Big Changes Coming Soon To Draft Lobbies

[Nerraw]

We’re about to give draft lobbies a serious face-lift with our next Heroes of the Storm patch. Along with this revamp, we’ll also be implementing what might be the most commonly requested feature in the game’s brief history: Hero Bans. Yep, you read that right!

Now, we’ve seen a lot of discussion about ranked within the Heroes community, and we’re working hard to create and release features and changes that you’ve requested as soon as we’re able. Today, we’d like to give you a sneak peek at some of the changes in store for you on patch day.

NEW DRAFT LOBBY LOOK AND FEEL

(click for larger image)

We’ve received feedback that our current draft interface doesn’t indicate which battleground you’ll be playing on clearly enough, and we want to make this much more apparent. As soon as you enter a new draft lobby, you’ll immediately be presented with full screen battleground art, a welcome message, and even an audible callout of the Battleground’s name—and this is all before hero picks begin!

What’s more, we’re given the draft lobby an epic visual overhaul, which includes new background art, animated hero models and portraits, updated selection animations, as well as a variety of methods you can use to quickly find and select heroes while you’re drafting.

FIND YOUR HEROES, FAST

We’ve also received comments from players who mentioned that it can be difficult to find the heroes they want to play using the current draft interface —especially when they’re crunched for time after discussing hero picks with teammates in chat. Let’s take a look at some of the changes that we think will help to alleviate these concerns.

(click for larger image)

Aside from the new art and animations, one of the first things you’ll notice in the revamped draft lobby is the row of “favorites” we’ve added near the bottom of the screen, which will make it easier than ever to quickly find and select your top eight heroes ahead of each ranked game. You can customize who will appear in your favorites by selecting them from the Hero Collection tab in your Player Profile. Don’t worry if you queue up without picking any favorites, because your highest-level heroes will automatically fill any empty slots, which means it’s still easier than ever to find your most common companions in the Nexus.

Additionally, the row of buttons we’ve added above your favorites will help you sort heroes by role, and the search bar will allow you to find heroes by name, universe, and other keywords. You can also click the new “Browse All Heroes” button to open a much larger selection pane, which includes up to 48 heroes per page, sorted alphabetically.

HERO BANS INCOMING!

As our hero roster continues to grow, and players continue to tune into esports broadcasts, we’re seeing more and more discussion within the community about the need for bans in Heroes of the Storm. We agree, and we’re excited to bring hero bans into ranked play and custom games with our next major patch!

(click for larger image)

Ranked play will use the “Mid Ban” method, which works in much the same way that bans do in official Heroes of the Storm tournaments. This method features two bans per team during each ranked draft: One round of bans before hero picks begin, and a second after three hero pick rounds have elapsed.

Whichever team wins the coin toss before drafting begins will receive first ban, and the player with the highest matchmaking rating on each team will automatically be selected to issue bans for that team during ranked games. You can identify the ban issuer on each team by the crown icon that will appear over the hero portrait.

Each team will receive 45 seconds to select a hero during the first ban round, and 30 seconds during the mid-ban round. If a hero is highlighted, it will be automatically banned when the timer expires. Also—and this is very important—if no hero is selected or highlighted before time runs out, the ban will be skipped.

We wanted to make sure the drafting phase remained relatively quick and impactful, even after bans and ban timers were added. In order to help accomplish this, we decided to reduce hero pick timers from 45 to 30 seconds so that you can get back to brawling in the Nexus as soon as possible.

HERO BANS IN CUSTOM GAMES

Those of you who prefer to duke it out in Custom Games may be happy to know that we’ve implemented bans in this game mode, as well. In fact, we’ve added several ban methods for you to choose from in the new Ban Mode dropdown menu that will appear in Custom Game draft lobbies. Here’s how each of your options will affect the draft:

• Not Using Bans: Heroes cannot be banned in this mode.
• One Ban: One ban round before hero picks begin.
• Two Bans: Two ban rounds that alternate teams before Hero picks begin.
• Mid Ban: This is the ban method that will be used in ranked games. It features two ban rounds: one before hero picks begin, and another halfway through the draft.

After selecting a ban method, the lobby host may click the crown icons on each occupied player slot in the game lobby to designate which player on each team will issue Hero bans. Once everyone is ready to go, the lobby host can start the game, and draft mode will begin with the ban method you’ve selected.

UPDATED RANKED REQUIREMENTS

Adding bans to Heroes of the Storm meant that we also had to re-examine our minimum requirements for ranked games. For example, we don’t want to create a situation where you can’t proceed with a draft because all 10 of the heroes you own have already been picked or banned by other players!

With this in mind, we’ve upped the minimum requirement for ranked play from 10 to 14 heroes. Additionally, any Heroes that you’ve reached level 5 or higher with —including those on the Weekly Free-to-Play Rotation— will now count toward the minimum hero requirement, and can be selected for play during ranked games. We believe that these adjustments will also help to ease concerns we’ve seen that some players tend to pick heroes they are inexperienced with during ranked games, which can become a point of contention for their allies.

We’ve also removed player level requirements from ranked play, meaning that you will no longer need to reach player level 30 in order to participate in Hero or Team League games. In addition, since you have full control over who you choose to ally with in Team League matches, players who have received penalties for leaving games will no longer be prevented from participating in this ranked mode.

We’re thrilled to bring these changes to you, and we hope you’ll continue to send constructive feedback to us after you get your hands on bans and the new draft lobby with the arrival of our next patch. Let us know what you think in the comments below, or head to the official Heroes forums to kick off a conversation with other players. We’ll see you on patch day!

http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20058190

[GhostPanini]

I am glad to see these changes and additions.

[Deleted]

I'm glad about the change for ranked play in which heroes need to be level 5 or above and that free to play heroes can also be played there. Pretty nice since I don't own all heroes.

I might just start playing ranked after this.

[Waaldo]

Niiceeeee. That's some good changes. Now maybe they can finally start season 1. That also means that we won't see new heroes in HL until they play a few games and get that hero to level 5. Should lower some of the spam of new heroes in HL.

[Nerraw]

Niiceeeee. That's some good changes. Now maybe they can finally start season 1. That also means that we won't see new heroes in HL until they play a few games and get that hero to level 5. Should lower some of the spam of new heroes in HL.

Like the bush face-checking Lunara with a total of 3 Lunara games played I had the honour of playing with on my team recently. -.-

[Well]

Like the bush face-checking Lunara with a total of 3 Lunara games played I had the honour of playing with on my team recently. -.-

Sob... /friendlypat

On topic, I was and still am completely against bans. For me, I want to be able to play a competitive match with whatever hero I will enjoy at that time, with no fear of him or her being banned.

[Nerraw]

Side-note: PTR is updating, Heroesnexus has begun going through the files. This means the patch is not dropping on live servers this week.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Niiceeeee. That's some good changes. Now maybe they can finally start season 1. That also means that we won't see new heroes in HL until they play a few games and get that hero to level 5. Should lower some of the spam of new heroes in HL.

They still need to add brackets to HL and TL before we can have a proper season 1, but yeah, my interest in the ladder became a lot greater because of this coming patch.

[Acidbaron]

Player level requirement removed really blizzard? really?

Just when you do something better you in the same patch undo it.

All heroes that are counted towards the 14 should need to be at least played to level 5 to remove more derps.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Player level requirement removed really blizzard? really?

Just when you do something better you in the same patch undo it.

All heroes that are counted towards the 14 should need to be at least played to level 5 to remove more derps.

Yeah, the removal of the level requirement puzzles me as well. However, they did say that the 14 Heroes need to be lvl 5 or more to even count, so if you have only 13 lvl 5 Heroes available, you can't play on the ladder. That at least avoids some of the issues, especially since you still need to level up your account to unlock every character slot in the free roster.

[Zabatakis]

Getting better. Still my #1 wish is hero portraits that I can click to target my heals/shields and such that also have ult indicators. The last bit not so big a deal since I can tab to see but why the hell not. #2 is QM draft, tho maybe not enough people for that?

[Acidbaron]

Yeah, the removal of the level requirement puzzles me as well. However, they did say that the 14 Heroes need to be lvl 5 or more to even count, so if you have only 13 lvl 5 Heroes available, you can't play on the ladder. That at least avoids some of the issues, especially since you still need to level up your account to unlock every character slot in the free roster.

Must have misread since i though the level 5 requirement only exist to include the free rotation heroes. Those you own can be played from level 1.

"With this in mind, we’ve upped the minimum requirement for ranked play from 10 to 14 heroes. Additionally, any Heroes that you’ve reached level 5 or higher with —including those on the Weekly Free-to-Play Rotation— will now count toward the minimum hero requirement, and can be selected for play during ranked games. We believe that these adjustments will also help to ease concerns we’ve seen that some players tend to pick heroes they are inexperienced with during ranked games, which can become a point of contention for their allies."

That's what the quote says, don't see it stating you needing level 5 for any hero to count.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Must have misread since i though the level 5 requirement only exist to include the free rotation heroes. Those you own can be played from level 1.

"With this in mind, we’ve upped the minimum requirement for ranked play from 10 to 14 heroes. Additionally, any Heroes that you’ve reached level 5 or higher with —including those on the Weekly Free-to-Play Rotation— will now count toward the minimum hero requirement, and can be selected for play during ranked games. We believe that these adjustments will also help to ease concerns we’ve seen that some players tend to pick heroes they are inexperienced with during ranked games, which can become a point of contention for their allies."

That's what the quote says, don't see it stating you needing level 5 for any hero to count.

This is a direct quote from Spyrian on the battle.net article which you can find in the comment section.

"Okay, I think I'm going to reword that section. In the meantime, here is a breakdown:
- You must have access to 14 heroes that have reached level 5+ (Both your owned heroes and free rotation heroes count toward this)
- Heroes that are under level 5 do not count toward this
- Heroes that are under level 5 cannot be selected in ranked drafts. (Meaning, if you have 15 heroes, but only 14 of them are level 5+, you can only select 14 of them."

So basically, you simply cannot play Heroes that are below lvl 5 in HL and TL, and failing to meet this requirement will not count towards the 14 Heroes requirement. This change also means that you will stop meeting people who've never played a Hero before on the ladder. No longer will you have a brand new Hero popping up right after its launch in draft without the player actually being familiar with its mechanics.

[Acidbaron]

This is a direct quote from Spyrian on the battle.net article which you can find in the comment section.

"Okay, I think I'm going to reword that section. In the meantime, here is a breakdown:
- You must have access to 14 heroes that have reached level 5+ (Both your owned heroes and free rotation heroes count toward this)
- Heroes that are under level 5 do not count toward this
- Heroes that are under level 5 cannot be selected in ranked drafts. (Meaning, if you have 15 heroes, but only 14 of them are level 5+, you can only select 14 of them."

So basically, you simply cannot play Heroes that are below lvl 5 in HL and TL, and failing to meet this requirement will not count towards the 14 Heroes requirement. This change also means that you will not meet people who've never played a Hero before on the ladder. No longer will you have a brand new Hero popping up right after its launch on the ladder without the player actually being familiar with its mechanics.

Good, he should reword that since the last part of what i quoted made me question it if it was for all or not.

[apepi]

The Butcher looks so sad

[Sentynel]

As I already said in the other thread: Animated portraits are the most disgusting thing in this. I do hope they revert it. All other changes are heavily welcomed tho!

[Mormolyce]

Inc HL drama over the various bans.

Also, hope you weren't planning to play Li Ming in HL anytime soon :P

[Volitar]

Its nice but I feel like its realllllly late. Blizzards development cycles works for WoW because that's what we've come to expect but in terms of a moba its just way too slow.

[Nerraw]

[Sentynel]

Its nice but I feel like its realllllly late. Blizzards development cycles works for WoW because that's what we've come to expect but in terms of a moba its just way too slow.

So a patch every 3 weeks is slow? K.