Ashe was made as a reaction to her CGI animated short from Blizzard themselves. She’s basically has no unique mechanics that required a ton of testing and she’s essentially a modded Widow. Which probably saved a ton of development time. Which is fine. She’s fun and cool which is appreciated that some heroes can be made quickly to add more variety which is always fine. Not every hero needs to be unique like Hammond.
We know Echo is not the next hero after Ashe and we can safely assume the next hero is a Tank that people have been asking for, for a while now.
We can probably assume the next hero has probably been worked on for quite some time, and is probably ready if we go by what we know about Ashe and Echoe. But Blizzard is trying to drip feed content on a bi-monthly schedule. Why not release heroes when they are ready? 6 heroes are being currently worked on right now. That’s basically 2 years till we see the 6th hero, if we go by the bi-monthly drip feed. On New hero, New Map. etc. I find it hard to believe that 6th hero will take 2 years to develop and will likely be shelved when he’s finished until they need new content to be delivered. There’s also the possibility that a few newer heroes will be conceptualized and released before the 6th hero like they did with Ashe.
So i’m asking this, why drip feed content if they are ready? Why not release them sooner? Not just for sake of being greedy, but sometimes we need heroes to shake the meta sooner rather than later. It’s why people are ready for a new main tank right now. One that’s not a divey or anchor like. That is an alternate to Reinhardt.
For instance Capcom was doing something similar that they released a new hero every 2 months… But the last set they released G and Sagat at the same time. This was a big surprise for fans. I feel like Blizzcon would of been the perfect time to announce 2 heroes at once. Especially after the lackluster showcasing for everything else this year. I’m sure it’s not gonna happen any time soon, i just hope you dont stick to the same format. It’s really not necessary, especially for big annual events like Blizzcon or when a meta is in dire need for a change.
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I imagine they aren’t ready. Just because Blizzard is working on six heroes at the moment doesn’t mean they’re all feature complete, polished, and bug free. These things take time.
I also think it makes sense to give each newly released hero some time to work their way into the game and see where they stack up against the current roster.
Despite some recent missteps (cough Diablo cough), Blizzard is a developer known for polish. Quality over quantity. I would rather have one amazing hero every 3-4 months than two rushed heroes in the same time period.
I just wanted to add that this strikes me as completely and utterly wrong. Ashe’s gunplay is very unique, and has a lot of really interesting mechanics behind it. I’m a support/tank player most of the time, but her “Viper” immediately caught my interest and I think it shows how much thought Blizzard put into designing it and making it feel impactful and rewarding.
Beyond that, she has her dynamite which is a very unique ability, and while her coach gun isn’t anything insanely new or unique, it’s still an ability that behaves in a different way than something like a Lucio boop. Finally, you have B.O.B. You can’t really get more unique than that.
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Please don’t take my comment in being literal shes not that unique in sense like Hammond.
She’s modded widow in body type and down sight mechanics. They just gave her a coach gun and dynamite. Nothing “unique” in terms of design and functionality in a development sort of way is what i’m saying. It’s why she was released so quickly after watching a CGI short. Nothing complex and unique in her kit. Outside BOB, but i believe they are probably using some hyperbole when discussing him. Ashe was released pretty fast outside the PTR with like barely any bugs.
Also unlikely that the heroes as explained will be worked on for 2 years. It’s why i can also assume the next hero is close to being done since his/her spot was taken because of Ashe who was quick turn around in terms of development time. So it’s highly unlikely he’s not close to being ready or at-least play tested.
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I agree that they shouldn’t drip feed content, but my biggest problem is that they keep adding shiny new toys over a broken and burnt floor.
The base game is still hella unbalanced and it’s PAINFULLY SLOW with how slow the balance patches roll out. We got 4 heros tuned this past update, out of a roster of 29
Heros.
With this rate, if/when those 6 heros get released then we’ll still be stuck with stale metas that only break when blizzard overbuffs or guts a hero(heros).
Like pick up the pace a little.
How dare you not call BOB unique
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She’s not a genetically modified hamster in a mech. That’s true.
Saying something like:
I’m not sure what to say other than I still completely disagree.
As for your point about her being released so quickly after watching a CGI short, I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. You know those shorts take a long time to produce, right? I saw Matt Mercer (voice of McCree) on Emongg’s stream recently, and he was saying how hard it was to keep a lid on all the cool stuff he knew from the short for a year, so I think it’s safe to say she’s been in the works for a long while.
I just find that a lot of the time, people make posts like this asking for a flood of new content at all times, and that’s fair. People can ask for whatever they want. But people often seem to completely disregard, misrepresent, or simply fail to understand the resources required to make something like an entirely new hero.
Yes those CGI shorts take a long time. But the development team apparently fell in love with her after they saw the short. And wanted her to become reality. It’s highly unlikely they wanted her when she was just a sketch on a storyboard by the art team.
It was my understanding that they fell in love with her during the development of the short, not after it was complete. I’m not sure how it could work any other way.
Didn’t they say they’re being developed, not ready? Either way it’s going to be painful waiting 2 years to get all of them.
i’d imagine they short was near finished for them to actually fall in love with such a character. Which would still mean it was during development. I mean, i would be inspire to make a character such as Ashe after that short too. But not really during the early stages.
They space them out for their investment quarters. It’s all about the investors, always has been.
Yes, we get that. It’s about money. Drip feeding content is the carrot on the stick of games as a service. Always has been. But it doesn’t mean it’s always has to be the case. It’s why i mentioned Street Fighter V releasing 2 characters at once. It was for a special occasion, and special occasions should be the exception to the rule. Jeff Kaplan kind of misled us at Blizzcon by talking about each member of the Deadlock gang and Echo, i felt like he was gonna announce more than 1 hero, being as it was Blizzcon and all. Saving a hero reveal for a big event is kind of pointless since it’s done regardless every 4 months. But two heroes would of been a big deal.
Seeing all the design iterations of Ashe leads me to believe they fell in love pretty early on. They wouldn’t be making all these different looks and styles for her after the majority of the short had been made. Just doesn’t make sense.
Those designs was the art teams conceptualization for the animated short from what i can tell.
So I guess we’re both just speculating and neither of us can say when Ashe went from a villain in a short to a full-fledged hero. I think it makes much more sense that this was a decision that happened 6-12 months ago, but maybe it was as quick as you say.
You realize B.O.B probably required a HUGE refactor, right?
Probably to make sure they have stuff ready for the following months if something gets delayed. After all, the winter skin names got leaked during the summer.
I agree that it takes too long to release stuff. if we are not getting any story modes and the heroes are going to be the main type of content, then at least have them coming more often. The heroes are what makes the game right now.
“Ready” could mean a lot of things. The character can work in game. But a lot of stuff is left to do. Maybe they need to higher an actor, for example. You’d also not want to release characters like that. You mean well. But you do not want to blow you load in a few months. If they did release the 6 characters within 2019. We could be waiting a whole year on a single new character, after that point. Don’t get greedy.
I remember WB’s doing this when Pokemon became a monster. They aired new episodes so often. Sometimes even 2 or 3 times a week. The crew just ran out of episodes to dub. So there was a MASSIVE 6-8 month wait for new episodes. Than CN pulled the same thing. When they got the rights, for the first time. That was the beginning of the franchise losing people.
There’s more content outside heroes they could drip feed. Balance patches, Stages, Events etc. Some heroes are needed sooner rather than later for META shifts. By all means not every hero needs to release right away when “finished” but they really should of done it at least for Blizzcon.
My take is Hero 30 will be teased during WW. Maybe get on PTR too.