Pls Explain Heroes of the Storm to me

[MN Lahmar]

Hello guys, this game seems cool but what i don't understand where will it be released? Is it free or not (like Dota2)? What's with the beta keys?

 

[Wietlol]

It currently is under Beta development which means that the game works... but still has some things that need improvement or bugs.

Beta keys (which are given by Blizzard) allow you to play the Beta version of the game (playing before release).
You should ask someone if they still have a beta key left.
It seems like blizzard gave everyone 5 keys if they joined... so those who got those keys also have 5 for themselves.
Mine have been given already so I have none left for you.
But there should at least be someone that has it.

Anyway, the game is a simple MOBA game (AoS) with different map styles.
In most maps, you collect things to spawn something that will help you destroy the enemy core (enemy base).

However, the gameplay itself is very different from DotA2 or LoL.
First of all, you dont have items... which is the only thing you would use gold for.
So gold is removed!
Also, XP is shared 100% so your level is the exact same as your teammates.

These two together actually remove individual gameplay from the game.
Which sounds great but actually is not.

Also, you have a lot of fountains which regenerate your health and mana in every lane just behind your turrets.
This actually makes recalling almost useless. (except if you are almost dead and you just activated the fountain regeneration)

Also there is nothing like runes or masteries or anything else that affects gameplay from outside of the match.
(This will only be for LoL players.)

Also, leveling abilities is done automatically... in fact, there are no levels of abilities.

There are a few other things that changed the gameplay.

In trade for items, there are talents.
Talents are unique abilities that can be learned at specific levels.
Each level has its own talents which you can choose from.
At level 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16 and 20 you can learn a new talent.
Each hero has his own talent tree.
Talents give a passive bonus to your hero by either increasing effects of your base abilities or giving you a new ability.
Some talents are castable for example the talent at level 10 will be your ultimate ability.
Just search on the wiki to find a few talents and you will find out how they affect your spells.

Another thing is mounts.
When you are out of combat, you can channel your mount, which grant you bonus movement speed until you enter combat or cast an ability.

Buildings have ammo which means that your turrets and forts will not always be able to attack enemies.
Buildings are also placed differently.
At the far end of each lane, there is a gate with walls and turrets.
Turrets deal damage, walls are pathing blockers and a gate is a pathing blocker for enemies.
Behind it is another turret and a fort (a stronger type of turret) together with a fountain which can be activated by every player individually to regenerate a portion of their health and mana over time.
All fountains will have a shared 100 seconds cooldown for each player.

I think that this will be most of the big changes between existing MOBAs and HotS.

 

[jopi]

At the moment you can only enter the closed Beta when you have a Beta key.

Be aware that the start of open Beta is set to 19th of May, if I'm not completely wrong. From this day on anyone can play Heroes of the Storm for free (unless you buy some skins for real money, ingame).

And the offical full release where the beta phase ends is set to 1st of June 2015.

So if you want to play it for free, without having a beta key you just have to wait one week

 

[Zaramorus]

Its a moba like LoL and Dota so it has super shitty community.

 

[jopi]

Well, idk but my good experiences with HotS overweight the bad ones. Mostly players on my team are pretty nice and want to play as a team even in solo-queue or dont write anything in chat but also don't play bad.

Still sometimes you can be unlucky and get some flamers in your team, explaining you the game when they are on player lvl ~15 and the rest of the team is 30+.... well that's a thing with the matchmaking.

Still I would not call the HotS community 'shitty'.

 

[BlinkBoy]

I've seen salty players but toxic rotten rats are a few.

Most people who get salty in HotS will just be pesimistic but won't really try to offend you unless you act salty as well.

About business model, which you are mainly asking. It's more like LoL's but getting a big starting roaster is a lot faster.

You can get about 15 heroes before reaching level 40 if you spend your gold wisely and get all the heroes to level 5.

If you feel like spending a dime or 2. I suggest you get the "Starter Pack" (very cost effective) and/or the nexus bundle. That should pretty much allow you to unlock all the heroes as you pass level 40.

 

[Dr Super Good]

When you are out of combat, you can channel your mount, which grant you bonus movement speed until you enter combat or cast an ability.

With exception of some heroes. Eg Falsted has a long range high speed fly and automatically gets mount speed when out of combat for a while. Brightwing has global range teleport to ally. Abuthur has global range burrow.

You can get about 15 heroes before reaching level 40 if you spend your gold wisely and get all the heroes to level 5.

Depends how much mileage you get out of your free stimpack.

After your first 20 odd heroes (which would be the lower price ones) you can expect the rest much slower at about the rate of once per month.

 

[PurgeandFire]

I haven't played it yet (got invited to the alpha, but didn't have anyone to play with). It wasn't until reading Wietlol's post did I bother to even check my email. Turns out I got 4 beta keys indeed.

If you need one, whisp me. I'll probably give 1 to a friend so I'll have 3 left lying around. I suppose it doesn't matter since the open beta is starting soon, but if you want to get your feet wet early, just PM me.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Practically everyone has 4 beta keys. The game is going public in less than a month anyway.