Stop Wanting Whack a Mole

Happy Friday everyone. Now normally I would go into this opening sequence and discuss the the post I was showing for this week's Reader Post. I am kind of going to do this, but I am also going to throw my rebuttal at the end. Basically Seanbaby sent in this post talking abut how Heroes of the Storm lacks depth. I will let you read it, then I will say my peace concerning it.

The first couple of hours I was very impressed with the Heroes, the tutorial was entertaining, the intro cinematic hit blizzards high quality standards, the new game modes seem refreshing and impressive. But then after playing a couple of versus games I soon came to realize, this is it. 

No gold system. Everyone shares experience. Every hero in the game is unusually tanky, it takes a really unskilled player to actually get killed in most situations because of the extreme amount of tankyness of players, high number of escapes, weakness of minions/towers and lack of CC in the game.

Coming from a huge Blizzard fan who's been playing Blizzard games sense before Diablo and Warcraft 2 released and also a huge Moba veteran, platinum 1 ranked in Leauge of Legends and high elo in Dota 2, I have to say this game hits a lot of points well but lacks a LOT of depth that is needed to make this game come to fruition. Truthfully my main complaint is very simple, there isn't enough/hardly any reward for skilled play! And it's extremely obvious in this game. 

For starters any moba veteran knows that last hits or CS is huge in the moba environment, currently there is NO reward for this. I see this as a poor decision because you immediately take out a core dynamic in a moba for skilled players! Next off, there is no visible reward for kills aside from global experience! And thats another thing... global experience as opposed to individual experience. Once again you are not rewarding player skill! Granted I understand that your trying to make this a more "team oriented" game with all the objectives and what not, but truthfully the way this game is built it feels more like a crazy smash fest at the moment and less like the skill based moba it could be . 

All 5 team members ball up and run towards every objective, anyone who is bad will stay in the fight for too long and may die. Honestly you guys needed to bring in some competitive Moba veterans to help your design. Like some Pro Dota players or Pro League players, any of them can tell you this game lacks a lot in terms of competitive play. And if you did bring any of them on... then they are more then likely secretly holding back what they really think... While truthfully this game may appeal to some new fans to the genre or just hardcore blizzard fans, anyone who really knows how to play a moba well will be deterred rather quickly because of the lack of depth this game has. Don't get me wrong your doing some things right, the skill tree and the objectives were refreshing but it still lacks a lot of needed depth. 

Now he may make some good points in his ideas but really all I will show you all not only my response back but really it is my explanation for this way of thinking.

People like you are too obsessed with playing whack-a-mole. That's the real problem.

DotA and LoL have confused players into thinking farming AI. is what those games are all about, when in reality the actual point of those games is to push lanes, destroy enemy heroes and their base. Unfortunately, the reward structure is both backwards and confused, causing players to play against the natural flow of the lane and even compete against not only the other team for power, but their own as well. Put simply, it distracts you into a pointless mini-game that puts you at odds with your own team, which is hardly conducive to team play.

Blizzard removes the unnecessary and painfully outdated last hitting mechanic to streamline their game, thus providing the same experience while also finally allowing people to play as a team proper.

What you call depth in other games can easily be identified as nothing more than an offensive cancer.

Have a nice weekend everyone!