Thank you for the update, appreciate it a lot!
In my opinion you should look deeply into what people has drawn to the game and the reasons why they left it. Ask them. Many of them are players of other Blizzard games, so reach out to them.
You did many cross-games events to bring more players, but there is still something about HoTS that they didn’t like and it’s rarely the type of the game. You need to identify it and work on it please.
As was mentioned by many in this thread, read forums and try to implements some of our ideas. Plenty of them are great and would be amazing to see them in game.
This also would make us feel heard and valued as players and fans.
As for what I would like to see in 2019 (or at least in future):
• Heroes 3.0
That would include achievements like we have in WoW / StarCraft / Diablo.
Awarding with unique sprays, banners, skins, mounts, portraits, etc.
I remember before 2.0 that having a portrait awarded for mastering a few related heroes was a thing and nice show off on loading screen. Would like to see it back!
• Best plays
Show on your web page and in the launcher short clips of best plays of the week/month/ suitable time frame.
I have been wondering (as many of us has) about roles and why most of players prefer playing just assassins.
One of the things that occurred to me is that 95% of shown plays is about epic killing streaks or wombo-combos. We hardly ever see plays performed by healers or tanks. Those are as much amazing as the mentioned 95% though!
Maybe you could support other roles than assassins by promoting short clips with great plays performed by tanks/healers? WoW has “Screenshot of the day” encouraging players to participate and having fun, why shouldn’t you do the same?
Playing a tank or a healer is fun and rewarding too!
• Annoucers
Could you implement assigning an announcer to a map please? We can assign one to a hero, but sometimes we’d like to have a different voice for a map in general coughDragon Shirecough
• Maps
Variations of maps! I’d love to play Cursed Hallows Christmas edition! Towers of Doom summer beach version! (Sand castles instead of forts, etc.). NobbleGarden of Terror!
Endless possibilities!
• Heroes
Millhouse Manastorm and Gelbin Mekkatorque would be amazing to see in the Nexus!
Also it is time to introduce new multi-role hero. My suggestion would be a priest with all three WoW specs!
• Cosmentic items for less fortunate
Many heroes are lacking new sprays and banners. I bet that I’m not the only one having difficulty to match a banner to 75% of heroes. Mostly because there is none for their group (for example Chromie) not to mention their skin variations.
You do outstanding job, keep it up!