triple post... sorry.
Okay, so some of you dudes + dudettes MAY know that I become obsessed with Heroes of the Storm for like two years solid. So I feel like I'm coming into Arena of Valor with some previous experience with the MOBA genre. That said, I have attempted to investigate Dota 2 and League of Legends in the past, and neither was for me at all. Call me a baby, but I just prefer my MOBAs to be less hardcore timesinks. Heroes of the Storm was like an arcade MOBA where matches rarely even 20+ mins. And that was a big part of the appeal.
I played about three hours of Arena of Valor. So I think that says I like it. Although there's still a lot I don't know about - partly because this is the first time I've attempted a MOBA on a console, and partly because the game doesn't always explain everything great. Namely, I am not familiar with any heroes yet (obviously, that takes time) but also I'm not familiar with what their special attacks are, and I don't think the game does a great game at really giving you a chance to know this ahead of time. It describes them on the hero select screen, but you'll be holding up your party if you read them. You could read them mid-match but that's not always feasible either. So it's just a matter of learning this stuff over time I think.
I somehow own two heroes already. I think I unlocked them via the tutorial, or maybe just everyone gets to start with them. All heroes are currently marked as "Free," though I'm fairly certain this is a limited trial - probably to help promote the launch. I will say it appears that heroes are EXPENSIVE to unlock with in-game currency. I don't have nearly enough gold to actually buy anyone yet. But at least for now that's no matter since they're all unlocked for now.
I went back and forth between two heroes last night - Violet is a ranged attacker who I enjoyed a lot (and that tends to be my preferred playstyle in a MOBA, though I'm always happy to experiment), and Butterfly is a cool melee attacker.
I played all of the tutorial stuff (some of it twice) and then five standard matches. The teams I was on won four games, and lost once with me getting MVP a whopping three times. I don't believe this is because I'm gud, but rather because the game just launched and there's a fairly good chance that I'm playing with a bunch of folks who have never actually played a MOBA before so aren't necessarily sure how to best prioritize things.
At any rate, my first impression is positive. I can definitely see myself sinking some good hours into this one.
