heroes InvenGlobal Developer Interview

[Stan 5,240]

InvenGlobal recently sat down with Production Director Kaeo Milker and Lead Hero Designer Matt Villers to talk about Deckard Cain, 3rd bans, Hero price reductions, and more!

• Heroes of the Storm was originally a custom StarCraft 2 map. StarCraft 2 is mostly story-driven and when they decided to make HotS a separate game, they focused on gameplay and left the story out of it. (We learned at the PAX East 2018 Heroes panel that Blizzard plans to add more story (lore) to the game in the future).
• It takes anywhere from 6 to 9 months to make a new Hero. Deckard Cain's kit was finalized 6 months ago.
• The number of Heroes they want to add to the Nexus is well over 100, but they're working on 8-10 Heroes at any given time in various stages.
• They don't have any time frame for Raynor's rework.
• We can expect more Multiclass Heroes in the future.
• Deckard Cain can fill the role of a solo Support.
• They want to bring more Support Heroes to the game.
• They're keeping a close eye on mobile Heroes (Genji, Hanzo, Tracer), because they can feel frustrating to play against.
• Nearly half of the Hero pool is at 10K gold right now and they're planning to fix that soon to make them more affordable.
• Hanamura is still being worked on and they're not ready to announce an exact date of the map's comeback.
• The team is exploring the option of a 3rd ban, but they want to do it when it feels "right for the game".

[MasterKast 15]

noob question: wth is "3rd ban" ?

[Dejo93 1,023]

50 minutes ago, MasterKast said:

noob question: wth is "3rd ban" ?

For ranked

[MurkyFelix 51]

1 hour ago, MasterKast said:

noob question: wth is "3rd ban" ?

In ranked (and unranked), both teams can ban 2 heroes each before and during picking their heroes in order to (hopefully) trip up the enemy team or to make sure the over-powered/frustrating-to-counter heroes cannot be picked. Since the hero pool is larger now, it feels that 2 bans may not be enough so peeps have been asking for a 3rd one.

[Dejo93 1,023]

I wonder what is the future of multiclass, considering what a clusterfuck Varian is. As for specialists, they should change that classification after the 2018 changes. I'm honestly surprised that no one asked about that.

[Hypersonic 119]

3rd ban would be nice, have already so much heroes to be viable, and hope that Hanamura map never come back, I really hate it. 

[MasterKast 15]

3 hours ago, MurkyFelix said:

In ranked (and unranked), both teams can ban 2 heroes each before and during picking their heroes in order to (hopefully) trip up the enemy team or to make sure the over-powered/frustrating-to-counter heroes cannot be picked. Since the hero pool is larger now, it feels that 2 bans may not be enough so peeps have been asking for a 3rd one.

oh i tought it had something to do with ban player, kinda like they did on OW. 

[Valhalen 1,484]

13 hours ago, Stan said:

They don't have any time frame for Raynor's rework.

Poor lad. No love for Jimmy. I can assume then we won't be seeing The Lost Vikings being rework this year either.

13 hours ago, Stan said:

They're keeping a close eye on mobile Heroes (Genji, Hanzo, Tracer), because they can feel frustrating to play against.

Yes, THANK YOU. I'm really tired of this "Heroes of Overwatch" where there is always Genji / Hanzo / Tracer in the enemy team.

5 hours ago, Dejo93 said:

I wonder what is the future of multiclass, considering what a clusterfuck Varian is. As for specialists, they should change that classification after the 2018 changes. I'm honestly surprised that no one asked about that.

I actually did a post in the Blizzard forums regarding an idea I had for a Multiclass Rexxar rework. You can check it out if you want.

The problem with Multiclass is that while they can provide a wildcard due their flexibility, it is incredible difficult to balance. Varian has been an issue ever since his release, where he was either too powerful and too weak.

Regarding Specialists, the class description already says "Masters of Unconventional Warfare". What would be there to change?

Edited April 10, 2018 by Valhalen

[Dejo93 1,023]

6 hours ago, Valhalen said:

Poor lad. No love for Jimmy. I can assume then we won't be seeing The Lost Vikings being rework this year either.

Yes, THANK YOU. I'm really tired of this "Heroes of Overwatch" where there is always Genji / Hanzo / Tracer in the enemy team.

I actually did a post in the Blizzard forums regarding an idea I had for a Multiclass Rexxar rework. You can check it out if you want.

The problem with Multiclass is that while they can provide a wildcard due their flexibility, it is incredible difficult to balance. Varian has been an issue ever since his release, where he was either too powerful and too weak.

Regarding Specialists, the class description already says "Masters of Unconventional Warfare". What would be there to change?

Read that Rexxar rework, loved it. Might be a bitch to balance but hey.

 As for my specialist idea, it's because of their gameplay, since summoning minions and pushing isn't as effective as it was, since ammo was removed.

[Valhalen 1,484]

5 minutes ago, Dejo93 said:

Read that Rexxar rework, loved it. Might be a bitch to balance but hey.

 As for my specialist idea, it's because of their gameplay, since summoning minions and pushing isn't as effective as it was, since ammo was removed.

Hey, thanks for the feedback. Yeah, it is probably really hard to balance, but I think it's doable, and would make Rexxar fit his character fantasy better.

Regarding your Specialist idea, I think Blizzard should tweak all the Heroes that summon minions so they become more impactful, like making them take 50% less damage from towers, for example. In fact, I'd love to see a new Hero that is 100% focused on summoning swarms of minions that deal damage for him. I expected that to be the case with Xul, but sadly it's not, since his Skeleton Warrior barely deal any damage. Think of Malfurion's Treant from Vengeful Roots on steroids; a Summoner Hero that its baseline Trait is having minions that progressively become stronger as they are consecutively summoned, and make that the more minions you have active, the more damage they deal. Think of it as a mini Zerg Swarm from Braxis Holdout. I want a Hero that can do that.

[Dejo93 1,023]

17 minutes ago, Valhalen said:

Hey, thanks for the feedback. Yeah, it is probably really hard to balance, but I think it's doable, and would make Rexxar fit his character fantasy better.

Regarding your Specialist idea, I think Blizzard should tweak all the Heroes that summon minions so they become more impactful, like making them take 50% less damage from towers, for example. In fact, I'd love to see a new Hero that is 100% focused on summoning swarms of minions that deal damage for him. I expected that to be the case with Xul, but sadly it's not, since his Skeleton Warrior barely deal any damage. Think of Malfurion's Treant from Vengeful Roots on steroids; a Summoner Hero that its baseline Trait is having minions that progressively become stronger as they are consecutively summoned, and make that the more minions you have active, the more damage they deal. Think of it as a mini Zerg Swarm from Braxis Holdout. I want a Hero that can do that.

We have a hero like that. He's called Nature's Prophet :^)

[EDL666 18]

15 hours ago, Hypersonic said:

3rd ban would be nice, have already so much heroes to be viable, and hope that Hanamura map never come back, I really hate it. 

Well, you really hate how it is in the game right now! But they said it already felt significantly different the way they had it running in-dev. So hopefully when it does come back, you will be able to enjoy yourself more.

[CyberDVonaven 82]

5 hours ago, Dejo93 said:

We have a hero like that. He's called Nature's Prophet

*Confused, I Google what or who you were even talking about with saying 'Nature's Prophet' in the first place.* 

Really?... I'm pretty sure we're on a forum site reading and talking about Heroes of the Storm. right?

NOT DotA2, Right?

I think you forgot that when you wrote this comment, Dejo. So no, 'We' don't have a hero like that. I would guess you DotA2 players do from you saying this.

 

Edited April 10, 2018 by CyberDVonaven

[SteveFrost 97]

17 hours ago, Valhalen said:

Hey, thanks for the feedback. Yeah, it is probably really hard to balance, but I think it's doable, and would make Rexxar fit his character fantasy better.

Regarding your Specialist idea, I think Blizzard should tweak all the Heroes that summon minions so they become more impactful, like making them take 50% less damage from towers, for example. In fact, I'd love to see a new Hero that is 100% focused on summoning swarms of minions that deal damage for him. I expected that to be the case with Xul, but sadly it's not, since his Skeleton Warrior barely deal any damage. Think of Malfurion's Treant from Vengeful Roots on steroids; a Summoner Hero that its baseline Trait is having minions that progressively become stronger as they are consecutively summoned, and make that the more minions you have active, the more damage they deal. Think of it as a mini Zerg Swarm from Braxis Holdout. I want a Hero that can do that.

The issue with Specialists imho is the "free units"; you get nothing when you kill them but they can be problematic in their own right; Abathur locusts really annoying when you try to push/defend a lane, Azmo even more.

[Valhalen 1,484]

19 minutes ago, SteveFrost said:

The issue with Specialists imho is the "free units"; you get nothing when you kill them but they can be problematic in their own right; Abathur locusts really annoying when you try to push/defend a lane, Azmo even more.

That's exact the point of Heroes that summon minions, be a nuisance.

[EDL666 18]

9 hours ago, SteveFrost said:

The issue with Specialists imho is the "free units"; you get nothing when you kill them but they can be problematic in their own right; Abathur locusts really annoying when you try to push/defend a lane, Azmo even more.

You get nothing but most of them also have a timer and they just die off on their own. I think the only ones that don't have a timer are Azmodan's Ultimate that spawns a bunch a demons, and that Ultimate is not very good compared to the damage output of the other one over the course of a game, so I don't think any of those are a problem.

[SteveFrost 97]

On 11/4/2018 at 2:37 PM, Valhalen said:

That's exact the point of Heroes that summon minions, be a nuisance.

21 hours ago, EDL666 said:

You get nothing but most of them also have a timer and they just die off on their own. I think the only ones that don't have a timer are Azmodan's Ultimate that spawns a bunch a demons, and that Ultimate is not very good compared to the damage output of the other one over the course of a game, so I don't think any of those are a problem.

The issue is they can be very overbearing to deal with and by spending effort and resources to do away with them, the other team can capitalize elsewhere; especially those that can literally do it while being afk; you can lose an entire lane in a blink of an eye if you don't pay attention (that goes for pushing in general ofc but these have it much, much easier).

If they gave exp when they die it would be a fair trade-off imho; make it so each gives according to its value (Aba locusts negligible, Monstrosity/Nazeebro Gargantuan considerable).

 

[Valhalen 1,484]

46 minutes ago, SteveFrost said:

The issue is they can be very overbearing to deal with and by spending effort and resources to do away with them, the other team can capitalize elsewhere; especially those that can literally do it while being afk; you can lose an entire lane in a blink of an eye if you don't pay attention (that goes for pushing in general ofc but these have it much, much easier).

If they gave exp when they die it would be a fair trade-off imho; make it so each gives according to its value (Aba locusts negligible, Monstrosity/Nazeebro Gargantuan considerable).

Yeah, I think that a very small amount of XP would be fair indeed. If anything, I think that killing Abathur's Ultimate Evolution should also award XP.

[EDL666 18]

3 hours ago, SteveFrost said:

The issue is they can be very overbearing to deal with and by spending effort and resources to do away with them, the other team can capitalize elsewhere; especially those that can literally do it while being afk; you can lose an entire lane in a blink of an eye if you don't pay attention (that goes for pushing in general ofc but these have it much, much easier).

If they gave exp when they die it would be a fair trade-off imho; make it so each gives according to its value (Aba locusts negligible, Monstrosity/Nazeebro Gargantuan considerable).

 

I think maybe anything that doesn't time out COULD, give some exp, probably not a lot because I personally don't think that the characters we're talking about are a concern versus bigger playmakers like ETC(nobody seems to have anything bad to say about ETC somehow and yet he's been super strong for a very long time, I find this curious). Locusts I really don't think should give any exp because they actually matter a lot to make Abathur viable in any meaningful way as making that experience gap is the goal of the character while mitigating the lack of team fight presence as much as possible. He obviously can bring meaningful teamfight contributions by contributing at key moments, but not having a body to tank any damage definitely is a big drawback that I think justifies his locusts being a one-sided advantage over the other team.