Competitive aspect of Heroes of the Storm discussed: On split pushing, talents and skill combos

Known StarCraft names like Idra and LzGamers, Heroes of the Storm pro players such as Curse's Sneaky and more members from the competitive community discuss Heroes' various aspects and what the game needs to become more eSports-y.

Ever since technical alpha was released and people actually got to try Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard's 5v5 game has been getting mixed responses as far as its competitive side goes. Although the game seemed fun, dynamic and easy to get into, turning it into eSport is a whole other deal. With ranked queues and custom games still missing from the latest alpha build, organizing any sort of competition or adequately ranking players and teams comes out as impossible, which is a problem considering this is the backbone of any competitive scene.

The very gameplay elements of Heroes of the Storm also caused controversy since day one. Where League of Legends took out creep deny out of MOBAs, Heroes took it one step further by eliminating last hitting as well. But that was not all - the lack of items confused hardcore 5v5 players and so did having all skills but your ultimate unlocked at the start of the game. Items in Heroes got replaced by in-game talent choices intended to build a hero in one direction or another but many doubted the debt they would bring - talents are, after all, unlocked every few levels and with XP shared all across the team it would mean that more or less every player in the game would be able to get an optimal build for a certain point in the game.

Although having lots of elements stripped down, some of Heroes' features do seem appealing for competitive play. As all four map currently in existence are built around controlling and utilizing certain objectives (similar to how the Dragon, the Baron and various jungle buffs work in League of Legends), the game incentivizes lots of 5v5 fighting, which in turn requires the teams to be in perfect cohesion if they're not to surrender a big advantage to their opponents. As players got more play hours on their accounts, different strategies for different maps were also invented, further propelling the competitive aspect of the game.

Right now, blind picking and hitting the queue button is the only way to play a Heroes of the Storm match

On draft mode

To further hear from the competitive community about what Heroes lacks and needs to enter the eSports scene confidently, reddit user CyaSteve recently opened a reddit thread, inviting notable names to discuss several hot topics, ranging from gameplay mechanics to in-game features.

His first feedback summary post starts with the obvious - lack of draft mode and its absolute necessity. Right now, blind pick is the only queue option in the game and, understandably, the competitive players are not fond with that. For as long as MOBA tournaments exist, the ability to ban and pick heroes in a certain order in order to forge your own strategy while countering enemy's has been a vital part of the scene and the words of former StarCraft 2 player Greg "Idra" Fields give a detailed rundown of why missing this is a problem.

 

Mobas always have OP heroes, it's just not possible to have such a large, diverse set of characters and have everything balanced perfectly. Drafting gives players a way to deal with that until a solution is found or a balance change is made. Drafting is also an added element of strategy and depth, more so if the Dota system is used, less with the League system. Interactive back and forth drafting leads to lots of mind games and adds a big picture strategy element to the game. You also get much more diverse lineups, as with blind pick there's going to be a relatively small set of heroes selected every time, both the strongest general heroes and particularly the heroes that have no specific counters.

This is probably the biggest HOTS-specific issue. There are a number of heroes, like Sgt. Hammer, Gazlowe, Witch Doctor, who are situationally very powerful but have to have specific lineups around them and cannot be played vs certain heroes. This is good, it adds a level of diversity and depth that some other mobas lack, however if there is no drafting system those heroes will never ever be played as they can be hard countered by more generic, all purpose heroes. A complex, back and forth drafting system similar to dota's should be used for any competitive play, and a simpler league style system should be used for solo/partial queue ladder.”

Leap, crowd control, damage, reset leap, repeat: Kerrigan is a classic assassin that fans of LoL's Kha'Zix will grow to love

On individual skill combos

While a draft mode is certainly to come at some point - or at least it should if Heroes of the Storm is ever to have a competitive future - there still is the question about the actual skill cap of the game. With the laning phase essentially gone, there are fewer ways for a player to showcase his skill and prove he's better than his opponent. To tackle the problem, CyaSteve brings out characters like Kerrigan - a combo-based assassin whose efficiency relies on her player perfectly chaining her skills to burst down the target and is considered one of the more difficult characters in the game. Is this the only way to hype player's abilities, however? mYi's captain Christian "AceofSpades" Lippa thinks there're more options that just creating intricate assassin heroes.

I think Blizzard should have more high skill cap characters that have room for outplay and spectacular moves, those characters are often assassins, but HotS is different than most mobas. I think specialists and supports can be built to showcase high level mechanics as well in this game. So yes, more characters like Kerrigan, but don't stop at assassins, go further.”

Yet, the spectator value of individual skill combos are aknowledged as something which can help the competitive aspect of Heroes. Accoding to high MMR streamer Tyler "Pithx" Entner, allowing players to pull off something incredible is the way to make them feel valuable in a team, especially in a game where there isn't a clear way to distinct who's the star of the game.

High individual skill combos are amazing for the competitive scene, as well as for the game itself. Hard-to-pull-off, breath-taking, face-smashing, Murky-slapping combos bring not only individual skill into a team game, but replay value. Bringing individual skill into a team game debunks the common cry of having a "team that's too heavy to carry", and makes the player have a sense of impact.”

On split pushing

After tackling another hot topic - that of the dominance of roaming 5-man AoE comps - the competitive players take the time to discuss the split pushing element of Heroes, or rather the almost complete lack thereof. A popular strategy in other MOBAs, split pushing is not really a thing in Heroes at the moment and former StarCraft pro Jacob "LzGamer" Winstead lays out why this is so.

This is a big thing I care about. Here is the problem with split pushing and why it does not happen even though myself and blizzard wants it to so bad (example nydas network) Towers are to weak and are not a threat at all.. No one is scared to 4v5 a team with them by a fort/keep/towers it does not matter. There is no defenders advantage, towers do not agro heroes if their is minions, zombies, roaches, mercs, etc and this is a problem. This will forever make "Group at level 10" the big focus on the game. Split pushing is a dead and lost art form in heroes until defences aggro/dmg is changed.”

According to IdrA, map size is also one of the reasons why split pushing is rarely seen in a Heroes match. Split pushers act alone by definition, pressuring a lane that's distant from the general action but in Heroes of the storm there isn't any real "distance" - jumping from one lane to another is quick and effortless, there are no wards to spot incoming enemies and so there is more risk than potential reward when doing that strategy.

Curse's captain Thomas "Sneaky" Boccinfuso also attacks the poor AI of lane minions and also brings out the relative small size of all maps.

Every type of strategy will eventually have a counter to it as more and more heroes are introduced. Split pushing is definitely an aspect I’d like to see improved upon. The talents bring a hybrid aspect to each hero and modify their gameplay. The simple fact is the lane minion AI needs a major rework, its poor AI makes split-pushing a less favorable path. Once that's fixed split-pushing will come back. I was an avid supporter of the Worldstone Shard artifact since it somewhat rejuvenated the split pushing strat and mindset. Haunted mines is a small map and split pushing would not be as beneficial due to being ganked really quickly by the enemy team compared to Garden of Terror. I would like to see more big maps because i am a fan of seeing people split push and doing something other than roaming as 4-5 and still contributing.”

The talent system of Heroes provides a linear upgrade to heroes' abilities

On talents

The final topic discussed is the talents, the system that replaced items in traditional MOBA games and what's currently the only way to "build" a hero in a unique way. While it seemingly does get the job done for the purposes of Heroes of the Storm, various community members like game caster Kevin "SchAmToo" Pearson do think Heroes needs something more before it can become a deep eSports title. 

I'm with the group of people who thinks the game still is in need of at least one more layer of customization. The talents are AWESOME and I enjoy what they do to a very large degree. Commentating talent choices and how they react with the teams composition/strategy or even just for the single hero's effectiveness will be fun. However, I think a little more change needs to exist so we don't see many of the same build game in and game out. Artifacts, negating their cost, were an okay step into this, but fell flat for many reasons. I think Blizzard should be able to solve this problem before beta. Maybe make abilities able to be swapped in (say each hero has 4 abilities for the QWE slots). Or be able to swap in non-hero-dependent talents (give mule to diablo for a random example).”

According to Curse's captain Sneaky, however, there are problems even in the currently existing talent system. While every few levels players are given a choice of four talents (or two for their ultimates), cookie cutter builds do exist for certain heroes, which ultimately makes the whole idea of diversing builds moot.

I hate using this word “cookie cutter” but that’s what it feels like for most of these talents. I feel they need to add in more useful talents that would be useful on some maps but useless on a different map. Having the player think for longer than 2 seconds on what talent to pick would be great to me. Blizzard has talked about reworking talents and I think it is just a matter of time till they come out with the new ones, that and when artifacts are done being reworked we can go back to have a more diverse game.”

The full thread can be reviewed here