Is the updates now over or will there be new ones next year?
There will still be new patches next year. Specifically, every time you close the game, there will be a “patch”.
Bon appetite!
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About the only 3 things we have to go off of are:
- the maintenance mode announcement that sometimes things might happen
- a quote from Mike Ybara while he was streaming that “HotS’ isn’t done yet”
- some sort of statement/announcement if (or when) the microsoft acquisition goes through.
There is a deadline for when the deal has to be done, and some people are going to wait till the very next day to see if MS has some sort of plan already in mind as HotS is clearly the major appeal for the acquisition and they’re surely stepping in after how HGC was handled (canceled) but… there really isn’t a say. The latest ranked season transition didn’t have anything by way of patchnotes, and then next season transition might not have anything either.
Hard to change much when there isn’t an active team working on the game as this time, and once blizz gets back around to it, it’ll still take time to actually make changes.
odds are there wont be any significant changes till after the microsoft acquisition where microsoft is known to support lesser popular games, plus Hots would allow them to own a moba in the moba market
We don’t specifically know but for the foreseeable future we’re likely to only receive security and environment fixes.
Virtually every balance patch can have side effects, some people like it for shaking up the meta and possibly some of their dormant favorites becoming strong, but an equal amount of players voice their sadness about the changes.
New heroes are the same, except they are fun content, and with possibly more effect. It’s also difficult to design fitting new heroes. For example, Deathwing messes a lot with healers, while Hogger disables every skillshot in your team, ideally offsetting it by being overtuned by himself, but requiring practice. Yrel has an interesting charge design, but this uniqueness causes players to avoid her, I haven’t seen her in months (0 in 99 matches S3, 3 in 179 S2).
Events could be fun, but ultimately it’s just a reward wheel. Free boxes mean even less an incentive to buy a boost or anything with gems.
Addig more cosmetics increases the size of the game, with proportionally less people using them over time. Also unlikely to generate hard cash anymore. On top of that, albeit marginally, it devalues loot boxes, since the chance to get something you desire (including shards) is lower - unless the new stuff is included, maybe.
There is totally room for Blizzard to create something that’s worth a sub, I’m not creative enough but DotA2 offers seasonal themes, quests & boosts, efficient reward tracks and in-game analytics for two types of payments.
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This wasn’t the case with sc2 and arguably that has more of a playerbase that you would expect to have problems with a balance patch, I’d say even randomly changing stats on a couple heroes that are underperforming would spice up the meta and get old players back in.
Genji
increased life by 0.5 points
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I’m not sure if italics are enough to signal to some on the forums that your statement was in jest. From some of the comments, it seems I was right.
I’m not even that sure about the acquisition anymore.
I find it curious that it took so long for the antitrust filing, and that’s right after seeing Dragonflight. It could be random, it could be Wall Street games, or it could be bailout (threat). In any event, there have been some complaints about cultural overcompensation and I’d do anything to bail out of acquiring such a company, trouble is guaranteed.
All that on top of basically letting much of their IP rot. By the time things settle, Blizzard is down to Overwatch, Hearthstone and WoW. All of which are tired as hell.
The only sensible plan is to purchase Blizzard for the IP (with plans for WoW 2 and somesuch, on new platforms which are needed sorely) and literally fire everyone on day one under the new banners, so that there is no further drama regarding who and why and how and. Which is a crappy move, even if Microsoft has a tough skin. So just try and purchase the IP without the company.
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You might be right about Microsoft, but for the love of planet Earth, please, please don’t let Elon Musk buy Blizzard!
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I guess he would make good use of these games by finding the most hyper and devoted people in them, and offering them jobs after gamifying his workplaces.
Imagine people trying to beat their record by competing with others to finish ever more tickets a day, be it user stories or customer support. Stahanov reborn. 
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Think that is very low chance. He has never been a man that care about what gamers want.
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He has said good things about Blizzard though.
19th of January will be the big patch day. One new hero and one map will be released after they open sourced the HOTS code on the 16th of January.
COPIUM 
20 characters
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I was just being facetious, I don’t think Elon would really buy Blizzard. As Xiv noted, he has commented about them before, so who really knows. His personal wealth has decreased significantly this year, so I doubt he’s looking to occupy another random company.
did diablo somehow stop existing? Cuz they have 3 active games going on that end…
I can tell you one thing. If they don’t release some balance updates soon, the ANZ server will completely die. I’m seeing a drop off that’s self-perpetuating in that people are sick of seeing the same opponents, especially in SL. Really sad the way this game has been thrown under the bus.
Well, Heroes is alive as well… 
It’s just not in the news as an active franchise, I don’t see people talk about it like ever.
I recall some news about P2W elements (not PHW Elements 
), whales spending silly money. Could be that Google decided I don’t care enough, but my feed is full with WoW things daily. That said, it’s not even in my launcher, so apparently it’s beta? 12 or so years after D3, 4 or so after announcement? Sounds like there is a team of two working on it.
(There is also WC3 and SC2.)
Sad, but it’s the way of things. Even with growing human population and players, new games launch and people eventually move on.
I still play NFS 6 and GT Legends for the mood, but when I did show them to some kids, they couldn’t appreciate it. Look, Forza is so much prettier!
I wish Heroes would be sustained simply because it’s unique. I really don’t want to last hit. That said, I’d win half an hour daily by dropping Heroes, and start a family out of boredom. 
Unfortunately, there isn’t a good replacement for our group of friends. We all love the game, but it’s growing stale purely due to the lack of updates. They don’t need to be huge, just little adjustments. The game would 100% stay relevant if they put out new maps and the occasional new hero. Activision are chasing big easy $ though.
At the end of the day, it’s the game play that keeps it interesting, not graphics.