Heroes of the Storm is a game that from the beginning has had multiple maps as one of the core differences from other games in the MOBA genre. The game was released in alpha with five maps. All of these maps were a part of the competitive rotation and all of them except one (Haunted Mines) are still part of that rotation today. New maps have been added over time, increasing the total number to twelve when the newest event is finished. This is unheard of in the MOBA world. To put this in perspective the newest Call of Duty, Black Ops 3, has only 13 maps while Overwatch has 14. The next closest number of total maps or game modes of a MOBA is Smite with six, which was released one year before Heroes of the Storm. Games like League of legends only have three game modes, excluding the rotating special event game modes. Each map requires vastly different strategies, hero pools, and play styles that players have to adapt to. So the question for this article is how many maps is too many? When does it get to the point where there are too many maps for players to keep up with and some need to be removed from the competitive pool?

The answer to this question is not a simple one. There is no exact number. Anytime you ask someone this question they will give you a completely subjective answer. The answer also depends on what type of players the game is meant to be tailored to. For the casual gamer the number of maps might already be too high. For the competitive gamer the number of maps might be just right or not enough. For new players, the answer would almost certainly be that there are too many already which leads to a much more difficult learning curve. This another question that is really up to Blizzard, but in my opinion eventually something will need to be done to reduce, manage, or in some way change the map pool in order to reduce the learning curve and the amount of strategies players need. I do not think that that we have reached a number that is too high for competitive players that play all the time and are looking for strategical diversity, but I do think that the number is too high for new players.

Why do I think this is an important issue? This issue is important because for one it deals with the core foundation of the game, two it has a huge impact on the future of the game as a competitive and eSports title, and three it has repercussions on the amount of new players coming in and the amount of those that stick with the game long enough to become more than casual. Heroes of the Storm was created as an attempt to break the mold of the conventional MOBA. The way the Blizzard developers decided to do this was by taking away items, gold, and farming, letting players change their abilities throughout the game based on talent choices, changing the way structures are composed, and finally having several maps with different objectives. The people that usually end up playing Heroes are people that have played the traditional MOBAS and are either tired of them or looking to try something different. One thing that makes the game fundamentally different than those games are the variety of maps and making any changes to the map pool will have a change of the core game and what it was intended to be.

The eSports repercussions are pretty obvious to anyone that knows anything about how competitive gaming works. The more maps there are, the more it requires professional teams to plan, prepare, and strategize. Each map is vastly different than the others and has its own intricacies that automatically require a different strategy and heroes. Adding to this pool requires more and more practice time for teams by default and could lead to the skill floor for the game being much higher than originally intended. It is already close to impossible to become a professional player and adding to the amount players need to be prepared to face in any given match raises the ceiling players looking to be pros need to break through higher and higher. Hopefully, this will not lead to less competitive teams and bigger gaps between the more established teams and new teams, but that is a possibility.

How many maps are too many? This is a question I would like to pose to you guys. If when you respond to this article you could give me a little bit of brief information as well as your answer that would be great. I would love to know how long you have played the game, whether you play casually (quick match or normal draft) or competitively (ranked), and if you do play ranked, what your rank is. It would also help me to know what caused you to get into Heroes of the Storm in the first place and what has made you stick with the game for as long as you have played. I truly want to get this information from you guys because it will give me a little more data on the subject. Thanks for reading guys and I really hope you will help me out! You guys are awesome, please keep paying attention for new articles at thegosucrew.com and check out all the links below to see where you can keep in touch with me. Have fun storming nexuses ( I do not know if that is the correct plural).

-Caleb “PanDuhChuu” Jones

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