Kat Bailey has this interview with Blizzard’s lead designer on Heroes of the Storm, Travis McGeathy titled On its Second Anniversary, Heroes of the Storm Has Finally Turned a Corner.
It’s a sentiment I completely agree with, and I’ll slightly disclaim my discussion of this game by noting that a good friend works at Activision. When I first tried HOTS a few years ago it was clear that they had made changes to make the DOTA-style of gameplay more palatable, but it didn’t click with me until the 2 year-anniversary updates. Yes, I was another Overwatch player who initially went back to HOTS for the skins, but stuck around for the gameplay.
Now I play it a few times a week, and it’s great to not have to worry about last-hitting and other stuff I didn’t care to grasp from more traditional MOBAs like having to come up with an item build for each game and map and situation. Maybe that’s something that hardcore DOTA players miss, they can stick to DOTA so I don’t have to hear them whining on team chat.
There’s also this part of the interview:
One of McGeathy’s favorite moments was when a high-level player told him about their experience with Zarya. “They said, ‘I never really enjoyed Zarya in Overwatch until I played her in Heroes of the Storm and I figured her out.’ So that’s a special case. Just in general we’re always looking for new and unique ways for heroes to work.”
I don’t play much Overwatch so I never understood the use of D.Va’s defense matrix ability except as a blunt shield. It took Heroes of the Storm for me to understand that her Defense Matrix actually powers up her self-destruct ability faster. Duh.
The only big criticism I have about HOTS is that while it is available (free to play) on macOS and Windows Blizzard hasn’t chosen this opportunity to bring the game to Linux yet. It’s an obvious next-step that is baffling to me at this point.
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