Page 1 of 2
1
2
LastLast
  1. #1

    BlizzCon 2018 - Heroes of the Storm: What's Next

    BlizzCon 2018 - Heroes of the Storm: What's Next

    Where: Mythic Stage
    Panel Description: Join a team of Heroes of the Storm developers as they recap the biggest and best moments from the past year and explore exciting changes that are coming soon to the Nexus.

    Time: November 2nd, 430pm Pacific/November 3rd, 0030 CET
    Duration: 45 minutes


    Panelists: Kaeo Milker (Production Director), Joe Piepiora (Lead Systems Designer), and Matt Cooper (Lead Content Designer)

    2018 Retrospective
    • The team keeps going because of the fans. Feedback is always welcome!
    • On the topic of Transparency, there are a lot of features that haven't come to fruition yet, such as the custom map editor
    • Party Finder and Social Features are not dead, there's just a lot more work to be done on them
    • Performance-based Matchmaking didn't do everything they wanted, but they've still been gathering data for it. More work to be done, keep giving feedback!
    • Content will continue being prioritized, so the game won't feel stale
    • 8 heroes have been released this year, starting with Blaze and culminating in Mal'Ganis. Orphea will be discussed during tomorrow's panel
    • Alterac Pass got added. Hanamura Temple and Garden of Terror got reworks. Been a busy year for battlegrounds
    • 2018 brought themed events as well! Starting out with MechaStorm and most recently adding King's Crest
    • 4th Heroes comic will release later this month and focus entirely on Orphea
    • We also saw Voice Chat and Third Bans implemented
    • Live events this year have been more "versus" oriented (Nexomania, Echoes of Alterac, Fall of King's Crest)
    • Lunara was picked by 53% of players in Nexomania
    • Horde was picked by 58% of players in Echoes of Alterac
    • Defiled Tombstone mount was picked by 64% of players in King's Crest
    • More events of this type to come!

    Role update!
    • The game has outgrown the original four roles
    • Tanks, Bruisers, Healers, Supports, Melee Assassins, Ranged Assassins

    Call of the Nexus
    • Quick Match is the most popular gamemode. Quick to get into, quick to play
    • Compositions are typically less than optimal
    • Enforced QM compositions are coming. Forced tank, healer, ranged assassin, and 2 fillers
    • XP bonus will be given for roles that are needed in the queue

    Boosts
    • Works like current stimpacks, AND stacks 5% XP bonus per player in a game who also have a boost active

    Ranked Play
    • Feedback was given
      • "Team league queues are too long"
      • "Add duo queue back to hero league"
      • "Never add duo queue back to hero league"
    • Recent team league changes were to help all of these cases
    • Massive spike in team league games played. It didn't just take people from other game modes, it brought in a lot of new/returning players as well
    • Hero league and team league queues will be combined, with HL players having an option to force solo-only queues
    • Loss forgiveness is being implemented for games where someone disconnects and is replaced by AIs. Leavers will be punished! Others will not lose MMR or ranked points for those games
    • Less placement matches needed, from 10 to around 3
    • Seasonal ranked quest line for the seasonal rewards. Will be given after placement games, and will require a certain amount of ranked games in the season. Additional rewards wil be given out along the way
    • Promotion and demotion games are being removed
    • Performance-based matchmaking will be used to educate players, giving players a guideline on where and how to improve
    • PBMM has been running in the background since last December, collecting data
    • Visible MMR!
    • Ranked points are being removed
    • MMR changes will instead be directly affecting your rank

    Rework Philosophy
    • The developer team is constantly learning when heroes are put into the game. Over time heroes may fall out of favor when new ones are released. The team uses all this collected information when working on reworks
    • Next reworks coming in December: Stitches and Sylvanas
    • The team sees Stitches as a tank. He takes a lot of damage, sets up kills with Epic Hooks(TM)
    • The rework won't touch Hook, since it's awesome. Slam does need some love however
    • Talents will of course also be leveled up
    • Sylvanas is somewhat unique in having a strong identity in Warcraft, but being a specialist in Heroes that shuts down buildings
    • Sylvanas is becoming an "epic ranged assassin", since Specialist is going away
    • Black Arrow is a unique ability that the team likes, but they want to make it more of an active decision
    • More information on the reworks coming in the near future

    Gameplay Updates
    • Last year had the camera updated, stealth revamp, regen globes going neutral, and tower ammo being removed
    • The team hears the feedback on tower ammo being gone. They won't go back on the decision but are looking at alternative ways to address the concerns
    • "The game feels better when the teams are more evenly matched"

    XP Changes
    • These are to combat the often snowballing matches
    • Forts and keeps give no XP. Towers give 50% less XP
    • Mercenaries give +100% XP
    • Passive trickle going up by 15% XP
    • Internal testing revealed that it didn't feel rewarding to take down forts. Keeps were still rewarding since it spawns catapults in the lanes
    • Taking down a fort now spawns a catapult in every third minion wave
    • The goal is to smoothen out the advantage that could otherwise snowball

    Armor Update
    • Pro players have been expressing concerns about armor-stacking drafts
    • UI armor visibility has not been good
    • All armor types will now be shown at all times
    • Armor stacking is being removed. Biggest armor buff, or largest armor debuff, will take priority
    • This should make each armor (de)buff feel stronger individually

    Q&A Session
    • Post-game stat tracking is something they want to look at in 2019, possibly as an extension of PBMM
    • Tyrande spell armor talent will still stack. The team went through all similar talents on a case-by-case basis
    • The team is experimenting with reducing clutter, such as smaller health bars and selection circles
    • Hero Select is getting a new feature at some point next year
    • The ranked changes will be releasing a few parts at a time
    • Dark Nexus Dehaka? "Noted."
    • Towers of Doom and Alterac Pass don't have catapults. ToD may still have the current XP gains from destroying buildings. Alterac Pass has the tanky minions but those have been tuned down significantly to not get out of hand.

    Last edited by Osiris; 2018-11-03 at 01:46 AM.

  2. #2
    I really wish they added a legendary Chromie skin that is cute.
    Perhaps a Winter veil Chromie skin, with her shooting snowballs and using snowglobes as time traps? :3

    The rest looks good though...
    I really wish Garden of Terror was reverted though, I preferred the old one.

  3. #3
    so they wanted to talk about reworks without any detail about rework except mentioning heroes.

    nice blizzard. and still no removal of the 50% forced winrate. nice blizzard. still dissapointing.

  4. #4
    Thank god they're finally doing enforced comps in QM. All assassin/specialist comps aren't fun for anyone. I wonder how Medivh will be categorized after the new roles are released. He's most definitely a support up until the quest is completed, but then can become a deadly ranged assassin melting whole teams at once. I quite like his hybrid status as both of his roles are incredibly strong. I'm gonna guess support though, as TLV was tossed into that category.

    Intrigued to see if heroes like Gazlowe and Probius will receive any reworks as they require a bit of setup in order to be effective, which isn't how a typical ranged assassin currently works. We'll see how they change Stitches and Sylvanas.

  5. #5
    The Lightbringer Daws001's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Location
    castle in the clouds
    Posts
    3,135
    Enforced QM comps are coming. Forced tank, healer, ranged assassin, and 2 fillers
    WTB for OW please

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by agittunc View Post
    so they wanted to talk about reworks without any detail about rework except mentioning heroes.

    nice blizzard. and still no removal of the 50% forced winrate. nice blizzard. still dissapointing.
    Deep Dive panel is tomorrow. This one was just an "everything and the kitchen sink" overview. The guy was talking so fast since they had to squeeze all of this into 45 minutes.

  7. #7
    Fair enough but that still doesnt do anything for some of the systems they implemented.

    50% forced winrate is so bad i dont think anyone likes this joke of a system. punishing players that win... what?

  8. #8
    Wasn't there another hero to be announced too? Or did I hear it wrong when they first showcased Orphea?

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Romanticide View Post
    Wasn't there another hero to be announced too? Or did I hear it wrong when they first showcased Orphea?
    A few people, including myself, did hear it as two heroes. Guess we'll see what happens during the Deep Dive panel tomorrow. First panel of the day.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Nerraw View Post
    A few people, including myself, did hear it as two heroes. Guess we'll see what happens during the Deep Dive panel tomorrow. First panel of the day.
    I thought so too, but he actually said two heroes videos.
    As in, two Heroes of the Storm videos, not two hero announcements.

    The first video was the cinematic, the second one was the one showing Orphea gameplay.

  11. #11
    Bloodsail Admiral Ooid's Avatar
    7+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Aug 2015
    Location
    In the oven baking
    Posts
    1,044
    I hope they’ll continue to do oddball heroes with specialist going away. It’s one of my favorite parts of the game.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Gurluas View Post
    I thought so too, but he actually said two heroes videos.
    As in, two Heroes of the Storm videos, not two hero announcements.

    The first video was the cinematic, the second one was the one showing Orphea gameplay.
    Thank you! Haven't had the time to go back and check for myself.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Nerraw View Post
    Thank you! Haven't had the time to go back and check for myself.
    No probs, you did a good job with the summary! :3

  14. #14
    If I recall correctly last year there were two heroes added... And the second one got previewed the second day of the blizzcon so I definitely keep my hopes high with tomorrow's panel

  15. #15
    OP should be prettier now. Had a slight mishap with uploading the images, so a couple of them point to the thumbnail itself until the cache catches up. Should fix itself soon.

    See ya all for tomorrow's Deep Dive panel!

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by agittunc View Post
    Fair enough but that still doesnt do anything for some of the systems they implemented.

    50% forced winrate is so bad i dont think anyone likes this joke of a system. punishing players that win... what?
    They say to not feed the trolls, but i'll bite.

    Your understanding of MMR is shit. Winrate isn't "forced" at 50%, it's just the statistical trend of matching people of similar skill level. What do you propose, throwing new players against grandmaster level?

    Get and maintain grandmaster and I can assure you that your winrate will differ more from 50% than it does now. But if you're like the vast majority of the player base, winning half your games when you settle in to your long-term skill level is a good thing. If you want it to be higher than get better and it will, until you're playing players you're equal to in skill again.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by danielewhite View Post
    If I recall correctly last year there were two heroes added... And the second one got previewed the second day of the blizzcon so I definitely keep my hopes high with tomorrow's panel
    With Mal'Ganis just added I'm skeptical there's gonna be another. Last year's cinematic had both hands and alexzstraza in it. This year was just orphea, unless they plan on also adding the raven lord, which I wouldn't be mad about. I guess we'll see tomorrow.

  18. #18
    Immortal Nikkaszal's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Sydney, Australia
    Posts
    7,450
    Orphea looks FUCKING COOL. Her kit looks fun as hell and I am well keen.

    Loss forgiveness for AFKs/DCs YYYYEEEEEEESSSSS
    (This signature was removed for violation of the Avatar & Signature Guidelines)

  19. #19
    The Lightbringer DesoPL's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Sep 2013
    Location
    Hell...
    Posts
    3,670
    This forts changes are bad seriously, Blizz should first talk about it with pro players.

    But at least, class rework is here.
    .

  20. #20
    Is all of this coming with the Orphea patch? Because some of this stuff is something we've known about since... last Blizzcon?

    I'm curious about the XP changes, though. I feel like for the average game the catapult is gonna end up being ignored and push passively, especially during objectives (Braxxis comes to mind), even going as far as making mercs a bit less effective for the team that is down a fort. I don't even think fort XP was high enough to cause snowballing by itself. The big thing about taking a keep was always catapults aswell, though I admit that they definitly gave a substantial amount of XP. We'll see, I guess.

    Edit: Nevermind, catapults are being nerfed, it's probably gonna suck on all levels of play. I already play HotS out of a sense of inertia at this point, can't say I'm happy about the early game laning being even more irrelevant now.
    Last edited by ophion1990; 2018-11-03 at 11:30 AM.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •