BlueTracker

Pscythic

People's attitudes towards the anomaly are shaped by their own perception, and it's really hard for us in the community to accurately gauge how much of an impact these changes have. Can you share (or promise to share soon) statistics that are especially relevant to the current anomaly with the community? In particular, how have game times been affected and are any heroes seeing significant changes in winrates?

One of the huge concerns with this anomaly is if game-times will be significantly increased and if late-game heroes/talents will become dominant, and the active HotS community doesn't have a good way to evaluate if that concern is legitimate or not. There's a lot of misinformation and anecdotal evidence being thrown around which affects how people feel about the anomaly and what feedback they're giving. For example, this post got a stupid number of upvotes despite being full of nonsense, anecdotal evidence, and dramatization (Gazlowe is not suddenly a top-tier hero just because of dimensional ripper). It's really hard to disprove the person's claims without hard stats. Anybody can whine about having 40 minute games (and almost certainly be lying/exaggerating) and the best counter we have is "personally, I haven't noticed a big difference." This post has been cited several times in other threads; people's perceptions and feedback are being warped by inaccurate information and data.

I feel like it is in everyone's best interest for us to know how the anomaly is affecting things like game times and hero winrates. We, the active community, will have better discussions and less misinformation amongst ourselves while you, the developers, will be getting better and more relevant feedback.

fishyPenguin

I'm asking for a friend of course: Are there any new main tanks in development or at least conceptually planned? I feel like my this role could use some love in particular. Cheers!

fishyPenguin

I'm asking for a friend of course: Are there any new main tanks in development or at least conceptually planned? I feel like my this role could use some love in particular. Cheers!

Beg_For_Mercy

How do you feel about enemy forts attacking you for dealing damage to enemies that are nowhere near that fort? For example, Lunara's poison draws building aggro even when the enemy player leaves the lane, and Azmodan's global summon can hit someone in top lane and cause a bot lane fort to attack him.

Exvaris

There have been hints at a D.Va rework dating as far back as July 2019 (as far as I know):

"Yes! We're currently iterating on a D.Va rework that I'm personally very excited about. We can't spoil too much, but we would like to call out that we've heard a lot of feedback about D.Va's nebulous identity. In the rework's current state, I would say she can opt into a solo-laner bruiser build, a team-support front-liner build and a pretty ridiculous self-destruct/pilot build, with lots of interactions between these options. In addition to the typical talent shuffles/improvements, there's a host of QOL changes across many parts of her kit including, but not limited to:

D.Va's Mech mode only suffering a movement speed reduction while Basic Attacking or channeling an ability, rather than at all times.

Defense Matrix can be re-targeted (with a short cooldown) while it is active.

Big Shot (Heroic 2) is now baseline in Pilot mode with re-adjusted stats to compensate. Yes, this means there's a new heroic! You'll never guess what it is! It's Micro Missiles."

This was posted by David Warner in an AMA almost a year ago.

Has there been any progress on this front? I'm curious if/when D.Va will ever see a rework in HotS as she's currently a very fun hero to play, but often not an ideal pick.

Kamikaze28

Any updates on kerning?

Alternatively, can you do something about this one-pixel-off-from-perfect-balance capture bar?

Daredboy

Can you please describe the next big thing in HOTS with as little words as possible?

Cydra01

Here's a question from our EU community:

In 2019 we’ve seen 4 new heroes: Deathwing, Qhira, Anduin Imperius. Can we expect more new heroes for 2020?

Cydra01

Here's a question from our EU community:

Are there any changes planned regarding the recent Nexus Anomaly with all the feedback you had? Will it be cancelled, modified, improved, not touched at all?v

nemanjanemanja992

How many new heroes are you guys working on at the moment? :)

SolidShock24

What programming languages do I need to know to work as a programmer on the game? :D

airmaxang

Pretty please can we get end of season mount rewards again for ranked? Genuinely one of my favorite things about the game that is currently gone. Even new colors for old end of season mounts would be awesome. These hard earned rewards are what keeps me playing those extra games

DCaptainNuts

Any chance you could create a vs. AI game 'Nightmare' level that increases enemy AI hero health, physical damage and spell power by 20%? For most people playing vs. AI mode, 'Elite' level is probably too easy and they're probably looking for a harder challenge. I think the resources required to do this is low, relative to the big pay-off for vs. AI players.

Xagganoth

Could you please bring the Death Knight Arthas skin back? By that I mean the one that looks like his default skin, but without the helmet or glowing eyes (and with the same alternate voice-over used by his Crown Prince skin).

It was available during the Alpha, but removed before Beta because some people felt taking his helmet off wasn't a big enough visual change to warrant being a separate skin. HotS 2.0 introduced skins that made even smaller changes (like Chen wearing his hat on his head rather than his back), so that shouldn't be an issue now.

For many fans of Warcraft III, Death Knight Arthas is the most iconic version of the character, as that's how he appeared in the majority of missions where he was playable. It would be really nice if we could play as that version of him in Heroes of the Storm.

-Duality

What are your thoughts on melee assassins? It has been talked about by players a lot but I think that devs have only admitted they're in a weird spot. I know that many of them like Kerrigan and Illidan can be oppressive when they can fully sustain themselves because they function as bruisers with more damage. Do you accept that that's their fantasy and their weakness? (They either outlive everyone and kill them or they die in seconds) Or is there room for improvement? Maybe they should be less reliant on autos so that they don't get countered by blinds and auto-attack speed reduction as much? And maybe they have less active sustain in exchange for that? Have you figured out the equation?

maguszeal

Tassadar's was the most in-depth rework so far, with an entirely new talent tree, a new basic ability and a new heroic. In terms of his development, as well as where he fits in the release cycle, does the team consider him a "new hero"? Or was his workflow still closer to that of past reworks?

Spazzo965

Could Murky's Egg health scale at a percentage per level please?

Right now it scales at 30 per level, which as far as I'm aware, is unique in the game. Kind of seems a bit odd. currently going as far as 5.25% wouldn't make it better until level 22, so if done, would probably need to make it have a higher starting value.

BTW, Tychus' health regen scales at 4.5% per level, while his health scales at 4%

Speaking of, is it known that the scaling values aren't exact percentages? like 4% is 4.0038%, 4.75% is 4.7607%, 2.5% is 2.4902%

SamiSha_

Are there still any plans for Tracer past the Tassadar rework? Her talent diversity could really use some love for sure.

fishyPenguin

I'm asking for a friend of course: Are there any new main tanks in development or at least conceptually planned? I feel like my this role could use some love in particular. Cheers!

Spazzo965

If Blizzard wanted to implement something like this, they totally could, and not being limited to triggers would make it so much easier to do compared to how I had to do it, although some things would still need triggers or an engineer to add new stuff, like an example of something I implemented is tracking Sonya's Wrath of the Berserker bonus damage - this currently would require triggers for Blizzard to implement it, or add new features to data to track the bonus damage from DamageDealtFraction as part of a behavior.

Triggers are kind of unreliable to 100% implement tracking with accuracy - like handling overkill is kind of a pain, and multiple damage effects happening at once can cause things to go pretty wrong, as triggers really only know what the state of the game is at the end of a game loop, not in between. Means that if you've got something applying armor after damage in the same loop, that armor did nothing in relation to that damage, but the triggers don't know that(but even that has it's own little exception in which you can discern info from where there isn't any)

express_sushi49

Honestly, this one comes from the heart, as I love this game dearly and have been a player since Alpha. Can we ever expect this game to pick up its reigns to return to the glorious state it once was at? Given the state of the game right now, it has become clear to me that this game cannot die. If it was going to, it already would have, yet it still stands strong on Twitch viewership, and that's given all of its current... setbacks.

I give this game a lot of my money, both out of loyalty and passion, and in fact, it's the only Blizzard game I give my money to anymore, but I want that money to feel like its not just keeping this game afloat, I want it to feel like it's a return investment for more content of all kinds at the same quality and polish pedigree we had during this game's first 3 years.

A morale boost like seeing new developers getting hired (as the careers page currently has 0 listings for HotS Jobs), or getting true Legendary quality skins again, with cool creative new spell effects (and lots of them!), Hero lip syncing, More Heroes than then 0-3 a year we're preparing for, fun alternative game mods, hell, even revisiting old cosmetics to give them spell effects or a polish pass to make all purchaseable content feel premium, an autobattler mode to compete with the certain two autobattlers from the other two moba giants, and of course, a feature spot during Blizzcon, with glorious cinematics, and a slew of new content to discuss and anticipate.

Content breeds reason to play, and reason to talk. If this game has only 2-3 skin updates a year and that's it, this game is doomed to be stagnant, as much as that pains me. I just want Activision/Blizzard to see this game is worth the money investment as much as any other major Blizzard title. And of course besides all of that, thank you for all of your hard work on Heroes thus far. It's been a tad depressing as things have slowed down more and more, but I hold hope that Heroes not only has far further to go, but also has the expectations of everyone ready to subvert.

ToH_Cheshire

Question for /u/BlizzKofalt

I thought for a long time how I knew the name "Joshua Kofalt", and then years of Heroes esports broadcasted before my eyes, and I remembered. Congrats with joining the team, RealRawrJar! It's really nice to see a skilled player and Heroes pro coach as a test analyst.

Could you please tell a brief story of how you became a member of the Heroes team, and what tasks are you responsible for? Are there any interesting stories about the recent playtests?

Senshado

Prove it by pasting one line of real game code.

Dsingis

Topic: Battle Passes

The question of a Battle Pass or Season Pass has been brought up a couple days ago in this subreddit. With the success of Battle Passes in games like Fortnite, or more recently in one of your company's parter's Call of Duty Modern Ware, how do you feel about adding a Battle Pass to Heroes of the Storm? Season Passes seem to be popular amongst both players and developers, and appear to bring in lots of money.

Do you think this would be a good idea, and if yes, do you have the ressources to make one? Or could you propose this idea to whoever distributes resources to get them?

Reckerwrex_1391

Does the elemental lord of fire have any skins in the works?

Every time new items are added to the collection I look to see what you tease us with. Ragna Robot and Dark Nexus Ragnaros are the ones that come to mind immediately.

ynev

Have you planned heroes with a more atypical gameplay, for example a hero based on the speed of movement like a rider, or a hero a little artist who while he is channeling a spell we can draw with the mouse the AoE, heroes with surprising gameplay ?
This kind of atypical mechanics.

FloatingWatcher

What is your opinion on the current amount of slows, pushes, stuns, roots, stops and displacements in the game? Do you think it’s too much? Do you think that damage across the board needs to be nerfed also?

HexerVooDoom

Maybe keep the old model as a special skin for people who had him above level 15 befoee the new remodel?

ToH_Cheshire

Hi there from the Tavern of Heroes community! First of all, many thanks to the whole team for the efforts made to make the game shine again. In my opinion, many elements of the game (game balance, match making system, map mechanics and so on) have become much better. You all did a great job!

I have a question to /u/Daybringer and /u/Blizz_KinaBREW. Heroes community has a lot of talented artists, and there are a lot of amazing skins concepts. Could you tell us more about the implementation of Janitor Leoric into the game? What is the process of interaction with the author of the original concept? And is there any chance we will see some more fan ideas in the game?

Unbiased_Bob

Hey guys!

Second question. Right after all the spooky announcements, there were a bunch of wild patches. Sweeping balance changed for like 1/3rd of the roster. I personally thought it was fun to see these huge changes as it reinvigorated players to play heroes who are buffed. But they seem to have decreased in size and frequency.

Was this just not viable because of the work? Did you find it was actually scaring players off? Or will they continue?

My idiot brain thinks "oh these are just number changes, it can't be that hard" but then I remember what an Arena Net employee said "Change the color of an item icon and 30 walls around WvW fall through the floor." So I won't assume to know how easy/difficult it is. And of course all of these require testing to make sure you are not just breaking the balance either.

Eiddew

What kind of unique challenges have come up from using an old engine? How did you get around them? And most naively, any hope for rebuilding something new like a HotS 3.0?

Klaagzang

I'd like to know, what's the roadmap looking like for our favourite game?
We know there's nowhere near the resources as in the beginning, but that absolutely doesn't mean development is dead (as was proven by you all!). Is there any room for new hero/new map, or is it straight-up tweaking & reworking from here on out?

jiggywatt64

Hi HotS team! Wanted to share a Un'Goro Battleground concept and how humbling an experience it is to realize the absurd amount of work that's put into this game.

1. Do you guys have any art/design bible for consistent direction? If so, could you share some popular rules to follow? (i.e. color schemes, "never allow X type of abilities", "ORB BRUSH EVERYTHING!")
2. Are there any stories of scrapped battleground/hero ideas you could share?
3. Hope everyone's doing well during lockdown but assuming you're working at home, particularly /u/blizz_kinabrew and anyone else on the art team, I'm curious how it's affected your workflow. Do you guys all join some giant voice chat server all day? Meetings? Do you typically communicate by walking up to other computers or send assets over a network?

Cydra01

Here's a question from our EU community:

What do you think about the rework Tassadar now that you got some data? Do you regret / wish some additional changes?

BlizzAZJackson

Hey Spazzo965!

 

I'll check out Murky's Egg scaling and Tychus's Health regen. Not sure why the egg scaling is not a percentage.

 

In regards to weird scaling values, there are sometimes limitations in the editor when it comes to very specific percentages that results in this. I remember being frustrated when trying to tune some Lucio healing talents back in the day because they tick every second and some of them were fractions of those ticks, which I wasn't able to get exactly where I wanted them to be :P

Cydra01

Here's a question from our EU community:

In 2019 we’ve seen 4 new heroes: Deathwing, Qhira, Anduin Imperius. Can we expect more new heroes for 2020?

Cydra01

Here's a question from our EU community:

In 2019 we’ve seen 4 new heroes: Deathwing, Qhira, Anduin Imperius. Can we expect more new heroes for 2020?

jiggywatt64

Hi HotS team! Wanted to share a Un'Goro Battleground concept and how humbling an experience it is to realize the absurd amount of work that's put into this game.

1. Do you guys have any art/design bible for consistent direction? If so, could you share some popular rules to follow? (i.e. color schemes, "never allow X type of abilities", "ORB BRUSH EVERYTHING!")
2. Are there any stories of scrapped battleground/hero ideas you could share?
3. Hope everyone's doing well during lockdown but assuming you're working at home, particularly /u/blizz_kinabrew and anyone else on the art team, I'm curious how it's affected your workflow. Do you guys all join some giant voice chat server all day? Meetings? Do you typically communicate by walking up to other computers or send assets over a network?

Subsourian

Hey guys! As usual I'm going to harass about lore.

My question/comment is largely toward the theming of ability and talent names. Recently Tassadar's rework brought a bit of it into the spotlight. Some talent names were great (props for Shadow Walk), but the Q ability Shock Ray seemed oddly off theme for a protoss ability, when there's stuff like his auto attack, Psi Assault. What was the reasoning behind the name? Was the more established abilities too close to psionic storm in terms of being easy to say, or did is it striking a balance between what the ability does and fitting with the lore?

Similarly, I was curious about the name of Raynor's reworked talents, the famous "Acquire Weak Spot vs Give 'em Some Pepper" was the big one, but the rework also stripped most of the references to his character from his kit. I wasn't sure the reasoning when other reworks like Nova and Hammer (and Tassadar) have been hyper flavorful in their talent names.

maguszeal

About the AI: previously, a big overhaul to their internal workings was mentioned, with changes to the structure of their goal and tactical systems and whatnot. Since that seems to be out with the latest patch already, does that enable you to update the AI faster than before, or is it about the same?

In particular, I'm thinking about some of the remaining glaring issues, like their behavior when confronted with Lurking Arm or Concussion Mine, especially near gates but also on other chokepoints. There has definitely been an improvement in their overall behavior, but I look forward to seeing it ironed out a bit further. I'd also say the follower AI doesn't benefit as much from these improvements, as its logic keeps being seemingly overridden by its new leashing priority.

Senshado

in our implementation the number 2.5 doesn't exist, so 2.4902 is as close a

Since the usage is per-level scaling, I guess the number in question is really 1.025, not 2.5. The fixed-point math that I've seen can handle 2.5 just fine.

And of course the number 4 can be represented, but 1.04 might not fit.

Kamikaze28

Any updates on kerning?

Alternatively, can you do something about this one-pixel-off-from-perfect-balance capture bar?

Kamikaze28

No, this was actually from a vision point on Cursed Hollow, but why would that matter? Isn't it the same asset everywhere?

If you want, I could go through all the maps and document my findings, if that would be helpful to you.

Senshado

This means that before an agent enters an AoE, they don't know it is there

Are they also unaware of the dangerous space around enemy towers?