Ranked Battleground Rotations

[Nerraw]

June 13th - July 11th/18th (estimated)
Hanamura
Dragon Shire
Tomb of the Spider Queen
Cursed Hollow
Infernal Shrines
Sky Temple
Braxis Holdout
Blackheart’s Bay
Battlefield of Eternity


When was last on the ranked rotation?
Dragon Shire - -Apr 24
Blackheart's Bay - -Apr 24
Garden of Terror - -Apr 24
Towers of Doom - Apr 25-May 15
Infernal Shrines - May 16-June 12
Tomb of the Spider Queen - May 16-June 12
Haunted Mines - May 16-June 12
Warhead Junction - May 16-June 12
Battlefield of Eternity - May 16-June 12
Hanamura - May 16-June 12
Braxis Holdout - May 16-June 12
Sky Temple - May 16-June 12
Cursed Hollow - May 16-June 12

The variety of Battlegrounds available in Heroes of the Storm, and their respective objectives, allow different Heroes and team compositions to shine. By presenting players with a range of map mechanics and interesting strategic situations, we create opportunities for exciting teamfights and thrilling come-from-behind victories. We believe the different Battlegrounds make Heroes of the Storm more fun to play and more entertaining to watch.

It is possible to have too much of a good thing, though. And as we’re now in the era of Heroes of the Storm 2.0, we’ve heard some players express concern with feeling overwhelmed by the growing number of Battlegrounds. Asking players to manage 13 unique event timings, strategies to defeat large monsters with varied abilities, or memorizing the optimal path to collect doubloons can feel like quite a lot.

When Heroes first launched, it only had a handful of Battlegrounds. We began to debate the possibility of a rotation in earnest about the time the map pool reached double its original size. Longtime players may have noticed that whenever we’ve introduced a new Battleground, we’ve reduced the size of the map pool to funnel more players into the Nexus’s latest challenge. With the launch of D.Va, we decided it was time to formalize our approach to keeping the game fresh without overloading players by introducing regular Battleground rotations.

Battleground Rotation Details

Here are the major details for our current approach to the Battleground rotation:

• Reduce the number of Battlegrounds available in matchmaking game modes from 13 to 9.
  • We agree with community feedback that six Battlegrounds felt like too few, and will be running nine, instead.
• Create moments in our ranked seasons for the meta to shift due to Battleground rotation.
  • We’re starting with three rotations per season and nine Battlegrounds per rotation.
  • These should be considered living numbers that we are constantly monitoring, and can adjust according to what feels best for the game while still feeling impactful. If we raise the number of maps in the pool, for example, rotations won’t feel meaningful.
• We’ve updated our multi-tiered map introduction system to help alleviate information overload for newer players.
  • New players will always play their first game on Cursed Hollow.
  • They’ll then move into a sub-pool of Battlegrounds drawn from the current rotation.
  • This sub-pool will open up to all nine Battlegrounds in the current rotation, gradually acclimating newer players to the game’s full range of strategies and experiences.
• We’ve also heard lots of feedback about the map selection process. We’ve spent time reviewing and have come up with some ways to improve this process moving forward, which should result in a healthy and fun map pool with each rotation.
  • Our first consideration is the reward aspect of the Battleground mechanic and its layout. Examples of this are the Curse or Punisher. We want to offer strong variety here. Layout often ties into the Battleground’s mechanic and helps decide how many lanes it has.
  • Next, we consider the gameplay aspect of the Battleground mechanic. Examples are Tribute collection and killing skeletons. Variety is the key here, just like the reward aspect.
  • Our final consideration is visual. We have lots of beautiful Battlegrounds, and we’d like to have a healthy representation across different themes, so from game to game players shouldn’t see the same tile sets.
• Lastly, there are improvements we’d like to make to some Battlegrounds, and we can make those improvements while they are out of rotation. The rotation creates a nice moment for us to reintroduce reworked Battlegrounds. You’ll never know where our Battlegrounds will grow.

I want to thank our players for all the feedback we received during the Heroes 2.0 Open Beta, and following the release of Hanamura. We believe our approach to Battleground rotations will result in a better learning experience for newer players while keeping a diverse pool of Battlegrounds for everyone to enjoy. As with everything we do on Heroes, we will continue to learn and improve upon this system. We love the enthusiasm and passion in the Heroes community and with your help, we’ll continue to make Heroes of the Storm the best game we possibly can!

• Thanks for sharing your Map Rotation feedback with us! As a result of community-driven discussions, we’re making all 13 Battlegrounds available for play in Versus A.I., Quick Match, and Unranked modes.
• Hero and Team League are now the only game modes that will feature a Map Rotation.
• The Ranked Map Rotation has been updated to include the following:
  • Hanamura
  • Dragon Shire
  • Tomb of the Spider Queen
  • Cursed Hollow
  • Infernal Shrines
  • Sky Temple
  • Braxis Holdout
  • Blackheart’s Bay
  • Battlefield of Eternity
• A new Map Rotation icon has been added to the Ranked Play screen.
  • Hover the cursor over the Map Rotation icon to display a list of all Battlegrounds currently available in Ranked matchmaking.
  • Find the Map Rotation icon next to the Grand Master Leaderboard and Ranked Guide buttons.

[Ryme]

Hmm, I understand their rationale but I can't help but continue to think that a personal ban system accomplishes most of the above while keeping people happy. Next rotation feels awful to me

[Littleraven]

Is this why I have been getting the same battleground over and over? I was wondering about that. I have literally only been getting like 3 of them this past week. Thought I was crazy lol

[Revik]

I think there is a middle ground here. For unranked/QM no holds barred fun all maps are available all the time. If they must go through this BG rotation because they feel it is too unfair for super top end game play to memorize the ins and outs of too many maps fine you can relugate it HL and TL.

[Arachnofiend]

Hmm, I understand their rationale but I can't help but continue to think that a personal ban system accomplishes most of the above while keeping people happy. Next rotation feels awful to me

A ban system would affect queue times so I imagine they wouldn't want to go that route. As much as I'd like to never see Haunted Mines or Warhead Junction again...

[Nerraw]

I'd never play Sky Temple again in my life if there was a vote system in place.

[Fabray]

Why can't we get a vote system once the match is made? No one wants to play Garden or Warhead ever again, so you put up two or three options and all ten players vote for what they want to play.

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I'd never play Sky Temple again in my life if there was a vote system in place.

I used to really like that map, but it's become my third most hated behind those other two.

[Nikkaszal]

A ban system would affect queue times so I imagine they wouldn't want to go that route. As much as I'd like to never see Haunted Mines or Warhead Junction again...

If enough people were banning a particular map enough to severely affect queue times, then that should be a metric for Blizz to go "okay, WHY does everyone seem to dislike this map and what can we do to make it less shitty"

[ophion1990]

I wonder If D.va is the culprit/savior that prevents the vehicle maps from being added. Can Tychus enter the DK/Terror while in Odin? I have to assume Vikings can't in their longboat since only 1 Viking enters normally. The fact that I have no idea if those heroes can or can't shows how much of a fringe case it is. Aside from that I'm not sure if we've had a situation where a vehicle would enter another vehicle, creating 3 layers of HP. Or maybe not. If GoT makes it into the next rotation over DS I'm gonna riot though!

[DesoPL]

I hate Battlefield of Eternity, Tomb Of Spider Queen and Haunted Mines with burning passion.

[RH92]

I just dread the day Garden is back on rotation, scrap that map already.

I personally don't think blacklisting would work well as it would screw matchmaking even more. However I think having an option to vote for map you want to play as the match begins should achieve similar result.

For example, you join queue and as the match starts, you are presented with 3 map options (It has to be uneven) and each player votes which one they want to play. The one with most votes is going to be played. If a map is not played for a long time, you know there is something wrong with it.

[Stormcall]

I hate Battlefield of Eternity, Tomb Of Spider Queen and Haunted Mines with burning passion.

I'd rather play BoE and Spider Queen over and over and over again than ever have to play Blackheart's again.

[Arachnofiend]

If enough people were banning a particular map enough to severely affect queue times, then that should be a metric for Blizz to go "okay, WHY does everyone seem to dislike this map and what can we do to make it less shitty"

Not everyone agrees on what maps are shitty though. I was surprised to see so many people in this thread bagging on Battlefield of Eternity, it's the best of the two-lane maps IMO. Sylvanas kinda ruins it but she does that for every map with a boss-based objective.

[Nikkaszal]

Not everyone agrees on what maps are shitty though. I was surprised to see so many people in this thread bagging on Battlefield of Eternity, it's the best of the two-lane maps IMO. Sylvanas kinda ruins it but she does that for every map with a boss-based objective.

That's why I said "if enough people". Having a noticeable percentage of the playerbase banning particular maps would be a red flag that they are not fun to play.

[Ballistic]

I hate 2 maps Hanamura for its flawed design and Warhead junction for how big it is rest of the maps are ok to play. They really should implement map banning system, I won't mind map reroll after both teams have been assembled to match.

[Ryme]

A ban system would affect queue times so I imagine they wouldn't want to go that route. As much as I'd like to never see Haunted Mines or Warhead Junction again...

Would it? If you can only ban two maps similar to WoW, would anyone even feel the effects?

[Deleted]

I wonder If D.va is the culprit/savior that prevents the vehicle maps from being added. Can Tychus enter the DK/Terror while in Odin? I have to assume Vikings can't in their longboat since only 1 Viking enters normally. The fact that I have no idea if those heroes can or can't shows how much of a fringe case it is. Aside from that I'm not sure if we've had a situation where a vehicle would enter another vehicle, creating 3 layers of HP. Or maybe not. If GoT makes it into the next rotation over DS I'm gonna riot though!

Well, both the Odin and the Longboat are Heroic abilities. So they don't really matter. And I believe you can cancel the Odin. I haven't played enough Vikings to know if you can cancel the Longboat. And even if you could not, I think you can enter.

Also, in case you'll wonder what happens if Cho'gall enters, the entire character enters and Cho controlls the terror and Gall still has his normal abilities, only the Garden Terror is his "Cho" now.

[FelPlague]

the idea of a vote system is nice, but then it brings on a few issues.

1. you can purposly avoid the maps your char is bad in
2. if the community on average hates a map, it makes it mcuh less likely those who like it will get it
3. allows for alot more team comp set up that could be bad for the game.
4. would most likely push the meta to all only ever wanna play on 1 map

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Would it? If you can only ban two maps similar to WoW, would anyone even feel the effects?

yes, it is very noticeable in wow, if you are queing and have the 2 most popular banned, and two least popular unbanned, it is VERY unlikely to get those 2 maps, even if they are your favorite

such as if you ban the 2, the least amount of people have banned, it will effect your time

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I wonder If D.va is the culprit/savior that prevents the vehicle maps from being added. Can Tychus enter the DK/Terror while in Odin? I have to assume Vikings can't in their longboat since only 1 Viking enters normally. The fact that I have no idea if those heroes can or can't shows how much of a fringe case it is. Aside from that I'm not sure if we've had a situation where a vehicle would enter another vehicle, creating 3 layers of HP. Or maybe not. If GoT makes it into the next rotation over DS I'm gonna riot though!

btw the odin does not have an extra health pool anymore, the health you have as the odin is your health, so there is no "three layers" thing, so it doesent matter
the longboat thing makes sense, as you can only get in with 1, but they are all forced together
dva will be fine though

[Treeskee]

I would love a ban/vote system Garden/Dragon are the woooorst to me.

[Deleted]

I don't know if I like this new model. TBH I felt a lot more comfortable with all maps in but never repeating same map.