PAX East, Weekly Sales, Account Suspensions, April Fools

[Nerraw]

PAX East Developer Interview
PAX East is coming up this week, and we've been given the opportunity for a developer interview! If you have any burning questions that you've been aching for an answer to, now is the time to submit them in the comments below.

Check out our recent news for information of how you can catch the official panel live.


Weekly Sales

Every Tuesday, we place a number of Heroes on sale, and swap a fresh set of cosmetics into the featured item rotation. Check out this week’s items and then head in-game to pick up anything that catches your eye.

Heroic Deals: Apr 3 – 9, 2018
Our next set of Heroic Deals will begin on Tuesday, April 3! Check out the list of upcoming featured items and Hero discounts below.

Upcoming Hero Sales

• Probius — Sale Price: 375 gems
• Tassadar — Sale Price: 250 Gems
• Nazeebo — Sale Price: 250 Gems

The following skins and mounts will be added to the featured item rotation and will become purchasable with gems until this round of Heroic Deals comes to an end:

Upcoming Featured Skins

• Terran Probius Red One
• Kaldir Zagara
• Arcane Grimskull Nazeebo
• Commander Raynor
• Golden Fel Queen Chromie
• Hellblade Samuro
• Flying Monkey Brightwing
• Mega Love Doctor Morales
• Void Demonic Tyrael
• Vermillion Mecha Tassadar

Upcoming Featured Mounts

• Magic Carpet
• Fel Butcher’s Beast
• Tyrael’s Charger

March 28 Account Suspensions

Latest Suspension & Ban Wave: March 28, 2018

We’ve just issued a new round of account suspensions and bans for players who regularly go AFK, refuse to participate, or intentionally and repeatedly die during their Heroes of the Storm matches.

These actions were targeted at players whose in-game performance data, combined with high report volume, clearly shows a consistent lack of contribution to the majority of their matches. In this way, we’re able to take regular and confident action against those who are intentionally harming the in-game experience for others.

Going AFK, refusing to participate, and intentionally dying are behaviors that ruin the experience for everyone else in a match and undermine the spirit of competition that’s essential to Heroes of the Storm. Taking part in these actions will not be tolerated, and we will continue to suspend and ban players who do. We’d like to thank those of you who use the relevant in-game reporting options when you spot these negative behaviors in your matches, and encourage you to continue doing so.

Thank you!

Fanmade April Fools
Punishment Sin, the creator behind last year's famous fanmade Heroes joke video, made another one this year! In it we see the actual truth of the Nexus revealed.

[DesoPL]

I seriously start to think, that next hero is Deckard Cain, there is lots sings for that.

[RH92]

PAX East is coming up this week, and we've been given the opportunity for a developer interview! If you have any burning questions that you've been aching for an answer to, now is the time to submit them in the comments below.

If there was only one question I could ask, it would be:

• What is their plan to educate the general playerbase as most players are not watching HGC? The game has developed far beyond original four roles and mere brawling; and the ingame information doesn't reflect that very well.

My other less important question would be:

• Will we finally see more Villains released in 2018?

[Deleted]

My question for the Q&A: Have you thought about an Abathur talent revamp? Maybe quest talents?

[Frozen Death Knight]

My questions to the developers would be these:

Will we be seeing updates of the scale of 2.0 from last year in the future in the form of a 3.0, 4.0, etc., or will we be getting new features more spread out as talked about during last BlizzCon?

The new in-game voice chat functionality has been a great addition to the game. While not experiencing anything overly toxic over voice chat yet, how do you make sure that players that act toxic over voice chat get their punishments when they step out of line?

Will we be seeing a commendation system any time soon where players can promote good behaviour and good community spirit?

Whatever happened to Clans that were talked about at BlizzCon 2016? Got any new information to share about that?

A big discussion topic in the community has been about the outdated class system used to label every Hero, which does not reflect the evolved state of the game. How do the developers currently view the roles as seen in high ladder/tournament play and what labels would you like to add, change, and/or remove in a revamped class system to better inform the player base about what a Hero adds to the team comp?

Could you add more search options when browsing replays? Being able to browse games based on what Heroes were played, wins and losses, map, game mode (i.e. QM, Unranked, HL, and TL), ladder season, date, and levels just to name a few would make it easier to find the games you want to watch without having to rename each replay.

Would it be possible to implement an in-game Hero/Map Guide feature where people can share their knowledge about the game over chat channels; things like talent builds, text that explains how to play said Hero, and what matchups/maps a Hero is good/bad at? While on a similar note, could you add in-game Twitch streams as well into the client (B.Net and/or in-game) so it is easier to catch up on tournament streams of HGC?

When will we see more accurate statistics that better reflect the actual game data Blizzard has so that players no longer have to rely on websites like hotslogs analyze builds, balance, etc.?

[GusF]

PAX East is coming up this week, and we've been given the opportunity for a developer interview! If you have any burning questions that you've been aching for an answer to, now is the time to submit them in the comments below.

1. Will Kerrigan ever receive a rework? Will it be any time soon?
2. News on Clans?
3. Will we be seeing a PVE mode? I really loved the PVE Brawls. They have so much potential.

[Deleted]

1. Regarding daily quests. Any plans to let us cancel one quest per day to get a random new one ? Really hate when i get assassins quests

2. Any plans to let us play around and create customs maps with the editor ?
Would love to see Blizzard holding player maps competitions and adding them to the rotation.

3. More Blizzard classic heroes ?

[Acidbaron]

Want people to stop afking? Do what every other moba does. Add the option to forfeit the game.

[AmazingMerch]

1. Could you add PVE skirmishes like those in brawl? It was amazing.
2. I am really looking forward to get into clan with my teammates, is such feature still planned and what would be the bright sides?
3. Are you planning reworks of less played heroes like Chen?

[Dizzeeyooo]

If you have any burning questions that you've been aching for an answer to, now is the time to submit them in the comments below.

1 - what are the developers thoughts on re-branding the game "Heroes of Overwatch", so having 2+ overwatch heroes in literally every single game comes as less of a surprise to new players who may not expect heroes from other genres to usually feel completely useless in comparison (unless newly released, because gem sales hehe)
2 - do they continue to believe that prioritising one specific blizzard genre over all others is the best way to promote fun and interactive gameplay, and an enjoyable game overall?

[Romanticide]

1 - After the release of Ana and Hanzo and seeing their talents and spells do you plan to give Nova some love? There's so much opportunit to make her fun to play and it feels like all the good ideas went to Ana and Hanzo (especially Ana's ultimate).

2 - Will we see Nova and Li Ming as announcers anytime soon? As someone said on the forum "the cockiness would be legendary" (but I hope the price isn't).

[A Chozo]

Any news on a rework/update of Arthas' overall 3D model? His shoulderpads are too gigantic!

[shyny10]

1) Any updates on clans and ingame gifting?
2) How do you feel about the current state of the Assassin roster? Any love planned for the forgotten assassins such as Kael'thas, Kel'thuzad, Falstad?

[Haté]

Any plans to address Quick Match seeding into ranked, or perhaps retooling Quick Match into a more draft friendly game mode and shift away from the randomness of the Matchmaker boogieman?

[Begpo]

Sorry for my not very good english.

Will there be any AntiLeaver system (if player leaves during first 3-5 minutes of Ranked game - noone will lose rating like in Dota2)?

[Nikkaszal]

Want people to stop afking? Do what every other moba does. Add the option to forfeit the game.

Absolutely fucking not, my time with LoL saw constant "surrender @ 20" bitching when people would give up a kill within the first five minutes, and then more AFKs after 20 along with constant surrender votes until 3 people also just gave up and voted yes.

This whole game is designed around the fact that you CAN and DO make comebacks, because it never hits the point where you can't step out of your base without being literally one-shot by the super-fed ADC.

Surrenders are terrible and should never, ever, ever, EVER be put into HotS.

- - - Updated - - -

1 - what are the developers thoughts on re-branding the game "Heroes of Overwatch", so having 2+ overwatch heroes in literally every single game comes as less of a surprise to new players who may not expect heroes from other genres to usually feel completely useless in comparison (unless newly released, because gem sales hehe)
2 - do they continue to believe that prioritising one specific blizzard genre over all others is the best way to promote fun and interactive gameplay, and an enjoyable game overall?

Overwatch heroes = 8
Diablo heroes = 15
Starcraft heroes = 17
Warcraft heroes = 37
TLV heroes = 1
(Plus or minus one or two here and there, quick count from my phone)

Wanna revisit your statement?

[Dizzeeyooo]

Wanna revisit your statement?

not really, considering nothing that you said contradicts anything that I said?

[Igi]

1) Any plans to change the silly reconnect system we have now?
2) Can we get an "anti-missclick" option when choosing the talents? Something like "after you choose a talent you have 10 seconds to change it".

[Nikkaszal]

not really, considering nothing that you said contradicts anything that I said?

Overwatch has literally the fewest heroes of all franchises, besides TLV.

If you were talking about overall hero power, sure, I'll play that game! Just for the hell of it, let's use Oxy's meta tier list from last month:

PRIME (Tier 1):
Overwatch x 2, Diablo x 2, Warcraft x 5

CORE (Tier 2):
Overwatch x 3, Diablo x 5, Warcraft x 9, Starcraft x 6

And then most of the rest are in Tier 3, with a handful lower.

So tell me again how Overwatch is over-represented? Or are you just having a grizzle about all the weebs playing Genji and Hanzo?

[Dizzeeyooo]

Or are you just having a grizzle about all the weebs playing Genji and Hanzo?

Must be nice playing at a skill level where tracer is not considered equally as cancerous for the game as the other two fun and interactive assassins you listed