So at BlizzCon opening a lot of things called out by the community had been announced at last:
QM will have tank, healer, ranged assassin + 2 fill IN EVERY game, guaranteed.
You get 50% xp bonus when you queue as a role that is currently needed across games (in QM only).
Entirely reworked ranked system.
Combining hero league + team league together, giving solo players option to choose to only be matched with solo players if they choose.
Loss forgiveness system, if you have a bot for a long duration, you lose no points to loss or MMR.
Placement games down to 3 from 10.
MMR value will now replace ranked points all together.
PBM (performance based matchmaking) will be transformed, apparently it was running the entire year in the background and they had been collecting data on it, it will not affect your actual points, but will give you stats/reports specific to the hero you played compared to players with similar ranking.
On top of that they put in:
Role Updates: Tank, Bruiser, Healer, Support, Melee Assassin and Ranged Assassin.
No longer do we have stimpacks, we have âboostsâ, they stack up with all other players.
Leavers will get stacking penalties over time if they have repeating leaver offences.
Season quests added for completing a certain number of games per season to get season rewards, so people donât do placements and stop playing.
Removing demotion/promotion games all together.
Stitches rework coming in December.
Sylvanas rework coming in December.
Forts and keeps worth no XP.
Towers give 50% less XP.
Mercenaries give more XP (100% more) when captured, and give defending team XP when are killed.
15% increased trickle XP (XP you get without soaking anything).
Destroyed forts give a catapult in every 3rd wave.
Armor stacking has been removed, only the highest/lowest armor buffs/debuffs are applied.
Armor will now be visual on each affected hero, showing the difference between physical armor, spell armor, and all armor.
Upcoming changes to the hero selection screen.
Seems to me a lot of things for a âdead gameâ.
Maybe now the doomsayers will have to find something else to be salt about since most things have been addressed (or at last so Blizzard said).
I see that the Orphea-hate train as already started: like 1 out of 80+ Hero is absolutly inaccetable to be brand new (then remember that Tracer was released to HotS before OW went live, so she was a brand new char exactly like Orphea and the same could be said of every OW char since itâs not a long established franchise).
I wait to see what the new focus will be on this board in the next weeks.
I honestly liking the changes that they are making to HotS, I also like how they are creating a new hero based on HotS lore. I guess the only reason why everyone is in an uproar is because HotS is known for being able to play Characters from other blizzard games. Showing Orphea as their âBIG revealâ, doesnât create any hype unlike revealing characters that the community has been asking for i.e. Deathwing because no one knows about Orphea nor do they care about her because sheâs a brand new IP, unlike Deathwing where majority of the player base would have some connection with.
Her abilities and character animations looks awesome, she looks very fun to play as well. But i felt that the presentation should have a teaser of a well-known character.
no, i wonât have anything to complain about. iâd be sexy AF, my wife will be climbing all over me. iâd be loaded with $1,000,000, to ensure a future for my daughter. i wonât have anything to complain about.
but back to reality, i have a crap ton of things to complain about.
My only issue is that forts and keeps will not feel rewarding to destroy anymore, but thatâs minor. Everything else makes 2019 look like a knockout year for HotS.
Honest to God, I thought armor stacking was killed last year and already prioritized the highest effect. Then again, Iâm used to eating nerfs on my mains.
We were promised many bright and shiny things this time last year, they didnât all pan out did they? Donât get me wrong, many of these changes sound great, but if you have any kind of memory for these things you will know some of them were promised last year, either they didnât work like PBMM or were never implemented like loss forgiveness.
Iâll take a wait and see approach.
The fact that they have had to merge TL and HL is not something you want to cite as a evidence that this game is vital and alive.
Oh boi, I would be glad if you were right, but based on the endless complains I saw, I disagree or at least highly doubt you end up right. Ppl loves to complain too much.
One underlying issue is that definitions of heavy stomp and minimum are variable depending on the player. For one player, a game could be close. Another player on the same team may call the same game a stomp.
The overall match quality (or âfairnessâ, I suppose) probably will improve due to the changes. Thatâs a good thing, of course. But there still will be the same old complaints nontheless. Unfortunately.
Oh, and new ones like this, too:
âOMG MATCHMAKING SO STUPID WHY WE GOT PROBIUS AS ONLY RANGED DPS???â
![:pray:](https://d3rakab8gpdsa3.cloudfront.net/en/heroes/images/emoji/twitter/pray.png?v=6" ":pray:")
![:laughing:](https://d3rakab8gpdsa3.cloudfront.net/en/heroes/images/emoji/twitter/laughing.png?v=6" ":laughing:")