It has become commonplace in MOBAs such as League of Legends and DOTA 2 to employ ban systems where teams can ban other teams from using certain characters. Whilst on face value this may seem unfair it’s a great way to prevent opposing teams from using certain strategies, stop a character that you feel may be over powered or just stop somebody from using a character that you know they are good at using. It also promotes the value of learning to play as multiple characters and not get stuck into playing a select handful and this in turn adds a great deal of variation to games for the player and for the spectator.
Heroes of the Storm and Starcraft 2 director, Dustin Browder, was asked on Twitter if Blizzard had any plans to introduce this type of feature into their new MOBA. He said “we will experiment with some ban ideas in some esports events this summer. Will explore which ban system works best for us”. Whilst this is in no means a concrete answer to whether or no we will see a ban feature, it shows us that Blizzard has got the idea on their radar.
Heroes of the Storm peels away from the big hitters in the MOBA genre on quite a few features, for example there is no in game shop to buy upgrades, player experience is earned on a team basis rather than individually and last hitting doesn’t play a role in the game. It’s those sorts of decisions that make Heroes, for me anyway, a much easier game to pick up and play for someone, like me, who doesn’t have a whole lot of free time any more. But will it effect the game on a competitive level? Will professional gamers and esports stars look at Heroes of the Storm as a MOBA lite and not as a contender to the likes of DOTA 2, LoL and HoN? Let me know what you think in the comments below!