Heroes of the Storm has grown a LOT since its release in 2015 and if you compare it to the game it was when it released, the Hots we have today seem extremely polished.
However, there are still a few features that need Blizzard’s attention if it is to ever rival or surpass MOBA’s such as Dota2 and League of Legends in popularity.
In this article, we will take a look at 10 features that we think would greatly improve Heroes of the Storm.
We realize that some of these points would require a huge amount of resources from Blizzard and may be unrealistic. Always fun to speculate though.
10. Map Elimination System
With Heroes 2.0, Blizzard introduced us with map rotations in the hopes of making the experience for new players a lot less daunting. While 13 maps can be a LOT for a new player, we feel that map rotations are still not the way to go.
Instead, we think Blizzard should introduce maps as new players level up. For an example: New players can only get Cursed Hollow until hero level 5, then Cursed Hollow and Battlefield of Eternity until 10 and so on. So that new players would unlock new maps as they progressed. Also giving a nice sense of accomplishment, progression, and excitement to the starting experience.
Now, for the veterans. We want to see some sort of personal battleground elimination system, much like in World of Warcraft. Where one player can choose 1-3 maps that he absolutely does not want to play. This would, of course, affect queue times for those who choose to eliminate 3 maps but being able to choose would be nice.
9. In-game Map & Hero Tutorials
It is clear that Blizzard wishes to make the learning experience for new players easier and less overwhelming. This would probably help with this more than anything.
Having a ”tutorials” tab in-game with an in-depth map and hero explanations would be awesome. While also greatly help new players choose which heroes to buy and how to play them.
Blizzard already does these videos with every new hero release and the last few map releases. Making it for the older heroes and maps might be quite a lot of work but would probably be worth it.
8. Seasonal Texture & Weather
Last Christmas Blizzard gave us a brawl unlike any other, the Winter Veil Snow Brawl. It was basically just Cursed Hollow, but with some delightful seasonal twists. Instead of the standard texture, there was a snowy texture and Christmas stuff everywhere, alongside some snowballs to throw at your foes, but let us focus on the texture.
The brawl is likely still the most beloved of all the different brawls that Blizzard have introduced so far, and I don’t think it comes down to the snowballs. Cursed Hollow’s new winter texture gave a whole new feel to it, and it would have been incredibly enjoyable, even without the snowballs.
We would love to see seasonal versions of most of the maps. Imagine a green and lush version of the current Cursed Hollow in the spring and summer, a rainy fall version and finally the winter snow version. This would help keep the maps a little more fresh and enjoyable.
Having random weather elements would also be amazing. Such as rain, snow, clouded etc. Obviously, this would have to be done very subtle, since it should not interfere with the player’s view of the game in any major way.
7. Gifting
The community has asked for this for ages but for some reason, it is yet to be implemented. This is a pure win/win for both the Blizzard and the community, and we really don’t understand what’s holding Blizzard back.
Being able to gift skins, heroes and other goodies to your friends are in no way necessary for the overall gaming experience but would be a nice win/win addition which would also help support the game further. Make it happen!
Related: Top 10 Warcraft Heroes we would like to see in Hots.
6. Warcraft Event
During the lifespan of Heroes of the Storm, there has been a Diablo event, Starcraft event and finally an Overwatch event with the 2.0 patch. All of which has introduced maps and heroes from that franchise and while some may hate Hanamura or Warhead Junction, I think we can all agree that these kind of events are exciting.
We expect this will come in the near future, as it would be extremely odd to not have an event based on the biggest Blizzard franchise in Hots.
There are definitely endless maps and heroes to pick from, but here are some ideas:
- Warsong Clan v Sentinels – Cenarius and Grom Hellscream introduced with a Warsong Gulch themed map of some sort.
- Orcs & Humans – A very iconic title from one of the original Warcraft games. This could see the introductions of Lothar and Blackhand and maybe a Dark Portal themed battleground.
- Legion –Â The game really need some more iconic villains and this could bring in the best of them. Archimonde, Mannaroth, Varimathras and more. Alongside a Mount Hyjal themed map perhaps.
- Naxxramas –Â Need I say more than ” Your curiosity will be the death of you”?
We could go on like this forever, and maybe it even deserves its own list. The point is, there are so many opportunities, Blizzard need only seize them.
5. 3v3 & 2v2 ranked play(Arena)
Heroes of the Storm are based on teamwork and functioning as a unit. Which is why team league is the ideal Hots experience, at least if you are 5 people. The 2 and 3 man ranked is a whole other story though.
While it is nice that people can play serious games in groups of 2 and 3 people, it has somewhat decreased the quality of Team League as a whole.
Arena Concept:
Make relatively large versions of the Wow arena maps and use them as a ranked deathmatch mode. It would have its own drafting rules with more bans than usual and 1 pick at a time. Heroes should start at LVL 20 and talents could be picked freely in at the start of each map. Arena mode should obviously have completely separate MMR and rankings but could deliver some fun ranked play with 1 or 2 friends.
The balance and meta would obviously be pretty bonkers in this mode, and the game should NEVER be balanced around it. Keeping the original 5 man maps as the default and competitive game mode, but add the opportunity for variation and excitement for 2 and 3 man parties.
4. Bigger Prize Pools
This one might seem superficial or greedy, but the fact of the matter is that a large portion of players go where the money is. We don’t think that Heroes of the Storm need to give out the same prizes as Dota2, League, or CS-GO, but they really need to pump some more money into their e-sport scene if they want to compete with the big dogs on the market.
Related:Â Heroes of the Storm or League of Legends. Which is the best MOBA?
3. Campaign
Blizzard is known for their incredible RTS campaigns, especially in the early Starcraft and in Warcraft 3. While a Heroes of the Storm campaign would be hard to make as serious and lore heavy(nor should they invest that kind of money into it), they would be able to make a hilarious campaign. Which could also work very well as a tutorial to some of the Heroes.
Heroes of the Storm has a LOT of awesome characters with great lore, but we are yet to have actual Nexus lore. Which would be a total and complete mess, lore wise but also awesome to behold.
This is likely very unrealistic until Hots begin to bring in more money, as they would have to add a lot of new developers to the team. In order to keep the same flow of patches and heroes as we are used to, while also delivering quality campaigns.
It would be amazing to see some of our favorite characters react to their sudden arrival to the Nexus. Imagine an Arthas or Azmodan campaign which told the story of their arrival to the Nexus, and perhaps their conquest to conquer it.
2. Spectating, Better Reconnect System & Draft Swaps
Spectating and draft swapping are both standard features in most other MOBA games but we are yet to see it implemented into Heroes. We feel both features are quite important if they wish to fully polish the game, especially draft swaps. Hero league drafting is really hurt by this, and to a lesser extend team league. If the first pick on your team wants to play something rare, while your fifth pick has a highly contested hero in mind there are no way to find a good solution, and many times you are forced to ban out the contested pick that your team really wants because they are too far down in the draft.
- Draft Swapping: Implement it so that you can swap heroes in the last 15 seconds if both parties have both heroes and agree to the swap. The only downside, which I am sure are Blizzard’s reason for not putting it in the game yet. Is that people might get toxic if someone doesn’t want to swap and they choose to pick their own, less contested hero.
- Spectating:Â Spectating is probably a bit harder to implement, but it’s not like Blizzard is incapable of the task. Blizzard might worry about adding it in since some people might hate to feel spectated but it would be quite easy to add a privacy setting which disallowed people from spectating your games.
- Reconnect:Â The current reconnect system is quite awful and both the community and Blizzard themselves are aware of this. Blizzard has also stated that it is something they want to fix but it is harder than you might think since the game runs on the same engine as Starcraft 2. At least that’s the explanation commonly used. While this is not a HUGE issue to most people, it is absolutely devastating to the gaming experience if you happen to disconnect in the middle of a game and have to wait for the engine to catch up.
1. Map Editor
The thing that started this entire genre of games over a decade ago, map editor. Warcraft 3 had an excellent map editor that allowed the community to freely create any map or scenario that they wanted. This, in turn, gave us the original DOTA Warcraft 3 map and created one of the most popular game genres of all time.
Heroes of the Storm already have more diversity than any other MOBA on the market with the vast array of maps and brawls. However, giving the community the chance to create their own unique maps with weird objectives would be so much fun and add even more to do in the Nexus. It would be amazing to try out a game of Footmen Frenzy or Wintermaul Wars inside Heroes of the Storm.
The community has always had some real creative geniuses and seeing what they may come up with would be incredible, and who knows, might lead to a new game type entirely.
