Heroes of the Storm Balances Solo Queue
Heroes of the Storm is still undergoing major changes due to player demands. While Blizzard initially decided to make a casual hero brawler that people could play with and have a laugh at, the ever-growing community demands that the game be more balanced for competitive play. This is why Blizzard reduced the number of players queuing up together in Hero League to two.
The mid-August patch wanted to tackle the issue a little bit lightly and reduced the party to a maximum of four members, but players went on demanding that justice be done. Blizzard has finally listened and balanced Hero League. It took them a little too long, since this suggestion, among others, was given numerous times during the closed and open beta stages. It took Blizzard almost one year to react.
The “issue” relies within the standards that MOBA games have set in the previous years. League of Legends has only allowed a maximum of two members to queue up together in Solo Queue ever since it started ranked seasons and the system proved to be quite balanced over the years that came. Blizzard decided to experiment with their game a lot, even after the game’s official release.
In the end, the gaming company will have to learn how to adapt to the players’ needs, something that is not exactly Blizzard’s number one specialty. It usually creates great games with interesting content and characters you can relate to, or simple, casual games. World of Warcraft was a game meant for people to have fun with, Hearthstone the same and Diablo was meant to be a fun game with a darker twist.
But MOBAs are different. These games are truly competitive and they rely on a team to be effectively played. They are also not a 1v1 like Hearthstone is, so matching 5 random players with a premade team of 5 or 4 was always a problem, especially because the game has no carrying mechanic. If 5 enemies perform well and one of your allies performs poorly, it is enough to call it a game, which is not exactly balanced.
But Blizzard is showing signs that it wants to listen to its players. It is doing so slowly, but surely. Yet we cannot help but think how different things would have been if we had been listened to in the first place. The game would have been well-balanced, Hero League would have been quite fair and the endless hours spend being mad at players who had no reason to be in our games would never have occurred.
Photo Credits staticflickr.com
