"Heroes 3.0" Concept: Swappable Effects

General Discussion
1

When I saw Corrupted Archangel Diablo, I was like:

aJtaTkq.jpg889×883

“Holy crap! That’s the orangest Diablo I have ever seen! I’ve gotta have it!”

But then I stopped myself. “What would Gazlowe think if I didn’t try before I buy?”

9nC8jIG.jpg961×682

Corrupted Archangel Diablo would be an instant purchase for me if I could use the standard orange ability effects instead of the blue ones. And that’s not the only skin I feel that way about - I’d definitely buy Diesel Speaker Nazeebo if I could put its glowing orange spiders and toads on Nephalim Nazeebo or Dark Nexus Alarak if I could use the default Alarak effects instead of the ones full of triangles.

Could it break the theme of some of the skins? Sure. But it’d be a cheap way to add an additional customization vector for the Collection and it’d encourage people like me to pick up skins that they wouldn’t normally consider. Additionally, it could make Tournament skin selection less restrictive: skins with effects that are difficult to see under certain circumstances could switch out for more visible effects for tournament matches.

22 Likes
2

There are a lot of heroes that have mismatched ability effects with their skins, and it’s definitely made me reconsider using the skin.

8 Likes
3

Some effects should be reworked entirely, such as Cyberhawk Kael or Archangel Diablo.

They create effects on certain maps (read: Sky Temple) which are so difficult to notice selecting these skins is an automatic forfeit in competitive tournaments (the match counts as a loss for your team).

They were banned in HGC too back when that was a thing.

4

Yeah, it’d also be very tournament-friendly. Problematic skins could have their ability effects switched out to the more recognizable/readable versions.

5

–I love when I mean to write like, three sentences and end up with a few paragraphs of probably difficult to parse words.-- (sarcasm)

The issue is you’ll end up with people purposely taking the “hard to see” talents.

I’ve only had one experience not realizing what an ability was–and it wasn’t fun. I died because I though (i think Warsong Johanna) Falling Swords ultimate was something else.

I don’t remember what I though it was–because this was like, 8-12 months ago.

But missing it killed me.

Currently, people CAN do that by “picking skins” but, this would make it easier and more likely, so unless they also do a complete overhaul of all variants abilities to ensure that they cannot be confused/are clear on all surfaces i vote no.

And yes, this is “nitpicky” but I’m dead set on this point. First make sure the abilities are clear, second make them mix n match/plug n play/player selectable.

There is a possible argument on the business side of this at least also, where extra monetization. I don’t like that fact, but it’s nice to see an idea that isn’t just “wouldn’t it be cool if they let us import our own skins” or something which would obviously not fly.

on that note, it would be nice to be able to set what skin you want to see enemy/allied heroes as. It probably wouldn’t fly, as part of monetization is “look, all these people have cool skins, you should buy some!”.
But if you had to pay for the skin to put in on allied/enemy units (as in, you see them with that skin, they see the skin they want) that would also solve the issue.

Oh, and i’m not sure how cheap it would be.
Actually implimenting such a system and ensuring it passes QA/etc. That’s probably a large opportunity cost, versus just making new skins and QAing new stuff/changes to heroes/changes to skins/et cetera.

I would think the actual “changing what effects are used” would be simple, that part I agree on.

1 Like
6

Why Diablo looks like an Oven with a cape on top of it.

7

This is under the assumption that the problematic effects get fixed in the first place.

I’m not saying that it would be free, but altering skins to have variable effects would be pretty simple. Grabbing a skin’s XML from Casc Viewer shows that all of the art assets are defined with the skin:

Unless my broken brain misunderstands how code works, I think it’d be pretty simple to replace all of these with redirects that point at the user’s chosen effect set.

Granted, all of this would definitely expand the complexity of the user’s collection and customization profiles by an order of magnitude and adding all of the necessary frameworks to purchase or manage the effect packs would be a lot of work. However, napkin math shows that the amount of items that players could buy to customize their in-game aesthetic would nearly double, and that’s a lot of potential income for the Big Blue B.

8

Simple, but really time consuming.
Is that really that important? Like said… more important than properly building up the codes of new Heroes or the bug fixes?

Cool idea, and I have nothing against it, but I have a slight suspicion that they can’t prioritise this in the near future.

9

To update the code, sure, but half of the work is already done - the assets are there, all that you need to do is repurpose them. It’s the same basic idea behind Starcraft II’s Warchest/Co-Op Commander asset pipeline: new assets get developed and then they get “sold” twice.

HOTS making money is pretty important. Looking pretty in the Nexus is also important.

I doubt this would infringe on either one of those things. Different goals for different teams.

Maybe, maybe not. Nobody had any idea that Heroes 2.0 was coming and the way it radically altered how skins and stuff were offered and obtained, so maybe this will make it in for whenever Heroes 3.0 rolls around.

10

I dunno how many “different” teams they have for: coding, but if they have spare time and ppl to do it, cool.

But don’t assume something is easy just because it sounds simple to do for you.

11

They’d probably need frontend and backend developers to build the Collection/Loadout parts and the mechanics of it, but the vast majority of that can be copied from existing code. Additionally, the “shoveling dirt” part of updating all of the XML to point at the right things is something even I could do, and I’ve only got the limited skillset of someone who mods games part time with no formal education.

I’m not assuming it’s easy, I know it’s easy. I won’t argue that it’s not time-consuming because it definitely would be, but the actual implementation would be very straightforward at pretty much every step.

12

Wow i was completely opposite i was sold on it when i noticed it having blue flames and then wished i could put blue frames on prime skins, like the white one. Im all for buying color effects :slight_smile:

13

Heroes 3.0, spectate friends games with a small delay, or bust. I spent so much time on the splash screen waiting for friends to finish games, that it rivals actual play time. It would be nice to be able to spectate games.