Heroes of the Storm: Blizzard Explains the Benefits of Shared XP

Speaking to Eurogamer, Blizzard's Dustin Browder has explained why Heroes of the Storm will allocate group advancement rather than individual progression like most MOBAs.

Asked about concerns that more powerful players feeling powerless on the sidelines and unable to improve their own experience, Browder said "Shared XP is better for both new users and hardcore players. We actually did it for hardcore players initially.

"We had an individual experience point system for many years on this game, and when we started introducing the Battlegrounds" – another change from most MOBAs is that Heroes of the Storm comes with multiple maps which have very different, game-changing mechanics – "we started trying to provide our advance players with a lot more strategy in trying to engage with their opponents.

"One of the things we noticed is that players kind of refused to engage with the map mechanics of the Battlegrounds when they had individual experience, because they didn't want to leave their lane to go do something like drop off coins or collect tribute. They were too scared. We'd actually see arguments on the team – people would be saying, 'Well I'm not going to go drop off coins, you go drop off coins, you go get the tribute, I don't want to leave lane!'"

Though sceptical, the developers decided to use group levelling as a means of fixing this issue: 

"We looked at each other and said, 'This is not going to be any fun. This is a huge waste of time. We're literally not going to notice the difference.' And we put it in, and of course, the difference was immediate and incredibly noticeable."

Browder believes firmly that this is a good thing for experienced players. "It also has this huge benefit for high-end teams in the sense they can cross-lane support or cross-lane gank with a lot more freedom," he comments, revealling that previously players would have to decide between going for a strategic kill or staying in lane and levelling up.

"Right now, if you're on a three-lane map and you have a player in each lane – if you've got three players dedicated to getting experience points from those battles – you have two players who can do whatever the heck they want. They can go support, they can collect map objectives, they can try to cross-lane kill other players, they can try to raid bases and destroy infrastructure in the back field, they can engage with mercenaries… The minute they put this system in, it opened up the map to tons of strategy, which we felt was fundamentally better for the game we were trying to make."

Heroes of the Storm began life as a mod for Starcraft 2 but now has a sizable team at Blizzard developing the game and you can check out our preview of it here. The game is currently in technical alpha testing ahead of launch.