On Thursday afternoon, members of the Heroes of the Storm development team sat down on the game's official subReddit (r/HeroesoftheStorm) to conversate with members of the community. They answered fan questions, provided insight as to what's the come and continued their mission to remain as available to the public as possible. With hundreds upon hundreds of questions asked, it can be difficult to keep track of everything that was said. Luckily, InvenGlobal has highlighted a few of the moment noteworthy responses below to save readers from having to scroll through hundreds of replies for the juicy ones.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a character in Heroes of the Storm over the last few months that have had more requests to be reworked than Chen. The only "Pandamonium" that he has brought to the battlefield for the last couple years has been to the player piloting the panda who has a fondness for drinking brew. More often than not, Chen didn't feel impactful when dropped on the map. His death-by-papercuts damage output was a minor nuisance; his over-reliance on consuming brew to stay alive in fights wasn't particularly interactive; and when it came to the solo-lane, he was out-classed by many.
It's been nearly two weeks since it happened. Nick Young, a 22-year old from Virginia, hasn't touched Heroes of the Storm since. He has too much going on inside his mind. Funeral arrangements, a new living situation, everything around him rehashing old memories that cause him happiness and push him to tears with agony. They say the grieving process varies based on the individual. However, in recent days, Young has found comfort, support, and love within the unlikeliest of places. A location he can see but not touch. Feel the arms of others holding him but not hug back.
Currently, the Business Development Manager of Dignitas, one of the largest esports organizations in the world, Bakery's day to day roles drastically differ from when he rose to the top of the Heroes of the Storm scene during his playing days. Instead of grinding matches, dissecting replays and mastering his mechanical craft on the keyboard, Bakery's life now consists of overseeing ways to monetize the company via their website, merchandise, and social media platforms. Upon making an abrupt retirement announcement at the end of 2017, Bakery set his sights bigger than just being good at playing a specific game better than almost anyone else in the world.
There's a new champion in the world of collegiate Heroes of the Storm esports. In a highly-contested series, Rutgers University took down Cal Poly Pomona 3-1 in the grand finals of the Tespa Collegiate Series on Sunday afternoon at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas. The roster consisted of Dominick “BegForMercy” Maisano, Rick “hiimrick” Green, Hexuan “NatsumeAl” Ma, Dustin “Supertai” Nguyen, Peter “noOreos4u” Thach and Stan “msMarvel” Potapov. Each player, in addition to a championship trophy and bragging rights, will receive a $500 scholarship prize to their respective university and one ASUS ROG laptop.
On Thursday afternoon, members of the Heroes of the Storm design team took to the game's official subReddit (/r/heroesofthestorm) to answer questions fans had and talk about the future of the title itself. For those who want to peruse the full thread, the AMA can be found here. If you're looking for the most, in my opinion, important bits of information scattered throughout the over 1,200 comments on the AMA, the four most noteworthy topics are laid out below that shed some light on the future of the title in 2019.
Fans of the Heroes of the Storm franchise went through a lot this past week. From weird highs to depressing lows, the full spectrum of emotions was experienced. Maybe it’s fitting that the end of this week fell on 4/20 as the “holiday” can allow individuals who celebrate to cope with the pain or comprehend the oddness that occurred. An icon left the company, Heroes of the Storm is now labeled as a “Classic Game” and more took place that left us thinking...what?
Chromie and reworks: name a more iconic duo. For the third time in the past 18 months, the long-ranged Assassin in Heroes of the Storm has been reworked to provide an overall better playing experience for those piloting and playing against her. The newest iteration of her kit, which can be found here, is one that the design team hopes might stand the test of time. Most Heroes in the game have not experienced drastic reworks, yet Chromie continues to receive attention from the development team. I spoke with Alex Neyman, Senior Live Designer, to shed some light on why it’s, once again, Chromie's time in the re-design spotlight.
Last week the Heroes of the Storm development team revealed the two newest heroes to receive an overhaul or “rework” to their existing in-game kits. One of them, the Support hero, Lucio, was released into the game back in February of 2017. Upon his entrance into the nexus, his healing output--thus his power level--was quite high. All a player had to do while manning the character was stay within range of his teammates while his healing and speed auras would do the rest of the work. Occasionally, if the team was in trouble, his Sound Barrier heroic would provide a massive burst heal that would either turn the tide in a fight or save the team long enough for them to scurry away to safety. Over time, through tweaks to his kit, the design team provided a more interactive experience when playing with and against Lucio. But, it wasn’t enough.
Beginning this weekend, the META Madness tournament hosted by long-time Heroes of the Storm caster Thomas “Khaldor” Kilian will kick off with six teams fighting it out for a €1,000 prize pool. The event is being sponsored by RUNTIME, a nutrition company based out of Europe. Taking place over a two-day span, the bracket-style tournament will feature best-of-five matches until a winner is crowned. What separates this event from the other Heroes’ tournaments that have popped up since Blizzard stated they would no longer support the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene is the “Madness” aspect. According to the rules, heroes that are banned during the Draft phase are not eligible to be selected for the entire tournament. With numerous top-tier threats off the board, players will need to adapt over time and test their abilities to perform with unique and off-meta heroes.
Ever since Chrome, the Keeper of Time, went live in Heroes of the Storm back in May of 2016 the development team has had their hands full finding out what they want to do with her. A Ranged Assassin who can one-shot an enemy with a couple of well-timed abilities is a delicate balancing act. In theory, if a hero relies on landing long-range skill shots for the majority of their effectiveness in battle the balance team needs to consider a few design aspects: It’s important to make the damage output impactful enough to make up for that character’s low health pool while rewarding a good player who is able to land difficult skill shots. If the range on those abilities is too long and the damage is too high, they will be able to poke away at the opposition while remaining at a safe enough distance, providing very little counter-play and a frustrating experience for the opponent. If the opposite is true then players will not feel rewarded for playing that hero if they can be engaged upon very easily, blown up and lack the necessary tools to keep themselves safe while not putting out enough damage to make the risk worth the reward. In the past 18 months, Chromie has experienced three reworks to her kit, including two in the past seven. By following the clues left in the patch notes since her inception and developer comments left by the balance team, a tale can be told about what they may have intended her to be and what they learned along the way.
One of the grooviest heroes in the Nexus, Lucio, is the newest recipient of a rework in the latest Heroes of the Storm Public Test Realm as the patch went live Monday morning. Since he was introduced into the game in February of 2017, Lucio’s popularity--similar to his rhythmic jams--have had its’ ups and downs. There was a time when he was arguably the strongest Support character and helped push the Double Support meta into existence. Then, once the development team knocked Support characters down a peg as a whole at the end of 2017, his relevancy disappeared along with it. Times are changing, however. The development team ripped apart his outdated tools and reassembled it in a way that makes him more interactive to play with and against.
If you blinked, you missed it. In a six-second span, an elite display of professional game knowledge, team coordination and mechanical skill was put on display during the Heroes Lounge Nut Cup over the weekend that left Twitch chat, Reddit and the Heroes of the Storm community with their jaws on the floor. In Game Two of their series, team “Washed Up” consisting of former professional players Thomas “Ménè” Cailleux, Dennis “HasuObs” Schneider, Filip “SmX” Liljeström, Aleksandar "ethernal" Milanov and Ivan "SportBilly" Koturić pulled off a team wipe of “Coming Through”’s roster that all but sealed the match and series.
They didn’t make the decision to have their employer, Activision Blizzard, cut support to the competitive scene. They certainly didn’t have a say in numerous individuals who were working on the game being transferred to other titles, making their lives more difficult. And, they didn’t intentionally alienate thousands of players who have slowly stopped playing the game over the last four months. What is in their control, is how the inner workings of the game itself will operate going forward to ensure that the current playerbase is given the best playing experience possible. On Wednesday afternoon, members of the development team held an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) on the game’s subReddit (/r/heroesofthestorm) where fans were chomping at the bit to get the opportunity to have their questions answered.
What transpired over the weekend was a spectacle within the Heroes of the Storm community that many feared would never happen again after Activision Blizzard stated they would no longer support the game’s competitive scene back in December. A competitive Heroes of the Storm tournament reached over 11,500 --11,537 to be precise-- viewers on Twitch at a single moment, according to twitchtracker.com.
Ever since Blizzard stated they would no longer be supporting a competitive Heroes of the Storm professional circuit, numerous crowd-funded tournaments have been popping up within North America and Europe. Now, Korea is getting involved in the action. On Thursday long-time Korean commentator Daniel “Gclef” Na shared on the Heroes of the Storm subReddit that a tournament featuring former pros was in the works. Today, specifics have been revealed. The event titled, “Heroes of the Storm League: REVIVAL” will begin on March 14, featuring a $6000 prize pool and includes eight teams made up of some of the most well-known and accomplished players to ever play the game.
Activision Blizzard loves making money. So much so, that their Chief Executive Officer, Bobby Kotick, during their most recent earnings call began his statement with: “We once again achieved record results in 2018.” What followed was him stating that the company would be laying off around 800 individuals but that’s a different story altogether. A few of the company’s entities: Overwatch, the Overwatch League, World of Warcraft and Hearthstone have reliably brought in income for the company in recent years. What has struggled-- and likely one of the reasons why developers were moved off the title and onto more profitable ones-- is a way for Heroes of the Storm players to be incentivized to spend money in or on a title they love. This isn’t a recent development either. All a die-hard fan of the game has to do is visit Blizzard’s official gear shop online or at a company-sponsored tournament and you will see very, very little Heroes of the Storm merchandise. Why this is so perplexing is the concept of Heroes lends itself well to merchandising.
We’ve all been there. You download the newest Heroes of the Storm patch on the launcher, anticipating the opportunity to jump into a Ranked game and try out the newest tweaks on your favorite heroes. You rush to click on “Hero League” or “Team League” when, like a Death Eater from Harry Potter, an estimated queue time of 803 seconds sucks the excitement out of your body. What’s there to do for over 13 minutes? You could pray to the Lord of Sin, Azmodan, and hope the stars align in a way that the wait is only a couple of moments. Or, if you’re truly cursed, the 803 seconds is a conservative estimation and, depending on your rank, you may be sitting in the queue for upwards of 20 minutes. You could cancel your attempt to play in Ranked mode and wait only a few minutes to play Quick Match or Unranked but, eh, that’s not your cup of tea. You’re a competitive fiend whose skin tingles when you see +3 for Performance Adjustment at the end of a hard-earned win. The good thing is that, while I cannot make your queue time any faster, I can present a list of cheap or free games that you can play in queue opposed to having your mind slip into madness as you watch your two favorite heroes spin in a circle as you wait for a game to begin.
When Activision Blizzard announced that the company would no longer financially support the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene back in December, the community was split. There were those who didn’t particularly care as following the competitive scene wasn’t their cup of tea, others were concerned this would be the end of their beloved title and a wide range of feelings in between existed as well. Two months into a world without the Heroes Global Championship (HGC), a story is unfolding that may be an indication as to what the future could look like for the title on Twitch, the largest streaming platform in the world.
Late Tuesday night, a Korean member of the Blizzard Entertainment scene leaked some information via datamine related to the next hero slated to enter the Heroes of the Storm universe. Lord Anduin Llane Wrynn, the High King of the Alliance, King of Stormwind, son of Varian Wrynn, nephew of Jaina Proudmoore and nephew of Magni Bronzebeard, among the other numerous titles he posses, is rumored to be entering the nexus.
