CDC #7 - Calling the Gamechangers

Hero and Skin Suggestions
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The shower of applause washes over your team as your cheering fans await the next hero you are going to pull out for the Blizzcon Heroes of the Storm panel. Will your character elicit cheers and excitement, or disappointment?

Hello and welcome! This is the Concept Design Contest #7 - Calling the Gamechangers thread. Here, over the course of this week, you will create a brand new concept based on the following criteria and provide a link to it here. Please leave a comment if you are signing up for the contest below, and use that comment to deliver the link to the thread.The contest will have three judges, who will each take one week to look over the designs, commenting and helping out with the design. All dates are set to allow the maximum time, and the deadlines will be at 11:59 Eastern Standard Time. The thread must be submitted at exactly 11:59, and there will be no exceptions.

Theme: You have been assigned the task to make a character that will be showcased at Blizzcon. Your character must not only be interesting to play, and have a unique playstyle to it, but it must change how the players look at the game. Varian introduced the idea of the multi-class, Orphea introduces nexus originals, Cho’Gall introduced the idea of two players playing one character, and Alexstrasza added the first dragon aspect, making a statement on Blizzard’s viewpoint on the dragons being in the game. Your character can be of any universe or role, but must introduce something brand new to the game that will get people speculating.

Sign-Ups Open
Saturday, November 3
Come one, come all! Every sign-up today preferably, but if you missed the day, go ahead and leave a comment over week 1 and you will be accepted into the contest still. The judges will be Nortin, Bliztron, and WhoYouExpect. Judges are not able to make concepts themselves.

Week One
Sunday, November 4 - Saturday, November 10
This week is for the base concept. This is simply the abilities and the role. Remember, the role is very important, and part of the judging will be on how well the abilities fit together under a role. If it doesn’t fit under any role, make sure you make it a Specialist. This is the only week for sign-up, so make sure you give us something before the week is up! Nortin will be the judge that will comment on the Sunday that follows.

Week Two
Monday, November 10 - Saturday, November 17
This week is for the talents. This means a fully fleshed out talent tree set up with the tiers in order. Make sure your talents are interesting and creative, but still fit with the character and design as a whole. You should touch up on your abilities based on week 1 feedback, as that will also be considered in week 2 judging. I, Bliztron, will comment on the Sunday that follows.

Week Three
Monday, November 19 - Saturday, November 24
This week is for the finishing touches. This includes fluff, stats, additional notes, skins, and whatever else you want to add. This has an element of freedom to it, but to give yourself the best shot, you should probably make your concept sell itself. Make the judges become immersed in your concept. WhoYouExpect will be the judge that will comment on the Sunday that follows.

Week Four
Monday, November 24 - Saturday, November 29
This week is the last week for changes to the concept. All major work should be finished by this week, and major changes are risky. Each of the judges will keep a close eye on the concepts, coming to their own opinions. The judges will have all commented feedback and ratings as they saw fit over the last three weeks, so you will have some idea as to what each of us are looking for. At this point, just make sure to touch up your design and make it truly sparkle.

Finale
Sunday, December 1 - Tuesday, December 4
All changes are closed. The judges will gather to determine who is the ultimate winner of the contest, announcing the winner sometime on Monday.

The following information will be about the judging structure and how points will be fully evaluated. On each Sunday, a comment will be posted with the following rubric filled out, and then another post will be created explaining a detailed analysis on the concept, giving thorough feedback. These points add on to your total, and at the end, each person will have a score out of 60. Make sure you gather as many points as you can during the first three weeks, but do not be afraid if you fall slightly behind, as some promising changes could really make the difference in the final week.

Individual Judges
-/5 Creativity
-/5 Cohesiveness
-/5 Thematic
-/5 Interaction

-/20 Total

Final Week
-/10 Creativity
-/10 Cohesiveness
-/10 Thematic
-/10 Interaction

-/40 Final Verdict
(+2 Thoughtfulness, +2 Game Fluidity) [+4 bonus total]

The final score and the winner will be taken from whoever has earned the best score. If any tie should occur, then the judges will all agree on a single winner. There will be a single winner, and one runner up.

Creativity: This is how creative the design of the character is, and how creative the actual choice was. While a big name will certainly win you some points for awe factor, a particularly clever choice and design may edge out the victory.

Cohesiveness: This is representative of how well the design fits together, and how well it works with the role and gameplay style you are trying to accomplish. This score will mainly be in relation to a gameplay identity we feel you are trying to give off.

Thematic: These points are mainly for how well the ideas fit with the character. A demon that is a butcher of man would not really be a gentle healer than encourages his allies to do better. Make sure that when creating your character, you will also look towards what they would actually be doing.

Interaction: Interaction is the interaction your character has with allies, and enemies. How the character feels to play with and against is a crucial part of the character’s design, one so crucial it deserves a place in the rubric. Killing your entire team to power yourself may be fun for you, but it would not be fun for your allies, and the character design as a whole would suffer for it. Consider your character in the game, fighting against him and alongside him.

CDC #6 - Hellscape

Winner: Lister, the Tormentor (Nortin)

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Oooh… I’m a little sad to be judging instead of competing this time. This is a very interesting theme.

Good luck to all! I look forwards to seeing all the unique concepts that are made for this one! (^_^)

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-Reads Theme Description-

Well, that’s the last thing I wanted to see at 1 in the morning…

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The big “archetypes” are the lore-based distinctions that establish precedent, the hype beasts and the mechanical showoffs.

The best example I can think of for the first would be Niadra, as the canon version has insufficient distinction, both “mechanically” and visually, from Zagara to ever work as an independent Hero. However, there’d been a long-running theory of Niadra returning as an antagonist using Protoss technology, and such a form has been floated as a co-op Commander for quite some time since post-Epilogue comics debunked the theory. By using a combination of the two, you can form a Hero concept that has enough room for both visual design and mechanics to divide from Zagara, thus establishing that established AU elements and momentary possibilities can be invoked to get otherwise extremely overlapping Heroes in the game as separate characters.

The best for the second at this moment would likely be Imperius (who I have an ability outline of based entirely around punishing CC stacks), obviously part of a double-premier to maximize hype. Possibly against Deathwing, to double-bill mega-hype and play on the fact that Prime Evil Diablo has been referred to as “The Dragon Reborn”. This is because Imperius has a very nice slot as the only member of the Angiris Council with any playerbase popularity (sorry, Aspect of Fate, but I literally don’t even remember your name, you’ve been that unimpactful) while also being a part of the Diablo franchise, largely considered under served in the roster. It can also potentially serve to sooth the injury in player faith left by Diablo Immortal, making it all the more useful to playerbase moral.

The best showpiece for off-your-rocker seemingly-nonsense mechanics would be the Overmind, or another thing you’d expect as a core replacement Hero. In the Overmind’s case, the solution I can come up with to core replacement, though every such Hero needs a different one to avoid some issues, would be acting as an extra Keep behind the Core, requiring the Overmind dead to damage the Core. And then you have to do it again whenever they respawn, and they, unlike standard structures, are generally subject to all ally preservation, making the Overmind an annoying final barrier. Then you focus on a paired setup of (probably)-Bruiser-by-swarm and permanent-though-largely-trivial lane pressure, including such things as a Bribe that makes constantly-controllable Zerg based on the captured Camp. The key balancing factor is, of course, Control, limiting your total Zerg to prevent infinite Camp buildup and limiting free extra lane buildup.

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Theme: You have been assigned the task to make a character that will be showcased at Blizzcon. Your character must not only be interesting to play, and have a unique playstyle to it, but it must change how the players look at the game. Varian introduced the idea of the multi-class, Orphea introduces nexus originals, Cho’Gall introduced the idea of two players playing one character, and Alexstrasza added the first dragon aspect, making a statement on Blizzard’s viewpoint on the dragons being in the game. Your character can be of any universe or role, but must introduce something brand new to the game that will get people speculating.

Sign-Up
Saturday, November 3
Come one, come all! Every sign-up today preferably, but if you missed the day, go ahead and leave a comment over week 1 and you will be accepted into the contest still. The judges will be Nortin, Bliztron, and WhoYouExpect. Judges are not able to make concepts themselves.

SO = 1st things 1st, I guess I can still participate right ?, I mean I live in EU so the 12PM “deadline” is something like 8AM Sunday morning, which I obviously missed :stuck_out_tongue:

Either way = if not against the rules I guess the theme/classification for this particular contest is “Do something Bizzare” (if I’m not mistaken)

OK, so far will just say 1 thing and that is = I intend to make a Specialist role character with some Bizzare mechanics… Don’t want to limit myself YET toward the faction/class of it but will post the “gist” of the character and probably even who/what it is about in Week1

Got one question though = how do I do the submitting of the concept ?, a HeroesFire link or something else ?:slight_smile:

GL HF to all contenders

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I tend to judge so i can try to answer that for you, 1 you can post your creation on the forums as you can probs find many do already, if you’re able to post a HeroesFire link given how annoying links are on the new forums your more then welcome to do so as we’ve had no issue with that before, last contest i think we had 1 or 2 who did it that way.

Also as a heads up Specialists are gone now, Blizzard is setting 6 (was originally 7 Mage or Sieger was removed) which are the Tank, Bruiser, Healer, Support, Melee Assassin and Ranged Assassin.

The theme itself is, creating something truly new, bizarre or absolutely absent from the game itself like Abathur for example was a game changer when he was released as was Whitemane technically speaking (healing through damage).

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Deadline for signing on is the day the Week 1 judging starts, so just before next Sunday. Also, as Damian(Edit: Misspelled (>_>) ) said, you can create it on the forums or if you know how to get around the stupid link limiter, you can also do it through Heroesfire.

Also, are we doing the new Roles set or the current one? Now I’m actually curious.

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Don’t worry! As the Sign-Up says, you can go ahead and leave your sign-up over week 1 and you will be accepted into the contest still. You can use heroesfire, but make sure you post a thread on the new forum with a link to it, so we can post the judgments on that thread. For an example, look at Nortin’s submissions in the past concepts.

As for the classes, I would prefer if people look to the future, and use the new class system, that Damian specified. Just as a reminder, they are Tank, Bruiser, Healer, Support, Melee Assassin, and Ranged Assassin.

And as a response to banelineline, the first and the last would certainly be admissible into the contest. While the middle one is certainly important, it should be paired with some new and exciting changes that will prove lasting into the future of the game, and get people talking about the future, like Multi-class, the dragon aspects, and nexus original heroes.

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Since you mentioned Orphea fits the contest theme, I was wondering if the judges would like to score her as well (like if she was Blizzard’s entry).
Obviously there won’t be any change based on feedback, but I’ve always wondered how Blizzard’s actual designs would fare in these contests.

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LOL, that might be kinda fun :laughing:
(note, I’m refering to @Deefe’s post above, but it seems if I reply to the last comment in the thread, it doesn’t show that it’s a reply)

OT: I have an idea that I think might work.

I almost forgot to edit in the link:

Darn it, Bliztron! You sure can come up with some really difficult themes :stuck_out_tongue:

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Where do we go to enter and put out ideas specifically?

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i have been waiting for one of these events and now i cant pitch my idea cause i missed the deadline

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(Eugh, mobile…)
You haven’t actually missed it yet! Submission Deadline is the end of week 1; by 11:59 P.M. Saturday! You’re still good.

Each entry is generally in it’s own topic here on the forums, like a traditional concept(whether in a link to Heroesfire or typed out), generally with CDC or CDC# or some variant in the title, usually in place of the “Hero Concept” part of it. (Edit: In case that doesn’t make sense, for example, the [HC] or [Hero Concept] parts)

Hope I’ve helped you two out, and still look forward to each entry! (^_^)

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I cannot get my links in, can I just copy-paste my HeroesFire concept over? Thanks.

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the trick to linking outside forum links is the button next to your 1 key generally, put it at the start and back of the link like this https://discord.gg/JTjrNrb
thats the ` key, i had to put it last because it always sets between two of them.

Sorry i didn’t show that last night folks.

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But I’m on mobile, what to do?

Never mind, reread the post. Thanks!

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Hello everyone! I hope you’re all working hard on your submissions, and I’m so grateful to those that have submitted concepts so far! However, I do want to take a moment and clarify the theme, as well as hopefully provide a list of possibilities for anyone who is having trouble deciding what to do. I know the theme is very difficult, but I have faith in you all!

So first things first, while I’m grateful to those who have submitted their concepts so far, I do want to let you all know that Varian as a Multi-class was used as an example of innovating not only a character, but an idea for the game. Varian inspired all of you to do a multiclass; that inspiration what I am looking for in this contest, not another Multi-class. It needs to be something never before done, but that can be repeated, and can inspire people to submit new concepts. If your character is simply a Multi-class in the same way Varian is (which Blizzard themselves noted as a failure in design, which is why Multi-class is getting canned), then you are not following the theme. You need to be trendsetters, not followers, in order to survive in this contest.

And, as promised, here is a cursory list of possibilities if any of you need a little nudge in the right direction. This is by no means a complete list, and I hope to see many brand new ideas that even I haven’t thought of.

  • Giant heroes

Needs full size rules, with benefits and drawbacks.

  • “Multi-heroes” (you choose from a small pool of heroes at the start of the game)

Needs multiple, full heroes. Whether permanent or temporary, you only play as one character for an extended time, and its chosen at the start.

  • Permanent change heroes

A hero that over some time must complete a certain thing, or avoid a certain thing, and for the rest of the game become empowered, permanently altering the character.

  • Build-a-character

The character is not a full character at the start of the game. Over time, you add abilities to the character and alter their stats to build your very own character.

  • core heroes

The character replaces the core; they need a way to contribute to the team, and need a way for enemies to counterplay them, and get exp off them.

  • new takes on talent trees

The character throws out the current talent tree system for a brand new and unique other system, that fulfills the variety of the talent tree, but in a new way.

  • a hero that adds their own area to the map that is different (a la Haunted Mines)

The character adds their own miniature arena outside the normal map that they can get to and move enemies or allies to. Is similar to how Haunted Mines has a separate smaller map below the main map.

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I already have basics of my hero but this sounds super cool:

a hero that adds their own area to the map that is different (a la Haunted Mines)

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Do our characters get checked per week or do we just add per week?

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Each judge is in charge of an individual week leading up to the 4th, where each judge will work together for the final conclusion. Nortin is week 1, Bliztron is 2, I am 3. (^_^)

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