game’s average length is usually 45 minutes, but you never queue up unless you have at least an hour to spend. Games are long, which makes it really lame if you lose since you might not have time to play another game, but an obvious problem arises when you try to make games last only 15-20 minutes though. Snowball Effect –where once the momentum starts, you become too large to deal with too quickly. Dying once can mean your entire team has lost. The MOBA this is most prevalent in might be League of Legends. One kill in your lane means you’ve won that lane until someone successfully ganks you a few times. It’s what shorter games mean; one team needs to end up strong super quickly in order to take out the enemy’s main structure. In HotS, since you’re always going to run around as 5 anyway – whoever wins the first fight has probably won the game, because now your whole team is a higher level than the other team and since talents are all your playing with, it’s real hard to lose. They’ve mitigated this somewhat with underdog bonuses. Higher level teams gain less experience per kill, and lower level teams gains more. So every individual kill is worth much more to the lower level team which can even out the game for a bit, but like I said, it’s hard to lose if you win the first team fight.

There are tons of developers making crummy MOBAs and cheap clones of other games at the moment in an attempt to cash in on the genres growing popularity (I’m looking at you Infinite Crisis). There are also people trying to make legit games while cashing in and I’m going to believe Blizzard is one of them. At the moment Hots is very shrug worthy, but with most their titles, Blizzard usually gets it right eventually, so I have faith that HotS will do well in the long run. The MOBA genre is still new enough that there aren’t any set rules to their gameplay and there’s still plenty of room for experimentation. Developers need to stop trying to think of ways to make the game easier for everyone, and instead try to make them more fun. Casual is very inclusive, but boring because at the moment it means there’s nothing to do in the game. Non-casual is cool because there is more depth, but has a much higher learning curve and game length is longer. I’m sure there is somewhere in between and maybe new mechanics need to be invented to get there.

Totally nothing to do with my main points - this is more of a rant section.

What’s up with the term MOBA anyway? Isn’t everything a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena? Counter-Strike and all shooters definitely are. If you consider the world your actual arena, wouldn’t that make MMOs such as world of Warcraft MOBAs too?

For people who work on balancing games, read what people complain about, but ignore them for a long time. Don’t just jump to conclusions and throw out massive buffs and nerfs to appease the masses. The masses usually just don’t want to think of possible counters and solutions by themselves. Individuals, as well as pro teams will usually figure something out. Then everyone else will generally follow suit. Some complaints may be valid, but wait awhile, and then you’ll be able to see what does in fact need to be changed as well as to what degree

There's sort of an implicit assumption in your argument against HoS' format that the current form of Mobas as seen in Dota 2 is optimal for the largest number of players. However, speaking for myself, I know the biggest problem with the format is that it's too much of a commitment, both in terms of the length individual matches and in learning the minutia about item sets and so on.

If Blizzard knows what it's doing (it usually does) it's trying to capture people who aren't satisfied with what Valve is offering, rather than offering an incremental upgrade to those people who are.

@veektarius: I think, if I had to rephrase my problem with HotS, is that it isn't really adding anything at the moment, it's only taking away stuff. Where as games like Smite at least add in a different perspective.

im not really saying anything new either, im just one of those gamers complaining about developers trying to make games too easy.

Valve should just throw in an Easy Mode like they had back in wc3, that'd at least cut down on the game length for those who want.

Cool writeup, interested to hear your thoughts.

"In HotS, since you’re always going to run around as 5 anyway – whoever wins the first fight has probably won the game, because now your whole team is a higher level than the other team and since talents are all your playing with, it’s real hard to lose. They’ve mitigated this somewhat with underdog bonuses. Higher level teams gain less experience per kill, and lower level teams gains more. So every individual kill is worth much more to the lower level team which can even out the game for a bit, but like I said, it’s hard to lose if you win the first team fight."

The whole please everyone strategy you have described sounds awful, though I guess this game isn't targeting existing moba players. Really though, is there actually a market for people who want to play dumbed down versions of games like this. Once you take out all the depth and strategy, what is the actual point anymore?

If you roll as 5 constantly, aren't you missing out on a bunch of creep experience in the lanes where you're not fighting?

Suggesting Blizzard is trying to do a "trying to please everyone strategy" is kind of insulting and elitist and leveled in a similar way to Hearthstone. They aren't trying to please everyone but making a game with a simplified rule set so anyone can at least attempt to play.

Besides, I would rather see new MOBA come out try something different than "beat up the throne" and HotS with its emphasis on "goals" and "powering creeps" is definitely different spin.

@bisonhero: From what ive seen, every map has some sort of super strong unit (like a roshan or baron), that has a requirement such as gathering essence from a portal. This unit greatly increases your pushing power + capturing neutral creeps is a large part of the game. So when youre not fighting it out trying to do one of those things, youre probably just 5 man pushing along side the beasts you've just captured, or 5 man defending.