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Heroes of the Storm
by
Published on 2018-11-08 06:08 PM
Post-BlizzCon Developer AMA Starting
This week's advertised developer AMA is about to start, and you can now submit questions on reddit. So if you have a reddit account and some burning questions, go ahead and see if you can't get an answer for them! We will be providing a full recap of developer responses once the AMA has concluded.
Orphea PTR Datamining
While we already knew about most of the upcoming content, which can be found here, poking around the latest PTR build still uncovered some things not officially announced. We've got sprays, announcers, new bundles, and indications that shard packs are going to be a thing you can spend gems on.
Bundles
Shard Packs
Sprays
InvenGlobal Interview with Matthew Cooper
InvenGlobal had a chance to sit down with Matthew Cooper, Lead Content Designer on Heroes of the Storm, to talk about Orphea and future releases.
InvenGlobal Interview with Steve Holmes and Adam Jackson
Not content with just one interview, InvenGlobal managed to swing another one! This time, Steve Holmes, Battleground Designer, and Adam Jackson, Live Game designer, sat down to answer questions about Blackheart's Bay and Haunted Mines.
This week's advertised developer AMA is about to start, and you can now submit questions on reddit. So if you have a reddit account and some burning questions, go ahead and see if you can't get an answer for them! We will be providing a full recap of developer responses once the AMA has concluded.
Orphea PTR Datamining
While we already knew about most of the upcoming content, which can be found here, poking around the latest PTR build still uncovered some things not officially announced. We've got sprays, announcers, new bundles, and indications that shard packs are going to be a thing you can spend gems on.
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Announcers- Ka, of Sky Temple
- Kevin Johnson, of the developer team
- Neithis, of Tomb of the Spider Queen
- Orphea
Bundles
- Heroic Reinforcements
- Abathur
- Anub'arak
- Artanis
- Blaze
- Deckard
- Diablo
- Falstad
- Garrosh
- Gazlowe
- Hanzo
- Kael'thas
- Kerrigan
- Li-Ming
- Lt. Morales
- Maiev
- Malthael
- Medivh
- Nova
- Rehgar
- Rexxar
- Sonya
- Tassadar
- The Butcher
- The Lost Vikings
- Tyrael
- Uther
- Valeera
- Varian
- Whitemane
- Zarya
- Janitor Leoric
- Janitor Leoric Skin Variants
- Soap Bar Mount
- Heroic Orphea
- Orphea
- Slacker Orphea Skin Variants
- Raven Runner Mount
- Raven Crest High
- Janitor Leoric Skin
- Striker Li-Ming Skin Variant
- Cheerleader Kerrigan Skin Variant
- Soap Bar Mount
- Slacker Orphea
- Slacker Orphea Skin Variants
- Welcome to the Nexus
- Dehaka
- Jaina
- Johanna
- Lúcio
- Muradin
- Raynor
- Thrall
- Tyrande
- Valla
- Xul
Shard Packs
Sprays
InvenGlobal Interview with Matthew Cooper
InvenGlobal had a chance to sit down with Matthew Cooper, Lead Content Designer on Heroes of the Storm, to talk about Orphea and future releases.
- The team has not discussed any details for potential future Nexus-original heroes yet
- Map bans have been discussed internally but there are no solid plans at this point. They'd rather make every map fun so there won't be a need for map bans
- Alan Dabiri has not been game director for a while now. Kaeo Milker, as Production Director, already knows how to run things
- One of the reasons behind the slowed hero release pace is that the meta was changing too quickly for comfort
- Heroes of the Storm started out using the Starcraft 2 engine but was moved to another one
- Team is actively working on improving matchmaking and reconnection systems
- Orphea can be countered by dodging her attacks and blinding her
InvenGlobal Interview with Steve Holmes and Adam Jackson
Not content with just one interview, InvenGlobal managed to swing another one! This time, Steve Holmes, Battleground Designer, and Adam Jackson, Live Game designer, sat down to answer questions about Blackheart's Bay and Haunted Mines.
- It was easy for the team to decide to rework Hanamura and Garden of Terror
- Blackheart's Bay isn't as easy since it is surprisingly not universally disliked
- A lot of people like the unique gameplay the map offers, so any rework would have to keep aspects of that
- Haunted Mines is a complicated problem to solve
- The map used to be the Wild West of Heroes, with a lot of crazy stuff happening
- It's hard to play the map optimally and still have a good time
- The team cannot say if Haunted Mines will be reworked again any time soon
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by
Published on 2018-11-06 06:58 PM
by
Published on 2018-11-05 06:38 PM
Heroes of the Storm PTR Patch Notes - November 5, 2018
Our next Heroes of the Storm patch has just hit the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting until November 12. As always, if you encounter any bugs during your PTR play sessions, please stop by the PTR Bug Report forum to let us know about your experiences.
Quick Navigation:
General
Design
Battlegrounds
New Hero: Orphea (Assassin)
Rejecting the dark power her father had begun to consort with, Orphea tried to run away from the Raven Lord's influence. But after witnessing King's Crest fall to his machinations, she was convinced she needed to stand and fight. She now vows to protect the innocent – as a Hero of the Nexus.
Trait
Basic Abilities
Heroic Abilities
User Interface
Heroes
Assassin
Gul'dan
Talents
Collection
NOTE: Many of the new items announced at BlizzCon 2018 will not be immediately available with this patch but will be added to the game in the coming weeks.
New Bundles
New Announcers
New Mount
New Skins
New Portraits, Sprays, and Emojis
Bug Fixes
General
Art
User Interface
Heroes, Abilities, and Talents
Our next Heroes of the Storm patch has just hit the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting until November 12. As always, if you encounter any bugs during your PTR play sessions, please stop by the PTR Bug Report forum to let us know about your experiences.
Quick Navigation:
General
- Call of the Nexus
- Players who queue for Quickmatch games using roles that are in short supply will receive 50% bonus experience for being team players. Just look for the “Call of the Nexus” Bonus Experience indicator located above each Hero when viewing the Hero Selection screen.
- NOTE: Call of the Nexus will not be active immediately active, but will be enabled a short time after this patch hits the live servers.
- NOTE: Call of the Nexus will not be active immediately active, but will be enabled a short time after this patch hits the live servers.
- Players who queue for Quickmatch games using roles that are in short supply will receive 50% bonus experience for being team players. Just look for the “Call of the Nexus” Bonus Experience indicator located above each Hero when viewing the Hero Selection screen.
- Boost
- What was once called a Stimpack is now a Boost, and in addition to buffing your own experience and Gold gains at the end of a match, all players will receive 5% bump in experience for each player in their match who had an active Boost. That mean players can receive up to a 45% XP bonus if all 10 players in game have a Boost active!
- In addition to stacking Boost XP buffs, you’ll now be able to retroactively Boost your Gold and XP gains at the end of a match by applying a Boost from the Score Screen.
- What was once called a Stimpack is now a Boost, and in addition to buffing your own experience and Gold gains at the end of a match, all players will receive 5% bump in experience for each player in their match who had an active Boost. That mean players can receive up to a 45% XP bonus if all 10 players in game have a Boost active!
Design
- Channeled Healing Abilities
- Alextrasza’s Lifebinder (R) and Rehgar’s Ancestral Healing (R) abilities are no longer cancelled under any conditions other than enemy abilities that remove the target from play (Devouring Maw, Gorge, Cocoon.)
- Alextrasza’s Lifebinder (R) and Rehgar’s Ancestral Healing (R) abilities are no longer cancelled under any conditions other than enemy abilities that remove the target from play (Devouring Maw, Gorge, Cocoon.)
- Spell Power Modifiers
- The following abilities and talents have been updated to have any percentage-based spell power modifiers stack additively when calculating damage: (This is the default behavior for all other abilities and talents unless otherwise stated in the tooltip)
- Zul’jin’s Buzzsaw (R) talent
- Hanzo’s Dragonstrike (R) center damage effect
- Gul’dan’s Rampant Hellfire (W) talent
- Zul’jin’s Buzzsaw (R) talent
- The following abilities have had their tooltips updated to reflect that percentage-based spell power modifiers will stack multiplicatively when calculating damage:
- Kael’thas’ Phoenix (R) ability
- Nazeebo’s Vile Infection (Passive) talent
- Li Li’s Lightning Serpent (W) talent
- Li-Ming’s Arcane Orbit (W) talent
- Kael’thas’ Phoenix (R) ability
- The following abilities and talents have been updated to have any percentage-based spell power modifiers stack additively when calculating damage: (This is the default behavior for all other abilities and talents unless otherwise stated in the tooltip)
Battlegrounds
- Dragon Shire:
- Dragon Shire has received updated Battleground art (including an updated Dragon Knight)
- Dragon Shire has received updated Battleground art (including an updated Dragon Knight)
New Hero: Orphea (Assassin)
Rejecting the dark power her father had begun to consort with, Orphea tried to run away from the Raven Lord's influence. But after witnessing King's Crest fall to his machinations, she was convinced she needed to stand and fight. She now vows to protect the innocent – as a Hero of the Nexus.
Trait
- Overflowing Chaos (Trait)
- Hitting an enemy Hero with a Basic Ability grants 1 Chaos. Chaos can stack up to 3 times.
- While Orphea has Chaos, her Basic Attacks against Heroes consumes all Chaos, dealing 50% increased damage per stack, and healing for 100% of the damage dealt.
- Hitting an enemy Hero with a Basic Ability grants 1 Chaos. Chaos can stack up to 3 times.
Basic Abilities
- Shadow Waltz (Q)
- After 0.5 seconds, deal 384 damage to enemies in a line.
- Hitting a Hero with Shadow Waltz sets its cooldown to 2 seconds and causes Orphea to dash a short distance upon moving.
- After 0.5 seconds, deal 384 damage to enemies in a line.
- Chomp (W)
- After 0.6 seconds, deal 823 damage to nearby enemies in front of Orphea.
- After 0.6 seconds, deal 823 damage to nearby enemies in front of Orphea.
- Dread (E)
- Release a wave of dread that deals 245 damage to enemies hit.
- Dread erupts 0.75 seconds after reaching the end of its path, dealing 505 damage and Slowing enemies in the area by 25% for 2 seconds.
- Release a wave of dread that deals 245 damage to enemies hit.
Heroic Abilities
- Eternal Feast (R)
- After 1.5 seconds, deal 606 damage in an area.
- Eternal Feast repeats every 1 second as long as it hits an enemy Hero.
- After 1.5 seconds, deal 606 damage in an area.
- Crushing Jaws (R)
- After 1.25 seconds, pulls enemies in an area towards the center, dealing 826 damage and Stunning them for 0.75 seconds.
- After 1.25 seconds, pulls enemies in an area towards the center, dealing 826 damage and Stunning them for 0.75 seconds.
User Interface
- Additional space for Heroes has been added to the Hero select screen.
- Battlegrounds with mechanics that add additional (default hotkey: F) buttons (Warhead Junction, Snow Brawl, etc.) have had the appearances of their panels unified.
- A new “Bundles” page has been added to the Collection tab.
Heroes
Assassin
Gul'dan
Talents
- Level 16
- Rampant Hellfire (W)
- Damage bonus increased from 8 to 10%
- Damage bonus increased from 8 to 10%
- Rampant Hellfire (W)
Collection
NOTE: Many of the new items announced at BlizzCon 2018 will not be immediately available with this patch but will be added to the game in the coming weeks.
New Bundles
- The following new bundles are only available for a limited time!
- Orphea Heroic Bundle
- Orphea Heroic Bundle
- The following bundles have been added to the collection:
- Welcome to the Nexus Bundle
- Heroic Reinforcement Bundle
- Welcome to the Nexus Bundle
New Announcers
- Orphea
- Ka
- Neithis
New Mount
- Raven Runner
- Haunted Raven Runner
- Bloodmoon Raven Runner
- Haunted Raven Runner
New Skins
- Orphea
- Hallowed Orphea
- Verdant Orphea
- Slacker Orphea
- RCHS Slacker Orphea
- Spoiled Slacker Orphea
- Hallowed Orphea
New Portraits, Sprays, and Emojis
- Several new emoji packs, sprays, and portraits have also been added to the game.
Bug Fixes
General
- Fixed an issue that caused some Shielding and Healing values to track improperly on the score/stats screen.
- Fixed an issue allowing some summoned units to grant vision of Heroes inside brush if placed at the edge of the brush.
Art
- Fixed an issue causing some spell effects associated with taunt animations to appear after the animation was canceled.
- Whitemane: Fixed an issue causing Witch Whitemane’s custom mount animation to cease playing after she died once in a match.
User Interface
- Fixed a number of tooltip issues and inaccuracies across the game.
Heroes, Abilities, and Talents
- Kerrigan: Fixed an issue that disabled Health and Mana regeneration during Chrysalis.
- Stukov: Fixed an issue preventing Lurking Arm from revealing damaged targets if they were at the edge of its area of effect.
- Tyrande: Fixed an issue preventing Elune’s Chosen from healing allies if damage was dealt to Shielded/Protected targets.
by
Published on 2018-11-03 10:52 PM
BlizzCon 2018 - Artist at Work: Bringing Heroes to Life
- Malthael is being used as the subject for this panel to showcase the pipeline for creating a hero from scratch. Six artists are taking turns to show off the various disciplines employed while answering questions from the audience
- The team starts building off of source material to determine what makes Malthael Malthael, in this case his Reaper of Souls cinematic model
- That model is then recreated as a low-poly version that will eventually be put in the game
- The team aims for 12k polygons for each hero usually, but they have an upper limit of 15k
- The artists currently on stage use MODO, but it's "just a tool"
- Designing heroes are usually limited in some way, possessing some attribute that has to be carried over when adapting a character to this game. Stitches and Butcher are two heroes that have some overlap in lore, so the team has to be aware of that. Some of that is solved by the color schemes of the heroes, with Stitches being very blue-ish and Butcher being red
- Heroes that require transformation between two states, such as Alexstrasza going from humanoid form to dragon form often require collaboration between several departments
- Fenix's unique movement pattern posed a challenge. This was the first time the animators had to solve a problem like this one
- Malthael's very expressive wings pushed the limitations on joints on the hero. They solved this problem by making a separate set of wings that take over and supress the base model's wings when necessary, such as when his heroic is used
- Early animation ignores clipping entirely. Clipping isn't looked at until late in development when the animations are more or less settled on
- Every model needs two versions, one for when physics are turned on and one for when physics are turned off
- Orphea went through a lot of iterations with the artists and animators to capture the correct feel of the character
- The artists reiterate that people looking to get into animation and modeling should not tie themselves to one tool. The knowledge of how-to transcends the choice of program
- Hitbox size is determined through thorough cooperation with the design team and iterated on as the hero goes through testing
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