Bit of a kick in the chin but looks like they're adding League of Legend's rune system to HoTS :

http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/14833869/introducing-artifacts-7-21-2014

It's a shame too. I was hoping they borrow stuff from Dota but instead they went full LoL. Why would I play "Blizzard League" when LoL exists? :(

A lot of people will play heroes of the storm just because it is a Blizzard game.
That and there are still plenty of things that make it different from LoL.

I say that without having played it and just seeing it, but pretty sure Hots is a bit more accessible and quicker then lol.

That's really terrible, one of the main reasons I prefer Dota to LoL is that nothing you buy affects anything.

Yeah, runes are one of the biggest bummers about LoL. I remember SMNC had them as well, and they were a bummer there, too.

This is like, equal part bummer and relief. Fuck having purchased power, but jesus christ thank god they are adding more customization to the characters. The power you have over your characters development in hots is so minimal I can't even believe they made it that way. I really hope that game has amazing gamefeel, and interesting objectives. Because so much of what I love from the other mobas is gone.

Man Runes are absolutely ass. Worst thing about LoL.

Man, I was kind of interested in HotS, but runes are the main reason I don't join my friends in LoL, I don't really mind character unlocks, especially with the weekly rotation, but straight up letting people pay to be more powerful? No thanks.

So they took the absolute worst piece of trash mechanic from any MOBA and stuck it in their own?

Why was I looking forward to this?

I have like 50k gold so doesn't really impact me unless they reset that; but I'd rather have 20 new characters or something.

Well the negative feedback to that announcement has been pretty massive, so I am not going to be surprised if Blizzard scraps it altogether, or at least in the form it's currently in.

@tennmuerti: The usual 300 twitch viewers has plummeted to 230, disaster!

Have any of you actually played League? Runes were the easiest thing to acquire and even if you stacked all of one particular type you'd be looking at a less than 5% boost to a particular attribute.

They gave the game an interesting flavour and something to theorycraft, it was never an issue and I'm glad Blizzard is allowing for some character customization.

@fredchuckdave: Not sure how that's relevant, refer to the announcement post itself.

@tennmuerti: Almost no one is playing the game so most likely they'd at least test the system out first before responding to feedback, fairly simple.

I've asked a question question in the Lol/Dota 2 thread where no one really has an an answer: What purpose does runes exist? As a Dota 2 player it seems kind of a mystery to me since it serves no game purpose. If it was meant to speed up the game then there are fairer was to do that. If it is meant to constrain or equalize the early game then there are clearly easier and more straightforward ways to do that. What seems to be a problem is that it screws up new and casual players who don't understand or forget about it. The only thing I could determine is that best it is an "ante system" and at worst it is just a blatant money grab by introducing an artificial sink. It doesn't matter if it is easy to "buy" because it seems extraneous and mandatory to throw currency in.

@fredchuckdave: Yeah, could be.

You earn the currency by playing the game, and for the runes, that is the only way to earn them I believe, you can't pay money for them, it takes 1-2 games to earn enough currency to buy a rune depending on which rune you are going for, it's was really never an issue for me.

If it is an "ante", I'd rather have it work like Hearthstone. If you want to play ranked/arena you need to have invested enough time or money to buy in and it does nothing to further to modify performance or the next match you play. That is not what is going on here where instead it is forcing the player to make configuration choices. It is "unlocked" at later levels but it is still a "choice that seems optional but is really required". It doesn't matter if it is cheap or easy to build up but it is another thing one has to explain to new players, another thing you have to worry about if your teammates do correct, another thing to worry if you or your teammates have advanced enough to compete, etc. instead of actually playing the match.

Or another way to look at it is that LoL did a lot of things to streamline and simplify the game which it should be commended for doing but the way the runes work is one thing that flies counter to this streamlining. If Blizzard wants to go for an easy to play, streamlined, goal oriented PVPE style MOBA ,then they really should avoid using "seems optional but required" things like this.

I don't quite see the issue here, though I'm not a veteran MOBA player. You can't buy gold with real money, and once you get to account level 10 (which doesn't take very long) all gold and quest unlocks just go toward cosmetic things or purchasing heroes. But if this feature isn't quite right, they'll scrap it and replace it with something else. I'm glad they're adding a bit more depth and customization to the game without having to add something like an item shop.

Its not customization though. It is the same thing problem they had in World of Warcraft which created systems of bunch of "false choices". Depending on the hero this is only going to be one option that really works with the rest being less optimal or junk. Why bother asking the player "which one of these choices do you want?" if it turns out there is only one selection that makes sense?

I'm glad they got rid of a lot of that crap in World of Warcraft. I didn't realize how much "baggage" these things were until they were gone and how much more time you spend on drilling and fighting instead without it. I'm glad it isn't Dota 2.

I understand the appeal of such systems because it is an "alternative advance" system but it seems too often to end up as an issue instead. Who is going to want to play with someone with Nova with the wrong stuff slotted?

To me, an outsider to MOBAs, I'd rather have runes set up outside of a match than some jam-packed item shop (or, heaven forbid, two shops) I have to fuck around with to get anywhere in the game.

@extomar: I'm not some hardcore lol player but the way i understand it is that runes do offer some customization, making some champs more suited to different roles, mainly jungling. Some champs just cant jungle efficiently without the right runes.

My problem with this is that the player has to invest lots of ip and time into getting these runes before the game even starts so if two people get matched together that have invested in runes for the same specific role someone is more likely to dc.

@schreiberty: Yeah, the part where two people might both be runed out to be The Jungler, and then neither of them will just find a way to adapt and go in lane instead, and then one of them DCs because they have the dispute resolution skills of children, is basically the worst problems with random online matchmaking in a nutshell.

It forces you to spend your in game currency on the runes. Hence if you want characters youll have to spend cash. By the time i hit level 30 which is required to play ranked i had purchased only 2 characters and only had enough for 2 rune pages. People saying it only takes 1-2 games to get a rune must of not actually maxed out a rune page with lvl 3 runes. some of the runes can take 10 games to get by itself. and then you need 30 of them. Plus multiple pages. It is a ridiculously long grind and the reason i quit playing league.

Yes, I've played more League than I care to remember, and runes are one of the absolute worst parts of that game. It's like having a "loadout" or "perks" in an FPS, ie. absolute garbage.

The fact that you're charged to unlock new pages and have to buy the runes themselves with IP - taken from your pool that would otherwise go on champs and thus pushing you just the right amount into buying RP to get them instead - is disgusting. If HotS is going down that route it's emblematic of their overall intentions with that game, sinking my interest levels from extremely hyped to zero.

@tunaburn:

*sigh* It doesn't matter if it is easy or fast. It is bad design to offer the player "a choice" when it turns out all of the options but one or two are correct. Forget Heroes of the Storm or LoL or whatever for a moment and lets go with a simple example of the issue: If you have a hero that functions on Agility stat and they have a "gem" slot that offers +Strength, +Agility, and +Intelligence, what exactly is the "choice" or "option"? Nothing has been added or customized but instead it becomes a time/money/currency sink. Getting back to Heroes of the Storm specifically, there are gems/relics/artifacts/whatever that lend themselves more to one role over another. Why would a "Nuker" select an option that is "+HP"? Why would a "Tank" select "+Mana Regen"? And before you say "Well they may need it that way in some matches...", then that would mean the basic hero stats and performance are borked "out of the box" and unplayable until you earn enough gold to fix it. How fair is that?

Allowing the player to make a bad choice, even if it is cheap to fix is not a favor or adds flavor to the game and just seems to aggravate teammates. So again I ask, who wants to play with a guy who has a Nova that is slotted wrong? How fast will teammates yell at him when the game goes bad and they look at their Nova's gear and see he isn't nearly so maxed out?

What I would rather see Blizzard do is take from Diablo 3 and WoW and use that Talent system instead. Using Nova as an example again, lets say her "E" slot is a "Stealth" so instead of offering gems/relics/whatever that mess with HP regen, damage modifiers, death reduction, etc. that need to be leveled, how about customizing how Nova goes in/out of Stealth instead? Any teammates or opponents know that Nova has stealth but is it the Stealth with utility to "stalk and scout"? Or is the Nova with Stealth that allows Nova to be "ambush and assassinate"? Or is the Nova with Stealth that allows her to brawl but can disengage and fade from combat? That would be a more interesting set of choices to make depending on team comp instead of "+Damage" or "+Skill Damage".

This is terrible news... what I like about these games is that everyone enters with the same possibilities of winning(ignoring skill level).

What? When I played LoL runes were everything. Once I hit 30 I was at a constant disadvantage with my half-filled lv1 runes versus dudes with full lv3 rune pages.

No matter who is right, both result in a terrible system. "Lets add a grind that takes over 100 hours to complete a page but doesn't really influence your hero much, which makes it more or less pointless" or "lets have something that makes such a difference that it could be game breaking and an easy way to stomp people who waste less time on the game."

Personally I remember starting off liking crit damage runes because I used heroes who have good crits, but one day I felt like playing a tank and my runes felt useless and gave me a disadvantage and I didn't feel like spending another 100 hours just so I can play tank classes more effectively. Regardless of whether they made a big difference or not, there is a terrible feeling I get in games when I'm not playing as efficiently as I should be just because of some prior decisions(unless they are story related).

Gross. Not having the same entry point for every player in a game seems really out of place in Mobas. I can't imagine this system being implemented for any reason other than to add an illusion of customization or as a cash grab. I hope Blizzard realize this is a bad idea. This honestly puts me off playing HoTs something I was at least going to give a whirl.

Systems like this are always bad in my opinion. Players shouldn't be rewarded for a combination of spending money/getting lucky and looking up the best builds online. It's specifically strange because of how far away from this stuff Blizzard has been when it comes to WoW. Less emphasis on theory crafting builds and moving small stat numbers around. I just don't think it's a fun mechanic for most audiences. Rant over. Sorry if I'm overly dismissive about a mechanic people enjoy.

Edit: Rant continues. They have so many better similar systems for player customization in WoW now! Look at what they did with glyphs. Instead of being forced to grab small stat bonuses where you only had one correct option you had to look up instead we now have a really fun system where you can change the appearance of you abilities. Instead of adding +5 int to your Warlock and ruining your build or whatever now we can choose to have green fire. It's awesome. Maybe we'll get lucky and it'll go this direction but I honestly doubt it. Anyway it'll probably be removed. Blizzard's pretty decent at removing things not taken in well by the community. Even if it takes them a while to getting around to it.

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. It pains me to see all the ways in which other MOBAs don't follow DotA2's example...