Heroes of the Storm Catch-All

Where is my damn invite?

Edwin wrote:

Where is my damn invite?

exactly!

ranalin wrote:
Edwin wrote:

Where is my damn invite?

exactly!

+1

AndrewA wrote:
ranalin wrote:
Edwin wrote:

Where is my damn invite?

exactly!

+1

Still waiting.

My colleague used to be a Bliz GM and his girlfriend still works there, so we both got in. Muhahahha.

I think there's enough of us that are in the Alpha now that we should try and get the team together on Vent one night. Hopefully everyone else gets in soon.

I'm in, let me know when.

Is it cross realm? I'm on EU as far as i know.

Hey Blizz, my schedule currently says "TI4 Tournament binge" for the next couple of weeks, but an invite might fix that you know...

WizardM0de wrote:

Hey Blizz, my schedule currently says "TI4 Tournament binge" for the next couple of weeks, but an invite might fix that you know...

While you're considering that, Blizzard, also know that I've been on vacation for the past ten days and have only a few more open. An invite right now would get you some SERIOUS testing time from me. Just saying, you know... for your reference...

I'm in for an evening as well.

so those of you who can play this - is there any indication of how or if they're planning to manage the typical vitriolic and toxic moba players yet?

krev82 wrote:

so those of you who can play this - is there any indication of how or if they're planning to manage the typical vitriolic and toxic moba players yet?

None yet. There isn't even leave punishment.

merphle wrote:
AndrewA wrote:
ranalin wrote:
Edwin wrote:

Where is my damn invite?

exactly!

+1

Still waiting. :(

me fifth...

ahrezmendi wrote:
krev82 wrote:

so those of you who can play this - is there any indication of how or if they're planning to manage the typical vitriolic and toxic moba players yet?

None yet. There isn't even leave punishment.

Right now the opposing teams can't directly communicate, but same team toxic speak can still occur. My experiences have been positive so far though.

Haven't played it but one interesting design change is that everyone shares levels and I think everyone gets credit for an assisted kill (vs a solo unassisted kill), so it's not as obvious when one person is carrying or holding back a team and theoretically creates less tension in team chat.

ahrezmendi wrote:
krev82 wrote:

so those of you who can play this - is there any indication of how or if they're planning to manage the typical vitriolic and toxic moba players yet?

None yet. There isn't even leave punishment.

You can't just leave the match and re-queue, though. If you try to do that, you're automatically put back into the game you left.

I've had a few ragaholics in games, but I usually just make fun of them until they shut up anyway, so... yeah. The 15 minute matches does seem to help a lot. It's hard to get really worked up in the 15 minutes it takes for a roll, and longer games generally means that they're closer(and therefore much better) battles. Also, the smaller maps means that you're not sitting there watching your character run for extended periods of time. And, like Latrine said, they reduced a lot of the mechanical skill required in LoL or DOTA by removing last-hit exp mechanics, as well as denials.

Most chat happens in the first 30 seconds before the match, and it really takes a dedicated asshole to start sh*t during that.

There's also a lot of interesting design with the heroes that screws with a lot of the standard DOTA/LoL formula. The addition of Support heroes, who are generally dedicated healers, for example. Or the really odd specialist heroes like Murky, who is basically designed to feed the other team at low levels, but becomes a structure destroying powerhouse at mid to late game. Or Abathur, who's incapable of directly attacking other heroes, but can support the team by spawning an extra creep for a lane, or by buffing them with the symbiote power.

Oh lordy, i bought brightwing last night. Such good fun. I got blink heal as my ult. We had the stealth guy who can blink on our team. We had a few epic chases where he would blink to the chasee, i would blink to him and then hit polymorph (with slow upgrade) for ultimate murder. We got an arthras down between us that way. Really good fun character.

I'm waiting as well...

I dislike the other MOBAs I've briefly tried, but really enjoying this so far - despite being terrible at it :-). They seem to have done a good job of stripping out the parts I found to be fiddly/annoying, although I can see how it might seem like stripping out the meat from the POV of hardcore fans of the genre. Similar story to Hearthstone and WoW in their genres I suppose.

Remarkably positive experiences with the chat so far too. Even when games have gone badly everyone has been civilised so far.

Mayday: artifacts announced (Blizzard's version of Runes from LoL). http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/...

Runes are one of the LoL features I really like. They add a level of customization that is fun but doesn't slow down the game itself. I'm looking forward to this patch.

Those artifacts are a little too pay-to-win for my liking. Those are some serious gold sinks and they have pretty powerful effects (like 15% to max health, 10% to damage, etc.).

I think it's safe to assume the numbers won't stay the way they are. I don't see any problems with this feature.

ahrezmendi wrote:

I think it's safe to assume the numbers won't stay the way they are. I don't see any problems with this feature.

Why would it be safe to assume that? It's in their best interest to make the numbers as high as possible without pissing off the customer base.

If the matchmaking took into account general artifact levels I would probably be OK with it, but if I'm going to into a match against someone with 15% more health, 10% lifesteal, and 40% more mana right off the bat, that would seriously piss me off.

This debate is one of many reasons why I would much rather shell out 50-60 up front.

Koz wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:

I think it's safe to assume the numbers won't stay the way they are. I don't see any problems with this feature.

Why would it be safe to assume that? It's in their best interest to make the numbers as high as possible without pissing off the customer base.

If the matchmaking took into account general artifact levels I would probably be OK with it, but if I'm going to into a match against someone with 15% more health, 10% lifesteal, and 40% more mana right off the bat, that would seriously piss me off.

It's safe to assume considering the following:

  • Blizzard doesn't have a history of pay to win.
  • None of the industry competitors have a pay to win model sufficient enough to upset the balance (LoL, DOTA, Smite, etc)
  • It's not in Blizzard's best interest to make things P2W when you consider their install base of games and that the sheer number of people interested in playing will offset the need to make P2W pricing decisions.
  • Just my two cents.

    Ooh, Sonicator is in, so it's not that they're avoiding handing out keys to Australians. In which case, I'm waiting for my key as well! I'm not sure why, I'm usually not big into betas, but I'm really intrigued by this game and want to check it out.

    Koz wrote:

    If the matchmaking took into account general artifact levels I would probably be OK with it, but if I'm going to into a match against someone with 15% more health, 10% lifesteal, and 40% more mana right off the bat, that would seriously piss me off.

    It sounds worse than it really is.

    The artifact percentages are actually less than most talents are in-game. For example, the 10% lifesteal: Illidan's passive is 20% lifesteal, which can be increased to 30% via a talent. 15% health translates to about 100 HP for assassins and support, and about 150 for Warriors. Realistically, that translates to 1-2 additional ability hits before the kill.

    Everything is a lot more lethal in HotS than LoL or DOTA, too.

    I actually meant safe to assume they'll change because it's a new feature in an early alpha of a Blizzard game. I guarantee they're going to change those values before the game even enters beta, let alone actually launches. That said, cube and oarsman make very good points. +1 to all of those.

    Koz wrote:

    It's in their best interest to make the numbers as high as possible without pissing off the customer base.

    Standard "because they're greedy" argument, and I don't buy it. I'm not going to assume a company is trying to make me pay to win in a game until they actually do, and like oarsman said Blizzard has not. This isn't EA.